As part of the same general stir we may perhaps register the anti-masonic movement. One William Morgan, a Mason residing in Western New York, was reported about to expose in a publication the secrets of that order. The Masons were desirous of preventing this and made several forcible efforts to that end. Morgan was soon missing, and the exciting assumption was almost universally made that the Masons had taken him off. There was much evidence of this; but conviction was found impossible because, as was alleged, judges, juries, and witnesses were nearly all Masons. An intense and widespread feeling was developed that Masonry held itself superior to the laws, was therefore a foe to the Government and must be destroyed. The Anti-Masons became a mighty political party. Masons were driven from office. In 1832 anti-masonic nominations were made for President and Vice-President, which had much to do with the small vote of Clay in that year. It was this party that brought to the front politically William H. Seward, Millard Fillmore, and Thurlow Weed.



Thurlow Weed. From an unpublished Photograph by Disderi, Paris, in 1861. In the possession of Thurlow Weed Barnes.

In 1833 Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania passed laws suppressing lotteries, but the gambling mania seemed to transform itself into a craze for banks. In many parts this was such that actual riots took place when subscriptions to the stock of banks were opened, the earliest comers subscribing the whole with the purpose of selling to others at an advance. To make a bank was thought the great panacea for every ill that could befall. In this we see that the American people, bright as they were, could be duped.

Less wonder, then, at the success of the Moon Hoax, perpetrated in 1835. It was generally known that Sir John Herschel had gone to the Cape of Good Hope to erect an observatory. One day the New York Sun came out with what purported to be part of a supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science, giving an account of Herschel's remarkable discoveries. The moon, so the bogus relation ran, had been found to be inhabited by human beings with wings. Herschel had seen flocks of them flying about. Their houses were triangular in form. The telescope had also revealed beavers in the moon, exhibiting most remarkable intelligence. Pictures of some of these and of moon scenery accompanied the article. The fraud was so clever as to deceive learned and unlearned alike. The sham story was continued through several issues of the Sun, and gave the paper an enormous sale. As it arrived in the different places, crowds scrambled for it, nor would those who failed to secure copies disperse until some one more fortunate had read to them all that the paper said upon the subject. Several colleges sent professorial deputations to the Sun office to see the article, and particularly the appendices, which, it was alleged, had been kept back. Richard Adams Locke was the author of this ingenious deception, which was not exploded until the arrival of authentic intelligence from Edinburgh.

Party spirit sometimes ran terribly high. A New York City election in 1834 was the occasion of a riot between men of the two parties, disturbances continuing several days. Political meetings were broken up, and the militia had to be called out to enforce order. Citizens armed themselves, fearing attacks upon banks and business houses. When it was found that the Whigs were triumphant in the city, deafening salutes were fired. Philadelphia Whigs celebrated this victory with a grand barbecue, attended, it was estimated, by fifty thousand people. The death of Harrison was malignantly ascribed to overeating in Washington, after his long experience with insufficient diet in the West. Whigs exulted over Jackson's cabinet difficulties. Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet," the power behind the throne, gave umbrage to his official advisers. Duff Green, editor of the United States Telegraph, the President's "organ," was one member; Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, and Amos Kendall, first of Massachusetts, then of Kentucky, were others, these three the most influential. All had long worked, written, and cheered for Old Hickory. In return he gave them good places at Washington, and now they enjoyed dropping in at the White House to take a smoke with the grizzly hero and help him curse the opposition as foes of "the people."

Major Eaton, Old Hickory's first Secretary of War, had married a beautiful widow, maiden name Peggy O'Neil, of common birth, and much gossipped about. The female members of other cabinet families refused to associate with her, the Vice-President's wife leading. Jackson took up Mrs. Eaton's cause with all knightly zeal. He berated her traducers and persecutors in long and fierce personal letters. His niece and housekeeper, Mrs. Donelson, one of the anti-Eatonites, he turned out of the White House, with her husband, his private secretary. The breach was serious anyway, and might have been far more so but for the healing offices of Van Buren, who used all his courtliness and power of place to help the President bring about the social recognition of Mrs. Eaton. He called upon her, made parties in her honor, and secured her entree to the families of the greatest foreign ministers. Mrs. Eaton triumphed, but the scandal would not down.

When Jackson wrote his foreign message upon the French spoliation claims, his cabinet were aghast and begged him to soften its tone. Upon his refusal, it is said, they stole to the printing-office and did it themselves. But the proofs came back for Jackson's perusal. The lad who brought them was the late Mr. J. S. Ham, of Providence, R. I. He used to say that he had never known what profane swearing was till he listened to General Jackson's comments as those proofs were read.

Jackson and Quincy Adams were personal as well as political foes. When the President visited Boston, Harvard College bestowed on him the degree of Doctor of Laws. Adams, one of the overseers, opposed this with all his might. As "an affectionate child of our Alma Mater, he would not be present to witness her disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors upon a barbarian." Subsequently he would refer, with a sneer, to "Dr. Andrew Jackson." The President's illness at Boston Adams declared "four-fifths trickery" and the rest mere fatigue. He was like John Randolph, said Adams, who for forty years was always dying. "He is now alternately giving out his chronic diarrhoea and making Warren bleed him for a pleurisy, and posting to Cambridge for a doctorate of laws, mounting the monument of Bunker's Hill to hear a fulsome address and receive two cannon-balls from Edward Everett."

To be sure, manifestations of a contrary spirit between the political parties were not wanting. The entire nation mourned for Madison after his death in 1836, as it had on the decease of Jefferson and John Adams both on the same day, July 4, 1826.

A note or two upon costume may not uninterestingly close this chapter.

Enormous bonnets were fashionable about 1830. Ladies also wore Leghorn hats, with very broad brims rolled up behind, tricked out profusely with ribbons and artificial flowers. Dress-waists were short and high. Skirts were short, too, hardly reaching the ankles. Sleeves were of the leg-of-mutton fashion, very full above the elbows but tightening toward the wrist. Gentlemen still dressed for the street not so differently from the revolutionary style. Walking-coats were of broadcloth, blue, brown, or green, to suit the taste, with gilt buttons. Bottle-green was a very stylish color for evening coats. Blue and the gilt buttons for street wear were, however, beginning to be discarded, Daniel Webster being one of the last to walk abroad in them. The buff waistcoat, white cambric cravat, and ruffled shirt still held their own. Collars for full dress were worn high, covering half the cheek, a fashion which persisted in parts of the country till 1850 or later.



CHAPTER VIII.

INDUSTRIAL ADVANCE BY 1840

[1840]

During the War of 1812 we had in England an industrial spy, whose campaign there has perhaps accomplished more for the country than all our armies did. It was Francis C. Lowell, of Boston. Great Britain was just introducing the power loom. The secret of structure was guarded with all vigilance, yet Lowell, passing from cotton factory to cotton factory with Yankee eyes, ears, and wit, came home in 1814, believing, with good reason, as it proved, that he could set up one of the machines on American soil. Broad Street in Boston was the scene of his initial experiments, but the factory to the building of which they led was at Waltham. It was owned by a company, one of whose members was Nathan Appleton. Water furnished the motive power. By the autumn of 1814 Lowell had perfected his looms and placed them in the factory. Spinning machinery was also built, mounting seventeen hundred spindles. English cotton-workers did not as yet spin and weave under the same roof, so that the Lowell Mill at Waltham may, with great probability, be pronounced the first in the world to carry cloth manufacture harmoniously through all its several successive steps from the raw stuff to the finished ware.

From this earliest establishment of the power-loom here, the cotton-cloth business strode rapidly forward. Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, and scores of other thriving towns sprung into being. Every year new mills were built. In 1831 there were 801; in 1840, 1,240; in 1850, 1,074. Henceforth, through consolidation, the number of factories decreased, but the number of spindles grew steadily larger. This rise of great manufacturing concerns was facilitated by a new order of corporation laws. There had been corporations in the country before 1830, as the Waltham case shows; but the system had had little evolution, as incorporation had in each case to proceed from a special legislative act. In 1837 Connecticut passed a statute making this unnecessary and enabling a group of persons to become a corporation on complying with certain simple requirements. New York placed a similar provision in its constitution of 1846. The Dartmouth College decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1819, interpreting an act of incorporation as a contract, which, by the Constitution, no State can violate, still further humored and aided the corporation system.



From an Old Time-table. (Furnished by the ABC Pathfinder Railway Guide.)

In 1816 the streets of Baltimore were lighted with gas. A gas-light company was incorporated in New York in 1823. Not till 1836, however, did the Philadelphia streets have gas lights. The first savings-banks were established in Philadelphia and Boston in 1816. Baltimore had one two years later. Portable fire-proof safes were used in 1820. The Lehigh coal trade flourished this year, and also the manufacture of iron with coal. The whale fishery, too, was now beginning. The first factory in Lowell started in 1821. In 1822 there was a copper rolling mill in Baltimore, the only one then in America, and Paterson, N. J., began the manufacture of cotton duck. Patent leather was made in the United States by 1819. In 1824 Amesbury, Mass., had a water-power manufactory of flannel. The next year the practice of homoeopathy began in America, and matches of a rude sort were displacing the old tinder-box. The next year after this Hartford produced axes and other edged tools. Lithography, of which there had been specimens so early as 1818, was a Boston business in 1827. Pittsburgh manufactured damask table linen in 1828. The same year saw paper made from straw, and planing machinery in operation. The insuring of lives began in this country in 1812.



Trial between Peter Cooper's Locomotive "Tom Thumb" and one of Stockton's and Stokes' Horse Cars. From "History of the First Locomotive in America."

