E 441 K654f , t FREEDOM AND SLAVERY BY WILLIAM KITTLE MADISON, WIS. STATE JOURNAL PRINTING Co. 1900 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY WILLIAM KITTLE. K *!> IP 5 -it CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE. I. Two Voyages ..... II. The Royal African Company . .' - III. The Middle Passage . . . . * ,/lV. Colonial Slavery .... IO V. Opinions of the Fathers .... 13 VI. State Laws . . . . ' x VII. The Ordinance of 1787 . . . ! 15 VIII. The Convention of 1787 .... I? IX. Decline of Anti-slavery Sentiment . . 2I X. Tfle Missouri Compromise .... 2 i XL The Balance of Power . .... . - '. 27 Xfl. Nullification XIII. Old Nat's War .... XIV. The Abo.itionists XV. The Liberty Party .....' XVI. The Annexation of Texas .... 4O XVII. The Campaign and Election of 1844 42 XVIII. The War with Mexico . . . " XIX. The Wilmot Proviso .....' XX. The Campaign and Election of 1848 . 4 5 XXI. Political Excitement during 1849 ... XXII. The Compromise of 1850 . ,. ^XXIII. Cotton is King . ^XXIV. Plantation Life XXV. The Slave Trade ....'.'* XXVI. Etf.ct of the Fugitive Slave Law ...'.'$$ . 60 XXIX. The Campaign and Election of 1852 ... 62 XXX. The Kansas-Nebraska Law ... 5, XXXI. Border Warfare in Kansas ....." 65 XXVII. The Underground Railroad XXVIII. Uncle Tom's Cabin 1763865 CONTENTS. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. XLI. XLII. XLIII. XLIV. XLV. XLVI. XLVII. XLVIII. XLIX. If. LI. LI I. LIII LIV. LV. LVI. LVII. LVIII. LIX. LX. LXI. LXII. LXIII. LX1V. The Ostend Manifesto The Rise of the Republican Party The Campaign and Election of 1856 The Attack on Sumner PAGE. 67 68 70 72 The Dred Scott Decision 72 The Lincoln and Douglas Debate ... 74 John Brown's Raid ...... 77 The Campaign and Election of 1860 ... 80 Secession . ... . . .82 The Confederate States of America ... 85 The Peace Congress 85 Decision at the South 85 Division at the North 86 Lincoln's Journey to Washington ... 86 Lincoln's Inauguration . . . . . 87 The North and South Compared ... 88 Fort Sumter ....... 90 Opening of the War ...... 91 "A Vision of the War" 91 The Area of the War ..... 94 The Union and Confederate Armies ... 94 Battles and Loss of Life ..... 94 Cost of the War -95 The Freedom of the Slaves . . . . 95 _^=- The Navy of the United States .... 97 England and the Civil War .... 100 The South in 1865 . . . . . 103 The Fall of Richmond . . . . .104 Lincoln in Richmond ..... 104 Lee's Surrender ...... 105 Assassination of Lincoln ..... 105 ^_^ The Grand Review 107 Two Forces . . . . - . 107 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. I. TWO VOYAGES. In the early years of the seventeenth century took place two important voyages from England to America. One of the vessels was named the Treasurer and the other the Mayflower. A period of only sixteen months separated their arrival in America. One of these brought slaves and the other the Pilgrim fathers into what was long afterward the United States. One was loaded with black men, ignorant, savage, manacled, scourged by the lash and brutalized by former slavery; the other brought men and women deeply religious, some of them cultured and all sternly devoted to what they thought was just and right. In April, 1618, the Treasurer, commanded by Captain Daniel Elfrith, left England and arrived in Virginia late in the summer of the same year. Captain Elfrith had from the Duke of Savoy a commission empowering him to seize the property of Spaniards. This vessel was little better than a pirate, as England was then at peace with Spain. Gov. Argall, of Virginia, aided in refitting the vessel and supplied her with the most desperate men he could find. Captain Elfrith then left Virginia for the Barbadoes, where he remained six weeks in the winter of 1618-19. I* 1 the spring of 1619 he set out on a rov- ing voyage, no record of which has been kept; but in September, 1619, the Treasurer in consort with the 6 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. "man-of-war of Flushing" returned to Jamestown, Va., with a cargo of negroes, grain, wax, and tallow. This man-of-war was to protect the Treasurer, and its cap- tain, John Powell, held from the Duke of Savoy a com- mission which empowered him to plunder the Spaniards. One or both of these vessels landed twenty negroes at Jamestown. Thus slavery began in the colonies. The Mayflower left Plymouth, England, September 1 6, 1620. A steady wind bore the vessel out to mid- ocean, where a succession of terrible storms compelled the ship to " lie to " for several days. One of the main beams was broken by the force of the great waves. There on an open sea, a thousand miles from either shore, at the mercy of wind and wave and storm, waited and watched and prayed one hundred men, women and children. These were the Puritans coming across a great ocean and to a new world for conscience's sake. On December 21, 1620, they landed at Plymouth, Mass. That was the birthday of New England; and the rock on which they landed and which is still pointed out to travelers will not be forgotten as long as the sea shall continue to wash it. What had these two voyages to do with each other? Everything. From them came two great movements hostile to each other and extending over two and a half centuries of our history. The Treasurer began the course of slavery; the Mayflower, that of freedom. From the introduction of slavery in 1619 until its aboli- tion in 1865, there was not an hour when these hostile forces did not gather strength or meet in open conflict. It was in truth an " irrepressible conflict." For the first century and a half both sides gathered strength for the contest. During that period slavery was firmly estab- THE ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY. 7 lished in every colony south of Mason and Dixon's line and was lawful in every other colony north of that line. But in the northern colonies, the force of public opinion and the influence of free institutions and free labor were strongly in the direction of freedom for all classes. Dur- ing the next century, the hostility of these two move- ments was clearly recognized. From the Revolution to the Civil War, the South with its millions of slaves was, on this question, opposed to the North, with its millions of free laborers. But the Civil War closed this long conflict. By its thousand battles, its four years of great endeavor, its billions of debt and its millions of armed men, two hundred and forty-six years of shameful his- tory were ended and four million slaves were set free. II. THE ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY. Fifty-seven years before the voyage of the Treasurer, John Hawkins, commanding three small vessels, the Soloman, the Swallow, and the Jonas, sailed from England in October, 1562. He went by way of the Canary Islands to Sierra Leone, collected three hundred negroes, crossed westward to San Domingo, sold them at an enormous profit and returned to England. Two years later he made the same voyage and became the hero of the hour in London. In this trade with the Spanish plantations he had boldly disobeyed the orders of the Spanish king, who desired that such trade should be held by Spaniards only. On his return Hawkins had openly boasted of his exploits, and had even told De Silva, the ambassador of Philip, king of Spain, that he should soon go on another voyage of the same kind. De Silva wrote to Philip, whose lively interest was at 8 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. once shown by the startled exclamations "Ojo! Ojo!' r which he inscribed in the margin of his ambassador's letter. In 1567 Hawkins left England on his third voy- age, sold his negroes in the Spanish colonies in the West Indies, and while skirting the coast of Cuba was caught in a storm and driven to Mexico near Vera Cruz. Here he was betrayed by Spanish officials acting under Philip's orders, and with a few men barely escaped to England. Hawkins' work was the beginning of the English slave trade between Africa and America. But for the next hundred years very few negroes were brought into the North American colonies. During this period three African trading companies were chartered by the kings of England; but the last of these surrendered its charter in 1672 and a new trading company, called the Royal African Company, was given a charter to trade in Africa and send slaves to America. This new company had a capital of $500,000, and paid the old company $175,000 for its forts and warehouses in Africa. It had agencies in London where merchants of that city gave orders for slaves just as for other merchandise. The planters in the colonies sent their orders for slaves to the London merchants. In 1713 Spain and England formed the Assiento or treaty by which the Royal African Com- pany obtained a complete monopoly of the slave trade for thirty years. The Company agreed to pay the king of Spain 200,000 florins and 33^- florins for each slave imported into Spain. The sovereigns of England and Spain were each to receive one-fourth of the profits of the Company. The Company agreed to furnish the colonies 144,000 thousand slaves in the thirty years, at the rate of 4,800 each year, but could supply as many THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. 9 more negroes as it could sell. The Royal African Com- pany as an exclusive trading body ceased in 1750, when Parliament threw open the slave trade to any merchant who would pay a fee of forty shillings. By means of these companies a steady stream of negroes flowed to the new world. For a hundred years before the American Revolution thousands of black men were unloaded and sold each year at the American ports. From 1680 to 1688, the Royal African Company sent 249 ships from England to Africa and transported 60,000 slaves to America. Nor were English merchants alone responsible for this trade. Each year saw numerous slavers leave Boston, Salem, Providence and Newport to engage in the trade. By 1700, the number of negroes taken yearly rose to 25,000, and from 1733 to 1750 the number averaged more than 20,000 each year. Prob- ably more than half of all these were sold to the North American colonies. By 1775, more than 300,000 negroes had been sold as slaves along the coast from Maine to Georgia. III. THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. These numbers are appalling when taken in connec- tion with the capture of the negroes on the African coast and the horrors of the " Middle Passage " to America. When the slaver lay at anchor on the African coast, bands of armed men went to the interior, seized the wretched victims, bound them back to back, and in the morning put them, tied hand and foot, on board the slave ship. The " Middle Passage " was a long voyage from the west coast of Africa to the new world, and under a hot and burning sky. For more than three thousand miles in the torrid zone, the slave ship formed the worst 10 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. of prisons. Sometimes as many as five hundred negroes were crowded on board a small vessel of only two hun- dred tons. In the morning all the captives were com- pelled to come up on deck to " dance " for exercise. If one refused, the frightful cat-o'-nine-tails was used. Open rebellion met instant death. Those who were dis- orderly suffered the -thumb-screws or were chained by the neck and limbs. \ The daily food was salt pork and beans. At sunset all were driven below and forced to lie side by side on the bare boards. To prevent mutiny, whole rows were chained together and to the floor. Here at night the air grew thick and hot, diseases were communicated, curses and groans and sobbings were heard, and in the morning, exhausted and feverish, the slaves went to the deck. On a stormy voyage it was awful. Then, all were driven below, the hatches were securely fastened down, and all ventilation ceased. When the storm was past, those who were alive were allowed to come forth with parched mouths and tongues swollen. Sometimes one-half or even two-thirds of all the negroes di-ed on the " Middle Passage; " but the average loss of life was from ten to fifteen out of every hundred. IV. COLONIAL SLAVERY: 1619-1775. Slaves were in all of the thirteen colonies. In i775> from New Hampshire to Georgia inclusive, the whites numbered about 2,000,000 and the blacks 500,000; but five-sixths of all the slaves were held south of the bound- ary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. In the four New England colonies there were not far from 25,000. In the four middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware the negroes num- COLONIAL SLAVERY. II bered about 50,000. In the remaining five colonies the slaves numbered over 425,000. In 1775, in the New Eng- 1 ind colonies there were forty-two whites to one black, and in the four middle colonies thirteen to one; but in the five southern colonies the slaves outnumbered the whites. SLAVE LAWS. By law, in each of the thirteen colonies the slave was the property of his master; he could be bought, sold, leased, loaned, bequeathed by will, mortgaged and seized f 3r debt, and could neither hold nor acquire property. The clothes that he wore, the cabin in which he lived, and the wife and children who toiled with him in the fields, belonged to his master. The slave could be pun- ished as the master saw fit, and if death resulted, the law presumed the master innocent on the ground that he would not intentionally destroy his own property. The usual legal punishments were starvation, crucifixion and burning. If a slave ran away he at once became an outlaw and was hunted as an animal. He could not leave the plantation without a written permit, and if found without one could be whipped by each person into whose hands he fell until he was returned to his master. He could not own a gun or any weapon of defense. The law forbade him to wander about at night or to assemble at feasts or funerals or any gatherings in par- ties of more than seven. Three facts modify our view of these severe laws: harsh laws were common at that time, the savage nature of many newly arrived slaves made strict restraint necessary, and the natural kindness of the owners prevented the execution of the laws to the great majority of the negroes. 12 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. It is certain that outside of the Carolinas and Georgia the slaves were well and mildly treated. They had suf- ficient food, were fairly clothed, and not overworked or often beaten. In the northern and middle colonies they were employed as house servants or doing all kinds of menial work in the cities. In the southern colonies they toiled in the fields in the cultivation of tobacco, indigo and rice. In Connecticut only one or two slaves were held by one person, while in Maryland one wealthy planter owned thirteen hundred negroes, and one planter in Virginia nine hundred slaves. The average number on each Carolina plantation was thirty. Each plantation was a community by itself. All the trades were repre- sented. Part of the slaves were house servants; one was his master's coachman, another a blacksmith or a carpenter, and still others were field hands. The " negro quarter " was the collection of small, whitewashed cabins where the slaves of the plantation lived. Here they gathered after the day's work was over, told stories, sang songs and watched their children at piay. They were fond of music and delighted in brilliant colors. They were densely ignorant and superstitious. When night came on and groups gathered in the firelight, their eyes rolled in terror at the stories of witches, ghosts and devils. The " great house," as the slaves called it, was the planter's home. This was a long and wide building, with large rooms and a spacious hallway in the center. Around it were fine driveways and acres of well-kept grounds, covered with stately oak trees which cast their deep shadows in the long summer of the South. OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 13 V. OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. In 1775, over 400; ooo slaves toiled in the tobacco, rice and indigo fields of the South, but their hard lot had been noticed, and from time to time sympathetic voices had been heard in their behalf. Though these voices of freedom were scattered far and wide, and heard only at intervals, yet they were not raised in vain. They were like the prelude to some great piece of music, whose first clear notes, dying away in silence, break at last into the full movement. The first recorded petition against slavery in the col- onies was drawn up by some Quakers of Germantown, Pa., in 1688. They said it was " not lawful to buy or keep slaves." This was only six years after Philadelphia was founded. William Penn held slaves, but in his will made them free at his death. In 1758 the Society of Friends forbade any slave-buyer to sit in their meetings. Through the influence of the Quakers, thousands of slaves were set free by their masters. But the Friends were not the only religious body that spoke for freedom. In 1780 the Methodists, at their eighth conference, voted "slave-keeping hurtful to society and contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature." Five years later the Methodist conferences of Virginia and North Caro- lina asked the assemblies of those States to abolish slavery. The first prominent abolitionist was Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Rhode Island. During the Revolu- tion, he published an argument for abolition in the form of a dialogue and dedicated it to Congress. Washington spoke and wrote against slavery. His most intimate friend and neighbor, George Mason, spoke bitterly of the system. Patrick Henry poured out his scorn for the 14 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. wrong. Thomas Jefferson wrote, " I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is justice and that his justice cannot sleep forever." Benjamin Franklin was president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Richard Henry Lee and Edmund Randolph desired freedom for all slaves. James Madison said that the words " slave ' and " slavery " were not used in the national constitution because the men who sat in the great convention of 1787 would not admit that there could be property in human beings. Thus, everywhere and by everybody, slavery was looked upon as a wrong, and it was not long before numerous societies were formed to abolish slavery. The first abolition society was organized in Pennsylvania in 1774, and Benjamin Franklin was elected its president. John Jay was president of the New York Abolition Society. From 1774 to J 79 2 sucri societies had been formed in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and during the same period Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont had abolished slavery and Delaware had forbidden the slave-trade. In North Carolina there was a strong senti- ment against slavery, especially among the Quakers. Thus in every colony except South Carolina and Geor- gia there was a rising tide of feeling against slavery. VI. STATE LAWS: 1775-1785. This opposition to slavery showed itself most strongly from 1775 to 1785. During this period South Carolina and Georgia gave no hope to the slave. North Carolina laid a tax of $25 on each negro imported. Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey had forbidden the foreign slave trade. Pennsylvania, New York, Ver- ORDINANCE OF 1787. 1 5 mont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island had either abolished slavery outright or had passed laws which gave freedom to every child born after the law was passed. When the Revolution came, each State, except Connecticut and Rhode Island, adopted a new constitution, and in not a single constitution was slavery legally established. The words " slave " or " slavery " were not even used in any one of the eleven new consti- tutions, except in the constitution of Delaware, where these words were used to abolish the slave trade. Con- necticut and Rhode Island did not adopt new constitu- tions, but they abolished both slavery and the slave trade. Thus, by 1785, two states had done nothing for the negro, one had taxed the slave trade, four had forbidden it, and six had passed laws for immediate or gradual freedom. VII. THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. The Ordinance of 1787 was a law passed by Congress creating a government for, and forever forbidding slav- ery in, all the land owned by the United States north and west of the Ohio river. This law abolished slavery in what is now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon- sin and Michigan. Thus by a single law, a territory almost as large as England and France was set apart for freedom. At the close of the Revolution, three States, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, claimed this vast, un- known and forest-covered region. In 1784 Virginia and Massachusetts gave- up all claim to it, and sixteen years later Connecticut surrendered to the United States her " Western Reserve." Thomas Jefferson carried to Con- l6 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. gress the Virginia deed of her claim. He urged Con- gress to abolish slavery, not only in the northwest territo^, but also in the southwest territory, and thus give to freedom all the land from the mountains to the Mississippi river. He wished to hem in slavery by the ocean and a strong chain of free States; but he lost by asking too much, and it was not until three years later, when he was minister in France, that the question again came before Congress. The Ohio Company was started mainly by the efforts of General Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper. Put- nam had been for some distance down the Ohio river and had caught glimpses of that fertile soil which he knew in time would support millions of people. He went back to New England and published glowing ac- counts of the country, and proposed that a company should be formed to secure lands for the Revolutionary soldiers. In 1786 delegates from eight counties in Massa- chusetts met at Boston and heard Putnam and Tupper describe the country and the plan of the company. The result was the formation of the Ohio Company. Put- nam, Samuel Parsons and Manasseh Cutler were made directors, and Cutler was sent to New York City, where Congress then sat, to buy land for the Ohio Company. Cutler met many members of Congress and offered to buy 5,000,000 acres of land on condition that slavery should not be allowed in the territory. Congress was eager to sell the land and a bargain was quickly made. The result was the famous Ordinance of 1787. The three men who had most to do in securing the passage of this great law of Congress were Thomas Jefferson, Rufus King and William Grayson. On the day that it passed eight States were represented in Congress by CONVENTION OF 1787. 1 7 eighteen delegates, and seventeen voted " Aye." One man from New York voted " No." The law declared that " There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the pun- ishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." VIII. THE CONVENTION OF 1787. While Congress at New York City was debating the Ordinance of 1787, a far greater body of men at Phila- delphia was considering the Constitution of the United States. This convention consisted of delegates from twelve States and was held in Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Washing- ton was president of the convention. Benjamin Frank- lin, over eighty years of age, was there to give the bene- fit of his long and varied experience in public affairs. Alexander Hamilton, with a mind more brilliant and constructive than any other in that great assemblage, left his law practice in New York to attend the conven- tion. Madison, one of the most careful and thoughtful of men, was there. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were absent as ambassadors in Europe. Sam. Adams and Patrick Henry stood aloof, critical and suspicious. Sixty-five delegates were elected to the convention, but ten of them never attended. Thirty-nine signed their names to the Constitution. Every State except Rhode Island was represented. The convention held almost daily sessions from May 25 to September 17. When the Constitution was completed it was found that it con- tained three important provisions relating to slavery. 1 8 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. The first was the clause providing for the return of runaway slaves. It declared that a slave escaping into a free State should not gain his freedom by any law of the free State, but should be returned to his owner. This clause was put into the Constitution mainly through the efforts of Pierce Butler, of South Carolina. Butler seems to have been a sharp and persistent attorney in the interest of slavery. To carry out this provision, Congress, in 1793, passed the first Fugitive Slave Law, which gave the owner the legal right to enter a free State in pursuit of his slave, bind him in chains and return him into helpless, hopeless bondage. This law was at once put into operation. Under it a negro boy in Massachusetts was arrested, and Josiah Quincy de- fended him in court. Later Quincy said he "heard a noise and, turning around, he saw the constable lying sprawling on the floor and a passage opening through the crowd through which the fugitive was taking his departure, without stopping to hear the opinion of the court." This law was also used to capture the free negroes, who then numbered thousands in North Caro- lina, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. A brutal slave driver would pretend ownership of a free negro, chase him with bloodhounds through swamps and fields, and when he was captured, sell him into slavery. By 1796 this kidnaping had become such a common occur- rence that Delaware asked the government of the United States to stop it. The Quakers of North Carolina also asked Congress to protect the liberty of one hundred and thirty-four free negroes who had been kidnaped. Four negroes of North Carolina petitioned Congress for protection. The free negroes of Philadelphia in 1799 asked Congress to stop kidnaping in Maryland and Penn- CONVENTION OF 1787. Ip sylvania. A violent debate sprang up in Congress when these petitions were read. Jackson, of Georgia, said that property in slaves would be in danger if any extra attention was given the petitions. Congress voted to give back to the North Carolina Quakers their petition. Other petitions were not considered. Kidnaping contin- ued. The Fugitive Slave Law stood for fifty-seven years and produced a long history of outrages. The second provision of the Constitution relating to slavery declared that Congress should not stop the slave- trade before 1808. All the States but South Carolina and Georgia wished to put into the Constitution a clause abolishing the trade at once. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, plainly told the delegates from the other States that his State would not agree to the Constitu- tion if it prohibited the slave-trade. "No slave-trade, no Union " was the clear-cut statement of Rutledge and Pinckney. But with this difficulty arose another. The New England States wished to give Congress power to regulate commerce. Before 1787, each State had con- trol of foreign commerce and there were as many sets of rules and taxes on imported goods as there were States. This interfered very greatly with trade. New England was largely interested in this foreign trade. Her vessels plied constantly between Europe and America. Therefore New England, in order to increase the amount of trade, washed to give Congress the power to regulate that trade. But the South was afraid New England would soon get control of all the vessels run- ning between Europe and America, and would raise the freight rates on all goods shipped either way. Here was a chance for a bargain between the North and the South. New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecti- 20 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. cut agreed to allow the slave-trade, to run for twenty years, or until 1808, if Georgia and South Carolina would vote to give Congress power to regulate com- merce. The two slave States accepted, and for twenty years longer not a year went by that did not see hundreds of negroes suffer the horrors of the " Middle Passage." The third provision of the Constitution relating to slavery declared that each State should be represented in Congress according to its population, but that the population should be found by adding to the whole num- ber of free persons three-fifths of all the slaves. This almost doubled the power of the South in Congress. In 1790, there were only 40,000 slaves in the States north of Mason and Dixon's line, while south of that line there were over 650,000. The total number of representatives in Congress was sixty-five, and out of this number the six southern States had thirty members of Congress. Thirteen of the thirty southern members represented slaves who were not citizens and who could not vote. Thus one planter in the South had nearly twice as much power in Congress as a farmer or merchant in the North. But this was not all. A very small number of wealthy and aristocratic families held all the political power of the South. It was indeed a generous and noble aristoc- racy. Its members prided themselves on their manhood, bravery, kindness and hospitality. But these wealthy families ruled the South, and more than that, a few thousand of these great planters were now given as much power in Congress as 1,900,000 free persons at the North. In the free States this was felt to be unfair; but in order to form the Union, the North was forced to agree to it, and for seventy years the South used with vigor the advantage extorted by fear. MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 21 IX. DECLINE OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTI- MENT: 1790-1820. For thirty years following the convention of 1787, agitation of the slavery question gradually died out. This was due to several causes. The Constitution itself cut off all hope. It clearly and strongly recognized slavery as a fact. The rendition of fugitive slaves, the continuance of the slave trade, and the representation of slaves, were the three great conditions of Union. The second bar to slavery agitation was the fact that the best intelligence of the country was directed to the organization of the new government. Laws had to be made, courts established, numerous departments set in operation, an army and a navy formed, debts paid, a revenue system adopted, a rebellion put down, and vari- ous other domestic and foreign questions settled. Hardly was the new government well under way when a series of foreign questions absorbed public attention, and soon led to war. Public attention to this new danger, and to the questions to which it gave rise, allowed no room for slavery agitation. The formation of two great political parties during the first thirty years of the Union also pre- vented such agitation. Political intrigue and partisanship, caucus and campaign held the close attention of thousands of men besides such leaders as Jefferson and Hamilton. Thus the Constitution, the organization of the new gov- ernment, the formation of parties, and foreign war opposed the rise of anti-slavery sentiment. X. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE: 1820. The Missouri Compromise was a law passed by Con- gress and signed by the President, prohibiting slavery in all the territory north of the southern boundary of Mis- 22 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. souri and west of the Mississippi river, except Missouri, which was admitted as a slave State. About the same time Maine was admitted as a free State to balance the admission of Missouri as a slave State, For the sake of peace and Union, the North voted to spread slavery over a vast and fertile country and the South voted for freedom over a yet greater and richer domain. For the sake of the great republic, the North voted for what it thought was a moral wrong and the South gave up what it thought was a clear legal right. The North violated its conscience and the South sacrificed the rights of a brave and proud people. Both sides were honest, and both laid their sacrifice on the altar of the Union. The North and the South, in 1820, differed in resources and in power. There were then eleven free and eleven slave States. Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio river divided the two sections. North of this line there was a population of over 5,000,000 and south of it were over 4,500,000 persons, of whon^i, I 5'oo,ooo were slaves. By the three-fifths rule the slaves counted for nearly 1,000,000 and sent twenty-six representatives to Congress. The North sent 133 and the South 90 representatives to the lower -house of Congress. The two sections were equal in the Senate and a southern slaveholder was Presi- dent. The North manufactured more than $4,000,000 worth of cotton goods, while the South manufactured less than $1,000,000 worth of cotton. Most of the in- ventions and machinery were produced and used at the North. Most of the tools and farming implements of the South were home-made and rude. For more than a thousand miles, from eastern Massachussetts to west- ern Illinois, farm and factory, mine ahd manufactory made the North a hive of industry; while from eastern MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 23 Virginia to western Louisiana stretched a thousand miles of tobacco and cotton plantations, worked by slaves and supporting a white population. These were the two sections that squarely faced each other on the question of slavery in Missouri. The con- test took place at the Capitol in Washington. At the outset the South had the advantage. The President and a majority of his cabinet were slave-holders. The Senate was strongly for the South, and most of the ablest men of the nation Jefferson, Madison, Clay and Calhoun were in favor of slavery in Missouri. The bill to admit Missouri came before Congress in February, 1819. Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, moved that no more slaves be allowed to enter Missouri, and that all slaves in that Territory should be free at the age of twenty-five years. This was the famous "Tallmadge Amendment." It passed the House, but the Senate voted against it. Mr. Scott, of Missouri, said the Tall- madge Amendment was "big with the fate of Csesar and of Rome." Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, said that if the North persisted in that amendment the Union would be dissolved and that they " were kindling a fire which all the waters of the ocean could not extinguish. It could be extinguished only in blood." Tallmadge replied: " If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so! If a civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come." During the summer of 1819, Congress adjourned and the Missouri question was taken before the people. Great excitement prevailed. Large public meetings were held in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Trenton and Baltimore, and sent strong protests to Congress against allowing slavery in Missouri. Daniel Webster 24 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. wrote a noble protest against extending slavery. The legislatures of six northern States protested against ex- tending slavery in the Territories. The newspapers made the North a unit on the question. Nor was the South less united. Jefferson said that the strife fell on his ear " like a fire-bell in the night," but that " The question is a mere party trick " to give the Federalists control of the North. The Federalist party, being unpopular for having opposed the War of 1812, and needing a new and popular political war cry, chose the battle cry of free- dom. The South believed it was a party trick and not the sincere sentiment of the North towards slavery. The truth is that party politics did influence the northern politicians, but beneath this surface fact lay the innate and deep-seated antagonism between freedom and slavery. In the winter of 1819-20 the question again came be- fore Congress. Both sides brought great determination and ability to the contest. During the debate, Mr. Rug- gles, of Ohio, said: "The people of Missouri fifty years hence will trace, not to a British king, not to a corrupt British Parliament, but to Congress the evils of slavery." Mr. Cook, of Illinois, said: "Unless she comes in the white robes of freedom and a pledge against the further evils of slavery, with my consent she will not be admit- ted." John Tyler replied: "Rail at slavery as much as you please, I point you to the Constitution and say to you that you have not only acknowledged our right to this species of property, but you have gone much fur- ther, and have bound yourselves to rivet the chains of the slave." Clay's clarion voice rang out for slavery, and once he whispered to -a member that within five years the Union would break up into three confedera- MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 25 cies North, South, and West. During this debate the House sat in what is now Statuary Hall. Between the lofty columns hung crimson curtains. Over the Speaker's chair was a canopy of crimson silk. Chairs and desks were arranged to seat one hundred and eighty- seven members of the House. Here for months north- ern members spoke for freedom and southern planters urged the rights of property under the Constitution. One day when the House was in session the clanking of chains and the crack of a whip was heard outside and several members ran to the window and saw a villainous looking slave driver with a gang of fifteen negroes going west on Capitol hill. The slaves were handcuffed and chained to each other, and the women and children were placed at the rear of the procession. At another time, a black face in the gallery alarmed the southern mem- bers and debate was stopped till the listening negro was removed. But the great debate took place just across the rotunda of the Capitol in the Senate chamber. There Rufus King, of New York, made the best and strongest speech for the North. For forty years he had held high positions in the government, had been minister to Eng- land, had declined Washington's invitation to be Secre- tary of State, had sat in the great convention of 1787, and now represented the Empire State in the Senate. His manner was courtly and dignified, his language exact and pure. John Quincy Adams, who heard him, said that during his speech the great slave-holders gnawed their lips and clenched their fists. The South put forward their greatest orator in the person of William Pinkney, of Maryland. He, too, had held the highest public offices. He had been attorney-general of Maryland, representative in the lower house of Congress, attorney- 26 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. general of the United States, minister to several Euro- pean countries, and was perhaps the ablest lawyer of the United States. He loved the law, and his one ambition was to be the finest of orators. He answered Rufus King. On the day that he spoke, members of the cabi- net came to the Senate. The House of Representatives went to hear him. Foreign diplomats crowded to hear the orator who was said to rival the great Burke in wealth of imagery and eloquence. More than a hundred ladies were on the floor of the Senate. He appeared in faultless dress, wearing tinted gloves and elaborate ruffles, as the style then ran. His speech had long been prepared, but it .appeared to spring full armed from his brain as he stood the center and delight of that great assemblage. His gorgeous display of eloquence more than satisfied his brilliant audience. The South controlled the Senate, and the North the House. Neither would yield in full to the other; and so Jesse B. Thomas, a senator from Illinois, proposed the compromise line of 36 30'. He, and not Clay, was the real author of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. North of the compromise line, slavery, except in Mis- souri, was not allowed. South of that line slavery was permitted. The long contest over Missouri seemed ended. Maine was at once admitted into the Union and Missouri was directed to form a constitution. The people of Missouri, angry at the long delay, adopted a constitution which forever forbade her legislature to interfere with slavery and which prohibited free negroes from entering the State. The North broke forth in wrath at such a con- stitution and vowed never to admit such a State into the NULLIFICATION. 27 Union. The South accused the North of bad faith in securing the admission of Maine and then keeping Mis- souri out. There were loud threats of disunion, but Clay brought forward a second compromise which pro- vided that Missouri should be admitted on condition that it would never enforce the constitution concerning free negroes. Missouri accepted and was admitted as a slave State in 1821. XL THE BALANCE OF POWER. For thirty years before the Missouri Compromise the South was alwa s watchful to balance slave territory against free territory. While all the northwest territory was given to freedom, every foot of land south of the Ohio river was given to slavery. To keep the North and South equal in the Senate, the States were admitted in pairs: Kentucky and Vermont, Tennessee and Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana, Mississippi and Illinois, Missouri and Maine. These States were not admitted together in point of time, but the " balance of power " was clearly recognized. An extra Southern State was admitted, and in 1821 there were twelve slave States and twelve free States. XII. NULLIFICATION: 1798-1832. For ten years after the Missouri Compromise the be- lief spread rapidly in the South that the duties on imported goods benefited the North and injured the South. The slave States, manufacturing very little, were yet compelled to pay heavy taxes on all imported articles. Slave labor produced immense quantities of cotton, tobacco and rice, and the undoubted interest of 28 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. the South was a free trade with Europe. South Caro- lina well represented that interest. From that State alone was sent more than one-fourth of all the exports from southern fields. In 1832 South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification which declared the tariff laws " null, void, and no law, not binding upon this State, its officers or citizens." Nullification was not a new idea in 1832. One day, in the autumn of 1798, Thomas Jefferson, William Nicholas and George Nicholas were talking about the famous Alien and Sedition laws lately passed by Congress. Jefferson wished Virginia and Kentucky to join in a strong protest against the objectionable laws. He got from the two brothers a solemn pledge of secrecy and then wrote the " Resolutions of '98." George Nicholas pre- sented them to the legislature of Kentucky. Jefferson sent a copy of them to Madison, who then sat in the leg- islature of Virginia. Both States adopted the " Resolu- tions," which declared that the Alien and Sedition laws were " not law, . . . void, and of no effect," and that the Constitution was a compact. The main purpose of the Resolutions was to make a united and vigorous appeal to public opinion against bad laws. Nullification in 1798 meant at once a protest and an appeal and not secession. Jefferson and his friends had no thought of disunion. The governors of Kentucky and Virginia sent copies of the Resolutions to the various States. The five New England States with New Jersey and Dela- ware sent back a prompt and strong dissent from nulli- fication. Virginia built a new armory, laid new war taxes and drilled her militia; but, as not a single State had returned a favorable answer, Kentucky and Virginia, in 1799, saw fit to declare that disunion was not meant > NULLIFICATION. 2p that only a protest had been made, and that love of the Union was strong in the two States. The feeling of disunion next appeared in New England itself. For months in 1804, the political leaders there plotted for disunion. Four causes led to this: The government of the United States had bought Louisiana; had reduced the army to a handful; had almost ruined the navy, and New England was nearly powerless in public affairs. Massachusetts complained that the South had 850,000 slaves, represented by fifteen votes in Con- gress, and that if new States from the Louisiana Ter- ritory were admitted, the South would surely control the Union. Timothy Pickering, Aaron Burr and other leaders advocated a new Union of the free States with New Brunswick and with Nova Scotia. But the people would not support their leaders and the plan of disunion failed. Lack of attachment to the Union next showed itself west of the mountains. In 1804, after his duel with Hamilton, Burr fled to Philadelphia, where he proposed to the British minister to break up the Union if England would furnish money and arms to the Western men. From Philadelphia he went by way of the ocean to Georgia, thence across the State to South Carolina and back to Washington. Here General Wilkinson intro- duced him to many leading men from Kentucky and Louisiana. About this time, the plan to break up the Union was told to the French minister and shortly after- wards Burr went west to Pittsburg, down the Ohio to Blennerhasset's beautiful island home, and then south- west through the leading towns of Kentucky and Ten- nessee to New Orleans. Burr talked with Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and all the prominent men and 3O FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. reported that the West was ready for separation ; but when President Jefferson sent swift officers over the mountains to arrest him and had him tried for treason, the entire plan of a Mississippi valley republic was dropped. Nullification next appeared in New England in 1814. The people of that section had for years been dissatisfied with the general government and for two years had sternly opposed the war with England. The Massachu- setts legislature called the Constitution a compact, de- clared for nullification, and voted t@ raise $1,000,000 for a State army of 10,000 men. Delegates from Massa- chusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut met in conven- tion at Hartford, and, after a session of three weeks r voted that the national government should not be per- mitted to retain the tariff duties collected in New Eng- land. Behind this demand was the distinct intention to break up the Union. To give way to this demand was to bankrupt the government, and to refuse was to bring certain disunion. Fortunately the brilliant victory won by General Jackson at New Orleans and the close of the war gave the people new confidence in the Union, and the sentiment of secession not only rapidly disappeared, but became a reproach and a byword to those who had held it. The last, and by far the greatest, attempt at nullifica- tion was made by South Carolina in 1832. Several facts led to this bold attack on the Union. In 1824 the North and West combined to pass a tariff law which was strongly opposed by the entire South. Webster him- self opposed it, and John Randolph threatened resistance by force. Three years later, Robert Turnbull, of South Carolina, published thirty-one essays on the "Crisis,"" NULLIFICATION. 3! and advocated secession if justice was not done to the South with respect to the tariff" laws and to slavery. He, and not Calhoun, was the real author of nullification in South Carolina. In 1828, Congress passed a law still more offensive to the South, called the " Tariff of Abom- inations." Five States at once protested against the law. A large mass meeting in South Carolina resolved against any further trade with the West and the North. Turn- bull now actively urged nullification and the new doc- trine grew in favor at the South. The " great debate " between the North and the South on the question of nullification took place in the Senate chamber at Washington in 1830. On that memorable twenty-sixth of January, every part of the room was densely crowded with senators, various public officers and visitors. Many members of the House were pres- ent. John C. Calhoun was president of the Senate. Several Southern men were grouped together for mutual support. A number of Massachusetts men stood in one part of the chamber, confident in the patriotism and power of their great senator. Webster spoke for the North, Hayne of South Carolina for the South. Hayne was a man of fine and lofty character, courteous, frank and sincere. He ranked high as a lawyer and an orator. Webster's very look expressed force and power. His abundant black hair, the superb, crag-like brow, the dark, piercing, deep-set eyes and the firm lines of the massive face marked him as a great antagonist. Hayne, with clear statement and persuasive oratory, had said that a State could nullify a law of Congress and that the Constitution was nothing but a compact or a contract. Webster denied the power of peaceable nullification and asserted that the Constitution was a great charter of 32 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. government, " made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people." He showed that nulli- fication would make the Union "the servant of four-and- twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all." His speech was a great plea for the power and continuance of the Union. He took the vague and unformed sentiment of nationality and breathed into it the breath of life. His speech was " like an amendment to the Constitution." But the " nullifiers " were not dismayed. Shortly after the debate in the Senate, they planned to win President Jackson to their side. He was invited to a banquet in memory of Jefferson and was asked to deliver an address. He astonished the " nullifiers " by the toast which he gave "The Federal Union, it must be pre- served," and he spoke strongly for the Union. On July 4, 1831, the States Rights party held a great cele- bration in Charleston, South Carolina. A huge build- ing in the form of a pentagon, and seating 12,000 peo- ple, had been erected for the occasion. Festoons of flowers and evergreens decorated the interior, and with- out were planted pine, hickory and palmetto trees. The ladies of the city also gave a beautiful banner. Hayne delivered the oration. In the same city and on the same day, a Union meeting was held. Several thousand per- sons, with waving banners and bands of music, marched in procession to a church, where speeches for the Union were made and where Washington's Farewell Address was read. President Jackson sent down a special letter which expressed his love for the Union. Dinner was served in a great building fifty feet wide and one hun- dred and fifty feet long. Festoons of flowers and ever- greens within, and trees without, also adorned the NULLIFICATION. 