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

Chapter 1, Part 2: Webster and Calhoun through Slavery in the Territories

A few days after the compromise tariff was introduced occurred the debate on the Force bill in the Senate between Calhoun and Webster, in which the opposite theories of the nature of our government were maintained by their respective champions. "The people of Carolina," said Calhoun, "believe that the Union is a union of States and not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, and that the citizens of the several States were bound to it through the acts of their several States; that each State ratified the Constitution for itself, and that it was only by such ratification of a State that any obligation was imposed upon its citizens. ... On this principle the people of the State (South Carolina) . . . have declared by the ordinance that the acts of Congress which imposed duties under the authority to lay imposts were acts not for revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but for protection, and therefore null and void." "The terms union, federal, united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of States. . . . The sovereignty is in the several States, and our system is a union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitu-
tional compact, and not of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the United States."

Webster's answer was a piece of close and powerful reasoning,1 but not a magnificent flight of eloquence like the reply to Hayne. The speech contains hardly a classical allusion or historical illustration. Plain facts are dealt with, and, while the argument is clear enough to commend itself to an ordinary understanding, the chain of logic delights the profound student of constitutional law. "His very statement was argument; his inference seemed demonstration."2 He begins this speech of February 16th, 1833, by saying that he will endeavor to maintain the Constitution in its plain sense and meaning against opinions and notions which in his judgment threaten its subversion. "I admit, of course," he said, " that the people may, if they choose, overthrow the government. But then that is revolution. The doctrine now contended for is, that, by nullification or secession, the obligations and authority of the government may be set aside or rejected without revolution. But that is what I deny. . . . The Constitution does not provide for events that must be preceded by its own destruction. Secession, therefore, since it must bring these consequences with it, is revolutionary, and nullification is equally revolutionary. ... I maintain—

"1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, confederacy, or compact between the people of the several States in their sovereign capacities, but a government proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals.

"2. That no state authority has power to dissolve these relations; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution; and that consequently there can be no such thing as secession without revolution. . . .
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1 See Curtis, vol. i. p. 451.
2 Webster's remark of a noted New England lawyer, in his reply to Hayne.

The truth is, and no ingenuity of argument, no subtlety distinction, can evade it, that as to certain purposes the people of the United States are one people. . . . Sir, how can any man get over the words of the Constitution itself? —'We, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution.' . . . Who is to construe finally the Constitution of the United States? ... I think it is clear that the Constitution, by express provision, by definite and unequivocal words, as well as by necessary implication, has constituted the Supreme Court of the United States the appellate tribunal in all cases of a constitutional nature which assume the shape of a suit in law or equity." 1

These citations only give Webster's bare positions, but the proofs are irrefragable. The detailed arguments are no longer necessary to carry conviction; the statements themselves command unquestioned assent; but it was not so when Webster made this speech. He had the majority of the South against him, and not every one at the North was prepared to adopt his strong national opinions.2 But the greatest authority living, James Madison, in a letter congratulating Webster for his speech, agreed with the view he had taken of the nature of the government established by the Constitution.3

The justification alleged by the South for her secession in 1861 was based on the principles enunciated by Calhoun; j the cause was slavery. Had there been no slavery, the Calhoun theory of the Constitution would never have been propounded, or, had it been, it would have been crushed beyond resurrection by Webster's speeches of 1830 and 1833,
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1 Webster's Works, vol. iii., speech entitled "The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States."
2 See for example Memoirs of John Q. Adams, vol. viii. p. 526; North American Review, July, 1833. For comment on this debate from the Southern point of view, see War between the States, A. H. Stephens, vol. i. p. 387.
3 Memoir of Webster by Edw. Everett, prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. cvii.

and by the prompt action of President Jackson.1 The South could not in 1861 justify her right to revolution, for there was no oppression, no invalidation of rights. She could not, however, proclaim to the civilized world what was true, that she went to war to extend slavery. Her defence, therefore, is that she made the contest for her constitutional rights, and this attempted vindication is founded on the Calhoun theory. On the other hand, the ideas of Webster waxed strong with the years; and the Northern people, thoroughly imbued with these sentiments, and holding them as sacred truths, could not do otherwise than resist the dismemberment of the Union.

A few words will complete this notice of the nullification trouble. Clay's tariff act and the Force bill were passed almost simultaneously; they were actually signed by the President on the same day, and thus the compromise of 1833 was complete. The nullification ordinance of South Carolina was repealed by the convention in less than a fortnight after the adjournment of Congress in March.2

While this controversy was going on, William Lloyd Garrison began the abolitionist movement by the establishment of the Liberator at Boston, January 1st, 1831.3 Although
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1 March 21st, 1833, Jackson wrote a private letter to Buchanan, who was representing this country at St. Petersburg, in which he said: The public "saw that although the tariff was made the ostensible object, a separation of the Confederacy was the real purpose of its originators and supporters. The expression of public opinion elicited by the proclamation from Maine to Louisiana has so firmly repudiated the absurd doctrine of nullification and secession, that it is not probable that we shall be troubled with them again shortly." Life of Buchanan, Curtis, vol. i. p. 185.
2 The repeal is dated March 15th. Statutes of South Carolina, edited, under the authority of the legislature, by Thomas Cooper, M.D., LL.D., vol. i.
3 Benjamin Lundy had been an apostle of abolition some years previous to this, and his influence was powerful in the conversion of Garrison to the cause. There was, however, a lack of coherence in Lundy's efforts, so that for practical purposes the abolitionist movement may be said to date from the establishment of the Liberator.

he had for several years been advocating anti-slavery ideas, his denunciations of slavery had attracted as little attention at the national capital as Paul's preaching excited in the palace of the Caesars. At this time, in the slave States, the opinion prevailed that slavery in the abstract was an evil. Miss Martineau conversed with many hundreds of persons in the South on the subject, but she met only one person who altogether defended the institution. Everybody justified its present existence, but did so on the ground of the impossibility of its abolition,1 although forecasts were sometimes given of the position the South would in the future be forced to take. Senator Hayne, in the celebrated debate, argued that slavery in the abstract was no evil; but, in the course of the same discussion, Benton had addressed himself to the people of the North and with truthful emphasis assured them that "slavery in the abstract had but few advocates or defenders in the slave-holding states."2 The sentiment at the North was well portrayed by Webster in his reply to Hayne. "The slavery of the South," he said, " has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy left with the States themselves, and with which the federal government had nothing to do. ... I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral and political. But whether it be a malady and whether it be curable, and if so, by what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be the vulnus immedicabile of the social system, I leave it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and decide. And this I believe is, and uniformly has been, the sentiment of the North.'3

More than forty years had now passed since the establishment of the government. The hopes of its founders had not been realized, for the number of slaves was fast increasing; slavery had waxed strong and had become a source of great
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1 Society in America, Harriet Martineau, vol. i. p. 349. Miss Martineau was in the South in 1835.
2 Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 136.
3 Works, vol. iii. p. 879.

political and social power. While optimists, looking for a sign from heaven and a miracle, hoped that, by some occult process, the slaves would be freed voluntarily by the next generation, the abolitionists believed that reform from within the system could not be expected, but that its destruction must come from influences from the outside. The vital point was to convince the Northern people that negro slavery was a concern of theirs; that as long as it existed in the country without protest on their part, they were partners in the evil; and although debarred from legislative interference with the system, that was no reason why they should not think right on the subject, and bear testimony without ceasing against its hateful character.

The apostle who had especial fitness for the work, and who now came forward to embody this feeling and rouse the national conscience from the stupor of great material prosperity, was Garrison. Adopting the Stoic maxim, "My country is the world," he added its corollary, "My countrymen are all mankind," and with the change of my to our he made it the motto of the Liberator.1 In his salutatory address he said: "I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. . . . I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. ... I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard."2 In one of the succeeding issues he said: "Everybody is opposed to slavery, O, yes! there is an abundance of philanthropy among us. ... I take it for granted slavery is a crime—a damning crime; therefore, my efforts shall be directed to the exposure of those who practise it." 3 Soon the Liberator appeared with a pictorial heading that displayed
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1 Garrison claimed originality for the motto. See Life of W. L. Garrison, vol. i. p. 219. Seneca had said, "I know that my country is the world;" and Marcus Aurelius had written, "An Antonine, my country is Rome; as a man, it is the world." Quoted in Lecky's History of Morals, vol. i. p. 341.
2 Life of W. L. Garrison, vol. i. p. 225.
3 Ibid., p. 227.

the national capitol, floating from whose dome was a flag inscribed "Liberty;" in the foreground is seen a negro, flogged at a whipping-post, and the misery of a slave auction.1 This journal began in poverty; but in the course of the first year the subscription list reached five hundred.2 Garrison wrote the leading articles and then assisted to set them up in type and did other work of the printer.

