SECTION 10. And be it further enacted, That when any person

held to service or labor in any State or Territory, or in the

District of Columbia, shall escape therefrom, the party to

whom such service or labor shall be due, his, her, or their

agent or attorney, may apply to any court of record therein,

or judge thereof in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to

such court, or judge in vacation, of the escape aforesaid, and

that the person escaping owed service or labor to such party.

Whereupon the court shall cause a record to be made of the

matters so proved, and also a general description of the

person so escaping, with such convenient certainty as may be;

and a transcript of such record, authenticated by the

attestation of the clerk and of the seal of the said court,

being produced in any other State, Territory, or district in

which the person so escaping may be found, and being exhibited

to any judge, commissioner, or other officer authorized by the

law of the United States to cause persons escaping from

service or labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken

to be full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and

that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the

party in such record mentioned. And upon the production by the

said party of other and further evidence if necessary, either

oral or by affidavit, in addition to what is contained in the

said record of the identity of the person escaping, he or she

shall be delivered up to the claimant.

{3391}

And the said court, commissioner, judge, or other person

authorized by this act to grant certificates to claimants of

fugitives, shall, upon the production of the record and other

evidences aforesaid, grant to such claimant a certificate of

his right to take any such person identified and proved to be

owing service or labor as aforesaid, which certificate shall

authorize such claimant to seize or arrest and transport such

person to the State or Territory from which he escaped:

Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as

requiring the production of a transcript of such record as

evidence as aforesaid. But in its absence the claim shall be

heard and determined upon other satisfactory proofs, competent

in law. Approved, September 18, 1850."

_Statutes at Large,

ix. 462-465._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.

The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain.

See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850-1851.

The Hülsemann Letter.

Kossuth in America.

In July, 1850, Daniel Webster became Secretary of State in the

cabinet of President Fillmore and retained that post until his

death, in October, 1852. "The best-known incident of this

period was that which gave rise to the famous 'Hülsemann

letter.' President Taylor had sent an agent to Hungary to

report upon the condition of the revolutionary government,

with the intention of recognizing it if there were sufficient

grounds for doing so. When the agent arrived, the revolution

was crushed, and he reported to the President against

recognition. These papers were transmitted to the Senate in

March, 1850. Mr. Hülsemann, the Austrian Charge, thereupon

complained of the action of our administration, and Mr.

Clayton, then Secretary of State, replied that the mission of

the agent had been simply to gather information. On receiving

further instructions from his government, Mr. Hülsemann

rejoined to Mr. Clayton, and it fell to Mr. Webster to reply,

which he did on December 21, 1850. The note of the Austrian

Chargé was in a hectoring and highly offensive tone, and Mr.

Webster felt the necessity of administering a sharp rebuke.

'The Hülsemann letter,' as it was called, was, accordingly

dispatched. It set forth strongly the right of the United

States and their intention to recognize any de facto

revolutionary government, and to seek information in all

proper ways in order to guide their action. … Mr. Webster had

two objects. One was to awaken the people of Europe to a sense

of the greatness of this country, the other to touch the

national pride at home. He did both. … The affair did not,

however, end here. Mr. Hülsemann became very mild, but he soon

lost his temper again. Kossuth and the refugees in Turkey were

brought to this country in a United States frigate. The

Hungarian hero was received with a burst of enthusiasm that

induced him to hope for substantial aid, which was, of course,

wholly visionary. The popular excitement made it difficult for

Mr. Webster to steer a proper course, but he succeeded, by

great tact, in showing his own sympathy, and, so far as

possible, that of the government, for the cause of Hungarian

independence and for its leader, without going too far. … Mr.

Webster's course, … although carefully guarded, aroused the

ire of Mr. Hülsemann, who left the country, after writing a

letter of indignant farewell to the Secretary of State."

_H. C. Lodge,

Daniel Webster,

chapter 10._

ALSO IN:

_D. Webster,

Works,

volume 6, pages 488-504._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1851.

The Lopez Filibustering expedition to Cuba.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852.

Appearance of the Know Nothing or American Party.

"A new party had by this time risen to active importance in

American politics. It appeared in 1852, in the form of a

secret, oath-bound organization, of whose name, nature, and

objects nothing was told even to its members until they had

reached its higher degrees. Their consequent declaration that

they knew nothing about it gave the society its popular name

of Know Nothings. It accepted the name of the American Party.

Its design was to oppose the easy naturalization of

foreigners, and to aid the election of native-born citizens to

office. Its nominations were made by secret conventions of

delegates from the various lodges, and were voted for by all

members under penalty of expulsion in case of refusal. At

first, by endorsing the nominations of one or other of the two

great parties, it decided many elections. After the passage of

the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Know Nothing organization was

adopted by many Southern Whigs who were unwilling to unite

with the Democracy, and became, for a time, a national party.

It carried nine of the State elections in 1855, and in 1856

nominated Presidential candidates. After that time its

Southern members gradually united with the Democracy, and the

Know Nothing party disappeared from politics."

_A. Johnston,

History of American Politics, 2d edition,

chapter 18, section 4._

The ritual, rules, etc., of the American, or Know Nothing

party are given in the following work.

_T. V. Cooper,

American Politics,

pages 56-68._

ALSO IN:

_A. Holmes,

Parties and their Principles,

pages 287-295._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852.

Seventeenth Presidential Election.

Franklin Pierce.

"The question of slavery, in its comprehensive bearings,

formed the turning point in the presidential canvass of 1852.

… The national democratic convention which nominated Mr.

Pierce, unanimously adopted a platform approving the

compromise of 1850 as the final decision of the slavery

question. The Whig party were widely divided on the question

of acquiescence in the compromise measures, and still more at

variance in regard to the claims of rival candidates for the

presidency. Mr. Seward's friends in the free states united in

the support of General Scott, who had, to a considerable

extent, stood aloof from the agitations of the last few years.

On the other hand, the exclusive supporters of the compromise,

as a condition of party allegiance, were divided between

Millard Fillmore, at that time acting president, and Daniel

Webster, secretary of state. The Whig convention met in

Baltimore on the 17th of June, 1852, two weeks after the

democratic convention, and nominated General Scott as their

candidate for president. A large majority of the delegates

from New York, and a considerable number from other states,

maintained their opposition to the test resolutions which were

proposed by the other branch of the party. These resolutions,

however, were adopted, and a platform was thus established

resembling, in its main features, that of the democrats. …

Supported by several advocates of this new platform on the

ground of his personal popularity, General Scott received the

nomination.

{3392}

He was, however, regarded with great suspicion by a large

number of whigs in the slaveholding states. … Many ardent

friends of the compromise … refused to rally around General

Scott, distrusting his fidelity to the compromise platform;

while a large number of the Whigs of the free states, through

aversion to the platform, assumed a neutral position or gave

their support to a third candidate. Another portion of the

Whig party nominated Mr. Webster, who died [October 24, 1852],

not only refusing to decline the nomination, but openly

avowing his disgust with the action of the party."

_G. E. Baker,

Memoir of William. H. Seward

(Seward's Works, volume 4)._

"The Democratic convention was held, first, on June 1, 1852,

at Baltimore. It was a protracted convention, for it did not

adjourn until the 6th of the month, but it was not very

interesting. … After a short contest, the two-thirds rule was

adopted by an overwhelming majority. The struggle over the

nomination was protracted. On the first ballot, General Cass

had 116; James Buchanan, 93; William L. Marcy, 27; Stephen A.

Douglas, 20; Joseph Lane, 13; Samuel Houston, 8; and there

were 4 scattering. The number necessary to a choice was 188. …

On the twenty-ninth trial, the votes were: for Cass, 27; for

Buchanan, 93; for Douglas, 91; and no other candidate had more

than 26. At this point Cass began to recover his strength, and

reached his largest number on the thirty-fifth trial, namely,

131. On that same ballot, Virginia gave 15 votes to Franklin

Pierce. Mr. Pierce gained 15 more votes on the thirty-sixth

trial; but at that point his increase ceased, and was then

slowly resumed, as the weary repetition of balloting without

effect went on. The forty-eighth trial resulted as follows:

for Cass, 73; for Buchanan, 28; for Douglas, 33; for Marcy,

90; for Pierce, 55; for all others, 8. The forty-ninth trial

was the last. There was a 'stampede' for Pierce, and he

received 282 votes to 6 for all others. Ten candidates were

voted for as a candidate for the vice-presidency.—On the

second ballot, William R. King of Alabama was unanimously

nominated. … The anti-slavery organization, the Free Soil

Democrats, though a much less important political factor than

they had been four years earlier, held their convention in

Pittsburg on August 11. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts

presided. John P. Hale of New Hampshire was nominated for

President, and George W. Julian of Indiana for Vice-President.

… The canvass was not a very spirited one. All the early

autumn elections were favorable to the Democrats, and the

result in November was a crushing defeat of the Whigs in the

popular vote and one still more decisive in the electoral

vote. … The popular and electoral votes were as follows."

Popular vote: Franklin Pierce, 1,601,274; Winfield Scott,

1,386,580; John P. Hale, 155,825. Electoral vote: Pierce, 254;

Scott, 42.

_E. Stanwood,

History of Presidential Elections,

chapter 18._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852.

The appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and its effect.

"Of the literary forces that aided in bringing about the

immense revolution in public sentiment between 1852 and 1860,

we may affirm with confidence that by far the most weighty was

the influence spread by this book. This story, when published

[1851-1852] as a serial in the 'National Era,' an anti-slavery

newspaper at Washington, attracted little attention, but after

it was given to the world in book form in March, 1852, it

proved the most successful novel ever written. The author felt

deeply that the Fugitive Slave law was unjust, and that there

was cruelty in its execution; this inspired her to pour out

her soul in a protest against slavery. She thought that if she

could only make the world see slavery as she saw it, her

object would be accomplished; she would then have induced

people to think right on the subject. The book was composed

under the most disheartening circumstances. Worn out with the

care of many young children; overstrained by the domestic

trials of a large household, worried because her husband's

small income did not meet their frugal needs; eking out the

poor professor's salary by her literary work in a house too

small to afford a study for the author—under such conditions

there came the inspiration of her life. … The effect produced

by the book was immense. Whittier offered up 'thanks for the

Fugitive Slave law; for it gave occasion for Uncle Tom's

Cabin.' Longfellow thought it was one of the greatest triumphs

in literary history, but its moral effect was a higher triumph

still. Lowell described the impression which the book made as

a 'whirl of excitement.' Choate is reported to have said:

'That book will make two millions of abolitionists.' Garrison

wrote the author: 'All the defenders of slavery have let me

alone and are abusing you.'"

_J. F. Rhodes,

History of the United States from 1850,

volume 1, pages 278-280._

Writing only nine months after the publication of "Uncle Tom's

Cabin," C. F. Briggs, in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, said:

"Never since books were first printed has the success of Uncle

Tom been equalled; the history of literature contains nothing

parallel to it, nor approaching it; it is, in fact, the first

real success in bookmaking, for all other successes in

literature were failures when compared with the success of

Uncle Tom. … There have been a good many books which were

considered popular on their first appearance, which were

widely read and more widely talked about. But what were they

all, compared with Uncle Tom, whose honest countenance now

overshadows the reading world, like the dark cloud with a

silver lining. Don Quixote was a popular book on its first

coming out, and so was Gil Blas, and Richardson's Pamela, and

Fielding's Tom Jones, and Hannah More's Cœlebs, and Gibbon's

Decline and Fall; and so were the Vicar of Wakefield, and

Rasselas, and the Tale of a Tub, and Evelina, the Lady of the

Lake, Waverley, the Sorrows of Werter, Childe Harold, the Spy,

Pelham, Vivian Grey, Pickwick, the Mysteries of Paris, and

Macaulay's History. These are among the most famous books that

rose suddenly in popular esteem on their first appearance, but

the united sale of the whole of them, within the first nine

months of their publication, would not equal the sale of Uncle

Tom in the same time. … It is but nine months since this Iliad

of the blacks, as an English reviewer calls Uncle Tom, made

its appearance among books, and already its sale has exceeded

a million of copies; author and publisher have made fortunes

out of it, and Mrs. Stowe, who was before unknown, is as

familiar a name in all parts of the civilized world as that of

Homer or Shakspeare. Nearly 200,000 copies of the first edition

of the work have been sold in the United States, and the

publishers say they are unable to meet the growing demand.

{3393}

The book was published on the 20th of last March, and on the

1st of December there had been sold 120,000 sets of the

edition in two volumes. 50,000 copies of the cheaper edition

in one, and 3,000 copies of the costly illustrated edition. …

They [the publishers] have paid to the author $20,300 as her

share of the profits on the actual cash sales of the first

nine months. But it is in England where Uncle Tom has made his

deepest mark. Such has been the sensation produced by the book

there, and so numerous have been the editions published, that

it is extremely difficult to collect the statistics of its

circulation with a tolerable degree of exactness. But we know

of twenty rival editions in England and Scotland, and that

millions of copies have been produced. … We have seen it

stated that there were thirty different editions published in

London, within six months of the publication of the work here,

and one firm keeps 400 men employed in printing and binding

it. … Uncle Tom was not long in making his way across the

British Channel, and four rival editions are claiming the

attention of the Parisians, one under the title of 'le Père

Tom,' and another of 'la Case de l'Oncle Tom.'"

