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[Frontispiece: v1.jpg]
[Signature] James G. Blaine
TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS: FROM LINCOLN TO GARFIELD. WITH A REVIEW OF THE EVENTS WHICH LED TO THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860.
BY JAMES G. BLAINE.
VOLUME I.
NORWICH, CONN.: THE HENRY BILL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1884.
COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY JAMES G. BLAINE.
All rights reserved.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, BOSTON, MASS.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I. A REVIEW OF THE EVENTS WHICH LED TO THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION OF 1860. Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in the Constitution.—Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries. —Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.— Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.—State of Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.— Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the Admission of Missouri to the Union.—The Two Missouri Compromises of 1820 and 1821.—Origin and Development of the Abolition Party.—Struggle over the Right of Petition.
CHAPTER II. Review of events before 1860 (continued).—Early Efforts to acquire Texas.—Course of President Tyler.—Mr. Calhoun appointed Secretary of State.—His Successful Management of the Texas Question. —His Hostility to Mr. Van Buren.—Letters of Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren opposing the Annexation of Texas.—Mr. Clay nominated as the Whig Candidate for the President in 1844.—Van Buren's Nomination defeated.—Mr. Polk selected as the Democratic Candidate.—Disquietude of Mr. Clay.—His Change of Ground.—His Defeat.—Prolonged Rivalry between Mr. Clay and General Jackson.—Texas formally annexed to the Union.
CHAPTER III. Review (continued).—Triumph of the Democratic Party.—Impending Troubles with Mexico.—Position of Parties.—Struggle for the Equality of Free and Slave States.—Character of the Southern Leaders.—Their Efforts to control the Government.—Conservative Course of Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy.—Reluctant to engage in War with Mexico.—The Oregon Question, 54° 40´, or 49°.—Critical Relations with the British Government.—Treaty of 1846.—Character of the Adjustment.—Our Probable Loss by Unwise Policy of the Democratic Party.
CHAPTER IV. Review (continued).—Relations with Mexico.—General Taylor marches his Army to the Rio Grande.—First Encounter with the Mexican Army.—Excitement in the United States.—Congress declares War against Mexico.—Ill Temper of the Whigs.—Defeat of the Democrats in the Congressional Elections of 1846.—Policy of Mr. Polk in Regard to Acquisition of Territory from Mexico.—Three- Million Bill.—The Famous Anti-slavery Proviso moved by David Wilmot.—John Quincy Adams.—His Public Service.—Robert C. Winthrop chosen Speaker.—Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.—Presidential Election of 1848.—Effort of the Administration to make a Democratic Hero out of the Mexican War.—Thomas H. Benton for Lieutenant-General. —Bill defeated.—Nomination of General Taylor for the Presidency by the Whigs.—Nomination of General Cass by the Democratic Party. —Van Buren refuses to support him.—Democratic Bolt in New York. —Buffalo Convention and the Organization of the Free-soil Party. —Nomination of Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams.—Mr. Clay's Discontent.—Mr. Webster's Speech at Marshfield.—General Taylor elected.—The Barnburners of New York.—Character and Public Services of Mr. Van Buren.
CHAPTER V. Review (continued).—Contrast between General Taylor and General Cass.—The Cabinet of President Taylor.—Political Condition of the Country.—Effect produced by the Discovery of Gold in California. —Convening of Thirty-first Congress.—Election of Howell Cobb as Speaker.—President Taylor's Message.—His Recommendations Distasteful to the South.—Illustrious Membership of the Senate.—Mr. Clay and the Taylor Administration.—Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech in the Senate. —His Death.—His Character and Public Services.—Mr. Webster's 7th of March Speech.—Its Effect upon the Public and upon Mr. Webster.—Mr. Clay's Committee of Thirteen.—The Omnibus Bill.— Conflict with General Taylor's Administration.—Death of the President.—Mr. Fillmore reverses Taylor's Policy and supports the Compromise Measures.—Defeat of Compromise Bill.—Passage of the Measures separately.—Memorable Session of Congress.—Whig and Democratic Parties sustain the Compromise Measures.—National Conventions.—Whigs nominate Winfield Scott over Fillmore.—Mr. Clay supports Fillmore.—Mr. Webster's Friends.—Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce.—Character of the Campaign.—Overwhelming Defeat of Scott.—Destruction of the Whig Party.—Death of Mr. Clay.— Death of Mr. Webster.—Their Public Characters and Services compared.
CHAPTER VI. Review (continued).—The Strength of the Democratic Party in 1853.—Popular Strength not so great as Electoral Strength.—The New President's Pledge not to re-open the Slavery Question.—How he failed to maintain that Pledge.—The North-west Territory.—Anti- slavery Restriction of the Missouri Compromise.—Movement to repeal it by Mr. Clay's Successor in the Senate.—Mr. Douglas adopts the policy of repealing the Restriction.—It is made an Administration Measure and carried through Congress.—Colonel Benton's Position. —Anti-slavery Excitement developed in the Country.—Destruction of the Whig Party.—New Political Alliances.—American Party.—Know- Nothings.—Origin and Growth of the Republican Party.—Pro-slavery Development in the South.—Contest for the Possession of Kansas.— Prolonged Struggle.—Disunion Tendencies developing in the South. —Election of N. P. Banks to the Speakership of the House.—The Presidential Election of 1856.—Buchanan.—Frémont.—Fillmore.— The Slavery Question the Absorbing Issue.—Triumph of Buchanan.— Dred Scott Decision.—Mr. Lincoln's Version of it.—Chief Justice Taney.
CHAPTER VII. Review (continued).—Continuance of the Struggle for Kansas.— List of Governors.—Robert J. Walker appointed Governor by President Buchanan.—His Failure.—The Lecompton Constitution fraudulently adopted.—Its Character.—Is transmitted to Congress by President Buchanan.—He recommends the Admission of Kansas under its Provisions. —Pronounces Kansas a Slave State.—Gives Full Scope and Effect to the Dred Scott Decision.—Senator Douglas refuses to sustain the Lecompton Iniquity.—His Political Embarrassment.—Breaks with the Administration.—Value of his Influence against Slavery in Kansas. —Lecompton Bill passes the Senate.—Could not be forced through the House.—The English Bill substituted and passed.—Kansas spurns the Bribe.—Douglas regains his Popularity with Northern Democrats. —Illinois Republicans bitterly hostile to him.—Abraham Lincoln nominated to contest the Re-election of Douglas to the Senate.— Lincoln challenges Douglas to a Public Discussion.—Character of Each as a Debater.—They meet Seven Times in Debate.—Douglas re- elected.—Southern Senators arraign Douglas.—His Defiant Answer. —Danger of Sectional Division in the Democratic Party.
CHAPTER VIII. Excited Condition of the South.—The John Brown Raid at Harper's Ferry.—Character of Brown.—Governor Wise.—Hot Temper.—Course of Republicans in Regard to John Brown.—Misunderstanding of the Two Sections.—Assembling of the Charleston Convention.—Position of Douglas and his Friends.—Imperious Demands of Southern Democrats. —Caleb Cushing selected for Chairman of the Convention.—The South has Control of the Committee on Resolutions.—Resistance of the Douglas Delegates.—They defeat the Report of the Committee.— Delegates from Seven Southern States withdraw.—Convention unable to make a Nomination.—Adjourns to Baltimore.—Convention divides. —Nomination of both Douglas and Breckinridge.—Constitutional Union Convention.—Nomination of Bell and Everett.—The Chicago Convention.—Its Membership and Character.—Mr. Seward's Position. —His Disabilities.—Work of his Friends, Thurlow Weed and William M. Evarts.—Opposition of Horace Greeley.—Objections from Doubtful States.—Various Candidates.—Nomination of Lincoln and Hamlin.— Four Presidential Tickets in the Field.—Animated Canvass.—The Long Struggle over.—The South defeated.—Election of Lincoln.— Political Revolution of 1860 complete.
CHAPTER IX. The Tariff Question in its Relation to the Political Revolution of 1860.—A Century's Experience as to Best Mode of levying Duties.— Original Course of Federal Government in Regard to Revenue.—First Tariff Act.—The Objects defined in a Preamble.—Constitutional Power to adopt Protective Measure.—Character of Early Discussions. —The Illustrious Men who participated.—Mr. Madison the Leader.— The War Tariff of 1812.—Its High Duties.—The Tariff of 1816.— Interesting Debate upon its Provisions.—Clay, Webster, and Calhoun take part.—Business Depression throughout the Country.—Continues until the Enactment of the Tariff of 1824.—Protective Character of that Tariff.—Still Higher Duties levied by the Tariff of 1828. —Southern Resistance to the Protective Principle.—Mr. Calhoun leads the Nullification Movement in South Carolina.—Compromise effected on the Tariff Question.—Financial Depression follows.— Panic of 1837.—Protective Tariff passed in 1842.—Free-trade Principles triumph with the Election of President Polk.—Tariff of 1846.—Prosperous Condition of the Country.—Differences of Opinion as to the Causes.—Surplus Revenue.—Plethoric Condition of the Treasury.—Enactment of the Tariff of 1857.—Both Parties support it in Congress.—Duties lower than at Any Time since the War of 1812.—Panic of 1857.—Dispute as to its causes.—Protective and Free-trade Theories as presented by their Advocates.—Connection of the Tariff with the Election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. —General Review.
CHAPTER X. Presidential Election of 1860.—The Electoral and Popular Vote.— Wide Divergence between the Two.—Mr. Lincoln has a Large Majority of Electors.—In a Minority of 1,000,000 on Popular Vote.—Beginning of Secession.—Rash Course of South Carolina.—Reluctance on the Part of Many Southern States.—Unfortunate Meeting of South-Carolina Legislature.—Hasty Action of South-Carolina Convention.—The Word "Ordinance."—Meeting of Southern Senators in Washington to promote Secession.—Unwillingness in the South to submit the Question to Popular Vote.—Georgia not eager to Secede.—Action of Other States. —Meeting of Congress in December, 1860.—Position of Mr. Buchanan. —His Attachment to the Union as a Pennsylvanian.—Sinister Influences in his Cabinet.—His Evil Message to Congress.—Analysis of the Message.—Its Position destructive to the Union.—The President's Position Illogical and Untenable.—Full of Contradictions.—Extremists of the South approve the Message.—Demoralizing Effect of the Message in the North and in the South.—General Cass resigns from State Department.—Judge Black succeeds him.—Character of Judge Black.—Secretaries Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson.—Their Censurable Conduct in the Cabinet.—Their Resignation.—Re-organization of Cabinet.—Dix, Holt, Stanton.—Close of Mr. Buchanan's Administration. —Change in the President's Course.—The New Influences.—Analysis of the President's Course.—There were two Mr. Buchanans.—Personal and Public Character of Mr. Buchanan.
CHAPTER XI. Congress during the Winter of 1860-61.—Leave-taking of Senators and Representatives.—South Carolina the First to secede.—Her Delegation in the House publish a Card withdrawing.—Other States follow.—Mr. Lamar of Mississippi.—Speeches of Seceding Senators. —Mr. Yulee and Mr. Mallory of Florida.—Mr. Clay and Mr. Fitzpatrick of Alabama.—Jefferson Davis.—His Distinction between Secession and Nullification.—Important Speech by Mr. Toombs.—He defines Conditions on which the Union might be allowed to survive.—Mr. Iverson's Speech.—Georgia Senators withdraw.—Insolent Speech of Mr. Slidell of Louisiana.—Mr. Judah P. Benjamin's Special Plea for his State.—His Doctrine of "A Sovereignty held in Trust."— Same Argument of Mr. Yulee for his State.—Principle of State Sovereignty.—Disproved by the Treaty of 1783.—Notable Omission by Secession Senators.—Grievances not stated.—Secession Conventions in States.—Failure to state Justifying Grounds of Action.— Confederate Government fail likewise to do it.—Contrast with the Course of the Colonies.—Congress had given no Cause.—Had not disturbed Slavery by Adverse Legislation.—List of Measures Favorable to Slavery.—Policy of Federal Government steadily in that Direction. —Mr. Davis quoted Menaces, not Acts.—Governing Class in the South. —Division of Society there.—Republic ruled by an Oligarchy.— Overthrown by Election of Lincoln.—South refuses to acquiesce.
CHAPTER XII. Congress in the Winter of 1860-61.—The North offers Many Concessions to the South.—Spirit of Conciliation.—Committee of Thirteen in the Senate.—Committee of Thirty-three in the House.—Disagreement of Senate Committee.—Propositions submitted to House Committee.— Thomas Corwin's Measure.—Henry Winter Davis.—Justin S. Morrill— Mr. Houston of Alabama.—Constitutional Amendment proposed by Charles Francis Adams.—Report of the Committee of Thirty-three.— Objectionable Measures proposed.—Minority Report by Southern Members.—The Crittenden Compromise proposed.—Details of that Compromise.—Mr. Adams's Double Change of Ground.—An Old Resolution of the Massachusetts Legislature.—Mr. Webster's Criticism Pertinent. —Various Minority Reports.—The California Members.—Washburn and Tappan.—Amendment to the Constitution passed by the House.—By the Senate also.—New Mexico.—The Fugitive-slave Law.—Mr. Clark of New Hampshire.—Peace Congress.—Invited by Virginia.—Assembles in Washington.—Peace Measures proposed.—They meet no Favor in Congress.—Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada originated. —Prohibition of Slavery abandoned.—Republicans in Congress do not ask it.—Explanation required.—James S. Green of Missouri.— His Character as a Debater.—Northern Republicans frightened at their own Success.—Anxious for a Compromise.—Dread of Disunion. —Northern Democrats.—Dangerous Course pursued by them.—General Demoralization of Northern Sentiment.
CHAPTER XIII. Mr. Lincoln's Journey from Springfield to Washington.—Speeches on the Way.—Reaches Washington.—His Secret Journey.—Afterwards regretted.—Precautions for his Safety.—President Buchanan.— Secretary Holt.—Troops for the Protection of Washington.—Inauguration of Mr. Lincoln.—Relief to the Public Anxiety.—Inaugural Address. —Hopefulness and Security in the North.—Mr. Lincoln's Appeal to the South.—Fails to appease Southern Wrath.—Dilemma of the South. —The New Cabinet.—The "Easy Accession" of Former Times.—Seward Secretary of State.—Chase at the Head of the Treasury.—Radical Republicans dissatisfied.—Influence of the Blairs.—Comment of Thaddeus Stevens.—The National Flag in the Confederacy.—Flying at only Three Points.—Defenseless Condition of the Government.— Confidence of Disunion Leaders.—Extra Session of the Senate.— Douglas and Breckinridge.—Their Notable Debate.—Douglas's Reply to Wigfall.—His Answer to Mason.—Condition of the Territories.— Slavery not excluded by Law.—Public Opinion in Maine, 1861.—Mr. Lincoln's Difficult Task.—His Wise Policy.—His Careful Preparation. —Statesmanship of his Administration.
CHAPTER XIV. President Lincoln and the Confederate Commissioners.—Misleading Assurance given by Judge Campbell.—Mr. Seward's Answer to Messrs. Forsythe and Crawford.—An Interview with the President is desired by the Commissioners.—Rage in the South.—Condition of the Montgomery Government.—Roger A. Pryor's Speech.—President determines to send Provisions to Fort Sumter.—Advises Governor Pickens.—Conflict precipitated.—The Fort surrenders.—Effect of the Conflict on the North.—President's Proclamation and Call for Troops.—Responses of Loyal States.—Popular Uprising.—Democratic Party.—Patriotism of Senator Douglas.—His Relations with Mr. Lincoln.—His Death.— Public Service and Character.—Effect of the President's Call on Southern States.—North Carolina.—Tennessee.—Virginia.—Senator Mason's Letter.—Responses of Southern Governors to the President's Call for Troops.—All decline to comply.—Some of them with Insolent Defiance.—Governors of the Free States.—John A. Andrew, E. D. Morgan, Andrew G. Curtin, Oliver P. Morton.—Energetic and Patriotic Action of all Northern Governors.—Exceptional Preparation in Pennsylvania for the Conflict.—Governors of Free States all Republicans except in California and Oregon.—Critical Situation on Pacific Coast.—Loyalty of its People.—President's Reasons for postponing Session of Congress.—Election in Kentucky.—Union Victory.—John J. Crittenden and Garrett Davis.—John Bell.— Disappoints Expectation of Union Men.—Responsibility of Southern Whigs.—Their Power to arrest the Madness.—Audacity overcomes Numbers.—Whig Party of the South.—Its Brilliant Array of Leaders. —Its Destruction.
CHAPTER XV. Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles.—Military Situation.—List of Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale, Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon.—List of Members of the House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy, Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger.—Mr. Grow elected Speaker.—Message of President Lincoln.—Its Leading Recommendations. —His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion.—Effect of the Message on the Northern People.—Battle of Bull Run.—Its Effect on Congress and the Country.—The Crittenden Resolution adopted.— Its Significance.—Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate.—First Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery.—Confiscation of Certain Slaves.—Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress.—Striking and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge.—Expulsion of Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate.—His Character.—Credit due to Union Men of Kentucky.—Effect produced in the South of Confederate Success at Bull Run.—Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate Government.—Law respecting "Alien Enemies."—Law sequestrating their Estates.—Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin.—An Injudicious Policy.
CHAPTER XVI. Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress.—The Military Situation. —Disaster at Ball's Bluff.—Death of Colonel E. D. Baker.—The President's Message.—Capital and Labor.—Their Relation discussed by the President.—Agitation of the Slavery Question.—The House refuses to re-affirm the Crittenden Resolution.—Secretary Cameron resigns.—Sent on Russian Mission.—Succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton. —His Vigorous War Measures.—Victories in the Field.—Battle of Mill Spring.—General Order of the President for a Forward Movement. —Capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.—Prestige and Popularity of General Grant.—Illinois Troops.—General Burnside's Victory in North Carolina.—Effect of the Victories upon the Country.—Continued Success for the Union in the South-West.—Proposed Celebration.— The Monitor and the Merrimac.—Ericsson.—Worden.—Capture of New Orleans by Farragut.—The Navy.—Its Sudden and Great Popularity. —Legislation in its Favor.—Battle of Shiloh.—Anxiety in the North.—Death of Albert Sidney Johnston.—General Halleck takes the Field.—Military Situation in the East.—The President and General McClellan.—The Peninsular Campaign.—Stonewall Jackson's Raid.—Its Disastrous Effect.—Fear for Safety of Washington.—Anti- Slavery Legislation.—District of Columbia.—Compensated Emancipation. —Colonization.—Confiscation.—Punishment of Treason.
CHAPTER XVII. Ball's Bluff Disaster.—Mr. Conkling's Resolution of Inquiry.— Unsatisfactory Reply of Secretary Cameron.—Second Resolution.— Second Reply.—Incidental Debate on Slavery.—Arrest of General Charles P. Stone.—His History.—His Response to Criticisms made upon him.—Responsibility of Colonel Baker.—General Stone before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.—His Examination.—Testimony of Officers.—General Stone appears before the Committee a Second Time.—His Arrest by Order of the War Department.—No Cause assigned. —Imprisoned in Fort Lafayette.—Solitary Confinement.—Sees Nobody. —His Wife denied Access to him.—Subject brought into Congress.— A Search for the Responsibility of the Arrest.—Groundless Assumption of Mr. Sumner's Connection with it.—Mr. Lincoln's Message in Regard to the Case.—General Stone's Final Release by an Act of Congress. —Imprisoned for One Hundred and Eighty-nine Days.—Never told the Cause.—Never allowed a Trial.—Appears a Third Time before the Committee.—The True Responsibility for the Arrest.—His Restoration to Service.—His Resignation.—Joins the Khedive's Service.
CHAPTER XVIII. The National Finances.—Debt when the Civil War began.—Deadly Blow to Public Credit.—Treasury Notes due in 1861.—$10,000,000 required. —An Empty Treasury.—Recommendation by Secretary Dix.—Secretary Thomas recommends a Pledge of the Public Lands.—Strange Suggestions. —Heavy Burdens upon the Treasury.—Embarrassment of Legislators. —First Receipts in the Treasury in 1861.—Chief Dependence had always been on Customs.—Morrill Tariff goes into Effect.—It meets Financial Exigencies.—Mr. Vallandigham puts our Revenue at $50,000,000, our Expenditures at $500,000,000.—Annual Deficiency under Mr. Buchanan.—Extra Session in July, 1861.—Secretary Chase recommends $80,000,000 by Taxation, and $240,000,000 by Loans.— Loan Bill of July 17, 1861.—Its Provisions.—Demand Notes.—Seven- thirties.—Secretary Chase's Report, December, 1861.—Situation Serious.—Sales of Public Lands.—Suspension of Specie Payment.— The Loss of our Coin.—Its Steady Export to Europe.
CHAPTER XIX. The Legal-tender Bill.—National Finances at the Opening of the Year 1862.—A Threefold Contest.—The Country thrown upon its own Resources.—A Good Currency demanded.—Government takes Control of the Question.—Authorizes the Issue of $150,000,000 of Legal-tender Notes.—Mr. Spaulding the Author of the Measure.—His Speech.— Opposed by Mr. Pendleton.—Position of Secretary Chase.—Urges the Measure upon Congress.—Speeches by Thaddeus Stevens, Mr. Vallandigham, Mr. V. B. Horton, Mr. Lovejoy, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Hooper, Mr. Morrill, Mr. Bingham, Mr. Shellabarger, Mr. Pike and Others.—Spirited and Able Debate.—Bill passes the House.—Its Consideration by the Senate.—Speeches by Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Collamer and Others.—Bill passes the Senate.—Its Weighty Provisions.—Secretary Chase on State Banks.—Policy of the Legal-tender Bill.—Its Effect upon the Business and Prosperity of the Country.—Internal Revenue Act.—Necessity of Large Sums from Taxation.—Public Credit dependent on it.—Constitutional Provisions.—Financial Policy of Alexander Hamilton.—Excises Unpopular.—Whiskey Insurrection.—Resistance by Law.—Supreme Court Decision.—Case of Hylton.—Provisions of New Act.—Searching Character.—Great Revenue desired.—Credit due to Secretary Chase.
CHAPTER XX. Elections of 1862.—Mr. Lincoln advances to Aggressive Position on Slavery.—Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress adjourns.— Democratic Hostility to Administration.—Democratic State Conventions. —Platforms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.—Nomination of Horatio Seymour for Governor of New York.—The President prepares for a Serious Political Contest.—The Issue shall be the Union or Slavery.—Conversation with Mr. Boutwell.—Proclamation of Emancipation.—Meeting of Governors at Altoona.—Compensated Emancipation proposed for Border States.—Declined by their Senators and Representatives.—Anti-slavery Policy apparently Disastrous for a Time.—October Elections Discouraging.—General James S. Wadsworth nominated against Mr. Seymour.—Illinois votes against the President.—Five Leading States against the President.— Administration saved in Part by Border States.—Last Session of Thirty-seventh Congress.—President urges Compensated Emancipation again.—Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863.—Long Controversy over Question of Compensation for Slaves.—Test Case of Missouri. —Fourteen Million Dollars offered her.—General Pope's Campaign. —Army of the Potomac.—Battle of Antietam.—McClellan removed.— Burnside succeeds him.—Defeat at Fredericksburg.—Hooker succeeds Burnside.—General Situation.—Arming of Slaves.—Habeas Corpus.— Conscription Law.—Depressed and Depressing Period.
CHAPTER XXI. The President's Border-State Policy.—Loyal Government erected in Virginia.—Recognized by Congress and Senators admitted.—Desire for a New State.—The Long Dissatisfaction of the People of Western Virginia.—The Character of the People and of their Section.—Their Opportunity had come.—Organization of the Pierpont Government.— State Convention and Constitution.—Application to Congress for Admission.—Anti-slavery Amendment.—Senate Debate: Sumner, Wade, Powell, Willey, and Others.—House Debate: Stevens, Conway, Bingham, Segar.—Passage of Bill in Both Branches.—Heavy Blow to the Old State.—Her Claims deserve Consideration.—Should be treated as generously at least as Mexico.
CHAPTER XXII. National Currency and State Bank Currency.—In Competition.—Legal- tender Bill tended to expand State Bank Circulation.—Secretary Chase's Recommendation.—Favorably received.—State Bank Circulation, $150,000,000.—Preliminary Bill to establish National Banks.— Fessenden.—Sherman.—Hooper.—National Bank System in 1862.— Discussed among the People.—Recommended by the President.—Mr. Chase urges it.—Bill introduced and discussed in Senate.—Discussion in the House.—Bill passed.—Hugh McCulloch of Indiana appointed Comptroller of the Currency.—Amended Bank Act.—To remedy Defects, Circulation limited to $500,000,000.—National Power.—State Rights. —Taxation.—Renewed Debate in Senate and House.—Bill passed.— Merits of the System.—Former Systems.—First Bank of the United States.—Charters of United-States Banks, 1791-1816.—National Banks compared with United-States Banks.—One Defective Element.— Founded on National Debt.
CHAPTER XXIII. Depression among the People in 1863.—Military Situation.—Hostility to the Administration.—Determination to break it down.—Vallandigham's Disloyal Speech.—Two Rebellions threatened.—General Burnside takes Command of the Department of the Ohio.—Arrests Vallandigham. —Tries him by Military Commission.—His Sentence commuted by Mr. Lincoln.—Habeas Corpus refused.—Democratic Party protests.— Meeting in Albany.—Letter of Governor Seymour.—Ohio Democrats send a Committee to Washington.—Mr. Lincoln's Replies to Albany Meeting and to the Ohio Committee.—Effect of his Words upon the Country.—Army of the Potomac.—General Hooker's Defeat at Chancellorsville.—Gloom in the Country.—The President's Letters to General Hooker.—General Meade succeeds Hooker in Command of the Army.—Battle of Gettysburg.—Important Victory for the Union. —Relief to the Country.—General Grant's Victory at Vicksburg.— Fourth of July.—Notable Coincidence.—State Elections favorable to the Administration.—Meeting of Thirty-eighth Congress.—Schuyler Colfax elected Speaker.—Prominent New Members in Each Branch.—E. D. Morgan, Alexander Ramsey, John Conness, Reverdy Johnson, Thomas A. Hendricks, Henry Winter Davis, Robert C. Schenck, James A. Garfield, William B. Allison.—President's Message.—Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.—First proposed by James M. Ashley. —John B. Henderson proposes Amendment which passes the Senate.— Debate in Both Branches.—Aid to the Pacific Railroads.—Lieutenant- General Grant.
CHAPTER XXIV. Presidential Election of 1864.—Preliminary Movements.—General Sentiment favors Mr. Lincoln.—Some Opposition to his Renomination. —Secretary Chase a Candidate.—The "Pomeroy Circular."—Mr. Chase withdraws.—Republican National Convention.—Baltimore, June 7.— Frémont and Cochrane nominated.—Speech of Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge. —Mr. Lincoln renominated.—Candidates for Vice-President.—Andrew Johnson of Tennessee nominated.—Democratic National Convention.— Chicago, August 29.—Military Situation discouraging.—Character of the Convention.—Peace Party prevails.—Speeches of Belmont, Bigler, Hunt, Long, Seymour.—Nomination of General McClellan for President.—George H. Pendleton for Vice-President.—Platform.— Suits Vallandigham.—General McClellan accepts, but evades the Platform.—General Frémont withdraws.—Success of the Union Army. —Mr. Lincoln's Popularity.—General McClellan steadily loses Ground.—Sheridan's Brilliant Victories.—General McClellan receives the Votes of only Three States.—Governor Seymour defeated in New York.
CHAPTER XXV. President's Message, December, 1864.—General Sherman's March.— Compensated Emancipation abandoned.—Thirteenth Amendment.—Earnestly recommended by the President.—He appeals to the Democratic Members. —Mr. Ashley's Energetic Work.—Democratic Opportunity.—Unwisely neglected.—Mr. Pendleton's Argument.—Final Vote.—Amendment adopted.—Cases arising under it.—Supreme Court.—Change of Judges at Different Periods.—Peace Conference at Fortress Monroe.— Secretary Chase resigns.—Mr. Fessenden succeeds him.—Mr. Fessenden's Report.—Surrender of Lee.—General Grant's Military Character.— Assassination of President Lincoln.—His Characteristics.—Cost of the War.—Compared with Wars of Other Nations.—Our Navy.—Created during the War.—Effective Blockade.—Its Effect upon the South.— Its Influence upon the Struggle.—Relative Numbers in Loyal and Disloyal States.—Comparison of Union and Confederate Armies.— Confederate Army at the Close of the War.—Union Armies compared with Armies of Foreign Countries.—Area of the War.—Its Effect upon the Cost.—Character of Edwin M. Stanton.
CHAPTER XXVI. Relations with Great Britain.—Close of the Year 1860.—Prince of Wales's Visit to the United States.—Exchange of Congratulatory Notes.—Dawn of the Rebellion.—Lord Lyons' Dispatch.—Mr. Seward's Views.—Lord John Russell's Threats.—Condition of Affairs at Mr. Lincoln's Inauguration.—Unfriendly Manifestations by Great Britain. —Recognizes Belligerency of Southern States.—Discourtesy to American Minister.—England and France make Propositions to the Confederate States.—Unfriendly in their Character to the United States.—Full Details given.—Motives inquired into.—Trent Affair. —Lord John Russell.—Lord Lyons.—Mr. Seward.—Mason and Slidell released.—Doubtful Grounds assigned.—Greater Wrongs against us by Great Britain.—Queen Victoria's Friendship.—Isolation of United States.—Foreign Aid to Confederates on the Sea.—Details given.— So-called Neutrality.—French Attempt to establish an Empire in Mexico.—Lord Palmerston in 1848, in 1859, in 1861.—Conclusive Observations.
ADDENDUM
ERRATUM
APPENDICES
LIST OF STEEL PORTRAITS.
THE AUTHOR ABRAHAM LINCOLN CHARLES SUMNER STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE HENRY WINTER DAVIS THADDEUS STEVENS BENJAMIN F. WADE ELIHU B. WASHBURNE ROBERT C. SCHENCK WILLIAM D. KELLEY SAMUEL SHELLABARGER JUSTIN S. MORRILL GEORGE S. BOUTWELL REUBEN E. FENTON OLIVER P. MORTON ZACHARIAH CHANDLER HENRY B. ANTHONY THOMAS A. HENDRICKS SIMON CAMERON JAMES W. GRIMES JOHN P. HALE JOHN SHERMAN WILLIAM WINDOM JOHN B. HENDERSON JOHN J. INGALLS FREDERICK T. FRELINGHUYSEN CARL SCHURZ JOHN A. LOGAN
MAP SHOWING THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES
TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS.
CHAPTER I.
Original Compromises between the North and the South embodied in the Constitution.—Early Dissatisfaction with National Boundaries. —Acquisition of Louisiana from France by President Jefferson.— Bonaparte's Action and Motive in ceding Louisiana.—State of Louisiana admitted to the Union against Opposition in the North.— Agitation of the Slavery Question in Connection with the Admission of Missouri to the Union.—The Two Missouri Compromises of 1820 and 1821.—Origin and Development of the Abolition Party.—Struggle over the Right of Petition.
