Элиша Бенджамин Эндрюс

«История Соединенных Штатов, Том 3»

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[Transcriber's Notes]

Text has been moved to avoid fragmentation of sentences and paragraphs.

The other five texts in this series were obtained from the 1912 edition

of original books. Volume 3 was missing from the set.

This text, Volume 3, is derived from a PDF image file of the 1896 edition

on the Internet Archive at

http://www.archive.org/details/histusearliest03andrrich

[End Transcriber's Notes]

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The First Gun Fired from Fort Sumter

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

FROM THE EARLIEST DISCOVERY

OF AMERICA TO THE PRESENT DAY

BY

E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS

PRESIDENT OF BROWN UNIVERSITY

WITH 400 ILLUSTRATION AND MAPS

VOLUME III

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1896

COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Press of J. J. Little & Co.

Astor Place. New York

CONTENTS

PERIOD II

WHIGS AND DEMOCRATS TILL THE

DOMINANCE OF THE SLAVERY CONTROVERSY

1814--1840

CHAPTER I. THE WHIG PARTY AND ITS MISSION.

The Word "Whig."

Republican Prestige.

Schism.

Adams's Election.

Five Doctrines of Whiggism.

I. Broad Construction of the Constitution.

II. The Bank.

Death of Old and Birth of New.

Opposition by Jackson.

III. The Tariff of 1816.

Its Object.

IV. Land.

Whig versus Democratic Policy.

V. Internal Improvements

Rivers and Harbors.

Need of Better Inland Communication.

Contention between the Parties.

Whig Characteristics.

Adams.

Webster.

His Political Attitude.

Clay.

His Power, as an Orator.

His Duel with Randolph.

His Wit.

His Influence.

CHAPTER II. FLORIDA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

Florida's Disputed Boundary.

West Florida Occupied.

Jackson Seizes East Florida.

Puts to Death Ambrister and Arbuthnot.

His Excuse.

Defended by Adams.

Sale of Florida.

Revolt of Spanish America.

Monroe's Declaration.

Its Origin.

CHAPTER III. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

Missouri Wishes Statehood.

Early History of Slavery.

Hostility to it.

First Abolitionist Societies.

Ordinance of 1787.

Slavery in the North.

In the South.

Pleas for its Existence.

Missouri Compromise.

Pro-slavery Arguments.

The Policy Men.

Anti-slavery Opinions.

Difficulties of the Case.

The Anti-slavery Side Ignores these.

CHAPTER IV. THE GREAT NULLIFICATION.

Rise of Tariff Rates after 1816.

Relations of Parties and Sections to the Tariff.

Minimum Principle.

Tariff of Abominations Adopted.

Harmful to the South.

Nullification Project.

Calhoun's Life and Pet Political Theory.

South Carolina Recedes.

Compromise Tariff.

State Rights and Central Government.

Webster's Plea.

CHAPTER V. MINOR PUBLIC QUESTIONS OF JACKSON'S "REIGN."

Jackson's Life.

Mistaken Ideas.

Civil Service Reform.

Perfecting of Party

Organization in the Country.

Jackson and the United States Bank.

His Popularity.

Revival of West Indian Trade.

French Spoliation Claims.

Paid.

Our Gold and Silver Coinage.

Gold Bill.

Increased Circulation of Gold.

Specie Circular.

CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST WHIG TRIUMPH.

Election of Harrison in 1840.

Causes.

Jackson's Violence.

Sub-treasury Policy.

Panic of 1837.

Decrease of Revenue.

Whig Opposition to Slavery.

Seminole War.

Amistad Case.

Texan Question.

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

CHAPTER VII. LIFE AND MANNERS IN THE FOURTH DECADE.

Population and Area.

The West.

The East.

An American Literature.

Newspaper

Enterprise, Mails, Eleemosynary Institutions.

American Character.

Temperance Reform.

The Land of the Free.

Religion.

Anti-masonic Movement.

Banking Craze.

Moon Hoax.

Party Spirit.

Jackson as a Knight Errant.

His Self-will.

Enmity between Adams and Jackson.

Costumes.

CHAPTER VIII. INDUSTRIAL ADVANCE BY 1840.

F. C. Lowell and his Waltham Power-loom.

Growth of Factory System.

New Corporation Laws.

Gas, Coal, and Other Industries.

The Same Continued.

The National Road.

Stages and Canals.

Ocean Lines.

Beginning of Railroads.

Opposition.

First Locomotive.

Multiplication of Railroads.

PERIOD III

THE YEARS OF SLAVERY CONTROVERSY

1840-1860

CHAPTER I. SLAVERY AFTER THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

Cotton and Slavery.

Evils of Slavery: Social, Economic.

Slave Insurrections.

Turner's Rebellion.

Abolition in Virginia.

Black Laws.

Lull in Anti-slavery

Agitation.

Colonization Society.

Fugitive Slave Laws.

Prigg's Case.

Personal Liberty

Laws in the North.

Kidnapping Expeditions.

Domestic Slave-trade.

Non-emancipation Laws.

Business Relations between North and South.

CHAPTER II. "IMMEDIATE ABOLITION."

Renewed Hostility to Slavery.

Lundy.

Garrison.

Affiliations of this Movement.

The New England Anti-slave Society.

Significance, Purpose, Work.

Methods of Abolitionists.

Southern Opposition.

Northern.

Anti-abolitionist Riots at the North.

Murder of Lovejoy.

Outrages against Northern Blacks.

Colored Schools Closed.

Schism among the Abolitionists.

The Liberty Party.

Ultra-abolitionists' Unreason.

Why Abolitionism Spread.

Ambiguity of the Constitution.

Seizure of Black Seamen.

Grievances on both Sides.

CHAPTER III. THE MEXICAN WAR.

Texas Declares her Independence.

Battle of San Jacinto.

The Democracy Favors

Annexation.

Calhoun's Purpose.

Opposition of Clay and the Whigs.

Texas Admitted to the Union.

Causes of the War.

The Nueces vs. the Rio Grande.

Preliminary Operations.

Battle of Palo Alto.

Declaration of War.

Monterey Captured.

Santa Anna again President.

Buena Vista.

Taylor's Victory.

Scott Appointed to Chief Command.

Capture of Vera Cruz.

Cerro Gordo.

Jalapa.

Re-enforced by Pierce.

On to the City of Mexico.

Contreras.

Churubusco.

Molino del Rey.