The first figured muslin woven by the power-loom in America, and perhaps in the world, was produced at Central Falls, R. I., in 1829. Calico printing began at Lowell the same year, also the manufacture of cutlery at Worcester, of sewing-silk at Mansfield, Conn., of galvanized iron in New York City. With the new decade chloroform was invented, in 1831, being first used as a medicine, not as an anaesthetic. Reaping machines were on trial the same year, and three years later machine-made wood screws were turned out at Providence. About the same time, 1832, pins were made by machinery, hosiery was woven by a power-loom process, and Colt perfected his revolver. In 1837 brass clocks were put upon the American market, and by 1840 extensively exported. Also in 1837 Nashua was making machinists' tools. By 1839 the manufacture of iron with hard coal was a pronounced success. In 1840 daguerreotypes began to appear. Steam fire-engines were seen the next year.



So early as 1816 the New York and Philadelphia stages made the distance from city to city between sun and sun. The National Road from Cumberland was finished to Wheeling in 1820, having been fourteen years in construction and costing $17,000,000. It was subsequently extended westward across Ohio and Indiana. It was thirty-five feet wide, thoroughly macadamized, and had no grade of above five degrees. Over parts of this road no less than 150 six-horse teams passed daily, besides four or five four-horse mail and passenger coaches. In Jackson's time, when for some months there was talk of war with France and extra measures were thought proper for assuring the loyalty of Louisiana, swift mail connections were made with the Mississippi by the National Road. Its entire length was laid out into sections of sixty-three miles apiece, each with three boys and nine horses, only six hours and eighteen minutes being allowed for traversing a section, viz., a rate of about ten miles an hour. Great men and even presidents travelled by the public coaches of this road, though many of them used their own carriages. James K. Polk often made the journey from Nashville to Washington in his private carriage. Keeping down the Cumberland River to the Ohio, and up this to Wheeling, he would strike into the National Road eastward to Cumberland, Md. He came thus so late as 1845, to be inaugurated as President; only at this time he used the new railway from Cumberland to the Relay House, where he changed to the other new railway which had already joined Baltimore with Washington.



Obverse and Reverse of a Ticket used in 1838 on the New York & Harlem Railroad.

The first omnibus made its appearance in New York in 1830, the name itself originating from the word painted upon this vehicle. The first street railway was laid two years later. The era of the stage coach was at this time beginning to end, that of canals and railroads opening. Yet in the remoter sections of the country the old coach was destined to hold its place for decades still. Where roads were fair it would not uncommonly make one hundred miles between early morning and late evening, as between Boston and Springfield, Springfield and Albany. So soon as available the canal packet was a much more easy and elegant means of travel. The Erie Canal was begun in 1817, finished to Rochester in 1823, the first boat arriving October 8th. The year 1825 carried it to Buffalo. The Blackstone Canal, between Worcester and Providence, was opened its whole length in 1828; the next year many others, as the Chesapeake and Delaware, the Cumberland and Oxford in Maine, the Farmington in Connecticut, the Oswego, connecting the Erie Canal with Lake Ontario, also the Delaware and Hudson, one hundred and eight miles long, from Honesdale, Pa., to Hudson River. The Welland Canal was completed in 1830.



Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 1830.

Salt-water transportation had meantime been much facilitated by the use of steam. It had been thought a great achievement when, in 1817, the Black Ball line of packet ships between New York and Liverpool was regularly established, consisting of four vessels of from four hundred to five hundred tons apiece. But two years later a steamship crossed the Atlantic to Liverpool from Savannah. It took her twenty-five days—longer than the time in which the distance often used to be accomplished under sail. In 1822 there was a regular steamboat between Norfolk and New York, though no steamboat was owned in Boston till 1828. The Atlantic was first crossed exclusively by steam-power in 1838, and the first successful propeller used in 1839. The last-named year also witnessed the beginning of a permanent express line between Boston and New York, by the Stonington route. The next year, the Adams Express Company was founded, doing its first business between these two cities over the Springfield route, in competition with that by the Stonington.



But all these improvements were soon to be overshadowed by the work of the railway and locomotive. The first road of rails in America was in the Lehigh coal district of Pennsylvania. Its date is uncertain, but not later than 1825. In 1826, October 7th, the second began operation, at Quincy, Mass., transporting granite from the quarries to tide-water, about three miles. This experiment attracted great attention, showing how much heavier loads could be transported over rails than upon common roads, and with how much greater ease and less expense ordinary weights could be carried. The same had been demonstrated in England before. Locomotives were not yet used in either country, but only horse-power. The conviction spread rapidly that not only highway transportation but even that by canals would soon be, for all large burdens, either quite superseded or of secondary importance. In 1827 the Maryland Legislature chartered a railroad from Baltimore to Wheeling. The projectors, though regarding it a bold act, promised an average rate between the two cities of at least four miles per hour. Subscriptions were offered for more than twice the amount of the stock. The Massachusetts Legislature the same year appointed commissioners to look out a railway route between Boston and Hudson River. Also in this year a railway was completed at Mauch Chunk, Pa., for transporting coal to the landing on the Lehigh. The descent was by gravity, mules being used to haul back the cars.

In most country parts, the new railway projects encountered great hostility. Engineers were not infrequently clubbed from the fields as they sought to survey. Learned articles appeared in the papers arguing against the need of railways and exhibiting the perils attending them. When steam came to be used, these scruples were re-enforced by the alleged danger that the new system of travel would do away with the market for oats and for horses, and that stage-drivers would seek wages in vain.

The first trip by a locomotive was in 1828, over the Carbondale and Honesdale route in Pennsylvania. The engine was of English make, and run by Mr. Horatio Allen, who had had it built. This was a year before the first steam railroad was opened in England. July 4, 1828, construction upon the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was begun. It, like the other early roads, was built of stone cross-ties, with wooden rails topped with heavy straps of iron. Such ties were soon replaced by wooden ones, as less likely to be split by frost, but the wooden rail with its iron strap might be seen on branch lines, for instance, between Monocacy Bridge and Frederick City, Md., so late as the Civil War.



The "South Carolina," 1831, and plan of its running gear.

The first railroad for passengers in this country went into operation between Charleston and Hamburg, S. C., in 1830. The locomotive had been gotten up in New York, the first of American make. It had four wheels and an upright boiler. This year the railroad between Albany and Schenectady was begun, and fourteen miles of the Baltimore & Ohio opened for use. In 1831 Philadelphia was joined to Pittsburgh by a line of communication consisting of a railway to Columbia, a canal thence to Hollidaysburg, another railway thence over the Alleghanies to Johnstown, and then on by canal. The railway over the mountains consisted of inclined planes mounted by the use of stationary engines. It is interesting to notice the view which universally prevailed at first, that the locomotive could not climb grades, and that where this was necessary stationary engines would have to be used. Not till 1836 was it demonstrated that locomotives could climb. Up to the same date, also, locomotives had burned wood, but this was now found inferior to coal, and began to be given up except where it was much the cheaper fuel.



Boston & Worcester Railroad, 1835.

From 1832 the railway system grew marvellously. The year 1833 saw completed the South Carolina Railroad between Charleston and the Savannah River, one hundred and thirty-six miles. This was the first railway line in this country to carry the mails, and the longest continuous one then in the world. Two years later Boston was connected by railway with Providence, with Lowell, and with Worcester, Baltimore with Washington, and the New York & Erie commenced. In 1839 Worcester was joined to Springfield in the same manner, and in 1841 a passenger could travel by rail from Boston to Rochester, changing cars, however, at least ten times.



PERIOD III.

THE YEARS OF SLAVERY CONTROVERSY 1840-1860

CHAPTER I.

SLAVERY AFTER THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

[1820]

Slavery would most likely never have imperilled the life of this nation had it not been for the colossal industrial revolution sketched above. Cotton had been grown here since, 1621, and some exportation of it is said to have occurred in 1747. Till nearly 1800 very little had gone from the United States to England, for by the old process a slave could clean but five or six pounds a day. In 1784, an American ship which brought eight bags to Liverpool was seized, on the ground that so much could not have been the produce of the United States. Jay's treaty, as first drawn, consented that no cotton should be exported from America. It changed the very history of the country when, in 1793, Eli Whitney invented the saw-gin, by which a slave could clean 1,000 pounds of cotton per day. Slavery at once ceased to be a passive, innocuous institution, promising soon to die out, and became a means of gain, to be upheld and extended in all possible ways. The cotton export, but 189,316 pounds in 1791, and a third less in 1792, rose to 487,600 pounds in 1793, to 1,610,760 pounds in 1794, to 6,276,300 pounds in 1795, and to 38,118,041 pounds in 1804. Within five years after Whitney's invention, cotton displaced indigo as the great southern staple, and the slave States had become the cotton-field of the world. In 1869 the export was nearly 1,400,000,000 pounds, worth about $161,500,000. [Footnote: Johnson, in Lalor's Cyclopaedia, Art. "Slavery."]

So profitable was slavery to vast numbers of individuals because of this its new status, that men would not notice how, after all, it militated against the nation's supreme interests. It polluted social relations in obvious ways, setting at naught among slaves family ties and the behests of virtue, influences that reacted terribly upon the whites. The entire government of slaves had a brutalizing tendency, more pronounced as time passed. "Plantation manners" were cultivated, which, displaying themselves in Congress and elsewhere, in all discussions and measures relating to the execrable institution, made the North believe that the South was drifting toward barbarism. This was an exaggeration, yet everyone knew that schools in the South were rare and poor, and thought and speech little free as compared with the same in the North. Political power, like the slaves, was in the hands of a few great barons, totally merciless toward even southerners who differed from them. It is of course not meant that virtue, kindliness, intelligence, and fair-mindedness were ever wanting in that section, but they flourished in spite of the slave-system.

