The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 29

[Sidenote: Rejection of Mr. Trist's propositions by the Mexicans.]

After the armistice of August 24th, the Mexican Government sent commissioners to meet Mr. Trist. They promptly rejected Mr. Trist's propositions, and offered, as their ultimatum, the Nueces boundary, the cession of Upper California above the thirty-seventh parallel of lat.i.tude for a pecuniary consideration, the payment by the United States of an indemnity for private injuries inflicted by the United States troops during the invasion, etc. Nothing, moreover, was said in their offer concerning the claims of the citizens of the United States against Mexico.

[Sidenote: Negotiations broken off. Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, Mexico.]

The proposals were so far apart, and the Mexicans {338} bore themselves with so much arrogance, that the negotiations were broken off, the armistice was terminated, and General Scott resumed military operations. On September 8th, he inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Mexicans at Molino del Rey. On the 13th, he stormed successfully the heights of Chapultepec and two gates of the city. And on the 14th, he captured the city.

President Polk now recalled Mr. Trist, and informed Congress of the failure of the negotiations, at the same time intimating that the policy of the Administration would be war _a outrance_. The opposition to the Administration in Congress declared that the total dismemberment of the Mexican Republic was intended, and raised their voices against it. The outcry helped the Administration, in that it called the attention of the Mexicans to the great danger they were incurring in not accepting the terms of peace which had been offered them.

[Sidenote: The recall of Mr. Trist, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.]

Mr. Trist did not, however, return to the United States, but waited in and around the City of Mexico for something to turn up. It seems that he did not even acquaint the Mexican Government with the fact of his recall. In the latter part of January, 1848, the Mexican commissioners approached him, and, on February 2nd, they signed with him, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty of peace, which provided for the Rio Grande boundary between the two Powers, the cession of New Mexico and Upper California to the United States, the payment of $15,000,000 by the United States to Mexico, and the a.s.sumption by the United States of all the obligations of Mexico to citizens of the United States incurred before the conclusion of the Treaty.

[Sidenote: Ratification of the Treaty.]

Mr. Trist immediately took the proposed Treaty to {339} Washington, and President Polk immediately laid it before the Senate for ratification. After three weeks of determined opposition by Senators from both parties and both sections, ratification was voted by the requisite two-thirds majority, on March 16th, 1848. With this the whole political energy of the nation was turned away from the international question to the internal questions involved in the organization of the vast territorial empire upon the Pacific, which had now been added to the United States by the Treaties with Great Britain and Mexico.

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CHAPTER XVII.

THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

Bills for Oregon Territory--Thirty-six Degrees and Thirty Minutes to the Pacific--Mr. Rhett on the Rights of the South in the Territories--The Third Oregon Bill--The Party Platforms of 1848--The President Urges the Organization of California and New Mexico--Mr.

Clayton's Attempt at Compromise--Pa.s.sage of the Oregon Bill by Congress--The Free-soil Party in 1848--The President's Approval of the Oregon Bill--Gold and Silver in California--The Election of Taylor, and the Disaffection of the Northern Democrats--Plans for the Organization of California and New Mexico--The House Bill for the Territorial Organization of Upper California--Mr. Walker's Scheme in the House--Mr. Webster and Mr. Berrien on the Status of Slavery in the Territory Acquired from Mexico--Emigration to California--President Taylor's Scheme--The Convention at Monterey--The Policy of the Administration--The Policy of the Slavery Extensionists--The Elements of the Slavery Question in Congress--Mr. Clay's Plan of Compromise--Objections to Mr. Clay's Plan--California's Application for Admission--Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech--Mr. Webster's March 7th Speech--Mr. Bell's Proposition--The Death of Mr. Calhoun--Mr. Foote's Motion and the Committee of Thirteen--The Report and Recommendations of the Committee--The Debate Upon the Bills Proposed by the Committee, and the Failure to Pa.s.s Them--The Temper of the Country--The Succession of Fillmore and His Message of August 6th--The Pa.s.sage of Bills, Separately, Covering All Questions Contained in Mr. Clay's Compromise Measures.

[Sidenote: First bill for Oregon Territory.]

On August 6th, 1846, Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, chairman of the committee on Territories, asked the House {341} of Representatives to consider a bill prepared by that committee for the organization of Oregon as a Territory. The House consented, and immediately upon the second reading of the bill, Mr. Thompson, of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and friend of the Administration, moved to amend the bill by the provision "that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in said Territory, except for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The amendment was adopted by a very large majority, and the bill, as thus amended, was pa.s.sed. On the following day, the bill was presented in the Senate, and referred by that body to its Judiciary committee, which committee did not report the bill during the session.

