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diff --git a/3034.txt b/3034.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c49b16 --- /dev/null +++ b/3034.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4916 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Anti-Slavery Crusade, by Jesse Macy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Anti-Slavery Crusade + Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series + +Author: Jesse Macy + +Editor: Allen Johnson + +Posting Date: January 15, 2009 [EBook #3034] +Release Date: January, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE *** + + + + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, Dianne Bean, Doug Levy, and Alev Akman + + + + + + +THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE, + +A CHRONICLE OF THE GATHERING STORM + +By Jesse Macy + + +New Haven: Yale University Press + +Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. + +London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press + +1919 + + +CONTENTS + + I. INTRODUCTION + + II. THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CRUSADE + + III. EARLY CRUSADERS + + IV. THE TURNING-POINT + + V. THE VINDICATION OF LIBERTY + + VI. THE SLAVERY ISSUE IN POLITICS + + VII. THE PASSING OF THE WHIG PARTY + + VIII. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD + + IX. BOOKS AS ANTI-SLAVERY WEAPONS + + X. "BLEEDING KANSAS" + + XI. CHARLES SUMNER + + XII. KANSAS AND BUCHANAN + + XIII. THE SUPREME COURT IN POLITICS + + XIV. JOHN BROWN + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + +THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE + + + +CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION + +The Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln marks the beginning +of the end of a long chapter in human history. Among the earliest +forms of private property was the ownership of slaves. Slavery as an +institution had persisted throughout the ages, always under protest, +always provoking opposition, insurrection, social and civil war, and +ever bearing within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Among the +historic powers of the world the United States was the last to uphold +slavery, and when, a few years after Lincoln's proclamation, Brazil +emancipated her slaves, property in man as a legally recognized +institution came to an end in all civilized countries. + +Emancipation in the United States marked the conclusion of a century of +continuous debate, in which the entire history of western civilization +was traversed. The literature of American slavery is, indeed, a summary +of the literature of the world on the subject. The Bible was made a +standard text-book both for and against slavery. Hebrew and Christian +experiences were exploited in the interest of the contending parties +in this crucial controversy. Churches of the same name and order +were divided among themselves and became half pro-slavery and half +anti-slavery. + +Greek experience and Greek literature were likewise drawn into the +controversy. The Greeks themselves had set the example of arguing both +for and against slavery. Their practice and their prevailing teaching, +however, gave support to this institution. They clearly enunciated the +doctrine that there is a natural division among human beings; that some +are born to command and others to obey; that it is natural to some men +to be masters and to others to be slaves; that each of these classes +should fulfill the destiny which nature assigns. The Greeks also +recognized a difference between races and held that some were by +nature fitted to serve as slaves, and others to command as masters. The +defenders of American slavery therefore found among the writings of the +Greeks their chief arguments already stated in classic form. + +Though the Romans added little to the theory of the fundamental problem +involved, their history proved rich in practical experience. There were +times, in parts of the Roman Empire, when personal slavery either +did not exist or was limited and insignificant in extent. But the +institution grew with Roman wars and conquests. In rural districts, +slave labor displaced free labor, and in the cities servants multiplied +with the concentration of wealth. The size and character of the +slave population eventually became a perpetual menace to the State. +Insurrections proved formidable, and every slave came to be looked upon +as an enemy to the public. It is generally conceded that the extension +of slavery was a primary cause of the decline and fall of Rome. In +the American controversy, therefore, the lesson to be drawn from Roman +experience was utilized to support the cause of free labor. + +After the Middle Ages, in which slavery under the modified form of +feudalism ran its course, there was a reversion to the ancient classical +controversy. The issue became clearly defined in the hands of the +English and French philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries. In place of the time-honored doctrine that the masses of +mankind are by nature subject to the few who are born to rule, the +contradictory dogma that all men are by nature free and equal was +clearly enunciated. According to this later view, it is of the very +nature of spirit, or personality, to be free. All men are endowed with +personal qualities of will and choice and a conscious sense of right and +wrong. To subject these native faculties to an alien force is to make +war upon human nature. Slavery and despotism are, therefore, in their +nature but a species of warfare. They involve the forcing of men to act +in violation of their true selves. The older doctrine makes government +a matter of force. The strong command the weak, or the rich exercise +lordship over the poor. The new doctrine makes of government an +achievement of adult citizens who agree among themselves as to what +is fit and proper for the good of the State and who freely observe the +rules adopted and apply force only to the abnormal, the delinquent, and +the defective. + +Between the upholders of these contradictory views of human nature +there always has been and there always must be perpetual warfare. Their +difference is such as to admit of no compromise; no middle ground is +possible. The conflict is indeed irresistible. The chief interest in +the American crusade against slavery arises from its relation to this +general world conflict between liberty and despotism. + +The Athenians could be democrats and at the same time could uphold and +defend the institution of slavery. They were committed to the doctrine +that the masses of the people were slaves by nature. By definition, +they made slaves creatures void of will and personality, and they +conveniently ignored them in matters of state. But Americans living in +States founded in the era of the Declaration of Independence could not +be good democrats and at the same time uphold and defend the institution +of slavery, for the Declaration gives the lie to all such assumptions +of human inequality by accepting the cardinal axiom that all men are +created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among +which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine +of equality had been developed in Europe without special reference to +questions of distinct race or color. But the terms, which are universal +and as broad as humanity in their denotation, came to be applied to +black men as well as to white men. Massachusetts embodied in her state +constitution in 1780 the words, "All men are born free and equal," and +the courts ruled that these words in the state constitution had the +effect of liberating the slaves and of giving to them the same rights as +other citizens. This is a perfectly logical application of the doctrine +of the Revolution. + +The African slave-trade, however, developed earlier than the doctrine +of the Declaration of Independence. Negro slavery had long been an +established institution in all the American colonies. Opposition to the +slave-trade and to slavery was an integral part of the evolution of +the doctrine of equal rights. As the colonists contended for their own +freedom, they became anti-slavery in sentiment. A standard complaint +against British rule was the continued imposition of the slave-trade +upon the colonists against their oft-repeated protest. + +In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, there appeared +the following charges against the King of Great Britain: + +"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most +sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people +who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in +another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation +thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is +the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep +open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted +his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to +restrain this execrable commerce." + +Though this clause was omitted from the document as finally adopted, +the evidence is abundant that the language expressed the prevailing +sentiment of the country. To the believer in liberty and equality, +slavery and the slave-trade are instances of war against human nature. +No one attempted to justify slavery or to reconcile it with the +principles of free government. Slavery was accepted as an inheritance +for which others were to blame. Colonists at first blamed Great Britain; +later apologists for slavery blamed New England for her share in the +continuance of the slave-trade. + +The fact should be clearly comprehended that the sentiments which led to +the American Revolution, and later to the French Revolution in Europe, +were as broad in their application as the human race itself--that there +were no limitations nor exceptions. These new principles involved +a complete revolution in the previously recognized principles of +government. The French sought to make a master-stroke at immediate +achievement and they incurred counterrevolutions and delays. The +Americans moved in a more moderate and tentative manner towards the +great achievement, but with them also a counter-revolution finally +appeared in the rise of an influential class who, by openly defending +slavery, repudiated the principles upon which the government was +founded. + +At first the impression was general, in the South as well as in +the North, that slavery was a temporary institution. The cause of +emancipation was already advocated by the Society of Friends and some +other sects. A majority of the States adopted measures for the gradual +abolition of slavery, but in other cases there proved to be industrial +barriers to emancipation. Slaves were found to be profitably employed in +clearing away the forests; they were not profitably employed in general +agriculture. A marked exception was found in small districts in the +Carolinas and Georgia where indigo and rice were produced; and though +cotton later became a profitable crop for slave labor, it was the +producers of rice and indigo who furnished the original barrier to the +immediate extension of the policy of emancipation. Representatives from +their States secured the introduction of a clause into the Constitution +which delayed for twenty years the execution of the will of the country +against the African slave-trade. It is said that a slave imported from +Africa paid for himself in a single year in the production of rice. +There were thus a few planters in Georgia and the Carolinas who had an +obvious interest in the prolongation of the institution of slavery and +who had influence enough, to secure constitutional recognition for both +slavery and the slave-trade. + +The principles involved were not seriously debated. In theory all were +abolitionists; in practice slavery extended to all the States. In some, +actual abolition was comparatively easy; in others, it was difficult. By +the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, actual abolition +had extended to the line separating Pennsylvania from Maryland. Of the +original thirteen States seven became free and six remained slave. + +The absence of ardent or prolonged debate upon this issue in the early +history of the United States is easily accounted for. No principle +of importance was drawn into the controversy; few presumed to defend +slavery as a just or righteous institution. As to conduct, each +individual, each neighborhood enjoyed the freedom of a large, roomy +country. Even within state lines there was liberty enough. No keen sense +of responsibility for a uniform state policy existed. It was therefore +not difficult for those who were growing wealthy by the use of imported +negroes to maintain their privileges in the State. + +If the sense of active responsibility was wanting within the separate +States, much more was this true of the citizens of different States. +Slavery was regarded as strictly a domestic institution. Families bought +and owned slaves as a matter of individual preference. None of the +original colonies or States adopted slavery by law. The citizens of the +various colonies became slaveholders simply because there was no law +against it. * The abolition of slavery was at first an individual matter +or a church or a state policy. When the Constitution was formulated, the +separate States had been accustomed to regard themselves as possessed +of sovereign powers; hence there was no occasion for the citizens of +one State to have a sense of responsibility on account of the +domestic institutions of other States. The consciousness of national +responsibility was of slow growth, and the conditions did not then +exist which favored a general crusade against slavery or a prolonged +acrimonious debate on the subject, such as arose forty years later. + + * In the case of Georgia there was a prohibitory law, which + was disregarded. + +In many of the States, however, there were organized abolition +societies, whose object was to promote the cause of emancipation already +in progress and to protect the rights of free negroes. The Friends, or +Quakers, were especially active in the promotion of a propaganda for +universal emancipation. A petition which was presented to the first +Congress in February, 1790, with the signature of Benjamin Franklin +as President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, contained this +concluding paragraph: + +"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally, and is still, the +birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity +and the principles of their institutions, your memorialists conceive +themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bonds +of slavery, and to promote the general enjoyment of the blessings of +freedom. Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your attention +to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the +restoration to liberty of those unhappy men, who, alone, in this land of +freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means +for removing this inconsistency of character from the American people; +that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; +and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for +discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellowmen." +* + + * William Goodell, "Slavery and Anti-Slavery," p. 99. + +The memorialists were treated with profound respect. Cordial support and +encouragement came from representatives from Virginia and other slave +States. Opposition was expressed by members from South Carolina and +Georgia. These for the most part relied upon their constitutional +guaranties. But for these guaranties, said Smith, of South Carolina, +his State would not have entered the Union. In the extreme utterances in +opposition to the petition there is a suggestion of the revolution which +was to occur forty years later. + +Active abolitionists who gave time and money to the promotion of the +cause were always few in numbers. Previous to 1830 abolition societies +resembled associations for the prevention of cruelty to animals--in +fact, in one instance at least this was made one of the professed +objects. These societies labored to induce men to act in harmony +with generally acknowledged obligations, and they had no occasion for +violence or persecution. Abolitionists were distinguished for their +benevolence and their unselfish devotion to the interests of the needy +and the unfortunate. It was only when the ruling classes resorted to mob +violence and began to defend slavery as a divinely ordained institution +that there was a radical change in the spirit of the controversy. The +irrepressible conflict between liberty and despotism which has persisted +in all ages became manifest when slave-masters substituted the Greek +doctrine of inequality and slavery for the previously accepted Christian +doctrine of equality and universal brotherhood. + + + +CHAPTER II. THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CRUSADE + +It was a mere accident that the line drawn by Mason and Dixon between +Pennsylvania and Maryland became known in later years as the dividing +line between slavery and freedom. The six States south of that line +ultimately neglected or refused to abolish slavery, while the seven +Northern States became free. Vermont became a State in 1791 and Kentucky +in 1792. The third State to be added to the original thirteen was +Tennessee in 1796. At that time, counting the States as they were +finally classified, eight were destined to be slave and eight free. Ohio +entered the Union as a State in 1802, thus giving to the free States +a majority of one. The balance, however, was restored in 1812 by the +admission of Louisiana as a slave State. The admission of Indiana in +1816 on the one side and of Mississippi in 1817 on the other still +maintained the balance: ten free States stood against ten slave States. +During the next two years Illinois and Alabama were admitted, making +twenty-two States in all, still evenly divided. + +The ordinance for the government of the territory north of the Ohio +River, passed in 1787 and reenacted by Congress after the adoption +of the Constitution, proved to be an act of great significance in its +relation to the limitation of slavery. By this ordinance slavery was +forever prohibited in the Northwest Territory. In the territory south +of the Ohio River slavery became permanently established. The river, +therefore, became an extension of the original Mason and Dixon's Line +with the new meaning attached: it became a division between free and +slave territory. + +It was apparently at first a mere matter of chance that a balance was +struck between the two losses of States. While Virginia remained a slave +State, it was natural that slavery should extend into Kentucky, which +had been a part of Virginia. Likewise Tennessee, being a part of North +Carolina, became slave territory. When these two Territories became +slave States, the equal division began. There was yet an abundance of +territory both north and south to be taken into the Union and, without +any special plan or agitation, States were admitted in pairs, one free +and the other slave. In the meantime there was distinctly developed the +idea of the possible or probable permanence of slavery in the South and +of a rivalry or even a future conflict between the two sections. + +When in 1819 Missouri applied for admission to the Union with a state +constitution permitting slavery, there was a prolonged debate over the +whole question, not only in Congress but throughout the entire country. +North and South were distinctly pitted against each other with rival +systems of labor. The following year Congress passed a law providing +for the admission of Missouri, but, to restore the balance, Maine was +separated from Massachusetts and was admitted to the Union as a State. +It was further enacted that slavery should be forever prohibited from +all territory of the United States north of the parallel 36 degrees 30', +that is, north of the southern boundary of Missouri. It is this part of +the act which is known as the Missouri Compromise. It was accepted as +a permanent limitation of the institution of slavery. By this act Mason +and Dixon's Line was extended through the Louisiana Purchase. As the +western boundary was then defined, slavery could still be extended into +Arkansas and into a part of what is now Oklahoma, while a great empire +to the northwest was reserved for the formation of free States. Arkansas +became a slave State in 1836 and Michigan was admitted as a free State +in the following year. + +With the admission of Arkansas and Michigan, thirteen slave States were +balanced by a like number of free States. The South still had Florida, +which would in time become a slave State. Against this single Territory +there was an immense region to the northwest, equal in area to all the +slave States combined, which, according to the Ordinance of 1787 and the +Missouri Compromise, had been consecrated to freedom. Foreseeing this +condition, a few Southern planters began a movement for the extension +of territory to the south and west immediately after the adoption of +the Missouri Compromise. When Arkansas was admitted in 1836, there was a +prospect of the immediate annexation of Texas as a slave State. This did +not take place until nine years later, but the propaganda, the object of +which was the extension of slave territory, could not be maintained by +those who contended that slavery was a curse to the country. Virginia, +therefore, and other border slave States, as they became committed to +the policy of expansion, ceased to tolerate official public utterances +against slavery. + +Three more or less clearly defined sections appear in the later +development of the crusade. These are the New England States, the Middle +States, and the States south of North Carolina and Tennessee. In New +England, few negroes were ever held as slaves, and the institution +disappeared during the first years of the Republic. The inhabitants had +little experience arising from actual contact with slavery. When slavery +disappeared from New England and before there had been developed in the +country at large a national feeling of responsibility for its continued +existence, interest in the subject declined. For twenty years previous +to the founding of Garrison's Liberator in 1831, organized abolition +movements had been almost unknown in New England. In various ways +the people were isolated, separated from contact with slavery. Their +knowledge of this subject of discussion was academic, theoretical, +acquired at second-hand. + +In New York and New Jersey slaves were much more numerous than in New +England. There were still slaves in considerable numbers until about +1825. The people had a knowledge of the institution from experience and +observation, and there was no break in the continuity of their organized +abolition societies. Chief among the objects of these societies was the +effort to prevent kidnapping and to guard the rights of free negroes. +For both of these purposes there was a continuous call for activity. +Pennsylvania also had freedmen of her own whose rights called for +guardianship, as well as many freedmen from farther south who had come +into the State. + +The movement of protest and protection did not stop at Mason and Dixon's +Line, but extended far into the South. In both North Carolina and +Tennessee an active protest against slavery was at all times maintained. +In this great middle section of the country, between New England and +South Carolina, there was no cessation in the conflict between free +and slave labor. Some of these States became free while others remained +slave; but between the people of the two sections there was continuous +communication. Slaveholders came into free States to liberate their +slaves. Non-slaveholders came to get rid of the competition of slave +labor, and free negroes came to avoid reenslavement. Slaves fled thither +on their way to liberty. It was not a matter of choice; it was an +unavoidable condition which compelled the people of the border States to +give continuous attention to the institution of slavery. + +The modern anti-slavery movement had its origin in this great middle +section, and from the same source it derived its chief support. The +great body of active abolitionists were from the slave States or +else derived their inspiration from personal contact with slavery. As +compared with New England abolitionists, the middlestate folk were +less extreme in their views. They had a keener appreciation of the +difficulties involved in emancipation. They were more tolerant towards +the idea of letting the country at large share the burdens involved +in the liberation of the slaves. Border-state abolitionists naturally +favored the policy of gradual emancipation which had been followed in +New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Abolitionists who continued +to reside in the slave States were forced to recognize the fact that +emancipation involved serious questions of race adjustment. From +the border States came the colonization society, a characteristic +institution, as well as compromise of every variety. + +The southernmost section, including South Carolina, Georgia, and the +Gulf States, was even more sharply defined in the attitude it +assumed toward the anti-slavery movement. At no time did the cause of +emancipation become formidable in this section. In all these States +there was, of course, a large class of non-slaveholding whites, who +were opposed to slavery and who realized that they were victims of an +injurious system; but they had no effective organ for expression. The +ruling minority gained an early and an easy victory and to the end held +a firm hand. To the inhabitants of this section it appeared to be a +self-evident truth that the white race was born to rule and the black +race was born to serve. Where negroes outnumbered the whites fourfold, +the mere suggestion of emancipation raised a race question which seemed +appalling in its proportions. Either in the Union or out of the Union, +the rulers were determined to perpetuate slavery. + +Slavery as an economic institution became dependent upon a few +semitropical plantation crops. When the Constitution was framed, rice +and indigo, produced in South Carolina and Georgia, were the two most +important. Indigo declined in relative importance, and the production +of sugar was developed, especially after the annexation of the Louisiana +Purchase. But by far the most important crop for its effects upon +slavery and upon the entire country was cotton. This single product +finally absorbed the labor of half the slaves of the entire country. Mr. +Rhodes is not at all unreasonable in his surmise that, had it not been +for the unforeseen development of the cotton industry, the expectation +of the founders of the Republic that slavery would soon disappear would +actually have been realized. + +It was more difficult to carry out a policy of emancipation when slaves +were quoted in the market at a thousand dollars than when the price +was a few hundred dollars. All slave-owners felt richer; emancipation +appeared to involve a greater sacrifice. Thus the cotton industry went +far towards accounting for the changed attitude of the entire country +on the subject of slavery. The North as well as the South became +financially interested. + +It was not generally perceived before it actually happened that the +border States would take the place of Africa in furnishing the required +supply of laborers for Southern plantations. The