History of the United States, v.1, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 1, Part 1: Introduction through The Compromise Tariff

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER I

My design is to write the history of the United States from the introduction of the compromise measures of 1850 down to the final restoration of home rule in the South twenty-seven years later. This period, less than a generation, was an era big with fate for our country, and for the American must remain fraught with the same interest that the war of the Peloponnesus had for the ancient Greek, or the struggle between the Cavalier and the Puritan has for their descendants. It ranks next in importance to the formative period—to the declaration and conquest of independence and the adoption of the Constitution; and Lincoln and his age are as closely identified with the preservation of the Union as Washington and the events which he more than any other man controlled are associated with the establishment of the nation. The civil war, described by the great German historian whose genius has illuminated the history of Rome as " the mightiest struggle and most glorious victory as yet recorded in human annals,"1 is one of
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1 History of Rome, Mommsen, vol. iv. p. 558.

those gigantic events whose causes, action, and sequences will be of perennial concern to him who seeks the wisdom underlying the march of history. While we now clearly see that the conflict between two opposing principles causing the struggle that led to the Missouri Compromise, and renewed from time to time after that settlement, was destined to result in the overthrow of one or the other, yet it was not until the eleven years preceding the appeal to arms that the question of negro slavery engrossed the whole attention of the country. It then became the absorbing controversy in Congress, and dominated all political contests; the issue came home to every thinking citizen, and grew to be the paramount political topic discussed in the city mart, the village store, and the artisan's workshop. It was less than three years before the secession of South Carolina that Seward described our condition as "an irrepressible conflict," and Lincoln likened it to a house divided against itself that could not stand. It is not difficult to trace the different manifestations of the opposing principles in these years. The signs of the times are so plain that he who runs may read them.

It will be my aim to recount the causes of the triumph of the Republican party in the presidential election of 1860, and to make clear how the revolution in public opinion was brought about that led to this result. Under a constitutional government, the history of political parties is the civil history of the country. I shall have to relate the downfall of the Whig party, the formation of the Republican, and the disruption of the Democratic party, that, with brief intermissions, had conducted the affairs of the government from the election of Jefferson, its founder and first President. A significant incident of this defeat was that Lincoln, the elected President, received not a single vote in ten Southern States, owing his success entirely to the North. These ten States and one more, Virginia,1 would not submit to a sectional President and seceded from the Union. Then ensued
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1 Lincoln received 1929 votes in Virginia.

the civil war, the central event of my history. From 1850 to 1861 the antecedents of this terrible conflict engross the attention of every student of the period; after 1865,the consequences. The withdrawal of the United States troops from South Carolina and Louisiana by President Hayes in 1877, constituting the final restoration of home rule to the South, is a fitting episode with which to close this narrative. For then, the Southern question gave way to other political issues.

The compromise measures of 1850 were a compromise with slavery and the last of those settlements that well-meaning and patriotic men from both sides of Mason and Dixon's line were wont to devise when the slavery question made unwelcome intrusion. To know the reason of these enactments and to understand their scope and purpose, a retrospect is necessary of so much of the history of our country as relates to the slavery question in politics.

Negro slaves, as is generally known, were brought to Virginia in the infancy of the colony. Fifty years after the landing of the first cargo at Jamestown, the blacks were only five per cent of the population.1 But America had large new tracts of land and few agricultural settlers; and these economical conditions and the moral attitude of Christendom being given, slavery was in the natural course of things certain to be extended.2 At first the rigor of the law was aimed at the restraint of intermarriage and of illicit intercourse between the races: public whipping, and admonition in the church, were visited upon the guilty white man.3 But towards the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the laws
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1 Governor Berkeley's report, Hart's American History told by Contemporaries, vol. i. p. 239.
2 Economic History of Virginia, Bruce, vol. ii. p. 67.
3 Short History of English Colonies, Lodge, p. 67; History of United States, Hildreth, vol. i. p. 521; vol. ii. pp. 178, 429; Hening, The Statutes at Large. Being a Collection of the Laws of Virginia from 1619-1792. Vol. i. pp. 146, 662; vol. ii. p. 170; Bruce, vol. ii. pp. 67-130.

of the colonies began to be stringent, foreshadowing in their severity the inhuman slave codes of the Southern States under the Union; yet while the Virginia slave legislation was ferocious, the custom was more lenient than the law.1 In South Carolina, however, the advantage of negro labor might be seen at its best, for it had a climate better suited to the African than the northern colonies, and it was, moreover, essentially a planting state. The rice plant had at an early period been introduced from Madagascar, and the rice of Carolina was soon esteemed the best in the world. The cultivation of rice and indigo was unhealthy but highly remunerative labor, and it became the great object of the emigrant " to buy negro slaves, without which," the Secretary to the proprietors of Carolina wrote, "a planter can never do any great matter." 2 In less than a century after the settlement of South Carolina, capital invested in planting could easily be doubled in three or four years. The mechanic left his trade and the merchant his business to devote themselves to agriculture.3 Slaves could be bought for about forty pounds each, and as they produced in twelve months more than enough rice and indigo to pay their entire cost, they were a profitable investment, and the temptation was great to work them beyond their physical endurance. The planters lived in fear of a rising and massacre, and the legislation regarding the slaves was harsh and cruel. The degradation of the negroes was great; dispensing for the most part with the ceremony of marriage, their sexual relations were loose and irregular.4

In the neighboring colony of Georgia, the last of the thirteen
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1 Lodge, p. 69.
2 An Account of the Province of Carolina, London, 1682, cited from the Historical Collections of South Carolina, by B. R. Carroll, vol. ii. p. 33.
3 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 392. The edition used is that of Appleton & Co., 1887, having the author's last revision. South Carolina was settled in
4 Lodge, p. 182.

to be settled, the introduction of slaves was prohibited. Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony, said: "Slavery is against the Gospel as well as the fundamental law of England. We refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime."1 But the promised lucrative returns from negro labor were more powerful than respect for the law, and the Georgia planters began to hire slaves from Carolina. It was not long before slaves direct from Africa were landed at Savannah, while the laws against their introduction ceased to be observed. Whitefield, believing slavery an ordinance of God, designed for the eventual good of the African, and also having an eye to its present advantage to the colonist, argued earnestly for the introduction of slaves into Georgia and his practice conformed to his doctrine, for he bought a plantation on which, at the time of his death, there were seventy-five slaves; these he bequeathed to a lady whom he called one of the " elect."2 The Methodist evangelist acted in consistency with the age, and so did his contemporary, Jonathan Edwards, the exponent of Calvinism in New England, who left, among other property, a negro boy. Nor did the pure life and liberal opinions of Bishop Berkeley lead him to a position on slavery in advance
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1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 287.
2 Ibid., p. 299.
3 Life and Times of John Wesley, Tyerman. In this work a curious letter from Whitefield in 1751 is printed, from which I make the following extracts: "As for the lawfulness of keeping slaves I have no doubt. It is plain hot countries cannot be cultivated without negroes. What a flourishing country Georgia might have been, had the use of them been permitted years ago. . . . Though it is true they are brought in a wrong way from their own country, and it is a trade not to be approved of, yet as it will be carried on whether we will or not, I should think myself highly favored if I could purchase a good number of them in order to make their lives comfortable, and lay a foundation for breeding up their posterity in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I had no hand in bringing them into Georgia, though my judgment was for it. ... It rejoiced my soul to hear that one of my poor negroes in Carolina was made a brother in Christ."

of his time. He conformed to the practice of the best people and held slaves.1

Farther northward, slavery appeared stripped of some of its evils. The treatment of the negroes was more humane, and legislation secured them a greater degree of personal protection. In the colonies that afterwards became the Middle States they were rarely worked as field hands, and though sometimes employed in the iron furnaces and forges of Pennsylvania,2 their chief use was as domestic servants. In New York it was deemed a mitigation of punishment that refractory slaves, instead of being whipped, were sold for the West Indian market. In New England slavery was not a prominent feature except in Rhode Island, where Newport was largely engaged in the slave-trade; and at the outbreak of the Revolution, when one in fifty of the population of New England were slaves, the general tendency of public opinion was against the institution. The laws in regard to the slaves were mild, and limited their punishment; they were invariably employed as house-servants, and were taught to read the Bible.3

In the colonies where moral feeling was not stifled by golden returns from the culture of rice and tobacco by slave labor, and where slaves were rather a domestic convenience than a planter's necessity, the notion that the practice was an evil began to make itself manifest. The legislators of the Providence Colony, in the middle of the seventeenth century, enacted that no negro should be held to perpetual service, but that all slaves should be set free at the end of ten years; yet the law was not enforced, for it was far in advance of public sentiment.4 William Penn made earnest though unavailing efforts to improve the mental and moral condition of the negroes and to secure a decent respect for
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1 History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Lecky, vol. ii. p. 17. 2 Iron in all Ages, Swank, p. 143.
3 Lodge, p. 442; Hildreth, vol. ii. p. 419.
4 Bancroft, vol. i. p. 293.

their family relations; in his last will he directed that his own slaves should be given their freedom. In 1688 a society of German Friends, who had left the country of the Rhine to enjoy the freedom of their religion under the Quaker law-giver, passed a solemn resolution declaring that it was not lawful for Christians to buy or hold negro slaves.1

