[Footnote 1: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were born in 1767; Henry Clay, in 1777; John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Martin Van Buren, and Thomas H. Benton, in 1782.]

%326. Political Proscription; the Gerrymander.%—One of these was the custom of turning men out of public office because they did not belong to the party in power, or did not "work" for the election of the successful candidate. As early as 1792 this vicious practice was in use in Pennsylvania, and a few years later was introduced in New York by De Witt Clinton. Jefferson resorted to it when he became President, but it was not till 1820 that it was firmly established by Congress. In that year William H. Crawford, who was Secretary of the Treasury and a presidential candidate, secured the passage of a "tenure of office" act, limiting the term of collectors of revenue, and a host of other officials, to four years, and thus made the appointments to these places rewards for political service.

Another institution dating from this time is the gerrymander. In 1812, when Elbridge Gerry was the Republican governor of Massachusetts, his party, finding that at the next election they would lose the governorship and the House of Representatives, decided to hold the Senate by marking out new senatorial districts. In doing this they drew the lines in such wise that districts where there were large Federalist majorities were cut in two, and the parts annexed to other districts, where there were yet larger Republican majorities.



The story is told that a map of the Essex senatorial district was hanging on the office wall of the editor of the Columbian Centinel, when a famous artist named Stuart entered. Struck by the peculiar outline of the towns forming the district, he added a head, wings, and claws with his pencil, and turning to the editor, said: "There, that will do for a salamander." "Better say a Gerrymander," returned the editor, alluding to Elbridge Gerry, the Republican governor who had signed the districting act. However this may be, it is certain that the name "gerrymander" was applied to the odious law in the columns of the Centinel, that it came rapidly into use, and has remained in our political nomenclature ever since. Indeed, a huge cut of the monster was prepared, and the next year was scattered as a broadside over the commonwealth, and so aroused the people that in the spring of 1813, despite the gerrymander, the Federalists recovered control of the Senate, and repealed the law. But the example was set, and was quickly imitated in New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. This established the institution, and it has been used over and over again to this day.

%327. The Third-term Tradition.%—Another political custom which had grown to have the force of law was that of never electing a President to three terms. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent a President serving any number of terms; but, as we have seen, when Washington finished his second he declined another, and when Jefferson (in 1807-1808) was asked by the legislatures of several states to accept a third term, he declined, and very seriously advised the people never to elect any man President more than twice.[1] The example so set was followed by Madison and Monroe and had thus by 1824 become an established usage.

[Footnote 1: McMaster's With the Fathers, pp. 64-70.]

%328. New Political Issues.%—The most important change of all was the rise of new political issues. We have seen how the financial questions which divided the people in 1790-1792 and gave rise to the Federalist and Republican parties, were replaced during the wars between England and France by the question, "Shall the United States be neutral?" It was not until the end of our second war with Great Britain that we were again free to attend to our home affairs.

During the long embargo and the war, manufactures had arisen, and one question now became, "Shall home manufactures be encouraged?" With the rapid settlement of the Mississippi valley and the demand for roads, canals, and river improvements by which trade might be carried on with the West, there arose a second political question: "Shall these internal improvements be made at government expense?"

Now the people of the different sections of the country were not of one mind on these questions. The Middle States and Kentucky and some parts of New England wanted manufactures encouraged. In the West and the Middle States people were in favor of internal improvements at the cost of the government. In the South Atlantic States, where tobacco and cotton and rice were raised and shipped (especially the cotton) to England, people cared nothing for manufactures, nothing for internal improvements.

%329. Presidential Candidates in 1824.%—This diversity of opinion on questions of vital importance had much to do with the breaking up of the Republican party into sectional factions after 1820. The ambition of leaders in these sections helped on the disruption, so that between 1821 and 1824 four men, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, were nominated for President by state legislatures or state nominating conventions, by mass meeting or by gatherings of men who had assembled for other purposes but seized the occasion to indorse or propose a candidate. A fifth, William H. Crawford, was nominated by the congressional caucus, which then acted for the last time in our history.

Before election day this list was reduced to four: Calhoun had become the candidate of all factions for the vice presidency.



%330. Adams elected by the House of Representatives.%—The Constitution provides that no man is chosen President by the electors who does not receive a majority of their votes. In 1824 Jackson received ninety-nine; Adams, eighty-four; Crawford, forty-one; and Clay, thirty-seven. There was, therefore, no election, and it became the duty of the House of Representatives to make a choice. But according to the Constitution only the three highest could come before the House. This left out Clay, who was Speaker and who had great influence. His friends would not vote for Jackson on any account, nor for Crawford, the caucus candidate. Adams they liked, because he believed in internal improvements at government expense and a protective tariff. Adams accordingly was elected President. Calhoun had been elected Vice President by the electoral college.



The election of John Quincy Adams was a matter of intense disappointment to the friends of Jackson. In the heat of party passion and the bitterness of their disappointment they declared that it was the result of a bargain between Adams and Clay. Clay, they said, was to induce his friends in the House of Representatives to vote for Adams, in return for which Adams was to make Clay Secretary of State. No such bargain was ever made. But when Adams did appoint Clay Secretary of State, Jackson and his followers were fully convinced of the contrary[1].

[Footnote 1: Parton's Life of Jackson, Chap. 10; Schurz's Life of Clay, Vol. I., pp. 203-258]

As a consequence, the legislature of Tennessee at once renominated Jackson for the presidency, and he became the people's candidate and drew about him not only the men who voted for him in 1824, but those also who had voted for Crawford, who was paralyzed and no longer a candidate. They called themselves "Jackson men," or Democratic Republicans.

Adams, it was known, would be nominated to succeed himself, and about him gathered all who wanted a tariff for protection, roads and canals at national expense, and a distribution among the states of the money obtained from the sale of public lands. These were the "Adams men," or National Republicans.

%331. Antimasons.%—But there was a third party which arose in a very curious way and soon became powerful. In 1826, at Batavia in New York, a freemason named William Morgan announced his intention to publish a book revealing the secrets of masonry; but about the time the book was to come out Morgan disappeared and was never seen again. This led to the belief that the masons had killed him, and stirred up great excitement all over the twelve western counties of New York. The "antimasons" said that a man who was a freemason considered his duty to his order superior to his duty to his country; and a determined effort was made to prevent the election of any freemason to office.



At first the "antimasonic" movement was confined to western New York, but the moment it took a political turn it spread across northern Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and was led by some of the most distinguished men and aspiring politicians of the time[1].

[Footnote 1: Stanwood's Presidential Elections, Chap. 18]

%332. The Election of Jackson.%—When the presidential election occurred in 1828, there were thus three parties,—the "Jackson men," the "Administration," and the Antimasonic. But politics had very little to do with the result. In the early days of the republic, the mass of men were ignorant and uneducated, and willingly submitted to be led by men of education and what was called breeding. From Washington down to John Quincy Adams, the presidents were from the aristocratic class. They were not men of the people. But in course of time a great change had come over the mass of Americans. Their prosperity, their energy in developing the country, had made them self-reliant, and impatient of all claims of superiority. One man was now no better than another, and the cry arose all over the country for a President who was "a man of the people." Jackson was just such a man, and it was because he was "a man of the people" that he was elected. Of 261 electoral votes he received 178, and Adams 83.

%333. The North and the South Two Different Peoples.%—Before entering on Jackson's administration, it is necessary to call attention to the effect produced on our country by the industrial revolution discussed in Chaps. 19 and 22. In the first place, it produced two distinct and utterly different peoples: the one in the North and the other in the South. In the North, where there were no great plantations, no great farms, and where the labor was free, the marvelous inventions, discoveries, and improvements mentioned were eagerly seized on and used. There cities grew up, manufactures nourished, canals were dug, railroads were built, and industries of every sort established. Some towns, as Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Cohoes, Paterson, Newark, and Pittsburg, were almost entirely given up to mills and factories. No such towns existed in the South. In the South men lived on plantations, raised cotton, tobacco, and rice, owned slaves, built few large towns, cared nothing for internal improvements, and established no industries of any sort.

This difference of occupation led of course to difference of interests and opinions, so that on three matters—the extension of slavery, internal improvements, and tariff for protection—the North and the South were opposed to each other. In the West and the Middle States these questions were all-important, and by a union of the two sections under the leadership of Clay a new tariff was passed in 1824, and in the course of the next four years $2,300,000 were voted for internal improvements.