interstate slave-trade +gave to the system a solidarity of interest which was new. All +slave-owners became partakers of a common responsibility for the system +as a whole. It was the newly developed trade quite as much as the system +of slavery itself which furnished the ground for the later anti-slavery +appeal. The consciousness of a common guilt for the sin of slavery grew +with the increase of actual interstate relations. + +The abolition of the African slave-trade was an act of the general +Government. Congress passed the prohibitory statute in 1807, to go into +effect January, 1808. At no time, however, was the prohibition entirely +effective, and a limited illegal trade continued until slavery was +eventually abolished. This inefficiency of restraint furnished another +point of attack for the abolitionists. Through efforts to suppress the +African slave-trade, the entire country became conscious of a common +responsibility. Before the Revolutionary War, Great Britain had been +censured for forcing cheap slaves from Africa upon her unwilling +colonies. After the Revolution, New England was blamed for the activity +of her citizens in this nefarious trade both before and after it was +made illegal. All of this tended to increase the sense of responsibility +in every section of the country. Congress had made the foreign +slave-trade illegal; and citizens in all sections gradually became +aware of the possibility that Congress might likewise restrict or forbid +interstate commerce in slaves. + +The West Indies and Mexico were also closely associated with the United +States in the matter of slavery. When Jamestown was founded, negro +slavery was already an old institution in the islands of the Caribbean +Sea, and thence came the first slaves to Virginia. The abolition of +slavery in the island of Hayti, or San Domingo, was accomplished during +the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. As incidental to the +process of emancipation, the Caucasian inhabitants were massacred +or banished, and a republican government was established, composed +exclusively of negroes and mulattoes. From the date of the Missouri +Compromise to that of the Mexican War, this island was united under a +single republic, though it was afterwards divided into the two republics +of Hayti and San Domingo. + +The "horrors of San Domingo" were never absent from the minds of those +in the United States who lived in communities composed chiefly of +slaves. What had happened on the island was accepted by Southern +planters as proof that the two races could live together in peace only +under the relation of master and slave, and that emancipation boded +the extermination of one race or the other. Abolitionists, however, +interpreted the facts differently: they emphasized the tyranny of the +white rulers as a primary cause of the massacres; they endowed some +of the negro leaders with the highest qualities of statesmanship and +self-sacrificing generosity; and Wendell Phillips, in an impassioned +address which he delivered in 1861, placed on the honor roll above the +chief worthies of history--including Cromwell and Washington--Toussaint +L'Ouverture, the liberator of Hayti, whom France had betrayed and +murdered. + +Abolitionists found support for their position in the contention that +other communities had abolished slavery without such accompanying +horrors as occurred in Hayti and without serious race conflict. Slavery +had run its course in Spanish America, and emancipation accompanied or +followed the formation of independent republics. In 1833 all slaves +in the British Empire were liberated, including those in the important +island of Jamaica. So it happened that, just at the time when Southern +leaders were making up their minds to defend their peculiar institution +at all hazards, they were beset on every side by the spirit of +emancipation. Abolitionists, on the other hand, were fully convinced +that the attainment of some form of emancipation in the United States +was certain, and that, either peaceably or through violence, the slaves +would ultimately be liberated. + + + +CHAPTER III. EARLY CRUSADERS + +At the time when the new cotton industry was enhancing the value of +slave labor, there arose from the ranks of the people those who freely +consecrated their all to the freeing of the slave. Among these, Benjamin +Lundy, a New Jersey Quaker, holds a significant place. + +Though the Society of Friends fills a large place in the anti-slavery +movement, its contribution to the growth of the conception of equality +is even more significant. This impetus to the idea arises from a +fundamental Quaker doctrine, announced at the middle of the seventeenth +century, to the erect that God reveals Himself to mankind, not through +any priesthood or specially chosen agents; not through any ordinance, +form, or ceremony; not through any church or institution; not through +any book or written record of any sort; but directly, through His +Spirit, to each person. This direct enlightening agency they deemed +coextensive with humanity; no race and no individual is left without the +ever-present illuminating Spirit. If men of old spoke as they were moved +by the Holy Spirit, what they spoke or wrote can furnish no reliable +guidance to the men of a later generation, except as their minds also +are enlightened by the same Spirit in the same way. "The letter killeth; +it is the Spirit that giveth life." + +This doctrine in its purity and simplicity places all men and all races +on an equality; all are alike ignorant and imperfect; all are alike in +their need of the more perfect revelation yet to be made. Master and +slave are equal before God; there can be no such relation, therefore, +except by doing violence to a personality, to a spiritual being. In +harmony with this fundamental principle, the Society of Friends early +rid itself of all connection with slavery. The Friends' Meeting became +a refuge for those who were moved by the Spirit to testify against +slavery. + +Born in 1789 in a State which was then undergoing the process of +emancipating its slaves, Benjamin Lundy moved at the age of nineteen +to Wheeling, West Virginia, which had already become the center of an +active domestic slave-trade. The pious young Quaker, now apprenticed to +a saddler, was brought into personal contact with this traffic in human +flesh. He felt keenly the national disgrace of the iniquity. So deep did +the iron enter into his soul that never again did he find peace of mind +except in efforts to relieve the oppressed. Like hundreds and thousands +of others, Lundy was led on to active opposition to the trade by an +actual knowledge of the inhumanity of the business as prosecuted before +his eyes and by his sympathy for human suffering. + +His apprenticeship ended, Lundy was soon established in a prosperous +business in an Ohio village not far from Wheeling. Though he now lived +in a free State, the call of the oppressed was ever in his ears and he +could not rest. He drew together a few of his neighbors, and together +they organized the Union Humane Society, whose object was the relief +of those held in bondage. In a few months the society numbered several +hundred members, and Lundy issued an address to the philanthropists +of the whole country, urging them to unite in like manner with uniform +constitutions, and suggesting that societies so formed adopt a policy of +correspondence and cooperation. At about the same time, Lundy began to +publish anti-slavery articles in the Mount Pleasant Philanthropist and +other papers. + +In 1819 he went on a business errand to St. Louis, Missouri, where he +found himself in the midst of an agitation over the question of the +extension of slavery in the States. With great zest he threw himself +into the discussion, making use of the newspapers in Missouri and +Illinois. Having lost his property, he returned poverty-stricken +to Ohio, where he founded in January, 1821, the Genius of Universal +Emancipation. A few months later he transferred his paper to the more +congenial atmosphere of Jonesborough, Tennessee, but in 1824 he went to +Baltimore, Maryland. In the meantime, Lundy had become much occupied in +traveling, lecturing, and organizing societies for the promotion of the +cause of abolition. He states that during the ten years previous to 1830 +he had traveled upwards of twenty-five thousand miles, five thousand +of which were on foot. He now became interested in plans for colonizing +negroes in other countries as an aid to emancipation, though he +himself had no confidence in the colonization society and its scheme of +deportation to Africa. After leading a few negroes to Hayti in 1829, he +visited Canada, Texas, and Mexico with a similar plan in view. + +During a trip through the Middle States and New England in 1828, Lundy +met William Lloyd Garrison, and the following year he walked all the +way from Baltimore to Bennington, Vermont, for the express purpose of +securing the assistance of the youthful reformer as coeditor of his +paper. Garrison had previously favored colonization, but within the few +weeks which elapsed before he joined Lundy, he repudiated all forms of +colonization and advocated immediate and unconditional emancipation. He +at once told Lundy of his change of views. "Well," said Lundy, "thee may +put thy initials to thy articles, and I will put my witness to mine, +and each will bear his own burden." The two editors were, however, +in complete accord in their opposition to the slave-trade. Lundy had +suffered a dangerous assault at the hands of a Baltimore slave-trader +before he was joined by Garrison. During the year 1830, Garrison was +convicted of libel and thrown into prison on account of his scathing +denunciation of Francis Todd of Massachusetts, the owner of a vessel +engaged in the slave-trade. + +These events brought to a crisis the publication of the Genius of +Universal Emancipation. The editors now parted company. Again Lundy +moved the office of the paper, this time to Washington, D.C., but it +soon became a peripatetic monthly, printed wherever the editor chanced +to be. In 1836 Lundy began the issue of an anti-slavery paper in +Philadelphia, called the National Inquirer, and with this was merged the +Genius of Universal Emancipation. He was preparing to resume the issue +of his original paper under the old title, in La Salle County, Illinois, +when he was overtaken by death on August 22, 1839. + +Here was a man without education, without wealth, of a slight frame, not +at all robust, who had undertaken, singlehanded and without the shadow +of a doubt of his ultimate success, to abolish American slavery. +He began the organization of societies which were to displace the +anti-slavery societies of the previous century. He established the first +paper devoted exclusively to the cause of emancipation. He foresaw that +the question of emancipation must be carried into politics and that it +must become an object of concern to the general Government as well as to +the separate States. In the early part of his career he found the most +congenial association and the larger measure of effective support south +of Mason and Dixon's Line, and in this section were the greater number +of the abolition societies which he organized. During the later years +of his life, as it was becoming increasingly difficult in the South +to maintain a public anti-slavery propaganda, he transferred his chief +activities to the North. Lundy serves as a connecting link between the +earlier and the later anti-slavery movements. Eleven years of his early +life belong to the century of the Revolution. Garrison recorded his +indebtedness to Lundy in the words: "If I have in any way, however +humble, done anything towards calling attention to slavery, or bringing +out the glorious prospect of a complete jubilee in our country at no +distant day, I feel that I owe everything in this matter, instrumentally +under God, to Benjamin Lundy." + +Different in type, yet even more significant on account of its peculiar +relations to the cause of abolition, was the life of James Gillespie +Birney, who was born in a wealthy slaveholding family at Dansville, +Kentucky, in the year 1792. The Birneys were anti-slavery planters of +the type of Washington and Jefferson. The father had labored to make +Kentucky a free State at the time of its admission to the Union. His son +was educated first at Princeton, where he graduated in 1810, and then +in the office of a distinguished lawyer in Philadelphia. He began the +practice of law at his home at the age of twenty-two. His home training +and his residence in States which were then in the process of gradual +emancipation served to confirm him in the traditional conviction of his +family. While Benjamin Lundy, at the age of twenty-seven, was engaged in +organizing anti-slavery societies north of the Ohio River, Birney at +the age of twenty-four was influential as a member of the Kentucky +Legislature in the prevention of the passing of a joint resolution +calling upon Ohio and Indiana to make laws providing for the return +of fugitive slaves. He was also conspicuous in his efforts to secure +provisions for gradual emancipation. Two years later he became a planter +near Huntsville, Alabama. Though not a member of the Constitutional +Convention preparatory to the admission of this Territory into +the Union, Birney used his influence to secure provisions in the +constitution favorable to gradual emancipation. As a member of the first +Legislature, in 1819, he was the author of a law providing a fair trial +by jury for slaves indicted for crimes above petty larceny, and in 1826 +he became a regular contributor to the American Colonization Society, +believing it to be an aid to emancipation. The following year he was +able to induce the Legislature, although he was not then a member of it, +to pass an act forbidding the importation of slaves into Alabama +either for sale or for hire. This was regarded as a step preliminary to +emancipation. + +The cause of education in Alabama had in Birney a trusted leader. During +the year 1830 he spent several months in the North Atlantic States +for the selection of a president and four professors for the State +University and three teachers for the Huntsville Female Seminary. These +were all employed upon his sole recommendation. On his return he had an +important interview with Henry Clay, of whose political party he had for +several years been the acknowledged leader in Alabama. He urged Clay +to place himself at the head of the movement in Kentucky for gradual +emancipation. Upon Clay's refusal their political cooperation +terminated. Birney never again supported Clay for office and regarded +him as in a large measure responsible for the pro-slavery reaction in +Kentucky. + +Birney, who had now become discouraged regarding the prospect of +emancipation, during the winter of 1831 and 1832 decided to remove his +family to Jacksonville, Illinois. He was deterred from carrying out +his plan, however, by his unexpected appointment as agent of the +colonization society in the Southwest--a mission which he undertook from +a sense of duty. + +In his travels throughout the region assigned to him, Birney became +aware of the aggressive designs of the planters of the Gulf States to +secure new slave territories in the Southwest. In view of these facts +the methods of the colonization society appeared utterly futile. Birney +surrendered his commission and, in 1833, returned to Kentucky with the +intention of doing himself what Henry Clay had refused to do three years +earlier, still hoping that Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee might be +induced to abolish slavery and thus place the slave power in a hopeless +minority. His disappointment was extreme at the pro-slavery reaction +which had taken place in Kentucky. The condition called for more drastic +measures, and Birney decided to forsake entirely the colonization +society and cast in his lot with the abolitionists. He freed his slaves +in 1834, and in the following year he delivered the principal address +at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society held in New +York. His gift of leadership was at once recognized. As vice-president +of the society he began to travel on its behalf, to address public +assemblies, and especially to confer with members of state legislatures +and to address the legislative bodies. He now devoted his entire time to +the service of the society, and as early as September, 1835, issued the +prospectus of a paper devoted to the cause of emancipation. This called +forth such a display of force against the movement that he could neither +find a printer nor obtain the use of a building in Dansville, Kentucky, +for the publication. As a result he transferred his activities to +Cincinnati, where he began publication of the Philanthropist in 1836. +With the connivance of the authorities and encouragement from leading +citizens of Cincinnati, the office of the Philanthropist was three times +looted by the mob, and the proprietor's life was greatly endangered. +The paper, however, rapidly grew in favor and influence and thoroughly +vindicated the right of free discussion of the slavery question. +Another editor was installed when Birney, who became secretary of the +Anti-slavery Society in 1837, transferred his residence to New York +City. + +Twenty-three years before Lincoln's famous utterance in which he +proclaimed the doctrine that a house divided against itself cannot +stand, and before Seward's declaration of an irrepressible conflict +between slavery and freedom, Birney had said: "There will be no +cessation of conflict until slavery shall be exterminated or liberty +destroyed. Liberty and slavery cannot live in juxtaposition." He spoke +out of the fullness of his own experience. A thoroughly trained lawyer +and statesman, well acquainted with the trend of public sentiment in +both North and South, he was fully persuaded that the new pro-slavery +crusade against liberty boded civil war. He knew that the white men in +North and South would not, without a struggle, consent to be permanently +deprived of their liberties at the behest of a few Southern planters. +Being himself of the slaveholding class, he was peculiarly fitted to +appreciate their position. To him the new issue meant war, unless +the belligerent leaders should be shown that war was hopeless. By his +moderation in speech, his candor in statement, his lack of rancor, his +carefully considered, thoroughly fair arguments, he had the rare faculty +of convincing opponents of the correctness of his own view. + +There could be little sympathy between Birney and William Lloyd +Garrison, whose style of denunciation appeared to the former as an +incitement to war and an excuse for mob violence. As soon as Birney +became the accepted leader in the national society, there was +friction between his followers and those of Garrison. To denounce +the Constitution and repudiate political action were, from Birney's +standpoint, a surrender of the only hope of forestalling a dire +calamity. He had always fought slavery by the use of legal and +constitutional methods, and he continued so to fight. In this policy he +had the support of a large majority of abolitionists in New England and +elsewhere. Only a few personal friends accepted Garrison's injunction to +forswear politics and repudiate the Constitution. + +The followers of Birney, failing to secure recognition for their views +in either of the political parties, organized the Liberty party and, +while Birney was in Europe in 1840, nominated him as their candidate +for the Presidency. The vote which he received was a little over seven +thousand, but four years later he was again the candidate of the party +and received over sixty thousand votes. He suffered an injury during the +following year which condemned him to hopeless invalidism and brought +his public career to an end. + +Though Lundy and Birney were contemporaries and were engaged in the same +great cause, they were wholly independent in their work. Lundy addressed +himself almost entirely to the non-slaveholding class, while all of +Birney's early efforts were "those of a slaveholder seeking to induce +his own class to support the policy of emancipation." Though a Northern +man, Lundy found his chief support in the South until he was driven out +by persecution. Birney also resided in the South until he was forced to +leave for the same reason. The two men were in general accord in their +main lines of policy: both believed firmly in the use of political means +to effect their objects; both were at first colonizationists, though +Lundy favored colonization in adjacent territory rather than by +deportation to Africa. + +Women were not a whit behind men in their devotion to the cause of +freedom. Conspicuous among them were Sarah and Angelina Grimke, born in +Charleston, South Carolina, of a slaveholding family noted for learning, +refinement, and culture. Sarah was born in the same year as James G. +Birney, 1792; Angelina was thirteen years younger. Angelina was the +typical crusader: her sympathies from the first were with the slave. +As a child she collected and concealed oil and other simple remedies so +that she might steal out by night and alleviate the sufferings of slaves +who had been cruelly whipped or abused. At the age of fourteen she +refused to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church because the ceremony +involved giving sanction to words which seemed to her untrue. Two years +later her mother offered her a present of a slave girl for a servant and +companion. This gift she refused to accept, for in her view the servant +had a right to be free, and, as for her own needs, Angelina felt quite +capable of waiting upon herself. + +Of her own free will she joined the Presbyterian Church and labored +earnestly with the officers of the church to induce them to espouse the +cause of the slave. When she failed to secure cooperation, she decided +that the church was not Christian and she therefore withdrew her +membership. Her sister Sarah had gone North in 1821 and had become a +member of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. In Charleston, South +Carolina, there was a Friends' meeting-house where two old Quakers +still met at the appointed time and sat for an hour in solemn silence. +Angelina donned the Quaker garb, joined this meeting, and for an entire +year was the third of the silent worshipers. This quiet testimony, +however, did not wholly satisfy her energetic nature, and when, in +1830, she heard of the imprisonment of Garrison in Baltimore, she was +convinced that effective labors against slavery could not be carried on +in the South. With great sorrow she determined to sever her connection +with home and family and join her sister in Philadelphia. There the +exile from the South poured out her soul in an Appeal to the Christian +Women of the South. The manuscript was handed to the officers of the +Anti-slavery Society in the city and, as they read, tears filled +their eyes. The Appeal was immediately printed in large quantities for +distribution in Southern States. + +Copies of the Appeal which had been sent to Charleston were seized by a +mob and publicly burned. When it became known soon afterwards that the +author of the offensive document was intending to return to Charleston +to spend the winter with her family, there was intense excitement, and +the mayor of the city informed the mother that her daughter would not be +permitted to land in Charleston nor to communicate with any one there, +and that, if she did elude the police and come ashore, she would be +imprisoned and guarded until the departure of the next boat. On account +of the distress which she would cause to her friends, Miss Grimke +reluctantly gave up the exercise of her constitutional right to visit +her native city and in a very literal sense she became a permanent +exile. + +The two sisters let their light shine among Philadelphia Quakers. In +the religious meetings negro women were consigned to a special seat. The +Grimkes, having first protested against this discrimination, took their +own places on the seat with the colored women. In Charleston, Angelina +had scrupulously adhered to the Quaker garb because it was viewed as a +protest against slavery. In Philadelphia, however, no such meaning was +attached to the costume, and she adopted clothing suited to the climate +regardless of conventions. A series of parlor talks to women which had +been organized by the sisters grew in interest until the parlors became +inadequate, and the speakers were at last addressing large audiences of +women in the public meeting-places of Philadelphia. + +At this time when Angelina was making effective use of her unrivaled +power as a public speaker, she received in 1836 an invitation from the +Anti-slavery Society of New York to address the women of that city. She +informed her sister that she believed this to be a call from God and +that it was her duty to accept. Sarah decided to be her companion and +assistant in the work in the new field, which was similar to that in +Philadelphia. Its fame soon extended to Boston, whence came an urgent +invitation to visit that city. It was in Massachusetts that men began to +steal into the women's meetings and listen from the back seats. In Lynn +all barriers were broken down, and a modest, refined, and naturally +diffident young woman found herself addressing immense audiences of men +and women. In the old theater in Boston for six nights in succession, +audiences filling all the space listened entranced to the messenger of +emancipation. There is uniform testimony that, in an age distinguished +for oratory, no more effective speaker appeared than Angelina Grimke. +It was she above all others who first vindicated the right of women to +speak to men from the public platform on political topics. But it must +be remembered that scores of other women were laboring to the same end +and were fully prepared to utilize the new opportunity. + +The great world movement from slavery towards freedom, from despotism +to democracy, is characterized by a tendency towards the equality of +the sexes. Women have been slaves where men were free. In barbarous ages +women have been ignored or have been treated as mere adjuncts to the +ruling sex. But wherever there has been a distinct contribution to the +cause of liberty there has been a distinct recognition of woman's share +in the work. The Society of Friends was organized on the principle that +men and women are alike moral beings, hence are equal in the sight of +God. As a matter of experience, women were quite as often moved to break +the silence of a religious meeting as were the men. + +For two hundred years women had been accustomed to talk to both men +and women in Friends' meetings and, when the moral war against slavery +brought religion and politics into close relation, they were ready +speakers upon both topics. When the Grimke sisters came into the church +with a fresh baptism of the Spirit, they overcame all obstacles and, +with a passion for righteousness, moral and spiritual and political, +they carried the war against slavery into politics. + +In 1833, at the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society +in Philadelphia, a number of women were present. Lucretia Mott, a +distinguished "minister" in the Society of Friends, took part in the +proceedings. She was careful to state that she spoke as a mere visitor, +having no place in the organization, but she ventured to suggest various +modifications in the