Yet these did little to stem the current of opinion that, sustained by official and royal favor, rated the negro simply at his money-value as merchandise. William III., though establishing religious liberty and a constitutional government in England, was not in advance of his age in his views of the slave-trade. One of the early royal instructions issued in the name of William and Mary enjoined the colonial governors to keep open the market for salable negroes, and in the same reign an act of Parliament declared that "the trade is highly beneficial and advantageous to the kingdom and colonies."2 Before and during the war of the Spanish Succession, with which the eighteenth century begins, the English government did its best for the protection of the negro traffic; it issued mandates to the Governor of New York and other governors to provide "a constant and sufficient supply of merchantable negroes." 3 Of the utmost significance was the treaty of Utrecht (1713), made at the close of this war. By compact with Spain, it provided that England should have the monopoly of supplying negro slaves to the Spanish-American provinces. The company formed to carry out the contract promised such enormous profits that Queen Anne reserved for herself one-quarter of the common stock; and it is noteworthy that almost the only feature of the treaty that gave general satisfaction in England was the article that encouraged the "kidnapping of tens of thousands of negroes, and their consignment to the most miserable slavery."4 But all of the best minds of England
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1 Bancroft, vol. i. p. 572.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 77, 278.
3 Ibid., p. 209,
4 Lecky's England, vol. i. p. 138.

were not of this way of thinking. Baxter, the Christian patriot, had in the previous century reminded the slaveholder that the slave "was of as good a kind as himself, born to as much liberty, by nature his equal;" and it is a grateful remembrance to lovers of English literature that Addison and Steele protested against the inhumanity of holding in bondage the African.1

Virginia for many years took a creditable attitude towards the question of slavery, although it is probable that before the Revolution negro labor was for her an instrument of wealth. By the middle of the eighteenth century a large number in this colony favored the prohibition of the slave-trade;2 and this opinion, which with some undoubtedly had a moral prompting, was fostered by alarm at the growing number of blacks, excited especially during the French and Indian War. "The negro slaves have been very audacious on the news of the defeat on the Ohio," wrote Governor Dinwiddie to the home administration after Braddock's defeat in 1755. "These poor creatures imagine the French will give them their freedom. We have too many here."' Six years later the Virginia Assembly imposed a high duty on imported slaves, which it was hoped would be prohibitory, but this act was vetoed by England;4 and in 1770 King George III. instructed the Governor of Virginia, "upon the pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.'5 At this time Virginia, Maryland, and the Northern colonies favored strongly putting a stop to the foreign slave-trade; and this feeling showed itself in Virginia by a strong and respectful remonstrance against the royal instructions, in which she had the sympathy
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1 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 277.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 394.
3 Montcalm and Wolfe, Parkman, vol. i. p. 229.
4 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 550; see Hildreth, vol. ii. p. 494.
5 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 410; Order in council of December 9th, 1770.

of almost all of her sister colonies.1 But while the people of the Old Dominion were willing to prohibit the traffic in human beings from Africa, to give their own negroes freedom was a different matter, and, while assenting without dispute to the doctrine that slavery in the abstract was wrong, they held that any question of its abolition should be postponed to a more convenient season. By no one is this contradiction between speculation and practice more frankly and clearly stated than by Patrick Henry in the oft-quoted letter written two years before his memorable oration.2

When the question of freedom and slavery was at issue, the English judiciary had early been on the side of freedom. Chief Justice Holt had, in 1697, affirmed that "as soon as a negro comes into England he is free;" and, in 1702, that "in England there is no such thing as a slave."' But public sentiment lagged behind the law, and later received the seal of an extra-judicial opinion, which in practice permitted American planters to bring their negroes to England and hold them there as slaves.4 The Sommersett case, in which the question of such a right was involved, came before the Court of King's Bench in 1772, and Lord Mansfield delivered the opinion. He declared that slavery was of such a nature that it could only be presumed to exist in a country where it took its rise from positive law, and consequently it was a state contrary to law in England.5 This decision, crystallizing
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1 Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 410; Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1770-1772, p. 600.
2 See Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 412; Life of Henry Clay, Schurz, vol. i. p. 29; Hildreth, vol. iii. p. 393.
3 Holt's Reports, 495; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii. pp. 138, 139; see also Hildreth, vol. ii. pp. 125, 214.
4 Hildreth, vol. ii. p. 426. 5 Constitutional History of England, May, vol. ii. p. 273. He remarks:
"It was a righteous judgment; but scarcely worthy of the extravagant commendation bestowed upon it at that time and since. This boasted law, as declared by Lord Mansfield, was already recognized in France, Holland, and some other European countries; and as yet England had shown no symptoms of compassion for the negro beyond her own shores."

a sentiment of humanity, was destined always to remain an honor to the great judge and his country's jurisprudence. It was a decision of prime importance to the English-speaking communities, who are more influenced by the dicta of high courts than by the assertion, however eloquent, of general ideas of abstract justice. There had been incomplete and unenforced legislation favoring the slave and judicial decisions unrespected, but no authority of such weight as Chief Justice Mansfield and his court had pronounced in terms which could not be misunderstood that henceforward, in one country governed by English law, freedom should be the invariable rule.

While Whitefield was conducting his Georgia plantation in the fashion of the time, John Wesley, having pondered deeply on the cruelty of slavery as he had seen it in America, characterized the slave-trade as " that execrable sum of all villainies;" and in his " Thoughts on Slavery " denounced the practice in unmeasured terms. At the same time, Jefferson, holding opinions that would have made him an abolitionist had he lived in 1860, gave expression to them in his draft of instructions for Virginia's delegates to the first Congress of the Colonies, which was called to meet at Philadelphia in 1774. The abolition of slavery, he wrote, is the great object of desire in the colonies. "But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude any further importations from Africa." To that end the repeated endeavors of Virginia had been directed; but every such law had been vetoed by the king himself, who thus preferred the advantage of " a few British corsairs to the lasting interest of the American States and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice"1 Washington shared the ideas of Jefferson. He presided at the Fairfax County Convention, and took part in framing the
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1 Life of Jefferson, Parton, p. 138; Jefferson's Works, vol. i. p. 135.

resolves then adopted, one of which declared " that no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British colonies," and expressed "the most earnest wishes to see an entire stop forever put to such a wicked, cruel, and unnatural trade."1 Franklin, as wise as he was humane, boldly argued in the Congress of 1776 that "slaves rather weaken than strengthen the state;" 2 and that memorable body resolved " that no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen United Colonies." * The evil was appreciated, and the large majority of delegates felt that slavery ought to be restricted. It is estimated that already there had been brought into the colonies 300,000 slaves, and the blacks constituted one-fifth of the total population,4 a larger proportion than has obtained at any subsequent period.* Yet these figures do not measure the extent of the slave-trade. For the century previous to 1776 English and colonial ships had carried to the West Indies and the English continental colonies nearly three million negroes. A quarter of a million more had been bought in Africa, had died of cruel treatment during the passage, and had been thrown into the Atlantic'

Burke boldly stated in the House of Commons that the refusal of America to deal any more in the inhuman traffic of negro slaves was one of the causes of her quarrel with Great Britain.7 In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson gave expression to the same idea. One of his articles of indictment against George III. was: "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
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1 Life and Writings of Washington, Sparks, vol. ii. p. 494.
2 Life of Franklin, Parton, vol. ii. p. 130.
3 Bancroft, vol. iv. p. 338.
4 Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 274, 390. See also Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America.
5 This is based on the figures of 1770; see Bancroft; also F. A. Walker's article in The Forum for July, 1891.
6 Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 277.
7 Cited in Hodgson's North America, vol. i. p. 57. Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Burke's Works, London edition of 1815, vol. iii. pp. 67, 68.

violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in the transportation thither. . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." This passage, however, was struck out, Jefferson explained, "in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under these censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."1

"We hold," said the Congress of 1776, in the Declaration of Independence, "these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This clause created as much discussion during all the years of the slavery agitation as if it had been part of our organic law. The abolitionists, and afterwards the Republicans, asserted that it proved the solemn and deliberate belief of our Revolutionary fathers to be that all men were entitled to their freedom; while, on the other hand, the apologists for slavery maintained that, in the minds of the illustrious author and his colleagues, the words " all men " certainly did not include the African race; and a very clever argument to this effect was made by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision.'

The affirmation by slaveholders of the equality of man is an inconsistency which cannot be denied.3 But as
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1 Jefferson's Autobiography. Works, vol. i. p. 19.
2 Infra, Chap. IX.
3 " The grotesque absurdity of slave-owners signing a Declaration of Independence, which asserted the inalienable right of every man to liberty and equality."—Lecky's England, vol. vi. p. 282.

Jefferson and the Southerners who endorsed his words were in speculation far in advance of the social practice of their time, as they believed that their prohibition of the slave-trade would so curtail slavery that it would eventually die out, and as they little dreamed of the economical and political conditions that were destined to fasten it upon the South, the inconsistency was not so glaring as it appears to posterity.'