In August of this year (1831) occurred the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia, which seemed to many Southerners a legitimate fruit of the bold teaching of Garrison, although there was indeed between the two events no real connection. But this negro rising struck terror through the South and destroyed calm reason. The leader, Nat Turner, a genuine African of exceptional capacity, knowing the Bible by heart, prayed and preached to his fellow-slaves. He told them of the voices he heard in the air, of the visions he saw, and of his communion with the Holy Spirit. An eclipse of the sun was a sign that they must rise and slay their enemies who had deprived them of freedom. The massacre began at night and continued for forty-eight hours; women and children were not spared, and before the bloody work was checked sixty-one whites were victims of negro ferocity. The retribution was terrible. Negroes were shot, hanged, tortured, and burned to death, and all on whom suspicion lighted met a cruel fate. In Southampton County, the scene of the insurrection, there was a reign of terror, and alarm spread throughout the slave States.3

This event, and the thought that it might be the precursor of others of the same kind, account for much of the Southern rage directed against Garrison and his crusade. Nor, when we reflect on the sparsely settled country, the
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1 Life of W. L. Garrison, vol. i. p. 232.
2 Ibid., p. 480.
3 An interesting account of the massacre, by T. W. Higginson, may be found in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. viii. p. 173. This article has been reprinted in the volume entitled "Travellers and Outlaws," by T. W. Higginson. See also History of the Negro Race in America, Williams, vol. ii. p. 88.

wide distance between plantations—conditions that made a negro insurrection possible—and when we consider what it was for planters to have hanging over their heads the horrors of a servile war, will it seem surprising that judicial poise of temper was impossible when Southerners discussed the work of Garrison. They regarded it as an incitement for their slaves to revolt. But they did injustice to Garrison, for Nat Turner had never seen a copy of the Liberator, and the paper had not a single subscriber south of the Potomac.1 Nor did Garrison ever send a pamphlet or paper to any slave, nor advocate the right of physical resistance on the part of the oppressed.2 He was a non-resistant, and did not believe that force should be used to overturn legal authority, even when unjustly and oppressively exercised. The assertion that slavery is a damning crime is one thing; the actual incitement of slaves to insurrection is another. The distinction between the two was not appreciated at the South. Stringent laws were made against the circulation of the Liberator, and vigilance committees sent their warnings to any who were supposed to have a part in spreading its doctrines. In North Carolina Garrison was indicted for a felony, and the legislature of Georgia offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the arrest and conviction of the editor or publisher.3 One voice went abroad from public officials, popular meetings, and from the press of the South, demanding that the governor of Massachusetts or the mayor of Boston should suppress the "infernal Liberator."

The people of Virginia had often struggled to free themselves from the coils of slavery, and the Nat Turner insurrection furnished the occasion for another attempt. At the following session of the Legislature a proposition was made to inquire into the expediency of some plan of gradual emancipation. In the debate that took place on the subject, the evil of slavery was characterized in terms as strong as an
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1 Life of Garrison, vol. i. pp. 239, 251.
2 Ibid., pp. 241, 247.
3 Ibid., p. 489.

abolitionist could have used. The alarm excited all over the South by the negro rising in Southampton County was not, one member explained, from the fear of Nat Turner, but it was on account of "the suspicion eternally attached to the slave himself—a suspicion that a Nat Turner might be in every family, that the same bloody deed might be acted over at any time, and in any place; that the materials for it were spread through the land, and were always ready for a like explosion."1

But a majority of the House of Representatives, in which the project was discussed, could not be had for ordering an inquiry, and the further consideration of the subject was indefinitely postponed. It has sometimes been asserted that had not the abolitionist agitation begun, this Virginia movement would have resulted in the gradual emancipation of slaves in that state; but there is, in truth, no reason for thinking that anything more would have come of it than from previous abortive attempts in the same direction. On many pages of Virginia history may one read of noble efforts by noble men towards freeing their State from slavery. But the story of the end is a repeated tale; the seeds sown fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them.

Meanwhile Garrison and his little band continued the uphill work of proselyting at the North, and especially in Boston. Merchants, manufacturers, and capitalists were against the movement, for trade with the South was important, and they regarded the propagation of abolition sentiments as injurious to the commercial interests of Boston. Good society turned the back upon the abolitionists. Garrison had no college education to recommend him to an aristocracy based partly upon wealth and partly upon culture.2 The churches were bitterly opposed to the movement. Oliver Johnson,
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1 For an abstract of this debate, see Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Wilson, vol. i. chap. xiv.
2 Life of Garrison, vol. i. p. 515.

one of the early disciples of Garrison, relates that several times his efforts were in vain to persuade some one among a dozen white clergymen of Boston to open an anti-slavery meeting with prayer, and he was in each case forced at last to accept the services of a negro preacher from " Negro Hill."1 The position of the church was well expressed by a noted clergyman, who attributed the sin of slavery to a past generation, and assigned the duty of emancipation to future generations.2 The abolitionists, however, gradually gained ground. The year 1833 was for them one of grateful memory. Then, at Philadelphia, the American Anti-slavery Society was organized by delegates who made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers.3 The Declaration of Sentiments, drawn up by Garrison, was a paper worthy of the earnest and intelligent people who were its signers. It referred to the immortal Declaration adopted in the same city fifty-seven years before, and, as the strongest abolition argument that could be made, quoted the phrase "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." It denounced slavery in vigorous terms, yet conceded that Congress had no right to interfere with it in the States; and while condemning the employment of material force in any way to promote abolition, the signers pledged themselves to use moral means, so far as lay in their power, to overthrow the execrable system of slavery. This was not an inflammatory and seditious appeal; the delegates were men of good character, pure morals, and were law-abiding citizens; yet it was necessary for the police to guard the convention hall against threatened mob violence. The meeting was regarded by all Southern people, and by nearly all at the North, in much
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1 Garrison and his Times, Johnson, p. 71.
2 Ibid., p. 109.
3 The number was between fifty and sixty, mostly young men. Life of Garrison, vol. i. p. 397.

the same way as we should now look upon an assemblage of anarchists.1

This year (1833) is also noteworthy as furnishing a fresh argument for the abolitionists. The British Parliament, influenced by a long course of agitation, emancipated the negro slaves in the West Indian colonies, so that henceforward freedom was the rule in all the vast colonial possessions of England, as it had been for years in the parent state.

At the same time, ambitious Southern politicians began to turn to their own advantage the anti-slavery agitation at the North. This did not escape the keen observation of Madison, who, though well stricken in years, was able to detect, from his country retreat, the reason of various moves in the political sphere of his native state, which had for their aim to make a unit of Southern opinion on the slavery question. "It is painful," wrote Madison to Clay in June, 1833, " to observe the unceasing efforts to alarm the South by imputations against the North of unconstitutional designs on the subject of the slaves."2 In a letter written more than a year later, he said that one could see from the Virginia newspapers and the proceedings of public meetings that aspiring popular leaders were inculcating the "impression of a permanent incompatibility of interests between the South and the North."3

Excitement about the abolition movement characterized the year 1835. Numerous public meetings and the press of the South demanded almost with one voice that the abolitionists must be put down or they would destroy the Union. A suspension of commercial intercourse with the North was
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1 A similar comparison suggested itself to Ampere in 1851: 1Les Etats & esclaves," he writes, " dfifendent avec passion, avec fureur, ce qui est k leurs yeux le droit de proprietg: les abolitionistes sont pour eux ce que sont les communistes pour les proprietaires francais."—Promenade en Amerique, vol. i. p. 48.
2 Madison's Works, vol. iv. p. 301. 3 Ibid., p. 358.

even suggested.1 The Charleston post-office was forcibly entered and a large number of tracts and papers sent there by the American Anti-slavery Society were seized; the next night these papers and effigies of Garrison and other abolitionists were burned in the presence of a large number of spectators.2 On a false alarm of a projected slave rising in Mississippi, several white men and negroes were hanged by vigilance committees.3 The wrath of the Southern people against the abolitionists was reflected at the North, and the feeling grew that the imputation of abolition ideas to the whole Northern community must be repelled. As the Liberator could not be suppressed, nor anti-slavery meetings prohibited by law, recourse was had to mob violence. Attacks upon abolitionists had previously been common, and this sort of warfare culminated in the year 1835. A ferocious anti-negro riot took place at Philadelphia.4 Rev. Samuel May, a devoted abolitionist and adherent of Garrison, was mobbed at Haverhill, Mass., the home of Whittier, and five times afterwards at different places in Vermont.5 A disgraceful anti-slavery riot occurred at Utica, New York. In Boston, on the same day, a mob, variously estimated at from two thousand to five thousand, including many gentlemen of property and influence,6 broke up a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-slavery Society. Garrison, one of the men against whom the mob directed its fury,7 had escaped from the hall in which the ladies were assembled, but he was seized and dragged bareheaded through the streets,
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1 Niles's Register, vol. xlix. pp. 73, 77.
2 Life of Garrison, vol. i. p. 485; Niles's Register, vol. xlviii. p. 403.
3 Niles, vol. xlix. p. 118.
4 Life of Garrison, vol. i. p. 485.
5 Recollections of the Anti-slavery Conflict, May, p. 152.
6 Life of Garrison, vol. ii. p. 11. It was one of the surprises of Harriet Martineau to learn that the mob was composed of gentlemen dressed in fine broadcloth. Society in America, vol. i. p. 129.
7 One great incitement to the mob was the supposed presence of George Thompson, a zealous and imprudent anti-slavery agitator from England.

subjected to indignity and insult, and his life was threatened. The mayor and police finally rescued him from the hands of the rioters, and put him in jail as a protection against further violence.

