«История Соединенных Штатов, Том 3»

The first railroad for passengers in this country went into operation

between Charleston and Hamburg, S. C., in 1830. The locomotive had been

gotten up in New York, the first of American make. It had four wheels

and an upright boiler. This year the railroad between Albany and

Schenectady was begun, and fourteen miles of the Baltimore & Ohio opened

for use. In 1831 Philadelphia was joined to Pittsburgh by a line of

communication consisting of a railway to Columbia, a canal thence to

Hollidaysburg, another railway thence over the Alleghanies to Johnstown,

and then on by canal. The railway over the mountains consisted of

inclined planes mounted by the use of stationary engines. It is

interesting to notice the view which universally prevailed at first,

that the locomotive could not climb grades, and that where this was

necessary stationary engines would have to be used. Not till 1836 was it

demonstrated that locomotives could climb. Up to the same date, also,

locomotives had burned wood, but this was now found inferior to coal,

and began to be given up except where it was much the cheaper fuel.

Boston & Worcester Railroad, 1835.

From 1832 the railway system grew marvellously. The year 1833 saw

completed the South Carolina Railroad between Charleston and the

Savannah River, one hundred and thirty-six miles. This was the first

railway line in this country to carry the mails, and the longest

continuous one then in the world. Two years later Boston was connected

by railway with Providence, with Lowell, and with Worcester, Baltimore

with Washington, and the New York & Erie commenced. In 1839 Worcester

was joined to Springfield in the same manner, and in 1841 a passenger

could travel by rail from Boston to Rochester, changing cars, however,

at least ten times.

PERIOD III.

THE YEARS OF SLAVERY CONTROVERSY 1840-1860

CHAPTER I.

SLAVERY AFTER THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

[1820]

Slavery would most likely never have imperilled the life of this nation

had it not been for the colossal industrial revolution sketched above.

Cotton had been grown here since, 1621, and some exportation of it is

said to have occurred in 1747. Till nearly 1800 very little had gone

from the United States to England, for by the old process a slave could

clean but five or six pounds a day. In 1784, an American ship which

brought eight bags to Liverpool was seized, on the ground that so much

could not have been the produce of the United States. Jay's treaty, as

first drawn, consented that no cotton should be exported from America.

It changed the very history of the country when, in 1793, Eli Whitney

invented the saw-gin, by which a slave could clean 1,000 pounds of

cotton per day. Slavery at once ceased to be a passive, innocuous

institution, promising soon to die out, and became a means of gain, to

be upheld and extended in all possible ways. The cotton export, but

189,316 pounds in 1791, and a third less in 1792, rose to 487,600 pounds

in 1793, to 1,610,760 pounds in 1794, to 6,276,300 pounds in 1795, and

to 38,118,041 pounds in 1804. Within five years after Whitney's

invention, cotton displaced indigo as the great southern staple, and the

slave States had become the cotton-field of the world. In 1869 the

export was nearly 1,400,000,000 pounds, worth about $161,500,000.

[Footnote: Johnson, in Lalor's Cyclopaedia, Art. "Slavery."]

So profitable was slavery to vast numbers of individuals because of this

its new status, that men would not notice how, after all, it militated

against the nation's supreme interests. It polluted social relations in

obvious ways, setting at naught among slaves family ties and the behests

of virtue, influences that reacted terribly upon the whites. The entire

government of slaves had a brutalizing tendency, more pronounced as time

passed. "Plantation manners" were cultivated, which, displaying

themselves in Congress and elsewhere, in all discussions and measures

relating to the execrable institution, made the North believe that the

South was drifting toward barbarism. This was an exaggeration, yet

everyone knew that schools in the South were rare and poor, and thought

and speech little free as compared with the same in the North. Political

power, like the slaves, was in the hands of a few great barons, totally

merciless toward even southerners who differed from them. It is of course

not meant that virtue, kindliness, intelligence, and fair-mindedness

were ever wanting in that section, but they flourished in spite of the

slave-system.

Economically slavery was an equal evil, taking as was the superficial

evidence to the contrary. No cruelty could make the slave work like a

free man, while his power to consume was enormous. Infants, aged, and

weak had to be supported by the owner. Even the best slaves were

improvident. Everywhere slave labor tended to banish free. Upon slave

soil scarcely an immigrant could be led to set foot. Poor whites grew

steadily poorer, their lot often more wretched than that of slaves.

Invention, care, forethought were as good as unknown among them. Slave

labor proved incompetent even for agriculture, impoverishing the richest

soil in comparatively few years, whence the perpetual impulse of the

slave-owners to acquire new territory. The dishonesty of blacks and the

danger of slave insurrections made property insecure, at the same time

that the system diminished in every community the number of its natural

defenders. The result was that the South, the superior of the North in

natural resources, was, by 1800, rapidly becoming the inferior in every

single element of prosperity.

[1831]

One of these insurrections was the event of 1831 in Virginia,

originating near the southern border. Four slaves in alliance with three

whites commenced it by killing several families and pressing all the

slaves they could find into their service, until the force was nearly

two hundred. They spread desolation everywhere. Fifty-five white persons

were murdered before the insurrection was in hand. Virginia and North

Carolina called out troops, and at last all the insurgents were captured

or killed. The leader was a black named Nat Turner, who believed himself

called of God to give his people freedom. He had heard voices in the air

and seen signs on the sky, which, with many other portents, he

interpreted as proofs of his divine commission. When all was over Turner

escaped to the woods, dug a hole under some fence-rails and lived there

for six weeks, coming out only at midnight for food. Driven thence by

discovery, he still managed to hide here and there about the plantations

in spite of a whole country of armed men in search of him, until at last

he was accidentally confronted in the bush by a white man with levelled

rifle. He was hanged, November 11th, and sixteen others later. His wife

was tortured for evidence, but in vain. Twelve negroes were transported.

