[Illustration: Copyright, 1891, by M. B. Rice. 

(signature) Abraham Lincoln]

 EXPANSION AND CONFLICT

 BY

 WILLIAM E. DODD

 PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO The Riverside Press Cambridge

 COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY WILLIAM E. DODD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A. 

PREFACE

The purpose of this volume is to show the action and reaction of themost important social, economic, political, and personal forces thathave entered into the make-up of the United States as a nation. Theprimary assumption of the author is that the people of this country didnot compose a nation until after the close of the Civil War in 1865. Ofscarcely less importance is the fact that the decisive motive behind thedifferent groups in Congress at every great crisis of the period underdiscussion was sectional advantage or even sectional aggrandizement. IfWebster ceased to be a particularist after 1824 and became a nationalistbefore 1830, it was because the interests of New England had undergone asimilar change; or, if Calhoun deserted about the same time the cause ofnationalism and became the most ardent of sectionalists, it was alsobecause the interests of his constituents, the cotton and tobaccoplanters of the South, had become identified with particularism, thatis, States rights. 

And corollary to these assumptions is the further fact that public menusually determine what line of procedure is best for their constituents, or for what are supposed to be the interests of those constituents, andthen seek for "powers" or clauses in State or Federal Constitutionswhich justify the predetermined course. This being, as a rule, true, thebusiness of the historian is to understand the influences which led tothe first, not the second, decision of the Representative or Senator orPresident or even Justice of the Supreme Court. Hence long-windedspeeches or tortuous decisions of courts have not been studied soclosely as the statistics of the cotton or tobacco crops, the reports ofmanufacturers, and the conditions of the frontier, which determined moreof the votes of members of Congress than the most eloquent persuasion ofgreat orators. 

Thus the following pages utterly fail of their purpose if they do notpicture the background of congressional and sectional conflicts duringthe period from Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln. But, to be sure, inso brief a book all the contributing elements of the growing nationallife cannot be fully described or even be mentioned. Still, it is thehope of the author that all the greater subjects have been treated. Whathas been omitted was omitted in order to devote more space to whatseemed to be more important, not in order to suppress what some mayconsider to be of primary significance. Three hundred short pages forthe story of the great conflict which raged from 1828 to 1865 do notoffer much latitude for explanations and diversions along the way. Noris it possible for any one to describe this conflict satisfactorily evento all historians, to say nothing of the participants who still live andentertain the most positive and contradictory convictions. Hence onemust present one's own narrative and be content if open-mindedness andhonesty of purpose be acknowledged. 

The book is intended for the maturer students in American colleges anduniversities and for readers who may be desirous of knowing why thingshappened as they did as well as how they happened. And by the employmentof collateral readings suggested in the short bibliographies at theclose of each chapter, both the college student and the more generalreader may find his way through the labyrinth of conflicting opinion andopposing authorities which make up the body of our written history. 

To make this task easier some twenty-five maps have been prepared andinserted at the appropriate places in the text. These maps, perhaps onemight say photographs of social or economic conditions, attempt topresent the greater sectional and industrial groups of "interests" whichentered into the common life of _ante-bellum_ times. They treat partyevolution, economic development, and social antagonisms in a way which, it seems to the author, should help the reader to a better understandingof things than would be possible by the simple narrative. 

For permission to use the maps on pages 291, 313, and 327 the authorexpresses his thanks to the publishers of _The Encyclopedia Americana_. 

In this connection cordial thanks are extended to Professor J. F. Jameson and Dr. C. O. Paullin, of the Carnegie Institution ofWashington, for the privilege of using the data which they collected onthe election of 1828 and the vote in Congress on the Tariff of 1832. Likewise Mr. P. L. Phillips, of the Division of Maps of the Library ofCongress, has given the author much assistance. Nor must I fail to saythat many of my students have rendered practical aid in working out thedetails of several of the maps. Mr. Edward J. Woodhouse, of YaleUniversity, very kindly read all the proof and prepared the index. AndProfessors A. C. McLaughlin and M. W. Jernegan, of the University ofChicago; Allen Johnson, of Yale; Carl Becker, of Kansas; and Frederic L. Paxson, of Wisconsin, have all given counsel and criticism on certainchapters which have been of great practical benefit. 

But in making these acknowledgments for assistance rendered, it is notintended to shift to other shoulders any of the responsibility forstatements or manner of treatment which may arouse criticism. The bookis intended to be helpful, interpretative, and beyond any sectionalbias. If the author has not been successful, it is not the fault ofothers, nor because of any sparing of personal efforts. 

_William E. Dodd. _

 CONTENTS

 I. _Andrew Jackson_ 1

 II. _The West_ 20

 III. _The East_ 39

 IV. _Conflict and Compromise_ 58

 V. _The Triumph of Jackson_ 77

 VI. _Distress and Reaction_ 96

 VII. _The Militant South_ 114

VIII. _War and Conquest_ 147

 IX. _The Abolitionists_ 161

 X. _Prosperity_ 184

 XI. _American Culture_ 208

 XII. _Stephen A. Douglas_ 231

XIII. _Abraham Lincoln_ 251

 XIV. _The Appeal to Arms_ 268

 XV. _One Nation or Two?_ 289

 XVI. _The Collapse of the Confederacy_ 309

 _Index_ i

 MAPS

_The Presidential Election of_ 1828 _between_ 18 _and_ 19

_Distribution of Indians and Location of IndianLands and Unorganized Territory ofthe United States or the States_ 26

_The Distribution of Industrial Plants in_ 1833 49

_The Vote in the House of Representatives onthe Tariff of_ 1832 _in Eastern and WesternStates_ _between_ 66 _and_ 67

_Growth of the West and Removal of Indiansfrom Cotton, Tobacco, and First WesternGrain Belts_ 88

_The Presidential Election of_ 1836 _between_ 92 _and_ 93

_Tobacco Areas in_ 1840 133

_Cotton Areas in_ 1840 134

_Wheat Areas in_ 1840 139

_The Presidential Election of_ 1844 _between_ 148 _and_ 149

_Annexations of_ 1845-53 159

_Location of Abolition Societies in_ 1847 169

_The Presidential Election of_ 1852 _between_ 180 _and_ 181

_The Industrial Belt of_ 1860 188

_Railroads in Operation_, 1850 190

_Railroads in Operation_, 1860 191

_The Black Belt of_ 1860 193

_The Cotton Belt of_ 1860 196

_Tobacco Areas in_ 1860 197

_Wheat Areas in_ 1860 200

_The Presidential Election of_ 1860 _between_ 264 _and_ 265

_Conflicting Sectional Interests_, 1850-60 237

_One Nation or Two_? 291

_The Confederacy in_ 1863 313

_Regions which surrendered with Lee andJohnston, April, 1865_ 327

 EXPANSION AND CONFLICT

 CHAPTER I

 ANDREW JACKSON

"Let the people rule"--such was the reply that Andrew Jackson made tothe coalition of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams which made the latterPresident. And Andrew Jackson was an interesting man in 1825. He was tobe the leader of the great party of the West which was forming for theoverthrow of the old political and social order. Born in a cabin on thesouthern frontier in 1767 and reared in the midst of poverty during the"hard times" of the Revolution, Jackson had had little opportunity toacquire the education and polish which so distinguished the leaders ofthe old Jeffersonian party. After a season of teaching school andstudying law in Salisbury, North Carolina, he emigrated, in 1788, toTennessee, where he soon became a successful attorney, and a few yearslater a United States Senator. But public life in Philadelphia proved asunattractive as school-teaching had been; he returned to the frontierlife of his adopted State and was speedily made a judge, and as such hesometimes led _posses_ to enforce his decrees. During the second warwith England he made a brilliant campaign against the Creek Indians, whohad sided with the British, and gained the reputation of being themortal enemy of the aborigines, a reputation which added greatly to hispopularity in a community which believed that the "only good Indian is adead Indian. "

At the close of the war, when most men were expecting news that theBritish had conquered the lower Mississippi Valley and that the Unionwas breaking to pieces, he proved to be the one American general whocould "whip the troops who had beaten Napoleon. " The battle of NewOrleans made Jackson an international character, and the West was readyto crown him a hero and a savior of the nation. Nor did his arbitraryconduct in the Seminole War, or later, when he was Governor of Florida, injure him in a region where Indians, Spaniards, and Englishmen had fewrights which an American need respect. The attacks of Henry Clay in theHouse of Representatives, and of William H. Crawford in the Cabinet, were regarded as political maneuvers. When, therefore, Jackson offeredhimself in 1823 as a candidate for the Presidency, most Western menwelcomed him, fearing only that his age and his delicate health, ofwhich he had said too much in public, might cut him off before he couldrender his country the great service of which they considered himcapable. The politicians, especially those who followed Henry Clay, didtheir utmost to defeat him, and the votes of the West were dividedalmost evenly between the two backwoods rivals. But when it became clearin 1825 that Speaker Clay of the House of Representatives had added hisinfluence to that of John Quincy Adams in order to prevent Jackson fromwinning, Western men everywhere made his cause their cause. "Let thepeople rule" became a battle-cry which was taken up in every frontierState from Georgia to Illinois. 

It was time that the people devoted more attention to public affairs;they had in fact well-nigh abdicated. In Virginia, with a whitepopulation of 625, 000, only 15, 000 had voted in the election of 1824; inPennsylvania, whose population was over a million, only some 47, 000 hadtaken the trouble to go to the polls; while in Massachusetts, where the"favorite son" motive operated, just one man in nineteen exercised theright of suffrage. Government had become the business of "gentlemen" andof those who made a specialty of politics. The old Jeffersonian machine, organized as a popular protest against aristocracy and the "moneypower, " had itself become aristocratic, and it had ceased to representthe democracy of the United States; and the democracy had lost interestin its own affairs. 

When Clay, the Westerner and long-time opponent of Adams and the NewEngland element in politics, executed his surprising somersault inFebruary, 1825, and thus made the eastern leader President and thenhimself became Secretary of State, occasion was given to a secondJefferson to arouse the people to a sense of their responsibility. Jackson, a very different man from the former man of the people, seizedthe opportunity. Thus the campaign of 1828 began in 1825, and in thecourse of the bitter struggle which ensued men divided into socialclasses much as they had done in 1800. The small farmers of the countrydistricts and the artisan classes in the towns of the East accepted theleadership of the West and waged relentless war on behalf of the "oldhero, " as Jackson came to be called. The Southern gentry who hadfollowed Crawford, the Calhoun men, and certain remnants of ancientFederalism were now compelled to choose between the so-called radicalismof the West and John Quincy Adams, the Conservative. Two parties thustook the place of the four Republican factions which had contended forthe control of the Government and especially the offices in 1824. 

But contemporary with this larger national conflict there were importantstate and local struggles on which the success of Jackson and the Westdepended, and which we must survey and estimate, else the realsignificance of the campaign of 1828 is apt to be overlooked. 

Beginning with the South, where Jackson's lieutenants were expectingtheir greatest gains, South Carolina was rent in twain by a conflict ofsocial and economic forces which was soon to overshadow national issues. According to the constitutional bargain of 1809, the low country and theblack belt, that is, the region of the historic river plantations andthe newer cotton country, were always to have a majority in both housesof the legislature, which chose the governor, the judges, and otherimportant officials. The reason of this was that the great majority ofthe slaves were held in this section, and without complete control ofthe Government the masters felt that their interests would besacrificed to the democracy of the up-country. The hill and mountainregion, on the other hand, had a large majority of the white population. But by the arrangement of 1809 the people of this section must contentthemselves with remaining in the minority in the state legislature, andsuppress whatever of opposition they felt toward the institution ofslavery, the cause of their effacement. 

It was, however, this up-country which had been the mainstay of theJeffersonian party. Calhoun was a son of this region, and he had grownup in the midst of the bitterest opposition to the eastern aristocracy. But gradually, under the influence of cotton-growing, he and some of hisfellows yielded to the old order of the Pinckneys and the Butlers, andthe older order yielded a little to the democratic group in the State. This produced the united South Carolina which gave to the countryCalhoun, Lowndes, and Hayne, nationalists of the most ardent type in1816; and for a few years it seemed that these astute leaders would playthe rôle of the old Virginia dynasty. 

But when Calhoun, with the aid of high protectionist Pennsylvania, wasbending all his energies, in 1824, to winning the Presidency, therebroke out an insurgency in the former Federalist section of his Statewhich boded ill for the future. The burden of its complaint was thenational tariff, which bore heavily on the cotton and rice planters. Between 1824 and 1828 the lower Carolinians developed a vindictivehostility toward the leaders of nationalism in the State and especiallytoward Calhoun, who was considered responsible for the oppressions ofthe tariff. Robert Barnwell Rhett and William Smith, two perfectrepresentatives of aristocratic South Carolina, led the fight. SenatorHayne was among the first to yield; George McDuffie, an up-countryleader, next surrendered; finally most Southern members of the NationalHouse of Representatives took up the cry against the tariff and extremenationalism. Nothing was more certain in 1826 than that Calhoun and hisnationalist party would be driven to the wall. 

Vice-President Calhoun had taken note of the coming storm, and in 1827, when the woolens bill, a highly protectionist measure, was beforeCongress, a measure in which all the Middle States' interests weregreatly concerned, he took pains to have his vote recorded against thebill. Thus he publicly announced his change of heart. A year later hewas even more outspoken in his opposition to the famous "Tariff ofAbominations. " However, he had already made an alliance with Jackson, whose attitude on the tariff no one knew, and who was very popular withthe protectionists of Pennsylvania. It was clearly understood thatJackson would serve only one term as President and that Calhoun shouldsucceed him. The leaders of the older section of South Carolina, urgingsecession, were now confronted with a peculiar dilemma. A conferencewith Calhoun led in 1828 to a reversal of the secession movement, andculminated in the proposition that South Carolina should suspend thetariff law of the country and ask a referendum of the various States onthe subject. If this failed, then secession was to be the remedy. "Nullification" was the name which this referendum soon acquired. 

The attitude of South Carolina was that of every other Southern Statefrom Virginia to Mississippi, and everywhere it was the older and moreimportant groups of counties which so bitterly opposed the protectivepolicy. In Virginia college boys met in formal session and resolved towear "homespun" rather than submit to the "yoke" of the Northernmanufacturers; in North Carolina the legislature declared the tariff lawunconstitutional. At the commencement of the University of Georgia theorator of the occasion appeared in a suit of white cotton cloth, whilehis valet wore the cast-off suit of shining broadcloth. The "Tariff ofAbominations, " passed in 1828, was producing revolutionary results inall the region where tobacco, cotton, and rice were grown, and this wasthe governing section of the South. [1]

[Footnote 1: See maps on pp. 133, 134. ]

Nor was this all; Georgia was still at the point of making actual warupon the United States because the President and Congress did not removethe Creek and Cherokee Indians as rapidly as the cotton plantersdesired. The Cherokees had declared themselves a State within theboundaries of Georgia, defied both local and national authority, andapplied to the United States Supreme Court for recognition and support. The Government of Georgia had formally spread her laws over the Indianlands and imprisoned those who resisted her sway. 

This Indian problem which Jackson would have to solve was of the utmostimportance to all the region from Georgia to northwestern Louisiana, forin that region lived the ambitious and prosperous cotton planters, whowere bent on getting possession of all the fertile lands of theirsection, and the legislatures of Alabama and Mississippi followed theexample of Georgia in assuming jurisdiction over all Indians withintheir boundaries. Jackson entertained no tender scruples aboutdispossessing the natives, a fact which was well known and widelyadvertised. When, therefore, Crawford, who had been very popular withthe planters of all the South, gave up his antagonism to the Tennesseecandidate, and joined with the friends of Calhoun, whom Crawford hatedonly a little more than he had disliked Jackson, there was nosubstantial resistance in any of the States, from South Carolina toLouisiana. The way was preparing for a united South and West. 

If the Crawford men of the lower South gave up their hostility toJackson and the extreme anti-nationalists of South Carolina submittedonce more to "Calhoun and Jackson, " it was by no means certain what thegentry of the eastern counties of North Carolina would do. They hadsupported Crawford in the last campaign, and there was neither Indiannor land question to compel them to support the Western candidate. Moreover, there was a bitter struggle between the east and the west ofNorth Carolina which resembled very much the secession movement in SouthCarolina. The eastern men owned most of the slaves and produced thelarge staple crops; controlled the lawmaking and the other departmentsof the State Government; and its leaders were generally, if not always, the spokesmen of the State in national affairs. This position and theseadvantages were legacies of the constitution of 1776. The fact that theywere in the minority in point of population served only to whet theirappetites for more power. On the other hand, the leaders of the westernsection of the State had fought for twenty-five years to reform theconstitution and the laws, to create new counties in order to secureproportionate representation, and to expand the suffrage in order thattheir majorities might be properly counted. 

The bitterness of the two sections threatened to result in civil war orat least a division of the State. But the eastern men yielded and in1835 a convention met in Raleigh. The planters were in the majority. They made concessions, however, in the matter of representation and inthe popular election of the governors, which tended to reconcile theup-country people. But the control of taxation, suffrage, andrepresentation remained securely in the hands of the legislativemajority of the low-country counties. Slavery and the allied socialsystem were henceforth immune, and the distinctions, forms, andrealities of a growing aristocracy made steady encroachments upon thelife of the State until the outbreak of the Civil War. 

Contrary as it may seem to the ordinary political interests of such men, the North Carolina gentry accepted Jackson and the Western party in1828, and the State was almost a unit in support of the more democraticelement in the nation at the very time it was at the point of breakingto pieces locally because one section of the State was unwilling togrant the other a fair chance in the common life. 

Nor was it different in Virginia. There the small counties of the east, with a minority of the white population, controlled both houses of theassembly, the governorship, the courts, and the majority of the State'srepresentatives in Congress. This advantage, as in North Carolina, hadbeen guaranteed by the constitution of 1776. The motive for thisone-sided arrangement was the protection of slave property which, itmust be said, paid the larger share of the taxes. In western Virginia, extending then to the Ohio River, there was a teeming population whoseablest leaders constantly resisted this system and demanded theirrights. As elsewhere in the West the program was manhood suffrage, equalrepresentation, and the popular election of important state officials. 

After twenty-five years of agitation, a constitutional convention met inRichmond in the autumn of 1829. Reformers everywhere looked to this bodyin the hope that something might be done to "put slavery in a way tofinal extinction. " Madison, Monroe, Chief Justice Marshall, and JohnRandolph were members. All of these favored eastern Virginia anddefended the privileged minority. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson ofJefferson, Philip Doddridge, and Alexander Campbell represented thewestern section of the State and democracy. After months of debatewhich covered every subject in government, and especially slavery andits possible abolition, the convention decided, in the face of seriousthreats of secession on the part of the up country, to grant to the morepopulous section only a slight increase in the number ofrepresentatives. The power of property in government was once againconfirmed, and so hopeless was the outlook that prominent anti-slaverymen deserted their own cause and joined the other side during the nextdecades. 

It was not an easy thing for John Randolph, and the other champions ofthe eastern Virginia oligarchy to commit their cause to the democraticparty of the Mississippi Valley, whose leader was the "lawless" Jackson. Yet this is what they did. Nowhere outside of South Carolina was theinfluence of Calhoun more effective than in Virginia, and it must havebeen this which turned the balance in favor of "the General. "

From northern Virginia, even from eastern Maryland, to middle Georgiathe case of democracy seemed doomed. John Randolph had denounced it as amonstrous "tyranny of King Numbers"; Judge Gaston, one of the purest andbest men of North Carolina, declared that the cry, "let the peoplerule, " was fallacious, and asked with great concern, "What is then tobecome of our system of checks and balances?" While the radicalspokesmen of the South Carolina aristocracy declared that they wouldnever submit to that "dangerous principle of majority rule. "

The growth of the cotton industry between 1800 and 1830 had done much toretard the growth of democracy, so urgently advocated by Jefferson;while the interests of the cotton planters and the fears of the tobaccogrowers had served to "swing the leaders" of the aristocratic South intothe Jackson columns. Though the price of raw cotton had declined fromforty-four cents per pound in the former year to ten cents in thelatter, the annual increase in the value of the total output between1820 and 1830 was $1, 000, 000 and from 1830 to 1840 the value of thisstaple crop increased from $29, 000, 000 to $63, 000, 000, while all otheritems of the national export amounted only to $50, 000, 000 per year. Cotton was grown in a comparatively narrow belt of country extendingfrom lower North Carolina to the Red River counties of Louisiana andArkansas, with a total population in 1830 of little more than 1, 500, 000people, of whom 500, 000 were negro slaves. Yet their annual output wasworth in 1830, $29, 000, 000 and in 1840, $63, 000, 000. 

In the older South the tobacco crop was not appreciably greater in 1830than it had been in 1800, though in the succeeding decade the value ofthe annual harvest rose from $5, 000, 000 to $9, 000, 000, and themanufacturing of tobacco became an important industry in manylocalities. Rice culture was at a standstill during these years, andsugar was only making a beginning; but the total of these staples, including cotton, reaches almost to two thirds of the national exports. The annual _per capita_ income of the lower South ranged during theJacksonian era from thirty to forty dollars, while that of the olderSouthern States like Virginia and Maryland was not half so great, andthe average for the country as a whole fell much below that of theSouth. There was thus a marked contrast between the fortune of theaverage Middle States man and that of the cotton planters. 

The result was an extraordinary movement southwestward, especially fromthe older South and Kentucky, where population was almost stationaryduring a period of twenty years. In Virginia good lands sold for lessthan the cost of the buildings on them. Jefferson's home, Monticello, including two hundred acres of land, sold at public auction in 1829 for$2500. Each autumn saw thousands of masters with their families andslaves take up the march over the up-country road through Danville, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, to Georgia and Alabama, or overthe mountains to the valley of Virginia, whence they followed the greathighland trough southwestward to the Tennessee and Tombigbee Valleys. The population of Alabama alone increased from 300, 000 in 1830 to600, 000 ten years later. Unimproved lands in the cotton country sold atprices ranging from $2 to $100 per acre, and plantations spread rapidlyover the better parts of the lower South. Men could afford to give awayor abandon their homes in the old South in order to establishplantations in the Gulf States, for in ten years thrifty men becamerich, as riches went in those days. The cotton country was a magnetwhich drew upon the Middle and Atlantic States for their best citizensduring a period of twenty years. 

While the Jackson leadership "captured" both the conservatives ofVirginia and the Carolinas and the radicals of the Gulf region, thecause of democracy made great gains in the Middle States. Half ofMaryland favored Jackson, and strangely enough the conservative half. Pennsylvania, the head and front of popular government since the days ofBenjamin Franklin, gave every evidence of joining the standard ofJackson early in the contest. New York had held a constitutionalconvention in 1821 and opened the way for universal suffrage and thepopular election of most state and county officers. So radical had beenthe sweep of reform that Chancellor Kent and other conservatives spenttheir energies in protest and prophecy of dire results to come. But itwas probably the work of Van Buren, a conservative "boss" of New York, and of Samuel D. Ingham, a wealthy manufacturer of Pennsylvania and anally of Calhoun, that made sure the votes of these great States; for menof the old Federalist party and extreme protectionists of both New Yorkand Pennsylvania ranged themselves behind Jackson and his Westerndemocracy. 

If we turn now to the chances of Clay and Adams, we must look to a partof Maryland, to Delaware and New Jersey evenly divided, it seems, between the "forward and the backward-looking" men, and to New England. Connecticut abandoned her State Church in 1818 and extended theelectoral franchise to all who enrolled in the militia. Vermont, NewHampshire, and Maine were border States and distinctly Western in theirideals, though they were in no way inclined to desert the New Englandleader. Massachusetts, the great State of the East, held firmly to herconservative moorings. In the constitutional convention of 1820 theliberals had failed at every point. Webster and Story had defeated theproposition for abolishing the property qualification for membership inthe State Senate; and the more radical plan for overthrowing theestablished Congregational Church, the bulwark of steady habits inMassachusetts, was similarly voted down. Webster, like Randolph, ofVirginia, and Rhett, of South Carolina, urged that property should rulein every well-ordered community, and what Webster, Randolph, and Rhetturged, their respective States adopted. Even more reactionary was littleRhode Island, where privilege and inequality were as firmly intrenchedas anywhere else in the country. The suffrage was limited to freeholdersand representation was denied the majority of the people. The control ofgovernor, legislature, and courts was in the hands of the minority. In1821, 1822, and 1824 leaders of the majority endeavored to securereforms, but without success. 

From Augusta, Maine, to Baltimore stretched the long strip of countrywhich could be relied on to vote for John Quincy Adams and to sustainconservative ideals in government. Western New York was also inclined toAdams, and Clay was confident that he could carry Ohio and Kentucky, theconservative communities of the West, for his ally. In the main the menwho supported the Administration were those who feared the rough ways ofplain men, the ideals of equality and popular initiative so dear to theAmerican heart. 

The managers of Jackson's campaign were members of the United StatesSenate. Calhoun sat in the Vice-President's chair; Van Buren was theleader of the Middle States group of the opposition; John Randolph wasthere and ever ready to turn his wonderful gifts of ridicule and sarcasmagainst the Puritan who sat in the "Mansion" and "wasted the money ofthe people"; Nathaniel Macon, one of the most popular of all theSenators, opposed the second Adams as earnestly as he had fought thefirst; George Poindexter, of Mississippi, was one of the most powerfulpoliticians of the cotton kingdom, and he showed a never-failinghostility to "Clay and his President"; but Thomas H. Benton, ofMissouri, was the most effective, perhaps, of all these men who werebent on the overthrow of Adams and Clay. 

They kept the "bargain and sale" charge alive till the very day of theelection. Benton urged on every possible occasion the adoption ofconstitutional amendments forbidding the President to appoint members ofCongress to office, restricting the presidential term to four yearswithout possibility of reëlection, and limiting the powers andjurisdiction of the Supreme Court. He also kept the Western squatters onthe public lands closely attached to him by promising that if he evercame to power their rights to the farms they had taken without leaveshould be confirmed by law. Nor did he forget to denounce Adams for"wantonly giving away Texas" in the negotiations with Spain in 1819. Every movement of the Government was combated at every point anddefeated if possible. Van Buren, Calhoun, and Benton were an able trio, and they resorted for four years to every possible device to discreditthe President and his Secretary of State and at the same time to securethe election of Andrew Jackson. 

Duff Green, of Missouri, was brought to Washington to establish and edit_The Telegraph_, the organ of the opposition which began operations in1826. It gave currency to the campaign literature and educated thepeople in the cause of the West. Adams was an aristocrat; he livedsumptuously every day at the public expense; he did not associate withthe people; and he aped the courts of Europe, where he had spent so muchof his life. The people of the South and West reached the point wherethey could believe anything against John Quincy Adams. No otherPresident of the United States has ever been so shamefully treated, saveone, and that one was Martin Van Buren, the man who was leading theonslaughts of 1828. 

Adams and Clay were helpless; it was difficult for them to securepopular allies or get a fair hearing. Richard Rush, the son of theJeffersonian radical of 1800, was made candidate for the Vice-Presidencyin the hope of winning Pennsylvania; Clay did his utmost to stem thetide in the West; Daniel Webster was, of course, on the side of Adams;William Wirt and James Barbour stood up bravely in Virginia for a doomedcause. But these earnest and patriotic men could not rally the normalstrength of the conservatives, for the Southern planters had acceptedJackson and the Middle States conservatives were demoralized by the VanBuren and Ingham activity. 

The rough backwoods General had proved a politician too astute for theoldest heads. He had been able to enlist the services of Northern menwho did not believe in democracy, and he had the loyal support ofSouthern leaders who were just then breaking down the power of democracyin all the older States of their section. He was not less fortunate inthe expression of his opinions on public questions. On the tariff, theburning question of the time, he had no views; on internal improvementshe had even less to say. Even on the subject of the free distribution ofthe public lands he was silent, though most Westerners took hishostility to the Indians to mean that he would do what was desired. Jackson was "all things to all men" in 1828, and this discreet attitudeseems to have been effective, though it was to bring trouble when hebecame President. 

When the vote was counted, it was found that the people had been arousedas they had not been before since 1800. The cry, "Shall the peoplerule?" was answered by Pennsylvania by a vote for Jackson of 100, 000 asagainst 50, 000 for Adams. Virginia gave Jackson as many votes in 1828 ashad been cast for all parties in 1824. And the total vote of the countryfor Jackson was 647, 276 as against 508, 064 for Adams. The General hadwon every electoral vote of the South and the West; and bothPennsylvania and New York had sustained him. New England was solid forher candidate, and New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland returned Adamsmajorities. The lines were drawn, as had been foreseen, just as in thecontest between Jefferson and John Adams twenty-eight years before; andin general the attitudes of the social classes were the same. 

[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1828]

The second alliance of South and West had been effected, and "thepeople" had come to power a second time, only the West was now thedominant element. How would the West and "the people" use their power?

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

J. S. Bassett's _Life of Andrew Jackson_ (1911) is the best work on thatsubject, though James Parton's _Life of Jackson_ (ed. Of 1887) is stillthe best for a documentary account. The biographies of Henry Clay andJohn Quincy Adams in the _American Statesmen_ series are the best forthese men. Of more importance for a view of social and politicalconditions of the South and the East are: the _Debates_ of theconstitutional conventions of Massachusetts (1820), New York (1821), Virginia (1829), and North Carolina (1835), and _The Memoir of JohnQuincy Adams_, in twelve large volumes, which covers minutely the periodof 1825 to 1848. This work appeared in 1874-76. It is a remarkablerecord of a remarkable man. J. B. McMaster's _History of the UnitedStates_ (1900-13) is a life of the people which no library can afford tobe without, and J. Schouler's _History of the United States under theConstitution_ (revised ed. 1894-99) is equally good, giving a fulleraccount of the political and constitutional development of the country. A. B. Hart's _The American Nation_ (1904-08) is a fuller coöperativework by the leading scholars of the United States. The volumes whichbear upon the period in hand will be cited in succeeding chapters. Special studies of importance are: C. H. Ambler's _Sectionalism inVirginia_ (1910); D. F. Houston's _Critical Study of Nullification inSouth Carolina_ (1896); W. A. Schaper's _Sectionalism in South Carolina_(1900); and H. M. Wagstaff's _States Rights and Political Parties inNorth Carolina_ (1906). 

 CHAPTER II

 THE WEST

Tens of thousands of eager people witnessed the inauguration of AndrewJackson on March 4, 1829; they crowded the streets, stood upon thehouse-tops, and peered out from every open window; they jostled theattendants at the White House and overturned the bowls and jars whichcontained the ices and wines intended for the entertainment of the newPresident and his friends. "The people have come to power, " said achastened admirer of Henry Clay as she watched sadly the wreckage of thedainties which dainty hands had prepared, and as she looked with dismayupon the wearers of rough and dirty boots striding over costly carpetswhere hitherto only gentlemen and ladies had trod. It was a happyoccasion to the unthinking but honest democrats[2] who gloried in thesuccess of their "hero, " but a sad warning to the more refined who hadbeen accustomed to see things done in due form and stateliness. 

[Footnote 2: This term is used to indicate those who believed indemocracy, not those who called themselves Democrats. The distinctionwill be observed throughout the book. ]

But neither the uninformed masses who looked on with delight that brightday nor the cultured people whose hearts sank within them as they sawthe old order pass away recked aught of what was to come during the nextfour years. Possibly the old man, whom everybody called "the General, "and who many feared could not live out his term, or the solemn-visagedVice-President, who had been filling half the cabinet positions with hisown partisans, saw dimly what was to follow these joyous opening days ofa new régime, for he knew how unstable was the base upon which the newstructure rested. 

The people who composed this new régime, the men who voted for AndrewJackson and who shouted at and derided sturdy John Quincy Adams as heretired from the Presidency that 4th of March, were the rank and file ofthe United States. But the nucleus of the party of Jackson was the West. In the region which extends from Georgia to the Sabine, save in NewOrleans alone, no name equaled that of the man who had driven theIndians like chaff before the wind at the battle of Horseshoe Bend, andwho a year later had defeated the regiments of Great Britain near NewOrleans. "The General" was known and admired all over the great valleyof the Mississippi as the friend of the people, while John Quincy Adamshad resisted the demands of the frontier and had actually sent aregiment of the United States Army into Georgia to defeat the purposesof a popular governor, who was driving the hated Indians from covetedcotton lands. Jackson met, therefore, with little or no opposition inthis region, and the Southwestern politicians who had fought for Adamsand Clay in the campaign of 1828 had signed their politicaldeath-warrants. 

In the older West, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio, Henry Clayhad been the natural leader; and until about 1820, when he hadchampioned the cause of the National Bank as against local interests andlocal banks, he had been the most popular man west of the Alleghanies. From the beginning of the Adams Administration he had lost steadily tillin 1828 he tasted for the first time the gall of political defeat. Inthese older Western communities it was still a reproach to a public manto ally himself with New England and the United States Bank, though hemight favor the protective tariff, and he must support internalimprovements. In addition to supporting John Quincy Adams after 1825, Clay led a "fast and extravagant" life in Washington, which only addedto his unpopularity in the West. In 1831 it was with much difficulty, and after a close contest with Richard M. Johnson, that he was returnedto the United States Senate. General Jackson had completely won theleadership of the Clay territory and the affections of the plainfarmers. 

In the Northwest there were other large areas of fertile lands in thepossession of the hated Indians, and there, as in the Southwest, themost popular leader was he who believed and taught that the quickest wayto build up the country was to take immediate possession of these lands. In Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois the small farmers and the pioneerswere almost as enthusiastic followers of Jackson as were their economickinsmen of the Gulf region. 

With these backwoods States thus devoted to the man to whom ChiefJustice Marshall had sorrowfully administered the oath of office, it waseasy for the leaders of the new régime to make strong appeal to themountain counties of the Middle States and South, whose political idolhad been Thomas Jefferson and whose people were only a generationremoved from the pioneer stage of development. With the exception ofsome of the New England _émigrés_ of western New York, the peasantproprietors of all the up-country counties of the Middle States gaveJackson their allegiance; while south of Maryland, except in a fewcounties of western Virginia, almost every man in the hill country was astanch defender of the first Western President. Thus in the West and inthe interior of the States which bordered upon the Alleghany Mountains, Jackson had a great compact following which for years to come was togive him the advantage over all his opponents. 

The radical and enthusiastic wing of the new party was the Southwest, closely followed by the Northwest; the older West and the up-country ofthe Middle States and South composed the "solid" element; while thelow-country men, the planters of Virginia and the Carolinas, regardedaskance the democratic leader whom they had reluctantly helped to thePresidency. Of real organization and party discipline there was little, and the beliefs and principles of the various groups of the party weresometimes antagonistic. On one thing only were most of these men united:on the necessity of keeping New England out of the control of theGovernment. Surely any one who knew the actual conditions of 1829, theambitions and the smouldering animosities of the Jackson lieutenants, must have faced the future with more than ordinary doubt and anxiety. 

But the people who shouted at the inauguration and who had voted "theticket" the preceding November did not know the feelings of theirleaders. They thought that this country was a democracy and that amajority of the electorate was entitled to rule. Their ideals were thoseof the Declaration of Independence, which were not very popular in NewEngland, and which were just then being repudiated in the plantersections of the South. They lived the lives of simple farmers and dailypracticed the doctrine of social equality, and hence they could notunderstand why others should not do the same, or why there should beanything difficult or complex in the work of the incoming President. 

In all the Western States almost every office was filled by popularelection. Legislatures met annually and unpopular men or measures couldbe promptly recalled, to employ a modern term. Even the judges of thecourts were subject to frequent election and were quite attentive topopular opinion; while United States Senators must canvass for votes inardent campaigns which strongly resembled the primary contests of theSouth and West to-day. But this democracy of the larger section of thecountry which supported Jackson was counterbalanced by the prestige andexperience of its allies of the South, where, by reason of thethree-fifths rule of representation for the slaves, which gave themaster of slaves a privileged position, and of long political habit, afew planters exercised power out of all proportion to their numbers. 

Still the history of the country after 1812 indicated that the Westernvoters and not the Eastern leaders would control the Government whileJackson was President. These voters were nationalists and their positionmade them look to the Federal Government for better roads and improvedmarkets; they were expansionists who not only coveted the lands of theIndians, but wanted also to seize the territory of their neighbors. Theywere already taking possession of Texas, and Thomas H. Benton and LewisCass, of Michigan, their most popular leaders after Jackson, werealready the exponents of an early imperialism which would never restuntil the shores of the Pacific became the western frontier of theUnited States. In every State that bordered on the Mississippi thissentiment was ardent, and many good men were ready to make war uponMexico for Texas or upon England for Oregon, whose boundaries no oneknew and whose title had been held jointly by the United States andGreat Britain since 1818. 

Moreover, the Western men occupied a peculiar position in the countrybecause of the fact that a large number of them had bought their landsfrom the Federal Government on easy terms, at two dollars or even adollar and a quarter an acre, and were still in debt for them to theGovernment or the banks or other creditors. This indebtedness stillfurther stimulated their restlessness of character. The land laws of theUnited States were apparently liberal, but unless the settler couldobtain land near a navigable stream, it was a most difficult matter tobuy even a quarter section and make the improvements necessary tosuccessful farming. And since all the river area had long since beenoccupied, the Westerners of 1830 had bought their land in the remotedistricts and begun the hard struggle of "paying out. " The distance tomarkets made this an almost hopeless task, and the holders of thefrontier farms came to think their lot a peculiarly hard one. Theyresisted always; and in hard years, after driving a herd of cattle or adrove of hogs to the distant market and receiving therefor barely thecost of production, they were angry and resentful. 

[Illustration: Distribution of Indians and Location of Indian Lands andUnorganized Territory of the United States or the States]

The frontier remedy for these ills was an "easier" currency or highprices for commodities, or stay laws against creditors who pressed fortheir money. And since a great number of the Western farmers had simplytaken up their lands, before they were thrown open to sale, and madeimprovements on them without procuring titles, they feared theenforcement of the federal law against them and clamored for apreëmption system which would secure them their land, when the day ofsales did come, at the minimum price, $1. 25 per acre. A still betterplan was already strongly urged, the free gift of small tracts of landto all who would go West and build homes. Not only would this be goodfor the home-seeker, but it would result in the rapid upbuilding of thegreat wastes of the country. Animated by such purposes as these, Bentonand his colleagues in Congress were constantly gaining strength as theirconstituents increased in number. 

Thus the restless but devoted followers of Jackson were developing aprogram: the removal of the Indians in order that more cotton and cornmight be grown; the seizure of the territory contiguous to the westernfrontier, even at the cost of war with Mexico and England; the giving offree homesteads to all who would go West and join in the upbuilding ofthe Mississippi Commonwealths; and the improvement of roadways atnational expense in order that Western products might find bettermarkets. These were the things which the Westerners ardently desired andwhich it was hoped the new President would be able to obtain for them. Incidentally, he was expected to set up the rule of the people in thenational capital, and to substitute a more simple life and etiquette forthe formal and fashionable manners which had come into vogue with Monroeand his Cabinet. 

The strength of the Western people was great, and to the East itappeared ominous. They numbered in 1830 nearly 4, 000, 000 souls ascompared with 12, 500, 000 for the country as a whole, and their increasein the preceding decade had run from 22 per cent in Kentucky to 185 percent in Illinois. In the National House of Representatives the West cast47 votes in a total of 213; in the Senate their strength was 18 in atotal of 48. But this does not fairly represent their influence. Inwestern New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia there were more than amillion people who counted themselves Westerners, while in the Carolinasand Georgia a majority, or more than another half-million, must bereckoned as adherents of the cause of the "Trans-alleghany. " Thus about6, 000, 000 of the total 12, 500, 000 were Western in character and ideals, to say nothing of the large frontier element in New England. 

In economic strength, however, these Jackson States and communities weremuch weaker. They were isolated. Their surplus crops had no value saveas they were produced within reach of navigable rivers. Of these the5, 500, 000 people living in the region drained by the Mississippi and theother streams which fall into the Gulf of Mexico, exported about$17, 800, 000 worth of commodities in 1830, a _per capita_ value of lessthan $4. And most of this surplus output came from the cotton countiesof the lower South, where only a small proportion of the population ofthe West dwelt. Still, the herds of cattle and droves of swine that weredriven southward to the cotton communities or over the mountains toEastern cities, and the large quantities of grain which, after 1825, found its way to market through the Erie Canal, added greatly to andperhaps doubled the income of the West from exports down theMississippi. When all is told, however, these isolated people were inthe main very poor, as the narratives of travelers and the journals ofpreachers attest on every page. 

Yet every year added thousands to the numbers of Eastern men whomigrated West to enjoy some of the liberty of a region where lands werecheap and the social life unconventional; every decade added new voicesand able leaders to the Western group in Congress, who clamoredunceasingly for the enactment of laws aimed at the rapid development ofthat section. New England, where the rise of industrial townsnecessitated an increasing number of laborers, took fright, or had neverceased to be alarmed, at the westward movement of population; andEastern members of Congress, under one pretext or another, opposed everydemand which came up from the West, every petition of the "squatters" onthe public domain. In the Middle States the building of numerouscanals, turnpikes, and railways called for both skilled and unskilledlaborers. But if everybody ran off to the West when wages wereunsatisfactory, these improvements could not be made and the oldcommunities would languish and decay. 

Virginia and the South were less disturbed at the growth of the West, because of their system of slavery, and because the votes of the newStates could be relied on to support Virginian and Southern policies inCongress--a legacy of the old Jeffersonian alliance of the South withthe early West; and also because of the similar economic and social lifeof the two sections. But even the Old Dominion in the sore economicdistress of the late twenties, due in the main to the desertion of hertobacco-fields and workshops by thousands of her most energetic sons, who went to the rich cotton country, wavered in her loyalty to theyounger States of the West. John Randolph ridiculed in merciless fashionthe "sharp-witted" Westerners, whom he would avoid in the highway as"one would a pickpocket"; and in both the Carolinas there was a fear anda dread of the growing West, whose ideals were too Jeffersonian andwhose power waxed greater with the passing years. Yet Calhoun, Hayne, and other able Southerners remained true to the new region and supportedBenton in his debates with Foote and Webster in 1830, perhaps becausethe whole Jackson program of 1829 was based upon the alliance of theseforces in the national life. 

If the political plans of the Western men of 1830 were ambitious andfar-reaching, the lives of the shrewd pioneers were simple, hard, andnarrow. The men wore coats when the weather was cold, and found shoesmore of a nuisance than a comfort during half the year; and the womenrejoiced if they received a "store" bonnet once in two years. Wants werefew and the annual _per capita_ expense beyond what was produced at homewas seldom as great as $10. Peter Cartwright counted himself rich whenhe learned that the Methodist annual conference to which he belonged hadadded $12 to his regular stipend of $100 a year. 

Most men, including the clergy, owned or rented farms and followed theplow in season, while wives and children did outdoor work from morningtill night. Houses were built by the aid of neighbors in a single day, and extra rooms were improvised by the judicious hanging of quilts andcurtains. A door in front and another in the rear allowed plenty offresh air, though the large crevices between the logs usually renderedthis superfluous. Floors were made of logs split in halves and laid"with backs downward. " Beds and chairs were home-made and especiallyintended for the use of the older members of the family, boys and girlsaccommodating themselves with stools or blocks of wood sawed for thepurpose. Meals were prepared in a few moments at the broad fireside, where a huge crane aided the mother in swinging her kettles on or offthe blazing fire. In every pretentious home there was a loom for theweaving of cotton and woolen cloth for family or neighborhoodconsumption; and late at night the steady thump of the beam proclaimedthe industry of the busy housewife as she put in the last threads of her"fifth" or "sixth yard. " Few were so wealthy that they could afford thebroadcloth which came up the rivers from New Orleans or over the ErieCanal from New York; and when some migrating Virginia squire or Kentuckycolonel, master of a thousand acres of land, did so disport himself onSundays or at the races, he appeared in his glossy suit, made by thehand of his devoted spouse, wrinkled and fretted in a hundred places, not unlike Lincoln when he first spoke at Cooper Institute, New York. 

Life was simple on the Western farm or distant frontier, but pleasure, too, had its place, English sports of Angevin times serving the place ofbaseball or golf of to-day. In the older West, Kentucky, Tennessee, andMissouri, the race-course was the common playground where horses and menran their rounds and won their prizes. To drink deeply of the strong"corn" or "rye" was as common as is the drinking of wine in France; andraces, corn-huskings, or weddings were seldom closed withoutdrunkenness, and oftentimes fisticuffs or the more fatal duel with knifeor pistol. Jackson had "killed his man, " and Benton had been knockedthrough a trapdoor into the basement of a Nashville bar-room; Clay andPoindexter, the Mississippi Governor and Senator, had had more than oneencounter in which life was set against life. 

If men held human life cheap, they held woman's honor more than dear, and to give currency to a tale of slander was tantamount to half a dozenchallenges. Women were in the minority in the West, and although theydid not vote, they were still of utmost importance in homes whereclothing was handmade and the needs of numerous children increaseddaily. Henry Clay was one of thirteen or fourteen brothers and sisters, while Thomas Marshall, the father of the Chief Justice, carried ten ortwelve children with him to his Western home about the year 1781. Butthe sorrows of the pioneer women and the waste of human material wereextraordinary. In those days of hardship and ignorance of the mostrudimentary rules of sanitation, few knew how to save their childrenfrom death due to the simplest diseases, and the student to-day readsthe sad story in the many tiny tombstones of the old family cemeteries, knowing well that the great majority rest in unmarked graves. Many wereborn and many died without a fair chance at normal existence. 

Western men were seldom members of organized churches, though the fearof the Deity, natural to those who witnessed the great "freshets" andthe storms and cyclones which swept over the plains, carrying entirevillages with them or cutting wide swaths through the primeval forests, was a powerful influence upon everyday conduct. Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists, with their strict and hard Calvinism, penetrated firstthe wilderness beyond the mountains and built their rude log churches, in which stern preachers, like Samuel Doak, of Tennessee, or JonathanGoing, of Ohio, warned men against the wrath to come and the fieryfurnace below, whose surging flames were ever ready to swallow up andconsume stiff-necked, yet never-dying sinners. The simple andsuperstitious minds of the neglected West flocked to these littlechurches or to great camps where revivalists, like James McCreary, ofKentucky, or the later Bishop Soule, of Ohio, preached for weeks insuccession and seemed to work miracles hardly less wonderful than thoseof New Testament times. Hundreds were "stricken" on a single day andwere later gathered into the church clothed and in their right minds. Before 1830 the greater denominations of the East and South realized theimportance of the West as a semi-destitute land to which missionariesshould be sent, though by this time the churches of the older border andof most of the great valley were self-supporting and the populationcould no longer complain that the Gospel had never been preached tothem. 

While the civilizing hand of the churches was being spread over theWest, schools and colleges were built and opened to students. Theliberal land grants of the Federal Government were made to serve thecause of common schools, while institutions of higher learningflourished at Lexington, Natchez, Granville (Ohio), and Hanover(Indiana), --schools where many of the statesmen of the Civil War periodwere trained and where preachers prepared themselves for their strenuouslabors in a poor country. The civilizing forces of religion andeducation were rapidly leavening the lump of hard Western life andpreparing it for the great days and the awful struggle that were so soonto come. Books found their way into the Athens of the West, as Lexingtonwas called, and gradually, under the fostering care of Henry Clay, theMechanics' Library came to play an important part. St. Louis, too, boasted of its Mercantile Library; and there were numerous othercollections of religious writings, history, and the English poets, mostly in private hands like those of John M. Peck, of Illinois. Newspapers, such as the _Republican_ of St. Louis, the Maysville_Eagle_, or the Louisville _Advertiser_, carried their weekly orsemi-weekly burden of neighborhood gossip and political news to near-byvillages and distant settlements. 

The roads were also improving and steadily expanding the area ofproductive farming, though all, or nearly all, led to the river ports orthe old fort towns like La Porte, Indiana, or Detroit and Cleveland onthe Lakes. The Erie and the Ohio Canals were already turning exports andcommunication northeastward, while the Lake steamers were adding theirshare to the development of the Western frontier; but the great riversteamers, the City of New Orleans and the Crescent, which the preacherscompared to ancient Babylon, as centers of vice and lewd fashion, werethe marvels of the West, and they carried the burden of grain, tobacco, and cotton which crowded the wharves of New Orleans. Cincinnati was thepork-packing and manufacturing center of the West, sending its saltedmeats and farm implements to the plantations of the lower South inever-increasing volume. St. Louis was the home of the most importantcommercial monopoly of the time, the American Fur Company, which had anundue influence in national politics, and of which John Jacob Astor wasthe millionaire head, to whom all Americans looked up as one of thegreat figures of his generation. From the old half-French, half-Americantown caravans of explorers, trappers, and traders set out each springfor the Far Northwest, whence they returned annually with their loads offurs and their tales of the wonderful Oregon country. But New Orleans, with its population of 50, 000, its European life and rather easy morals, its slave marts and miles of cotton wharves, was the wonder of the worldto Western eyes like those of young Abraham Lincoln, who visited thecity about this time. There, rich men lived in splendid mansions, servedby scores of negro slaves; there, great newspapers were published andshrewd speculators from all parts of the world bought cotton andimported luxuries for the newly rich of the Southwest. 

It was this great West, pulsating with life and vigor, filled with hopefor the future, restless and eager, at once democratic andimperialistic, which put the resolute and dictatorial Andrew Jackson inthe President's chair in 1829. And never was constituency more trulyrepresented than was that of the West in the wiry old man whom theycalled "Old Hickory. " Accustomed to the hardships of the poor in hisyouth and to the responsibility of the well-to-do merchant and cottonplanter in middle life, he had experienced most that was common to hisfellows and had gained a prestige which in their admiring eyes surpassedthat of all other men since Thomas Jefferson. Brave and generous, plain-spoken and sometimes boisterous, he embodied most of thequalities that compelled admiration throughout the Mississippi Valley. No matter what Webster or Calhoun or even Clay said of "Old Hickory, " itwas not believed in the back-country until the President himself hadconfirmed the story. Jackson was the second American President who sounderstood "his people" that he could interpret them and by intuitionscent the course the popular mind would take--particularly in the West. 

To be sure, there were small groups of Westerners who opposed him andwhom he did not represent: some of the counties of Ohio, a part of theBlue-Grass region of Kentucky, and a narrow strip of Mississippi whichlay in the southwestern part of the State, and finally the French andmercantile elements of New Orleans; but these were never strong enoughto deprive him of any object at which he aimed. It was well-nigh "KingAndrew I, " as some Eastern papers were accustomed to term him in a weakattempt at ridicule. 

Thus appeared the new régime in 1829, in so far as its Western majorityand base of support were concerned. How the conservative East, with itsserious doubts about democracy, and the older Southern leaders, uneasylest slavery should be undermined, would find themselves in the newsystem is a problem which our next chapters must seek to disclose. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

F. J. Turner's _The Rise of the New West_ (1906) is the best briefaccount of social and economic conditions in the United States justprior to 1830. J. B. McMaster's _History of the United States_, vol. _IV_, chap. _XXXIII_, and vol. _V_, chap. _XLV_; T. H. Clay's _HenryClay_, in _American Crises_ biographies, Theodore Roosevelt's _Life ofThomas H. Benton_, in _American Statesmen_ series, and Bassett's _Lifeof Andrew Jackson_, already cited, give the principal facts about theirsubjects. T. Flint's _History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley_(1832); J. Hall's _Letters from the West_ (1828) and _Statistics of theWest_ (1836); early numbers of the _American Almanacs_; PeterCartwright's _The Backwoods Preacher_ (1860); Alfred Brunson's _AWestern Pioneer_ (1858); and the various denominational histories supplythe needful social background for an understanding of the West. MargaretBayard Smith's _The First Forty Years of Washington Society_ (edited byGaillard Hunt, 1906) and K. W. Colgrove's _Attitude of Congress towardthe Pioneers of the West_, in _Iowa Journal of History and Politics_(1910), give good reports of Eastern opinion of the West. And _AmericanState Papers_, on _Public Lands_ and _Indian Affairs_, are excellent fortreatment of land and Indian problems. 

 CHAPTER III

 THE EAST

When the West under the guidance and tutelage of Jackson, Calhoun, andBenton took possession of the national administration in 1829, the olderand more cultured elements and classes of the East trembled for theircountry and for the institutions they held dear. The day was dark toJohn Quincy Adams and his followers, not only because they had beendeprived of power, but because the rural sections of the East, the townsand villages which had been active and prosperous from 1783 to 1807, showed almost as many signs of stagnation and premature decay as did theOld Dominion, where public men were in a state of alarm and dismay. Forfifteen years the highways of New York and Pennsylvania had borne theirburden of New England emigrants, laden with their meager belongings, asthey journeyed westward to the Mohawk country, western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other rising communities of the West. Between 1820 and 1830the population of New England as a whole increased but slightly, whilein many counties of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut therewas an actual decline. Ambitious young men or discouraged heads offamilies moved northeastward to the freer lands of Maine or to the FarWest, without seeming love for the older haunts or thought for thefortunes of the Commonwealths which had given them birth. And New York, whose population increased from 1, 400, 000 in 1820 to 2, 400, 000 in 1840, drew heavily upon her eastern neighbors; Pennsylvania, of more steadyhabits, drew less from New England than her immediate neighbors, thoughboth New York and Pennsylvania gave freely to the West. There was thus asteady drift of the people from their Eastern homes to the betteropportunities of the Middle States, while from these, in turn, largenumbers joined the more courageous who were never content until theybuilt their cabins along the river borders or on the prairies of theNorthwest. 

The total population of the country in 1830 was nearly 13, 000, 000, whilethat of the East, including New England, the Middle States, andMaryland, was a little more than 6, 000, 000. Between 1820 and 1840 thepopulation of the country increased from 9, 654, 000 to 17, 669, 000; thatof the East increased from 4, 850, 000 to 7, 350, 000, of which 650, 000 hadcome from Europe. This represented a growth of only fifty per cent intwenty years. But the rival South, as a whole, and this includesKentucky and Missouri, had increased her population during the sameperiod from 4, 009, 000 to 7, 748, 000, a growth of ninety per cent; whilethe West, as a whole, including Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, hadgrown from less than 1, 000, 000 to nearly 4, 000, 000. These facts weresignificant and really distressing to conservative politicians; theyexplain the jealous rivalry of the sections, and the alliance of theSouth and West foreboded the day when the more cultivated and thebetter settled region of the young nation, if it may be called a nation, would find itself in a hopeless minority. 

If we add to this the fact that the lands of the East were the poorestin the Union and that their total area was less than 175, 000 squaremiles, while those of the South were counted rich and embraced an areaof 880, 000 square miles, we shall understand how statesmen who listenedto the jubilations of the Jackson men felt and envisaged the future--afuture which the South alone might command; but which she wouldcertainly dominate if she could only succeed in keeping the West true toher present allegiance. 

But economic and social changes were taking place which gave thedarkening cloud a silver lining. On an irregular but narrow belt of landstretching from southeastern Maine to the Chesapeake Bay manufacturingestablishments had been erected, towns and cities had sprung intoexistence as if by magic, and migration from the poor farms and the hardconditions of New England country life was also turning to the millcenters, and thus giving promise of a new East, whose life should beindustrial and urban like that of smoky, grimy Lancashire, England. Theolder commercial and seafaring interests, which had given theFederalists their power and made the American flag known on every sea, were now giving way to the vigorous young captains of industry whosemills at Lowell, Providence, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, andBaltimore gave employment to thousands of people. Much of the moneywhich had made the New Englanders go down to the sea in ships was nowinvested in manufactures. The woolen mills of the East produced in 1820a little more than $4, 000, 000 worth of cloth, the cotton mills, $4, 834, 000; but in 1830 the yearly manufactures of wool, cotton, andiron were estimated by the Government as worth $58, 500, 000. Yet thetotal investment in these enterprises was not much in excess of$100, 000, 000. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvaniathe growth had been miraculous, and the profits were enormous, if weexcept one or two years for the woolen interests. 

So that while the total annual crop value of Southern plantationsamounted to $40, 000, 000, and the _per capita_ wealth of the white peopleof the so-called black belt was very large, the returns from threeindustries located in a much narrower industrial belt of the East weremore than a third greater. The taxable value of the slaves who producedmost of the cotton and tobacco was not less than $1, 000, 000, 000; thetotal investments of the East in manufactures of all kinds was certainlynot more than a fourth as great as that in slaves. And what made thisdevelopment the more significant was the fact that nearly all that theblack belt produced was sold in Europe, while nearly all that theindustrial belt produced was sold to the people of the United States, mostly to States which were not engaged in manufacturing at all. 

A portentous revolution was taking place. Before 1820 nearly all thewool of the country had been made into cloth by hand in the homes of thepeople, and the ratio of home manufactures to population was about thesame in most of the States. Now the sheep-raisers sold their wool tothe mill men, who sold the country the finished product and whosefactories were concentrated in a small district. The cotton mills hadbeen a negligible economic factor in 1812; now their owners employed acapital of $30, 000, 000 to $35, 000, 000 and supplied work for 70, 000laborers. From the farms of the interior, where life was in the open, the poorer and less ambitious elements of the population, who were notattracted to the West, were drawn to the growing industrial towns, wherethey lived, a family in a room, worked twelve to fourteen hours a day, amidst unsanitary and even immoral surroundings, for wages which rangedfrom one dollar to six dollars per week. The cost of living was, to besure, correspondingly low; but when the year of toil for men, women, andchildren of all ages was told, there was usually an unpaid account atthe company's store, and the chance of bettering one's worldly fortunesappeared almost hopeless. Emigration to the West was the only escape, and the difficulties of such an escape, the cost of sustenance for thelong journey, on foot, the greater cost of building a cabin in theforest and maintaining one's family till a crop could be harvested, andthe necessity of buying the land on which the cabin was to be raised, made the undertaking heroic. Thus, when the mill life was once begun itwas seldom deserted. 

