A History of the Republican Party Part 2

Whatever sentiment in the South against slavery had survived the Const.i.tutional period now disappeared completely. Cotton brought about a new view, and from being an evil to be eradicated in some way in the course of time, it was now regarded as absolutely necessary to the social and political welfare of the South. The strongest of human pa.s.sions, avarice, ambition and worldly interest now bound the South closer than ever to slavery. The slaves produced cotton--which was wealth--and wealth brought independence and social distinction; besides the slave was a political advantage of great importance, because five of them, without any voice in the matter themselves, counted as three white persons. Under these auspices grew the Slave Power, soon to be a bold, threatening and overbearing faction in the nation.

While the South and the Slave Power were thus being prepared for great wealth and political standing, circ.u.mstances were working in the North to counteract and balance, in a way, this development. New England was beginning to feel the first impulses of a great industrial development; interest in commerce and manufacturing was awakening, and inventive genius, called into action by economical necessity, was at work, and the use of machinery and mechanical inventions was increasing. New England was shortly to be covered with cotton and other factories.

The war between France and England opened to the United States almost a monopoly on the West Indies trade in 1793, and it was the North that received the greatest benefit from this trade. Congress in 1791 had established the United States Bank at Philadelphia, with branches in all of the important cities, and this aided the North more than the South.

In short, the North was developing that capital, energy, ingenuity and thrift and use of mechanical inventions, the lack of which was the greatest weakness of the South. The settlement of the Northwest Territory by pioneers from the northern States is also to be kept in mind.

This great manufacturing and commercial development, and the movement of the population westward, also awakened in the North a lively interest in internal improvements, and the steamboat, railroad and telegraph were soon to add their tremendous influences and advantages to this section of the country. The various pursuits and the development of the North increased and attracted population, and the balance between the North and the South, which was so nearly even in 1790, grew steadily in favor of the North, until at the opening of the Civil War the North had nineteen million free people against eight and one-quarter million in the South, the South at that time having four million slaves.

CHAPTER V.

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

"The Missouri question marked a distinct era in the political thought of the country ... suddenly and without warning the North and the South, the free States and the slave States, found themselves arrayed against each other in violent and absorbing conflict."

_James G. Blaine_.

Shall there be Slave States other than Louisiana west of the Mississippi River? This question coming suddenly before the people in 1818, laying bare the inherent antagonisms of the North and South, aroused the entire country to a white heat of excitement; and only after a most bitter and alarming struggle resulted in the third great Compromise on the slavery question.

From the time of Whitney's invention to the Missouri Compromise, three important events happened in the history of slavery: The first Fugitive Slave Law pa.s.sed in January, 1793; the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory in 1803, and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

The call for legislation to enforce the Fugitive Slave provision in the Const.i.tution came, strangely enough, from the North. A free negro had been kidnapped in Pennsylvania in 1791 and taken to Virginia. The Governor of Virginia refused to surrender the kidnappers, claiming there was no law on the subject. Upon the matter being brought to the attention of Congress by the Governor of Pennsylvania, a Fugitive Slave Law and also an Extradition Law for fugitives from justice were enacted.

While the fugitive from justice was surrounded by the safeguards of a requisition accompanied by a certified copy of an indictment or affidavit charging the crime, these safeguards were not given to the slave, but he could be forcibly seized by the owner or his agent and taken before a magistrate. There was no trial by jury, and the only requisite for conviction was an affidavit that he had escaped. The harshness of this procedure was resisted from the very first by the northern people, but this law was on the statute books until the second and last law on the subject was pa.s.sed as a part of the Compromise of 1850.

When the time came at which Congress could abolish the slave trade, a law was promptly pa.s.sed, after considerable angry debate as to its terms, prohibiting the slave trade after December 31, 1807. In fact, it was necessary to even effect a compromise on this subject on the point as to what should be done with any slaves that might be imported contrary to the law; and it was decided that they should belong neither to the importer nor any purchaser, but should be subject to the regulations of the State in which they might be brought. As far as it restrained the South, the law abolishing the slave trade proved to be more of a dead letter than the Fugitive Slave Law did in the North, because the slave trade was carried on with more or less openness until the Civil War, it being estimated that about fifteen thousand slaves were brought into the country annually. The abolition of the slave trade caused several of the border States to devote their attention to slave breeding, which, with the increased demand and the large advance in prices, became a profitable industry in Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.

