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WILMOT , See also:DAVID). In the end apparent expediency carried the
dominant party off to " squatter See also:sovereignty," and the Demo-
cratic adherents of the Wilmot Proviso, with the See also:Liberty party
and the See also:anti-See also:slavery Whigs, See also:united in 1848 under the
See also:Free See also:Soil
name of the Free Soil party (q.v.). The Whigs had no Party.
See also:solution to offer; their entire See also:programme, from this See also:time to their downfall as a party, consisted in a persistent effort to evade or ignore all difficulties connected with slavery.
193. See also: 194. The admission of California was not secured until See also:September 185o, soon after Taylor's sudden See also:death (See also:July 9), and then only by the addition of a See also:bonus to See also:Texas, Admission of California. See also:division of the See also:rest of the Mexican cession into the Territories of See also:Utah and New See also:Mexico without See also:prohibition of slavery, and the passage of a fugitive slave See also:law. The slave See also:trade, but not slavery, was forbidden in the See also:District of See also:Columbia. The whole was generally known as the See also:Compromise See also:Measures of 185o (q.v.). Two of its features need See also:notice. As has been said, slavery was not mentioned in the See also:act; and the status of slavery in the Territories, was thus See also:left uncertain. Congress can See also:veto any legislation of a territorial legislature, but in fact, the two houses of Congress Compromise but, ~ g of/850. were hardly ever able to unite on anything after 185o, and both these Territories did establish slavery before 1860, without a Congressional veto. The See also:advantage here was with the South. The other point, the Fugitive Slave Law (q.v.), was a See also:special demand of the South. The Constitu- tion contained clauses directing that fugitive s/gvei Law. criminals and slaves should be delivered up, on requisition, by the state to which they had fled. In the See also:case of criminals the delivery was directed to be made by the executive of the state to which they had fled; in the case of slaves no delivering authority was specified, and an act of Congress in 1793 had imposed the See also:duty on Federal See also:judges or on See also:local state magistrates. Some of the states had passed " See also:Personal Liberty See also:Laws," forbidding or limiting the See also:action of their magistrates in such cases, and the act of 185o transferred the decision of such
cases to United States commissioners, with the assistance of United States marshals. It imposed penalties on rescues, and denied a See also:jury trial.
195. The question of slavery had taken up so much time in Congress that its other legislation was comparatively limited. The rates of See also:postage were reduced to five and ten cents for distances less and greater than 300 M. (1845); and the See also:naval school at See also:Annapolis was established in the same See also:year. The military See also:academy at See also:West Point had been established as such in 1802. When the Democratic party had obtained See also:complete See also:control of the government, it re-established (by act of 6th See also:August, 1846), the " sub-See also:treasury," or See also:independent treasury, which is still the basis of the treasury See also:system. In the same year, after an exhaustive See also:report by 18Tariff of See also:Robert J. See also: Five states were admitted during the last ten years of this See also:period: See also:Florida (1845), Texas„ (1845), See also:Iowa (1846), See also:Wisconsin (1848) and California (185o). The See also:early entrance Admission of Iowa, Wisconsin and Florida had been due largely of Florida, to See also:Indian See also:wars—the See also:Black See also:Hawk See also:War (see BLACK Iowa and HAWK) in Iowa and Wisconsin (1832), and the Semi- Wisconsin. nole War in Florida (1835-37), after each of which the defeated See also:Indians were compelled to cede lands as the See also:price of See also:peace. The extinction of Indian titles in See also:northern See also:Michigan brought about the discovery of the See also:great See also:copper See also:fields of that region, whose existence had been suspected long before it could be proved. Elsewhere See also:settlement followed the lines already marked out, except in the new possessions on the Pacific See also:coast, whose full possibilities were not yet known. See also:Railways in the Eastern states were beginning to show something of a connected system; in the South Railways they had hardly changed since 184o; in the West and they had only been prolonged on their See also:original lines. Telegraphs. The See also:telegraph was brought into use in 1844; but it is not until the See also:census of 186o that its effects are seen in the fully connected network of railways which then covers the whole See also:North and West.