Yet the work of converting and creating Northern sentiment went on. In spite of misrepresentation, obloquy, and derision, the abolitionists continued to apply moral ideas and Christian principles to the institution of slavery. The teachings of Christ and the Apostles actuated this crusade,1 and its latent power was great. If one looks for its results merely to the numbers of congressmen chosen by the abolitionists, to the vote received by presidential candidates distinctively theirs, or even to the number of members enrolled in the anti-slavery societies, only a faint idea of the force of the movement will be had. The influence of the Liberator cannot be measured by its subscribers, any more than the French revolutionists of 1789 can be reckoned as of no greater number than the readers of "The Social Contract." If Rousseau had never lived, said Napoleon, there would have been no French Revolution. It would be historical dogmatism to say that if Garrison had not lived, the Republicans would not have succeeded in 1860. But if we wish to estimate correctly the influence of Garrison and his disciples, we must not stop with the enumeration of their avowed adherents. We must bear in mind the impelling power of their positive dogmas, and of their never-ceasing inculcation on those who were already voters and on thinking youths who were to become voters, and who, in their turn, prevailed upon others. We must picture to ourselves this process of argument, of discussion, of persuasion, going on for twenty-five years, with an ever-increasing momentum, and we cannot resist the conviction that this anti-slavery agitation had its part, and a great part too, in the first election
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1 The anti-slavery agitation is " probably the last great reform that the world is likely to see based upon the Bible and carried out with a millennial fervor."—Life of Garrison, vol. i. p. xiii.

of Lincoln. It was due to Garrison and his associates that slavery became a topic of discussion at every Northern fireside. Those who had heard the new doctrine gladly tried to convince their family and their friends; those who were but half convinced wished to vanquish their doubts or have put to rest the rising suspicion that they were partners in a great wrong; those who stubbornly refused to listen could not fail to feel that a new force had made its appearance, with which a reckoning must be made. Slavery could not bear examination. To describe it was to condemn it. There was a certain fitness, therefore, in the demand of the Southerners that the discussion of slavery in any shape should be no longer permitted at the North.

But in what a state of turpitude the North would have been if it had not bred abolitionists! If the abolitionists had not prepared the way, how would the political rising of 1854-60 against the slave power have been possible? It is true that many ardent Republicans who voted for Lincoln would have repudiated the notion that they were in any way influenced by the arguments of Garrison and his associates. And it is equally true that in 1835 the average Northern man satisfied himself by thinking slavery in the abstract a great evil, but that, as it existed in the South, it was none of his concern; he thought that " God hath made of one blood all nations of men" a good doctrine to be preached on Sunday, and "all men are created equal" a fit principle to be proclaimed on the Fourth of July; but he did not believe that these sentiments should be applied to the social condition of the South. But that was exactly the ground on which the abolitionists planted themselves, and, by stirring the national conscience, they made possible the formation of a political party whose cardinal principle was opposition to the extension of slavery, and whose reason for existence lay in the belief of its adherents that slavery in the South was wrong.

A shining example of the change that was beginning to be wrought in Northern sentiment is seen in Dr. Channing. In 1828 he wrote to Webster deprecating any agitation of the question. Our Southern brethren, he said, would "interpret every word from this region on the subject of slavery as an expression of hostility."1 He feared the agitation might harm the Union, and he loved the Union as Webster loved it. In 1835 he published a book on " Slavery," which, with the exception of the Liberator, is the most remarkable contribution of this decade to the cause of the abolitionists. The appearance of Dr. Channing in this arena was for him a notable sacrifice. The effective work of his life had been done. He had led to triumph a liberal religious movement, and he had a right to seek repose and shrink from another contest. He was now the pastor of a devoted and cultured society in Boston, and the most eminent preacher in America.2 Emerson wrote that his sermons were sublime,3 and James Freeman Clarke says that Channing spoke " with the tongues of men and of angels."4 He was one of the few Americans who had a literary reputation in Europe; and, while not as extensive as that of Washington Irving, it was, in the opinion of Ticknor, "almost as much so, and deservedly higher."5 A scholar and a student, he had projected a work on "Man," for which he had been gathering materials many years. The purpose of the book was an exposition of religion and philosophy, which he thought the world needed, and he expected it would be his literary monument.
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1 Webster's Works, vol. v. p. 366.
2 John Quincy Adams, on the death of Channing, wrote in his diary: "Dr. Channing never flinched or quailed before the enemy. But he was deserted by many of his followers, and lost so many of his parishioners that he had yielded to his colleague, E. S. Gannett, the whole care of his pastoral office, giving up all claim to salary and reserving only the privilege of occasionally preaching to them at his convenience. The loss of Dr. Channing to the anti-slavery cause is irreparable."—Memoirs of J. CJ Adams, vol. xi. p. 258.
3 Memoir of R. W. Emerson, Cabot, vol. i. p. 105.
4 Memorial and Biographical Sketches, p. 159.
5 Life of George Ticknor, vol. i. p. 479.

The scholar who puts aside his cherished investigation to engage in a practical work of duty that is foreign to his taste is an unobtrusive martyr; he deserves a place among those who have given up their dearest hopes for the real or fancied good of humanity. Dr. Channing made such a sacrifice when he gave the services and the high influence of his pen to the anti-slavery cause.

With a disposition to look upon the bright side of human nature, he was loath to admit to himself the graveness of the evil that afflicted the country he loved so well. His conversion was slow, but a winter spent in the West Indies revived his youthful antipathy to slavery. The influence of the Liberator, although the harsh manner of Garrison was a shock to his delicate nature, completed the change in his ideas that his own observations had begun. The final bent was given by a conversation with the Rev. Samuel J. May, a Garrison abolitionist and a Unitarian minister, who looked up to Channing as his spiritual leader.1

Dr. Channing's work on " Slavery" attracted wide attention, and might be found on many a parlor-table from which the Liberator was excluded with scorn. Many Southerners and nearly every prominent man in public life read it. A slave-holder in Congress declared that the slaves in the South knew that Dr. Channing had written a book on their behalf, and it was not long before the Southern aristocracy and their Northern partisans considered Channing a more dangerous man than even Garrison.

The justification of this little book of one hundred and fifty-nine pages may be summed up in the averment that "Slavery ought to be discussed. We ought to think, feel, speak, and write about it. But whatever we do in regard to it should be done with a deep feeling of responsibility, and so done as not to put in jeopardy the peace of the slave
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1 For this conversation, see Anti-slavery Conflict, May, p. 173; Life of Channing, p. 529.

holding states." The argument is an elaboration of the thesis: No "right of man in man can exist. A human being cannot be justly owned;" and the duty then incumbent upon Northern people is thus formulated: "Our proper and only means of action is to spread the truth on the subject of slavery”

If slavery were wrong, the only valid objection to discussing it lay in the possibility that the agitation might excite servile insurrection. This argument appears and reappears in Congress, in the press and the pulpit of the time. Dr. Channing addressed himself with success to the refutation of this reasoning, and the course of events proved that his position was well taken. From Nat Turner's to John Brown's, a period of twenty-eight years, no slave insurrection gathered to a head; and both of these were, in their immediate physical results, insignificant. The first revolt was, as we have seen, contemporaneous with the inception of the abolition movement. The John Brown invasion, in no way a rising of slaves, occurred after the moral agitation had accomplished its work, and when the cause had been consigned to a political party that brought to a successful issue the movement begun by the moral sentiment of the country. A potent influence of Dr. Channing's book lay in the fact that he had little sympathy with Garrison's methods, and represented a different range of sentiment; and he was apparently not aware how much he had been influenced by the abolitionist agitation. Channing, like Emerson, would never have initiated a movement of this kind. They were apostles of an advanced religion and philosophy, but they loved the tranquillity of culture, and could not play the part of violent iconoclasts. They were optimists; they were not aggressive natures; they were not the sort of men to whom would come, as a call from on high, the burning conviction that the times were out of joint, and they must go to work and set them right. Emerson, with the abolitionists in his mind, said that "the professed philanthropists are an altogether odious set of people, whom one would shun as the worst of bores and canters."1 But his respect for Garrison grew with his knowledge, and he wittily said of this chief agitator and of the men who threw themselves unhesitatingly into the contest, that "they might be wrong-headed, but they were wrong-headed in the right direction."2

We must now turn our eyes towards the national capital. There the abolitionists had made themselves felt. Since the settlement of the Missouri controversy the subject of slavery had hardly been alluded to in Congress, but in 1835 it was brought before that body by the first reference made in a President's message to abolitionism. General Jackson called attention to the transmission through the mails of "inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the slaves, in prints and in various sorts of publications, calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of a servile war;" and he suggested the propriety of passing such a law as would prohibit, under severe penalties, this practice. The result of the consideration of this part of the message was a bill, reported by Calhoun from a special committee of which he had been made the chairman, subjecting to penalties any postmaster who should knowingly receive and put into the mail any publication or picture touching the subject of slavery, to go into a state or territory in which the circulation of such documents should be forbidden by the state or territorial laws. Benton, in a speech in the Senate, described a print that had been sent to him, and which was a sample of what were in circulation. It represented "a large and spreading tree of liberty, beneath whose ample shade a slave-owner was at one time luxuriously reposing, with slaves fanning him; at another, carried forth in a palanquin, to view the half-naked laborers in the cottonfield, whom drivers with whips were scourging to the task." 3 Calhoun supported his bill by the argument that
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1 Memoir of R. W. Emerson, Cabot, vol. ii. p. 427.
2 Ibid., p. 480.
3 Thirty Years' View, Benton, vol. i. p. 577.

had now become usual with him: If Congress would not do what it lawfully could to stop the work of the abolitionists, the Union would be in danger, and the South would have recourse to nullification, which, he asserted, had been carried into practice successfully on a recent occasion by the gallant state he had the honor to represent. Clay opposed the bill, and Webster made a strong argument against it, taking the broad ground that it would conflict with the liberty of the press. After three tie votes in different parliamentary stages of the bill, it was defeated by a majority of six.