During the Revolutionary War, the slavery question is almost lost sight of in the struggle for independent nationality. Free negroes took part in the battle of Bunker Hill; and although a little later it was decided that colored men would not be accepted as enlisted soldiers, Washington reversed this decision, and they served in the American army at every subsequent period of the war.2 The royal Governor of Virginia tried to excite the slaves to revolt against their masters by promising them their freedom, but had little success. Their Northern brethren desired liberty more ardently, as, during the victorious progress of Howe's army through Pennsylvania, the slaves prayed for his success, believing that he would set them free.3 A scheme for the general enfranchisement of the slaves, with a view to diminish the aristocratic spirit of the Virginian and Southern colonists, was the subject of discussion in Parliament; but Burke reminded his Tory hearers that this was a game two could play at, and the American master might "arm servile hands in defence of freedom."4 The great statesman spoke wisely. In Rhode Island the slaves were emancipated by law on the condition of their enlistment in the army for the war, and this project had the full approval of Washington.5 At a later day, the question of arming the blacks
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1 See Justice Curtis on this, infra, Chap. IX., and Lincoln, Chap. IX.
2 Bancroft, vol. iv. pp. 223, 322; Sparks, vol. iii. p. 218.
3 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 180.
4 Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. Works, Bohn's edition, vol. i. p. 475.
5 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 219.

in Carolina was seriously discussed, and the policy was warmly recommended to Congress by Hamilton; but as a matter of policy it was disapproved of by Washington. He argued: "Should we begin to form battalions of them, I have not the smallest doubt" the British would "follow us in it, and justify the measure upon our own ground. The contest then must be, who can arm fastest. And where are our arms ?"1

The year following the Declaration of Independence, Vermont separated from New York and framed a State constitution, in which slavery was forbidden forever; but of the original thirteen colonies, Pennsylvania was the first to take steps to abolish the system, the Assembly voting in 1780 a scheme of gradual emancipation.2 In the same year Massachusetts adopted a new constitution, and in the declaration of rights it was asserted: "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and inalienable rights." When the convention came to discuss how many of the old laws should remain in force, it was seen that any statutes that maintained or protected property in negroes were inconsistent with this clause; and it was therefore considered that its adoption abolished slavery. The common notion soon had the seal of judicial approval. The Supreme Court had occasion to pass upon the question, and decided that by virtue of this article slavery ceased to exist in Massachusetts. The colored inhabitants became citizens, and were allowed to vote if they had the requisite qualifications of age, property, and residence. At about the same time the Methodists of the United States, in solemn and regular conference, resolved that "slave-keeping was hurtful to society, and contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature." 3
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1 Bancroft, vol. v. p. 370. 2 Act of March 1st, 1780. Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from October 14th, 1700, to April 6th, 1802, vol. ii. p. 246.
3 Bancroft, vol. v. pp. 416-422.

With the end of the war and the ratification of the peace with Great Britain, it became the duty of Congress to establish a government for a large extent of the ceded territory not comprised within the boundaries of any of the thirteen States. In 1784, Jefferson reported an ordinance that provided for the prohibition of slavery after the year 1800 in all the western country above the parallel of 31° north latitude. This proposed interdiction applied to what afterwards became the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, as well as to the Northwestern Territory.1

To his sorrow and lasting regret, this anti-slavery clause was lost by one vote. "The voice of a single individual," Jefferson wrote two years later, "would have prevented this abominable crime. Heaven will not always be silent; the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end prevail." 2 In truth, the friends of human rights gained an important victory in the enactment of the Ordinance of 1787, which was a substitute for the Jefferson Act of 1784, differing from it, however, in that slavery was immediately prohibited, and in that it only applied to the Northwestern Territory, which later became the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. Coupled with this stipulation was a clause providing for the rendition of fugitive slaves. The Ordinance partook of a compromise, and had the votes of all the members present but one; four of the Southern States were represented. Every one of their delegates gave his voice for the anti-slavery article, and its adoption was not considered an anti-slavery triumph. In view of all the circumstances, it may be regarded as a wise adjustment of opposing interests, and its practically unanimous adoption was gained through the operation on individual minds of various and even conflicting motives.
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1 See the plan in Jefferson's handwriting in the State Department archives.
2 Jefferson's Works, vol. ix. p. 276; Bancroft, vol. vi. p. 118.

In contriving the passage of this Ordinance, the friends of freedom builded on a more magnificent scale than they dreamed. A bulwark against the encroachments of slavery was needed for the Northwest, as Indiana Territory (it then included Illinois) afterwards petitioned many times for the suspension of the anti-slavery article of the Ordinance, but Congress refused the prayer. It is probable that had it not been for the prohibitory clause, slavery would have gained such a foothold in Indiana and Illinois that the two would have been organized as slave-holding States. The tribute paid by Webster contains the truth of history, and is pregnant with philosophy. "We are accustomed," he said, "to praise the law-givers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. ... It fixed forever the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude. It impressed on the soil itself, while yet a wilderness, an incapacity to sustain any other than freemen. It laid the interdict against personal servitude, in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper also than all local constitutions."1

Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and Franklin did not assist at the Congress that enacted the Ordinance of 1787; they were at the federal convention in Philadelphia, engaged in framing the Constitution, that an eminent English statesman has called "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." 2 To
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1 First speech on Foot's resolution, 1830, Webster's Works, vol. iii. p. 263. On the Ordinance of 1787, see Bancroft, vol. vi. p. 287 et seg.; Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 133; Hinsdale's Old Northwest, chaps, xv. and xviii.; Dunn's Indiana, chaps, v. and vi.; Poole's article, North American Review, April, 1876; Evolution of the Ordinance of 1787, Barrett.
2 Gladstone.

the effort to form a more perfect union of the States, slavery was a constant obstacle. It was the subject of two compromises, although the words " slave," "slavery," and "slave trade" do not occur in the Constitution; for an adroit circumlocution was employed to avoid offending delegates who objected to the use of those terms.1

The first compromise referred to the apportionment for representatives in Congress. What rule should be applied to the half million or more of slaves in the five Southern States? Were the negroes persons or property? The article of the Constitution, proceeding on the theory that they were neither absolutely the one nor the other, but that they partook of both of these qualities, provided that in the apportionment for representatives, and for direct taxation as well, five slaves should count as three freemen; as the expounder of this compromise said, the slave was regarded "as divested of two fifths of the man."2 In the mention of who shall or shall not be included in the enumeration, the provision closes with, "and three fifths of all other persons."3 The meaning is plain, but the word "slave" is avoided. This proportional adjustment was not new; it had been adopted four years previously by the Confederation as a measure of the direct contributions of the States.

The second compromise related to the slave-trade. Under the Articles of Confederation the power to regulate this traffic and all species of commerce was left with the States. All the States but North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had interdicted the slave-trade. These three positively would not accept the Constitution if this traffic was immediately and unconditionally prohibited.4 At the same time, the Northern States desired that Congress should
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1 History of the Constitution, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 305.
2 The Federalist, No. 54. Only New Jersey and Delaware voted against this scheme, but Massachusetts and South Carolina were divided. Curtis, vol. ii. p. 164.
3 Art. I., section 2.
4 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 301; Bancroft, vol. vi. p. 320.

have power to pass navigation laws by a simple majority, an action which the South contended ought to require two thirds of both branches of the Legislature. Finally mutual concessions were made. The North was given what it desired, and a provision was incorporated in the Constitution1 to the effect that the slave-trade should not be prohibited until the year 1808. In due time, acts to enforce the understanding that was expressed in this article of organic law were passed, and the inhuman traffic was virtually brought to an end in the year named in the Constitution.

The existence of slavery dictated the provision for the rendition of persons who, "held to service or labor in one State," escape into another. It was by authority of this clause that the two Fugitive Slave laws were enacted. It is unquestionable that this stipulation was necessary for the adoption and acceptance of the Constitution;2 and there were two precedents for it, one in the New England Confederacy of 1643,3 and the other in the Ordinance of 1787. This clause was the subject of but little debate and passed unanimously.4

A defence of the work of our constitutional fathers, including the slavery compromises, is hardly necessary. Their choice lay between achieving a union of the States with those provisions, and failing to accomplish any union at all. It is a tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race to take the expedient in politics when the absolute right cannot be had, and in following it the delegates acted wisely.

Yet, could our fathers have known what was known to the abolitionists of 1833 and 1860, how different the course of history would have been! In 1787 it was supposed, and with apparent reason, that slavery would die out in all of
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1 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 303; see Du Bois, pp. 95-130, 151-193.
2 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 451; Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 773; The War between the States, Alex. Stephens, vol. i. p. 202; Alex. Johnston went over the ground thoroughly, and came to the same conclusion, New Princeton Review, vol. iv. p. 183.
3 Bancroft, vol. i. p. 293; Curtis, vol. ii. p. 453.
4 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. pp. 487, 492; Curtis, vol. ii. p. 456.

the States. Seven had already abolished it, or were preparing to do so; and he would not have been called a rash man who predicted that he would see in his own lifetime Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia free States. Indeed, in the First Congress a majority of the representatives from Maryland and Virginia inclined to anti-slavery views ;1 and while public sentiment in the three most southern States lagged behind, a representative from Georgia stated in the House, without contradiction, that not a man lived in Georgia who did not wish there were no slaves, and everybody believed they were a curse to the country.2 But when the Constitution was framed the cotton-gin had not been invented. Eli Whitney's machine made possible the culture of cotton on a large scale, and created a demand for negro labor that could not have been foreseen. The founders of our government met to devise a more perfect union, to give to a central authority enough power to create a nation, and to make it respected and respectable in the eyes of the world. To attain this supreme end, jarring interests and conflicting ideas had to be reconciled, and it was indeed unfortunate that slavery was one of those interests to mar an otherwise perfect work. The extraordinary political ability shown in that convention has led some European writers to judge its members by ethical standards higher than those of the time; in other words, to try the actors of the eighteenth century at the bar of the nineteenth instead, and to criticise them, because, having done what they did, they did not do more and set operations in train whose result would have been the abolition of slavery.3 But this was what the majority of the convention actually thought that they had done. They believed, and not without apparent reason, that if the slave
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1 History of the United States, Hildreth, vol. iv. p. 204.
2 McMaster's United States, vol. ii. p. 359.
3"Europeans have a useful knack of forgetting their own shortcomings when contemplating those of their neighbors."—American Commonwealth, Bruce, vol. ii. p. 121.

trade could be prohibited, the extinction of slavery would soon follow.