197. The sudden development of See also:wealth in the See also:country gave an impetus to the spirit of invention. See also: A successful sewing-machine came in 1846; the See also:power-See also:loom and the surgical use of anaesthetics in the same year; and the rotary See also:press for See also:printing in 1847. Election of /848. Personal Liberty Laws. 702 198. All the conditions of See also:life were changing so rapidly that it was natural that the minds of men should See also:change with them or become unsettled. This was the era of new sects, of communities, of fantastic proposals of every See also:kind, of See also:transcendentalism in literature, See also:religion, and politics. Not the most The fantastic or benevolent, but certainly the most See also:Mormons, successful, of these was the See also:sect of Mormons or Latter-See also:day See also:Saints. They settled in Utah in 1847, calling their See also:capital See also:Salt See also:Lake See also:City, and spreading thence through the neighbouring Territories. They became a menace to the See also:American system; their See also:numbers were so great that it was against American instincts to deprive them of self-government; while their See also:polygamy and See also:total submission to their See also:hierarchy made it impossible to erect them into a state having complete control of See also:marriage and See also:divorce. The difficulty was lessened by their renunciation of polygamy in 1890 (see MORMONS). 199. The material development of the United States since 183o had been extraordinary, but every year made it more The South, evident that the South was not sharing in it. It is
See also:plain now that the See also:fault was in the labour system of the South: her only labourers were slaves, and a slave who was See also:fit for anything better than See also: The ruling class had to maintain a military control over the labouring class, and a class influence over the poorer whites. It had even secured in the Constitution See also:provision for its political power in the See also:representation given to three-fifths of the slaves. The twenty additional members of the See also:House of Representatives were not simply a gain to the South; they were still more a gain to the " black districts," where whites were few, and the slave-holder controlled the district. Slave-owners and slave-holders together, there were but 350,000 of them; but they had See also:common interests, the intelligence to see them, and the courage to See also:con-tend for them. The first step of a rising man was to buy slaves; and this was enough to enrol him in the dominant class. From it were See also:drawn the representatives and senators in Congress, the See also:governors, and all the holders of offices over which the " slave power," as it came to be called, had control. Not only was the South inert; its ruling class, its ablest and best men, united in See also:defence of tendencies hostile to those of the rest of the country. 202. See also:Immigration into the United States was not an important See also:factor in its development until about 1847. The immigrants, so See also:late as 1820, numbered but 8000 per lmmlgra- annum; their number did not See also:touch See also:ioo,000 until 'See also:ion. 1842, and then it See also:fell for a year or two almost to See also:half that number. In 1847 it See also:rose again to 235,000, in 184A to 300,000, and in 1850 to 428,000; all told, more than two and a See also:quarter million persons from abroad settled in the United States between 1847 and 1854. Leaving out the dregs of the immigra-[See also:HISTORY 1850-1861 tion, which settled down in the seaboard cities, its best part was a powerful nationalizing force. It had not come to any particular state, but to the United States; it had none of the traditional prejudices in favour of a state, but a strong feeling for the whole country; and the new feelings which it brought in must have had their See also:weight not only on the See also:gross See also:mass of the people, but on the views of former leaders. And all the influences of this enormous immigration were confined to the North and West. The immigration avoided slave soil as if by See also:instinct. So late as 188o the census reported that the Southern states, except Florida, See also:Louisiana and Texas, are " practically without any See also:foreign See also:element "; but it was only in 1850-1860 that this differentiating circumstance began to show itself plainly. And, as the sections began to differ further in aims and policy, the North began to gain heavily in ability to ensure its success. 203. Texas was the last slave state ever admitted; and, as it refused to be divided, the South had no further increase of numbers in the See also:Senate. Until 185o the admission TheSec of a free state had been so promptly balanced by lCon Hons in Congress. the admission of a slave state that the senators of the two sections had remained about equal in number; in 186o the free states had 36 senators and the slave states only 30. As the representation in the House had changed from 35 free state and 30 slave state members in 1790 to 147 free state and 90 slave state in 1860, and as the number of presidential See also:electors is the sum of the numbers of senators and representatives, political power had passed away from the South in 1850. If at any time the free states should unite they could control the House of Representatives and the Senate, elect the president and See also:vice-president, dictate the See also:appointment of judges and other Federal See also:officers, and make the laws what they pleased. If pressed to it, they could even control the See also:interpretation of the laws by the Supreme See also:Court. No Federal See also:judge could be removed except by See also:impeachment, but an act of Congress could at any time increase the number of judges to any extent, and the appointment of the additional judges could See also:reverse the See also:opinion of the court.
204. In circumstances so See also:critical a cautious quiescence and avoidance of public See also:attention was the only safe course for the " slave power," but that course had become See also:im-
possible. The numbers interested had become too to D Disuaionsunion to . large to be subject to complete discipline; all could
not be held in cautious reserve; and, when an advanced proposal came from any quarter of the slave-holding lines, the whole See also:army was shortly forced up to the advanced position. Every See also:movement of the mass was necessarily aggressive; and aggression meant final collision. If collision came it must be on some question of the rights of the states; and on such a question the whole South would move as one man.