The Virginia legislature (1825) protested against internal improvements at government expense and against the tariff. But the North demanded more, and in 1827 another tariff bill was prevented from passing only by the casting vote of Vice President Calhoun. And now the two sections joined issue. The South, in memorials, resolutions, and protests, declared a tariff for protection to be unconstitutional, partial, and oppressive. The wool growers and manufacturers of the North called a national convention of protectionists to meet at Harrisburg, and when Congress met, forced through the tariff of 1828. The South answered with anti-tariff meetings, addresses, resolutions, with boycotts on the tariff states, and with protests from the legislatures. Calhoun then came forward as the leader of the movement and put forth an argument, known as the South Carolina Exposition, in which he urged that a convention should meet in South Carolina and decide in what manner the tariff acts should "be declared null and void within the limits of the state."

%334. May a State nullify an Act of Congress?%—The right of a state to nullify an act of Congress thus became the question of the hour, and was again set forth yet more fully by Calhoun in 1831. That the South was deeply in earnest was apparent, and in 1832 Congress changed the tariff of 1828, and made it less objectionable. But it was against tariff for protection, not against any particular tariff, that South Carolina contended, and finding that the North would not give up its principles, she put her threat into execution. The legislature called a state convention, which declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void and without force in South Carolina, and forbade anybody to pay the duties laid by these laws after February 1, 1833.[1]

[Footnote 1: Houston's A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina; Parton's Jackson, Vol. III., Chaps. 32-34; Schurz's Life of Clay, Vol. II., Chap. 14; Von Holst's Life of Calhoun, Chap. 4; Lodge's Life of Webster, Chaps. 6, 7; Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 40-50.]

Jackson, who had just been reelected, was not terrified. He bade the collector at Charleston go on and collect the revenue duties, and use force if necessary, and he issued a long address to the Nullifiers. On the one hand, he urged them to yield. On the other, he told them that "the laws of the United States must be executed.... Those who told you that you might peacefully prevent their execution deceived you.... Their object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason."

%335. Webster's Great Reply to Calhoun.%—Calhoun, who since 1825 had been Vice President of the United States, now resigned, and was at once made senator from South Carolina. When Congress met in December, 1832, the great question before it was what to do with South Carolina. Jackson wanted a "Force Act," that is, an act giving him power to collect the tariff duties by force of arms. Hayne, who was now governor of South Carolina, declared that if this was done, his state would leave the Union.

A great debate occurred on the Force Act, in which Calhoun, speaking for the South, asserted the right of a state to nullify and secede from the Union, while Webster, speaking for the North, denied the right of nullification and secession, and upheld the Union and the Constitution.[1]

[Footnote 1: Johnston's American Orations, Vol. I., pp. 196-212; Webster's Works, Vol. III., pp. 248-355, 448-505; Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 50-52.]

%336. The Compromise of 1833%.—Meantime, Henry Clay, seeing how determined each side was, and fearing civil war might follow, came forward with a compromise. He proposed that the tariff of 1832 should be reduced gradually till July, 1842, when on all articles imported there should be a duty equal to twenty per cent of their value. This was passed, and the Compromise Tariff, as it is called, became a law in March, 1833. A new convention in South Carolina then repealed the ordinance of nullification.

%337. War on the Bank of the United States%.—While South Carolina was thus fighting internal improvements and the tariff, the whole Jackson party was fighting the Bank of the United States. You will remember that this institution was chartered by Congress in 1816; and its charter was to run till 1836. Among the rights given it was that of having branches in as many cities in the country as it pleased, and, exercising this right, it speedily established branches in the chief cities of the South and West. The South and West were already full of state banks, and, knowing that the business of these would be injured if the branches of the United States Bank were allowed to come among them, the people of that region resented the reestablishment of a national bank. Jackson, as a Western man, shared in this hatred, and when he became President was easily persuaded by his friends (who wished to force the Bank to take sides in politics) to attack it. The charter had still nearly eight years to run; nevertheless, in his first message to Congress (December, 1829) he denounced the Bank as unconstitutional, unnecessary, and as having failed to give the country a sound currency, and suggested that it should not be rechartered. Congress paid little attention to him. But he kept on, year after year, till, in 1832, the friends of the Bank made his attack a political issue[1].

[Footnote 1: Roosevelt's Life of Benton, Chap. 6; Parton's Life of Jackson, Vol. III., Chaps. 29-31; Tyler's Memoir of Roger B. Taney, Vol. I., Chap. 3; Von Hoist's Constitutional History, Vol. II., pp. 31-52; Schurz's Clay, Vol. L, Chap. 13; American History Leaflets, No. 24]

%338. The First National Nominating Convention; the First Party Platform.%—To do this was easy, because in 1832 it was well known that Jackson would again be a candidate for the presidency. Now the presidential contest of that year is remarkable for two reasons:

1. Because each of the three parties held a national convention for the nomination of candidates.

2. Because a party platform was then used for the first time.

The originators of the national convention were the Antimasons. State conventions of delegates to nominate state officers, such as governors and congressmen and presidential electors, had long been in use. But never, till September, 1831, had there been a convention of delegates from all parts of the country for the purpose of nominating the President and Vice President. In that year Antimasonic delegates from twenty-two states met at Baltimore and nominated William Wirt and Amos Ellmaker.

The example thus set was quickly followed, for in December, 1831, a convention of National Republicans nominated Henry Clay. In May, 1832, a national convention of Democrats nominated Martin Van Buren for Vice President[1]; and in that same month, a "national assembly of young men," or, as the Democrats called it, "Clay's Infant School," met at Washington and framed the first party platform. They were friends of Clay, and in their platform they demanded protection to American industries, and internal improvements at government expense, and denounced Jackson for his many removals from office. They next issued an address to the people, in which they declared that if Jackson were reelected, the Bank would "be abolished." [2]

[Footnote 1: It was not necessary to nominate Jackson. That he should be re-elected was the wish of the great body of voters. The convention, therefore, merely nominated a Vice President]

[Footnote 2: For party platform see McKee's National Platforms of all Parties.]

%339. Jackson destroys the Bank.%—The friends of the Bank meantime appealed to Congress for a new charter and found little difficulty in getting it. But when the bill went to Jackson for his signature, he vetoed it, and, as its friends had not enough votes to pass the bill over the veto, the Bank was not rechartered.

The only hope left was to defeat Jackson at the polls. But this too was a failure, for he was reelected by greater majorities than he had received in 1828.[1]

[Footnote 1: Of the 288 electoral votes, Jackson received 219, and Clay 49. Wirt, the Antimason, secured 7.]

%340. Jackson withdraws the Government Money from the Bank.%—This signal triumph was understood by Jackson to mean that the people approved of his treatment of the Bank. So he continued to hurt it all he could, and in 1833 ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to remove the money of the United States from the Bank and its branches. This the Secretary[1] refused to do; whereupon Jackson removed him and put another,[2] who would, in his place. After 1833, therefore, the collectors of United States revenue ceased to deposit it in the Bank of the United States, and put it in state banks ("pet banks") named by the Secretary of the Treasury. The money already on deposit was gradually drawn out, till none remained.[3]

[Footnote 1: William J. Duane. ]

[Footnote 2: Roger B. Taney. ]

[Footnote 3: Parton's Jackson, Vol. III., Chaps. 36-39; American History Leaflets, No. 24; Sumner's Jackson, Chaps. 13, 14; Von Hoist's Constitutional History, Vol. II., pp. 52-79; Roosevelt's Benton, Chap. 6. ]

For this act the Senate, when it met in December, 1833, passed a vote of censure on Jackson and entered the censure on its journal. Jackson protested, and asked to have his protest entered, but the Senate refused. Whereupon Benton of Missouri declared that he would not rest till the censure was removed or "expunged" from the journal. At first this did not seem likely to occur. But Benton kept at it, and at last, in 1837, the Senate having become Democratic, he succeeded[1].

[Footnote 1: When the resolution had passed, the Clerk of the Senate was ordered to bring in the journal, draw a thick black line around the censure, and write across it "Expunged by order of the Senate, January 16, 1837."]

%341. Wildcat State Banks.%—As soon as the reelection of Jackson made it certain that the charter of the Bank of the United States would not be renewed, the same thing happened in 1833 that had occurred in 1811. The legislature of every state was beset with applications for bank charters, and granted them. In 1832 there were but 288 state banks in the country. In 1836 there were 583. Some were established in order to get deposits of the government money. Others were started for the purpose of issuing paper money with which the bank officials might speculate. Others, of course, were founded with an honest purpose. But they all issued paper money, which the people borrowed on very poor security and used in speculation.

%342. The Period of Speculation.%—Never before had the opportunity for speculation been so great. The new way of doing business, the rise of corporations and manufactures, drew people into the cities, which grew in area and afforded a chance for investors to get rich by purchasing city lots and holding them for a rise in price. Railroads and canals were being projected all over the country. Another favorite way of speculating, therefore, was to buy land along the lines of railroads building or to be built. Suddenly cotton rose a few cents a pound, and thousands of people began to speculate in slaves and cotton land. Others bought land in the West from the government, at $1.25 an acre, and laid it out into town lots,[1] which they sold for $10 and $20 apiece to people in the East. In short, everybody who could was borrowing paper money from the banks and speculating.

