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

Chapter 2, Part 1: Zachary Taylor through Webster’s Seventh-of-March Speech

CHAPTER II

Zachary Taylor was inaugurated March 5th, 1849. He was sincerely honest, a man of good judgment, pure morals, great energy, of independent and manly character, and possessed rare moral as well as physical courage. He had little education and many prejudices. But he was in every sense of the word a patriot and nothing of a partisan. Doubt had for a time, indeed, prevailed regarding his political opinions, for he had never voted. The party managers induced him to say, finally, that he was a Whig; but General Taylor at the same time insisted that if elected "he would not be the President of a party, but the President of the whole people."

He was, as we have seen, nominated by the regular Whig convention; but while the campaign was in progress he had discomfited his Northern adherents by accepting the nomination of a Democratic meeting at Charleston, which preferred him to Cass, as he was deemed safer on the slavery question. Taylor was from Louisiana, and owned a large sugar plantation there, with several hundred slaves. As the Whig convention had adopted no declaration of principles, what course the newly-elected President would take on the question of slavery in the territories was problematical. It had, however, been asserted with confidence at the North during the campaign that he would not veto any anti-slavery legislation which should receive the assent of Congress. While the President, in his inaugural address, did not touch upon the question which had distracted the legislature of the country, nevertheless its guarded expressions seemed to indicate that his Northern supporters had fairly outlined his policy.

But his cabinet appointments were favorable to the Southern section of his party; four of them were from the slave and three from the free States. The prominent members were John M. Clayton, of Delaware, Secretary of State; Thomas Ewing, of Ohio, Secretary of the Interior; Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, Attorney-General; and Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, Postmaster-General. Collamer was the only man of marked anti-slavery sentiments.1

The problem which the country had to solve called for its wisest statesmanship. It demanded the full measure of the time and ability of the President and his advisers, but they were not able to devote their attention immediately to the exigency of the State. The executive power had passed from one political party to the other; the Democrats, therefore, must be turned out of the offices to make room for the faithful Whigs. "To the victors belong the spoils" was a doctrine first put in practice by the Democratic party. But the Whigs were apt pupils, and as there were about fifty thousand places in the civil service,2 a horde of hungry office-seekers flocked to Washington. General Taylor was a man of business habits. His long service in the army, and his experience in the management of a large plantation, had taught him that merit and fitness were the proper and only tests that should be applied to subordinates, and his mind was still firm in this notion when he delivered his inaugural address. He said: "I shall make honesty, capacity, and fidelity indispensable prerequisites to the bestowal of office.'3 Although the President had good business ideas, he was ignorant of party management, and soon allowed himself to be guided by those who had all their lives wrought in the sphere of practical politics.
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1 The other members of the cabinet were Meredith of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury; Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of War; and Preston of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy. Meredith was strongly anti-slavery.
2 New York Tribune, April, 1849.
3 Niles, vol. lxxv. p. 150.

General Taylor had a high respect for the Vice-president, Millard Fillmore, of New York, and, until undeceived a short time before his arrival at Washington, he thought that the Vice-President could be exofficio a member of his cabinet.1 He was nevertheless disposed to rely upon the experience of Fillmore in all important matters, and nothing at first seemed so important as the New York patronage. But in this State there were two divisions of the Whig party, one headed by Fillmore and the other by William H. Seward, who had recently been elected to the Senate; and, to forestall differences that might naturally arise, Thurlow Weed, a common friend, had them both dine with him at Albany when they were on their way to Washington. "Here," as Weed himself relates, "everything was pleasantly arranged. The Vice-President and the Senator were to consult from time to time, as should become necessary, and agree upon the important appointments to be made in our State." 2 Fillmore, however, seems to have had the better of the arrangement; for the first knowledge that came to Seward of the New York custom-house appointments was when their names were read in executive session of the Senate.3

The President also appointed anti-Seward Whigs to other lucrative offices in the State. Seward, as Lincoln afterwards said, "was a man without gall,"4 and did not openly resent the infraction of the agreement. He did not retire to his tent, but patiently bided his time. He voted for the confirmation of his adversaries, and then went to work with serenity to supplant his rival in the favor of the President.'
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1 Thurlow Weed's Autobiography, p. 586.
2 Ibid., p. 586.
3 Ibid., p. 587; see also letters of Seward to Weed, March 1st and 10th, Life of Seward, F. W. Seward, vol. ii. pp. 101,107.
4 Life, by Nicolay and Hay, Century Magazine, vol. xxxii. p. 562.
5 See letter of Seward to Weed, March 24th, Life of Seward, F. W. Seward, vol. ii. p. 107.

In this he was much assisted by his friend Weed, who had great influence, for he was one of the first to look to General Taylor as a presidential candidate. Their efforts were successful, and soon Seward became the directing spirit of the administration.

Thurlow Weed relates with great satisfaction that the President "became convinced that the significance of a zealous and patriotic movement of the people, which overthrew Democratic supremacy, meant something more than the election of a Whig President and the appointment of a Whig cabinet." "I did not think it wise or just," the President himself remarked, "to kick away the ladder by which I ascended to the presidency; colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals are just as necessary to success in politics as they are to the discipline and efficiency of an army." On another occasion the President inquired of the Secretary of the Treasury "whether you think our friends are getting their share of the offices." The Secretary answered that he "had not thought of the matter in that light." "Nor," rejoined the President, "have I until recently. But if the country is to be benefited by our services, it seems to me that you and I ought to remember those to whose zeal, activity, and influence we are indebted for our places. There are plenty of Whigs, just as capable and honest, and quite as deserving of office, as the Democrats who have held them through two or three presidential terms. Rotation in office, provided good men are appointed, is sound Republican doctrine."1

The Democratic newspapers of the day are full of derisive taunts at the wholesale removals from office. The Whigs either defended them as the work of reform,2 or else retorted by recriminations. Yet many of the leading Whigs were far from being satisfied. Clay complained that the good positions went to those who had been instrumental in bringing
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1 Life of Thurlow Weed, vol. ii. pp. 175,176.
2 This is the expression of the New York Tribune, April 17th, 1849.

about the nomination of General Taylor,"1 and Webster grieved bitterly over the refusal of the administration to grant his request for an office of "small pecuniary consideration" for his only son.2 Abraham Lincoln was an urgent applicant for the office of Commissioner of the General Land Office. He solicited support from his late friends in Congress, and endeavored to have his claim advocated in the party newspapers, but his efforts were without fruit.3 The Postmaster-General Collamer, in a letter to his friend John J. Crittenden, laments not having been able to carry out Crittenden's wishes in reference to the appointment of the local mail agent at Louisville. But the President had taken the matter out of his hands, and as he was "but a subaltern," he had to obey.4 The Secretary of State found fault with Collamer, and wrote: " Our friend Collamer is behind; he is a glorious fellow, but too tender for progress. He has been often, indeed, at his wits' end, frightened about removals and appointments, but I cry courage to them all, and they will go ahead all, by and by! Taylor has all the moral as well as physical courage needed for the emergency."5 Yet the President, whose knowledge of literature went not "much beyond good old Dilworth's spelling book,"6 unwittingly did the cause of letters a great service in the removal of Nathaniel Hawthorne from the surveyor ship of the Salem custom-house, for on the afternoon of the day on which the gifted author was deprived of his
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1 Clay's Private Correspondence, p. 587. "It is undeniable that the public patronage has been too exclusively confined to the original supporters of General Taylor, without sufficient regard to the merits and just claims of the great body of the Whig party."
2 Harvey's Reminiscences, p. 178. The President later gave Webster's son, "though after delay and hesitation," "a lucrative office," Schouler, vol. v. p. 150.
3 Lamon, p. 333.
4 Life of Crittenden, Coleman, vol. i. p. 346.
5 Ibid., p. 344.
6 Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Scott, vol. ii. p. 383.

place he began to write "The Scarlet Letter."1 He lost his salary of twelve hundred dollars a year, but he gave to his country its greatest romance.2

While Congress was still in session Calhoun was busy in working up a sentiment that should fire the Southern heart with zeal to defend the rights which were in supposed jeopardy. A convention of Southern members of Congress issued an address drawn up by Calhoun. In this declaration they complained of the difficulties in recovering fugitive slaves; they found fault with the systematic agitation of
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1 Hawthorne and his Wife, Julian Hawthorne, vol. i. p. 340.
2 Hawthorne describes the enormous specimen of the American eagle "which hovers over the entrance of the custom-house," and which "appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general tendency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the unoffensive community." "Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the Federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to fling off her nestlings, with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows. . . . But now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Locofoco surveyor. The besom of reform has swept him out of office; and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments.... A remarkable event of the third year of my surveyor ship was the election of General Taylor to the presidency. It is essential, in order to a complete estimate of the advantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the incoming of a hostile administration. His position is then one of the most singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that a wretched mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative of good on either hand, although what presents itself to him as the worst event may very probably be the best." Hawthorne wrote more truly than he then knew. He felt his removal from office keenly. The letter pleading for Hillard's influence in favor of the retention of his office, his lamentation at being turned out, his appeal for re-appointment, with the assignment of categorical reasons why he should not have been proscribed by the Whig administration, are pathetic, and make an exquisitely phrased condemnation of the spoils system. See letters to Hillard, Life of Hawthorne, Conway, p. 111.

the slavery question by the abolitionists; they demanded the right of emigrating into the territories with their slaves; and they inveighed bitterly against the House for its action in regard to New Mexico and California. More than eighty members participated in the meeting when this address was adopted, but only about half of that number affixed their signatures to the instrument. It was published throughout the South with a flourish of trumpets; and soon it was hailed by its authors as the second declaration of independence.1 Except in South Carolina, however, the address did not make a deep impression.2 For the moment Calhoun seemed to have lost influence. His intellectual vagaries had become tiresome, and his over refinement of phrase proved tedious even to those whose sympathy was ardent with the Southern cause.