205. The See also:Protestant churches of the United States had reflected in their organization the spirit of the political institutions under which they lived. Acting as purely voluntary associations, they had been organized Dlvlslom
Sectarian
into governments by delegates, much like the
" conventions " which had been evolved in the political parties. The omnipresent slavery question intruded into these bodies, and split them. The Methodist Episcopal See also: Two of the four great Protestant bodies were thus no longer national; it was only by the most careful management that the integrity of the Presbyterian Church was maintained until 1861, when it also yielded; and only the Episcopal and See also:Roman See also:Catholic Churches retained their national See also:character. 206. The political parties showed the same tendency. Each began to shrivel up in one See also:section or the other. The notion of " squatter sovereignty," attractive at first to the Western democracy, and not repudiated thpart anges. by the South, enabled the Democratic party to pass the crisis of 1850 without losing much of its Northern vote, while Southern Whigs began to See also:drift in, making the party continually more See also:pro-slavery. This could not continue long without beginning to decrease its Northern vote, but this effect did not become plainly visible until after 1852. The efforts of the Whig party to ignore the great question alienated its anti-slavery members in the North, while they did not satisfy its Southern members. The Whig losses were not at first heavy, but, as the electoral vote of each state is determined by the barest See also:plurality of the popular vote, they were enough to defeat the party almost everywhere in the presidential election of 1852. The Whigs Election nominated See also:General See also:Winfield See also:Scott and the Democrats of 1852. See also:Franklin See also:Pierce; and Pierce carried all but four of the See also:thirty-one states, and was elected, receiving 254 out of the 296 electoral votes. This See also:revelation of hopeless weakness was the downfall of the Whig party; it maintained its organization for four years longer, but the life had gone out of it. The future was with the Free Soil party, though it had polled but few votes in 1852.
207. During the administration of Taylor (and Vice-President Millard See also:Fillmore, who succeeded him) Clay, Webster,
Calhoun, Polk and Taylor were removed by Changes
Leadership. death, and there was a steady drift of other political leaders out of public life. New men were pushing in everywhere, and in both sections they showed the prevailing tendency to disunion. The best of them were
unprecedentedly See also:radical. Charles See also:Sumner, See also: The social disintegration was as rapid. Northern men travelling in the South were naturally looked upon with increasing suspicion, and were made to feel that they Soda! Divergencewere on a soil See also:alien in sympathies. Some of the . worst phases of democracy were called into play in the South; and, in some sections, law openly yielded supremacy to popular See also:passion in the cases of suspected Abolitionists. Southern conventions, on all sorts of subjects, became common; and in these meetings, permeated by a dawning sense of Southern See also:nationality, hardly any proposition looking to Southern See also:independence of the North was met with disfavour. 209. Calhoun, in his last and greatest speech, called attention to the manner in which one tie after another was snapping. But he ignored the real peril of the situation—its o%o ps adangerous facts: that the South was steadily grow- See also:ing weaker in comparison with the North, and more unable to secure a wider See also:area for the slave system; that it was therefore being steadily forced into demanding active Congressional See also:protection for slavery in the Territories; that the North would never submit to this; and that the South must submit or bring about a collision by attempting to secede. 210. Anti-slavery feeling in the North was stimulated by the manner in which the Fugitive Slave Law was enforced immediately after 185o. The chase after fugitive hire a Law. s slaves was prosecuted in many cases with circum- stances stances of revolting brutality, and features of the slave system which had been tacitly looked upon as fictitious were brought home to the See also:heart of the free states. (See FUGITIve SLAVE LAws.) The added feeling showed its force when the See also:Kansas-See also:Nebraska Act was passed by Congress (1854). It organized the two new Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Both of them were for ever free soil by the terms of the See also:Missouri Compromise (q.v.). But the success of the notion of squatter sovereignty in holding the Democratic party together while destroying the Whig party had intoxicated See also:Stephen A. See also:Douglas (q.v.), and other Northern Democrats; and they now applied the See also:doctrine to these Territories. They did not See also:desire " to vote slavery up or down," but left the decision to. the people of the two Territories and the .essential feature of the Missouri Compromise was specifically repealed. 