The important consideration now to be observed is the great change in Southern sentiment regarding slavery. Silent and unseen forces had been at work revolutionizing public opinion,1 and their result was now manifest. Governor McDuffie, in his message to the South Carolina legislature, said, "Domestic slavery is the corner-stone of our republican edifice;" and Calhoun, two years later, averred in open Senate that slavery is a good, a positive good.2 William Gilmore Simms, the poet and novelist, whom the Southern people delighted to read and honor, could not in 1852 felicitate himself too highly that he had fifteen years previously been one of the first to advocate that slavery was "a great good and blessing."3 At the birth of the nation, as we have seen, the difference of opinion on the subject between the North and the South was not great, but opinions had moved on divergent lines. If we seek to apportion the blame for this increasing irritation, we have an impartial witness, Senator Thomas Benton, of Missouri. A student of books, but pedantic, ostentatious, and inapt in the use of learning, Benton was still a profound observer of men, an honest man, and a loyal citizen. He loved the
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1 See Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, vol. v. p. 10 et seq.
2 Calhoun's Works, vol. ii. p. 631.
3 Pro-slavery Argument, Charleston, Walker, Richards & Co., 1852, p. 178.

Union, he hated nullifiers and abolitionists. He approved of the Northern mobs that had "silenced the gabbling tongues of female dupes and dispersed the assemblages, whether fanatical, visionary, or incendiary."1 He was withal a slaveholder, and represented a slave holding state. "From the beginning of the Missouri controversy up to the year 1835," he writes, "the author of this view looked to the North as the point of danger from the slavery agitation; since that time he has looked to the South for that danger, as Mr. Madison did two years earlier.2

Meanwhile, a champion for the abolition cause appeared in the House of Representatives in one who had gained reputation in the field of diplomacy, whose many years as Secretary of State had caused to shine more brightly the lustre he had acquired abroad, who had served with honor one term as President, but to whose destiny it fell to win his greatest renown and to render the country his greatest service in the popular branch of Congress. This was John Quincy Adams. He had from time to time presented petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and they had gone through the usual parliamentary forms without remark. But they were coming too thick and fast for Southern sentiments, and in January, 1836, when Adams presented a petition in the usual language, a member from Georgia moved that it be not received. A heated discussion of some days followed, and months were spent in the concoction of a scheme by which these abolition ideas might be excluded from the halls of Congress. The result was the adoption of the famous gag rule. This provided that whereas the agitation of the subject was disquieting and objectionable, "all petitions, memorials, resolutions, or papers relating in any way, or to any extent whatsoever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred,
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1 Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 579.
2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 623.

be laid upon the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon." 1

This, for the Southern leaders, was the beginning of the madness that the gods send upon men whom they wish to destroy; for, instead of making the fight on the merits of the question, they shifted the ground. Had they simply resisted the abolition of slavery in the District, the vast preponderance of Northern sentiment would have been with them; but, with a fatuitous lack of foresight, they put Adams in a position where his efforts in the anti-slavery cause were completely overshadowed in his contest for the right of petition. At each session of Congress, "the old man eloquent,"2 for he had gained this name, presented petition after petition for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and each time they were disposed of under the gag rule.3 The anti-slavery people of the country, fully alive to the fact that a representative had appeared who would present such prayers, busied themselves in getting up and forwarding to him petitions, and those he presented must be numbered by thousands, and they were signed by 300,000 petitioners. 4 Never had there been such a contest on the floors of Congress. One man, with no followers and no adherents, was pitted against all the representatives from the South. It was a contest that set people to thinking. The question could not fail to be asked, If the slave power now demand that the right of petition must be sacrificed, what, will be the next sacred republican principle that must be givin up in obedience to its behests? Yet the merchants and manufacturers of Boston had no sympathy with the efforts of Adams; they did not approve of his stirring up the question. But the district
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1 Life of John Quincy Adams, Morse, p. 251.
2 "That grand old man," W. H. Seward called him. Life of Seward, vol. i. p. 713.
3 This rule was not repealed until December 3d, 1844.
4 Schouler, vol. iv. p. 302.

he represented was the Plymouth, and, true to the sacred memories of freedom its name suggests, its voters sent him for eight successive terms to the House, and he died there with the harness on his back.1

Adams was a master of sarcasm and invective, and his use of these weapons of argument was unsparing and effective. A man without friends, his enemies were many. While not an orator in the highest sense of the term, he was ever ready to speak, and kept a cool head in the midst of the heat and excitement that his efforts always aroused. His is a character on whom the historian would fain linger, is honesty of purpose and fearless bearing atone manifold for his cold heart and repellent exterior. It is not given us to see many public men as we see John Quincy Adams. In his famous diary he jots down his impressions of men and events, and discloses his inmost thoughts and feelings. His record is a crucial test of character. No one can rise from a perusal of that diary without an increased feeling of admiration for the man. We may discern foibles we had not looked for, but we see with greater force the virtues. The honesty, the sincerity and strength of character give us a feeling of pride that such a man was an American.

While Adams appeared with a bold front in public, he was in reality torn by conflicting emotions. He confides to his diary: "The abolitionists generally are constantly urging me to indiscreet movements which would ruin me, and weaken and not strengthen their cause. My own family, on the other hand, exercise all the influence they possess to restrain and divert me from all connection with the abolitionists and their cause. Between these adverse impulses my mind is agitated almost to distraction. The public mind in my own district and State is convulsed between the slavery and abolition questions, and I walk on the edge of a precipice in every step that I take."2 Another entry
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1 An interesting account of this work of Adams may be found in chap, iii. of Life of J. Q. Adams, by Morse, which I have freely used.
2 Entry in diary, September 1st, 1837, Memoirs, vol. ix. p. 365.

made in the diary in the same year is a faithful representation of the state of public opinion on what had now become the all-absorbing question. "It is also to be considered," he wrote, "that at this time the most dangerous of all the subjects for public contention is the slavery question. In the South it is a perpetual agony of conscious guilt and terror, attempting to disguise itself under sophistical argumentation and braggart menaces. In the North the people favor the whites and fear the blacks of the South. The politicians court the South because they want their votes. The abolitionists are gathering themselves into societies, increasing their numbers, and in zeal they kindle the opposition against themselves into a flame; and the passions of the populace are all engaged against them."1

In 1837, Webster, in a speech at New York, described the anti-slavery sentiment of the country in felicitous words. "The subject" (of slavery), said he, "has not only attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious feeling of the country; it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised.2 It no longer required the martyr spirit to be an abolitionist in the eastern part of the country, and yet there were few accessions from the influential part of the community. It was an affair of great moment, when Wendell Phillips and Edmund Quincy, representatives of the wealth, culture, and highest social position of Boston, joined the anti-slavery society. Wendell Phillips became an abolitionist from seeing Garrison dragged through the streets of Boston by a mob; and Quincy's action was decided by the martyrdom of Lovejoy, who persisted in publishing an
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1 Entry, April 19th, 1837, Memoirs, vol. ix. p. 349.
2 Life of Webster, Curtis, vol. i. p. 560.

anti-slavery paper at Alton, 111., and was shot down by a pro-slavery mob.

In 1838, Calhoun averred that the abolition "spirit was growing, and the rising generation was becoming more strongly imbued with it."1 His colleague, Senator Preston, alarmed at the increasing power of the movement, declared from his seat in the Senate that if they could catch an abolitionist in South Carolina, they would try him and hang him.2 Yet the road to political preferment was not through sympathy with the abolitionists. Clay, anxious for the presidential nomination of 1840, took occasion to place upon record his opinion of these agitators.3 He abused them roundly, denounced their methods, and said that a single idea had taken possession of their minds, which they pursued, "reckless and regardless of all consequences." They were ready to hurry us down "that dreadful precipice" to "civil war, a dissolution of the Union, and the overthrow of a government in which are concentrated the fondest, hope of the civilized world."4 When Clay had finished, Calhoun rose and commended highly the Kentucky senator for his change of opinion on slavery. A biographer of Clay considers it probable that this speech was carefully prepared, and submitted before delivery to Senator Preston for approval, and it was in reference to the thoughts he therein formulated that Clay gave utterance to the well-known saying, "I trust the sentiments and opinions are correct; I had rather be right than be President."5

"The most angry and portentous debate which had yet taken place in Congress" on slavery occurred in 1839, in the House of Representatives.6 The slavery question could
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1 Thirty Years' View, Benton, vol. ii. p. 135.
2 Life of Garrison, vol. ii. p. 247.
3 In the Senate, February, 1839.
4 Thirty Years' View, Benton, vol. ii. p. 155.
5 Life of Clay, Schurz, vol. ii. p. 169 et ante.
6 Thirty Years’ View, Benton, vol. ii. p. 150.

no longer be shut out from the halls of the national legislature. The abolitionists had now begun to take political action; this was the reason why Clay spoke with such vehemence against them, and it tended to intensify the excitement each time that the subject was broached in either the House or the Senate. For more than a year they had adopted the system of putting questions to candidates, congressional and local, demanding an expression of opinion on the vital question; and, guided by these declarations of sentiments, the abolitionist vote was beginning to have in some states an important influence on the result of elections. In 1840 a division in the ranks of the abolitionists took place, arising out of a difference of opinion regarding political action. Many of them thought they should take a part in active political life, and even form a political party, while others, headed by Garrison and Phillips, held that the movement ought to remain purely moral, and they should only use moral means for the accomplishment of their ends. Garrison never voted but once, and Wendell Phillips never voted.1 The separation into two factions is a proof of the growing power of the abolitionists, for as long as all hands were raised against them, perfect harmony existed in their ranks. Dissension, or rather division, came with prosperity; there were now two thousand anti-slavery societies with a membership of 200,000.2 This was the acme of the moral movement. The Liberator, indeed, continued to appear weekly, but its denunciations of the slave power were accompanied by criticisms of the opposing faction. In the next decade the Garrison abolitionists suffered loss of influence by advocating disunion as a remedy. Failing to appreciate the love for the Union and reverence for the Constitution that prevailed among the mass of the Northern people, they adopted the motto, "No union with slaveholders," and proclaimed the Constitution "a covenant with
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1 Life of Garrison, vol. i. p. 455; Life of Wendell Phillips, Austin, p. 5.
2 Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Wilson, vol. i. p. 186.