[Sidenote: The second bill.]

At the beginning of the next session, Mr. Douglas introduced a new bill for the same purpose. This bill virtually contained the Thompson amendment in the proviso that all the restrictions in the Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwest Territory, should apply to Oregon.

[Sidenote: Thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes to the Pacific.]

On January 12th, 1847, Mr. Burt, of South Carolina, moved to insert before this proviso the words, "inasmuch as the whole of the said Territory lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north lat.i.tude, known as the line of the Missouri Compromise." The purpose of this was, of course, to commit Congress and the North to that line to the Pacific. This was so evident that the Northern members voted the amendment down. We can, however, hardly charge the invention of this idea to the South Carolinian. On August 8th preceding, Mr. Wick, of Indiana, had moved to amend the Wilmot proviso, so as to make it read, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist, in any territory {342} acquired from Mexico _north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes_.

[Sidenote: Mr. Rhett on the rights of the South in the Territories.]

It was during the debate on this bill, just after Mr. Burt's amendment had been rejected, that Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, made his noted speech, in which the new view, which the South was now beginning to take upon the rights of the two sections in the Territories, was first p.r.o.nounced. That view was, briefly expressed, that the "States" were joint owners of the Territories, and "co-Sovereigns" in them; that the general Government was only the agent of the "States" therein, and had only the power "to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other property of the United States," from which power, the power to determine in what property should consist within the Territories could not be derived; and that the "ingress of the citizen" of any "State" into any Territory, "is the ingress of his Sovereign," his "State," who is bound to protect him in his settlement.

Mr. Rhett qualified this conclusion by saying that it did not mean that each "State" should set up government in the Territories over its citizens immigrating into them, but that it meant that the citizens of each "State" should have equal right to enter the Territories and settle and occupy them with their property, with whatever was recognized as property by their respective "States." Stated more clearly, it meant that the general Government must execute the laws of each "State;" defining and protecting property, in each Territory of the Union--of each "State" from which citizens had emigrated into the Territory concerned--and must execute these several "State" laws over the immigrants from the several "States" separately.

{343} In plain, blunt Anglo-Saxon, it meant that the general Government must recognize and protect, as property, in any Territory, anything which was so recognized and protected by any "State" of the Union. It meant the establishment of slavery in every Territory of the Union.

This was a new doctrine in 1847, and it could not immediately prevail, but its appearance is a mark of the progress which the political system of the United States was making toward confederatism and dissolution.

[Sidenote: The failure of the bill in the Senate.]

The bill pa.s.sed the House on January 16th, 1847, by a vote of nearly four to one, and was immediately sent to the Senate. The Senate referred it to its Judiciary committee. The committee reported on it, and the bill was laid on the table, the last day of the session.

[Sidenote: The third Oregon bill.]

During the next session, bills were introduced into both Houses for organizing Oregon as a Territory. On January 10th, 1848, Mr. Douglas, who had been transferred from the House to the Senate, presented in the Senate a bill for the organization of a Territorial government for Oregon, which provided, among other things, that the laws which the Oregon settlers had constructed for themselves should, in so far as they were compatible with the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States, remain in force until the Territorial legislature should change them. These laws excluded slavery. Here was the germ of "squatter-sovereignty," afterward developed by Mr. Douglas in his Kansas-Nebraska bill.

The House bill, containing substantially the same provision as the bill of the preceding session, was introduced on February 9th, 1848, but this time it met with much more opposition, and the discussion on it revealed the fact that Mr. Rhett's doctrine had, within the year, made many converts.

{344} [Sidenote: The President urging action on the bill.]

The bills were dragging along slowly in both Houses, when, on May 29th, the President sent a special message to Congress urging immediate action on the subject. This gave some impetus to the proceedings in both Houses.

[Sidenote: Mr. Hale's amendment.]

[Sidenote: Mr. Davis' amendment.]