Of greater moment were the resolutions of the Virginia legislature. They affirmed that "the adoption and attempted enforcement of the Wilmot proviso" would present two alternatives to the people of Virginia; one of "abject submission to aggression and outrage," and the other "of determined resistance at all hazards and to the last extremity." 3 The sovereign people of Virginia, as they valued their rights of property and dearest privileges, could have no difficulty in making a choice between the two alternatives. It was likewise resolved that the abolition of slavery or of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia would be a direct attack upon the institution of the Southern States. These resolutions were carried by a large majority; and this official utterance of the most powerful State in the South was an incitement to Southern feeling and a guide to the way of evincing it. The resolutions were approved at many public meetings held all over the South; they were endorsed by several Democratic state conventions; and they
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1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 734.
2 New-Englander, August, 1849.
3 Niles, vol. lxxv. p. 73.

formed the basis of similar expressions from other legislatures.

The excitement was especially great in Missouri. The legislature of this State had passed resolutions protesting against the principle of the Wilmot proviso, and instructing her senators and representatives to act in hearty co-operation with the members from the slave-holding States.1 This was a shaft aimed at Senator Benton, who was opposed to the extension of slavery. He accepted the challenge, repaired to Missouri when the Senate adjourned, and made a noble fight against the slavery extensionists. He spoke at meeting after meeting, defending his own course and making an aggressive warfare on Calhoun and his Missouri disciples.

The feeling was at fever heat in Tennessee. The address of the Democratic State Central Committee to the voters said, "The encroachments of our Northern brethren have reached a point where forbearance on our part ceases to be a virtue."2 In Kentucky, Clay had written a letter intended to influence the constitutional convention about to assemble, in which he favored a plan of gradual emancipation of the slaves in his State. A people's meeting held in Trimble County, Kentucky, requested him to resign his place as senator in consequence of the sentiments avouched in this letter.3 The question of freeing the slaves was made an issue and discussed in every county of the State, but not one avowed emancipationist was elected to the convention. The convention itself not only failed to adopt any plan of gradual emancipation, but, on the contrary, the new constitution asserted, in the strongest terms, the right of property in slaves and their increase.

In the cotton States the feeling was more intense than in the border States. The Virginia resolutions were everywhere endorsed. The prevailing sentiment of South Carolina was shown at a dinner to Senator Butler, when
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1 Niles, vol. lxxv. p. 270.
2 Ibid., p. 373.
3 Ibid., p. 384.

“Slavery," "Our territorial acquisitions from Mexico," and "A Southern Confederacy" were toasted amid great enthusiasm.1 The Democrats were more outspoken than the Whigs, but party lines were beginning to be merged and swallowed up in the community of sectional interest. Yet the Northern Whigs tried to think that they and the Southern members of their party could meet on common ground. The New York Tribune maintained that "the Southern Whigs want the great question settled in such a manner as shall not humble and exasperate the South; the Southern Locofocos [i. e. Democrats] want it so settled as to conduce to the extension of the power and influence of slavery."2 But, in truth, when a question of practical legislation arose, the interest of section was stronger than the hold of party.

The feeling in the North was as deeply stirred as in the South. The conflict of sentiment was well shown in the reception given to the letter of Clay which favored the gradual emancipation of the slaves in Kentucky. In the North it was universally approved; in the South, outside of his own State, it was just as emphatically condemned. Every one of the legislatures of the free States, except Iowa,3 passed resolutions to the effect that Congress had the power, and that it was its duty, to prohibit slavery in the territories.4 Many States also requested their senators and representatives to use their utmost influence to abolish slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. Party lines were not considered; they had no influence upon this action. Some of the legislatures were strongly Whig; in others the Democrats were greatly in the ascendant. But the parties seemed to vie with each other in taking advanced anti-slavery
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1 New York Tribune, April 25th, 1849.
2 Ibid., October 24th, 1849.
3 In Iowa instructions to her senators and representatives to vote for the Wilmot proviso passed the State Senate, but were laid upon the table in the House.—Niles, vol. lxxv. p. 113.
4 New York Tribune, July 23d, 1849.

ground, and in some of the legislatures the resolutions were passed by a nearly unanimous vote.1 As a body, the Whigs were more pronounced in their views than were the regular Democrats. Greeley maintained that the Whigs of New York State recognized " the restriction of slavery within its present limits as one of the cardinal principles of our political faith;"2 but the Free-soilers, comprising for the most part those who had supported Van Buren the previous year, were strenuous in their demands that the general government should forbid slavery where it had the power. Charles Sumner came to the front in a Free-soil convention at Worcester, Mass., and wrote the vigorous address which proclaimed "opposition to slavery wherever we are responsible for it," demanded its prohibition in the new territories, and its abolition in the District of Columbia.3 The Democrats of Ohio felt very powerfully the impulse of the anti-slavery movement, and in February the legislature, by a combination of two Free-soilers, who held the balance of power, with the Democrats, elected Salmon P. Chase to the United States Senate. He was a strong opposer of slavery; was of partially Democratic antecedents, and had presided over the Free-soil convention which nominated Van Buren for the presidency. At Cleveland an enthusiastic convention of Free-soilers was held on the 13th of July to celebrate the passage of the Ordinance of 1787. Clay was invited to be present, but declined on account of other engagements; he seemed to think, however, that the commemoration was ill-timed as being liable "to increase the prevailing excitement.'4

General Cass tried to stem the current of popular opinion in the West. He held that Congress had no right to legislate upon slavery in the territories; and, while the legislature
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1 Niles, vol. lxxv. pp. 190, 239, 399.
2 New York Tribune, October 3d, 1849.
3 Life and Public Services of Charles Sumner, Lester, p. 67.
4 Washington National Intelligencer, July 21st, 1849.

of Michigan elected him to the Senate—for they could not forget the part he had played in the material development and civil organization of their State—yet the same body of men resolved that Congress ought to prohibit slavery in New Mexico and California. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which had loyally supported Cass for President, expressed the opinion of the majority of Ohio Democrats when it declared that "the institution of slavery is bound to be the death of Democracy in this country, unless the Democratic party as a body eschew its requirements."1

The position which President Taylor was gradually taking proved a source of gratification to the anti-slavery people. When he came to Washington his Southern sympathies were strong, and he had the notion that the Northerners were encroaching on the rights of the South. A short experience in the executive office served to convince him that the encroachment was from the opposite direction, and he had the manliness to act contrary to the supposed interests of his own section. The influence of Seward, moreover, was a potent factor in the President's actual envisagement of the situation. Complaint had been made at the South that a majority of the cabinet were in favor of the principle of the Wilmot proviso; and this notion was heightened by a speech of the President at Mercer, Pa., in August, when he said: "The people of the North need have no apprehension of the further extension of slavery; the necessity of a third party organization on this score would soon be obviated."2 State and congressional elections took place during the spring, summer, and fall, but they afforded no indication of the direction of popular sentiment. On the whole, the Whigs lost some advantages as compared with the Presidential election. Party divisions were rigidly observed, but the slavery question was nowhere at issue in any of the States at the North. The Van Buren and the Cass Democrats
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1 Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 16th, 1849.
2 New York Tribune, September 10th, 1849.

had generally united on the State tickets—in some States on an anti-slavery platform, in others by ignoring the national question. The New York Tribune, however, explained that the result of the elections in Tennessee and Kentucky was due to the fact that the Whigs "were cried down in those States as an anti-slavery party."1 It is indubitable that the Northern sentiment was wholesome and thoroughly imbued with the desire to check the extension of slavery.

Towards the latter part of the year speculations as to the action of Congress began to be made; the opinion prevailed that at the next session the question would be settled, and there was little doubt of its settlement in a manner that would satisfy Northern sentiment. It seemed as if this feeling needed only discretion in its guidance, and nerve in the assertion of its claims, to become embodied in legislative acts that should fix the vital principle at issue.

Meanwhile, from action which was taking place in California, one bone of contention seemed liable to be removed. After this territory had been taken possession of by the Americans, it was placed under a quasi-military government, and this was continued after the treaty of peace was proclaimed.2 Before his inauguration General Taylor had been anxious that Congress should decide up on some plan of government for California; he said that "he desired to substitute the rule of law and order there for the bowie-knife and revolvers." 3 A month after his inauguration he sent T. Butler King, a Whig congressman from Georgia, to California, as a confidential agent of the administration, to assist the growing movement towards the formation of a State government, and to work in conjunction with the military governor. California, which, when acquired, had been deemed an insignificant province, had now become the El Dorado of the
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1 New York Tribune, September, 1849.
2 History of the Pacific States, H. H. Bancroft, vol. xviii. p. 262.
3 Seward's Works, vol iii. p. 444.

world. Nine days before the treaty of peace between the United States and Mexico was signed,1 gold was discovered in the foot-hills of the Sierras. Only a few persons in California were aware of the find, and none in the United States or Mexico knew of it when the treaty was ratified. "The accursed thirst of gold" was to work out the destiny of this territory; but it was not until well into May, 1848, that scepticism in San Francisco gave way to faith in this discovery. By the middle of the summer the news was believed everywhere, and from all parts people flocked to the gold diggings. When it became known at Monterey, Colton relates that every one began to make preparations to go to the mines. Blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, farmers, bakers, tapsters, boarding-house keepers, soldiers, and domestics—all left their occupations. That writer, who was the alcalde of Monterey, reports that he only had a community of women left, a gang of prisoners, and a few soldiers.2 So it was everywhere in the territory. The country was in a state of frenzy. The hunger of wealth had taken hold of the whole population. Laborers demanded ten dollars a day and carpenters sixteen dollars.3 Privates from the army and sailors from the naval ships deserted and repaired to the gold diggings. A private could make more money in the mines in a day than he received in the service in a month.4

At that time it required about forty days for the transmission of the mails from San Francisco to New York. The fabulous stories were at first doubted in the eastern part of the country, but were soon accepted with fervid belief. The news had soon reached all parts of the civilized world, and
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1 January 24th, 1848.
2 Three years in California, Colton, p. 247. "A general of the U. 8. Army, the commander of a man-of-war, and Alcalde of Monterey, in a smoking kitchen, grinding coffee, toasting a herring, and peeling onions 1" —Ibid., p. 248.
3 Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, pp. 63, 78.
4 Ibid., p. 72.

then began an emigration to California for which nowhere could there be found a likeness save in a tale of legendary Greece. The thirsters after gold, the seekers of El Dorado, were Argonauts in search of the golden fleece. Yet the resemblance fails when we come to consider the character of the California emigrants. While they numbered many good men, especially from the Western States,' there were many outlaws and criminals among them. From all parts of the world outcasts and vagrants swelled the crowd that undertook the hardships of the dangerous journey for the sake of bettering their condition and their fortunes. In truth, the journey was one that only the hardy could endure. If the emigrant chose to go by sailing vessel from New York around Cape Horn, he had to brave the perils and discomforts of the most dangerous of ocean voyages. He could, indeed, go by the Isthmus of Panama, but, as the railroad was not then built, the crossing of the isthmus was attended with great hazard. Arriving at Panama, on the Pacific side, the travellers had to wait for days, and even weeks, in an atmosphere whose every breath was laden with pestilential spores. On more than one occasion, when the steamship arrived which was to take them to the Golden Gate, it was found that the expectant passengers largely exceeded the capacity of the boat, and men scrambled and fought to get on board to secure their paid-for passage.

