Class h 1 78 Book Gopyriglitl«l°. • Mio COR'KIGHr DEPOSm nn TWENTIETH CENTURY TEXT-BOOKS OF HISTORY A HISTORY OF THE AMKRICAN NATION. H\ Anprew C McLaighi.in. A.M., LL.B.. rrotossor and Head of Department of History in the Univer- sity of Chicago. Illustratixl. Cloth. RKAOINCS IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMKRI- CAN NATION. By Trofest^or .A. C. McLwghun . 12nio.. Cloth. A companion book to ".A, History of the American Nation.'" A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH NATION. Hv George M. Wrong, M.A.. Professor of History. University of Toronto. Illustrated. Cloth. THE STORY OF THE ANCIENT N.XTIONS. Bv \Vii.ii.\M I.. \\b:sn:KM.\NN. Ph.D., .\ssociate Pro- fessor oi History, I'niversitv of XVisconsin. Illus- trated. Cloth. A HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE .\GES. By D.\n\ Carlkton MiNRO. .\.M.. Professor of European History, Princeton University. Illustrated. Cloth. A HISTORY' OF MODERN EUROPE. Bv Merrick Whuvombe. Ph.D.. Professor of Modern History. I'niversity of Cincinnati. Illustrated. Cloth. MUNROS MIDDLE AGES AND WHITCOMB'S MODERN EUROPE in one volume. Cloth. LIFE OF THE .VNCIENT GREEKS. Bv Charles BiRVON (.U-LICK. Ph.D.. Professor oi Greek in Harvard University. Illustrated. Cloth. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Nl \V YORK : : CHICAGO E 224 TWENTIETH CENTURY TEXT-BOOKS A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION BY ANDREW c. McLaughlin I'ROFESSOR, AND HEAD OF TIIK niJ'ARTMKNT, OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO •"', 1 NEW EDITION THOROUGHLY REVISED AND LARGELY REWRITTEN D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK CHICAGO £-/'/r Copyright, 1899, 1905, 190S, 1909 1911, 1913. 1916, 1919 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY ©CI.A530121 y\A^\> I PREFACE American history has been making at a very rapid rate in these early years of the twentieth century; events of importance have followed one another in quick succession; new views of social duty and new ideas concerning obligations in industrial relationships have come so quickly that it has been hard to keep pace with new conditions or to appreciate the principles of action. All of these developments have in some degree changed our attitude toward the past. The writer of history, if true to his faith and loyal to his science, will not allow his statements of fact and of social change to be colored or distorted by his hopes for the future or by his judgments of the present; it is his duty to tell his story — entertainingly if he can — but as calmly and truthfully as the facts and his grasp of them permit. And yet we are always getting new points of view, new angles of vision, new turning points in the onward road, from which to look back upon the past; and things which loomed large at one time or to one generation of history students are reduced to smaller dimensions; and, on the other hand, things that once seemed small and comparatively unimportant appear large and full of meaning when judged by later experience. As the present is the product of infinite factors working in the past, we must ever get, as we go on and as life changes about us, new glimpses of forces that have made us what we are. The main events of American history cannot be changed, and must be learned, as far as we can now see, by successive genera- tions of boys and girls; the planting of the English colonies on the edge of the new continent and their development in political capacity and self-sufficiency; the estrangement from the mother country; the war and independence; the formation of the federal V vi HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Union; the expansion of the republic till it reached across the continent and beyond; the ideals of democratic government influenced by the experiences of the frontier; the growth of slavery and of anti-slavery sentiment; the gradual separation of the sections until the South sought to sever the bonds of union; the declaration of the Civil War that there must be one nation, and that, as a house divided against itself will surely fall and a nation cannot exist half slave and half free, the nation should be wholly free; the gradual reconstruction, economic and political, after the struggle between the sections. But there are other things, too, and these to-day mean more to us than they did only a few years ago; the development of party machinery, the tasks of democratic government in a changing social order, the using — and sometimes the mis-using — of the natural re- sources of the country, the growth of cities and the multiplying of factories; — in fact, the new conditions which are the product of the manufacturing regime and w^hich have brought their demands for legislation and political action. Every passing year seems to add significance to the important general phases of industrial growth during the last fifty years, while the rela- tions of government to industry and to tasks of social better- ment are more and more the subject for discussion. This does not mean that history should be written from the point of view of industrial growth alone; on the contrary, perhaps never before w^as there such need for understanding political history and knowing the development or change of political principles, and for this reason, because political society, the state, the government, and law are now closely involved in every problem of industrial control, in every plan for general social regenera- tion. With some such ideas as this in mind, the present edition of this book has been prepared. The text of previous editions has all been carefully reexamined; portions of it have been re- arranged; the colonial period has been reduced to allow more space for the treatment of more recent history; considerable PREFACE vii portions have been rewritten. Some alterations have been made here and there or an explanation has been added where the ex- perience of teachers, who have used the book in the class room, indicated that alteration might make a statement more lucid or telling. Marked addition has been made to the story of the last forty years and an attempt has been made to bring out with distinctness the main characteristics of the period. Acknowledgment is due to the following for some of the illus- trations that have been used: the Houghton Mifflin Company, Ginn and Company, the Magazine of American History, the New York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the Boston Public Library, the Grolier Club, and Mr. R. T. Haines Halsey. The book in its older form has been used for some years in many class rooms, and, if I may judge from words of com- mendation that have come to me and for which I am grateful, it has been helpful to teachers in their task of making real to pupils the great and essential facts of American history. It is offered in this new form with considerable confidence that it will prove no less useful. It is, I may venture to hope, if not entirely free from error, in most respects abreast of modern scholarship in the field; to hope less would be to disparage the attention and thought given to the revision. Since the outbreak of the World War in 1914, in which, be- fore the end, the United States soldiers were fighting side by side with British soldiers to make "the world safe for de- mocracy," many persons have questioned the account given in our school text books about the Revolution and our various controversies with Great Britain. After reviewing carefully the pages of this text, the writer finds little if anything he believes wrong or misleading. The people of Great Britain do not to- day assert that right and justice were on the British side in the Revolution; they point out the fact that the Revolution was one hundred and fifty years ago and that since that time Britain viii HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION has become a democracy. Inasmuch as our history books do not include narratives of the development of Great Britain, we are likely to get the notion that the British people remained where they were a century and more ago, although one of the most impressive and significant facts in modern history is the "liberalizing" of the British state and of the British govern- ment. Of course the same thing may be said of France. That nation at the time of our Revolution was a state in the grip of a despotic government. When we fought with France against Britain in the War of 1812, France was in the power of an emperor who had no love for us. Since those days it has passed through many experiences, but to-day it and its people long to live with us on terms of friendship. Not to recognize these facts is to lose sight of the transformation of the political world. It may be a gross exaggeration to say that America has democra- tized Europe; but certainly American stability under popular government had some effect on the outside world, and at all events we can scarcely know ourselves if we do not realize that the world has become in many respects like ourselves. When American soldiers by thousands and tens of thousands crossed the ocean in British ships to disembark at a British port on the way to France to fight against military autocracy, we saw one of the most dramatic facts in history. America was coming back to Europe to aid the cause of democracy. Mere inherited suspicion of a country against which the United States fought a hundred years ago must not blind us to the fact that the really great thing in the world is friendly cooperation and the general development of civilization ; and the thing which gives us hope is that other nations, Great Britain not less than any other, are now based on faith in the people, which is the basis of democracy. Andrew C. McLaughlin. J ® i-INCOLN U' ' y liJttCe^ockV \i^y^€- UNITED STATES SCALE OF MILES 500 loenwich CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. — Discovery and Exploration i II. — The Southern Colonies — 1607-1700 19 III. — The New England Colonies — 1607-1700. ... 48 IV. — The Middle Colonies — 1614-1700 73 V. — The Colonies in the Eighteenth Century . . .87 VI. — France and England — 1608-1763 97 VII. — ^The Social, Industrial, and Political Conditions of the Colonies in 1760 112 VIII. — Causes of the Revolution 133 IX. — The Revolution — 1775-1783 154 X. — The Confederation and the Constitution — 1781-1789. 180 XI. — Organization of the Government — The Federalist Party in Control — 1 789-1801 198 XII. — Jeffersoni AN Democracy — Internal Development. . 223 XIII. — The Struggle for Rights Upon the Sea. . . . 236 XIV. — National Development; Industrial Problems . .256 XV. — Party Reorganization; Personal and Sectional Dis- pute 276 XVI. — The Jacksonian Era; The Tasks of a New Self-con- scious Democracy 290 XVII. — Slavery and the Texas Question 315 XVIII. — War with Mexico; Shall Slave-territory be In- creased? 332 XIX. — The Principle of Popular Sovereignty; the Forma- tion OF THE Republican Party 350 XX. — The Coming of the Crisis 365 XXL— Secession AND Civil War— 1861-1865 385 XXII.— Political and Social Reconstruction— 1865-1877. . 433 XXIII.— The New Nation— Party Strife — 1877-1885 . . 459 ix X HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION HAPTER PAGE XXIV. — ^The BEGIN^fINGS OF Modern Industrial America — 1859- 1903 474 XXV.— Twelve Years of Party Discussion^ The Tariff and Silver 493 XXVI. — The War with Spain — Imperialism and the White Man's Burden — 1897-1909 . 514 XXVII. — The Tasks of the Early Twentieth Century — i9cx>- 1913 527 XXVIII.— Democratic Ascendancy — The Tariff — Financial Re- form — Foreign Complications, 1913-1916 . . . 552 XXIX.— The World War 564 Appendix i Index xxvii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE George Washington Frontispiece Building a Ship of the Fifteenth Century 5 The Earliest Engraved Likeness of Christopher Columbus ... 7 Facsimile of the Sentence in Which America was First Named . .12 An English Ship of Private Ownership, About the Time of Sir John Hawkins 22 The Spanish Armada and the English Fleet in the Channel ... 23 Captain John Smith 29 From Captain John Smith's Generall Historie 31 An Indian Palisaded Village 34 Indian Treaty Belt of Wampum 37 First Page of the Bradford Manuscript 53 A Pilgrim Meeting House and Fort 54 Governor Carver's Chair and a Colonial Spinning Wheel . . .55 John Winthrop 60 Chair and Cradle Used in the Early Colony . . . . . ,62 Peter Stuyvesant's House in New Amsterdam 76 William Penn 82 Title Page of the Frame of Government 85 View of Christ Church, Boston 96 Defeat of the Iroquois gp Part of a Leaden Plate 102 Samuel Adams 113 A House Slave of Washington's Day 114 Advertisement for a Runaway Slave 115 William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va 118 A Printing Press of Franklin's Day iig Facsimile of Part of a Page of Poor Richard's Almanac . . . .122 A Contemporary Advertisement 123 New York City in 1732, from Brooklyn Heights 124 Benjamin Franklin 125 The Birthplace of Benjamin Franklin in Boston 126 Patrick Henry 133 Facsimile of a Newspaper Broadside on the Day Before the Stamp Act Went into Effect 140 Handbill Issued in New York to Allay Opposition to the Stamp Act . 141 The Repeal, or the Funeral Procession of Miss Americ-Stamp . . 142 Handbill Announcing the Repeal of the Stamp Act . , . .144 Portion of a Handbill Recalling the Boston Massacre . , . .146 The Wise Men of Gotham and Their Goose 149 Appeal for Provisions, June 18, 1775 157 Jefferson's Draft of the Declaration of Independence . . . ,160 The Surrender of Burgoyne 166 Fraunces' Tavern, New York City 176 A Page of Washington's Accounts 179 Eighth Federal Pillar Reared 193 xi xii HISTORY OF THE A]\IERICAN NATION pagb Ninth Pillar Erected . . . . 194 John Jay 199 View of the Old City Hall, Wall Street, in the Year 1789 . . . 201 Alexander Hamilton 204 Triumph Government: Perish All Its Enemies 210 John Adams y . 215 Reception of Washington at Trenton, N. J 222 Thomas Jefiferson 223 John Marshall 226 Signing the Louisiana Purchase Treaty 230 Early Flatboat from St. Louis to New Orleans 235 James Madison 240 Henry Clay 244 The Constitution 248 The House Where the Treaty of Ghent was Discussed .... 254 James Monroe 257 A Lock on the Erie Canai 263 The Conestoga Wagon 264 A River Steamboat on the Mississippi 265 A Frontier Log Cabin 267 An Early Cotton Gin 270 John Quincy Adams ?8o Advertisement of the First Passenger Train in Massachusetts, May, 1834 • -^ 284 Railway Travel in 1831 285 Andrew Jackson 290 Reproduction of the First Telegraphic Message Sent by the Morse System 294 John C. Calhoun 299 Daniel Webster 300 New Edition of Macbeth, 1837. Bank-Oh's Ghost 304 William Lloyd Garrison 316 Cartoon Used as Cover to an Emancipation Song Sung in 1844 by the Hutchinsons 319 Zachary Taylor 342 William H. Seward 346 Charles Sumner 363 James Buchanan 365 John Brown's Fort . 375 Newspaper Announcement of the Secession of South Carolina . -379 Jefferson Davis 383 Abraham Lincoln 385 Union Gunboats on the Cumberland 397 Robert E. Lee 402 Lincoln's Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation 407 Newspaper Announcement of the Result of the Battle of Gettysburg . 410 U. S. Grant •. . . 415 The Confederate Ram Tennessee • .418 W. T. Sherman 421 The Grave of the Union, or Major Jack Downing's Dream . . . 423 The True Issue, or "That's What's the Matter" 425 Grant's Dispatch Announcing the Surrender of Lee 42S LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii PAGE The Great "Compromise Cartoon" 430 Rutherford B. Hayes 459 James A. Garfield 469 Driving the Last Spike 479 Breaking Raw Prairie 482 A Cartoon of the Tweed Ring 484 A Modern Grain Elevator 487 The Railway Strike of 1877 490 A Modern Steam Locomotive • . . .491 Grover Cleveland 493 Benjamin Harrison 498 William McKinley 514 Lowering the American Flag on the Palace in Havana, to Make Way for the Star of the Cuban Republic 521 Theodore Roosevelt 523 The Culebra Cut on the Panama Canal 525 William H. Taft 531 A Modern Skyscraper Partially Completed 535 A Modern Harvesting Machine 540 Woodrow Wilson 550 A German Sea Raider. The Submarine "U-14" 570 The Steamship " Lusitania " 572 President Wilson and His War Cabinet 579 An American Made De Haviland "4" Liberty Motored Airplane . . 580 Commanding Generals of Allied Armies 582 A French Tank Crossing No Man's Land 583 LIST OF MAPS AND TABLES PAGE Political Map of the United States (colored) .... facing viii Old Trade Routes to the East 2 Sketch of the Ptolemy Map 4 The Four Voyages of Columbus 8 A Sketch of a Portion of the Behaim Globe 9 Early Explorations in the New World , .T.', .f. .11 The Route of Magellan 13 Western Half of Lenox Globe 14 The Mercator Map of 1541 15 A Map of 1 53 1, Sketched in Outline 16 Relief Map of the United States 18 Territory Granted by the Charter of 1606 26 Territory Granted by the Charter of 1609 30 Maryland 40 Grant of the Carolinas 45 Part of John Smith's Map of New England 49 Grant to Massachusetts Bay .58 Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 66 Territory Granted to Mason and Gorges 68 Extent of the Settlements in New England in 1660 69 European Possessions, 1650 (colored) 75 East Jersey and West Jersey 79 Colonial Governments Distinguished (colored) . . , . . .93 The Joliet Map, 1673-74 100 La Hontan's Map of Canada 103 European Claims and Possessions, 1755 (colored) . . . facing 104 The French and. Indian War, Western Campaign 105 The French and .Indian War, Northern and Eastern Campaigns . . 107 The French and Indian War, Campaigns of 1756 and 1757 . . . 108 Central North America, 1 763-1 783 (colored) .... facing no Boston and Its Vicinity in 1776 156 The Early Campaigns of the Revolution 161 New York and Vicinity in 1776 162 Clark's Campaign in the West 172 Field of the Campaigns in the South 173 The United States at the End of the Revolutionary War (colored) - .181 The Northwest Territory 185 Distribution of the Population in 1790 195 The Election of 1796 214 Central North America After the Purchase of Louisiana (colored) facing 232 Routes of Lewis and Clark and Pike 233 Field "of the Campaigns in the West, War of 181 2 246 Field of the Campaigns in the North and East, War of 181 2 . . 250 The Region About Washington and Baltimore 252 The War in the South 253 XV XVI HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The Cumberland Road . The I*>ie Canal .... Free and Slave. Areas After 1820 . The Election of .1824 Distribution of Population in 1830 Texas The Oregon (^ountry Field of I he War with Mexico Ac(iuisilion of Territory in the West, 1S03-1S53 Chart Showini,' Increase of Immigration by Decades The Western Territories in 1854 .... The Flection of 1856 The Crowth of Railroads Charleston Harbor The llnited States in 1861 (colored) . The \\'ar in the Fast I'ield of the Western Campaigns of the Civil War The IVninsula Cam|xugn . . . . • . Mattle of (H-ll\sburK Historical Sketch of the War Field of the Last Campaigns of the Civil War and the Line of March Territorial Crowth of the United States (colored) Distribution of Population in 1870 'Lhe Flection of 1876 Trails to the West and Routes of Pacific Railroads The Flection of i8()6 Field of the Campaign in Cuba .... The Philipi)inc Islands The Panama Canal /one The Distribution of the Population in igio The Licet ion of i()i2 Sunmiary of Popular and I^lectoral \'otcs for President President of the United States facing Sherman's PAGE 261 262 272 278 296 3-24 327 334 337 350 357 364 371 3>^7 391 393 401 409 417 Ulllg 420 444 446 45(> 47S 511 517 5i3 5 -'4 537 549 and V'lce- ippcndix ii-vii HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION CHAPTER I DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION Five hundred years ago the men of Europe did not know of the land we call America; they knew nothing of the great continent across the western ocean. Some men, S^LI"****"^ *^^ the more learned, believed that the western At- Middle Ages. . 111 lantic touched the shores of Asia; but there was little interest in what lay to the west, in or beyond the "sea of darkness". And yet the Middle Ages were drawing to a close; Europe was already stirred with new life and en- terprise; the spirit of the Renaissance^ — the new birth — the re-awakening of interest in art and letters and science, was already moving men to take a wider and deeper interest in the things about them. Daring men were already engaged in tasks of exploration, for the age of the new learning was also the age ''of discovery". The times were marked by an 1 "The term Renaissance is frequently applied at present not only to the new birth of art and letters, but to all the characteristics, taken to- gether, of the period of transition from the Middle Ages to modern life. The transformation in the structure and policy of states, the passion for discovery, the dawn of a more scientific method of observing man and Nature, the movement toward more freedom of intellect and of conscience, are part and parcel of one comprehensive change — a change which even now has not reached its goal." (Fisher, Outlines of Universal History, p. 387.) 1 2 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION outburst of commercial enterprise and by a zeal for a wider trade and exploration. About 1450 the art of printing was invented, and this gave a channel for communicating new thoughts and ideas and announcing new discoveries and inventions. From time immemorial the nations of western Europe had lain with their backs to the Atlantic; the great course of trade ran from the towns of Germany and France to East.^^' ^ Italy, and from Italy on to the Orient. Genoa and Venice had become great seats of commerce and grown rich in their traffic with the far East. Europe used Northern or Genoese Route Middle Route Southern or Venetian Route - I N D I A :^ OCEAN Old Trade Routes to the East more and more of the silks and spices of the Orient, and these commodities became necessities to the people. There were three routes of travel: one by way of the Black Sea and the Caspian; another through Syria and the Persian Gulf; the third by the way of tne Red Sea. But toward the end of the Middle Ages the Ottoman Turks began to press forward in Asia Minor and to block the routes of travel, checking or mak- ing dangerous the way to the East. In 1453 Constantinople fell into their hands, and commerce in that direction was ended. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 3 Turkish corsairs frequented the waters of the eastern Mediter- ranean, and Europe saw herself in danger of being cut off entirely from the longed-for wealth of "India and Cathay". 1 Although this commerce with the Orient was not small and had lasted for centuries, yet in the fifteenth century the people of Europe knew little of India or China, East.^ °^ ^ since the traffic was in general carried on through middlemen. Accounts of the far East had been written by travelers, and some of them seem to have had in- fluence in arousing interest in those regions. Chief among these narratives was the work of Marco Polo, an Italian traveler, who spent many years in China, and, returning to Europe, recounted strange stories of the wealth and glories of the Great Khan. He described not only China, but India, and made mention of Japan ^ and Java. This famous book was one of the greatest single contributions ever made to geographical knowledge. Its descriptions have been found to be, on the whole, remarkably correct. In the next century after Marco Polo wrote his book appeared the "Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville". Such a man as the famous Sir John probably never existed in the flesh, any more than did Robinson Crusoe. The stories of which he was the hero were taken bodily from other writers; but the doughty knight, real or fictitious, was a perfect prince among story-tellers and was a very actual person to the men of that day, who read with eagerness the fascinating tales of the marvelous East. He told of pillars of gold and precious stones half a foot in length, of golden birds that clapped their wings by magic, of golden vines laden with costly jewels, ^ Cathay was the name by which China was known in Europe. India was a very indefinite term, 2 Japan had the name Chipangu or Cipango in Marco Polo's book. As we shall see, Columbus thought that he had reached it, and at one time thought that Hayti was that famous land, where the lord of the island had "a great palace which is entirely roofed with fine gold. . . . Moreover, all the pavement of the palace, and the floors of its chambers, are entirely of gold in plates like slabs of stone, a good two fingers thick". 4 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION of the fountain of youth whose waters, if one drank them thrice, would make one ever young. ^ Sketch of the Ptolemy Map^ While men were interested, as they had not been for cen- turies before, in eastern traffic, and were annoyed and troubled by the appearance of the robber Turk, great steps Beginning of were being taken by seamen of western Eu- Atlantic voyages; t^i. j^i, ^ results. rope. In the end, the great western ocean was opened up; men looked boldly out upon the rolling waters and thought of lands and of riches awaiting the ^ "I, John Mandeville", says the old impostor, "saw this well and drank thereof thrice, and all my fellows, and evermore since that time I feel that I am better and haler". Marco Polo's Travels were written in 1299 in the prison at Genoa. Read Marco Polo's Account of Japan and Java, in Old South Leaflets, No. 32. It is noteworthy that Mandeville declares that "men may well perceive that the land and sea are of round shape and form", and that he tells of a man who wandered quite around the earth and returned to his own home again. ^ This is only a simplified sketch of the Ptolemy map. Ptolemy was a geographer who lived in the old Roman Empire, about 150 A. d.; his maps were studied by the geographers at the end of the Middle Ages. It shows how little was known of the earth, and how wrong was much that the geog- raphers thought they knew. Strangely enough, the merchants and sea- going nien of the time had far better maps of the whole Mediterranean region, maps which were made for real service; but they seem to have received little attention from scholars. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION merchant and the mariner. The early voyages had little imme- diate concern with attempts to reach Asia; but as the years went by a new route to the East was found, and, moreover, in the western ocean, one sea-captain, as we know, bolder and steadier than the rest, stumbled upon a continent. From the earliest dawn of history, the Mediterranean had been the great sea, ''the center of the earth". The ocean was The Portuguese ^^^ "^^^ ^^ darkness"; men feared to go out upon mariners of the its fcarful Waters. But in the fifteenth century the mariners began to pluck up courage and to make venturesome voyages along the coast of Africa. Under the stimulating advice and encouragement of Prince Henry of Portugal, who won the title of Henry the Navigator, Portuguese seamen went out year after year, on voyages of fifteenth century. Building a Ship of the Fifteenth Century discovery toward the south, and by their hardy bravery gained skill in seamanship and helped to dispel the terrors of the ocean.^ It is a great story, this tale of the new, bold seaman- 1 Men thought in the early days, they had long thought, that just as it grew colder and colder as men went farther north, so it grew hotter and hotter as they went south, till none could live. The capes on the western coast of Africa tell in themselves the tale of the effort to get southward — Cape Non, that is Cape "No"; Cape Bojador, the "bulging" cape; Cape Blanco, the "white" cape; Cape Verde, the "green" cape. On the green 6 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ship, and it helped to bring important results. After Henry's death (1460) the work went on, and before the end of the century (1497) Vasco da Gama, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, made his way northward to India, and returned with a cargo of the coveted spices of the far East. The voyages and dis- coveries of the Portuguese navigators brought new knowledge of strange coasts and helped to drive away from men's minds the great fear of the Sea of Darkness, which had been supposed to contain all kinds of dreadful monsters and threaten all sorts of fearful dangers. Europe began to face about and to look out upon the great western ocean, whose coast had for so many centuries been the limit of the civilized world. ^ It was a great event in human history, when men began to use the Atlantic Ocean and make of it a highway of trade. It has long been thought that Christopher Columbus, know- ing that the world was round, made up his mind to go westward Columbus ^^ reach the east. Such a purpose, it now seems, was probably not his controlling aim, if it in- fluenced him at all. He probably did know that the earth was round, for such was the belief that had been handed down by scholars even from ancient times; but we are now led to be- lieve that his main hope was to find new lands, not as the Portuguese had done, along or near the coast of Africa, but far out in the Atlantic, rumors of which had long been heard, and tales of which had been told, that awakened the ambition of a man fit for doing big things.^ In 1492, standing boldly forth cape were waving palms, not desolation under the torrid sun. "Under the shadow of the palms of Cape Verde", says one writer, "the superstition of the Middle Ages Hes buried". ^ It sometimes seems as if the thing to be stressed is not the discovery of the new land, but the "new sea"; the Atlantic was no longer a barrier, a limit, but a highway; as the years went on, the nations of western Europe, and the little sea-girt island of England, instead of being far away from routes of trade stood in the vantage point. But Italy with her old-time culture and practice furnished many of the early leaders for the west. Columbus, sailing under the flag of Spain, was an Italian, so was Vespucius. so was Cabot, so was Verrazano, who carried the French banner along the coast of the American continent. ^ This interpretation of the desires of Columbus is not the one commonly given. For centuries men have thought that Columbus started out with DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 7 from the port of Palos, in command of three small ships, he sailed westward, pressed patiently on and in October touched upon what we now know to be an outlying island of a new world. Before returning to Europe he visited other islands. He had not dis- covered a land with mar- ble palaces and golden wonders, as described by Marco Polo and Mande- ville, but he thought he had; and on reaching Spain was received with triumphal honors as one who had outdone the rest and found a new way to eastern splendors.^ The bold explorer made three other voyages, always hop- ing to find the wealth and glories of Cathay. On his second voyage he established a colony in Hayti.^ On his third (1498) he discovered the mainland of South America, but he supposed the land to be part of other discoveries The Earliest Engraved Likeness of Christopher Columbus the intention of sailing to China and India. Perhaps he did. Certainly after his first discoveries he maintained that he had found the East, that he had seen Japan and had found the mainland. On his third voyage, in a state of exaltation, he thought he had discovered the earthly paradise. But scholars now seriously doubt that his aim at first was to discover Asia; they have pored over all the available material and, for the time being at least, are inclined to cast aside the old story and to look upon the voyage of Columbus as a successor to the voyages in the Atlantic, which for nearly a century had brought honor to the Portuguese. ^ Columbus's own account of his discovery will be found in his letter to Santangel. It is published in American History Leaflets, No. i. 2 Columbus left some men on the island on his first voyage, but found only ruins of their houses and fort when he returned. 8 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Asia, or in the near neighborhood of the wished-for places. Shortly after returning from his fourth expedition he died (1506) in Spain, neglected, poor, and broken- hearted; for he found little favor with the people when it was seen that he had not brought them the gold and jewels and precious fabrics of the Orient, but had "discovered Death. ;u Longitude 00 West The Four Voyages of Columbus the lands of deceit and disappointment — a place of sepulchers and wretchedness to Spanish hidalgos". It is important to remember that the desire of Europe was not to discover a new continent, but to reach Asia. Men believed that the new discoveries lay along the reach^Asia coast of China, and the idea only gradually took hold of them that the lands out in the western ocean were parts of a new continent. South America, which became known in rough outline before the northern continent was well known, was supposed to be a new island or a pro- jection from Asia; and, after the coast line quite well to the north was put down on maps and charts, the hope of many DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 9 voyagers was to get around these troublesome barriers or through them, and to find their way to the coveted riches of India. Even after European settlements were made in the new land there were many patient explorations of bays and rivers in hopes of finding a thoroughfare. Slowly, through the proc- A Sketch of a Portion of the B eh aim Globe, 1492, with an Outline OF the American Continents Superimposed Upon It ess of decades, the Western World was uncovered and opened up to be a part and parcel of the known geography of the earth. Before Columbus had completed his four voyages other important discoveries had been made. In 1497, "seeing that the most serene kings of Portugal and Spain had occupied unknown islands", John Cabot, an Italian, sailing from Bris- tol, England, found land in the western ocean, and returned 10 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION to tell of 'his discoveries, saying he had discovered, seven hun^ dred leagues away, the mainland of the country of the ''Great Cham", the monarch of China. He seems to have touched upon the coast of Labrador or Cape Breton. An entry in the privy purse of shrewd Henry VII notes that £io were given ''hym that founde the new isle", — not a magnificent gift in light of the fact that upon this voyage of the Cabots England later based her claim to the continent of North America. The next year another voyage was made, but little or nothing is known with certainty of the extent or the results. ^ There is some reason for believing that the mainland of South America was first visited by an expedition that set sail from Cadiz, May lo, 1497. Americus Vespucius,^ a Florentine merchant and traveler, speaks of this voyage in which he claims to have taken part, and says that "at the end of twenty-seven days" they came "upon a coast which we thought to be that of a continent". Perhaps he never made such a voyage; scholars doubt it; but, at all events, he appears to have been on an ex- pedition in 1 501, and he certainly knew how to tell a wonder- ful tale of what he saw. His stories of far-off lands were eagerly read; his description of the great body of land in the south and west, which did not appear to be known to geographers as ^ The ambassador from Milan, Italy, wrote home about this adventur- ous fellow-countryman, who sailed from England and for England. "This Messer Zoanne [Mr. John] has", he said, "the description of the world on a chart, and also on a solid sphere which he has constructed, and on which he shows where he has been . . . and they say that there the land is excellent and temperate, suggesting that Brasil [Brazil wood] and silk grow there. They affirm that the sea is full of fish, which are not only taken with a net, but also with a basket, a stone being fastened to it, in order to keep it in the water". Mr. John probably drew the long bow when talking about climate and silk, and indulged in a pleasant fish story or two; but, if it was not even then possible to catch the simple cod in a market basket, there were fish in plenty, and not many years passed before the banks of Newfoundland and Cape Breton were regularly visited by hardy fishermen from Europe, who took little interest in affairs of the "Great Cham". The discovery of this fishing region was in itself an important fact in history. 2 xhis is the Latin form of the name. In Italian it is Americo or Amer- igo Vespucci. Early Explorations in the New World 12 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION part of Asia, was vivid and interesting. His story, written in a pri- vate letter,^ was printed and widely circulated. In 1507 a young German professor, living at St. Die, in the Vosges Mountains, published a little volume on geography, and with it some letters of Vespucius, and suggested that, inasmuch as a fourth part of the earth had been discovered by Americus, it be called Amer- ica.^ This name came into general use only slowly, being Nuc ^o Sch<^ partes funt lati'us Iufi:ratce/8<: alia quartapars per Americii Vefpudu(vt in fequenti bus audietur )inuenta eft/qua noii video cur quis iure vctet ab Americo inuentore fagacis ingeni] vi AmcriV ro Amerigen quafi Americi terra / fiue Americam ca dicendatcu Sc Europa Sc Afia a mulieribus fua for tita riiitnoiiiina.Eius fitu 8c gentis mores ex bis bi nis Americi nauigationibus quae fequuntliqoidc intelligi datur. Facsimile of the Sentence in which America Was First Named, from THE Cosmographi^ Introductio, 1507 applied first to the unknown lands, ''the New World" on the south, and then given to both continents.^ In 1 5 19 Ferdinand Magellan started upon a great and eventful voyage. He discovered the straits that bear his name and, passing boldly through, crossed the broad Pacific, sailing 1 In his letter Vespucius spoke in wonder of what he saw on the Brazilian coast, and said, "Novum mundum appeUare licet" — one might call it a new world. This letter, when published, bore the title Novus Mundus. 2 In another place is the same suggestion: "But now these parts have been more extensively explored, and . . . another fourth part has been dis- covered. . . .Wherefore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from call- ing it after its discoverer, Americus, a man of sagacious mind, Amerige — i. e., the land of Americus? or America, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from women". 3 For Vespucius, see Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, chap, ii; Fiske, Discovery of America, vol. ii, pp. 25-175, especially p. 97. Fiske is a great believer in poor old Vespucius, whom most scholars have soundly berated. For a careful treatment, see Bourne, Spain in Amer- ica, chap. vii. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 13 day after day and week after week over the wide ocean. Ma- gellan himself was killed in the Philippine Islands; but one of his vessels, with a remnant of her crew, sailed to Spain, completing the first circumnavigation of the globe. Judged by its results, this voyage was not so important as many others, but it was one of the greatest feats of bold navigation in history. It shows how Magellan, 1519-21. The Route of Magellan much had been done in this wonderful era in the course of a few years; for, fifty years before, the Portuguese seamen had sailed hardly more than halfway down the western coast of Africa. While for nearly a century after the discovery of America other nations did little to get possession of dominions in the New World, Spain entered eagerly into the task, exploration^ Settlements were made in the West Indies, and bold adventurers made long journeys into the interior of the continents looking for the fabulous riches of Cathay. Ponce de Leon, seeking the fountain of perpetual youth, explored Florida, "the land of Easter".^ Balboa, from a peak in Darien, looked out upon the waters of the great Pacific. Somewhat later Pineda entered the mouth of the Mississippi and called it the Rio de Santo Espiritu, the River of the Holy Spirit. In 1539-42 De Soto 1513, ^ Ponce de Leon saw Florida on Easter Day. Pascua Florida, the flowery passover. In Spanish this day is 14 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Western Half of Lenox Globe * made his famous march through the southern part of what is. now the United States. About the same time Coronado, start- ing in search of the fabulous "seven cities of ^^'^°* Cibola", wandered over the dreary plains and through the mountain defiles of the southwest. These ex- ^ This map follows a sketch given in Winsor, Narrative and Critical His- tory of America, vol. ii, p. 170 (by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). It is the part of a globe made about 1510 or 1511, now in the Public Library, New York. It shows the Mundus Novus of Vespucius as an island southeast of Zipangri (Japan). Other interesting maps will be found in Winsor, vol. ii. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 15 Spanish dominion. plorations accomplished little/ but in Central and South America the Spanish soldiers won a great and wealthy empire; Hernando Cortes conquered Mex- ico (1519-21); the Pizarros conquered Peru (1531-34)" In 1565 a settle- ment was made at St. Au- gustine, the first European settlement within the future limits of the United States. It will thus be seen that Spain occupied the islands of the West Indies Character of 1 j-T, • • e • u 1 and the semi-civ- Spanish rule. ilized countries of the two continents. The In- dians of the islands were timid, and incapable of resisting the cruel Spanish soldiers; the people of Mexico and Peru were not able to unite effect- ively against the invaders; and so the power of Spain was established with little difficulty, and she became possessed of a great subject empire in the New World, from which came gold and silver in abun- 1 Little by little the general character of the new continents was discov- ered, "uncovered"; but men long thought they were wandering over some strange projection of Asia, and even v/hen they realized that new conti- nents were before them, they often looked upon the new region as a vexing obstacle in the way of reaching China. To many traders and explorers from western Europe the task long remained to find a way through or around the inconvenient continents. The Indians, the mountains, the great plains of the west, the heavy forests of the eastern Mississippi region, the long rolling rivers, were seen by one or another of the Spanish explorers and by those who came after, and gradually the general char- acter of the western world was known. ^xhis map shows the word America applied to both the northern and southern continents. It was long supposed to be the very first, but quite 3 The Mercator Map of 1541 ^ 16 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION FIN.T:US-1531 A Map of 1531, Sketched in Outline dance. ^ T'o govern such an empire her character and her con- dition fitted her. We now look back upon the history of Spanish colonization and see the mistakes in her system and her spirit; her colonies were too often harshly governed; they were outlying dependencies, furnishing the ruling land with treasure and with trade; but withal Spain transferred to America European law and religion, and the mark of her hand wull ever be seen in the states of Central and South America.^ recently another map (also by IMercator) has been discovered that was made three years earher. Mercator was the wisest geographer of the time, and showed a truly wonderful power of interpreting the reports of travel- ers and explorers and of divining the truth. The map as here given follows a sketch made by Mr. Winsor himself, and reproduced in his Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, p. 177 (by permission of the pub- lishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). The original map is on gores. For an example of this method of making maps, see Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, p. 120. ^ The development of Spain in the course of a few decades is a striking fact in history. In the middle of the fifteenth century Spain was not even DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 17 After the discovery of America by Columbus, the Pope, Alexander VI, issued two bulls, dividing the heathen lands of the world between Portugal and Spain. These The buu of gg^yg ^q gpain all she might discover west of a line 1493. * drawn one hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. The next year the two powers entered into an agreement, in accordance with which the dividing line should be three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. Upon this agreement, duly ratified by the Pope, Spain based her claim to the New World. References Thwaites, The Colonies, Chapters I and II; Fisher, The Colonial Era, pp. 1-20; FiSKE, The Discovery of America, Volume I, especially Chapters I, II, III, V, VIII, IX, and X; Channing, History of the United States, Volume I, Chapters I-III. Longer accounts : Markham, Christopher Columbus; Adams, Christopher Columbus. See also Far- rand, Basis of American History, pp. 3-88; Cheyney, European Background of American History, pp. 3-41 ; Bourne, Spain in America,, an united kingdom; before the middle of the sixteenth century Spanish power reached towering heights. In America, in Africa, in the far East, in different parts of Europe, her hand was raised with authority. The Span- ish kings were charged with zeal for universal empire; Httle England and littler Holland stood in the way, and had the strength in time to break down her power upon the sea. CHAPTER II THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 While Spain in the hundred years after Columbus was build- ing her colonial empire, the other nations of Europe accom- plished nothing in the way of actual settlement of the New World. France, it is true, took some interest and made some explorations. Hardly was the New World known to the Old, when the hardy fishermen of Brittany began to visit the fisheries of Newfoundland. Verrazano, in 1524, sailed along the North American coast from North Carolina to Maine. Ten years later Jacques Cartier explored the lower part of the St. Law- rence, and the next year visited the present site of Montreal. A few years after this (1542-43) an attempt was made to plant a colony in the new-found region, but without success. The Huguenots sought to settle in Brazil, but the effort ended in miserable failure. A colony formed in Florida was destroyed by the Spaniards, and its people were murdered in the cold- blooded fashion of which the Spanish soldier of the day was master.^ Thus Spain, unsuccessful herself in obtaining a hold on the Atlantic coast north of the Gulf of Mexico, save in the weak outpost at St. Augustine, which hardly de- Effect of French gervcd the name of colony, did succeed in prevent- r^airy.*'^*^ ing the French from settling in the south, while the cold winters of the north brought disaster to French colonists on the St. Lawrence. As a consequence, the middle Atlantic coast remained to the end of the century free 1 Graphic accounts of these early French enterprises will be found in Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World, pp. 9-183- Shorter ac- counts will be found in Doyle, The English in America, vol. i (The Southern Colonies); Fiske, The Discovery of America, vol. ii, pp. 512-522; Thwaites, France in America. 19 20 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION from settlements, and England was given the chance to oc- cupy it with her colonies. Not till the beginning of the next century, when France was inwardly at peace, did the French succeed in making a per- manent settlement in America. In 1605 Port Permanent Royal, in Acadia, was founded, and three years colonies. later Champlain founded Quebec. How the French power developed in Canada, and how the French endeavored to extend their sway over the whole interior of the continent, will be told in a later chapter. It is sufficient to say here that England and France came to vie with each other for dominion in North America ; and while in the course of a hun- dred and fifty years the English colonies along the middle Atlantic coast were growing strong and vigorous, the French, as an ever watchful, zealous enemy, sought to check the prog- ress of their rivals. It is highly important that the main features of the geo- graphical situation should be kept in mind. The Spanish ^ X . r .,- were at the south; the French, after i6os, were Contests of the . ' . . nations for the established at the north; the middle portion, possession of from Maine to Florida, was unsettled at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Into this middle portion came the people of England, and the Dutch and Swedes also. In the course of a few years, Holland and Sweden being too weak to retain their hold upon it, it fell into the hands of the English. Then began a contest between France and England, a contest for wider dominion, and in this contest England was successful. Thus by the end of what we call the colonial period the whole of North America ^ was possessed by two nations, England and Spain. Let us now turn to the founding and upbuilding of the English colonies. VIRGINIA During the early decades of the sixteenth century England prospered, and, when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, 1 Russia, it is true, had already done something in Alaska. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 21 was prepared to enter upon a new career, to reach out for new traffic, to grow in riches, to develop in every way. But there stood Spain, holding the New World and s^^T^^^^ drawing away its treasure, looking askance at the expansion of English trade, jealously watching every move. The two nations were now bitterly hostile, and each passing year added to the feeling. The hostility was partly religious, for Englishmen felt that Spain stood for the power of the Roman Catholic Church, while they were now largely Protestants; it was partly com- mercial, for English merchants fretted against Spanish pre- sumption and her monopoly in the New World; it was partly political or patriotic, for men feared and disliked the over- powering might of Spain, whose hand and sword were always in sight, and they saw that, if England was to prosper and build up her trade, she must not cower before Spain, she must not let Spain rule the sea. Probably every man of ordinary in- sight "within the four seas" saw that Spain's power was a menace to English freedom; but the thing was most keenly seen by the great sea-captains of the day — great captains who were also great statesmen; scorning the threats of Philip against any who should visit the seas of the West Indies, they lay in wait for galleons freighted with the treasures of Mex- ico and Peru and robbed them ruthlessly; they despised the vaunted power of Spain on the sea, and stood ready to show the world that the Spanish king was but a king ^ "of figs and oranges". The very names of these daring and incomparable seamen were dreaded in the settlements of the New World.- Chief among the seamen was Francis Drake. He was the first Englishman to carry the flag into the Pacific. Sailing 1 "And if the late queen", said Sir Walter Raleigh at a later day, "would have believed her men of war as she did her scribes, we had in her time beaten that great empire in pieces and made their kings, kings of figs and oranges". 2 An interesting account is to be found in Green, History of the Eng- lish People, chap. vii. 22 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION through the Straits of Magellan, he loaded his bark with gold and silver and precious jewels from Spanish ships, taking from one alone the sum of three million dollars.^ Pass- ing to the north, he reached the coast of Cali- fornia or southern Oregon and took formal pos- session of the region, naming it New Albion. He then crossed the Pacific and completed the second navigation of the globe Sir Francis Drake. An English Ship of Private OwNEiiSHip, About the Time of Sir John Hawkins (1577-80). The expeditions of men^ like Drake were at least half piratical, but they were the necessary forerunners of English colonization, for they gave courage to English ^ Fletcher, Drake's chaplain, who wrote an account of the voyage, speaks of taking thirteen chests of silver reals, eighty pounds weight of gold, twenty-six tons of uncoined silver, two very fair gilt silver drinking bowls, *'and the like trifles". 2 Famous among these men was John Hawkins, a valiant seaman, knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his success in the slave trade. He who made himself famous in this horrible traffic seems not to have realized its horror or its wickedness. For he was a pious, religious spirit, and carried slaves or fought the Spanish with as clear a conscience as if engaged in holy errand. His sailing orders to his ships close with the words: "Serve God daily; love one another; preserve your victuals; beware of fire; and keep good company!" THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 23 seamen and helped to break down all fear of the power of Spain. ^ Of like temper with Drake and the "sea kings" were Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, fervid and de- termined souls, members of that noble company of English- men who gathered around Elizabeth and helped to make The Spanish Armada and the English Fleet in the Channel From an old tapestry in ^he House of Lords England strong. These men were bent on founding colonies and they tried their best, only to meet with discouragement and failure; the attempts are now interesting only because they were the beginning of serious efforts to extend English power by actual colonization, and because they show us the gathering spirit of England.^ ^ Few things in history are more important than the establishment of England's sea power. We may not admire or sympathize with the ways and purposes of the "sea-kings", the fearless seamen of the sixteenth cen- tury, but we must fall victim to the charm of their astounding courage and r.ee that by them was laid the foundation for English empire. "Drake", pays Professor Seeley, "is one of the great men of that age; his name was bruited about Europe and pronounced with admiration by the Spaniards themselves. In our own history few have done so much. The British trade, the British empire, the British navy — of all these colossal growths, the root is in him", - Gilbert and Raleigh believed, as did Drake, that the place to whip Spain was on the sea, and they believed that England should have colonies 24 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION A number of the men who were actively interested with Raleigh were subscribers to the company which made a per- Coionization by nianent settlement at Jamestown, the planting the middle of which is soon to bc told. And yet there is a ^^^^^' marked difference between the efforts of the six- teenth and those of the seventeenth century. With the age of Elizabeth there seemed to pass away the flavor of romance and adventure; the settlements under prosaic James I were the offspring of the economic needs of England. ''We pass . . . into the sober atmosphere of commercial and political records, amid which we faintly spell out the first germs of the consti- tutional life of British America". The Englishman who suc- ceeded in colonizing America was not the gay courtier or the daring buccaneer or the bold freebooter or the gallant soldier of the reign of Elizabeth, but the steady representative of the industrious, plodding men of the middle classes, whose wants and thoughts henceforth were the directive forces of English history.^ The first settlements of the seventeenth century contained some of the elements of romantic England; but only when these were cast aside did the colo- nies prosper. Other motives than a desire for wealth or a longing to curb the power of Spain seem to have had their influence with in America partly for trade, partly as outposts against Spanish power. Gilbert tried to make settlements in Newfoundland (1579-83) but failed. Raleigh tried at the South and tried again, but to no purpose. When the century closed, the long stretches of American coast held no English set- tlement, the long coast called Virginia in honor of the queen whom these daring spirits served so well. In 1587 over a hundred men, women, and children were left on the coast of North Carolina, and when some three years later assistance was sent to them they were not to be found. This was Raleigh's "lost colony". 1 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. iii, has an interesting chapter on Hawkins and Drake, also one on Sir Walter Raleigh. For further facts, see Fisher, The Colonial Era, p. 23 fob; Thwaites, The Colonies, p. 38 fob; Bancroft, History, vol. i, chap, v, p. 60; Doyle, The English in America (The Southern Colonies), p. 57 fob For a picture of the England of Drake and Raleigh, of Gilbert and Sir Philip Sydney, read Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho! or Scott's Kenil- worth. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 25 those who undertook at the beginning of the seventeenth century to found a permanent settlement in America. The industrial condition of England naturally turned men's thoughts to plans of colonization. The people were rest- Motives for Yess and uneasy; soldiers who had fought for colonization. , , . • j EUzabeth found their occupation gone and wished for further excitement; many men were out of work, for the conversion of plow land into sheep farms de- prived laborers of employment. There was a complaint that England was overcrowded — a strange complaint, one might think, inasmuch as the population of Great Britain has in- creased tenfold since that day. But in those days, before the invention of modern machinery, men could not easily find employment save as tillers of the soil. The country there- fore was overcrowded with those who had no work; lawless- ness prevailed and crimes were frequent.^ Under these cir- cumstances men turned their thoughts to America as a fit place to which to move the unemployed. Partly, then, as a business enterprise, partly in consideration of England's industrial condition, partly from motives of patriotism in order that England, as well as her hated rival, Spain, might have possessions across the sea, colonization was undertaken. For the prosecution of this enterprise, a number of men sought and received a charter from King James. The charter was complex and intricate, providing for two The London companies of like character. One was composed Companies. o^ London merchants, and had authority to es- tablish a settlement between the thirty-fourth and forty-first degrees of latitude; in other words, somewhere between Cape Fear and the mouth of the Hudson. The other, the Plymouth Company, was made up of "sundry knights, ^ The Spanish minister in London wrote to his king that the chief reason for the English efifort to colonize Virginia was that a colony "would give an outlet to so many idle and wretched people as they have in Eng- land". See Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, vol. i, pp. 154» 155. 26 HISTORY OF THE A]MERICAN NATION gentlemen, merchants, and other adventurers of Bristol and Exeter, and of our town of Plimouth", and it could found a colony between the thirty-eighth and the forty-fifth degrees, or between the southern point of Maryland and the Bay of Fundy. Thus it will be seen that the grant to one of the companies over-lapped the other by three degrees, but it was THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 27 provided that one was not to make a settlement within a hundred miles of the other.^ It was also provided by the charter that each of these companies should have a council, resident in America; and there was to be one general superior council in fovIrne7 "^^'^ England. The affairs of the company were in the hands of the council, but it must govern "ac- cording to such laws, ordinances, and instructions as shall be in that behalf given and signed with our hand or sign manual" — that is to say, according to the orders of the king. The colonists and their children were to have ''all liberties, fran- chises, and immunities" of native-born subjects of the king. A company of colonists sailed for America in December, 1606.^ Among them were all sorts and conditions of men — white-handed gentlemen, hoping to find imme- The settlers. . diate riches; broken gallants and ruined trades- men; and a few "carpenters" and "laborers". The gentle- men made up more than half the company.^ It was a motley company, eager for adventure, and hoping to gather with ease the precious stones and gold and silver with which the country was strewn.'^ They were ill fitted to build homes in a wilderness, to fell the forest, to plant corn, to toil and struggle in patience — "more fit to spoil a commonwealth than either begin one or but help to maintain one". ^ 1 It should not be supposed that this charter was given to the colonists; it gave to certain men the right to found a colony in America and gave certain rights to trade, etc., but the company was largely in the hands of a council in England appointed by the king. 2 The whole story of the setdement is vividly told in Cooke's Virginia, Part I, and in Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, pp. 1-72. 3 ''They were going to a wilderness in which, as yet, not a house was standing, and there were forty-eight gentlemen to four carpenters". — Ban- croft, History, vol. i, p. 88. 4 "For rubies and diamonds, they go forth on Holydays and gather them by the seashore, to hang on their children's coats and stick in their caps". These words are from Eastward Ho! a popular play in England at this time. 6 Captain John Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia. 28 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Early in the spring of 1607 the expedition entered Chesa- peake Bay, and in May decided to build a town on a low penin- sula jutting out into one of the rivers that flows 16™^^*°^^' through the fertile and attractive country south ^ of the great bay. In honor of their monarch they naprm the river the James and their town Jamestown. I The history of the lonesome body of men thus settled at the edge of the great wilderness is an old, old story, which will always hold its interest, but for us the de- s "iTow'^^ ^"*^ tails are not important: they quarreled and wrangled; they sought for gold or a passage to the "south sea"; they longed for the meats and ale of merry England; and they starved. ''Burning fevers destroyed them", says Percy, one of the company; "some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of mere famine". One big man rose up among them, John Smith, ^ by name, — a vehe- ment, boastful, resourceful person, who helped in some degree to save the colony^ But at the end of two or three years, though supplies and men came from England, the settlement was in a frightful condition. In 1609 a change of importance was made. A great corpo- ration was formed to take upon itself this colonial enterprise. The limits of the settlement as provided for by » '!f,^^^/f'jl!.° '° the charter of 1606 were cast aside and to this a corporation. corporation was given a vast estate stretching westward to the south sea. In 161 2 a second charter was is- sued not materially altering the one of three years before, but more completely giving to the corporation the power of choos- i"He was perhaps the last professional knight errant that the world saw — a free lance who could not hear of a fight going on anywhere in the world without hastening to take a hand in it ". See Tyler, History of Amer- ican Literature, vol. i, p. 18. Tyler's description of Smith and his writings is full of charm and interest. The portrait on the opposite page is from Smith's The Generall Historie of Virginia, and is a part of the Map of New England. For a part of this map, see the chapter on New England. "You must obey this now for a law", said Smith in the darkest days, "that he who will not work shall not eat" — a wholesome motto, but he later com- plained that "there was now no thought, no discourse, no hope, and no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold". C^hefc arc thcLincS ihatjhw thyTace;hut thofc rrhatjhew thy GrOCC and ^lofy, hrl^hUr he : rrhj- Tairc-Difcouertes and -Fowlc Overthrowes Of SdvaqCS^mach CivitUzd fy tkez.J<^;^ ■Bcjhjluw-thy Sj>irU;atid -to it Glory oyynX. So.tkcu artBrafc without, tut ^otdc Within. , 30 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ing its own officers and managing its affairs.^ This company of men was a large and vigorous body, including many men of means and distinction; they were determined to make a success of colonization, and they, set energetically to work. * By the charter of 1609, the line of the corporation's lands on the east was to run along the coast, two hundred miles on each side of Point Com- fort, and the grant included "all that Space and Circuit of Land lying from the Sea-Coast of the province aforesaid, up into the Land, throughout from Sea to Sea West and Northwest" and islands within one hundred miles of the coast. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 31 By the old arrangement affairs in the colony had been in the hands of a council, and its members wrangled and disputed while things went to ruin. The new company sent out a gov- ernor with supreme authority, and under the stern, hard rule of a masterful man the work went on; the colony lived — lived, it is true, a hard life and a dreary one; but it lived. ^ In the course of a few years, some five or six after the grant- ing of the charter, the little settlement came to have a lasting look. Tobacco began to be raised and shipped to England; the colonists finding that they could do something more than hunt for treasure or long for home, began to plant the valuable weed everywhere, till ''the market place, Tobacco. ■t riMS'^^'^- ^ ajaiuiu/e ^ ^^^g" all his company, and flew ^o^tJun*^ ""^ From Captain John Smith's Generall Historie street, and other spare places" were filled with growing crops. The industrial history of Virginia was begun; and when men ^ Read especially Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, pp. 45-48. Dela!- ware, who lived in England, was the nominal governor, but the colony was in Dale's hands. At this time the practice of bringing all products to a "common store" was abandoned in part; the old planters were given gar- den patches. The communal system had tempted men to be lazy, in hope of eating the bread that other men had earned. Men now worked in the prospect of enjoying the fruit of their toil. George Yeardley, a "mild and temperate" man, ruled for a time. He was followed by Argall, whom Cooke calls a "human hawk, peering about in search of some prey to pounce on". In 16 19 Yeardley returned. 4 32 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION were given land of their own and the right to till it for them- selves, little plantations appeared here and there; the people began reaching out into the forbidding wilderness. The people of England wanted tobacco, and smoking was indulged in despite the outcry of worthy King James, who published his ''Counterblast to Tobacco", and declared that it was the ^'greatest sin" that a man ''could not walk the journey of a Jew's Sabbath without having a coal brought him from the nearest pot-house" to kindle his tobacco with. The colony on the basis of its new industry went on, and before 1620 there were various little outlying settlements along the rivers in the neighborhood of Jamestown. A few negro slaves, the first coming in 1619, and a number of white servants who were bound to a term of service in the colony, furnished the labor for the plantation system which was beginning to spread its net over the land of Virginia.^ While the colony was slowly but steadily building up, the company in England decided upon a great change. There were differing elements in the company, and Liberal men |^ ^j^- ^^^^ (i6i8) its management was controlled with liberal -^ , r • • i i i i ideas. by a number of enterprising, able men, deeply interested in colonization and deeply interested too in broad and liberal ideas of government and of human rights. Chief among them were Sir Edwin Sandys and the Earl of Southampton, belonging to that class of free- minded men who were growing restless under the high-handed rule of the first Stuart.- From them came the purpose to 1 In 1619 there came to the land of Virginia, says John Rolfe," a Dutch manne-of-\var, that sold us twenty negars". The negro element in Vir- ginia was for many years a small one. The white setvitude will be explained later. In the early years of the colony merr or boys were sometimes seized in England, and shipped to the colony and there sold into servitude for a term of years. Others by one arrangement or another were induced to go. How long this process of "spiriting" or kidnapping continued may be seen ffom reading Stevenson's Kidnapped the scene of which is laid near the middle of the eighteenth century. 2 Sandys was honored by the hatred of King James. When the king tried to interfere with the election by the company of their own officer, the THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 33 establish freer institutions in Virginia, to do away with the absolute power of the governor and give the colonists a share in their own government. In 1619 Governor Yeardley appeared in Virginia with "instructions from the Company for the better establish- The first ^^^ °^ ^ commonweal th".i He proclaimed that Assembly in "the crucll lawcs, by which the ancient planters America, jtiiy, have soc longe been governed", were now ab- ' ^^' rogated, and that they were to be governed ''by those free lawes which his majesties subjectes lived under in Englande. . . . That the planters might have a hande in the governing of themselves, yt was granted that a generall as- semblie shoulde be held yearly once, whereat were to be present the governor and counsell with two Burgesses from each planta- tion freely to be elected by the inhabitantes thereof, this As- semblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by them be thought good and profit- able for our subsistence".^ In conformity with this notice, an assembly was held in the little church at Jamestown in this same year. With the wonderful English instinct for govern- ment and organization, the representatives of this little com- munity in the wilderness of Virginia entered upon the duties head of the company in England, and when the company objected, James cried, "Choose the Devil if yo,u will but not Sir Edwin Sandys!" South- ampton, friend and patron of Shakespeare, is thought by some critics to be the "W. H." whom the poet addresses in his beautiful sonnets. To him some of Shakespeare's poems are dedicated. "Should the plantation go on increasing as under the government of that popular Lord Southampton", said the Spanish ambassador, "my master's West Indies and his Mexico will shortly be visited, bv sea and land, from those planters in Virginia"', ^ The general situation and the meaning of this should be seen clearlf. We should remember that the charter of 161 2 was granted to a corporation resident in England; this corporation sent out the governor, and from England the general affairs of the colony were managed. The company decided to give the people something to say, and granted them the right to hold the assembly. The beginning of representative government, the coming in of the principles of self-government, is a momentous fact in our history, even if the right was given by a few men in an English corporation to a few men in the wilds of Virginia. ^ These words are from the "briefe declaration" written somewhat later 34 iiisToin- or riiK amkrican nation and |)ii\ ilexes <>r lluir oHkc with a /csl and an apliliidc lliat iui;jjuri'inlfd (o l\\v i\v\v\o\)\uvul of a sell rill in^i; democracy in \\\c New World.' I^ul now, llu)ii;,di till' Vir;j;inia |)('oi)l(' wvvc ^dvcn iit'W rights, and llu" colony \vas sccniinrv cMslcmc ot (liecolony losrs lis i liiiilJT. ^ - -' before (lie savages were healen, and enemies of (lie (\)mi)an\' in I'',n,L:;land i)oinled (o "(he ;j;real massacre" lo slu)w llial the colony was ill-managed and the whole An Indian Talisaued ViLLAtac tiling a failure. 'V\w ('om]>any was lorn by factions and London rest)Uiuled with their "hahhliiii;" and debates. The nuH'liniijs of the membcMs \\imc> nuire like cock i>its, it was said, than ordtMb- business nuHiin,t;s, and King James grinv dail\- more impatient with the libiMaliniiuled men like Sandys, who liked hini no better than he did tiuMU. 'i'he \'iri;inia ct>urts,'^ ' inleri'slini; aciounts ot" this lirsl Assi-iultly will he fouiul in I>amrofl's llisl(M-y of (lir United St;\lt'S. \o\. i, p. i i i i lo; (\H>ko's \"iii,Mnia. ch;\|>. \ix. Haiuri)f( says: " l''n>in (ho tuoimMit of Vcanllr\'s arrival dalrs the real life of \'irjj;inia ". When at a latiT clay the colonists feared that they \vi>uld lose their new found rights, (he NiiKinia \ssenil)ly asked the kinjjj (o send over commissioners \o han^ (hem ratlui than estai)lish llu> old tyranny. " Tlu- inei'tini; of the ineinhiMs of a corpiuation was called a court. THK SOUTIIKKN COLONIKS 1007 1700 lif, ■whispered Ihc Spanish iniiiislcr lo James, ''are hul. a seminary to a se(h*ti()us I'arh'ament. ". Tlic uneasy monarch made up his mind to j)Ul .'i. slop lo Ihe whole lininoil ;ind lo wi|)e oiil Ihe Company. An excuse was r(;adily found, and 1 h(; nc^cessary le^.il steps were lak(;n to revoke tlie charter. Viri^inia, then became a royal colony (1O24J. The attack uf)on the Com[).'uiy was an act of jx-lly lyranny, hut in the lon^ run it was heller Ihal Ihe (olony sfiouid be un(h;r th(i Kin^ tfian subject to the whim of a Results. . , /-III • 4 4i ( ommercial com|)any. ( harles 1, comnig to the throne in [625, had enough lo do at home; se(;kin^ lo rule accordin^^ lo his own sw(;(;t will, aiul soon had inor<- llian Ik; could i\() in Iryin;^ to save his throne and his head. 'I'he p(;oj)le in America were thcTcfore allowed, wilhoul trnj( h interfer- ence;, to eIe;ve;lop their own inslilulions and lo become [)rac- ticeel in the; manageme;nl of Iheir own intcre.'sts. Vir/:^inia was now a. royal eolony, direelly under the crown; but the; assembly, wfn"e;h hael been esta.blishe;e| by ihe ('ompany, was re;e:e>i'nize;el anel e()ntinue;el to exist. A Kov- Royal Colony. '^ . 1 • , e;rnor was se;nt ove;r to re;pre.'se;nt the kin^ anel with him ae t(;d a. (ouneil made up of eolonists appe>inte;el by the king, wfiich had a share in the; buHiness e)f ge)vernment. Anel thus the iorm e)f royal eolony ge)ve;rnme!nt e ame; inte) existence; it graelually took shape; in tl)e; hrst twe> elecaeies or so after the disse)lutie)n e>f the ce)mpany.' Te) us the histe)ry of Vir//im*a, in Ihe- last llire;e; ejuarters e)f the seventeenth century is e hieOy interesting because eluring ' 'flic form of (y»v(;r(i(r)cnl is of iolcrf,! lo iis bcf aiise il Ijcf.irric I lie form of most, of ific (oloiiiiiJ ;.y>v(;rrimcnts ;iri'l Ix* .iiisc I lie /^ovcrnmciils wil.fiiri Ific colonies were 1 lu; foreriirin(;rH of our sl.'ilc ^^ovcrrimenls. 'flic ^^overnor iu led unfhtr instru( tions, a lonj^ Jisl. of (lir(;( lions, ^ivcri fiim by llut I'/n^lisfi j^ovcrn- mcnt. He harl the ri^^fil t.f) do m.-iny things anrl was the efiie;f exec ufivc officer in thecoloriy. 'l"hc(oun(il .'u Icfj wilh ific j^overnorasa court in imi»orlant cases, anrl w.-is ,'i. pari, of the jej/ishit lire of Ihe ,'isH(;ml>ly in Virginia Ifie forerunner (jf the Senate in our state government today. The liurj^esse;» in Virginia sat with the (.'ouncil as one chamber till about 1680, when they became a se[)aral(r fioiise. The finrj/esses or ntpnrsentativejs w«rre ele( led by th(; jieople anfj wilfi ifie (.oiiih il mafle laws, (;spe(ially clinging to tfic right of taxation and after a time of aj^propriating money. 36 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION those years the industrial and social character of the colony was established; habits of work and of living were forming that lasted with no great change until long after America was separated from England and Virginia had become a state. We are interested above all in how Virginia became a commonwealth of planters, many of them with vast estates, which were tilled by white servants and, more and more as the years went on, by gangs of blacks, raising great quantities of tobacco to be shipped to Europe on the ocean-going vessels that found their way up the great arms of the sea or up along the rivers with which the common- wealth is threaded. Very early, as we have seen, plantations for tobacco raising were made, here and there in the neighbor- hood of Jamestown. As the population grew and as fear of the Indians began to disappear, the planters pushed on and out into the back country, clearing the land and raising to- bacco; and yearly the plantations became bigger as men of means came into the colony and took up the land. That was the work of the seventeenth century, the establishment of the big plantation system. Much has been said in history about the coming of the ''Cavalier" to the wilds of Virginia, and probably we have a mistaken idea if we have supposed that Virginia r»^l;„:^« was scttlcd by men different in birth and different in Pomimon. J blood from those that formed the backbone of New England in early days. Certain it is, however, that in the mid- dle of the century there were some "distressed cavaliers" that fled in disgust from the England that was in the grasp of the "Roundheads". When Charles was beheaded, Virginia remained stoutly loyal to the house of Stuart and only with reluctance and under pressure acknowledged the rule of Parlia- ment.^ The loyalty of Virginia, the "Old Dominion" as it ^ A review by the reader of the main facts of English history in the seven- teenth century is very desirable. Charles I came to the throne in 1625. There were troubles almost immediately. In 1642 the "Great Rebellion" began; Charles was beaten, and in 1649 was beheaded. The "Common- wealth " period, during most of which Oliver Cromwell was the real ruler of THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 37 Bacon's rebellion came to be called, may have had much effect in bringing men of means; but, whether that be true or not, it is plain that such men came; the big plantations grew in numbers and in size; the ''aristocratic" planter was the leading figure in the life and government of the colony.^ The government of Virginia was not altogether fine and honest in the days of the seventeenth century, when the plant- er was getting a firm hold on colonial life and industry. There was a good deal of political cor- ruption in the days after the Restoration, and William Berkeley, the gov- ernor, was an imperious man, who was "peevish and brit- tle" and would rail at any common man who asked a favor, as if to be governor of Virginia meant license to call everybody hard names." The body of favorites that gathered around him were greedy and had no -taste for considering the rights of the poorer planter or woodsman. The Indians on the frontier who were a source of trouble for years did not molest the planters Indian Treaty Belt of Wampum England, lasted till 1660, when Charles II came to the throne, the "Res- toration". ^ The picture of Virginia as it grew to be is a very important one for us. Tobacco, tobacco, everywhere tobacco. The fertile soil, the broad rivers, the mild climate, all tempted men to raise tobacco; and men scattered, not in little groups or bunches of men as in New England, but up the rivers, and along the "branches" that would float a boat to carry tobacco, the individual planter made his way. He went on into the "back country", perhaps to make a little home for himself and family, often to make a great estate in course of time, where bands of laborers tended the tobacco plant. ^ One man who had approached the Governor was asked how he was treated. "He was brittle and peevish", was the answer, "and I could get nothing fastened on him". He was than asked if the Governor called him a dog or a rogue and he said, "No". "Then", said the questioner, "you took him in the best of humor". 38 HISTORY. OF THE AMERICAN NATION of the older re-, and we ma}' well leave Virginia with some of his words in our THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 39 References Short accounts: Thwaites, The Colonies, pp. 36-44, 64-78; Fisher, r/je Colonial Era, pp. 23-62; Lodge, Short History of the Eng- lish Colonies in America, pp. 1-25. Longer accounts: Bancroft, IIistory,Yo\\i\nc I, pp. 60-152, 442-474; Cooky., Virginia, pp. 1-331; HiLDRETH, History of the United States, Volume I, pp. 76-96, 99-135, 335~353) 509^565; WiNSOR, Narrative and Critical History, Volume III, Chapters II, IV, V. For the beginnings of Virginia, read especially Eggleston, The Beginners of a Nation, pp. 1-98, a very charming and entertaining book; Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Volume I, especially Chapters II to IV; Tyler, England in America. Full and interesting narrative in Channing, History of the United States, Volume I, Chapters V-VIII; Volume II, Chapter HI. MARYLAND — 1632-1700 Among the most noticeable features of American life at the present day are the entire absence of connection between church and state and the complete toleration toiemtioL ^^ ^^^ forms of religious belief. Our national Constitution provides that Congress ''shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The State Constitutions contain similar provisions, and men nowjquite generally assert that in- minds: "Commodities of the growth of our country, we never had any but tobacco, which in this yet is considerable that it yields his Majesty a great revenue. . . . Now, for shipping, we have admirable masts and very good oaks; but for iron ore, I dare not say there is sufficient to keep one iron mill going for seven years. . . . We suppose . . . that there is in Virginia above forty thousand persons, men, women, and children, and of which there are two thousand black slaves, six thousand Christian servants, for a short time, the rest are born in the country or have come in to settle and scat, in better- ing their condition in a growing country. . . . English ships, near eighty come out of England and Ireland every year for tobacco; few New ICngland ketches; but of our own we never yet had more than two at one lime, and those not more than twenty tons burthen. . . . We have fforty-cight par- ishes, and our ministers are well paid, and by my consent should be better if they would pray oflener and preach less. But of all other commodities, so of this the worst are sent us. . . . But, I thank God, there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years". 40 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tolerance is foolish and wrong. But this broad and tolerant spirit has been of slow growth. In the seventeenth century, when America was settled, the great mass of men did not believe in toleration. Even in England, which was in some respects, perhaps, more advanced than were most of the countries of continental Europe, there were severe laws providing for the punishment of those that did not accept the faith of the Es- ' ] iltiiii6i( kIx' <'"'■■■ ':^y Maryland The outer dotted line shows the original boundary and the inner line shows the boundary agreed upon with Pennsylvania in 1767. The southern line of Pennsylvania is Mason and Dixon's line. tablished Church or did not conform to the prescribed modes of worship. Many of the settlers in America were fugitives from the persecutions of the Old World ; and yet in many of the colonies throughout the whole colonial period a spirit of in- tolerance prevailed. This continent received in its early days men of many and diverse faiths; and in the free air of the New World, where free thinking and free acting were encouraged, people gradually came to respect their neighbor's sincere faith, even though it differed from their own. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 41 In the light of these facts, we are interested in the early- history of Maryland, where for some years Protestants and Roman Catholics lived together in peace, and where, for a time at least, the principles of toler- ance were carried into practice. The founders of the colony were George and Cecilius Calvert. The former, the first Lord Baltimore, was a man of distinction in England, in the time of James I. In those days there were strict laws against the Catholics,^ but Baltimore adopted the faith, resigned his of- fice, and turned his attention to founding a colony in America. We don't know just what his purposes were, probably not to found a colony which was purely Roman Catholic, but cer- tainly to found one to which members of his faith could go with hope to live in peace. He obtained a charter granting him land on either side of Chesapeake Bay; but before the charter was actually issued he died and his plan for colonization passed to his son Cecilius. We have seen that Virginia in early days was in the hands of a corporation (1609-1624); the Calvert charter on the other hand gave land and power to one man ; to him was Maryland given the right of government ; he was the lord and ruler of the people. The colony was called a palati- nate,2 and that meant that the lord of the province, owing allegi- ance to the king, and bearing the same relation to him as did any one of the great feudal lords that had acquired power and au- thority in the middle ages, had vast power as feudal overlord over the men that went to settle in the wilds of America. It is a strange and interesting fact, this attempting to use the old feudal system as a basis for American settlement, this attempt- ^ In the reign of James, before 161 8, twenty- four Catholics are said to have been punished with death. Baltimore, however, was not molested, but on the contrary was favored by the king, 2 A palatinate is in itself a little kingdom, in which the lord palatine, though owing allegiance to the king, has regal power as fully as the king in his palace. There were several of them in England at one time, and the palatinate of Maryland was modeled after the palatinate of Durham. The palatinates of li^ngland, like those established by Charlemagne, were on the borders of the realm. 42 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ing to furbish up a dead or dying scheme and use it for plant- ing and peopling a wilderness on the borders of the empire. Though great power was given the proprietor by this charter, there was one essential thing in it, which served in a few years to make the new colony more than a feudal estate. He was the law-making pow'er, but the laws were to be made with the ad- vice and consent of the freemen. If the freemen were assertive, self-reliant Englishmen, if they had the sense of freedom, which the air of the American w^oods produced, they would not long remain mere vassals of a lord who lived in England and made money out of their tobacco. Two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, bearing both Catholic and Protestant colonists, reached the Potomac in 1634. A settlement was made at St. Mary's and the colony Free government becrun. The government was at first in the hands gradually estab- • i , i lished. 01 a governor and council appointed by the proprie- tor. As laws could not be made without consent of the freemen of the colony, a meeting was held within a year. Such a gathering was unwieldy and inconvenient and so, two or three years later, some of the settlers sent proxies to vote for them, and soon after this a regular representative system was set up. Moreover, the people were not content with merely ratifying the laws sent over by Baltimore, and they demanded the right to make laws themselves. When this was granted, as it was, by the lord proprietor, the colonists had a big share in their own government; it did not take many years of Amer- ican life to rub off a good deal of the old-fashioned feudalism. Year by year, and decade by decade, the colonial assembly took new powers to itself ; ^ wresting one power after another from the hands of the proprietor or his governor. ^ The government of Maryland as it developed in the seventeenth cen- tury was not unHke that of her southern neighbor. There were a governor, appointed by the proprietor, a council, also approved by the proprietor, which advised with the governor and had its share in legislation, and the body of elected representatives who with the council had the law-making power. But, of course, Maryland was under the proprietor, not immedi- ately under the King. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 43 Though there was no law prescribing toleration and no pres- sure on the colony save the evident wish of the proprietor and his interests, Catholics and Protestants lived to- Act^ ^°^^'^^^°°^ gether in early years without serious disputes. In 1649 it seemed wise to provide for religious freedom by positive enactment, and in consequence the famous Toleration Act was placed upon the statute books. "And whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath fre- quently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the bet- ter to preserve mutual love and amity among the inhabitants, no person within this province professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be in any ways troubled, molested, or discounte- nanced, for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof". The council and assembly that passed this act were composed of Catholics and Protestants, and it was an event of no small importance in the history of mankind when adherents of these two faiths could thus amicably agree to live together and respect each other's beliefs, even if it were in a corner of the New World. For some years there was on the whole a spirit of tolerance and good fellowship. "Here", wrote a colonist in 1666, "the Roman Catholick and the Protestant Episcopal The English (whom the world would perswade have proclaimed established. opcu w^ars irrevocably against each other) con- trarywise concur in an unanimous parallel of friendship and inseparable love intayled unto one another". But this sweet "parallel of friendship" unfortunately did not last. Toward the end of the century the English church was established in the province ; and strict laws were passed against those who did not conform ;i everybody, no matter ^ In 1 702 Protestant dissenters and Quakers were exempted from pen- alty for non-conforming, and were allowed to have their own meeting- houses, provided they gave their forty pounds of tobacco each to support the established church. But there was on the face of the law no toleration of Catholics. Thus the early example of toleration was for a time lost sight of. 44: HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION what his faith, was taxed to support the established church. After the Revolution of 1688 in England, when William and Mary came to the throne, the proprietor of Maryland was deprived of the right to govern the province. chTng^^"* Early in the next century, however, Benedict Leonard, the fourth Lord Calvert, having re- nounced the Catholic faith, was given his rights again (17 15) and henceforward, till Maryland became a state, it remained a proprietary colony. Maryland, like Virginia, was a colony of planters; here as in the colony across the Potomac were the big plantation, the to- _, , ,. bacco crop, the wide stretches of forest. Men lived in Plantations. . the country, not in towns, and, if they were wealthy, had stately mansions and lived with some degree of luxury. The vessels from the old country sailed up the bays and rivers to be loaded frorn. the plantations with tobacco or to bring the manufactured wares from England to the planter's door. THE CAROLINAS — 1663-1700 Not until after Virginia and Maryland had passed through dll the early experiences of settlement, and not until after _ strong and vigorous colonies had been made on the northeastern coast, were serious efforts made to take possession of the region south of Virginia. In the time of Charles II there came a burst of colonizing interest and energy, and soon after his coming to the throne he gave (1663) to eight of his favorites a grant of land. Two years later, by a new charter, the boundaries were fixed at parallel 36° 30' on the north and 29° on the south — a vast principality stretching westward across the continent. These men were then made the ''true and absolute lords proprietors of the country"; ind they were granted "full and absolute power" to make laws according *'to their best discretion . . . with the advice, assent and approbation of the freemen". To grant this ab- solute power and then to couple it with the provision requiring THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 45 1 N 7^ R Q ' - * "^r^^ CO - . . r ---^/ ^ -'•CScar O Grant of the Carolinas popular assent was like telling a man to run as fast as he wishes, provided he keep a ball and chain fastened to his legs. * The proprietors of this new dominion were among the most important men in Eng- land. The The Proprietors, j^^^^ ^^ ^j_ bemarle was that Gen- eral Monk by whose in- strumentality Charles had been brought back to the throne of his fathers. The Earl of Clarendon had been a most faithful friend in the days of exile. An- thony, Lord Ashley, after- ward. Earl of Shaftesbury, held at that time high official position, and was considered the most astute politician in the kingdom. He is the original of Achitophel in Dryden's famous satire. Before the proprietors took steps to colonize Carolina, settlements had already been made within the limits of their grant. Some Virginians had settled on the Chowan River. This became a permanent settlement, and was the beginning of North Carolina. Somewhat later colonists were sent over under the auspices of the proprietors. They first settled on the west shore of the Ashley River (1670), but in a few years moved to the present site of Charleston. This was the beginning of South Carolina. For a time these two settlements had the same governor, but in political and social life they were different. Each had its own character. When the proprietors entered earnestly on the task of col- onization, they undertook to provide a model government for their tenants. The few people that were already on the ground were getting on very well without an elaborate con- First settlement 46 HISTORY OF THE A]MERICAN NATION stitution. Here, as elsewhere, they were showing capacity for creating institutions as they needed them, suited to their wants. But Shaftesbury, the leading spirit in the eijterprise, entertained the hope that he could avoid "erect- •^Grand Model". ^^^S ^ numcrous democracy"; and so, with the help of his secretary, John Locke, who later be- came one of England's most famous philosophers and writers, he drew up a constitution for the colony. Now, even in America, the home of written charters and fundamental laws, the maxim holds true that constitutions are not made, but grow. The one thing that was quite impossible under this plan was growth. The country, wild as it was and almost uninhabited, was to be divided up with mathematical accuracy, and the feudal system in an exaggerated form was to be foisted upon the people. Various grades of society were established — proprie- tors and landgraves, and caciques and leetmen — and it was solemnly declared that "all the children of leetmen shall be leetmen, and so to all generations''.^ This document, known as the ''Fundamental Constitutions", is often referred to as Locke's "Grand ^Nlodel". It is surprising that the clever philosopher and the crafty Shaftesbury could together have countenanced such folly under the name of wisdom.- Obedience to such a law was quite impossible, and the settlers were thus schooled by necessity to disregard the Effect of the wishes of the proprietors, who had shown no Model on scnse in appreciating the needs of their colonies. Colonial life. 'pj^g northern colony, rejecting this philosophic strait-jacket, showed its disobedience in acts of lawlessness; ^ The charter provided that the proprietor could grant titles of nobil- ity, but that these titles must be different from any used in England. Hence the use of such words as "landgrave" and "cacique". The leetmen were tenants attached to the soil and "underthe jurisdiction of their lord, with- out appeal". No wonder the "Grand Model" is sometimes called "the grand muddle". - Xo set of smug favorites or crafty politicians in England could set up a supreme and absolute government in America or rule it with a free hand. The people were too far away; they had lost too much of their older sense of inferiority, when they crossed the ocean and began plantations in the wilds of a far-ofif country; they felt too strongly their own capacity and manhood. THE SOUTHERN COLONIES— 1607-1700 47 the southern colony, a little more peacefully disobedient, early gave evidence of political sagacity, and carried out its opposi- tion in orderly method with great deftness and skill. ''In Carolina", says Bancroft, "the disputes of a thousand years were crowded into a generation". The spirit of independence was early manifested; the people obtained an assembly and entered into arguments and disputes with proprietors and gov- ernors. Proprietary government lasted for some years, and the proprietors with curious obstinacy made many attempts to fasten the "Grand Model'' on the people, but 1688-T700 ^°^ without success. Before the end of the century both colonies increased in numbers and strength. Negro slavery was introduced, and plantations raising rice and indigo were made here and there in the neighborhood of Charleston, which ere long became a thriving center for the social and political life of the colony. Various elements were added to the population; French Huguenots, Hollanders and Scotch-Irish found their way thither. Though still weak in 1700, the Carolinas were thrifty and prosperous. The people of the southern colony, especially, seemed well provided with practical sense and progressive spirit. New England is often cited as an example of England's great power as a colonizing nation. But South Carolina will serve as well; she wished no tender paternalism and felt quite capable of looking after herself, References *^hort accounts: Thwaites, The Colonies, pp. 87-95; Fisher, The Colonial Era, Chapter VI. Longer accounts: Bryant and Gay, Popular History, Volume H, pp. 26S-290, 355-373; Doyle, The Eng- lish in America, The Southern Colonies, Chapter XII; Winsor, Nar- rative and Critical History, Volume V, Chapter V; Bancroft, History, Volume I, pp. 408-436, Volume II, pp. 10-16; Hildreth, History, Volume II, pp. 25-43, 210^213; FiSKE, Old Virginia and Her Neigh- bors, Volume II, Chapter XV; Andrews, Colonial SelJ-goveriiment, Chapters IX, X. CHAPTER III THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 PLYMOUTH Nearly the whole coast of North America had been divided between the London and Plymouth Companies. The former established Jamestown, but the Plymouth Com- Efforts to found pany at first had no such success. Some of its the North. members were zealous for colonization and eager to get a hold upon the mainland and to enjoy a monopoly of the fisheries; but efforts to this end were fruit- less. The same year that Jamestown was founded, colonists wxre sent to the mouth of the Kennebec, but the settlement was a failure. When the long bitter winter set in, cold and disease brought suffering and death; and the next summer the enterprise was abandoned. This failure seems to have prej- udiced the people of England against the bleak and forbidding north, and for some years no other effort at settlement was made. In 1614 John Smith, the doughty soldier who had saved Jamestown, made a voyage to these coasts jiamed"^^" and explored them from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. He drew a map of the coast, sprinkled it plentifully with English names, and christened it ''New England". ^ We have now to recount the beginnings of permanent north- ern settlements, the courageous work of men and women who had the strength of heart and lofty purpose to face the cold winters of New England, to whom wealth was of little moment if they were allowed to worship as they chose and to live their ^ Smith says on his map: "The most remarqueable parts thus named by the high and mighty Prince Charles, Prince of Great Britaine". 48 THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 49 Part of John Smith's Map of New England simple lives in a state of their own building. To understand aright how these perraanent settlements came to be made, we must get some idea of the religious strivings and dissensions of that day in England. Students of English history will remember that, in the reign of Henry VIII, the Church in England was separated from the Roman Church and dependence on the In^Engiand!*^*^ Pope renounced. In the time of Elizabeth, how- ever, not all the people were Protestants, nor was there agreement as to forms of worship or methods of church government. The queen insisted upon conformity to the reg- 50 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ulations of the Established Church, of which she was the head, and during her reign perhaps the majority of the people acquiesced in the conservative position she adopted. Many, on the other hand, were dissatisfied, and some were ready to suffer persecution rather than conform to the existing order. The land still contained Roman Catholics who believed that the Pope was the true head of the Church. Others, on the con- trary, were desirous of freeing the Church from forms and symbolism, which they considered relics of superstition. They wished to ''purify" the Church by adopting simpler modes of worship. They objected to the sign of the cross in baptism, to the use of the surplice, and to other practices of this kind. Still another class believed that the form of church government should be altered, that the creed and ritual should be pre- scribed not by the queen but by assemblies. These persons were known as Presbyterians, because they believed in the ap- pointment of church dignitaries called presbyters. All of these classes, so far named, believed in a state church, but dis- agreed as to its government or as to forms of worship. There was, in addition, another sect of extreme Puritans, who be- lieved that a church was a local body of believers, and that each such body had the right to elect its own ministers and determine its own methods. These men were called ''Inde- pendents" or "Separatists", because they believed in separa- tion from the Established Church. Even during the reign of Elizabeth members of dissenting sects ^ were severely punished. The Separatists were dealt Dissenters ^ith sharply. Upon the accession of James there persecuted. was no improvement. He was a stickler for prerog- * The sects may be thus designated: I. Roman Catholics. 2. Episcopalians: a. High Church, b. Low Church . . . Puritans. 3. Presbyterians. 4. Separatists. The Low Church, Presbyterians, and Separatists ought all to be called Puritans, inasmuch as all desired "purification" to some degree. Persons were also called "Conformists", because they accepted the forms of the Church, or "Non-conformists", because they objected or refused. THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 51 ative, and in his narrow, dogged way was "determined to reign with a high hand in church and state. But the Puritans grew apace. The stately Elizabeth had been able to hold her people; her pretensions as the head of the Church seemed not gross blasphemy. They loved her well, for she was devoted to England, had repelled the hated Spaniard, and protected with rare shrewdness her people and her throne. But James was personally sloven, mentally a pedant, morally selfish. Demand for civil and religious liberty was sure to grow as a revolt against the assumption of such a monarch who believed in his divine right to rule. We are especially interested in a congregation of earnest, conscientious folk who came together for worship in the little / hamlet of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. They Congregation. ^^^^ Separatists, and were therefore set upon and tormented. They could not long continue in any peaceable condition, but were hunted and persecuted on every side, so that their former afflictions "were but as flea- bitings in comparison of these which now came upon them". Thus molested and beset "by a joynte consente they re- solved to goe into ye Low-Countries, where they heard was freedome of Religion for ail men".^ Betaking themselves to Amsterdam (1608), they went thence to Leyden. They had much to struggle against in Holland, ^ although the Church prospered, "That which was ... of all sorrows most heavie to be borne was that many of their children . . . were drawn away . . . into extra vagante dangerous courses". So they de- termined to go to America and build for themselves new 1 "For some were taken and clapt up in prison, others had their homes besett & watcht night and day, & hardly escaped their hands and ye most were faine to flie & leave their howses and habitations, and the means of their livelehood." These words and other quotations of this chapter are from the History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, second governor of the col- ony. Bradford has justly been called the father of American history. His book was left in manuscript and was not published until about the middle of the nineteenth century. It is beautifully written. "The daily food of his spirit was noble". 62 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION homes far away from the vices of Europe and beyond the reach of the long arm of persecution. ''The place they had thoughts on was some of those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruttful & fitt for habitation, being devoyd of all civill in- pnCTims.*^°™^ habitants, wher ther are only salvage and brut- tish men which range up and downe little other- wise than the wild beasts of the same". They wished to settle somewhere in the northern part of the London Company's grant, south of stern New England, whose cold winters were known to them. It did not seem wise for the whole Leyden congregation to go, but an advance guard of one hundred and two brave souls sailed from Plymouth, England, in the good ship Mayflower, Septemiber, 1620. The weather was rough and tempestuous and when they first saw land it was not the New Jersey shore, but the bleak wintry coast of New England, in the neighborhood of Cape Cod. There they finally determined to stay and to build their homes on the west side of the broad bay, at a point to which Smith had already given the Lmp^^r^""^" name of Plymouth. Before leaving their ship they came together in the little cabin and drew up the famous Mayflower Compact, whereby they solemnly coven- anted and combined themselves into a "civill body politick" for their "better ordering and preservation". They acknowl- edged their dread sovereign King James, but they declared as well their intention to make and obey the laws.^ The land offered but a dreary prospect. "For, summer being done, all things stand upon them with a w^ether-beaten Hardship met f^cc ; and y^ whole countrie, full of woods and with courage, thickcts, represented a wild and savage heiw". ^ If they settled in New England, they would be on the land of the Coun- cil for New England, a corporation which had just been established in Eng- land and given all the land between 40° and 48°. -It is unnecessary for us to go into the history of this corporation, which for a time owned all New England. The pilgrims, seeing that they were to settle there, entered into this compact, and of themselves assumed that power of self -management which they expected to have in Virginia under the London Company. Later they obtained a grant from the Council for New England. 5< "^ 'X^ <, ^^Mt ? '^^ 1;^ f'H ■£ ? ^ ^ *>4 H s O en Pi M W H Ph O O < P4 54 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The first winter was full of terrible distress. In two or three months' time half their company were laid away in graves under the snow. In the time of most distress there were but "6 or 7 sound persons; who . . . spared no pains, but . . . fetched wood" for the sick, ''made them fires, drest them meat, made their beads . . . cloathed and uncloathed them. . . . Whilst they had health, yea or any strength con- tinuing, they were not wanting to any that had need of them". When the Mayflower sailed back to England, not one of the settlers returned. They planted corn, they built homes, A Pilgrim Meeting Holse and Fort they met together in town meeting, they worshiped God in their own simple fashion. The Puritan state and the Puri- tan church in America were begun. Where there was so much energy and devotion, success was sure to follow. The colony never became a large one, but it was prosperous, wholesome, and sound. It showed the way to others, and prepared for the greater mi2:ration of which we shall now read. ''Out of small beginnings", said Bradford, "great things have been produced; and, as one small candle may light a 'xjOut of small beginnings great things are produced THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 55 thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation".^ Governor Carver's Chair and a Col- onial Spinning Wheel MASSACHUSETTS BAY AND HER NEIGHBORS We have already seen that during the reign of James I there were growing discontents in England. When his son Charles came Charles I and ^j^^ ^^^^^^^ Parliament. (1625) new troubles set in. He was even more obstinate than his father, and had high ideas of his own authority and contempt for such prin- ciples of the constitution as were meant to restrain the arbitrary conduct of the king. "The king is in his own nature very stiff", said Sir Ferdinand Fairfax, and this well describes the character of the young monarch who now set himself the task of ruling without regard to the wishes of the nation. He began almost at once to quarrel with the House of Commons, demanding money from it without deigning to listen to complaints or consenting to consider grievances.- But the House could not be browbeaten. They wrested from him his consent to the famous Petition of Right. His word did not bind him, however; he disregarded his prom- ises and went on as before. In 1629 he dissolved Parliament, and for eleven years he ruled without one. These were fateful years for England. Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford ^ For a picturesque description of life in Plymouth in early days read Hart, Contemporaries, vol. i, p. 356, where Governor Edward Winslow is quoted. ^ "I would you would hasten for my supply", he exclaimed in anger when the House sent in a list of grievances, "or else it will be the worse for yourselves, for if any ill happen I think I shall be the last to feel it". 56 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION laid their hea\y hands upon the people, seeking to crush out all opposition and to cow the people into complete submission to the king. Because of these conditions in England a great migration to America set in. In these years, when King Charles was ruling without a parliament and exacting illegal migration taxes from the people, over twenty thousand persons left their homes and sailed for New Eng- land. The men who came to America in those years cherished the principles of the English Constitution, and were from the same class as those who, in the great rebellion (1642-49), fought to maintain the liberties of England. They believed that a monarch had no right to take money from the people without the consent of Parliament. They believed that the people had rights and privileges, and many of them realized, Its meaning. . ^ ,^ ^ r <• i • i i m part at least, the force of the maxim that be- came fundamental in the New World — that government ob- tains its just powers from the consent of the governed. We may consider, therefore, that the principles for which our Revolution was afterward fought were brought by these men to America from amid the trials of troubled England in the days of Charles I. No doubt these principles grew more sturdy in the air of a new world, but the principles of 1776 were not new ideas or the sudden offspring of the tyranny of George III. They were English principles, for which the people of England fought in their rebellion and which they made good in the revo- lution of 1688; and in the Revolution of 1776 the American people, more true to these principles than England herself, struggled to maintain them and make them effective. To appreciate this movement it is also necessary to un- derstand the character and purposes of these emigrants. They were Puritans — not Separatists, but believers in the Teuiers. ^^^ state Church. Believing, however, that the Established Church needed purification, they came to America that they might worship as they chose, free from the persecution of Laud. They did not come to establish toleration, but to carry out their own ideas in religion. They THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 57 were, moreover,- men of ideals and men of character. Many of them were men of education and of wide experience. Among them were scholars and statesmen and learned ministers. They had strong convictions and great earnestness of purpose. The characteristic organ of their communities was ''not the hand, nor the heart, nor the pocket, but the brain". ^ Having seen the meaning of this great movement, let us now see how the settlements were made and how they pros- pered. Even before the Puritans of New England in any large way turned to thoughts of colonization a few men had settled at Salem,^ and this was now taken as a starting-point, a basis for more extensive settlement. From the Council for New England a tract of land was obtained; the northern boundary was three miles north of the Merrimac River, and its southern was three miles south of the Charles. It extended westward to the Pacific. In 1628 a little company of sixty persons set sail for Salem under the leadership of John Endicott, Gentle- man, "a man well known to divers persons of good note".^ The next spring a royal charter was granted by the king, creating a corporation with the title of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. It is ^ Tyler's History of American Literature, vol. i, p. 98. The student will find Chapter V interesting and profitable reading. The men who founded Massachusetts are said to have come from that class of men "in whom at that time centered for the English-speaking race the possibility for any fur- ther progress in human society". See also Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chap. iii. Though not at first Separatists, these men early used Congregational church government, and before the middle of the seven- teenth century took the name "Congregational". There was by no means complete separation between church and state, however, through the whole colonial history of Massachusetts. 2 John White, a Puritan rector of Dorchester, England, entertained the hope of raising in America "a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist". In a pamphlet which is attributed to his pen the Puritans were urged to "avoid the plague while it is foreseen", and not to tarry till it overtake them. ^ "A fit instrument to begin this wilderness work, of courage bold, un- daunted, yet sociable and of a cheerful spirit, loving and austere, apply- ing himself to either as occasion served" (from the Wonder-working Providence). 58 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION A Lin^^Miles iVurf/i of the Source uf the s Merriniac ) SCALE OF MILES Actual boundaries deterTnined lartou« boundaries claimed by Mass—. The charter, 1628-29. one of the curious contrasts of history that in the same year and the same week that the headstrong monarch entered upon the task of ruling without Parliament he granted a charter to this company y whose work was fated to result in the erection across the water of a great free republic, which was des- tined to cherish and de- velop the principles he was seeking to crush. The af- fairs of the company were intrusted to a governor, deputy governor, and eigh- teen assistants, who were elected annually by the " freemen ", as the members of the corporation were called. These officers were to meet once a month or oftener to transact business, and four times a year they -were to meet with all the freemen in ''one great, general, and solemn assembly". The freemen in these "great and general" courts had the power to make laws and ordinances for the welfare of the company and for the government of the plantation, "so as such laws and ordinances be not contrary and repugnant to the laws and statutes of the realm of England". Soon after the granting of the charter about four hundred persons embarked for New England. The company in England now decided upon the important step of transferring its seat of government and taking its charter to America. This change was of great moment. The Company -phe Company thus fully resident in the New World comes to !^ ^ New England, was more than a tradmg company, such as it might appear to be on the face of the charter. Legally it was still a corporation under the control of the King of England; actually it developed into a self-governing com- Grant to Massachusetts Bay THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 59 monwealth, a body politic, in nearly all respects independent and self-sufficient.^ This transference of the charter took place in 1630, and in the same year nearly one thousand persons went over to Massa- chusetts. This was the greatest effort at coloni- More settlers, zation as yet made by Englishmen. John Winthrop,^ a man of noble and lofty spirit, a magnanimous and gentle soul, one of the best products of his age, a high type of the Puritan statesman and scholar, came out as governor of the colony. Other settlements were rapidly founded. Charlestown had already been begun, and here Winthrop at first made his home; but he later moved to the peninsula that metlT ^^ ^' ^"^y ^^ ^^^ south and west of Charlestown, where three bare hills raised their heads, a place "very uneven, abounding in small hollows and swamps, covered with blueberries and other bushes". With Winthrop went a number of other people, and they ''began to build their homes against winter; and this place was called Boston". Other towns sprang up. Within a year of Winthrop's arrival there were eight separate settlements extending from Salem on the north to Dorchester on the south. We may well notice the various changes that were made in the government of this colony. The charter of a trading com- pany in reality furnished the basis of the govern- gove'rmnent Hient of the people. Self -government was not here, as in Virginia, a gift from the company to the settler. The government of the company had come across ^ The company records say: "And lastly, the Governor read certain propositions conceived by himself, viz.: That for the advancement of the Plantation, ... to transfer the government of the Plantation to those that shall inhabit there, and not to continue the same in subordination to the Company here, as now it is". ^ The picture of Winthrop shown on the next page is engraved in many places, notably in Winthrop's History, in Winsor's Memorial History of Boston, etc. It is a copy of a painting supposed to be by the great artist Vandyke. It hangs in the Senate Chamber of Massa- chusetts. He was governor of Massachusetts Bay from his arrival in 1630 to 1634, and at several other times. 60 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the water and was the government of the colony. The right to choose officers and to pass laws and regulations belonged John Wi^^throp The Original is in the State House, Boston to the members of the company ; but the membership was soon increased by admitting into the company other persons who were members of the churches in the colony. Thus member- THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 61 ship in the church and the right to participate in managing general colonial affairs went together. At a later time (1664) this right to vote on colonial matters was extended and a more liberal rule adopted; but the colony was practically in the hands of the church members till Massachusetts was compelled to give up the corporation charter under which she was living (1684). For the first year or two the governor and assistants exercised more power than they were entitled to under the charter, and the assistants, it seems, assumed the right to hold office until the freemen — that is to say, the members of the company — removed them. This plan did not last. When Watertown was called upon to pay a tax, "the pastor, elder, etc., assembled the people and delivered the opinion that it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear of bring- ing themselves and their posterity into bondage". This was the true American doctrine, ''No taxation without representa- tion". Soon after this (May, 1632) the General Court agreed ^'that the governor and assistants should all be new chosen every year by the General Court". It was also proposed that every town should choose "two men to be at the next court, to advise with the governor and assistants about the raising of a public stock, so that what they should agree upon should bind all". Somewhat later it was ordered "that every town should send their deputies, who should assist in making laws, disposing lands, etc."^ For' some time these representatives or deputies sat with the governor and assistants as one body, but in 1644 another A great business chaugc was made. The assistants and deputies on small occasion, did not get on Very wcll together and so separated ^ These quotations are from The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, by John Winthrop. Governor Winthrop in this book, which is in , the form of a diary, has left for us his own account of the building of Mas- sachusetts. The General Court was the meeting of the members of the company, like the meeting of the stockholders of a modern corporation; but, as the text above explains, this meeting became a representative body for law mak- ing, while all the freemen retained the right to elect ihe governor, deputy governor and assistants. 62 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and formed two houses for making the laws — "a great busi- ness", to use Winthrop's words, "upon a ven* small occasion".^ It is important to notice that the settlers in Massachusetts did not, as did the Virginians, begin at an early day to reach Towns. ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ wilderness and make plantations; nor did men go alone to distant farms as they did when the great West was settled in later years. The neighbor- hood of Boston was soon occupied by little groups of men and women, each group vrith. its o\^-n church and ere long with its own school. The tilled land, the meadows, the pas- tures, lay near the little group of houses. As the years went b\-. small bands of men, obtaining land from the government of the colony, found- ed towns in outlvinsc regions: but a town meant more than a cluster or line of houses; the settlers' homes were usually close together, ranged along the village street, but a man was a member of the town, even though his house was not close to the others. The to\Mi was an asso- ciation for government and for business purposes, and in the town meeting men managed their own local affairs and looked after their simple needs, subject of course to the laws of the General Court, which legislated on all general matters for the colony.- * For some time the deputies and assistants had disagreed over their powers. When a controversy arose between a rich man and a poor woman about the ONMiership of a stray pig, a majority of the assistants favored the man, and a majority of the'deputies the woman. This dispute helped to bring about the separation into two houses. - By the New Englander the town is easily understood: but the Western and Southern reader often mistakes the meaning of the term. To the West- Ch.air and Cradle Used in the Early Colony THE XEW EXGLAXD COLONIES— UH")7-1 700 63 Within four years from the settlement of Boston there were four thousand people in the colony. They were industrious and thriftv; thev built houses, laid out roads, and tilled the soil. Xot content with mere bodily well-being, they decided that learning should not "be buried in the graves" of their fathers. They knew that it was "one chief project" of "that old deluder Satan" "to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures" by persuading them "from the use of tongues." ^ In 1O30 the General Court appropriated money for a college, and two years later John Harvard, "a godly Gentleman and a kn-or of learning", gave the "one halfe of his Estate (it being in all about 1700/.) . . . and all his library-" for this purpose. A law was soon passed requiring e\'er}' township of fifty householders to maintain a school for readmg and writing, and every town of a hundred householders a grammar school to ht youths for the university. Though the colony grew and prospered, its earlier days were not free from anxiety. The movement to America was not looked on with favor by the high-church Danger from authorities in En2;land, and for a time it looked England. ^ as if the company might lose its charter, and be brought immediately under the king. But the danger blew over, the company went on, and soon Charles I and his advisers had too much trouble at home to worry over Puritans across the sea. While this danger from its foes in England was disturbing the colony there was also trouble within, growing largely out of religious differences. We must remember that the ]Mas- sachusetts leaders did not come to the X>w World to em man the town usually means a group of houses, sometimes it may be a citv, sometimes only a hamlet. The Xew Englanders did settk^ in groups and that fact is important; but it is also a fact that the settlers had com- mon interests; the earlier settlers were given the land as a bod\"; together they looked after their own immediate concerns. The town meeting pro- ^•ided for taxes and passed the regulations that were needed. The town zvstem was the general system by which Xew England was settled. ^ These words are part of an ordinance passed in 1647, at which time the law for the establishment of a school in each township was passed. Legislation on the subject had been passed even earlier. 6 64 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION set an example of religious freedom — not at all. They were out of patience with church rule in England; but thev came here to build their ovra ''Bible Intolerance. ' i i •• i i • ■, -, conmiomvealtn and to worship as they chose. Leaders in any great enterprise are likely to be determined souls, and these men were not ready to put up with differ- ences of opinion and endure a variety of religious forms and beliefs; for there was one true way and he that would not follow therein must be narrow-minded or obstinate at the best. So lirst and last there was much harsh treatment of those who ventured to announce new and unsavory* doctrines. What were the elders for but to expound the Scriptures, that all might know the truth and follow it?^ Thus the leaders believed and thus they practiced. Among the lirst of those that came to disturb the colony was young Roger Williams, a man of ability, of sound morals and loftv purposes. He could not live quietly Roger Williams. . , ' .\ ^ , . . , , , i, , , Without airing his views; he loved to talk and he reveled in argument. When he asserted that the powers of the civil magistrates extended only to the bodies, goods and the outward state of men, in other words, that the civil officers should not meddle with church affairs but let men worship as they chose — when he found fault with the charter and uttered '"new and dangerous opinions", he was ordered to leave the colony. Fleeing into the wilderness January, 1636), "sorely tossed" as he afterward said, " in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean", he made his way to Narragansett Bay and together "u-ith a few friends from the settlements founded Providence. The hrst government of this little colony was a simple democracy ^ To speak sharply of New England intolerance is easy enough, but withal there is no need of using hard words about men of the past who strove conscientiously to live the life and teach the truth they heartily believed in. The historical fact is that these men did not believe in or practice freedom in religious belief, and the historical fact is that toleration and a free spirit grew as time went on. A man like Williams was ahead of his day. a voice in the wilderness, a prophet who was to help bring forward, though with bickering meanwhile, the days of peace. . THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 65 built on the principle of majority rule and its power extended not to matters of conscience but only to "civil things".^ And then came Anne Hutchinson, an able and ''nimble- witted" woman, who had the boldness to gather men and women at her house and talk of religious things. Hutchinson. She, a womau, dared to expound new doctrines and to point out a way of life. Her sayings are to us n^v strange and clumsy things; we need to be steeped in the lore of theology before we understand what the words mean and what the turmoil was all about. But the people of Boston understood or thought they did, and Mistress Anne stirred up such discussion that even the governor of the colony was involved. The little town of Boston throbbed with interest and many a faithful follower began to look askance at the ministers and their teaching. The leaders of the people and the elders of the church, shocked and distressed by the doctrines and the presumption of the woman, turned upon her; so she too was sent from the colony and went forth into the forest. As Williams had done before her, she made her way southward with a few faithful followers; a settlement was made on the island of Aquidneck — afterward called the Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island — which was bought from the Indians for ''forty fathoms of white beads". The spirit of intolerance was triumphant when Anne Hutchinson left Boston; ''no unsound, unsavorie and gidie fancy" dared lift its head or "abide the light". Wlien the Quakers came a few years later and preached their doctrine of the "inner light", declaring that every man should follow conscience ^\•ithout direction from priest or minister, they were set upon and banished. Some of them daring to return were hanged in Boston. That was the beginning of the end, however; public opinion did not support such severe measures, and gradually a freer and more liberal sentiment grew up in the colony .- ^ Read Fiske, Beginnings of New England, 114; Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation, Book iii, Chap. ii. 2 See Fiske, Beginnings of New England, pp. iSo, iSi. In Hart, Contena- 66 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Connecticut. Settlers went into the Xarragansett region, as we have seen, with Roger Williams and Mrs. Hutchinson, and soon af- terward others Rhode Island. went there and founded new settlements. In 1644 a patent was obtained from the Parliament, giving the people a large meas ime of self- government, and uBB^ the settlements — the beginning of the legal organization of Rhode Island. While the authorities at Boston were busy in bidding disturbers be si- lent or leave, men were beginning to move into the western region. Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecti- cut River was founded (1635); and in 163 8 people came from New England and, passing through the old colony, founded Xew Ha- ven. But the most important movement was westward from the towns around Boston harbor to the valley of the Connecticut. The great leader of the enterprise was Thomas Hooker, a learned and eloquent preacher and a man of personal force.^ In 1636 a band of settlers led by their Hooker made their way poraries, etc., vol. i, p. 479, will be found The Justification of Mar>' Dyer, one of the Quakers who was hanged; also the trial of Winlock Christison, p. 481. Christison was condemned to death, but public sentiment prevented the execution. ^ " In matters . . . which concern the common good ", said Hooker, "a gen- eral council chosen by all to transact business which concerns all, I con- ceive . . . most suitable to rule and most safe for relief of the whole". This sentiment was different from that of Winthrop, who had declared that "the best part is always the least, and, of that best part, the wiser part i.* always the lesser". This difference between the ideas of Hooker and Win- throp may perhaps illustrate the reasons for the movement to the Connec- ticut Valley, but in addition to this the people wanted more and better grazing for their cattle. Rhode Island and Providence Plantations THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 67 to the Connecticut valley and began the building of Hart- ford.^ Within a year the new colony had eight hundred peo- ple gathered in the three towns of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield. There was much suffering in the ear- Towns* ^^ ^y y^^i-rs, for to build for new homes in a wilderness under the best of circumstances means privation' if not actual want. The worst of horrors, an Indian war, was added to other trials. In the summer of 1637 a small band of white men attacked the Pequots in their palisaded town and practically exterminated them. 'Tt is reported by themselves'', said one of the victorious party, "that there were about four hundred souls in the fort, and not live of them escaped out of our hands". In 1639 the settlers formed a government for themselves and drew up the famous Fundamental Orders. The new gov- ernment was not unlike that of Massachusetts. OrdersTAesQ ^^^ inhabitants of each town could choose four deputies in the legislative assembly, called the General Court, while the governor and six magistrates or as- sistants, also forming part of the General Court, were elected by the whole body of the people. Possibly, if we compared these Orders, drawn up by these free-thinking men in the Connecticut wilderness, with modern constitutions and with all the prin- ciples that have grown up about them, we should hesitate to say that they were really what they have sometimes been called — "the first truly political written constitution in history". But even if they were in one sense not a constitution, we should not lose sight of the significance of the fact that these frontiers- men were showing marked capacity for organization and were easily and of their own accord mapping out a system of govern- ment and preparing to live quietly under the laws made by themselves. Such an act as this was to be done once and again ^Hooker's "wife was carried on a horse litter; and they drove one hundred and sixty cattle, and fed of their milk by the way" — is the statement of Winthrop. They were "making the first of those pilgrim- ages toward the setting sun which later became a marked characteristic of American life". — (Channing, History of the United States, I, 400.) OS HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX New Hampshire and Maine. as the American frontier was pushed westward, and as men, cut otT by the intervening forest from tlieir older homes, found need of new laws and their own magistrates. Settlements were also made in the early years in the land tliat became Xew Hampshire and Maine, largely made up o f m e n from the o 1 d e r settlements, and they were, during most of the centur}', a part of Massachusetts. These outlying re- gions at the north grew slowly. A trav- eler who s;\iled alona; the coast in 163S de- scribed the region as "no other than a mere wilderness, with here and there by the sea- side a few scattered plantations with a few- houses* *.^ Almost immedi- ately after the found- ing of Connecticut there was some discussion as to the advisability of forming Tkrrhv»r\ Granted to Mason and Gorges * Some settlers seem to have been at Dover in Xew Hampshire as early as i6.:S. Mason and Gorges, two Englishmen who were for many years interested in colonization, obtained at an early day a grant to all the land botweon the Mornmac and the Kennebec. This property Avas later divided and Mason became possessed of the territory- between the Merrimac and the Piscataqua. Gorges received the remainder. Mason's share was, roughly speaking. Xew Hampshire, and as we have seen, was after a time annexeil to Mass^ichusetts. On Gorges's ^x^rtion of this grant were a num- Iht of little settlements, some of them made quite early in the history- of New England. THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 69 a league among the various New England colonies. The pur- pose of combining was to secure mutual protection. The Pequot War had shown the danger of an Indian outbreak. ^Moreover, the Dutch on the Hudson were trouble- some and ambitious neighbors, while the French at the north, though seemingly afar otT, had already shown that they were near enough to cause uneasiness if not dansier. Need of luiion. Extent of the Settlemiixts ix New Exglaxd ix 1660 A union was therefore formed: ^lassachusetts, Connecticut Plymouth and New Haven, entering into a "lirm and perpetual, league of friendship" with the right to determine New England ^^^^^ ^^jj matters of commou interest. The con- Coniederation, . . i643-'S4. tederation lasted some years, in fact not en- tirely disappearing until 16S4. It must have had an important eflfect upon the later history of America. 70 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Eighty years passed by before the popular representatives from all the colonies came together to protest against the novel laws of England, and to body forth the real unity of interest in the settlements scattered along the Atlantic coast; but a remembrance of the New England Confederation could not have died out during those eighty years, and it doubtless aided in the work of forming a perpetual union. From the outbreak of the civil war in England (1642) until the restoration of the Stuarts (1660) New" England was allowed to govern itself; but Charles II was chart^ers hardly seated on his throne before he turned his attention to America. New Haven had received and sheltered two of the fugitive judges of the court that had condemned his royal father to death. Spite of its protestations, it was now annexed to Connecticut. The latter colony was given a liberal charter, which became very dear to the people. Rhode Island, too, received a new charter. It is an interest- ing fact that Charles II, who in England gave no sign of loving free government, should have granted these two charters, so liberal and good that the people cherished them and kept them as their fundamental constitutions well down into the nine- teenth century.^ Although Charles II gave these charters to Connecticut and Rhode Island, allowing them great freedom in ruling themselves, the position of Massachusetts annoyed the Eng- Massachusetts ,. , , i • i i. • j j • j.i_ attacked ^^^^ government, w^hich tried durmg those years to bring about some kind of orderly management, oversight and direction of colonial affairs. Massachusetts was obstinate and stiff necked and felt quite able to look after herself, and though she succeeded for years in postponing and avoiding the trouble she had at length to yield. First New Hamp- shire was taken from her and made a royal province, the first in New England. Next, the old charter of Massachusetts was annulled, the charter under which this great Puritan common- ^ The charter of Rhode Island (1663) continued to be the Constitution of the State until 1843. Connecticut preserved hers until 1818. THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES— 1607-1700 71 wealth had grown and prospered and become the mother of colonies (1684). Then after James II came to the throne (1685), the plan was begun of bringing the northern colonies under one govern- ment to be directed from England. Sir Edmund Government. Audros was scut ovcr to Carry out the royal will. He did not succeed in doing much with Connecticut and Rhode Island, but he entered with vigor upon his course with Massachusetts, and the old colony saw the General Court abolished at his word, town meetings limited to one a year, and other steps taken that aroused a bitter spirit of anger and resentment. Nominally, Andros was governor- general of all the vast territory north and east of the Delaware — the Dominion of New England as it was called. But his power did not last long. With the Revolution of 1688 in Eng- land, James II hurried away to France; and, when the news came to Massachusetts, the people poured into Boston, seized upon Andros and set up their own government again. The tyranny of Andros doubtless taught its lesson to the New Englanders. Seventy-five years later men remembered this attack upon their liberties. Had the plans of James worked smoothly at home, the boasted freedom of England would have disappeared. Had his plans been carried out in America, free colonial life would have been crushed out. But the Revolution of 1688 saved the liberties of England and America, and in the next century the colonies strengthened their hold upon prin- ciples of self-government. After the Revolution, when William and Mary came to the English throne, Rhode Island and Connecticut were allowed to go under their old charters, but Massachusetts A new charter. ^ . / ^ \ \ ' -i ^ r ^ was given a new one (1691). It provided tor the appointment by the crown of a governor, lieutenant- governor, and secretary; the assistants or councilors and the representatives constituted with the governor the Gen- eral Court. The representatives were to be elected by the towns; but the assistants and representatives together chose each year the assistants for the following year. Plymouth was 72 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION added to Massachusetts. Maine and Acadia also belonged to her. Thus the colony held the coast, with the exception of the colony of New Hampshire, from Buzzard's Bay to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At the end of the seventeenth century the New England Colonies were strong and prosperous. Year by year little groups of people founded new towns in the wilderness or along the coast; year by year there were new evidences of strength and capacity for self-government. References Short accounts : Thwaites, The Colonics, pp. 1 1 2-177; Fisher, The Colonial Era, pp. 82-176; Egglestox, The Beginners of a Nation, pp. 9S-220, 266-346. Longer accounts: Fiske, Begittnings of New England; Bancropt, History, Volume I, pp. 177-407, 584-589, also Volume II, pp. 47-69; Tyler, England in America, Chapters \TI- XIX; Andrews, Colonial Self-government, Chapters XVI-XVIII; Channt:ng, Hist or V of the United States, A'olume I, Chapters X-XV; Volume II, Chapters III, VI, VII. CHAPTER IV THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 NEW YORK While England was getting a strong footing in the North and at the South along the Atlantic coast, the Dutch began H H d ^^ ti)i^& possession in the middle region.^ An explorer by the name of Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of a Dutch company, seeking to solve the old problem and to find a short route to the silks and spices of the Orient, sailed one summer day (1609) into New York harbor and then up the noble river that was to bear his name. He found no route to India but was deeply impressed with the beauties of the country, and returned to Holland to recount his travels and to report that from the natives who inhabited the new-found land furs could be had almost for the asking — for baubles and trinkets and gewgaws. Thus Hudson opened up to the Dutch a new trade, and the merchants of Amsterdam were not slow in taking advantage of it. Traders soon found their way to the Company. banks of the new river to traffic with the na- tives. Trading stations were founded. Finally a company was organized and granted immense power (162 1). To this West India Company Holland transferred her pros- ^ In the seventeenth century Holland was one of the most prosperous and progressive countries of Europe. While EHzabeth was on the throne of England this sturdy Httle nation was engaged in a long fight against the tyranny of Spain — a fight full of deeds of daring and of bravery beyond compare. It came out of this conflict a self-reHant people — stronger, more vigorous than ever before — while the power of Spain, the mighty oppressor, was checked. Now, just as England was getting ready to colonize and to build up her great states in the New World, brave little Holland was a serious rival. The Dutch were the carriers of Europe. In the middle of 73 74 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION pects in the New World; but a thoroughly successful colony could not arise under the direction of a company whose only end was gain. The first colony under the new company was sent over in 1623 and settlements were soon made here and there — at Fort Orange, where Albany now stands, at New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, where one of the great cities of the world now raises its lofty towers and buildings in the air, and even at places on the Delaware and the Connecticut. Controlling this great central region and holding the Hudson River, which offered a highway to the Indian trade and fur trade of the interior, New Netherland, as the Dutch called the colony, had a favorable location and might, one would think, have prospered greatly. But, on the whole, things did not go on very well. Friendly relations with the Iroquois Indians were established, and loads of furs were carried away to the marts of Holland; but you cannot found a big, substantial colony with- out farms, and farmers, and families, and contented settlers. Big estates were given a few men who would come to the country and bring colonists with them — the ^'patroons"^ these men were called, but in the middle of the century the colony was not so firmly planted, so safe in its own strength and prosperity as the self-reliant settlements of New England, which had grown up without the orders of a company that lived in Europe and was bent on making money.