Very many were, without trial, punished in inhuman ways, the heads of

some impaled along the highway as a warning. Partly in consequence of

this horrible affair, originated a stout movement for the abolition of

slavery in Virginia. This was favored by many of the ablest men in the

Old Dominion, but they were overruled.

The Discovery of Nat Turner.

Danger from the blacks necessitated the most rigid laws concerning them.

Time had been when it was thought not dangerous to teach slaves to read.

In 1742 Commissary Garden, of the English Society for Propagating the

Gospel, founded a negro school in Charleston, where slaves were taught

by slave teachers, these last being the society's property. Honest Elias

Neale, the society's catechist in New York, engaged in the same work

there, and afterward catechists were so employed in Philadelphia. That

organization did much to stir up the planters to teach their slaves the

rudiments of Christianity. [Footnote: Eggleston in Century, May, 1888.]

Now, all this was changed. The strictest laws were made to keep every

slave in the most abject ignorance, to prevent their congregating, and

to make it impossible for abolitionists or abolitionist literature or

influence to get at them.

[1816]

Inconvenient and perilous as slavery was, southern devotion to it for

many reasons strengthened rather than weakened. The masses did not

perceive the ruin the system was working, which, moreover, consisted

with great profits to vast numbers of influential men and to many

localities. Border States little by little gave up the hope of becoming

free, the old anti-slavery convictions of their best men faltering, and

the practical problem of emancipation, really difficult, being too

easily decided insoluble. More significant, owing to a variety of

circumstances, the abolition spirit itself greatly subsided early in the

present century. Completion of the emancipation process in the North was

assured by the action of New York in 1817, proclaiming a total end to

slavery there from July 4, 1827. The view that each State was absolute

sovereign over slavery within its own borders, responsibility for it and

its abuses there ending with the State's own citizens, was now

universally accepted. Success in securing the act of 1807, making the

slave trade illegal from January 1, 1808, and affixing to it heavy

penalties, lulled multitudes to sleep. This act, however, had effect

only gradually, and its beneficence was greatly lessened in that it left

confiscated negroes to the operation of the local law.

Such quietude was furthered through the formation of the American

Colonization Society in 1816, by easy philanthropists and statesmen,

North as well as South, who swore by the Constitution as admitting no

fundamental amendment, admired its three great compromises, loved all

brethren of the Union except agitators, and deprecated slavery and the

black race about equally; its mission negro deportation, but its actual

efforts confined to the dumping of free blacks, reprobates, and

castaways in some remote corner of the universe, for the convenience of

slave-holders themselves. [Footnote: 3 Schouler's United States, 198.]

[1839]

Meantime much was occurring to harden northern hostility to slavery into

resolute hatred, a fire which might smoulder long but could not die out.

The fugitive slave law for the rendition of runaways found in free

States operated cruelly at best, and was continually abused to kidnap

free blacks. The owner or his attorney or agent could seize a slave

anywhere on the soil of freedom, bring him before the magistrate of the

county, city, or town corporate in which the arrest was made, and prove

his ownership by testimony or by affidavit; and the certificate of such

magistrate that this had been done was a sufficient warrant for the

return of the poor wretch into bondage. Obstruction, rescue, or aid

toward escape was fined in the sum of five hundred dollars. This is the

pith of the fugitive slave act of 1793. It might have been far more

mischievous but for the interpretation put upon it in the celebrated

case of Prigg versus Pennsylvania.

Mr. Prigg was the agent of a Maryland slave-owner. He had in 1839

pursued a slave woman into Pennsylvania, and when refused her surrender

by the local magistrate carried her away by force. He was indicted in

Pennsylvania for kidnapping, an amicable lawsuit made up, and an appeal

taken to the United States Supreme Court. Here, in an opinion prepared

by Justice Story, the Pennsylvania statute under which the magistrate

had acted, providing a mode for the return of fugitives by state

authorities, was declared unconstitutional on the ground that only

Congress could legislate on the subject; but it was added that while a

free State had no right in any way to block the capture of a runaway, as

for example by ordering a jury trial to determine whether a seized

person had really been a slave, so as to protect free persons of dark

complexion, yet States might forbid their officers to aid in the

recovery of slaves. As the act of 1793 did not name any United States

officials for this service it became nearly inoperative. Spite of this

terrible construction of the Constitution, which Chief Justice Taney

thought should have included an assertion of a State's duty by

legislation to aid rendition, many northern States passed personal

liberty laws, besetting the capture of slaves with all possible

difficulties thought compatible with the Constitution. The South

denounced all such laws whatever as unconstitutional, and perhaps some

of them were.

[1835]

Constitutional or not, they were needed. There were regular expeditions

to carry off free colored persons from the coasts of New York and New

Jersey, many of them successful. The foreign slave-trade, with its

ineffable atrocities, proved defiant of law and preternaturally

tenacious of life. A lucrative but barbarous domestic trade had sprung

up between the Atlantic States, Virginia and North Carolina especially,

and those on the Gulf, for the supply of the southern market. Families

were torn apart, gangs of the poor creatures driven thousands of miles

in shackles or carried coastwise in the over-filled holds of vessels, to

live or die--little matter which--under unknown skies and strange,

heartless masters.