There was still left the overland route. This was a wagon journey of more than two thousand miles, through a country of great variety in its physical features. Warm, pleasant valleys were succeeded by bleak and almost impassable mountains; thence the route proceeded down into miasmatic swamps, then across forbidding alkali wastes and salt flats, baked and cracked by the sun. The travellers were stifled with heat and dust, yet were likewise sure to encounter drenching rains. It was often necessary to cross flooded lowlands and sweeping river currents; as if the misery were
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1 H. T. Davis, Solitary Places Made Glad, p. 47.

not complete, they met with occasional chilling blasts and suffocating simoons. They were not only subject to these changes of climate and altitude, but they were in constant fear of the savages.' Whether by starvation, disease, or violence, many of the overland emigrants perished on the way. Nevertheless, in spite of all these obstacles, there arrived in California, in the year 1849,39,000 souls by sea and 42,000 overland.2 These were the "inflowing Argonauts," known to this day as "forty-niners," from the year in which they made their journey. Discouraging and conflicting reports came home from the emigrants, but the rush continued; and some years later, in England, the telling pen of De Quincey was enlisted to decry California. "She," said the brilliant Englishman, "is going ahead at a rate that beats Sindbad and Gulliver." Its story reads "to the exchanges of Europe like a page from the 'Arabian Nights.'"3 What was the government of this community? How was law administered? There was the military governor, who had no authority save such as he might choose to assume; and there were the alcaldes, a survival of the Mexican officials, with duties that were partly judicial and partly executive; their business was to maintain order, punish crime, and redress injuries.4 Some of the old Mexican alcaldes still held their sway, and others had been chosen by the communities over which they presided. Walter Colton was appointed alcalde
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1 This description of the overland route is partly quoted and partly paraphrased from H. H. Bancroft, vol. xviii. p. 148.
2 Ibid., p. 159.
3 De Quincey's Essay on California. The romantic side of the California fever did not escape the notice of George Ticknor. He writes to Sir Charles Lyell, in 1849, that it is evidence that there is "in our Anglo-Saxon blood more of a spirit of adventure and romance than belongs to the age."—Life of George Ticknor, vol. ii. p. 241. Only three years previously American fellow-travellers of Lyell had told him in their journey from New York to Boston that they hoped to see in their lifetime a population of fifteen thousand souls in California and Oregon. Sir Charles Lyell's Second Visit, vol. ii. p. 265.
4 Colton, p. 19.

of Monterey by the commodore of the naval ship which was stationed at that port.1 But on the whole the territory was bordering on a state of anarchy. There were no land laws; mining titles were disputed and sometimes fought over.2 A deserted wife at San Francisco complained that there was no power to give her a legal divorce. The habit of carrying weapons was universal; drunken brawls were common; the Indians made raids on the settled communities and stole horses and cattle; the vineyards and orchards of San Jose and Santa Clara were destroyed by immigrants; it was complained that San Luis Obispo had become "a complete sink of drunkenness and debauchery;" ruffians united themselves in bands to rob, and the convoys from the mines were their especial prey; murders were common, and lynch law was put into execution not infrequently; yet murder was deemed a lesser crime than theft; and when law-breakers were put in prison, the alcalde was in constant fear that a mob would break in and release the prisoners.3 The cry that went out of Macedonia for help was no louder than that which went from the majority of Californians to Congress to give them a territorial government. Yet, if Congress would not help them, they determined to help themselves. The first immigration was largely from Mexico, Peru, Chili, China, and the Hawaiian Islands,4 and the food-supply of the miners came in considerable portion from this group.' But as the American population increased, and as men of better antecedents joined the fortune-seekers, that knack at political organization which is so prominent a trait of our national character,
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1 Colton, p. 17.
2 California Inter Pocula, H. H. Bancroft, chap. ix.
3 H. H. Bancroft, vol. xviii. pp. 229, 268. Bayard Taylor's account is different, but there is no question as to which authority should be followed. Bret Harte has exquisitely given us the flavor of those rough times in "Tales of the Argonauts," "Luck of Roaring Camp," "Outcasts of Poker Flat," etc.
4 Eldorado, Taylor, p. 100; also Bancroft.
5 Alexander's History of the Hawaiian Islands, p. 273.

appeared, and it was determined to establish a civil government.' Meetings were held at many places in the territory, and a convention to frame a government was called to meet May 6th, 1849; so that in case Congress adjourned March 4th without making any provision for them, they could go ahead and institute a government of their own. They were assisted in this movement by the military governor and the confidential agent of the administration. Forty-eight members were chosen for the convention, of whom twenty-two were from the Northern States, fifteen from the slave States, seven were native Californians, and four foreign born.2 Party or sectional opinions had not entered into the choice of the delegates, but it was supposed that their action would be controlled by Southern men.3 The meeting of the convention was postponed from time to time; but at last it met at Monterey on the 3d of September, with the object of forming a State. The convention was by no means destitute of ability, although an assemblage of young men. Scarcely a gray head could be seen.4 There were fourteen lawyers, twelve farmers, seven merchants; the remainder were engineers, bankers, physicians, and printers.5 The idea of forming an original constitution did not enter into their heads. There were men from various states who were familiar with the provisions of their own organic law; but the Constitution was largely modelled after those of New York and Iowa. To the astonishment of Northern men, no objection whatever was made to the clause in the bill of rights which forever prohibited slavery in the state.6 The
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1 "The Americans surpass all other nations in their power of making the best out of bad conditions, getting the largest results out of scanty materials or rough methods."—American Commonwealth, Bryce, vol. i. p. 169.
2 Bancroft, vol. xviii. p. 283.
3 Ibid., p. 286. 4 There were three members over fifty, and but ten over forty.
5 Bancroft, vol. xviii. p. 288.
6 Bancroft, vol. xviii. p. 290. At first sight this unanimity may seem strange, as where labor was scarce and high and gold plenty it might seem desirable to have slaves. But I think the gist of the whole matter is contained in the following statement of a voting citizen: "One of the prominent questions in the election was an expression as to whether slavery shall be allowed in California; the candidate, though a Louisianian, was opposed out and out to the introduction of slavery here, and so we all voted for him. For myself, I was of the opinion of an old mountaineer, who, leaning against the tent-pole, harangued the crowd, that in a country where every white man made a slave of himself there was no use in keeping niggers."—Correspondence of the Boston Times, copied into the New York Tribune of October 22d, 1849.

members of the convention worked diligently day and night; on the 13th of October their labors were at an end and they affixed their signatures to the Constitution.1 One month later it was adopted by the vote of the people. The legislature which it constituted met in December, and, by a compromise arrangement, elected John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin senators; Fremont held anti-slavery and Gwin pro-slavery opinions.

When Congress met on the first Monday of December, 1849, the vastly preponderating sentiment in the free States was that California and New Mexico should remain free territory. On the other hand, the sentiment was equally strong in the South against any congressional legislation that should interfere with their supposed right of taking their slaves into the new territories. In other words, a population of thirteen millions demanded that the common possession should be dedicated to freedom; a population of eight millions demanded the privilege of devoting it to slavery.2 California, by the unanimous vote of a convention regularly chosen, whose action was ratified by an honest vote of her people, had cast her lot on the side of the free States.