33 structure. Three full-rigged vessels were placed over the front of the building. Above the archway were the words " Don't give up the ship." In November, 1832, 162 delegates met in convention in South Carolina and declared certain tariff laws "null, void, and no law." The State armed and drilled 20,000 men and built arsenals and depots for supplies. In December of the same year, President Jackson issued a proclamation to the rebellious State in which he denied the power of nullification, and warned South Carolina to yield. Hayne, who was now governor of that State, issued a proclamation defying the President. Calhoun took Ilayne's place in the Senate of the United States to de- fend nullification. The President now asked Congress for extra power to enforce the tariff laws. This was granted by the " Force Bill," which became a law in March, 1833. In the meantime, Henry Clay proposed and secured the passage of a new tariff law which was acceptable to the South. In view of the firm stand of the President and of the compromise by Clay, South Carolina yielded, and repealed her ordinance of nulli- fication. , The general result of the whole controversy was a vic- tory for the Union. As a protest against unpopular laws, nullification had succeeded; as a principle, it had failed. It never afterwards was used even as a form of protest; but the doctrines behind it that the Constitution is a compact and that each State is sovereign spread throughout the entire South until the opening of the Civil War. 34 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. XIII. "OLD NAT'S WAR:" 1831. In 1831, a band of negroes in Virginia, under the lead of Nat Turner, rose against their masters, murdered fifty-five persons and became the terror of the whole State. Turner was born in 1800 and was owned by a wealthy planter. In 1830, his master hired him out to a wealthy planter named Joseph Travis, who treated the slave well. But Nat was not content to be a slave and soon ran away. He had early learned to read and write and also became deeply religious. He had a vivid vision of a great combat between white spirits and black spirits far up in the sky. He thought himself a prophet and believed God had given him a mission to free the negroes. He avoided a crowd, was dreamy and never laughed. He was below the usual height, feeble in body, with thin hair, flat nose, and had a shrewd ex- pression. An eclipse in 1831 seemed to Turner a visible sign from Heaven to fulfill his mission. He held a secret meeting with five other negroes and they agreed to spare neither age nor sex. The band soon numbered over sixty, making a raid of about twenty miles through Southampton county and murdering fifty-five white per- sons. Swift companies of white men quickly formed and the whole southeastern part of Virginia was in arms. A reward of $1,100 was offered for Turner's capture. For six weeks he lay hid under a pile of rails, but was at last caught. He and twelve other negroes were tried, convicted and hung. This murderous raid sent a thrill of terror into every Southern home. Nu- merous plots in other parts of the South were also reported, and every planter felt that Southern society THE ABOLITIONISTS. 35 rested on a volcano. Virginia passed severe laws against the negroes, forbade their meetings and ordered the ar- rest of their preachers. This terrible fear explains in part why the South so bitterly opposed all the efforts of the Northern abolition- ists. In 1835, President Jackson asked Congress to close the mails to all papers, pamphlets and books which might lead to slave insurrection. John C. Calhoun in- troduced such a bill in the Senate, where it was lost by only six votes. The mail bags were broken open in South Carolina and a bonfire was made of the abolition documents. Petitions to Congress on the subject of slavery met with violent opposition. Ex-President John Quincy Adams presented to the House hundreds of petitions against slavery. One day he presented 511, representing 300,000 persons at the North. The whole House was in an uproar. Cries of "Censure him!" " Expel him! " arose. After three days of passionate de- bate and violent abuse, Adams got the floor and made a great speech for the right of petition. But the House adopted the " Atherton gag rule," which provided that all petitions be laid on the table " without being debated, printed or referred." This rule held from 1836 to 1844. XIV. THE ABOLITIONISTS: 1830-1840. The first leading abolitionist was Benjamin Lundy. From 1820 to 1830 he traveled over 25,000 miles, 5,000 miles afoot, gave hundreds of addresses, and visited nine- teen States, Canada, Hayti, Texas and Mexico. He organized many abolition societies and published a paper c illed " The Genius of Universal Emancipation." By his efforts the first national abolition convention was held 36 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. at Baltimore in 1826. He died in 1839, a ^ ter having given nearly his whole life to free the slaves. Of all the abolitionists, none stands out more clearly than William Lloyd Garrison. In 1830 he was tried and convicted in Baltimore for publishing an article on slav- ery. He was sentenced to pay a fine of $50, and not being able to do so was lodged in jail for seven weeks. While in prison he wrote a fierce letter against slavery. After leaving Baltimore he gave several lectures on his way from Philadelphia to Boston. At this city, on Jan- uary i, 1831, he issued the Liberator, the most remark- able paper ever published in the United States. On its very front sheet was the picture of an auction where " slaves, horses and other cattle " were offered for sale, and near this was seen a whipping post at which a slave was being flogged. In the background was the Capitol at Washington with the flag unfurled above the dome. In the first issue of the Liberator he wrote: "I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. . . . I am in earnest. I will not equivocate I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." In 1835 at a meeting held by some abolition- ists in Boston, a mob seized him, put a rope around his body, dragged him through the streets, and would have taken his life had not the mayor rescued him and placed him in jail for protection. When President Tyler visited Boston, Garrison published two addresses. In one he asked the President to free his slaves. In the other he addressed the slaves of the South as follows : " If you come to us and are hungry, we will feed you; if thirsty, we will give you drink; if naked, we will clothe you; if sick, will administer to your necessities; if in prison, we will visit you; if you will need a hiding place from THE ABOLITIONISTS. 37 the face of the pursuer, we will provide one that even blood-hounds will not search out." The Liberator had a small circulation, but it roused the wrath of every Southern planter. South Carolina offered a reward of $1,500 to convict any person found circulating the Liberator in that State. Nor was this paper without effect at the North. Nine years after the first issue, there were 2,000 abolition societies wdth 200,000 members enrolled. While Garrison was stirring the South to its center, Elijah P. Lovejoy, at Alton, Illinois, paid with his life his devotion to the cause of abolition. Lovejoy was born in Maine and graduated from a small college in that State. In 1826 he went to St. Louis, Missouri, as a teacher, but soon became the editor of a religious paper. Later he removed to Alton, Illinois. While he was here a case in the courts aroused his indignation. A negro had aided two quarreling sailors to escape from an officer. For this the negro was arrested, and on be- ing told that his punishment would be five years in prison, he broke away from the officers and stabbed one of them fatally. He was recaptured, but was taken from the jail by a mob and slowly burned to death at the stake. For twenty minutes the flames coiled and hissed about him and he died after the most frightful agony. Judge Lawless told the grand jury to do nothing with the murderers. Lovejoy in his paper commented severely on the heartless judge. A public meeting was soon called to stop the further issues of Lovejoy's paper. To the surprise of the crowd, Lovejoy appeared at the meeting. He told them that his conscience would not let him stop in his course and that he spoke only for FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. truth and justice. His speech made a great impression, but it was not lasting. About this time he ordered a new printing press, and it reached Alton in the morning of November 7, 1837. The mob blew horns to notify all that it had come. At ten o'clock in the evening, about thirty men came out of a saloon, went to the printing office and demanded the press. Lovejoy, with seven others within the building, refused. The mob then threw stones through the win- dows, and both sides fired shots. Soon was heard the cry, " Burn them out ! " and a ladder was brought for that purpose. Lovejoy now came out of the building and was at once shot and killed. The mob then broke the press in pieces and threw the type and fragments into the Mississippi river. The next day the body of Lovejoy was borne home with scoffing to his wife and children. He lies buried on a bluff overlooking the great river. News of this tragedy soon traveled over the North. W. E. Channing, the noted minister of Boston, together with one hundred other citizens, called a meeting at Faneuil Hall on December 8, 1837. A great audience was present. James T. Austin, the attorney-general of Massachusetts, spoke and said that Lovejoy " died as the fool dieth." Wendell Phillips sat in that audience. He was unknown, but he quickly stepped to the platform and with flashing eye and intense force he said of Austin, "for the senti- ments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of the Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up." He then followed with a speech which placed him in the front rank of American orators. THE LIBERTY PARTY. 39 The abolitionists were very active all through the North from 1830 to 1840. By 1840 there were over 2,000 abolition societies and 200,000 members. Thou- sands of speeches were made and millions of documents sent through the mails for the cause of abolition. Lowell and Whittier wrote poems for the new cause. Emerson said the abolitionists " might be wrong-headed, but they were wrong-headed in the right direction." But active as they were, they formed only a small part of the population. Not one man in ten was an abolitionist. At first they were hated and despised. Nearly all classes of society were against them. They were re- garded as fanatics and disturbers of the peace. Churches and halls were refused them. Mobs broke in on their meetings and stoned their speakers. But gradually the tide turned. The high character and purpose of the abolitionists compelled a respectful hearing, and with this hearing thousands of new abolitionists sprang up. XV. THE LIBERTY PARTY: 1840-1843. Out of all this agitation by the abolitionists arose a new political party. In 1840 the anti-slavery men held a national convention in New York to form the Liberty Party, and delegates were present from all the New England States, together with New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The convention voted to nominate a President and Vice-President and urged all members to vote for township, county and State of- ficers who were pledged against slavery. The new party cast only 6,784 votes for James G. Birney in 1840. But there were in fact 70,000 abolitionists then in the North. Nine-tenths of these did not vote for their party 40 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. on account of disagreement as to the methods and prin- ciples. During the next three years, the various factions in the Liberty Party settled their differences, and in 1843 a thousand delegates, representing every free State except New Hampshire, met in convention at Buffalo, New York, and nominated James G. Birney for President. He received over 62,000 votes. In no State did the abolitionists number more than one-tenth of the voters. But the noteworthy fact of the campaign of 1844 was that the Liberty Party threw the election into the hands of the Democrats, who had openly declared for more slave territory. This result was brought about in the State of New York, where Polk had received only 5,000 more votes than Clay. In that State the Liberty Party had received 15,000 votes and these were drawn largely from the Whig Party. This result brought forth a storm of indignation from the Whigs, and the Liberty Party soon disbanded. XVI. THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. In 1821 the Spanish colonists of Mexico separated their country from Spain and three years later set up a republican form of government. Texas was one of the States of Mexico and had a mixed and scattered popu- lation of Spaniards, Indians and Americans. In 1830 the President of Mexico issued his decree that further immigration from the United States should stop, that convicts from the prisons of Mexico should be settled in Texas, and that heavy taxes should be paid to the Mexi- can government. With scarcely 2,000 able-bodied men, Texas at once revolted and in 1833 adopted a constitu- tion of its own. Three years later Mexico tried to set THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 4! aside the Texan self-government, but the people again rebelled and declared their independence on March 2, 1836. The next year the United States, France, Eng- land and Belgium recognized the new republic of Texas. In 1836 the total population of Texas was only 100,000, and but 3,370 votes were cast that year for officers of the government. The army had but 2,200 men, and the navy consisted of four vessels carrying twenty-nine can- nons. The money was nearly worthless, there were no roads, no post-offices, no jails, no courts. But with all these disadvantages the bold Texan ran- gers were more than a match for the Mexican soldiers sent against them. Under the brilliant leadership of Sam. Houston their independence was maintained for years. General Sam. Houston was a man after Jack- son's own heart. He was born in Virginia but removed to Tennessee. Before he was thirty-five he was repre- sentative in Congress and governor of the State. On account of home troubles he resigned the governorship, fled to the Indians, adopted their habits, became a chief, and roamed for three years with them on the Western plains. He joined the Texans in their struggle for in- dependence, became their general, was elected President of the new republic, and when Texas sought admission to the United States he appeared in the Capitol at Washington, bearing in his hand the gift of his great State. Texas had no wish be a free and independent nation. Bands of settlers from Louisiana and Mississippi had gone into Texas and the sentiment was strongly in favor of admission into the Union. A Texas envoy had urged President Van Buren to declare annexation, but fearing opposition the President refused. Soon afterwards the 42 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. Senate voted against annexation. In 1837 Webster voiced the opinion at the North in opposition to the ad- mission of Texas. For six years the question slept, but Southern men were determined to add Texas to the slave area of the Union. In the summer of 1843 the intrigue for annexation was in full progress. President Tyler was in favor of the plan. Andrew Jackson used his wide influence for it. The legislatures of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi declared for annexation. In March, 1844, John C. Calhoun was made Secretary of State, and by his management the plan moved forward by leaps and bounds. In April he promised the army and navy of the United States to aid Texas against Mexico. In the same month he sent a treaty of annexa- tion to the Senate, which voted against the admission of Texas. The question was at once thrown into the presi- dential campaign of 1844. XVII. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1844. The Whig national convention met at Baltimore on May i. Thousands were present and Henry Clay was nominated for President by acclamation. In April he had written a letter against annexation. As the cam- paign went on he became alarmed. He was surrounded by Southern men who wished more slave territory. In August he wrote his famous " Alabama" letter, in which he stated that he wished to annex Texas " upon just and fair terms," and that "the subject of slavery ought not to affect the question one way or the other." This offended the Northern Whigs and defeated him. That letter drove enough Whigs into the Liberty Party in New THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 43 York to carry the State for the Democratic Party, and on New York hinged the election for President. The Democratic national convention met at Baltimore on May 27. It boldly declared for " the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest practicable period " and Polk was nominated for President. After the election, the Democrats claimed that the people had declared for an- nexation, and Congress, at its next session in December, 1845, admitted Texas as a State. XVIII. THE WAR WITH MEXICO: 1846-1848. A boundary line between Texas and Mexico was at once the subject of dispute. The United States claimed Mason and Buchanan, met at Ostend, Belgium, in October, 1854. They issued a manifesto de- claring for the purchase of Cuba for $120,000,000; "but if Spain, dead to the voice of her own interest, and actu- ated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States," then " we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power." This manifesto attracted wide attention in Eu- rope. The London Times stated: "In this Ostend mani- festo a policy is avowed which, if declared by one ot the great European powers, would set the whole continent in a blaze." War was expected at Madrid. Soule, the min- ister of the young nation that was rising with so much power beyond the ocean, was received at the Spanish court with marked attention. Besides representing a nation that seemed to adopt the language and attitude of a highwayman, he was well qualified to attract notice anywhere. He appeared before the king and queen of Spain in a costume like that worn by Benjamin Franklin 68 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. at the court of France. His black velvet suit richly embroidered, his black silk stockings, his dress sword, his pale complexion set off by black eyes and hair, made him a marked figure. Part of the President's cabinet desired war with Spain. A reckless plan to invade Cuba was well known at the South. Senator Slidell of Lou- isiana started a movement in the Senate to suspend the neutrality laws to aid such a hostile expedition to Cuba. The Ostend manifesto was thus the declaration and part of a general plan to extend the area of slavery. The South hoped that Cuba as well as Kansas might be made a slave State. XXXIII. THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: 1854-1856. The Kansas and Nebraska act of 1854 was a blow strong enough to weld the various anti-slavery elements into one compact political party. For four years the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law had multiplied the enemies of slavery. " Uncle Tom's Cabin " had been read with emotion in tens of thousands of homes. The breaking up of the Whig party paved the way for a new party. The solid front of the Democratic party in defense of slavery demanded the formation of a party for freedom. The earliest move for a new party was at Ripon, Wis- consin. In February, 1854, A. E. Bovay called a meet- ing at the Congregational church to protest against the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 'This village political meeting was largely attended by men and women and they passed resolutions to form a new party if Congress should pass the bill opening Kansas to slav- THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 69 ery. Mr. Bovay then said that the new party would probably be called Republican, but he advised delay as to the name. On February 26, 1854, ^ e wr te Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune: " Now is the time to organize a great party to oppose slavery. . . . Your paper is now a power in the land. . . Urge all parties to band together under one name, I mean the name Republican." On June 24 the Tribune stated that the name Republican had been suggested and each week this paper then went out to 150,000 persons. The Tribune was a kind of political Bible in the North. Greeley now wrote Jacob M. Howard of Michigan that Wisconsin would adopt the name Republican on July 13, and he urged all the anti-slavery men of Michigan to choose the same name at their State convention on July 6. This convention met at Jackson, " under the oaks." Zachariah Chandler and a fugitive slave were the principal speakers. The assembly " Resolved, That the institution of slavery, except in punishment of crimes, is a great moral, social and political evil." The first Republican ticket was put forth and the name formally adopted. Just a week later Wisconsin and Vermont adopted the name. On the same day 10,000 people assembled at Indianapolis and passed resolutions against the Kan- sas-Nebraska Law, but the name Republican was not chosen. On July 20, 1854, 2,500 people met at Wor- cester, Massachusetts, and declared against slavery and in favor of the name Republican. These various State conventions resolved against one or more of the follow- ing: The Kansas-Nebraska Law, the Fugitive Slave Law, and slavery in the District of Columbia. In the fall election the new party carried nine States. 7O FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. The Republican party got its members from three other parties. The Free Soilers eagerly joined a party so like their own. Thousands of Northern Democrats came out for freedom. But the main strength came from the Whigs. The members of this party were now in political confusion. For long years they had relied on the rare leadership of Clay, and the still rarer ability of Webster, and now both were gone. The party was hopelessly divided on the slavery question. Most of the Northern Whigs believed slavery was wrong, and be- sides it was easier to join a new party than to vote with old enemies. These three sources furnished to the Re- publican party in 1854 * ts sudden and rapid growth. But at this time the new party lacked leadership. Horace Greeley did more than any other man to unite the North against the slave power. Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, was an able and aggressive advocate of free- dom. Seward was the man best qualified to lead the whole party; but he did not join the new movement until the next year. In the autumn of 1855 he spoke out at Albany, and his speech was read by half a million men. He then said: "We want a bold, out-spoken, free-spoken organization. . . . Shall we report our- selves to the Whig party? Where is it? . . . The Republican organization has laid a new, sound and liberal platform, broad enough " for Whigs and Demo- crats to stand upon. Seward's influence was powerful in strengthening the new party. XXXIV. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1856. In January, 1856, the chairman of the Republican State Central Committees of Massachusetts, Vermont, CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1856. 71 Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin invited the Repub- licans of the North to meet at Pittsburg on February 22 to form a national party. On the day appointed, dele- gates from twenty-three States listened to speeches by Greeley, Chandler, Wilmot, Lovejoy and Giddings. This assembly issued an address to the people and appointed a time and place for a national convention. This convention met at Philadelphia in June. Two thousand men represented twenty-two States and Ter- ritories. The platform declared, " it is both the right and imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Ter- ritories those twin relics of barbarism polygamy and slavery." When John C. Fremont was nominated for President, the delegates threw hats and handkerchiefs into the air, and a large silk flag bearing his name was drawn across the stage. The Democratic national convention met at Cincinnati in June and nominated James Buchanan for President. The Richmond Enquirer truly stated of Buchanan: "He never gave a vote against the interests of slavery, and never uttered a word which could pain the most sensitive Southern heart." The platform declared for the Compromise of 1850 and for the Kansas-Nebraska Law. In the folio wing election the Republicans carried every northern State but New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois; and even in these four States they showed great strength. The Democrats carried these States and also the solid South, except Maryland, which gave its votes to a third party. Fremont got 1,341,264 and Buchanan 1,838,169 votes. The Republicans, in the brief space of two years, had made sweeping advances, and they justly regarded the election of 1856 as a moral triumph. 72 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. XXXV. THE ATTACK ON SUMNER: 1856. A month before Fremont was nominated at Phila- delphia, Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, delivered in the Senate a speech entitled "The Crime against Kansas," in which he made a bitter attack on Senator Butler, of South Carolina. Two' days later Preston Brooks, a representative from South Carolina, and a nephew of Butler, came into the Senate Chamber, and while Sumner was seated at his desk writing, struck him again and again on the head with a heavy gutta- percha cane an inch in diameter. Sumner fell back in his chair unconscious and with the blood running over his face. The House by a vote of 121 to 95 failed to expel Brooks as a two-thirds majority was necessary. But he at once resigned his seat, and, after being treated as a hero for three weeks in his State, was re-elected to Congress. The South either excused his action or ap- proved of it, while the North denounced it in unmeasured scorn. XXXVI. THE DRED SCOTT DECISION: 1856. Two days after the slave power had inaugurated a President of the United States, the Supreme Court handed down a decision intended to be of far-reaching effect. It related to slavery in the Territories. Dred Scott was the slave of an army surgeon who resided in Missouri. Hi's master had taken him to Illinois and later to Minnesota. The laws of Illinois prohibited slavery in that State, and Congress in 1820 had prohibited slavery in Minnesota. In 1853 Scott began a suit for his liberty in the courts of the United States. He claimed his free- dom on the ground of residence in a free State and Ter- THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 73 ritory. The case came up on appeal to the Supreme Court and was decided March 6, 1856. The decision consisted of two distinct parts: The first held that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri and hence not entitled to sue in the courts of the United States; that the laws of Illinois did not set him free ; that " the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution;" that the law passed by Congress forbidding slavery in Minnesota was unconsti- tutional, and that Dred Scott be therefore sent back to slavery. The second part of the decision went far beyond the question of one man's liberty. It held that Congress could no more exclude slaves from the Territories than it could shut out any other form of property, and that Congress was bound to protect the slave-owner's right to his property. At one blow this decision swept away every law and established the right to slavery in every Territory from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean. No appeal could be taken from this great court except the appeal to arms. The slave power now held two of the departments of the government and defied the third. The judges were influenced by the society in which they moved. Five of them were southern men. They often heard the debates in Congress. They dined and talked with the leaders of the South. There was no plot to influence their decision, but the judges soon came to believe that by forever settling the slavery question they would render the Supreme Court illustrious. But there was a general impression at the North that the decision was the result of a plot. This idea was best expressed by Lincoln: "If we saw a lot of framed tim- bers gotten out at different times and places by different 74 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. workmen Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James, and if we saw these timbers joined together and exactly made the frame of a house, with tenons and mor- tises all fitting, what is the conclusion? We find it im- possible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan before the first blow was struck." This statement was very popular, but it did not portray the real influences back of the great decision. The opinion of the court filled two hundred and forty printed pages and was a cold and pitiless review of the bondage and degradation of the negroes. Lincoln well expressed its spirit toward the slave: "All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy and the theol- ogy of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house, they have searched his person and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concur- rence of every key, the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places." XXXVII. THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE: 1858. The Dred Scott decision gave an impetus to slavery agitation. In the election of 1858 the Republicans every- where polled a much heavier vote. Pennsylvania, the President's home State, voted strongly against his ad- THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 75 ministration. Illinois, for the first time, was carried by the Republicans. In this State the " Lincoln and Doug- las Debate " held the attention of the nation for months to the single issue of slavery extension. All through the North sprang up renewed interest in the slavery ques- tion. The character and reputation of the men had much to do with the importance of the debate between Lincoln and Douglas. Although a young man, Douglas had been a leading candidate for the Presidency, had been in Congress for years, and in the Senate had met no equal in debate. His clear and vigorous English, his great energy in bold and direct statement and his rapidity and fertility of mind were the striking qualities of this natural orator and advocate. Long practice had taught him the moods and emotions of assemblages, and no man before an audience was better qualified to act the part of Marc Antony. But his situation demanded all his ability. It was well known that the President and his friends de- sired to see Douglas defeated. With most men this fact would have meant defeat. The Republican party, too, was daily increasing in strength. With loss of friends and increase of enemies, Douglas now put forth the greatest eftort of his life. Lincoln was now in his fiftieth year. From poverty and obscurity he had raised himself to leadership in his State. Without the aid of schools he had won high rank for his pure and clear English. In a rude society, he had all the instincts of a gentleman. His kindness was as deeply inwrought in his nature as was his humor. He loved the truth for its own sake. He believed in the right and that in the end the right would triumph. He had an abiding faith in the common people. He said: 76 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. " You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time." This man now stood before au- diences where his character was known, and his personal worth spoke louder than the forceful and adroit oratory of Douglas. Lincoln and Douglas were both candidates to repre- sent Illinois in the Senate of the United States. In June Lincoln said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will be- come all one thing or all the other." In July Douglas attacked this doctrine in a speech at Chicago. After two or three speeches by each candidate, Lincoln challenged Douglas to a joint debate. Douglas accepted, and seven joint discussions were held in different parts of the State. The first was at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, and the last at Alton, October 15. They were held in the open air, usually in groves, and from five to ten thousand persons were present at each discussion. The single issue of slavery was presented by each orator. Lincoln asked Douglas if a Territory could exclude slavery before such Territory became a State. He knew if Douglas should say " No," and thus affirm that slavery was fastened upon a Territory in spite of its people, that the author and champion of " squatter sovereignty " could never be Senator from Illinois. He knew if Douglas should say " Yes," and thus affirm that a Territory could exclude slavery, that this would flatly contradict the Dred Scott decision, would offend the entire South, and that the am- bitious statesman could never be President of the United States. Douglas saw the full force of the question. He JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 77 answered that a Territory could not directly exclude slavery, but that it could by unfriendly laws so hamper the slave-holders' rights that slavery would be practi- cally excluded. This halting answer cost Douglas the Presidency. Lincoln's question was a wedge between the northern and southern Democrats. In November following the debate the Republicans polled 125,430 and the Democrats 121,609 votes; the friends of Buchanan cast 5,071 ballots. Owing to a previous apportionment, the Democrats still controlled the legislature, and Douglas was soon re-elected to the Senate. But the moral victory remained with the new party. The Illinois campaign had attracted the attention of the whole Union. Lincoln's speeches were published in the large cities of the North, and formed a kind of platform for the Republican party. Longfellow read his speeches with approval. Greeley came to his support in the col- umns of the Tribune. Colfax and Chase spoke many times in Illinois. Douglas, beside meeting Lincoln in the seven debates, made a hundred speeches in the State. Both North and South knew that the campaign was a contest between freedom and slavery, and that freedom had won. XXXVIII. JOHN BROWN'S RAID: 1859. The Illinois campaign of 1858 aroused the conscience of the North, but the next year John Brown's raid deeply stirred the wrath of the entire South. Brown was a religious enthusiast, and his plan was wildly absurd, but his raid at Harper's Ferry on October 17 sent an instant and profound alarm of a slave insurrection throughout the fifteen slave States. 