Storming of Chapultepec.

Capture of the Capital.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Its Conditions.

The Oregon Question.

CHAPTER IV. CALIFORNIA AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.

Invasion of New Mexico.

Exploration and Seizure of California.

Discovery of Gold.

Resulting Excitement.

Increase of Population.

Gold Yield.

Early Law and Government.

Slavery's Victory.

The Wilmot Proviso.

Taylor President.

Application by California for Admission to the Union.

Clay's Omnibus Bill.

Webster Superseded by Sumner.

Passage of the Omnibus Compromise.

California a State.

Enlargement of Texas.

New Fugitive Slave Law.

Revival of Abolitionism.

Underground Railroad.

Rendition of Anthony Burns.

Other Cases.

CHAPTER V. THE FIGHT FOR KANSAS.

Plot against the Missouri Compromise.

Pierce's Election.

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

Abrogation of the Missouri Compromise.

Squatter Sovereignty.

Anti-slavery Emigration to Kansas.

Political Jobbery by the Slavocracy.

Topeka Convention.

Kansas Riots.

Lecompton Constitution.

Opposed by Free-State Men.

Kansas Admitted to the Union.

Assault upon Sumner.

Southern Repudiation of the Douglas Theory.

Dred Scott Decision.

Startling Assumption of the Supreme Court.

Effect.

Counter-theory.

CHAPTER VI. SLAVERY AND THE OLD PARTIES.

Democracy and Whiggism.

Ambiguous Attitude of the Latter toward Slavery.

The Creole Case.

Giddings's Resolutions.

Quincy Adams as an Abolitionist.

The First Gag Law.

Adams's Opposition.

The Second and Third.

Their Repeal.

Pro-slavery Whigs.

Submission to Slavocracy.

Its Insolent Demands.

Death of Whiggism.

Americanism.

The Know-Nothings.

Revolt from the Democracy at the North.

CHAPTER VII. THE CRISIS.

Consolidation of Anti-slavery Men.

Worse Black Laws.

Schemes for Foreign Conquest.

Lopez's and Walker's Expedition.

Ostend Manifesto.

Supremacy of Slavery.

Rise of Free-soilers.

Incipient Republicanism.

Republican Doctrine.

John Brown's Raid.

Schism between the Northern and the Southern Democrats.

Nomination of Douglas.

Breckenridge and Lane.

Bell and Everett.

Lincoln and Hamlin.

Lincoln's Popularity.

His Election to the Presidency.

CHAPTER VIII. MATERIAL PROGRESS

Population and Economic Prosperity.

Growth of the West.

Indian Outbreaks.

Improvements farther East.

Canals and Railroads.

The Steam Horse in the West.

Morse's Telegraph.

Ocean Cables.

Minor Inventions.

Petroleum.

Financial Crisis of 1857.

PERIOD IV

CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION

1860-1868

CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF THE WAR.

An "Irrepressible Conflict."

Growth of North.

Influence of Missouri Compromise Repeal.

Slavery as Viewed by the South.

Stephens.

Anti-Democratic Habits of Thought.

Compact Theory of the Union.

State Consciousness, South.

Argument for the Calhoun Theory.

Secession not Justifiable by this.

Moderates and Fire-eaters.

Northern Grievances.

Do not Excuse Secession.

Lincoln's Election.

Patriotic and Philanthropic Considerations Ignored.

Prudence also.

Resources of South and of North.

CHAPTER II. SECESSION

Threats of Secession before 1860.

By New England.

By the South in 1856.

Governor Wise.

The 1860 Campaign.

Attitude of South Carolina.

Of the Gulf States.

Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana.

Election of Lincoln.

South Carolina will Secede.

Judge Magrath.

The Palmetto State Goes.

Enthusiasm.

The State Plays Nation.

Effect upon Other States.

Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana.

and Texas Follow.

Strong Union Spirit Still.

Vain.

Georgia and Secession.

The Question in Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee,

Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, North Carolina.

Seizure of United States Property.

Floyd's Theft.

Fort Moultrie Evacuated for Sumter.

Fort Pickens.

New Orleans Mint.

Twiggs's Surrender.

Theory of Seceding States as to Property Seized.

Southern Confederacy.

Davis President.

His History.

Inaugural Address.

Powers.

Confederate Government and Constitution.

Slavery.

State Sovereignty.

Tariff.

Good Features.

Bright Prospects of the New Power.

CHAPTER III. THE NORTH IN THE WINTER OF 1860-61.

Apathy.

Disbelief in South's Seriousness.

Divided Opinion.

Suggestions toward Compromise.

Anti-coercion.

Convention at Albany.

Mayor Wood of New York.

Buchanan's Vacillation.

Treason all about Him.

Star of the West Fired on.

Inaction of Congress.

Crittenden's Compromise Lost.

Washington Peace Congress.

Vain.

Earnestness of South.

Lincoln Inaugurated.

His Address.

How Received.

His Difficult Task.

Plight of Army, Navy, Treasury.

Sumter Fired on.

Defended.

Evacuated.

Effect at North.

War Spirit.

75,000 Volunteers.

The Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore.

Washington in Danger.

General Scott's Measures.

March of the Massachusetts Eighth and the New York Seventh.

Their Arrival in Washington.

CHAPTER IV. WAR BEGUN

Both Sides Expect a Brief Struggle.

South's Advantages.

Call for Three Years' Men.

Butler in Baltimore.

Maryland Saved to the Union.

Alexandria and Arlington

Heights Occupied.

Ellsworth's Death.

Each Side Concentrates Armies in Virginia.

Fight at Big Bethel.

At Vienna.

The Struggle in Missouri.

Lyon and Price.

Battle of Wilson's Creek.

Lyon's Death.

Fremont, Hunter, and Halleck in Missouri.

The Contest in Kentucky.

The State becomes Unionist.

In West Virginia.

Lee and McClellan.

Brilliant Campaign of the Latter.

West Virginia Made a State.

Beauregard at Manassas.

Patterson's Advance.

Harper's Ferry Taken.

"On to Richmond."

Battle of Bull Run.

Union Defeat and Retreat.

Losses.

Comments.

Depression at the North, followed by New Resolution.

McClellan.

Army of Potomac Organized.

The Capital Safe.

Affair of Ball's Bluff.

The South Hopeful.

And with Reason.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE FIRST GUN FIRED FROM FORT SUMTER.