Congress met December 3d. The House was made up
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1 "The most magnificent illustration of the wonderful capacity of this people for self-government."—Von Hoist, vol. iii. p. 463.
2 These figures are simply round numbers, as shown by the census of 1850; three-fifths of the slaves are included in the slave-State population.

of 112 Democrats, 105 Whigs, and 13 Free-soilers,1 and its organization first demanded attention. The candidate of the Whigs for speaker was Winthrop, of Boston, an able and honorable gentleman, of fine birth and breeding, who had been speaker of the previous Congress. Eight of the Free-soilers, however, under the lead of Joshua R. Giddings, refused their support on the ground that he had not during his term as speaker recognized the anti-slavery sentiment in the appointment of the committees, nor would he pledge himself to do so should he be chosen at this session. Giddings represented a district of northeastern Ohio composed of several of the counties of the Western Reserve; with the exception of the Plymouth, it was the most liberty-loving district in the country. He had served many terms in the House, and had distinguished himself, battling by the side of John Quincy Adams for the right of petition and for the anti-slavery cause. Although not a man of great ability, he had great zeal; and as he felt himself untrammelled by the shackles of party, he served his district to its full satisfaction, and made an enviable record as an advocate of freedom. Yet eleven years of legislative experience had failed to teach him that, while it is true there are now and then political principles that must not be bated a jot, even though the heavens fall, it is equally true that for the most part in public life one should sacrifice his ideal good for the best attainable. It was so in this case. If Giddings and his associates had voted for Winthrop, he would have been chosen speaker. They did not choose to do so, and finally Howell Cobb, of Georgia, was elected. His devotion to slavery and Southern interests was the distinguishing feature of his character, and he made up the committees in a way extremely
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1 I follow the classification of the Congressional Globe. Giddings states the number of Free-soilers as eight (History of the Rebellion, p. 300); while Julian, who was one of them, says they were nine (Political Recollections, p. 73). Giddings and Julian classify them according to the vote for speaker, while the Globe ranges them with regard to their vital principles.

favorable to the South and the slave interest.1 "He loves slavery," said Horace Mann; "it is his politics, his political economy, and his religion."2 Horace Mann had gained a wide and well-deserved reputation as an educator; but on the death of John Quincy Adams he was prevailed upon to fill the vacant place of representative of the Plymouth district. He was wiser than his Ohio colleague, for he voted steadily for Winthrop "as the best man we could possibly elect." 3 The acme of logical adherence to a fixed idea, in spite of surrounding circumstances, was reached when Giddings and his followers voted for Brown, of Indiana, for speaker, a Democrat of the straitest sect, because he agreed to make the constitution of certain committees satisfactory to them; and that, too, while, as Giddings himself said, "Neither the moral nor political character of Mr. Brown recommended him to the favor of just and honorable men."4 The balloting for speaker lasted nearly three weeks, and the excitement occasioned by the protracted organization of the House boded no good for the Northern cause. Between the ballots animated discussions sometimes took place, and the Southern bluster was loud and menacing. Disunion was emphatically threatened in case the principle of the Wilmot proviso was insisted upon, or if the attempt were made to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens, both Whigs from Georgia, were the most vehement in their threats to the North and their
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1 "Although the Whigs and Free-soilers are a majority, yet only one from their number is a chairman of any one of the thirty-seven committees. Of the other thirty-six chairmen, nineteen are Locos from the slave States, and seventeen Locos from the free States. Texas, Alabama, and South Carolina afford five chairmen; the three millions of New York only one."—New York Tribune, January 23d.
2 Life of Horace Mann, p. 283.
3 Ibid., p. 285.
4 History of the Rebellion, p. 302. Julian, of Indiana, was not concerned in this intrigue. He was ill, and was not at Washington at this time. Root, of Ohio, likewise would not vote for Brown.

appeals to the South. Contemptuous epithets were bandied to and fro; at one time the lie was given, and only the interference of the sergeant-at-arms with his mace of office prevented a fist-fight on the floor of the House.1

As soon as the House was organized, the President sent his message to Congress. He touched briefly on the important question, but his words were carefully weighed. The latest advices from California gave him reason to believe that she had framed a Constitution, established a state government, and would shortly apply for admission into the Union. This application was recommended to the favorable consideration of Congress. It was likewise believed that at a time not far distant the people of New Mexico would present themselves for admission into the Union. He counselled Congress to await their action, for that would avert all causes of uneasiness, and good feeling would be preserved. It was his opinion, moreover, that "we should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics of sectional character which have hitherto produced painful apprehensions in the public mind."

The great intellectual contest was to take place in the Senate. There Webster, Clay, and Calhoun appeared together for the last time. They were all of them born during the Revolutionary War,2 and were of that school of statesmen who had the privilege of learning their lessons in constitutional law from the lips of many of the fathers of the government themselves. It was the last scene they were to play upon the political stage; but before they made their exit they saw the entrance of the rising class of statesmen whose mission was to proclaim that slavery was sectional, that freedom was national, and who were more imbued with the sacred notions of liberty that the founders of the republic at first maintained than were Webster and Clay, whose contact had been actual with Jefferson and
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1 Public Men and Events, Sargent, vol. ii. p. 851.
2 Clay in 1777, Webster and Calhoun in 1782.

Adams, with Madison and Marshall. Seward and Chase now appeared in the Senate for the first time, while Hale entered upon his third year of service.

It is now in order to describe Clay more fully. He was a man of large natural ability, but he lacked the training of a systematic education. He learned early to appreciate his heaven-born endowments, and to rely upon them for success in his chosen career. Of sanguine temperament, quick perception, irresistible energy, and enthusiastic disposition, he was well fitted to be a party advocate, and was the greatest parliamentary leader in our history.1 He was, however, inclined to "crack the whip" over those of his supporters who exhibited a desire to hang back and question whither his impetuous lead would tend.2 He knew men well, but he had no knowledge of books. The gaming-table had for him allurements that he could not find in the library. According to the manners of his time, he drank to excess. His warm heart made him a multitude of friends; his impulsive action and positive bearing raised up enemies; yet at his death he left not an enemy behind him.3 He was withal a man of inflexible integrity. Straitened in pecuniary circumstances during a large part of his Congressional career, he nevertheless held himself aloof from all corruption. Other Americans have been intellectually greater, others have been more painstaking, others still have been greater benefactors to their country; yet no man has been loved as the people of the United States loved Henry Clay.

In his declining years his thoughts took on a serious cast, and he embraced the Christian religion. It is noteworthy that he began his speech on the compromise resolutions with words not only solemn, but tinctured with religious fervor. He had not been consistent on the slavery question; yet when we consider that he was a slave-holder and that he represented a slave State, his impulsive outbursts
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1 See Blaine's Eulogy of Garfield.
2 George Bancroft, Century Magazine, vol. viii. p. 479.
3 Ibid.

for the cause of freedom are more to be admired than his occasional truckling to the slave power is to be condemned. At this time, he was keenly alive to his own importance. His forty years of public life, in which his name had been identified with measures of the utmost significance, impelled him to think that no legislative act of far-reaching moment would be complete unless he had a hand in its framework. Nearly eight years of retirement had only made him more anxious to act a leading part when he came again upon the scene of action. Before going to Washington, he had been flattered by hearing indirectly that the administration was counting much on his exertions at the approaching session.1 On his arrival at the capital he was unquestionably disappointed that President Taylor did not receive him with open arms and ask and take his advice regarding the policy of the administration. "My relations to the President," writes Clay," are civil and amicable, but they do not extend to any confidential consultations in regard to public measures."2 It is possible that had General Taylor put himself under the guidance of Clay, Clay might himself have adopted the President's plan with some elaboration and extension,3 but it was contrary to his nature and to the whole course of his life to give unreserved adherence to the scheme of another. He could lead, but he could not follow. Especially was it impossible for him to follow the President, whose political ability he despised; nor could he rid his inmost heart of the notion that Taylor occupied the place which rightfully belonged to himself.4 A feeling of pique influenced him as he went to work to concoct his scheme; but as he became more deeply engaged in the labor, the overmastering sentiment of his mind
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1 Clay's Private Correspondence, p. 590.
2 Letter of January 24th, 1850, Private Correspondence, p. 600.
3 See his speech in the Senate of May 13th, 1850.
4 See letter on p. 615, Private Correspondence.

was certainly that of sincere patriotism. He believed that the Union was in danger. Such was the constitution of his mind that, while he was blind to the merits of the plan of another, the benefits of his own dazzled him to the sight of all objections. He honestly felt that he was the man of all others to devise a scheme which should save the Union. It is true that his talents as a constructive statesman were of high rank. His hope was that this compromise would give peace to the country for thirty years, even as the Missouri Compromise had done.1 The plan was perfected by the last of January, and on the 29th Clay introduced it into the Senate in the form of a series of resolutions which were intended to be a basis of compromise, and whose object was to secure " the peace, concord, and harmony of the Union." Their provisions were as follows:

1. The admission of California with her free Constitution.
2. As slavery does not exist by law and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired from Mexico, territorial governments should be established by Congress without any restriction as to slavery.
3. The boundary between Texas and New Mexico, which was in dispute, was determined.
4. Directs the payment of the bonafide public debt of Texas contracted prior to the annexation, for which the duties on foreign imports were pledged, upon the condition that Texas relinquish her claim to any part of New Mexico.
5. Declares that it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland, of the people of the district, and without just compensation to the owners of slaves.
6. Declares for the prohibition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia.
7. More effectual provision should be made for the rendition of fugitive slaves.
8. Declares that Congress has no power to interfere with the slave-trade between the States.
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1 Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, vol. i. p. 17. See also Clay's speech of February 6th, 1850.

A few days after the introduction of the resolutions, Clay obtained the floor of the Senate and made a set speech in their favor. He was a persuasive speaker, his magnetism was great; the impassioned utterance and the action suited to the word aroused the enthusiasm of the moment, and carried everything resistlessly before him, whether he addressed the tumultuous mass-meeting or his cultured audience of the Senate. Yet he can hardly be ranked as among the half-dozen great orators of the world. It is true that his speeches in print convey no idea of the effect of their delivery, and, in the reading, one loses the whole force of his fine physical presence, and fails to appreciate the strength derived from his supremely nervous temperament. He began in an egotistical vein, referring in the most natural way to his long absence from the Senate, explained that his return was simply " in obedience to a stern sense of duty,"1 and disclaimed any higher object of personal ambition than the position he now occupied. None could doubt his sincerity. He had given up all hope of attaining the presidency, which he had so long and so ardently desired. Age 2 and ill-health, for his body was racked by a cruel cough, served to remind him that the sands of his earthly career were almost run. On this day that he was to speak for the cause of the Union, he was so weak that he could not mount the steps of the Capitol without leaning on the arm of his companion and stopping to rest.3 Although the floor of the Senate was crowded and the galleries were filled with a brilliant audience of grace, beauty, and intelligence,4 his expression of opinion was as honest
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1 Speech of Henry Clay, February 5th, 1850.
2 He was now in his seventy-third year.
3 Last Seven Years of Henry Clay, Cotton, p. 181.
4 "Mr. Clay's unrivalled popularity has again secured him an audience such as no other statesman, no matter however able and respected, has ever before obtained here. To get within hearing of his voice I found to be impossible."—Washington correspondence of New York Tribune.