Economically slavery was an equal evil, taking as was the superficial evidence to the contrary. No cruelty could make the slave work like a free man, while his power to consume was enormous. Infants, aged, and weak had to be supported by the owner. Even the best slaves were improvident. Everywhere slave labor tended to banish free. Upon slave soil scarcely an immigrant could be led to set foot. Poor whites grew steadily poorer, their lot often more wretched than that of slaves. Invention, care, forethought were as good as unknown among them. Slave labor proved incompetent even for agriculture, impoverishing the richest soil in comparatively few years, whence the perpetual impulse of the slave-owners to acquire new territory. The dishonesty of blacks and the danger of slave insurrections made property insecure, at the same time that the system diminished in every community the number of its natural defenders. The result was that the South, the superior of the North in natural resources, was, by 1800, rapidly becoming the inferior in every single element of prosperity.

[1831]

One of these insurrections was the event of 1831 in Virginia, originating near the southern border. Four slaves in alliance with three whites commenced it by killing several families and pressing all the slaves they could find into their service, until the force was nearly two hundred. They spread desolation everywhere. Fifty-five white persons were murdered before the insurrection was in hand. Virginia and North Carolina called out troops, and at last all the insurgents were captured or killed. The leader was a black named Nat Turner, who believed himself called of God to give his people freedom. He had heard voices in the air and seen signs on the sky, which, with many other portents, he interpreted as proofs of his divine commission. When all was over Turner escaped to the woods, dug a hole under some fence-rails and lived there for six weeks, coming out only at midnight for food. Driven thence by discovery, he still managed to hide here and there about the plantations in spite of a whole country of armed men in search of him, until at last he was accidentally confronted in the bush by a white man with levelled rifle. He was hanged, November 11th, and sixteen others later. His wife was tortured for evidence, but in vain. Twelve negroes were transported. Very many were, without trial, punished in inhuman ways, the heads of some impaled along the highway as a warning. Partly in consequence of this horrible affair, originated a stout movement for the abolition of slavery in Virginia. This was favored by many of the ablest men in the Old Dominion, but they were overruled.



The Discovery of Nat Turner.

Danger from the blacks necessitated the most rigid laws concerning them. Time had been when it was thought not dangerous to teach slaves to read. In 1742 Commissary Garden, of the English Society for Propagating the Gospel, founded a negro school in Charleston, where slaves were taught by slave teachers, these last being the society's property. Honest Elias Neale, the society's catechist in New York, engaged in the same work there, and afterward catechists were so employed in Philadelphia. That organization did much to stir up the planters to teach their slaves the rudiments of Christianity. [Footnote: Eggleston in Century, May, 1888.] Now, all this was changed. The strictest laws were made to keep every slave in the most abject ignorance, to prevent their congregating, and to make it impossible for abolitionists or abolitionist literature or influence to get at them.

[1816]

Inconvenient and perilous as slavery was, southern devotion to it for many reasons strengthened rather than weakened. The masses did not perceive the ruin the system was working, which, moreover, consisted with great profits to vast numbers of influential men and to many localities. Border States little by little gave up the hope of becoming free, the old anti-slavery convictions of their best men faltering, and the practical problem of emancipation, really difficult, being too easily decided insoluble. More significant, owing to a variety of circumstances, the abolition spirit itself greatly subsided early in the present century. Completion of the emancipation process in the North was assured by the action of New York in 1817, proclaiming a total end to slavery there from July 4, 1827. The view that each State was absolute sovereign over slavery within its own borders, responsibility for it and its abuses there ending with the State's own citizens, was now universally accepted. Success in securing the act of 1807, making the slave trade illegal from January 1, 1808, and affixing to it heavy penalties, lulled multitudes to sleep. This act, however, had effect only gradually, and its beneficence was greatly lessened in that it left confiscated negroes to the operation of the local law.

Such quietude was furthered through the formation of the American Colonization Society in 1816, by easy philanthropists and statesmen, North as well as South, who swore by the Constitution as admitting no fundamental amendment, admired its three great compromises, loved all brethren of the Union except agitators, and deprecated slavery and the black race about equally; its mission negro deportation, but its actual efforts confined to the dumping of free blacks, reprobates, and castaways in some remote corner of the universe, for the convenience of slave-holders themselves. [Footnote: 3 Schouler's United States, 198.]

[1839]

Meantime much was occurring to harden northern hostility to slavery into resolute hatred, a fire which might smoulder long but could not die out. The fugitive slave law for the rendition of runaways found in free States operated cruelly at best, and was continually abused to kidnap free blacks. The owner or his attorney or agent could seize a slave anywhere on the soil of freedom, bring him before the magistrate of the county, city, or town corporate in which the arrest was made, and prove his ownership by testimony or by affidavit; and the certificate of such magistrate that this had been done was a sufficient warrant for the return of the poor wretch into bondage. Obstruction, rescue, or aid toward escape was fined in the sum of five hundred dollars. This is the pith of the fugitive slave act of 1793. It might have been far more mischievous but for the interpretation put upon it in the celebrated case of Prigg versus Pennsylvania.

Mr. Prigg was the agent of a Maryland slave-owner. He had in 1839 pursued a slave woman into Pennsylvania, and when refused her surrender by the local magistrate carried her away by force. He was indicted in Pennsylvania for kidnapping, an amicable lawsuit made up, and an appeal taken to the United States Supreme Court. Here, in an opinion prepared by Justice Story, the Pennsylvania statute under which the magistrate had acted, providing a mode for the return of fugitives by state authorities, was declared unconstitutional on the ground that only Congress could legislate on the subject; but it was added that while a free State had no right in any way to block the capture of a runaway, as for example by ordering a jury trial to determine whether a seized person had really been a slave, so as to protect free persons of dark complexion, yet States might forbid their officers to aid in the recovery of slaves. As the act of 1793 did not name any United States officials for this service it became nearly inoperative. Spite of this terrible construction of the Constitution, which Chief Justice Taney thought should have included an assertion of a State's duty by legislation to aid rendition, many northern States passed personal liberty laws, besetting the capture of slaves with all possible difficulties thought compatible with the Constitution. The South denounced all such laws whatever as unconstitutional, and perhaps some of them were.

[1835]

Constitutional or not, they were needed. There were regular expeditions to carry off free colored persons from the coasts of New York and New Jersey, many of them successful. The foreign slave-trade, with its ineffable atrocities, proved defiant of law and preternaturally tenacious of life. A lucrative but barbarous domestic trade had sprung up between the Atlantic States, Virginia and North Carolina especially, and those on the Gulf, for the supply of the southern market. Families were torn apart, gangs of the poor creatures driven thousands of miles in shackles or carried coastwise in the over-filled holds of vessels, to live or die—little matter which—under unknown skies and strange, heartless masters.

The slave codes of the southern States grew severer every year, as did legislation against free colored people. Laws were passed rendering emancipation more difficult and less a blessing when obtained. The Mississippi and Alabama constitutions, 1817 and 1819 respectively, and all those in the South arising later, were shaped so as to place general emancipation beyond the power even of Legislatures. Congress was even thus early—so it seemed at the North—all too subservient to the slave-holders, partly through the operation of the three-fifths rule, partly from fear that opposition would bring disunion, partly in that ambitious legislators were eager for southern votes. As to the Senate, the South had taken care, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee having evened the score, all before 1800, to allow no new northern State to be admitted unless matched by a southern. In addition to all this, the North had a vast trade with the South, and northern capitalists held to an enormous amount mortgages on southern property of all sorts, so that large and influential classes North had a pecuniary interest in maintaining at the South both good nature and business prosperity.



CHAPTER II.

"IMMEDIATE ABOLITION"

[1832]

While slavery was thus strengthening itself upon its own soil and in some respects also at the North, its champions ever more alert and forward, its old foes asleep, these very facts were provoking thought about the institution and hostility to it, destined in time to work its overthrow. Interested people saw that slavery, so aggressive and defiant, must be fought to be put down, and that if the Constitution was its bulwark, as all believed, provided a tithe of what the South as well as the North had said of its evils was true, the whole country, and not the South only, was guilty in tolerating the curse. In 1821 Lundy began publishing his Genius of Universal Emancipation, seconded, from 1829, by the more radical Garrison. In 1831 Garrison founded the Liberator, whose motto, "immediate and unconditional emancipation," was intended as a rebuke to the tame policy of the colonizationists. "I am in earnest," said the plucky man, when his utterances threatened to cost him his life, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." These were startling tones. Had God turned a new prophet loose in the earth?

The abolition spirit was a part of the general moral and religious quickening we have mentioned as beginning about 1825, and revealing itself in revivals, missions, a religious press, and belief in the end of the world as approaching. The ethical teaching of the great German philosopher, Emanuel Kant, denouncing all use of man as an instrument, began to take effect in America through the writings of Coleridge. Hatred of slavery was gradually intensified and spread. In 1832 rose the New England Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 the American Society was organized, with a platform declaring "slavery a crime."

[1833]



John G. Whittier in 1833.

This declaration marked one of the most important turning-points in all the history of the United States. It drew the line. It brought to view the presence in our land of two sets of earnest thinkers, with diametrically opposite views touching slavery, who could not permanently live together under one constitution. May, Phillips, Weld, Whittier, the Tappans, and many other men of intellect, of oratorical power, and of wealth, drew to Garrison's side. State abolition societies were organized all over the North, the Underground Railroad was hard worked in helping fugitives to Canada, and fiery prophets harangued wherever they could get a hearing, demanding "immediate abolition" in the name of God.