78 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. John Brown was the sixth in descent from Peter Brown, who came over in the Mayflower. He was born in Connecticut in 1800, but with his parents came to Ohio five years later. After leaving his father's farm he tried and failed in the business of a tanner, a surveyor, a farmer, and of a dealer in wool. In October, 1855, he went to Kansas with his sons, and in the border warfare he soon became the terror of the pro-slavery party. He was tall and slender and impressed one by his serious manner. He was deeply religious, but he was a Puritan transplanted to the nineteenth century. He read the Old Testament constantly and greatly admired Oliver Cromwell. He had a strong will and undoubted courage. He believed that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." His education was limited, his faith dogmatic. He had a burning hatred for slavery, and his religious mind transformed all the great influences of freedom into a personal call to duty. For twenty years he had pondered over some way to free the slaves of the South ; but out of his experience in Kansas he had formed the plan to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry and then call all the slaves to freedom. He expected that thousands of slaves would join him, and that Northern men would flock to his defense. In 1857 he ordered of a Connecticut firm a thousand pikes, which two years later were used by him at Harper's Ferry. In the early part of 1858 he was instructing twelve men in Iowa in military drill, and a little later he visited Frederick Douglas at his home in Rochester, New York, and explained his plan in full. He then went to Boston, where he received some encouragement, re- turned to Iowa, collected his band and with them went east by way of Chicago and Detroit to Chatham, in Canada. JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 79 Here he outlined his plan to a motley assembly of negroes and white persons men, women and boys and was b}' them elected commander-in-chief. Disap-. pointed in his hopes of aid from Boston he was forced to put off his attack for nearly a year. But on July 4, 1859, Brown and his two sons rented a farm five miles from Harper's Ferry. Here they quietly collected some rifles and tents, and assembled a small body of men and boys. All was done so well that no suspicion arose. Harper's Ferry had a population of 5,000, and the government arsenal usually contained over 100,000 stand of arms. At 8:00 P. M., Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, Brown, with eighteen men, left the farm and reached the town three hours later. They at once captured the arsenal and posted sentinels. They detained the midnight passenger train for three hours. In the morning a thousand men in arms attacked Brown and his followers and drove them into a brick engine house. In answer to telegrams President Buchanan sent eighty marines, under Robert E. Lee, from the navy yard at Washington, and these arrived at Harper's Ferry on Monday evening. The next morning, on Brown's re- fusal to surrender, the engine house was stormed and Brown, with six others, were made prisoners. Ten of the band were killed and five escaped. Brown was soon tried and sentenced to death. On the way to the gal- lows he kissed a negro child and spoke of the beautv of the landscape. In the presence of death he had no fear and no regret. The wrath of the South rose high at Brown's attempt to free the slaves in a slave State. The North was ac- cused of inciting and then justifying the attack. The Republican party was held responsible for what the 8O FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. slave-holders thought was a lawless and criminal in- vasion of a peaceful State. The raid strengthened the enmity between the two sections and hastened the civil XXXIX. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1860. Six months after John Brown's raid the Democratic National convention met at Charleston, South Carolina. The delegates from the fifteen slave States demanded that the platform should clearly set forth the right to hold slaves in a Territory and the duty of Congress to protect slavery in such Territory. The northern dele- gates refused to agree to this imperious demand. On such a platform they knew that their candidate, Stephen A. Douglas, could never be elected. The convention, by a vote of 165 to 138, refused the demand to force slavery into the Territories. The delegates from Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas and Arkansas at once withdrew from the convention. If they could not rule they would ruin the Democratic party. The remainder of the convention adjourned to meet again in Baltimore on June 18, 1860. At the ap- pointed time and place the delegates reassembled, and seven States Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and California with- drew. The remainder of the convention nominated Douglas for President. The southern Democrats nomi- nated John C. Breckenridge for President. This hope- lessly divided the Democratic party and broke the strongest bond between the North and South. The Republican National convention was held in Chi- cago on May 16, 1860. Four hundred and sixty-six CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF i860. 8 1 delegates assembled in a large square building called the Wigwam, and ten thousand spectators watched their proceedings. The noted lawyer, William M. Evarts, headed the New York delegation. Horace Greeley was there as the representative of the distant State of Oregon. The interest was eager and even intense. The whole assembly was confident that the next President of the United States would there be nominated. Three candi- dates Lincoln, Chase and Seward were before the convention. On the first ballot Lincoln received 102 and Seward 175 votes. On the third ballot Lincoln received 231 and Seward 180 votes. Only three more would give Lincoln a majority of the convention. A hush fell upon the great assembly. Just then Ohio gave four more votes to Lincoln and assured his nomination. En- thusiasm now broke forth, and a cannon placed on the roof was fired off. At the close of the third ballot Lin- coln received 364 votes, and stood forth the standard- bearer of a young, vigorous, determined and widely extended political party. A Constitutional Union party met in convention at Baltimore and nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, for President. It opposed both the Democrats and Repub- licans, and pledged a firm allegiance to " the Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforce- ment of the laws." Four candidates were now before the public. Lincoln stood pledged against the extension of slavery. Breck- inridge was pledged to extend it bylaw. Douglas aimed to evade the issue by his doctrine of "squatter sover- eignty." Bell hoped to avoid the issue by ignoring it. Enthusiasm and deep earnestness marked the cam- paign. Lincoln took almost no part in it, but he closely 6 82 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. observed the great movement that was to place him at the head of the Nation. Seward's fame filled the North as he spoke in various places from New York to Min- nesota. Long torchlight processions, often numbering twenty thousand men, appeared for the first time. Low- ell, Whittier, Holmes, William Cullen Bryant and George W. Curtis rendered active aid to the Republican party. The election on November 6, 1860, showed the wide separation of the North and the South. Lincoln carried every northern State except New Jersey, and even in this State he received four of the seven electoral votes. Breckinridge carried every southern State except Vir- ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, but even here three of these States voted for Bell, who was a slave- holder, and Missouri voted for Douglas, whose ability in Congress had ever been on the side of slavery. Lincoln received 1,866,452; Douglas, 1,375,157; Breckinridge, 847,953, and Bell, 590,631 votes. XL. SECESSION: 1860-61. . Since 1850 the leading men of the South had deter- mined on secession if they could not maintain with the North equal power in the Union. It seemed to them that the North had gained in every contest over slavery. In 1820 their right to hold slaves had been abolished over a vast region north and west of Missouri. They had brought on the Mexican war to extend slavery, and all but Texas was practically free territory. They had forced through Congress a fugitive slave law, and it could not be enforced. They had secured the law to establish slavery in Kansas, and yet free men of the North had actual possession of the Territory. They SECESSION. 83 had gained from the Supreme Court a decision which might serve as a rock against the waves of public opin- ion, and it had been submerged. Every victory had turned to defeat. When Lincoln was elected they re- solved on independence from a power they could not control. For years the idea of a great slave republic had been rising in the Southern mind. By the war with Mexico the leaders had hoped to carry slavery clear through to the Pacific. Later on they intended to conquer Mexico, and spread slavery throughout its whole extent. They stood ready at any time to declare war against Spain, and take Cuba by force. With such vantage ground it would be easy to gain and hold northern South America. Around the Gulf of Mexico would then stand a huge slave empire, able to withstand the North, and secure the existence of slavery for the next century. The South resolved on secession if Lincoln should be elected. The legislature of South Carolina remained in session till after November 6 to hear the result of the election. W T hen the news was flashed over the wires that Lincoln would be the next President, the legislature voted money for arms and called a State convention. On December 18, 1860, this body met in Charleston amid rejoicing and deep feeling. Many gray-haired men were present. They soon passed the Ordinance of Secession: "We, the people of the State of South Car- olina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain . . . that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of 'The United States of America' is hereby dissolved." As the last word was read by an aged slave-holder, the con- vention broke into cheers, the crowd outside sent up a 84 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. great shout, church bells were rung, and a cannon sent forth its ominous note. In the evening the members of the convention entered Institute Hall in solemn procession for the purpose of formally signing the Ordinance of Secession. The docu- ment was first read, and then a white-haired minister asked God's blessing on the great step taken. It took two hours for all the members to sign the act of separa- tion, and many recalled the famous scene of 1776 in Independence Hall. Crowds of ladies in the galleries graced the occasion. Military companies marched through the streets, huge bonfires lighted up many squares, and fireworks flashed and glittered in the dark- ness. South Carolina at once took measures to show that she was a free and independent nation. The governor organized a cabinet, a new flag was adopted, and the Charleston papers published news from the United States under the heading "Foreign News." Commissioners were soon sent to Washington to secure from the gov- ernment of the United States the surrender of all forts and public buildings in the State of South Carolina. On January 5, 1861, the Senators from Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas met in Washington and resolved on secession, and by Febru- ary i every one of these six States had formally with- drawn from the Union. As each State seceded, its Senators and Representatives in Congress left Washing- ton for the South. As a rule they made no speeches and presented no list of grievances in breaking the unity and grandeur of the nation. DECISION AT THE SOUTH. 85 XLL THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA: 1861. On February 4 forty-two delegates, representing South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi- ana and Florida, met in the State House at Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a temporary government, and elected Jefferson Davis President and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President. These officers were to serve until a permanent constitution was adopted. On February 18 President Davis was inaugurated in the presence of a large assemblage. He tken said: " Our new govern- ment is founded upon , . . the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man." On March II a permanent constitution was adopted by seven States. XLII. THE PEACE CONGRESS: 1861. But a strong effort was now made to save the great Union. A Peace Congress of one hundred and thirty- three commissioners from twenty-one States met in Washington on February 4 and remained in session for twenty-three days. It advocated "the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific," and payment from the National "Treasury for all fugitive slaves res- cued after arrest." XLIII. DECISION AT THE SOUTH. While the North waited and did nothing, all at the South was decision and activity. As each State seceded it took possession of the post-offices, custom-houses and forts within its borders. Arms were purchased and large forces of men were instructed in military drill. Prom- inent men in the army, navy and civil service of the United States were constantly resigning to join the South^ 86 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. XLIV. DIVISION AT THE NORTH. President Buchanan declared that secession was ille- gal, but that the government of the United States had no power to force a State back into the Union. To destroy the Union was illegal, but to preserve it was unconstitu- tional. The President used his position to impress upon the country that the North was wrong and that the South was right. The New York Tribune stated: "If the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace." Other leading papers at the North declared for some peaceful settlement of all questions in dispute. On January 14, 1861, the legislature of Ohio asked the other States to repeal their personal liberty laws, and in three months Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts had complied with the request. The North quailed in the presence of actual disunion. XLV. LINCOLN'S JOURNEY TO WASHING- TON: 1861. In the midst of this uncertainty all eyes turned to the coming President. Early on Monday morning, Febru- ary n, 1861, Lincoln went from his home to the small station in Springfield to take the train for the East. More than a thousand of his friends and neighbors had gathered there for a last farewell. In silent emotion he grasped the hands of those who had known and believed in him. His progress eastward was one continued ova- tion. At Indianapolis thirty-three cannon shots greeted the arrival of his train. Governor Morton met him at the station in a carriage drawn by four white horses, and they drove through the city followed by the legisla- LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION. 87 ture and other State officers. In Cincinnati he met an immense crowd, and then went northeast to Columbus, where he addressed the legislature in the capitol. From this city he bore east to Pittsburg, and then northwest to Cleveland. Going east through Buffalo to Albany, he was amazed at the vast crowds that met him in the Empire State. At Troy he spoke to fifteen thousand people, and a quarter of a million persons saw him enter the streets of New York. In Philadelphia the vast as- semblage surpassed any that he had seen. On Febru- ary 22 he spoke in Independence Hall. Up to this time his journey had been determined by the invitations of cities and legislatures. But now no word of hospitality came from Maryland, through which he must pass. On the contrary, he received word from many sources that his life would be in danger in Baltimore. He at once took a night train, and in disguise passed through the hostile State and appeared in Washington the next morning. XLVL LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION: MARCH 4, 1861. On March 4 he was inaugurated, and great care was taken for his protection. General Scott placed the whole city under military guard, and received reports from his troops every fifteen minutes. The line of procession was along Pennsylvania avenue from the White House to the Capitol. Cavalry guarded all the side streets, and sharp- shooters lined the roofs along Pennsylvania avenue, with instructions to watch the windows on the opposite side of the street. Dense masses of mounted soldiers guarded Lincoln in the center of the street. The same care was taken on his return to the White House. 