and frank as if he were talking to a confidential friend. He was thoroughly impressed with the dangers that beset the country. He speaks of never before having been "so appalled and so anxious;" he calls his theme "the awful subject." As an evidence of the intense party feeling, he alluded to the fact that the House had spent one whole week in the vain attempt to elect a doorkeeper because the point at issue was " whether the doorkeeper entertained opinions upon certain national measures coincident with this or that side of the House." He thus described the manifestations of the excitement prevalent in the country: "At this moment we have in the legislative bodies of this capitol and in the States twenty odd furnaces in full blast, emitting heat and passion and intemperance, and diffusing them throughout the whole extent of this broad land." His endeavor had been to "form such a scheme of accommodation" as would obviate "the sacrifice of any great principle" by either section of the country, and he believed that the series of resolutions which he presented accomplished the object. Concession by each side was necessary, "not of principle, but of feeling, of opinion in relation to matters in controversy between them." The admission of California as a State would, under the circumstances, be simply the recognition of a time-honored precedent of the government. The North insisted on the application of the Wilmot proviso to the rest of the territory acquired from Mexico; yet slavery did not exist there by law, and the orator in a few pregnant questions stated the case in the most powerful manner: "What do you want who reside in the free States? You want that there shall be no slavery introduced into the territories acquired from Mexico. Well, have you not got it in California already, if admitted as a State? Have you not got it in New Mexico, in all human probability, also? What more do you want? You have

got what is worth a thousand Wilmot provisos. You have got nature itself on your side. You have the fact itself on your side." It was, however, necessary to institute a territorial government for New Mexico. It was not right to allow matters to run along without interference from Congress, to establish a regular system. The orator referred to the fact that in the previous September the people of New Mexico had held a convention, had chosen a delegate to Congress, and had instructed him to represent to that body that their actual government was "temporary, doubtful, uncertain, and inefficient in character and operation," that they were " surrounded and despoiled by barbarous foes, and ruin appears inevitably before us, unless speedy and effectual protection be extended to us by the United States."

Of only one other item of the compromise resolutions is it necessary to speak in detail. The settlement of the Texas boundary may be regarded as an eminently proper one, although the payment of the Texan debt was open to objection as being a measure not free from corruption. As there "was money in it," that feature might be looked upon as intending to win support for the entire project. In the provisions regarding the District of Columbia, a concession was made to the demands of each side.

There remained, then, the declaration in favor of a provision for the more effectual rendition of fugitive slaves. Until he reached this point, Clay's leaning had evidently been more to the Northern than to the Southern side of the controversy, although he tried to hold the balance level between them, and endeavored to blend appeal and argument equally to each section. But on this point he took extreme Southern ground. The Fugitive Slave law, passed in the first years of the government,1 required the aid and countenance of the State magistrates as well as judges of the United States for its execution; but, as the sentiment on the slavery question diverged more widely between the two sections,
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1 See p. 24.

there arose a strong feeling in the Northern States against lending their assistance to restore fugitive slaves. The legislature of Massachusetts enacted a law, making it penal for her officers to perform any duties under the act of Congress of 1793 for their surrender. Pennsylvania passed an act forbidding her judicial authorities to take cognizance of any fugitive-slave case.1 The border States especially complained of the difficulties encountered in reclaiming their runaway negroes. And as it had been decided by the United States Supreme Court that the Constitution had conferred on Congress an exclusive power to legislate concerning their extradition, it was demanded by those Southerners who were willing to compromise the matters in dispute that a more effectual law for the recovery of fugitive slaves should be a part of the arrangement. So much explanation is necessary to understand Clay's very positive expressions. "Upon this subject," he said, " I do think that we have just and serious cause of complaint against the free States. ... It is our duty to make the law more effective; and I shall go with the senator from the South who goes furthest in making penal laws and imposing the heaviest sanctions for the recovery of fugitive slaves and the restoration of them to their owners."

After touching upon each one of his resolutions in order, Clay offered some general considerations: "There have been, unhappily, mutual causes of agitation furnished by one class of the States as well as by the other, though, I admit, not in the same degree by the slave States as by the free States." Yet he had " an earnest and anxious desire to present the olive branch to both parts of this distracted and at the present moment unhappy country." He made an appeal to both sides to do something to quiet the clamors of the nation; depicting, in lively colors, the vast extent of the
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1 Thirty Tears' View, Benton, vol. ii. p. 774; Massachusetts, Acts and Resolves, 1843-45, chap. xlix.; Laws of Pennsylvania, Session of 1847, p. 207, Act No. 159.

country, its present prosperity and wealth, the success of the government, as having proceeded from the Union. If these great blessings were worth conserving, mutual concessions should certainly be made to save the Union from dissolution. "War and dissolution of the Union are identical," he exclaimed. The orator closed with a prophecy that events have completely falsified. Should the Union be dissolved and war follow, he declared, it would be a war more ferocious and bloody, more implacable and exterminating, than were the wars of Greece, the wars of the Commoners of England, or the revolutions of France. And after a war —" not of two or three years' duration, but a war of interminable duration . . . some Philip or Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would arise and cut the Gordian knot and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the severed portions of this common empire." 1

The floor of the Senate was assigned to Calhoun for the 4th of March, to speak on the compromise resolutions. Long battle with disease had wasted his frame, but, swathed in flannels, he crawled to the Senate chamber to utter his last words of warning to the North, and to make his last appeal for what he considered justice to his own beloved South. He was too weak to deliver his carefully written speech. At his request, it was read by Senator Mason. Calhoun sat, with head erect and eyes partly closed, immovable in front of the reader; and he did not betray a sense of the deep interest with which his friends and followers listened to the well-matured words of their leader and political guide.2 This was Calhoun's last formal speech; before the end of the month he had passed away from the scene of earthly contention. The speech is mainly interesting as stating with precision the numerical preponderance of the
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1 The quotations are from Clay's speech made February 5th and 6th, 1850, and taken from Last Seven Years of Henry Clay, Calvin Colton.
2 C. A. Dana, Washington correspondent of New York Tribune.

North, the reasons of Southern discontent, and the forebodings of his prophetic soul in reference to the future. He admitted that universal discontent pervaded the South. Its "great and primary cause is that the equilibrium between the two sections has been destroyed." It was the old story that the North had grown faster in population than the South. Every one knows that it was slavery which kept back the South in the race; but this Calhoun could not see, and he sought the cause in remote and unsubstantial reasons. When Calhoun said the South, he meant the slave power, and the South had not held pace with the North because, first, in his opinion, the Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise had excluded her from territory that should have been left " open to the emigration of masters with their slaves;" second, the tariff and internal-improvements system had worked decidedly against her interests; and, third, the gradual yet steady assumption of greater powers by the federal government at the expense of the rights of the States had proved an inestimable injury to the South. "The cords that bind the States together," said the senator, "are not only many, but various in character. Some are spiritual or ecclesiastical; some political, others social." The strongest are those of a religious nature, but they have begun to snap. The great Methodist Episcopal Church has divided; there is a Methodist Church North and a Methodist Church South, and they are hostile. The Protestant organization next in size, the Baptist Church, has likewise fallen asunder. The cord which binds the Presbyterian Church " is not entirely snapped, but some of its strands have given way. That of the Episcopal Church is the only one of the four great Protestant denominations which remains unbroken and entire. ... If the agitation goes on, the same force, acting with increased intensity, will finally snap every cord" —political and social as well as ecclesiastical—" when nothing will be left to hold the States together except force." It is undeniable that the Union is in danger. How can it be saved? Neither the plan of the distinguished senator of Kentucky nor that of the administration will save the Union. It rests with the North, the stronger party, whether or not she will take the course which will effect this devoutly to be-wished-for consummation. The North must give us equal rights in the acquired territory; she must return our fugitive slaves; she must cease the agitation of the slave question; and she must consent to an amendment to the Constitution "which will restore to the South, in substance, the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the two sections was destroyed by the action of this government." The admission of California will be the test question. If you admit her, it will be notice to us that you propose to use your present strength and to add to it "with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections."1

The latter part of Calhoun's speech is important solely because it defines the position of the extreme Southern party. The mildness of his language, and the almost pathetic appeal to Northern senators, did not veil the arrogance of his demands. He did not now explain the nature of the constitutional amendment which in his judgment was required, but in a posthumous essay,2 which was designed as his political testament, he entered upon the matter fully. The amendment was to provide for the election of two Presidents, one from the free States and one from the slave States; either was to have a veto on all congressional legislation. He held until the end to the fanciful Roman analogy.3 He saw in his mind's eye the Southern tribune checking the power of the Northern consul and of Congress; and while he remembered that the tribunes of Rome became as
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1 For the whole speech of Calhoun see Congressional Globe, vol. xxi. part i. p. 451. A very good abridgment may be found in American Orations, vol. ii. p. 46.
2 Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States.
3 See p. 44.

despots with absolute power, this did not lessen his wish for a like authority as a safeguard of Southern interests. Intellectual vagary can go to no extremer length in politics than to propound a scheme which is alike impossible of adoption, and would be utterly impracticable in operation. The constitutional amendment suggested by Calhoun was generally regarded at the South as a Utopian scheme; yet he had a following of something like fifty members' of Congress, who, even if they did not subscribe to his vague ideas in the science of government, were willing to follow him to the extreme length of secession from the Union, if the dispute could not be settled to their liking. These members represented fairly the feeling of their slave-holding constituents.