The compromises on the Slavery question, inserted in the Constitution, were among the essential conditions upon which the Federal Government was organized. If the African slave-trade had not been permitted to continue for twenty years, if it had not been conceded that three-fifths of the slaves should be counted in the apportionment of representatives in Congress, if it had not been agreed that fugitives from service should be returned to their owners, the Thirteen States would not have been able in 1787 "to form a more perfect union." These adjustments in the Constitution were effected after the Congress of the old Confederation had dedicated the entire North-west Territory to freedom. The ancient commonwealth of Virginia had, for the good of all, generously and patriotically surrendered her title to the great country north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, which to-day constitutes five prosperous and powerful States and a not inconsiderable portion of a sixth. This was the first territory of which the General Government had exclusive control, and the prompt prohibition of slavery therein by the Ordinance of 1787 is an important and significant fact. The anti-slavery restriction would doubtless have been applied to the territory south of the Ohio had the power existed to impose it. The founders of the government not only looked to the speedy extinction of slavery, but they especially abhorred the idea of a geographical line, with freedom decreed on one side, and slavery established on the other. But the territory south of the Ohio belonged to the Southern States of the Union,—Kentucky to Virginia; Tennessee to North Carolina; Alabama and Mississippi to Georgia, with certain co-extensive claims put forth by South Carolina. When cessions of this Southern territory were made to the General Government, the States owning it exacted in every case a stipulation that slavery should not be prohibited. It thus came to pass that the Ohio River was the dividing-line. North of it freedom was forever decreed. South of it slavery was firmly established. Within the limits of the Union as originally formed the slavery question had therefore been compromised, the common territory partitioned, and the Republic, half slave, half free, organized and sent forth upon its mission.
The Thirteen States whose independence had been acknowledged by George III., occupied with their outlying territories a vast area, exceeding in the aggregate eight hundred thousand square miles. Extended as was this domain, the early statesmen of the Union discovered that its boundaries were unsatisfactory,—hostile to our commercial interests in time of peace, and menacing our safety in time of war. The Mississippi River was our western limit. On its farther shore, from the Lake of the Woods to the Balize, we met the flag of Spain. Our southern border was the 31st parallel of latitude; and the Spanish Floridas, stretching across to the Mississippi, lay between us and the Gulf of Mexico. We acquired from Spain the right of deposit for exports and imports at New Orleans, but the citizens of the Union who lived west of the Alleganies were discontented and irritated to find a foreign power practically controlling their trade by intercepting their access to the sea. One of the great problems imposed upon the founders of the Union was to remove the burdens and embarrassments which obstructed the development of the Western States, and thus to render their inhabitants as loyal by reason of material prosperity as they already were in patriotic sympathy. The opportunity for relief came from remote and foreign causes, without our own agency; but the courageous statesmanship which discerned and grasped the opportunity, deserved, as it has received, the commemoration of three generations. The boundaries of the Union were vastly enlarged, but the geographical change was not greater than the effect produced upon the political and social condition of the people. The ambitions developed by the acquisition of new territory led to serious conflicts of opinion between North and South,—conflicts which steadily grew in intensity until, by the convulsion of war, slavery was finally extinguished.
TERRITORIAL CESSIONS IN AMERICA.
A great European struggle, which ended twelve years before our Revolution began, had wrought important changes in the political control of North America. The Seven Years' War, identical in time with the French and Indian War in America, was closed in 1763 by numerous treaties to which every great power in Europe was in some sense a party. One of the most striking results of these treaties on this side of the Atlantic was the cession of Florida to Great Britain by Spain in exchange for the release of Cuba, which the English and colonial forces under Lord Albemarle had wrested from Spanish authority the preceding year. England held Florida for twenty years, when among the disasters brought upon her by our Revolution was its retrocession to Spain in 1783,—a result which was accounted by our forefathers a great gain to the new Republic. Still more striking were the losses of France. Fifty years before, by the Treaty of Utrecht, France had surrendered to England the island of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia (then including New Brunswick), and the Hudson-bay Territory. She now gave up Canada and Cape Breton, acknowledged the sovereignty of Great Britain in the original thirteen Colonies as extending to the Mississippi, and, by a separate treaty, surrendered Louisiana on the west side of the Mississippi, with New Orleans on the east side, to Spain. Thus, in 1763, French power disappeared from North American. The last square mile of the most valuable colonial territory ever possessed by a European sovereign was lost under the weak and effeminate rule of Louis XV., a reign not fitted for successful war, but distinguished only, as one of its historians says, for "easy-mannered joyance, and the brilliant charm of fashionable and philosophical society."
The country which France surrendered to Spain was of vast but indefinite extent. Added to her other North-American colonies, it gave to Spain control of more than half the continent. She continued in possession of Louisiana until the year 1800, when, during some European negotiations, Bonaparte concluded a treaty at San Ildefonso with Charles IV., by which the entire territory was retroceded to France. When the First Consul acquired Louisiana, he appeared to look forward to a career of peace,—an impression greatly strengthened by the conclusion of the treaty of Amiens the ensuing year. He added to his prestige as a ruler when he regained from Spain the American empire which the Bourbons had weakly surrendered thirty- seven years before, and he expected a large and valuable addition to the trade and resources of France from the vast colonial possession. The formal transfer of so great a territory on a distant continent was necessarily delayed; and, before the Captain- general of France reached New Orleans in 1803, the Spanish authorities, still in possession, had become so odious to the inhabitants of the western section of the Union by their suspension of the right of deposit at New Orleans, that there was constant danger of an armed collision. Mr. Ross of Pennsylvania, an able and conservative statesman, moved in the Senate of the United States that the government be instructed to seize New Orleans. Gouverneur Morris, a statesman of the Revolutionary period, then a senator from New York, seconded Mr. Ross. So intense was the feeling among the people that a large army of volunteers could have been easily raised in the Mississippi valley to march against New Orleans; but the prudence of Mr. Jefferson restrained every movement that might involve us in a war with Spain, from which nothing was to be gained, and by which every thing would be risked.
THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.
Meanwhile Mr. Robert R. Livingston, our minister at Paris, was pressing the French Government for concessions touching the free navigation of the Mississippi and the right of deposit at New Orleans, and was speaking to the First Consul, as a French historian observes, in a tone which "arrested his attention, and aroused him to a sense of the new power that was growing beyond the sea." Mr. Livingston was re-enforced by Mr. Monroe, sent out by President Jefferson as a special envoy in the spring of 1803, in order to effect some adjustment of the irritating questions which were seriously endangering the relations between France and the United States. The instructions of Mr. Madison, then secretary of State, to Mr. Monroe, show that the utmost he expected was to acquire from France the city of New Orleans and the Floridas, of which he believed France either then was, or was about to become, the actual owner. Indeed, the treaty by which France had acquired Louisiana was but imperfectly understood; and, in the slowness and difficulty of communication, Mr. Madison could not accurately know the full extent of the cession made at San Ildefonso. But Mr. Jefferson did not wait to learn the exact provisions of that treaty. He knew instinctively that they deeply concerned the United States. He saw with clear vision that by the commercial disability upon the western section of the Union its progress would be obstructed, its already attained prosperity checked; and that possibly its population, drawn first into discontent with the existing order of things, might be seduced into new and dangerous alliances. He determined, therefore, to acquire the control of the left bank of the Mississippi to its mouth, and by the purchase of the Floridas to give to Georgia and the Mississippi territory (now constituting the States of Alabama and Mississippi) unobstructed access to the Gulf.
But events beyond the ocean were working more rapidly for the interest of the United States than any influence which the government itself could exert. Before Mr. Monroe reached France in the spring of 1803, another war-cloud of portentous magnitude was hanging over Europe. The treaty of Amiens had proved only a truce. Awkwardly constructed, misconstrued and violated by both parties, it was about to be formally broken. Neither of the plenipotentiaries who signed the treaty was skilled in diplomacy. Joseph Bonaparte acted for his brother; England was represented by Lord Cornwallis, who twenty years before had surrendered the British army at Yorktown. The wits of London described him afterwards as a general who could neither conduct a war nor conclude a peace.
Fearing that, in the threatened conflict, England, by her superior naval force, would deprive him of his newly acquired colonial empire, and greatly enhance her own prestige by securing all the American possessions which France had owned prior to 1763, Bonaparte, by a dash in diplomacy as quick and as brilliant as his tactics on the field of battle, placed Louisiana beyond the reach of British power. After returning to St. Cloud from the religious services of Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, he called two of his most trusted advisers, and, in a tone of vehemence and passion, said,—
"I know the full value of Louisiana, and have been desirous of repairing the fault of the French negotiators who lost it in 1763. A few lines of a treaty have restored it to me, and now I must expect to lose it. . . . The English wish to take possession of it, and it is thus they will begin the war. . . . They have already twenty ships of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The conquest of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. . . . The English have successively taken from France the Canadas, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of Asia. But they shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet."
The discussion went far into the night. The two ministers differed widely in the advice which they gave the First Consul; one was in favor of holding Louisiana at all hazards; the other urged its prudent cession rather than its inevitable loss by war. They both remained at St. Cloud for the night. At daybreak the minister who had advised the cession was summoned by Bonaparte to read dispatches from London, that moment received, which certainly foreshadowed war, as the English were making military and naval preparations with extraordinary rapidity. After reading the dispatches, the First Consul said,
"Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without any reservation. I know the value of what I abandon. It renounce it with the gravest regret. To attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate this affair with the envoy of the United States. Do not even wait the arrival of Mr. Monroe. Have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston. . . . But I require a great deal of money for this war. I will be moderate. I want fifty millions for Louisiana."
The minister, who was opposed to the sale, interposed, in a subsequent interview, some observations "upon what the Germans call the souls, as to whether they could be the subject of a contract or sale." Bonaparte replied with undisguised sarcasm,—
"You are giving me the ideology of the law of nature. But I require money to make war on the richest nation in the world. Send your maxims to London. I am sure they will be greatly admired there."
The First Consul afterwards added, "Perhaps it will be objected that the Americans will be found too powerful for Europe in two or three centuries; but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations, which are called perpetual, only last till one of the contracting parties finds it in his interest to break them."
SUCCESS OF JEFFERSON'S DIPLOMACY.
Two days after this conversation Mr. Monroe opportunely arrived, and on the 30th of April the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was formally concluded. Mr. Monroe and Mr. Livingston had no authority to negotiate for so vast an extent of territory; but the former was fully possessed of President Jefferson's views, and felt assured that his instructions would have been ample if the condition of France had been foreseen when he sailed from America. Communication with Washington was impossible. Under the most favorable circumstances, an answer could not be expected in less then three months. By that time British ships would probably hold the mouths of the Mississippi, and the flag of St. George be waving over New Orleans. Monroe and Livingston both realized that hesitation would be fatal; and they boldly took the responsibility of purchasing a territory of unknown but prodigious extent, and of pledging the credit of the government for a sum which, rated by the ability to pay, was larger than a similar pledge to-day for five hundred millions of dollars.
The price agreed upon was eleven million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in six per cent United States bonds, the interest of which was made payable in London, Amsterdam, and Paris, and the principal at the treasury in Washington in sums of three millions per annum, beginning fifteen years after the bonds were issued. In a separate treaty made the same day, the United States agreed to pay twenty million francs additional, to be applied by France to the satisfaction of certain claims owed to American citizens. Thus the total cost of Louisiana was eighty millions of francs, or, in round numbers, fifteen millions of dollars.
No difficulty was experienced in putting the United States in possession of the territory and of its chief emporium, New Orleans. The French Government had regarded the possession of so much consequence, that Bernadotte, afterwards King of Sweden, was at one time gazetted as Captain-general; and, some obstacles supervening, the eminent General Victor, afterwards Marshal of France and Duke of Belluno, was named in his stead. But all these plans were brushed aside by one stroke of Bonaparte's pen; and the United States, in consequence of favoring circumstances growing out of European complications, and the bold and competent statesmanship of Jefferson, obtained a territory larger in area than that which was wrested from the British crown by the Revolutionary war.
It seems scarcely credible that the acquisition of Louisiana by Jefferson was denounced with a bitterness surpassing the partisan rancor with which later generations have been familiar. No abuse was too malignant, no epithet too coarse, no imprecation too savage, to be employed by the assailants of the great philosophic statesman who laid so broad and deep the foundations of his country's growth and grandeur. President of a feeble republic, contending for a prize which was held by the greatest military power of Europe, and whose possession was coveted by the greatest naval power of the world, Mr. Jefferson, through his chosen and trusted agents, so conducted his important negotiation that the ambition of the United States was successfully interposed between the necessities of the one and the aggressive designs of the other. Willing to side with either of these great powers, for the advantage of his own country, not underrating the dangers of war, yet ready to engage in it for the control of the great water-way to the Gulf, the President made the largest conquest ever peacefully achieved, and at a cost so small that the total sum expended for the entire territory does not equal the revenue which has since been collected on its soil in a single month in time of great public peril. The country thus acquired forms to-day the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Colorado north of the Arkansas, besides the Indian Territory and the Territories of Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Texas was also included in the transfer, but the Oregon country was not. The Louisiana purchase did not extend beyond the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and our title to that large area which is included in the State of Oregon and in the Territories of Washington and Idaho rests upon a different foundation, or, rather, upon a series of claims, each of which was strong under the law of nations. We claimed it first by right of original discovery of the Columbia River by an American navigator in 1792; second, by original exploration in 1805; third, by original settlement in 1810, by the enterprising company of which John Jacob Astor was the head; and, lastly and principally, by the transfer of the Spanish title in 1819, many years after the Louisiana purchase was accomplished. It is not, however, probable that we should have been able to maintain our title to Oregon if we had not secured the intervening country. It was certainly our purchase of Louisiana that enabled us to secure the Spanish title to the shores of the Pacific, and without that title we could hardly have maintained our claim. As against England our title seemed to us to be perfect, but as against Spain our case was not so strong. The purchase of Louisiana may therefore be fairly said to have carried with it and secured to us our possession of Oregon.
The acquisition of Louisiana brought incalculable wealth, power, and prestige to the Union, and must always be regarded as the master- stroke of policy which advanced the United States from a comparatively feeble nation, lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, to a continental power of assured strength and boundless promise. The coup d'état of the First Consul was an overwhelming surprise and disappointment to the English Government. Bonaparte was right in assuming that prompt action on his part was necessary to save Louisiana from the hands of the English. Twelve days after the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was signed, the British ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, demanded his passports. At Dover he met the French ambassador to England, General Andreossy, who had likewise demanded his passports. Lord Whitworth loaded General Andreossy with tokens of esteem, and conducted him to the ship which was to bear him back to France. According to an eminent historian, "the two ambassadors parted in the presence of a great concourse of people, agitated, uneasy, sorrowful. On the eve of so important a determination, the warlike passion subsided; and men were seized with a dread of the consequences of a desperate conflict. At this solemn moment the two nations seemed to bid each other adieu, not to meet again till after a tremendous war and the convulsion of the world."
THE DESIGNS OF ENGLAND FOILED.
England's acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest degree embarrassing, if not disastrous, to the Union. At that time the forts of Spain, transferred to France, and thence to the United States, were on the east side of the Mississippi, hundreds of miles from its mouth. If England had seized Louisiana, as Bonaparte feared, the Floridas, cut off from the other colonies of Spain, would certainly have fallen into her hands by easy and prompt negotiation, as they did, a few years later, into the hands of the United States. England would thus have had her colonies planted on the three land-sides of the Union, while on the ocean-side her formidable navy confronted the young republic. No colonial acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable to her commerce, and so strengthening her military position, as that of Louisiana would have proved. This fact was clearly seen by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United States. That England did not at once attempt to seize it, in disregard of Bonaparte's cession, has been a source of surprise to many historians. The obvious reason is that she dreaded the complication of a war in America when she was about to assume so heavy a burden in the impending European conflict. The inhabitants of the Union in 1803 were six millions in number, of great energy and confidence. A large proportion of them were accustomed to the sea and could send swarms of privateers to prey on British commerce. Independent citizens would be even more formidable than were the rebellious colonists in the earlier struggle with the mother country, and, acting in conjunction with France, could effectively maintain a contest. Considerations of this nature doubtless induced the Addington ministry to acquiesce quietly in a treaty whose origin and whose assured results were in every way distasteful, and even offensive, to the British Government.
The extent and boundaries of the territory thus ceded by France were ill-defined, and, in fact, unknown. The French negotiator who conferred with Monroe and Livingston, declared a large portion of the country transferred to be no better known at the time "than when Columbus landed at the Bahamas." There was no way by which accurate metes and bounds could be described. This fact disturbed the upright and conscientious Marbois, who thought that "treaties of territorial cession should contain a guaranty from the grantor." He was especially anxious, moreover, that no ambiguous clauses should be introduced in the treaty. He communicated his troubles on this point to the First Consul, advising him that it seemed impossible to construct the treaty so as to free it from obscurity on the important matter of boundaries. Far from exhibiting any sympathy with his faithful minister's solicitude on this point, Bonaparte quietly informed him that, "if an obscurity did not already exist, it would perhaps be good policy to put one in the treaty." In the possibilities of the First Consul's future, the acquisition of Spanish America may have been expected, or at least dreamed of, by him; and an ill-defined, uncertain boundary for Louisiana might possibly, in a few years, be turned greatly to his advantage.
EXPANSION OF OUR BOUNDARIES.
There was certainly obscurity enough in the transfer to satisfy the fullest desire of Bonaparte. France ceded Louisiana to the United States "with all its rights and appurtenances," as acquired by the retrocession from Spain under the treaty of San Ildefonso, Oct. 1, 1800; and by that treaty Spain had "transferred it to France with the same extent it then had in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France previously possessed it, and such as it should be with the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States." This was simply giving to us what Spain had given to France, and that was only what France had before given to Spain, —complicated with such treaties as Spain might have made during the thirty-seven years of her ownership. It was evident, therefore, from the very hour of the acquisition, that we should have abundant trouble with our only remaining neighbors in North America, Spain and Great Britain, in adjusting the boundaries of the vast country which we had so successfully acquired from France.
Fortunately for the United States, the patriotic and far-seeing administration of Mr. Jefferson was as energetic in confirming as it had been in acquiring our title to the invaluable domain. As soon as the treaty was received the President called an extra session of Congress, which assembled on the 17th of October, 1803. Before the month had expired the treaty was confirmed, and the President was authorized to take possession of the territory of Louisiana, and to maintain therein the authority of the United States. This was not a mere paper warrant for exhibiting a nominal supremacy by floating our flag, but it gave to the President the full power to employ the army and navy of the United States and the militia of the several States to the number of eighty thousand. It was a wise and energetic measure for the defense of our newly acquired territory, which in the disturbed condition of Europe, with all the Great Powers arming from Gibraltar to the Baltic, might at any moment be invaded or imperiled. The conflict of arms did not occur until nine years after; and it is a curious and not unimportant fact, that the most notable defeat of the British troops in the second war of Independence, as the struggle of 1812 has been well named, occurred on the soil of the territory for whose protection the original precaution had been taken by Jefferson.
With all these preparations for defense, Mr. Jefferson did not wait to have our title to Louisiana questioned or limited. He set to work at once to proclaim it throughout the length and breadth of the territory which had been ceded, and to the treaty of cession he gave the most liberal construction. According to the President, Louisiana stretched as far to the northward as the Lake of the Woods; towards the west as far as the Rio Grande in the lower part, and, in the upper part, to the main chain of mountains dividing the waters of the Pacific from the waters of the Atlantic. To establish our sovereignty to the shores of the Pacific became a matter of instant solicitude with the watchful and patriotic President. In the previous session he had obtained from Congress an appropriation of two millions of dollars "for the purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." In the confidential message which so promptly secured the money, the President suggested that the object to be accomplished was a better understanding with the Indian tribes, and the fitting out of an exploring and scientific expedition across the continent, though our own domain at the time was terminated on the west by the Mississippi. It was believed, that, between the lines of the message, Congress could read that our negotiations with France and Spain touching the free navigation of the Mississippi might soon reach a crisis. Hence the prompt appropriation of a sum of money which for the national treasury of that day was very large.
LEWIS AND CLARKE EXPEDITION.
The two men selected to conduct the expedition across the continent, Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke, were especially fitted for their arduous task. Both were officers in the army, holding the rank of captain. Lewis had been private secretary to the President, and Clarke was brother to the heroic George Rogers Clarke, whose services were of peculiar value in the Revolutionary struggle. Before they could complete the preparations for their long and dangerous journey, the territory to be traversed had been transferred to the United States, and the expedition at once assumed a significance and importance little dreamed of when Jefferson first conceived it. The original design had been a favorite one with Mr. Jefferson for many years. When he resided at Paris as our minister, before the Federal Government was organized, he encouraged a similar expedition, to be fitted out in Kamtchatka, to sail to our western coast, and thence to come eastward across the continent. This design was to be executed by the somewhat noted John Ledyard, a roving and adventurous man from Connecticut, who had accompanied Captain Cook on his famous voyage to the Pacific, and whom Jefferson afterwards met in Paris. The necessary authority was obtained from the Russian Government; but, after Ledyard had reached the borders of Kamtchatka, he was suddenly recalled, driven with speed day and night in a closed carriage, on a return journey of several thousand miles, and set down in Poland, penniless, and utterly broken in health. This strange action was the offspring of jealousy on the part of the Empress Catharine, who feared that the energy of the young and vigorous government of the United States would absorb the north-west coast of America, upon which the Russian Government had already set its ambition.
The success of the Lewis and Clarke expedition aided greatly in sustaining our title to the Oregon country. The joint leaders of it became celebrated by their arduous achievement, and were rewarded accordingly. Lewis was appointed governor of Louisiana territory in 1807, and held the position until his death in 1809; while Clarke was for a long period governor of the territory of Missouri, serving in that capacity when the State was admitted to the Union. But while the Lewis and Clarke expedition largely increased our knowledge of the country, and added to the strength of our title, it did not definitely settle any disputed question. With Spain we had constant trouble in regard to the boundaries of Louisiana, both on the west in the direction of Texas, and on the east along the confines of Florida. She had always been dissatisfied with Bonaparte's transfer of Louisiana to the United States. If that result could have been foreseen, the treaty of San Ildefonso would never have been made. The government of the United States believed that Louisiana, as held by France, had bordered on the Rio Grande, and that, by the treaty with Bonaparte, we were entitled to territory in the direction of Florida as far as the Perdido. In the vexatious war with the Seminoles, General Jackson did not hesitate to march across the line, capture Pensacola, and seize the Barancas. The comments, official and personal, which were made on that rash exploit, led to controversies and estrangements which affected political parties for many years after. Jackson's hostility to John Quincy Adams, his exasperating quarrel with Clay, his implacable hatred for Calhoun, all had their origin in events connected with the Florida campaign of 1818.
To compose the boundary troubles with Spain, a treaty was negotiated in 1819, which, with many gains, entailed some signal losses upon the United States. The whole of Florida was ceded by Spain, an acquisition which proved of great value to us in every point of view. As Florida had become separated from the other Spanish colonies by the cession of Louisiana, the government at Madrid found difficulty in satisfactorily administering its affairs and guarding its safety. South of the United States, to the Straits of Magellan, the Spanish flag floated over every foot of the continent except the Empire of Brazil and some small colonies in Guiana. The cession of Louisiana to Bonaparte involved the loss of Florida which was now formally transferred to the United States. But Spain received more than an equivalent. The whole of Texas was fairly included in the Louisiana purchase,—if the well-studied opinion of such eminent statesmen as Clay, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren, and Benton may be accepted,—and we paid dearly for Florida by agreeing to retreat from the Rio Grande to the Sabine as our south-western frontier, thus surrendering Texas to Mexico. The western boundary of the Louisiana territory was defined as beginning at the mouth of the Sabine (which is the boundary of the State of Louisiana to-day), continuing along its western bank to the 32° of north latitude, thence by a line due north to the Red River, thence up the Red River to the 100th meridian west from Greenwich, or the 23d west from Washington, thence due north to the Arkansas, thence following the Arkansas to its source in latitude 42°, and thence by that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. Should the Arkansas fall short of the 42°, a due north line to that parallel was to be taken. The United States solemnly renounced all claim to territories west or south of the line just mentioned, and Spain renounced all claim to territory east or north of it. Thus all boundary disputes with Spain were ended, and peace was secured, though at a great cost; as events in after years so fully proved.
LOUISIANA ADMITTED AS A STATE.
Meanwhile territorial government had been established over a large section of the country acquired from France; and it was rapidly peopled by an enterprising emigration, almost wholly from the Southern States. Louisiana sought to enter the Union in 1811, and then for the first time occurred an agitation in Congress over the admission of a slave State. Opposition to it was not, however, grounded so much upon the existence of slavery as upon the alleged violation of the Constitution in forming a State from territory not included in the original government of the Union. Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts made a violent speech against it, declaring that if Louisiana were admitted, "the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are free from their moral obligations; and that, as it will be right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must." Mr. Quincy was disquieted at the mere thought of extending the Union beyond its original limits. He had "heard with alarm that six States might grow up beyond the Mississippi, and that the mouth of the Ohio might be east of the centre of a contemplated empire." He declared that "it was not for these men that our fathers fought, not for them that the Constitution was adopted. Our fathers were not madmen: they had not taken degrees at the hospital of idiocy." He maintained with great vehemence that there was "no authority to throw the rights and liberties of this people into 'hotchpot' with the wild men of the Missouri, nor with the mixed, though more respectable, race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans who bask on the sands in the mouth of the Mississippi." Mr. Quincy's sentiments were far more radical than those held by the mass of Northern or New-England people, yet there was undoubtedly a strong opposition to the admission of Louisiana. Many Northern men had opposed the purchase of the territory from France, believing it to be unconstitutional; and they dreaded the introduction of senators and representatives from territory which they considered foreign. Nevertheless the bill admitting the State passed the House by a vote of two-thirds of the members. The opposition was wholly from the North, and largely from New England. The contest was confined to Congress— the issue failing to excite popular interest. A majority of the people, both North and South, were convinced that the ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi was of inestimable value to the Union, and that it could not be permanently secured except by admitting as a State the territory which included and controlled it. This conclusion was strengthened by the near approach of war with Great Britain, soon after formally declared. The advantage of a loyal and devoted population at New Orleans, identified in interest and in sympathy with the government, was too evident to need argument. If the weight of reason had not already been on the side of admitting Louisiana, the necessities of war would have enforced it.
Six years after Louisiana entered the Union, Missouri applied for admission as a slave State. A violent agitation at once arose, continued for two years, and was finally allayed by the famous compromise of 1820. The outbreak was so sudden, its course so turbulent, and its subsidence so complete, that for many years it was regarded as phenomenal in our politics, and its repetition in the highest degree improbable if not impossible. The "Missouri question," as it was popularly termed, formally appeared in Congress in the month of December, 1818; though during the preceding session petitions for a State government had been received from the inhabitants of that territory. When the bill proposing to admit the State came before the House, Mr. James Tallmadege, jun., of New York, moved to amend it by providing that "the further introduction of slavery be prohibited in said State of Missouri, and that all children born in that State after its admission to the Union shall be free at the age of twenty-five years." The discussion which followed was able, excited, and even acrimonious. Mr. Clay took an active part against the amendment, but his great influence was unavailing in the face of the strong anti-slavery sentiment which was so suddenly developed in the North. Both branches of Mr. Tallmadge's amendment were adopted and the bill was passed. In the Senate the anti-slavery amendment encountered a furious opposition and was rejected by a large majority. The House refused to recede; and, amid great excitement in the country and no little temper in Congress, each branch voted to adhere to its position. Thus for the time Missouri was kept out of the Union.
On the second day after the opening of the next Congress, December, 1819, Mr. John Holmes presented a memorial in the House of Representatives from a convention which had been lately held in the District of Maine, praying for the admission of said district into the Union "as a separate and independent State, on an equal footing with the original States." On the same day, and immediately after Mr. Holmes had taken his seat, Mr. John Scott, territorial delegate, brought before the House the memorial presented in the previous Congress for the admission of Missouri on the same terms of independence and equality with the old States as prayed for by Maine. From that hour it was found impossible to consider the admission of Maine and Missouri separately. Geographically remote, differing in soil, climate, and products, incapable of competing with each other in any pursuit, they were thrown into rivalry by the influence of the one absorbing question of negro slavery. Southern men were unwilling that Maine should be admitted unless the enabling Act for Missouri should be passed at the same time, and Northern men were unwilling that any enabling Act should be passed for Missouri which did not contain an anti-slavery restriction. Mr. Clay, then an accepted leader of Southern sentiment,—which in his later life he ceased to be,—made an earnest, almost fiery, speech on the question. He declared that before the Maine bill should be finally acted on, he wanted to know "whether certain doctrines of an alarming character, with respect to a restriction on the admission of new States west of the Mississippi, were to be sustained on this floor." He wanted to know "what conditions Congress could annex to the admission of a new State; whether, indeed, there could be a partition of its sovereignty."
THE FIRST MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
Despite the eloquence and the great influence of the Speaker, the Southern representatives were overborne and the House adopted the anti-slavery restriction. The Senate refused to concur, united Maine and Missouri in one bill, and passed it with an entirely new feature, which was proposed by Mr. Jesse B. Thomas, a senator from Illinois. That feature was simply the provision, since so widely known as the Missouri Compromise, which forever prohibited slavery north of 36° 30´ in all the territory acquired from France by the Louisiana purchase. The House would not consent to admit the two States in the same bill, but finally agreed to the compromise; and in the early part of March, 1820, Maine became a member of the Union without condition. A separate bill was passed, permitting Missouri to form a constitution preparatory to her admission, subject to the compromise, which, indeed, formed one section of the enabling Act. Missouri was thus granted permission to enter the Union as a slave State. But she was discontented with the prospect of having free States on three sides,—east, north, and west.
Although the Missouri Compromise was thus nominally perfected, and the agitation apparently ended, the most exciting, and in some respects the most dangerous, phase of the question was yet to be reached. After the enabling Act was passed, the Missouri Convention assembled to frame a constitution for the new State. The inhabitants of the Territory had become angered by the long delay imposed upon them, caused, as they believed, by the introduction of a question which concerned only themselves, and which Congress had no right to control. In this resentful mood they were led by the extremists of the convention to insert a provision in the constitution, declaring that "it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be necessary to prevent free negroes or mulattoes from coming to or settling in this State under any pretext whatever." As soon as the constitution with this obnoxious clause was transmitted to Congress by the President, the excitement broke forth with increased intensity and the lines of the old controversy were at once re-formed.
