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PREFACE
PREFACE
There is no more serious and delicate task in literature and morals than that of writing the history of the United States from 1816 to 1860. The periods which precede this may be treated without fear of arousing passion, prejudice, and resentment, and with little danger of being misunderstood. Even the immaculateness of Washington may be attacked without exciting anything worse than a sort of uncomfortable admiration for the reckless courage of the assailant. But when we pass the year 1820, and
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
It is no part of my task to relate the events of the War of 1812-15. That has already been sufficiently done in the preceding volume of this series. I take up the threads of the narrative at the beginning of the year 1816, and my problem in this chapter will be to expound the acts and policies of the Fourteenth Congress in the light of the experiences of that War. Those acts and policies were shaped and adopted under the influence of those experiences, and this influence was so predominant, at t
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
It was entirely natural that the quickening of the national spirit and the growth of the national consciousness throughout the United States, in the decade between 1810 and 1820, had, for one of their results, the extension of the territory of the United States, at some point or other, to its natural limits. The element of physical geography always plays a large part in national political development. The natural territorial basis of a national state is a geographical unity. That is, it is a ter
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
It is not easy to define the term slavery in the abstract without unfitting it for application to the great majority of the systems of servitude which have ever existed. Especially will it be difficult to gain a correct conception of the relation between the white man and the negro in North America previous to 1860 by means of such a definition. The institution of negro slavery in the United States was an historical growth, which was in some respects unique. We shall, therefore, do better to fol
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
Mr. Lowndes' bill was prefaced by a statement of views, which presented the questions of constitutional interpretation to which the provision referred to in the Missouri instrument gave rise. He alluded to the possible repugnance of the provision to that clause in the Constitution of the United States which guarantees to the citizens of each Commonwealth all the privileges and immunities of citizens in every other Commonwealth; but said that the provision in the Missouri instrument could be inte
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
It was hoped and believed that the settlement of the Missouri question and the compromise in reference to the remainder of the Louisiana cession had put the problem of negro slavery out of the realm of national politics. In fact, however, the struggle over these questions had introduced it into that realm, and had first opened the eyes of the slaveholders to the bearings of the slavery interest upon all the questions of constitutional law and public policy. From the point of view of that interes
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
As has been pointed out, from 1820 to 1824 the political arena was clear of the combats of principles, and furnished the tilting-ground for the jousts of personal ambition. The "Virginia dynasty" became extinct with the expiration of Monroe's second term, and the way was open for anyone to enter the lists who was willing to risk the shocks of the encounter. At no time in our history has the roll of our political nobility been more full of brilliant names and characters. First of all, there was J
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
In the absence of any well defined differences in political opinions, and in the state of determined personal hostility between the leaders developed by the election of 1824, the fact that Adams and Clay took broad national views, placed a liberal construction upon the Constitution, and insisted upon the employment of all the powers vested by it in the general Government to the highest point of their usefulness in the promotion of the general welfare, had the natural effect of forcing the opposi
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
In his first annual message President Jackson referred to the general dissatisfaction with the manner of dealing with the question of internal improvements which had prevailed to that time, and proposed that the general Government should abandon the subject entirely and should distribute the surplus of the revenue, above the wants of the Government, among the Commonwealths, and leave to them the expenditure of the money upon internal improvements. The Congress, however, paid no regard to the Pre
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
In his first annual message, that of December 8th, 1829, President Jackson began his war upon the United States Bank. He declared in it that the constitutionality and expediency of the law creating the Bank were well questioned by a large portion of the people, and that its failure to establish a sound and uniform currency, the great end of its existence, must be admitted by all. Basing themselves chiefly upon an individual report made by Mr. John Quincy Adams on May 14th, 1832, in regard to the
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
Before nullification was resolved upon in South Carolina, something like it had been applied in Georgia. In the year 1802 Georgia formally ceded the lands claimed by the Commonwealth west of the Chattahoochee River to the United States for the sum of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and upon the condition that the United States Government would, at its own expense, extinguish the Indian claims to any lands in Georgia so soon as this could be done peacefully and upon reasonable
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
When a state has fairly accomplished the primal end of establishing its governmental system, its public policy will be found to be pursuing, in ultimate generalization, two great all-comprehending purposes, namely, national development and universal human progress. Rarely, if ever, will any state be found to have succeeded in so balancing these two principal objects of its public policy as to make the resultant of its two main lines of progress follow an unchanging angle. At one period, the prin