[Footnote 1: Sometimes ten such lots would be laid out on an acre]

Under these conditions, any cause which should force the banks to stop loaning money, or to call in that already loaned, would bring on a panic. And this is just what happened.

%343. The Specie Circular.%—Speculation in government land was so general that the annual sales rose from $2,300,000 in 1831, to $24,900,000 in 1836.[2] Finding that these great purchases were paid for not in gold and silver, but in state bank paper money, Jackson became alarmed. Many of the banks were of doubtful soundness, and if they failed, all their money which the government had taken for land would be lost. In 1836, therefore, Jackson issued his "Specie Circular," which commanded all officials authorized to sell government land to receive payment in nothing but gold or silver or land scrip. A great demand for specie and a removal of it from the banks in the East to those in the West followed, which of course hurt the Eastern banks, because it took away some of their money, and that kind of money which they were holding for the purpose of redeeming their paper.

[Footnote 2: Shepard's Van Buren, Chap. 8; Sumner's Jackson, pp. 322-325]

Another thing which hurt the banks, by forcing them to stop loaning and to call for a settlement of debts, was the distribution of the surplus revenue among the states.

%344. The Surplus Revenue.%—What caused this surplus revenue? Many things.

1. The United States had no debt. The national debt, you remember, was created in 1790 by funding the foreign and Congress debt and assuming those of the states, and amounted to $75,000,000. When Jefferson was elected President in 1801, this debt had risen to $80,000,000; but during his administration it fell to $57,000,000. The war with England raised it to $127,000,000, after which it once more decreased year by year till 1835, when every dollar was paid off, and the United States was out of debt[1].

[Footnote 1: As bonds, etc., to the value of $35,000 were never presented for payment, the United States appears to have always been in debt. This $35,000 probably represents evidences of indebtedness lost by the owners]

2. The expenses of the government were not large.

3. There was a heavy importation of foreign goods, which produced a great revenue under the tariff act.

4. The immense speculation in government lands already described produced a large income to the government[1].

[Footnote 1: The land sales were $4,800,000 in 1834, $14,757,000 in 1835, and $24,877,000 in 1836]

In consequence of these causes, the government on June 1, 1836, had in the banks $41,500,000 more than it needed.

What to do with this useless money sorely puzzled Congress. It could not reduce the tariff, because that was gradually being reduced under the compromise of 1833. Some wanted the money derived from the sale of land distributed. But at last it was decided to take all the surplus the government had on January 1, 1837, subtract $5,000,000 from it, and divide the rest by the number of senators and representatives in Congress, and give each state as many parts as it had senators and representatives[1].

[Footnote 1: One state, New York, was to receive $4,000,000, three states over $2,000,000, six over $1,000,000, and eight over $500,000]

On January 1, 1837, the surplus was $42,468,000, which, after subtracting the $5,000,000, left $37,468,000 to be distributed. It was to be paid in four installments[1]; but only three of them were ever paid, for, when October 1, 1837, came, the whole country was suffering from a panic[2].

[Footnote 1: The days of payment were Jan. 1, April 1, July 1, and Oct. 1, 1837]

[Footnote 2: Bourne's History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837]

%345. The Panic of 1837.%—Now, when the banks in which the government surplus was kept were suddenly called on to give it up in order that it might be distributed among the states, (as they had loaned this surplus) they were all forced to call it in. More than that, they would make no new loans. This made credit hard to get. As a consequence, mills and factories shut down, all buying and selling stopped, and thousands of workmen were thrown out of employment. As everybody wanted money, it followed that houses, lands, property of every sort, was offered for sale at ridiculously low prices. But there were no buyers. In New York the distress was so great that bread riots occurred. The merchants, unable to pay their debts, began to fail, and to make matters worse the banks all over the country suspended specie payment; that is, refused to give gold and silver in exchange for their paper bills. Then the panic set in, and for a while the people, the states, and the government were bankrupt[1].

[Footnote 1: Shepard's Van Buren, Chap. 8.]

%346. Election of Martin Van Buren; Eighth President.%—In accordance with the well-established custom that no President shall have more than two terms, Jackson would not accept a renomination in 1836. So the Democratic national convention nominated Martin Van Buren and R.M. Johnson. The Whigs, as the National Republicans called themselves after 1834, did not hold a national nominating convention, but agreed to support William Henry Harrison. Van Buren was elected, and inaugurated March. 4, 1837[1].

[Footnote 1: Ibid., Chap. 7.]

%347 The New National Debt; the Independent Treasury.%—But scarcely had he taken the oath of office when the panic swept over the country, and his whole term was one of financial distress or hard times. The suspension of specie payment and the failures of many banks and merchants left the government without money, and forced Van Buren to call an extra session of Congress in September, 1837. Before adjourning, Congress ordered the fourth or October installment of the distributed revenue to be suspended. It has never been given to the states. Congress also authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to issue $10,000,000 in treasury notes, and so laid the foundation for the second national debt, which one cause or another has continued ever since.

The experience the government had thus twice passed through (1814 and 1837) led the people to believe it ought not to keep its money in state banks. But just where the money should be kept was a disputed party question. The Whigs insisted on a third National Bank like the old one Jackson had destroyed. Van Buren wanted what was called an "Independent Treasury," and after four attempts the act establishing it was passed in 1840.

The law created four "receivers general" (one each at Boston, New York, Charleston, and St. Louis), to whom all money collected by the United States officials should be turned over, and directed that "rooms, vaults, and safes" should be provided for the safe keeping of the money.[1]

[Footnote 1: Shepard's Van Buren, Chap. 9.]

As might be expected, the people laid all the blame for the hard times on Van Buren and his party. The Democrats, they said, had destroyed the National Bank; they had then removed the United States money, and given it to "pet" state banks; they had then distributed the surplus, and by taking the surplus from the state banks had brought on the panic. Whether this was true or not, the people believed it, and were determined to "turn out little Van."

The campaign of 1840 was the most novel, exciting, and memorable that had yet taken place. Three parties had candidates in the field. The Antislavery party put forward James Gillespie Birney and Thomas Earle. The Democrats in their convention renominated Van Buren, but no Vice President. The Whigs nominated W.H. Harrison, and John Tyler of Virginia. The mention of the Antislavery party makes it necessary to account for its origin.

%348. The Antislavery Movement%.—The appearance of the Antislavery or Liberty party marks the beginning in national affairs of an antislavery movement which had long been going on in the states. When the Missouri Compromise was made in 1820, many people believed that the troublesome matter of slavery was settled. This was a mistake, and the compromise really made matters worse. In the first place, it encouraged the men in Illinois who favored slavery to attempt to make it a slave state by amending the state constitution, an attempt which failed in 1824 after a long struggle. In the second place, it aroused certain men who had been agitating for freeing the slaves to redoubled energy. Among these were Benjamin Lundy, James Gillespie Birney, and William Lloyd Garrison, who in 1831 established an abolition newspaper called the Liberator, which became very famous. In the third place, it led to the formation all over the North, and in many places in the South, of new abolition societies, and stirred up the old ones and made them more active.[1]

[Footnote 1: James G. Birney and his Times, Chap. 12.]

For a time these societies carried on their work, each independent of the others. But in 1833, a convention of delegates from them met at Philadelphia, and formed a national society called the American Antislavery Society.[1]

[Footnote 1: Its constitution declared (1) that each state has exclusive right to regulate slavery within it; (2) that the society will endeavor to persuade Congress to stop the interstate slave trade, to abolish slavery in the territories and in the District of Columbia, and to admit no more slave states into the Union.]

%349. Antislavery Documents shut out of the Mails.%—Thus organized, the society went to work at once and flooded the South with newspapers, pamphlets, pictures, and handbills, all intended to arouse a sentiment for instant abolition or emancipation of slaves. The South declared that these were inflammatory, insurrectionary, and likely to incite the slaves to revolt, and called on the North to suppress abolition societies and stop the spread of abolition papers. To do such a thing by legal means was impossible; so an attempt was made to do it by illegal means. In the Northern cities such as Philadelphia, Utica, Boston, Haverhill, mobs broke up meetings of abolitionists, and dragged the leaders about the streets. In the South, the postmasters, as at Charleston, seized antislavery tracts and pamphlets going through the mails, and the people burned them. In New York city such matter was taken from the mails and destroyed by the postmaster. When these outrages were reported to Amos Kendall, the Postmaster-General, he approved of them; and when Congress met, Jackson asked for a law that would prohibit the circulation "in the Southern States, through the mails, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." From the legislatures of five Southern states came resolutions calling on the people of the North to suppress the abolitionists.[1] Congress and the legislatures of New York and Rhode Island responded; but the bills introduced did not pass.[2]

[Footnote 1: South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia.]