The parliamentary struggle which ensued was bitter beyond precedent; threats of dissolving the Union were frequent, and apprehension of an impending calamity was felt throughout the country. The discussion continued with unabated vigor and ardor until the middle of February, and the Congress was to terminate on the ensuing fourth of March. The House had twice refused to pass the bill admitting Missouri, declaring that the objectionable clause in her organic law was not only an insult to every State in which colored men were citizens, but was in flat contradiction of that provision in the Federal Constitution which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."
THE SECOND MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
The defeat, apparently final, of the admission of Missouri, created intense indignation. Southern senators and representatives charged that they were treated unjustly by the North, and dealt with unfairly in Congress. In pursuance of the compromise of the year before, Maine had been admitted and her senators were in their seats. The organs of Southern opinion accused the North of overreaching the South in securing, under the name of a compromise, the admission of Maine, while still retaining the power to exclude Missouri. A feeling that bad faith had been practiced is sure to create bitterness, and the accusation of it produces increased bitterness in return. The North could easily justify itself by argument, but the statement without argument apparently showed that the South had been deceived. The course pursued by the senators from Maine, —John Holmes and John Chandler,—in voting steadily for the admission of Missouri, tended greatly to check recrimination and relieve asperity of feeling. Mr. Holmes was a man of ability, of experience in public affairs, and of eminent distinction at home. With a rare gift of humor, and with conversational talent almost unrivaled, he exerted an influence over men in private and social intercourse which gave him singular power in shaping public questions. He was an intimate friend and political supporter of Mr. Clay, and their cordial co-operation at this crisis evoked harmony from chaos, and brought a happy solution to a question that was troubling every patriotic heart. They united in a final effort, and through the instrumentality of a joint committee of seven senators and twenty- three representatives,—of which Mr. Holmes was chairman on the part of the Senate, and Mr. Clay on the part of the House,—a second and final compromise was effected, and the admission of Missouri secured. This compromise declared that Missouri should be admitted to the Union upon the fundamental condition that no law should ever be passed by her Legislature enforcing the objectionable provision in her constitution, and that by a solemn public act the State should declare and record her assent to this condition, and transmit to the President of the United States an authentic copy of the Act. Missouri accepted the condition promptly but not cheerfully, feeling that she entered the Union under a severe discipline, and with hard and humiliating conditions. It was in this compromise, not in the one of the preceding session, that Mr. Clay was the leading spirit. Though the first was the more important, and dealt with larger questions of a more enduring nature, it did not at the time create so great an impression on the public mind as the second, nor did its discussion produce so much antagonism between the North and the South. Thirty years after these events Mr. Clay called attention to the fact that he had received undeserved credit for the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which he had supported but not originated. On the other hand, he had received only the slightest mention for his agency in the second compromise, which he had really originated and carried through Congress. The second compromise had passed out of general recollection before Mr. Clay's death, though it had made him a Presidential candidate at forty-three years of age.
The most remarkable fact connected with the excitement over the Missouri question, which engrossed the country for more than two years, was the absence of any premonition of its coming. There had been no severe political struggle in the nation since the contest between Madison and De Witt Clinton in 1812. Monroe had been chosen almost without opposition in 1816, and, even while the Missouri controversy was at its height, he was re-elected in 1820 by a practically unanimous vote, the North and the South being equally cordial in supporting him. In the House of Representatives, where the battle was so fierce, and the combatants were so evenly divided, Mr. Clay had been chosen speaker with only eight adverse votes, and these were given by men who acted from personal prejudice, and not from political difference. But the outbreak indicated, and indeed heralded, the re-forming of old party lines. The apparent unanimity only concealed a division that was already fatally developed. The party of Jefferson by its very success involved itself in ruin. Its ancient foe, the eminent and honorable party of Federalists, made but a feeble struggle in 1816, and completely disappeared from the national political field four years later, and even from State contests after the notable defeat of Harrison Gray Otis by William Eustis for governor of Massachusetts in 1823. But no political organization can live without opposition. The disappearance of the Federalists was the signal for factional divisions among their opponents; and the old Republican party, which had overthrown the administration of John Adams in 1800, which had laid the embargo, and forced a war with England, was now nearing its end. It divided into four parts in the Presidential election of 1824, and with its ancient creed and organization never re-appeared in a national contest. Jefferson had combined and indeed largely created its elements. He beheld it everywhere victorious for a quarter of a century, and he lived to see it shattered into fragments by the jealousy of its new leaders. The Democratic and Whig parties were constructed upon the ruins of the old organizations. In each were to be found representatives of the Republicanism of Jefferson and the Federalism of Hamilton. The ambition of both to trace their lineage to the former was a striking proof of its popular strength.
The Missouri question marked a distinct era in the political thought of the country, and made a profound impression on the minds of patriotic men. Suddenly, without warning, the North and the South, the free States and the slave States, found themselves arrayed against each other in violent and absorbing conflict. During the interval between the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the admission of Missouri, there had been a great change in the Southern mind, both as to the moral and the economic aspects of slavery. This revolution of opinion had been wrought in large degree by the cotton-plant. When the National Government was organized in 1789, the annual export of cotton did not exceed three hundred bales. It was reckoned only among our experimental products. But, stimulated by the invention of the gin, production increased so rapidly, that, at the time of Missouri's application for admission to the Union, cotton-planting was the most remunerative industry in the country. The export alone exceeded three hundred thousand bales annually. But this highly profitable culture was in regions so warm that outdoor labor was unwelcome to the white race. The immediate consequence was a large advance in the value of slave-labor, and in the price of slaves. This fact had its quick and decisive influence, even in those slave-holding States which could not raise cotton. The inevitable and speedy result was a consolidation of the political power necessary to protect an interest at once so vast and so liable to assault.
It was not unnatural that this condition should lead to a violent outburst on the slavery question, but it was nevertheless wholly unexpected. The causes which let to it had not been understood and analyzed. The older class of statesmen, who had come down from the period of the Revolution, from the great work of cementing the Union and framing the Constitution, deplored the agitation, and viewed the results with the gravest apprehension. The compromise by a geographical line, dividing the slave States from the free, was regarded by this class of patriots as full of danger,—a constant menace to the peace and perpetuity of the Union. To Mr. Jefferson, still living in vigorous old age, the trouble sounded like an alarm- bell rung at midnight. While the measure was pending in Congress, he wrote to a member of the House of Representatives, that "the Missouri question is the most portentous one which has ever threatened the Union. In the gloomiest hour of the Revolutionary war I never had any apprehensions equal to those which I feel from this source." Men on both sides of the controversy began to realize its significance and to dread its probable results. They likened the partition of the country by a geographical line unto the ancient agreement between Abraham and Lot, where one should go to the right, and the other to the left, with the certainty of becoming aliens, and the possibility of becoming enemies.
THE MISSOURI ADJUSTMENT SATISFACTORY.
With the settlement of the Missouri question, the anti-slavery agitation subsided as rapidly as it had arisen. This was a second surprise to thinking men. The results can, however, be readily explained. The Northern States felt that they had absolutely secured to freedom a large territory west and north of Missouri. The Southern States believed that they had an implied and honorable understanding,—outside and beyond the explicit letter of the law, —that new States south of the Missouri line could be admitted with slavery if they desired. The great political parties then dividing the country accepted the result and for the next twenty years no agitation of the slavery question appeared in any political convention, or affected any considerable body of the people.
Within that period, however, there grew up a school of anti-slavery men far more radical and progressive than those who had resisted the admission of Missouri as a slave State. They formed what was known as the Abolition party, and they devoted themselves to the utter destruction of slavery by every instrumentality which they could lawfully employ. Acutely trained in the political as well as the ethical principles of the great controversy, they clearly distinguished between the powers which Congress might and might not exercise under the limitations of the Constitution. They began, therefore, by demanding the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in all the national forts, arsenals, and dock- yards, where, without question or cavil, the exclusive jurisdiction belonged to Congress; they asked that Congress, under its constitutional authority to regulate commerce between the States, would prohibit the inter-State slave-trade; and they prayed that our ships sailing on the high-seas should not be permitted by the government to carry slaves as part of their cargo, under the free flag of the United States, and outside the local jurisdiction that held them in bondage. They denied that a man should aid in executing any law whose enforcement did violence to his conscience and trampled under foot the Divine commands. Hence they would not assist in the surrender and return of fugitive slaves, holding it rather to be their duty to resist such violation of the natural rights of man by every peaceful method, and justifying their resistance by the truths embodied in the Declaration of Independence, and, still more impressively, by the precepts taught in the New Testament.
While encountering, on these issues, the active hostility of the great mass of the people in all sections of the Union, the Abolitionists challenged the respect of thinking men, and even compelled the admiration of some of their most pronounced opponents. The party was small in number, but its membership was distinguished for intellectual ability, for high character, for pure philanthropy, for unquailing courage both moral and physical, and for a controversial talent which has never been excelled in the history of moral reforms. It would not be practicable to give the names of all who were conspicuous in this great struggle, but the mention of James G. Birney, of Benjamin Lundy, of Arthur Tappan, of the brothers Lovejoy, of Gerrit Smith, of John G. Whittier, of William Lloyd Garrison, of Wendell Phillips, and of Gamaliel Bailey, will indicate the class who are entitled to be held in remembrance so long as the possession of great mental and moral attributes gives enduring and honorable fame. Nor would the list of bold and powerful agitators be complete or just if confined to the white race. Among the colored men—often denied the simplest rights of citizenship in the States where they resided—were found many who had received the gift of tongues, orators by nature, who bravely presented the wrongs and upheld the rights of the oppressed. Among these Frederick Douglass was especially and richly endowed not only with the strength but with the graces of speech; and for many years, from the stump and from the platform, he exerted a wide and beneficent influence upon popular opinion.
THE ABOLITION PARTY ORGANIZED.
In the early days of this agitation, the Abolitionists were a proscribed and persecuted class, denounced with unsparing severity by both the great political parties, condemned by many of the leading churches, libeled in the public press, and maltreated by furious mobs. In no part of the country did they constitute more than a handful of the population, but they worked against every discouragement with a zeal and firmness which bespoke intensity of moral conviction. They were in large degree recruited from the society of Friends, who brought to the support of the organization the same calm and consistent courage which had always distinguished them in upholding before the world their peculiar tenets of religious faith. Caring nothing for prejudice, meeting opprobrium with silence, shaming the authors of violence by meek non-resistance, relying on moral agencies alone, appealing simply to the reason and the conscience of men, they arrested the attention of the nation by arraigning it before the public opinion of the world, and proclaiming its responsibility to the judgment of God.
These apostles of universal liberty besieged Congress with memorials praying for such legislative measures as would carry out their designs. Failure after failure only served to inspire them with fresh courage and more vigorous determination. They were met with the most resolute resistance by representative from the slave- holding States, who sought to deny them a hearing, and declared that the mere consideration of their propositions by Congress would not only justify, but would inevitably precipitate, a dissolution of the Union. Undaunted by any form of opposition, the Abolitionists stubbornly maintained their ground, and finally succeeded in creating a great popular excitement by insisting on the simple right of petition as inseparable from free government and free citizenship. On this issue John Quincy Adams, who had entered the House of Representatives in 1831, two years after his retirement from the Presidency, waged a memorable warfare. Not fully sympathizing with the Abolitionists in their measures or their methods, Mr. Adams maintained that they had the right to be heard. On this incidental issue he forced the controversy until it enlisted the attention of the entire country. He finally drove the opponents of free discussion to seek shelter under the adoption of an odious rule in the House of Representatives, popularly named the "Atherton gag," from Mr. Charles G. Atherton, a Democratic representative from New Hampshire, who reported it to the House in December, 1838. The rule was originally devised, however, in a caucus of Southern Democratic members. In the light of the present day, when slavery no longer exists in the land, when speech is absolutely free, in and out of Congress, it is hard to believe that during the Presidency of Mr. Van Buren, and under the speakership of Mr. Polk, the House of Representatives voted that "every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition, or paper, touching or relating in any way or to any extent whatever to slavery or the abolition thereof, shall on presentation, without any further action thereon, be laid upon the table, without being debated, printed, or referred."
The Southern representatives, both Democrats and Whigs, and the Northern Democrats, sustained this extraordinary resolution, which became widely known as the 21st Rule of the House. The Northern Whigs, to their honor be it said, were steadily against it. The real design of the measure was to take from Mr. Adams the power of precipitating a discussion on the slavery question, but the most unskilled should have seen that in this it would fail. It resembled in its character the re-actionary and tyrannical edicts so frequently employed in absolute governments, and was unsuited to the temper, ran counter to the judgment, and proved offensive to the conscience, of the American people.
Profoundly opposed as were many citizens to a denial of the right of petition, very few wished to become identified with the cause of the Abolitionists. In truth it required no small degree of moral courage to take position in the ranks of that despised political sect forty-five years ago. Persecutions of a petty and social character were almost sure to follow, and not infrequently grievous wrongs were inflicted, for which, in the absence of a disposition among the people to see justice done, the law afforded no redress. Indeed, by an apparent contradiction not difficult to reconcile, many of those who fought bravely for the right of the Abolitionists to be heard in Congress by petition, were yet enraged with them for continually and, as they thought, causelessly, raising and pressing the issue. They were willing to fight for the right of the Abolitionists to do a certain thing, and then willing to fight the Abolitionists for aimlessly and uselessly doing it. The men who were governed by these complex motives were chiefly Whigs. They felt that an increase of popular strength to the Abolitionists must be at the expense of the party which, continuing to make Clay its idol, was about to make Harrison its candidate. The announcement, therefore, on the eve of the national contest of 1840, that the Abolitionists had nominated James G. Birney of Michigan for President, and Francis J. Le Moyne of Pennsylvania for Vice-President, was angrily received by the Whigs, and denunciations of the movement were loud and frequent. The support received by these candidates was unexpectedly small, and showed little ground, in the judgment of the Whigs, for the course taken by the Abolitionists. Their strength was almost wholly confined to New England, Western New York, and the Western Reserve of Ohio. It was plainly seen, that, in a large majority of the free States, the Abolitionists had as yet made no impression on public opinion.
THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY.
Any less earnest body of men would have been discouraged, but the Abolition party was composed of devotees possessing the true martyr spirit, and, instead of being appalled by defeat, they were inspired with fresh zeal, and incited to new effort. They had not failed to observe, that, while few were disposed to unite in extreme anti- slavery measures, there was a growing number whose conscience was aroused on the general subject of human bondage. The emancipation of negroes with a view to their settlement in Africa, as advocated by the Colonization Society, received the support of conservative opponents of slavery, the sympathy of the Churches, and the patronage of leading men among the slave-holders of the Border States. The National Government was repeatedly urged to give its aid to the scheme; and, during the excitement on the Missouri question, Congress appropriated $100,000, nominally for the return of Africans who had been unlawfully landed in the United States after the slave trade was prohibited, but really as an indirect mode of promoting the project of colonization. As a scheme for the destruction of domestic slavery it was ridiculed by the Abolitionists, who in the end violently opposed it as tending to deaden the public conscience to the more imperative duty of universal emancipation. The philanthropic efforts of the Society were abundantly rewarded, however, by the establishment of the Republic of Liberia, whose career has been eminently creditable and advantageous to the African race.
CHAPTER II.
Review of events before 1860 (continued).—Early Efforts to acquire Texas.—Course of President Tyler.—Mr. Calhoun appointed Secretary of State.—His Successful Management of the Texas Question. —His Hostility to Mr. Van Buren.—Letters of Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren opposing the Annexation of Texas.—Mr. Clay nominated as the Whig Candidate for the President in 1844.—Van Buren's Nomination defeated.—Mr. Polk selected as the Democratic Candidate.—Disquietude of Mr. Clay.—His Change of Ground.—His Defeat.—Prolonged Rivalry between Mr. Clay and General Jackson.—Texas formally annexed to the Union.
Soon after the failure of the Abolitionists to exhibit popular strength, the slavery question was forced upon public attention independently of their efforts, and by causes whose operation and effect were not distinctly forseen by those who set them in motion. The Americans who, in a spirit of adventure, migrated to Texas after that province had revolted from Mexico, became the controlling power in the young republic, and under the lead of General Sam Houston, in the month of April, 1836, won a memorable victory over the Mexican army at San Jacinto. Thenceforward, in differing degrees of earnestness, the annexation of Texas became a subject of consideration in the United States, but it was never incorporated in the creed of either of the great parties until the Presidential canvass of 1844. Not long after the death of President Harrison in April, 1841, his successor, John Tyler, had serious disagreements with the leading Whigs, both in his cabinet and in Congress, respecting the establishment of a national bank. Mr. Clay led the attack upon him openly and almost savagely, arraigning him as a traitor to the principles upon which he had been elected, and pursuing the quarrel so violently, that in September, five months after Tyler's accession, every member of his cabinet resigned except Mr. Webster. He lingered, unwelcome if not distrusted, until July, 1843, for the purpose of conducting the negotiations in regard to the North-eastern boundary, which he brought to a termination by the Ashburton Treaty. The new secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur of Virginia,—who had been at the head of the Navy Department for a few months,—was a man of strong parts and brilliant attainments, but not well known outside of his own commonwealth, and subject therefore to disparagement as the successor of a man so illustrious as Mr. Webster. He grasped his new duties, however, with the hand of a master, and actively and avowedly pursued the policy of acquiring Texas. His efforts were warmly seconded by the President, whose friends believed with all confidence that this question could be so presented as to make Mr. Tyler the Democratic candidate in the approaching Presidential election. What Mr. Upshur's success might have been in the difficult field of negotiation upon which he had entered, must be left to conjecture, for his life was suddenly destroyed by the terrible accident on board the United-States steamer "Princeton," in February, 1844, but little more than seven months after he had entered upon his important and engrossing duties.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT TYLER.
Mr. Tyler's administration being now fully committed to the scheme of Texas annexation, the selection of a new secretary of State was a matter of extreme importance. The President had been finally separated from all sympathy with the party that elected him, when Mr. Webster left the cabinet the preceding summer. But he had not secured the confidence or the support of the Democracy. The members of that party were willing to fill his offices throughout the country, and to absorb the honors and emoluments of his administration; but the leaders of positive influence, men of the grade of Van Buren, Buchanan, Cass, Dallas, and Silas Wright, held aloof, and left the government to be guided by Democrats who had less to risk, and by Whigs of the type of Henry A. Wise of Virginia and Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts, who had revolted from the rule of Mr. Clay. It was the sagacity of Wise, rather than the judgment of Tyler, which indicated the immense advantage of securing Mr. Calhoun for the head of the cabinet. The great Southern leader was then in retirement, having resigned from the Senate the preceding year. By a coincidence worth nothing, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were all at that moment absent from the Senate, each having voluntarily retired. In later life, chastened by political adversity, they returned to the chamber where, before their advent and since their departure, there have been no rivals to their fame.
Naturally, Mr. Calhoun would have been reluctant to take office under Tyler at any time, and especially for the brief remainder of an administration which had been continually under the ban of public opinion, and which had not the slightest prospect of renewal. With quick observation and keen insight, however, he perceived a great opportunity to serve the South, and to serve the South was with him not only a principle, but a passion. He realized, moreover, that the hour was at hand for an historic revenge which the noblest of minds might indulge. He saw intuitively that the Texas question was one of vast importance, with untold possibilities. He saw with equal clearness that it had never been presented in such manner as to appeal to the popular judgment, and become an active, aggressive issue in the struggle for the Presidency. A large section of the Democratic party had looked favorably upon annexation ever since 1836, but the leaders had dared not to include the scheme in the avowed designs of party policy. They had omitted it purposely in making up the issues for the Van Buren campaign of 1840, and, up to the hour when Mr. Calhoun entered the State Department, the intention of the managers was to omit it in the contest of 1844 against Mr. Clay. Mr. Tyler's advocacy of Texas annexation had injured rather than promoted it in the estimation of the Democratic party; but when Mr. Calhoun, with his astute management, and his large influence in the slave-holding States, espoused it, the whole tenor of Southern opinion was changed, and the Democracy of that section received a new inspiration.
Mr. Van Buren, aspiring again to the Presidency, desired to avoid the Texas issue. Mr. Calhoun determined that he should meet it. He had every motive for distrusting, opposing, even hating, Van Buren. The contest between them had been long and unrelenting. When Van Buren, as secretary of State, was seized with the ambition to succeed Jackson, he saw Calhoun in the Vice-Presidency, strongly intrenched as heir-apparent; and he set to work to destroy the friendship and confidence that existed between him and the President. The rash course of Jackson in the Seminole campaign of 1818 had been severely criticised in the cabinet of Monroe, and Mr. Calhoun, as secretary of War, had talked of a court of inquiry. Nothing, however, was done and the mere suggestion had been ten years forgotten, when Jackson entered upon the Presidency, entertaining the strongest friendship, both personal and political, for Calhoun. But the damaging fact was unearthed and the jealousy of Jackson was aroused. Calhoun was driven into a deadly quarrel, resigned the Vice-Presidency, and went back to South Carolina to engage in the nullification contest. Van Buren quickly usurped his place in the regard and confidence of Jackson, and succeeded to the Presidency. Calhoun, denounced in every paper under the control of the administration, was threatened with prosecution, and robbed for a time of the confidence of the Democratic party. By the strangely and rapidly changing fortunes of politics, it was now in his power to inflict a just retribution upon Van Bren. He did not neglect the opportunity.
SECRETARY CALHOUN'S DIPLOMACY.
Mr. Calhoun urged the scheme of annexation with intense earnestness. Taking up the subject where Mr. Upshur had left it, he conducted the negotiation with zeal and skill. His diplomatic correspondence was able and exhaustive. It was practically a frank avowal that Texas must be incorporated in the Union. He feared that European influence might become dominant in the new republic, and, as a consequence, that anti-slavery ideas might take root, and thence injuriously affect the interests, and to some extent the safety, of the Southern States. In an instruction to William R. King, our minister at Paris, Mr. Calhoun called his attention to the fact that England regarded the defeat of annexation "as indispensable to the abolition of slavery in Texas." He believed that England was "too sagacious not to see what a fatal blow abolition in Texas would give to slavery in the United States." Then, contemplating the effect of the general abolition of slavery, he declared that "to this continent it would be calamitous beyond description." It would "destroy in a great measure the cultivation and production of the great tropical staples, amounting annually in value to nearly $300,000,000." It is a suggestive commentary on Mr. Calhoun's evil foreboding, that the great tropical staple of the South has steadily increased in growth under free labor, and that the development of Texas never fairly began until slavery was banished from her soil.
Discussing the right of Texas to independence, in an instruction to Wilson Shannon, our minister to Mexico, Mr. Calhoun averred that "Texas had never stood in relation to Mexico as a rebellious province struggling to obtain independence. The true relation between them is that of independent members of a federal government, the weaker of which has successfully resisted the attempts of the stronger to conquer and subject her to its power." This was applying to the constitution of Mexico the same construction which he had so long and so ably demanded for our own. It was, indeed, but a paraphrase of the State-sovereignty and State-rights theory, with which he had persistently indoctrinated the Southern mind. Ten years after Mr. Calhoun was in his grave, the same doctrine, in almost the same form of expression, became familiar to the country as the Southern justification for resorting to civil war.
The prompt result of Mr. Calhoun's efforts was a treaty of annexation which had been discussed but not concluded under Mr. Upshur. It was communicated to the Senate by the President on the 12th of April, 1844. The effect which this treaty produced on the political fortunes of two leading statesmen, one in each party, was extraordinary. Prior to its negotiation, the Democrats throughout the Union were apparently well united in support of Mr. Van Buren as their Presidential candidate. Mr. Clay was universally accepted by the Whigs,—his nomination by a national convention being indeed but a matter of form. Relations of personal courtesy and confidence, if not of intimate friendship, had always subsisted between Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren during their prolonged public service. It was now believed that they had come to an understanding, through the negotiation of friends, to eliminate the Texas question from the campaign of 1844 by defeating the Tyler-Calhoun treaty, and agreeing to a general postponement of the subject, on the ground that immediate annexation would plunge the country into war. Very soon after the treaty was sent to the Senate by the President, Mr. Clay published in the "National Intelligencer" his famous Raleigh letter against annexation. The "Globe" of the same day contained a more guarded communication from Mr. Van Buren, practically taking the same ground. Considering the widely different characteristics of the two men, the letters were singularly alike in argument and inference. This fact, in connection with the identical time of publication, strengthened the suspicion, if not the conclusion, that there was a pre-arranged understanding between the eminent authors.
The letter of Mr. Van Buren was fatal to his prospects. He was caught in the toils prepared by Mr. Calhoun's diplomacy. His disastrous defeat four years before by General Harrison had not injured him within the lines of his own party, or shorn him of his prestige in the nation. He still retained the undiminished confidence of his old adherents in the North, and a large support from the Southern Democracy outside of the States in which Mr. Calhoun's influence was dominant. But the leading Democrats of the South, now inflamed with the fever of annexation, determined upon Van Buren's defeat as soon as his letter opposing the acquisition of Texas appeared. They went to work industriously and skillfully to compass that end. It was not a light task. The force of New York, as has been so frequently and so signally demonstrated, is difficult to overcome in a Democratic National Convention; and New York was not only unanimously, but enthusiastically, for Mr. Van Buren. Hitherto New York and the South had been in alliance, and their joint decrees were the rule of action inside the Democratic party. They were now separated and hostile, and the trial of strength that ensued was one of the most interesting political contests ever witnessed in the country. The Democratic masses had so long followed Southern lead that they were bewildered by this new and unexpected development. From the organization of the Federal Government to that hour, a period of fifty-six years, Mr. Van Buren was the only Northern man whom the Democracy had supported for the Presidency; and Mr. Van Buren had been forced upon the party by General Jackson. His title to his political estate, therefore, came from the South. It remained strong because his supporters believed that Jackson was still behind him. One word from the great chief at the Hermitage would have compelled Mr. Van Buren to retire from the field. But the name of Jackson was powerful with the Democratic masses. Against all the deep plots laid for Van Buren's overthrow, he was still able, when the national convention assembled at Baltimore in May, 1844, to count a majority of the delegates in favor of his nomination.
VAN BUREN AND THE TWO-THIRDS RULE.
The Texas treaty of annexation was still pending in the Senate with a decided majority committed against its confirmation, both upon public and partisan grounds. The Whig senators and the friends of Van Buren had coalesced for its defeat after their respective chiefs had pronounced against it. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Colonel Benton were the leaders under whose joint efforts the work of Calhoun was to be set at naught. But, in fact, the work of Calhoun had already been effectually done and he could afford to disregard the fate of the treaty. He had consolidated the Democratic delegates from the slave-holding States against Mr. Van Buren, and the decree had gone forth for his political destruction. Mr. Van Buren, with the aid of the more populous North, had indeed secured a majority of the convention, but an instrumentality was at hand to overcome this apparent advantage. In the two preceding national conventions of the Democratic party, the rule requiring a two-thirds vote of all the delegates to make a nomination had been adopted at the instance of Mr. Van Buren's friends in order to insure his victory. It was now to be used for his defeat. Forseeing the result, the same zealous and devoted friends of Mr. Van Buren resisted its adoption. Romulus M. Sanders of North Carolina introduced the rule, and was sustained with great vigor by Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, and George W. Hopkins of Virginia. The leading opponents of the rule were Marcus Morton of Massachusetts, Nathan Clifford of Maine, and Daniel S. Dickinson of New York. The discussion was conducted by Southern men on one side and by Northern men on the other,—the first division of the kind in the Democratic party. Slavery was the ominous cause! The South triumphed and the rule was fastened upon the convention.
Immediately after this action Mr. Van Buren received a majority of the votes on the first ballot, and it was not unnaturally charged that many of those supporting him must have been insincere, inasmuch as they had the full right, until self-restrained by the two-thirds rule, to declare him the nominee. But this conclusion does not necessarily follow. Mr. Van Buren had been nominated in the National Democratic Conventions of 1835 and 1839 with the two-thirds rule in operation; and now to force his nomination for a third time by a mere slender majority was, in the judgment of wise and considerate party leaders among his own friends, a dangerous experiment. They instinctively feared to disregard a powerful and aggressive minority stubbornly demanding that Mr. Van Buren should be subjected to the same test which his friends had enforced in previous conventions. Their argument was not satisfactorily answered, the rule was adopted, and Mr. Van Buren's fate was sealed.
CALHOUN DEFEATS VAN BUREN.
The Southern men who insisted upon the rule had the courage to use it. They had absolute control of more than one-third of the convention; and, whatever might come, they were determined that Mr. Van Buren should not be nominated. As the most effective mode of assailing his strength, they supported a Northern candidate against him, and gave a large vote for General Cass. This wrought the intended result. It demoralized the friends of Mr. Van Buren and prepared the way for a final concentration upon Mr. Polk, which from the first had been the secret design of the Southern managers. It was skillfully done, and was the direct result of the Texas policy which Mr. Calhoun had forced the Democratic party to adopt. To Mr. Van Buren it was a great blow, and some of his friends were indisposed to submit to a result which they considered unfair. For the first time in history of any convention, of either party, a candidate supported by a majority of the delegates failed to be nominated. The two-thirds rule, as Colonel Benton declared, had been originally framed, "not to thwart a majority, but to strengthen it." But it was remorselessly used to defeat the majority by men who intended, not only to force a Southern policy on the government, but to intrust that policy to the hands of a Southern President. The support of Cass was not sincere, but it served for the moment to embarrass the friends of Van Buren, to make the triumph of what Benton called the Texas conspiracy more easy and more sure, and in the end to lay up wrath against the day of wrath for General Cass himself. Calhoun's triumph was complete. Politically he had gained a great victory for the South. Personally he had inflicted upon Mr. Van Buren a most humiliating defeat, literally destroying him as a factor in the Democratic party, of which he had so long and so successfully been the leader.
The details of Mr. Van Buren's defeat are presented because of its large influence on the subsequent development of anti-slavery strength in the North. He was sacrificed because he was opposed to the immediate annexation of Texas. Had he taken ground in favor of annexation, he would in all probability have been nominated with a fair prospect of election; though the general judgment at that time was that Mr. Clay would have defeated him. The overthrow of Mr. Van Buren was a crisis in the history of the Democratic party, and implanted dissensions which rapidly ripened into disaster. The one leading feature, the forerunner of important political changes, was the division of delegates on the geographical line of North and South. Though receiving a clear majority of the entire convention on the first ballot, Mr. Van Buren had but nine votes from the slave States; and these votes, singularly enough, came from the northern side of the line of the Missouri Compromise. This division in a Democratic National Convention was, in many of its relations and aspects, more significant than a similar division in the two Houses of Congress.