Without educational advantages, save in the most rudimentary way, without any fair prospect of ever becoming independent or of materiallyimproving their status, these mill workers kept up the daily round oflabor, earning the millions which were laying the foundations of a newand greater East, eventually a new United States, and voting, in so faras they exercised the right of suffrage at all, for the cause of theirmasters, against the "slave-drivers" of the South and for protection tomanufactures as a means of defending themselves against their poorerbrethren of Europe. As to their total number, we have no more reliableestimate than that of McMaster, who says there were not less than twomillion operatives in all lines of industry in 1825. Nobody thought ofthese people as slaves; and most people thought they must be happy toescape the dull life of the country, and that fourteen hours' work was anormal human exercise. A worthless father who lived on the labor oflittle children of his own begetting was counted lucky to have childrento work for him; and the girl who entered the primrose path as apossible way of escape from her hard surroundings was then as nowpromptly ruled out of the pale of human sympathy and consigned to thelake of everlasting fire and brimstone. 

Another great interest had grown to immense proportions in the East of1830--the financial. Beginning with the flush times of Hamilton'sleadership, the financier had grown in power and influence, sometimespurposely organizing a monopolistic control over the money of thepublic, as in the case of the Suffolk Bank of Boston, sometimesmercilessly robbing depositors, as in the notorious defalcation of theDerby Bank of Connecticut in 1825, until it had become a seriousnational problem not merely to regulate the currency of the country, butto curb the rapacity of those who, under one pretense or another, violated the laws of all the States in order to heap up hasty fortunes. In 1815 there had been 208 banks in the country, mainly in the MiddleStates and New England, with a capital of $82, 000, 000; at the end of theyear 1833 there were 502 banks with a capital of $168, 829, 000. At theend of the second war with England, there were $17, 000, 000 of specie inthe banks; eighteen years later, when the capital had doubled, loans hadgreatly increased, and notes in circulation were $61, 000, 000, there werestill just $17, 000, 000 of gold and silver in all the banks. 

The business of the East naturally tended to the concentration of thefinancial resources of the country within her towns, but the location of414 of the 502 banks of the country in the narrow section underconsideration would seem to indicate something more than a naturaltendency. The six million people of the East enjoyed three times as manybanking facilities, when we consider the amount of money in circulation, as the seven million Southerners and Westerners. New York alone had abanking capital of $28, 000, 000, Massachusetts $21, 000, 000, and the _percapita_ circulation of money in the East was nearly $9, while that ofthe West was $2. To him that hath shall be given is a familiar axiomwhich seemed doubly true of the United States at the time of Jackson'saccession to power. 

All signs pointed to a congestion of the financial resources of thewhole country in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The great NationalBank, with its $35, 000, 000 capital and loans of $40, 000, 000, waslocated in Philadelphia; New York City had not so strong a bankingsystem, but the growth of her real estate values was $40, 000, 000 in thefive years preceding 1831; and the tax valuation of the property ofSuffolk County, Massachusetts, in which Boston was located, was$86, 000, 000 as against $208, 000, 000 for the whole State. 

The masters of this region were reaching out for the commerce of theWest through the Erie Canal, which made northern and central Ohio thehinterland of New York; through the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and theChesapeake and Ohio Canal, which were aimed at western Virginia and theOhio Valley. The shipping interests of New England and New York did thesame for the South, whose millions of bales of cotton all went north orto Europe in eastern-made and eastern-owned vessels. And while theseenterprising leaders sought to control the commerce of the country, theyalso knitted together their own towns and river valleys by canals andturnpikes. Boston and New Haven were almost united by canals andrailroads in 1830; the Delaware and the Susquehanna were paralleled farinto the interior in order to bring the produce of the country to themanufacturing centers. And a railway connected Philadelphia with therich Susquehanna Basin, whose commerce had hitherto been controlled byBaltimore. Pittsburg was actually tied to the East before 1835 by waterand railroad routes. Trade, manufactures, and finance; railways, canals, and home markets were the great subjects of conversation in the East, just as cotton, slaves, and land formed the trinity of Southernthinking. 

The men who owned the industrial plants and managed the large banks andprojected the ambitious railway and canal systems, the stockholders andthe officers, the factors and storekeepers, were drawn from the samesturdy New England and Middle States stock, the small farmers and littlemerchants who had composed the democracy which had fought theRevolution. Retired sea-captains and owners of sailing-vessels joinedthe new régime as profits came in and the art of watering stock wasunderstood. Throughout the East, from Chesapeake Bay to Augusta, Maine, wherever there were good waterfalls, great brick buildings were risingstory upon story, proclaiming the new prosperity and enticing the hordesof workers so necessary to the new system. The old-fashioned mansions ofretired traders or prosperous shipbuilders, which had so long adornedthe hills of the coast towns, were giving way to the larger houses ofthe captains of industry who built up the inland towns or created thesuburbs of the greater cities. 

Like the planters of the South, with their two million slaves, theseable and prosperous makers of a new era in the East had their twomillion operatives, and as in the planting districts, the working daywas from sun to sun. Carrying the comparison further, the industrial andfinancial region was relatively small, embracing much less of the areaof the country than did that of the black belt. [3]

[Footnote 3: See maps of tobacco and cotton belts on pp. 133, 134. ]

From southeastern Maine to Boston, Providence, New Haven, New York City, and on to Baltimore, with a Western extension to Pittsburg, thisirregular, now widening, now contracting, strip of country extended. Itembraced the strategic positions, the falls of the rivers, the placeswhence ships could sail laden with the products of the industries orreturn with the raw materials necessary to their operation; it includedthe old commercial towns where the surplus capital of the East had beencollected and where now gathered the populations which composed thedistricts whose spokesmen exerted the real strength of the North in theNational Congress. It was this articulate East, the growing power ofindustry and finance, the promise of greater prosperity to come, whichdrew to it, like iron filings to a magnet, the talented and theambitious men of the time, just as the black belt was the articulatepart of the South for which men of ability and influence spoke in thenational assemblies which gathered from year to year in Washington. 

But the older mercantile and seafaring interests sometimes resisted theindustrial movement and made precarious alliances with the South on thebasis of a national free-trade policy. The great Boston merchantsactually turned to Hayne, of South Carolina, in 1827, to represent themand their cause in Congress. The Winslows, Goddards, and Lees who thusappealed to a Southern Senator were representatives of the older order, of the same declining class in New York and Philadelphia which had inyears past controlled affairs in the East and made alliances with thearistocratic leaders of the South. In a hopeless minority in their ownStates before 1830, they looked to the South for relief, and at leastunderstood the politics of the planters. Their successors composed thenucleus of the party of Cushing, Everett, and Winthrop in 1860. It isdifficult for us in our day of great things to understand the industrialand social revolution of the decade which preceded the inauguration ofthe first Western President, and it was difficult for men to make thetransition from the small farmer system of Jefferson's day to theindustrial régime of 1830; many good people were broken in the process, while whole classes of the population exchanged the life of the opencountry for that of the crowded and unsanitary towns, exchanged a rudeand hard independence for a semi-servile subjection. 

[Illustration: The Distribution of Industrial Plants in 1833

Miss Maud Hulse drew this map from data in House Documents, 22nd. Cong. , 1st. Sess. No. 303. ]

The new Eastern régime readily enlisted the support of the oldprofessional classes. The clergy and the votaries of the law, alwaysdoing the bidding of the strongest in society, promptly took theirplaces in the system. When dignitaries of an Eastern town gradually laidaside their rough farmers' clothes and put on the smooth garbs ofdirectors of corporations or financial magnates, the legal briefs andsermons underwent a similar change. Social amenities displacedCalvinistic theology; dancing, which had been a crime against theChurch, became mere frivolity and finally an innocent pastime. Leadinglawyers ceased to plead in petit courts to inferior magistrates, andlearned to devise forms of contracts, to lobby in legislatures, orappear with the great Maryland and Virginia practitioners before theFederal Supreme Court. 

The legal profession of the East naturally made common cause with theirclients. The state courts, already accustomed to curb the democracy ofthe time and declare public enactments unconstitutional, when theinterests of property required, as readily joined the new standards. Thecareers of Justice Parsons of Massachusetts and Chancellor Kent of NewYork, to whom all judges and lawyers of the time looked up as sources ofinspiration, illustrate admirably the common tendency. Everywhere in theEast as in the South "independent" judges asserted the power to declarelaws unconstitutional. 

The national courts had undergone the same evolution, except that theyhad met with violent opposition in the South and West. In many decisionsfrom 1792 to 1830 the Federal Supreme Court asserted its authority overCongress, the President, and the States. In almost all of theseinstances the federal judges found the heartiest support from the East. The great institution over which Chief Justice Marshall presided withsuch perfect dignity, and which was not paralleled anywhere else in theworld, lent its support to the interests of the East. If theconstitutionality of the tariff were denied by irate planters, Easternmen pointed to decisions of the Federal Supreme Court; if the powers ofthe General Government under which the industrial or financial interestsof the East operated were questioned, it was easy to find a decision ofChief Justice Marshall to cover the case. Nothing proved more fortunatefor the leaders of the industrial revolution than the almost constantsupport of the federal courts and of the legal profession as a whole. 

The compact social life of the industrial towns was still furtherreinforced by the clergy. In the shift from a stern theology to aneasy-going religious philosophy, William Ellery Channing was aconspicuous leader. Harvard had already become a Unitarian center, andin 1836 the Transcendental Club was organized in Boston with Ralph WaldoEmerson, a preacher in revolt against the old theology, as one of itsleaders; high-toned men, whose minds revolted alike against the oldPuritanism, the grosser talk of rates of exchange and the building ofcommon roadways, found consolation in speculative philosophy andromantic literature. The _North American Review_ was already fifteenyears old, and the best minds of the country were happy to have theirthought and inspirations printed in its staid columns. Boston was astate of mind in 1830, and a good Methodist preacher who visited thecity a little later lamented the lapse from the great virtues and thegreat theology of the Mathers. 

But outside of Boston and its university suburb, there was littlepatience with a new religion or with a theology which did not teach theworld the total depravity of man and the vengeance of an angry Deityconsigning his wayward children to everlasting perdition. Southerngentlemen like Calhoun or Hayne might accept the mild and humane God ofChanning, but not the farmers of the rural districts or the business menof the small towns. 

If Boston cultivated philosophy and religious reform, New York was theseat of a literature that was read. Washington Irving, the author ofthe _Sketch-Book_ and _Tales of a Traveller_, was just returning from along and triumphant literary sojourn in Europe to make his home on theHudson. James Fenimore Cooper was publishing his _Leather StockingTales_, which have made the hair on so many boys' heads stand on end. William Cullen Bryant was making the _New York Evening Post_ the organof American culture and setting the pace for the better element of thepress. In Philadelphia, Carey and Lea were alternately publishing thewritings of struggling literary lights and fiery pamphlets on the tariffand internal improvements. In 1832 John Pendleton Kennedy, of Maryland, published his _Swallow Barn_, a novel which portrayed the easy-goinglife of the Virginia planters; and in Richmond, William Wirt, disgustedwith Western politics, rested on his laurels as the author of the_British Spy_ and the _Life of Patrick Henry_. To match the _NorthAmerican Review_ the Charleston lovers of literature were publishingtheir excellent _Southern Review_. Even history was not without hermuses. Reverend Jared Sparks was editing all the crudities of grammarand errors of spelling out of Washington's fourteen volumes ofcorrespondence; George Ticknor, a young professor at Harvard, wasbeginning the work which was to culminate in his famous _History ofSpanish Literature_; and George Bancroft was writing a _History of theUnited States_ which was to win him international fame and ultimately tosecure him a seat in the Cabinet of President Polk. 

If literature and history were beginning to thrive in New England andthe Middle States, painting and sculpture also had their devotees. Allston and Greenough had won laurels in Boston; Inman and Sully weremaking portraits in Philadelphia which well-to-do Middle States lawyersand Southern planters liked well enough to pay for in good banknotes;even in far-off Kentucky Joel T. Hart was making the busts of greatAmerican politicians on which his title to distinction was to rest. AndCharleston, never outdone in _ante-bellum_ times, encouraged a realgenius in James de Veaux, the painter, so soon to fall a victim totuberculosis. That was a promising religious, literary, and artisticlife, which kept time to the looms of the industrial belt or idealizedthe nascent feudalism of the South. But we must turn to the fierceeconomic and political struggles about to be reopened inWashington--struggles in which Americans of that day as well as of thisalways take supreme interest. 

The change in Massachusetts and Connecticut from a defiant particularismand an uncompromising free-trade policy, during the short years of 1815to 1830, to a positive nationalism and emphatic protective programparallels exactly the change at the same time in South Carolina fromnationalism and a protective tariff to a strict states-rights and anunbending free-trade system. If Calhoun turned sharp corners in thoseyears, Webster proved equally agile. The whole life of the East wasbeing reconstructed, and all classes were adapting themselves to the neworganization. The small farmers, allies in 1804 of Thomas Jefferson andhis up-country democracy, became ancillary to the industrial townswhere they found markets for their products; and the new river and canaland railroad towns were but the recent creations of the new order. Withthe exception of a few remote counties and certain old-fashionedmerchants, all New England and the Middle States ranged themselvesaround the dominant industrial masters and presented an almost solidfront to the Southern and Western combination which had swept thecountry in 1828. There was no doubt that Adams, Webster, and Clay wouldrenew the fight in time to make an issue in 1832. 

And their case was by no means hopeless. In the electoral college of1832 these Northeastern States would cast 131 of the total 286 votes. Ifthe industrial forces could hold their communities together as the Westhad learned to do, and regain their former hold on Ohio, their candidatewould again be successful. Losing the Presidency, they would still have, after the apportionment of 1831, a majority of 10 in the Federal Houseof Representatives, which would guarantee the protective policy againstserious modification. And the moral support of the Supreme Court was notwithout value. Thus if the new President and the Senate be conceded, thepopular branch of Congress and the national judiciary would make steadybulwarks. 

If there were sections of New England, like Maine, or of the MiddleStates, like western Pennsylvania, whose people would not support theindustrial program, there were dominant sections of the old South, likeeastern Virginia and all South Carolina, where the leaders eitherfeared or hated Jackson. Nor did all the West love the South. In theStates which bordered the Ohio River most men demanded internalimprovements at national expense, which all knew the South could notgrant. With the ablest New England and Middle States leaders in theSenate and House, why might not the arrangement of 1825 be renewed? Itwas, then, with every expectation of victory in 1832 that the sanguineClay came back to Congress in December, 1831; even John Quincy Adams, who now became a member of the House, was not without hope that theill-selected Cabinet of Jackson would go to pieces and that a"restoration" would follow in due time. Washington was to be the sceneof still another conflict of the sections that would threaten the veryexistence of the Union, not yet accustomed to the idea of a compactnationality. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The best sources for the growth of the various industries before 1830are government documents. _The Report on Manufactures, ExecutiveDocuments_, 22d Cong. , 1st Sess. , 2 vols. , is a rare and valuable work;and _Executive Documents_, 34th Cong. , 1st Sess. , vol. 4, gives thestatistics of manufactures down to 1850 by States. Darby and Dwight's_New Gazetteer of the United States_ (1833), and J. L. Bishop's _Historyof American Manufactures_ (1868), are useful if sometimes exasperating. Miss Katharine Coman's _The Industrial History of the United States_(1910) is the best account for general use. J. B. McMaster's _History ofthe United States_, vol. V (1900), and F. J. Turner's _The Rise of theNew West_ already cited (1906), are always serviceable. For across-section of the industrial revolution in New England, read C. F. Adams's _Three Episodes of Massachusetts History_ (1903). Davis R. Dewey's _Financial History of the United States_ (1903) is standard; andA. C. McLaughlin's _The Court, the Constitution and Parties_ (1912), gives the best account of the beginnings of judicial supremacy, whileW. G. Sumner's _History of American Banking_ (1896) tells the story ofthe banks by sections. The _American Commonwealth_ histories areserviceable for the individual States. For the biographies of leadingstatesmen, the _American Statesmen_ and _American Crises_ series aresatisfying. Intellectual life is well treated in W. P. Trent's _Historyof American Literature_ (1903), G. W. Sheldon's _American Painters_(1899), and Lorado Taft's _History of American Sculpture_ (1903). 

 CHAPTER IV

 CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE

The man against whom these powerful leaders were directing all theirenergies was still counted an amateur in politics, irascible andindiscreet. He was laughed at in the cities as a boor and condemned inNew England as an ignoramus, though Harvard College, under some strangeinspiration, was soon to award him the doctorate of laws. Having come topower by means of a combination of South and West, Jackson had found hisfollowers divided and somewhat unmanageable. Half the members of hisCabinet, S. D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury; John Branch, Secretaryof the Navy; and John M. Berrien, Attorney-General, looked to Calhoun astheir chief, while the others, Martin Van Buren; Secretary of State, John H. Eaton, Secretary of War, and William T. Barry, thePostmaster-General, distrusted their colleagues and clung to thePresident. It was natural, therefore, that cabinet meetings should beembarrassing and that a nondescript group of clerks and newspapereditors, William B. Lewis, Frank P. Blair, and Amos Kendall, all fromthe West, should become a sort of closet cabinet with whom Jacksonshould take council. 

Moreover, Jackson increased his difficulties by gratifying the Westerndemand that a clean sweep in the offices should be made. New and untriedmen and hot-headed partisans were placed in the thousands of vacanciescreated by removals. Such a change in the civil and subordinate officesof the Government had never before been made, and Washington society, which always takes a hearty interest in the offices, was not slow tomanifest its contempt for "the man of the people" and his "hungry"followers. But there was still another trouble. Secretary Eaton hadmarried the daughter of a tavern-keeper; her reputation was unsavory andnotorious. She now proposed to enter Washington social life as a leader, and Jackson gave her his blessing. The wives of the members of theCabinet refused to recognize Mrs. Eaton, and a social war followed, inwhich President, preachers to the various local churches, and newspapereditors had their say. Division in the Cabinet, bitter enmity betweencertain leaders of the party, and the greater war between the powerfulindustrial and agricultural sections of the country gave every assurancethat a storm was approaching. 

To postpone the evil day Jackson resorted to evasions and oracularutterances on the tariff and the other serious problems in all hispublic papers and speeches. But the South pressed every day itsfree-trade program; the East demanded at least a continuation of themeasure of protection already accorded to its interests; and the West, really needing roadways and canals, insisted on the building of theseimprovements and on the opening of the public lands to settlement oneasier terms. If the President yielded to any of these groups, hisadministration was likely to fail. He naturally sought to shift theissue and felt the public pulse on the question of a renewal of thecharter of the National Bank, which was not to expire till 1836. Thiswas looking to the future; but on this subject it was possible tocontinue the union of South and West. The first annual message, in whichthe Bank was discussed, aroused at once the great financial interests, and they set in motion influences which speedily isolated the Presidentand secured to the Bank the enthusiastic support of a Cabinet, dividedon everything else, and of a majority of both houses of Congress. Instead of preventing a disruption of his party, Jackson had onlyhastened the event. 

The people of South Carolina, supported as they hoped by most of theSouth, pressed through Calhoun, during the winter of 1828-29 and againin 1829-30, for some assurance that the President would aid them intheir attack upon the protective policy of the Government, threateningstate intervention in case of refusal. The East was no less insistentthat nothing should be done. Congress seemed to be completelydeadlocked. Under these circumstances Senator Foote, of Connecticut, voicing the fears of his section, introduced December 29, 1829, hisfamous resolution which contemplated the discontinuance of the federalland sales and the substantial curbing of the growing West. It was ablow at Benton and Jackson which was at once accepted by all the West asa challenge. The representatives of all three sections were deeplyinterested. Benton took the lead in the discussion which followed, andhe urged once more his preëmption and graduation bills. In the formerhe would guarantee the prior claims of squatters on lands they hadalready unlawfully taken up; in the latter he meant to regulate theprice of public lands according to quality and location. In both theobject was to make the way of the pioneer easy; and the West supportedhim solidly. Whether the South would keep its tacit pledges in the faceof Jackson's non-committal attitude on the tariff was the query of alluntil Hayne, an intimate friend of Calhoun and the recognized spokesmanof his section, arose on January 19, 1830, and took the strongest groundon behalf of Benton and the West, and attacked the East for itslong-continued resistance to westward expansion. The next day Webstermade reply, and the debate between the two representative men continuedto the end of the month. The importance to the present-day reader ofthis discussion consists in the revelation of the directly opposing andhostile attitudes of South and East on the great problems then beforethe country: (1) the South would support the West in its policy of easylands and rapid development; the East would resist that policy; (2) theEast would appeal to the nationalist sentiment of the interior and theWest on behalf of its program of protection to industry, while the Southwould resist that program even to the extent of declaring nationaltariff laws null and void. Hayne and Benton showed in their speeches thesubstantial solidarity of the alliance of South and West. Websterundertook to break that alliance by his powerful appeal to the feelingsof Western men who loved the Union, which the New Englander sought toshow to be in especial danger. What was really on trial was the Americansystem, the Tariff of 1828. It was a serious national crisis, as Calhounwrote in May following: "The times are perilous beyond any that I haveever witnessed; all the great interests of the country are coming intoconflict. " The protectionists thought they must control the country orthe Union would be worth little to them; the Southern free tradersinsisted upon the mastery of the Government or else they would have aquiet dissolution of the Confederation; while the Western men must havefreer control of the public lands and more immigrants or their sturdynationalism would rapidly disappear. 

Having failed for the moment to rally the leaders of his disintegratingparty on the Bank issue, Jackson and his intimate advisers decided thatabove all things it was necessary for the old hero to stand again forthe Presidency in the next election. Van Buren, who had been steadilygrowing in the estimation of Jackson, while Calhoun had been losingground, was the foremost to urge a second term despite the understandingand the public promises that Jackson was to hold office only one term. Amos Kendall and William B. Lewis supported his view heartily, fearingas they did that Henry Clay would otherwise be the next President. Atthe dinner on Jefferson Day, April 13, 1830, for which elaboratepreparations had been made, the President chose to give expression tomore decided opinions than had been customary during his first year inoffice. His toast, "The Union, it must be preserved, " was akin to theutterances of Webster in the debate with Hayne. It was plain to theSouth that he would not longer support their contentions, that he wouldappeal to the same nationalist sentiment which had been shown to existby the speeches of the great New England orator. The cause of theSouthern radicals was lost in so far as it depended on the President, and, moreover, the arrangement whereby Calhoun was to succeed Jacksonwas dissolved. South Carolina, so long a leader in public life, wasisolated. 

Meanwhile the friends of Clay and the devotees of the tariff hadprepared an internal improvements measure which was drawn so that theappropriation would apply to purposes wholly within the State ofKentucky. The Maysville Road Bill proposed to build a national highwayfrom Maysville on the Ohio to Lexington, Clay's home, and it was drawnin order to compel the President to exercise his right of veto on aproposition in which the West was interested, and thus break down hispopularity in that region. The proposed law came to him in May. VanBuren had been sounding public opinion in the Middle States, and withsome hesitation he advised a veto. The President was of the same mind, and a vigorous veto message was sent to Congress. To the dismay of thetariff men, the country approved heartily, the West giving everyevidence of its continued faith in the Executive. The atmosphere inWashington began to clear up; it was plain that a reorganization of theCabinet must ensue, and that the lower South, as yet in sympathy withthe stern anti-tariff policy of Calhoun, must be won away from theSouth Carolinian. It seemed that the West would support the Presidenteven if it were called upon to give up something that was held to bevery important. 

In due time William B. Lewis produced a letter from William H. Crawfordwhich showed, what Jackson must have known since the summer of 1828, that Calhoun had not been the President's defender in 1818, when he wasthreatened with court-martial for his conduct during the Seminole War. Jackson now made an issue of this, and welcomed a controversy with theman who had done most to elevate him to the Presidency. Mrs. Eaton alsobecame a more important character, and the attitude of the families ofother members of the Cabinet were made subjects of official discussionand displeasure. Calhoun's friends were commanded to receive her intotheir circle or take the consequences. When these refused, it seemedthat this tempest in a teapot was about to become a grave matter ofstate. None knew better than Jackson and Calhoun that other and deepercauses were forcing the disruption of the party of 1828, the alliancewhich had driven Adams and Clay from office. 

Convinced that Van Buren had been the marplot of the Administration, Calhoun attacked him publicly, and all the world saw what some astuteminds had long seen, that the two wings of the party in power wereirreconcilable enemies. Congress adjourned in March, 1831, and in Aprilthe President demanded the resignations of all the friends of theVice-President in the Cabinet. Calhoun and Hayne returned sadly totheir constituents to advise actual resistance to the tariff, since boththe President--"an ungrateful son of Carolina"--and Congress had, duringtwo years, refused all relief to the suffering planters. Not one of theproblems, the solution of which had been the purpose of Jackson'selection, had been settled or seriously attacked. The East had defeatedBenton's land program; the President had refused to take up the tariff;and internal improvements as a national policy had only been toyed within the Maysville Bill. As Calhoun had said, all the great interests ofthe country had come into conflict, and even the most resolute of menknew not how to proceed. 

But Jackson gathered about him a new official family who were supposedto owe no double allegiance. Edward Livingston, of Louisiana, protectionist, became Secretary of State in place of Van Buren, who hadresigned for appearance' sake; Louis McLane, of Delaware, a conservativeparty leader of protectionist views, was made Secretary of the Treasurywhile Roger B. Taney, a former Federalist of Maryland, becameAttorney-General. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, was the only distinctlyWestern man in this new body. Jackson seems to have expected to make theBank question the great issue between his party and that of Clay, butthe new Cabinet soon proved as strongly pro-Bank as the old one hadbeen, and he must still rely on the "kitchen council" for support inthat direction. 

The initiative in the great sectional struggle which all foresaw wasleft to South Carolina, but the men of that planter Commonwealth refusedto throw discretion to the winds. The price of cotton was falling andthe tribute to the manufacturer under the law of 1828 seemed to be moreburdensome than ever; yet it might be well to try Congress again. Thenew Congress, which would assemble in December, 1831, might give relief. This was Calhoun's last recourse; if it failed nullification mustfollow. 

When the next Congress assembled, Clay was in the Senate and John QuincyAdams, his former ally, was just beginning his long career as a memberof the House. Webster and the other New England tariff advocates werethere, and as unbending as the Southerners themselves. The Presidentsent in a non-committal message on the burning question, and even on hisfavorite Bank problem he showed signs of yielding. Clay took the messageas preliminary to surrender, and his proverbial boldness rapidly grew toarrogance. On the tariff, on the Bank, and on the proposed nullificationproblems, he would give the deciding word and that word was defiance. 

When, therefore, the cotton and tobacco interests presented once moretheir demand for immediate downward revision of the tariff, Clay and hismore ardent protectionists brushed aside the cautious Adams and defied"the South, the Democratic party, and the Devil. " The revision of thetariff which was made in 1832 was no revision, save in a few unimportantschedules in which the planters were not interested; but the vote onthis measure showed a curious combination of the Jackson and the Claypoliticians in the West and considerable indifference in NewEngland, as the accompanying map shows. Having challenged Calhoun to dohis worst, Clay now pressed upon Jackson the question of renewing theBank charter. Under his instructions the president of the Bank, NicholasBiddle, a very able man, hitherto inclining to settle matters withJackson and his friendly advisers, offered a memorial for a re-charter. That is, the Bank men thought the President of the United States waslosing ground and they would take their chances with the party of thefuture. The Maysville veto was thought to have weakened Jackson; he hadlost the support of Calhoun and had been compelled to reorganize hisCabinet; on the tariff he had no opinions, and he had done nothing toweld to him the Westerners. It seemed a very simple matter, with theEast behind the brilliant Kentucky leader, to make the American Systemthe law of the land and to drive the Goths and Vandals from the capital. 

[Illustration: The Vote in the House of Representatives on the Tariff of1832, In Eastern and Western States]

Mr. Clay had been nominated for the Presidency by an enthusiasticconvention of his followers in December, 1831; and his friend WilliamWirt had also been nominated three months earlier by the Anti-Masons, who, it was supposed, would draw supporters from the Democrats, especially in Virginia, where Jackson had never won the approval of theablest leaders. Never did the outlook of a political party seem sobright as when the plans of the tariff and Bank men were being laid inthe spring of 1832. John Sargent, one of the directors of the Bank andbrother-in-law of Henry A. Wise, a shrewd politician of Virginia, wasmade candidate for the Vice-Presidency; a large majority of the Senatewas committed to the renewal of the charter, --even the Calhoun menagreed as to this, --and in the House John Quincy Adams and GeorgeMcDuffie led a decided majority in the same direction. All theindustrial forces of the country were enlisted and well organized. Ifthere was any doubt that the old hero would be reëlected, there was nonethat the Bank and the tariff groups would retain control of Congress. 

If Jackson was less confident than his opponents, he was not afraid. Theeffects of his "Union, it-must-be-preserved" speech were becomingevident; he gradually came to stand for the budding nationality amongthe self-seeking groups who would have their way or break up theConfederation. With the large majority of the up-country of the MiddleStates and South in favor of a tariff, even a high tariff, he promptlyaccepted the proposed revision. Already nominated by many of the States, his friends had no difficulty in securing him a unanimous renominationfrom the Democratic National Convention which met in Baltimore late inMay, 1832. Meanwhile Van Buren had been appointed Minister to England. After reaching his post, the Senate, to gratify Calhoun as well asstrike at the President, rejected the nomination. The humiliatedminister was now nominated Vice-President and plainly marked by Jacksonas his successor. 

When the votes of both houses were shown to be decidedly for acontinuation of the protective system as enacted in 1828, Calhoun andthe planter party gave every assurance that South Carolina, at least, would resist. The President gave out no indications of what his attitudewould be, but the extreme Southerners could not expect that Jacksonwould support their contentions; nor could they think Clay, if elected, would yield the very base of the system on which he proposed to stand asPresident. But as the tariff bill came to its final reading, it was seenthat even New England hesitated, and many voted against the measure;many districts of the Southern up-country gave their votes for theproposed law. In the West most men favored the bill. The tariff was, therefore, a local issue, and the test must come on the Bank. The billfor a re-charter of the National Bank reached the President on July 4. It was considered most carefully, and doubtless the desperate situationof the Administration was duly canvassed. With every evidence of astrong Southern secession from his party, with Clay and Webster leadingthe solid ranks of the East, it did seem that Jackson would fail if hevetoed the bill passed by great majorities in both Senate and House. 

On July 10 the veto message went to Congress. Its contention about theconstitutionality of the Bank was not important, for it was not aquestion of what was constitutional, but of sheer power. The majority ofthe votes in the coming election was what each side sought. Jacksonappealed to the West and South, urging that the Bank was a sectionalinstitution constantly drawing money to the big cities of the East, orworse still, sending it to England; that it was a monopoly which hadgiven millions of the people's money to a few men, and that it was thenproposed to continue that monopoly. So certain were Clay and Biddle thatthey would defeat the President that they circulated at the expense ofthe Bank thirty thousand copies of this remarkable document. Biddledeclared that Jackson was like "a chained panther, biting the bars ofhis cage. " Webster and John Quincy Adams, taking counsel of their hopes, declared that the old man in the White House was in his dotage and atthe end of his career. 

A remarkable campaign ensued. While South Carolina prepared to put intoeffect its remedy of state intervention, the West and the lower Southunited, as in 1828, against the East. The gubernatorial contest inKentucky, which came in August, showed that Clay had not regained hisformer hold on that State. From midsummer to November every effort wasmade to break the power of Jackson, but to no avail. Without the plantersupport of the older South the President proved stronger than he hadbeen four years before with it; the plain people were now more of a unitthan they had ever been before, though many of their number still votedfor the industrial or planter interests. The outcome surprised allparties. Jackson received 219 electoral votes, while Clay received only49. The popular majority over all other candidates, including WilliamWirt and John Floyd, for whom the Calhoun party of South Carolina castits vote, was more than 125, 000. No President has since received such alarge proportion of the suffrages of the people. Only one Western State, Kentucky, supported Henry Clay; while Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Yorkgave Jackson larger majorities than ever. The alliance of the West andthe up-country held together in spite of the untoward circumstances. 

The significance of the election was that the President could rely uponthe people in a fight with Congress; it was the first appeal to thecountry made over the heads of the national legislature. To thistriumphant President, Calhoun and his ardent nullifiers must refer theircase; the Bank would also have to reckon with a much stronger man thanits spokesmen had contemplated. 

Without awaiting the results of the election, Calhoun, Hayne, and theirallies called South Carolina into special convention to consider thestate of the Union. The nullification program was carried by safemajorities, despite the most strenuous resistance on the part of theminority who called themselves Unionists. South Carolina now formallydeclared the tariff laws of the United States suspended after February1, 1833, unless the Federal Government gave some relief; and it wasfurther declared that in case no relief were accorded, and the nationalauthority should be enforced within the boundaries of their State, warwould immediately ensue. The new governor, James Hamilton, and thelegislature, which might be called into extra session at any time, wereauthorized to call out the militia, purchase arms, and organize for theconflict. 

Meanwhile Jackson had been preparing for the contest in the Southwest. In 1827-28 all the legislatures of that region had declared theprotective tariff unconstitutional and some had threatened secession. But after the election of 1828 these same legislatures refused to concurin the doctrines of nullification which South Carolina submitted tothem. The situation had changed. John Quincy Adams, the New Englander, was President in 1828; Andrew Jackson, the Westerner and the mostpopular man in the country, was at the head of the Union in 1832. Besides, Jackson was already moving the Indians from the cotton lands, going so far as to acquiesce in the flagrant nullification of thefederal law by the Georgia governor and legislature. The decision of theSupreme Court in favor of the Cherokees, who refused to surrender theirlands, was publicly flouted by the President. It was plain that theplanters of the Southwest would get what they wanted even if they had toviolate treaties of the Federal Government. They refused to sustainSouth Carolina. Had not the President carried every county in Alabamaand Mississippi in the recent election?

And in the older South the anti-national feeling had wonderfully cooledsince 1828. North Carolina reversed her attitude; Tennessee would notconsider Calhoun's plan of bringing the Union to terms. In Virginia thetobacco counties of the Piedmont section united with the tidewatercounties and made a show of supporting South Carolina. New England menwho had as recently as 1820 declared the protective systemunconstitutional had no thought of maintaining such a doctrine whenadvocated by Calhoun. 

Thus, instead of a solid group of planter States, South Carolina'sproposed national referendum met with almost unanimous opposition. Jackson had undermined the party of Calhoun, which at the time of thebreak-up of the Cabinet in 1831 seemed more powerful in the South thanany other. Jackson and Van Buren had proved to be master politicians, and when Congress met for the short session in December, 1832, it wasplain that Calhoun was practically alone and that the President wouldhave to deal with only one recalcitrant State. 

From this vantage-ground, Jackson issued his proclamation of December10, in which he plainly told South Carolina that the federal laws wouldbe enforced at the point of the bayonet, and that, furthermore, theUnion was an indissoluble nation, as Webster and himself had declared;and he at the same time urged upon Congress the so-called "Force Bill, "granting him full power to punish all infractions of the nationalrevenue laws. And now for the first time he expressed his real view thatthe tariff was unjust. The Verplanck Bill to reduce the tariff to atwenty-five per cent basis was the President's confession that Calhounhad been right. The two measures were pressed by the Administration, theone strongly national and supported by a strong majority, the otherstrongly Jacksonian and opposed by most of the leaders who desired tosee Calhoun humiliated. It seemed almost certain, early in 1833, thatthis program would be carried out to the letter. 

Such a victory for the Union forces and especially for Jackson was toomuch for the opposition. Henry Clay stopped in Philadelphia on his wayto Washington and held a conference there with the industrial leaders ofthe Middle States. He went on to the capital with a plan of his own. Itspurpose was to keep the control of things in the hands of the friends ofthe American System and to deprive the President of the prestige ofsettling the tariff and the nullification problems at the same time. Heheld a _carte blanche_ from the leading protected interests to do whathe thought best. Webster and John Quincy Adams hesitated. They urged thepassage of the "Force Bill" at once; but hoped to defeat the Verplanckmeasure, its counterpart. Clay made overtures to Calhoun, and Washingtonwas surprised to see the two great antagonists associating and planningtogether, apparently in concert as of old when they forced the War of1812 upon an unwilling President. 

The "Force Bill" was to be accepted by the Calhoun men; but a new andfinal tariff measure was to take the place of the one upon which Jacksonhad set his heart. The famous compromise law of 1833 was the result. This gave the planters a reduction to twenty per cent, a lower rate thanJackson had offered, but the reductions were to be made gradually duringa period of ten years, thus giving time for the industrial men toreadjust their affairs without great losses. There was one joker in thescheme which the Southerners seem to have winked at: that which exemptedthe wool-growers of the Middle States and the West from the reductions. The author of the American System now hotly urged the men who a yearago would defy the "South, the Democratic party, and the Devil" to undoall their work. On March 1, three days before the close of the session, both the President's "Force Bill" and Clay's compromise tariff passed. 

Meanwhile South Carolina, acting on Calhoun's advice, had postponed theenforcement of her nullifying ordinance, and now, as Congress adjourned, the former Vice-President, ill and greatly discouraged, hurried by rapidstages to Columbia to make sure that the crisis should be brought to apeaceful close. The convention was reassembled; an embassy from Virginiawas on the ground urging peace, and, as was natural, the ordinance wasrepealed. The planters had really won a victory and the risingindustrial groups understood this both at the time and later, when theyclamored for the restoration of their privileges. The cotton and tobaccomen, producing the larger part of the national exports, had shown theirstrength. Their opponents, the manufacturers and the bankers of theEast, with a much greater income, were as yet not so strong as theplanters. The West and the South were their markets, and concessionsmust be made; the Union was to them essential, while to the South, selling its huge crops in European markets, it was less important. Asyet the West, with its hero the master in Washington, had obtained noneof the reforms for which it had so long striven. Benton and his friendslooked to the next Congress for results. Would they be disappointed?

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

_The Messages and Papers of the Presidents_ (1900), vol. _II_, givesJackson's official statements. Bassett's and Parton's biographies, already mentioned, are still very serviceable. There is no fullbiography of Clay, but C. Colton's _The Private Life of Henry Clay_contains some of Clay's letters. Carl Schurz's _Henry Clay_ and T. H. Clay's _Henry Clay_, already noted, offer some good information. Thebest source for Calhoun is J. F. Jameson's _The Correspondence of JohnC. Calhoun_ (1899). G. Hunt's _Life of Calhoun_ (1908), in _AmericanCrises_ series, is excellent, while D. F. Houston's _Critical Study ofNullification_, already referred to, and W. E. Dodd's _Calhoun_, in_Statesmen of the Old South_ (1911), offer still further information asto Calhoun and nullification. C. H. Van Tyne's _Letters of DanielWebster_ (1902) supplies information about Webster which is lacking inthe older _Works_ by Everett (1851) or F. Webster (1857). H. C. Lodge's_Daniel Webster_, in _American Statesmen_ series and J. B. McMaster's_Daniel Webster_ (1902) are the standard biographies. Thomas H. Bentonhas told his own story in his _Thirty Years' View_ (1854), thoughRoosevelt's _Thomas Hart Benton_, in the _American Statesmen_, and W. M. Meigs's _Thomas Hart Benton_, in the _American Crises_ series, are goodbrief portraits. William McDonald's _The Jacksonian Democracy_ (1906), in the _American Nation_ series, is an excellent general survey, whileE. Stanwood's _American Tariff Controversies_ (1903) is the best accountof the tariff disputes. 

 CHAPTER V

 THE TRIUMPH OF JACKSON

Before the great conflict between the manufacturers and the planters hadbeen brought to a lame conclusion in the force bill and the tariffcompromise of 1833, so unsatisfactory to everybody, Jackson had taken upthe Bank problem, in which the West was particularly interested. Theannual message of 1832 indicated his intention to close up the businessin accordance with what seemed to him to be the decree of the people. But while the President regarded an election as settling the matter, itsoon became clear that Nicholas Biddle and the leaders of the UnitedStates Senate were far from that opinion. Having combined to defeat the"old Indian scalper, " as Biddle was wont to term Jackson, in his plan tobring South Carolina to terms, these able men continued their operationsto balk him on the Bank question. 

The Bank of the United States had a capital stock of $35, 000, 000, itstwenty-nine branches ramified the commerce of the country, and its totalvolume of business was about $70, 000, 000, or more than the amount of thenational exports each year. It practically controlled the currency, andit could increase or diminish the amount of money in circulation byabout one third at any time. Nicholas Biddle, a trained financier andstrong-willed aristocrat, who put little faith in popular elections andplebiscites, was the head of the Bank, and all the presidents anddirectorates of the subordinate banks were his appointees; he controlledabsolutely all the departments and all the directors of the parent bankin Philadelphia, going so far in 1833 as to deny the governmentdirectors their lawful right to attend the board meetings. There hasnever been another financial leader in the United States who was sopowerful or so much feared as was Nicholas Biddle in 1833. 

Both sides prepared for a renewal of the struggle for or against a newcharter. Jackson sent Secretary of State Livingston as Minister toFrance early in 1833, and transferred Secretary McLane from the Treasuryto the State Department. It was known that both Livingston and McLaneopposed the President in his plan of overthrowing the Bank, and thisshift was made to avoid another break-up of the Cabinet and to enableJackson to get a Secretary of the Treasury who would support him. William J. Duane, of Pennsylvania, accepted the vacant portfolio inJanuary, 1833, knowing well the President's purpose, which was towithhold from the Bank the federal deposits. Agents were sent out toascertain what state banks were in a condition to receive the proposedgovernment funds, and of course a strong banking support was thussecured for the contemplated policy. 

Biddle laughed at Jackson's message of 1832 which denounced the Bank. Heexpected to receive from Congress in due time the charter which thePresident had denied. More than fifty members of that body, includingClay, Webster, George McDuffie, --Calhoun's ally and the chairman of theHouse Committee on Ways and Means, --and the famous Davy Crockett, wereborrowers from the Bank on the easiest of terms. The greater newspapereditors of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmondwere either opposed to the President or on Biddle's list ofbeneficiaries; while scores of hack writers all over the countryreceived their stipends from the "Monster, " as Jackson designated theBank. It might have been an easy matter for Biddle and Clay to securetheir charter from the Congress which sat in its closing session in thewinter of 1833. But the great thing before them at that time was thenullification-tariff problem, which threatened civil war, and thefriends of the Bank joined the protectionists and, under Clay's deftleadership, as we have seen, defeated Jackson's plan for tariff reform. The short session drew to a close, and Biddle, Clay, and Websterprepared for renewing their fight when Congress came together inDecember. 

When the lines began to tighten in the summer of 1833, Duane weakenedand finally refused to withhold the government deposits from the Bank. He was dismissed from office and Roger B. Taney, the Attorney-General, took the vacant place and agreed to do Jackson's bidding. From October1, 1833, the income of the Treasury was placed as it accrued in thecustody of the state banks which had been made ready for the new policy. Jackson declared that the National Bank had become unsafe and thereforean unfit place for the keeping of $10, 000, 000 of the people's money, the amount then on deposit. But the real reason of the change was socialand political. The President desired to weaken the Bank, lest itsrepresentatives, its masterful lobbyists, and the financial pressure itwas bringing to bear should wrest from Congress a charter which thepeople had repudiated. 

Meanwhile Biddle had begun his campaign to compel both Jackson and thepeople to yield. On August 1, two months before the Treasury began toplace its receipts in the state banks, Biddle ordered a curtailment ofthe loans of the National Bank and its branches. In the South and West, where large sums were needed at that moment to move the cotton and graincrops, the curtailment was double that of the East. This led toimmediate financial stringency; National Bank notes, the standard moneyof the time, became scarce; and gold or silver was absolutely wanting. The state banks were naturally forced to withhold their accustomed loansand the anticipated government deposits could not be drawn upon. Business failures became frequent and laborers were discharged. It was apanic in the midst of prosperity. The program was executed with callousheartlessness by Biddle, and with the approval of men like Clay andWebster, till Congress met in December. 

The people were beginning to see what a power they had attacked. Ratesof interest rose from six to fifteen per cent; farms and crops were soldunder the sheriff's hammer at absurdly low prices. The outlook wasanything but bright when the next annual message of the President calledupon the national legislature to aid him in his struggle. Petitionswere pouring into Washington by the thousand, and delegations ofbusiness men appeared almost daily at the White House, asking Jackson torestore the deposits and surrender to the great corporation, thusacknowledging the subordination of the country to one of its interests. 

Under these circumstances and awaiting confidently the effect of theBank's drastic pressure upon public opinion, Clay began in January, 1834, the work of compelling the President to restore the deposits. Forweeks and even months the Senate was the scene of the most extraordinarydenunciations, and the press of the country was burdened with theattacks and counter-attacks of the parties to this fierce andunrelenting struggle. In the East business failures, the closing of thedoors of manufacturing establishments, and the discharge of small armiesof employees furnished all the proof necessary that the distress wasreal. From all sections of the country cries of distress, memorials, andpetitions came up to Washington. Biddle and his friends had no thoughtof relenting, but continued the curtailment of the financial business ofthe country far beyond what might have seemed necessary on account ofthe removal of deposits; they were certain that only a few months moreof pressure and of increased suffering on the part of the people wouldcompel Jackson to yield or Congress to grant the desired charter overthe head of the President. 

But the Congress which was elected in 1832 and which sat from December, 1833, to March, 1835, was not so pliable as that which arranged thepeace with South Carolina. Still, the Senate sustained the Bank by adecided majority, and in March it formally censured Jackson for hisremoval of the deposits. In this Clay was conspicuous, and Webster andCalhoun were his sympathetic allies. On the other hand, Benton, SilasWright, of New York, and John Forsyth, of Georgia, made a most spiriteddefense of Jackson and of the cause of the people, as they insisted. Inthe House the situation was reversed, and all Biddle's energy andresolute lobbying failed to secure a favorable vote. It became clearearly in the spring that the President could not be moved, and thatimpeachment, which had been the hope and talk of many, would beimpossible. When the weight of public opinion inclined visibly to theside of Jackson at the end of spring, Clay, who had for some timedoubted the loyalty of Biddle, and who was especially anxious to regainhis former popularity in the West, refused to continue the fight;Webster, too, lost interest and advised the directors of the Bank thatthe cause was lost. Calhoun, who had supported Clay and Webster tohumiliate Jackson, could not retreat; he was again isolated, and he felthis position bitterly. McDuffie resigned his seat and his chairmanshipin the House in utter disgust. To all but the president of the UnitedStates Bank the case seemed hopeless when Congress adjourned in earlysummer without passing any act bearing on the situation. Biddle's remarkin a letter to a friend in Baltimore, "If the Bank charter were renewedor prolonged, I believe the pecuniary difficulties of the country wouldbe immediately healed, " shows his attitude; and by this time the peopleseem to have come to the conclusion that it was not a war of Jacksonupon the Bank so much as a war of the Bank upon the country to compelthe reissue of a charter which was about to expire. Petitions now pouredinto Biddle's office and delegations from Middle States cities urged achange of the Bank's policy; even Albert Gallatin, long a defender andardent friend, deserted Biddle. And at last, after the nation's currencyof some hundred millions had been reduced by one third, and when moneyrates in New York were running as high as twenty-four per cent, theorder went out to the branch banks to suspend the stringent punitivemeasures in order that "We may save our beloved country from the curseof Van Burenism, " as one of the directors described it. 

The decline of the power of the Bank was now rapid. In the state andcongressional elections of 1834 the President of the United States waseverywhere sustained, even the Whigs quietly taking the same ground. Thefriendship of the Bank was now enough to damn any party; Biddle realizedthe danger of his situation, and on election day sent his family out oftown and barricaded his house and office. The legislatures ofPennsylvania and New York, where his flag had flown triumphantly foryears, denounced him and planned to issue bonds for the relief of thepeople. The autumn saw a complete reversal of policy on the part of theBank, and business at once resumed its normal course. Money becameeasy, prices rose to the former level, and the wheels of industry beganto turn. Nothing seemed more conclusively shown than that most of thetrouble had been due to the demand on the part of a few men for acontinuation of financial privileges. 

Jackson's first great victory was won, and he would have been more thanhuman not to have shown his sense of triumph on the reassembling ofCongress at the end of the momentous year. The Monster had been crushed;and all his great enemies--Clay, Webster, Adams, and Calhoun--had beenbeaten!

Before the first break in the Cabinet Jackson had proved the value ofdirect and simple methods in diplomacy. In colonial times and during theoperation of the Jay Treaty the West India trade was most important. From New England and the Middle States fish, lumber, grain, and otherplantation supplies had been sold to the West India planters in greatquantities. The war of the Revolution curtailed this trade; that of 1812practically destroyed it, and England thereafter refused to allowAmerican shipping any rights in these possessions, though Adams and Clayhad urged the reciprocal benefits of such a commerce. 

The Jackson Administration succeeded in securing almost immediately thedesired trade arrangements, and the shipping of the Chesapeake Bay, ofBoston and New York, took its wonted course. This victory was hardlyscored before the new President secured from France formal treatyrecognition of the old spoliation claims arising from the depredationsof Napoleon I, which no former administration had been able to collect. In 1831 the Government of Louis Philippe agreed to pay these damages tothe amount of 25, 000, 000 francs. But the French legislature delayed tovote the necessary appropriations. Jackson, assuming that theobligations would be met promptly, drew upon the French treasury for thefirst installment and asked the National Bank to collect thebills--somewhat over $900, 000. The papers were duly presented in Paris, but they were dishonored. This happened in 1833, when the Bank was inthe midst of the fight on the President. Biddle, without hesitation, charged the Government $15, 000 for the damage to the reputation of theBank because the draft had been dishonored in Paris. The Governmentrefused to pay the claim, and a lawsuit of ten years followed which wasfinally decided against the Bank. 

It was at this juncture that Jackson, preparing for the removal of thedeposits, sent Secretary Livingston to France to urge the execution ofthe treaty of 1831. Livingston failed to convince the French assemblythat it was necessary either to pay the overdue claims or to executecertain reciprocity clauses of the treaty. In December, 1834, when theBank crisis had passed, the President sent to Congress a message whichasked for the passage of an act authorizing reprisals on French shippingor other property. Such a warlike proposition, with the explanationwhich accompanied it, aroused the country. In commercial centers therewas great excitement, and insurance companies changed their contractsin expectation of war. 

Once more the President was opposed and denounced in the Senate as areckless Executive who would rush headlong into war. But the treaty withFrance authorized just such procedure as had been suggested, and onlyrecently France had taken the same course with other countries. It soonbecame so clear that Jackson was within his rights and that the countrywas behind him, that resolutions were suffered to pass the Senatevirtually approving this part of the message. In the House the voteindorsing the Executive was unanimous, though it was not thoughtadvisable to do more than this until there had been ample time forreconsideration of the subject in France. 

The strong language of the President aroused a storm of criticism inFrance, and for a time war was threatened. The French Minister inWashington was recalled, and of course the diplomatic representative ofthe United States in Paris was withdrawn. The conservative press ofEurope made this another occasion for ridiculing the Yankee Republic, whose money-making propensities should be curtailed and whose gaudywares and vulgar rocking-chairs should be tabooed everywhere. "Let theFrench navy sweep the Atlantic Ocean of their ships and again takepossession of Louisiana" was the unfriendly advice of certain Englishjournals. Before the summer of 1835 closed, all relations between Franceand the United States had ceased, though actual war was not expected. When Congress met, Jackson reviewed the situation in a calm manner andgave every opportunity for the reopening of negotiations, though warlikepreparations were recommended to meet those of France. But Englandtendered her friendly offices, and the difficulty was promptly broughtto a satisfactory conclusion by the payment of the indemnity so longdue. 

More interesting and more important to the West and South was the sternand persistent policy of Jackson in removing the Indians from theirfertile lands. From Michigan the natives were pushed into Wisconsin andIllinois, where they rested a few short years, only to be driven in 1833beyond the Mississippi to the western parts of Iowa and Minnesota, against the heroic struggles of Black Hawk and a handful of followers. From the lower South the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasawswere gradually removed during the years 1830 to 1838, sometimes afterthe most shameless and brutal treatment by the representatives of boththe States and the Nation. Before Jackson came to office the Creeks ofwestern Georgia had been browbeaten into sales of their lands and thenremoved to the region beyond Arkansas, to be known thereafter as theIndian Territory. In 1833 to 1835 the Choctaws and Chickasaws ofMississippi were defrauded of their best lands and carried forcibly tothe new Indian country; but the most arbitrary part of the governmentalpolicy was the expulsion of the Cherokees from their beautiful hills innorthern Georgia. Thirteen thousand in number, civilized and devotedlyattached to their homes, these people insisted on remaining andbecoming a State to themselves. Under the leadership of John Ross, theypresented the case to the United States Supreme Court, which decided in1830 that they composed a nation and that they could not lawfully becompelled to submit to Georgia. The people of Georgia would not for amoment consider such a proposition, and moreover they had made up theirminds that the Cherokees must likewise give up their lands and migrateto the Far West. Jackson took this view, and in December, 1835, he madea treaty with some of the chiefs whereby the Cherokees were to receivenew lands in the Indian Territory and more than five millions in money. This treaty was at once denounced and repudiated by the majority of theIndians, but the government agents executed it, and during the nextthree years the helpless natives were hunted down and carried, all savea small remnant, to the new region. Thus President Monroe's plan ofsettling the natives beyond the western frontier in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and what is now Oklahoma, was worked out, and the land-hungryWestern settlers were fast following them into their distant homes; butpractically all the lands east of the great river were open tosettlement, and Wisconsin, Illinois, Alabama, and Mississippi rapidlybecame populous communities. [4] No measure of Jackson's Administrationwon him greater popularity than that of the removal of the Indians. 

[Footnote 4: Compare maps showing Indian lands of 1830 and 1840 on pp. 26 and 88. ]

[Illustration: Growth of the West and removal of Indians from Cotton, Tobacco and First "Western" Grain Belts. 

Reproduction of part of Tanner's Map of 1840]

With the tariff question "definitely" settled, the internal improvementsdemands temporarily in abeyance, the Bank "out of the way, " and with agrowing prestige both at home and abroad, Jackson might now haveformulated the other Western ideals, free homesteads, the re-claiming ofTexas, and the occupation of Oregon. But this was all left to Van Buren, the man already practically chosen to carry forward the policies of the"old hero. " However, without a free homestead law or even a preëmptionsystem, on which Benton had long insisted, the West was filling up withpeople in an unprecedented manner. The population of Alabama was only alittle more than a hundred thousand in 1820; in 1835, it was not lessthan half a million. Mississippi counted seventy-five thousand in 1820;in 1840, its population had increased sixfold. The same story was toldby the statistics of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. There was life, vigor, and rapid growth in all the accessible parts ofthe region which worshiped the President. Jackson's election was anadvertisement of the West; the long debates in Congress about checkingemigration to the Mississippi Valley increased the desire to go to thenew and happy country; and the hard times of 1833-34 set thousands ofmen upon the highways leading to the promised land. And in the WesternStates every effort was made to attract people. Ohio, Indiana, andIllinois built waterways which should feed the Mississippi or Erie Canalcommerce, and thus make Western life profitable as well as free andunconventional. Where canals could not be constructed would go the greatgovernment road, passing through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and itsstate-built branches. Even railroads were projected in that far-offcountry. In the Southwest the network of rivers offered transportationfacilities to the increasing crops of cotton, and ambitious men flockedthere to "make fortunes in a day. " Sargent Prentiss, the poor NewEngland cripple, went to Mississippi about 1830, and in six years hewas both rich and famous; John A. Quitman, the preacher's son, of NewYork, worked his way about the same time to the lower Mississippicountry, and in a few years was receiving an annual income of fortythousand dollars. John Slidell left New York City a bankrupt in 1819, but soon became a great lawyer and slave-owner in New Orleans. 

The yearly migration of thousands of Eastern men to the valley of theMississippi was still further augmented by streams of refugees from theunsettled and distressed conditions of Germany. In Ohio, Kentucky, southern Illinois, and Missouri these idealistic emigrants from Europefound new homes and substantial encouragement. They sent glowingaccounts of the new world to their friends at home, and the tide ofimmigration which was destined to enrich American life steadilyincreased. All this stimulated speculation in Western lands, in canaland banking ventures. The Government sales of lands rose from $4, 837, 000in 1834 to $24, 000, 000 in 1836. And the canal schemes of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois found financial support in New York and in London. Nowonder the eastern manufacturers sometimes desired to close the roadsthat crossed the Alleghanies. 

"Nothing succeeds like success" is an American saying which appliesadmirably to Jackson's second administration. The Western President hadwon all his great contests; Calhoun and the radical South had beentamed; Clay and Webster were dragged behind his car of state; theNational Bank was rapidly passing from the political stage; and thetariff was no longer a troublesome factor in public life. The receiptsof the Treasury had steadily outrun the expenses, and in 1834 the lastof the national debt was paid. Since the income was almost certain tocontinue great, Jackson was at a loss what to do. Henry Clay urged asimple distribution among the States. The President feared the effect ofthis, and vetoed a bill to that effect; he even proposed that theFederal Government should buy stock in all the railway corporations inorder that these growing monopolies be duly restrained. After two yearsof disagreement a law was enacted which offered to deposit the surpluswith the States without interest charges, but subject to recall. TheStates hastened to make the necessary arrangements, and during thesecond half of 1836 and the first quarter of 1837 more than $18, 000, 000were thus deposited. 

