A Brief History of the United States Part 39

1. Congress in 1841 pa.s.sed two bills for chartering a new national bank, but President Tyler vetoed both. The Whig leaders then declared that Tyler was not a Whig.

2. The next year the Webster-Ashburton treaty settled a long-standing dispute over the northeastern boundary.

3. In 1844 the Democrats declared for the annexation of Texas and Oregon, and elected Polk President. Congress then quickly decided to admit Texas to the Union.

4. War with Mexico followed a dispute over the Texas boundary. In the course of it Taylor won victories at Monterey and Buena Vista; Scott made a famous march to the city of Mexico; and Kearny marched to Santa Fe and on to California.

5. Peace added to the United States a great tract of country acquired from Mexico. Meanwhile, the Oregon country had been divided by treaty with Great Britain.

6. The acquisition of Mexican territory brought up the question of the admission of slavery, for the territory was free soil under Mexican rule.

7. The opponents of extension of the slave area formed the Free-soil party in 1848, and drew off enough Democratic votes so that the Whigs elected Taylor and Fillmore.

8. Meanwhile gold had been discovered in California, and a wild rush for the "diggings" began.

9. The people in California formed a free-state const.i.tution and applied for admission to the Union.

10. The chief political issues now centered around slavery, and as they had to be settled, lest the Union be broken, the Whigs and Democrats arranged the Compromise of 1850.

11. This made California a free state, but left the new territories of Utah and New Mexico open to slavery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD ADOBE RANCH HOUSE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Besides the long-standing dispute over the Maine boundary, two other matters were possible causes of war with Great Britain. (1) Her cruisers had been searching our vessels off the African coast to see if they were slavers. (2) In the attack on the _Caroline_ (p. 297) one American was killed, and in 1840 a Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was arrested in New York and charged with the murder. Great Britain now avowed responsibility for the burning of the _Caroline_, and demanded that the man should be released. McLeod, however, was tried and acquitted.

[2] Two other provisions of the treaty were of especial importance. (1) In order to stop the slave trade each nation was to keep a squadron (carrying at least eighty guns) cruising off the coast of Africa. (2) It was agreed that any person who, charged with the crime of murder, piracy, arson, robbery, or forgery, committed in either country, shall escape to the other, shall if possible be seized and given up to the authorities of the country which he fled.

[3] A war between Mexico and Texas followed, and was carried on with great cruelty by the Mexicans. Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, having driven some Texans into a building called the Alamo (ah'la-mo), in San Antonio, carried it by storm and ordered all of its defenders shot. A band of Texans who surrendered at Goliad met the same fate. In 1836, however, General Samuel Houston (hu'stun) beat the Mexicans in the decisive battle of San Jacinto. The struggle of the Texans for independence aroused sympathy in our country; hundreds of volunteers joined their army, and money, arms, and ammunition were sent them. Read A. E. Barr's novel _Remember the Alamo_.

[4] Referring to our claim between 1803 and 1819 (p. 276) that the Louisiana Purchase extended west to the Rio Grande.

[5] James K. Polk was born in North Carolina in 1795, but went with his parents to Tennessee in 1806, where in 1823 he became a member of the legislature. From 1824 to 1839 he was a member of Congress, and in 1839 was elected governor of Tennessee. Polk was the first presidential "dark horse"; that is, the first candidate whose nomination was unexpected and a surprise. In the Democratic national convention at Baltimore the contest was at first between Van Buren and Ca.s.s. Polk's name did not appear till the eighth ballot; on the ninth the convention "stampeded" and Polk received every vote. When the news was spread over the country by means of railroads and stagecoaches, many people would not believe it till confirmed by the newspapers. The Whigs nominated Henry Clay; and the Liberty party, James G. Birney. Tyler also was renominated by his friends, but withdrew.

[6] Read Whittier's _Texas_.