Though cruelly wronged by the convention, as many of his supporters thought, Mr. Van Buren did not himself show resentment, but effectively sustained his successful competitor. His confidential friend, Silas Wright, had refused to go on the ticket with Mr. Polk, and George M. Dallas was substituted by the quick and competent management of Mr. Robert J. Walker. The refusal of Mr. Wright led the Whigs to hope for distraction in the ranks of the New-York Democracy; but that delusion was soon dispelled by Wright's acceptance of the nomination for governor, and his entrance into the canvass with unusual energy and spirit. It was widely believed that Jackson's great influence with Van Buren was actively exerted in aid of Polk's election. It would have cruelly embittered the few remaining days of the venerable ex-president to witness Clay's triumph, and Van Buren owed so much to Jackson that he could not be indifferent to Polk's success without showing ingratitude to the great benefactor who had made him his successor in the Executive chair. Motives of this kind evidently influenced Mr. Van Buren; for his course in after years showed how keenly he felt his defeat, and how unreconciled he was to the men chiefly engaged in compassing it. The cooler temperament which he inherited from his Dutch ancestry enabled him to bide his time more patiently than men of Scotch-Irish blood, like Calhoun; but subsequent events plainly showed that he was capable of nursing his anger, and of inflicting a revenge as significant and as fatal as that of which he had been made the victim,—a revenge which would have been perfect in its gratification had it included Mr. Calhoun personally, as it did politically, with General Cass.
Mr. Clay's letter opposing the annexation of Texas, unlike the letter of Mr. Van Buren, brought its author strength and prestige in the section upon which he chiefly relied for support in the election. He was nominated with unbounded manifestations of enthusiasm at Baltimore, on the first of May, with no platform except a brief extract from one of his own letters embraced in a single resolution, and containing no reference whatever to the Texas question. His prospects were considered most brilliant, and his supporters throughout the Union were absolutely confident of his election. But the nomination of Mr. Polk, four weeks later, surprised and disquieted Mr. Clay. More quickly than his ardent and blinded advocates, he perceived the danger to himself which the candidacy of Mr. Polk inevitably involved; and he at once became restless and dissatisfied with the drift and tendency of the campaign. The convention which nominated Mr. Polk took bold ground for the immediate re-annexation of Texas and re-occupation of Oregon. This peculiar form of expression was used to indicate that Texas had already belonged to us under the Louisiana purchase, and that Oregon had been wholly ours prior to the treaty of joint occupancy with Great Britain. It further declared, that our title to the whole of Oregon, up to 54° 40´ north latitude, was "clear and indisputable"; thus carrying our claim to the borders of the Russian possessions, and utterly denying and defying the pretension of Great Britain to the ownership of any territory bordering on the Pacific.
FATAL CHANGE IN MR. CLAY'S POSITION.
By this aggressive policy the Democratic party called forth the enthusiasm of the people, both North and South, in favor of territorial acquisition,—always popular with men of Anglo-Saxon blood, and appealing in an especial manner to the young, the brave, and the adventurous, in all sections of the country. Mr. Clay, a man of most generous and daring nature, suddenly discovered that he was on the timid side of all the prominent questions before the people,—a position occupied by him for the first time. He had led public sentiment in urging the war of 1812 against Great Britain; had served with distinction in negotiating the Treaty of Peace at Ghent; had forced the country into an early recognition of the South-American republics at the risk of war with Spain; had fiercely attacked the Florida Treaty of 1819, for surrendering our rightful claim to Texas as part of the Louisiana purchase; and had, when secretary of State, held high ground on the Oregon question in his correspondence with the British Government. With this splendid record of fearless policy throughout his long public career, a defensive position, suddenly thrust upon him by circumstances which he had not foreseen, betrayed him into anger, and thence naturally into imprudence. All his expectations had been based upon a contest with Mr. Van Buren. The issues he anticipated were those of national bank, of protective tariff, of internal improvements, and the distribution of the proceeds from the sale of the public lands,— on all of which he believed he would have the advantage before the people. The substitution of Mr. Polk changed the entire character of the contest, as the sagacious leaders of the Southern Democracy had foreseen. To extricate himself from the embarrassment into which he was thrown, Mr. Clay resorted to the dangerous experiment of modifying the position which he had so recently taken on the Texas question. Apparently underrating the hostility of the Northern Whigs to the scheme of annexation, he saw only the disadvantage in which the Southern Whigs were placed, especially in the Gulf region, and, in a less degree, in the northern tier of slave-holding States. Even in Kentucky—which had for years followed Mr. Clay with immense popular majorities—the contest grew animated and exciting as the Texas question was pressed. The State was to vote in August; and the gubernatorial canvass between Judge Owsley, the Whig candidate, and General William O. Butler, the nominee of the Democrats, was attracting the attention of the whole nation. This local contest not only enlisted Mr. Clay's interest, but aroused his deep personal feeling. In a private letter, since made public, he urged the editors of the Whig press "to lash Butler" for some political shortcoming which he pointed out. In a tone of unrestrained anger, he declared that "we should have a pretty time of it with one of Jackson's lieutenants at Washington, and another at Frankfort, and the old man in his dotage at the Hermitage dictating to both." To lose Kentucky was, for the Whigs, to lose every thing. To reduce the Whig majority in Mr. Clay's own State would be a great victory for the Democracy, and to that end the leaders of the party were straining every nerve.
Mr. Clay realized that it was his position on the Texas question, as defined in the Raleigh letter, which was endangering his prestige in Kentucky. This fact, added to the pressure upon him from every other slave-holding State, precipitated him into the blunder which probably cost him his election. A few weeks after the nomination of Mr. Polk, on the first day of July, 1844, Mr. Clay, while resting quietly at Ashland, wrote to Stephen Miller of Tuscaloosa what has since been known as his Alabama letter. It was written to relieve the Southern Whigs, without anticipation of its effect upon the fortunes of Northern Whigs. Mr. Clay was surrounded by men of the South only, breathed their atmosphere, heard their arguments; and, unmindful of the unrepresented Northern sentiment, he took the fatal step. He declared, that, "far from having any personal objection to the annexation of Texas," he "would be glad to see it annexed, without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and fair terms." This letter received the popular designation of Mr. Clay's political "death-warrant," from the disastrous effect it produced on his prospects in certain free States where before its appearance he had been considered irresistibly strong.
TRIUMPH OF POLK OVER CLAY.
The immediate and palpable effect of the Alabama letter in the North was an increase of power and numbers to the Abolitionists. To Mr. Clay this was its most destructive result. Prior to 1840 the Abolitionists had been so few and so scattered that they had not attempted a national organization, or taken any part in the political contests of the country. In that year, however, they named James G. Birney as their candidate for the Presidency, and cast for him only 6,745 votes out of a total of 2,410,778. In 1844 the Abolitionists again named Mr. Birney as their Presidential candidate; and, until the appearance of the Alabama letter, the general impression was that their vote would not be larger than in 1840. Indeed, so long as Mr. Clay held firmly to his opposition to Texas annexation, the tendency of the Abolitionists was to prefer him to Mr. Polk. But the moment the letter of surrender appeared thousands of anti-slavery Whigs who had loyally supported Mr. Clay went over at once to the Abolitionists. To the popular apprehension, Mr. Clay had changed his ground, and his new position really left little difference between himself and his opponent on the absorbing question of Texas annexation, but it still gave to Mr. Polk all the advantage of boldness. The latter was outspoken for the annexation of Texas, and the former, with a few timid qualifications, declared that he would be glad to see Texas annexed. Besides this, Mr. Polk's position on the Oregon question afforded some compensation by proposing to add a large area of free territory to offset the increase of slave territory in Texas. Under such arguments the Abolition party grew rapidly and steadily until, at the election, they polled for Mr. Birney 58,879 votes. This vast increase over the vote of 1840 was very largely at the expense of the Whig party, and its specific injury to Mr. Clay is almost a matter of mathematical demonstration. In New York the vote stood for Polk 237,588, for Clay 232,482, for Birney, 15,812. The plurality for Mr. Polk was only 5,106. In 1840 the vote for Mr. Birney in New York was 2,798.* But for the Alabama letter it has always been believed that Mr. Clay would have received a sufficient number of the Birney votes to give him a plurality. The election hinged on the result in New York. One hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes were necessary to a choice. With New York, Mr. Clay would have had a total of one hundred and forty-one. Mr. Polk, with New York added to his vote, received a total of one hundred and seventy, and was elected President of the United States.
No contest for the Presidency, either before or since, has been conducted with such intense energy and such deep feeling. Mr. Clay's followers were not ordinary political supporters. They had the profound personal attachment which is looked for only in hereditary governments, where loyalty becomes a passion, and is blind and unreasoning in its adherence and its devotion. The logical complement of such ardent fidelity is an opposition marked by unscrupulous rancor. This case proved no exception. The love of Mr. Clay's friends was equaled by the hatred of his foes. The zeal of his supporters did not surpass the zeal of his opponents. All the enmities and exasperations which began in the memorable contest for the Presidency when John Quincy Adams was chosen, and had grown into great proportions during the long intervening period, were fought out on the angry field of 1844. Mr. Polk, a moderate and amiable man, did not represent the acrimonious character of the controversy. He stood only as the passive representative of its principles. Behind him was Jackson, aged and infirm in body, but strong in mind, and unbroken in spirit. With him the struggle was not only one of principle, but of pride; not merely of judgment, but of temper; and he communicated to the legions throughout the country, who regarded him with reverence and gratitude, a full measure of his own animosity against Clay. In its progress the struggle absorbed the thought, the action, the passion, of the whole people. When its result was known, the Whigs regarded the defeat of Mr. Clay, not only as a calamity of untold magnitude to the country, but as a personal and profound grief, which touched the heart as deeply as the understanding. It was Jackson's final triumph over Clay. The iron-nerved old hero died in seven months after this crowning gratification of his life.
GENERAL JACKSON AND MR. CLAY.
For twenty years these two great, brave men headed the opposing political forces of the Union. Whoever might be candidates, they were the actual leaders. John Quincy Adams was more learned than either; Mr. Webster was stronger in logic and in speech; Calhoun more acute, refined, and philosophic; Van Buren better skilled in combining and directing political forces; but to no one of these was given the sublime attribute of leadership, the faculty of drawing men unto him. That is natural, not acquired. There was not in the whole country, during the long period of their rivalry, a single citizen of intelligence who was indifferent to Clay or to Jackson. For the one without qualification, against the other without reservation, was the rule of division from the northernmost township of New England to the mouths of the Mississippi. Both leaders had the highest courage; physical and moral, in equal degree. Clay held the advantage of a rare eloquence; but Jackson had a splendid military record, which spoke to the hearts of the people more effectively than words. Members for twenty years of the same party, they differed slightly, if at all, in political principles when the contest began; but Jackson enjoyed the prestige of a more lineal heirship to the creed of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe; while Clay, by his imprudence in becoming secretary of State, incurred not only the odium of the "bargain and sale," but a share of the general unpopularity which at that time attached to the name of Adams. It is not in retrospect difficult to measure the advantages which Jackson possessed in the long contest, and to see clearly the reasons of his final triumph over the boldest of leaders, the noblest of foes. Still less is it difficult to see how largely the personality of the two men entered into the struggle, and how in the end the effect upon the politics and prosperity of the country would have been nearly the same had the winner and the loser exchanged places. In each of them patriotism was a passion. There never was a moment in their prolonged enmity and their rancorous contests when a real danger to the country would not have united them as heartily as in 1812, when Clay in the House and Jackson on the field co-operated in defending the national honor against the aggressions of Great Britain.
The election of Mr. Polk was an unquestionable verdict from the people in favor of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Clay and Mr. Van Buren had been able to defeat the treaty negotiated by Mr. Calhoun; but the popular vote overruled them, and pronounced in favor of the Democratic position after full and fair hearing. Mr. Tyler was anxious that the scheme so energetically initiated by him should be fully accomplished during his term. The short method of joint resolution was therefore devised by the ever fertile brain of Mr. Calhoun, and its passage through Congress intrusted to the skilful management of Robert J. Walker, then a senator from Mississippi, and already indicated for the portfolio of the Treasury in the new administration. Mr. Polk was in consultation with Mr. Tyler during the closing weeks of the latter's administration, and the annexation by joint resolution had his full concurrence. It was passed in season to receive the approval of President Tyler on the first day of March, three days before the eventful administration of Mr. Polk was installed in power. Its terms were promptly accepted by Texas, and at the next session of Congress, beginning December, 1845, the constitution of the new State was approved. Historic interest attached to the appearance of Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk as the first senators from the great State which they had torn from Mexico and added to the Union.
The lapse of forty years and the important events of intervening history give the opportunity for impartial judgment concerning the policy of acquiring Texas. We were not guiltless towards Mexico in originally permitting if not encouraging our citizens to join in the revolt of one of the States of that Republic. But Texas had passed definitely and finally beyond the control of Mexico, and the practical issue was, whether we should incorporate her in the Union or leave her to drift in uncertain currents—possibly to form European alliances which we should afterwards be compelled, in self-defense, to destroy. An astute statesman of that period summed up the whole case when he declared that it was wiser policy to annex Texas, and accept the issue of immediate war with Mexico, than to leave Texas in nominal independence to involve us probably in ultimate war with England. The entire history of subsequent events has vindicated the wisdom, the courage, and the statesmanship with which the Democratic party dealt with this question in 1844.
[* Total vote cast for James G. Birney, Abolition candidate for
President, in 1840 and in 1844:—
1840. 1844. 1840. 1844.
Connecticut . . . . 179 1,943 New York . . . . 2,798 15,812
Illinois . . . . . — 149 Ohio . . . . . . 903 8,050
Indiana . . . . . . — 2,106 Pennsylvania . . 343 3,138
Maine . . . . . . . 194 4,836 Rhode Island . . 42 107
Massachusetts . . . 1,621 10,860 Vermont . . . . 319 3,954
Michigan . . . . . 321 3,632
New Hampshire . . . 126 4,161 6,745 58,879
New Jersey . . . . 69 131 ]
CHAPTER III.
Review (continued).—Triumph of the Democratic Party.—Impending
Troubles with Mexico.—Position of Parties.—Struggle for the
Equality of Free and Slave States.—Character of the Southern
Leaders.—Their Efforts to control the Government.—Conservative
Course of Secretaries Buchanan and Marcy.—Reluctant to engage in
War with Mexico.—The Oregon Question, 54°, 40´, or 49°.—Critical
Relations with the British Government.—Treaty of 1846.—Character
of the Adjustment.—Our Probable Loss by Unwise Policy of the
Democratic Party.
The annexation of Texas being accomplished, the next step was looked for with absorbing interest. In the spring of 1845 the Democratic party stood victor. Its policy had been approved by the people, its administration was in power. But success had brought heavy responsibilities, and imposed upon the statesmanship of Mr. Polk the severest of tasks. Texas came to us with undefined boundaries, and with a state of war at that moment existing between herself and Mexico. We had annexed a province that had indeed maintained a revolt for years against the central government of a neighboring republic; but its independence had never been conceded, the hope of its subjugation had never been abandoned. When Congress passed the joint resolution of annexation, the Mexican minister entered a formal protest against the proceeding, demanded his passports, and left the United States. By this course, Mexico placed herself in an unfriendly, though not necessarily hostile, attitude. The general apprehension however was that we should drift into war, and the first message of Mr. Polk aroused the country to the impending danger. He devoted a large space to the Texas question, informing Congress that "Mexico had been marshaling and organizing armies, issuing proclamations, and avowing the intention to make war on the United States, either by open declaration, or by invading Texas." He had therefore "deemed it proper, as a precautionary measure, to order a strong squadron to the coast of Mexico, and to concentrate an efficient military force on the western frontier of Texas." Every one could see what this condition of affairs portended, and there was at once great excitement throughout the country. In the North, the belief of a large majority of the people was that the administration intended to precipitate war, not merely to coerce Mexico into the acknowledgment of the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas, but also to acquire further territory for the purpose of creating additional slave States. As soon as this impression, or suspicion, got abroad, the effect was an anti-slavery revival which enlisted the feelings and influenced the political action of many who had never sympathized with the Abolitionists, and of many who had steadily opposed them.
These men came from both the old political parties, but the larger number from the Whigs. Indeed, during almost the entire period of the anti-slavery agitation by the Abolitionists, there had existed a body of men in the Whig ranks who were profoundly impressed with the evils of slavery, and who yet thought they could be more influential in checking its progress by remaining in their old party, and, in many sections of the country, maintaining their control of it. Of these men, John Quincy Adams stood undeniably at the head; and with him were associated, in and out of Congress, Mr. Seward, Mr. Benjamin F. Wade, Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Giddings, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, besides a large number of able and resolute men of less public distinction, but of equal earnestness, in all parts of the North. Subsequent events have led men to forget that Millard Fillmore, then a representative from New York, was one of Mr. Adams's early co-laborers in the anti-slavery cause, and that in the important debate on the admission of Arkansas, with a constitution making slavery perpetual, Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts led the radical free sentiment of New England. A large number of distinguished Democrats in the North also entertained the strongest anti-slavery convictions, and were determined, at the risk of separating from their party associates, to resist the spread of slavery into free territory. Among the most conspicuous of these were Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, Hannibal Hamlin, Preston King, John M. Niles, David Wilmot, David K. Cartter, and John Wentworth. They had many co-laborers and a band of determined and courageous followers. They were especially strong in the State of New York, and, under the name of Barnburners, wrought changes which affected the political history of the entire country.
The two great parties on the eve of the Mexican war were thus somewhat similarly situated. In the South all the members of both were, by the supposed necessity of their situation, upholders of slavery, though the Democrats were on this question more aggressive, more truculent, and more menacing, than the Whigs. The Southern Whigs, under the lead of Mr. Clay, had been taught that slavery was an evil, to be removed in some practicable way at some distant period, but not to be interfered with, in the States where it existed, by outside influence or force. The Democrats, under the head of Mr. Calhoun, defended the institution of slavery as right in itself, as scripturally authorized, as essential in the economy of labor, and as a blessing to both races. In the North both parties were divided on the question; each had its anti-slavery wing and its pro-slavery wing, with many local names to distinguish them. Between the two a relentless controversy began,—a controversy marked as much by epithet as by argument, and conducted with such exasperation of feeling as clearly foreshadowed a break of existing party lines, and the formation of new associations, through which, in the phrase of that day, "men who thought alike could act together."
THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY.
This being the condition of the two great parties which divided the country, it was evident that the acquisition of territory from Mexico must lead to an agitation of the slavery question, of which no man could measure the extent, or foresee the consequences. It was the old Missouri struggle renewed, with more numerous combatants, a stronger influence of the press, a mightier enginery of public opinion. It arose as suddenly as the agitation of 1820, but gave indications of deeper feeling and more prolonged controversy. The able and ambitious men who had come into power at the South were wielding the whole force of the national administration, and they wielded it with commanding ability and unflinching energy. The Free-soil sentiment which so largely pervaded the ranks of the Northern Democracy had no representative in the cabinet, and a man of pronounced anti-slavery views was as severely proscribed in Washington as a Roundhead was in London after the coronation of Charles II.
The policy of maintaining an equality of slave States with free States was to be pursued, as it had already been from the foundation of the government, with unceasing vigilance and untiring energy. The balancing of forces between the new States added to the Union had been so skillfully arranged, that for a long period two States were admitted at nearly the same time,—one from the South, and one from the North. Thus Kentucky and Vermont, Tennessee and Ohio, Mississippi and Indiana, Alabama and Illinois, Missouri and Maine, Arkansas and Michigan, Florida and Iowa, came into the Union in pairs, not indeed at precisely the same moment in every case, but always with reference each to the other in the order named. On the admission of Florida and Iowa, Colonel Benton remarked that "it seemed strange that two territories so different in age, so distant from each other, so antagonistic in natural features and political institutions, should ripen into States at the same time, and come into the Union by a single Act; but these very antagonisms —that is, the antagonistic provisions on the subject of slavery— made the conjunction, and gave to the two young States an inseparable admission." During the entire period from the formation of the Federal Government to the inauguration of Mr. Polk, the only variation from this twin birth of States—the one free, the other slave—was in the case of Louisiana, which was admitted in 1812, with no corresponding State from the North. Of the original Thirteen States, seven had become free, and six maintained slavery. Of the fifteen that were added to the Union, prior to the annexation of Texas, eight were slave, and seven were free; so that, when Mr. Polk took the oath of office, the Union consisted of twenty-eight States, equally divided between slave-holding and free. So nice an adjustment had certainly required constant watchfulness and the closest calculation of political forces. It was in pursuit of this adjustment that the admission of Louisiana was secured, as an evident compensation for the loss which had accrued to the slave- holding interest in the unequal though voluntary partition of the Old Thirteen between North and South.
The more rapid growth of the free States in population made the contest for the House of Representatives, or for a majority in the Electoral college, utterly hopeless to the South; but the constitutional equality of all the States in the Senate enabled the slave interest to defeat any hostile legislation, and to defeat also any nominations by the President of men who were offensive to the South by reason of their anti-slavery character. The courts of the United States, both supreme and district, throughout the Union, including the clerks and the marshals who summoned the juries and served the processes, were therefore filled with men acceptable to the South. Cabinets were constituted in the same way. Representatives of the government in foreign countries were necessarily taken from the class approved by the same power. Mr. Webster, speaking in his most conservative tone in the famous speech of March 7, 1850, declared that, from the formation of the Union to that hour, the South had monopolized three-fourths of the places of honor and emolument under the Federal Government. It was an accepted fact that the class interest of slavery, by holding a tie in the Senate, could defeat any measure or any nomination to which its leaders might be opposed; and thus, banded together by an absolutely cohesive political force, they could and did dictate terms. A tie-vote cannot carry measures, but it can always defeat them; and any combination of votes that possesses the negative power will in the end, if it can be firmly held, direct and control the positive action of the body to which it belongs. A strong minority, so disciplined that it cannot be divided, will, in the hands of competent leaders, annoy, distract, and often defeat, the majority of a parliamentary body. Much more can one absolute half of a legislative assembly, compactly united, succeed in dividing and controlling the other half, which has no class interest to consolidate it, and no tyrannical public opinion behind it, decreeing political death to any member who doubts or halts in his devotion to one supreme idea.
THE POLITICAL LEADERS OF THE SOUTH.
With one-half of the Senate under the control of the slave-holding States, and with the Constitution declaring that no amendment to it should ever destroy the equality of the States in the Senate, the Southern leaders occupied a commanding position. Those leaders constituted a remarkable body of men. Having before them the example of Jefferson, of Madison, and of George Mason in Virginia, of Nathaniel Macon in North Carolina, and of the Pinckneys and Rutledges in South Carolina, they gave deep study to the science of government. They were admirably trained as debaters, and they became highly skilled in the management of parliamentary bodies. As a rule, they were liberally educated, many of them graduates of Northern colleges, a still larger number taking their degrees at Transylvania in Kentucky, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and at Mr. Jefferson's peculiar but admirable institution in Virginia. Their secluded life on the plantation gave them leisure for reading and reflection. They took pride in their libraries, pursued the law so far as it increased their equipment for a public career, and devoted themselves to political affairs with an absorbing ambition. Their domestic relations imparted manners that were haughty and sometimes offensive; they were quick to take affront, and they not infrequently brought needless personal disputation into the discussion of public questions; but they were, almost without exception, men of high integrity, and they were especially and jealously careful of the public money. Too often ruinously lavish in their personal expenditures, they believed in an economical government, and, throughout the long period of their domination, they guarded the Treasury with rigid and unceasing vigilance against every attempt at extravagance, and against every form of corruption.
Looking into the future, the Southern men took alarm lest the equality of their section should be lost in the Senate, and their long control of the Federal Government ended. Even with Texas added to the Union, this equality was barely maintained, for Wisconsin was already seeking admission; and the clause in the articles of annexation providing that four new States might be carved out of the territory of Texas whenever she asked it, gave no promise of speedy help to the South. Its operation would, in any event, be distant, and subject to contingencies which could not be accurately measured. There was not another foot of territory south of 36° 30´, save that which was devoted to the Indians by solemn compact, from which another slave State could be formed. North of 36° 30´ the Missouri Compromise had dedicated the entire country to freedom. In extent it was, to the Southern view, alarmingly great, including at least a million square miles of territory. Except along its river boundaries it was little known. Its value was underrated, and a large portion of it was designated on our maps as the Great American Desert. At the time Texas was annexed, and for several years afterwards, not a single foot of that vast area was organized under any form of civil government. Had the Southern statesmen foreseen the immense wealth, population, and value of this imperial domain in the five great States and four Territories into which it is to-day divided, they would have abandoned the struggle for equality. But the most that was hoped, even in the North, within any near period, was one State north of Iowa, one west of Missouri, and one from the Oregon country. The remainder, in the popular judgment, was divided among mountain gorges, the arid plains of the middle, and the uninviting region in the north, which the French voyaguers had classed under the comprehensive and significant title of mauvaises terres. With only three States anticipated from the great area of the north-west, it was the evident expectation of the Southern men who then had control of the government, that, if war with Mexico should ensue, the result would inevitably be the acquisition of sufficient territory to form slave States south of the line of the Missouri Compromise as rapidly as free States could be formed north of it; and that in this way the ancient equality between North and South could be maintained.
OUR RELATIONS WITH MEXICO.
But the scheme of war did not develop as rapidly as was desired by the hot advocates of territorial expansion. A show of negotiation for peace was kept up by dispatching Mr. John Slidell as minister to Mexico upon the hint that that government might be willing to renew diplomatic relations. When Mr. Slidell reached the city of Mexico he found a violent contest raging over the Presidency of the republic, the principal issue being between the war and anti- war parties. Mr. Slidell was not received. The Mexican Government declared, with somewhat of reason and consistency, that they had been willing to listen to a special envoy who would treat singly and promptly of the grave questions between the two republics, but they would not accept a minister plenipotentiary who would sit down near their government in a leisurely manner, as if friendly relations existed, and select his own time for negotiation,—urging or postponing, threatening or temporizing, as the pressure of political interests in the United States might suggest. Mr. Slidell returned home; but still the conflict of arms, though so imminent, was not immediately precipitated. Mr. Polk's cautious and somewhat timid course represented the resultant between the aggressive Democrat of the South who was for war regardless of consequences, and the Free-soil Democrat of the North who was for peace regardless of consequences; the one feeling sure that war would strengthen the institution of slavery, the other confident that peace would favor the growth of freedom. As not infrequently happens in the evolution of human events, each was mistaken in the final issue. The war, undertaken for the extension of slavery, led in the end to its destruction.
The leading influence in Mr. Polk's cabinet was divided between Mr. Buchanan, secretary of State, and Mr. Marcy, secretary of War. Both were men of conservative minds, of acute judgment in political affairs of long experience in public life; and each was ambitious for the succession to the Presidency. Neither could afford to disregard the dominant opinion of the Southern Democracy; still less could either countenance a reckless policy, which might seriously embarrass our foreign affairs, and precipitate a dangerous crisis in our relations with England. These eminent statesmen quickly perceived that the long-standing issue touching our north- western boundary, commonly known as the Oregon question, was surrounded with embarrassments which, by mismanagement, might rapidly develop into perils of great magnitude in connection with the impending war with Mexico.
The Oregon question, which now became associated, if not complicated, with the Texas question, originated many years before. By our treaty with Spain in 1819, the southern boundary of our possessions on the Pacific had been accurately defined. Our northern boundary was still unadjusted, and had been matter of dispute with Great Britain ever since we acquired the country. By the treaty of Oct. 20, 1818, the 49th parallel of north latitude was established as the boundary between the United States and British America, from the Lake of the Woods to the Stony Mountains, as the Rocky Mountains were then termed. In the same treaty it was agreed that any country claimed by either the United States or Great Britain westward of the Stony Mountains should, with its harbors, bays, and rivers, be open for the term of ten years to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of either power. This agreement was entered into solely for the purpose of preventing disputes pending final settlement, and was not to be construed to the prejudice of either party. This was the beginning of the joint occupancy of the Oregon country, England having with prompt and characteristic enterprise forced her way across the continent after she had acquired Canada in 1763. Stimulated by certain alleged discoveries of her navigators on the north-west coast, Great Britain urged and maintained her title to a frontage on the Pacific, and made a bold claim to sovereignty, as far south as the mouth of the Columbia River, nearly, indeed, to the northern border of California.
OUR CLAIM TO THE OREGON COUNTRY.
Nothing had been done towards an adjustment during the ten years of joint occupancy, and when the term was about to expire, the arrangement was renewed by special convention in 1827, for an indefinite period,—each power reserving the right to terminate the convention by giving twelve-months' notice to the other. The President, John Quincy Adams, made the briefest possible reference to the subject in his message to Congress, December, 1827; speaking of it as a temporary compromise of the respective rights and claims of Great Britain and the United States to territory westward of the Rocky Mountains. For many years thereafter, the subject, though languidly pursued in our diplomatic correspondence, was not alluded to in a President's message, or discussed in Congress. The contracting parties rested content with the power to join issue and try titles at any time by simply giving the required notice. The subject was also overshadowed by more urgent disputes between Great Britain and the United States, especially that relating to the North-eastern boundary, and that touching the suppression of the African slave-trade. The latter involved the old question of the right of search. The two governments came to an agreement on these differences in 1842 by the negotiation of the convention known as the Ashburton Treaty. In transmitting the treaty to Congress, President Tyler made, for the first time since the agreement for a joint occupancy was renewed in 1827, a specific reference to the Oregon question. He informed Congress, that the territory of the United States commonly called the Oregon country was beginning to attract the attention of our fellow-citizens, and that "the tide of our population, having reclaimed from the wilderness the more contiguous regions, was preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean;" that Great Britain "laid claim to a portion of the country and that the question could not be well included in the recent treaty without postponing other more pressing matters." He significantly added, that though the difficulty might not for several years involve the peace of the two countries, yet he should urge upon Great Britain the importance of its early settlement.
As this paragraph was undoubtedly suggested and probably written by Mr. Webster, it attracted wide attention on both sides of the Atlantic; and from that moment, in varying degrees of interest and urgency, the Oregon question became an active political issue. Before the next annual meeting of Congress, Mr. Upshur had succeeded Mr. Webster in the State department; and the message of the President took still more advanced ground respecting Oregon. For political reasons, there was an obvious desire to keep the action of the government on this issue well abreast of its aggressive movements in the matter of acquiring Texas. Emboldened by Mr. Webster's position of the preceding year, Mr. Upshur, with younger blood, and with more reason for a demonstrative course, was evidently disposed to force the discussion of the question with the British Government. Under his influence and advice, President Tyler declared, in his message of December, 1843, that "after the most rigid, and, as far as practicable, unbiased, examination of the subject, the United States have always contended that their rights appertain to the entire region of country lying on the Pacific, and embraced between latitude 42° and 54° 40´." Mr. Edward Everett, at that time our minister in London, was instructed to present these views to the British Government.
Before the President could send another annual message to Congress, Mr. Calhoun had been for several months at the head of the State Department, engaged in promoting, with singular skill and ability, his scheme for the annexation of Texas. With his quick perception, he discerned that if the policy apparently indicated by Mr. Webster and aggressively pursued by Mr. Upshur, on the Oregon question, should be followed, and that issue sharply pressed upon Great Britain, complications of a most embarrassing nature might arise, involving in their sweep the plans, already well matured, for acquiring Texas. In order to avert all danger of that kind, Mr. Calhoun opened a negotiation with the British minister in Washington, conducting it himself, for the settlement of the Oregon question; and at the very moment when the Democratic National Convention which nominated Mr. Polk was declaring our title to the whole of Oregon as far as 54° 40´ to be "clear and unquestionable," the Democratic secretary of State was proposing to Her Majesty's representative to settle the entire controversy by the adoption of the 49th parallel as the boundary!