The slave codes of the southern States grew severer every year, as did

legislation against free colored people. Laws were passed rendering

emancipation more difficult and less a blessing when obtained. The

Mississippi and Alabama constitutions, 1817 and 1819 respectively, and

all those in the South arising later, were shaped so as to place general

emancipation beyond the power even of Legislatures. Congress was even

thus early--so it seemed at the North--all too subservient to the

slave-holders, partly through the operation of the three-fifths rule,

partly from fear that opposition would bring disunion, partly in that

ambitious legislators were eager for southern votes. As to the Senate,

the South had taken care, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee having evened

the score, all before 1800, to allow no new northern State to be

admitted unless matched by a southern. In addition to all this, the

North had a vast trade with the South, and northern capitalists held to

an enormous amount mortgages on southern property of all sorts, so that

large and influential classes North had a pecuniary interest in

maintaining at the South both good nature and business prosperity.

CHAPTER II.

"IMMEDIATE ABOLITION"

[1832]

While slavery was thus strengthening itself upon its own soil and in

some respects also at the North, its champions ever more alert and

forward, its old foes asleep, these very facts were provoking thought

about the institution and hostility to it, destined in time to work its

overthrow. Interested people saw that slavery, so aggressive and

defiant, must be fought to be put down, and that if the Constitution was

its bulwark, as all believed, provided a tithe of what the South as well

as the North had said of its evils was true, the whole country, and not

the South only, was guilty in tolerating the curse. In 1821 Lundy began

publishing his Genius of Universal Emancipation, seconded, from 1829, by

the more radical Garrison. In 1831 Garrison founded the Liberator,

whose motto, "immediate and unconditional emancipation," was intended as

a rebuke to the tame policy of the colonizationists. "I am in earnest,"

said the plucky man, when his utterances threatened to cost him his

life, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will

not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." These were startling

tones. Had God turned a new prophet loose in the earth?

The abolition spirit was a part of the general moral and religious

quickening we have mentioned as beginning about 1825, and revealing

itself in revivals, missions, a religious press, and belief in the end

of the world as approaching. The ethical teaching of the great German

philosopher, Emanuel Kant, denouncing all use of man as an instrument,

began to take effect in America through the writings of Coleridge.

Hatred of slavery was gradually intensified and spread. In 1832 rose the

New England Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 the American Society was

organized, with a platform declaring "slavery a crime."

[1833]

John G. Whittier in 1833.

This declaration marked one of the most important turning-points in all

the history of the United States. It drew the line. It brought to view

the presence in our land of two sets of earnest thinkers, with

diametrically opposite views touching slavery, who could not permanently

live together under one constitution. May, Phillips, Weld, Whittier, the

Tappans, and many other men of intellect, of oratorical power, and of

wealth, drew to Garrison's side. State abolition societies were

organized all over the North, the Underground Railroad was hard worked

in helping fugitives to Canada, and fiery prophets harangued wherever

they could get a hearing, demanding "immediate abolition" in the name of

God.

The Abolitionists proposed none but moral arms in fighting

slavery--papers, pamphlets, public addresses, personal appeals. They

deprecated rebellion by slaves, and urged congressional action against

slavery only in the District of Columbia, in the territories, and at

sea, where the absolute jurisdiction of the general Government was

admitted by nearly all. Nevertheless, southern hostility to them was

indescribably ferocious and uncompromising. They were charged with

instigating all the slave insurrections and insubordination that

occurred, and with having made necessary the new, more diabolical

discipline over blacks, both bond and free. Southern papers and

Legislatures incessantly commanded that Abolitionists be delivered up to

southern justice, their societies and their publications suppressed by

law, and abolitionist agitation made penal. There were northerners quite

ready to grant these demands. Rage against abolitionism, much of it, if

possible, even more unreasoning, prevailed at the North. Garrison says

that he found here "contempt more bitter, detraction more relentless,

prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen than among slave-owners

themselves." The Church, politics, business--all interests save

righteousness--seemed to bow to the false god. Of all utterances against

abolitionism, those of clergymen and religious journals were the

bitterest. To call slavery sin was the unpardonable sin.

Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

[1834-1836]

In 1834, on July 4th, a mob broke up a meeting of the American

Anti-Slavery Society in New York. A few days after, Lewis Tappan's house

was sacked in the same manner, as well as several churches,

school-houses, and dwellings of colored families. At Newark, N. J., a

colored man who had been introduced into a pulpit by the minister of the

congregation, was forcibly wrenched therefrom and carried off to jail.

The pulpit was then torn down and the church gutted. In Norwich, Conn.,

the mob pulled an abolitionist lecturer from his platform and drummed

him out of town to the Rogues' March. In 1836 occurred the murder of

Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, at Alton, Ill. He was the publisher of The Observer,

an abolitionist sheet, which had already been three times suspended by

the destruction of his printing apparatus. It was at a meeting held in

Faneuil Hall over this occurrence that Wendell Phillips first made his

appearance as an anti-slavery orator. Also in 1836 the office at

Cincinnati in which James G. Birney published The Philanthropist, was

sacked, the types scattered, and the press broken and sunk in the river.

Birney was a southerner by birth, and had been a slave-holder, but had

freed his slaves. Between 1834 and 1840 there was hardly a place of any

size in the North where an Abolitionist could speak with certain safety.

Wendell Phillip.

The destruction of colored people's houses became for a time an

every-day occurrence in many northern cities. For some years the

condition of the free blacks and their friends was hardly better north

than south. Schools for colored children were violently opposed even in

New England. One kept by Miss Prudence Crandall, at Canterbury, Conn.,

was, after its opponents had for months sought in every manner to close

it, destroyed by fire. The lady herself was imprisoned, and such schools

were by law forbidden in the State. A colored school at Canaan, N. H.,

was voted a nuisance by a meeting of the town; the building was then

dragged from its foundations and ruined. Many who aided in these deeds

belonged to what were regarded the most respectable classes of society.