- the seventeenth century they are said to have had half the carrying trade of the Continent. Amsterdam was a great mart of trade. It was to be expected that when the sails of Holland were upon every sea there would be some attempt to secure a hold upon America. ^ Each person establishing a colony of fifty persons over fifteen years of age was entitled to become the owner and ruler of a strip of country on the banks of some river sixteen miles in width, or eight miles where both banks were occupied, and stretching back from the river indefinitely. 2 There was much truth in the complaints of some of the colonists: "It seems", they said, "as if from the first the company had sought to stock this land with their own employees, which was a great mistake, for when their time was out they returned home, taking nothing with them except a little in their purses and a bad name for the country. . . . The directors here, though far from their masters, were close by their profit". THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 75 The Dutch were not allowed to maintain in peace their claim to all this wide territory in which they planted their fur stations; other nations wanted a share. In 1638 the Swedes built a fort, called Fort Christina, on the Delaware River, where Wilmington now stands, and called the adjoining territory New Sweden. The Dutch New Sweden. strenuously objected and after much dispute the Swedes yielded and New Sweden disappeared. 76 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION In the meantime, the New Englanders, strongly objecting to the attempts of the Dutch to build forts on the Connecticut, took possession of the country themselves; Dutch f^*T?^*^^^' trading companies could not hold out against land becomes or- o New York. such scttlcrs as entered the Connecticut Valley from the older settlements of the coast. And then (1664) war broke out between England and Holland, an Eng- lish fleet appeared in the harbor before New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant's House in New Amsterdam This house was erected in 165S and was afterward called the White Hall From an old print in \'alentine's Manual and the control of the great river passed into English hands. Charles II gave the newly acquired territory to his brother James, the Duke of York, and it was rechristened New York. THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 77 Under English rule the colony on the Hudson went on and gradually took on the form of government that the other English colonies had. In i68s an assembly was New York. o j provided for, and after the Revolution of 1688 the colony, now a royal colony under the government of England, went steadily forward, growing in population and in strength.' It is hard for us to picture to ourselves the great state of New York and its mighty city as they were at the end of the seventeenth century — a settlement of something less than twenty-live thousand souls, some of them traders and set- tlers up the river, some of them small merchants and farmers on Manhattan and in its immediate neighborhood. The Dutch were the largest landowners and they still retained their own dress and followed their own customs without much reference to the invading Englishman. The steady, conservative spirit of the Hollander doubtless continued to influence the life of New York for many decades; but even at this early day men of many nations had come hither. It had become a ''community of many tongues, of many customs, of many faiths". References Short accounts: Thwaites, The Colonies, pp. 196-210; Fisher, The Colonial Era, Chapter IX; Lodge, Short History, pp. 285-302. Longer accounts: Bancroft, History, Volume I, pp. 475-527, 577-582; Channing, History of the United States, Volume I, Chapters XVI, XVII, Volume II, Chapter II; Tuckerman, Peter Stuyvesant; Rob- erts, New York, pp. 1-185; Roosevelt, New York; M. W. Good- man, A. C. Royce, R. Putnam, Historic New York, pp. 1-191; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Volume I. ^ It will be remembered that for a short time New York with the young colony of New Jersey at the south were placed under the control of Andros. In 1688, when news came that King James was king no longer, the people drove out their royal deputy in New York. This revolt was headed by an impetuous German by the name of Jacob Leisler, who, once in the lead, wished to remain there, and assumed the powers of government, which he wielded in arbitrary and reckless fashion. When the new governor ap- pointed by the king came to take possession, Leisler hesitated to surrender the colony. This he was soon forced to do, however, and soon afterwards he was hanged for treason, the order for his execution, it is said, being signed by the governor while under the influence of drink. 7S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION NEW JERSEY — 1664-I7OO What is now the State of New Jersey was part of the tern- ton' claimed by the Dutch under the name of New Nethedand. Before the English seized the countn' something had been done to settle this part, although it had not developed, as might have been expected, in the titty years of Dutch occupancy. The Duke of York, as proprietor of the territory- newly acquired, ceded i^i004'> this southern i.x>rtion. lying between the Delaware River and the sea. to Lord John Berkeley and Sir Gev^rge Car- teret. The new province was namevi New C;\> seuJement saria or Now Jersey, in honor of Carteret, who as governor of the island of Jersey had heroically defended it against the Parliamentarians during the great re- bellion. The proprietors at once issued a docimieni known as '*the Concessions", which outlined a form of government and laid down \arious rules for the administration of the colony; broad and liberal in its terms.it was cherish eii by the people as a "charter of liberties. There were some settlers already in the province who had come in under the Dutch rule. In 1DO5 Philip Carteret, a nephew of the proprietor, came out as gov- ernor, bringing with him a small body of Englishmen. The settlement thus founded was given the name of Elizabeth, in honor of Ladv Carteret. Other settlements were made The .\ssemblv. : , . . . , , , . soon alter this, emigrants Irom the other colonies, especially from Now England, coming in to take advantage of the privileges otYerod by the new proprietors. In lOoS an assembly was summoned, and the legislative history- of New Jersey was begun. Berkeley, growing wear>- of iho troubles in\oKod in manag- ing the colony, sold his share to some Quakers, and this interest tinally passet.1 into the hands of William Penn and di^de'd^"^ a few of his associates. About this time i,i074'> the colony was divided into two parts. Carteret obtaining East Jersey. The Quakers, to whom fell the western portion, now enteret.! upon the task of legislation and control. Outcasts and outlaws in other organized states, how would they THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 79 legislate when the power and responsibility eamc into their hands? Their lu'st aets were marked by a generous and kindly spirit, and breathed a true democracy. *'We lay", they said, The Quakers " ^^ foundation for after ages to understand their in West New liberty as Christians and as men, that they may Jersey. ^^^^^ ^^ brought iuto boudagc but by their own consent : for we put the power in the people". INIany Quakers, glad to find a refuge from oppression, now made their way to the new colony. Shortly after this George Carteret died, and his rights in East New Jersey. .^ , ^ , Last Jersey were sold to Penn and twenty-three associates. These associates were not all Quakers; there were among them Presbyterians from Scotland, dissenters, and Catholics. Within a few years many Scotch came over, and thus began the strong Scotch and Presbyterian element of New Jersey. In the mean- time there had been great trouble with Andros, the duke's governor in New E.^st Jersey and West Jersey \ork, whoset up certain showing the line of loS; (unfmished) and Clamis ot right m East the proposed boundary Jersey, and could not re- frain from annoying interference in the colony. After a time the rights of the proprietors were acquired by the crown (1702), and the two Jerseys united into one became a royal colony. The history of New Jersey in these early days can scarcely Proposed Boundarif Line of 16S7 {L'rfn:shcd) 80 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION be called interesting. There is a certain lack of unity and pur- pose in the colony; it was not a great experiment in religion and politics like New England, nor had it the picturesque quali- ties of the southern colonies. Despite legisla- the^cdonV ^^^^ wrangliugs and {proprietary disputes, the colony prospered steadily and soberly, growing into a substantial commonwealth. Farming was almost the sole oc- cupation, and all through the next centur}^ the colony was com- mercially dependent on New York or on the more prosperous and vigorous colony which grew up on its western border. References Short accounts: Thwaites, The Colonies, pp. 210-215; Fisher, The Colonial Era, Chapter X; Lodge, Short History, pp. 263-267; Bancroft, History, Volume I, pp. 520-523 and 546-551, also Volume II, pp. 3i-33;HiLDRETH, Z?'/j/c>r3', Volumell, pp. 51-61 and 216-218; Channing, History of the United States, Volume II, Chapter XI. PENNSYLVANIA AND DELAWARE — 1681-170O We have already mentioned the Friends, or Quakers, some of whom early came into various colonies, and were there treated with great harshness. They were an im- A^rica ^^ portant element in English colonization. Three of the colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were built up largely under their guidance and in- fluence. It thus happened that the very central portion of the English domain in America felt the impress of the beliefs and ideals of these people. The religion of the Society of Friends had its beginnings in the mind of George Fox, the son of an English weaver. He had been placed as apprentice with a shoemaker, but his master was also engaged in keeping sheep, and George, during part of his apprenticeship, was given the task of watching the flocks, a business well suited to his quiet spirit. He became deeply distressed for the safety of his soul; but from none of the priests or preachers could he find help. Some ridiculed, some abused him; none were able to bring light to the darkened soul of the poor shoemaker's apprentice. He THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 81 seems to have been woefully cast down, in a sort of ecstasy of misery, when the truth began to dawn upon him that the blind could not lead the blind, that "being bred at Oxford or Cam- bridge was not enough to qualify men to be ministers of Christ", that all the learning of the universities could not lead a man to heaven. '^Thus he grew to a knowledge of divine things, without the help of any man, book, or writing", and there shone as into his very inmost soul the strong truth that there is a living God. He came to believe that each person is given light from on high, that every one is called upon to follow the guidance of that ''inner light". These words contain the Quaker's creed. "The Quaker", says Bancroft, "has but one word, THE INNER LIGHT, the voicc of God in the soul. That light is a reality, and therefore in its freedom the highest revelation of truth; ... it shines in every man's breast, and therefore joins the human race in the unity of equal rights". ^ Fox was moved to preach, and soon made many converts. Those who embraced his doctrines became in turn imbued with the desire to win men to repentance. Messen- the^ Quaker sect. S^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ faith Wandered over Europe, calling upon all to be guided by the light in their own souls. Fox was ridiculed, beaten, thrust into prison, but his courage waxed ever stronger, and his followers rapidly increased. Everywhere the Quakers were persecuted, but they persisted in the faith. The courage and devotion of the sect are well illustrated by the story that, when Fox was in Lanceston jail, one of his people called upon Cromwell and asked to be im- prisoned in his stead. "Which of you", said Cromwell, turning to his council, "would do as much for me if I were in the same condition" ? Quakerism cherished the essence of democracy, because one of its necessary beliefs was that each man was the equal of every other. Certain manners and habits eqiSity^of men. emphasized this kernel of their creed. They believed there should be no distinctions in dress, no difference in title, no unnecessary elaboration in speech. ^ Bancroft, History, vol. i, p. 535. 82 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The hat was to be kept on the head before the most august tribunal, because to stand uncovered savored of the homage due to God alone. Simple language with "thee and thou" was addressed to all alike, and the unadorned coat gave no chance for superiority in apparel. ''My Lord Peter and My Lord Paul are not to be found in the Bible; My Lord Solon or Lord Scipio is not to be read in Greek or Latin stories". Among the followers of Fox was one man who was a far greater soul than the founder of his faith. William Penn may „,.„. „ justly be called one of the great men of our his- Wilham Penn. i tt* r i tory.^ His father was a man of importance in England in the days of Charles II and was greatly shocked ^ ,., when his son joined the Quak- ^- " '^^^" ' ers — common and simple people, most of them. But the young man clung to his faith and suf- fered and toiled with the rest. In spite of his social position he was many times in prison; and these rough experiences had doubtless their effect in deepening his sympathies with the poor and the oppressed. Rude schools as they were, the Old Bailey and the Tower may have given him broader views of life and led him to see with greater clearness the needs of men and the crime and follies of the state. When Penn's father died, he -was left wealthy, inheriting claims on the Government to a large amount. The frivolous Charles II had no zeal for paying debts in cash, and so in 1681 Penn received in satisfaction of his claim a vast estate, stretching westward from the Delaware Penn's colony. ^ His father, Admiral Penn, had won distinction by the capture of Jamaica and stood in special favor at court because he had helped to rein- THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 83 River through five degrees of longitude.^ The king gave the name of Pennsylvania to the province in honor of Penn's father. Penn had powers in his hands as proprietor of the province, a power in most respects h'ke that of Lord Baltimore in Mary- land ; but he planned to establish a free common- Commonweaith. Wealth and not to wait till privileges were wrested from him .2 He issued the ''Frame of Govern- ment", a generous bestowal of powers upon the people, and the colony took upon itself most of the rights and burdens of self government. The "Frame" proved cumbrous and heavy state the Stuarts. The son, while a student at Oxford, was much affected by the teachings of the Quakers. Refusing to attend the religious services of the University, he was expelled and sent home in disgrace. He now spent som.e time on the Continent, especially in Paris, and the gayeties of life seem for a time to have banished all serious inclination from his mind. He returned to England in 1664, and thence went to Ireland, where he came under the influence again of the Quaker preacher who had won such a hold upon him in his student da3^s. He was then fully converted to the new faith. This was a great event for Quakerism, because converts among the wealthy and influential had been very few, and because Penn was in himself a man of rare vigor, sweetness and ability. ^ The boundaries of Pennsylvania, as of most of the colonies, were later subject to dispute. The northern line had to be agreed upon with New York. Connecticut also claimed the northern portion, and this gave rise to serious disputes in later years. See Fiske, The Critical Period of Amer- ican History, pp. 148-150; McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. i, pp. 210-216. 2 "And" because", he said, "I have been somewhat exercised at times about the nature and end of government among men, it is reasonable to expect that I should endeavor to establish a just and righteous one in this province. . . . For the nations want a precedent". And again he wrote to a friend: "For the matter of liberty and privilege, I propose that which is extraordinary, and to leave myself and successors no power of doing mis- chief — that the will of one man may not hinder the good of an whole coun- try". The same broad generosity is shown in the letter which he now issued to the people who were already within the limits of his grant: "You shall be governed", he promised, "by laws of your own making, and live a free and, if you will, a sober and industrious people". His broad philosophy is seen in this statement: "Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be its frame) where the laws rule, and the people are a party to the laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy or confusion . . . Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery". 84 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and was later modified, but under Penn's wise guidance free institutions were shaped to the real needs of the people. There was not always perfect peace between the people and the pro- prietor, or between the people and the governor whom he ap- pointed. DitTerences arose which were a great annoyance to Penn, who longed for harmony and hoped that the colony would be an example to the nations. But as the people had a large share in government, they relished the privilege of argu- ment and dispute — perhaps always an accompaniment of freedom. "For the love of God, me and the poor country*", ex- claimed Penn. amidst the political disputes that arose, "be not so governmentish, so noisy and open in your dissatisfactions". But. unfortunately for peace-loving proprietors, the history- of America was to be the history of a "governmentish" people. In 10S2 Penn became possessed of New Castle and the territory lying to the south of it. This land he acquired from the Duke of York. It came to be called the "Terri- tones , while Pennsylvania was known as the "Province". For some time these two communities were en- rolled under one government, but for some reason each was jealous and suspicious of the other; disputes arose, and peace was tinally secured by making the Territories into the separate colony of Delaware (1703). Penn's colony was rapidly peopled. Emigrants made their way hither in numbers: a city was marked out on the Schuyl- kill and named Philadelphia, the citv of brotherly Rapid growth of ^^^^.^^ ^^^.^^^^. Cxermaus came and settled in the tne coloay. neighborhood, and soon aftersvards other national- ities also, among them Scotch-Irish, many of whom pushed back to the frontier and fornuxl a strong element in the western part of the province.^ \Yithin twenty years from the settlement of Philadelphia, s;iys a writer of the time. it contained many stately houses and "several fine squares and ^ The Scotch-Irish in later years, descendants of these men or new set- tlers, dritte*.! down the valleys of the Apt"^\lachians. which nin in long lines toward the scnithwest, and became settlers in the western parts of the southern colonies. THE MIDDLE COLONIES— 1614-1700 85 courts"; between the principal towns the "watermen con- stantly ply their wherries" and "there are no beggars to be seen, nor, indeed, have any the least temptation to take up that scan- Thc FRAME of the GOVERNMENT OF THE ^Oioljince of ^cnnffltjanw IN AM E R I C A = Together with certain LAWS Agreed upon in England BY THE GOVERNOUR AND Dners F R E E - M E N of the aforefaid PROVINCE. ToHc furth-r E^plai^ccJ and Confirmed rherc by the firlf Troxincial G;«;jn7and Cjenerjl J/femblj d\3il fhall be held, if th>:y fee meet. rrintcJ in die Year MDCLXXXII/ ^ Title-page of the Frame of Government. It provided for a council and an assembly, to be elected by the freemen, and one third of the mem- bers of the council to retire annually. Committees were also provided for. It was soon changed in part; but these provisions are noteworthy. 86 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION dalous life". Untroubled by Indian forays and attacks, and unvexed by fear of the French as were the men of the North- east, Pennsylvania grew, and the settlements were, little by little, pushed backward into the wilderness.^ The generous policy of religious toleration, thoroughly in keeping with the religion of the Friends, drew many a man from Europe to the free air of Pennsylvania; and under the spirit of Quaker sim- plicity, which bespoke the equality of men, the colony waxed strong.- References Thwaites, The Colonies, pp. 207-217; Fisher, The Coloniat Era, pp. 199-206; Lodge, Short History, pp. 205-226; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, \'olume III, Chapter XII; BA^XR0FT, History, Volume I, pp. 528-573, Volume II, pp. 62-75; Stoughton, IFi///aw Penn, The Founder of Pennsylvania; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colo- nies, Volume II, Chapters XII, X\T, X\TI; Andrews, Colonial Self- government, Chapters XI-XII; Channing, History of the United States, Volume II, Chapter I\'; Sharpless, A Quaker Experiment in Government. ^ Of course, as we shall see later, the French and Indians in the middle of the eighteenth century became a serious menace in the Alleghany region in the western part of the colony; but for years after the settlement there was no trouble. The absence of the Indian menace was partly due, probably, to the wise teachings of Penn and his early efforts at friendliness. But the situation of Pennsylvania was different from that of the northern colonies and even of Virginia; and we should be wrong if we thought that the stern New Englander or the New York settlers were peculiarly harsh in their treatment of the red man. - Penn was for a time (1692-94) deprived of his province by the author- ities in England, but it was returned to him again. CHAPTER V THE COLONIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY At the beginning of the eighteenth century the EngHsh dominion stretched from east of the Kennebec to the Savannah; its western border was the Allegheny range. As aims ^ ^^ adventurous pioneer had dared to make a three nations. -' ^ ^ settlement in the great valley beyond the moun- tains. On the northeast the claims of England extended into the territory which France asserted was hers, and on the south Spain claimed title to all the territory at least as far north as the Savannah, while the English claimed south- ward to the St. John's. We shall see how the English estab- lished a colony in the region south of the Savannah (1733), and how through the efforts of Oglethorpe the land was held for Eng- land. By the middle of the century Spain's possessions in the eastern part of North America were confined to Florida alone. With France, however, England had still to wage a mighty struggle. Until near the beginning of the eighteenth century there had been no good reason for conflict between Erfg^and*^ the two nations, for the continent was large enough for the settlements of both countries, and the colo- nists of the one did not come into contact with those of the other. But, as the years went by, the rivalry grew more and more intensely bitter, and all questions of colonial policy and growth were more or less influenced by this international jeal- ousy and hatred. War succeeded war, and in the intervals of peace each nation narrowly watched the other. These wars were partly caused by religious differences and by the political problems of Europe ; but they were caused also by the fact that both the nations were seeking to secure great possessions in America. France and England were natural rivals because of their colonial ambitions. 87 88 raSTORY OF THE AMERIC.\X XATIOX From whatever point of view one studies the colonial his- ton* of the eighteenth centun* it must needs have these inter- colonial wars and this intercolonial rivalry as a nt«co o backsnround. We must remember that Xew En^- land grew and prospered and reached out for more territon* to be tilled with thri\-ing towTis. while the French and their Indian allies were lurking on her borders and watching her progress with malice in their hearts. We must remember that in some of the colonies disputes arose between the gov- ernor and the popular assembly over the question of supply or preparation for war, and that each dispute gave to the colo- nists practice in declaring their rights and pri\-ileges. We must remember, too, that the colonies felt their dependence on Eng- land, because of the presence of an enemy on their frontier. During the first half of the century* the political history- of each colony is ver\- similar to that of ever}' other. It is a storv* of petty quarrels between the assembly and the Political cTovemor, of incessant disputes over some matter character of ^ these years. apparently triWal, but yet invohing, as the colonists thought, some question of principle or some real sub- stantial right. The hapless governor was often between two fires.^ On the one side were the stubborn colonists absolutely re- fusing concession and demanding new pri\*ileges : on the other side he had clear instructions from the proprietors or royal authority directing him not to grant what the colonists ^^-ished. But these quarrels and disputes were e\-idences of a persistent spirit of self-government. For these contests did not consist of \'io- lent uprisings; they were mere wordy disputes carried on with the formalities of legal language and with the studied decorum of debate. It is important to notice that the development of the -Amer- ican colonists through this period followed the lines already Seif-««Mition I'^'^^^i"^'^^ ^^^t by the progress of the mother country-. The assembly or lower house of the colonial legis- lature strove to obtain full control over the purse. When 'Connecticut and Rhode Island elected their own governor, and he was of course not a representative of a power outside- COLONIES IX THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 89 this hold was secured, or nearly so, it demanded redress of grievances and new privileges on pain of a refusal of supply. It said to the governor, "Cease this or that practice, or else we will cease to pay your salary". Thus the right of self-taxation became the basis of many other rights, and was looked upon by the colonists as the most fundamental of them all. Edmund Burke, the great English orator and statesman, in his Speech on Conciliation with America, one of the most remarkable speeches e\er -delivered, thus speaks of this love of the colonists for the principle of self-taxation, a principle which the experi- ences of the whole eighteenth century strongly contirmed: "The people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. . . . The colonies draw from you, as with their life blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you. is fixed and at- tached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe or might be endangered in twenty other particulars without tlieir being much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound". ^ So this first half of the eighteenth century passed away, mieventfuUy on the whole — illustrating the truth of the old saying. "Blessed is the country that has no annals". On the north and west the borders were time and again beset by wander- ing parties of French and Indians. The outbreak «™^L ° of actual war caused some excitement, and brous:ht progress. ^ almost surely a dispute with some ambitious gov- ernor over increased supply or new authority. But the signs of the times are a steady development in the arts and practices of self-government, a slow but sure advancement in industrial prosperity, a quiet and sober progress toward a self-sufiicient and independent life. ^ In Pennsylvania, for instance, there was a contest about money mat- ters and the right to tax the proprietor's hinds, even when the Indians and the French on the frontier threatened the ver>- Hfe of the colony. When the governor pleaded, they would not yield, quietly remarking that "they had rather the French should conquer them than give up their privileges". "Truly", wrote the Governor of X'irginia, "I think they have given their senses a long hoUday". 90 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION "When we have recounted the wars with France and the perils of the frontier, traced the growth of the people in indus- trial strength, watched the occasional effort of Main events of j.Qy^| governor or proprietary official to get some contribution the people did not want to surren- der, noted the fitful attempts on the part of the English Board of Trade, which had an oversight over the colonies, to bring about what it considered order and system, we have con- sidered the main events of the half-century. In Massachu- setts for years there was a struggle over the question whether the governor should be given a permanent salary or only get what the legislature granted him each year. Connecticut and Rhode Island were long stirred up over the prospect of losing their beloved charters and of being brought directly under the crown. New York, perhaps more than other colonies, was vexed and harried at times by rapacious governors.^ Penn- sylvania, free from every serious interference by the proprie- tors, was engaged in party disputes, not unlike the heated party discussions of the nineteenth century. ^ Prominent among the royal governors of Xew York was one Cosby (1732-36), a money getter, a boisterous, irritable fellow, tactless and devoid of both decorum and virtue. A man named Zenger published in his paper some criticisms of the governor, declaring that the people of Xew York ** think that slavery is likely to be entailed upon them and their posterity if some things be not amended ". Thereupon the paper was ordered burned and Zenger was cast into prison and brought to trial for criminal libel. The lawyer who defended him admitted that the articles in question had been published but asserted that they were true and not false or scandal- ous. "A free people", said the bold lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, "are not obliged by any law to support a governor who goes about to destroy a prov- ince". He pointed to the abuses of the executive power, and warned the jury that it was "not the cause of a poor printer alone, nor of Xew York alone. No! It may in its consequences affect every freeman that lives under a British government on the main of America". He called upon them to protect the liberty "to which Xature and the laws of our country have given us a right, the liberty both of exposing and opposing arbitrary- power in these parts of the world, at least, by speaking and writing the truth". Zenger was acquitted, and Hamilton, who was a Pennsylvanian, was given the freedom of the city in a gold snuff box. These were pretty evident straws to show which way the wind was blowing in X'ew York. COLONIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 91 Maryland, entering year by year into one contest or another with the proprietor or his governor, won, little by little, greater power for its assembly.^ Virginia, in the hands of the big planters under a royal governor, practiced in considerable de- gree the principle of self-government, and, as the plantations were spreading far and near over the land, prepared for the day when the leaders should play a conspicuous role in winning independence and setting up new institutions. North Caro- lina and South Carolina, thrusting aside proprietary govern- ment altogether, became royal colonies (1729).^ In the region far to the south a new colony was established, Georgia. And ^ Maryland was not the only proprietary colony, but only Pennsylvania in addition lived through as a proprietary colony until the Revolution, and Pennsylvania started with so much power in the settlers' hands that it does not illustrate so well as Maryland the influence of American life. It is inter- esting to see Maryland gradually throwing off the wrappings of the old- fashioned feudal order, which Baltimore's charter contemplated, and becom- ing a colony competent and strong, and full of the principles of American life. - South Carolina had grown quickly into a staid community. Charles- town was already a thriving little place, the home of the planters of the interior, who often left their plantations to be cultivated by slaves while they enjoyed the pleasures of town life. They were men of force and abil- ity, many of them educated gentlemen, and they felt quite competent to manage their own atlairs without great deference to the proprietors. Such a condition of affairs could bring but one result. The people formed ''an association to stand by their rights and privileges", and the popular assem- bly took the reins into its own hands and refused to be ruled longer by a set of non-resident proprietors. This practical revolution (17 19) was not made a legal fact until ten years after the first revolt. Then the proprie- tors gave up their charter, and South Carolina became a royal colony. North Carolina did not throw off the proprietary yoke when her south- ern neighbor rebelled, but she too became a royal colony in 1729. Her pop- ulation grew rapidly, but the people were not so progressive as those of either Virginia or South Carolina. Without convenient harbors, the people had little or no communication with the outside world, even the tobacco crop being carried to Virginia for transportation abroad. For this and other reasons life was primitive and simple; printing was not introduced until about the middle of the century, and schools were almost unknown. Among such a people we ought not to expect a great knowledge of the art of politics; yet here too the colonists showed some capacity for managing their own affairs, and were growing steadily into an appreciation of the problems and principles of self-government. 92 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION thus year by year and decade by decade, England's dominion in the New World grew strong, filling up with a self-reliant peo- ple, who, though often charged with aiming at independence or at wilful neglect of England's rights of management and con- trol, were loyal to the mother country if impatient of dictation or interference. Two marked features of the time should be added to this broad picture, (i) Around the royal governor or the represen- tative of the proprietor there was likely to be Two marked ^ ^j^^^ ^£ favoritcs loviug social distinction, bask- leatures. ^ ing in the presence of the high officials and putting on English airs. Most of them were harmless, prob- ably, but the whole situation often unpleasantly reminded the simpler American of a superior power across the sea or made him impatient of the existing conditions. (2) While the colonies near the sea were settling down into old established communities, the movement into the back country went stead- ily on. Primitive America was showing itself over and over again on the frontier, where there were no royal favorites and where class distinctions were unknown. This movement, grad- ual and persistent, into the western parts of the older settle- ments, into the backwoods, went on ever}^vhere, but possibly of chief interest is the filling up of the upland country of the South, into which many people found their way by wandering down the long, wide valleys or troughs of the Appalachians, whence, before the end of the eighteenth century, men passed into the forests of the great Mississippi valley. The difference between the men of the older sections and the new settlers of the back-country was in all the colonies more or less evident; but in the South the contrast tii^^West ^"^ ^^^^ especially plain. In Virginia and South Carolina were two strongly contrasted societies : — on the tide-water rivers a race of planters dressing richly, owning large estates, riding in coaches, and living in a sort of baronial style; in the farther upland, hardy settlers clearing the land, building log houses, planting corn or little patches of tobacco in the wilder- ness; and, still farther on, the bold frontiersman, the vanguard, COLONIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 93 the leaders of the slow but steady movement toward the set- ting sun. There is little resemblance in life and habits between PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT. ROYAL GOVERNMENT, GOVERNMENT BY CHARTER CoLoxi.Ax Governments Distinguished the wealthy planter and the man of the back country. The i planter is waited upon by slaves; the frontiersman must defend I himself and earn his own hard livelihood. Yet both are Amer- 94 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION icans and both are devoted to liberty. The planter, accustomed to rule others as well as himself, will not brook restraint. The pioneer breathes in freedom with every draught of mountain air. GEORGIA — 1732-1765 We must give a word or two to the settlement of Georgia, though the colony, settled late, did not loom large in the colo- nial affairs of the eighteenth century. Spain held Florida but had done little or nothing in the way of settlement, contenting herself with watching England's growth with jealous eyes and continuing to claim the land as her own far north of her actual possessions. Sixty years after the settlement of South Carolina there was no English settlement south of the Savannah. In this region, James Oglethorpe, a member of the English parlia- ment, "a gentleman of unblemished character, brave, generous, and humane", proposed to establish a colony. He saw the desirability of founding a settlement in the country south of the Carolinas ^ and holding it for England. At this time in England persons were imprisoned for a debt and hanged for a petty theft. Each year, we are told, at least four thousand unhappy men were shut up in prison because of the misfortune of poverty. The jails were wretched, woe-begone places, scenes of misery and often of horror. Oglethorpe proposed to carry away these luckless captives to America, and there to found a colony where they might have a chance to get ahead in the world. Oglethorpe and several other persons were constituted " trustees for the establishing the colony of Georgia in America ". The king granted them a charter and vested them with com- plete power. Oglethorpe was chosen to lead the expedition, and set sail for America with a number of colonists in the latter part of 1732. In February of the next year he founded Savan- ^undrd**''^ nah. Other settlers soon followed, among them a number of German Protestants, who had been persecuted at home for their religion. These people were 1 England had established weak military outposts there, but there was no settlement. COLONIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 95 thrifty and industrious, and did much for the colony. But the shiftless debtors that were brought over do not seem to have learned how to work. A few years later still other emigrants arrived, among them Moravians and Lutherans from Germany. Georgia developed slowly. The rule of Oglethorpe was just, but as the time went on the regulations of the trustees became very obnoxious to the settlers. In 1752 the trus- oA^rcoiony. ^^^^ ^^^'^ ^P ^^^^^ charter to the Crown, and Georgia became a royal colony. A legislature was established, and in administration and political form Georgia became similar to the other colonies. From this time on the colony grew more rapidly, and acquired stability and strength; but when the troubles with England began, and America was drawn into war against the mother country, Georgia was still a backward province; its people had had little practice in self- government, and, as we might expect, played no very conspic- uous part in the struggle for political and civil liberty. Everywhere throughout America in the eighteenth century there developed the spirit of liberty and capacity for self-gov- ernment. The colonies waxed powerful and rich, Material pros- losing all the appearance of strugglins: frontier perityanddemoc- ^^, ^ ^ i • , , , racy. settlements. Great plantations covered the low- land country of the South; farms and simple homesteads were made here and there in the northern region; Yankee fishermen dared the perils of the ocean in their trim little vessels; merchants and traders gathered in the larger towns and cities of the middle colonies and New England; and ever and always the hardy frontiersman was pushing the fron- tier on into the wilderness and back to the mountains. And with this growth there came a strong sense of popular rights, the feeling of manly independence, which was the firm foundation of the coming democracy. References Short accounts: Thwaites, The Colonies, Chapter XIV; Fisher, The Colonial Era, Part II; Bancroft, History, Volume II, pp. 3-85, 238-280; Lodge, Shori History, passim. 96 HISTORY OF THE A:\IERICAN NATION Longer Accounts: Greene, Provincial America (use index); Channing, History of the United States, \^olume II. For Georgia. — Short accounts: Thwaites, TlicColonies, pp. 258, 263; Fisher, The Colonial Era, pp. 303-313. An interesting account of Oglethorpe is to be found in Bruce, James Edward Oglethorpe (notice especially Chapters III, I\', and VHI). Bancroft, History, Volume II, pp. 280-299. \'iEW OF Christ Church, Boston, On the spire of which Paul Revere hung lanterns to announce the arrival of the British troops CHAPTER VI FRANCE AND ENGLAND — 1608-1763 Soon after the accession of William III to the throne of England war was begun with France. This was in 1689, and for the next one hundred and twenty-five years Second hundred ^j^^ ^^^.^ Countries were in continual enmity, often years' war. •' in open war. This long struggle has been named not inaptly the "second hundred years' war".^ The nations were natural rivals. They differed in their ambitions in Euro- pean politics; each had hopes of wide dominion in America j and their claims conflicted. From our point of view these con- tests mean but this: they were to decide which nation was the more vigorous, virile and sound, which nation was so made up in its moral and physical fiber and in its political talent that it would succeed in securing America to itself. The prize was, above all, that great central valley of our country — a noble prize indeed, as fertile a space for its size as the globe shows, capable of sustaining two hundred million inhabitants, trav- ersed by mighty rivers, free from impassable mountain chains, a place which Nature seems to have fashioned as the home of a single people. And so in the history of the world these wars mean much; they were not petty squabbles between kings and princes, but the struggles of nations for empire. Before the hundred years were gone, a great portion of the prize had fallen to England and a part again had been wrested from her by her rebellious colonies; and yet from the accession of William III to the downfall of Napoleon the enmity of the two great nations may be said to have sprung from their colonial ambitions. ^ Seeley, Expansion of England, Lecture IT. Seeley's positions are somewhat extreme, but the book is profoundly interesting and suggestive. 97 98 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Let us trace out the early expansion of French power in America. We have seen that early in the sixteenth century explorers from France sailed along the coast and foTcofonTzatk)!! ^^'^^ efforts Were made to settle on the banks of the St. Lawrence. But the efforts of these years only prepared the way for the successes of the next century; not till the early part of the seventeenth century was France ready to take up great plans of colonization. The first dauntless leader was Samuel de Champlain. He explored the coast of New England, and finally (1608) founded Quebec. Thus the French acquired a permanent Champlain. ,.,. , , ,. . . ^ abidmg place at the north m a position 01 great military strength, on the river that afforded a highway to the Great Lakes and to the great valley beyond. Champlain con- tinued his discoveries to the south and west. He discovered the lake which bears his name in 1609, and later made his way westward as far as Lake Huron. Until his death, in 1635, he labored ceaselessly in exploration and was the moving spirit in colonial enterprise. But Champlain made one grievous blunder, which in time brought woe to French colonists. In 1609, in company with a war party of Algonquin Indians, he made his way southward His expedition from Quebec, and on the banks of the lake which against the now bears his name attacked and routed a band Iroquois. ^£ jj-oquois. A similar expedition a few years later was not so successful, and the only result of espousing the cause of the Algonquins against their ancient foe was to make the warriors of the Five Nations the inveterate enemies of the French. The Iroquois were a powerful and capable race. All the tribes of the North and East stood in dread of them. As far west as the Mississippi, as far east as Maine, as nations^ far south as the Carolinas, they were known and feared. They are said to have called Lake Cham- plain the gateway of the country. Such it may be said to be to-day. It forms with the Hudson a line of communication with the Atlantic; it is the road to Canada from the south. Hence FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 99 in all wars between the nation that possesses Canada and that which holds the Atlantic coast this valley must be a place of great strategic importance. The Iroquois seem to have felt the strength of their position. Results of Iroquois enmity Defeat of the Iroquois. From Champlain's Voyages, 1613 These people were now made by Champlain's action the enduring enemies of the French. " For over a century the Iro- quois found no pastime equal to rendering life in Canada miserable". The Dutch of New York, more fortunate, made friends with these tribes andwhen the Dutch were supplanted by the English they, too, for some years held the Iroquois as allies. Thus the settlements of the middle Atlantic coast were, in their earlier years, pro- tected from French attack by this living barrier, the Iroquois — a barrier impassable by French war parties. Moreover, part- ly because of the Iroquois, the French made their explorations into the west and northwest rather than to the south and south- west. Lake Superior was known before Lake Erie, and the Mississippi had been traversed before the waters of the Ohio were known. In consequence, for a long time the French and English settlements diverged, the Fiench occupying positions on the Great Lakes and the rivers of the far West long before 8 100 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION they dared to come near the English by occupying places imme- diately beyond the mountains. The great and concluding strug- gle between France and England did not come till, under dif- ferent conditions, the authorities of Canada tried to take and hold the strategic points in the eastern portion of the Ohio Valley. The seventeenth century is a picturesque period in the his- tory of Canada. Bold adventurers and soldiers, brave and patient priests, hardy fur traders and restless rov- e^iorers^"'^ crs, all did their part in exploring the great West, carrying the lilies of France, the cross of the church, or the brandy and gewgaws of the merchant into the remote solitudes of the interior. As early as 1634 Jean Nicollet was in &cux^ The Joliet map here given is "probably the earliest map to define the course of the Mississippi by actual observation, although Joliet connected it with the Gulf merely by an inference". Confer Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. 247. The above is a simplified sketch of the original Wisconsin and Illinois. A few years later Jesuit priests preached their faith before two thousand naked savages at the falls • of Ste. Marie. Soon after this Allouez began a mission in this same region, and for thirty years he passed from tribe to tribe in that far-off wilderness, preaching and exhorting and striving FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 101 to implant his faith. Marquette gathered the Indians about him at Sault Ste. Marie, and passed even to the farther end of Lake Superior, seeking to win souls for the Church. St. Lusson (1671), at the Sault, with solemn ceremony before a motley concourse of braves, proclaimed the sovereign title of the great monarch of France to all the surrounding lands, "in all their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and West, and on the other by the South Sea". In 1673 Joliet and Marquette paddled up the Fox River in their birch canoes, floated down the Wisconsin, and came out on the broad waters of the Mississippi. Descending even beyond the Mis- souri, they returned by way of the Illinois and the Chicago portage. But most conspicuous among these bold explorers is Robert Cavalier de la Salle, a marvel of a man, resolute, brave, inflexible of purpose. Danger, disappointment, hardships, treachery, beset him, but he overcame them all and effected his object. In the year 1682 his little flotilla of canoes floated down the Mississippi to its mouth, and La Salle took possession of the vast valley in the name of Louis XIV. Thus the dauntless French explorers had traversed the great West, while the English settlements nestled close to the Atlan- tic seaboard, almost within sound of the surf. New France. , . , r ranee possessed the two great gateways and highways to the interior of the continent.^ And thus New France was founded with its two heads, as Parkman has said, one in the canebrakes of Louisiana and the other in the snows of Canada. The first settlement in Louisiana was in 1699, and New Orleans was founded in 17 18. By this time little groups of Frenchmen had settled down upon the banks of the Western rivers. Here and there a fort was built. Detroit ^ It should be noticed that the English were hemmed in between the mountains and the sea. While the mountains acted as a barrier to the extension of the English colonies, they also served to protect the settlers from attack. Doubtless the chief reason why the English did not extend their settlements at an early day into the far West was the fact that they were chiefly interested in industrial and commercial life, in clearing farms, in founding towns, and in building' ships. 102 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION was founded by Cadillac 1701. Even thus early throughout the West the points of military advantage were chosen. The methods of French colonization form a sharp contrast to those of the English. The Englishman came to the fo°ol;rzltion ^^e^^' World for himself —to find a home, perchance to escape religious persecution, or to follow the light of his own conscience, expecting by hard and honest toil to work his way to comfort. He was uncared for by the mother country, and his colony flourished in neglect. Occa- sionally a meddlesome governor awakened his resentment, but, as a rule, he governed himself as he chose. He and his fellows founded villages and cities and established a lucrative commerce. They built school - houses and churches, and gradually worked their way back from the sea as the popu- lation increased and new needs arose. They were not always harsh and unjust to the Indians ; but on the whole their career was one of conquest. Little by little the redman retreated as the settler's axe sounded in the forest; little by lit- tle the pioneers built their cabins in the untamed wilderness and turned up the hunting ground with their plowshares. The French were not so. Their earliest pioneers were priests striving with marvelous heroism to win heathen to the church, or adventurous soldiers who sought honors and empire for the monarch of France. The settle- ments along the St. Lawrence were strictly ruled by edict and royal order. They knew nothing of self-govern- ment or of self-taxation. The colony was not neglected, but cared for by the home Government. There was no chance for the development of men, for practice in politics, for self-reliance. On the other hand, as a contrast to this iron rule were other influences in Canada. The fur trade charmed away from the Part of a Le.aden Plate The French buried these plates at the river mouths that they discovered to mark their claim to all the land drained by the rivers contrasted with French. FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 103 settlements many restless fellows, who, breaking over the re- strictions of the home Government, which tried from the offices of Paris to control the details of the fur hunting of America, wandered off into the West and en- gaged in the lucrative trade. A picturesque element were these rollicking boatmen and rangers of the wood, threading The fur trade. TE Getstxral;]^:^ de Catjada a petit poi^jt Reproduced from La Hontan's Voyages, i 703 the rivers of the western wilderness, bartering for furs with the redman, or making little settlements in the interior along the rivers that flow into the Lakes, and even beside those that find their way southward to the Gulf. Thus the contrast be- tween the English and French colonists was strong, and the result of seventy years of war would show which nation had the sounder and better colonial system and the greater in- herent strength. Three times between the Revolution of 1688 and the mid- dle of the next century, France and England were at war; three times the English colonists took up arms in hopes of driving the Frenchmen from American soil, and three times they failed.^ ^ In Europe the war from 1689-97, called in the colonies King Wil- liam's War; the second, the war of the Spanish succession, called in America 104 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION But English settlers were steadily pushing backward from the sea, and English fur traders had no intention of being shut off from the Mississippi Valley. A great contest must come to decide the control of the West. It was clear that, in spite of their great strength, the Eng- lish colonies were in danger because they did not act together. It was suggested that a congress or conference be congress^°i'754. ^^^^^ made up of commissiouers from the various assemblies. The chief object was a joint treaty with the Iroquois. Such a congress met at Albany. Represen- tatives were present from seven colonies. It had no immediate result, though the example was of importance in succeeding years. Benjamin Franklin, a member of the congress, drew up and presented a plan of union which provided for the formation of a grand council of forty-eight members selected from the colonies, and a president-general appointed by the Crown. This plan was not acceptable to the colonial assem- j^jj_ ' blies, nor did it meet with favor in England. The Lords of Trade had already prepared a plan of their own but anything like a union of the colonies for more than defensive purposes seems to have been looked upon with suspicion in the mother country, possibly with dread. ^ Meanwhile France had been strengthening her position and creeping nearer to her enemies on their western frontier. A French position at Niagara was taken and fortified, and ^°^^^- forts were built on the head waters of the Ohio. Thus the French were well on their way to hem in the English east of the mountains and to shut them out of the Ohio Val- ley.^ Queen Anne's War, 1702-13; the third, the war of the Austrian Succession, called in America King George's War, 1744-48. ^ Before this time there had been various proposals for union. An early plan came from the great Penn, and was called "A Briefe and Plaine Scheame how the English Colonies in the North part of America . . . may be made more useful to the crown and one another's peace and safety with an universall concurrence". - See map opposite. France had good ground for claiming the Texas country, perhaps even to the Rio Grande. FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 105 Washington meets the French. Governor Dinwiddle of Virginia was watchful of the French advances and decided to send a remonstrance. He chose as his messenger George Washington, a young man holding the position of adjutant-general of the Virginia militia. Washington, making a long, perilous journey at the beginning of win- ter, found the French at Fort Le Boeuf as well as Ve- nango, and warned them that they must not encroach on British dominion.^ The French, of course, refused to heed such warnings, and the next year took a further step in advance by building Fort Du- quesne ^ at the forks of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands. This was the signal for war. Washing- ton with a few troops marched against the en- emy, but was defeated and obliged to give up the undertaking. Thus all English efforts to occupy these strategic positions were frustrated. ''Not The French and Indian War Showing the field of the western campaigns an English flag now waved beyond the Alleghanies". The next year the English set vigorously to work. General Braddock was sent to America to command the forces and to dislodge the French in the West. A courageous deLat, 1755. soldier, and one who might, as Franklin said, have made a good figure in some European war, he was unfit for the task assigned him. In the summer of 1755 he led ^ See Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i, pp. 131 fif., for Washington's expedition. 2 The English had actually begun the works, but were obliged to yield to the French. 106 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION an expedition against Fort Duquesne, and the result was dis- aster. The army was attacked by the French and their Indian allies; Braddock was slain, and his whole force routed. Thus ended the first battle in the great valley between the contest- ants for its possession. England was woefully the year^^° ^ ^ beaten. Attacks upon Niagara and Crown Point were likewise unsuccessful, although a victory was won by the English at Lake George. While this fighting was going on in America there was still a nominal peace, in Europe. In 1756 war was formally declared between France and England.^ This was the be- Years'^War gi^^^i^g ^^ the Seven Years' War. The contest was not limited to two combatants. It involved nearly the whole continent. England was allied with Frederick the Great of Prussia, and against them were arrayed Russia, Sweden, Saxony, Austria, and France. Frederick, almost completely surrounded by foes superior in power if not in valor, fought with desperation and with consum- mate skill and bravery. His support from England was for a long time weak and ineffective, for the English Government was corrupt and feeble.^ Walpole's belief that every man had his price had become the corner stone of cabinets; governments were founded on bribery. And yet, though there were many signs of vulgarity in society and dishonesty in Fra^nce ^^ government, the heart, of England was sound, and in the contest the nation was at length able to show powers that France, with all her silken nobility, could not equal.^ ^ The Seven Years' War of Europe (1756- '63) was the French and Indian War of America. There was actually war here after 1754. - The ignorance or stupidity of English ministers in some of their deal- ings with America is illustrated by the tale about Newcastle, for a time at the head of the English government. When he was told that Annapolis, Nova Scotia, must be defended he exclaimed, "Annapolis, Annapolis! Oh, yes, Annapolis must be defended; to be sure, Annapolis should be defended — where is Annapolis?" ^ Valuable and entertaining accounts of the condition of the combat- ants in Parkman's JMontcalm and Wolfe, vol. i, chap, i, and vol. ii, chap, xviii; Sloane's The French War and the Revolution, chaps, i, ii, and iii. FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 107 Strength of Canada. The French in America did not exceed eighty thousand in number, but they had a certain military advantage in a war with a self-governing people; for the French could strike, while the governors of English col- onies were wrestling with obstinate assemblies and begging for money and munitions of war. There were only two ways in which to reach the real center of Canada: one was by way of Lake Champlain, where the French were strongly posted; the other was by way of the St. Lawrence, and there ,_. St. John Marquis de Montcalm, the French general, acted with promptness and vigor, and his Indian allies were ceaseless in their cruelties.^ The English, on the other hand, Campaign of ^^ £j.g|- accompHshcd little. Loudon and Aber- crombie ("Miss Nabbycrombie " the colonists called him) came over (1756) to America as gen- erals, displayed their laced coats, and made a show of activity; but the net result was loss of ground on the northern frontier.^ What would have hap- pened if William Pitt had not tak- en things in hand in the EngHsh min- istry it is hard to say — - probably more defeats for fussy English generals. Pitt was a great man, elo- quent, far-seeing, cease- lessly active, and with profound faith in his country. He was the idol of the common people, and in the next four years, by his magnificent daring and by the fire of his word, raised slothful Eng- Crown Point. Ticondero^ 1 'N Ft.Wm.HenH Ft.Edviardf The French and Indian War Showing the campaign of 1756 and 1757 1 "Not a week passes but the French send them [the English] a band of hairdressers whom they would be very glad to dispense with". (Letter of a young French captain to his father, quoted in Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. i, p. 380.) 2 Oswego and Fort William Henry were taken by the French and only Fort Edward stood between them and Albany. FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 109 land from humiliation and dismay to a lofty pinnacle of power, where she felt her strength only too keenly. '' England has at last produced a man", said Frederick the Great. Pitt arranged for the American war on a liberal scale, and prepared to win. In 1758 Fort Frontenac, near the mouth of Lake Ontario, and Fort Duquesne were captured by the English. But the next campaign brought even greater victories. i758^and"i759. ^^^^ English wcrc now confident, the Canadians in despair. Pitt's courage and enthusiasm assured success. The plans for the year included the capture of Niag- ara, Ticonderoga, and Quebec. Amherst was to take Ticonde- roga, and then proceed north to Quebec and there join Wolfe, who was to sail up the St. Lawrence and beset the city. The plan was partly carried out. Niagara was captured. This place, with Fort Duquesne, secured to the English the control of the Ohio Valley. Amherst captured Ticonderoga; but he worked with such masterly deliberation that cooperation with Wolfe was impossible. Wolfe made his way up the great river which the French had controlled so long and prepared to attack Quebec. The place was the strongest natural fortress in America, and was under the command of Montcalm, who was able and brave. The whole summer was passed without result. Wolfe tried various expedients to entice the enemy into an open fight, for to attack their defenses seemed madness. Finally he deter- mined upon the bold task of gaining, from the river at a point above the city, the high plateau on which the city stood. A favoring ravine seemed to offer a footing. On the night of the 12th of September a body of about thirty-five hundred men Ob struggled up the height, and in the morning stood upon the Plains of Abraham. Montcalm was sur- prised, but accepted the gage of battle. The battle was a brief one. The French were repulsed. Montcalm and Wolfe were killed. Quebec fell into the hands of the English.^ ^ Horace Walpole wrote: "What a scene! An army in the night drag- ging itself up a precipice by stumps of trees to assault a town and attack an enemy strongly intrenched and double in numbers! The king is over- whelmed with addresses of our victories; he will have enough to paper his 110 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The next year (1760) Montreal was taken. This was prac- tically the end of the war in America. Peace was not made in Europe until three years later. Let us see the result of the great conflict. France ceded to England all her possessions on the North American continent east of the Miss- ^ar. * issippi, save New Orleans and a small district ad- jacent to the city. New Orleans and all the ter- ritory west of the Mississippi, to which France had laid claim, passed into the hands of Spain, who gave up Florida to England. France was allowed certain privileges in the Newfoundland fisheries, two small islands were given her to serve as a shelter for her fishermen, and she retained her hold on some of the West Indies. To this had her vast dominion in the New World dwin- dled. Great Britain was now the great colonial power of the world. The little island had become an empire. ''This", said Earl Granville on his deathbed, "has been the most glorious war and the most triumphant peace that England ever knew".^ The triumph of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, the most striking event of this war, is a turning point in modern history. It determined that all this vast western region in history. ^°'° should pass into English hands; that here English ideas of freedom and law, English customs and methods of thought, should prevail. In addition to this, the acquisition of Canada was of great moment in our history. The colonists were freed from the fear of French invasion, and stood no longer in constant dread of Indian attacks. They could now with some hope of safety push their way across the mountains. Moreover, relieved of these anxieties, they felt less their dependence on England, although all gloried in the name of Englishmen when the mother country was thus at the zenith of her power. The war had shown that palace". Parkman says: "England blazed with bonfires. In one spot alone all was dark and silent; for here a widowed mother mourned for a loving and devoted son, and the people forebore to profane her grief with the clamor of their rejoicings". ^ "Englishmen had permanently girdled the globe with English civili- zation and opened boundless avenues to English enterprise". (Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, p. 108.) FRANCE AND ENGLAND— 1608-1763 111 provincial troops could fight and that provincial officers were not devoid of skill. The blunders of men like Loudon, and the domineering conduct of other British officers, left a tinge of resentment in the colonial heart.^ References Short accounts: Thwaites, pp. 33-49, Chapter XII, 274-284; Hart, Formation of the Union, Chapter II; Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, Chapters III to IX; Bourinot, The Story of Canada, especially Chapters XII, XIII, and XVIII; Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, Chapters III to V; Thwaites, France in America; Grifeis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations; Channing, History of the United States, Volume I, Chapter IV, Volume II, Chapters V, XVIII, XIX. The whole subject of this chapter is covered in a series of fasci- nating books by Francis Parkman. The reader will find them full of interest. The titles are: Pioneers of France in the New World; The Jesuits in A merica; La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West; The Old Regime in Canada; Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV; A Half Century of Conflict; Montcalm and Wolfe; The Conspiracy of Pontiac. ^ " With the triumph of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham began the history of the United States". (Green, History of the English People, vol. iv, p. 193.) CHAPTER VII THE SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL CONDI. TION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 Each of the English colonies that lay along the Atlantic coast in the middle of the eighteenth century had its own indi- viduality and its own peculiarities. The people imiia^ties'^ ^^ ^^^ colony knew little of the inhabitants of the others; and one can find very little evidence of sympathy and fellow-feeling, or of any realization of a common interest and a single destiny. Without sympathy there could be no true national life nor any strong sentiment of patriotism, and there could not be S3^mpathy without knowledge. In its origin and history each colony differed from the others, and the course of events up to the outbreak of the French and Indian War seemed, at times, rather to strengthen these differences than to wear them away.^ Climatic conditions varied greatly: the mean yearly temperature of Maine is not far from that of southern Norway, while the mean yearly temperature of Geor- gia is nearly the same as that of northern Africa. Amid such dissimilar surroundings there grew up, as a matter of course, distinct methods of social and industrial life. And yet there was a strong bond of union binding these groups of men together. They had common political ideals, built upon the fundamental ^ It is necessary to get some idea of the separation of the colonies, in days when there was no steamboat, no telegraph, no railroad, when roads were few and good ones almost unknown, when "express" riders took days to hurry from New England to Philadelphia, or through the long stretches of forest between Philadelphia and Charleston, when a clumsy creak}' stage coach was the only mode of public travel by land. It took commonly about six days for passengers to travel between New York and Boston, It some- times seems strange — not that it took long to build up national feelings but that union was so quickly made and that nationalism was not longer delayed. 112 CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 113 principles of English freedom; and although each colony dif- fered somewhat from every other, they all differed still more widely in spirit and essential character from the countries of Europe. If one is to understand the history of the United States, he must keep in mind this diversity and this inevitable tendency to union and harmony. For these differences were tSrcondition ^^ importance not simply while the nation was in its infancy (1765-90) or in the days when it was first trying its youthful strength. All through our history, sec- tional and local peculiarities have had their influence. The important fact is this: because of these differences, when the colonies separated from Great Britain, they could not yield up all rights of local govern- ment to a central government, inasmuch as each colony or State felt its own individuality. On the other hand, the colonies were inspired by the same po- litical purpose; the ruling spirit in all was a spirit of progress; they cherished like ideals; they had a common cause, which could be realized only through union and co-operation. Thus it was that the United States came to be — having one Gov- ernment which represents the common interests of all and carries out the purposes of all, and, on the other hand, being made up of States or commonwealths, where the people can f^^tTyji^^cC^z^m^ 1 Samuel Adams, often called the Man of the Town Meeting and the Father of the Revolution, is the best example of an energetic politician and statesman of the late colonial period. The original of this picture, painted by Copley, hung for a time in Faneuil Hall, Boston, but is now in the Art Museum. 114 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Three groups. regulate their own local concerns and manage their own affairs as they choose. While it is true that each of the colonies had its own pecu- liar life and character, we can easily distinguish three groups of colonies: the Southern, middle, and New England groups. All of the colonies south of Pennsylvania had many characteristics in common. The similarity was due in part, to the fact that they were founded on slavery,^ in part to the fact that natural conditions favored the plan- coioLerfounded t^^tio^^- ^hcrc wcrc slavcs in all the colonies; on slavery. but in the South slavcry directly shaped the industrial and social life of the people. In Virginia, in the middle of the eighteenth century, one half of the population were slaves. South Carolina contained even more negroes than white people, and the number was rapidly increasing by importa- tions from Africa or the West Indies. In all the colonies rigorous laws were passed to guard against a servile in- surrection; but they do not seem to have been rigidly enforced, and on the whole the slaves were well treated. The slave did the task assigned him, but did not readily change his methods or take up new tvork. Therefore, partly because of slave labor, the industrial A House Slave of Wash ington's Day ^ We should notice, too, that even up to the Revolution convicts were shipped from England to America and -entered into servitude in the colo- nies. They seem to have been more abundant south of Mason and Dixon's line than at the north. We are told that in Maryland "not a ship arrives, with either redemptioners or convicts, in which schoolmasters are not as regularly advertised for sale as weavers, tailors, or any other trade". In addition to these convicts in servitude were redemptioners, persons who bound themselves to serrice for a short term of years, generally to pay the expenses of the voyage to America. Many of them were brought here. The redemptioner agreed on taking ship to America that he might be sold CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 115 Slave labor. interests of the South were not diverse.^ The great staple prod- uct of Maryland and Virginia was tobacco. South Carolina raised rice and indigo. All the Southern colonies were purely agricultural, and they raised little for export, except the great staple products we have just men- tioned. There was almost no manufacturing. The com- monest articles of house- hold use were brought from the mother country or from the New England colonies. There were in 1760 over three quarters of a million peo- ple living south of Pennsylvania, and yet Charleston and Baltimore were the only cities of any importance south of Philadelphia. Although Virginia was the oldest colony, and had a popu- lation of about five hundred thousand at the end of the colo- nial period, there were no cities and only one large place, Norfolk, within its borders. The plantations were the units gf Virginia life, and by studying them we can see the real social forces of the colony. In Virginia there were natural or physical reasons for the absence of towns and the predominance of country life. The Plantation life in the South. FIVE POUNDS REWARD. KAN awav from the fobfcriber, living in Shepherd's Town, fomc lime in 0sr ^ 7 day, II 4 50 8 at noon. Facsimile of Part of a Page of Poor Richard's Almanac stone's Commentaries were sold in America as in England, and General Gage wrote from Boston that the people in his govern- ment were either lawyers or smatterers in law. ''This study", says Burke, ''renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources". When Great Britain determined to coerce Massachusetts, she arrayed against herself the most enlightened and intelligent population on the face of the earth. * Familiar Letters of John Adams, p. 120. CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 123 Politically New England was nearly a pure democracy. Socially it was democratic in comparison with Europe or with the colonies of the South. The New England village, with its wide street, its rows of com- fortable houses, and its big roomy yards, declared more plainly than words that no feudal system had ever laid its burden on the people. And yet, though few had anything that Classes of society. Tothe PUBLIC. THE FLYING MACHINE, kept by JohnMereeieau, At the New- Blazi^d- Star- F«ny, ncair 7«fcw- York, feti off from PowleaHooVereiy Mon* dajr, Weaneffll«r> aoid Friday M'orninga. forphiUdelpKUi aiwlpoformaihe Journey in a Day and a Jfalf. for tKe 8ummcrSe*ibp.,-rintheiftof Tfovemiberifioui-tJialTime to |o twice a Week till tKe flrA of May, wKm ihey ajidn. perform it tiiree Time* ^ Week . TVhen th* Stages ijc only twice a Week, iKey /eCoff Mond^s andTlun'P dAya, The Waggons in Fhiladelpliia, kx. out frotn. the Si|n of the Gvor^^ in Second /Ireet, the lame Mbrhin^: TnePafl«n^er»ar««ie fired to croft the Ferry the Eveniiii before, a»tlie Sta^esmuft fetoiroariy the ncrtMamTnij; ThepricefbreAchPafl'en^eriara/^TU^^i/i&nA, Proc awl Goods as Jtftttt, Paflengersgoing JVt of the W«^ to-w^ inrrop«jrtion. As the Proprietor has nnacle fuch Imptovcrneats upon W»e Machines, one of which is iii TmiUtionof a Coach, he hopes to m«n"t ttve Favoup of the Pablick. JOHN MEKCFREAU. A Contemporary Advertisement could be called riches, and none need be poor, there were social differences in New England. Some families were entitled to 124 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION distinction. The best pews in church were reserved for them; they were treated with deference and respect. The "old famiUes" were preferred to the ''newcomers". Society was divided into gentlemen, yeomen, merchants, and mechanics, but the lines were not sharply drawn. Such primitive varia- tions from pure democracy seem quaint and trivial. One would greatly err, however, if he believed that these social distinctions did not influence the development of our history. Before the outbreak of the Revolution the population of the middle colonies had reached four hundred thousand. Many different nationalities were represented, the emi- grants from the countries of continental Europe having come in larger numbers to these colonies than to others.^ Though agriculture here, as elsewhere, was of chief importance, New York and Philadelphia were thriving The middle colonies. New York City in 1732, from Brooklyn HeighTi ^ It is naturally difficult to determine just how many of a nationality were in a colony. /\n attempt, more or less successful, has been made to decide on nationality by the name, but here a difficulty arises. Suppose a man's name was Klein — presumably he was a German; but he or his chil- dren might change the name and make it Little or Small. An instance is given of a French settler in New England whose name was Blondpied, i. e. Whitefoot; one of his sons came to be known as Blumpey and another one as Whitefoot. Professor Channing (History of the U. S., II, 422) gives a dia- gram showing that an American might be the great grandson of eight per- sons, each with a religion and a nationality different from the other. CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 125 Education. places, the former with a population of about 14,000 people, the latter with 19,000. Both had considerable foreign commerce. In Pennsylvania manufacturing was begun, giving prophecy of the immense development of the future. The middle colonies had no such facilities for education and no such devotion to learning as the New England colonies. In New York City was King's College, established about the middle of the century, but the lower schools throughout the province were neither good nor plentiful. In New Jersey a few good schools were to be found, and Prince- ton College, established by the Presbyterians in 1746, though still small, was an influential and thrifty institution.^ Phila- delphia possessed two public libraries besides many excellent private ones, filled with copies of the classics of the time. The University of Pennsylvania was already founded and was in a flourishing condition. Of all the northern colonies New York had the nearest ap- proach to an aristoc- racy. There was a class of great land- holders possessed of vast estates, who towered above their neighbors. Some of the estates had been es- tablished in Dutch times, and some of their holders were descendants of men upon whom the old West India Company had lavished its grants. In New York City there wTre dignified Dutch merchants and ship owners; and there were Englishmen and men of other na- ^ Several of the men who formed the Constitution of the United States were Princeton men — Paterson, Madison, Luther Martin, Ellsworth; some of them, it is interesting to notice, belonged to the same "society" in col- lege — a literary society! — the " Cliosophic Society", which means, I sup- pose, a society wise in history, since Clio is the muse of that noble branch of learning. New York aristocracy 126 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tionalities who, possessed of some wealth — as wealth was counted in those simple days — held places of more or less social distinction ; but the land was largely made up of farmers and fur-traders with a few artisans and small tradesmen. In Pennsylvania, save in the Quaker City, where there was a good deal of luxury among the descendants of the early settlers, the people ^-'ved simply. "In Pennsyl- PeMs"ivaLa^ vania", said Albert Gallatin at a later day, "not only we have neither Livingstons nor Rensselaers,^ but from the suburbs of Philadelphia to the Ohio I do not know a single family that has any extensive influence. An equal distribution of prop- erty has rendered every individual independent, and there is among us true and real equality". The people were sober- minded and conservative. If other colonies were hasty, Pennsylvania was deliberate. To the more fiery colonies of the South and North she seemed at times phlegmatic and de- void of spirit. But Penn- sylvania cherished her lib- erties and knew how to defend them. If we should confine our attention solely to the central government of each colony, we should get but a faint idea of the political life of the American colonists. Rep- resentative assemblies were, as we have seen, alert and active; they show that the people were alive to political questions. But the virility of American politics is perhaps even more clearly seen in the local organizations. There were three The Birthplace of Benjamin Frank- lin IN Boston Political life. ^ Two of the great New York families. CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 127 systems of local government: a, the town; h, the county; c, a mixture of the two. The New England colonies had the town, the Southern colonies the county, and the middle colonies the mixed system. The town grew up naturally in New England. The people of each small community looked after their common interests. All the little affairs of the neighborhood were the min(i°^°^ Concern of the town meeting;^ there was nothing beyond its reach. It sought to know ''the town's mind", and to declare it. Each man was entitled to take part in its sturdy discussions, and each was expected to bow to the deci- sion of the town. Selectmen were elected to have general charge of town affairs; and a clerk,^ whose duties were various, and a constable were also chosen. Besides these officers there were many others, some of them regularly and annually elected, others because of a temporary need. The titles and duties of these men bring before us the readiness of the town to express its *'mind" on any subject of common interest. Among them we find tithing men; fence viewers; hog reeves; measurers of wood; overseers of measurers of wood; men to take "care of the Alewives not Being stoped from going up the Re vers to cast their sporns"; men to prevent cheating by those who sold lumber, "because bundles of shingles are marked for a greater number than what they contain"; wardens to inspect "ye ^ The town played an important part in its relation to the government of the colony, but its local duties were dou})tless chief in its own eyes. An example of thorough local legislation is illustrated by the following: "It is ordered that all doggs, for the space of three weeks after the publishinge hereof, shall have one legg tied up. . . . If a man refuse to tye up his dogg's legg and he bee found scraping up fish in the corne field, the owner shall pay 125. besides whatever damage the dogg doth". Quoted in Hart, Practical Essays on American Government, pp. 144, 145. ^ Not simply the orders of the town meeting were written in his books; but births, deaths, and marriages, transfer of pews in the meeting house, estrays taken up, as "a Red Stray Hefar two years old and she hath sum white In the face". He wrote down, too, the earmarks of the farmers' cat- tle. "Joshua Brigs mark Is a Scware Crop In the under side of ye Right ear". See the delightful account in Bliss, Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay, chap. vi. 128 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION meeting Rous on ye Lord's Day and see to Good Order among ye Boys"; cattle pounders; sealers of leather; gamekeepers "to Bee the men for Prevesation of the Deare for the year Insuing". Here, then, men learned the art of government, and they learned the lessons of obedience as well. The New Englander did not gain his ideas of government from books; A school of prac- 1 v j v* xi. • i.* i ticai politics ^^ based his theories on practice and experience. The town meeting was his school. Men thus trained could not accept tyranny; accustomed to govern them- selves, they were ready to resent the slightest encroachment upon their rights. The South did not have the town. Its method of settle- ment had not naturally produced it. In Virginia the county was the organ of local government. The popula- The South. . . ^ ^ , , , , tion 01 a county was not large, but the people were scattered. Most important of all is the fact that the county officers were appointed by the royal governor, and were not the agents of the people. Its various officers thus repre- sented the power of the commonwealth, not of the The county. , ,. locality; or, more correctly, they represented the power of the Crown in the colony. Were it not for the sterling, vigorous independence begotten by the freedom of Virginia life, one might fancy that under such a system free institutions would be in danger of extinction. Yet it must be remembered that this local authority was in the hands of men chosen by the governor from the neighborhood, not strangers or creatures of a foreign power, and also that the laws under which they acted were made by the people's own representatives.^ th7'J)oiitkai ^^^ result, at least, followed — practice in adminis- organization. trativc government fell to a select few; the colony was governed by the conspicuous planters, who ^ "The centralized system created able political leaders, just as the town meeting created a well-trained democracy, while the forces of American life tended to carry both alike against Crown and Parliament". (Hinsdale, The American Government.) The county in New England was established almost entirely for judicial purposes; in Virginia the county commission- CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 129 felt their aptitude for rule. Moreover, the colony, as the source of power, impressed itself strongly upon the minds of its citizens. The mass of the people, however, did not have that constant practice in managing their own local affairs which the town system gave to the New Engiander. Jefferson thus ex- pressed his appreciation of Virginia's lack of proper local or- ganization: "Those wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their government, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation". In the middle colonies neither the county system of Vir- ginia nor the town system of New England prevailed, but a mixture of the two. There were counties and coioiJes ^ towns in both Pennsylvania and New York; but the county was not so important as in Virginia, nor the town so important as in New England. In Pennsyl- vania the county officers were chosen by popular election, but the township had also its duties. In New York the towns were of some importance and influence, but the most conspicuous feature of the system of this colony was the election of super- visors by the towns to form a representative body to regulate the affairs of the county. These three systems of local government are of more than mere historic interest, because, as the country has grown, each has played its part in the local organization Influence of r ,i cj. j. o i • n these systems. ^^ ^^^ "^^ States. Spcakmg generally, one may say that the various systems have been carried westward along the parallels of latitude. The town, commonly called township, prevails to-day in the Northern States west of ers, appointed by the governor, had judicial duties in the county court, but they also saw that the laws of the legislature were carried out. In New England local afifairs were passed on by the people in town meeting; in Virginia local affairs — county afifairs— were in the hands of the commission- ers appointed by the governor. In New England, the town meeting chose officers to carry out the "town's mind"; in Virginia the people chose the members of the House of Burgesses — the lower house of the colonial As- sembly; but had no meeting and did not choose the county officers. 130 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the Alleghanies, the county in the Southern States. The method of connecting the town with the county by the election of supervisors has, moreover, been widely adopted, especially in the Northern States westward to the Pacific. There was great general similarity in the form and methods of colonial government.^ Yet, as we have already seen, there were differences. The colonies are commonly spoken govermnents ^^ '^^ royal,* proprietary and charter, and that classification is a useful one; but the proprietary colonies were in one sense charter colonies, though there the proprietor was the person to whom the charter was given. A more exact division- is into Royal, Proprietary, and Corpor- ation colonies. In the royal colonies the English government could in inconsiderable degree manage the colony through the governor, who was appointed by the Crown ; in the proprietary colonies the proprietor appointed the governor, but, as the proprietor lived in England, he was thus subject to pressure from the English authorities. In both the royal and pro- prietary colonies the governor received orders and instruc- tions from a power without. In the corporation colonies the people elected their own governor and had no high ofl^icial placed over them by exterior authority. The royal colonies were (1775) Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire. At the outbreak of the Revolution Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland were proprietary colonies. Connecticut and Rhode Island were * In marking out the distinction between the colonies, we must also note that there were religious differences. The New England people were largely Congregationalists, and in Massachusetts and Connecticut the church re- ceived support by taxation. In the middle colonies there was no single fixed establishment and there were many sects. In Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas the English or Episcopal Church was the estab- lished church. In all the colonies there were sects of various kinds, and many persons strongly opposed any prevailing system fostered and sup- ported by the state. The Roman Catholics, though loyal and, as events showed, good Americans in the days of the Revolution, were generally sharply discriminated against. CONDITION OF THE COLONIES IN 1760 131 corporation colonies, possessed of liberal charters which consti- tuted them practically into little self-governing republics. Massachusetts had also a charter; but the governor was a royal appointee, and thus it may more correctly be considered a royal colony. Although there were these marked differences in the forms of government, inwardly there were certain strong resemblances. Each had a governor, a council whose duties were partly advisory, partly legislative, and generally also judicial, and a popular house based on popular but by no means universal manhood suffrage. Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Georgia had only one legislative house. ^ Everywhere in the colonies the spirit of liberty was "fierce".^ The temper and character of the people made the broad founda- tion for free government. "In this character of Ubrrt^^*"* °^ the Americans a love of freedom is the predomi- nating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and, as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force or shuffle from them by chicane what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of the earth". Filled with this fierce spirit of liberty, the colonies were sure to break away from the mother country whenever she abandoned her wise neglect and assumed the right to dictate or control. Their governments were already so organized that a change in the monarchial head would cause no violent shock, no great disruption in daily life and industry. Popular governors might take the place of royal favorites, and popular wishes might be more readily carried into effect, but the political training of the people gave assurance that, though there might be danger of occasional violence and turbulence, revolution would not mean dissolution, anarchy, or riot. ^ The pupil will be helped by the study of local and general government in the colonies, as they are describe 1 in the books on civil government. ^ Burke, Speech on Conciliacion with America, Works, ii, p. 120. 10 132 HISTORY OF THE A:MERICAX NATION References Channing, The United States of Anuriea, Chapter I; Lodge, Short History, Chapters II. I\', Vl, Mil, X. XIII. XV. X\ II, XXII (a series of ven- valuable chapters); Fisher, Colonial Era, Chapter XXI; Hart. Formation of the Union, Chapter I (1750); Hinsdale. The Ameriean Government, pp. 36-51; .Cooke. Virginia, pp. 364-374; HosMER. Samuel Adams, Chapter XXIII; Cil\nning, History of the United States, \'olume II. Use especially Hart, Source Book of American History. CHAPTER VITT CAUSES OF THE REX'OLUTION England's new duties. The dose of tlic r'ronch and Indian wars found England elated and jubilant. She had established an innnense empire. The long struggle for the possession of America was over, and in India, too, she had gained a secure foothold. But her great success brought new duties and dangers. Could she rule wisely and well these vast colonial possessions? Could she adapt herself to her new situation? She was no longer girt about by "the four seas"; her tasks were world-wide. To soh'e her problems she must appreciate their difficulty, and act with rare wisdom and sense. But England inwardly was not in a healthy condition. She was entering upon a period of indus- Representation , • i ,1 1 in England. f ^^^^^ growth and prosper- ity; the period of stagna- tion was behind her, but her political system had not developed to keep pace with the growth of her people. The great underlying principles of her Con- stitution were gootl, and on them a free popular government could be reared. Now, however, her government was in reality aristocratic, not popular. The whole system of representation had ^ Henry played a prcat part in the events that led to separation from Great Hrllain. He was one of the i^reatest orators America has [produced George Mason, himself a man of ability, said: "He is by far the most power- ful speaker I ever heard. But his eloquence is the smallest part of his merit. He is, in my opinion, the first man on this continent as well in abilities as public virtues". 133 134 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION become utterly wrong and foolish. She still clung to the doc- trine that money must be voted by the people's representatives — the House of Commons. But the House did not rest on the votes of the whole people, nor even, indeed, on a large part of them. Large and thriving cities were without the right to send members to Parliament, while little boroughs of a few houses had such right, simply because they had long ago acquired it. These little places were often willing to sell their votes, or to cast them as directed by some nobleman who had control of the people. England needed to popularize Parliament and bring her government into closer relations with the people before she could wisely govern free Englishmen in the colonies, who were accustomed to think and act for themselves. It is probably true that, in spite of these absurdities and faults in the representative system, the will of the people of ^ Great Britain was not ill set forth in the House American idea of representation of Commous; yet it is clcar that representation compared with [^ America meant something different from what it meant in England, and that the American sys- tem was more reasonable and right. In each of the colonies there was an assembly made up of men taken from the body of the people. The people of each representative district felt that they had thus a part in making the body that made the laws. In England, on the other hand, men were supposed to be represented in the House of Commons, even though great and populous sections had no participation in the election. For this and other reasons England could not fully appreciate American sentiment. Englishmen held that America was represented in the English Parliament, because it was the Parliament of the empire. An American colonist could not understand that sort of represen- tation. In other ways the colonists governed themselves more fully than the people of England governed themselves. A revolu- tion set in and the two peoples were torn apart, largely because England had now fallen behind the colonists in her appreciation of doctrines of political liberty and her application of them.^ ^ American students often say that they cannot understand the English notion of representation; very well — neither could the -Americans of a cen- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 135 Moreover, George III had just come to the throne with strong ideas of the kingly prerogative. He aimed to control Parliament more fully than had been done since ws'frirndr'^ the great revolution (1688). He had h\iM0p a faction of personal supporters, known ^^ the ''king's friends", and sought to manage the ministry to suit his own desires. If this coalition between an aristocratic Parlia- ment, a ministry founded on bribery, and a designing king were once fully formed, the liberties of England were in danger, per- haps were already a thing of the past. And so America was to fight for English as well as American liberty. "America", exclaimed the great Pitt, the true founder of this new British empire, ''America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man with his arms around the pillars of the Constitution". An idea prevailed in England that the colonies were the property of the mother country, that they existed for her. Men did not think of the colonists as Englishmen, ownershtp.^ Separated indeed from the old country by three thousand miles of water, but Englishmen still. They did not conceive of America simply as an expansion of England. They thought of England's owning the colonies, and too often seemed to think that she owned the colonists. Thus the whole basis of relationship was wrong. This is not to be wondered at. Such notions had prevailed in Europe since Spain had obtained her colonial "possessions". Natural as this feeling was, it prevented the English people from treating 'the restive Americans with fairness and with the consideration > • z tury and a half ago : at least the Americans were out of patience when Eng- lishmen said America was represented in Parliament. "What"! said the American, "are we represented when we have no voice in choosing mem- bers of Parliament"? "Certainly", said the Englishman. "Parliament represents you because it looks after your interests and watches over you tenderly. A person can be represented by another even if he does not choose that other, can't he"? "Nonsense"! replied the American. "I am repre- sented by the man I choose or at the very least by persons chosen by the people in my county or town". It must not be supposed that the Amer- icans in general sought the right to send members to Parliament; they de- manded a recognition of th^ right to manage their afifairs and vote their own money in their own assemblies. 136 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION that was their due. "Every man in England", said Franklin, ''seems to jostle himself into the throne with the king and talks about our subjects in America".^ Up to this time (1760) the mother country had not tried to tax the colonies directly, or to interfere in any marked degree with their local concerns. External trade had compromise. been regulated somewhat, and was generally conceded to be a matter for the English Govern- ment. But in internal affairs the colonies largely managed their own concerns. The colonies flourished in neglect. ^ When it was suggested to wise old Robert Walpole that he tax the colonies, he exclaimed, ''What! I have old England set against me, and do you think I will have new England likewise"? England should have rested content with this practical and sensible compromise. It might be asserted that it was illogical, and that the British Parliament was supreme over the colonies and had as good right to pass laws for the internal manage- ment of the colonies as to make regulations for external trade. But it was not a question of logic; it was a question of common sense. As early as 1651, in the time of Cromwell, England legis- lated in behalf of English commerce to cut off any profit there ^ The cause of the American Revolution was, as much as any one thing, the sense of superiority felt by Englishmen and especially by the ruling classes. One noble lord declared it absurd that men of a mercantile cast should be "every day collecting themselves and debating about political matters". The lackey that polished his master's boots or arranged the lace on his master's fine coat felt a little up in the world when he spoke of "our subjects in America". And yet, here of course, we can exaggerate — many a man among the poorer classes, yes and sometimes one farther up the scale, knew that when he chided x\merica or praised the English representative system he was defending what Pitt called the "rotten part of the constitu- tion". ^ "The colonies", said Burke, "in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, . . . but through a wise and salutary neglect a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection". This is of course an extreme statement, though it is essentially true. For decades English ad- ministrators had sought to bring order and system into colonial management and to make something like a real empire; but the work had been fitful and in part fruitless. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 137 might be to foreign countries in trading with her colonies. After this time laws multiplied, all directed toward the same end, namely, the holding of the entire colonial laws ^^'^^ '°° commerce in her own hands. Only English or colonial ships could carry on colonial trade; the most important products of the colonies could be carried only to England, and — perhaps most important of all — foreign goods could not be brought to the colonies except under heavy duty, unless first shipped from an English port. In other words, the colonies were restricted to the English market and, save where they had their own vessels, to English carriers; and they were not allowed to import foreign goods save by using the English merchants as their factors. Moreover, trade between the colonies was restricted. In addition to all this, acts had been passed to stamp out the beginnings of Amer- Acts of trade. . . . ican manufactures in order that the colonies might be dependent on England for supplies. It must be said that other countries with colonial possessions treated their colonists with less consideration than England did. In some respects English legislation favored colonial enterprise, and up to the time of the last French war the laws do not seem to have injured the colonies materially. An attempt to enforce them, however, and to secure not simply a monopoly of American trade but to obtain revenue, irritated the colonies and helped to bring on disaster.^ The navigation laws had not been rigidly enforced. They were constantly broken. But now, before the end of the ^ There was one law, the famous Molasses Act of 1733, which sought to cut off American trade with the French and Spanish West Indies by placing heavy duty on molasses brought from these foreign colonies, and this act was constantly broken by the New Englanders. They wanted molasses out of which to make New England rum, portions of which were carried away to form the basis of the nefarious slave trade, and they wanted to carry their fish and lumber to the West Indies and get molasses and sugar and silver — real silver — for their cargoes. Much of the American trade with Europe was carried on with England alone and in accord with the principle of the Navigation Acts; but even in the European trade the Americans sometimes disregarded the acts, while the Molasses Act was almost a dead letter. 138 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION French war, the ministry became infatuated with the idea of stopping this lawlessness and enforcing the acts. One of the means employed was the issuing of general war- assistance, rants to search for smuggled goods. These warrants were called ''writs of assistance". Such a writ gave general and not particular instruction to the revenue officers. It was good for an indefinite time, and might serve as authority for search in any suspected place. Such a power in the hands of an officer is dangerous to liberty.^ In 1761 a great case arose. James Otis, a young and brilliant lawyer, argued before the Superior Court of Massachusetts against the validity of these writs, and declaimed against them with soul- stirring eloquence. "A man's house is his castle", he exclaimed; ''and whilst he is quiet he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle". He held up to view the fundamental principles of English liberty which the English constitution embodied and declared "An act against the constitution is void". "Then and there", said John Adams, "was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child of Independence was born". Shortly after this Patrick Henry made a great speech in Virginia. A statute had been passed by the Virginia Legisla- ture that materially lessened the income of the cause'"^°°^ clergymen, which was payable in tobacco. This act was declared void by royal authority in England. A clergyman now brought suit to obtain his dues under the law as it existed before this statute was passed. Henry was retained for the defense, and poured out his torrents of new-found eloquence in defense of the right of the colonial legis- lature to pass such laws as it chose, without reference to the gracious permission of the English king. He declared "that a king, by disallowing acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits ail right to his subjects' obedience". The jury brought in a ver- 1 Notice the Constitution of the United States, Amendments, Article IV, where general warrants are made illegal. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 139 diet of one penny damage for the poor parson. Thus it appears that in ^Massachusetts and in Mrginia popular young orators were ready to preach a doctrine that savored of rebellion. The Americans were then faithful subjects of King George, but Henn' struck the ke}Tiote of colonial politics when he asrerted that the test of a law's validity was not the kingly sanction, but the people's desire.^ George Gren\TLle- is said to have brought on the American war because he read the colonial dispatches, and this is only an exaggeration of the truth. Even at the end of renv e ^-^^ French War there had been an attempt to en- deterimnes to ^ enforce the laws, forcc the acts and regulations shutting off trade with the French and Spanish West Indies, and now, when the war was over, Grenville made up his mind to carry out the laws and even to make them sources of revenue. The Sugar Act, passed in 1764, pro\'ided for the continuation of the ^lolasses Act; but it was e\'idently intended in part at least for revenue instead of prohibition, for duties were lowered, and moreover the ministry- intended to see that it was obeyed.^ But the New Englander had too long carried on this trade without interference and he resented the new intercession. England saw that the colonies were prosperous and rich. She had expended vast sums of money in the late war, so why not tax the colonies and make them pav at The Stamp Act, , , . .- ^i r • .- i j^gg least a part ot the expenses ot carmg tor them in the future? ^ With this end in view Parliament passed the ill-fated Stamp Act. It provided that bills, notes, ^ Tyler's Patrick Henn-, chap, iv, gives a picturesque account of this famous case. - First Lord of the Treasury and ChanceUor of the Exchequer, 1 763-65. 3 "The custom houses were to be something more than cosy nooks on the whar\'es where holders of sinecures might doze comfortably; the ships of war ever>-where were to be instructed to enforce the revenue laws". (Hosmer. Life of Thomas Hutchinson, p. 52.) * Grenville forgot perhaps that the colonies, especially the New Eng- land colonies — those ver>' colonies which had the largest degree of self gov- ernment under their charters — had given men and money freely and had fought like Trojans to beat the French. "■so -.-« "S ^ 5 = toi 2 S t. «? ^ <« C .2 £ ^ 5 S. 01 |"7| ? 2 ^^'• Ji Si d.g's 3 js^a "2 g 9) > « _<3 a •a § is &* k -c-a J^ §•5 -S^^l - a - ^ g g • si < H CO o 2 O y Q >-( CO Q < y 140 CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 141 marriage certificates, legal documents, etc., should be written only on stamped paper. The revenue obtained from the sale of stamps was to be used for colonial defense. The plan was not devised for enriching the mother country at the expense of the colonies; for it was fully expected that the tax would yield not more than £100,000 — less than one third the amount England must expend to protect America efficiently from foreign invasion or Indian uprising. It cannot be said therefore HP ^ ^ Lieutenant Governor it cannot be saia, tnereiore, ■ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^-H ^o nothing in that the law was an act of -■- Relation to the STAMPS, but greed, or of tyranny in any leave it to Sir Henry Moore, to do as large sense. But the colo- ^^^t N^ A""^-, ^7°^ nists resented it; it ran By Order of his Honour, counter to all their prac- Gw. Banyar, D. CI. Con. tices and principles. Their . ^'f ^^^r^^'' ^^q^^^^ed Mf^j- . J Ti ar- J vjnr /lon,ihe M2iyor, Mr. Bever/y Rom' love of liberty was fixed jdn^andMr.jo^ Stevens, this Morning, and attached on this specific being Monday the 4th of November, that nm'nt nf fjivincr" 1 ^^ woTjld not iflue, nor fuffer to be if- ^ 1 ^^^^"^^ ; , , fued, any of the STAMPS now in Fort- The Stamp Act alarmed George. . Rol'erf R, Lmngjim, America. The Virginia As- John Cruger, semblv adopt- l^tf '^'^^'''' The Stamp Act ' , • J^^^ StevCTlS. Congress. ^^ rcsolutious, The Freemen, Freeholders, and In- offered and habitants of this City, being fatisfied that eloquently supported by *^^^oSp"r °P^JSt G- Patrick Henry, declaring ty, at all Events, except they fhould that '' taxation of people by have other Caufe of Complaint themselves or by persons Handbill Issued in New York to Al- chosen bv themselves to ^^^ Excitement and Check Riotous cnosen oy tnemseives 10 opposition to the Stamp Act represent them ... is the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, and without which the ancient constitution cannot subsist". The Massachu- setts representatives called for a general congress of the colonies. In October (1765) delegates from nine colonies assembled in New York. Fear of the French, dread of the Indians, and all else had hitherto not brought about union. Now in a moment, when ^ Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. 142 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION their chosen liberties were threatened, they came together. The congress drew up memorials addressed to the English Government, and a ''Declaration of Rights and Grievances of the Colonists in America". But the resistance to the Stamp Act was not all by remon- strance. In Boston during the summer there was disorder. ^. The stamp collector was hansjed in effiarv; the Disorder and , , . . tt i ^ riots. house ot Lhiet Justice Hutchmson was sacked. Other acts of violence occurred. Though the town meeting of Boston expressed its ''abhorrence" of such con- duct, it was clear that there were some who did not distinguish The Repeal, or the Fxjxeral Procession of Miss Americ-Stamp A Contemporary Cartoon. From the original in the Emmet Collection, New York Public Library between orderly and disorderly resistance. In Xew York, too, there were mobs, and there was strong evidence ever^^^vhere that the act could be enforced only at the point of the bayonet, if at all. Societies were organized, called ''Sons of Liberty", pledged to resist the obnoxious law. ^lany entered into agree- ments not to use British goods. Meanwhile, there were amazement and discomfiture in CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 143 England. The merchants began to feel a loss of trade. Gren- ville had resigned before he could see the consequence of his own well-meaning folly. A new ministry was fenced '^^ Confronted with serious difficulties, for America seemed actually on the verge of open violence and resistance. William Pitt, who for some time had been kept by illness from his place in the House, now appeared to sup- port the colonial cause. He declared that there was a plain distinction between ''taxes levied for the purpose of raising revenue and duties imposed for the regulation of trade". He insisted that internal taxation without representation was tyranny, and, if the Americans yielded, it would be an evil omen for English liberty. ''The gentlemen tell us", he exclaimed, "America is obstinate; America is in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted". The act was repealed, and there was great rejoicing on both sides of the ocean. ^ Had England been content with this comfortable retreat all would have been well. But new acts were soon passed quite as obnoxious as the old. The opponents acts 1767^ ^° ^^ ^^^ Stamp Act had declared that England could not impose a direct tax, but could regulate the external trade of the colonies. Charles Townshend, a brilliant, flippant man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to le\'y duties on goods imported into the colonies, as a fair example of external regulation. The act was passed laying an import duty on tea, paints, paper, glass, and red and white lead. The writs of assistance were declared legal. The revenue was to be used to pay the salaries of the judges and royal governors in America. From what we have seen of the struggles of the colonial assemblies in the eighteenth century, we may be sure that the object of the duty rendered it doubly disagreeable; if money were thus expended, the governors and judges would ^ With the repeal of the Stamp Act was coupled the Declaratory Act which announced that Parliament had the right to bind the colonies "in all cases whatsoever". The colonists, though not saying much at first about this declaration of unlimited power in Parliament, never forgot it. If Par- liament has all power, they said, what are we but slaves? Glorious News. BOSTON, Friday ri o'Clock, i6\h May 1766. 7 HIS Inflant arrived here the Brig Harrilon, belonging to Jo/:.': Har.ccck, Efq; Captain Soubacl Coffin^ in 6 Weeks and 2 Days from Londcn', with importaaC News, as follows. From the London Qw/ittz, IFcftminJler, MQ\aOJ, coiunnrkliiig their aucn- danco in rhc Houfcof Pters. Tlu- Commons beixvg come thiiiicr accordingly, I;j3 Mjjefly was^ p?oarcJ to give his royal alTcnrcD An ACT fo REPEAL an A(5> rnadc in the Joll Sidion of Pmliamcnf, in* tfuIcH. an A(f^ tor granting :.nJ applyinr, certain Stamp- Duties and otiicr Duties in i!ic I5rrtil}i Colonics and Plariu'ions in America. towsrJi further defrayinpf llic CN;>cncesof dctendiiig. prottc>in(i nnJ fcciiriQg the fame, and for amcnJint* fuel"! i^arts of the (evcral Atfls ol Pirliamenc reJannf; to the trade and revenues of tlic bid Colonies and Fl.intaiions, as dirt-.J't the manner of Jctcroiinins a.'\J rccovciing the penalties and forlcifjrcs therein mcnrioncd. Aifo ten public bills, and (creniccn privateoncs. Wl.cn the KING Acnr to die (-Jouk ol Peers rogue (he RoyalAnint, there was fuch 3 vnll Concuurieol People hu^/aing, clappinc; Hands, ^c. that ic was feveral Huutj bcfptc His Ma^tliy readied tl-e Honle. Immediately OD HiS •M^lcUv's Signing ihe Royal AlTcnt to ilie Repeal of the Stnmp-'Vfl the Merchants iraJm.: to America. difpatcl.cd a VclTcl which had been in w.uiing, to pot into the firO Port or, the Confttient vMtl> flic .\ccount. Tlicre were the grcTtell Kc|0icmgs poirible in thiCicy of London. by allRanks of People. 01 the TOT.AL Repeal of the S.amp-Ac"J, — the Slups in tlic River cTifpbyfd all thcTrCT»4oiH5i ll]-v.-:ufiors nnd t3'"'nh'-r.j m manv Parts.__— In fiiurt, the R'^jo'crngs were as great as was eter known on any Occalion. It is faiJ the Aas oi Trade reLrins* to Amcric.» woi.M be taken under Ccn- fderatioo. and at! Grievances removed- The Fncnds lo America arc very pow- crftil, and difpofcil ro ailiU us to rh^ utniofl of iheir Ab.lity. Capt. Blake failed t!ic fame Day \v\\\\ Capt. CoiTin, and Capt. Shand a Fort- Diglu before him, both bound to thi<; Porr. fi IS imp:)]fbtc to exfrcfi thf Jy the T;a»>j /r re:;/ in, en receiving the abyve, great, j^lorisus and impirtant S Elt^'S^Thc Belli n -11 the Churches ivert immedtateiy fet a Rm^tn^, nnj ue hect the "Ddyfor a general Rtj:!Cn:g "Will be the beginning cf r.cxt ff'eek. Prtnted for the Bcucfit of the PUBLIC, by Drapers y EJt^i Sc GilJy Green &: /?/v/7IV/, and F/cers. TbcCuRouKrs to the BolbnPapc.-j may have the above gratis at tbcfcfpc^ive Handbill Announcing Repeal of the Stamp Act CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 145 be entirely removed from popular control. Added to this grievance was the fact that about this time Parliament sus- pended the legislative functions of the New York Assembly, because it had not made suitable provision for quartering the British troops. The colonists protested against the Townshend acts. There was a clear practical distinction between "regulation" and duties for revenue. Samuel Adams, ''the man protTsTs. ^^ ^^^ town meeting", was now clerk of the Mas- sachusetts Assembly. In this position he was active in keeping resentment at the proper pitch. He wrote a series of addresses that were issued by the Assembly. The most important document of all was a circular letter sent to the other colonies asking cooperation and consultation. John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, wrote at this time the famous ''Farmer's Letters", full of good sense and shrewd reasoning. "English history", he hinted, "affords examples of resistance". Non-importation and non-consumption agreements were en- tered into. Some revenue was obtained under the act, but the net returns were a mere trifle. Troops were sent to Boston in the autumn of 1768. From this time on Boston was the center of attention. Shortly after the passage of the Townshend acts Parliament petitioned the king that persons in the colonies charged with treason should be carried to England for trial. threa°.^^'^°"^ ^^^^^ sccms to havc been a mere threat, but if Par- liament was not in earnest it was playing with a sacred right, the right of an Englishman to be tried by a jury of the vicinage or the neighborhood. To withhold this privilege was tyranny.^ On hearing of this action by Parliament, the ^ It is nowhere more strikingly denounced than in Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. "A person is brought hither in the dungeon of a ship's hold; thence he is vomitted into a dungeon on land, loaded with irons, un- furnished with money, unsupported b}^ friends, three thousand miles from all means of calhng upon or confronting evidence, where no one local cir- cumstance that tends to detect perjury can possibly be judged of: — such a person may be executed according to form, but he can never be tried accord- ing to justice". 146 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The Virginia resolves. A principle at stake. cherished. Virginia House passed a series of resolves. They assured the king of the loyalty of his subjects, but asserted in unmistakable language the right of petition and the privilege of self -taxation, and declared that sending persons ''beyond the sea to be tried is highly derogatory of the rights of British subjects". In 1770 the Townshcnd acts were modified. The duty was taken off all the articles save tea, but the act so altered was as obnoxious as before. The discussion in Parliament disclosed the utter failure of many to appreciate the principles which the colonists It was not a paltry £40,000 a year that was at stake; the principle of self-taxation and the rights of the popular assemblies were in danger. This is what Webster meant when he said at a later day, "They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration". Meanwhile the British troops in Boston were a constant irri- tant. The House of The Boston Representatives re- Massacre. ^ fused to legislate or pass bills of supply. They de- nounced a standing army as a menace to their liberties, and absolutely refused to pay for quartering the troops (1769). The soldiers on the streets were a source of annoyance and were often insulted and provoked by crowds of men and boys, who delighted in teasing them. On the night of March 5, 1770, occurred the ''Boston Massacre". A small gua-d of sol- diers, irritated beyond endurance, fired into a crowd and instantly killed three persons and wounded several others, two mortally. Only the immediate arrest of the offending soldiers AMERICAN SI BCAE IN R£M«»«RA»ICE The HORRID MASSACRE! Pefp\nd their Ciptain PENSIONED! Portion of a Handbill Recall ING THE Boston Massacre CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 147 prevented a serious riot. The town meeting next day, under the lead of Samuel Adams, demanded the immediate with- drawal of the troops from the town. To this demand the authorities finally acceded, and stationed the soldiers on an island in the harbor. The massacre caused great excitement throughout the colonies. When the soldiers were tried on the charge of murder, they were defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two bright young lawyers, whose devotion to the popular cause had not stifled their sense of justice. Two sol- diers were found guilty of manslaughter and slightly punished. For some time there was quiet; but all danger was not removed. By this time Samuel Adams had made up his mind that the colonies ought to be independent. He ^°*^*^ worked without ceasing. In 1772 he moved in the committees of . , . . correspondence, ijostou town meetmg the appomtmcnt 01 a com- mittee "to state the rights of the Colonists and of this province in particular' as men, as Christians and as sub- jects; . . . also requesting of each Town a free communication of their sentiments on this subject". Thus was shown the worth of the town meeting as a weapon against oppression. The Assembly might, mayhap, be dissolved, browbeaten, even outwitted; the town meetings, everyw^here alert, could not be crushed. In this year (1772) an English ship, the Gaspee, whose commander seems to have been very arbitrary and arrogant in his efforts to enforce the revenue laws, was at- tacked and burned by a party of Rhode Islanders.^ It was a piece of violence that deserved condemnation; but the English Government unduly magnihed the offense and appointed a commission for investigation, which threatened to take the culprits to England for trial. The offenders could not be dis- covered, however, while the high-handed methods of the com- mission aggravated the discontent in the colonies. The ^ There were many acts of v^iolence during these years; and we need neither excuse nor commend them. But we must remember that a great revolution was in progress, and that in such times violent men and wicked characters find an opportunity for disorder. 11 148 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Virginia Assembly appointed a Committee of Correspondence to keep in communication with the other colonies. Thus a means was provided for getting the colonies to act in concert. ''In this manner", says Bancroft, ''Virginia laid the foundation of our Union". An act of violence now occurred in Boston, and affairs hurried to a climax. To aid the East India Company, Parlia- ment had granted the right to send tea from the The Boston Tea , , • t-' i i t ^i j. a p^j^ company s stores m England directly to America and had relieved the company from paying certain duties in England on the tea so shipped. A duty of eleven pence per pound was, however, collectible in America and, though the tea could actually be sold cheaper here than in England, the colonists objected to the duty. Several cargoes were sent to America and when tea ships arrived in Boston harbor (1773) the people demanded that they return and take their fragrant cargoes with them. But the authorities refused to give the sailing papers. On the evening of December i6th a body of men disguised as Indians boarded the ships, and, breaking open the chests, emptied their contents into the sea. Boston had thrown down the gauntlet. The English people were outraged by this action. Fiery speeches were made in Par- liament. "The town of Boston", said one, "ought % ^1 ^ti . to be knocked about their ears and destroyed". intolerable acts, , , -^ 1774. Another described their acts as " the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble, who ought . . . to follow their mercantile employments and not trouble them- selves with politics and government, which they do not under- stand". In this spirit Parliament passed the famous Boston Port Bill, closing the port of Boston until the tea was paid for and the town became compliant and obedient; Salem was made the seat of government. The -second changed the charter of Massachusetts in many important particulars, chiefly by extend- ing the power of the Crown; town meetings, except for electing officers, could be held only by the governor's permission. The third act provided that if any person were accused of "murther or other capital crime",, and if it were made to appear t^at CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 149 * the fact was committed in the execution of his duty as a magis- trate, for the suppression of riots" or in support of the laws, the accused should be taken for trial to some place outside the col- ony. This seemed to the Americans to encourage officers in >>TII11 iriSF. MK.-W/ tiOTfJAH The Wise Men of Gotham and their Goose ihe boston port bill as pictured by a contemporary london car- TOONIST From the original in possession of I\Ir. R. T. H. Halsey, and copyrighted by the Grolier Club shooting down the people. A fourth bill provided for quartering troops in America. A fifth, called the Quebec Act, should in justice to England be disassociated from the other four, but the colonists objected to it and classed it with the others; it established the old French law in Canada, sanctioned the 150 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Catholic religion there, and extended the boundaries of the province westward and southward to the Mississippi and Ohio. The establishment of the despotic law of France, even in the old French colony, was thought by the Americans to be a menace to free institutions in all the colonies. The recognition of Roman Catholicism, although in fact it was a reasonable act of toleration, offended the New Englanders and seemed to threaten their chosen faith. Moreover, Massachusetts and other colonies claimed, under their charters, title to portions of this western land thus made part of Canada. Such were the five ''Intolerable Acts". In May (1774) General Gage, commis- sioned as governor, came to Boston with additional troops to see that the laws were obeyed. Boston harbor was closed. Again all the colonies were alarmed. Their political theories were alike; the political practices of all had made for self-government. Now, in spite of differences in The First social and industrial condition, under the stress of a Continental Congress. common danger and a common fear, a new people was born. September 5, 1774, a Congress met at Philadelphia. Delegates were present from all the colonies save Georgia, and the people of Georgia were known to be in sympathy with the purposes of the Congress. It issued a "Declaration of Rights". This declared that the people of the colonies were ** entitled to life, liberty, and property", and that they had *' never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either without their consent". It further asserted that the colonists were entitled to the rights of Englishmen, ecaraions. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ "foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council; and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances cannot be properly represented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures". They con- sented, out of regard to mutual interest, ''to the operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce". This was a rea- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 151 sonable compromise. The colonies had now come to the point where they utterly denied the authority of the British ParHa- ment over them; ^ they had their own "parliaments"; but for mutual interest they promised to recognize laws passed by the British Parliament that were really external in their operation, and were acts of real regulation and not of taxation. The Congress also framed Articles of Association, wherein the delegates for themselves "and the inhabitants of the several colonies" agreed and associated," under the sacred The association. . . ,_. ^_. , _ . „ . i? ties of Virtue, Honor, and Love of our Country , not to import into America any goods from Great Britain, prod- ucts from the British West Indies, tea or wines. The importa- tion of slaves was to cease December ist. Addresses to the king, to the people of the colonies, to the people of Quebec, and to the people of Great Britain were adopted. But more im- portant and fateful than all these addresses was the following resolution: "That this Congress approve the oppo- The addresses sition of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late Acts of Parliament; and if the same shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, Congress [^ g^^h casc all America ought to support them in Boston.^ their opposition". This could mean but one thing — war with the mother country if she persisted. Thus, little by little, England and America were estranged and ready for open war; and yet this does not tell the whole truth, for America was divided and in England the Differences in colonists had many eager and able defenders. If the and America. king was obstinate and if Parliament on the whole was incapable of appreciating the colonial' position, Some men there were, like Burke and Chatham and Fox,who were 1 If now Parliament insisted on legislating for the colonies in other respects, and against the colonial desire, and if the king accepted such acts of Parliament and tried to enforce them, the Americans would have, in their opinion, the lawful right to refuse obedience. And if the king per- sisted, he would himself be acting beyond his legal authority. As yet, however, there was little bitter talk, except among the extremists, about throwing off the power of the king. Compare the Declaration of Independ- ence, where George III is charged with giving his assent to ''act^ of pre- tended legislation". 152 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION not dull, nor short-sighted, nor ungenerous; ^ many men through- out the troublesome years that followed were bold enough to wish ill success to the arms of their own country. In America the situation was complicated. There were some leaders, like Samuel Adams, who were ready for war and eager for indepen- dence; others were unwilling to consider independence, but were prepared to fight for the maintenance of their ''constitutional rights"; others, again, believing England wrong, preferred peace to war and looked with horror on the thought of renounc- ing the name of Englishmen. No small portion of the people were irreconcilable loyalists, opposing the radical leaders and willing to give up their all rather than rebel against their king. And so, while we may trace out, as we have done in the preced- ing pages, the gradual widening of the breach between the colonies and the mother country, we must not think that the people of either country were altogether united in their senti- ments and sympathies. John Adams in later years declared that about one-third of the American people were ''Tories". And all this means that, while we speak, and shall probably always speak, of the struggle between England and America, the war that ensued had many of the features and many of the deplorable effects of a civil war. Trivial offenses on the part of government cannot justify revolution. Only oppression or serious danger can justify war. It cannot be said that the people of the colonies Was the j^g^^j actually suffered much. It might even seem justifiable? that the mother country was not at all tyrannical in taxing the colonies to pay for defending them, and beyond question George III and his pliant ministers had no intention of treating the colonists with cruelty. How, then, can the war that followed be justified? The Revolution was justifi- able because the colonists stood for certain fundamental princi- ples that were woven into the very fabric of their lives. They 1 Even after the Boston Tea Party Chatham, though indignant at the methods of the Bostonians, pleaded for consideration: "Clasp them once more in your fond and affectionate arms", he exclaimed; "and I will ven- ture to afl&rm you will find them children worthy of their sire". CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 153 were determined that no one should take money from them with- out their consent, and that their own local governments should be indeed their own and do their will. They carried to a legiti- mate conclusion the true political principles for which the Eng- lish people had fought in the great rebellion of the seventeenth century. They had a keener appreciation of liberty than any other people in the world. In England a designing monarch was intent upon making himself king in fact as well as in name, and the people seemed lethargic and forgetful of the fundamental principles of English liberty. The average English statesman at Westminster — and few there were that merited the name of statesman — could not accept the fundamentals of the American argument without condemning the practices of his country and ridiculing the whole representative system as it then existed. The colonists, on the other hand, cherishing the rights of Englishmen, demanded the substance and not merely the forms of self-government. Had these self-reliant people on this side of the ocean been pliant and obedient to laws they considered wrong and tyrannical, it would have been an evil day for popular government. It is sometimes said that the American Revolu- tion was conservative or preservative. Such it surely was; but it did more than save the principles of English liberty; it built them up and gave them a logical expression in the institutions of a free people made by themselves and changeable at their own discretion, and in the growth of free government resting on the people not only in America but in England. References Short accounts: Channing, United States of America, Chapter II; Hart, The Formation of the Union, Chapter III; Hinsdale, The American Government, pp. 52-63. Longer accounts: Fiske, The American Revolution, Volume I, pp. 1-120; Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, Chapters X to XIV; Hosmer, Satnuel Adams, pp. 33-313; Tyler, Patrick Henry, pp. 32-135; Morse, 5ew- famin Franklin, pp. 99-202; Lecky, The American Revolution, 1763- 1783; Howard, The Preliminaries of the Revolution; Channing, His- tory of the United States, Volume III, Chapters I- VI. CHAPTER TX THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1 7S3 During the winter and early spring of 1775, although there was no open violence, the feeling was intense. There was a sympathetic communication from colony to colony. Situation in f.^^Yi felt the dans;er of the other. ''We must ti^ht" ! the beginning " . . . . ,. / of 1775. exclaimed Henry \\\ \irgnna; an appeal to the God of hosts is all that is left us". But there was still no outburst of uncontrollable excitement. There seemed to bo a determination that the tirst blow nuist be struck by the British; for the war was to be conservative or preservative rather than destructive. Boston was almost in a state of siege; its business was thrown into much disorder; there were cases of sutTering among the poor and the unemployed. The sullen persistence with which the peoj^le neither fought nor relented suggested that when war was once begun only success would end it. The New Englanders, under the lead of ^lassachusetts, were taking steps to bring about united armed resistance, when the war was actually precipitated by the action of the Lexington and Kncrjish commaudcr. General Gacce sent a detach- Concord, ' i • i i ' . • 11 April 19. 1775. nient to destroy stores which the Americans had gathered at Concord, a little village some twenty miles from Boston. The nunenient was discovered, the country was aroused, and when the advanced division of the British force reached Lexington in the pale gray of the early morning they found a squad of sturdy yeomen drawn up detiantly on the village green. Called upon to disperse, they refused; and the regulars tired into the little company, killing seven and wounding several others. The English then proceeded to Concord and destroyed the stores, ^leanwhile the provincials were pouring in from tlie surrounding country, and the British force began to retire. The retreat 154 THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 155 became little better than a headlong flight. Franklin, in his humorous fashion, wrote to a friend that the British ''troops made a most vigorous retreat, twenty miles in three hours — ■ scarce to be paralleled in history — and the feeble Americans, who pelted them all the way, could scarce keep up with them". The news of this engagement spread like wildfire. Men grasped whatever weapons they had and hastened toward Boston. An army was soon gathered in the vicinity of the city, and the people of the colonies realized that, after ten years of excitement and vexation, war was at last begun. ^ The second Continental Congress met May lo. It became the central government of the nation, and continued to be so for six years. Washington was selected commander-in- Second chief of the "Continental Army." Preixirations Continental ^ r i r ^ Congress. Were made for the support of the troops. Washing- ton was then in the very prime of life — forty-three years of age, tall, stalwart, and strong. His experience in the French and Indian War, his undoubted military talents, the unqualified respect which all felt who knew him, coupled with „. ^. , the fact that the choice of a Southern general was Washington. i • • i the miperative demand of common sense, made his selection the only possible one. It was a fateful moment when the question was under consideration. From that time the Revolution rested on Washington's shoulders. Had the task fallen to any other man the war would probably have been a failure; for he was not simply a great man, he was a great general, possessed of wonderful judgment and self-control, and yet capable of bold, quick, decisive action. The campaigns of the Revolution, which can be given here only in outline, prove that, in a century which boasted of some of the greatest com- manders in history, Washington won deserved renown as one of the ablest of them all. ^ Early in May Ticonderoga was taken by the Americans. Crown Point fell a day or two later. The capture of these fortresses was important, be- cause the British were considering the advisabiUty of taking the h'ne of the Hudson and cutting off from the other colonies the New Englanders, who were thought to be especially disaffected and rebellious. 156 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Before Washington could take command another battle had been fought. On the evening of the i6th of June a force of twelve hundred men under the command of jwie 7?, 1775- Colonel Prescott pushed forward from the Ameri- can lines and took up a position on Bunker Hill,' an eminence on the Charlestown promontory. By morning, when they were discovered by the enemy, an embankment had Ooiu'ord • Lc^xiuijton linxlnii \- ^ . M, Boston and Its NiciNirv in 1770 been thrown up, and the continuous bombardment from the English men-of-war was of no avail in driving the Americans froni their position. General Gage determined to assault the works. The world knows the result. Hoaten back in two desperate assaults, the British tinally captured the redoubt when the provincials had run out of ammunition. It was a victory dearly bought, and though the Americans were for the moment overcome by mortification, their brave resistance to disciplined troops was of groat moral effect. Congress had appointed a number of generals and other officers at the same time that Washington was made commander- * Breed's Hill, where the battle was fought, was in reality an extension of Bunker Hill, and connected with it by a ridge. THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 157 In-chief. In acklition to these warlike prei)arations, they sent one last petition to the king asking for a redress of grievances, and they also issued a declaration of the causes of taking up arms. The petition, of course, had no elTect upon obdurate George III, who, on the contrary, issued a proclamation against the Ameri- /r^'^ \ ? rmlxr cf i'L'ppi.cs, Wuuitcwn, June 18, t^-^. T" J|""*^H(i Welfare of our Conrtrv :\p:un induri:' u< r>-> ur<:;c yonv exertions ill frnJin^ ti> ilic M ';';a:'!nc in liiiv place, wlnu ! -,vr lani-.ot ar piL-fciu- obtain inaoy thiii^.s l>Lir !'y ynuc /ilhlbrKc, ur : ;i'.ii,' ;>i/ii: Ivc-s I'latynii v^ill :,i • \.iiir parts as worthily as yau h.iv." Joiic iTKt i,,,^,. d,,;. the Lvcuc ui all our txcvtions will be liie ^aiv.inon ofo;ii ("(-.Kiny. 7j //.\' S,-'u]:h;i ,;;i/ ( I, -.•','.:/,',■ - (f(.'oneJptj:!j-::r'j:)i //v; [o-vi if ' t/ ,i , m * fV,„y/,/c,^ D\vi'> Ciinvn;, per Order of ^/),i,/., CouunitCLC oi L'.uppliw. '•-cancc cfiac ' ^lie Con- i wliii !i are • Men, .v.ad cicncy In ,. ;n lolion all mufl be lier,— ly to 1", hi ill iMir bv AlMMsAL FOR PrOXISIONS, JUNK i8, 1775 From the Original Broadside in the Boston Public Library can traitors, and proceeded to hire foreign troops to put down the rebellion. Some twenty thousand men were employed as mercenaries against the people in America, who were risking their lives for self-government and the rights of English- men. Washington took command of the Continental Army in July (1775). The men had come hurriedly together on the impulse of the moment, and lacked nearly everything needful for the long task that awaited them. Slowly, as the year went 158 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION by, Washington made out of the raw militia an army. The lines were drawn more closely around Boston, and at the opening of the following spring (1776) entrench- °^*°° , ments were thrown up on Dorchester Heights evacuated, ... March, 1776. Overlooking the city. Bunker Hill had taught its lesson, and General Howe, who was now in com- mand of the British forces, evacuated the city (March 17, 1776). While the main body of the army was engaged about Boston a daring attempt had been made upon Canada. Richard Mont- gomery made his way north by the Lake Champlain ■Attempt to route and took possession of Montreal. He then 1775. ' joined Colonel Benedict Arnold, who had pushed his way northward through the woods of Maine, and the united forces made a daring night attack upon Quebec. Mont- gomery was killed, Arnold was sorely wounded, and, in spite of the fiercest courage, the assault was unsuccessful. The Americans withdrew and Canada remained in the possession of England. The early part of 1776 was full of encouragement. The Virginians, fully aroused to hostility by the conduct of their royal governor, were quite ready for decisive Situation in action. In North Carolina the Scottish royaHsts early part of . 