Delmarva Heritage Series, by Dr. William H. Wroten, Jr.
William Grason, Governor
Salisbury Times - April 26, 1962
Under the State Constitution of 1776 the governor of
Maryland was elected annually by a joint ballot of the two houses of
the General Assembly. By an amendment to the Constitution in 1838,
the election of the governor was placed in the hands of the people.
The term of office was to be three years, and the State divided into
three gubernatorial districts, from each of which the governor was
required to be chosen in turn.
The Eastern Shore counties composed the first
district, and under this system the first governor in the rotation
plan was to come from the Eastern Shore. William Grason of Queen
Anne's County, the 28th governor of Maryland, was the man
chosen for this honor.
THIS FACT alone probably makes him worthy of a place
in this column; but there are also other interesting facts about
this election, the people of Maryland, and William Grason. Heinrich
E. Buchholz, an ardent student of Maryland governors, once wrote an
interesting view on Maryland politics and the election of 1838 in
particular.
"Of all the sorts of men that go to make up the
human family, there is none more discredited, less loved, or as much
abused as the clan of Jeremiahs. Their office of lamenting strikes
no responsive note in the average bosom, for they see only the ills
of the world, while the people are striving to forget that there is
aught of unpleasantness in life. The ordinary man finds a
mountainous argument in favor of optimism in the mere fact that it
is more cheerful than pessimism; and therefore the painstaking being
who has smoked his glasses that he may see the truth clearly is
either shoved to one side by the masses or greeted with derision,
while he who wears the rose-tinted spectacles has ever at his heels
a respectable mob."
The people of Maryland in the first half of the last
century were chiefly optimists, although the course which public
affairs were taking then was destined to lead to financial disaster.
It seems inconsistent, therefore, that they should have chosen as
their first popular governor a pessimist, for Mr. Grason throughout
his administration seldom emerged form the role of a political
Jeremiah. The fondest delusions of the people he shattered as easily
as one might prick a bubble, and the thing which had for years been
worshiped as prosperity he labeled 'failure.' As governor, at least,
Mr. Grason was a destructionist; but the result of his efforts along
this line were more beneficial to Maryland in the long run than many
times as much constructive work of his predecessors."
WILLIAM GRASON, son of Richard Grason a prosperous
farmer, was born in 1788 at Eagle's Nest on the Wye River. After
receiving his early education in the schools of the locality, he
entered St. John's College in Annapolis. Although he completed his
course at St. John's, his major interest was not in the academic
field. Seemingly form childhood Grason had a bent in the direction
of the sea, and the fact that Annapolis was an important port helped
to develop this ambition for a seaman's career.
After his college days were over he secured an
appointment as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. But as is often the
case, once we have achieved our so-called desire, it is no longer
what we really like or want. Grason's naval career was rather short,
and he returned to his home on the Eastern Shore.
In 1812, although at the time he probably did not
realize it, he built up a major political asset for a later date. In
that year he married Susan Orrick Sulivane (Sullivane), a daughter
of James Bennett Silivane of Dorchester County. And, for a couple of
years, living at the home of his bride, he engaged in agriculture.
After this brief residence, the Grasons returned to Queen Anne's
County, where they spent the remainder of their lives, except when
governmental duties carried them to Annapolis.
IN HIS NATIVE County, Grason cultivated not only the
crops of the soil but also a career in politics. Even though
seemingly he was happiest as a gentleman farmer, with manners and
intellectual taste above the average, the call of politics was also
very strong within his breast. Before long he had served in a number
of local public offices and showed a definite interest to hold other
offices of government.
Although by the time Grason became really active in
politicks the Federalist Party was on the decline, his affiliations
were with this party of the Founding Fathers. The fact that he had
been a Federalist and supported their opposition to the War of 1812
was a political liability in later campaigns. By switching in time
to the Democratic Party and advocating the doctrines of
Jacksonianism he was able to weather the political storms of 1820's
and 1830's.
In the election of 1828 we did not yet have to two
parties-Whigs and Democrats; most of the local political states were
made up of either Jackson or anti-Jackson candidates. On the
legislative ticket of Queen Anne's was the name of William Grason as
a Jacksonian. When the votes were counted, Grason had received the
highest number of all the candidates. He was re-elected the next
time; but by 1833 he was after bigger game. He sought his party's
nomination for Congress in 1833, but delegates turned him down. Two
years later, in 1835, he represented his party for Congress against
the Whig candidate, James An. Pearce, who was elected by a small
majority of 123 ballots. In 1837 he was again elected to the General
Assemble. During this term in office he was active in the movement
to provide for the direct election of the governor and the creating
of three gubernatorial districts, and the constitution was amended
to that effect.
In the election of 1838 the Democrats nominated
William Grason for governor and the Whigs named John Nevett Steele
of Dorchester County. Thus, for the first popular gubernatorial
contest in Maryland both of the candidates were from the Eastern
Shore. The campaign was the usual one for Maryland-excessive
bitterness, vilification, and charges of dishonesty, fraud, and
corruption levied against anybody and everybody associated with the
parties.
CONSIDERING the fact that the entire state could
cast votes, Grason's majority of just 311 votes were very slight. On
Jan. 7, 1839 Grason was inaugurated for a three-year term, only to
find that the opposition party, the Whigs, had a slight control of
the legislature. Even this situation is often standard for Maryland
politics.
From the beginning to the end of the term, Gov.
Grason's administration was marked by friction with the legislature.
At the same time, as Buchholz has stated, Grason's "voice gave
expressions to one endless Jeremiad." Gov. Grason wanted to be
realistic and practical in his policies, especially economic and
financial policies. The government and people of Maryland had been
reckless in appropriating funds and over expanding for internal
improvements for sometime. Neither had really taken time to consider
what was going to happen when the day of reckoning came-the day when
both interest and principal must be paid. Up until this time the
people had experienced relatively light taxation. The situation
facing the new governor was one of a heavy state debt and an
unwillingness of the citizens to submit to a major change in
taxation to a discharge the obligations-a serious financial crisis.
When Gov. Grason first faced the General Assembly he
brought this to the attention of the delegates, and stated that the
situation would become worse unless there was a radical change in
policy and attempts were made to redeem the public debt. To those of
the legislature who wanted to repudiate the debts rather than tax an
unwilling people, Grason declared that the debt had been contracted,
and confirmed by successive legislatures sanctioned by the people
themselves, in the continued re-election of representatives who were
most prominent in creating it, and that the obligations of the state
were in the hands of men who relied upon good faith, and whose
borrowed money had been expended on her words. He said it was
impossible to question the validity of the debt, and unreasonable to
plead inability without first making an effort to discharge it. What
Grason spoke was unpleasant truth, and the legislature would not
heed, and nothing was done during his term of office to solve the
problem.
Pessimist or not, Grason was a fighter for what was
the honest and realistic road to follow. And, he did not add to his
popularity or political strength by opposing the questionable
practices of such powerful business interests as the Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad and the management of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal.
After his retirement form office in January, 1842
(he was not eligible for re-election), Grason returned to his farm
in Queen Anne's County but he did not retire form politics. In 1851
he was a delegate to the convention which framed a new constitution
for the state. In the same year he was elected to the State Senate,
but failed in his bid for that office again in 1857. In 1860 he was
chosen as a delegate to a convention in Baltimore to decide what
course of action Maryland should take in light of the "emergency"
created by the election of Lincoln. In fact, he was chosen to
preside over this conference, but ill health kept him from doing so.
This pessimistic but courageous Eastern Shoreman
spent the last years of his life in Queen Anne's. He died at the age
of 80 on July 2, 1868.
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