WEBSTER'S HOME AT MARSHFIELD, MASS.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

(From a picture by Healy at the State Department, Washington).

THE HOUSE IN WHICH HENRY CLAY WAS BORN.

THE SCHOOL-HOUSE OF THE SLASHES.

HENRY CLAY. (From a photograph by Rockwood of an old daguerreotype).

JOHN RANDOLPH.

(From a picture by Jarvis in 1811, at the New York Historical Society).

JAMES MONROE.

(From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--now the property of T. Jefferson

Coolidge).

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. (From a picture by Gilbert Stuart).

JOHN C. CALHOUN. (From a picture by King at the Corcoran Art Gallery).

CALHOUN'S LIBRARY AND OFFICE.

ANDREW JACKSON (From a photograph by Brady).

ROGER B. TANEY.

MARTIN VAN BUREN. (From a photograph by Brady).

GENERAL WILLIAM J. WORTH.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

(From a copy at the Corcoran Art Gallery of a painting by Beard in 1840).

JOHN TYLER. (From a photograph by Brady).

A PONY EXPRESS.

THURLOW WEED. (From an unpublished photograph by Disderi,

Paris, in 1861. In the possession of Thurlow Weed Barnes).

FROM AN OLD TIME-TABLE.

(Furnished by the ABC Pathfinder Railway Guide).

TRIAL BETWEEN PETER COOPER'S LOCOMOTIVE "TOM THUMB" AND ONE OF

STOCKTON'S AND STOKES' HORSE CARS. (From "History of the First

Locomotives in America").

PETER COOPER'S LOCOMOTIVE.

OBVERSE AND REVERSE OF A TICKET USED IN 1838 ON THE

NEW YORK & HARLEM RAILROAD.

BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD, 1830.

OLD BOSTON & WORCESTER RAILWAY TICKET (ABOUT 1837).

THE "SOUTH CAROLINA," 1831, AND PLAN OF ITS RUNNING GEAR.

BOSTON & WORCESTER RAILROAD, 1835.

THE DISCOVERY OF NAT TURNER.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

WM. LLOYD GARRISON.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

FACSIMILE OF HEADING OF THE "LIBERATOR."

GENERAL SAM. HOUSTON.

GENERAL SANTA ANNA.

JAMES K. POLK. (After a photograph by Brady).

GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT.

THE PLAZA OF THE CITY OF MEXICO.

ZACHARY TAYLOR. (After a photograph by Brady).

THE SITE OF SAN FRANCISCO IN 1848.

SUTTER'S MILL, CALIFORNIA, WHERE GOLD WAS FIRST DISCOVERED.

MILLARD FILLMORE.

(From a painting by Carpenter in 1853. at the City Hall, New York).

THE RENDITION OF ANTHONY BURNS IN BOSTON.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

(From a painting by Healy, in 1852, at the Corcoran Art Gallery).

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

CHARLES SUMNER.

THOMAS H. BENTON.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (After a rare photograph in the possession of Noah

Brooks. Only five copies of this photograph were printed).

JOHN BROWN.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD. (From a photograph by Brady).

ELIAS HOWE.

THE VANDALIA. THE PIONEER PROPELLER ON THE LAKES.

OLD STONE TOWERS OF THE NIAGARA SUSPENSION BRIDGE.

THE NEW IRON TOWERS OF THE NIAGARA BRIDGE.

BIRTHPLACE OF S. F. B. MORSE, AT CHARLESTOWN, MASS. BUILT 1775.

S. F. B. MORSE.

THE FIRST TELEGRAPHIC INSTRUMENT, AS EXHIBITED IN 1837 BY MORSE.

CALENDERS HEATED INTERNALLY BY STEAM, FOR SPREADING INDIA RUBBER INTO

SHEETS OR UPON CLOTH, CALLED THE "CHAFFEE MACHINE."

THE GREAT EASTERN LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE.

SOUNDING MACHINE USED BY A CABLE EXPEDITION.

CYRUS W. FIELD.

PAYING OUT CABLE GEAR. FROM CHART HOUSE.

SHORE END OF CABLE--EXACT SIZE.

BARNACLES ON CABLE.

JAMES BUCHANAN. (From a photograph by Brady).

STREET BANNER IN CHARLESTON.

MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON.

MAJOR ANDERSON REMOVING HIS FORCES FROM FORT MOULTRIE TO FORT SUMTER,

DECEMBER 26, 1861.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

SCENE OF THE FIRST BLOODSHED, AT BALTIMORE.

CAPTAIN NATHANIEL LYON.

GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT.

GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL.

GENERAL SAMUEL P. HEINTZELMAN.

GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON.

GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.

LIST OF MAPS

THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE ADMISSION OF ARKANSAS, 1836.

PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA, MORNING 23D FEBRUARY, 1847.

ROUTE OF THE SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS TROOPS THROUGH BALTIMORE.

THE ROUTES OF APPROACH TO WASHINGTON.

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

BULL RUN--THE FIELD OF STRATEGY.

BULL RUN--BATTLE OF THE FORENOON.

BULL RUN--BATTLE OF THE AFTERNOON.

PERIOD II.

WHIGS AND DEMOCRATS TILL THE DOMINANCE OF THE SLAVERY CONTROVERSY.

1814-1840

CHAPTER I.

THE WHIG PARTY AND ITS MISSION

[1820]

The term "whig" is of Scotch origin. During the bloody conflict of the

Covenanters with Charles II. nearly all the country people of Scotland

sided against the king. As these peasants drove into Edinburgh to

market, they were observed to make great use of the word "whiggam" in

talking to their horses. Abbreviated to "whig," it speedily became, and

has in England and Scotland ever since remained, a name for the

opponents of royal power. It was so employed in America in our

Revolutionary days. Sinking out of hearing after Independence, it

reappeared for fresh use when schism came in the overgrown Democratic

Party.

The republican predominance after 1800, so complete, bidding so fair to

be permanent, drew all the more fickle Federalists speedily to that

side. Since it was evident that the new party was quite as national in

spirit as the ruling element of the old, the Adams Federalists, those

most patriotic, least swayed in their politics by commercial motives,

including Marshall, the War Federalists, and the recruits enlisted at

the South during Adams's administration, also went over, in sympathy if

not in name, to Republicanism. The fortunate issue of the war silenced

every carper, and the ten years following have been well named the "era

of good feeling."