1776. were badly beaten.^ In June Sir Henry Clinton with the British fleet attacked Charleston and was beaten off. The continuance of hostilities, England's action in hiring German mercenaries to suppress the colonies, and the unremitting diligence of the radical leaders were making the people ready to announce independence. The sentiment in favor of total separation from the mother country had de- veloped with a slowness that seems remarkable when one con- siders that already war had been in progress a year or more. On June 7th Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, offered in Congress the resolution "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States". Declaration of n^-, 11. • t^ • Independence. ^ ^^ debates wcrc vigorous. It was in connection with this debate and the repeated appeals for unanimity that Franklin perpetrated his famous witticism, ^Moore's Creek, February, 1776. THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 159 "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately". No doubt the thought thus humorously expressed had its influence for harmony. The middle colonies, as yet unmolested and not feeling full sympathy with their Northern brethren, were inclined to hold back. But the people on the whole were found to be ready for the step. July 2, 1776, the resolution was adopted, and two days later the Declaration of Independence, drawn by Thomas Jefferson,^ was adopted, stating the reasons and the justification of the act. This declaration deserves careful study. The language is so well chosen and so dignified, its phrases are so harmonious, that it must always stand as a great piece of literature. It embodies, too, a distinct statement of grievances; and, moreover, lays down the fundamental principle of democratic government — that all men are created equal, and that each man has the inalienable right to pursue happiness. And this means not that each man is as good and as strong as another, or that idleness and vice are as good as industry and virtue; but that every man has certain rights which no government can take away; it naturally involves the sentiment that no class of men, like the privileged orders of Europe, is entitled to peculiar care and pro- tection from government. Such sayings, which pass over your head and mine now as mere truisms, were revolutionary and radical one hundred and thirty years ago. Steps had already been taken in some of the States to frame State constitutions, to found a political order suitable to their new situation. This work, completed in some Constitutions, cascs more quickly than in others, deserves special thought and attention; for this work, we might well say, was the revolution — the transformation of the colonies into commonwealths, the establishment of governments in accord with the wishes of the people, the assumption of power by 1 See Morse's Jefferson, pp. 32-40. On July 5 some copies were printed and issued. Not till August 2 was the engrossed copy signed by the delegates. See Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, vol. vi, p. 268. One member did not sign till November, 1776, and another not till 1 78 1. Lis^ < U W THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 161 the men of Amer- ica in the States scattered along the ocean front from Florida to the Penobscot. In many respects it is true the changes were not marked ; there was little or no destruction of the institutions which were the results of colonial growth; two of the States, Rhode Island and Con- necticut, went on under their old charters. And yet it was, as we have said, of pro- nounced signifi- cance, because the new consti- tutions were founded on the people, and rec- ognized the ulti- mate political authority of the people. This is a great fact in human history; governments were no longer to be The Early Campaigns of the Revolution 162 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the source of power, but the agents and the servants of the real governors , the people. As we look back now on the Revolution we see that the important fact was not the war, although it involved one-half of civilized mankind; it was not the separation from Great Britain, the mere breaking of the political or legal bond, although that was a fact of no small moment. The important fact was that in America a nation was founded with a new ideal, and that certain theories of right were now made real by being as- serted in written documents and by being hardened in institu- tions of government. Some of these fundamental rights, sug- gested in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, were even more clearly phrased in other places and most notably in the Vir- ginia Bill of Rights, a noble public document. In these state papers there appears clearly the notion that governments are of limited authority and that there are certain essential rights of men which cannot be taken away.^ In the course of the Revolution the idea was plainly expressed that governments are the ser- vants, not the masters, of the main body of the people. From both a military and a political point of view the city of New ^ The student will be interested in seeing what rights are laid dowTi as fundamental in the constitution of his own State. Our present State con- stitutions, following earlier examples, contain in one way or another Bills of Rights. THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 163 York and the line of the Hudson were of great importance. New York had a large number of British sympathizers, and there was some chance that through them the British prepare colony might be won for the king. The Hudson New York. Valley, if securely held, would separate the ever- active New Englanders from their less vehe- ment brethren of the Middle States. Washington, anticipating the desire of Howe to get possession of the city and the mouth of the Hudson, moved his troops from Boston to New York in April. His army was small and very poorly equipped, while New York was a place very difficult to defend. An English fleet with troops on board arrived at Staten Island in July. The army was commanded by General William Howe. His brother Richard, Lord Howe, was in ^o^dHatton Command of the fleet. The latter was charged with the task of making offers of conciliation and pardon. But he could accomplish nothing. Washington said there could be no pardon where there Was no guilt; and, when the proposals were made known to Congress, Governor Trum- bull, of Connecticut, remarked: '^No doubt we all need par- don from Heaven; but the American who needs the pardon of his Britannic Majesty is yet to be found". It was clearly too late to treat with the Americans as rebellious British subjects. Washington had posted a portion of his troops on Brooklyn Heights, hoping to hold the position. But the English out- numbered the Americans, and, moreover, could Battle of Long strike where they chose, while Washington must 1776. ' ' divide his forces to meet the enemy at various places. Howe decided to attack the troops on Long Island, and was successful in the battle. Many Americans were taken prisoners, and the remainder of the army was in a critical situation, for they were hemmed in and in danger of being captured to a man. Washington now executed one of the most brilliant manoeuvers of the war. During the night the whole force was ferried silently and stealthily across the East River to New York, leaving the British in possession of empty earth- works and a barren victory. 12 164 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Driven from New York City, Washington skillfully and slow- ly retreated with his discouraged army. He was finally com- pelled to leave the vicinity of New York, and Retreat across ^\^^ dreary, dishearteninsf retreat across New Tersey New Jersey, . . . *" , autumn, 1776. began. * The American army was daily dwindling, for the soldiers lost heart when they were not vic- torious. In the early winter the little army of three thousand men crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania. Had Howe the.i made a rapid march to Philadelphia it surely would have been taken, and the moral effect would have been so great that all hopes of resistance might perhaps have been abandoned; the Revolution might have been a failure. But Howe, pluming himself upon his success, left his troops, so as to guard Washing- ton completely, as he thought, and went back to New Y'ork t3 hear praises of his victories and enjoy the gayeties of the holiday season. But Washington was not yet beaten, nor utterly discouraged. Crossing the Delaware Christmas night, 1776, he surprised a company of Hessians at Trenton, and took a thousand prisoners and a thousand stands of arms. Then, retreating into Pennsyl- vania, he once more crossed back into New Jersey, where by a series of brilliant movements he completely outwitted General Trenton and ComwalHs, who was the most competent com- Princeton, De- uiaudcr on the English side during the war, but cember, 1776, -^yho had rcckoucd without his host when he spoke complacently of "bagging the old fox". In the battle of Princeton Washington defeated the enemy, and then, though not daring with his small force to push ahead and capture their stores, he practically held New Jersey by taking the heights of Morristown. Thus in midwinter was fought an important campaign. The losses of the summer were in part retrieved. The American general showed a combination of caution with boldness and skill in strategy that proved him a general of marked ability. The experiences of this year of active warfare taught their •evident lessons. It was plain that the struggle was likely to be long and desperate, and that something must be done to THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 165 provide a suitable army, one with some degree of permanence, and not made up of militia that would melt away in the day of trial and discouragement. Washington was preparations. clothed with almost dictatorial authority, but of course used his power with moderation.^ Through- out the winter he labored faithfully; but by the opening of spring his force was still small, and only by the most careful strategy and waiting could he hope to accomplish anything against his powerful opponent. The outlook was indeed dreary, but there was ground for hope; though Howe held New York and Eastern New Jersey, he was hardly further ahead than he was just after the battle of Long Island. The English Government now prepared to take a firm hold upon the country. They determined to get control of the Hudson River, and thus cut o3 New England from center, 1777 ^ ^^^ Middle States. General Burgoyne was to march down from Canada, and Howe was to go north and meet him. Another force under St. Lesrer was to go up Lake Ontario to Oswego, take Fort Stanwix, and come down the Mohawk Valley. By some accident Howe seems not to have been ordered by the home Government to proceed with his troops up the Hudson ; but he ought to have known enough to go without explicit orders. Burgoyne began his southward march in June. At first he was successful. Ticonderoga was taken, and the news of his victory filled England marchersouth ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^'^^ Burgoyne with undue vainglory, from Canada Soon, liowevcr, the danger of marching into an enemy's country began to be made more clear to him, for an American army was in front, and the militia were gathering behind him. He sent a detachment to Bennington, in what is now Vermont, to seize supplies; but the militia, under the ^ In speaking of Washington's success at Trenton and Princeton, one ought not to forget Robert IMorris, whose generosity and exertions to raise money made these victories possible. His executive ability was of great service to his country. He raised money on his own credit to aid Wash- ington. "During December and January he may be said to have carried on all the work of the continent" (Sumner's Robert Morris, p. 17.) 166 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION command of doughty John Stark, simply annihilated the whole force. Aroused by this success, the country rose to check the invader, and it was soon apparent to Burgoyne that he was in a tight place. His army was growing weaker, and he was com- pelled to light or starve; but fighting did not do him any good. The Surrender of Burgoyne A British cartoon from the original in the Emmet collection, New York Public Library His supplies were cut off, and while the American army grew stronger his own grew constantly weaker. He retreated to ^Saratoga, and there, surrounded, baffled, beset, &^ SaisLtoga^^^ he surrendered at discretion. Burgoyne's defeat October, 1777. was inevitable, inasmuch as Howe had not gone north to cooperate with him. Gates, the American commander, won great applause, but as a matter of fact his conduct of the campaign was free from all merit, save that his very failure to act gave an opportunity for the enemy to be slowly weakened and overcome. Meanwhile St. Leger had met with discomfiture. In a fierce battle at Oriskany, the bloodiest contest of the war, a c^ T 1 detachment of Tories aided by Indians was St. Leger also , -^ defeated at defeated by a band of Americans under the brave Oriskany, qI^j General Herkimer. Fort Stanwix could not be taken, and finally, upon the advance of an army under Arnold, the British fled precipitately. THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 167 Let us now turn southward and see what became of Howe. Washington expected to see him move northward; but he did 2Q^g,g not. He prepared to march across New Jersey expedition to and capture Philadelphia ; but Washington blocked a e p la. -j^j^ ^^^ Worried him by superior strategy. Then Howe determined to sail for the ''rebel capital". In August he appeared in Chesapeake Bay,i and began his march north- ward. Washington, trying to stop the British advance, was Battle of beaten at Brandywine Creek, and the victorious Brandywine, enemy marched on to Philadelphia. Even now ept., 1777. ^j^g heart of the American commander did not fail him. He determined to surprise the enemy at German- town, and he mapped out a plan of operations October °i777. "^^i^^^^) i^ succcssful, would havc overwhelmed them. An attack was made in the early morning and was almost a success; but two advancing divisions lost their way in a dense fog, and one fired upon the other, thinking it was the enemy. So the surprise was a failure. And yet it was not a failure. It disclosed to the thinking men of America and to the onlookers in Europe the daring generalship of the man who thus in the face of Eflfect of defeat ventured to plan a bold assault with intent campaign on . ^ Europe. not simply to annoy but to crush the army that had beaten him. European statesmen and mon- archs, who were watching the "rebellion" with utmost care, saw that the colonists could fight with great courage in the midst of defeat, and that the capture of the capital by no means meant that the war was over. For some time Benjamin Franklin had been at Paris as a commissioner from the United States, and had been working in his quiet, shrewd way to bring France to recog- aiiiance^"'^ nize the independence of the United States and take part in the war. This France was not loath to do, for she was still smarting under her defeat in the Seven Years' War, and was longing for revenge for the loss of Canada. After the defeat of Burgoyne it was apparent that the Revolu- ^ He landed his troops at Elkton. 168 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tion had good chances of success. France then made a treaty of alliance with the United States (February, 1778).^ In a short time Spain and Holland, too, were drawn, for their own reasons, into the war against Great Britain. Even before the French treaty a number of Frenchmen came over to help in what they considered a struggle for liberty. Chief among them was Marquis de Lafayette. Other foreigners came also, and one. Baron Steuben, a German, was of great service in organiz- ing and drilling the American troops. This winter, which brought the happy news of foreign aid, was a winter of suffering for the American army. It passed the dreary months at Valley Forge in destitution. Valley orge, Washington did not leave his men and go home to live in luxury, but stayed to endure privation with them. Only he who reads his letters written during these trying times can appreciate his troubles and anxieties. The worst of it all was that the nation was not poverty stricken.^ The war had brought some hardships to the people, but the country had plenty of clothing and shoes and beef and flour. Why did the army not have them? In the first place many of the Americans were still loyalists and they did not like to give up money and food to '^ rebels". In the next place the General Government was inefficient. Congress had no power to levy Congressiona \^^xes, it could ask for moncv, but not demand it. incompetency. ' ^ -' ' It was not well organized to act as a government, * The end of the alliance was asserted to be to maintain the Hberty, sov- ereignty, and independence of the United States, "as well in matters of government as of commerce". The United States guaranteed to France its ** present possessions" in America, and all that it might acquire by the war; France, in its turn, guaranteed the liberty and independence of the United States, and all their possessions, "and the addition or conquests that their confederation may obtain during the war". At the same time a treaty of amity and commerce was agreed upon. ^ It is on the whole a humiliating as well as an inspiring picture, — this brave Southern planter with his little body of shivering troops in Valley Forge, his courage strong, his larder half empty at the best, his soldiers cold, hungry, but devoted. The British troops and their merry officers were feasting in Philadelphia and enjoying warm houses and the pleasant sensation of having full stomachs. A humiliating if an inspiring picture, for why were the Americans hungry and cold? THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 169 being in essence a convention of delegates. There were no proper executive authority and no judiciary, and a large body of men gathered together from different parts of the country was, of course, singularly incapable of conducting a war with wisdom, and economy. The executive work was first done by commit- tees, and afterward these committees became executive boards. Before the end of the war experience proved the desirability of having a single man in charge of each distinct department of executive work. But it was 1781 before the step was taken; then a Superintendent of Finance was appointed, and a Secre- tary for Foreign Affairs. There were other reasons for folly and inefficiency. Some of the members of Congress seem to have loved the intrigues of politics more than the work of providing for the army and hold- ing up the hands of its great leader. Moreover, there were jealousies and rivalries between the different States. The course of colonial history had taught the people to cherish their local governments and to repel any sort of dictation from without. Now the people were a nation, and all the States had a common interest; but real national patriotism and fervid devotion to a central government could come only as the growth of years. In November, 1777, Congress proposed to the States for adop- tion Articles of Confederation. These were not adopted by all the States for some time, and did not go into effect until 1781- In the summer of 1778 Sir Henry Clinton succeeded Howe, and Philadelphia was evacuated. The English army began its march across New Jersey to New York. Washing- Beginmng of ^^^ f oUowcd cautiously and then pounced upon the the campaign 111 • of 1778. enemy at Monmouth, and, had it not been for the dastardly conduct of General Charles Lee, who disobeyed orders and beat a shameful retreat, a complete victory for the Americans would probably have resulted. As it was, the British, much discomfited, withdrew in the night. After Monmouth, the English army, comfortably settled at New York, did not do much but stay there, as if it were dis- couraged or content with what it had, and from this time on, there were few conflicts of importance in the northern States. 170 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Washington captured Stony Point on the Hudson in the summer of 1779; but he spent most of his time from now to the end of the war in watching the British forces in New York.^ It would seem as if the American general had enough to do in holding his army together; for the soldiers were ill-paid or not paid at all and often in dire want; but to other Arnold" ° troubles was added the treachery of Benedict Arnold, who entered into a plot to surrender West Point to the British. The British messenger, Major Andre, captured within the American lines with incriminating letters, was hanged as a spy, and Arnold fled to the lines of the enemy to reap his rewards in money and ofhce.- The Americans, however, during these years were doing more than wage an occasional battle with the British army; there was also fighting on the sea. Hardly had the war 1770 ^ J^"®^' begun when privateers crept out of the New Eng- land ports, and soon their attacks brought dismay and anger to many a British ship owner. Then John Paul Jones appeared on the scene. In 1779 he had charge of a lit- tle fleet which hung around the British coasts, a constant annoyance to British shipping and a menace to the seaport towns. Jones dearly loved a fight, and he soon had one to his liking, for the duel between his flagship, the Bon Homme ^ The winter of 1779-80 was a gloomy one in America. Washington wrote (January 8, 1780): "The present situation of the army, with respect to provisions, is the most distressing of any we have experienced since the beginning of the war. For a fortnight past the troops, both officers and men, have been perishing for want. They have been alternately without bread or meat the whole time; . . . frequently destitute of both ". See Ford's writings of George Washington, vol. iii, pp. 155-161, etc. The volumes are full of interest. ^ The story of Arnold's treason is a story of lasting and pathetic interest. He had been a good officer and a valiant leader. Washington had treated him with kindness and consideration; but Congress, to say the least, not with generosity. In command at Philadelphia for a time after the with- drawal of the English troops, he lived beyond his means, was surrounded with English sympathizers, who had had a fine and merry time during the British occupation, and gradually, burdened by debt and smarting under a sense of unjust treatment, determined to become a traitor. THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 171 Richard^ and the English ship Serapis, was one of the bloodiest naval fights in history. The American vessel was victorious and Jones was the hero of Europe. "His exploits were told and told again in the gazettes and at the drinking tables on the street corners". No account of the Revolution — no matter how brief it may be — can omit the trials of the frontiersmen and the part they played in the conflict; for in the back country were Indians, often aided by Tories or a few English- men, ready to attack the outlying settlements, to burn, to pillage and to kill. The Wyoming Valley in northern Penn- sylvania and Cherry Valley in New York were the scene of horrible massacres, and, in 1778, General Sullivan marched into the region with an army and punished the Indians relent- lessly and thoroughly. But the most important events of the frontier struggle occurred in the Kentucky country and in the region north of the Ohio. For some years past hardy woodsmen had been moving into the great valley beyond the mountains, and building palisades and clustering log-houses in the dark forests. Their daily lives were spent in danger; but they seemed to know no fear; their trusty long-barreled rifles were never far from their hands; the axe for the trees, the hoe for the corn, the rifle for the Indians — these were the weapons by which the West was won for the white man. After the beginning of the Revolution, the frontiersmen were repeatedly attacked by parties of the red men from the north. Chief among these frontiersmen was George Rogers Clark, a daring spirit and a leader of men. Making up his mind not to rest contented with defense, he sought and pro- ci^if^ ^^^^^ cured authority from Patrick Henry, then Gov- ernor of Virginia, to enlist men, and in the spring of 1778 he made his way to Kaskaskia, an old French set- tlement in the Illinois country. This he captured and tlien ^ Bon Homme Richard means good man Richard; a name taken in honor of Poor Richard's Almanac, a book of Franklin's filled with homely truths and wise," quaint sayings. 172 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Clark's Campaign in the West took Vincennes in what is now Indiana. The British general at Detroit, the "hair-buyer", the man who was charged with buying scalps and inciting the Indians in their awful work, re-captured Vincennes. But Clark was not to be foiled or beaten ; with a little com- pany of courageous follow- ers he crossed from Kas- kaskia in the dead of winter — a terrible journey over prairies drowned in half frozen water — took Vincennes, and made Hamilton prisoner (1779). Thus in the West the frontiersmen did great things: they took posses- sion of a wide stretch of country, overawed the Indians, overthrew in part the English rule, and nailed the American flag to the log forts in the wilderness. In the latter part of the year (1778) the British, while still holding New York, turned their attention to the Southern States. Savannah was taken and then Charles- Somhri778 80. ^^^^^- Cornwallis took command of the British forces in the South and entered on a vigorous campaign. The patriots under Alarion and Sumpter were fighting valiantly, but Gates, who was sent to confront Corn- wallis, began a career of incompetence, if not stupiditv. On the 1 6th of August he was disastrously defeated in the battle of Camden, and, not waiting to make an orderly re- treat but leaving his army behind him, fled two hundred miles in three and a half days. The year brought one victory to the American arms. King's ^^ October a body of English and Tories was Mountain, beaten by a force of mountaineers and back- woodsmen in the battle of King's Mountain. ^ Camden, August, 1780. October, 1780. ^ Read Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, vol. ii, pp. 241-295. A very interesting book. l.l.POATESENG.CO., N.Y. Field of the Campaigns in the South 174 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX At the beginning of 17S1 no one would have dared to pres;ige great victory for the American cause, or to expect the sp)eedv close of the war. The English still Beginning of j^ ^ ^ ^^^^^^Z y^^^j. ^ ^^ g^^^j^ ^^iere ComwalHs was in command, there seemed little hope of anything like immediate success for the patriot army. Wash- ington. ^^•ith praiseworthy self-control, remained in the North to guard against attack, and Greene took command of the troops in the South. Greene soon showed the qualities of a nrst-mte general, and proved that among the American officers he was second to Washington alone. Cornwallis pressed vigorously northward and, though a detachment was overwhelmed by the Americans at the battle of Co^^■pens. he kept Co^T^ns. inovins: on, while Greene fell steadilv back. In Janiiary, 17S1. ^ . ^ : . March was fought the battle of Guilford Court House. The English were on the whole victorious, but too much weakeneii to go farther. Cornwallis re- Guilford Court treated to Wilmington, and seemed for the time to 1781.'^ * have abandonevi his northward movement. Greene at lirst pursueil the enemy: then, turning abruptly, marched south into South Carolina. By the autumn the British forces in that State were shut up in Charleston, and the rest of the State \\-as in the hands of the Americans. Cornwallis was puzzhxi by Greene's action. He decided, however, not to pursue him. but to go on to the North. He marched into Virginia. There he w-as baffled by The general Lafayette. "The boy cannot escape me", he said; 1781. ' t>ut the young Frenchman, then only twenty-three ye;vrs of age, was war\' and cautious, and Corn- \N'allis could not trap him. The situation, then, in the summer of 17S1 was this: Washington was at the North planning an attack upon New York City, which had been held since August of 1770 by the British: but he was furtively watching Virginia. Greene was in South Carolina. Lafayette was leading Corn- wallis a chase through Mrginia. Now, tired of his unsucxessful pursuit and strateg\*, Cornwallis returned to the coast and occupies.! a strong jx>sition at Yorkto\\-n. THE RE\OLUTION— 1775-17S3 175 Washington saw his chance. \\c found that ho coukl have the assistance of a French tleet that was expecled in the Chesa- peake, lie abandoned his phin of operations British . -^ A'l 1 11 '11 ^1 surrender at aganist >sew \ ork and marched quickly to the Yorktown. South. Ahnost before CornwaUis coukl realize October, 1781. ^ • 1 1 ,• 1 1 • ir 1 * • a^ 1 i his danger he lound hnnselt shut up m \orktown. Karly in October the bombardment of the works began, and on the 10th tlie besieged army surrendered, and tiled out of its trenches as tlie band played an old English tune, "The world turned upside down". Upside down tiie worUl surely seemed. England had come out of the French and Indian War a great colonial power, glorving in her achievements, astonished at her The end of the ^ - ^ 1 i- t- 1 . - ^^j. own success. 1 lie surrender ot i orktown meant the loss of her most promising and fruitful colo- nies. Everywhere she was beset and humbled; but constitu- tional government was saved at home, saved by an insurrection in the colonies, saved by the loss of America. The King had set out at the beginning of his reign with a determination to be King indeed, and not the mere agent of Parliament. The Amer- ican war was in large part the result of his obstinacy and per- severance; he had succeeded in keeping in otlice men that were out of sympathy with the nation, and were at times not in har- mony with Parliament. In attacking the American principle, he had been attacking the fundamental principle of English liberty; and had he been successful on this side of the water, his success might have well proved fatal to the liberties of England itself.^ Upon the surrender of CornwaUis, Lord North, the Prime ^linister, was compelled to resign, and a Whig ministry succeeded to power. From that day parliamentary irovernment was safe in Endand.- ^ This is what Horace Walpole meant when he exclaimed, "If England prevails. English and American liberty is at an end." - "The American Revolution wa^ a step in that grand march of civilized man toward larger freedom and better political institutions which began in Europe in the fifteenth century, and has continued to the present day. This movement was felt in England before the American plantations were made. 176 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The war was now unpopular in England, and a treaty of peace was only a matter of time. John Jay, Benjamin Frank- lin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Treaty of peace, t • ^ i • • , Sept. 3, 1783. l^aurens were appomted commissioners to agree upon terms of peace. Jefferson did not leave America, and Laurens took no important part. Adams was busy in Holland and did not appear in Paris until much of the Fraunces' Tavern, New York City Washington's quarters, November, 1783. The house in which he took leave of his officers at the close of the war From Valentine's JManual, 1854 work had been done. The task chiefly fell on the shoulders of t-.vo men — Franklin, a wise counselor, and Jay, a young man of probity, daring, earnestness, and skill. Negotiations began in the summer of 1782. The commissioners were instructed by Congress to counsel with the ''Ministers of our generous ally, the King of France", but soon after the beginning of negotia- tions Jay made up his mind that France wished to please Spain, who had entered the war as her ally, by preventing the United States from getting possession of the West, or at least . . . The American Revolution was the proper continuation of the English Revolution of 1642 and 1688." (Hinsdale, The American Government, P- 54-) THE REVOLUTION— 1775-1783 177 by shutting off the Americans from a considerable portion of the Western country between the Mississippi and the Appa- lachians, Jay was determined that Spain should secure no hold on the West because of any double-dealing on the part of France, and he induced Franklin to disregard their instructions and carry on the negotiations without consulting the French Minister. When Adams came upon the scene he agreed with Jay. How far Jay was justified in his suspicions is still a matter of some doubt. But whether he was right in his belief, or not, the situation was such that the British commissioners, natur- ally not ill-pleased at the apparent break between our repre- sentatives and the French Court, were induced to treat liber- ally with the Americans, and they finally agreed to a treaty which was very favorable to the United States. A preliminary treaty was signed November 30, 1782, and a definite treaty the next September. The French ministers Avere themselves astonished at the success of the shrewd and bold American commissioners.^ The northern boundary of the United States was made to run from the St. Croix River to the highlands that divide the rivers that empty into the St. Law- rence from those that empty into the Atlantic, thence by the Connecticut River, the forty-fifth parallel, the main channel of the St. Lawrence, the middle of the Lakes to the Lake of the Woods. The boundary line then ran down the Mississippi to the thirty-first parallel, thence eastward to the Appalachicola, and on to the Atlantic by the line that now forms the northern limit of Florida. These boundaries seem definite and the descriptions suffi- ciently accurate; but as a matter of fact these were drawn at a time when men were very ignorant of the geogra- indefiiUtT^ phy of the North and West. Many disputes arose in after years, and nearly sixty years elapsed before our northern and northeastern boundary was fmally established. At this time England ceded the Floridas to Spain, meaning to convey the territory south of the boundary ^ See Fiske, Critical Period of American History; McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution, Chaps. I and H. 178 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION agreed upon with the United States ^ — at least such was our interpretation of the cession. Thus the Revolution ended with the American people in possession of a vast domain stretching from the ocean to the Mississippi, a territory several times as lar«re as A new nation. irir ? j o France, or much greater than that of any European power save Russia. Already there were visions of manifest destiny. The nation could not long remain a mere group of States scattered along the Atlantic coast. A great political and industrial future lay before it; but it must first find a proper method of national organization, must establish a suitable na- tional government, must recognize in very fact the existence of a national life. Before these great things could be accom- plished there were, as we shall see, years of confusion and times that tried men's souls. "The new-born republic narrowly- missed dying in its cradle". References Hart, The Formation of the Union, Chapter IV; Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, pp. 179-388; Channing, The United States of America, pp. 72-107; Lodge, George Washington; Fiske, The American Revolution; Lodge, The Story of the Revolution; Van Tyne, The American Revolution; Channing, History of the United States, Volume III, Chapters VII-XII. Younger students will be especially interested in Fiske, War of Independence; Fiske, Washing- ton and His Country, which is a simplified edition of Irving's Life of Washington; also Coffin, The Boys of '76. ^ Inasmuch as England had some years before established a province of West Florida, the northern limit of which was about 32° 30/ Spain main- tained for some years that her possessions between the Appalachicola and the Mississippi extended up to this old boundary of West Florida. This matter was not arranged until 1795. (^ .^^i^^J'V /7P'^ ^. 7. ^<^ ^ - <^^'--^/^y- //^o. CS,,^d //ZZ ry. ■/~x:.^/^u-,^^ f778-J^ix^ f77^^h^L^. r5/^47' /^o^op^4 ^4^-/ Jircy-^-CA p-:f ■fooo Zooo /cx:>o /7f3 r J^^ /aaa Y7SZJo-^ 3oa —- — 3oo. Soo — — ./.^__ Sao /S7A.4i// — . ^^s\ iosr/o — S-^54. 27a-S-— -^/^ ./Z2.Ji>- -&0 _ _^-4^_ 2^/:> /^-yd ^ f^-rr-o 1_ <^c7 _ . .^ >ir^ztj3^i .-66-/2 -\ .33 I Jg--//! - Sa-^/S. - ...His- ... 20^/0 -X ..-So- ..3&~ --7^- -A -.6b ..37-/0- . ^ -6 — .X2J-. ./SO, a^Jr:^- ' \777^' -^/^ ~tj£^ ^7^37/ « ^ a) / A Pack Of Washington's Accounts 13 CHAPTER X THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION— 1781-1789 During nearly the whole course of the war the Central Government was the Second Continental Congress. There was no written instrument defining the power of this body. It used such powers as it needed to use or was permitted to use by the people. During those years political institutions were forming. M^en were learning valuable political lessons from experience. The powers that were exercised by the Continental Congress i\'ere in nearly every particular those that were confided to the central authority when the written articles of Confederation were agreed upon. In 1777 Articles of Confederation were proposed by Con- gress to the States, but they were not ratified by all until 1781. By these Articles was formed what purported to Co^ederation. ^^ ^ "firm league of friendship" between the States. The Central Government, if government it may be called, was a Congress composed of delegates annually appointed by the States, and to this body was given considerable authority. It alone had the right and power of declaring war or making peace, of sending or receiving ambassadors, of appoint- ing courts for the trial of piracies or felonies on the high seas, %3i regulating the alloy and value of coin, of fixing the standard of weights and measures, of '^ establishing and regulating post offices from one State to another". It also could build and equip a navy and raise and support an army, and make requisi- tion for troops upon the States. The Congress was authorized to appoint a committee to sit in the recess of Congress, to be known as a "Committee of the States". In this Congress each State had one vote; Delaware had quite as much voice as had Pennsylvania or Virginia. No step could be taken without the 180 THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 181 consent of a majority of the States, and for many important measures the consent of nine of them was necessary. All the States must agree to an amendment or alteration in the Articles. <) UNITED STATES c> ^^J ^ AT THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. O ^^ SHOWING WESTERN LAND CLAIMS OF THE STATES 1783 This Congress stood forth as the representative of the Ameri- can people, and it had many duties and responsibilities; but there was no effectual means given of executing its laws or of raising the money which was so needful. No power was given it to collect taxes directly from individuals, or to levy duties on 182 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION imports. The only way to get funds was to ask the States for them. Moreover, Congress could not execute its eir c.acts. j^^^ directly upon the citizens of the States, or compel obedience to treaties with foreign nations. It could recommend and advise, but it could not execute; it was soon, therefore, in a condition where it could promise but could not perform. Without power over persons, it had no efficiency as a government.^ Each State was now jealous in the extreme of any authority beyond its own borders. This narrow, selfish, short-sighted policy was due in part to the demoralizing influ- seifishness ^^^^ cnces of the war, in part to the fact that the war had been carried on against an external foe, and now in the eyes of many Congress had taken the place of King George. For some time after the peace local prejudices grew rankly. As a consequence, the requisitions and recom- mendations of Congress had little influence. The demands for money met with niggardly responses. Each State seemed anxious to exalt itself at the expense of the nation. The trouble of the time is well put forth in a letter of Robert Morris, who was now (i 781-1784) acting as Superintendent of Finance, the first and the only man to bear that title in our history. " Imag- ine", he said, " the situation of a man who is to direct the finances of a country almost without revenue (for such you will perceive this to be), surrounded by creditors whose disasters, while they increase their clamors, render it more difficult to appease them . . . ; a government whose sole authority consists in the power of framing recommendations". Under such circumstances great difficulties beset the im- potent Confederation. Foreign nations looked askance at the 1 The Articles of Confederation asserted that each State retained its sovereignty. There may be some question as to whether they had the sov- ereignty to be retained ; but that is a difficult problem about which stu- dents of history may well disagree. Certainly whatever be the theory held by the States concerning their own sovereignty and equaJ independence, no one of them felt that it had the power to stand actually alone and be really independent. While there were forces driving them apart and threatening the permanence of union, there was also a deep sense of interdependence. THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 183 new combination of republics, and foreign princes were in no hurry to be gracious to the dangerous democracy which had arisen from rebellion against authority. Congress had Disorder in . i i • • • • -r> ^ foreign affairs, trouble m raismg money m Europe even at enor- mous rates of interest ; for who would trust a govern- ment without visible means of support? Spain refused to give up much of the Southwest and to allow the Americans/ free navigation to the Gulf — an important fact because settlers were now moving into Kentucky and Tennessee in great numbers. The treaty of 1783 was no sooner ratified than broken, both by England and America; for the States refused to obey the provi- sions of the treaty which provided that British creditors should find no lawful hindrance in the collection of their debts, and England, anxious to secure the fur trade and the Indian alliance, retained possession of the forts in the northern and western part of our territory. "We are one to-day", said Washington, "and thirteen to-morrow". No foreign government could respect a nation so organized. Washington, indeed, had early predicted "the worst consequences from a half -starved, limping govern- ment, always rnoving upon crutches and tottering at every step". But even more dangerous conditions appeared within the Union than without. The States were envious of one another. Each passed laws to increase its own commerce at Difficulties ^Yie expense of its neighbor's. The States with "no among the • ^ ^ r r • i States. convenient ports lor loreign commerce were sub- ject to be taxed by their neighbors through whose ports their commerce was carried on. New Jersey, placed be- tween Philadelphia and New York, was likened to a cask tapped both ends; and North Carolina, between Virginia and South Carolina, to a patient bleeding at both arms". ^ Difficulties arose between New York and New Jersey, between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, between Connecticut and New York, and between other States as well. " In sundry instances . . . the navigation laws treated the citizens of other States as aliens". ^ From Madison, in the introduction to his notes on the Philadelphia Convention. Elliot's Debates, vol. v, p. 109. A valuable paper. 184 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION There was actual danger of civil war among people who had just emerged from an eight years' struggle against a foreign foe. Within the respective States there were disorder and distress. The paper-money craze wrought havoc in some. A new race of speculators arose to make the most of the situa- tranqvSnty.*^ tion. People who had been rich found themselves poor; their farms were mortgaged or their trade was stopped, while perchance they had paper money by the bagful stored away in the attic. Business was so depressed that threre were want and suffering. There were, to use Washington's words, combustibles in every state which a spark might set fire to. In Massachusetts, in fact, the fire broke out. There, as everyw-here, a good many men were out of work or could find no money to pay their debts, and, as is customarily the case in times of distress, the idle and the vicious saw an opportunity to right their fancied wrongs. Several hundred men came together under the leadership of one Daniel Shays, an old Continental captain, who seems to have been a weak and inefficient creature, unfit to command or hold in check the rabble that followed his standard. Conflicts between the insurgents and the State troops ensued. The malcontents were especially bitter in their hatred of courts and la^vyers and they prevented the various courts from holding their regular sessions. By the energetic action of the State government the uprising was finally quelled, but the people of the whole land feared and wondered. They be- gan to long for a national government with power, a government that could restore harmony between jealous States able to win re- spect abroad, establish justice, and insure domestic tranquillity. In considering the difficulties of the situation calmly now we see how difficult it was to do the -work of building up strong substantial institutions, at the end of a war which had been dis- tracting and had left a spirit of unrest behind it; at the end of a war which had been waged to defend the liberty of the individual Against government. The political talk that men had heard for years from the demagogue and the statesman alike had been in praise of liberty, and now the shallow-pated or the vicious thought the time had come to live up to the doctrine and to get THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTTrUTION 185 along without the burdens of a disagreeable, strong-handed government. They did not see that a good, efficient govern- ment might protect reasonable liberty. And then, too, after the war was over, when the time of recuperation was at hand, the land needed the Loyalists that had been banished or that had gone to England or over to Canada in search of new homes for themselves. For we must remind ourselves again that the Revolution was in many ways a civil war; and the task, there- fore, of readjustment, when peace came, was naturally fraught with the difficulties that sprang from internal confusion and social overturning. Before studying the steps that were taken to organize a new govern- ment and es- tablish a permanent union, we must turn aside to no- tice the settlement of con- flicting claims of the States to Western lands. Even before the independence of the United States had been acknowledged by Great Britain there had arisen much discussion over the ownership of the territory west of the mountains. Six "Western land claims. The Northwest Territory Showing the States afterward carved from it of the States — New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland — could set up no claim to this territory. Their boundaries were defined. The other States claimed lands stretching west to the Mississippi River. South of the Ohio there was no good ground for much dispute. Each State might take possession of the lands lying directly to the west; but to the lands north of the Ohio there were conflicting claims. Massachusetts and Connecticut based their titles on their old charters. Each claimed a strip of land extend- 186 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ing through the Northwest. The land claimed by Massachu- setts formed a large portion of what is now Wisconsin and the lower peninsula of Michigan. The Connecticut strip was chiefly in what is now northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. New York set up a title to a vast territory in the West on the ground that she had received under her protection the Iroquois Indians and was lord of their domains. As scalping parties of these fierce warriors had wandered as far as the Mississippi and extorted tribute or homage, New York thus asserted ownership to nearly the whole of the Northwest. The claims of Virginia were strong. She based her title, first, on her early charter, which described her dominion as running up into the land "west and northwest"; second, on the fact that George Rogers Clark had won this territory, and that it was the pluck and enterprise of Virginia that had secured it. Some of the States, hemmed in by definite boundaries, had hesitated to agree to the Articles of Confederation because they feared the overweening influence of the others given^up.*^ ^^™^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^'^^^ claim to a great dominion in the West. Maryland was long persistent in her re- fusal to sign under such circumstances, and in fact did not do so until New York had yielded, and there was good reason to believe that all the other States would likewise relinquish their claims. Within a few years after the establishment of the Articles all the land northwest of the Ohio was ceded to the United States.^ Connecticut reserved a strip of land one hun- dred and twenty miles long south of Lake Erie. This w^as later given up by the State, but is still often called the "Western Reserve". Part of the territory south of the Ohio was ceded to the United States. At a later day Kentucky was organized as a State, without previous cession by Virginia.^ * Connecticut had claimed a large portion of the northern part of Penn- sylvania. This, however, was decided to belong to Pennsylvania. The little triangular piece in northwestern Pennsylvania was later ceded to that State by the National Government. Massachusetts also laid claim to a portion of what is now New York. The two States came to an agreement about it, the jurisdiction passing to New York. 2 North Carolina ceded Tennessee in 1790. THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 187 These cessions of the West were of the utmost importance. Thus it happened that these various commonwealths forming the Confederation had a common interest in com- fes^ons^ mon property, and this interest formed a strong bond of union when such ties were sorely needed; and thus it happened that almost from the beginning of our national history we have had a wide public domain. Moreover, it was understood that the people of this new West were not to be held in subjection, but when the population was large enough new States were to be admitted to the Confederation on an equality with the old.^ Thus arose the idea of our wise system with regard to the Territories. Soon after the cession of the Northwest plans for its govern- ment were discussed. In 1784 Jefferson submitted a plan for. the government of all the Western country fromr. o/itsT^^^ its southern boundary to the Lakes. He pro- posed that slavery should not exist there after 1800; but this part of his plan was not carried, though a ma- jority of the State delegations present in Congress at the time the vote was taken were in favor of it. The rest of the plan was adopted, but it was not put into operation. In 1787 was enacted the famous ordinance for the govern- ment of the territory northwest of the Ohio. This pro- vided for the organization of government. The first officials were to be a governor, secretary, and three judges appointed by Congress; but, as the population increased, the people were to be allowed a representation in the Govern- ^ ^ „ ment. Not less than three nor more than five and of 1787. States might be formed from the Territory and admitted to "a share in the Federal councils". Sound doc- trines of civil liberty were announced. No person was to be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious senti- ^ Congress declared that these lands should be settled and "formed into distinct republican States which shall become members of the Federal Union". "From this line of policy", says Johnston, "Congress has never swerved, and it has been more successful than stamp acts or Boston port bills in building up an empire". (Lalor's Cyclopaedia, vol, iii, p. 916.) 188 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ments. Each citizen was entitled to the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, was permitted; and the Terri- tory and the States which might be formed from it were to remain forever ''a part of this Confederacy of the United States of America". It announced in teUing phrase that ''religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educa- tion shall forever be encouraged". This is one of the wisest documents ever issued by a deliberative assembly. It had great weight in shaping later territorial organization and in keep- ing the dark tide of slavery from inundating the Northwest. The trials and failures of the dying Congress of the Confederation had been many, but the honor of this act rests with it. "I doubt", said Webster, ''whether one single law of any law- giver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the ordinance of 1787". As we have already seen, while the discussion of the Western question was going on, the affairs of the nation were generally in a bad condition. It was apparent that America stronger Union ^^^ ^^^ performed the political tasks that the very success of the Revolution imposed ; some form of national organization better than the Confederation was imperatively demanded. The old Congress had come into being at a time of urgent need; it had done what it could, and by its successes and failures had taught valuable lessons. The Articles of Confederation had attempted to grant to Congress some of the most essential powers of government, but the arrangement had been made early in the history of the war and the Articles at no time were a success as a working scheme. As the days went by, when once the war was over, it seemed to the anxious men of real intelligence and patriotism — men like Washington, Madison and Jay — as if the whole fabric of the Union would go to pieces, and the country, in distraction and helplessness, dis- credit free government and its own principles in the eyes of mankind. The country, to use Hamilton's words, presented THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 189 an ''awful spectacle"; there was a "nation without a national government". In 1786 the condition of the country was appalling. Spain was holding tight the mouth of the Mississippi, refusing the Western settlers access to the Gulf and a certain Perils in 1786. ,.,1 , 1 . r i r-. i -r-, 1 , title to a large part ol the Southwest. England was in possession of the posts on our northern frontier, with- in our territory. Tripoli, a piratical power in northern Africa, keeping American sailors in ca])tivity, demanded a ransom for their surrender quite beyond the slender means of Congress. In Massachusetts a dangerous insurrection, threatening the very foundations of the Government, was in progress. The governments of seven of the thirteen States were in the hands of a party which believed in the issue of paper money, the passing of "stay laws" to prevent the collection of debts, and other schemes which were bound to increase the pre- vailing confusion. The outlook was discouraging enough; but in this dark year a movement was begun from which little was hoped and much came. There had long been a desire on the part convenli^n.^ '^ ^^ Maryland and Virginia to reach an agreement concerning the navigation of their adjacent waters. A conference was held, and from this came a desire for a more general understanding among the States. Finally Virginia, under the influence of James Madison, proposed a meeting of delegates from all the States at Annapolis in Sep- tember (1786). The meeting was held, but only five States were represented. The delegates adopted resolutions drafted by Hamilton, asking for a conference to be held at Philadelphia, the second Monday in May, 1787, "to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further pro- visions as should ai)pear to them necessary to render the Con- stitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union". In May 'this convention met; a number of the delegates came late, but finally all of the States were represented save Rhode Island. It was plain that the serious condition of 190 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the country had wrought well on the public mind, for the dele- gates were the able, wise, vigorous men of the land. Some, it is true, were still young in years, but even these conventio^n wcre Competent leaders among their fellows. Among the ablest were Washington and Frank- lin — both of whom, by virtue of their long unselfish public service, had wide influence — James Madison of Vi ginia, James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and Rufus King of Massachusetts. Washington was chosen president of the assembly. The con- vention lasted four months, its members often despairing of success. So many differences arose that it seemed at times impossible to reach a reasonable conclusion. The great influ- ence of Washington and Franklin contributed to harmony. It was determined at once to establish a government with supreme executive, legislative, and judicial departments. The adoption of this resolution meant that the convention did not intend to patch up the Articles of Confederation, but to Its purposes. . . found a real national government with power to act — to form a Constitution whose efficiency should not depend on the whim or caprice of the States. The first difficulty arose over the question of representation in the Legislature of the new Government. Many of the dele- gates from the small States in this convention p^fy * ^ seemed merely solicitous for the dignity of their respective States, and anxious to preserve them from attack by securing to them the same weight in national councils as had the larger States; but many of them wished even more than this, and demanded that the principle of the Confed- eration be perpetuated so that the Central Government should continue the creature of the States, which w^ould thus form the basis of the new order as they had of the old. This Small State party demanded that each State should have as many representatives as every other. On the other hand, the so-called Large State party, led by Madison, Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and King, insisted that THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 191 the basis of the new Government was not to be the States, but the people, and that the States therefore should send repre- sentatives to the Congress of the new Government party^ ^^^^ ^^ proportion to their population. It was wrong and illogical to give Delaware as many repre- sentatives as Pennsylvania or Virginia. Thus we see that a real fundamental question of principle was involved. The extremists of the Small State party desired, in reality, a confed- eration of equal States; the Large State party struggled for a government based upon the people. Therefore we might be justified in calling one party the State party, the other the National party .^ The contest between these two factions was long and severe. At times it seemed as if there could be no agreement. '' Gentle- men", exclaimed Bedford, of Delaware, "I do not ^^ITfllito trust you. . . . Sooner than be ruined, there are compromise. -' ' foreign powers who will take us by the hand". By a vote of six to five the convention decided in favor of propor- tional representation in the more numerous branch of the legislature. But it was impossible for the Large State party to secure that basis for representation in the other branch. A compromise was at length agreed upon, whereby each State was to have two senators, while the House was to have the right to originate all bills for raising revenue. Thus was formed the first compromise of the Constitution. The student should see clearly the real controversy, the real difference between the Large State men and the Small State men. The former were for a government based on the people, receiving its power directly from the people, and touching the States as little as possible. The Small State men were in part divided: they all wanted equal representation of the States; ^ The States that voted for proportional representation (the Large State party) were Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Of these the first three were really large states in population. Five States voted against proportional representation: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. New Hampshire came too late to take part in the first critical vote. V^ 192 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION but some of them were not opposed to a national government, while others desired to preserve the principle of the Confedera- tion — to maintain the equal sovereignty of the States. But after this first and important agreement on the subject of representation and the character of the new Government had been reached, there remained many other Slavery causes (jifjQcuities to be ovcrcomc. These arose largely trouble. , . , • i • r i from the fact that the mdustrial mterests of the Southern States were essentially different from the Northern, the former being built upon slave labor, the latter upon free. It stands to the everlasting credit of Madison, Mason, and others from Virginia that they denounced slavery and the slave traffic; but the delegates from the States of the far South were anxious for more slaves and to have slavery fully protected. Another question arose: Should slaves be counted in determin- ing the basis of representation of the States, or should they, since they were held as property, be no more taken into account than the sheep and oxen of the Northern farmer? Again, the Southern States generally were, to use Mason's words, " staple States" — that is, they raised raw material and exported a large part of it. They feared that, if Congress were given authority to regulate commerce, the power would be used to tax exports and destroy Southern trade. These differences were finally settled by various bargains or compromises. In determining the basis of representation and of direct taxation, it was decided that five slaves should count as three freemen.^ Slaves were to be admitted until the ompronuses. ^^^ ^^ January, 1808, but in the meantime Con- gress should have power to le\^ a duty of ten dollars on each person so imported.- Congress was given full authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, but was prohibited from levying an export duty.^ ^ See the Constitution, art. i, sec. 2. 2 Ibid., art. i, sec. 9, § i. Ibid., art. i, sec. 9, § 5. The importation of slaves till 1808 was sufficient to fasten the slavery system permanently on the South. Doubt- less without importation it would have been difficult to root out the system. Constitution agreed upon, THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 193 The Constitution was signed by delegates from all the States represented in the convention on the 17 th of September, but not by all the delegates. Three who were present refused to sign; thirteen had left during the course of the convention. Only thirty-nine, therefore, out of the fifty-five members gave their final consent. When such evidences of differing opinions appeared in this assembly of wise men, what hope could there be of the success of the Constitution when discussed before the people? It was laid before the Congress of the Confederation, and was then sub- mitted by this Congress " to a convention of delegates chosen in each State by the people thereof". Eighth Federal PILLAR reared. From the Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, Boston, Thursday, June 12, 1788 The new Constitution was essentially different from the Articles. The new Government was not to be the agent of ; the States and dependent on State generosity character!' ^^^ funds, or on State humor for obedience. It was to spring from the people and to have power over the people. The preamble of the Constitution states that 'Sve, the people, ... do ordain and establish this Con- stitution". The laws of the Government were to be direct commands to persons. It could raise money with its own machinery and compel obedience with its own officers. Great political powers were given to the new Government, powers general in their nature, such as the right to make peace or war, conduct negotiations with foreign governments, raise As to the effect of the three-fifths compromise, see Gay's Madison, pp. 99, 100. 194 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION armies and equip navies, establish post offices and post roads, regulate commerce among the States or with foreign nations. All power was not bestowed on the National Government, but only certain enumerated powers; the rest belonged to the States or to the people, unless the Constitution forbade their use by any governmental authority. There were thus created imme- diately over every citizen two governments, occupying each a different sphere of political action, and each having power to order and compel obedience. The distinguishing feature of this new republic was this distribution of political authority between the Central Government on the one hand and the com- monwealths that composed the Union on the other. The Ninth VILLAR erected ! <* The Ratification 6f the Conventions of nine States, fhall be fuffitient fortheWiaUliflii meat of this Conftitution, ietween tlie States fo ratifying the fame." Art. vdi. INCIPIENT MAGNI PROCEDEKE MENSES. ^\l\l is not up ',f^»5tev The Attraction muft \'-"'^A% be irrefiflitJe it will rife. /-^"fiCff^ Its form. From the Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, Boston, Thursday, June 26, 1788 Moreover, the form of the new Government was different from that of the old. Power was divided between separate departments — legislative, executive and judicial — and each department was to be in large measure independent of the other. A single person, the President of the United States, was given executive authority. The ex- periences of the confederation had taught that one man can execute the laws more vigorously and sensibly than many. The legislative power was intrusted to two bodies of nearly equal power, that one might act as a check and a bal- ance to the other. An independent judiciary was provided for, the judges to be appointed by the Executive with the advice and consent of the Senate, to hold office during good behavior. THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 195 Ratified by the States. Thus the separation of the powers of government, which was thought to be essential for the preservation of Hberty, formed an important part of the new plan.^ Conventions were summoned in all the States, save obstinate little Rhode Island, to pass upon the new Constitution. The peo- ple of eleven States ratified it before the end of 1788. This decision, however, was reached only after pro- longed discussion and debate. In some of the States the outcome was doubtful almost to the end. Virginia, Massa- chusetts, and New York were the most doubtful States. Here the Constitution had formida- ble opponents and no less able defenders. The rati- fication in the New York convention was due, large- ly, to the eloquence and able statesmanship of Hamilton. During the dis- cussion, Hamilton, Madi- son, and John Jay wrote a series of articles for the press, on the character of the Constitution. These papers, gathered into a volume called the Fed- eralist, constitute a great work on the science of government, one of the most famous books ever written in America. ^ Students of history and of politics believed that the powers of govern- ment should be classified according to their nature, and that the same body- should not be possessed of two essentially different kinds of power. 'Tf it be", said Madison, "a fundamental principle of free government that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers should be separately exercised, it is equally so that they be independently exercised". (Madison's Journal of the Convention, July 19th.) Distribution of Population in 1790 196 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Some of the State conventions would have rejected the Constitution had its supporters not agreed that after the organ- ization of the new Government amendments should be added in the nature of a bill of rights to guard against tyrannical action on the part of the central authority. The first ten amendments to the Constitution were afterward agreed to in accordance with this understanding.^ North Carolina did not become a member of the new Union till November, 1789. Rhode Island gave up her pretensions to independence in 1790. The Constitution thus established was in one sense not a new creation. It was more than the outcome of a conference of wise men. It was the result of experience, and was of history"*^ ^^ itself a growth. Its main characteristics were the products of time. The very failures of the Confederation had shown the proper basis. In the de- tails of the machinery of government there was little that was absolutely new. The framers drew from the history of other nations, from their knowledge of the English law and institu- tions, but most of all from their political experience. A large part of the new instrument was taken, with slight change, from one or another of the State constitutions, which, we must re- member, were in part built on colonial charters or based on colonial practices. This fact, however, does not detract from the wisdom of the framers of the federal Constitution. They were at once scholars and men of affairs, students of history and of practical politics. The goodness of their handiwork resulted from their wise appreciation of the teachings of the past and the clever joining together of the -best and safest material that the tide of history brought to their feet.^ ^ The first ten amendments were declared in force December 15, 1791. They are restrictions on the power of the National Government, and do no'" bind the States. ^ ''The American Constitution is no exception to the rule that ever}'- thing which has power to win the obedience and respect of men must have its roots deep in the past; and that the more slowly every institution has grown, so much the more enduring is it likely to prove. There is little in the Constitution that is absolutely new. There is much that is as old as Magna Charta". (Bryce, The American Commonwealth, vol. i, p. 29.) THE CONFEDERATION AND THE CONSTITUTION 197 References Hart, The Formation of the Union, pp. 102-135; Walker, The Making oj the Nation, pp. 1-73; Morse, Alexander Hamilton, Chap- ters III and IV; Lodge, George Washington, Volume II, Chapter I; Pellew, John Jay, Chapter IX; Tyler, Patrick Henry, Chapters XVII-XIX; ScHOULER, ^/j/cr>', Volume I, pp. 1-74; Fiske, Critical Period; McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol- ume I, Chapters I-V; Channing, History of the United States, Volume III, Chapters XIII-XVIII; McLaughlin, The Confederation and The Constitution; McLaughlin and Hart, Cyclopedia of American Government, Articles "Convention", "Bills of Rights", etc. U CHAPTER XI ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNJNIENT— THE FEDERAL. 1ST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 The Congress of the Confederation made the necessary arrangements for ushering in the new Government and then expired.^ The election of President was ap- oMi!!"'^"'^"* pointed for the first Wednesday in January, 1789, Government. the meeting of the electors for the first Wednesday in February, and the inauguration of the Govern- ment and the real beginning of the new order for the first Wednes- day in March. It happened that the first Wednesday in INIarch yell on the 4th of that month, and thus it came about that March 4th is the day when a new President and a new Congress assume the duties of office. As a matter of fact, however. Congress did not assemble at the appointed time. Its members leisurely came together in New York, where the Government was to be organ- ized, and there was not a quorum of the House of Representa- tives till the first of April, or of the Senate till some days later. When the votes for President were counted in the presence of the two houses, it was found that Washington had been unanimously elected President, and that John ei^c^teT^and Adams, having received the next greatest number inaugurated. of ballots, was elected Vice-President.- Washing- ton's journey from Virginia to New Y^ork was a long triumphal progress. The people gathered everywhere to pay a ^ The confederate Congress continued in formal existence till March 2, 1789. "It then flickered and went out without any public notice". One of the men at the time said it was hard to say whether the old government was dead or the new one alive. ^ By the Constitution as it then was, each elector cast two votes without designating which was for President and which for Vice-President. Con- stitution, art. ii, sec. i, §3. 198 FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 199 reverent respect to the man whose greatness was deeply felt and honored. Not till the 30th of April did he take the oath of office. The place was the Senate balcony of Federal Hall. The scene was an impressive one. One of the greatest of the world's great men consecrated himself anew to the service of his country, and en- tered upon the duty of giving life and vigor to the new Gov- ernment of the young nation. After the oath had been taken Washington read to Congress, assembled in the Senate cham- ber, his inaugural address. "It was very touching", we are told by a spectator, ''and quite of the solemn kind. His aspect grave almost to sadness; his modesty, actually shaking; his voice deep, a little tremulous, and so low as to call for close attention; added to the series of objects presented to the mind and overwhelming it, pro- duced emotions of the most affecting kind upon the members". Even before the inauguration the House had entered ear- nestly upon the work of legislation. The great need of the new Government was money, and so the House began Congress ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ Consideration of a tariff bill. One was begins legislation. passcd early in the summer and a national income was thus secured. It proved in a short time to be inadequate, and the duties were increased. This and other means of obtaining money soon gave the Government dignity and won it respect. But much besides the raising of funds was necessary to put the new Government into running order. The Constitution, general in its provisions, did not outline in detail the forms and methods that must be followed in giving it effect. Many new offices must be established and their duties declared. The ^/v^^^^ y^c^ 200 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION experiences of the war and the Confederation had shown the value of single administrative officers and the Constitution provided that the President could "require the departments Opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any sub- ject relating to the duties of their respective ofiices". ^ Con- gress now passed bills to form three such departments — State (at first called Foreign Affairs), Treasury, and War. The Post Office w^as continued on its old footing, and the office of Attorney- General was established. This officer soon became an important person in the administration because of his duty to give the President legal advice, but he was not at first at the head of what was strictly an executive department. To the offices thus established Washington appointed able men. Thomas Jefferson, then absent in France, was upon his return made Secretary of State, assuming the ^po!^tme"ts. duties of the office in 1790. The Treasury port- folio was given to Alexander Hamilton, then a young man hardly more than thirty-two years of age, possessed of wonderful executive ability, with a strong grasp of details and a firm comprehension of principles. He had long been interested in the disordered finances of the Confederation, and Washington thought him the man to bring order out of the confusion that everywhere prevailed. For this task he was specially qualified. All matters seemed to take form and arrange themselves in passing through his mind. His task was a difficult one. "Finance"! said Gouverneur Morris to Jay at one time; "Ah, my friend, all that remains of the American Revolution grounds there". The fate of the Constitution seemed to depend upon the success with which order was brought out of the disorder that had been inherited from the war and the critical period. Henr^ Knox, an excellent officer and an able man, head of the War Department under the Confederation, was made Secretary of War. Edmund Randolph was appointed Attorney-General. ^ Constitution, art. ii, sec. 2, § i. FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 201 We must remember that the Constitution does not provide for a Cabinet, but simply speaks of executive departments. In fact, even the English Cabinet was not so The American clearly defined then as now; its functions were growth. ^ot so evident and well understood. So that we ought not to expect that, inasmuch as the Amer- icans had had no experience with a Cabinet, the heads of the executive departments would be formed at once into a single View of the Old City Hall, Wall Street, in the Year 1789 body, bent on carrying out a well-recognized policy. At the present time the members of the President's Cabinet meet to- gether at intervals; in these meetings great questions of state are discussed, and it is thought desirable that there should be, in a very general way, harmony and cooperation, at times even a definite Cabinet policy. This state of things is, how- ever, the result of growth. No such condition existed in 1789 — • indeed was hardly possible — for as yet there were no political parties with a distinct program of action. Washington some- times called the heads of departments together for consul- tation, sometimes asked for their individual opinions in writing, or ''^or the advice of one alone, but gradually during his presi- 202 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION dency the practice grew of having matters discussed by the Secretaries of State, War, and Treasury and the Attorney- General. As it turned out, the chief places in Washington's adminis- tration were held by men who by training and temperament were quite diverse. Two opposite tendencies in political elements in th ^^^^ were represented in it. On many questions pre- Cabinet. scutcd for discussiou Hamilton and Jefferson took different positions. With the former Knox was likely to agree, while Randolph as a rule agreed with his fellow Virginian, the Secretary of State.^ Jefferson was a man of great ability, and was a statesman of wide powers. He was strongly democratic in his sympathies, believing that the people at large were the purest and safest source of political power and opinion. He was given to sentiment, if not to sentimentality, and he was not always strong as an administrator. During his political career in Virginia he had attacked the aristocratic institutions of the colony and State, and he now had no sympa- thy with governments or organizations whose tendency was to check free growth and free thinking. He played no such part as Hamilton and Washington in bringing about order and system and establishing the new Government. His greatness lay in the fact that he appreciated the sentiment or spirit of popular government, a spirit that was destined to be the ruling force in the great republic which was then organizing itself for effective work. In this sympathy he was opposed to many men of that time who believed with John Adams that ''the rich, well-born,, and the able" were qualified to rule. While Hamilton was not entirely out of sympathy with popular government, he repre- sented the conservative elements of the nation. His power was in administration, in bringing order out of disorder. He had no fear of an energetic and efl&cient government, and felt keenly the necessity of such government after experience with the dis- cord and turbulence of the critical period. ^ Jefferson once complained that two and one half men opposed one and one half — i. e. Hamilton, Knox and a half of Randolph were one side, and Jefiferson and the other half of Randolph on the other. FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 203 At the first session of the First Congress Federal courts were established. Besides the Supreme Court, Circuit and District Courts were provided for. All cases e coiirts that under the Constitution might come under established. .... Federal jurisdiction were not confided to these courts alone, but the State courts were allowed concurrent ;urisdiction in many cases. To avoid obscurity and confusion by differing interpretations of national laws, and to avoid the possibility that the effect and nature of Federal statutes should be permanently decided by the State courts in such a way as to detract from the power and efficiency of the National Govern- ment, provision was made for an appeal from the Supreme Court of a State to the Supreme Court of the United States in certain kinds of cases — cases in which the State judges were said, by the person carrying the case to the Federal Court, not to have recognized and given full effect .to the constitution or laws of the United States.^ By this method the supremacy of national law was to be secured.^ The Federal courts are to-day arranged on the same general plan as that outlined in this famous statute, which was largely the work of Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut. The first chief justice appointed was John Jay, a man of rare purity and sweetness of character, with good legal knowledge and a wide experience in affairs of State. The peculiar duties of our first justices demanded the wisdom of the statesman even more than the learning of the lawyer. Hamilton set about the task of bringing order into the deranged finances of the country. Upon request, he prepared a report and submitted it to Congress at its e pu ic e . gg^Qj^^ session. He showed that the debt of the United States was about fifty-four million dollars, including arrears of interest — a vast sum for that day. He proposed to 1 The Constitution provides for one Supreme Court and other courts that Congress may estabhsh (see Constitution, art. iii). Congress, however, needed to provide for the Supreme Court also by providing how many judges there should be, what their salaries should be, and how matters should be brought up to the court from lower courts. 2 See the Constitution, art. vi., § 2. 204 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION issue new certificates of indebtedness, and to receive in payment the old evidences of indebtedness. The new certificates were to be issued on more favorable terms to the Government than the old. It was resolved by Congress to pay in full the debt which we owed abroad; but many ob- jected to paying the home debt in full, because the paper had been so depreciated that a payment at face value would simply pour loads of dollars into the hands of speculators who had bought up the old paper. Hamilton, how- ever, argued for straight down- right honesty, without distinction of persons. He believed that the Government promises to pay J should be redeemed in full. A /^p^f^a^^lfi^^^^*^^^^^=\ bill was finally passed by Con- gress providing for the payment of the domestic as well as the foreign debt in substantial accord with Hamilton's suggestions. Hamilton proposed at the same time that the State debts should be assumed and paid by the National Government, on the ground that they were actually incurred in the^TtaT ^^ behalf of the common weal. This proposal met with vigorous objection, and a bill for the purpose was defeated at this session. About the same time, how- ever, there was great discussion over the location of the permanent capital. This seems a trivial matter, but men became ver\^ much excited about it as if the fate of the nation were at stake in the decision. Finally a bargain was struck. Hamilton secured Northern votes for a South- ern capital, and Jefferson was instrumental in securing Southern votes for assumption of the State debts, a measure more favored by the Northern and Eastern than the FEDER.\LIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 205 Southern States. The site on the Potomac was soon afterward selected. Among other plans of Hamilton were the laying of an excise and the establishment of a national bank. At the final session of the First Congress (winter of 1790-91) such measures were proposed. There was bitter oppo- sition to the excise, for it seemed to many that the secretary, in order to magnify his ofhce and to exalt national power unduly, was striving to obtain all sources of taxation for the Federal Government. The bill was finally passed after a sharp debate. It provided for a tax on liquors, and it was humorously sug- gested that it would be like "drinking down the national debt". Hamilton advocated a bank, on the ground that it would be of assistance to the Government in borrowing money and carrying on its financial business, and that it would be of service in furnishing a circulating medium. The plan caused great discussion in the House. Hamilton's financial measures had already won him a devoted following, but a strenuous and vigorous opposition was now forming. IMadison was its leader. He had favored the excise, but he now argued strongly against the bank bill. The main argument of its opponents was that it was unconstitutional, that the Federal Government had not been given the authority to establish a corporation. A bill in practical agreement with Hamilton's proposals was at length carried through both houses. It provided for a bank with a capital of ten million dollars. The Government was to be a stockholder, and sub- scriptions to a large portion of the stock were to be made in United States bonds. The effect of this would be to make a demand for the bonds, and thus help the credit of the Govern- ment. All interested in the bank would be sure to be interested in the stability of the Government. Before signing the bill Washington asked from the members of his Cabinet their written opinions. The replies of Hamilton and Jefferson are great State papers. They clearly mark out doctrines of two distinct schools of political thought and two 206 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION distinct methods of interpreting the Constitution. Jefferson, anxious to keep the central authority within narrow limits, agreed that the Government did not have the right strict and broa ^ establish a bank, because no such power had construction. ' _ _ ^ _ been expressly granted in the Constitution, and because it was not necessary for carrying out any of the pow- ers that were granted. He thus advocated what is known as ''strict construction" of the Constitution. Hamilton, on the other hand, argued that the Government had the right to choose all means that seemed suitable and proper for carrying out effectually the powers intrusted to it by the Constitution.^ He thus laid down the doctrine of "implied powers", and advo- cated a "broad" construction of the Constitution. Here, then, were stated by these two secretaries fundamental ideas that were to form the basic principles of contending parties. Before the end of Washington's first term political parties were organized. They were largely formed in consequence of sympathy with or antagonism to Hamilton's plans, which plainly enough tended not simply to establish sound financial conditions, but to give power and efficiency to the central authority. It was believed by many that the wily secretary was making use of his position by various vicious methods to bring and hold together a monarchical party, and that republican institutions were endangered parly ^^" ^*^^" ^Y ^^^ schemes and machinations of what Jefferson called the "corrupt squadron". These persons^ so opposed to Hamilton's measures and suspicious of his devices, were now crystallizing into a party. Its leaders were Jeft'erson and Madison. It soon called itself the Republican party, but was often stigmatized by its opponents as democratic, a word not then in good odor because of the excesses of the French ^ See the Constitution, art. i, sec. 8, § i8. The right of Congress to choose means for carrying out its power does not rest simply on this clause of the Constitution, but is a reasonable inference from the whole. Congress has only the powers granted by the Constitution; but according to the broad construction Congress can do anything that seems wise and appropriate to make the granted power effective. FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789 -1801 207 Revolution committed in the name of liberty and fraternity. It believed that the rights of the States should be defended against encroachments on the part of the National Government. Distrust of government and faith in the people were its dearest principles. Although Jefferson's suspicions of Hamilton's monarchic designs were quite unfounded and much of this early opposition to Federal measures was unwise, it was well that a party was formed with democracy for its substantial faith, a party whose aim was — to use Jefferson's quaint words — ''the cherishment of the people". The defenders of the Hamil- The Federalists ^^^^^^ poHcy Still called themselves Federalists, * the word assumed by the supporters of the Con- stitution when it was before the people for ratification. Their opponents were often called Anti-Federalists, although, as suggested above, when parties were really formed (i'jg2-g7,) the Jeffersonian party was more properly designated as Republican or Democratic. The Federalists were broad constructionists, believers in a strong central government. They came in good part from the commercial States. The Republicans were strict constructionists, and on the whole were from the agricul- tural States. Industrial conditions of the different sections of the country did much to determine party beliefs and ten- dencies. Commerce is essentially general, not local, and thus its followers favored a strong general government — a government that could insure free commercial intercourse and protect trade. By the end of Washington's first term it was plain enough that the new Government had elements of success and per- manence. There was evidence of prosperity prosperity everywhere, of renewed hope, and of business and union. energy. National parties had sprung into exist- ence, and, though one of them was opposed on principle to the development of the power of the Federal Government, the co-operation among advocates of party doctrine from one end of the country to the other was a bond of real union, bringing the people into a closer and more sympathetic relation than had existed before in the era of the Confederation, when sympathies were often cut short by State 208 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION boundaries. The new nation had evidently won attention if not respect abroad, but its international trials are best con- sidered as a whole in connection with Washington's second term. Washington desired to retire at the end of his first term, but was persuaded to accept another election. The discord in his Cabinet, which had by this time become ser- Party and -^^g troublcd him Very much. Hamilton and personal i i ^ • enmities. JefTcrson, to use the latter s own expression, ''were pitted against each other hke two fighting cocks". Jefferson thought the Secretary of the Treasury a cor- rupt and scheming enemy of republicanism, an intriguing monarchist. Hamilton thought that the Secretary of State was a demagogue, who cloaked a rankling ambition under profes- sions of fear for popular well-being. Washington's efforts to restore peace were fruitless. He had not known hitherto the depth and rancor of party feeling. Colonial history had given no indication of such party organizations, and hence he and others were astonished at what seemed to be unaccountable ill feeling. But, as we have seen, the differences, though need- lessly bitter and personal, were natural ones,^ and these two men were but representatives of different thoughts and feelings in the country at large. Despite all these party clashings and personal enmities Washington was again unanimously elected. The opposition was directed against Adams, who was, however, chosen Vice-President by a good majority. Without attempting to follow out in chronological order the event j of Washington's second administration, let us see what the chief troubles and achievements were. One The Whisky £ ^-^ difficulties to be overcome was the resistance Rebellion. to the excise law. This resistance was especially str )ng in western Pennsylvania. The opposition was formi- dable. Mobs intimidated the tax collectors, and even used tar 1 It was inevitable that men should differ regarding the power and scope of the new Government; inevitable, too, that they should differ regarding the trust and confidence to be bestowed on the whole people; inevitable that, under the circumstances, some men should dread the establishment of monarchy and see visions of tyranny where danger did not exist. FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 209 and feathers to emphasize their disapproval; public meetings denounced the atrocious interference of the Federal Govern- ment in the '^ natural rights of man".^ In 1794 opposition became rebellion and it was high time for the authorities to take decisive action. Fifteen thousand militia were called out, and, accompanied by Hamilton himself, they marched to the scene of disorder. Resistance was hopeless, and it ceased. Even the distant frontier was thus made aware that a National Govern- ment was in existence and that it could enforce its laws. It is a striking proof, however, of the dangers and trials that beset the establishment of the Government, that three years had passed by before these steps were taken to crush lawlessness in a few counties of the frontier. Most of the difficulties of these years were connected with foreign affairs. Politically independent of any European powers, our country was still industrially de- Engiiand! ^' pendent. Moreover, the nation was weak, and its power was not respected by foreign govern- ments. England had long refused to treat us as an equal. Not till 1 79 1 did she send a minister to this country. The trea^ y of 1783 had not been fulfilled by either party. England re- tained possession of the military posts on our Northern and Western frontier within the limits of the United States. She gave as her excuse that, contrary to the treaty, the loyalists had been persecuted and the British creditors prevented from col- lecting sums due them by American citizens. Her charges — at least during the time of the Confederation — had too much truth in them; but her main reason for retaining the Western posts w^as her desire to control the fur trade and to maintain her influence over the Indians. In 1793 war broke out between France and England. This put the United States into an embarrassing position. We were bound by the treaty of 1778 to allow France certain privileges in our ports not granted other nations, and common grati- ^ Whisky actually took the place of money in the Western country. A gallon of whisky was worth a shilling, and therefore a tax of seven cents a gallon seemed very severe. 210 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tude might seem to force us to her side as an active ally. True, the French had not entered the Revolutionary War so much for the purpose of helping America as of England Tnd i^j^nng England, but they seemed to the men of France. that time generous benefactors. If by assisting France we should be drawn into war with Eng- land, it might bring complete disaster. The country was just beginning to hold up its head, and to look prosperous and hopeful after the trials of the Confederation. Washington concluded that we were at least morally justified in disregarding the French treaty, and he issued a proclamation of neutrality. Just as he did so a minister from the new French republic landed at Charleston. He began at once to fit out privateers to prey upon British commerce, and proceeded to violate the Genet. Trilmi'ii (1o\ernment: Perish All Its Iinl.miks A contemporary caricature of Washington and his policies, with respect to the Citizen Genet affair. From the original in the possession of the New York Historical Society neutrality of the United States and to act in general as if he were justified in doing what he pleased. He demanded, in a lofty tone, various favors from the government, and finally was so impertinent and so outrageous in his conduct that Washing- PEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 211 ton asked for his recall. The most discouraging thing about the whole affair was that this fellow, Genet, was hailed as a hero as soon as he landed on American soil. Men who were in shivering dread lest Washington or Hamilton should make him- self a king were ready to pay kingly honors to this man whose conduct was directed to bringing on another war with England, all in the name of liberty, equality, and the rights of man. Washington was actually attacked in venomous newspaper arti- cles, and held up as the enemy of freedom and the friend of monarchy and corruption. Fortunately, the insulting mis- conduct of Genet ^ and the intemperate clamors of the French partisans ended in winning to the side of the Government the sober-minded citizens who had sense enough to see the real situation. But affairs were long in a critical condition. So extravagant in their actions and conduct were many of the people that insurrection within or war without seemed at aggressions. times almost inevitable. England meanwhile, instead of wisely seeking to conciliate and win us, was exasperating in the extreme. American merchantmen on the high seas were plundered, on the ground that they were bound with provisions to French ports and that provisions were "contraband of war"; seamen were taken from American vessels and forced to do service on English frigates; and in other ways the commerce of the country was attacked or outrageously interfered with. All this was done under pretense of right, but the Americans felt that it was the right of the highway robber. Closely connected with these foreign complications were the Indian troubles in the West. Not since the end of the Revolu- tion had there been a good assurance of continued hostuhies pcacc. The frontier was kept in constant dread of attack, and the only wonder is that men and women had the hardihood to move across the mountains into the ^ Under authority from the French Government, Genet planned not only to cement a close alliance with America, but, with the assistance of the frontiersmen of the Mississippi Valley, to attack Spain's possessions in Louisiana and Florida, and to win Canada for "liberty and equality". 212 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Northwestern wilderness to suffer hardships and privations and to imperil their lives. In 1788 a settlement was made at Marietta by people from New England, the first settlement of importance north of the Ohio. The frontier, however, in the next few years extended but little. Detroit and Mackinaw wTre held by the British. It was popularly believed that the Indians were incited to hostilities by the British officers. Though it is not true that the English Government was guilty of such dastardly conduct, the red men took courage from the fact that the frontier forts were in the hands of their former allies, and they were continually led to look upon England as their stead- fast friend. In 1790 an expedition sent out under General Harmar to punish the Indians of Ohio was utterly routed. The next year an army under General St. Clair met a ^*^®'^ similar fate. In 1794 Washington intrusted the command of an army to General Anthony Wayne, one of the men of the Revolution upon whom the President knew he could rely. ''Mad Anthony", as he was sometimes called, gave no signs of harebrained rashness. He completely defeated the Indians in a battle on the Maumee, not very far from where the city of Toledo now stands. In the winter (1795) he formed the treaty of Greenville with the chiefs. The victory and the treaty opened up a large section of the Northwest for settlement; and emigrants from the seacoast States were soon pouring over the mountains to build new homes in the new West. In seven years from e resu s. ^^^ treaty of Greenville, Ohio was knocking for admission into the Union — one of the most striking facts in our history. It will thus be seen that the year 1794 was a dreadful one. The Government was for a time openly disobeyed by the anti- excise men of Pennsylvania. The country was The^awfui year jj^^,j^j.(j|y |-qj.j^ j^y faction, some persons upholding England, and others ready to accept the fraternal embrace of the French republic. Our flag was insulted on the seas and our seamen impressed. In the West the Indians were FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 213 hostile and were believed to be encouraged by the English, who still held possession of our frontier forts. We have seen how Washington overcame some of these troubles. To come to an understanding with England, he now sent John Tay as a special envoy to that Jay's treaty. . . . . country. The mission was a delicate one. Failure presumably meant war; and yet we were in no condition to fight. Jay succeeded in making a good treaty, the best that could be obtained under the circumstances. It was not fair or equitable; England did not give us anything like fair commer- cial privileges, nor did she promise to give up impressment; but she did give up the frontier posts and agree to pay for the pro- visions she had seized. The United States promised to pay debts due British creditors, the collection of which had been hindered in the States. The treaty met with violent opposition when its terms were known in America. Washington was vehemently abused. Jay was hanged in efhgy and denounced as a traitor. Hamilton was stoned when endeavoring to speak in behalf of the treaty. But, with the exception of a single clause, it was finally ratified by the Senate. When the House was called upon to pass the necessary appropriation bills for carrying out the treaty, it called upon Washington for the papers relating to the matter. Wash- ington refused to give them, on the ground that the House had no share in the treaty-making power. A great debate ensued, and at length the necessary appropriations were made. In the course of Washington's second term both Jefferson and Hamilton gave up their offices, and other changes took place in the Cabinet. At the end the Cabinet was conges. decidedly Federal, containing no longer members of different parties or representatives of different political tendencies. Three new States had by this time been admitted to the LTnion — Vermont, whose territory had been claimed by both New York and New Hampshire (1791); Ken- !!^o^!^!fJl' tucky, formed from what was the western part of measures. J > ^ Virginia (1792); and Tennessee (1796). A new amendment to the Constitution, the eleventh, was proposed in 15 214 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The Government a success. 1794, but it was not adopted till four years later. It resulted from the fact that the Supreme Court had declared that a private individual could sue a State. The end of Washington's administration saw the country- free from many perils and on the high road to prosperity. The new Government had weathered severe storms and had proved itself efficient. Much of its success was due to the President's good judgment, sound sense, and firmness.^ His chief assistants also, especially Hamilton, deserve great credit. In spite of some uneasiness and waywardness among the people^ they had shown to the world the great example of a nation organizing a govern- ment in peace and giving it obedience. Washington refused to consider an election for a third term, and in September, 1796, issued a farewell address. This is a noble public docu- ment. It deserves careful reading to- day, and in many ways fits our times as it did the days of a hundred years ago. He pleaded earnestly for a true national spirit and for devotion to coun- try. ''Do not encourage party spirit, but use every effort to mitigate it and assuage it. . . . Observe justice and faith tow- ard all nations; have neither passionate hatreds nor pas- sionate attachments to any; and be independent practically The farewell address. The Election of 1796 * One can hardly overestimate the importance of Washington's personal character upon the life of his country. His wisdom and courage, his simple integrity, his tact and forbearance, his dignity and manliness, his purity and magnanimity of soul, exalted the nation. Without him it is difficult to see how the Revolution could have succeeded or the new Government have been established. FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 215 The election. of all. In one word, be a nation, be American, and be true to yourselves". In the election that ensued the Federalists supported John Adams and Thomas Pinckney, and the Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. At that time the Constitution provided that each elector should vote for two persons. The one having the greatest number of votes should be President, "if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors", and the person having the next number Vice-President. Adams and Jeffer- son were well-known men, and each of them received more votes than either of the other two can- didates. Adams was elected President and Jefferson Vice- President. And thus these two important positions in the Gov- ernment were filled by persons of differing political beliefs; they were, as Adams said, "in opposite boxes". The consequence was that Jefferson was bitterly opposed to most of the work of an admin- istration in which he held the second position. Adams was a strong Federalist, given, at this time, to ideas somewhat lofty and aristocratic. He had had wide experience in affairs of state and had acquired merited dis- tinction. Having no sympathy with the popular theories of Jefferson, he was, on the other hand, not successful in winning the full confidence and support of the leaders of the Federalists, who still looked on Hamilton as the head of their party. Adams' inability to win strong personal support was in part due to a mixture of pride and sensitiveness, which were essential elements of his character, and in part to a cer- tain stiffness of manner; but he was withal a sturdy patriot Jm^dmnj Adams. 216 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and an honest, able man. He inherited from Washington's administration two difficulties: first, trouble with France; sec- ond, at home, a condition of party rancor and of popular uneasiness, which were in reality not very dangerous but gave real anxiety to the men in office charged wuth making the government a success. Jay's treaty did not put an end to foreign troubles. Eng- land, indeed, treated us with more consideration than before; but France seemed utterly regardless of how she w^S*^France abuscd a young nation whom she did not fear, and she was now wToth with the United States because the government had come to terms with England without her august sanction. Monroe, whom Washington had sent as a minister to Paris, was recalled in 1796, because he was too ready to receive French compliments and too lax about pressing upon the government our demands for damages. The United States had long been suffering from the depreda- tions of the French upon our commerce. French war ships ruthlessly plundered American merchantmen. They had not, on the whole, done so much damage as the English men-of-war, but that was not because the French naval officers lacked the will and the desire, but was due to the fact that France was less powerful on the sea than England, and was less capable of injuring neutral commerce.^ Charles C. Pinckney was sent to Paris as our minister to succeed Monroe; but, instead of being courteously received, he was shamefully treated by the French Government. Our Government was given to understand that a minister would not be received until grievances were redressed, as if, forsooth, America, not France, had been the aggressor. With the hope of bringing France to her senses, Adams appointed a commission of three persons, John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, and Charles C. Pinckney. These men, instead of being treated with official courtesy, were waited on in Paris by secret messengers sent by Talleyrand, the French minister, who made most extraordinary 1 For some years after the treaty of 1794 England did not injure our commerce much. FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 217 and insulting demands. One of their requests was for a bribe for the members of the French Directory. They said they wanted ''money, a great deal of money". ^ The commis- sioners found their situation humiliating and unbearable. Marshall and Pinckney left Paris; Gerry unwisely remained for a time, but accomplished nothing. The President sent to Congress the dispatches of the com- mission, April, 1798. The names of the French messengers were not given, but the letters X, Y, Z supplied correspondence. ^^^^^ places; heucc this whole difficulty is often called the X Y Z affair. Congress and the country at large were amazed and angry at the treatment accorded our envoys. Adams proclaimed that he would not send "another minister to France without assurance that he would be received as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation". Preparation was made for war. An army was organized, and Washington given the command. The navy was increased. Battles were actually fought at sea and a general FrancI! ^^^ seemed inevitable. But the French Govern- ment was readier to intimidate and browbeat than to fight. Upon this great question of national honor the Ameri- can people were no longer dangerously divided into hostile factions. The French sympathies of the Republicans were not strong enough to make them accept insults willingly. When it was evident that America was ready to fight, Talleyrand, the wily rninister, whose methods and words had been so exasperating, thought it best to try different tactics. He suggested in a roundabout way that France would be ready to receive a minister from the United States "with the respect due to the representative of a free, independent, and powerful nation". This declaration of ^"Said he (M. X.): 'Gentlemen, you do not speak to the point: it is money; it is expected you will offer money'. We said we had spoken to that point very explicitly; we had given an answer. 'No', said he, 'you have not. What is your answer' ? We replied: 'It is no; no; no; not a six- pence'". (Report of the commission.) 218 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION penitence was not so open and straightforward as might have been desired, but Adams wisely decided to make the best of it, and a commission was appointed to proceed to France and settle the difficulties. This was successfully accomplished and friendly relations were thus reestablished. Almost from the beginning of Washington's administration, parties had differed with regard to foreign policy. The Federal- ists were eager to keep on good terms with Eng- try ^o VruJh land; they were called ''the British faction" by opposition. their opponents, and charged with truckling to the interest of that country. As we have seen, the Federalists were specially strong in New England, and the com- mercial interests of this section prompted them to wish to keep out of trouble with the country whose power on the sea seemed invincible. The Republicans, on the other hand, had fellow- feeling for France. Even the extravagances of the French Revolution did not shock some of them. England was to them the abode of despotism, France the home of liberty. This sympathy was not unnatural, but, carried to an extreme by the more excitable element of the people, it had caused trouble. There were in the country many men who were worthless fellows, foreigners who rejoiced in railing at the Government, ridiculing Adams, and indulging in general abuse of those in authority. These men were in the Republican party; but that party should not be judged by the follies of its most foolish members. The X Y Z disclosures for a time put an end to faction. All reasonable men were united in their readiness to defend America against insult. The Federalists felt that now was the time to act, that "democracy" was permanently dis- credited, that false and malicious criticism of Government should be made a crime. They decided to take advantage of their power to crush factious opposition. With this end in view three acts were passed (1798): i. The Naturaliza- seditfon kws. ^^^^ ^^^ lengthened the time of residence required before a foreigner could become a citizen. 2. The Alien Act empowered the President to exclude dangerous foreigners from the country. 3. The Sedition Act made it a FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 219 crime to print or publish ''any false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the Government of the United States, or either house of the Congress, or the President, with intent to defame them or to bring them into disrepute". The last two laws were dangerous in their nature. The Sedition Act might well be so enforced as to make all criticism of governmental action a crime. These laws were vigorously denounced by the Republicans in Congress as tyrannical and unconstitutional, as laws that "would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbar- Virginiaand i|-y"^ When they had been passed, the party Kentucky . -^ . i • , , , r , i resolutions. leaders decided that a lormai protest must be made. The mode chosen was unfortunate. The Legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky each passed a series of resolutions condemning the laws as unconstitutional and void, and declaring the right of the States to interpose and to main- tain their rights. These resolutions came from distinguished authors. Madison drew up the Virginia resolutions, and, though Jefferson's name was for a time hidden, he was the real author of those of Kentucky. As to how we are to read these instruments scholars may yet differ. Madison in later years indignantly denied that he had meant to advocate the doctrine that a single State could declare void an act of the National Government and prevent its enforcement within the limits of such State,; but, as a matter of fact, the doctrine of "nullifica- tion" and the related doctrine of secession did in course of time draw encouragement and sustenance from these reso- lutions.^ ^ The Virginia resolutions declared that " this Assembly . . . views the powers of the Federal Government as resulting from the compact to which the States are parties, . . . and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States. . . have the right and are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil and for maintaining within their limits the author- ities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them". The first series of Ken- tucky resolutions declared that "each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress"; while the second series said "that a nullifiation by those sovereignties [the States], 220 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION When the war cloud blew over, the Federalists were left in an unenviable plight. The expenses of the Government had been materially increased, a direct tax had been The downfall of i • i i , mi i i i i the Federalists, l^^^'i^d, and acts unnecessarily harsh had been placed on the statute books. Moreover, the party itself was divided. Many were opposed to Adams on personal grounds; they believed that his readiness to treat with France was disloyalty to the party. Adams found it necessary to reorganize his Cabinet, because some of the members looked to Hamilton as their leader and guide. This factional bitterness was sure to tell against the Federalists in the election. In addition to all this was the fact that the people were really at heart democratic, and the mild, hopeful principles of Jefferson were more to their liking than the sterner, repressive teachings of the party whose task it had been to put the Government in working order. ^ The Republican candidates were the same as in 1796, Jefferson and Burr. The Federalists put forward Adams and Charles C. Pinckney. The Republicans were suc- Tsoo. ' cessful. The result, however, was not what they had expected. Both of their candidates had re- ceived the same number of votes, and thus the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. The Federalists were in the majority there. To many of these men Jeffer- son seemed not only the chief enemy of their party, but a dangerous man; they therefore voted for Burr. According to of all unauthorized acts . . . is the rightful remedy". It is now well decided that, although the Central Government has only the authority given by the Constitution, it can judge of the extent of the authority so given. The Supreme Court is final judge; but of course through an amendment to the Constitution the states can determine or set new limits. ^ In the autumn of iSoo Congress assembled for the first time at Wash- ington. It was then a rude town of about five hundred people. With few exceptions the houses were huts. The inhabitants were negroes, or idlers who expected to get rich at once from the sale of their lands. It was a gloomy, unpromising place. "We want nothing here", said Gouverneur Morris, "but houses, cellars, kitchens, well informed men, amiable women, and other trifles of this kind to make our city perfect". FEDERALIST PARTY IN CONTROL— 1789-1801 221 the Constitution the vote was by States. Out of sixteen States, eight voted for Jefferson, six for Burr, and two were evenly divided. The balloting continued several days, until it was feared that no election would take place, and that some extra constitutional device must be resorted to; but, fortunately, patriotism and sense finally overcame partisanship, and Jeffer- son was elected (February 17,1801). Burr was a man utterly without principle and wholly selfish. He was practiced in the worst arts of political management. His election as Vice- President was bad enough; had the Federalists succeeded in making him President, it would have been the crowning shame of partisanship. In order to avoid in the future such trouble as this, Congress proposed the twelfth amendment to the Constitu- tion, and it was adopted by the States (1804). It provided that the electors should cast a ballot for President, and separate ballot for Vice-President.^ By the end of Adams's administration parties were formed and organized as they were to remain without much change for some years. Hamilton's financial measures had attracted into the Federal party the commercial classes of the North. All the elements of society whose chief desire was stability and strength found their way into the party that was seeking to give force and character to the National Government. The task of the Federal party had been to establish the Government and to bring about order and system. When this was accomplished its usefulness was in large measure over, and it gave way to the Republican party. References Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, Volume III, p. 322. Hart, Formation of the Union, pp. 137-175. Walker, The Making of the Nation, Chapters V-VIII. H. C. Lodge, George ^The election of 1800 marks the victory of the party system; the con- stitution had not contemplated parties. The method provided by the Con- stitution for choosing President and Vice-President would not work well when parties were formed and when there were party candidates; for, if each elector should cast his two votes for the two candidates of this party, there would always be a tie. 222 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Washington, Vol. II, Chaps. II-IV. Morse, Thomas Jefferson, Chaps. VIII-X, XII. Lodge, Alexander Hamilton, Chaps. V-IX. ScHOULER, Thomas Jefferson, Chaps. X-XI. Stevens, Albert Gallatin, Chap. IV. Morse, John Adams, pp. 237-318. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 525-604; II, pp. 1-533- ScHOULER, History of the United States, Vol. I, Chaps. II-IV. Bassett, Federalist System. (Last three longer accounts.) Keception of Washington at Trenton, N. J., April 21, 1789, on His Way to His Inauguration From the Columbian Magazine of May, 1789 CHAPTER XII JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY— INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT The new President was a man of strong parts, with a great faculty of winning men and of filling them with his own ideas and hopes. When positive action was necessary doctrines'^ he was at times weak, and was given to idealizing when the actual should have occupied his atten- tion. But his ideals were on the whole noble and wise, for he seemed to foresee the coming life ^^ of his country. He was bitterly opposed to anything that might fasten upon this young land the burdens under which the people of Europe suffered. America was for man ; and, if man were to make the most of himself, he must not be oppressed by a smothering upper crust of nobility, by heavy taxes that consumed his substance, by big armies and navies, by a huge and expensive government. War, too, was to be avoided. "Peace is our passion", he declared. The essence of Jeffersonism is con- tained in the thought that Amer- ica means opportunity.^ ^ See Jefferson's inaugural address; McLaughlin, Readings. It is an interesting fact that there came to the presidential chair, just at the beginning of the new century, this man of generous ideals, who looked out boldly upon the new continent and had visions of the growth of popu- lar government and of man's upbuilding, 223 224 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION In carrying out the policy of his administration Jefferson was ably assisted by Madison, his Secretary of State, and by Albert Gallatin, his Secretary of the Treasury. Up to this time the Republican party had been opposed to an extension of the powers of the National Government, But now that they were in power the Constitution was broadly construed, and much was done to increase the strength of the nation and to bind its parts together. It is easy enough to accuse the Republicans of in- constancy. In a large measure they did not follow the policy they had set up when they were a party of opposition. But, as we shall see, Jefferson strove on the whole to live up to his fundamental theories, to avoid war and develop a peaceful nation. Neither he nor his best advisers forgot their funda- mental doctrine of faith in the people. And, on the whole, the people trusted him as he trusted them; triumphantly reelected in 1804, he continued in the presidential chair till 1809 and was able to turn over the presidency to Madison, who believed in Jeffersonian principles and sought to follow in the steps of the great founder of the party. It is an amusing fact that one of the first things that Jefferson had to do — this lover of peace — was to send some of the dreadful warships, which the Federalist administration had iSoi-^. ^' built, across the Atlantic to whip the Algerian pirates. The job was well done, and the Barbary powers which had been the scourges of the ocean, seizing American ships and enslaving American seamen, were given a summary lesson. To chastise them soundly proved a better policy and a cheaper one than paying tribute — the older practice — and trying to satisfy the greed of the hungry fellows. Just before Adams left office the Federalists had passed an act creating a number of new judgeships and extending the judicial system. The new places thus provided iSo^repeaied! Were all filled with Federalists. It was reported that Adams on the last day of his administration was busy up to midnight filling fat offices with his own party followers, the "midnight appointments". The Republicans, upon getting in power, repealed the act which created the new JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY 225 judicial offices, and the judges were thus deprived of their positions. It was claimed by the Federalists that this violated the Constitution, which provided that judges were to hold office during good behavior. There was great ill feeling on both sides.^ At this same time arose an interesting law case. A man named Marbury had been appointed to an Madison. ^^" office by Adams, but his commission had not been delivered. He asked the Supreme Court for an order directing Madison, Jefferson's Secretary of State, to give him the commission. This the Court refused to do on the ground that the writ, or order, he asked for could not be issued in a suit begun in the Supreme Court, because the Constitution did not give the Court such power. This was a very impor- tant case, because it declared void a part of the judiciary act of 1789, and it was the first clear assertion by the Supreme Court that it could declare void an act of Congress. ^ This power of a court to declare that a law passed by Con- gress is void, or the similar power exercised by State courts to declare acts of the State legislature void, has become a matter of exceedingly great interest, for the practice grew as time went on. It rested on the principle that the Constitution is law and, therefore, anything contrary to it, even an act passed by Con- gress, cannot be law; the act then must give way. Similarly as the legislature of a State is bound by the terms of the State ^ It is hard to see how the Federalists could well maintain their point. The Constitution in giving the right to Congress to establish inferior fed- eral courts (see Constitution, Art. Ill, Sec. i.) naturally gave it the right to disestablish the courts and rearrange the system. Congress could not remove a judge from an existing office; but it could take the office out from under him. - The Judiciary Act of 1 789, which established the Federal courts, provided for the issuing of such orders in "original proceedings" before the Supreme Court, that is to say, in proceedings or suits begun in that court and not brought by appeal from lower courts. Marshall, therefore, in this decision found it necessary to declare that portion of the Judiciary Act unconstitu- tional and he refused to grant the order. The constitution gives "original jurisdiction" to the Supreme Court in only two kinds of cases, and the Marbury case belonged to neither one of these kinds. See Const., Art. Ill, Sec. 2, par. 2. 226 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION constitution, a legislative act contrary to the constitution of the state cannot be good. The decision of the Court in the Marbury Case irritated Jefferson exceedingly, not so much because the Court had de- clared a portion of the law unconstitutional — for Impeachments. ^ Jefferson, if he had seen the whole thing clearly, might naturally be expected in accordance with his theories to have welcomed restriction on legislative power — but because Marshall in giving the decision had criticised the administration sharply for not turning the commission over to Marbury. Jefferson disliked Mar- shall anyway, and Marshall had no sort of regard for his fellow Virgin- ian in the presidential chair. Partly because of this feeling of irritation against the judiciary, two Federal judges were impeached. One of them. Judge Pickering, a district judge in a Federal district in New Hampshire, was shown to be given to drink, was probably insane, and was rightly re- moved from office. The other, Judge Chase, was justly charged with ut- terances from the bench which were at the best out of taste; but the Senate did not convict him of *'high crimes and misdemeanors" and remove him from office.^ In some degree the charges against Chase were looked upon as an attack on the independence of judges; and the failure of the impeachment gave assurance that judges would be re- moved only for serious offences.^ Under the able leadership of y^^^t..^-^...^<..*..£^' ^ For Impeachment, see the Constitution Art. I, Sec. 2, § 6; Art. II, Sec. 4. The House makes the charges; the Senate tries. What is the defi- nition of "high crimes and misdemeanors" as the words are used in the Constitution nobody can say; probably they were not intended to mean crimes in the ordinary sense of the word. ^ The Supreme Court was long a stronghold of the Federalists, and that INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT 227 Marshall the Court went on and became firmly established in the respect and affection of the people. Marshall was the greatest judge in our history/ not because he was '^^^ , a great lawyer — other men have equaled him in that development ^ "^ ^ r i • i of the Court. respect — but because he was a statesman of high order, and, with marvelous ability and insight comprehended and interpreted the fundamental law of the land in accord with its deepest needs and purposes. Judge Story was likewise a great jurist, and did much to establish the dignity of this branch of our Government. The respect which the people came to feel for the Court and their readiness to abide by its decisions were encouraging and wholesome features of our national life. The Federalists in New York, and above all in New England, were restless in the extreme under the Jeffersonian rule. As the days went by and it appeared that the Repub- Federalist . . r i • • i- • - 1 conspiracy. licans were nrmly in possession of power m the national government, some of the disgruntled Federalists were prepared to go great lengths to get rid of the Virginia leaders and to have their own way. Many seemed to believe that the country was on the brink of destruction because of the misdeeds of the Jeffersonians. They believed fact was trying to some of the over-zealous Republicans; and Chase's impeachment was therefore partly due to his intense devotion to the Fed- eralists and his dislike of the other party. Because of heated partizanship some of the Republican leaders long distrusted or disliked the Judiciary. Jefferson said over and over again that impeachment was only a "scare- crow", and one of his weaknesses was his unbending dislike of Marshall. Both of them were great men. One believed most strongly in order, gov- ernment and justice, the other in liberty and individual improvement — it is hard to tell which ideas are higher and better. ^ Marshall was chief justice from 1801 to 1835, Story was appointed in 181 1. Mr. Bryce thus speaks of Marshall: "It is scarcely an exaggera- tion to call him, as an eminent American jurist has done, a second maker of the Constitution. . . . Marshall was, of course, only one among seven judges, but his majestic intellect and the elevation of his character gave him such an ascendancy that he found himself only once in a minority on a Constitutional question" . (The American Commonwealth, vol. I, p. 374, first American edition.) 228 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION that Democracy would soon cause the overthrow of all respecta- ble government.^ The more hot-headed among them actually discussed in secret the advisability of dissolving the Union. Aaron Burr, whose foul ambition could ever be relied on, was to be used as a tool by these conspirators, and one of the first steps was to try to secure his election as governor of New York. Hamilton, who was bitterly opposed to the whole treasonable scheme, used all his influence against it, and it was due to his opposition, in no small measure, that the intrigue was a failure and Burr was defeated. Burr thereupon challenged Hamilton to a duel and killed him (1804). The treasonable conspiracy, for the time, at least, died out. A few years later there seems to have been a renewal of these whispered plots among some of the more bitter Federalist partisans. The great majority of the New England people were never guilty of the crime or folly of planning the destruction of the Union. Despite all the mean intriguing and the open dissatisfaction of the Federalist leaders, Jefferson got the full electoral vote in the election of 1804, save those of Connecticut and Delaware and two votes in Maryland. Hamilton's death startled and shocked the Northern people, and had its effect in doing away with the brutal practice of settling personal disputes upon ''the field of honor". Burr was indicted for murder and fled the State, followed by the execration of the public. This awful tragedy is the most dramatic episode in the early history of our Union, Hamilton had in reality offered up his life for his country. He had served her well, and perhaps this was not an inappropriate close of a great career. With a wonderful capac- ity for government and the tasks of civil administration, with a strong grasp of political principles and a profound knowledge of public law, gifted with financial skill of a high order, and handling details with as much ease as he comprehended systems, he stands forth as one of the greatest constructive statesmen of his generation. ^ They used what has since been called the Federalist syllogism — "dem- ocracy, anarchy, despotism": the first would lead to the second, the second to the third. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT 229 Disappointed in his ambitions in the East, Burr now en- tered upon a desperate undertaking in the West (1805-6). Exactly what his plans were is somewhat uncer- Jon^sSScy. tain. Perhaps he hardly knew himself what he hoped to do. Indeed, at different times and to different persons his plans assumed different aspects. He was probably intent upon attacking the Spaniards in Mexico, and may have also hoped for power and grandeur as the head of a Western empire. Possibly the story is not ill told in a letter written at the time by one who was in the secret: "Ken- tucky, Tennessee, the State of Ohio, the four Territories on the Mississippi and Ohio, with part of Georgia and Carolina, are to, be bribed with the plunder of the Spanish countries west of us to separate from the Union". It was a wild and foolish plan, such as could be begotten only in the brain of a man who was so devoid of principle and patriotism himself that he could not appreciate such qualities in others. He interested many per- sons in his conspiracy, chief among whom was General Wilkin- son, Governor of the Louisiana Territory; but Burr was at length arrested and tried for treason (1807). He was not con- victed, however, because it could not be proved ^ that he had actually levied war upon the United States The one event which stands out above all others in the history of Jefferson's day is the annexation of Louisiana — the acquisition of the great West, stretching from porlaS^fact"^' ^^^ Mississippi on to the Rockies and from the gulf north to the British possessions. It is a long story, this story of the struggle for the ownership of the Mis- sissippi Valley: for the ownership of the valley and the control of the great river came to us only after they had been mat- ters of consequence in European and American war and di- plomacy for a hundred yeais and more. France, as we remem- ^ The Constitution declares that " treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their ene- mies, giving them aid and comfort". (Constitution, art. iii, sec. 3.) When Marshall refused to hold Burr for treason on the evidence sub- mitted, Jefferson was more angry than ever. 16 230 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The Mississippi question. ber, had first held the whole region; then it was divided between England and Spain (1763); next the United States was given the eastern half north of the thirty-first parallel, though Spain held the mouth of the river (1783). As the West developed in the years after the Revolution our need of free and open water communication with the Gulf became impera- tive. Since the time of the Revolution the Mississippi question had been of great importance. That great river, with its tributaries, formed high- ways to the sea for the people west of the moun- tains. To float their heavy flatboats down to New Orleans was an easier task than to carry burdens by the long route overland to the cities of the Atlantic. It seems strange but it is an important fact in Western and na- tional history, that until the days of canals and railroads the Western people faced southward rather than eastward.^ Every passing year made the need and desire of the West more pressing; for the West was growing. Already (1803) there were three States beyond the mountains, Ohio hav- ing just been admitted. To the man who could imagine a tithe of the future growth of the country, the possession of the mouth of the Mississippi seemed a simple Signing the Louisiana Purchase Treaty From a tablet in St. Louis, sculptured by Karl Bitter The West and New Orleans. ^ A very clear account of the Mississippi question is to be found in How to Study and Teach History, by B. A. Hinsdale, chap. xx. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT 231 necessity. ''There is one spot", said Jefferson, "the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy". That spot was New Orleans, and Jefferson fully realized that sooner or later we must possess it. For twenty years and more our relations with Spain had been delicate and trying; for she held not only the great West but the mouth of the river and had only grudg- i^^sialsL.^'''^ ingly allowed (1795)1 the free right of navigation to the sea. Now in 1800, by a secret treaty, Spain ceded Louisiana to France. Just what Louisiana was, was uncertain, but it certainly included New Orleans and a vast territory to the west. Not for some time was this secret transfer discovered, but when it was found out it was time to act. Spain in this point of advantage was bad enough, but France would never do; she was too enterprising and too strong. To make matters worse, the Spanish authorities at New Orleans deprived the Americans of the right they had had of depositing their goods there. Something had to be done or the West would not keep the peace. Jefferson took steps to purchase New Orleans and West Florida, and appointed James Monroe a special envoy for that purpose. Before he reached Paris, Talleyrand •The Treaty. suggested to Livingston, the resident minister, the possibility of a great bargain, and after Mon- roe's arrival a treaty was signed whereby France sold Louisi- ana to the United States for about $15,000,000 (April, 1803). The boundaries, as we have already said, were indefinite. Napoleon remarked, with his customary cunning, that if an obscurity did not exist about the boundary it would be well 1 Spain insisted for many years after 1783 that she owned the territory as far north as the northern boundary of the old province of West Florida, a line through the mouth of the Yazoo. In 1795 it was agreed that the thirty-first parallel should be the southern limit of the United States be- tween the Mississippi and the Appalachicola. Spain at the same time granted to the Americans the right to deposit goods at New Orleans and to export them without paying duty. As the West grew in population the desire increased to hold the mouths of the streams that rose in American territory and flowed southward into the Gulf. 232 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION to make one. The purchase certainly included New Orleans, and so much of the territory west of the Mississippi as lay north of the old Spanish possessions, and east of the Rocky Mountains; in other words it was the western half of the Mis- sissippi Valley.^ The United States claimed West Florida also, but probably wrongfully. It was taken later, however, under claim of title (1810-12). There were some doubts in Jefferson's mind as to the con- stitutionality of purchasing and annexing the territory. To do so was certainly contrary to the doctrine of o/*annexa°ron! ^ Strict Construction of the Constitution which lie had advocated when in opposition. For some time, therefore, he insisted in his consultations with his friends and advisers that the purchase be sanctioned by an amendment to the Constitution.^ The great majority of the Republican party, however, did not think the act illegal. The Federalists, admitting the right to acquire territory, opposed the treaty on the ground that it provided for the admission of new States from the territory so annexed; they did not like to see the annexation of a great western country whose inhabitants were in the future to come into the Union on terms of equality with the older States. Both parties, therefore, agreed that the United States as a nation could acquire territory; they differed on the question of the nature of the control over it. Thus the territory of the United States was more than doubled. Louisiana contained over 800,000 square miles. It was part of the great Mississippi Valley. The Its meanings. *. . , . heart of the contment, bound together by rivers ^ We took France's title — Louisiana with the extent that it "has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States". On the basis of these words we laid claim to Florida as far east as the Perdido, on the ground that Louisiana in the hands of France had extended thus far. This, it must be said, was an afterthought on Liv- ingston's part, and in the light of all the evidence must be considered an unjust claim. 2 The right to annex territory was afterward upheld by the Supreme Court. Am. Ins. Co. v. Canter, i Peters. 511. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT 233 into a single geographic whole, fell to the new republic. Noth- ing else could be done so likely to insure perpetual union. Geography itself taught the lesson of Unity; the great western valley with its innumerable water courses, all hurrying to the mighty river and on to the Gulf, could not be rent asunder, and when, in later years, there was an attempt to take the southern portion out of the Union, the cry was strong and loud that the father of waters must roll "un vexed to the sea". Routes of Lewis and Clark and Pike The great West was an unknown wilderness. Some FrencPi explorers years before had crossed the plains, but little or nothing was now known about the country. In of^PUce.'°° ^^^ summer of 1805 Lieutenant Pike made a jour- ney of exploration up the Mississippi River. He went as far north as Leech Lake, and notified British and In- dian occupants of the territory that they were under American rule. The next year he went from St. Louis to the West. He penetrated even into the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico, and gave his name to Pike's Peak as a permanent monument of his expedition. In 1803 Jefferson, eager to ascer- tain the character of the great dominion he had purchased, sent out Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to make explo- 234 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION rations in the far West.^ They made their way tc the head- waters of the Missouri, crossed the great divide, and reached the mouth of the Columbia River, and there they ciark^^^ *° ^^^ ''the waves like small mountains rolling out in the ocean". They had reached the goal of American ambition. The journey to the coast and return re- quired more than two years. These Western expeditions were evidences of American enterprise, but they could bring very little immediate result. American skill and independent thought were The steamboat. , . . , , , ^, , . . begmnmg, however, to show themselves in other fields than exploration. On August 17, 1807, Robert Fulton put his steamboat, the Clermont, to the test. Before a crowd of onlookers the little craft slowly made its way at the rate of four miles an hour against the current of the Hudson River. This is an important fact in our history; for, if the steamboat was at first an object of idle curiosity, its usefulness was soon demonstrated. To the West it was of surpassing importance; the American people were given the means to conquer the continent and to occupy with rapidity the vast valley which only a generation or two before had been occupied by a few French traders and uncivilized red men. In 181 1 a steamboat was built at Pittsburgh and began the descent of the river to New Orleans; in 181 8 the Walk-in- the- Water made a voyage from Buffalo to Detroit. The western people were already multiplying and reaching out to occupy the river valleys of the interior. Ohio, admitted as a State in 1803, was growing; Kentucky and andthe^West* Tennessee, admitted in the later years of the previous century, were putting on the appearance of settled communities. But the work of settlement, expansion and progress was slow in comparison with the movement after the steamboat came to offer its aid. Before the little flat- bottomed steamers with their powerful paddle-wheels began to * Even before the acquisition of Louisiana Jefferson had taken a prac- tical interest in the exploration of the West. INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT 235 ply the western rivers, all the commerce from New Orleans to the upper country was carried on with about twenty barges; it took a keel-boat from thirty to forty days to make the trip from Louisville to New Orleans, and about ninety days to come back; the sturdy rivermen pulled and poled and warped the heavy boat against the swift and stubborn current. But when the steamer came into use the trip down was made in seven days, Early Flatboat from St. Louis to New Orleans, Time Four Months and the trip back in sixteen. Soon the tributaries to the Missis- sippi were threaded; boats burning the wood from the forest, and vomiting out great showers of sparks and cinders, puffed their way along these watery highways, carrying new settlers into the great interior country or bearing the produce of the farm and plantation on to the market.