[Footnote 2: James G. Birney and his Times, pp. 184-194.]

This attempt having failed, the mobs again took up the work, and began to smash and destroy the presses of antislavery newspapers. One paper, twice treated in this manner in 1836, was the Philanthropist published at Cincinnati by James Gillespie Birney. Another was the Observer, published at Alton by Elijah Lovejoy, who was murdered in defending his property.[1] The Pennsylvania Freeman was a third.

[Footnote 1: Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. II., Chap. 27; James G. Birney and his Times, pp. 204-219, 241-255.]

%350. The Gag Rule%.—Not content with attacking the liberty of the press, the proslavery men attacked the right of petition. The Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people ... to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Under this right the antislavery people had long been petitioning Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the petitions had been received; but of course not granted. Now, in 1836, when John Quincy Adams presented one to the House of Representatives, a member moved that it be not received. A fierce debate followed, and out of it grew a rule which forbade any petition, resolution, or paper relating in any way to slavery, or the abolition of slavery, to be received. This famous "Gag Rule" was adopted by Congress after Congress until 1844.[1]

[Footnote 1: Morse's Life of John Quincy Adams, pp. 249-253, 306-308.]

%351. The Liberty Party formed%.—The effect of these extreme measures was greatly to increase the antislavery sentiment. But the men who held these sentiments were largely members of the Whig and Democratic parties. In the hope of drawing them from their parties, and inducing them to act together, the antislavery conventions about 1838 began to urge the formation of an antislavery party, which was finally accomplished at Albany, N.Y., in April, 1840, where James G. Birney was nominated for President, and Thomas Earle for Vice President. No name was given to the new organization till 1844, when it was christened "Liberty party."

%352. The Log Cabin, Hard Cider Campaign%.—The candidate of the Democrats (Martin Van Buren) was a shrewd and skillful politician. The candidate of the Whigs (Harrison) was the ideal of a popular favorite. To defeat him at such a time, when the people were angry with the Democrats, would have been hard, but they made it harder still by ridiculing his honorable poverty and his Western surroundings. At the very outset of the campaign a Democratic newspaper declared that Harrison would be more at home "in a log cabin, drinking hard cider and skinning coons, than living in the White House as President." The Whigs instantly took up the sneer and made the log cabin the emblem of their party. All over the country log cabins (erected at some crossroads, or on the village common, or on some vacant city lot) became the Whig headquarters. On the door was a coon skin; a leather latch string was always hanging out as a sign of hospitality, and beside the door stood a barrel of hard cider. Every Whig wore a Harrison and Tyler badge, and knew by heart all the songs in the Log Cabin Songster. Immense mass meetings were held, at which 50,000, and even 80,000, people attended. Weeks were spent in getting ready for them. In the West, where railroads were few, the people came in covered wagons with provisions, and camped on the ground days before the meeting. At the monster meeting at Dayton, O., 100,000 people were present, covering ten acres of ground.[1]

[Footnote 1: Shepard's Van Buren, pp. 323-335.]



%353. William Henry Harrison, Ninth President; John Tyler, Tenth President%.—Harrison was triumphantly elected, and inaugurated March 4, 1841. But his career was short, for on April 4 he died,[2] and John Tyler took his place. Tyler had never been a Whig. He had always been a Democrat. Nevertheless, the Whigs, confident of his aid, tried to carry out certain reform measures.

[Footnote 2: His death was a great shock to the people. Two vice presidents, George Clinton and Elbridge Gerry, had died in office. But nobody seems to have thought it likely that a president would die.]



%354. The Quarrel between Tyler and the Whigs%.—The first thing they did was to repeal the law establishing the Independent Treasury. This Tyler approved. They next attempted to reestablish the Bank of the United States under the name of the "Fiscal Bank of the United States." Tyler, who was opposed to banks, vetoed the bill, and when the Whigs sent him another to create a "Fiscal Corporation," he vetoed that also. Then every member of the cabinet save Webster resigned, and at a meeting of the great Whig leaders Tyler was formally "read out of the party."

%355. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty%.—Webster was Secretary of State, and though a Whig, retained his place in order that he might complete a treaty which determined our boundary line from the source of the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, thus settling a long dispute between Maine and the British provinces of New Brunswick and Canada. The difficulty arose over the meaning of terms in the treaty of 1783, and though twice submitted to a joint commission, and once to arbitration, seemed further than ever from a peaceful settlement when Webster and Lord Ashburton arranged it in 1842. The treaty ratified, Webster soon resigned.



The people meanwhile had recovered from the excitement of the campaign of 1840, and at the congressional election of 1842 they made the House of Representatives Democratic. There were thus a Whig Senate, a Democratic House, and a President who was neither a Whig nor a Democrat. As a consequence few measures of any importance were passed till 1845.

SUMMARY

1. During 1789-1825 a marked change had taken place in the ideas of government, and this led to new state constitutions; to an extension of the right to vote; to the belief that no President should have more than two terms; to the belief that political offices should be given to political workers; and to the introduction of the "gerrymander."

2. The disappearance of issues which divided the Federalists and Republicans; the loss of old leaders; the appearance of a new generation with new political issues, destroyed old party lines.

3. First to disappear were the Federalists. In 1820 there was but one presidential candidate (Monroe), and but one political party (the Republican).

4. During Monroe's second term the new issues began to break up the Republican party, and in the election of 1824 the people of the four great sections of the country presented candidates. For the second time a President (John Quincy Adams) was elected by the House of Representatives.

5. In 1828 the Republicans again supported Jackson, and his opponents under Adams were defeated. In 1827 the antimasonic party arose.

6. The issues now before the people were the tariff, the recharter of the National Bank, and the use of the surplus revenue, and these became the leading questions of Jackson's eight years (1829-1837).

7. The general use of the steamboat, and the good roads, so reduced the cost of transportation that it was possible to introduce a new piece of political machinery—the national convention—to nominate candidates for President and Vice President.

8. In Jackson's second term the antislavery movement began in earnest; the Whig party was organized and named; the national debt was paid off, and the surplus distributed.

9. Jackson was followed by Van Buren, in whose administration the great panic of 1837 occurred. Because of this and hard times a second national debt was started. A new financial measure was the establishment of the Independent Treasury.

10. This the Whigs under Tyler destroyed. They attempted to replace it with a third National Bank, but were prevented from doing so by Tyler's vetoes.

* * * * *

THE INDUSTRIAL, MECHANICAL, AGRICULTURAL, AND SOCIAL PROGRESS OF OUR COUNTRY BETWEEN 1800 AND 1840 LEADS TO

New political ideas

Gerrymandering. Extension of the franchise. No third term for a President. No nomination by congressional caucus.

New political issues.

Use of public lands. Tariff. Internal improvements.

* * * * *

These issues and ideas break up the Republican party into factions led in 1824 by

Crawford and Gallatin, Caucus candidates.

Anti-caucus candidates.

Clay, Calhoun, Adams, Jackson

Elected

Adams by House of Representatives. Calhoun by electoral college.

Renominated in 1828.

Adams defeated. Jackson and Calhoun elected.

18 32 Tariff. Of 1824, opposed Clay defeated. Jackson reelected. 1827, Rise of Antimasons. by the South. Finance Van Buren Vice President 1831, Originate national Of 1828, nominating convention. Of 1832, / Nullified by South Attack on the Carolina Bank of the Removal of the Surplus. Specie Speculation in 1832. United States. deposits. Cause of Circular Renewal of Censure of the amount. charter vetoed. President. "Deposit" or Payments of the Compromise Censure distribution national dept, of 1833. expunged. among the 1835. states. Great increase of state banks.

Van Buren elected in 1836. Inaugurated, March, 1837. Panic of 1837. Causes of the panic. Great opposition to the Democratic party. Suspension of the banks. Union of this opposition in 1840 with the Whigs. New national debt. Suspension of distribution of the revenue. Democrats. Whigs. Antislavery Establishment of Independent Issue their first Issue no platform. party. Treasury. party platform. Nominate Harrison. Origin of. Nominate Van Buren. Elect him. Nominates J. Are defeated. G. Birney.



CHAPTER XXIV

EXPANSION OF THE SLAVE AREA

%356. Texas secures Independence.%—The fact that Tyler now belonged to no party enabled him to commit an act which, had he belonged to either, he would not have ventured to commit at that time,—to make a treaty of annexation with Texas.