_Uncle Tomitudes

(Putnam's Monthly Magazine, January, 1853)._

"In May, 1852. Whittier wrote to Garrison: 'What a glorious

work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for the

Fugitive Slave Law. Better for slavery that that law had never

been enacted, for it gave occasion for Uncle Tom's Cabin.' …

Macaulay wrote, thanking her for the volume, assuring her of

his high respect for the talents and for the benevolence of

the writer. Four years later, the same illustrious author,

essayist, and historian wrote to Mrs. Stowe: 'I have just

returned from Italy, where your fame seems to throw that of

all other writers into the shade. There is no place where

Uncle Tom, transformed into Il Zio Tom, is not to be found.'

From Lord Carlisle she received a long and earnest epistle, in

which he says he felt that slavery was by far the 'topping'

question of the world and age, and that he returned his 'deep

and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has led and enabled you

to write such a book.' The Rev. Charles Kingsley, in the midst

of illness and anxiety, sent his thanks, saying: 'Your book

will do more to take away the reproach from your great and

growing nation than many platform agitations and

speechifyings.' Said Lord Palmerston, 'I have not read a novel

for thirty years; but I have read that book three times, not

only for the story, but for the statesmanship of it.' Lord

Cockburn declared: 'She has done more for humanity than was

ever before accomplished by any single book of fiction.'

Within a year Uncle Tom's Cabin was scattered all over the

world. Translations were made into all the principal

languages, and into several obscure dialects, in number

variously estimated from twenty to forty. The librarian of the

British Museum, with an interest and enterprise which might

well put our own countrymen to blush, has made a collection

which is unique and very remarkable in the history of books.

American visitors may see there thirty-five editions (Uncle

Tom's Cabin) of the original English, and the complete text,

and eight of abridgments and adaptations. Of translations into

different languages there are nineteen, viz.: Armenian, one;

Bohemian, one; Danish, two distinct versions; Dutch, one;

Flemish, one; French, eight distinct versions, and two dramas;

German, five distinct versions, and four abridgments;

Hungarian, one complete version, one for children, and one

versified abridgment; Illyrian, two distinct versions;

Italian, one; Polish, two distinct versions; Portuguese, one;

Roman, or modern Greek, one; Russian, two distinct versions;

Spanish, six distinct versions; Swedish, one; Wallachian, two

distinct versions; Welsh, three distinct versions."

_Mrs. F. T. McCray,

Uncle Tom's Cabin

(Magazine of American History, January, 1890)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852-1854.

The Perry Expedition.

Opening of intercourse with Japan.

See JAPAN: A. D. 1852-1888.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1853.

The Gadsden Purchase of Arizona.

See ARIZONA: A. D. 1853.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854.

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

The doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty."

"The slavery agitation apparently had died away both in

congress and throughout the country. This calm, however, was

doomed to a sudden interruption. The prospect of … beneficent

legislation was destroyed by the introduction of a measure

which at once supplanted all other subjects in congress and in

the political interests of the people. This was the novel and

astounding proposal of Mr. Douglas [Senator Stephen A.

Douglas, of Illinois], in relation to the Kansas and Nebraska

territories. … The measure … alluded to … was a provision in

the bill for the organization of a territory in Nebraska,

declaring that the states which might at any future time be

formed in the new territory should leave the question of

slavery to be decided by the inhabitants thereof on the

adoption of their constitution,—[this being in accordance with

the doctrine which its advocates styled 'Popular Sovereignty,'

but which took the commoner name of 'Squatter Sovereignty'

from its opponents]. This provision was, as explained by the

bill itself, the application of the compromise policy of 1850

to Nebraska, and, as was evident, virtually repealed the

Missouri Compromise of 1820, which guarantied that slavery

should be forever excluded from the territory in question.

But, in order to bring the supporters of the bill and its

opponents to a more decided test, an amendment was moved

expressly annulling that portion of the Missouri Compromise

which related to the subject. Mr. Douglas, after some

deliberation, accepted the amendment, and modified his plan so

far as to introduce a new bill for the organization of

Nebraska and Kansas within the same limits, instead of the

territory of Nebraska alone, according to the original

programme. The administration lost no time in adopting this

policy as their own. It was at first proposed to hasten the

passage of the bill through both houses so rapidly as to

prevent any remonstrance on the part of the people. But the

opponents of the measure, including Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr.

Sumner, Mr. Truman Smith, Mr. Wade, Mr. Everett, Mr. Bell, Mr.

Houston, and Mr. Fessenden, combined against it such an

earnest and effective resistance that the attention of the

country was aroused, and an indignant protest called forth

from the people of the free states. The bill, however, passed

the senate on the 4th day of March, 1854, after a discussion

which had occupied nearly every day of the session since the

23d of January. …

{3394}

On the 21st of March, Mr. Richardson of Illinois, in the

house, moved to refer the bill, as it came from the senate, to

the committee on territories, of which he was the chairman.

Mr. Francis B. Cutting, of New York, moved that it be sent to

the committee of the whole, where it could be freely

discussed. His motion was carried, after a severe struggle, by

a vote of 110 to 95. This was regarded as a triumph of the

enemies of the bill and inspired hopes of its ultimate defeat

in the house. On the 22d of May, after a most exciting

contest, lasting nearly two months, in committee of the whole,

Mr. Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, by an extraordinary

stratagem in parliamentary tactics, succeeded in closing the

debate and bringing the bill to a vote in the house, where it

finally passed, before adjournment, by a vote of 113 to 100."

Returned to the senate, on account of amendments which had

been made to it, it passed that body again "by vote of 35 to

13; and amid the firing of cannon and the shouting of its

friends, it was sent to the president for his signature, at

three o'clock in the morning of May 26, 1854. President Pierce

promptly gave it his approval, and the odious measure became

the law of the land. Thus was abrogated the Missouri

Compromise—a law enacted thirty years before with all the

solemnity of a compact between the free and the slave

states—and a territory as large as the thirteen original

states opened to slavery. The act was consummated by the

cooperation of the north. Originating with a senator from a

free state, it was passed by a congress containing in each

branch a majority of members from the free states, and was

sanctioned by the approval of a free state president. The

friends of this legislation attempted to defend it on the

pretence that it was not an original act, but only declaratory

of the true intent and significance of the compromise measures

of 1850."

_G. E. Baker,

Memoir of William H. Seward

(volume 4 of Seward's Works),

pages 24-27._

Senator Douglas' explanation of the reasons on which he

grounded his Kansas-Nebraska Bill is given in a report made by

Lieutenant-Colonel Cutts, of conversations held by him with

the Senator in 1859, and taken down in writing at the time, in

the exact language of Mr. Douglas. "There was," said Senator

Douglas, "a necessity for the organization of the Territory,

which could no longer be denied or resisted. … Mr. Douglas, as

early as the session of 1843, had introduced a bill to

organize the Territory of Nebraska, for the purpose of opening

the line of communication between the Mississippi Valley and

our possessions on the Pacific Ocean, known as the Oregon

country, and which was then under the operation of the treaty

of joint occupation, or rather non occupation, with England,

and was rapidly passing into the exclusive possession of the

British Hudson's Bay Fur Company, who were establishing posts

at every prominent and commanding point in the country. … Mr.

Douglas renewed the introduction of his bill for the

organization of Nebraska Territory, each session of Congress,

from 1844 to 1854, a period of ten years, and while he had

failed to secure the passage of the act, in consequence of the

Mexican war intervening, and the slavery agitation which

ensued, no one had objected to it upon the ground that there

was no necessity for the organization of the Territory. During

the discussions upon our Territorial questions during this

period, Mr. Douglas often called attention to the fact that a

line of policy had been adopted many years ago, and was being

executed each year, which was entirely incompatible with the

growth and development of our country. It had originated as

early as the administration of Mr. Monroe, and had been

continued by Mr. Adams, General Jackson, Mr. Van Buren,

Harrison, and by Tyler, by which treaties had been made with

the Indians to the east of the Mississippi River, for their

removal to the country bordering upon the States west of the

Mississippi or Missouri Rivers, with guaranties in said

treaties that the country within which these Indians were

located should never be embraced within any Territory or

State, or subjected to the jurisdiction of either, so long as

grass should grow and water should run. These Indian

settlements, thus secured by treaty, commenced upon the

northern borders of Texas, or Red River, and were continued

from year to year westward, until when, in 1844, Mr. Douglas

introduced his first Nebraska Bill, they had reached the

Nebraska or Platte River, and the Secretary of War was then

engaged in the very act of removing Indians from Iowa, and

settling them in the valley of the Platte River, with similar

guaranties of perpetuity, by which the road to Oregon was

forever to be closed. It was the avowed object of this Indian

policy to form an Indian barrier on the western borders of

Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa, by Indian settlements, secured

in perpetuity by a compact that the white settlements should

never extend westward of that line. This policy originated in

the jealousy, on the part of the Atlantic States, of the

growth and expansion of the Mississippi Valley, which

threatened in a few years to become the controlling power of

the nation. … This restrictive system received its first cheek

in 1844, by the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, which was

served on the Secretary of War, by its author, on the day of

its introduction, with a notice that Congress was about to

organize the Territory, and therefore he must not locate any

more Indians there. In consequence of this notice, the

Secretary (by courtesy) suspended his operations until

Congress should have an opportunity of acting upon the bill;

and inasmuch as Congress failed to act that session, Mr.

Douglas renewed his bill and notice to the Secretary each

year, and thus prevented action for ten years, and until he

could procure action on the bill. … When Congress assembled at

the session of 1853-1854, in view of this state of facts, Mr.

Douglas renewed his Nebraska Act, which was modified, pending

discussion, by dividing into two Territories, and became the

Kansas-Nebraska Act. … The jealousies of the two great

sections of the Union, North and South, had been fiercely

excited by the slavery agitation. The Southern States would

never consent to the opening of those Territories to

settlement, so long as they were excluded by act of Congress

from moving there and holding their slaves; and they had the

power to prevent the opening of the country forever, inasmuch

as it had been forever excluded by treaties with the Indians,

which could not be changed or repealed except by a two-third

vote in the Senate.

{3395}

But the South were willing to consent to remove the Indian

restrictions, provided the North would at the same time remove

the Missouri restriction, and thus throw the country open to

settlement on equal terms by the people of the North and

South, and leave the settlers at liberty to introduce or

exclude slavery as they should think proper." The same report

gives a distinction which Senator Douglas drew between

"Popular Sovereignty" and "Squatter Sovereignty," as follows:

"The name of Squatter Sovereignty was first applied by Mr.

Calhoun, in a debate in the United States Senate in 1848,

between himself and General Cass, in respect to the right of

the people of California to institute a government for

themselves after the Mexican jurisdiction had been withdrawn

from them, and before the laws of the United States had been

extended over them. General Cass contended that in such a case

the people had a right, an inherent and inalienable right, to

institute a government for themselves and for their own

protection. Mr. Calhoun replied that, with the exception of

the native Californians, the inhabitants of that country were

mere squatters upon the public domain, who had gone there in

vast crowds, without the authority of law, and were in fact

trespassers as well as squatters upon the public lands, and to

recognize their right to set up a government for themselves

was to assert the doctrine of 'Squatter Sovereignty.' The term

had no application to an organized Territory under the

authority of Congress, or to the powers of such organized

Territory, but was applied solely to an unorganized country

whose existence was not recognized by law. On the other hand,

what is called 'Popular Sovereignty' in the Territories, is a

phrase used to designate the right of the people of an

organized Territory, under the Constitution and laws of the

United States, to govern themselves in respect to their own

internal polity and domestic affairs."

_S. A. Douglas,

Brief Treatise upon Constitutional and Party Questions

(reported by J. M. Cutts),

pages 86-92, and 123-124._

"The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the beginning of

the end, the fatal step of the South on its road to

destruction. Throughout the North the conviction grew that

Union and slavery could not exist much longer together. On the

4th of July, 1854, Garrison publicly burned a copy of the

Constitution of the United States with the words, 'The Union

must be dissolved!' He represented only an extreme sentiment.

But the people at large began to calculate the value of this

Union for which so many sacrifices had been made. Slavery

became odious to many persons hitherto indifferent to the

subject, on the ground that it persistently and selfishly

placed the Union in peril."

_B. Tuckerman,

William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for

the Abolition of Slavery,

chapter 7._

ALSO IN:

_M. Van Buren,

Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties,

chapter 8._

_G. T. Curtis,

Life of James Buchanan,

chapter 9._

_S. A. Douglas,

Popular Sovereignty in the Territories

(Harper's Magazine, September, 1859)._

_H. von Holst.

Constitutional and Political History of the United States,

volume 4, chapters 6-8._

_H. Greeley,

History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension,

chapter 14._

_J. F. Rhodes,

History of the United States from 1850,

chapter 5._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854.

The Ostend Manifesto.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1855.

Solidification of Anti-slavery sentiment in the North.

The birth of the new Republican Party.

