The Nation in a Nutshell Part 7

[Sidenote: Strength of the Slave Power.]

[Sidenote: The Missouri Compromise.]

But slavery, like many traditional abuses of nations, was so securely lodged, so difficult to uproot, that wise men at once deplored its presence and despaired of its abolition. While, therefore, the framers of the const.i.tution refused to insert a direct recognition of slavery in that instrument, choosing to regard it as temporary, and likely in time to become extinct, other subjects, crowding upon the attention of statesmen at the period of political formation, pushed this of slavery for a while into the background. The first definite collision between the upholders and the opponents of slavery occurred when, as a consequence of the rapid growth of the country, the territories began one after another to knock for admission into the household of States.

The dispute came to an issue in the year 1820. Missouri sought admission into the Union, and it was attempted to admit her as a slave state. Then the Northern statesmen declared that some limit or restriction should be placed upon future admissions of States, in regard to slavery.

[Sidenote: The "Slavery Agitation."]

The debates in Congress were long and warm. Every argument which has since become so familiar on the subject was advanced on one side and on the other. The moral evil of slavery, its demoralizing influence upon freeman and bondman, its cruelties in practice, were dilated upon by some; others pictured "the peculiar inst.i.tution" in its more patriarchal and pleasant aspects. Finally, the northern members agreed to admit Missouri as a slave State, on condition that thenceforth all new states north of the line of 3630'north lat.i.tude--known as "Mason and Dixon's line"--should be free; while all new states south of that line should decide for themselves whether they should be free or slave. It was the vain hope of the statesmen of Monroe's time that this settlement, known in history as the "Missouri Compromise," would be accepted as final, and that the mutual ill-feeling which had already become bitter between the sections would be finally allayed by it.

They flattered themselves that they had put a period to the agitation, and that the irritating question was now cast outside the domain of American politics. Perhaps they did not sufficiently reflect that the same power which had established the boundaries of slavery might, when the opportunity was ripe, erase them. The slavery agitation was, however, only in its infancy. It had within it a vital and irrepressible element of growth. With the advance of civil liberty, the growth of education, it, too, must necessarily make progress. As yet it was in the hands of so-called "fanatics." Respectable statesmanship, having made the Missouri Compromise, would have no more of it.

[Sidenote: The "Liberty Party."]

[Sidenote: Garrison.]

It was early in General Jackson's presidency that the small but determined "Liberty party" of the North began to attract attention by what was considered the extravagance of its utterances, and the absurdity of its proposals. The Quaker Lundy published his "Genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation"; Garrison put forth the "Liberator" at Boston; and soon, in various parts of the Union, abolition tracts and fanatical orators brought down upon them not only the execration of the South, but the a.s.saults of northern mobs. An insurrection, under the lead of a negro named Turner, broke out in Virginia, and ma.s.sacres and burnings followed. The Georgia Legislature put a price upon Garrison's head; and that devoted advocate of human freedom responded by founding the New England Anti-Slavery Society--an example soon followed in various places through the North.

[Sidenote: Sympathy for the Slaves.]

[Sidenote: Lovejoy Killed.]

The cause was right, and grew despite every obstacle of mob violence, persecution, contempt, and, not the least, the indignant hostility of respectable statesmanship. Yet evidences began to appear, here and there, that the sympathy even of official responsibility was gradually leaning to the principle of liberty. The Ma.s.sachusetts Supreme Court declared the child Med, whose master had brought her to Boston, to have become by that act free. There was still, however, much suffering in store for the anti-slavery advocates. Garrison, in attempting to speak before the Female Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, was dragged through the streets by an enraged mob, and was only saved from death by being hurried to the jail as a refuge. A hall in Philadelphia which had been desecrated by an abolition conference, was burned. Elijah Lovejoy, an Illinois abolition editor, was killed by a mob. These are a few among many examples of the violence with which the abolitionists were treated.

The old "Liberty party," however, grew gradually into the larger and more powerful "Free Soil" party, of which the venerable John Quincy Adams became the champion in the House of Representatives, and Martin Van Buren the presidential candidate in 1848. It was still, of course, a small minority, but its influence was now distinctly felt in the legislative councils and in the politics of the country. The pet.i.tions in favor of abolition which invaded Congress created alarm in the South, and at last the southern members found it necessary to pa.s.s a rule excluding these "incendiary doc.u.ments" altogether.

[Sidenote: The Compromise of 1850.]