The negotiation was very nearly completed, and was suspended only by some dispute in regard to the right of navigating the Columbia River. It is not improbable that Mr. Calhoun, after disclosing to the British Government his willingness to accept the 49th parallel as our northern boundary, was anxious to have the negotiation temporarily postponed. If the treaty had been concluded at that time, it would have seriously interfered with the success of Mr. Polk's candidacy by destroying the prestige of the "Fifty-four forties," as Colonel Benton termed them. In Mr. Polk's election, Mr. Calhoun was deeply and indeed doubly interested; first, because of his earnest desire to defeat Mr. Clay, with whom he was at swords' points on all public issues; and again, because, having assumed the responsibility of defeating the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, he was naturally desirous that his judgment should be vindicated by the election of the candidate whom his Southern friends had put forward. Urgently solicitous for the annexation of Texas, those friends were indifferent to the fate of the Oregon question, though willing that it should be made a leading issue in the North, where it was presented with popular effect. The patriotic spirit of the country was appealed to, and to a considerable extent aroused and inflamed by the ardent and energetic declaration of our title to the whole of Oregon. "Fifty-four forty or fight" became a Democratic watchword; and the Whigs who attempted to argue against the extravagance or inexpediency of the claim continually lost ground, and were branded as cowards who were awed into silence by the fear of British power. All the prejudice against the British Government which had descended from the Revolution and from the war of 1812 was successfully evoked by the Democratic party, and they gained immeasurably by keeping an issue before the people which many of their leaders knew would be abandoned when the pressure of actual negotiation should be felt by our government.
PRESIDENT POLK ON THE OREGON QUESTION.
Mr. Polk, however, in his Inaugural address, carefully re-examined the position respecting Oregon which his party had taken in the national canvass, and quoted part of the phrase used in the platform put forth by the convention which nominated him. The issue had been made so broadly, that it must be squarely met, and finally adjusted. The Democrats in their eagerness had left no road for honorable retreat, and had cut themselves off from the resources and convenient postponements of diplomacy. Dangerous as it was to the new administration to confront the issue, it would have been still more dangerous to attempt to avoid it. The decisive step, in the policy to which the administration was committed, was to give formal notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of the Oregon country under the treaty of 1827 must cease. A certain degree of moral strength was unexpectedly imparted to the Democratic position by the fact that the venerable John Quincy Adams was decidedly in favor of the notice, and ably supported, in a unique and powerful speech in the House of Representatives, our title to the country up to 54° 40´. The first convention for joint occupancy had been negotiated while Mr. Adams was secretary of State, and the second while he was President; so that, in addition to the weight of authority with which he always spoke, his words seemed entitled to special confidence on a question with which he was necessarily so familiar. His great influence brought many Whigs to the support of the resolution; and on the 9th of February, 1846, the House, by the large vote of 163 to 54, declared in favor of giving the treaty notice to Great Britain.
The country at once became alarmed by the growing rumors that the resolution of the House was a direct challenge to Great Britain for a trial of strength as to the superior title to the Oregon country, and it was soon apparent that the Senate would proceed with more circumspection and conservatism. Events were rapidly tending toward hostilities with Mexico, and the aggrandizement of territory likely to result from a war with that country was not viewed with a friendly eye, either by Great Britain or France. Indeed, the annexation of Texas, which had been accomplished the preceding year, was known to be distasteful to those governments. They desired that Texas might remain an independent republic, under more liberal trade relations than could be secured from the United States with its steady policy of fostering and advancing its own manufacturing interests. The directors of the administration saw therefore more and more clearly that, if a war with Mexico were impeding, it would be sheer madness to open a quarrel with Great Britain, and force her into an alliance against us. Mr. Adams and those who voted with him did not believe that the notice to the British Government would provoke a war, but that firmness on our part, in the negotiation which should ensue, would induce England to yield her pretensions to any part of Oregon; to which Mr. Adams maintained, with elaboration of argument and demonstration, she had no shadow of right.
Mr. Adams was opposed to war with Mexico, and therefore did not draw his conclusions from the premises laid down by those who were charged with the policy of the administration. They naturally argued that a war with Great Britain might end in our losing the whole of Oregon, without acquiring any territory on our south- western border. The bare possibility of such a result would defeat the policy which they were seeking to uphold, and would at the same time destroy their party. In short, it became apparent that what might be termed the Texas policy of the administration, and what might be termed the Oregon policy, could not both be carried out. It required no prophet to foresee which would be maintained and which would be abandoned. "Fifty-four forty or fight" had been a good cry for the political campaign; but, when the fight was to be with Great Britain, the issue became too serious to be settled by such international law as is dispensed on the stump.
COMPROMISE ON THE OREGON QUESTION.
A very bitter controversy over the question began in the Senate as soon as the House resolution was received. But from the outset it was apparent that those who adhered to the 54° 40´ policy, on which Mr. Polk had been elected, were in a small minority. That minority was led by General Cass; but its most brilliant advocate in debate was Edward A. Hannegan, Democratic senator from Indiana, who angrily reproached his party for playing false to the pledges on which it had won a victory over the greatest political leader of the country. He measured the situation accurately, read with discrimination the motives which underlay the change of policy on the part of the administration and its Southern supporters, and stated the whole case in a quick and curt reply to an interruption from a pro-slavery senator,—"If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition. Its possession would have been at once secured." The change in the Democratic position was greatly aided by the attitude of the Whig senators, who almost unanimously opposed the resolution of notice to Great Britain, as passed by the House. Mr. Webster, for the first if not the only time in his senatorial career, read a carefully prepared speech, in which he did not argue the question of rightful boundary, but urged that a settlement on the line of the 49th parallel would be honorable to both countries, would avert hostile feeling, and restore amity and harmony. Mr. Berrien of Georgia made an exhaustive speech, inquiring into the rightfulness of title, and urged the line of 49°. Mr. Crittenden followed in the same vein, and in a reply to Senator William Allen of Ohio, chairman of Foreign Affairs, made a speech abounding in sarcasm and ridicule. The Whigs having in the campaign taken no part in the boastful demand for 54° 40´, were not subjected to the humiliation of retracing imprudent steps and retracting unwise declarations.
Under the influences at work in the Senate, events developed rapidly. The House resolution of notice was defeated; and the Senate passed a substitute of a less aggressive type, in which the House, through the instrumentality of a conference committee, substantially concurred. The resolution as finally adopted authorized the President "at his discretion" to give notice for the termination of the treaty to Great Britain. The preamble further softened the action of Congress by declaring that the notice was given in order that "the attention of the governments of both countries may be the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes in regard to said territory."
The Southern Democrats in the House receded from their action, and the modified resolution was carried by nearly as large a vote as had been the previous one for decided and peremptory notice. In short, the great mass of the Southern Democrats in both Houses precipitately threw the Oregon issue aside. They had not failed to perceive that the hesitation of the administration in forcing an issue with Mexico was due to the apprehension of trouble with Great Britain, and they made haste to promote schemes of territorial acquisition in the South-West by withdrawing the pretensions so imprudently put forth in regard to our claims in the North-West. Only forty-six votes were given in the House against what was termed a disgraceful surrender. These were almost entirely from Northern Democrats, though a few Southern Democrats refused to recede. Among those who thus remained firm were Andrew Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, Howell Cobb, Preston King, and Allen G. Thurman.
The passage of the modified and friendly resolution of notice dispelled all danger of trouble with Great Britain, and restored a sense of security in the United States. Immediately after its adoption, Mr. Buchanan, Secretary of State, under direction of the President, concluded a treaty with the British minister on the basis discussed by Mr. Calhoun two years before. The 49th parallel was agreed upon as the boundary between the two countries, with certain concessions for a defined period, touching the rights of the Hudson-bay Company, and the navigation of the Columbia River by the British. This treaty was promptly confirmed by the Senate, and the long controversy over the Oregon question was at rest. It had created a deep and wide-spread excitement in the country, and came very near precipitating hostilities with Great Britain. There is no doubt whatever that the English Government would have gone to war rather than surrender the territory north of the 49th parallel. This fact had made the winter and early spring of 1846 one of profound anxiety to all the people of the United States, and more especially to those who were interested in the large mercantile marine which then sailed under the American flag.
UNWISE AGITATION OF THE QUESTION.
In simple truth, the country was not prepared to go to war with Great Britain in support of "our clear and unquestionable title" to the whole of Oregon. With her strong naval force on the Pacific, and her military force in Australasia, Great Britain could more readily and more easily take possession of the country in dispute than could the United States. We had no way of reaching Oregon except by doubling Cape Horn, and making a dangerous sea-voyage of many thousand miles. We could communicate across the continent only by the emigrant trail over rugged mountains and almost trackless plains. Our railway system was in its infancy in 1846. New-York City did not have a continuous road to Buffalo. Philadelphia was not connected with Pittsburg. Baltimore's projected line to the Ohio had only reached Cumberland, among the eastern foot-hills of the Alleghanies. The entire Union had but five thousand miles of railway. There was scarcely a spot on the globe, outside of the United Kingdom, where we could not have fought England with greater advantage than on the north-west coast of America at that time. The war-cry of the Presidential campaign of 1844 was, therefore, in any event, absurd; and it proved to be mischievous. It is not improbable, that, if the Oregon question had been allowed to rest for the time under the provisions of the treaty of 1827, the whole country would ultimately have fallen into our hands, and the American flag might to-day be waving over British Columbia. The course of events and the lapse of time were working steadily to our advantage. In 1826 Great Britain declined to accept the 49th parallel, but demanded the Columbia River as the boundary. Twenty years afterwards she accepted the line previously rejected. American settlers had forced her back. With the sweep of our emigration and civilization to the Pacific coast two years after the treaty of 1846, when gold was discovered in California, the tendency would have been still more strongly in our favor. Time, as Mr. Calhoun said, "would have effected every thing for us" if we could only have been patient and peaceful.
Taking the question, however, as it stood in 1846, the settlement must, upon full consideration and review, be adjudged honorable to both countries. Wise statesmen of that day felt, as wise statesmen of subsequent years have more and more realized, that a war between Great Britain and the United States would not only be a terrible calamity to both nations, but that it would stay the progress of civilization throughout the world. Future generations would hold the governing power in both countries guilty of a crime if war should ever be permitted except upon the failure of every other arbitrament. The harmless laugh of one political party at the expense of the other forty years ago, the somewhat awkward receding from pretensions which could not be maintained by the Executive of the nation, have passed into oblivion. But a striking and useful lesson would be lost if it should be forgotten that the country was brought to the verge of war by the proclamation of a policy which could not be, and was not intended to be, enforced. It was originated as a cry to catch votes; and except with the ignorant, and the few whose judgment was carried away by enthusiasm, it was from the first thoroughly insincere. If the punishment could have fallen only upon those who raised the cry, perfect justice would have been done. But the entire country suffered, and probably endured a serious and permanent loss, from the false step taken by men who claimed what they could not defend and did not mean to defend.
The Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, gained much credit for his conduct of the Oregon question, both diplomatically and politically. His correspondence with Mr. Pakenham, the British minister at Washington, was conspicuously able. It strengthened Mr. Buchanan at home, and gave him an enviable reputation in Europe. His political management of the question was especially adroit. His party was in sore trouble over the issue, and naturally looked to him for relief and escape. To extricate the Administration from the embarrassment caused by its ill-timed and boastful pretensions to the line of 54° 40´ was a difficult and delicate task. To accomplish it, Mr. Buchanan had recourse to the original and long disused habit of asking the Senate's advice in advance of negotiating the treaty, instead of taking the ordinary but at that time perilous responsibility of first negotiating the treaty, and then submitting it to the Senate for approval. As a leading Northern Democrat, with an established reputation and a promising future, Mr. Buchanan was instinctively reluctant to take the lead in surrendering the position which his party had so defiantly maintained during the canvass for the Presidency in 1844, and which he had, as Secretary of State, re-affirmed in a diplomatic paper of marked ability. When the necessity came to retreat, Mr. Buchanan was anxious that the duty of publicly lowering the colors should not be left to him. His device, therefore, shifted the burden from his own shoulders, and placed it on the broader ones of the Senate.
Political management could not have been more clever. It saved Mr. Buchanan in large degree from the opprobrium visited on so many leading Democrats for their precipitate retreat on the Oregon question, and commended him at the same time to a class of Democrats who had never before been his supporters. General Cass, in order to save himself as a senator from the responsibility of surrendering our claim to 54° 40´, assumed a very warlike attitude, erroneously supposing that popularity might be gained by the advocacy of a rupture with England. Mr. Buchanan was wiser. He held the middle course. He had ably sustained our claim to the whole of Oregon, and now, in the interest of peace, gracefully yielded to a compromise which the Senate, after mature deliberation, had advised. His course saved the administration, not indeed from a mortifying position, but from a continually increasing embarrassment which seemed to force upon the country the cruel alternatives of war or dishonor.
THE PRESIDENT AND MR. BUCHANAN.
Mr. Polk was, from some cause, incapable of judging Mr. Buchanan generously. He seems to have regarded his Secretary of State as always willing to save himself at the expense of others. He did not fail to perceive that Mr. Buchanan had come out of the Oregon trouble with more credit, at least with less loss, than any other man prominently identified with its agitation and settlement. This was not pleasing to the President. He had evidently not concealed his distrust from the outset, and had cumbered his offer of a cabinet position with conditions which seemed derogatory to the dignity of Mr. Buchanan,—conditions which a man of spirit might well have resented. He informed Mr. Buchanan that, as he should "take no part himself between gentlemen of the Democratic party who might become aspirants to the Presidency," he desired that "no member of the cabinet should do so." He indeed expressed himself to Mr. Buchanan in a manner so peremptory as to be offensive: "Should any member of my cabinet become a candidate for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency of the United States, it will be expected on the happening of such an event that he will retire from the cabinet." Remembering that Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams had each been nominated for the Presidency while holding the position of Secretary of State in the cabinet of his predecessor, Mr. Polk was attaching a new and degrading condition to the incumbency of that office.
Mr. Polk did not stop with one exaction. Addressing Mr. Buchanan as if he were about to become a department clerk, he informed him that he disapproved "the practice which has sometimes prevailed of cabinet officers absenting themselves for long periods from the seat of government," and practically demanded a pledge that Mr. Buchanan would remain at his post, and be punctual in the discharge of his official duties. In reading Mr. Polk's letter, the inference seems natural that he felt under some pressing obligation to tender to Mr. Buchanan the appointment of secretary of State, but desired to accompany it with conditions which would subordinate him in the general conduct of the administration. With a spirit of docility, if not humility, altogether incomprehensible, Mr. Buchanan "accepted the position cheerfully and cordially on the terms on which the offer was made."
It is not surprising that, after agreeing to enter Mr. Polk's cabinet on these conditions, Mr. Buchanan had abundant reason to complain afterwards that the President did not treat him with "delicacy and confidence." On several occasions he was on the point of resigning his position. He was especially aggrieved that the President refused to nominate him to the Supreme Bench in 1846 as the successor of Henry Baldwin. In view of Mr. Buchanan's career, both before and after that time, it seems strange that he should have desired the position. It seems stranger still that Mr. Polk, after refusing to appoint him, should have nominated George W. Woodward, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who was unacceptable to Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Polk, however, appreciated the temperament of Mr. Buchanan, and apparently knew how much he would endure without resentment. While his presence in the cabinet was evidently not a source of pleasure to the President, he realized that it brought character, strength, and power to the administration. Mr. Buchanan was an older man than Mr. Polk, was superior to him intellectually, had seen a longer and more varied public service, and enjoyed a higher personal standing throughout the country.
The timidity of Mr. Buchanan's nature made him the servant of the administration when, with boldness, he might have been its master. Had he chosen to tender his resignation in resentment of his treatment by Mr. Polk, the administration would have been seriously embarrassed. There was, at the time, no Northern Democrat of the same rank to succeed him, except General Cass, and he was ineligible by reason of his uncompromising attitude on the Oregon question. Mr. Polk could not call a Southern man to the State Department so long as Robert J. Walker was at the head of the Treasury. He could not promote Mr. Marcy from the War Department without increasing the discontent already dangerously developed in the ranks of the New-York Democracy. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, held absolute control of the situation had he chosen to assert himself. This he failed to do, and continued to lend his aid to an administration whose policy was destroying him in his own State, and whose patronage was persistently used to promote the fortunes of his rivals and his enemies.
Mr. Polk was by singular fortune placed at the head of one of the most vigorous and important administrations in the history of the government. He had not been trained in the higher duties of statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain aptitude for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke of him as "respectable but never eminent."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
When first elected to the House of Representatives in 1824, Mr. Polk was but twenty-nine years of age. He was re-elected continuously for fourteen years. He was one of the most pronounced adherents of Jackson, and joined in the extreme and unreasonable opposition to the administration of John Quincy Adams. The period of his service in the House was distinguished by partisanship of a more bigoted and vindictive type than prevailed at any other time in the history of that body. He was Speaker during the last Congress of Jackson's Presidency and during the first under the administration of Van Buren. When the Whig members forced an inquiry in to the conduct of Samuel Swartwout, the defaulting collector of customs for the port of New York,—a case which figured prominently in the exciting Presidential canvass of 1840,—they would not trust Mr. Polk with the duty of naming the committee of investigation. The House itself exercised the power of appointment, to the great disparagement of the Speaker.
When Mr. Polk closed his service in the Chair, at the end of the Twenty-fifth Congress, no Whig member could be found who was willing to move the customary resolution of thanks,—an act of courtesy which derives its chief grace by coming from a political opponent. When the resolution was presented by a Democratic Representative from the South, it was opposed in debate by prominent Whig members. Henry A. Wise, who five years later supported Mr. Polk for the Presidency, desired to have the resolution peremptorily ruled out on a point of order. Sergeant S. Prentiss, the incomparably brilliant member from Mississippi, attacked it most violently. His impassioned invective did not stop short of personal indignity and insult to Mr. Polk. He denied with emphatic iteration that the Speaker had been "impartial." On the contrary he had been "the tool of the Executive, the tool of his party." He analyzed Mr. Polk's course in the appointment of committees, and with much detail labored to prove his narrowness, his unfairness, his injustice as a presiding officer. For one, he said, he was "not wiling to give to Mr. Polk a certificate of good behaviour, to aid him in his canvass for the governorship of Tennessee, for which he is known to be a candidate." He believed "this vote of thanks was to be used as so much capital, on which to do political business," and he declared with much vehemence that he "was not disposed to furnish it."
The opprobrious language of Prentiss did not wound Mr. Polk so seriously as did the vote of the House on the resolution of thanks. The Whigs, as a party, resisted its adoption. The Democrats could not even bring the House to a vote upon the resolution without the use of the previous question, and this, as a witty observer remarked, was about as humiliating as to be compelled to call the previous question on resolutions of respect for a deceased member. When the demand was made for "the main question to be put," the Whigs, apparently eager to force the issue to the bitter end, called for the ayes and noes. John Quincy Adams, who headed the roll, led off in the negative, and was sustained by such able and conservative members as John Bell from Mr. Polk's own State, McKennan of Pennsylvania, Evans of Maine, Corwin of Ohio, Menifee from the Ashland district in Kentucky, and William Cost Johnson of Maryland. The vote stood 92 to 75. Mr. Polk had been chosen Speaker by a majority of thirteen. The Whigs had thus practically consolidated their party against a vote of courtesy to the presiding officer of the House.
Mr. Polk's situation was in the highest degree embarrassing, but he behaved with admirable coolness and self-possession. He returned his thanks to the "majority of the House," which had adopted the resolution, significantly emphasizing the word "majority." He said he regarded the vote just given "as of infinitely more value than the common, matter-of-course, customary resolution which, in the courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies, is passed at the close of their deliberations." His reference "to the courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies" was made, as an eye- witness relates, with "telling accent, and with a manner that was very disconcerting to the Whigs." His address was scrupulously confined to "the majority of the House," and to the end Mr. Polk exhibited, as was said at the time, "a magnificent contempt for the insulting discourtesy of the Whigs."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
The incident was made very prominent in the ensuing canvass in Tennessee, where Mr. Polk won a signal victory, and was installed as governor. The Democrats treated the action of the House as a deliberate insult, not merely to the Speaker, but to his State, and not only to his State, but to the venerable ex-president, whose residence at the Hermitage, in the judgment of his devoted followers, made Tennessee illustrious and almost sacred ground. Jackson himself was roused to intense indignation, and, though beyond threescore and ten, was active and unceasing in his efforts to insure a victory to Mr. Polk. The contest, though local in its essential character, attracted observation and interest far beyond the borders of the State.
The political importance of Mr. Polk was enhanced by the proscriptive course of his opponents in the House of Representatives. The refusal to join in the resolution of thanks operated in a manner quite contrary to the expectations of the Whigs, and was indeed effectively turned against them. The generous instincts of the people condemned an attempt to destroy the honorable fame of a public man by what they considered to be an act of spiteful persecution. It was the opinion of John Bell, who of all men had the best opportunity for impartial judgment in the premises, that the vote of himself and his fellow Whigs on the resolution was an indirect but potential cause of Mr. Polk's nomination and election to the Presidency. It gave him prominence as a friend of Jackson, and made him available as a candidate against Van Buren for the Democratic nomination. The opponents of the latter instinctively knew that it would be dangerous to defeat him with any one who did not stand well with Van Buren's powerful patron. The events of 1839 and 1844 in the life of Mr. Polk have therefore an interesting relation to each other.
CHAPTER IV.
Review (continued).—Relations with Mexico.—General Taylor marches his Army to the Rio Grande.—First Encounter with the Mexican Army.—Excitement in the United States.—Congress declares War against Mexico.—Ill Temper of the Whigs.—Defeat of the Democrats in the Congressional Elections of 1846.—Policy of Mr. Polk in Regard to Acquisition of Territory from Mexico.—Three- Million Bill.—The Famous Anti-slavery Proviso moved by David Wilmot.—John Quincy Adams.—His Public Service.—Robert C. Winthrop chosen Speaker.—Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.—Presidential Election of 1848.—Effort of the Administration to make a Democratic Hero out of the Mexican War.—Thomas H. Benton for Lieutenant-General. —Bill defeated.—Nomination of General Taylor for the Presidency by the Whigs.—Nomination of General Cass by the Democratic Party. —Van Buren refuses to support him.—Democratic Bolt in New York. —Buffalo Convention and the Organization of the Free-soil Party. —Nomination of Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams.—Mr. Clay's Discontent.—Mr. Webster's Speech at Marshfield.—General Taylor elected.—The Barnburners of New York.—Character and Public Services of Mr. Van Buren.
By a suggestive coincidence, the practical abandonment of the line of 54° 40´ by the administration was contemporaneous with the outbreak of the Mexican war. The modified resolution of notice to Great Britain was finally passed in both branches of Congress on the 23d of April, and on the succeeding day the first blood was shed in that contest between the two Republics which was destined to work such important results in the future and fortunes of both.
The army of occupation in Texas, commanded by General Zachary Taylor, had, during the preceding winter, been moving westward with the view of encamping in the valley of the Rio Grande. On the 28th of March General Tyler took up his position on the banks of the river, opposite Matamoros, and strengthened himself by the erection field-works. General Ampudia, in command of the Mexican army stationed at Matamoros, was highly excited by the arrival of the American army, and on the 12th of April notified General Taylor to break up his camp within twenty-four hours, and to retire beyond the Nueces River. In the event of his failure to comply with these demands, Ampudia announced that "arms, and arms alone, must decide the question." According to the persistent claim of the Mexican Government, the Nueces River was the western boundary of Texas; and the territory between that river and the Rio Grande—a breadth of one hundred and fifty miles on the coast—was held by Mexico to be a part of her domain, and General Taylor consequently an invader of her soil. No reply was made to Ampudia; and on the 24th of April General Arista, who had succeeded to the command of the Mexican army, advised General Taylor that "he considered hostilities commenced, and should prosecute them."
BEGINNING OF MEXICAN WAR.
Directly after this notification was received, General Taylor dispatched a party of dragoons, sixty-three in number, officers and men, up the valley of the Rio Grande, to ascertain whether the Mexicans had crossed the river. They encountered a force much larger than their own, and after a short engagement, in which some seventeen were killed and wounded, the Americans were surrounded, and compelled to surrender. When intelligence of this affair reached the United States, the war-spirit rose high among the people. "Our country has been invaded," and "American blood spilled on American soil," were the cries heard on every side. In the very height of this first excitement, without waiting to know whether the Mexican Government would avow or disavow the hostile act, President Polk, on the 11th of May, sent a most aggressive message to Congress, "invoking its prompt action to recognize the existence of war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive the means of prosecuting the contest with vigor, and thus hastening the restoration of peace." As soon as the message was read in the House, a bill was introduced authorizing the President to call out a force of fifty thousand men, and giving him all the requisite power to organize, arm, and equip them. The preamble declared that "war existed by the act of Mexico," and this gave rise to an animated and somewhat angry discussion. The Whigs felt that they were placed in an embarrassing attitude. They must either vote for what they did not believe, or, by voting against the bill, incur the odium which always attaches to the party that fails by a hair's-breadth to come to the defense of the country when war is imminent.
Prominent Whigs believed, that, as an historical and geographical fact, the river Nueces was the western boundary of Texas, and that the President, by assuming the responsibility of sending an army of occupation into the country west of that river, pending negotiations with Mexico, had taken a hostile and indefensible step. But all agreed that it was too late to consider any thing except the honor of the country, now that actual hostilities had begun. The position of the Whigs was as clearly defined by their speakers as was practicable in the brief space allowed for discussion of the war bill. Against the protest of many, it was forced to a vote, after a two hours' debate. The administration expected the declaration to be unanimous; but there were fourteen members of the House who accepted the responsibility of defying the war feeling of the country by voting "no"—an act which required no small degree of moral courage and personal independence. John Quincy Adams headed the list. The other gentlemen were all Northern Whigs, or pronounced Free-Soilers.
The Senate considered the bill on the ensuing day, and passed it after a very able debate, in which Mr. Calhoun bore a leading part. He earnestly deprecated the necessity of the war, though accused by Benton of plotting to bring it on. Forty senators voted for it, and but two against it,—Thomas Clayton of Delaware and John Davis of Massachusetts. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky and Mr. Upham of Vermont, when their names were called, responded, "Ay, except the preamble." The bill was promptly approved by the President, and on the 13th of May, 1846, the two Republics were declared to be at war. In the South and West, from the beginning, the war was popular. In the North and East it was unpopular. The gallant bearing of our army, however, changed in large degree the feeling in sections where the war had been opposed. No finer body of men ever enlisted in an heroic enterprise than those who volunteered to bear the flag in Mexico. They were young, ardent, enthusiastic, brave almost to recklessness, with a fervor of devotion to their country's honor. The march of Taylor from the Rio Grande, ending with the unexpected victory against superior numbers at Buena Vista, kept the country in a state of excitement and elation, and in the succeeding year elevated him to the Presidency. Not less splendid in its succession of victories was the march of Scott from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, where he closed his triumphal journey by taking possession of the capital, and enabling his government to dictate terms of peace.
DEMOCRATIC DEFEAT IN 1846.
For the first and only time in our political history, an administration conducting a war victorious at every step, steadily lost ground in the country. The House of Representatives which declared war on the 11th of May, 1846, was Democratic by a large majority. The House, elected in the ensuing autumn, amid the resounding acclamations of Taylor's memorable victory at Monterey, had a decided Whig majority. This political reverse was due to three causes,—the enactment of the tariff of 1846, which offended the manufacturing interest of the country; the receding of the administration on the Oregon question, which embarrassed the position and wounded the pride of the Northern Democrats; and the wide-spread apprehension that the war was undertaken for the purpose of extending and perpetuating slavery. The almost unanimous Southern vote for the hasty surrender of the line of 54° 40´, on which so much had been staked in the Presidential campaign, gave the Whigs an advantage in the popular canvass. The contrast between the boldness with which the Polk administration had marched our army upon the territory claimed by Mexico, and the prudence with which it had retreated from a contest with Great Britain, after all our antecedent boasting, exposed the Democrats to merciless ridicule. Clever speakers who were numerous in the Whig party at that day did not fail to see and seize their advantage.
The Mexican war had scarcely begun when the President justified the popular suspicion by making known to Congress that one of its objects was to be the acquisition of territory beyond the Rio Grande. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that he expected such acquisition to be one of its results. He ably vindicated the policy of marching a military force into the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, by the fact that he was memorialized to do so by the still existing Congress of Texas, on the urgent plea that Mexico was preparing to move upon the territory with a view to its recapture. In this Congress of Texas, the same body that completed the annexation, there were representatives from the territory in dispute beyond the Nueces; and the President felt that they were in an eminent degree entitled to the protection of our government. Events were so hurried that in three months from the formal declaration of war, and before any victory of decisive significance had been achieved, the President sent a special message to Congress, in which he suggested that "the chief obstacle to be surmounted in securing peace would be the adjustment of a boundary that would prove satisfactory and convenient to both republics." He admitted that we ought to pay a fair equivalent for any concessions which might be made by Mexico, and asked that a sum of money should be placed in his hands to be paid to Mexico immediately upon the ratification of a treaty of peace. As a precedent for this unusual request, the President cited the example of Mr. Jefferson in asking and receiving from Congress, in 1803, a special appropriation of money, to be expended at his discretion. As soon as the reading of the message was concluded, Mr. McKay of North Carolina, chairman of the committee of ways and means, introduced a bill, without preamble or explanation, directing that two millions of dollars be appropriated, to be "applied under the direction of the President to any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in our foreign intercourse." The war was not referred to, Mexico was not named, and the simple phraseology of the Jefferson Act of 1803 was repeated word for word.
A very animated debate followed, in which Northern men took the lead. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop spoke of the administration with unwonted harshness, declaring that "it and its friends had thought fit, during the present session, to frame more than one of these important measures, so as to leave their opponents in a false position whichever way they voted." . . . He "could not and would not vote for this bill as it now stood. . . . It was a vote of unlimited confidence in an administration in which, he was sorry to say, there was very little confidence to be placed." Mr. John Quincy Adams differed from Mr. Winthrop, and could not refrain from a pardonable thrust at that gentleman for his previous vote that "war existed by act of Mexico." He differed from his colleague, Mr. Adams demurely affirmed, with a regret equal to that with which he had differed from him on the bill by which war was declared. He should not vote for this bill in any form, but suggested that it be so amended as to specify expressly that the money is granted for the purpose of negotiating peace with Mexico.
THE WILMOT PROVISO.