"The determined purpose of the Slave Power to make slavery the

predominating national interest was never more clearly

revealed than by the proposed repeal of the Missouri

compromise. This was a deliberate and direct assault upon

freedom. Many, indeed, under the pleas of fraternity and

loyalty to the Union, palliated and apologized for this breach

of faith; but the numbers were increasing every hour, as the

struggle progressed, who could no longer be deceived by these

hollow pretences. … Pulpits and presses which had been dumb,

or had spoken evasively and with slight fealty to truth, gave

forth no uncertain sound. … To the utterances of the sacred

desk were added the action of ecclesiastical bodies,

contributions to the press, and petitions to State

legislatures and to Congress. … These discussions from pulpit,

platform, and press, all pointed to political action as the

only adequate remedy. In the Northern States there were

Abolitionists, Free-Soilers, anti-slavery Whigs, anti-Nebraska

Democrats, and anti-slavery members of the American party,

which had just come into existence. … As the conflict

progressed, large and increasing numbers saw that no help

could be reasonably hoped but through the formation of a new

party that could act without the embarrassment of a Southern

wing. But the formation of a national and successful party

from materials afforded by the disintegration of hitherto

hostile organizations was a work of great delicacy and

difficulty. Such a party could not be made;—it must grow out

of the elements already existing. It must be born of the

nation's necessities and of its longings for relief from the

weakness, or wickedness, of existing organizations. The mode

of organizing this new party of freedom varied according to

the varying circumstances of different localities and the

convictions of different men. … One of the earliest, if not

the earliest, of the movements that contemplated definite

action and the formation of a new party, was made in Ripon,

Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, in the early months of 1854." A

public meeting, held in one of the churches of the town, was

followed by a second meeting, on the 20th of March, at which

definite proceedings were taken. "By formal vote the town

committees of the Whig and Free Soil parties were dissolved,

and a committee of five, consisting of three Whigs, one

Free-Soiler, and one Democrat, was chosen. 'The work done on

that evening,' says Mr. Bovey [one of its originators], 'was

fully accepted by the Whig and Free Soil parties of all this

section immediately; and very soon—that is to say, in a few

months—by those parties throughout the entire State.' A State

convention was held in July, by which the organization of the

party was perfected for the State, a majority of the

delegation was secured for the next Congress, and a

Free-Soiler, Charles Durkee, was elected to the Senate of the

United States. At the meeting of the 20th of March, Mr. Bovey,

though stating his belief that the party should and probably

would take the name of 'Republican,' advised against such a

christening at that time and by that small local body of men.

He, however, wrote to the editor of the New York 'Tribune,'

suggesting the name. … But that 'little eddy' on that far-off

margin was only one of many similar demonstrations,—signs of a

turn of the tide in the great sea of American politics.

{3396}

In Washington, on the morning after the passage of the

Kansas-Nebraska bill, there was a meeting of some thirty

members of the House at the rooms of Thomas D. Eliot and

Edward Dickinson, of Massachusetts, called at the instance of

Israel Washburn, Jr., of Maine, for consultation in regard to

the course to be adopted in the exigencies of the case. The

hopelessness of any further attempts through existing

organizations was generally admitted; though a few still

counselled adherence to the Whig party, in the expectation of

securing its aid for freedom. But most present had become

convinced that in a new party alone lay any reasonable hope of

successful resistance to the continued aggressions of the

arrogant and triumphant Slave Power. The name 'Republican' was

suggested, discussed, and finally agreed upon as appropriate

for the new organization. … But, whatever suggestions others

may have made, or whatever action may have been taken

elsewhere, to Michigan belongs the honor of being the first

State to form and christen the Republican Party." A mass

convention of Whigs and Free Soilers in that State was held on

the 6th of July, at which the name was formally adopted, along

with a "platform" of principles opposing the extension of

slavery and demanding its abolition in the District of

Columbia. "Though the Republican Party was not immediately

organized in all the free States, its spirit inspired and its

ideas largely pervaded the North. Within one year eleven

Republican Senators were elected and fifteen States had

secured anti-Nebraska majorities. Out of 142 Northern members

of the House, 120 were opposed to the iniquitous measure. They

were in sufficient numbers not only to control the election of

Speaker, but they were able, by a majority of 15, to declare

that 'in the opinion of this House, the repeal of the Missouri

compromise of 1820, prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30', was

an example of useless and factious agitation of the slavery

question, unwise and unjust to the American people.' Several

States which had failed to organize a Republican Party in 1854

did so in 1855."

_H. Wilson,

Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,

volume 2, chapter 31._

"The refusal of the Whigs in many States to surrender their

name and organization, and more especially the abrupt

appearance of the Know-Nothings on the field of parties,

retarded the general coalition between the Whigs and the

Free-soilers which so many influences favored. As it turned

out, a great variety of party names were retained or adopted

in the Congressional and State campaigns of 1854, the

designation of 'anti-Nebraska' being perhaps the most common,

and certainly for the moment the most serviceable, since

denunciation of the Nebraska bill was the one all-pervading

bond of sympathy and agreement among men who differed very

widely on almost all other political topics. This affiliation,

however, was confined exclusively to the free States. In the

slave States, the opposition to the Administration dared not

raise the anti-Nebraska banner, nor could it have found

followers; and it was not only inclined but forced to make its

battle either under the old name of Whigs, or as became more

popular, under the new appellation of 'Americans,' which grew

into a more dignified synonym for Know-Nothings. … While the

measure was yet under discussion in the House in March, New

Hampshire led off by an election completely obliterating the

eighty-nine Democratic majority in her Legislature.

Connecticut followed in her footsteps early in April. Long

before November it was evident that the political revolution

among the people of the North was thorough, and that election

day was anxiously awaited merely to record the popular verdict

already decided. The influence of this result upon parties,

old and new, is perhaps best illustrated in the organization

of the Thirty-fourth Congress, chosen at these elections

during the year 1854, which witnessed the repeal of the

Missouri Compromise. Each Congress, in ordinary course, meets

for the first time about one year after its members are

elected by the people, and the influence of politics during

the interim needs always to be taken into account. In this

particular instance this effect had, if anything, been

slightly reactionary, and the great contest for the

Speakership during the winter of 1855-1856 may therefore be

taken as a fair manifestation of the spirit of politics in

1854. The strength of the preceding House of Representatives,

which met in December, 1853, had been: Whigs, 71;

Free-soilers, 4; Democrats, 159—a clear Democratic majority of

84. In the new Congress there were in the House, as nearly as

the classification could be made, about 108 anti-Nebraska

members, nearly 40 Know-Nothings, and about 75 Democrats; the

remaining members were undecided. The proud Democratic

majority of the Pierce election was annihilated."

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,

Abraham Lincoln,

volume 1, chapter 20._

ALSO IN:

_J. D. Long, editor,

The Republican Party: its History, etc._

_A. Holmes,

Parties and their Principles,

pages 274-278._

_J. F. Rhodes,

History of the United States from 1850,

chapter 7 (volume 2)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1856.

The beginning of the struggle for Kansas.

Free-state settlers against Missouri "Border-ruffians."

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1866.

The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty and its abrogation.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION, &c.

(UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1855-1856.

Long contest for the Speakership of the House.

Election of Mr. Banks, Republican.

Mr. Giddings' account.

"The free-soil party was now rapidly increasing in numbers and

influence. The Whig organization had disbanded: Yet its

leaders had too much pride of opinion to admit that the

anti-slavery men were right in their policy or in their

construction of the Constitution. Indeed, their prejudices

were too strong to permit them to join any other existing

organization. They therefore instituted a new party called the

'Know Nothings' or 'American party.' Their leading policy was

the exclusion of foreigners from office. … It was a secret

society, known to each other by signs, grips and passwords. It

increased rapidly in numbers, and in the autumn of 1844 they

elected a large majority of officers in all of the free

States. … The effect of their success became apparent at the

assembling of the thirty-fourth Congress. It had placed the

democratic party in a very decided minority in the House of

Representatives. … And the Free-soilers or Republicans were

placed in a most critical position. Their difficulty arose

from the determination of aspiring politicians to give all

influence into the hands of the organization which had

recently sprung up.

{3397}

Members of this new party were at the city of Washington some

weeks before the assembling of Congress, making such political

arrangements as they regarded necessary to secure the success

for the 'Know Nothings.' But all were conscious that neither

they nor the Free-soilers could succeed except by uniting with

each other." A partial combination of Know Nothings with the

Republicans was effected at a meeting on Friday before the

opening of the session of Congress. "Late in the day a

resolution was introduced pledging the members to vote for any

man on whom a majority of the members should unite, provided

he stood pledged by his past life or present declarations so

to arrange the committees of the House as to give respectful

answers to petitions concerning slavery. This resolution was

adopted by a unanimous vote of more than 70 members. But the

leading members of the 'Know Nothings' did not appear at any

of the caucuses. It was in this unorganized form that members

opposed to the extension of slavery met their associates on

Monday in the Hall of Representatives, to enter upon a contest

unequalled in the previous history of our Government. The

House consisted of 234 members—225 of whom answered to their

names at the first calling of the roll. The first business in

order was the election of Speaker: And the ballots being

counted, it was found that William A. Richardson, the

democratic candidate, had 74 votes; Lewis D. Campbell, of

Ohio, the 'Know Nothing' candidate, had 53 votes; Humphrey

Marshall, of Kentucky, the southern Know Nothing candidate, 30

votes; Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, was supported by

those Free-soilers or Republicans who refused to support any

man placed in nomination by the Know Nothings; and Hiram M.

Fuller, of Pennsylvania, received the votes of 17 members of

the Know Nothing party who refused to support any other

candidate. There were several other ballots cast during the

day, with little change. The voting continued on the second,

third, fourth and fifth days, without material change, except

that Mr. Campbell's vote rose on one occasion as high as 75.

After the result of the twenty-third ballot was announced, Mr.

Campbell withdrew his name from the list of candidates. On the

withdrawal of Mr. Campbell, Mr. Banks' rose regularly until

the 15th December, when it reached 107. … On the 19th

December, the ballot showed Mr. Banks to have 106, and Mr.

Richardson 75. Messrs. Marshall and Fuller, with their

adherents, continuing to vote by themselves. During the

debates the Republicans were constantly assailed, and as the

writer [Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio] was the oldest member of

that party, he felt constrained to vindicate their cause. He

assured the Democrats and 'Know Nothings' that the Republicans

must soon come into power: And when once in power they would

not permit southern members to dissolve the Union. This seemed

to arouse much angry feeling. Mr. McMullen, of Virginia,

replied with much spirit, declaring that whenever a northern

President should be elected the South would dissolve the

Union. This is believed to be the first distinct enunciation

in Congress that the Union was to be dissolved upon the

election of a northern President. Northern Democrats appeared

mortified at the imprudence of Mr. McMullen. Mr. Banks, in a

public speech made some two years previously in Maine, had

said, that if we were to extend slavery or dissolve the Union,

he would say, 'Let the Union slide.' This saying was now

seized upon by southern men as an insuperable objection to Mr.

Banks' election: While, at the same time, Mr. Brooks, of South

Carolina, assured the House and the country that unless

slavery were extended he desired to see the Union slide.

Members appeared by common consent to enter upon a general

debate, which was suspended on the 24th so long as to take a

ballot, which showed no substantial change in the parties. On

the 27th, four ballots were taken with a similar result. … On

the 28th December the balloting was resumed, and continued

through that and the following day without material change of

parties, and debate was again renewed. … The President of the

United States sent his annual message to the Senate on the

31st December, and his private secretary appeared at the

entrance of the House of Representatives and announced that he

had brought with him the annual message of the President, to

be presented to that body. Aware that this was intended to

exert an influence against the Republicans, the author at once

objected to receiving it, as it was an attempt to introduce a

new practice—for up to that time no President had ever

presumed to thrust his message upon an unorganized body—and

that it could not constitutionally be received by members

until a Speaker were elected. But a majority voted to receive

it. The next attempt was to read it to the House; but it was

again objected that it was not addressed to members in their

disorganized condition, but was addressed to the Senate and

House of Representatives, which had not then been organized.

This objection was sustained, and although they had received

the message, they refused to read it. The new year found the

House unorganized, with the President's message lying upon the

Clerk's desk unopened and unread. One ballot was taken. A

motion was next made to take up and read the President's

message; but, after debate, the motion was laid on the table.

Members now began to make arrangements for continuing the

contest indefinitely. Most of them had expected to draw their

mileage to defray their current expenses; but being unable to

do that until the House were organized, found themselves out

of funds. In many Republican districts the people met in

public conventions and passed resolutions approving the action

of their Representatives, made provisions for their members to

draw on their local banks for such funds as they deemed

necessary for defraying expenses at Washington. To meet these

expenses, some State Legislatures made appropriations from

their State funds. Soon as the republican party became

consolidated, its members became more confident. Those of

greatest experience assured their friends that as the

President, officers of government, and the army and navy must

go without pay until the House should be organized, the

pressure would soon be so great upon the democratic party that

they would be compelled to submit to the election of a

republican Speaker. Some State Legislatures passed resolutions

sustaining the action of their Representatives, declaring the

issue involved to be the extension or non-extension of

slavery. …

{3398}

On the 29th January several propositions were made for an

immediate organization. They were rejected, but by such small

majorities as to indicate an organization at no very distant

period; and the Republicans now felt one, and only one doubt

in regard to success. The southern 'Know Nothings' had been

Whigs, and bitterly hated the Democrats; and the question now

presented was, whether they would unite with their old enemies

rather than see a republican Speaker elected. On the 3d

February a resolution was presented, declaring that three more

ballots should be taken and if no election were had, the

candidate having the highest number of votes on the 4th ballot

should be declared Speaker. Soon after this vote was announced

the House adjourned. Members now felt that the contest was

drawing to a close. The next morning … Mr. Aiken, of South

Carolina, was announced as the democratic candidate. And the

first ballot, under the resolution, showed little change of

parties. Banks received 102 votes; Aiken, 92; Fuller, 13;

Campbell, 4; and Wells, 2. By this time the spacious galleries

were filled with eager spectators, the lobbies and passages

were crowded by men and ladies anxious for the result. The

next ballot was taken without any change of parties. A motion

was made to adjourn, but it was voted down by 159 to 52. Mr.