report of Garrison's committee on a declaration of +principles which rendered it more acceptable to the meeting. It had not +then been seriously considered whether women could become members of +the Anti-Slavery Society, which was at that time composed exclusively +of men, with the women maintaining their separate organizations as +auxiliaries. + +The women of the West were already better organized than the men and +were doing a work which men could not do. They were, for the most part, +unconscious of any conflict between the peculiar duties of men and +those of women in their relations to common objects. The "library +associations" of Indiana, which were in fact effective anti-slavery +societies, were to a large extent composed of women. To the library +were added numerous other disguises, such as "reading circles," "sewing +societies," "women's clubs." In many communities the appearance of men +in any of these enterprises would create suspicion or even raise a mob. +But the women worked on quietly, effectively, and unnoticed. + +The matron of a family would be provided with the best riding-horse +which the neighborhood could furnish. Mounted upon her steed, she would +sally forth in the morning, meet her carefully selected friends in +a town twenty miles away, gain information as to what had been +accomplished, give information as to the work in other parts of the +district, distribute new literature, confer as to the best means of +extending their labors, and return in the afternoon. The father of +such a family was quite content with the humbler task of cooperation by +supplying the sinews of war. There was complete equality between husband +and wife because their aims were identical and each rendered the service +most convenient and most needed. Women did what men could not do. In +the territory of the enemy the men were reached through the gradual and +tentative efforts of women whom the uninitiated supposed to be spending +idle hours at a sewing circle. Interest was maintained by the use of +information of the same general character as that which later took the +country by storm in Uncle Tom's Cabin. In course of time all disguise +was thrown aside. A public speaker of national reputation would appear, +a meeting would be announced, and a rousing abolition speech would be +delivered; the mere men of the neighborhood would have little conception +how the surprising change had been accomplished. + +On rare occasions the public presentation of the anti-slavery view +would be undertaken prematurely, as in 1840 at Pendleton, Indiana, when +Frederick Douglass attempted to address a public meeting and was almost +slain by missiles from the mob. Pendleton, however, was not given over +to the enemy. The victim of the assault was restored to health in the +family of a leading citizen. The outrage was judiciously utilized +to convince the fair-minded that one of the evils of slavery was the +development of minds void of candor and justice. On the twenty-fifth +anniversary of the Pendleton disturbance there was another great meeting +in the town. Frederick Douglass was the hero of the occasion. The woman +who was the head of the family that restored him to health was on the +platform. Some of the men who threw the brickbats were there to make +public confession and to apologize for the brutal deed. + +In the minds of a few persons of rare intellectual and logical +endowment, democracy has always implied the equality of the sexes. From +the time of the French Revolution there have been advocates of this +doctrine. As early as 1820, Frances Wright, a young woman in Scotland +having knowledge of the Western republic founded upon the professed +principles of liberty and equality, came to America for the express +purpose of pleading the cause of equal rights for women. To the +general public her doctrine seemed revolutionary, threatening the very +foundations of religion and morality. In the midst of opposition and +persecution she proclaimed views respecting the rights and duties of +women which today are generally accepted as axiomatic. + +The women who attended the meetings for the organization of the American +Anti-Slavery Society were not suffragists, nor had they espoused any +special theories respecting the position of women. They did not wish to +be members of the men's organizations but were quite content with their +own separate one, which served its purpose very well under prevailing +local conditions. James G. Birney, the candidate of the Liberty party +for the Presidency in 1840, had good reasons for opposition to the +inclusion of men and women in the same organization. He knew that by +acting separately they were winning their way. The introduction of a +novel theory involving a different issue seemed to him likely to be a +source of weakness. The cause of women was, however, gaining ground +and winning converts. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were +delegates to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention at London. They +listened to the debate which ended in the refusal to recognize them +as members of the Convention because they were women. The tone of +the discussion convinced them that women were looked upon by men with +disdain and contempt. Because the laws of the land and the customs of +society consigned women to an inferior position, and because there would +be no place for effective public work on the part of women until these +laws were changed, both these women became advocates of women's rights +and conspicuous leaders in the initiation of the propaganda. The +Reverend Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, New York, preached a sermon in 1845 +in which he stated his belief that women need not expect to have their +wrongs fully redressed until they themselves had a hand in the making +and in the administration of the laws. This is an early suggestion +that equal suffrage would become the ultimate goal of the efforts for +righting women's wrongs. + +At the same time there were accessions to the cause from a different +source. In 1833 Oberlin College was founded in northern Ohio. Into some +of the first classes there women were admitted on equal terms with men. +In 1885 the trustees offered the presidency to Professor Asa Mahan, of +Lane Seminary. He was himself an abolitionist from a slave State, and he +refused to be President of Oberlin College unless negroes were admitted +on equal terms with other students. Oberlin thus became the first +institution in the country which extended the privileges of the higher +education to both sexes of all races. It was a distinctly religious +institution devoted to radical reforms of many kinds. Not only was the +use of all intoxicating beverages discarded by faculty and students but +the use of tobacco as well was discouraged. + +Within fifteen years after the founding of Oberlin, there were women +graduates who had something to say on numerous questions of public +interest. Especially was this true of the subject of temperance. +Intemperance was a vice peculiar to men. Women and children were the +chief sufferers, while men were the chief sinners. It was important, +therefore, that men should be reached. In 1847 Lucy Stone, an Oberlin +graduate, began to address public audiences on the subject. At the same +time Susan B. Anthony appeared as a temperance lecturer. The manner of +their reception and the nature of their subject induced them to unite +heartily in the pending crusade for the equal rights of women. The three +causes thus became united in one. + +Along with the crusade against slavery, intemperance, and women's +wrongs, arose a fourth, which was fundamentally connected with the +slavery question: Quakers and Southern and Western abolitionists were +ardently devoted to the interests of peace. They would abolish slavery +by peaceable means because they believed the alternative was a terrible +war. To escape an impending war they were nerved to do and dare and to +incur great risks. New England abolitionists who labored in harmony with +those of the West and South were actuated by similar motives. Sumner +first gained public notice by a distinguished oration against war. +Garrison went farther: he was a professional non-resistant, a root and +branch opponent of both war and slavery. John Brown was a fanatical +antagonist of war until he reached the conclusion that according to the +Divine Will there should be a short war of liberation in place of the +continuance of slavery, which was itself in his opinion the most cruel +form of war. + +Slavery as a legally recognized institution disappeared with the Civil +War. The war against intemperance has made continuous progress and this +problem is apparently approaching a solution. The war against war as +a recognized institution has become the one all-absorbing problem of +civilization. The war against the wrongs of women is being supplanted by +efforts to harmonize the mutual privileges and duties of men and women +on the basis of complete equality. As Samuel May predicted more than +seventy years ago, in the future women are certain to take a hand both +in the making and in the administration of law. + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE TURNING-POINT + +The year 1831 is notable for three events in the history of the +anti-slavery controversy: on the first day of January in that year +William Lloyd Garrison began in Boston the publication of the Liberator; +in August there occurred in Southampton, Virginia, an insurrection of +slaves led by a negro, Nat Turner, in which sixty-one white persons +were massacred; and in December the Virginia Legislature began its long +debate on the question of slavery. + +On the part of the abolitionists there was at no time any sudden break +in the principles which they advocated. Lundy did nothing but revive and +continue the work of the Quakers and other non-slaveholding classes +of the revolutionary period. Birney was and continued to be a typical +slaveholding abolitionist of the earlier period. Garrison began his +work as a disciple of Lundy, whom he followed in the condemnation of the +African colonization scheme, though he went farther and rejected every +form of colonization. Garrison likewise repudiated every plan +for gradual emancipation and proclaimed the duty of immediate and +unconditional liberation of the slaves. + +The first number of the Liberator contained an Address to the Public, +which sounded the keynote of Garrison's career. "I shall contend for the +immediate enfranchisement of our slave population--I will be as harsh as +truth and as uncompromising as justice on this subject--I do not wish to +think, or speak, or write with moderation--I am in earnest--I will not +equivocate--I will not retreat a single inch, and I WILL BE HEARD!" + +The New England Anti-Slavery Society, of which Garrison was the chief +organizer, was in essential harmony with the societies which Lundy had +organized in other sections. Its first address to the public in 1833 +distinctly recognized the separate States as the sole authority in +the matter of emancipation within their own boundaries. Through moral +suasion, eschewing all violence and sedition, its authors proposed to +secure their object. In the spirit of civil and religious liberty and by +appealing to the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty party of 1840 +and 1844, by the Freesoil party of 1848, and later by the Republican +party, and that nearly all of the abolitionists continued to be faithful +adherents to those principles, are sufficient proof of the essential +unity of the great anti-slavery movement. The apparent lack of harmony +and the real confusion in the history of the subject arose from the +peculiar character of one remarkable man. + +The few owners of slaves who had assumed the role of public defenders of +the institution were in the habit of using violent and abusive language +against anti-slavery agitators. This appeared in the first debate on +the subject during Washington's administration. Every form of rhetorical +abuse also accompanied the outbreak of mob violence against the +reformers at the time of Garrison's advent into the controversy. He was +especially fitted to reply in kind. "I am accused," said he, "of using +hard language. I admit the charge. I have not been able to find a soft +word to describe villainy, or to identify the perpetrator of it." This +was a new departure which was instantly recognized by Southern leaders. +But from the beginning to the bitter end, Garrison stands alone +as preeminently the representative of this form of attack. It was +significant, also, that the Liberator was published in Boston, the +literary center of the country. + +There is no evidence that there was any direct connection between the +publication of the Liberator and the servile insurrection which occurred +during the following August. * It was, however, but natural that the +South should associate the two events. A few utterances of the paper +were fitted, if not intended, to incite insurrection. One passage +reads: "Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the +oppressor--the weapons being equal between the parties--God knows that +my heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor. +Therefore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave +insurrections." Again: "Rather than see men wearing their chains in +a cowardly and servile spirit, I would, as an advocate of peace, much +rather see them breaking the heads of the tyrant with their chains." + + * Garrison himself denied any direct connection with the Nat + Turner insurrection. See "William Lloyd Garrison, the Story + of His Life told by His Children," vol. I, p. 251. + +George Thompson, an English co-laborer with Garrison, is quoted as +saying in a public address in 1835 that "Southern slaves ought, or +at least had a right, to cut the throats of their masters." * Such +utterances are rare, and they express a passing mood not in the least +characteristic of the general spirit of the abolition movement; yet +the fact that such statements did emanate from such a source made it +comparatively easy for extremists of the opposition to cast odium upon +all abolitionists. The only type of abolition known in South Carolina +was that of the extreme Garrisonian agitators, and it furnished at +least a shadow of excuse for mob violence in the North and for complete +suppression of discussion in the South. To encourage slaves to cut +the throats of their masters was far from being a rhetorical figure of +speech in communities where slaves were in the majority. Santo Domingo +was at the time a prosperous republic founded by former slaves who had +exterminated the Caucasian residents of the island. Negroes from Santo +Domingo had fomented insurrection in South Carolina. The Nat Turner +incident was more than a suggestion of the dire possibilities of the +situation. Turner was a trusted slave, a preacher among the blacks. He +succeeded in concealing his plot for weeks. When the massacre began, +slaves not in the secret were induced to join. A majority of the slain +were women and children. Abolitionists who had lived in slave States +never indulged in flippant remarks fitted to incite insurrection. This +was reserved for the few agitators far removed from the scene of action. + + * Schouler, "History of the United States under the + Constitution," vol. V, p. 217. + +Southern planters who had determined at all hazards to perpetuate the +institution of slavery were peculiarly sensitive on account of what was +taking place in Spanish America and in the British West Indies. Mexico +abolished slavery in 1829, and united with Colombia in encouraging Cuba +to throw off the Spanish yoke, abolish slavery, and join the sisterhood +of New World republics. This led to an effective protest on the part of +the United States. Both Spain and Mexico were advised that the +United States could not with safety to its own interests permit the +emancipation of slaves in the island of Cuba. But with the British +Emancipation Act of 1833, Cuba became the only neighboring territory in +which slavery was legal. These acts of emancipation added zeal to the +determination of the Southern planters to secure territory for the +indefinite extension of slavery to the southwest. When Lundy and Birney +discovered these plans, their desire to husband and extend the direct +political influence of abolitionists was greatly stimulated. To this +end they maintained a moderate and conservative attitude. They took +care that no abuse or misrepresentation should betray them into any +expression which would diminish their influence with fair-minded, +reasonable men. They were convinced that a clear and complete revelation +of the facts would lead a majority of the people to adopt their views. + +The debate in the Virginia Legislature in the session which met three +months after the Southampton massacre furnishes a demonstration that the +traditional anti-slavery sentiment still persisted among the rulers of +the Old Dominion. It arose out of a petition from the Quakers of the +State asking for an investigation preparatory to a gradual emancipation +of the slaves. The debate, which lasted for several weeks, was able and +thorough. No stronger utterances in condemnation of slavery were ever +voiced than appear in this debate. Different speakers made the statement +that no one presumed to defend slavery on principle--that apologists for +slavery existed but no defenders. Opposition to the petition was in the +main apologetic in tone. + +A darker picture of the blighting effects of slavery on the industries +of the country was never drawn than appears in these speeches. Slavery +was declared to be driving free laborers from the State, to have already +destroyed every industry except agriculture, and to have exhausted the +soil so that profitable agriculture was becoming extinct, while pine +brush was encroaching upon former fruitful fields. "Even the wolf," said +one, "driven back long since by the approach of man, now returns, after +the lapse of a hundred years, to howl over the desolations of slavery." +Contrasts between free labor in northern industry and that of the South +were vividly portrayed. In a speech of great power, one member referred +to Kentucky and Ohio as States "providentially designated to exhibit in +their future histories the differences which necessarily result from a +country free from, and a country afflicted with the curse of slavery." + +The debate was by no means confined to industrial or material +considerations. McDowell, who was afterwards elected Governor of the +State, thus portrays the personal relations of master and slave "You +may place the slave where you please--you may put him under any process, +which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crush +him as a rational being--you may do all this, and the idea that he +was born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope of +immortality--it is the ethereal part of his nature which oppression +cannot reach--it is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of the Deity, +and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man." + +Various speakers assumed that the continuance of slavery involved a +bloody conflict; that either peaceably or through violence, slavery +as contrary to the spirit of the age must come to an end; that the +agitation against it could not be suppressed. Faulkner drew a lurid +picture of the danger from servile insurrection, in which he referred to +the utterances of two former speakers, one of whom had said that, unless +something effective was done to ward off the danger, "the throats of all +the white people of Virginia will be cut." The other replied, "No, the +whites cannot be conquered--the throats of the blacks will be cut." +Faulkner's rejoinder was that the difference was a trifling one, "for +the fact is conceded that one race or the other must be exterminated." + +The public press joined in the debate. Leading editorials appeared in +the Richmond Enquirer urging that effective measures be instituted to +put an end to slavery. The debate aroused much interest throughout the +South. Substantially all the current abolition arguments appeared in the +speeches of the slave-owning members of the Virginia Legislature. And +what was done about it? Nothing at all. The petition was not granted; +no action looking towards emancipation was taken. This was indeed a +turning-point. Men do not continue to denounce in public their own +conduct unless their action results in some effort toward corrective +measures. + +Professor Thomas Dew, of the chair of history and metaphysics in William +and Mary College and later President of the College, published an essay +reviewing the debate in the Legislature and arguing that any plan for +emancipation in Virginia was either undesirable or impossible. +This essay was among the first of the direct pro-slavery arguments. +Statements in support of the view soon followed. In 1835 the Governor of +South Carolina in a message to the Legislature said, "Domestic slavery +is the corner-stone of our republican edifice." Senator Calhoun, +speaking in the Senate two years later, declared slavery to be a +positive good. W. G. Simms, Southern poet and novelist, writing in 1852, +felicitates himself as being among the first who about fifteen years +earlier advocated slavery as a great good and a blessing. Harriet +Martineau, an English author who traveled extensively in the South in +1885, found few slaveholders who justified the institution as being in +itself just. But after the debates in the Virginia Legislature, there +were few owners of slaves who publicly advocated abolition. The spirit +of mob violence had set in, and, contrary to the utterances of Virginia +statesmen, free speech on the subject of slavery was suppressed in the +slave States. This did not mean that Southern statesmen had lost +the power to perceive the evil effects of slavery or that they were +convinced that their former views were erroneous. It meant simply that +they had failed to agree upon a policy of gradual emancipation, and the +only recourse left seemed to be to follow the example of James G. Birney +and leave the South or to submit in silence to the new order. + + + +CHAPTER V. THE VINDICATION OF LIBERTY + +With the changed attitude of the South towards emancipation there was +associated an active hostility to dearly bought human liberty. Freedom +of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, the right of +assembly, trial by jury, the right of petition, free use of the mails, +and numerous other fundamental human rights were assailed. Birney +and other abolitionists who had immediate knowledge of slavery early +perceived that the real question at issue was quite as much the +continued liberty of the white man as it was the liberation of the black +man and that the enslavement of one race involved also the ultimate +essential enslavement of the other. + +In 1831 two slave States and six free States still extended to free +negroes the right to vote. During the pro-slavery crusade these +privileges disappeared; and not only so, but free negroes were banished +from certain States, or were not permitted to enter them, or were +allowed to remain only by choosing a white man for a guardian. It was +made a crime to teach negroes, whether slaves or free men, to read and +write. Under various pretexts free negroes were reduced to slavery. +Freedom of worship was denied to negroes, and they were not allowed to +assemble for any purpose except under the strict surveillance of white +men. Negro testimony in a court of law was invalid where the rights of a +white man were involved. The right of a negro to his freedom was decided +by an arbitrary court without a jury, while the disputed right of a +white man to the ownership of a horse was conditioned by the safeguard +of trial by jury. + +The maintenance of such policies carries with it of necessity the +suppression of free discussion. When Southern leaders adopted the policy +of defending slavery as a righteous institution, abolitionists in the +South either emigrated to the North or were silenced. In either case +they were deprived of a fundamental right. The spirit of persecution +followed them into the free States. Birney could not publish his paper +in Kentucky, nor even at Cincinnati, save at the risk of his life. +Elijah Lovejoy was not allowed to publish his paper in Missouri, +and, when he persisted in publishing it in Illinois, he was brutally +murdered. Even in Boston it required men of courage and determination +to meet and organize an anti-slavery society in 1832, though only a +few years earlier Benjamin Lundy had traveled freely through the South +itself delivering anti-slavery lectures and organizing scores of such +societies. The New York Anti-Slavery Society was secretly organized in +1832 in spite of the opposition of a determined mob. Mob violence was +everywhere rife. Meetings were broken up, negro quarters attacked, +property destroyed, murders committed. + +Fair-minded men became abolitionists on account of the crusade against +the rights of white men quite as much as from their interest in the +rights of negroes. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was led to espouse the cause +by observing the attacks upon the freedom of the press in Cincinnati. +Gerrit Smith witnessed the breaking up of an anti-slavery meeting in +Utica, New York, and thereafter consecrated his time, his talents, and +his great wealth to the cause of liberty. Wendell Phillips saw Garrison +in the hands of a Boston mob, and that experience determined him to make +common cause with the martyr. And the murder of Lovejoy in 1837 made +many active abolitionists. + +It is difficult to imagine a more inoffensive practice than giving +to negro girls the rudiments of an education. Yet a school for this +purpose, taught by Miss Prudence Crandall in Canterbury, Connecticut, +was broken up by persistent persecution, a special act of the +Legislature being passed for the purpose, forbidding the teaching +of negroes from outside the State without the consent of the town +authorities. Under this act Miss Crandall was arrested, convicted, and +imprisoned. + +Having eliminated free discussion from the South, the Southern States +sought to accomplish the same object in the North. In pursuance of a +resolution of the Legislature, the Governor of Georgia offered a reward +of five thousand dollars to any one who should arrest, bring to trial, +and prosecute to conviction under the laws of Georgia the editor of +the Liberator. R. G. Williams, publishing agent for the American +Anti-Slavery Society, was indicted by a grand jury of Tuscaloosa County, +Alabama, and Governor Gayle of Alabama made a requisition on Governor +Marcy of New York for his extradition. Williams had never been in +Alabama. His offense consisted in publishing in the New York Emancipator +a few rather mild utterances against slavery. + +Governor McDuffie of South Carolina in an official message declared +that slavery was the very corner-stone of the republic, adding that +the laboring population of any country, "bleached or unbleached," was +a dangerous element in the body politic, and predicting that within +twenty-five years the laboring people of the North would be virtually +reduced to slavery. Referring to abolitionists, he said: "The laws of +every community should punish this species of interference with death +without benefit of clergy." Pursuant to the Governor's recommendation, +the Legislature adopted a resolution calling upon non-slaveholding +States to pass laws to suppress promptly and effectively all abolition +societies. In nearly all the slave States similar resolutions +were adopted, and concerted action against anti-slavery effort was +undertaken. During the winter of 1835 and 1836, the Governors of the +free States received these resolutions from the South and, instead of +resenting them as an uncalled-for interference with the rights of free +commonwealths, they treated them with respect. Edward Everett, Governor +of Massachusetts, in his message presenting the Southern documents to +the Legislature, said: "Whatever by direct and necessary operation is +calculated to excite an insurrection among the slaves has been held, by +highly respectable legal authority, an offense against this Commonwealth +which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law." Governor Marcy +of New York, in a like document, declared that "without the power to +pass such laws the States would not possess all the necessary means for +preserving their external relations of peace among themselves." Even +before the Southern requests reached Rhode Island, the Legislature had +under consideration a bill to suppress abolition societies. + +When a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature had been duly +organized to consider the documents received from the slave States, the +abolitionists requested the privilege of a hearing before the committee. +Receiving no reply, they proceeded to formulate a statement of their +case; but before they could publish it, they were invited to appear +before the joint committee of the two houses. The public had been +aroused by the issue and there was a large audience. The case for +the abolitionists was stated by their ablest speakers, among whom was +William Lloyd Garrison. They labored to convince the committee that +their utterances were not incendiary, and that any legislative censure +directed against them would be an encouragement to mob violence and the +persecution which was already their lot. After the defensive arguments +had been fully presented, William Goodell took the floor and proceeded +to charge upon the Southern States which had made these demands a +conspiracy against the liberties of the North. In the midst of great +excitement and many interruptions by the chairman of the committee, he +quoted the language of Governor McDuffie's message, and characterized +the documents lying on the table before him as "fetters for Northern +freemen." Then, turning to the committee, he began, "Mr. Chairman, are +you prepared to attempt to put them on?"--but the sentence was only half +finished when the stentorian voice of the chairman interrupted him: "Sit +down, sir!" and he sat down. The committee then arose and left the room. +But the audience did not rise; they waited till other abolitionists +found their tongues and gave expression to a fixed determination to +uphold the liberties purchased for them by the blood of their fathers. +The Massachusetts Legislature did not comply with the request of +Governor McDuffie of South Carolina to take the first step towards the +enslavement of all laborers, white as well as black. And Rhode Island +refused to enact into law the pending bill for the suppression of +anti-slavery societies. They declined to violate the plain requirements +of their Constitution that the interests of slavery might be promoted. +Not many years later they were ready to strain or break the Constitution +for the sake of liberty. + +In the general crusade against liberty churches proved more pliable +than States. The authority of nearly all the leading denominations +was directed against the abolitionists. The General Conference of the +Methodist Episcopal Church passed in 1836 a resolution censuring two of +their members who had lectured in favor of modern abolitionism. The +Ohio Conference of the same denomination had passed resolutions urging +resistance to the anti-slavery movement. In June, 1836, the New York +Conference decided that no one should be chosen as deacon or elder who +did not give pledge that he would refrain from agitating the church on +the subject. + +The same spirit appeared in theological seminaries. The trustees of Lane +Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, voted that students should not organize +or be members of anti-slavery societies or hold meetings or lecture or +speak on the subject. Whereupon the students left in a body, and many +of the professors withdrew and united with others in the founding of an +anti-slavery college at Oberlin. + +A persistent attack was also directed against the use of the United +States mails for the distribution of anti-slavery literature. Mob +violence which involved the post-office began as early as 1830, when +printed copies of Miss Grimke's Appeal to the Christian Women of the +South were seized and burned in Charleston. In 1835 large quantities of +anti-slavery literature were removed from the Charleston office and +in the presence of the assembled citizens committed to the flames. +Postmasters on their own motion examined the mails and refused +to deliver any matter that they deemed incendiary. Amos Kendall, +Postmaster-General, was requested to issue an order authorizing such +conduct. He replied that he had no legal authority to issue such an +order. Yet he would not recommend the delivery of such papers. "We owe," +said he, "an obligation to the laws, but a higher one to the communities +in which we live, and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, +it is patriotism to disregard them. Entertaining these views, I cannot +sanction, and will not condemn, the step you have taken." This is an +early instance of the appeal to the "higher law" in the pro-slavery +controversy. The higher law was invoked against the freedom of the +press. The New York postmaster sought to dissuade the Anti-slavery +Society from the attempt to send its publications through the mails into +Southern States. In reply to a request for authorization to refuse to +accept such publications, the Postmaster-General replied: "I am +deterred from giving an order to exclude the whole series of abolition +publications from the Southern mails only by a want of legal power, and +if I were situated as you are, I would do as you have done." + +Mr. Kendall's letters to the postmasters of Charleston and New York +were written in July and August, 1835. In December of the same year, +presumably with full knowledge that a member of his Cabinet was +encouraging violations of law in the interest of slavery, President +Jackson undertook to supply the need of legal authorization. In his +annual message he made a savage attack upon the abolitionists and +recommended to Congress the "passing of such a law as will prohibit, +under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through +the mail, of incendiary publications." + +This part of the President's message was referred to a select committee, +of which John C. Calhoun was chairman. The chairman's report was against +the adoption of the President's recommendation because a subject of +such vital interest to the States ought not to be left to Congress. +The admission of the right of Congress to decide what is incendiary, +asserted the report, carries with it the power to decide what is +not incendiary and hence Congress might authorize and enforce the +circulation of abolition literature through the mails in all the States. +The States should themselves severally decide what in their judgment is +incendiary, and then it would become the duty of the general Government +to give effect to such state laws. The bill recommended was in harmony +with this view. It was made illegal for any deputy postmaster "to +deliver to any person whatsoever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or +other printed paper, or pictorial representation touching the subject +of slavery, where by the laws of the said State, territory, or district +their circulation is prohibited." The bill was defeated in the Senate by +a small margin. Altogether there was an enlightening debate on the whole +subject. The exposure of the abuse of tampering with the mail created a +general reaction, which enabled the abolitionists to win a spectacular +victory. Instead of a law forbidding the circulation of anti-slavery +publications, Congress enacted a law requiring postal officials under +heavy penalties to deliver without discrimination all matter committed +to their charge. This act was signed by President Jackson, and Calhoun +himself was induced to admit that the purposes of the abolitionists were +not violent and revolutionary. Henceforth abolitionists enjoyed their +full privileges in the use of the United States mail. An even more +dramatic victory was thrust upon the abolitionists by the inordinate +violence of their opponents in their attack upon the right of petition. +John Quincy Adams, who became their distinguished champion, was not +himself an abolitionist. When, as a member of the lower House of +Congress in 1831, he presented petitions from certain citizens of +Pennsylvania, presumably Quakers, requesting Congress to abolish +slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, he refused to +countenance their prayer, and expressed the wish that the memorial +might be referred without debate. At the very time when a New England +ex-President was thus advising abolitionists to desist from sending +petitions to Congress, the Virginia Legislature was engaged in the +memorable debate upon a similar petition from Virginia Quakers, in which +most radical abolition sentiment was expressed by actual slaveowners. +Adams continued to present anti-slavery memorials and at the same time +to express his opposition to the demands of the petitioners. When +in 1835 there arose a decided opposition to the reception of such +documents, Adams, still in apparent sympathy with the pro-slavery South +on the main issue, gave wise counsel on the method of dealing with +petitions. They should be received, said he, and referred to a +committee; because the right of petition is sacred. This, he maintained, +was the best way to avoid disturbing debate on the subject of slavery. +He quoted his own previous experience; he had made known his opposition +to the purposes of the petitioners; their memorials were duly referred +to a committee and there they slept the sleep of death. At that time +only one voice had been raised in the House in support of the abolition +petitioners, that of John Dickson of New York, who had delivered a +speech of two hours in length advocating their cause; but not a voice +was raised in reply. Mr. Adams mentioned this incident with approval. +The way to forestall disturbing debate in Congress, he said, was +scrupulously to concede all constitutional rights and then simply to +refrain from speaking on the subject. + +This sound advice was not followed. For several months a considerable +part of the time of the House was occupied with the question of handling +abolition petitions. And finally, in May, 1836, the following resolution +passed the House: "Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, +propositions, or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatever to +the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being +either printed or referred, be laid on the table, and that no further +action whatever shall be had thereon." This is commonly known as the +"gag resolution." During four successive years it was reenacted in one +form or another and was not repealed by direct vote until 1844. + +When the name of Mr. Adams was called in the vote upon the passage of +the above resolution, instead of answering in the ordinary way, he said: +"I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of +the United States, of the rules of this House, and of the rights of my +constituents." This was the beginning of the duel between the "old man +eloquent" and a determined majority in the House of Representatives. +Adams developed undreamed-of resources as a debater and parliamentarian. +He made it his special business to break down the barrier against the +right of petition. Abolitionists cooperated with zeal in the effort. +Their champion was abundantly supplied with petitions. The gag +resolution was designed to prevent all debate on the subject of slavery. +Its effect in the hands of the shrewd parliamentarian was to foment +debate. On one occasion, with great apparent innocence, after presenting +the usual abolition petitions, Adams called the attention of the Speaker +to one which purported to be signed by twenty-two slaves and asked +whether such a petition should be presented to the House, since he was +himself in doubt as to the rules applicable in such a case. This led to +a furious outbreak in the House which lasted for three days. Adams was +threatened with censure at the bar of the House, with expulsion, with +the grand jury, with the penitentiary; and it is believed that only his +great age and national repute shielded him from personal violence. After +numerous passionate speeches had been delivered, Adams injected a few +important corrections into the debate. He reminded the House that he +had not presented a petition purporting to emanate from slaves; on the +contrary, he had expressly declined to present it until the Speaker +had decided whether a petition from slaves was covered by the rule. +Moreover, the petition was not against slavery but in favor of slavery. +He was then charged with the crime of trifling with the sensibilities +of the House; and finally the champion of the right of petition took +the floor in his own defense. His language cut to the quick. His +calumniators were made to feel the force of his biting sarcasm. They +were convicted of injustice, and all their resolutions of censure were +withdrawn. The victory was complete. + +After the year 1838 John Quincy Adams had the effective support of +Joshua R. Giddings from the Western Reserve, Ohio--who also fought a +pitched battle of his own which illustrates another phase of the crusade +against liberty. The ship Creole had sailed from Baltimore to New +Orleans in 1841 with a cargo of slaves. The negroes mutinied on the high +seas, slew one man, gained possession of the vessel, sailed to Nassau, +and were there set free by the British Government. Prolonged diplomatic +negotiations followed in which our Government held that, as slaves were +property in the United States, they continued to be such on the high +seas. In the midst of the controversy, Giddings introduced a resolution +into the House, declaring that slavery, being an abridgment of liberty, +could exist only under local rules, and that on the high seas there can +be no slavery. For this act Giddings was arraigned and censured by +the House. He at once resigned, but was reelected with instructions to +continue the fight for freedom of debate in the House. + +In the campaign against the rights of freemen mob violence was first +employed, but in the South the weapon of repressive legislation was +soon substituted, and this was powerfully supplemented by social and +religious ostracism. Except in a few districts in the border States, +these measures were successful. Public profession of abolitionism was +suppressed. The violence of the mob was of much longer duration in the +North and reached its height in the years 1834 and 1835. But Northern +mobs only quickened the zeal of the abolitionists and made converts to +their cause. The attempt to substitute repressive state legislation had +the same effect, and the use of church authority for making an end of +the agitation for human liberty was only temporarily influential. + +As early as 1838 the Presbyterian Church was divided over questions of +doctrine into Old School and New School Presbyterians. This served to +forestall the impending division on the slavery question. The Old School +in the South became pro-slavery and the New School in the North became +anti-slavery. At the same time the Methodist Church of the entire +country was beset by a division on the main question. In 1844 Southern +Methodist Episcopalian conferences resolved upon separation and +committed themselves to the defense of slavery. The division in the +Methodist Church was completed in 1846. A corresponding division took +place in the Baptist Church in 1845. The controversy was dividing the +country into a free North and an enslaved South, and Southern white men +as well as negroes were threatened with subjection to the demands of the +dominant institution. + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE SLAVERY ISSUE IN POLITICS + +Some who opposed mob violence became active abolitionists; others were +led to defend the rights of abolitionists because to do otherwise would +encourage anarchy and general disorder. The same was true of those who +defended the right of petition and the free use of the mails and the +entire list of the fundamental rights of freemen which were threatened +by the crusade against abolitionists. Birney's contention that unless +the slave is freed no one can be free was thus vindicated: the issue +involved vastly more than the mere emancipation of slaves. + +The attack made in defense of slavery upon the rights of freemen was +early recognized as involving civil war unless peaceable emancipation +could be attained. So soon as John Quincy Adams faced the new spirit in +Congress, he was convinced that it meant probable war. As early as +May, 1836, he warned the South, saying: "From the instant that your +slaveholding States become the theater of war, civil, servile, or +foreign, from that moment the war powers of the Constitution extend +to interference with the institution of slavery." This sentiment he +reiterated and amplified on various occasions. The South was duly +warned that an attempt to disrupt the Union would involve a war of which +emancipation would be one of the consequences. With the exception +of Garrison and a few of his personal followers, abolitionists were +unionists: they stood for the perpetual union of the States. + +This is not the place to give an extended account of the Mexican War. * +There are, however, certain incidents connected with the annexation +of Texas and the resulting war which profoundly affected the crusade +against slavery. Both Lundy and Birney in their missions to promote +emancipation through the process of colonization believed that they had +unearthed a plan on the part of Southern leaders to acquire territory +from Mexico for the purpose of extending slavery. This discovery +coincided with the suppression of abolition propaganda in the South. +Hitherto John Quincy Adams had favored the western expansion of our +territory. He had labored diligently to make the Rio Grande the western +boundary of the Louisiana Purchase at the time of the treaty with Spain +in 1819. But though in 1825 he had supported a measure to purchase Texas +from Mexico, under the new conditions he threw himself heartily against +the annexation of Texas, and in 1838 he defeated in the House of +Representatives a resolution favoring annexation. To this end Adams +occupied the morning hour of the House each day from the 16th of June to +the 7th of July, within two days of the time fixed for adjournment. +This was only a beginning of his fight against the extension of slavery. +There was no relenting in his opposition to pro-slavery demands until he +was stricken down with paralysis in the streets of Boston, in November, +1846. He never again addressed a public assembly. But he continued to +occupy his seat in Congress until February 23, 1848. + + * See "Texas and the Mexican War" (in "The Chronicles of + America"). + +The debate inaugurated in Congress by Adams and others over the +extension of slave territory rapidly spread to the country at large, +and interest in the question became general. Abolitionists were thereby +greatly stimulated to put into practice their professed duty of seeking +to accomplish their ends by political action. Their first effort was +to secure recognition in the regular parties. The Democrats answered +in their platform of 1840 by a plank specifically denouncing the +abolitionists, and the Whigs proved either noncommittal or unfriendly. +The result was that abolitionists organized a party of their own in +1840 and nominated James G. Birney for the Presidency. Both of the +older parties during this campaign evaded the issue of the annexation of +Texas. In 1844 the Whigs again refrained from giving in their platform +any official utterance on the Texas issue, though they were understood +to be opposed to annexation. The Democrats adroitly asserted in their +platform their approval of the re-annexation of Texas and reoccupation +of Oregon. There was a shadowy prior claim to both these regions, and +by combining them in this way the party avoided any odious partiality +towards the acquisition of slave territory. But the voters in both +parties had become interested in the specific question whether the +country was to enter upon a war of conquest whose primary object should +be the extension of slavery. In the North it became generally understood +that a vote for Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, was an expression of +opposition to annexation. This issue, however, was not made clear in the +South. In the absence of telegraph and daily paper it was quite possible +to maintain contradictory positions in different sections of the +country. But since the Democrats everywhere openly favored annexation, +the election of their candidate, James K. Polk, was generally accepted +as a popular approval of the annexation of Texas. Indeed, action +immediately followed the election and, before the President-elect had +been inaugurated, the joint resolution for the annexation of Texas +passed both Houses of Congress. + +The popular vote was almost equally divided between Whigs and Democrats. +Had the vote for Birney, who was again the candidate of the Liberty +party, been cast for Clay electors, Clay would have been chosen +President. The Birney vote was over sixty-two thousand. The Liberty +party, therefore, held the balance of power and determined the result of +the election. + +The Liberty party has often been censured for defeating the Whigs +at this election of 1844. But many incidents, too early forgotten by +historians, go far to justify the course of the leaders. Birney and Clay +were at one time members of the same party. They were personal friends, +and as slave holders they shared the view that slavery was a menace to +the country and ought to be abolished. It was just fourteen years before +this election that Birney made a visit to Clay to induce him to accept +the leadership of an organized movement to abolish slavery in Kentucky. +Three years later, when Birney returned to Kentucky to do himself what +Henry Clay had refused to do, he became convinced that the reaction +which had taken place in favor of slavery was largely due to Clay's +influence. This was a common impression among active abolitionists. +It is not strange, therefore, that they refused to support him as a +candidate for the Presidency, and it is not at all certain that his +election in 1844 would have prevented the war with Mexico. + +Northern Whigs accused the Democrats of fomenting a war with Mexico with +the intention of gaining territory for the purpose of extending slavery. +Democrats denied that the annexation of Texas would lead to war, and +many of them proclaimed their opposition to the farther extension of +slavery. In harmony with this sentiment, when President Polk asked for a +grant of two million dollars to aid in making a treaty with Mexico, they +attached to the bill granting the amount a proviso to the effect that +slavery should forever be prohibited in any territory which might be +obtained from Mexico by the contemplated treaty. The proviso was written +by an Ohio Democrat and was introduced in the House by David A. Wilmot, +a Pennsylvania Democrat, after whom it is known. It passed the House +by a fair majority with the support of both Whigs and Democrats. At the +time of the original introduction in August, 1846, the Senate did not +vote upon the measure. Davis of Massachusetts moved its adoption but +inadvertently prolonged his speech in its favor until the hour for +adjournment. Hence there was no vote on the subject. Subsequently the +proviso in a new form again passed the House but failed of adoption in +the Senate. + +During the war the Wilmot Proviso was the subject of frequent debate +in Congress and of continuous debate throughout the country until +the treaty with Mexico was signed in 1848. A vast territory had been +acquired as a result of the war, and no decision had been reached as +to whether it should remain free or be opened to settlement by +slave-owners. Another presidential election was at hand. For fully ten +years there had been ever-increasing excitement over the question of +the limitation or the extension of slavery. This had clearly become +the topic of supreme interest throughout the country, and yet the two +leading parties avoided the issue. Their own membership was divided. +Northern Democrats, many of them, were decidedly opposed to slavery +extension. Southern Whigs with equal intensity favored the extension of +slavery into the new territory. The platforms of the two parties were +silent on the subject. The Whigs nominated Taylor, a Southern general +who had never voted their party ticket, but they made no formal +declaration of principles. The Democrats repeated with colorless +additions their platforms of 1840 anti 1844 and sought to win the +election with a Northern man, Lewis Cass of Michigan, as candidate. + +There was, therefore, a clear field for a party having fully defined +views to express on a topic of commanding interest. The cleavage in the +Democratic party already begun by the debate over the Wilmot Proviso was +farther promoted by a factional division of New York Democrats. Martin +Van Buren became the leader of the liberal faction, the "Barnburners," +who nominated him for President at a convention at Utica. The spirit of +independence now seized disaffected Whigs and Democrats everywhere +in the North and Northwest. Men of anti-slavery proclivities held +nonpartizan meetings and conventions. The movement finally culminated +in the famous Buffalo convention which gave birth to the Freesoil party. +The delegates of all political persuasions united on the one principle +of opposition to slavery. They adopted a ringing platform closing with +the words: "Resolved, That we inscribe on our banner 'Free Soil, Free +Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,' and under it will fight on, and +fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions." They +accepted Van Buren as their candidate. The vote at the ensuing election +was more than fourfold that given to Birney in 1844. The Van Buren +supporters held the balance of power between Whigs and Democrats in +twelve States. Taylor was elected by the vote of New York, which except +for the division in the party would have gone to Cass. There was no +longer any doubt of the fact that a political force had arisen which +could no longer be ignored by the ruling parties. One of the parties +must either support the new issue or give place to a party which would +do so. + +A political party for the defense of liberty was the fulfillment of the +aspirations of all earnest anti-slavery men and of all abolitionists +not of the radical Garrisonian persuasion. The national anti-slavery +societies were for the most part limited in their operations to the +Atlantic seaboard. The West organized