death and agreement with hell."1 Many years afterwards Garrison virtually admitted his mistake, saying that " when he pledged himself to fight against the covenant with death and agreement with hell, he did not think that he should live to see death and hell secede from the Union." 2

The muse of history has done full justice to the abolitionists. Among them were literary men, who have known how to present their cause with power, and the noble spirit of truthfulness pervades the abolition literature. One may search in vain for intentional misrepresentation. Abuse of opponents and criticism of motives are common enough, but the historians of the abolition movement have endeavored to relate a plain, honest tale; and the country has accepted them and their work at their true value. Moreover, a cause and its promoters that have been celebrated in the vigorous lines of Lowell, and sung in the impassioned verse of Whittier, will be of perennial memory. Lowell's tribute to Garrison, as the "poor, unlearned young man," toiling over his types, "friendless and unseen," while yet through his efforts "the freedom of a race began," fixes his place in history. Whittier repels the charge against Garrison that he is "rash and vain," "a searcher after fame;" the poet has known the agitator well, has read "his mighty purpose long," and nothing can "dim the sunshine of my faith and earnest trust in thee." Praise like this is more than mere poetry for the moment; it is the deep, earnest conviction of men of high character.3

The story of the annexation of Texas and the conquest of New Mexico and California is not a fair page in our history. The extension of our boundary to the Rio Grande, and the rounding of our Pacific possessions by the acquisition of California, gave symmetrical proportions to our territory, and
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1 Garrison and his Times, Johnson, pp. 340-342.
2 Ibid., p. 347.
3 "Garrison was the courageous and single-minded apostle of the noble body of abolitionists."—Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, p. 268.

this consideration has induced many writers to justify the winning of this domain.1 But in pondering the plain narrative of these events, more reason for humiliation than pride will be found.

Texas, a part of the Mexican republic, was settled by hardy adventurers from our southwestern States, who, despite the fact that Mexico had abolished slavery by presidential decree, took with them to the new country their slaves. The Americans, after their arrival, paid no attention to the prohibition of slavery, and the Mexican government, in the interest of peace, allowed an interpretation of the edict that excluded Texas from its operation. But there were no sympathetic relations between the Texans and Mexicans. The difference between the Spanish and English nationalities, between Continental and English institutions, between the Catholic and Protestant religions, was too great for the hope that any union could exist between the two peoples. Texas had with the province of Coahuila been constituted one state by the Mexican Constitution of 1827. This was not satisfactory to the Texans, who demanded autonomy. This demand caused constant friction between them and the central government, and finally resulted in an attempt of the President, Santa Anna, to enforce obedience by military authority, and Texas rebelled. The Texans were victorious in the decisive battle of San Jacinto in 1836, and gave the world evidence that they were able to establish a government de facto.2 The independence of Texas
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1 Emerson had remarkable foresight. In 1844 he wrote in his diary: "The question of the annexation of Texas is one of those which look very differently to the centuries and to the years. It is very certain that the strong British race, which have now overrun so much of this continent, must also overrun that tract and Mexico and Oregon also; and it will in the course of ages be of small import by what particular occasions and methods it was done."—Memoir of R. W. Emerson, Cabot, vol. ii. p. 576.
2 President Jackson had tried to buy Texas, and, failing in that, had, according to John Q. Adams, engaged in a plot with his friend Houston for the revolt of Texas and for bringing her into the Union. See Schouler, vol. iv. p. 251.

was recognized by the United States in 1837, and soon after by England, France, and Belgium. In the Senate debate on the subject, Calhoun avowed that he was not only in favor of the recognition of the new republic as an independent nation, but he desired the admission of Texas into the Union. This project soon came to have warm advocates, and attracted so much attention that Webster deemed it incumbent on him to express an opinion on the matter in a set speech delivered in New York City. "Texas," said he, "is likely to be a slave-holding country, and I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do anything that shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent or add other slave-holding states to the Union. When I say I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use language which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of slave-holding states. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further extension. ... In my opinion, the people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a new, vastly extensive, slave-holding country. ... In my opinion, they ought not to consent to it." 1

This was the general feeling at the North. Webster was an exponent of the principles of the Whig party, and the action of President Van Buren later in the same year makes it apparent that the Northern Democrats were opposed to annexation. The Texan envoy at Washington broached the project to the President, but after careful consideration he declined the proffer, giving for an ostensible reason that as Mexico and Texas were at war, the incorporation of Texas into the Union would imply a disposition on our part to espouse her quarrel with Mexico. In the next year, the Senate was applied to, but that body, by a decisive majority, refused to take any step towards annexation.
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1 Speech at Niblo's Saloon, New York City, March, 1837, Webster's Works, vol. i. p. 356.

Owing to these rebuffs, the question slept until 1843. Meanwhile Harrison had been elected President, had died, and had been succeeded by John Tyler, who, though formerly a Democrat, had become a Whig and was chosen Vice-President. He had not been long in the presidential chair when it was evident that he leaned towards the party of his first love; and when he came into conflict with the Whig party, where its fundamental principles were involved, all the members of the original cabinet resigned except Webster, who retained the portfolio of State for the reason that he was engaged in the negotiation of an important treaty with England. He remained in the cabinet until he and Lord Ashburton had agreed upon the treaty of Washington ; and he still lingered until it had been ratified by both governments, and Congress had passed laws carrying it into effect.1 The position, however, became distasteful to him, owing to the quarrel between the President and the Whigs, and in the spring of 1843 he resigned. By this time Tyler had become committed to Texas annexation, and, as he knew Webster was opposed to it, he gladly accepted the resignation.2 A short time afterwards Upshur, of Virginia, who was ardently in favor of the Texas project, became Secretary of State. In the summer of 1843 the intrigue began. Congress was not in session. The President, Upshur, and the Southern schemers could pursue their machinations almost unnoticed. On the assembling of Congress, in December, 1843, the scheme began to develop. As Benton had strong national sentiments, as he had been opposed to the retrocession of Texas,3 and was a true embodiment of the boundless spirit
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1 Life of Webster, Lodge, p. 259; Life of Crittenden, Coleman, vol. i. p. 205.
2 The President had broached the subject tentatively to Webster in a letter dated October 11th, 1841. Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 126. I do not know what reply, if any, was made to this communication. Bee Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, vol. xi. p. 347; also Schouler, vol. iv. pp. 437,447, note.
3 Texas had generally been considered as included in the Louisiana

of the West, the project was opened to him. But the intriguers had not reckoned wisely on the man, for Benton told them he believed their scheme was, on the part of some, a presidential intrigue against Van Buren and a plot to dissolve the Union, and on the part of others a Texas scrip and land speculation, and he was against it.1 These motives had their share, but the consideration above all others that prompted the Southern faction was the desire to restore, by an accession of slave territory, the balance of power lost by the gain in population at the North. If four slave states could be carved out of Texas, the South might retain her control of the Senate, although she had lost the House.

In this same winter, Webster, though not at that time in public life, got an inkling, while at Washington attending the Supreme Court, of the negotiations the administration were carrying on with Texas. "I was astounded," he said, "at the boldness of the government." 2 Tyler was a liberally educated gentleman, of good birth, fine breeding, and graceful manners, but of moderate capacity and narrow ideas; yet he had a certain dogged persistence and audacity that sometimes take the place of ability. The President did not advocate the annexation of Texas, however, for the reason that it would augment the slave power. He thought that he took a broad national view of the subject, and not a narrow sectional one. "The monopoly of the cotton plant," he afterwards wrote, "was the great and important concern;" and he said that Calhoun could see the Texas projectonly in its bearing on the extension of slavery. "That idea," he wrote, "seemed to possess him and Upshur as a single idea."3

On February 28th, 1844, occurred a distressing accident, purchase, but in the treaty with Spain for the acquisition of Florida it had been ceded to Mexico, then belonging to Spain, by the administration of Monroe.
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1 Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 588.
2 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 232.
3 Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 483. See also p. 126.

the results of which were to hasten the execution of the annexation treaty with Texas that had already been prepared.' The President, a party of officials, and friends were assisting as spectators at the trial of a new piece of ordnance on board of the man-of-war Princeton, when the bursting of the big gun "Peacemaker" killed several persons, among whom was Upshur, the Secretary of State. Passing the night after the accident in deep reflection, Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, a confidential friend of the President, whose eagerness for the annexation of Texas went beyond bounds, came to the conclusion that the man of all others to drive the project forward was Calhoun. Repairing to the White House in the early morning, while the President was still a prey to the painful emotions excited by the previous day's occurrence, Wise actually browbeat Tyler into the appointment of Calhoun as Secretary of State.2 Calhoun became the master spirit of the cabinet. The man of one idea, and that idea the extension of slavery, had a large share of executive direction. The annexation project no longer lagged; it galloped towards consummation. Calhoun was appointed and confirmed March 6th (1844). On April 11th, although Mexico was at peace with us, he complied with a request, made some months previously, and promised to lend our army and navy to the President of Texas to be used in her war against Mexico. On the following day, the treaty of annexation of Texas to the United States was signed. What Texas had vainly sought, and what the extreme Southern party had ardently desired for eight years, was accomplished, so far as it lay in the power of the executive department of the government.