[1839-1840]

Owing to the vagaries and unpatriotism of the Garrisonians, there was

from 1840 schism in the abolition ranks. Garrison and his closest

sympathizers were very radical on other questions besides that

concerning the sin of slavery. They declared the Constitution "a league

with death and a covenant with hell" because it recognized slavery. They

would neither vote nor hold office under it. They upbraided the churches

as full of the devil's allies. They also advocated community of

property, women's rights, and some of them free love. Others, as Birney,

Whittier, and Gerrit Smith, refused to believe so ill of the

Constitution or of the churches, and wished to rush the slavery question

right into the political arena. The division, far from hindering,

greatly set forward the abolitionist cause. Perhaps neither abolition

society, as such, had, after the schism of 1840, quite the influence

which the old exerted at first, but by this time a very general public

opinion maintained anti-slavery propagandism, pushing it henceforth more

powerfully than ever, as well as, through broader modes of utterance and

action, more successfully. Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, each enlisted

his muse in the crusade. Wendell Phillips's tongue was a flaming sword.

Clergymen, politicians, and other people entirely conservative in most

things, felt free to join the new society of political Abolitionists.

In 1839 the Governor of Virginia made a requisition on Governor Seward

of New York, to send to Virginia three sailors charged with having aided

a slave out of bondage. Seward declined, on the ground that by New York

law the sailors were guilty of no crime, as that law knew nothing of

property in man. He accompanied his refusal with a discussion of slavery

and slave law quite in the abolitionist vein. To a like call from

Georgia, Seward responded in the same way, and his example was followed

by other northern governors. The Liberty Party took the field in 1840,

Birney and Earle for candidates, who polled nearly 7,000 votes. Four

years later Birney and Morris received 62,300.

It would be a mistake, let us remember, to regard the anti-abolitionist

temper at the North wholly as apathy, friendliness to slavery, or the

result of truckling to the South. Besides sharing the general fanaticism

which mixed itself with the movement, the Abolitionists ignored the

South's dilemma--the ultras totally, the moderates too much. "What

would you do, brethren, were you in our place?" asked Dr. Richard

Fuller, of Baltimore, in a national religious meeting where slavery was

under debate; "how would you go to work to realize your views?" Dr.

Spencer H. Cone, of New York, roared in reply, "I would proclaim liberty

throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." But the thing

was far from being so simple as that. Denouncing the Constitution as

Garrison did could not but affront patriotic hearts. It was impolitic,

to say the least, to import English co-agitators, who could not

understand the intricacies of the subject as presented here.

facsimile of Heading of the "Liberator."

The fact that, defying slave-masters and sycophants alike, the cause of

abolition still went on conquering and to conquer, was due much less to

the strength of its arguments and the energy of its agitation than to

the South's wild outcry and preposterous effrontery of demand.

Conservative northerners began to see that, bad as abolitionism might

be, the means proposed for its suppression were worse still, being

absolutely subversive of personal liberty, free speech, and a free

press. More serious was the conviction, which the South's attitude

nursed, that such mortal horror at Abolitionists and their propaganda

could only be explained by some sort of a conviction on the part of the

South itself that the Abolitionists were right, and that slavery was

precisely the heinous and damnable evil they declared it to be. It was

mostly in considering this aspect of the case that the Church and clergy

more and more developed conscience and voice on freedom's side, as

practical allies of abolitionism. In each great denomination the South

had to break off from the North on account of the latter's love to the

black as a human being. Men felt that an institution unable to stand

discussion ought to fall. By 1850 there were few places at the North

where an Abolitionist might not safely speak his mind.

It were as unjust as it would be painful to view this long, courageous,

desperate defence of slavery as the pure product of depravity. The South

had a cause, in logic, law, and, to an extent, even in justice. Both

sides could rightly appeal to the Constitution, the deep, irrepressible

antagonism of freedom against bondage having there its seat. The very

existence of the Constitution presupposed that each section should

respect the institutions of the other. What right, then, had the North

to allow publications confessedly intended to destroy a legal southern

institution, deeply rooted and cherished? From a merely constitutional

point of view this question was no less proper than the other: What

right had the South, among much else, to enact laws putting in prison

northern citizens of color absolutely without indictment, when, as

sailors, they touched at southern ports, and keeping them there till

their ships sailed? This outrage had occurred repeatedly. What was

worse, when Messrs. Hoar and Hubbard visited Charleston and New Orleans,

respectively, to bring amicable suits that should go to the Supreme

Court and there decide the legality of such detention, they were obliged

to withdraw to escape personal violence.

It was said that the North must bear these incidents of slavery, so

obnoxious to it, in deference to our complex political system. Yes, but

it was equally the South's duty to bear the, to it, obnoxious incidents

of freedom. Southern men seem never to have thought of this. Doubtless,

as emancipation in any style would have afflicted it, the South could

not but account all incitements thereto as hardships; but the North must

have suffered hardships, if less gross and tangible, yet more real and

galling, had it acceded to southern wishes touching liberty of person,

speech, and the press. That at the North which offended the South was of

the very soul and essence of free government; that at the South which

aggrieved the North was, however important, certainly somewhat less

essential. Manifestly, considerations other than legal or constitutional

needed to be invoked in order to a decision of the case upon its merits,

and these, had they been judicially weighed, must, it would seem, all

have told powerfully against slavery. Not to raise the question whether

the black was a man, with the inalienable rights mentioned in the

Declaration of Independence, the South's own economic and moral weal,

and further--what one would suppose should alone have determined the

question--its social peace and political stability loudly demanded

every possible effort and device for the extirpation of slavery. That

this would have been difficult all must admit; that it was intrinsically

possible the examples of Cuba and Brazil since sufficiently prove.

CHAPTER III.