In 1821 Mexico, which for years past had been fighting for independence, was set free by Spain, and soon established herself as a republic under the name of the United States of Mexico. The old Spanish provinces were the states, and one of these provinces was Texas. As a country Texas had been very attractive to Americans, and the eastern part would have been settled early in the century if it had been definitely known who owned it. Now that Mexico owned it, a citizen of the United States, Moses Austin, asked for a large grant of land and for leave to bring in settlers. A grant was made on condition that he should bring in 300 families within a given time. Moses Austin died; but his son Stephen went on with the scheme and succeeded so well that others followed his example till seventeen such grants had been perfected.

For some years the settlers managed their own affairs in their own way. But about 1830 Mexico began to rule them harshly, and when they were unable to stand it any longer they rebelled against her in 1833, and in 1836 set up the republic of Texas. At first the Texans were defeated, and on two memorable occasions bands of them were massacred by the Mexican soldiers after they had surrendered. Money and troops and aid of every sort, however, were sent from the United States, and at length Santa Anna, the President of Mexico, who commanded the Mexicans, was defeated and captured and his army destroyed by the Texans under Samuel Houston at the battle of San Jacinto (1836). The victory was hailed with delight all over our country, and the independence of Texas was acknowledged by the United States (1837), England, France, and Belgium.

%357. Texas applies for Admission to the Union.%—As soon as independence was acknowledged, the people of Texas became very anxious to have their republic become a state in our Union; but slavery existed in Texas, and the men of the free states opposed her admission.

At last in 1844 Tyler secretly negotiated a treaty of annexation with the Texan authorities, and surprised the Senate by submitting it in April.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Senate rejected the treaty]

The politicians were very indignant, for the national nominating conventions were to meet in May, and the President by his act had made the annexation of Texas a political issue. The Democrats, however, took it up and in their platform declared for "the reannexation of Texas," and nominated James K. Polk of Tennessee for President and George Mifflin Dallas of Pennsylvania for Vice President.

%358. The Joint Occupation of Oregon is continued.%—But there was another plank in the Democratic platform of 1844 which promised the acquisition of a great piece of free soil. We left the question of the ownership of Oregon at the time when the United States and Great Britain (in 1818) agreed to hold the country in joint occupation for ten years; and when Russia, the United States, and Great Britain had (in 1824 and 1825) made 54 deg. 40' the boundary line between the Oregon country and Alaska. Before the ten-year period of joint occupation expired, Great Britain and the United States, in 1827, agreed to continue it indefinitely. Either party could end the agreement after a year's notice to the other.

%359. Attempts to end Joint Occupation.%—Before this time the men who came to the Oregon country were explorers, trappers, hunters, servants of the great fur companies, who built forts and trading stations, but did little for the settlement of the region. After this time missionaries were sent to the Indians, and serious efforts were made to persuade men to emigrate to Oregon. Some parties did go, and as a result of their work, and of the labors of the missionaries, Oregon, in the course of ten years, became better known to the people of the United States.

Efforts were then begun to persuade Congress to extend the jurisdiction of the United States over Oregon, order the occupation of the country, and end the old agreement with Great Britain. Petitions were sent (1838-1840), reports were made, bills were introduced; but Congress stood firmly by the agreement, and would not take any steps toward the occupation of Oregon. In 1842, Elijah White, a former missionary, came to Washington and so impressed the authorities with the importance of settling Oregon that he was appointed Indian Agent for that country, and told to take back with him as many settlers as he could. Returning to Missouri, he soon gathered a band of 112 persons and with these, the largest number of settlers that had yet started for Oregon, he set off across the plains in the spring of 1842. At the next session of Congress (1842-1843) another effort was made to provide for the occupation of Oregon at least as far north as 49 deg., and a bill for that purpose passed the Senate.

Meanwhile a rage for emigration to Oregon broke out in the West, and in the early summer of 1843, nearly a thousand persons, with a long train of wagons, moved out of Westport, Missouri, and started northwestward over the plains. Like the emigrants of 1842, they succeeded in reaching Oregon, though they encountered many hardships.

%360. "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight."%—So much attention was thus attracted to Oregon, in 1843, that the people by 1844 began to demand a settlement of the boundary and an end of joint occupation. The Democrats therefore gladly took up the Oregon matter. Their plan to reannex Texas, which was slave soil, could, they thought, be offset by a declaration in favor of acquiring all Oregon, which was free soil. The Democratic platform for 1844, therefore, declared that "our title to the whole of Oregon is clear; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power; and that the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas" were great American measures, which the people were urged to support. The people thought they were great American measures, and with the popular cries of "The reannexation of Texas," "Texas or disunion," "The whole of Oregon or none," "Fifty-four forty or fight," the Democrats entered the campaign and won it, electing James K. Polk and George M. Dallas.

The Whigs were afraid to declare for or against the annexation, so they said nothing about it in their platform, and nominated Henry Clay of Kentucky and Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. The real question of the campaign was of course the annexation of Texas, and though the platform was silent on that subject their leader spoke out. In a public letter which appeared in a newspaper and was copied all over the Union, Clay said that he believed slavery was doomed to end at no far away day; that the admission of Texas could neither hasten nor put off the arrival of that day, and that he "should be glad to see" Texas annexed if it could be done "without dishonor, without war, and with the common consent of the Union and upon just and fair terms."



Language of this sort did not please the antislavery Whigs; and in New York numbers of them voted for James G. Birney and Thomas Morris, candidates of the Liberty party. The result was that the vote for Birney in New York in 1844 was more than twice as great as he received in the whole Union in 1840. Had half of these New Yorkers voted for Clay instead, he would have received the electoral vote of New York and would have been President.



%361. Texas annexed to the United States.%—Tyler, who saw in the result of the election a command from the people to acquire Texas, urged Congress in December, 1844, to annex it at once. But in what manner should it be acquired? Some said by a treaty. This would require the consent of two thirds of the Senate. But the Democrats did not have the votes of two thirds of the Senate and so could not have secured the ratification of such a treaty. It was decided, therefore, to annex by joint resolution, which required but a majority for its passage. The House of Representatives accordingly passed such a resolution for the admission of Texas, and with her consent for the formation of four additional states out of the territory, those north of 36 deg. 30' to be free. The Senate amended this resolution and gave the President power to negotiate another treaty of annexation, or submit the joint resolution to Texas. The House accepted the amendment. Tyler chose to offer the terms in the joint resolution. Texas accepted them, and in December, 1845, her senators and representatives took their seats in Congress.

%362. Oregon.%—By the admission of Texas, the Democrats made good one of the pledges in their platform of 1844. They were now called on to make good the other, which promised the whole of Oregon up to 54 deg. 40'. To suppose that England would yield to this claim, and so cut herself off entirely from the Pacific coast, was absurd. Nevertheless, because of the force of popular opinion, the one year's notice necessary to terminate joint occupation was served on Great Britain in 1846. The English minister thereupon presented a treaty extending the 49th parallel across Oregon from the Rocky Mountains to the coast, and drawing a line down the strait of Juan de Fuca to the Pacific. Polk and the Senate accepted this boundary, and the treaty was proclaimed on August 5, 1846. Two years later, August 14, 1848, Oregon was made a territory.

%363. General Taylor enters Texas; War with Mexico begins.%—When Texas came into the Union, she claimed as her western boundary the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source and then a line due north to 42 deg.. Now this line was disputed by Mexico, which claimed that the Nueces River was the western boundary of Texas. The disputed strip of territory was thus between the Nueces and the Rio Grande (p. 321).

President Polk, however, took the side of Texas, claimed the country as far as the Rio Grande, and in January, 1846, ordered General Zachary Taylor to march our army across the Nueces, go to the Rio Grande, and occupy the disputed strip. This he did, and on April 25, 1846, the Mexicans crossed the river and attacked the Americans. Taylor instantly sent the news to Washington, and, May 12, Polk asked for a declaration of war. "Mexico," said he, "has passed the boundary of the United States; has invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil." Congress declared that war existed, and Polk called for 50,000 volunteers (May 13, 1846).

When the Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the Americans at Fort Brown, Taylor was at Point Isabel. Hurrying southward to the relief of the fort, he met the enemy at Palo Alto, beat them, pushed on to Resaca de la Palma, beat them again, and soon crossed the river and took possession of the town of Matamoras. There he remained till August, 1846, waiting for supplies, reinforcements, and means of transportation, when he began a march toward the city of Monterey. The Mexicans, profiting by Taylor's long stay at Matamoras, had gathered in great force at Monterey, and had strongly fortified every position. But Taylor attacked with vigor, and after three days of continuous fighting, part of the time from street to street and house to house, the Mexican General Ampudia surrendered the city (September 24, 1846). An armistice of six weeks' duration was then agreed on, after which Taylor moved on leisurely to Saltillo (sahl-teel'-yo).