If the Free Soilers were becoming formidable, the South was also resolved to a.s.sume the offensive. Its triumph in securing the annexation of Texas as another slave State was followed, a few years after, by the celebrated "Compromise" of 1850; by which, while California was admitted as a free State, and the slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, the Fugitive Slave Law was also conceded. This aroused the indignation of very large numbers in the North, and the treatment of fugitives under it, notably that of Jerry in New York State, and of Anthony Burns in Boston, did much to develop and strengthen the anti-slavery feeling. The outrageous character of the law was too palpable to be unperceived and unresented.

[Sidenote: The Free Sellers.]

[Sidenote: Border Ruffianism.]

The next effort of the slave power provoked the formation of a great national anti-slavery party, out of the old Free Soil elements. This effort, which, by the aid of the Pierce administration and some Northern statesmen, was successful, was to destroy the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and thus open the way to the creation of slave States north, as well as south, of Mason and Dixon's line. The immediate object of this policy was to make slave States of Kansas and Nebraska, two great territories which were ready for admission into the fatuity of the Union. No sooner had the Nebraska Bill pa.s.sed, in May, 1854, than the terrible scenes of "border ruffianism" began. As the new law required that the inhabitants of the territories should themselves decide whether slavery should exist or not, the attempt was made to convert Kansas into a slave State by invasions of "border ruffians" from Missouri. After a long and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle, the cause of freedom triumphed in the two disputed territories.

[Sidenote: The "Irrepressible Conflict."]

The events in that part of the Union served to win many converts to the anti-slavery cause in the North. The Republican party was organized on the eve of the Presidential election of 1856. Its chief doctrine was that no more slave States whatever should be admitted to the Union. It put a ticket into the field with Colonel John Charles Fremont as the candidate for President, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey for Vice-President. It could not be expected that so young a party would triumph at its first essay; but when Fremont received 113 electoral votes, while Buchanan had only 177, it was appreciated everywhere that the "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and liberty was fast approaching its crisis.

[Sidenote: John Brown's Raid.]

The self-sacrificing heroism of a fanatic, the most salient incident of the slavery agitation during the Presidency of Buchanan, had a marked influence in hastening the final issue. This was John Brown's raid upon Harper's Ferry, for the purpose of setting free the slaves. The old man's courage, his utter self-devotion to his cause, his n.o.ble death, his simple and sincere character, appealed most strongly to the sympathy of the opponents of slavery, and even compelled words of strong praise from the lips of Henry A. Wise, the Virginia Governor, who signed his death-warrant.

[Sidenote: The South Prepares to Secede.]

The cause of free soil at last attained its triumph in the election of 1860. All things foreshadowed the success of Abraham Lincoln. The northern people were ripe for decisive action against the extension, at least, of human bondage. The Democratic party divided into two factions at Charleston, and the factions put each a candidate into the field, mutually to destroy each other. The South so far gave up the contest as to make preparations, while the presidential battle was yet raging, to withdraw from the Union. Then, as the grand, bitter, but necessary result of the long-continued slavery agitation, the war came, and wiped out slavery with the blood of patriots.

XIII. THE CIVIL WAR.

[Sidenote: The Civil War.]

The great American Rebellion of 1861-65 is still, perhaps, too near to be judged with the calm and judicial spirit which gives its chief value to history. Thousands of those who took part in it on either side are yet living; millions who witnessed its progress, and watched its course with varying emotions of grief and joy, who mourned its dead, exulted in its victories, and hailed its termination, yet hold it in vivid memory.

Moreover, all that could be said of it, from bald narrative to infinite discussion of this and that general, this and that campaign or stratagem, of causes and effects, has already been repeated till the tale has been, not twice, but many times told.

The results of that awful yet necessary conflict are still being felt, in one way or another, by all of us. Many a household still mourns the loss of those who died on southern battle-fields. We feel the war in our business, in our pockets. We feel it in the financial enigmas which even yet await solution. And although we have come to a period of reconciliation, when we can with free hearts garland with roses the graves alike of the blue and the gray, we feel still the indirect influences of the war in our political contests.

[Sidenote: Origin of the War.]

[Sidenote: Secession.]

The war may be said to have had its origin in two not necessarily connected circ.u.mstances. It was the fruit, on the one hand, of a certain political doctrine; on the other, of a threatened and to-be-defended social condition. The political doctrine was that called "State's rights," from which two corollaries were deduced by Calhoun and his disciples: "nullification," or the right of a State to disobey a United States law; and "secession," or the right of a State to withdraw from the Union at will. The social condition was that of slavery, threatened, as the South thought, by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and to be defended under cover of the political doctrine which Calhoun had taught the South to credit and to cherish. Thus, while the cause of the rebellion was slavery, its justification was an a.s.serted const.i.tutional right. The North did not believe in slavery, or at least in the extension of slavery. But what the North at first undertook to subdue was not slavery in the States, but the altogether destructive doctrine of secession.