[7] In the course of the fight a son of Henry Clay was killed, and Jefferson Davis, afterward President of the Confederate States of America, was wounded. At one stage of the battle Lieutenant Crittenden was sent to demand the surrender of a Mexican force that had been cut off; but the Mexican officer in command sent him blindfolded to Santa Anna. Crittenden thereupon demanded the surrender of the entire Mexican army, and when told that Taylor must surrender in an hour or have his army destroyed, replied, "General Taylor never surrenders." Read Whittier's _Angels of Buena Vista_.

[8] The war was bitterly opposed by the antislavery people of the North as an attempt to gain more slave territory. Numbers of pamphlets were written against it. Lincoln, then a member of Congress, introduced resolutions asking the President to state on what spot on American soil blood had been shed by Mexican troops, and James Russell Lowell wrote his famous _Biglow Papers_.

[9] Five years later (1853), by another treaty with Mexico, negotiated by James Gadsden, we acquired a comparatively small tract south of the Gila, called the Gadsden Purchase (compare maps, pp. 330, 352). The price was $10,000,000. The purchase was made largely because Congress was then considering the building of a railroad to the Pacific, and because the route likely to be chosen went south of the Gila.

[10] As early as 1846 the North attempted to decide the question in favor of freedom. Polk had asked for $2,000,000 with which to settle the boundary dispute with Mexico, and when the bill to appropriate the money was before the House, David Wilmot moved to add the proviso that all territory bought with it should be free soil. The House pa.s.sed the Wilmot Proviso, but the Senate did not; so the bill failed. The following year (1847) a bill to give Polk $3,000,000 was introduced, and again the proviso was added by the House and rejected by the Senate. Then the House gave way, and pa.s.sed the bill; but the acquisition of California and New Mexico by treaty left the question still unsettled.

[11] Their platform declared: (1) that Congress has no more power to make a slave than to make a king; (2) that there must be "free soil for a free people"; (3) that there must be "no more slave states, no more slave territories"; (4) that "we inscribe on our banner, 'Free soil, free speech, free labor, and freemen.'"

[12] The Liberty party nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire, but he withdrew in favor of Van Buren. The Liberty party was thus merged in the Free-soil party, and so disappeared from politics. The Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President were Lewis Ca.s.s and William O.

Butler.

[13] Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia in 1784, was taken to Louisville, Kentucky, while still a child, and grew up there. In 1808 he entered the United States army as a lieutenant, and by 1810 had risen to be a captain.

For a valiant defense of Fort Harrison on the Wabash, he was made a major.

He further distinguished himself in the Black Hawk and Seminole wars. In the Mexican War General Taylor was a great favorite with his men, who called him in admiration "Old Rough and Ready." Before 1848 he had taken very little interest in politics. He was nominated because of his record as a military hero.

[14] Millard Fillmore was born in central New York in 1800, and at fourteen was apprenticed to a trade, but studied law at odd times, and practiced law at Buffalo. He served three terms in the state a.s.sembly, was four times elected to Congress, and was once the Whig candidate for governor. In 1848 he was nominated for the vice presidency as a strong Whig likely to carry New York.

[15] Laborers left the fields, tradesmen the shops, and seamen deserted their ships as soon as they entered port. One California newspaper suspended its issue because editor, typesetters, and printer's devil had gone to the gold fields. In June the Star stopped for a like reason, and California was without a newspaper. Some men made $5000, $10,000, and $15,000 in a few days. California life in the early times is described in Kirk Munroe's _Golden Days of '49_, and in Bret Harte's _Luck of Roaring Camp_ and _Tales of the Argonauts_.

[16] Those who crossed the plains suffered terribly, and for many years the wrecks of their wagons, the bones of their oxen and horses, and the graves of many of the men were to be seen along the route. This route was from Independence in Missouri, up the Platte River, over the South Pa.s.s, past Great Salt Lake, and so to "the diggings."