Fuller announced that he was no longer a candidate. The result

now appeared to be anticipated by all, and as the Clerk

commenced calling the roll of members for the final vote,

there appeared to be the most intense interest felt on all

sides of the House. … When the roll had been called through

there was so much confusion that it was difficult for anyone

to be heard. But the clerks and tellers proceeded in their

duties, and when the count was completed, Mr. Benson, of Maine

—one of the tellers—rose, and in a loud voice proclaimed that

'On the one hundred and thirty-third ballot Nathaniel P. Banks

had received 103 votes; Mr. Aiken had received 100 votes; Mr.

Fuller had received 6 votes; and Mr. Campbell had received 4

votes. That Mr. Banks having received the highest number of

votes on this ballot, was declared duly elected Speaker of the

thirty-fourth Congress.' At this announcement the spectators

in the galleries broke forth in wild excitement. Cheer after

cheer went up, amid the waving of handkerchiefs and

demonstrations of unrestrained exultation, which were

responded to by hisses from the Administration side of the

House. … The effect of this victory was felt through the

country. … Sixteen years before this occurrence Mr. Adams and

the author of these sketches were the only representatives in

Congress of the doctrines now supported by a majority of the

House. The slaveholders and those who sympathized with them

appeared to realize that political power was gradually

escaping from their grasp, and that the day was rapidly

approaching when the people would resume control of the

Government."

_J. R. Giddings,

History of the Rebellion,

chapter 26._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1855-1860.

Walker's Filibustering in Nicaragua.

See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1855-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856.

Refusal to sign the Declaration of Paris.

Proposed amendment.

See DECLARATION OF PARIS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856.

Senator Sumner's speech on "The Crime against Kansas,"

and the assault upon him by Brooks of South Carolina.

"The most startling speech made during the debate [on affairs

in Kansas], and which, from the events succeeding, became the

most celebrated, was that of Charles Sumner. It was delivered

on the 19th and 20th days of May and was published under the

title of 'The Crime against Kansas.' … If there had been no

more to Sumner's speech than the invective against the slave

power, he would not have been assaulted by Preston Brooks. Nor

is it probable that the bitter attack which the senator made

on South Carolina would have provoked the violence, had it not

been coupled with personal allusions to Senator Butler, who

was a kinsman of Brooks. … It was said that Seward, who read

the speech before delivery, advised Sumner to tone down its

offensive remarks, and he and Wade regretted the personal

attack. But Sumner was not fully 'conscious of the stinging

force of his language.' To that, and because he was terribly

in earnest, must be attributed the imperfections of the

speech. He would annihilate the slave power, and he selected

South Carolina and her senator as vulnerable points of attack.

… Two days after this exciting debate (May 22d) when the

Senate at the close of a short session adjourned, Sumner

remained in the Chamber, occupied in writing letters. Becoming

deeply engaged, he drew his arm-chair close to his desk, bent

over his writing, and while in this position was approached by

Brooks, a representative from South Carolina and a kinsman of

Senator Butler. Brooks, standing before and directly over him,

said: 'I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a

libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of

mine.' As he pronounced the last word, he hit Sumner on the

head with his cane with the force that a dragoon would give to

a sabre-blow. Sumner was more than six feet in height and of

powerful frame, but penned under the desk he could offer no

resistance, and Brooks continued the blows on his defenceless

head. The cane broke, but the South Carolinian went on beating

his victim with the butt. The first blows stunned and blinded

Sumner, but instinctively and with powerful effort he wrenched

the desk from its fastenings, stood up, and with spasmodic and

wildly directed efforts attempted unavailingly to protect

himself. Brooks took hold of him, and, while he was reeling

and staggering about, struck him again and again. The

assailant did not desist until his arm was seized by one who

rushed to the spot to stop the assault. At that moment Sumner,

reeling, staggering backwards and sideways, fell to the floor

bleeding profusely and covered with his blood. The injury

received by Sumner was much more severe than was at first

thought by his physicians and friends. Four days after the

assault, he was able to give at his lodgings his relation of

the affair to the committee of the House of Representatives.

But, in truth, the blows would have killed most men. Sumner's

iron constitution and perfect health warded off a fatal

result; but it soon appeared that the injury had affected the

spinal column. The next three years and a half was a search

for cure. … At last he went to Paris and put himself under the

care of Dr. Brown-Séquard, whose treatment of actual

cauterization of the back eventually restore him to a fair

degree of health; but he never regained his former physical

vigor.

{3399}

He was not able to enter regularly again on his senatorial

career until December, 1859. … The different manner in which

the North and the South regarded this deed is one of the many

evidences of the deep gulf between these two people caused by

slavery. … When Brooks returned to South Carolina he received

an enthusiastic welcome. He was honored as a glorious son of

the Palmetto State, and making him the present of a cane was a

favorite testimonial. … At the North the assault of Brooks was

considered brutal and cowardly; at the South, his name was

never mentioned without calling him gallant or courageous,

spirited or noble. … A committee was appointed by the House

which took a large amount of evidence, and the majority

reported a resolution in favor of the expulsion of Brooks. On

this resolution, the vote was 121 to 95; but as it required

two thirds, it was not carried. Only three Southern

representatives publicly condemned the assault; only one voted

to expel Brooks. After the decision by the House, Brooks made

a speech, which he ended by resigning his place as

representative. His district re-elected him almost

unanimously: there were only six votes against him."

_J. F. Rhodes,

History of the United States from 1850,

chapter 7 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:

_C. Sumner,

Works,

volume 4, pages 125-342._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856.

Eighteenth Presidential Election.

Buchanan made President.

"The presidential campaign of … 1856, showed a striking

disintegration and re-formation of political groups. Nominally

there were four parties in the field: Democrats, Whigs, Native

Americans or Know-Nothings, and Republicans. The Know-Nothings

had lately won some State elections, but were of little

account as a national organization, for they stood upon an

issue hopelessly insignificant in comparison with slavery.

Already many had gone over to the Republican camp; those who

remained nominated as their candidates Millard Fillmore and

Andrew J. Donelson. The Whigs were the feeble remnant of a

really dead party, held together by affection for the old

name; too few to do anything by themselves, they took by

adoption the Know-Nothing candidates. The Republican party had

been born only in 1854. Its members, differing on other

matters, united upon the one doctrine, which they accepted as

a test: opposition to the extension of slavery. They nominated

John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton, and made a platform

whereby they declared it to be 'both the right and the duty of

Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of

barbarism, polygamy and slavery.' … In this Convention 110

votes were cast for Lincoln for the second place on the

ticket. … In the Democratic party there were two factions. The

favorite candidate of the South was Franklin Pierce, for

reelection, with Stephen A. Douglas as a substitute or second

choice; the North more generally preferred James Buchanan, who

was understood to be displeased with the repeal of the

Missouri Compromise. The struggle was sharp, but was won by

the friends of Buchanan, with whom John C. Breckenridge was

coupled. The campaign was eager, for the Republicans soon

developed a strength beyond what had been expected and which

put the Democrats to their best exertions. The result was:

popular vote, Democrats [Buchanan] 1,838,169, Republicans

[Fremont] 1,341,264, Know-Nothings and Whigs [Fillmore]

874,534; electoral vote, Democrats 174, Republicans 114,

Know-Nothings and Whigs, 8. Thus James Buchanan became

President of the United States, March 4, 1857. … Yet, while

the Democrats triumphed, the Republicans enjoyed the presage

of the future; they had polled a total number of votes which

surprised everyone; on the other hand, the Democrats had lost

ten States which they had carried in 1852 and had gained only

two others, showing a net loss of eight States; and their

electoral votes had dwindled from 254 to 174."

_J. T, Morse, Jr.,

Abraham Lincoln,

volume 1, chapter 4._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856-1859.

The continued struggle in Kansas.

The Topeka vs. the Lecompton Constitution.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857.

The Dred Scott decision.

"Dred Scott was a negro slave, the property of Dr. Emerson, a

surgeon in the army. In 1834, Dred was carried by his master

from the slave state of Missouri, first, to the military post

at Rock Island in the free state of Illinois, where he

remained till April or May, 1836; and, thence, to Fort

Snelling, in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, and lying

north of the line of the Missouri Compromise, in both of which

places he was held as a slave. At Fort Snelling, in the year

1836, he was married to Harriet, a negro slave, who had also

been brought to Fort Snelling by her master, Major Taliaferro,

and there sold to Dr. Emerson. In 1838, Dred, with his wife

and a child which had been born to him, was carried back by

his master to the state of Missouri. Subsequently, Dred, with

his wife, his daughter Eliza, and another daughter, Lizzie,

who was born after the return of her family to Missouri, was

sold to John F. A. Sandford—the defendant in the present case.

Dred commenced his efforts for the establishment of the

freedom of himself and family in the state courts of Missouri.

The suit was brought in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county.

Before this court, the judgment was in his favor, but, on

appeal by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the state,

this judgment was reversed, and the case remanded to the court

below,—where it remained, awaiting the decision of the suit

which, in the meanwhile, Dred had brought in the United States

courts. This second suit was brought before the Circuit Court

of the United States for the district of Missouri, and thence

carried, by writ of error, to the Supreme Court at Washington.

It may be added that the first suit was brought against Dr.

Emerson, but the second against Mr. Sandford, to whom Dred had

been sold. The action, though brought to assert the title of

Dred Scott and his family to freedom, was, in form, an action

of trespass 'vi et armis,' which is the usual form employed in

that state to try questions of this kind. The plaintiff,

Scott, in his writ both makes a declaration of the acts of

trespass—which of course are the acts of restraint necessarily

implied in holding himself and family as slaves—and avers,

what was necessary to give the court jurisdiction, that he and

the defendant are citizens of different states; that is, that

he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of

New York. At the April term of the court, in 1854, the

defendant Sandford pleads, that the court has not

jurisdiction, because the plaintiff is not a citizen of

Missouri, but a negro of African descent, whose ancestors, of

pure African blood, were brought into this country and sold as

slaves.

{3400}

To this plea the plaintiff demurs as insufficient; the

demurrer is argued at the same term, and is sustained by the

court, that is, the court asserts its jurisdiction over the

case." It was on this plea that the case went finally to the

Supreme Court of the United States and was decided in 1857.

"The question of negro citizenship came up in the

consideration of the question of jurisdiction. For the

question of jurisdiction was the question, whether the

plaintiff was a citizen of Missouri, as he had averred in his

declaration; and the only fact pleaded to disprove his

citizenship was the fact that Scott was a negro of African

descent, whose ancestors had been sold as slaves in the United

States. The court, however, decided that this fact did not

exclude the possibility of his being a citizen; in other

words, it decided that a negro of this description can be a

citizen of the United States. The first question before the

Supreme Court was, whether it could rejudge this determination

of the circuit court."

_W. A. Larned,

Negro Citizenship

(New Englander, August, 1857)._

The decision of the Supreme Court, delivered by Chief Justice

Taney, March 6, 1857, not only closed the door of freedom to

Dred Scott, but shut the doors of the United States courts

against him and all those of his race who were or had been

slaves, or who sprang from an ancestry in the servile state.

The opinion of Chief Justice Taney was concurred in by all the

justices except Curtis and McLean-Justice Nelson dissenting on

one point only. The arguments and the sentiments in the

opinion which gave most offence to the conscience and the

reason of the country were the following: "It becomes … our

duty to decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are

not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to

sue as a citizen in a court of the United States. This is

certainly a very serious question, and one that now for the

first time has been brought for decision before this court.

But it is brought here by those who have a right to bring it,

and it is our duty to meet it and decide it. The question is

simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into

this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the

political community formed and brought into existence by the

Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled

to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied

by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the

privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the

cases specified in the Constitution. It will be observed, that

the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors

were negroes of the African race, and imported into this

country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue

before the court, therefore, is whether the descendants of

such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born

of parents who had become free before their birth, are

citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is

used in the Constitution of the United States. And this being

the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be

understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only,

that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans

who were imported into this country, and sold as slaves. … The

words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are

synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe

the political body who, according to our republican

institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and

conduct the Government through their representatives. They are

what we familiarly call the 'sovereign people,' and every,

citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of

this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class

of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a

portion of this people, and are constituent members 'of this

sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not

included, and were not intended to be included, under the word

'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none

of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides

for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the

contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate

and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the

dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained

subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges

but such as those who held the power and the Government might

choose to grant them. It is not the province of the court to

decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy,

of these laws. The decision of that question belonged to the

political or law-making power. … In discussing this question,

we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State

may confer within its own limits, and the rights of

citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means

follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a

citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United

States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of the

citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and

privileges of a citizen in any other State. … The question

then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in

relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the

citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro

African race, at that time in this country, or who might

afterwards be imported, who had then or should afterwards be

made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single

State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endue

him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State

without their consent? … The court think the affirmative of

these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, the

plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of

Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United

States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its

courts. It is true, every person, and every class and

description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption

of the Constitution recognised as citizens in the several

States, became also citizens of this new political body; but

none other. … It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine

who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution

was adopted. And in order to do this, we must recur to the

Governments and institutions of the thirteen colonies, when

they separated from Great Britain and formed new

sovereignties, and took their places in the family of

independent nations. We must inquire who, at that time, were

recognised as the people or citizens of a State, whose rights

and liberties had been outraged by the English Government; and

who declared their independence, and assumed the powers of

Government to defend their rights by force of arms.