In its attitude towards this moral question, the convention was in advance of the world, as it confessedly was in progressive political ideas. No European country had at that time abolished the African slave-trade. Its maintenance was, as we have seen, an object of English commercial policy. Some of the ablest and purest men in Parliament worked earnestly to put a stop to it; yet, in 1791, a motion of Wilberforce for leave to bring in a bill to prevent the further importation of negroes into the West Indies, though supported by Pitt, Fox, and Burke, was defeated in the House of Commons by a vote of nearly two to one.1 While ten of our States had prohibited the slave-trade and seven were abolishing slavery, serfdom still existed in parts of Germany, and the vestiges of it in France were abolished only by the Revolution.2 In England the condition of factory operatives and of mining laborers was as revolting to the modern humane feeling as the negro slavery of America.3

If we ask the question, Could a better organic instrument than our present Constitution be framed and adopted in the United States of to-day? we may not refuse to answer that it is "perhaps the most remarkable monument of political wisdom known to history."4 If "human progress rarely
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1 Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. vi. p. 293.
2 Lecky's England, vol. v. p. 317. Edward Jackson Lowell, Eve of the French Revolution, pp. 194-195; History of Civilization, Buckle, vol. i. p. 455.
3 "It was one of the effects of the immense development of the cotton manufacture, that negro slavery in America, which at the time of Washington seemed likely to be extinguished by an easy and natural process, at once assumed gigantic dimensions. It was hardly more horrible, however, than the white slavery which for years after the establishment of the factory system prevailed both in England and on the Continent."— Lecky's England, vol. vi. p. 225.
4 James R. Lowell in 1888, Political Essays, p. 311. "The framers of the Constitution" were "wiser than Justinian before them or Napoleon after them."—American Commonwealth, Bryce, vol. i. p. 364.

means more than a surplus of advantages over evils,"1 what amazing leaps in political affairs were made in America from 1776 to 1787!

If the convention was in advance of the world on this question, its leaders occupied a higher moral position than the body of which they in a great measure shaped the ends. Washington, although a slave-holder, was averse to buying or selling slaves, and on his plantation the family relation among the negroes was respected.' He repeatedly urged upon the Legislature of his State the necessity of taking measures which would result in the gradual extinction of slavery.' The notion increased with his years and official experience, for while President, in a private letter, he emphatically expressed the opinion that at a period not remote the system must be abolished in Virginia and Maryland ;4 and by his last will he emancipated his own slaves.5 Hamilton took the position of secretary of the New York Abolition Society, and was requested by Lafayette to propose him as a fellow-member of the same society.6 Madison, in the constitutional convention, earnestly opposed the section which delayed the prohibition of the slave-trade until 1808, saying, " Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution;"7 and in the Federalist his warm advocacy of the Constitution did
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1 Lecky's England, vol. vi. p. 220.
2 "It was once reported in the army that certain captured despatches from the General were found upon the person of a runaway slave belonging to him. Somebody mustered courage to ask Washington if this was true. 'Sir,' said the Chief, coldly, 'I never had a slave run away from me.' "—Century Magazine, vol. xxxvii. p. 850; infra, Chap. III. p. 267.
3 Bancroft, vol. vi. p. 179; Sparks, vol. ix. pp. 159, 164.
4 Sparks, vol. xii. p. 326.
5 Bancroft, vol. vi. p. 180; Sparks, vol. i. pp. 569, 570.
6 Letter of Lafayette to Hamilton, quoted by Greeley, American Conflict, vol. i. p. 51.
7 Life and Times of Madison, Rives, vol. ii. p. 449.

not forbid his saying that it would have been better to suffer the prohibition of the slave-trade to go into immediate operation.1 Franklin was President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, organized for promoting the abolition of slavery. Jefferson and John Adams had no part in framing the Constitution, for both were then serving their country at foreign courts; but, although soon to represent opposing political parties, they were at one on the question of negro servitude. Jefferson, in a letter written at about this time, expressing his ardent desire to see not only the slave-trade but also slavery abolished, laments that those whom he represents have not been able to give their voice against the practice.2 John Adams, through his whole life, had held slavery in such abhorrence that he had never owned a slave, though he had lived for many years in times when the practice was not disgraceful, and when the best men in his vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character.3

In 1790, during the second session of the First Congress, petitions from the Quakers of several States were presented, praying against the continuance of the slave-trade. The Pennsylvania Abolition Society, through its President, Franklin, earnestly entreated the serious attention of Congress to the subject of slavery; and further prayed "that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who are degraded into perpetual bondage . . . and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men."4 These petitions gave rise in the House of Representatives to a warm and at times excited discussion on the question whether the memorials should be received and referred to a committee. The burden of the argument against their reception was borne by members from South Carolina and Georgia, and was to
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1 Federalist, No. 42.
2 Jefferson's Works, vol. ii. p. 357.
3 Adams's Works, quoted by Greeley, American Conflict, vol. i. p. 52. 4 Benton's Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, vol. i. p. 208.

the effect that slavery, being commended by the Bible, could not be wrong; that the Southern States would not have entered into the Confederation unless their property had been guaranteed to them, and any action of the general government looking to the emancipation of the slaves would not be submitted to. South Carolina and Georgia, it was asserted, could only be cultivated by slaves, for the climate, the nature of the soil, and ancient habits forbade the whites from performing the labor; if the slaves were emancipated they would not remain in those States, and the whole of the low country, all the fertile rice and indigo swamps, must be deserted, and they would become a wilderness; furthermore, the prohibition of the slave-trade was then unconstitutional.

After several days' debate, in which the opinions of the North and those of South Carolina and Georgia clashed, Madison poured oil upon the troubled waters, saying: "The debate has taken a serious turn, and it will be owing to this alone if an alarm is created. ... If there was the slightest tendency by the commitment to break in upon the Constitution, he would object to it. The petition prayed in general terms for the interference of Congress so far as they were constitutionally authorized. . . . He admitted that Congress is restricted by the Constitution from taking measures to abolish the slave-trade. Yet there are a variety of ways by which it could countenance the abolition; and regulations might be made in relation to the introduction of them into the new States to be formed out of the Western territory."1

The memorials went through the usual legislative forms. It was finally resolved by the House that Congress could not prohibit the slave-trade until 1808, and that Congress had no authority to interfere in the emancipation of the slaves or in the treatment of them within any of the States.2 This last resolution is of great historic importance. While it had not the binding force of law, it has always been considered as
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1 Annals of congress, vol. i. p. 1246.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 1523.

an authoritative and just interpretation of the Constitution. The same principle was more than once afterwards reaffirmed by Congress, and no political party ever questioned the doctrine. The debate and resolution settled this point.1 In all the slavery agitation, this principle stood out with the force of a fundamental truth; and in our consideration of the subsequent history, it can never too often be called to mind that the political parties of the Northern States, and their senators and representatives in Congress, scrupulously respected the constitutional protection given to the peculiar institution of the South, until, by her own action, secession dissolved the bonds of union.

In 1793 the first Fugitive Slave law was passed. The circumstance that led to its enactment deserves notice. Three white men had kidnapped a free negro in Pennsylvania and taken him to Virginia. The governor of Pennsylvania asked the rendition of the kidnappers, which Virginia refused on the ground that there was no law carrying into effect the constitutional provision for the surrender of fugitives from justice. The governor of Pennsylvania then submitted the facts to President Washington, who brought them before Congress. The result was the passage of the act known as the Fugitive Slave law of 1793, the two first sections of which related to the surrender of fugitives from justice, and the two last to the rendition of fugitive slaves. As the proceedings of the Senate were secret, neither the nature of the discussion nor the difference of opinion elicited in that body during the consideration of the bill is known. It passed the House, however, without debate: seven votes only are recorded against it, and two of these were from the slave States.' 2
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1 "The introduction of the Quaker memorial respecting slavery was, to be sure, not only ill-timed, but occasioned a great waste of time. The final decision thereon, however, was as favorable as the proprietors of this species of property could well have expected, considering the light in which slavery is viewed by a large part of the Union."—Washington to David Stuart, June, 1790, Sparks, vol. x. p. 98.
2 See Fay House monograph, Fugitive Slaves, by Marion G. McDougall, and the authorities cited, especially State Papers, Annals of Congress, and Senate journals; Benton's Abridgment of Debates, vol. i. p. 417. Hildreth says: This act "at the time of its passage and for many years after attracted little attention." At a later period the provisions were denounced as "exceedingly harsh and peremptory," vol. iv. p. 406.

The invention of the cotton-gin, in the year 1793, was of far greater importance to the landed proprietor of negroes than the statutory provision for the recovery of fugitive slaves. As already noted, it was destined to develop Southern industry and foster slave labor more effectually than extreme pro-slavery legislation could have done, and to a wider extent than the most earnest abolitionist could have feared. The cotton plant was indigenous to America, and the climate of the Southern States was peculiarly adapted to its culture. But the great obstacle in the way of cotton-production was the excessive labor necessary to clear the cotton fibres from the seed. The complete separation of a pound of fibre was an average day's work; hence the great cost of preparing it for the market limited the growth of cotton to countries like India, where labor is very cheap. Whitney's invention wholly changed these conditions. By the use of his gin, one man was able to separate fifty pounds of cotton from the seed in a day, and in this way the development of a great agricultural industry was made possible.1 As cotton cultivation depended more on climate than soil, a large portion of the land between 36° north latitude and the Gulf of Mexico was well adapted to it. Whitney's invention came into use at an opportune time, for complaints had been made that rice and indigo, the staple products of South Carolina and Georgia, were hardly worth growing, on account of their extremely low price.2 Curiously enough, in this same year (1793) a protective duty of three cents per pound was placed upon cotton, the framers of the tariff little dreaming that this article was soon to become and long to remain our greatest article of export. Yet this is not more remarkable
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1 Whitney to Jefferson, November 24th, 1793, Memoir of Eli Whitney, Olmsted. For an interesting account of Whitney and his invention, see Greeley's American Conflict, and McMaster's United States.
2 Hildreth, vol. iv. p. 71.