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
When the violent agitation of the slavery question, in the middle of the fourth decade, came so suddenly upon the nation, it found the great political parties divided upon issues which partook more of the character of economic policies than that of rights, or of governmental forms and powers. It is true that the protective tariff, the Bank, and internal improvements had been denounced by some persons as unconstitutional, but neither party held this view of these subjects at the beginning of the
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
After the admission of Missouri there remained as territory, upon which, according to existing law, it was probable that slaveholding Commonwealths would be established, only Arkansas and Florida. In 1836, Arkansas was admitted as a slaveholding Commonwealth, and Michigan as a non-slaveholding Commonwealth, thus keeping the exact balance in the Senate. By a compact of the year 1832, the Seminoles in Florida had agreed to emigrate within three years to the west bank of the Mississippi. At the end
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
At the close of the eighteenth century, Oregon was universally recognized as the territory lying along the North Pacific Ocean from the forty-second parallel of latitude to that of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, and reaching inward to the Rocky Mountains. At that time it was claimed by Spain both by discovery and first settlement. In the year 1790, Great Britain advanced claims upon it. A diplomatic discussion arose between the two Powers, which ended temporarily in an agreement called th
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
The language of the Democratic platform signified that Texas had been once annexed to the United States, as a part of Louisiana, by the Treaty of 1803 with France, and had been sacrificed by the Treaty of 1819 with Spain, and that Oregon had been once occupied by the United States, either under the Treaty of 1803, or under that of 1819, or by the right of the prior discovery of the Columbia River and the establishment of a settlement upon its banks. It is thus that mortal men always seek to purg
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
As we have seen, the Mexican Government had announced to the Government of the United States that the annexation of Texas would be regarded by Mexico as a casus belli . Consequently, as soon as the matter was concluded, the Mexican Envoy left Washington, and all diplomatic relations between the two Powers were suspended. Some six months later, President Polk made overtures for the resumption of these relations, and, upon meeting a somewhat friendly response, commissioned Mr. John Slidell, of Lou
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
On August 6th, 1846, Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, chairman of the committee on Territories, asked the House 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 f
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Down to the time of the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, it may be said that the slaveholders were acting, in a certain sense, on the defensive. Before 1787, slavery had been regarded as a temporary relation, demanded by the moral and intellectual degradation of the Africans, and by the necessities of the social structure in which Anglo-Saxon and negro were brought together. It had been considered that the rise of the negro in civilization, by his contact with the white race, would g
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CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XIX.
When President Fillmore's last annual message to Congress was sent in, on December 6th, 1852, the quiet of the country in regard to the slavery question was more complete than it had been since 1830. The President did not even mention the subject. Evidently the people believed that the Measures of 1850, and their cordial endorsement in the elections just passed, had finally solved the great question, in so far as the Congress could solve it at all. But never was there a more deceptive peace. It
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purchase of nearly fifty thousand square miles of territory from Mexico on the Southern boundary of New Mexico, and the issue of a manifesto from Ostend by the Ministers of the United States to Great Britain, France, and Spain, Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé, advising the acquisition of Cuba by the United States, together with the preparation of filibustering expeditions in the South for the execution of this and similar designs, all coming within
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
The time has come when the correct story of the Dred Scott case may be told, and should be told. The author of this volume has been so fortunate as to obtain from A. C. Crane, Esq., of St. Louis, an account of the early history of the case, which is entirely original and authentic. Mr. Crane was, at the time that the case was brought in the Circuit Court of the United States, a clerk in the law office of the great lawyer who espoused Dred Scott's case, and who freely gave his legal services to t
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
According to the dictum of the Court in the great case reviewed in the preceding chapter, slave property was lawful in Kansas during the Territorial period, and could be first dealt with by the constitutional convention, which should prepare the organic law for Kansas as a Commonwealth of the Union. Already before the promulgation of the decision, the Territorial legislature had provided for the holding of the constitutional convention at Lecompton, and for the election of the delegates thereto.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This bibliography must not be taken as containing the material used in the preparation of this volume, but as a list of good books recommended to the general reader, which treat of, or touch upon, the subjects considered. Only a few of the books in this list have been consulted by the author in the preparation of this work. As indicated in the preface, the author has endeavored, in all cases, to go back to original matter, which is usually disconnected and fragmentary, and practically inaccessib
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