Ansel Briggs

BRIGGS

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 5/10/2008 at 07:55:35

IOWA: ITS HISTORY AND ITS FOREMOST CITIZENS

ANSEL BRIGGS – THE MAN

What of the man who, on becoming governor, felt called upon in all humility to confess his lack of presumably essential knowledge drawn from public experience? Alfred Hebard, who knew him well, says the office of governor “was thrust upon the first incumbent,” but why, he (Hebard) “never could surmise.” He pictures the governor as “a kindly, inoffensive, certainly unaspiring man,” and adds, “a better man by far than any tricky, scheming politician.” Hebard explains that while some sixty politicians were willing to forego prospective fortunes in their various callings to serve the new state in the Senate of the United States, state offices were begging. The office of governor, even, had minor attractions. Be that as it may, Ansel Briggs defeated a strong man, Thomas McKnight, in the campaign for party control of the new state.

The career of Ansel Briggs would make a good settling for a story for boys, illustrating the possibilities for future usefulness within the reach of the American youth. Born in Vermont in 1806, his only education beyond the country school was a single term in a rural academy. In his young manhood he was a stage-driver and, later, a contractor, establishing and operating several stage lines. In 1836, he located in Andrew, Jackson County, Iowa. He became the handler of the mail route between Dubuque and Burlington.

On coming to Iowa, he reversed his politics, uniting with the democratic party. In 1842, he represented Jackson County, in the Territorial House of Representatives. Later he became sheriff of his county. In the democratic state convention of 1846 , his friends pitted him against Jesse Williams and William Thompson for the nomination for governor, and, to the general surprise, while the first ballot gave Williams thirty-two votes and Thompson thirty-one, Sheriff Briggs received sixty-two! The result stampeded the convention to Briggs. His majority at the polls over the whig candidate was only 247.

Governor Briggs made many friends and retained them. He did nothing to discredit the state of his party. The most questionable feature of his administration was one chargeable to his period, an unreasoning antipathy to all banking institutions. It has been said that nothing contributed to his popularity in the nominating convention quite as much as the utterance attributed to him at a banquet: “No banks but earth – and those well tilled.” As Mr. Hebard has well said, he “served his term creditably and in a manner entirely consistent with his honest character.” In 1870 the ex-governor removed to Council Bluffs, and later to the home of a son in Omaha, where he died in 1881.

The four years covered by Governor Briggs’ administration were years of internal peace, prosperity and growth. The state, cut loose from governmental control, underwent a thorough organization, codified with congress in a system of internal improvements, gained its point in the settlement of the boundary question with Missouri, and in many minor details laid a broad foundation upon which to build a great commonwealth.

It should be said, to the lasting credit of the first governor of Iowa, that through his own educational advantages had been slight, or possibly, because of that circumstance, -his every message makes prominent his eager interest in the inauguration of a broad and comprehensive common-school system. His vision included a thorough normal-school training for teachers and popular instruction in agriculture.

It is interesting to note that the twentieth century movement for agricultural training in this distinctively agricultural state was anticipated by Governor Briggs in 1850. The state constitution had made it mandatory upon the general assembly to “encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral and agricultural improvements.” He deplored the failure of the general assembly to meet the obligation. He well said: “The best method of cultivating the soil is, and it is believed ever will be, a subject of the first importance to a large majority of the citizens of the state…. It would therefore seem to become your duty to inquire whether books relative to agricultural science can, with propriety, be introduced into our normal and common schools. I feel confident that, if introduced, the most beneficial results may be anticipated.”

The ex-stage-driver and mail-carrier in the executive chair was quick to catch and pass on to his legislative associates the vision of Asa Whitney, of a vast railroad system connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific with bands of iron. In his first biennial message in 1848, he recommended an application to Congress for a donation of land for railroad through the center of Iowa, the application partly based upon the utilization of the proposed road as a link in the great chain of railroads connecting the two oceans. Thus, nearly a score of years before the completion of the Mississippi and Missouri road from Davenport to Council Bluffs, this plain man of the people, the stage-driver and mail-carrier of ten years before, caught “the vision splendid” dreamt aloud his dream to his fellow commonwealth builders, and pointed the way to its practical realization!

Governor Briggs’ retiring message was dignified and direct, though not in any sense a great state paper.

The Second General Assembly had passed joint resolutions “instructing” Iowa senators and “requesting” her representatives to procure from the Government grants of land to aid in the construction of a railroad from Dubuque to Keokuk, also one from Davenport “to some suitable point near the Council Bluffs on the Missouri River.” Governor Briggs reported that while the Iowa delegation had labored faithfully to obtain these grants, their efforts had thus far been unsuccessful. He conceived it to be the duty of the legislature to press upon congress the necessity and importance of these enterprises.

The governor turned from state affairs long enough to inform the people of Iowa that the last congress had passed a law intended “to exhibit to the slaveholding states a determination… to protect and enforce all of the rights guaranteed them in the Constitution, and thus allay any apprehensions which they might experience concerning the security of those rights.” He had noted since the passage of this act a disposition in some of the northern states to “sanction or countenance such proceedings.” He thought he could “assert without fear of contradiction” that the people of his state were law-abiding people. Farther on he emphatically declared that, whatever differences of opinion might be entertained in regard to this law, it was our duty to support it so long as it remained the law of the land, and he trusted that all citizens of the state, although they might be opposed to some of its details, would as American citizens and lovers of the Union firmly stand by it.

With the same modestly with which he ha entered upon his duties, Governor Briggs admitted that he had undoubtedly committed errors. He gratefully appreciated the courtesy and aid extended him by legislators and by all connected with the government. In laying down the reins of government he felt an additional gratification in the assurance that they were “to be transferred to more able and competent hands.” He expressed the fervent desire that his adopted state might ever be distinguished for virtue, intelligence and prosperity.”

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