than the seizure of eight bags of it in England, a few years before, on the ground that so great a quantity could not be supplied from the United States; and when Jay negotiated the treaty of 1794 with Great Britain, cotton was of so little significance that he did not know it was an article of export from his country.1 The production of cotton from 1791 to 1860 increased more than a thousand fold,2 and more than one half of the negro slaves were engaged in its culture.2 What, asked Webster, created the new feeling in favor of slavery in the South, so that it became an institution—a cherished institution—" no evil, no scourge, but a great religious, social, and moral blessing? I suppose this is owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the cotton plantations of the South. It was the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its labor."4

Among the Fathers were men who had a correct notion of the possible future growth of the country, but no one could have dreamed that one of the very first of those splendid mechanical inventions, which are justly our boast and pride, would have the effect of riveting more strongly than ever the fetters of the slave. No one could have imagined that economic conditions were destined to prevail that would bring to naught the moral and humane expectations of the wisest statesmen of the time. It is more than probable that the invention of the cotton-gin prevented the peaceful abolition of slavery. Rice, sugar, and cotton were, apparently, the only products for which slave labor was necessary; and sugar and rice, compared with cotton, were in
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1 Hildreth, vol. iv. p. 545; Webster's Works, vol. v. p. 338.
2 Production, 1791, 2,000,000 pounds; 1860, 2,154,820,800 pounds.
3 In 1850, according to De Bow, 1,800,000 of the 3,204,051 slaves were engaged in the cultivation of cotton. Compendium of Census, 1850; Olmsted's Cotton Kingdom, vol. i. p. 17. I have never seen any estimate for 1860, but the ratio, if changed, must have been greater, as the cotton crop of 1860 was more than double that of 1850: 1850, 2,445,793 bales; 1860, 5,387,052 bales.
4 7th of March, 1850, speech, Webster's Works, vol. v. p. 838.

significant products.1 Tobacco and grain could be cultivated with greater economy by freemen. Had it not been for the new cotton-planters' demand for negroes, which, for the border States, made slave-breeding a profitable industry, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky would have been reclaimed from slavery, and Missouri would not have been admitted as a slave State. The moral and political force of so much free territory would have confined slavery below the latitude of 36° 30', and the well-founded hopes of the framers of the Constitution might have been realized.

Cotton fostered slavery; slavery was the cause of the war between the States. That slavery is a blessing, and cotton is king, were associated ideas with which the Southern mind was imbued in the decade before the war. On the floor of the Senate it was declared that cotton had vanquished all powers, and that its supremacy could no longer be doubted. The leaders of the secession were confident that the influence of the great Southern staple would compel, if not acquiescence on the part of the North, at least recognition and open assistance from England.

The closing years of the eighteenth century need not detain us, although several warm debates on the slavery question took place in Congress, growing out of petitions that in different ways brought the national evil to the attention of Congress and the country.

In the beginning of the new century, President Jefferson effected the transfer of Louisiana.2 The possession of the mouth of the Mississippi River was a commercial necessity, and Jefferson showed wisdom in promptly seizing the opportunity presented by a fortunate combination of circum-
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1 In 1860, value of cotton production, $344,256,368; of rice, $7,242,324; of sugar, $20,761,485.
2 Louisiana comprised what is now the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, parts of Minnesota and Colorado, nearly all of Kansas and Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, part of Idaho, and the Indian Territory.

stances to secure the purchase of this magnificent domain from Napoleon, First Consul. During the negotiations and the ratification of the treaty, the question of slavery did not arise. The notion that this territory would be an accession of strength to the slave-power seemed not to occur to Jefferson, to his advisers, or to the ardent advocates of Southern institutions; and although opposition to the purchase was made by the Federalists, it was not on the ground that it would lead to the extension of slavery. Nor was this surprising. By this time all the States but South Carolina had prohibited the slave-trade.1 The year after the purchase of Louisiana (in 1804), New Jersey abolished slavery; she was the seventh and last of the original thirteen States to dedicate her soil to freedom. A conviction prevailed that the power of slavery was rapidly diminishing. Even John Adams, while President, had shared this belief.2 It might now have been possible to set apart to freedom, by solemn legislative act, the whole of the new territory, excepting that portion which afterwards became the State of Louisiana, where slavery existed and was protected by the treaty of cession. The Quakers petitioned that Congress would take measures to prevent the introduction of slavery into any of the territories of the United States, but the opportune moment for legislation to that end was not seized. The virtual understanding at the time the Constitution was framed, in regard to the prohibition of the slave-trade, was carried out. President Jefferson, in his annual message to Congress, December, 1806, said : " I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa,
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1 South Carolina had passed a law prohibiting the slave-trade, but afterwards repealed the act.
2 History of the United States, Schouler, vol. ii. p. 58.

and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe."1 Congress took prompt action. A bill to prohibit the importation of slaves after January 1st, 1808, was passed by the Senate, and, although its different provisions were the subject of considerable debate in the House, it was finally passed with only five dissenting voices. This was practical unanimity, as the senators who voted against the bill were from both free and slave States, and their objections were not to the principle of the act, but to matters of detail.

In bringing about this devoutly wished-for consummation, the abolition societies, which existed in all of the States as far south as Virginia, played an important part. Their meetings, their annual conventions, their memorials to Congress, their addresses to the country, were active agencies to foster right thinking and to encourage effective action respecting the slave-traffic. The first annual convention of these societies had proclaimed that "freedom and slavery cannot long exist together;" and, in the years that followed, their influence did much to effect the abolition of slavery in the States north of Mason and Dixon's line. With the prohibition of the slave-trade, however, it seemed as if their occupation was gone. The national conventions ceased, meetings were no longer, or rarely, held, and most of the societies died out.2 The first anti-slavery movement in the United States was no more. Virginia had by this time (1807) given up any immediate hope of becoming a free State; her interests, her sentiments, her social conditions, were gradually drawing her into unison and sympathy with her sister States farther south.

The question of the admission of Missouri made evident to the country the influence that the profitable cultivation of cotton had exercised on Southern opinion, and served as a measure of the radically divergent ideas of the North and
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1 Jefferson's Works, vol. viii. p. 67.
2 See note at the end of the Chapter.

the South. The opinion of the North on slavery was the same as at the adoption of the Constitution; that of the South had retrograded. Missouri was a part of the Louisiana purchase, and, having now a population of 56,000 freemen and 10,000 slaves, she desired recognition as a State of the Union. The usual form of bill was prepared; but when, during the winter session of 1819, it came to be considered in the House, Tallmadge, of New York, offered an amendment providing that the further introduction of slavery should be prohibited, and that all children born in the State after its admission into the Union should be free at the age of twenty-five. Since the organization of the government new States had been admitted from time to time, and by tacit agreement had entered in pairs, a free State and a slave State coming in at about the same time. Thus, Vermont and Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana, Mississippi and Illinois, had each been an offset to the other. Alabama was on the point of admission as a slave State, and the usage would require that another free State should be coincidently added to the Union. The North had been growing more rapidly than the South; in 1790 the two sections were nearly equal in population, but in 1820, in a total of less than ten millions, there was a difference of nearly 700,000 in favor of the North. Although the contest over Missouri took place in a House of Representatives based on the apportionment of the census of 1810, yet the Northern States, including Delaware, had a clear majority of twenty-nine members.1

Missouri had slavery, and was determined to keep it; and the supporters of the slave interest in Congress would not for one moment consent to a restriction which should create bars to the further increase of slaves within her borders. Tallmadge's proposed amendment, therefore, caused an exciting debate. Among the first to speak, vehemently opposing the restriction, was Henry Clay, Speaker of the
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1 There were 106 from the North, 2 of these from Delaware; and 77 from the South.

House, whose influence and power in the direction of affairs was great. None of his speeches on this subject have been reported; but from references made to them by his opponents we know that he denied the constitutional power of Congress to impose conditions on newly organized States in any way limiting their sovereign rights; that he contemptuously asserted that the anti-slavery men were troubled with negrophobia, and argued that by spreading slavery its evils might be cured, or at any rate palliated.1 One historian relates that Clay, almost with tears in his eyes, pressed the argument that the restriction of slavery would be cruel to the slaves. While it would not lessen their numbers, it would expose them, crowded together " in the old, exhausted States, to destitution, and even to lean and haggard starvation, instead of allowing them to share the fat plenty of the new West."2 This reasoning of Clay is the gist of the most weighty arguments relied upon by the opponents of the amendment; but they also urged that it was in violation of the treaty ceding Louisiana,3 and the territorial delegate from Missouri protested against the restriction as a shameful discrimination against Missouri, which would eventually endanger the Union.

The Northern members in favor of the restriction met the constitutional objection by pointing to the fact that the restriction imposed by the Ordinance of 1787 was a condition made by Congress precedent to the admission of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; denied that the amendment in any way violated the treaty with France; averred that slavery was a moral and political evil, and directly opposed to the assertion of our Declaration of Independence that all men are
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1 See Life of Clay, Schurz, vol. i. p. 179; Taylor's and Fuller's Speeches, Benton's Abridgment of Debates, vol. vi.
2 Hildreth, vol. vi. p. 664.
3 This argument, which reappears in 1850-60, is with force refuted by Justice Curtis in his opinion in the Dred Scott case. Life and Writings of B. R. Curtis, vol. ii. p. 300.

created equal, while it had only through necessity been tolerated by the Constitution. Tallmadge, who closed the debate, met the assertion of a Georgia member, that if the North persisted in the restriction the Union would be dissolved, by a fierce note of defiance;1 and he proceeded to delineate the evil of slavery with impassioned eloquence, calling it "this monstrous scourge of the human race," fraught with " dire calamities to us as individuals and to our nation." The speech produced a sensation, and under its influence the vote was taken. The Tallmadge amendment was passed by a vote of 87 to 76. The bill for the admission of Missouri as amended went to the Senate, which rejected the slavery restriction by the entire Southern vote, assisted by one senator from Massachusetts, one from Pennsylvania, two from Illinois, and two from Delaware.2 If all the senators from the free States had voted for the amendment, it would have been carried. Each House held tenaciously to its own ideas; and when adjournment came, March 4th, 1819, no agreement had been reached.