The Abolitionists proposed none but moral arms in fighting slavery—papers, pamphlets, public addresses, personal appeals. They deprecated rebellion by slaves, and urged congressional action against slavery only in the District of Columbia, in the territories, and at sea, where the absolute jurisdiction of the general Government was admitted by nearly all. Nevertheless, southern hostility to them was indescribably ferocious and uncompromising. They were charged with instigating all the slave insurrections and insubordination that occurred, and with having made necessary the new, more diabolical discipline over blacks, both bond and free. Southern papers and Legislatures incessantly commanded that Abolitionists be delivered up to southern justice, their societies and their publications suppressed by law, and abolitionist agitation made penal. There were northerners quite ready to grant these demands. Rage against abolitionism, much of it, if possible, even more unreasoning, prevailed at the North. Garrison says that he found here "contempt more bitter, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among slave-owners themselves." The Church, politics, business—all interests save righteousness—seemed to bow to the false god. Of all utterances against abolitionism, those of clergymen and religious journals were the bitterest. To call slavery sin was the unpardonable sin.



Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

[1834-1836]

In 1834, on July 4th, a mob broke up a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York. A few days after, Lewis Tappan's house was sacked in the same manner, as well as several churches, school-houses, and dwellings of colored families. At Newark, N. J., a colored man who had been introduced into a pulpit by the minister of the congregation, was forcibly wrenched therefrom and carried off to jail. The pulpit was then torn down and the church gutted. In Norwich, Conn., the mob pulled an abolitionist lecturer from his platform and drummed him out of town to the Rogues' March. In 1836 occurred the murder of Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, at Alton, Ill. He was the publisher of The Observer, an abolitionist sheet, which had already been three times suspended by the destruction of his printing apparatus. It was at a meeting held in Faneuil Hall over this occurrence that Wendell Phillips first made his appearance as an anti-slavery orator. Also in 1836 the office at Cincinnati in which James G. Birney published The Philanthropist, was sacked, the types scattered, and the press broken and sunk in the river. Birney was a southerner by birth, and had been a slave-holder, but had freed his slaves. Between 1834 and 1840 there was hardly a place of any size in the North where an Abolitionist could speak with certain safety.



Wendell Phillip.

The destruction of colored people's houses became for a time an every-day occurrence in many northern cities. For some years the condition of the free blacks and their friends was hardly better north than south. Schools for colored children were violently opposed even in New England. One kept by Miss Prudence Crandall, at Canterbury, Conn., was, after its opponents had for months sought in every manner to close it, destroyed by fire. The lady herself was imprisoned, and such schools were by law forbidden in the State. A colored school at Canaan, N. H., was voted a nuisance by a meeting of the town; the building was then dragged from its foundations and ruined. Many who aided in these deeds belonged to what were regarded the most respectable classes of society.

[1839-1840]

Owing to the vagaries and unpatriotism of the Garrisonians, there was from 1840 schism in the abolition ranks. Garrison and his closest sympathizers were very radical on other questions besides that concerning the sin of slavery. They declared the Constitution "a league with death and a covenant with hell" because it recognized slavery. They would neither vote nor hold office under it. They upbraided the churches as full of the devil's allies. They also advocated community of property, women's rights, and some of them free love. Others, as Birney, Whittier, and Gerrit Smith, refused to believe so ill of the Constitution or of the churches, and wished to rush the slavery question right into the political arena. The division, far from hindering, greatly set forward the abolitionist cause. Perhaps neither abolition society, as such, had, after the schism of 1840, quite the influence which the old exerted at first, but by this time a very general public opinion maintained anti-slavery propagandism, pushing it henceforth more powerfully than ever, as well as, through broader modes of utterance and action, more successfully. Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, each enlisted his muse in the crusade. Wendell Phillips's tongue was a flaming sword. Clergymen, politicians, and other people entirely conservative in most things, felt free to join the new society of political Abolitionists.

In 1839 the Governor of Virginia made a requisition on Governor Seward of New York, to send to Virginia three sailors charged with having aided a slave out of bondage. Seward declined, on the ground that by New York law the sailors were guilty of no crime, as that law knew nothing of property in man. He accompanied his refusal with a discussion of slavery and slave law quite in the abolitionist vein. To a like call from Georgia, Seward responded in the same way, and his example was followed by other northern governors. The Liberty Party took the field in 1840, Birney and Earle for candidates, who polled nearly 7,000 votes. Four years later Birney and Morris received 62,300.

It would be a mistake, let us remember, to regard the anti-abolitionist temper at the North wholly as apathy, friendliness to slavery, or the result of truckling to the South. Besides sharing the general fanaticism which mixed itself with the movement, the Abolitionists ignored the South's dilemma—the ultras totally, the moderates too much. "What would you do, brethren, were you in our place?" asked Dr. Richard Fuller, of Baltimore, in a national religious meeting where slavery was under debate; "how would you go to work to realize your views?" Dr. Spencer H. Cone, of New York, roared in reply, "I would proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." But the thing was far from being so simple as that. Denouncing the Constitution as Garrison did could not but affront patriotic hearts. It was impolitic, to say the least, to import English co-agitators, who could not understand the intricacies of the subject as presented here.



The fact that, defying slave-masters and sycophants alike, the cause of abolition still went on conquering and to conquer, was due much less to the strength of its arguments and the energy of its agitation than to the South's wild outcry and preposterous effrontery of demand. Conservative northerners began to see that, bad as abolitionism might be, the means proposed for its suppression were worse still, being absolutely subversive of personal liberty, free speech, and a free press. More serious was the conviction, which the South's attitude nursed, that such mortal horror at Abolitionists and their propaganda could only be explained by some sort of a conviction on the part of the South itself that the Abolitionists were right, and that slavery was precisely the heinous and damnable evil they declared it to be. It was mostly in considering this aspect of the case that the Church and clergy more and more developed conscience and voice on freedom's side, as practical allies of abolitionism. In each great denomination the South had to break off from the North on account of the latter's love to the black as a human being. Men felt that an institution unable to stand discussion ought to fall. By 1850 there were few places at the North where an Abolitionist might not safely speak his mind.

It were as unjust as it would be painful to view this long, courageous, desperate defence of slavery as the pure product of depravity. The South had a cause, in logic, law, and, to an extent, even in justice. Both sides could rightly appeal to the Constitution, the deep, irrepressible antagonism of freedom against bondage having there its seat. The very existence of the Constitution presupposed that each section should respect the institutions of the other. What right, then, had the North to allow publications confessedly intended to destroy a legal southern institution, deeply rooted and cherished? From a merely constitutional point of view this question was no less proper than the other: What right had the South, among much else, to enact laws putting in prison northern citizens of color absolutely without indictment, when, as sailors, they touched at southern ports, and keeping them there till their ships sailed? This outrage had occurred repeatedly. What was worse, when Messrs. Hoar and Hubbard visited Charleston and New Orleans, respectively, to bring amicable suits that should go to the Supreme Court and there decide the legality of such detention, they were obliged to withdraw to escape personal violence.

It was said that the North must bear these incidents of slavery, so obnoxious to it, in deference to our complex political system. Yes, but it was equally the South's duty to bear the, to it, obnoxious incidents of freedom. Southern men seem never to have thought of this. Doubtless, as emancipation in any style would have afflicted it, the South could not but account all incitements thereto as hardships; but the North must have suffered hardships, if less gross and tangible, yet more real and galling, had it acceded to southern wishes touching liberty of person, speech, and the press. That at the North which offended the South was of the very soul and essence of free government; that at the South which aggrieved the North was, however important, certainly somewhat less essential. Manifestly, considerations other than legal or constitutional needed to be invoked in order to a decision of the case upon its merits, and these, had they been judicially weighed, must, it would seem, all have told powerfully against slavery. Not to raise the question whether the black was a man, with the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, the South's own economic and moral weal, and further—what one would suppose should alone have determined the question—its social peace and political stability loudly demanded every possible effort and device for the extirpation of slavery. That this would have been difficult all must admit; that it was intrinsically possible the examples of Cuba and Brazil since sufficiently prove.



CHAPTER III.

THE MEXICAN WAR

[1836]

Attracted by fertility of soil and advantages for cattle-raising, large numbers of Americans had long been emigrating to Texas. By 1830 they probably comprised a majority of its inhabitants. March 2, 1836, Texas declared its independence of Mexico, and on April 10th of that year fought in defence of the same the decisive battle of San Jacinto. Here Houston gained a complete victory over Santa Anna, the Mexican President, captured him, and extorted his signature to a treaty acknowledging Texan independence. This, however, as having been forced, the Mexican Government would not ratify.

[1845]

Not only did the Texans almost to a man wish annexation to our Union, but, as we have seen, the dominant wing of the democratic party in the Union itself was bent upon the same, forcing a demand for this into their national platform in 1840. Van Buren did not favor it, which was the sole reason why he forfeited to Polk the democratic nomination in 1844. Polk was elected by free-soil votes cast for Birney, which, had Clay received them, would have carried New York and Michigan for him and thus elected him; but the result was hailed as indorsing annexation. Calhoun, Tyler's Secretary of State, more influential than any other one man in bringing it about, therefore now advocated it more zealously than ever. Calhoun's purpose in this was to balance the immense growth of the North by adding to southern territory Texas, which would of course become a slave State, and perhaps in time make several States. As the war progressed he grew moderate, out of fear that the South's show of territorial greed would give the North just excuse for sectional measures.