The land speculations, already at fever heat in the West, the buildingof railways and canals, and the prospective distribution of millions ofthe public money warned the wise that sail must be taken in, elsedisaster would ensue. Jackson, therefore, issued an executive order inJuly, 1836, requiring the land offices to accept only specie in paymentfor lands; but it was not thought that this would occasion any greatdistress. The people seemed to be satisfied with the "reign" of AndrewJackson, and it might have been expected that he would have littledifficulty in placing his friend Van Buren in the high office so soon tobe vacated. 

[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1836, the PopularVote by Counties]

It did not prove so easy as it seemed. Calhoun and his followerswere still hostile. In Tennessee, Hugh Lawson White was heading aserious revolt against Jackson and all his party, and of course NewEngland was still dissatisfied. Since the great fight between thePresident and the Bank in 1833-34, Henry Clay had been welding togetherall the forces of the opposition. States-rights men in the South, likeJohn Tyler, of Virginia, and William C. Preston, of South Carolina, theconservative forces in the Middle States who were connected with bankingand "big business, " and the internal improvements forces of the Westthat were still discontented, were all united in a more or less cohesiveparty of opposition. A platform they could not risk; in fact, platformswere not as yet necessary for election, nor was it thought best tonominate a single pair of candidates and submit their case to thecountry. The Whigs, as the opposition now came to be called, arranged aticket which Daniel Webster led in the East, which William HenryHarrison, a popular military hero of the Northwest, headed in thatsection, and which Hugh Lawson White, a Jackson man till 1834, championed in the Southwest. There followed a four-cornered contestwhich resulted in the choice of Van Buren by a popular majority of lessthan 30, 000. Van Buren carried more of the New England States than didWebster and more of the South than did White, but he lost most of theWest, even Tennessee, which had been the stronghold of his party. Thecounties of the old South where Jackson had been most feared gave theirvotes to Van Buren, the "safe and sane"; and many New England andMiddle States manufacturers preferred to take their chances with amasterful organizer of conservative temper, who had been the balancewheel of the Jackson Administration, to risking all in an election inthe House of Representatives, where the sections would be fightingfiercely for political and party advantages. The new régime of 1829 wasthus about to be turned into a reaction. There was a common feeling thatVan Buren would do nothing "radical. " Even Calhoun thought better of thePresident-elect than he thought of the "old hero, " and the first sixmonths of the new Administration had not passed before he gave thePresident his support. 

The political sun of Jackson went down brightly, not a cloud on thehorizon; and his chosen successor declared openly in his inaugural thathe would gladly follow in "the footsteps of his illustriouspredecessor. " The country was still prosperous and the wheels ofindustry were running at full speed. Foreign Governments looked on withenvy as the young Western Republic stretched her limbs and rose togigantic proportions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The most important book on the bank question is R. C. H. Catterall's_The Second Bank of the United States_ (1903). The biographies referredto at the close of chapter _IV_ of this volume are all serviceable ingeneral till about 1840. James Schouler's _History of the United States_(1894-99), vol. _IV_, and H. Von Holst's _Constitutional and PoliticalHistory of the United States_ (new ed. , 1899), vol. _II_, give fullnarratives of the "war on the bank. " J. Q. Adams's _Memoirs_ are everready with the spice of personality to make its pages readable. _TheRegister of Debates_, the official publication of Congress whichsucceeded the former _Annals of Congress_ and _Niles's Weekly Register_, published in Baltimore from 1811 to 1849, give the various phases ofpublic opinion as it was expressed in Congress and in the newspapers ofthe time. _House Reports_, 22d Cong. , 1st Sess. , no. 460, and _HouseExecutive Documents_, 23d Cong. , 1st Sess. , no. 523, will satisfy thosewho seek to know the two sides as viewed by the parties to the conflict. There is no satisfactory biography of Nicholas Biddle, though his papersmay be consulted in the Pennsylvania Historical Society Library. R. G. Wellington's _The Political and Sectional Influence of the Public Lands, 1828-1842_ (1914) tends to show how much of the controversies of theseyears was due to sectional jealousy. 

 CHAPTER VI

 DISTRESS AND REACTION

Martin Van Buren came to office without the enthusiastic support of anylarge segment of public opinion. The machine forces of the time and thehearty recommendation of Andrew Jackson had been responsible for hiselevation. His position was very much like that of John Quincy Adams in1825. If the East had preferred him to his predecessor, it was notbecause the East proposed to surrender any of her interests; and if theWest liked him less than she had liked her hero, it was just because hisfeelings and interests were suspected. 

He had supported Jackson in the breaking-down of a stable civil servicein 1829, in order to ruin their common opponents, Adams and Clay. NowVan Buren was to inherit the evils of the spoils system, and Adams, Clay, and Webster were leading the attack upon him both in Congress andin the country. Jackson's collector of the customs in New York defaultedin the sum of $1, 250, 000 during the first year of Van Buren's term; andto make matters worse the new appointee behaved quite as scandalouslythe next year. Out of sixty-seven land officers in the West and South, sixty-four were reported in 1837 as defaulters, and the United StatesTreasury lost nearly a million dollars on their account. The JacksonianDemocracy was certainly putting its worst foot foremost, and the greatleaders of the opposition held up their hands in horror at a systemwhich "reeked with corruption from center to circumference. "

Van Buren had begun badly. But worse was to follow. The receipts fromfederal land sales dropped from $24, 000, 000 in 1836 to $6, 000, 000 in1837, and the total income of the Government declined from $50, 000, 000to $24, 000, 000 in the same year; and the expenditures of the Treasuryoutran the receipts during 1837 and 1838 by more than $21, 000, 000. Adeficit of $300, 000, 000 for two successive years in our time would notbe worse than the deficit of the unpopular successor of Andrew Jackson. From 1833 to 1836 there had been an annual surplus equal sometimes tothe total expense of the Government. The national debt had been paid infull and money had been loaned to the States without interest orsecurity. There was to be no more national debt and no more paying ofinterest to hard-driving capitalists; but Van Buren borrowed $34, 000, 000in two years to meet the ordinary expenses of his Administration. 

The honors of the time were, and have since been, bestowed upon Jackson, and all the blame of things was, and has since been, laid upon theshoulders of Van Buren. But the fault was not Van Buren's. A number ofcauses had produced this surprising and distressing state of affairs. After the great success of the Erie and other canals in the East, Western States entered upon an era of canal building which the richestof communities could ill have borne. Railroads were beginning to createmarkets for Eastern farmers. The Westerners, therefore, sunk millions oftheir hard earnings in railways which paralleled their canals orprojected into wildernesses. Between 1830 and 1840 these ventures of theWest, from Michigan to Louisiana, absorbed hundreds of millions ofcapital. Illinois borrowed $14, 000, 000 when her total annual income washardly more than $250, 000; Mississippi borrowed $12, 000, 000 on a yearlyincome a little less than that of Illinois. The States had mortgagedtheir futures for decades to come. This was especially true of Westerncommunities; but Eastern States like Pennsylvania, Virginia, and SouthCarolina were also in debt for similar amounts. Everybody thought theresources of the United States were inexhaustible; and everybody seemedwilling to tax future generations beyond all precedent in order todevelop these resources. 

The depositing of the federal funds in state banks by Jackson hadgreatly stimulated speculation. Public interest in banks, already great, increased enormously. Forty new banks were created in Pennsylvania in asingle year. State banks increased their capital and extended theiroperations. In two years the bank notes in circulation increased from$95, 000, 000 to $140, 000, 000; loans and discounts rose from $324, 000, 000to $457, 000, 000. The National Bank, which had curtailed business inorder to embarrass the country and particularly President Jackson, quickly changed its tactics, and, sailing under a charter from the Stateof Pennsylvania, kept pace with its five hundred rivals. To be sure theFederal Constitution forbade the States to issue bills of credit. Butthe States incorporated banking companies which issued the forbiddennotes by the million, and the Supreme Court of the United States, nowthat Marshall was dead and the personnel of its membership had undergonea change, declared the practice lawful. 

States indorsed or participated in the proceedings of the banks, thebanks loaned to other corporations or to private individuals on suchsecurity as land, slaves, improvements already made, or the personalcredit of men otherwise deeply in debt. The flood of money was thus, before 1837, invested in lands and houses or railroads and canals whichcould neither pay dividends nor return the principal for several years. It seemed that when the Federal Government paid the last of its debt, the States eagerly pursued the opposite principle and created thegreatest debts possible. 

Though the people of the United States joined in all these wildventures, they were not solely responsible. Europe, especially England, had been anxious to lend. The Erie Canal had been built upon borrowedcapital, and it had paid good dividends. The old National Bank, nowgoing out of business, had placed $25, 000, 000 of its stock in Europe, and the holders had received most liberal returns. American investmentswere quoted as "excellent" by the Baring Brothers of London to theirthousands of customers. And why not? The Federal Government had recentlypaid the last dollar of its two huge debts, more than $80, 000, 000 forthe cost of the Revolution and $110, 000, 000 for the cost of the War of1812, and the rate of interest had often been as high as eight per cent. Was there a similar example in all history? The bad reputation of1783-1800 for debt-paying had been lived down. 

Van Buren estimated the amount of money due by States and corporationsto English creditors at $200, 000, 000. His estimate was probably notgreatly exaggerated. Certainly as much as $12, 000, 000 in interest wasdue each year to English creditors. The merchants of the great townsregularly bought their goods on long time, sold them on time to theshopkeepers of the villages and hamlets, and these in turn sold oncredit to their customers. Not less than $100, 000, 000 was thusdistributed over the country. It was due any day in London or Liverpool. The world seemed to "take stock" in the new Republic, particularly whenthe returns were large and prompt in appearing. And now that the FederalGovernment was not a borrower, the States became the heirs of theconfidence of the capitalists who, not comprehending the differencebetween the National and the State Governments in the United States, expected that the authorities in Washington would bring due pressure tobear on local authorities that might turn indifferent when crops werebad. 

All these things led to an inflated state of things. Jackson had seenthe dangerous tendency, and his specie circular had been applied in 1836in the hope of mending matters. But the people who bought lands had nogold or silver. The effect of the circular was to compel Western bankersto call on their Eastern correspondents for metallic money. All thespecie in the Eastern vaults amounted to only $19, 000, 000, a sum not inexcess of what it had been twenty years before, when the paper money incirculation was not half so great. Just as the West asked for more hardmoney English bankers and other business men called sharply for paymentof outstanding debts due by leading business men in the East. Bothdemands could not be met at the same time. The bubble had been pricked. 

To make matters worse, the wheat crop of the Middle States and of theSouth failed utterly, and the farmers were compelled to import grain oncredit for the next year's seeding. The cotton output was large, but theprice fell from twenty to ten cents a pound. Corn and meat wereplentiful in the West; the means of transportation were, however, lacking. There was famine and plenty in the land at the same time. Business came to a standstill, all forward movements stopped, and thebanks closed their doors. 

From a winter of greatest plenty and most amazing expectations thepeople, particularly the poor of the cities and mill towns, passed intoa summer and autumn of positive want and starvation. With flour attwelve dollars a barrel, the New York price, and with wages decliningevery day or industrial operations suspended altogether, the lot of theworker was hard. Riots were of weekly occurrence, and the greatestbusiness houses of New York, Philadelphia, and even New Orleans, wherecotton was expected to save men, declared themselves bankrupt and closedtheir doors. Men who had clamored against Jackson or Biddle in the timeof distress three years before now looked upon that crisis as only aflurry. Everything seemed out of joint and the future gave no assuranceof speedy recovery. The East, which had condemned the West for theirstay laws against the panic of 1819, now clamored for a federal stay lawand urged Van Buren to suspend the specie circular. The Presidentrefused to offer any relief, and other failures and other risksfollowed. Before the summer had well begun every bank in the countrysuspended specie payment, and a little later local business men'sassociations issued notes or due bills in small denominations which wereaccepted as money. East, South, and West the commercial and financialpanic held the country fast in its grip. Speculations fell flat, obligations were void, and men turned to the simpler forms of life toregain their equilibrium. Barter took the place of former methods ofexchange. 

People blamed the banks; some cried out that the monopolistic methods ofbusiness had been the cause. The Whigs maintained that the panic anddistress were due to the blunders and crimes of the party in power. Benton in reply declared that the paper money and stock-jobbing systemsof the last few years had been the cause. Van Buren called Congresstogether in extra session in September, 1837, in order, as he said, todevise means of saving the Government itself from bankruptcy. But hecould not place the blame on the preceding Administration, as hisopponents delighted to do; he only said it was all because of"over-action in all departments of business. " Congress suspended thedistribution of the surplus revenue among the States, issued notes tothe amount of ten million dollars to meet the obligations of theGovernment, and took measures for the safety of the public funds inbanks which could not pay their debts. Gradually during the next yearthe signs of recovery appeared. Rise of prices in Europe, a good cottoncrop, and the passing of the panicky state of mind enabled the banks toresume specie payments, and the mills of the East to open their doors. But the public was in doubt whether the ruin of the National Bank, theissuing of the specie circular by Jackson, or the lack of ability on thepart of Van Buren had been the cause of the calamities of the year 1837. And as it took years for men and business houses to regain their formermutual confidence, there was soreness and hesitation everywhere untilafter 1840. 

The financial situation was, therefore, the one thing with which VanBuren had to deal during most of his term. After the emergency measureshad passed, he gave earnest attention to the enacting of a law whichwould create responsible agencies in the larger cities for the receiptand expenditure of the public moneys. The purpose was to avoidconcentration and monopoly such as the National Bank had maintained, andto keep the control of the finances in the hands of the Government. Itwas called the Independent Treasury system. The President pressed themeasure before a divided Congress and without the support of anyconcerted or strong public opinion. To the surprise of many, Calhoun, the bitterest of his enemies, came to his assistance. This meant thesupport of most of the cotton and tobacco planters. Yet the measurefailed of passage during the sessions of 1837-38 and 1838-39. 

Van Buren did not know how to appeal to the popular heart when powerfulcongressional leaders and shrewd business men pressed too hard. Hesimply adhered to his Independent Treasury Bill against all opposition, fair and unfair. A group of conservative Democrats broke away from hisleadership in 1838 and deprived him of a majority; in the next Congresshe was no stronger, and the one measure of reform which he urged failedto pass before June, 1840. Another legacy of Jackson, his "illustriouspredecessor, " was a war with the Seminole Indians, who resisted removalto the western frontier; and before 1842 the suppression of thesedesperate natives and their slave allies, runaways from the Georgiaplantations, cost the Government $40, 000, 000, most of which had to beborrowed at high rates of interest. 

Even more threatening than the Seminole troubles was the Texas problem. The last act of Jackson's official life was to recognize theindependence of that aspiring State. But this was only preliminary tothe real purposes of Texas and her agents, who pressed Van Buren in thesummer of 1837 for annexation to the United States; though these sameagents wrote home that if annexation did not succeed, the South wouldbreak away from the Union, and that if it did succeed, the North wouldwithdraw from the federal compact. So that while Calhoun and his friendsaided the President in his financial measures, they at the same timeimportuned him to help the South by adding another pro-slavery State tothe Union. This was not the first time this question had embarrassed apresident. As already seen, Clay had denounced Monroe for giving awaythat princely domain; Benton and Van Buren had warred upon Adams andClay in 1826-28 for not compelling a restoration, and under thispressure and that of the South in general, Adams had sought in vain topurchase Texas; under Jackson the problem was several times taken up, and as much as $5, 000, 000 was offered. Still the astute General hadsteered clear of trouble when annexation "with war" was offered in 1836. 

Van Buren likewise delayed and risked his Southern popularity. Meanwhilea revolt against the British Government broke out in Canada, andthousands of Americans along the border, from Maine to Wisconsin, lentopen assistance to their "oppressed" neighbors. Van Buren remainedstrictly neutral. With much difficulty was the peace maintained, and atthe expense of many savage attacks upon the Administration for itsun-American policy and lack of sympathy with men who fought for"freedom. "

While the President was seeking to reform the national currency andrestrain the imperialistic tendencies of his countrymen, one greatState, New York, under the leadership of Silas Wright, was showing thecountry what could be done locally to make banking safe. In 1829 a lawwas enacted compelling every newly chartered bank to contribute acertain percentage of its income to a common safety fund. The disastersof 1837 showed these reserves to be too small, and in 1839 every bank inthe State was required to deposit with the Treasury securities enough toprotect all notes to be put into circulation. At the same time any groupof capitalists who would conform to the law might open a bank withoutlet or hindrance, which had the effect of putting financial operationson simple business principles, removing the political motive which hadwrought so much damage to innocent depositors. During the next decadethe New York example had great influence, and Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and other older States instituted safe and conservativebanking systems. 

But while these communities learned slowly the lesson of carefulfinance, Michigan, Mississippi, and other States, East and West, hardpressed by their circumstances and the overwhelming debts which theypiled up till about 1840, repudiated or failed to meet theirobligations. And when suits were brought by domestic or foreigncreditors, state legislatures simply declined to pay and claimedimmunity from federal pressure under the Eleventh Amendment to theNational Constitution. Nor were the resources of the Western communitiesequal to the discharge of their onerous burdens. To have attempted toforce upon the people the payment of the debts their leaders had fixedupon them would have caused wholesale migrations to Wisconsin, Iowa, andTexas. The people of the West, of the country as a whole, perhaps, werestill in the position of frontiersmen as compared to Europeans. Theyneeded all the time more capital than they could repay in many years, and they were not as yet disciplined to the point of bearing heavyburdens. 

With so much distress in the country and with the Administrationoverburdened with problems, Clay, Adams, and Webster organized theopposition in Congress and throughout the country very much as VanBuren, Calhoun, and Jackson had done in 1826-28. The President, theysaid, was no friend of the people; he had not so much as mentioned theircase in his messages to Congress. He was likened to a sea captain whoseizes the lifeboats on a distressed ship in midocean and, savinghimself and crew, leaves the passengers to the mercies of the angrywaves. Clay said the panic had been due entirely to the ungodly Jacksonand his foolish successor; Webster saw the sole cause of the ills of thetime in the foolhardy policy of the last half-dozen years. John QuincyAdams never tired of ridiculing the puerile maneuvers of backwoodspoliticians whose ignorance amounted almost to high crime. To him theIndependent Treasury Bill was an attempt to separate the Government frombusiness, as futile as to try to divorce the law from the judges in theadministration of justice. 

Business men were appealed to to help avert the further catastropheswhich a Democratic Administration would surely inflict. Distressedplanters were reminded of the low price of cotton, all the friends ofthe former National Bank were told to remember the war on the Bankwhich had ruined them and the country at the same time. Indignationmeetings were held in the East to denounce Van Buren and the"Loco-focos, " a term of reproach applied generally to the party inpower; Henry Clay made a tour of the Eastern States thanking God that hehad been spared to help in undoing the work of Jackson; Webstercanvassed the West in the hope of restoring the minds of the people totheir wonted sanity and a renewal of the alliance of West and East, onwhich alone depended the prospect of good government in the UnitedStates. The Whig party was now a powerful machine, and its leaders wouldtake the people into their confidence. "The honesty of plain men" becamea favorite expression of the time; and Adams, Clay, and Webster repeatedthe experiment of Jackson, Calhoun, and Benton in 1828, in a four-yearcampaign against Van Buren. A disinterested philosopher might have saidthat it was poetic justice for the persecuted Adams of 1828 to appear inthe rôle of persecutor in 1840. 

Though the President was an abler politician than Adams had been in theformer struggle, he was hardly able to parry the blows of Clay and hisEastern allies, especially after the elections of 1838, when both housesof Congress were lost to the Administration. Calhoun, Benton, and SilasWright made a strong fight on behalf of the Democrats. To theIndependent Treasury measure they added the preëmption and graduationbills, which commanded almost unanimous support in the West, and at lastsecured the passage of all three in June, 1840. Though Clay and hisparty waged a powerful opposition through four full years, they had nodefinite program to offer. The groups of their organization were as yetpoorly knit together. Their popular appeal was "to drive the Goths andVandals" from the capital. The "new Napoleon and his minions, " accordingto another historical comparison, must give way to the old régime, togentlemen "who knew how to govern. " And consequently the new alignmentswere much the same as those which had supported Adams and Clay in 1828, the South and West uniting on the "reform" Treasury system and Benton'sland bills, while the East and certain conservative elements of the Westand South indorsed, tentatively, at least, the "American System, " or atleast lent willing ears to the eloquence of Clay. 

Still the people hardly knew whom to believe, and they groupedthemselves in the different States in a way which seemed unlike theearlier combinations. Thick-and-thin followers of Van Buren calledthemselves Democrats and insisted that they were the disciples of ThomasJefferson; the organizers of the opposition to Jackson in his war on theBank had claimed to be National Republicans, though they accepted withpride the name of Whigs after 1836. They asserted also that they werethe followers of the great Virginia democrat; perhaps the historianwould be compelled to deny that either faction was democratic. 

As the Democrats were almost unanimously in favor of the renomination ofVan Buren, it was not difficult to manage their convention of thatyear. Nor was the platform the occasion of any serious disagreement. Itstated for the first time that the party was opposed to internalimprovements, a protective tariff, and the assumption of the debts ofbankrupt States. In all these the West was much interested. But on thesubject of slavery it was definitely declared that the FederalGovernment had no power of interference. For the last time in thehistory of the _ante-bellum_ Democracy, the Declaration of Independencewas declared to be an item of the party faith. Van Buren took many risksin this un-Western program; though the panic of 1837 was doubtless hisheaviest burden, as the Whigs never tired of asserting and repeating. 

The Whigs met in convention at Harrisburg in December, 1839. Divided onthe great questions of the day, they feared to nominate their onemasterful leader, and in weak imitation of the Jackson men of 1828turned to William Henry Harrison, a frontier general of no great abilityor reputation. John Tyler, a Virginia politician of the Calhoun school, was made the candidate for the Vice-Presidency. On the matter of aprogram it was impossible for the Whig groups to agree, and consequentlythey offered no platform at all. But the West received notice from theleaders that in the event of success, the debts of their States would belaid upon the broad shoulders of the Union and that internalimprovements would be resumed. In the East the restoration of theNational Bank and the renewal of the high tariff schedules of 1832 werethe assurances of men like Webster and Clay. With differences so greatdividing the opposition it was impossible to make a campaign on theissues of the time, serious as these were acknowledged to be. 

The contest which followed was unlike any other in the history of theUnion. "Hard cider, " "coon skins, " and "log cabins" became the slogansof the campaign, because once in his life General Harrison had lived ina cabin and "drunk the beverage of the common people. " Van Buren couldnot meet such cries. His canvass became a defense, and his followershalf acknowledged their defeat when it was seen that the West rallied toHarrison. The plain citizen was carried off his feet, and he votedagainst the man in the White House who was said to use gold and silveron his table and dress himself before costly French mirrors. Nor was hecertain in his more serious vein whether after all Jackson had not madea sad blunder in choosing the New York politician to carry out hispolicies. Without real argument or any serious presentation of theissues the Whigs, appealing to what were considered Western prejudices, built log cabins on the public squares, wore coonskin caps, and sang VanBuren out of office to the tune of "Typ and Ty, " "Little Van is aused-up man, " and other like vanities. 

The result was an overwhelming victory for Harrison and Tyler, thePresident carrying only one New England State and Virginia, SouthCarolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois, and receiving onlysixty electoral votes out of a total of 294. The popular vote was2, 400, 000, almost twice as great as in any previous election. The peoplewere learning to vote if nothing more. Van Buren and his lieutenants, including Calhoun, were chagrined and humiliated. The West had returnedthe enemies of Jackson to power and, perhaps unintentionally, hadwritten failure across the work of their "hero. " Thus Clay had turnedthe backwoodsmen and their methods against the original backwoodsstatesman, and brought about a restoration of the old régime. NicholasBiddle and all his financial friends rejoiced. Webster and New Englandlooked once again to a new era of protection; and the internalimprovements men of the West and the up-country, having been overwhelmedby the panic in their various State undertakings, turned theirexpectations once more toward the National Treasury. The manufacturingand the financial interests had in reality come into control again, andwith the assistance of the plain people of the back-country. Clay hadbeen the architect of the new structure, while Jackson and Calhounmourned alike the defeat of Van Buren. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Edwin M. Shepard's _Life of Martin Van Buren_, in _American Statesmen_series is the best study of the Van Buren Administration. J. Schouler's_History of the United Slates_, vol. _IV_; G. S. Callender's _Selectionsfrom the Economic History of the United States_ (1909); G. S. Callender's _Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises_, in_Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. 17; W. A. Scott's _Repudiation ofState Debts_ (1893), and the biographies and other works cited at theclose of the last chapter will give the reader material for furtherstudy. 

Robert Mayo's _Political Sketches of Eight Years in Washington_ (1839);Mrs. M. B. Smith's _First Forty Years of Washington Society_ (Hunt, 1906); and J. F. H. Claiborne's _The Life and Times of General Sam Dale_(1860) present most interesting pictures of men and manners. Forrailroad, canal, and banking ventures, J. L. Ringwalt, _Development ofTransportation Systems_; W. F. Gephart, _Transportation and IndustrialDevelopment in the Middle West_; J. P. Dunn, _Indiana_, Rufus King, _Ohio_, T. M. Cooley, _Michigan_, in _American Commonwealths_ series;Thomas Ford, _History of Illinois_ (1854); J. F. H. Claiborne, _Historyof Mississippi_ (1880); W. C. Brewer, _Alabama, Her History, Resources_, etc. (1872); and J. G. Baldwin, _The Flush Times in Alabama andMississippi_ (1853). 

 CHAPTER VII

 THE MILITANT SOUTH

William Henry Harrison and the Whig party came to power in 1841 withouta program. The men who had driven Martin Van Buren from office in 1840were in as much doubt what to do for the country as the Jackson men hadbeen in 1829. Clay had said during the campaign that he might restorethe United States Bank, and he had said he might not do so; the EasternWhigs had declared for a higher tariff in 1842, when the compromise of1833 would expire, while the Southern Whigs had denied that such a movewould be made; the Western men who had deserted Van Buren for alog-cabin leader demanded now as ever internal improvements, thoughtheir Southern allies bitterly opposed all such propositions. Withcounsels so divided Harrison turned readily to Henry Clay, who shapedthe inaugural and filled the Cabinet with his political friends. Congress was called in extra session for the last of May, 1841, when animprovised plan of action would be offered and perhaps enacted into law. The main items were to be a new National Bank, a higher tariff, and thedistribution among the States of the proceeds of the public land sales. This would enable States to construct their own public improvements andat the same time avoid a rupture between Southern and Western Whigs. Thus the chief items of the old Clay and Adams "American System" was tobe reënacted by a Congress whose majority was none too large and morethan heterogeneous in character. 

But before the national legislature met, the President had died and JohnTyler had become the head of the Administration. Virginia politics wereat that time and long after dominated by a state banking system, andboth Virginia and the lower South opposed all forms of tariffprotection. The new President had been nominated by the Whigs in spiteof his political views, and only in the hope that he might carry hisState, in which they had been disappointed. Clay thought, however, thathe could control the Administration, and undertook with the assistanceof the Cabinet to bring all into a harmonious support of his "system. "The law creating the Independent Treasury, for which Jackson and VanBuren had labored industriously for six years before its final passage, was promptly repealed. In place of the Independent Treasury there was tobe a National Bank, but the President was reported to be hostile to sucha bank unless it should be located in the District of Columbia, and theconsent of the States should be made necessary before branches could beestablished anywhere. Aware of Tyler's scruples on this and othermeasures, Clay marshaled his followers in both houses, held his friendsin the Cabinet in his firm grasp, and was reported to have declared:"Tyler dares not resist me; I will drive him before me. " Tyler was notthe man to be driven, and meanwhile Calhoun, Benton, and their friendswere rallying around him in the hope of breaking down once again theprogram of Clay. 

A bank law was passed. On the 16th of August it was vetoed, and thereensued another party break very much like that which Calhoun led in1831. Many Southern Whigs supported the President; Eastern Whigs burnedTyler in effigy as "the traitor. " A second bank bill was passed only tomeet another veto; and the Clay scheme for the distribution of theproceeds of the land sales, on which he had set his heart, was somutilated by amendments that it could not serve the purpose of itsfriends. Anger and denunciation were the order of the day in Washington. Clay called a conference of the members of Tyler's Cabinet early inSeptember, and advised all to resign at once in order to isolate theirchief. The advice was followed by all save Webster, who retained hispost and otherwise refused to accept the dictation of the Kentuckyleader. Calhoun, Henry A. Wise, William C. Rives, and other leaders ofCongress applauded the President and Webster. Congress adjourned onSeptember 13 in the worst possible humor. Excitement now ran highthroughout the country. Whig meetings were held everywhere, some todenounce, some to defend the Virginian President. The congressionalelections came on and the voters divided sharply. But the Democrats won, which meant that the next Congress would be deadlocked--the Senate Whig, and the House Democratic. Under these circumstances Tyler gathered abouthim a Cabinet to his own liking and planned a forward step in thenational policy. At the regular session of Congress a protective tarifflaw which restored many of the high duties of 1832 was enacted. Tylergave his assent, perhaps in the hope of holding his New England friendslike Webster. In view of the fact that the next Congress would be atleast half anti-tariff, this move on the part of the Whigs was resentedin the South, where leaders like Robert Barnwell Rhett still spokeopenly of secession in case the old protectionist policy should beresumed. 

The lines were being drawn for the next presidential race. Clay cameback to Congress in December, 1841, deeply resentful toward thePresident and displeased at Webster. Having carried through Congress thetariff bill already mentioned, he rose on March 31 to offer "the lastmotion I shall ever make in this body, " and to read his farewell addressafter the manner of his great antagonist Jackson, who had sent toCongress a similar message on his retirement in March, 1837. It was anaffecting scene as the able and dramatic orator prayed "the mostprecious blessings upon the Senate, " even upon Calhoun, who at the closeextended his hand for the first time in several years. "Sober oldSenators as well as ladies in the galleries shed tears at the scene";yet it was known that Clay would seek the Presidency two years later. Calhoun, likewise, retired "forever" from the august legislativeassembly, twelve months later, the better to lay his plans for theDemocratic nomination in 1844. Though the South was not ready to unitein support of its greatest statesman, its leaders were ready to adopthis views and carry out his policy. The South, with its cotton, tobacco, and sugar plantations yielding their increasing annual returns, waspreparing for another effort at getting control of the NationalGovernment. And changes of sentiment as well as economic developmentfavored her in the struggle. 

In Virginia the reforms of 1829 had been inadequate. The slavery problemwas still a burning question, and the Nat Turner insurrection of 1831, in which a few slaves rose against their masters and killed many men, women, and children, forced a reconsideration. Again the difficultproblem was declared insoluble. Thomas R. Dew, a professor of politicalscience in William and Mary College, gave the deciding counsel inelaborate testimony before a committee of the legislature, which wasenlarged and published in book form in May, 1832. He contended thatslavery was a positive good; that negroes could not live in the Southexcept in a state of bondage; and that for the State of Virginia, atleast, it was a most profitable institution. The time had passed, hecontended, for men to believe or teach the fallacies of the Declarationof Independence. Society, certainly Southern society, was taking on astratified form in which all men had their definite places; and theNorth, too, was fast drifting in the same direction, because of theinfluence of their growing industries, in which it was essential thatsome should be masters of great plants and direct the labor of thousandsof people. Few books ever influenced Southern life so much as did thislittle word of clear reasoning and convincing statistics. 

A year later Calhoun was offering the same arguments in the UnitedStates Senate; South Carolina had already come in a practical way to thesame conclusion. North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, andLouisiana accepted the teaching that slavery was a beneficent socialarrangement. In Kentucky and Tennessee, where James G. Birney and JohnRankin had long worked for gradual emancipation, sentiment rapidlycrystallized about the same dogma. Southern anti-slavery leadersemigrated to Ohio during the next few years, "leaving Ephraim joined tohis idols"; and Southern men in Congress now replied with increasingearnestness to the petitions which came from Northern abolitionists. In1837 it was decided not to receive such petitions, and John Quincy Adamswas given his great theme for agitation; the United States mails werealso closed to abolitionist literature intended for Southerndistribution. The representatives of the great region which stretchedfrom Baltimore to New Orleans and extended from the coast to themountains, united almost to a man in defense of "the institutions of theSouth, " and he who offered argument or example to the contrary was thenunwelcome and later compelled to hold his tongue or emigrate. 

Calhoun now became the undisputed leader of the plantation interests ofthe South, and few men were better fitted for the great commission. Akeen and able debater and an enthusiastic Southerner, a combination inhimself of the up-country ideals and the low-country purposes, he hadbecome the idol of South Carolina. Conciliatory in manner and pure inall his public and private life, he won the respect and friendship ofthe best men in the North, like the Lowells and Winthrops ofMassachusetts, and of Senators Allen, Hannegan, Breese, and the Dodgesof the Northwest. Devoted to the ideal of a great American Union whichhe had made strong at the close of the second war with England, he waswilling always to yield something to the West if only his "oneinstitution" be left alone. Badly treated by Jackson and Van Buren, hehad yet forgiven and joined hands with them both in 1840, in the hopethat the power of Clay and his Eastern allies might be broken. InCongress and out he was the leader of the South as that section began togird her loins for the fight over tariff, slavery, and expansion in1840-44. 

While the South was coming to one opinion on the great question ofslavery, the West had been reviving her old ambitions and claims formore lands. So long as there was plenty of free lands and widewildernesses, the Westerner felt that the American Republic was a freecountry; but when these began to fail he imagined himself hemmed in andstifled. In 1812 he had demanded Canada and Florida. He secured only thelatter in 1819, and that after giving up Texas. The ink was hardly dryon the parchment of the treaty of that year before leading Westernersbegan their campaign for the "reannexation" of Texas. Stephen Austin, who settled in Texas, and Sam Houston, who deserted his wife for a homeon the distant Southwestern frontier, kept the question alive. Thousandsof Southerners and Westerners poured into the new cotton region between1828 and 1836, and in the latter year they fought with the Mexicans thebattle of San Jacinto, which gave Texas her freedom. A new AmericanRepublic with a pro-slavery constitution was speedily organized. ThoughVan Buren evaded the issue, Calhoun and the South urged immediateannexation. 

There was thus a Southern call to the isolated President in 1842 to takeup the Texas problem. Moreover, Virginia under the apportionment of 1841lost five Representatives in the National House; South Carolina's numberfell from nine to seven. North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, andGeorgia barely held their own. The older South was distinctly losing inthe national race, despite the three-fifths rule on slavery. TheSouthwest gained some members, but the Northwest was growing faster. Itwas time for the South to act if she was to maintain her position in thecountry. In making up his Cabinet in the autumn of 1841, and again infilling the vacancies that occurred from time to time, the Presidentselected men who favored expansion in the Southwest. The leaders of theAdministration in the House of Representatives were ex-Governor Gilmerand Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, and the spokesmen of the South generallyjoined these in demanding the immediate annexation of Texas as aSouthern measure. Calhoun, though not speaking so often, was the realleader of this cause in the Senate, and he constantly urged upon hisfriends the necessity of this acquisition as a distinct aid to hissection. 

Nearly all the West favored this Southern proposition; but an equallyimportant matter to them was the occupation of Oregon. In Ohio, Michigan, and northern Illinois there was some indifference as to Texas, but none on the subject of Oregon. The vast region stretching from theforty-second parallel of north latitude to Alaska, and embracing anempire in itself, was held jointly with England, whose fur traders hadactually occupied the country on the northern side of the ColumbiaRiver. England desired to hold the promising region. Under the agreementof 1818, renewed in 1828, either country was to give one year's noticeof a purpose to abandon joint control, and, should the relation withEngland be dissolved, the stronger party would doubtless obtain thebetter part of the territory. The people of the Northwest under radicalleadership soon learned to demand all Oregon; English fur interestsunderstood the situation well, and they pressed their Government toseize all the territory along the Pacific to the Bay of California. AndEnglish relations with Mexico were such that Lower California was apt tobe added to Oregon in case of a break with the United States. 

In the East there had been reason for increasing irritation between thetwo Governments. British public opinion had been distinctly unfriendlysince the Canadian insurrection of 1837-38, when so many Americans gaveassistance to the insurgents. And this unfriendliness was fed by theill-concealed desire of the people of the West for the annexation ofCanada to the United States. When the American ship Caroline, which hadbeen assisting the Canadian insurrectionists, was seized and destroyedby the English on Lake Erie, an American citizen was killed. This wasamicably arranged; but in 1840 a certain Alexander McLeod, then in NewYork, avowed that he had killed the American and was promptly seized bythe state authorities and put on trial for his life. McLeod now claimedthat he had done the deed in obedience to orders, and the BritishMinister came to his assistance. Officers of the American StateDepartment took the same view, but they were helpless, and for a time itseemed that one of the States would put to death as a murderer a manwhom both England and the United States recognized to be innocent. Warseemed imminent, but as so often happens in Anglo-Saxon procedure, a wayout of the legal _impasse_ was found in a fictitious _alibi_, and McLeodwas acquitted. 

When Sir Robert Peel became the head of the English Government in 1841he sent, as Minister to Washington, Lord Ashburton, one of the BaringBrothers who had had such large business relations with many of theStates and with the old National Bank. Ashburton and Webster werepersonal friends, and they were likely to find a solution to otherimportant and pressing problems engaging the attention of bothcountries. One of these disputes had to do with the suppression of thenefarious African slave trade, which still flourished in spite of themost stringent of laws, national and international. The difficulty layin the enforcement of law. The South did not regard slavery as anunmixed evil, and hence Southern Presidents had not been overzealous ofinvoking the severe law against the slave trade. England stood ready toenforce her laws, but then the traders would raise the American flag. This necessitated the exercise of the obsolete right of search ofsuspected vessels, if anything was to be done. But the people of theUnited States resented the exercise of the right, and Northern statesmenwere also loath to allow this. To obviate all difficulty the twoGovernments agreed in 1842 to maintain a joint naval patrol of theAfrican coast. The South was not quite pleased, and a great many peopleof the West were displeased that Webster had yielded the right of searchin disguise, as it was thought. 

At the same time a matter of larger importance to the North, thesettlement of the long-disputed boundary between Maine and Nova Scotia, was pending. Since 1838 there had been quarrels and actual encountersalong the northeastern boundary, which had won the name of "theAroostook War. " Both Maine and the National Congress had appropriatedmoney to maintain American rights on the border, and here again therewas reason to fear war. Webster and Ashburton took up the problem and bymutual concessions came to a fair but very unpopular agreement. Theyalso settled outstanding disputes concerning the long boundary betweenthe Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. 

But the question of dividing Oregon was left untouched even by thesefriendly diplomats. Nor could they do more than discuss the criticalCreole trouble, which just now came to complicate the relations of bothpeoples, evidently desirous of avoiding war. The Creole was a vesselengaged in the domestic slave trade. In 1841 this ship, bound for NewOrleans, was seized by the slaves on board, who killed its crew andcarried it into the port of Nassau. The local courts punished some ofthe negroes as murderers and set the others free. Speaking for theAmerican Government, Webster demanded of England an apology andcompensation for the slaves. Ashburton defended his country stoutly andrefused satisfaction. Again public opinion, at least Southern opinion, was greatly excited, but nothing was done about the Creole case until1853, when it was submitted to arbitration, and compensation was allowedthe owners of the slaves. 

Thus the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 was a settlement of somethreatening difficulties and a tacit compromise or ignoring of others. It served the useful purpose of keeping the peace between kindredpeoples. The Oregon and Texas questions were left open, and these wereassuming more dangerous forms with the passage of time. 

This served to direct attention to the Pacific Coast and even the FarEast, where New England merchants and shipowners had long driven aprofitable trade. President Tyler sent Commodore Jones to the Pacific toprotect American interests; he proposed to send a commissioner to Chinain the hope of aiding American commerce there, and he began to consultmembers of Congress about the possibility of obtaining Texas, California, and Oregon all in treaties with Mexico and England. Heoffered to send Webster to London to conduct the negotiations, and athis instance John Quincy Adams wrote Edward Everett, the AmericanMinister to England, that he might resign and go to China to do pioneerwork for New England interests. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was to befollowed by a greater one, securing to the United States the covetedexpansion southwest, west, and northwest. Thus Calhoun and his extremeSoutherners, Benton and his ardent imperialist followers, and theradical Northwest were all to be satisfied at a single stroke of state, and Webster, the New Englander, was to be the happy instrument andperhaps become President in consequence. 

Everett refused to resign, and Webster had promised his Whig friends toleave the State Department. Tyler did not despair; when the great NewEnglander retired in 1842, like Clay, to private life, he invited HughS. Legaré, of Charleston, to the vacant place. A year later Abel P. Upshur succeeded to the office. All the while the President was seekingto guide the Administration into other channels than the old ones oftariff, bank, and internal improvements. 

The Texan envoys to Washington repeatedly urged unofficially theannexation of their country, which had fallen into a state ofsemi-bankruptcy, and whose governor, Sam Houston, was making overturesfor English protection as an alternative to failure to get a favorablehearing in Washington. Southern States petitioned for annexation, whileMiddle Westerners met in a convention at Cincinnati in August, 1843, anddemanded the immediate seizure of Texas and prompt occupation of Oregon. Thousands of emigrants left Missouri during the summer of 1843 for theColumbia Valley, under the encouragement of Senator Benton and for thepurpose of holding the country against English fur traders or morepermanent settlers. Under all this pressure the Administration let it beknown in Congress that at least Texas would be annexed. Upshur reopenednegotiations with the Texan envoy in Washington. Immediately John QuincyAdams protested, declaring the "Confederacy" to be dissolved in caseTyler's "nefarious" scheme should be consummated; but the Presidentcontinued to press the Texan negotiations. 

When the treaty with the new republic was about concluded, Upshur wasaccidentally killed by the explosion of a gun on the ship Princeton. Calhoun, whose ardent candidacy for the Democratic nomination hadfailed, was called to the State Department to take up the unfinishedwork. Meanwhile the campaigns of the two great parties were already faradvanced. Clay was the acknowledged candidate of the Whigs, and VanBuren had obtained the pledged support of two thirds of the delegationsto the next Democratic Convention, which was to meet in Baltimore inMay, 1844. Instinctively dreading new issues, Van Buren arranged a visitto Jackson in the early spring, and on his return he called on Clay atLexington, Kentucky, where it seems to have been agreed that the twocandidates should eventually eliminate the Texas proposition from theplatforms of the two great parties. On April 20, when Clay was inRaleigh, North Carolina, and Van Buren was at his home at Lindenwald, New York, public letters were given out by both leaders. Both advisedagainst discussing the one thing everybody was discussing. Thesimultaneous appearance of these formal statements, each advising thesame thing, caused a national sensation. Men thought that the twocandidates had agreed beforehand what the people should not do. InVirginia, South Carolina, and Mississippi, where Texas feeling ran high, Democratic opinion could not be restrained, and meetings were called toreconsider the instructions of their delegations to the BaltimoreConvention; nor were the Southern Whigs less anxious about the outcome, though the party as a whole acquiesced in Clay's wish that Texas shouldbe eliminated from their forthcoming platform. 

At this point Robert J. Walker, Senator from Mississippi, a shrewdlittle man who had gone to the Southwest eighteen years before to makehis fortune, assumed the management of the Democratic party. A bold landspeculator and an able lawyer, connected with the powerful Dallas andBache families in Pennsylvania, he quickly rose to a commanding positionin his State and was sent to the United States Senate, where he soonmade himself felt as the most radical representative of Southern andWestern interests, urging the rapid removal of the Indians beyond thewestern frontiers, free homesteads for all who would go West, and theimmediate annexation of Texas. An intimate friend of Van Buren, apersistent opponent of Calhoun, and a rival of Benton for nationalhonors, Walker published on Jackson Day, January 8, 1844, a letter tothe public which was immediately reprinted in the newspapers of theSouth and West, and which in pamphlet form had a very wide circulation. In this letter he came out boldly for the "reannexation of Texas and thereoccupation of Oregon, "--all Oregon. His rhetorical language and hisdefiance of England gained the public ear on both Texas and Oregon, while his shrewd suggestions of commercial expansion in the Pacific wonpowerful support in New York and Boston. But the greatest stroke of thispublication was the apparent Southern demand for all Oregon, and beforethe Van Buren-Clay "self-denying ordinances" appeared, Walker wasforging the union of South and West on the proposition, reannexation ofTexas and reoccupation of Oregon, and maneuvering in Washington for whatwas later called the "bargain of the Baltimore Convention. " Walker'srelations with the Pennsylvania leaders gave him a strong position inthat great Democratic community, and he soon secured the support ofThomas Ritchie, the master politician in Virginia. When the Democratsmet, late in May, the "little Senator" was in perfect control. Herenewed and vitalized the rule of the Democratic party whereby thecandidate must secure two thirds of all votes cast in order to receivethe nomination. He procured the passage of this resolution by a meremajority vote, and thus Van Buren, who had a majority of the delegatesinstructed to vote for him, was deprived of the leadership of the party. The Walker slogan, "All of Texas, all of Oregon, " was adopted by theconvention, and James K. Polk, formerly Speaker of the House ofRepresentatives, was nominated for the Presidency. Walker'sbrother-in-law, George M. Dallas, a Pennsylvania protectionist, wasnominated for the Vice-Presidency. It was but a few days before theNorthwestern men indicated the trend of events by giving every assuranceof their support and adding to the campaign cry of Walker the"fifty-four-forty-or-fight" slogan which was heard on every stump fromJune till November. 

Van Buren was humiliated and eliminated from the counsels of the party;Clay laughed at his "dark-horse" competitor, of whom he affected neverto have heard; Calhoun, the legitimate beneficiary of the Texaspropaganda, joined Walker with heart and soul and aided greatly in themanagement of the campaign. A new Democratic régime--the South and Westcoöperating--had been founded. This second coalition aimed at Clay andthe East resembled very strikingly that of 1828. And new issues had beeninjected into the national discussion. A rapid extension of the nationaldomain to the Rio Grande, to the Pacific, and to 54° 40' of northlatitude in the Far Northwest was opposed to Clay's well-worn program ofa protective tariff, national bank, and internal improvements. 

Meanwhile Calhoun and Tyler completed their treaty with Texas andsubmitted it to the Senate, where it was held in suspense until afterthe meeting of the conventions. Tyler, after some hesitation, gave hissupport to Polk and Dallas. Calhoun suppressed uprisings against the newleadership in South Carolina, where strong doubt prevailed as to thepurposes of Walker and Dallas with reference to the tariff. The oldstatesman, isolated though he was, thought that if the South and Westcould be held together the future would be secure. He took pleasure inthe belief that "this is the end of Clay, " who had so long troubled thenational waters, while the politicians of the new coalition assured himthat he would succeed Polk in 1848. Webster said little during thecampaign; New England was divided by the promises of a great commercialexpansion and the annexation of Oregon. The election of Polk and Dallasjustified the bold moves of the Baltimore Convention. The scheme ofTyler, looking to the annexation of Texas, California, and Oregon, wasnow to be put into effect, even at the risk of war with England, whenceserious warnings had been coming since the new national purpose becameclear. 

After years of uncertainty and deadlock, the country was now preparedfor a forward movement, and though Polk was not her ideal statesman, thepeople rallied with fair unanimity to his standard. The newAdministration would represent the new Democratic party--a resoluteSouth and an ardent West. And the President-elect, simple and direct inall his ways, was determined to carry out the purposes of hissupporters, namely, set the country upon a career of expansion hithertounparalleled in its history. 

In Illinois, Missouri, and throughout the South the demand waswell-nigh unanimous that the disputed region along the Rio Grande shouldbe held as against Mexico, and that California and Oregon should beseized and colonized. Cass, the older, and Douglas, the younger leaderof the Northwest, were agreed in these extreme demands; even Benton, thedisappointed friend of Van Buren, found compensation in the proposedPacific frontier, while a powerful group of Southerners led by GovernorGilmer, of Virginia, Robert Barnwell Rhett, of South Carolina, WilliamL. Yancey, of Alabama, and Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, took up theprogram of Calhoun and pressed it almost daily upon Congress and thecountry. The South was about to resume control of the national fortunes. 

In that region, where cotton was king, and tobacco, sugar, and rice werepowerful allies, a unique civilization had grown up. The plantation wasthe model, and the patriarchal master of slaves the ideal characterwhich the ambitious poor imitated everywhere. The elegant life of thecolonial plantation houses, which adorned the banks of the windingrivers of the old South in the days of the Revolution, had graduallymoved westward and southwestward until the larger tobacco area of thePiedmont region extended from Petersburg, Virginia, to Greensboro, NorthCarolina, and from the falls of the rivers to the slopes of the BlueRidge. Instead of running away from their slaves, as John Randolph hadfeared Southern gentlemen would be compelled to do, the tobacco plantersfound their business increasingly prosperous as the great cotton areasouth of them opened larger markets for their crops and higher pricesfor their surplus negroes. Even the wheat-growers of Virginia andMaryland became again prosperous when the great canals and the improvedturnpikes reached the valley of Virginia and opened still wider areas ofrich lands to the Richmond and Baltimore markets. The plantation form oflife penetrated the high lands of Virginia almost to the Tennesseeborder, and slavery was fastening its hold upon the up-country peoplewho had formerly been hostile. 

[Illustration: Tobacco Areas in 1840]

[Illustration: Cotton Areas in 1840]

But the vast cotton region, embracing the better part of middle andeastern North Carolina and the accessible lands of the lower South toEastern Texas, and extending over most of the Mississippi Valley to St. Louis, was the heart of the South, which supported the PolkAdministration and waged the war upon Mexico soon to begin. In this finecountry, men of ability made fortunes in a few years and learned toimitate the life of the old southern manor houses. Forests were clearedaway in winter by the sturdy hands of slaves, and new fields were openedto cotton culture each spring to supply the places of those that hadbeen rapidly worn down by unscientific methods of agriculture. Thecabins which made the homes of well-to-do men in the Jeffersonian epochgave way to substantial frame houses with massive columns and wideverandas, with great hallways and broad banquet-rooms, which so muchdelighted the heart of the planter of Calhoun's day. In a warm climatelike that of the cotton region the object of the builder was always toattain cool recesses and retired gardens, where the social life of thetime displayed itself. 

The houses were built on hilltops covered with primeval oaks, which casta dense shade over all. Sometimes stone or brick walls protected thepremises against the outer world, and wide entrances, guarded on eitherside by sculptured lions or tigers, gave a dignity and a splendor whichreminded one of the estates of English noblemen. In the rear of thesepretentious and sometimes beautiful houses were the rows of negrocabins, with their little gardens for the raising of vegetables and theranges for chickens, as dear to the palates of negro slaves as to thoseof visiting clergymen. The barns and carriage houses completed theoutfit. Where hundreds of bales of cotton and thousands of barrels ofcorn were grown annually, there would be driving or saddle horses forthe master's family and many Kentucky mules for the work of the fields;and a plantation took on the appearance of a busy colony in a newcountry. Sixty to a hundred negroes were regarded as the best labor unitfor profitable agriculture. Of these there would be a few house servantstrained in all the intricacies of patriarchal hospitality and courtesy. The carriage driver and keeper of the stables, sometimes clad in theextra dignity of a special livery and a tall silk hat, a tyrant to allthe little negroes, but an obsequious flatterer to those who werewelcome at the master's house, was perhaps the most envied man of theestate. To see this matchless son of Africa mounted on the high seat ofan old-fashioned English carriage, as he drove his prancing horses tothe front door of the "great house" and asked if all were ready forchurch, was to get a glimpse of the old South itself. The boastedfreedom of "poor white trash" or of "impudent free issue negroes" had noattractions to him who enjoyed these high prerogatives. 

The master who was responsible for the multitudinous life of theplantation, arbiter of the fortunes, sometimes, of a thousand men, wasusually conscious of his power and, when "times were good, " kind to hisdependents. He liked to see his negroes fat and happy, for a "likelyslave" was as good as money in the bank. Accustomed to the exercise ofauthority, he was apt to be a member of the county court, the actualgoverning agency of the old South, and as such he was always "squire. "From the county court he went to the state legislature, where he and hisfellow planters made the laws of these sovereign States of the oldrégime. From local magistrate to chief executive the Southern communitywas governed by the owners of slaves, and the great men whom they choseto speak for the South in Congress or to advise the President and hisCabinet or to sit upon the benches of the federal courts were invariablymasters of plantations, trained from early youth to the exercise ofauthority and accustomed to receive the homage of their neighbors. Itwas a mighty social and economic organization which had grown up in andspread over the richer lands of South and West, as far as the borders ofMexico and the valleys of the Ohio and Missouri. The wheat and tobaccogrowers, the rice and sugar planters were allied to the more powerfulcotton lords, and, though there were party differences, all spoke thesame voice in the national life. Of the five or six millions of southernwhite people in 1845 only seven or eight thousand were great plantationmasters, though some three hundred thousand were either owners of slavesor members of the privileged families--a larger proportion than usualfor a favored class, but still a small number when compared to the totalpopulation of the country which was, from 1845 to 1860, controlled bythem. 

As was natural, the professional classes of the South, the lawyers, clergymen, physicians, and teachers, were in close alliance with theplanters, their callings and their incomes being directly dependent onthem. A successful professional man soon became a master and usuallyretired to a country seat. If a poor but capable young man gave promiseof power and leadership he was soon accepted by his dominant neighborsand became a son-in-law of a privileged family; if a preacher rose tofame doubting or even condemning the institutions of the South, he wasapt to find a way to change his views and to become a part of the systembefore he reached his mature years. The articulate South was, therefore, in economic and social life a unit in 1845, and this unit was thestrongest group in the country as a whole. Its demand for expansiontowards the southwest was based upon the common desire, the common lawof growth, and this growth was the only means of winning new votes inCongress and in the electoral college. It was the same motive whichactuated the farmers of the Northwest and the commercial leaders ofNew England when they demanded of the Federal Government the seizure ofOregon or the protection of ships upon the ocean. 

[Illustration: Wheat Areas in 1840]

If the planter and dominant element of the South urged Polk and Walkeronward in their course and gave power to Calhoun, the greater masses ofnon-slaveholding Southerners were hardly less enthusiastic. The earlierjealousy and fear of the planters had everywhere weakened as the newlands of the South and West gave opportunity to the more ambitious torise in the social and economic scale. The sons of small farmers andlandless men in the old South had built the cotton kingdom of the lowerSouth, and were now drawing aristocratic Virginia and the Carolinas intoa close union with the new region. The widening of the area of slaverywas equivalent to the opening of a social safety valve to the older andstratifying life of the South. Young men who had been hostile to slaveryat home became friendly allies in a new environment. Thus the smallfarmers became enthusiastic supporters of the great machine of whichslavery was the base. 

Not only so, the growers of corn and wheat in the remote hills andmountains of the South, the men who distilled their grain into strongdrink, those who raised pigs or cotton a hundred or two hundred mileswest of the tobacco and cotton belts, could always find a market in theplantation towns where calicos, "store-clothes, " and trinkets could behad for themselves and families. The long trains of quaint, coveredtobacco wagons which wound their way over rough roads from themountains to the black belt carried whiskey or other up-country productsto the plantations; the droves of mules, cattle, or hogs which pouredinto the Carolinas and the Gulf region from East Tennessee and Kentuckywere bonds of attraction between the planters and the non-slaveholdingelements too powerful to be ignored. And as time passed the legislaturesunder planter control built better highways and projected railways intothe richer sections of the interior, which invariably made allies ofthese new economic communities, and gradually slavery followed in thewake of the new channels of communication. 

The most helpless of the Southern groups were the poorer farmers, wholived on the semi-sterile lands which the planters refused to occupy orin the pine barrens of the eastern Carolinas, and the landless classwhich hung on to the skirts of slavery. Unambitious, ignorant, andimprovident, frequently the "ne'er-do-wells" of the old families, ignored by the wealthy and spurned by the slaves, who gave them the nameof "poor white trash, " their lot was hard, indeed. They earned a fewdollars a year at odd jobs, raised a few hogs or at most a bale or twoof cotton, and lived in cabins little better than those occupied by thenegroes. Their children were numerous, without educational advantages, and accustomed to the poor and meager cultural life of an outcast class. Their outlook was no better than that of their parents. Barefoot, half-clad, yet alert and agile, hating negroes and fearing the masters, these "Anglo-Saxons" offered the problem of the South. Unaccustomed toindependent voting, they did not endanger the existing order, and evenwhen they were aroused to a sense of their position, their ignorance anddependence and prejudices prevented them from organizing inself-defense. They usually followed their economic superiors, andlearned to denounce the tariff, internal improvements, and "schemingYankees" as roundly as did their wealthy neighbors. 

Still, life in the South was in the open; the joys and the sports of thepeople were those of healthy rural communities. The well-to-do and eventhe poorer classes lived on horseback, bet on the races, andparticipated in the rough-and-tumble games of the court days. Thewealthy did not refuse all relations with "the people" on suchoccasions. The planter knew and called familiarly by name every man inhis part of the county, and the magistrates who made up the courts ofthe people exercised a kindly patriarchal authority over their"inferiors, " the dependent whites. There were few occupants of jails orpenitentiaries; poorhouses were often tenantless, and asylums for theinsane were not numerous or crowded. Beggars and tramps were unknown. Judged by the facts of life the system of slavery and large proprietorswas not so bad as it appeared; and as the South came into fullself-consciousness, say with the inauguration of Polk and Dallas, theproblems of adjustment of the different economic groups, of providingbetter educational facilities for the poorer classes, and of meetingcertain religious and social requirements of the slaves themselves, werefully recognized by the masters, and beginnings of improvement in allthese matters were already making. 