THE MEXICAN WAR

[1836]

Attracted by fertility of soil and advantages for cattle-raising, large

numbers of Americans had long been emigrating to Texas. By 1830 they

probably comprised a majority of its inhabitants. March 2, 1836, Texas

declared its independence of Mexico, and on April 10th of that year

fought in defence of the same the decisive battle of San Jacinto. Here

Houston gained a complete victory over Santa Anna, the Mexican

President, captured him, and extorted his signature to a treaty

acknowledging Texan independence. This, however, as having been forced,

the Mexican Government would not ratify.

[1845]

Not only did the Texans almost to a man wish annexation to our Union,

but, as we have seen, the dominant wing of the democratic party in the

Union itself was bent upon the same, forcing a demand for this into

their national platform in 1840. Van Buren did not favor it, which was

the sole reason why he forfeited to Polk the democratic nomination in

1844. Polk was elected by free-soil votes cast for Birney, which, had

Clay received them, would have carried New York and Michigan for him and

thus elected him; but the result was hailed as indorsing annexation.

Calhoun, Tyler's Secretary of State, more influential than any other one

man in bringing it about, therefore now advocated it more zealously than

ever. Calhoun's purpose in this was to balance the immense growth of the

North by adding to southern territory Texas, which would of course

become a slave State, and perhaps in time make several States. As the

war progressed he grew moderate, out of fear that the South's show of

territorial greed would give the North just excuse for sectional

measures.

General Sam. Houston.

Henry Clay, with nearly the entire Whig Party, from the first opposed

the Tyler-Calhoun programme. Clay's own reason for this, as his

memorable Lexington speech in 1847 disclosed, was that the United States

would be looked upon "as actuated by a spirit of rapacity and an

inordinate desire for territorial aggrandizement." His party as a whole

dreaded more the increment which would come to the slave power. After

much discussion in Congress, Texas was annexed to the Union on January

25, 1845, just previous to Polk's accession. June 18th, the Texan

Congress unanimously assented, its act being ratified July 4th by a

popular convention. Thus were added to the United States 376,133 square

miles of territory.

General Santa Anna.

The all-absorbing question now was where Texas ended: at the Nueces, as

Mexico declared, or at the Rio Grande, as Texas itself had maintained,

insisting upon that stream as of old the bourne between Spanish America

and the French Louisiana. Mexico, proud, had recognized neither the

independence of Texas nor its annexation by the United States, yet would

probably have agreed to both as preferable to war, had the alternative

been allowed. To be sure, she was dilatory in settling admitted claims

for certain depredations upon our commerce, threatened to take the

annexation as a casus belli, withdrew her envoy and declined to accept

Slidell as ours, and precipitated the first actual bloodshed. Yet war

might have been averted, and our Government, not Mexico's, was to blame

for the contrary result. Slidell played the bully, the navy threatened

the coast, our wholly deficient title, through Texas, to the

Nueces-Rio-Grande tract was assumed without the slightest ado to be

good, and when General Arista, having crossed the river in Taylor's

vicinity, repelled the latter's attack upon him, the President, followed

by Congress, falsely alleged war to exist "by act of the Republic of

Mexico."

[1846]

During most of 1845, General Zachary Taylor was at Corpus Christi on the

west bank of the Nueces, in command of 3,600 men. The first aggressive

movement occurred in March of the following year, when Taylor, invading

the disputed territory by command from Washington, advanced to the Rio

Grande, opposite Matamoras. April 26th, a Mexican force crossed the

river and captured a party of American dragoons which attacked them.

Taylor drew back to establish communication with Point Isabel, and on

advancing again toward the Rio Grande, May 8th, found before him a

Mexican force of nearly twice his numbers, commanded by Arista. The

battle of Palo Alto ensued, and next day that of Resaca de la Palma,

Taylor completely victorious in both. May 13th, before knowledge of

these actions had reached Washington, warranted merely by news of the

cavalry skirmish on April 26th, Congress declared war, and the President

immediately called for 50,000 volunteers. In July Taylor was re-enforced

by Worth, and proceeded to organize a campaign against Monterey, a

strongly fortified town some ninety miles toward the City of Mexico.

This place was reached September 19th, and captured on the 22d, after

hard fighting and severe losses on both sides. An armistice of eight

weeks followed.

James K. Polk, after a photograph by Brady.

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

[1847]

Meantime a revolution had occurred in Mexico. The banished Santa Anna

was recalled, and as President of the Republic assumed command of the

Mexican armies. On February 23, 1847, occurred one of the most

sanguinary but brilliant battles of the war, that of Buena Vista.

Taylor, learning that a Mexican force was advancing under Santa Anna, at

least double the 5,200 left him after the requisition upon him which

General Scott had just made, drew back to the strong position of Buena

Vista, south of Saltillo. Here Santa Anna, having through an intercepted

despatch learned of Taylor's weakness, ferociously fell upon him with a

force 12,000 strong. On right and centre, by dint of good tactics and

bull-dog fighting, Taylor held his own and more, but the foe succeeded

at first in partly turning and pushing back his left. The Mexican

commander bade Taylor surrender, but was refused, whence the saying that

"Old Rough and Ready," as they called Taylor, "was whipped but didn't

know it."

To check the flanking movement he sent forward two regiments of

infantry, well supported by dragoons and artillery, who charged the

advancing mass, broke the Mexicans' column, and sent them fleeing in

confusion. This saved the day. The American loss was 746, including

several officers, among them Lieutenant-Colonel Clay, son of the

Kentucky statesman. Colonel Jefferson Davis, one day to be President of

the Southern Confederacy, caused during this conflict great havoc in the

enemy's ranks with his Mississippi riflemen. Santa Anna's loss was

2,000.

General Winfield Scott.