General Sam. Houston.

Henry Clay, with nearly the entire Whig Party, from the first opposed the Tyler-Calhoun programme. Clay's own reason for this, as his memorable Lexington speech in 1847 disclosed, was that the United States would be looked upon "as actuated by a spirit of rapacity and an inordinate desire for territorial aggrandizement." His party as a whole dreaded more the increment which would come to the slave power. After much discussion in Congress, Texas was annexed to the Union on January 25, 1845, just previous to Polk's accession. June 18th, the Texan Congress unanimously assented, its act being ratified July 4th by a popular convention. Thus were added to the United States 376,133 square miles of territory.



General Santa Anna.

The all-absorbing question now was where Texas ended: at the Nueces, as Mexico declared, or at the Rio Grande, as Texas itself had maintained, insisting upon that stream as of old the bourne between Spanish America and the French Louisiana. Mexico, proud, had recognized neither the independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. Yet war might have been averted, and our Government, not Mexico's, was to blame for the contrary result. Slidell played the bully, the navy threatened the coast, our wholly deficient title, through Texas, to the Nueces-Rio-Grande tract was assumed without the slightest ado to be good, and when General Arista, having crossed the river in Taylor's vicinity, repelled the latter's attack upon him, the President, followed by Congress, falsely alleged war to exist "by act of the Republic of Mexico."

[1846]

During most of 1845, General Zachary Taylor was at Corpus Christi on the west bank of the Nueces, in command of 3,600 men. The first aggressive movement occurred in March of the following year, when Taylor, invading the disputed territory by command from Washington, advanced to the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras. April 26th, a Mexican force crossed the river and captured a party of American dragoons which attacked them. Taylor drew back to establish communication with Point Isabel, and on advancing again toward the Rio Grande, May 8th, found before him a Mexican force of nearly twice his numbers, commanded by Arista. The battle of Palo Alto ensued, and next day that of Resaca de la Palma, Taylor completely victorious in both. May 13th, before knowledge of these actions had reached Washington, warranted merely by news of the cavalry skirmish on April 26th, Congress declared war, and the President immediately called for 50,000 volunteers. In July Taylor was re-enforced by Worth, and proceeded to organize a campaign against Monterey, a strongly fortified town some ninety miles toward the City of Mexico. This place was reached September 19th, and captured on the 22d, after hard fighting and severe losses on both sides. An armistice of eight weeks followed.



James K. Polk, after a photograph by Brady.



PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA MORNING 23 OF FEB 1847.

[1847]

Meantime a revolution had occurred in Mexico. The banished Santa Anna was recalled, and as President of the Republic assumed command of the Mexican armies. On February 23, 1847, occurred one of the most sanguinary but brilliant battles of the war, that of Buena Vista. Taylor, learning that a Mexican force was advancing under Santa Anna, at least double the 5,200 left him after the requisition upon him which General Scott had just made, drew back to the strong position of Buena Vista, south of Saltillo. Here Santa Anna, having through an intercepted despatch learned of Taylor's weakness, ferociously fell upon him with a force 12,000 strong. On right and centre, by dint of good tactics and bull-dog fighting, Taylor held his own and more, but the foe succeeded at first in partly turning and pushing back his left. The Mexican commander bade Taylor surrender, but was refused, whence the saying that "Old Rough and Ready," as they called Taylor, "was whipped but didn't know it."

To check the flanking movement he sent forward two regiments of infantry, well supported by dragoons and artillery, who charged the advancing mass, broke the Mexicans' column, and sent them fleeing in confusion. This saved the day. The American loss was 746, including several officers, among them Lieutenant-Colonel Clay, son of the Kentucky statesman. Colonel Jefferson Davis, one day to be President of the Southern Confederacy, caused during this conflict great havoc in the enemy's ranks with his Mississippi riflemen. Santa Anna's loss was 2,000.



General Winfield Scott.

General Winfield Scott had meantime been ordered to Mexico as chief in command. Taylor was a Whig, and the Whigs whispered that his martial deeds were making the democratic cabinet dread him as a presidential candidate. But Scott was a Whig, too, and if there was anything in the surmise, his victorious march must have given Polk's political household additional food for reflection. Scott's plan was to reduce Vera Cruz, and thence march to the Mexican capital, two hundred miles away, by the quickest route. Vera Cruz capitulated March 27, 1847.

Scott straightway struck out for the interior. He was bloodily opposed at Cerro Gordo, April 18th, and at Jalapa, but he made quick work of the enemy at both these places. In the latter city, after his victory, he awaited promised re-enforcements. When the last of these had arrived, August 6th, under General Franklin Pierce, so that he could muster about 14,000 men, he advanced again. August 10th the Americans were in sight of the City of Mexico. This was a natural stronghold, and art had added to its strength in every possible way. Except on the south and west it was nearly inaccessible if defended with any spirit. Scott of course directed his attack toward the west and south sides of the city. The first battle in the environs of the capital was fiercely fought near the village of Contreras, and proved an overwhelming defeat for the Mexicans. Two thousand were killed or wounded, while nearly 1,000, including four generals, were captured, together with a large quantity of stores and ammunition. The American loss was only 60 killed and wounded.

The survivors fled to Churubusco, farther toward the city, where, with every advantage of position, Santa Anna had united his forces for a final stand. An old stone convent, which our artillery could not reach till late in the action, was utilized as a barricade, and from this the Mexicans poured a most deadly fire upon their assailants. The Americans were victorious, as usual, but their loss was fearful, 1,000 being killed or wounded, including 76 officers. A truce to last a fortnight was now agreed upon, but Scott, seeing that the Mexicans were taking advantage of it to strengthen their fortifications, did not wait so long. He now had about 8,500 men fit for duty, and sixty-eight guns. Hostilities were renewed September 7th, by the storm and capture, costing nearly 800 men, of Molino del Rey, or "King's Mill," a mile and a half from the city.

Possession of the Molino opened the way to Chapultepec, the Gibraltar of Mexico, 1,100 yards nearer the goal. As it was built upon a rock 150 feet high, impregnable on the north and well-nigh so on the eastern and most of the southern face, only the western and part of the southern sides could be scaled. But the stronghold was the key to the city, and after surveying the situation, a council of war decided that it must be taken. Two picked American detachments, one from the west, one from the south, pushed up the rugged steeps in face of a withering fire. The rock-walls to the base of the castle had to be mounted by ladders. This was successfully accomplished; the enemy were driven from the building back into the city, and the castle and grounds occupied by our troops. A large number of fugitives were cut off by a force sent around to the north.



[1848]

To pierce the city was even now by no means easy. The approach was by two roads, one entering the Belen gate, the other the San Cosme. General Quitman advanced toward the Belen, but at the entrance was stopped by a destructive cannonade from the citadel itself. Those fighting their way toward the San Cosme succeeded in entering the city, Lieutenant U. S. Grant making his mark in the gallant work of this day. The city was evacuated that night, and on the 15th of September, 1847, was fully in the hands of Scott.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848. It established the Rio Grande as the boundary between the two countries, and New Mexico, of course including what is now Arizona and also California, was ceded to the United States for $15,000,000. The United States also assumed, to the sum of $3,250,000, the claims of American citizens upon Mexico. For Gadsden's Purchase, in 1853, between the Gila River and the Mexican State of Chihuahua, we paid $10,000,000 more. Our territory thus received in all, as a consequence of the Mexican War, an increment of 591,398 square miles.

Inseparable from the politics of the Mexican War is the Oregon question, since Oregon's re-occupation and "fifty-four forty or fight" had been democratic cries for securing to Polk west-northern votes in 1844. We had, however, no valid claim so far north, except against Russia—by the treaty of 1824. The Louisiana purchase, indeed, had vested us with whatever—very dubious—rights France had upon the Pacific, and the Florida treaty of 1819 gave us the far better title of Spain to the coast north of 42 degrees. This treaty, with Gray's discovery of the Columbia in 1792, Lewis and Clarke's official explorations of the Columbia valley in 1804-05-06, England's retrocession, in 1818, of Astoria, captured during the War of 1812, and extensive actual settlements upon the river by American citizens from 1832 on, made our claim perfect up to 49 degrees at least. This parallel the convention with Great Britain in 1818 had already fixed as our northern line from the Lake of Woods to the Rocky Mountains. Between this and 54 degrees 40 minutes, England's title, from exploration and settlement, was superior to ours, which was based upon alleged old Spanish discovery. The same convention of 1818, renewed in 1827, opened the Oregon country to occupation by settlers from both nations. Increase of immigration rendering a fixing of jurisdictions imperative, England pressed for the line of the Columbia below its intersection of the forty-ninth parallel. We had twice offered to settle upon 49 degrees, which limit the rapid growth of our population in the region induced England in 1836 to accept. Whether Polk's blustering demand for "all Oregon," which came near bringing on war with England, and his much condemned recession later, were mere opportunist acts, is still a question. Many consider them pieces of a deep-laid policy by Polk to tole Mexico to war in hope of England's aid, then, suddenly pacifying England, to devour Mexico at his leisure.



CHAPTER IV.

CALIFORNIA AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

[1846]

One of the campaigns at the beginning of the Mexican War was that of General Stephen W. Kearney, from Fort Leavenworth, against New Mexico. It was opened in May, 1846. He invaded the country without much opposition, arrived at Santa Fe August 18th, having marched 873 miles, declared the inhabitants free from all allegiance to Mexico, and formed a territorial government over them as United States subjects.