Before proceeding to the further consideration of the debate on the compromise resolutions, we should satisfy ourselves whether the Union was indeed in danger. The proceedings of Congress had certainly intensified the excitement. The contest for speaker, the clashes between the representatives of the opposing views, the threats on one side and defiance on the other, had added gravity of a situation already grave. "Two months ago," said Clay, "all was calm in comparison to the present moment. All now is uproar, confusion, and menace to the existence of the Union and to the happiness and safety of the people.”2 Yet Clay had great difficulty in making up his mind as to how much of the danger was real, and how much only apparent. He writes, "My hopes and fears alternate." 3 Calhoun's speech was as sincere as a death-bed utterance, and leaves no doubt that he believed the country on the eve of disunion. Webster was as much perplexed as Clay. In
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1 Nine senators and forty representatives, according to the New York Tribune of March 5th.
2 Speech of Henry Clay, February 5th.
3 Letter to T. B. Stevenson, January 26th, Last Seven Years of Henry Clay, p. 497.

the middle of February he did not fear dissolution of the Union or the breaking-up of the government.1 He writes: "I think that the clamor about disunion rather abates. I trust that if on our side we keep cool, things will come to no dangerous pass. California will probably be admitted just as she presents herself."2 Three weeks later he had materially modified his opinion. Still, there was not so much change in the actual situation as in one's apprehension of it. For it was a time of seething commotion; the political atmosphere was highly charged; one's settled opinions of to-day were liable to be disturbed by violent collision of opposing notions to-morrow; and the impetuous speech of some Southern Hotspur might shake the resolution of timorous Northern men.3 Yet the fears were not all confined to the national capital. Scott, the general of the army, who was stationed at New York, thought that "our country was on the eve of a terrible civil war.'" Senator Benton, however, ridiculed the idea of danger.5 Seward thought the threats of disunion "too trivial for serious notice."6 Chase was not in the least alarmed at
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1 Letter to P. Harvey, February 14th, Curtis, vol. ii. p. 398.
2 Letter to Edward Everett, February 16th, Private Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 355.
3 "It is undeniable that there exists no small degree of violent feeling among a small portion of the Southern members. And so peculiar is the state of society in the South, so morbid is the sensitiveness caused by the influence of slavery, that it is only at the utmost peril that a Southern man can allow any other man to outstrip him in apparent zeal and violence for the defence of that institution. When one roars, therefore all must roar; when one whines, all must whine. Hence there is an apparent combustibleness on all occasions, which superficial observers are apt to take for a deep-seated and durable determination to break from the Union."—Washington correspondence, New York Independent, February 23d, 1850.
4 Remark made to General Sherman, Memoirs of General Sherman, vol. i. p. 82.
5 Thirty Years' View, vol. ii. p. 749.
6 Life of Seward, Baker, p. 145; Seward's Works, vol. i. p. 81.

"the stale cry of disunion."1 Giddings thought the "cry of dissolution was gasconade. ... It has been the dernierressort of Southern men for fifty years whenever they desired to frighten dough-faces into a compliance with their measures.2 In general, the Northern anti-slavery men treated the Southern threats as bravado and as hardly worth serious notice.3 Yet there was one notable exception to this universal opinion. Horace Mann believed that if the North insisted upon passing the "Wilmot proviso for the territories, some of the Southern States would rebel.4 Still, there was an earnest feeling at the North, and especially in New England, that if there were a risk in insisting that slavery should go no further, it was a risk well worth taking." 5
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1 Senate speech, March 27th. 1 Giddings's Speeches, p. 409.
2 "Our Northern friends are blind, absolutely blind, to the real dangers by which we are surrounded."—Letter of C. S. Morehead, Whig representative from Kentucky, to John J. Crittenden, March 30th, Life of Crittenden, vol. i. p. 363. The opinion at that time of the extreme abolitionist was well stated by Theodore Parker in a sermon delivered in 1852. He combated strenuously the idea that there was any danger of dissolution of the Union in 1850. "We have," he said, "the most delicate test of public opinion—the state of the public funds, the barometer which indicates any change in the political weather;" but during all this discussion "the funds of the United States did not go down one mill." "The Southern men know well that if the Union were dissolved their riches would take to itself legs and run away—or firebrands, and make a St. Domingo out of South Carolina! They cast off the North! They set up for themselves 1 Tush! tush 1 Fear boys with bugs!"
4 "I really think if we insist upon passing the Wilmot proviso for the territories that the South—a part of them—will rebel; but I would pass it, rebellion or not. I consider no evil so great as that of the extension of slavery."—Letter of Horace Mann, February 6th, Life, p. 288.
5 "Rather than consent voluntarily to the extension of the slave institution to one foot of free territory—rather than surrender their principles —they [the Northern people] would submit to have the Union severed. This, we believe, is the true feeling of the North."—Springfield Republican, February, 1850, cited by the Liberator. See also Life of Samuel Bowles, vol. i. p. 77. "Let the Union be a thousand times shivered rather than we should aid you [the South] to plant slavery on free soil."—New York Tribune, February 20th.

Carefully weighing the contemporary evidence, and looking on it in the light of subsequent history, I think that little danger of an overt act of secession existed while General Taylor was in the presidential chair. The power of a determined executive to resist the initial steps towards casting off allegiance to the general government was great. While diverse constitutional interpretations and different views as to the force of various precedents might puzzle the President, he was certain to discern betimes any move towards rebellion; and that he was resolved to put down with all the force at his command.1

An incident occurring at this time shows to what stern determination General Taylor had come. The extreme pro-slavery Whigs from the Southern States took the position that they were willing to admit California, provided that in the rest of the territory in question the government would protect and recognize property in slaves, even as other property was protected and recognized. But until this condition was formally acknowledged they were utterly opposed to the admission of California with her free constitution, and, with the assistance of the Southern Democrats, they prevented by filibustering the consideration of a bill in the House which had that for its object. While this obstruction was in progress, Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs, both Southern Whig representatives, called to see the President to discuss his policy and to demand that he, as their party's chief, should use his influence and power to favor the end which they had in view. The President plainly informed them that he would sign any constitutional law which Congress might pass. The direct intimation was that he would sign a bill which provided
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1 "The malcontents of the South mean to be factious; and they expect to compel compromise. I think the President as willing to try conclusions with them as General Jackson was with the nullifiers."—Seward to Weed, November 30th, 1849, Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 112.

unconditionally for the admission of California; and they were indirectly given to understand that he would approve the application of the Wilmot proviso to the territories.1 As a reply to this outline of future action, the Southern congressmen threatened dissolution of the Union, whereupon the President got angry and said that, if it were necessary, he would take the field himself to enforce the laws of his country; and if these gentlemen were taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang them with as little mercy as he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico.2 In the midst of the mutual recrimination accompanying this inevitable sectional controversy, there can be no better evidence as to whence came the aggression than the complete change that had taken place in the sentiments of General Taylor since he had occupied the executive office. Before he was nominated for President, he had written an
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1 See letter of R. Toombs to J. J. Crittenden, Life of Crittenden, Coleman, vol. i. p. 365. Toombs wrote, April 25th: "I saw General Taylor and talked fully with him, and, while he stated he had given and would give no pledges either way about the proviso, he gave me clearly to understand that if it was passed he would sign it. My course became instantly fixed. I would not hesitate to oppose the proviso, even to the extent of a dissolution of the Union."
1 Memoir of Thurlow Weed, p. 177; see also New York Tribune of February 23d; Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 259. Hannibal Hamlin wrote me, August 23d, 1889: "In answer to your inquiry, I can inform you that the statement made by Mr. Wilson to which you refer is correct and accurate. You will find a corroboration of it in the Life or Memoirs of Thurlow Weed." Wilson said in the Senate, July 9th, 1856: "It is said that the Senator from Georgia [Toombs] and others talked very plain to General Taylor in 1850 about a dissolution of the Union, and that General Taylor intimated to them pretty distinctly that the Union was to be preserved and the laws of the country executed." Toombs was present and made an immediate reply to a portion of Wilson's speech, but did not in any way contradict this statement. Congressional Globe, vol. xxxiii. p. 857. Stephens and Toombs, in letters to the New York Herald in 1876, denied this story. See New York Herald, June 13th and August 8th, 1876. In this connection see letter of Stephens written directly after the death of General Taylor, Life of Stephens, Johnston and Browne, p. 258.

emphatic letter to his son-in-law, Jefferson Davis, in which he had maintained that the South must resist boldly and decisively the encroachments of the North; and the Southerners had counted much on his assistance. He now, however, looked upon several Southern members as conspirators, and Jefferson Davis as their chief.1 If we lay aside the speeches in Congress as merely threats of irate Southerners, and get at Southern sentiment from legislative resolutions, from expressions of the press, and from public meetings, it is undeniable that had the Wilmot proviso passed Congress, or had slavery been abolished in the District of Columbia, the Southern convention for which arrangements were making would have been a very different affair from the one that actually did assemble at Nashville. Steps would undoubtedly have been taken towards disunion; and while resolute action of the President was certain to arouse the dormant Union feeling in the South, his task would have been more difficult than was that of General Jackson, for he would have to contend with more States than South Carolina.