But though for long very harmonious, yet, so soon as Federalists began

swelling their ranks, the Republicans ceased to be a strictly

homogeneous party. Incipient schism appeared by 1812, at once announced

and widened by the creation of the protective system and the new United

States Bank in 1816, and the attempted launching of an internal

improvements regime in 1821, all three the plain marks of federalist

survival, however men might shun that name. Republicans like Clay,

Calhoun in his early years, and Quincy Adams, while somewhat more

obsequious to the people, as to political theory differed from old

Federalists in little but name. The same is true of Clinton, candidate

against Madison for the Presidency in 1812, and of many who supported

him.

[1825]

But to drive home fatally the wedge between "democratic" and "national"

Republicans, required Jackson's quarrel with Adams and Clay in 1825,

when, the election being thrown into the House, although Jackson had

ninety-nine electoral votes to Adams's eighty-four, Crawford's

forty-one, and Clay's thirty-seven, Clay's supporters, by a "corrupt

bargain," as Old Hickory alleged, voted for Adams and made him

President. Hickory's idea--an untenable one--was that the House was

bound to elect according to the tenor of the popular and the electoral

vote. After all this, however, so potent the charm of the old party, the

avowal of a purpose to build up a new one did not work well, Clay

polling in 1832 hardly half the electoral vote of Adams in 1828. This

democratic gain was partly owing, it is true, to Jackson's popularity,

to the belief that he had been wronged in 1825, and to the widening of

the franchise which had long been going on in the nation. Calhoun's

election as Vice-President in 1828, by a large majority, shows that

party crystallization was then far from complete. From about 1834, the

new political body thus gradually evolved was regularly called the

Whigs, though the name had been heard ever since 1825.

[1830-1833]

The doctrines characteristic of Whiggism were chiefly five:

I. Broad Construction of the Constitution.

This has been sufficiently explained in the chapter on Federalism and

Anti-Federalism, and need not be dwelt upon. The whig attitude upon it

appears in all that follows.

II. The Bank.

The First United States Bank had perished by the expiration of its

charter in 1811. It had been very useful, indeed almost indispensable,

in managing the national finances, and its decease, with the consequent

financial disorder, was a most terrible drawback in the war. Recharter

was, however, by a very small majority, refused. The evils flowing from

this perverse step manifesting themselves day by day, a new Bank of the

United States, modelled closely after the first, was chartered on April

10, 1816, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster being its chief champions.

Republican opponents, Madison among them, were brought around by the

plea that war had proved a national bank a necessary and hence a

constitutional helper of the Government in its appointed work.

In the management of this second bank there were disorder and

dishonesty, which greatly limited its usefulness. This, notwithstanding,

was considerable. The credit of the nation was restored and its treasury

resumed specie payments. But confidence in the institution was shaken.

We shall see how it met with President Jackson's opposition on every

possible occasion. In 1832 he vetoed a bill for the renewal of its

charter, to expire in 1836, and in 1833 caused all the Government's

deposits in it, amounting to ten million dollars, to be removed. These

blows were fatal to the bank, though it secured a charter from

Pennsylvania and existed, languishing, till 1839.

III. The Tariff.

Until the War of 1812 the main purpose of our tariff policy had been

revenue, with protection only as an incident. During the war

manufacturing became largely developed, partly through our own embargo,

partly through the armed hostilities. Manufacture had grown to be an

extensive interest, comparing in importance with agriculture and

commerce. Therefore, in the new tariff of 1816, the old relation was

reversed, protection being made the main aim and revenue the incident.

It is curious to note that this first protective tariff was championed

and passed by the Republicans and bitterly opposed by the Federalists

and incipient Whigs. Webster argued and inveighed vehemently against it,

appealing to the curse of commercial restriction and of governmental

interference with trade, and to the low character of manufacturing

populations.

But very soon the tables were turned: the Whigs became the high-tariff

party, the Democrats more and more opposing this policy in favor of a

low or a revenue tariff. It should be marked that even now the idea of

protection in its modern form was not the only one which went to make a

high tariff popular. There were, besides, the wish to be prepared for

war by the home production of war material, and also the spirit of

commercial retortion, paying back in her own coin England's burdensome

tax upon our exports to her shores.

IV. Land.

What may not improperly be styled the whig land policy sprung from the

whig sentiment for large customs duties. Cheap public lands, offering

each poor man a home for the taking, constantly tended to neutralize the

effect of duties, by raising wages in the manufacturing sections, people

needing a goodly bribe to enter mills in the East when an abundant

living was theirs without money and without price on removing west. As a

rule, therefore, though this question did not divide the two parties so

crisply as the others, the Whigs opposed the free sale of government

land, while the Democrats favored that policy. In spite of this,

however, eastern people who moved westward--and they constituted the

West's main population--quite commonly retained their whig politics even

upon the tariff question itself.

V. Internal Improvements.

It has always been admitted that Congress may lay taxes to build and

improve light-houses, public docks, and all such properties whereof the

United States is to hold the title. The general improvement of harbors,

on the other hand, the Constitution meant to leave to the States,

allowing each to cover the expense by levying tonnage duties. The

practice for years corresponded with this. The inland commonwealths,

however, as they were admitted, justly regarded this unfair unless

offset by Government's aid to them in the construction of roads, canals,

and river ways.

Webster's Home at Marshfield. Mass.

The War of 1812 revealed the need of better means for direct

communication with the remote sections of the Union. Transportation to

Detroit had cost fifty cents per pound of ammunition, sixty dollars per

barrel of flour. All admitted that improved internal routes were

necessary. The question was whether the general Government had a right

to construct them without amendment to the Constitution.

The Whigs, like the old Federalists, affirmed such right, appealing to

Congress's power to establish post-roads, wage war, supervise

inter-state trade, and conserve the common defence and general welfare.

As a rule, the Democrats, being strict constructionists, denied such

right. Some of them justified outlay upon national rivers and commercial

harbors under the congressional power of raising revenue and regulating

commerce. Others conceded the rightfulness of subsidies to States even

for bettering inland routes. Treasury surplus at times, and the many

appropriations which, by common consent, had been made under Monroe and

later for the old National Road, encouraged the whig contention; but the

whig policy had never met general approval down to the time when the

whole question was taken out of politics by the rise of the railroad

system after 1832. The National Road, meantime, extending across Ohio

and Indiana on its way to St. Louis, was made over in 1830 to the States

through which it passed.

Daniel Webster. From a picture by Healy at the State Department,

Washington.