The bill was promptly modified in accordance with the desires of Mr. Adams, and at the moment when its passage seemed secure it was arrested by an amendment of momentous character, submitted by a young member from Pennsylvania. David Wilmot represented a district which had always given Democratic majorities, and was himself an intense partisan of that political school. He was a man of strong physique and strong common sense; of phlegmatic temperament, without any pretension to genius; a sensible speaker, with no claim to eloquence or oratory. But he had courage, determination, and honesty. He believed the time had come to arrest the progress and extension of slavery. He knew that the two-million bill was urged by the President because he wished to use the money to promote the acquisition of territory, and he determined then and there to make a stand in favor of free soil. He thereupon, on the 8th of August, 1846, moved a proviso to the two-million bill, declaring it to be "an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from Mexico, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist therein."
Mr. Wilmot was in the first session of his first Congress, was but thirty-three years of age, and up to that moment had not been known beyond his district. His amendment made his name familiar at once throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. No question had arisen since the slavery agitation of 1820 that was so elaborately debated. The Wilmot Proviso absorbed the attention of Congress for a longer time than the Missouri Compromise: it produced a wider and deeper excitement in the country, and it threatened a more serious danger to the peace and integrity of the Union. The consecration of the territory of the United States to freedom became from that day a rallying cry for every shade of anti-slavery sentiment. If it did not go as far as the Abolitionists in their extreme and uncompromising faith might demand, it yet took a long step forward, and afforded the ground on which the battle of the giants was to be waged, and possibly decided. The feeling in all sections became intense on the issue thus presented, and it proved a sword which cleft asunder political associations that had been close and intimate for a lifetime. Both the old parties were largely represented on each side of the question. The Northern Whigs, at the outset, generally sustained the proviso, and the Northern Democrats divided, with the majority against it. In the slave States both parties were against it, only two men south of Mason and Dixon's line voting for free soil,—John M. Clayton of Delaware in the Senate, and Henry Grider of Kentucky in the House. Mr. Grider re-entered Congress as a Republican after the war. Among the conspicuous Whigs who voted for the proviso were Joseph R. Ingersoll and James Pollock of Pennsylvania, Washington Hunt of New York, Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Robert C. Schenck of Ohio, and Truman Smith of Connecticut. Among the Democrats were Hannibal Hamlin, and all his colleagues from Maine, Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Preston King of New York, John Wentworth of Illinois, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, and Robert McClelland of Michigan, afterwards Secretary of the Interior under President Pierce.
Mr. Webster voted for the proviso, but with gloomy apprehensions. He could "see little of the future, and that little gave him no satisfaction." He spoke with portentous gravity, and arrested the attention of the country by the solemnity of his closing words: "All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation. The future is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We appear to be rushing on perils headlong, and with our eyes all open." There was a singular disagreement between the speech and the vote of Mr. Webster. The speech indicated his real position. His vote was in deference to the opinion of Massachusetts. The most conspicuous Northern Whigs who voted against the proviso were Alexander Ramsey of Pennsylvania, since the distinguished Republican senator from Minnesota, and Secretary of War under President Hayes; and Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio, one of the oldest and ablest representatives in Congress.
The House attached the proviso to the two-million bill, and thus defeated it for the session. The Democratic Senate took it up on the day fixed for final adjournment. The majority were not willing to accept the appropriation with the anti-slavery condition upon it, and John Davis of Massachusetts, fearing if the bill went back to the House the proviso might on reconsideration be defeated, deliberately held the floor until the session expired. In the next session the two-million bill, increased to three millions, was passed without the proviso, the administration being strong enough, with the persuasions of its patronage, to defeat the anti-slavery amendment in both branches.
During the proceedings on the three-million bill, an interesting and instructive incident occurred. The venerable John Quincy Adams appeared in the House for the first time during the session, on the 13th of February (1847), having been detained by a very severe illness. As he passed inside the door the entire House voluntarily rose, business was suspended, and Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (afterwards President of the United States), addressing the Chair, said, that in compliance with the understanding with which he selected a seat at the beginning of the session, he now tendered it to the venerable member from Massachusetts, and congratulated him on being spared to return to the House. Mr. Adams, enfeebled by disease, tremulous with age, returned his thanks, regretting that he had not "voice to respond to the congratulations of his friends for the honor which had been done him." Among those who paid this unusual, indeed unprecedented, mark of respect to a fellow- member, were many from the South, who within a few years had voted to censure Mr. Adams, and had endeavored in every way to heap obloquy upon him for his persistent course in presenting anti- slavery petitions. Spontaneous in impulse, momentary in duration, simple in form, it was yet one of the most striking tributes ever paid to moral dignity and lofty character.
PUBLIC LIFE OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Mr. Adams was nearing the end of his illustrious life, and a year later was stricken down in the seat which had been so graciously tendered him. His career was in many respects remarkable. He had been minister to five different European courts, senator of the United States, appointed to the Supreme Bench, had been eight years Secretary of State, and four years President. His opportunities were great, his advantages rare, his natural abilities strong. To those he added a high standard of morality, and a love and endurance of labor possessed by few. But it may fairly be doubted whether, if his Presidency had closed his public life, his fame would have attracted special observation. He would scarcely have ranked above Monroe, and would have borne no comparison with Madison. In the Senate he had made no impression. His service abroad was one of industrious routine. His career as Secretary of State was not specially distinguished. The only two treaties of marked importance that were negotiated during his incumbency, were carried, on test questions, by the Cabinet against his judgment. His dispatches have been little quoted as precedents. His diplomatic discussions were not triumphs. Indeed, he was not felicitous with his pen, and suffers by contrast with some who preceded him and many who followed him in that office. But in his sixty-fifth year, when the public life of the most favored draws to a close, the noble and shining career of Mr. Adams began. He entered the House of Representatives in 1831, and for the remainder of his life, a period of seventeen years, he was the one grand figure in that assembly. His warfare against those who would suppress free speech, his heroic contest in favor of the right of the humblest to petition for redress of grievances, are among the memorable events in the parliamentary history of the United States. The amplitude of his knowledge, his industry, his unflagging zeal, his biting sarcasm, his power to sting and destroy without himself showing passion, made a combination of qualities as rare as it was formidable. His previous career had been one of eminent respectability, to be coldly admired and forgotten. His service in the House gave him a name as enduring as the Republic whose history he adorned.
In breadth and thoroughness of learning, Mr. Adams surpassed all his contemporaries in public life. His essays, orations, and addresses were surprisingly numerous, and upon a great variety of subjects. It cannot be said, however, that he contributed any thing to the permanent literature of the country. Nor, in a true estimate of his extraordinary career in Congress, can it be asserted that he attained the first rank as a parliamentary debater. It must be borne in mind that much of his fame in the House of Representatives was derived from the nature of the one question with which he became so conspicuously identified. It was in large degree the moral courage of his position which first fixed the attention of the country and then attracted its admiration. The men with whom he had exciting scenes in regard to the "right of petition" and its cognate issues were in no case the leading statesmen of the day. Wise, Bynum, Dromgoole, Pinckney, Lewis, Thomas F. Marshall, and the other Southern representatives with whom Mr. Adams came in conflict, were ready and brilliant men, but were far below the first rank of debaters. Indeed, with few exceptions, the really eminent debaters were in the Senate during the period of Mr. Adams's service in the House. Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Benton, Mr. Hayne, Mr. Silas Wright, Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Ewing, Mr. Watkins Leigh, Mr. Rives, Mr. Choate, Mr. John M. Clayton, Mr. Berrien, were an altogether higher and abler class of men than those with whom Mr. Adams had his frequent wrangles in the House. The weapons which he so successfully employed against the young "fire-eaters" would have proved pointless and valueless in a contest with any one of the eminent men who in that long period gave character to the Senate.
The only time Mr. Adams ever crossed swords in the House with a man of commanding power was in the famous discussion of January, 1836, with George Evans of Maine. Mr. Adams had made a covert but angry attack on Mr. Webster for his opposition to the Fortification Bill in the preceding Congress, when President Jackson was making such energetic demonstrations of his readiness to go to war with France. To the surprise of his best friends, Mr. Adams warmly sustained Jackson in his belligerent correspondence with the government of Louis Philippe. His position probably cost him a seat in the United States Senate for which he was then a candidate. Mr. Webster preferred John Davis, who had the preceding year beaten Mr. Adams in the contest for governor of Massachusetts. These circumstances were believed at the time to be the inciting cause for the assault on Mr. Webster. The duty of replying devolved on Mr. Evans. The debate attracted general attention, and the victory of Mr. Evans was everywhere recognized. The Globe for the Twenty- fourth Congress contains a full report of both speeches. The stirring events of forty years have not destroyed their interest or their freshness. The superior strength, the higher order of eloquence, the greater mastery of the art of debate, will be found in the speech of Mr. Evans.
GEORGE EVANS AS A DEBATER.
As a parliamentary debater, using that term in its true signification and with its proper limitations, George Evans is entitled to high rank. He entered the House in 1829, at thirty-two years of age, and served until 1841, when he was transferred to the Senate. He retired from that body in 1847. Upon entering the Senate, he was complimented with a distinction never before or since conferred on a new member. He was placed at the head of the Committee on Finance, taking rank above the long list of prominent Whigs, who then composed the majority in the chamber. The tenacity with which the rights of seniority are usually maintained by senators enhances the value of the compliment to Mr. Evans. Mr. Clay, who had been serving as chairman of the committee, declined in his favor with the remark that "Mr. Evans knew more about the finances than any other public man in the United States." The ability and skill displayed by Mr. Evans in carrying the tariff bill of 1842 through the Senate, fully justified the high encomiums bestowed by Mr. Clay. The opposition which he led four years after to the tariff bill of 1846 gave Mr. Evans still higher reputation, though the measure was unexpectedly carried by the casting vote of the Vice-President.
When Mr. Evans's term of service drew near to its close, Mr. Webster paid him the extraordinary commendation of saying in the Senate that "his retirement would be a serious loss to the government and the country." He pronounced the speech just then delivered by Mr. Evans, on the finances, to be "incomparable." The "senator from Maine," continued Mr. Webster, "has devoted himself especially to studying and comprehending the revenue and finances of the country, and he understand that subject as well as any gentleman connected with the government since the days of Gallatin and Crawford,—nay, as well as either of those gentlemen understood it." This was the highest praise from the highest source! Of all who have represented New England in the Senate, Mr. Evans, as a debater, is entitled to rank next to Mr. Webster!
The next Congress met in December, 1847. Besides the venerable ex- president, there were two future Presidents among its members— Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Mr. Robert C. Winthrop was chosen Speaker. He was nominated in the Whig caucus over Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio, because he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and Mr. Vinton against it.* Mr. Vinton was senior in age and long senior in service to Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Vinton had entered the House in 1823 and Mr. Winthrop in 1840. Mr. Vinton had moreover been selected as the Whig candidate for Speaker in the preceding Congress, when that party was in minority. The decision against him now created no little feeling in Whig circles, especially in the West where he was widely known and highly esteemed. But, while Mr. Winthrop was rewarded by this nomination for his vote in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, the more pronounced anti-slavery men were hostile to him. In the end he owed his election to timely aid from Southern Whigs. This fact, no doubt, had its effect on Mr. Winthrop's mind, and with other influences tended to separate him rapidly and conclusively from the anti-slavery wing of the Whig party.
It would, however, be unjust to Mr. Winthrop not to recognize that the chief reason for his selection as Speaker was his pre-eminent fitness for the important post. He was a young man, and, other conditions being equal, young men have been uniformly preferred for the arduous duties of the Chair. From the organization of the government the speakers, at the time of their first election, have been under forty-five years of age,—many, indeed, under forty. In only four instances have men been selected beyond the age of fifty. Mr. Clay when first chosen was but thirty-four, Mr. Polk thirty-nine, Mr. John Bell thirty-seven, Mr. Howell Cobb thirty- three, and Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter, the youngest man ever elected Speaker, was but thirty. Mr. Winthrop was thirty-eight. He was bred to the law in the office of Mr. Webster, but at twenty-five years of age entered political life as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was soon after promoted to the speakership of that body, where he earned so valuable a reputation as a presiding officer that some of his decisions have been quoted as precedents in the National House, and have been incorporated in permanent works on Parliamentary Law. He was chosen in Congress when he was but thirty, and was in his fifth term in the House when he was advanced to the Speakership. As an orator he was always graceful and effective, but never took high rank in the House as a debater. His early life gave promise of a long public career in Massachusetts as the successor of the older Whig leaders who were passing off the stage. He followed Mr. Webster in the Senate for a brief period, when the latter became Secretary of State under Mr. Fillmore. His conservative tendencies on the Slavery question, however, were not in harmony with the demands of public opinion in Massachusetts, and in 1851 he was defeated for the governorship by George S. Boutwell, and for the senatorship by Charles Sumner. Mr. Winthrop's political career closed when he was forty-two years of age.
WHIGS ABANDON THE WILMOT PROVISO.
The events of the year 1847 had persuaded the Whig leaders that, if they persisted in the policy embodied in the Wilmot Proviso, they would surrender all power to control the ensuing Presidential election. By clever management and the avoidance of issues which involved the slavery question, they felt reasonably sure of the votes of Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with a probability of securing Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida. To throw these States away by an anti-slavery crusade was to accept inevitable defeat, and disband the Whig party. Mr. Winthrop was therefore representing the prevailing wishes of Northern Whigs when he used his influence to restrain rather than promote the development of the anti-slavery policy which had been initiated with such vigor. The result of this change was soon visible. In the preceding House, with a large Democratic majority, the Wilmot Proviso had been adopted. In the Whig House, over which Mr. Winthrop presided, it was found impossible to repeat the vote during the preparations for the national contest then impending. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which we acquired a vast territory from Mexico, was ratified by the Senate, and the House voted the fifteen millions demanded by it without adding a restriction of any kind on the subject of slavery. Every acre of the nine hundred thousand square miles was free territory while under the rule of Mexico, and the Commissioners of that government were extremely anxious that the United States should give a guaranty that its character in this respect should not be changed. They urged that to see slavery recognized upon soil once owned by Mexico would be so abhorrent to that government as it would be to the United States to see the Spanish Inquisition established upon it. Mr. Nicholas F. Trist, the American commissioner, gave a reply which a free Republic reads with increasing amazement. He declared that if the territory proposed to be ceded "were increased tenfold in value, and, in addition to that, covered a foot thick with pure gold, on the single condition that slavery should be forever excluded," he would not "entertain the offer for a moment, nor even think of sending it to his government. No American President would dare to submit such a treaty to the Senate."
With this suppression, if not indeed re-action, of the popular feeling in the North, on the subject of slavery, the two great parties approached the Presidential election of 1848. Each was under peculiar embarrassment in the selection of a candidate, and the presentation of the principles on which support was to be asked. The anomaly presented in the Congressional election of 1846, where an administration conducting a successful war was defeated before the people, promised to be repeated. The Democratic party had precipitated the war, had organized the military force that prosecuted it, had controlled its immense patronage, and had brought it to a victorious conclusion, yet had gained no political strength in the country. The two gallant soldiers who had so largely shared, if indeed they had not absorbed, its glory, were Whigs, and both were in ill-humor with the administration. After the battle of Buena Vista, Taylor's victorious progress had been checked and his army crippled by orders from Washington, which reduced his force, and turned the Regulars over to Scott. Scott ended his brilliant campaign in a flagrant quarrel with the Secretary of War, and was summoned home peremptorily with the prospect of a court-martial. He was ordered to leave General William O. Butler, a Democratic general, in command of the army in the city of Mexico after resistance had ceased.
DEMOCRATIC OFFICERS IN MEXICAN WAR.
The administration had obviously endeavored from the first to create a Democratic hero out of the war. Authorized to appoint a large number of officers in the increased military force, raised directly by the United States, an unjust discrimination was made in favor of Democrats. Thus William O. Butler, John A. Quitman, and Gideon J. Pillow, prominent Democratic leaders in their respective States, were appointed Major-generals directly from civil life. Joseph Lane, James Shields, Franklin Pierce, George Cadwalader, Caleb Cushing, Enos D. Hopping, and Sterling Price, were selected for the high rank of Brigadier-general. Not one Whig was included, and not one of the Democratic appointees had seen service in the field, or possessed the slightest pretension to military education. Such able graduates of West Point as Henry Clay, jun., and William R. McKee, were compelled to seek service through State appointments in volunteer regiments, while Albert Sidney Johnston, subsequently proved to be one of the ablest commanders ever sent from the Military Academy, could not obtain a commission from the General Government. In the war between Mexico and Texas, by which the latter had secured its independence, Johnston had held high command, and was perhaps the best equipped soldier, both by education and service, to be found in the entire country outside the regular army at the time of the Mexican war. General Taylor urged the President to give Johnston command of one of the ten new regiments. Johnston took no part in politics; but his eminent brother, Josiah Stoddard Johnston, long a senator from Louisiana, was Mr. Clay's most intimate friend in public life, and General Taylor's letter was not even answered. The places were wanted for adherents of the administration, and Tibbatts of Kentucky, Jere Clemens of Alabama, Milledge L. Bonham of South Carolina, Seymour of Connecticut, and men of that grade,—eminent in civil life, active partisans, but with no military training,—were preferred to the most experienced soldiers. This fact disfigures the energetic record of Mr. Marcy as secretary of War, and was eminently discreditable to the President and all his advisers.
Perhaps the most inexcusable blunder of the administration was the attempt to take Thomas H. Benton from the Senate, where he was honored, eminent, and useful, make him Lieutenant-general, and send him out to Mexico to supersede both Scott and Taylor in command of the army. The bill to enable this to be done actually passed the House. When under discussion in that branch, a prominent Democratic member from Ohio declared, as one reason for passing the bill, that two of the generals are opposed politically to the Democratic party, and "by their own acts or those of their friends are candidates for the Presidency." The evident basis of this argument was, that the Mexican war being a Democratic venture, no Whig had the right to profit by it. The bill was fortunately stopped in the Senate, though that body at the time had a Democratic majority. The measure was killed by one convincing speech from Mr. Badger of North Carolina. The senators knew Colonel Benton's temper and temperament, and understood how completely unfitted he was for military command, and how his appointment would demoralize and practically destroy the army. To the end of his life, however, Colonel Benton himself believed a serious mistake had been made. He had been commissioned colonel in the war of 1812, but though of unquestioned bravery, and deeply read in military science, it had never been his fortune to engage in battle, or to see the face of an enemy. Yet in the autobiographical sketch which precedes his "Thirty Years' View," he complacently assured himself that his appointment as Lieutenant- general over Scott and Taylor "could not have wounded professional honor," as at the time of his retiring from the army he "ranked all those who have since reached its head."
WHIG OPPOSITION TO GENERAL TAYLOR.
But all the efforts to make a Democratic hero out of the war failed. The line-officers appointed from civil life behaved gallantly. The volunteers under their command were exceptionally excellent,— almost competent themselves to the conduct of a campaign. The political generals who vaulted from law-offices into the command of brigades and divisions were furnished by the War Department with staff-officers carefully chosen from the best educated and most skillful of the regular army. All would not suffice, however, to displace Taylor and Scott from the post of chief heroes. "Old Rough and Ready," as Taylor was called by his troops, became a popular favorite of irresistible strength, and in the Whig convention of 1848 was chosen over Mr. Clay as the standard-bearer of his party. He was placed before the people on his record as a soldier, unhampered by the political declarations which make up the modern platform. Mr. Clay had expected the nomination, and General Scott had offered to run on the same ticket as Vice-President; but against the constantly rising tide of Taylor's popularity both ordinary and extraordinary political combinations gave way. Even the Kentucky delegation divided,—in accordance with Mr. Crittenden's judgment, though not by his advice. To the overwhelming chagrin and mortification of Mr. Clay, a man unknown in political circles was preferred as the candidate of the party of which he felt himself to have been the creator. Mr. Clay was enraged by the result, and never became reconciled to it. Though he gave in the end a quiet vote at the polls for Taylor, he stubbornly refused during the campaign to open his lips or write a word in favor of his election. Mr. Webster, though without the keen personal disappointment of Mr. Clay, was equally discontented with the nomination. He had spoken in a semi-public way for several months previous to the convention, of the folly of nominating "a swearing, swaggering, frontier colonel" for the Presidency,—an allusion to General Taylor, which was scandalously unjust, and which was contradicted by his whole life. When Taylor was finally nominated, Mr. Webster resented the selection as an indignity to the statesmen of the Whig party. His only ray of comfort was the defeat of Abbott Lawrence for the Vice-Presidency by Millard Fillmore. Mr. Lawrence was a man of wealth, the most prominent manufacturer at the time in the country, of high personal character, and of wide political influence. He was the leading Taylor-Whig in New England, and his course had given offense to Mr. Webster to such an extent indeed, that on a public occasion, after the Presidential election, he referred to Mr. Lawrence in an unfriendly and discourteous manner.
The situation became still further complicated. The Whigs believed they had avoided the responsibility of positive declaration on either side of the issue embodied in the Wilmot Proviso, by selecting a military hero as their candidate. In the phrase of the day, he could make a "Star and Stripe" canvass, with fair chance of success, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line. There was loss to be incurred by either course. The Whig managers saw plainly that an anti-slavery policy would give almost the entire South to the Democrats, and a pro-slavery policy would rend the Whig party throughout the North. They wisely concluded, if the canvass were merely a game to win votes, that the non-committal plan was the safe one. But this evasive course was not wholly successful. There was a considerable body of men in New England, and especially in Massachusetts, known as "Conscience Whigs," who had deep convictions on the subject of slavery, and refused to support General Taylor. Conspicuous among these were Henry Wilson, E. Rockwood Hoar, and Charles Francis Adams. A defection of the same kind among the Whigs of New York was prevented by the active influence of Mr. Seward, but it developed rapidly in the northern section of Ohio. Throughout the country the Whigs began to fear that a mistake had been made, and that the old leaders had been thrown overboard without due thought of the consequences. Mr. Clay's private correspondence exhibited unmistakable gratification at this aspect of affairs, for he felt assured that the influential Whigs who were now organizing against Taylor would have supported him as cordially as they had done in 1844.
These troubles in the Whig ranks tended, of course, to encourage the Democrats, and to give them for a time great promise of success. The selection of their own candidate, however, had not been unattended with difficulty and dissension. Mr. Polk was from the first out of the question,—verifying the Scripture that those who draw the sword shall perish by the sword. The war inaugurated by him had been completely successful; "a glorious peace," as it was termed, had been conquered; a vast addition to our territory had been accomplished. Yet by common consent, in which Mr. Polk had gracefully concurred in advance, it was admitted that he was not available for re-election. He had sown the dragon's teeth, and the armed men who sprang forth wrested his sceptre from him. But it would not be candid to ascribe his disability solely to events connected with the war. He had pursued the most unwise course in dealing with the New-York Democracy, and had for himself hopelessly divided the party. He made the great blunder of not recognizing the strength and leadership of Van Buren and Silas Wright. He had been led to distrust them, had always felt aggrieved that Wright refused to run on his ticket as Vice-President, and was annoyed by the fact that, as candidate for governor, Wright received several thousand votes more than the electoral ticket which represented his own fortunes. This fact came to him in a manner which deeply impressed it upon his memory. At that time, before railroad or telegraph had hastened the transmission of news beyond the Alleghanies, Mr. Polk in his Tennessee home was in an agony of doubt as to the result in New York. The first intelligence that reached him announced the certain victory of Wright, but left the electoral ticket undecided, with very unpleasant rumors of his own defeat. When at last the returns showed that he had a plurality of five thousand in New York, and was chosen President, it did not suffice to remove the deep impressions of those few days in which, either in the gloom of defeat or in the torture of suspense, he feared that he had been betrayed by the Barnburners of New York as a revenge for Van Buren's overthrow at Baltimore. As matter of fact the suspicion was absolutely groundless. The contest for governor between Silas Wright and Millard Fillmore called out intense feeling, and the former had the advantage of personal popularity over the latter just as Mr. Clay had over Mr. Polk. Mr. Wright's plurality was but five thousand greater than Mr. Polk's, and this only proved that among half a million voters there may have been twenty-five hundred who preferred Mr. Clay for President and Mr. Wright for governor.
PRESIDENT POLK AND MR. VAN BUREN.
But there was no manifestation of feeling or apparent withholding of confidence on the part of Mr. Polk when the result was finally proclaimed. On the contrary he offered the Treasury Department to Mr. Wright, feeling assured in advance, as the uncharitable thought, that Wright could not leave the governorship to accept it. When the office was declined, Mr. Polk again wrote Mr. Wright, asking his advice as to the New-York member of the cabinet. Mr. Wright submitted the names of three men from whom wise choice could be made,—Benjamin F. Butler, who had been attorney-general under President Jackson; John A. Dix, then recently chosen to the United- States Senate; and Azariah C. Flagg, eminent in the party, and especially distinguished for his administration of financial trust. Mr. Polk, under other and adverse influence, saw fit to disregard Mr. Wright's counsel, and selected William L. Marcy, who was hostile to Wright, and distrusted by Van Buren, for Secretary of War. From that moment the fate of Mr. Polk as candidate for re-election was sealed. The cause might seem inadequate, but the effect was undeniable. The Democratic party at the outbreak of the civil war, sixteen years afterwards, had not wholly recovered from the divisions and strifes which sprung from the disregard of Mr. Van Buren's wishes at that crisis. No appointment to Mr. Polk's cabinet could have been more distasteful than that of Mr. Marcy. He had lost the State during Mr. Van Buren's Presidency in the contest for the governorship against Mr. Seward in 1838, and thus laid the foundation, as Mr. Van Buren believed, for his own disastrous defeat in 1840. The disputes which arose from Marcy's appointment in the cabinet led to Wright's defeat for re-election in 1846, when John Young, the Whig candidate, was chosen governor of New York. To three men in the cabinet the friends of Mr. Wright ascribed the Democratic overthrow,—Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Robert J. Walker, and Mr. Marcy,— each anxious for the Presidency, and each feeling that Mr. Wright was in his way. Mr. Wright died suddenly the year after his defeat, and it was supposed for a time that harmony in the New-York Democracy might be restored over his grave. But his friends survived, and their grief was the measure of their resentment.
The course of events which disabled Mr. Polk as a candidate proved equally decisive against all the members of his cabinet; and by the process of exclusion rather than by an enthusiastic desire among the people, and still less among the leaders, General Cass was selected by the Democratic Convention as candidate for the Presidency, and William O. Butler of Kentucky for the Vice-Presidency. The Democracy of New York, in consequence of the divisions arising under the governorship of Mr. Wright, sent two full delegations to the convention, bearing credentials from separate organizations. The friends of Mr. Marcy bore the name of Hunkers; the followers of Mr. Wright ranged themselves under the title of Barnburners,— distinctions which had prevailed for some years in New York. It was in fact the old division on the annexation of Texas, and now represented the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party. The National Convention sought in vain to bridge the difficulty by admitting both delegations, giving to them united the right to cast the vote of the State. But the Barnburners declined thus to compromise a principle. On a question of bread, the half-loaf is preferable to starvation, but when political honor and deep personal feeling are involved, so material an adjustment is not practicable. The Barnburners retired from the convention, disclaimed all responsibility for its conclusions, and proceeded in due time to organize against the ticket of Cass and Butler. The Hunkers, left in the convention as the sole representatives of the New-York Democracy, were startled at the situation and declined to vote. They were anxious that the nomination of Cass should not appear to be forced on the Barnburners by the rival faction. It thus happened that New York, which for twenty years under the skillful leadership of Mr. Van Buren had dictated the course of the Democracy, was now so shorn of influence through the factions engendered by his defeat, that a Presidential nomination was made, not only without her lead, but without her aid or participation.
CASS BOLTED BY VAN BUREN'S FRIENDS.
The Democratic candidate was a man of high character. He had served creditably in the early part of the war of 1812, had been governor of Michigan Territory from 1813 to 1831, had been five years Secretary of War under General Jackson, and had gone to France as minister in 1836. He remained at the court of Louis Philippe, where he received eminent consideration, for six years. When he returned to this country in 1842, at sixty years of age, he undoubtedly intended to re-enter political life. He landed at Boston, and was received with enthusiasm by the New-England Democrats, especially of that class who had not been in special favor during the long rule of Jackson and his successor. Popular ovations were arranged for him as he journeyed westward, and, by the time he reached his home in Detroit, General Cass was publicly recognized as a candidate for the Presidency. These facts did not escape the jealous and watchful eye of Mr. Van Buren. He was aggrieved by the course of General Cass, feeling assured that its direct effect would be to injure himself, and not to promote the political fortunes of the General. But the rivalry continued to develop. Cass remained in the field, a persistent candidate for nomination, and in the end proved to be, perhaps, the most powerful factor in the combination which secured the triumph of Polk. He had deeply wounded Mr. Van Buren, and, as the latter thought, causelessly and cruelly. He had disregarded a personal and political friendship of thirty years' duration, and had sundered ties which life was too short to re- unite. Cass had gained no victory. He had only defeated old friends, and the hour of retribution was at hand.
When the delegation of Barnburners withdrew from the Baltimore Convention of 1848, they were obviously acting in harmony with Mr. Van Buren's wishes. Had they been admitted, according to their peremptory demand, as the sole delegation from New York, they could have defeated Cass in the convention, and forced the nomination of some new man unconnected with the grievances and enmities of 1844. But when the demand of the Barnburners was denied, and they were asked to make common cause with the assassins of Wright, as James S. Wadsworth had denominated the Hunkers, the indignantly shook the dust of the city from off their feet, returned to New York, and forthwith called a Democratic convention to meet at Utica on the 22d of June.
Before the time arrived for the Utica Convention to assemble, the anti-slavery revolt was widely extended, and was, apparently, no less against Taylor than against Cass. There was agitation in many States, and the Barnburners found that by uniting with the opposition against both the old parties, a most effective combination could be made. It was certain to profit them in New York, and it promised the special revenge which they desired in the defeat of Cass. The various local and State movements were merged in one great convention, which met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, with imposing demonstrations. Many of those composing it had held high rank in the old parties. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was selected as president. The convention represented a genuine anti-slavery sentiment, and amid excitement and enthusiasm Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The Barnburners, the anti-slavery Whigs, and the old Abolitionists, co-operated with apparent harmony under the general name of the Free-soil party; and the impression with many when the convention adjourned was, that Mr. Van Buren would have a plurality over both Cass and Taylor in the State of New York. The management of the popular canvass was intrusted to Democratic partisans of the Silas Wright school, and this fact had a significant and unexpected influence upon the minds of anti-slavery Whigs.