General Winfield Scott had meantime been ordered to Mexico as chief in

command. Taylor was a Whig, and the Whigs whispered that his martial

deeds were making the democratic cabinet dread him as a presidential

candidate. But Scott was a Whig, too, and if there was anything in the

surmise, his victorious march must have given Polk's political household

additional food for reflection. Scott's plan was to reduce Vera Cruz,

and thence march to the Mexican capital, two hundred miles away, by the

quickest route. Vera Cruz capitulated March 27, 1847.

Scott straightway struck out for the interior. He was bloodily opposed

at Cerro Gordo, April 18th, and at Jalapa, but he made quick work of the

enemy at both these places. In the latter city, after his victory, he

awaited promised re-enforcements. When the last of these had arrived,

August 6th, under General Franklin Pierce, so that he could muster about

14,000 men, he advanced again. August 10th the Americans were in sight

of the City of Mexico. This was a natural stronghold, and art had added

to its strength in every possible way. Except on the south and west it

was nearly inaccessible if defended with any spirit. Scott of course

directed his attack toward the west and south sides of the city. The

first battle in the environs of the capital was fiercely fought near the

village of Contreras, and proved an overwhelming defeat for the

Mexicans. Two thousand were killed or wounded, while nearly 1,000,

including four generals, were captured, together with a large quantity

of stores and ammunition. The American loss was only 60 killed and

wounded.

The survivors fled to Churubusco, farther toward the city, where, with

every advantage of position, Santa Anna had united his forces for a

final stand. An old stone convent, which our artillery could not reach

till late in the action, was utilized as a barricade, and from this the

Mexicans poured a most deadly fire upon their assailants. The Americans

were victorious, as usual, but their loss was fearful, 1,000 being

killed or wounded, including 76 officers. A truce to last a fortnight

was now agreed upon, but Scott, seeing that the Mexicans were taking

advantage of it to strengthen their fortifications, did not wait so

long. He now had about 8,500 men fit for duty, and sixty-eight guns.

Hostilities were renewed September 7th, by the storm and capture,

costing nearly 800 men, of Molino del Rey, or "King's Mill," a mile and

a half from the city.

Possession of the Molino opened the way to Chapultepec, the Gibraltar of

Mexico, 1,100 yards nearer the goal. As it was built upon a rock 150

feet high, impregnable on the north and well-nigh so on the eastern and

most of the southern face, only the western and part of the southern

sides could be scaled. But the stronghold was the key to the city, and

after surveying the situation, a council of war decided that it must be

taken. Two picked American detachments, one from the west, one from the

south, pushed up the rugged steeps in face of a withering fire. The

rock-walls to the base of the castle had to be mounted by ladders. This

was successfully accomplished; the enemy were driven from the building

back into the city, and the castle and grounds occupied by our troops. A

large number of fugitives were cut off by a force sent around to the

north.

The Plaza of the City of Mexico.

[1848]

To pierce the city was even now by no means easy. The approach was by

two roads, one entering the Belen gate, the other the San Cosme. General

Quitman advanced toward the Belen, but at the entrance was stopped by a

destructive cannonade from the citadel itself. Those fighting their way

toward the San Cosme succeeded in entering the city, Lieutenant U. S.

Grant making his mark in the gallant work of this day. The city was

evacuated that night, and on the 15th of September, 1847, was fully in

the hands of Scott.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848. It

established the Rio Grande as the boundary between the two countries,

and New Mexico, of course including what is now Arizona and also

California, was ceded to the United States for $15,000,000. The United

States also assumed, to the sum of $3,250,000, the claims of American

citizens upon Mexico. For Gadsden's Purchase, in 1853, between the Gila

River and the Mexican State of Chihuahua, we paid $10,000,000 more. Our

territory thus received in all, as a consequence of the Mexican War, an

increment of 591,398 square miles.

Inseparable from the politics of the Mexican War is the Oregon question,

since Oregon's re-occupation and "fifty-four forty or fight" had been

democratic cries for securing to Polk west-northern votes in 1844. We

had, however, no valid claim so far north, except against Russia--by the

treaty of 1824. The Louisiana purchase, indeed, had vested us with

whatever--very dubious--rights France had upon the Pacific, and the

Florida treaty of 1819 gave us the far better title of Spain to the

coast north of 42 degrees. This treaty, with Gray's discovery of the

Columbia in 1792, Lewis and Clarke's official explorations of the

Columbia valley in 1804-05-06, England's retrocession, in 1818, of

Astoria, captured during the War of 1812, and extensive actual

settlements upon the river by American citizens from 1832 on, made our

claim perfect up to 49 degrees at least. This parallel the convention

with Great Britain in 1818 had already fixed as our northern line from

the Lake of Woods to the Rocky Mountains. Between this and 54 degrees 40

minutes, England's title, from exploration and settlement, was superior

to ours, which was based upon alleged old Spanish discovery. The same

convention of 1818, renewed in 1827, opened the Oregon country to

occupation by settlers from both nations. Increase of immigration

rendering a fixing of jurisdictions imperative, England pressed for the

line of the Columbia below its intersection of the forty-ninth parallel.

We had twice offered to settle upon 49 degrees, which limit the rapid

growth of our population in the region induced England in 1836 to

accept. Whether Polk's blustering demand for "all Oregon," which came

near bringing on war with England, and his much condemned recession

later, were mere opportunist acts, is still a question. Many consider

them pieces of a deep-laid policy by Polk to tole Mexico to war in hope

of England's aid, then, suddenly pacifying England, to devour Mexico at

his leisure.

CHAPTER IV.

CALIFORNIA AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

[1846]

One of the campaigns at the beginning of the Mexican War was that of

General Stephen W. Kearney, from Fort Leavenworth, against New Mexico.