Captain John C. Fremont had previously, but in the same year, 1846, been sent to California at the head of an exploring expedition, and in May he was notified to remain in the country in anticipation of hostilities. On June 15th he captured Samona. Meanwhile, Commodore Sloat was erecting our flag over the towns on the coast. In July Sloat was superseded by Commodore Stockton, who routed the Mexican commander, De Castro, at Los Angeles, joined Fremont, and on August 13th seized Monterey, the then capital. The two commanders now placed themselves at the head of a provisional government for California.



Zachary Taylor. After a photograph by Brady.



The Site of San Francisco in 1848.

[1848-1849]

In 1848, on the same day and almost at the same hour when the peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo was concluded, gold was discovered in California. It was on the land of one Sutter, a Swiss settler in the Sacramento Valley, as some workmen were opening a flume for a mill. In three months over 4,000 persons were there, digging for gold with great success. By July, 1849, it is thought, 15,000 had arrived. Nearly all were forced to live in booths, tents, log huts, and under the open sky. The sparse population previously on the ground left off farming and grazing and opened mines. People became insane for gold. Immigrants soon came in immense hordes. In 1846, aside from roving Indians, California had numbered not much over 15,000 inhabitants. By 1850, it seems certain that the territory contained no fewer than 92,597. The new-comers were from almost every land and clime—Mexico, South America, the Sandwich Islands, China—though, of course, most were Americans. The bulk of these hailed from the Northwest and the Northeast. To this land of promise the sturdy pioneers from the Mississippi Valley found their way on foot, on horseback, or in wagons, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras, following trails previously untrodden by civilized man. Those from the East made long detours around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus of Panama.



Sutter's Mill, California, where Gold was First Discovered.

The yield of gold from the virgin placers was enormous, a laborer's average the first season being perhaps an ounce a day, though many made much more. During the first two years about $40,000,000 worth of gold was extracted. According to careful estimates the gold yield of the United States, mostly from California, which had been only $890,000 in 1847, increased to $10,000,000 in 1848, to $40,000,000 in 1849, to $50,000,000 in 1850, to $55,000,000 in 1851, to $60,000,000 in 1852, and in 1853 to $65,000,000.

Most interesting were the spontaneous governmental and legal institutions which arose in these motley communities, some of them finding their originals in the English mining districts, others in Mexico and Spain, and still others recalling the mining customs of medieval Germany. For a time many camps had each its independent government, disconnected from all human authority around or above. Some of these were modelled after the Mexican Alcaldeship, others after the New England town. Over those who rushed to the vicinity of Sutter's mill that gentleman became virtual Alcalde, though he was not recognized by all. The men first opening a placer would seek to pre-empt all the adjoining land, giving up only when others came in numbers too strong for them. Officers were elected and new customs sanctioned as they were needed. Partnerships were sacredly maintained, yet by no other law than that of the camp. Crimes against property and life seem to have been infrequent at first, but the unparalleled wealth toled in and developed a criminal class, which the rudimentary government could not control. San Francisco formed in 1851 a vigilance committee of citizens, by which crimes could be more summarily and surely punished. The pioneer banking house in California began business at San Francisco in January, 1849. The same month saw the first frame house on the Sacramento, near Sutter's Fort.

The vast acquisition of territory by the Mexican War seemed destined to be a great victory for slavery, because nearly all of it lay south of 36 degrees 30 minutes and hence by the Missouri Compromise could become slave soil. But there was the complication that under Mexico all this wide realm had been free. To exist there legally slavery must therefore be established by Congress, making the case very different from the cases of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, which came under United States authority already burdened. This predisposed many who were not in general opposed to slavery, against extending the institution hither. Early in the war a bill had passed the House, failing almost by accident in the Senate, which contained the famous Wilmot Proviso, so named from its mover in the House, that, except for crime, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should ever exist in any of the territories to be annexed. Wilmot was a Democrat, and at this time a decided majority of his party favored the proviso. But the pro-slavery wing rallied, while the Whigs, disbelieving in the war and in annexation both, offered the proviso Democrats no hearty aid. In consequence it was defeated both then and after the annexation.

The election of 1848 went for the Whigs, and the next March 4th, General Taylor became President. Though a southerner and a slave-holder, he was moderate and a true patriot. So rapid had been the influx into California that the Territory needed a stable government. Accordingly, one of Taylor's first acts as President was to urge California to apply for admission to statehood. General Riley, military governor, at once called a convention, which, sitting from September 1st to October 13th, framed a constitution and made request that California be taken into the Union. This constitution prohibited slavery, and thus a new firebrand was tossed into the combustible material with which the political situation abounded. By this time nearly all the friends of freedom were for the proviso, but its enemies as well had greatly increased. The immense growth, actual and prospective, of northern population, greatly inspired one side and angered the other.

[1850]

Resort was now had again to the old, illusive device of compromise, Clay being the leader as usual. He brought forward his "Omnibus Bill," so called because it threw a sop to everybody. It failed to pass as a single measure, but was broken up and enacted piecemeal. Stubborn was the fight. Radicals of the one part would consent to nothing short of extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; those of the other stood solidly for the unmodified proviso.

In this crisis occurred President Taylor's death, July 9, 1850, which was most unfortunate. He was known not to favor the pro-slavery aggression which, in spite of Clay's personal leaning in the opposite direction, the omnibus bill embodied. Mr. Fillmore, as also Webster, whom he made his Secretary of State, nervous with fear of an anti-slavery reputation, went fully Clay's length. The debate on this compromise of 1850 was the occasion when Webster deserted the free-soil principles which were now dominant in New England. His celebrated speech of March. 7th marked the crisis of his life. He argued that the proviso was not needed to prevent slavery in the newly gotten district, while its passage would be a wanton provocation to the South From this moment Massachusetts dropped him. When she next elected a senator for a full term, it was Charles Sumner, candidate of the united Democrats and Free-soilers, who went to Congress pledged to fight slavery to the death.

But the omnibus compromises were passed. California was, indeed, admitted free, September 9, 1850—the thirty-first State in order—and slave-trade in the District of Columbia slightly alleviated. On the other hand, Texas was stretched to include a huge piece of New Mexico that was free before, and paid $10,000,000 to relinquish further claims. This was virtually a bonus to holders of her scrip, which from seventeen cents the dollar instantly rose to par. New Mexico and Utah were to be organized as Territories without the proviso, and were made powerless to legislate on slavery till they should become States. Least sufferable, a fugitive slave law was passed, so Draconian that that of 1793, hitherto in force, was benign in comparison. It placed the entire power of the general Government at the slave-hunter's disposal, and ordered rendition without trial or grant of habeas corpus, on a certificate to be had by simple affidavit. Bystanders, if bidden, were obliged to help marshals, and tremendous penalties imposed for aid to fugitives.

This act facilitated the recovery of fugitives at first, but not permanently. Many who had labored for its passage soon saw that it was a mistake. It powerfully fanned the abolition flame all over the North. New personal liberty laws were enacted. A daily increasing number adopted the view that the new act was unconstitutional, on the ground that the Constitution places the rendition of slaves as of criminals in the hands of States, and guarantees jury trial, even upon title to property, if over twenty dollars in value. After the act had been justified in the courts, multitudes of moderate northern men urged to a dangerous degree the doctrine of state rights in defence of the liberty laws. Others adopted the cry of the "higher law," and without joining Garrison in denouncing the Government, did not hesitate to oppose in every possible way the operation of this drastic legislation for slave-catching.



Millard Fillmore. From a painting by Carpenter in 1853, at the City Hall, New York.

The country's growth made escape from bondage continually easier and easier. Once across the border a runaway was sure to find many friends and few enemies. Openly, or, if this was required, by stealth, he was passed quickly along to the Canada line. Between 1830 and 1860 over 30,000 slaves are estimated to have taken refuge in Canada. By 1850, probably no less than 20,000 had found homes in the free States. The new law moved many of these across into the British dominions. It was hence increasingly difficult for the slave-owner to recover stray property. All possible legal obstructions were placed in his way, and when these failed he was likely still to be opposed by a mob which might prove too powerful for the marshal and any posse which he could gather.



The Rendition of Anthony Burns in Boston.

In Boston, when a slave named Shadrach was arrested, his friends made a sudden dash, rescued him from the officers and freed him. With Simms the same was attempted, but in vain. The removal of Anthony Burns from that city in 1855 was possible only by escorting him down State Street to the revenue cutter in waiting, inside a dense hollow square of United States artillerymen and marines, with the whole city's militia under arms and at hand. Business houses as well as residences were closed and draped in mourning. It was an indignity which Massachusetts never forgot. At Alton, Ill., slave-hunters seized a respectable colored woman, long resident there, who fully believed herself free. She was surrounded by an infuriated company of citizens, and would have been wrenched from her captors' clutch had not they, in their terror, offered to sell her back into freedom. The needed $1,200 was raised in a few minutes, and the agonized creature restored to her family. Judge Davis, whom the evidence had compelled to deliver the woman, on rendering the sentence resigned his commission, declaring: "The law gives you your victim. Thank it and not me, and may God have mercy on your sinful souls."



CHAPTER V.

THE FIGHT FOR KANSAS

[1850-1854]

The measures of 1850 proved anything but the "finality" upon slavery discussion which both parties, the Whigs as loudly as the Democrats, promised and insisted that they should be. Elated by its victory in 1850, and also by that of 1852, when the anti-slavery sentiment of northern Whigs drove so many of their old southern allies to vote for Pierce, giving him his triumphant election, the slavocracy in 1854 proceeded in its work of suicide to undo the sacred Missouri Compromise of 1820. Douglas, the ablest northern Democrat, led in this, succeeding, as official pacificator between North and South, somewhat to the office of Clay, who had died June 29, 1852. The aim of most who were with him was to make Kansas-Nebraska slave soil, but we may believe that Douglas himself cherished the hope and conviction that freedom was its destiny.