The acquisition in 1803 of the Louisiana Territory, the wonderful and romantic exploration of it by Lewis and Clark in 1804-5, the closing of the Indian Wars and the second war with England, and hard times in the East, caused that tremendous rush of population to the West, which resulted in the admission of so many new States prior to 1820, and opened anew the slavery question. Vermont, admitted in 1791, Kentucky 1792, Tennessee 1796, Ohio 1803, Louisiana 1812, Indiana 1816, Mississippi 1817, Illinois 1818, and Alabama 1819, had raised the number of States to twenty-two; eleven free and eleven slave; the early custom of admitting a free and slave State together having been strictly followed. The admission of these States effectively part.i.tioned all of the territory east of the Mississippi between Freedom and Slavery, with the exception of the Michigan Territory (subsequently divided into Michigan and Wisconsin), and the new Territory of Florida, purchased from Spain in 1819. West of the Mississippi only one State had been admitted, and the rest of the land was known as the Missouri Territory.

The tide of population pa.s.sing down the Ohio, or through the States, had crossed the Mississippi into the Missouri country, and Missouri, in 1818, pet.i.tioned Congress for permission to form a Const.i.tution and enter the Union. Nothing was said about slavery, but it was known that the great majority of the Missouri settlers were slave owners or sympathizers, as those who held anti-slavery opinions were content to remain in the States formed out of the Northwest Territory, and it was therefore certain that Missouri would be a slave State.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Capitol, Washington, D. C.]

The Bill authorizing Missouri to act was taken up in the House on February 13, 1819, and immediately Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, moved that the further introduction of slavery in Missouri be prohibited, and that children born in the State after its admission should be free at the age of twenty-five years. Instantly and unexpectedly an exciting, violent debate took place between the North and South. Neither professed to understand the position of the other, but the North was more sincerely astonished, because for the first time she realized what the South had intended for many years, that slavery should be made a permanent inst.i.tution in the original States, and that it should be forced into the Missouri Territory as a matter of political necessity; because the extension of slave area had by this time become absolutely necessary for the interests of the South.

It was a plain proposition that if the South lost control of the legislative reins at Washington, slavery would eventually be doomed by adverse legislation and by the admission of free States. At the time the Missouri question came up, the North, by reason of her larger population, controlled the House, but the Senate was controlled by the South. The censuses taken in 1800 and 1810 had shown that the North was increasing two to one in population over the South, and the coming census, it was feared, would show a much larger increase in favor of the North; in fact, when the census for 1820 was published the division of the population was as follows:

Free White. Negroes. Slaves.

North .......... 5,030,371 99,281 19,108 South .......... 2,831,560 134,223 1,519,017

With a great moral weakness to justify, the South now knew herself to be growing physically weaker, and her skillful leaders, always alert on every phase of slavery, saw quickly that the South must insist upon more slave territory, not only to maintain the equilibrium in the Senate, but to counteract the growing population in the North. Therefore the Missouri question was pressed with violence, threat and strategy. The South was determined that Missouri should come in as a slave State or the South would secede from the Union; the North not only argued that slavery was a great wrong, not to be encouraged by its extension, but was equally determined that the South should have no more political advantage because of her slaves. "This momentous question," wrote Jefferson, "like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror."

With the two Sections dead-locked, nothing could take place but the most acrimonious debates, accompanied by threats and defiances. The House adopted the Tallmadge Amendment, but it was rejected by the Senate.

Neither branch would recede from its position, and amid scenes of the greatest excitement in Washington and throughout the country, the Fifteenth Congress adjourned.

The Sixteenth Congress met on December 6, 1819, and the Missouri question came up immediately. A compromise that the territory west of the Mississippi should be divided in the same manner as that east of the river was rejected by the North. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is some difficulty in deciding which, Maine applied at this time for admission, and the South in the Senate refused to admit Maine unless the North would admit Missouri, and out of the situation rose the Missouri Compromise. By a close majority the Senate joined Maine and Missouri in the same Bill, and then Senator Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois, moved that, excepting Missouri, slavery should forever be prohibited in all the Louisiana Territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north lat.i.tude, this being the southern boundary of Missouri. The Bill was taken to the House toward the end of January, 1820, but it refused to concur. The Senate stood fast, and after some further angry debate the House yielded early in March, 1820; Maine came into the Union, and Missouri was permitted to draft a Const.i.tution, which, if acceptable, would admit her to statehood.