00 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. On his way from Springfield to Waslr'ngton Lincoln had carefully avoided any declaration of his policy. He wished first of all to be peacefully inaugurated. He said: " Let us do one thing at a time, and the big things first." But when he stood at the east front of the Capitol he knew that responsibility had come and that his words would be flashed to every part of the nation. He de- clared he would maintain the Union, and he threw the whole responsibility for war upon the South. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." XL VII. THE NORTH AND SOUTH COM- PARED: 1860. At last the North faced the South with a practical declaration of war. The long conflict of ideas was about to end and the conflict of force to begin. It will throw light on the great civil war which followed to compare the resources of the two sections, and for this purpose the census of 1860 is invaluable. For greater clearness, round numbers will be given, and in each comparison the seventeen free States will be contrasted with the eleven slave States which seceded. From Maine to Kansas, and from New Jersey to Min- nesota, seventeen free States formed a united and pow- NORTH AND SOUTH COMPARED. 89 erful nation. It had an area of over 600,000 square miles and a population of 19,000,000. The eleven "Con- feder^te States of America," extending from Virginia to Texas, formed another thoroughly compact nation, with an area of more than 700,000 square miles, and a population of 9,000,000. The war, in reality, was be- tween two distinct and independent nations. The four slave States Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Mis- souri furnished men and supplies to both sides. The distant and thinly inhabited States of California and Oregon gave little aid to the North. The North had great resources in its varied indus- tries, while the South relied mainly on the one occupa- tion of farming. The seventeen free States had over 100,000 manufacturing establishments worth more than $800,000,000, and employing more than 1,000,000 per- sons; the eleven slave States had 20,000 manufacturing establishments of all kinds, worth less than. $100,000, and employing 1 10,000 persons. The North had twice as many miles of railways, and five times the ocean tonnage. Even in agriculture the Northern farmers owned $4,800,000,000 worth of farm lands, while the Southern planter had only $1,800,000,000 in such prop- erty. The North led in intellectual as well as in material re- sources. It had 1,200 printing establishments to 150 in the South. North of Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio river there were 250 dailies and 1,800 weekly newspapers; while in the eleven slave States there were only 66 dailies and 600 weekly newspapers. The North had over 6,000 public libraries, circulating more than 5,000,000 volumes, while the South had half as many libraries, sending out less than 2,000,000 volumes. Two 90 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. million seven hundred thousand pupils attended the pub- lic schools in the North to 580,00 in the South. From 1790 to 1849 the North took out 16,514 patents for in- ventions, while the South had only 2,202 such patents. XLVIII. FORT SUMTER: APRIL 12, 1861. As fast as the States seceded they took possession of the forts and arsenals within their borders, and in the early months of 1861 there remained to tha Union only three forts: Fortress Monroe, in Virginia; Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, and the defenses at Key West, Florida. In January President Buchanan ordered the vessel, the Star of the West, to take supplies to Fort Sumter. As this vessel was entering the harbor on January 9, 1861, she was fired on by a Confederate battery and compelled to return to New York. This was the first overt act of war; but President Buchanan did nothing. In April the Confederates resolved to capture Fort Sumter. This fort stood in the center of the harbor, commanding its entrance, and contained forty-eight can- nons, hundreds of barrels of powder and many small arms. It was held by Major Anderson and 127 men. The Confederates erected strong land batteries within reach of the fort. On Major Anderson's refusal to sur- render the place they opened fire at 4:30 A. M., April 12, 1861. Nineteen batteries hurled shot and shell against the solid walls. The attack was begun on Fri- day morning and continued for thirty-four hours. On Saturday, at 11:00 A. M., the fort was on fire, and through the dense masses of black smoke the flames shot upward. A white flag soon rose above the walls, and the fort was formally surrendered. Major Anderson and his men were allowed to leave for the North. "A VISION OF THE WAR." pi The attack on Fort Sumter marked an epoch. It ended a long conflict of ideas and ushered in a conflict of force. It began the final struggle between freedom and slavey. The lurid and sinister glare from those guns on that eventful Friday morning, and the roar from their iron throats, should have sent a thrill of hope and joy to 4,000,000 slaves. XLIX. OPENING OF THE WAR. The news of the surrender was flashed over the Union. On April 15 Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion. Governors of States at once loyally responded, and in forty-eight hours a Massachu- setts regiment was on board a train bound for Washing- ton. The stars and stripes decorated the homes of millions at the North. Patriotic speeches were made from the platform and pulpit. The newspapers were filled with the news of preparation. Cannons were be- ing cast in the great foundries, and new foundries were being built. L. "A VISION OF THE WAR." " The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sound of preparation the music of the boister- ous drums the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of ora- tors; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men ; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when p2 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers, who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing; and some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words spoken in the old tones to drive away the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms standing in the sun- light sobbing at the turn of the road a hand waves she answers by holding high in her loving hands the child. He is gone, and forever. "We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild, grand music of war marching down the streets of the great cities through the towns and across the prairies down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. " We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood in the fur- rows of old fields. We are with them between contend- ing hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches of forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel. "A VISION OF THE WAR." 93 " We are with them in the prisons of hatred and fam- ine, but human speech can never tell what they endured. "We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. " The past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings governed by the lash we see them bound hand and foot we hear the strokes of cruel whips we see the hounds tracking women through tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite! " Four million bodies in chains four million souls in fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. And all this was done under our own beautiful banner of the free. "The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall. There heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand of progress touches the auction block, the slave-pen and the whip- ping-post, and we see homes and firesides, and school- houses and books, and where all was want and crime, and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. "These heroes are dead. They died for liberty they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stain- less, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tear- ful willows, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars they are at peace. In the 94 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for the soldiers- living and dead cheers for the living and tears for the dead." LI. THE AREA OF THE WAR. Seventeen free States now resolutely determined to maintain the Union and to put down the rebellion in the eleven slave States. The war spread over an area of 800,000 square miles. It lasted four years and held the attention of the civilized world. Its two great issues were the liberty of the slaves and the existence of re- publican government. LII. THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE ARMIES. During the war the North enrolled in its armies 2,850,000 and the South 1,100,000 soldiers. Of these 4,000,000 men, less than one-half were in actual service at one time. The war opened with a Union army of 16,000, and the Confederacy had not a single soldier. At the close of the war the North had enrolled 1,000,516 soldiers, and the South only 175,000. LIII. BATTLES AND LOSS OF LIFE. The total number of engagements of all kinds in the four years was 2,265. There were 330 battles where the Union loss in killed, wounded and missing was above 100. Seven hundred thousand soldiers died for the Union or for the Confederacy. FREEDOM OF THE SLAVES. 95 LIV. COST OF THE WAR. When Fort Sumter was surrendered the debt of the United States was about $80,000,000. When Lee sur- rendered it was $2,800,000,000. During the last three years of the war the Federal government collected $780,000,000 in taxes, sold $1,100,000,000 worth of bonds, and issued in the form of notes and paper money, $1,000,000,000. But the total cost of the civil war will not be known until the Confederate outlay can be given, the destruction of property on both sides ascertained, and the loss in labor of 4,000,000 soldiers is estimated with some accuracy. LV. THE FREEDOM OF THE SLAVES. At first the war was to save the Union and not to free the slaves. In February, 1861, the House of Repre- sentatives unanimously passed a resolution declaring that Congress had no power to touch slavery in the slave States. When Lincoln was first inaugurated he ex- pressly disclaimed any intention t-o interfere with slavery where it then existed. The North would not then sup- port an abolition war. The two giant forces of freedom and of slavery had come into deadly conflict, and one was trying to maintain a legal union with its natural enemy. But as the great war went on, its real cause thrust itself into all the military operations. The slave might be a laborer or soldier in the Union army. He was such in the Confederate army. He labored on the plantation, while his master, on the battle field, fought to make slavery eternal. The patient bondman faithfully and lovingly cared for the wife and children of the man who fought to destroy the sacredness and beauty of the lowly home. It was said that a single firebrand thrown into a 96 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. Southern home would have disbanded the Confederate armies ; and not one was thrown. This speaks eloquently for master and slave, but it can never justify a system that produced a constant succession of outrages. By their devotion the slaves defended slavery. They fur- nished a large army of laborers, who released an equal number of white men for active military operations. As the war went on the North was compelled to rec- ognize slavery as a fact of great military importance. In July, 1862, Congress confiscated the slaves of all per- sons in rebellion against the United States. This law alone would have freed nearly half of the slaves. At once the cry of an " Abolition War " went up at the North, and Lincoln appealed to the public in a remark- able letter to Greeley. " If I could save the Union with- out freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing ail the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do it." Lincoln seems to have had two distinct policies at this time. Deep in his heart lay an abiding love of justice, and he wished that this great war should not end with- out removing a great wrong. Years before he had seen a young girl sold at auction in New Orleans, and moved by strong emotion, he then said: " If I ever get a chance to hit slavery, I'll hit it hard." He was now in a position to strike slavery with all the energy of the North, and to put the South in defense of the wrong before the civilized world. But he knew that a war for abolition alone would not be supported. Hence he emphasized the military ne- cessity of emancipation. He sincerely believed in that necessity, but an almost divine justice and compassion controlled his action. THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 97 In September, 1862, Lincoln thought the time for ac- tion had come. The war had been in progress a year and a half, and the policy of the Administration would soon be considered in the November elections. A great battle had just driven a southern army from northern soil. Lincoln determined to let the North choose between freedom and slavery. On September 22, 1862, he. issued a proclamation de- claring " That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." On the day ap- pointed he issued the famous emancipation proclamation which made " Liberty and Union, one and inseparable." From this time on the Union soldiers were fighting to destroy slavery as well as to save the Union. Every battle was now a blow for freedom and every death a sacrifice, nobly rendered, to make the bondman free. At the close of the war the victorious North forced into the Constitution the thirteenth amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntarj'- servitude, except as a punish- ment for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." LVL THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. When the war began the North had only thirteen ves- sels ready for immediate service. The remaining sev- enty-seven were either disabled or thousands of miles away on distant seas. 98 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. The South had not a single sailor or vessel of war. It had only three rolling mills, no body of skilled mechan- ics, and no great gun factories or machine shops. But a single cotton crop might purchase a navy, and England would quickly buy the cotton and gladly sell the ships r and with these ships the South might sweep the north- ern commerce from the ocean. It was a clear military necessity for the North to have at least six hundred vessels to blockade the entire Con- federacy and to capture the forts and ports along its 1,900 miles of coast. To effect this great object, the government at once began to add to the navy in five ways. 1. Everything afloat that could be used in the service was bought. By July i, 1861, twelve steamers were added to the service. 2. Contracts were at once made with private parties to construct small but heavily-armored screw gunboats. Some of these were afloat in four months, and were called " ninety-dajr gunboats." 3. The government began the construction of sloops- of-war, and at the close of 1861 fourteen were in the service. 4. The government built very many paddle-wheel steamers for use on the rivers and in shallow channels. 