528 



SLAVERY. 



final contest that eliminated slavery from the insti- 

 tutions of this country. Texas, largely peopled from 

 the Southern States, had asserted her indei>eiideiiee 

 of Mexico, and was regarded as an acquisition to the 

 Uuion that would strengthen the political power of 

 the slave States. Texas, although free from slavery 

 nnder Mexican rale, soon became the recipient of a 

 stare immigration that fastened the institution upon 

 her. The admission of Texas as a State of the 

 Union was the result of the policy of extending the 

 area of slavery, and was accomplished in 1845 after 

 a straggle that laid the foundation of a recast in po- 

 litical parties that was destined to divide the politics 

 of the country upon lines of difference between the 

 advocates ami opponents of slavery. 



The Mexican War, that was a not uninvited conse- 

 quence of the annexation of Texas, terminated with 

 the acquisition of a vast territory that carried the 

 western boundary of the United States to the Pa- 

 cific. A new flefd was opened for the contest in be- 

 half of the extension of the area of slavery. This 

 acquisition came to us as free territory, and an early 

 effort was made to have it so declared in perpetuity 

 by Congress, nnder the name of the Wilrnot Proviso. 

 This effort failed, and soon the question of the or- 

 ganization of this vast territory was pressed upon 

 Oongi 



In 1850 the compromise offered by Henry Clay 

 was adopted, which ignored the question of a deter- 

 mination by Congress of the character, as it regarded 

 slavery, of the States to be formed from the terri- 

 tory acquired from Mexico by the treaty that con- 

 cluded the war with that country, such action being 

 based upon the idea that as slavery did not exist in 

 that territory any declaration upon that subject was 

 unnecessary. The South disputed this assumption 

 that slavery did not exist there, claiming that when 

 the slave-holder from the States carried his slaves 

 into that region the guarantees of the Constitution 

 went with him, thus creating there the rights inci- 

 dent to the slave system. The compromise of 1850 

 did not bring these opposite contentions to a test, 

 and can only be regarded as an armistice before the 

 great conflict that was soon to arise. That contest 

 assumed a definite form when Kansas and Nebraska 

 were organized as territories of the Union. 



The assumption by Congress, as a federal duty, of 

 the capture and return of fugitive slaves escaping 

 into free States, by an act for the rendition of such 

 slaves, intensified the bitterness of the contest that 

 was raging through the country, north and south. 

 Upon the question of the right of Congress to exer- 

 cise this prerogative the interests of the parties were 

 d. The party of strict construction insisted 

 that Congress should claim and exercise it as a con- 

 stitutional power, although not in the class of enu- 

 merated powers, and incapable of being regarded as 

 n necessary incident to such powers. The party of 

 liberal construction opposed it. both parties acting 

 from their resjx'Ctive views of its policy rather than 



their view of its constitutionality. The att i>t to 



execute this law produced a profound impression 

 u|>on the Northern mind by acquainting it with the 

 repulsive features of the slave system. 



The organization of Kansas and Nebraska as terri- 

 tories, in 1854, was the pivot on which the fate of 

 slavery turned. The Missouri Compromise was dis- 

 regarded and the subject of the establishing or ex- 

 cluding slavery was left to the decision of the people 

 of these territories. To this proposition, made by 

 Stephen A. Douglass, the expression "squatter 

 sovereignty " was applied at the North as expressing 

 the uncertain character of the population to whom 

 this important question was submitted. 



This disposition was a logical conscqnonee of the 

 compromise of 1850, which, by withholding a-tiou 

 on the part of Congress, necessarily left the matter 



' to the local authorities that should be thereafter in- 

 stituted over those territo 



The struggle to colonize Kansas in the interest of 

 the respective sections of the country was maintained 

 by both parties in a desperate conflict that assumed 

 the character of partisan warfare rather than that of 

 civil competition. In the end the party of freedom 

 prevailed, and Kansas and Nebraska came into the 

 Union as free States. Of this conflict history must 

 say that the party of slavery was contending for 

 economic advantages, while the party of free labor 

 was striving to vindicate a principle that was be- 

 lieved to be fundamental to all free society among 

 men. Such conflicts are apt to produce that type of 

 heroism that combines audacity with the spirit of 

 self-sacrifice, even in the absence of the ability to 

 measure enterprises by the means possessed for 

 their accomplishment. Such a hero was John Brown, 

 the product of the bitter strife, the passion, and the 

 aspiration that mingled in the Kansas conflict. The 

 project of organizing a band of sl.ives near the bor- 

 der of the free States to make their way to Canada 

 carried John Brown to Harper's Ferry, where he 

 paid with his life the penalty of grave miscalcula- 

 tions as to tho aptitude of the negro to execute dan- 

 gerous exploits in the interest of freedom. 



Tho election of Abraham Lincoln to the Pres- 

 idency in 1860 was the culminating point of the 

 controversy. This event was interpreted bv the 

 slave-holding States as a presage of a change in tho 

 balance of power that would secure to the fiee States 

 u controlling influence in the public affairs of the 

 nation. The political ascendency possessed by the 

 Southern States from the formation of the Govern- 

 ment, and which had been perpetuated through 

 their political affiliations at the North, was serious- 

 ly threatened through dissensions arising among 

 these political friends. The aggressive character 

 | of the Abolition movement, as demonstrated in Kan- 

 sas and in the hardy enterprise of John Brown, 

 alarmed the slave-holding interest. The resolution 

 of the leaders of Southern opinion was soon taken, 

 and a policy of disunion was formed, and steps 

 taken to bring the people of the Southern States to 

 its acceptance. Popular acquiescence in this plan 

 was by no means to be anticipated without effort 

 and adroit management, os the muss of the people 

 had not the motives impelling in the direction of 

 disunion that affected the great slave-holders. A 

 disposition was general to avoid indc]>endcnt State 

 action, and to fix the policy of the Southern States 

 in consultation among those States. Those who at 

 heart desired to adhere to the Union, and yet feared 

 to fall under suspicion of disloyalty to Southern in- 

 terests, took the moderate position that whatever 

 action was taken should be with the co-ojXMntion of 

 all the slave States, and therefore upon consultation 

 with them. The leaders of the movement in South 

 Carolina were not willing to trust the question to 

 the hesitation and delay incident to such formal 

 action, but desired to precipitate a condition of 

 affairs that would make tile strongest appeal to tho 

 friends of Southern interests. Accordingly South 

 Carolina passed in convention an ordinance of 

 sion from the Union, and proceeded to arrest the 

 exercise of the public functions of the National Gov- 

 ernment within her territories, and to appropriate 

 the public property of the United States. Ten 

 States followed South Carolina, and united with her 

 in the constitution of the government of the Confed- 

 erate States of America. 



Tho war that ensued tested the relative value of 

 the economic systems of the two sections. At the 

 South the producing class, consisting of the slaves, 

 carried forward the industries of the country almost 

 without interruption. Food-supplies were abundant 

 at the points of production, but were not available 