[Sidenote: South Carolina's "Ordinance."]

[Sidenote: Fort Sumter Taken.]

The threat loudly uttered during the election of 1860, that the South would secede if Lincoln were chosen, was duly followed up by action in a few weeks after that event. Before Christmas South Carolina had pa.s.sed her famous "ordinance," and by early February, 1861, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas had followed in her footsteps. The senators and representatives of these States in Congress retired front its halls, breathing defiance as they went. South Carolina took the lead in military, as she had done in political action. Claiming the national property within her limits, she attached and took Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The way had been prepared for this by Secretaries Floyd and Toucey of the Buchanan Cabinet, who had sent South materials of war, and so disposed the navy as to render it for the time powerless for aid in the Union cause.

[Sidenote: Call for Troops.]

Lincoln was now President. The guns fired at Sumter roused the North, and gave the signal of war, proving that a conflict could no longer be avoided. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas were hurried out of the Union by the political leaders. On the day following the fall of Sumter, the President issued his call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and the governors were urged to send such forces as they could at once to Washington, which was threatened with an attack. Then came the a.s.sault upon the gallant Sixth Ma.s.sachusetts in the streets of Baltimore, the isolation of Washington, and its relief. A blockade of the southern ports was proclaimed.

[Sidenote: Bull Run.]

After a few minor engagements, such as those in Western Virginia, in which McClellan was successful, and at Big Bethel, the first great battle was fought on July 21, 1861, at Bull Run. This was in consequence of an attempt by General Scott to advance upon Richmond. The result was the total defeat of the Union army, which recoiled in confusion upon Washington. Later in the first year of the war, General Lyon gained some advantages over the rebels in Missouri, and naval expeditions were sent to Hatteras and Port Royal; General Scott yielded the command-in-chief to General McClellan, and rebel privateers appeared upon the ocean, and began their destructive depredations upon our commerce. Great Britain had too hastily recognized the belligerent rights of the rebels, and in November the capture of Mason and Slidell was followed by their delivery again to the protection of the British flag.

[Sidenote: Second Year of the War.]

The second year of the war found no less than half a million of soldiers enlisted in the army of the Union. It seemed as if we were now ready to cope with rebellion in all its extent and strength. The hope of an approaching and decisive triumph animated the hearts of the loyal.

McClellan now led the Army of the Potomac against Richmond, approaching it from the east. Then followed the battle of Fair Oaks, and the Seven Days' battles, of which that at Malvern Hill was the most hotly contested. The Confederates were beaten, with terrible loss on both sides. Cedar Mountain and the second Bull Run followed, the latter proving a disaster as serious as the former struggle on the same field had been.

[Sidenote: Antietam.]

Then came Lee's advance into Maryland, his capture of Frederick City, and that great battle, Antietam, in which Lee was repulsed and retreated into Virginia. But McClellan, having failed to follow up his advantage, was relieved of the command-in-chief, which was conferred on Burnside.

Burnside's repulse at Fredericksburg was followed by a discouraging retreat. But though the attempt to capture Richmond was foiled, in other parts of the country many advantages were obtained by the Union forces in the year 1862.

[Sidenote: Union Victories.]

Prominent among these were the victory of the _Monitor_ over the _Merrimac_, in Hampton Roads; the capture of Roanoke Island and Fort Pulaski; Grant's gallant victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, at Island No. 10, and, later, at Pittsburg Landing; and the heroic taking of New Orleans by Farragut and Butler.

[Sidenote: Chancellorsville.]

At the very threshold of the third year of the war, President Lincoln issued the "Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation." Thus not only was the crime of slavery wiped away, but a new source of strength to our forces was provided by the emanc.i.p.ated negroes, who were enlisted to aid in the confirmation of their freedom by final victory. The first half of the year 1863 witnessed what was perhaps the gloomiest and most disheartening period of the war. Hooker succeeded Burnside, only to meet at Chancellorsville the same disastrous fate which had overtaken his predecessor at Fredericksburg. General Lee was encouraged to a.s.sume the offensive, and to invade Pennsylvania. The North was discouraged; the expense of the war began to be grievously felt; the draft was becoming very obnoxious; the desertions from the army were alarming in number.

[Sidenote: Gettysburg.]