local and state associations +with little reference to the national association. When the disruption +occurred between Garrison and his opponents in 1840, the Western +abolitionists continued their former methods of local organization. They +recognized no divisions in their ranks and continued to work in +harmony with all who in any way opposed the institution of slavery. The +political party was their first really effective national organization. +Through party committees, caucuses, and conventions, they became a part +of the forces that controlled the nation. The older local clubs and +associations were either displaced by the party or became mere adjuncts +to the party. + +The lines for political action were now clearly defined. In the +States emancipation should be accomplished by state action. With a few +individual exceptions the leaders conceded that Congress had no power +to abolish slavery in the States. Upon the general Government they urged +the duty of abolishing both slavery and the slave-trade in the District +of Columbia and in all areas under direct federal control. They further +urged upon the Government the strict enforcement of the laws prohibiting +the foreign slave-trade and the enactment of laws forbidding the +interstate slave-trade. The constitutionality of these main lines of +action has been generally conceded. + +Abolitionists were pioneers in the formulation of political platforms. +The declaration of principles drawn up by Garrison in 1833 and adopted +by the American Anti-Slavery Society was of the nature of a political +platform. The duty of voting in furtherance of the policy of +emancipation was inculcated. No platform was adopted for the first +political campaign, that of 1840; but four years later there was an +elaborate party platform of twenty-one resolutions. Many things had +happened in the eleven years intervening since the declaration of +principles of the American Anti-Slavery Society. In the earlier platform +the freedom of the slave appears as the primary object. That of the +Liberty party assumes the broad principle of human brotherhood as the +foundation for a democracy or a republic. It denies that the party is +organized merely to free the slave. Slaveholding as the grossest form of +despotism must indeed be attacked first, but the aim of the party is to +carry the principle of equal rights into all social relations. It is not +a sectional party nor a party organized for a single purpose. "It is not +a new party, nor a third party, but it is the party of 1776, reviving +the principles of that memorable era, and striving to carry them into +practical application." The spirit of '76 rings, indeed, throughout +the document, which declares that it was understood at the time of the +Declaration and the Constitution that the existence of slavery was in +derogation of the principles of American liberty. The implied faith +of the Nation and the States was pledged to remove this stain upon the +national character. Some States had nobly fulfilled that pledge; others +shamelessly had neglected to do so. + +These principles are reasserted in succeeding platforms. The later +opponents of slavery in their principles and policies thus allied +themselves with the founders of the republic. They claimed the right to +continue to repeat the words of Washington and Jefferson and those of +the members of the Virginia Legislature of 1832. No new doctrines were +required. It was enough simply to reaffirm the fundamental principles of +democracy. + +The names attached to the party are significant. It was at first +popularly styled the Abolition party, then officially in turn the +Liberty party, the Freesoil party, and finally the Republican party. +Republican was the name first applied to the Democratic party--the party +of Jefferson. The term Democrat was gradually substituted under the +leadership of Jackson before 1830. Some of the men who participated +in the organization of the later Republican party had themselves been +Republicans in the party of Jefferson. They not only accepted the name +which Jefferson gave to his party, but they adopted the principles which +Jefferson proclaimed on the subject of slavery, free soil, and human +rights in general. This was the final stage in the identification of the +later anti-slavery crusade with the earlier contest for liberty. + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE PASSING OF THE WHIG PARTY + +The middle of the last century was marked by many incidents which have +left a permanent impress upon politics in general and upon the slavery +question in particular. Europe was again in the throes of popular +uprisings. New constitutions were adopted in France, Switzerland, +Prussia, and Austria. Reactions in favor of autocracy in Austria and +Germany sent multitudes of lovers of liberty to America. Kossuth, the +Hungarian revolutionist, electrified American audiences by his appeals +on behalf of the downtrodden in Europe. Already the world was growing +smaller. America did not stop at the Pacific but crossed the ocean to +establish permanent political and commercial relations with Japan and +China. + +The industries of the country were being reorganized to meet new +conditions created by recent inventions. The electric telegraph was +just coming into use, giving rise to a new era in communication. The +discovery of gold in California in 1848 was followed by competing +projects to construct railroads to the Pacific with Chicago and St. +Louis as the rival eastern terminals. The telegraph, the railway, +and the resulting industrial development proved great nationalizing +influences. They served also to give increased emphasis to the contrast +between the industries of the free and those of the slave States. The +Census of 1850 became an effective anti-slavery argument. + +The telegraph also gave new life to the public press. The presidential +campaign of 1848 was the last one in which it was possible to carry on +contradictory arguments in support of the same candidate. If slavery +could not endure the test of untrammeled discussion when there were no +means of rapid intercommunication such as the telegraph supplied, how +could it contend against the revelations of the daily press with the new +type of reporter and interviewer which was now developed? + +It is a remarkable coincidence that in the midst of the passing of the +old and the coming in of the new order there should be a change in the +political leadership of the country. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, John Quincy +Adams, not to mention others, all died near the middle of the century, +and their political power passed to younger men. Adams gave his blessing +to a young friend and co-laborer, William H. Seward of New York, +intimating that he expected him to do much to curb the threatening power +of the slaveholding oligarchy; while Andrew Jackson, who died earlier, +had already conferred a like distinction upon young Stephen A. Douglas. +There was no lack of aspirants for the fallen mantles. + +John C. Calhoun continued almost to the day of his death to modify his +interpretation of the Constitution in the interest of his section. As +a young man he avowed protectionist principles. Becoming convinced that +slave labor was not suited to manufacture, he urged South Carolina to +declare the protective tariff laws null and void within her limits. +When his section seemed endangered by the distribution of anti-slavery +literature through the mail, he extemporized a theory that each State +had a right to pass statutes to protect itself in such an emergency, in +which case it became the duty of the general Government and of all other +States to respect such laws. When it finally appeared that the territory +acquired from Mexico was likely to remain free, the same statesman made +further discoveries. He found that Congress had no right to exclude +slavery from any Territory belonging to the United States; that the +owners of slaves had equal rights with the owners of other property; +that neither Congress nor a territorial authority had any power +to exclude slaves from a Territory. This doctrine was accepted by +extremists in the South and was finally embodied in the Dred Scott +decision of 1857. + +Abolitionists had meantime evolved a precisely contradictory theory. +They asserted that the Constitution gave no warrant for property in man, +except as held under state laws; that with this exception freedom was +guaranteed to all; that Congress had no more right to make a slave than +it had to make a king; and that it was the duty of Congress to maintain +freedom in all the Territories. Extremists expressed the view that all +past acts whereby slavery had been extended were unconstitutional +and therefore void. Between these extreme conflicting views was every +imaginable grade of opinion. The prevailing view of opponents of +slavery, however, was in harmony with their past conduct and maintained +that Congress had complete control over slavery in the Territories. + +When the Mexican territory was acquired, Stephen A. Douglas, as the +experienced chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Senate, was +already developing a theory respecting slavery in the Territories +which was destined to play a leading part in the later crusade against +slavery. Douglas was the most thoroughgoing of expansionists and would +acknowledge no northern boundary on this side of the North Pole, no +southern boundary nearer than Panama. He regarded the United States, +with its great principle of local autonomy, as fitted to become +eventually the United States of the whole world, while he held it to be +an immediate duty to make it the United States of North America. As the +son-in-law of a Southern planter in North Carolina, and as the father +of sons who inherited slave property, Douglas, although born in Vermont, +knew the South as did no other Northern statesman. He knew also the +institution of slavery at first hand. As a pronounced expansionist +and as the congressional leader in all matters pertaining to the +Territories, he acquired detailed information as to the qualities of +these new possessions, and he spoke, therefore, with a good degree of +authority when he said, "If there was one inch of territory in the whole +of our acquisitions from Mexico where slavery could exist, it was in the +valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin." But this region was at +once preempted for freedom upon the discovery of gold. + +Douglas did not admit that even the whole of Texas would remain +dedicated to slavery. Some of the States to be formed from it would be +free, by the same laws of climate and resources which determined that +the entire West would remain free. Before the Mexican War the Senator +had become convinced that the extension of slavery had reached its +limit; that the Missouri Compromise was a dead letter except as a +psychological palliative; that Nature had already ordained that slave +labor should be forever excluded from all Western territory both north +and south of that line. His reply to Calhoun's contention that a balance +must be maintained between slave and free States was that he had plans +for forming seventeen new States out of the vast Western domains, every +one of which would be free. And besides, said he, "we all look forward +with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, +and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee will adopt a +gradual system of emancipation." Douglas was one of the first to favor +the admission of California as a free State. According to the Missouri +Compromise law and the laws of Mexico, all Western territory was +free, and he was opposed to interference with existing conditions. The +Missouri Compromise was still held sacred. Finally, however, it was with +Douglas's assistance that the Compromise measures of 1850 were passed, +one of which provided for territorial Governments for Utah and New +Mexico with the proviso that, when admitted as States, slavery should be +permitted or prohibited as the citizens of those States should determine +at the time. Congress refrained from any declaration as to slavery in +the Territories. It was this policy of "non-intervention" which four +years later furnished plausible excuse for the repeal of the Missouri +Compromise. + +It was not strange that there was general ignorance in all parts of the +country as to the resources of the newly acquired territory. The rush +to the goldfields precipitated action in respect to California. Before +General Taylor, the newly elected President, was inaugurated, there +was imminent need of an efficient government. An early act of the +Administration was to send an agent to assist in the formation of a +state Government, and a convention was immediately called to frame a +constitution. By unanimous vote of the convention, slavery was excluded. +The constitution was approved by popular vote and was presented to +Congress for final acceptance in December, 1849. + +In the meantime a great commotion had arisen among the people. Southern +state legislatures passed resolutions demanding that the rights of their +peculiar institution should be recognized in the new Territory. Northern +legislatures responded with resolutions favoring the admission of +California as a State and the application of the Wilmot Proviso to the +remaining territory. Northern Democrats had very generally denied that +the affair with Mexico had as a chief purpose the extension of slavery. +Democrats therefore united with Whigs in maintaining the principle of +free soil. In the South there was a corresponding fusion of the two +parties in support of the sectional issue. + +General concern prevailed as to the attitude of the Administration. +Taylor's election had been effected by both a Southern and a Northern +split in the Democratic party. Northern Democrats had voted for the +Free-soil candidate because of the alleged pro-slavery tendencies of +their own party. Southern Democrats voted for Taylor because of their +distrust of Lewis Cass, their own candidate. Some of these met in +convention and formally nominated Taylor, and Taylor accepted their +nomination with thanks. Northern anti-slavery Whigs had a difficult task +to keep their members in line. There is evidence that Taylor held the +traditional Southern view that the anti-slavery North was disposed +to encroach upon the rights of the South. Meeting fewer Northern +Whig supporters, he became convinced that the more active spirit of +encroachment was in the pro-slavery South. California needed a state +Government, and the President took the most direct method to supply +that need. As the inhabitants were unanimous in their desire to exclude +slavery, their wish should be respected. New Mexico was in a similar +situation. As slavery was already excluded from the territory under +Mexican law, and as there was no wish on the part of the inhabitants to +introduce slavery, the President recognized existing facts and made +no change. When Southern leaders projected a scheme to enlarge the +boundaries of Texas so as to extend slavery over a large part of New +Mexico, President Taylor set a guard of United States troops to maintain +the integrity of the Territory. When a deputation of Southern Whigs +endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose, threatening a dissolution +of the Union and intimating that army officers would refuse to act +against citizens of Texas, the soldier President replied that in such an +event he would take command in person and would hang any one caught in +acts of treason. When Henry Clay introduced an elaborate project for a +compromise between the North and the South, the President insisted +that each question should be settled on its own merits and directed the +forces of the Administration against any sort of compromise. The debate +over Clay's Omnibus Bill was long and acrimonious. On July 4, 1850, +the President seemed triumphant. But upon that day, notwithstanding his +apparent robust health, he was stricken down with an acute disease and +died five days later. With his passing, the opposing Whig faction came +into power. The so-called compromise measures were at length one by one +passed by Congress and approved by President Fillmore. + +California was admitted as a free State; but as a palliative to the +South, Congress passed bills for the organization of territorial +Governments for New Mexico and Utah without positive declarations +regarding the powers of the territorial Legislatures over slavery. All +questions relating to title to slaves were to be left to the courts. +Meantime it was left in doubt whether Mexican law excluding slavery was +still in force. Southern malcontents maintained that this act was a +mere hoax, using words which suggested concession when no concession was +intended. Northern anti-slavery men criticized the act as the entering +wedge for another great surrender to the enemy. Because of the +uncertainty regarding the meaning of the law and the false hopes likely +to be created, they maintained that it was fitted to foment discord and +prolong the period of distrust between the two sections. At all events +such was its actual effect. + +A third act in this unhappy series gave to Texas ten millions of dollars +for the alleged surrender of claims to a part of New Mexico. This had +little bearing on the general subject of compromise; yet anti-slavery +men criticized it on the ground that the issue raised was insincere; +that the appropriation was in fact a bribe to secure votes necessary to +pass the other measures; that the bill was passed through Congress +by shameless bribery, and that even the boundaries conceded to Texas +involved the surrender of free territory. + +The abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia was +supported by both sections of the country. The removal of the slave +pens within sight of the Capitol to a neighboring city deprived the +abolitionists of one of their weapons for effective agitation, but it +did not otherwise affect the position of slavery. + +Of the five acts included in the compromise measures, the one which +provided for the return of fugitive slaves was most effective in the +promotion of hostility between the two sections. During the six months +of debate on the Omnibus Bill, numerous bills were presented to take the +place of the law of 1793. Webster brought forward a bill which provided +for the use of a jury to establish the validity of a claim to an escaped +slave. But that which was finally adopted by a worn-out Congress is +characterized as one of the most barbarous pieces of legislation ever +enacted by a civilized country. A single incident may indicate the +nature of the act. James Hamlet, for three years a resident of New York +City, a husband and a father and a member of the Methodist Church, was +seized eight days after the law went into effect by order of the agent +of Mary Brown of Baltimore, cut off from all communication with his +friends, hurried before a commissioner, and on ex parte testimony was +delivered into the hands of the agent, by whom he was handcuffed and +secretly conveyed to Baltimore. Mr. Rhodes accounts for the enactment +in the following words: "If we look below the surface we shall find a +strong impelling motive of the Southern clamor for this harsh enactment +other than the natural desire to recover lost property. Early in the +session it took air that a part of the game of the disunionists was to +press a stringent fugitive slave law, for which no Northern man could +vote; and when it was defeated, the North would be charged with refusal +to carry out a stipulation of the Constitution.... The admission of +California was a bitter pill for the Southern ultras, but they were +forced to take it. The Fugitive Slave Law was a taunt and a reproach to +that part of the North where the anti-slavery sentiment ruled supremely, +and was deemed a partial compensation." Clay expressed surprise that +States from which few slaves escaped demanded a more stringent law than +Kentucky, from which many escaped. + +Whatever may have been the motives leading to the enactment, its +immediate effect was the elimination of one of the great national +parties, thus paving the way for the formation of parties along +sectional lines. Two years after the passage of the compromise acts the +Democratic national convention assembled to nominate a candidate for +the Presidency. The platform adopted by the party promised a faithful +execution of the acts known as the compromise measures and added "the +act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included; which act, +being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, +cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed nor so changed as to destroy +or impair its efficiency." When this was read, the convention broke out +in uproarious applause. Then there was a demand that it should be read +again. Again there was loud applause. + +Why was there this demand that a law which every one knew had proved a +complete failure should be made a permanent part of the Constitution? +And why the ungovernable hilarity over the demand that its "efficiency" +should never be impaired? Surely the motive was something other than a +desire to recover lost property. Upon the Whig party had been fastened +the odium for the enactment of the law, and the act unrepealed meant the +death of the party. The Democrats saw good reason for laughter. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD + +Wherever there are slaves there are fugitives if there is an available +place of refuge. The wilds of Florida were such a refuge during the +early part of last century. When the Northern States became free, +fugitive slaves began to escape thither, and Canada, when it could be +reached, was, of course, the goal of perfect security and liberty for +all. + +A professed object of the early anti-slavery societies was to prevent +the enslavement of free negroes and in other ways to protect their +rights. During the process of emancipation in Northern States large +numbers of colored persons were spirited off to the South and sold into +slavery. At various places along the border there were those who made +it their duty to guard the rights of negroes and to prevent kidnapping. +These guardians of the border furnished a nucleus for the development of +what was later known as the Underground Railroad. + +In 1796 President Washington wrote a letter to a friend in New Hampshire +with reference to obtaining the return of a negro servant. He was +careful to state that the servant should remain unmolested rather than +"excite a mob or riot or even uneasy sensations in the minds of well +disposed citizens." The result was that the servant remained free. +President Washington here assumed that "well disposed citizens" would +oppose her return to slavery. Three years earlier the President had +himself signed a bill to facilitate by legal process the return of +fugitives escaping into other States. He was certainly aware that such +an act was on the statute books when he wrote his request to his friend +in New Hampshire, yet he expected that, if an attempt were made to +remove the refugee by force, riot and resistance by a mob would be the +result. + +Not until after the foreign slave-trade had been prohibited and the +domestic trade had been developed, and not until there was a pro-slavery +reaction in the South which banished from the slave States all +anti-slavery propaganda, did the systematic assistance rendered +to fugitive slaves assume any large proportions or arouse bitter +resentment. It began in the late twenties and early thirties of +the nineteenth century, extended with the spread of anti-slavery +organization, and was greatly encouraged and stimulated by the enactment +of the law of 1850. + +The Underground Railroad was never coextensive with the abolition +movement. There were always abolitionists who disapproved the practice +of assisting fugitives, and others who took no part in it. Of those +who were active participants, the larger proportion confined their +activities to assisting those who had escaped and would take no part in +seeking to induce slaves to leave their masters. Efforts of that kind +were limited to a few individuals only. + +Incidents drawn from the reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the reputed +president of the Underground Railroad, may serve to illustrate the +origin and growth of the system. He was seven years old when he first +saw near his home in North Carolina a coffle of slaves being driven to +the Southern market by a man on horseback with a long whip. "The driver +was some distance behind with the wagon. My father addressed the slaves +pleasantly and then asked, 'Well, boys, why do they chain you?' One +of the men whose countenance betrayed unusual intelligence and whose +expression denoted the deepest sadness replied: 'They have taken us from +our wives and children and they chain us lest we should make our escape +and go back to them."' When Coffin was fifteen, he rendered assistance +to a man in bondage. Having an opportunity to talk with the members of a +gang in the hands of a trader bound for the Southern market, he learned +that one of the company, named Stephen, was a freeman who had been +kidnapped and sold. Letters were written to Northern friends of Stephen +who confirmed his assertion. Money was raised in the Quaker meeting and +men were sent to recover the negro. Stephen was found in Georgia and +after six months was liberated. + +During the year 1821 other incidents occurred in the Quaker community at +New Garden, near Greensboro, North Carolina, which illustrate different +phases of the subject. Jack Barnes was the slave of a bachelor who +became so greatly attached to his servant that he bequeathed to him +not only his freedom but also a large share of his property. Relatives +instituted measures to break the will, and Jack in alarm took refuge +among the Quakers at New Garden. The suit went against the negro, and +the newspapers contained advertisements offering a hundred dollars for +information which should result in his recovery. To prevent his return +to bondage, it was decided that Jack should join a family of Coffins who +were moving to Indiana. + +At the same time a negro by the name of Sam had for several months been +abiding in the Quaker neighborhood. He belonged to a Mr. Osborne, a +prototype of Simon Legree, who was so notoriously cruel that other +slave-owners assisted in protecting his victims. After the Coffins, with +Jack, had been on the road for a few days, Osborne learned that a negro +was with them and, feeling sure that it was his Sam, he started in hot +haste after them. This becoming known to the Friends, young Levi Coffin +was sent after Osborne to forestall disaster. The descriptions given of +Jack and Sam were practically identical and it was surmised that when +Osborne should overtake the party and discover his mistake, he would +seize Jack for the sake of the offered reward. Coffin soon came up with +Osborne and decided to ride with him for a time to learn his plans. +In the course of their conversation, it was finally agreed that Coffin +should assist in the recovery of Sam. Osborne was also generous and +insisted that if it proved to be the other "nigger" who was with the +company, Coffin should have half the reward. How the young Quaker +outwitted the tyrant, gained his point, sent Jack on his way to liberty, +and at the same time retained the confidence of Osborne so that upon +their return home he was definitely engaged to assist Osborne