%364. Scott in Mexico.%—Meantime, General Winfield Scott was sent to Mexico to assume chief command. He reached the mouth of the Bio Grande in January, 1847, and called on Taylor to send him 10,000 men. Santa Anna (sahn'-tah ahn'-nah), who commanded the Mexicans, hearing of this order, marched at once against Taylor, who took up a strong position at Buena Vista (bwa'-nah vees'-tah), where a desperate battle was fought February 23, 1847. The Americans won, and Santa Anna hurried off to attack Scott, who was expected at Vera Cruz. Scott landed there in March, and, after a siege of a few days, took the castle and city, and ten days later began his march westward along the national highway towards the ancient capital of the Aztecs. It was just 328 years since Cortez with his little band started from the same point on a precisely similar errand. At every step of the way the ranks of Scott grew thinner and thinner. Hundreds perished in battle. Hundreds died by the wayside of disease more terrible than battle. But Scott would not turn back, and victory succeeded victory with marvelous rapidity. April 8 he left Vera Cruz. April 18 he stormed the heights of Cerro Gordo. April 19 he was at Jalapa (hah-lah'-pah). On the 22d Perote (pa-ro'-ta) fell. May 15 the city of Puebla (pweb'-lah) was his. There Scott staid till August 7, when he again pushed westward, and on the 10th saw the city of Mexico. Then followed in rapid succession the victories of Contreras (con-tra'-rahs), Churubusco (choo-roo-boos'-ko), Molino del Rey (mo-lee'-no del ra), the storming of Chapultepec (chah-pool-ta-pek'), and the triumphal entry into Mexico, September 14, 1847. Never before in the history of the world had there been made such a march.



%365. The "Wilmot Proviso."%—In 1846 the Mexican War was very hateful to many Northern people, and as a new House of Representatives was to be elected in the autumn of that year, Polk thought it wise to end the war if possible, and in August asked for $2,000,000 "for the settlement of the boundary question with Mexico." This, of course, meant the purchase of territory from her. But Mexico had abolished slavery in 1827, and lest any territory bought from her should be made slave soil, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved that the money should be granted, provided all territory bought with it should be free soil. The proviso passed the House, but not the Senate. Next year (1847) a bill to give Polk $3,000,000 with which to settle the boundary dispute was introduced, and again the proviso was attached. But the Senate rejected it, and the House then gave way, and passed the bill without the proviso.

%366. Conquest of New Mexico and California.%—While Taylor was winning victories in northeastern Mexico, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny was ordered to march into New Mexico. Leaving Fort Leavenworth in June, 1846, he went by the Upper Arkansas River to Bents Fort, thence southwest through what is now Colorado, and by the old Santa Fe trail to the Rio Grande valley and Santa Fe (p. 330). After taking the city without opposition, he declared the whole of New Mexico to be the property of the United States, and then started to seize California. On arriving there, he found the conquest completed by the combined forces of Stockton and Fremont.

%367. The Great American Desert.%—But how came Fremont to be in California in 1846?

If you look at any school geography published between 1820 and 1850 you will find that a large part of what is now Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Texas is put down as "THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT." Many believed it was not unlike the Desert of Sahara, and that nobody would ever want to cross it, while there was so much fertile land to the eastward. This view made people very indifferent as to our claims to Oregon, so that when Thomas H. Benton, one of the senators from Missouri, and one of the far-sighted statesmen of the day, wanted Congress to seize and hold Oregon by force of arms, he was told that it was not worth the cost. "Oregon," said one senator, "will never be a state in the Union." "Build a railroad to Oregon?" said another. "Why, all the wealth of the Indies would not be sufficient for such a work."



%368. The Santa Fe and Oregon Trails.%—Some explorations you remember had been made. Lewis and Clark went across the Northwest to the mouth of the Columbia in 1804-1805, and Zebulon M. Pike had penetrated in 1806 to the wild mountainous region about the head waters of the Platte, Arkansas, and Rio Grande and had probably seen the great mountain that now bears his name. Major Long followed Pike in 1820, gave his name to Longs Peak, and brought back such a dismal account of the West that he was largely responsible for the belief in a desert. The great plains from the sources of the Sabine, Brazos, and Colorado rivers to the northern boundary Were, he said, "peculiarly adapted as a range for buffaloes, wild Goats, and other wild game," and "might serve as a barrier to prevent too great an expansion of our population westward;" but nobody would think of cultivating the plains. For years after that the American Fur Trading Company of St. Louis had annually sent forth its caravans into Oregon and New Mexico. Because the way was beset by hostile Indians, these caravans were protected by large and strongly armed bands, and in time wore out well-beaten tracks across the prairies and over the mountain passes, which came to be known on the frontier as the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. In 1832 Captain Bonneville[1] took a wagon train over the Rocky Mountain divide into the Green River Valley, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth led a party from New England to the Oregon country, and in 1834 established Fort Hall in what is now Idaho. Still later in the thirties went Marcus Whitman and his party.

[Footnote 1: Bead his adventures as told by Washington Irving.]

%369. %Explorations of Fremont.%—By this time it was clear that the tide of westward emigration would soon set in strongly towards Oregon. Then at last Benton succeeded in persuading Congress to order an exploration of the far West, and in 1842 Lieutenant Fremont was sent to see if the South Pass of the rocky Mountains, the usual crossing place, would best accommodate the coming emigration. He set out from Kansas City (then a frontier hamlet, now a prosperous city) with Kit Carson, a famous hunter, for guide, and following the wagon trails of those who had gone before him, made his way to the pass. He found its ascent so gradual that his party hardly knew when they reached the summit. Passing through it to the valley beyond, he climbed the great peak which now bears his name and stands 13,570 feet above the sea.

Though Fremont discovered no new route, he did much to dispel the popular idea created by Long that the plains were barren, and the American Desert began to shrink. In 1843 Fremont was sent out again. Making his way westward through the South Pass, where his work ended in 1842, he turned southward to visit Great Salt Lake, and then pushed on to Walla Walla on the Columbia River (see map on p. 330). Thence he went on to the Dalles, and then by boat to Fort Vancouver, and then, after returning to the Dalles, southward to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento valley, and so back to the States in 1844.

In 1845 Fremont, who had now won the name of "Pathfinder," was sent out a third time, and crossing what are now Nebraska and Utah, reached the vicinity of Monterey in California. The Mexican authorities ordered him out of the country. But he spent the winter in the mountains, and in the spring was on his way to Oregon, when a messenger from Washington overtook him, and he returned to Sutter's Fort.

%370. The Bear State Republic.%—This was in June, 1846. Rumors of war between Mexico and the United States were then flying thick and fast, and the American settlers in California, fearing they would be attacked, revolted, and raising a flag on which an image of a grizzly bear was colored in red paint, proclaimed California an independent republic. These Bear State republicans were protected and aided by Fremont and Commodore Stockton, who was on the California coast with a fleet, and together they held California till Kearny arrived.



%371. Terms of Peace.%—Thus when the time came to make peace, our armies were in military possession of vast stretches of Mexican territory which Polk refused to give up. Mexico, of course, was forced to yield, and in February, 1848, at a little place near the city of Mexico, called Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty was signed by which Mexico gave up the land and received in return $15,000,000. The United States was also to pay claims our citizens had against Mexico to the amount of $3,500,000. This added 522,568 square miles to the public domain.[1]

[Footnote 1: This new territory included not only the present California and New Mexico, but also Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.]

%372. The Gadsden Purchase.%—When the attempt was made to run the boundary line from the Rio Grande to the Gila River, so many difficulties occurred that in 1853 a new treaty was made with Mexico, and the present boundary established from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of California. The line then agreed on was far south of the Gila River, and for this new tract of land, 45,535 square miles, the United States paid Mexico $10,000,000. It is generally called the Gadsden Purchase, after James Gadsden, who negotiated it.

Much of this territory acquired in 1848, especially New Mexico and California, had long been settled by the Spaniards. But the acquisition of it by the United States at once put an end to the old Mexican government, and made it necessary for Congress to provide new governments. There must be American governors, American courts, American judges, customhouses, revenue laws; in a word, there must be a complete change from the Mexican way of governing to the American way. To do this ought not to have been a hard thing; but Mexico had abolished slavery in all this territory in 1827. It was free soil, and such the anti-extension-of-slavery people of the North insisted on keeping it. The proslavery people of the South, on the other hand, insisted that it should be open to slavery, and that any slaveholder should be allowed to emigrate to the new territory with his slaves and not have them set free. The political question of the time thus became, Shall, or shall not, slavery exist in New Mexico and California?

%373. The Free-soil Party.%—As a President to succeed Polk was to be elected in 1848, the two great parties did their best to keep the troublesome question of slavery out of politics. When the Whig convention met, it positively refused to make a platform, and nominated General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, and Millard Fillmore of New York, without a statement of party principles.