Ten days went by before the treaty was sent to the Senate,3 for Calhoun wished to submit with it his reply to a
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1 "The treaty as signed was the work of Abel P. Upshur."—Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 297.
2 See Seven Decades of the Union, Henry A. Wise, chap. xi.; Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 294.
3 " The treaty for the annexation of Texas to this Union was this day (April 22d) sent in to the Senate; and with it went the freedom of the human race."—Diary of J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, vol. xii. p. 13.

letter of Lord Aberdeen, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, which he esteemed a powerful argument in favor of annexation. A despatch of Aberdeen had been communicated to Upshur in the usual diplomatic manner, in which was expressed the desire to see slavery abolished in Texas, for Great Britain exerted herself to procure the abolition of slavery everywhere; but any thought of acting directly or indirectly on the United States through Texas was plainly disclaimed, and the minister avowed for his government that nothing but open and honest efforts would be made. Calhoun asserted that this policy of Great Britain made it necessary for the United States to annex Texas as a measure of self-defence.1 This letter that he sent to the Senate with the treaty began with a false assumption' and unfair reasoning, and ended with the humiliating argument showing the wisdom and humanity of African slavery by a statistical contrast of the comfort, intelligence, and morals of slaves as compared with the free colored people in the United States.3

But the letter failed to convince the Senate, and it refused to ratify the treaty by a vote of 35 to 16. 4 The President and his Secretary were grievously disappointed. In addition to the chagrin at the failure of a cherished state plan, Calhoun felt keenly the loss of opportunity further to air
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1 Life of Calhoun, Von Hoist. p. 231.
2 " However flexible political morality may be, a lie is a lie, and Calhoun knew that there was not one particle of truth in these assertions."— Life of Calhoun, Von Hoist, p. 233.
3 This letter was published in Niles's Register, vol. lxvi. p. 172; see defence of Calhoun, Life by Jenkins, p. 403.
4 "During the whole continuance of these debates in the Senate, the lobbies of the chamber were crowded with speculators in Texas scrip and lands, and with holders of Mexican claims—all working for the ratification of the treaty, which would bring with it an increase of value to their property."—Thirty Years' View, Benton, vol. ii. p. 623.

his closet dialectics. A letter of his written at this time1 shows that in the event of annexation he expected a reply from Aberdeen, to which he hoped to return a crushing rejoinder. Happily the country was spared the humiliation of maintaining the affirmative in a diplomatic controversy on the question, Is slavery right? Calhoun was disappointed not to have the occasion to lecture England again on the advantage of slavery. But he astonished the humane King Louis Philippe by a despatch, forwarded by the American minister at Paris, in which he attempted to make clear the community of interest between France and the United States in maintaining slavery on the American continent.2

Although signally defeated in the Senate, the administration by no means abandoned its project. The President appealed from the Senate to the House of Representatives. He sent all the documents to the House, with an explanatory message suggesting that Congress had the power to acquire Texas in another way than by the formal ratification of the treaty. This was an obvious hint for annexation by joint resolution of Congress.

Meanwhile the friends of the Texas scheme did not confine themselves to the advocacy of it before Congress. They proposed to submit the question to the people in the presidential election taking place this year (1844). Clay received by acclamation the nomination from the enthusiastic Whigs. The adroit management of the annexationists was shown in the manipulation of the Democratic convention, which met some weeks later. A majority of the convention was in favor of the nomination of Van Buren, and his choice would have given satisfaction to Northern Democrats, but his opposition to immediate annexation caused his defeat. The old rule requiring two-thirds of the convention to nominate was adopted, and this resulted in the choice, on the
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1 It was not published until sixteen years later, see Life of Calhoun, Von Hoist, p. 241.
2 This letter may be found in Greeley's American Conflict, vol i. p. 169.

ninth ballot, of James K. Polk. Had ability constituted the test, Polk would not have been selected, nor had a long service in the House of Representatives given him a claim to distinction;1 but he had written," I am in favor of the immediate re-annexation of Texas to the territory and government of the United States,"2 and this was the reason of his nomination.

The election of Polk was due to a clever letter written by himself and to foolish letters by Clay. Polk satisfied the Pennsylvania protectionists, and the campaign in that state was successfully conducted with the watchword "Polk, Dallas, and the tariff of 1842." Texas annexation was the rock on which Clay made shipwreck. In April, before his nomination, he wrote a letter against annexation. Then it was represented that the close Southern States were in danger, and in July came from his pen the expression of a wish to see Texas added to the Union "upon just and fair terms," and the opinion that "the subject of slavery ought not to affect the question one way or the other.”3 Put now his anti-slavery supporters made clamor, and in September Clay declared against immediate annexation. This expression, however, did not counteract the mischief done by the July letter, and was inadequate to retain him the favor of many strong anti-slavery men. The Liberty party, made up of abolitionists who had separated from the antislavery society of Garrison, had nominated for the presidency James G. Birney. Birney, of Southern birth but
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1 The question " Who is Polk I" was frequent during the campaign.
2 On the use of the word re-annexation, see Niles's Register, vol. lxvi. p. 250. "General Cass has proved, out of Fraser's Magazine, that the United States should never buy nor sell out the word re-annexation. Ill-natured people there are, who will call this a violent occupation of foreign domain. But they have a humor of giving ill names to everything. We should regard it no more than Ancient Pistol the word steal: 'Convey, the wise it call. Steal? foh! a fico for the phrase!'" Cited from the Newark Daily Advertiser.
3 Niles's Register, vol. lxvi. p. 439.

Northern education, was a gentleman of high character and a practical abolitionist, for, becoming convinced of the wrong of slavery, he had emancipated his own slaves and thenceforward devoted himself to the anti-slavery cause. He had gained note by a tract he had written entitled "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery." He had been the candidate of the Liberty party four years previously, but in the whole country had only received seven thousand votes. His candidacy in 1844 would probably have been of no greater moment had it not been for the unfortunate July letter of Clay, which alienated enough Whigs to lose him the State of New York, and therefore the election. Polk carried New York State by a plurality of little more than five thousand, while Birney polled in the same state nearly sixteen thousand votes. The feeling against the annexation of Texas gave Birney this important support, and, while well-meaning, it was ill-considered action. Polk or Clay was certain to be elected President. The success of Polk would register the desire of the country to have Texas, regardless of consequences, while the election of Clay would certainly postpone, and might defeat, the project of annexation; and a vote for Birney was indirectly a vote for Polk. Thus argued Adams, Seward, Greeley, and Giddings, all strong antislavery men. But the abolitionists rejoiced at the defeat of Clay; their high-toned exultation mingled with the boisterous demonstrations of the New York Democrats;1 while never before or since has the defeat of any man in this country brought forth such an exhibition of heart-felt grief from the educated and respectable classes of society as did this defeat of Clay. Men were frequently heard to say that they now " had no more interest in politics." 2

The real meaning of the election of Polk was proclaimed by President Tyler in his annual message. A controlling
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1Life of Seward, p. 781.
2 Ibid., p. 732; Life of Lincoln, Herndon, p. 270; Life of Wade, Riddle, p. 192.

majority of the people, he said, and a large majority of the states have declared in favor of immediate annexation. The House of Representatives now entered into the plan with zeal, and near the close of January, 1845, passed a resolution providing for the admission of Texas, and, with her consent, the formation of four additional states out of the territory; in states formed north of the line of 36° 30' north latitude, slavery to be prohibited. The Senate did not incline so favorably to the project. Several Democratic senators were opposed to accomplishing the object in this manner, and Benton tells how their support was gained. In the Senate, the House resolution was amended by giving the President the option of negotiating another treaty of annexation or of submitting the joint resolution to Texas for her acceptance of its prescribed conditions. Benton and his fellow senators, who were of like mind, had assurances directly and indirectly from the President-elect that he would take the option of treaty negotiation;1 and they had the assertion in open Senate of McDuffie, the close friend of Calhoun, that the actual administration would take no steps in the matter in its few remaining days of power. The bill, as amended, passed the Senate by a majority of two votes; it went through the House on the last day of February, 1845, and twenty-four hours later it received the signature of the President. No sooner was the bill signed than Tyler and Calhoun, although they had but three days more of office, despatched a special agent to Texas to offer the terms of annexation as provided in the joint resolution. It is true that the instructions to their envoy were courteously submitted to Polk, who, however, declined any interference in the matter.2 Texas accepted the terms, and at the next session of Congress was formally admitted as one of the states of the Union.3
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1 Thirty Tears' View, Benton, vol. ii. pp. 636-638. This is denied in Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. pp. 405, 409.
2 Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 363.
3 A few years afterwards a controversy between Calhoun and Tyler arose as to who should have the credit of the annexation. See Benton's Thirty Years' View, and Letters and Times of the Tylers.

Although now a foregone conclusion, Webster, who had been sent again to the Senate, gave voice to his opposition to the scheme. He objected to the admission of Texas because it was newly acquired slave territory, and he had, moreover, another reason, which he put into words of wisdom. "It is," said he, "of very dangerous tendency and doubtful consequences to enlarge the boundaries of this country. . . . There must be some limit to the extent of our territory, if we would make our institutions permanent. ... I have always wished that this country should exhibit to the nations of the earth the example of a great, rich, powerful republic which is not possessed by a spirit of aggrandizement. It is an example, I think, due from us to the world in favor of the character of republican government."1 The diplomacy of the Polk administration, though not as secret as that of Tyler, was fully as tortuous. Polk, in his inaugural address, declared that our title to the whole of Oregon was clear and unquestionable,2 and that he intended to maintain that title. The whole of Oregon then meant as far north as 54° 40' north latitude, now the southern boundary of Alaska. The northwestern boundary had long been in dispute between Great Britain and the United States; but the assertion of the President was extravagant, and savored rather of party pressure than of wise diplomacy, for the claim had not a good foundation. Both Webster and Calhoun, whose experience in the State department gave weight to their judgment, were of the opinion that to adopt the parallel of 49° would be a fair settlement of the dispute. After a certain amount of diplomatic fencing between the
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1 Speech in the Senate, December, 1845, Works, vol. v. p. 56. President Tyler said, in one of his messages advocating annexation, that no civilized government on earth would reject the offer of such a rich and fertile domain as Texas. Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 300.
2 This was resolved by the Democratic convention which nominated Polk.

two countries, the Senate, on request of the President, advised him by a large majority to conclude a treaty on that basis.