^ References Hart, Contemporaries, Volume III, pp. 367-376, 381-389; Hart, Formation of the Union, pp. 1 76-191; Walker, The Making of the Nation, pp. 168-189, 203-213; Schouler, Thomas Jefferson, Chapter XII; Morse, Thomas Jefferson, Chapters XIII-XVI; Oilman, James Monroe, Chapter IV; Adams, Johti Randolph, Chapters IV-VII. Longer accounts: Schouler, History of the United States, Volume II, 49-150, 230-309; McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Volume II, pp. 533-635, Volume III, pp. 1-219, 459-528; Channing, Jeffersonian System, Chapters I-V, VII, XII. ^ We shall see something more of this western growth in a later chapter. It has been estimated that the produce from the Mississippi Valley, reach- ing New Orleans in 1830, amounted to $26,000,000. See Turner, Rise of the New West, ch. v. An interesting account of the steamboat will be found in McMaster, History of the People of U. S., Vol. IV, pp. 397-407; H. Adams, History, Vol. IV, p. 135, Vol. IX, pp. 167-172. CHAPTER XIII THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA We have already seen something of the troubles that came to America when war broke out in Europe between England and France. Washington, we remember, decided that it was our business to stand aloof and not to get entangled with European affairs. Jay's treaty in 1794 settled our misunderstanding with England, and then later, while Adams, was President and when it seemed as if we must have open and avowed war with France, that difficulty was patched up,^ and we continued to live in peace. But, as long as Europe was rent with strife, we were in danger; and soon after Jefferson came to the Presidency new clouds appeared on the horizon. In truth, as we shall see, all through these early years of the century, while America was expanding and building up, while the people were moving into the western country and building homes in the great valley, the relations with foreign nations were full of peril. We shall now have to see how Jefferson and his successor in office, lovers of peace and hopeful of American democracy, sought to meet these dangers. England and France, it will be remembered, had begun to light in 1793, and the contest was still waging. There had been a troubled peace for about a year after the France at^war. treaty of Amicus (1802), but now the war was being carried on with renewed vehemence. The English felt that their safety and independence as a nation were at stake. They were desperately in earnest. Napo- leon's victorious career on the Continent had given rise to fears that he would establish a European empire and crush all that were not submissive to his will. He hated with a profound ^ Treaty with France in 1800. 236 THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 237 hatred the Httle island that stood doggedly in the way of his lawless ambitions. Neither nation was in a mood to consider the rights of a neutral state. Each sought to make the most out of America, the young republic, whose power was not dreaded, and who seemed by her carrying trade to be the only nation profiting by the war. In 1805 England decided that, contrary to her previous policy, goods from the French colonies transported in American ships could be seized, even though they had been Aggression upon jauded in the United States and reshipped.^ commerce. This was a serious blow to American commerce, which had been thriving in this very trade. In the same year the battle of Trafalgar was won by Nelson; England was henceforth mistress of the seas. She used her power arro- gantly. British men-of-war were actually stationed just outside New York harbor to intercept American merchant vessels, search them, and impress their seamen. The domineering spirit of the British commanders increased the annoyance and mortification arising from such treatment. Hundreds of sailors Impressment. '^ , . . . . . were thus in a smgle year taken from American vessels and forced to fight the battles of England. The ground of seizure was that these men were Englishmen born, and Eng- land's assertion was ''Once an Englishman, always an English- man". It must be noticed that that country was not unique in holding that a man could not give up allegiance to his native land and become the citizen of another. Other nations held the same doctrine. But in practice England enforced her claims arrogantly, seized native-born Americans as well as Englishmen, and disdainfully treated American commerce as if the flag at the masthead of a vessel offered no security from insult and annoyance. It was plain enough that, much as the Jefferso- nians loved peace, the United States must soon fight in defence of its self-respect. The crowning act of insolence occurred in 1807. The American frigate Chesapeake was overtaken not far from ^ This subject is very clearly treated in Channing, The United States of America, pp. 174-180. 238 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Hampton Roads by the British frigate Leopard, and the Brit- ish commander demanded the surrender of several seamen serving on the Chesapeake, whom he claimed to The Chesapeake ^^ deserters from the British service. When affair. this demand was not acceded to, the Leop- ard, at the distance of a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet, poured her whole broadside into the American vessel. The Chesapeake was unprepared for action. She received three broadsides without being able to answer in kind, and then struck her flag and surrendered. Three men were killed and eighteen wounded. The alleged deserters were taken aboard the Leopard. Three of them were Americans, one of the three being a negro. Perhaps the most exasperating thing about this whole affair was the presumption shown in attacking a frigate that was, if given a fighting chance, a fair match for the Leopard. But the English did not stop to consider that an American frigate could fight. Within a few years they learned their mistake. This outrage nearly brought on war at once, and it probably would have been as wtII if that had been the result, for it was high time that either France or England came to see that the United States could defend herself. And yet one must strongly sympathize with Jefferson and his advisers, who loathed the barbarity of war, and believed that self-interest and common sense should win all nations to peace. Unfortunately, the times were not suited for such humane ideas. Nearly the whole civilized world was rent with strife. Through these years France injured American commerce and lost no opportunity to gain by plunder. England, indeed, made some pretence of having legal justification for English orders j^gj. conduct ; but Napolcou did not seem to need any and French . , . , . , , decrees. excusc lor ordcmig the seizure and condemnation of vessels. Jefferson, in a moment of exasperation, said that England had become a den of pirates and France a den of thieves. Napoleon and the English Government vied with each other in issuing proclamations that would prevent the free course of neutral trade (1806-7). England issued two Orders in Council which went to the extent of declaring a blockade of THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 239 nearly the whole coast of Europe. This was to a great extent a mere "paper blockade" — an announcement without sufficient power to make it effective.^ But the French emperor answered with two announcements that were even more "papery". He issued two "decrees" — the Berlin and Milan Decrees — the former declaring that the British Islands were in a state of blockade, the latter declaring that any American ship sub- mitting to search by an English vessel was lawful prize for French cruisers. So here was the humiliating situation — on the one hand an American ship might refuse to be searched and in consequence be blown out of the water by an English frigate, or she might submit to the indignity; on the other hand, if she should submit, she was in danger of becoming the prize of a French man-of-war or of being seized in any Continental har- bor subject to French power. Efforts were made to bring England to terms by some means short of war. December, 1806, Monroe and William Pinkney, in London, negotiated a treaty, but treaty. °"'^°^ Jefferson refused to accept it as satisfactory. He ought either to have accepted it or to have prepared seriously for war. He did neither. At the end of 1807 Congress, on his recommendation, passed an embargo act, closing all the American harbors to commerce. This act was in force for over a year. It solved none of the difficulties under which the country was suffering. The vessels lay idle at the wharves, men were thrown out of work, foreign trade was abruptly stopped, and home trade was checked. The products of the Southern plantations could not be transported. The interests of all sections of the country were injured. Perhaps New England was hurt least of all, because the inventive Yankee now turned his attention to manufacturing and made money, because foreign goods could not be imported. The Northern people were, however, bitterly incensed against the policy ^ A real blockade may not keep out an occasional "blockade runner"; but it is now the rule that^ it must be more than an announcement; the harbors must be really blockaded. 240 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Non- intercourse which seemed, under the guise of protection, to be destroying their commerce. England was doubtless somewhat injured, but not enough to induce her to revoke her orders. Napoleon confiscated American vessels in the ports of Europe, claiming that he was in all kindness enforcing the embargo. Thus the plan broke down. The embargo act was repealed in the spring of 1809, and the non- intercourse act was passed, making all commerce with Great Britain, France, and their dependencies illegal, but restoring trade with the rest of the world. Jefferson left office in 1809. His long effort to avoid war and to win respect for American rights upon the sea by the embargo, his scheme of peaceful coercion, seemed profitless; war had thus far been avoided, but condi- tions were even more perplexing than before. James Madison and George Clinton were chosen as President and Vice-President in 1808, and on the shoulders of Madi- son fell the burdens of solving, if he could, the trying problems of the time. He had long been one of Jefferson's chief advisers and he too hoped that the perils and losses of war might be escaped ; he too longed to find some peaceful way out of the difficulties which beset the nation, and he did not yet despair.^ Madison as President, 1809-1817. 'cr.itXJt3 LJOk% ^ Madison was in many ways a great man. He had taken a leading part in the formation of the Constitution and won the title of the "Father of the Constitution" by his work in the convention of 1787. He was a thoughtful, scholarly man, a student of political theory. As a Virginian and a follower of Jefferson, he was one of the men who believed profoundly in the principles of Jcffersonian politics. He was not a stern, unrelent- ing administrator and perhaps the times demanded a man of more iron will; THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 241 Madison's administration began brilliantly. An agreement was reached with the English minister, Erskine, resident at Washington, that the Orders in Council should be agreement"^ withdrawn. The country was elated, but doomed to a speedy disappointment. The English Gov- ernment repudiated the action of its minister, and Madison was even accused of having taken advantage of Erskine's youth and inexperience to cajole him into an unauthorized agreement. Erskine was recalled and conditions were worse than ever, for his successor, a man named Jackson, was so impertinent in his insinuations of bad faith on Madison's part that he was informed that our Government would receive no communication from him. Matters were now indeed hurrying to a catastrophe. France and England were so utterly brutal in their attacks upon American commerce that they both deserved a treachery ^ whipping ; but as it was impossible to fight both, one of them should have been chosen for an ally without more delay. In 1810 (March 23) Napoleon issued a decree, ordering the seizure of all American vessels that, since the non-intercourse policy was adopted, had entered the ports of France or of any other country occupied by the French. As a result, scores of vessels worth many thousands of dollars were confiscated, and the money was poured into Napoleon's treasury. It was a shameful piece of thieving, but by no means the only one of which Napoleon was guilty. However objectionable war might be, American property might better have been used in de- fence of American rights than stolen by the Emperor of the French to help on his career of glory and carnage. Soon after the issue of this infamous decree the American Congress passed a bill known as the Macon Bill No. 2 (May i, 1 8 10). This provided that non-intercourse should America gives j^g abandoned, but that if either of the offending na- opportunity. tions should " SO rcvokc or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States ", then intercourse with the other nation should but he was high-minded and able. He retained Gallatin as his Secretary of the Treasury, and in 181 1 James Monroe became Secretary of Otate. 242 HISTORY OF THE A]\H:RICAN NATION 1)1' ]>r()liil)itod. Napoleon, ciinninjjj and dishonest, was ready to take I lie advantage thus oiTered him. 'I'he French Minister of I'oreign AtTairs wrote to the American minister in Paris: "His Majesty lo\es the Americans, 'i'heir ]M-oi)erty and their commerce are within the scope of his policy". This surj^rising announcement was coui>led with the statement that after November first the obnoxious decrees would not be enforced, l)ut that, on the other hand, England must do likewise and renounte her " new princii)U> of blockade", or that the United States should "cause their rights to be respected by the l^ig- lish". * So Napoleon, by taking advantage of the Macon Hill No. 2, by a little distort ii)n of its language entered, as it were, into a contract with the Fnited States. He is said to have remarked a few tlays later, "It is evident that we ' ",*'' , ., ct>nnnit ourselves to nothing". As a matter of ndviinfiino of it. '^ fact, he continued ti^ conliscate the American cargoes and \essels as beforc\ Eatc^ in iSio, howexcM', Madison accej^tcd this statement oi the l-'rench Goxernment, and on March j, iSii, Congress passed an act reestablishing non- intiM-course with (ireat Britain. IHning iSii the sky did not brighten nuich. The United States was still spitefully ill-usiHl by the combatants and still restlessly lu'ld its peace. England now t>lTeretl The situation , , ' < • r i i / --i i , jj^ jgjj to make reparation lor the C liesapeake outrage, and the otTer was acceiUed; but this did not seem \o heal many wounds or bring much consolation. Al)t)ut the same tinu- a similar affair occurrinl between the I'aiglish man-of- war Little belt and the AnuMican frigate i^resident. but this time the luiglish man-of-war was shattered i\ud crij^j^led, and America was tilled with elation because at least one British ' Tlu- iniiH>r(;iii( ilausr in the liMtcr is ;is follcnvs: "1 am autlu>ri/.cHi to doclarr lo you thai the ik'iroos of luMJin ami Milan aro ri'\-okocl, ami that after No\rml>or isl tlu>>' will cease lo ha\e elTeel, on the umlerstantlin^ that, in eonsetiuenee of this deehiralion, . . . the Ignited States . . . shall eaiise their rights to he resiieited hy the I'nj^lish". It is jilain that by aeeeptinjj; siuh a revocation Madist>n in a way bound the United Slater to compel England lo cease her violations of our conmierce. THE S11ns that the Orders in Council were to be withdrawn, and a few days later they were formally revoked. Had there been an Atlantic cable in 1812 it is cjuite [wssible that the war would have been averted. Field of tuk Cami'aigns in the West, War of 1S12 ]\Iadison was ]->robably more willing to acquiesce in the notion that war was necessary, because a campaign for the presidency was near and the young Republicans ,8, J demanded an attitude of hostility towartl England. However that may be, he was put forward and elected, and with him l^lbridge Gerry as Vice-President. And thus there fell upon his shoulders the unwelcome, ill-fitting task of leading in war — few men were ever less fitted for the job of leading and ins]^iring a loosely knit democracy, which did not know its own strength or how to use it. TIIK STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 247 The United Slates iit the outbreak of the war had a popula- tion of about eight milh'ons. Great Britain and Irehmd had a poi)ulati()n of nearly twenty niilhons, liad for combatants. '^ ^^^"^ ^•'^^ '-^^'^''^ exi)en(nng blood and treasure hivishly in the mortal conlhct with Napoleon, and was now nerved to great effort. The United States en- tered the conflict divided. There was not a universal sentiment that war was necessary. The North and Kast o. t "i^'^ J J were the sections which had suffered the most from States diviaed. the dei)redati()ns inflicted by Kngland on American, commerce, yet many of the pe()[)le of New lOiigland preferred to bear the iUs they had rather than to fly to the heavier if more honorable losses of war. If the choice must be made, they pre- ferred a war with France, in order that England might ])e an ally and not an enemy, and that her fleet might not harry their coast and destroy their commence. But if they must fight against the mistress of the seas, they desired that the navy be strengthened and given every help. Because of these difi"erent opinions the country was weaker than it should have been, and suffered disasters that might have been avoided had there been a; common front against a common enemy. It was apparent at the outset that the Northwest must be protected. Some time before the formal declaration of war General William TTull was sent with a force from Northwest' Ohio to the defence of Detroit. War was declared while he was on the way. The British were posted at Maiden. Hull, after some disasters, arrived in Detroit, and soon passed over into Canada, ])()mi)()usly calling u])()n the Canadians to seek freedom from ()p])ression under the American standard. But his ])()sition was perilous and he soon returned to Detroit and found himself in trouble. His lines of coimnunica- tion with Ohio were broken, and on August T6th he surrendered Detroit to the enemy. Mackinaw had already fall- ^^*''°'* en, and the Indians soon destroyed l'\)rt Dearborn- surrendered, 1 /-^I • 1 IV^- 1 • • 1 August, i8i2. where Chicago now stands. Michigan was m the hands of the enemy, and the whole Northwest in danger. The Indians, under the leadershij) of Tecumseh, a war- 248 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION rior of rare vigor and ability, aided the British in these western campaigns. The people of Michigan Territory remained in terror of the Indians throughout the war. Little was done in the East during this first summer of the war. There was fighting on the Niagara frontier ^ but on the whole the campaign was a dismal failure, as far as the land battles were concerned. The Constitution From an old cut Victories on the ocean. On the sea, however, matters had taken a different turn. Our navy was small, but some of the vessels were good, and officers and men had received excellent training in seamanship. Tlie United States frigate Con- stitution, under command oi Commodore Isaac Hull, fought and captured the English frigate Guerriere. "In less than thirty minutes from the time we got alongside of the enemy", reported Hull, ''she was left without a spar standing, ^ Battle of Queenstown, October 13th. THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 249 and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it difficult to keep her above water". She was so badly damaged that the victors destroyed her. This was a momentous victory. "It raised the United States in one half hour to the rank of a first- class power". ^ Other victories followed quickly, and the people of the whole country were jubilant, especially the New Englanders, who had long boasted that "the wooden walls of Columbia" would prove the nation's best defence. It was apparent that Great Britain had found a rival on the ocean, and this at a time when a succession of victories in the Napoleonic wars had made England the mistress of the seas. America could not equal the enemy in strength, for the English navy was very large and powerful; but when vessels met on anything like even terms the Americans showed themselves at least the equals of the English in gunnery, and often their superiors in seamanship. The campaign of 1813 began in discouragement. In Jan- uary a company of brave Kentuckians, who had volunteered to retake Detroit and to wipe out the disgrace of Hull's of 1813. surrender, were attacked and beaten at the River Raisin, in Michigan. In the course of the year however the tide turned in our direction.^ To control the In- dians and protect the frontier, Detroit must be secured; to do this with safety Lake Erie must be in our control. Near the western end of the Lake an American fleet Battle of Lake ^^dcr the Command of Commodore Perry met Erie, September . . 14, 1813, and defeated a British fleet commanded by Com- modore Barclay. The battle was picturesque. 1 Henry Adams, History of the United States, vol. vi, p. 375. This means that, although England and France might treat America sharply and although America might long remain weak in comparison with the great nations of Europe, hereafter no nation could treat the United States as if it were an insignificant, third-class power which could only whine when it was punished. 2 Fort Meigs, on the Maumee, commanded by Harrison, was attacked by the British in May. It was bravely defended, and the enemy was forced to retreat. This defeat cost the British the confidence and suppor* of many of the Indians. 250 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Perry had to leave his flagship, the Lawrence, during the engagement and row to another vessel. He finally conquered, and his announcement of the victory has become famous: "We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, and of the two brigs, One schooncr, and one sloop". Harrison, October's, 1813. with the aid of the fleet, passed to Detroit, whence he followed the retreating enemy into Canada and defeated them at the battle of the Thames, October 5, 18,13, where Tccumsch was killed. Field of the Campaigns in the North and East, War of 181 2 In the East as well as the West there were some victories for the Americans. General Dearborn decided upon an expe- dition to York (now Toronto). A successful East, 1813. attack was made upon the place and it was taken and destroyed. Later in the summer, Fort George, on the Niagara River, passed into our hands, the result of a fierce assault led by Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott, who distinguished himself for gallantry. Late in the autumn an unsuccessful expedition was set on foot against Montreal, and in December Fort George was abandoned. In other THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 251 words, at the end of the second year of the war the situation on the northern boundary, except at Detroit, was much as at the beginning. The campaign had been managed with no energy and with little show of generalship. On the ocean there were victories and defeats for the ambitious little navy. In February of this same year the American Hornet fought and sunk the Peacock, On the ocean. ,-r^..i, .-,-.,• 11 * 1 the British brig Pelican captured the Argus, and the American brig Enterprise defeated the Boxer. The most noteworthy contest was that between the American frigate Chesapeake and the Shannon. The former was commanded by Captain Lawrence, who was anxious to meet the Shannon and accept a challenge publicly offered by the English comman- der. The engagement lasted but a few minutes, ending in a complete victory for the English vessel. Captain Lawrence was killed. The event caused great sadness in America, but the rejoicing in England was substantial proof that the defeat of a Yankee frigate was no longer considered a foregone con- clusion. During the summer of this year and the winter of 1814 there was some sharp fighting with the Indians in the South. General Jackson was finally victorious over them Southwest ^^ ^ bloody battle at the Horseshoe, a great bend in the Tallapoosa River. This campaign under Jackson's energetic leadership destroyed the power of the Indians in that section. Many of them fled into Spanish terri- tory, and in later years caused the United States much trouble. The year 18 14 was hardly more cheering than the previous one. General Wilkinson, in the Champlain region, began the campaign by an example of inefficiency, and the batues" 18^^ summcr bade fair to be disastrous. English vessels hovered along our coast, ready to pounce upon any merchantmen that ventured to steal out of harbor, and the apparent defeat of Napoleon in Europe gave opportu- nity to send over to America some of the veterans of that long contest. On the Niagara frontier our troops under General Brown, an able man, fought with great gallantry. The battles 252 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION September, 1814. of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane were victories for the Americans, where Scott again distinguished himself. These successful en- gagements gave us a slight hold on Canada, but in the autumn the American troops were withdrawn to the New York side of the river, and the year ended with nothing accomplished in that quarter. A victory on Lake Champlain gave some encouragement. The British with a large force were intending an invasion of Battle of Lake "^^^ York by the old route, by the way of Lake Champlain, Champlain; but success depended on the sup- port of the accompanying fleet. All hope of assistance from this quarter was soon destroyed. An American fleet under Commodore Macdonough met and defeated the British off Plattsburg in a desperate and hard- iought contest. During the summer the east- ern coast was much harried by the enemy. In Au- gust they appeared in the vicinity of Washington, finally taking that city, after some feeble efforts at resistance. They burned the Capitol as a "harbor of Yankee democracy". The Presi- dent's house and some of the other public buildings were likewise de- stroyed. This was said to be in retaliation for American acts in Canada. The Americans had burned the Government buildings at York; but this had been done by some private soldiers acting without authority, and was denounced by the press of the whole country and disowned by the commanding general. The English people, too, regretted the burning of the buildings at Washington. One paper said: "The Cossacks spared Paris, but we spared not the Capitol of America". "Washington taken, August, 1814. ^•""Vfe :Vn\a|inlis jr:,l ^i^ asliiijirtoa^r^VSf The Region about Washing- ton AND Baltimore THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 253 Naval events, 1814. 7 / (' y I ' A V ft:- r .. 1 - " / A c>^ The naval events of this year were not so interesting as those of the preceding year. The sloop Essex, after an ex- tended cruise in the Pacific protecting American whalers and capturing those of the enemy, was destroyed by two English ships after a fierce and stubborn contest near Valparaiso. But by this time the Eng- lish fleet on our coast was so large that it actually blockaded the principal ports of the United States. In the latter part of this year the British prepared to make an attack upon New Orleans. They sent ten thousand veteran troops for the Battle of New purpose. Orleans, Jan- ^ , uary, 1815. General Jack- son was in command of the United States forces in that quar- ter. After some skirmish- ing, the enemy made a grand assault upon the American defenses, Janu- ary 8th. Our forces were well protected, and the attack was disastrous to the English. Their loss was very great; their com- mander was killed, and some two thousand of the troops were either killed, wounded, or missing. The Americans lost about seventy. This battle was- fought two weeks after peace had been con- cluded at Ghent. The treaty ending the war (December 24, 1 8 14) settled none of the questions in dispute, not even the right of impressment. But the war was nevertheless not without results. Our little navy had shown its mettle, American privateers had done im- mense damage to British shipping, and there was some realiza- tion in Europe that American rights must be respected. More- over, as the war in Europe was over, impressment was now GULF O P ^ [THE WAR I\ THE iSOL'TH [ Treaty of Ghent. 254 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION practically a thing of the past, and there was no need of a clause in a treaty to make it so. America had beyond question dignified itself among the nations. And yet one can not help regretting that the war could not have been avoided. It was waged by one free nation against another free nation, and it aided Napoleon, the enemy of free institutions every- rP--'f®-^;rV^^|i^-:f_rr.^^j#^.^ House in Ghent where the Commissioners Met to Agree upon the Treaty of Peace that Ended the War of 1812 where. It was waged by two peoples whose real interests were the same, and whose mission in history has been the develop- ment of liberty and civilization.^ During the war there had been great dissatisfaction in New England. In the latter part of 18 14 a convention of delegates from these States met at Hartford. It was com- monly supposed that it would plot a disruption of the Union; but it simply drew up remonstrances, and proposed amendments to the Constitution intended to ^ Though other difficulties arose no war with Britain broke out for a century or more after the treaty of Ghent. Since that day Great Britain has become substantially, in spirit and efTectiveness, a democracy, and France has taken the same step. See the preface of this volume. Hartford conveniion THE STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS UPON THE SEA 255 protect a minority of the States against unwelcome Federal legislation. The doctrines laid down were similar to those of the Virginia resolution of 1798: "In cases of deliberate, danger- ous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of the State and liberties of the people, it is not only the right but the duty of such a State to interpose its authority for their protection. . . . States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute theix own decisions". Peace came before anything was accomplished, and so the resolutions amounted to nothing. The Federal party, whose stronghold was New England, was brought into discredit and disrepute because it had not entered heartily into the war. The war did much to nationalize the country. State selfish- ness and pride had in the minds of the majority of the people sfiven place to a broader love of country. The Effects of war. 01 ^ j ^ New Englander had grumbled and indulged in perpetual fault-finding, and his opposition had given the Gov- ernment great anxiety and much trouble; but his cheek, too, flushed with pride as he thought of the victories of the Yankee ships upon the sea, and remembered how Yankee seamanship had more than once excelled the skill of the British tars. And so when the war ended there was prospect for a more firmly united nation than ever before. References Hart, Contemporaries, Volume III, pp. 385-388, 390-394, 417-420, 422-425; Hart, Formation oj the Union, pp. 102-220; Walker, Making of the Nation, Chapters X-XII; Gay, James Madison, Chapters XVII-XX; Schurz, Henry Clay, Volume I, Chapter V. Longer accounts: McMaster, Volume III, pp. 219-458, 528-560, Volume IV, pp. 1-279; Schouler, Volume II, pp. 151-224, 310-491; Channing, Jefersonian System, Chapters XIII-XX; Babcock, Rise of American Nationality, Chapters HI-XL CHAPTER XIV NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS When the war was over, America turned her attention to the tasks of progress and of peace. Years were to pass without serious trouble with foreign nations, and in those of ^eTce^^^ ^ years the people were destined to wax strong — founding new factories, moving on into the West, making new farms, reaching out for the wealth that the land offered in abundance. The problems that arose in American political life were, for some time to come, not shaped or con- fused, as they had been in the past, by European conflicts or by partisan sympathy for one contending nation or another; the time had gone by w^hen factions among the people were known as British factions or French factions. We had our own business to attend to and that proved to be enough. The problems of the West, the growth of manufacturing in the East, the development of slavery in the South, all brought their problems for adjustment. For twenty years or so Federalists and Republicans had been pitted against each other and had striven for control of the Government. But the course of the war wrought Old parties be- v rT-\T_ t-> it • i r ,i gin to disappear, changes. The Republicans, m charge of the Government, had largely given up their notions about strict, narrow construction of the Constitution; they real- ized the need of a government which could do things and main- tain its dignity. Even Madison and Monroe advocated measures which were much like those of the old-time Federalists, and they were prepared to go upon a principle of broad, national interpretation of the Constitution. The younger men. Clay, Calhoun, and others, who had brought on the war, were filled 256 NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 257 with enthusiasm for progress and for national upbuilding.^ The Federalists, withering under the reproach of the Hartford Con- vention, soon ceased to play an important part and ere long altogether disappeared as a party. In 1816 Monroe was chosen Presi- dent by an overwhelming vote, the Federalists carrying only Mas- sachusetts, Connecticut, and Dela- ware. Four years later he was again elected,- this time with only one electoral vote against him. These eight or ten years after the war, free from the absence of bitter party strife, are commonly called the " era of good feeling". '' People now meet in the same room", said a newspaper in 1817, "who a short while since would scarcely pass each other along the street". Even before Madison's administration ended Congress entered upon the work of legislation to meet new conditions. First of all was the task of bettering the monetary and financial condition of the country. All during the war there had been great confusion; financial disorder reigned.^ Congress had refused in 181 1 to recharter A new national bank, 1816. ^ "There should now be no differences of parties", said Josiah Quincy, **for the Republicans have out-federalized Federalism". With the Repub- licans advocating a bank, tariff, the building and maintenance of ships of war, there was nothing left for the Federalists, who had long been only a party of opposition, save to find fault and to cling to their old suspicion of the political competence of the masses of the people; such fault-finding was. however, out of place, when the country was entering with enthusi- asm and hopefulness on a career of industrial development. 2 Monroe's cabinet was composed of able men; John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State; William H. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War. 2 "Among the severest trials of the war was the deficiency of adequate funds to sustain it, and the progressive degradation of the national credit. The currency soon fell into frightful disorder. Banks with fictitious cap- 258 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the National Bank, whose charter then expired. State banks had as a consequence increased greatly in numbers, many of them without more than the merest show of capital. The value of their notes was a matter of conjecture. Most of the banks were utterly unable to do more than put out promises to pay, for specie they did not have. In 1816 a new Bank bill was introduced into Congress and passed. The charter was for twenty years, the capital $35,000,000, of which one-fifth was to be owned by the United States. One-fifth of the directors were to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. In bringing in sound commercial and monetary condi- tions, the bank was of some service; but it by no means gave universal satisfaction. In the Western States particularly there was much hostility to the institution which the people charged with being the organ of Eastern capitalists. But it was not possible to bring in sound conditions simply by establishing a bank; the commerce and business of the coun- try had to settle down and adjust themselves to peno o conditions. For almost the fourth of a cen- transition. tury there had been war in Europe, and American trade had grown up largely on what we may call a war basis. Now there was peace; and men, that had been accustomed to the more reckless ventures of trade in time of war, found they must learn new lessons of cool calculation and unlearn much that they had learned before. The country needed to find its way into new paths of peaceful industry. For a time everything seemed to go on finely; everywhere were signs of enterprise and energy. What are commonly „. . . called flush times prevailed. Men were led into Flush times, . ^ m n • speculation and were tempted to run wildly into ital swarmed through the land and spunged the purse of the people, often for the use of their own money, with more than usurious extortion. . . . The Treasury of the Union was replenished only with countless millions of silken tatters and unavailable funds; chartered corporations, bankrupt, . . . passed off upon the Government of their country, at par, their rags — pur- chasable, in open market, at depreciations of thirty and forty per cent". (John Quincy Adams, The Lives of Madison and Monroe, p. 272.) NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 259 debt. Such conduct always brings its reward in disaster. Only gradually could the losses of the war be repaired, or business be established on a fair basis and lasting prosperity secured. Every hasty step simply added to the trouble that was to come. Before an era of sound prosperity commenced, the country passed through the hardships of a commercial panic. For this there were many reasons. The currency in com- disasteTs. mou use in many parts of the land was of fluctuat- ing and uncertain value, or of no value at all; much of it consisted of notes issued by banks acting under State charters without sufficient capital, often with scarcely any specie or real money of any kind. English manufacturers by sundry devices avoided the tariff laws and flooded the Eastern cities with their goods. Other causes cooperated to bring confusion and uncertainty in business. Great depression was the inevit- able result. ''The years 1819 and 1820", says Benton in his Thirty Years' View, "were a period of gloom and agony. No money, either gold or silver; no paper convertible into specie; no measure or standard of value left remaining. . . . No price for property or produce. No employment for industry, no demand for labor, no sale for the product of the farm, no sound of the hammer, but that of the auctioneer knocking down property". Benton knew the West, and perhaps he did not exaggerate the conditions. This was the first of those severe commercial panics which have during the century swept over our country. The United States Bank was charged by many with bringing on the hard times, for which it seems indeed to have been in part responsible. Some of the States tried Bank ^ ^^^ ^^ prevent it from establishing branch banks within their limits. In the case of McCulloch vs. Maryland, the Supreme Court decided that the bank was con- stitutional, and that a .State could not tax the bank, as it was an agent of the United States. ^ For some time, however, in the 1 See McMaster, History of People of U. S., Vol. IV, pp.495 and follow- ing; Babcock, Rise of American Nationality, 294-296. In the case o^ McCulloch vs. Maryland, Judge Marshall fully states the 260 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION West the establishment of branch banks was resisted, and in Ohio the bank was for a while practically an outlaw. Soon after the close of the war there came a demand for the protection of American manufactures. The long period of war in Europe, the embargo, and the non- intercourse policy had resulted in the encourage- ment of manufacturing in this country, because the products of France and England were not brought into our ports and into competition with the home product. After the war English goods were thrown upon our market in large quantities. To protect manufacturers and to make the country independent of foreign countries, a tariff law was passed (1816). This was in a considerable measure a protective tariff, and to all practical purposes the first of that kind.^ It was supported by the South and West. Its strongest opponent was Daniel Webster, representing the commercial interests of New England. In the course of a few years the South became opposed to the tariff and the North in favor of it.^ In one respect the country was still backward and had made but little progress for a generation. Though the people were now spreading over a vast territory and were daily Need of good • • i ^i r j j roads. growmg m numbers, there were few good roads and no canals; the stage coaches or the big covered wagons with their loads of weary passengers still bumped along over abominable roads; save in the more populous portions of the doctrine of "implied powers" which we will remember Hamilton announced in connection with the first bank bill: Congress, under the Constitution, has the power to select suitable means for carrying out the powers plainly- granted. ^ By a protective tariflf is meant a tariff which provides certain duties on foreign goods entering the country at a higher rate than is needed to supply adequate revenue for the government; the purpose of protection is to keep out foreign goods or to raise their price in order that manufacturers at home may afford to manufacture. This tariff was not solely or espe- cially a protective measure; the obtaining of revenue was probably the lead- ing purpose. 2 The time was not far distant when many men at the South would echo the words that John Randolph, of Virginia, used in the debate upon this tariff bill: "Upon whom bears the duty on coarse woolens and blankets. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 261 Eastern States, it is almost flattery to speak of highways. New commonwealths had already been founded beyond the mountains but they were still separated from the eastern sea- board by long dreary stretches of forest, threaded here and there by rough wagon roads, or by an occasional bridle trail. The rapid peopling of the West, which was one of the most marked facts of the day, now made an imperative demand for respectable highways; no nation could be great and strong without means of communication. In Jefferson's time something had been done; as early as 1806 money had been appropriated for what was known as the Cumberland Road. This was to run from the Constitutional Potomac ovcr the mountains and into the West. questions. Something over a hundred miles of road had been built by 18 1 6, when Calhoun introduced a bill to use the pro- ceeds which the Government received from the bank for internal - C<>m.pletett by the V.S. \ - < IJj ■I'artly CompUteil by the U.S. ^ "^ /-> /'- , ^^ -- ' J *•* * \ ' I . ' . C>^ ]•**! -( IfN D 1 A N A iry \ Awe <;'t , /A ^N D 1 A N A ^ ) , ■;y(^ w E sS ; fj< V I R SJ hf I, A /.y The Cumberland Road improvements. . This bill was vetoed by Madison on the ground of unconstitutionality. Some years later Monroe vetoed the so-called Cumberland Road bill for the same reason. This looked as if a policy of strict construction was to be again taken up. But this was almost the only sign of a wish to return to the narrow policy the Republicans had favored twenty years before. Experience and the war had done much to crush out a timorous dread of governmental power. It is interesting to on salt and the necessaries of life? Upon poor men and slave owners". The Southerners as a rule seemed to believe in 1816 that factories would spring up at the South, under the encouragement of the tariff. 18 262 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION notice that Calhoun and some other southern men were then strong advocates of such internal improvements and of a broad national policy. "Let it not be forgotten", said Calhoun, "let it be forever kept in mind, that the extent of our republic exposes us to the greatest of all calamities, next to the loss of liberty, and even to that in consequence — disunion ". Fears of constitutional authority to build roads could do no more than delay the movement for better means of communica- tion between the West and the eastern seaboard. State appro- Eastcm merchants and western farmers alike wanted roads and canals. The Federal Govern- ment might not act or it might appropriate money only with hesitation; but the States could build roads within their limits. Pennsylvania spent money freely on turnpikes and even South Carolina and Virginia took similar steps. But New York, in a position of great advantage, made the most im- portant improvement; on the east her confines touched the At- lantic where the Hudson rolled down in a magnificent current to the sea; on the west was Lake Erie offering wide and free communication with the interior; the Appalachian chain, which formed a barrier further south, opened up in central New York The Erie Canal as if inviting a waterway from the ocean to the lakes. The state took up the enterprise, under the leadership of De Witt Clinton. The The Er' c canal project was at first ridi- *°^'culed as "Clinton's Ditch", but his untiring energy and faith over- came ridicule and obstinate opposition; and final results justified NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 263 his unflagging zeal. The Erie Canal was built, a waterway some three hundred and sixty miles in length, from the Hudson to Lake Erie. It was finished in 1825. The most enthusiastic person could scarcely have foreseen how great would be the influence of the canal in building up the commerce of New York City and enriching the state. "At this epoch", we are told, "the history of modern New York properly begins". By this easy route emigrants found their way to the regions of the Old Northwest and the goods from eastern mer- chants were carried to the consumers of the interior. In this way the products of the western farms found an outlet to the factory and the sea. The Old Northwest — which was, in A Lock on the Erie Canal P'rom an old print fact, still young and largely undeveloped — entered now upon a new phase of life. In 1826, there were seven steamers on Lake Erie, and four years later a daily line was running be- tween Buffalo and Detroit. The growth of the West, to which we have already referred ^ was phenomenal in the early decades of the century. There had long been an intermittent stream of migration over the 264 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION mountains from the seacoast States. Whenever times were bad or the ocean commerce was seriously interfered with, many Migration to tumcd their faces westward and sought new the West. homcs, expecting to begin life over again in the wilderness. Between 1810 and 1816 the population of Ohio in- creased from two hundred and thirty thousand to about four hundred thousand. In the same period the number of people in Indiana leaped from twenty-four thousand to nearly three times that number. The Southern seacoast States poured their citizens into Illinois and the Territories of the Southwest. Many of the Eastern States were almost stationary in population. North Carolina complained that within twenty-five years two hundred thousand people had removed to the waters of the Ohio and Tennessee. Virginia, "the Old Domin- ion", might almost be said to be the mother of States as The Conestoga Wagon well as of Presidents. ''While many other States", reported a committee of her legislature, "have been advancing in wealth and numbers with a rapidity which has astonished themselves, the ancient Dominion and elder sister of the Union has remained sta- tionary. . . . The fathers of the land are gone where another outlet to the ocean turns their thoughts from the place of their nativity, and their affections from the haunts of their youth". After 181 6, the tide of migration to the West became a mighty current. "We are", said Calhoun at that time, "greatly and rapidly, — I was about to say fearfully grow- the^We^t! ° ^^g"- Steamboats plied up and down the western rivers^ and travelers thronged the roads to the ^ By 1820 there were sixty steamboats on the Mississippi and Ohio; a decade later four times that number. Steamers plied, too, up and down the larger tributaries. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 265 interior. "Old America seems to be breaking up and moving westward", wrote a traveler on the Cumberland road in 1817. " We are scarcely out of sight, as we travel on this grand tract, toward the Ohio, of family groups, behind and before us. . . . A small wagon (so light you might almost carry it, yet strong enough to bear a great load of bedding, utensils and provisions, Steamboat on the Mississippi From Ripley's Social Life in Old New Orleans and a swarm of young citizens — and to sustain marvelous shocks in its passage over these rocky heights) with two small horses; sometimes a cow or two, comprise their all; excepting a little store of hard-earned cash for the land office of- the dis- trict; where they may obtain a title for as many acres as they possess half dollars, being one-fourth of the purchase money". ^ Arrived at their destination, these hardy pioneers would settle in the forest, build a rude log cabin, begin the work of felling the trees or of killing them by girdling, plant a little patch of corn, and thus enter upon a new life in the wilderness. "Ameri- ca", it was said, "was born in a cabin". * At that time a settler could buy land, three-fourths on credit, at two dollars per acre; in 1820 a law was passed providing that a purchaser could buy eighty acres from the government at one dollar and a quarter, without credit. 266 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION From the southern Atlantic states the pilgrims moved west- ward and began the foundation of new commonwealths; plant- ers with cattle and with slaves established new Movements plantations in the rich river valleys of the gulf within the West, t . , ^.t , r. i r region. Prom the Northern States the farmer made his w^ay over the mountains into the Old Northwest. Even from the older sections of the West men passed on to the frontier — north into Indiana and Illinois, or south into Alabama and Mississippi. Movements such as these were typical and characteristic facts in the history of American settlement, for the frontiersman was often restless and was no sooner established in one place than he began to think he could do better farther on. In 1816, when Abraham Lincoln was a lad of seven years, his father took the family from Kentucky, across the Ohio, into Indiana, made his way into the forest, built a ''half-faced" camp in which to pass the first dreary winter, and began his new struggle against the wilderness. Not all of the pioneers were poor; some of the Southerners moving into the lower part of the gulf region were well-to-do and went prepared to begin their big plantations, kbo"^^^'''^ but the hardy pioneer of the West had as a rule but little property. He began his new life in simj^lest fashion; he met want and he suffered privation; he had little to rely upon save his own hard work; and he needed to be self-reliant, industrious, and patient. If we would understand American life we must understand the frontier and we must see that as men worked to conquer the wilderness all their tasks and methods of life Influence of helped to make American character; social dis- the frontier. ^ • i i i tinctions — fine education, honorable ancestry — had no special value to the man Whose business it was to fell trees, plant corn, build a cabin, and force his way to comfort by dint of his own unaided energy. There is an old saying and a true one that men are what they do or, as an old Spanish writer said, that a man is the child of his own deeds. Thus the American man of the great valley was the child of hard work, of strong, steady labor which he must do for him- NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 267 self. He must be independent and self de[)endent — an '' in- dividualist" the philosopher would call him — a man who trusted in himself, who wanted to be left alone by theorists and by men who did not know what practical toil meant. He stood face to face with the tasks of the wilderness. That man was greatest among the pioneers who could do better than others the jobs that all had to do. . ^ ^ . , ^ ,1 TVT' • A Frontier Log Cab J IN And yet the Missis- sippi Valley did not long remain a wilderness. The population of the West in 1800 was less than 400,000, includ- New States. . ^^ , , rr. • o • mg Kentucky and lennessee; m 1820 it was considerably over 2,000,000.^ Towns sprang up in the Old Northwest, and big plantations stretched along the river beds of the southern states. In 181 6 Indiana came Into the Union; Mississippi (181 7), Illinois (181 8), Alabama (1819), Missouri (1821), followed in quick succession. The United States had entered fairly upon a new stage of its existence. In 1775 there were thirteen colonies scattered along the Atlantic coast; their traditions were colonial; they looked eastward across three thousand miles of water to a mother country whose leading strings they were ready to cast aside. Forty years later only four States had been formed west of the mountains; the people still looked toward Europe, and their politics were largely shaped by foreign conditions. In 1820 there were eight States in the Mississippi Valley, and every- where a Western vigor and energy showed themselves. No longer was the United States a row of seacoast republics, but an ^ The population of the whole United States grew rapidly during this time partly because of immigration from foreign lands. In 1820 there were 9,638,453 people in the country. 268 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION empire stretching away to the interior, giving visions of con- tinental dominion. In the great valley won from France in the momentous conflict seventy-five years before, the American people were now waxing strong, regardless and forgetful of old colonial dependence, and heedless of European politics. The westward movement made the acquisition of Florida important. From the beginning of the century our Govern- ment had been desirous of getting possession of Fi?rida**°^ ° ^^^^ region. It will be remembered that West Florida had been claimed as part of the Louisiana purchase, on the ground that the original Louisiana — that is to say, ''Louisiana as it was in the hands of France" — had ex- tended to the east of Mobile Bay, and even to the Perdido. In i8io^ a considerable portion of this territory was occupied by American troops, and in the early part of 1 8 13 Mobile was taken and a fort built at the entrance of the harbor. But for some years after this the rest of the Floridas remained in the hands of Spain. In 1818 General Andrew Jackson, engaged in fight- ing the Seminole Indians who were then at war, entered Florida and hanged two Englishmen, on the ground that they had given aid and comfort to the Seminoles and were but "outlaws and pirates". This showed that the province was not in reality governed by Spain, but was at our mercy. In 181 9 Spain ceded Florida to the United States. In payment, the United States agreed to pay the claims of our citizens against Spain to the amount of $5,000,000. The western boundary of Louisiana was at the same time determined; we surrendered any claim we might have to the Texas country, and Spain gave up all claim to land north of the forty-second parallel." The treaty was not ratified by Spain till 1 821. ^ A proclamation was issued by Madison in 1810 ordering the seizure and possession of the land ''south of the Mississippi Territory and east- ward of the Mississippi, and extending to the river Perdido". ^ See the map on page 272. This line of 1819 is important. It ran up the west branch of Sabine River to 32° latitude and thence due north to the Red River; thence up the Red River to longitude 100°; thence due north to the Arkansas River; thence along the south bank of the Arkansas to its source, in latitude 42°, or by a direct line from its source to the 4 2d parallel; thence due west to the Pacific. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 269 Westward expansion brought up the slavery question; the pr(>blem entered on a new phase. Was slavery to occupy the great West? Was it to grow stronger and stronger The West ° , , j i , and slavery. ^^ ^^^ lands Were opened and new chances were given for growing tobacco, cottoii and sugar cane? Was there any method of confining the slave system to the old limits or preventing it from spreading far and wide over the national domain? This question began to loom large on the horizon by 1818, and soon far-seeing men realized that the nation was faced by a serious problem threatening, in years to come, the very existence of the nation. Up to that time men had scarcely appreciated the gravity of the slavery question or they had not seen that the nation was developing two distinct systems of labor and of social life. Both sections were reach- ing out for new territory; which system of labor would prevail? When the Constitution was formed all the States save Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire had slaves, but everywhere in the North the institution was losing ground. At the on'siavery!°^^ North the industry and life of the people were not materially influenced by slave labor; at the South society was built upon that system. But in the South as well as in the North it was considered by thinking men an evil. The ablest Virginia statesmen lamented the existence of slavery and foretold its baneful effect. In the Philadelphia convention George Mason, of Virginia, used these words: "Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a coun- try. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations can not be re- warded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects. Providence punishes national sins by national calamities". It is true that the delegates from the most southern States contended in the convention for permission to introduce slaves, 270 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and the Constitution in consequence declared such introduction should not be prohibited before January i, 1808.^ And it is true that at a later time representatives in Con- The North does r ^ o i • i i not realize the gress irom thcse samc states bitterly resented at- growth of tacks upon slavery. But' the Northern men were savery. ^^^ some years deluded by the hope that in the natural course of events slavery would disappear from the South, as it was everywhere disappearing in the North. In 1807 a bill was passed making the importation of slaves illegal after the end of the year, and later the President was authorized to use the ships of war to stop the African slave trade. Upon neither of these matters was there great discussion or excite- ment, and the North slumbered on, in large measure regardless of the fact that slavery was winding ever more firmly its coils about the Southern States, that opinion in Virginia was changed, that already the lower part of the Mississippi Valley was utterly given over to the system. The greatest reason for the extension of slavery and for its gaining a stronger hold than had seemed possible forty years before lay in Slavery and ^^le fact that cotton. cotton raising had become a widespread industry, an industry for which slave labor was well fitted. First had come the invention of the cotton gin in 1793; Eli Whitney, a Connecticut schoolmaster visiting in the South, dis- covered a method of ex- tracting the seed from the cotton which enabled one slave to do the work of fifty. Then the introduc- An Early Cotton Gin * Constitution, art. i, sec. 9, § i. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 271 tion of new machinery for spinning and weaving, the use of steam, the building up of factories in England and the north- ern States, made a new demand for cotton. It was discov- ered, too, that good cotton could be raised in the upland country of the seaboard States, and, with the peopling of the fertile virgin tracts of the Southwest, cotton raising began to be of immense importance. The price of slaves rose; slave labor was in demand; the slavery system was fastened upon the South. Thus, as the North was reaching out for new farms in the West, where the pioneer made his own home in the forests or tilled his own land; as factories and workshops potuS! ^°^ increased in number, and the Northern people were growing strong and rich on the basis of modern free labor, the South was growing on the basis of slave labor; and suddenly the truth was seen that North and South, with different industrial systems, held different senti- mehts on the subject of slavery.^ Slavery became a political question, aroused the fear of men, and stirred them to bitterness in debate. Although the North had been gaining in population more rapidly than the South, slave States and free States had been admitted into the Union alternately, and the balance be- tween the sections had been kept in the Senate, where each State had equal weight with every other. A proposition to ex- clude slavery from a State seeking admission disclosed to the people how widely they had drifted asunder. When Missouri asked for admission to the Union in 1819, the lower house of Congress passed an act providing for admis- sion but also providing against the further intro- The Missouri (^^^^[q^ ^f ^q^^q gi^vcs within the State and the controversy. gradual freeing of those already there. The Sen- ate rejected the measure in this form, and, as debate followed de- bate, the whole country was aroused to a high pitch of excite- ^ By 1820 the men of the South did not as a rule defend the existence of slavery or maintain that slavery in itself was good but they were pre- pared to resent Northern attacks; and year by year the system secured a firmer hold. 272 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ment. Now Maine, about to separate from Massachusetts, asked admission as a State. The friends of slavery sought to make the admission of Maine dependent on the admission of Missouri without any provision against slavery. A compromise was finally agreed upon (1820). It provided for the admission of Free and Slave Areas After 1820 Missouri as a slave State, but with this exception there was to be no slavery in the territory purchased from France under the name of Louisiana north of the line 36° 30'. Maine was also admitted.^ Thus an understanding between the sections was reached. Missouri was to come in as a slave State, but in all the wide domain to the north and west there were to be no more * The line of 36° 30' is the northern. line of North Carolina. The north- em boundary of Tennessee varies slightly from this parallel, running somewhat to the north, between the mountains and the Cumberland River. West of that river the line of 36° 30' is the northern boundary. West of the Mississippi the Hne is shown on the map. The Compromise did not say that no more slave states should come in; but that in the territory purchased from France in 1803 there should be no slaves north of 36° 30'; if slavery could not exist in the territory, there was little chance of the formation of a slave state. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 273 slaves. The northern people could for a time breathe easily, feeling that slavery expansion was permanently checked. The act we have just mentioned was an ''enabling act"; it authorized Missouri to form a constitution and make prepara- tion to enter the Union. When Missouri pre- The second com- j_ji ^r r r -i -i • • • , ■,• ^ promise, 1821. rented herself ior hnal admission, it was discovered that her constitution contained a clause forbidding the entrance of free negroes. This caused difhculty anew; but a compromise was adopted, through Clay's effort, whereby Missouri was admitted, but with the understanding that citizens of other States should not be deprived of their rights under the Federal Constitution of going to Missouri.^ Thus the cleavage between slavery and freedom was clearly marked by a geographical line. This whole bitter controversy showed the people how they differed. It rang out, seTuons. ^^^ Said the aged Jefferson, "like a fire-bell in the night". There were now two sections well defined, differing more and more as the years went by in industrial and social makeup. For each succeeding year the South was more under the influence of this one institution, while the North was developing like the rest of the civilized world, free from the weight of slavery. One of the most important problems that arose in these years grew out of our relations with the states of Central and ^x. o .t- South America. After the close of the Napoleonic The South . . y American States wars, all the Spanish continental colonies from and the Holy Mexico to the far south, one by one, threw off the yoke of Spain, and finally succeeded in sustaining themselves as independent powers. At this same time the so- called "Holy Alliance" was formed in Europe, made up of the most powerful monarchs of the Continent. Its chief aim was to check the growth of democracy, and to strengthen the hold of absolutism on the people. As long as the work of the Holy Alliance was confined to Europe we had no ground of complaint; but there began to be signs that government by the people was * See Constitution, art. iv, sec. 2, § i. 274 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION not safe from interference even on this continent; that efforts would be made to overthrow the free governments set up in Central and South America, and compel the return of these states to Spanish control. In addition to this trouble, our Gov- ernment was somewhat uneasy over the fact that Russia showed an inclination to creep down the western coast of North America and to claim land considerably south of what might justly be considered her right. Under these circumstances Monroe sent to Congress (De- cember, 1823) a message which contained a statement of the foreign policy of the United States. There were doc^trine.'"°^ two chief propositions: That any attempt on the part of the European powers "to extend their sys- tem to any portion of this hemisphere" would be considered "as dangerous to our peace and safety", and that any effort to oppress the South American states or to control their destin}' would be viewed as a "manifestation of an unfriendly disposi- tion toward the United States." Second — as a warning to Russia — that the American continents were no longer " to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power". The next year Russia entered into a treaty with us, agreeing not to claim territory south of 54° 40', the present southern boundary of Alaska.^ Monroe's message undoubtedly made the Holy Alliance pause and consider. England was in sympathy with our action. " This crowning effort of ^Monroe's career contrasted well with that to which it stood opposed, for the main motive was to shelter honorably these tender blossoms of liberty on kindred soil from the cold Siberian blasts of depotism".- ^ The ^lonroe Doctrine, as it was announced in 1823, had its roots in the past (see Oilman's Monroe, chap. vii). And it now means more than it did in 1S23. "On its negative side it is a strong jealousy in respect to European interference in any and all matters that are peculiarly American, and particularly North American. In a word, it is the national resolution to assert and to maintain the leadership that the people believe both Nature and history have assigned to them on the two continents''. It is a senti- ment produced by historical and geographical conditions; it is in no proper sense a principle of international law. - Schouler's History, vol. iii, p. 291. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 275 References Hart, Formation of the Union, Chapter XI; Burgess, The Middle Period, Chapters I, II, V; Oilman, James Monroe, Chapters VI- VIII; ScHURZ, Henry Clay, Volume I, Chapters VI- VIII; von Holst, Calhoun, pp. 26-60; Sumner, Andrew Jackson, Chapter III. Longer accounts: McMaster, Volume IV, pp. 280-600; Volume V, pp. 1-54, ScHOULER, Volume III, pp. 1-259, 271-303; Babcock, Rise of Ameri- can Nationality, Chapters XII-XVIII; Turner, Rise of the New West, Chapters I-XII, XIV. CHAPTER XV PARTY REORGANIZATION; PERSONAL AND SECTIONAL DISPUTE The period we have just been studying, a period of marked expansion and of industrial growth, brought political changes. The old party divisions, as we have seen, had democracy practically disappeared; every one, save a few malcontents, who looked back with longing on the old Federalist days, prided himself on being a Republican. But there were more fundamental changes still ; the country had by 1824 become more thoroughly democratic than it had been fifty years before or even when Jefferson came into ofi&ce and an- nounced his popular doctrine. It had become more democratic in the sense that there was greater readiness to trust the people, less suspicion of popular judgment; and on the other hand, among the main body of the people, there was more self-confidence and assurance. Western development had had much to do with these changes; the West did not know class distinctions; the West grew and prospered under the hands of the men who had settled there as woodsmen ; these pioneers had made constitutions, founded governments, and managed the affairs of state. Western constitutions were free from such restrictions as had limited the suffrage in the early constitutions of the older states; and now the Eastern States, influenced probably by Western example and filled with a new confidence in popular government, began to change thc'r constitutions by striking out the old restrictions on the suffrage and on the right to hold office. There were other signs that gov- ernments were to be the people's governments more fully and truly than ever before. Jeffersonian democracy had been in part theory alone; the new democracy was real, prac- tical, self-assertive, strong. One of the early manifestations 276 PARTY REORGANIZATION 277 of new popular sentiment showed itself in the election of 1824. While everybody or nearly everybody called himself a Re- publican and asserted deepest devotion to the fame and the principles of the dear old Jeffersonian party, the Who is to be political leaders and their supporters were bitterly hostile, and the party was divided into cliques and factions, each gathered around its chosen guide or favorite states- man. Though there were many matters of public policy about which men might differ, policies did not take shape as party beliefs or find expression in what we now' call platforms. The contest therefore waged about persons, and the great question was, who should be the president? Soon after parties came into existence in Washington's ad- ministration, methods for nominating candidates for the pres- idency were introduced. The constitution pro- sionai Caucus vidcd for clcctors who Were supposed to choose the man they desired; each elector could vote for anyone whom he thought best fitted for the office. But, with the rise of parties, this free choice disappeared; the electors voted for the candidate of their party, a man already pointed out in accordance with some method of party nomination. The Republicans used the Congressional Caucus to nominate candi- dates; the members of the party in Congress met together and announced the men of their choice. Now while there were two active parties, such a method of nomination, though not ap- proved by everybody, was accepted without serious opposition; but it is plain that, after the Federalists had disappeared, the mere nomination by the Republican congressmen would be equivalent to an election, unless there were other means of putting forth candidates. By 1824 opposition to the caucus system had grown up. It was felt by many persons that officeholders held altogether too much power and that, when Congress assumed the right to nominate candidates for the Presidency, it was time to object. New, western, self-con- fident democracy was out of patience with the notion that Congressmen should tell the people whom to vote for. 19 278 HISTORY OF THE A:MERICAN NATION There were four men ambitious for the presidency in 1824, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William H. Crawford. Adams was the favorite of the New Englanders, and in general of the more con- servative people in the East; tradition moreover pointed to the Secretary of State as a sort of heir Clay, a simple Westerner, with manners of a cour- tier and the charm of a winning personality, had warm admirers everywhere. Crawford, of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treas- King Caucus and the candidates. apparent. The Election of 1824 ury, a capable man and a shrewd politician, was "backed by many of the office-holders and the political workers. Jackson, a picturesque figure who had made a strong impression on the great mass of the plain people, had wide support in the West, where he seemed to typify the vigor, self-reliance, and sim- plicity of the frontier. Of them all, Cra^^'ford was the best politician; he controlled the caucus and was nominated in the ''regular" way. But the friends of the others did not yield. Who was "King Caucus", they asked, that it should decide this matter? Why should a handful of Congressmen nominate the PARTY REORGANIZATION 279 President and expect the people to ratify their choice? The people were competent to attend to such matters themselves. So, though Crawford had secured the coveted nomination, it did him little good. State legislatures now put forth the names of the candidates they preferred, and thus Adams. Adams, Clay and Jackson were nominated. The result of the election that followed was surprising; for the East had not been able to take Jackson, the frontiersman and Indian fighter, quite seriously. Adams received 84 elec- toral votes; Crawford 41, Clay, 37, while Jackson received 99. The New West had thrown down the gauntlet; ^ " the man of the people" had run more than an even race against his strong, experienced competitors. As no one received a majority of elec- toral votes, the choice of one from the three highest was thrown upon the House of Representatives.^ Clay, whose influence in Congress was great, favored Adams, and the New Englander was elected, much to the disgust of Jackson's friends, who claimed that the will of the people had been disregarded, and that Adams and Clay had entered into a corrupt bargain. There was no difficulty about the vice-presidency, Calhoun having been elected without serious opposition. The election of 1824 was the first one in which the people of the country as a whole took a wids and deep interest. Four years later there was even more interest, and it Convent^^n.^ ^"^ ^'^^ evident that the common voter was to have his say about what went on. Thanks to the new suffrage laws and the awakened feeling that the people had both power and sense, men took an ever increasing part in political affairs. There was no chance that they would again put up with nominations by a Congressional caucus; for they thought that they could select candidates as well as vote for them. In 1 83 1 a national nomination convention was held by a party known as the Anti-Masonic party, and the other parties fol- lowed that method of nomination. It is an interesting and im- 1 Jackson and Clay together, both Westerners, though strongly opposed, received more votes than the other two. ^ See Constitution, Amendment XII. 280 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION End of era of good feeling. portant fact that this method — the introduction of a represe^i- tative convention — was thought to take the power of nomina- tion and direction out of the hands of a few political leaders and put it into the hands of the main body of the party; we know now that the convention system was net entirely a success, and as years went by the convention was to be attacked as vicious and corrupt^ — as a means whereby a few political leaders could proclaim nomination rather than act as the agents of the people. This struggle over the nominating system was a struggle to realize popular government ; no people can control their govern- ment unless they can determine for themselves who shall be nominated as candidates, as well as what candidates shall be elected. The '' era of good feeling ' ' was v^ at an end. There had been more or less ill feeling all the time. Political questions had often been bitterly discussed, and per- sonal animus had often taken the place of political principle. As yet, however, parties with princi- ples were not formed; for some years after this men spoke of /' ''Jackson men" and "Adams men". But the elements of party organization were at hand, and out of the bitterness of personal contests parties with principles were sure soon to arise. John Quincy Adams was worthy of the office bestowed on him. He had been for thirty years in public life. He had been foreign minister, senator, and, during Monroe's administrations. Secretar>- of State. His charac- ter was beyond reproach. He was scrupulously John Quincy Adams. * See in later chapters the account of the introduction of the "direct primary". PARTY RFAmOANlZATIOlS 281 honest, his straightforwardness amounting to bkuitness. Though he was ambitious, he was not meanly seU-seeking, and he de- voted himself untiringly at\d unselfishly to the duties of his office. He was not aetuated by petty moti\e. and never con- sented to make use of improper means to secure power or inthi- ence. Able as well as honest, he was one of the best othcers that ever served a people. High-minded himself, he demanded purity in others, and his caustic criticism of the motives and acts of his fellows often estranged those whom he might have won as his friends. He was formal and cold in his manners, and had no great tact or talent as a political leader. Adams made Clay his Secretary of State. It was a natural choice; for the two men thought alike on political issues, and Clay certainly merited the distinction. But the cornipu\jn. appointment gave countenance to those who as- serted that, by making promise of the secretary- ship, Adams had secured his own election. The charge was utterly unfounded; but it was believed b\' man)', and had no Httle etYect on the public mind. Throughout the administra- tion, the friends of Jackson proclaimed without ceasing that tlie ^'people's candidate" had been defrauded of his rights.' There was much personal bitterness tluring these four years. The people were divided into "Adams men" and "Jackson men". Yet the elements of distinct political par- new"p^Jtfes.° ^^^'^ ^""'^^^^ ^'^-"^^ principles were clearly enough in existence, and Adams, both by selecting the founder of the "American system"- as his Secretary of State, and by favoring in his tirst message a broad and liberal policy ^ John Randolph, a master of malicious abuse, referred to the "corrupt coalition between the Puritan and blacklci:;". and called the administra- tion a "puritanic-diplomatic-blackloggod administration". Clay chal- lenged him to a duel, and a meeting occurred. Neither was injured. Een- ton records the atTair, and ends: "On Monday the parties exchanged cards and social relations were . . . restored. It was about the last high-toned duel that I have witnessed, and among the highest toned that I have ever witnessed". Fortunately we ha\e outgrown that condition of society. - Clay had favored a protective tarill, a real "American system", as he called it. 282 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION for the National Government actually announced the begin- nings of a new party. The message advocated appropriations for roads and canals, and advised the establishment of a national university and the creation of an astronomical observatory — ''a lighthouse of the skies". Such words naturally antagonized many who were averse to such appropriations. Adams and others did not see the situation. They did not see that the old party was torn asunder, and that two new parties were at hand; they considered the differing factions as wings of the old Repub- lican party. Except by making a clear statement of principles, nothing was done by the President to organize an Administra- tion party. The friends of liberal construction and of the tariff formed slowly around Clay as their leader, rather than around Adams, and began before 1828 to call themselves "National PvCpublicans". The strict-constructionists called themselves Democratic Republicans, and before many years were commonly known as Democrats. Owing to a number of causes, a good many persons joined the party opposed to the Administration, not because they ob- jected to internal improvements or like measures, cha^racteristics. ^^^^ bccausc they disliked Adams and liked Jack- son. So this party, which included the strict-con- structionists, was for some time uncertain of its own policy. Indeed, the exact views of Jackson himself were micertain. Through these years many persons summed up their political creed in the war-cry '*' Hurrah for Jackson"! and it proved in itself an unanswerable argument. And yet, although at tirst the party of opposition, as such parties are apt to be, was some- what uncertain in its beliefs and fundamental principles, and contained a number of incoherent elements, nevertheless the differing factions of the old Republican party were, before the next election, formed into parties, each witli its own character- istics and natural tendencies. The national Republican party was similar in some respects to the old Federalists; but it cast away, as unsuited to American politics, the exclusive, superior tone which had characterized the followers of Hamilton. The people at large were appealed to by both parties; but the natural PARTY REORGANIZATION 283 enthusiasm for Jackson, ''the man of the people", called into the ranks of the opposition the masses of the people and made it a real democratic party. Adams' administration of four years (1825-182Q) was not a time of great achievement, though the President managed the affairs of the government wisely and well. He was all the time harassed by opposition in Congress; and thousands, insisting that the will of the people had been violated in 1824, looked forward to the next election when they could make good their claims and put Jackson in the White House. Few matters could be taken up in those days without sec- tional dispute or some kind of personal or party difference. Internal improvements were loudly demanded by improvements. ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Wcst and by somc of the East- ern men; but the South had come to look with suspicion on the expenditure of money for things which appeared to enrich only the commercial States of the north and from which she received no returns. Something was done in the way of building and improving roads, and money was appropriated for the bettering of harbors. But all such steps were taken in the face of opposition and distrust. While men were thus bickering over the old subject of roads and canals, and while the States were here and there making improvements of importance, it became evident that a new means of transportation was at hand — the railroad. Horse railroads had been in use for some little time, and va- rious efforts had been made both in this country and in England to use steam as a motive force. ^ As early as 18 14 The railroad. n i -r-. t i • i George Stephenson, an Englishman, invented a *'travehng engine", w^hich he named "My Lord". Some years later (1825) the Stockton and Darlington Railway w^as opened, and Stephenson acted as engineer on a trial trip of his new loco- ^ The earliest roads were built with wooden rails, and afterward these were covered with bands or strips of iron. Horses furnished the motive power. The first road of this kind seems to have been built as early as 1807, in Boston. The first steam locomotive used in this country was brought from England in 1829, and was called the "Stourbridge Lion". 2S4 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION motive. The success of this enteq^rise encouraged the building of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. On this line (iS^o^ StephenstMi tried the *' Rocket ". which sped away at the astound- ing ^xice of twenty-nine miles an hour. "Cmal propertv is ruined", wrote a correspondent from London: "in fact they are even anticipating that it may be necessary- to let the canals drj' and to lay rails on them". nOSTON \yD WORCESTER RAIL ROAD. 7 ^^ Drpoi near \\\i<^ r£;tori *:reet. ic» Nt-»;on,ai6 end 10 o'clock. A.M. and M ?{ o'cK-ck. P. M and Re'.iim pg, Icavf Nest -en a< 7 s.^d a quarter past 1 1, .\ M. and a q^jancr be'ore 5. PM. TiclfU Icr xSe p3>s5f? e■>t^t'f way may ^e hacl at tb« Ticktl OlTice'. N>> 017. NSjNhi-gion sireei ,' pncf 3 llton. the only living signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is said to have ei- PARTY REORGANIZATION 285 claimed: *'I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to that of signing the Dechiration of Inde- pendence, if second to that '". Two years later a short section of this road was op»^ned for tratVic. In South Carolina, too, a road was built running from Charleston to Hamburg, and in iS^^^^ this road was one hundred and thirty-five miles in length, then the longest road in the world. In 1S40 there were two thousand eight hundred and eighteen miles of railroad in operation, and as the years went by the mikwge increased. But no one in those early years could foresee the immense development of railroads, and the great changes thev were to make in the life of the nation. The tirst lines con- nected neighboring cities, or furnished outlets ivom the coal Rau.\v.\v Frwki. in iS^;i regions to the sea; but in time the long trunk lines were con- structed, stretching across the country, binding the land to- gether into an industrial unit. Wherever men are gathered together, there the railroad now goes to serve them, ready to carry the products of their toil to market and to bring back what they wish in exchange.^ The political signiticance of the railroad was almost as great as its social and industrial signiticance. The East and West wore made one; the strong ties of connnercial in- terest and the fellowship of scxnal communication bound the States of the coast to their younger sisters of the Mississippi \'alley. The old saying that a free government could not exist over a wide expanse of territory was The political significance. ^ An admirable short essiciy on the railroads and their functions in Sha- ler's The United Slates of America, vol. ii, pp. 05-131. 286 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION bereft of meaning, for, as the railroads were built into the West. Michigan and Illinois became the next-door neighbors of Massa- chusetts and Connecticut. One of the most serious difficulties with which Adams had to deal arose out of troubles between Georgia and the Indian tribes within her borders. For some years Georgia had been anxious to get possession of the land of the the°indians. Creek and Cherokee Indians within the limits of that State. These tribes were already civilized. The Cherokees especially were well advanced. They had churches, schools, and courts of law, and had well-tilled fields and comfortable homes. The presence of such independent bodies within the State, not subject to its laws, was unnat- ural. Georgia desired the Indians' lands, and was not will- ing to wait. She demanded the immediate removal of the tribes beyond the Mississippi. A treaty was made by the National Government providing for the sale of most of the land of the Creeks. But Georgia would not wait until the time came for carrying out the treaty. State surveyors were ordered into the territory of the Creeks. The President forbade the survey.^ At first the State obeyed, but finally became very impatient. The Governor announced the doctrine of State sov- ereignty, and asserted that the State had an equal authority with the United States ''to pass upon its rights". Adams was prepared to protect the Indians in their property, and ordered the United States District Attorney and the marshal to arrest any one endeavoring to survey the Indian lands west of a cer- tain line. The Governor prepared for resistance, and ordered the militia officers of the State to be in readiness with their forces to repel invasion. The majority in Congress were op- posed to Adams and did not wish to support him, and he hesi- tated, naturally, to bring on civil war on such an issue. The Creeks were soon compelled to leave their lands. About the ^ Indian affairs have always been under the control of the Federal Gov- ernment. Congress is given power to regulate commerce with Indian tribes. See Constitution, art. i, sec. vii, § 3. Moreover, the Creeks and the Federal Government had entered into treaties. PARTY REORGANIZATION 287 same time encroachments were made upon the Cherokee terri- tory, and the final outcome was much the same as in the case of the Creeks. Georgia successfully maintained her "sovereign- ty ".^ Of course the tariff caused trouble during these years; when has it not? Unprotected interests, sections that appeared to reap nothing but higher prices, manufacturers who 1 82V ^" ' wanted higher rates to keep out foreign goods or enable them to charge more for their own — all might find good ground for dispute over the tariff. The home- market argument was now used effectively by those who wanted to build up American factories; thus even the farmers were urged to support the tariff in order to make an American market for the products of the farm. In 1824 a new protective tariff bill was passed. It was favored mainly by the Middle States and the West north of the Ohio; it was opposed by an almost solid South and by part of New England. The Southerners objected because it meant to them higher prices for factory- made goods. The men of New England, Webster for example, opposed it because it acted as a check on commerce. But the bill of 1824 was not enough; the manufacturers — like Oliver Twist — comforted with a little, wanted more; they wanted higher duties and more protection. In 1828 a bill Tariff of fQj. |-j^g purpose was introduced. All the interests abominations, r ^i i in 1828. 01 the country began at once to push and scramble for recognition. The result was what is commonly known as the "tariff of abominations". It was an "economic monstrosity". The rate of duty on many articles, including raw materials for manufactures, was very high. So much had the coming presidential election been kept in view, that John Ran- 1 This trouble with Georgia has its political significance in the fact that the State maintained, in some measure, its authority against the Govern- ment. It is also significant as an episode in the process of transferring the Indians to reservations in the West. The plan of confining them to reser- vations was fully carried out in the course of the century. During Jackson's administration the Cherokee lands were occupied, and Georgia success- fully defied the authority of the Federal court. See Schouler, History, vol. iv, pp. 233-235; Sumner, Andrew Jackson, pp. 180-183. 288 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION dolph declared in a biting phrase, ''The bill referred to manu- factures of no sort or kind except the manufacture of a President of the United States". ^ The South had now become bitterly opposed to a tarilt. It seemed to enrich the Northerner, and to make the Southerner pay an enhanced price for all the goods which he ♦ ?i oppose^ bousjht. There were at the South no factories, or to tne tanti. ~ nearly none; the people therefore did not seek pro- tection. Randolph said that the bill was intended "to rob and plunder one half of the Union for the benefit of the residue". South Carolina protested against the law. asserting that it was unconstitutional, and an abuse of power incompatible with free government. ''The interests of South Carolina", she said, "are a£:ricultural, and to cut off her foreii^n market and to confine her products to an inadequate home market is to reduce her to pov- erty". The defenders of the American system argued that the South derived a benefit from the fact that the tariff made a home market, and thus brought a market nearer to the cotton States, and therefore increased the price of cotton. But the planters did not admit the tmth or force of this argument. Because of the President's advocacy of internal improve- ments, and because of the passage of the tariff bill, for which the National Republicans were largely responsible, a of 1828^ ^°° strong and united opposition was formed against Adams before the end of his administration. The South was a unit against him, and the foes of internal improve- ments at the North were opposed to his policy. Moreover, Jackson was ever^-^vhere hailed as the people's friend, the man of the common people, while Adams was denounced as an aris- tocrat, who felt himself above the ordinary man. There was an outburst of popular enthusiasm for the ''hero of New Or- leans". Now it must be noted that since the beginning of the Government the high oflaces of state had been in the hands of trained statesmen, and the presidency had been given to men of learning and experience. But in 182S the people had grown ^ Webster now favored the tariff, claiming that New England factories had been built up on that basis. TARTY REORGANIZATION 289 confident — ovorcontulont — anel ready to resent the insinuation that they needed edueated or experieneed statesmen lo lead them or show I hem the way. The West, whieh was enthusi- astie for Jaekson, was aeeustomed to give its allegianee to a downriglit foreible eharaeter hke "Old lliekory", who had sue- ceeded in what he had undertaken, and had whipped the British and the Indians with equal thoroughness and skill. And so Adams found strcMig sui>port only in the Xortheasl, and there he was defended by the more eonser\ati\e elements of society, who dreaded what they eonsitlered a democratic ui>heaval and feared the elect iiMi of a new and untrietl man to the presidency. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, was the canditlate of the Na- tional Republicans for Vice-President. Calhoun held second place on the Jackson ticket. Jackson received one hundred and seventy-eight electoral votes, while Adams received only eighty- three. The popular vote of the National Republicans was large, however, and this showed that a strong conservative party was in existence. References Hart, Contemporaries, \'olumo 111, pp. 561-567; Hart, Formation of the Union, Chapter XII; Burgess, The Middle Period, Chapters \T-\TI; ScHURZ, Henry Clay, \'olume I, Chapters IX-XI; Morse John Quiney Adams, pp. 148-214; SuiMNER, A ndreio Jaekson, Chapter fV-V. Longer accounts: jMcIMaster, Volume V, pp. 55-267, 433~5S^', ScHOULER, Volume III. pp. 262-270, 304-450; Turner, Rise of the Xrcv JVest, Chapters XIII, XV-XIX; JMcDonald, Jaek- sonian Dcmoeracy, Chapter HI. CHAPTER XVI Andrew JacksoiL, THE TACKSOXIAX ERA— THE TASKS OF A NEW SELF- CONSCIOUS DEMOCRACY Andrew Jackson is one of the most striking figures in Amer- ican histor}-. and few persons have pkiyed a more important part. He was born in South Carolina in 1767, of sturdy Scotch-Irish stock. When he was twenty- one he moved to Xash^'ille. He studied kiw, and when Tennessee was admitted to the Union he became the first representative from the State in Congress. Soon afterwards he ^ became senator, but held the posi- tion only a short time. "When I was President of the Senate", wrote Jefferson at a later time, "he was a senator, and he could never speak on accoimt of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often choke with rage". Until the outbreak of the War of 1S12 Jackson was most of the time in private life, not in pub- lic oflace. His surroundings w^re those of a rough frontier community, and we read of his ■ taking part in duels and quarrels that were t\pical oi the crude life of the young and energetic Southwest of those days. For it can not be denied that, with much that was sound and wholesome, there was a good deal that was rude and boisterous in the life of these new States beyond 2\>0 0>«^ THE JACKSONIAN ERA 201 the mountains. Jackson, in his downrightness and uprightness, in his promptness to resent an insult and to light in obedience to the code of honor, was a true son of his surroundings. His early career taught him to love his friends and to hate his ene- mies. In the War of 1S12 he fought with characteristic bravery and energy, showing many of the qualities of skillful generalship. In the Seminole War (iSiS-iSig) he crushed the hostile Indians of the South and won now renown. He was a man of perfect honesty, and his motives were good; he had a warm heart, a quick temper, and the faculty of winning men and of making them love him, and, though his powers were m a measure un- disciplmed, he had unusual mental vigor. The counselors and friends who surrounded him when he was President never hid him from view; he stood always clearly out before the people. His greatest weakness lay in the fact that designing men, his friends, could play upon his prejudices, and through his iron will accomplish their own objects. Jackson was elected in 182S because he was looked upon as a candidate of the common people, while Adams was declared to be an aristocrat without sympathy for the his^ieTtion ^ niasscs; it was said, too, that Jackson had been defrauded of his just rights in 1824. His election marks an era in our politics for many reasons: he was the first man chosen from the new West; he was the first man elected President who had not already acquired wide knowledge and experience in public afifairs. The election of this self-made man, who was put forward as ''a man of the people", shows that in the development of American life the people had reached a stage of self-confidence, feeling no need of trained experts in statesman- ship, and desiring only some one who would fulfill their behests. Perhaps they were overconfident, and there was certainly some- thing wrong in their antagonism to an experienced man like Adams on the ground that he was an aristocrat, for it is not undemocratic to place in public office the best of trained ser- vants; but, nevertheless, in the growth of a popular state like the United States it is only reasonable to expect that the people will come to see their power and use it; and only when they 292 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION know their power can they feel the full responsibilities of citizenship. Up to the time of Jackson's accession to the presidency na- tional office-holders were removed only for inefficiency or dis- honesty. Adams removed only two men in his syslem°^ ^ whole term, and these not for political reasons. Although a strong party was arrayed against him, he refused to use public office to reward his friends. Now, Jackson was fully persuaded that the office-holders who had held their places under Adams were a corrupt lot, for by tem- perament he looked upon all who were not his friends as his enemies, and, moreover, he believed that the Adam^s adminis- tration was begotten by fraud, and that none who participated in it merited consideration. In some of the States the practice of using public office as a reward to political friends was already fully established. Influenced by men that had been used to this practice, and hearing the outcry against aristocratic office- holders, Jackson began the removal of men who were opposed to him in politics and filled their places with his followers. ^ Thus was introduced into the national administration the "spoils system", 2 in accordance with which a person was given employ- ployment in the public service not because he was competent and trained for his duties, but because he was a faithful partisan. Jackson was honest and patriotic, but he was instrumental in 1 There were more men removed from office in the first few months of Jackson's administration than in the forty years preceding. 2 These words seem to have been adopted from a speech made by W. L. Marcy in the Senate in 183 1. *Tt may be, sir, that the politicians of New York are not so fastidious as some gentlemen are as to disclosing the prin- ciples on which they act. . . . They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy". The spoils system was in part the natural product of Western democracy; men, brought up in the simple conditions of frontier life, naturally had no particular sympathy with the notion that there was need of education or experience for public office. The man whom the Westerners admired was the self-made man, who had succeeded in business or politics. In part, the spoils system was the prod- uct of intense, aggressive party strife; the offices were to be used as a reward for party work, a means of financing the party. See "Spoils System" in McLaughlin and Hart, Cyclopedia of American Government. THE JACKSONIAN ERA 293 establishing this system, which has had a most harmful influence upon the character of our national politics.^ These were years of great development and progress, as well as times of heated political controversy. The spirit of the na- tion was fully awake; if we have thought that we AnTerica. could scc before this time the real America, the land of opportunity and of active energy, the land where man unrepressed by class systems and social prejudices could move onward and upward and where each could find the place his own energy and merit entitled him to — if we have thought in our study that we have seen the real America before, we must realize, when we come to Jackson's term, that the past had been only a preparation. All the ruthless energy, the deter- mination and the eager self confidence of a young and buoyant nation now showed themselves in politics, in literature, in busi- ness activity, in the daily life of the people. If the cruder signs of American life showed themselves in a scramble for office and in intense political controversy, that was not all; there were signs of awakened intellectual literature. mterest. American literature was entering upon a new and brilliant career. Washington Irving had already achieved fame by his chaste and picturesque tales and sketches. Cooper was writing his novels of the sea and wilder- ness, and Poe was beginning to give out his weird stories and his pure and delicate verses. Hawthorne, born in Salem, in the very midst of Puritan tradition, was starting upon his career as the romancer of mystery and of Puritanic faith and superstition. ^ It is an amusing and significant picture that we get of Jackson's inaug- uration, after the retirement of the sedate Adams. People rushed to the White House, crowded into the drawing rooms, upset the ices and the tubs of punch, stood with muddy boots on th« fine furniture — and acted gener- ally as if they wanted the best and much of it. Surely that wasn't democ- racy; surely that was not the real expression of the sense and good manners of the men of the time. But that unmannerly crowd, which we refuse to consider representative of the great body of the people, did show in its very extravagance of rudeness the feeling that the people had come into their own, and, if the hungry ones wanted ice cream and cake, many another wanted office; they hungered for spoils, 20 294 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX His terse, simple, harmonious style proved that clear and sweet English prose could be written outside the British Isles. Emer- son was just beginning his essays on the homely practical phi- losophy of life, and Longfellow the finely finished poems that have placed him at the head of American poets. In orator^' the Americans easily outstripped any English competitors of that generation. Webster's speeches were great and pure and sim- ple; Edward Everett uttered polished periods, turned and fitted with delicate care. Clay's fier\' eloquence and Calhoun's cold reasoning always had something artistic about them. In the writing of histor\', too, American authors were showing talent. Bancroft began the publication of his great work, the final re- vision of which did not appear until forty years later. Prescott published in i S3 8 his Ferdinand and Isabella, the earliest of his charming volumes on Spain and the Spaniards of the Xew World. The American inventive spirit, which had showed itself in the invention of the cotton gin and the steamboat, was now manifest in many new labor-saving devices. One Open-mmded- ^.j^g |-j^g ^McCormick reaper, another the steam ham- ness and _, . . , . . ^ -r progress. i^^r. Fnctiou matches were commg mto use. in I S3 7 Samuel F. B. Morse applied for a patent for sending messages by electricity; he did not succeed till some years later (1S43) ^^ getting money to make a practical and con- Reproduction of the First Telegraphic Message Sent by the Morse System, Xow Preser\'ed at H.\rvard College vincing test, but when that was done men realized that a new world had come; space was annihilated; with the growth of the telegraph all parts of the country- could be bound together; all the people of the land could know what happened in the re- motest corner. In 1S3S steamboats began to make trips across THE JACKSONIAN ERA 295 the Atlantic. About the same time the process of smelting iron with anthracite coal and the hot-air blast was put into success- ful operation, the beginning of that great industry in the United States. The great natural resources of the land were now being seized upon, the beginning of the effort which in later years was to bring immense fortunes and bring, in their train, industrial and social problems of great perplexity. This country offered a welcome asylum for men of energy or of in- ventive power, for no device was rejected because of its novelty. This same open-mindedness and this eagerness for progress showed themselves in the establishment of new wide-awake newspapers. More important still, the public-school system was widened and popularized ; men felt that every boy and girl should have a chance to learn as well as to gain wealth. The Jacksonian era was a time when great characteristics of the nineteenth century seemed to burst forth into view. The intensity of national life seemed to show itself free Characteristics ^^^^^ restraint, and, although there was doubtless of the nine- ^ ' . teenth century, a fantastic cxtravagancc, in these very exaggera- tions one can see with special clearness certain qualities that mark the line of growth along which the nation was moving. The development of the public- school system came doubtless from a feeling of public duty, from a realization of the essential unity of the people, and from a comprehension of the fact that a demo- cratic government was safe only in the hands of an edu- cated people. But while the century was marked by the growth of knowledge and by the popularizing of education, it was marked still more, perhaps, by the widening and deep- ening of human sympathy and feeling. The foundation of the great missionary societies, five of which were established be- tween 1830 and 1840, is an important evidence of this develop- ment of generous feeling for others. And as there grew up in men's minds a fuller appreciation of their relation to their fellows they showed this appreciation in great social movements, in works of generosity and charity. One might expect that men in democratic America would manifest more clearly than the 296 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX people of Europe this sentiment of humanity; and such was probably the case; but everywhere in Europe, too, dur- ing the fourth and fifth decades of the century, there ap- [H\ired these waxes of social sentiment, all marking the great movement of society, and, if they were extreme or extravagant at the time, they are none the less proofs of the great motive force of the century. '"We are a little wild here", wrote Emerson from Boston, *"with num- berless projects of social reform; not a leading man but has a draft of a new community in his waist- coat pocket". The im- pulse for temperance re- form which swept o\"er the country, and the AboUtion movement, which we shall soon study, were niani- festations of this new social conscience. "A great wave of humanity, of benevolence, of desire for improvement, poured itself among all who had the faculty of large and disinterested thinking".^ The democratic spirit which we have seen in the political life of the country' prevaikxi in society. The election of Jack- son simply heralded the fact that the pei^ple felt their power, and that they had reached their majority. Social distinctions had now vanished or were of little moment. A spirit of boastfulness was not lacking; for men prided themselves on the fact that the United States, 'These words are used of the situation in England in J. Motley. The Lito of KiohArd CoKlen. p. M. See also IIinsd;Ue. Horace M.um. p. 7^^ ihsiRuu'TioN OP Popn-\Tiox IN 1S30 Democracy. THE JACKSONIAN ERA 297 in advance of the world, was gi\'ing an example of popular gov- crnn\ent, and thty declared their country to be the freest and best on earth. Despite self-assertion and vainglory, there was nuich that was sound and good in this democratic spirit; the people rudely made real the Iriitli tliat "worth makes the man, and want of it tlic fellow"— the true motto of true democracy. ]\Ten were hard at work, for work was no disgrace in this new country; they eagerly sought after money, not for its own sake, but for what it would l)riiig. Work was the common lot oi all men; and where that is the case democratic equality has its surest foundation.^ One is not mistaken in attributing this development of re- ligious, moral, and mental freedom and strength, in part at least, to democratic institutions, to the fact that in Democracy and * • i • m •t'l' i human progress. AmcHca cach man was giN'cn responsibilities, and taught by the force of circumstances, by his duties, by the very political theory of the commonwealth, tt) think for himself and to stri\e for i)ersonal uplift. Out of this feeling of personal responsibility and power have come the successful establishment and maintenance of the Church and other relig- ious institutions upon a juTfectly free and voluntary system, without the authority or interference of the Government; the building up of the great free-school system, of which we have spoken; and the endowment of higher institutions of learning, libraries, and rnuseums by the State as well as by private gen- erosity. All of these came from the free and unrestrained de- sire of an intelligent iniblic. We may well stop to consider these facts while we are discussing these profoundly interesting times, when Andrew Jackson, ''the man of the people", was President, and when in countless ways energetic men, realizing in some measure the heritage of a great country and a free government, were pushing boldly and enthusiastically forward in the pursuit of wealth and moral and intellectual ideals. ^ The society in America is discussed in Schouler, History, vol. ii, chap, viii (1809), and vol. iv, chap. .\iii (i8ji). 298 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION But all was not smooth sailing in these days of national feel- ing and of eager life. The settling of the West had in a measure unsettled the East; the old States of the South had been stand- ing still, at least not growing relatively in population and in wealth. The opening up of the new cotton fields of the interior, while it greatly increased the output of cotton, reduced the price, and the owners of the old plantations, which were in part worn out, were ill at ease and dissatisfied. South Carolina especially was tried and troubled as she saw the North growing in wealth and strength. She complained bitterly of the tariff, to which she attributed her woes, and insisted that it gave Northern manu- facturers the opportunity to reap benefits at her expense.^ "We are mere consumers", declared Calhoun, ''the serfs of the system out of whose labor is raised, not only the money paid into the Treasury, but funds out of which are drawn the rich rewards of the manufacturer and his associate in interest". As we have already seen, the tariff act of 1828 had hardly been passed when some of the Southern States began to show their strong dislike of the protective system. South Carolina "Vvas foremost in opposition, and John C. Calhoun was her leader and guide. Calhoun had drifted wide from the position * Probably the tariff did bear heavily on the South and especially on such states as South Carolina, whose planters wanted to sh'p their cotton to Europe and bring back supplies free of all necessary duty. But back of all were the expensiveness of slavery and the fact that South Carolina could not adapt herself to new conditions. Protection did not raise the price of cotton or fertilize the old fields. Cotton Crop in Million Pounds Years 1791 1801 1811 1821 1826 1834 The Old South- Virginia to Georgia 2 39 , 75 117 180 160 The New South — Tennessee to Louisiana and Arkansas o i 5 60 150.5 297.5 Price of Cotton. 1816 1820 1824 1827 "nearly 30 cents 17 cents i4-75 cents 9 cents. See Turner, Rise of the New West, pp. 47, 325. THE JACKSONIAN ERA 299 John C. Calhoun he held after the War of 1812, when he advocated a broad national policy. He now stood forth as the champion of State sovereignty, and devoted himself to a defence of sec- tional interests. His native state was restless and discon- tented, and extremists were beginning to threaten disunion. He continually opposed dis- union; but outlining the princi- ples of State sovereignty, which might in the end justify seces- sion, he put forth his principles of nullification, by which a State might, while still a mem- ber of the Union, temporarily prevent the enforcement of ob- jectionable laws. A clear and incisive reasoner and a fine public speaker, he had great influence upon his people and, as years went by, towered up as the leading figure in the whole Southland. Calhoun began in 1828 to develop his theories of the nature of the Union. He announced that each State was wholly sov- ereign, and the Constitution only an agreement or compact between sovereign States; that each State of the Union was not subject to the Consti- tution as a superior law, but retained the right to govern itself wholly if it so preferred. From State sovereignty came the right of secession; each State had the right to interpret the Constitution for itself, and, if it chose, to withdraw from the Union on the ground that the agreement or treaty (the Con- stitution) had been broken, or on the ground that its interests were no longer furthered. In accordance with this theory, the relations between the various States were just the same as they would be between France, England, and Spain if they should enter into a treaty establishing a cen- State sovereignty Secession 300 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX and nullifijatioa. tral agent to which certain p)ower5 of government should be given for certain purposes; each of the three States would retain its full sovereign character, and would have the right to withdraw from association with the others when it chose. Xullincation meant the right of a State to declare null and void any act of the Federal Govern- ment wliich it considered a breach of the compact (the Consti- tutionV if the other States insisted on upholding the act, tlie aggrieved State would have the right to withdraw from the Union. 1 In 1S30 Senator Ha>Tie, of South Carolina, gave utterance, in the Senate, to the theories of State sovereigntv. The great -ry " ' - debate. ^^ ^^'^^^^ ^ "^^^^^ ^^^ strong parts, and his presentation of Calhoun's theories was forcible. Dimiel Webster answeretl him in a great speech, which stands to-day misurpassed in the annals of American ora- tory*. Webster was then at the height of his intellectual vigor. His eloquence was pure and great Xo orator who has e\"er spoken the English tongue has excelled him in the beauty, force, and ap- propriateness of language. He ^^^^^ //'^iC'/^Z^^^ ^ Under this theor>- of Calhoun, a State would nullify while it remained in the Union, but secession would follow in case the obnoxious laws were enforced against its will. "Should the other members", \\Tote Calhoun, *' undertake to grant the^x^ver nuUitied. and should the nature ... be such as to defeat the object of the . . . Union, at least so far as the member nullify- ing is concerned, it would then become an abuse of pwwer on the part of the principals [the other States], and thus present a case where secession would apply". Between iSjS and 1S3J Calhoun fully outlineii the whole logical basis of secession. Xothing needed to be added in iSoi. Read Johnston. Am. Orations, vol. iii, p. 3.11; MacDonald, Jacksonian Democ- racy, pp. S4-S7, 105, 149, etc. THE JACKSOXIAN ERA 301 maintained, in reply to Hayne, that the Constitution was a law, and not a mere agreement; that it had the force of law, and was binding on each and every State; and Uiat each State could not at will interpret the Constitution to suit its interests. He point- ed out that nullification must be only interstate anarchy. The speech made a deep impression on the people of the country, for it harmonized well with the predominating sentiment at theXorth. This was long known as "the great debate" in the Senate. But Calhoun's doctrines were to be more forcibly depicted than by mere oratory. In 1S32 a new tariff act was passed. This was more moderate than the one of four Nullification in , .- i . o ^i r-. i- i South Ciuoiimi. y^^^r^ betore, but bouth Carolina prepared to pro- test directly against it. Under tlie direction of Calhoun the steps for nullilication were taken. A convention of the people declared the taritY law null and void, forbade its execution within the State, and threatened secession from the Union if there should be an effort to enforce it. This was No- vember, 1S32. The Ordinance of Nullihcation was to go into force February i, 1S33. On December nth Jackson issued his famous proclamation addressed to the people of South Carolina. It was full of tire and vigor. It was at once strong, reasonable, and proclamation, g^^tlc. ''The Liws of the United States must be executed'', he said. "Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution deceived you. . . Their object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason". The people of the United States owe Jackson a deep debt of gratitude. His name — a name of power for many years to come — was joined with the idea of union and the supremacv of the Constitution. But he did more than issue a proclamation: he made preparation to enforce the law. Calhoun resigned the vice-presidency, and was elected Sena- tor from his State. In the winter a tariff bill, called the Com- _ . promiseTariff of iS:;^ was passed. This provided Compromises. ^ ^ ^' v r for a gradual lowering of the duties. Clay was instrumental in bringing about the compromise. At the same time an act, known as ''the force bill", was passed giving the 302 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION President means of enforcing the law. Thus were presented to South CaroUna "the rod and the olive branch bound up to- gether". South Carolina repealed the nullification ordinance, thus accepting the olive branch, while she ignored the threaten- ing rod. Danger of war or secession w^as, for the time being, gone; but South Carolina, under the guidance of Calhoun, had put forth an ominous doctrine which would form the basis for State or sectional opposition when new necessity or fresh enmities arose. Through the summer of 1832 a contest of another sort had been in progress, a struggle between the friends and the oppo- _ , nents of the Bank of the United States. From The bank. the beginning of Jackson's administration the bank had been more or less under fire. Jackson himself had a natural objection to it, although he does not seem to have been anxious to attack it until it was hinted to him that the institution was using its power for political purposes against the Administra- tion. This was doubtless not true at first. But Jackson in various messages to Congress hinted at the dangers of such a moneyed organization and the unconstitutionality of the char- ter. The National Republicans, led by Clay, believed that the bank was useful and desirable, and thought that the people at large felt the same way about it. In 1832, though the charter did not expire till four years later, a bill was passed by Congress granting a new charter. Jackson vetoed the bill on the ground of unconstitutionality, and for other reasons.^ "Bank or no bank" was one of the chief issues of the presi- dential campaign of that year. Jackson had appealed to a wide public sentiment when he objected to what he considered a great national monopoly, and he was, of course, enthusiastically ^ The bank, it will be remembered, obtained a charter in 18 16, good for twenty years. It is still a subject of dispute as to whether such a central bank with its branches throughout the Union was a wise plan. Jackson declared in his message that the bank wais a machine for mak- ing the rich richer and the poor poorer, a great grinding monopoly. What had the Western farmer or the poor of the Eastern cities to gain from a gigantic bank? Why grant it special privileges? THE JACKSONIAN ERA 303 supported by those who admired his strong and vigorous methods. The anti- Jackson forces put forward as their can- didate Henry Clay — the father of the "American the^eiectiorT systcm", the strong defender of the bank, the natural reliance of the more conservative business interests of the country. Though an eloquent speaker and a man of unusual personal charm, who won friends wherever he ap- peared, he could make no headway against the current of popular approval for " old Hickory " and was badly beaten in the election. Before the end of another presidential term his fol- whlg^party.^ lowcrs took the name of Whigs. The name itself, recalling the popular one. by which the patriots of the Revolution were known, implied that Jackson's methods "were high-handed and tyrannical' '.^ Jackson now felt himself sustained in his attitude toward the bank. In the summer of 1833 he proceeded to make another attack upon it. The charter declared that the deposits, 1833. public money was to be deposited in the bank " un- less the Secretary of the Treasury shall at any time otherwise order and direct,- in which case he shall imme- diately lay before Congress . . . the reason of such order or direction". Jackson determined to remove the deposits. In order to accomplish this he needed to make some changes in his Cabinet. He first appointed William J. Duane Secretary of the Treasury, but the new secretary refused to take the neces- sary action; whereupon Jackson dismissed him, and appointed — — ' ' ■ — ^ ^Jackson's administration is sometimes called the "reign of Andrew Jackson", because Jackson was charged with disregard for law and con- stitutional restrictions. Each party was eager to accuse the other of having no regard for the Constitution. When, in 1833, Harvard gave Jackson the degree of doctor of laws (LL.D.), the wits of the time asserted that it was well given, for Jackson was all the time doctoring up the laws. The Whigs continued to defend the bank; they favored the tariff; they were ready to interpret the Constitution broadly to get what they wanted; they were made up, generally speaking, of the well-to-do and the more conservative classes; men who had looked upon Jackson as a mere unshorn, blustering Indian fighter from the wilds of the backwoods, were likely to find place in the Whig party. 304 HISTORY OF THE AIMERICAN NATION Roger B. Taney, who did as desired, and issued an order that the public money should no longer be placed in the bank. This was called a removal of the deposits, though in reality the Gov- ernment simply ceased to deposit its money in the bank, and New Edition of Macbeth, 1837. Bank-Oh's Ghost A Contemporary Caricature of Jackson's Bank Policy- did not at once draw out all the money it had there. The Gov- ernment funds were thereafter placed in banks acting under State charters; "pet banks" they were called. The hope of having part of the public money for use encouraged bankmaking, and the number of State banks rapidly increased. Jackson was sharply attacked by the Whigs for his assault upon the bank, and a resolution of censure was spread upon the records of the Senate. Thomas H. Benton, of The censure and jyjjssouri, gavc uotice that he would each session, tne expunging . resolution. Until he succeeded in his efforts, introduce a resolution to erase the censure from the record. After three years his famous "expunging resolution" was adopted. These years were full of business zest and enterprise. The whole country was in a state of great prosperity, but men were THE JACKSONIAN ERA 305 rapidly losing their heads in their search of immediate riches. One source of speculation was the Western lands. State banks grew rapidly in number and issued their promises sJ^pius^rev'lnue. ^o pay by the handful. These notes were taken by the Government in exchange for wild lands, and because of this and other sources of income the Treasury was well filled. The States were now eagerly engaged in build- ing railroads, and canals, and so it was proposed that the Na- tional Government distribute its surplus revenue among the States. A bill for that purpose was passed in 1836. The money was to be given out in four quarterly installments, beginning January i, 1837. Three payments were made, amounting in all to about $28,000,000. Before the fourth installment was due the Government had no more money to give away. This distribution was on the face of the law only a loan ; really it was looked upon as a gift. The money so distributed has not been repaid. It did the States little good, and probably in most in- stances did harm, encouraging wild plans of internal improve- ment, for many of which there was no real demand. Before the end of Jackson's term he caused to be issued the ''specie circular", an order directing that only gold and silver and so-calied land scrip should be received in pay- circuUr!"^ ment for lands. This brought the speculators and wild enthusiasts face to face with facts, and soon made clear to them that promises to pay money were not money, and that making plans of cities on the Western prairies did not materially add to the wealth of the nation. It is not strange that the people's heads were turned by the sight of the nation's growth; for the country was filling up with Growth astonishing rapidity. The seacoast towns no longer looked like country villages, but had put on the airs of populous cities. Emigrants from Europe came in in- creasing numbers, many of them staying in the ports where they landed, others moving to the new West. The Western States and Territories grew at a marvelous rate. Arkansas and Mich- igan were admitted as States (1836 and 1837). Ohio increased her population in the decade (1830-40) from about 900,000 to 306 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION 1,500,000, or over 62 per cent. The population of Illinois in- creased 202 per cent.; of Michigan, 570 per cent.; of Mississippi, 175 per cent.; other States of the Mississippi Valley advanced almost as rapidly, and even the Territories were filling with sturdy settlers. Chicago in 1830 was but a rude frontier post, a mere cluster of houses; before 1840 it was a prosperous town, with lines of steamers connecting it with the East, and was already the center of the newest West. There seem to have been less than thirty miles of railroad in the country in 1830; in 1840 there were not far from three thousand. It is no wonder that men were induced improvements. ^^ build air castles, or that they expected to see the Western wilderness conquered in a day. Some of the States planned great railroad and canal systems, and, wild with schemes of internal improvement, plunged rashly into debt. Michigan, for example, entered upon the task of building three railroads across the State, voted sums for the survey of canals, and authorized the Governor to borrow five million dol- lars to defray the expenses of such undertakings. Individuals as well as States discounted the future, expecting almost imme- diate wealth as a result of investments. As we have already seen, the purchase of wild lands from the Government was an especially attractive form of speculation. Men seem actually to have thought that lands puWic landl.'" purchased at $1.25 an acre would in a few days or months be worth much more on the market, al- though the Government had a great deal more land to sell at the old figure. Indeed, at times these speculations were profit- able, for the nation was buoyed up with hope and with visions of unbounded prosperity. Sales of Government lands rose from about two and a half million dollars in 1832 to over twenty-four million dollars in 1836. There was much healthy vigor, for the country was growing, and its growth was due to zealous work. But thrift had been displaced by greed for immediate riches, and the result was sure to be disappointment, if not disaster. Few saw, when Jackson left office in 1837, that the storm was ready to break. THE JACKSONIAN ERA 307 In 1836 Martin Van Buren, one of Jackson's proteges and favorites, was chosen President, defeating William Henry Har- rison, whom the Whigs had nominated. ^ Van Buren prided himself on being the successor of the ''man of the people" and proclaimed his intention of carrying forward the policy of Jack- son. He probably would have dearly liked to be a popular idol himself; but few men were so ill-fitted for that role. Carrying out Jackson's policies without being Jackson was no easy job, and Van Buren was soon face to face with trouble that would have tried even the stern head and stout heart of the old chief- tain.2 The nation was elated, joyous and confident, but a pe- riod of distress and want was at hand. Some slight indications had already been given that the country was on the eve of business disaster. It was awakening with a shock from the prolonged fit of intoxication 183^^*"^** over American success and growth. In the win- ter before the inauguration a large gathering was held in New York in response to a call headed "Bread, meat, rent, fuel! Their prices must come down"! There were troubles in Europe, and Englishmen who had invested money in this country pow began to demand payment on their stocks, bonds, and notes. With what were Americans to pay? With the paper of the hundreds of banks — banks with little or no gold and silver in their vaults, and without capital that could be * The nomination of Harrison and Granger was not made by a formal national convention. -Van Buren was president one term, 183 7-1 841. He had been some- what prominent in political life for twenty years before his accession to the presidency. He had been senator from New York, and Vice-President of the United States. He was a politician of great adroitness, and so clever in political management that he had won the title of the "Little Magician". He was a polished, poHte, good-natured man, never giving way to excite- ment or to appearance of anger. His cool suavity was attributed by his enemies to a designing disposition, his politeness to a capacity for deceit. His life does not show, however, that he was devoid of either ability or principle. He performed his presidential duties well. His term was full of trouble and anxiety, but he showed good judgment and discretion in m€et- ing the trying problems that confronted him. 308 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION turned into good money? Of course, the Englishmen wanted good money. Jackson's specie circular, too, did much to topple over the castles in the air which the people had been building. It now became clear enough that the paper of worthless banks was not money; and it soon appeared that nearly everything had acquired an unreal price. Soon all was confusion; workmen were thrown out of employment, and there was much suffering among the poor; men, that had thought themselves rich, found that their wealth was in Western lands for which there was no market, or in promises to pay on which they could not realize, or in shares of some gigantic project which was now no more. The great fabric, reared on credit and hope, fell, and the whole country was in consternation. The lesson was pretty sharply taught, that not the planning of new cities where none were needed, or the digging of canals where the coimtry was not ready for them, or the speculation in lands or stocks, created real wealth or stored up help for the day of di "Stress. Unfortunately, all the lessons of this panic were not gath- ered by the people. The Government was charged with a large part of the trouble. Doubtless Jackson's some- Help from the what rudc handling of financial affairs had aggra- demanded. vatcd matters, but the root of the evil was reckless extravagance. There was a wide demand now for the Government to lift the people out of their difficulties, but the Government was itself in perplexing straits. Beginning in January to distribute money among the States, before the end of the year it was not only unable to pay the last of the four quarterly installments, but was hardly able to meet its own running expenses. Van Buren bravely refused to recommend any extraordinary plans for bringing about good times, because he did not believe it was the duty of government — especially the United States Government — to lift people out of pits which they had dug with their own hands. He was in consequence denounced as hardhearted and cruel by Whig orators and by many of the people. He recommended (special session, September, 1837) that thereafter the Government of the United States should do its THE JACKSONIAN ERA 309 own financial business; that it should not keep its funds in State banks, nor, on the other hand, establish another national bank, but that the money should be collected and kept J^^^^j^^^^^;^- by the Government itself. This meant simply that whatever money was collected should be pui by the Government in its own " strong box". The plan — called the ''Divorce Bill", because it divorced the Government from, the banks — was bitterly attacked, and was not indeed adopted until 1840. The next year this bill was repealed; but in 1846 a like measure was adopted. Since that day a similar means of keeping the public money has been followed.^ There had been strong party disputes and much ill-feeling during Jackson's administration and during Van Buren's like- wise; but by 1840 it was apparent that much that democratic^^ Jackson stood for was accepted as a lasting part of American political life. The Whigs, loudly cry- ing out against Jacksonian tyranny and his high-minded meth- ods, were now themselves Jacksonian in part. They made no pretence — and they could not if they hoped for success — of being superior to other folks or of distrusting the sense or ability of the masses of the people. Though there were many strong Whigs among the planters of the Southe.^-n States, the party was always somewhat stronger in the East than in the West or South. It was largely made up of the business people and the manufac- turers, who wanted an able, effective government, a tariff and good banks; on the whole, they included much the same element as that which had formed the old Federalist party; but wherever they were or whatever they stood for, they appealed for popular support, and did not try to hold aloof or pretend to possess more sense and capacity than the ordinary citizen. The election of 1840 brought forth no issues that now de- mand our serious attention. The Democrats nominated Van Buren again, and tried to win success by pointing to his record; they opposed the reestablishment of the national bank, and ' Portions of the public money are kept in national banks which were provided for during the Civil War. 21 310 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION favored the independent treasury. The Whigs put forward William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, who had received some sup- port in 1836, and they nominated for the vice-presi- Democrafs tn^^ dency John Tyler, of Virginia. These nominations 1840. illustrate, in a measure, the character of the Whig party of the time ; it was decidedly a party of opposi- tion, and had, therefore, no very precise set of principles and no very distinct character. Harrison was chosen as leader, not be- cause he stood clearly for some particular principle or policy, but rather because he did not. Into the Whig ranks had come the mal- contents and those dissatisfied with the conduct of the party in power. Tyler, for example, was a states-rights man, who ob- jected to Jackson's personal rule and what were called his high- handed ruthless methods; but he was almost as much out of place in the Whig party, by the side of Webster and Clay, as in the party of Jackson and Van Buren. Tyler thought that he and Clay were boon companions and co-workers, though, in reality, they had little in common save equal dislike for Andrew Jackson. It is said that Tyler wept when Clay was not chosen in the Con- vention to be the standard bearer of the party; and "Tyler's tears" were popularly said to be the reason for his own nomina- tion for the vice-presidency. The campaign showed that the Whigs had learned the lesson of popular success. They took a shaft from their opponent's Quiver, and they handled their weapon with clever- The log cabin ' rj.^ ^^^ nominated a Westerner, and they campaign. -^ , ' •' made the most of it; their candidate was a man who had lived on the frontier, had fought the Indians and the British — a simple, unaffected old soldier, who was pictured as living in a log-cabin and drinking hard cider as if he liked it. Up and down the land. Whig orators proclaimed the uprightness of "Old Tip" and his rugged character. "Every breeze", ex- claimed Webster, "says change". "The hour for discussion has passed", Clay announced. Men gathered in thousands to indulge in jollification and to shout allegiance to the old man of the West, who was not, like "Matty" Van Buren, a scheming politician— not at all like "Matty of Kinderhook", who had THE JACKSONIAN ERA 311 bought gold spoons for the White House table. Campaign crowds were counted by the thousand or measured by the acre; for the first time the people of the whole country, full of interest and enjoying the game and war of politics, devoted themselves to the contest. Much of their fun-making and their Jollity, as we look back upon it, seems trivial or undignified, but it had its meaning. The cheap, doggerel verse and the campaign songs meant nothing in themselves; but it was important that far and wide the whole people felt that the Government was their gov- ernment and that no one could say them nay.^ Enthusiasm for Harrison, strongly aided by the hard times, for which the Democrats had to bear the blame, easily carried the day for the Whigs. They were wild with elation elected*.'^ ^^^ Overcome with joy. Nineteen States out of the total number of twenty-six cast their electoral votes for Harrison and Tyler.^ The new President was inaugurated with unwonted display. Whigs from every quarter of the Union — each probably claim- ing to be " the original Harrison man " — hastened to Washington to sip and taste the honey and fruit of victory. The fatigues of the campaign had already tested Harrison's strength, for he ^ Interesting accounts of this campaign of sound and excitement will be found in Schouler, History, vol. iv, pp. 328-340, especially pp. 335-340; Shepard, Van Buren, pp. 327-338; Schurz, Henry Clay, vol. ii. pp. 170- 197; Van Hoist, Constitutional History, vol. ii, pp. 390-405. One of the pieces of doggerel verse used in the campaign was only too descriptive — "National Republicans in Tippecanoe, And Democratic Republicans in Tyler, too". This was a strange combination of men and principles. Throughout the campaign live coons and barrels of cider were always in evidence; log cabins were reared as emblems in town and city, or were drawn about on carts in long processions to mass meetings. 2 Harrison was an honest, straightforward, simple man, of moderate ability. He was not a great statesman, nor did he show himself to be a leader of men, but throughout life he quietly and conscientiously performed the duties that devolved upon him. He won some honor in the War of 181 2, when the nation craved heroes. He was Governor of Indiana Terri- tory for twelve years, a Representative in Congress, and also a Senator, For some years before his election he had been living in a quiet, unassum- ing way at his home in Ohio. 312 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION was not robust in body, and now his new duties and the clamors of the office-seekers broke him down.^ Just one month after his inauguration he died. For the first President. ^^""^^ ^^ ^^^ history death entered the White House. Tyler at once assumed the duties and the title of President. The Whigs who had elected him were somewhat anxious, but for a time tried to preserve a bold front, and at President. ^^^^ things wenf smoothly. Tyler retained Har- rison's Cabinet, and issued an address to the peo- ple, in which he said nothing that was particularly new or that gave notice of Democratic leanings. Difficulties soon arose, however. Clay felt himself the leader of the party, and, by nature imperious and qualified for leadership, he could not brook the pretensions of the man whose position had been se- cured by sheer accident. Tyler, in turn, was headstrong and ambitious, and seems to have begun early to nurse hopes of a reelection. However that may be, his whole history showed that, unless he renounced his past, he could not agree with the Whigs on affirmative measures, however well he had been getting along with them when both were in opposition. It is not necessary to recount here the different steps by which Tyler became estranged from the party that elected him. Twice was a bank bill passed by Congress and Tyler and the vetoed by the President. A tariff law was passed Whigs . . estranged. (1842) and signed by the President, but this was accomplished only after a long struggle, in the course of which two different tariff measures were vetoed. Before the middle of his term Tyler was without strong sup- port in either party, but was upheld by a few men who were sneered at as '^the corporal's guard".