A change in Southern sentiment is, however, noticeable shortly after the introduction of Clay's compromise resolutions. This was assisted by a vote in the House of Representatives, laying on the table a resolution which provided for the application of the Wilmot proviso to the territory east of California.2 Clay's speech influenced powerfully the opinion of Southern Whigs. From the beginning of February, it is easy to trace the growth of a Southern sentiment favorable to the admission of California, if only the Wilmot
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1 Memoir of Thurlow Weed, p. 177. "We firmly believe that there are sixty members of Congress who this day desire a dissolution of the Union, and are plotting to effect it."—New York Tribune, editorial, February 23d.
2 The resolution was that of Root, of Ohio. The vote to table was 105 yeas, 75 nays. Thirty-two Northern members voted to defeat the Wilmot proviso, eighteen of whom were Democrats and fourteen Whigs. There were twenty-seven absentees from the free States. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 222.

proviso were not insisted upon for New Mexico, and slavery were allowed to remain in the District of Columbia. This by no means pleased the knot of Southern disunionists, who desired nothing better than the passage by Congress of the Wilmot proviso.1 In that event they had well-grounded hopes that they could unite the South in their views; then they would give their ultimatum, and, if it were rejected, they would dissolve the Union. Efforts, indeed, were made by the extreme Southern Democrats to check the slowly rising Union sentiment. Their aim was to resist the admission of California, and to make the resistance a sectional shibboleth in place of opposition to the Wilmot proviso.2

While, thus, the fear of a formal secession from the Union, such as took place eleven years later, had not at this time sufficient foundation, there was danger in the adjournment of Congress without provision for the matters in dispute.3 The war of legislative declarations, of resolutions, of public meetings, would continue, and inflammatory writing in the press would not cease. Northern legislative action, supported by public sentiment, would not only make it difficult, but impossible, to recover a fugitive slave. On the other hand, it was probable that most of the Southern States would by way of retaliatory legislation pass laws to prevent the sale of Northern products by retail in their limits.4 The governor of Virginia, John B. Floyd, proposed to his legislature a system
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1 New York Tribune, February 4th. See also Benton's Thirty Years' View. "I am pained to say that I fear that there are some Southern men who do not wish a settlement."—Letter of C. S. Morehead, M.C. from Kentucky, to J. J. Crittenden, Life of Crittenden, Coleman, vol. i. p. 363.
2 See New York Tribune, February 25th and March 13th; also the Mobile Advertiser, the Richmond Enquirer, Columbia (S. C.) Telegraph, Charleston (S. C.) Courier, Richmond Whig, for February.
3 "In the Senate there are eight Southern senators and in the House thirty members from the same section who are organized as disunionists and are opposed to any compromise whatever looking to the perpetuity of the Union."—Washington correspondence New York Tribune, February 2d.
4 Life of Crittenden, Coleman, vol. i. p. 363.

of taxation of the products of those states which would not deliver up fugitive slaves.1 A suspension of intercourse between the two sections would follow, and the situation would be strained to the utmost. If, indeed, armed conflicts at various points did not result from the excited feeling, it was certain that the harmony which should subsist between the parts of a federal Union would be utterly destroyed; and after months or even years of such a state of mutual repulsion, it could only end in compromise, peaceable separation, or war.2

Two of the great senatorial triumvirate had spoken; the Senate and the country had yet to hear the greatest of them all. Daniel Webster spoke on the compromise resolutions the 7th of March. In the course of this work, whenever possible, his precise words have been used, in narration and illustration; for in intellectual endowment Webster surpassed all of our public men. No one understood the fundamental principles of our polity better; no one approached his wonderful power of expression. It seemed that the language of the constitutional lawyer who laid down principles of law that the profound legal mind of Marshall fixed in an immutable judicial decision, and who, at the same time, could make abstruse points and carry conviction to the understanding of men who were untrained in logic or in law, was best fitted to guide us through the maze of constitutional interpretation in which our history abounds. Indeed, the political history of the country for twenty-seven years preceding 1850 might be written as well and fully from the speeches, state papers, and letters of Webster as the story of
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1 The Liberator, April.
2 "I am not one of those who, either at the commencement of the session or at any time during its progress, have believed that there was present any actual danger to the existence of the Union. But I am one of those who believe that, if this agitation is continued for one or two years longer, no man can foresee the dreadful consequences."—Clay, Senate, May 21st.

the latter days of the Roman republic from the like material of Cicero which has come down to us.1

As an orator, Webster has been compared in simplicity to Demosthenes and in profundity to Burke.2 This is the highest praise. The wonderful effect of his oratory is strikingly told by George Ticknor, who, fresh from a long intercourse with the most distinguished men in England and on the Continent, went to hear Webster deliver his Plymouth oration. Ticknor writes: "I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood;" and, though from his youth an intimate friend of Webster's, he was so impressed that "when I came out I was almost afraid to come near him. It seemed to me as if he was like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire.”3 Thomas Marshall, of Kentucky, heard the reply to Hayne, and when Webster came to the peroration he "listened as to one inspired, and finally thought he could see a halo around the orator's head like what one sees in the old pictures of saints and martyrs." 4

The diction of Webster was formed by a grateful study of Shakespeare and Milton; through his communion with these masters, his whole soul was thoroughly attuned to the highest
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1 "His ideas, his thoughts [are] spread over every page of your annals for near half a century. His ideas, his thoughts [are] impressed upon and inseparable from the mind of his country and the spirit of the age." —Senate speech of W. H. Seward, August 14th, 1852. "Whoever in aftertimes shall write the history of the United States for the last forty years will write the life of Daniel Webster."—Edward Everett, October 27th, 1852.
2 John Adams, who was present at the trial of Warren Hastings, and had heard Pitt and Pox, Burke and Sheridan, wrote to Webster, after reading his Plymouth oration: "Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise—the most consummate orator of modern times." Lodge, p. 123.
3 Letter of Ticknor from Plymouth, December 21st, 1820, Life of Ticknor, vol. i. p. 330.
4 William Schouler, Personal and Political Recollections, Boston Journal, December 10th, 1870.

thinking and purest harmonies of our literature. He is one of the few orators whose speeches are read as literature. He was our greatest lawyer,1 yet in a bad cause he was not a good advocate, for he had not the flexibility of mind which made the worse appear the better reason; but in cases apparently hopeless, with the right on his side, he won imposing triumphs.2 He was our greatest Secretary of State. He had, said Sumner, " by the successful and masterly negotiation of the treaty of Washington" earned the title of "Defender of Peace."3

The Graces presided at his birth. His growth developed the strong physical constitution with which nature had endowed him equally with a massive brain. His was a sound mind in a sound body. His physical structure was magnificent, his face handsome; he had the front of Jove himself.4 "He is," said Carlyle," a magnificent specimen. . . . As a logic-fencer, or parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world." 5 "Webster," said Henry Hallam, "approaches as nearly to the beau ideal of a republican senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life."5 Josiah Quincy speaks of him as a "figure cast in heroic mould, and which represented the ideal of American manhood.”7 He was well described by the bard he loved so well: "How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!" On the basis of this extraordinary natural ability was built the
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1 "Whatever else concerning him has been controverted by anybody, the fifty thousand lawyers of the United States conceded to him an unapproachable supremacy at the bar."—Seward's eulogy in the Senate.
2 This is remarked by the Westminster Review, January, 1853.
3 Speech before the Whig Convention at Boston, September, 1846, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, Wilson, vol. ii. p. 119.
4 See Lodge, p. 195.
5 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 21.
6 Ibid., p. 27.
7 Figures of the Past, p. 267.

superstructure of a systematic education. His devoted father mortgaged the New Hampshire farm to send him to college, and three years of laborious study of law followed the regular course at Dartmouth. Years afterwards he repaid his Alma Mater for her gifts when he pleaded, and not in vain, for her chartered rights in invincible logic before the most solemn tribunal of the country. Intellectually, Webster was a man of slow growth. The zenith of his power was not reached until he made the celebrated reply to Hayne, and he was then forty-eight years old.

In union with this grand intellect were social qualities of a high order. His manners were charming, his nature was genial, and he had a quick sense of seemly humor. Carlyle speaks of him as "a dignified, perfectly bred man."1 Harriet Martineau says "he would illuminate an evening by telling stories, cracking jokes, or smoothly discoursing to the perfect felicity of the logical part of one's constitution." 2 Ticknor, who was so impressed with the majestic delivery of the orator, speaks of his being "as gay and playful as a kitten." 3 The social intercourse between Webster and Lord Ashburton, while they were at work on the Washington treaty, is one of those international amenities that grace the history of diplomacy. This treaty, by which we gained substantial advantages and England made honorable concessions, was not negotiated through stately protocols, but was concluded through a friendly correspondence and during the interchange of refined social civilities. During this transaction Ashburton was impressed with "the upright and honorable character" of Webster.4 As late as 1845 there might be seen engravings which were an indication of the popular notion that honesty was his cardinal virtue.5
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1 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 21.
2 Retrospect of American Travel, vol. i. p. 147.
3 Letter, December 23d, 1820, Life of Ticknor, vol. i. pp. 331 and 379.
4 Memoir of Everett, Webster's Works, vol. i. p. cxxiv.
5 Sir Charles Lyell saw "a most formidable likeness of Daniel Webster being an engraving published in Connecticut. Leaning over the portrait of the great statesman is represented an aged man holding a lantern in his hand, and, lest the meaning of so classical an allusion should be lost, we read below:

"' Diogenes his lantern needs no more— An honest man is found, the search is o'er.'"
Second Visit to United States, vol. i. p. 55.

He had strong domestic feelings. He honored his father, loved his brother, and was devoted to his wife and children; his affection for his many friends was pure and disinterested. He had during his life a large share of domestic affliction, and his deep and sincere grief shows that he had a large heart as well as a great head. He had a constant belief in revealed as well as natural religion.1

His healthy disposition was displayed even in his recreations. He was a true disciple of Izaak Walton, and he also delighted in the chase. Few men have loved nature more. Those grand periods that will never cease to delight lovers of oratory were many of them conned at his Marshfield retreat, where he worshipped the sea and did reverence to the rising sun. After a winter of severe work in his declining years, he gets to Marshfield in May, and writes: "I grow strong every hour. The giants grew strong again by touching the earth; the same effect is produced on me by touching the salt sea-shore."2

The distinctive virtue of Webster was his patriotism. He loved his country as few men have loved it; he had a profound reverence for the Constitution and its makers. He spoke truly when he said: "I am an American, and I know no locality but America; that is my country; "3 a and he was deeply in earnest when he gave utterance to the sentiment, "I was bred, indeed I might almost say I was born, in admiration of our political institutions."4 Webster's great work was to inspire the country with a strong and enduring
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1 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 333.
2 Ibid., p. 377.
3 Ibid., p. 448.
4 Ibid., p. 513.

national feeling; and he impressed upon the people everywhere, except in the cotton States, a sacred love for the Union. How well his life-work was done was seen, less than nine years after he died, in the zealous appeal to arms for the defence of the nation. In the sleepless nights before his death, no sight was so welcome to his eyes as the lantern he saw through the windows placed at the mast-head of the little shallop, in order that he might discern, fluttering at the mast, the national flag, the emblem of that Union to which he had consecrated the best thoughts and purest efforts of his life.