On May 21st, Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, moved to amend the Senate bill by a provision excluding slavery, and insisted upon the power and the duty of Congress to settle the question of slavery in the Territories, and to settle it in the interest of freedom. The debate in the Senate upon Mr. Hale's motion was long and acrimonious, during which the Southerners advanced to more and more radical ground, until Mr. Calhoun and his disciple, Mr. Jefferson Davis, expressed the same const.i.tutional doctrine upon the subject of the extension of slavery to the Territories as Mr. Rhett had done, which was, in brief, that neither Congress nor the inhabitants of a Territory had any const.i.tutional power to abolish slavery in, or exclude it from, a Territory. On June 23rd, Mr. Davis moved to amend the Oregon bill by the provision that nothing in the bill should be so construed as to authorize the prohibition of domestic slavery in said Territory while it remained in the condition of a Territory. The direct contradiction between the two amendments expressed, at last, the difference of att.i.tude now a.s.sumed between the North and the South upon the question of the extension of slavery.

[Sidenote: The party platforms of 1848.]

It cannot be said, however, that it represented the difference of att.i.tude of the two great parties upon the subject. The National conventions of these parties for the nominations of candidates for the presidency had just been held. The convention of the Democratic party had refused to insert the declaration in its platform that Congress had no {345} power to interfere with slavery in the Territories, in spite of the fact that the candidate nominated by it, General Ca.s.s, had acknowledged a leaning to something akin to that view, some five months previous, in a letter to Mr. Nicholson, of Tennessee, which was probably intended for circulation in the South. The exact wording of Mr. Ca.s.s' letter does not warrant us in representing him as holding to anything more, at that time, than that it was sound policy for Congress to leave the matter of the admission of slavery to, or its exclusion from, the Territories to the people of the Territories themselves. It was hardly time for Northern men to take the view of Congressional impotence in the matter held by Messrs. Rhett, Calhoun, and Davis.

On the other hand, the convention of the Whig party had refused to make the principle of the Wilmot proviso a plank in its platform, in fact had dodged the whole question of principles by adopting no platform at all, and by nominating a military man, with no political record at all, for its candidate, the old hero of Buena Vista, General Taylor.

The contradiction of view upon the question of the extension of slavery to the Territories was, thus, not one between the parties, but one between the sections. The parties were yet to be transformed by the differences between the sections. That this was to be the outcome no far-seeing eye ought then to have failed to perceive.

[Sidenote: The President urges the organization of California and New Mexico.]

For a fortnight more the confusion produced by the contradictory propositions of Mr. Hale and Mr. Davis paralyzed the efforts of the Senate to pa.s.s the Oregon bill, when, on July 6th, 1848, the President sent a special message to Congress urging the immediate organization of Territorial governments for California and New Mexico, {346} which were still under the military regime established at the time of their occupation.

[Sidenote: Mr. Clayton's attempt at compromise.]

It appeared to some of the Senators that here was now offered the opportunity for settling the whole question of the extension of slavery to the Territories, by compromise; and, on July 12th, Mr.

Bright, of Indiana, moved to refer the whole matter of the organization of Territorial governments in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, to a select committee, composed of four Whigs and four Democrats, two of each party from the North and the South, respectively. Mr. Bright's motion was in the form of an amendment or suggestion to a motion made by Mr. Clayton, that the Oregon bill be referred to such a committee. Mr. Clayton accepted Mr. Bright's modification of his motion, and the Senate immediately voted the resolution, and appointed the committee, with Mr. Clayton as chairman.

On the 18th, Mr. Clayton reported the bill from his committee, which provided for the organization of Oregon, with its existing anti-slavery laws, and with the recognition of the power to the Territorial legislature to change them; and for the organization of California and New Mexico, referring the question of the legality of slavery in them to the Territorial courts, with appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, as a const.i.tutional question. That is, the proposition with reference to slavery in California and New Mexico was, that slaveholders might take their slaves into these Territories upon their own responsibility, and that if any slaveholder should be disturbed in the possession of his slave, he might bring an action in the Territorial courts against the party disturbing him, with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which final tribunal should determine the question as a matter {347} of const.i.tutional law, and, therefore, upon its own independent interpretation of the Const.i.tution.

[Sidenote: Pa.s.sage of Mr. Clayton's bill in the Senate, and rejection of it in the House.]

The Senate debated this bill for a week, during which time the flimsy character of the makeshifts became painfully apparent. The Senate pa.s.sed the bill, however, on the 26th, and sent it to the House.

The House rejected it, and proceeded with its own bill, and, on August 2nd, pa.s.sed the latter by a strict sectional vote, and sent it to the Senate for concurrence.

[Sidenote: The House bill in the Senate, and Mr. Douglas' amendment.]