{3401}

In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of

the times, and the language used in the Declaration of

Independence, show that neither the class of persons who had

been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they

had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of

the people, nor intended to be included in the general words

used in that memorable instrument. It is difficult at this day

to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that

unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and

enlightened portions of the world at the time of the

Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution was

framed and adopted. But the public history of every European

nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They

had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of

an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the

white race, either in social or political relations; and so

far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was

bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully

be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold,

and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic,

whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at

that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the

white race." Finally, having, with great elaboration, decided

the question of citizenship adversely to Dred Scott and all

his kind, the Court proceeded to obliterate the antislavery

provision of the Missouri Compromise, which constituted one of

the grounds on which Dred Scott claimed his freedom. "It is

the opinion of the court," wrote Chief Justice Taney, "that

the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding

and owning property of this kind in the territory of the

United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not

warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that

neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made

free by being carried into this territory; even if they had

been carried there by the owner, with the intention of

becoming a permanent resident. We have so far examined the

case, as it stands under the Constitution of the United

States, and the powers thereby delegated to the Federal

Government. But there is another point in the case which

depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on

the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken

to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, independently of his

residence in the territory of the United States; and being so

made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by

being brought back to Missouri. Our notice of this part of the

case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends

was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the

case of Strader et al. v. Graham, reported in 10th Howard, 82.

In that case, the slaves had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio,

with the consent of the owner, and afterwards brought back to

Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition,

as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when

they were brought back into that State, and not of Ohio; and

that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgment of

a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly

before the court, and the decision that this court had not

jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of

the case. So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken

into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as

such, and brought back in that character, his status, as free

or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of

Illinois. … Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of

this court, that it appears by the record before us that the

plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense

in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the

Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no

jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it.

Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be

reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be

dismissed for want of jurisdiction."

_Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the

United States in the case of

Dred Scott vs. John F. A. Sandford

(Howard's Reports, volume 19)._

"By this presentation of the iniquity, naked and in its most

repulsive form, Taney did no small harm to the party which he

intended to aid. It has been said that slavery plucked ruin on

its own head by its aggressive violence. It could not help

showing its native temper, nor could it help feeding its

hunger of land, insisting on the restoration of its runaways,

or demanding a foreign policy such as would fend off the

approach of emancipation. But Taney's judgment was a

gratuitous aggression and an insult to humanity at the same

time, for which, supposing that the Southern leaders inspired

it, they paid dear. If the slave was mere property, his owner

might be entitled to take him anywhere, and thus slavery might

be made national. The boast of a daring partisan of slavery

might be fulfilled, that the day would come when men might be

bought and sold in Boston as freely as any other goods. The

issue, which all the politicians had striven to keep out of

sight, was presented in its most startling and shocking form."

_Goldwin Smith,

The United States,

page 235._

ALSO IN:

_H. Wilson,

Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,

volume 2, chapter 39._

_S. Tyler,

Memoirs of Roger B. Taney,

chapters 4-5._

_A. Johnston,

The United States: Its History and Constitution,

section 249._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857.

Tariff reduction.

The financial collapse.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1846-1861.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857-1859.

The Mormon rebellion in Utah.

See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858.

Treaty with China.

See CHINA: A. D. 1857-1868.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858.

The Lincoln and Douglas debate in Illinois.

The senatorial term of Mr. Stephen A. Douglas being about to

expire, the choice of his successor became an issue which

controlled the election of members of the Illinois

Legislature, in the fall of 1858. Mr. Douglas received an

endorsement at the hands of the Democratic State Convention,

in April, which virtually nominated him for re-election.

Abraham Lincoln, who had come markedly to the front in his

state during the Kansas discussions, "was the man already

chosen in the hearts of the Republicans of Illinois for the

same office, and therefore with singular appropriateness they

passed, with great unanimity, at their convention in

Springfield on the 16th of June, the characteristic

resolution: 'That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only

choice for United States Senator to fill the vacancy about to

be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas' term of office.'

{3402}

There was of course no surprise in this for Mr. Lincoln. He

had been all along led to expect it, and with that in view had

been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in

acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred on him. This

speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as

ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that

miscellaneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the

convention drew near he copied the whole on connected sheets,

carefully revising every line and sentence, and fastened them

together, for reference during the delivery of the speech, and

for publication. The former precaution, however, was

unnecessary, for he had studied and read over what he had

written so long and carefully that he was able to deliver it

without the least hesitation or difficulty. … Before

delivering his speech he invited a dozen or so of his friends

over to the library of the State House, where he read and

submitted it to them. After the reading he asked each man for

his opinion. Some condemned and not one endorsed it. One man,

more forcible than elegant, characterized it as a 'd-d fool

utterance;' another said the doctrine was 'ahead of its time;'

and still another contended that it would drive away a good

many voters fresh from the Democratic ranks. Each man attacked

it in his criticism. I was the last to respond. Although the

doctrine announced was rather rank, yet it suited my views,

and I said, 'Lincoln, deliver that speech as read and it will

make you President.' At the time I hardly realized the force

of my prophecy. Having patiently listened to these various

criticisms from his friends—all of which with a single

exception were adverse—he rose from his chair, and after

alluding to the careful study and intense thought he had given

the question, he answered all their objections substantially

as follows: 'Friends, this thing has been retarded long

enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be

uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of

this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth—let me

die in the advocacy of what is just and right.' The next day,

the 17th, the speech was delivered just as we had heard it

read. [The part of this famous speech which made the

profoundest impression and gave rise to the most discussion

was the opening part, contained in the following sentences:

'If we could first know where we are, and whither we are

tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was

initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of

putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of

that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has

constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a

crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided

against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot

endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect

the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to

fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will

become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents

of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it

where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in

the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push

it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the

States, old as well as new, North as well as South. Have we no

tendency to the latter condition? Let anyone who doubts

carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal

combination—piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the

Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him

consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do,

and how well adapted; but also let him study the history of

its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he

can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action

among its chief architects, from the beginning.'] … Lincoln

had now created in reality a more profound impression than he

or his friends anticipated. Many Republicans deprecated the

advanced ground he had taken, the more so as the Democrats

rejoiced that it afforded them an issue clear and

well-defined. Numbers of his friends distant from Springfield,

on reading his speech, wrote him censorious letters; and one

well-informed co-worker predicted his defeat, charging it to

the first ten lines of the speech. These complaints, coming

apparently from every quarter, Lincoln bore with great

patience. To one complainant who followed him into his office

he said proudly, 'If I had to draw a pen across my record, and

erase my whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or

choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should

choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased.'

Meanwhile Douglas had returned from Washington to his home in

Chicago. Here he rested for a few days until his friends and

co-workers had arranged the details of a public reception on

the 9th of July, when he delivered from the balcony of the

Tremont House a speech intended as an answer to the one made

by Lincoln in Springfield. Lincoln was present at this

reception, but took no part in it. The next day, however, he

replied. Both speeches were delivered at the same place.

Leaving Chicago, Douglas passed on down to Bloomington and

Springfield, where he spoke on the 16th and 17th of July

respectively. On the evening of the latter day Lincoln

responded again in a most effective and convincing effort. The

contest now took on a different phase. Lincoln's Republican

friends urged him to draw Douglas into a joint debate, and he

accordingly sent him a challenge on the 24th of July. … On the

30th Douglas finally accepted the proposition to 'divide time,

and address the same audiences,' naming seven different

places, one in each Congressional district, outside of Chicago

and Springfield, for joint meetings. The places and dates

were, Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro,

September 15; Charleston, September 18; Galesburg, October 7;

Quincy, October 13; and Alton, October 15. … During the

canvass Mr. Lincoln, in addition to the seven meetings with

Douglas, filled thirty-one appointments made by the State

Central Committee, besides speaking at many other times and

places not previously advertised. … The election took place on

the second of November, and while Lincoln received of the

popular vote a majority of over 4,000, yet the returns from

the legislative districts foreshadowed his defeat. In fact,

when the Senatorial election took place in the Legislature,

Douglas received 54 and Lincoln 46 votes—one of the results of

the lamentable apportionment law then in operation."

_W. H. Herndon and J. W. Weik,

Lincoln, the True Story of a Great Life,

chapter 13 (volume 2)._

{3403}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859.

Admission of Oregon into the Union, with a constitution

excluding free colored People.

See OREGON: A. D. 1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859.

John Brown's attack on Slavery in Virginia.

The tragedy at Harper's Ferry.

"On the 17th of October, 1859, this country was bewildered and

astounded while the fifteen Slave States were convulsed with

fear, rage, and hate, by telegraphic dispatches from Baltimore

and Washington, announcing the outbreak, at Harper's Ferry, of

a conspiracy of Abolitionists and negroes, having for its

object the devastation and ruin of the South, and the massacre

of her white inhabitants. … As time wore on, further advices,

with particulars and circumstances, left no room to doubt the

substantial truth of the original report. An attempt had

actually been made to excite a slave insurrection in Northern

Virginia, and the one man in America to whom such an

enterprise would not seem utter insanity and suicide, was at

the head of it." This was John Brown, of Osawatomie, who had

been fighting slavery and the border ruffians in Kansas (see

KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859) for five years, and had now changed

his field. "A secret convention, called by Brown, and attended

only by such whites and blacks as he believed in thorough

sympathy with his views, had assembled in a negro church at

Chatham, Canada West, May 8, 1858; at which Convention a

'Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the

United States' had been adopted. It was, of course, drafted by

Brown, and was essentially an embodiment of his political

views. … John Brown was chosen Commander-in-Chief; J. H. Kagi,

Secretary of War; Owen Brown (son of John), Treasurer; Richard

Realf, Secretary of State. Brown returned to the States soon

after his triumphal entry into Canada as a liberator. … He was

in Hagerstown, Maryland, on the 30th [of June, 1859], where he

registered his name as 'Smith, and two sons, from Western New

York.' He told his landlord that they had been farming in

Western New York, but had been discouraged by losing two or

three years' crops by frost, and they were now looking for a

milder climate, in a location adapted to wool-growing, etc.

After looking about Harper's Ferry for several days, they

found, five or six miles from that village, a large farm, with

three unoccupied houses, the owner, Dr. Booth Kennedy, having

died the last Spring. These houses they rented for a trifle

until the next March, paying the rent in advance. … After they

had lived there a few weeks, attracting no observation, others

joined them from time to time, including two of Brown's young

daughters; and one would go and another come, without exciting

any particular remark. … Meantime, the greater number of the

men kept out of sight during the day, so as not to attract

attention, while their arms, munitions, etc., were being

gradually brought from Chambersburg, in well-secured boxes. No

meal was eaten on the farm, while old Brown was there, until a

blessing had been asked upon it; and his Bible was in daily

requisition. The night of the 24th of October was originally

fixed upon by Brown for the first blow against Slavery in

Virginia, by the capture of the Federal Arsenal at Harper's

Ferry; and his biographer, Redpath, alleges that many were on

their way to be with him on that occasion, when they were

paralyzed by the intelligence that the blow had already been

struck, and had failed. The reason given for this, by one who

was in his confidence, is, that Brown, who had been absent on

a secret journey to the North, suspected that one of his party

was a traitor, and that he must strike prematurely, or not at

all. But the women who had been with them at the Kennedy

farm—the wives or daughters of one or another of the party—had

already been quietly sent away; and the singular complexion of

their household had undoubtedly begun to excite curiosity, if

not alarm, among their neighbors. … Harper's Ferry was then a

village of some 5,000 inhabitants, lying on the Virginia side

of the Potomac, and on either side of its principal tributary,

the Shenandoah, which here enters it from the South. Its site

is a mere nest or cup among high, steep mountains. … Here the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac. … Washington

is 57 miles distant by turnpike; Baltimore 80 miles by

railroad. … One of its very few streets was entirely occupied

by the work-shops and offices of the National Armory, and had

an iron railing across its entrance. In the old Arsenal

building, there were usually stored from 100,000 to 200,000

stand of arms. The knowledge of this had doubtless determined

the point at which the first blow of the liberators was to be

struck. The forces with which Brown made his attack consisted

of seventeen white and five colored men, though it is said

that others who escaped assisted outside, by cutting the

telegraph wires and tearing up the railroad track. The

entrance of this petty army into Harper's Ferry on Sunday

evening … seems to have been effected without creating alarm.

They first rapidly extinguished the lights of the town; then

took possession of the Armory buildings, which were only

guarded by three watchmen, whom, without meeting resistance or

exciting alarm, they seized and locked up in the guardhouse.

It is probable that they were aided, or, at least, guided, by

friendly negroes belonging in the village. … At a quarter-past

one, the western train arrived, and its conductor found the

bridge guarded by armed men. … A little after midnight, the

house of Colonel Washington was visited by six of Brown's men

under Captain Stevens, who captured the Colonel, seized his

arms, horses, etc., and liberated his slaves. On their return,

Stevens and party visited the house of Mr. Alstadtt and his

son, whom they captured, and freed their slaves. These, with

each male citizen as he appeared in the street, were confined

in the Armory until they numbered between forty and fifty.