In the first flush of the excitement, the supporters of the regular Democratic nominee were not alarmed. They argued, not illogically, that the Free-soil ticket would draw more largely from the Whigs than from the Democrats, and thus very probably injure Taylor more than Cass. But in a few weeks this hope was dispelled. The Whigs of the country had been engaged for a long period in an earnest political warfare against Mr. Van Buren. In New York the contest had been personal and acrimonious to the last degree, and ordinary human nature could hardly be expected the bury at once the grievances and resentments of a generation. Nor did the Whigs confide in the sincerity of Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery conversion. His repentance was late, and even the most charitable suspected that his desire to punish Cass had entered largely into the motives which suddenly aroused him to the evils of slavery after forty years of quiet acquiescence in all the demands of the South. Mr. Seward, who possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men of New York, led a most earnest canvass in favor of General Taylor, and was especially successful in influencing Whigs against Van Buren. In this he was aided by the organizing skill of Thurlow Weed, and by the editorial power of Horace Greeley. Perhaps in no other National election did three men so completely control the result. They gave the vote of New York to General Taylor, and made him President of the United States.
MR. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD SPEECH.
At an opportune moment for the success of the Whigs, Mr. Webster decided to support General Taylor. He thoroughly distrusted Cass, —not in point of integrity, but of discretion and sound judgment as a statesman. He had rebuked Cass severely in a diplomatic correspondence touching the Treaty of Washington, when he was Secretary of State and Cass minister to France. The impression then derived had convinced him that the Democratic candidate was not the man whom a Whig could desire to see in the Presidential chair. In Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery professions, Mr. Webster had no confidence. He said pleasantly, but significantly, that "if he and Mr. Van Buren should meet under the Free-soil flag, the latter with his accustomed good-nature would laugh." He added, with a touch of characteristic humor, "that the leader of the Free- spoil party suddenly becoming the leader of the Free-soil party is a joke to shake his sides and mine." Distrusting him sincerely on the anti-slavery issue, Mr. Webster showed that on every other question Mr. Van Buren was throughly objectionable to the Whigs.
The Marshfield speech, as this effort was popularly known at the time, had great influence with the Northern Whigs. Mr. Webster did not conceal his belief that General Taylor's nomination was "one not fit to be made," but by the clearest of logic he demonstrated that he was infinitely to be preferred to either of his competitors. Mr. Webster at that time had the confidence of the anti-slavery Whigs in a large degree; he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and his public course had been that of a just and conservative expositor of their advanced opinion. From the day of the Marshfield speech, the belief was general that Van Buren would draw far more largely from the Democrats than from the Whigs; that his candidacy would give the State of New York to Taylor, and thus elect him President. The loss of Whig votes was not distasteful to Mr. Van Buren after the prospect of his securing the electors of New York had vanished. Had he drawn in equal proportion from the two parties, his candidacy would have had no effect. It would have neutralized itself, and left the contest between Cass and Taylor as though he had not entered the race. By a rule of influence, whose working is obvious, the tenacity of the Democratic adherents of Van Buren increased as the Whigs withdrew. The contest between Cass and Van Buren finally became in New York, in very large degree, a struggle between Democratic factions, in which the anti-slavery profession was an instrumentality to be temporarily used, and not a principle to be permanently upheld. As the Whigs left Van Buren, the Democrats left Cass, and the end of the canvass gave a full measure of satisfaction, not only to the supporters of Taylor, but to the followers of Van Buren, who polled a larger vote for him than was given to Cass. New York, as in 1844, decided the contest. The friends of Van Buren had not simply beaten Cass at the polls, they had discredited him as a party leader. In the pithy phrase of John Van Buren, they had exposed him to the country as the candidate "powerful for mischief, powerless for good."
The total vote of New York was, for Taylor, 218,603; for Cass, 114,318; for Van Buren, 120,510. The canvass for the governorship was scarcely less exciting than that for the Presidency. Hamilton Fish was the Whig candidate; John A. Dix, then a senator of the United States, ran as the representative of Mr. Van Buren's Free- soil party; while the eminent Chancellor Walworth, who had recently lost his judicial position, was nominated as a supporter of Cass by the Regular Democracy. Mr. Fish had been candidate for Lieutenant- governor two years before on the Whig ticket with John Young, and was defeated because of his outspoken views against the Anti-Renters. Those radical agitators instinctively knew that the descendant of Stuyvesant would support the inherited rights of the Van Rensselaers, and therefore defeated Mr. Fish while they elected the Whig candidates for other offices. Mr. Fish now had his abundant reward in receiving as large a vote as General Taylor, and securing nearly one hundred thousand plurality over the Van Buren candidate, while he in turn received a small plurality over the representative of General Cass.
The result of the two contests left the Van Buren wing, or the Barnburners, in majority over the Hunkers, and gave them an advantage in future contests for supremacy, inside the party. Truthful history will hold this to have been the chief object of the struggle with many who vowed allegiance at Buffalo to an anti-slavery creed strong enough to satisfy Joshua R. Giddings and Charles Sumner. With Cass defeated, and the Marcy wing of the party severely disciplined, the great mass of the Van Buren host of 1848 were ready to disavow their political escapade at Buffalo. Dean Richmond, Samuel J. Tilden, John Van Buren, C. C. Cambreleng, and Sanford E. Church, forgot their anti-slavery professions, reunited with the old party, and vowed afresh their fidelity to every principle against which they had so earnestly protested. Mr. Van Buren himself went with them, and to the end of his life maintained a consistent pro-slavery record, which, throughout a long public career was varied only by the insincere professions which he found it necessary to make in order to be revenged on Cass. But it would be unjust to include in this condemnation all the New-York Democrats who went into the Buffalo movement. Many were honest and earnest, and in after life followed the principles which they had then professed. Chief among these may be reckoned Preston King, who exerted a powerful influence in the anti-slavery advances of after years, and James S. Wadsworth, who gave his name, and generously of his wealth, to the cause, and finally sealed his devotion with his blood on the battle-field of the Wilderness.
CHARACTER OF MR. VAN BUREN.
Mr. Van Buren spent the remainder of his life in dignified retirement —surviving until his eightieth year, in 1862. In point of mere intellectual force, he must rank below the really eminent men with whom he was so long associated in public life. But he was able, industrious, and, in political management, clever beyond any man who has thus far appeared in American politics. He had extraordinary tact in commending himself to the favor and confidence of the people. Succeeding to political primacy in New York on the death of De Witt Clinton in 1828, he held absolute control of his party for twenty years, and was finally overthrown by causes whose origin was beyond the limits of his personal influence. He stood on the dividing-line between the mere politician and the statesman,— perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely the comprehensive power of the other. His active career began in 1812, and ended in 1848. During the intervening period he had served in the Legislature of New York, had been a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1820, had been attorney-general of the State, and had been chosen its governor. In the national field he had been senator of the United States, Secretary of State, minister to England, Vice- President, and President. No other man in the country has held so many great places. He filled them all with competency and with power, but marred his illustrious record by the political episode of 1848, in which, though he may have had some justification for revenge on unfaithful associates in his old party, he had none for his lack of fidelity to new friends, and for his abandonment of a sacred principle which he had pledged himself to uphold.
[* NOTE.—An error of statement occurs on page 72, Volume I, in regard to the action of the Whig caucus for Speaker in December, 1847. Mr. Winthrop was chosen after Mr. Vinton had declined, and was warmly supported by Mr. Vinton. The error came from an incorrect account of the caucus in a newspaper of that time.]
CHAPTER V.
Review (continued).—Contrast between General Taylor and General Cass.—The Cabinet of President Taylor.—Political Condition of the Country.—Effect produced by the Discovery of Gold in California. —Convening of Thirty-first Congress.—Election of Howell Cobb as Speaker.—President Taylor's Message.—His Recommendations Distasteful to the South.—Illustrious Membership of the Senate.—Mr. Clay and the Taylor Administration.—Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech in the Senate. —His Death.—His Character and Public Services.—Mr. Webster's 7th of March Speech.—Its Effect upon the Public and upon Mr. Webster.—Mr. Clay's Committee of Thirteen.—The Omnibus Bill.— Conflict with General Taylor's Administration.—Death of the President.—Mr. Fillmore reverses Taylor's Policy and supports the Compromise Measures.—Defeat of Compromise Bill.—Passage of the Measures separately.—Memorable Session of Congress.—Whig and Democratic Parties sustain the Compromise Measures.—National Conventions.—Whigs nominate Winfield Scott over Fillmore.—Mr. Clay supports Fillmore.—Mr. Webster's Friends.—Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce.—Character of the Campaign.—Overwhelming Defeat of Scott.—Destruction of the Whig Party.—Death of Mr. Clay.— Death of Mr. Webster.—Their Public Characters and Services compared.
With the election of General Taylor, the various issues of the slavery question were left undecided and unchanged. Indeed, the progress of the canvass had presented a political anomaly. General Cass was born in New England of Puritan stock. All his mature life had been spent in the free North-West. He was a lawyer, a statesman, always a civilian, except for a single year in the volunteer service of 1812. General Taylor was born in Virginia, was reared in Kentucky, was a soldier by profession from his earliest years of manhood, had passed all his life in the South, was a resident of Louisiana, engaged in planting, and was the owner of a large number of slaves. Yet in the face of these facts General Cass ran as the distinctively pro-slavery candidate, and General Taylor received three-fourths of the votes of New England, and was supported throughout the North by the anti-slavery Whigs, who accepted William H. Seward as a leader and Horace Greeley as an exponent. But his contradiction was apparent, not real. It was soon found that the confidence of the Northern men who voted for Taylor had not been misplaced.
CABINET OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
As his inauguration approached, the anxiety in regard to his public policy grew almost painfully intense throughout the country. There had never been a cabinet organized in which so deep an interest was felt,—an interest which did not attach so much to the persons who might compose it as to the side—pro-slavery or anti-slavery— to which the balance might incline. When the names were announced, it was found that four were from the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and three from the north side. But a review of the political character of the members showed that the decided weight of influence was with the North. John M. Clayton of Delaware, Secretary of State, nominally from the South, had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and had defended his action with commanding ability. William M. Meredith of Pennsylvania was one of the ablest lawyers of the country, a scholar, a wit, an orator; his training had not, however, fitted him for the Treasury Department to which he was called. Thomas Ewing of Ohio, selected to organize the Department of the Interior, just then authorized by law, was a man of intellectual power, a lawyer of the first rank, possessing a stainless character, great moral courage, unbending will, an incisive style, both with tongue and pen, and a breadth of reading and wealth of information never surpassed by any public man in America. Jacob Collamer of Vermont, Postmaster-general, was an able, wise, just, and firm man, stern in principle, conservative in action. The Attorney-general was Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, an ardent Whig partisan, distinguished in his profession, born and living in a slave State, but firmly devoted to the Union, as in later life he abundantly proved. The pronounced Southern sentiment, as represented by Toombs and Stephens, had but two representatives in the cabinet,—George W. Crawford of Georgia (nephew of the eminent William H. Crawford), Secretary of War; and William Ballard Preston of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy,—able and upright men, but less distinguished than their associates.
The country was in an expectant and restless condition. The pro- slavery leaders, who had counted upon large political gain to their section by the acquisition of territory from Mexico, were somewhat discouraged, and began to fear that the South had sown, and that the North would reap. They had hoped to establish their right by positive legislation to enter all the territories with slave property. If they should fail in this, they believed with all confidence, and had good reason at the time for their faith, that they would be able to carry the line of 36° 30´ to the Pacific by an extension of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and that in this way the political strength of their section would be vastly enhanced. But not long after the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, an event happened which put to naught the anticipations of Southern statesmen. Gold was discovered in California late in the autumn of 1848, and by one of those marvels of emigration which the Anglo- Saxon race have more than once achieved, the Pacific slope was immediately filled with a hardy, resolute, intelligent population. In less than a year they organized a State government, adopted a constitution in which slavery was forever prohibited, and were ready by the close of 1849 to apply for admission to the Union. The inhabitants had no powers of civil government conferred by Congress; the only authority exercised by the United States being that of Colonel Bennett Riley of the regular army, who had been placed in command immediately after the Treaty of Peace by President Polk, and who was left undisturbed by President Taylor.
Congress convened on the first Monday of December, 1849, amid deep feeling, rapidly growing into excitement throughout the country. For three weeks the House was unable to organize by the choice of a speaker. The Democratic candidate was Howell Cobb; the Whig candidate, Robert C. Winthrop. The contest was finally settled on the sixty-third ballot, in accordance with a previous agreement that a plurality should elect. Mr. Cobb received one hundred and two votes; Mr. Winthrop ninety-nine, with twenty votes scattering, principally anti-slavery Whigs and Free-Soilers. It was the first time that such a step had been taken; and its constitutionality was so doubtful, that after the ballot, a resolution declaring Mr. Cobb to be speaker was adopted by general concurrence on a yea and nay vote.
The message of the President was immediately transmitted, and proved a tower of strength to the friends of the Union, and a heavy blow to the secession element, which was rampant in Congress. The President recommended that California, with her constitution, already known to be anti-slavery, be promptly admitted to the Union. He also suggested that New Mexico, already better protected in property, life, liberty, and religion than she had ever been before, be quietly left under her existing military government until she should form a State constitution, and apply for admission,—an event deemed probable in the very near future. That accomplished, as he added in a special message a few days later, the claims of Texas to a portion of New Mexico could be judicially determined, which could not be done while New Mexico remained a territory, organized or unorganized. These recommendations were intensely distasteful to the South, and grew to be correspondingly popular in the North. The sectional feeling rapidly developed and the agitation in Congress communicated itself to the entire country.
THE UNITED STATES SENATE IN 1850.
The character and eminence of the men who took part in the discussion gave it an intense, almost dramatic interest. Mr. Clay in his seventy-third year was again in the Senate by the unanimous vote of the Kentucky Legislature, in the belief that his patriotic influence was needed in the impending crisis. Webster and Cass, natives of the same New-England State, Benton and Calhoun, natives of the Carolinas, all born the same year and now approaching threescore and ten, represented in their own persons almost every phase of the impending contest. Stephen A. Douglas had entered the preceding Congress at the early age of thirty-four, and the ardent young Irish soldier, James Shields, was now his colleague. Jefferson Davis had come from Mississippi with the brilliant record of his achievements in the Mexican war, already ambitious to succeed Mr. Calhoun as the leader of the extreme South, but foiled in his Disunion schemes by his eloquent but erratic colleague, Henry S. Foote. William H. Seward of New York was for the first time taking position under the National Government, at the age of forty-nine, and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, five years younger, was beginning his political career as the colleague of Thomas Corwin. John Bell was still honorably serving Tennessee, and John McPherson Berrien was still honoring Georgia by his service. The amiable and excellent William R. King, who had entered the Senate when Alabama was admitted in 1819, and who was Colonel Benton's senior in service by two years when he resigned in 1844 to accept the French mission, now returned, and remained until he was chosen Vice-President in 1852. Hannibal Hamlin had entered the preceding year, and was still leading a bitter fight on the slavery question against a formidable element in his own party headed at home by Nathan Clifford and represented in the Senate by his colleague, James W. Bradbury. John P. Hale, a New-Hampshire Democrat whom Franklin Pierce had attempted to discipline because as representative in Congress he had opposed the annexation of Texas, had beaten Pierce before the people, defied the Democratic party, and was promoted to the Senate an outspoken Free-Soiler. Willie P. Mangum and George E. Badger, able, graceful, experienced statesmen, represented the steadfast Union sentiment of the "Old North State" Whigs; while Andrew P. Butler, impulsive and generous, learned and able, embodied all the heresies of the South-Carolina Nullifiers. James M. Mason, who seemed to court the hatred of the North, and Robert M. T. Hunter, who had the cordial respect of all sections, spoke for Virginia. Pierre Soulé came from Louisiana, eloquent even in a language he could not pronounce, but better fitted by temperament for the turbulence of a revolutionary assembly in his native land than for the decorous conservatism of the American Senate. Sam Houston was present from Texas, with a history full of adventure and singular fortune, while his colleague, Thomas J. Rusk, was daily increasing a reputation which had already marked him in the judgment of Mr. Webster as first among the younger statesmen of the South. Dodge of Wisconsin and Dodge of Iowa, father and son, represented the Democracy of the remotest outposts in the North-West, and, most striking of all, William M. Gwin and John C. Frémont, men of Southern birth and pro-slavery training, stood at the door of the Senate with the constitution of California in their hands to demand her admission to the Union as a free State. At no time before or since in the history of the Senate has its membership been so illustrious, its weight of character and ability so great. The period marked the meeting and dividing line between two generations of statesmen. The eminent men who had succeeded the leaders of the Revolutionary era were passing away, but the most brilliant of their number were still lingering, unabated in natural force, resplendent in personal fame. Their successors in public responsibility, if not their equals in public regard and confidence, were already upon the stage preparing for, and destined to act in, the bloodiest and most memorable of civil struggles.
Mr. Clay had re-entered the Senate with no cordial feelings toward President Taylor's administration. The events of the preceding year were too fresh, the wounds too deep, to be readily forgotten or quickly healed. But he desired no quarrel and was incapable of showing petty resentment. His mind was intent on harmonizing the serious differences between North and South, and he believed the President's plan would fall short and fail. He desired, in the same spirit of compromise which had been so distinguishing a mark of his statesmanship in former crises, to secure "an amicable arrangement of all questions in controversy between the free and slave States growing out of the subject of slavery." He was so accustomed to lead, that the senators involuntarily waited for him to open the discussion and point the way. He as naturally accepted the responsibility, and in January (1850) began by submitting a series of resolutions reciting the measures which were necessary for the pacification of all strife in the country. These resolutions embraced the admission of California; governments for the territory acquired from Mexico without prohibition or permission of slavery; adjustment of the disputed boundary of Texas and the allowance of ten millions of dollars to that State for the payment of her debt; the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; more effectual provision for the restitution of fugitive slaves.
DEATH OF JOHN C. CALHOUN.
It was on these resolutions that Mr. Calhoun prepared his last formal speech. He attempted to deliver it in the Senate on the 4th of March, but was so weak that he requested Mr. Mason of Virginia to read it for him. On two or three subsequent occasions Mr. Calhoun made brief extempore remarks showing each time a gradual decay of strength. He died on the last day of March. Most touching and appreciative eulogies were delivered by Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, after his death had been announced by his colleague, Judge Butler. Mr. Clay spoke of his "transcendent talents," of his "clear, concise, compact logic," of his "felicity in generalization surpassed by no one." He intimated that he would have been glad to see Mr. Calhoun succeed Mr. Monroe in the Presidency in 1820. Mr. Webster, who always measured his words, spoke of him as "a man of undoubted genius and commanding talent, of unspotted integrity, of unimpeached honor." Mr. Calhoun had been driven by his controversies with Jackson into a position where he was deprived of popular strength in the free States. But this very fact enhanced his power with the South, and increased his hold upon his own people. To the majority of the people in the slave-holding States he was as an inspired leader for more than twenty years. He taught the philosophy and supplied the arguments to the ambitious generation of public men who came after him, and who were prepared, as he was not, to force the issue to the arbitrament of arms. Deplorable as was the end to which his teachings led, he could not have acquired the influence he wielded over millions of men unless he had been gifted with acute intellect, distinguished by moral excellence, and inspired by the sincerest belief in the righteousness of his cause. History will adjudge him to have been single-hearted and honest in his political creed. It will equally adjudge him to have been wrong in his theory of the Federal Government, and dead to the awakened sentiment of Christendom in his views concerning the enslavement of man.
Mr. Calhoun's published works show the extent of his participation in the national councils. They exhibit his zeal, the intensity of his convictions, and at the same time the clearness and strength of his logic. His premises once admitted, it is difficult to resist the force of his conclusions. Mr. Webster assailed his premises, and in their debate of February 16, 1833, defeated him, as another senator remarked, "by the acuteness of his definitions,"—thus meeting Mr. Calhoun on his own ground. The war and its results have in large degree remanded the theories of Mr. Calhoun to the past, but no intelligent student of the institutions of the United States can afford to neglect his elaborate, conscientious, able discussions. Taken with Mr. Webster's works they exhibit the most complete examination, the most comprehensive analysis of the often tortuous and ill-defined line which separates the powers of the National Government from the functions which properly belong to the States. Mr. Calhoun's public service may be regarded as continuous from 1810, when he was elected to Congress at twenty- eight years of age, till his death,—a period of forty years. He took his seat in the House in December, 1811, and was placed by the speaker, Mr. Clay (with whom he was then in accord), on the Committee of Foreign Affairs. He was earnest and influential in supporting the war policy of the Madison administration, and gained so rapidly in public estimation that six years later he was appointed secretary of War by President Monroe. Thenceforward his career was illustrious. As Vice-President, as secretary of State, above all as senator from South Carolina, he gained lasting renown. His life was eminently pure, his career exceptional, his fame established beyond the reach of calumny, beyond the power of detraction.
MR. WEBSTER'S 7TH OF MARCH SPEECH.
Continuing the discussion invited by Mr. Clay's resolutions, Mr. Webster delivered, on the 7th of March, the memorable speech which cost him the loss of so many of his staunch and lifelong friends. The anti-slavery Whigs of the North, who, as the discussion went on, had waited to be vindicated by the commanding argument of Mr. Webster, were dismayed and cast down by his unexpected utterance. Instead of arraigning the propagandists of slavery, he arraigned its opponents. Instead of indicting the Disunionists of the South, the poured out his wrath upon the Abolitionists of the North. He maintained that the North had unduly exaggerated the dangers of slavery extension at this crisis. California was coming in as a free State. Texas, north of 36° 30´, if her boundary should extend so far, had been declared free in the articles of annexation. In the mountainous and sterile character of New Mexico and Utah he found a stronger prohibition of slavery than in any possible ordinance, enactment, or proviso placed on the statute-book by Congress. He would not, therefore, "re-enact the Law of God." He would not force a quarrel with the South when nothing was to be gained. He would not irritate or causelessly wound the feelings of those who were just beginning to realize that they had lost in the issue put at stake in the Mexican war. The speech undoubtedly had great influence in the North, and caused many anti-slavery men to turn back. But on the other hand, it embittered thousands who pressed forward with sturdy principle and with a quickened zeal, not unmixed with resentment and a sense of betrayal. In many parts of the country, and especially in the Middle and Southern States, the speech was received with enthusiastic approval. But in New England, the loss of whose good opinion could not be compensated to Mr. Webster by the applause of a world outside, he never regained his hold upon the popular affection. New friends came to him, but they did not supply the place of the old friends, who for a lifetime had stood by him with unswerving principle and with ever-increasing pride.
Excitement and passion do not, however, always issue decrees and pronounce judgments of absolute right. In the zeal of that hour, Northern anti-slavery opinion failed to appreciate the influence which wrought so powerfully on the mind of Mr. Webster. He belonged with those who could remember the first President, who personally knew much of the hardships and sorrows of the Revolutionary period, who were born to poverty and reared in privation. To these, the formation of the Federal Government had come as a gift from Heaven, and they had heard from the lips of the living Washington in his farewell words, that "the Union is the edifice of our real independence, the support of our tranquillity at home, our peace abroad, our prosperity, our safety, and of the very liberty which we so highly prize, that for this Union we should cherish a cordial, habitual, immovable attachment, and should discountenance whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned." Mr. Webster had in his own lifetime seen the thirteen colonies grow into thirty powerful States. He had seen three millions of people, enfeebled and impoverished by a long struggle, increased eightfold in number, surrounded by all the comforts, charms, and securities of life. All this spoke to him of the Union and of its priceless blessings. He now heard its advantages discussed, its perpetuity doubted, its existence threatened. A convention of slave-holding States had been called, to meet at Nashville, for the purpose of considering the possible separation of the sections. Mr. Webster felt that a generation had been born who were undervaluing their inheritance, and who might, by temerity, destroy it. Under motives inspired by these surroundings, he spoke for the preservation of the Union. He believed it to be seriously endangered. His apprehensions were ridiculed by many who, ten years after Mr. Webster was in his grave, saw for the first time how real and how terrible were the perils upon which those apprehensions were founded.
When the hour of actual conflict came, every patriot realized that a great magazine of strength for the Union was stored in the teachings of Mr. Webster. For thirty years preceding the Nullification troubles in South Carolina, the government had been administered on the States'-rights theory, in which the power of the nation was subordinated, and its capacity to subdue the revolt of seceding States was dangerously weakened. His speech in reply to Hayne in 1830 was like an amendment to the Constitution. It corrected traditions, changed convictions, revolutionized conclusions. It gave to the friends of the Union the abundant logic which established the right and the power of the government to preserve itself. A fame so lofty, a work so grand, cannot be marred by one mistake, if mistake it be conceded. The thoughtful reconsideration of his severest critics must allow that Mr. Webster saw before him a divided duty, and that he chose the part which in his patriotic judgment was demanded by the supreme danger of the hour.
Mr. Clay's resolutions were referred to a special committee of thirteen, of which he was made chairman. They reported a bill embracing the principal objects contemplated in his original speech. The discussion on this composite measure was earnest and prolonged, and between certain senators became exasperating. The Administration, through its newspapers, through the declarations of its Cabinet minsters, through the unreserved expressions of President Taylor himself, showed persistent hostility to Mr. Clay's Omnibus Bill, as it was derisively and offensively called. Mr. Clay, in turn, did not conceal his hostility to the mode of adjustment proposed in the messages of the President, and defended his own with vigor and eloquence. Reciting the measures demanded for a fair and lasting settlement, he said there were five wounds, bleeding and threatening the body politic, all needing to be healed, while the President proposed to heal but one. He described the wounds, numbering them carefully on his fingers as he spoke. Colonel Benton, who was vindictively opposed to the Omnibus Bill, made sport of the five gaping wounds, and believed that Mr. Clay would have found more wounds if he had had more fingers. This strife naturally grew more and more severe, making for a time a somewhat serious division among the Democrats, and rending the Whig party asunder, one section following Mr. Clay with great zeal, the other adhering with tenacity to the administration.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
The quarrel was growing fiercer day by day, and involving all shades of political opinion, when it was suddenly arrested by the death of General Taylor on the 9th of July (1850). This sad event gave the opportunity for the success of the Compromise measures. Had General Taylor lived, their defeat was assured. As a Southern man, coming from a Gulf State, personally interested in the institution of slavery, he had a vantage-ground in the struggle which a Northern President could never attain. He had, moreover, the courage and the intelligence to uphold his principles, even in a controversy with Mr. Clay. His ignorance of political and civil affairs has been grossly exaggerated. Without taking part in politics, he had been a close observer of events, and his prolonged services at frontier posts had afforded the leisure and enforced the taste for reading. He knew not only the public measures, but the public men of his time closely and appreciatively. He surprised a member of his cabinet on a certain occasion, by objecting to a proposed appointment on the ground that the man designated had voted for Benton's expunging resolution at the close of Jackson's administration, —an offense which the President would not condone. The seven members of his cabinet, actively engaged in politics all their lives, had forgotten an important fact which the President instinctively remembered.
Long before General Taylor's death it was known that Mr. Fillmore did not sympathize with the policy of the administration. He had been among the most advanced of anti-slavery Whigs during his service in the House of Representatives, and was placed on the Taylor ticket as a conciliatory candidate, to hold to their allegiance that large class of Whigs who resented the nomination of a Louisiana slave-holder. But from the day he was sworn in as Vice-President his antipathy to Mr. Seward began to develop. With the conceded ability of the latter, and with his constant opportunity on the floor of the Senate, where he won laurels from the day of his entrance, Mr. Fillmore felt that he would himself be subordinated and lost in the crowd of followers if he coincided with Seward. Older in years, long senior to Mr. Seward in the national service, he apparently could not endure to see himself displaced by a more brilliant and more capable leader. The two men, therefore, gradually separated; Mr. Fillmore using what influence he possessed as Vice- President in favor of Mr. Clay's plan of compromise, while Mr. Seward became the Northern leader of the Administration Whigs,—a remarkable if not unprecedented advance for a senator in the first session of his service.
In succeeding to the Presidency, Mr. Fillmore naturally gave the full influence of his administration to the Compromise. To signalize his position, he appointed Mr. Webster secretary of State, and placed Mr. Corwin of Ohio at the head of the Treasury. Mr. Corwin, with a strong anti-slavery record, had been recently drifting in the opposite direction, and his appointment was significant. It was too late, however, to save the Omnibus Bill as a whole. The Taylor administration had damaged it too seriously to permit an effectual revival in its favor. It was finally destroyed the last week in July by striking out in detail every provision except the bill for the organization of the Territory of Utah. After the Utah bill had been enacted, separate bills followed;—for the admission of California; for the organization of New Mexico, with the same condition respecting slavery which had been applied to Utah; for the adjustment of the Texas boundary, and the payment to that State of ten millions indemnity; for the more effectual recovery of fugitive slaves; for the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Congress thus enacted separately the bills which it refused to enact together, and the policy outlined by Mr. Clay at the beginning of the session had triumphed. Several Southern senators joined Jefferson Davis in strenuous resistance to the admission of California with the boundaries prescribed. After seeking ineffectually to make the line of 36° 30´ the southern limit of the State, they attempted with equal lack of success to enter a solemn protest on the journal of the Senate against the wrong done to the slave-holding States in giving the entire Pacific coast to freedom. It was a last and hopeless movement of the Southern Hotspurs. The protest, at first discredited, was speedily forgotten, and California entered the Union after ten months of angry controversy, with slavery forever excluded from her imperial domain.
THE FINALITY OF THE COMPROMISE.
The session had been in all respects important and memorable. In the judgment of many it had been critical, and the dangers attending its action were increased by the death of General Taylor. The South would endure from him what they would resent and possibly resist if imposed by an anti-slavery Whig from the North. This fact had, doubtless, great influence in shaping the policy of Mr. Fillmore, both as Vice-President and President. The events of the session marred and made the reputation of many. Four senators especially, of the younger class, had laid the foundation of their prominence in the struggles of after years,—Mr. Seward as an anti- slavery Whig, Mr. Chase as a Free-Soiler, previously of Democratic affiliations, Mr. Jefferson Davis as a Southern Democrat, and Mr. Douglas as a Northern Democrat. Calhoun was dead. Clay and Webster and Cass and Benton were near the end of their illustrious careers. New men were thenceforth to guide the policy of the Republic, and among the new men in a Senate of exceptional ability these four attained the largest fame, secured the strongest constituencies, and exerted the widest influence.
Both political parties began at once to take ground in favor of the Compromise measures as a final and complete adjustment of the slavery question. The Southern Whigs under Mr. Clay's lead eagerly assumed that conclusion. Mr. Fillmore, having approved all the bills separately which taken together formed the Compromise, was of course strongly in favor of regarding these measures as a finality. Mr. Webster took the same view, though from a bill he had prepared before he left the Senate for the rendition of fugitive slaves, guaranteeing jury-trial to the fugitive, it is hardly conceivable that he would have voted for the harsh measure that was enacted. Mr. Corwin to the surprise of his friends had passed over from the most radical to the ultra-conservative side on the slavery question, and it was his change, in addition to that of Mr. Webster, which had given so brilliant an opportunity to Mr. Seward as the leader of the Northern Whigs. Mr. Corwin was irretrievably injured by a course so flatly in contradiction of his previous action. He lost the support and largely forfeited the confidence of the Ohio Whigs, who in 1848 had looked upon him as a possible if not probable candidate for the Presidency.