211. This was the grossest political blunder in American history. The status of slavery had been settled, by the Constitution or by the compromises of 1820 and 1850, on every square See also:foot of American soil; right or wrong, the settlement was made. The Kansas-Nebraska Act took a great mass of territory out of the settlement and flung it into the See also:arena as a See also:prize for which the sections were to struggle. The first result of the act was to throw parties into See also:chaos. An American or " Know-Nothing" (q.v.) party, a See also:secret See also:oath-bound organiza- The tion, pledged to oppose the influence or power of "American foreign-See also:born citizens, had been formed to take the See also:place See also:Petty." of the defunct Whig party. It had been quite successful in state elections for a time, and was now beginning to have larger aspirations. It, like the Whig party, intended to ignore slavery, but, after a few years of life, the questions complicated with slavery entered its organization and divided it also. Even in 1854 many of its leaders in the North were forced to take position against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, while hosts of others joined in the opposition without any party organization. No American party ever rose se swiftly as this latter; with no other party name than the awkward The See also:title of " Anti-Nebraska men," it carried the Republican Congressional elections of 1854 at the North, forced Party. many of the former Know-Nothing leaders into union with it, and controlled the House of Representatives of the Congress which met in 1855. The Democratic party, which had been practically the only party since 1852, had now to See also:face the latest and strongest of its broad-constructionist opponents, one which with the nationalizing features of the Federalist and Whig parties combined democratic feelings and methods, and, above all, had a democratic purpose at bottom. It acknowledged; at first, no purpose aimed at slavery, only an intention to exclude slavery from the Territories; but, under such principles, it was the only party which was potentially an anti-slavery party, the only party to which the enslaved labourer of the South could look with the faintest See also:hope of aid in reaching the status of a man. The new party had grasped the See also:function which belonged of right to its great opponent, and it seized with it its opponent's original title. The name Democrat had quite taken the place of that first used—Republican—but the latter had never passed out of popular remembrance and liking at the North. The new party took See also:quick and skilful advantage of this by assuming the old name (see REPUBLICAN PARTY), and early in 1856 the two great parties of the See also:present—Democratic and Republican—were drawn up against one another. 212. The foreign relations of the United States during Pierce's See also:term of office were overshadowed by the domestic difficulties, but were of importance. In the •Koszta case (18J3) national protection had been afforded KCase.
oszta
on foreign soil to a See also:person who had only taken the preliminary steps to See also:naturalization (see See also:MARCY, W. L.). See also:Japan had been opened to American intercourse and See also:commerce (1854). But the question of slavery was more Japan. and more thrusting itself even into foreign relations. A great Southern See also:republic, to be founded at first by the slave states, but to take in gradually the whole territory around the Gulf of Mexico and include the West Indies, was soon to be a See also:pretty general ambition among slave-holders, and its first phases appeared during Pierce's administration. Efforts were begun to obtain See also:Cuba from See also:Spain; and the three leading American ministers abroad, See also:meeting at See also:Ostend, Ostend united in declaring the See also:possession of Cuba to be Manifesto; essential to the well-being of the United States See also:Filibuster (1854). (See See also:BUCHANAN, See also: No sooner manses. had its organization left the See also:matter of slavery to be decided by its " people " than the anti-slavery people of the North and West felt it to be their duty to see that the " people " of the Territory should be anti-slavery in sympathy. Emigrant associations were formed, and these shipped men and families to Kansas, arming them for their protection in the new country. Southern See also:newspapers called for similar measures in the South, but the See also:call was less effective. Southern men without slaves, settling a new state, were uncomfortably See also:apt to prohibit slavery, as in California. Only slave-holders were trusty pro-slavery men; and such were not likely to take slaves to Kansas and See also:risk their ownership on the result of the struggle. But for the people of Missouri, Kansas would have been free soil at once. Lying across the See also:direct road to Kansas, the Missouri settlers blockaded the way of free-state settlers, crossed into Kansas, and voted profusely at the first Territorial election. The See also:story of the contest between the free-state and pro-slavery settlers is told elsewhere (see KANSAS: § History) ; here it need only be said that the struggle passed into a real See also:civil war, the two See also:powers mustering considerable armies, fighting battles, capturing towns and paroling prisoners. The struggle was really over in 1857, and the South was beaten. There were, however, many obstacles yet to be overcome before the new state of Kansas was recognized by Congress, after the withdrawal of the senators of the seceding states (x861). 214. In the See also:heat of the Kansas struggle came the presidential election of 1856. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan, declaring, as usual, for the strictest limitations of the powers of the Federal government on a number of points specified, and reaffirming the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act—the settlement of slavery by the people of a Territory. The remnant of the Whig party, including the Know-Nothings of the North and those Southern men who wished no further discussion of slavery, nominated the president who had gone out of office in 18J3, Millard Fill-more. The Republican party nominated See also: One Dred Scott, a Missouri slave Decision, who had-been taken in 1834 to Illinois, a free state, and in 1836 to See also:Minnesota, within the territory covered by the Compromise, and had some years after being taken back to Missouri in 1838 sued for his freedom, was sold (1852) to a See also:citizen of New York. Scott then transferred his suit from 1 Buchanan received 174 electoral votes, Fremont 114 and Fillmore 8. The popular vote was: for Buchanan, 1,838,169; for lr3mi tit. 1.341,264; for Fillmore, 874,534.the state to the Federal courts, under the power given them to try suits between citizens of different states, and the case came by See also:appeal to the Supreme Court. Its decision, announced on the 6th of March 1857, put Scott out of court on the ground that a slave, or the descendant of slaves, could not be a citizen of the United States or have any See also:standing in Federal courts. The opinion of See also:Chief See also:Justice See also:Taney went on to attack the validity of the Missouri Compromise, for the reasons that one of the Constitutional functions of Congress was the protection of See also:property; that slaves had been recognized as property by the Constitution, and that Congress was bound to protect, not to prohibit, slavery in the Territories.2 The mass of the Northern people held that slaves were looked upon by the Constitution, not as property, but as " persons held to service or labour " by state laws; that the Constitutional function of Congress was the protection of liberty as well as of property; and that Congress was thus bound to prohibit, not to protect, slavery in the Territories. A large part of the North flouted the decision of the Supreme Court, and the See also:storm of angry dissent which it aroused did the disunionists See also:good service at the South. From this time the leading newspapers in the South maintained that the radical Southern view first advanced by Calhoun, and but slowly accepted by other Southern leaders, as to the duty of Congress to protect slavery in the Territories, had been confirmed by the Supreme Court; that the Northern Republicans had rejected it; even the " squatter sovereignty " of North-ern Democrats could no longer be submitted to by the South. 216. The population of the United States in 186o was over 31,000,000, an increase of more than 8,000,coo in ten years. As the decennial increases of population became Admission larger, so did the divergence of the sections in popu- of Minnesota lation, and still more in wealth and resources. Two and See also:Oregon. more free states came in during this period—Minnesota (x858) and Oregon (1859)—and Kansas was clamouring loudly for the same See also:privilege. The free and slave states, which had been almost equal in population in 1790, stood now as 19 to 12. And of the 12,000,000 in slave states, the 4,000,000 slaves and the 250,000 free blacks were not so much a factor of strength as a possible source of weakness and danger. No serious slave rising had ever taken place in the South; but John See also: See also:Breckinridge (q.v.) and See also:Joseph See also:Lane for president and vice-president. The See also:remainder of the original convention nominated Douglas and H. V. See also: 219. No candidate received a majority of the popular vote, Lincoln standing first and Douglas second. But Lincoln and Hamlin had a clear majority of the electoral vote, and so were elected, Breckinridge and Lane coming next.l It is worthy of mention that, up to the last See also:hours of Lincoln's first term of office, Congress would always have contained a majority opposed to him but for the See also:absence of the members from the seceding states. The interests of the South and even of slavery were thus safe enough under an anti-slavery president. But the drift of events was too plain. See also:Nullification had come and gone, and the nation feared it no longer. Even secession by a single state was now almost out of the question; the letters of Southern governors in 186o, in consultation on the state of affairs, agree that no state would secede without assurances of support by others. If this crisis were allowed to slip by without action, even a sectional secession would soon be impossible. 220. In See also:October 186o See also:Governor W. H, Gist, of South Carolina, sent a See also:letter to the governor of each of the other See also:cotton states secession. except Texas, asking co-operation in case South Carolina should resolve upon secession, and the replies were favourable. The democratic revolution which, since 1829, had compelled the legislature to give the choice of presidential electors to the people of the states had not affected South Carolina; her electors were still chosen by the legislature. That body, after having chosen the state's electors on the 6th of See also:November, remained in session until the telegraph had brought assurances that Lincoln had secured a sufficient number of electors to ensure his election; it then (on the loth ) summoned a state convention and adjourned. The state convention, which is a legislative body chosen for a special purpose, met first at Columbia and then at Charleston, and on the loth of See also:December unanimously passed an " See also:ordinance of secession," repealing the acts by which the state had ratified the Constitution and its amendments, and dissolving " the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the ` United States of See also:America.' " The convention took all steps necessary to prepare for war, and adjourned. Similar ordinances were passed by conventions in ' 1 Lincoln received 18o electoral votes, Breckinridge 72, Bell 39 and Douglas 12. Their popular votes were 1,866,352, 847,514, 587,830 and 1,375,157 respectively. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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