- ^ "We have nothing here in politics", wrote Horace Greeley, who had during the campaign edited the Log Cabin newspaper, "but large and numerous swarms of office-hunting locusts, sweeping on to Washington daily". See Schurz, Henry Clay, vol. ii, p. 192. ^ "As an instance of the President's unpopularity, an influenza which about this time broke out acquired the name of the 'Tyler grippe'". (Schouler, iv, p. 433.) THE JACKSONIAN ERA 313 There were some delicate questions in foreign affairs which Tyler's administration settled. For some years past American relations with England had been unsatisfactory affair ^^'^ ^^^ and threatening, In Van Buren's administration an incident occurred commonly called " the Caro- line affair". There was at that time an insurrection in Canada, and some of the people of the United States sympathized with the rebels. A vessel, the Caroline, seems to have been used to transport men and supplies from New York across the Niagara River. An expedition from Canada crossed to the American side, seized the vessel, set her on fire and let her drift over the falls. An American citizen was killed in the affair. Some years after this a Canadian named McLeod was arrested in New York and charged with the murder of the American. The English Government demanded the release of this man, 1841. . on the ground that the whole matter was a public affair, for which England herself, and not a private citizen, was responsible. The New York authorities refused to surrender their prisoner to the National Government, and the situation was serious and critical. Fortunately he was acquitted upon trial, and so England had on this score no further ground of complaint. Some time before these occurrences serious disputes had arisen concerning the northeastern boundary. The terms of the treaty that was signed at the close of the ern bounda-y ' R^volution wcrc uot cxpHcit. Maine and Canada both laid claim to a large territory, each insisting that imder the treaty she was the rightful owner, and there was now danger of war. Maine ordered troops into the disputed territory and held it, and this armed possession, known as the ''Aroostook war", is said to have cost the State a million dollars (1839). War was prevented, however, and negotiations for set- tlement were undertaken. In 1842 Lord Ashburton came to America authorized to treat, and he and Webster agreed on a treaty which compromised this dispute, and set at rest all con- troversies concerning the northern boundary of the United States even as far west as the Lake of the Woods. It also pro- 314 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION v^ded for the extradition of certain classes of criminals, and for keeping armed cruisers of both nations employed in checking the slave trade. Before the end of Tyler's term the Texas question, in- volving the whole subject of slavery and slavery ^uJstkm^ ^^**^ expansion had arisen, and we must now go back to an early time and see the rise of the anti-slavery sentiment in the Union. References Hart, Contemporaries, Volume III, pp. 53 1-53 5^ 540-544; Wood- row Wilson, Division and Reunion, pp. 1-117; Burgess, Middle Period, Chapters VIII-X, XII; Sumner, Andrew Jackson, Chapters VII-XII; Shepard, Martin Van Buren, Chapters \T-X; Schurz, Clay, Volume I, Chapters XII, XIII, Volume 11, Chapters XIV-XX, XXII-XXIII; Lodge, Webster, pp. 166-256; Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Hart Benton, Chapters IV- VII, IX-XII; Garrison, Westward Extension, Chapters III-V. Longer accounts : Schouler, Volume III, pp. 451-529, Volume IV, pp. 1-201, 226-245, 257-296, 313-421; McMaster, Volume VI, pp. 1-270, 299-466, 550-647, Volume VII, pp. 1-227; !MacDqnald, Jacksonian Democracy, CHAPTER XVII SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION' It is an interesting and illustrative fact that in the campaign of sound and nonsense, when every breeze was whispering change, there was little discussion of a great ques- The Liberty tion — the greatest, the most difficult, the most party. ^ sombcr that had as yet come before the American people. A little band of men, opponents of slavery^ had formed a party — the Liberty party; but it attracted little attention and only some 7000 votes were cast for its candidates in the election of 1840. Men talked and shouted as if the main thing was to get rid of Van Buren and elect ''Old Tip", or as if bank or no bank was the all-absorbing problem of the time. How little in the midst of serious troubles and of new problems do we see their presence or recognize their difficulty ! And yet the slavery question had for about ten years been the cause of some excitement and bitter dispute. From the time of the Missouri Compromise till about 1830 there was little discussion of the subject; but in the nex'v decade there was a good deal of talk and the times were coming when men would speak of little else. In 1829 William Lloyd Garrison and Benjamin Lundy began to print, at Baltimore, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. Two years later Garrison founded The Liberator, rbomionists. ^^ Boston, and in 1832 the New England Anti- slavery Society was founded. The society advo- cated the abolition of slavery at once, on the ground that it was sinful and demoralizing. Men were called to "immediate re- pentance". Somewhat later the American Antislavery Society was organized. It grew but slowly at first, and met with the angry opposition of many who saw that the South would not 315 316 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION They suffer violence. consent to immediate action, and that the preaching of such doc- trine would necessarily bring sectional ill feeling and disturbance. During the next few years many abolitionists^ were attacked by Northern mobs, in large part made up doubtless of the more ignorant and excitable people, but some of them containing men who ought to have known that, in a free country, persecution and violence are the poorest of arguments and likely to have quite an opposite effect from that intended. In 1833 Prudence Crandall opened her school in Canterbury, Conn., to negro girls. She was cast into jail, -and her school building destroyed. In 1837 Elijah P. Lovejoy was shot in Alton, 111. His offence was the publication of an anti-slavery newspaper. Garrison was mobbed, and led with a rope through the streets of Boston. Garrison's attacks were sharp, ceaseless, unrelenting. The Liberator poured out denunciation on the whole system of slavery, using the most scathing terms of reproach. ''I am aware", said Garrison, "that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncom- promising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation". He made no excuse for the slave-holder on the ground that the system had long existed, that it was an inheritance from the past. He had no patience Garrison's principles. ^ It should be noticed that abolitionism was essentially different from other earlier movements against slavery, inasmuch as its main tenet was the sinfulness of slavery, which tainted the slaveholder and the whole nation. It would have nothing to do with gradual emancipation; its pur- pose was to arouse the conscience of the nation to immediate repentance. SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 317 with those advocating gradual abolition; "Gradualism in theory", he asserted, "is perpetuity in practice ". We may not all agree that Garrison was wise and right in the manner of his opposition ; but there are few more intensely interesting or more profoundly impressive pictures than that of the young man, almost alone, friendless and poor, taking up this great crusade, printing his paper in a garret in Boston, and filling its pages with words of fire. He began a crusade against one of the oldest institutions in the world, a system that was old when the pyramids began to rise above the sands of Egypt. Slavery had now firmly fastened itself on the Southern States. The new Southwest, where a generation before there was only a wilderness, had now great cotton plan- The position of tations. Step by step, with the growth of the the slave , ii iii, owners. nation, slavery had grown, and the whole indus- trial life of the South was built upon it. Before 1835 or so, the majority of the Southern people still believed the system wrong or at least that slavery was a misfortune. But now they were beginning to defend it, not always as good in itself, but as the only system possible for the South. It was foolish and impossible, they declared, to discuss the subject as a purely theoretical matter; the negroes were there; and no other condition for them seemed possible, the Southerners maintained, but bondage, subjection to the superior white race. Naturally the slave-owners were incensed against an organi- zation which declared slaveholding to be a sin, calling for instant repentance. Men who had been surrounded by the demand"*their ^Y^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ might scc somc of its bad ef- suppression. fccts, but wcrc not willing to be denounced as crim- inals. Some of them now declared that abolition newspapers and pamphlets should be shut out from the mails, and the Governor of Alabama went so far as to demand that New York should turn over to his State for punishment the pubHsher of the Emancipator, an anti-slavery paper, on the ground that he had disseminated seditious articles (1835).^ The Southern 1 The Constitution provides for the return of fugitives from justice to the State whence they have fled; but it makes no provision for the author- 318 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION papers called for action on the part of the Northern States. "Words, words, words are all we are to have'', said one. ''Up to the mark the North must come if it would restore tran- quillity and preser\'e the Union", said another. The South was moving on dangerous ground. There was little sympathy with the Abohtionists at the North, but the excessive demands of the South were sure to bring about a reaction, in part at least. An occasional mob might attack "3. fanatic", but there was little chance that the Northern people would turn over to Alabama a Northern man for punishment because he had written or said words distasteful to the South, or that they would suppress by law free speech on the subject of slavery. At the North the open Abolitionists were few,' but seemed to be slowly increasing. At the South there was deep resent- ment. Sharp debates occurred in Congress. The Slavery South could look with no patience on a movement question in a ^ i i t new phase. whosc promoters denounced slave-holdmg as a car- dinal sin, and who refused to consider any plans or methods but immediate and miconditional abolition. Now be- gan that controversy which ended in the civil war. Sectional feeling grew constantly more bitter. A favorite idea of some Northern opponents of slavery, even when not Abolitionists, was to bring about the abolition of slav- ery in the District of Columbia. Petitions to this Adams and ', . r^ • • • i \ ♦1,^ cocr ei'^d came to Consjress m increasmg numbers. A tne gag. ^ '^ rule was proposed in the House providing that such petitions should not be printed or referred to'a committee, but laid upon the table (1836). John Quincy Adams was then a member of the House, and when this rule was presented he rose and said: ^'I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights of my constituents". The rule was adopted by a large majority; but from that time on Adams devoted himself to the presentation of anti-slavery petitions and to an attempt to bring about an abandonment of the so-called '^ gag-policy". ities of one State to turn over to another State a person charged with a crime in such second State when he did not actually flee from it. SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 319 He was not successful, however, until after eight years of effort. This long contest of Adams for the right of petition is full of striking and dramatic scenes. The pro-slavery men made a se- rious blunder when they tried to prevent debate on this great question. Not only did they array against them the keenest .^,^^^ P^^ «3 a-a^ JEaSC HUTCNINSON JUNt^ u,V,.)3 Cartoon Used as a Cover to an Emancipation Song Sung in 1844 by the hutchinsons The Hutchinsons were a famous family of singers who were active in the abolition movement. Rogers was the editor of the "Herald of Freedom," a pioneer anti-slavery newspaper, published in Concord, N. H. debater in the House, but the effort to stifle discussion awoke the interest of the nation, and thousands of men signed petitions or were won over to anti-slavery sentiment who otherwise would have taken no interest. The first eighteen months of the gag policy increased the number of anti-slavery petitions from 320 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION twenty-three to three hundred thousand. The Abolitionists henceforth might be denounced, but they were safe from per- sonal violence. The opponents of slavery differed in their methods of work, as well as in the intensity of their beliefs and opinions. There were all shades, from those that did not like the' slavery eielrlents. System but disapproved of violent attacks upon it, to those that were as fierce as Garrison in their opposition. The Garrisonian Abolitionists, demanding repent- ance from sinners, would have nothing to do with ordinary po- litical methods; they looked upon a nation stained with slavery as already branded with infamy; they refused even to vote; they considered union with slave holders a wrong; and declared the Constitution, in the words of the Hebrew prophet, to be "a cov- enant with death and an agreement with hell".^ Others, the voting Abolitionists, felt otherwise; they formed the Liberty party and prepared to struggle against slavery in political con- flict. Still others simply objected to slavery without taking it up as a political matter. Things might have gone on this way for a long time; gradu- ally the North might have been won to intense and bitter oppo- sition, while the South held ever more strongly to Ex^pa^nsion! slavery. But new conditions arose; Western ex- pansion had before this time raised the slavery question and made it a subject of heated discussion in Congress; for, while many men might be unwilling to force the subject of abolition on the South, they would not consent to the extension of the system into new regions. Every step m the westward move- ment and in acquisition of territory was sure to be accompanied with debate on slavery. Soon after the election of 1840, when politicians were still wrangling over the bank and the tariff, the country entered upon a new era; henceforward slavery would not down; henceforward, try as they would, men could not blind ^ "And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agree- ment with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it". (Isaiah xxviii, 18.) SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 321 their eyes to the great issue — should slave territory be increased or should slavery be hemmed in within its old limits and left to struggle on against fate and the forces of modern industrial so- ciety as best it could? For some time past the question of the annexation of Texas to the United States had been receiving a good share of the pub- lic attention. Let us look for a moment at the history of the whole matter. It will be remem- bered that in i8i9-'2i the United States agreed with Spain that the Sabine River should be our southwestern boundary. Under the Louisiana treaty we had ground for claiming even as far as the Rio Grande, but of course gave up our claim by the later agreement. Hardly had the treaty with Spain been agreed to when Mexico attained her independence and came into the own- ership of the Texas country. Settlers from the Southern States began to move into this territory. Before 1830 there was a con- siderable American population there, utterly out of sympathy with Mexico and her whole political system. In 1836 the Texans declared their independence, and, led by Samuel Houston, fought and won the battle of San Jacinto. From that time on Mexican authority practically ceased. The next year Texas asked admit- tance to the Union. Many of the Southern people now became intent upon annexation because it would extend slave territory. Nothing of importance was done in Van Buren's administration, but after Tyler came into office plans for getting Texas were seri- ously taken up, especially by some of the Southern enthusiasts. In 1844 Calhoun became Secretary of State. He bent all his energies toward the desired end. A treaty of annexation was secretly entered into, but it was rejected by the Senate. Texas claimed that she possessed more territory than the original Mex- ican province of that name, and indeed a much greater territory than she had ever acquired control of. She claimed all east and north of the Rio Grande.^ Annexation of the State and adop- ^ "That is, as if Maine should secede, and claim that her boundaries were the x\lleghanies and the Potomac That is, as if Maine should join the Dominion of Canada, and England should set up a claim to the New England and Middle States, based on the declaration of Maine afore- 22 322 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tion of her claims meant probably a war with Mexico. Such was the situation when the election of 1844 occurred. It was generally supposed that Van Buren would be the Democratic candidate in this election. But he opposed the annexation of Texas, and was defeated in the con- Candidates in . . t t'- t-» n r rn j8^^ vention. James K. rolk, 01 lennessee, was nom- inated in his stead. George M. Dallas, of Penn- sylvania, secured the nomination for Vice-President.^ Clay, too, objected to bringing Texas into the Union, but the Whigs nominated him with enthusiasm, and gave the second place to Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey. The Liberal party was again in the field, with Birney and Thomas Morris for their candidates. The burning question of the campaign was the annexation of Texas. In the midst of the contest, Clay, hoping to win friends of annexation without repelling its foes, Whlgs^ ^ wrote his famous Alabama letters. He declared he should be glad to see the annexation of Texas *Svithout dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the Union, and on just and fair terms". He did not think " the subject of slavery ought to affect the matter". By these words he lost many Northern votes, without gaining any from the South or from the extreme annexationists, who were now shout- ing " Texas or disunion" ! On the whole, the Whigs were strongly opposed to the acquisition of more slave territory, and those who were not averse to the annexation of Texas strongly disapproved of hasty measures and the studied disregard of Mexico's protests. The Democratic party, however, by the nomination of Polk instead of Van Buren, and by the direct statements of its plat- form, was committed to annexation. Many Northern Democrats doubtless were opposed to slavery extension, but party ties said". (Sumner, Andrew Jackson, p. 357.) This illustration is in exag- gerated form, but shows certain aspects of the Texas situation. ^ The Democratic platform demanded "the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas at the earliest practical period". These words were shrewdly chosen to indicate that we had given up territory that was justly ours. SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 323 held them close, and they voted for Polk and the "reannexa- tion" of Texas. This was a turning point in the party history, for this sympathy with a movement which seemed The Democrats. . , i • i mtended, m large part at least, only to add an- other slave State to the Union alienated a number of old-time Democrats at the North and won new adherents at the South. The small farmers of the Northern States had from the beginning of the century belonged naturally in the ranks of the Democratic party beside the agriculturists of the South; but now this element began to drift away from its old moorings, either into the Whig party or into the party that was more definitely the foe of slavery and slavery extension. One must speak here only of tendencies and beginnings; for these changes were wrought out only gradu- ally. But we shall find that, in the course of fifteen years, the Democracy lost its hold upon the Northern States, and, by a careful examination, we can see that this loss took its marked beginnings with the Texas agitation and the nomination of Polk.^ The election was an exciting contest. While Texas was the absorbing topic, many sought to blind their own eyes or those of others to the real question. The tariff was dis- Eiection and cusscd at great length, and at the North especially results, 1844. , , • 1 • 1 , . 1 r 1 ^1 n 1 both parties claimed to be its defenders. Clay had all the qualities of leadership and aroused the enthusiasm of the people. His party was devoted to him; it hardly seemed possible to his eager followers that the cold and austere Polk could defeat the peerless Clay. "Who is Polk, anyway"? they exclaimed. But the Whigs lost, and were wofully cast down. ''It was", said an eye-witness, "as if the firstborn of every family had been stricken down".^ The Liberty party ^ The large number of German, Scotch, and English immigrants now coming into the country — the Germans especially after their own failures in getting liberal government (1848) — were not likely to take their places in a party which appeared to be in the hands of Southern slave owners. ^ Clay's defeat was in part attributed to his Alabama letters, which alienated the strong anti-slavery vote. After the election, a disconsolate Whig is said to have declared that he wanted, the next time, a candidate who could neither read nor write. 324 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION cast over 60,000 votes, and had they given their ballots to Clay he would have been elected. Tyler and his helpmates, intent upon the annexation of Texas, believed that the result of the election gave full warrant for immediate action. Florida and Louisiana had been annexed by treaty. But Texas was an inde- pendent power, and it was proposed to pass a joint resolution inviting her into the Union. If a treaty were made, it would be necessary that two-thirds of the Senate should vote Annexation of Texas. Texas to confirm it, and such a vote could not be secured. A resolu- tion required only a majority of each House. This, then, seemed the only feasible plan for the annexationists. A joint resolution was passed giving the President authority either to invite Texas into the Union as a State or to negotiate formally with her concerning admission. It declared that four new SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 325 States besides Texas might be made out of her territory, but that in any new States so formed there should be no slavery north of 36° 30^ Tyler did not hesitate which of the alterna- tives to accept. He did not wish to leave the honor of annexa- tion to Polk; so the day before he left office he sent off a messen- The admission ^^^ ^^ ^^^ hastc to the "Lone Star Republic" with of Texas the proposals for immediate union (March, 1845). beginning of Texas, of coursc, acccptcd the invitation. This was the end. . , . . i r i • . the begmnmg of the end; from this tune on the pol- icy of slavery extension found thousands and tens of thousands of bitter opponents at the North. Texas was the last slave State admitted to the Union. Texas claimed all the land north and east of the Rio Grande River from its mouth to its source, and south and west of the line of i8i9-'2i. By this annexation there was added to the United States 376,163 square miles of territory, an area greater than that of France and England combined. The accession of so much slave territory naturally startled the North and made men watchful and suspicious. We must not think that there was as yet anything Hke a united sentiment at the North against the extension of slavery, but every year and every new success on the part of the South tended to awaken and strengthen anti-slavery feeling. Up to this time the North had rested in some security, because slavery was hemmed in by the Missouri compromise line and the southern and western Hmits of the Union. In the future there was to be little security; the annexation of Texas showed a new way of adding to the limits of slavery. James K. Polk was in many ways a remarkable man. When he was nominated for the presidency he was not well known, James K Polk ^^^^S^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ i^ Cougress, and even Speaker of the House. But when he assumed office it be- came apparent that he was no pygmy; and as one studies his career in the Hght of historical evidence it is seen that he was in some sort a man of iron, with unyielding determination and un- flinching purpose. He was a keen and unrelenting partisan, but conscientiously devoted to the interests of his country as he saw them. Altogether pure and upright in private life, in politic? 326 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION his feelings were not delicate; there was a certain hard, narrow intensity and keenness about him, whicii were not conducive to generous and magnanimous views in politics or diplomacy. His cabinet was composed of able men. The more important were James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of State; Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury; William L. INIarcy, of New York, Secretary of War; George Bancroft, of JNIassachusetts, the historian, Secretary of the Navy. At the very beginning of his administration the President privately announced the purpose not only of establishing the independent Treasury and reducing the tariff, but e resi en s j ^ scttlins; the uorthwcstem boundarv trouble plans. ^ - _ and acquiring California. He succeeded in ac- complishing all these objects. The independent Treasury was reestablished. A new tariff" act was passed materially lowering the duties and making inroads upon the protective system so dear to the Whigs. How he achieved his other objects we shall see as we go on. Texas, as we have seen, accepted the invitation to enter the Union. This was in the summer of 1S45. Congress installed her as a State in the Union in December of that year. Before that was done, however — before, in fact, Texas was legally part of the United States — Polk sent troops within her boundaries to defend her against possible attack, and to make sure that an- nexation was not interrupted by Mexican interference. General Zachary Taylor was ordered to Texas, and in November had about four thousand men in his command. He took a position on the left bank of the Nueces River. While the plans for the acquisition of Texas were being thus carried to a successful end, hopes of new possessions in the Northwest were likewise awakened. For some The reoccupa- ^^.^^^ ^^^^ ^.^^^^^ bcvond the Rocky Mouutaius and tion or Oregon. -^ - -' north of California, known as the Oregon country, had been jointly occupied by England and the United States; each claimed the title, but for the time being agreed not to de- mand exclusive rights there. Our demands were based (i) on the Louisiana purchase, a shadowy title, (2) upon the Spanish SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 327 iina. cession of i8i9-'2i, (3) upon early exploration, and (4) upon settlement and occupation. England's claims were similar. She claimed by discovery, basing her title in the first place on the voyage of Drake in the time of Queen Eliz- abeth. Later explora- tion helped to substan- tiate her title, and settlements had been made by English sub- jects on Nootka Sound even at the end of the last century. Of the valley of the Columbia, however, or at least the larger portion of it, we were fairly well assured, because for some years emigrants from the States had been making their way thither, and even now (1845-46) the emigrant wagons were carrying many new set- tlers to the region. This actual occupation gave us nine clear points in lav/. The "reoccupa- Showing the claims of Great Britain and the j^' „ J- r\ 11 United States and the hnes established by tion of Oregon had various treaties been coupled in the pres- idential campaign with the ''reannexation" of Texas, for we claimed both under the Louisiana treaty, and now, after the inau- guration of Polk, there was a popular demand, especially from the Western States, for "the whole of Oregon", and the cry was raised of ''Fifty-four forty or fight".^ It looked for a time, in- ^ Fifty-four forty was the southern point of Alaska, then in the posses- sion of Russia, known as Russian America. The Oregon Country 328 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION deed, as if war might ensue, because it could hardly be hoped that England would consent to having her American dominions Imiited by the Rocky Mountains. The difficulty was finally settled, however, by a compromise. The forty- ninth parallel already marked the division between the British dominions and those of the United States as far west as the mountains, and the same line was now agreed upon as the boundar^^ through to the Pacific.^ War did not break out immediately upon the annexation of Texas, as might well have been the case. The claims of Texas were so extraordinary that Mexico could Texas?^^ not admit them to be just, inasmuch as they in- cluded not alone the old province of Texas, but a large territory besides over which the State had not succeeded in establishing control, and to which she had title only by asser- tion. What were the boundaries of Texas as a province of ^Mexico is somewhat difficult to say, and, in fact, what they were makes little difference. The Texans had certainly not made good, by war and occupation, a title to more than so much of the ^lexican territory as lay north of the Nueces River and east of the present eastern boundary of New IVIexico. By our assump- tion of the claim of Texas to all the land north and east of the Rio Grande from its mouth to its source, and by any endeavor to follow up our claim by taking actual possession of the dis- puted portion, we were sure to bring on war, unless ^Mexico was submissive and ready to bow before the superior strength of the United States. But such was not the case. Poor, weak, torn by internal strife and dissension, the Mexicans still retained a modicum of their old Spanish spirit. They were not given to self-control at the best, and were now greatly irritated. 1 The statement in the text is substantially accurate, but it is worth remarking that the line ran to sea water, and then followed the middle of the channel dividing Vancouver's Island from the main, and then through the middle of Fuca Strait. A dispute later arose as- to what was the middle or the main channel. In 1872 the German Emperor, chosen as arbitrator, gave his decision in favor of America. Thus ninety years elapsed (1782- 1872) before our northern line was finally determined. See map, p. ;^$}. SLAVERY AND THE TEXAS QUESTION 329 Historians have long been troubled by the Texas affair and the resulting war with Mexico; the whole incident has often been considered the work of sly, underhanded manage- Our treatment , rr-vi , • r rry j. • i i •. of Mexico nient. ihe annexation of lexas certainly has its dark side, for we claimed more than the real Texas. But we are not so ready now to denounce the whole transaction as we were a few years ago, when every act that added to slave territory seemed to Northern writers of history to bear a dark and bitter stain. If Mexico was in straits and was greatly irritated, the situation for us was also full of annoy- ance, and we now know that England and France were anxious to keep Texas out of our hands chiefly because they disliked American growth. Even Mexico had reluctantly prepared to acknowledge the independence of Texas if she would not join the United States. Undoubtedly Polk wanted California, to which, of course, we had absolutely no claim. The great Western lands beyond the mountains lay almost undeveloped, almost as untouched as they were when the little Roman Catholic mission was founded on the magnificent harbor that was named after the noble Saint Francis; the whole region was held in the nerveless, incompetent hands of Mexico. While we cannot say that Polk deliberately picked a quarrel with Mexico in order to get the harbor and an- nex the Western region, undoubtedly that desire influenced him, and the air was full of expansion spirit, a spirit quite as much Western as Southern.^ Had Mexico been strong and reasonable, all our longing for San Francisco harbor would have proved no excuse for pouncing upon it; had we been more generous, had we felt more sympathy for the feeble, excitable Mexicans, per- haps we should have obtained it without resorting to the brutal decision of arms. The Far West, which soon proved to be golden, belonged perhaps by a manifest destiny to the Anglo- Saxon man; but we should gladly look back upon the acquisition ^Well expressed in 1848 by a senator from Illinois who took to poetry to express his sentiments. — "No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, But the whole boundless continent is ours". 330 fflSTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX of the vast territory- as the product of peaceful expansion and be clear in our own minds that we had always treated the difficult Mexicans with exaggerated generosity and patience. Although one must acknowledge that the South was moved by a desire to attain more territon- for slaven*. that the Western spirit of expansion was aggressive, and that Polk Geography and ^.^^ jjq^ precisely magna HI mous in his treatment of destiny. Mexico, we should not forget that the American feeling of manifest destiny had a physical basis. Texas was to all intents and purposes part of the central valley of the continent, the greater portion of which had become part of the American possessions; the Rio Grande seemed to be the only reasonable halting place in the forward movement of the popu- lation toward the Southwest. This energetic forward move- ment into the imsettled regions of the West had been going on since the English colonists hrst settled on the Atlantic coast, and with redoubled energv* since the beginning of the nineteenth centur>*. Aptitude for settling new areas and for subduing the wilderness, zeal for more land and wider dominion, had become national traits. "It would be vain to expect", said Calhoun, *'that we could prevent our people from penetrating into Cali- fornia. Even before our present difficulties with Mexico the process had begun. We alone can people this region with an industrious and civilized race, which can develop its resources and add a new and extensive region to the domain of commerce and civilization".^ Benton was opposed to the methods of annexation, and denounced intrigue; but he desired the acquisi- tion of the coimtr\' by honorable means. His words show us that the movement was not merely a Southern conspiracy- to ^ These wcfds were spoken after the war with Mexico had begun. Cal- houn, it may be said, was opposed to the war. but believed that our acqui- sition of the West was a foregone conclusion. We must remember that from the ver>' beginning of English colonization the settlers in America had been pitted against other nations for the possession of the continent. The acquisition of Texas and California was another step in the great contest with Spain for dominion in America — a contest that began with Sir Humph- rey Gilbert and his desire to build up a colonial realm for England and to weaken the power of Spain. (See chapter ii.) SLAVERY A\P THE TEXAS O^'^^^^I^X 331 extend slavery. "We want Fexas", he said — "that is to say, the Texas of La Salle; and we want it for great natural reasons obvious as day, and permanent as Xature'\ Rffekences WiLSOX, Dhisioti <;',%/ R(Ufn\yn. pp. 1 17-140; Bi'RGFSS. MuUU Pm<\/. Chapters XL XIU-XV; vox Hoi.sr, CaJInyun, pp. i.:3-.^74; Morse. John Quimy AJuttis, pp. 242-306; Sciiirz. Henry C/«, especially Chapters Xll. X\1II. For a general view of the slavery issue in American history, see J. F. Rhodes. History of the United St<:tcs since the Compromise of iS>o, \'olume I. Chapter I. For conditions in the South see Chapter IV of the Sivme work. CHAPTER XVIII WAR \MTH MEXICO; SHALL SLAVE-TERRITORY BE INXREASED? The land between the Xueces River and the Rio Grande was claimed by the L'nited States as a part of Texas; but Mexico was not ready to give up her title. In the early TI16 war begun. ./ o j. ^ part of 1846 Polk, without sending word of his intention to Congress, which was then in session, ordered Gen- eral Taylor to take a position on the left bank of the Rio Grande. Taylor obeyed, and, mo\'ing to the river, intrenched himself opposite the Mexican town of ]\Iatamoras, where there were Mexican troops. "The armies being thus in presence, with anger in their bosoms and arms in llicir hands, that took place which everybody foresaw must take place — collisions and hos- tilities'". ^ A detachment of Mexican troops was sent across the river, and a small body of Americans was attacked and a few were killed. When the news reached the President, he sent a message to Congress declaring that "Mexico has passed the boundar}^ of the L'nited States, has invaded our territor}', and shed American blood upon American soil". War existed, he declared, notwithstanding all efforts to avoid it, and existed "by the act of IVIexico herself". Congress declared, May 13, 1846, that war existed by act of ^Mexico. ]\Ioney was appropriated, and the President was authorized to call for fifty thousand volunteers. There was now no help for it, and the countr\" prepared for war. It was from the first popular with many. But, on the other hand, a strong element was bitterly opposed, not knowing in their bewilderment where the land hunger of the nation ^ Benton, Thirty Years' \'iew, vol. ii, p. 679. 332 MEXICAN WAR; SLAVE TERRITORY 333 would carry it. To the Whigs it seemed a Democratic war. Not all were opposed; but some of those who had been averse to the annexation of Texas were ready to denounce War unpopular tlicsc bloody consequences. To the antislavery persons. element at the North it seemed a war on *be- half of slavery and for the extension of slave territory. The feelings of these men were well voiced in the Biglow Papers, which were at this juncture written by James Russell Lowell and were very widely read. The keen sarcasm and homely humor of these verses — more effective than argument — made converts to the antislav- ery cause; the war was more seriously attacked in these telling lines than by scores of pamphlets and speeches.^ The first engagement of the war took place on the northern side of the Rio Grande. Taylor's defences were attacked in his absence, but the garrison obeyed to the letter the bauies.^ instructions which their general had left: '' Defend the fort to the death''. The attack was repulsed. Then followed the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, ^lay 8 and 9, 1846. The Americans, under Taylor, were greatly outnumbered, but fought with gallantry. The Mexicans were defeated, and withdrew across the Rio Grande. The Americans followed, and occupied Matamoras. After waiting here for a time that recnforcements might be obtained, they pushed on into the enemy's country, and in September reached jMonterey, a strongly fortified city. Here there was heavy fighting, but battery after battery was taken by assault, and the place fell. Taylor then moved forward again. In February (1847) oc- ^"I dunno but wut it's pooty, Trainin' round in bobtail coats, — But it's cur'us Christian dooty, This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. They jest want this Californy So's to lug new slave States in To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye. An' to plunder ye like sin". 334 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION curred the battle of Buena Vista. The Mexicans had four times as many troops as the Americans, but the American army was posted in a strong position. The Mexicans fought wi:h great courage and obstinacy, but they were beaten again. The whole of the surrounding country, by reason of this victory, fell into the hands of the Americans. i U N I y Field of the War with IMexico In the meantime General Kearney marched across the plains to Santa Fe, hoisted the American flag there, and pro- „ „ . claimed New IMexico a part of the United States, and California. ^^ ^hen marched on into California, and reached San Diego. Long before his arrival, however, the principal part of that region had passed into our hands. For some time a squadron had been kept on the Western coast, ready MEXICAN WAR ; SLAVE TERRITORY 335 to pounce upon the prize. When war was begun — in fact, even before it was known that an express declaration had been made — Monterey was seized. San Francisco and other chief harbors were also occupied. A new movement was begun in the early spring of 1847. General Scott took Vera Cruz, and began a march to the city of Mexico. A fierce battle took place at Cerro army.^* ^° ^ Gordo, where the Mexicans, as usual, fought with bravery, and, as usual, were beaten.^ Scott led his army forward again, meeting with little opposition until near the enemy's capital. Here there were strong defences; but the Americans won a series of unbroken victories. The soldiers fought bravely, while Scott and his lieutenants showed great skill and daring. In September the heights of Chapultepec were stormed and the city of Mexico was taken. Peace was soon after concluded.'- The war was not concluded — indeed, was hardly well begun — before the inevitable slavery question arose in Congress. In August, 1846, the President asked for money to The Wilmot -j • u • • 4.u ^ i t^ proviso. ^^^ ^^ brmgmg the war to a close. It was sup- posed that the money was to be used to buy terri- tory, and a bill was introduced into the House appropriating ^ General Grant, who served as a second lieutenant in this war, speaks thus of the Mexican troops: "The Mexicans, as on many other occasions, stood up as well as any troops ever did. The trouble seemed to be the lack of experience among the officers, which led them after a certain time to quit, without being particularly whipped, but because they had fought enough". This remark is characteristic of Grant, who did not fight in that way himself. ^This was in one way a remarkable war. Our troops won every pitched battle. Scott marched for two hundred miles and more into the enemy's country, and wrested stronghold after stronghold from the hands of greatly superior forces. This war was in marked contrast with the War of 181 2. Both were party wars; but in this one the generals were fit to command, and the soldiers were thoroughly disciplined and equipped. Many of the generals who afterward became prominent in the Civil War obtained in Mexico their first practical lessons in military art. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee served in subordinate positions, both with credit. This war, in more than one sense, was the precursor of the civil war. 336 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION two million dollars. David Wilmot, a Democratic Represen- tative from Pennsylvania, proposed that there be added to the bill a proviso that slaver}^ should never exist within any territory acquired from ^Mexico. The bill with this proviso passed the House, but did not pass the Senate. The same contest between the two houses took place the next year; but the Senate finally won. and an appropriation of three million dollars was made without the anti-slavery condition. The "Wilmot proviso" was for several years used as a general phrase — not with special ref- erence to the amendment of Wilmot, but to the principle which it contained. All who were opposed to the extension of slavery were said to be in favor of the "Wilmot proviso". By the terms of the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo (Febru- ary 2, 184S), the United States became possessed not only of the disputed territory, which had been claimed by The treaty of Tcxas, but of a vast territory to the west as well. Hidalgo. The boundar}^ line agreed upon ran up the Rio Grande to the southern boundary of Xew ^Mexico, thence along the southern boundary to the western limit of New ^lexico, up these western limits to the Gila River, thence along that river to the Colorado, and from the junction of these two rivers followed the line dividing Upper and Lower California to the Pacihc Ocean. ^ The United States paid $15,000,000 in cash, and agreed to pay in addition claims of its citizens on the Mex- ican Government to an amount not exceeding $3,250,000, and other claims already definitely allo^^•ed by ^Mexico. A glance at the map will show how much was secured by this cession as the fruit of the war. There was thus added to the United States about 875,000 square miles, including Texas and what is now the State of California. ^ In 1S53, due to the fact that some question had arisen about this boundary, and because a proposed route for a railroad to the Pacitic ran somewhat south of our line at the Gila River, another purchase was made from JNIexico. This was known as the Gadsden purchase, and included 47,330 square miles. The map will show the land so acquired. The sum paid was $10,000,000. MEXICAN WAR; SLAVE TERRITORY 337 '^^ < k ^ ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY ^ IN THE WEST 1803-58 The line marked XY was undetermined and in dispute and partly on this account' the GADSDEN PURCHASE was made The result of Polk's aggressive policy, aided by Southern zeal and the native land hunger of the nation, was an astonish- ing increase of the national domain in the course of four years. March 4, 1845, the western boun- dary of the United States was the line of 181 9, and we occupied, jointly with Great Britain, the Oregon country. In 1848 the republic stretched from sea to sea, and as far south as the Rio Grande River. The Bay of San Francisco, the cov- 23 Territorial expansion. 338 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION' etevi harbor of the western coast, was in our hands. If we in- clude Oregv^n in the acv^uisitions of this administration. o\Tr i.c>>?.«>>:^ square miles were addevi to American teiriton.-. more than the whole area of the United States when its independence w;is acknowledged by Great Britain.* The a>untr>- might well be lifted up as it contemplated its greatness and ex.dted the coumge and skill of our soldiers in Mexico. But the acquisition of this new territor>* fnnStiiM: ^^"^^^ *^^ ^^'^^ ^^ cause of great foreboding ;md of deep and bitter feeling. Territorial expansion was especially in fa\\>r at the South, and yet. e\-en before the war was endevi. and before the land for which the soldiers were light- ing was securely wTested from Mexicc>. the sIa\^holders saw men at the Xorth asserting that sla\-er>- should not be admitted into any p;in of the territon- acquired. To many at the South this seenievi like Robbing them of the just spoils of conquest. The jxvple were fully awake to the momentousness of the issue. The Xorth was diWded, Few weie desin>us of se^dng da\-er\* admittevi to the new territorv"; but many be ext^Ad«^ ^"^^ '^^^^ ^^ s\nnp;\thy with a i^vlicy which would rigidly exclude the Southerner with his human pn>perty, bec;\use they beliex-evi that the question would settle itself, if men would onh" cvmsent to let it alone. Such persons looked upon ''agitation" as the great e\*il. because discussion of the slaxxTN- question angeievi the South and endangerevi the Union. Otheis, an increasing number, were now ilatly opposed to further extension of sla\*er\\ and they demanded the prin- ciple of the Wilmot proviso without qualincation and \vithout delay. Let us not mistake the situation. It is not true that for fifteen wars before the civil war a sc4id Xorth faced a scJid South. The South naturally was nearly a unit v>n the principle Squaunc miles. Squaurt^ miles^' 'TexAs ^ij545> ^?ro,i03 Austrian Eu^MK J4CV04- Firs^ Mexio&n cessioa.... 545.750 Oennany. Fiance, and Spaoa oij:.o^i • I,-NXsr44 l.l39v4lS MrXUWN WAR: SI AM- IFKKl TORY 339 of extending- sl.wory. vm^ at U\ist declared tho slaxoholdors' right to nuno into tho now possessions of tho nation possessions obtaini\l by tho oxpondituro of national bK>od and treasure. On t]\o other l\and, Xortliern sentiment was divided; only vi minority were deeply enougli in earnest to make opposition to slavery tho tust and oontrolliiig moti\e of jH>Htioal eonciiiet. As the Noars went by this number grow larger, until something like a solid Xortli faced a solid South. It will bo our task to Nvateh the phases of this nunement toward a unity of sentiment at the Xorth.^ In 1S47. Cionoral Lewis Cass, then Senator from Mieiiigan and a loader in the Pomooratio part >■. wrote his famous Xiohol- son letter. He had been a prominent candidate so7i"*unitv ^'■^^ ^^^^' presidential nomination in 1S44. and was now mentioned as tho standard bearer of the party in the ensuing campaign. His letter, when published, thort^ fore won attention. It announced a now doctrine. It declared that the Xational Governn\ent ought not to iiUorfere with the domestic concerns of the Territories, and, in short, asserted that tho existence of sla\ or\- was a question with which the people of the Territories must deal thomsoKos. lie o\on denied that Congress had tho constitutional authority to regulate the in- ternal atYairs of a Territory. *'l do not see in the Constitution any grant of tho requisite power to Congress; and I am not dis- posed to extend a doubtful proctxlent beyond its necessity — tho establishment of Territorial go\ernments. when needed leav- ing to the inhabitants all tho rights compatible with the relation they bear to the Confederation". Thus was stated the doctrine later known as "popular sovereignty". By the summer of 1S4S there wore four propositions before tho country concerning slavery in the territory acquired fron\ ^Tlie student must not ho contused h>- ilotails and provcntoii from stv- ing the main drift and moaning of events. Tn.Mn now on to iSOi the ques- tion over gunving more important was whether or not slavery should be hemmed inside its old limits, or be allowed to expand and occupv the West. 340 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Mexico, (i) That of Calhoun, who declared that the territor}' so acquired belonged to the States, and that a Southern man had as ^ood a right to carry his slave with him Different propo- . i t- j i j • ' x- i si tions regard- mto the r ederal domam as a Northern man had ing slavery to take his shccp or his oxen. (2) The doctrine of extension. ^^^ Wilmot proviso, which declared it to be the moral duty of Congress to keep slavery out of the public domain. The most ardent advocates of this principle denied that Con- gress had the right to legalize slaveri' in national territor}'. (3) The doctrine of the Nicholson letter. (4) The extension of the line of 36° 30' through to the Pacitic as the boundary be- tween slavery and freedom. The idea was already spread abroad among the Northern people that this new West was ill adapted to slave labor; many therefore favored a policy of neg- lect, hoping thereby to soothe the South, whose peculiar insti- tution would be driven from the region by Nature herself, whose laws were stronger than any enactments of men. Persons hold- ing this idea were likely to support either the third or the fourth of the propositions just given. As the presidential campaign approached the Democratic party found itself divided. In New York there were the "Old Hunkers", and the "Barnburners".^ The latter The Democrats. . . n i . i ^ t -r. i taction was personally devoted to \ an Buren, and expressed its "uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into territory' now free". The Hunkers were "stand patters", willing to take the whole "hunk", and keepmg quiet on the slavery issue. The National Democratic Convention nominated Cass for the presidency, and William O. Butler, of Kentucky, for the vice-presidency. A platform was adopted full of safe sayings, but not definitely committing the party on the slavery question. The Whigs, too, were not united. In the East there were *' Conscience Whigs" and "Cotton WTiigs". In the Northwest there was a strong anti-slaver\' element. The leaders of the party at large, however, were desirous of avoiding the dread issue, ^ For the origin of these names see Shephard's Van Buren, p. 354; Mc- Laughlin's Cass, p. 237. MEXICAN WAR; SLAVE TERRITORY 341 and the convention, when it met, firmly held its peace on the great question which everybody knew was in everybody's thoughts. Clay was still popular, but many The Whigs. . . feared his candidacy. Now was the time to win again, as the ])arty had won eight years before, by nominating a popular soldier unembarrassed by a political past; and so General Taylor was put in nomination. Millard Fillmore, of New York, was nominated for Vice-President. These nomina- tions meant nothing, except that the Whigs did not dare to an- nounce principles, but hoped for success by mere dint of shout- ing for ''Old Rough and Ready", as Taylor was called. The anti-slavery W^higs had hoped for an anti-slavery plat- form, and when they found the party ready to hide itself behind a popular name they declared that they would not soiLrs*^^^" ^^ bound by party ties. The Barnburners and other dissatisfied Democrats were likewise aroused and ready for independent action. In August a convention at Buffalo nominated Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams. This was the beginning of the Free-soil party. The Liberty party coalesced with it. It was devoted, without shad- ow of turning, to the principle of free soil. "Congress", it de- clared, "has no more right to make a slave than to make a king". "Thunders of applause" are said to have followed the reading from the platform of such sentences as this: "Resolved, that we inscribe on our banner free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men, and under it we will fight on and fight ever, until a tri- umphant victory shall reward our exertions". The great revolt at the North against slavery extension was fairly begun. Thus there were three candidates in the field. Two of the parties refused to express definite opinions on the slavery ques- tion; but one of them nominated a slave owner, and the other chose as its leader the man who had given out his belief that Congress could not legislate on the subject of slavery in the Territories. Taylor and Fillmore were elected. The Free- soilers cast over two hundred and ninety thousand votes, and held the balance of power in some of the Northern States. 342 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Although both of the old parties blinded their eyes to the great problem, it remained to be solved, and could not be escaped. Moreover, there were tens of thousands of men at the North that were now insisting that it must be solved by a recognition of principle. General Taylor's life up to the time of his election to the Presidency had been spent in large measure as a soldier in the regular army. He o^vned a plantation in Louisi- ana and several hundred slaves. He was an hon- est, straightforward man, free from all pretence, with a soldierly devotion to duty, and with a ver^- clear sense of right and justice. In political experience he was totally lacking, and his knowl- edge of public men and events was necessarily limited. He is said to have supposed, until a short tune before his arrival at Washington to assume office, that the Vice-President was <\v otfjiio a member of his Cabinet. In spite of his unfamiliarity with the formalities and duties of his position, his frankness and honesty did not ill fit him for the presidency in the tr^'ing days that were before the peo- '^^:i^cA.epC'^r^/y^:iyy'^^4?7^^^~- plc. Slaveholder as he was, ^ he could see no reason for doing aught to fasten slavery* on regions where the in- habitants did not want it, and he could be relied upon to act with what seemed to him complete fairness. During Polk's administration the balance between Southern and Northern States had been preserved. Florida was admitted in iS4v and Iowa in 1S46. The admission of New States. ^^" ^ Texas was offset by the entrance of Wisconsin into the Union in 1S4S. In the summer of that year Oregon was established as a territory The act of establishment forbade MEXICAN WAR; SLAVE TERRITORY 343 slavery or involuntary servitude within the territorial limits. Save as the laws of Mexico were recognized or problem** military rule might be enforced, the Territory ac- quired from Mexico as the result of the war was still without legal organization. It was necessary for Congress to act at once. California presented peculiar difhculties. In 1S4S gold was discovered there. This discovery soon made a deep impression on the minds of the Eastern people, and in 1S4Q caiiforai*. ^^ great migration to the new gold coast set in. Thousands and tens of thousands left their homes in the East to hunt for riches. Long trains of wagons started on the weary journey over the Western prairies. Everv sort of ocean craft was pressed into service that the eager crowds might be carried ''around the Horn" or landed at the Isthmus of Panama, to make their way across as best they might. Law- yers, ministers, school-teachers, mechanics, men from all walks of life, old and young, hastened away to the gold fields to make their fortunes in a day. The population of California grew with astounding rapidity. Something like eighty thousand persons arrived tliere in a single year. San Francisco changed from a hamlet to a city in a twelvemonth. The mad race for the gold diggings brought together a motley crowd. There was no law save the rough code of the mining camp. The whole territory was on the very verge of anarchy; but tliere was underneath it all a strong sentiment of order. These people, thus quickly swept together into a community almost witliout law, showed in the end rare talent for organiza- tion. In September, 1840, delegates met in con- Caiifornia veutiou, adopted a State Constitution, and pre- constitution. pared to seek admission into the LTnion. A clause prohibiting slavery was adopted without difficulty. The people ratified the Constitution, and elected State otTicers and members of Congress. Wlien Congress met, therefore, in December, 1S40, serious problems demanded immediate solution, (i) California, with a free Constitution, claimed immediate admission into the 344 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Union. Such admission was strongly opposed by the South, for it would destroy the balance between the States, because there was no slave State ready for entrance, nor pnj^wems. ^^^ there likely to be for some time to come. (2) Some sort of Territorial government must be estab- lished in the rest of the land obtained from Mexico, and it must be decided whether slavery should be recognized there or not. (3) Moreover, there was a contest between Texas and the peo- ple of the old Mexican province of New Mexico. Texas, it will be remembered, seceded from Mexico, claiming all land north and east of the Rio Grande River. But the province of New Mexico had in reality extended considerably to the east of this river, and the Texans had never succeeded in making good their claim to this region. The people of New Mexico objected to having their province divided and the eastern portion of it embraced in the State of Texas. This contest Congress was called upon to settle. (4) In addition to all of these difficulties, slavery presented others. The Northerners were, year by year, more hostile to the whole institution, and the existence of slav- ery in the District of Columbia was especially irritating. Slaves were bought and sold within sight of the Capitol, and this seemed to Northern sentiment a disgrace no longer to be borne. (5) Many desired also the suppression of the trade in slaves be- tween the States, as clearly within the power of the United States Government. (6) The Southerners, resenting any inter- ference with the traffic in -slaves, made serious charges against the North; they charged all the North with the sins of abolition- ism ; they demanded a more stringent fugitive slave law, in order that they might thus recover the hundreds of slaves that yearly escaped and made their way to the North. Through the winter of 1849-50 the feeling was intense. Southern men felt that they were now struggling for a last hope. Texas, with its wide prairies, was indeed in danger" theirs, but it now seemed possible that slavery would be shut out of the Mexican cession, because even the people of New Mexico did not wish it. The Virginia Legislature passed resolutions declaring that the adoption and MEXICAN WAR ; SLAVE TERRITORY 345 attempted enforcement of the Wilmot proviso would leave to the people but two courses: one, of ''abject submission to aggression and outrage"; the other, "determined resistance at all hazards and to the last extremity". The Union seemed to be in danger, for the South was exasperated and utterly in earnest. "All now is uproar", wrote Clay, "confusion, and menace to ths existence of the Union and to the happiness and safety of the people". To the task of quieting the storm and of saving the Union Clay now applied himself. He hoped that each section might be brought to yield a portion of its claims and that Clay's compro- pgg^^e could be sccured by compromise. No one mise measures, 1850. was better fitted for the task than he. He was a slave owner and believed that it was riveted on the South, but he had no great love for slavery. He knew South- ern life and passions, but he knew Northern life and prejudices quite as well. His popularity was great, for his sympathies were wide and deep, and for forty years he had stood before the people as a faithful representative of American ideas. He introduced into the Senate, in January, a series of resolutions dealing with the subjects of controversy. He proposed, among other things, (i) to admit California; (2) to establish Territories without saying anything about slavery; (3) to pass a fugitive slave law; (4) to pay Texas to give up her claim in New Mex- ico; (5) to declare that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but (6) to abolish the slave trade there. These resolutions were the subjects of discussion for months. All through the summer of 1850 North and South anxiously watched the movements of Congress. The Senate Great debates. 1 1 - r r ^ ^ r^ was the chief arena of debate. Great speeches were made by Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Seward, and others. Webster greatly disappointed thousands of his Northern ad- mirers by supporting the compromise, and declar- Webster's [^„ ^y^^^ slavery need not be excluded by law from 7th of March ,^ „^ -^ ^ . . , ^ speech. the new Western lerritories, because it was ex- cluded by a law superior to legislative enactment: "I mean the law of Nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth". He declared that anti-slavery agi- 346 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Calhoun's position. tation was useless and dangerous, and he even censured the North for harboring runaway slaves. It was believed by many that he spoke these words in hope of securing the presidency. If he did, he was sadly mistaken, for, from that time, although Northern confidence seemed temporarily to be given him again, his great power of leadership was gone. Calhoun was at the point of death and unable to deliver the speech he had prepared. It was therefore read for him. If one wishes to know the feeling of the South that finally led to secession and civil war, one should study this speech. To Calhoun the nation seemed clearly divided into two distinct sections; if the Northern one insisted on overturning the balance be- tween the two, the interests of the South would be endangered and slavery would not be safe; the only way in which the Union could be preserved was by carefully main- taining this balance and by the complete recognition of sectional differences and interests. To the Western Territories the Southern- ^ er must be allowed to go with his slaves as freely as the Northern man with his cattle; slavery must not be discriminated against, but protected by the power of the Na- tional Government. Seward made the greatest speech of these debates, because he fully represented the best Northern sentiment concerning Seward's slavery; because he represented the sentiment that speech. "^^'^s to bccome the dominant power in the nation. He declared that slavery must go no further. He warned the South that every effort to extend slavery or to fasten its hold upon the country would only hasten the day of emanci- pation, because this land must be free, and the forces of economy, tU^.^ /V^^^o^^-w.^-^. MEXICAN WAR ; SLAVE TERRITORY 347 the forces of civilization, were fighting the battles of freedom. *'The question of dissolving the Union is a complex question: it embraces the fearful issue whether the Union shall stand, and slavery, under the steady, peaceful action of moral, social, and political causes, be removed by gradual voluntary effort and with compensation; or whether the Union shall be dissolved and civil war ensue, bringing on violent but complete and immediate emancipation".^ How much misery and woe might have been avoided had the South Hstened to Seward's warning in 1850! Not till September were all parts of the compromise passed. It agreed substantially with Clay's scheme, (i) The boundary between Texas and New Mexico was established, enaVer'''°°'''^ and Tcxas was paid ten million dollars for giving up her claims. (2) California was admitted as a free State. (3) New Mexico and Utah were given Territorial governments without restriction as to slavery. (4) A law was passed to provide for the arrest and return of fugitive slaves. (5) The slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished. On the whole, it was received favorably by both sections of the country. The people were relieved from the high excitement under which they had been living for two or three years. An- other crisis seemed passed in safety, and men breathed more freely. The part of this compromise that was most disliked by the North, and that eventually caused greatest trouble, was the fugitive slave law. This was a very severe meas- Save^ifw ^^ ure. A negro claimed as a runaway slave had no right to a trial by jury, could give no evidence in his own behalf, and had little or no chance of being released. The trial might be before a commissioner instead of a court, and it was the commissioner's duty to hear and determine the case 1 Seward at this time also said that "there is a higher law than the Constitution which regulates our authority", etc. For this "higher-law doctrine" he and his followers were bitterly attacked, on the ground that they sought to overthrow the Constitution for mere sentiment. But he spoke plain truth; the Constitution itself could not resist the moral forces of the nation. 34S fflSTORY OF THE AMERICAX NATION of a claimant in a summary' manner. WTiether the negro was a p>erson or a thing was decided with less formality than in a suit at common law before the Federal couns where over twenty dollars were involved. The passage of this act was in many parts of the North keenly resented, but time was needed to dis- close all its awful meaning. In the course of the next few years Xorthem sentiment against slaver\' was aroused to a new pitch by efforts to enforce the law. for it brought home before the verj" eyes of the f)eople some of the most odious aspects of slaver>*; it help>ed to intensify hatred of the whole barbarous system and to bring about a nearer approach to unity of thought and feeling. Throughout the North were many colored people, who had either escaped from ser\-ice in years gone by or been born in freedom; they could now be seized on the mere presenta- tion of an alSda\-it made by an alleged owner, and they might be dragged away into bondage after a hasty trial. Riots and res- cues became not infrequent, and some of them aroused the in- terest of the whole country-. This p>art of the compromise, therefore, did not allay ill feeling, but in the end made it more intense and bitter. While the compromise was under discussion President Tay- lor died (July 0, iS5o\ His death brought deep sorrow to the nation. The pec^ple of the North paid the tribute Tarior. *-^^ mouming to the honest soldier, who seemed to have forgotten sectional prejudices in his lo\-e of countr}*. *'I never saw", wrote Seward, "public grief so uni- verSvil and so profound". Mr. Fillmore immediately assumed the presidency. It has alwa}*s been the practice to nominate men for the Vice-presi- dency without first considering whether they are Fillmore. ^^ ^^^^ ^■^'^ presidency; and so it was in the case of Fillmore. He was by no means a great man, nor was he widely experienced in public affairs; but the full respK>nsibility of office was now thrust upon him. His cast of mind led him to be on the whole conser\-ative and c;treful. His past showed that he had anti-slaver>' convictions, but he threw his influence in favor of the compromise while it was under MEXICAN WAR; SLAVE TERRITORY 349 discussion, and endeavored to see it fully carried out after it was passcti. The Cabinet was reorganized. Webster became Sec- retary of State, and to a great extent directed the policy of the administration. References Wilson. Division ami Reunion, pp. 150-172; Bvroess. Middle Period, Chapters X\I. X\II; A. C. McLaughlin, Lrtcis Cass, Chapters \in. IX; von Hoist. CcJhoun, pp. J74-351; Lodge, Danid U'cbsur, Chapter IX; Schurz, Henry Chiy. Chapters XX\', XXVI; LoTHROP, U'ilUam H. Seward, Chapters 1\'. \"; Rhodes, History of the United StJtes, \'olumo I. Chapter II. Longer ac- counts: iMcMASTER, \'olume VII. pp. 430-O14; Schouler. \olume IV, pp. 5^5-540; Volume V. pp. 1-1S7; Garrison, Westward Rxtvn- sion, Chapters XV -XX. CHAPTER XIX Growth in popolatioii THE FRIXCirLE OF R^FULAR SOVEREIGNTY: THE FORMATION OF THE REFUBLICAX FARTV In the midst of all the excitemeni on the slaven- question tlie countr}- had been growing in we^ilth, in strength, and in pv>pulation. In 1S40 the census showed about seventeen million people. In 1S50 there were twenty-three million. This increase was due in large part to the great influx ci Europe.in immigrants, who in this decade came to America in large numbers. The Irish and Gennans were especially num- erous. Of the fonner nearly one hundred and sixty thou- sand came in a single year. After the great popular upris- ings in Europe in 1S4S — upris- ings in behalf of greater political freedom — thousands mo\ed to America either to esaipe pun- ishment, or, despairing of brighter days at home, to seek prosj^>erity in a land whose in- stitutions seemed reasonable and just. All of these new- comers found homes either in the Xortheni cities or on the To the South thev would not I ^ ! S,iVX\(VV Chart Showing Increase of Immigration by Decades fanns of the new Northwest, go. because they came to work, while beyond Mason and Dixon's line work was left to slaves and labor was considered degrading. They came, too, without local or sectional preju- dices, and thus added to the nationalizing forces and stimulated the narional spirit. 3S0 POPULAR SO\EREK,MY; lUE REPUBLICAN PARTY 351 In this decade of political excitement the inventive spirit of America had not slumbered. Among the most important in- ventions was the rotarv printing; press, by which Inventions. . . . ' , "^ . ,' . , the process ol printmg became amazmgly rapid. The result was the cheapening of books and newspapers and con- sequent widening of educational opportunities. The sewing machine, too, was invented, and the result of this invention was not simply to lessen the drudgery of the household, but to re- duce the work on all articles of clothing, and thus to make them cheaper and more attainable by the poor. About this same time a patent was secured for the manufacture of rubber goods. The value of the discovery was so great that this industry as- sumed large proportions at once. In 1850 over three million dollars' worth of rubber sjoods were made in the United States. In trade and commerce the United States was now one of the first nations of the world. ''T can never think of America", wrote Leigh Hunt at one time, ''without seeing a gigantic counter stretched all along the seaboard ". The shipping interests had recently developed greatly. Steam vessels were taking the place of the old sailing vessels on the ocean, as they had already supplanted the flat- int«ests boats ou the rivers. Steamships now made the passage across the Atlantic in about ten days. The wealth of the nation was increasing rapidly in spite of the forebodings of those who feared slavery and its blighting intluence. Men looked hopefully forward to an immense material develop- ment. In this they were not mistaken. The decade from 1S50 to i860 was one of progress. Before its end America had act- ually outstripped England in the tonnage of its merchant marine. The compromise of 1850 was quite generally acquiesced in. Some men continued to denounce it, but the tirst two or three years after its passage were years of comparative Acquiescence quiet, and the members of both the old parties comp^romise. ^'^^^ ^"""^^^ ^^^^ Other in declaring their attachment to it . Occasionally the fugitive slave law was openly violated, or men gave utterance to their feelings in ringing de- nunciations; but on tlie whole it seemed to the majority that it 352 HISTORY OF THE A:\IERICAN NATION was now only necessaty to decry "agitation" and to assert un- wavering obedience and respect for the great compromises. In the spring of 1852 Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published, a simple, moving stor}- of slavery. The book holds a high place in our literature, not because its lan- Uncie Tom's guage is especially artistic, but because it pictures Cabin. . . . , i • i r i a Situation with power and is the irank utterance of impassioned belief. But it is more than a piece of literature in the ordinary sense; it is a great political pamphlet. The sales of the book were enormous.^ In Europe and America hundreds of thousands of copies were sold. Its effect in awakening anti- slavery feeling was great. Rufus Choate is reported to have said, "That book will make two millions of Abolitionists"; and Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe, "All the defenders of slavery have left me alone and are abusing you". The Democratic party nominated Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, and William R. King, of Alabama, as their candi- dates. The Whigs nominated General Winfield i8s^2*^^ °^° Scott, of Virginia, and William A. Graham, of North Carolina. Both parties favored the com- promise, and declared that it was a final settlement of the slavery question. The free-soilers nominated John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and George W. Julian, of Indiana. They wittily characterized the old parties as the "Whig and Democratic Wings of the Great Compromise Party of the Nation". Their principles were set forth in the phrase, "Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men". The election resulted in a victory for the Democrats so complete that the Whigs were over- whelmed. Scott carried only four States and received only forty-two electoral votes. Though his party had humbled itself and bowed down before the compromise, and refused * The picture of slaver>' given in the book is only partly tnie; it doubt- less presented only the most obnoxious features of the system; but whether it was true in all respects or not is not the historical fact of chief signili- cance; the fact is that the book was of great influence in getting people to think and to oppose slavery-. ^Many a novel since then has aided peo- ple to see a situation. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 353 to yield to its own better impulses, it could not win the Southern vote.^ This was the end of the Whig party. Four years later a few men still clung to the name and tried to believe their party was not gone, but to no avail. It was said to have coldiUons.*^* ''died of an attempt to swallow the fugitive law". Before the next election, as we shall see, the slavery question assumed new forms and took on enormous proportions. The Whig party had to be dissolved that a new party might take its place, ready to act upon principle in opposition to slav- ery extension. Moreover the old stalwart leaders that had con- trolled Whig counsels for a generation were now passed away. Webster and Clay died in 1852, and the Northern men who could have taken their places were opponents of slavery. In- deed, we now find new men, and a fair field for new forces. Salmon P. Chase, Seward, and Charles Sumner became the giants of the arena, and they were unrelenting foes of slavery. The South, too, had men thoroughly devoted to its peculiar in- terests, its most able and fearless champion, after the death of Calhoun, being Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. Though men might blind their eyes to it, the contest was narrowing down to a contest between the North and the South. The bright, able young men of the North, the men of the next twenty years of action, were prepared to cast away old party ties and vote for principle, while the South would support none but men fully devoted to its interests.^ ^ The new President was not a great statesman. He had been a con- sistent Democrat, but no one could foresee what his career as President would be. Indeed, he had been nominated by the Democrats partly be- cause they desired a colorless candidate. He was a man of some ability, a good lawyer, and a fine speaker. He had both civil and military experience, having been in the House and the Senate, and having served as a brigadier- general in the Mexican War. The Vice-President, King, never assumed the duties of office. He died about a month after the inauguration. Pierce made William L. Marcy Secretary of State and Jefferson Davis Secretary of War. ■^ We saw, when considering the party condition in 1811-12, that new 3'oung men were coming in. For forty years Clay, Calhoun, and Webster were the towering figures. They all defended the Union; even Calhoun, 24 354 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX Southern ambition was lired in these days ^vs-ith the hope of winning new territon- in the regions of the South. Cuba and Central America, both suitable for slaven*, were Expansion of alluringly near, and both might be acquired by a territory. little etfoFt. How widely hopes of conquests in that direction were entertained at the South one cannot say. Certain it is that many hoped to gain strength for slaven' by the acquisition of new territoiy. But zeal for the annexation of Cuba was not connned to Southern politicians. There was prevalent at the time a bold belief in the doctrine of *' manifest destiny", a belief that we as a nation were called upon to extend the sphere of our wholesome influence, to gather in new lands that we might do our great duty in elevating man. This sentiment is well expressed in the words of Edward Everett, who during the last few months of Fillmore's admin- istration was Secretary' of State: "Ever}- addition to the territory- of the American Union has given homes to European destitution and gardens to European want". Marcy himself seems to have been anxious for the annexa- tion of Cuba, In 1S54. at his suggestion, the American mmLsters to England, France, and Spain — James Buchanan, manifesto" Johu Y. Mason, Pierre Soule — met and consulted upon the prospects of acquiring this island. They drew up a paper which has since borne the name of the "Ostend manifesto", from the place where the nrst consultations were held. This is a remarkable document. It declared that the ''Union can never enjoy repose nor p^^ssess reliable securitv as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries". It sug- gested, m hardly mistakable language, that the United States would be justified in seizing the coveted spot if Spain refused to while asserting Southern rights, declared the Union a^uld be preserved only by guaRiing those rights; he sought to build and secure State and sectional rights, but he asserted and probably believed that only thus cc»uld the Union be saved. The Xorthem men. who were for forging to the front fami now on. were Union men also; but. more and more, opposition to slaver>' and what they v.\>nsidered Southern domination influenced their thoughts and actions — Lincoln, Sewatxi, Sumner, Chase. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; THE REPUBLIC\N PARTY 355 sell it. '''\Ve should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our pos- terity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second San Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neig]iboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union". The Government did not directly sanc- tion this extraordmary paper. Marcy directly disapproved of it ; but when it was published it startled the world. Men at the North wondered if our nation was in such a plight that three of our foreign diplomats dared openly proclaim that we must seize an island, lest its inhabitants become free. The Democrats, highly successful in the campaign of 1S52, took oflice the next year with elation and conhdence. They had proclaimed loudly the sanctity of the compromise, question^again '•^^"^^^ ^"^"^^^ hopcd and believed that the dreadful slaver}- issue was a thing of the past. But hardly had the new Congress assumed its duties when the storm burst again with renewed fur\-. It was proposed to form a new Terri- tory- in the land west of Iowa and Missouri, part of the Louisiana purchase. From all of this country- north of 36° 30' slaver\- was excluded by the express terms of the Missouri compromise. The minds of the Northern people had long rested in calm assurance that this p>ortion of the national domain was destined for free- dom. It was protected by a law of over thirty years' standing, and both of the great parties had avowed their faith and alle- giance to it. In Januar^^ 1S54. the Senate began the consideration of a measure for organizing a Territory- in this region. Senator Dixon, of Kentucky, who was nlling the unexpired Nebr^Tct. ^^^^'^ "^^ Henr>- Clay, offered an amendment re- pealing so much of the Missouri compromise as restricted the extension of slavery-. A few days later Senator Stephen A. Douglas, from Illinois, brought in a new bill pro- viding for two Territories. Kansas and Nebraska, and for the repeal of the slaver}- restriction of the famous compromise on the ground that it was "superseded by the principles of the 356 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION legislation of 1850". The policy of ''non-intervention", which was said to be the basis of the act of 1850, was now to be adopted as a principle in the organization of the new Territories. It was declared that the intention of the act was ''not to legislate slav- er>' into any Territory or State, nor exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States". The bill was debated long and bitterly. Chase, Seward, and Sumner made great speeches, attacking slavery and charging ^^ . ^ . the South with breach of faith. Douglas defended The debate. . . . * . the measure with his usual skill and vigor. His language was not elegant and his manner was coarse, but he spoke with such vehemence, with such consummate shrewd- ness and adroitness, that he was one of the greatest debaters that ever spoke in Congress. He declared that the com- promise of 1850 contained a principle; that the principle was wise and constitutionally sound; that in order to quiet the slaver}' agitation forever this principle should be applied to all of the Territories.^ It is by no means clear that the "non-intervention" policy of 1S50 was the same as the doctrine of "popular sovereignty", nor was it made absolutelv evident that under this bLU meln?^^ Kansas-Nebraska act, purporting to be based on the principle of 1850, the people of the Territories themselves could, after organization, either admit or exclude slavery- as they chose. But Cass and Douglas, and other Northern Democrats who voted for the bill, seem to have be- lieved that it recognized "popular sovereignty"; and, if it did, then the people of the new Territories could settle the matter ^The compromise of 1850 had provided for the organization of Terri- tories in the land acquired from Mexico; the compromise avoided any distinct statement concerning the legality of slaver>' in the Territories; it did not cover the Louisiana purchase, where the slaver>' question was " settled " by the Missouri compromise. Douglas now claimed that the compromise of 1S50 did establish a principle and he proposed to cany it over into the land covered by the Missouri compromise. rori-LAR SOVEREIGNTY: THE RErUBLIC \\ r AR rV 357 for ihemsolvos. The Soiuhoru i^Hvple later denievi that either the compromise of 1S50 or ihe Kai\<^is-Xebrar on an 358 fflSTORY OF THE AMERICAN XATIOX equal footing with free, there was deep indignation in the hearts of many who had hitherto belonged to the con- sen-ative classes and had deprecated agitation and excite- ment. Congressmen who voted for the measure had difficulty in justifying themselves before their constituents. Douglas was for the time being bitterly denomiced. "I could then travel", he said at a later day, "from Boston to Chicago by the light of my own effigies". Some ardent foes of slaven* were indeed elated; they felt that now the real contest was begun: they felt, too, that the bad faith of the slave- holders was so clearly shown that no further compromise of principle was possible. "This seems to me", exclaimed Seward, "auspicious of better days and better and wiser legisla- tion. Through all the darkness and gloom of the present hour bright stars are breaking, that inspire me with hope and excite me to perseverance". The time was ripe for the formation of a party outspoken in its opposition to the extension of slavery' into the Territories. Early in the winter, when Douglas introduced his panv ^^" ^^ ^^^' "^^^ address, signed by Chase. Sumner, and other anti-slaver}' leaders, was published in the news- papers, denouncing the Kansas-Xebraska bill as "a gross vio- lation of a sacred pledge, as a criminal betrayal of precious rights, as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast region immigrants from tlie Old World and free laborers from our own States, and convert it into a drear}- region of despotism inhabited by masters and slaves". These words ex]^>ressed the sentiment of many X^orthern people. The Free-soilers were still in existence, but the party had never been a popular one. All the anti-slavery elements were now fused into a new party. The movement was felt ever^n^-here in the Xorth, but the first active steps toward organization were taken in the Northwest, where the people were not bound by commercial ties to the South, and where, less conser\-ative by nature than the men of the East, they were readier to cast aside old party bonds and take on new ones. In ^lichigan a State convention was called of those, "without reference to former political associations, who POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 359 think the time has arrived for union at the North to protect liberty from being overthrown and downtrodden". This con- , , , „ vention nominated a full State ticket, and chris- July 6, 1854. . tened the new party '^ Republican". Like action was taken in several other States, but the new name was not adopted in all of them. The principles of the party were un- mistakable; its chief aim was '^ resistance to the encroachment of slavery". The elements that were brought into the new party were various. It absorbed all the Free-soilers, many of whom had been Democrats; it took in also a great number of and^succest! ^^^^ Whigs — thosc who, realizing that their party had nothing left to it but a name and a remem- brance, were ready to cooperate boldly against slavery. The so-called anti-Nebraska Democrats also joined the Republicans. Thus the party was a composite one, but it was guided by a very definite purpose. Its tendencies were toward a broad and liberal construction of the Constitution, and opposition to the doctrine of State sovereignty. The success of the movement was sur- prising. In the fall election of 1854 the opponents of ''Ne- braska" carried every State of the old Northwest, and their success in the East was not slight. About this time still another party arose, and for a time as- sumed large proportions. This was the ''Native- American" or "Know-Nothing" party. It was a secret or- Kno -Nothin s g^-^^ization, devotcd primarily to the exclusion of foreign-born citizens, and especially Roman Cath- olics, from the suffrage, or at least from public office. It took its popular name from the fact that, if any of its members were questioned concerning its object and methods, their answer was "I don't know ".^ The great influx of immigrants had startled ^ It is said that its members had some silly practices such as this: If you wanted to get into a lodge you must rap at the dOor several times, and when the sentinel peeps through the wicket you must say "What meets here, to-night"? He will then answer *'I don't know" and you must say "I am one". At the second door you must rap four times and give the password "Thirteen". When out in the world when a brother gives you 360 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION many people. They believed that the presence of so many foreigners was a menace to our institutions. Some men were persuaded that the Roman Catholic Church was secretly plot- ting for political influence. The watchword of the new party was ''America for Americans". Probably its members were honestly deluded by the belief that it had a duty to perform; but it can hardly be doubted that many joined the organization because they longed for another issue than the dreadful slavery question. For a year or two the new party was so strong that it ran a not uneven race with the Republicans. But after 1856 its power dwindled rapidly. It could have no lasting vigor. Its secret methods were out oi place in a free country, where, as it was well said, "every man ought to have his principles written on his forehead". The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill had other conse- quences than the formation of th€ Republican party. ^ Popular sovereignty, reduced to its lowest terms, meant Popular but this: a contest of strength between North and sovereignty m <-, , , i i- practice. South, between slavery and freedom. That sec- tion must win that had the greater vigor. If the North could pour more men into the Territories than the South could, their destiny was secure. Both sections now prepared for the struggle. Emigrants from the Southern States made their way into Kansas, and the people of the neighboring State of Missouri were ready to move across the border, if only temporarily, in order to carry *an election. From the North, too, came men by the grip you must ask "Where did you get that "? He will answer^ "I don't know", you must reply "I don't know either". All this sounds like the fanciful contrivances of children! No wonder that Greeley declared that the party had no more elements of permanence than an anti-potato rot party would have. ^ One should notice through these years some of the more striking efforts to rescue slaves taken at the North under the fugitive slave law. Read in the Atlantic Monthly, March, 1897, the thrilling account given by Mr. Higginson of the attempt to rescue Burns. The situation was dramatic. A descendant of the first minister of Massachusetts Bay and a negro, side by side, battered with a beam the door behind which the fugitive slave was imprisoned. When such a scene could be enacted, open conflict could not be long postponed. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 361 the thousand, many of them to seek new homes, many of them in search of excitement or bent on holding Kansas against the in-rushing tide of slavery. In this great contest the free States had the advantage. Their population was now considerably larger than that of the slave States, and was yearly increased by immigrants from Europe. IMoreover, the Southern slave owner could not at a moment's warning abandon his plantation and transport his band of retainers to the West; and. even if he wished to do so, he hesitated to move to a Territory where there was a chance of losing his property in his slaves. But, above all, the North was now in every way the more powerful section. In this struggle for Kansas the greater conflict between the two sections that was to arise within a few years was fairly shown forth. The South was defeated because it was weak; because its ruling institution did not endow it with actual vigor; because it could not maintain itself against the superior wealth and power of the free States. At first the pro-slavery element was successful in Kansas. In the autumn of 1S54 they elected a delegate to Congress, and the next spring elected a Legislature favorable to slav- inKlnsaJ^ ^O'- The free-State men charged that the elec- tion was carried by fraud and intimidation; that residents of jNIissouri had swarmed over the border only to vote, returning at once to their own State. The Legislature thus elected took steps to make Kansas a slave Territor}^, and passed a severe code of laws for the protection of slavery. This gov- ernment was not recognized as legitimate by its opponents, and the Northern men proceeded to ignore it. They met in conven- tion at Topeka and formed a State Constitution, under which they sought admittance to the Union. They even elected ofli- cers under this instrument. There were thus two authorities in the Territor\^, one a proslavery government, the other an anti- slavery government pretending to have power under a State Constitution. The National Government refused to recognize this Constitution or the officers acting under it, and the Presi- dent ordered the Federal troops to dismiss the Free-State Legis- lature when it assembled. 362 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION For about two years the history of Kansas was a histoty of violence and disorder. Civil war broke out. Men were shot; towns were sacked. The whole Territory was in Kansas^ ^ State of anarchy. Robbery and deeds of bru- tality were constant. ^' Which faction surpassed the other in violence it would be hard to say ".^ Men from the North and men from the South seemed to lose all sense of their common humanity. It was estimated that from November i, 1S55, to December i, 1S56, about two hundred persons were killed, and property worth not less than two million dollars destroyed in the Territory. "Bleeding Kansas" became a watchword at the North; and indeed this awiul condi- tion was a sad commentary on the policy of "popular sovereignty". The Kansas question was of course hotly discussed in Con- gress. In these trying times men forgot the decorum of debate and talked with savage earnestness. In May, Sumner."^^'^ 1S56, Charles Sumner made his great speech on the Crime against Kansas. He was a powerful and polished orator; and now" his soul was lifted up within him, for he hated slavery with a deadly hatred. His speech was a furious attack upon the slaveholders, and was, beyond question, needlessly sharp and severe.- He spoke with special sever- ity of Senator Butler, of South Cafolina. Preston S. Brooks, a representative from that State and a kinsman of the Sen- ator, determined to take revenge. A day or two later, after the Senate had adjourned, Brooks entered the Senate Chamber and found Sumner busy at his desk, his head bent low over his work. He made the most of his opportunity, striking Sumner over the head with a walking stick and so seriously injuring him that he did not fully recover for a number of years. The House ^ This quotation is from Spring's Kansas, a very interesting book. Chapters VI-X give a vivid picture of the horrors of the time. 2 It is not meant that the attack on slavery was too severe, but the attack on the slaveholders was. The great Lincoln always spoke of the Southern man with compassion, while he spoke of slavery with loathin? and sorrow. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY; THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 363 C?X<5i^-jej»^ y^e^h^^^ did not expel Brooks because the needed two-thirds vote could not be secured. Brooks, however, resigned his seat, and was reelected at once almost unani- mously. The North was mightily stirred by this attack. Even those w^ho did not sympathize with Sumner were indignant at the brutality of the assault. Perhaps nothing that occurred before the outbreak of the war did more to estrange the two sections and to fill the hearts of men with bitterness. The North felt that the South was given over to ruffianism. The South, on the other hand, believed that all Northern men were Abo- litionists plotting violently to overthrow slavery; many seemed to believe that Sumner had received his just deserts. The campaign of 1856 was begun soon after these exciting events. There were three parties in the field. The Democrats nominated James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. Their plat- form approved of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the principle of popular sovereignty. It disapproved of "all sectional parties . . . whose avowed purpose, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion". The Republicans were organized as a national party in the winter of 1856, and in the early summer candidates were chosen. John C. Fremont, of California, was nominated for President, and William L. Day- ton, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. Resolutions were passed declaring that Congress had sovereign power over the Territories and should use it to prohibit slavery there, and that Kansas should be admitted at once under the Free-State Con- stitution. The Know-Nothings put forward as candidates Millard Fillmore and Andrew J. Donelson, of Tennessee. The The election of 1856. 364 HISTORY OF THE A]MERICAN NATION campaign was carried on through the summer with great ear- nestness and with extraordinary show of feeling. Buchanan was elected, but not by a kirge electoral majority. The popular vote of the Demociats was less than that of the Republican and TERRITORY \\> ■'^RToRv ; V— /,uL. :;^^\ r^'^'^^o KAN. TER TIIK KllXTlON OF 1S.">(; American parties combined. The Republicans polled 1,341,204 votes, about live times as many as the Free-soilers had ever cast. It was evident that opposition to sUuer}' had assumed a new and formidable shape. References Hart, Contemporaries, Volume IV. pp. loo-iri; Wilson. Division and Reunion, pp. 17S-193; Burgess, Middle Period, Chapters XVIII-XX; McL.\rGiiLix, Lru-is Cass, Chapter X; LoTUKOP. Sra'ard, Chapters \T-IX; H.-\rt, Salmon P. Chase, Chapters W \l; Storey, Charles Sumner, Chapters VI-\I1I. Longer accounts: Schovi.kk. Volume V. pp. 213-367; Smith. Parties and Slavery, Chapters IXll; Rhodl\ Volume I, Chapters III, V: Volume II, Chapters \ I-\ III. CHAPTER XX THE COMING OF THE CRISIS The struggle in Kansas, the growing feeling of resentment at the North, the bitterness with whicli men spoke of the attack upon Sumner, tlie determination of the South to see skivery planted in the West, South- ern hatred of the "lilack Repub- licans", all indicated that war between the sections might not be long delayed. But when Buchanan took the presidential chair in 1857 he hoped he could bring in good feeling.^ He announced privately after his election that the great object of his administration would be to ''arrest, if possible, the agi- tation of the slavery question at the North, and to destroy sec- tional parties". Such a task proved too great for human power. Almost immediately after the 'James Buchiinan had held a number of important positions before he became President. He had been a member of both houses of Confj;ress, Secretary of State and minister to England. He had performed all his public duties acceptably, but had never shown remarkable brilliancy or talent. He had long been a leader in the party, but was not so able as some of its more {positive members. The chief positions in his cabinet were given to Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of State; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury; John IJ. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War; Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General. 365 366 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION inauguration the Supreme Court gave a decision in an im- portant case. Several years before, Dred Scott, a negro slave, had been taken by his master into a free State, Scott case" '^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^ P^^^ °^ ^^^ national domain where slavery' was forbidden by the terms of the Missouri compromise. He had then been taken back to Missouri, and after a time was sold. Scott brought suit against his master for assault and battery, claiming that by going into free territory he had become a free man. The suit was taken from the lower courts to the highest Federal tribunal. The Supreme Court denied that Scott had become a free man, asserted that persons of African descent could not become citizens and thus obtain the right to sue in the Federal courts, and declared that the Missouri compromise was uncon- stitutional, inasmuch as Congress had no authority to exclude slaver}- from the Territories. The decision of the court was not unanimous; two of the nine judges strongly disagreed with it, and two others did not acquiesce in all its parts. We may notice that, if Scott, being a negro, could not as a citizen sue in the courts, the court should have dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction, without proceeding to give a long opinion on aU the merits and difficulties of the controversy. The judges doubtless thought that a legal decision would have some effect in bringing peace to the country*. The decision seemed at first to be a great victor}- for slavery and to strike a hea\-\- blow at the Republicans. The funda- mental Republican principle was that Congress The attitude of ^Q^^ld and must exclude slavery- from national ter- to^d^the case. ntor}'. If the decision of the court were to stand as good law, the Republicans must give up their fight for congressional action. If they ignored it, they posed be- fore the countr\' as advocating disobedience to the decision of the highest court in the land. The situation was a tr\-ing one. It was too late, however, for an '"opinion" to settle the slavery question. The Republican party continued to work against the extension of slavery; they attacked the decision on the ground that it was not a judicial opinion, declaring that the court had THE COMING OF THE CRISIS 367 gone out of its way to issue a political manifesto. In the long run the decision helped the anti-slavery cause, for it brought home to men the need of resolute action. Especially after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise northern opponents of slavery ignored or attacked the fugitive slave law. Some of the States already had ''per- liblrty taws. sonal liberty laws", the purpose of which was to prevent free negroes from being carried into slav- ery on the plea that they were runaways, and to put difficulties in the way of enforcing the fugitive slave law. IMoreover, a great system known as the " underground railroad" had '^^^ grown up. Its object was to aid escaped slaves underground <• i i i i t».t i V. raUroad. to pass safcly through the Northern States on their way to freedom in Canada. There were many routes, the majority leading across Indiana or Ohio to Lake Erie or the Detroit River. The fugitives were secretly sheltered in the homes of sympathetic persons and smuggled on from one *' station" to another as opportunity offered. Many stood ready to give a helping hand to the hunted black man and to carry him a little way on his perilous journey. It is difficult to tell how many were thus enabled to make a good escape, per- haps not more than two thousand a year; but the people of the South were angered by the fact that their slaves eluded them, because Northern men winked at breaches of the law or openly sympathized with the fugitives.^ The whole North was held responsible for the doings and words of the Abolitionists, yet it needs to be repeated here that ^ The importance of all this is that it indicated a strong sentiment among many of the Northern people and any attempt at a rescue called attention to slavery. Even men with no great sympathy for the anti-slavery cause in general would not disclose a negro's hiding-place or would even give him a helping hand. "When I was a marshal", said a man once a Federal marshal under a Democratic administration, " and they tried to make me find their slaves, I would say, ' I do not know where your niggers are, but I will see if I can find them out '. So I always went to Garrison's office and said, T want you to find such and such a negro; tell me where he is'. The next thing I knew the fellow would be in Canada ". See Rhodes, H. 75. 368 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the North was by no means united on the subject of slavery. After the Dred Scott case and the trials of Kansas, Northern men leaned more and more tt)ward advanced The Northern anti-sUiverv sentiment ; it must be remembered, sentiment re- ^ ^ . . .... garding slavery, liowevcr, that Gamsonian Abolitionists were com- paratively few in numbers. They believed in ''no union with slaveholders", thinking a dissolution of the Union better than a recognition of the crime of slav- ery. They did not Aote or advocate political action. They beUeved that if emancipation were to take place it must come at once, because the nation was stained and ]X)lluted with sin. The Republicans, on the other hand, while opposed to the whole institution, believed in acting only as far as there was constitutional right to act; they believed in using political measures, and not simply in denouncing slav- ery as a crime. They made no pretense of trying to wipe out slavery within the States where it existed, but they were bent on keeping it closely within those limits. It must be noticed, too, that a large i^ortion of the Northern people were not ready to go even thus far, still clinging fondly to the hope that the question w^ould- settle itself, and looking upon the Republican party as a sectional party whose aims were dangerous to the Union. In spite of these dilTerences the Southerners, or many of them at least", believed that all Northern opponents of slavery were at heart desirous of overthrowing slavery even within the Southern States. By this time the weakness of slavery had been shown in the struggle for Kansas. Early in Buchanan's administration it became evident that the Free-State men must win Kans!r^ '°''' i'^ ^^^^ contest in that Territory. Their numbers were constantly increasing. "We are losing Kan- sas", said a Southern paper truly, ''because we are lacking in population". In 1S57 the Free-State men gave up the pretense that they had formed a legal State Government. They took part in the election of the Territorial Legislature, defeated the pro-slavery element at the polls, and elected a Legislature in favor of free soil. Before this body took office the old pro-slav- 'II IK COMINC; OF THE CRISIS 369 cry Lc^isliilurc called a convention, which met at Lec()mi)ton and formed a State Constitution recognizin<( slavery. This in- strument was not fairly submitted to the ])eo[)le, The Lecompton , i i i j • , i ^ i . . i Constitution. ^^^^^' ^^'^v f '^<^' 'Uuestioii as to whether or not there should be slavery as a permanent institution. The people were not allowed t<) vote against the Constitution, but must cast a ballot /cr the instrument with slavery or J or it with- out slavery. Moreover, if the popular verdict should be against slavery, the Constitution guaranteed slave proi)erty already in the Territory. Under these circumstances the anti-slavery men refused to vote, and the ballots of the i)ro-slavery men gave ap- parent popular sanction to the Constitution. Shortly after, the Free-State Legislature submitted the instrument again to popular vote and it was rejected. The c^uestion of the admis- sion of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution was now dis- cussed in Congress. The Senate i)assed a bill for its admittance, but the measure could not pass the House. By this time (1858) Kansas was fairly in the i)ower of the Free-State men; but it was im])ossible to get a bill through Congress admitting the Territory to Statehood with a Constitution forbidding slavery. In 1858 occurred the great debates between Lincoln and Douglas. They were rival candidates for election to the United States Senate from Illinois, and agreed to hold in The Lincoln- yarious parts of the State joint discussions upon Douglas ... ' debates. the important issues of the campaign. J)ouglas was the strongest and keenest debater in Congress, and the recognized leader of the Democratic party at the North. Lincoln was not much known beyond the limits of his own State. The whole nation watched the contest with interest, and the Republicans were surprised and delighted at the shrewdness with which Lincoln exposed the fallacies of his opponent, at the c[uiet humor which added a quaint flavor to his argument, and at the i)lentiful supply of common sense which enabled him to analyze the difficult f)roblems of the time and to show their simplest meanings. He did not succeed in defeating Douglas, who was once again chosen to the Senate; but he clearly marked 25 370 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION out the course of his party: unflinching opposition to slavery, because slavery and freedom could not abide together; no inter- ference with slavery in the South, but steadfast opposition to its extension, lest freedom itself be overcome; a full appreciation that the only basis for peace was the gradual disappearance of the whole system. Seward was soon to declare that there was an ''irrepressible conflict" between slavery and freedom, and now Lincoln said: "In my opinion it [agitation] will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed, againsutseif ^ ^ housc divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure perma- nently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided". In the decade between 1850 and i860 the United States was, on the whole, prosperous and progressive. In 1857 there was a financial crisis and a panic; but the country was, Panic of 1857. ^ . . f ^ ^ .*'_,' after a time, on its way to prosperity again. The census of i860 showed about thirty-one million people, a gain of about eight million in ten years. Immigrants continued to pour into our land. Inventions multiplied; there perity.** ^^^^' Were nearly four thousand patents issued in the year i860 alone. Ocean commerce had grown, and our merchantmen carried the American flag to every sea. Americans were proud of the fact that they could now dispute ''the navi- gation of the world with England", and that England could *'no longer be styled mistress of the sea". Though our export trade was still largely in agricultural products, much capital was invested in manufacturing. The iron industry of Penn- sylvania had assumed large proportions, and the cotton and woolen industries of the Eastern States had grown greatly in recent years. In i860 the products of mechanical industry in the United States were worth almost two billion dollars. The railroad system, especially in the North and West, was being rapidly extended, and the East and West were being thoroughly bound together — an important factor in the military as well as the industrial strength of the Northern section. . Rallroada In operation Jan.1,1860 II I [| II m i l Rallroada completed d urin g 1860 The Growth of Railroads From F. L. Paxson's The Railroads of the Old Northwest before the Civil War 372 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The North had now passed far ahead of the South in popula- tion and in wealth. When the Constitution was adopted the two sections were not dissimilar in these partic- The North out- ^ja^j-g Accordinff to the census of i7qo, the in- strips the South . ° . in population, habitants of the States north of Mason and Dixon's line were 1,968,040, and of those south of the line 1,961,174. But in i860 the free States and Territories had a pop- ulation of 21,184,305, while the slave States had 10,259,016, of whom about one-third were slaves. This difference, yearly grow- ing more marked, was due in part to the fact that the European immigrant would not go and make his home in a section where labor was considered the duty only of bondmen. The struggle that had been maintained until 1850 to keep a balance of power in the Senate, by admitting slave and free States in pairs, had to be abandoned. Minnesota and Oregon were admitted to the Union in Buchanan's administration. But in wealth and material prosperity the free States had gained in even a greater degree. Slave labor is not fit for the factory or the workshop, where careful, conscientious mechan- ical skill is required. Partly because of this fact and partly be- cause cotton and tobacco were profitable crops which attracted people to agricultural life, there were few factories in the South- ern States. Almost everything had to be obtained from the North or Europe, in exchange for the great staples cotton and tobacco. In 1850 there were 1,260,442 persons engaged in manufacturing, in the arts, and in mining in the North; in the South there were 326,000. The commonest necessities of life, with the exception of the food that could be raised on the plantation, were imported or brought from the North. There was one great crop — cotton ■ — a crop so large that the South felt that the product made it rich and gave it power. But if the market for this staple were taken away, the people would be sure to find that they were al- most incapable of self-support for more than a limited period. Moreover, even in the field of work to which slavery had driven the South, in agriculture itself, methods were wasteful; the soil was not carefully or systematically tilled; it was, on the con- trary, systematically exhausted The results are clearly shown THE COMING OF THE CRISIS 373 by the fact that Southern plantations were worth less than ten dollars an acre in i860, while Northern farms were worth about three times that amount.^ Slavery was more expensive than freedom. At first it seems hardly possible that this can be true, but an examination of the facts will prove the statement. Benjamin Frank- penlive ^sys^tem. ^^^ ^^'^ ^^^^ ^ hundred ycars ago and more. ''The labor of slaves", he says, "can never be so cheap here as the labor of the workingman in Great Britain. Any one may compute it. Reckon, then, interest of the first purchase of a slave, the insurance or risk on his life, his clothing and diet, expenses in sickness and loss of time, loss by neglect of business (neglect which is natural to the man who is not to be benefited by his own care or diligence), expense of a driver to keep him at work, and his pilfering from time to time (almost every slave being, from the nature of slavery, a thief), and compare the whole amount with the wages of a manufacturer of iron or wool in England ; you will see that labor is much cheaper there than it ever can be by negroes here". A careful examination of two farms, one tilled by slaves and one by hired laborers, could prove to the inquirer that slave labor was extremely expensive.^ Only * "The Southerners maintained that their wealth was due to their peculiar institution; that without slavery there could not be a liberal cot- ton supply. This assertion has been effectually disproved by the results since emancipation, while even in the decade before the war it could with good and sufficient reason be questioned . . . The demand for cotton and negroes went hand in hand; a high price of the staple made a high price for the human cattle . . . This kind of property was very high in the decade before the war, a good field hand being worth from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars". Rhodes, History, I, 314-15. All this comparison between the North and the South may now seem profitless; but it helps us to see: (i) how an industrial regime may get its hold upon a people, and they cannot see the light; (2) how a false indus- trial, social order really weakened a great people; (3) how the North by virtue of superior strength crushed the South. 2 It is true that fortunes were made, often quickly made, from cotton, but, in finding the value of any industrial and social system, you must take into account the prosperity of the workman, as well as the employer. If you add the many things that cannot be measured in dollars, it will be seen that the North was immeasurably stronger. In all the calculations 374 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION men with large capital could afford to have slaves in any num- ber to carry on the work of the plantation, and the larger the number, the more profitable the system was likely to prove. Thus it was that the slaves were passing into the hands of a few persons.^ Slavery and ignorant labor retarded Southern development. Slavery bad deadened, too, the general intellectual activity of the peo[)le and hindered their progress. The better It makes the classcs, who could travcl, import their books and South poor. ' . 1 • 1 1 works of art, and keep m touch with the world, were cultured and charming; the large planters, with their sense of power and responsibility and their wide range of acquaint- ances, were, as a rule, men of mental vigor, many of them having distinct talents in politics and statecraft. But, in spite of the graces and talents of the planter class, slavery hung like a millstone about the neck of the people. If we judge by the number of schools and churches and newspapers and libraries, or by roads and railroads and all means of communication, by the hundreds of things which hel[) us to determine the status of a community, we. see that the South was now hope- lessly backward. In every respect the census returns of each decade showed that freedom was leaving slavery behind. "It was evident that the slave States were worse fitted at the end of each successive period for a forcible struggle with the free States, and that the scepter was departing from the South." In all that makes for education the South was lamentably poor. Outside of the houses of the rich in the larger cities or the homes of the great planters one would find neither ''a book of Shakespeare, nor a pianoforte or sheet of music, nor the light 'of the opponents of slavery before the war too little attention was given to the fact that the South had i^noraiil as well as slave labor, a trouble which abolition of slavery could not immediately cure; and probably that fact ■must be taken into consideration in all of the matters mentioned in the text above. 1 Slavery was at its best economically, where the individual slave was reduced to a mere cop: in the machinery and where many of them under competent management devoted their labor to one crop. THE COMING OF THE CRISIS 375 Few schools. John Brown's raid. 1859. of a Carcel or other good center-table or reading lamp, nor an engraving or copy of any kind of a work of art of the slightest merit ".^ In the North (1850) there were 62,459 schools and 2,770,381 pupils, while at the South there were only 29,041 schools attended by 583,292 pui)ils. But, worse than all else, a fear of the introduction of noxious prin- ciples that would endanger slavery cast its shadow upon the whole school system, for education can not llourish in the heavy atmosphere of dread or repression. In education, as in indus- try, slavery was degrading; it acted like a moral curse, poisoning the life blood of the people. The Southern people had for many years declared that the agitation of the slavery question was a menace to their safety. They declared, too, that the real intent and wish of the Abolitionists was to arouse a slave insurrec- tion and to bring woe and devastation to the whole South. An event now happened that seemed to them to prove them right in all their charges and suspicions. This was the famous raid of John Jkov/n into Virginia. Brown was a New Englander by birth, who had taken an active part in the bloody struggle in Kansas. In fact, among "border ruffians" and fierce Free-State men the old Puritan had distinguished himself for fearlessness and violence. Now that Kansas was secured, he hoped to strike a more effective blow for freedom. His design was to seize the arsenal at Flarper's Ferry, free the blacks in the neigh- borhood, and retreat to some stronghold in the moun- JoiiN Brown's Fort ^Olmgted, The Cotton Kingdom, vol. ii, p. 285. Read Rhodes, vol. i« chap. iv. 376 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tains. Thence he would make incursions into the neigh- boring regions, and make his name a terror to the whole South. He hoped, indeed, to force the emancipation of the slaves, not perhaps by inciting a general revolt, but by gathering them up from time to time and by making property in slaves insecure. It was the scheme of a madman, and yet some of the ardent anti- slavery men to whom Brown confided his plan seemed to have had faith in its success. In the autumn of 1859 he seized the national arsenal at Harper's Ferry and began to free the slaves in the neighborhood. Troops were soon hurried to the spot and the little band was overpowered. Some of the men were shot in the struggle. Brown himself, with several others, was captured. They were speedily brought to trial, convicted, and hanged. The whole country was stirred by this event. The South believed, as never before, in the wickedness of the North. The moderate people of the Northern States condemned the act; but, wild as the plan had been, the devotion of Brown to his sense of duty, the calmness with which he met his fate, his readi- ness to die in the cause of freedom, won the attention even of the scoffer and gave a certain amount of dignity to Abolitionism. For a time, however, this act injured the anti-slavery cause, be- cause reasonable men could not sympathize with such methods and purposes. In tne election of 1S60 four candidates were nominated for the presidency. Although there had been differences between the Northern and Southern wings of the Demo- of 1860^ ' cratic party up to this time, they had managed to work together. This now proved impossible, the Northern element refusing to accept Southern principles with reference to slavery in the Territories. The Southerners had by this time lost all patience with popular sovereignty. They utterly renounced it and embraced the principle of the Dred Scott case, which was in reality the earlier principle of Calhoun, and demanded that Congress should protect slavery in the Ter- ritories. They nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon. The Northern Democrats, under THE COMING OF THE CRISIS 377 the lead of Douglas, still clung to popular sovereignty, and at the same time, quite inconsistently,^ declared their willingness to submit to the decision of the Supreme Court. They nom- inated Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia.^ The Republicans denied the ''authority of Congress, of a Territorial legislature, or of any individual to give legal existence to slavery in the Territories"; they repudiated the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and of the Dred Scott case as well. Their nominees were Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine. A fourth party nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts; it was called the Con- stitutional Union party. It declared for the " Constitution of the country, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws". These broad terms and generous phrases could have ^ The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case declared that the National Government could not exclude slavery from the Territories. If that be so, then a Territory could not exclude slavery either, for it is created and its power bestowed upon it by the National Government. The doctrine of popular sovereignty was just as contradictory of the court's opinion as was the Republican doctrine, that it was within the power of Congress, to exclude slavery. ^ The Democratic party split at a national convention at Charleston. The Southern wing wanted the Northern wing, which supported Douglas and desired his nomination for the presidency, to adopt a platform practi- cally asserting the legality of slavery in the territories and the duty of the national government to protect slavery there. The Northern Democrats had, however, gone as. far as they would; they had advocated popular sover- eignty, and they had tried to scowl down anti-slavery agitation, but they could not go further. Yancey of Alabama, one of the Southern fire-eaters, an eloquent speaker, taunted the Northern Democrats with their disregard for Southern interests: "When I was a schoolboy in the Northern States, abolitionists were pelted with rotten eggs. But now this band of Aboli- tionists has spread and grown into three bands — Black Republicans, the Free Soilers, and Squatter Sovereignty men — all representing the common sentiment that slavery is wrong. I say it in no disrespect but it is a logical argument that your admission that slavery is wrong has been the cause of the discord". The South at the convention practically demanded that the Northern Democrats declare slavery to be right. "Gentlemen of the South", declared Senator Pugh of Ohio, "you mistake us — you mistake us — we will not do it"! When the Democratic party broke asunder the day was near at hand when the whole Union would be shattered. 378 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION little meaning in such a crisis; but those men still hoped that \vorcls and resolutions and i:;ood purposes niiij;ht quiet the tem- pest and sa\e the Tnit-Mi. Lincoln was elected hy a gvHul elec- toral majority o\er all other candidates; but the Republicans were still a minority of the people, for they cast only about eii:;h- teen hundred thousand votes, while all of their opponents cast abcuit a million tnore. The situation was therefore essentially ilitTerent from what it would ha\e been, had the i>arty been sure of anythini]; like a united North behind it. A number of times the leading men at the South hail declared that the Southern States could no longer remain in the Union if the Republican part\- were successful. The South Carolina p^T^,,.^|^ j^^^^j ,^^,^ j^^]^^.,^ ^1^^,;^. threats very seriously. loads in ^ 1 ' • 1 • 'i secession. They were thought to be but bluster, m which the South was considered a master. "The old ^lumbo-Jumbo", said James Russell Lowell, "is occasionally pa- raded at the \orth. but . howe\ er many old women maybe fright- ened, the pulse of the stock market remains proxokingly calm''. But in some parts of the South men were desperately in earnest, and had no intention of resting content with wonls. South Caro- lina was ready to take the k\ui — not to stand on her rights and nullify congressional action, as in iS:;j. but to withdraw entirely from the Union. I December jo. iSoo, a jH>i>ular con\ention at Charleston passed an ordinance of secession. Its cardinal words are as follows: "We, the peoi">le oi [\\c State of South C\irolina. in con- vention assembled, ilo declare and ordain . . . that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of 'The United States of .Vmerica ' is hereby dissohed". Before the end of the winter Cieorgia, Alabama, l-'lorida, Missis- sippi, Louisiana, and Texas passed like ordinances. Other SoutluTU States hesitated, and for the time being took no de- cisiye action. When Congress met after the election. President Huchanan sent in his message (December :;, iS(^o\ The whole country read it with great interest, for the stand which the President would take toward secession was of the utmost importance. CURLISTOll MERCURY EXTRA: .% PttHftea ununlmouHly at l.lii o^rlockf 1\ Jft.y Ifccemhet itOlh, IHUO. AW ORDIJVAIVC'E 1 '^To illHHolce the Union belwrm the Slate «^f South t'amUna anif \ other Siale« united with her utuler the compaet entitled *' The C'otutUutlon of tite United State* oj JlmertcaP Wff Oui Pfoph of lAn SliitA of South OarolinOf in Convention auembtod, do dedare and ordain, oTid it IS hcrtby dixia/ed and ordained, That the OrJinuDoa iwlopt«d b/ ns In OoDTontloD, on tho Iwonty-Uilnl day of 'M^y, fn tbo jeaf of our Lord one tbuunaoJ tiovoa haadrod aud elKlity-ol/jlit^ itliurn)>y tlin Ounititullon of tLo 1)ail«oniitilu(lon, arc horrby rcpoulcd; •ad Uiat tbo union now •nlmlvtlnfj bol])ose the spread of slavery an\'wheri\ either north or south of j!,()^ i,o'. In l-'ehruary deleii^ates \\\nn six Southern States "■ nu>t at Montgomery, Ala. riu>y onijani/ed a confediMacy lalled the Confederate States of America and ai^riH'd ui)on a Tho ConftMiiTiito ^^.^ju^jj^jjj^jj^^ which was in most nspects similar to StilttiS »)f ,• 1 1 I • 1 . . Ill 1 1 1 .V y^„„.,i,.„ that ot the United Statis. 1 he\' eltH'ted jellerson l)a\is rresidcnt, and Aliwandcr 11. Stephens, of Georgiii, Vice-Presiilcnt. it is not necessary to ^ive here at length tlu' arujuments used in fa\(ir of the ri^ht of secession. John C\ Calhoun, thirty M\irs l)efi>re, had clearly mitlincul them, and in consiiUMMn'j: Ins statements m ri'i'anl to Slate so\-. erei_L!;nt\' and nullification wi' ha\i' sihmi hrietly what mi' the Union, it was at liberty to withdraw. Thex' hail been fi>r sonu* years saturatctl with Calhoun's doc- trines, and tlu- peculiar characlcM' o\ sla\ery had put them in a ' l.iiuolii If( his opinion hv known to a lew of {he iiilliuMUial nn-n. lie obji'iU-tJ to liisiilini:: [\\c 'lVrri(i>rii>s !>>• a gi'o_i;ia|»liir lim*. " bi-t iliis l>c lionr", lir said, "anil ininu>iliati>l>' lililiustrrinjj; ami I'xtoiulin^ slavery rc- conunrnros". ■•'Sonlh Carolina, ('u'oigia, Alal>ain.i, Louisiana, I'loiitla. and ^bssis• sippi. Trxas di>lt>;;ates wore appoinlid a littlr lairr lli;;n the lirst mooting ol (his ion\on( ion. Till': COM INC ()i< 'mi<: crisis 383 ^\ ^^--^_^^jCii'-e,.a-iiriA,^a(Peut^-^ defensive altiliulr. Ilriui- llicy liad come lo coiisidcr llu' .S7\v abolition. Hut the South seceded because destructjvi; of _ Union. the Kepublicaiis ()])p()sed the extension of slavery, because tlie Southerners believed that slavery would be unsafe even in their own States, and because the leaders were driven to madness by a long struggle fore(|uality in whicli they now saw themselves beaten. It is true that slavery caused the war, 3S-i HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAllON and, as we shall see, the war put slavery away; but the war was for the Union, and it brought into being a better and greater Union than ever before, not simply a legal, formal, union of States, but a real union of feeling and impulses and sympathies, such as could not exist while slavery was vitiating tlie life of one great section of the people. References Hart. Cor.tcmporarics, \'olume IV. Chapters XI. Xli; \\'ilsox. Division ami Reunion, pp. 106-210; Burgess, The Civil War and the Constitution. Volume I. Chapters I-\l; Morse. Abrahiim Lineoln, Volume I, pp. 1 1 1-.: 50; Storey. Sumner, Chapters X, XI; Hart, C//i25(\ Chapter VII; Lothrop. ^e-^ajrJ. pp. ioS-jo^; McLaughlin. Lru'is Cass. pp. 328-350. Longer accounts; Schouier, \'ohime V. Chapter XXII: Rhodes. Volume II. Chapters IX-XI; \olume III, Chapters XI11-XI\'; CuADWiCK, llie Eve of the Civil War. CHAPTER XXT SECESSION AND (M\ IL WAR IS()I 1X65 Lincoln's early life Abraham Lincoi n was born in Kentucky in iSo(). His father moved later to Indiana, and thence to Ilh'nois. The fam- ily were miserably ]>oor, the lather shiftless and utterly lackiiijj; in force of character. The early life of the boy was sjx'nt in the midst of S(|uaIor and extreme poverty, lie is said to have been at school only one year in his whole life. What books he could lay hands on, however, he read eagerly. He used to write and do ''sums", we are told, on the wooden shovel by the fireside, and to shave off the surface in order to renew his lal)or. By dint of perseverance he educated himself in some way with- out the help of schools; and we find in his later life that few men could use the iMiglish language so simply and effectively as he, and few men thought and s])oke with such clear- ness or showed such keen insight into the difficult problems of the time. lie managed to get admitted to the bar in Illinois, was elected to the Legislature, and linally to Congress. He was at first a Whig, but joined the Rei)ublican i)arty when ggj-ggj.^ it was organized, becoming at once one of its most prominent members. He won for the first time national attention and respect in the famous debates with Doug- las in 1858. The skill which Lincoln showed in these discus- 20 385 386 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION « sions, where he was at least a match for his renowned antagonist, won him popularity and applause in the whole North. And yet when he was elected President in iS6c few people had any idea of his strength. It was thought even by many Republicans that he was scarcely fit to cam- the load in such a crisis. No one could know his full greatness, for it required the awful trials of four years of war, the woe and anxiety such as few men in the world's histor\' have ever tried to bear, to bring out the wisdom, judgment, and profundity of his mind and the sweetness and lovableness of his character. Lincoln made up his Cabinet from the leaders of his party, not shrinking from the task of guiding them. Seward was made Secretar\' of State; Chase, Secretary' of the Treas- «ll „*. T^oI ui*v; Simon Cameron, Secretarv of War. His in- and inaugural. - ' ' augural address was a masterpiece. He did not unduly threaten the Confederate States, but he solemnly warned them to consider the consequences of their conflict. He left no doubt in any one's mind about what he held to be his duty: "To the extent of my ability I shall take care . . . that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. ... I trust this will not be considered as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union, that it icill constitutionally defend and maintain itself". Soon after his inauguration Lincoln began to consider what should be done about Fort Sumter. There was great difference of opinion as to what should be done. ^lost of Fort Sumter. , i, , . , . , - , i the Cabmet hesitated at tirst to take any step that might bring on war, but the final feeling was well expressed in the words of Chase: "If war is to be the result, I see no reason why it may not be best begun in consequence of mili- tar}- resistance to the efforts of the administration to sustain troops of the Union, stationed under the authority of the Gov- ernment, in a fort of the L'nion, in the ordinar\' course of ser\-ice". A tleet was consequently ordered to carry relief to the fort. Be- fore it arrived, however. General Beauregard, the leader of the Confederate forces, summoned Major Anderson, who was in com- mand of Sumter, to surrender. Anderson refused, and the batteries SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 387 opened on the fort April 12, 1861. The bombardment lasted thirty-four hours, and then Anderson surrendered the position. He saluted his flag with fifty guns, and marched out ''with colors flying and drums beating, bring- ing away company and The war is begun. -- — -^ > ^•ji'Sat/ Castle IMuckncy V^ ^^ ^ private property . The firing on Sumter aroused the North to the highest pitch of ex- ci t em en t. Among the great mass of citizens there were no longer discussions of con- stitutional or legal rights. The flag of the nation had been fired upon, and that was enough. The President called for volunteers to suppress the insurrection, and the people answered with promptness; *'as if by magic, the peaceful North became one vast camp". Washington, surrounded by slaveholding States, was in peril, and troops were hastened to it:, defense. The first blood of the war was shed in Baltimore, where a mob resisted the passage of the Northern regiments. The city, however, was soon forcibly occupied and compelled to keep the peace. Mary- land was kept from joining the Confederacy. Washington was garrisoned and defended — it remained in effect a walled town for the next four years. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, had passed ordinances of secession before the firing on Sumter. Arkansas joined the Confed- eracy May 6, and North Carolina May 20. Vir- ginia and Tennessee took the same step somewhat later. Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, though containing strong slaveholding elements and sympathizing with the South, did not join the Confederacy. The Confederacy. 388 iiisroRv ov riiK American nation Xoither section was prepared for war, — the North jHTha]")s e\en less than the South; for Xi^rtliern peopU\ thi>uu;h fear- ini; open eonlliet, hail ahnost io the eml talked The North tiiul / ... ,i ..i i , i. i i r i .1 . n c ,u about Southern bluster and belu>\ed that all South. the trouble would blow o\er. An innnense arnu' had to be raised and furnished with munitions oi war. The North was strong, for it was built on free labor and had far outstripped the South in industry and wealth. Tlu' South was strvMiLi; in desperate \alor. for (he j^eople belie\ed that the JSortliern army was a foreign inwider; a long resistance could be made, for the men were lighting for their heartiistones. lUit the North must hnall\- win, if the struggle went on. for its re- scuu'ces were \aried and practically unlimited. It was really a contest between the powers of modern ci\ilization on the iMie hand, and. on the other, the weakness of a people whose industry was founded on slave labor, but who were supporteil by a n\ag- nil'icent and never-failing courage. The North aj^preciated the weakness of the South; imleed, believed that it was weaker and less in earnest than it was. _^ ^. Neither section, in fact, recogni;'.ed fullv the The blockade. . . , • , physical strength and intense mitral earnestness of the other. It was decided \-ery early in the war to (rKsh out the "rebellion", and this aim. though dilhcult to carry out, was not abandoned. The main instrument in this crushing process, or the "Anaconda" system, was the na\y, which was soon employed in establishing an immense commercial blockade. The enormous task oi preventing any \essel from entering or lea\ing a Southern port was unilertaken. Before long the ports from Chesapeake Hay to CaKeston were guarded by ships of the United States navy. The natural line of defense of the South was the Ohio and the Potomac; but as neither ^larylaiul nor Kentucky joined the Confederacy, the Confetlerates were compelled to emiitary j^^^ ,^ jj^^^ ^^^ dcfcuse Considerably south of situation. I these rivers both in the Kast and in the West. The attitude of the Confederate armies was principally one of defense, and of the Federals one of attack. U is necessary to SECESSION AND ( IVIL WAR ISfil 1,S()/) 3S!) keep these salient facts in mind. The defensive attitude of the Southern armies gave them great miUtary advantage. The mountains, running in a south westerly direction from near the source of the I'otomac, (h'vided tlie field of war into two natural divisions. In the East the main purpose of the Northern army was to reach the i)olitical center of the Confederacy, Rich- mond. There were two natural m(;thods of approach : one over- land, almost straight southward from Washington; in this course the invading force W(juld be endangered and retarded by forests, through which the roads were often ])oor, and by streams, which were sometimes swollen by rains and difficult of passage; the other method of approach was by way of the sea to the ])enin- sula between the York and the James Rivers, and thence u|) the peninsula to Richmond. Each method presented difficulties. In the West the first great purpose was to get ])ossession of the Mississip[)i, which divided the western part of the Confederacy in two. Here Vicksburg, strongly fortified ])y nature and art, was a strategic j)osition of immense imi)ortance. The rivers in the West, large and navigable, would serve as roads by which to pierce the enemy's country. An examination of the map will make it apparent,' too, that Chattanooga, holding, as it were, the gateway l^etween Tennessee and the Southeast, was likely to be a center of conflict, for, if the Union forces succeeded in getting possession of eastern Tennessee, a great contest would ensue at this point, which was doubly important, because from it one railroad ran northeast to Richmond, another south- eastward to the sea. Looking a little more closely at the first Southern line of defense, we find in the West the following important posts: Columbus, New Madrid, and Island No. lo on the po^sufon"^*""" Mississi[)pi, Eort Henry on the Tennessee, and Eort Donelson on the Cumberland. In the East we find first that the western portion of Virginia was of great value to either party. The eastern part of the State was more fully protected by the Confederate troops, who had taken up a posi- * See map, p. 420. 390 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tion south of Washington. The cry at the South was "On to Washington"! the North answered ''On to Richmond"! The Confederates were beaten in two battles in western Vir- ginia, and this secured to the North control of that portion of _^ . . . the country. The people there were not generally slaveholders and had little sympathy with seces- sion. They therefore formed a separate State and came into the Union as West Virginia. The movement was begun early, but it was June, 1863, before the State was admitted to the Union. The people at the North, not realizing what war meant, and believing that all would be over in a few months, clamored for activity. They did not appreciate that the troops July 21, 1861. "^^'^^^ ^^^ ^^^ undisciplined, but they demanded immediate victory. General McDowell, who com- manded the army in the field in front of Washington, set out with an army of about thirty thousand men to attack the Con- federates, who were commanded by Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston. The two armies met near Bull Run Creek, not far from Manassas Junction, about twenty-five miles southwest of Washington. The arrangements of the battle were well planned; but the Federal troops were not under proper control, and the subordinate generals were not well trained. For some time the men fought with quite remarkable vigor and courage; but at length re-enforcements for the Confederates appeared on the field and began a flank attack. The National forces then began a retreat, which "soon became a rout, and this presently de- generated into a panic". Many are said not to have stopped fleeing until they reached Washington. But the Confederate forces were in no condition for pursuit. The victory was almost as demoralizing to them as defeat to the Federals. The battle of Bull Run depressed the North, but it brought home to the people some conception of what it meant to maintain the Union. Horace Greeley wrote to battle. Lincoln a letter, which illustrates the depression at the North. It begins with the words, "This is my seventh sleepless night"; it ends, "Yours in the depths of bit- terness". It was no holiday campaign that was needed. Lovers SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 391 of the Union quieted down into stern determination to fight steadily for the laws, and the effect of the defeat was good. The The War in the East elated South believed more strongly than ever that the South could not be conquered. After this battle it was evident that the soldiers needed drill- ing and the army needed organization before success on the field of battle was possible. General McClellan, who had won some success in western Virginia, was summoned to take command of the troops in front of Washington. In November 392 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION General Scott was put upon the retired list, and McClellan succeeded him in general charge of the armies of the United States. Under their new commander the troops, M^cadian. which Were being daily increased with new re- cruits, were organized into the Grand Army of the Potomac; but for months there was no movement. The anxious Northern householder, growing again impatient, read each day in his newspaper: "All quiet on the Potomac". Hardly was the war begun when England issued a "procla- mation of neutrality". This acknowledged the belligerency of the Confederacy. The theory of the United beiUgrrTncy States Government was that there was in reality acknowledged, no war, but Only an insurrection. The people therefore felt that Great Britain acted hastily in acknowledging that the South was a belligerent power.^ The North had hoped for the sympathy of the English in a contest manifestly in the interest of freedom; and when England so quickly issued this proclamation there was considerable resentment. France soon took the same step, and other states followed. The South, on the other hand, believed that the European states would not suffer the supply of cotton to be cut ofif, and that England especially would be forced to recog- The South nize the Confederacy as an independent power, toVirking'V break up the blockade, and possibly directly Join in the contest in order to obtain cotton for her mills, so that her starving operatives might have work. This never came about, however. Had the South been fighting for home rule alone, and not for slavery, the European states would have been under stronger temptation to acknowledge the Confederacy as a separate nation.' 1 Such a proclamation does not acknowledge that those engaged in a rebellion have really formed a nrw state in the family of nations, but it declares that war exists between two parties. Now the United States Government at this time was not willing to admit that this " rebellion" was a war; they wished the "rebels" to be considered merely as insurgents. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 393 In the West, during the summer of 1861, not much was ac- complished in the way of offensive warfare. In Missouri there was some sharp fighting. A large element of the people of that State sympathized with the seces- sion movement, and for some time the State was given up to internal conflict. A convention finally voted for In the West, 1861. Field of the Western Campaigns of the Civil War the Union by. a large majority, and the Federal forces brought the State under their control. Kentucky endeavored at first to hold a neutral position, siding neither forlhe Union^ "^^^^ ^^^ North nor the South, but by the in- finite tact and patience of Lincoln, who en- couraged and guided the strong element in the State which was opposed to secession, that State also was saved to the Union. At the end of the year 1861, with Kentucky now committed to the Union, the time had come for an onward march of Federal 394 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION troops in the West and, as we shall see, in the course of the next year rapid progress was made. A glance at the map will show what an advantage the rivers were to the w^st' '°° ° ^ Northern forces in their invasion of the Southwest- ern States. Troops could be conveyed up and down these rivers easily and rapidly, or their supplies could be quickly provided.^ Seeing this advantage, the National Government made great efforts to fit out boats that would be of service on these Western waters. This gunboat service in the West formed a very important factor in the movement of armies and in the conquest of the country. The Congress elected in i860 was summoned to meet in extra session on the 4th of July, 1861. The Republicans controlled _ . . the House and Senate. The Democrats ioined in Political affairs. , . , . ^ i i • necessary war legislation. Before the gathering of Congress the President had, of his own accord, declared the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus within the vicinity of Baltimore, and had done a great many acts made necessary by the emergency. His actions were now ratified by Congress. These acts were principally the first call for mil- act?on^^^*°" itia, establishment of the blockade, the call for three-year volunteers, the increase of the regular army and navy, and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.- The President recommended in his first message that an army of four hundred thousand men be raised. Congress passed a bill providing for enlistments of not more 1 han five hundred thousand men, and authorized a loan of two jmndred and fifty million dollars. It increased the tariff duties, and provided for a direct tax and an income tax. ^ Contrast the situation in the west as far as geographical conditionj were concerned with that in the east. Any good map will do to show the main facts. See map, p. 393. ^ There was little question of the legality of the first two, and all, if extra-constitutional, seemed necessary and desirable. When the privilege of habeas corpus is suspended a judge would have no right to issue the writ and examine into the legality of a man's imprisonment; if a person is held under the order of the executive officers of the nation that is enough. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 395 By this time Lincoln had shown his master hand as a popu« lar leader. Whatever he said came to the people of the North as sound sense. He addressed in simple, straight- power"^ forward language "the plain people" and he soon obtained their unwavering support. In strictly executive matters, too, he was the guiding spirit of the admin- istration, not yielding his judgment to the wise men who made up his Cabinet. ''The President is the best of us", wrote Seward candidly. We should notice at this juncture how the Northern men were now united, irrespective of parties. The Government was in the hands of the Republicans, but on the motion offered in the House by a Democrat that the House should pledge itself ''to vote for any amount of money and any number of men which may be necessary to insure a speedy and effectual sup- pression of the rebellion", there were only four votes in opposi- tion. In January of 1862, Edwin M. Stanton, who had been a lifelong Democrat, was made Secretary of War, in place of Simon Cameron. There were, it must be said, throughout the war some persons at the North, known as Copperheads, who were in secret sympathy with the South, or at the best out of sympathy with the North; but the great body of the people, whatever may have been their earlier political leanings, were now heartily for the Union. In the autumn of 1861 serious discord and ill feeling were brought about between England and America by an affair in it- self comparatively trivial. The Confederate Gov- affair. "^^^ emmcnt, intent on getting full recognition from foreign states, dispatched two commissioners, the one to England, the other to France. Conveyed by an English ship, the Trent, they were intercepted by an American man-of- war, under the command of Captain Wilkes, and were taken into custody. The English Government demanded the imme- diate release of the commissioners and a suitable apology, and began preparations for war. Our Government took time for consideration, and then gave up the men. Here doubtless Eng- land was right. Our man-of-war had no right to stop an Eng- 396 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION lish vessel on the high seas and take passengers from her. But the abruptness of the demand for reparation and the haste shown in preparing for war irritated the American people, al- ready annoyed by the attitude that England had taken toward the South. Our Government, by a courteous yielding, was saved a war which would have perhaps been overwhelmingly disastrous while the Civil War was in progress.^ At the beginning of 1862 the Union army was large, and, on the whole, well disciplined and equipped. There were over six hundred thousand soldiers in the whole army. 1862"^^^^ ° '^^^ western army, which had not done much the previous year because of the general situation in Kentucky and for other reasons, now moved forward preparing to attack Forts Henry and Donelson, the former on the Tennes- see, the latter on the Cumberland River. If these were taken the Confederate line would be broken in the cen- Grant's victories, . /^ j t^ ^ 'j.i. i v . February, 1862. ^^^* Commodore F oote. With several gunboats, carried up the Tennessee an army of seventeen ^ Probably the people of England have never known how deeply the North- ern people were hurt, at the lack of sympathy and of expression of iriendly feeling from England. The Northerners felt that theirs was a holy cause and that free people ev'erywhere should sympathize. I do not mean to say that the Southerners did not also feel that they had a holy cause; they did think so. But in speaking o£ Northern sentiment during the war, annoy- ance and disappointment at English coldness cannot be omitted. And yet the common people of England, on the whole, did side with the North. England was sorely pressed for want of cotton. The situation is humor- ously expressed in a few lines from "Punch." "Though with the North we sympathize, It must not be forgotten, That with the South we've stronger ties Which are composed of cotton; Whereof our imports rhount unto A sum of many figures; And where would be our calico, Without the toil of niggers? Thus a divided duty we Perceive in this hard matter. Free-trade, or sable brothers free? Oh, won't we choose the latter"! SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 397 thousand men, under command of General Grant. The army was landed and the boats engaged the batteries of Fort Henry. but protracted engagement was unnecessary, inasmuch as most of the Confederate force had been withdrawn to Fort Donelson, 398 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION which was only eleven miles distant. Grant now marched his army to the Cumberland, and with reenforcement and the aid of the gunboats, which made their way around to assist him, he held Fort Donelson in his grasp. Beating back the garrison, which tried to break through the Union lines, the army assaulted the works; part of the works were carried, the fort surrendered and over fifteen thousand prisoners were taken. The main line of the Confederate defence was broken. These victories greatly encouraged the North, and the Union army moved on to Nash- ville. New Madrid and Island No. lo, strongly held by the Confederates as advanced posts on the Mississippi River, were next attacked and taken by Commodore Foote and General Pope; and thus the great river was opened nearly as far south as Memphis. After Grant's victory at Donelson the Confederates had gathered in force at Corinth in Northern Mississippi. This place was now a strong position in their eraleTiIe^°'^''^'^^w line of defense which ran along the Mem- phis and Charleston Railroad, from Memphis through Corinth to Chattanooga. Grant prepared to break this new line. The main body of his army, some forty thousand men, was at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee, while General Buell was marching across the country from Nashville to co- operate with him. Then occurred the fearful Aprii^ 1862 ° ' bloody battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing. The Confederates fiercely attacked the Union line, and at the end of the first day, fighting magnificently, had driven Grant's forces back about a mile from the position occupied in the morning. Though the situation was critical and dangerous. Grant was not discouraged, and when Buell's army arrived, as it did during the night, the tables were turned, and the Con- federates were driven from the field. ^ 1 Grant always strenuously maintained that even had Buell not arrived he could have won the victory on the morrow. Certainly the Union forces were not thoroughly beaten on the first day, but reinforcements made success a certainty. This was one of the fierce, bloody and awful battles of the War, — the SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 399 The Federal army then took Corinth. Thus the second chief line of the Confederate defense in the West was broken. Next Memphis fell, and the Mississippi was free Memphis^taken. ^^ ^^^ Union gunboats as far south as Vicksburg. There were other battles in the west that summer (1862), and thousands of lives were lost, the most important battle being that of Murfreesboro or Stone River, where the Union forces under Rosecrans were successful. Toward the end of the year, Grant moved south from Corinth toward Vicksburg, while Rosecrans faced the Confederate army under General Bragg which held Chattanooga, a strategic position of prime importance.^ Early in the year 1862, occurred the first battle ever fought between iron-clad ships. The Confederates had taken the hulk of an old vessel, cut it down and covered it with an Monitor and jj-qj^ coating, thus Converting it into a floating bat- March, 1862. tery most formidable to the ordinary wooden ves- sels which made up the Northern navy. Early in March this strange monster appeared, attacked the frigates, Congress and Cumberland, at the mouth of the James River, and destroyed them without difficulty. The success of the blockade was endangered and there was great consternation. It was feared that the Merrimac might bombard Washington, and even sail to Philadelphia or New York. But now a new and first of the really great ones. The loss of the two armies was very large, the Union army losing some 13,000 men in killed, wounded and missing. "Missing", that dreadful word, read by anxious fathers and mothers in the morning newspapers, telling nothing, but leaving uncertainty, fear, hope, and woe behind it. ^ The pupil can easily follow the main strategy of the western campaign by tracing out the lines of advance on the map. (i) Grant moves south from Henry and Donelson, is attacked at Shiloh; moves on to Corinth, is attacked there again in September and October (battles not mentioned in the text above), and finally presses on against Vicksburg. (2) Meanwhile, by operations down the river, Memphis is taken, and the gunboats begin to get ready to help Grant at Vicksburg. (3) Again in the eastern part of Kentucky and Tennessee, there were conflicts resulting on the whole in Union success, so that at the end of the year the Confederates were in the neighborhood of Chattanooga and barred further Union advance. 400 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION strange craft appeared upon the scene. Northern ingenuity had produced an antagonist quite a match for the Merrimac. The Monitor was seemingly a mere platform, with a movable turret pierced for two guns. Between the two iron vessels a conflict ensued in Hampton Roads. The shot and shell that were poured against the Monitor's turret and deck glanced harmlessly aside. The Merrimac was not destroyed, but after a fight of several hours it withdrew to Norfolk, its victorious career at an end. The control of the whole course of the Mississippi was of great importance. In the spring of 1862 a powerful fleet was fitted out to attack New Orleans from the Gulf. New^Orieans ^^ Capture the place was a difficult task, for it was defended by strong forts and by a number of ships of war. The command of the expedition against it was given to David G. Farragut. In April the fleet began the bombard- ment of the forts. Six days and nights without intermission shells were thrown from huge mortars into the defenses, but they did not succeed in destroying the works or driving the garrison out. Farragut then planned to run by the forts, attack the fleet above them, proceed up the river, and take the city. This he did, and New Orleans passed into the hands of the Federal forces, April, 1862.^ Leaving the scene of war in the West, where the Union forces had pushed on till they threatened Vicksburg on the Mississippi and Chattanooga on the edge of the mountains, campat&n!^^" ^ ^^^ ^^ ^^"^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ East. All through the au- tumn and winter of 186 1-2 the army of the Po- tomac lay in quietness.^ In the spring McClellan decided to ^ We could name many men of noble character, unflinching courage, and high capacity, who served on one side or the other during the war. But from the list we could certainly not exclude Farragut and General George H. Thomas — and both of them, though fighting for the Union, were Southerners, and neither need scarcely suffer in comparison (and here comparisons are odious) of ability or character with the capable, big-minded, wide-hearted Lee himself. 2 Battle of Ball's Bluff, a serious defeat for the Union forces, occurred in October; but only a small force was engaged. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 401 transfer his forces to the peninsula between the James River and the York. He moved leisurely up the peninsula, hindered somewhat by the enemy, and especially balked by a daring of- fensive move made by "Stonewall Jackson" down the Shenan- doah Valley toward Washington. This valley was peculiarly advantageous ground for Southern forces. It furnished a safe avenue for raids into Maryland or feints against Washington. If the Union forces pursued, they were led constantly away from Richmond. McClellan with a mag- nificent army, pushing slowly up the penin- sula, was daily creeping nearer the Confeder- ate capital. He was nearly beaten at Fair Oaks; but by the end of June he was encamped within four miles of the city, and his out- posts thought they could hear the sound of church bells in Rich- mond. The time was yet far distant, however, when Union soldiers would listen to sermons or roll themselves in their blankets and go to sleep in the old church buildings of the South- ern city. Robert E. Lee now took command of the Confederate army and showed at once marked military capacity. Pretending to send forces to the Shenandoah Valley to reenforce Jackson, he actually summoned Jackson back to Richmond. Then with a united army he furiously attacked the long line of the National troops, and the Seven Days' Battles began; on the one side a powerful and brave Union army, ably led; on the other, a courageous host led by a man of genius. 27 The Peninsula Campaign 402 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION McClellan handled his big army with some skill; but he was no match for Lee. And yet the Union Army was not really routed; Seven Days' ^ ^ ^ y stubbomly Fight, June 26 • . • 1 ^i to July 2, 1862. mamtamed them- selves in the neighborhood of Richmond, but success seemed far aw^ay and in August the North- ern general skillfully retreated toward P'ortress Monroe. The peninsula campaign was a failure.^ General Halleck, who, be- cause of the rare efficiency of his subordinates, had won vic- tories in the west, w^as put in general charge of the armies. About the same time an army was placed under the com- mand of Pope, with the intention of operating in northern Virginia. In short, the administration in Washington, bit- terly disappointed by McClellan's failure, decided to give up the peninsula campaign entirely and to send troops . T, ..1 southward from Washington. With this plan in Second Battle . ^ ^ of Bull Run, mind, Pope marched to attack Lee, only to August 29, 30, meet with sudden and complete disaster, for Lee, ably seconded by Stonewall Jackson thoroughly outwitted the Union commander and then, on the old battlefield of Bull Run, almost overwhelmed the North- ern army. ^ McClellan was always complaining. He always thought the enemy's troops more numerous than they were. He alwa^'s complained because he didn't hav'e shoes, or horses, or guns, or something. He failed too in the great test of generalship, getting the whole army into action and hitting hard at a critical moment; and yet his soldiers worshiped him. ** Little Mac" was almost an idol. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 403 McClellan was again put in full command of the Army of the Potomac, including the troops that Pope had commanded. He prepared to meet Lee, who had determined MarTand^^ upon an iuvasion of Maryland. The situation was now exactly the opposite from what it had been a few months before. In June the Union forces were with- in sound of the church bells of Richmond; in September they were manoeuvering in the immediate vicinity of their own capi- tal to guard it from a Confederate attack. Lee marched north- ward across the Potomac into Maryland. Jackson, under his direction, bombarded Harper's Ferry and easily took the posi- tion with over eleven thousand men, who ought to have been either removed or properly re-inforced. Then oc- Antietam, currcd the battle of Antietam between the two September, . . ^ .,.,.. 1862. mam armies, a fierce contest m which the Union forces lost twelve thousand men and more; the Confederates nearly as many. The invasion of Maryland was a failure, and Lee retreated across the Potomac. McClel- lan, perhaps necessarily, allowed him to escape without pur- suit. The Union army was soon led forward again to the Rap- pahannock. McClellan was then removed, and Burnside put in his place. Burnside, knowing how much McClellan had been criticized because he did not fight with greater dash and vehemence, and push vigorously on the enemy, determined to be Fredericksburg, aggrcssivc. He movcd dowu the Rappahannock December, ^q Fredcricksburg. By this time Lee had manned the strong defenses south and west of the town with a powerful army, and when the Union troops attacked them the slaughter that ensued was horrible. The brave North- ern soldiers were mowed down by the thousand, and Burnside, overcome with grief and mortification, withdrew across the river with a loss of thirteen thousand men. Could nobody beat Lee? This was the end of a year of dire disaster in the East. There had been a long series of defeats. In the peninsula cam- paign there had been some clever work and everywhere 404 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION desperate fighting. Antietam was counted a Union victory, and Lee had found that he dared not press farther north; but after the second battle of Bull Run and the Results of terrible repulse at Fredericksburg, an invasion 1862. of Virginia and a conquest of the South seemed to many a disheartening and impossible task. Despite the successes in the west, the winter of 1862-63 was a gloomy one in Northern households.^ The campaign of 1863 fortunately brought new hope to the nation; it gave assurance, in fact, that the South would be crushed if the North would persevere. Before examining the military events of that year we need to notice some political events that gave new character and meaning to the war. The North had rushed to arms when the flag was fired upon ; the one thought prevailed, that the Union must be preserved. But as the months went by it was felt by many that the great curse of slavery, which had estranged the South and driven the two sec- tions apart, must be done away with as a result of the war. President Lincoln hated slavery, and was anxious to see the day when the nation would not be cursed with the system. ^ ,. . . „ . During the first year of the war, however, he was Political affairs. ^ -^ i i i i averse to taking any step that would make the war to all appearances a crusade against slavery. He knew that there was a strong sentiment at the North in favor of immediate emancipation, but there was also a strong race siaver^^'^^^ prejudice as wcll. Moreover, for a long time feel- ing in the border States must be regarded, and this was, of course, opposed to abolition. It was clear enough to Lincoln that slavery could be abolished only by saving the ^ A study of the map will show the campaign in its main movements: (i) The failure to take Richmond by the peninsula route. (2) The at- tempt made under Pope to move southward, and his defeat at Bull Run. (3) Lee's invasion of Maryland and his repulse at Antietam. (4) Burnsides's southern move and the failure of his desperate attack at Fred- ericksburg. (5) The general situation in the east not very different from that before the first Battle of Bull Run. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 405 Union, and that this, morally and legally, was his first duty. Were the South victorious in the war, abolition would be impossible. Were the North victorious, then there would be a chance for the final extirpation of slavery. So the President constantly checked the excited abolition sentiment, and impressed on the minds of all that the Union must be preserved. In March, 1862, he sent a special message to Congress rec- ommending the passage of a resolution to the effect that ''the United States ought to co-operate with any State aboUshment which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, . giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconvenience, both public and private, produced by the change". Congress passed a resolution of that nature. But Lincoln could not get the slave States that still remained in the Union to listen to him. He showed their men in Congress that slavery in the border States must before long ''be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion — by the mere incidents of war"; but his plead- ing was in vain. Those States refused to take advantage of the National aid thus offered or to take a single step toward emancipation. Yet the anti-slavery sentiment was growing, and the time was near at hand when slavery must go. The enthusiasts brought great pressure to bear upon the President, prociamadorT ^^^ ^^ wisely and patiently bided his time. About the middle of the summer he drew up a draft of a proclamation for emancipation. Shortly afterward he read it to his Cabinet. He did not ask the opinions of his secretaries; he simply announced his purpose. The measure was a war measure, and he intended to shoulder the whole responsibility as the commander-in-chief. It is a striking scene in history — this plain and simple m,an, bred in poverty, reared in adversity, quietly declaring that he intends to strike the shackles from four million slaves; that he alone is ready to do the most momentous thing done on the American continent since the days of the Philadelphia convention. 406 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The publication of the emancipation proclamation was de- layed for a time, because it seemed wise to wait until the Union forces had won a victory, lest the proclamation Lincoln waits u^ viewed", as Seward said, "as the last measure for victory. ' ' of an exhausted Government, a cry for help". After Lee w^as beaten back at Antietam, Lincoln decided that the time was come. ''When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of emancipation^ such as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to any one; but I made a promise to myself, and (hesitating a little) to my Maker. The rebel army is now- driven out, and I am going to fulfill that promise". 1 On September 22, therefore, the famous proclamation was issued. This was only preliminary. It warned the inhabitants of the States in ''rebellion" that unless they should Publication of j-ctum to their allegiance before the first day of tion, 1862. January, 1863, he would declare their slaves free. Of course this announcement had no effect in bring- ing back the Southern people to their allegiance, and so, on the appointed day, the final proclamation was issued.^ The Presi- dent had no legal right to emancipate the slaves on any other theory than that he was acting as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and that such action was a legitimate w^ar measure. The results of this proclamation were of great importance. It made it clear to the world that the war w^as not simply an insurrection, but that slavery and freedom were pitted against each other; therefore there Avas no longer any fear of interven- ^ These words are given by Secretary Chase as the words of Lincoln. ^The proclamation did not free the slaves in the States, which, though holding slaves, did not secede; nor did it do so in all portions of the Con- federacy, because there were certain portions there not in actual "armed rebellion". Thus it was necessary later to provide for complete emancipa- tion. Of course, also, there might be a question concerning the binding, legal effect of the proclamation. Notwithstanding all this, the paper was one of the utmost significance. From now on the war was openly against slavery in the States, as well as to save the Union. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 407 ^^ (tyxf iO-^^ err O-e^ A^ /l«yU>^^ Jcsja^ J\jt^-c^ cye*^ Lincoln's Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation 408 HISTORY OF THE AMERIC.\N NATION tion by England or France. It gave the Xorthern people, thac were intensely in earnest against slavery, new courage and zeal. „ . Of course its great and lastinsf result was the Results. . . destruction of the whole institution; for, though the proclamation covered not the whole South, but only the States or the parts of States where the people were in " rebellion ", the outcome of the war was now sure to be the complete extinc- tion of slaver}' everywhere in the Union. The preliminary- proclamation seemed for a time to have a bad effect at the North. There was great opposition to Lincoln in many quarters: and the elections in the autumn of 1862 were not so favorable to the Republicans as was hoped. There was a reaction against the President and his policy. But as a matter of fact, his party in the end gained strength and coherence by this frank opposition to slavery. The war had new meaning, and in the next year (1S63') the tide of success turned strongly in favor of the North. Lincoln at no time gave any sign of regret or showed any wish to wa\-er. He issued his tinal procla- mation on the first of Januar>% as he had promised. At the beginning of 1S63 tlie army in the West under Rose- crans was near Chattanooga. Vicksburg and the whole South- west were in danger, for the Union army was being Military affairs. ij* ir JTj.i'Cti.i- c ;„, pushed Vigorously forward. In the Last, the bununary. r o ^ ^ ' Army of the Potomac, which had fought so bravely, had few laurels to display. The na\y had shown its great use- fulness under the command of able and intrepid men. Early in 1S63 the Union Army under General Hooker, not despairing of pushing on into \'irginia and beating Lee, tried again, but at Chancellorsville were once more utter- jidy^i-3^f863 ^y routed. Thereupon Lee, as he had done the autumn before, again assumed the otTensive, crossed the Potomac, and marched north, this time oven into southern Pennsylvania. The opposing forces met at Gettys- burg, and there was fought one of the most stubborn and bloody battles of the century. Lee's army, tlushed with recent vic- tories, and confident of success, attacked the Union forces that were posted in a strong position south of the town. In spite of SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1S65 409 the desperate valor of the Confederates, they were unsuccessful. Meade, who had taken Hooker's place in charge of the Northern army, showed talent as a commanding officer, and his soldiers fought with a bravery and determination that was a match for the splendid impetuosity of the Southerners. The Confed- erates lost over 20,000 men in killed, wounded, and missing, and the Fed- eral army lost 23,000 out of their 90,000. The inva- sion of the loyal States was a failure, and Lee never tried it again. Gettysburg, with successes in the West now to be mentioned, may be taken as the turning point of the Civil War. It may be considered, indeed, one of the great turning points in history. From this moment the Confederacy languished; the end of slavery was near at hand.^ Meanwhile Grant had determined that Vicksburg must be taken. Having made his preparations with his customary care, he beat General Pemberton, who endeavored to check his ad- vance, and then after trying in vain to take the city by assault, began a regular siege of the place. The town was hemmed in, and starvation soon threatened it. On July 4 the stars and * The assault of a sbuthern force under General Pickett upon the center of the Union line was the dramatic scene of the battle, one of the most dramatic and the most significant of the war. It took great courage to move up that long incline and attack the very center of the enemy's line; it took great courage and the Southerners had it; but the assault failed. That moment, when Pickett's men reached the summit of Cemetery Ridge — reached it only to be beaten back — is called the high tide of the Confed- eracy. What would have happened, if they had succeeded? What would have happened if Lee had been victorious at Gettysburg? 410 HISTORY or THE AMERICAN NATION (■til III*. (• ^ Duwriii P>M>|ll< strij^cs floated ovrr (ho defences of Vicks- bur v\u\ tlu>y were surrounded on three sides, but Thomas ne\ er thought of ^|| surrender or Ih'glit. liragg hurled his ftli army against the solid array abst^lutely 8^ to no ])urpose. "No more s|)lendid "^'^ spectacle appears in the annals of war than this heri)ic stand of Thomas in (he mids( of a rou(ed army. . . . Sh)wly riding up and down (he lines, wi(h un- A.--;-ri aiotiiojjm NBixr*. A e&EAT VICTORT! TeiTlflo and nnputl- leled Conflict. Th» BrbcU Vltorly Boulvd. TbUi«l (iiil *■• ramtd by th* DoIoD rortai. Tbs Torrlbls Battia on Frtdty. OlBolal Donpntoh ft-om 0(>n«riU II«Ade. in I>T«rx Allaok. unui BciiD uc iimiTni Sriudlil Coailucl ol lh< imr n< ■•lal a«utali Uw- •ItMt. Hill tai lrai|jU44 Caplurtd. ■n« TiNuij Mm iiiWh row Tkf rniliMI Ceo«r«i.|,tM llw CautiT, ••* *^ ' .» THt GNKAT lATTLt. From tuk Nf.w York Hkk.m.h, July 5, i8(\^ .AiinounriiiK' tlio Result of the Kattlc ol" Cu-ttysbiirg. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR ISGl ISGS 411 rufllcd countenance and clieery word, il is his own invincible soul which inspires b.is nu-ii lor (he work they haxc lo do".! When he got the oi)portunily, Tlionias ([uielly wilhchew in good order, rejoined the riglit and center, whi( h had been driven from the field, and the Union army was ready again for the contest. It retained its hold on Chattanooga, and the ('onfederate army ])repar(>d to take the ])lace. The situation was almost exactly the oi)i)osite from what it had been at the begimiing of the year. Grant now took command of tlie Army at Chattanooga, and with his usual energy began at once to operate against the enemy. The Confederates nnder liragg were strongly Chattanooga, T)()sted in a seenuiigly imi)regnable i)osition on November i • i i i i r i • /-« 33-25,1863. high ground sontli and east ol the city, drant gave Sherman command of the left, 'i'homas of the center, and Hooker of the right. The battle was marked by brilliant generalshij) and magnificent fighting. Sherman ])ushed eastward and then south against Missionary Ridge. J looker's rnen fought the wonderful battle above the clouds on Lookout Mountain, taking tlu^ position and forcing back the Confeder- ate left. Thomas was ordered the second day to attack the center. His troo|)s were eager. They seized the lower earth- works, and then, breaking away from orders, with cheer upon cheer they charged up the sl()i)e under murderous lire and on to the very moutKs of the enemy's guns.'-^ They swept the Cnn- federates from their works. The field was won. One may look in history in vain for anything more glorious m war, more dash- ing and l)rilliant, than the charge u|) Missionary Ridge, Novem- ber 25, 1863. * Dofi^c, liinrs-cyc View of llic Civil W.ir, p. i* u[x>n the task of supph-ing their immense army conditions. ^"^^^ ^^^^^ siucws of War. They economized in order to lend their means to the Government, and they met the hea\y taxes with cheerfulne>^. Business soon revived, the hea\y taritt dues that were laid stimulated manu- facturing, and the ver^- destruction of property, while it meant a real loss of wealth, made for the time, at least, a demand for work. The busy wheels of industry* were soon whirling at the Xorth. There was no languor and little repining. The Gx^vernment devised various plans of raising the re^q- uisite funds. In August of iSoi a higher taritt law was passed. ^ ^ ^ In this vear about $iso,ooo,ooo were borrowed bv The greenhacKs. * . . the s,vle ot mterest-bearing bonds. In February, 1S02, an extreme mt-a'^ure was adopte<-i. This was a bill pu>- viding for the issue of paper currency — the so-called "green- backs". These pieces of paper were made legal tender: in other words, persons wore obliged to accept them as the equivalent of money in the ordinary- course of business. Of course this paper rapidly depreciateii. Before the end of the next year a dollar in gold was worth a dollar and tifty cents in paper. In 1804 the premium on gold was still higher, reaching two dollars and eighty-five cents in July of that year. The depreciation of the paper meant a rise in the price of commodities. A year after the passage of the Legal Tender Act Congress passed the Xational Bank Act. This was later scMuewhat al- tereti, but has in its essentials remained in force National B.ink ^ .1 • 1 x j • • r ^u • i ^j.j to this day. It made panision tor the issue ot circulating notes by banking associations through- out the country- that wore ori^ani^xxi in conlormitv to law. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1S01-1S65 413 Unittxl States bonds were to bo purchastxi by the banks and deposited Nvitl\ the Government; the bank so purchasing was then entitled to receive and circuhite notes to ilie vakie of ninety per cent, of the bonds deposited. The notes were guaranteed by the Cnn- ernnient. which had the bonds for its security. For over twenty years the State banks had furnished the paper cur- rency of the country. Their notes circulated widely. It has been estimated that in iSoi there were as many as ten thousand ditYerent kinds of notes in circulation. Naturally such a con- dition had brought great confusion into connnercial transac- tions, because some of these notes were valueless, or nearly so, while others were good for their face value. By the establish- ment of the national banking system a real national currency, backed by the credit of the Government, was given to the coun- try. ^Moretwer, as associations were formed to take advantage of this act, there came a demand for bonds, and this helped the credit of the Government, which was thus enabled to dispose of its bonds on the market at better ligures. About two years later, 1S05, Congress passed a law levying on the issue of State banks a tax so high that it drove their notes out of circulation. The Government needed to use ever)- expedient for raising money. The war was being conducted on such a gigantic scale that the expenses were enormous. In addition to Taxes. a direct tax which was apportioned among the States, a system of excise or internal revenue was established. Before the end of the war these internal revenue taxes were very burdensome. All sorts of articles were taxed. K\cry branch of trade or industry was called upon to bear its part of the bur- den. The people paid with a willingness that is surprising. "No other nation", said a leading English paper, "would have endured a system of excise duties so searching, so etTective. so troublesome". When admiring the loyal bravery of the men who went to the front to tight, we need not forget the steadfast patriotism of the men who stayed at home and supj-korted the Government with unllinching and ungrudging readiness. 414 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION At the outbreak of the war the armies were filled by volun- teers; but in the early part of 1S63 it seemed necessary to resort to other means of obtaining the needed troops, fhe Draft Act, rj.^^ j. ^g^^ -^ ^,^| ^^ remembered, was not a very successful one in the field, and while it is true that the great body of the Northern people bore their burdens bravely and were willing to support the war courageously, there was a goodly number of fault-finders, who pointed to each defeat of the Union forces as a proof that the South could never be con- quered. There was a general belief that the Government should undertake to get men and money in the systematic, businesslike fashion in which other Governments were accustomed to pro- vide themselves, and not simply to rely upon popular enthusiasm, for the result of such reliance must be that the more generous and loyal would feel the duty of enlisting, while those who were selfish and critical would content themselves with fault-finding. An act was therefore passed providing for "enrolling and calling out the national forces". Able-bodied men between twenty and forty-five were to be enrolled. A certain number of soldiers were to be called for, in the future, from each congressional dis- trict, and when the quota of a given district was not filled by volunteers, drafts were to be made from the enrolled citizens. There was much opposition to this act. In July a riot broke out in New York city, which for four days was almost completely at the mercy of a frenzied mob. Officers of the Draft not, j^^^, ^^^ innocent citizens were killed ; negroes were 1863. . 11111 set upon and slam; property was ruthlessly burned. Troops were sent to the city by the National Government, and the rioting was put down with relentless energy. Over a thou- sand of the rioters were killed before order was completely restored. Early in 1864 Grant was made Lieutenant General and given command of all the armies of the United States. He determined to conduct the war in the East himself, and to General Grant. ^^^^^ ^^^ general charge in the West to his tried friend and able assistant, Sherman. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 415 Grant now decided to move steadily forward to Richmond; but the main thing was to defeat Lee and to wear out his army or beat it to pieces 1864. ^y continual ham- mering. Here again, to you and me, the details of battle are not important. The whole early summer was The hammering campaign one long carnage; Northern fathers and mothers looked over the papers each morning fearing to see a beloved name in the columns of dead, wounded, or missing; but Grant pressed on, losing thousands upon thou- sands, and Lee stubbornly and ably fought his battles of de- fence. Grant would not be beaten: " I propose", he said, *' to tight it out on this line, if it takes all summer". Lee could not be out-general ed, and his men, devoted to their superb leader, fought magnificently. Gradually, with almost ceaseless fighting, the Union army worked its way south- ward, and eastward, until it was not far from the position that McClellan had taken near Richmond two years before.' Then ^.^^ ^^^^--t-^^?^ ^ The early battles were in the Wilderness, a low forest or thicket of undergrowth and second-growth trees, extending for miles, and intersected bv only a few roads by which troops could be moved. In the Battles of the Wilderness (May 5-6, 1864) about 17,500 Union men fell and probably nearly that number of Confederates. After these battles, Grant moved on. " That ", said General Sherman, " was, in my judgment, the supreme moment of his life. Undismayed, with a full comprehension of the impor- tance of the work in which he was engaged, feeling as keen a sympathy for his dead and wounded as any one, and without stopping to count his num- bers, he gave his orders calmly, specifically, and absolutely, * Forward to Spottsylvania' ". The fighting at Spottsylvania was terrible and the losses great; at the bloody angle or " hell's half acre " the battle was so fierce that it seems as if no one could have escaped the messenger of death; trees were cut down by the flying bullets, logs were splintered to pieces, soldiers struggled io 416 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION by a clever move, and with great skill, Grant threw his army across the James and took a position at Petersburg, a strategic place of importance, inasmuch as it protected the communica- tions of Richmond with the South. If Petersburg could be taken, Richmond, it seemed, must fall. As to whether Grant was right in hammering at Lee's army and losing tens of thousands of men, there may still be a differ- ence of opinion. The losses were awful; but how the South could have been overcome without beating to pieces or fatally weakening Lee's brave army, it is hard to see. If one ever indulges in the idea that war is good, let him try to live through in imagination the woe, dismay, and heart-breaking sorrow, which came to North and South alike in those days of 1864. The investment of Petersburg amounted to an investment of Richmond itself. Grant was determined to keep his troops active and to wear out his opponent by successive Grant s aims. blows. He desired to get roimd the end of Lee's army and to cut off his communications; and this he tried to do, not by using his whole army as before, but by extended cavalry raids, which were executed with great \'igor and daring. Earlier in the summer General Sheridan, with a picked com- mand, had ridden completely around Lee's army, and had even passed the outer works of Richmond. He was later (August, 1864) directed to take charge of affairs in the Shenandoah hand to hand conflict; prisoners were pulled over the breastworks from one side to the other. (See the interesting account in Schouler, \T, 49S.) The Wilderness, Spottsyh-ania, and its " bloody angle", Cold Harbor, where Grant recklessly assaulted and was driven back with fearful loss — these are dark names in American history-; for though there was glory, there was dreadful bloodshed. Though Lee could not be beaten, after each engagement Grant moved — not backward in dismay — but grimly onward, advancing by the left, trying as it were, " to get around Lee's right end", to get between Lee and the goal line — Richmond and his supplies. Though we call it the " hammering campaign", as a matter of fact Grant would hammer the line, then, unable to break through, would by a " wing shift '* or by a flank movement try to get around the end, only to find that Lee's forces were there ready to " tackle the runner ". Still, he daily got nearer the goal and weakened Lee's army, which could not stand the losses that his own could endure with the great force of the North behind it. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 417 Valley. General Early, a Confederate leader of ability and great boldness, after having been within sight of Washington, had retired up the valley. Now began an enter- taining game of war. Sheridan had Grant's au- thority "to push things hard", and he did so. By the end of th,e summer, after a series of suc- cessful conflicts, he had the whole valley at It was devastated most pitifully. It could no more be a highway for those annoying raids which had frightened the administration at Washington, and had $uch a demoralizing effect on the courage and hopefulness of 28 Sheridan in Shenandoah Valley, August to October, 1864. his mercy. 418 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION the North. In October occurred the famous battle of Cedar Creek. Early surprised the Union forces and vehemently at- tacked them during Sheridan's absence. They Cedar Creek, j^^^^ bcffun to retreat, and, though reforming was October 19, . ^ 11, , 11 , , 1864. going on and the day was not w^hoily lost, there was danger of complete defeat, when Sheridan rode upon the field, and by his magic presence cheered the troops to renewed effort. He rode back at full gallop, calling out to the straggling fugitives: "Face the other way, boys! We are going back to our camps! We are going to lick them out of their boots "! And so they did. They made a bold counter attack and overwhelmed the enemy. Up to this time Mobile had remained in the hands of the Confederates. The task of blockading it effectually had proved practically impossible. In 1864 it was the one August' 1864 opening through which cotton could be exported or the much-needed supplies brought in to sustain the languishing Confederacy. The harbor was strongly defended, but Farragut determined to capture the place and its defenses. The Confederate Ram Tennessee From the working drawings in the Confederate' Collection at Washington Lashed to the rigging of the flagship, where he could see all that was going on, he directed the movement of his vessels, moved on into the harbor, defeated the Confederate fleet and captured the forts. The taking of Mobile sealed up the whole South. An occasional blockade runner might creep in, or sup- plies might be dragged across the plains from IMexico, but from now on the South was almost completely thrown on its own resources. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 419 In the earlier part of the war several vessels were fitted out in England for the use of the Confederate government. Our minister at London, Charles Francis Adams, The Ala.bania.. . called the attention of the English Government to the fact that these vessels were building, and asked that they be not allowed to leave the harbor. Attention was specially called to a ship known as the "290". The government, how- ever, did not intervene, and the ''290" got safely off to sea. She then assumed the name Alabama, and began, as a privateer, to prey upon American commerce. She was a fast sailer, well armed and strong, and she did immense damage, capturing and burn- ing Northern merchantmen. There were other vessels of the same kind, but because of her exceptional success the Alabama was especially famous. In June, 1864, a battle was fought off Cherbourg, France, between this Confederate cruiser and the United States ship Kearsarge. The two vessels Kearsarge ^ wcre of about equal size and armament. The con- test was of short duration. The Kearsarge was superbly handled, and her fire was deliberate and destructive. At the end of an hour the Alabama was totally disabled and struck her colors. Before her crew could be taken from her she sank to ihe bottom of the English Channel. Her captain and some of her men were taken on board an English vessel and thus escaped capture. During the career of the Alabama she had destroyed as many as sixty-three merchantmen. Other vessels of the same sort, especially the Florida and the Georgia, had like- Protest of the -J 1 J r\ r^ i. Hi j United States ^^^^ douc much damage. Our Government med its strenuous protest with the English Government, asserting that these vessels ought to have been kept from going to sea when it was well known for what purpose they were being fitted out. The warnings of the United States Government are summed up in the following words from Secretary Seward's dispatch to Mr. Adams: "Upon these principles of law and these assumptions of fact the United States do insist, and must con- tinue to insist, that the British Government is justly respon- sible for the damages which the peaceful, law-abiding citi- 420 HISTORY OF THE A:MERICAN NATION zens of the United States sustain by the depredations of the Alabama". During the summer of 1S64 a very active campaign was fought in the West. Sherman was in command there with a stalwart army of one hundred thousand men. The troops lay just south of Chattanooga facing the Confederates, who, under General Johnston, were at Dalton, Georgia. Sherman succeeded in deftly Campaign in the West, June, 1864. Field of the Last C.aaip.ugns of the Crtl \V.\r axd the Line OF Sherman's M.\rch manoeuvering the Confederates out of tlieir position, and, ■\\'ith- out direct battle, forced them back. Little by little, with a toughened army which seemed almost to enjoy the SeTemJe'^'864. ^"^^^'^^ conflict, he pressed on, pushing the gal- lant Southerners before him, and in September, after a summer of hard fighting, took Atlanta. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1 86 1-1 865 421 The march to the sea. Sherman was still in a dangerous position ; for he had to de- pend upon supplies brought a long distance. General Hood, who had been placed in command of the Southern army in that region before the fall of Atlanta, thinking to frighten Sherman out of his well- earned position, moved north to threaten his communications; but the plan was not successful. Sherman concluded that with re-inforcements Thomas, whom he had left in his rear, could take care of Hood, and he himself made ready for his famous march to the sea. He cut loose from his base of supplies and marched across Georgia. *' These troops numbered over sixty thousand rugged veterans, unhampered by sick or off-duty men, with twenty days' rations, plenty of beef on the hoof, about one field gun per thou- sand effectives, and an excel- lent canvas pontoon train ".^ Early in Deeember he appeared before Savannah, and it was evacuated shortly after.- This great march through the very heart of the Confederacy was proof positive that the South could endure but a few months longer at the best. Sherman had disappeared in the heart of Georgia, and when he reappeared at Savannah a great load was taken from the anxious hearts of the North. Grant wrote him : 1 Dodge, p. 287. 2 December 2 2d, Sherman sent Lincoln the following dispatch (Sher- man's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 231): Savannah, Ga., December 22, 1S64, To His Excellency, President Lincoln, Washington, D. C: I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; also about twenty- five thousand bales of cotton. W. T. Sherman, Major General. 422 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION • *'I never had a doubt of the result. When apprehensions for your safety were expressed by the President, I assured him with the army you had, and you in command of it, there was no dan- ger, but you would strike bottom on salt water some place ".^ Meanwhile Thomas had been playing a skillful game with Hood. The Southern general, venturesome and aggressive, marched to the North against Thomas, whose crushes^ Hood n'^^i^'^ positiou was at Nashville. Thomas was cautious and wary. Despite orders from Washing- ton and demands from Grant that an advance be made, Thomas Nashville ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ tm\Q he wishcd to make complete pre- December, paratious and to put his forces in full readiness for ^^^'^' battle. He then turned upon Hood and crushed him.- The war was practically over in the West. Political as well as military diihculties sul'rounded the President in the summer of 1S64. One would think that the task of carrvino; on this orreat war was enou";h Political affairs. i .,.,.. . ., Without other cares or responsibilities, especially during these dreadful months, when the Union forces were indeed pushing on to victory, but at a fearful cost in blood and treasure. Though it was clear that under Grant's ter- rific blows the Confederacy could not last much longer, Lin- coln was surrounded by unfriendly critics. Some of the public men of the President's own party were opposed to him, and some were making plans to defeat him in the coming elec- tion. All through his term he had been troubled difficukies ^^*^ harassed by political squabbles and quarrels, but in the spring and early summer of 1864 there were new dangers and annoyances. ^Sherman, ]\Iemoirs, vol. ii, p. 223. 2 Thomas was a Virginian, but refused to follow his State into rebellion. He was one of the most successful generals of the war, shrewd, careful, thor- ough. He knew not defeat, and always fought with the utmost coolness, precision, and energy. He was modest and unpresuming, yet few were so competent to command. Dodge says: "He perhaps falls as little short of the model soldier as any man produced by this country ". SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 423 Even Secretary Chase had for a time been nursing presi- dential ambitions, and his candidacy was urged by many of Lincoln's opponents. It was soon proved that Lincohi had the people behind him. They sym- pathized with him and felt his worth. Chase saw, before long, that his candidacy was hopeless; but his relations with the Chase resigns. The Grave of. the Union, or Major Jack Downing's Dream, Drawn by Zeke A contemporary cartoon of Lincoln and his policies, illustrating the type of criticism levelled at him President had become so strained that he gave up his secretary- ship. Lincoln showed his magnanimous spirit by making him Chief Justice of the United States. In May a "mass convention" assembled at Cleveland. It was made up of the fault-finders who were out of all patience with what they considered Lincoln's lack of vigor and administrative power. The convention nom- inated John C. Fremont for the presidency, but the movement was not taken seriously by the people, and Fre- mont finally withdrew, delivering as a parting shot the assertion Fremont nominated 424 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION that Lincoln's administration was ''politically, militarily, and financially a failure". When the Republican Convention met there was not the slightest doubt of Lincoln's nomination. The Union people of the whole North, in a great many different ways, renominated ^'^^ announced in unmistakable language that he was their only choice. He was nominated unan- imously on the first ballot.^ Thus the fault-finding of ambitious and quarrelsome leaders and critical newspapers was of abso- lutely no avail before the wish of the nation. There was some trouble in choosing the vice-president. It was felt by many that it would be the part of wisdom to nominate a war Democrat — some one who had belonged to the Democratic party before the war, but who was now working in harmony with the Repub- licans. Because of this feeling Hannibal Hamlin was not re- nominated, and the choice of the convention fell upon Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee. A platform was adopted declaring in favor of the vigorous conduct of the war, and announcing ''that as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be always and everj'where hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the republic". The Democratic party nominated Gen. George B. Mc- Clellan for the presidency, and George H. Pendleton, of Ohio, for the vice-presidency. The convention demanded that "immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities with a view to an ultimate convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal union of the States". The war was declared a ^r^LL^^A failure, and various acts of the President were nominated. ' denounced as usurpation "of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution". 1 The Missouri delegation voted for Grant, but changed this vote so that Lincoln could be nominated unanimously. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 425 The election. The True Issue; or, "That's What's the Matter" (From a poster of 1864) The presidential campaign was a very earnest and serious contest. The Republicans felt that everything was at stake and put forth every endeavor, while the Demo- crats were more successful in holding their forces together than might have been expected — a result due in large part to the fact that McClellan partly repudiated the platform by announcing himself in favor of peace, but only on terms that would preserve the Union. While the political discussions were in progress at the North, Sherman won his great victory over Hood at Atlanta. Under such circumstances the declaration that the war was a failure lost much of its force. Sherman's telegram, "Atlanta is ours, and fairly won", gave new courage and great joy to the supporters of the Administration. Lincoln was elected by a large electoral majority, receiving two hundred and twelve votes against twenty-one for his opponent. The Democrats carried only New Jersey, Delaware, and Ken- tucky. It will be remembered that the Emancipation Proclamation declared free all slaves within those parts of the South then in 426 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION open ''rebellion''. This was confessedly a war measure — like any other confiscation of property, an act of war. It did not destroy slavery everywhere. Moreover, some per- Thirteenth gQj^g believed that the President had exceeded his Amendment in , . . . . , . ^ i Congress. authority m issumg such a proclamation. In the early part of 1864 a vote on the question of sub- mitting a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery was taken in Congress. The necessary two-thirds vote could not be secured in the House, though the Senate passed the measure by a large majority. After the election, carried by the Repub- licans on a distinctly anti-slavery platform, abolition assumed new strength. The President in his annual message advocated the adoption of the amendment. A great debate in the House followed. The vote was one hundred and nineteen ayes to fifty-six noes — seven more than the required two thirds. In the homely, truthful phrase of Lincoln, the ''great job" was ended. It was still necessary that three-fourths of the States should ratify.^ But this ratification was assured.* This amendment declared that "neither slavery nor involuntary the^states" Servitude, except as a punishment for crime where- of the f)arty shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction". Thus the principle of the ordinance of 1787 was, in almost the exact words of that document, made applicable to the whole Union; the great curse that had separated the American people into two bitterly hostile sections was to be cast aside for ever. The hopes of the future were for reorganization, a re-establishment of sympathy and fellow-feeling between North and South, now that the cause of enmity and division was no more. As Lincoln pointed out, the amendment meant the "maintenance" of the Union. - In giving this account of political matters we have passed by the military events of the winter and spring of 1865, events ^ This was done in the course of the year. In December, 1865, a proc- lamation was issued declaring that the thirteenth amendment was added to the Constitution. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 427 which made abolition of slavery more than words. Leaving Savannah, Sherman marched north through the Carolinas, ha- rassed but not long retarded by the Confederates Military affairs. " mi i i i t t^ • i under Johnston. Grant still held Lee at Rich- mond and Petersburg, and the end was evidently near at hand. March saw some sharp fighting along the line; but the Confed- erates were daily growing weaker, and Lee was LiGQ 3.11(1 (jr3.Ilt. ••11 getting anxious to break away and to push south- ward and form a junction with Johnston. If this were done, Sherman might perhaps be crushed before Grant could get to his support. Grant watched Lee with caution and anxiety. A few severe and bloody engagements occurred, but without bringing the end. Grant handled his immense army with great ability, and with full comprehension of his task. Lee fought with desperation and his accustomed skill. The Union army was steadily winding itself more closely about the doomed Confederate army and capital. At length Lee slipped away in the night (April 2, 3). Grant entered Richmond and began a hot pursuit. The ragged, starving, brave, disheartened Confederates made Lee surrenders . . . , , April o i86s their way westward, harassed at every step by the pursuing cavalry. If they were to escape at all, it must be by the narrow strip of land between the Appomattox and James rivers.^ But Sheridan planted himself in the way. Lee was surrounded. On the 9th of April he surrendered. Grant gave generous and wise terms. The Confederates were released on parole, "not to take up arms against the Govern- ment of the United States until properly exchanged"; the offi- cers and men were to return to their homes, "not to be disturbed by the United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they reside". In later years Grant was charged, perhaps justly, with mistakes and blunders especially during his presidency; but both North and South will always remember that in the hour of triumph and victory he was generous and not vindictive or small. His course was 1 Read Dodge, Bird's-eye View of the Civil War, pp. 313-318. 428 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION probably influential in pointing out to the North the path of wise self-restraint in days of exultation. Johnston surrenderee, to Sherman on the 26th of April. ^/i/l 9 1865-, ^,<^^ o'clock,^ M, By Command of Grant's Dispatch Announcing the Surrender of Lee The great Civil War was at an end. The North had put forth its energy and crushed all opposition, pouring into the field an army as large as the fabulous host of Xerxes. The SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 429 armies of the East and the West had fought with courage and devotion. ''All that it was possible for men to do in battle they have done", said Grant, and he knew whereof endeZ*"^ he spoke. The mistaken South had fought with a spirit, a heroism, and a courage that tempt us to forget the cause and prompt us only to remember that from Key West to the St. Croix all now are brethren of a common country. Grant's words in addressing his former comrades in arms are well chosen: ''Let them hope for perpetual peace and harmony with that enemy whose manhood, however mistaken the cause, drew forth such herculean deeds of valor". The efforts of the South to sustain the war had been mag- nificent. We have seen how dependent the Southern people were on outside products. There were few fac- the South. tories of any kind. The very arms with which to fight needed to be smuggled through the blockade, or, before the Mississippi was under Federal control, wearily brought across Texas from Mexico. After the capture of Mo- bile the country was almost completely surrounded. Occa- sionally a blockade runner succeeded in slipping through the barriers and bringing in supplies from Europe; yet such acci- dental aid helped but little. The Confederacy was day by day, and month by month, strangled by the toils of the immense army and navy that encompassed it. The people fought with desperation, and yet we need not believe that all were anxious to enter the army; a year before the North resorted to the draft the Confederate congress took the same step, and before the end of the war it was determined even to enroll slaves as troops. Money was almost unattainable. When once the Confederacy was shut off from the civilized world, borrowing was practically impossible. Paper money was issued by the million dollars, "payable six months after the close of the war". This paper fell down, down, as the prospects of the Confederacy grew diin- mer. In May, 1864, a clerk in Richmond entered these prices in his diary: "Boots, two hundred dollars; coats, three hundred and fifty dollars; pantaloons, one hundred dollars; . . . flour, two hundred and seventh-five dollars per barrel; . . . bacon, 430 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION nine dollars per pound; . . . potatoes, twenty-five dollars per bushel; . . . wood, fifty dollars per cord". Thus it was that the South was beaten — not because the people could not fight, or because they were not willing to bear privation and hardships. History, perhaps, shows Slavery de- j^q parallel to the brave constancy of Lee's men in South. the fearful campaign of 1864-65, when they must have seen that under Grant's terrific hammering they could not long endure. The men who stayed at home on the plantations, and, above all, the women — for they were the The Great " Compromise Cartoon " First published in Harper^ s Weekly One of Thomas Nast's most famous and successful cartoons greatest sufferers from actual want — endured their trials with great resolution and cheerfulness. It was not lack of bravery, skill, or determination that defeated the South. It was slavery. While the lumber, iron, and coal of the North were put to service by an intelligent people, whose every industrial suc- cess prompted to new energy, "the South was laboring un- der a destructive system which had been abandoned by SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR— 1861-1865 431 every other part of the Teutonic race; and the fearful pen- alty of slavery was civil war and disastrous, overwhelming de- feat. The Union was preserved. The greatest civil war in history determined that the American republic must endure; but the cost was enormous. Not counting the men who The losses of ^-^^ ^^ home as a result of wounds received the war. in battle or exposure in the line of duty, over 300,000 Northern men gave up their lives for their country. The loss of the South could have been but little less. From all causes the nation lost nearly a million of its able-bodied men. At the close of the war there were 1,000,516 men in the Northern army. The receipts of the Government by taxation during the four years were not far from $800,000,- Its awful cost. 11. 1 n j_' J-.1 000, but this was only a small portion 01 the amount which was expended. Money was spent with lavish profusion. The total debt at the end of the war was $2,844,649,626. But one cannot count the real cost of these four years of destruction, when hundreds of thousands of men were taken from remunerative employment, to spend their energies in bringing desolation and in killing their fellows. The North offered up a great sacrifice for union and for the perpetu- ation of the Government. But the sacrifice of the South was greater. Figures can give no idea of what it cost the South to defend slavery and her chosen constitutional principles. She offered up her very life. At the end of the war the whole coun- try was desolate. Poverty was the lot of men who had been reared in luxury. For four years Virginia had been a battle- field. The more southern and western States fared but little better. The rebellion had been starved to death; and when the soldiers left the army and sought their homes, they were con- fronted by want and desolation. The courage with which men took up their new lives was no less great than their bravery in war. The immense Union army of a million soldiers was disbanded. The men went quietly back to the farm, the 432 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION counting-house, or the workshop. Within a few weeks this huge army was absorbed back into the body of the people. There was no violence, no license, no riot- disban^d. ^^S" ^^^ voluntccr soldicr showed his sense and self-restraint by becoming an ordinary citizen once more. References Wilson, Division and Reunion, pp. 219-252; Burgess, The Civil War and The Constitution, Volume I, Chapters VII-XI; Volume II; Morse, Lincoln, Volume I, pp. 250-387; Volume II; Lothrop, Seward, pp. 262-364; Hart, Chase, Chapters VIII-XII; Storey, Charles Sumner, Chapters XII-XVII; IMcCall, Thaddeus Stevens, Chapters VIII-XII; Rhodes, \'olume III, Chapters XV, XVI, Volume IV; Hosmer, The Appeal to Arms; Hosmer, Outcome oj the Civil War; Paxson, The Civil War; Schouler, History of United States, Volume VI. CHAPTER XXII POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION— 1865-1877 The war was ended. But while the people of the whole North were giving themselves up to joy and thanksgiving, there came the awful tidings that President Lincoln had Lincoln. ^ been assassinated. He was shot in his box at Ford's theater on the evening of April 14th, by John Wilkes Booth, an actor of some repute, who seems to have longed for notoriety, and to have sought this dastardly revenge for Southern wrongs and sufferings. The same evening Seward was assaulted at his home and grievously wounded. Lincoln died the next morning. There proved to be a plot, in which there were a number of conspirators, whose purpose seems to have been the assassination of several of the more prominent men to whom the country was looking for guidance. Booth was, how- ever, the chief conspirator and the head and front of the enter- prise. He was pursued and shot. Several of the conspirators were arrested and tried. Four were hanged, three imprisoned for life, and one for a term of years. The North mourned Lincoln's loss with sincere sorrow. There came to each loyal heart a sense of keen personal afflic- tion and bitter grief. The ''plain people" had nation. ° ^ corne to know their President, to trust him and to love him as no other public man has been loved in our history. They felt that his death foreboded trouble, and mayhap disaster. Could Lincoln have lived, the great task of reorganizing the shattered fabric of the Union might have been accomplished without begetting strong partisan bitterness or violence; perhaps the long period of estrangement between the North and South might have been shortened. Vice-President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency without delay and the 29 433 434 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Government went on with its work. There was no anarchy or confusion in the conduct of its business. Republican govern- ment never received a severer test. The new President was a man of vigor, of strong convictions, and of set purposes. He belonged to the poor whites of Tennes- see, and had in youth no more training or advan- and^cWcten tagcs than one of his class was apt to have. He had reached manhood before learning even to read and write. His determination and zeal, however, carried him forward in political life. Before his nomination to the vice- presidency he had been in the lower House of Congress. Gov- ernor of Tennessee, and United States Senator. By refusing to follow his State into secession he had won attention and renown at the Xorth. Conscientious and patriotic he was, no doubt: but he was narrow, dogmatic, and obstinate. He was a man of much native ability, but coming, as did Lincoln, from the most humble surroundings, he had not Lincoln's native culture and sweetness, nor the facultv of winnins; men and of feelins; svm- pathy with them. The difficulties th^t confronted Johnson's administration were many and arduous. The South was in a condition of poverty, a condition bordering on helplessness. The problems ^-ii i i o. ^ • m of the time. 1 here were no legal btate governments, no civil officers with legal authority to act. Millions of men born in bondage were now free, and had no knowledge of how to use their freedom, or how to earn their daily bread with- out direction. There was not much turbulence, for the negroes did not fully realize their new situation, and the whites were exhausted after the four terrible years of strife. How could order be brought to the wear}- and distracted South? How could industr}' be established on .a new basis? How could the relation between the two races be determined? Were the States themselves to be allowed to solve all their problems as each one saw fit, or was the National Government to inter\-ene and endeavor to shape Southern institutions? Was the North to take full advantage of its victor}', and insist upon raising the black man to a place by the side of his late master in social POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 435 and political right, or was political power to bo loft solely in the hands of the men who had waged war against the nation? These were questions of the greatest importance. Some of them only time could answer. llowe\er nuich might be done by way of legislation, time was needed to bring anything like a solution of the new labor problem of the South, or to establish suitable social relations between the negroes and whites. Moreover, questions arose concerning the right of the Fed- eral Government to do anything about the internal atlairs of the States, or to treat them in any way save as difficulties members of the Union, ^^'ith full rights and privi- leges. It was argued, on the one hand, that the war had been conducted on the principle- that the States could not go out of the Union, and it was maintained that, if they could not go out, they were now in, on terms of equality with the other States.^ But, on the other hand, the leading Republicans now declared that the States had, at least to some extent, forfeited their rights as States, and that, before tliey were once more re- instated in their constitutional relations, certain reforms should be brought about. These men wished to have assurance that the war was actually over and that the negro was safe from molestation. Some of the leaders — men like Charles Sumner — ■ looking upon the war as a great struggle for human freedom, were unwilling to consider that the real contest was finished until the freemen were given the right to vote and were in possession of social as well as political privileges. We need not consider at length the legal arguments upon which the Republicans based their assertion that Congress had power to declare that the Southern States were not immediately entitled to representa- tion in Congress or to their full rights as members of the Union. ^ It will be remembered that the North had begun the war on the theory that the States could not leave the Union, The Republicans hatl declared the war an insurrection, an uprising of the people against the Govern- ment, and that war could be made on persons to compel their obedience. Those who did not agree with them now said: Well, if the States could not legally secede they were never out of the Union. Acknowledge therefore that they are now entitled to send representatives to Congress and exer- cise in full the rights of States. 436 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION That men did seek to find legal justification for their every ac- tion is of interest, because it shows that the people were still regardful of legal rights and principles even at the end of the greatest civil conflict in history which in many a nation would have been destructive of all rights save those of brute force. But the North felt that the South must be reorganized, and it is of little real moment what was the legal theory or fiction on which Congress based its action. Republican plans as to what steps should be taken matured somewhat slowly. By no means the whole party was ready at first to follow its extreme leaders in endeavoring to establish negro suffrage in the South; but the whole party did desire that steps be taken to make the safety of the freedman certain. • The President issued (May 29, 1865) a proclamation of amnesty, offering to pardon all persons who had been engaged in the late rebellion, save certain classes of persons who were to apply specially for pardon. All availing themselves of the offer of amnesty were to take an oath of loyalty and pledge themselves to support Federal laws, including the emancipation proclamation. At the same time Johnson began his system of reconstruc- tion by appointing provisional governors for the Southern States. Each governor was authorized to provide Johnson's f^j. ^^le assembling of a convention that would reconstruction, alter or amend the State Constitution and provide for the establishment of the State in its constitu- tional relations.^ This plan of the President seemed to give the power into the hands of the white people of the South and to make no provi- sion for the f reedmen. It was therefore opposed by It is disliked the great majority. of the Republican party, inas- Repubiicans. niuch as they believed in keeping the Southern States under the control of the National Government until the negro was secure in his rights. The opposition to the ^ The plan was not essentially different from what Lincoln had advo- cated. POLITICAi: AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 437 President would not have been so bitter had it not been for two things: (i) Johnson showed himself headstrong and utterly lack- ing in tact; (2) the Southern States, organized under the Presi- dent's direction, began to pass laws that bore heavily upon the freedmen — laws that seemed to have the object of making the negro to all intents and purposes a slave again. It was quite evident that even those acts that appeared harmless might easily be enforced so as practically to establish involuntary servitude within a State contrary to the Thirteenth Amend- ment, which, it will be remembered, was just at this time adopted and put in force.^ When Congress met in December, 1865, many were annoyed at the President's haste, and were determined that the Southern States should not be allowed their full constitu- charge of the tional rights until the negro was fully protected Southern from unjust legislation. But when Congress ™* passed an act providing for a bureau for the reUef of freedmen and refugees, Johnson vetoed it. Immediately upon the reception of this veto Congress passed a joint resolu- tion declaring that no senator or representative should be ad- mitted into either branch of Congress from any one of the States lately in rebellion until such State was declared by Congress entitled to such representation. By this means Congress could compel the States to accept certain regulations that were deemed essential. An open rupture between the President and the party that elected him might have been avoided even yet, perhaps, or at least delayed, had Johnson not begun to make intemperate and unbecoming speeches, denouncing the Congress as "no Congress", and even charging individual members with opposition to the fundamental "principles of this Government" and with "laboring to destroy them". Somewhat later in the session a Civil Rights bill was passed. The intention of the act was to establish the equality of the races in the Southern States, to put the freedmen under the protection of National law and National officers, safe from per- — ■■■■ ■- — . ■. ■ ■■ I I I ■ ■■ m ^ December, 1865. • 438 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION secution or molestation at the will or caprice of a State. It declared, among other things, that ''all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign nights* MI. power" were citizens of the United States. This act was vetoed, but was promptly passed over the veto. Congress was no longer in a submissive mood. It was next determined to put the Civil Rights bill into the "form of a constitutional amendment, where its principles would be permanent and safe from violation. The Four- Amendment'^* teenth Amendment was therefore agreed upon and offered to the States (June, 1866) for adoption. It declared that ''all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside". It declared that no State should make or enforce any law abridg- ing the "privileges or immunities of citizens of the Its first section. _^^. , ^ ,, i • r ..it United States , or deprive any person of Me, liberty, or property without due process of law", or deny to any person "the equal protection of the laws". The Republi- cans saw that by the freeing of the blacks they had actually increased the political strength of the Southern States, because the three-fifths rule^ would no longer apply, but all the negroes would be counted in determining the representative population. Some were desirous of giving the negroes the suffrage imme- diately by National act. Others hesitated. All, ection. however, desired to prevent the Southern States from reaping this political advantage from eman- ■dpation, unless they allowed the blacks to vote. It was there- fore decided that, if the negroes were not given the suffrage by a State voluntarily, they should not be counted in determining the basis of representation. For -these reasons the second sec- tion of the Fourteenth Amendment was added, providing that if the right to vote were denied to any of the male inhabitants of a State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except as punishment 1 See Constitution, art. i, sec. ii, § 3. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 439 for crime, the basis of representation should "be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State ". The amendment also provided for excluding from Federal and State office the most prominent se^ction. persons engaged in the war against the Govern- ment until such disability were removed by Con- gress. It was expressly stated that the validity of the National debt should not be questioned, but the debts section incurred in and for the rebellion should not be assumed by the ''United States or any State"". Such was the Fourteenth Amendment, by far the greatest change made in the Constitution since its adoption. There was some difficulty, as we shall see, in securing It made radical [^^ ratification, the Southern States refusing to Constitution. acccpt it; two years passed before it was finally ratified (1868), but we may notice at this time how it modified the Constitution when once it became a part of the fundamental law. Before this amendment was passed the subject of suffrage was solely a State affair, as long as the State had a ''republican form of government". So, too, the State had complete control over its citizens and could be as tyrannical as it saw fit, provided that it did not interfere with the relations between a person and the National Government or violate the few express prohibitions in the National Consti- tution. By this amendment the nation intervened to protect the citizen of the State against unjust legislation or action of a State. Thus it will be seen the situation had entirely altered from what it was in 1788-90.' Then it was thought necessary to shield the citizen from the possible tyranny of the National Government, and to this end the first ten amendments were adopted. Meanwhile the controversy between the President and Congress waxed hotter. Johnson vetoed the most impor- tant bills, and Congress passed them over his veto. In this way, in the course of a year, the most essential measures were made law for the purpose of carrying out the con- 440 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION gressional idea of "reconstructing the Southern States". In spite of the President's objections, a measure known as the Freedmen's Bureau bill, providing for President and ^^^ relief and assistance to the Southern negroes, Congress in -kt i i i • • i • i open enmity. became law. Nebraska at this time was admitted to the Union. In March, 1867, Congress passed the Civil Tenure bill. This provided that a person appointed to office by the President and approved by the Senate should hold ofhce till Offi"e'^\ct. another person was appointed to the position with approval of the Senate, and that members of the Cabinet should hold office for the term of the President appoint- ing them and one month thereafter, "subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate". An officer might, however, be suspended while the Senate was not in session, and the place given for the time being to some other person.^ During the fall and winter (1866-67) the Southern States, perhaps encouraged by the quarrel between Johnson and his party, rejected the Fourteenth Amendment. As Congressional , ,• reconstruction *^ conscqucuce ncw reconstruction measures were determined upon and duly enacted. Congress provided for the division of the South into five military districts, each to be in the charge of a general aided by "a sufficient * By this time there was much ill feeling on both sides. The "radicals" of the Republican party detested Johnson and were determined to have their own way. Pupils are often perplexed by the difficulty of seeing what the trouble really was about; such is often the case when we look back upon times of bitter controversy. The "radicals" disliked the "rebel" and all his works. These were the stern men who had lived through the experiences of the war. Thaddeus Stevens, the radical leader in the House, was espe- cially hard and bitter. He believed that since the South had raised the cup of secession to her lips, she should be made to drink it to the dregs, and the Southern States should be allowed to send men to Congress as soon as Con- gress was ready to receive them and not before; in the meantime they should be treated as conquered territories. Johnson, in his tactless way, insisted that the Southern States had rights; and, though at first feeling bitterness toward the South, he became daily more considerate, much to the disgust of the radicals, so that Stevens and the great bulk of the Republicans hated the President lustily. In all such matters it is difficult to see just where exact justice lay. Men were too excited to see justice. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 441 military force ". This officer was to keep order and to have wide powers of government. Under his guidance a State was to elect a convention, adopt a constitution granting the suffrage to blacks and whites alike, and ratify through its legislature the Fourteenth Amendment. When this was done and ap- proved, the State was to be allowed representation in Congress. In the summer of this year (1867) Johnson requested the resignation of Stanton, his Secretary of War. The two men were incompatible, and Stanton had long been impeached. ^^ hostile to Johnson and his policy. He refused to resign, and Johnson suspended him. When the Senate met it refused to agree to this suspension. The President then removed Stanton from office. The ill feeling was now so great that the Republicans determined to resort to impeachment to get rid of their obnoxious executive. In March, 1868, articles of impeachment were presented by the House at the bar of the Senate, the chief charge being violation of the Tenure of Office act by the removal of Stanton. The trial lasted nearly two months. Chief Justice Chase presided with dignity and impartiality. The ceremony was watched with interest and curiosity in America and Europe. The result of the trial was acquittal, for the majority lacked one vote of the necessary two thirds. Seven Republican senators, believ- ing that the President should be entitled to remove his subor- dinates and not sympathizing with the intense and bitter par- tisanship of the radicals, voted against conviction. It is now generally believed that impeachment was unwise and that con- viction would have been unjust. Before the end of 1868 most of the States were fully re- established in their constitutional relations or "readmitted to c, , the Union ". Provision had been made for the "reconstructed" admission of Tennessee soon after the close of the by congressional war. North CaroHua, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas were admitted to representation in Congress in 1868. Seward was enabled to announce, July 28, 1868, that the Fourteenth Amendment had become part of the Constitution. 442 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The Southern States during these years and for some time afterward were in an unfortunate condition. The more influ- ential white men were kept out of office by the governments. congrcssioual poHcy because they had taken part in the war. This left the control of the conven- tion and the legislature, when once civil government was estab- lished, to the more ignorant w^hite people and to the negroes, who had no fitness for the difficult tasks that needed attention. Men from other States came upon the scene and became political leaders, taking advantage of the ignorant blacks to wun for themselves power and influence. These men were called ''car- pet-baggers". The governments set up under their direction were incompetent and woefully corrupt. Doubtless some of the Northern men who wxnt to the South at this time were neither corrupt nor influenced by unworthy motives, but so many were merely unscrupulous adventurers, quite devoid of principle, that all w^re called "carpet-baggers" and looked upon with suspicion. The Southern people were in their turn intoler- ant, and occasionally guilty of outrages against Northern men. The ill feeling between the sections, therefore, had as yet dimin- ished little, if at all. The white people under negro and "car- pet-bag" rule w^re bitter in their hatred of Republican recon- struction, while every month seemed to harden the Northern leaders in the belief that the "ex-rebels" were not to be trusted. Several difficult and interesting foreign questions arose dur- ing Johnson's administration. Soon after the beginning of our ^ . ^ . civil war France had sent troops into Mexico, Foreign affairs. ^ ' overthrown the republican government there, and established an empire, with Maximilian, an archduke of Austria, as emperor. During the war Seward had cautiously protested; but now that there was peace at home, France was given very distinctly to understand that the presence of her troops in Mexico was obnoxious to the United States. Our Government has for many decades held the opinion that European countries must not extend their systems in this hemisphere against the win and wish of the American Union. ^ Upon receiving the per- ^The Monroe Doctrine. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 443 emptory demand from Seward, Napoleon III withdrew his army. The luckless Maximilian, left to his fate, was captured by Mexican troops, tried by court martial, and shot. In 1867 the United States bought Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. This purchase added 531,409 square miles to the National domain. In the eighty years that had urchase elapscd since the formation of the constitution the territory of the Union had increased fourfold. In 1787 it was 819,815 square miles. After the purchase of Alaska it was 3,501,509 square miles. ^ No less important than other events of this stormy admin- istration was the final laying of the Atlantic cable. In the The Atlantic summcr of 1 866 the cable was laid and used. The <^*^^®- commercial and political importance of this frail connection between America and Europe can hardly be over- estimated. Trade was put on a new basis, for the condition of: the European markets could be read in New York each morning.. The political relations between the Old and the New World were simplified. For the election of 1868 General Grant seemed the only possible candidate for the Republicans. The party contained many able leaders with far more political expe- ^868^^^*^*^°° °^ rience, but he was the center of interest and at- tention. The quiet, relentless determination with which he had carried on the war had completely captured the public imagination. He was unanimously nominated on the first ballot in the convention, amid great demonstrations of enthusiasm. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, was nominated for the vice-presidency. The platform congratulated the country on the success of the reconstruction policy of Congress; it pledged the party to maintain equal suffrage for all loyal men; it denounced Andrew Johnson and his methods, and promised the payment of military bounties and pensions and full payment of the National debt. The Democrats nominated Horatio> Seymour, of New York, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri. 1 These figures are somewhat differendy given by different authorities. The United Stages census gives the total area, without Alaska, as 3,025,601, 444 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The platform demanded immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union, amnesty for all political offenses, economy and reform in office. It arraigned "the Radical party" for its "unparalleled oppression and tyranny", appealed to all patriots to unite in the "great struggle for the liberties of the people", and declared that Johnson was "entitled to the gratitude of the whole American people". The result of the election was at no time doubtful. There was great enthusiasm for Grant at the North, while at the South the electoral vote was in nearly every State cast for the Republican candidate, because the freedmen were all of that party, and many of the white men were not allowed to vote. Grant received two hun- dred and fourteen electoral votes and Seymour eighty. Before closing the account of Johnson's administration we should notice that something had been done to reduce the im- mense war debt, and that the nation was in many perity"* ^^°^' ways prospcrous. The highest point that the debt ever reached was in the summer of 1865, when it amounted to the enormous total of $2,844,649,626, a burden of $84 on each person in the United States. In 1869 it amounted to $64.43 P^'^ capita. The nation showed remarkable powers of recuperation, after the long and destructive war. When Grant ^ took the presidential chair he was met with difficulties. The times were trying ones. One can hardly * General Grant was at this time almost entirely without political expe- rience and without training in civil duties. He was a graduate of West Point, and had served with distinction in the Mexican War. At the out- break of the rebellion he occupied a humble position as a private citizen. His success as a general gave him world-wide reputation, and he was hailed by the enthusiastic North as the savior of his country. He was a man of strict, unswerving honesty, and of pure motives. He was direct and inci- sive in his methods of thought and action. It may be doubted whether his talents, that so well fitted him for conducting a great aggressive war, were equally well adapted to the no less difficult tasks of peace. Downright and upright himself, he was not always successful in winning and holding the best men of his party by giving them frank confidence; nor did he have great insight into the weaknesses of the men about him. These character- istics account, in part, for some of the diflSculties of his administration. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 445 imagine greater or more troublesome tasks than those confront- ing the American Government in these years. The people were undoubtedly showing a remarkable capacity thetime^^ for self -government and self -restraint. They sub- mitted quietly to the payment of enormous taxes ; they were honestly and without ostentation bent upon paying the great war debt with all reasonable speed. A million soldiers who had been quietly absorbed into the peaceful community iseemed to have forgotten military arts or ambition. And yet the period was full of difficulties. There were grave interna- tional questions to be settled, and internal problems that called for wise solution. Not till about 1871 were all the Southern States in possession of their full constitutional rights, with the right to send senators and representatives to Congress, and even w^hen politically ''reconstructed" they were of course internally still in some confusion. Moreover, the North continued to keep troops in the South, a source of continual humiliation to the Southern people. A reconstruction of sentiment between North and South could come only in the course of years, as the result of generous fair-mindedness in the one section and sensible self-control in the other. In many ways the war had brought disorganization into the National Government; the details of administration, which are of the utmost importance in time of peace, could not be carefully watched and guided in time of a great civil war. Furthermore, the war had had a demoralizing influence in some respects. It is true that it called forth patri- otism and stirred men's hearts to lofty motives; no war that is waged for country and to free millions of human beings from slavery can be, on the whole, bad in its effects on the moral make- up of the nation. But war is brutal, and its brutality is apt to leave the curse of selfishness and greed behind it. The great mass of the people were honest and moral ; but the troublesome time of war encouraged some men to believe that it was legiti- mate to take advantage of the Government and to get rich by stealth at the public expense. Scarcely had the Fourteenth Amendment been adopted, when the Republicans decided that negro suffrage must be 446 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION secured and not left to the option of the States; for that Amend- ment, it will be remembered, allowed the States to determine for themselves what the basis of suffrage should be; if the right to vote were denied to any of the male citizens twenty-one years old, or in any way abridged, the basis of representation in Congress might be cut down. ^ With the intent to make negro suffrage every- Fifteenth Amendment Distribution of Population in 1870 where obligatory the Fifteenth Amendment was drawn up and submitted to the States for adoption. It declared: ''The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not.be de- nied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude". Secretary Fish announced, March 30, 1870, that it had ''be- come valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitu- tion of the United States". The acceptance of the Fifteenth Amendment as part of the fundamental law of the nation did not do away with the troubles 1 The Fifteenth Amendment did not repeal the second section of the Fourteenth; but the second section has never been enforced. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 447 and distress that grew out of the rebellion. The corruption of the carpet-bag governments, built on negro suffrage, was proof enough that slavery had been a poor schoolmaster S.°"e^"r '"^ for freedom. Some of the blacks quickly learned the Southern , . . . . ^ J States. the Vices of politics, and showed remarkable apti- tude in the art of reaping personal advantage from office. The States that had been impoverished by four years of war were plundered ruthlessly; enormous debts were rolled up by extravagant and dishonest legislation. In South Caro- lina, where negro rule long prevailed because of the great number of blacks, the debt increased from about $5,500,000 in 1868 to over $20,000,000 in 1873. Some other States suffered almost as much. The Southern whites determined that negro rule must be ended by some means, lawful or unlawful. It seemed to them a matter of self-preservation. This feeling is well Opposition to illustrated by the statement of a citizen of South government. Carolina: "To take the State . . . away from the in- telligent white men and hand it over bodily to igno- rant negroes just escaped from slavery . . . was nothing less than flat burglary on the theory and practice of representative government " . In some of the S tates the negroes were in a minor- ity ; and where that was the case the government soon passed into the hands of the white people as a simple result of united action on their part. In other places, however, deplorable methods were adopted. The poorer and more ignorant white men, who had been reared amid the degrading influences of slavery, could not appreciate that the negro had rights that they were bound to respect. The luckless blacks were harassed and harried. An oath-bound order under the name of the Ku-Klux-Klan, throw- ing a veil of secrecy and mystery over all its doings, appeared here and there throughout the South, terrorizing the supersti- tious negro and overwhelming him with awe and dread. It is difficult from any evidence that we have to determine the exact origin or extent of the Ku-Klux movement. To Northern men it seemed that the whole South was conspiring to make national law inoperative, and to rob the negro of his rights. It was some 448 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION years before the lawlessness and \it)lence were stamped out. The intelligent people of the South linally united in efforts to put down this open violence and to establish order, for they saw that there was a direct issue between law and anarchy. Because of these conditions in the South, Congress under- took to pass repressive measures. A series of acts, known as "Forcebuis". ''^^^^^ bills''. Were passed (1870-72), the pur- poses of which were the protection of the negro in his new privileges and rights. The President was given au- thority to suppress insurrection, whenever the State officers were unable or unwilling to do so, and was also authorized, for a limited time, to suspend the privilege of the writ of Jiabcas corpus. The federal courts were assigned wide jurisdiction over cases in which persons claimed they had been deprived of rights, privileges, or immunities under the Constitution of the United States.' These measures were deeply resented at the South. The Southerners felt ready to manage their own affairs; and, in fact, realizing the danger of tumult, were already moving to suppress disorder. For some time after this it seemed to the President necessary to use the Federal troops in order to secure free and fair elections in the Southern States. From the outbreak of the rebellion and the acknowledgment by Great Britain of the belligerency of the Confederacy our rela- tions with that country had been somewhat trouble* ^"^^ Strained. Upon Grant's accession there were se- rious difficulties that demanded immediate settle- ment. Our Government asserted that England had not done her duty as a neutral; that it was her duty to use diligence in an effort to prevent the arming or equipping of any armed vessel within her limits, and to prevent the departure of such a vessel to cruise against the commerce of a friendly nation; that like- wise a belligerent should not be permitted to make use of neutral ports as bases of naval operation or for the purpose of getting military supplies; and that Great Britain had been remiss in its duty, inasmuch as the Alabama and other Confederate cruisers had been fitted out in English harbors to prey upon American commerce even after the ministry had been given fair warning POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 449 as to the character and purpose of the vessels. We insisted, therefore, that damages should be paid for the resulting injuries. Fortunately the two countries were wise enough not to make more havoc by fighting over their differences. In 1871 a treaty between the two ])()wers was signed at Washington, Wa^shington° agreeing that all matters of dispute should be sub- mitted to arbitration. The Alabama claims were to be passed upon by a court of five arbitrators appointed by Great Britain, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil. This tribunal met at Geneva, Switzerland, and made a care- ful examination of the whole controversy. The American Gov- ernment contended that our losses included more The Geneva than the actual destruction of merchantmen and award, • i i i i • i t 1871-72. cargoes; they mcluded heavy national ex])en(li- tures in the pursuit of the cruisers and, moreover, ^' indirect injury in the transfer of a large part of the American commercial marine to the British flag, in the enhanced pay- ments of insurance, in the prolongation of the war, and in the addition of a large sum to the cost of the war and the suppres- sion of the rebellion". The arbitrators refused to allow com- pensation for the more indirect or remote damages, but awarded to the United States $15,500,000 in -gold as an indemnity to be paid by Great Britain in satisfaction for all claims. By the Treaty of Washington it was also agreed to leave to the Emperor of Germany as arbitrator the settlement of a dis- pute over the Northwestern boundary. In 1846 Northwestern ^^^ y^^^ between the American and British posses- boundary and . 1 r 1 rii* 1 ^ r the fisheries. sions had bccn deuned as following along the lorty- ninth parallel ''to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island; and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean". A question had arisen as to where the middle of the channel was. The German Emperor decided in favor of the claim made by the United States. The Treaty of Washington made provision for the settlement of dif- 30 450 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ficulties that had arisen concerning the Northeastern fisheries. In 1877 a commission met in Halifax and awarded to England the sum of $5,500,000. It was plain by this time that to compel the Southern people to observe the new amendments to the Constitution fully was a difficult if not an impossible task. To accom- Differences in pjish anything by force, constant armed interven- the Republican ^. "^ ^ -^ . ' r , , party. tiou was a ucccssity. But many felt that the Government had already gone too far; that the only sensible course was to leave the South alone ; that as long as Federal troops were stationed there Southern resentment would continue in all its bitterness, and that the people could never be won back to affectionate loyalty by main force. They felt that the fundamental principle of local self-government was being dangerously disregarded. Some Republicans had become antagonistic to Grant personally. They believed that he had shown rare incapacity for civil duties, and that he was surround- ed by men who were greedy if not corrupt. A division in the Republican party was likel}^ to come sooner or later, because it was in reality a composite party, made up of men who were not apt to think alike on many questions. When once the great task of carrying on the war was over, the different elements in the party began to show their natural tendencies. The feeling of dissatisfaction with existing conditions showed itself in the Liberal Republican movement of 1872. The men who became interested in it were those Republicans. Republicans who found themselves out of sym- pathy with the administration, out of patience with the management of Southern matters, and eager for ^'re- form" in civil office. Many, too, wished a reduction of tariff duties and other economic changes. A national convention held at Cincinnati nominated Horace Greeley, of New York, for President, and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, for Vice-Presi- dent. A platform was adopted charging "the partisans of the administration assuming to be the Republican party " with ar- bitrary and unpatriotic conduct toward the South, and with selfish and unscrupulous use of power. The new party demanded POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 451 immediate reform in public office and the re-establishment of civil rule without military interference in the Southern States. The Democrats, having no issue to present, found them- selves fairly well in accord with the principles of the Liberal Republicans. The platform and candidates were The Democrats. '^ \ • xt . • i therefore accepted by the Democratic National Convention. A few Democrats found it impossible to accept the nomination of Greeley, who had been for years an ardent, enthusiastic Republican, given to the use of very plain language in his condemnation of the Democracy. This faction placed a straight Democratic ticket in the field; but the movement was of no avail, inasmuch as the nominees refused to be candidates. The Republicans renominated Grant, and gave the second place on the ticket to Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. Many persons were still fearful of any backward step in Grant ^j^g management of the Southern question. There renominated r -i- , .^ , r^ ^ r. and elected. was a Strong feeling, too, that Greeley was unnt for the presidency. A high-minded, honest man, with strong purposes and noble aims, he was impractical and vis- ionary. He was in his place when he was appealing to the na- tion's conscience, or discussing in racy, telling phrases the moral duties of government. But he had almost no experience in public office, and was without aptitude for the duties of admin- istration. Grant and Wilson were elected by an overwhelming majority. Greeley died before the presidential electors met to cast their ballots. Grant's second administration was not very eventful, nor does it differ in character materially from the first. Some of the troubles that had arisen from the rebellion had '^^bi^m*^^'^" passed away. Some of the great problems had remains. been solvcd, but much still remained to be done. The Southern question was still a pressing one. How far should the Southern States be allowed to manage elections and all internal affairs without molestation from the Central Government? This was the difficult problem of the time. The Republican party was, on the whole, in favor of keeping such control that the amendments could be enforced 452 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION throughout the South. But the country was in reality growing weary of interference and longing for quiet. In a number of the Southern States, as we have seen, the Government had already passed into the hands of the Demo- cratic party. Where that was the case there was- Federa little trouble, but the amendments were more or intervention. ' less evaded. Where Republican governments held power great disturbance and unending controversy pre-, vailed. Disputes often arose over the action of the returning boards, whose duty it was to canvass the votes and report the results. The Democrats declared that the boards were illegally made up, or that they fraudulently "counted out" the Demo- cratic candidates. The Republicans charged their opponents with endeavoring by violence and intimidation to suppress the negro vote. When such quarrels broke out the President would send troops to quiet disturbances and to establish authority; but he grew tired of the continuing disorder.^ A very noticeable feature of those years was the number of political scandals that came to light in the National Government. In 1872 it was publicly charged that prominent Credit MobiUer. ^ /,. ^1,1,1, , •, r Republican otnceholders had taken bribes irom a company known as the Credit Mobilier.- An investigation was made into all the charges, and resulted in finding clear proof of the guilt of two congressmen, one of whom had been the com- pany's chief instrument for furthering its interests by under- hand and corrupt methods. The investigating committee rec- ommended the expulsion of these men, but the House contented ^ The situation in Louisiana was especially bad. The Constitution pro- vides (art. iv, sec. 4) that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government." This clause furnished the legal justification for interference on the part of the National Gov- ernment. "" This corporation was organized under a charter from the Pennsylvania Legislature. It received through roundabout and corrupt methods immense profits for the construction of a portion of the Union Pacific Railroad. "The Credit Mobilier was, in short, the first, greatest, and most scandal- ous of the 'construction companies' which have since . . . made bankrupt so many railroad enterprises. " Merriam, Life and Times of Samuel Bowles, vol. ii, p. 225; see also Dunning, Reconstruction. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 453 itself with " absolute condemnation " of their conduct. Happily the ablest leaders to whom dishonesty had been imputed were exonerated by an examination of the facts. • Other scandals than the Credit Mobilier were soon unearthed. It was found that a great conspiracy had been formed for the purpose of cheating the Government in the coUec- ring" ^1875.^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ internal-revenue tax on distilled liquors. This "whisky ring" included men high in power and influence. Through the untiring energies of Mr. Bristow, the Secretary of the Treasury, the criminals were hunted down, the ring broken up, and a number of the guilty punished. About this time articles of impeachment were brought by the House against William W. Belknap, the Secretary of War. He was charged with receiving bribes, and there was Secretary of j^^ doubt of his guilt. To escapc convictiou he 1876. ' hastily resigned his office, and then denied that the Senate had the right to consider charges against a person who was no longer a " civil officer of the United States".^ The trial was nevertheless begun, but did not result in convic- tion. Most of those voting in favor of acquittal said that they did so because they believed that the Senate had no jurisdiction. Just at the close of Grant's administration Congress passed an act increasing the salary of the President, members of Con- gress, and other officers. It provided that the 1873^ ^^ * President should receive fifty thousand dollars in- stead of half that sum, as heretofore, and that members of Congress should receive seven thousand five hun- dred dollars instead of five thousand dollars. This Congress was nearly at an end, but, regardless of that fact, the act de- clared that its members should receive the increased salary for the two. years just closing. Great indignation was aroused in the country by this calm appropriation of the public funds. Some members paid back the money into the Treasury to ap- pease their own consciences and to help quiet the tumult. The next Congress repealed the act, save such portions as provided for increased pay to the President and justices of the Supreme ^ See Constitution, art. ii, sec. 4. 454 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Court. It must be said that previous Congresses had passed similar laws and made them retroactive. But the people now thought, without distinction of party, that the "salary grab" was an unworthy example of avarice and greed. For some years after the war the business interests of the country seemed to prosper. It was a period of great enterprise. Railroads were built and extended out of all pro- iStV**"*^ ° portion to the needs of the population; all kinds of industries appeared to be thriving; men entered boldly into new undertakings. The war seemed rather to have stimulated industry than to have checked it. But the day of reckoning was sure lo come. The finances were not in a good condition, inasmuch as paper money still circulated and no law had been passed providing for payment in specie. ^ Commerce was therefore built on an uncertain foundation. In 1873 ^ great commercial panic swept over the country. Enterprise and wild speculation were sharply brought to a standstill. Factories were closed and the usual suffering ensued among the poorer people, who were thus deprived of means of livelihood. Many men seemed to believe that the need of the hour was more money, and Congress passed a bill for the increase of the cur- rency. Grant vetoed the measure, because he thought that such action simply aggravated the evil. In 1875 a law was passed providing for the redemption of the "greenbacks" in coin on the ist of January, 1870. When that day Resumption. • , , .. "^ . , ,' ' ^ . ^ arrived the resumption of specie payment was, as we shall see, entered upon without difficulty. The Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, for the presidency. William A. .Wheeler, of New York, was selected for the vice-presidency. The platform Republican ^f ^^ party gavc no indication of any change or Convention, • , , • , • ^ • , r ^ ^ 1876. material advance in policy, but it spoke out frankly in favor of resumption of specie payment. ^ In 1869 a bill was passed known as a bill "to strengthen the public credit", wherein the United States "solemnly" pledged itself "to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of the United States notes in coin". POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 455 The Democrats nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana. Tilden was a man of great native ability, a lawyer of wide reputation Co^enUon ^^^ ^^^^^* ^^ govemor of his State he had relent- lessly attacked the corrupt Canal ring and the groups of thieving officials that were plundering the treasury of New York. The platform of the party was largely made up of a series of demands for "reform". It denounced the "finan- cial imbecility and immorality" of the Republicans, and de- manded the repeal of the Resumption Act of 1875. There were two other parties in this campaign, the Green- back party and the Prohibition party. The former demanded the repeal of the Resumption Act, and declared Other parties. , , . r <• cc themselves m favor of a paper currency con- vertible on demand into United States obligations". In other words, they did not want gold and silver as money, but pieces of paper stamped by the Government and issued at its discretion. The Prohibitionists were in favor of making the liquor traffic wholly illegal. The result of the election was doubtful, so doubtful that people were in consternation and perplexity. Tilden received one hundred and eighty-four electoral votes; only Resiut of Qj^g more was needed to elect him. From four in doubt. States — South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon — contradictory electoral certificates were presented, one set announcing that Republican electors had been chosen, the other that Democratic electors had been chosen. In each of the three Southern States there was a returning board, to which the results of the election from various parts of the State were reported, and whose duty it then was to declare the result. All through reconstruction boards*"'^'""^ times these boards had exercised a wide discretion, for they were backed in some of the States by National troops. They were wont at times to cast out the votes of some precincts on the ground that the election had been fraudulent; and in this way the reconstructed governments had perpetuated their power. The Republican State governments 456 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION felt that only in this way could they keep the Democrats from gaining control of the State by stealth or violence and intimida- tion. The temptation for the returning boards to use their un- restricted authority willfully and corruptly was very great, and it is plain enough that to leave the decision of an election with a group of men whose interests prompt them to defend their own authority is practically to make popular government a nullity. The whole situation was one of the unfortunate results of the ' " 1 Tilden (Dem.) tSi Disputed ss The Election of 1876 distrust and ill feeling that naturally ensued after the war. Now in this election the Florida and Louisiana returning boards cast out the vote of certain precincts as tainted with fraud, and declared the Republican electors chosen. The Democratic electors also obtained certificates, in Florida from a Democratic member of the returning board, in Louisiana from the Democrat- ic candidate for governor, who claimed his own election. From South Carolina there were double returns, the Democrats claim- ing that the presence of Federal troops had interfered with the freedom of the election, and that they had been wrongfully counted out. In Oregon a postmaster had been chosen elector, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION 457 and the question arose as to whether he was qualified to sit, being a Federal officeholder.^ The situation was grave. Up to this time Congress had neglected to make suitable provision for the settlement of such disputes and difficulties. As the Democrats had Commission ^ majority in the House and the Republicans in the Senate, it was clear that some unusual means of solving the question must be found. It is quite possible that the correct legal rule is that the Vice-President is given the duty of counting the votes in the presence of both houses, and can determine the validity of the votes himself, without interference or direction from Congress. But Congress had for years pro- ceeded on a different theory, and had assumed its own right to settle disputes. It was determined, therefore, that an extraor- dinary commission should be appointed and charged with determining the validity of the votes in question. The commis- sion numbered fifteen. There were five members from each house of Congress and five justices of the Supreme Court. The hope was to secure a commission that was non-partisan.^ But the chief responsibility was thrown upon Justice Bradley, who was chosen by the other justices as the fifteenth man. He voted with the Republicans, and the commission therefore made its decision by a vote of eight to seven in favor of the Hayes' electors. The basis of the opinion of the majority was that the findings of the returning boards were final, that the duty of the commis- sion was to decide what were the legal returns from the States in contest, and that it was not its duty to investigate the merits of controversies within the States, which were by right left to the local authorities. Thus it was determined that Hayes was elected. Both candidates behaved with great decorum and as 1 See the Constitution, art. ii, sec. i, § 2. For the whole controversy, Wilson, Division and Reunion; Dunning, Reconstruction: Political and Economic, pp. 92-108. 2 The Senate appointed three Republicans and two Democrats^ the House three Democrats and two Republicans. Four justices were appoint- ed, two Republicans and two Democrats. The four justices selected the fifth. 458 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION true patriots through these trying days. Excited as the men of both parties were, there was not much feeling of uneasiness or fear in the country at large. When the decision was an- nounced the defeated party accepted defeat. This whole affair, then, was a victory for free government; it showed that the Americans possessed the prime requisite for self-government — self-control. "It has been reserved", said President Hayes, *'for a government of the people ... to give to the world the first example in history of a great nation, in the midst of a strug- gle of opposing parties for power, hushing its party tumults to yield the issues of the contest to adjustment according to the forms of law". References Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution; Wilson, Division and Reunion, pp. 254-287; Storey, Sumner, Chapters XVHI-XXV; McCall, Stevens, Chapters XIII-X\T, XVHI; Dunning, Recon- struction, Political and Economic; Rhodes, History, Volume V, Chapte»' XXX; Volumes VI, VII; Haworth, Reconstruction and the UniOi„ pp. 1-8O0 CHAPTER XXIII THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE— 1877-1885 Rutherford B Hayes. Not much was known by the people at large of the real ability and character of Rutherford B. Hayes when he entered upon the duties of the presidency;^ but, as events showed, he was well qualified for the tasks that met him. While it is doubtless true that he was not a man of great intellectual brill- iance, he combined in a rare degree mental and moral qualities — firmness, purity of purpose, wisdom, conscien- tiousness — qualities that were spe- cially needed at a time when the nation, leaving behind it in large measure the memories of civil con- flict and sectional hatreds, was ready to move on to new duties and achievements. The great need of the day was quiet bravery, not osten- tatious vigor. The years were years of healing; they were fortunately un- eventful. When the next election came, it was felt that the trouble- ^ He was born in Ohio and spent his life there. Having served with distinction in the civil war, he was elected, at its close, as a representative in Congress. In 1868 he was chosen governor of his State. Again, in 1875, he was elected governor, and his success in the election of that year gave him something of a national reputation. He was by nature so modest and unpretentious that, in spite of the fact that he had held a number of public offices and had been honored by the confidence of his State, one may doubt if even the people of Ohio knew him at his full value or appreciated his strength. 459 460 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION • some days of reconstruction were gone; that, although there were jealousies and heartburnings still, North and South were once more growing together in national feeling and spirit. One of the President's first acts was to withdraw the troops from the support of the Republican governments in the Southern States where such governments still retained power. Withdrawal of jjjg -y^rords are so momentous, as they indicate a troops from . , _ , , the South. Qinerent policy on the part of the Federal author- ity, that they deserve quoting: ''In my opinion there does not now exist in that State [South Carolina] such domestic violence as is contemplated by the Constitution as the grounds upon which the military power of the National Gov- ernment may be invoked for the defense of the State. There are, it is true, grave and serious disputes, . . . but these are to be settled ... by such orderly and peaceable methods as may be provided by the Constitution and laws of the State. I feel assured that no resort to violence is contemplated in any quarter, but that, on the contrary, the disputes in question are to be settled solely by such peaceful remedies as the Constitution and the laws of the State provide". So at length the Southern States were left to themselves.^ With the withdrawal of the troops from the South, the period of reconstruction was ended — so far as ordinary relations between the States and the National Government New problems. were concerned, although years were to pass be- fore the South was to feel at ease or forget the bitterness of the time when negroes were in control of their State govern- ments and Federal troops were posted here and there, as if the Southerners were still plotting destruction to the Union. ^ Of considerable interest are the new constitutions of a number of the Southern States, the first of the list adopted by Mississippi in 1890, pro- viding new qualifications for voting, providing for example that a voter must be able to read the Constitution or understand it when read to him. The "grandfather's clause", declaring that descendants of persons hav- ing the vote at or about the time of the Civil War should have the suffrage, assures the retention of the suffrage by some whites who might by other terms of the Constitution be prevented from voting. THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 461 Henceforward, the tasks that confronted the American people were no longer those of slavery or secession; those problems were gone; but a free people are never free from troubles that tax their wisdom and patience, (i) The war had left the money question to be settled; the scandals of Grant's administration showed that rascals could take advantage of the Government, and rob the people by stealth; (2) many politicians of the day, backed by the mass of the Northern people, who had risen to put down the war and who were loyal and devoted to their party, were at times unworthy the trust reposed in them; (3) great in- dustrial enterprises which sprang into existence soon after the war, in part encouraged by tariff protection or by government aid, were bringing on new problems for settlement; (4) the building up of the large cities and the big factories brought dif- ferences between laborer and capitalist. For a generation and more social and industrial problems were continually becoming more pressing, and back of them all was the need for clean poli- tics, for decent party management, for high-minded appre- ciation of duty in the management of party affairs. The uneasiness of the people on the money question had not been put at rest by the passage of the Resumption Act, nor yet by the utter defeat of the "Greenback" ticket robrems ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ election. Some people felt that recent legislation on money matters had been in favor of the bondholders, and had disregarded the needs of the people. A law had been passed in Grant's first term pledging the Govern- ment ultimately to pay the bonds in coin. In 1873 silver was demonetized — in other words, the United States mint was no longer to coin silver dollars. The silver dollar was then rarely seen in circulation, because it was of more value than the gold dollar, and was therefore exported to Europe, where the silver was worth more as bullion than here as coin. There was so much silver in it that, at the market price of the bullion, it was worth one dollar and two cents in gold. At this same time an act was passed ordering the coinage of the so-called "trade dollar." This coin was intended not for domestic circulation, but to be used in trade with the Oriental nations, and it was not 462 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION made a legal tender. After 1873, however, the silver mines of the country began to turn out greatly increased quantities of ore. The opening up of these mines is a matter of great moment in our industrial as well as in our financial history, for the new West was now rapidly building up, with silver as a chief product. There was a demand for the recognition of this metal in the national coinage. In 1878 the Bland- Allison Bill was passed by Congress, providing for the remonetization of silver. According to the terms of the act, the Government was to buy each month not less than two million dollars' worth nor more than four mil- lion dollars' worth of the white metal, and to coin this bullion into standard dollars. This dollar was made legal tender, and was to be of the same weight and fineness^ as before 1873, ^^" though now silver was of much less value on the markets of the world than before its demonetization.^ President Hayes vetoed the bill, but it was passed over his veto. Thus ended the first important discussion over the silver question. A final solution of the problem was not reached. We have already spoken of the need for resumption of specie payments (1875); the land was still full of paper money, and though it daily became more valuable, more nearly Resumption of q^ ^ ^^^ with gold and silver, as the credit of the specie payment, i. . v jg^t, Government grew stronger, it was necessary to take the final step and carry out the plan of redemp- tion. The country could not go on in uncertainty. The act of 1875 provided for a return to specie payments on the first day of January, 1879 — providing, in other words, for the re- demption of the '' greenbacks" in coin. Preparations were made, during the course of Hayes's administration to resume payments on the day set. Gold and silver coin and bullion were collected in the Treasury, and so complete and thorough 1 By fineness is meant the purity of the coin — that is to say, the amount of silver or gold in proportion to alloy. The standard silver dollar con- tains 900 parts pure silver and 100 parts copper alloy, and weighs 412^ grains. The gold coin is of the same fineness. 2 It is to be noticed that since 1870 a number of the European states had given up the use of silver as a standard money. THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 463 was the preparation, that when the time of resumption arrived there were only a few straggling demands for coin; the paper was already at par, for when people knew they could have coin for their paper, they were contented to take the paper for ordinary purposes. In 1879 an interesting controversy arose between the Presi- dent and Congress. The intention of the Democrats in Congress was to restrain the Federal Government from in- President and terfering in the affairs of the Southern States, or Congress at - . variance. from makmg use of the Federal troops to guard elections or to protect the blacks. In February, 1879, the House passed the Army Appropriation Bill with a ''rider" directed against the use of troops ''to keep peace at the polls", and also passed other appropriation bills with riders that repealed the essential parts of the general election law. The Senate refused to pass the bills and they did not become laws. A new Congress came into existence March 4. A special session was summoned. Both branches were now Democratic. Vari- ous appropriation bills were passed with riders, ^ the purpose of which was to curtail the power of the General Government in its control over elections. The Democrats declared that their purpose was simply to erase from the statute books the legisla- tion which the war had produced, for which there was now no need, and which was an insult to the States and a menace to local government. The Republicans, in irritation, asserted that the Democrats were intent upon " starving the Government to death." The President vetoed the bills with the riders, saying that a rider was an attempt on the part of the House to force the other branches of the Government to agree to undesired legislation. Congress could not pass the bills over the veto. Some of the appropriations were then made without the rider, out the bill providing for the payment of the Federal judiciary was not passed, and all the court officials went without pay until ^ A rider is a clause attached to an appropriation bill and referring to a different subject than the main body of the bill, the object being to force the measure on the other house or the President by annexing it, or "tack- ing" it, as the English say, to appropriations for needful purposes. 464 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION provision was made for them at the next session. This contest between the President and Congress is of much interest. What- ever one may think of the purposes of the Democrats, Hayes seems to have been quite right in maintaining that the practice of adding riders to appropriation bills is productive of much mischief, and that if continued it would throw nearly all legis- lative power into the hands of the House, because it alone can originate bills for raising revenue, and has assumed the sole power of originating general appropriation bills. As the election of 1880 approached, the Republican party seemed to be in good condition, and might reasonably hope for success, but there were serious internal dissensions. The Republican tt y i • • ^ ^ • i i i pa^ty . Hayes s admmistration had been wise, conserva- tive and honest. The country was prosperous. There were still a good many irreconcilable paper-money-men, who wished to have plenty of money in circulation and thought that coin was the rich man's money, but the resumption of specie payments and the general good times made the money question a matter of secondary importance. If the leaders had been united, all might have gone on smoothly in the Republican ranks ; for party machinery, developed to a high degree of effect- iveness during the previous twenty years, was masterful. The party was backed by the great body of the Northern people, honest, straightforward and loyal to the men who had led the country through. the war and the trying days that followed. It was backed, too, by the business elements, some of them at- tracted by the tariff and some by the belief that the party stood for sound money and wise business administration. Party management and the use of party machinery to win victories was no new thing; there had long been committees and leaders and workers, but by 1880 the party ma- machinery. chiucry had reached a high stage of development. The general growth of the country, the intense interest of the people in political controversy, the bitterness of party strife, the presence of business interests that believed they needed party support, all contributed to the power of the men who controlled the party machinery. THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 465 We see now that the management of parties, even though the fact was not realized by the men of the time, was one of the serious questions which must be met and answered, methods '^^^ mechanism of the Republican, party was nearly perfect, and there began to be criticism of ^'ma- chine men" and "machine methods", by which conventions in city, county or state could be controlled by a handful of political workers, and by which elections could be strangely decided. Of course, the machine was not used in all cases corruptly, even if it was used to carry out the purpose of a few party leaders. Many high-handed men were shrewd political workers in con- trol of one duty or another in the party organization; but too often the machine worked ruthlessly, trusting to the support of the faithful partisans at the polls and sometimes relying on corrupt methods to carry the candidates into office. It is dif- ficult to speak of this condition truthfully in a few words; the situation was different in different parts of the country; some men were scrupulously honest; some were not. But at all events there was ground for complaint. Party leaders, con- trolling funds and managing great numbers of workers, would use their power under the direction of the men who furnished the money for the party warfare. It must be remembered that party organization^ is always necessary; committees must ar- ^ In a presidential campaign the most important body of each party is the National Comftiittee; it is composed of a member from each State; one member is chosen by that State delegation to the National Nominating Convention. It has general charge of the campaign, the collection and dis- tribution of funds. The Congressional Committee, appointed by the party members of Congress, has charge of the campaign for the election of con- gressmen. In each State the party has a committee and there are gener- ally committees in cities and counties and even in wards. All the way down through from the national government to the smallest local units, committees and workers look after the party interests. There is nothing wrong in this; one of the best results of popular government is the educa- tion that comes from the earnest discussion of public questions; to promote this discussion is part of the work of the party. But ''machine methods" mean ruthless disregard of the wishes of the common man of the party, the misuse of the organization in the election of candidates without refer- ence to fitness, and they may involve the grosser forms of corruption in the at 466 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION range for speakers; efforts must be made to hold or convert the uncertain voters; the "vote" must be got out to the polls. But there is always a temptation to use devious or actually corrupt methods to win. The spoils system was in full operation ; party w^orkers were given positions in the government, not because they were fit to hold ofhce, but because they were useful to the system "organization"; office-holders gave portions of their salaries at the dictation of the party leaders or of bosses, and places of profit in the govern- ment were sure to be turned over to shrewd party workers. In this way the spoils system furnished a method by which salaries, supposed to pay for public services, were used in part to provide funds for party contests and to win success. Naturally that party, which for the time being controlled the government, had the advantage; their opponents could not assess the office holders, they could only make promises. Addi- tional funds for campaign victories came from contributions given by those who honestly believed that party success was essential for national prosperity or who hoped for privileges from the incoming government or desired to have influence over the administration. Among the leaders of the Republicans was John Sherman, who was Hayes's Secretary of the Treasury; James G. Blaine of Maine, known as the magnetic statesman; a man leaders^*^*" of ability and of over-wecning ambition, a great favorite with the main body of the people because of a certain personal charm and a power of winning speech; Ros- coe Conkling of New York, an orator and political boss, who controlled the party in New Y^ork, and was looked on favorably by the most thorough-going partisans because of his skill as a manager of party machinery. The Conkling faction wished the effort to control the purchasable vote. It is plain that when the party organization is in the hands of corrupt men or of men who are anxious to control the party for their own benefit, everything may go wrong. A people cannot really be free unless they control the machinery of the party. THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 467 election of General Grant ; they had no sympathy with the quiet man in the presidential chair, whose careful administration had brought honor to himself and to his party — he was too quiet, too firm. Their leader, Conkling, detested Blaine, for Blaine was a dangerous rival and once, in a controversy in Congress, had called the pompous New Yorker a "turkey-cock", a name so appropriate in some ways that it hurt.^ The Convention of 1880 was torn by factions; three hundred and six delegates, under the imperious leadership of Conkling, voted, ballot after ballot, for Grant; but finally James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York were nominated. The Demo- crats nominated General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsyl- vania and William H. English of Indiana. Candidates were also placed before the people by the Prohibition party and the Greenbackers. By this time the tariff question, which had been debated time and again in the decades gone by, was beginning a new phase of its history. A tariff act had been passed during the war to gain revenue, and though altered at times after the war, the duties were still high. Under the protection offered by high duties, manufacturing plants had been growing rapidly and waxing powerful. General in- dustrial conditions rested in considerable measure on the tariff; a sharp reduction of rates would be sure to destroy some factories, and at the best would demand serious readjustment.^ It was also argued in behalf of the tariff, that high wages of workingmen depended on the maintenance of rates, for the tariff would keep out foreign goods or, by increasing their price, enable the American manufacturer to pay the larger wages. ^ Conkling later retorted, when asked to support Blaine for the presidency, that he did not indulge in criminal practice. It is evident that there was no love lost between the two men. 2 The manufactured products of the United States were valued at $1,- 850,000,000 in i860; ten years later their value was considerably over twice as much; and in 1880 their value reached the sum of $8,000,000,000; a development which meant much in the whole industrial and social order. 468 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The Democrats now attacked protection, demanding a "tariff for revenue only"/ while the Republicans came out strongly for protection. For the first time since the war the two parties were radically opposed on the tariff question, which was to remain more than any other one issue the basis of difference be- tween them for a generation. Garfield and Arthur were suc- cessful in the election. - There was not much dispute among the Republicans during the campaign; the first thing was to win the election. But when the victory was won, strife broke out anew, and more openly than before. The radical element of the Factions in partv, which had been stronojly in sympathy the Republican ^ . ' ' , ... . ^ i , , • , , • party. With Grant s admmistration and had desired his nomination for a third term in iSSo, were known as "Stalwarts". They had objected to the conciliatory spirit of the Hayes administration. Their opponents were commonly called "Half-breeds", a term of contempt bestowed upon them because of their supposed lukewarmness and their faint-hearted devotion to Republican principles. As the differences were largely personal, the issues between the two factions were not very clearly defined. The leader of the "Stalwarts" was Conk- ling, then senator from New York. Garfield seems to have sought to reconcile both factions, or at least not to arouse the enmity of the "Stalwarts".