The Whig Party deserves great praise as the especial repository, through

several decades, of the spirit of nationality in our country. It

cherished this, and with the utmost boldness proclaimed doctrines

springing from it, at a time when the Democracy, for no other reason

than that it had begun as a state rights party, foolishly combated

these. Yet Whiggism was mightier in theories than in deeds, in political

cunning than in statesmanship. It was far too fearful, on the whole,

lest the country should not be sufficiently governed. To secure power it

allied itself now with the Anti-Masons, strong after 1826 in New

England, New York, and Pennsylvania; and again with the Nullifiers of

South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, led by Calhoun, Troup, and

White. It did the latter by making Tyler, an out-and-out Nullifier, its

Vice-President in 1840.

A leading Whig during nearly all his political career was John Quincy

Adams, one of the ablest, most patriotic, and most successful presidents

this country has ever had. He possessed a thorough education, mainly

acquired abroad, where, sojourning with his distinguished father, he had

enjoyed while still a youth better opportunities for diplomatic training

than many of our diplomatists have known in a lifetime. He went to the

United States Senate in 1803 as a Federalist. Disgusted with that party,

he turned Republican, losing his place. From 1806 to 1809 he was

professor in Harvard College. In the latter year Madison sent him

Minister to St. Petersburg. He was commissioner at Ghent, then Minister

to England, then Monroe's Secretary of State, then President.

The House in which Henry Clay was Born.

But Mr. Adams's best work was done in the House of Representatives after

he was elected to that body in 1830. He sat in the House until his

death, in 1848--its acknowledged leader in ability, in activity, and in

debate. Friend and foe hailed him as the "Old Man Eloquent," nor were

any there anxious to be pitted against him. He spoke upon almost every

great national question, each time displaying general knowledge; legal

lore, and keenness of analysis surpassed by no American of his or any

age.

Webster was, however, the great orator of the party. Reared upon a farm

and educated at Dartmouth College, he went to Congress from New

Hampshire as a Federalist in 1813. Removing to Boston, he soon entered

Congress from Massachusetts, first as representative, then as senator,

and from 1827 was in the Senate almost continuously till 1850. He was

Secretary of State under Harrison and Tyler, and again in the

Taylor-Fillmore cabinet from 1850.

The School-house of the Slashes.

As an orator Webster had no peer in his time, nor have the years since

evoked his peer. He was an influential party leader, and repeatedly

thought of for President, though too prominent ever to be nominated. On

two momentous questions, the tariff and slavery, he vacillated, his

dubious action concerning the latter costing him his popularity in New

England.

Henry Clay. From a photograph by Rockwood of an old daguerreotype.

Yet in many respects the most interesting figure in the party was Henry

Clay. He was born amid the swamps of Hanover County, Va., and had grown

up in most adverse surroundings. His father, a Baptist clergyman, died

while he was an infant, leaving him destitute. In "The Slashes," as the

neighborhood where Clay passed his childhood was called, he might often

have been seen astride a sorry horse with a rope bridle and no saddle,

carrying his bag of grain to the mill. He had attended only district

schools. After obtaining the rudiments of a legal education in Richmond

by service as a lawyer's clerk, he removed to Kentucky. He was soon

famous as a criminal lawyer, and a little later as a politician. The

rest of his life was spent in Congress or cabinet.

Clay's speeches read ill, but were powerful in their delivery. He spoke

directly to the heart. As he proceeded, his tall and awkward form swayed

with passion. His voice was sweet and winsome. Once Tom Marshall was to

face him in joint debate over a salary grab for which Clay had voted.

Clay had the first word, and as he warmed to his work Marshall slunk

away through the crowd in despair. "Come back," said Clay's haters to

him; "you can answer every point." "Of course," replied Marshall, "but I

can't get up there and do it now." The common people shouted for Clay as

they shouted for neither Webster nor Adams. He had infinite fund of

anecdote, remembered everyone he had ever seen, and was kindly to all.

John Tyler is said to have wept when Clay failed of the Presidential

nomination in the Whig Convention of 1839.

[1840]

Clay's vices and inconsistencies were readily forgiven. He had denounced

duelling as barbarous, yet when sharp-tongued John Randolph referred to

him and Adams as having, in 1825, formed "the coalition of Blifil and

Black George, the combination of the Puritan and the blackleg"--for Clay

gambled--Clay challenged him. They met, the diminutive Randolph being in

his dressing-gown. Neither was hurt, as Randolph fired in air and Clay

was no shot. Being asked why he did not kill Randolph, Clay said: "I

aimed at the part of his gown where I thought he was, but when the

bullet got there he had moved." In 1842, when Lord Ashburton was in

Washington, there was a famous whist game, my lord, with Mr. Crittenden,

playing against Clay and the Russian Minister, Count Bodisco, while

Webster looked on. "What shall the stake be?" asked his lordship. "Out

of deference to Her Majesty," said Clay, "we will make it a sovereign."

John Randolph.

From a picture by Jarvis in 1811, at the New York Historical Society.

Emphatically patriotic, super-eminent in debate, ambitious, adventurous

in political diplomacy, a hard worker, incessant in activity for his

party, temperate upon the slavery question, whole-souled in every

measure or policy calculated to advance nationality, this versatile man

may be put down as foremost among the leaders of the Whig Party from its

origin till his death.

CHAPTER II.

FLORIDA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

[1816]

It was a delicate question after the Louisiana purchase how much

territory it embraced east of the Mississippi. Louisiana had under

France, till 1762, reached the Perdido, Florida's western boundary at

present, and was "retroceded" by Spain to France in 1800 "with the same

extent that it had when France possessed it." The United States of

course succeeded to whatever France thus recovered. Spain claimed still

to own West Florida, the name given by Great Britain on receiving it

from France in 1763 to the part of Louisiana between the Perdido and the

Mississippi. Spain had never acquired the district from France, but

obtained it by conquest from Great Britain during our Revolution.

This claim by Spain, based only on the "retro" in the treaty of 1800,

our Government viewed as fanciful, regarding West Florida undoubtedly

ours through the Louisiana purchase. Spain was intractable, first of

herself, later still more so through Napoleon's dictation. Hence our

offer, in Jefferson's time, to avoid war, of a lump sum for the two

Floridas was spurned by her. In 1810 and 1811, to save it from

anarchy--also to save it from Great Britain or France, now in the

whitest heat of their contest for Spain--we occupied West Florida, as

certainly entitled to it against those powers, yet with no view of

precluding further negotiations with Spain. When in 1812 Louisiana

became a State, its eastern boundary ran as now, including a goodly

portion of the region in debate.