In nothing was this more evident than in Southern religious life. TheSouth which followed Jefferson was largely indifferent to religiousdogmas of all kinds. Most of the greater leaders had been deists ratherthan Christians; nor had they suffered for these opinions at the handsof the people. Calhoun's Unitarianism had in no way retarded hispolitical career. But before 1830 a change was taking place. The stoutPresbyterianism of the up-country forced the retirement of one of theprofessors of the University of Virginia, in its earlier years, and itcompelled the resignation of President Cooper of the University of SouthCarolina, in 1836, because of his denial of the inspiration of thePentateuch. The Presbyterians had grown powerful and wealthy; theyasserted their influence in Virginia and South Carolina, and they werealready recognized as leaders in North Carolina, Tennessee, andKentucky. What this denomination did was applauded by the more numerousBaptists and Methodists, whose membership was as yet too poor to commandthe influence of their rivals. 

Before 1844, however, these great religious organizations in the South, with a combined membership of nearly a million, received fullrecognition. With a small-farmer and landless membership they hadopposed slavery and the whole aristocratic system before 1820, but asthe years passed, tobacco and cotton culture made many of them wealthyand opened the way to all who were ambitious to rise. At once theofficial attitude began to change. The preachers ceased first todenounce "the institution, " and finally without offense becameslave-owners themselves. The clergy's stern rebukes of fashion, ofdancing, and of "the wearing of fine raiment" ceased or lost its effect. Presbyterians had long believed in an educated ministry, and when theyforced their influence into political life, they were already friendlyto the dominant ideas of the South. Now the Baptists and Methodistsbuilt colleges for the training of young ministers, and preaching intheir simple churches was made to conform to the canons of good taste. Throughout the South the churches became the allies of the existingeconomic and social order, and they presented a solid front to those whoproposed to discipline men for holding other men in bondage. Theirclergy formulated a strong Biblical and patriarchal defense of theSouth. Slavery, from being an institution to be lamented as an evil, became a blessing sustained by the Holy Scriptures, according to theablest ministers of God. 

When the Northern branches of these churches found how completely theirSouthern brethren had yielded to the powerful social pressure of theirlocal life, a vigorous attempt was made to correct the tendency. Itfailed, and in 1844-45 the Baptists of the East and those of the upperNorthwest refused to coöperate with Southern churches which insisted onthe right to send out missionaries who owned slaves. A Southern BaptistChurch was the immediate result. In the same year, 1844, the Methodistsof the East and upper West refused to recognize the ministrations of abishop who owned slaves, and a break-up of the church followed. TheMethodist Episcopal Church, South, was organized at Louisville thefollowing year. The Presbyterians and Episcopalians had become socompletely reconciled to the aristocratic life which slavery connotedthat they sustained no serious breach in their ranks. In the North aswell as in the South they accepted slavery. A notable result of thesebreaks in the Baptist and Methodist churches was the rapid increase ofmembership of both in the South. Within a period of ten years theSouthern Baptists were as powerful as the American Baptists had been in1844. The same is true of the Methodists, and what happened in the Southwas paralleled in the North. Pro-slavery churches in the South andanti-slavery churches in the North seemed to be required by the people. Revivals, educational improvements, and missionary zeal were the fruitsof the "reformation. " Politicians like Calhoun, who watched andcounseled these peaceful schisms, urged that the Union must in due timelikewise break into pieces; but the great economic forces of the countrywere as yet too strong; common markets, interlocking transportationsystems, and the extraordinary prosperity which followed the Polk régimedefeated the wishes of those who thought that two confederations withinthe area of the United States would be better than one. 

Thus, when Polk took up the forward program which had been outlined atBaltimore, and which was to antiquate the "American System" over whichClay and Jackson and their respective groups had fought so bitterlysince 1824, the South was rapidly crystallizing into a solid sectionwith definite ideas and purposes. The plantation owners were in fullcommand; the older and small-farmer element was falling into line behindtheir pro-slavery leaders; the social and religious life had becomeorthodox and stratified; and the clergy, who now preached acceptably togreat masses of people, were, like those of New England, in fullsympathy with the dominant economic interests of their time. Theimmediate future of the South was fairly certain, and Southern leadersassumed a militant tone indicative of the wishes of their people. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Justin H. Smith's _Annexation of Texas_ (1911) and G. P. Garrison's_Westward Extension_ (1906), in _American Nation_ series, give full andtrustworthy accounts of the Texas movement; while Lyon G. Tyler's _Timesof the Tylers_ (1884); C. H. Ambler's _Life of Thomas Ritchie_ (1913);J. W. DuBose's _Life of William L. Yancey_ (1892); and J. F. H. Claiborne's _Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman_ (1860), supplyabundant material showing the temper and purposes of the different partsof the South in 1840. U. B. Phillips's _The Plantation and Frontier_(1909) is an excellent source-book for the period, and the Adams_Memoir_, Clay _Correspondence_ (Colton), Calhoun _Correspondence_(Jameson), and Mrs. A. M. Coleman's _The Life of John J. Crittenden_(1871) are most useful for these years. The debates of Congress for theperiod of 1833 to 1873 are found in the _Congressional Globe_ and_Appendices_. For the philosophy of slavery and the Southern socialsystem of which slavery was the basis read _The Pro-Slavery Argument_(1852), containing Thomas R. Dew's and James H. Hammond's writings onthe subject. 

 CHAPTER VIII

 WAR AND CONQUEST

The treaty which Upshur and Calhoun negotiated with the Texan envoys inthe spring of 1844 was presented to the Senate in April, and held incommittee until after the two party conventions had met in Baltimore. The Whigs condemned it, as has been noted, and the Democrats acceptedit. It was a mere matter of form, then, for the Whig Senate to rejectthe treaty which had become in a great measure the platform of theiropponents. When Congress reassembled in December the result of theelection had made it plain that Calhoun and Walker, and not Clay and VanBuren, represented the wishes of the people, though the majority of thepopular vote was exceedingly small. 

Tyler seemed anxious to hasten the work of annexation, and herecommended the accomplishment of his purpose by joint resolution of thetwo houses of Congress. Benton, who disliked Tyler and hated Calhoun, and who had opposed the adoption of the treaty in the preceding spring, now gave his influence to the Administration, and during the closinghours of the session the House and the Senate passed the jointresolution making Texas a State by narrow majorities. There waswidespread opposition to the annexation of new territory, especiallypro-Southern territory, by the new method. Joint resolutions in Statelegislatures that were evenly divided were not unknown; but for Congressto evade a plain rule of the Constitution requiring two thirds of theSenate by a mere majority of both houses was denounced as the rankestusurpation. Without serious concern as to public opinion in the East orgreat deference to the President-elect, Tyler and Calhoun hastenedmessengers to Texas and ordered two regiments of troops, under thecommand of Colonel Zachary Taylor, to take position at Corpus Christi onthe southern bank of the Nueces River, and sent a squadron of the navy, under Commodore Conner, to the mouth of the Rio Grande. This dispositionof the military and naval forces of the United States was made toprotect Texas against a possible invasion by Mexico; but it was sharpnotice that the disputed region between the Nueces and the Rio Grandewould be held for Texas. Tyler retired to his Virginia plantation, leaving to Polk the more difficult task of securing all Oregon. 

Polk had already shown his self-reliance in refusing to appoint CalhounSecretary of State. That eminent statesman was thoroughly familiar withthe foreign relations of the Government, and he enjoyed a prestige thatwould have distinguished any administration; besides, he was certainthat he could bring matters to a peaceful conclusion with both Mexicoand England. Nor had he failed in his loyalty to the new Presidentduring the recent campaign. Still Polk gave James Buchanan, ofPennsylvania, the first place in the Cabinet. Robert J. Walker asked andreceived the second place--the Treasury. William L. Marcy, of NewYork, and John Y. Mason, of Virginia, represented in the Cabinet thoselarge Democratic constituencies, while George Bancroft, the historian, spoke for New England, though the people of that section would neverhave named him for the honor. 

[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1844]

To the surprise of old political heads Polk announced blandly in hisinaugural that he would proceed to "reoccupy Oregon"; that is, he wouldexecute the mandate of the Baltimore Convention even at the cost of warwith England! But Calhoun had practically agreed with the BritishMinister to compromise the conflicting claims to Oregon. Buchanan, beinga man of yielding temper, was disposed to the same easy solution of themost dangerous problem of the Administration. The President, however, restrained his Secretary, and in the annual message of December, 1845, he asked Congress to give him authority to dissolve the copartnership ofEngland and the United States with reference to Oregon. This was takenin both countries as inviting war. 

Calhoun regarded this move as likely to be fatal to the retention ofTexas and certain to lose for the country all of Oregon. He returned tothe Senate for the avowed purpose of preventing war. Webster, in theSenate again, was on friendly terms with the leaders of the Englishgoverning party, and both he and they were striving to prevent theexpansionists from committing an overt act of hostility. Benton, theforemost of expansionists before Tyler became President, was also readyto compromise the dispute. This meant that Calhoun, Webster, and Bentonwould unite their influence to defeat the foreign policy of thePresident if it were not modified to suit their views. 

But the new leadership embraced a group of able and bold men: John A. Dix, of New York; Caleb Cushing, a Whig recruit from Massachusetts;James M. Mason, of Virginia; Robert Barnwell Rhett, William L. Yancey, and Jefferson Davis, of the lower South; and David Atchison, Stephen A. Douglas, Lewis Cass, and William Allen, of the Northwest, --all ardentexpansionists and "big Americans" who would not readily suffer thedefeat of the party program. During the summer and autumn of 1845 theirpolicy had been worked out in detail and discussed among the men whowere to be responsible for its execution. In domestic affairs theirscheme embraced the settlement of the long-disputed financial policy ina new Independent or Sub-Treasury Bill which Secretary Walker waspreparing. The Tariff of 1842, which had offended the Democratic South, was also to be reformed, and Walker had written the new schedules whichCongress was to enact in due time. In order to secure the necessaryWestern support for these Southern purposes, the old internalimprovements program was revived in an enlarged rivers and harbors bill. This was a big plan and the Democratic majorities in House and Senatewere very narrow. The outlook was anything but encouraging, withWebster, Calhoun, and Benton likely to be in opposition on every point. 

But Congress passed the Sub-Treasury Bill, by which most of thefinancial measures of the preceding administrations since 1833, restingon the mere orders of President or Secretary of the Treasury, werelegalized. It was in the main the same law which Van Buren had laboredso long to secure, but which the Whigs had repealed in 1841. The moneyof the Government was henceforth to be kept in certain designatedsub-treasuries in leading cities like New York, Baltimore, and NewOrleans, and drawn upon by the Secretaries of the Treasury when needed. There was thus to be no national bank; and the state banks were tocontinue issuing their paper, which was to be the money of the people. Gold and silver, coined by the government mint at Philadelphia, wereseldom demanded in ordinary business transactions, though coin orbullion still remained the redemption money of the banks and served asthe basis of exchange with foreign countries. 

The South had preached free trade since 1828. Polk and his Secretary ofthe Treasury had been prominent exponents of the idea, despite somecampaign bargaining with Pennsylvania. In England Richard Cobden, JohnBright, and Sir Robert Peel were about to secure the repeal of theage-old protective system, and in both France and Germany the free-tradeagitation was daily winning recruits. Polk and his advisers setthemselves the task of securing the passage of a "free-trade tariff" forthe United States. Walker submitted an able report in December, 1845. Avery high rate was recommended on all luxuries, including wines andliquors; an average duty of twenty-five per cent was to be laid on thegreat bulk of imports which would compete with American cotton, wool, and iron manufactures; and a long list of articles of every dayconsumption on which no duties should be imposed was submitted. Thoughthe Pennsylvanians denounced the proposed tariff bill as un-Democratic, it became a law in July, 1846, proved to be successful, and remained thecorner-stone of the Democratic structure till 1861. 

The _douceur_, in the form of a bill for liberal internal improvementsfor the Northwest, whose leaders all voted for the tariff reductions, passed both houses of Congress; but the members from the lower South, led by Robert Barnwell Rhett, protested to the last. Polk accepted theirview and vetoed the bill. Northwestern men cried out "treachery" soloudly that summer, in a great mass meeting in Chicago, that thePresident feared the party was seriously endangered. Still, the threeproblems over which Clay, Calhoun, and Webster had wrestled since 1816had been solved. The United States was henceforth to manage its financesindependently; the free-trade element had won the ascendancy, and therewas not to be another high-tariff campaign until after the Civil War;and internal improvements on a large national scale were not to beundertaken until the passage of the Pacific Railway Bill in 1862. Theonly cloud above the political horizon was the anger of the NorthwesternDemocrats. 

There was more danger in carrying forward the program which was intendedto secure to the United States Oregon, California, and New Mexico. Butthe first step had already been taken. In April, 1846, both House andSenate, in spite of the opposition of the older leaders, authorized thePresident to give notice to England that joint occupation should ceaseat the expiration of a year. The English people were much excited, andthe idea prevailed that this was only a move on the part of the UnitedStates to seize Canada, but the British Government renewed theproposition to compromise on the forty-ninth parallel, Vancouver Islandto remain in British possession. A treaty to this effect was accepted byboth Governments during the summer of 1846. Polk could boast that theOregon question had been settled. Again the Northwestern Democrats, whohad been promised all of Oregon, were sorely disappointed. One of theirmost popular leaders declared in the Senate: "James K. Polk has spokenwords of falsehood, and with the tongue of a serpent. " Would theNorthwestern wing of the party continue loyal? This may, perhaps, bestbe answered when we come to discuss the Wilmot Proviso. 

When the Oregon question was at its acutest stage, in the autumn of1845, Polk sent John Slidell, an adroit politician of Louisiana, toMexico, to renew the friendly relations which had been broken offimmediately after the passage of the joint resolution by Congress. Slidell was authorized to negotiate a treaty by which Europeaninfluence, then being exerted in Mexico against the United States, wasto be counteracted, the annexation of Texas approved, and all of theclaims of American citizens against Mexico were to be definitelysatisfied. But as Mexico had no funds in her treasury, Slidell was toassume for the United States all these obligations, and pay theMexicans $5, 000, 000 in return for the cession of New Mexico, a part ofwhich was claimed by Texas. Finally Slidell was to purchase California, if that were found to be possible, and raise the cash payment from$5, 000, 000 to $25, 000, 000. Slidell's mission was supported by a navaldemonstration in Mexican waters, and the meaning of his presence wasmade very plain to the people of the distressed republic. 

The new Minister was rejected, however, and Taylor was ordered to movehis troops toward the Rio Grande. Mexico resented this, and nearMatamoras on April 24, 1846, came the first pass at arms. Slidellreturned to Washington about the time that the news of this encounterreached the President. On May 11, war was declared and Taylor wasordered to cross the border and "conquer a peace. " In August Colonel S. W. Kearny seized New Mexico and set out with a troop of three hundredmen to take California. But Commodore John Drake Sloat had been sent tothe Pacific with a squadron of the navy to prevent the seizure ofMonterey by the English. And to make certainty more certain, ConsulThomas O. Larkin at Monterey had been instructed, about the time ofSlidell's appointment to Mexico, to be in readiness for any emergency. Before Kearny could cross the mountains, Larkin and Sloat had takenpossession of California, almost unresisted. 

In September, 1846, General Taylor won a brilliant victory at Monterey, twenty miles south of the Rio Grande, and his forces were beingaugmented every day for the march overland to the City of Mexico. Whigpoliticians hailed at once the new general as their candidate for thePresidency in 1848. Naturally the Administration did not care to aidtheir opponents in their political plans, and its leaders cast about fora Democratic general. None was to be found; and Thomas H. Benton, willing that Jackson's plan for his elevation to the Presidency shouldbe fulfilled, asked Polk to make him commander-in-chief of all theforces operating in Mexico. Benton had never had any militaryexperience, and Polk was relieved to find that such an appointment wouldnot be confirmed by the Senate. General Winfield Scott, alreadyquarreling with the Secretary of War, and hence out of favor with theAdministration, was the only alternative. Scott was also a candidate forthe Whig nomination for the Presidency. After much hesitation most ofthe troops of Taylor were placed under the command of Scott andreinforced with still others, and all set sail for Vera Cruz, then asnow the great port of Mexico. The city fell on March 29, 1847, and themarch to the City of Mexico was about to begin. 

Meanwhile, Santa Anna had been made commander of all the Mexican armies, and he, learning of Taylor's weak and isolated position south ofMonterey, hastened with twenty thousand soldiers to surround and capturehim. Taylor moved forward and met the enemy at Buena Vista, afterreceiving some raw recruits, on February 23, 1847, and completely routedhim, thus adding to the laurels he had already won and convincing thecountry that he had been badly treated by the authorities inWashington. 

Scott began the march to the Mexican capital on April 8. He met resoluteresistance at Cerro Gordo, where on April 17 and 18 a large army of theenemy was attacked and defeated. At this point Nicholas Trist, envoyfrom the President, with instructions to treat with Mexico on the basisof Slidell's proposals of 1845, arrived. Trist was a clerk in theDepartment of State, and Scott refused to recognize or have anyrelations with him. After much unseemly bickering and the conciliatoryservices of the British Minister to Mexico, the general and the envoymade peace, and negotiations were opened, only to be broken off by SantaAnna upon his arrival from the north. On August 19 and 20, the battle ofCherubusco seemed to convince the Mexicans that further resistance wouldbe futile, and Trist again offered peace on the terms of 1845, exceptthat the United States would reduce the amount of money to be paid by$5, 000, 000. But the armistice under which the negotiations had beenrenewed was broken, and on September 8 and 13, the battles of Molino delRey and Chapultepec were fought, and the capital was occupied onSeptember 14. A revolution in the affairs of Mexico now took place, andthe new Government appointed commissioners on November 22, to treat withTrist. 

However, the news of these battles and victories had aroused theexpansionist instincts of the people of the United States, or at leastof the articulate classes, to the point of demanding the annexation ofthe whole of Mexico. Sober newspapers, like the New York _Evening Post_, officers of the navy and the army, like Commodore Stockton and ColonelJefferson Davis, the hero of the battle of Buena Vista, and leadingpoliticians, John A. Dix, Lewis Cass, and Secretary Walker, urged theGovernment to make an end of Mexico by prompt dismemberment. Althoughthe election of Representatives in 1846 had resulted in giving the Whigscontrol of the House, Congress seemed disposed to yield to the popularclamor as they came together in December, 1847, when the news of theraising of the American flag over the city of Mexico was fresh in thepublic mind. 

Polk found his Cabinet divided on the subject of "all Mexico, " with thepreponderance of influence in favor of annexation. Buchanan gave out apublic letter in which he said, "Destiny beckons us to hold and civilizeMexico. " Walker threatened to urge the absorption of Mexico in hisreport to Congress. The flag should never be hauled down from theramparts of the captured capital of Mexico. Polk resisted this pressure, but he recalled Trist just before the beginning of the finalnegotiations with Mexico. On the advice of General Scott, Trist refusedto obey the President, and both he and the general hastened thenegotiations. 

Although the Whigs were also infected with the expansionist fever, HenryClay came out of his retirement at Ashland, near Lexington, and onNovember 13, made an impassioned appeal to the country against thewickedness of despoiling a helpless neighbor; John Quincy Adams, nearingthe end of his career, continued to denounce the whole Mexicanmovement. But Webster, an ardent candidate now for the Whig nominationin 1848, said little and took this occasion to visit the South and West. Calhoun made it his especial business in the Senate to defeat what hethought was the President's purpose, the annexation of all Mexico. Butthe prospect of success of these "little Americans" was far from bright. 

When the Trist treaty, giving satisfaction on all the points raised inSlidell's mission and selling to the United States both California andNew Mexico, reached Washington in February, 1848, there was everytemptation to reject it. The ablest members of the Cabinet insisted uponits rejection; a scheme for the establishment of a protectorate overYucatan, which was expected to eventuate in annexation, was being urged, and the rumors of approaching convulsions in Europe were hearteningleading members of Congress. Why should not the United States fulfillher destiny? There was none to interfere or make afraid. Senator Foote, of Mississippi, urged in glowing terms the advantages of "extendingAmerican liberty" over Central America; Senator Hannegan, of Indiana, fairly represented his section when he said that the time had come forthe United States to take Canada, too, and make the boundaries of NorthAmerica the boundaries of the great Republic; and Senator Cass wasmaking his campaign for the Democratic nomination on the plea that thetime was ripe for the extinguishment of the remnants of Europeanauthority on the continent. 

The President, worn out with the toils of office and determined not toseek renomination, decided to accept the treaty, and the Senate, inspite of the warmest harangues of the extremists, promptly approved thework of Trist and Scott, for the general had had much to do with thenegotiations. The war had come to an end, though there were stillfurther efforts to undo the treaty by seizing Yucatan, and there wasmuch complaint from leading Senators and Representatives at the allegedweakness of Polk. 

[Illustration: Annexations of 1845-1853]

At a cost of a few thousand lives and some eighty million dollars, eighthundred thousand square miles of territory had been added to the countryand the long-standing quarrel with Mexico about Texas had been broughtto an end. The Treasury had stood well the heavy strain of war, everybond that had been issued had been readily taken at par and on a lowrate of interest--an unprecedented fact in American history. The hardtimes of the preceding decade seemed to be brought to a conclusion. Noone complained at the tariff, and even the veto of the internalimprovements bill was passing out of the public mind. The South and theWest had carried their program. Polk retired to his home to die a fewmonths later. There had been no appreciable public demand for hisrenomination; and, rather strange to say, both the people and thehistorians consigned him to comparative oblivion. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

G. P. Garrison's _Westward Extension_ (1906), in the _American Nation_series, has given us the best brief general survey of the expansionmovement which closed with the war with Mexico. An exhaustive treatmentof the Texas question is Justin H. Smith's _The Annexation of Texas_(1911), and George L. Rives's _The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848_(1913), is almost as complete for the Mexican War. A good history ofOregon and the Oregon movement has not yet been written; but RobertGreenhow's _History of Oregon_ (1870), H. H. Bancroft's _Oregon_, in hisvoluminous Western history series, and Josiah Royce's _California_, inthe _American Commonwealths_ series, are all valuable. Some specialarticles of importance are: _The Slidell Mission to Mexico_, by L. M. Sears, in _South Atlantic Quarterly_ for 1912; E. G. Bourne's _TheUnited States and Mexico, 1847-48_, in the _American Historical Review_, vol. V, p. 491; and W. E. Dodd's _The West and the War with Mexico_, inthe _Journal_ of the Illinois State Historical Society for 1911. Thesources which some may wish to consult are _The Diary of James K. Polk_, edited by M. M. Quaife and published by the Chicago Historical Society(1910); Lyon G. Tyler's _The Times of the Tylers_, already mentioned;John Quincy Adams's _Memoir_, also frequently cited; _The Correspondenceof John C. Calhoun, The Works of Calhoun_ (1853-55), edited by R. K. Cralle; and the writings of both Clay and Webster as given in the notesto previous chapters. _Niles's Register_, a weekly periodical publishedin Baltimore from 1811 to 1849, is a never-failing resource for thecurrent of public opinion. 

 CHAPTER IX

 THE ABOLITIONISTS

The overthrow of the Democratic party in 1848 was due, not to theruthless exploitation of Mexico nor to dissatisfaction with the neweconomic policy, but to the abiding distrust of the aristocratic Southand its slavery system by the small business men and farmers of theNorth. The greater the success of Polk, the greater the danger to theolder virtues of the Republic, a simple life and faith in the ideals offreedom and equality. As we have seen, the South had given up theseideals, and the tobacco, cotton, and sugar planters governed there withincreasing success and acceptability. 

There had been persistent economic and religious opposition to thegrowth of the plantation system. In the closing years of the eighteenthcentury most people in the South disliked slavery, and in Kentuckymajorities of the voters sustained the first abolition movement ofradical tendencies in the country; but the excitement over the Alien andSedition Laws eclipsed at the critical moment the public interest in theanti-slavery struggle. Other outcroppings of the same hostility toslavery, as already noted, were made evident in the meetings ofPresbyterian and Methodist church conferences between 1815 and 1825 inMaryland, western Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. But all theseefforts failed and the Southern abolitionists, as we have seen, having"fought the good fight, " emigrated to the Northwest about 1830, whenVirginia failed to rid herself of the growing "incubus. " Just as Birneyand Rankin "took up arms" in Ohio there arose a fiercer champion oftheir cause in the East, where distance from the scene, lack of intimateknowledge of "the system, " and a strong popular dislike of the Southgave unwonted strength to the new evangelism. William Lloyd Garrison, son of a Massachusetts sea captain, was in a humor to reform a worldwhich "sat in darkness. " He declared negro slavery the one great evil ofhis generation, and the Federal Constitution, which protected it, "anagreement with Hell. " After some ill-luck and untoward experience inBaltimore, he set up in Boston, in 1831, his famous _Liberator_, inwhich he said he would be heard, and henceforth his paper appeared everyweek until the close of the Civil War. Every scrap of news, true oruntrue, which reflected the cruelty of the slavery system, the lust ofsome brutal master, or the growing power of the Southern States innational politics he repeated and exploited. It was "yellow journalism"in a peculiar sense. But a single weekly paper published in Boston, where the commercial and industrial interests had created an aristocracyalmost as exclusive as that of the South, could hardly be expected toaccomplish a great deal. The other papers of the city would not publishhis "stories, " nor pay any attention to his earnest appeals. 

He made another move upon the intrenched position of the enemy. Between1831 and 1835 he organized abolition societies, whose members took vowsto "fight on and fight ever" till success should be attained. Thesesocieties were naturally numerous in all those sections of New England, the Middle States, and the Northwest where hostility and even hatred tothe masterful South prevailed. Pure idealists, small farmers, villagemerchants, the unsuccessful, and debtors who dreamed of an America ofwhich the Declaration of Independence speaks became abolitionists. Orators were employed, speaking campaigns were arranged, and the sloganwas always immediate and uncompensated abolition of negro slavery. Themore democratic churches were invaded and their preachers were enlisted;or, when these resisted, placarded as unfriendly to mankind. Before 1840not less than fifteen thousand Methodists refused association with otherMethodists who would not declare war on slavery. Nearly all of theselived in western Massachusetts and upper New York. These revolutionistscarried their cause to the Methodist General Conference in New York in1844, and the great Church was broken into two branches: a Northern anda Southern. The Baptists of New England refused the same year to supporta missionary who was also a slaveholder, and immediately the AlabamaBaptists refused to fellowship their Northern brethren. The SouthernBaptist Convention, head of the denomination for all the SouthernStates, was organized the next year at Augusta. The fact, already noted, that both these sundered denominations almost doubled their membershipin the next few years shows the strong sectionalism of the issue. 

Nor did the public men of the North escape the ordeal of ardentabolitionism. William H. Seward, a conservative by nature, became ananti-slavery Whig of national influence in 1843; Joshua R. Giddings, ofthe Western Reserve, and Elijah P. Lovejoy, of Illinois, accepted theagitator's commissions and sought to unite the new idealism with the oldAmericanism. But John Quincy Adams, who had never been a democrat andwho did not sympathize with Garrison, became the arch-leader of theabolitionists in Congress from 1836 to his death in 1848. Smarting underthe ill-treatment of Southern politicians, it was easy for the ableex-President to become the political exponent of the new anti-Southernagitation. In no other country of that time could a movement likeAmerican abolitionism have gained such a hearing. In England theGovernment, that is the people, never dreamed of destroying withoutcompensation the millions of property in the West Indian slaves. ButAmerican abolitionists declared that there could be no property in man, just as the socialists say there can be no property in land. To destroyoutright the property which underlay the Southern political power andthe Southern aristocracy was the aim of Garrison, and he found able men, owners of large estates in the North, who were willing to do what heurged. 

Petitions asking the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbiawere presented to Congress by John Quincy Adams in increasing numbersfrom 1831 to 1836. Southern men denied that the national legislature hadthe power to destroy property protected by the Constitution; Northernmen, especially representatives of the farmer districts, insisted thatthe right of petition was fundamental to the Constitution itself. Therewas a deadlock in Congress, for the South controlled the Senate, whilethe North controlled the House. In this state of things, Southernlegislatures formally denounced the abolition movement as endangeringthe Union, and asked Congress to protect them from the floods ofabolition literature which the United States mails carried intocommunities where negro slaves were in the majority and whereinsurrections were likely to occur. 

In Charleston the people refused to allow the postmaster to deliver theobjectionable mail matter. The subject was carried to President Jacksonin 1835, and he decided that the uneasy masters of South Carolina werejustified in their protest. Calhoun, like Adams in New England, becamethe champion of his section, and devoted the remainder of his life to avain defense of slavery against the "foul slanders" of anti-slaveryagitators. 

In May, 1836, after a fierce struggle in the House, it was decided tolay upon the table without debate all petitions which dealt withslavery. The right of petition was thus formally denied, since a hearingis the one thing prayed for in such documents. John Quincy Adamsdeclared that the rights of his constituents, as guaranteed in theConstitution, were thus abrogated. On the other hand, Calhoun declaredin the Senate, with equal truth, that the constitutional rights of hisconstituents would be jeopardized if the petitions were received anddebated. Great excitement prevailed throughout the country, for thecontending sections were too strong for any easy-going compromise to bepossible. Keen observers then visiting Washington wrote home that thegreat Republic would go to pieces if either side won. 

In the summer of 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered at Alton, Illinois, where he was trying to publish, against the wishes of thepeople, an anti-slavery weekly like Garrison's. And in Boston thefollowing December a young aristocrat, a Harvard graduate and apromising lawyer, arose before a large audience, before whom theAttorney-General of the State had just been defending the Alton peopleagainst attack, and declared that the "earth should have yawned andswallowed up" the author of such treasonable words. It was WendellPhillips, and from that day till the close of the bitter sectionalstruggle, he was the greatest champion of immediate abolition, thefervent orator who was ready to destroy the Union in order to destroyslavery. Four years after Phillips began his public career, FrederickDouglass, escaping from a slave plantation in Maryland, came intocontact with Garrison, who at once commissioned him an orator ofabolition, and the brilliant mulatto soon developed powers that gaverise to jealous heartburnings among the leading agitators. Lewis Tappan, Gerrit Smith, the Misses Grimké, born in South Carolina, and a host ofother enthusiastic democrats and idealists professed the new faith. Contemptuous of Church and State, of union and nationality, theseapostles of the new cause laid the foundations of the great sectionalparty which was later to bear the name Republican, thus appealing tothe memories of Jefferson and his followers of 1800. 

It was this hostility of the sections, always dangerous, but exceedinglyso in 1836, when Texas was asking admission as a slave State, thatcaused so many of the best men of the time to talk freely of thedisruption of the Union. If Texas were annexed, the East would secede;if it were not annexed, the South would secede. Van Buren, the head ofthe Democratic party, and Clay, the master of the Whigs, exerted alltheir influence in 1844 to avoid the expected conflict. But PresidentTyler, without close party affiliations and standing in need of anissue, was ready to take the risk. Radical expansionists, supported bysubstantial economic interests in the South, urged the immediateannexation of Texas, while Adams and twenty-one of his colleagues fromthe restless sections of the North declared that the addition of the newregion to the Union would be equivalent to a dissolution of the tieswhich held the warring sections together;[5] and they published, in May, 1843, a formal address to their constituents calling upon them tosecede. The members of Congress who signed this address represented thedistricts, almost without exception, in which abolition had won afooting. 

[Footnote 5: See chap. _VII_, pp. 126-127. ]

The important question was: Should the East remain passive while theannexation of "another Louisiana" was being consummated and thus allowherself to be submerged. 

Charles Sumner, an ambitious young man, an intellectual kinsman ofWendell Phillips, one of those "transcendentalists" of Massachusetts ofwhom the country was to hear a great deal in the future, answered thisquestion in his famous "grandeur-of-nations" oration of July 4, 1845. The élite of Boston had gathered for the occasion in Tremont Temple, andthey had invited the officers of a warship then lying in the harbor, thelocal military men, and others who took pride in the martial deeds oftheir ancestors, to join in the accustomed celebration of the Fourth. Dressed in gay, super-fashionable attire, the young Sumner poured forthin matchless language a denunciation of war, of military and navalarmaments, of President Polk and the party in power, which drove onehalf of his audience frantic with resentment and anger. "There is no warwhich is honorable, no peace which is dishonorable, " he declared at theoutset, and for two hours he massed his arguments and statistics toprove the thesis. The conservatives of Boston declared that it would bethe last of the young man. But Garrison and Phillips had raised upanother recruit. The oration which had insulted half of those who heardit was published in edition after edition and distributed in the countrydistricts of the North. Sumner was ever after in great demand as aspeaker and anti-Southern agitator. He would not, however, dissolve theUnion to escape slavery; he sought rather to mobilize the forces whichthe abolitionists were stirring to activity. 

[Illustration: Location of Abolition Societies in 1847]

The war with Mexico came, victories were won, and the nationalenthusiasm was running high when President Polk asked Congress inAugust, 1846, to vote him two million dollars in order that he mighthave the means of inducing Mexico to make satisfactory cessions ofterritory. The Western Democrats were smarting under the sting of theveto of their internal improvements bill, and the "people at home" weremuch disappointed at the loss of half of Oregon, "given away, " somesaid, by a President who was only interested in "Southern policies. "[6]Jacob Brinkerhoff, who had had a quarrel with Polk about the patronage, drew a proviso to be added to the appropriation bill, which declaredthat slavery should be forever forbidden throughout the proposedaccessions of territory. Judge Wilmot, a quiet member from Pennsylvania, was induced to offer the amendment. He awoke next day a famous man. 

[Footnote 6: See chap. _VIII_, 152. ]

Northern Whigs who had been compelled by popular sentiment to supportthe Administration in all its war measures seized the opportunity tovote for the proviso; of course the Northwestern Democrats, who weredissatisfied because of other matters, took this chance to pay thePresident for his neglect of them. The abolitionists who were inpolitics became more active, and many orthodox, that is non-voting, followers of Garrison changed their views and thenceforward fought inthe ranks of party organization. It was a critical time for the dominantSouth. Only the conservative Senate saved the President from a secondunpopular veto. A strong popular sentiment supported the provisomovement, and when Congress reassembled in December the determinationof the opposition to prevent the extension of slavery into the newterritory was stronger than ever. The House attached the proviso to theappropriation bill, which came up again, and the Senate a second timedefeated the anti-slavery forces. 

The South was by this time greatly excited, and Virginia, SouthCarolina, and Alabama declared that the passage of the proposedamendment would be resisted to the point of making open war. In the Eastand Northwest, where the abolitionists were numerous, the leaders wereequally resolute in their purpose that slavery should not profit by thewar with Mexico. Horace Greeley, William H. Seward, and Salmon P. Chase, a vigorous anti-slavery leader of Ohio, who now came into nationalprominence, were the most powerful spokesmen of the various elements ofthe opposition, and they were actively laying the foundations of anabolition and sectional party which should ere long outvote the South. 

The candidacy of Zachary Taylor, strongly supported by Thurlow Weed, checked and even defeated the sectional purposes of the radicals. Taylorwas the master of a great plantation in Louisiana, and John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, Ballard Preston, of Virginia, and AlexanderStephens, of Georgia, all good pro-slavery men, rallied at once to thepopular military chieftain. Clay was promptly snubbed and Webster'sclaims were unceremoniously brushed aside. The Whig Convention of 1848met in Philadelphia in May. It was under the control of Weed and hisSouthern allies. Taylor was nominated, and Webster, Clay, and the otherdisgruntled leaders finally gave him their support. Nothing was said ofthe great issue, the spread of slavery over the new accessions; and theparty, as in 1840, went before the country without a platform. Nor wasthe candidate allowed to make speeches or write public letters, whichwas doubtless wise, for Taylor knew little of public questions. It wassaid that he had never voted, and he claimed to belong to no party. TheWhigs took him on his reputation as a soldier and on the recommendationof the great New York "boss. " His candidacy probably saved the partyfrom breaking into two hostile wings. 

When the Democratic Convention assembled in Baltimore in May, 1848, Cassmet with little opposition. His stout imperialism had won him theleadership of the expansionist West and South. The radical pro-slaverymen of the lower South, who feared his former friendliness to the WilmotProviso leaders, had been satisfied, with a few exceptions, by theNicholson letter of December, 1847, in which Cass laid down the doctrinethat the settlers in any new region should be allowed to determine forthemselves whether they would have slaves or not. It was the same ideawhich Douglas made famous in his Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, and whichthe country then dubbed "squatter-sovereignty. " Cass was nominated andthe Nicholson letter was made the platform; all the leaders of the partygave him hearty support, save those who had been humiliated at Baltimorefour years before by the defeat of Van Buren. Van Buren himselfdoubtless remembered that Cass had lent assistance to the astuteSouthern politicians who had compassed his fall. 

It was difficult to say which of the great parties was the weaker, theWhigs with both Webster and Clay sulking, or the Democrats with theshrewd Van Buren awaiting his opportunity to punish his enemies. Theopportunity came in the nomination of Van Buren by the Liberty PartyConvention, which met later in the summer at Syracuse. The Van Burenwing of the New York Democracy approved the Syracuse Convention, and theFree-Soil party began its first and only campaign with the ex-Presidentas its candidate. Van Buren received nearly 300, 000 votes in Novemberand prevented Cass from becoming President. He had avenged himself. TheSouth found her alliance with the Northwest broken, but a Southernslave-owner was to be the next President. 

As so often happens in American history, the election settled nothing, for the victorious Whigs, as in 1840, had no program, and theircandidate had no political record. When the Administration began itswork, it was found expedient to underwrite practically all that the PolkAdministration had accomplished. There was no idea of reopening the bankor financial questions; and the tariff was already so successful that itwould have been plain folly to change it. In the foreign policy of thecountry the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with England dealt with the proposedisthmian canal. By this agreement the two contracting parties promisednot to acquire further interests in Central America, and thus in a waynullified the concessions of Colombia of 1846, under which Polk hadhoped for the building of a canal across Panama. 

The one absorbing question after the inauguration of Taylor was thatwhich both the great parties had side-stepped during the campaign, namely, what should be done with slavery in the Territories. TheSouthern Whigs sought day and night to gain the ear of the President, and the Southern Democrats were not less persistent. Both aimed at thesame thing, the extension of their favorite institution. And now thatthe fight for slavery in Oregon was recognized as lost, this Southernwooing of the new President became the more intense. It was a desperatesituation for the South. The Northwest was rapidly expanding toward thePacific and building up free States which might at any time repudiatetheir allegiance to the South. Now the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgoopened a great hinterland for the South, extending by the easiest passesover the mountains to California. But the abolitionists declared thatthe South should not expand in that direction save at the expense ofslavery. The President's attitude might determine the matter. 

The discovery of gold in amazingly rich deposits in California hastenedthe conflict of the rival sections. During the second half of 1848 andall through 1849 thousands of Southerners, Easterners, and Westernersrushed pell-mell into the new Eldorado, bent on making hasty fortunesand oblivious of the anxious thoughts of statesmen. The motleygold-diggers needed government. They asked Polk to provide it. Hefailed to grant it. Congress could not do so because of the deadlockover slavery. Benton wrote a public letter to the Californians advisingthem to form a government for themselves, and his son-in-law, John C. Frémont, went to the new community to help the cause and perhaps to comeback to Washington as one of their Senators. In 1849, the Californiansformed a State Government, and the new legislature sent theirconstitution and two Senators, one of whom was Frémont, on to Washingtonearly the next year. Admission as a full-fledged State was asked. Theyhad failed to mention slavery in their constitution. 

President Taylor had at last decided to admit to his counsels theanti-slavery leaders of the Whig party, and he filled his Cabinet withmen who would support him as against Clay and Webster. William H. Sewardbecame the confidential adviser to the President and a sort ofAdministration leader of the Senate. Southern Whigs like Stephens, whohad done much to secure for Taylor the Presidency, were withoutinfluence, and they feared that all the anti-slavery elements of theNorth were combining to control the Government. 

While California was shaping her own course and the President was makinghis decision as between the factions of his party, South Carolina andMississippi took the lead in a movement to prevent that or any otherState or Territory from being brought into the Union if slavery were notduly recognized. Whigs and Democrats joined in great mass meetings, which showed conclusively that the lower South was in earnest. Allclasses of the people united in what seemed to be almost the unanimouswish of the South, that the new Southwest should be preserved for theexpansion of slavery. These meetings spread over all the lower SouthernStates, and as a result, a convention was called to meet in Nashville inJune, 1850. The object of this general convention was to present toCongress a Southern ultimatum, and in the event that this should not beheeded, to urge the secession of the slaveholding States. 

In the West the crisis did not seem so acute. But Clay, now seventy-fouryears old, and cured of his ambition to be President, was sent back tothe Senate in the hope of averting the calamity of a disruption of theUnion. Thomas H. Benton, though recently defeated in a campaign forreëlection, was still in the Senate. Cass was again a member of theSenate, and he, too, felt that the Union was about to be dissolved. Douglas and the other younger representatives of the Northwest, who hadsuffered somewhat from the legislation of 1846, ceased to nurse theirgrievances against the party, and deplored the "treason" of theabolitionists who were making all the trouble. There was undoubtedly acrisis which Southern leaders like Davis, Stephens, Yancey, and RobertToombs, another able Georgian who now came into national prominence, took pains to lay to the charge of the radical anti-slavery people ofthe East; that is, to Seward and his followers, who were allowingGarrison and Phillips and the radical abolitionists to drive them intoopen opposition to the South. 

When Clay came back to Washington, Taylor and his Cabinet had takentheir stand, which was to recommend the admission of California as afree State. The Mormons in Deseret and a few Americans and Mexicans inNew Mexico had taken steps toward organizing Territories in the regionbetween Texas and eastern California, and they were to be madeTerritories with or without slavery, as they chose. If all this weredone, the South would secede and the Administration would be in adilemma. Taylor was a stubborn man; he had made up his mind, and he sentto Congress a fatherly message in which his devotion to the Union aboveeverything else was very evident. If the Southerners, who were thenoffering Texas military assistance to make good her claim to a largepart of New Mexico, chose to resist the lawful authority of theAdministration and war came, the fault would be theirs, not his. 

But Henry Clay and Daniel Webster still enjoyed much more of theconfidence of the people of the country, North and South, than thePresident. Nor was Webster less popular because he had been ignored bythe Administration. He was in his place in the Senate. Calhoun was alsothere. It was an exceedingly able Congress, that to which Taylor andSeward must look for support. With scant courtesy to the President, Claytook the lead in the Senate late in January and offered his plan ofcompromising the sectional quarrel. He would make a free State ofCalifornia, allow Utah, as Deseret came to be called, and New Mexico toform Territorial Governments without mention of slavery, pay Texas tenmillion dollars for her claims against New Mexico, abolish the slavetrade in the District of Columbia, and enact a Fugitive Slave Law whichwould satisfy the border Southern States. 

Excitement was too intense for the two parties in the Senate and Houseto accept immediately this comprehensive plan. The President opposed it;the extreme men of the South opposed it. But Clay had not lost his powerto charm, and he was still a good manager, according to the politephraseology of the day. He quietly secured the support of ThomasRitchie, editor of the Democratic organ at Washington, _The Union_; hebroke the hold of Calhoun on Mississippi by winning to his side SenatorHenry S. Foote, a fiery Democrat and foremost advocate of Southernresistance; and within the next three months most of the Southern Whigswho were preparing to take part in the Nashville convention indicatedtheir change of heart. Clay's method, almost exactly parallel to that bywhich Jackson had defeated Calhoun in 1833, was to steal away the heartsof Whigs and Westerners, to whom the Union was still sacred, and leavethe radical South isolated. And in support of his compromise the oldstatesman made most moving appeals during February and March. It was thegreatest moment of his life, he thought, and in this his colleagues werefully agreed. 

But Calhoun and the ardent representatives of the lower South, supportedby nearly all of the spokesmen of Virginia and North Carolina, were theobstacles in the way of a settlement. They demanded a slave State inCalifornia and free access, under the protection of the Union, to allthe new Mexican territory. The extension of the Missouri Compromise lineto the Pacific would have satisfied them. Or failing in this, Calhounasked for an amendment to the Federal Constitution which should create adual presidency in which each section was always to have a veto over thelegislation of Congress. Permanent deadlock was thus proposed as theremedy for the ills of sectional conflict. Resolute as the oldnationalist was, he could not bring himself in these closing days of hislife to pronounce to his party the word "secession. " It was pathetic tosee the disappointed and broken leader of the South as he literally worehis life away trying to defeat Clay, his lifelong antagonist, or toconciliate Webster, for whom he had always entertained a hearty respect. 

Upon Webster and his conservative Eastern support depended the outcome. He had never been a democrat, and as he had grown older, he had come tosympathize more than formerly with the great property interests of theSouth, which were not unlike the industrial interests of the East, forwhich he had broken many a lance. He, too, had been a rival of Claysince 1832, and three times a disappointed candidate for the Whignomination for the Presidency. But both he and Clay had been brushedaside in 1848 by Thurlow Weed and the young William H. Seward withrather scant ceremony. And the abolitionists of New England were asnoisome to him as were the radical secessionists to Henry Clay. CharlesSumner and his friends were already waging incessant war upon him. Hetook his stand on March 7, and he made the day famous. He spoke for theUnion, and the effect of the speech was probably the postponement of theCivil War. Although he was again the follower of Clay, he was henceforth"the Godlike Webster" to Northern conservatives, and the large businessinterests of his section applauded him more heartily than they had everdone before. But the price which he paid for this epoch-making speechwas fearful. The Massachusetts abolitionists groaned at the mention ofhis name, and the poet Whittier pilloried him in the famous lines:--

 "So fallen! So lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forever more! Revile him not--the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall. "

Clay had won. The President, resisting to the last and following thecounsels of Seward, saw the majority of Congress yield slowly toinfluences which favored compromise. Calhoun died early in April, andthough his followers maintained their position resolutely, their Whigallies were deserting them, and the Nashville convention proved a fiascowhen it assembled in June. President Taylor died on the 9th of July, andthe last obstacle to the success of Clay and Webster was removed. Millard Fillmore, the Vice-President, a close friend of Clay, becamePresident; the Cabinet was reorganized, Webster becoming Secretary ofState. One by one during the month of August all the features of the"Omnibus Bill" became law. The great majority of the Southernersindicated their ready acceptance of the compromise as a "finality"; andradicals like Jefferson Davis, Robert Barnwell Rhett, and William L. Yancey retired from public life, either voluntarily or by compulsion ofthe people. The big cities of the East and the Northwest celebrated thepassage of the crisis with the firing of cannon, and everywhere thethanks of the people were expressed to the "great Congress" which hadsaved them from civil war. 

[Illustration: California Election of 1852]

[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1852]

If the logic of events ever pointed to one individual as the properleader of the people or the fit man for the Presidency, it pointed toDaniel Webster in 1852. The Whigs had not all voted for the compromise, but their leaders had been its authors. The party was entitled to claimthe glory for a great performance; and if they claimed it and nominatedtheir candidate upon a platform of "henceforth there shall be peacebetween the sections, " they would undoubtedly win and control theFederal Government for at least two or three presidential terms. 

But with a most remarkable aptitude for blundering, the Whigs in theirconvention of 1852 hesitated in their pronouncement upon the compromise, and refused to nominate Webster. The radical element procured thenomination of General Winfield Scott, a Southern man of anti-slaveryproclivities, and Scott blundered through the campaign, losing votesevery time he made a public statement. Heart-broken, the "GodlikeWebster" died before the day of election. Nor was Clay spared to witnessthe crushing defeat which awaited his beloved party in November. TheWhig newspapers of that autumn appeared in mourning too frequently forthe public mind not to be affected. 

Conservative interests turned to the Democratic party, whose leaderspromptly declared in their convention that the compromise was afinality. They nominated a popular but colorless young New Englander, Franklin Pierce, a colonel under Scott in the war with Mexico, andNathaniel Hawthorne wrote the campaign biography. Pierce said littleduring the months of electioneering. His rôle and that of his party wasnow one of conciliation. If elected he would enforce the laws andmaintain the Union. Every State but four, Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, gave him their electoral votes. The support ofthe Free-Soil Democrats, 156, 000 votes and all in the abolitionistsections, showed that the country was tired of agitation. The prolongedquarrel of the sections seemed definitely closed, and the futurepromised peace and prosperity. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

A. B. Hart's _Slavery and Abolition_ (1906), in _American Nation_series; F. J. And W. P. Garrison's _William Lloyd Garrison: the Story ofhis Life Told by his Children_ (1885-89), and both McMaster and Schoulerin their histories, already mentioned, give all the essential factsabout the abolitionists and the Wilmot Proviso struggle. James FordRhodes's _History of the United States_ (from 1850 to 1877) is a work ofthe greatest importance, and it gives, in vol. _I_, the best account ofthe compromise measures of 1850. The following biographies are valuablefor the period: T. W. Barnes, _Memoir of Thurlow Weed_ (1884); WilliamBirney, _James G. Birney and his Times_ (1890); G. L. Austin, _Life andTimes of Wendell Phillips_ (1887); Henry Cleveland, _Alexander Stephensin Public and Private_ (1866); W. H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909), in _American Crises_ series; A. C. McLaughlin, _Lewis Cass_ (1891), in_American Statesmen_ series. Special for the lower South: Miss CleoHearon, _Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850_ (1914); W. G. Brown, _The Lower South in American History_ (1902); J. W. DuBose, _The Life ofWilliam L. Yancey_; and A. C. Cole, _The Whig Party in the South_(1913), named in a previous note. J. D. Richardson's _Messages andPapers of the Presidents_ (1900), vol. V; H. V. Ames's _State Documentson Federal Relations_ (1907); and the _Congressional Globe_ for the 29thand 30th Congresses give the most important speeches and documentsbearing on the crisis of 1850. 

 CHAPTER X

 PROSPERITY

Partisan opposition to Franklin Pierce had almost disappeared before theday of his inauguration in 1853. Charles Sumner, to be sure, was in theSenate, but he was a silent member, and Massachusetts inclined to followEdward Everett rather than Sumner. William H. Seward still spoke for theanti-slavery Whigs in Congress, and Salmon P. Chase maintained aprecarious hold on Ohio. There was a handful of Free-Soilers in theHouse of Representatives who were ready to make trouble for the newAdministration, and resistance to the enforcement of the Fugitive SlaveLaw now and then broke out in riots in certain neighborhoods of NewEngland and in the Western Reserve. But the opposition was everywheredeclining until Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel, _Uncle Tom'sCabin_, with its exaggerated emphasis upon the cruelties of the slaverysystem, began to stir the consciences of men. Even so there was nosubstantial evidence that any great political upheaval or party changewould occur within the next fifteen or twenty years. The people werecontented with their country, and the growth of the population gaveevidence of a great future. 

When Jackson came to the Presidency there were about 12, 500, 000 peoplein the country; in 1850 the number had grown to 23, 000, 000, and in 1860there were 31, 000, 000. The Census Bureau estimated that the populationof 1900 would be 100, 000, 000 if the growth of the Pierce period wasmaintained. Not only was the normal native increase phenomenal, butforeigners poured into "the land of the free" in unprecedented numbers. In 1850 there were 2, 800, 000 foreign-born people in the United States;in 1860 there were 5, 400, 000, and this tide of immigration was of a veryhigh social and economic character. The German element was large, industrious, and liberty-loving, many of them being refugees from thepolitical persecutions of 1832-33 and 1848-50. The English, Scotch, andIrish composed most of the remainder, and these were already familiarwith the ideals and political habits of the country and thereforereadily assimilable. By far the greater part of this rich contributionto American life fell to the cities of the East and the open country ofthe Northwest, where good land was abundant and available at low prices. 

If we compare the distribution of the population of 1850-60 with that of1830, we shall see how well the sectional balance, on which so muchdepended, was maintained. In 1830, the East[7] had a population of6, 000, 000 in a total of almost 13, 000, 000. This had increased only500, 000 in 1850; but between 1850 and 1860 the increase was nearly2, 000, 000. The South had a population of 6, 000, 000 in 1830; in 1850, 8, 900, 000, and in 1860 this had grown to 11, 400, 000. The Northwest had, however, grown faster than either of the other sections, for herincrease, including California and Oregon, had been from 4, 800, 000 in1850 to 8, 260, 000 in 1860; that is, the growth of the East during thelast decade of _ante-bellum_ history was 21 per cent, that of the South, 28 per cent, and that of the Northwest, 77 per cent. 

[Footnote 7: See chap. _III_ of this volume. ]

Keeping in mind the sectional conditions of 1830 as set forth in thethird chapter of this volume, we shall come to a better understanding ofthe Civil War if the prosperity of the different parts of the Union beclosely analyzed. The people of the United States were poor indeed in1830 as compared with 1850-60. Between 1815 and 1846 the receipts of theFederal Treasury fluctuated violently; but from that date to 1860, except for two years of panic, the Federal Treasury was always full andthere was generally an annual surplus of from $5, 000, 000 to $10, 000, 000. During the Jacksonian era the prices of staple commodities fluctuated asmuch as fifty per cent in single years. Cotton was twenty cents a poundduring all of the twenties; it was as low as seven cents whennullification was the critical issue; but from 1850 to 1860 cotton soldat ten or twelve cents. Corn was in most places twenty-five cents abushel during Jackson's and Van Buren's Administrations; between 1850and 1860 it rose in price steadily and was almost everywhere readilymarketable at fifty cents a bushel. In the era just preceding the warprices were steadily rising, and the demand for American produce, cotton, corn, tobacco, wheat, and sugar, was always greater than thesupply. 

This prosperity was unequally distributed, as always. The East haddeveloped her manufactures beyond all expectation, and the great millbelt stretched from southeastern Maine to New York City, its center ofgravity, thence to Philadelphia and Baltimore, and from these citieswestward to Pittsburg. Another belt ancillary to this began in westernMassachusetts and extended along the Erie Canal to Buffalo, thence toCleveland, Detroit, and Chicago. In these areas, or in the industrialbelt as it may be termed, there lived about 4, 000, 000 mill operatives, whose annual output of wool, iron, and cotton manufactures alone wasworth in 1860 $330, 393, 000 as compared to the $58, 000, 000 of 1830. Perhaps the meaning of these figures may become clearer if we note thatthe total investments in these industries was considerably less than theyearly product. Nor was the East less prosperous in other lines. Hertonnage had increased from a little more than 500, 000 in 1830 to nearly5, 000, 000 in 1860. The freight and passenger ships, built of iron, andencouraged by liberal subsidies from the Federal Government, employed12, 000 sailors and paid their owners $70, 000, 000 a year. They carriedthe manufactures of the East to the Southern plantations, to SouthAmerica, and to the Far East. This great fleet of commercial vessels wasowned almost exclusively in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, and its owners were at the end of the decade about to wrest from GreatBritain her monopoly of the carrying trade of the world. 

[Illustration: The Industrial Belt of 1860]

In spite of the efforts of President Jackson and of the purposes of thesub-treasury system, the concentration of capital in the Eastern townsand cities continued. Only New York, instead of Philadelphia, was thenew center. The merchants of that city imported three fourths of theEuropean goods consumed in the country, and they in turn exported nearlyall of the great crops with which the balance of trade was maintained. New York was also a distributing center for the manufactures of the Eastwhich were sent to the South, the West, or the outside world. Thus theexchanges of all the sections were made there, and before 1860 itsbanks, with a capital of $130, 000, 000 and specie reserves of only$20, 000, 000, did a business of $7, 000, 000, 000 a year. And while New Yorkbecame the American London, the whole of the East was likewise securingthe lion's share of the banking profits of the country. Although theassessed wealth of the section counted only one fourth of the total$16, 000, 000, 000 for the country in 1860, the East had nearly two thirdsof the banking capital; and the money in circulation there was $16. 5_per capita_ as against $6. 6 for the country as a whole. [8] Industry, commerce, shipping, and banking concentrated in the narrow area of lessthan 200, 000 square miles, earned yearly returns equal as a rule to thetotal of the capital invested. Money changed hands rapidly, credits didthe work of capital, and the rapid growth of population added largeunearned increments to the fortunes of those who owned land or hadestablished themselves in trade. 

[Footnote 8: This comparison is based on the Census Reports for 1860. Itdoes not vary materially from the estimates given for 1860 in ExecutiveDocuments of the Senate, no. 38, 52d Cong. , 2d Sess. ]

[Illustration: Railroads in Operation 1850]

[Illustration: Railroads in Operation 1860]

Naturally this concentration of industry and the economic resources ofthe country in the East led to the rapid extension of railways into theWest and South. The New York Central, the Erie, the Pennsylvania, andthe Baltimore and Ohio systems had already been founded, and they madeconnections in 1850-53 with the canals and railways of the Middle West. The Illinois Central, which connected the lower South with Chicago, wasaffiliated by means of interlocking directorates with the New YorkCentral before 1856. John M. Forbes, the Boston capitalist, waspresident of the Michigan Central during the decade, and laying thefoundations of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. Commodore Vanderbiltwas organizing his steamboat and railroad properties and expanding thearea of his activities till it reached, before 1860, the rich grain beltof the West, the cotton lands of the South, the Far Eastern trade _via_his Panama Railroad and Pacific steamers, and the great markets ofEurope. During the decade under consideration the capitalists of theEast built 4000 miles of railway east of Pittsburg, 7500 miles in theNorthwest, and 5000 miles in the South. But the work was not all done atthe expense of the capitalists. The Federal Government donated20, 000, 000 acres of the most valuable lands in the country to thecompanies which built the roads; States, counties, and towns in the Westand South voted many millions for the same purpose; and Europeancapitalists loaned $450, 000, 000 secured by first mortgage bonds on thevast properties. 