^ In ^ That is, a tariff with rates of duty determined primarily to get reve- nue and not keep out foreign goods or to protect American manufacturers against foreign competition. - Few men have taken the presidential chair whose training for execu- tive duties had been so wide and various as was Garfield's. Graduating from college in 1S56, he became a professor in Hiram College, Ohio, and soon after president of the institution.. He served in the Union army, be- coming major general. He was elected to Congress during the war, and served as a member of the House from 1S63 to iSSo. He was a man of broad general culture, of scholarly tastes, and of unusual capacity as a debater and legislator. He was elected senator from Ohio in 18S0, but was chosen to the presidency before taking his seat as senator. ' Garfield's appointment of Blaine as Secretary of State was very dis- tasteful to Conkling; Blaine could not justly be called a lukewarm partisan — though he was called a "half-breed" — the ground of Conkling's dishke THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 469 this he was not entirely successful. By appointing to the col- lectorship of the port of New York a man not acceptable to Conkling he awakened the resentment of that S^e^e^te'^ °^ Senator. For some years it had been thought to be the right of the senators to dictate the more important appointments within their respective States. This principle the President had violated. To carry out and sub- stantiate this right and prerogative Conkling and his colleague in the Senate, Thomas C. Piatt, resigned, appealing, as it were, to their State for ratification of their conduct in resisting the President. The Legislature, however, refused to re-elect the two senators. Perhaps these heated controver- sies and the consequent excitement in political circles Assassination of brought about indi- the President, , , , . , July, 1881. rectly the death 01 the President. A hare- brained fanatic by the name of Guiteau came to Washington as an applicant for offic'e. As he did not meet with success, his mind seems to have been preyed upon by his failure and inflamed by the politi- cal discussions with which the air was heavy. He became imbued with a hatred of the President, was personal. Their petty squabbles do not furnish pleasant reading, but they were not unimportant; they disclose to us a condition of things in which office-holding and the right to dictation and rule within the party appeared more important than real, vital issues of principle; and yet at that very moment the wise management of the government, the care for the pyblic domain, the control of the railroads, a thousand delicate tasks demanded attention — if the warring political leaders had only seen them, or if the people had bade them cease their noise and consider their duties. How different would have been the condition of the country to-day if the men in the eighties had fully comprehended the meaning of the changing and developing business life of the time, and had ceased their quarrels \ 470 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and cherished the idea that his death would unite the party. On the morning of July 2d, as Garfield was entering a railway station in Washington, Guiteau shot him. For some time hopes were entertained that the wound was not mortal, but after enduring great suffering with fortitude and hopefulness the President died, September 19, 1 881, at Elberon, N. J. The people of the entire country, and indeed of the civilized world, were deeply affected by this awful tragedy and crime. Vice-President Arthur took the oath as President at his home in New York, September 20, 1881. When he was elected Vice-President no one knew much of his qualifi- Accession of cations for office. He had taken a prominent and Arthur. active part m politics, and had been for some years collector of the port of New York. He proved during his term of office to be a man of rare administra- tive ability and pure purposes, and soon won the respect and confidence of the nation. The trouble between Garfield and the New York senators, and, above all, the assassination of the President, called the attention of the people to the evils and follies of The civil-service , , •! a^ x . • i commission. ^^^ spoils systcm. In two successive annual mes- sages Arthur argued strongly and wisely in favor of civil-service reform, and pressed upon the attention of Con- gress the desirability of new legislation regarding appoint- ments to office. In January, 1883, Congress passed an act known as the "Pendleton Act", authorizing the President to direct that appointments should be made after competitive examinations. He was also einpowered to establish a civil- service commission. The President put the act immediately into effect, and since that time the regulations have been gradually extended by his successors, until at the present time a very large portion of the oflSces in the gift of the Government are bestowed not as a reward for party fealty, but after an examination made for the purpose of discovering the merit of the applicants and their respective fitness for official duties.^ ^ Properly to care for the civil service was also a duty for states and cities. The spoils system was not confined to the national government — THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 471 The prosperity of the country was so great during these years, and importations for foreign countries were so large, that the public moneys derived from the duties the^arifi "^ ^^ accumulated in the Treasury until the Government actually had more money than it knew what to do with. The immense public debt rolled up by the war was rapidly being paid; but the bondholders, resting secure in the credit of the Government, were not willing to receive payment for their bonds until they were due. It seemed desirable to many persons that the tariff duties should be lessened, because the surplus was unnecessary, and might be even harmful by encouraging public extravagance, if not corruption. A new tariff law was passed that slightly reduced the duties. In 1884 still another bill was introduced into the House. It was a Democratic measure and was supported by the main body of the party, but it was defeated by the combined votes of the Republicans and a small number of Democrats who were opposed to the reduction of the tariff. For some years there had existed, especially in the Pacific States, a strong sentiment against the unrestricted immigra- tion of the Chinese. The increasing number of Chinese*" ° ^ immigrants had caused consternation, not to say alarm, in parts of the West, and it seemed de- sirable to take steps to restrict the immigration. In 1880 a treaty was made at Peking between the Chinese Government and a commission from the United States, providing that this country might place restrictions upon the entrance of laborers from China. Two years later a law was passed by Congress suspending the right of Chinese workmen to come to this country for the period of ten years, and in 1892 the period of exclusion was extended for another term of ten years, and ^ ,— _ ■■ — • it was in vogue everywhere. Little by little the various states began to provide for a merit system based on examination, and city governments established their commissions. The problem is by no means solved; but there are few men now who openly advocate that responsible positions requiring practice and skill should be given solely as a payment for party fealty. 472 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION severe and strict regulations were provided to prevent the breach of law. The presidential canvass of 1884 was a very stirring one. The Republicans nominated James G. Blaine and John A. Logan; the Democrats, Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks. There were two other parties that put iSsV^ * candidates in the field. The "People's party", which was really to a great extent the old Green- back party rechristened, nominated General Benjamin F. Butler, and the Prohibitionists John P. St. John. The tariff was the main issue. The Republican platform declared for a continuance of the protective system, while the Democratic platform announced that the party was "pledged to revise the tariff in a spirit of fairness to all interests ". To some men in his party, Blaine was not an acceptable candidate; they dis- trusted him; they doubted his honesty. Ugly stories were told about his relations with interests that wanted legislative favors, and his explanations did not satisfy. Blaine sneered at the "noisy", "ambitious", "pharisaical ", "pretentious" people who were too good to associate with ordinary mortals, but his fine phrases did not help him much. The "mugwumps", as these Independent Republicans were called, counted among their number some of the ablest men in the country who had long been staunch Republicans.^ The result of the election turned upon the vote of New York. Outside of that state, Blaine had 182 electoral votes, and Cleveland 183. The contest in New York was so close and the outcome so doubtful that it was not known for several days after the election which one of the candidates was elected. It was finally determined that * There is still some difiference of opinion as to whether Blaine was guilty of some of the more serious charges brought against him. The facts, so far as we know them, look rather black, but the awakening suspicion of secret understanding between Government and corrupt men who desire profitable favors was the most important fact of the whole episode. Blaine remained for some years the most conspicuous man in the party; but it was a hopeful sign that even suspicion of personal honesty made accession to the presidency difficult if not impossible. THE NEW NATION— PARTY STRIFE 473 the Democrats had carried the state by a little over a thou- sand votes. Thus Cleveland was chosen by an electoral majority of thirty-seven. References Wilson, Division and Reunion, pp. 289-300; Sparks, National Development, Chapters VI-XVII, XIX; Dewey, National Problems, Chapter II; Haworth, Reconstruction and the Union, pp. 80-119. CHAPTER XXIV THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA 1859-1903 We have, in the last chapter, carried our story down through twenty years of intense political feeling; and we have seen a Democrat, for the first time since 1856, elected to The change from ^j^g presidency. We should be far wrong, however, simple indus- ^ ^ ^ i i • • i ^ ^ trial order. should we gather the mipression that, through these years, men talked of nothing but party loyalty or of governmental activity. In fact the characteris- tic feature of the time was industrial growth, the rise of new factories, the peopling of the new west, the stretching out of the railroads across the country, the coming in of the great business enterprises that made the old methods of life and labor seem primitive, simple, and old-fashioned. When the Civil War broke out, the United States was still in many ways a land of simple conditions. It had lost much of the appearance of the frontier, to be sure; even in the Missis- sippi valley there were factories as well as farms; but the great natural resources of the land — the oil, the coal, the iron, the lumber — had been scarcely more than touched. Large sections were still without railroads. Beyond the line of Mis- souri and Iowa, there were a few people; Kansas came in as a state in 1861; the hardy Mormons had pushed on into Utah and were turning the Salt Lake Valley into a garden ; but there were still hundreds of miles of uninhabited prairie where the buffalo roamed in countless numbers. The words "Great American Desert" were printed in large letters on the map, covering a wide area of the west, where to-day are farms and villages. The great mineral wealth of the mountains was scarcely dreamed of. 474 MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1859-1903 475 In 1859, when poor, distracted Kansas was settling down to rest after the turmoil of "popular sovereignty", the rumor spread that gold had been discovered near Pike's The West. ^ ^ Peak, at the eastern edge of the Rockies. The word was enough: men, eager for immediate riches, gathered from far and near and started for the mountains. Big wagons, with "Pike's Peak or Bust" printed on their canvas covers, began the journey across the prairie. Soon little mining camps were established in the mountain valleys, and the history of Colorado was begun. About the same time, silver was found in the western part of Utah, in a portion of the territory which became Nevada. Thus, about i860 the great mining in- dustry of the western region began. The development of Colo- rado alone will serve as some indication of the growth of the Mountain district. In 1888 the state produced $3,758,000 in gold; $24,273,000 in silver; $7,006,000 in lead; $203,000 in copper. The "Comstock lode" of Nevada, discovered in 1859, turned out fabulous riches; in twenty-one years it produced $306,000,000 worth of silver bullion.^ California was by i860 a prosperous state, though still, of course, far from being the land we now know; its population was about 375,000. San Francisco, still retaining many of the characteristics of the early days, when the hustling "forty- niners" crowded its wind-swept streets, was a city of over ^ The first government of Colorado was set up by the settlers them- selves, simply to preserve order, one of the many examples in American history, beginning with the Mayflower Compact, in which settlers have made their own government. The territory of Colorado was provided for by Congress in 1861; in 1876 it came into the Union. Nevada developed at first rapidly but never contained a large population. In 1861 the miners sent $50,000 in silver bricks to the sanitary commission to help in the care of wounded and sick soldiers. In 1864 Nevada was admitted into the Union. The mountam region at the north was also in part peopled during the war. In 1862 and 1863, gold was discovered in what is now Montana, and again miners and settlers flocked to the site; twenty-five years after- ward the value of property as assessed for taxation was nearly $53,000,000. Such stories of rapid growth declare in some measure the wonderful devel- opment of America in the years from i860 on. 476 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION 50,000 people. By 1880 its population was four times that number. Oregon was admitted to the Union just before the outbreak of the Civil War. It then held some Oregon. $0,000 settlers, most of whom had taken the long journey by the Oregon trail across the mountains to settle on farms and in villages in the rich placid region of the far northwest. In twenty years it more than trebled its popu- lation. Even before the mining settlements were made in the moun- tain regions, there were routes across the continent. Many a traveller had made his way across the boundless schooner"^ prairies and over the Rockies to the coast; many an ambitious pioneer had been left to die by the wayside or was lost in the fastnesses of the mountains. The older west, the west that by i860 was already old, had been traversed by the steamboat, which threaded the innumerable streams of the eastern Mississippi valley; the great prairie region, on the other hand, was lined out in trails along which slowly moved the cumbrous ''prairie schooner", the American ship of the desert. Boats plied up and down the Missouri and one or two of the other rivers; but large sections of the country had to be reached and peopled in less comfortable fashion than by water travel. Long caravans of wagons and horses left the towns of western Iowa and Missouri or eastern Kansas and Nebraska for the far west. The trader, carrying his goods to remote regions, began early. Of course the fur-trader, the advance guard of civiliza- tion, had long been famiUar with the great north- Trails. > o o ^ ^ west. The merchant and the settler followed in his wake. Even before the claim to Oregon was settled (1846) and before the taking of California, trails were made across the con- tinent. The first was the Santa Fe trail, stretching a long dreary course from western Missouri into New Mexico; over this route, pack trains carried goods to be exchanged for Mexi- can products. A long hard road it was, some six hundred miles over the dry prairies, where Indians, half friendly at the best, were a more or less constant menace; but the brave frontier MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1859-1903 477 tradesman or mule driver seemed to think privation and danger only part of the day's sport. It is said that deep ruts can still be seen where the creaking prairie wagons were dragged along with their burdens of merchandise. A route also ran from Council Bluffs, Iowa, over the plains and through the passes of the mountains to the Columbia Valley. The difficulties of the trip and its adventures will always remain a part of the vivid history by which the great west was won. To Salt Lake City a trail was made in early days; before the Civil War a daily stage was running from the Missouri river to the Mormon city. Ere long the pony express hurried the mails across the mountains to San Francisco. The American of the middle of the nineteenth century, dazed by no prospects of difficulty or expense, was not to re- main content with the wagon or the pack horse. The Pacific Railroad. ^ ^^^ ^V ^^^ name of Barlow — a daring spirit he must have been — began writing to the news- papers about a railroad from New York to the Columbia River as early as 1834. He must have been considered about as wise and sane as a man would have been who proposed air- ships to China. Ten years later Asa Whitney began advocat- ing a western railroad. He succeeded in arousing some public interest, and from his enthusiasm may be said to have come the movement that ended with success. Even before the annexation of California plans for a west- ern railroad were seriously discussed. After the discovery of goU and the rapid peopling of the state, it began to be more and more evident that some time the great work jNeed of a . , -r. i , . road. must be undertaken. Perhaps the road might have been begun even in the fifties had there not been sectional disputes and rivalries; Congress discussed the matter, but while northerners wanted a northern route, southerners wanted a southern route, and discussion begat further bitter- ness. The party platforms of i860 favored a transcontinental railroad, its construction to be furthered by governmental aid. With the outbreak of war the necessity of binding the far west to the rest of the Union became a plain duty; the coast region 478 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and even the mountain districts were being peopled rapidly, and every day added to the need for a safe and rapid means of communication. In 1862 Congress passed the important Act, which was altered in 1864. It chartered two companies; one, the Union Pacific, was to build westward, the other, the graninid. Central Pacific, was to build from San Francisco eastward. Liberal money grants were made by the government, and large areas of land along the right of way.^ The passage of this measure in one respect is significant in Trails to the West and Routes of Pacific Railroads constitutional history. No longer were there serious outcries against the power of government to aid in internal improve- ments. Money and land were now given lavishly, and the plan ^ The Union Pacific has had a checkered career; its history tells of financial discord and of sharp practice, a tangled tale involving the reputation of business men and legislators and the loss of many a hard earned dollar by the innocent investor. It is one of those epics of "high finance", of which the last half of the nineteenth century furnished many an example. MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1859-1903 479 of aiding railroad building by grants of the public domain was established. The work on the two roads was begun with energy; each vied with the other in the race. They met at a point near Ogden, Utah. In May, 1869, the "last spike" was driven.^ The new railroad did more than merely connect the people Driving the Last Spike A scene near Ogden, Utah, May 10, 1869 of the Pacific coast with those of the middle West, it helped in the settlement of the great middle region, in which other roads were now built. In Nebraska there were only 28,000 people in i860, in twenty years there were nearly a million, and in 1 There were interesting ceremonies. "The ties were laid for the rails in the open space (about 100 feet between the completed ends of the lines) and while coolies from the west laid the rails at one end, the pad- dies from the east laid them at the other, until they met and joined. The 'last spike' remained to be driven. Telegraphic wires were so con- nected that each blow of the descending sledge could be reported instantly on the telegraphic instruments in most of the large cities from the At- lantic to the Pacific; corresponding blows were struck on the bell of the City Hall in San Francisco, and with the last blow of the sledge a cannon was fired at Fort Point". — Davis, The Union Pacific Railway. :f80 HISTORY OF THE AjMERICAN NATION iSSS the state produced in corn alone almost 150,000,000 bushels. The population of Kansas, which was little more than 100,000 at the outbreak of the Civil War, was nearly 1,500,000 by 1890, almost twice the population of Connecticut. These are but examples of the astonishing growth of the west- ern prairie region, where wheat and corn fields stretched away to the horizon, and flourishing towns grew up as if by magic. ^ The success of the first transcontinental railway stimulated the building of others. Plans for building a northern route began early. Immense land grants were ob- jo^jis tained from Congress: it is estimated that the grant contained over 48,000,000 acres, an area about that of the state of New Hampshire. It took years, however, to get the money to build the road, and it required patience and superb engineering skill to surmount the physical difficulties. Finally in the early eighties the Northern Pacific was completed. In the South the Southern Pacific was com- pleted and other lines also. Population followed the railroads; great fields of wheat began to extend over the rich grain ^ Figures, statistics of growth, need not be remembered in detail; but if one is to see in general the tremendous development of the West in these years he needs to call upon statistics to help him. Population of the West State i860 1S70 iSSo iSqo 1900 19 10 Iowa 675,000 1,194.000 1.625,000 1.000,000 r,2,?o.ooo 2,225,000 Minnesota 172,000 439,000 780,000 1.300,000 1,750,000 2,075,000 North Dakota (. g i . 000 i^? 000 i94.ooo 310.000 577.ooo South Dakota t ^'^°° ^•^■°°° i3S.ooo ,^8,000 400.000 583.000 Nebraska 2.S,ooo 122,000 452.000 1.062.000 1,000.000 1,102,000 K;>.nsas 107,000 364,000 ooo.ooo 1.428.000 1,470,000 1,600,000 California 3S0.000 560,000 804,000 1,213,000 1,485,000 2,377,000 In 1S60 Kansas produced 5,678,000 bushels of corn; in 1S70 the crop was 16,685,000 bushels, and in 1S8S, 168,000,000 bushels. In i860 it pro- duced i6S,ooo bushels of wheat; in 1S70 2,343.000. ten years later 25. ooo.- ooo busiiols. In iSoo in the west north central region, not including Missouri — that is, in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota. South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kan- sas — there were about 1,000,000 people. In 1S80 there were 4,000,000 — • in other words as many people as there were in the whole United States when the Constitution was adopted (17SS). " MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1S59-1903 481 lands of Minnesota, and before long the Dakotas began to be taken up by settlers. The rapid pet)pling of the West was in part due to the land policy of the Government. Land was given to tlie rail- roads, it is true, and from them great fortunes ^^e omes ea ^^r^,y^, niade; but the Government had, during the Ci\il War, ado])ted a policy of granting lands to settlers without asking compensation. The land, it was said, belonged to the people; why charge them for it? In 1862 the Homestead Act was passed, whereby any head of a family might become the owner of 160 acres of public land by settling upon it and living there five years. No man need be homeless, if he could build a sod house on the western prairies or a log shanty in the forest; if he could work with his hands and plant a few acres of corn or wheat, he might soon be a farmer, a verit- able lord of lands. Thus the great desert which in early days was supposed to extend over a large part of Kansas, Nebraska and the moun- tain region was peopled. Farm houses, school The great houscs, churclics dottcd the land. By 1890 longer. Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, North and South Dakota were members of the Union. In 1896 Utah became a state. In all the process of taking up this continent and of push- ing the frontier westward, the cowboy, the shepherd, and the herder of hogs and horses have played their part.^ bu^inTss.^ One of the earliest frontiers is the stock raising frontier, rather than the farmer frontier; stock raising rather than the raising of crops is the work of the pioneer when conditions favor. The western part of the old eastern ^ "Travelers of the eighteenth century found the cowpcns among the canebrakes and prairie pastures of the South, and the 'cow drivers' took their droves to Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York. Travelers at tlie close of the War of 181 2 met droves of more than a thousand cattle and swine from the interior of Ohio going to Pennsylvania to fatten for the Philadelphia market. The ranges of the great plains with ranch, and cowboy and nomadic life are things of yesterday and to-day. The c.xperi- 32 482 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION states was an early cattle region, and the cowboy of the western Carolinas was an important person in the days of the Revolu- tion. Sheep and hogs as well as cattle were raised in the upland country and driven in great droves to the eastern towns. So it was in the newer West. The wide prairies offered facili- ties unusuallv invitnig. In place of the wandering herds of Breaking Raw Prairie From a contemporary illustration in Ilarper^^ Weekly buffalo, vast herds of cattle soon appeared; the cowboy and his mustang became the conspicuous workers in a great in- dustry. For a time the public lands, where no man was inter- fered with, unless he stole a horse or a cow — an unforgivable offence — were freely used. Later there were private ranches, immense estates, where thousands of cattle nibbled the grass and the watchful cowboy guarded his herds. After the rail- roads were built, train loads of cattle were carried to the stockyards of Kansas City, Omaha, and Chicago. ence of the Carolina cowpens guided the ranchers of Texas. One element favoring the rapid extension of the ranchers' frontier is the fact that in a remote country lacking transportation facilities the product must be in small bulk, or be able to transport itself, and the cattle raiser could easily drive his product to market." (F. J. Turner, "Influences of the Frontier in Amer. Hist.", Ann'l Kept, of Amer. Hist. Ass'n, 1S93, -i) MODERN INDUSTRI.\L AMERICA— 1859-1903 483 We have been looking at western development in the thirty years after the war. But the east was growing too; popula- tion was increasing; immigrants from foreign fndbig^urul'ess. lands were thronging to the country in which they hoped to find new opportunities and to gain riches; towns developed into cities; hamlets into populous towns. The railroad system spread a network of rails over the middle and eastern section. The. factory system, which had not much more than begun by the middle of the century, was building up, changing the older simple systems of industry and bringing in new problems. The iron ore and the lumber and other natural products were seized upon. Corporations were founded to make everj'thing under the sun. Large fortunes were accumulated. They were made in many ways; but largely by men who shrewdly used the great opportunities which were offered by the natural resources of the country and by the immense development of transportation. The building up of large fortunes on the basis of natural resources is an important characteristic of the period. The invention of new machinery stimulated the growth of factories. The development of factories and the increase of railroads stimulated the growth of cities. iSIany Beginnings of ^ vci^n is Hviug to-day who can remember seeing the concentra- .... ,. iri •• ^ ~ tion of industry, his lather or his grandlather sittmg by the hre- side in the winter evening and making axe helves with a draw-shave or carving out some other useful thing with a cunning knife blade. But in the decades after the Civil War, household work of this kind disappeared. Even the little in- dustries that were carried on in the villages and towns, some- times by a few tinkers or ''handy men", began to vanish. The factories in the large cities made things by machinery and made them cheaply. The flour mills, that had been built here and there along the inland streams by the side of friendly mill dams, were allowed to sink into ruins; the prairie wheat was rushed away to the big elevators in Chicago or IMinneapolis. And thus the process of concentration was begun and was well under way before 1890. 484 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Cities, as we have said, took on new dimensions and mul- tiplied their people. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the American people generally lived in small towns or on the farm; but the development of the factory system caused the gradual growth of cities and the Growth of concentration of population. This change was cities. ^ r _ ^ _ especially marked in the decades after the Civil War, when the older eastern cities greatly increased their population and the smaller places of the Middle West, VVHO STOWETHEptOPtrSMOHkr? -00 TfLL.NYTiMts. IT-WA5 H^M. A Cartoon of the Tweed Ring in New York City, by Thomas Nast like Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit, not to mention Chi- cago, St. Louis and Cincinnati, became ]iopulous, thriv- ing cities. The change brought, in serious problems in city government; for it was necessary to provide for street rail- way transportation, for gas and water, and for many other things which had been looked after by the individual alone in the older and simpler methods of village life. In fact, all or most of the duties of the city were badly attended to in very many cases; the city governments were at their worst during this IMODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1S59-1903 485 period, when the ordinary man was so busy making money he paid insufficient attention to the way in which he was governed, provided he was left alone, and when the new conditions were so new, that few men could realize all their meaning. The thievery of the Tweed ring in New York was the most extreme piece of rascality — for millions were stolen; but it was only an extravagant example of more or less general unscrupulous man- agement of municipal business. This growth of cities and these new problems of city government were in large measure the product of fundamental change in the industrial and social life of the people. The truth is, the world was just beginning to feel the full effect of the invention of machinery Industrial .^^^^ ^|^^^ £ stcam. The men of the eighteenth evolution. ^ ^^ century still used tools rather than machinery; they had no need of corporations to furnish them light or water, or transportation on the street; they lived in many respects as men had lived since the time when fire was first discovered, or when the wind was first used to fill the sails at sea. They kept fire in their big fireplaces over night by banking it up, for they had no matches; they sailed on the lakes and the sea, instead of being hurried along by steam; they spun their wool or flax in the chimney corner; they wove their rough homespun on the family loom. With the invention of the steam engine came the industrial revolu- tion, the greatest change that has come for thousands of years The old home industry began to disappear. With the inven- tion of railroads men were brought together. The factory system, already begun, developed more rapidly. All this worked marvellous changes in the course of half a century; but for all that, what steam really meant — what all kinds of swiftly moving machinery really meant — was not disclosed till after the Civil War, and even then men did not fully realize how quickly they were leaving the long past behind them. Large steamships hurried across the ocean and brought the two continents together; the telegraphic cable, the first one laid in 1866, flashed messages beneath the Atlantic. Railroads, reaching in all directions, made the spaces of by-gone days of 486 mSTORV OF THE AMERICAN" XATIOX no moment; the barriers between sections were destroyed. Tlie rapid printing presses brought each man the news oi yesterday. And when in the eighth and ninth decades of the centun*. electricity began to be used as motive power, new industrial change came in. The industrial growth of which we ha\-e spoken was not confined to the Xorthem states or the great West. The Southern states gradually recovered fK>m the dreadful losses of war and the humiliation of Reconstruction days. ^ o ^ It took time for the people to overcome povertv and to get used to the new free labor system but little by little the cotton industries developed, and pn^sperity smiled upon the people. In iSoo two and one-half times as much cotton was raised in the South as in iSoo.^ In early days the cotton seed was a mere waste product of a'^tton raising, but the introduction of machinerv* to crush the seeds made the seed valuable. In 1S65 the cotton seed oil industry* was hardly known; in iSoo one compxiny made o\"er $:?o.coo.ocx> worth of oil, and the production continued to increase: milHons of dollars were made by the planters from what a few years ago had been a nuisance. Other industries also sprang up and the section b^an to lose its purely agricultural character. The opening up of the iron deposits in .\labama. the mining of coal in some of the states, the attack on the pine forests, all made great changes in Southern conditions. In iSSo Birmingham was a town of 3,000 people, and in iSoo it had 26,000 inhabi- tants. Atlanta, Georgia, the heart of the new South, became a flourishing business center. The extension of the population, the building up of new business, and the building up of great railway systems, bK>ught of course new tasks of adjustment. In the se\-enties the farmers of the middle West complained of discrimination and of the high charges for storing their wheat and corr^ They no longer ^ In iScvo. ;.S4i.4io b;\les: in iSoo. S.50::.oSo bales: in 1010, i-.co5.0N>. The value of raanufaciurevl cotton. North and South, vras $ii5.oSi.cco in iSoo; $::o:.oSi.ooo in iSoo; $44--45i«ooo ia 1910. IVIODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1859-1903 487 carried their grain on their old wagons for any long distance; it was hurried away on the railroads and stored in immense eleva- tors to be ground in the great mills or shipped f ar- Inbirm'''^ theronto problem. the east- ern ports. The farmer was no longer in com- mand of his own means of transportation, or, in a measure, of his own product. Then the "Granger !Move- ment 'V in part a protest against the railroads and the exac- tions of the corpora- tions and against all forms of monopoly, be- gan. Because of this opposition legislation was secured concern- ing railroad and eleva- tor rates, and thus was begun the effort to regulate and control the corporations.^ ^ The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry was formed in 1867. Some years passed however before it included great numbers. In 1874 there were 22,000 granges or lodges, with a total membership of over 800,000. Their purpose was the improvement of the farmers, chiefly by meeting and discussing problems. The Grangers, as such, commonly dis- claim poHtical intention or the use of legal or political methods, but the agitation against monopolies and railway extortions sprang largely from the farmers, and the movement is commonly called the "Granger Move- ment". This movement was not the same in all respects as the Farmers' Alliance or the Populist movement, of which something will be said later. But it was an indication of a sentiment which was to show itself in many forms in the course of the next generation. The Grange still remains a social association among farmers and a means of education through dis- cussion of matters of interest. - This legislation brought ditficult constitutional questions. Could rates be fixed without depriving a man of his property "without due process of Copyright by Underwood & Underwood A Modern Grain Elevator 488 HISTORY OF THE A:MERICAX XATIOX The railroads in fierce competition, and often, in their eager- ness to get business, w-ithout much consideration of whether it paid or not, resorted to various kinds of under- discrimination. ^^^^i^ practices. ''We all know, ever\-one knows", said Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in 1880, before a Congressional corrmussion, "that discrimination in railroad treatment and charges does exist between individuals and be- tween places. . . . We know that certain large business firms, the le\'iathans of modern trade, can and do state their o^\-n terms between rival [railroad] corporations, while the small concern must accept the best terms it can get. It is beyond dispute that business is carried hither and thither — to this point, away from that point, and through the other point — not because it would naturally go to, away from, or through, those points, but because the rates are made on an artificial basis to serve ulterior ends''. Rebating was indulged in; that is, a secret return of a portion of the freight charge to a favored firm or corporation. As these practices became kno'^m, strong opposition was awakened; the old highway had been free to all on equal terms, why not the railroad ? The pubHc felt that business should not be promoted or hampered, built up or crushed, at the whim of the owners of the iron highways, and that big business should not be given unfair advantage by being allowed to transport its products at such low rates that "the little man" bore the real burden, perhaps even made good the loss involved in carr}-ing the big man's goods. Congress has no right under the Constitution to regulate commerce solely between places within a single state. Inter- law"; that is, could the legislature, by sa\-ing what a man or a corporation could get for the use of his property, actually lower the value of his prop- erty? The courts said that here was a question for the legislature; but they said also a few years later that rates fixed by the legislature or by commis- sion must be reasonable; thus the courts had something to say about the amount of rates fixed. There arose also the question as to whether a state could by fixing rates interfere with inter-state traffic, for Congress is given by the Constiiution right to control inter-state and foreign commerce. It was evident that direct control of inter-state rates was beyond the powers of a state. MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1859-1003 489 •state and foreign commerce is, ho\ve\er, subject to congressional regulation and control.^ The time had come for Congress to act. In 1887 an Interstate Commerce Act was Conferee Act. P^^^sed. One of its important clauses providetl that no common carrier should charge more "for a shorter haul than for longer distance o\er the same line, in the same direction, the shorter being included within the longer distance". The "short and long haul clause" was in- tended to prevent discriminations between places. Provision was also made against rebates. This was the beginning of a serious attempt on the part of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. A commission of five per- sons was appointed to administer the law. Despite many difficulties and embarrassments the commission soon accom- plished something in the way of bettering conditions; but as we shall see the passing years showed the need of further legislation. The development of big business brought up the "trust problem,'' though it was only dimly seen at the time. In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, The trusts. .... , . . , . providmg agamst the combmation m restraint of trade". But it remained for years almost a dead letter on the statute book, while new combinations sprang up on every hand. Some years passed before public sentiment strongly demanded its enforcement. While in the years of industrial combination and growth, great factories and railway systems were coming into being, labor, too, was beginning to organize. Strife be- Stnkes. • ^ , . tween labor and capital entered upon dangerous ground. There was in the olden time little chance for serious differences, but every cause adding to the concentration of in- dustry also multiplied the numbers of workingmen and brought thousands of them together, dependent for their wages and their comfort on the factory owners. The new industrial system brought in danger of class division and the absence of sym- ^ See Constitution, Art. I. Sec S. § 3. 490 HISTORY OF THE A]\IERICAN NATION pa thy and of fellow feeling between employer and employed.^ In 1S77 the tirst great strike occurred. The commencement of the trouble was on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, but it quickly spread to all the lines east of the IVIississippi. The The Railway Strike of 1877 Rioters stopping a train on the Erie R.R. From a contemporary illustration in Lcslie^s Weekly Strikers took forcible possession of the tracks at the principal junctions and prevented the forwarding of goods or the dis- patching of passenger trains. The whole internal commerce of the country was thrown into confusion. Fights between mobs and the pohce authorities took place, and the militia was called out to suppress rioting. When state troops failed to suppress violence, the Federal army was called in for the pur- pose. The most serious disorder was in Pittsburg, where angry ^ Xaturally this was not all new. There were troubles before the Civil War and movements for labor organization. It was. however, the trans- formation of the later years, the coming of the time when workmen were gathered in thousands, when the little shop that had made things began to go, that the new relationship and the new social system showed themselves stronglv. MODERN INDUSTRIAL AMERICA— 1859-1903 491 and excited mobs burned and pillaged and robbed, and where millions of dollars' worth of property was destroyed. After some two weeks of riot and disorder, peace was restored, the roads began to carry freight and passengers as of old; but a picture of discord had been held up to the public gaze, and men saw a new danger of social discontent and bitterness. In the years that followed there were many other strikes, most of them of a purely local character. There was the awful Homestead strike of . 1892. In 1894 the great Chicago strike almost paralyzed the business world, for it affected the rail- road traffic of a large part of the country's industry. Again Federal troops were called out and finally restored peace. As the years went on, the strike in one form or an- other was used time and time again to gain shorter time for workmen, or higher wages. The problem of adjustment, of reaching reasonable relations between labor and capital, of finding peace in the industrial world, a peace not bought by warfare or threats of violence, came to be a problem of the utmost interest.^ Meanwhile labor unions were formed; they were the product of the new life of the workingman and of the new conditions of labor. In 1869 the Knights of Labor was es- tablished; though the order grew slowly at first, by the early eighties it was very large. An assembly in 1886 was said to represent a membership of over 300,000, and in fact ^ It is said that between 1881 and 1900 there were in all 22,793 strikes; 117,509 establishments, and over 6,000,000 workingmen were involved — a sorry tale, on the whole, of unreasonableness somewhere and somehow. The right and wrong of all this cannot be said in a word, if anybody knows it. We only know that if civilization is to grow and prosper, workingmen must have decent compensation and good conditions of work; employers must have reasonable freedom and independence; justice must in some way be reached without warfare and violence. Modern Steam Locomotive Labor unions. 492 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION a much larger membership was often mentioned. The American Federation of Labor also became a powerful order, and ere long practically supplanted the Knights of Labor. It was founded at an earlier time; but began its more active career after 1886, when it took its present name. Its membership increased rapidly till in 1903 there were 1,500,000 persons on its rolls. The union, though often resorting to strikes to attain its ends, is primarily for the general improvement of the social as well as laboring conditions of the workingman. These immense bodies with their able leaders have almost unlimited opportunities for good and evil in the development of American civilization.^ References Wilson, Division and Reunion, Chapter XIII; Dunning, Re- construction, Political and Economic, Chapter IX; Sparks, National Development, Chapters I-V, XVIII; Dewey, National Problems, Chapters I, III, VI, XII; Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West. ^ The American Federation of Labor in 1903 put forth the following series of desires: (i) Compulsory Education; (2) Repeal of all conspiracy and penal laws affecting seamen and other workmen; (3) The eight-hour day; (4) Sanitary inspection of shops, mines, and homes; (5) Liabihty of employers for injury to workmen; (6) Abolition of contract system in public works; (7) Abolition of sweating system; (8) City ownership of street cars, gas works, etc.; (9) National ownership of telegraphs, telephones, railroads, and mines; (10) Abolition of monopoly system of land holding; (11) Direct legislation and the referendum; (12) x\bohtion of the "monopoly privilege" of issuing money, which should be issued by and to the people. It will be seen that this is a program of wide and deep political and social significance. CHAPTER XXV TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION; THE TARIFF AND SILVER The twelve or fourteen years after Grover Cleveland^ came to the presidential chair — the first Democratic president since Buchanan — were taken up, as far as party Sm^885-i8o7 Controversy and governmental action were con- cerned, with old problems and with new; some of them growing out of the new industrial order, others like the tariff as old as the Government, (i) There was the duty of enforcing the new civil service regulations, the duty of con- scientious enforcement in the spirit of the new system. (2) Legislation was demanded for the control of the railroads, whose development during the preceding twenty years had been so marked. (3) Then the money question, the coinage of sil- ver, and its attendant problems re- quired attention. (4) The old tariff question was more insistent than ever, for money was piling up in the treasury of the United States, inviting wasteful expenditures and extravagant appropriations. (5) In 1 Cleveland was president irom March 4, 1885, to March 4, 1889; and was re-elected for one term in 1892. He had held no national office when he was called upon to take up the duties of the presidency. He first won attention by his services as Mayor of Buffalo. In 1882 he was elected Gov- ernor of New York, in which position he won the confidence of the people by the directness of his methods and the fearlessness with which he opposed measures which seemed to him harmful to the public interests. 493 494 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION course of time, there were, too, delicate questions of adjust- ment with foreign nations. Vice-President Hendricks died in November, 1885. This called attention once more to the desirability of changing the line of succession to the presidency, in case of the Presidential death of the President and Vice-President or their succession, . 1886. mability to act. At the next session of Congress a bill was passed providing that in such a con- tingency the Secretary of State should succeed, and, if the necessity should by any possibility arise, the other members of the Cabinet should assume the duties of the presidential office in the following order: (i) Secretary of the Treasury, (2) Secretary of War, (3) Attorney-General, (4) Postmaster- General, (5) Secretary of the Navy, (6) Secretary of the In- terior. The law applies only to such persons as are constitu- tionally eligible.^ The Electoral Count Act also became law. Its object is to prevent the recurrence of such Electoral Count ,. . .i.rr./'i • ^^ i , Act, 1887. disputes as that of 1876, by providing that the States themselves shall provide for the final "determination of controversies" concerning the election of presidential electors. President Cleveland had hard work in carrying out a wise and generous policy of appointments and removal from office. -,..,„ . The Civil Service Act was but a beginning; there Civil Service. . & o) were still many thousands of offices whose oc- cupants could be summarily removed. Possibly it can justly be said that the President did not struggle with his usual tenacity against the eager hordes of office-seekers who de- manded the immediate fruits of victory. - At all events Repub- *The Constitution, art. ii, sec. i, § 6. 2 Cleveland was sometimes misled by the recommendations of party lead- ers and lost all patience with their persistence, and the tendency of some of them to lead him astray. The story is told, perhaps not a trustworthy tale, that one day when a Democratic leader complained because the President did not act more quickly, Cleveland sharply retorted, "I suppose you mean that I should appoint two horse thieves a day, instead of one". Let us believe the story is an exaggeration, if the thing happened at all; but the TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 495 lican office-holders disappeared with great rapidity. The President was under tremendous pressure, and some of his sub- ordinates had no patience with a system which would retain Republican office-holders, who had been appointed in many cases purely for partisan reasons. In later days Cleveland said in referring to those trying days, "You know the things in which I yielded, but no one save myself can ever know the things which I resisted ". Some years had to pass before the public mind could see the whole spoils system aright and before intense partisans could view it justly. In 1887, the Interstate Commerce Act, of which we have spoken, went into effect. The President appointed an able Commission with Judge Thomas M. Cooley of The Interstate Michigan at its head. The long struggle for rail- Commission. Toad regulations and control was bravely begun. It is an amazing fact that up to this time even statistics of the railroad business had not been collected sys- tematically by the Government. The President showed rare courage in taking up the money question. On this point he never faltered, though sooner or later he met with sharpest criticism and estranged a large portion of his party. In his first annual message, in December of 1885, he called the attention of Congress to the condition of the currency. He showed that only fifty million dollars, out of The silver "^ "^ . question. nearly two hundred and sixteen million silver dollars coined in accordance with the Bland- Allison act,^ had gone into circulation, and he declared that the continuance of silver coinage would bring the Government to the pass when it would have only silver money, which would mean that the currency would be let down to a lower standard tale discloses a situation. It reminds one of a story of the milder Lincoln, who was one day walking the floor of his office in deep perplexity and appar- ent gloom. Some one present inquired if he had bad news from the front, news always looked for and feared in the dreariest days of the war. "No", answered Lincoln; "it is the postmastership at Bro^vnsville". ' Paper certificates were issued under this act, and were taken by the people instead of the silver they represented. 496 HISTORY OF THE AIMERICAN NATION of value, inasmuch as the silver in a dollar was not worth a dol- lar in gold. Nothing was done by Congress regarding the matter. It was believed by many that the President's fears were fanciful. Some, on the other hand, favored the ''free coinage" of silver; in other words, they desired that the Gov- ernment should do more than simply purchase a limited amount of the metal and coin it; they desired that it should coin into dollars, freely and without limit, all the silver bullion that might be brought to the mints. These persons declared that the reason for the fall of silver in price in comparison with gold was because the Government made discrimination in favor of the latter metal. Other persons, not going so far as to favor free coinage, saw no great danger in existing conditions, and no law was passed, nor was the time yet ripe for the money question to become a party issue. The tariff was met with the same boldness as the silver problem. When Congress met in December, 1SS7, the Presi- dent sent in a message dealing exclusively with the^tldff."^ ^° ^^^ ^^^^ subject of the tariff*. There was little doubt among men of either party that the surplus was too large, and many felt that it was a serious source of danger, because it was a continuing temptation to extrava- gance or to hasty and unwise legislation. The President argued strenuously in favor of a reduction of duties. While advocating the imposition of lower duties on raw materials used in manu- facturing, he called special attention to the tariff on wool, which he declared constituted ''a tax fastened upon the cloth- ing of every man, woman, and child in the land". This mes- sage was one of great importance, because, under this spur, the President's party set earnestly at work to revise the tariff' and lower the duties. A bill directed to that end could not be passed through Congress at that session, but th*^ tariff' necessarily became the great question of the presidential can- vass of that year.^ ^ It is sometimes said that a tariff which fills the Treasury to overflow- ing is better than one which does not; or that an over-full treasury is better TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 497 For the election of 1888 the Democrats renominated Cleve- land, and gave the second place on the ticket to Allen G. Thur- man, of Ohio. They declared that all "unneces- ^888^^^*"*'°"°^ sary taxation is unjust taxation"/ that the policy of the party was "to enforce frugality in the public expenses", that a vast sum of money was being "drawn from the people and the channels of trade and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus in the national Treasury". The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, and Levi P. Morton, of New York. They announced that they were "uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protec- tion". They declared that they favored reduction of the revenue by repealing the taxes on tabacco and "spirits used in the arts", and would prefer the entire repeal of the internal taxes to a "surrender of any part of our protective system". Candidates were also put in the field by the Prohibition party, and nomina- tions were made by a number of other parties whose existence was indicative of discontent among many of the people, espe- cially the workmen and farmers. The Republicans were successful in the election, carrying all the Northern States except New Jersey and Connecticut. It was plain that Cleve- land's vigorous and downright personality had not captivated the people at large, though many admired his frankness and determination. He had made enemies too, among the political workers, and there was some uneasiness in business circles. than an empty one. Perhaps it is better, but if the tariff is a tax on the con- sumer too much taxation can hardly be better than less. Even if we differ as to whether the consumer or the foreign producer pays the tax, we should not differ in the belief that a large treasury surplus has its actual dangers as a source of thoughtless or extravagant, perhaps even corrupt, appropri- ations. In 1886 it was estimated that the next year would show a surplus of $140,000,000 in the Treasury. Cleveland knew that his message would arouse hostility. 'Tt is more important to Congress", he said, "that this message should be delivered to Congress and the people, than that I should be re-elected president". Parties still differ about the tariff, but no one can doubt the strength of Cleveland's conviction and honest belief. ^ This meant a high tariff, which, the Democrats asserted, took unnec- essary money from the people. 498 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Benjamin Harrison. Perhaps his tariff message made his re-election impossible at that time. Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States, was educated in Ohio, graduating from Miami University. After leav- ing college he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession in Indian- apolis. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the army as a colonel, and won distinction for bravery and efficiency, leaving the service as a brevet brig- adier general. He was elected sen- ator from Indiana in 1880, and showed in the Senate marked ability and capacity. As president he was able, painstaking, and just, but he lacked in marked degree the power of leadership, or at least the capacity for winning men by gracious address. Blaine, who became his Secretary of State, was still the idol of many people, and probably more than any other man the leader of his party. Senator Hoar once said, "Blaine would refuse a request in a way that would seem like doing a favor; Harrison would grant a re- quest in a way which would seem like denying it". Blaine entered heartily into the tasks of administration and of leadership. Foremost among his plans was to widen the influence and extend the trade of the United States The Pan- [^ ^j^g wcstcm hemisphere. As a means to this Congress. ^^^j the Pan-American Congress, composed of delegates from the principal states of the New World, met at Washington, and for some months discussed subjects of common interest. It resulted in the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics, which in later years be- came the Pan-American Union. TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 499 There were enough foreign troubles in Harrison's time to give plenty of occupation for even the energetic mind and the rapidly moving pen of his Secretary, " the Plumed cwu ^ ^ Knight". Serious trouble arose with Chili (1891), arising out of an insurrection in that republic, in the course of which the American minister had opened his house as a place of security to the refugees. This he had the right to do; but the people of Chili believed that he had been over-officious, and, at all events, they cherished resentment against Americans. When a party of American seamen were attacked in the streets of Valparaiso, the situation assumed alarming proportions. It even looked as if war might follow, but after a time Chili sent "conciliatory and friendly" assur- ances of regret and the affair blew over. With Italy relations were strained for a time, because a mob in New Orleans broke into a jail and killed several Italian nd 'th itai pnsoncrs. The provocation for this mob violence appears to have been great, for the Italians were, it seems, nothing but brigands, who had been plying their trade of murder and pillage in the city. It is one thing, how- ever, to punish criminals by legal process, and another to break into jail and shoot them down. Italy strongly protested against the action of the mob, and even withdrew her minister from this country. The United States government finally restored friendly relations by giving, as an indication of good will, money to the widows and orphans of the dead Italians. With Eng- land, too, there were complications and differences, this time over the seal fisheries in Behring Sea. Secretary Blaine pre- sented the American claim with confidence and in and^Samor extreme form, but an end was not reached during his term of office. With Germany and England there arose a dispute about the ownership of the Samoan Islands. This was much discussed, some of the time not over- pleasantly, especially between Germany and America, but temporary adjustment was reached. Some years later the three countries settled their differences by a division of the islands (1899- 1900), the United States obtaining Tutuila. 500 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Of more importance than any one of the other diplomatic affairs, was the proposed Annexation of Hawaii. This matter „ .. ^ arose toward the close of Harrison's term, after Hawaii, 1893. , . 11. Blame had resigned his position. A rebellion broke out in the islands and annexation to the United States was sought by the \'ictorious revolutionists, most of whom were American by birth or descent. A treaty. pro\'iding for annexation, was speedily concluded, but before hnal action was taken, the Harrison administration came to an end. Cleve- land, who followed him. belie\'ing that wrong had been done by the participation of American seamen and American officials in the uprising, withdrew the treaty from the Senate. Fi^-e years later (iSqS"* the islands were annexed by joint resolution of both houses of Congress. The Republicans gallantly took up the gauge of battle on the tarift. If the Cleveland Democrats wanted reduction, not so the eager Republicans, who claimed that protec- Biu 1800 ^^ ^^^^ guarded the American manufacturer and working man. Congress passed the famous ^IcKinley Bill. It was a high protective measure, increasing the duties on many imported articles. Blaine, however, a staunch protectionist though he was, did not believe that the trade with South America could be built up as long as high tariff rates were rigorously enforced, and partly because of his earnest efforts, the bill was made to include a reciprocity pro\-ision. It was provided that the President could by proclamation impose a duty on sugar and certain other commodities coming from countries that placed import duties upon our Reciprocity. ... , ,-» • i • • • 1 1 • products. It m the President s opmion such duties were *" reciprocally unequal and imreasonable", imder the circumstances. This was practically an offer to the coimtries of Central and South .America and the West Indies to ailo".' their goods to come in free, if they would in return admit our products free: but it proposed to reach the end rather by threats of re- taliation than by methods of conciliation. In the middle of the summer that part of the Bland-.AUison Act providing for the purchase of silver bullion was repealed. TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 501 and in its place the Sherman Act was passed, which provided that the Government should purchase each month at the mar- ket price four and a half million ounces of such Ac^ iSoo™'^" bullion. In payment for the silver the Secretary of the Treasury was to gi\-e out Treasury notes that were to be full legal tender. The silver so bought was not to be coined into money except as it might be needed to re- deem notes presented for redemption. \W this measure, there- fore, the (jovernment practically ceased to coin silver dollars, but became the possessor of a constantly increasing quantity of the metal. This was "doing something for silver" as the phrase went, but it did not solve the silver problem or settle the money question. Every day silver piled up in the Treasury; every day added to the seriousness of the situation, ana u'e shall see that as the years went by there was increasing trouble until the free and unlimited coinage of silver became the over- mastering issue of the hour. In the House of Representatives there was a great dis- cussion over the rules. It had long been customary for a mi- nority to block the progress of lawmaking by re- Ruies in the fusiu!^ to votc. A pcrson Dot votiug was not House, ^ . issp-'po. counted as present, and a quorum, theretore, could be obtained for the passage of a measure only when the majority could secure the presence of more than half of all the members of the House. Thomas B. Reed, the Speaker, interfered with the "I'llibustering" tactics of the Democratic minority^ in the House by counting as part of the quorum all who were present, whether they voted or not. This power was afterward given him by the rules adopted by the House.- ^ It should he noticed that the RepuhHcans had used like tactics when in the minority. - It will be remembered that the Speaker of the House is not, and iiv* deed does not pretend to be. the impartial presiding othcer of an assembly, as does the Speaker of the House of Commons. The contrasts between the English and American systems are more striking than the similarities. The American Speaker is ostensibly and actually a party leader; he feels the responsibility for what is done in the House, and is so completely a master of the situation that no act can pass without his sanction. By refusing to 502 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION During these years there was much discussion concerning improved methods of election.^ This was the beginning of the ""recognize" a member ofTering or advocating a measure to which he is opposed he can keep such measures from coming before the House; he long possessed the right to appoint the committees, and thus could deter- mine the general character of legislation by the organization of the com- anittees. Probably no Speaker uses this power selfishly and arbitrarily; some leadershij) and responsibility are absolutely necessary in a body like the House of Representatives, and such leadership has in the course of a century come to be centered in the Speaker. For some two decades after Reed had disclosed the tremendous power of the Speaker's ollke there was little change. In igio, however, a rising against the power of Speaker Cannon in the House resulted in taking away some of the Speaker's power. The committees of the next Congress, a Dem^ ocratic Congress, were appointed partly by the caucus of the party in the House; the caucus, /. c. all the members of the party, chose the majority members of the Committee of Ways and Means, the commit- tee charged with the bills for raising money, tariff measures, and the like; then these committee members chose the majority members of the other committees. The "leader of the House" on the minority side chose, in iQio, the minority members of the committees. No one can tell how long such methods will last. 1 There are few changes or movements in our history more important. It will be remembered that in 183 1-'^ 2 the National Convention was es- tablished; in the states a similar method of naming oflicers for state posi- tions had already begun or was being established. The convention system did not by its representation system give the people control of their own affairs; it was controlled largely by the machine, honest or dishonest. The long struggle over the slavery question and the war checked what might have been done, perhaps, in the way of working out better methods of nom- ination and of balloting. Parties had all the election machinery in their yfiands; parties or party candidates printed and distributed the ballots; the whole thing was, so to speak, a private affair. Then came the demand for ballot reform in the eighties. The state by the new law prints the bal- llots, and booths are provided in which the voter marks his ticket. It is a curious fact that until that time we did not have the much talked-of "se- cret ballot"; any "watcher'' at the polls could know fairly accurately how any one voted. These new laws were a great step forward, but in the course of a few years (in the early part of the twentieth century) there came further demands; the "direct primary" was demanded, whereby the voters of the party under the same restrictions and with the same opportunities as at an election were to be allowed to go to the polls and cast their votes for men whom they wanted their party to nominate. The old caucus of the party in wards or townships which nominated olTicers or selected dele- gates to a convention of many wards or townships met for a few minutes TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 503 wave of election reform, of the effort to manage elections and to make nominations for office with regard for popular desire. It g was then customary for the political committees of the contesting parties in the various states or in the minor civil divisions of the states to furnish the bal- lots used at the election, and no means was offered whereby a voter might prepare and cast his ballot in secret. A number of States now passed measures that were similar to or partly in imitation of the Australian laws on the subject. These acts provide generally for the erection of small booths, into which the voter can go to prepare his ballot, and for the furnishing of tickets at public expense. The candidates of all parties are placed on the same piece of paper, and but one ticket is given to each elector. In this way the opportunities for bribery and fraud are lessened, since those who desire to use corrupt methods hesitate to purchase a man's vote when, because of the secrecy in which the ballot is prepared and cast, they cannot be sure that the person who has been bribed has fulfilled his agreement. Blaine had made a strong impression on many men in the party and in the country by his vigorous and rather vehement „, . , foreign policy, and won some adherents by his ad- Election of ^. •^. . , , , ^ . . 1892. vocacy 01 reciprocity; but the coveted nomination for the presidency was not for him. Harrison was . re-nominated in 1892. Cleveland was again nominated by the Democrats; and thus the contest was between old rivals, and the issues of the campaign were not essentially different piltform^" from those of four years before. The Republicans reaffirmed the doctrine of protection, and assert- ed that reciprocity was a success and would " eventually give us the control of the trade of the world"; they declared or an hour or two, in the evening probably, in a grocery store or an empty shop, and after hasty organization rushed through its work, as if the nam- ing of men for office were not one of the most vital duties of a people who would be free and well served. The direct primary keeps the polls open all day, and voting for nomination is carefully guarded by law. No people, it may be said again, have control over their own government if they allow a few men in secret conclave to manage their affairs for them; the choice of officers is in itself a great part of the business of self-government. 504 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION that the people favored bimetallism/ and the party desired *'the use of both gold and silver as standard money". The Democrats denounced "Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the great majority of the American people for the benefit of the few". They declared that the platform^ **^ Sherman Act was "a cowardly makeshift fraught with possibilities of danger ", but, like the Repub- licans, favored "the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country". A newly formed party, called the People's, or Populist, party, nominated James B. Weaver, of Iowa, and James G. Field, of Virginia. Their platform de- manded the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold, at the ratio of i6 to i, a graduated income tax,^ and the public ownership of telegraphs ar.d railroads; it declared that the two old parties were simply struggling for power and platform. plunder, and that they had agreed together "to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff". The Prohibitionists and the Socialistic-Labor party also made nominations. Cleveland was elected, receiving 277 out of a total of 444 electoral votes. The Democrats obtained control of both houses of Congress, and so had the Government election* ^ Completely in their hands. Blaine had been right when he predicted that the McKinley tariff provided for so much protection that it would "protect the Republican party into speedy retirement". The tasks of Cleveland's second administration (1893- 1897) were much like those of his first term, — still the tariff * Bimetallism means the use of two metals as standard money and as full legal tender, the purpose being to determine the coinage value in such a way that both will circulate on a parity. Monometallists claim that only one metal can be a standard, and that the metals cannot be so coined that the market value of a gold dollar and a silver dollar will remain the same. 2 That is, a tax on incomes so arranged that the greater a man's in- come the greater the tax in proportion to the income. For example, a man with an income of $4,000 might have to pay $40, while a man with $8,000 income might have to pay $120. TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 505 question and the demand of the manufacturers for protection, still the pushing for office and the problem of securing honest politics, still the silver and the money question; perplexing foreign troubles too added their burden. Cleveland had scarcely more than taken up the reins of office when a commercial panic like the disasters of 1837 ^.nd 1873 swept over the country. For some time The panic of ^i^gj-g ^^^^ been a great decline in trade, and men who wished to borrow money for business pur- poses found it difficult to do so, even on the best security. The foreign capitalists who held bonds or stocks in American enter- prises sought repeatedly to dispose of them, in consequence of which there was great depression in all industry. An immense amount of gold left the country; the year ending June 30, over one hundred and eight million dollars were exported. As a re- sult of the depression and the difficulty of obtaining money, and because the basis of all credit, — namely, men's confidence in the ability of others to pay — was rudely shaken, failures of mer- cantile houses occurred in great numbers. There were doubt- less many causes for the trouble, among which was the fact that for some time previously there had been in many places an unwholesome excitement and zeal in business ventures, resulting in what is commonly known as over-production. Towns of the western and central states were ''boomed" ia a way that recalls to mind the infatuation of 1835-36. One reason for the panic was the fact that business men in this country and foreigners owning American securities feared that the United States would adopt a silver stand- repeaTed! 1803. ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ dcbts would be paid in a dollar the bullion value of which was much less than the value of a gold dollar, by which at that time all debts and com- modities were measured. President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress for August, declaring in his proclamation that "the present perilous condition of the country" was largely the result of unwise financial legislation. When Congress met, the President sent in a message recommending the repeal of those provisions of the Sherman Act which authorized the 506 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Government to purchase silver. A bill for this purpose was quickly passed by the House, but the Senate did not pass the measure till the end of October. This repeal seems to have had little effect in restoring confidence or bringing back better times. The depression in industry con- con^inues.^ tinucd to cxist. Before winter set in it was es- timated that eighty thousand people in New York, one hundred and twenty thousand people in Chicago, and sixty thousand people in Philadelphia were out of em- ployment, and many of them were suffering from want. From such widespread disorder and loss, the country could not re- cover in a few months' time. Nearly four years went by be- fore business reached its old stage of prosperity, and the old buoyant confidence returned. In the meantime the parties had to meet the silver question frankly and not dally w4th it. That became the central issue of the campaign of 1896. During this summer of 1893 and times of panic and business depression a world's fair was held at Chicago to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of p^j* ^ America.^ Of all the international exhibitions as yet attempted this was by far the greatest. The chief buildings, designed by competent architects, were beauti- ful examples of chaste and noble architecture, which must have left an indelible impression on the minds of all who beheld them. The grounds upon the shores of Lake Michigan were charming and attractive. The nations of the world vied with one another in sending costly and artistic exhibits. The at- tendance was very large, especially during the last two months of the Exposition. That such an exhibition, with its magnifi- cent buildings and its great display of wealth and culture, could be held in a city where but seventy years before only a little army post and a straggling frontier village existed, was a striking proof of the astonishing development of the great West and of American thrift and progress. ^ The celebration would naturally have occurred in 1892, but it was found impossible to make the necessary preparations. TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 507 For a number of years England and the United States had been at variance over the subject of the seal fisheries in Behring Sea. We have already mentioned Blaine's un- fisheries. succcssful efforts to settle the matter, as he be- lieved it ought to be settled. To protect the seals from total extinction some regulations and restrictions were imperatively necessary. To quiet dispute in a friendly and sensible way; and also to determine some method of preserving the seals from complete destruction, it was agreed that the whole matter should be referred to a court of arbitration. The court met in Paris in the spring of 1893. It was composed of two members from the United States and two The P^iris tribunal. from Great Britain, one from France, one from Italy, and one from Sweden and Norway. Our Government made two main contentions: (i) That the United States had jurisdiction and dominion in the Behring Sea; (2) that the seals making their homes end rearing their young on the islands of this sea were our property, even though they might temporarily migrate far out into the Pacific Ocean. The court gave a decision adverse to the United States, but issued regulations for the protection and reasonable preservation of the seals — regulations which, it was hoped, would be sufficient for the purpose. The President was anxious that, in conformity with Demo- cratic pledges, his party, now in control of both houses of Con- gress, should pass a new measure, embodying his ideas of a low tariff. The Wilson Bill was passed through the House, providing for lower duties; but it was mangled almost out of recognition in the Senate, where high protective clauses were introduced, much to the discourage- ment of the President and his supporters. Cleveland, con- sidering the mutilated bill a sorry exhibition, a mark of ''party perfidy", refused to sign it, and it became a law without his signature.^ ^ See Constitution, art. i, sec. 8, § 2. This failure of parties to carry out their pledges, the weakness of legislators under pressure of particular interests is a discouraging thing. If it prevails the party system largely 508 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION It was expected that the revenue from duties on imports would be materially cut down by this act, and to provide the ^. . , requisite revenue, a tax on incomes of over four The income tax. "^ ' thousand dollars was provided for. The consti- tutionality of this portion of the law was later called in ques- tion before the Supreme Court. By a vote of five to four, the Court held that the income tax was, taken as a whole, a direct tax, and it was declared inoperative and void because not ap- portioned among the states as the Constitution directs, i In the meantime, in the midst of high party dispute about tariff, money and hard times, arose serious questions in rela- tions with foreign nations. There arose trouble The beginning ^bout Cuba, an old trouble in some ways, for we of the Cuban i. j i i question. had had many sharp passages with Spain about the island in days gone by. A rebellion in Cuba against the power of Spain awakened much sympathy in Amer- ica, and it became necessary for the President to issue a proclamation warning all citizens against the violation of the neutrality laws. As we shall see this did not end the difficulty. breaks down. There are always chances for differences of opinion; but if party men, when chosen to office, fail to live up to promises, and the pre- tensions on which and for which they were elected, what is to happen to popular government? In connection with this bill, ugly charges of un- fair influence and even bribery were made, charges which appear to have had some foundation, but whether they were true or not, what are we going to do, if we can not rely on the principles and pledges of parties and party leaders? "We know", said Air. Wilson, whose name was given to the tarifT bill because it was reported by the Ways and Means Committee of the House of which he was chairman, "we know that not all who march bravely in the parade are found in the line when the musketry begins to rattle. Re- form is beautiful upon the mountain top or in the clouds, but ofttimes very unwelcome as it approaches our own thresholds". ^See Constitution, art. i, sec. 2, § 3. A direct tax had to be distrib- uted among the states "according to their respective numbers". The constitutional question was whether a tax on incomes from whatever source derived was a direct tax. The court held that the tax was in so many cases direct, that the whole act was rendered void. TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 509 At the end of 1895 more disquieting events occurred. Vene- zuela and Great Britain had long been contending concerning the proper boundary between the former state troubie^"^^"^ *" ^^^ British Guiana. The United States desired to bring about a settlement of the dispute by arbitration. Great Britain refused to submit the matter to arbitration, and questioned the right of the United States to interfere. Mr. Olney, the Secretary of State, was very de- termined, insisting that this Government had a right to inter- pose, and that such interposition was in line with the principle of the Monroe doctrine and in accordance with traditional Amer- ican policy. December 17th the President sent a message to Congress, with the correspondence that had passed between "the governments. The message declared that inasmuch as •Great Britain refused to submit to impartial arbitration, in the •absence of other means of discovering the true lines in the dis- puted territory the United States should investigate the matter and come to its own decision. He advised, therefore, an appro- priation for a commission to make such investigation and to report its findings. "When such report is made and accepted", the President declared, "it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appro- priation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of govern- mental jurisdiction over any territory, which after investiga- tion we have determined of right belong to Venezuela". Con- gress immediately appropriated one hundred thousand dollars for a commission (Decem.ber 18-20, 1895), and the President appointed its members. The country was startled by these proceedings, for no one had been aware that our relations with Great Britain were at all critical. There was considerable difference of opinion among the people as to the wisdom of Mr. Olney's dispatches and the President's message, and there was everywhere great interest and considerable, but not alarm- ing, excitement. While the commission was engaged in investigating the claims of England and Venezuela, the English and American 510 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION governments continued to discuss the question in dispute by correspondence. England finally consented to leave the mat- ter to an international tribunal, two members of agreed up^n. which should be judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. To this Venezuela agreed. Thus war was avoided, and the difficulty determined in accordance with the precepts of civilization and not the instincts and pas- sions of barbarism. The President and the English ministry also agreed upon a treaty establishing a general court of arbi- tration, but this treaty the Senate rejected. As the election of 1896 approached, it was plain that the silver question could no longer be hidden or avoided; the re- gjj^ peal of the Sherman Act had stopped the purchase of bullion by the Government, and far and near there was a demand for the free and unlimited coinage of the white metal: — let anyone with a few ounces of silver take them to the mint and have them coined into good, sound dollars. A fall in the price of commodities was charged to be due to a lack of sufficient money, to the fact that gold was not enough to meet the demands of trade. Why shut out silver, a great American product, from the mints? And back of all these charges and questions was the serious assertion that the "money power " was holding the life of the common people in its steely grip. After the panic of 1893 the Federal Government found it difficult to keep a sufficient amount of gold in the Treasury T cu ^ to assure the redemption of notes and United Issue or bonds. ... States securities in that metal. The President and his Cabinet believed that, if the gold should get so low that silver was used for such purposes, there would at once be great financial distress, and that our credit at home and abroad would be ruined. To secure gold the Government resorted to the s^le of bonds, and in this way increased the national debt by over two hundred and fifty million dollars. This sale of bonds was very much condemned by many persons and as strongly defended by others.^ ^ Some men spoke of this whole bond issue act with deepest bitterness. Cleveland was charged with surrendering the Government to the money TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 511 The Republican party nominated William McKinley, of Ohio, and Garret A. Hobart, of New Jersey. They declared in their platform: ''We are opposed to the free coinage of silver except by intern^^tional agree- ment with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must The election, 1896. The Election of 1896 be observed". The Democratic Convention was a dramatic as- sembly, full of fire, of struggle, and of intense earnestness. Many of the members, especially the eastern The IDemocr3.ts 1 1. j men, believed in gold coinage and not in silver; the convention was divided between the conservatives on the one hand and, on the other, those totally out of patience with the existing conditions, which appeared to them all in favor of the sharks, ancj the result of this and other things was to divide the Demo- cratic party; some of the members defended the act and the whole course of the administration as wise, honest and just; other elements, resenting Cleveland's hostility to free coinage of silver, and insisting that selling bonds to Wall Street was a heinous offence, became implacable enemies. 512 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION creditor class, the men who held the mortgages and owned the bonds. Mr. William Jennings Bryan, a young man from Nebraska, able, active and strong, an eloquent speaker, won the nomination of his party by an impassioned and powerful speech against the gold men. "You shall not", he exclaimed, ''press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns! You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" The People's ^^ . party also chose Mr. Bryan as their candidate for Other parties. i . i ' the presidency, but nommated Thomas E. Watson of Georgia for Vice-President. ]\Ir. Bryan was likewise nomi- nated by a party calling itself the Silver party. A large number of Democrats were entirely out of sympathy with the platform adopted by their party, and held another convention, which nominated John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky, and declared in favor of the gold standard. The election resulted in the choice of ]\IcKinley and Hobart, and though the silver question came up again in iqoo, the issue was never again as sharply drawn, and the permanence of the gold standard was assured. Few campaigns in our history have been so interesting or so well worth the time and energy given to them. No elec- tion since the Civil War has stirred the people so A campaign of deeply.^ Notwithstanding the excitement, it was education and . r t • thought. a, campaign of discussion and argument rather than abuse; it was a campaign of education. Cam- paigns of that kind go far to justify the whole principle of pop- ular government. INIen are called on to think. Someone has wisely said that in human affairs, if society is to go on im- ^ The Republicans said that the free coinage of silver meant the in- troduction of the tifty-cent dollar. The attack was answered in a campaign song: "You may say what you will of the fifty-cent dollar, But I tell you it beats none at all, all holler!" But there was not much of this sort of thing — the use of doggerel to convince the thoughtless; pamphlets were printed and circulated by the million; speeches were made everywhere; and men had to talk the best sense they could, because people wanted to know the truth. TWELVE YEARS OF PARTY DISCUSSION 513 proving, thought is the important thing; — it is not of much consequence that men often make mistakes, it is of consequence that they think at all, instead of placidly letting a few men do the thinking for them. References Wilson, Division and Reunion, Chapter XIII; Dewey, National Problems, Chapters IV, V, \TI-XI, XIII-XX; Haworth, Re- construction and the Union, pp. 120-174. CHAPTER XXVI WAR WITH SPAIN— IIMPERIALISIM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN— 1S97-1909 When ^IcKinley^ came to the presidential chair (1897), there was a widespread feeUng that now we were to have quiet; the silver question was laid away; business was entering with leaps and bounds upon a new era of prosperity. The years proved to be momentous ones in American history; before the end of the century the old continental United States had taken on new duties and cares; a new era had begun. The first thing that was done by McKinley's administration was to provide for more revenue and rhore protection. Two days after his inauguration the Presi- dent summoned Congress to meet in extra session. In his first mes- sage he called attention to the fact y ^ r~%^ *^// ' /^ that for some years past the ex- ^^^^^^ ^ u*.<,j^^^^ penditures of the Government had ¥ exceeded the receipts, and said that there was an evident neces- sity for the prompt passage of a tariff bill which would provide ample revenue. Congress soon passed an act known as the Dingley tariff bill, which very materially increased the duties. ' William McKinley was born in Ohio, was a soldier in the war, leaving the army with rank of major; was a representative in Congress from 1877 to 1 89 1, and was afterwards governor of Ohio. 514 The Dingley tariff. IMPERIALISM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 515 The insurrection in Cuba, which had caused trouble in the United States and anxiety to the previous Administration, was still in progress, and was daily producing more and more restlessness and uneasiness among the people of America. Many persons felt, naturally, a sympathy with a people who were fighting for their independence from a nation whose colonial policy had consisted, from the beginning, in extorting as much as possible from the colony for the sake of the mother country, with little regard for the needs or the rights of the colonists. Moreover, the people of the United States were shocked by the methods used in the suppression of the rebellion, which were cruel in the extreme, entailing un- told misery not so much upon the soldiers in arms as on the women, children, and other non-combatants. A large portion of the whole island was laid waste, its commerce destroyed, while tens of thousands of its citizens died of want and starva- tion. American residents in Cuba were at times ill treated, and our Government forced to call upon Spain for indemnity. We were obliged to police our shores to prevent "filibustering expeditions" carrying arms, ammunition, and reenforcements to the rebels. American commerce with the island was in large measure broken up, and, though we had legally no right to complain of this inevitable result of the rebellion, the pa- tience of our people was so sorely tried that it became evident that before long our Government would be com- pelled by Spain's own cruelty to demand a cessation of hos- tilities. In Cleveland's administration an effort had been made to induce Spain to grant Cuba self-government, if not independence; but Spain would have none of it, and, redoubling her energies to crush the rebellion, continued with greater zeal upon her appalling work of desolation and destruction. Renewed overtures from our Government, after Mr. McKinley became President, were met with as- surances that local self-government would be granted to Cuba, but it was now too late. The insurgents were not ready to accept anything less than independence, and the war continued. 516 HISTORY OF THE AIMERICAN NATION The situation, already full of trouble, was aggravated by an event which stirred the American people as few events in our history have done. The battleship Maine, d^astfr*^^ while lying in the harbor of Havana, was de- stroyed by an explosion and sunk, carrying down over two hundred and fifty sailors and officers. After a careful examination, a court of naval officers reached the conclu- sion that the ship was '' destroyed by the explosion 18^8^^^ ^^' ^^ ^ submarine mine, which caused the explosion of two or more of her forward magazines".^ After the rendering of the report it was apparent that war was im- minent. One is loath to believe that the Spanish Government was itself guilty of such an atrocious outrage; but some of the Spanish officers perhaps were, and if they were not, the disaster was an impressive proof of conditions in Cuba that were intolerable.- Some further negotiations were carried on between the two governments, and though Spain now made concessions and promises, they produced little impression upon Negotiations. , -r • i <^ i • i r i • the United States, which was WTary of making remonstrances and peaceful representations and of waiting for the fulfillment of promises. The President sent a message to Congress, April nth, giving a history of the Cuban difficulty for the preceding three years, and asking Congress message ^ ^^ empower him "to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government capable of maintaining order and observing its international obliga- tions, insuring peace and tranquillity and the security of its citizens, as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes." 1 In igii, the Maine was raised, and a re-examination apparently con- firmed the earlier conclusion. 2 See President McKinley's message, April ii, 1898. IMPERIALISM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 517 On the igth, Congress passed a series of resolutions de- claring that the people of Cuba "are and of right ought to be xfee and independent ", demanding that Spain act?on^^^^°"* withdraw her troops and relinquish her authority, empowering the President to use the army and navy and to call forth the militia to enforce the resolutions, and disclaiming any disposition or intention to annex or ex^ ercise control over the island. Prompt steps were taken to carry these resolutions into effect. An ultimatum was drawn up announcing that Spain must before noon of the 23d of April give a satis- A rU 18 8 factory answer to our demands or the President would use force to compel acquiescence. The Spanish minister at Washington immediately demanded his passports, and the American minister at Madrid was given his before he could present the ultimatum. A fleet was at once sent from Key West to blockade Havana, and war was thus begun. A few days later Congress formally declared that war was in progress. The first de- Field of the Campaign in Cuba cisive action of the war cost Spain her eastern dependencies. On the first day of May, Commodore George Dewey sailed into Manila Bay, in the Philip- pine Islands, and in a few hours destroyed the Spanish fleet. Not a life was lost on the American vessels. Land troops under General Merritt were soon sent to the Philippines, and the city of Manila was taken (August 13). In the meantime, fighting had been begun in Cuba itself and the adjacent waters. A Spanish fleet under Admiral Cervera left Spain soon after the outbreak of the war, and for a time its destination was un- known. There was some fear that the cities along the Atlantic coast might be attacked, but uneasiness on that score proved to be needless; for the Spaniards sailed from the Cape Verde ^ Santiago de Cu'ia A'" \ '^ ^^- oT%>.»» ^ e A N S E A ,o^vO° 518 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Bas/ti Channel NORTH 1./ EATAN 18. J^ :> . 'Baliiiliinij Channrl ^ %,CaI'UYAN I ISLANDS C. Bojtador • ^ V5 Laoai; Solvo1> C Balinhafav riiiLimxE ISLANDS SCALE OF MILES „ liS so 10U i '■r.l\riU' Diilnisa *t\ ; i'i. "^ 1 111 nan W v^ Islands to the northern coast of South America, and thence, aftnada^< r. ., ZainooaDKa'^Sf /-•.,! ^ li(nli:in ^.^ *9 •» Ir*' yP jMauai p»^=-^' BASILAN I v^ Tuna Bay^ Soran^aiu /i,i:, -, ^ ^OV- J Juan Hill and El Caney. As there was no longer hope of retaining the city, Admiral Cervera determined upon making a desperate attempt to escape with his ships, which were no match for the blockading squadron. On the morning of July 3d, the Spaniards sailed out cf the harbor, but the effort at flight was fruitless, and the whole fleet was destroyed. The city soon afterward surrendered to General Shafter. After this there was little serious lighting. An American army landed in Porto ^ico, and took possession of the island without much opposition. IMPERIALISM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 519 On the 1 2th of August preliminary terms of peace were agreed upon at Washington, the French minister acting in behalf of Spain. By the terms of this arrange- Augus't 1808. nient Spain promised to surrenrler all claim to Cuba, and to cede to the United States Porto Rico and all other Spanish islands in the West Indies, as well as an island in the Ladrones. It was also agreed that the United States should hold the city and harbor of Manila j)end- ing the conclusion of a treaty which should determine the fmal disposition of the Philii)pine Islands. Commissioners ap- pointed by both nations met at Paris and concluded a defmitive treaty, in which Spain gave assent to all the express stipula- tions and promises of the preliminary agreement, and also gave up to the United States all sovereignty over the Philip- pine Islands. February 6, 1899, the treaty was ratified by the American Senate.^ It seems strange indeed that at the end of the nineteenth century the United States and Spain should be at war — a war growing out of Spain's colonial policy, and caused Spanish and ^^ large measurc by the method of colonial admin- English . ? 111,.. colonies. istration that marked the begmnmgs and fol- lowed the course of her history in the New World. The defeat of the Spanish armada, says a recent writer, with truth, was the opening event in the history of the United States. The beginning of English colonization in America was made with the hope that it would check the growth of Spain and undermine her strength. Who could have foreseen the long rivalry with Spain and the ultimate success of English and American institutions? Three centuries and a quarter ago an unknown Englishman, supposed, however, to be the intrepid Humphrey Gilbert, implored the Queen of I^ngland to give him authority to attack the Spanish shipping and the colonial establishments of the West Indies. "I will do it if you allow me ", he said; ''only you must resolve and not delay — the wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers of death ". Time has proved that great national move- ^ Twenty million dollars was given Spain for the Philippines. 520 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ' ments are not for a moment, and are not dependent on the resolutions or delays of a queen or a passing generation. During the progress of the war the annexation of the Hawai- ian Islands was finally consummated. A joint resolution was , passed through Congress providinsr for the ac- Annexation of ^ . . . '^ • i i i r i • the Hawaiian quisitiou of the islands and for their temporary Islands, July, government. A group of twelve islands, with an area of 6,677 square miles and a population of about 100,000 persons, one-half of them native islanders, was thus made American territory. Probably we cannot yet see with any fullness the mean- ing of this war and of the acquisition of lands beyond the sea; but plainly these facts meant much. The the^an °*^^ ^ United States, by the acquisition of dependencies, "insular possessions", took upon itself new tasks. Its progress hitherto had been by a gradual western expansion, by reaching out for territory that lay at its very door; it had built itself up by the establishment of new settlements on its ow^n territory, on land uninhabited by civilized men.^ Could the country, which had shown much marked capacity for subduing a continent and extending free government, manage wisely and successfully colonial establishments in distant parts of the globe? Such was the serious question with which men found themselves confronted; to that question only time can give answer. There was considerable opposition to annexation of the Philippines; and after annexation there was much opposi- tion to the retention of the islands. Some person? Imperialism. . . , .-^ protested against the policy of "imperialism", the policy of holding a land and its people in a dependent condition, without the privileges and full rights of citizenship and without the hope of speedy entrance into the Union; they argued that such action meant a surrender of the fundamental principles of the republic. In reply, it was said that our evi- ^ Alaska is, of course, an exception, for it was not contiguous territory; it was, however, sparsely inhabited, and its administration caused no particular difiSculties. IMPERIALISM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 521 dent duty was to take the islands from Spain and give them good government; that the duty was not to be avoided by mere declarations of theory, or by any announcement of political maxims; that it was our business to assume the obligations that had come to us, — to assume the " white man's burden " in the islands of the far Pacific, and to care for outposts in the Orient like those of other nations. The work was boldly be- gun and, whatever mistakes may have been made since that day, an earnest effort has been directed toward giving the people of the Philip- pines honest govern- ment, good schools, and a new chance in the world. Whether America will succeed in maintaining a pol- icy based on unselfish service, must depend on the generous spirit of our people and on the demand they make for upright officials to represent them. Certain tasks demanding immediate attention were left in the train of the war. Some of these were quickly attended to. \/ A civil government was established in Porto Rico by act of Congress (April, 1900). In the Philip- pines, the natives, under the leadership of Aguin- aldo, broke out in rebellion against their new rulers. This up- rising was put down, but not without difficulty (1901). A new Copyright, by Underwood & Underwood Old Glory Being Lowered in Honor, THAT THE StAR OF THE CUBAN REPUBLIC MAY Rise on the Palace, Havana, May 20, 19 12 Work in the Colonies. / 522 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION civil commission, provided for by Congress, took charge of the islands. Meantime, much was done to restore order in Cuba, and after the Cubans themselves had successfully founded a government the military forces of the United States were with- drawn. Of the greatest importance was the work of the Amer- ican officials in the new tropical, or semi-tropical, countries in improving sanitary conditions. Yellow fever was practically banished from Cuba, and in the Philippines a diligent and not unsuccessful struggle was made against cholera and the plague.^ In tracing these events, we have passed over the election of 1900. The Republicans nominated William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt; the Democrats, Will- j ection .^^ J gj-yg^j^ ^^^ Adlai E. Stevenson. The plat- forms of the two leading parties contained no statement of new issues, save that the Democratic platform declared against the acquisition of dependencies and the forma- tion of a large standing army — the policy of the party was "anti-imperialistic". The Republicans were again successful, their candidates receiving 292 electoral votes out of the total of 447. President McKinley's new administration had only well begun when he was assassinated by an anarchist at Buffalo, N. Y.; he was shot September 6, and died on the McKinTi 14th, 1 90 1. No word is needed here to tell of the sorrow" of the people over this unspeakable crime. 1 The discovery by IMajor Reed, a medical officer of the army, and others, that the germ of yellow fever is carried by a mosquito, and that in this manner the disease is communicated from a person sick with the fever to a well person, is one of the greatest and most beneficent discoveries of modern science. If proper precautions are taken, it is now possible to secure prac- tical immunity from the dreaded disease which has been the scourge of Cuba and other tropical countries, and lias more than once wrought great havoc in the United States. The immunity from yellow fever and malaria during the building of the Panama Canal is due to the fight against the mosquito. If these brave men who experimented in Cuba had not dis- covered the deadly character of the pestiferous mosquito, the little animal could have made the work in Panama a deadly undertaking if not im- possible. IMPERIALISM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 523 President McKinley had a personal charm of manner, and a noble temperament which won for him the affection as well as the respect even of those who were strongly opposed to him on party issues. Theodore Roosevelt at once assumed the duties of the presidency, announcing his intention to follow the plans and policies of his predeces- Rooseveu. ^or. The new president was a man who, though comparatively young for such a high position, had seen varied public ser- vice. He had taken an active part in the political work of the city and State of New York, had been a mem- ber of the Federal Civil Service Com- mission, had acted as Assistant Sec- retary of the Navy, and had served as an ofi&cer in the Spanish War. Yp , ^ ^ He had also distmguisned himseli m literature, achieving a well-earned reputation as a writer of history and biography.^ We may well end this chapter on expansion and imperialism with a word on the Panama Canal. The subject is a com- plicated one, for back of the situation as it was in The Panama i • r t i >.' i. ^,^jj^j 1900, were a long series of diplomatic arguments with Great Britain, and a long list of troubles with the South American countries. President Roosevelt, not accustomed to shrink from responsibility and toil, entered joyfully into the task of settlement. The war with Spain had shown the value of the canal, for war purposes, if for no other, while our new duties in the Pacific added to the need of 1 His most noted work is The Winning of the West, a briHiant history of the deeds of the frontiersmen in Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Old Northwest. His Gouverneur Morris, Thomas Benton, and The Naval War of 181 2 are also good and interesting books. Every boy should know his Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and his Hunting the Grizzly. Though well known by his brother historians as a successful writer, perhaps his 524 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION easy water communication between the eastern and western seaboards. In 1901, a treaty with England, taking the place of one made in 1850, provided that the United States might L.L. POATES^CO., N.Y. ■r -A ^ TABOGA \rX>' The Panama Canal Zone own and defend the canal route and provide for its neutrality. Two years later the United States made arrangements for the purchase of the property and the rights of the old French canal best-known words to-day are those advocating the "strenuous life", the life of effort, of struggle, of ambition, of progress, the life which shuns inglorious and selfish ease: "Let us, therefore, boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteous- ness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals yet to use practical methods". IMPERIALISM AND THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN 525 company which had already done some of the work and had indeed at one time made quite a display of vigor. With Colombia, however, through whose territory the canal was to be built, unexpected and provoking trouble arose; the little South American country wanted all she could get, and Copyright, by Underwood & Underwood The Culebra Cut on the Panama Canal apparently more, though nothing but benefit to her could arise from building the canal. When her minister at Washington made a treaty providing, on what seemed liberal terms for her, that the American government could build the canal and manage it, her government refused to ratify the treaty. Immediately Panama, then a part of Colombia, revolted, and we did not stop to parley or ask questions, but immediately recognized Panama, made a treaty with her and secured the title to a strip of land through her territory. Within a short time a commission was appointed and the work begun. It proved to be an arduous and immense undertaking. As we write these 526 HISTORY OF THE AIMERICAN NATION lines, the work is not completed. $400,000,000 or thereabouts have been expended or will be before the work is over, and the whole task has been carried on with wonderful skill and with admirable energy. The engineers in charge have been vy army oflScers and great credit is due them for the admirable manner in which the work has been carried forward. Thus when the twentieth century began, the sun looked down on a new United States, quite different from the row of little commonwealths that made up the Repub- United States ^^^ at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The American continent no longer held the whole of American territory; even in the far Pacific were American lands; if the acquisition of California and Oregon meant that we must be both an Atlantic and a Pacific power, the annexation of the Philippines and Hawaii made that fact more evident and gave it new force and significance. References Wilson, Division and- Reunion, Chapter XIV; Sparks, National Development, Chapter XIII; Dewey, National Problems, Chapter VII (both on the previous history of the Isthmian Canal); Latane, America as a World Power, Chapters I-IX, XII; Haworth, Re- construction and the Union, pp. 17 5-19.4.. CHAPTER XXVII THE TASKS OF THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 The early years of the twentieth centuxy were taken up with discussions and with actions brought on by new condi- tions. First, there were foreign complications The early years arising out of our new position in the world ; for of the new cen- . i • i i tury. we were no longer unconcerned with what went on in the Far East; and that fact brought us into new relations with the powers of Europe which had their Eastern ambitions and duties. Second, there were the new duties of colonial administration. Third, there were, the duties forced upon government and society by the immense growth of in- dustry and by the great internal development of the country, of which we have already spoken. There was at no time serious danger of war with foreign nations; but there were fine and delicate adjustments to be reached for the maintenance of peace and the making of good understanding. John Hay, the Secretary of State, whom President McKinley appointed, and who continued till his untimely ' death to serve under President Roosevelt, was a great man and a wise one. Under him there was no rough bluster or bravado; with frank firmness, with clear insight and with a sense of sound justice, he went his way, scorning any attempt at sharp practice. If diplomacy is ever, what it was often said to be in times gone by, — a game of chance in which you try to get ahead of your opponent by superior cunning — it was not so under John Hay. The world was almost startled by the directness, simplicity and fairness of his methods and his proposals. Mr. Hay died in 1905; and after his death his general policy was pursued by our Govern- ment. 527 528 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION First among general foreign affairs, we may consider the Monroe Doctrine, the developed Monroe Doctrine. The Western Hemisphere we held to be our sphere Doctrine^^^ of influence and we did not care for meddling. This position had its difficulties in the light of the fact, that we now claimed that we had something to say about Oriental affairs; for if the Western Hemisphere was our place, why should we not confine our attention to that and leave the Orient and Europe alone? We were prepared to leave Europe alone, but our foreign office asserted that although we were a Western power, we had interests in the East, too; and though the doctrine remained only a doctrine, we persisted in holding it. With the South American States efforts were made to reach a basis of a more friendly understanding than had al- ways existed in the past. ^ The general policy of the time was to take an active part in world politics, while not intruding upon European affairs, and to cultivate peace with all nations, while strength- WorM politics. . . ^ , . i r i enmg the na\y and preparmg to defend our rights with force if necessary. Mr. Roosevelt was sometimes charged with flourishing the "big stick", and many persons thoroughly disagreed with the theory that peace was best secured by a display of a big navy and by a readiness to fight. But certainly during these years the men in authority can not be charged with seeking war; on the contrary while America took a new and influential place in the world, principles of peace and arbitration rather than brute war were clearly presented. « As days went by, our new duties and our new place of power in the Pacific became plainer. There was China, big, unwieldy, undergoing rapid change, but still of- fering, in her weakness and against her will, ' chances for European nations to make something out of her, ^ Much was done by Elihu Root, the successor of Hay, as Secretary of State. He even visited personally some of the Latin-American States, and made a deep impression by his strong, simple assurances of good will. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 529 to seize parcels of territory, or to get special privileges in her harbors. America had no desire to see the old empire divided up into bits, each controlled by one of the European powers; we desired nothing for ourselves but our legitimate influence and a chance for trade. The ''Open Door in China" was our policy, — a fair field and no favors in all trade relations, — and American desires and policy could not be quietly ignored by Europe. The war between Japan and Russia was brought to a close by the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) through the "good offices" of Mr. Roosevelt. The result of the war disclosed the fact that Japan was powerful and ambitious, a power always to be reckoned with in the settle- ment of Pacific questions. Hardly was her war with Russia over before our relations with her became strained, though it is hard to say why they were or to point out any real cause for a feeling of distrust and uneasiness. The troubles, such as they were, were fortunately soon allayed. While affairs with Japan were still cloudy and uncertain, a great American battle fleet was sent around the world. Its appearance in the Pacific was taken as a sign that we were prepared to fight if necessary, — probably a needless sign; but when the American tars were cordially welcomed by the Japanese people and were given the "time of their lives", there was no more talk of war. The "demonstration" of the fleet in the Pacific became a spectacle, its visit to foreign parts a display, the trip an evidence of the general effectiveness of the navy. Our relations with England were extremely cordial; never before since the days of the Revolution were there such signs of good understanding, or such firm belief that arbitration. ^^^ ^^^ English Speaking nations must not fight or quarrel over differing opinions or conflicting interests.^ An old trouble over the Alaskan boundary was settled by arbitration. ^ Preparations are being made for a great celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Ghent, to celebrate the passing of a century without war, — something better to shout over than fights and bloodshed. 35 / 530 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The tasks of the Philippines were carried on vigorously and with righteousness. The claims of the friars to large areas in the islands were purchased by the government, and Cuba^^*°^^ ^^^ ^^^^ *^^ ^^^ sourcc of trouble was quietly dis- posed of. A representative government was given to the Philippine people; school teachers were sent to the islands to carry out the great work of education; and in many ways there were proofs that we did not mean to "exploit" the new territory or simply make the most out of it for our- selves. Cuba, too, was on more than one occasion saved from disorder and revolution; effort was made to steady the feet of the young republic as she trod the hard road of self-government. The passing years of the early century brought efforts to avoid the loss and horrors of war, and to escape if possible the burdens of an "armed peace", the maintaining of itra ion an gj.^^^^ armics and battle fleets. In 1898 an im- portant step had been taken in the calling of The Hague Conference for the discussion of peace. The con- ference, called by the Czar of Russia, met in 1899. In 1907 a second conference met. A court of arbitration was established at The Hague at the first conference. After a time Great Britain and the United States agreed to submit to the tribunal all differences which they could not settle by ordinary diplomatic methods, provided these differ- ences did not "affect vital interests, the independence, or the honor of the two contracting states". Agreements similar to this were made between the United States and France and with several other states. Differences between England and America concerning the Newfoundland fisheries, differences which had for many decades troubled the two nations, were submitted to the tribunal at The Hague, and authoritatively decided (1910). President Taft, in March, 1910, publicly de- clared that he saw. no reason for not submitting all questions to arbitration.^ This question was taken up later (191 1) for ^ "Personally I do not see any more reason why matters of national honor should not be referred to a court of arbitration than matters of property or of national proprietorship. ... I do not see why ques- THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 53l consideration and treaties providing for general arbitration were entered into with England and France; but now (1913) have not been finally adopted. The unofficial peace societies of the world are said now to number nearly six hundred. The elections of 1904 and 1908 showed on the whole con- tentment with the Republican administration. In the former year, Theodore Roosevelt was chosen president, 1904*3^(1 °9o8. ^y ^ ^^^y l^^S^ electoral majority, over Alton B. Parker, his Democratic opponent. The issue of the campaign which attracted most attention was the charge that the Republican National Com- mittee, using information obtained by the newly established Government Bu- reau of Corporations, extracted immense funds from the big corporations, who expected favors from the government in return. This claim, in an open letter, Roosevelt declared to be "atrociously false ".1 In 1908, Wm. H. Taft, who had been Roosevelt's Secretary of War, was chosen president over Mr. Bryan, who for the third time was put up by the Democrats. Mr. Taft announced his intention to follow the course of his predecessor and to carry out his policies. But trouble met him at the outset, and before the end of his term his own party was rent with dissension' of this we shall see something later on. During the Roosevelt administration, public sentiment was roused as never before to the evils of corruption in office tions of honor may not be submitted to a tribunal composed of men of honor, who understand questions of national honor, to abide by their decision, as any other questions of difference arising between nations". ^ It is absolutely impossible for us in a few words to tell the exact truth about the funds given to either party in their campaigns; it is almost im- possible to find out the facts. There is no doubt that for decades large 532 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and the dangers from business interests which sought to con- trol government or disregard the law.^ The President relent- lessly pursued the "grafters" who sought to cheat *^Ya^ters°"* the government and such officials as sought to make use of their positions unwisely but too well, for private gain in disregard of public duty. He preached the "square deal", declaring with emphasis that we must proceed " by evolution and not by revolution ". "We do not wish to destroy corporations; but we do wish to make them subserve the public good ". "All individuals, rich or poor, private or corporate, must be subject to the law of the land. . ."! Steps were taken to enforce the Sherman Anti- trust Law of 1890, which had been gently resting on the statute book. Suits were now be^un in the courts to dissolve some of the combinations which were most openly and plainly organ- ized in defiance of the law.^ Mr. Taft carried forward this policy of attempting to restrain or dissolve the trusts; but the enforcement of the law met with serious difficulty. Before the end of Mr. Taft's term some people were seriously question- ing the policy of trying by law to prevent combinations; would it not be wiser, said they, to regulate business and put it under strict governmental supervision, than attempt to prevent the growth of big corporations and the absorption of the little ones into a single big one? sums had been given. The important thing is that the practice was now looked upon as bad. The awakening of public conscience to the vice of any such system is the important thing. That persons desiring government favors have, on more than one occasion, furnished funds for party contest is undeniable. Mr. Parker's charge and Mr. Roosevelt's denial in 1904 helped to clear the air. Here plainly enough is a great danger. Government must be kept clean by our keeping parties and party government clean. ^ It is not my purpose here to intimate that all business or all "big busi- ness" is corrupt; such is far from the fact. But the old practice of contribu- ting funds to parties was bad. The insurance investigations in 1905 in New York showed that some corporations commonly gave money to one or both parties merely for influence and effect. ^ In 1907 suits were begun against the American Tobacco Company and the Standard Oil Company, and they were finally, in Mr. Taft's term, dissolved. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 533 The tariff did not play a conspicuous part in the discussions of the times before 1908; but in that year there was evident uneasiness and a strong demand for a lowering of aga^n^igoQ Tates and a new adjustment. The Republican platform spoke in favor of tariff revision and this was commonly believed to be "revision downward". The Congress of 1909, soon after Mr. Taft's inauguration, took the matter up and finally passed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff law. It was bitterly attacked; and as vehemently defended. Its opponents declared that rates were insufficiently reduced, if reduced at all; its friends asserted that it was a substantial fulfillment of party pledges and was a real revision. Whatever may be said — and much was said — these features are note- worthy: (i) Native products of the Philippines were, by the law, to come m free of duty, — an act of justice ito the islanders; (2) the principle of maximum and minimum rates was adopted, in accordance with which, in addition to the minimum duty necessary to real protection, there should be still higher duties on goods from foreign countries maintaining a tariff which discriminated against the United States; (3) a Tariff Board, to make a "scientific examination" of conditions and report to the President, was established. President Taft hailed this last provision as the beginning of real scientific, non-partisan study of the tariff question, a means of getting the whole thing out of politics. Congress also provided for a tax on corporations. Moreover, to settle the direct tax question^ an amendment was passed by Congress and submitted to the States for adop- tion. The purpose of the amendment is to give Ame^ndment Congrcss powcr to Icvy direct taxes without the necessity of dividing the burden among the states on the basis of population as the constitution required. The growth of the country, the disappearance of state jealousies, the need of new and modern methods of taxation, all em- ^ The division of the Supreme Court on the income tax matter had aroused much unfavorable criticism. See the Constitution, art. i, sec. 2, § 3, and sec. 9, § 4. 534 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION phasized the need of the amendment.^ This amendment after full discussion was passed by the requisite number of states, three- fourths of the whole (1913), and became part of the Constitution. President Taft took up another problem of great magni- tude, — our trade relations with Canada. The great dominion, lying at our very door, and peopling rapidly igTi^'°" ^' through all its wide western domain, was cut off by our tariff and by hers from free exchange. The question arose, Was such a condition sound? Was it the best condition for both nations, or should freer intercourse be encouraged by lower rates made possible by mutual con- cessions? President Taft, strongly believing in the advan- tages to both nations, sought to reach an arrangement with Canada, providing for lower tariff rates by both the United States and the 'Dominion, and a reciprocity agreement was finally entered into. It went for naught, however. The meas- ure passed Congress; but the Canadian Parliament was un- willing to accept it. So for the time, at least, the old tariff wall stood. We have seen that the railroad problem was taken up in 1887, when the Interstate Commerce Act was passed. The Commission worked valiantly to get results, but Interstate , . , a i -i i • Commerce ^^t always With succcss. As the railroads m- Acts, 1901, creased their mileage, as business everywhere 190 , 1910. developed, the need of further regulation was evident. Charges of rebates, of discriminations and of unjust rates, filled the air; and, though conditions were not so bad as they had been before the Act of 1887 was passed, they were bad ^ If wealth is, as it should be, the basis of taxation, there is no sense in distributing the burden among states in proportion to their population. The Constitution as formed contained this provision, probably because there were jealousies between the states-, and, in the Convention of 1787, taxation was tangled up with the question of representation. If the tariflf is to be reduced. Congress must be allowed to get money in other ways, and the internal revenue taxes on tobacco, etc., do not appear to be enough. The tariff problem is sufficiently difficult without its being complicated by restrictions on the power of Congress to get money by other means than customs duties. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 535 Postal savings banks. enough. Acts were now passed (1901, 1906, 191c) extending the power of the Commission, and further controlling the roads. The Commission was given power, not only to prevent dis- crimination as at first, but to compel the reduction of unjust \:ates, by fixing a maximum rate.^ Another important step was the establishment of the postal savings banks (19 10). This act provided that cer- tain selected post offices should receive money for deposit and pay two per cent interest on the sums deposited. This plan gives people, who have no con- venient banking facilities, or who have only small sums to deposit, an absolutely safe place of deposit, and encourages saving and thrift. So far in this chapter we have been talking of parties, and of political and diplo- matic tasks. Party differences and the problems of legislation were, how- ever, all, or nearly all, the result of social change and of industrial growth; — they came from the fact that new social needs were arising and that the immense development of the country, both in wealth and in population, had changed our methods of life; we were demanding new points of view and new activities on the part of the government. These con- Industrial and social growth. Copyright by Underwood & Underwood A Modern Skyscraper Partially Completed ^ The basis of the justice of controlling the railroad corporations may be seen from the follow'ng sentences, which are taken in lar^e measure from F. A. Fetter's Principles of Economics, p. 534, etc. (i) Railroads enjoy peculiar privileges through their charters which 538 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION ditions were not altogether new; we have seen that the great growth of the country in the thirty years or so after the Civil War brought problems in its train. But the growth went on w^ithout ceasing. Each passing year, the population was larger, the wealth w^as greater, the factories wxre more numer- ous or bigger. And yet, though men looked and w^ondered, it took time to realize what change the passing days w^ere working, just as it took time in days gone by to realize the character and the difficulty of the slavery problem. The twentieth century w^as begun before men were fully alive to the new situation and the new tasks of adjustment. A glance at the situation reveals the following main facts: 1. The first and most notable fact is the growth — one might almost say the appalling growth — of population. The census of igio showed that within the United The main facts. r /■ a States proper there were 91,971,266 people. 2. Moreover, soon after the century began, men realized that the West was gone; there was no longer a great area open to the western settler and offering opportunity to anyone who would till the wide acres. Territories had become states, and the great free land of the West had largely been taken up. 3. The railroads had reached out over the country and had gone on extending until by 1910 they had over 236,000 miles of track. They had thus brought all parts of the country together and made the settler on the western farm near neigh- bor to the city men of the East. In 1908 twice as many pas- they obtain from the Government. (2) They have in many cases ob- tained large grants of land from the federal and state governments. (3) The power of the railroad officials enables them to do things of an im- portant public character. (4) The old notion that the railroad was, like any other piece of private property, subject only to the will of its owners, is a notion unsuited to the position, power, and character of the railroad in- dustry. (5) The progress of consolidation places in few hands great finan- cial power and tremendous influence. It is now generally conceded that, though the government does not own the roads, regulation and control are necessary and are fully within the power of the government; but this right of the government to act, es- pecially in the matter of the amount of rates, was only gradually set up and maintained. r^^^ 12: o h-l H < &< O PL, w a H o o M H h-l P4 H i-i ft 53S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION sengers were carried one mile as were carried in iSoo. and in the same time the amount of freight carried actually trebled, or nearly so.^ 4. With the gR^wth of railroads came the concentration of business; this concentration was increased by the inven- tion of machinen- which changed methods of work and made competition in many Imes impossible. \*illage mdustries were supplanted: our clothes are no longer made by the village tailor or our shoes by the village cobbler; our medicines are not compounded by the village druggist; our tlour is ground in Minneapolis; our beef is slaughtered in Chicago or Kans;is Citv. Industr}- is not only immense, it is concentrated. Amer- ica has become one of the great manufacturing countries of the world; the value of the product equals that of both Great Britain and France. In the decade after 1S07 niore axU was mined than m all the previous history- of America .- 5. As the population increased, great cities grew up, the homes of new industries and pomts of distribution for products. Immigrants crowded into the cities, many of them ignorant of the simplest facts and conditions of the new world or of what we have been wont to consider normal American life.'"^ So all these conditions presented problems, many of which were discussed in political meetings, in gatherings at the a>untn^ store, or by the fireside in the home. Even to those who saw this remarkable growth it was not always quite plain why conditions were what they were; but all felt that they were passing or had passed into a new era, and they felt the pres- ^ In iSoo there were 30,626 miles of railroad in the United States: m iSoo there were 163.507; in 1000 there were 2i6,SoS. ' In iSoo. the wealth of the United States was sixteen billion dollars; in iSoo, sixty-four billion: in 10 10. one hundred and seven billion. 5 In iSSo. 14,772,000 people lived in cities (,and most of them were not very large") and 35,385.000 lived in the a^untr>- i.that is actually in the a>untry or in places of less than 2.500 inhabitants^ In 1010 42.023. ceo ixvple livevi in cities i^s^^me of the ciiies were very large"! and 40.348 .>>^ lived in the country- and in toN\nis. In iSSo 20.5'^^ of the population was city ^x-tpulation and 70.5*^- ^^*as countr>- population. In loio 4C^-3*^' ^"^^ city population and 52.7*"^> was country population. TITK FART.Y TWFXTIETTI CKXTVRV -1000-1013 5o9 sure of a now social oidor and the woiglu of now burdons. Lot us now oonsidor what was dono to moot son\o of thoso now conditions. The dis;\ppearanco of tho Wost. tho realization that the country's ros^niroos woro not roally linutloss. awakened in- terest in oonsor\ation of tho national res<.nirces. 1 he old idea was that tho land was boundless, the resources unlimited; all niet\ had to do was to oonquor luiture and overconie the wilderness; but facts wore bogiiuung to open people's eyes to the luwi of solving, for tho next gonoi'a- tion would wish to use iron and luniber and would need land for grazing cattle. The land was largely taken up. but there were forests that must be preserved; water courses that nuist be protected; water- power sites that needovi to be skived: mineral deposits that ought to be guarded as part of tho national heritage. Conser- vation included two ideas: tirst. the precaution against waste and extravagance in the use of national resources; second, sowing the undeveloped mines and water courses for the people at large and not allowing them to be turned over for a song to corporations or individuals who would thonisoKos reap the lion's share of the benelits. Conser\ation means, accordinij to Mr. Roosevelt, utilizing the natural resources of the nation in a way that will be of most benetit to the nation as a whole. Because the need of protecting and using the water courses was beginning to attract attention. President Roose\olt. in March, 1007. appointed an Inland Waterways Commission. Out of this movement came a great meeting at the \Miite House (May, iocS\ made up of State governors, federal congressmen, other otiicials. and invited guests. "Xever before in the his- tory of the nation had so roprosontati\o an audience gathered together". In presenting the pur^^ose of this assembly Presi- dent Roosevelt aptly s;ud: "We are prosperous now: we should not forget that it will bo just as important to our de- scendants to be prosperous in their time". The result of the conference was new and widespread interest in conservation, a movement of the highest importance in the life of the nation. 540 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Reclamation of arid land. A conservation commission was appointed, and other con* ferences were held. In Roosevelt's administration and that of his successor, Mr. Taft, large portions of the public land were withdrawn from public entry; for the time being, at least, they were not to be sold. The lands included water- power sites, mineral lands, and important forests. Early in Mr. Roosevelt's first term the task of reclaiming desert lands by irrigation was begun. In 1902 the Reclamation Act was passed by Congress, providing that the proceeds from the sale of the public lands in th^ arid or semi-arid regions should be used to build irrigation plants. Great dams and reservoirs were built. In- side of ten years twenty-six projects were approved by the Secretary of the Inte- rior. Work began on nearly all of them and was carried rapidly forward. The great Shoshone dam in Wy- oming is the highest dam in the world, be- ing 328 feet from the lowest foundation to the top. Water in the reservoir will irri- gate over 150,000 acres. It is estimated that altogether, in- cluding the lands irri- gated by both private companies and by the State and national governments, there are some 13,000,000 acres under irrigation, and that there is water available for five times as many acres in addition. Copyright by Underwood & Underwood A Modern Harvesting Machine THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 541 The opening up of the new West, the development of machin- ery, and the increase in population was accompanied with in- creasing production of agricultural products. The development imagination can scarcely grasp the facts, and figures simply daze the mind. In i860, there were some 25,000,000 cattle on the farms and ranches of the whole country; in 19 10, there were 69,000,000; the value in 1910 was ever $5,000,000,000, Immense cornfields stretching over the prairie lands of the middle west produced fabulous crops. The country produced in 191 2 over 3,000,000,000 bushels of corn. It we should place the corn in bushel baskets in a line, each basket occupying two feet, the line would circle the earth forty-five times at the equator! The development of the railroad system, and the invention of machinery caused the concentration of population and the building up of big corporations with large capital Machinery and i • it?- i i i i big industry. ^^^^ immense power. We have already seen how the fact brought up problems to be met and solved if possible by legislation. We are all now interested in what the great industrial companies of the land are doing, for no portion of the United States is so remote, no one leads such a separate life, that the factory to him is unimportant. The farmer of Dakota or the ranchman of Wyoming is affected by what is done in factories at Chicago or Pittsburg; no village is so isolated that it is self-dependent. We all live on manu- factured goods; it may be almost said that wheat and corn are made rather than grown, for everything is done by machinery; the modern farmer needs to be a mechanic as well as a farmer; corn is planted, cultivated and cut by machinery, and some- times stripped of its ears and stowed away by machinery. Wheat is cut and threshed by machinery; and then whirled away by railroads, stowed in elevators by machinery, — in fact it seems as if we do everything by machinery but eat and sleep. All this means a general interest in what is done in the big factories and by the corporations. One of the wonders of recent years has been the development of the iron and steel business. In 1867, the United States 542 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION produced 19,643 long tons of steel; in 1909 it produced over 23,000,000 long tons. Steel has come to be used for all sorts of purposes: ships and railway cars are made business. ^^^ of it; huge towering "skyscrapers" in the larger cities have skeletons of bolted steel; we live in an age of steel. The tendency of modern industry is shown by the forrhation of the United States Steel Corpora- tion, an immense concern, which turns out an enormous product. Organized in 1901 by the combination of various companies, it began its work with a capital of $1,100,000,000. By 1910 it had paid over $726,000,000 in dividends to its stockholders.^ The big corporations, especially if they come near to mon- opolizing the business, that is to say, practically controlling it, of course arouse hostility and are a source of Control of cor- ^^^^ conccm; for what is to prevent their being porations and ... .,,,..,. watered stock, absolute masters of the situation, holding in their hands what have become the real necessities of life? Perhaps common sense and real business interest would always prevent totally unreasonable charges; but in recent years there has come the belief, shared by many men who are themselves interested in big business, that government regu- lations and supervision are desirable, for the protection of the public welfare. Connected with this question is that of overcapitalization, and of "watered stock"; many corpora- tions have a capital on paper far beyond the actual amount of money or property put into them. Is it just and fair that they should expect to pay interest to their stockholders on the "water", on the amount beyond the actual investment? Is the "water" property to be respected? In some cases the answer to this question is not so easy as it may seem. But the problem of reaching justice in the control and the taxation of corporations, and especially the. problem of limiting rates of railway, gas, water companies, and the like, is made more difficult by the existence of watered stock. ^The American Tobacco Company and the Standard Oil Company are other examples of immense combinations. These were dissolved in 1910-11 by the courts, as we have already seen. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 543 With the development of industries, the labor problem reached new proportions. In 1902, a great coal strike in the hard-coal fields of Pennsylvania caused much capitah" suffering to the miners, and in fact to consumers also over a large part of the Union. Through the personal participation of President Roosevelt, who secured the appointment of an able board to investigate the trouble and to arbitrate the differences between miners and mine-owners, the strike was brought to an end, but not until public atten- tion and interest had been thoroughly aroused. The question was asked. Is coal mining only a private business, if the re- sult of a quarrel between miners and owners can cause suffering and bring want to millions of people? Or should there be, must there be, a sense of public responsibility on the part of both elements in such a controversy, and should the govern- ment, as representing all of us, have something to say about it? After the settlement of the coal strike, there were other large strikes in various industries. It appears, on the whole, however, as if there were a growing readiness on both sides to reach conclusions by arbitration. There appears to be a grow- ing sense that the public has an interest and, though this ques- tion has troubled thoughtful men of America for a generation and is still with us and may be for years to come, there is hope of an understanding. Perhaps the problem of women workers in the great cities is the most difficult; but the ending of the garment-workers' strikes in New York and Chicago (1910- 191 1) gave hope, of ultimate triumph of right conditions. The problem of the wage earner was also discussed from another point of view. His welfare is the welfare of all. In some States, legislation has recently been passed limiting hours of labor in particular industries. The working hours of women have been shortened, and a strong movement against child-labor has begun. That children should be shut up for long hours in close factories, doing over and over again some little thing whose very repetition seems to stunt the body and dull the mind, can hardly be allowed permanently in a country which realizes that its future is in the hands of 544 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION its children and that no amount of cheap cotton or of cheap shoes is compensation for stunted and benumbed youth. Be- tween 1 904-1 910 child-labor laws were passed in one form or another in various States, and Congress legislated in a whole- some way for the District of Columbia. Old-age pensions have been provided in some European countries, and in the first decade of this century Americans began to think of the subject. It was all well penshfns cuough to talk lightly about opportunity when the great West was open, and when in the simple life of a generation ago the problems of wealth and poverty were not pressing. Many people began to think that the time had come to do more than send the indigent aged to the poor- house. This remains a perplexing question which is now oc- cupying the attention of American philanthropists and of some legislative bodies.