[1817]

The necessity of acquiring East Florida, too, was more and more

apparent. That country was without rule, full of filibusterers,

privateers, hostile refugee Creeks and runaway negroes, of whose

services the English had availed themselves freely during the war of

1812, when Spaniards and English made Florida a perpetual base for

hostile raids into our territory. A fort then built by the English on

the Appalachicola and left intact at the peace with some arms and

ammunition, had been occupied by the negroes, who, from this retreat,

menaced the peace beyond the line. Spain could not preserve law and

order here. This was perhaps a sufficient excuse for the act of General

Gaines in crossing into Florida and bombarding the negro fort, July 27,

1816. Amelia Island, on the Florida coast, a nest of lawless men from

every nation, was in 1817 also seized by the United States with the same

propriety. Knowledge that Spain resented these acts encouraged the

Floridians. Collisions continually occurred all along the line, finally

growing into general hostility. Such was the origin of the First

Seminole War.

James Monroe. From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--now the property of T.

Jefferson Coolidge.

[1818]

December, 1817, Jackson was placed in command in Georgia. To clear out

the filibusterers, the chief source of the Indians' discontent ever

since before the Creek War, the hero of New Orleans, mistakenly

supposing himself to be fortified by his Government's concurrence,

boldly took forcible possession of all East Florida. Ambrister and

Arbuthnot, two officious English subjects found there, he put to death.

This procedure was quite characteristic of Old Hickory. He acted upon

the theory that by the law of nations any citizen of one land making war

upon another land, the two being at peace, becomes an outlaw.

International law has no such doctrine, and most likely the maxim

occurred to Jackson rather as an excuse after the act than in the way of

forethought. Nor was it ever proved that the two victims were guilty as

Jackson alleged. With him this probably made little difference. Having

undertaken to quiet the Floridian outbreaks he was determined to

accomplish his end, whatever the consequences of some of his means.

With the country the New Orleans victor, who had now dared to hang a

British subject, was ten times a hero, but the deed confused and

troubled Monroe's cabinet not a little. Calhoun wished General Jackson

censured, while all his cabinet colleagues disapproved his high-handed

acts and stood ready to disavow them with reparation. On this occasion

Jackson owed much to one whom he subsequently hated and denounced, viz.,

Quincy Adams, by whose bold and acute defence of his doubtful doings,

managed with a fineness of argument and diplomacy which no then American

but Adams could command, he was formally vindicated before both his own

Government and the Governments of England and Spain.

The posts seized had of course to be given up, yet our bold invasion had

rendered Spain willing at last to sell Florida, while Great Britain,

wishing our countenance in her opposition to the anti-progressive,

misnamed Holy Alliance of continental monarchs, concurred. Spain after

all got the better of the bargain, as we surrendered all claim to Texas,

which the Louisiana purchase had really made ours.

[1823]

The Florida imbroglio nursed to its first public utterance a sentiment

which has ever since been spontaneously taken as a principle of American

public policy, almost as if it were a part of our law itself. Spain's

American dependencies had been sensible enough to avail themselves of

that land's distraction in Napoleon's time, to set up as states on their

own account. She naturally wanted them back. Ferdinand VII. withheld

till 1820 his signature of the treaty ceding Florida, in order to

prevent--which, after all, it did not--our recognition of these

revolted provinces as independent nations. Backed by the powerful

Austrian minister, Metternich, and by the Holy Alliance, France, having

aided Ferdinand to suppress at home the liberal rebellion of 1820-23,

began to moot plans for subduing the new Spanish-American States. Great

Britain opposed this, out of motives partly commercial, partly

philanthropic, partly relating to international law, yet was unwilling

so early to recognize the independence of those nations as the United

States had done.

Assured at least of England's moral support, President Monroe in his

message of December, 1823, declared that we should consider any attempt

on the part of the allied monarchs "to extend their system to any

portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety," and

any interposition by them to oppress the young republics or to control

their destiny, "as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward

the United States." This, in kernel, is the first part of Monroe's

doctrine.

The second part added: "The American continents, by the free and

independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are

henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by

any European powers." The meaning of this was that the mere hap of first

occupancy on the continent by the citizens of any country would not any

longer be recognized by us as giving that country a title to the spot

occupied.

These important doctrines--for though akin in principle they are really

two--were no sudden creation of individual thought, but the result

rather of slow processes in the public mind. Germs of the first are

traceable to Washington; express statements of both, yet not essentially

detracting from Monroe's originality, to Jefferson. Both were put in

form by Quincy Adams, Monroe's Secretary of State. Especially Monroe's,

we believe, is the second, a resolution to which Russia's advance down

the Pacific coast, and more still the recent vexations from the

proximity of Spain in Florida, had pushed him.

CHAPTER III.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

Louisiana having become a State in 1812, that portion of the purchase

north of the thirty-third degree took the name of the Missouri

Territory. St. Louis was its centre of population and of influence.

[1818]

Being found in this extensive domain at the purchase, slavery had never

been hindered in its growth. It had therefore taken firm root and was

popular. The application, early in 1818, of the densest part of Missouri

Territory for admission into the Union as a slave State, called

attention to this threatening status of slavery beyond the Mississippi,

and occasioned in Congress a prolonged, able, angry, and momentous

debate. Jefferson, still alive, wrote, "The Missouri question is the

most portentous which has ever threatened the Union. In the gloomiest

hour of the Revolutionary War I never had apprehensions equal to those

which I feel from this source."

To see the bearing of the tremendous question thus raised, we have need

of a retrospect. Property in man is older than history and has been

nearly universal. It cannot be doubted that in an early stage of human

development slavery is a means of furthering civilization. Negro slavery

originated in Africa, spread to Spain before the discovery of America,

to America soon after, and from the Spanish colonies to the English. The

first notice we have of it in English America is that in

1619 a Dutch ship landed twenty blacks at Jamestown for sale. The Dutch

West India Company began importing slaves into Manhattan in 1626. There

were slaves in New England by 1637. Newport was subsequently a great

harbor for slavers. Georgia offered the strongest resistance to the

introduction of the system, but it was soon overcome. Till about 1700,

Virginia had a smaller proportion of slave population than some northern

colonies, and the change later was mostly due to considerations not of

morality but of profit. Anti-slavery cries were indeed heard from an

early period, but they were few and faint. Penn held slaves, though

ordering their emancipation at his death. Whitfield thought slavery to

be of God. But its most culpable abettor was the English Government,

moved by the profits of the slave trade. A Royal African Company, with

the Duke of York, afterward James II., for some time its president, was

formed to monopolize this business, which monarchs and ministries

furthered to the utmost of their power.