Thus the industrial belt of the East was reaching out toward Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans and beyond for a commerce that was alreadyricher than the gold mines of California; and New York, Boston, Philadelphia, the canal towns, and Pittsburg were becoming centers ofwealth and economic power which attracted the attention of the world. Great merchants, like the Lawrences of Boston and the Astors of NewYork, became the objects of emulation everywhere, and they in turn setthe fashion of giving liberally of their means to the cause of educationor the founding of hospitals, which has been a distinctive feature ofthe social history of the last thirty years. 

[Illustration: The Black Belt of 1860]

The planters, on the other hand, had spread their system over the lowerSouth in a remarkable manner since 1830. From eastern Virginia theirpatriarchal establishments had been pushed westward and southwestwarduntil in 1860 the black belt reached to the Rio Grande. Tobacco, cotton, and sugar were still their great staples, and the annual returns fromthese were not less than $300, 000, 000; while the growth of their outputbetween 1850 and 1860 was more than one hundred per cent. The number ofslaves who worked the plantations had increased between 1830 and 1860from 2, 000, 000 to nearly 4, 000, 000 souls, thus suggesting the comparisonwith the workers in the mills of the East. The exports of the black beltcomposed more than two thirds of the total exports of the country; butthey were largely billed through Eastern ports, and most of the importsof the South came through New York, where a second toll was taken fromthe products of the plantation. 

But the ratio of annual returns to the total investments was very unlikethat of the East. In the South the assessed value of real estate andpersonal property, including slaves, in 1860 was $5, 370, 000, 000, whilethe returns for the best years were somewhat over $300, 000, 000: that is, their investment was $1, 000, 000, 000 greater than that of the East andtheir income not more than a third as great. Perhaps the bankingstatistics of the planter section will enable us to get a better view oftheir dependence upon the East. The South had in 1860 a banking capitalof $89, 131, 000, a bank-note circulation of $68, 344, 000, and money ondeposit, $56, 342, 000. Thus an annual return of $300, 000, 000 broughtdeposits of only $56, 000, 000; and the _per capita_ circulation was only$10. New York City alone had twice as much money on deposit as all theSouthern States, though the personal property valuation of the wholeState of New York, with a population four times as great, was only$320, 000, 000 as against $240, 000, 000 for Virginia. 

Although the system of agriculture in the South had not greatly improvedsince 1830, the annual crops sold for about four times as much as theyhad brought when Jackson was President. In spite of the "red gullies"and the waste lands, the owners of plantations were the wealthy men ofthe time. The Hairstons of Virginia and the Aikens of South Carolinawere counted as the peers of the Astors of New York. But a Southern manworth $4, 000, 000 or $5, 000, 000 would not receive an annual income ofmore than $100, 000 unless he happened to be in the midst of a new cottonregion. Still the hold of the planters on the state and countygovernments of the South was, as we have seen in a former chapter, evenmore secure than it had been in 1830, and Southern public opinion wasalmost always the opinion of the planters. Yet there was greatuneasiness in the South as to the future, and public officials, railwaymagnates, and newspaper men gathered in annual conventions to deviseways and means of increasing the power of the South and of competingwith the East in the race for economic supremacy. 

[Illustration: The Cotton Belt of 1860]

[Illustration: Tobacco Areas in 1860]

These conventions discussed scientific agriculture, the proper size of aplantation, and the duties of "Christian masters to their servants";they outlined plans for connecting Southern ports with the Northwest, for opening a direct trade with Europe, and for annexing territory whichmight increase the area of the staple producing States. They supportedNarciso Lopez and John A. Quitman in their filibustering expeditionsagainst Cuba, and they heralded William Walker, who sought to makeNicaragua an American slave State in 1854-59, as a statesman and "man ofdestiny. " The reopening of the African slave trade was the subject oflong and earnest debate, and Southern delegations in Congress were urgedto exert themselves to secure a repeal of the law against the slavetrade in order that the South might have some means of increasing itslaboring population to counterbalance the advantages which the East andNorthwest derived from immigration. A paramount purpose of thesegatherings was to solidify the South and to harmonize the interests ofthe border States with those of the lower South. In the background ofall this, and especially after the struggle over the Kansas-NebraskaBill in 1854, there was the ever-recurring probability of secession fromthe Union. 

What added to the anxieties of Southern leaders was the extraordinarygrowth and expansion of the Northwest. In 1830 it had been the East thatmost feared the development of the Mississippi Valley; now it was theSouth that took pains to hedge and limit the opportunities of the newerStates. And there was reason for the masterful politicians of the cottoncountry to watch the Northwestern frontier. Michigan had become a Statein 1837, Iowa and Wisconsin in 1846, and Minnesota was to enter theUnion in 1858. There were four Territories, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington, that might be admitted at any time. California wasgrowing powerful, and she was already lost to slavery if not to theSouth. And a free State was likely to be formed in Colorado. Seventhriving Northwestern States and five promising Territories gave everyassurance that the seat of political influence was about to be shiftedto the upper Mississippi Valley. Moreover, the economic changes thatwere taking place in that region were such as might have alarmedconservative men both South and East. 

The removal of the Indians from Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois hadparalleled the similar removal from the lower South. But during thefifties, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota succeeded in pushing the nativesinto the arid Nebraska Territory. And now as the great "American Desert"proved to be desirable country for the pioneers, it was proposed toshift the Northwestern Indians into the Southern hinterland, now knownas Oklahoma, and thus to bar the way of the planter civilization to NewMexico and California. 

An equally important factor in the development of the Northwest was theinvention and manufacture of grain-planting and harvesting machinery byCyrus McCormick and others about 1845. This enabled the farmers toincrease their operations very much as the Whitney gin had done for thecotton farmers of 1800. Still the transportation of wheat and corn is sodifficult that no great revolution would have been possible but for thesimultaneous building of thousands of miles of railways which openedto grain production the vast prairie lands remote from the rivers. Themanufacture of farm implements and the building of railroads made theNorthwest a staple-producing area of greater importance than the Southhad been, though this was recognized by only a few men before thebeginning of the Civil War. 

[Illustration: Wheat Areas in 1860]

The value of the wheat and corn crops of the Northwest increased from$80, 000, 000 in 1850 to $225, 000, 000 in 1860. In addition to this theNorthwest produced pork in great quantities for the cotton plantations, and fresh meats for the industrial cities of the East. The railways, ofwhich mention has already been made, thus brought the isolated farmersof the Western interior into close contact with the markets of theworld, and the Northwest was fast becoming the food-producing region ofthe country and at the same time exporting grain worth at least$50, 000, 000 a year. In New York, Pennsylvania, and other Eastern Statesthe corn and wheat output steadily declined between 1850 and 1860, whilethe up-country of the South failed to produce the foodstuffs needed bythe planters. Thus the manufacturing and the older staple-producingStates came to rely on the Northwest for a large part of theirprovisions. 

Western farmers were now well-to-do. They deserted their log cabins andbuilt frame houses; they bought large quantities of the finer goods ofthe East. Pianos made in Germany and silks from France found their wayto Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Villages became towns and towns grewrapidly into cities. Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Chicagoimitated the ways and manners of Boston and New York. It was a busy, ambitious life that animated the West and produced industrial leaderslike Cyrus McCormick, William B. Ogden, and John Y. Scammon, andpoliticians like Stephen A. Douglas, Salmon P. Chase, and the Dodges ofIowa and Wisconsin. 

But in this busy region with its self-sufficing agriculture, the actualsurplus capital, as in the South, found its way to Eastern cities. Witha population of nearly 8, 000, 000 and foreign exports of more than$50, 000, 000, the Northwest still had only $10, 425, 000 on deposit in herbanks and $27, 000, 000 invested in banking enterprises. Her _per capita_circulation was only $4. Here as in the South the amount of specie inthe banks was twice as great in proportion to population and the volumeof business transacted as in the East. The debts of the Northwest to theEast and to Europe cannot well be estimated, but they were enormous. States, counties, and corporations owed hundreds of millions, and whenthe interest on these obligations was paid at the end of each year, theremaining net increase was small indeed. The West had been badly in debtduring the Jackson period; it was still in debt. 

While the growing Northwest owed more to the rest of the world than itwas likely to pay in half a century, its leaders saw that it mustcontinue to expand its area and improve its economic life. Undoubtedlythe one leader who best understood the needs of his region was StephenA. Douglas, Senator from Illinois and perpetual candidate for theoffice of President of the United States. Young, active, and ardentlypatriotic, Douglas had been among the first to see during the PolkPresidency that the old Western policy of internal improvements andfreer lands for all who might come must be changed. The West, even theNorthwest, was firmly attached to the Democratic party; but the centerof that great organization was the South. The leaders of that sectionlooked more and more to free trade as a national policy. If theysucceeded, as there was every reason to expect they would succeed, therewould be no more easy money for the building of canals and roadways. Moreover, the South was now jealous of the expanding Northwest, and herleaders were growing more hostile toward the idea of free lands for theNorthwestern settlers. 

Douglas and his friends in both houses of Congress worked out a newpolicy during the years 1845 to 1850. It was to induce the FederalGovernment to give large tracts of public land to the NorthwesternStates on condition that they be given again by the States to railroadcorporations as aids to the building of new lines. The roads would selltheir lands at good prices, the Government would sell its remaininglands at high prices after the building of the roads, and the farmerswould cheerfully pay these higher prices if markets for wheat and corncould be created. The leaders of the lower South were interested in thisnew American system, for there was government land in their States andthey needed railroads quite as much as the Northwesterners. Capitalistsof the East and Europe would be enlisted because the great tracts ofrich land would be security for money they might lend at high rates tothe roads. Finally, the increasing armies of immigrants gave assurancethat the railroad lands could be sold easily. 

The outcome was the building of the Illinois Central, the Mobile andOhio, and other shorter lines in each of the Western and NorthwesternStates during the decade of 1850-60. The railroad lands sold as high as$8 or $10 an acre, and the government lands advanced in valueaccordingly, though the Federal Treasury did not profit to the fullextent of these promises. The growth and expansion of the Northwestdescribed above was due largely to this policy of Douglas. Chicagobankers loaned all the money they had and borrowed all they could borrowfor the building of railroads. The thriving young city, always the petof Senator Douglas, increased its business in marvelous manner duringthe decade. It soon distanced St. Louis in the race for wealth andpopulation, and before 1854 conceived of the scheme of building a greatrailway, long ago proposed by Asa Whitney, of Michigan, to the Pacific. This road was to connect with the Illinois Central in Iowa, thread itsway through the Indian lands in Nebraska, and finally bring SanFrancisco and the Far East into touch with the commercial center of theMiddle West. It was a magnificent undertaking, not unlike that of theErie Canal, which had made New York the Emporium of the East; it waseven more daring for a section already in debt to the limit of itsability to pay. But these ambitious Northwestern men and politicianshad already won the support of the railway men of New York and Boston, and their agents still borrowed money with ease in London and Liverpool. And with States like Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa doubling theirpopulation each decade, and hence increasing their land values three orfourfold, even the impossible became possible. The most ambitioussection of the Union during the Pierce Administration was the Northwest, and it need not surprise us to learn that Douglas, her mouthpiece, wasthe most ambitious leader of his party. 

As compared with all former standards, the country of 1850-60 wasexceedingly prosperous. A series of good crop years, the low tariff ofthe United States, and the free-trade policy of England stimulated theunprecedented commercial activity. The financial system was more stablethan it had ever been before, and the inter-sectional trade was assumingproportions never dreamed of in the earlier days of the Republic. Themanufactures of the East, which approximated $800, 000, 000 in value eachyear, were sold to the South in exchange for bills on Liverpool orLondon, or to the West in return for its grain and other foodstuffs. Thebanks and railroads brought all sections closer together, especially theEast and the West; while the expanding merchant marine promised soon togive the United States the mastery of international commerce. 

Thus the East had learned to prosper without a high tariff, and theSouth was voting for large subsidies to Eastern shipping. The West hadfound a way to develop her resources in spite of Southern and Easternjealousy, and the laws of commerce were daily weakening the influence ofstate rights and sectional dislike. A new era had begun. Big businessinterests and great railway schemes had developed the corporation in itsmodern connotation; large harvests and a most enterprising industry wereproducing the capital for a new economic era; and all the socialtendencies seemed to be working out a national life which was no longerparochial. It was the business of politics so to guide and regulate thevarying activities of the people that sectional hatreds should pass awayand that the resources of the country should not be squandered. Such wasthe task of Franklin Pierce, the new leader, who had not knownpersonally the fears and dislikes of earlier days. But a country so richand prosperous as the United States in 1850-60 had other interests, asocial and intellectual life which must engage our attention before wetake up the political evolution of the period. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

James Ford Rhodes's _History of the United Slates_, vols. _I_ and _II_, already mentioned, remains the best treatment of the period of 1850-60. T. C. Smith's _Parties and Slavery_, in _American Nation_ series (1906), and McMaster's _History of the United States_, vol. _VIII_, are veryvaluable. T. P. Kettell's _Southern Wealth and Northern Profits_ (NewYork, 1860), is a suggestive study in sectionalism not too well known toscholars. But the _Census Reports_ of 1850 and 1860; J. E. B. DeBow's_Industrial Resources of the South and West_ (1857); and U. S. Senate_Executive Documents_, no. 38, part 1, 52d Cong. , 1st Sess. , supply theneedful statistics on population, crops, manufactures, and finance. Freeman Hunt's _Lives of American Merchants_, 2 vols. (New York, 1858), gives some interesting information about leading _ante-bellum_ merchantsand manufacturers. And the volumes of _Hunt's Merchant's Magazine_, 1839-60, _DeBow's Review_, 1846-60, and the _American Banker's Magazine_for the same period are storehouses of the economic history of the time, K. Coman's _Industrial History of the United States_ (1910); E. L. Bogart's _The Economic History of the United States_ (1908); and HoraceWhite's _Money and Banking Illustrated by American History_ (1911), arethe best special works in their several lines. 

 CHAPTER XI

 AMERICAN CULTURE

Four fifths of the people of the United States of 1860 lived in thecountry, and it is perhaps fair to say that half of these dwelt in loghouses of one or two rooms. Comforts such as most of us enjoy daily wereas good as unknown. Even in the cities baths were exceedingly rare, while in the country the very decencies of life were neglected. Mosquitoes, flies, and other germ-harboring pests were regarded withequanimity, screens and disinfectants being used only in the best ofhospitals. Malaria, typhoid, and other diseases claimed a large tollupon life each year. Physicians were less numerous than now and theirart was only in its infancy. Trained nurses were just coming into theirpresent rôle. Men regarded sickness as a visitation of Providence, andwhen the yellow fever epidemics seized the lower Southern cities, thelosses and suffering were such as the present generation cannotappreciate. 

Improvements in the matter of dress since 1830 were evident, but for theworkaday world shirtsleeves, heavy brogan boots and shoes, and roughwool hats were, of course, the rule. Salt bacon and "greens, " with cornbread and thin coffee, composed the common diet, though milk and butterrelieved the monotonous fare for the farmers. "Hog-killing time" wasalways a happy season, for fresh meats were then abundant. Only in thelarger towns did the people have fresh meats throughout the year. Anexplanation of the enthusiasm of _ante-bellum_ people for politicalspeaking is found in the fact that barbecues either preceded or followedthe oratory; and to a man who had lived for months on fat bacon and cornbread a fresh roast pig was a delight which would enable him to endurelong hours of poor speaking. But in the cities and towns there was, ofcourse, a better life. Frame houses, two stories high, painted white andadorned with green window blinds, were everywhere in good form, exceptwhere men were able to build brick or stone mansions or maintain theestablishments of wealthy ancestors. In the South it was still thecustom to guard the entrances to great plantation houses with chiseledlions or crouching greyhounds; in the East more attention was paid toflowers and shrubbery. Wealthy families of the East sometimes maintainedmore than one house servant, but the greater number counted themselveseminently respectable with cook, maid, and house girl all in one, andthe pay was one or two dollars a week. Liveries and silver platepersisted mainly in the very exclusive circles of Philadelphia and NewYork, in Washington, and on the great plantations. 

Factory hands and common laborers worked twelve hours a day undercircumstances and conditions hardly better than those of 1830, for laborunions had only begun their agitation, and foreign immigrants werealways ready to accept work without asking any questions. One or twoStates had passed laws regulating hours of labor; but none had thoughtof the cost to the race of hard toil and long hours for women andchildren, and most men regarded the builder of a mill as a publicbenefactor because he furnished employment to just this element of thepopulation. A man who had steady work on a farm was paid from ten tofifteen dollars a month with board; a day-laborer received a dollar aday without perquisites. Skilled laborers were paid two dollars a day inthe South and slightly less in the East. The industrial belt continuedto draw upon the country districts of the East, which, with thecontinued migration to the West, greatly impoverished the rural life andresulted in many abandoned farms. In the city housing conditions of thepoor were worse if anything than they had been thirty years before. Crowded tenements, filthy streets, flies, and vermin abounded. Under theEnglish common law accidents in the mills were matters of concern onlyto the employees, and the human toll of the railways was enormous. Yearsof toil, a worn-out frame, a dependent old age, and finally the potter'sfield was the weary round of life to the millions of dependent peoplewho swarmed about the industrial centers. 

Under the pressure of outside criticism and the influence of religion, the lot of the slave was mending, though there was room enough forimprovement. From sun to sun was always the plantation day, and theweekly ration was a peck of meal and four pounds of meat--salted "sidemeat" packed in Cincinnati or Chicago. Each negro family had asingle-room cabin, where man, wife, and a dozen children were tuckedaway in the loft or slept on the floor, though there was usually a bedfor the parents. There was, however, always plenty of fresh air, a bigopen fireplace, and generally shade trees about the negro quarters, which conditions probably account for the lower mortality rate in theSouth than in the East. Of clothing the slave had only what wasabsolutely necessary, children being limited to a single garment whichreached slightly below the knees. Against accidents and disease moreprecautions were taken by masters of plantations than by masters ofmills, for the life of a negro man or child-bearing woman was equal totwelve hundred dollars. Heavy ditching in malarial swamps was thereforedone by Irishmen, whose lives were less important to the planter. Physicians were promptly called for the slaves, and women in labor weregenerally cared for, because a negro baby was worth one hundred dollars. 

If there was some public concern for the slaves in the fields and somebeginnings of legislation on the conditions of employment in theindustrial States, there was no thought for the isolated, lean, heavy-fisted farmer of the Southern up-country or the Western prairies. Land was still cheap, crops were increasing in bulk and value everyyear. Nor did the farmer desire the attentions of society, provided thenew railroads were laid through his districts and rates were not tooexorbitant. He worked hard for a few months, then rested till harvesttime, after which he hunted and fished. During the long cold winters ofthe Northwest he sat in his chimney corner or tended his cattle. Fewthought of fertilizing their land; terracing against rains and floodswas almost unknown, and for most farmers plowing was done up and downthe hills, which only hastened the washing-away process socharacteristic of the Southern agriculture. Very few farmers thought itworth while to rotate their crops when fresh lands were to be had at afew dollars an acre. The area of the United States seemed limitless, andhardly a tenth of its arable land had ever been brought undercultivation. The inventions of 1840-50 enabled the Western farmer togrow larger crops, and harvest time was not so burdensome; corn-shellersand grain-fans shortened the hours of labor for the men. Sewing-machinesand the revolving churns from the factories gave some relief to thewomen, whose round of labor, milking, cooking, cleaning, washing, andattending children, was still almost ceaseless. Even the picnics andbarbecues offered little to them, for they must still prepare the greatbaskets of food and serve their lords and masters while they deliberatedon "bleeding Kansas, " new railroad schemes, or negro slavery. 

Whether the lot of the landless and the less talented had improved sincethe day of Jackson would be hard to determine. If it was easier topurchase land, or if there was an actual increase in wages, the numberof the poorer class of Americans had increased both actually andrelatively, and thus competition operated to prevent improved housingand a better country life. Still the life of the great majority in theUnited States was less grinding than that of Europeans of the sameclass, and the opportunity for a poor man to rise in the social andeconomic scale was distinctly better. That is what made America theMecca of so many thousands during the decade of 1850-60. Yet illiteracyand dependency, causes and results of poverty, were almost appalling. Georgia had a population of 43, 684 white illiterates, to say nothing ofthe 500, 000 blacks; Massachusetts had 46, 262; Indiana, 60, 943;Pennsylvania, 72, 156, and North Carolina, 68, 128. There were 101 personsin the jails of Georgia on June 1, 1860; Virginia had 189;Massachusetts, 1161, and Illinois, 485. In the open life of the Southand West, where men could easily get to the land, there was little crimeand jails were often empty; in the industrial belt the prisons werealways occupied. In like manner and for the same reasons Southern andWestern hospitals for the insane and homes for the poor often showedvery small percentages of these unfortunates. Perhaps the unrelievedpoverty of the industrial workers and the stress of uncertainty in thematter of employment made the differences. Certainly the weight of theold English common law system, adopted in all the States, bore hardly onthe dependent classes of the East; and the courts were not loath to sendundefended men to prison. In the South the worker was punished by hismaster on the plantation for all the minor offenses, and it was onlyfree negroes and the poorer whites who were the subjects of the ordinarysocial discipline and punishment. 

The abounding wealth and strenuous zest of American life were creatingjust those gradations in society and distinctions of caste against whichconstitutions and laws inveighed. On the broad basis of African slaverythe enterprising Southerner had built and was now perfecting a socialclass hardly inferior to the aristocracies of Europe. Soft hands andexclusive manners were there as elsewhere in the world the evidences ofa gentle life; sturdy personal independence and rough ways, here as inEngland, were the marks of middle-class training, through which recruitsto the privileged order had generally come. Openly and on all properoccasions the Southerners announced the break-down of democracy and thebenefits of a cultured élite; the few thousand "first families, " wholived upon the incomes of plantations, spent their winters in NewOrleans, their springs in Charleston, and their summers at the Virginiasprings. Among these, tutors were engaged to train children, and everyman had his valet, every lady her maid. Travel in Europe, sojourns atNewport and Saratoga, and acquaintance with the best hotels ofPhiladelphia and New York were common to this group of most attractivepeople. When Congress was in session, they dominated the social life ofthe capital, gave elaborate balls, and brought effective pressure tobear upon aspiring Eastern and Western public leaders. Douglas hadmarried a beautiful North Carolina heiress, the wife of Jefferson Daviswas the granddaughter of a governor of New Jersey, and even William H. Seward was strongly influenced by the graces of his planter friends. Senators, representatives, and judges of the federal courts ownedestates in the lower South which yielded incomes ofttimes greater thantheir official salaries. The very flower and beauty of the land wereSouthern gentlemen like Robert E. Lee and Wade Hampton, or ladies likethe sprightly Mrs. Chestnut or the genial Mrs. Pryor. 

Nor did the commercial and industrial life of the East fail to produce asimilar fruit. If the Eastern gentleman were less dependent on his valetand less averse to work with his hands, he was nevertheless a gentleman, and the chasm between him and the toiler in the mills was difficult tobridge. There was nowhere in the United States a more exclusive societythan that in which the Danas and the Winthrops of Boston moved. And theNew England élite were never so happy as when they could run off toEngland and frequent the dinners and receptions of the Britisharistocracy; both the manners and the ideals of the Eastern upper classresembled strikingly those of the "best people" of Old England. It wasall in striking contrast to the ideals of the Puritans of old times, butit was natural. In New England, as in the South, democracy was floutedand a privileged position greatly prized. The old American "equality"was only skin deep, as any one would have recognized if he had attemptedfamiliarities with either the Eastern or the Southern social leaders. The difference was that the one group lived in cities when they were athome, and the other in the country. 

Nor was this American social life scorned by European noblemen. CharlesSumner was always welcome in the greatest houses of London, and theSlidells and the Masons of the South received no less flatteringattentions from their European economic and social kinsmen. One ofBismarck's most intimate friends was John L. Motley, and the friendshiphad been contracted long before Motley had won fame as a historian. American heiresses had already found suitors among the British nobility. The kinship of Eastern social life with that of Europe was recognized, and the relations of the well-to-do at the North with the wealthy of theSouth were many and intimate. Thus in America as elsewhere talent, birth, and money produced social strata, and before 1860 thedistinctions of class were only less sharply drawn here than in theolder countries of the world. 

But, next to the very necessaries of life, religion was the mostimportant subject to Americans of 1860. The Puritan spirit, while losingsome of its hold in New England, had captured the people of the rest ofthe country. Except as to the Catholics and the Episcopalians, allAmericans were born, or thought themselves born, utterly depraved andweighted down with the sin of Adam and Eve, their "first parents, " fromwhich burden the only way of escape was through prayer and agony ofsoul. Even this prospect was denied to many, for some influentialreligious teachers urged that God could not hear the supplications ofsinners. These must await the call of Heaven, and if this failed, theywere bound for the "lake of fire, " whence there was no return. Theintelligent and well-informed spoke with all seriousness of "gettingreligion, " and in the vast country districts the most suitable seasonfor this was the hot July and August days. Revivals among nearly all theleading denominations were held at this time in the churches or underwidespread arbors made from the branches of trees. The preaching and thesinging were not unlike that which brought the Germans of the eighthcentury to the Roman communion. The other worlds were just two: one thecity of the golden gates and pearly streets, the other the bottomlesspit of liquid fire into which Satan would surely plunge all who failedto make their peace with God in this life. The old Puritan linesformerly learned by every child--

 "God's vengeance feeds the flame With piles of wood and brimstone flood, That none can quench the same"--

represented to most people of the decade just preceding the Civil Warall they said. Both old men and young children dreamed of the awfulretribution which awaited them in the other world. 

And there was a fiery zeal in the work of saving men's souls from thewrath to come which showed that it was no figurative faith which movedthe preachers and their co-workers. A song sung by all ran in one of itsfavorite stanzas:--

 "Must I be carried to the skies On flow'ry beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize And sailed through bloody seas?"

Excitement naturally overcame many, and they rushed forward to themourner's benches in front of the altar and cried out for mercy, orsilently prayed for days and weeks till the light "broke upon them" andthey went forth shouting for joy. These then became exhorters, and movedamong their friends in the congregation, begging them to yield their"proud and haughty spirits" ere it should be too late. At times scoresof penitents would be on their knees in the spaces about the altar, others would be "laboring" with the sinners not yet stricken, and stillothers thanking God in loud voices for their delivery from sin andSatan, whom all regarded as an active demon always seeking whom he mightdestroy. 

In the South the deism which had influenced the generation led byWashington and Jefferson had given way to the stern faith of theCalvinists, for whether one were Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, orCampbellite, the essentials of his religion were the same. Wealthyplanters, small farmers, and negro slaves sought the salvation of theirsouls in the same churches and under the same preachers. In fact it wascommon for men to be told by their pastors that unless they were willingto sit down in heaven by the side of the "poor slave" they could not besaved, and the slave often begged his master to accept the terms ofsalvation. A few great planters who were not touched by the religiousfervor of the time held aloof, and the poorer whites and the slaves cameto accept the view that these were the rich men who could not be saved, and commonly said hell was their unavoidable portion. 

In the East, save in the Unitarian and Episcopalian churches, there wasthe same religious realism. In the great revivals of 1857 earnest menand great congregations prayed aloud that God might convert theheretical Theodore Parker, or that, if he were not a subject of grace, as many believed he was not, he might be taken from this world, where hewas doing infinite mischief. Of course he was to be consignedimmediately to the "fiery furnace below. " And the greatest of Americanpreachers, Henry Ward Beecher, in the same revival, gathered about himthe hard-headed business men of New York City and together they prayedthat wicked playwrights and worldly-minded theater-goers might bebrought to a realizing sense of the shame of their conduct, and that thehouses of their frivolous vice might be converted into temples ofChristian worship. Again, those who would not heed the solemn warningsof the pulpit were "given up, " and the Heavenly Father was asked toremove them "hence. "

The influence of this sense of the awfulness of the after life to thosewho might not be saved was far-reaching. The farmer, driven by the hardnecessity of making a living for himself and family to remain away fromchurch, meditated sorrowfully as he followed his plow, and often at theend of his furrow fell upon his knees and besought the Creator to savehis undying soul and spare him the everlasting torture of the damned. Apopular little gift book, published by the American Tract Society of NewYork, was entitled _Passing Over Jordan_, and on an early page we findthe following typical lines:--

 "My thoughts on awful subjects roll, Damnation and the dead: What horrors seize my guilty soul Upon a dying bed. "

And a young woman who received this as a New Year's present was aperfectly normal girl of Cincinnati and the daughter of a prominentfamily there. 

What was happening in the United States during the thirty years we arestudying was the saving of the people from the rough and often coarseand sensual life of the frontier. Under conditions such as have beendescribed the influence and power of the preacher in young America wereextraordinary. And the clergy deserved the authority they exercised. Never before the war was a Methodist bishop even charged with immoralconduct. The standards of the Baptists and Presbyterians were equallyhigh. The preachers who called men to repentance were beyond question ofthe highest character. Earnest, sincere, overwhelmed with the sense oftheir responsibility, they "preached the Word with power, " and the Wordwas the Bible which all believed implicitly from cover to cover. It wasnot clear to preacher or congregation how God spoke to man first in theHebrew of the Old Testament, then in the Greek of the New Testament, andfinally in the Authorized Version of James I. But it mattered not; theBible was inspired by the Heavenly Father, for it was so stated inRevelation, and a curse was held up for him who denied its truth or somuch as removed one syllable or added a line. It was the authority ofthe Bible as preached by Martin Luther and John Calvin, and theinterpreters of the Sacred Book were the clergy, not the Pope or somedistant sacerdotal see. 

Just how many people were members of the churches it would be verydifficult accurately to determine. The Methodists of the South numberednearly a million in 1860, those of the North were equally strong. TheBaptists, North, South, and West, were nearly as numerous. ThePresbyterians, Congregationalists, and Christians (Campbellites) hadeach some hundreds of thousands of members. All the churches, includingCatholics, offered seating accommodations for about 20, 000, 000 of the31, 000, 000 people of the country; which is a large proportion. And fromthe census returns, it seems that church accommodations were always bestand most plentiful in the older communities, the East having almost asmany pews as there were people. The South could seat 6, 500, 000worshipers, --that is, a little more than half of the population; theNorthwest was able to accommodate only about 4, 000, 000. 

With Protestant churches so powerful and their ministers so influential, it is only natural that the religious teachings of the time should havetold in politics and the sectional struggle. The Southerners believedalmost implicitly in the claim of their great Presbyterian preacher, B. M. Palmer, when he declared in 1860: "In this great struggle, we defendthe cause of God and religion; it is our solemn duty to ourselves, toour slaves, to the world, and to Almighty God to preserve and transmitour existing system of domestic servitude, with the right, unchallengedby man, to go and root itself wherever Providence and Nature may carryit. " Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, and all other important bodies ofChristians in the South held and taught the same doctrine. In theNorthwest there was some hesitation about going so far, but the majorityundoubtedly believed with Dr. Nathan L. Rice, of Chicago, that slaverywas divinely established and not to be disturbed by man. In the Eastsome of the Unitarians taught abolition and supported Garrison andPhillips; more of the Congregationalists were of the same mind. But inBoston, New York, and Philadelphia the greater clergy had come to regretthe former tendency to denounce slavery, and they were inclined topreach the doctrine that Providence had established slavery and that itshould be left to Providence to remove it in due time. Only in the ruraldistricts of the East, where the old New England spirit stillflourished, was slavery declared to be "the awful curse. " And here itwas that the old sectional hatred was strongest. The churches and theclergy with all their influence had thus given up the problem ofslavery, and their counsel and advice were to maintain the Union and toput down all sectional conflict. Nationalism with the South dominant wasthe meaning of this; nor do the election returns of 1852 and 1856 make adifferent showing. 

Where religious influences were so potent, it was natural that theclergy should exert themselves for the education of the young. YaleCollege was a "school of the prophets" which sent out to the West theyoung preachers and teachers so much needed if Congregationalism was tohold its own in that region. Princeton was Presbyterian headquarters forboth West and South, and few institutions have ever exerted a greatercivilizing force in a new nation than that school of sternest theology. Dr. Charles Hodge was there a tower of orthodox and conservativestrength which could be seen from afar. In numerous other institutionsthe Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Friends, and Campbellitestrained their ministers and urged upon all the importance of education. At the University of Virginia there were chaplains maintained by thedifferent denominations for the religious instruction of the students. The Methodists of Michigan regularly appointed a professor to the stateuniversity for the same purpose. Other state universities, like those ofIndiana and North Carolina, were brought under practical denominationalcontrol through the zealous activity of Presbyterian presidents. 

The education of the little children was, however, too much for the mostzealous of religious organizations. Jefferson had set in motioninfluences which had greatly strengthened the cause of popular educationin the South and West. But nowhere did the States prepare fully for thework. In the Northwest the public school lands were wasted bythoughtless or venal politicians, and in the older South the label, "school for the children of the poor, " went far to defeat all effortsmade by legislatures on behalf of good public school systems. In theperiod of 1840-50 Horace Mann revived the New England interest ineducation and laid the foundations for the school systems of to-day. Even so ardent a Southerner as William L. Yancey, of Alabama, became adisciple of the New England reformer, and tried to do a similar work inhis State. In Indiana, Illinois, and the other Western Stateseducational reforms followed. There were in consequence about 5, 000, 000children in school in the year 1860. Of these the South had 796, 000, theNorthwest, exclusive of California, 2, 005, 196, and the East, 2, 011, 826;which shows that Southern public opinion had not yet been aroused tothe importance of the subject. But the figures for illiteracy, alreadygiven, do not show a worse condition among the whites of the South thanis shown in the Northwestern States. 

If the returns for college education be taken, the balance among thesections is fairly reëstablished. There were 25, 882 college students inthe South in 1860, and this does not take into account the large numberof Southern students in Eastern institutions like Princeton and Harvard. There were at the same time 16, 959 college students in the Northwest, and 10, 449 in the East. 

Between education and the attainments of science and invention there issome connection, though genius often defies all conventional methods ofinstruction. In addition to the epoch-making inventions of McCormick andhis competitors, Samuel F. B. Morse had perfected his electrictelegraph, which was in operation in most of the countries of Europebefore 1860. Richard M. Hoe revolutionized newspaper publishing in thelate forties by his rotary printing-press, which put out thousands ofcopies of a paper in an hour. Nor was Elias Howe's sewing-machine anyless of a wonder when it came into use about 1850. Draper and Morse'snew photography, Thurber's typewriter, Woodruff's sleeping-car, and manyother marvelous contrivances of the same period showed the fertility ofthe American inventive genius. 

In scientific research the United States could not present so manyevidences of her success, though in 1860 Alexander Dallas Bache, thehead of the Coast Survey, was counted one of the leading scientists ofhis time, and Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-American naturalist, was teachingnow in Charleston, now in the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard, andbeginning the great work, _Contributions to the Natural History of theUnited States_, which his son, Alexander, was to complete. Joseph Henry, the first head of the Smithsonian Institution, was equally well known, and he and Professor Bache were the backbones of the American NationalAcademy of Science, just beginning its beneficent work. Silliman, ofYale, and Mitchell, of the University of North Carolina, were thebest-known geologists. 

Nor was art degenerating in this period of great prosperity. HiramPowers, of Cincinnati, the ablest sculptor of his country, was greatlyhurt because Congress refused him the contract for the decorative workon the magnificent Capitol in Washington, at last nearing completion. His aspirations were not unreasonable, for his Greek Slave, a beautifulwork in marble, had captured the imagination of both American andforeign critics in 1851. Still, Thomas Crawford, his successfulcompetitor, was a sculptor of real gifts, as one may see in his statuesof Jefferson and Patrick Henry in Richmond. The work of Allston, Sully, and De Veaux, the painters, was being improved upon by Chester Harding, Eastman Johnson, and William Morris Hunt, all influenced, however, byTurner of England, the Düsseldorf (Germany) and Barbizon (France)schools. There were now many wealthy business men in the country, andthus artists had a fair chance of a livelihood while their ideals andtechnique were developing. In Boston, New York, and Philadelphia werethe beginnings of the museums which were a few years later to becomeschools of art of no mean importance. 

But the flower of American culture was its literature. To be sureEdgar Allan Poe, whose _Raven_ and short stories were ere long togive him the first rank among all American men of letters, had beensuffered to starve in the midst of New York's millions in 1849, and Hawthorne found it very difficult to find the means of a meagerlivelihood in Massachusetts. If the _Raven_ and the _Scarlet Letter_were born unwelcome, Ralph Waldo Emerson was making a living asauthor and sage of his generation, and there were others of theTranscendentalists--Thoreau, the woodland poet, Margaret Fuller, thewoman knight-errant, recently drowned at sea, and Amos BronsonAlcott--whose writings appeared in standard editions and who lived bytheir pens. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a professor at Harvard till1854, though savagely criticized by Poe and Margaret Fuller, had won theAmerican heart in his _Village Blacksmith_ and _Evangeline_. He scoredhis greatest triumph in _Miles Standish_ in 1858. And another Harvardprofessor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, was just coming into a nationalreputation in 1860 by his _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ and othersimilar writings. 

A more radical poet was John Greenleaf Whittier, contributor to the_National Era_, a radical anti-slavery journal which first gavepublicity to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Whittier's _Ichabod_, which appeared in 1850, and is already quoted inthese pages, gave its author a devoted following among the radicals andhastened Webster to his grave. Mrs. Stowe's work was perhaps the mostinfluential book ever written by an American, though it hardly ranks asliterature. Of a similarly intense nature was James Russell Lowell, whose _Biglow Papers_ of 1846 to 1857 unmercifully lampooned the partywhich waged the war on Mexico and ridiculed the leaders of the South andWest. Succeeding Longfellow at Harvard, Lowell helped to establish in1857 the _Atlantic Monthly_, which still remains the best of Americanmagazines. 

There was nowhere else in the country such a school of literary men asthis of New England, though in Charleston William Gilmore Simms wasstill publishing historical novels, espousing the cause of Southernliterature in _Russell's Magazine_, and stimulating the ambitions ofyoung men. One of his pupils, Henry Timrod, whose _At Magnolia Cemetery_is likely to prove immortal, was worthy to be compared with Poe; andanother, Paul Hamilton Hayne, certainly deserved a higher rank and abetter fortune than either of these struggling poets has been accorded. But perhaps the most original writings of the time were those of acertain group of obscure men in Georgia and the lower South. A. B. Longstreet, the author of _Georgia Scenes_, William Tappan Thompson, of_Major Jones's Courtship_, and Joseph B. Baldwin, of _Flush Times inAlabama and Mississippi_, struck a rich vein of ludicrous humor whichMark Twain worked out after the war. 

In Richmond the _Southern Literary Messenger_ was still theclearing-house for Southern writers, and _De Bow's Review_ was eminentin the field of social and economic studies. New York City had, however, become the Mecca of the men who had manuscripts to submit. There theHarper Brothers published their _Harper's Magazine_, which went to150, 000 subscribers, we are told, each month, and the _KnickerbockerMagazine_, distinguished by the contributions of Washington Irving, theNestor of American writers, tried to keep pace. Both the Harpers and thePutnams did an enormous business in books of all kinds, now that so manyAmericans had grown rich. Walter Scott's novels were imported for theSouth in carload lots, while Dickens's numberless volumes found readysale in the East, thus showing the different tastes of the sections. 

And the historians had increased their vogue with a people justbeginning to realize that they had ancestors and taking a becoming pridein their early history. Bancroft's _History of the United States_ wassold in all sections in a way that would astound present-day historians. Richard Hildreth, a sturdy partisan, added his six volumes to Bancroft'sin 1849-54 by way of antidote; and George Tucker, of the University ofVirginia, still further "corrected" the history of his country, thebetter to suit the tastes of Southerners. John L. Motley published his_Rise of the Dutch Republic_ in 1856 at his own expense, and suddenlyfound himself one of the foremost historians of his time, his work beingquickly translated into all the important languages of Europe. WilliamH. Prescott, an older man and a greater historian, already well knownfor his _Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_, gave to the printer his_Reign of Philip II_ in 1855-58, and easily maintained his supremacy inthe field of history. 

It was an aspiring generation that produced Poe, Hawthorne, Lowell, andthe rest, and if one considers the character of American culture, itslack of unity, and the still youthful nature of its people, it is easyto understand the pride in its budding art and maturer literature, thesensitiveness to foreign criticism, the provincialism which demandsattention and a "place in the sun. " Carlyle's scorn and Macaulay'scontempt were indeed as irritating as they were unjust, for America hadgone a long way since the rough backwoodsman, Andrew Jackson, came tothe Presidency by almost unanimous consent in 1829. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

James Ford Rhodes in his _History of the United States_, vol. _I_, chap. _IV_, gives an account of social conditions in the South just prior tothe war and, in vol. _III_, chap. _XII_, there is a similar picture ofconditions in the North. McMaster's last volume describes the life ofthe people for this period. But I have found most valuable informationin works of travel like F. L. Olmsted's _A Journey in the Seaboard SlaveStates_ (1856) and _A Journey Through the Back Country_ (1863), W. H. Russell's _My Diary North and South_ (1863), Sir Charles Lyell's _ASecond Visit to the United States_ (1849), Peter Cartwright's_Autobiography_ (1856), and James Dixon's _Personal Narrative_ (1849);and in John Weiss's _Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker_ (1864);Beecher and Scoville's _Biography of Henry Ward Beecher_ (1888); W. E. Hatcher's _Life of J. B. Jeter_ (1887); T. C. Johnson's _The Life andLetters of Benjamin Morgan Palmer_ (1906); and the valuable _AmericanChurch History_ series (1893-97). On American sculpture Lorado Taft's_American Sculpture_ (1903), and Charles H. Caffin's _American Mastersof Sculpture_ (1903), are useful and discriminating. Caffin has alsowritten _The Story of American Painting_ (1907), which is perhaps thebest short account of the subject. For a good view of the literary andpublishing interests of 1860, W. P. Trent's _A History of AmericanLiterature_ (1903) is most valuable, and W. B. Cairns's _A History ofAmerican Literature_ (1912) is likewise important. George H. Putnam's_George Palmer Putnam: A Memoir_ (1912) and J. H. Harper's _The House ofHarper_ (1912) give important information about the rise of thepublishing houses. Of course _De Bow's Review_, _Resources of the Southand West_, and the _Reports of the Census_ for 1850 and 1860 areindispensable. 

 CHAPTER XII

 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS

If the two preceding chapters have shown that the larger social andeconomic interests tended strongly toward the elimination of sectionalhostility, political conditions and party vows gave even strongerassurances that there should be no more conflicts like those of 1833 and1850. Yet there was one section of the country which was a sort of stormcenter, the Northwest. There a wide expanse of rich lands held byIndians, a rapidly increasing population, and great annual harvests ofwheat and corn, selling at high prices, created a condition not unlikethat of the lower South when Jackson became President. Removal of theIndians from the fertile areas of the Nebraska country, the creation ofnew Territories, and the building of railroads connecting the wheat andcorn areas with Chicago and the Eastern markets were the demands of theNorthwest in 1853, and a really great party leader would have seen theproblem and his duty. 

But Pierce was not a great leader. In the make-up of his Cabinet hechose William L. Marcy, of New York, for Secretary of State, JamesCampbell, of Pennsylvania, for Postmaster-General, and Caleb Cushing, ofMassachusetts, for Attorney-General, all of whom were close politicalallies of the South. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, became Secretaryof War, and James C. Dobbin, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy. Both of these were extreme pro-slavery men. From the West, JamesGuthrie, of Kentucky, and Robert McClelland, of Michigan, were takeninto the President's Council, the one to be Secretary of the Treasuryand the other the head of the Department of the Interior. AlthoughDouglas had been the strongest candidate for the nomination for thePresidency before the recent Democratic Convention, neither he nor anyof his friends was selected. Nor did it seem wise to those who were thenshaping the destinies of the country to conciliate the still powerfulanti-slavery element of the East. 

Looking backwards the new Administration found three lines of procedureopen to it, all suggested by President Polk in his later messages toCongress. One of these was the closer attachment of California to therest of the country, another was the purchase of Cuba as a makeweight tothe growing Northwest, and the third was the rapid expansion of Americancommerce by federal subsidies to shipping and the opening of newchannels of trade. 

To carry into effect the first of these, James Gadsden, an able railroadpresident of South Carolina, was sent to Mexico to purchase a largestrip of land lying along the southern border of New Mexico and thusmake easy the building of a national railway from Memphis to SanFrancisco, for the lowest passes over the Rocky Mountains were in thisregion. Gadsden returned in the autumn successful. For $10, 000, 000 hehad secured 50, 000 square miles of territory, and the way was open forthe Government to lay its plans for the greatest undertaking everproposed by the most latitudinarian politicians. Davis, hitherto anextreme States-rights leader and disciple of Calhoun, worked out theprogram. The constitutional authority for building a Pacific railroadwas deduced from the "war powers" of the Federal Government, and, thoughit was not definitely stated that the road should pass through therecent annexation, it was commonly understood that such was the purposeof the President and that the lower South was to be the economic andsocial beneficiary of the great improvement. Arkansas, Texas, andCalifornia were willing and anxious to build the parts of the road thatpassed through their territory. With the exception of a group ofGulf-city representatives and some of the up-country Democrats of theolder South, the leaders of the party approved the plan, and Pierce madethe Pacific railroad the burden of his first annual message to Congress. Congress voted the money for the preliminary survey of five routes tothe Pacific, and confided the work to Jefferson Davis, the recognizedleader of the Administration. The people of the country, long familiarwith the arguments of Asa Whitney and others in favor of such anundertaking, made no objection, though men of political foresight sawthe far-reaching purposes of the scheme. 

To effect the second object of the Democratic program, the purchase ofCuba, Pierre Soulé, of Louisiana, was sent to Spain. Soulé was one ofthe most ardent of Southern expansionists, and his mission was notrelished at Madrid any more than it was approved by conservativeEastern Democrats. In support of the new Spanish Minister, John Y. Mason, of Virginia, and James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, both formermembers of the Polk Cabinet, were sent as Ministers to France andEngland respectively. Soulé made little progress till the Black Warrior, an American coasting vessel, was seized in 1854 by the Spanishauthorities in Havana and searched in the expectation of findingevidence that the people of the United States were still assisting theCuban insurrectionists. No proof was discovered, and the people of thecountry, especially those of the South, were greatly excited; for a timeit seemed that war would ensue. Davis and Soulé pressed the case uponthe President, at the risk of war and perhaps in the hope that war wouldfollow and that thus Cuba, so long coveted, would fall into the lap ofthe United States. But Marcy, though ambitious of annexing Cuba, washard pressed by Eastern public opinion, and he persuaded Pierce torecall his hasty minister. This was not done, however, until the threeministers concerned had met at Ostend in the autumn of 1855 andpublished to the world the manifesto which declared it to be the purposeof their Government not to allow any other European country to getpossession of Cuba, and which further stated that the United States wasalways ready to pay a fair price for the island. A more moderate mansucceeded Soulé, but the subject was pressed at Madrid with increasingpersistence during the remainder of that and the next Administration. 

The third item of the Democratic policy, the expansion of Americancommerce, was furthered by a continuation of the subsidies to steamshipcompanies like the Collins line, which put upon the ocean many vesselsof the best and largest build. Even more was planned in offering RobertJ. Walker the mission to China, and the appointment of Townsend Harris, a wealthy New York merchant, as consul to Ningpo, Japan. Walkerdeclined, but Harris accepted, and within two years, with the assistanceof Commodore Perry, he succeeded in opening the hermit kingdom to thecivilization and commerce of the United States. It was the beginning ofmodern Japan, and it marked a new stage in the development of Americantrade in the Orient. In all these measures Pierce met with someopposition in the East, particularly in the rough handling of the Cubanquestion; and there was much dislike of the Southern filibusteringagainst Lower California and, especially at the close of theAdministration, against Nicaragua, which was seized by William Walker, the Tennessee imperialist already mentioned, and proclaimed in 1856 aslave State. But the opposition was rather to the spirit and tone ofthings, and the very plain subserviency of the President to Southernwishes, than against expansion as such. The real resistance to Piercecame on another matter and in the most unexpected way, in the struggleover the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. 

The stone rejected of the builders really became the head of the corner, for in spite of all that the Pierce Administration could do, the problemof the Northwest, which Douglas personified, became the bone ofcontention between the sections, and again, as in 1850, the South, theEast, and the Northwest struggled for supremacy. When the Davis plansfor a southern Pacific railroad were maturing, Senator Douglas, the headof the Senate Committee on Territories, was preparing to renew hissix-year fight for the opening of the wide Nebraska hinterland of hissection. The squatters of the Kansas and the Platte River Valleys werealready confronted with hostile Indians who protested against theunlawful seizure of their lands. And now that wheat and corn werebecoming great staple crops, the Northwestern pioneers were loudlydemanding that the natives should not be permitted to cumber the ground. They must move on to the arid desert beyond or be carried into theSouthern country, which Davis, as we have seen, was trying to open toSouthern pioneers. It was a real conflict of interest between the lowerSouth and the Northwest, and in order to win, the Northwesternpoliticians must find allies in the East as Clay had done in 1825-36, though Douglas as an "old-line" Democrat could not so readily see this. 

He resorted to management and _finesse_. He found two delegates fromNebraska in Washington in December, 1853, one from what was soon to beKansas, the other from the pioneers of Nebraska. It was natural, therefore, for him to change his Nebraska bill of the former sessionsinto a bill for the creation of two Territories, with the two rivaldelegates as their prospective spokesmen in Congress. Besides, Douglas, who was a consummate politician, would have two more loyal followers andtwo other embryo States in his wing of the Democratic party. 

[Illustration: Conflicting Sectional Interests, 1850-1860]

Hence Douglas prepared for the removal of the Indians, for the creationof two Territories instead of one, and he enlisted in his cause theSenators and Representatives of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, by showing them that their own schemes for the granting of public landsto assist in the building of railroads would be furthered by theirvoting for the opening of Nebraska. Every economic and politicalinstinct of the people of the Northwest tended to enlist them in thecause of Douglas and Nebraska. And it was known to most of the Chicagopublic and big business men that a Pacific railroad was to be laid fromCouncil Bluffs, a point already in railroad connection with Chicago, toSan Francisco, in the event of the rapid development of the Platte Rivercountry. But St. Louis and Missouri leaders would oppose this becausethey had been fighting since 1848 to get a railway to the Pacificdirectly from Kansas City. 

There was, however, a vigorous pro-slavery party in Missouri, led byDavid Atchison. This party had overthrown Benton, and their firstpurpose was the making of Kansas a slave State. It was the western halfof Missouri which now controlled the State, and the commercial elementof St. Louis, to which the Pacific railroad was so attractive, was inthe minority. Douglas won Atchison and western Missouri to his plans byholding out to them that their contention, as old as Missouri itself, that the Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, might be granted byCongress. When this was fully appreciated, Kentucky and Tennesseeleaders became interested. Southern newspapers took up the discussionand Douglas immediately became a statesman. Even Jefferson Davis was ledto commit himself to the new Kansas-Nebraska Bill when the anti-slaverymen of the East began to attack it. And on Sunday, January 22, Piercepromised Douglas the official support of the Administration. 

The bill now provided for two Territories west of the Missouri River, for the formal repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and for the adoptionof the old Cass doctrine of popular sovereignty, whereby the settlers inthe new communities were to determine for themselves whether they wouldhave slaves or not. If any dispute arose as to this a test was to bemade of the question in the United States courts. This looked like asurrender of a large part of the public domain to the South, and therepeal of the semi-sacred Compromise was perhaps the boldest propositionthat had ever been offered in Congress. Still the great purpose was thedevelopment of the Northwest, and wise public men might have seen thatthe populous free States of the Northwest would inevitably win and makethe 400, 000 square miles of Nebraska free territory; and if the railroadbills which Douglas supported and tied to his main measure by all kindsof promises passed, the supremacy of the Northwest would be certain. 

But the weakness of popular government is the fact that public men areseldom strong enough to deny themselves the opportunity of an appeal tothe people on a side issue, if such appeal promises political victory. The day that Douglas introduced his bill, there appeared in the NewYork papers, _The Appeal of the Independent Democrats_, signed bySenators Chase and Sumner and the Free-Soil members of the House. It wasan able protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and adenunciation of the "unscrupulous politician" who made this surrender ofnational and free States rights in order to secure for himself thecoveted Presidency. The essential purpose of the Douglas legislation, the rapid upbuilding of the Northwest and the blocking of the Davisplans for a Pacific railroad, were entirely overlooked. A wave ofexcitement swept over the East and the New England colonies of theNorthwest. Petitions poured into Congress, meetings were held todenounce Douglas as a second Benedict Arnold, and he was burned ineffigy by thousands who never took the trouble to read theKansas-Nebraska Bill or seriously contemplated its effects. In CongressChase, Sumner, Seward, and even moderates like Edward Everett denouncedthe ambitious politician from Illinois who had dared to "sell thebirthright of the free States for a mess of pottage. " It was a revivalof the sectional hatred, as well as of the fears of the aggressiveplanters who had enticed Douglas to go one step farther than he hadintended. 

Though the South had begun to fear the consequences of popularsovereignty and to see that Douglas was only making the more certain thepower of his group of States, its spokesmen felt compelled to supporthim in a fight against abolitionists and anti-slavery agitators. Alexander Stephens, an able Whig leader of Georgia, and most othermembers of that party in the South, gave Douglas hearty support. Thestruggle developed into a fight between the East and the South. A greatmany of the followers of Douglas were won away from the original programwhen it seemed a mere question of slavery extension, and the Democratsof the Northwest divided sharply. After four months of angry debate andunprecedented log-rolling the bill became law, and the Presidentpromptly organized Kansas and Nebraska as Territories. Members ofCongress went home after the adjournment to face their constituents, anda most exciting campaign followed. In Wisconsin and Michigan a new partywas organized. Its appeal was to the fundamental American doctrines thatall men are equal and that no great interests should rule the country. It received immediate support in the two States mentioned, and in allthe counties of the Northwest where the New England influence waspredominant, in northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Naturally theremnants of the old party organizations, the Whigs and the Free-Soilers, lent enthusiastic support. 

Chase and Sumner had called into being a new idealist movementresembling that which had overwhelmed the Federalists in 1800, and agroup of new leaders, soon to become famous, emerged. In addition to thewell-known names already mentioned, there now appeared the kindly, shrewd Abraham Lincoln, of Kentucky and Illinois; J. W. Grimes arose inIowa to threaten a Democratic machine which had never known defeat;Zachary Chandler, of Michigan, was making ready the stroke which was tounhorse the great and popular Cass; and Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, joined Chase and Giddings, thus making up the trio which was to rulethat State for years to come. The young and vigorous Republican party ofthe Northwest, guided by this company of ambitious "new" politicians, readily effected the union of East and Northwest which Adams and Clayhad long striven in vain to perfect. The work of Chase, Seward, Lincoln, and Sumner of these years paralleled that of Calhoun, Jackson, andBenton in 1828; and as a result the Democrats lost their hold on thelegislatures of nearly all the States above the Ohio and the MissouriRivers, and their overwhelming majority in the Federal House ofRepresentatives disappeared as if overnight. 

While the new Republican party, almost wholly sectional in its originand perhaps in its purposes, was winning leadership in the country, themore conservative Whigs of the East sought to affiliate with a smallorganization of nativists who called themselves Americans and whoseslogan was "America for Americans. " Foreigners should be barred fromcitizenship and Catholics should be ostracized. In the South mostfollowers of Clay and in the East many admirers of Webster avoided acomplete surrender to the Democrats by stopping in this halfway house. The "Know-Nothings, " as the party was called in derision of theirfailure to answer questions about their platform, gained so manyfollowers from the dissatisfied elements of the older parties that in1855 it seemed likely they would sweep the country. In Virginia theymade their most spectacular campaign. Henry A. Wise, a Whig who hadgone into the Democratic party with Stephens, was their greatestopponent, and in the gubernatorial campaign of 1855 he completelydiscomfited them; in Georgia they likewise lost their contest. The Southwas accepting the Democratic leadership and becoming solid, as Calhounhad prayed that it might become. In the East, Seward and Weed persuadedmost of the Whigs to unite with the Republicans, and when the firstnational convention of the Americans met in 1856, it was clear that itsleaders could not hold the Southern and Eastern wings together on theslavery question. The anti-slavery Americans bolted, and the remnantwhich remained nominated ex-President Fillmore, who in the succeedingelection received a majority in only one State, Maryland, though hispopular vote was nearly a million. The parties of the future wereplainly the Democratic, Southern, pro-slavery, and well organized, andthe Republican, Northern, we may now say, anti-slavery, and also wellorganized. 

Meanwhile the frontiersmen from Iowa and Missouri were trying to workout the principle of popular sovereignty in Kansas, and their Governor, Andrew Reeder, was doing what he could to assist them. Anti-slavery aidsocieties in the East sent resolute men to Kansas to vote and save theTerritory from slavery, and pro-slavery lodges in Missouri went acrossthe border to vote against and perhaps to shoot Free-State men whodisputed the right of the South to plant and to maintain slavery there. Under these circumstances the first election for members of theterritorial legislature was a farce. Yet Reeder felt obliged to let thenew assembly go on with its work of making easy the immigration ofmasters with their "property"; when he went East a little later he tookoccasion to protest in a public address against the intrusion ofMissouri voters. He was regretfully removed from office, though hereturned to Kansas to coöperate with Charles Robinson, a Californian ofpolitical experience, in the organization of the Free-State party, whichrefused to recognize the territorial legislature and which met involuntary convention at Topeka in the autumn of 1855 and drew a stateconstitution. In this document slavery was outlawed. Following theexample of California, representatives of the new government asked forprompt admission to the Union. 