But the difficulty was not over, for when Missouri presented her Const.i.tution it was found to contain a provision that the Legislature should pa.s.s a law preventing free negroes from settling in the State.

The North violently opposed this provision and refused to admit Missouri, and the situation was even more serious than when the original subject was considered. The intense excitement spread from Washington throughout the country, and many felt that the Union would be dissolved.

The debate continued until the middle of February, 1821, without solution, and Congress was to adjourn early in March. Maine had already been admitted, and her representatives were in Congress. The South felt that she had been betrayed. Finally a second compromise on the Missouri question was reached, through the efforts of Henry Clay, and Missouri was admitted upon condition that no law should ever be pa.s.sed by her to enforce the objectionable provision in her Const.i.tution.

While it was true that the North received in area decidedly the best of the bargain, the Missouri Compromise was a distinct victory and gain for the South, because she obtained a present, tangible and important advantage in the admission of a slave State and the establishment of slavery in the heart of the Louisiana Territory. The North obtained nothing but a hazy, speculative advantage, and as the subsequent history of this Compromise proved, the South intended to keep it only as long as it served her interests.

On the subject of the sacredness of the various Compromises on slavery, it is interesting to note that a strong attempt was made to set aside the Ordinance of 1787. After Ohio had been admitted the rest of the Northwest Territory was organized under the name of the Indiana Territory, and as many of the settlers were slavery sympathizers, they very early (1802), under the lead of William Henry Harrison, asked Congress to at least temporarily suspend the operation of the Ordinance of 1787. This was refused, but Governor Harrison and a large number of the settlers persisted until 1807 in their efforts; fortunately Congress took no action, and in 1816 Indiana came in as a free State. There was a struggle to make Illinois a slave State, by amending her Const.i.tution, which continued until 1824.

The Compromise of 1820 practically settled the slavery question for twenty-five years, for the question only came up in a serious form when new territory was acquired and the manner of its division arose. No more States were admitted until 1836, when Arkansas became a State, to be balanced by the admission of Michigan in 1837. From 1820 to 1845 the main issues before the people were those relating to the Tariff, Re-chartering the Bank of the United States, and Internal improvements.

The greatest political excitement, having an important bearing upon the feeling between the North and South, was the opposition of the South to the protective Tariffs of 1824 and 1828, and to the question of Internal improvements. As a culmination of her opposition, South Carolina pa.s.sed a Nullification Ordinance in 1832, based upon the doctrine of State rights as advocated by John C. Calhoun, but the difficulty was settled by Clay's Compromise Tariff Bill of 1833. The opprobrium of nullification and secession, however, does not rest entirely with the South; the Federal Press of New England and many Federal leaders in Congress deliberately discussed and planned a Secession Movement in 1803-4 because they thought that the purchase of the Louisiana Territory was unconst.i.tutional and that it would give the South an advantage which the North would never overcome. This movement, however, never gained strength enough to be serious.

One result of the Missouri Compromise, most important in its political effect, was that it created a solid South, and divided the North into various opinions as to what should exactly be done to meet the evil. It was this uncertainty on the part of the North and the lack of organization on the direct subject of slavery opposition that permitted the South to hold out so long after she had been greatly outnumbered in population and left far behind in material progress.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ABOLITIONISTS.

"If we have whispered Truth, Whisper no longer; Speak as the tempest does, Sterner and stronger."

"Song of the Free," _Whittier_, 1836.

Great changes in the political and economical life of a nation seldom take place abruptly. The forces responsible for a change or modification of conditions are generally at work long before the final result.

Nations, like individuals, grope for the truth, forming different opinions, trying different plans--now radical, now conservative--often failing to see and grasp the solution when it is at hand, but all the while bringing about conditions which, when the crisis comes, form a solid and decisive basis for action. Such is the history of this country with reference to slavery for the three decades prior to the Civil War.