When the Democratic convention met, it made a long platform, but said nothing about slavery in the territories, and nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan and William O. Butler.

This refusal of the two parties to take a stand on the question of the hour so displeased many Whigs and Wilmot-Proviso Democrats that they held a convention at Buffalo, where the old Liberty party joined them, and together they formed the "Free-soil party." They nominated Martin Van Buren and Charles F. Adams, and in their platform made four important declarations:

1. That Congress has no more power to make a slave, than to make a king.

2. That there must be "free soil for a free people."

3. "No more slave states, no more slave territories."

4. That we will inscribe on our banners "Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men."

They also asked for cheaper postage, and for free grants of land to actual settlers.

The Whigs won the election.

%374. Zachary Taylor, Twelfth President.%—Taylor and Fillmore were inaugurated on March 5,1849, because the 4th came on Sunday. Their election and the triumph of the Whigs now brought on a crisis in the question of slavery extension.



%375. State of Feeling in the South.%—Southern men, both Whigs and Democrats, were convinced that an attempt would be made by Northern and Western men opposed to the extension of slavery to keep the new territory free soil. Efforts were at once made to prevent this. At a meeting of Southern members of Congress, an address written by Calhoun was adopted and signed, and published all over the country. It

1. Complained of the difficulty of capturing slaves when they escaped to the free states.

2. Complained of the constant agitation of the slavery question by the abolitionists.

3. And demanded that the territories should be open to slavery.

A little later, in 1849, the legislature of Virginia adopted resolutions setting forth:

1. That "the attempt to enforce the Wilmot Proviso" would rouse the people of Virginia to "determined resistance at all hazards and to the last extremity."

2. That the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia would be a direct attack on the institutions of the Southern States.

The Missouri legislature protested against the principle of the Wilmot Proviso, and instructed her senators and representatives to vote with the slaveholding states. The Tennessee Democratic State Central Committee, in an address, declared that the encroachments of their Northern brethren had reached a point where forbearance ceased to be a virtue. At a dinner to Senator Butler, in South Carolina, one of the toasts was "A Southern Confederacy."

%376. State of Feeling in the North.%—Feeling in the free states ran quite as high.

1. The legislatures of every one of them, except Iowa,[1] resolved that Congress had power and was in duty bound to prohibit slavery in the territories.

[Footnote 1: Iowa had been admitted December 28, 1846.]

2. Many of them bade their congressmen do everything possible to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

The struggle thus coming to an issue in the summer of 1849 was precipitated by a most unlooked-for discovery in California, which led the people of that region to take matters into their own hands.

%377. Discovery of Gold in California.%—One day in the month of January, 1848, while a man named Marshall was constructing a mill race in the valley of the American River in California, for a Swiss immigrant named Sutter, he saw particles of some yellow substance shining in the mud. Picking up a few, he examined them, and thinking they might be gold, he gathered some more and set off for Sutter's Fort, where the city of Sacramento now stands.



As soon as he had reached the fort and found Mr. Sutter, the two locked themselves in a room and examined the yellow flakes Marshall had brought. They were gold! But to keep the secret was impossible. A Mormon laborer, watching their excited actions at the mill race, discerned the secret, and then the news spread fast, and the whole population went wild. Every kind of business stopped. The stores were shut. Sailors left the ships. Soldiers defiantly left their barracks, and by the middle of the summer men came rushing to the gold fields from every part of the Pacific coast. Later in the year reports reached the East, but so slowly did news travel in those days that it was not till Polk in his annual message confirmed it, that people really believed there were gold fields in California. Then the rush from the East began. Some went overland, some crossed by the Isthmus of Panama, some went around South America, filling California with a population of strong, adventurous, and daring men. These were the "forty-niners."



%378. The Californians make a Free-State Constitution.%—When Taylor heard that gold hunters were hurrying to California from all parts of the world, he was very anxious to have some permanent government in California; and encouraged by him the pioneers, the "forty-niners," made a free-state constitution in 1849 and applied for admission into the Union.[1]

[Footnote 1: For an account of this movement to make California a state, see Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 111-116.]

%379. Clay proposes a Compromise.%—When Congress met in 1849 there were therefore a great many things connected with slavery to be settled:

1. Southern men complained that the existing fugitive-slave law was not enforced in the free states and that runaway slaves were not returned.

2. The Northern men insisted that slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia.

3. Southern men demanded the right to go into any territory of the United States, as New Mexico or Utah or even California, and take their slaves with them.

4. The Free-soilers demanded that there should be no more slave states, no more slave territories.

5. The North wanted California admitted as a free-soil state. The South would not consent.

So violent and bitter was the feeling aroused by these questions, that it seemed in 1850 as if the Union was about to be broken up, and that there were to be two republics,—a Northern one made up of free states, and a Southern one made up of slave states.

Happily this was not to be; for at this crisis Henry Clay, the "Compromiser," the "Pacificator," the "Peacemaker," as he was fondly called, came forward with a plan of settlement.

To please the North, he proposed, first, that California should be admitted as a free state; second, that the slave trade—that is, the buying and selling of slaves—should be abolished in the District of Columbia. To please the South, he proposed, third, that there should be a new and very stringent fugitive-slave law; fourth, that New Mexico and Utah should be made territories without reference to slavery—that is, the people should make them free or slave, as they pleased. This was called "popular sovereignty" or "squatter sovereignty." Fifth, that as Texas claimed so much of New Mexico as was east of the Rio Grande, she should give up her claim and be paid money for so doing.

%380. Clay, Calhoun, Seward, and Webster on the Compromise.%—The debate on the compromise was a great one. Clay's defense of his plan was one of the finest speeches he ever made.[1] Calhoun, who was too feeble to speak, had his argument read by another senator. Webster, on the "7th of March," made the famous speech which still bears that name. In it he denounced the abolitionists and defended the compromise, because, he said, slavery could not exist in such an arid country as New Mexico. William H. Seward of New York spoke for the Free-soilers and denounced all compromise, and declared that the territories were free not only by the Constitution, but by a "higher law" than the Constitution, the law of justice and humanity.[2]

[Footnote 1: Henry Clay's Works, Vol. II., pp. 602-634.]

[Footnote 2: Johnston's American Orations, Vol. II., pp. 123-219, for the speeches of Calhoun, Webster, and Clay.]

After these great speeches were made, Clay's plan was sent to a committee of thirteen, from which came seven recommendations:

1. The consideration of the admission of any new state or states formed out of Texas to be postponed till they present themselves for admission.

2. California to be admitted as a free state.

3. Territorial governments without the Wilmot Proviso to be established in New Mexico and Utah.

4. The combination of No. 2 and No. 3 in one bill.

5. The establishment of the present northern and western boundary of Texas. In return for ceding her claims to New Mexico, Texas to receive $10,000,000. This last provision to be inserted in the bill provided for in No. 4.

6. A new and stringent fugitive-slave law.

7. Abolition of the slave trade, but not of slavery, in the District of Columbia.

Three bills to carry out these recommendations were presented:

1. The first bill provided for (a) the admission of California as a free state; (b) territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah without any restriction on slavery; (c) the present northern and western boundary for Texas, with a gift of money. President Taylor nicknamed this "the Omnibus Bill," because of its many provisions.

2. The second bill prohibited the slave trade, but not slavery, in the District of Columbia.

3. The third provided for the capture and delivery of fugitive-slaves.

During three months these bills were hotly debated, and threats of disunion and violence were made openly.

%381. Death of Taylor; Fillmore becomes President.%—In the midst of the debate, July 9, 1850, Taylor died, and Fillmore was sworn into office. Calhoun had died in March. Webster was made Secretary of State by Fillmore. In some respects these changes helped on the measures, all of which were carried through. Two of them were of great importance.



%382. Popular Sovereignty.%—The first provided that the two new territories, New Mexico and Utah, when fit to be admitted as states, should come in with or without slavery as their constitutions might determine; meantime, the question whether slavery could or could not exist there, if it arose, was to be settled by the Supreme Court.

%383. The Fugitive-Slave Law.%—The other important measure of the compromise was the fugitive-slave law. The old fugitive-slave law enacted in 1793 had depended for its execution on state judges. This new law of 1850

1. Gave United States commissioners power to turn over a colored man or woman to anybody who claimed the negro as an escaped slave.

2. Provided that the negro could not give testimony.

3. "Commanded" all good citizens, when summoned, to aid in the capture of the slave, or, if necessary, in his delivery to his owners.