The Southerners had never recognized California as properly within theUnion, and the pro-Southern party in Kansas made open war upon theTopeka party in December. Lawrence, the anti-slavery headquarters, wasbesieged, but the new governor managed to compromise so as to preventbloodshed, and the two governments of Kansas continued to exist. TheFederal Congress was compelled to decide which of the questionablegovernments should be recognized as lawful. Since the Senate wasDemocratic and pro-Southern, and the House Republican and pro-Northern, a decision was impossible. The Topeka constitution was supported by theHouse, and even the fair and reasonable bill of the Senate offered byToombs in 1856 was rejected. This called for a submission of bothparties in Kansas to an election safeguarded against unlawfulinterference from any source. It seemed that Seward, Chase, and theirfriends did not desire a settlement before the election. And Sumner'sspeech on the "Crime of Kansas" was a challenge to war. He comparedDouglas to "the noisome squat and nameless animal whose tongue switcheda perpetual stench, " and Senator Butler, of South Carolina, a leader ofthe highest character, was a man who could not open his mouth but tolie. 

The war of the sections was now renewed in the most bitter form, as wasshown when Preston Brooks, a kinsman of Butler, assaulted Sumner a dayor two after the speech, resigned his seat in the House asRepresentative from South Carolina, and was immediately reëlected. Sumner retired from the Senate, a hero in all New England, andMassachusetts ostentatiously refused to fill the vacant seat during thenext three years, thus constantly reminding her people of Sumner'svituperation and the South Carolina assault. 

When the Democrats met in their national convention in Cincinnati inJune, the struggle in Kansas still went on, and the excitement of theSumner-Brooks affair had not subsided. All elements of the South wererepresented, and the American party showed no signs of being able tocarry a single Southern State. The convention accepted Douglas's popularsovereignty as its platform, but nominated Buchanan as its candidate. Hewas "available" because he had been out of the country for four yearsand had said nothing on the Kansas quarrel. John C. Breckinridge, ofKentucky, was nominated for the Vice-Presidency in the hope of winningTennessee and Kentucky, which had not voted for a Democratic candidatesince Jackson. 

The Republicans used the "Crime of Kansas" as politicians always usesuch opportunities, and they made an appeal to the Revolutionarytradition by calling their convention on the anniversary of the battleof Bunker Hill, June 17. They had not a _bona fide_ delegation from anySouthern State. But the Declaration of Independence, overlooked by bothparties for many years, was made a part of the platform. The Pacificrailway was indorsed and internal improvements at federal expense wereagain recommended to the country. John C. Frémont, son-in-law of Bentonand an explorer of national fame, was nominated for the Presidency. Thecampaign had already been waging since the introduction of theKansas-Nebraska Bill. It now became intense. Douglas gave Buchanan hisloyal support, and the great Southern planters united with New Yorkmerchants and New England conservatives to make the Democratic ticketsuccessful. Even Edward Everett and Rufus Choate made publicannouncement of their conversion to Democracy. Large sums of money weresent to Pennsylvania to influence the vote. Southern governors in aconference at Raleigh proposed secession if the Democrats failed, andEastern radicals urged the break-up of the Union if the slave powercontinued in control. 

The result was a victory for the conservatives, or "reactionaries, " aswe should perhaps say. The solid South voted for Buchanan; andPennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California were found in the samecolumn. Frémont received the support of a solid East and all theNorthwest except the States just mentioned. The fear of radicalism andthe distrust of men of great wealth everywhere had defeated the youngRepublicans; the returns showed that the Democrats had polled 200, 000more votes than in 1852, and there was no reason to believe that the874, 000 which had been cast for Fillmore would not in the end be givento the conservative Democrats in preference to the sectionalRepublicans. There was no chance for the enthusiastic followers ofSeward and Chase unless the majority party could be broken intofactions, and this a wise and able Democratic leadership would avoid. 

Strangely Buchanan formed his Cabinet without consulting Douglas, so faras can now be ascertained. No friend of his was appointed to highoffice, yet the support of the Northwest was the one condition ofcontinued success. In the foreign policy the new Administration made nochange. A part of northern Mexico and all of Cuba were still covetedand, till the outbreak of the Civil War, efforts were made to obtainboth. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, was the master spirit of the Cabinet, andJefferson Davis was the Administration leader in the Senate. 

The Supreme Court, composed of seven pro-Southern members as against twoanti-slavery men, undertook to give a _coup de grace_ to the quarrelabout slavery in the Territories. The Missouri Compromise had never beenpassed upon by the court. Now a case came before the august tribunalwhich gave opportunity for the judges to say whether slavery could beprohibited by federal authority in the public domain. Dred Scott, aslave belonging to a Missouri master, had been carried into Minnesotaand there held in bondage. He sued for his freedom on the ground thatslavery was unlawful in free territory, under the Compromise. The casewas before the court nearly a year before the judges gave out theiropinion that Scott was not a citizen of the United States, and that, therefore, he could not sue in the federal courts. The case wasdismissed. But the judges granted a rehearing of the case, and in March, 1857, hoping to assist the country to a peaceful solution of the slaveryproblem, gave out a so-called _dictum_, which it had been the custom ofthe court occasionally to submit to the public. [9] In this document thejudges said that the negro was property, and that as such the FederalGovernment must protect it in the Territories. This was the Calhoundoctrine, and the South rejoiced immoderately; the Republicans now beganto realize that the courts were in alliance with the slave-power, andthey were forced to attack the most sacred political institution in thecountry. 

[Footnote 9: Chief Justice Marshall had set the example for this in hisMarbury _vs. _ Madison _dictum_. ]

Both parties turned to Kansas to see what could be won there. During thespring of 1856, when Sumner and Brooks were manifesting the spirit ofthe members of Congress, the Southern and Northern groups in Kansascarried their warfare to similar extremes. Lawrence was destroyed by thepro-slavery men; the anti-slavery men returned the stroke in themassacres on Pottawatomie Creek. John Brown, a fanatical New Englandemigrant, imagined himself to be commissioned of Heaven to kill all thepro-slavery people who fell into his hands, and he did a bloody workwhich under other conditions would have been counted as murder anddenounced everywhere. But in the autumn of 1856 wealthy and benevolentmen in the North applauded him, gave him money, and held meetings in hishonor. 

Into a Kansas frenzied with the work of Brown on the one side and thatof the "border ruffians, " as the Missourians were called, on the other, the President sent Robert J. Walker as governor, commissioned to solvethe insoluble problem. So great was the faith of the country in Walkerthat he was hailed as the next President of the United States byfair-minded men and important newspapers. Walker called an election fora constitutional convention. Again the Missourians participated, and theLecompton constitution was the result. The Free-State men refused torecognize the convention unless the new constitution should be submittedto a fair vote. This the convention refused to do, and the governorappealed to the President to compel submission. This was denied, andWalker resigned. The Lecompton, pro-slavery constitution of Kansas wassubmitted to the first Congress of Buchanan in December, 1857, and theAdministration urged its adoption. Walker openly condemned Buchanan fordeserting him, and he declared the Lecompton constitution to be a fraud. Yet the leaders of the South, resentful and angry, supported it, and themajority of the Senate was on the same side. The judges of the SupremeCourt were known to favor it. The Republicans urged the adoption of theTopeka constitution of 1855, and the majority of the people seemed to beof the same view. What was the way out of the dangerous _impasse_?

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Most interesting and trustworthy accounts of subjects discussed in thechapter are: T. C. Smith's _Parties and Slavery_, in _American Nation_series; F. Bancroft's _The Life of William H. Seward_ (1900); AllenJohnson's _The Life of Stephen A. Douglas_ (1908); O. G. Villard's _JohnBrown; a Biography_ (1910); L. D. Scisco's _Political Nativism in NewYork_ (1901); William Salter's _Life of James W. Grimes_ (1876); GeorgeW. Julian's _Life of Joshua R. Giddings_ (1892). Rhodes, McMaster, andSchouler treat the period critically. Some special studies of importanceare P. O. Ray's _Repeal of the Missouri Compromise_ (1909); AllenJohnson's _Genesis of Popular Sovereignty_ (_Iowa Journal of History andPolitics_, _III_); F. H. Hodder's _Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act_(_Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings_, 1912); and E. S. Corwin's_The Dred Scott Decision_ (_American Historical Review_, _XVII_). 

Some of the most instructive contemporary narratives will be found in M. W. Cluskey's _Political Text Book_ (1857), and _Speeches, Messages, andother Writings of A. G. Brown_ (1859); H. Wilson's _Rise and Fall of theSlave Power_ (1872-77); Horace Greeley's _The American Conflict_ (1864);Mrs. Jefferson Davis's _Jefferson Davis; a Memoir_ (1890); J. M. Cutts's_Constitutional and Party Questions_ (1866); S. J. May's _Recollectionsof the Anti-Slavery Conflict_ (1869); _Works of Charles Sumner_(1874-83), and many other works of a similar character. 

William McDonald's _Select Documents_ gives the most important sourcesfor this whole period. But the _Congressional Globe_, _U. S. Documents, House Reports_, 34th Cong. , 1st Sess. , vol. _II_, must be studied inorder to get the spirit of the times. 

 CHAPTER XIII

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had greatly angered a majorityof the people of the North. The sudden rise of the Republican party inprotest against it, and the promise of Northern control of the FederalGovernment, heartened them to the great struggle of 1856. But thefailure to win the populous States of Pennsylvania, Indiana, andIllinois, and the solid front of the South, the compact pro-SouthernSenate, and the moral effect of the Dred Scott decision discouragedthem. Moreover, the Republican victories of 1854-55 proved misleading, for in 1856 and 1858 the party failed to win a majority in the House ofRepresentatives. All that the ardent protestants and idealists could dowas to block extreme measures in Congress and enact laws in theRepublican States to harass the "enemy. " Seward yielded the struggle tothe extent of indorsing popular sovereignty, which did indeed promisemore than any other line of procedure. Greeley, the enemy of Seward butthe arch-enemy of the South, actually proposed Douglas, the "squire ofslavery, " for the Presidency in 1860. Chase seemed to be losing groundin Ohio, where he had never had a majority on his own account. Business, as we have already seen, had made peace with the South, and conservativeleaders of the East regarded slave-owners as in the same class morallywith bankers and railway directors. [10] The federal law against theAfrican slave trade could not be enforced. More than a hundred shipssailed unmolested each year from New York Harbor to the African Coast tobring back naked negroes for the cotton planters. 

[Footnote 10: See Charles Francis Adams's letter to William LloydGarrison in _The Liberator_, January 27, 1857. ]

The outlook was so dark that New England leaders returned regretfully tothe proposition of John Quincy Adams of 1843, and recommended Northernnullification and secession. Massachusetts had passed an act in 1855which inflicted a penalty of five years of imprisonment upon any man whoaided in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of the United States. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin had declared the same lawunconstitutional in 1854; in 1857 the legislature indorsed this view, and in 1859 it claimed the right of immediate secession in case theState was overruled by the Federal Supreme Court, or in case any attemptshould be made to enforce the obnoxious act by the General Government. Nearly every other Northern State passed personal liberty laws whichwere designed to prevent the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, andtheir constitutional justification was found in the supremacy of theStates and bolstered by the opinion of Judge Story, delivered in1842, [11] which said that no private citizen need obey anunconstitutional law, state or national, but he takes the risk of havingthe courts decide it constitutional and of being punished if he acts onhis own judgment before the proper court has adjudged the actunconstitutional. 

[Footnote 11: 16 Peters' Reports of the Supreme Court, p. 536. ]

It was not unnatural, then, that Charles Sumner should indorse theabolitionist campaign against the Union, or that Benjamin F. Wade shouldeulogize the Wisconsin threats to secede. Richard H. Dana, of Boston, said that men who had called him a traitor a few years before nowstopped him on the street to talk treason. N. P. Banks, the Speaker ofthe House of Representatives, said in Maine: "I am not one of the classwho cry for the perpetuation of the Union. " The Worcester convention ofJanuary 15, 1857, did actually and by big majorities pass resolutionscalling for a dissolution of the Federal Government, and its call for aconvention of all the free States, looking to the same end, was signedby seven hundred men of all walks of life; many of them were men ofeminence. The political abolitionists and the anti-slavery men ofpronounced views were on the point of going over to the Garrison party, which had always proclaimed that the Union was a "league with hell, " andso strong was the campaign against the Union that Governor Wise, ofVirginia, and others recommended a war upon New England in order tobring the abolitionists to subjection. 

But the darkest hour comes just before dawn. When Buchanan recommendedin the message of December, 1857, the admission of Kansas under theLecompton constitution, Senator Douglas, to the bewilderment ofthousands, openly denounced the President, and in the most effectivespeech of his life led a secession of the Northwestern Democrats fromthe dominant Southern party. He showed that the application of hispopular sovereignty doctrine in Kansas would solve the problem ofslavery in the Territories, and that the Administration was violatingthe platform on which it held office in espousing the cause of thepro-slavery men. It was a remarkable situation. In 1854 Douglas haddefeated Davis and Pierce in their far-reaching plans for thedevelopment of the Southwest; Chase and his allies had defeated Douglasin his counter-scheme for the growth of the Northwest in 1854-55; andnow Douglas broke the solidarity of the Democratic party and gave hopeand courage to the North, where the idea of secession was fast winningthe minds of leading men. If Douglas joined the Republicans, theoverthrow of the South was assured; if he became an independentcandidate for the Presidency, the Republicans were made certain of aneasy victory. It was this that prompted Greeley to indorse Douglas in1857, and caused Seward to say a good word for his rival and opponent. 

Buchanan read Douglas out of the party. Jefferson Davis denounced him asworse than a demagogue. Judges of the Supreme Court expressed theircontempt for "the ambitious perpetual candidate. " No settlement of theKansas question was possible under these circumstances. Douglas returnedto Illinois in the summer of 1858 to open his campaign for reëlection tothe Senate. He had never been so popular before. Chicagoans who haddenounced and spurned him as a traitor to his country in 1854 now gavehim the greatest ovation that city had ever given to any one. Bigbusiness men, railroad builders, and laboring men hastened to give himassurance of their favor. Even partisan opponents went over to the "new"Douglas. In fact, the people saw that his popular sovereignty idea hadbeen misunderstood. It was already working out Northwestern orFree-State control of the Territories, and the fear of losing theTerritories had been the motive for following Chase and Sumner in 1854. 

But the Republicans of the Northwest had been planning to make an end ofthe "Little Giant, " the man who was the most feared of all the publicleaders of the time. Abraham Lincoln was to be his successor in theSenate. Norman B. Judd, Joseph Medill, and John Wentworth were theastute advisers of the new party in their section. Seward, Weed, andeven John J. Crittenden, the popular successor of Henry Clay in theUnited States Senate, advised the Illinois Republicans not to opposeDouglas, since Douglas was already doing the Democrats more mischiefthan any new Republican Senator could hope to do. The Eastern leaderswere concerned about the campaign of 1860, and naturally they cultivatedthe differences of their opponents. 

Lincoln was also making plans for 1860, and a defeat of Douglas in hisown State would be a political event of the first magnitude. And therewas much promise of success. Had they not elected Lyman Trumbull in 1855in spite of all the "great man" could do? Moreover, the Administrationhad withdrawn all patronage from Douglas, and postmasters' heads werefalling fast in Illinois. Indeed, Buchanan was just then putting upanti-Douglas tickets in many of the counties, in the expectation ofelecting a legislature hostile to Douglas if not friendly to theWashington authorities. Was there ever a better chance for the new groupof leaders? Contrary to Eastern advice they nominated Lincoln as theopponent of Douglas, and that shrewd man and able logician challengedthe Senator to a joint debate, and the most important politicaldiscussion in our history followed. 

Lincoln had declared in a recent speech that "a house divided againstitself could not stand, " and the United States he likened to the dividedhouse. Douglas seized upon this to show the country what a radicalabolitionist Lincoln was, for was it not a disruption of the Union ofwhich he spoke so cogently, and which the abolitionists were just nowurging? Nothing was more unpopular in the Northwest than disunion. Allthe papers of the country now printed what Lincoln had said, and withDouglas's disparaging comment. The business interests of the Eastshuddered at the Lincoln parable. 

But Lincoln took occasion at Freeport to make Douglas even moreunpopular in the South than he already was, by asking him if he did notsupport the Dred Scott decision; also if he still adhered to the popularsovereignty doctrine as a means of settling the slavery problem in theTerritories. Douglas answered in the affirmative to both queries. Whereupon Lincoln showed that if the Dred Scott decision held, Congressmust protect slavery in all the Territories and if the popularsovereignty idea prevailed, the squatters of any Territory might bypopular vote prohibit slavery in any Territory. Hence, according toDouglas, slavery could be lawfully maintained and lawfully abolished atthe same time and place. Douglas recognized his predicament; but hereplied that, in spite of the court's decision, the settlers of a newTerritory might by "unfriendly" local legislation make slaveryimpossible. When the papers of the country published this lame reply, Southern men everywhere denounced in unmeasured terms "the demagogue whopromised one thing in Congress and another in Illinois. " TheLincoln-Douglas campaign continued all the autumn, and the countrybecame acquainted with the obscure lawyer who had persisted in hispurpose to run against Douglas contrary to the counsels of the leadersof his party. However, Douglas was reëlected to the Senate, to the greatchagrin of both Lincoln and the President. 

After the excitement following the break of Douglas with his party, theRepublican newspapers, which had urged Douglas as their candidate for1860, returned to their partisan attitude. To most people it seemedclear that Seward should be the Republican candidate in the nextcampaign, and Seward was also convinced that his own nomination wasnecessary and inevitable. The conservative wing of the party in theEast, and especially New England, was devoted to him. As time went onthe prize seemed more and more certain, though there were othercompetitors in the field. Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Chase, ofOhio, Lincoln, of Illinois, and Edward Bates, of Missouri, were"favorite sons. " For the Democrats the outlook was anything butcheering. The "regulars" could not speak of Douglas but withimprecations. Although Douglas controlled absolutely all the Democraticorganizations in eight Northwestern States, if we include Missouri, amost strenuous campaign was waged from Washington against him in thehope of getting control of the general committee of the next convention. John Slidell, of Louisiana, and August Belmont, agent of theRothschilds, in New York, guided the maneuvers. In December, 1859, whenDouglas entered upon his new term with an air of triumph, the Senatemajority, led by Jefferson Davis, promptly removed him from thechairmanship of the Committee on Territories, which was the signal forthe opening of the fierce political war that preceded the assembling ofthe Democratic Convention in Charleston. 

Meanwhile John Brown, influenced by the political currents then runningin favor of the North, led a small band of men into western Virginia. The object was to start a slave insurrection and in the end set free allthe negroes of the South. Brown received or was promised $25, 000 and wassupported by men of the first respectability. On October 16, 1859, Brownseized the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry and called upon theslaves to rise against their masters. In the fighting which ensuedColonel Washington, a grand-nephew of General Washington, was wounded;but few took notice of names in that first onset of the Civil War orthought of the common history of the sections. Governor Wise, ofVirginia, hastened the militia to the scene, and Captain Robert E. Leeled a small force of United States troops to the relief of theendangered community. Brown failed in his efforts to arouse the negroes, who were not the restless and resentful race they were thought to be. Hewas soon surrounded and captured. A few people were killed, but theinstitution of slavery was not touched. 

But the noise of the attack was heard around the world. In the North menof the highest standing proclaimed Brown a hero. At the time of hisexecution in December so thoughtful a man as Emerson compared Brown'sgallows to the cross of Jesus of Nazareth. For a time the socialconscience of the East, at least, sensed this attack as a blow againstthe common _Erbfeind_, as the Germans say of the French. It was the"arrogant South" that had been struck. But when the Congressionalinvestigation was held, Republican leaders and religious organizationseverywhere insisted that they had never known the man, though there wasa widespread feeling that it would be wise for the Governor of Virginianot to visit the death penalty upon the "deluded" prisoner. 

Governor Wise was not the man to forgive an assault on the Old Dominion, and he never thought of granting a pardon. He urged Virginia toreorganize her militia, and he filled the state armory with some of theweapons which were used with fatal effect at First Bull Run. OtherSouthern States followed the example of Virginia and laid in suppliesfor a conflict which many thought inevitable. Nor was it withoutsignificance that new military companies and regiments were organizedand drilled in many parts of the North during the year 1860. 

After months of angry and useless debates in Washington, the leaders ofthe Democratic party gathered in Charleston in April, 1860, to nominatetheir candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency. No other townin the United States was more unfriendly to the cause of the leadingcandidate, Douglas. As the delegates gathered, it was seen that everydelegation from every Northwestern State was instructed to vote as aunit for Douglas, and it became evident that a safe majority wouldinsist on his nomination. The enthusiasm of the followers of the "LittleGiant" surpassed all similar demonstrations at previous conventions. Onthe other hand, the committee on resolutions was opposed to Douglas, andby a vote of 17 to 16 it reported a platform which was simply arestatement of the Dred Scott decision, adding only that the FederalGovernment was bound by the Constitution to protect slavery in theTerritories. When this report was read in the convention the Douglasmajority rejected it, and accepted the minority report, which was the"popular sovereignty" of Douglas and the platform of 1856, for which allthe South had stood in the campaign of that year. The convention wasdeadlocked, for the South could defeat Douglas for the nomination underthe two-thirds rule, and Douglas could prevent the adoption of anySouthern program or the nomination of any candidate other than himself. On Sunday, April 30, the clergy and the congregations of the city prayedas never before for a peaceable solution of the problem before thecountry, and every one seemed to recognize the gravity of the situation. On Monday evening, William L. Yancey, "the fire-eater" of Alabama, aftera most remarkable speech, broke the deadlock by leading a bolt ofpractically all the lower Southern States. The Tammany Hall delegationof New York followed. The bolters held a meeting in another hall andcalled a convention of their element of the party in Richmond in June. The Douglas majority likewise adjourned a day or two later to meet inBaltimore at the same time. 

The historic Jacksonian party had broken into factions. Each factionnominated a candidate. The Southerners, supported by the BuchananAdministration, named John C. Breckinridge, a moderate, in the vain hopeof winning some Northern States; the Douglas men offered, of course, their favorite, and insisted that theirs was the only true Union ticket. A third convention was called to meet in Baltimore, and its nomineeswere John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. Thiswas the remnant of the Know-Nothings of 1856. They asked for themaintenance of the Union as it was; but in the ensuing election theypolled three hundred thousand fewer votes than Fillmore had received in1856. 

The Republicans met in Chicago about the middle of May, the advantage oflocal sentiment being in Lincoln's favor. The Seward men and their"rooters" came in trainloads from New York and Boston, and both inChicago and Charleston a plentiful supply of whiskey had its share inthe manufacture of enthusiasm. Cameron was the stumbling-block of theconservative Eastern Republicans, and he was expected to command hisprice. Horace Greeley, cast out of the Republican camp by the Seward menin New York, came as a delegate from Oregon, and he was busy from morntill night trying to defeat Seward. Chase, Lincoln, and Bates, thoughthey were not in the convention, were doing what they could to defeatthe great New York leader on the ground that he could not possibly carryIndiana and Illinois. It was more than a friendly rivalry. 

In drafting the platform no reference was to be made to the idealisticDeclaration of Independence, so popular in 1856; but the resolute threatof a bolt, by Joshua R. Giddings, caused a reconsideration and theadoption of the brief reference which one reads in the historicdocument. All raids into States or Territories were duly denounced, andslavery itself was guaranteed in all its rights. The Pacific railroadscheme of Douglas was again indorsed, and the old land policy of theWest found expression in the free homestead plank. The tariff ideas ofClay appeared in a clause which promised protection to Americanindustry, better wages to American labor, and higher prices for farmproducts. One sees here the genius of political management, not the fireof reformers, and if the Southerners had kept cool they could have readbetween the lines of this declaration all the guarantees that theyrequired, save alone on the subject of slavery in the new Territories, which the Republicans could not possibly yield and hold their followerstogether. It was an alliance of the East and the Northwest, arranged bySeward in much the same way that Calhoun arranged the combination of1828 which raised Jackson to the Presidency. 

To the surprise of the country and especially of the East, Cameron, Greeley, and Bates proved able to defeat Seward, and Lincoln wasnominated. Many people of the East had never heard of the successfulcandidate till they read in the papers that he had won. Lincoln wasmoderate in temper and conciliatory in tone, like the platform, but hewas a sincere democrat, one who was in mind and thought one of thepeople. The great men of the party who had borne the burden and heat ofthe day felt outraged. Sumner never forgave Lincoln for his lack ofculture, and for a time it seemed that Seward would not give his humblerival the support necessary to success. "The rail-splitter" of Illinoiswas ridiculed in the older Republican States as no other presidentialcandidate had been since "Old Hickory" offered himself as against theseasoned statesmanship of John Quincy Adams. The gentry of the East werein a worse plight than were the Southern statesmen of 1828, for Lincolnwas more of a democrat than Jackson had been. 

But if certain classes of the East accepted mournfully the candidate oftheir party, the plain people everywhere, farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and the smaller industrial interests, rejoiced that one oftheir own had been selected. While it is not likely that this causedmany changes from one party to another, it did tend to bring out thevote and prevent the election from going to the House. Professionalabolitionists could not honestly support the platform of theRepublicans, but anti-slavery men, old-line Whigs, half of the formerKnow-Nothing party, and all of those who had so long feared or hated theSouth could cheerfully vote for Lincoln. In the Northwest it was anevenly matched contest. Douglas was only a little less popular than hisgreat rival, the cause of his final defeat being the decision of theGerman element to cast in their lot with the Republicans. Carl Schurz, one of the best men who ever took part in American public life, and aradical of the radicals, exercised a decisive influence and turned thetide in Illinois and Iowa, where a few thousand votes lost would havedefeated Lincoln. Though the enthusiasm of the Republicans was not sogreat as it had been in 1856, the people of the East and the Northwestdid unite against the South, as planned in the Chicago platform, whichso well represented the interests of the combination. 

The South gave every evidence that secession would follow the electionof Lincoln, and when the Maine campaign indicated that Lincoln wouldsurely be chosen, Douglas gave up his canvass in the Northwest and wentSouth in the hope of saving the Union by urging the leaders there thatsecession would mean war. In Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama heforetold plainly the awful consequences of secession. But the lowerSouth paid little heed; their leaders, Rhett and Yancey, were ready totake the first steps to disrupt the Union upon the receipt of news thatthe Democrats had lost the election. To them Lincoln was not only ademocrat who believed in the equality of men before the law; he wasalso a "black Republican, " the head of a sectional party whose platformbespoke sectional interests and the isolation of the South. 

[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1860 California & Oregon]

[Illustration: The Presidential Election of 1860]

In the end Lincoln received a popular vote slightly greater than that ofBuchanan in 1856, and the electoral vote of every State from Maine toIowa and Minnesota. Douglas received a larger vote than Frémont hadreceived, but only twelve electoral votes. It was plain that the peopleof the North were by no means unanimous, and that Lincoln would havegreat difficulty in carrying out any severely anti-Southern measures, especially as the Republicans had failed to carry a majority of thecongressional districts. Thus the blunders of Douglas and Chase in 1854had started the dogs of sectional warfare, and now a solid Northconfronted a solid South, with only two or three undecided bufferStates, like Maryland and Missouri, between them. 

Abraham Lincoln, born in Kentucky of Virginia parentage, married to aSouthern woman, accustomed from boyhood to the narrow circumstances ofthe poor, and still unused to the ways of the great, was called to theAmerican Presidency. He was not brusque and warlike as Jackson had been;he was a kindly philosopher, a free-thinker in religion at the head ofan orthodox people, or peoples. A shrewd judge of human character andthe real friend of the poor and the dependent, Lincoln, like hisaristocratic prototype, Thomas Jefferson, believed implicitly in thecommon man. He was ready to submit anything he proposed to a vote of themass of lowly people, who knew little of state affairs and who neverexpected to be seen or heard in Washington. People who had preacheddemocracy to Europe for nearly a century had now the opportunity ofsubmitting to democracy. It was the severest test to which the FederalGovernment had ever been subjected. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Rear Admiral Chadwick's _Causes of the Civil War_, in the _AmericanNation_ series (1906); Nicolay and Hay's _Abraham Lincoln: A History_(1890); Ida M. Tarbell's _The Life of Abraham Lincoln_ (1900); O. G. Villard's _John Brown; A Biography_ (1910); G. T. Curtis's _The Life ofJames Buchanan_ (1883); A. H. Stephen's _War between the States_(1868-70); Jefferson Davis's _Rise and Fall of the ConfederateGovernment_ (1881); Murat Halstead's _Conventions of 1860_; G. Koerner's_Memoirs_; Carl Schurz's _Reminiscences_; James A. Pike's _First Blowsof the Civil War_ (1879); George W. Julian's _Political Recollections_(1884); and Henry S. Foote's _Casket of Reminiscences_ (1874), may beadded to the works already mentioned. E. D. Fite's _The Campaign of1860_ (1911) is valuable, although Rhode's account of the campaignequals Fite's; and E. Stanwood's _A History of the Presidency_ (1898)gives the platforms and the votes of the parties for each nationalelection. 

_The Tribune Almanac_ gives the votes by counties, while Richardson's_Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, already named in earlier notes, and the _Statutes at Large of the United States_ supply the texts ofimportant papers, laws, and treaties. Richard Peters's _Reports of CasesArgued in the Supreme Court_ and B. C. Howard's continuation of thisseries supply the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court. U. B. Phillips's _Correspondence of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb_, in the_Reports of the American Historical Association_ (1911), is a valuablecontribution to the sources of the period. 

Special studies of importance are: W. E. B. DuBois's _Suppression of theAfrican Slave Trade_ (1896); M. G. McDougall's _Fugitive Slaves_ (1891), J. C. Hurd's _Law of Freedom and Bondage_ (1858); Edward McPherson's_Political History of the United States_ (1865); John H. Latané's_Diplomacy of the United States in Regard to Cuba_, in _AmericanHistorical Association Reports_ (1907); J. M. Callahan's _Evolution ofSeward's Mexican Policy_ (1909); Phillips's _Life of Robert Toombs_(1914); and H. White's _Life of Lyman Trumbull_ (1913). Of peculiarvalue for the spirit of the times are: Mrs. Roger A. Pryor's_Reminiscences of Peace and War_ (1905); Mrs. James Chesnut's _A Diaryfrom Dixie_ (1905); and William H. Russell's _My Diary North and South_(1863). 

 CHAPTER XIV

 THE APPEAL TO ARMS

Though the South had voted as a unit for Buchanan in 1856 and herleaders had long acted in concert on important matters, the election ofLincoln by a "solid" North was regarded by most owners of slaves as arevolutionary act; and the Southern reply to the challenge wassecession. The idea of secession was familiar in 1860. In 1794 NewEngland leaders in Congress had discussed such a remedy when it seemedcertain that the Southerners would gain permanent control of thenational machinery, and Westerners contemplated the same remedy for illsthey could not otherwise cure during the period of 1793 to 1801. Ratherthan submit to the burdensome embargo and the more burdensome second warwith England, most New England men of property seem to have preferredthe dissolution of a union which was formed for commercial purposes; andwe have seen how Webster urged resistance to the national tariff in 1820even to the point of advising secession. The rightful means of localself-defense was a break-up of the confederacy, until in 1830 Jackson, speaking for the West, and Webster, speaking for the rising industrialgroup of the Northeast, announced that the Union was indissoluble andthat an attempt to sever it would be accounted treason. A sense ofnationality had come into existence, and a permanent, "sacred" union ofall the States was the corollary of that belief. 

Still, when the South, with its resolute program of expansion and thevigorous national control which characterized the DemocraticAdministrations from Polk to Buchanan, made slavery a cardinal tenet ofits faith, legislatures and courts of the East refused to regard eitherthe Constitution or the federal law as paramount and abiding. Secessionwas a common word among the constituents of New England Senators after1840, and even Northwestern States threatened disruption of the Union aslate as 1859 if the national policy should continue to run counter totheir interests. There was, however, a strong undercurrent of devotionto the idea of nationality in both North and South[12] in 1860, and whenSouth Carolina proceeded with her long-contemplated scheme of secessionearly in November of that year, Jefferson Davis, who had formerly talkedfreely of that "last remedy" of minority interests, advised against themovement; and everywhere North and South men of great wealth, as well asthe poorer people, who must always bear the heaviest burdens of war, deprecated and warned against the application of a remedy which allsections had at one time or another declared right and lawful. As mencame nearer to the application of their "rightful" remedy, the older andcooler heads urged the leaders of South Carolina not to withdraw fromthe national confederation. Republicans like Seward and Weed andLincoln exerted themselves to the utmost to dissuade the Southernradicals; all the influence of the Bell and Everett party was cast intothe same side of the scales; and Congress, when it assembled inDecember, 1860, was pressed from every possible angle to arrange somecompromise which would satisfy the angry element in the lower South. Even Republicans of the more radical type offered to do anything, exceptassent to the further expansion of slavery in the Territories, in orderto prevent the formation of a Southern Confederacy and the expectedparalysis of business. 

[Footnote 12: Perhaps we may use these terms now to describe the twogreat sections of the country as the Civil War approached. ]

Nothing availed. South Carolina, under the leadership of Robert BarnwellRhett, called a state convention which met in Columbia, but adjourned toCharleston, and on December 20 severed all connection with the NationalGovernment and recalled her Representatives in Congress. PresidentBuchanan did not favor secession, and he hoped that some way might befound to settle the difficulties which underlay the crisis. In hismessage to Congress he declared that there was no right of secession, but that there was also no authority anywhere to prevent secession. Thiswas at the time the view of most others in the North, perhaps in theSouth, for Southerners spoke frequently of the "revolution" they wereprecipitating. When the demand of South Carolina for the surrender ofFort Sumter was presented to the President, he decided to delay actionuntil his successor was inaugurated. This was not irregular nor unusual, but gave the people of the South time to decide what they would do; andbefore February 1, 1861, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, andLouisiana withdrew from the Union, though not without strenuousresistance by large parties in all these communities, save Florida. Early in February delegates from these States gathered in Montgomery, Alabama, and organized a Southern Confederacy on the model of the olderUnion, and made Jefferson Davis President. Alexander Stephens, who haddone more than any other Southerner to delay and defeat secession, waselected Vice-President. The new constitution was conservative if notreactionary in character. Slavery was definitely and specifically made acorner-stone of the new government. The foreign slave trade was, indeference to border state opinion, forbidden; but free trade, which hadso long been a bone of contention between the planters of the South andthe manufacturers of the East, was left to the wisdom of ordinarylegislation. In fact many of the ablest Southern leaders foresaw theestablishment of a protective system in the South. In the same spirit ofstatesmanlike compromise, President Davis was careful to fill theCabinet and other important posts with men who represented all phases ofopinion, with former rivals and even decided opponents of the cause herepresented. So cautious and considered was this program of the newadministration that ardent secessionists declared before the fall ofFort Sumter that a reunion with the older Federal Government was theobject. And the mild and conciliatory attitude of William H. Seward, whowas considered as a sort of acting president during the winter of1860-61, strengthened this feeling in the South. The Southerncommissioners whom Davis sent to Washington to negotiate with theFederal Government on the subjects of boundaries between the twocountries, the division of the public debt, and the surrender of fortswithin Confederate territory were great favorites in the old nationalcapital. A friendly attitude toward the new South still further foundexpression in the New York _Tribune_, supposed to speak for Republicansin general, in the Albany _Journal_, Thurlow Weed's paper, and even inthe New York _Times_, Seward's organ. 

In fact the people of the North preferred a permanent disruption of theUnion to a great war, the inevitable alternative. Nationalist sentimentwas strong in the North, but not strong enough to make men positive anddecided in their actions. President-elect Lincoln expressed this stateof the public mind in his inaugural, when he said that he wouldfaithfully execute the laws unless the people, his rightful masters, should refuse their support, and he showed it still more clearly when headopted the policy of delay in determining the status of Fort Sumterwhich his predecessor had so long followed. The Cabinet of Buchanan hadbeen undecided, that of Lincoln was for a whole month equally undecided. Men hoped to avoid what all feared, civil war; and it is to the creditof both sections and both cabinets that they hesitated to commit theovert act which was to set free the "dogs of war"; and while publicopinion was thus halted at the parting of the ways, Virginia, stillthought of as the great old commonwealth and mother of statesmen, calleda peace congress of North and South. Delegates from twenty-one Statesconferred together in Washington for six weeks, seeking a way out of thedifficult and perilous situation. Conservative members of Congress, JohnJ. Crittenden, Stephen A. Douglas, William H. Seward, and others, labored in the same cause. It is acknowledged by all that a popularreferendum would have brought an overwhelming mandate to let the"departing sisters go in peace, " or to accept the former Southern demandof a division of the western territory from Kansas to the Pacific alongthe line of 36° 30'. 

But stiff-backed Republicans like Senator Chandler, of Michigan, CharlesSumner, and Secretary Chase were unwilling to throw away the results ofa victory constitutionally won, even to avoid a long and bloody war. Andthese men brought all the influence they could command to bear upon thePresident and his Cabinet during the early days of April. They contendedthat every moment of delay increased the likelihood of Southern success, and they urged that the young Republican party, which was perhaps asdear to them as the country itself, was losing ground. At last PresidentLincoln yielded, and a relief expedition was ordered to Fort Sumter onApril 6, where Major Robert Anderson and his garrison had bravely andcautiously maintained their difficult situation in the face of an angrySouthern sentiment for nearly four months. This was recognized as awarlike move; and Secretary Seward was so much opposed to it and, theSoutherners contended, so sacredly bound not to allow its departure, that he interfered with the expedition, by sending orders, signed byhimself for the President, intended to thwart the move. 

Under circumstances so peculiar and delicate it was of the utmostimportance that the Confederate President keep his head. Theresponsibility for regaining control of Fort Sumter passed from SouthCarolina to the Confederate Government during the early days ofFebruary. Major Anderson, who held the fort with a small Federalgarrison, was a friend of Jefferson Davis, and was keenly alive to theseriousness of his situation, and while his superiors were in doubt, hemaintained the status of things as they were when the negotiationsbegan. But the authorities of South Carolina forbade the sending offresh supplies of provisions to his men after April 6, and, as there wasbut a limited amount on hand, it was only a matter of weeks before hemust evacuate, if neither the North nor the South decided what should bedone. April 15 was the day which he set for giving up his post for thelack of sustenance. If he moved away peacefully, there would be no war, and such was the hope of Seward and the moderates of the North, whothought that a friendly reconstruction would be the result of continueddelay. 

Jefferson Davis, who was informed daily of every move that was made inWashington, determined to let Anderson quietly evacuate Fort Sumter, having assurances from Seward that no supplies would be sent. In this hewas supported by the unanimous opinion of his Cabinet until on April 9, when General P. G. T. Beauregard, who commanded the troops gathering atCharleston, telegraphed that the Federal Government had given formalnotice that assistance would be sent to the starving garrison. Davisstill delayed, giving conditional orders to Beauregard; and Beauregardacted in the same spirit when he sent Roger A. Pryor and three otheraides to the fort to get definite assurance on the point of Federalsurrender. But when Anderson, on the night of April 12, gave assurancethat on April 15 he would give up his post if he should not receivecontrary orders from Washington prior to that time, the four aides ofGeneral Beauregard who had been sent to the fort gave notice to theConfederate artillery commander, without consulting superior authority, that the answer was not satisfactory, and the fatal shelling began. Onthe next day Anderson and his men, finding the walls of the fort fallingabout them, surrendered. The war had begun. 

The act of South Carolina on December 20 led immediately to theformation of the confederacy of the lower Southern States. The firing onFort Sumter was followed in a few days by the secession of Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas, Texas having already joined the "revolution";Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were prevented from joining the newconfederacy only by the prompt and extra-legal interference of PresidentLincoln. The second tier of Southern States thus joined the first, and aconfederacy of some ten million people demanded the independence whichall agreed had not been forbidden in the Constitution of 1787, and beganat once the raising of armies to make good that demand. The boundariesof the new republic were extended to the Potomac; commissioners weresent to the European powers to sue for recognition, and hundreds of thebest officers in the United States Army resigned to seek commands underthe new flag. 

The popular excitement and enthusiasm which followed these events in theSouth equaled that which marked the early stages of the FrenchRevolution. Party lines and class distinctions disappeared. Two hundredthousand volunteers offered their services to Jefferson Davis;confederate and state bonds to meet the expense of the war were taken atpar wherever there was surplus money; men met at their courthouses todrill without the call of their officers; and women, even moreenthusiastic than the men, urged their "guardians and protectors" to thefront to meet and vanquish a foe who threatened to invade the Southernsoil. Armories were quickly constructed in a country which knew littleof the mechanic arts; guns and ammunition were ordered from Europe andfrom Northern manufacturers as fast as trusty agents could makearrangements; shipbuilding was resorted to on the banks of the sluggishrivers; and machinists and sailors were imported from the North and fromEngland to guide the amateurish hands of the South. Before midsummerfour hundred thousand Southerners were in arms or waiting to receivethem. Colonel Robert E. Lee, accounted the first soldier of the country, was made a general in the new army. Joseph E. Johnston, Albert SidneyJohnston, Pierre G. T. Beauregard, and others accepted with confidencethe commissions of the South, and set hundreds of younger men, trainedat West Point or at the Virginia Military Institute, to drilling andorganizing the armies rapidly gathering at strategic points along thefrontier, which extended from Norfolk, Virginia, to the eastern borderof Kansas. 

The planters had at last made good their threat, and the aristocraticsociety of the South was welded together more firmly than it had everbeen before. Their leaders frankly stated to the world that their fourbillions of negro property was of more importance to them than anyfederal union which threatened the value of that property by narrowingthe limits of its usefulness. The negroes knew a great war was beginningand that they were the objects of contention; but long discipline and acurious pride in the prowess of their masters kept them at their lowlybut important tasks. They boasted that their masters could "whip theworld in arms. " Of insurrections and the massacre of the whites, whichat one time had been a nightmare to the ruling classes of the South, there was no rumor. And throughout the four years of war the slavesremained faithful and produced by their steady, if slow, toil the foodsupplies both for the people at home and for the armies at the front. 

The small slaveholder was the most enthusiastic and resolutesecessionist and supporter of the Confederacy. He was just rising in theworld, and anything which barred the upward way was denounced asdegrading and insulting. A larger class of Southerners who joined withmeasured alacrity the armies of defense were the small farmers of thehills and poorer eastern counties; but the "sand-hillers" and"crackers, " the illiterate and neglected by-products of the plantercounties, were not minded to volunteer, though under pressure theybecame good soldiers because they dreaded the prospect of hordes of freenegroes in the South more than they did the guns of the North. Smallfarmers and landless whites all felt the necessity of holding the slavesin bondage, and thus a society of sharp class distinctions, openlyacknowledged by all, was moulded into a solid phalanx by the proposedinvasion of the South and the almost certain liberation of the slaves. Moreover, the churches of the South, including the Catholics in NewOrleans, Charleston, and elsewhere, were now at the height of theirpower. Planters, farmers, and the so-called "poor whites" acknowledgedthe importance of religious faith and discipline; and the leaders of thechurches, from the bishops of the Episcopalians to the humble pastors ofnegro congregations, freely gave their blessings to slavery and urgedtheir membership to heroic sacrifice for the common cause. Sermons likethat of Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, in November, 1860, were preached allover the South, and they were as effective in stirring the warlikeimpulses of the people as the fiery addresses of the most enthusiasticstatesmen. 

Although there was a unity and a coöperation among all classes of peoplefrom Washington City to southwestern Texas, there were certain areas inwhich volunteers, even during the early days of excitement, were notreadily forthcoming. In the pine woods of the Carolinas and the GulfStates, where nine tenths of the soil was still covered by primevalforests, and among the high mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, many people resisted the authority of theConfederacy passively or actively from the beginning. From the southernAppalachian region the Union armies drew at least 200, 000 recruits, andin certain counties of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee moresoldiers per thousand of the population volunteered for the Federalservice than could be found in the most enthusiastic communities of theNorth. Western Virginia revolted in 1861, and in 1863 she was receivedinto the Union as a loyal State, in spite of the absence of allconstitutional authority or precedent. Eastern Tennessee might havepursued the same course if it had been possible for President Lincoln tolend military assistance at the proper moment. Except in the valley andsouthwestern counties of Virginia, most of the grain andcattle-producing area of the South was indifferent to the cause of theConfederacy. This was a serious handicap, for troops must be stationedin many localities to maintain order, and the resistance to the foragingagents of the Southern armies frequently became serious. From the summerof 1863 to the end of the struggle the home guards of the variousdisaffected districts required many men who might otherwise have beenwith Lee or Joseph E. Johnston. 

But the better parts of the South, the tobacco and cotton belts, withtheir annual output of three hundred millions' worth of exportablecommodities, their high-strung, well-bred gentry accustomed to outdoorlife and horseback riding and devoted to the idea of local autonomy ingovernment, were behind the Confederate movement. The people had beenbetter trained in their local militia than their Northern brethren, their greatest families had long been accustomed to send cadets to WestPoint, and in several States there were excellent military schools wherethe best of training was given to young men who looked forward with avague expectation to careers in the army. If we add to theseconsiderations the fact that the rural aristocracy, whether secessionistor unionist in politics in 1860, regarded the movements of the North inthe spring of 1861 as ruthless attacks upon their ideals and theirhomes, we shall understand how the Confederates were able to organize apowerful and efficient army so early in the struggle. 

The Confederate seat of Government was removed in May, 1861, fromMontgomery to Richmond. The old Virginia capital, always the center ofstrong unionist feelings, became the scene of cabinet meetings, ofsessions of Congress, and military conferences. The easy-going tobaccogentry who had grown up with the little city on the James welcomed theinvasion of generals, politicians, and army contractors, and saw withpleasure the population swell from some twenty-five thousand to ahundred thousand souls. The "White House" became the center of a societywhich, as Mrs. Pryor and others insisted, was really aristocratic. Thefirst families of Virginia became hosts to the statesmen who hadgathered there from all the Southern States; there were "heroes fromthe wars" to grace the salons of Mrs. Stannard, Mr. William H. McFarland, banker to the new government, and others who, but for thedisastrous turn of the conflict, would have become well-known figures inhistory. The social life which was adorned by the presence of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, Mrs. James Chesnut, and Mrs. Joseph E. Johnston was, however, after one short winter of pleasure and buoyant expectation, overcast with sorrow and even scattered abroad by the close approach ofthe armies of the North, the hated Yankees who had not been expected tofight. 

The serious and all-absorbing business of the South was therefore torepel invasion. Armies ranging from 5000 to 15, 000 troops were stationedat Norfolk, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, northern Virginia, Harper'sFerry, Cumberland Gap, Bowling Green and Columbus, Kentucky, and even inMissouri. General A. S. Cooper, of New Jersey, became adjutant-generaland the senior officer in the Confederate Army; Robert E. Lee organizedand drilled the Virginia forces; Joseph E. Johnston, his rival in theold United States Army, commanded at Harper's Ferry; and Beauregard, thehero of Fort Sumter, was at the head of the army which was expected toresist and defeat the first invasion from Washington. Behind thesevarious gatherings of soldiers were hundreds of thousands of others, waiting to be supplied with arms and ready to learn the ways of war. Editors, preachers, and orators heralded with unanimous voice the newnation, and predicted speedy recognition by the powers of Europe and apermanent peace with their long-time rivals. Three months, six months, or a year were the various estimates of the duration of the war forindependence. Some planters followed the counsel of President Davis andplanted corn and wheat instead of the accustomed cotton and tobacco, inorder to be able to feed their armies and "their people, " but otherswere so certain that another autumn would reopen the channels ofcommerce to all that they continued their large acreage in theirfavorite staples. It was not to be a long struggle like that whichWashington had led. The conditions were different. Both England andFrance would intervene when the cotton famine began to press. Even sosober a man as General Lee expected success and thought of his rôle aslike that of Washington, who was now the Southern model and ideal. Davis's friends also spoke and wrote of him as the "second Washington. "

Thus filled with the highest hopes and reminded daily of the heroictraditions of the former revolution, the Southerners began theirbattles. President Lincoln, loath to admit that war was upon him, calledout 75, 000 three months' men when the news of Fort Sumter reached him. Congress, too, was called in extra session for July 4 to devise ways andmeans of compelling the South to return to the fold. These warlike acts, to those who did not understand the long sectional rivalry, weresupported by an almost unanimous North. The Northwest, led by Douglas, was prompt to support their first real President and to hasten theirquota of volunteers to the front. In the older sections of the East thelatent hostility toward the people of the South flamed out as neverbefore, proclaiming a devotion to the Union and to the ideals of theFathers which had widespread effect. Even in the great cities, where theprevailing sentiment in the preceding winter had been for peace and apermanent disruption of the Union, men rallied to the national standardswith unexpected enthusiasm. The Astors, Belmonts, and Drexels raisedregiments or offered loans to the Administration. If the South wasunited and ready to defend their homes, the North seemed equally unitedupon a program of invasion and subjection. A solid South had begotten asolid North. The shells which burst over Fort Sumter had called theNorth to arms as effectively as they had banished the hesitation of theSouthern border States. 

An army of invasion gathered rapidly in Washington, seized Arlington, General Lee's ancient family estate, on the Virginia shore of thePotomac, for a drill ground, took possession of recalcitrant Maryland, and made of all railroads entering the capital the highways andinstruments of war. Winfield Scott, the old and vacillating general ofthe regular army, was quickly set aside, and the able General IrvinMcDowell took his place. Thirty thousand troops moved slowly intoVirginia under the pressure of public opinion stimulated by newspapereditors, ministers of the Gospel, and stiff-backed Republicans, who, like similar classes in the South, declared that the war was to be overin three months. Other armies collected at Cincinnati under youngGeorge B. McClellan, soon to be major-general, at Louisville under DonC. Buell, and at St. Louis under the erratic John C. Frémont. WhenCongress met, all these movements were quickly ratified, and the twosections of a country of more than thirty million people, all supposedto be devotees of commerce, industry, and agriculture, "worshipers ofmoney, " entered with unparalleled eagerness upon a war which was soon tosurprise and even appall the world. What industry lost in the North bysecession of the South was regained in the manufacture or preparation ofmilitary supplies for soldiers who fought the South; and in theConfederacy men who knew little of industry and of seafaring soonestablished great plants where the munitions of war were readily made, or they turned with a strange facility to improvising gunboats andblockade runners. Within a year or two the people of the North showedthe most bitter hatred of the South and everything Southern, and in theSouth women sold their hair for the common cause, and sent their goldand silver ornaments to the Government to be converted into implementsof war. Such results could hardly have been the outcome of a hastydecision on either side. The long-nursed dislike of the people of eachsection now became a consuming hatred; it was a mighty struggle for themastery of the Government which had been founded in 1787-89, for thecontrol of the vast territory which composed the heart of North America. One party or the other must be vanquished, one section or the other mustbecome a second Ireland. 

On July 20, General McDowell attacked the army under General Beauregardnear Centreville, a Virginia village to the northward of a little streamwhich gave its name to the battle that ensued, --Bull Run. About 35, 000Northerners made up the army of invasion; Beauregard commanded less than20, 000, but Joseph E. Johnston brought his army of 15, 000 from theValley of Virginia in time to decide the fortunes of that hot summerday. After stout fighting on both sides during the earlier part of theonset, these fresh troops of the Valley were seen marching into action. To Union eyes the 15, 000 easily appeared to be 30, 000. Panic seized menand officers alike, and a stampede for Washington and safer groundfollowed. Arms, provisions, horses, even, and the carriages ofstiff-backed Republican Congressmen, who had left their posts to see thefun, were left upon the field and along the wayside as memorials of thefirst battle. At the close of the day Jefferson Davis, Beauregard, Johnston, and "Stonewall" Jackson, who won his proud soubriquet on thatfamous field, held a conference and decided not to follow the Federalsto Washington that evening. On the morrow a heavy rain fell and theroads of northern Virginia became impassable for a week. The defeatedforces had time to regain their composure while the people of bothsections began to see what war meant. 

The Southerners rejoiced and celebrated, even relaxed theirpreparations, thinking their valor vastly superior to that of theirenemies. President Davis was less confident, and pressed upon hisCongress the better organization of the armies, whose numbers nowmounted to 400, 000 men; he sent James M. Mason and John Slidell ascommissioners to Europe, and ordered troops under Robert E. Lee to WestVirginia to save that recalcitrant region to Virginia and theConfederacy. In the absence of a revenue, and already shut off from themarkets of both the North and Europe, the Confederates resorted to loansand the issue of paper money to meet the enormous expenses of war. TheConfederate Government borrowed hundreds of millions from the planters, and the States likewise piled up debts in unprecedented fashion inmaintenance of the same great cause. Of gold and silver there waslittle; the banks had long since suspended specie payments, butincreased their issues of notes. The cotton crop, then being harvestedby the negroes, and the grain and cattle of the hill country were thechief resources. The paper money of the Government was paid to soldiers, farmers, and planters for their services and supplies, and this wasgiven back to the Government in exchange for interest-bearing bonds thatwere issued. With a European market for the planters' products thesystem might easily have been successful; but this one essential tovictory failed, or waited upon military success. 

The first general election came on in the late autumn. Under thestimulus of the victory at Manassas, or Bull Run, Davis and Stephenswere elected President and Vice-President without opposition for termsof six years. New Senators and Representatives were chosen, generallyfrom the ranks of conservative politicians, for the sessions of theregular Confederate Congress, which was to supersede the provisionalcongress and government on Washington's birthday, 1862. The judiciary ofthe Confederacy was regularly organized except as to the Supreme Court;the adjustments of national and state relations were all rapidly andeasily made; while the selection and appointment of high officers in thearmy and civil administration went steadily on at Richmond, under therelief from military pressure which the success of Beauregard andJohnston in northern Virginia had secured. In the general security someof the ablest officers of the army, especially Joseph E. Johnston, feltfree to attack the President in the newspapers because of the failure togive the highest commands according to rank of officers in the formerUnited States Army, --a quarrel which was destined to have a fatalinfluence in the final overthrow of the new government. There was alsoan attempt to fix upon Davis the blame for not capturing Washington Citythe day after the Bull Run _débâcle_. However, these were as yet butripples of discontent which only proved the general confidence of thepeople in their final triumph. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

F. E. Chadwick's _The Causes of the Civil War_ (1906) and J. K. Hosmer's_The Appeal to Arms_ (1906) are the best brief and recent accounts ofthe events of 1859 to 1862. But Rhodes, McMaster, and Schouler cover theperiod to 1876, each after his distinctive method. John C. Ropes's _TheStory of the Civil War_ (1894), continued by W. R. Livermore, treats themilitary history in the most critical and fair-minded way, though Woodand Edmonds's _The Civil War in the United States_ (1905), and G. P. R. Henderson's _Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War_ (1900), areequally good, if somewhat briefer. 

Of original material there is no limit, and the student is compelled tofind his way through the uncharted wilderness of evidence in the_Rebellion Records_, already cited, and the thousands of volumes ofmemoirs and special contemporary narratives of which U. S. Grant's_Personal Memoirs_ (1886), Joseph B. Johnston's _Narrative of MilitaryOperations_ (1874), Nicolay and Hay's _Abraham Lincoln: a History_(1890), and _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_ (1887-89), areperhaps the most important. Almost all the officers of both the Unionand Confederate armies, with the unique exception of General Lee, leftpublished or unpublished narratives of their rôles in the great strugglewhich help to clear up most disputed episodes, though they complicatethe task of the historian. 

The estimates of the numbers of men engaged on both sides by Ropes, Rhodes, and especially T. L. Livermore in his _Numbers and Losses_, aremost trustworthy, though this is a subject still hotly controverted inboth North and South. Each of the great battles has its historian: H. V. Boynton, _The Battle of Chickamauga_, and Morris Schaff, _The Battle ofthe Wilderness_, being the best examples. 

 CHAPTER XV

 ONE NATION OR TWO?

The distressing news of Bull Run brought home to the North the awfulrealities of war. Men who had all along distrusted the Republican partynow denounced a war waged for the emancipation of the South's slaves. Both the President and Congress formally announced that it was astruggle for the maintenance of the Union and not a war on behalf of theslaves. It was well that this position was taken, else the North mighthave broken into impotent factions. The East hated the South and warredupon their ancient rivals, the planters; the border States owned slaves, disliked the Republican party, and feared the purposes of those inpower; while the West loved the Union, held the negro in contempt, andwas committed to the party in power on the smallest possible margin. 

None but Lincoln seemed to possess the tact and the ability necessary tohold together these dissolving elements of a country never yetthoroughly united; and even he was long doubted and distrusted by manygood men. Strange as it may seem, Douglas had been, until his death, June 3, 1861, his right arm. Douglas's last speeches and dying wordsurged upon the millions of his followers the necessity of giving theirlives to the cause of the Union. So critical was the situation that whennominations were made for elective office in the Middle States or theWest in 1861, the Administration party took pains to disavow its formerattitude and put forward candidates who had been regular Democrats, thusfollowing the same compromising policy which Davis inaugurated in theSouth. Daniel S. Dickinson, a member of the old Polk and Pierce party ofruthless expansion, was made leader of the Administration forces in NewYork in 1861, and David Tod, a stanch Douglas man in 1860, was electedGovernor of Ohio the same year by Republican votes. John C. Frémont wasremoved from the command of the Federal army in St. Louis because heundertook to emancipate the slaves in his department. The people of theNorth were not willing to invade the sister States of the South for anyother cause than to restore the Union. Wealthy bankers, industrialleaders, and railway magnates might be kept together on a platform ofenlarging the area of their operations, but never on a program whichproposed the confiscation of billions of dollars' worth of property, which the slaves represented. In this hour of trial the supreme need wascoöperation and union among the diverse elements of the North, for in1862 another Congress would be chosen, and if party lines were sufferedto be drawn, the South would certainly gain her independence. 