This rich country west and northwest of Missouri, consecrated to freedom by the Missouri Compromise, had been slowly filling with civilized men. It did not promise to be a profitable field for slavery, nor would economic considerations ever have originated a slavery question concerning it. But politically its character as slave or free was of the utmost consequence to the South, where the resolution gradually arose either to secure it for the peculiar institution or else prevent its organization even as a Territory. A motion for such organization had been unsuccessfully made about 1843, and it was repeated, equally without effect, each session for ten years. None of these motions had contained any hint that slavery could possibly find place in the proposed Territory. The bill of December 15, 1853, like its predecessors, had as first drawn no reference whatever to slavery, but when it returned from the committee on Territories, of which Douglas was chairman, the report, not explicitly, indeed, made the assumption, unheard of before, that Kansas-Nebraska stood in the same relation to slavery in which Utah and New Mexico had stood in 1850; and that the compromise of that year, in leaving the question of slavery to the States to be formed from these Territories, had already set aside the agreement of 1820. These assumptions were totally false. The act of 1850 gave Utah and New Mexico no power as Territories over the debatable institution, and contained not the slightest suggestion of any rule in the matter for territories in general.

But the hint was taken, and on January 16th notice given of intention to move an out-and-out abrogation of the Missouri Compromise. Such abrogation was at once incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska bill reported by Douglas, January 23, 1854. This separated Kansas from Nebraska, and the subsequent struggle raged in reference to Kansas alone. The bill erroneously declared it established by the acts of 1850 that "all questions as to slavery in the Territories," no less than in the States which should grow out of them, were to be left to the residents, subject to appeal to the United States courts. It passed both houses by good majorities and was signed by President Pierce May 30th. Its animus appeared from the loss in the Senate of an amendment, moved by S. P. Chase, of Ohio, allowing the Territory to prohibit slavery.



Franklin Pierce. From a painting by Healy, in 1852, at the Corcoran Art Gallery.

Thus was first voiced by a public authority Judge Douglas's new and taking heresy of "squatter sovereignty," that Congress, though possessing by Article IV., Section iii., Clause 2 of the Constitution, general authority over the Territories, is not permitted to touch slavery there, but must leave it for each territorial populace "to vote up or vote down." At the South this doctrine of Douglas's was dubbed "nonintervention," and its real aim to secure Kansas a pro-slavery character avowed. It was consequently popular there as useful toward the repeal, although repudiated the instant its working bade fair to render Kansas free.



Stephen A. Douglas.

[1855]

This was soon the prospect. Organizations had been formed to aid anti-slavery emigrants from the northern States to Kansas. The first was the Kansas Aid Society, another a Massachusetts corporation entitled the New England Emigrant Aid Society. There were others still. Kansas began to fill up with settlers of strong northern sympathies. They were in real minority at the congressional election of November, 1854, and in apparent minority at the territorial election the next March. The vote against them on the last occasion, however, was largely deposited by Missourians who came across the border on election day, voted, and returned. This was demonstrated by the fact that there were but 2,905 legal voters in the Territory at the time, while 5,427 votes were cast for the pro-slavery candidates alone. These early successes gave the pro-slavery party and government in Kansas great vantage in the subsequent congressional contest. The first Legislature convened at Pawnee, July 2, 1855, enacted the slave laws of Missouri, and ordered that for two years all state officers should be appointed by legislative authority, and no man vote in the Territory who would not swear to support the fugitive slave law.

The free-state settlers, now a majority, ignored this Legislature and its acts, and at once set to work to secure Kansas admission to the Union as a State without slavery. The Topeka convention, October 23, 1855, formed the Topeka constitution, which was adopted December 14th, only forty-six votes being polled against it. This showed that pro-slavery men abstained from voting. January 15, 1856, an election was held under this constitution for state officers, a state legislature, and a representative in Congress. The House agreed, July 3d, by one majority, to admit Kansas with the Topeka constitution, but the Senate refused. The Topeka Legislature assembled July 4th, but was dispersed by United States troops.

[1856-1857]

This was done under command from Washington. President Pierce, backed by the Senate with its steady pro-slavery majority, was resolved at all hazards to recognize the pro-slavery authorities of Kansas and no other, and, as it seemed, to force it to become a slave State; but fortunately the House had an anti-slavery majority which prevented this. The friends of freedom in Kansas had also on their side the history that was all this time making in Kansas itself. During the summer of 1856 that Territory was a theatre of constant war. Men were murdered, towns sacked. Both sides were guilty of violence, but the free-state party confessedly much the less so, having far the better cause. Nearly all admitted that this party was in the majority. Even the governors, all Democrats, appointed by Pierce, acknowledged this, some of them, to all appearance, being removed as a punishment for the admission. Governor Geary, in office from September, 1856, to March, 1857, and Governor Walker, in office from May, 1857, were just and able men, and their decisions, in most things favorable to the free-state cause, had much weight with the country.

Walker's influence in the Territory led the free-state men to take part in the territorial election of October, 1857, where they were entirely triumphant. But the old, pro-slavery Legislature had called a constitutional convention, which met at Lecompton, September, 1857, and passed the Lecompton constitution. This constitution sanctioned slavery and provided against its own submission to popular vote. It ordained that only its provision in favor of slavery should be so submitted. This pro-slavery clause was adopted, but only because the free-state men would not vote. The Topeka Legislature submitted the whole constitution to popular vote, when it was overwhelmingly rejected. The President and Senate, however, urged statehood under the Lecompton constitution, although popular votes in Kansas twice more, April, 1858, and March, 1859, had adopted constitutions prohibiting slavery, the latter being that of Wyandotte. But the House still stood firm. Kansas was not admitted to the Union till January 29, 1861, when her chief foes in the United States Senate had seceded from the Union. She came in with the Wyandotte constitution and hence as a free State.

It was during the debate upon Kansas affairs in 1856 that Preston S. Brooks, a member of the House from South Carolina, made his cowardly attack upon Charles Sumner. Sumner had delivered a powerful speech upon the crime against Kansas, worded and delivered, naturally but unfortunately, with some asperity. In this speech he animadverted severely upon South Carolina and upon Senator Butler from that State. This gave offence to Brooks, a relative of Butler, and coming into the Senate Chamber while Sumner was busy writing at his desk, he fell upon him with a heavy cane, inflicting injuries from which Sumner never recovered, and which for four years unfitted him for his senatorial duties. Sumner's colleague, Henry Wilson, in an address to the Senate, characterized the assault as it deserved. He was challenged by Brooks, but refused to fight on the ground that duelling was part of the barbarism which Brooks had shown in caning Sumner. Anson Burlingame, representative from Massachusetts, who had publicly denounced the caning, was challenged by Brooks and accepted the challenge, but, as he named Canada for the place of meeting, Brooks declined to fight him for the ostensible reason that the state of feeling in the North would endanger his life upon the journey. A vote to expel Brooks had a majority in the House, though not the necessary two-thirds. He resigned, but was at once re-elected by his South Carolina constituency.



Charles Sumner.

While the fierce Kansas controversy had been raging, the South had grown cold toward the Douglas doctrine of popular sovereignty, and had gradually adopted another view based upon Calhoun's teachings. This was to the effect that Congress, not under Article IV., section iii., clause 2, but merely as the agent of national sovereignty, rightfully legislates for the Territories in all things, yet, in order to carry out the constitutional equality of the States in the Territories, is obliged to treat slaves found there precisely like any other property. If one citizen wishes to hold slaves, all the rest opposing, the general Government must support him. It is obvious how antagonistic this thought was to that of Douglas, since, according to the latter, a majority of the inhabitants in a Territory could elect to exclude slavery as well as to establish it.

The new southern or Calhoun theory assumed startling significance for the Nation when, in 1857, it was proclaimed in the Dred Scott decision of the United States Supreme Court as part of the innermost life of our Constitution. Dred Scott was a slave of an army officer, who had taken him from Missouri first into Illinois, a free State, then into Wisconsin, covered by the Missouri Compromise, then back into Missouri. Here the slave learned that by decisions of the Missouri courts his life outside of Missouri constituted him free, and in 1848, having been whipped by his master, he prosecuted him for assault. The decision was in his favor, but was reversed when appeal was taken to the Missouri Supreme Court. Dred Scott was now sold to one Sandford, of New York. Him also he prosecuted for assault, but as he and Sandford belonged to different States this suit went to the United States Circuit Court. Sandford pleaded that this lacked jurisdiction, as the plaintiff was not a citizen of Missouri but a slave.

It was this last issue which made the case immortal. The Circuit Court having decided in the defendant's favor, the plaintiff took an appeal to the Supreme Court. Here the verdict was against the citizenship of the negro, and therefore against the jurisdiction of the court below. The upper court did not stop with this simple dictum, hard and dubious as it was, but proceeded to lay down as law an astounding course of pro-slavery reasoning. In this it confined the ordinance of 1787 to the old northwestern territory, declared the Missouri Compromise and all other legislation against slavery in Territories unconstitutional, and the slave character portable not only into all the Territories but into all the States as well, slavery having everywhere all presupposition in its favor and freedom being on the defensive. The denial of Scott's citizenship was based solely upon his African descent, the inevitable implication being that no man of African blood could be an American citizen.