Thus the Revolution found slavery in all the colonies, north as well as

south. But it was then, so far south as Virginia, thought to be an evil.

That commonwealth had passed many laws to restrain it, but the King had

commanded the Governor not to assent to any of them. The Legislature,

replying, stigmatized the traffic as inhuman and a threat to the very

existence of the colony. Hostility extended from the trade to slavery

itself. Jefferson was for emancipation with deportation, and trembled

for his country as he reflected upon the wrong of slavery and the

justice of God. Patrick Henry, George Mason, Peyton Randolph,

Washington, Madison, in a word all the great Virginians of the time held

similar views.

The Quakers of Pennsylvania were, however, the most aggressive of

slavery's foes. So early as 1775 a society, the first in America if not

in the world for promoting its abolition, was formed in Pennsylvania. In

1789 it was incorporated, with Franklin for president. Similar

organizations soon rose in several northern States, numbering among

their members many of the most eminent men in the land. The British

Abolition Society, formed in 1787, and the labors of Wilberforce,

Clarkson, and Zachary Macaulay against the slave trade in the West

Indies, had influence here, as had still more the French Assembly's bold

proclamation of the Rights of Man.

The Ordinance of 1787 for the Northwest Territory marked a most decisive

point in the history of slavery. By its decree, in Jefferson's language,

there was never to be either slavery or involuntary servitude in the

said territory otherwise than in punishment for crimes. It is to the

everlasting honor of the southern members then in the Continental

Congress that they all voted for this inhibition. Virginia, whose assent

as a State was necessary to its validity, she having at this time rights

over much of the domain in question, also concurred. Whatever the

strictly legal weight of this prohibition over the immense Louisiana

purchase, it certainly aided much in confirming freedom as the

presupposition and maxim of our law over all our national territory.

Vermont had never recognized slavery save to prohibit it in its first

constitution. In New Hampshire it existed but nominally. The

Massachusetts constitution of 1780 virtually ended it in that State.

Gradual abolition statutes passed in Pennsylvania in 1780, in Rhode

Island and Connecticut in 1784. The constitution made it possible to

forbid the importation of slaves in 1808. A national law to that effect

was passed in 1807, making the trade illegal and affixing to it heavy

penalties. The American Colonization Society was formed in 1816 for the

purpose of negro deportation. It did little of this, but rendered some

service toward carrying out the act against slave importation. A new law

in 1820, which made this traffic piracy, punishable with death, was

partly due to its influence. Also many, like Birney, Gerrit Smith and

the Tappans, who began as colonizationists, subsequently became

abolitionists.

Notwithstanding all these influences slavery increased in strength every

year. South Carolina and Georgia were finding it exceedingly profitable

for cotton and rice culture, and the income from slave traffic into the

vast opening lands of Tennessee and Kentucky constituted an irresistible

temptation. In spite of the law of 1807 and of the indescribable horrors

of the business, even the foreign slave trade went on. The institution

found many defenders in the Federal Convention of 1787, and in the first

and subsequent Congresses. The pleas began to be raised, so current

later, that the negro was an inferior being, slavery God's ordinance, a

blessing to slaves and masters alike, and emancipation a folly. Now

began also that policy of bravado by which, for sixty years, the friends

of slavery bullied their opponents into shameful inaction upon that

accursed thing politically as well as morally, which was so nearly to

cost the nation its life. Thus stood matters when the Missouri

Compromise was mooted in the national Legislature.

We hardly need say that this strife ended in a compromise. Missouri was

created a slave State, balanced by Maine as a free State, but at the

same time slavery was to be excluded forever from all the remainder of

the Louisiana purchase north of 36 degrees 30 minutes, the southern

line of Virginia and Kentucky as well as of Missouri itself. The land

between Missouri and Louisiana had been in 1819 erected into the

"Territory of Arkansaw."

In the memorable discussion over this issue, involving the country as

well as Congress, two sorts of argumentation were heard in favor of the

suit of Missouri. The genuine pro-slavery men urged the sacredness of

property as such, and the special sacredness of property-right in slaves

as tacitly guaranteed by the Constitution. They also made much of the

third article of the Louisiana purchase treaty. This read as follows:

"The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the

Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible, according

to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all

the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States;

and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free

enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they

profess."

There were with these, men who acted from mere policy, thinking it best

to admit the slave State because of the difficulty and also the danger

to the Union of suppressing slavery there. They appealed as well to the

sacred compromises in the Constitution, meaning the permission at first

to import slaves, the three-fifths rule for slave representation in

Congress, and the fugitive slave clause. They spoke much of the

necessity of preserving the balance of power within the Union, and of

Congress's inaction as to slavery in the Louisiana purchase hitherto,

and also in Florida. These arguments won many professed foes of slavery,

as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Quincy Adams. In all Congress Clay was

the most earnest pleader for the compromise.

To all these arguments the unbending friends of free soil replied that

property right was subordinate to the national good, and that Congress

had full power over territorial institutions and should never have

permitted slavery to curse the domain in question. If it had committed

error in the past, that could not excuse continuance in error. The terms

of the Louisiana purchase, it was further urged, could not, even if they

had been meant to do so, which was not true, detract from this sovereign

power. It was pointed out that in every case in which a State had been

admitted thus far, Congress had prescribed conditions. It was boldly

said, still further, that if slavery threatened disunion unless allowed

its way, it ought all the more to be denied its way.