^ This discussion of pensions is only an illustration of a new humanitarian sentiment which new conditions of life in part produced. New problems and new needs for help liStUUy?'^ arose on all sides. Especially there appeared need for new legislation concerning injuries suf- fered by workmen in course of their work. This subject, like so many others of significant social bearing, became prominent in the first decade of the century. A New York commission appointed to consider the question declared that the conclu- sion had been surely coming that the existing conditions were intolerable. Under the law, the workingman could often obtain compensation for injuries only with great difficulty, and if he were shown guilty of ''contributory negligence", he could obtain nothing at all. Really the risks of the business, as far as life and limb and health were concerned, were largely thrown on the workingman, not on capital. Some acts have been passed by Congress and by State legislatures, providing that the employer take responsibility and make compensation in ^ Some large corporations, notably the American Telephone Company, have provided for pensions for employees. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 545 case of accident.^ A New York act, however, imposing lia- bility on the employer was held unconstitutional, as depriv- ing the employer of his liberty and property "without due process of law".^ The Steel Corporation, the International Harvester Company and other companies have put into effect liberal systems for relief and care of workmen injured in course of their work. Of a similar character is the agitation over the minimum wage, the principle of which is that every employer of labor should give to his employees receiving the small- Minimum ^g^ wage at least a certain amount, which may be reasonably considered sufficient to keep the re- cipient from actual want. If a business does not pay its em- ployees sufficient for them to live on, that business is in part not self-supporting; it is partly run at public expense, for the public must in one way or another bear the burden of support. This matter has been taken up for legislative consideration, and large corporations have begun to act upon the principle of announcing a minimum wage. So far (1913) the discussion has been chiefly confined to the wages of women. That such a matter should be discussed at all discloses to us how far we have gone from the old idea that everybody should be allowed to manage his business as he wishes, and that competition alone must settle wages and prices and everything else. During the years under consideration the great cities showed more clearly than ever before the new duties and responsibilities that rested on American democracy. There were not only the questions of securing better government, 1 As the employer may have to pay a good deal to an injured workman or his family under these laws, it is customary for the employer to insure with an accident insurance company and thus, by paying the insurance premium, the cost is thrown directly on the business. 2 The New York decision was strongly attacked as bad law and helped to strengthen a feeling already held by some men that the courts in passing on constitutional questions are over-technical and do not permit sufficient freedom and progress in legislation. It helped to bring in the demand for "the recall of decisions" which was advocated by Mr. Roosevelt and others in 191 2. 36 546 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION but of making the city a good and pleasant place to live in. Public parks, playgrounds, wider streets, public bathing places, better health laws, purer milk, better water; City problems. , , , ... . these are the matters that occupied an mcreasing share of public attention. Public transportation in cities is a matter which affects everyone within their limits. With the increase of popula- tion and the building of huge skyscrapers, the streets of the cities were not broad enough to take care of the throngs of people. It was apparent that rapid transit must go below the surface of the streets of the larger cities. Subways were built, the most extensive that in New York, through which electric trains can run from one end of the island to the other. Moreover, there came in the course of these years a fuller appreciation of the interest of the public in the ownership and administration of transit facilities in cities. In Chicago the street railway problem found a solution in part by an ar- rangement for the city's obtaining part of the net profits; in New York the subway is owned though not managed by the municipality. The old plan of giving away the valuable right to use the streets has largely been abandoned. No greater change in American city life came in the early years of the cen- tury than that indicated by the fact that public service cor- porations came to see that they must act on the principle of pleasing the people and giving good service. The public has an interest, and that interest must be considered. Wherever one turns in the larger cities, he sees the new undertakings which men faced in this decade of readjustment and enterprise. The housing of the poor and the ordinances enforcement of building ordinances that would give reasonable security against lire were subjects much discussed. The history of the decade shows some im- provement; but shocking disasters like the Iroquois fire in Chicago (1903) are still possible; and unsanitary tenements still exist, a menace to the health and safety of the whole com- munity. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 547 A number of cities have in the last decade adopted the commission system of city government. It is intended to do away with the great number of elective officers, S'stem"'™''''''' to abolish the wards, to put all authority, both to pass ordinances and administer them, into the hands of a small commission. The plan, so far adopted in about 150 cities of small or medium size, has, on the whole, proved successful and helped to bring about economy and gen- erally efficient government. Our whole governmental system from city ward to federal government is so complicated that a reduction of the number of local officers to be elected and the centering of responsibility upon a few persons would seem to make it easier to simplify the task of popular control.^ The control of government and of parties by the people has been much discussed since the beginning of the twentieth century. In many States, the direct primary has rrgovernment' supplautcd the old-timc caucus and convention. The Referendum, now widely advocated, provides that on demand a proposed legislative measure be submitted to the people for acceptance or rejection. The Initiative is a process whereby a certain number of people may secure the submission to popular vote of a measure which they themselves propose. The initiative and referendum have been adopted in a number of States, — most of them in the West, — and in some cities. The Recall, whereby the people may by vote cause the retirement of an official before the expiration of his term, has also been much discussed and has been provided for to some extent in the West. Before the end of Roosevelt's term it was evident that there were strong dissensions in the Republican ranks, and the differences came out strongly in the early ProcrrGSsivcs , years (1909-1910) of Mr. Taft's administration, especially in the tariff debates and in the discussion of the new Interstate Commerce Act. There were a number of men in ^ The "short ballot" movement is aimed at the decrease of the number of elective ofi&cers. 548 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Congress who were called '^ Insurgents"; they wanted to go further than the older party leaders in reduction of the tariff, in the regulation of railroads, and in other matters of consider- able popular interest. They were restless under what they con- sidered the unwise and rigid control exercised by the leaders of the party in Congress. Outside of Congress there was a good deal of sympathy with the Insurgent movement. The name "Progressive" came into use to distinguish this element from those who adhered to the program and the leadership of the old-time Republicans. As in all such cases, it is not easy to mark the differences. But the Progressives especially cham- pioned, in addition to a reduction of the tariff, certain measures which they claimed would reestablish democracy and give the people more immediate and fuller control of their parties and their governments: (a) Popular election of senators; (b) nomina- tion by direct primaries; (c) popular election of delegates to national conventions, or even the popular choice of candi- dates for the presidency; (d) more general introduction of the referendum, mitiative, and recall. In the Congressional election of 19 lo, the Democrats were successful in electing a majority of the House. They thus held a majority for the first time in eighteen years. Some of the States that had been Republican chose Democratic officers. As the campaign of 191 2 approached, these differences in the Republican ranks became more evident; and it was plain that the Democrats also had their troubles. In jpj2 each party there was an element dissatisfied with existing party conditions. The Republican party meeting in June in Chicago was a scene of strenuous conflict, for one element of the party supported Mr. Taft for renomi- nation, the other, Mr. Roosevelt, who represented the ''progres- sive" tendencies of the party. The convention, after long and bitter debate, chose Mr. Taft, amid charges from the supporters of Mr. Roosevelt that the whole proceeding was — to use a milder word than the one commonly used — unfair. Mr. Sherman was again nominated for the vice-presidency. The Roosevelt delegates refused to vote at all on the final ballot for nomina- TKE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 549 tion, and immediately, meeting by themselves, announced their intention of forming a Progressive party and nominating a candidate for the presidency. In August Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Hiram W. Johnson of California were put in nomina- tion by the new party. The Democratic convention at Baltimore had its own stormy time, but the party did not break apart. Governor yw/vm Democratic U35 Progressive SS Republican 8 The Election of 191 2 Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was nominated after a long, hard struggle and with him as candidate for the vice-presi- dency, Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana; both of whom are held to belong to what was called the progressive element of the party. The Socialists ^ and the Prohibitionists also nominated ^ It is impossible in a few words to give the position of the Socialists or to define Socialism. They demand the giving up of the whole capitalistic regime. The program of the Socialist party should be known by the careful student of American politics. Many of the things in the Progressive platform were called socialistic because they advocated more extensive governmental control of industry than we have been accustomed to. Those are the questions which are now in the air and we must make up our minds how to answer them or how much to accept. The Socialist platform of 191 2 asked for "collective ownership" of telegraphs, telephones, railroads, 550 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION The tariff. candidates, and the former party polled in the election a larger vote than ever before. The Republican party advocated "scientific" investigation by a tariff board while insisting on the maintenance of an effec- tive protective tariff. The Democrats proclaimed once again the principle of a tariff for revenue only; but during the campaign, while stressing the evils of the tariff, they said they did not propose to bring confusion and disorder by hurried and sweeping changes. The Progressives, with a platform advocating, like the Republican platform, a scientific study of the tariff, did not spend much time in dis- cussion of that matter but advocated principles of social re- form and of civic betterment, and announced that the two older parties were untrustworthy and boss-ridden. It is an impor- tant fact that the Progressives did thus stress demands for legislation to improve industrial conditions. Whatever may be the success or the failure of the Progressive party in the future — and of that we can have little or no idea — the program of social change is here for discussion, and that is significant. Wilson and Marshall were elected by an immense majority of electoral votes and had a great wuson elected popular plurality. Mr. and inaugurated, i ^^ J^ J Wilson's inaugural ad- dress was a noble call to duty and to effort. To him and the younger >^^4^;^^^2 element of the party which he rep- grain elevators, mines, forests and water-power, land where collective ownership is practicable, and banking; it asked for the shortening of hours of labor, the aboHtion of the Senate and of the veto power of the President, the abolition of the restrictions on the amendment of the Constitution, the calling of a convention to revise the Constitution, and many other social, industrial and political changes. THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY— 1900-1913 551 resented, the times spoke of progress toward a fuller realization of the great ideals of the Republic. He made Mr. Bryan his Secretary of State, and soor. after his inauguration summoned a special session of Congress chiefly to consider the tariff. And thus at the beginning of 19 13, the Democratic party was again in power with an able leader at its head — the second Demo- cratic president since Buchanan. Opposed were two strong parties and the Socialist party also, which was no longer a negligible factor. References Laiane, America as a World Power, Chapters X-XVIII; Ha- WORTH, Reconstruction and the Union, Chapters VIII, IX. CHAPTER XXVIII DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY— THE TARIFF— FINANCIAL REFORM— FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS, 1913-191G The years of President Wilson's administration proved to be filled with interest and with difficulty. We are still too near the events themselves to get the proper ouUook Problems. , , . , , upon them and to see, with assurance, what are the really fateful and important happenings as distinguished from those less influential or significant. Still we are justified in saying that few periods in our history have been more trying or filled with greater perplexity. Here we can give only a brief outline of events and accomplishments without attempting to make the generalizations that future writers of history may rightly allow themselves. Some of the matters which were under serious consideration during the years before 19 13, and of which we have already spoken, appear to have lost general popular interest ^°ntr'T ^^ ^^^ succeeding years. There was at least no marked extension in the initiative and referendum and the recall in the states, about which so much had been said previously. These methods of popular control of government are still (19 16) more widely used in the Far West than in the middle and eastern states, and there is still difference of opinion concerning the wisdom of adopting them and as to whether they have been beneficial where they are in use. On the other hand, partly as a consequence of the disputes in the Republican Convention of 191 2, many states established plans for direct primaries for electing delegates to the national conventions and for expressing preferences as to who should be nominated. Of the delegates chosen to the national convention of 1916, a 552 DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY 553 majority came from states having this preference primary- system.^ In 1 9 13, the Seventeenth Amendment of the Federal Con- stitution was adopted. The amendment provided for the election of senators from the states by the vote of Amendment ^^^ pcople, thus doing away with the old system of election by state legislatures. Like the Sixteenth Amendment adopted in the same year^ the subject of this amendment had been long under discussion. It was partly the product of the general movement in the direction of a more immediate and direct participation of the people in the govern- ment, of which we have seen various evidences,^ and partly the product of a very evident situation — the fact that the state legis- latures were often so absorbed by the task of electing senators, so distracted and, at times, so disturbed by partisan conflicts, that state business was sadly interfered with. The woman suffrage movement, which had at various periods in the past century awakened considerable interest and enlisted some support, took on new vigor in the first decade s^ffTage. ^^ ^^^ present century. A number of states, the great majority of the states, in fact, of the western coast and the mountain regions, extended voting rights to women before 19 14. The next two years saw little advance, and almost no progress in the central states and the East, several of the eastern states voting against amendments to their constitu- ^ The people thus by ballot elect delegates to the national convention and also express preference for presidential candidates. There are many- important questions, c^uite unsettled, as to how this preferential system will work. The practical problems are worth careful watching. If delegates are not pledged or definitely instructed, must they vote for the candidate in the convention for whom the majority of voters in the state have expressed preference? If they ape pledged or instructed, on how many ballots must they vote according to instructions — more than one? What may be said in general to be the effect of the preference? It is to be noticed that no plan is provided for nominating presidential candidates without a national convention at all. 2 See pages 533, 534, ante, and see the Constitution in the Appendix. ^ Direct primary, initiative and referendum, etc. 554 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION tions. Illinois, in 19 13, without amending the constitution, provided by legislative enactment for the right of women to vote for certain ofl&cers, viz., for presidential electors and for state and local officers whose election by the state constitution is not in the hands of male voters. '^ When President Wilson came into office it was known that he sympathized with the more radical or more "progressive" element of his party and people; at least he was The President's ^q^ satisfied with political and commercial condi- beiiefT. tions. His book called "The New Freedom" urged the necessity of "fitting a new social organization to the happiness and prosperity of the people." Doubtless many people feared that he would commit himself and seek to commit the Government to new and dangerously radical measures. The writer of these lines has seen no evidence of strong discontent with the Administration on the score of its being radical, visionary, or destructive. Doubtless the President believed in some such way as did Jefferson in 1800, that in his election a new era for the people was ushered in ; but probably it is wise and safe to say that nothing peculiarly destructive has been attempted. The President appears to have believed that closer relations should be maintained between the executive and the legislature. He has not hesitated to use his influence to obtain The President ^-^q passage of mcasurcs by Congress and has on several matters under discussion spoken out with distinctness. With hopes of creating a closer relationship, he has personally appeared before Congress; abandoning the practice of presenting only written messages to that body — a practice uniformly followed since Jefferson came to the chair — he has read his annual messages to both Houses, and has on a few other special occasions used a like method of presenting his 1 It is probable that the comparative lack of interest in some subjects which were widely discussed and debated before the summer of 1914, was due to the outbreak of the European War and the multitude of absorbing questions which arose here in consequence of it. DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY 555 views on matters of public importance. It is not now clear that by this method much has been accomplished in the way of establishing greater unity or cooperation. Probably we can wisely say that the personal interviews between the President and influential leaders in Congress, especially those of his own party, will long be, in the future, as in the past, the chief agency for making and maintaining mutual understanding^ — as it is sometimes said, ^'bringing the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue together." Naturally, as the Democrats had taken a stand against the tariff — at least against the high Republican protective tariff — President Wilson took up the question soon after his The tariff. . inauguration. To Congress in special session April, 1913, he sent a message advocating a prompt and thorough revision of the tariff. Among other things he made plain that he believed that competition was of greater value than protec- tion, if protection shielded and defended, and hence perpetuated, incompetent industry: ''We must abolish everything that bears even the semblance of privilege or of any kind of artificial advantage, and put our business men and producers under the stimulation of a constant necessity to be efficient, economical and enterprising, masters of competitive supremacy, better workers and merchants than any in the world. Aside from the duties laid upon articles which we do not, and probably cannot, produce, therefore, and the uties laid upon luxuries and merely for the sake of the revenues they yield, the object of the tariff duties henceforth laid must be effective competition, the whetting of American wits by contest ^ One of the values of our party system lies in the fact that it aids in producing harmony in action and purpose between the President and Congress, and, in the states, between governors and legislatures. Sometimes the majority in one or both houses does not belong to the same party as the President. When that is the case, there is likely to be more or less disagree- ment, though it has not very seriously affected governmental action as a rule. That there should be distinct cooperation and understanding between the executive department, which we might call the revenue spending branch, and Congress, the revenue raising branch, students of government would generally declare to be desirable. 556 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION with the wits of the rest of the world." After prolonged discus- sion the new tariff bill, known as the Underwood bill, was enacted (signed October 3, 1913) into law. It provided for substantial reductions of duties on imported articles. Raw wool was put on the free list, while the duties on woolens were greatly lessened. The chief reductions, besides those on wool and woolens, were in duties on cotton goods, flax and hemp and goods made from them, iron and steel, sugar and agricultural products. Among the important provisions of the new law was one to secure revenue by the taxation of incomes. It levies a tax of one per cent, on all incomes in excess of $4,000 per year if the recip- ients are married, and in excess of $3,000 if single. On incomes of more than $20,000, larger taxes are levied in accordance with the principles of graduation.^ Next in order after the modification of the tariff came plans for legislation on the currency and banking. The subject had been discussed in and out of Congress for a good V^^ .. many years. In 1913, largely under the influence of the President, the Federal Reserve or Currency bill was passed. It was intended to remedy three main defects in the currency and banking system: (i) Bank reserves, that is to say, the money reserved to meet ordinary demands upon a bank, were not under general direction or could not be mobilized in time of real need; each bank shifted largely for itself and sometimes was unable to make use of its own real resources. The new act proposed to remedy this trouble by providing for a small number of federal reserve banks, each in a distinct region, to hold large portions of the reserves of the individual banks. (2) The old currency system was inelastic; that is, there was no ade- quate means of increasing or regulating the amount of money in circulation to meet unusual demands; there was no adequate means of adjusting the amount of money to the legitimate needs of business. Under the old system it often happened that a ^ See ante p. 504. It must be remembered that the advisabihty of taxing incomes had long been under discussion. The adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment made it possible to tax incomes without distribution according to population. See ante p. 508, 533-534. DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY 557 merchant with property and perfectly good credit could not, especially in a panic, get money from the banks, and, indeed, the banks themselves could not get the money to meet real demands, though they had in their vaults plenty of good '' paper," i. e. plenty of good securities, evidences of real wealth, which were, however, not money for circulation. Under the Federal Reserve Act, federal reserve notes may be issued on the basis of high-grade commercial paper; and thus, it is expected, the amount of currency will correspond to the actual needs of busi- ness. A bank may call on the Federal Reserve bank for notes — money — offering the "paper" it holds ^ in exchange for the Federal Reserve notes. (3) Under the older system, the govern- ment money was deposited either in the various subtreasuries or in national banks, the distribution being largely in the power of the Secretary of the Treasury. There were various undesirable features in this arrangement. The new law provides * Any bank, a member of the Federal Reserve system, (for the individual banks are "members") can, in case of need, as explained above, take its securities of high grade to the regional Reserve bank and get notes. Thus its funds are not tied up in securities of one kind or another when what the community needs is ready money. It must be remembered that a very large portion of the business of the land is carried on without money, but with checks and on the basis of credit; but times come when men want money, especially in time of panic when credit is shaken. Those have been just the times when banks have feared to give out freely their reserve cash and when it was almost impossible to dispose of the bonds, notes from individuals and other sorts of paper which constituted the real resources of the bank. A bank cannot, of course, keep in its vaults enough ready cash to pay every depositor on demand if all apply at once. Much of its money is loaned to borrowers; it has got to lend the money deposited with it, for that is the way it makes money. For the money loaned by a bank, it receives "paper," promises to pay; these promises — notes from individuals and other kinds of securities — are probably perfectly good, but in times of stress when there is doubt about financial conditions and credit, the bank may not be able to get money for the paper in order to pay its depositors. Neither, under the old system, could it accommodate a new borrower in urgent need of money and with perfectly good security to offer, because it needed its money and felt it must hold tight to its cash. The student will, I hope, understand from the text, that the new act was to provide a remedy for such difficulties. It is intended to furnish a means whereby the money to be used for business purposes will correspond in amount with real business needs. 558 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION for deposit of most of the government money in Federal Reserve banks. Portions of the reserve bank profits over a certain percentage are to go to the national government. The act provided for a Federal Reserve Board to have general supervi- sion of the system, and for regional banks, not more than twelve in number. In 19 14, twelve districts were marked out, each to have a bank in a leading city.'^ After signing the Federal Reserve measure. President Wilson spoke a few words to the Democratic leaders who were with him. Perhaps he intended to quiet the fears of those who Government thought that his administration would be hostile to and business. ^ ° ^ business interests. ''We have slowly been coming to this time which has now, happily, arrived when there is a common recognition of the things that it is undesirable should be done in business, and the things that it is desirable should be done. . . . Business men of all sorts are showing their willingness to come into this arrangement, which I venture to characterize as the constitution of peace. So that by common counsel, and by the accumulating force of cooperation, we are going to seek more and more to serve the country." The most difficult and trying problems which confronted President Wilson arose out of foreign affairs. Let us see the source and the nature of the President's power in President's managing diplomatic relations. Under our con- control of . . , i i i • i foreign afifairs. stitutional System, he has these matters, m a large degree, in his own hands. With the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the Senators present consent, he makes treaties,^ the universal practice being that the finished treaty is turned over to the Senate for ratifica- tion or rejection. Almost complete power in handling ordinary diplomatic concerns is in the President's hands, and this is so largely because of the practical— and perhaps necessary — inter- ^ The cities selected are Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, San Francisco. 2 See Constitution, Art. 11, Sec. 2, §2. DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY 559 pretation of one brief sentence in the Constitution: "he shall receive ambassadors and other, public ministers."^ In addition to this grant of authority, he is given, of course, the right to ap- point ministers, subject to the approval by the Senate of the per- son appointed. He can, thus, by sending a minister to a foreign country and by receiving a minister from that country, recognize the government of that country, a power of considerable im- portance when there has been a revolution or serious insurrection and there is, in consequence, a question as to whether a govern- ment is sufficiently established in fact to be accepted as the real government. He can also refuse to receive ministers represent- ing foreign countries and can dismiss them or demand their recall. All communications with foreign governments are under his control and subject to his direction, though the practice is unvaried that dispatches are signed by the Secretary of State.^ Soon after his inauguration. President Wilson said: "One of the chief objects of my administration will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister Attitude Republics of Central and South America and to toward . i i i i Latin America, promotc m every proper and honorable way the interests which are common to people of the two continents. . . . Cooperation is possible only when supported at every turn by the orderly processes of just government, based on law and not upon arbitrary or irregular force. . . . The United States has nothing to seek in Central and South America except the lasting interests of the peoples of the two con- tinents. ..." At a later time he declared: "The United ^ See Constitution, Art. ii, Sec. 3. 2 Of course ordinary routine matters of diplomacy are carried on in the office of the Secretary of State; and frequently the whole course of procedure is there determined. Even very important subjects are often really, as well as ostensibly, managed by the Secretary himself. Much depends upon the gravity of the subject, on the character and personal power of the Secretary, and on the amount of direction which the President is able to exercise or desires to exercise. The President commonly also keeps in communiation, when the situation is especially difficult or menacing, with the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. But when all is said, the President is responsible. 560 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION States will never again seek an additional foot of territory by conquest." Guided, it would seem, by the spirit of these sentences, he refused to ''recognize" the Huerta government in Mexico. Huerta had overthrown the Madero government jVIcxico. and, it was commonly believed, owed his place and power to the most ruthless and violent methods. Mexico had been for some time in a state of disorder and distress; various factions strove for power; and, as the contests went on, ruin, ^- utter and complete, seemed to threaten the distressed country. Some persons believed our President ought to have recognized Huerta at once; they asserted that by doing so further turmoil and disagreeable complications would have been avoided. There may still be differences of opinion as to the wisdom of the Presi- dent's course; in truth, the whole problem is filled with per- plexity. There can be no doubt, however, that our Govern- ment was actuated by a desire to frown upon the kind of gov- ernment that Huerta represented and upon the methods he pursued in grasping power; and it w^as also moved by the belief that, only w^hen there was an orderly government based on something besides brutality and the dagger, could our associa- tion with Mexico be cordial and helpful. Huerta failed in establishing his power, failed probably in / part because the United States refused to recognize him and looked with favor on his opponent Carranza. The e era ruz |-^j.j^qJj continued and threatened constantly to incident. ^ ^ ^ -^ , entangle us, even to bring on forcible intervention'. April 9, 1914, a boat's crew from one of our warships, the Dolphin, landing for supplies at Tampico, were arrested by a Mexican officer of the- Huerta school; though they were released almost immediately, our Admiral considered the affront too serious to be passed over lightly. He demanded formal dis- avowal and apology and the salute of the American flag. When this demand was not complied with, trouble followed; for the President believing, we may imagine, that it was unwise to appear weak or vacillating in dealing with Huerta, supported the Admiral. More warships were sent to Mexican waters, and, as DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY 561 the Mexican authorities continued to haggle and not to comply, our forces after a brief struggle seized the port and city of Vera Cruz.^ The story from now on is, if anything, more confusing than before; it is a tale of violence and lawlessness and fighting factions in Mexico, of protests and warnings and patient Continuous admouitions from Washington, of annoyance ap- confusion i • i ... , in Mexicoo proacnmg dangerous irritation among our people, who continued, however, to hope that all would come out well or at least that we should not be drawn or driven into war. In July, 1914, Huerta gave up hope of establishing his authority and soon departed for Europe, leaving Mexico and the scenes of her disorder behind him. In November, 191 4, our troops were withdrawn from Vera Cruz. Huerta's abdication did not, however, mean that all questions were set at rest; for Carranza who appeared to have the best chance of securing a strong hold on the government and becom- ing real master of the situation was beset with warring factions. In the course of these tiresome and trying discussions, at least one thing of great importance was done; our Government ^ It is quite impossible in a few words to tell the story of our difficulties with Mexico. Of course the whole trouble was not due to anything we did or did not do, nor was it due to the flag incident in Tampico harbor. Possibly the resolution offered by Senator Lodge in the Senate (1914) fairly well represents the situation: "That the state of unrestrained violence and anarchy which exists in Mexico, the numerous unchecked and unpunished murders of American citizens, and the spoliation of their property in that country, the impossibility of securing protection or redress by diplomatic methods in the absence of lawful or effective authority, the inability of Mexico to discharge its international obligations, the unprovoked insults and indignities inflicted upon the flag and the uniform of the United States by the armed forces in occupation of large parts of Mexican territory, have become intolerable. That the self-respect and dignity of the United States and the duty to protect its citizens and its international rights require that such a course be followed in Mexico by our government as to compel respect and observance of its rights." Intolerable? Yes, perhaps; but we continued to tolerate it. What else was to be done? Physical punishment is frequently the easiest and the least remunerative form of discipline. Can you make a naughty and ignorant boy good and intelligent and neighborly and gentle by whipping him? 37 ^ 662 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION decided to share the responsibility with the countries of South America. First the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chile tendered their good offices to the United States South American ^jj(j Mcxico.^ Though the good officcs of these confer. powers were accepted, nothing of decided advan- tage appeared to come from this friendly mediation, except — and that is a good deal — increased good will and friend- ship with the leading South American states. Again in 191 5 the United States asked and obtained the cooperation of these three powers and of three others.^ Conferences were held; messages were sent to Mexico; patience was indulged in, and V finally the decision was reached that " the de facto government of Mexico of which General Carranza is the chief executive" should be recognized. Soon after this announcement, we established diplomatic relations with Mexico, receiving an ambassador sent by the Carranza government^ (December, 191 5) and sending our ambassador in return. Was this all? Not all by any means! Could Carranza really maintain peace and good order, and a capable government? That was the question. There was Villa, a vigorous, The elusive determined, skillful brigand w^ho had been fighting some Villa. ^s Carranza's Supporter and then turned against him. No one in this country knew what Villa wanted; but he probably w^anted to make trouble and he certainly knew how. In the earlymonths of 1916 he and his men menaced theAmerican border, and in March attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico. They were driven back, but this last dastardly stroke was too much for any nation to bear calmly; American forces were ordered into Mexico to punish Villa. American troops penetrated several hundred miles into Mexican territory and were victorious in skirmishes of no mean proportions, but the ^ In April, 19 14, at the time of the Vera Cruz episodeo 2 The additional three were BoHvia, Uruguay, and Guatemala. ^President Wilson's message to Congress, December, 1915. "Whether we have benefited Mexico by the course we have pursued remains to be seen. . . . The moral is, that the states of America are not hostile rivals but cooperating friends. . . . This is Pan-Americanism. It has none of the spirit of the empire in it. It is the embodiment, the effectual embodiment", of the spirit of law and independence and liberty and mutual service." DEMOCRATIC ASCENDANCY 563 wily outlaw himself avoided capture, and the game of hide and seek seemed nearly profitless. In June, Carranza, whom we had previously aided and favored, demanded that our troops be withdrawn from Mexican territory and that we give up the hunt for the inevitable. bandits and outlaws who endangered our border towns and ranches. This step President Wilson at first refused to take, asserting that, until the Mexican govern- ment showed ability and willingness to keep order, we must keep our troops on Mexican soil. At a later time, however, the troops were withdrawn and the war which had seemed likely or inevitable was avoided. CHAPTER XXIX THE WORLD WAR The great war which broke upon the world in August, 1914, had many causes, and if we should endeavor to find all the roots of the controversy, we should have to go far back ambitus. ^^ European history. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy WTre joined in what was called the Triple Alliance. Likewise Russia and France were allied. Great Britain at a recent date had entered into cordial relations with France — the entente cordiale — but also had been desirous of reaching friendly understanding with Germany. Germany, full of pride and relying on her great army, was craving wider do- minion and was lustir^ for conquests, planning to gain control of large markets for her exclusive possession. She had been exceedingly prosperous for some decades but was not content with the normal gains of trade; she wanted to bring more territory under her authority. Her whole governmental system, and worse still her whole national system, was cursed with the philosophy of militarism and with Machtpolitik, i.e., the policy of force; she trusted in the mailed fist and believed that a great dominion lay open before her if she used her pov/ers.^ The Balkan peninsula was a center of difficulty, and offered the opportunity for conflict and conquest. The people of that region, save the Turks, who had been driven back problem. close to Constantinople, were largely of Slavic origin; in them Russia had a certain sentimental interest and over them the Russian Government claimed the ^ No one can say just how thoroughl}' the plain people knew and realized the system or the philosophy of brute force; but the plain people had little to say about the policy of state. The story of the ambitions and the long preparation, the intolerant zeal, and the developed egoism of Ger- many is one full of significance. It brought woe upon nearly the whole world as well as upon herself. 564 THE WORLD WAR 565 right to a vague protection. With these interests was also mingled a desire on the part of Russia to have Constantinople, because she wanted a "warm water" port and an assured out- let for her products. On the other hand, Germany and her ally, Austria-Hungary, wished to secure and to control a highway to Constantinople and onward across Asia Minor. The ambitions, suspicions and jealousies that prevailed were sources of constant danger. The murder of the Archduke of Austria, June 28, 1914, was the immediate occasion or excuse for the outbreak of the war. The assassins were subjects of Austria but by race Th^ 6XC11S6 for the war. Serbians. Serbia was held responsible by Austria, and demands of the most serious kind were made upon Serbia, demands having the character of an ultimatum. To most of these demands Serbia yielded and sought to be conciliating. It is quite plain that, had Germany and Austria consented to quiet discussion, war might have been avoided.^ Great Britain urged discussion and delay; but the moment was too favorable, Germany thought, and Europe was hurled into war.2 We now know not only the restless craving of the German military class but Germany's position behind the Austrian ultimatum: If Serbia could be crushed, the road to Constanti- nople and the East would be securely in the hands of Germany 1 There is evidence that the German government decided on war early in July, before the rest of the world, save probably Austria, had any idea that war was to come. Indeed, it seems quite probable that plans had been made long before for a war in 1914. The Pan-German party had visions of a wide domination resting on conquest, and the whole military faction was eager to exhibit on the field of battle the superior power and capacity of the empire. 2 Of course the origins of the war were much farther back than the murder of the Archduke or even the German plans to push her power in the near east. The truth is that the military classes, if not the people as a whole, wanted war; militarism was working out naturally. "The true cause of the war is the fact that the powers in Germany which can make war ad- dently desired to do so, and therefore seized upon the assassination, as a German Socialist expressed it, as a gift from heaven." Gauss, Why We Went to War, p. 71. For years the German emperor and the whole military clique had been clattering the sword in the scabbard, even when not actually threatening war. 566 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION and her ally; and if a world war broke out — well, the might of German arms would prevail. The assault on Serbia was made despite the fact that it was fully known that Russia would not consent to German domina- tion in the Balkans and despite the fact that France What would would Stand by the side of her ally. France, fear- Britain do? ing German aggression, as she had done for over forty years, could not stand aloof. What Great Britain would do in case war broke out was perhaps uncertain. Germany expected, or rather tried to believe, that Britain would stay out; Britain did not wish war and made every effort to prevent it, but her efforts were in vain. For years many persons in Germany had carefully nourished ill-will toward England, but the German government appeared to expect nevertheless that the British people would sit by, see France demolished and robbed of her colonies, and quietly accept the supremacy of German military power on the continent and in the Near East. War broke out at the beginning of August; Germany rushed into it pell-mell, much as if the nation had run amuck, to use President Wilson's words of a later day. The Beginnings. easiest Way to reach Paris and crush the very on Belgium. Center of France was through Belgium, a neutral state, whose neutrality had been guaranteed by the larger states of Europe, including Prussia. Germany prepared, then, to pass through Belgium; no small nation, no peace-loving people should stand in her way; if Belgium object- ed, so much the worse for Belgium. Belgium did object, and so did Great Britain. The invasion of the little nation aroused the British people as they have rarely been aroused in their ^history. It was an ill day for Germany when she summoned the sea power of Britain to fight against her.^ The German army beat down Belgian opposition, burned Belgian towns, slaugh- tered peaceful citizens, and awakened the resentment of the world. ^ Turkey joined Germany and Austria; and after a time Bulgaria took a like step. Italy joined Britain and France in the spring of 191 5. Japan and, later, Roumania also entered the conflict on the side of the Allies. THE WORLD WAR 567 Soon after the outbreak of the war in Europe, a proclamation of neutrality was issued by the President and he asked the citi- zens of the United States to ''act and speak in the American true spirit of neutrality." The American people neutrality. y^evQ busily engaged in their own ordinary occu- pations, and had been expecting that, if serious trouble came, it would come from Mexico and not from across the water. As far as we had any diplomatic or foreign policy at all, it was the traditional policy of holding aloof from the broils, the tangled politics and controversies of Europe. ^ At first the people were amazed, dazed and doubtful. Having lived for years in a world apart from the great rivalries and suspicions of Europe, having known of vast armies and forced military service -and heavy armament only from the newspapers, not from experience, having acquired little or no knowledge of "world politics" or having looked upon it as an amusing and dangerous game in which America had no real interest, having been accustomed to think of other nations in a friendly way without cherishing jealousies or suspicions, the American people awoke to see the world in flames. There was no small number of persons who had, it is true, come to this country in recent years, and some of them knew about the military prepara- tions of Europe; some of them had come to America to escape the burdens of a military regime; but it is safe to say that the ^ This general policy of holding aloof from Europe had its beginning in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The question then was whether the United States would continue to be a pawn in the game of European ambitions and rivalries or would live her own life unvexed by the troubles of the old world. Washington's famous farewell address warned against permanent alliances; the belief that the United States should be really independent of European influence was pretty well grounded before the beginning of the nineteenth century. Though the country in 1812 was drawn into the Napoleonic wars, the sentiment continued and found expres- sion in the Monroe doctrine of 1823. The Monroe doctrine objected to the idea that European nations should extend their political system to this hemisphere; but it also included an assertion of our intention not to inter- fere in European afTairs. See ante, p. 274. See "Monroe Doctrine" in Cyclopedia of American Government, or in any of the larger histories of the United States. 568 fflSTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION main body of the people thought little of European conditions. It took time for the masses of the people to see the cause or to appreciate the meaning of the struggle as it unfolded itself before their eyes. There were conflicting sympathies among the dififerent elements of the population, though even this was not so vety noticeable to the common observer during the earlier days of the war. We did not think that we should be drav/n into the war and compelled to take a part not only in the conflict itself but in the whole difficult task of European adjustment and the settlement of the world's peace. In the early months of the war there was much serious dis- cussion and much quiet thought on the whole subject of war and its effects. Many people had been hopinor that. Questions , itt ^ r ii - •, about war. t>y the Hague Conferences and other agencies, the world might be saved from war. Are nations to be reared in feelings of hostility to other nations, or can they learn to live on the basis of neighborliness? WTiat is the cause of the devastating outbreaks? Can civilization be safe if they con- stantly occur? Must a nation constantly build up political authority and extend its dominion if it would be great, or does greatness come from the spirit and from character? Is war to be considered always as possible and at some time ine\dtable? Can militant national spirit be reconciled with democracy? Must men, feeling a strong natural love of country-, strive also for friendliness with others? How is America to support and build up its ideals, — giving opportunity, protecting liberty, encourag- ing indix-idual effort? To what extent was and is preparation for war a duty or a necessity? Probably rational and sensible people answered those questions differently, and probably different answers would be given to-day; but such were some of the thoughts made active by the war. In the early part of 191 5 the German government entered upon the deliberate use of the submarine against enemy mer- chantmen. The waters surroundins; the British The ... submarine. Islands were declared to be a ''war zone," withm which enemy vessels were to be sunk without regard to the safety of crews or passengers, and neutrals were THE WORLD WAR 569 warned that the same fate might befall them.^ Germany thus prepared to carry out on the ocean her chosen principle of "f rightfulness," which, already exhibited in Belgium and north- ern France, had awakened the sympathy of the world for her enemies. Such a course was entirely contrary to the most ele- mentary principles of international law. The ships of one bel- ligerent — one of the powers at war — can capture and send into harbor the ships of another belligerent. Under some circum- stances, as, for example, if it is unseaworthy, the captured vessel may be sunk, but even then the lives of the passengers and crews are to be saved. Neutral vessels may be searched for contraband, and in case a blockade is established the vessel A German Sea Raider. The Submarine "U-14" itself can be seized if it is attempting to run the blockade. Germany's plan, however, contemplated nothing less than using submarines to sink enemy merchantmen on sight, and if neutral ships got sunk by mistake, they must take the consequences of being where they were not wanted. Her excuse was necessity; Great Britain, she claimed, had set up an unlawful blockade of her coast, and as a submarine could not follow the usual and ^ "Even neutral ships are exposed to danger in the war zone, as in view of the misuse of neutral flags ordered on January 31 by the British Government and of the accidents of naval warfare, it cannot always be avoid- ed to strike even neutral ships in attacks that are directed at enemy ships." 570 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION prescribed praciice, the thing to do was to use the new w-eapon ruthlessly and let international law kx^k out for itseh. This w.\5 the beginning of the barbarous method of sea w-arfare which finally brought the United States into the war. If there was to be no restraint on Gennany except her own will, if such principles of warfare were to prevail, then internativ^tnal law w;\s of little or no consequence and the effort of centuries to guard the rights of neutrals and of non-combatants had disapp)eared.^ On May 7. 1015. the British ship Lusitania, on her ^^-ay frv>m Xew York to England with nearly two thouSv\nd pev'^ple on Ixxird, was sunk by a German submarine on the c<.xist of Lusitania. Ireland. 0\*er a thousand persons were drowned, including nearly four hmidred women and children. Among the \'ictims were 124 American citizens. The sinking \vas deliberately planned and carried out with a cv^ld cruelty that makes comment needless and profitless. It stands to-day, and will stand for centuries unless the world sink into barbarism, as a never-to-be-forgvnten crime, one that is cx^nspicuous e^•en in this war with all its unexj^xxned horrors and all its awful losses. President AVilson strv>ngly protested to Germany: but ^ Our go\-emmeni solen\nly warned the German government that, if American vessels wen? desin>yevi or the lives of American citizens wert? lost, we should be "constrained to hoki the Imperial German Cnnernment to a strict accv>untability . . . and to t;ike any steps it might be nect^s&m- to take to safeguard American li\-es and property and to secure to American citi::ens the full enjoyment of their acknowledgevi rights on the high seas." The mer^ fact that Germany had foimd in the submarine a weajx^n which might be used ag;iinst British shipping by the disregard of principles of law did not, of course, justify such a use, above all not to the peril and destruc- tion of innocent neutrals. The declaration of the French government was undoubtevily s^nind: "To sink a c-apturevi vessel is in itself a questionable act. to which rewurse au\ be had only vmder extraorviin;m- cin.umst.inccs and after measures ha\-e been taken to assure the safety of all the crew and piissengers." Our gv^vemment carried on with Great Brit;un corre- sjx^ndenvX" concerning the \vay in which thdt cv>untrA- usevi its power on the sea; and to a number c^f thii\gs we objected. But as to this it may be said, first that Great Britain answered our objections ver>- ably and we cannot now say that beycmd question she xN'as wreaig; and second, if she \\-as technically inv>ng in s».>me of her positions, she did not threaten ordestrey human life' but only projx'rty. which cv^uld be jwid for. It \v.\s well Sviid in Congre^ssthat there^ \N-as much difference between a prixe court and a ioqx>dc». THE WORLD W AR 571 did Uv^t yet advise Amerievi's taking up arms; and. Indeed, though opinionji may well ditTer, it is doubtful it even then the American ptx>ple, though amazeil at the cruelty of the deed and full of indifirnation. were readv to enter the war. IiiE Steam Ship Lusiiama Lkavino Port with uek Him an Freight ox her l.\st \oyaoe Our government use^^i every possible means by argunient and exj.x^stulation to preserve peace — if peace it could be called, _ when our citizens going about their lawful business were deliberately drowned at sea. We learned little by little that nothiiig but a thorough beating — no argu- ment, no appeal to human compassion — could curb the deter- mination of German rulers to have their way. The President wrote sternly: "Manifestly submarines cannot be used against merchantmen, as the last few weeks have shown, without an inevitable \'iolation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity." He warned the imperial go\'ernment that we would not omit any "word or any act" necessary to the performance of our sacred dutv of maiiitaiiiiiii^ the rii^hts of American citizens. 572 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Insult and wrong were heaped on renewed injury and insult before American patience was exhausted and we discovered that we must fight to preserve the semblance of honor and right which were assaulted by a government utterly devoid of both. It is unnecessary to recall the series of tragedies on the sea, as Germany carried on her ruthless warfare month by month. There were times of comparative respite, when Plots and . . ,., , *" 1 • i intrigues. American life and property were not seriously affected and when there seemed some hope that we might avoid war; but it was not to be.^ As the months passed, causes for enmity to Germany multiplied. The everyday Amer- ican citizen found that the land was beset with spies and agents of violence, and he deeply resented their intrusion. We now know that our suspicions and our resentment were more than justified. This whole cunning spy system, the attempts to blow up ships sailing for England from American harbors, the plots to •cause strikes in factories, the secret use of money to affect in one way and another the public opinion of the countr>^,2 were peculiarly obnoxious to people who had been trying to live their own lives and had done no wrong. "Men began to look upon their own neighbors with suspicion and to wonder in their hot resentment and surprise whether there was any community in * "The break would have come sooner if our government had not been restrained by the hope that saner counsels might still prevail in German}'. . . . And the pressure of a faction of German public opinion less hostile to this country was shown when their government acquiesced to some degree in our demands, at the time of the Sussex outrage [1916], and for nearly a year maintained at least a pretense of observing the pledge they made to us." IIoiv the War Came to America (published by the Committee on Public Information, Washington, June, 191 7). The pledge referred to was a prom- ise not to sink merchantmen without warning and saving lives of the people on board. 2 The most irritating revelation was the discovery, when we were on the verv verge of war, that the German government directed their minister in Mexico to bring about an alliance with Mexico and Japan for the purpose of attacking the United States (February, 191 7), in case the United States should not put up with the drowning of her citizens at sea. See among other materials, E. E. Sperry and A. M. West, German Plots and Intrigues, (Committee on Public Information, Red, White and Blue Series, No. 10). THE WORLD WAR 573 which hostile intrigue did not lurk." ^ The whole story of sly intrigue was revolting and made men realize the poisonous character of a conscienceless government that was prepared not only to use force in support of its ambitions, but to rely on intrigue and deceit.^ As the months went by the war widened in its scope and in the number of its participants. Germany and Austria were joined by Turkey and Bulgaria. Italy and Japan were added to the number of Germany's enemies. The war seemed to be sweeping the whole world into its vortex. Battles were fought in Western Asia, in Mesopotamia, in Southwest and East Africa, as well as Serbia, Poland and northern France. The fleets of Great Britain defeated such German ships as could be found, and penned up the rest in the German harbors. British ships tried to pass the Dardanelles and, when they failed, troops were landed at Gallipoli to suffer terribly in an attempt at a land attack upon the Turkish armies. Raids by German airships over London wrought some material damage and took the lives of non-combatant people. Every day seemed to add to the fury, the vehemence and the horror of the struggle. Even before the final steps were taken and we made up our minds that America must enter the war, thoughtful men realized the danger to unsuspecting democracy and free Democracy government if it must live in a world of intrigue stealth. a.nd suspicion. ' For democracy, if it remains de- mocracy, must live in the open and be friendly and open-minded. We could, it appeared, rely on the frankness of the democracies of Europe that were fighting in a death grapple with the malignant power of German militarism. But if Ger- many prevailed and her military masters could point to con- quests and loot as the outcome of the war so carefully planned and so cruelly conducted, the world even for us must be a world of armed might and secret plotting. Our place was by the side 1 President Wilson's Flag Day Address, p. 4. 2 "The Prussian autocracy," said President Wilson, "has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies, and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries, and our commerce." 574 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION of Germany's enemies, because they were the enemies of a vicious and destructive system and an unmoral idea.^ While the war was at its height and public attention was largely taken up with watching its fluctuations and considering • our responsibilities, the presidential campaign of Presidential ^^^^ Came on. It was a foregone conclusion that Campaign, ^^^' Wilsou would be renominated by his party, ^916. but the choice of the Republicans was a matter of much uncertainty. No one knew whether the Progressives, who had cast so many votes four years before, would continue as a third party. Mr. Roosevelt was still so distinctly the leader of the party, and so much depended upon him, that his decision was of unusual importance. If both the Republicans and the Progressives should put candidates into the field, the defeat of both would be inevitable. The conven- tions of the two parties met simultaneously in Chicago ; but they did not succeed in amalgamating at once. The Republicans nominated Justice Charles E. Hughes and Air. Charles W. Fairbanks, who had been Vice-President some years previously. The Progressives chose Theodore Roosevelt and Mr. John M. Parker; but Air. Roosevelt declined to accept the nomination and advocated the election of Hughes. Not all Progressives were reconciled to this step, but though there were some persons who endeavored to keep the party alive, most of its number found themselves in one or the other of the two older parties as the campaign went on. The Republican platform called for ''protection of all Amer- ican rights at home and abroad, by land and sea," "a strict and honest neutrality," "the pacific settlement of platform. international disputes and the establishing of a world court for that purpose"; it denounced the ''indefensible" Mexican policy of the administration, the Demo- ^ For further study see How the W'ar Came to America (Committee on Public Information, Washington, D. C); The War Message and the Facts behind It (Committee on Public Information); The President's Flag Day Speech (Committee on Public Information); A. C. McLaughlin, Sixteen Causes of War (Chicago, 1918); C. L. Speed, ir//>' We Fight (Union League Club, Chicago); C. Gauss, Why We Went to War{N. Y. 1918): A. B. Hart America at War (N. Y., 1918). THE WORLD WAR 575 cratic tariff measures, and approved the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, ''preparedness for complete national defense," and a "tariff protection." Mr. Wilson and Mr. Marshall were renominated by the Democrats. The platform proposed a tariff "adequate for reve- nue under peace conditions, fair to the consumer piatforau * ^^^ ^^ ^^^ producer," and adjustment of burdens of taxation "so that swollen incomes bear their equitable share"; it advocated various measures of social and industrial reform and "the maintenance of an army adequate for the requirements of order, of safety, and of protection of the nation's rights," and "the continuous development of a navy . . . fully equal to the international tasks which the United States hopes and expects to take a part in performing." An- nouncing the conviction that the small states of the world have the same rights to terriiorial integrity and sovereignty as the more powerful nations and that the world has a right to be free from every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in aggres- sion, the platform declared, "We believe the time has come when it is the duty of the United States to join with the other nations of the world in any feasible association that will effectively serve these principles, to maintain inviolate the complete security of the highway of the seas for the common and unhindered use of all nations." In the discussions of the campaign, this last assertion, the idea of a league or association of nations, a topic which later proved of transcendent importance, did not occupy campaign much attention. Mr. Hughes in his speech of accep- and the tance Committed himself to a programme not, it '^^^' would seem, essentially different from that of a ^'feasible association" mentioned in the Democratic platform; he spoke of the desirability of an international organization for international justice and of the desirability of international tribunals. But such matters received no thoroughgoing treat- ment in campaign speeches on either side. Neither was there as much discussion of the responsibilities arising from the war as one would now suppose there would have been. Conditions were still critical; the American government, after the sinking 570 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION" of the Sussex, had very explicitly protested against such offenses and definitely declared that diplomatic relations must be broken unless Gorniany "declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare" against passenger and freight - carrying vessels, and had secured a pledge from Ger- many. But there was no assurance that new difBculties would not arise. The position of our government was fairly clear, and we cannot now see that, unless there were cowardly retreat, we could keep out of the war if Germany did not heed our warn- ings. Some persons, howc\er, tliought the President had in- dulged too much in mere note writing, and ought to act. Others, his supporters, declared he had ke]')t the country out of war and should be roelected on that ground. No one can say how much the war or tlie issue with Germany affected the election, and ]XTha]^s the most careful students of history never will know. There had been much serious consideration on the matter of "preparedness" of the extent and the make-up of the military forces; but it is doubtful if differences on this sub- Preparedness. . ject were really vital in the campaign. If the administration was charged with weakness and unreadiness to meet the coming of war, the Democrats, on the other hand, could point to the fact that the President had advocated in 191 5 substantial increase in national defense and that in the course of the year the Defense Act had provided for a material increase in the army and na\y. Such matters we cannot, cer- tainly now, pass historical judgment upon. Mr. Wilson was reelected by a small electoral majority. He lost New York, on whose vote the result of election is likely to turn, but he carried Ohio with its twenty-four electoral success. votes, California with its thirteen votes, and a large number of trans-!Mississippi states. IMore- over, the popular vote showed that the Democratic president was no longer a minority president; his vote was larger by half a million than that received by Mr. Hughes. The Socialist party cast nearly 600,000 votes. The Progressive vote appears to have gone in considerable degree to support Wilson in Ohio and the W\^stern states.^ ^Wilson, 277 electoral votes, Hughes, 254. Wilson, 9,128,873 popular THE WORLD WAR 577 On the last day of January, 191 7, the German ambassador in Washijigton informed our government that Germany intended to begin a ruthless submarine campaign and sink declared. without Warning any vessel entering a barred zone inclosing nearly the whole coast of Euro[)e.^ The German government had, after the sinking of the Sussex in the spring of 1916, given certain pledges about warning ships and saving passengers, but now Germany prepared to strike out blindly. The iiritish navy had her by the throat and she was ready to fling aside all restraint without res[)ect to neutral rights and the lives of neutral citizens. She defied the world and above all America. Soon after this notice was given, Count von Bernstorff was handed his passports and di[)lomatic rela- tions with Germany were broken. The threat to use the U-boats without restraint was immediately carried out, a number of American lives were lost, and on A])ril 2, 1917, the President appeared before Congress and asked for a declaration of war. Four days later a joint resolution was passed announcing ^'That the state of war between the United States and the Im- perial German Government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared." ^ There was never a better illustration of the old saying that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad; for nothing but madness could explain the conduct of Germany's masters, who drove the richest and potentially the most powerful nation in the world to fight with the allied nations against German might. vote, Hughes, 8,5.^6,380, Benson, Socialist, 590,415. Progressive vote, 42,836. "It is said that a new sectionalism has appeared. The South, the West, the Pacific Coast states and Ohio constitute a new and significant combination against the East and the North." J'rofcssor J. A. Woodburn in American Year Book for 1916, p. 44. Professor Woodburn does not be- lieve, however, that such a new sectionah'sm actually exists. "There was no sectionah'sm in the i)oi>ular vote outside of the S(;uth. It was the candi- dates and the issues, not sectional interest, that determined the voting." Of course the South has been and remains traditionally Democratic. ' Certain privileges promised to an occasional American ship, marked in some bizarre fashion and pursuing a certain narrow route, may be passed over without comment as a mixture of crude humor and quaint insult. ^ We declared war against Austria in December, 191 7. 578 HISTORY OF THE AIMERICAN NATION No few words can properly give our reasons for entering the war against Germany, but they may be briefly summed up, though not adequately, as follows: (i) Knowledge that Germany ruthlessly began the war and we did not believe the United States or the world at large was safe in the presence of such a power if it succeeded; (2) a belief — and doubtless a well-grounded belief — that Ger- Summary of causes. President Wilson and his War Cabinet many if successful would sooner or later, possibly sooner, turn upon us; (3) indignation at Germany's methods in bombarding undefended towns, drop]nng bombs from the skies on sleeping towns and hamlets, and the invention of new barbarities, such as poisonous gas; (4) opposition to Germany's disregard of inter- national law; (5) the resentment over the outrages in Ik^lgium; (6) appreciation of the zeal of German extremists to be a world- power basing her claims and possessions on might alone, a con- tinuing menace to a peaceful world; (7) recognition of the fact that the wrong of drowning our people at sea could not be tolerated; (8) feeling that democratic institutions were endan- gered by intrigue and would be unsafe if military autocracy and deceit succeeded; (9) a realization that two fundamentally THE WORLD WAR 579 opposed principles of life, the j)rinciple of autocracy and the princi[)le of democracy, were now in conflict and that America must stand by the side of the embattled and harassed democra- cies of liritain and France and save her own institutions.^ An American Made De Haviland "4" J>ibkkty Motored Airplane Used by American Aviators in flying over the lines in France At once and with no misgiving, now that the summons had come, America prepared to fight. Ships of war crossed the Atlantic to battle the submarine, and ere long a of an^myf small army was sent to France. The great task, however, was to raise troops by the million and prepare officers for commanding them. For this latter purpose, officers' training cam])s were established, the first opening on May 15 with about 40,000 men enrolled. So eager were the applicants for commissions, so hardworking and capable, that in the course of three months thousands of young trustworthy ^ President Wilson said, "The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be jjlanted upon the tested foundations of [)oliticaI liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind." 580 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION men were fitted to take up the burdensome and unaccustomed duties of military command. Many thousands of volunteers were taken into the service as privates, but it seemed unwise to fight the war with only volunteers; a selective draft or a selec- tive choice appeared to be the just and sensible basis for the new army. In May the selective service or draft act was passed, and before the end of the summer vast camps were established and filled with men. Some troops were sent in 191 7, but it was not till the spring and summer of 191 8 that they began to pour across the Atlantic by the hundred thousand. Germany had thought that we could not raise an army; that, if we did, it could not be transported; and that, if it were, it would not know how to fight. She was mistaken. The situation in the early part of 1918 was exceedingly grave. America was just beginning to send troops in large numbers and there was no assurance that they The critical could be Carried across in time to stop Germany, ipi8. who was putting forth herculean efforts to win. In Russia there had been a revolution in 191 7, the Czar had been overthrown, and it appeared to the Allies that the Russian people after setting up their new government would fight more determinedly than ever for the cause of democracy and a sound peace. But the rise of the Bolsheviki dashed such hopes, for the nation became almost chaotic, and the leaders entered into a shameful peace with Germany and Austria. In March, 1918, the German troops on the western front began a series of terrific drives toward Paris against the allied lines where they hoped to cut them in two. We now see that these onslaughts were the product of desperation, if not despair; but for a time they met with considerable success, and, though the allied armies were not crushed or overwhelmed, the Germans made dangerous gains. All of the allied armies were placed under the command of General Foch. The Americans under General Pershing, already cooperating with the other armies, were preparing Amencan ^^ enter into the fighting in large numbers. In France. J^ty at Chateau -Thierry the American forces did valiant work in helping to stem one of these drives which, if it had carried the Germans much further, would have Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig V' .;I|1 Commanding the English Armies (below) Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch Commander-in-Chief of all the Allied Armies, (left) General John J. Pershing Commander-in-Chief American Expedi- tionary Forces (right) General Armando Diaz Commanding the Italian Armies (above) 582 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION placed them at the gates of Paris. After this repulse the Ger- mans could hold no longer. Little by little, step by step, they were forced back; it was the beginning of the end. Then came an American victory at St. Mihiel, and fierce, continuous, awful struggle in the Argonne and at the Meuse — names which will always be words of honor in American history. Nothing could exceed the dash and zeal and the courage with which these untried Americans fought on the soil of France for honor and a world of justice. America's soldiers, fighting by the side of the A French Tank Crossing No Man's Land heroic w^arriors of Britain and France, helped to turn the tide and did a noble part in defeating the forces whose cruel and merciless leaders had plunged the world into the horrible agony of conflict.^ November ii, 1918, an'armistice was signed, by ^ This war with its gas, and airplane bombardments, and tanks, and submarines, and poisons, and filthy trenches, and dirt, and mud, and star- vation (starvation chiefly for those that did not fight) — with its vast expense (something like two hundred billions of dollars), with its awful loss of life among the most gifted and the most brave, with its millions of mutilated THE WORLD WAR 583 the terms of which Germany was practically placed at the mercy of the Allies. Her vaunted strength was gone, wasted in a ter- rific conflict in which she had hoped to see the world at her feet. The Kaiser fled to Holland, the government passing into the hands of moderate Socialist leaders; the emperor of Austria abdicated; the German and Austrian people cried aloud for bread. The world was at peace or near peace, but what a peace! A peace of desolation for much of France, a peace of misery for Peace I Germany, a peace which sees the nations loaded with debt and sorrow; and still, let us hope, a peace which will beget peace and foster a better, a less fretful, a more human civilization, a peace uninterrupted by the menace of brutality. In the course of the conflict, the President of the United States had laid down a series of general principles in which there appeared to be general acquiescence, not only The Fourteen ^ ^ ^i a • i i , Terms. among the American people, but even — ^perhaps more markedly — in the hearts of the peoples of Europe beyond the confines of Germany; indeed, the announce- ment of these principles may have affected the temper of Ger- mans and Austrians also; for they were on the whole but the principles of clear justice. Most famous of these utterances of the American President were the so-called ''fourteen terms of peace," what he called "the programme of the world's peace." (i) Open covenants of peace openly arrived at. (2) Freedom of navigation on the seas. (3) Removal as far as possible of eco- nomic barriers. (4) Adequate guaranties for reduction of arma- ments. (5) Impartial adjustment of colonial claims. (6) Evacuation of Russian territory and unhampered opportunity for Russian development. (7) The evacuation and restoration and crippled humans, will probably not soon be considered as a time of glory alone; but history books in the past have too often been content with omit- ting the tale of suffering and want and the woe handed down for decades after strife; and these we should, as honest students of history, seek to know and remember, and not simply to admire the thrilling stories of courage. Of courage there was never so much before; of noble readiness to serve and die there certainly was never more before; of suffering and toil and agony there was never so much before. 584 IIISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN NATION of Bcl.i^ium. (8) Frocinii; of FiTuch territory and restoration of invaded portions; the riijjluinjjj of the ^vrong done to France in 187 1 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine. (9) A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy in accord with lines of nationality. (10) Autonomous ri.u;hts for the various i)eoi)les of Austria-Hungary. (This was afterwartis modilied because of the successful revolt of Bohemia, which made mere autonomy insufficient and inde- pendence necessary.) (11) Readjustments in the Balkans; restoration, free access to the sea for Serbia. (12) The Dar- danelles nuist be a free ])assage; freedom for the oppressed nationalities under Turkish rule, (i An inde])endent Polish state. (14) A general association of nations for the ]")ur]K)se of alTording nuitual guaranties of ])olitical independence and terri- torial integrity to great and small states alike. We had come to see that ])eace and the permanence of a develop- justice and ing civilization (kMuanded the recognition of sub- a real peace. stantial justice in world alTairs; America could not stand alone untouched by the disorder or the uneasiness of the rest of mankind; if a selhsh and grasping government in Germany were overthrown, that was a long step forward and furnished gnnmd for ex])ectation that a ])eace founded on the needs and desires of ]XH)ple might be obtained and might be made secure. iUit we had been drawn against our will and our traditions into a European conllict, and we had the right to ask that the affairs of Europe be arranged with respect for the ]>rinciples of right and reason. Those who had sulTered the unspeakable cruelty of an unspeakably cruel and (le\'astating war turned to the conference of the victors at Paris, hoping that out of delibera- conference. tions, buttressed by the determination and the good-will of mankind, would come a new and a better condition oi the world. To the peace conference, which met at Paris, President Wilson himself went to represent the United States. With him were Secretary of State Lansing, E. M. House and Henry White. Among the rei^resentatives from other countries were Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour from Great Britain, M. Clemenceau from France, and Premier Orlando from Italy. On February 14, 1919, the conference THE WORLD WAR 585 received a plan for a League of Nations. At the end of Ai)ril, an amended plan was i)ut forth containing various nu)dilicii- tions, most of them called for by si)ecilic criticisms in America of the original i)lan. This the peace conference adopted on A])ril 28, iQig. The Peace Treaty, presented to the German delegates (May, 1919) is an elaborate document which can be but im- perfectly summarized here. It jirovides for a League The Peace of Nations, composed of some twenty-seven nations, Treaty. j-joi^ including Russia or Germany and the nations associated with her in the war. While the main object of the League is to prevent w^ar, it is assigned duties arising from the provisions of the treaty. Alsace-Lorraine, taken from France in 1871, is returned to her, and she is also given as payment on account and because her own mines were wantonly destroyed, the coal mines of the Saar Valley, the region itself to be governed temporarily by the League and to be later restored to Germany if the i)eople so elect. Pro- vision is made {olr payment of damages to civilian property and also for the re])lacement of sunken ships. German naval and military establishments must be greatly reduced and the independence of Poland and Czecho-Slovakia is acknowledged. Former colonies of the em])ire are taken away and entrusted to the League. Llolland is to be asked to give u]) the person of the former emperor and he is to be publicly arraigned that he maybe tried on the charge of "a sui)reme offense against international morality and the sanctity of treaties." It is probable that no one in Germany now believes that warfare is a paying enterprise. But all her humihation and all promises of financial reparation will not banish the Woe brought upon millions and millions of j)e()])le by the horrible calamity of the war. The only payment must be in the hope of a lasting peace and a better civilization. At the end of the great conflict, one fact stands out promi- nently amid all the confusion and perplexity. Autocracy and irres])()nsible monarchical government are gone and seem to be gone for good. In 1776 the American people, few in number, building themselves up into a new nation on the edge of a conti- 580 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION nent, appealed in the Declaration of Independence to the "opin- ion of Mankind," and announced that governments obtain their ''just powers from the consent of the governed." Little by little the old aristocratic England with whom the colonists had fought for independence became a democracy, with a gov- ernment, though headed nominally by a king, responsible to the word of the people. France in the seventies established a repub- lic. Italy became united and founded also a responsible govern- ment. Thus the great changes went on. Before the end of the great war, the Romanoffs of Russia, the Haj^sburgs of Austria, the Hohenzollerns of Germany, had been swept from their thrones. In looking out upon the world to-day, America must feel the responsibilities of its position. America, it would seem, must do its wholesome part in making for a world of justice, right and honor on the basis of consent of the governed. Wheth- er we assume new and burdensome international responsibilities of a formal character or not, we must face the responsibility of being an old established democratic nation and walk steadily and hopefully with our burdens and our duties. We are no longer a mere thread of people on the margin of a continent but a tried democracy with a great territory and a numerous people. APPENDIX 38 u HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION fin I S i ^ « ^ 1 a tn H U > 1 5 1^ TjH 05 O CO ■* O "* CO --1 1-f c«; 05 O OC lo CO Tt CO in 1 a ei H W 9 > w3 CO 1— i r-l O CO CO n 1 U3 cJ5 ■Jl o c n U George Washington. John Adams. John Jay. Rich'd H. Harrison. John Rutledge. John Hancock. Scattering. Vacancies. George Washington. John Adams. George CHnton. Thomas Jefferson. Aaron Burr. Vacancies. John Adams. Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Pinckney. Aaron Burr. Scattering. Thomas Jefferson. Aaron Burr. John Adams. Chas. C. Pinckney. John Jay. 1 Federalist. Federalist. RepubHcan. Republican. Federalist. Republican. Federalist. Republican. Republican. Republican. Federalist. Federalist. Total elec- toral vote CO lO 00 00 i> CO ^ CO 1-t 1— ( 1— 1 Num- ber of States O lO CO o tH ,-1 »-I r-l It 1 CI o Oi 00 T-i CO 1-1 APPENDIX ui (M Tt< fO t^ 05 CO CO CO >— I >—• ■^ r-l CO CO 00 COC^JiO'^CO'^OOGO'^ GO (M y-* »HC0C 1> 00 §5 -. o bo en bC !« »-c ;3 M d c! 0) 3 05 00 r}H CO 00 CO t>. 00 (N T-i C ^ en :3 O a, a, (U Cu P^O o 00 c3 CI d rt c^ c^ c^ c^ ^u ^u _cj u 3 d ^3 :3 Cu ex Dh Ci< (U OJ OJ 0) (N 00 I .yp^ u CO CO 00 i-t lO T-H 1-1 t>. l> 1—1 (N CO CO CO tH I— 1 (N l> 00 Ol Tfi -* "* 1—1 irH i-i rH (N (N • a. 5 2 > 0505'-it^O(Nt>l>t>.CO Tj^OO —ii-iOiO COl^ rjt OOTtHi-i CO -^t^TjHC^ C0-<* I-H t^O CO(N iO i-H y-t (N i-li-Ht-Hi-iC^ o c c3 Martin Van Buren. John Sergeant. Henry Lee. Amos Ellmaker. William Wilkins. R. M. Johnson. Francis Granger. John Tyler. William Smith. John Tyler. R. M. Johnson. L. W. Tazewell. James K. Polk. George M. Dallas. Theo. Frelinghuysen. Millard Fillmore. William 0. Butler. Charles F. Adams. William R. King. en H Z W Q w H O > Elec- toral Oi --H t>. (M 1—1-^1—1 (M OCOCDTt^.-1-^O OlO COt^ -"^ I>J>(M'-(tHCOCD t>.0 CD(M r- ( C-H I— I 0< ' i-i a 687,502 530,189 33,108 05 CD l>(MOi C000O'-i':t0^ (M^OCO'-HiOfM-^ i-T cd" 10 cc t>^ t^*" cT (m" 0" o~ --r r-7 CD CO l>(M COOiOcDtMCsO T-l I— 1 T— 1 i-T r-T 1— ( t-t in 10 i>^'^~^ I— ( I— 1 1-H en o "(^ -5 c a U Andrew Jackson. Henry Clay. / John Floyd. 1 William Wirt. Vacancies. Martin Van Buren. Wm. H. Harrison. Hugh L. White. Daniel Webster. Willie P. Mangum. Wm. H. Harrison. Martin Van Buren. James G. Birney. James K. Polk. Henry Clay. James G. Birney. Zachary Taylor. Lewis Cass. Martin Van Buren. Franklin Pierce. O. 1 Democratic. National Republican. Anti-Mason. Democratic. Whig. Whig. Whig. Whig. Whig. Democratic. Liberty. Democratic. Whig. Liberty. Whig. Democratic. Free Soil. Democratic. Total elec- toral vote 00 -^ . Tjf 10 CD 00 05 01 t^ a a 0^ C^ M (M .i-l 00t>CC'-li-i(N00T-(GO(NcOTt< GOGO 1— IrHi—l (N(N..-( yoi-^co^-^y-l^iO 1-1 CO O Oi 00 GO O»0OCOcOiM t^ rH t^ l> o o lOOOTflC^COiOCOOt^ U3rHT-i(MiOCOt^iOi— iOt> O CO O O Tj< CO OCOt^iOcOOOCOO OOGO'-l'^OiOOiiOcOGO >0 05 t^^Tj^ oTio" C0TjHrHa5(MO(Mt^(N GOOCOrfit^cO'^GOt^'-iO ^ o O CO iM CO 00 GO ■^t^ Tt^ O rH cot-icocogogocxdioco(Mco O 1> lO 00 O (M Tt< r}< CO J— ( 1— I I— 1 I— 1 1— 1 C^ 1— I CO (M CO '' '• • Oi 05 • • • tH I-l 1— I 1-1 CS 1— c>^c^ < O > Id a > P l4 tn C5 .tJ on c - "^ d to OJ a> +j ^ C/i ^ 4j pL, O CO I— »^ I— »C/3 u c3 O .w _ 5 ^ =^ !d u 03 O ^ a1 ^ S t/^ ^ a> ^ P:. Q p^ < p^ Q U ^ P^ Q fl o rrt •)-> CJ . 00 00 00 GO 00 «-^-^ o CJ ^ *Q U Oj ^ •-' 5 pi »0(M-'i-lCT)t^ o i^ l^ .-HCO-' C0O-- l>Tt -l --(Mr-I 05 c T. A. Hendricks. J. A. Logan. William Daniel. A. M. West. L. P. Morton. A. G. Thurman. J. A. Brooks. C. E. Cunningham. Adlai E. Stevenson. Whitelaw Reid. J. G. Field. J. B. Cranfield. C. H. Matchett. G. A. Hobart. • ' Arthur Sewall. ■ Thomas E. Watson. 1 Arthur Sewall. f Hale Johnson. \ J. H. Southgate. S. B. Buckner. Mathew Maguire. jj K* o <.— s "^ 1 _> O(M---e0G0---t>-i0(M--i-l o .... ^ y 2 rHOO---COO---t^Tt<(M.-t^ t> • •• 5S S2 Ol --1 • • • (N ^ • • • (N --I • • • (M 1-t '^ •^i> •fc.4 s t^TtiOiiO'M^'I^O'OC-lOOOOOOCOTtlTtl lO O (MO ^*^ Ui '-lcOOC^OlOCOOi'4^'-^'-HOCNCOO■^ CO O iO-h Jj w cij R, '^ '^ "^ "^ ^ ^ "-"l R. '^ '^., ""I '-''"''"' "^^ ^ '^ O ■* O) '--^00rH~l^0~'--^C^00C^^-^OcDO'-H'Tl^"T-^-<:l^ o rfT TjTo ^ O --HTjiiOCOT-iTt^COiOrtfT-liOl^TjiOCslO O ■<*< COCO Ph OlOOi-Hi— 1 TlHlC(Ml— 1 »OrHO0 kOlOr-T l>CO ^ y^ H O00---OG0---C0':0iO--C0 v d !5 JH ^5§ Co i aj(uS»H aj O^ o o O O Tt< Ttl HlJS > tJ< rf TJ^ ^ S ^.^ _§ CO CO ■* LO <^ CO CO CO '^ -^ Tt< 00 >< aj ■!-> 00 CO 00 00 r-t I-H 1-t i-l APPENDIX vu (N CD CO 1-t to 00 00 CO 00 t^ JO t:) ^ s=; _M ^ > o (U CJ el. trban vis. 1 o QJ,'i^ ;-! H oj rt c c3 p^ CO*^ S^Q P u Theo. A. E. H. B. O 1—1 V. Re C.W. H. G. Benjai G. W. • a; r-( (M to 00 00 (M CO CO (X) CO -H Tti in — : -^ A. ^ ^ ^ •'^'£ . C^ JZl 1^ "^ -73 o == S^ 44 ci 0) oj -GitoOCOOOC^ltOC^C<)tOt--.GOtOtOC^t^OO'— tOC^CiCOt^OC^O^O'— lO coco'■ootoci_c^_^G^cJ5(^^c^cO'-HTt^_c^TtoOl-^c>0(^alO(^^c^ococ^ CD ^' o6' '*' o i-H GO CO 'i^' cT ^-^ ^C 1^^ 00 T-4" to CO CO o CO '^^'^ 00 (M i-H '^ GO (M 1-H to (M to Ot^OOOCO(MCicX)iO(Mi— iCOCi'-fi^ CflCOlM CD_O^CO(M i-H cO_ CO^ 'rfi c^ i>co t^io i>ro CO^t^CO ooo 00 1> (NrH (M CO CO 1— t (N t^ O to C^ 1—1 TjH ooo CO rH M c^ ^ ^ S3 O !^ on 9^. C ^-g^ be O 1J rn >i rn •— ^ o ffi 2i 3i- ^ ^ e^ 5^ o b Q S ^d > pi^ S 5 ted ffiwss bcbcboo o o S ■— - '^ (-! -H -! . .•— r— -! -: --i r-i (-1 O (-< K^^^ rt I/) O U) ^ w o u^ u^ r-i ►-^ K.^ . ,J^ , 1 ^ . . ,. K_ ^ .-> ..J ri-H F^-l K^ ,J_( >,_ 3 3 1-1 •^ )_ (3j jG-t: ;3 3^^ u c t« a> CX c -t? •- -n . • O , >- c.y g C_g CJ CTJ CJ Mi 0-5 ;5 h Q -ti HJ o U of the State and dis- trict wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. ARTICLE VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the com- mon law. ARTICLE VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. ARTICLE IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. ARTICLE X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitu- tion, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. xxii HISTORY OF THE AMERIC.\X NATION ARTICLE XI The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state. ARTICLE XII The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same S^ate with themselves; they shaU name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President; and they shaU make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the L'nited States, directed to the President of the Senate; — the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate' and House of Representatives, open aU the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; — the person having the greatest number of votes for President shaU be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors ap- pointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the per- sons ha\*ing the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of aU the States shall be necessar>- to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of ^March next following, then the \lce-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disabihty of the President. The person ha\-ing the greatest number of votes as Vice- President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the Hst the Senate shall choose the \'ice-President ; a quorum for the purpose shaU consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a ma- jority of the whole number shall be necessarj- to a choice. But no APPENDIX xxiii person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. ARTICLE XIII Sect, 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly con- victed, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Sect. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ARTICLE XIV Sect. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, dnd subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Sect. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the sev- eral States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representa- tion therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citi- zens twenty-one years of age in such State. Sect. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or mihtary, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Con- gress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, ixiy HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or com- fort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may. by a vote of two- thirds of each House, remove such disabihty. Sect. 4. The ^*alidity of the pubhc debt of the United States, authorized by law. including debts incurred for pa\Tnent of p)ensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States, nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebelhon against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obliga- tions, and claims shall be held illegal and \*oid. Sect. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appro- priate legislation, the pro\-isions of this article. ARTICLE XV Sect. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or pre\ious condition of ser\-itude. Sect. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ARTICLE X\T The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apporuonment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. ARTICLE XVII The Senate of the United States shall bo composed of two Sena- tors from each State, elected by the p>eople thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one \*ote. The electors in each State shall have the quahnoitions requisite for electors of the most nu- merous branch of the State legislatures. When \-acancies happ>en in the representation of any State in the Senate, the execurive authority of such State shall issue writs of elec- tion to nil such vacancies: PrcTiJointmenis until the people fill the \-acandes by election as the legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the elec- tion or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. APPENDIX XXV ARTICLE XVIII Sect. 1. After one year from the ratilication of this article the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating Hquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territories subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Sect. ::. The Congress and the several States shall have con- current power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. INDEX Abercrombie, io8. Aoolitionists, 296, 315-317, 320, 368; persecuted, 316. Acts of trade, 137. Adams, Charles F., 341, 419. Adams, Charles F., Jr., quoted, 488. Adams, John, quoted, 121, 122, 138, 152; defends British soldiers, 147; peace commissioner, 176, 177; Vice-President, 198, 208; Presi- dent, 215-221; character, 215; portrait, 215; candidate for Presi- dent, 220. Adams, John Q., Secretary of State, 257; quoted, 257, 258; elected President, 279; administration, 279-288; portrait, 280; character, 280; opposed to gag rule, 318. Adams, Samuel, portrait, 113; letter to the Colonies, 145; in the town meeting, 147; favors war, 152. Advertisement for a runaway slave, 115; Jrom New York Gazette, 1771, 123. Agriculture, development of West and, 541. Aguinaldo, 521. Alabama, admitted, 267; joins Con- federacy, 382, 387; readmitted, 441. Alabama claims, 419, 448, 449. Alabama letters, 322. Alabama, the, 419. x^laska purchased, 443, 520; boun- dary of, 529. Albany Congress, 104. Alexander VI, bull of, 17. Algeria, trouble with, 224. Alien law, 218. Allouez, 100. Amendments, first ten, 196; eleventh, 213, 214; twelfth, 221; thirteenth, 426, 473; fourteenth, 438, 439. 440, 441; fifteenth, 446; sixteenth, 533, 534; seventeenth. 553; eighteenth, see Appendix, XXV. America, discovery of, by Columbus, 7; naming of, 12. American colonies, 519, 520; policy toward, 520, 521; conditions in, 5 2 1; American Federation of Labor, 492. American people, condition of, in 1765, 112-131; in 1830, 293-297; to-day, 552-562. See also Indus- trial conditions. Amherst, General Jeffrey, 109. Anderson, Major, 381, 386, 387. Andre, Major, 170. Andros, Sir Edmund, 71, 77, 79. Annapolis Convention, 189. Annexation of Louisiana, 230-233; of Florida, 268; of Texas, 321-326; of Oregon, 327; of California and the West, 336; Gadsden purchase, 336; of Alaska, 443; of the Philip- pines, 519, 520; of Porto Rico, 519; of Hawaii, 500, 520. Antietam, battle of, 403. Appomattox, surrender of Lee at, 427. Arbitration, of Venezuelan dispute, 510; treaty, 510; of coal strike dif- ferences, 543; of Alaskan bound- ary dispute, 529; Hague confer- ence, 530, 531. See also Alabama Claims, Seal Fisheries. Archduke of Austria, assassination of, 565, 566. Arkansas, admitted, 305; secedes, 387; readmitted, 441. Armada, the, 23. Arnold, Benedict, attacks Quebec, 158; treason, 170. Aroostook war, 313. Art in America, 559. Arthur, Chester A., elected Vice- President, 467, 468; becomes President, 470; character, 470; administration, 470-473. xxvii xxviii HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Articles of Association of First Con- tinental Congress. 151. Articles of Confederation. See Con- federation, Ashburton treaty, the. 313. Asia, desire to reach. S. Assembly, first in America, ss- Association, the. 151. Assumption of State debts. 204. Atlanta, capture of, 420, 425; growth of. 43C^- Atlantic cable. 443. Austria, entrance of, into World War. 565; abdication of emperor of. 5S3. Azores, the, 17. Bacon's rebellion, 2,^. Balboa, 13. Ballot reform, 502, 503. Ball's Blutl. battle of. 400. Baltimore, Lord, 41; founds Mar\-- land, 41. Bancroft, George, 294, 326. Bank, the first, 205; the second, 257-250; new charter vetoed. 302; removal of deposits, 303; National Bank Act, 412, 413. Balkan peninsula, international im- portance of. 564. Barbar>- war, 224. Barclay, Commodore. 240. Barlow, Asa. 477. Barnburners, the. 340. Beauregard, General, 3S6, 390. Behaim globe, 9. Belgium, invasion of, 566. Belknap. W. W.. 453. Bell. John, nominated for President, 377' Belligerency of Confederacy. 302. Bennington, battle of, 165. 166. Benton, Thomas H., quoted. 259, 330; offers expunging resolution, 304- Berkeley. Lord John. 7S. Berkeley, Sir William, 37; quoted, 3^' 30- Berlin Decree, 239. Bill of Rights, 162. Bimetallism, 504. Birmingham, 4S6. Birney. James G.. s~~- Black, Jeremiah S., 365, 3S0. Blaine, J. G., 4DO, 4(37; Secretary- of State, 468, 498-500, 503; nomi- nated for presidency, 472. Blair. Francis P.. Jr.. nominated for vice-presidencv. 4;:;. Bland-Allison Bill. 4V2. Bonds, issue of, 510. ■> Booth. J. W., 433. Boston, founded. 50; early settle- ment of, 62. 63; map, 15O; evacu- ated by British, 158. Boston massacre, the, 147. Boston Port Bill, 14S. 149. Boston Tea Party, the. 148. Boundary- of the United States. 177. 17S. 313- 3-S. 35^' 449- 55-- •^'"'' also Annexation. Braddock's defeat. 105. ic6. Bradford. William, qugted, 51-55; his manuscript historv, q^. Bradley. J. P., 457. Bragg. General, 309. 410, 411. Brand\-wine, battle of, 167. Breckinridge, John C, elected Vice- President, 363; nominated for President, 376. Bristow. B. H.. 453. Brooks. Preston S., 362. Brown. B. G.. nominated for vice- presidency. 450. Brown. General J.. 251. Brown, John, raid of. 375, 376; his fort. 375. Bryan. William J., 512; 522, 551. Buchanan, James. Secretary- of State, 326; minister to England. 354; elected President. 363: por- trait. 365; character, 365; admin- istration, 365-384; message, 380; the Southern forts, 3S0. 38 1. Buckner. Simon B., 512. Buell, General. 39S. Buena Vista, battle of, 334. Building ordinances, 546. Bull of demarcation, 17. Bull Run, battle of, 390; second bat- tle of. 403. Bunker Hill, battle of, 156. Bureau of Corporations. 531. Burgoyne. General John, 165; sur- renders, 166. INDEX XXIX Burke, Edmund, 152; (juDtod, Sq, 121, 1^1, ij,u, 141, 145. Bur aside, (lenenil, 403. Burr, Aaron, candichite for Vice- President, 215; elected Vice-Presi- (.lent, 220, 2 21 ; duel with Hamil- ton, 228; conspiracy, 22c). Butler, Beniamin l'\, 472. Butler, William ()., 340. Cabinet, the fust, 200-202; nature of, 201; chan^a'S in, 213, Cable, Atlantic, 443. Cabot, John, 0, 10. Calhoun, John C, enters Congress, 244; Secretary of War, 257; prin- ' ciples, 262, 299, 346, 382; quoted, 264, 298, 300, 330; Vice-President, 279, 2S(); portrait, 2()(); resigns vice-presidency, 301; position, on annexation of Texas, 321; on slaxery, 340, 346. California, desire to obtain, 320; conquered, 334; annexed, ^i,j!,b; gold discovered, 343; admitted, 343-347^; growth of, 475, 476, 480. Calvert, Cecilius, 41. Calvert, Cicorge, 41. Sec also Balti- nu^re, Lord. Camden, battle of, 172. Cameron, Simon, 386, 395. Canada, trade relations with, 534. See also New France. Cape Verde Islands, 17, Capitol, site for, 204, 205. Carolinas, the, early history, 44-47; charter, 44; map of grant, 45; be- ginning of North Carolina, 45; l)eginning of South Carolina, 45; Locke's "(Irand Model," 46; in eighteenth century, 91, 92, 93; become royal colonies, 91. See also North Carolina and South Carolina. Caroline alTair, the, 313. Carjiet-bag go\ernment, 442, 447. Carroll, Charles, 284, 285. Carteret, Sir deorge, 78. Carteret, Philip, 78. Cartier, Jacques, 19. Cass, Lewis, writes Nicholson letter, 339; nominated for President, 340; Secretaryof State, 365; resigns, 380. Cattle industry, 481, 482, 541. Caucus SNStem, 277, 278. Cavaliers, inuuigration of, 36. Cedar Creek, l)attle of, 418. Central Pacific Railroad, 478. Cerro Cordo, battle of, 335. Cervera, Admiral, 517, 518. Champlain, Sanuiel de, 98. Chaucellors\ille, battle of, 408. Chapultepec, battle of, 335. Charles 1, 35. 3(), 55. Charles 11, 38, 44, 45, 70. Charleston founded, 45; attackefl by Hritish, 158, 172; conxention at, 378; map, 387. Charleston Mercury, 379. Chase, Salmon P., 353; Secretary of Treasury, 386; resigns, 423; made Chief Justice, 423; presides at impeachnu-nt trial, 441. Chatham. .SVc Pitt, William. Chattanooga, battle of, 411. Cherry Vallex' massacre, 171. Chesapeake, the affair of the, 238. Chicago, 247, 306, 506. Chickamauga, battle of, 410. Child labor laws, 544. Chili, trouble with, 499. China, attitude of U. S. toward, 529. Chinese, exclusion of, 471. Chippewa, battle of, 252. Christ Churih, Boston, \icw of, ()6. Christina, l'\)rt, 75. • Cities, growth of, 484, 485, 538; problems of, 546; commission government of, 547. Sec also Industrial Conditions. Civil Rights bill, 437, 438. Ci\'il service reform, 450, 470, 494, .4Q5- Civil war, causes, 376-384; progress, 387-429; losses, 431; effects, 445, 446. Clark, Cieorge Rogers, services, 171, 172. Clark, William. See Lewis and CUark. Clay, Henry, as speaker, 243, 244; ix)rtrait, 244; and the Missouri comjiromise, 273; candidate for President, 278; Secretary of State, 281; character, 303; candidate for presidency, 303, 322; in 1840, 310; XXX HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION quoted, 310, 345; offers compro- mise of 1850, 345; death, 353. Clermont, the, 234. Cleveland, Grover, elected Presi- dent, 472, 473; life and character, 493; portrait, 493; first adminis- tration, 493-498; renominated, 497; Hawaiian policy, 500; re- nominated and elected, 503, 504; second administration, 504-513; Venezuelan message, 509. CUnton, De Witt, and the Erie Canal, 262. Clinton, George, Vice-President, 240. Clinton, Sir Henry, 158, 169. Cobb, Howell, 365, 380. Cold Harbor, battle of, 416. Colfax, Schuyler, elected Vice-Presi- dent, 443, 444. Colombia and the Panama Canal, 525: Colonies, European, in America, 1650, 75; map showing types of government in, 93. See also English Colonies, English Colon- ization, French Colonization, etc. Colorado, 475. Columbus, Christopher, 6; first voy- age, 7; discovers America, 7; other discoveries, 7; portrait of, 7; death of, 8; map of voyages of, 8. Commerce, with the East, 2; New England, in 1760, 121; regulation of interstate, 489, 495, 534. Commission government, 547. Committees of Correspondence, 147. Compromise, in Constitutional Con- vention, 191, 192; Missouri, 272, 273; of 1833, 301; of 1850, 345- 347. 35i» 356; the Crittenden, 381. Comstock lode, the, 475. "Concessions, the," 78. Concord, battle of, 154. Conestoga wagon, 264. Confederacy, Southern, formed, 382; belligerency acknowledged, 392; difficulty in supporting war, 429. Confederation, Articles of, proposed, 169, 180; ratified, 180; character of, 180-182; trouble during, 182- 184, 188. Confederation, New England, 69, 70. Congress, the Albany, 104. See also Continental Congress. Congress of the Confederation, powers of, 1S0-182. Conkling, Roscoe, 466, 467, 468, 469. Connecticut, 66-68; fundamental orders of, 67; charter, 70; in con- federation, 69; in eighteenth cen- tury, 90; western claims of, 185, 186. Conservation of natural resources, 539. 540. Constitution, framed, 190-195; char- acter of, 193, 194, 196; ratified, 195, 196; broad and strict con- struction, 206, 282. Constitution, the, battle of, with the Guerriere, 248; cut of, 248. Constitutions, first State, 159, 161. Continental Congress, the First, 150; its declarations, 150; Arti- cles of Association, 151. Continental Congress, the Second, meets, 155; incompetency, 168, 169. Convention, the Federal, meeting of, 189, 190; membership, 190; work of, 190-193. Cooley, Judge Thomas M., 495. Cooper, J. Fennimore, 293. Cornwallis, General, 164; bafHed by Washington, 164; in the South, 172-175; bafiled by Lafayette, 174; surrenders, 175. Coronado, 14. Corporations, 489; and politics, 531, 532; machinery and, 541; control of, 542. Cortez, Hernando, 15. Cosby, Governor, 90. Cotton, 270, 271, 372, 392, 396; after Civil War, 486. Cotton gin, 270; picture of, 270. Court, Federal, established, 203, 225; second judiciary act, 224, 225; judges impeached, 226; de- velopment of, 227. Court, general. See Fundamental Orders. Courtesy of the Senate, 469. Cowpens, battle of, 174. INDEX XXXI Crandal, Prudence, 316. Crawford, William H., 257, 278. Credit Mobilier, 452. Crittenden, Senator, 381. Crown Point, attacked by English, 106; taken by Americans, 155. Cuba, desire to obtain, 354, 380; re- bellion in,_5o8, 515; United States declares independence of, 517; war in, 517, 518; under control of United States, 519, 522; complete independence of, 522; relations of United States with, 530. Culebra cut on Panama Canal, 525. Cumberland road, 261; map of, 261. Currency, 257, 412, 413, 429, 454, 504, 510; demonetization of sil- ver, 461; Bland-Allison Bill, 462; the silver question. 461, 462, 495, 496, 501. 505. 506, 510-512; the Sherman Act. 501, 505. Dallas. GeoigeM., Vice-President 322 Davis, Jefferson. 353; Confederate President, 382; portrait 383. Dayton. William L., 363 Dearborn General. 250. Debt, national, 203, 204, 431, 444; State, assumption of, 204. Declaratory Act, 143. Delaware, early history of, 75, 84. Democracy, 276, 293, 296, 297, 569. Democratic party, divided, 376; at- titude toward the war, 395. See also Party. De Soto, 13. Detroit, founded, loi, 102; surren- der of, 247. Development of the United States, 552-562 Dewey, Commodore, 517. Dickinson, John, 145. Direct primaries, 502, 503, 547. Discovery, Spanish, 13-15. Distribution of surplus revenue, xo< "Divorce Bill," 309. Dixon, Archibald, 355. Donelson, Andrew J., 363. Donelson, Fort, 397, 398. Douglas, Stephen A., supports Kan- sas-Nebraska bill, 356, 358; de- bate with Lincoln, 369; nomi- nated for President, 377. Draft, the, 414; riots, 414. Drake, Sir Francis, voyages of, 22. Dred Scott case, 366. Duane, William J., 303. Duquesne, Fort, 105, 106, 109. Dutch, the, settle in America, 73, 74; lose New Netherland, 76; charac- ter of, 77. Early, General, 417. East, the, trade with, 2; books on, 3. See also China and Japan. Education, in colonies, 39, 62, 63, 117, 122, 125; in the United States, 295, 297, 558, 559; in the South, 374, 375; in the Philip- pmes, 530. Eighteenth century, character of, ^?>, 89, 95; history of, 87-94. El Caney, battle of, 518. Election of 1789, 198; 1792, 208; 1796, 215; 1800, 220; 1804, 228; 1808, 240; 1812, 246; 1816, 257; 1820, 257; 1824, 278, 279; 1828, 288, 289; 1832, 302, 303; 1836, 307; 1840, 309-311; 1844, 322, 323; 1848, 340-342; 1852, 352; 1856, 2>()3, 364; i86o, 376-378; 1864, 423-425; 1868, 443, 444; 1872, 450, 451; 1876, 454-45S; 1880, 466-468; 1884, 472, 473; 1888, 497; 1892, 503, 504; 1896, 511-513; 1900, 522; 1904, 531; 1908, 531; 1912, 549, 550; 1916, 576. Electoral Commission, the, 457. Electoral count act, 494. Electoral reform, 502, 503. Ellsworth, Oliver, 190, 203. Emancipation Proclamation, 405; issued, 406; facsimile of, 407; re- sults, 408. Embargo, 239. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 294; quoted, 296. Employers' hability acts, 544, 545. Endicott, John, 57. England, in sixteenth century, 20; hatred . of Spain, 21; in seven- teenth century, 35, 36; claims in eighteenth century, 87, 94; wars with France, 87, 97-1 11, 236; condition of, in eighteenth cen- XXXll UlSrORV OF THE AMERICAN NAITOX tur\-, io6; represoRtation in. 153- 135; trv^ublo wiih. iSo. -00. 31^;; at war with Fnmce. ^00. 210. ^30; War of 1S12. ^45-^55; treaty with. .vYe" Treaties: acknowKxIgos belligerency of South. 30^: and the Trent alTair. 3o^: Alakmia trv^uble. Sife Alab;ima Claims; se;vl fisheries question. 400. 507; Sa- moiin question. 400; Wnezuela question. 500. 510; relation of United States with. 5^0: reaction of. to inx-asion of Heliiium. 500; entran^v of into World War. 500; Ciennany bUxkadevl b\\ 5tK), English church. 45. English colonies. jx^litiaU character. 88. 80; in eighteenth ».-entury. 87- 05; strength of, in French and Indian War. 107; tx>nditions in. in 1700, 11:1-13^; schools. 117. 12:2, 1 25; loa\l government. 120- 12q; forms of g^nernment. 130, 131; spirit of liberty in. 131. English ivlonization. motives for. -4. 25: character of. 102. English. W. H., nominated for Vice- l\esident. 4t>7. Entente coaiiale. 5t>4. Em of g^xxl feeling. 257. 2S0. Erie Canal. .0^; map of, 202; pic- ture of kx'k of. 263. F.n>kiue lawty. 241. Essex, cniise of. 253. Eveani. Edw;vrd. 204: quotc\l, 354: nominatevi for \"ice - l^resident. 377- Excise bill. H:imillon's, 205; opposi- tion to. 208. 200. Exjvmsion. jx^licy of. 5^0. 520. Expunging resolution. 304. Factory s>-^teni. 4^3. Fair Oaks, kutle of. 401. "Fanner's l.eners." 145. Farragut. David C 4^"'- 418 Frt/<"ni/#,.\/, the. 105. Federalist jx\rty, 207. 218; downfall. 220; a>nspiracy, 237, iaS. .Sfc t}lvt> Tarty. Field. James C. 504. Fi^lnu^re. Millarvl. eUvtevi \ i^v- l^^sident, 341; I'^^i^ident. 348- 352; character. 34S; nominated for President. 303. Financial questions. See Currency Hanks, Debt. Fisheries, the. 440. 450. Five Nations, the. ^r** Iroquois. Florida, annexed. 2(>^; admitted, 342: joins Confederacy. 382. 387; readmitted. 441; election of 1S76 in. 450. Florida. West. Spanish claim to, 178. 231. 208: seized. 232. Floyd. John B.. 305, 380. Fovh. Ferdinand, 580. l\x^te. Commodore. 3()0, 39S. Force bills, 301. 44S. Fox. Charles J.. 152. Fox. George. 80. 81. "Frame of Government." 83. 85. France, explorations of. 10; claims in i8th CentiUA". 87; \\"ars with England. 87. 07-1 11. 200. -10. 230; colonization. 08: alliance with, ID 7. 108; sends Genet to Amerioi. 210. 211; difficulties with. 2i(>-2i8. 238-241: sells Louisiana to Unite\i States. 231; proclamation of neutrality. 302; 5t> New France, entrance into World War. 500. Franklin. Benjamin, his plan of Union. 104: ^x^rtrait. 125; birth- place. I2d; quoteii. 130. 155. 150. 373: in Fra^nce. 107; peace cvmu- missdoner. 170. 177; in Phila- delphia cc»nvention, 100. Fraimces* tavern. 170. Frevierick. King. loD. Freiiericksburg. battle of. 403. Eaxxlmens Bureau act. 440. Frx>e-s^^il jvartv, 541. 5fir aho Party. Frelinghu\-sen. Theo^lore. 32a. Fremont. John C. nominated for l^esident, 3D3. 423. Fanich and Indian War. iot>-iii; majvs of, 107, loS; important re- sults of. no. III. . French a>loniiation. failure of. in South. 10: succiess of. in North, 20; beginnings, oS; character, 102, 103. French decrees, 23S. A42. INDEX xxxm French oxplorors. loo, loi. Frioiuls. ^'(•(• Quakers. IVontcnac. Fort. loo. Fui:;itivo slave law. ^^47, ^^48; vio- lated, ^^00, ^^07- Fulton, Robert. stean\hoat in\enteil by, -\,4. l-'unilaniental Carders. >"(■(' C\M\nee- tieut. Gadsden purchase, the. ^v>^^- Gage. General, 154, 150. Gallatin. Albert. Secretary of the rrc.isury. :.'4, :.\\. C~!artield, Janu^s A., elected presi dent, 407 4(H); administration. 4(>S 470; life and character, 40S; assassinate*.!. 400. Garrison, William L., ,^ 15-31 7; por- trait of, 310; quoted, 310, 317, 3 5 - • (j(W/)tV, the, destroveil, 147. Gates, General Horatio, loo; de- feated at Camden, 172. Genet, Citi/.en, 210, 211. CaMieva award, 44Q. Cieorge, Fort, J50. George 111, purposes of. 135, 151, 152; hires mercenaries, 157; loses America, 175. Georgia, settlement of, 04, 05; char- acter of, 05; becomes a royal col- ony, 05; attitude of, before the Revolution, 150; Indian troubles in, 28(1; joins the C\M\federacy, Germantown. battle of, 107. Germany. Samoan question and, 4qq; militar> policy of, 5O4, 505; entrance of. into World War. 500 ; use of submarine by. 508; prin- ciples of fright fulness of, 500; ab- dication of Kaiser of, 583. Gerry, Flbridge, Commissioner, 210; \'ice-President. 246. Gettysburg, battle of, 40S, 400. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 23, 510. Gorges, Ferdinando, 08; grant to, 08. Graham, William A., 352. Granger movement, 487. Grant, Ulysses S., quoted, 335, 422, 420; in Mexican war, 335; in civil war, 307, 398, 300, 400-411, 414- 410. 4:7; portrait. 415; elected President, 443, 444; administra- tion, 444-458; life and character, 444; re-elected, 451; in con\en- tion of 1880, 407. GreelcN', Hcnace. cjuoteil, 312, 300; nominated iov Presidency, 450. Greenback party, 455. Greenbacks issued, 41 j; specie pa\- ment, 454, 40.'. Greene, General N.ithanael, in the South, 1 74. Greenville, treaty of, 212. (!ren\ille, George, 130. Guadaloupe Hidalgo, treaty of, 336. Guilforil C'ourt House, battle of, 174. Ciuiteau. 470. Hague ctMiference. 5^0. Haie. John P.. 352."' "Half-breeds," the, 408. Halifax award, the, 450. Halleck, General, 402. Hamilton, Alexander, quoted, 188, 180; in Annirpolis com ention, 180; in Philailelpliia convention, 100; in New \'ork conwMition, 105; writes I'ederalist articles, 105; Secretary of the Treasury, 200- 213; fmancial plans, 203-205; portrait, 204; death of, 228; char- acter, 228. Hamilton. Andrew, 00. Hamlin, Hannibal, electeil Nice- President, 377, 378; mentioneil, 424. Hampton Roads, battle of. 400. Hancmk. General W. S.. nominateil for jnvsidenc\-. 4(1 7. Harper's Ferry, sei/.ed by Prown, 37(1; captured, 403. Harrison, Penjamin, elected Presi- dent. 407; administration. 408- 504; life and character of, 408; portrait. 408; renominated, 503. Harrison, William H., at battle of Tippecanoe, 243; at Fort Meigs, 240; at the Thames, 250; nomi- nated for the presidency, 307, 310; character, 310, 311; elected, 311; administration, 311; death, 311- Hartford, foundetl. 07. XXXIV HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Hartford convention, 254. Harvard College founded, 63. Hawaiian Islands, revolution in, 500; annexed, 500, 520. Hawkins, John, 22. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 293, Hay, John, 527. Hayes, R. B., nominated for presi- dency, 454; elected, 457; quoted, 458; life and character, 459; por- trait, 459; administration, 459- 468; vetoes Bland- Allison Bill, 462; opposed to riders, 463. Ha>"ne, Senator, 300. Hendricks, T. A., nominated for vice-presidency, 455, 472; death of, 494. Henry, Fort, 396, 397. Henry, Patrick, portrait of, 133; speech in parson's cause, 138; res- olutions, 141; quoted, 154. Herkimer, General Nicholas, 166. Hessians, defeated, 164. Histoncal writing, 558. Hobart, Garret A., " elected Vice- President, 5 1 1-5 1 2. Hobson, Lieutenant, 518. Holland in seventeenth centur}-, 73. Holmes. O. \V., 558. Holy Alliance, the, 273. Homestead act, 481. • Hood, General, 421, 422. Hooker, General, 408, 411. Hooker, Thomas, 66, 67. Houston, Samuel, 321. Howe, General, 158. 163, 164; fail- ure, 164; proceeds to Philadelphia, 167; succeeded by Clinton, 169. Howe, Richard, offers pardon, 163. Hudson, Henr\', 73. Hull, Commodore Isaac, 248. Hull, General William, 247. Hutchinson, Anne 65. Hutchinsons, the, 319. Idaho admitted. 481. Illinois admitted, 267. Immigration, 305, 323, 350, 483, 538? 553- Impeachment of judges, 226; of President, 441; of Secretary of War, 453. Imperialism, policy of, 514-526. Implied powers, 206. Impressment, 237, 245. Income tax, 504, 508. Independence, Declaration of, 151, 158, 159; original draft. 160. Independent Treasur\', 309, 326. Indian treaty belt, 37. Indiana, admitted, 267. Indians, uprising of, in Virginia, 34; the Pequot War, 67; in the Revo- lution, 171; hostile, 211; defeated, 212; Battle of Tippecanoe, 243; in War of 181 2, 243, 247, 248, 251; in Georgia, 286; removed to res- ervations, 287. Industrial conditions, 114-117, 120, 125, 184, 234, 239, 256-271, 298, 304-309, 350, 351, 370-374, 388, 412, 413, 444, 454, 474-492, 505, 506, 535-546; railroads, see Rail- roads; strikes, 489-491, 543; la- bor organizations, 489-492, 543; changes of a century, 553-556. See also West. the. Initiative, referendum and recall, 547- Inland Waterways Commission, 539. Intercolonial wars, 88, 97-110. Internal improvements, 260-262, 283, 306, 478. Interstate Commerce Act, 489, 495, 534- Intolerable acts, the five, 147-150. Intolerance, in England, 50; in Massachusetts, 63-65. Inventions. 234, 294, 295, 351. Iowa admitted, 342; growth of, 480. Iroquois, friends of the Dutch, 74; foes of the French, 98, 99. See also Indians. Irrigation, 540. Irving, Washington, 293. Italy, trouble with, 499. Jackson, Andrew, defeats Indians, 251; at New Orleans, 253; in Florida, 268; candidate for Presi- dent, 278; elected President, 289; portrait, 290; character, 290, 291; President, 290-306; proclamation, 301; vetoes Bank Bill, 302; v/ith- draws deposits, 303. Jackson, British minister, 241. INDEX XXXV Jackson, Thomas J., 401, 402, 403. Jacksonian era, 290-314, James I, 25, 51, 55. James II, 71, 76, 77. Jamestown, Va., settlement of, 28; early history, 28. Japan, attitude of United States toward, 529. Jay, John, peace commissioner, 176, 177; writes in the Federalist, 195; portrait, 199; chief justice, 203; envoy, 213; his treaty, 213. Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 116, 129, 223, 273, 290; drafts Declaration of Independence, 159; peace com- missioner, 176; submits ordinance of 1784, 187; Secretary of State, 200, 202, 206, 207, 213; Vice- President, 215; writes the Ken- tucky Resolutions, 219; elected President, 220, 221, 228; presi- dency, 223-240; character and principles, 223; portrait, 223; buys Louisiana, 230-233; embargo pol- icy, 239. Jesuit explorers, 100, loi. Johnson, Andrew, elected Vice- President, ■ 424, 425; President, 433; character, 434; administra- tion, 434-444; plans of recon- struction, 436; impeachment of, 441. Johnson, Herschel V., 377. Johnson, Hiram W., 549. Johnston, General J. E., 390, 420, 427, 428. Joliet, his map, 100; on the Missis- sippi, lOI. Jones, John Paul, 170, 171. Judiciary act, 224, 255. Julian, George W., 352. Kansas, struggle in, 361, 362, 368, 369; admitted, 474; growthof, 480. Kansas-Nebraska bill, 355, 356. Kaskaskia captured, 171. Kearny, General, 334. Kearsarge, the fight with the Ala- bama, 419. Kentucky, at time of Revolution, 171; settlers in, 183; admitted, 213; resolutions, 219; does not join Confederacy, 387, 393. King, Rufus, 190. King, William R., elected Vice- President, 352. King George's War, 104. King William's War, 103. King's College, 125. King's Mountain, battle of, 172. Knights of Labor, 491. Know-Nothing party, 359, Knox, Henry, 200, 202. Ku-Klux-Klan, 447. Labor. See Industrial Conditions. Labor organizations, 489-492, 543. Ladrone Islands, 519. Lafayette, Marquis de, 168, 174. La Hontan's map, 103. Lake Champlain, battle of, 252. Lake Erie, battle of, 249. Land grants, to railroads, 478-481; to individuals, 481. Lane, Joseph, 376. La Salle, Robert de, loi. Laud, William, 55. Laurens, Henry, 176. Lawrence, Captain, 251. League of Nations, 585. Lecompton Constitution, 369. Lee, General Charles, treachery of, 169. Lee, Richard Henry, 158. Lee, Robert E., 335, 401, 402, 403, 408, 409, 415, 416, 427, 428; por- trait, 402. Legal Tender Act, 412. Leisler, Jacob, 77. Lenox globe, 14. Leonard, Benedict, 44. Lewis and Clark, expedition of, 233, 234- Lexington, battle of, 154. Liberator, the, 315, 316. Lincoln, Abraham, early life, 266; debates with Douglas, 369; elected President, 377, 378; administra- tion, 385-432; life and character, 385; portrait, 385; first acts against secession, 394; attitude toward emancipation, 404, 405; issues proclamation, 405; renomi- nated and elected, 424, 425; as- sassination, 433. Literature, American, 293, 294, 558. XXXVl HISTORY OF THE A:\IERICAN NATION LiNnngston, Robert R., 231. Locke, John, 46. Log Cabin campaign, 310, 311. Logan, John A., nominated for vice- presidency, 472. London Company, 25-27; grant under charter of 1606, 26, 27; grant under charter of 1609, 30; loss of charter, 34. Longfellow, 294. Long Island, battle of, 163. Lookout Mountain, battle of, 411. Loudon, General, 108. Louisiana, first settlement in, loi; purchase of. 230-233; western boundary determined, 268; State joins Confederacy, 382, 387; re- admitted, 441; election of 1876 in, 456. Lovejoy, Elijah P., 316. Lowell, James R., quoted, 333, 378, 558. Lundy s Lane, battle of. 252. Lusitania, sinking of. 570. ^lacdonough. Commodore, 252. ^lachinery, party, 464-466. ^lacon Bill Xo. 2, 241. Madison. James, 189; quoted, 183, 195, 3S0; in Philadelphia conven- tion, 190; writes in the Federalist, 195; opposes the bank bill, 205; writes the \'ireinia resolutions, 219; Secretary of State, 224; elected President, 240, 246; ad- ministration, 240-257; character, 240; portrait. 240. Magellan, Ferdinand, voyage of, 12. 13. Elaine, founded, 68; part of ]Massa- chusetts. 72; admitted, 272. Maine, the destruction of the. 516. ^Mandeville. Sir John, \'oyage and Travels of. 3. Manifest destiny, 330, 354. ^Manila, 517. Manufactures, 541, 554. See also Industrial conditions. Marbury vs. Madison, 225. Marcy, \V. L., quoted, 292; Secre- tar>- of War, 326; Secretary of State, 353. Marietta, Ohio, founded, 212. Marquette, loi. Marshall, John, commissioner, 216; chief justice, 226, 227; portrait, 226. Marshall, Thomas, elected Vice- President, 549. 550; Maryland, early histor>% 39-44; map of grant, 40; charter, 41; establishment of free government in, 42; Toleration Act, 43; in eighteenth century, 91; does not join the Confederacy, 387. Mason, George. 192, 269. ^Mason, John, 68; grant to, 68. ]Mason, John Y., 354. Mason and Dixon's line, 40. Massachusetts, settlement, 56; char- acter of settlers, 56; the land grant, 57; map of. 58; intolerance, 63-65; representative government in, 61; towns, 62; in confedera- tion, 69; under Andros, 71; given new charter, 71; extent of, 72; in eighteenth century, 90; charter changed, 14S; insurrection in, 184, 189; western claims of, 185, 186. Massachusetts Bay, Company of, 57, 58; the charter of, 58; map of grant to, 58. See also ^Massa- chusetts. ^Maximilian. Archduke, 442, 443. Mayflo-urr compact, the, 52. McClellan. 391, 392, 400-403; nom- inated for presidency. 424. McDowell, General. 390. McKinley, William, his tariff meas- ure, 500; elected President, 511, 512; life, 514; portrait, 514; ad- ministration, 514-522; message on Cuba, 516; re-elected Presi- dent, 522; assassination and death, 522. ^IcLeod. arrest of, 313. Meade, General. 409. Mercator. map of. 15. 16. Merrimac and Monitor, 399, 400. Merrimac at Santiago, 518. Merritt. General, 517. ^Mexico, conquest of, 15; trouble with Texas. 321; our treatment of, 323; war with, 332-33^; Maxi- milian in, 443. INDEX XXXVll Michigan, in hands of British. 241; admit tc\l. ^>05. Milan decree. ^3,0. Military situation in Civil War. 3S8. sSg, 391, 394; in iSt)2, 3ot>. 30S, 404; in iSt)3, 40S; in 18(54, 415. 41b, 419. Mining, 475; coal, 4S0. Minimum wage agitation. 545. Minnesota, growth of, 480. Missionary Ridge, battle of, 411. Mississippi, admitted, ^0;; joins Confederacy. 38^, 387; new con- stitution of. 400. Missouri, admitteii, 2t)7; does not join Confederacy. 387. Missouri compromise, 272, 273; repealed, 355. 356; declared un- constitutional. 3O6. Mobile, capture of. 418. Molasses Act of 1733. 137. Monitor. 300, 400. Moamouth. battle of, 100. Monroe doctrine, the. ^74. 44:, ^ov). Monroe, James, minister to France. 216; envoy to France, 231; treaty with England, 23a; Secretary of State. 241; elected President. 257; administration. 25 7-2 78; portrait, 257; message of 1823. 274. Montana, 481. Montcalm. Marquis de, 108. log. ]Montgomen»", Richard. 158. Montreal, taken by the English, no; taken in Revolution, 158. ^loore's Creek, battle of. 158. Mormons, the. 5cr Utah. Morris. Gouvemeur. in Philadelphia convention, iqo; quoted, 200. Morris. Robert, services of. 1D5; Superintendent of Finance, quoted. 182. Morris. Thomas. 322. Morse, Samuel F. B., 294. Morton. LeW P., elected Vice- President, 497. Murfreesboro, battle of. 309. Xapoleon. 236. 399; issues decrees. 230; withdraws them. 242; con- tiscates vessels. 241; helps bring on war. 241. 24:. Nashville, battle of. 422. National Hank. See Bank. Naturaliz:ation Act. 21S. Naval battles in War of 181 2, 248, 249, 251, 252, 253. Navigation laws, the, 137. Nebmska. admitted to the Union, 440; growth of, 470. 480. Nevada, 475. New Amsterdam. 74. New England, map of, by John Smith, 40; confederation, O9, 70; map of. t)o; early history, 48-72; character of settlers, $9; at end of seventeenth century, 72; condi- tions of life in 1790, 11 8-1 24; towns, 119, 120; industries, 120; religion, 121; education. 122; classes of society in, 123, 124; pxjiitical conditions in 1760, 127, 1 28. New France, founded. loi; early history, loo-iii; condition, 107; fall of, no. New Hampshire, founded, 68; made a royal province, 70. See also New England. New Haven, founded. 66; in con- federation. Do; annexed to Con- necticut. 70. New Jersey, early histor>'. 78-80; founded. 78; the "Concessions," 78; divided, 78; map of, 79; re- united, 79; character, So; educa- tion in, 125. New Mexico, 334, 344; becomes a territor>-. 347. New Netherland, 74. See also New York. New Orleans, founded. loi; battle ot. 253; capture of. 400. New Sweden. 75 New York, early history-. 73-77; the patroons, 74; taken by the Eng- lish, 76; government, 77, 129; character, 77; in eighteenth cen- tur>'. 90; conditions in 1760, 124- 126; classes of society in. 125, 126; education in. 125; local govern- ment. 120. New York City, picture of. 124; map of. 102; British attack, 1D3; City Hall, 201. xxxviii HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Niagara, 104, 106, 109. Nicholson letter, 339. Nicollet, Jean, 100. Nominating convention, the first, 279. See also Elections. Non-intercourse, 240, 242. North Carolina, joins- Confederacy, 387; readmitted, 441. See also Carolinas. North Dakota, growth of, 4S0; ad- mitted, 481. Northeastern boundary dispute, 313. Northern Pacific Railroad, 480. Northwest territory, map of, 185. Northwestern boundary dispute, 449- Nullification, 300; in South Caro- lina, 301. See also Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. Oglethorpe, James, founds Georgia, 94. Ohio, settled, 212; admitted, 234. Old age pensions. 544. "Old Dominion," 36. Olney, Richard, 509. Orange, Fort, 74. Orders in Council, 238, 246. Ordinance of 1784, 187; of 1787, 187. Oregon, 326-328; map of, 327; be- comes a territory-, 342; in election of 1876, 456; growth of, 476. Oriskany, battle of, 166. Ostend manifesto, 354-355. Otis, James, speech on the writs of assistance, 138. Palmer, John M., 512. Palo Alto, battle of. 2>2>Z- Panama, recognition of, 525. Panama Canal, 523-526. Pan-American Congress, 498. Panic of 1819, 259; of 1837, 307, 308; of 1857, 370; of 1873, 454; of 1893, 505. Parker, Alton B., 531. Parties, the beginnings, 206-208. Party, the old Republican, 206, 218; the Federalist, 207, 218, 220, 221; young Republicans, 243; reor- ganization, 276-289; the Na- tional RepubHcan, 281, 282; Democratic, 281, 282, 309; the Democratic divided, 376; the Whig, 303. 309, 310, 340, 341, 2)S2>\ the Liberty, 315; the Free- soil, 341; the Republican, 358, 359, 368; American or Know- Nothing, 359; Constitutional Union, 377; attitude toward slav- ery, 340, 341, 368, 376, 377; Re- publicans and reconstruction, 435- 438, 441; differences in Repub- lican, 450, 464-468, 547, 548; the Liberal Republican, 450; the Pro- hibition, 455; the Greenback, 455; the People's, 472; Mugwumps, 472; the PopuHst, 504; the Pro- gressive, 547, 548; the Socialist, 549. 550. Party machinery-, 464-466. Patroons, 74. Peace Conference, members of, 584. Pemberton, General, 409. Pendleton Act, 470. Pendleton, George H., 424. Peninsula campaign, 400; map of, 401. Penn, William, purchases West Jer- sey, 78; purchases East Jersey, 79; early life, 82, 83; portrait, 82; acquires Pennsylvania, 82; founder of colony, 83; purposes, 83; ob- tains Delaware, 84; relations with Indians, 86. Pennsylvania, early histor\', 82-86; founded, 83; frame of govern- ment, 83, 84; a proprietary colony, 83; democracy in, 86, 126; edu- cation, 125; local government, 129. Pennsylvania, University of, 125. Pequot War, 67. Perry, Commodore, 249. Pershing, John J., 580. Personal liberty laws, 367. Peru, conquest of, 15. Petersburg, 416. Philadelphia, founded, 84; in 1760, 125; the British enter, 167; evac- uated, 169. Philadelphia convention. See Con- vention, Federal. Philippine Islands, battle in, 517; under control of the United States, 519-521; government in, 530. Pickett, General, 409. INDEX XXXIX Pierce, Franklin, elected President, 352; administration, 353-364- Pike, Zebulon M., explorations of, 332- Pike's Peak, discovery of gold near, 475. Pilgrims, See Plymouth. Pinckney, Charles C, candidate for Vice-President, 215, 229; minis- ter to France, 216; treaty with England, 239. Pineda, 13. Pitt, William, 108, 109, 152; quoted, 135. 143- Pittsburg Landing. See Shiloh. Pizarros, 15. Plantation system in Virginia, 32, 36, 44, 115-117- Piatt, Thomas C, 469. Plymouth Colony, 48-55; motives for founding, 50-52; map of New- England by John Smith, 49; settlement, 52; the Mayflower compact, 52; first page of Brad- ford manuscript, 53; in confede- ration, 69; added to Massachu- setts, 71, 72. Plymouth Company, 25-27, 48. Poe, Edgar Allan, 293. Polk, James K., elected President, 322, ^2:^; character, 325; adminis- tration, 326-342; plans. 326; de- clares war on Mexico, 332; terri- torial expansion under, 337, 338. Polo, Marco, 3. Ponce de Leon, 13. Pony express, 477. Poor Richard's Almanac, facsimile of page of, 122. Pope, General, 398, 402, 403. Popular sovereignty, 339, 355-358» 360-362. Population in the colonies, 114, 115, 118, 124; in the United States, 195, 247, 296, 350, 372, 536, 537, 552, 553; density of, 195, 296, 446, 537; center of. 553. Porto Rico, occupation of, 518; an- nexed, 519; government in, 521. Portuguese, explorations of, 5. Postal savings banks, 535. Preparedness, attitude of United States towards, 576. Prescott, General, 156. Prescott, W. H.. 294. Presidential succession, 494. Princeton, battle of, 164. Princeton college, 125. Printing presb of Franklin'stime, 119. Progressive party. See Party. Providence, founded, 64. See also Rhode Island. Prussia, 106. Ptolemy map, 4. Public lands, speculation in, 305, 306. Pugh, Senator, quoted, 377. Puritans, the, 56. Quakers, persecuted in Massachu- setts, 65; in West Jersey, 78, 79; origin of sect, 80, 81; their be- liefs, 81, 82. Quebec founded, 98; falls, 109; at- tacked by Americans, 158. Quebec Act, 149. Queen Anne's War, 104. Queenstown, battle of, 248. Quincy, Josiah, 147; quoted, 257. Railroads, 283-285, 306, 370, 371, 454; Western, 477-480; rates, 486, 487; discrimination, 488; In- terstate commerce acts, 489, 495, 534, growth of, and its effects, 536. 538. Railways, city, 546. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 23. Randolph, Edmund, 200, 202. Randolph, John, quoted, 245, 260, 281, 288. Recall, 547. Reciprocity, 500, 534. Reclamation Act, 540. Reconstruction, legal difficulties, 435'. Johnson's plans, 436; con- gressional method, 437, 440, 441; condition of South during, 442, 447, 448, 451; a continuing prob- lem, 445, 450, 451; elections dur- ing, 457, 458; troops withdrawn, 460. Redemptioner, 114. Reed, Major, discovers cause of spread of yellow fever, 522. Reed, T. B., speaker, 501. xl HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION Referendum, 547. Religious intolerance. See Intol- erance. Religious liberty in ]Maryland, 39- 43; in Pennsylvania, 86. Renaissance, the, i. Representation, in England and in America, 133-135; basis of, in Constitution, 190, 191. Republican party. See Party. Resaca de la Palma, battle of, 333. Resumption of specie payments, 454. 462. Revolution, the, 154-178; causes of, i33~i53; attitude toward, in Eng- land and America, 151, 152; jus- tice of, 152, 153; beginning of, 154; significance of, 162; results of, 175. 178. Rhode Island, founded, 65, 66; map of, 66; charter, 70; not in Federal convention, 189. Riders, 463. River Raisin, battle at the, 249. Roads, lack of, in 1816, 260; state appropriation for, 262. Roosevelt, Theodore, elected Vice- President, 522; succeeds to presi- dency, 523; portrait, 523; life of, 523; administration of, 523-531; as an author, 523, 524; re-electioji, 531; war against grafters, 532; and conservation, 539; and rec- lamation, 540; coal strike, 543; nominated for President, 549. Root, Elihu, 528. Rosecrans, General, 399, 408, 410. Russia, entrance of; into World War, 566; revolution in, 580; with- drawal of, from World War, 580; Bolshevism in, 580. St. Augustine, settlement at, 15. St. John, John P., 472. St. Leger, Colonel Barry, 165, 166. St. Lusson, loi. Salary grab, 453, 454. Salem, 57. Samoan Islands, 499. Sampson, Admiral, 518. Sandys, Sir Edwin, 32. San Francisco, 475. San Jacinto, battle of, 321. San Juan Hill, battle of, 518. Santa Fe trail, 476. Santiago, blockade of, 518. Saratoga, surrender of Burgoyne at, 166. Savannah taken by the British, 172. Saybrook, founded, 66. Schools. See Education. ' Scott, Winfield. in War of 181 2, 250, 252; in Mexican War, 335; nom- inated for President, 352; in Civil War, 392. Scrooby congregation, 51. Seal fisheries, 499, 507. Secession, 299, 378, 382. Sedition law, 218, 219. Separatists, the, 50, 51. Serbia, attack on, by Austria, 565, 566. Seven days' battles, 402. Seven years' war, 106. Seward, William H., portrait, 346; speech in 1850, 346, 347; quoted, 348, 358, 395, 406, 419; men- tioned, 353; Secretary of State, 386; assaulted, 433; demands withdrawal of Maximilian, 442. Seymour, Horatio, nominated for presidency, 443. Shafter, General, 518. Shays's rebellion, 184. Sheridan, General, 416-418. Sherman Act, 501, 505. Sherman Anti-trust Act, 489, 532. Sherman, General, 411, 414, 415, 420, 427, 428; quoted, 415, 421; march to the sea, 421, 422; por- trait, 421. Sherman, James S., 548. Sherman, John, 466. Sherman, Roger, Tgio. Shiloh, battle of, 398, 399. Ship of fifteenth century, 5. Shipping, 120, 35T. Shoshone dam, 540. Silver. See Currency. Slavery, beginning of, 32; in the Carolinas, 47; in Southern colo- nies, 114, 115; prohibited in Northwest, 187, 188; discussion in Federal convention, 192, 269; and the West, 269-273; extension, 269, 270-272. 317, 320, 338, 339, INDEX xli 342-344, 355, 370; early attitude of the North to, 270; growth of, in the South, 271; the cotton gin, 270; the Missouri compromise, 272, 273: 355, 356; opposed by abolitionists, 313, 317; and the Texas question, 315-331; the Wil- mot proviso, 335, 336; popular sovereignty, 339; Calhoun's prop- osition, 340-3.16; in 1850, 344- 348; and Kansas-Nebraska Act, 355-358; in Kansas, 361, 362, 368, 36Q; Dred Scott case, 366; under- ground railroad, 367; personal liberty laws, 367; effects, 361, 372-375; John Brown's raid, 373; cause of the civil war, 383, 384; abolishment of, 405; emancipa- tion, 405-408; thirteenth amend- ment, 426; cause of Southern de- feat, 430. Slave trade, 270. Smith, Captain John, 28; portrait of, 2g; explores New England, 48; map, 49. Soule, Pierre, 354. South American states and the Holy Alliance, 273. Southampton, Earl of, 32, 33. South Carolina, slavery in, 114; nullification in, 301; secedes, 378; joins Confederacy, 382, 387; re- admitted, 441; condition during reconstruction, 447; election of 1876 in, 456. See also Carolinas. South Dakota, growth of, 480; ad- mitted, 481. Southern colonies, condition of, 114-118. Southern Pacific Railroad, 480. Spain, explorations of, 13; domin- ion, 15; claims in eighteenth cen- tury, 87, 94; difficulties with, 183, 189; treaty with, in 1819, 268; misrule in Cuba, 515; war with, 517-519- Spanish colonization, character of, 15. 519- Speaker, Clay, the first great, 244; power of the, 501, 502. Specie circular, 305. Spoils system, the, 292, 466, 470. Spottsylvania, battle of, 415, 416. "Stalwarts," the, 468. Stamp Act, the, 139-143; the Stamp Act Congress, 141; repealed, 143. Stanton, E. M., Secretary of War, 395; removed, 441. Stanwix, Fort, 165, 166. Stark, John, 166. State sovereignty, 2S7, 299. Steamboat, Fulton's, 234; influ- ence, 234, 235. Steel business, 541, 542. Stephens, Alexander, Confederate Vice-President, 382. Stephenson, George, 283, 284. Steuben, Baron, 168. Stevens, Thaddeus, 440. Stevenson, Adlai E., nominated for vice-presidency, 522. Stony Point captured, 170. Story, Joseph, 227. Stowe, Mrs., writes Uncle Tom's Cabin, 352. Strikes, 489-4*91, 543. Stuyvcsant, Peter, house of, in New Amsterdam, 76. Sugar Act, 139. Sullivan, General John, 171. Sumner, Charles, 353; assault upon, 362.; portrait, 363; opinions, 435. Sumter, Fort, 381, 386, 387. Superintendent of Finance, 182. Surplus revenue, distribution of, 305; reduction of, 471, 496, 497. Swedes, the, settle in America, 75. Taft, William H., elected President, 531; administration of, 531-535; portrait of, 531; renominated for presidency, 548. Talleyrand, Prince, 216, 217, 231. Taney, Roger B., 304. Tariff, the first, 199; of 1816, 260; of 1824, 287; of 1828, 287; of '1832, 301; of 1833, 301; of 1842, 312; under Polk, 32S; of 1861, 4^2; of 1890,-, 500; 'of 1895, 507; of 1897, 514; of 1909, 533; a party question, 467, 468, 471, 472, 496, 503, 504, 5*50; opposition of the South, 287, 298, 301 j tariff board, 533- Taylor, Zachary, 326; in Mexican War, 332-334; nominated for xlii HISTORY OF THE A:\IERICAX XATIOX President, 341 ; administration. 342-34S: character. 34 j; portrait, 342; death. 34S. Tea Party. 14S. Tea tax. 146. 14S. Tecumseh. 243. 24-, 250. Telegraph, invention. 204; first mes- sage. ::o4: the Atlantic cable. 443. Tennessee, the. 41 S. Tenure of Omce Act, 440. Texas. 104, 321. 322: annexed. 321- 326; map. 324: bounds. 325, 32S. 330- 337: admitted. 342; joins Confederacy, 3S2. 3S7. Thames, battle of. 250. Thomas. George H.. 400. 410. 411, 4-M. 4--- Thompson. Jacob. 3So. Thurman. .\Jlen G.. 407. Ticonderoga. taken by English. 100: taken by Americans, 155; taken by Burgo\-ne. 105. Tilden. S. J., nominated for presi- dency, 455. Tippecanoe, battle of. 243. Tobacco, cultivation of. 31, ;^6, 37. Toleration Act. 43. Towns in Xe\v England. 62, no, 120. 127. Townshend Acts, the, 143; modifi- cation of. 146. Trade. 5«r Commerce. Trails to the West. 476-47S. Treaty, of 1763. no; of 17S3. 176, 177. not fulfilled, 1S3, 209; of Greemille. 212; of 1704. 213; for purchase of Louisiana. 231; of iSoo, by Monroe, 230; of 1S14. 253; with Spain. 26S, 510; of 1S42. 313: the Oregon. 32S; the Mexican. 336; of Washington. 440; \vith England. looi, 524; with Germany. loio. 5S5. Trent affair, the. 305. 306. Trenton, battle of. 164. Triple Alliance. 504. Tripoli. iSo. Trusts. 5cY Corporations. Tweed ring. 4S5. Tyler. John, character. 310; nomi- nated for Vice-President. 310; President. 312-323; and Texas, 3-1-3-5- Uncle Tom's Cabin. 352. Underground railroad. 367. Union, plans of. 104: the«Xew Eng- land Confederation. 00. 70. United States, relief map of, iS: original boundaries of. 177, 17S; development of. 5 52-50 2. See jL^o Annexation. United States bank. 5cy Bank. Utah. 347. 474. 475. 4S1. Valley Forge, 16S. Van Buren. Martin, elected Presi- dent. 307: character and life. 307; administration. 307-311: in 1S44. S22; nominated for President. 300. 341. \ asco da Gama. 6. Venezuelan dispute. 500. 510. Vera Cruz, taken by Scott. 335. Vermont admitted. 213. \'errazano. 10. \'espucius. Americus. voyages of. 10; America named from. 12. Vicksburg. capture of. 409, 410. \'incennes. capture of. 172. Virginia, early histon.- of, 20-30; first charter of. 1006. 27; map of grant, 20; second charter of. 1000. 2S; map of grant. 30; House of Burgesses, establishment of. 33; becomes a royal colony. 35: char- acter, 39; in eighteenth centun.-, 91, 92, 93; slaver}- in. 114; life in. in 1760, 115-11S; education. 117: local government. 12S. 120; Bill of Rights, 162; western claims of, I So; joins Confederacy. 3S7. Virginia resolves. 146. Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 210. Walker. Robert J.. 3,26. Walpole. Horace, quoted. 109. i75- War. intercolonial. SS, 07-110; Revolutionar>-. 154-17S; with France. 217: Barban.-. 224: of 1S12. 245-255; effect of. 255; with Mexico. 332-336; the ci\-il. 3S7- 432; with Spain. 517-510; with Central Powers, 567, 5S5. Washington, state of. 4S1. IXDKX xliii Washington city, the capital, 205, 22o\ taken by British. 252. Washington, George, portrait, frontispiece; meets the French, 105; at Braddock's Field, 105; made commander, 155; character. 155. 214; defends Xew York, 103; retreats across Xew Jersey, 104; at Trenton and Princeton. 104; his skill, 104; given authority, 105; at Brandy wine. 107; at German- town. 107; at Valley Forge. loS; at Monmouth, iDq; captures Stony Point. 170; at Yorktown, 175, his accounts, 170; quoted, 1S3; in Philadelphia convention. 100; President, iqS-jis; farewell address, J14. J15; Trenton recep- tion. 2,:j. Watertown remonstrance, Oi. Watson. Thomas F.. 512. Wayne. General Anthony, defeats Indians. 212. Weaver. James B., 504. Webster, Daniel, 204; quoted, iSS, 310, 566; enters Congress. 244; c^pposed to tariff, 260; reply to Hayne. 300; portrait. 300; in Tyler's cabinet. 312; makes treaty, 313; 7th of March speech, 345: death, 353. Welfare laws, 543. West, the, migration to. 26^, 264; progress of, 212, 305, 300, 554. 556; rapid growth of. 264, 265; population of. in iSoo and 1S20. 267; slavery- question in. 200-273; democracy and, 276; development of. 475-4S2. Western land claims. 1S5. 1S6; given up. 1S6. Western reser\e, 1S6. West India Company. 73. West Virginia admitted. 300. Wlieeler. W. A., elected Vice-Presi- dent, 454, 457. Whig party, named, 303; in 1S40, 300, 310; divided on slavery question, 340, 341. ^^t' also Party. Whiskey rebellion, 20S, 209. Whiskey ring. the. 453. White, John. 57. Whitnev, Asii. 477. Whittier. J. G., 55S. Wilderness, battle of, 415. 416. Wilkinson, General J.. 220. 251. William and Mary College, 117; view of, iiS. William III. 71- Williams. Roger. 04. Wilmington, 75. Wilmot proviso, the, 335, 336. Wilson. Henr>-. elected \'ice-Presi- dent, 451. Wilson. James, in Philadelphia con- vention, 100. Wilson. Woodrow, elected President. 540, 550; inauguration of, 550; re-election of, 57O. Winthrop, John. 59; portrait of, bo, quoted. 01. b2. Wisconsin admitted, 342. Wolfe. General James. 100. World War, date of. 506; causes ot. 555; countries taking part in, 5D5. 566, 573; American victories in. 582; signing of armistice of, 5S2; peace conference of. 5S4; League of Xations founded because of, 5S5; peace treaty of. 5S5. World's Fair. the. 506. 559. Writs of assistance, 138. Wyoming admitted. 4S1. Wyoming massacre, 171. X YZ affair, 217. Yancey, quoted. 377. Yeardiey. George. SS- Yorktowni. surrender at, 175. Zenger, John, tried for libel. 90. (IV