in finding +Sam, is a fascinating story. The abolitionist won from the slaveholder +the doubtful compliment that "there was not a man in that neighborhood +worth a d--n to help him hunt his negro except young Levi Coffin." + +Sam was perfectly safe so long as Levi Coffin was guide for the +hunting-party, but matters were becoming desperate. For the fugitive +something had to be done. Another family was planning to move to +Indiana, and in their wagon Sam was to be concealed and thus conveyed to +a free State. The business had now become serious. The laws of the State +affixed the death penalty for stealing a slave. At night when young +Coffin and his father, with Sam, were on their way to complete +arrangements for the departure, horsemen appeared in the road near by. +They had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground behind a +log. From the conversation overheard, they were assured that they had +narrowly escaped the night-riders on the lookout for stray negroes. The +next year, 1822, Coffin himself joined a party going to Indiana by the +southern route through Tennessee and Kentucky. In the latter State they +were at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a pet +dog, but whose real purpose was to recover runaway slaves. They insisted +upon examining the contents of the wagons, for in this way only a short +time previous a fugitive had been captured. + +These incidents show the origin of the system. The first case of +assistance rendered a negro was not in itself illegal, but was intended +merely to prevent the crime of kidnapping. The second was illegal in +form, but the aid was given to one who, having been set free by will, +was being reenslaved, it was believed, by an unjust decision of a court. +The third was a case of outrageous abuse on the part of the owner. The +negro Sam had himself gone to a trader begging that he would buy him and +preferring to take his chances on a Mississippi plantation rather than +return to his master. The trader offered the customary price and was +met with the reply that he could have the rascal if he would wait until +after the enraged owner had taken his revenge, otherwise the price +would be twice the amount offered. A large proportion of the fugitives +belonged to this maltreated class. Others were goaded to escape by the +prospect of deportation to the Gulf States. The fugitives generally +followed the beaten line of travel to the North and West. + +In 1826 Levi Coffin became a merchant in Newport, Indiana, a town near +the Ohio line not far from Richmond. In the town and in its neighborhood +lived a large number of free negroes who were the descendants of former +slaves whom North Carolina Quakers had set free and had colonized in the +new country. Coffin found that these blacks were accustomed to assist +fugitives on their way to Canada. When he also learnt that some had been +captured and returned to bondage merely through lack of skill on the +part of the negroes, he assumed active operations as a conductor on the +Underground Railroad. + +Coffin used the Underground Railroad as a means of making converts to +the cause. One who berated him for negro-stealing was adroitly induced +to meet a newly arrived passenger and listen to his pathetic story. At +the psychological moment the objector was skillfully led to hand the +fugitive a dollar to assist him in reaching a place of safety. Coffin +then explained to this benevolent non-abolitionist the nature of his +act, assuring him that he was liable to heavy damages therefor. The +reply was in this case more forcible than elegant: "Damn it! You've +got me!" This conversion he publicly proclaimed for the sake of its +influence upon others. Many were the instances in which those of +supposed pro-slavery convictions were brought face to face with an +actual case of the threatened reenslavement of a human being escaping +from bondage and were, to their own surprise, overcome by the natural, +humane sentiment which asserted itself. For example, a Cincinnati +merchant, who at the time was supposed to be assisting one of his +Southern customers to recover an escaped fugitive, was confronted at +his own home by the poor half-starved victim. Yielding to the impulse of +compassion, he gave the slave food and personal assistance and directed +the destitute creature to a place of refuge. + +The division in the Quaker meeting in Indiana with which Levi Coffin was +intimately associated may serve to exemplify a corresponding attitude +in other churches on the question of slavery. The Quakers availed +themselves of the first great anti-slavery movement to rid themselves +completely of the burden. Their Society itself became an anti-slavery +organization. Yet even so the Friends had differences of opinion as to +fit methods of action. Not only did many of them disapprove of rendering +aid to fugitives but they also objected to the use of the meetinghouses +for anti-slavery lectures. The formation of the Liberty party served to +accentuate the division. The great body of the Friends were anti-slavery +Whigs. + +A crisis in the affairs of the Society of Friends in the State of +Indiana was reached in 1843 when the radicals seceded and organized an +independent "Anti-Slavery Friends Society." Immediately there appeared +in numerous localities duplicate Friends' meeting-houses. In and around +one of these, distinguished as "Liberty Hall," were gathered those whose +supreme religious interest was directed against the sin of slavery. +Never was there a church division which involved less bad blood or sense +of injury or injustice. Members of the same family attended separate +churches without the least difference in their cordial relations. No +important principle was involved; there were apparently good reasons +for both lines of policy, and each party understood and respected the +other's position. After the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 +and the passing of the Whig party, these differences disappeared, the +separate organization was disbanded, and all Friends' meetinghouses +became "liberty halls." + +The disposition to aid the fugitive was by no means confined to the +North nor to Quakers in the South. Richard Dillingham, a young Quaker +who had yielded to the solicitations of escaped fugitives in Cincinnati +and had undertaken a mission to Nashville, Tennessee, to rescue their +relatives from a "hard master," was arrested with three stolen slaves +on his hands. He made confession in open court and frankly explained +his motives. The Nashville Daily Gazette of April 13, 1849, has words of +commendation for the prisoner and his family and states that "he was not +without the sympathy of those who attended the trial." Though Dillingham +committed a crime to which the death penalty was attached in some of +the States, the jury affixed the minimum penalty of three years' +imprisonment for the offense. As Nashville was far removed from Quaker +influence or any sort of anti-slavery propaganda, Dillingham was himself +astonished and was profoundly grateful for the leniency shown him by +Court, jury, and prosecutors. This incident occurred in the year before +the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. It is well known that in +all times and places which were free from partizan bitterness there +was a general natural sympathy for those who imperiled their life and +liberty to free the slave. Throughout the South men of both races were +ready to give aid to slaves seeking to escape from dangers or burdens +which they regarded as intolerable. While such a man as Frederick +Douglass, when still a slave, was an agent of the Underground Railroad, +Southern anti-slavery people themselves were to a large extent the +original projectors of the movement. Even members of the families of +slaveholders have been known to assist fugitives in their escape to the +North. + +The fugitives traveled in various ways which were determined partly by +geographical conditions and partly by the character of the inhabitants +of a region. On the Atlantic coast, from Florida to Delaware, slaves +were concealed in ships and were thus conveyed to free States. Thence +some made their way towards Canada by steamboat or railroad, though most +made the journey on foot or, less frequently, in private conveyances. +Stalwart slaves sometimes walked from the Gulf States to the free +States, traveling chiefly by night and guided by the North Star. Having +reached a free State, they found friends among those of their own race, +or were taken in hand by officers of the Underground Railroad and were +thus helped across the Canadian border. + +From the seacoast the valley of the Connecticut River furnished a +convenient route for completing the journey northward, though the way of +the fugitives was often deflected to the Lake Champlain region. In later +years, when New England became generally sympathetic, numerous lines of +escape traversed that entire section. Other courses extended northward +from the vicinity of Philadelphia, Delaware, and Maryland. Here, through +the center of American Quakerdom, all conditions favored the escape +of fugitives, for slavery and freedom were at close quarters. The +activities of the Quakers, who were at first engaged merely in +preventing the reenslavement of those who had a legal right to freedom, +naturally expanded until aid was given without reservation to any +fugitive. From Philadelphia as a distributing point the route went by +way of New York and the Hudson River or up the river valleys of eastern +Pennsylvania through western New York. + +In addition to the routes to freedom which the seacoast and river +valleys afforded, the Appalachian chain of mountains formed an +attractive highway of escape from slavery, though these mountain paths +lead us to another branch of our subject not immediately connected with +the Underground Railroad--the escape from bondage by the initiative of +the slaves themselves or by the aid of their own people. Mountains have +always been a refuge and a defense for the outlaw, and the few +dwellers in this almost unknown wilderness were not infrequently either +indifferent or friendly to the fugitives. The escaped slaves might, if +they chose, adopt for an indefinite time the free life of the hills; +but in most cases they naturally drifted northward for greater security +until they found themselves in a free State. Through the mountainous +regions of Virginia many thus escaped, and they were induced to remain +there by the example and advice of residents of their own color. The +negroes themselves excelled all others in furnishing places of refuge to +fugitives from slavery and in concealing their status. For this reason +John Brown and his associates were influenced to select this region for +their great venture in 1859. + +But there were other than geographical conditions which helped to +determine the direction of the lines of the Underground Railroad. West +of the Alleghanies are the broad plains of the Mississippi Valley, and +in this great region human elements rather than physical characteristics +proved influential. Northern Ohio was occupied by settlers from the +East, many of whom were anti-slavery. Southern Ohio was populated +largely by Quakers and other people from the slave States who abhorred +slavery. On the east and south the State bordered on slave territory, +and every part of the region was traversed by lines of travel for the +slave. In eastern and northern Indiana a favorable attitude prevailed. +Southwestern Indiana, however, and southern Illinois were occupied by +those less friendly to the slave, so that in these sections there is +little evidence of systematic aid to fugitives. But with St. Louis, +Missouri, as a starting-point, northern Illinois became honeycombed with +refuges for patrons of the Underground Railroad. The negro also found +friends in all the settled portions of Iowa, and at the outbreak of the +Civil War a lively traffic was being developed, extending from Lawrence, +Kansas, to Keokuk, Iowa. + +There is respectable authority for a variety of opinions as to the +requirements of the rendition clause in the Constitution and of the Act +of Congress of 1793 to facilitate the return of fugitives from service +or labor; but there is no respectable authority in support of the view +that neither the spirit nor the letter of the law was violated by +the supporters of the Underground Railroad. This was a source of real +weakness to anti-slavery leaders in politics. It was always true that +only a small minority of their numbers were actual violators of the law, +yet such was their relation to the organized anti-slavery movement that +responsibility attached to all. The platform of the Liberty party for +1844 declared that the provisions of the Constitution for reclaiming +fugitive slaves were dangerous to liberty and ought to be abrogated. +It further declared that the members of the party would treat these +provisions as void, because they involved an order to commit an immoral +act. The platform thus explicitly committed the party to the support +of the policy of rendering aid to fugitive slaves. Four years later +the platform of the Free-soil party contained no reference whatever to +fugitive slaves, but that of 1852 denounced the Fugitive Slave Act of +1850 as repugnant to the Constitution and the spirit of Christianity and +denied its binding force on the American people. The Republican platform +of 1856 made no reference to the subject. + +The Underground Railroad filled an insignificant place in the general +plan for emancipation, even in the minds of the directors. It was a +lesser task preparatory to the great work. As to the numbers of slaves +who gained their freedom by means of it, there is a wide range of +opinion. Statements in Congress by Southern members that a hundred +thousand had escaped must be regarded as gross exaggerations. In any +event the loss was confined chiefly to the border States. Besides, it +has been stated with some show of reason that the danger of servile +insurrection was diminished by the escape of potential leaders. + +From the standpoint of the great body of anti-slavery men who expected +to settle the slavery question by peaceable means, it was a calamity +of the first magnitude that, just at the time when conditions were +most favorable for transferring the active crusade from the general +Government to the separate States, public attention should be directed +to the one point at which the conflict was most acute and irrepressible. + +Previous to 1850 there had been no general acrimonious debate in +Congress on the rendition of fugitive slaves. About half of those who +had previously escaped from bondage had not taken the trouble to go +as far as Canada, but were living at peace in the Northern States. Few +people at the North knew or cared anything about the details of a law +that had been on the statute books since 1793. Members of Congress were +duly warned of the dangers involved in any attempt to enforce a more +stringent law than the previous act which had proved a dead letter. +To those who understood the conditions, the new law also was doomed to +failure. So said Senator Butler of South Carolina. An attempt to enforce +it would be met by violence. + +This prediction came true. The twenty thousand potential victims +residing in Northern States were thrown into panic. Some rushed off to +Canada; others organized means for protection. A father and son from +Baltimore came to a town in Pennsylvania to recover a fugitive. An alarm +was sounded; men, mostly colored, rushed to the protection of the one +whose liberty was threatened. Two Quakers appeared on the scene +and warned the slavehunters to desist and upon their refusal one +slave-hunter was instantly killed and the other wounded. The fugitive +was conveyed to a place of safety, and to the murderers no punishment +was meted out, though the general Government made strenuous efforts to +discover and punish them. In New York, though Gerrit Smith and a local +clergyman with a few assistants rescued a fugitive from the officers of +the law and sent him to Canada, openly proclaiming and justifying the +act, no attempt was made to punish the offenders. + +After a dozen years of intense and ever-increasing excitement, when +other causes of friction between North and South had apparently been +removed and good citizens in the two sections were rejoicing at +the prospect of an era of peace and harmony, public attention was +concentrated upon the one problem of conduct which would not admit of +peaceable legal adjustment. Abolitionists had always been stigmatized as +lawbreakers whose aim was the destruction of slavery in utter disregard +of the rights of the States. This charge was absolutely false; their +settled program involved full recognition of state and municipal control +over slavery. Yet after public attention had become fixed upon conduct +on the part of the abolitionists which was illegal, it was difficult to +escape the implication that their whole course was illegal. This was the +tragic significance of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. + + + +CHAPTER IX. BOOKS AS ANTI-SLAVERY WEAPONS + +Whittier offered up "thanks for the fugitive slave law; for it gave +occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'" Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had been +mistress of a station on the Underground Railroad at Cincinnati, the +storm-center of the West, and out of her experience she has transmitted +to the world a knowledge of the elemental and tragic human experiences +of the slaves which would otherwise have been restricted to a select +few. The mistress of a similar station in eastern Indiana, though she +held novel reading a deadly sin, said: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is not +a novel, it is a record of facts. I myself have listened to the same +stories." The reading public in all lands soon became sympathetic +participants in the labors of those who, in defiance of law, were +lending a hand to the aspirants for liberty. At the time of the +publication of the story in book form in March, 1852, America was being +profoundly stirred by the stories of fugitives who had escaped from +European despotism. Mrs. Stowe refers to these incidents in her +question: "When despairing Hungarian fugitives make their way, against +all the search-warrants and authorities of their lawful governments to +America, press and political cabinet ring with applause and welcome. +When despairing African fugitives do the same thing--it is--what IS it?" +Little did she think that when the eloquence of the Hungarian refugee +had been forgotten, the story of Eliza and Uncle Tom would ring +throughout the world. + +The book did far more than vindicate the conduct of those who rendered +assistance to the fugitive from slavery; it let in daylight upon the +essential nature of slavery. Humane and just masters are shown to be +forced into participation in acts which result in intolerable cruelty. +Full justice is done to the noble and admirable character of Southern +slave-owners. The author had been a guest in the home of the "Shelbys," +in Kentucky. She had taken great pains to understand the Southern point +of view on the subject of slavery; she had entered into the real trials +and difficulties involved in any plan of emancipation. St. Clair, +speaking to Miss Ophelia, his New England cousin, says: + +"If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How many families of your +town would take in a negro man or woman, teach them, bear with them, and +seek to make them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, if +I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted to teach him a +trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools +are there in the Northern States that would take them in? How many +families that would board them? And yet they are as white as many a +woman north or south. You see, cousin, I want justice done us. We are in +a bad position. We are the more obvious oppressors of the negro; but +the unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equally +severe." + +Throughout the book the idea is elaborated in many ways. Miss Ophelia +is introduced for the purpose of contrasting Northern ignorance and New +England prejudice with the patience and forbearance of the better class +of slave-owners of the South. The genuine affection of an unspoiled +child for negro friends is made especially emphatic. Miss Ophelia +objected to Eva's expressions of devotion to Uncle Tom. Her father +insists that his daughter shall not be robbed of the free utterance of +her high regard, observing that "the child is the only true democrat." +There is only one Simon Legree in the book, and he is of New England +extraction. The story is as distinctly intended to inform Northern +ignorance and to remove Northern prejudice as it is to justify the +conduct of abolitionists. + +What was the effect of the publication? In European countries far +removed from local partizan prejudice, it was immediately received as +a great revelation of the spirit of liberty. It was translated into +twenty-three different languages. So devoted were the Italians to the +reading of the story that there was earnest effort to suppress its +circulation. As a drama it proved a great success, not only in America +and England but in France and other countries as well. More than a +million copies of the story were sold in the British Empire. Lord +Palmerston avers that he had not read a novel for thirty years, yet +he read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times and commended the book for the +statesmanship displayed in it. + +What is in the story to call forth such commendation from the +cold-blooded English statesman? The book revealed, in a way fitted to +carry conviction to every unprejudiced reader, the impossibility of +uniting slavery with freedom under the same Government. Either all must +be free or the mass subject to the few--or there is actual war. This +principle is finely brought out in the predicament of the Quaker +confronted by a fugitive with wife and child who had seen a sister sold +and conveyed to a life of shame on a Southern plantation. "Am I going to +stand by and see them take my wife and sell her?" exclaimed the negro. +"No, God help me! I'll fight to the last breath before they shall take +my wife and son. Can you blame me?" To which the Quaker replied: "Mortal +man cannot blame thee, George. Flesh and blood could not do otherwise. +'Woe unto the world because of offences but woe unto them through whom +the offence cometh.'" "Would not even you, sir, do the same, in my +place?" "I pray that I be not tried." And in the ensuing events the +Quaker played an important part. + +Laws enacted for the protection of slave property are shown to be +destructive of the fundamental rights of freemen; they are inhuman. The +Ohio Senator, who in his lofty preserve at the capital of his country +could discourse eloquently of his readiness to keep faith with the +South in the matter of the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, +becomes, when at home with his family, a flagrant violator of the law. +Elemental human nature is pitted against the apparent interests of a few +individual slaveowners. The story of Uncle Tom placed all supporters +of the new law on the defensive. It was read by all classes North and +South. "Uncle Tom's Cabin as it is" was called forth from the South as a +reply to Mrs. Stowe's book, and there ensued a general discussion of the +subject which was on the whole enlightening. Yet the immediate political +effect of the publication was less than might have been expected from +a book so widely read and discussed. Its appearance early in the decade +did not prevent the apparent pro-slavery reaction already described. But +Mr. Rhodes calls attention to the different impression which the book +made upon adults and boys. Hardened sinners in partizan politics could +read the book, laugh and weep over the passing incidents, and then go +on as if nothing had happened. Not so with the thirteen-year-old boy. +He never could be the same again. The Republican party of 1860 was +especially successful in gaining the first vote of the youthful citizen +and undoubtedly owed much of its influence to "Uncle Tom's Cabin." + +Two lines of attack were rapidly rendering impossible the continuance +of slavery in the United States. Mrs. Stowe gave effective expression to +the moral, religious, and humanitarian sentiment against slavery. In the +year in which her work was published, Frederick Law Olmsted began his +extended journeys throughout the South. He represents the impartial +scientific observer. His books were published during the years 1856, +1857, and 1861. They constitute in their own way an indictment against +slavery quite as forcible as that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but an +indictment that rests chiefly upon the blighting influence of the +institution of slavery upon agriculture, manufactures, and the general +industrial and social order. The crisis came too soon for these +publications to have any marked effect upon the issue. Their appeal +was to the deliberate and thoughtful reader, and political control had +already drifted into the hands of those who were not deliberate and +composed. + +In 1857, however, there appeared a book which did exert a marked +influence upon immediate political issues. There is no evidence that +Hinton Rowan Helper, the author of "The Impending Crisis," had any +knowledge of the writings of Olmsted; but he was familiar with +Northern anti-slavery literature. "I have considered my subject more +particularly," he states in his preface, "with reference to its economic +aspects as regards the whites--not with reference, except in a very +slight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects. To the latter +side of the question, Northern writers have already done full and timely +justice.... Yankee wives have written the most popular anti-slavery +literature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is all +well enough for women to give the fictions of slavery; men should give +the facts." He denies that it had been his purpose to cast unmerited +opprobium upon slaveholders; yet a sense of personal injury breathes +throughout the pages. If he had no intention of casting unmerited +opprobrium upon slaveholders, it is difficult to imagine what language +he could have used if he had undertaken to pass the limit of deserved +reprobation. In this regard the book is quite in line with the style of +Southern utterance against abolitionists. + +Helper belonged to a slaveholding family, for a hundred years resident +in the Carolinas. The dedication is significant. It is to three personal +friends from three slave States who at the time were residing in +California, in Oregon, and in Washington Territory, "and to the +non-slaveholding whites of the South generally, whether at home or +abroad." Out of the South had come the inspiration for the religious and +humanitarian attack upon slavery. From the same source came the call for +relief of the poverty-stricken white victims of the institution. + +Helper's book revived the controversy which had been forcibly terminated +a quarter of a century before. He resumes the argument of the members of +the Virginia legislature of 1832. He reprints extended selections from +that memorable debate and then, by extended references to later official +reports, points out how slavery is impoverishing the South. The South +is shown to have continuously declined, while