Then began a discussion which engrossed the press of the country, and prompted many public meetings. The legislatures of Northern States adopted resolutions protesting against the admission of Missouri unless the further introduction of slavery should be prohibited. Illinois and New England were alone officially silent, but public meetings were held all over New England—Boston being impressed by the eloquence of Webster—and they proclaimed in strong language the same sentiment. Virginia and Kentucky were equally zealous for slavery; Maryland agreed with Virginia, but a meeting of citizens in Baltimore, over which the mayor presided, petitioned Congress against the further extension of slavery. The legislature of the slave State of Delaware was on the side of freedom, but her senators and
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1 A portion of this speech is given by Hildreth, vol. vi. p. 665.
2 The vote was 22 against slavery-restriction, and 16 for it.

representatives did not by their votes give expression to the public will.

In January, 1820, the Senate resumed the consideration of the Missouri question, and for the first time in the history of the country its proceedings awakened more interest than those of the House. Hitherto it had been the debates of the representatives which had excited attention and educated public opinion. Indeed, during the first years of the government all the debates of the Senate were secret, and, though they had long since been open, sparkling contests did not take place in that dignified body, nor was that collision of mind with mind seen which is necessary to provoke general interest in legislative procedure. Madison never served in the Senate; he was an efficient worker in putting in motion the legislative machine of the new government, but his wise counsel and calm reasoning were heard in the House. In the House occurred the great debate on the Jay treaty, when Gallatin first appeared as a leader, and when Fisher Ames made the pathetic appeal in its favor that ranks among the remarkable efforts of American eloquence. John Randolph was in the House when he breathed out those invectives and gave free course to those sarcasms which have entitled him to a singular place in congressional history. Clay had been a senator for a portion of two terms, but he deemed it a welcome change to be elected to the House, and it was there that up to this time his public reputation had been made. Webster and Calhoun had been representatives, but it was after 1820 that Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were to make themselves and their Senate forever renowned. Nor was it surprising that the House should be the better arena for government by discussion. That body was not as large and unwieldy as it has since become, and its hall had not the vast proportions of the present chamber. The Senate had too small a number of members to be the almost ideal body of debate that it afterwards became; for at the organization of the government only twenty-two senators convened, and their deliberations savored rather of the cabinet than of the legislative body.1 But in the Senate of 1820, consisting of forty-four members, began that series of parliamentary efforts which in eloquence have never been surpassed.

The oration of William Pinkney, of Maryland, was the masterpiece of the session. He had served his country abroad with ability and honor, but had won his greatest renown at the bar.2 When Daniel Webster came to Washington to practise in the Supreme Court, Pinkney was the acknowledged leader of American lawyers, and this surpassing eminence he held to the day of his death, although his position began to be shaken after the Boston lawyer had made the great argument in the Dartmouth College case. Perhaps a perception of Webster's growing power and future rank led Pinkney to say to his friend and biographer that he "did not desire to live a moment after the standing he had acquired at the bar was lost, or even brought into doubt or question." 3 This great lawyer was as vain of a handsome face, accomplished manners, and an elegant dress as he was proud of his legal acumen. Clad in the extreme of fashion, he preferred to be regarded an idle and polished man of society rather than to be looked upon as what he really was, an unwearied student.4 Always preparing his speeches with the utmost care, writing out the showy passages and learning them by heart, rehearsing in private the
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1 North Carolina and Rhode Island were not represented at the first session of the first Congress.
2 "America never sent an abler representative to the Court of London." —History of the United States, Henry Adams, vol. vi. p. 21. Chief Justice Marshall remarked shortly after the death of Pinkney that Pinkney "was the greatest man he had ever seen in a court of justice." Tyler's Taney, p. 141.
3 Life of Pinkney, Wheaton, p. 179.
4 "William Pinkney, a large, handsome man and remarkable for his somewhat foppish dress, wearing, when I saw him, a white waistcoat and white top-boots."—Recollections of a Lifetime, S. G. Goodrich, vol. ii. p. 399.

appropriate gestures and rhetorical points, he sought to convey the notion that he spoke on the spur of the moment.

The speech of Pinkney, a labor of many weeks, was a reply to arguments that had been urged during the last session in favor of slavery restriction by the veteran Rufus King. King was not only the head of the anti-slavery party in the Senate, but the leader in the agitation that had spread throughout the country. He had made two speeches at the previous session, neither of which had been reported, but abstracts of them were published by the New York committee, and widely circulated as campaign documents. They had been potent agencies in arousing and educating Northern sentiment. Pinkney's speech was never printed,1 but from contemporary accounts we know that it was regarded as the most remarkable oration of this Congress, and by all odds the most effective reasoning on the Southern side. Benton speaks of it as a magnificent exhibition, the most gorgeous speech ever delivered in the Senate and the most applauded, and Clay thought it "a display of astonishing eloquence."2 It was the master effort of Pinkney's life. All of his auditors were impressed with a fine amplification of a passage in Burke's speech on "Conciliation with America," which afforded the orator an opportunity to make an adroit application of the warning of the English commoner, that the spirit of liberty was more high and haughty in the slave-holding colonies than in those to the northward. Pinkney made two speeches against imposing the restriction of slavery on Missouri as a condition for admission; the second speech, made also in reply to King, has been reported, and it gives us an idea of his florid eloquence and power of reasoning.
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1 For the first thirty-five years of the government, the debates of Congress were not reported verbatim, as they have been since. Pinkney preferred to rest his reputation on the sensation produced by the delivery of the oration, and did not prepare it for publication. Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 20.
2 Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 20; Private Correspondence of H. Clay, Colton, p. 61.

Having a fine command of language, acquired by the profound study of the accurate use of words, his oration is replete with classical and historical allusions, and the thought and language of it bear witness to hours spent with Milton.

With much force, Pinkney urged the Southern argument. States are sovereign, he maintained. If Missouri comes in with the restriction, it comes in shorn of its beams—crippled and disparaged beyond the original States—it is not into the original union that it comes. The original union was a union among equals; this would be a union between giants and a dwarf, between power and feebleness, between full proportioned sovereignties and a miserable image of power. Under the Constitution you have a right to refuse to admit a State; but if you admit it, you must do so on full and complete equality with the other sovereign States of the union; you must receive it into the actual union and recognize it as a parcener in the common inheritance, without any other shackles than the rest have, by the Constitution, submitted to bear.

Meanwhile the question had assumed a new phase. Maine, recently separated from Massachusetts, had applied for admission as a State. Senator Thomas, of Illinois, had introduced a proviso which prohibited slavery in that part of the Louisiana purchase which lay north of the latitude of 36° 30', except the portion included within the limits of the proposed State. This line was the southern boundary of Missouri, and the arrangement involved the admission of Missouri as a slave State. This was the famous Missouri Compromise. It was also understood that Maine should be admitted without opposition; and the parties to the bargain carried it through the Senate exactly as planned. Greater difficulty was encountered in getting the project through the House. But by the aid of eighteen Northern members, the slavery restriction was finally defeated; fifteen of them voted openly against it, while three absented themselves.1
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1 History of the United States, Schouler, vol. iii. p. 165.

The amendment prohibiting the introduction of slaves into Missouri was struck out by a majority of three,1 and after this action it became easy to pass the compromise, although thirty-seven extreme Southerners, under the leadership of John Randolph, did not give the scheme their votes.2 This epigrammatic statesman denounced the compromise as a "dirty bargain," and called the eighteen Northern members "dough-faces," a term abiding in our political vocabulary as long as the slavery question remained in politics.3

Yet the compromise did not settle the Missouri question. The constitution adopted in June, 1820, by the convention of Missouri forbade her legislature to interfere with slavery, and required it to enact laws prohibiting the immigration of free colored persons into the State. The House refused to admit her with these provisions in her constitution; but in the end the matter was compromised through the efforts of Clay, and Missouri became a State August 10th, 1821.4

Thirty-three years later, the provision of this act that prohibited slavery in the territory north of 36° 30' was repealed; and the history of the Missouri Compromise was then so falsely related and its historical meaning so perverted by the advocates of the repeal that two facts need to be distinctly and emphatically stated. First, the Missouri Compromise was a Southern measure. Its passage was considered at the time as in the interest of the South, for it gained immediately a slave State in Missouri, and by implication another in Arkansas, while the settlement of the northern portion of the territory was looked upon as remote. The North regarded the Missouri Compromise as a surrender, and of the fifteen representatives
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1 The vote was 90 to 87.
2 Schouler, vol. iii. p. 165.
3 Besides authorities already quoted, I have consulted Curtis's Life of Webster, Harvey's Reminiscences, and Carr's Missouri.
4 For a full account of this third Missouri controversy, see Schouler, vol. iii. p. 180; Life of Clay, Schurz, vol. i. p. 183; Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 8.

who voted against slavery-restriction, only three were returned to Congress.1

But the most important bearing of this controversy is that a very large majority of Congress, made up of Southern as well as Northern senators and representatives, went on record as averring that, by a true interpretation of the Constitution, Congress had power to prohibit slavery in the territories. Of greater significance even was the discussion of the question by the President and his cabinet. Monroe, a Virginian, before approving the act, asked his advisers "whether Congress had a constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory." John Quincy Adams, Crawford of Georgia, John C. Calhoun, Thompson of New York, McLean of Ohio, and William Wirt of Maryland, who composed the President's cabinet, "unanimously agreed that Congress have the power to prohibit slavery in the territories."2 We have seen that one of the first interpretations of the Constitution which had the seal of the House of Representatives was that Congress had no power to interfere with slavery in the States, and it was remarked that this principle had the respect of the North until the outbreak of the civil war. The historian would write a grateful page could he add that the doctrine of 1820, solemnly agreed to by representative men of both sections, had received equal respect from the South.