The chief strength of slavery in this crisis lay in the distressing

practical difficulty, if the prayer of Missouri were refused, of dealing

with slaves and slave proprietorship there, and of quieting a numerous

and spirited population bent upon statehood and slavery together. The

more decided foes of slavery did not sufficiently consider these

complications. Nor did they duly reflect upon the sweeping triumph which

freedom had withal secured in the pledge that the vast bulk of the

Louisiana purchase should be forever free. The pledge was indeed broken

in 1854, but not until such a sense of its sacredness had been impressed

upon the country that the breach availed slavery nothing.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GREAT NULLIFICATION

[1816-1828]

The tariff rates of 1816 on cottons and woollens were to be twenty-five

per cent. for three years, after that twenty. Instead of this the cotton

tariff was in 1824 replaced at twenty-five per cent., the same as that

upon woollens costing thirty-three and a third cents or less per square

yard; woollens over this price bearing thirty per cent. Wool, which by

the tariff of 1816 was free, now bore, some grades fifteen, some twenty,

some thirty per cent. Iron duties were put up in 1818 and again in 1824,

from which date for ten years they ranged between forty and one hundred

per cent. The whole tendency of tariff rates was strongly upward. The

duty upon all dutiables averaged between 1816 and 1824 only twenty-four

and a half per cent; from 1824 to 1828 the average was thirty-two and a

half per cent. Importation remained copious, notwithstanding, which made

the cry for protection louder than ever.

[1828]

From Quincy Adams's presidency the tariff question becomes on the one

hand political, dividing Whigs from Democrats about exactly, which had

never been the case before, and on the other, sectional, the West, the

Centre, and now also the East, pitted against the solid South, except

Louisiana. The year 1824 heard Webster's last speech for free trade and

saw Calhoun's and Jackson's last vote for protection. However, so strong

was the protectionist sentiment in the XXth Congress, though democratic,

that free-traders could hope to defeat the new tariff bill of 1828 only

by rendering it odious to New England. They therefore conspired to make

prohibitive its rates for Smyrna wool, and nearly so those on iron,

hemp, and cordage for ship-building; also on molasses, the raw material

for rum, whereon no drawback was longer to be allowed if it was

exported.

John Quincy Adams. From a picture by Gilbert Stuart.

The Whigs had arranged, to be now passed, a series of minimum rates on

woollens, by which all costing over fifty cents a square yard were to

pay as if costing $2.50, and all over this as if costing $4.00. The rate

was to be forty per cent. the first year, forty-five the second, and

fifty thereafter.

This illustrates the famous "minimum principle," which has played such a

figure in all our tariff history since 1816, its effect being always to

make the tariff much higher than it seems. Thus in the case before us,

most of the woollens then imported cost about ninety cents. If based on

this price, the tariff would be thirty-six per cent., but if based on

$2.50 as the price, it would mount up to one hundred and ten per cent.

To prevent this and to render the bill still more unpalatable to the

Whigs, the Democrats introduced a dollar "minimum," so that the tariff

on the bulk of our imported woollens, costing, as just stated, about

ninety cents, would come in at forty-four and four-tenths per cent.

But as this was after all more vigorous protection than woollens had

before received, amounting, through minima, in some cases to over one

hundred per cent., sixteen out of the thirty-nine New England members,

led by Webster, accepted this universally odious tariff bill--the Tariff

of Abominations, it was called--as the preferable evil, and, aided by a

few Democrats in each house, made it a law. The average duty on

dutiables was now about forty-three and a third per cent.

No one can question that this high tariff worked injustice to the South.

It forced from her an undue share of the national taxes, as well as

extensive tribute to northern manufacturers. But in resenting the evil

she exaggerated it, mistakenly referring all the relative decrease in

her prosperity to tariff legislation, when a great part of it was due

simply to slavery. The South complained that selfishness and political

ambition, not patriotism or reason, determined the dominant policy, and

there was of course some truth in this. Moreover, as New England now

favored it, this policy bade fair to become permanent, and since the

tariff bills did not announce protection as their purpose, the

constitutionality of them could not be gotten before the courts.

[1830]

Nearly all the southern Legislatures consequently denounced the tariff

as unjust and as hostile to our fundamental law. Most of them were,

however, prudent enough to suggest no illegal remedies. Not so with

fiery South Carolina, where a large party, inspired by Calhoun, proposed

a bold nullification of the tariff act, virtually amounting to

secession. At a dinner in this interest at Washington, April 13, 1830,

Calhoun offered the toast: "The Union; next to our liberty the most

dear; only to be preserved by respecting the rights of the States."

[1832]

John C. Calhoun was now, except, perhaps, Clay, the ablest and most

influential politician in all the South. Born in South Carolina in 1782,

of Irish-Presbyterian parentage, though poor and in youth ill-educated

like Clay and Jackson, his energy carried him through Yale College, and

through a course of legal study at Litchfield, Conn., where stood the

only law school then in America. November, 1811, found him a member of

Congress, on fire for war with Britain. Monroe's Secretary of War for

seven years from 1817, he was in 1825 elected Vice-President, and

reelected in 1828. He had meantime turned an ardent free-trader, and

seeing the North's predominance in the Union steadily increasing, had

built up a nullification theory based upon that of the Virginia and

Kentucky resolutions and the Hartford Convention, and upon the history

of the formation of our Constitution. He had worked out to his own

satisfaction the untenable view that each State had the right, not in

the way of revolution but under the Constitution itself--as a contract

between parties that had no superior referee--to veto national laws upon

its own judgment of their unconstitutionality.

John C. Calhoun

From a picture by King at the Corcoran Art Gallery.

On this doctrine South Carolina presently proceeded to act. November 24,

1832, the convention of that State passed its nullification ordinance,

declaring the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "null, void, and no law,"

defying Congress to execute them there, and agreeing, upon the first use

of force for this purpose, to form a separate government.

This was the quintessence of folly even had good theory been behind it.

The tone of the proceeding was too hasty and peremptory. The decided

turn of public opinion and of congressional action in favor of large

reduction in duties was ignored. But the theory appealed to was clearly

wrong, and along with its advocates was sure to be reprobated by the

nation. A precious opportunity effectively to redress the evil

complained of was wantonly thrown away. Worst of all, from a tactical

point of view, South Carolina had miscalculated the spirit of President

Jackson. At the dinner referred to, his toast had been the memorable

words: "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved." Men now saw that Old

Hickory was in earnest. General Scott, with troops and warships, was

ordered to Charleston.

The nullifiers receded, a course made easier by Clay's "compromise

tariff" of 1833, gradually reducing duties for the next ten years, and

enlarging the free list. From all duties of over twenty per cent. by the

act of 1832, one-tenth of the excess was to be stricken off on September

30, 1835, and another tenth every other year till 1841. Then one-half

the excess remaining was to fall, and in 1842 the rest, so that the end

of the last named year should find no duty over twenty per cent.

This episode, threatening as it was for a time, drew in its train

results the most happy, revealing with unprecedented vividness to most,

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