Very differently did the administration act regarding the disputed boundary question with Mexico. Although that unfortunate country had officially notified the United States that the annexation of Texas would be treated as a cause of war, so constant were the internal quarrels in Mexico that open hostilities would have been avoided had the conduct of the administration been honorable. That was the opinion of Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, and Tyler. But as the satirist expressed it, the Southerners were after "bigger pens to cram with slaves."1 Having acquired Texas, they longed for New Mexico and California. A dispute arose whether the southwestern boundary was the river Nueces or the Rio Grande. Negotiation in the same spirit as that had with Great Britain would undoubtedly have settled the difficulty, but the President arrogated the right of deciding the question. Mexico was actually goaded on to the war. The principle of the manifest destiny of this country was invoked as a reason for the attempt to add to our territory at the expense of Mexico.' General Taylor, who had command of the United States troops in Mexico, was ordered to advance to the Rio Grande. "Why not," Benton had thundered, "march up to fifty-four forty as courageously as we march upon the Rio Grande? Because Great Britain is powerful and Mexico weak."' On General Taylor's arrival at the Rio Grande, he planted a battery which commanded the public square of Matamoras, a Mexican town on the opposite side of the river, and blockaded the river in order to cut off supplies from the town. The Mexican general main
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1 Biglow Papers.
2 "Parson Wilbur sez thet all this big talk of our destinies Is half on it ig'rance an' t'other half rum." —Biglow Papers.
3 Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 610.

maintained that this began hostilities; he crossed over to the east bank of the Rio Grande, and had a skirmish with a smaller American force, in which sixteen of our dragoons were killed.

When this news arrived in Washington, early in May, 1846, the President sent a message to both houses of Congress, stating that American blood had been spilled on American soil, and asked that the existence of the war might be recognized, and energetic measures taken for its prosecution. Congress, with only two dissenting voices in the Senate and fourteen in the House, immediately declared war. This unanimity of feeling is not remarkable; for as long as love of country shall remain a cardinal virtue, the effort will be made to avenge an attack on one's countrymen. The national feeling had so deep root that the doctrine "Our country, right or wrong," was proclaimed to justify the sympathies of those who believed the war in its inception to have been an outrage. The Mexicans thought that the war was the result of a deliberately calculated scheme of robbery on the part of the superior power.1 As Birdofredom Sawin, a private in the Mexican war, was told, " Our nation's bigger 'n theirn, an' so its rights air bigger." 2 While some quiet opposition at the North existed,3 the war in the main was very popular. It needed no draft to fill the army; more volunteers offered than could be used. The war lasted nearly two years,4 and was an unbroken series of victories. Our people would have
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1 H. H. Bancroft, cited in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vol. vii. p. 356. "For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure [the annexation of Texas], and to this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."— General Grant, Personal Memoirs, vol. i. p. 53.
2 Biglow Papers.
3 "I met with no one person in society who defended the aggression on Mexican territory." The dissatisfaction of many with the war "is unbounded."—Sir Charles Lyell, 1846, Second Visit, vol. ii. p. 256.
4 It virtually ended, however, in September, 1847, having begun in May, 1846.

been more than human had they not exulted over our successes, due, as they were, to the genius of our generals and bravery of our troops. The Polk administration was deservedly unpopular; it declined in public estimation for the reason that the victories in the field were won by two Whig generals whom Polk and his cabinet fettered, but did not dare to displace.1 The war gave Taylor his military reputation and made him President; it added to Scott's fame and made him a presidential candidate.

This administration, said Benton, "wanted a small war just large enough to require a treaty of peace, and not large enough to make military reputations dangerous for the presidency."2 It waged war with the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other; but the olive branch was to be backed with money. In August of this year (1846), and after liberal appropriations had been made for the vigorous prosecution of the war, the President, in addition, asked Congress for two million dollars for the purpose of settling our difficulties with Mexico. It was no secret that this money would be used to aid negotiations that had in view the cession of considerable territory to this country, but now the discussion took an unforeseen course, and one far from welcome to the administration. David Wilmot, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania, was selected to propose a vital condition to this appropriation of money. He had advocated Texas annexation. He now asserted the necessity of the war, and avowed himself in favor of the acquisition of New Mexico and California; but he offered an amendment to the two-million bill, which provided that slavery should be forever prohibited in all the territory to
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1 "Mr. Polk's mode of viewing the case seems to have been this: Scott is a Whig; therefore the Democracy is not bound to observe good faith with him. Scott is a Whig, therefore his successes may be turned to the prejudice of the Democratic party."—Autobiography of Lieut.-General Scott, p. 400.
2 Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 680.

be acquired from Mexico. This was the famous Wilmot proviso; it received a majority of nineteen in the House, but failed in the Senate, as did likewise the original bill. It was charged at the time, but probably with injustice, that the defeat of the proviso was due to the loquacity of one of its strong supporters, "honest John Davis," senator from Massachusetts.1

At the next session of Congress, in the following February (1847), the Wilmot proviso again came up. The President asked for an appropriation of three million dollars, secret service money, to be employed at his discretion in negotiating a treaty with Mexico. A bill was brought into the House with the desired stipulation, and to it was tacked the anti-slavery proviso, but only by a majority of nine. The Senate struck out the amendment, and passed the three-million bill, pure and simple, in accordance with the wish of the administration. The matter now went back to the House, and, by a majority of five, it receded from the Wilmot proviso. The House then passed the bill as it came from the Senate. All of the Whigs and many of the Democrats from the free States voted for the anti-slavery amendment, but every member from the slave States, except the one from Delaware, voted against it. Popular sentiment at the South was very strongly aroused in opposition to the Wilmot proviso, while the North was equally zealous in its favor.

During the year 1847 the vigorous prosecution of the war went on. From March to September Scott gained marvellous victories;2 at last he took the city of Mexico, and
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1 See defence of Davis, Senate speech, March, 1847; speech of Wilmot, February, 1847; Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 17; per contra, see Von Hoist, vol. iii. p. 287; Congressional Globe, vol. xxviii. p. 1251; Life and Speeches of A. Lincoln, Bartlett, p. 64. Davis was one of the two senators who voted against the declaration of war against Mexico.
2 “If ‘Waverley' and 'Guy Mannering' had made the name of Scott immortal on one side of the Atlantic, Cerro Gordo and Churubusco had equally immortalized it on the other. If the novelist had given the garb of truth to fiction, had not the warrior given to truth the air of romance?"—Sir Henry Bulwer at New York, 1850, Scott's Autobiography, p. 539.

dispersed the Mexican army. Meanwhile, we had obtained possession by military power of the territories of New Mexico and California. The new House of Representatives that met in December differed widely in sentiment from the preceding House towards the administration. Then there had been a Democratic majority of sixty; in the present House the Democrats were in a minority of eight. This showed a strange revulsion of political feeling, for the elections took place while the country was resounding with the victories of Taylor and Scott. It is amazing that an administration should have been condemned by the voice of the people when the operations in the field had been so signally successful; but this was due to the deep-seated conviction that the war had been unjustly begun, and that the paramount object of Polk and his advisers was to add more slave territory to the Union.

This feeling soon found expression in a House resolution that the war with Mexico was " unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States," and this opinion was heartily endorsed by Webster in a Senate speech. "I concur in that sentiment," he said; "I hold that to be the most recent and authentic expression of the will and opinion of the majority of the people of the United States."1 This speech set forth ably and with much feeling the dangers that were liable to accrue from an accession of new territory. It was an amplification of his remarks at the preceding session when he stated: "We want no extension of territory. We want no accession of new States. The country is already large enough."2 With a premonition of the evils in store for his beloved country, and with perhaps a dim presage of how his own great
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1 Speech, March 23d, 1848, Works, vol. v. p. 274.
2 Remarks in the Senate, February, 1847, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 305.

reputation was to suffer in the effort to grapple with them, he had said: "I pretend to see but little of the future, and that little affords no gratification. All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation."1

The opinion of an unimportant member of the House has an interest for us inspired by his after-career. Abraham Lincoln, serving his first and only term in Congress, eager for distinction and stimulated by the expectations of his Illinois comrades, was an industrious member, ready in speech and prompt in action.2 He voted for the House resolution to which reference has been made, and delivered a set speech on the Mexican war, which had the merit of being phrased in plain words to express opinions shared by many of his fellow-Whigs, though not by the constituents of his prairie district. His course on this question is best described in his own words of some years later. "I was an old Whig," said he," and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But when they asked money or land warrants, or anything to pay the soldiers, I gave the same vote that Douglas did."3

In the early part of February, 1848, a treaty of peace was negotiated by a United States Commissioner in Mexico, and this afterwards received the ratification of the President and the Senate. By its provisions, New Mexico and Upper California4 were ceded to the United States, and the lower Rio Grande, from its mouth to El Paso, was taken as the boundary of Texas. In consideration of these
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1 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 307.
2 Life of Lincoln, Lamon, p. 280.
3 Lincoln-Douglas debates, Life of Lincoln, Arnold, p. 78.
4 New Mexico included part of the present territory of the same name, all of Arizona except the southern part (which was purchased in 1853), practically all of Utah and Nevada, and part of Colorado. Upper California was substantially the present State of California. See Narrative and Critical History of North America, Winsor, vol. vii. p. 552, for map showing exactly the territory acquired.

acquisitions, we agreed to pay Mexico fifteen million dollars. The significant remark was made that we obtained Louisiana for the same amount of money and without a war.