During the last twenty years of his career Webster had a great desire to be President. Three times he was exceedingly anxious for the Whig nomination, and thought his chances were good for getting it; but the nomination even never came to him. Indeed, he always overrated the probabilities of his success. He was of that class of statesmen who were stronger before the country than before the political convention. Had he ever been named as his party's choice, he would unquestionably have been a strong candidate; but he never had the knack of arousing the enthusiasm of the party, which Clay possessed in so eminent degree. Nor did his frequent action independent of political considerations commend him to the men who shaped the action of the party convention. George Ticknor said, in 1831, Webster " belongs to no party; but he has uniformly contended for the great and essential principles of our government on all occasions;"1 and this was to a large extent true of him during his whole life. His tendency to break away from party trammels was shown more than once during his long career. In 1833, as we have seen, 2 he supported with enthusiasm the Democratic President, and would not assent to the compromise devised by the leader of his party. But the crowning act of independence was when he remained in the
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1 Life of George Ticknor, vol. i. p. 393.
2 See p. 50.

cabinet of President Tyler, when all his colleagues resigned. The motive for this action was the desire to complete the negotiation of the Ashburton treaty, for Webster felt that he of all men was best fitted for that work; and his heart was earnestly enlisted in the effort to remove the difficulties in the way of a peaceful settlement, and to avert a war between England and the United States. His course, although eminently patriotic, was certain to interfere with his political advancement. For he resisted the imperious dictation of Clay, he breasted the popular clamor of his party, and he pursued his own ideas of right despite the fact that he had to encounter the tyranny of public opinion which De Tocqueville has so well described.

The French, who make excuses for men of genius as the Athenians were wont to do, have a proverb, "It belongs to great men to have great defects." Webster exemplified this maxim. He was fond of wine and brandy, and at times drank deep; he was not scrupulous in observing the seventh commandment. Though born and reared in poverty, he had little idea of the value of money and of the sacredness of money obligations. He had no conception of the duty of living within his means, and he was habitually careless in regard to the payment of his debts. His friends more than once discharged his obligations; besides such assistance, he accepted from them at other times presents of money, but he would have rejected their bounty with scorn had there gone with it an expectation of influencing his public action. This failing was the cause of serious charges being preferred against him. He was accused of being in the pay of the United States Bank, but this was not true;1 and he was charged with a corrupt misuse of the secret service fund while Secretary of State under Tyler, but from this accusation he was fully and fairly exonerated.2
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1 Curtis, vol. i. p. 498.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 267; Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. xii. pp. 260, 263; Life of Jefferson Davis by his Wife, vol. i. pp. 248 and 634.

Considering that it was only by strenuous effort that the son of the New Hampshire farmer obtained the highest rank in political and social life,1 it is hard to believe that he was constitutionally indolent, as one of his biographers states. When sixty-seven years old it was his practice to study from five to eleven in the morning; he was in the Supreme Court from eleven to three, and the rest of the day in the Senate until ten in the evening. When he had the time to devote himself to his legal practice, his professional income was large.

Such, in the main, if Daniel Webster had died on the morning of the seventh day of March, 1850, would have been the estimate of his character that would come down to this generation. But his speech in the Senate on that day placed a wide gulf between him and most of the men who were best fitted to transmit his name to posterity. Partisan malignity has magnified his vices, depreciated his virtues, and distorted his motives.

Let us now consider this speech, which the orator himself thought the most important effort of his life.2 The most important event in the long session of Congress we are at present considering, it was almost as momentous in the history of the country as it was in the life of Webster. It is the only speech in our history which is named by the date of its delivery, and the general acquiescence in this designation goes to show that it was a turning-point in the action of Congress, in popular sentiment, and in the history of the country.

Webster began: "I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. ... It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded by very considerable dangers to our institutions and government. The imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North, and the stormy
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1 E. P. Whipple, North American Review, July, 1844.
2 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 529.

South combine to throw the whole sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths. ... I speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. 'Hear me for my cause.'" He spoke of the Mexican war as having been " prosecuted for the purpose of the acquisition of territory. ... As the acquisition was to be south of the line of the United States, in warm climates and countries, it was naturally, I suppose, expected by the South that whatever acquisitions were made in that region would be added to the slave-holding portion of the United States. Very little of accurate information was possessed of the real physical character either of California or New Mexico, and events have not turned out as was expected. Both California and New Mexico are likely to come in as free States, and therefore some degree of disappointment and surprise has resulted. . . . It is . . . the prohibition of slavery which has contributed to raise . . . the dispute as to the propriety of the admission of California into the Union under this Constitution."

The orator then proceeded to discuss slavery from a general historical standpoint, whence an allusion followed naturally to the different view taken of the institution at the North and at the South. It is too long to quote, but it is a fair, dispassionate statement, and rises to the level of a judgment by a philosophical historian.1 He regrets the separation of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Speaking with the utmost feeling on the subject, he expresses the opinion that the schism might have been prevented; and he then comments upon the matter in words pregnant with wisdom that not only applied with force to the slavery question in 1850, but have a meaning for all controversies to all time.

At the time the Constitution was adopted, there was, he said, "no diversity of opinion between the North and the South upon the subject of slavery. It will be found that
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1 See Webster's Works, vol. v. p. 330.

both parts of the country held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. . . . The eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the conspicuous politicians of the South held the same sentiments—that slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and a curse. . . . There was, if not an entire unanimity, a general concurrence of sentiment running through the whole community, and especially entertained by the eminent men of all parts of the country. But soon a change began at the North and the South, and a difference of opinion showed itself; the North growing much more warm and strong against slavery, and the South growing much more warm and strong in its support." The reason that the South ceased to think it an evil and a scourge, but, on the other hand, maintained that it was "a great religious, social, and moral blessing," was " owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the cotton plantations of the South."1

In reply to Calhoun's statement that "there has been a majority all along in favor of the North," Webster averred that " no man acquainted with the history of the Union can deny that the general lead in the politics of the country, for three-fourths of the period that has elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution, has been a Southern lead." He directed attention to the events that brought about the annexation of Texas, referred at length to the joint resolution which allowed four more States to be formed out of her territory; and laid great stress upon the stipulation that the States which would be created south of the line of 36° 30'— and this embraced nearly the whole of Texas—were permitted to have slavery, and would without question be slave States. To that" this government is solemnly pledged by law and contract . . . and I for one mean to fulfil it, because I will not violate the faith of the government. .. . Now as to California and New Mexico, I hold slavery to be excluded from those territories by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas. I mean the law of
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1 See p. 26.

nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth. That law settles forever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California or New Mexico. . . . What is there in New Mexico that could by any possibility induce anybody to go there with slaves? There are some narrow strips of tillable land on the borders of the rivers; but the rivers themselves dry up before midsummer is gone. . . . And who expects to see a hundred black men cultivating tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or anything else, on lands in New Mexico, made fertile only by irrigation?" Considering that" both California and New Mexico are destined to be free, ... I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put in no Wilmot proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or reproach. . . . Wherever there is a substantive good to be done, wherever there is a foot of land to be prevented from becoming slave territory, I am ready to assert the principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to it from the year 1837; I have been pledged to it again and again; and I will perform those pledges; but I will not do a thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings of others, or that does discredit to my own understanding."

As regards the non-rendition of fugitive slaves, Webster thought that the complaints of the South were just, and that the North had lacked in her duty; and he proposed, with some amendments, to support the fugitive slave bill which had been drawn up and introduced by Senator Mason of Virginia. He referred to the abolition societies at the North, and did not "think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. . . . The violence of the Northern press is complained of." But " the press is violent everywhere. There are outrageous reproaches in the North against the South, and there are reproaches as vehement in the South against the North." There is, however," no solid grievance presented by the South within the redress of the government . . . but the want of
a proper regard to the injunction of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves."

It is near the close of this speech that occurs the fine passage depicting the utter impossibility of peaceable secession. "Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects them to quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe." And in his peroration, which in eloquence almost equals that of his reply to Hayne, he adjured the Senate and the country," instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union. Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us for the preservation of this Constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to come."1

This speech of Webster had been long and anxiously awaited. The desire was great to know what position he would take; the curiosity was intense to know whether he would support the compromise or would join the anti-slavery Whigs and approve the plan of the President. It had been rumored that he, in connection with some Southern senators, was intending to prepare a scheme of adjustment; 2 on
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1 The quotations are taken from the speech as printed in vol. v. of Webster's Works. The whole speech is well worth reading.
2 National Era, March 7th, 1850; Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. ii. p. 149; New York Herald and New York Journal of Commerce, February 28th; New York Tribune, March 1st; Correspondence of C. A. Dana, New York Tribune, March 4th.

the other hand, Giddings and other Free-soilers thought that he would sustain their doctrines.1 Horace Mann did not believe that Webster would compromise the great question.2 All this conjecture was idle. More than six weeks before he made the declaration in public, he had given Clay to understand that he would support substantially the Kentucky senator's scheme of compromise.3 Before concurring in all the details, he desired to give the subject careful consideration; and between the time of his interview with Clay on January 21st and the delivery of his speech he consulted with men of diverse views.4 He heard every side advocated; he saw the subject in all its bearings. As the result of his mature and carefully considered judgment, he determined to follow his own first impressions, and devote himself to the advocacy of Clay's plan," no matter what might befall himself at the North."5
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1 History of the Rebellion, p. 323. Giddings's statement that Webster had made promises to anti-slavery men is probably a mistake. See Curtis, vol. ii. p. 402.
2 March 4th, Life, p. 293.
3 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 397.
4 Lodge, p. 322.
5 Curtis, vol. ii. p. 397.


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].