5. The government constructed ironclad war vessels. As fast as these vessels were made they were sent along the coast to stop all trade with the South. Old vessels loaded with stone were sunk at the narrowest entrances to ports. Gunboats were stationed in or near the harbor, ready to capture or destroy any vessel at- tempting to pass. THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 99 This blockade was very effective. During the year before the war the South had sent 4,500,000 bales of cotton to Europe; but during the next year not over 50,000 bales passed the blockade. The price of cotton fell to eight cents a pound in the South and rose to fifty cents a pound in England. The prices of manufactured articles of all kinds rapidly rose in the Confederacy. During the war the navy captured over 1,100 prizes, worth $31,000,000, but its great work lay in destroying the foreign trade of the South. A cargo of manufactured articles from England soon commanded an extraordinary amount of cotton in the South and offered the strongest inducement to break the blockade. But as vessels could not enter the southern ports direct from Europe, it was necessary to have depots of supplies near the South. Four places Nassau, Ber- muda, Havana and Matamoras served as stations for the trade. The chief southern ports were Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington. A short run of five or six hundred miles connected these cities with Nassau. To carry on this short line trade it became necessary to have special vessels, known as blockade-runners. These were long, sharp-pointed, narrow side-wheel steamers. The hulls were painted in a dull gray color and rose but a few feet above the water. Anthracite coal was used to avoid much smoke, and the smoke- stacks rose but little above the decks. The vessels were constructed for speed, invisibility and stowage. On a dark night and with a high tide these vessels would run past the blockade, change cargoes, return to Nassau and reship the cotton to Europe. In four years 1,500 block- ade runners were made prizes or sunk and the trade was gradually diminished. 100 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. LVII. ENGLAND AND THE CIVIL WAR. A powerful party in England early showed sympathy for the South. The strength of this party was the aris- tocracy, and its leader was the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell. During the early part of the war nearly all the great newspapers, the leading magazines, and the interviews and speeches of prominent men openly ex- pressed sympathy for the South, and declared that the Union was destroyed. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton pre- dicted that four republics would spring forth from the ruins of the Union. Lord John Russell said, " The strug- gle is on the one side for empire, and on the other for power." Edward A. Freeman, the distinguished his- torian, had printed on the title page of one of his histories his belief in the " disruption of the United States." Glad- stone said, " The Federal government can never succeed in putting down the rebellion." \ Out of this public sentiment grew the hostile action of the English government. In February Lord John Rus- sell wrote to Lord Lyons in Washington that the United States had " sought for quarrels " with England, but that " British forbearance springs from the consciousness of strength and not from the timidity of weakness." In March a motion to recognize the independence of the Confederacy was made in Parliament. On May 6 Lord John Russell said in the House of Commons that the " Southern Confederacy of America . . . must be treated as a belligerent." On May 13 Charles Francis Adams, the United States minister to England, landed at Liverpool; and on the very same day, as if to show dis- courtesy, England's proclamation of neutrality was issued. In July Lord John Russell, through Lord Lyons at THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. IOI Washington, directed Mr. Bunch, a British consul at Charleston, to open negotiations with the Confederate government. The government at Washington demanded the recall of Mr. Bunch for this hostile movement, but England assumed full responsibility for the act and re- fused the demand. In the autumn of 1861 the Confederate government appointed James Murray Mason, of Virginia, and John Slidell, of Louisiana, ministers respectively to England and France. These officers were authorized to secure the full recognition of the Confederacy, to get loans and military supplies for the South, to make treaties, and to defeat the Union diplomacy. On the dark and stormy night of October 12 the ministers with their two secre- taries left Charleston for Nassau. From thence they went to Cardenas, Cuba, and then overland to Havana. From this neutral port they took passage on the Trent, a British mail steamer and a neutral vessel bound for a neutral port. They were clearly beyond the reach of legal capture. But on November 8 Captain Wilkes, of the United States man-of-war San Jacinto, captured the two ministers and their secretaries and took them as prisoners to Fort Warren, Boston. The whole North rejoiced at the capture. A banquet in honor of Captain Wilkes was given in Boston. On December 2 Congress gave him a vote of thanks. But Lincoln said, " I fear the traitors will prove to be white elephants. We must stick to American principles con- cerning the rights of neutrals. We fought Great Brit- ain for insisting, by theory and practice, on the right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done." Two days after the news of the capture was received the English cabinet met and demanded the immediate 102 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. release of the four men, and that a suitable apology should be rendered to the English government. Troops and supplies were at once ordered to Canada to enforce the demand. This was that " British forbearance that springs from the consciousness of strength," rather than a deliberate plan to destroy the great nation that for three-fourths of a century had risen with such power and splendor and that was now struggling for its very life. The prisoners were released and Gladstone taunted the North for its wavering policy. Unfortunately, Sew- ard returned the prisoners on the ground that they had not been formally adjudged in a prize court. This was nothing but the old right of search where a "British man-of-war had been made a floating judgment seat six thousand times." The plain fact was that the Trent was a neutral vessel, from a neutral port to a neutral port, and was, by international law, a part of the territory of the nation to which she belonged. But the English government permitted on its own soil open hostility to the Union. It allowed the Confederacy to establish on English soil an active naval department. There its vessels were built, repaired, armed, commis- sioned and sent forth to destroy the merchant vessels of the nation with which England was at peace. Years later England paid $15,500,000 in gold for her hostility to a friendly nation, but the remembrance of that hos- tility will never be effaced. There were two Englands. The landed aristocracy and their followers had no sympathy with republican governments; but the common people of England were the natural allies of the North, and their noblest repre- sentative was John Bright. This eloquent and able THE SOUTH IN 1865. 103 statesman deserves all honor in America. In the dark- est hour of the Union he foretold its final triumph, and eloquently portrayed its restoration over a vast domain with " one people and one language and one law and one faith, and over all that wide continent the homes of free- dom." The civil war produced the " Cotton Famine " in England, and 500,000 operatives, thrown out of em- ployment, were, at one time, receiving poor relief. This vast industrial army, under the stress of poverty, denied its sympathy to a slave republic. The common people of England felt that the North was fighting for free labor. LVIII. THE SOUTH IN 1865. At the opening of 1865 the situation at the South was desperate. The Union navy had utterly destroyed her foreign trade, and stood guard at every sea port. Sheri- dan, for the last time, was laying waste the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. Sherman had burned the factories and machine shops of the manufacturing center of the South, had made a wide swath of desolation to the sea, and now, destroying as he advanced, was march- ing North to join Grant at Richmond. Grant's army presented a solid front of iron and steel to Lee's small army behind the defenses around Richmond. The Con- federate troops lacked food and supplies of all kinds. The railroads were not repaired, the plantations were neglected, the money was worthless, desertions from the army were common, and the prisons were rilled with Union soldiers. 104 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. LIX. THE FALL OF RICHMOND. On Sunday, April 2, 1865, all was in confusion in the city. President Davis was at church when he received news of Grant's attack. He at once left the service, called a cabinet meeting, and decided that all the govern- ment archives should be taken out of the city. The State legislature and city council also met and took measures for departure. The arsenal and war vessels were now destroyed by tremendous explosions, and large stores of cotton and tobacco were set on fire to prevent capture by the enemy. All the liquor was ordered de- stroyed, but a mob gave free rein to disorder and crime. A desperate band of convicts set fire to the State prison, and in their striped clothes went yelling and leaping through the streets. One Lumkin had in his slave- trader's jail some fifty slaves men, women and chil- dren. These he chained together and got ready to leave the city. On Monday order was restored. A colored regiment, under the command of a grandson of John Quincy Adams, entered the city. They were regarded with perfect horror by the white people, and met with trans- ports of delight by the colored population. The black soldiers, in their bright uniforms, rose in their stirrups and waved their swords to greet the cheers of their colored brethren. LX. LINCOLN IN RICHMOND. On Tuesday Lincoln entered Richmond. Accom- panied by his son Tad and a small guard, and led by a colored man as a guide, he walked a mile and a half to the main part of the city. Crowds of colored people THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. 105 looked with wonder, joy and reverence on the man of whom they had heard so much. One white-haired negro wearing a crownless hat, without a coat, and in tattered clothes, half knelt before the President and said, " May de good Lord bless and keep you safe, Mars Linkum." "Lincoln raised his hat and his eyes filled with tears. LXI. LEE'S SURRENDER: APRIL 9, 1865. On April 3, 1865, Lee evacuated Richmond. It was a beautiful spring morning. Flowers grew by the way- side. Many peach trees along the way were in bloom. The air was pure and clear, and the pale green leaves gave a delicate color and charm to the landscape. Grant pushed his troops after the retreating Confed- erates. Sheridan, by rapid marching, got directly in front of Lee's line of retreat. On April 9 Lee sur- rendered his. whole army at Appomattox Court House, and the war was ended. LXII. ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. On the President's return to Washington he attended Ford's theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865. John Wilkes Booth, an actor, ambitious for fame, noiselessly opened the door at the rear of the box where Lincoln sat. He had a dagger in one hand and a pistol in the other. He sent a bullet through Lincoln's brain, jumped from the box to the stage, cried to the audience " Sic Semper Tyrannis," ran quickly across the stage, escaped through a rear door, mounted a horse in readiness, and fled in the darkness from the city. The assassin had done sure work. Lincoln moved 106 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. but slightly. His eyes closed, his head drooped forward, and he became unconscious. He was at once taken across the street to a room, and physicians were sum- moned. Members of the Cabinet watched at the bed- side during the night. Senator Sumner was there, his great frame shaken by sobs. Lincoln died the next morning a little after seven. Funeral services were held in the East Room of the White House, and then the cortege began its long jour- ney over the same route taken by Lincoln on his way to Washington four years before. As the funeral car moved along Pennsylvania avenue, it was preceded by a detachment of colored soldiers and followed by the min- isters of foreign nations, judges of the Supreme Court, members of Congress and chief officers of the govern- ment. Bells tolled and minute guns sounded from the distant fortifications. The body lay in state for two days in the rotunda of the Capitol. The tall columns and massive dome were draped in black. At Philadelphia a great concourse in Independence Hall looked on the face of the man who, four years before, in that place, had said, "Sooner than surrender these principles I would be assassinated on this spot." An immense mul- titude saw the remains in the City Hall of New York. In that city a solemn funeral hymn was rendered at mid- night by German musical societies. As the funeral train went along the Hudson, dirges and hymns were sang and crowds stood uncovered as the body was borne to its distant resting place. While he lay in state in the Capitol at Albany, his assassin stood at bay in a burn- ing barn and was shot by a Union soldier. The long journey westward was one continued tribute of grief and affection. At the grave his second inaugural ad- TWO FORCES. 107 dress was read, and its closing words marked well the trend of his life and character: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." LXIII. THE GRAND REVIEW. In May the armies under Grant and Sherman were assembled in Washington for a final and grand review. A large reviewing stand, finely decorated with flowers, evergreens and flags, was erected near the White House, and on this President Johnson, General Grant, the mem- bers of the Cabinet and other distinguished men assem- bled to honor the two great armies of the Union. For days before, every train had brought crowds of people into the city, and on the morning of the review Pennsyl- vania avenue, on both sides, was lined with a dense mass of humanity from the Capitol to the White House. An hour before the troops began to march, the school chil- dren of the city, bearing flowers for the soldiers, took position at the Capitol. For two days the great host, forming a column thirty miles in length, marched along the historic avenue. It was a great army that knew what war meant, and that had faced death on many battlefields. Their uniforms were worn and torn by hard service. Many flags had been cut into shreds by shot and shell. Memories of the fallen arose from the stern pageant as the great army began its last march for distant homes and friends. LXIV. TWO FORCES. From the voyage of the Treasurer to the fall of Fort Sumter the institution of slavery was a positive and ag- io8 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. gressive force in the industrial, social and political life of the South. For two and a half centuries it had spread over a vast and fertile country. It had built up fifteen slave States, embracing an area of 700,000 square miles. The slave was called "the mud-sill" of society, and slavery was termed " a good a positive good." Above this submerged mass appeared the courtesy and refine- ment of the white aristocracy. Slavery was protected in every department of local, State and national govern- ment. Nothing but a sweeping revolution from within or a gigantic attack from without could destroy an |in- stitution so interwoven with the structure of society.^ From the voyage of the Mayflower to the election of Abraham Lincoln freedom was a constant power in the industrial, social and political life of the North. During two and a half centuries that power had been extended from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate of California. Free labor was the foundation of Northern industry and progress. Millions of European immigrants poured fresh blood into the veins of the North. Manufactures multiplied, commerce on the Great Lakes enormously in- creased, and uniting the North was a great railway sys- tem, over which were whirled the myriad products of industry. The civil war brought these opposing forces together, and freedom triumphed over slavery. It was a victory of civilization over a relic of barbarism. It enlarged the ever-widening empire of freedom and justice. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. OMRT JUL 02 799? Form L9-Series 4939