the North has made immense +gains. In a few years the relation of the South to the North would +resemble that of Poland to Russia or of Ireland to England. The author +sees no call for any arguments against slavery as an economic system; he +would simply bring the earlier characterization of the situation down to +date. + +Helper differs radically from all earlier speakers and writers in that +he outlines a program for definite action. He estimates that for the +entire South there are seven white non-slaveholders for every three +slaveholders. He would organize these non-slaveholding whites into +an independent political party and would hold a general convention of +non-slaveholders from every slave State to adopt measures to restrain +"the diabolical excesses of the oligarchy" and to annihilate slavery. +Slaveholders should be entirely excluded from any share in government. +They should be treated as criminals ostracized from respectable society. +He is careful to state, however, that by slaveholder he does not mean +such men as Benton of Missouri and many others throughout the slave +States who retain the sentiments on the slavery question of the +"immortal Fathers of the Republic." He has in mind only the new order of +owners, who have determined by criminal methods to inflict the crime of +slavery upon an overwhelming majority of their white fellow-citizens. + +The publication of "The Impending Crisis" created a profound sensation +among Southern leaders. So long as the attack upon the peculiar +institution emanated from the North, the defenders had the full benefit +of local prejudice and resentment against outside intrusion. Helper was +himself a thorough-going believer in state rights. Slavery was to be +abolished, as he thought, by the action of the separate States. Here +he was in accord with Northern abolitionists. If such literature as +Helper's volume should find its way into the South, it would be no +longer possible to palm off upon the unthinking public the patent +falsehood that abolitionists of the North were attempting to impose by +force a change in Southern institutions. All that Southern abolitionists +ever asked was the privilege of remaining at home in their own South in +the full exercise of their constitutional rights. + +Southern leaders were undoubtedly aware of the concurrent publications +of travelers and newspaper reporters, of which Olmsted's books were +conspicuous examples. Olmsted and Helper were both sources of proof that +slavery was bringing the South to financial ruin. The facts were getting +hold of the minds of the Southern people. The debate which had been +adjourned was on the eve of being resumed. Complete suppression of +the new scientific industrial argument against slavery seemed to +slave-owners to furnish their only defense. + +The Appalachian ranges of mountains drove a wedge of liberty and freedom +from Pennsylvania almost to the Gulf. In the upland regions slavery +could not flourish. There was always enmity between the planters of the +coast and the dwellers on the upland. The slaveholding oligarchy had +always ruled, but the day of the uplanders was at hand. This is the +explanation of the veritable panic which Helper's publication created. +A debate which should follow the line of this old division between the +peoples of the Atlantic slave States would, under existing conditions, +be fatal to the institution of slavery. West Virginia did become a free +State at the first opportunity. Counties in western North Carolina claim +to have furnished a larger proportion of their men to the Union army +than any other counties in the country. Had the plan for peaceable +emancipation projected by abolitionists been permitted to take its +course, the uplands of South Carolina would have been pitted against +the lowlands, and Senator Tillman would have appeared as a rampant +abolitionist. There might have been violence, but it would have been +confined to limited areas in the separate States. Had the crisis been +postponed, there surely would have been a revival of abolitionism within +the Southern States. Slavery in Missouri was already approaching a +crisis. Southern leaders had long foreseen that the State would abolish +slavery if a free State should be established on the western boundary. +This was actually taking place. Kansas was filling up with free-state +settlers and, by the act of its own citizens, a few years later did +abolish slavery. + +Republicans naturally made use of Helper's book for party purposes. A +cheap abridged edition was brought out. Several Republican leaders were +induced to sign their names to a paper commending the publication. Among +these was John Sherman of Ohio, who in the organization of the newly +elected House of Representatives in 1859 was the leading candidate of +the Republicans for the speakership. During the contest the fact that +his name was on this paper was made public, and Southern leaders were +furious. Extracts were read to prove that the book was incendiary. +Millson of Virginia said that "one who consciously, deliberately, and of +purpose lends his name and influence to the propagation of such writings +is not only not fit to be speaker, but he is not-fit to live." It is one +of the ironies of the situation that the passage selected to prove the +incendiary character of the book is almost a literal quotation from the +debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1832. + + + +CHAPTER X. "BLEEDING KANSAS" + +Both the leading political parties were, in the campaign of 1852, fully +committed to the acceptance of the so-called Compromise of 1850 as a +final settlement of the slavery question; both were committed to the +support of the Fugitive Slave Act. The Free-soil party, with John P. +Hale as its candidate, did make a vigorous attack upon the Fugitive +Slave Act, and opposed all compromises respecting slavery, but +Free-soilers had been to a large extent reabsorbed into the Democratic +party, their vote of 1852 being only about half that of 1848. Though the +Whig vote was large and only about two hundred thousand less than that +of the Democrats, yet it was so distributed that the Whigs carried only +four States, Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The other +States gave a Democratic plurality. + +Had there been time for readjustment, the Whig party might have +recovered lost ground, but no time was permitted. There was in progress +in Missouri a political conflict which was already commanding national +attention. Thomas H. Benton, for thirty years a Senator from Missouri, +and a national figure, was the storm-center. His enemies accused him of +being a Free-soiler, an abolitionist in disguise. He was professedly a +stanch and uncompromising unionist, a personal and political opponent of +John C. Calhoun. According to his own statement he had been opposed +to the extension of slavery since 1804, although he had advocated the +admission of Missouri with a pro-slavery constitution in 180. He +was, from the first, senior Senator from the State, and by a peculiar +combination of influences incurred his first defeat for reelection in +1851. + +Benton's defeat in the Missouri Legislature was largely the result of +national pro-slavery influences. In a former chapter, reference was +made to the Ohio River as furnishing a "providential argument against +slavery." The Mississippi River as the eastern boundary of Missouri +furnished a like argument, but on the north not even a prairie +brook separated free labor in Iowa from slave labor in Missouri. The +inhabitants of western Missouri, realizing that the tenure of their +peculiar institution was becoming weaker in the east and north, early +became convinced that the organization of a free State along their +western boundary would be followed by the abolition of slavery in +their own State. This condition attracted the attention of the national +guardians of pro-slavery interests. Calhoun, Davis, Breckinridge, +Toombs, and others were in constant communication with local leaders. +A certain Judge W. C. Price, a religious fanatic, and a pro-slavery +devotee, was induced to visit every part of the State in 1844, calling +the attention of all slaveholders to the perils of the situation and +preparing the way for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Senator +Benton, who was approached on the subject, replied in such a way that +all radical defenders of slavery, both national leaders and local +politicians, were moved to unite for his political defeat. + +David R. Atchison, junior Senator from Missouri, had been made the +leader of the pro-slavery forces. The defeat of Benton in the Missouri +Legislature did not end the strife. He at once became a candidate for +Atchison's place in the election which was to occur in 1855, and he was +in the meantime elected to the House of Representatives in 1852. The +most telling consideration in Benton's favor was the general demand, in +which he himself joined, for the immediate organization of the western +territory in order to facilitate the building of a system of railways +reaching the Pacific, with St. Louis as the point of departure. For a +time, in 1859, and 1853, Benton was apparently triumphant, and Atchison +was himself willing to consent to the organization of the new territory +with slavery excluded. The national leaders, however, were not of the +same mind. The real issue was the continuance of slavery in the +State; the one thing which must not be permitted was the transfer of +anti-slavery agitation to the separate States. Henry Clay's proposal +of 1849 to provide for gradual emancipation in Kentucky was bitterly +resented. It had long been an axiom with the slavocracy that the +institution would perish unless it had the opportunity to expand. Out of +this conviction arose Calhoun's famous theory that slaveowners had under +the Constitution an equal right with the owners of all other forms of +property in all the Territories. The theory itself assumed that the act +prohibiting slavery in the territory north of the southern boundary +of Missouri was unconstitutional and void. But this theory had not yet +received judicial sanction, and the time was at hand when the question +of freedom or slavery in the western territory was to be determined. +Between March and December, 1853, the discovery was made that the Act +of 1850 organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah had superseded +the Compromise of 1820; that a principle had been recognized applicable +to all the Territories; that all were open to settlement on equal terms +to slaveholders and non-slaveholders; that the subject of slavery should +be removed from Congress to the people of the Territories; and that they +should decide, either when a territorial legislature was organized or +at the time of the adoption of a constitution preparatory to statehood, +whether or not slavery should be authorized. These ideas found +expression in various newspapers during the month of December, 1853. +Though the authorship of the new theory is still a matter of dispute, +it is well known that Stephen A. Douglas became its chief sponsor and +champion. The real motives and intentions of Douglas himself and of +many of his supporters will always remain obscure and uncertain. But no +uncertainty attaches to the motives of Senator Atchison and the leaders +of the Calhoun section of the Democratic party. For ten years at least +they had been laboring to get rid of the Missouri Compromise. Their +motive was to defend slavery and especially to forestall a successful +movement for emancipation in the State of Missouri. + +From early in January, 1854, until late in May, Douglas's Nebraska bill +held the attention of Congress and of the entire country. At first the +measure simply assumed that the Missouri Compromise had been superseded +by the Act of 1850. Later the bill was amended in such a way as to +repeal distinctly that time-honored act. At first the plan was to +organize Nebraska as a single Territory extending from Texas to Canada. +Later it was proposed to organize separate Territories, one west of +Missouri under the name of Kansas, the other west of Iowa under the name +of Nebraska. Opposition came from Free-soilers, from Northern Whigs +and a few Whigs from the South, and from a large proportion of Northern +Democrats. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise came like a thunderbolt +out of a clear sky to the people of the North. For a time Douglas was +the most unpopular of political leaders and was apparently repudiated by +his party. The first name designating the opponents of the Douglas bill +was "Anti-Nebraska men," for which the name Republican was gradually +substituted and in 1856 became the accepted title of the party. + +The provision for two territorial governments instead of one carried +with it the idea of a continued balance between slave and free States; +Kansas, being on a geographical parallel with the slave States, would +probably permit slavery, while Nebraska would be occupied by free-state +immigrants. Though this was a commonly accepted view, Eli Thayer of +Worcester, Massachusetts, and a few others took a different view. They +proposed to make an end of the discussion of the extension of slavery +by sending free men who were opposed to slavery to occupy the territory +open for settlement. To attain this object they organized an Emigrant +Aid Company incorporated under the laws of the State. Even before the +bill was passed, the corporation was in full working order. Thayer +himself traveled extensively throughout the Northern States stimulating +interest in western emigration, with the conviction that the disturbing +question could be peacefully settled in this way. California had thus +been saved to freedom; why not all other Territories? The new company +had as adviser and co-laborer Dr. Charles Robinson, who had crossed +the Kansas Territory on his way to California and had acquired valuable +experience in the art of state-building under peculiar conditions. + +The first party sent out by the Emigrant Aid Company arrived in Kansas +early in August, 1854, and selected the site for the town of Lawrence. +During the later months of the year, four other parties were sent out, +in all numbering nearly seven hundred. Through extensive advertisement +by the company, through the general interest in the subject and the +natural flow of emigration to the West, Kansas was receiving large +accessions of free-state settlers. + +Meanwhile the men of Missouri, some of whom had striven for a decade to +secure the privilege of extending slavery into the new Territory, were +not idle. Instantly upon the removal of legal barriers, they occupied +adjacent lands, founded towns, staked out claims, formed plans for +preempting the entire region and for forestalling or driving out all +intruders. They had at first the advantage of position, for they did not +find it difficult to maintain two homes, one in Kansas for purposes of +voting and fighting and another in Missouri for actual residence. Andrew +H. Reeder, a Pennsylvania Democrat of strong pro-slavery prejudices, was +appointed first Governor of the Territory. When he arrived in Kansas +in October, 1854, there were already several thousand settlers on the +ground and others were continually arriving. He appointed the 29th of +November for the election of a delegate to Congress. On that day several +hundred Missourians came into the Territory and voted. There was no +violence and no contest; the free-state men had no separate candidate. +Notwithstanding the violence of language used by opposing factions, +notwithstanding the organization of secret societies pledged to drive +out all Northern intruders, there was no serious disturbance until +March 30, 1855, the day appointed for the election of members of the +territorial Legislature. On that day the Missourians came full five +thousand strong, armed with guns, bowie-knives, and revolvers. They +met with no resistance from the residents, who were unarmed. They +took charge of the precincts and chose pro-slavery delegates with one +exception. Governor Reeder protested and recommended to the precincts +the filing of protests. Only seven responded, however, and in these +cases new elections were held and contesting delegates elected. + +The Governor issued certificates to these and to all those who in +other precincts had been chosen by the horde from Missouri. When the +Legislature met in July, the seven contests were decided in favor of +the pro-slavery party, the single freestate member resigned, and the +assembly was unanimous. + +Governor Reeder fully expected that President Pierce would nullify the +election, and to this end he made a journey to Washington in April. +On the way he delivered a public address at Easton, Pennsylvania, +describing in lurid colors the outrage which had been perpetrated +upon the people of Kansas by the "border ruffians" from Missouri, +and asserting that the accounts in the Northern press had not been +exaggerated. + +While Governor Reeder in contact with the actual events in Kansas was +becoming an active Free-soiler, President Pierce in association with +Jefferson Davis and others of his party was developing active sympathies +with the people of western Missouri. To the President this invasion +of territory west of the slave State by Northern men aided by Northern +corporations seemed a violation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and +he sought to induce Reeder to resign. This, however, the Governor +positively refused to do unless the President would formally approve +his conduct in Kansas--an endorsement which required more fortitude than +President Pierce possessed. On his return to Kansas, determined to do +what he could to protect the Kansas people from injustice, he called +the Legislature to meet at Pawnee, a point far removed from the Missouri +border. Immediately upon their organization at that place the members +of the Legislature adjourned to meet at Shawnee, near the border of +Missouri. The Governor, who decided that this action was illegal, then +refused to recognize the Assembly at the new place. A deadlock thus +ensued which was broken on the 15th of August by the removal of Governor +Reeder and the appointment of Wilson Shannon of Ohio in his place. In +the meantime the territorial Legislature had adjourned, having "enacted" +an elaborate proslavery code made up from the slave code of Missouri +with a number of special adaptations. For example, it was made a +penitentiary offense to deny by speaking or writing, or by printing, or +by introducing any printed matter, the right of persons to hold +slaves in the Territory; no man was eligible to jury service who was +conscientiously opposed to holding slaves; and lawyers were bound by +oath to support the territorial statutes. + +The free-state men, with the approval of Reeder, refused to recognize +the Legislature and inaugurated a movement in the fall of 1855 to adopt +a constitution and to organize a provisional territorial Government +preparatory to admission as a State, following in this respect the +procedure in California and Michigan. A convention met in Topeka in +October, 1855, and completed on the 11th of November the draft of a +constitution which prohibited slavery. On the 15th of December the +constitution was approved by a practically unanimous vote, only +free-state men taking part in the election. A month later a Legislature +was elected and at the same time Charles Robinson was elected Governor +of the new commonwealth. In the previous October, Reeder had been chosen +Free-soil delegate to Congress. The Topeka freestate Legislature met on +the 4th of March, 1856, and after petitioning Congress to admit Kansas +under the Topeka constitution, adjourned until the 4th of July pending +the action of Congress. Thus at the end of two years two distinct +Governments had come into existence within the Territory of Kansas. It +speaks volumes for the self-control and moderation of the two parties +that no hostile encounter had occurred between the contestants. When the +armed Missourians came in March, 1855, the unarmed settlers offered no +resistance. Afterward, however, they supplied themselves with Sharp's +rifles and organized a militia. With the advent of Governor Shannon +in September, 1855, the proslavery position was much strengthened. In +November, in a quarrel over a land claim, a free-state settler by the +name of Dow was killed. The murderer escaped, but a friend of the victim +was accused of uttering threats against a friend of the murderer. For +this offense a posse led by Sheriff Jones, a Missourian, seized him, +and would have carried him away if fourteen freestate men had not +"persuaded" the Sheriff to surrender his prisoner. This interference was +accepted by the Missourians as a signal for battle. The rescuers must +be arrested and punished. A large force of infuriated Missourians and +pro-slavery settlers assembled for a raid upon the town of Lawrence. +In the meantime the Lawrence militia planned and executed a systematic +defense of the town. When the two armies came within speaking distance, +a parley ensued in which the Governor took a leading part in settling +the affair without a hostile shot. This is known in Kansas history as +the "Wakarusa War." + +The progress of affairs in Kansas was followed with intense interest in +all parts of the country. North and South vied with each other in the +encouragement of emigration to Kansas. Colonel Buford of Alabama sold a +large number of slaves and devoted the proceeds to meeting the expense +of conducting a troop of three hundred men to Kansas in the winter of +1856. They went armed with "the sword of the spirit," and all provided +with Bibles supplied by the leading churches. Arrived in the territory, +they were duly furnished with more worldly weapons and were drilled for +action. About the same time a parallel incident is said to have occurred +in New Haven, Connecticut. A deacon in one of the churches had enlisted +a company of seventy bound for Kansas. A meeting was held in the church +to raise money to defray expenses. The leader of the company declared +that they also needed rifles for self-defense. Forthwith Professor +Silliman, of the University, subscribed one Sharp's rifle, and others +followed with like pledges. Finally Henry Ward Beecher, who was the +speaker of the occasion, rose and promised that, if twenty-five +rifles were pledged on the spot, Plymouth Church in Brooklyn would +be responsible for the remaining twenty-five that were needed. He had +already said in a previous address that for the slaveholders of Kansas, +Sharp's rifles were a greater moral agency than the Bible. This led +to the designation of the weapons as "Beecher's Bibles." Such was the +spirit which prevailed in the two sections of the country. + +President Pierce had now become intensely hostile towards the free-state +inhabitants of Kansas. Having recognized the Legislature elected on +March 30, 1855, as the legitimate Government, he sent a special +message to Congress on January 24, 1856, in which he characterized as +revolutionary the movement of the free-state men to organize a separate +Government in Kansas. From the President's point of view, the emissaries +of the New England Emigrant Aid Association were unlawful invaders. +In this position he not only had the support of the South, but was +powerfully seconded by Stephen A. Douglas and other Northern Democrats. + +The attitude of the Administration at Washington was a source of great +encouragement to Sheriff Jones and his associates, who were anxious to +wreak their vengeance on the city of Lawrence for the outcome of the +Wakarusa War. Jones came to Lawrence apparently for the express purpose +of picking a quarrel, for he revived the old dispute about the rescuing +party of the previous fall. As a consequence one enraged opponent +slapped him in the face, and at last an unknown assassin entered the +sheriff's tent by night and inflicted a revolver wound in his back. +Though the citizens of Lawrence were greatly chagrined at this event and +offered a reward for the discovery of the assailant, the attack upon the +sheriff was made the signal for drastic procedure against the town of +Lawrence. A grand jury found indictments for treason against Reeder, +Robinson, and other leading citizens of the town. The United States +marshal gave notice that he expected resistance in making arrests +and called upon all law-abiding citizens of the Territory to aid in +executing the law. It was a welcome summons to the pro-slavery forces. +Not only local militia companies responded but also Buford's company +and various companies from Missouri, in all more than seven hundred men, +with two cannon. It had always been the set purpose of the free-state +men not to resist federal authority by force, unless as a last resort, +and they had no intention of opposing the marshal in making arrests. He +performed his duty without hindrance and then placed the armed troops +under the command of Sheriff Jones, who proceeded first to destroy the +printing-press of the town of Lawrence. Then, against the protest of the +marshal and Colonel Buford, the vindictive sheriff trained his guns upon +the new hotel which was the pride of the city; the ruin of the building +was made complete by fire, while a drunken mob pillaged the town. + +On May 22, 1856, the day following the attack upon Lawrence, Charles +Sumner was struck down in the United States Senate on account of a +speech made in defense of the rights of Kansas settlers. The two events, +which were reported at the same time in the daily press, furnished +the key-note to the presidential campaign of that year, for nominating +conventions followed in a few days and "bleeding Kansas" was the +all-absorbing issue. In spite of the destruction of property in Lawrence +and the arrest of the leaders of the free-state party, Kansas had not +been plunged into a state of civil war. The free-state party had fired +no hostile shot. Governor Robinson and his associates still relied upon +public opinion and they accepted the wanton attack upon Lawrence as the +best assurance that they would yet win their cause by legal means. + +A change, however, soon took place which is associated with the entrance +of John Brown into the history of Kansas. Brown and his sons were living +at Osawatomie, some thirty miles south of Lawrence. They were present at +the Wakarusa War in December, 1855, and were on their way to the defense +of Lawrence on May 21, 1856, when they were informed that the town had +been destroyed. Three days after this event Brown and his sons with two +or three others made a midnight raid upon their pro-slavery neighbors +living in the Pottawatomie valley and slew five men. The authors of this +deed were not certainly known until the publication of a confession of +one of the party in 1879, twenty years after the chief actor had won +the reputation of a martyr to the cause of liberty. The Browns, however, +were suspected at the time; warrants were out for their arrest; and +their homes were destroyed. + +For more than three months after this incident, Kansas was in a state +of war; in fact, two distinct varieties of warfare were carried on. +Publicly organized companies on both sides engaged in acts of attack and +defense, while at the same time irresponsible secret bands were busy in +violent reprisals, in plunder and assassination. In both of these forms +of warfare, the free-state men proved themselves fully equal to their +opponents, and Governor Shannon was entirely unable