Impartial historians have affirmed, with satisfying reasons, that the Missouri Compromise was a political necessity in order to preserve the fraternal relations that should
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1 The debate in Congress and analyses of the votes fully support these statements; see also Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. i. pp. 5, 8. Benton's Abridgment of Debates, vol. vi., notes on pp. 333, 453; Hildreth, vol. vi. p. 694. A writer in the North American Review for April, 1820, said that the passing of the compromise was the first just cause of reproach on America for the toleration of slavery.
2 Diary of John Q. Adams, Memoirs, vol. v. p. 5; Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 141; Schouler, vol. iii. p. 167. On the action of Congress, see Benton's Abridgment, vol. vi., note on p. 367.

subsist between the members of a federal union.1 That harmony between the two sections was liable to be disturbed unless mutual concessions were made, cannot be denied. "This momentous question," wrote Jefferson from Monticello, "like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union."2 "The words civil war and disunion," wrote Clay, "are uttered almost without emotion;" 3 and Benton says, "Compromise views prevailed, and enabled the Union to be saved."4

A philosopher, admitting the compromise to be a political necessity, might nevertheless have feared, if he looked into the seeds of time, that this controversy began an irrepressible conflict. He must have noted that, since the adoption of the Constitution, slavery had gained in power through the development of the cotton-culture, the settlement of the Gulf States, and the pecuniary interest which Virginia and Maryland, having become slave-breeding States, now had in the spread of slavery. The changed conditions in Virginia had affected the opinions of the author of the Declaration
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1 Hildreth, vol. vi. p. 693; Schouler, vol. iii. p. 171; Life of H. Clay, Schurz, vol. i. p. 199.
2 Jefferson's Works, vol. vii. p. 159.
3 Clay's Private Correspondence, p. 61.
4 See also Senator Butler's remarks, February 24th, 1854. "History tells us, I know not how truly, that the Union reeled under the vehemence of that great debate."—Seward, February, 1860. Niles, however, though earnestly in favor of the compromise, "did not fear the dreadful things which some silly folks talked of," Niles's Register, vol. xix. p. 265; see also p. 371. Seward said, in September, 1860: "History says that the compromise of 1820 was necessary to save the Union from disruption. I do not dispute history nor debate the settled moral questions of the past. I only lament that it was necessary, if indeed it was so. History tells us that the course then adopted was wise. I do not controvert it. I only mourn the occurrence of even one case, most certainly the only one that ever did happen, in which the way of wisdom has failed to be also the way of pleasantness and the path of peace."—Seward's Works, vol. iv. p. 311.

of Independence, for he eagerly grasped at Clay's theory that the extension of slavery was far-seeing humanity. Spreading the slaves, he wrote, "over a larger surface will dilute the evil everywhere and facilitate the means of getting finally rid of it."1 Nor could Madison resist the enticing logic of the rising statesman; beginning now to admire, he came to revere Clay as the hope of the country.2 He wrote to Monroe "that an uncontrolled dispersion of the slaves now in the United States was not only best for the nation, but most favorable for the slaves also."3 It is worthy of observation that Clay and Pinkney, who began their political life with earnest efforts towards the abolition of slavery in their respective States, now led the opposition to the restriction of slavery; and that not a senator or Southern member of Congress had dared to vote on the side of freedom.4

The nullification trouble of 1832-33, although caused by the enactment of a high protective tariff, must claim our attention, for the reason that, in this controversy, two constitutional theories were developed, one of which was hugged to delusion by the South, while the other became the justification and incentive of the North to draw the sword. The obnoxious tariff, the "tariff of abominations," as its opponents called it, was enacted in 1828, and established a greater degree of protection to manufactures than had any previous revenue bill. Calhoun and the people of his State had formerly been in favor of the protective principle. But by this time the belief had become fixed that, as England was the largest purchaser of cotton, it was for the best interest of South Carolina to have English goods brought in free; or, if that were impracticable, to have duties imposed upon
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1 Letter of Jefferson to Lafayette, December 26th, 1820, Works, vol. vii. p. 193.
2 See article of George Bancroft on Henry Clay, Century Magazine vol. viii. p. 479.
3Writings of James Madison, vol. iii. p. 169.
4 Hildreth, vol. vi. p. 697.

them for the sake of revenue only. The Palmetto State had no manufactures, nor could she expect to build up any with her system of labor. Her interest being to buy manufactured articles as cheaply as possible, she could have no sympathy with legislation that had for its purpose the fostering of home industries. The favorite idea was to exchange cotton for English goods, with no restrictions whatever on this reciprocal trade. For the production of cotton slave labor was then thought to be necessary; and free trade and negro slavery, therefore, became associate and fundamental tenets in the South Carolina political catechism.

The enactment of the tariff of 1828 created great excitement in South Carolina, and public meetings were held all over the State, denouncing the law in unmeasured terms.1 Nullification was threatened, and, while the majority did not seem ready to take that step, the sentiment in favor of nullification simply needed a leader to give it shape and direction; and a leader was at hand in the person of the Vice-President, John C. Calhoun. His opinions marked him out for the guide of his native State. He had hitherto been intensely national in his feelings, and in favor of giving a liberal construction to the Constitution. "He is," wrote John Quincy Adams in his diary," above all sectional and factious prejudices, more than any other statesman of this Union with whom I have ever acted." He was then "a man of fair and candid mind, of enlarged philosophical views, and of ardent patriotism."2 But, according to the same keen observer, that was when Calhoun felt sanguine as to his prospects for the presidency;3 and this hope had a reasonable basis, for the Northern States in 1824 voted almost in a body for him for Vice-President. Even Webster at one time was strongly inclined to support him for the highest office in the country. In 1828 Calhoun had by no means renounced this ambition.
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1 See Niles's Register, vols, xxxiv. and xxxv.
2 Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, vol. v. p. 361.
3 Ibid., vol. vi. p. 7.

He was candidate for Vice-President on the same ticket with General Jackson; and for another term he hoped to have the influence of the great popular hero in favor of his own elevation to the higher place. He was now drawn in two directions—in one by the sentiment of his own State, in the other by his feeling of nationality and restless craving for the presidency. He would retain his support at the North, and yet he wished to lead the public sentiment of South Carolina. He was equal to the occasion. He did nothing until after election, when he had a handsome majority of the electoral votes for Vice-President; but in December the legislature printed a paper which he had prepared under the title of "The South Carolina Exposition and Protest on the Subject of the Tariff." This was a mild document, and merely a plain argument to show the great injury of a protective tariff to the "staple States;" and while the right of interposing the veto of the State is asserted, no threat is made, but, on the contrary, it is deemed advisable to allow time for further consideration and reflection, in the hope of a returning sense of justice on the part of the majority.1 After this deliverance the excitement in South Carolina subsided.

The next act of the drama took place in the national theatre. Desiring to know how the country would receive the bare doctrine of nullification, Senator Hayne was put forward to deliver the prologue, but Calhoun was the prompter behind the scenes. Hayne asserted that, in case of a palpable violation of the Constitution by the general government, a State may interpose its veto; that this interposition is constitutional, and the State is to be the sole judge when the federal government transcends its constitutional limit. The senator's speeches were not remarkable, and would never have been remembered, had not his most labored effort given Webster the occasion for one of those rare bursts of eloquence that astonish and delight the
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1 For a good abstract of this document, see Von Hoist's Calhoun, p. 76.

world. On the morning of the day1 when this masterpiece of American oratory was delivered, a fellow-senator said to Webster: "It is a critical moment, and it is time, it is high time, that the people of this country should know what this Constitution is” "Then," answered Webster, "by the blessing of Heaven, they shall learn this day before the sun goes down what I understand it to be."2 An abstract of this speech, which, as a literary production, has been compared to the oration of Demosthenes on the Crown, need not detain us. Webster's oration itself is familiar to students of American history, to lovers of English literature, and to all those whose admiration is kindled by eloquence in any tongues. Its famous peroration was soon declaimed from every college and school platform, and it still retains its place among such pieces of oratory by virtue of its earnest feeling and classic style. A large audience heard the speech, but the interest in the question was so great that the brilliant crowd that gathered in the Senate chamber was but a fraction of the people over whom his words were to have lasting power. He spoke to the whole country, and to the American people of future ages. The principles he laid down are fundamental truths. It took a long war to establish them; but now, sealed in blood, they are questioned by none save Southerners of the past generation.

That the argument crushed nullification was public opinion in the Northern, Western, and many of the Southern States.3 It settled the question for the moment, and probably would have done so for a generation had not there occurred about this time a complete change in the political fortunes of Calhoun. General Jackson quarrelled with him,4 and this blasted his hopes for the presidency. Adams called him "a drowning man." He no longer needed to halt between two opinions. He could abandon his national
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1 January 26th, 1830.
2 Life of Webster, Lodge, p. 178.
3 Life of Webster, Curtis, vol. i. p. 366.
4 Life of Jackson, Parton, vol. iii. chap. xxv.

ideas and devote himself to the seeming interests of his native State. His talents were well adapted to the work. The South had special interests based upon her peculiar system of labor. The North was growing much faster than the South, and the large immigration from Europe, just beginning, was being directed entirely to the free States. The South attracted none of this, for the reason that freemen would not work with slaves. The stubborn fact came home to every Southern politician that she was losing political power. A theory of the Constitution was therefore needed which should give the minority an absolute check on the majority. Calhoun was by nature and education as well fitted to construct a narrow and sectional hypothesis as Webster was adapted to elaborate a broad national one. After 1830, we look in vain to Calhoun for any exhibition of that pervasive patriotism that was so distinguishing a feature in the characters of Webster, Clay, and Jackson.