It was opened in May, 1846. He invaded the country without much

opposition, arrived at Santa Fe August 18th, having marched 873 miles,

declared the inhabitants free from all allegiance to Mexico, and formed

a territorial government over them as United States subjects.

Captain John C. Fremont had previously, but in the same year, 1846, been

sent to California at the head of an exploring expedition, and in May he

was notified to remain in the country in anticipation of hostilities. On

June 15th he captured Samona. Meanwhile, Commodore Sloat was erecting

our flag over the towns on the coast. In July Sloat was superseded by

Commodore Stockton, who routed the Mexican commander, De Castro, at Los

Angeles, joined Fremont, and on August 13th seized Monterey, the then

capital. The two commanders now placed themselves at the head of a

provisional government for California.

Zachary Taylor. After a photograph by Brady.

The Site of San Francisco in 1848.

[1848-1849]

In 1848, on the same day and almost at the same hour when the peace of

Guadalupe Hidalgo was concluded, gold was discovered in California. It

was on the land of one Sutter, a Swiss settler in the Sacramento Valley,

as some workmen were opening a flume for a mill. In three months over

4,000 persons were there, digging for gold with great success. By July,

1849, it is thought, 15,000 had arrived. Nearly all were forced to live

in booths, tents, log huts, and under the open sky. The sparse

population previously on the ground left off farming and grazing and

opened mines. People became insane for gold. Immigrants soon came in

immense hordes. In 1846, aside from roving Indians, California had

numbered not much over 15,000 inhabitants. By 1850, it seems certain

that the territory contained no fewer than 92,597. The new-comers were

from almost every land and clime--Mexico, South America, the Sandwich

Islands, China--though, of course, most were Americans. The bulk of

these hailed from the Northwest and the Northeast. To this land of

promise the sturdy pioneers from the Mississippi Valley found their way

on foot, on horseback, or in wagons, over the Rocky Mountains and the

Sierras, following trails previously untrodden by civilized man. Those

from the East made long detours around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus

of Panama.

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

The yield of gold from the virgin placers was enormous, a laborer's

average the first season being perhaps an ounce a day, though many made

much more. During the first two years about $40,000,000 worth of gold

was extracted. According to careful estimates the gold yield of the

United States, mostly from California, which had been only $890,000 in

1847, increased to $10,000,000 in 1848, to $40,000,000 in 1849, to

$50,000,000 in 1850, to $55,000,000 in 1851, to $60,000,000 in 1852, and

in 1853 to $65,000,000.

Most interesting were the spontaneous governmental and legal

institutions which arose in these motley communities, some of them

finding their originals in the English mining districts, others in

Mexico and Spain, and still others recalling the mining customs of

medieval Germany. For a time many camps had each its independent

government, disconnected from all human authority around or above. Some

of these were modelled after the Mexican Alcaldeship, others after the

New England town. Over those who rushed to the vicinity of Sutter's mill

that gentleman became virtual Alcalde, though he was not recognized by

all. The men first opening a placer would seek to pre-empt all the

adjoining land, giving up only when others came in numbers too strong

for them. Officers were elected and new customs sanctioned as they were

needed. Partnerships were sacredly maintained, yet by no other law than

that of the camp. Crimes against property and life seem to have been

infrequent at first, but the unparalleled wealth toled in and developed

a criminal class, which the rudimentary government could not control.

San Francisco formed in 1851 a vigilance committee of citizens, by which

crimes could be more summarily and surely punished. The pioneer banking

house in California began business at San Francisco in January, 1849.

The same month saw the first frame house on the Sacramento, near

Sutter's Fort.

The vast acquisition of territory by the Mexican War seemed destined to

be a great victory for slavery, because nearly all of it lay south of 36

degrees 30 minutes and hence by the Missouri Compromise could become

slave soil. But there was the complication that under Mexico all this

wide realm had been free. To exist there legally slavery must therefore

be established by Congress, making the case very different from the

cases of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, which came under United States

authority already burdened. This predisposed many who were not in

general opposed to slavery, against extending the institution hither.

Early in the war a bill had passed the House, failing almost by accident

in the Senate, which contained the famous Wilmot Proviso, so named from

its mover in the House, that, except for crime, neither slavery nor

involuntary servitude should ever exist in any of the territories to be

annexed. Wilmot was a Democrat, and at this time a decided majority of

his party favored the proviso. But the pro-slavery wing rallied, while

the Whigs, disbelieving in the war and in annexation both, offered the

proviso Democrats no hearty aid. In consequence it was defeated both

then and after the annexation.

The election of 1848 went for the Whigs, and the next March 4th, General

Taylor became President. Though a southerner and a slave-holder, he was

moderate and a true patriot. So rapid had been the influx into

California that the Territory needed a stable government. Accordingly,

one of Taylor's first acts as President was to urge California to apply

for admission to statehood. General Riley, military governor, at once

called a convention, which, sitting from September 1st to October 13th,

framed a constitution and made request that California be taken into the

Union. This constitution prohibited slavery, and thus a new firebrand

was tossed into the combustible material with which the political

situation abounded. By this time nearly all the friends of freedom were

for the proviso, but its enemies as well had greatly increased. The

immense growth, actual and prospective, of northern population, greatly

inspired one side and angered the other.

[1850]

Resort was now had again to the old, illusive device of compromise, Clay

being the leader as usual. He brought forward his "Omnibus Bill," so

called because it threw a sop to everybody. It failed to pass as a

single measure, but was broken up and enacted piecemeal. Stubborn was

the fight. Radicals of the one part would consent to nothing short of

extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; those of the

other stood solidly for the unmodified proviso.