[17] Some miners obtained gold by digging the earth, putting it into a tin pan, pouring on water, and then shaking the pan so as to throw out the muddy water and leave the particles of gold. Others used a box mounted on rockers and called a "cradle" or "rocker."

[18] Read the speeches of Calhoun and Webster in _Johnston's American Orations_, Vol. II. Webster's speech gave great offense in the North.

Read McMaster's _Daniel Webster_, pp. 314-324, and Whittier's poem _Ichabod_. The debate and its attendant scenes are well described in Rhodes's _History of the U. S._, Vol. I, pp. 104-189.

[19] The fugitive slave law gave great offense to the North. It provided that a runaway slave might be seized wherever found, and brought before a United States judge or commissioner. The negro could not give testimony to prove he was not a fugitive but had been kidnapped, if such were the case.

All citizens were "commanded," when summoned, to aid in the capture of a fugitive, and, if necessary, in his delivery to his owner. Fine and imprisonment were provided for any one who harbored a fugitive or aided in his escape. The law was put in execution at once, and "slave catchers,"

"man hunters," as they were called, "invaded the North." This so excited the people that many slaves when seized were rescued. Such rescues occurred during 1851 at New York, Boston, Syracuse, and at Ottawa in Illinois. Read Wilson's _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, Chap. 26.

In the midst of this excitement Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her story of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Mrs. Stowe's purpose was "to show the inst.i.tution of slavery truly just as it existed." The book is rather a picture of what slavery might have been than of what slavery really was; but it was so powerfully written that everybody read it, and thousands of people in the North who hitherto cared little about the slavery issue were converted to abolitionism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1850.]

CHAPTER XXVI

THE STRUGGLE FOR FREE SOIL

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1852.--The Compromise of 1850 was thought to be a final settlement of all the troubles that had grown out of slavery.

The great leaders of the Whig and Democratic parties solemnly pledged themselves to stand by the compromise, and when the national conventions met in 1852, the two parties in their platforms made equally solemn promises.

The Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce [1] of New Hampshire for President, and declared they would "abide by and adhere to" the compromise, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs selected Winfield Scotland declared the compromise to be a "settlement in principle" of the slavery question, and promised to do all they could to prevent further agitation of it. The Free-soilers nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire.

The refusal of the Whig party to stand against the compromise drove many Northern voters from its ranks. Pierce carried every state save four and, March 4, 1853, was duly inaugurated. [2]

THE SLAVERY QUESTION NOT SETTLED.--But Pierce had not been many months in office when the quarrel over slavery was raging once more. In January, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced into the Senate a bill to organize a new territory to be called Nebraska. Every foot of it was north of 36 30' and was, by the Compromise of 1820 (p. 274), free soil. But an attempt was made to amend the bill and declare that the Missouri Compromise should not apply to Nebraska, whereupon such bitter opposition arose that Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another. [3]

KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT.--The new bill provided for the creation of two territories, one to be called Kansas and the other Nebraska; for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, thus opening the country north of 36 30' to slavery; and for the adoption of the doctrine of popular sovereignty.

The Free-soilers, led by Salmon P. Chase, William H. Seward, and Charles Sumner, tried hard to defeat the bill. But it pa.s.sed Congress, and was signed by the President (1854). [4]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNOR'S MANSION, KANSAS, IN 1857. Contemporary drawing.]

THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.--And now began a seven years' struggle between the Free-soilers and the proslavery men for the possession of Kansas. Men of both parties hurried to the territory. [5] The first election was for territorial delegate to Congress, and was carried by the proslavery party a.s.sisted by hundreds of Missourians who entered the territory, voted unlawfully, and went home. The second election was for members of the territorial legislature. Again the Missourians swarmed over the border, and a proslavery legislature was elected. Governor Reeder set the elections aside in seven districts, and in them other members were chosen; but the legislature when it met turned out the seven so elected and seated the men rejected by the governor. The proslavery laws of Missouri were adopted, and Kansas became a slave-holding territory.