Brown informed his prisoners that they could be liberated on

condition of writing to their friends to send a negro apiece

as ransom. At daylight, the train proceeded, Brown walking

over the bridge with the conductor. Whenever anyone asked the

object of their captors, the uniform answer was, 'To free the

slaves;' and when one of the workmen, seeing an armed guard at

the Arsenal gate, asked by what authority they had taken

possession of the public property, he was answered, 'By the

authority of God Almighty!' The passenger train that sped

eastward from Harper's Ferry, by Brown's permission, in the

early morning of Monday, October 17th, left that place completely

in the military possession of the insurrectionists. …

{3404}

But it was no longer entirely one-sided. The white Virginians,

who had arms, and who remained unmolested in their houses,

prepared to use them. … Several Virginians soon obtained

possession of a room overlooking the Armory gates, and fired

thence at the sentinels who guarded them, one of whom was

mortally wounded. Still, throughout the forenoon, the

liberators remained masters of the town. … Had Brown chosen to

fly to the mountains with his few followers, he might still

have done so, though with a much slenderer chance of impunity

than if he had, according to his original plan, decamped at

midnight, with such arms and ammunition as he could bear away.

Why he lingered, to brave inevitable destruction, is not

certain; but it may fairly be presumed that he had private

assurances that the negroes of the surrounding country would

rise. … At all events, if his doom was already sealed, his

delay at least hastened it. Half an hour after noon, a militia

force, 100 strong, arrived from Charlestown, the county seat,

and were rapidly disposed so as to command every available

exit from the place. … Militia continued to pour in; the

telegraph and railroad having been completely repaired, so

that the Government at Washington, Governor Wise at Richmond,

and the authorities at Baltimore, were in immediate

communication with Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops

from all quarters. … Night found Brown's forces reduced to

three unwounded whites beside himself, with perhaps half a

dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were

already dead; another lay dying beside the survivors; two were

captives mortally wounded, and one other unhurt. Around the

few survivors were 1,500 armed, infuriated foes. … During that

night, Colonel Lee, with 90 United States marines and two

pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the

Armory guard, very close to the engine-house. … At seven in

the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the

marines advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the

engine-house by using a ladder as a battering-ram, and rushed

into the building. One of the defenders was shot and two

marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant,

all resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a

saber and knocked down, after which the blow was several times

repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet twice into the old

man's body."

_H. Greeley, The American Conflict,

volume 1, chapter 20._

"The Virginians demonstrated amply during the Civil War that

they were not cowards. What made them shake in their shoes was

not John Brown and his handful of men, but the shadows which

their excited imagination saw standing behind them. … The best

evidence of the frightful genuineness of the panic is the

brazen impudence with which it was brought forward as the

justifying motive for the many atrocities which marked the

trial. The brutalizing influences of slavery came to light

with terrible vividness. Kapp's statement that Brown 'enjoyed

very careful treatment' is not mistaken, but it is true only

of the later period of his imprisonment. Watson Brown, whose

life was prolonged until the early morning of the 19th of

October, complained of the hard bench he was forced to lie on,

His fellow-prisoner, Coppoc, begged for a mattress, or at

least a blanket, for the dying man, but could obtain neither.

Both Brown himself and Stevens, who was even more seriously

wounded, had nothing furnished them but wretched straw.

Redpath (page 373) assures us that 'from October 19 till

November 7 no clean clothing was given to Brown, but that he

lay in his soiled and blood-stained garments just as he had

fallen at Harper's Ferry.' On the 25th of October he was

brought before the court; he was not at first carried there on

a camp-bed, as was the case afterward, but compelled to walk,

leaning on two men. Virginia could not wait till he could

stand. … There was no such haste to carry out the sentence as

there had been to bring the trial to a close. On the 2d of

November, Brown was sentenced to suffer death by hanging on

the 2d of December."

_H. von Holst,

John Brown,

pages 139-155._

"Brown actually expected that the raid on Harper's Ferry would

be the stroke with which Moses called forth water from the

rock. The spring was to turn southward, and in its swift

course to swell to a mighty river. He declared expressly to

Governor Wise, and later still in his letters, that he had not

intended simply to break the chains of a few dozen or a few

hundred slaves, and to take them again to Canada. Emancipation

was to be spread farther and farther, and the freedmen were to

remain in the Southern States. Heaven itself could not have

brought this about, unless it had sent the angel of judgment

to cast down into the dust the whole white population from

Florida to Maine." At the last, when John Brown, wounded and a

prisoner, lay waiting his death, "he did not perceive that his

undertaking could not have succeeded under any circumstances;

but he did see that his failure and its consequences achieved

much greater results than its most complete success could have

done. … 'I can leave to God,' he writes, 'the time and manner

of my death, for I believe now that the sealing of my

testimony before God and man with my blood will do far more to

further the cause to which I have earnestly devoted myself,

than anything else I have done in my life.' And a few days

later, 'My health improves slowly, and I am quite cheerful

concerning my approaching end, since I am convinced that I am

worth infinitely more on the gallows than I could be anywhere

else.' … One year after the execution of Brown, on the 20th of

December, 1860, South Carolina declared its secession from the

Union, and on May 11, 1861, the Second Massachusetts Regiment

of infantry was raised, which was first to sing on its march

South:

'John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,

His soul goes marching on.'"

_H. von Holst,

John Brown,

pages 139-155, 125-126, 167-175._

"Editors persevered for a good while in saying that Brown was

crazy; but at last they said only that it was 'a crazy

scheme,' and the only evidence brought to prove it was that it

cost him his life. I have no doubt that if he had gone with

5,000 men, liberated 1,000 slaves, killed a hundred or two

slaveholders, and had as many more killed on his own side, but

not lost his own life, these same editors would have called it

by a more respectable name. Yet he has been far more

successful than that."

_H. D. Thoreau,

The Last Days of John Brown

(Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers)._

ALSO IN:

_H. Wilson,

Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,

volume 2, chapter 45._

_F. B. Sanborn,

Life and Letters of John Brown,

chapters 15-17._

_J. Redpath,

Public Life of Captain John Brown._

{3405}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860.

The Eighth Census.

Total population, 31,443,322, being an increase exceeding 35½

per cent. over the population of 1850; classified and

distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave.

California. 361,353 4,086 0

Colorado. 34,231 46 0

Connecticut. 451,520 8,627 0

Dakota. 2,576 0 0

Illinois. 1,704,323 7,628 0

Indiana. 1,339,000 11,428 0

Iowa. 673,844 1,069 0

Kansas. 106,579 625 2

Maine. 626,952 1,327 0

Massachusetts. 1,221,464 9,602 0

Michigan. 742,314 6,799 0

Minnesota. 171,864 259 0

Nebraska. 28,759 67 15

Nevada. 6,812 45 0

New Hampshire. 325,579 494 0

New Jersey. 646,699 25,318 18

New York. 3,831,730 49,005 0

Ohio. 2,302,838 36,673 0

Oregon. 52,337 128 0

Pennsylvania. 2,849,266 56,849 0

Rhode Island. 170,668 3,952 0

Utah. 40,214 30 29

Vermont. 314,389 709 0

Washington. 11,138 30 0

Wisconsin. 774,710 1,171 0

--- --- ---

Total 18,791,159 225,967 64

South.

White. Free black. Slave.

Alabama. 526,431 2,690 435,080

Arkansas. 324,191 144 111,115

Delaware. 90,589 19,829 1,798

District of Columbia. 60,764 11,131 3,185

Florida. 77,748 932 61,745

Georgia. 591,588 3,500 462,198

Kentucky. 919,517 10,684 225,483

Louisiana. 357,629 18,647 331,726

Maryland. 515,918 83,942 87,189

Mississippi. 353,901 773 436,631

Missouri. 1,063,509 3,572 114,931

New Mexico 82,924 85 0

North Carolina. 631,100 30,463 881,059

South Carolina. 291,388 9,914 402,406

Tennessee. 826,782 7,300 275,719

Texas. 421,294 855 182,566

Virginia. 1,047,411 58,042 490,865

---- --- ---

Total 8,182,684 262,008 8,958,696

Immigration in the preceding decade added 2,598,214 to the

population, being 1,388,098 from the British Islands, and

1,114,564 from other parts of Europe.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860.

The Southern view of Slavery.

The state of opinion and feeling on the subject of slavery to

which the people of the southern states had arrived in 1860 is

set forth with brevity and distinctness in Claiborne's Life of

General Quitman, which was published that year: "In the early

stages of African slavery in the South," says the writer, "it

was by many considered an evil, that had been inflicted upon

the country by British and New England cupidity. The Africans

were regarded as barbarians, and were governed by the lash.

The very hatred of the 'evil' forced upon us was, in a

measure, transferred to the unhappy victims. They were treated

with severity, and no social relations subsisted between them

and the whites. By degrees slavery began to be considered 'a

necessary evil,' to be got rid of by gradual emancipation, or

perhaps not at all, and the condition of the slave sensibly

improved. The natural sense of justice in the human heart

suggested that they had been brought here by compulsion, and

that they should be regarded not as savages, but as captives,

who were to be kindly treated while laboring for their

ultimate redemption. The progress of anti-slavery sentiment in

the Northern States (once regarded by the South as a harmless

fanaticism), the excesses it has occasioned, and the

unconstitutional power it claims, at length prompted a general

and searching inquiry into the true status of the negro. The

moment that the Southern mind became convinced, that slavery,

as it exists among us, instead of being a moral, social, and

political evil, is a moral, social, and political good, and is

the natural condition of the negro, as ordained by Providence,

and the only condition in which he can be civilized and

instructed, the condition of the Southern slave underwent a

thorough change. As a permanent fixture, as a hereditary

heirloom, as a human being with an immortal soul, intrusted to

us by God for his own wise purposes, his value increased, and

his relation to his owner approximated to the relation of

guardian and ward. Interest taught us that it would be wise to

cherish what was to be the permanent means of production and

profit, and religion exacted the humane and judicious

employment of the 'talent' committed to our care. Thus the

most powerful influences that sway the heart and the judgment

are in operation for the benefit of the slave, and hence his

present comfortable and constantly ameliorating condition. It

is due, almost solely, to the moral convictions of the

slaveholder. Our laws protect the slave in life and limb, and

against cruel and inordinate punishment. Those laws are

rigorously applied, though rarely necessary, for public

opinion, more formidable than law, would condemn to execration

and infamy the unjust and cruel master. Since these

convictions in regard to slavery have been adopted almost

unanimously in the South, the value of negroes has quadrupled.

This, however, is in some measure an evil, because the

tendency is to concentrate the slaves in the hands of the few,

who are able to pay the extraordinary rates now demanded. It

would be better for the commonwealth, and give additional

solidity to our system of domestic servitude, if every family

had an interest in it, secured, to a limited extent, against

liability for debt. It should constitute in the South, if

practicable, a part of every homestead, and then interest, and

household tradition, and the friendly, confidential, and even

affectionate relations that in the present state of public

feeling prevail between master and slave, would unite all men

in its defense. Neither land, nor slaves, which are here more

valuable than land, should, by either direct or indirect

legislation, be concentrated in few hands. Every citizen

should have, if possible, that immediate interest in them

which would make him feel that, in defending the commonwealth

and its institutions, he is defending his own inheritance."

_J. F. H. Claiborne,

Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman,

volume 1, chapter 4._

{3406}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (April-November).

Nineteenth Presidential Election.

Division of the Democratic Party.

Four candidates in the field.

A victory for freedom in the choice of Abraham Lincoln.

"Mr. J. W. Fell, a politician of Pennsylvania, says that after

the debates of 1858 [with Douglas] he urged Lincoln to seek

the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln,

however, replied curtly that men like Seward and Chase were

entitled to take precedence, and that no such 'good luck' was

in store for him. … In the winter of 1859-60 sundry 'intimate

friends,' active politicians of Illinois, pressed him to

consent to be mentioned as a candidate. He considered the

matter over night and then gave them the desired permission,

at the same time saying that he would not accept the

vice-presidency. … With the opening of the spring of 1860 the

several parties began the campaign in earnest. The Democratic

Convention met first, at Charleston, April 23; and immediately

the line of disruption opened. Upon the one side stood

Douglas, with the moderate men and nearly all the Northern

delegates, while against him were the advocates of extreme

Southern doctrines, supported by the administration and by

most of the delegates from the 'Cotton States.' The majority

of the committee appointed to draft the platform were

anti-Douglas men; but their report was rejected, and that

offered by the pro-Douglas minority was substituted, 165 yeas

to 138 nays. Thereupon the delegations of Alabama,

Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, and sundry delegates from

other States, withdrew from the Convention, taking away 45

votes out of a total of 303. Those who remained declared the

vote of two thirds of a full Convention, i. e., 202 votes, to

be necessary for a choice. Then during three days 57 ballots

were cast, Douglas being always far in the lead, but never

polling more than 152½ votes. At last, on May 3, an

adjournment was had until June 18, at Baltimore. At this

second meeting contesting delegations appeared, and the

decisions were uniformly in favor of the Douglas men, which

provoked another secession of the extremist Southern men. A

ballot showed 173½ votes for Douglas out of a total of 191½;

the total was less than two thirds of the full number of the

original Convention, and therefore it was decided that any

person receiving two thirds of the votes cast by the delegates

present should be deemed the nominee. The next ballot gave

Douglas 181½. Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was nominated for

vice-president. On June 28, also at Baltimore [after a meeting

and adjournment from Richmond, June 11], there came together a

collection composed of original seceders at Charleston, and of

some who had been rejected and others who had seceded at

Baltimore. Very few Northern men were present, and the body in

fact represented the Southern wing of the Democracy. Having,

like its competitor, the merit of knowing its own mind, it

promptly nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph

Lane of Oregon, and adopted the radical platform which had

been reported at Charleston. These doings opened, so that it

could never be closed, that seam of which the thread had long

been visible athwart the surface of the old Democratic party.