In this crisis occurred President Taylor's death, July 9, 1850, which

was most unfortunate. He was known not to favor the pro-slavery

aggression which, in spite of Clay's personal leaning in the opposite

direction, the omnibus bill embodied. Mr. Fillmore, as also Webster,

whom he made his Secretary of State, nervous with fear of an

anti-slavery reputation, went fully Clay's length. The debate on this

compromise of 1850 was the occasion when Webster deserted the free-soil

principles which were now dominant in New England. His celebrated speech

of March. 7th marked the crisis of his life. He argued that the proviso

was not needed to prevent slavery in the newly gotten district, while

its passage would be a wanton provocation to the South From this moment

Massachusetts dropped him. When she next elected a senator for a full

term, it was Charles Sumner, candidate of the united Democrats and

Free-soilers, who went to Congress pledged to fight slavery to the

death.

But the omnibus compromises were passed. California was, indeed,

admitted free, September 9, 1850--the thirty-first State in order--and

slave-trade in the District of Columbia slightly alleviated. On the

other hand, Texas was stretched to include a huge piece of New Mexico

that was free before, and paid $10,000,000 to relinquish further claims.

This was virtually a bonus to holders of her scrip, which from seventeen

cents the dollar instantly rose to par. New Mexico and Utah were to be

organized as Territories without the proviso, and were made powerless to

legislate on slavery till they should become States. Least sufferable, a

fugitive slave law was passed, so Draconian that that of 1793, hitherto

in force, was benign in comparison. It placed the entire power of the

general Government at the slave-hunter's disposal, and ordered rendition

without trial or grant of habeas corpus, on a certificate to be had by

simple affidavit. Bystanders, if bidden, were obliged to help marshals,

and tremendous penalties imposed for aid to fugitives.

This act facilitated the recovery of fugitives at first, but not

permanently. Many who had labored for its passage soon saw that it was a

mistake. It powerfully fanned the abolition flame all over the North.

New personal liberty laws were enacted. A daily increasing number

adopted the view that the new act was unconstitutional, on the ground

that the Constitution places the rendition of slaves as of criminals in

the hands of States, and guarantees jury trial, even upon title to

property, if over twenty dollars in value. After the act had been

justified in the courts, multitudes of moderate northern men urged to a

dangerous degree the doctrine of state rights in defence of the liberty

laws. Others adopted the cry of the "higher law," and without joining

Garrison in denouncing the Government, did not hesitate to oppose in

every possible way the operation of this drastic legislation for

slave-catching.

Millard Fillmore.

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

The country's growth made escape from bondage continually easier and

easier. Once across the border a runaway was sure to find many friends

and few enemies. Openly, or, if this was required, by stealth, he was

passed quickly along to the Canada line. Between 1830 and 1860 over

30,000 slaves are estimated to have taken refuge in Canada. By 1850,

probably no less than 20,000 had found homes in the free States. The new

law moved many of these across into the British dominions. It was hence

increasingly difficult for the slave-owner to recover stray property.

All possible legal obstructions were placed in his way, and when these

failed he was likely still to be opposed by a mob which might prove too

powerful for the marshal and any posse which he could gather.

The Rendition of Anthony Burns in Boston.

In Boston, when a slave named Shadrach was arrested, his friends made a

sudden dash, rescued him from the officers and freed him. With Simms the

same was attempted, but in vain. The removal of Anthony Burns from that

city in 1855 was possible only by escorting him down State Street to the

revenue cutter in waiting, inside a dense hollow square of United States

artillerymen and marines, with the whole city's militia under arms and

at hand. Business houses as well as residences were closed and draped in

mourning. It was an indignity which Massachusetts never forgot. At

Alton, Ill., slave-hunters seized a respectable colored woman, long

resident there, who fully believed herself free. She was surrounded by

an infuriated company of citizens, and would have been wrenched from her

captors' clutch had not they, in their terror, offered to sell her back

into freedom. The needed $1,200 was raised in a few minutes, and the

agonized creature restored to her family. Judge Davis, whom the evidence

had compelled to deliver the woman, on rendering the sentence resigned

his commission, declaring: "The law gives you your victim. Thank it and

not me, and may God have mercy on your sinful souls."

CHAPTER V.

THE FIGHT FOR KANSAS

[1850-1854]

The measures of 1850 proved anything but the "finality" upon slavery

discussion which both parties, the Whigs as loudly as the Democrats,

promised and insisted that they should be. Elated by its victory in

1850, and also by that of 1852, when the anti-slavery sentiment of

northern Whigs drove so many of their old southern allies to vote for

Pierce, giving him his triumphant election, the slavocracy in 1854

proceeded in its work of suicide to undo the sacred Missouri Compromise

of 1820. Douglas, the ablest northern Democrat, led in this, succeeding,

as official pacificator between North and South, somewhat to the office

of Clay, who had died June 29, 1852. The aim of most who were with him

was to make Kansas-Nebraska slave soil, but we may believe that Douglas

himself cherished the hope and conviction that freedom was its destiny.

This rich country west and northwest of Missouri, consecrated to freedom

by the Missouri Compromise, had been slowly filling with civilized men.

It did not promise to be a profitable field for slavery, nor would

economic considerations ever have originated a slavery question

concerning it. But politically its character as slave or free was of the

utmost consequence to the South, where the resolution gradually arose

either to secure it for the peculiar institution or else prevent its

organization even as a Territory. A motion for such organization had

been unsuccessfully made about 1843, and it was repeated, equally

without effect, each session for ten years. None of these motions had

contained any hint that slavery could possibly find place in the

proposed Territory. The bill of December 15, 1853, like its

predecessors, had as first drawn no reference whatever to slavery, but

when it returned from the committee on Territories, of which Douglas was

chairman, the report, not explicitly, indeed, made the assumption,

unheard of before, that Kansas-Nebraska stood in the same relation to

slavery in which Utah and New Mexico had stood in 1850; and that the