[Illustration: One Nation, or Two?]

With this Unionist program perfectly understood, Lincoln asked Congressfor 400, 000 men. Congress gave him 500, 000. A second wave of warlikeenthusiasm swept over the North, and men enlisted not for three months, but for three years. The zeal and _abandon_ of the South was hardlymatched, but there was no lack of men or support. With a few exceptionsthe newspapers, the pulpits, and the lecture platforms urged most ardentsupport of the common cause. But the more difficult problem of findingmoney for the vast armies that moved upon the South was not so quicklysolved. Secretary Chase reported the expenditure in the three months ofJune, July, and August of a hundred millions--an amount greater far thanthe total national debt. Before another three months had passed thisexpenditure had doubled, and the Secretary estimated that $500, 000, 000would be needed before the end of June, 1862! These were astoundingfigures to a country whose normal annual income was about $50, 000, 000. And what was worse, the financial men refused to take government bondsat par, as they had done during the war with Mexico, although they werenow offered interest at the rate of six to eight per cent. The countryhad recovered from the panic of 1857, and as business activity increasedand the general prosperity became certain, it was more difficult for theGovernment to borrow money. The suspension of specie payments by all thebanks before the end of the year did not mean panic or severe economiccrisis, as had hitherto been the case; rather, a change from metallic topaper money. Secretary Chase was told by New York leaders in December, 1862, that government bonds bearing six per cent interest would hardlybring sixty cents on the dollar. Yet business men borrowed money at fourper cent and the wheels of industry and commerce were moving at fullspeed. Prosperity in the North was thus almost as fatal to the Union asadversity in the South was to the Confederacy. Rather than advertise acollapse of the federal credit by selling bonds at a discount of twentyto forty per cent the guiding spirits at Washington decided to issuenotes as legal tender to the amount of $150, 000, 000, increased to$300, 000, 000 a little later. Immediately, bankers and business men whorefused to take bonds protested with such vigor and resolution thatChase and Lincoln, unlearned in the ways of finance, knew not whatcourse to take. To sell bonds at enormous discounts and high rates ofinterest was bad; to tax the people directly for the needs of theGovernment would have ruined the party in power; and to issue fiat moneywas equivalent to forcing the poor to lend what the rich refused. Butthe emergency was great. It was decided to issue and float "greenbacks"and also to sell bonds in unprecedented numbers. Though the markets ofthe world were open to the North and business was as active as ever inthe history of the country, the Federal Government was thus reduced, like the Confederacy, to the use of paper money, and, surprising as itmay appear, the securities of the latter sold in Europe at a higherprice than those of the former. Gold and silver disappeared entirely inboth sections. 

But the eyes of the public were fixed on military movements, notfinance, and as the winter of 1861-62 wore on an army of a hundredthousand men gathered around Washington for the second invasion ofVirginia. George B. McClellan, the "young Napoleon, " drilled andorganized the raw recruits while public opinion began to urge anothermarch upon Richmond. Other armies nearly a hundred thousand strongspread over Kentucky and threatened Tennessee at Cumberland Gap, BowlingGreen, and Forts Henry and Donelson. In February Ulysses S. Grant sawthe strategic importance of the forts on the Cumberland and TennesseeRivers, and before the first of March he had captured both, and thewhole of West Tennessee lay open to him. Nashville fell as he moved upthe Tennessee, and Commodore Foote opened the Mississippi River almostto Vicksburg during the early spring. Meanwhile Albert Sidney Johnstonhad retreated to northern Mississippi. Finding Grant in a weak positionon the southern bank of the Tennessee near Shiloh Church, he hastilygathered his discouraged troops about him for a sudden attack upon theinvaders. Grant had nearly 45, 000 men and he knew that General Buell wasonly a few miles away with 37, 000 more. Johnston had 40, 000. The purposeof the Confederate general was known to his men, and all were inspiredwith the determination of striking a blow before the two armies of theenemy could unite. Johnston's assistants in command were Beauregard andBragg, both able and experienced officers. On the morning of April 6, the Confederates fell upon Grant's outposts and drove them headlongagainst the main body. Desperate valor was shown in the ensuing attack, and before the afternoon it seemed that nothing could save the Unionarmy and its commander from complete disaster. The river was in highflood, two impassable creeks flanked the Federals, while the victoriousConfederates held the fourth side of the field. At two o'clock Johnstonfell mortally wounded; Beauregard succeeded to command, and about fouro'clock the attack slackened; at six it ceased altogether, though theUnion forces were demoralized and expecting to be captured. Grant wassaved. With the support of Buell at hand he attacked Beauregard on themorrow and regained some of his lost prestige. The "promenade" up theTennessee had been halted; but the loss of Johnston was equal to theloss of an army. This fighting of South and West was of the mostdesperate character, for Grant lost more than 10, 000 in killed andwounded, while Johnston and Beauregard lost 9700. 

The march of Grant and Buell across middle and western Tennessee and theopening of the Mississippi to Memphis was accompanied by the loss tothe Confederates of Missouri and a part of Arkansas. Grant's objectivein the summer and autumn of 1862 was Vicksburg, but the Confederatesheld him fast in the neighborhood of Corinth, Mississippi. Buellwithdrew from middle Tennessee in the late summer, when Bragg, commanderof a second Confederate army in the West, moved through easternTennessee into Kentucky, threatening Lexington and Louisville. But Braggfailed after some successes in September to carry the tide of war backtoward the Ohio, and he was followed in October by the army of the Ohio, now under the command of General W. S. Rosecrans, toward Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where another sanguinary battle was fought on the last day ofDecember, 1862. Rosecrans now had 43, 000 men, Bragg 38, 000. After adesperate encounter in which the honors inclined to the Confederateside, Bragg withdrew toward Chattanooga, his base of operations, andRosecrans encamped at Murfreesboro. The Federal losses in thisengagement were more than 13, 000, the Confederate somewhat over 9000, and the only advantage was the gaining of a few miles of territory. Thewar in the West which began so brilliantly for the Federals at FortsHenry and Donelson seemed to have come to a halt. Grant was unable topenetrate the lower South, and Rosecrans was content to leave Bragg inundisturbed possession of the region between Murfreesboro andChattanooga. 

Meanwhile the eyes of the two warring powers were concentrated on theoperations in Virginia. McClellan moved in March, 1862, upon Richmondby way of the Yorktown Peninsula, a swampy wild region over which it wasdifficult, indeed, to move an army. He commanded 125, 000 men, and 40, 000more were in the neighborhood of Washington to make a diversion in hisfavor in case of necessity. Joseph E. Johnston, who had held chiefcommand in Virginia since Bull Run, shifted his position promptly fromnorthern Virginia to Richmond to meet the threatened attack. He had nomore than 55, 000 men. As McClellan worked his way slowly up thepeninsula Johnston fortified his position along the ridges east andnorth of the Confederate capital, which stood on the hills just abovetidewater. From Hanover Court-House to Malvern Hill, a distance of sometwenty-five miles, the two armies confronted each other in irregularlines conforming to the topography of the region. Late in May, Johnstonattacked McClellan on the Union right, and the fighting continued two orthree days, now at one point, now at another of the long lines. On May31, in the battle of Fair Oaks, Johnston was severely wounded and thecommand devolved upon Robert E. Lee, whose failure to hold West Virginiaagainst McClellan during the preceding autumn had temporarily eclipsedhis growing reputation. Lee's management of his forces during the earlydays of his new command was faulty; but before the 23d of June he hadreceived reinforcements from the Carolinas and Georgia which brought histotal almost to 60, 000; and he relied on "Stonewall" Jackson, who wasjust concluding a wonderful campaign in the Valley of Virginia, to cometo his assistance with his corps of 16, 000. But McClellan still had105, 000 fairly trained soldiers, and there was no reason to doubt that asecond Union army was forming near Alexandria. It was a critical moment. 

Meanwhile, Jackson's operations in the Shenandoah Valley had so startledand astounded the Federals that he was able to march, June 20-25, unobserved, over the passes of the Blue Ridge Mountains to Lee'sassistance. A series of battles began June 26 at Mechanicsville onMcClellan's right, near where Johnston had fought. But the failure ofJackson to arrive and begin the attack, according to agreement, causedthe first Confederate onset to fail, with heavy losses to the South. Thenext day, however, the tide turned the other way and Lee routedMcClellan at Gaines' Mill. McClellan now retreated across White OakSwamp towards Harrison's Landing on the James. The weather was hot, theground soft from rains, and the underbrush so thick and tangled that mencould not see each other at a distance of ten paces, save in the narrowroads or small clearings. Realizing the difficulties under which hisopponent labored, Lee ordered hasty pursuit, and ineffective blows werestruck at Savage's Station and in White Oak Swamp. Jackson again failedto maintain the great reputation he had won in the Valley, and Magruder, Holmes, and Huger, other lieutenants of Lee, not knowing their owncountry as well as did the Federals, suffered their commands to be lostin the wilderness and thus aided McClellan in his escape from adangerous situation. On July 1 the retreating Union army gathered, stilldevoted to its commander, on Malvern Hill, within support of the Federalgunboats in the James River below. The Confederates, confident andexpectant, poured out of the woods from every direction, formed inbattle array, and charged over open fields and rising ground toward thetwo hundred and fifty great guns which had been dragged for weeksthrough the swamps in the hope of just such an opportunity. The attemptof Lee to carry this impregnable position lost the Confederates as manybrave men as all the other six days of unremitting warfare. McClellanheld his own till night; Lee withdrew to the neighboring thickets, surprised at the resolute strength of an opponent who had avoided battleat every turn since June 26. 

The week of fighting and scouring the woods had cost the North nearly16, 000 men; the South, 20, 000. The retreat on July 2 to Harrison'sLanding was McClellan's confession of failure, which sorely distressedhis superiors in Washington and greatly depressed the spirits of theNorth. Lee's first essay at war on a large scale had saved theConfederate capital, though at fearful cost, and he was everywhereregarded as a great general. From this time Davis and the ConfederateGovernment gave him the fullest confidence, and the people of the Southcame to think of him as almost superhuman. Though he was bold in actionand even reckless of human life, his soldiers gave him an obedience anda reverence which no other commander in American history has everreceived. Jackson, Longstreet, and D. H. And A. P. Hill had also wonfame in this baptism of blood. To the average Southerner the outlook wasonce more exceedingly bright. Richmond breathed freely, and theGovernment bent its energies to the task of supplying its able officerswith men and means. 

While the Federal Government was deciding what to do with McClellan andhis army, still almost twice as large as Lee's, the Confederatecommander sent Jackson with some 20, 000 men to the neighborhood of BullRun, where the commands of McDowell, Banks, and Frémont had been unitedto make a third army of invasion. General John Pope was brought fromsuccessful operations in the West to Washington, where Secretary EdwinM. Stanton, assuming more and more the directing authority of theGovernment, prepared, with the assistance of Senator Benjamin F. Wade, aproclamation which Pope was to distribute among the troops. "I come fromthe West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies, " ran thisremarkable admonition to Eastern, officers and men. "Let us look beforeus and not behind. " Most of the 50, 000 men who were soon to meet Jacksonand Lee resented the comparison and the affront. On August 9 a sharpencounter at Cedar Mountain showed how resolute and real was the purposeof Lee to drive this army out of Virginia. When President Lincolnremoved McClellan and ordered the Army of the Potomac in part toWashington, in part to Acquia Creek, near Fredericksburg, to supportPope, and gave the command of all the armies of the East to General H. W. Halleck, for whom Grant had won high reputation earlier in the year, Lee hastened northward to defeat Pope before these reinforcements couldarrive. The Union forces north of Bull Run amounted now to nearly 75, 000men; Lee had 55, 000, but there was no thought of delay. On the 29th and30th Pope was crushed and routed completely in a series of maneuvers andbattles which have been pronounced the most masterly in the whole war. For four days the discouraged and baffled troops and officers of theUnion retreated or ran pell-mell across the northern counties ofVirginia into Washington, to the dismay of Lincoln and the friends ofthe Federal cause. It was at this moment, too, that Bragg was advancing, as already described, into Kentucky and threatening to seize Lexingtonand Louisville. It was a dark hour to the patient and patriotic Lincoln, who had never dreamed that such catastrophes could be the result of hisreluctant decision, in early April, 1861, to hold Fort Sumter. 

General Halleck proved uncertain and dilatory; the Army of the Potomacwas generally dissatisfied and clamoring for the restoration ofMcClellan, who, like Joseph E. Johnston, of the South, was alwayspopular with his men; the Cabinet, too, was uncertain and hopelesslydivided in its counsels. The cause of the Union was exceedingly doubtfulin September, 1862, as Lee entered Maryland, publishing abroad his callto the Southern element of that State to rise and join their brethren ofthe Confederacy. Public opinion in the North was divided and depressed. The abolitionists of the East were pressing every day through Sumner andChase for a proclamation emancipating the slaves, which might havedriven Maryland and Kentucky into the arms of the enemy; the Northwestwas in turmoil, for there abolitionism was as unpopular as slaveryitself, and leading men declared that it was a war for the Union, for agreat common country, not a struggle to overthrow the institutions ofthe South. There was still no great party, sure of a majority in thecoming elections, upon which the President could rely, and the loss of amajority in Congress would have been fatal. 

Under these circumstances Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson entered Marylandat a point some fifty miles above Washington, with their armyenthusiastic and self-confident because of recent victories. It seemedalmost certain that another victory, and this on the soil of the North, would secure Confederate recognition in Europe. Reluctantly Lincolnrestored McClellan to the command of the Union army which was movingnorthwestward to confront Lee. An accident, one of those small things inwar which sometimes determines the fate of nations, put into McClellan'shands the orders of Lee for the Maryland campaign. General D. H. Hilldropped his copy of these important and highly confidential instructionsupon the ground as he was breaking camp on the morning of the 12th ofSeptember. On the same day this tell-tale document was handed to theFederal commander. Almost a third of Lee's army was on its way toHarper's Ferry, many miles to the west, to seize that post, whichMcClellan thought had already been evacuated. McClellan began to pressupon the Confederates as they retired from their advanced position tothe valley of Antietam Creek. South Mountain, a spur of the Blue Ridge, lay between the armies. On September 16, McClellan crossed the passesand confronted Lee, who was now on the defensive. A most sanguinarybattle followed on the 17th, and the Confederates, having sufferedlosses of nearly 12, 000 men, retired to northern Virginia. The campaignwas closed, for McClellan was too cautious to risk a second attack, andLee retired to a safe position south of the Potomac. The consternationof the North subsided and President Lincoln gave out the announcementthat if war continued till January he would emancipate the slaves byexecutive order in all the States which at that time refused torecognize the Federal authority. 

The elections which came in October and November following ran heavilyagainst the Administration. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, Republican States in 1860, wentDemocratic. Only in States where the war upon the South, as the ancientenemy, was popular did the Administration receive hearty support. In themoderate States like Pennsylvania and the border States like Kentucky, the Republican party had practically ceased to exist. The EmancipationProclamation had served to emphasize the almost fatal cleavage inNorthern public opinion. 

But the fortunes of both sides depended on victory in the field as wellas votes in Congress, and all eyes turned again to the movements of Lee. The failure of McClellan to follow Lee and deliver battle led to hissecond removal from command. Ambrose E. Burnside, a corps commander whohad done good work at Antietam, succeeded, and in obedience to theorders of the War Department moved directly upon Richmond by way ofFredericksburg, with an army of 122, 000. But Lee confronted him on thesouth bank of the Rappahannock, and though his forces were only a littlemore than half as strong, there was no uneasiness at Confederateheadquarters. On the 12th of December Burnside crossed the Rappahannockand attacked Lee, who held the formidable hills on the southern bank ofthat stream. Another bloody battle ensued. After a vain and hopelesssacrifice of 12, 000 men, Burnside withdrew to the northern bank of theriver. The active fighting of 1862 had come to a close. In northernMississippi Grant and Sherman were blocked; at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the armies of Rosecrans and Bragg were about to make their fruitlessonsets already mentioned, and in Virginia the Union outlook was quite asdark as it had been after the first unfortunate trial at arms in July, 1861. Lincoln thought of removing Grant because of the failure of thecampaign in northern Mississippi, but gave him another opportunity;Burnside resigned a command he had not sought, and Joseph Hooker took upthe difficult problem of beating Lee. 

At Washington the deepest gloom prevailed. On July 2, 1862, before thenews of McClellan's failure to capture Richmond had reached the people, a call for 300, 000 three-year men was made. Then came the disaster ofSecond Manassas and the invasion of Maryland. Recruiting went ondrearily during the fall, when most signs pointed to the failure of allthe gigantic efforts to maintain the Union. The writ of _habeas corpus_, so dear to Anglo-Saxons, had been frequently suspended; arbitraryarrests were made in all parts of the North, and many well-known menwere held in military and other prisons without warrant or trial. Stanton and Seward with the approval of the President issued orders forthe seizure of men at night, and the mysterious disappearances of publicmen in places where opposition had been shown served to warn peopleagainst displeasing their own officers at the capital. The cost of thewar had mounted to $2, 500, 000 a day, while the gross receipts of theGovernment were not more than $600, 000 a day. When the time came to putinto force the Emancipation Proclamation, the people were in greaterdoubt than ever about the wisdom of the move, and Secretary Seward wroteto a friend condemning utterly this effort to raise a servile war in theSouth. The letter found its way into the newspapers and showed once morethe cleavage of Northern public opinion. The radical East approved, thenationalist West disapproved, and business men, bankers, merchants, andmanufacturers, whom Seward best represented, went on their indifferentways, refusing to lend money to the Government save on usurious terms, and at the same time denouncing its policy of paying debts by issuingirredeemable paper. Lincoln had lost the confidence of the public, evenof Congress; but, as he himself said, no other man possessed more ofthat confidence. An honest German merchant wrote home to friends thatif the North could only exchange officers with the Confederates, the warwould be over in a few weeks. In the midst of the depression theSecretary of the Treasury issued another $100, 000, 000 of greenbacks tomeet pressing needs; and to fill up the ranks of the armies a Federalconscript law was enacted in March, 1863, only a little less drasticthan the Confederate measure which was said to "rob both the cradle andthe grave. "

Under these circumstances Hooker moved half-heartedly upon Lee. The twoarmies, the Union out-numbering the Confederate more than two to one, met in the dreary and almost impenetrable forest, southwest ofFredericksburg, known as the Wilderness, though the battle whichfollowed bears the name of Chancellorsville. For five days the bloodywork went on, with the result that Hooker retired beaten and humiliatedbefore his enemy. Lee and the South had also lost their greatestgeneral, Stonewall Jackson, and the people of the South were feeling tothe full the disasters of war. But Lee gathered his forces from Norfolk, Petersburg, and Richmond, every regiment that could be spared, more than80, 000 men, and set his face once more toward western Maryland andPennsylvania, where he confidently expected to wrest a peace from thestubborn North. The Army of the Potomac moved on interior lines towardGettysburg, leaving some regiments in Washington against an emergency. The people of Pennsylvania and New York were panic-struck; a second timethe evils of war had been transferred from Southern to Northernterritory. Great cities have not been famous for self-control andphilosophy when their banks and their rich storehouses have beenthreatened with ruin. Philadelphia and New York were no exceptions tothe rule, and if it had been left to them the war would have beenbrought to a close before Lee crossed the Pennsylvania border. 

Once more the Union commander was changed. Upon the modest shoulders ofGeneral George Gordon Meade fell the heavy responsibility of saving theriches of the Middle States and the cause of the Union, for all feltthat a Confederate victory in the heart of the North would bring thetragedy to a close. Lee was so bold and confident that he was hardlymore cautious in the disposition of his troops than he had been whenfighting on his own soil. Meade secured a strong position on the hillsabout the since famous village of Gettysburg, and awaited attack; he hadsomewhat more than 90, 000 men, who were, however, still laboring underthe delusion that Lee was invincible and that their commanders wereunequal to those of the adversary. Without waiting for the return of hiscavalry and without trying, like Napoleon at Austerlitz, to entice theFederals away from their fortifications, General Lee pressed forward. OnJuly 1 the Confederates gained some advantage in the fighting; on thesecond day they held their own; but on the third day they attempted, somewhat after the manner of Burnside at Fredericksburg, the impossible, and the best army the South ever had was hopelessly beaten. About 30, 000of their brave men were dead, wounded, or missing. Meade had notsuffered so great a loss, and he had saved the cause of his Government. After a day of waiting the Confederate army took up its march unmolestedtoward northern Virginia. While the people of the North rejoiced attheir deliverance, the news came that Grant had captured Vicksburg andall the 30, 000 men who had defended that important point. TheMississippi went on its way "unvexed to the sea, " as Lincoln said, forNew Orleans had long since fallen and the upper river had been clearedof all resistance. At only one point on the long line from Washington toVicksburg had the Confederates held their own--Chattanooga, whence Bragghad retreated earlier in the year and where the next great battle was tobe fought. 

Hastily Davis ordered his available regiments to Bragg, who held themountain ridges south of Chattanooga. Lee, who felt strong enough tohold Meade in check in northern Virginia, sent away Longstreet with hisveterans. September 19, Rosecrans attacked Bragg on his impregnablehills, and after two days of heroic fighting and appalling losses heretired to the city. Bragg had won a victory similar in every respect tothat which crowned Meade's efforts at Gettysburg. Though slow, unpopularwith officers and men, and unimaginative, he soon seized the strongpoints on the river above and below the city, and Rosecrans wassurrounded, besieged, for the single, almost impassable road toNashville and the North would not bear the burden of necessary supplies. If Bragg had proved watchful and alert, it would have been only a matterof time when the Federals would have been driven by famine tosurrender. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Mr. Gamaliel Bradford has published some extremely interesting studiesof the war-time leaders, of which, _Lee, the American_ (1912) is by farthe most important, though his _Confederate Portraits_ (1914) includingcharacter sketches of most of the eminent Southern generals, offer agreat deal that is suggestive. In volume _IV_ of Mr. Rhodes's _History_there are two chapters which treat of the life of the people of Northand South in the most interesting manner. In addition to the moregeneral works already cited, one may turn to George C. Gorham's _Lifeand Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton_ (1889); George H. Haynes's_Charles Sumner_ in _American Crises_ biographies; Henry Cleveland's_Alexander H. Stephens in Public and in Private_ (1866); A. B. Hart's_Salmon Portland Chase_ in _American Statesmen_ series; FredericBancroft's _The Life of William H. Seward_ (1900); and Carl Schurz's_Reminiscences_ (1907-08); H. A. Wise's _Seven Decades of the AmericanUnion_ (1876); and J. W. DuBose's _The Life and Times of William L. Yancey_ (1892). 

The diplomatic history of the war will be found in J. M. Callahan's_Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy_ (1901); J. W. Foster's_A Century of American Diplomacy_ (1900); Charles Francis Adams's_Charles Francis Adams_ (1900), in _American Statesmen_ series; CharlesFrancis Adams's _Lee at Appomatox_ (1909); and _TransatlanticSolidarity_ (1913); and Pierce Butler's _Judah P. Benjamin_, in_American Crises_ biographies. 

Of contemporary accounts to be added to those already mentioned are W. T. Sherman's _Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman_ (1875), and especiallythe _Home Letters of General Sherman_, edited by M. A. DeWolfe Howe(1909); G. B. McClellan's _McClellan's Own Story_ (1887); E. A. Pollard's _A Southern History of the War_ (1866); Horace Greeley's _TheAmerican Conflict_ (1864-67); and Jefferson Davis's _Rise and Fall ofthe Confederate Government_ (1881). 

 CHAPTER XVI

 THE COLLAPSE OF THE CONFEDERACY

As one looks to-day over the sources of the history of the great CivilWar, it seems plain that the responsible spokesmen of the Confederacyshould have made overtures to the North for peace on the basis of anindissoluble union of the warring sections in the autumn of 1863. Butthe Southern leader who proposed reunion at that time would have beenregarded as untrue to his cause or unduly timid. Neither Jefferson Davisnor General Lee had any thought of surrender, though from the attitudeof representatives of the United States it was plain that an offer toreturn to the Union would have been met with ample guaranties to theowners of slaves and full amnesty to those who had brought on the war. Alexander Stephens alone foresaw the outcome and began now to ask for anew national convention in which terms of restoration and permanentunion should be fixed. Stephens was, however, already out of harmonywith President Davis; and the State of Georgia, led by Joseph E. Brown, the Governor, and the Confederate Vice-President himself, was regardedby loyal Southerners as recalcitrant and therefore not authorized topropose solutions of the problem. The cup of Southern defeat andhumiliation had not been drained to the bottom. 

The Confederacy owed, at the end of the year 1863, $1, 221, 000, 000; theState Governments, the counties and cities, probably owed as much more. Paper money, the only medium of exchange, was fast giving way to barter. One dollar in gold was worth twenty dollars in Confederate currency. Themonthly wage of a common soldier was not sufficient to buy a bushel ofwheat. People who lived in the cities converted their tiny yards intovegetable gardens; the planters no longer produced cotton and tobacco, but supplies for "their people" and for the armies. The annual export ofcotton fell from 2, 000, 000 bales in 1860 to less than 200, 000 in 1863, and most of this came from areas under Federal control. The yearlyreturns to the planters from foreign markets alone had fallen from thehuge returns of 1860 to almost nothing in 1863, and with thedisappearance of gold, or international money, from the South, theGovernments, Confederate and State, found their systems of taxationbreaking down. Early in 1864 taxes were made payable in corn, bacon, orwheat, not in paper money, which every one refused to accept at facevalue. Planters and farmers great and small were now required tocontribute one tenth of their crops to the Government. This would havegiven to the armies an ample supply, but the railroads were alreadybreaking down, while wagons and country roads were also unable to bearthe unparalleled burden. It was a difficult situation. The States madeit worse by resisting the authority of the Confederacy; while theConfederacy was unable either to raise money on loans or gather taxes inkind from farmers who preferred always to pay in "lawful money. " TheConfederacy was getting into debt beyond all chance of redemption, andthe States were likewise mortgaged to the utmost limit of their creditbefore the end of the year 1864. 

But the tax law of 1864 was only one of the burdens under whichSoutherners, who had never accustomed themselves to paying taxes in anylarge way, groaned. In 1862 General Lee had urged upon Davis a conscriptlaw which would keep his ranks full. Congress grudgingly enacted therequired legislation, and later more drastic laws were passed; but thesimple people who occupied the remote mountain sections of the South andthe small farmers and tenants of the sandy ridges or piney woodsresponded slowly when confronted by the officers of the law. Thousandspositively refused service in the armies and resorted to the denseforests or swamps, where they were fed by friends and neighbors whorefused to assist the government recruiting agents. In the mountains ofVirginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee these people were so numerousthat the presence of troops was required to keep up the semblance ofobedience to law. Local warfare was the result in many places. Unionistswho had not been able to join the armies of the United States assistedthose who refused to serve in the Confederate ranks. As time went onthousands of deserters joined the recalcitrants in the Southern hills, and during the last year of the war it was a serious problem of Stateand Confederate authorities what to do with these people, who nownumbered quite a hundred thousand men. 

Resistance to tax-gatherers and to recruiting officers, and thedespondency which followed the disasters of 1863 and the tightening ofthe Federal blockade, led to dissatisfaction and even resistance in theloyal black belts. In North Carolina a peace movement, led by an ablenewspaper editor, W. W. Holden, gained the sympathies of Governor Vance, who had never liked Jefferson Davis nor really sympathized with thecause of secession. In Virginia the friends of John B. Floyd, who hadbeen summarily dismissed from the army for his hasty surrender of FortDonelson in 1862, aided by the followers of John M. Daniel, editor ofthe Richmond _Examiner_, did what they could to embarrass theConfederate President. The Rhett influence in South Carolina and thelong-standing quarrel of Governor Brown of Georgia with Jefferson Davisstill further weakened the arm of Confederate administration. EvenWilliam L. Yancey, the most fiery of the secessionist leaders of 1860, devoted all his eloquence and abilities, from 1861 to the time of hisdeath in 1863, to attacking the Government of his own making. And tomake matters worse, the supreme courts of North Carolina and Georgiaundertook to annul the conscript law and other important acts of theConfederate Congress, and thus inaugurated a war of the judges whichseriously undermined the prestige and the morale of the ConfederateGovernment. Confederate officers enrolled men for the army only to havethem released by state judges supported by their respective governors. All the influence and abilities of Lee and Davis were required toprevent a break-down in the spring of 1864, when the calls for moretroops and additional supplies were so numerous and pressing. WestVirginia was gone, Kentucky and Missouri, too, were wholly within theFederal lines; and most of Tennessee, half of Mississippi, and nearlyall the region beyond the great river were lost to the RichmondGovernment. New Orleans and Norfolk were once more parts of the UnitedStates, while large strips of territory in eastern North Carolina, SouthCarolina, and Florida were held in subjection by frowning gunboats. 

[Illustration: The Confederacy in 1863]

A little cotton found its way through the beleaguered ports of Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington to Europe, and brought the luckyblockade runners and their owners rich returns. But trade was so smalland the dangers of capture were so many that few could look with anyreal hope for a return of prosperity until the war was over. Europemust intervene if cotton and tobacco and sugar were to regain theirkingly state. And this was the warmest wish of the Confederatechieftains. When the battle of Fredericksburg was fought, all the worldthought that the desired recognition would come at once. James M. Mason, the commissioner to England, wrote home that a large majority of theHouse of Commons was willing to vote for acknowledging Southernindependence, and Charles Francis Adams, the Minister of the UnitedStates, was of the same opinion. Gladstone, then one of the most popularmembers of the British Cabinet, and a majority of his colleagues favoredthe South. Palmerston declared, when the Emancipation Proclamation wasread to him, that Lincoln abolished slavery where he had no power to doso and protected it where he had power to abolish it. Of the millionvoters in England at least three fourths seemed ready to vote forSouthern recognition, and all the great manufacturers, the powerfulmerchants, the country gentry, and great nobles were openly contemptuousof the cause and policy of the North. Carlyle ridiculed the "Yankees, "and Dickens made fun of Lincoln, Sumner, Chase, and the rest. It wasapparently only a matter of weeks before Lord Palmerston would askParliament to authorize him to intervene in order to stop the "useless"bloodshed and slaughter of the war between the States. 

In France the ruling class, the bankers, the industrialists, the higherclergy, and many of the party of free trade supported Napoleon III inhis well-known friendliness for the South. Moreover, the Emperor waspromoting a scheme to build for his Austrian friend, Maximilian, anempire in Mexico, where the perennial war of factions was hotly raging. Davis might aid such a move as a consideration for recognition, andcertainly Seward was too busy with his own troubles to intervene onbehalf of an "outworn" Monroe Doctrine. Slidell, the shrewd Confederatecommissioner to France, led the Emperor to expect Southern support ofhis scheme, and at the same time borrowed millions of dollars in goldfrom rich Paris bankers and hurried it off to the famishing Confederacy. No revolutionary power ever had a fairer chance of winning its goal thandid that of Davis and Lee in the autumn of 1862 and winter of 1863. 

The unexpected often happens. While Charles Francis Adams was beingcoldly elbowed out of the salons of an unsympathetic English nobility, and when Confederate bonds were selling both in London and Paris at ornear par, Secretary Chase sent Robert J. Walker, the former Mississippirepudiator and successful Secretary of the Treasury under Polk, toEurope for the purpose of breaking down Confederate credit and buildingup that of the United States. 

The commissioner of the Treasury Department began the publication of aseries of articles on the financial page of the London _Times_ whichseemed to show that Davis had been responsible for the repudiation of alarge issue of state bonds, many of them held in London, in 1843. Allthat Mason and Slidell could do did not remove the suspicion that theConfederate President would "repudiate" again. Men who had loaned largesums of money to Mississippi could not be made to understand that Walkerhimself had been the responsible agent of Mississippi in those days. From the beginning of this unpleasant advertising of former Americanfinanciering, in which Northern States had sinned quite as flagrantly asSouthern, Confederate credit in Europe declined. Her bonds were soonwithdrawn from the market. At the same time Walker succeeded inborrowing $250, 000, 000 from European bankers, and thus at a criticalperiod he was able to prop the declining fortunes of his country. To saythat Walker destroyed the credit of the Confederacy and at the same timerestored that of the Union would be an exaggeration. But his serviceswere of incalculable value to the nationalist cause. When, therefore, Napoleon asked England to join him in intervening between the warringparties of the United States there was other reason, besides the strongand vigorous activity of Charles Francis Adams, for the British Ministryto postpone or decline coöperation. 

Thus the bright Confederate outlook of 1862 had become dark in May, 1864, when General Grant, who had been brought from the field of hisbrilliant operations in the West, took command of the army with whichMeade had expelled Lee from Pennsylvania. But conditions were notencouraging in the North. Lincoln's popularity was still in eclipse. Congress was resentful of his failures. Charles Sumner was denouncinghim every day in private and opposing him in public. Secretary Chase wasusing the machinery of his great office to deprive his chief of arenomination. The radicals of the East were still refusing theirapproval of a policy which compromised with slavery in the borderStates, and the Unionists of the Northwest were resentful toward aPresident who was making war upon slavery. The Democrats of the Northwere apparently stronger than ever, and their criticism of theGovernment for suspending the writ of _habeas corpus_ and for hundredsof arbitrary arrests gave conservative men pause. To all this must beadded the resistance in 1863 to the military drafts, the riots, theextraordinary prosperity of business men which made recruiting, evenwith the aid of laws almost as drastic as those of the South, almostimpossible. The cost in bounties to nation, state, and counties of oneenlistment in 1864 was about $1000; and when a regiment was thus madeup, a third of the men sometimes deserted within a few months andreënlisted under other names, thus securing a second or a third seriesof bounties. 

Still the success of the Northern cause seemed to depend on therenomination of Lincoln, for any other Republican Unionist wouldcertainly be defeated by the Democrats, who were fast uniting uponGeneral McClellan, exceedingly popular with both War Democrats and thosewho had opposed the war from the beginning. If the outlook in the Southwas discouraging, that of the North was almost as depressing. 

With public opinion keen, critical, and watchful, the great duelreopened in Virginia and Georgia in May, 1864. Grant attacked with anarmy of 120, 000 men; Lee returned the blow with a force of about 60, 000seasoned and resolute soldiers. From May 3 to June 12 the two greatgenerals fought over the tangled thickets and sandy ridges which extendfrom the Wilderness to Cold Harbor near Richmond, where McClellan hadfailed in 1862. Grant failed in every attempt to defeat his foe, and helost in that short period about 54, 000 brave men--an army almost equalin numbers to that which they opposed. The people and the papers of theNorth were demanding the removal of their last general; United Statesbonds and paper money were a drug on the stock market; it was reportedthat Grant was drinking deeply. Lincoln knew that to remove his generalwould be tantamount to surrender, for B. F. Butler, then on the lowerJames, would be the only and last resort, and Lee would make short workof that remarkable commander. There was a little encouragement in thefighting of Sherman against Joseph E. Johnston, who was yielding moreand more of northern Georgia to his rival. But June and July, 1864, werethe darkest hours of the Union cause and of Lincoln, its champion. 

Lee now felt himself secure in his position near Malvern Hill, andexpected daily to hear of the removal of his antagonist. But Grant, tothe surprise of all, performed the greatest feat of his military careerby safely placing all his army, still 120, 000 strong, on the south sideof the James River, where there were no intrenchments and no otherobstacles to their marching upon Petersburg, the key to Richmond. Thiswas done with incredible facility, June 16, 17, and 18, while Leequietly waited for the enemy to attack him once more. While Lee thusrested on his arms, Grant carried his army through the open country eastof Petersburg. Too late, June 18, the Confederate commander hastened allhis forces to the new scene of war. Grant had played an incomparableruse, and the Union army entered, with returning faith in its leader, upon the last phase of its great task--the ruin of Lee. 

Meanwhile General Sherman, with a force of 80, 000, had been drivingJoseph E. Johnston, with 50, 000 men, from Dalton in northern Georgiatoward Atlanta. From May 4 until July 18 the two armies maneuvered andfought--each seeking without success to surprise the other. On the 17thof July Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee some twenty miles north ofAtlanta. Georgia and the cotton belt of the lower South were in a panic. Davis, never quite satisfied with Johnston's operations, yielded to theclamors of Senators and Representatives, as well as military men, andremoved the general. John B. Hood, the new commander, began at once aseries of battles around the doomed city, losing in every encounter. Atlanta fell on September 2. Sherman was left in quiet possession ofnorthern Georgia, while the Confederate army marched toward Nashville inthe hope of forcing a retreat and perhaps of regaining Tennessee. WithGrant at Petersburg, whose fall would compel the evacuation of Richmond, and Sherman the master of Georgia, for such was the meaning of Hood'smovements, the days of the Confederacy seemed to be numbered. 

Before these military successes had been gained, the leaders of theUnion cause were compelled to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. Sumner, Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, and many other men of greatinfluence opposed Lincoln's renomination. A convention of radicalRepublicans met at Cleveland during the last days of May. It nominatedJohn C. Frémont for President. But the regular Republican Convention meta week later in Baltimore, formally disavowed its name, and assumed thatof the National Union party. Its chairman was Robert J. Breckinridge, aKentucky preacher and Unionist. Lincoln was renominated withoutopposition, and, as a bid to the border States, Andrew Johnson, UnionDemocrat of Tennessee, was nominated for Vice-President. However, thereverses of Grant in Virginia weakened the position of theAdministration, and before the 1st of August trusted advisers of theGovernment telegraphed "The apathy of the public mind is fearful. " Theprice of gold ranged during the summer from 200 to 285, and UnitedStates securities sold at less than half their face value. The Presidentwas compelled to order a draft of 500, 000 men in July; the country metthe order with a groan. Congress asked for the appointment of a day offasting and penance, and Lincoln set the first Thursday in August as a"day of national humiliation and prayer. " So portentous was the outlookthat before the middle of August most of the eminent men in the Unionparty had lost all heart. Greeley wrote, "Lincoln is already beaten. " Acommittee waited on the President to ask his formal withdrawal from thecanvass. 

Late in August, when the Unionist hopes were at their lowest, theDemocrats met in Chicago. Governor Seymour, of New York, RepresentativesPendleton, of Ohio, Voorhees, of Indiana, and the unpopular Clement L. Vallandigham were in charge of the proceedings. Southern leaderscame over from Canada and even representatives of the Sons ofLiberty, a group of Northwesterners who were resisting the NationalAdministration, were participants in the convention. Vallandigham, a"peace-at-any-price" man, secured the passage of a resolution whichdeclared the war a failure, but the War Democrats dictated thenomination and made George B. McClellan the candidate of the party. Thegeneral, who had fought some of the great battles of the war, repudiatedthe Vallandigham resolution, but accepted the proffered leadership. Onthe day the convention adjourned it seemed clear to the thoughtful menof the country that the Democrats would win the election, and that theywould in that event bring the war to a close by acknowledging Southernindependence. 

But before the delegates had reached their homes, the telegraphannounced the fall of Atlanta. Commodore Farragut had just taken Mobileafter a long and heroic struggle. President Lincoln, a masterfulmanipulator of popular opinion, now called upon the country to assemblein their churches and give thanks to God for the splendid victories ofSherman and Farragut. Early in September General Phil Sheridan invadedthe Shenandoah Valley, made famous by Jackson in the beginning of thewar, and won a decisive victory at Winchester. Before the end of themonth he had burned thousands of barns, slaughtered many thousands ofcattle, and destroyed the newly harvested grain in all that rich region. His terse remark that a crow could not cross the Valley without takingwith him his provisions received widespread applause, and showed what adesperate character the war had taken. Sherman, too, took up his marchthrough the rich black belt of Georgia, destroying everything that camewithin his reach. The people of the North took heart, especially thestiff-backed Republicans who during the two years preceding had foundlittle to approve in the measures of the Government. Sumner, who hadcalled Lincoln the American Louis XVI; Thaddeus Stevens, who haddeclared that he knew only one Lincoln man in the House ofRepresentatives; Horace Greeley, Secretary Chase, and even GovernorAndrew of Massachusetts, all united now to praise the President and urgehis cause before the country. The last great crisis of the war in theNorth had been passed. A decisive victory at the polls was the verdictof the people, and the homely, honest, and kindly Lincoln wascommissioned to bring the war to a conclusion and then to reconstructthe Union. 

The South observed movements in the North now with hopeful, now withregretful, scrutiny. As a desperate stroke Davis had sent Jacob Thompsonto Canada to assist in the release of Confederate prisoners and to stirup the Sons of Liberty to rise against the Federal Government. InOctober raiding parties were sent into New England, and an effort wasmade to set fire to New York City in retaliation for the destruction ofSouthern property by order of Federal generals. These efforts provedabortive, perhaps adding many votes to the majority with which Lincolnwas reëlected. And when the Confederate Congress reassembled in Novemberthe fortunes of the South were recognized as almost past remedy. Georgiadid not rise to overwhelm Sherman; the supplies painfully collected inthousands of _dépôts_ could not be carried to Lee's army in Petersburg;the railroads were almost useless, and starvation confronted those wholived in the larger towns. Only a great and overwhelming victory overGrant could save the South, and that seemed impossible when thousands ofConfederate soldiers had deserted their standards. With 40, 000 men itwas not likely that Lee could raise the siege of Petersburg or captureany large part of Grant's army of nearly 140, 000. 

In the hope of filling the thin ranks of the Southern armies, PresidentDavis recommended to Congress the enlistment of the blacks; and tosecure foreign recognition, he sent Duncan F. Kenner to Europe to offeremancipation of the slaves. But Congress regarded these moves withill-concealed contempt and offered counter-solutions. AlexanderStephens, the Vice-President, led a movement to impeach Davis. Powerfulinfluences in Virginia supported Stephens; in North Carolina, oppositionto the Confederate authorities had been carried so far that such aproposal was regarded with approval. The Rhett party in South Carolinaand the Joseph E. Brown following in Georgia were all ready to followStephens. A large section of public opinion had in fact been prepared inall these States for such a plan. A committee of Congress was formed andWilliam C. Rives was sent to General Lee to inquire if he would takecharge of the affairs of the Confederacy as sole dictator. Lee declinedthe dubious honor, and Congress, not knowing what else to do, undertookin early January, 1865, to carry out the recommendations of thePresident. 

By the end of December, 1864, General Sherman had captured Savannah, andwas ready to begin his march northward to support Grant. On thesuggestion of Montgomery Blair, father of Postmaster-General Blair, aconference was arranged with the Federal authorities, to take place on aUnited States steamer in Hampton Roads. Lincoln and Seward thus met, onFebruary 3, Alexander Stephens, former United States Judge Campbell, andSenator R. M. T. Hunter, all identified with the Confederate peaceparty. Satisfactory terms could not be agreed upon and the renewal ofthe conflict was ordered. As the commissioners passed through the lines, the news of their failure was conveyed to both armies, and these bravesoldiers of many campaigns, having long since learned to respect eachother, wept aloud. The failure of these negotiations confirmed Davis inhis position and he now made one more appeal to the people of the Southto save their cause by a popular uprising. Stephens and the rest lenttheir support to the call; but it was all in vain, for the sands of theConfederacy were almost run. General Sherman with 60, 000 men wasmarching through South Carolina. Columbia was laid in ashes on the nightof February 17, and the naked chimneys of the cotton belt from Atlantato middle South Carolina marked the course of the Federal army. Thepeople of North Carolina trembled at the approach of the victoriousenemy. Joseph E. Johnston was finally restored to the command of theremnants of his former army and the local militia which undertook todelay the progress of the Federal forces. Well-to-do families fled toplaces of refuge; horses and cattle were driven to the besthiding-places that could be found; the silver plate and the little goldthat remained among the people were buried under woodpiles or desertedhouses. The negroes awaited with stolid curiosity the approach of the"Yankees, " who were by this time vaguely recognized as the "deliverers";while the poor whites were thankful that their poverty for once proved ablessing. 

In February the Confederate Congress offered a certain number of slavestheir liberty on condition of their fighting for Southern independence;but it was too late for any test of the radical policy. The newcommissioner to Europe had hardly reached London before the collapse ofhis Government was seen to be imminent. The debts of the Confederate, state, and city governments of the South had grown so rapidly that noone knew just what they were; the armies of Lee and Johnston were forcedto forage upon the country nearest at hand. Soldiers were barefoot, half-naked, and dispirited. Grant pressed steadily upon Lee atPetersburg, Sheridan approached Lee's rear from Lynchburg, Virginia, andB. F. Butler, with 40, 000 men, threatened Richmond from the lower JamesRiver. To escape the toils of the enemy, Lee decided to retreat towardthe west. Jefferson Davis received the dispatch which told of Lee's newpurpose and advised the evacuation of the capital about noon on April 2. It was Sunday, and the people were at church. Rapidly the fateful newsspread. An indescribable scene followed. Men, women, and childrenhastened out of the doomed city with the little clothing they couldcarry in their hands, or begged the owners of carts and wagons to cometo their assistance. Thousands thus sought to escape the avenger, whilethe high officials of the Government and their families went away on thelast train. Documents, private correspondence, stores of all sorts, tobacco, and other property were burned to prevent their falling intothe hands of the hated enemy. Early Monday morning the city was desertedsave by certain hangers-on, men and women, white and black, who hoped topick up something from the wreckage of their neighbors' fortunes. Thelocal government ordered the thousands of barrels of whiskey, still inthe bar-rooms, emptied into the streets. People drank from the gutters, and drunkenness soon added to the difficulties of the situation. Federaltroops entered the city, already in flames, and before nine o'clock theUnion colors flew from the flagpole of the ancient capital of Virginia. 

[Illustration: Map of regions which surrendered with Lee and JohnstonApril 1865]

Davis and his Cabinet escaped to Danville, Virginia, where they remaineduntil the news of Lee's surrender at Appomattox reached them on April10, when they retreated toward Charlotte, North Carolina. Lee had seenthe inevitable, and on April 9, near the little village of Appomattox, he asked Grant for terms. The Union commander was generous, and allowedthe 28, 000 heroic Confederates to return to their homes, giving onlytheir word of honor that they would keep the peace in the future. A fewdays later near Durham, North Carolina, Johnston surrendered to Shermanon similar terms to those which Grant had given Lee. The President andmembers of the defunct government of the Confederate States of Americahastened on to Georgia, where Davis was captured on May 10 and sent toFortress Monroe as a state prisoner. Other forces of the South, scattered over the wide area of their desolate country, surrenderedduring the month of May; and most people turned to cultivation of theircrops in the hope that a bountiful nature might restore somewhat theirbroken fortunes. The bitter cup had been drained. The cause of theplanters had gone down in irretrievable disaster. For forty years theyhad contended with their rivals of the North, and having staked all onthe wager of battle they had lost. Just four years before they hadentered with unsurpassed zeal and enthusiasm upon the gigantic task ofwinning their independence. They had made the greatest fight in historyup to that time, lost the flower of their manhood and wealth untold. They now renewed once and for all time their allegiance to the Unionwhich had up to that time been an experiment, a government of uncertainpowers. More than three hundred thousand lives and not less than fourbillions of dollars had been sacrificed in the fight of the South. Theplanter culture, the semi-feudalism of the "old South, " was annihilated, while the industrial and financial system of the East was triumphant. The cost to the North had been six hundred thousand lives and an expenseto the governments, state and national, of at least five billiondollars. But the East was the mistress of the United States, and thesocial and economic ideals of that section were to be stampedpermanently upon the country. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

J. K. Hosmer, _The Outcome of the Civil War_ (1900), in _AmericanNation_ Series; J. A. Woodburn, _The Life of Thaddeus Stevens_ (1913);E. P. Oberholtzer, _Jay Cooke, Financier of the Civil War_ (1907); J. C. Schwab, _The Confederate States, A Financial and Industrial History_(1901); E. D. Fite, _Social and Industrial Conditions in the NorthDuring the Civil War_ (1910), W. F. Fox, _Regimental Losses in theAmerican Civil War_ (1889). 

Of special sectional value is W. D. Foulke's _The Life of Oliver P. Morton_ (1899). Henry Wilson's _The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power_(1872-77); A. H. Stephens's _A Constitutional View of the Late WarBetween the States_ (1868-70) are typical of many others. Some of thebest writers on the life and ideals of the old South are Mrs. Roger A. Pryor, _Reminiscences of Peace and War_ (1906), and _My Day_ (1911);Mrs. James Chesnut, _A Diary from Dixie_ (1905); Mrs. Clement C. Clay, _A Belle of the Sixties_ (1904); and Mrs. Myrta L. Avery, _Dixie afterthe War_ (1906). Mrs. Jefferson Davis's _A Memoir of Jefferson Davis_(1890) is rather personal and profuse, but always more important thanthe more pretentious work of her husband, Jefferson Davis, in his _Riseand Fall of the Confederate Government_, already mentioned. 

A rare source book for the South is J. B. Jones's _A Rebel War Clerk'sDiary_ (1866), and an even more important one for the North is GideonWelles's _Diary_ (1911). Edward McPherson's _Political History of theUnited States During the Great Rebellion_ (1865); William McDonald's_Select Statutes and Other Documents Illustrative of the History of theUnited States, 1861-98_ (1903); J. D. Richardson's _Compilation of theMessages and Papers of the Confederacy_ (1905); and _Appleton's AnnualCyclopedia and Register, 1862-1903_, give the most important officialdocuments and full accounts of public events as they occurred. 

 INDEX

Abolitionists, societies started 163; theories and aims, 164; petitions in House, 165; preparing for Republican party, 166; more in politics, 170; and Wilmot Proviso, 170; in 1850, 176. 

Adams, Charles Francis, fears English intervention, 314, 315, 316. 

Adams, John, 19. 

Adams, John Quincy, coalition with Clay, 1, 2, 3, 4; support in 1828, 14, 15, 17; popular and electoral votes, 18; unpopular in Southwest, 21; and Georgia, 21, 39, 55, 56; in House, 66; for Bank, 68, 70, 72, 74, 84; attacking Van Buren, 96-105, 107, 108, 109; and petitions on slavery, 119, 126; for secession, 127, 164, 165; denounces Mexican War, 157; anti-slavery leader, 164; address on taxes, 167, 242, 252. 

Agassiz, Alexander, 225. 

Agassiz, Louis, naturalist, 225. 

Agriculture, methods of, 211. 

Alabama, and Indians, 8; immigration to, 13; population (1830, 1840), 13, 90; for Jackson, 72; being filled up, 89, 90; for Van Buren, 111; "Slavery a blessing, " 119; and Wilmot Proviso, 171, 264; secession of, 271. 

_Albany Journal_, friendly to Confederacy, 272. 

Alcott, Amos Bronson, 225. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, 161. 

Allen, William, friendly to Calhoun, 120; expansionist, 149. 

Allston, sculptor, 54. 

Amendments, on presidential term, appointment of members of Congress, limiting Supreme Court, 16. 

American Fur Company, 35. 

American National Academy of Science, 225. 

American party. _See_ Know-Nothing party. 

American Revolution, 47, 84; debt paid, 99. 

American System, Clay's, 67, 74, 109; to be carried out, 114; laid aside, 145. 

Anderson, Major Robert, commanding at Fort Sumter, 273. 

Andrew, Governor, of Massachusetts, supports Lincoln, 322. 

Antietam, battle of, 302. 

Appomattox, Lee surrenders at, 327. 

Arkansas, in cotton belt, 12; for Van Buren, 111; for Pacific Railroad, 233; secession of, 275. 

Art, American, in 1860, 225. 

Ashburton, Lord, Minister to United States, 123; Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 123, 124, 125. 

Astor, John Jacob, fur trade, 35. 

Atchison, David, expansionist, 150; pro-slavery leader, 238. 

_Atlantic Monthly_, founded, 227. 

Austin, Stephen, in Texas, 120. 

Bache, Alexander Dallas, scientist, 224. 

Baldwin, Joseph G. , 227. 

Baltimore, Maryland, for Adams, 15, 41, 46, 48; newspapers for Bank, 79; Democratic Convention of 1844, 128; wheat market, 133; sub-treasury at, 151; Democratic Convention of 1848, 172, 187. 

Baltimore and Ohio Canal, 46. 

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 192. 

Bancroft, George, in Polk's Cabinet, 149. 

Bank, Second National, 45; and Jackson, 60, 65, 66, 67; and Clay, 67; bill for re-charter, 67; Biddle, president, 67; sentiment for re-charter, 68; Jackson's veto, 69; in campaign of 1832, 70; and Jackson, 77; creditor of members of Congress, 78; newspaper support of, 79; government deposits withheld, 79; fighting Jackson and the people, 80; defeated, 82; decline in power, 83; and French claims, 85; out of politics, 91; under Pennsylvania charter, 98; European stockholders, 99, 103, 107. 

Banks, in United States, capital, 45; men in control, 47; banking area, 47; state banks and Jackson, 78, 79; expansion of credit, 98; increase of members, 98; panic of 1837, 102; suspend specie payment, 102; New York laws, 105; state, 151; of New York, 189; of Confederacy, 286. 

Banks, N. P. , 253, 299. 

Baptists, in West, 33; in South, 143; and slavery, 143, 163; increase in membership, 145; in South, 218; clergy of high character, 220; members (1860), 220; and slavery, 221; educational institutions, 222. 

Barbecues, 209, 212. 

Barbour, James, 17. 

Baring Brothers of London, and American stocks, 99. 

Barry, W. T. , Postmaster-General, 58. 

Bates, Edward, presidential timber, 257, 262, 263. 

Beauregard, General P. G. T. , and Fort Sumter, 274, 276, 281; in battle of Bull Run, 285; in battle of Shiloh, 294. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 219. 

Bell, John, for President, 261. 

Belmont, August, 258. 

Benton, Thomas H. , against Adams, 16; for preëmption law, 16, 60, 65; against Florida Treaty, 16; imperialist, 25; for free homesteads, 27, 30, 32; Foot Resolution, 60; land program defeated, 65, 75, 82, 90, 102, 105, 108, 109; supporting Tyler, 115, 126; Oregon, 127, 129; Texas and Oregon, 132, 147, 149, 150; for commander-in-chief in Mexico, 155; and California, 175; and crisis of 1850, 175, 242. 

Berrien, John M. , Attorney-General, 58. 

Biddle, Nicholas, president of Second National Bank, 67, 70; and Jackson, 77; policy for Bank, 78; control of politicians and newspapers, 78; fighting Jackson and people, 79; defeated, 82; policy changed, 83, 112. 

Birney, James G. , anti-slavery worker, 119, 161. 

Black Hawk, 87. 

Black Warrior, trouble with Spain, 234. 

Blair, Frank P. , 58. 

Blair, Montgomery, 324. 

Bonds, United States, 291, 293; Confederate in Europe, 293. 

Border States, Republican party, 302. 

Boston, financial center, 45, 46, 48; shipping and Hayne, 48; Transcendental Club, 52; philosophy and religious reform, 52, 84, 129; alliance with South, 162, 193, 202, 205; clergy and slavery, 222. 

Bragg, General Braxton, in battle of Shiloh, 294; in Kentucky, 295, 300; battle of Murfreesboro, 295; withdraws to Chattanooga, 295, 303; reinforced, 307; beats Rosecrans, 307; character, 307. 

Branch, John, Secretary of the Navy, 58. 

Breckinridge, John C. , for Vice-President, 245; for President, 261. 

Breese, Sidney, friend of Calhoun, 120. 

Brinkerhoff, Jacob, and Wilmot Proviso, 169. 

Brooks, Preston, assault on Sumner, 245. 

Brown, John, in Kansas, 249; raid into Virginia, 258; capture and execution, 259. 

Brown, Governor, Joseph E. , of Georgia, distrusted by Confederates, 309; opposed to Davis, 312, 324. 

Bryant, William Cullen, and New York _Evening Post_, 53; against Lincoln, 320. 

Buchanan, James, Secretary of State, 148; and Oregon, 149; for all Mexico, 157; Minister to England, 234; Ostend Manifesto, 235; Democratic nominee for President, 245; elected, 246; slights Douglas, 247; Mexico and Cuba, 247; Kansas question, 249; Lecompton Constitution, 253; Douglas opposes, 253; opposes Douglas, 256, 265, 268; and secession, 270. 

Buell, Don C. , at Louisville, 284; in battle of Shiloh, 294; across Tennessee, 294; opening the Mississippi, 294. 

Buena Vista, battle of, 155. 

Bull Run, first battle of, 285; second battle of, 300. 

Burnside, Ambrose E. , given command of the Army of the Potomac, 303; loses at Fredericksburg, 303; resignation, 303. 

Business, prosperous in North during Civil War, 292. 

Butler, General B. F. , 318, 326. 

Butler, Pierce, abused by Sumner, 245. 