From 1833 to the organization of the Republican Party, and after that event to the promulgation of the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, public opinion was incessantly agitated by the organized efforts of the Abolitionists, although they differed among themselves and divided as to the best plan under which to act.

While the Northerners grouped into the Whig and Democratic Parties, and condemned the constant agitation of the slavery question as disturbing the public peace and jeopardizing party success, still they could not help recognizing the cogency of the abolition argument; and as year after year went by, and the aggressions of the slave power continued, a steady change went on in the North and the anti-slavery sentiment became more and more p.r.o.nounced. When active political opposition to slavery finally began it found the North not exactly unanimous as to what should be done, but with her mind almost made up on one point, that slavery should at least be restricted to the territory it then occupied; it required a great political shock, such as came in 1854, to amalgamate this sentiment. From this standpoint the opinions in the North reached out to the extreme views of Garrison and his followers, that slavery should be stamped out regardless of all consequences.

The Quakers, who, from the early colonial days, had been strongest in their expressions against slavery, formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in the United States at Philadelphia in 1775. The Revolution interrupted their work, but at its conclusion they resumed their efforts patiently and incessantly, year after year, in their attempts to arouse the public mind to the enormity and dangerousness of the slave evil. Although other States organized anti-slavery societies immediately after the Revolution, the Pennsylvania Society took the leading part, and was comparatively alone for many years in the work. In the First Congress this Society presented a Memorial, asking Congress to exercise its utmost powers for the abolition of slavery. The subject was the occasion of a heated debate, and Congress decided that under the Const.i.tution it could not, prior to 1808, abolish the slave trade; but that it had authority to prevent citizens of the United States from carrying on the African slave trade with other nations (a law to this effect was subsequently pa.s.sed); and that it had no authority to interfere with the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves or their treatment in any of the States. The Pennsylvania Society watched Congress closely and worked along patiently year after year, meeting with failure after failure. This early Abolition movement had among its supporters the foremost men of the day --Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay and Henry are some of the ill.u.s.trious names connected with the movement, just as in England the names of Burke, Fox and Pitt are recorded against the iniquity. When the purchase of the Louisiana Territory came before Congress, the Pennsylvania Society pet.i.tioned that measures should be taken to prevent slavery in the new territory, but the Federalists were more engrossed with a discussion of Const.i.tutional questions, and the opportune moment went by without any action on the matter.

The agitation connected with the Missouri question brought about the formation of a stronger anti-slavery sentiment in the North, and a group of fearless men sprang up to devote their lives and energies to an Abolition movement. They were radical in their views, progressive in their methods and absolutely fearless in their denunciations. Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, may be said to be the father of the Abolition movement.

In 1821 he began the publication of _The Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation_, the first Abolition paper; he was joined at Baltimore in 1829 by William Lloyd Garrison, henceforth to be the most zealous, unceasing and uncompromising of all the Abolitionists. Garrison, extreme in his views, left Lundy, and in January, 1831, at Boston, without capital and with little help, started _The Liberator_, and placed at its head, "The Const.i.tution of the United States is a covenant with death and an agreement with h.e.l.l," which declaration was printed in every edition of the paper until President Lincoln's Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation went into effect, when it was changed to "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

As a result of Mr. Garrison's activity many new abolition societies were formed, and on December 4, 1833, a National Convention of them was held at Philadelphia, and the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized, with Beriah Green as President and Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier as Secretaries. This Convention decided to pet.i.tion Congress to suppress the domestic slave trade between the States, and to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and in every place over which Congress had exclusive jurisdiction. It admitted that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in any State, but its plan was to circulate extensively anti-slavery tracts and periodicals, not only in the North but throughout all of the slave-holding States, and to organize anti-slavery societies in every city and village where possible, and to send forth its agents to lift their voices against slavery. It frowned on the work of the American Colonization Society, which had been organized in 1816, for the purpose of colonizing parts of Africa with American negroes, as tending to deaden the public conscience on the question.