4. Prescribed fine and imprisonment for anybody who harbored a fugitive slave or prevented his recapture.



No sooner was this law enacted than the slave owners began to use it, and during the autumn of 1850 a host of "slave catchers" and "man hunters," as they were called, invaded the North, and negroes who had escaped twenty or thirty years before were hunted up and dragged back to slavery by the marshals of the United States. This so excited the free negroes and the people of the North, that several times during 1851 they rose and rescued a slave from his captors. In New York a slave named Hamet, in Boston one named Shadrach, in Syracuse one named Jerry, and at Ottawa, Illinois, one named Jim, regained their liberty in this way. So strong was public feeling that Vermont in 1850 passed a "Personal Liberty Law," for the protection of negroes claimed as slaves.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the Compromise of 1850 read Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 104-189; Schurz's Life of Clay, Vol. II., Chap. 26. Do not fail to read the speeches of Calhoun, Clay, Webster, Seward; also Lodge's Life of Webster, pp. 264-332. For the rescue cases read Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Chap. 26.]

The North was now becoming strongly antislavery. It had long been opposed to the extension of slavery, but was now becoming opposed to its very existence. How deep this feeling was, became apparent in the summer of 1852, when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her story of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was not so much a picture of what slavery was, as of what it might be, and was so powerfully written that it stirred and aroused thousands of people in the North who, till then, had been quite indifferent. In a few months everybody was laughing and crying over "Topsy" and "Eva" and "Uncle Tom"; and of those who read it great numbers became abolitionists.

SUMMARY

1. The Mexican state of Texas revolts and in 1837 becomes independent.

2. President Tyler secretly negotiates a treaty for the annexation of Texas to the United States, but this is defeated (1844).

3. The labors of Elijah White and others lead to the rapid settlement of the Oregon country.

4. The annexation of Texas and the occupation of the whole of Oregon become questions in the campaign of 1844. The Democrats carry the election, Texas is annexed, and the Oregon country is divided between Great Britain and the United States.

5. The question of the boundary of Texas brings on the Mexican War, and in 1848 another vast stretch of country is acquired.

6. The acquisition of this new territory, which was free soil, causes a struggle for the introduction of slavery into it.

7. The refusal of the Whigs and Democrats to take issue on slavery in the territories leads to the formation of the Free-soil party.

8. The discovery of gold in California, the rush of people thither, and the formation of a free state seeking admission into the Union force the question of slavery on Congress.

9. In 1850 an attempt is made to settle it by the "Compromise of 1850."



THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM OF 1844 CALLED FOR

The reannexation of Texas.

Texas annexed, August, 1845. Rio Grande asserted as boundary. Disputed territory, Nueces to Rio Grande.

1845-46. Taylor sent to occupy the disputed territory. 1846. Attacked by Mexicans. 1846. War declared by the United States.

The reoccupation of Oregon to 54 deg. 40'.

Our claims to Oregon. Colonization of Oregon. "Fifty-four forty or fight." Notice served on Great Britain. The parallel of 49 deg. extended to the Pacific. Oregon a territory (1848).

The Mexican War.

Taylor.

1846. Wins battles of Palo Alto. Resaca de la Palma. Matamoras. Monterey. 1847. Buena Vista.

Scott.

1847. Vera Cruz. Cerro Gordo. Jalapa. Perote. Contreras. Churubusco. Molino del Rey. Chapultepec. Mexico.

Kearny.

Santa Fe. Conquest of New Mexico.

Fremont. Stockton.

Conquest of California. PEACE 1848.

Territory acquired from 42 deg. to Gila River; from Rio Grande to the Pacific.

Effort to make the territory slave soil.

1848. The Whigs.

No platform. Elect Taylor and Fillmore.

1848. The Democrats.

Nothing in platform as to slavery in new territory. Defeated, 1848. Complaints of the South against the North:

Popular sovereignty

1. Fugitive slaves. 2. Slavery in District of Columbia. 3. Territory acquired from Mexico to be open to slavery.

Discovery of gold in California, 1848. Rush to California. The three routes. Free state of California, 1849.

Effort to keep the territory free.

The Wilmot Proviso, 1846, 1847. The Free-soil party, 1848. Demands of the party. Defeated in 1848. Demand— 1. California a free state. 2. No slavery in District of Columbia. 3. No more slave states. No more slave territories.

Whigs attempt a compromise.

COMPROMISE OF 1850.

1. California a free state. 2. Popular sovereignty in territory acquired from Mexico. 3. No slave trade in District of Columbia. 4. Texas takes present boundaries. 5. Two new territories, Utah and New Mexico. 6. New fugitive-slave law.



CHAPTER XXV

THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL

%384. Franklin Pierce, Fourteenth President.%—Although the struggle with slavery was thus growing more and more serious, the two great parties pretended to consider the question as finally settled. In 1852 the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce and William E. King, and declared in their platform that they would "abide by and adhere to" the Compromise of 1850, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs nominated General Winfield Scott, and declared that they approved the fugitive-slave law, and accepted the compromise measures of 1850 as "a settlement in principle" of the slavery question, and would do all they could to prevent any further discussion of it.



So far as the Whigs were concerned, the question was settled; for the Northern people, angry at their acceptance of the Compromise of 1850 and the fugitive-slave law, refused to vote for Scott, and Pierce was elected.[1]

[Footnote 1: Pierce carried every state except Massachusetts, Vermont, Tennessee, and Kentucky.]

The Free-soilers had nominated John P. Hale and George W. Julian.

%385. The Nebraska Bill.%—Pierce was inaugurated March 4, 1853. He, too, believed that all questions relating to slavery were settled. But he had not been many months in office when the old quarrel was raging as bitterly as ever. In 1853 all that part of our country which lies between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, the south boundary of Kansas and 49 deg., was wilderness, known as the Platte country, and was without any kind of territorial government. In January, 1854, a bill to organize this great piece of country and call it the territory of Nebraska was reported to the Senate by the Committee on Territories, of which Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was chairman. Every foot of it was north of 36 deg. 30', and according to the Missouri Compromise was free soil. But the bill provided for popular sovereignty; that is, for the right of the people of Nebraska, when they made a state, to have it free or slave, as they pleased.

%386. The Kansas-Nebraska Law.%—An attempt was at once made to prevent this. But Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another, providing for two territories, one to be called Kansas[1] and the other Nebraska, expressly repealing the Missouri Compromise,[2] and opening the country north of 36 deg. 30' to slavery.[3] The Free-soilers, led on by Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Seward of New York, and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, did all they could to defeat the bill; but it passed, and Pierce signed it and made it law.[4]

[Footnote 1: The northern and southern boundaries of Kansas were those of the present state, but it extended westward to the Rocky Mountains.]

[Footnote 2: It declared that the slavery restriction of the Missouri Compromise "was suspended by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures, and is hereby declared inoperative."]

[Footnote 3: The "true intent and meaning" of this act, said the law, is, "not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Read Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 425-490.]

[Footnote 4: May 30, 1854.]

%387. The Struggle for Kansas.%—Thus was it ordained that Kansas and Nebraska, once expressly set apart as free soil, should become free or slave states according as they were settled while territories by antislavery or proslavery men. And now began a seven years' struggle for Kansas. "Come on, then," said Seward of New York in a speech against the Kansas Bill; "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave states. Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it on behalf of freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers as it is in the right."



This described the situation exactly. The free-state men of the North and the slave-state men of the South were to rush into Kansas and struggle for its possession. The moment the law opening Kansas for settlement was known in Missouri, numbers of men crossed the Missouri River, entered the territory, held squatters' meetings,[1] drove a few stakes into the ground to represent "squatter claims," went home, and called on the people of the South to hurry into Kansas. Many did so, and began to erect tents and huts on the Missouri River at a place which they called Atchison.[2]

[Footnote 1: At one of their meetings it was resolved: "That we will afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this country." "That we recognize the institution of slavery as already existing in this territory, and advise stockholders to introduce their property as early as possible."]

[Footnote 2: Called after Senator Atchison of Missouri.]

But the men of the North had not been idle, and in July a band of free-state men, sent on by the New England Emigrant Aid Society,[1] entered Kansas and founded a town on the Kansas River some miles to the south and west of Atchison. Other emigrants came in a few weeks later, and their collection of tents received the name of Lawrence.[2]

[Footnote 1: The New England Emigrant Aid Society was founded in 1854 by Hon. Eli Thayer of Worcester, Mass., in order "to plant a free state in Kansas," by aiding antislavery men to go out there and settle.]

[Footnote 2: After Amos A. Lawrence, secretary of the Aid Society. It was a city of tents. Not a building existed. Later came the log cabin, which was a poor affair, as timber was scarce. The sod hut now so common in the Northwest was not thought of. In the early days the "hay tent" was the usual house, and was made by setting up two rows of poles, then bringing their tops together, thatching the roof and sides with hay. The two gable ends (in which were the windows and doors) were of sod.]