An incident in the negotiation of the treaty displayed whither was our drift in obedience to the behest of the slave power. The reader will remember that slavery did not exist under Mexican law, and that New Mexico and California were free territory. During the progress of the negotiations, Mexico begged for the insertion of an article providing that slavery should not be permitted in any of the territories ceded. Our commissioner replied that the bare mention of the subject in a treaty was an utter impossibility; that if the territory should be increased tenfold in value, and, besides, covered all over a foot thick with pure gold, on the single condition that slavery should be excluded therefrom, he could not then even entertain the proposition, nor think for a moment of communicating it to the President.1 The "invincible Anglo-Saxon race" could not listen to the prayer of " superstitious Catholicism, goaded on by a miserable priesthood,"2 even though the prayer was on the side of justice, progress, and humanity.

New Mexico and California were ours, and some measure of government for them must be devised; Oregon likewise demanded attention; and it would all have been a simple matter had not the question of slavery existed. Early in the year 1848, Douglas brought into the Senate a bill providing a territorial government for Oregon.3 It excited no discussion until May, when John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, a Free-soil Democrat, offered an amendment, of which
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1 Letter of N. P. Trist to James Buchanan, Secretary of State, quoted by Von Hoist, vol. iii. p. 334; see also Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Wilson, vol. ii. p. 26.
2 These expressions were used by Senator Preston in an enthusiastic speech made in 1836 on the news of the Texan victory at San Jacinto. Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 665.
3 The Territory of Oregon comprised the present States of Oregon and Washington.

the intent was that slavery should be prohibited in Oregon. This gave rise to a long and earnest debate, in which the amendment was opposed with great pertinacity. The slavery extensionists, however, had no idea of introducing their system of labor into Oregon, and the discussion did not so much hinge on the actual project as on the principle involved and its application to New Mexico and California; for they determined to have the territory which had been acquired from Mexico dedicated to slavery. But at the threshold of their desire they found an inherent obstacle. California and New Mexico were free; and, as was pointed out during the senatorial debate, "by the laws of nations, the laws of all conquered countries remain until changed by the conqueror. There is an express law containing the prohibition of slavery [in California and New Mexico] and this will continue until we shall change it,"1 Yet the closet theorist, Calhoun, was equal to the emergency, and he had a political doctrine to fit the occasion. Benton called it the new dogma "of the transmigratory function of the Constitution, and the instantaneous transportation of itself in its slavery attributes into all acquired territories." Calhoun denied that the laws of Mexico could keep slavery out of New Mexico and California. "As soon as the treaty between the two countries is ratified," said he, " the sovereignty and authority of Mexico in the territory acquired by it become extinct, and that of the United States is substituted in its place, carrying with it the Constitution, with its overriding control over all the laws and institutions of Mexico inconsistent with it.'2 The Constitution by implication recognized slavery; therefore it permitted slave-owners to take their slaves into this new territory, or, in other words, it legalized slavery.3 As a necessary deduction, the
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1 Senator Phelps, of Vermont.
2 Niles's Register, vol. lxxiv. p. 61; Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 713. 3 "It is useless to prove what indeed is known to every one who has bestowed the slightest attention to it, namely, that slavery is considered emphatically and exclusively a municipal institution by all countries and jurists, as well as publicists, European and American, Northern and Southern; a truth—I add it in sorrow and deep concern—which you are the first that has ever denied."—Letter of Francis Lieber to Calhoun, Life and Letters of Lieber, p. 232.

senator asserted that neither Congress, nor the inhabitants of the territories, nor the territorial legislature have the right to exclude slavery from the territories. This doctrine was completely refuted by Webster at the next session of Congress. For the present he contented himself with a passing allusion; "I am not going into metaphysics," said he, "for therein I should encounter the honorable senator from South Carolina, and we should find ' no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.'"1

It is indeed wondrous pitiful to contemplate Calhoun, who had fine ability and sterling morality in private life, thus held captive by one idea, and that idea totally at variance with the moral sentiment of the nineteenth century.2 In other service he would have been a useful statesman, but he must be judged by the fruits of his two favorite dogmas, the extreme states-rights theory of 1832, and the slavery extension doctrine of 1848. The two, thoroughly disseminated throughout the South, became prime elements of political faith. Their working forced her onward to secession, and induced a proud, high-spirited people to battle for an idea utterly condemned at the tribunal of modern civilization.

The debate went on in the Senate for some weeks, and as the prospect of a satisfactory conclusion seemed remote, the whole matter was referred to a special committee. They soon reported a bill through their chairman, Clayton, of Delaware, which provided territorial governments for Oregon, New Mexico, and California. The legitimate result of the bill would be the prohibition of slavery in Oregon, but
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1 Webster's Works, vol. v. p. 308.
2 So confessed by his eulogist, Lamar, in an address at Charleston, April, 1887.

the question whether the Constitution permitted slavery in New Mexico and California was to be referred to the territorial courts, with the right of appeal to the United States Supreme Court. As Thomas Corwin, in a caustic speech opposing the measure, said, "It does not enact a law; it only enacts a lawsuit."1 The bill passed the Senate, but was immediately laid upon the table in the House.

Meanwhile the House had been at work on a plan for Oregon. In the early part of August, its bill providing a territorial government for Oregon, with the prohibition of slavery, passed. In the Senate, an amendment was tacked to it, extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean.2 It must be called to mind that the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery north of 36° 30' north latitude and permitted it south of that line, only applied to the Louisiana purchase, of which Oregon was not a part. The purpose in view Webster well expressed: "The truth is," said he, "that it is an amendment by which the Senate wishes to have now a public legal declaration, not respecting Oregon, but respecting the newly acquired territories of California and New Mexico. It wishes now to make a line of slavery which shall include those new territories." 3 On a previous day he had stated that "his objection to slavery was irrespective of lines and points of latitude; it took in the whole country and the whole question. He was opposed to it in every shape and every qualification; and was against any compromise of the question."4 The bill with the amendment passed the Senate; the amendment was disagreed to by the House; finally, on the last day of the session, the Senate receded from its amendment and enacted the measure establishing a territorial government for Oregon, with the express prohibition of slavery.
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1 Speeches, p. 439.
2 This would have permitted slavery in what is now New Mexico and Arizona, and in almost the southern half of California.
3 Works, vol. v. p. 303.
4 Congressional Globe, 1st Session, 30th Congress, p. 1060.

While Congress was wrangling over the question, the two great political parties made their nominations for President; but their conventions completely ignored the vital issue of the day. The Democratic party chose General Cass as its candidate, and adopted a long series of resolutions, touching upon every conceivable subject save only the question of slavery in the territories. The Whig convention nominated General Taylor, but adopted no resolutions and issued no address. The candidate was the platform. Later, a convention was held at Buffalo, composed of those who were dissatisfied with the action of both the great parties and opposed to the extension of slavery. Van Buren was nominated for President. The resolutions declared it to be the duty of the federal government to abolish slavery wherever it had the constitutional power; and that the true and only safe means of preventing the existence of slavery in territory still free was by congressional action. The selection of Martin Van Buren to head an anti-slavery movement partook of the grotesque. The enthusiasm with which sincere anti-slavery men rallied to his support was singular, when we call to mind that some years previously he had been denounced as a "Northern man with Southern principles." Van Buren's candidature did the Democrats more harm than the Whigs, and particularly in the State of New York. That state decided the election, as it had done four years previously. Van Buren polled more votes than Cass, and the two together sixteen thousand more than Taylor. Taylor had, however, the electoral vote of the state by a handsome plurality, and was chosen President.

On the assembling of Congress in December of this year (1848), President Polk strongly urged the necessity of providing territorial governments for New Mexico and California. He favored as a fair settlement the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific. More than one attempt was made by Congress to dispose of the matter, but the only measure which passed the Senate was an amendment to the general appropriation bill providing for the extension of the Constitution to the territories. The consideration of this amendment gave rise to an important debate in which Webster and Calhoun were prominent.1 Calhoun elaborated and explained the theory he had set forth at the previous session; but Webster, by a few trenchant questions and the assertion of some patent truths, showed plainly that the idea was impracticable, and completely at variance with our legislative precedents and judicial decisions. The House would not agree with the Senate; and as the amendment was tacked to the general appropriation bill, scenes of great excitement were common during the closing days of the session. Horace Mann, then a representative, wrote that blows were exchanged in the Senate, and two fist-fights took place in the House, in one of which blood flowed freely; and he expressed the opinion that "had the North been as ferocious as the South, it is probable there would have been a general melee."2 Finally, however, the Senate receded from its amendment and passed the appropriation bill. The session came to an end, but nothing had been done towards the organization of governments for the territories. This and the allied question of slavery were left as a legacy to the new Congress. The necessary executive measures meanwhile devolved upon the new President, a man who came to the highest office of the state unversed in civil affairs, and untried in their orderly administration.
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1 This debate may be found in Curtis, vol. ii. p. 364.
2 Quoted by Von Hoist, vol. iii. p. 454.

Note to Page 29, written in November, 1909. — Miss Alice Dana Adams, in "The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America," Radcliffe College Monographs No. 14, shows that my statement regarding the conventions, meetings and societies needs some modification.


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].