… In May the Convention of the Constitutional Union party met,

also at Baltimore. This organization was a sudden outgrowth

designed only to meet the present emergency. … The party died,

of necessity, upon the day when Lincoln was elected, and its

members were then distributed between the Republicans, the

Secessionists, and the Copperheads. John Bell, of Tennessee,

the candidate for the presidency, joined the Confederacy;

Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, the candidate for the

vice-presidency, became a Republican. The party never had a

hope of electing its men; but its existence increased the

chance of throwing the election into Congress; and this hope

inspired exertions far beyond what its own prospects

warranted. On May 16 the Republican Convention came together

at Chicago, where the great 'Wigwam' had been built to hold

10,000 persons. … Many candidates were named, chiefly Seward,

Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, Edward Bates of Missouri, and William

L. Dayton of New Jersey. Thurlow Weed was Seward's lieutenant.

Horace Greeley, chiefly bent upon the defeat of Seward, would

have liked to achieve it by the success of Bates. David Davis,

aided by Judge Logan and a band of personal friends from

Illinois, was manager for Lincoln. Primarily the contest lay

between Seward and Lincoln. … Upon the third ballot … those

who were keeping the tally saw that it stood:—Seward, 180;

Lincoln, 231½; Chase, 24½; Bates, 22; Dayton, 1; McLean, 5;

Scattering, 1. … Before the count could be announced, a

delegate from Ohio transferred four votes to Lincoln. This

settled the matter; and then other delegations followed, till

Lincoln's score rose to 354. … Later in the day the convention

nominated Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, on tho second ballot, by

367 votes, for the vice-presidency. … Almost from the

beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans would

win, and it was substantially certain that none of their

competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no

election might be made by the people, and that it might be

thrown into Congress."

_J. T. Morse, Jr.,

Abraham Lincoln,

volume 1, chapter 6._

At the popular election, the votes were:

Lincoln, 1,866,452

(Free-States vote, 1,840,022, Slave States vote, 26,430);

Douglas, 1,375,157

(Free States vote, 1,211,632, Slave States vote, 163,525);

Breckenridge, 847,953

(Free States vote, 277,082, Slave States vote, 570,871);

Bell, 590,631

(Free States vote, 74,658, Slave States vote, 515,973).

In the Electoral College, the four candidates were voted

for as follows:

Lincoln, 180;

Breckenridge, 72;

Bell, 39;

Douglas, 12.

_E. Stanwood,

History of Presidential Elections,

chapter 20._

ALSO IN:

_H. W. Raymond,

Life of Lincoln,

chapter 4._

_E. McPherson,

Political History of the United States during the

Great Rebellion,

page 1._

_J. G. Holland,

Life of Lincoln,

chapters 15-16._

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,

Abraham Lincoln,

volume 2, chapters 13-16._

_J. F. Rhodes,

History of the United States from 1850,

chapter 11 (volume 2)._

{3407}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (November-December).

The plotting of the rebellion.

Secession of South Carolina.

"The long-hoped-for opportunity of trying the experiment of

secession was now at last presented. Abraham Lincoln had been

elevated to the presidency by a strictly sectional vote; and

though the fact could not be denied that he had been elected

in a perfectly constitutional manner, … yet, no sooner was it

ascertained that it was almost certain that he would receive a

majority of the electoral votes of the whole Union, than steps

began to be taken for carrying into effect a revolutionary

project which had engrossed the thoughts and sensibilities of

a small class of extreme Southern politicians, mainly confined

to the State of South Carolina, for some thirty years

preceding. … So thoroughly matured was the project of

secession in the minds of Southern extremists in South

Carolina, that they are known actually to have commenced

movements looking to this desired end before even the

presidential election had taken place, and when the result

which soon ensued was yet but a strong probability.

Accordingly we find Governor Gist, as early as the 5th of

November, 1860, addressing a message to the South Carolina

Legislature, embodying the following bold and explicit

declarations. … 'That an exposition of the will of the people

may be obtained on a question involving such momentous

consequences, I would earnestly recommend that, in the event

of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, a Convention

of the people of this state be immediately called, to consider

and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress.

My own opinions of what the Convention should do are of little

moment; but, believing that the time has arrived when

everyone, however humble he may be, should express his

opinions in unmistakable language, I am constrained to say

that the only alternative left, in my judgment, is the

secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The

indications from many of the Southern States justify the

conclusion that the secession of South Carolina will be

immediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously by them,

and ultimately by the entire South. … I would also

respectfully recommend a thorough reorganization of the

militia, so as to place the whole military force of the state

in a position to be used at the shortest notice and with the

greatest efficiency. … In addition to this general

preparation, I would recommend that the services of 10,000

volunteers be immediately accepted.' … I desire not to

particularize on this painful subject to an extent which might

now prove annoying, and therefore proceed briefly to state

that the Legislature of South Carolina provided for the

assemblage of a state Convention, the members of which were to

be elected on the 6th of December, while the conventional body

itself was to come together on the 19th of the same month;

that the Convention did assemble on the last-mentioned day,

and, after an excited debate of several days' continuance,

adopted an Ordinance of Secession on the 20th of December.

Commissioners were sent with a copy of the ordinance to each

of the slave states, in order to quicken co-operative action,

and notification was duly made as to these events to the

Federal government in Washington City. The next secession

movement it was expected would come off in the State of

Georgia. A Convention for this purpose had been already

called. It was known that Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel V.

Johnson, and other public men, of elevated standing and of

extended influence, would be members of the Convention, and it

was expected that they would exert themselves to the utmost to

prevent the imitation by the State of Georgia of the rash

example which had just been set by South Carolina; and it was

likewise known that eminent personages from the State of South

Carolina would attend the Convention of Georgia, in order to

urge immediate co-operation. Under these circumstances, I took

it upon myself to persuade the public men of most influence in

the city of Nashville, where I was then residing, to send ten

or fifteen delegates forthwith to Milledgeville, respectfully

and earnestly to protest against extreme action on the part of

Georgia. … I urged these views for several days most

zealously, but, I regret to say, without success; some

supposing that there was no serious danger of the Convention

of Georgia adopting an Ordinance of Secession, and others that

there was reason to fear, if we should send delegates to

Milledgeville, it might result in fatally compromising our own

attitude. The manly opposition made by Mr. Stephens to the

attempt to draw Georgia into the Secession maelstrom is well

known. This want of success is a circumstance which I shall

ever deplore as the most unfortunate event of a public nature

which has occurred within my recollection. Alabama, Florida,

Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were now soon enrolled among

the seceded States. Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia,

Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware still

stood firm, despite all the efforts essayed to shake their

constancy. It is indeed true, as Mr. Greeley has deliberately

recorded, that after the secession 'conspiracy had held

complete possession of the Southern mind for three months,

with the Southern members of the cabinet, nearly all the

Federal officers, most of the governors and other state

functionaries, and seven eighths of the prominent and active

politicians pushing it on, and no force exerted against nor in

any manner threatening to resist it, a majority of the slave

states, with two thirds of the free population of the entire

slaveholding region, was openly and positively adverse to it,

either because they regarded the alleged grievances of the

South as exaggerated if not unreal, or because they believed

that those wrongs would rather be aggravated than cured by

disunion.'"

_H. S. Foote,

War of the Rebellion,

chapter 15._

ALSO IN:

_J. G. Nicolay,

The Outbreak of Rebellion,

chapter 1._

_S. W. Crawford,

The Genesis of the Civil War,

chapters 2-5._

_F. Moore, editor,

Rebellion Record,

volume 1._

The following is the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession,

adopted December 20, together with the Declaration of Causes

which was promulgated by the Convention four days later:

"An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South

Carolina and other States united with her under the compact

entitled 'The Constitution of the United States of America.'

We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention

assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared

and ordained. That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention,

on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one

thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the

Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and

also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this

State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are

hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between

South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United

States of America,' is hereby dissolved."

{3408}

"Declaration of the immediate causes which induce and justify

the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:

The People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention

assembled, on the 26th day of April, A. D., 1852, declared

that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United

States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon

the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State

in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference

to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States,

she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that

time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and

further forbearance ceases to be a virtue. And now the State

of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place

among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining

United States of America, and to the nations of the world,

that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to

this act. In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire

embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the

government of that portion composed of the thirteen American

Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued,

which resulted, on the 4th July, 1776, in a Declaration, by

the Colonies, 'that they are, and of right ought to be, free

and independent States; and that, as free and independent

States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace,

contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other

acts and things which independent States may of right do.'

They further solemnly declared that whenever any 'form of

government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was

established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish

it, and to institute a new government.' Deeming the Government

of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends,

they declared that the Colonies 'are absolved from all

allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political

connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and

ought to be, totally dissolved.' In pursuance of this

Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States

proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for

itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the

administration of government in all its

departments—Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes

of defence, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in

1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of

Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the

administration of their external relations to a common agent,

known as the Congress of the United States, expressly

declaring, in the first article, 'that each State retains its

sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power,

jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation,

expressly delegated to the United States in Congress

assembled. Under this Confederation the War of the Revolution

was carried on, and on the 3d September, 1783, the contest

ended, and a definitive Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in

which she acknowledged the Independence of the Colonies in the

following terms:

'Article 1.—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United

States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island

and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,

Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina,

South Carolina and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and

independent States; that he treats with them as such; and for

himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to

the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same

and every part thereof.' Thus were established the two great

principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a

State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a

Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which

it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of

these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and

was recognized by the mother Country as a free, sovereign and

independent State. In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the

States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th

September, 1787, these Deputies recommended, for the adoption

of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the

Constitution of the United States. The parties to whom this

Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States;

they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed,

the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the

General Government, as the common agent, was then to be

invested with their authority. If only nine of the thirteen

States had concurred, the other four would have remained as

they were—separate sovereign States, independent of any of the

provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did

not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone

into operation among the other eleven; and during that

interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent

nation. By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon

the several States, and the exercise of certain of their

powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their

continued existence as sovereign States. But, to remove all

doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers

not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor

prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States,

respectively, or to the people. On 23d May, 1788, South

Carolina, by a Convention of her people, passed an Ordinance

assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own

Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had

undertaken. Thus was established, by compact between the

States, a Government, with defined objects and powers, limited

to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the

whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving

it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary

any specification of reserved rights. We hold that the

Government thus established is subject to the two great

principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we

hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a

third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We

maintain that in every compact between two or more parties,

the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the

contracting parties to perform a material part of the

agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and

that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to

his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all

its consequences.

{3409}

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty.

We assert, that fourteen of the States have deliberately

refused for years past to fulfil their constitutional

obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its 4th Article,

provides as follows: 'No person held to service or labor in

one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another,

shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be

discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered

up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be

due.' This stipulation was so material to the compact, that

without it that compact would not have been made. The greater

number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had

previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a

stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the

government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now

composes the States north of the Ohio river. The same article

of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the

several States of fugitives from justice from the other

States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed

laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States.

For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing

hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the

Institution of Slavery has led to a disregard of their

obligations, and the laws of the General Government have

ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States

of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut,

Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana,

Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either

nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to

execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is

discharged from the service or labor claimed, and in none of

them has the State Government complied with the stipulation

made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early

day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional

obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led

her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the

remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress.

In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave

has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and

Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged

with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the

State of Virginia. Thus the constitutional compact has been

deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding

States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is

released from her obligation. The ends for which this

Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be 'to form

a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic

tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the

general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to

ourselves and our posterity.' These ends it endeavored to

accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was

recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own

institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized

by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving

them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct

taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the

importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for

the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these

ends for which this Government was instituted have been

defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive

of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those

States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety

of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of

property established in fifteen other States and recognized by

the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the

institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open

establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is

to disturb the peace and to claim the property of the citizens

of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands

of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have

been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile

insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been

steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the

power of the Common Government. Observing the forms of the

Constitution, a sectional party has found within that article

establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting

the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn

across the Union, and all the States north of that line have

united in the election of a man to the high office of

President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are

hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the

administration of the Common Government, because he has

declared that that 'Government cannot endure permanently half

slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the

belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the subversion of the

Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by

elevating to citizenship, persons, who, by the Supreme Law of

the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes

have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the

South, and destructive of its peace and safety. On the 4th

March next, this party will take possession of the Government.

It has announced, that the South shall be excluded from the

common Territory; that the Judicial Tribunals shall be made

sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until

it shall cease throughout the United States. The Guaranties of

the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights

of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no

longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection,

and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation,

and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that

public opinion at the North has invested a great political

error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates,

in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the

world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly

declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State

and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that

the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the

nations of the world, as a separate and independent State;

with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract

alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and

things which independent States may of right do."

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December).

President Buchanan's surrender.

His disunion message and its evil effects.

Congress met on the first Monday of December and received from

President Buchanan "his mischievous and deplorable message …

—a message whose evil effect can never be estimated, and whose

evil character can hardly be exaggerated. The President

informed Congress that 'the long-continued and intemperate

interference of the Northern people with the question of

slavery in the Southern States has at last produced its

natural effect.' … The President found that the chief

grievance of the South was in the enactments of the Free

States known as 'personal liberty laws' [designed to protect

free citizens, black or white, in their right to trial by

jury, which the fugitive slave law denied to a black man

claimed as a slave]. … Very likely these enactments, inspired

by an earnest spirit of liberty, went in many cases too far,

and tended to produce conflicts between National and State

authority. That was a question to be determined finally and

exclusively by the Federal Judiciary. Unfortunately Mr.