This decision rendered jubilant all friends of slavery, as also the ultra Abolitionists, but correspondingly disheartened the sober friends of human liberty. How, it was asked, is the cause of freedom to be advanced when the supreme law of the land, as interpreted by the highest tribunal existing for that purpose, virtually establishes slavery in New England itself, provided any slave-master wishes to come there with his troop? But anti-slavery men did not despair. Patriots had of course to obey the court till its opinion should be reversed, yet its opinion was at once repudiated as bad law. Men like Sumner, Wilson, Chase, Giddings, Seward, and Lincoln, appealing to both the history and the letter of the Constitution, and to the course of legislation and of judicial decisions on slavery even in the slave States, had been elaborating and demonstrating the counter theory, under which our fundamental law appeared as anything but a "covenant with hell."

The pith of this counter theory was that slaves were property not by moral, natural, or common law, but only by state law, that hence freedom, not slavery, was the heart and universal presupposition of our government, and that slavery, not freedom, was bound to show reasons for its existence anywhere. This being so, while Calhoun and Taney were right as against Douglas in ascribing to Congress all power over the Territories, it was as impossible to find slaves in any United States Territory as to find a king there. Slaves taken into Territories therefore became free. Slaves taken into any free State became free. Slaves carried from a slave State on to the high seas became free. Even the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution must be applied in the way least favorable to slavery.

On the other hand Douglas was right in his view that citizens and not States were the partners in the Territories. As to the assertion of incompatibility between citizenship and African blood, it would not stand historical examination a moment. If it was true that the framers of the Constitution did not consciously include colored persons in the "ourselves and our posterity" for whom they purposed the "Blessings of Liberty," neither did they consciously exclude, as is clear from the fact that nearly everyone of them expected blacks some time to be free.



CHAPTER VI.

SLAVERY AND THE OLD PARTIES

[1841]

The Democratic Party was predominantly southern, the Whig northern. Both sought to be of national breadth, but the democratic with much the better success. Democracy would not give up its northern vote nor the Whigs their southern; but a better party fealty, due to a longer and prouder party history, rendered the Democrats far the more independent and bold in the treatment of their out-lying wing. The consequence was that while its rank and file at the North never loved slavery, they tolerated it and became its apologists in a way to make the party as a whole not only in appearance but in effect the pliant organ of the slavocracy. This status became more pronounced with the progress of the controversy and of the South's self-assertion. It was real under Jackson, rigid under Van Buren, manifest and almost avowed under Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan.

Whig temper toward slavery was throughout the North much better, but whig party action was little better. Fear of losing southern supporters permanently forbade all frank enlistment by the Whig Party for freedom. The mighty leaders, Adams, Webster, even Clay, were well inclined, and the party, as such, was at the South persistently accused of alliance with the Abolitionists. This was untrue. Abolitionists, Liberal Party men, and Free-soilers oftener voted with Democrats than with Whigs. Clay complained once that Abolitionists denounced him as a slave-holder, slave-holders as an Abolitionist, while both voted for Van Buren. Compromise was the bane of this party as of the other; and each of the resplendent chieftains named at one time or another seemed so reverent to Belial that the record is painful reading.

When in 1841 the ship Creole sailed from Richmond with one hundred and thirty-five slaves on board bound for the southern market, and one Madison Washington, a recovered runaway on board, headed a dash upon captain and crew, got possession of the vessel and took her into New Providence, Clay was as loud as Calhoun or any southern senator in demanding of the English Government the return of these slaves to bondage or, at least, that of "the mutineers," as they were called. Webster, Secretary of State at the time, instructed Edward Everett, our English minister, to insist upon this, his arguments being sound and his tone emphatic enough to please Mr. Calhoun. This was the time when Giddings, of Ohio, brought into the House his resolutions to the effect that slavery was a state institution only, and that hence any slave carried on to the open ocean or to any other locality where only national law prevailed, was free. He was censured in the House by a large majority and resigned, but his Ohio constituency immediately re-elected him.

[1836-1844]

Up to this time Giddings and Adams were the only pronounced anti-slavery men in that body. Adams had acquiesced in the Missouri Compromise, but all his subsequent career, especially his course in the House of Representatives after 1830, is not only creditable to him so far as the slavery question is concerned, but registers him as one of the most influential opponents of slavery in our history. Refusing to be classed with the Abolitionists, he was, in effect, the most efficient Abolitionist of them all.

Previous to 1835, though petitions against slavery reached Congress in great numbers and nettled many members, they had been received and referred in the usual manner. But in February, 1836, the House created a special committee to consider these petitions. It reported a resolution, which passed under the previous question, that thereafter all papers of the kind should be tabled without printing or reference. Adams declared to the House: "I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights of my constituents." In this rencounter Adams advanced the view on which the Emancipation Proclamation by and by proceeded, that slavery, even in States, was not beyond reach of the national arm, but would be at the mercy of Congress the instant slave-masters should rebel. This, the first of the gag laws, was, however, enacted. The second, or Patton gag, was passed on December 21, 1837, and the third, or Atherton gag, a year later. The principle of these, practically cutting off all petitions to Congress respecting slavery, was taken up in the twenty-first rule of the House in 1840.

Mr. Adams was from the first the resolute and uncompromising foe of the gag policy. Wagon-loads of petitions came to him to offer, among them one for his own expulsion from the House and one to dissolve the Union, and he presented all.

February 6, 1837, he inquired of Mr. Speaker whether or not it would be appropriate to offer a petition in his hand from slaves, whereupon the pro-slavery members flew at him like vampires. After much uproar, in which Adams gave as good as was sent him, he sarcastically reminded his already infuriated assailants that the petition was in favor of slavery, not against, and that he had emphatically not offered it, but only made an innocent inquiry of the Speaker about doing so, the proper answer to which was so far from obvious that the Speaker himself had signified his intention to take the sense of the House upon it. Regularly, year after year, Adams moved the abolition of the gag rule, was beaten as regularly, long as a matter of course, sometimes after heated debate in which he was always victor. But little by little the majority vote against him lessened. In 1842 the gag passed by but four votes, in 1843 it had a majority of three only, in 1844 his motion to strike it out was carried by a vote of one hundred and eight to eighty. Adams wrote that day in his diary: "Blessed, forever blessed be the name of God."

[1850]

But a plenitude of Whigs, not all southern, voted for each of these gags. The worst one of all was moved by a Whig. The XXVIIth Congress, strongly whig, voted to retain the gag, which it was left for the XXVIIIth, strongly democratic, finally to repeal. At the South, slavery more and more overbore party feeling. Said Dixon, a Kentucky Whig, in 1854, "Upon the question of slavery I know no Whiggery, no Democracy—I am a pro-slavery man." It should be added, however, that as the conflict progressed, pro-slavery Whigs became few save in the South, and that these nearly all soon turned Democrats.

Most humiliating was the vassalage to the slave power displayed by northern congressmen of both parties, though forming a majority in the House during all the great days of the slavery battle. The gag history is one example. Resolutions against unquestionably unconstitutional laws imprisoning northern seamen at southern ports simply because they were colored, were tabled in the House by a large majority. Slavery in the District of Columbia, where Congress had the right of "exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever," so that the entire nation was responsible, defied every effort to abolish it till 1862, after the Civil War began. Nor was the trade there in aught alleviated till 1850, when some modification of it was possible as an element of the compromise described in the preceding chapter. An enlargement of Missouri, adding to the northwest corner of that State, as slave territory, a vast tract which the Missouri Compromise had forever devoted to freedom, being in truth a preliminary repeal of that pact, was carried without opposition.

The brutal and murderous lawlessness practised against Abolitionists was praised by northern congressmen often as slavery came up in debate. Even Senator Silas Wright, of New York, subsequently famous as a foe of slavery, in remarks upon the reference of anti-slavery petitions, boasted of the atrocities at Utica in 1835 and of others similar, as proof that "resistance to these dangerous and wicked agitators in the North had reached a point beyond law and above law." A bill, in 1836, for closing the mails to abolitionist literature, another defiance of the Constitution, Amendment I., secured engrossment in the Senate by the casting vote of Vice-President Van Buren; Wright, Tallmadge, and Buchanan also favoring; but failed to pass, nineteen to twenty-five, because Benton, Clay, and Crittenden had the patriotism to vote nay.

Discussion hereon laid bare the vital contradiction in our governmental system. Calhoun showed that the Constitution permits each State for itself to define, in order to inhibit, incendiary literature. Characteristically, he would have forced mail agents to obey state laws upon this matter. Yet for Congress to have so directed would plainly have been abridging freedom of the press.



Thomas H. Benton.

Had the Whig Party, while in power from 1849 to 1853, been brave enough boldly to assume a rational anti-slavery attitude, though it might have been defeated, as it was in 1852, it would have had a future. The chance passed unimproved. The temporizing attitude of the party's then leaders and the known pro-slavery feeling of most of its southern members—twelve Whigs voting in the House for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise—proved deadly to the organization, its faithful old battalions going over in the South to the Democrats, in the North to the Republicans.

Many Whigs took the latter course by a circuitous route. Ever since the alien and sedition laws, cry had been raised at intervals against the too easy attainment of citizenship by the unnumbered immigrants thronging to our shores, and agitation raised, more or less successful, to thrust forward "Nativism" or Americanism, with opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, as an issue in our politics. To such movements Whigs, as legatees of Federalism, were always more friendly than Democrats, which was partly a cause and partly a consequence of the affinity that naturalized citizens all along showed for the Democratic Party.