Calhoun, John C. , 4, 5; Nationalist, 5; Pennsylvania and, 5; against tariff, 6, 66, 68; alliance with Jackson, 6; strong in Virginia, 11, 16; and Jackson's first Cabinet, 21; true to West, 30; powerless against Jackson, 37, 39, 52, 54, 58, 60, 61, 62; break with Jackson, 63, 64, 67; and Van Buren, 64, 68; defied by Clay, 67; and Bank, 68, 82; Nullification, 71, 72, 75; isolated in 1832, 73; and compromise of 1833, 74; and Force Bill, 74; defeated and isolated, 82, 84, 91; hostile to Jackson, 92; supporting Van Buren, 94, 108, 112; for Independent Treasury, 104; for Texas, 105, 107, 121, 126, 147; supporting Tyler, 115, 116; retirement, 117; and Clay reconciled, 117; candidacy for President, 117; on slavery, 119; character, 119; Secretary of State, 127; and Walker, 129; for Polk, 130; Texas Treaty, 130; Presidency promised to, 131, 132; Unitarian, 143; and sectionalism, 145; and Polk, 148; and Oregon, 149, 150, 152; and all Mexico, 158; and abolition agitation, 165; and compromise of 1850, 176, 178; demands for slavery, 178; death, 180, 242, 243; doctrine of, and Dred Scott case, 248, 263. 

California, Tyler for, 125, 131, 132, 152, 154; occupied by United States, 154; gold discovered, 174; Taylor for admitting, 176, 199, 232; for Pacific Railroad, 233; for Buchanan, 246. 

Cameron, Simon, 257, 262, 263. 

Campbell, Judge, of Alabama, Confederate Commissioner, 324. 

Campbellites, Calvinistic, 218, 222. 

Canada, revolt and American aid, 105, 120, 122, 153. 

Canals, constructed in West, 90; speculation, 91, 92. 

Carey and Lea, Philadelphia, publishing activities, 53. 

Caroline, the, affair of, with England, 105, 120, 123. 

Cartwright, Peter, salary, 31. 

Cass, Lewis, 15, 25; Secretary of War, 65; Oregon and Texas, 132; expansionist, 150, 157, 158; for President, 172; Nicholson letter, 172; defeat, 173; and crisis of 1850, 176. 

Catholics, 216; and slavery, 221. 

Cerro Gordo, battle of, 155. 

Chancellorsville, battle of, 305. 

Chandler, Zachary, 241; uncompromising, 273. 

Channing, William Ellery, 52. 

Charleston, S. C. , 53, 54; and abolition mail, 165; spring resort, 214; blockade-running from, 313. 

Chase, Salmon P. , for Wilmot Proviso, 171, 184, 202; against Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 240, 241, 242; and Kansas, 245; and Ohio, 251, 257, 262, 265; uncompromising, 273; Secretary of Treasury, 291; difficulties, 292; for immediate emancipation, 301, 315; working against Lincoln, 316; supports Lincoln, 322. 

Cherokees. _See_ Indians. 

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, 46. 

Chestnut, Mrs. James, 215, 281. 

Chicago, 187, 192, 193, 202; and Douglas, 204; growth, 204; Pacific Railroad idea, 204, 210. 

Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, 192. 

Chickasaws. _See_ Indians. 

Children, in factories, 210. 

China, Tyler and, 126. 

Choate, Rufus, became Democrat, 246. 

Choctaws. _See_ Indians. 

Christian Church. _See_ Campbellites. 

Churches, support, 50; strictness moderated, 50, 143; and slavery, 143, 146, 163; members and capacity, in 1860, 220; of South, for slavery and war, 278. 

Churubusco, battle of, 156. 

Cincinnati, pork-packing and manufacturing, 35, 202, 210. 

Cities, wretched industrial life, 210. 

Civil service, Van Buren and spoils system, 96. 

Clay, Henry, coalition with Adams, 2; Secretary of State, 3, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21; barely reëlected to the Senate in 1831, 22; fast life, 22; duelist, 32, 33; Mechanic's Library, 35; powerless against Jackson, 37, 55, 56, 62, 63, 64, 76; defies South, 66; and Bank, 67, 70, 79; for Presidency, 67, 69; and Jackson's Bank Veto, 70; and Kentucky, 70, 71; and Compromise of 1833, 73, 74, 75; alliance with Calhoun, 74; debtor of Bank, 79, 80; fight to restore deposits, 81, 82, 84, 91; for distribution of surplus, 92, 93; attacking Van Buren, 96, 107; and Texas, 105, 127; Eastern tour, 108, 109; not nominated, 101, 112; program, 114; and Tyler, 115; retirement in 1841, 117; reconciled to Calhoun, 117; candidacy for Presidency, 117; Raleigh letter, 128; and Polk, 130, 145, 147, 152; on Mexican Treaty, 157, 167; snubbed, 171, 172; in Senate, 176; Compromise of 1850, 176; death, 181, 242. 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 173. 

Cobb, Howell, adviser of Buchanan, 247. 

Colleges, in West, 34. 

Colorado, 199. 

Columbia Valley, immigration to, 127. 

Confederacy, Southern organized, 271; agents to Europe, 276; enthusiasm, 276; preparations for war, 276; aristocracy united, 279; Richmond capital, 280; expects foreign intervention, 282; currency and finances, 286; need of European market, 286; regular government, 286; dissension, 287; bonds in Europe, 294; European recognition, imminent, 301; not ready for reunion, 309; debt and currency in 1864, 310; taxation, 310; internal dissension, 310; resistance to conscript laws, 311; area controlled in 1854, 313; credit ruined in Europe, 315; collapse, 324-28. 

Congregational Church, in Massachusetts, 15; members in 1860, 220; and abolition, 222; Yale, a center, 222. 

Connecticut, suffrage extended, Church and State separated, 14; population, 39; cotton and wool manufacturing, 42, 54. 

Conscription, Federal and Confederate, 305; resistance to Confederate, 311; opposition to Federal, 317. 

Constitution of the United States, amendments to limit term of Presidents, appointment of members of Congress, and powers of Supreme Court, 16; States and bills of credit, 99. 

Cooper, General A. S. , 281. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 53. 

Cooper, Thomas, resignation, 142. 

Cotton, and politics in South Carolina, 4; planters against tariff, 5, 66, 75; expansion and politics, 11; decline in price, 12; great wealth of planters, 13; in Southwest, 13; exports, 29, 36, 42, 313; New Orleans market, 36; manufacture in New England, 42, 46, 132, 133, 134, 137, 138; prices, 186, 194. 

Courts, for vested interests, 51; national, power of, 51; county in old South, 38; planters in federal, 138. 

Crawford, Thomas, sculptor, 225. 

Crawford, William H. , Jackson and Seminole affair, 2, 4, 8, 64. 

Creeks. _See_ Indians. 

Crittenden, John J. , 171, 255, 273. 

Crockett, David, 79. 

Cuba, 198; purchase proposed, 232, 233; Ostend Manifesto, 234, 247. 

Currency. _See_ Money, Paper money. 

Cushing, Caleb, 50, 150; Attorney-General, 231. 

Dallas, George M. , for Vice-President, 130; elected, 131. 

Dana, R. H. , secession, 253. 

Daniel, John M. , opposed to Davis, 312. 

Davis, Jefferson, Oregon, Texas, 132; expansionist, 150, 157, 176; retired after 1850, 181, 214; Secretary of War, 231; and Pacific Railroad, 233, 234, 236; for Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 239; Senate leader, 247; and Douglas, 254, 258; against secession, 269; President of Confederacy, 271; and Fort Sumter, 274; advice to plant food crops, 282; "second Washington, " 282, 285; reëlected, 286; and J. E. Johnston, 287; trust in Lee, 298; unyielding, 309; opposition to, 312, 315, 322; recommends negro enlistment, 323; opposed by Congress, 323; impeachment threatened, 323; offers Europe emancipation, 323; last appeal to South, 324; escape to Danville, 327; captured and imprisoned, 328. 

Declaration of Independence, and Jacksonians, 24; and New England, 24; in Democratic platform of 1840, 110; abolitionists and, 162, 262. 

Delaware, for Adams, 14, 18. 

Democracy, decline, 3; doomed in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, 11; retarded by cotton expansion, 11; Whigs and Democrats, 109; flooded in South, 214; in New England, 215. 

Democratic party, 67; defied by Clay, 66; first national convention, 68; and Van Buren, 104, 107, 109, 110; Baltimore Convention of 1844, 129; for Texas, 147, 161; convention of 1848, 172, 182; Franklin Pierce, 182; compromise a finality, 182; lose Northwest, 242; Southern, and pro-slavery, 243; Convention of 1856, 245; Buchanan and Breckinridge, 205; and Douglas, 257, 258; Charleston Convention of 1860, 260; split, 261; wins seven Republican States, 302; strong in North, 317; Convention of 1864, 321. 

Derby Bank, of Connecticut, robs depositors, 44. 

De Veaux, James, painter, 54. 

Dew, Thomas R. , on slavery, 118, 145. 

Dickinson, Daniel S. , Lincoln leader, 290. 

District of Columbia, petitions on slavery in, 165; to abolish slave-trading, 178. 

Dix, John A. , 150, 157. 

Doak, Samuel, 33. 

Dobbin, James C. , Secretary of Navy, 232. 

Donaldson, Fort, Grant captures, 293. 

Douglas, Stephen A. , Oregon and Texas, 132; expansionists, 150, 172; and crisis of 1850, 176, 206; understood West, 202; land for railroads, 203; and Chicago, 203; ambitious, 205; wife, 214; slighted by Pierce, 232; Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 236; attacked, 240; Southern Whigs defend, 240; abused by Sumner, 245; for Buchanan, 246; Greeley suggests for President, 251; revolt on Kansas, 253; read out of Democratic party, 254; campaigning in Illinois, 254; popularity, 255; and Republicans, 255; debate with Lincoln, 256; Freeport doctrine, 256; reëlected, 257; and Democrats, 258; and Charleston Convention, 260; nominated by faction, 261; strength in Northwest, 264; against secession, 264; popular and electoral vote, 265; for peace, 273; supports Lincoln, 282, 289; death, 289. 

Douglass, Frederick, ex-slave and abolitionist, 166. 

Draper and Moss, photographers, 224. 

Dred Scott decision, 247, 257. 

Duane, William J. , Secretary of the Treasury, 78; dismissed, 79. 

East, 4; and democracy, 37, 39; emigration to West, 40; population, 40, 47, 185; lands, 41; product and return on capital, 42; factory life, 43; capitalists, 44, 46, 47, 48, 54; banks and circulation, 45, 46; factories in, 47; clergy and lawyers, 50; judges for property interests, 51; life in, being reconstructed, 54, 55; for protection, 59, 60; and public land questions, 61; antagonistic to South, 61; and West, 61; defeats Benton's land program, 65; and Clay, 67; Jackson and Bank, 69; and Union, 75; distrusts Van Buren, 96; and panic of 1837, 102, 108, 130, 161; and Texas, 167; cities of, for Compromise of 1850, 181; foreign element in, 185; population in 1830, in 1850, in 1860, 185; industrial area, 187; shipping tonnage, 187; capital concentrated in, 188; capital and income, 194; trade with West and South, 205; religious life, 218; school children, 223; college students, 224; and Northwest, 247, 263; motives of, in the Civil War, 289; for emancipation, 304; radicals of, hostile to Lincoln, 317; in control after war, 328. 

Eaton, John H. , Secretary of War, 58; wife and Washington Society, 59, 64. 

Education, in United States, 1850-60, 213. 

Eleventh Amendment, and repudiation of state debts, 106. 

Emancipation Proclamation, promised, 302; opinion on, divided, 304; East for, West against, 304. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 52, 226; on John Brown, 259. 

England, Oregon, 25, 27, 122, 152; United States and West Indian trade, 84; mediates between France and United States, 87; capital for United States, 99, 100; call for payment, 101; Mexico and Lower California, 122; strained relations with United States, 122; the Webster-Ashburton treaty, 123; slave trade and right of search, 123; Northwestern boundary, 124; Oregon, 124, 132, 147, 149; free-trade movement, 151; Oregon trade, 153; compensated owners for emancipation of slaves, 164; Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 173, 205; possibility of intervention by, in Civil War, 314. 

English, in United States, 185; attitude toward Confederacy, 314. 

Episcopalians, and slavery, 145, 216, 240. 

Erie Canal, exports of grain, 29, 32, 35, 46, 90, 97; and European capital, 99. 

Erie Railroad, 192. 

Everett, Edward, 50; Minister to England, 126; Massachusetts spokesman, 184; becomes Democrat, 246; for Vice-President, 261. 

Exports, cotton and other, 12; cotton from Confederacy, 313. 

Factory system, introduced, 43; long hours and poor pay, 219. 

Fair Oaks, battle of, 296. 

Farm laborers, 210. 

Farm life, 211; methods, 211. 

Federalists, in South Carolina, 5; of New York and Pennsylvania, 14; shipping interests, 41. 

Fillmore, Millard, President, 180; Know-Nothing candidate, 243; popular vote, 243. 

Florida, 120; secession of, 271, 313. 

Floyd, John, 70. 

Floyd, John B. , dismissed from army, 312. 

Food, of Americans in 1860, 208. 

Foot, Samuel A. , 30; resolution on public lands, 60. 

Foote, Commodore, on Mississippi River, 293. 

Foote, Henry S. , for "all of Mexico, " 158; Compromise of 1850, 178. 

Forbes, John M. , railroad builder, 192. 

Force Bill, 73, 77. 

Forsyth, John, Jackson leader in the Senate, 82. 

France, claims against, 85; threatens war, 86; and tariff, 151, 201; and South, 315; and Mexico, 315. 

Fredericksburg, battle of, 303; and English intervention, 314. 

Free negroes, in South, 138. 

Freeport doctrine, 256. 

Free-Soil party, 173; supports Pierce, 182, 184, 241. 

Frémont, John C. , in Mexican War, 154; Senator, 175; for President, 246; commander at St. Louis, 284; removed from command, 290, 299; for President, 320. 

Friends. _See_ Quakers. 

Fugitive Slave Law, strengthened in 1850, 178; opposition to, 184; nullified by Northern States, 252. 

Fuller, Margaret, 226. 

Fur trade, St. Louis a center, 35; American Fur Company, 35. 

Gadsden, James, United States agent to Mexico, 232. 

Gallatin, Albert, turned against Bank, 83. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, abolitionist, 161; _Liberator_, 161; abolition societies, 162; for unconditional abolition, 164. 

Georgia, 3; university of, 7; trouble over Indians, 7, 8, 21, 72, 87; immigration to, 13, 21, 28; Cherokee Nation against, 88, 121; illiterates, 213; convicts, 213; Know-Nothings defeated in, 243; secession of, 271; Union areas, 279; distrusted by Confederacy, 309; conscript laws annulled, 312, 323. 

Germans, immigration to Mississippi Valley, 91; elect Lincoln, 264. 

Germany, and tariff, 151. 

Giddings, J. R. , anti-slavery leader, 163, 262. 

Gilmore, Thomas W. , 121, 132. 

Gladstone, W. E. , favors South, 314. 

Graft, in Van Buren's administration, 96. 

Grain, exported by West, 29, 35; machinery invented, 199; railroads and, 199. 

Grant, U. S. , campaign in Tennessee, 293; wins battle of Shiloh, 294; made Halleck famous, 300; blocked in Mississippi, 303; commander in East, 316; Wilderness campaign, 317; failure and criticism of, 318; crosses the James, 318; invests Petersburg, 318, 326; liberal terms to Lee, 327. 

Great Britain, and American shipping, 187. 

Greeley, Horace, 171; proposes Douglas for President, 251; and Chicago Convention, 262, 263; against Lincoln, 320; supports Lincoln, 322. 

Green, Duff, editor of the _Telegraph_, 17; attacks Adams, 17. 

Greenbacks, issued, 292, 293; unpopular, 304; more issued, 305. 

Grimes, J. W. , 241. 

Grimké, the Misses, abolitionists, 166. 

Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Treaty of, 174. 

Gulf States, immigration to, 13; value of exports, 29, 141; Union areas, 278. 

Guthrie, James, Secretary of the Treasury, 232. 

_Habeas corpus_, writ of, suspended, 304. 

Halleck, General H. W. , Grant makes famous, 300; command in East, 300. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 44. 

Hamilton, James, 71. 

Hammond, James H. , on slavery, 146. 

Hampton, Wade, 214. 

Hannegan, and Calhoun, 120; for taking Canada, 158. 

Harper's Ferry, John Brown, 259, 301. 

_Harper's Magazine_, 228. 

Harris, Townsend, consul to Japan, 235. 

Harrison, William Henry, Whig candidate, 93, 110; elected, 111; and Clay, 114; death, 115. 

Hart, Joel T. , sculptor, 54. 

Harvard, Unitarian center, 52; confers degree of LL. D. On Jackson, 58; Southern students at, 224. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 182; struggling, 226. 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 227. 

Hayne, Robert Y. , 5, 6, 30, 48, 52; debate with Webster, 61, 63, 64; nullification, 71. 

Henry, Fort, Grant captures, 293. 

Hill, General A. P. , 299. 

Hill, General D. H. , 299; loses orders, 301. 

Hodge, Dr. Charles, president of Princeton, 222. 

Hoe, Richard M. , inventor, 224. 

Holden, W. W. , leads peace movement, 312. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 226. 

Homesteads, free, in Republican platform, 262. 

Hood, General John B. , defeated by Sherman, 319; to Nashville, 319. 

Hooker, General Joseph, given command of the Army of the Potomac, 303; loses at Chancellorsville, 305. 

Horseshoe Bend, battle of, 21. 

Houston, Samuel, in Texas, 120; Governor of Texas, 126. 

Howe, Elias, inventor of sewing machine, 224. 

Hunter, R. M. T. , 324. 

Hunt, William Morris, 225. 

Illinois, 3; for Jackson, 22; population, 28, 87, 89, 90; internal improvements, 90; Germans in, 91; capital from New York and London, 91; debt and income, 98; for Van Buren, 111, 113; Oregon and Texas, 122, 131; Indians removed, 199, 201, 205; convicts in 1860, 213; educational reform, 223; for opening Nebraska, 238; North for Republicans, 241; for Buchanan, 246, 262, 263; Democratic, 302. 

Illinois Central Railroad, built, 204. 

Immigration, 40, 212. 

Independent Treasury, proposed, 103; contested, 104; established, 104, 107, 108, 109; law repealed, 115; reënacted, 149. 

Indian Territory, 89. 

Indiana, for Jackson, 22; population, 90; internal improvements, 90; capital from New York and London, 91, 113; Indians removed, 199, 201; illiterates, 213; educational reform, 223; for opening Nebraska, 238; North for Republicans, 241; for Buchanan, 246, 262; Democratic, 302. 

Indians, Creeks, 1, 2, 26; removal desired, 29; and Georgia, 72; removal by Jackson, 87, 88; Cherokee Nation against Georgia, 88; Seminole War, 104. 

Ingham, Samuel D. , 14, 17; Secretary of the Treasury, 58. 

Internal improvements, West for, 28, 59; Carey and Lea pamphlets, 53, 55; Maysville veto, 63, 65; and Whigs, 110, 130; extending slavery, 141, 150, 152; and Wilmot Proviso, 170. 

Inventions, 199, 212, 224. 

Iowa, 87, 89, 90, 106; made State, 198; Indians removed, 199, 201, 205; for opening Nebraska, 238, 264. 

Irish, in United States, 185. 

Irving, Washington, 52. 

Jackson, Andrew, early life, 1; candidate for President, 2, 4; tariff views, 6; and Calhoun, 6; and Indians, 8, 18; and North Carolina, 9; and Virginia, 11, 14; campaign managers, 16, 17, 18; skillful politician, 18; inauguration, 20, 21; supplants Clay in West, 21, 22; planters distrust, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28; duelist, 32; "Old Hickory, " 36, 37; Western opposition, 37; "King Andrew I, " 37; Eastern distrust, 39; first Cabinet, 56, 58; degree of LL. D. From Harvard, 58; party divided, 58, 59; Cabinets, 58; "Kitchen Cabinet, " 58; removals by, 58; appointments by, 58, 59; Eaton affair, 59; and tariff, 59; and Foot Resolution, 60; and Bank, 60, 65, 66, 67, 68, 77, 80; for second term, 62; Van Buren and Calhoun, 62; Union toast, 62; Maysville veto, 63; break with Calhoun, 64; Cabinet changed, 64; platform unfulfilled, 65; and South Carolina, 69, 71, 72, 73; Bank veto, 69; campaign of 1832, 70, 71, 72; Georgia and the Indians, 72; Nullification Proclamation and Force Bill, 73; Verplanck Tariff Bill, 73; messages, 76; defeated on tariff, 79; Bank war on, 80; Bank defeated, 82, 84; diplomatic relations, West Indian trade, 84; French spoliation claims, 85; Senate opposition, 86; House support, 86; war threatened, 86; peaceful settlement, 87; removal of Indians, 87, 89, 90; successes, 91, 92; Distribution Bill vetoed, 92; deposit with States, 92; railroads, 92; Specie Circular, 92; revolts against, 92, 93; triumphant retirement, 94; and Van Buren, 96, 97, 98, 100, 103; and Texas, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111; repudiated in 1840, 112, 117, 120, 127, 144; and abolition mail, 165, 187, 242, 265; denounces secession, 268. 

Jackson, Thomas J. ("Stonewall"), at Bull Run, 285; Valley campaign, 296; reinforces Lee, 297; failures in Peninsula campaign, 297, 299; sent against Pope, 299; Cedar Mountain, 299, 301; death, 305. 

Japan, trade relations with, 235. 

Jay Treaty, 84. 

Jefferson, Thomas, Jackson-like, 3, 36; sale of Monticello, 13, 19, 23, 50, 54, 62, 142, 167; and public education, 223; Lincoln-like, 265. 

Jeffersonian party, getting aristocratic, 3, 5, 17, 30, 109, 167. 

Johnson, Andrew, for Vice-President, 320. 

Johnson, Richard M. , rival of Clay, 22. 

Johnston, Albert Sidney, made general, 276; battle of Shiloh, 293; killed, 294. 

Johnston, Joseph E. , made general, 276, 281; at Bull Run, 285; quarrel with Davis, 287; Peninsula campaign, 297; wounded, 296; in Georgia, 318, 319; removed from command, 319; restored to command, 325; surrenders to Sherman, 327. 

Jones, Commodore, 125. 

Judd, Norman B. , Republican leader, 255. 

Kansas, 89, 199; organized as Territory, 241; popular sovereignty, 243; Topeka Convention, 244; two governments, 244; deadlock in Congress over, 244; war in, 248; Walker, Governor, 249; Lecompton Constitution, 249. 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 172, 198, 235, 236; and Pacific Railway 238; provisions, 239; angry debate on, 240; passed, 240; resulting campaign, 241. 

Kearny, Colonel S. W. , campaign in New Mexico, 154. 

Kendall, Amos, 58, 62. 

Kennedy, John P. , 53. 

Kenner, Duncan F. , Confederate agent to Europe, 323. 

Kent, Chancellor, against universal suffrage, 14, 51. 

Kentucky, 13; and Clay, 15, 21, 22; and R. M. Johnson, 22; population, 28, 32; and Jackson, 37, 40, 63, 70; Germans in, 91; "slavery a blessing, " 119, 121; live stock to South, 141; Presbyterians in, 143; and slavery, 161; for Scott, 182; and Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 238, 246; secession of, prevented, 275; occupied by Federals, 293; against emancipation, 301; Republican party in 1862, 302; held by Federals, 313. 

Know-Nothing party, 242; defeated in Virginia and Georgia, 243; in 1856, 243, 261, 264. 

Labor unions, beginning, 209. 

Laborers, conditions poor, 209. 

Larkin, Thomas O. , seizure of California, 154. 

Lawyers, support capitalists, 50, 51; in South, allied with planters, 139. 

Lecompton Constitution, of Kansas, 249. 

Lee, Robert E. , 214, 259; made general, 276; drills Virginia troops, 281; expected success, 282; home seized, 283; sent to West Virginia, 286; loses West Virginia, 296; in chief command, 296; Peninsula command, 297; loses at Mechanicsville, 297; wins at Gaines's Mills, 297; pursues McClellan, 297; loses at Malvern Hill, 297, 298; second Bull Run, 300; into Maryland, 300, 301; Antietam, 302; retires into Virginia, 302; wins at Fredericksburg, 303; wins at Chancellorsville, 305; second invasion of North, 305; Gettysburg, 306; retreat to Virginia, 307; uncompromising, 309; urges conscription, 311, 312; checks Grant, 318; Grant outwits, 318; facing Grant at Petersburg, 323; refuses dictatorship, 324; army in want, 325; odds against, 326; retreat to west, 326; surrender, 327. 

Legaré, Hugh S. , Secretary of State, 126. 

Lewis, William B. , 58, 62, 64. 

Lexington, Kentucky, 34; Mechanics' Library, 35, 63. 

_Liberator_, abolition weekly, 162. 

Liberty party, nominates Van Buren, 173. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 32, 36; in Republican party, 241, 242; against Douglas, 255; debate with Douglas, 256; "house-divided-against-itself, " 256; Presidential timber, 257; Chicago Convention of 1860, 261; nominated for President, 263; character, 263, 265; election of, and South, 268; conciliatory, 269; inaugural, 272; yields to radicals, 273; saves Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, 275; calls for volunteers, 282; war to preserve Union, 289; Douglas supports, 289; calls for more men, 290, 320; and finance, 292; dark hours, 300; promises emancipation, 302; arbitrary arrests, 304; opposition to, 304, 316; hope in Grant, 317; nominated for President by National Unionists, 320; asked to withdraw, 321; appoints day of thanksgiving, 321; strongly supported, 322, 324. 

Literature, flower of American culture, 226. 

Live stock, exported by West, 29; to cotton belt, 141. 

Liverpool, capital of, invested in United States, 100, 205. 

Livingston, Edward, Secretary of State, 65; Minister to France, 78; for Bank, 78; and French claims, 85. 

Loco-focos, 108. 

London, capital loaned to West, 91; in United States, 100, 205. 

Longfellow, Henry W. , 226. 

Longstreet, A. B. , 227. 

Longstreet, General James, 299, 301; sent to Bragg, 307. 

Lopez, Narcisco, 198. 

Louisiana, 8; in cotton belt, 12, 86; "slavery a blessing, " 119; secession of, 271. 

Lovejoy, Elijah P. , anti-slavery leader, 164; murdered, 166. 

Lowell, James Russell, 227. 

Lowndes, William, 5. 

Macon, Nathaniel, in Senate, 16. 

McClellan, George B. , at Cincinnati, 283; drilling army, 293; Peninsula campaign, 296; failure, 298; army withdrawn, 299; removed from command, 299; popular with army, 300; restored to command, 301; Antietam, 302; again removed, 303; mentioned for President, 317; nominated by Democrats, 321. 

McClelland, Robert, Secretary of the Interior, 232. 

McCormick, Cyrus, 199, 202. 

McCreary, James, 34. 

McDowell, General Irvin, commanding in Virginia, 283; Bull Run, 285, 299. 

McDuffie, George, 6; for Bank, 68; debtor of Bank, 79, 82. 

McLane, Louis, Secretary of the Treasury, 65; Secretary of State, 78; for Bank, 78. 

McLeod, Alexander, trial in New York, 123. 

Madison, James, in Virginia Convention of 1829, 10. 

Maine, 14; population, 39, 41, 48; Democratic, 55, 105; northeastern boundary settled, 124; "Aroostook War, " 124, 187, 264. 

Malvern Hill, battle of, 298. 

Manassas, battles of. _See_ Bull Run. 

Mann, Horace, and public schools, 223. 

Manufacturing, Cincinnati a center, 35; growth in East, 1820-30, 41; cotton and woolen, 42; product and return on capital, 42; factory life, 43; men in control, 47; industrial area, 47, 49; transition from agriculture, 50; political power, 54, 55; eastern area, 187, 205. 

Marcy, William L. , in Polk's Cabinet, 147; Secretary of State, 231, 234. 

Marshall, John, 10, 22, 32, 51, 99. 

Marshall, Thomas, 33. 

Maryland, 14, 18, 23, 40, 50; banking laws, 106, 133; internal improvements, 133; and slavery, 161; and Know-Nothings, 243, 265; secession prevented, 275; Lee in, 300; against emancipation, 301. 

Mason, James M. , 150, 215; commissioner to Europe, 286, 314. 

Mason, John Y. , in Polk's Cabinet, 149, 215; Minister to France, 234; Ostend Manifesto, 235. 

Massachusetts, 3; conservative, 15; population, 39; cotton and wool manufacture, 42; bank capital and circulation, 45; tax valuation, 46; particularism and free trade to nationalism and protection, 54; banking laws, 106; for Scott, 182, 184; manufacturing, 187; shipping, 187; illiterates, 213; convicts, 213; and Sumner, 245; nullifies Fugitive Slave Law, 252. 

Matamoras, battle of, 154. 

Maysville Bill, 63, 64, 67. 

Meade, George Gordon, given command of the Army of the Potomac, 306; wins at Gettysburg, 306. 

Mechanics' Library of Lexington, Ky. , fostered by Clay, 35. 

Mechanicsville, battle of, 297. 

Medill, Joseph, Republican leader, 255. 

Methodists, in West, 33; in South, 143; and slavery, 143, 144, 161, 165, 221; increase of membership, 145; in South, 218; strength of clergy, 220; members, 222; educational institutions, 222, 223. 

Mexican War, 135, 154. 

Mexico, West and, 25, 27; and England, 122, 126, 132, 135; Texas boundary, 148; Slidell's mission to, 153; war with, 154; desire for all, 157, 161, 247. 

Michigan, 22, 87; population, 90; Dutch repudiated, 106; Oregon and Texas, 132; made State, 198; Indians removed, 199; Republican party organized, 241. 

Michigan Central Railroad, 192. 

Middle States, 6, 13, 14; and Jackson, 17, 18, 22; labor scarce in, 30, 40; banks, 45; literature, 52, 53, 54, 55, 68, 74, 83, 84, 93; poor wheat crop, 101; Texas and Oregon, 127; abolition societies in, 162. 

Minnesota, 87, 89; made State, 198; Indians removed, 199. 

Mississippi, and Indians, 8, 87; and Jackson, 72; population, 89, 90; debt and income, 98; internal improvements, 98; debts of, repudiated, 106; "slavery a blessing, " 119; Van Buren and Texas, 128; California and slavery, 175; secession of, 271, 313. 

Mississippi River, 87; canal feeders, 90; Commodore Foote on, 293; held by Federals, 307. 

Mississippi Valley, 2, 11, 21; for Texas and Oregon, 25; value of exports, 29, 36; immigration to, 90; Germans in, 91; cotton belt, 135, 198; growth and power, 199. 

Missouri, and Clay, 21, 22; the bank, tariff, and internal improvements, 22; horse-racing, 32, 37, 40; Germans in, 91; for Van Buren, 111; emigration from, to Oregon, 127, 131; Pacific Railroad, 238; and Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 238; and Kansas, 245, 265; secession of, prevented, 275; held by Federals, 313. 

Missouri Compromise, repealed, 239; Dred Scott decision, 247. 

Missouri Valley, in plantation belt, 138. 

Mobile, Ala. , blockade-running from, 313; taken by Farragut, 321. 

Mobile and Ohio Railroad, 204. 

Monroe, James, in Virginia Convention of 1829, 10, 28, 89, 105. 

Monroe Doctrine, France and Mexico and, 315. 

Monterey, battle of, 154. 

Monticello, sale of, 13. 

Mormons, 176. 

Morse, S. F. B. , 224. 

Motley, John L. , 215, 228. 

Murfreesboro, battle of, 295. 

Napoleon III, favors South, 314, 316. 

Nashville, Tenn. , Federals capture, 293. 

Nat Turner, slave insurrection, 118. 

National Bank, 114; Tyler's views, 115; bills vetoed, 116, 130. 

National debt, paid, 92. 

National road, 90. 

Nebraska, 199; organized as Territory, 241. 

New England, for Adams, 14, 18; suffrage and Democracy in, 15, 23, 24, 28; hostile to West, 29, 39; population, 39, 40; growth of manufactures, 41; banks, 45; trade with South, 46; literature, 52, 53, 54; painting and sculpture, 54; industrial control, 55, 56; and tariff, 66, 67; and South Carolina, 72, 84; against Jackson, 93; for Harrison and Tyler, 111, 112, 125, 126; Oregon and Texas, 131, 140, 149; abolition societies, 163; against Fugitive Slave Law, 184; aristocratic life, 215; decline of Puritanism in, 216, 222; and Buchanan, 246; for nullification and secession, 252, 253; for Seward, 257; threats of secession, 268, 269; Confederate raids into, 323. 

New Hampshire, 14; population, 39. 

New Jersey, 14, 18, 302. 

New Mexico, 152, 154; Territory of, organized, 176, 179. 

New Orleans, battle of, 2, 21, 32; commerce, 35, 36; and Jackson, 37; failures, 101; sub-treasury at, 151, 193; winter resort, 214; held by Federals, 213. 

New York, constitutional reform, 14; for Jackson, 14, 15, 18, 71; Western element, 28, 32, 39; population, 40; manufacturing, 42; banking capital and circulation, 42, 83; banking laws, 105, 149; manufacturing, 187; shipping, 187, 195, 200; Democratic, 302; panic at Lee's invasion, 305. 

New York Central Railroad, 192. 

New York City, manufacturing, 41; financial center, 45; land value, 46, 48; literary seat, 52; newspaper for Bank, 79; high interest, 83, 84; capital to West, 91, 96; failures, 101; for Walker program, 129; sub-treasury at, 151, 187; financial center, 189, 193, 194, 195, 202, 205, 209, 222; and Buchanan, 246, 305; Confederates try to burn, 323. 

New York _Evening Post_, 53; for "all of Mexico, " 156. 

New York _Times_, friendly to Confederacy, 272. 

New York _Tribune_, friendly to Confederacy, 272. 

Nicholson letters, of Cass, 172. 

Norfolk, Va. , held by Federals, 313. 

North, 165, 251, 259; devotion to Union, 269; opposed to war, 272; united for Union, 283; hatred of South, 284; danger of break-up, 289; prosperous, 292; divided counsels, 301; ready for reunion, 309; wins political control, 328; cost of war, 328. 

_North American Review_, 52, 53. 

North Carolina, declares tariff unconstitutional, 7, 8; East and West compromise, 8; unit for Jackson, 9, 12, 14, 23, 28; dread of West, 30, and nullification, 72; "slavery a blessing, " 119, 121; tobacco belt, 132; cotton belt, 135, 140, 141; Presbyterians in, 143; anti-slavery, 161; and Compromise of 1850, 178, 264; Union areas, 278; resistance to conscription, 311; peace movement in, 312; conscript laws annulled by, 312, 313; opposition to Davis, 323; fears Sherman, 325. 

Northwest, for Jackson, 22; radical, 23, 40; outstripping Southwest, 121; demand for Oregon, 122, 126, 140; internal improvements, 152; abolition societies, 163; and Polk, 169; Southern alliance broken, 173; expansion, 174, 181; foreign element, 185; population, 185; feared by South, 198; grain and meat, 199; capital, income, debts, 202; and South, 203; and Douglas, 203; land for railroads, 203; expansion and ambition, 204; and slavery, 221; school children, 223; college students, 224; and Pierce, 231; Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 236; clash with South, 236; Pacific Railroad, 238; and East, 242, 263; Lincoln and Douglas, 264; threatened secession, 269; supporting Lincoln, 282; against abolitionists, 301; hostile to Lincoln, 317. 

Nova Scotia, main boundary, 124. 

Nueces River, south bank seized, 148. 

Nullification, formulated by Calhoun, 6; Hayne-Webster debate, 61; imminent in South Carolina, 66, 71; ended in South Carolina, 75. 

Ogden, William B. , 202. 

Ohio, 15; canals, 35; and Jackson 37; migration to, 39; trade to New York, 46, 55, 71; internal improvements, 90; Germans in, 91, 119; Oregon and Texas, 122, 162; and Republicans, 241; Democratic, 302. 

Ohio Valley, 46, 56; in plantation belt, 138. 

Oklahoma, 89, 199. 

Omnibus Bill, 180. 

Oregon, and West, 25, 36; and Van Buren, 89; demand for, 122; boundary, 124, 125; Walker letter, 129; Democrats and, 129, 131, 152; Treaty, 153; and Wilmot Proviso, 170; free States, 174, 199. 

Ostend Manifesto, 235. 

Pacific Railroad, 204, 232, 263. 

Palmer, B. M. , secession sermon, 221, 278. 

Panama Railroad, 192. 

Panic of 1837, causes, 97, 102. 

Parker, Theodore, heretical, 218. 

Parson, Theophilus, great lawyer, 51. 

Peace congress, 272. 

Peck, John M. , library, 35. 

Pendleton, G. H. , Democratic leader, 321. 

Peninsula campaign, 296. 

Pennsylvania, 3; and Calhoun, 5; protectionism, 5, 14, 17, 18; Western element, 28, 39, 40; manufacturing in, 42; western, 55, 71, 83, 98; banks, 98, 151; manufacturing, 187; shipping, 187, 201; illiterates, 213, 246; Democratic, 302; panic in, at Lee's invasion, 305. 

Pennsylvania Railroad, 192. 

Perry, Commodore, opening Japan, 235. 

Philadelphia, manufacturing at, 41; financial center, 45, 46, 48; and Bank, 79; failures, 101; mint at, 151, 188, 193, 209, 222, 306. 

Phillips, Wendell, abolition leader, 166. 

Pierce, Franklin, for President, 182; inauguration, 184, 206; and Northwest, 231; program, 232; Pacific Railroad, 233; Cuba, 233; commercial expansion, 235; Eastern opposition, 235, 239. 

Plantation, life in Old South, 137, 138; spread of system, 193. 

Planters, rulers of South, 138; number, 139; and professional men, 139. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 226. 

Poindexter, George, in Senate, 16; duelist, 32. 

Polk, James K. , 53; Speaker of House, 130; for President, 130; election and intentions, 131, 135, 140, 145; and Oregon, 149, 153; and Tariff of 1846, 151; vetoes Internal Improvements Bill, 152; sends Slidell to Mexico, 153, 155; and Mexican Treaty, 157; death, 160, 161; denounced by Sumner, 168; and Wilmot Proviso, 170; and Panama Canal, 174; and California, 175; recommendations, 232. 

Pope, General John, given army, 299; battle of Cedar Mountain, 299; second battle of Bull Run, 300. 

Popular sovereignty, 236, 255. 

Population, of cotton belt, 12; of United States, 28, 40, 184; of West, 28, 40; of New England, 39; of New York, 40; of East, 40; of South, 40; foreign elements, 185. 

Powers, Hiram, sculptor, 225. 

Prentiss, Sargent, 90. 

Presbyterians, in West, 33; in South, 142, 218; and slavery, 143, 145, 160; strong clergy, 220; members in 1860, 220; Princeton a center, 222. 

Prescott, William H. , 228. 

President, one term demanded, 16; and Supreme Court, 51, 55. 

Presidential campaign, of 1828, 3, 18, 19; of 1832, 69, 70; of 1836, 92; of 1840, 110; of 1844, 127; of 1848, 170; of 1852, 182; of 1856, 245; of 1860, 261. 

Preston, Ballard, 171. 

Preston, William C. , 93. 

Princeton College, Presbyterian center, 232; Southerners at, 224. 

Pryor, General Roger A. , and Fort Sumter, 275. 

Public debt of United States, paid, 99. 

Public education, in West, 34; in South, 142. 

Public lands, 25, 26; squatters, 27; Benton and, 27; for schools, 34; Foot Resolution, 60; Preëmption Bill, 60, 89, 108; sales, 91, 97; Specie Circular, 92; distribution of proceeds, 114, 116; for railroads, 203. 

Quakers, 22. 

Quitman, John A. , 91; filibustering, 198. 

Railroads, speculation in West, 92; and Jackson, 92; building, 192; opening grain region, 199; of South breaking down, 310, 323. 

Randolph, John, 10, 11, 15, 16, 30, 132. 

Rankin, John, anti-slavery worker, 119, 161. 

Reeder, Andrew, Governor of Kansas, 243. 

Religion, in _ante-bellum_ South, 143; American, of 1860, 216. 

Republican party, in Wisconsin and Michigan, 241, 242; Northern and anti-slavery, 243; platform, 246; and Frémont, 246, 247, 251; and Douglas, 255; and Seward, 257; Chicago Convention, 261, 262; conciliatory, 270; loses seven States, 302. 

Repudiation of state debts, 106; effect on Confederacy, 316. 

Revenue, of United States, exceeding expenses, 92; surplus distribution vetoed, 92; surplus deposited with States, 92; defaulters, 96, 97, 98, 103. 

Rhett, Robert Barnwell, 6, 15; threatening secession, 117, 132, 150, 152; retired after 1850, 181; for secession, 264, 270; opposed to Davis, 312, 324. 

Rhode Island, 15. 

Rice, 5, 12, 132. 

Rice, Nathan L. , slavery divine, 221. 

Richmond, Va. , 10; and Bank, 79; wheat market, 133; Confederate capital, 280; social life, 280; evacuated, 326. 

Rio Grande, boundary proposed, 130, 148, 194. 

Ritchie, Thomas, and Walker, 129; for Compromise of 1850, 178. 

Rives, William C. , supporting Tyler, 116, 324. 

Robinson, Charles, anti-slavery leader, 244. 

Rosecrans, General W. S. , 295; battle of Murfreesboro, 295, 303. 

Ross, John, chief of Cherokees, 88. 

Rush, Richard, candidate for Vice-President, 17. 

St. Louis, Mo. , Mercantile Library, 35; fur trade, 35; in cotton belt, 135, 193; Pacific Railroad, 235. 

Santa Anna, 154. 

Sargent, John, candidate for Vice-President, 67. 

Savannah, Ga. , blockade-running from, 313; captured by Sherman, 324. 

Scammon, John Y. , 202. 

Schurz, Carl, and Lincoln's election, 264. 

Scott, General Winfield, sent to Mexico, 155; captures Vera Cruz, 155; Cerro Gordo, 156; Churubusco, 156; Molino del Rey, 156; Chapultepec, 156; Mexico City, captured, 156; Whig candidate for President, 181; blunders, 181; defeat, 182, 283. 

Secession, final remedy, 6; Calhoun and, 145; over Texas question, 167; over California, 176; of South, contemplated, 198; threatened in 1856, 246; of Wisconsin threatened, 252; much talked of, 253; historical background, 268, 270. 

Sectionalism, in South Carolina, 5; in North Carolina, 8; in Virginia, 10, 145; checked, 171, 205, 231; renewed, 235; strong, 265. 

Seminole War, 2; and Jackson, 64. 

Seward, William H. , anti-slavery Whig, 164; for Wilmot Proviso, 171; adviser to Taylor, 175, 179, 180, 184, 214; attacks Douglas, 240, 242, 243; and Kansas, 245; for popular sovereignty, 251, 255, 257; Chicago Convention, 261, 262; defeated, 263; conciliatory, 269, 271; for peace, 273; and arbitrary arrests, 304; opposes emancipation, 304, 315; meets Confederate commissioners, 324. 

Seymour, Horatio, Democratic leader, 321. 

Sheridan, General Philip, wins at Winchester, 322; lays waste Shenandoah Valley, 322, 326. 

Sherman, General W. T. , 303; in Georgia, 318; forces Johnston back, 319; defeats Hood and captures Atlanta, 319; march to sea, 322, 323; captures Savannah, 324, 325; Johnston surrenders to, 327. 

Shiloh, battle of, 293. 

Ship subsidies, 205, 232, 235. 

Shipping, manufacturing gaining in East, 41, 47; merchants appeal to Hayne, 48; increase, 1850-60, 205. 

Simms, William Gilmore, 225. 

Slave-owners, 138; number, 139. 

Slave trade, negotiations with England, 123; Creole affair, 124; agitation for reopening, 198; active, 252; forbidden by Confederacy, 271. 

Slavery, in South Carolina, 4; in North Carolina, 9; in Virginia, 10, 13, 30, 118; value of slaves, 42; product, 42; in Democratic platform, 110; Dew on, 118; "a blessing, " 118, 119; and Northern business, 119, 134; plantation life, 136, 210; profitable unit, 137; in Southwest, 140; and the churches, 144; early Southern opposition, 161; abolition and, 163; in Territories, 174; and California, 175; Dred Scott decision, 248; Lincoln-Douglas debates, 256; Freeport doctrine, 256; popular sovereignty, 236, 255, 256; and Republicans, 262; guaranteed by Confederacy, 271. 

Slaves, conditions of life, 210; faithful during war, 277; emancipation to be proclaimed, 302; Davis offers emancipation of, in effort to secure European recognition of Confederacy, 323; offered freedom to fight, 325. 

Slidell, John, 91; mission to Mexico, 153, 215, 258; commissioner to Europe, 285; in France, 315. 

Sloat, Commodore John D. , seizes California, 154. 

Smith, Gerrit, 166. 

Sons of Liberty, 321, 323. 

Soule, Bishop, 34. 

Soulé, Pierre, commissioner to Spain, 233; recalled, 234; Ostend Manifesto, 234. 

South, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13; against Adams, 13; for Jackson, 17, 18, 23; planters not democratic, 24; alliance with West, 30, 40, 109, 129, 131; uneasy about slavery, 37; population, 40, 41, 42; exports, 42; banks and circulation, 45; trade with New England, and New York, 46; cotton, slaves, land, 47, 48; judges for property interests, 51, 55, 58; for free trade, 59; and the Bank, 60, 61, 69, 80; control or secession, 62; and protection, 68, 69, 70; and nullification, 72; market for East, 75; and Union, 75; removal of Indians, 87; for Van Buren, 93; land office defaulters, 96, 101, 115, 117, 118, 119; for Texas, 120; North outstripping, 121, 124; and Texas, 126; Oregon and Texas, 129; Walker letter, 129; California, Oregon, and Texas, 132; _ante-bellum_, and civilization, 132, 133, 135; plantation life in, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141; rural life, 142; court days, 142; few paupers and insane, 142, 143, 145, 160, 161; abolitionists mistrust, 163, 164; and abolition agitation, 165; Texas or secession, 167; for Cass, 172; break with Northwest, 173; desperate situation, 174; proposed conventions, 176, 178; accepts compromise, 181; population, 185; railroad building, 189; plantation system, 193, 194, 195; commercial conventions, 195; Cuba, Nicaragua, slave trade, 198; contemplating secession, 198, 203; trade with North, 205, 213; aristocratic life, 213; Calvinistic religion, 218; public education, 223; college students, 224, 234; clash with Northwest, 236, 240; becoming solid, 243, 246; against Douglas, 257; John Brown raid, 259; preparing for secession, 264; and Lincoln's election, 268, 269; war enthusiasm, 276, 277; Union areas, 278, 279, 280; confidence, 282; currency and finances, 286; not ready for reunion, 309; debt currency and taxation, 310; dissensions, 310, 311; cost of war to, 328. 

South Carolina, 4; cotton and politics, 5; Calhoun and Jackson, 8, 11, 14, 19, 23, 28, 30; nationalism and protection to particularism and free trade, 54, 55, 60, 63, 65, 66, 68; ready to nullify, 70; nullification, 71, 72; Jackson's Proclamation and Force Bill, 73; repeal of nullification, 75, 77, 82; internal improvements and debt, 98; bank laws, 106; for Van Buren, 111; "slavery a blessing, " 119; Calhoun and, 119; loses representatives, 121, 128, 131, 140, 141; Presbyterians, 143; and Wilmot Proviso, 171; California and slavery, 175; secession of, 269, 270; Union area, 278, 313; Sherman and, 325. 

Southwest, radical, 23; newly rich, 31; and nullification, 72; river commerce, 90; cotton expansion, 90; growth, 121; and old South, 140. 

Sparks, Rev. Jared, 73. 

Specie Circular, 92; effect on business, 102; demand for repeal, 102, 103. 

Squatter sovereignty, started by Cass, 171. 

Stanton, Edwin M. , Secretary of War, 299; arbitrary arrests, 304. 

Steamers, on Great Lakes, 35; on the Mississippi, 35. 

Stephens, Alexander H. , for Taylor, 171; out of favor, 175; blaming anti-slavery, 176; defends Douglas, 240; Democrat, 243; Vice-President of Confederacy, 271; reëlected, 286; for reunion, 309; would impeach Davis, 323, 324, 325. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, supports Lincoln, 322. 

Story, Joseph, 15, 252. 

Suffrage, 3; in North Carolina, 9; in Virginia, 10; in New York, 14; in Connecticut, 14; in Massachusetts, 15; in Rhode Island, 15. 

Sugar, 12, 132, 194. 

Sully, portrait painter, 54. 

Sumner, Charles, for constitutional abolition, 168; hostile to Webster, 179, 184, 215; against Nebraska Bill, 240, 241, 242; "Crime-of-Kansas" speech, 245; assaulted by Brooks, 245, 253, 263; uncompromising, 273; for immediate emancipation, 301; denounces Lincoln, 316, 320; supports Lincoln, 322. 

Sumter, Fort, 270, 272, 273; bombardment of, united North, 283. 

Supreme Court, of United States, proposal to limit powers, 16, 50, 51, 55; of Georgia, Jackson and, 72; Cherokee Nation against Georgia, 88; changed, 99; Dred Scott decision, 247. 

Surplus. _See_ Revenue. 

Taney, Roger B. , Attorney-General, 65; Secretary of the Treasury, 79. 

Tariff, 5, 6, 7, 44, 51, 53, 55, 65, 66, 68, 69; Jackson and, 59; and South Carolina, 60, 62; nullification, 71; Verplanck Bill, 73; compromise of 1833, 74, 77; and Whigs, 110, 112, 173; and Clay, 114; law of 1842, 117, 130; of 1846, 150, 151; low, 1850, 60, 205, 268; and Confederacy, 271. 

Taylor, Zachary sent across Nueces River, 148; ordered to the Rio Grande, 154; into Mexico, 154; Monterey, 154; suggested for Presidency, 155; Buena Vista, 155; nominated for President, 171; slave-owner, 171; in Presidential campaign, 172; courted by North and South, 174, 175; and California, 176; defies South, 176; and Clay, 176; beaten, 180; death, 180. 

Tennessee, and Clay, 21, 22, 32, 40; and nullification, 72, 93; "slavery a blessing, " 119, 121, 141; Presbyterians in, 143, 182; and Nebraska Bill, 238, 245; secession of, 275; Union areas, 279, 293, 311, 313. 

Tennessee River, immigration to, 13, 161; Grant on, 293. 

Texas, 16; American occupation, 25; desired by West, 24; and Van Buren, 89, 105, 106; applies for annexation, 104, 120; independent, 121, 125, 126; and England, 126, 127; Walker letter, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135; treaty of annexation rejected by Senate, 147; and election of 1845, 147; annexed, 147; disputed boundary, 148, 152; Slidell's mission, 153; secession over, 167; New Mexican boundary, 176; and Pacific Railroad, 233; secession of, 275. 

Thompson, Jacob, Confederate agent Canada, 323. 

Thompson, William Tappen, 227. 

Timrod, Henry, 227. 

Tobacco, 12, 35, 66, 75, 132, 186; staple, 194. 

Toombs, Robert, 175; and Kansas question, 244. 

Topeka Constitution, of Kansas, 250. 

Transcendental Club, 52. 

Transcendentalists, 226. 

Treasury of United States, full, 186, 292. 

Treasury notes, issued in 1877, 103. 

Trist, Nicholas, envoy to Mexico 156, 157. 

Trumbull, Lyman, 255. 

Tyler, John, against Jackson, 93; for Vice-President, 110; elected, 111; succeeds Harrison, 115; and Clay, 115; vetoes Bank bills, 116; Cabinet resigns, 116, 121; Texas and Oregon, 125; Texas treaty, 130, 131, 147, 168. 

Tucker, George, historian, 228. 

Twain, Mark, 227. 

_Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 184. 

Union party, Bell and Everett, 261; for conciliation, 270. 

Unitarians, 218; and abolition, 221. 

University, of Indiana, Presbyterian, 223; of Michigan, Methodist Chaplain, 223; of North Carolina, Presbyterian, 223; of South Carolina, 143; of Virginia, 143; chaplain at, 223. 

Upshur, Abel P. , Secretary of State, 126; and Texas, 127; death, 127, 147. 

Utah, in Compromise of 1850, 176. 

Van Buren, Martin, "boss" of New York, 14; in Senate, 16, 17, 18, 58; in Jackson's favor, 62, 63; Calhoun rival, 64, 65; Minister to England, 68; for Vice-President, 68; and Jackson, 73, 83, 89; for President, 92; conservative, 94; spoils system, 96; difficulties, 97, 100; and panic of 1837, 102; and Independent Treasury, 103; and Texas, 104, 105, 107, 121, 127, 167; and opposition, 108; and Democrats, 109; blamed for panic, 110; and campaign of 1840, 111, 114, 120; and Walker, 129; not renominated, 130, 147; against Cass, 172; Free-Soil candidate, 173. 

Vance, Zebulon B. , opposed to Davis, 312. 

Vanderbilt, Commodore, steamboat and railroad lines, 192. 

Vermont, for Scott, 182. 

Verplanck Tariff Bill, Jackson's measure, 73. 

Vicksburg, 293. 

Virginia, 3, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14; for Jackson, 18, 23, 28, 30; depression, 39; and nullification, 46, 50, 55, 67, 72; embassy from, to South Carolina, 75; internal improvements and debt, 98; for Van Buren, 111; banks, 115, 117; loses representative, 121; Van Buren and Texas, 128, 132, 133, 140, 143, 149; and slavery, 161, 162; and Compromise of 1850, 178, 195; convicts, in 1860, 213; springs, 214; Know-Nothing fight, 242; John Brown raid, 258, 264; calls peace conference, 272; secession of, 275; Union areas, 279; western revolt and statehood, 279; resistance to conscript laws, 311; opposition party, 312, 323. 

Wade, Benjamin F. , 242, 253, 299. 

Walker, Robert J. , Senator, 128; Texas and Oregon letter, 129; Baltimore Convention, 129, 140, 147; Secretary of the Treasury, 147; Independent Treasury, 150; Tariff of 1846, 150, 151; for annexing Mexico, 157, 235; Governor of Kansas, 249; clash with Van Buren, 249; financial agent of United States in Europe, 315. 

Walker, William, 198, 235. 

War of 1812, 84; debt paid, 99; and New England, 268. 

Washington, D. C. , and Bank, 79, 209. 

Washington Territory, 199. 

Webster, Daniel, 15, 17, 30, 37, 54, 55; debate with Hayne, 61, 63, 66, 69, 70, 73, 74, 79, 80, 82, 84, 91, 93, 96, 107, 108, 110; and Clay, 117; Ashburton Treaty, 123, 125; mission to England, 126; resigns as Secretary of State, 126; and campaign of 1844, 131; and Oregon, 149, 150, 152; and "all of Mexico, " 158; snubbed, 171, 172, 173; and Compromise of 1850, 176, 179; "Seventh-of-March" speech, 179; attacked, 180; Secretary of State, 180, 181; death, 181, 268. 

Weed, Thurlow, for Taylor, and Southern alliance, 171, 179, 243, 255; conciliatory, 269, 271. 

Wentworth, John, Republican leader, 255. 

West, 2, 3; radical, 4; against Adams, 17; and Jackson, 18, 21, 23; alliance with South, 19, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 109, 131, 159; religious life, 33; schools and colleges, 34, 35; and East, 39, 40, 43, 46; banks and circulation, 45; and courts, 51, 55, 58, 59; and public lands, 59, 62; and Bank, 60, 61, 63, 66, 67; Bank and Jackson, 69, 70, 74; market for East, 75, 80; removal of Indians, 87; population, 89, 90; speculation in, 91, 92; canals and railroads, 92, 93, 97; against Van Buren, 93, 96, 110; state debts, 98, 106; Specie Circular, 101, 108; for Harrison, 111, 112; and Calhoun, 120; Texas and Oregon, 122; Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 124; Walker letter, 129; and Mexican War, 160; for Cass, 172; railroad building, 189, 201, 205, 213; school lands, 223; threats of secession, 268; love of Union, 289; against emancipation, 304. 

West Indies, trade with British, 84. 

West Virginia, organized and admitted, 279; lost to South, 313. 

Whigs, campaign of 1836, 93; panic of 1837, 102, 108, 109; in 1840, 110; divided, 114; and Tyler, 115; and Texas, 128, 147; Independent Treasury, 151; Taylor for President, 155, 157; and Wilmot Proviso, 170; Convention of 1848, 171, 173; Southern and Taylor, 174; Southern, for Union, 178; secure Compromise of 1850, 181; Northwestern, join Republicans, 241; Eastern, and Know-Nothings, 242, 243, 264. 

White, Hugh Lawson, revolt against Jackson, 93; candidate for President, 93. 

Whitney, Asa, and Pacific Railroad, 204, 233. 

Whitney, Eli, cotton gin, 199. 

Whittier, John G. , lines on Webster, 180, 220. 

Wilmot, David, and Wilmot Proviso, 170. 

Wilmot Proviso, and Northwest, 153; in Congress, 170. 

Wirt, William, 17, 53; and anti-Masonic party, 67, 70. 

Wisconsin, 87; settlement, 89, 90, 105, 106; made State, 198; Indians removed, 199, 205; Republican party in, 241; nullifies Fugitive Slave Law, 252; Democratic, 302. 

Wise, Henry A. , 67; supports Tyler, 116, 121; defeats Know Nothings, 243, 253; and John Brown raid, 258. 

Women, position of, on frontier, 32; in factories, 210; life on farm, 212. 

Woolens Bill of 1827, 6. 

Worcester Convention of 1857, 253. 

Wright, Silas, 82, 105, 108. 

Yale College, influence, 222. 

Yancey, William L. , Oregon and Texas, 132; expansionist, 150; and crisis of 1850, 176; retirement in 1850, 181; and public education, 223, 261; for secession, 264; opposed to Davis, 312; death, 312. 

Yucatan, United States and, 157.