Buchanan carried his argument beyond that point. … After

reciting the statutes which he regarded as objectionable and

hostile to the constitutional rights of the South, and after

urging their unconditional repeal upon the North, the

President said: 'The Southern States, standing on the basis of

the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of justice

from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the

Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have

been willfully violated. … In that event, the injured States,

after having used all peaceful and constitutional means to

obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance

to the government of the Union.' By this declaration the

President justified, and in effect advised, an appeal from the

constitutional tribunals of the country to a popular judgment

in the aggrieved States, and recognized the right of those

States, upon such popular judgment, to destroy the

Constitution and the Union. … Mr. Buchanan proceeded to argue

ably and earnestly against the assumption by any State of an

inherent right to secede from the government at its own will

and pleasure. But he utterly destroyed the force of his

reasoning by declaring that, 'after much serious reflection'

he had arrived at 'the conclusion that no power has been

delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the

Federal Government, to coerce a State into submission which is

attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn,' from the

Union. … Under these doctrines the Government of the United

States was shorn of all power to preserve its own existence,

and the Union might crumble and fall while its constituted

authorities stood paralyzed and impotent. This construction

was all that the extremists of the South desired. With so much

conceded, they had every thing in their own hands. … Men who,

under the wholesome restraint of executive power, would have

refrained from taking aggressive steps against the National

Government, were by Mr. Buchanan's action forced into a

position of hostility. Men in the South, who were disposed to

avoid extreme measures, were by taunt and reproach driven into

the ranks of Secession. … The evil effects of Mr. Buchanan's

message were not confined to the slave States. It did

incalculable harm in the free States. It fixed in the minds of

tens of thousands of Northern men who were opposed to the

Republican party, the belief that the South was justified in

taking steps to break up the government, if what they termed a

war on Southern institutions should be continued. This feeling

had in turn a most injurious influence in the South."

_J. G. Blaine,

Twenty Years in Congress,

volume 1, chapter 10.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21128_

ALSO IN:

_G. T. Curtis,

Life of James Buchanan,

volume 2, chapters 16-17._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December).

Vain concessions and humiliations of the North proposed.

The Crittenden compromise.

"When, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Boteler, of

Virginia, proposed to refer so much of the President's Message

as related to the perilous condition of the country to a

committee of thirty-three—one from each state—not less than

52 members from the Slave States refused to vote. 'I pay no

attention to any action taken in this body,' said one. 'I am

not sent here to patch up difficulties,' said another. The

Democratic members from the Free States did their utmost to

compose the dissension—some of them who subsequently became

conspicuous in the war—suggesting concessions which doubtless

they looked back upon with regret. It was proposed that

persons of African blood should never be considered as

citizens of the United States; that there should never be any

interference with slavery in the Territories, nor with the

interstate slave-trade; that the doctrine of state-rights

should be admitted, and power of coercion denied to the

government. Among the dissatisfied members, one would allow

any state at pleasure to secede, and allot it a fair share of

the public property and territory. Another would divide the

Union into four republics; another would abolish the office of

President, and have in its stead a council of three, each of

whom should have a veto on every public act. Propositions such

as these show to what length the allies of the slave power

would have gone to preserve it and give it perpetuity. At this

stage, Mr. Crittenden [Senator John J. Crittenden of

Kentucky], proposed in the Senate certain amendments of the

Constitution, and resolutions known subsequently as the

Crittenden Compromise. The essential features of his plan were

the re-establishing of the Missouri Compromise: that in all

territory of the United States north of 36° 30' slavery should

be prohibited; in all south of that line, not only permitted,

but protected; that from such territory north or south states

might be admitted with or without slavery, as the Constitution

of each might determine; that Congress should have no power to

abolish slavery in places under its jurisdiction in a slave

state, nor in the District of Columbia, without the consent of

the adjoining states, nor without compensation to the

slaveholders, nor to prevent persons connected with the

government bringing their slaves into the District; that

Congress should have no power to hinder the interstate or

territorial transport of slaves; that the national government

should pay a full value to the owner of a fugitive slave who

might have been rescued from the officers; that no amendments

of the Constitution should ever be made which might affect

these amendments, or other slave compromises already existing

in the Constitution.

{3411}

He also recommended to the states that had enacted laws in

conflict with the existing fugitive slave acts, their repeal;

and in four resolutions made provision for the more perfect

execution of those acts. But the dissension was too deep to be

closed by such a measure as Mr. Crittenden's, which contained

nothing that could satisfy the North. The South was resolved

not to be satisfied with any thing. It had taken what was

plainly an irreversible step. According]y, Mr. Crittenden's

proposition was eventually lost."

_J. W. Draper,

History of the American Civil War,

chapter 31 (section 6, volume 1)._

ALSO IN:

_H. Greeley,

The American Conflict,

volume 1, chapter 24._

_E. McPherson, Political History of the United States

during the Great Rebellion,

pages 48-90._

_J. A. Logan,

The Great Conspiracy,

chapter 8._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December).

Major Anderson at Fort Sumter.

Floyd's treachery in the War Department.

Cabinet rupture.

Loyalty reinstated in the national government.

"In November, 1860, the fortifications of Charleston Harbor

consisted of three works—Castle Pinckney, an old-fashioned,

circular brick fort, on Shute's Folly Island, and about one

mile east of the city; Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island,

still farther to the east, and famous as being on the site of

the old fort of palmetto logs, where, during the long

bombardment by the British fleet in Revolutionary days, the

gallant William Jasper leaped from the low rampart upon the

beach below, and seizing the flag that had been shot down,

rehoisted it above the fort; and lastly, Fort Sumter, an

unfinished fortification, named after General Thomas Sumter,

the famous partisan leader of the Revolution, and who was

familiarly known as the 'gamecock of the Carolinas.' The

armament of Castle Pinckney consisted of 22 cannon, 2 mortars,

and 4 light pieces; that of Moultrie of 45 cannon and 7 light

pieces; while Sumter mounted 78 heavy guns of various calibre.

The entire force of United States troops in these

fortifications was composed of two weak companies of artillery

under command of Major Robert Anderson, and a few engineer

employees under Captain John G. Foster. Of these a sergeant

and squad of men were stationed at Castle Pinckney for the

care of the quarters and the guns; a similar handful were at

Sumter; while most of the little force were at Moultrie, where

Anderson had his headquarters. Such was the military situation

when South Carolina began to proclaim, without disguise, her

purpose to secede and to possess herself of the fortifications

on her coast. … Our Government paid no apparent heed, and yet

the authorities at Washington were fully and betimes

forewarned. … On the files of the Engineer Department I found

a letter, which still remains there, dated as early as

November 24, 1860, from Captain Foster to Colonel De Russy,

then the chief of the engineer corps, in which the captain

states that, at the request of Major Anderson, he has, in

company with that officer, made a thorough inspection of the

forts in the harbor; that, in the opinion of Anderson, one

additional company of artillery should at once be sent to

garrison Castle Pinckney, which in the terse language of the

letter, 'commands the city of Charleston.' Upon the back of

the letter is the simple but significant indorsement, in his

own hand-writing, 'Return to Governor Floyd.' You may recall

him as Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War. On November 30,

Captain Foster again writes to Colonel De Russy, saying: 'I

think that more troops should have been sent here to guard the

forts, and I believe that no serious demonstration on the part

of the populace would have met such a course.' On this is

indorsed: 'Colonel Cooper says this has been shown to the

Secretary of War. H. G. W.' The initials, placed there by

himself, are those of the gallant Horatio G. Wright, who

succeeded to the command of the Sixth Army Corps after the

loved Sedgwick fell. On December 2, application was made by

Captain Foster for the small supply of four boxes of muskets

and sixty rounds of cartridge per man, to arm the few

civilians or hired laborers who constituted the engineer

corps. These arms and ammunition were in the United States

arsenal at Charleston, a building which still had a Federal

keeper, and over which still floated the Federal flag. On this

application is the following indorsement, also in General

Wright's handwriting: 'Handed to adjutant-general, and by him

laid before the Secretary of War on the sixth of December.

Returned by adjutant-general on the seventh. Action deferred

for the present. See Captain Foster's letter of December 4.' …

On December 17, Captain Foster, acting on his own patriotic

judgment, but without orders, went to Charleston and took from

the Federal arsenal forty muskets, with which to arm his

laborers. Early on the morning of the 19th, he received a

telegram from Secretary Floyd, directing him instantly to

return the arms to the arsenal. On the next day, the 20th, the

South Carolinians decided, in State convention, to secede, and

proclaimed their State an independent sovereignty. … All alike

were delirious with the epidemic madness of the hour, were

hopeful, resolute, enthusiastic. Bells pealed and cannon

boomed. … But few ventured to breast the storm. There was one,

whose name should live honored in in a nation's memory, a

wise, true man, the greatest lawyer of his State, James L.

Pettigrew, who, when his minister first dropped from the

service the prayer for the President of the United States,

rose in his pew in the middle aisle of Charleston's most

fashionable church, and slowly and with distinct voice

repeated: 'Most humbly and heartily we beseech Thee with Thy

favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of these

United States.' Then, placing his prayer-book in the rack, and

drawing his wife's arm within his own, he left the church, nor

entered it again until his body was borne there for burial. To

their honor be it said, that even the Carolinians respected

his sincerity and candor, and never molested him. … On the

night of December 26, Major Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie,

which was untenable by his small force, spiked his guns,

burned the gun-carriages, and transferred his small command in

two schooners to Fort Sumter. This act was without orders and

against the do-nothing and helpless policy which had thus far

controlled the Government. But it showed the wisdom and prompt

decision of the trained soldier and the spirit of the loyal

citizen. … Let us recall the appearance of Sumter when

Anderson transferred his feeble garrison to its protection.

The fort was built on an artificial island, which had been

constructed by dumping stone upon a shoal that lay on the

south side of the principal ship channel to Charleston Harbor.

Sumter was pentagonal in form, and its five sides of brick,

made solid by concrete, rose 60 feet above the water. It was

pierced for an armament of 135 guns, which were to be placed

in three tiers.

{3412}

Two tiers were to be in casemates, and one 'en barbette,' or

on the top of the wall. The embrasures of the upper tier of

casemates were never completed. They were filled up with brick

during Major Anderson's occupation of the fort, and so

remained during all the succeeding operations and siege.

Seventy-eight guns of various calibre composed its then

armament, the most efficient of which were placed 'en

barbette.' On the east and west sides of the parade were

barracks for the privates, and on the south side were the

officers' quarters. These were all wooden structures. The

wharf by which access was had to the fort was on the southern

side against the gorge wall. Looking from the sea front,

Sumter lay nearly midway between Sullivan's Island on the

north and the low, sandy ridges of Morris on the south, and

about 1,400 yards from either. The main ship channel was

between Sumter and Sullivan's Island. The water between the

fort and Morris Island was for the most part comparatively

shallow. James Island lay to the west and southwest, while to

the northwest, and at a distance of three and one-third miles,

rose the steeples of Charleston. The city could have been

barely reached by the heaviest guns of the barbette battery.

Castle Pinckney lay in the direction of the city, and was

distant about two and one-third miles. Sullivan's, Morris, and

James Islands thus formed a segment of three-fourths of a

circle around Sumter. They were so close under the guns of the

fort that, with the then limited experience in the

construction of earthworks, no batteries could have been

erected under fire from Sumter sufficiently strong to prevent

the re-enforcement and supplying of the fort, had Anderson

been allowed to open fire at the first upon the rebel working

parties. … At noon of December 27, the flag of the nation was

raised over the defenders of the fort. Major Anderson knelt,

holding the halliards, while Reverend Matthew Harris, an army

chaplain, offered fervent prayer for that dear flag and for

the loyal few who stood beneath its folds. … And then all

wearily the days and weeks dragged on. New fortifications rose

day by day on each sandhill about the harbor; vessels of war,

bearing the Confederate flag, steamed insultingly near, and

the islands were white as harvest fields, with the tents of

the fast-gathering rebel soldiery; and still, by positive

orders, Anderson was bidden to stand in idle helplessness

beside his silent indignant cannon."

_General Stewart L. Woodford,

The Story of Fort Sumter

(Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion,

pages 259-266)._

On the 29th of December, three days after Anderson had

transferred his command to Fort Sumter, Floyd gave up his work

of treachery in the War Department, and resigned. Howell Cobb

had resigned the Treasury Department previously, on the 10th.

A few days later, January 8, Jacob Thompson withdrew from the

Interior Department. Loyal men now replaced these

secessionists in the Cabinet. Joseph Holt of Kentucky took the

place of Floyd in the War Department; John A. Dix of New York

succeeded Cobb in the Treasury, and the place of Thompson was

not filled. Edwin M. Stanton entered the Cabinet as

Attorney-General, taking the place of Jeremiah S. Black who

became Secretary of State. General Cass had held the State

Department until December 12, when he, too, resigned, but for

reasons opposite to those of Floyd and Cobb. He left the

Government because it would not reinforce the Charleston

forts.

_E. McPherson,

Political History of the United States during the

Great Rebellion,

page 28._

ALSO IN:

_S. W. Crawford,

Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter,

chapters 1, and 6-10._

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay,

Abraham Lincoln,

volume 2, chapters 18-29,

and volume 3, chapter 1-6._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860-1861 (December-February).

Seizure of arms, arsenals, forts, and other

public property by the Southern insurgents.

Base surrender of an army by Twiggs.