With this energetic organization the anti-slavery movement now gained rapidly in strength, but its political work for many years was confined to a fruitless interrogation of candidates and to sending hundreds of pet.i.tions and memorials to Congress. Anti-slavery pamphlets and papers were also sent broadcast North and South. On seeing _The Liberator_, with its extreme views, and on reading the anti-slavery pamphlets, the South was enraged beyond all bounds. A North Carolina Grand Jury indicted Garrison, and Georgia offered a large reward for his arrest and conviction. On July 29, 1835, all anti-slavery papers were taken from the postoffice at Charleston, S. C., by a mob and destroyed. The following year Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate, demanded the suppression of the right of pet.i.tion on any matter connected with slavery, and in 1838 the House adopted the infamous Atherton Gag-Rule, "Every Pet.i.tion, Memorial, Resolution, Proposition or Paper touching or relating in any way or to any extent whatever to slavery or the abolition thereof, shall, on presentation and without further action thereon, be laid upon the table without being debated, printed or referred." This remarkable rule was adopted year after year in the House until 1844, when it was repealed through the efforts of John Quincy Adams, who for ten years fought n.o.bly for the Right of Pet.i.tion, although he was not entirely in sympathy with the Abolitionists.

During this period the sentiment against the Abolitionists was very strong in the North. In many places mobs seized upon and destroyed their papers and printing presses, and broke up their meetings and mobbed the speakers. James G. Birney's paper, _The Philanthropist_, was twice mobbed in Cincinnati. On November 7, 1837, the Abolition cause was baptized in blood by the murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy, who was shot while defending his paper and press from the attack of a pro-slavery mob at Alton, Illinois. The following month Wendell Phillips delivered his first abolition speech against the aggressions of the Slave Power and the murder of Lovejoy. The continued despotism of the Slave Power, its attempts to muzzle the freedom of speech and press, to deny the Right of Pet.i.tion, to obstruct the mails, and to obtain an Extradition Law for the trial of citizens in slave States on charges of circulating anti-slavery doc.u.ments, and the use of violence against all who dared raise their voices against the slavery dogmas, aroused the abolition societies to more radical action, and a group of Abolitionists now formed, determined on political action. This was one of the causes of the disruption of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the withdrawal of Garrison and his followers, who refused to take part in any election held under the pro-slavery Const.i.tution.

The great leaders of the Whigs and Democrats in the North, who were aspirants to the presidency, dared not take any active stand against the growing demands of the Slave Power, and both parties bowed abjectly to the monster and pa.s.sed in silence these gross violations of const.i.tutional rights. Both parties deprecated the slavery agitation, especially the Whigs, who were highly incensed because it jeopardized their candidates more than it did those of the Democrats. The failure of the two great political parties to act led to the first political organization of the anti-slavery sentiment. At Warsaw, New York, on November 13, 1839, the Abolitionists held a convention and nominated James G. Birney, of New York, for President, and Thomas Earl, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President. This was subsequently called the "Liberty Party," and was the first of the three anti-slavery parties to appear in national politics. Its platform demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the territories; stoppage of the interstate slave trade, and opposition to slavery to the fullest extent of Const.i.tutional powers. Mr. Birney did not desire the nomination, and in the election of 1840, that resulted in the defeat of Van Buren by Harrison, the Abolitionists received only 7069 votes out of a total of two and one-half millions. The membership of the abolition societies at this time was about 200,000; the failure to show strength at the polls may be accounted for by reason of the refusal of many to vote at any election held under the Const.i.tution, and also that many feared the dissolution of the Union, and preferred, if they voted at all, to remain with the Democratic or Whig Parties in the hope that their party would take some decisive action on the question.

While the Slave Power in the United States was making violent efforts to perpetuate itself and stifle all opposition, all the other civilized countries of the world were abolishing slavery. Great Britain abolished it in all her colonies in the year 1833 at a cost of one hundred millions of dollars; but the United States, already showing itself to be the most progressive nation in the world, could not throw off the evil, and it remained a cause of bitter distraction until overthrown politically by the success of the Republican Party and removed by Secession, War, the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, and the amendments to the Const.i.tution.

Although the Abolition cause seemed hopeless after the election of 1840, they persisted in their work, and soon a series of events happened-- Texas Annexation, the Mexican War, and the Wilmot Proviso, which, independent of their efforts, brought about a direct issue between the North and South on the great question--an issue to be finally decided only by the Civil War. The work of the early Abolitionists, however, had an influence of inestimable value and weight on the immediate success of the Republican Party when it was organized.