But against this surrender to the Compromise measures of 1850, the Whigs who followed Seward and Wade and Thaddeus Stevens and Fessenden were earnest and active. Stevens was then a member of the House and had waged bitter war against the measures. Wade and Fessenden had not yet entered the Senate, but were powerful leaders in their respective States. These men had not given up the creed which demanded an anti-slavery restriction on every inch of soil owned by the United States. They viewed with abhorrence the legislation which had placed freedom and slavery on the same plane in the Territories of Utah and New Mexico. They believed that Texas had been paid for a baseless claim ten millions of dollars, one-half of which, as a sharp critic declared, was hush-money, the other half blood-money. They regarded the cruel law for the return of fugitive slaves as an abomination in the sight of God and man. In their judgment it violated every principle of right. It allowed the personal liberty of a man to be peremptorily decided by a United- States commissioner, acting with absolute power and without appeal. For a claim exceeding twenty dollars in value, every citizen has the right to a trial by jury; but by this law the body, the life, the very soul of a man, possibly a free-born citizen, might be consigned to perpetual enslavement on the fallible judgment of a single official. An apparently slight, yet especially odious feature of the law which served in large degree to render it inoperative was that the United-States commissioner, in the event of his remanding the alleged fugitive to slavery, received a fee of ten dollars, and, if he adjudged him to be free, received only five dollars.
It soon became evident that with the Whigs divided and the Democrats compactly united upon the finality of the Compromise, the latter would have the advantage in the ensuing Presidential election. The tendency would naturally be to consolidate the slave-holding States in support of the Democratic candidates, because that party had a large, well-organized force throughout the North cherishing the same principles, co-operating for the same candidates, and controlling many, if not a majority, of the free States. The Southern Whigs, equally earnest with the Democrats for the Compromise, were constantly injured at home by the outspoken anti-slavery principles of leading Northern Whigs. Just at that point of time and from the cause indicated began the formation of parties divided on the geographical line between North and South. But this result was as yet only foreshadowed, not developed. Both the old parties held their national conventions as usual, in 1852, with every State represented in both by full delegations. There were peculiar troubles in each. In the Democratic convention the dissensions had been in large part inherited, and had reference more to persons than to principles, more to the candidate than to the platform. While something of the same trouble was visible in the Whig ranks, the chief source of contention and of party weakness was found in the irreconcilable difference of principle between all the Southern Whigs and a large number of the Northern Whigs. In the South they were unanimous in support of the Compromise. In the North they were divided.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The Democratic National Convention met in Baltimore on the first day of June, 1852. General Cass, though he had reached his seventieth year, was again in the field. Mr. Buchanan, then sixty-one years of age, was the candidate next in strength, and Stephen A. Douglas was third. Douglas was but thirty-nine years old, the youngest man ever formally presented for the Presidency by a State delegation in a National convention. Governor Marcy was fourth in the order of strength. There were scattering votes for other candidates, but these four were seriously and hopefully urged by their respective supporters. Marcy was in many respects the fittest man to be nominated, but the fear was that the old dissensions of the New- York Democracy, now seemingly healed, would open afresh if the chief of one of the clans should be imposed on the other. Douglas was injured by his partial committal to what was known as the doctrine of "manifest destiny,"—the indefinite acquisition of territory southward, especially in the direction of the West Indies. Cass was too old. Buchanan lacked personal popularity; and, while he had the Pennsylvania delegation in his favor, a host of enemies from that State, outside the convention, warred against him most bitterly. No one of these eminent men could secure two-thirds of the delegates as required by the iron rule, and on the forty-ninth ballot Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, who had been among the "scattering" on several preceding votes, was unanimously nominated. The suggestion of Pierce's name was not so spontaneous and sudden as it was made to appear. The precise condition of affairs was discerned before the convention met, and some sagacious and far- seeing men, among whom the late Caleb Cushing was one, and General Benjamin F. Butler another, had canvassed the merits of Pierce before the convention met. They saw that from his record in Congress he would be entirely acceptable to the South, and at the opportune moment their plans were perfected and Pierce was nominated with a great show of enthusiasm. William R. King of Alabama was selected to run as Vice-President.
General Pierce had many qualities that rendered him a strong candidate. He had served with credit if not distinction both in the House and the Senate. He was elected to the House in 1832, when he was but twenty-eight years of age, and resigned his seat in the Senate in 1842. In the ten years which intervened before his nomination for the Presidency, he had devoted himself to the law with brilliant success, leaving it only for his short service in the Mexican war. He was still a young man when he was preferred to all the prominent statesmen of his party as a Presidential candidate. He was remarkably attractive in personal appearance, prepossessing in manner, ready and even eloquent as a public speaker, fluent and graceful in conversation. He presented thus a rare combination of the qualities which attach friends and win popular support.
The platform of principles enunciated by the convention was just what the South desired and demanded. The entire interest centred in the slavery question. Indeed, the declarations upon other issues were not listened to by the delegates, and were scarcely read by the public. Without a dissenting voice the convention resolved that "all efforts of the Abolitionists or others to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences." The Compromise measures, including the fugitive-slave law, which was specially named, were most heartily indorsed, and were regarded as an adjustment of the whole controversy. By way of indicting how full, complete, and final the settlement was, the convention with unrestrained enthusiasm declared that "the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempts may be made." Among the men who joined in these declarations were not a few who had supported Van Buren and Adams in the canvass of 1848. One of the prominent officers of the convention was the author of many of the most extreme anti- slavery declarations put forth at Buffalo.
WHIG NATIONAL CONVENTION.
The Whigs met at Baltimore a fortnight after the Democratic convention had adjourned. The slavery question, upon which the Democrats of all shades had so cordially coalesced, was to the Whigs a dividing sword. Mr. Fillmore was a candidate, supported with almost entire unanimity by the Southern Whigs. Mr. Webster was a candidate, and though in his fear for the Union he had sacrificed more than any other man for the South, he could secure no Southern support. General Scott was a candidate, and though born and reared in Virginia, he was supported by anti-slavery Whigs of every shade in the North, against the two men of Northern birth and Northern associations. On the first ballot, Fillmore received 133 votes, Scott 131, Webster 23. Fillmore received every Southern vote, except one from Virginia given to Scott by John Minor Botts. Scott received every Northern vote except twenty-nine given to Webster, and sixteen given to Fillmore. The friends of Mr. Webster, and Mr. Webster himself, were pained and mortified by the result. Rufus Choate was at the head of the Massachusetts delegation, and eloquently, even passionately, pleaded with the Southern men to support Mr. Webster on a single ballot. But the Southern men stubbornly adhered to Fillmore, and were in turn enraged because the twenty-nine votes thrown away, as they said, on Mr. Webster, would at once renominate the President in whose cabinet Mr. Webster was at that moment serving as Premier. This threefold contest had been well developed before the convention assembled, and one feature of special bitterness had been added to it by a letter from Mr. Clay, who was on his death-bed in Washington. He urged his friends to support Mr. Fillmore. This was regarded by many as a lack of generosity on Mr. Clay's part, after the warm support which Mr. Webster had given him in his contest with Mr. Polk in 1844. But there had been for years an absence of cordiality between these Whig leaders, and many who were familiar with both declared that Mr. Clay had never forgiven Mr. Webster for remaining in Tyler's cabinet after the resignation of the other Whig members. Mr. Webster's association with Tyler had undoubtedly given to the President a measure of protection against the hot wrath of Mr. Clay in the memorable contest of 1841-2, and by natural reaction had impaired the force of Mr. Clay's attack. And now ten years after the event its memory rose to influence the Presidential nomination of 1852.
Another explanation is more in consonance with Mr. Clay's magnanimity of character. He was extremely anxious that an outspoken friend of the Compromise should be nominated. He knew when he wrote his letter that the Democrats would pledge themselves to the finality of the Compromise, and he knew the Southern Whigs would be overwhelmed if there should be halting or hesitation on this issue either in their candidate or in their platform. He felt, as the responsible author of the Compromise, that he was himself on trial, and it would be a peculiar mortification if the party which he had led so long should fail to sustain him in this final crisis of his public life. He had been sufficiently humiliated by Taylor's triumph over him in the convention of 1848. It would be an absolutely intolerable rebuke if in 1852 Taylor's policy should be preferred to his own by a Whig national convention. Taylor, indeed, was in his grave, but his old military compatriot, Scott, was a candidate for the Presidency, and the anti-Compromise Whigs under Seward's lead were rallying to his support. Mr. Clay believed that Fillmore, with the force of the national administration in his hands, could defeat General Scott, and that Mr. Webster's candidacy was a needless division of friends. Hence he sustained Fillmore, not from hostility to Webster, but as the sure and only means of securing an indorsement of the Compromise measures, and of doing justice to a Northern President who had risked every thing in support of Mr. Clay's policy.
The contest was long and earnest. Mr. Webster's friends, offended by what they considered the ingratitude of Southern Whigs, persistently refused to go over to Fillmore, though by so doing they could at any moment secure his nomination. They cared nothing for Fillmore's lead in votes, obtained as they thought in large degree from the use of patronage. They scouted it as an argument not fit to be addressed to the friends of Mr. Webster. Such considerations belonged only to men of the lower grades, struggling in the dirty pools of political strife, and were not to be applied to a statesman of Mr. Webster's rank and character. They felt, moreover, that all the popularity which Fillmore had secured in the South, and to a certain degree with the conservative and commercial classes of the whole country, had come from Mr. Webster's presence and pre- eminent service in his cabinet. In short, Mr. Webster's supporters felt that Mr. Fillmore, so far from earning their respect and deserving their applause, was merely strutting in borrowed plumage, and deriving all his strength from their own illustrious chief. This jealousy was of course stimulated with consummate art and tact by the supporters of Scott. They expressed, as they really entertained, the highest admiration for Webster, and no less frankly made known their dislike, if not their contempt, for Fillmore. Webster, as they pointed out, was supported by the voice of his own great State. Massachusetts had sent a delegation composed of her best men, with the most brilliant orator of the nation, to plead their cause at the bar of the convention. In contrast with this, Fillmore had no support from New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to confound and destroy the party.
NOMINATION OF GENERAL SCOTT.
From this attrition and conflict the natural result was Scott's triumph. It was not reached, however, until the fifty-third ballot and until the fifth day of the convention. It was brought about by the votes of some Fillmore delegates, both in the North and the South, who felt that the long contest should be ended. The gossip of the day—with perhaps a shadow of foundation—was, that in the councils of an inner and governing circle of delegates it was finally agreed that the North might have the candidate, and the South should have the platform, and that thus a bold fight could be made in both sections. William A. Graham of North Carolina, formerly a senator in Congress from that State, subsequently its governor, and at the time secretary of the Navy in Mr. Fillmore's cabinet, was nominated for Vice-President, as a wise concession to the defeated party. The platform adopted was strongly Southern, and this fact served to confirm in the minds of many the existence of the suspected agreement for the division of honors between North and South. The convention resolved that the Compromise measures, including the fugitive-slave law (specially designated after the example of the Democratic convention), "are received and acquiesced in by the Whig party of the United States as a settlement in principle and in substance of the dangerous and exciting questions which they embrace." They further declared that this position was "essential to the nationality of the Whig party and the integrity of the Union." Alexander H. Stephens has stated that this resolution was shown to him by Mr. Webster before the convention assembled, and while Mr. Choate was his guest. The inference apparently intended was that Mr. Choate carried it to the convention as the expression of the Northern Whigs, who believed in the Compromise measures. The agreement—if one existed—that this resolution should be adopted, did not involve all the Northern Whigs. Sturdy resistance was made by many, and the final vote disclosed a powerful minority opposed to the resolution.
For the first few weeks of the canvass the Whigs had strong hope of success. The name of General Scott evoked much enthusiasm, and his splendid military reputation, acquired in two wars, was favorably contrasted with that of General Pierce, who was one of President Polk's political brigadiers. But these indications were the bubbles and froth that floated on the surface. The personal characteristics of the candidates were lost sight of in the face of the great issues involved. The people soon perceived that if there was indeed merit in the Compromise measures, it would be wise to intrust them to the keeping of the party that was unreservedly—North and South— in favor of upholding and enforcing them. On this point there was absolutely no division in the Democratic ranks. In New York the friends of Marcy and the political heirs of Wright cordially harmonized in favor of the Compromise. Mr. Van Buren returned to Tammany Hall as fresh and buoyant as if his allegiance had never been broken; and in a great convocation of the Democracy, the prodigal was welcomed, Pierce's nomination applauded, the platform cheered, the anti-slavery creed forsworn, the Whig party roundly abused, and word sent forth to the uttermost parts of the Union that the Empire State had resumed her place at the head of the Democratic line.
The Whigs soon found to their dismay that the platform and the candidate were inseparable. They could not make a canvass upon the one in the South and upon the other in the North. General Scott had indeed heartily assented to all the principles proclaimed at the convention, but so long as Horace Greeley was eulogizing him in the "Tribune," and Seward supporting him on the stump, it was idle to present him as an acceptable candidate to slave-holding Whigs in the South. Supporting the candidate and spitting on the platform became the expressive if inelegant watchword of many Northern Whigs, but for every Whig vote which this phrase kept to his party allegiance in the free States, it drove two over to the Democracy in the slave States. Moreover, spitting on the platform, however effective as an indication of contempt, would not satisfy the conscience or the prejudices of large numbers of Whigs who voted directly for the candidates of the Free-soil party, John P. Hale of New Hampshire for President, and George W. Julian of Indiana for Vice-President.
DEFEAT OF THE WHIG PARTY.
Weakened by personal strife, hopelessly divided on questions of principle, the Whig party was led to the slaughter. Carrying in 1840 every State but seven for Harrison, failing to elect Mr. Clay in 1844 only by the loss of New York, triumphantly installing Taylor in 1848, the Whigs were astounded to find that their candidate had been successful in but four States of the Union, and that twenty- seven States had by large majorities pronounced for General Pierce. Massachusetts and Vermont in the North, Kentucky and Tennessee in the South, had alone remained true to the Whig standard. All the other Whig States that had stood staunch and strong in the fierce contests of the past now gave way. Connecticut and Rhode Island, which never but once failed either Federalist or Whig from the foundation of the government, now voted for a pro-slavery States'- rights Democrat. Delaware, which never in a single instance voted for the Democratic candidate except when Monroe had no opposition in 1820; which had fought against Jefferson and Madison; which had stood firmly against Jackson and Van Buren and Polk and Cass when the Bayards were Whigs and co-operated with the Claytons, now swelled the general acclaim for Pierce. Of 296 electors Pierce received 254 and General Scott only 42. The wide sweep of the Democratic victory was a surprise to both sides, though for several weeks before the election the defeat of Scott was anticipated. He received no support from Mr. Fillmore's administration, was indeed secretly betrayed by it everywhere, and quite openly by its officials in the Southern States. He did not receive the strength of his party, and the strength of his party would have been insufficient to elect him. But overwhelming as was the defeat, it did not necessarily involve destruction. The Whigs had been beaten almost as badly when Clay ran against Jackson in 1832, and yet the party had rallied to four earnest contests and to two signal victories. The Democracy, now so triumphant, had been disastrously beaten in the contest of 1840, but in the next election had regained strength enough to defeat Mr. Clay. The precedents, therefore, permitted the Whigs to be of good cheer and bade them wait the issues of the future. They were not, however, consoled by the philosophy of defeat, and were disposed to gloomy anticipations.
MR. CLAY AND MR. WEBSTER COMPARED.
As if to emphasize the disaster to the Whigs, Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster both died during the canvass; Mr. Clay in June, a few days after Scott's nomination, Mr. Webster in October, a few days before his defeat. They had both lived long enough to see the work of their political life imperiled if not destroyed. They had held the same relation to the Whigs that the elder Adams and Hamilton had held to the Federalists, that Jefferson and Madison had held to the Republicans. Comparison between them could not be fairly made, their inherent qualities and personal characteristics differed so widely. Each was superior to the other in certain traits, and in our public annals thus far each stands unequaled in his sphere. Their points of contrast were salient and numerous. Mr. Clay was born in Virginia. Mr. Webster was born in New England. Mr. Clay was a devoted follower of Jefferson. Mr. Webster was bred in the school of Hamilton. Mr. Clay was an earnest advocate of the second war with Great Britain. Mr. Webster was its steady opponent. Mr. Clay supported Madison in 1812 with great energy. Mr. Webster threw all his strength for De Witt Clinton. Mr. Clay was from the first deeply imbued with the doctrine of protection. Mr. Webster entered public life as a pronounced free-trader. They were not members of the same political organization until after the destruction of the old Federal party to which Mr. Webster belonged, and the hopeless divisions of the old Republican party to which Mr. Clay belonged. They gradually harmonized towards the close of Monroe's second term, and became firmly united under the administration of John Quincy Adams. Modern political designations had their origin in the Presidential election of 1824. The candidates all belonged to the party of Jefferson, which had been called Democratic- Republican. In the new divisions, the followers of Jackson took the name of Democrats: the supporters of Adams called themselves National Republicans. They had thus divided the old name, each claiming the inheritance. The unpopularity of Mr. Adams's administration had destroyed the prospects of the National-Republican party, and the name was soon displaced by the new and more acceptable title of Whig. To the joint efforts of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster more than to all others the formation of the Whig party was due. It was not, however, in Mr. Webster's nature to become a partisan chief. Mr. Clay on the other hand was naturally and inevitably a leader. In all the discussions of the Senate in which constitutional questions were involved, Mr. Clay instinctively deferred to Mr. Webster. In the parliamentary debates which concerned the position of parties and the fate of measures, which enchained the Senate and led captive the people, Mr. Clay was facile princeps. Mr. Webster argued the principle. Mr. Clay embodied it in a statute. Mr. Webster's speeches are still read with interest and studied with profit. Mr. Clay's speeches swayed listening senates and moved multitudes, but reading them is a disappointment. Between the two the difference is much the same as that between Burke and Charles James Fox. Fox was the parliamentary debater of England, the consummate leader of his party. His speeches, always listened to and cheered by a crowded House of Commons, perished with their delivery. Burke could never command a body of followers, but his parliamentary orations form brilliant and permanent chapters in the political literature of two continents.
While Mr. Webster's name is so honorably perpetuated by his elaborate and masterly discussion of great principles in the Senate, he did not connect himself with a single historic measure. While Mr. Clay's speeches remain unread, his memory is lastingly identified with issues that are still vital and powerful. He advanced the doctrine of protection to the stately dignity of the American system. Discarding theories and overthrowing the dogma of strict construction, he committed the General Government irrevocably to internal improvements. Condemning the worthless system of paper money imposed upon the people by irresponsible State banks, he stood firmly for a national currency, and he foreshadowed if he did not reach the paper money which is based to-day on the credit and the strength of the government.
Mr. Clay possessed extraordinary sagacity in public affairs, seeing and foreseeing where others were blinded by ignorance or prejudice. He was a statesman by intuition, finding a remedy before others could discover the disease. His contemporaries appreciated his rare endowments. On the day of his first entrance into the House of Representatives he was chosen Speaker, though but thirty-four years of age. This was all the more remarkable because the House was filled with men of recognized ability, who had been long in the public service. It was rendered still more striking by the fact that Mr. Clay was from the far West, from one of the only two States whose frontiers reached the Mississippi. In the entire House there were only fifteen members from the Western side of the Alleghanies. He was re-elected Speaker in every Congress so long as he served as representative. He entered the Senate at thirty, and died a member of it in his seventy-sixth year. He began his career in that body during the Presidency of Jefferson in 1806, and closed it under the Presidency of Fillmore in 1852. Other senators have served a longer time than Mr. Clay, but he alone at periods so widely separated. Other men have excelled him in specific powers, but in the rare combination of qualities which constitute at once the matchless leader of party and the statesman of consummate ability and inexhaustible resource, he has never been surpassed by any man speaking the English tongue.
[NOTE.—The Committee of Thirteen, to which reference is made on p. 94, and which attained such extraordinary importance at the time, was originally suggested by Senator Foote of Mississippi. His first proposition was somewhat novel from its distinct recognition of the sectional character of the issues involved. He proposed that the committee be chosen by ballot, that six members of it should be taken from the free States and six members from the slave States, and that the twelve thus chosen should select a thirteenth member who should be chairman of the committee. All propositions touching any of the questions at issue between the North and the South were to be referred to this committee with the view of securing a general and comprehensive compromise. The subject was debated for several weeks. Mr. Foote submitted his proposition on the 25th of February, 1850, and it was not adopted until the 18th of April. The committee was chosen on the 19th. Mr. Clay had objected to the open avowal of a division of the committee on the line of North and South, and the proposition was so modified as to simply provide for a committee of thirteen to be chosen by ballot,—the chairman to be first selected, and the other twelve members on a second ballot. The change of the resolution was one of form only; for, when the Senate came to select the members, they adhered to the plan originally suggested by Mr. Foote. Mr. Clay was made chairman, which had been the design from the first, and then six senators were taken from the free States and six from the slave States,— the first, if not the only, time this mode of appointment was adopted. The membership of the committee was highly distinguished. From the free States the Senate selected Mr. Webster, General Cass, Mr. Dickinson of New York, Mr. Bright of Indiana, Mr. Phelps of Vermont, and Mr. Cooper of Pennsylvania. From the slave States, Mr. King of Alabama, Mr. Mason of Virginia, Mr. Downs of Louisiana, Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, Mr. Bell of Tennessee, and Mr. Berrien of Georgia. The twelve were equally divided between the Whigs and the Democrats, so that, with Mr. Clay as chairman, the Whigs had the majority in numbers as they had the overwhelming superiority in weight and ability. The composition of the committee was remarkable when it is remembered that the Democrats had a majority of ten in the Senate.]
CHAPTER VI.
Review (continued).—The Strength of the Democratic Party in 1853.—Popular Strength not so great as Electoral Strength.—The New President's Pledge not to re-open the Slavery Question.—How he failed to maintain that Pledge.—The North-west Territory.—Anti- slavery Restriction of the Missouri Compromise.—Movement to repeal it by Mr. Clay's Successor in the Senate.—Mr. Douglas adopts the policy of repealing the Restriction.—It is made an Administration Measure and carried through Congress.—Colonel Benton's Position. —Anti-slavery Excitement developed in the Country.—Destruction of the Whig Party.—New Political Alliances.—American Party.—Know- Nothings.—Origin and Growth of the Republican Party.—Pro-slavery Development in the South.—Contest for the Possession of Kansas.— Prolonged Struggle.—Disunion Tendencies developing in the South. —Election of N. P. Banks to the Speakership of the House.—The Presidential Election of 1856.—Buchanan.—Frémont.—Fillmore.— The Slavery Question the Absorbing Issue.—Triumph of Buchanan.— Dred Scott Decision.—Mr. Lincoln's Version of it.—Chief Justice Taney.
The Democratic party, seeing their old Whig rival prostrate, naturally concluded that a long lease of power was granted them. The victory of Pierce was so complete that his supporters could not with closest scrutiny descry an opponent worthy of the slightest consideration. If the leaders of that party, however, had deigned to look below the surface, they would have learned a fact which, if not disquieting, was at least serious and significant. This fact was contained in the popular vote, which told an entirely different story from that disclosed by the Presidential electors. From the people Pierce received a total of 1,601,274 votes, Scott 1,386,580, Hale 155,825. It will be noted that, while receiving only one-sixth as many electoral votes as Pierce, Scott received more than five-sixths as many votes at the polls. Adding the vote of Hale, it will be observed that out of a total exceeding three millions, Pierce's absolute majority was but 58,896. Thoughtful men, wise in the administration of government, skilled in the management of parties, would have found in these figures food for reflection and abundant reason for hoisting cautionary signals along the shores of the political sea. The Democratic leaders were not, however, disturbed by facts or figures, but were rather made stronger in the confidence of their own strength. They beheld the country prosperous in all its material interests, and they saw the mass of the people content in both sections with the settlement of the slavery question. Since the Compromise measures were enacted in 1850, and especially since the two political parties had pledged themselves in 1852 to accept those measures as a finality, the slavery agitation had to a very large extent subsided. Disturbance was not indeed infrequently caused by the summary arrest of fugitive slaves in various parts of the North, under the stringent and harsh provisions of the new law on that subject. But though these peculiarly odious transactions exerted a deeper influence on public opinion than the Democratic leaders imagined, they were local and apparently under control. There was no national disquietude on the vexed question of slavery when Franklin Pierce was installed as President.
In his Inaugural address General Pierce pledged himself with evident zeal to the upholding of the Compromise measures and to the rigid enforcement of the laws. There is no doubt that a large majority of the people of the United States—North and South—were satisfied with the situation and bade God-speed to the popular President whose administration opened so auspiciously. The year 1853 was politically as quiet as Monroe's era of good feeling, and when Congress came together in its closing month, the President dwelt impressively upon the dangers we had passed and upon the blessings that were in store for us. In tones of solemnity he declared that when "the grave shall have closed over all who are now endeavoring to meet the obligations of duty, the year 1850 will be recurred to as a period of anxious apprehension." With high praise of the Compromise legislation of that year he said "it had given renewed vigor to our institutions and restored a sense of repose and security to the public mind." Evidently remembering the pledge given by the convention which nominated him "to resist all attempts at renewing the agitation of the slavery question in or out of Congress," the President gave emphatic assurance that this "repose" should suffer no shock during his term if he "had the power to avert it." These words were addressed to Congress on the fifth day of December, 1853, and it would be uncandid to deny that even in the North they were heartily approved by a large majority of the people,—perhaps by a majority in every State.
OMINOUS MOVEMENT IN CONGRESS.
In precisely one month from the delivery of these words by the President an ominous movement was made in Congress. Notwithstanding all the vows of fealty to the Compromise of 1850, the pro-slavery leaders of the South were not contented with the aspect of affairs. The result of the Mexican war had deeply disappointed them. Its most striking political effect thus far was the addition to the Union of a large and imposing free State on the Pacific,—an empire indeed in prospective wealth and power. In the battle between free institutions and slave institutions, California represented a strong flank movement threatening destruction to slavery. Her vote in the Senate gave a majority of two to the free States. The equality of the sections had been steadily maintained in the Senate since the admission of Louisiana in 1812. The break now was ominous; the claim of equality had been disregarded; the superstition which upheld it was dispelled, and the defenders of slavery could see only a long procession of free States marching from the North-West to re-enforce a power already irresistibly strong. From what quarter of the Union could this anti-slavery aggression be offset? By what process could its growth be checked? Texas might, if she chose to ask for her own partition, re-enforce the slave-power in the Senate by four new States, as guaranteed in the articles of annexation. But the very majesty of her dimensions protested against dismemberment. Texas was as large as France, and from the Sabine to the Rio Grande there was not a cotton-planter or a cattle- herder who did not have this fact before his eyes to inflame his pride and guide his vote against parting with a single square mile of her magnificent domain. New Mexico and Utah were mountainous and arid, inviting only the miner and the grazier and offering no inducement for the labor of the slave. The right guaranteed to these territories in the Compromise of 1850 to come in as slave States was, therefore, as Mr. Webster had maintained, a concession of form and not of substance to the South. Seeing slavery thus hemmed in on all sides by nature as well as law, and sincerely believing that in such a position its final extinction was but a question of time, the Southern leaders determined to break the bonds that bound them. From their own point of reasoning they were correct. To stand still was certain though slow destruction to slavery. To move was indeed hazardous, but it gave them a chance to re-establish their equality in the administration of the government, and for this they determined to risk every thing.
To the westward and north-westward of Missouri and Iowa lay a vast territory which in 1854 was not only unsettled but had no form of civil government whatever. It stretched from the north line of Arkansas to the border of British America,—twelve and a half degrees of latitude,—and westward over great plains and across mountain ranges till it reached the confines of Utah and Oregon. It was the unorganized remainder of the territory of Louisiana, acquired from France in 1803, and in extent was ten times as large as the combined area of New York and Pennsylvania. By the Missouri Compromise every square mile of this domain had been honorably devoted to freedom. At the period named Indian tribes roamed at will throughout its whole extent and lighted their camp-fires on the very borders of Missouri and Iowa. Herds of buffalo grazed undisturbed on lands which to-day constitute the sites of large cities. Fort Leavenworth was a far-western outpost, Council Bluffs was on the frontier of civilization, and Omaha had not been named. Adventurous merchants passed over the plains to the South-West with long caravans, engaged in the Santa-Fé trade, and towards the North- West, hunters, trappers, and a few hardy emigrants penetrated the "Platte country," and through mountain passes pointed out by the trail of the Indian and the buffalo had in many instances safely crossed to Oregon. The tide of emigration which had filled Iowa and Wisconsin, and which by the gold excitement of California had for a time been drawn to the Pacific slope, now set again more strongly then ever to the Mississippi valley, demanding and needing new lands for settlement and cultivation. To answer this requirement a movement was made during the closing weeks of Mr. Fillmore's administration to establish the territory of Nebraska. A bill to that effect was passed by a two-thirds vote in the House. The slight opposition that was made came from the South, but its significance was not perceived. When the bill reached the Senate Mr. Douglas, as chairman of the committee on territories, promptly reported it, and made an apparently sincere effort to pass it. He did not succeed. Every senator from the slave-holding States, except those from Missouri,—which was locally interested in having the territory organized,—voted against it;—and the measure, antagonizing other business in which Northern senators were more immediately interested, was laid upon the table two days before President Pierce was inaugurated. The bill had fully recognized the binding force of the Missouri Compromise, and if it had passed, there could have been no pretense for the introduction of slavery in the territory of Nebraska.
REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
Directly after the assurance so impressively given by the President that the "repose" of the country on the slavery question "should suffer no shock during his administration," the bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska was again introduced in the Senate. The motive for its defeat the preceding session was soon made apparent. Mr. Archibald Dixon of Kentucky, the last Whig governor of that State, had been chosen to succeed Mr. Clay in the Senate. But he did not succeed to Mr. Clay's political principles. He belonged to a class of men that had been recently and rapidly growing in the South,—men avowedly and aggressively pro-slavery. Mr. Dixon was the first to strike an open blow against the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Clay had been honorably identified with the pacific work of 1820, and throughout his life believed that it had been effectual in allaying the strife which in his judgment had endangered the Union. It was an alarming fact that his own successor in the Senate —less than two years after Mr. Clay's death—was the first to assail his work and to re-open a controversy which was not to cease till a continent was drenched in blood. Mr. Dixon made no concealment of his motive and his purpose, declaring that he wished the restriction removed because he was a pro-slavery man. He gave notice early in January, 1854, that when the bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska should come before the Senate, he would move that "the Missouri Compromise be repealed, and that the citizens of the several States shall be at liberty to take and hold their slaves within any of the Territories." It was very soon found that this was not a capricious movement by Mr. Dixon alone, but that behind him there was a settled determination on the part of the pro-slavery men to break down the ancient barrier and to remove the honored landmark of 1820.