Calhoun now bent all his energies to the task, and worked out the fine-spun theory of nullification. He elaborated it in subtle language, and supported it by ingenious, metaphysical reasoning. Brave in the closet when developing his theories, on the stage of action he shrank from putting them in practice. He became a man of one idea; he lacked that commerce with the world which would have modified the opinions he elaborated in the study. "Calhoun is mind through and through," said Lieber;1 and Harriet Martineau was struck by his "utter intellectual solitude," by his harangues at the fireside as if he were in the Senate, and, observing that he was full of his nullification doctrine, wrote, "I never saw any one who so completely gave me the idea of possession."2 An impracticable theorist, he neglected the obvious application of his country's Constitution, of the constitutions of the different States, and of the English Con
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1 Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 123.
2 This was in 1836. Retrospect of Western Travel, quoted by Sumner, Life of Jackson, p. 284.

Constitution. In lieu thereof, he became such a student of Roman history and precedents that they became unconsciously in his mind examples for us; and he had the Utopian notion that the divided powers of the Roman Republic might be ingrafted on our own system. One of his admirers deplores that he was not a sounder constitutional lawyer.1

In 1832, Congress revised the tariff. The revision, in the opinion of Calhoun, caused "a small reduction in the amount of duties, but a reduction of such a character that while it diminished the amount of burden, it distributed that burden more unequally than even the obnoxious act of 1828."2 This was the year of the presidential election; but the contest between Jackson and Clay excited little interest in South Carolina, for there the controversy turned on nullification, and the struggle was for the control of the legislature. As it was conceded that the nullifiers would get a majority, the efforts of the Union men were directed to prevent then gaining two thirds of the legislature, which was necessary to authorize the calling of a convention. All agreed that the legislature could not declare a law of the United States unconstitutional and void; but this imposing act needed a convention with a fresh mandate from the people. Calhoun contributed powerfully to the success of the nullifiers, and the election resulted in their favor.3 A convention was called, and met in November. In it the aristocracy of the State was well represented; no abler body of men ever came together in South Carolina for a political purpose.4 The convention adopted the famous nullification ordinance, which declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 were "null, void and no law, nor binding on this State, its officers or citizens"; and that no duties enjoined by those acts should be paid or permitted to be paid in the State of South
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1 Memoir of R. B. Taney, Tyler, pp. 185, 186.
2 Speech of Calhoun in the Senate, February 15th, 1833.
3 Life of Calhoun, Jenkins, p. 243.
4 Life of Jackson, Parton, vol. iii. p. 457.

Carolina after the first day of February, 1833. This action was immensely popular in the state. The nullifiers were blatant and aggressive, and the respectable minority of Unionists were silent. Warlike preparations began to be made, medals were struck bearing the impress "John C. Calhoun, first President of the Southern Confederacy."1

Here was a great opportunity for President Jackson, and he comprehended it fully. His honest and wise action in this trouble is his best title to fame, and it overshadows his arbitrary acts and injudicious measures. Apprehending nullification proceedings, he had already sent secret orders to the collector at Charleston, that in case there should be a refusal to pay any duties, the cargo in question should be seized forthwith, and sold to pay the duty charges. He had also ordered General Scott to Charleston. The President's answer to the nullification ordinance was a proclamation, in which were blended appeal, argument, and warning; in all respects it was a dignified state paper, worthy of the country, whose good fortune it was to have a fit executive at so important a crisis. The proclamation began by refuting the right to annul, and the right to secede as claimed by the nullifiers; any such rights were inconsistent with the main object of the Constitution, which was "to form a more perfect union." It was admitted that the tariff act complained of did act unequally; but so did every revenue law that ever had been or ever could be passed. "To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation." In conclusion the people of South Carolina were plainly warned that in case any forcible resistance to the laws was tried by them, the attempt would meet the united power of the other states.2 Every important idea in this proclamation may be found in Webster's reply to Hayne.3 This shows
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1 Life of Jackson, Parton, vol. iii. p. 459.
2 Ibid., p. 468.
3 Everett's Memoir of Webster, prefixed to Webster's Works, p. cv.

what deep hold on General Jackson's mind this vigorous exposition of nationality had taken. The North received the action of the President with great enthusiasm, and party lines were forgotten in the patriotic sentiment which it aroused. Even in all of the Southern States except three, his determination to resist any overt act was generally approved. But in South Carolina the proclamation caused great irritation. The Charleston Mercury called it "a declaration of war made by Andrew Jackson against the state of South Carolina." He was compared as a usurper to Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte. The editor hastened to add he had none of their genius. "If the Republic," says the fiery writer, " has found a master, let us not live his subjects." The proclamation was received by the legislature in session at Columbia with scorn and defiance. One member said, "the principles thus avowed . . . were not less new and startling than was the mode of announcing them. Who and whose are we? Are we Russian serfs or slaves of a divan?" Another member believed that "the contest would end in blood. The document of the President was none less than the edict of a tyrant."1 These expressions were heard with undisguised approval, and the legislature asked the governor2 to issue a counter proclamation. He immediately complied with the request and published a pugnacious manifesto,3 ending with the exhortation to resist at all hazards the employment of military force by the President. The governor, moreover, called out twelve thousand volunteers.4

Meanwhile Calhoun had been elected senator, had resigned the vice presidency, and was on his way to Washington. His journey thither, says one of his biographers, "was like that of Luther to attend the diet at Worms.
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1 Niles's Register, vol. xliii.
2 The governor was Hayne, the apologist of South Carolina in the celebrated debate with Webster.
3 Parton, vol. iii. p. 470.
4 Life of Calhoun, Jenkins, p. 245.

Out of South Carolina public opinion was certainly against him; and only here and there did he find a good Freundsberg to whisper in his ear, 'If you are sincere and sure of your cause, go on in God's name, and fear nothing.'" 1 Calhoun was in his seat in the Senate and heard the message from the President asking additional powers for the enforcement of the laws made necessary by the action of South Carolina and her governor. A bill, called by its enemies the Force bill, giving the President the authority he wished, was reported without delay. The action of the President thoroughly frightened Calhoun.2 As Webster said of him, he had not seemed " conscious of the direction or the rapidity of his own course. The current of his opinion sweeps him along he knows not whither. To begin with nullification with the avowed intent, nevertheless, not to proceed to secession, dismemberment, and general revolution, is as if one were to take the plunge of Niagara and cry out that he would stop half-way down."3 It was brought to the knowledge of Calhoun that General Jackson had determined to take at once a decided course with him, and that the matter of his arrest for high treason was under serious consideration. 4 If the logic of his closet found no place for compromise, the logic of events demanded one very imperatively. By whom could it be brought about? There was one man whose wide influence, winning address, and skill in party management might effect a compromise; that man was Henry Clay. To him, therefore, although they had not been on speaking terms, Calhoun repaired.5 The result of one or more conferences and of mediation by mutual friends was a compromise tariff bill
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1 Life of Calhoun, Jenkins, p. 246.
2 Parton, vol. iii. p. 474; Benton, vol. i. p. 343; Curtis's Webster, vol. L p. 443.
3 Speech, February 16th, 1833. Works, vol. iii. p. 460.
4 Benton, vol. i. p. 343; Parton, vol. iii. p. 474.
5 Curtis, vol. i. p. 444; also see Benton, vol. i. p. 343.

which gradually reduced the tariff until, after a lapse of nine years, all duties should be diminished to the uniform rate of twenty per cent.1 Clay's action is comprehensible. The next Congress, most of which had already been elected, would certainly be in favor of radical revenue reform, yet its action might now be forestalled by a moderate decrease. To our generation this argument is not unfamiliar, as it has served a like purpose. To Clay, moreover, occurred the obvious consideration that in nine years a Congress devoted to protection might be elected which could alter the tariff at will.2 Besides, actuated by patriotic motives, he thought he was serving his country well in pouring oil into the inflamed wounds; his disposition to lead was mastering, and his animosity to Jackson was such that he did not wish the President to gain glory by the settlement of the trouble. Calhoun's course was a curious piece of inconsistency. The previous fall elections had decided that a better measure for South Carolina would pass at the next session, if the tariff were now left untouched. He had asserted in the strongest terms that a tariff for protection was unconstitutional and an inveterate and dangerous evil; yet Clay said of the compromise act, in open Senate, to Calhoun's face: "The main object of the bill is not revenue, but protection."3 Calhoun and the nullifiers nevertheless voted for the bill in all its stages,4 and before the close of the session it became a law. The reason for their action is apparent. Calhoun, his followers, and his State were in a predicament. Unless something should pass this Congress, they must retreat from their
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1 Tariff History of United States, Taussig, p. 110. The tariff of 1828 was equivalent to a 45 per cent, ad valorem tariff on dutiable articles, see Senate Report No. 2130, 51st Congress, 2d Session, p. 306.
2 See Taussig, note p. 112.
3 Benton, vol. i. p. 321.
4 "If this course does not prove that Calhoun was a 'coward and a conspirator,' it does prove, I think, that he was not a person of that exalted and Roman-toga cast which he set up to be, and which he enacted for some years with considerable applause."—Parton, vol. iii. p. 477.

position ignominiously or come into collision with the federal power, for it was quite plain the country would sustain the President. They were therefore ready to grasp at anything having the semblance of compromise, and Clay's project was now the best they could get.1

In the meantime the 1st of February had come, and the South Carolina people had decided to defer practical nullification until, at any rate, after the adjournment of Congress.

Webster would have nothing to do with the compromise. Clay had broached the matter to him, but he refused his support. "It would," he said, "be yielding great principles to faction; the time has come to test the strength of the Constitution and the government."2
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1 Benton, vol. i. p. 342.
2 For the secret history of this compromise, see Benton, vol. i. p. 342.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.1. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].