to cope with the +situation. It is estimated that two hundred men were slain and two +million dollars' worth of property was destroyed. + +The state of affairs in Kansas served to win many Northern Democrats +to the support of the Republicans. The Administration at Washington was +held responsible for the violence and bloodshed. The Democratic leaders +in the political campaign, determined now upon a complete change in +the Government of the Territory, appointed J. W. Geary as Governor and +placed General Smith in charge of the troops. The new incumbents, both +from Pennsylvania, entered upon their labors early in September, and +before the October state elections Geary was able to report that peace +reigned throughout the Territory. A prompt reaction in favor of the +Democrats followed. Buchanan, their presidential candidate, rejoiced in +the fact that order had been restored by two citizens of his own State. +It was now very generally conceded that Kansas would become a free +State, and intimate associates of Buchanan assured the public that he +was himself of that opinion and that if elected he would insure to the +free-state party evenhanded justice. Thousands of voters were thus won +to Buchanan's support. There was a general distrust of the Republican +candidate as a man lacking political experience, and a strong +conservative reaction against the idea of electing a President by the +votes of only one section of the country. At the election in November, +Buchanan received a majority of sixty of the electoral votes over +Fremont, but in the popular vote he fell short of a majority by nearly +400,000. Fillmore, candidate of the Whig and the American parties, +received 874,000 votes. + +There was still profound distrust of the administration of the Territory +of Kansas, and the free-state settlers refused to vote at the election +set for the choosing of a new territorial Legislature in October. +The result was another pro-slavery assembly. Governor Geary, however, +determined to secure and enforce just treatment of both parties. He +was at once brought into violent conflict with the Legislature in an +experience which was almost an exact counterpart of that of Governor +Reeder; and Washington did not support his efforts to secure fair +dealings. A pro-slavery deputation visited President Pierce in February, +1857, and returned with the assurance that Governor Geary would be +removed. Without waiting for the President to act, Geary resigned in +disgust on the 4th of March. Of the three Governors whom President +Pierce appointed, two became active supporters of the free-state party +and a third, Governor Shannon, fled from the territory in mortal terror +lest he should be slain by members of the party which he had tried to +serve. + + + +CHAPTER XI. CHARLES SUMNER + +The real successor to John Quincy Adams as the protagonist of the +anti-slavery cause in Congress proved to be not Seward but Charles +Sumner of Massachusetts. This newcomer entered the Senate without +previous legislative experience but with an unusual equipment for +the role he was to play. A graduate of Harvard College at the age of +nineteen, he had entered upon the study of law in the newly organized +law school in which Joseph Story held one of the two professorships. +He was admitted to the bar in 1834, but three years later he left his +slender law practice for a long period of European travel. This three +years' sojourn brought him into intimate touch with the leading spirits +in arts, letters, and public life in England and on the Continent, and +thus ripened his talents to their full maturity. He returned to his +law practice poor in pocket but rich in the possession of lifelong +friendships and happy memories. + +Sumner's political career did not begin until 1847, when as a Whig he +not only opposed any further extension of slavery but strove to commit +his party to the policy of emancipation in all the States. Failing in +this attempt, Sumner became an active Free-soiler in 1848. He was twice +a candidate for Congress on the Free-soil ticket but failed of election. +In 1851 he was elected to the United States Senate by a coalition +between his party and the Democrats. This is the only public office he +ever held, but he was continuously reelected until his death in 1874. + +John Quincy Adams had addressed audiences trained in the old school, +which did not defend slavery on moral grounds. Charles Sumner faced +audiences of the new school, which upheld the institution as a righteous +moral order. This explains the chief difference in the attitude of the +two leaders. Sumner, like Adams, began as an opponent of pro-slavery +aggression, but he went farther: he attacked the institution itself as a +great moral evil. + +As a constitutional lawyer Sumner is not the equal of his predecessor, +Daniel Webster. He is less original, less convincing in the enunciation +of broad general principles. He appears rather as a special pleader +marshaling all available forces against the one institution which +assailed the Union. In this particular work, he surpassed all others, +for, with his unbounded industry, he permitted no precedent, no legal +advantage, no incident of history, no fact in current politics fitted +to strengthen his cause, to escape his untiring search. He showed a +marvelous skill in the selection, arrangement, and presentation of +his materials, and for his models he took the highest forms of classic +forensic utterance. + +Sumner exhibited the ordinary aloofness and lack of familiarity with +actual conditions in the South which was characteristic of the New +England abolitionist. He perceived no race problem, no peculiar +difficulty in the readjustments of master and slave which were involved +in emancipation, and he ignored all obstacles to the accomplishment of +his ends. Webster's arraignment of South Carolina was directed against +an alleged erroneous dogma and only incidentally affected personal +morality. The reaction, therefore, was void of bitter resentment. +Sumner's charges were directed against alleged moral turpitude, and +the classic form and scrupulous regard for parliamentary rules which he +observed only added to the feeling of personal resentment on the part of +his opponents. Some of the defenders of slavery were themselves +devoted students of the classics, but they found that the orations of +Demosthenes furnished nothing suited to their purpose. The result was a +humiliating exhibition of weakness, personal abuse, and vindictiveness +on their part. + +There was a conspiracy of silence on the slavery question in 1852. Each +of the national parties was definitely committed to the support of the +compromise and especially to the faithful observance of the Fugitive +Slave Law. Free-soilers had distinctly declined in numbers and influence +during the four preceding years. Only a handful of members in each House +of Congress remained unaffiliated with the parties whose platforms had +ordained silence on the one issue of chief public concern. It was by a +mere accident in Massachusetts politics that Charles Sumner was sent to +the Senate as a man free on all public questions. + +While the parties were making their nominations for the Presidency, +Sumner sought diligently for an opportunity in the Senate to give +utterance to the sentiments of his party on the repeal of the Fugitive +Slave Act. But not until late in August did he overcome the resistance +of the combined opposition and gain the floor. The watchmen were caught +off guard when Sumner introduced an amendment to an appropriation bill +which enabled him to deliver a carefully prepared address, several hours +in length, calling for the repeal of the law. + +The first part of this speech is devoted to the general topic of the +relation of the national Government to slavery and was made in answer +to the demand of Calhoun and his followers for the direct national +recognition of slavery. For such a demand Sumner found no warrant. By +the decision of Lord Mansfield, said he, "the state of slavery" +was declared to be "of such a nature, that it is incapable of being +introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but ONLY BY POSITIVE +LAW.... it is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but +positive law." Adopting the same principle, the Supreme Court of the +State of Mississippi, a tribunal of slaveholders, asserted that "slavery +is condemned by reason and the Laws of Nature. It exists, and can ONLY +exist, through municipal regulations." So also declared the Supreme +Court of Kentucky and numerous other tribunals. This aspect of the +subject furnished Sumner occasion for a masterly array of all the +utterances in favor of liberty to be found in the Constitution, in the +Declaration of Independence, in the constitutional conventions, in the +principles of common law. All these led up to and supported the one +grand conclusion that, when Washington took the oath as President of the +United States, "slavery existed nowhere on the national territory" +and therefore "is in no respect a national institution." Apply the +principles of the Constitution in their purity, then, and "in all +national territories slavery will be impossible. On the high seas, +under the national flag, slavery will be impossible. In the District of +Columbia, slavery will instantly cease. Inspired by these principles, +Congress can give no sanction to slavery by the admission of new slave +States. Nowhere under the Constitution can the Nation by legislation or +otherwise, support slavery, hunt slaves, or hold property in man.... As +slavery is banished from the national jurisdiction, it will cease to +vex our national politics. It may linger in the States as a local +institution; but it will no longer engender national animosities when it +no longer demands national support." + +The second part of Sumner's address dealt directly with the Fugitive +Slave Act of 1860. It is much less convincing and suggests more of the +characteristics of the special pleader with a difficult case. Sumner +here undertook to prove that Congress exceeded its powers when it +presumed to lay down rules for the rendition of fugitive slaves, and +this task exceeded even his power as a constitutional lawyer. + +The circumstances under which Sumner attacked slavery were such as to +have alarmed a less self-centered man, for the two years following the +introduction of the Nebraska bill were marked by the most acrimonious +debate in the history of Congress, and by physical encounters, +challenges, and threats of violence. But though Congressmen carried +concealed weapons, Sumner went his way unarmed and apparently in +complete unconcern as to any personal danger, though it is known that he +was fully aware that in the faithful performance of what he deemed to be +his duty he was incurring the risk of assassination. + +The pro-slavery party manifested on all occasions a disposition to make +the most of the weak point in Sumner's constitutional argument against +the Fugitive Slave Law. He was accused of taking an oath to support the +Constitution though at the same time intending to violate one of its +provisions. In a discussion, in June, 1854, over a petition praying for +the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, Senator Butler of South Carolina +put the question directly to Senator Sumner whether he would himself +unite with others in returning a fugitive to his master. Sumner's quick +reply was, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Enraged +Southerners followed this remark with a most bitter onslaught upon +Sumner which lasted for two days. When Sumner again got the floor, he +said in reference to Senator Butler's remark: "In fitful phrase, which +seemed to come from unconscious excitement, so common with the Senator, +he shot forth various cries about 'dogs,' and, among other things, asked +if there was any 'dog' in the Constitution? The Senator did not seem +to bear in mind, through the heady currents of that moment that, by the +false interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution, he has helped +to nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina bloodhounds, trained, with +savage jaw and insatiable in scent, for the hunt of flying bondmen. No, +sir, I do not believe that there is any 'kennel of bloodhounds,' or even +any 'dog' in the Constitution." Thereafter offensive personal references +between the Senators from Massachusetts and South Carolina became +habitual. These personalities were a source of regret to many of +Sumner's best friends, but they fill a small place, after all, in his +great work. Nor were they the chief source of rancor on the part of +his enemies, for Southern orators were accustomed to personalities in +debate. Sumner was feared and hated principally because his presence in +Congress endangered the institution of slavery. + +Sumner's speech on the crime against Kansas was perhaps the most +remarkable effort of his career. It had been known for many weeks that +Sumner was preparing to speak upon the burning question, and his friends +had already expressed anxiety for his personal safety. For the larger +part of two days, May 19 and 20, 1856, he held the reluctant attention +of the Senate. For the delivery of this speech he chose a time which was +most opportune. The crime against Kansas had, in a sense, culminated in +March of the previous year, but the settlers had refused to submit to +the Government set up by hostile invaders. They had armed themselves for +the defense of their rights, had elected a Governor and a Legislature +by voluntary association, had called a convention, and had adopted a +constitution preparatory to admission to the Union. That constitution +was now before the Senate for approval. President Pierce, Stephen +A. Douglas, and all the Southern leaders had decided to treat as +treasonable acts the efforts of Kansas settlers to secure an orderly +government. Their plans for the arrest of the leaders were well advanced +and the arrests were actually made on the day after Sumner had concluded +his speech. + +A paragraph in the address is prophetic of what occurred within a week. +Douglas had introduced a bill recognizing the Legislature chosen by the +Missourians as the legal Government and providing for the formation of a +constitution under its initiative at some future date. After describing +this proposed action as a continuation of the crime against Kansas, +Sumner declared: "Sir, you cannot expect that the people of Kansas +will submit to the usurpation which this bill sets up and bids them +bow before, as the Austrian tyrant set up the ducal hat in the Swiss +market-place. If you madly persevere, Kansas will not be without her +William Tell, who will refuse at all hazards to recognize the tyrannical +edict; and this will be the beginning of civil war." + +To keep historical sequence clear at this point, all thought of John +Brown should be eliminated, for he was then unknown to the public. It +must be remembered that Governor Robinson and the free-state settlers +were, as Sumner probably knew, prepared to resist the general Government +as soon as there should be a clear case of outrage for which the +Administration at Washington could be held directly responsible. Such +a case occurred when the United States marshal placed federal troops in +the hands of Sheriff Jones to assist in looting the town of Lawrence. +Governor Robinson no longer had any scruples in advising forcible +resistance to all who used force to impose upon Kansas a Government +which the people had rejected. + +In the course of his address Sumner compared Senators Butler and +Douglas to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, saying: "The Senator from +South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a +chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he +has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly +to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the +world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot Slavery. Let her be +impeached in character, or any proposition be made to shut her out +from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or +hardihood of assertion is then too great for the Senator." + +When Sumner concluded, the gathering storm broke forth. Cass of +Michigan, after saying that he had listened to the address with equal +surprise and regret, characterized it as "the most unAmerican and +unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of that high +body." Douglas and Mason were personal and abusive. Douglas, recalling +Sumner's answer to Senator Butler's question whether he would assist in +returning a slave, renewed the charge made two years earlier that Sumner +had violated his oath of office. This attack called forth from Sumner +another attempt to defend the one weak point in his speech of 1852, for +he was always irritated by reference to this subject, and at the same +time he enjoyed a fine facility in the use of language which irritated +others. + +One utterance in Douglas's reply to Sumner is of special significance in +view of what occurred two days later: "Is it his object to provoke +some of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may get +sympathy upon the just chastisement?" Two days later Sumner was sitting +alone at his desk in the Senate chamber after adjournment when Preston +Brooks, a nephew of Senator Butler and a member of the lower House, +entered and accosted him with the statement that he had read Sumner's +speech twice and that it was a libel on South Carolina and upon a +kinsman of his. Thereupon Brooks followed his words by striking Sumner +on the head with a cane. Though the Senator was dazed and blinded by +the unexpected attack, his assailant rained blow after blow until he +had broken the cane and Sumner lay prostrate and bleeding at his feet. +Brooks's remarks in the House of Representatives almost a month after +the event leave no doubt of his determination to commit murder had he +failed to overcome his antagonist with a cane. He had also taken the +precaution to have two of his friends ready to prevent any interference +before the punishment was completed. Toombs of Georgia witnessed a +part of the assault and expressed approval of the act, and everywhere +throughout the South, in the public press, in legislative halls, in +public meetings, Brooks was hailed as a hero. The resolution for his +expulsion introduced in the House received the support of only one +vote from south of Mason and Dixon's Line. A large majority favored the +resolution, but not the required two-thirds majority. Brooks, however, +thought best to resign but was triumphantly returned to his seat with +only six votes against him. Nothing was left undone to express Southern +gratitude, and he received gifts of canes innumerable as symbols of his +valor. Yet before his death, which occurred in the following January, +he confessed to his friend Orr that he was sick of being regarded as +the representative of bullies and disgusted at receiving testimonials of +their esteem. + +With similar unanimity the North condemned and resented the assault that +had been made upon Sumner. From party considerations, if for no other +reasons, Democrats regretted the event. Republicans saw in the brutal +attack and in the manner of its reception in the South another evidence +of the irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom. They were +ready to take up the issue so forcibly presented by their fallen +leader. A part of the regular order of exercises at public meetings of +Republicans was to express sympathy with their wounded champion and with +the Kansas people of the pillaged town of Lawrence, and to adopt +ways and means to bring to an end the Administration which they held +responsible for these outrages. Sumner, though silenced, was eloquent +in a new and more effective way. A half million copies of "The +Crime against Kansas" were printed and circulated. On the issue thus +presented, Northern Democrats became convinced that their defeat at the +pending election was certain, and their leaders instituted the change in +their program which has been described in a previous chapter. They had +made an end of the war in Kansas and drew from their candidate for the +Presidency the assurance that just treatment should at last be meted out +to harassed Kansas. + +Though Sumner's injuries were at first regarded as slight, they +eventually proved to be extremely serious. After two attempts to resume +his place in the Senate, he found that he was unable to remain; yet when +his term expired, he was almost unanimously reelected. Much of his time +for three and a half years he spent in Europe. In December, 1859, he +seemed sufficiently recovered to resume senatorial duties, but it was +not until the following June that he again addressed the Senate. On +that occasion he delivered his last great philippic against slavery. +The subject under discussion was still the admission of Kansas as a +free State, and, as he remarked in his opening sentences, he resumed the +discussion precisely where he had left off more than four years before. + +Sumner had assumed the task of uttering a final word against slavery as +barbarism and a barrier to civilization. He spoke under the impelling +power of a conviction in his God-given mission to utilize a great +occasion to the full and for a noble end. For this work his whole life +had been a preparation. Accustomed from early youth to spend ten hours +a day with books on law, history, and classic literature, he knew as no +other man then knew what aid the past could offer to the struggle for +freedom. The bludgeon of the would-be assassin had not impaired his +memory, and four years of enforced leisure enabled him to fulfill his +highest ideals of perfect oratorical form. Personalities he eliminated +from this final address, and blemishes he pruned away. In his earlier +speeches he had been limited by the demands of the particular question +under discussion, but in "The Barbarism of Slavery" he was free to deal +with the general subject, and he utilized incidents in American slavery +to demonstrate the general upward trend of history. The orator was +sustained by the full consciousness that his utterances were in harmony +with the grand sweep of historic truth as well as with the spirit of the +present age. + +Sumner was not a party man and was at no time in complete harmony with +his coworkers. It was always a question whether his speeches had a +favorable effect upon the immediate action of Congress; there can, +however, be no doubt of the fact that the larger public was edified and +influenced. Copies of "The Crime against Kansas" and "The Barbarism of +Slavery" were printed and circulated by the million and were eagerly +read from beginning to end. They gave final form to the thoughts and +utterances of many political leaders both in America and in Europe. +More than any other man it was Charles Sumner who, with a wealth +of historical learning and great skill in forensic art, put the +irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom in its proper setting +in human history. + + + +CHAPTER XII. KANSAS AND BUCHANAN + +In view of the presidential election of 1856 Northern Democrats +entertained no doubts that Kansas, now occupied by a majority of +free-state men, would be received as a free State without further ado. +The case was different with the Democrats of western Missouri, already +for ten years in close touch with those Southern leaders who were +determined either to secure new safeguards for slavery or to form an +independent confederacy. Their program was to continue their efforts to +make Kansas a slave State or at least to maintain the disturbance there +until the conditions appeared favorable for secession. + +In February, 1857, the pro-slavery territorial Legislature provided for +the election of delegates to a constitutional convention, but Governor +Geary vetoed the act because no provision was made for submitting the +proposed constitution to the vote of the people. The bill was passed +over his veto, and arrangements were made for registration which +free-state men regarded as imperfect, inadequate, or fraudulent. + +President Buchanan undoubtedly intended to do full justice to the +people of Kansas. To this end he chose Robert J. Walker, a Mississippi +Democrat, as Governor of Kansas. Walker was a statesman of high rank, +who had been associated with Buchanan in the Cabinet of James K. Polk. +Three times he refused to accept the office and finally undertook the +mission only from a sense of duty. Being aware of the fate of Governor +Geary, Walker insisted on an explicit understanding with Buchanan that +his policies should not be repudiated by the federal Administration. +Late in May he went to Kansas with high hopes and expectations. But the +free-state party had persisted in the repudiation of a Government which +had been first set up by an invading army and, as they alleged, had +since then been perpetuated by fraud. They had absolutely refused to +take part in any election called by that Government and had continued to +keep alive their own legislative assembly. Despite Walker's efforts +to persuade them to take part in the election of delegates to the +constitutional convention, they resolutely held aloof. Yet, as they +became convinced that he was acting in good faith, they did participate +in the October elections to the territorial Legislature, electing nine +out of the thirteen councilors and twenty-four out of the thirty-nine +representatives. Gross frauds had been perpetrated in two districts, and +the Governor made good his promise by rejecting the fraudulent votes. +In one case a poll list had been made up by copying an old Cincinnati +register. + +In the meantime, thanks to the abstention of the free-state people, the +pro-slavery party had secured absolute control of the constitutional +convention. Yet there was the most absolute assurance by the Governor +in the name of the President of the United States that no constitution +would be sent to Congress for approval which had not received the +sanction of a majority of the voters of the Territory. This was Walker's +reiterated promise, and President Buchanan had on this point been +equally explicit. + +When, therefore, the pro-slavery constitutional convention met at +Lecompton in October, Kansas had a free-state Legislature duly elected. +To make Kansas still a slave State it was necessary to get rid of that +Legislature and of the Governor through whose agency it had been chosen, +and at the same time to frame a constitution which would secure the +approval of the Buchanan Administration. Incredible as it may seem, all +this was actually accomplished. + +John Calhoun, who had been chosen president of the Lecompton convention, +spent some time in Washington before the adjourned meeting of the +convention. He secured the aid of master-hands at manipulation. Walker +had already been discredited at the White House on account of his +rejection of fraudulent returns at the October election of members to +the Legislature. The convention was unwilling to take further chances +on a matter of that sort, and it consequently made it a part of the +constitution that the president of the convention should have entire +charge of the election to be held for its approval. The free-state +legislature was disposed of by placing in the constitution a provision +that all existing laws should remain in force until the election of a +Legislature provided for under the constitution. + +The master-stroke of the convention, however, was the provision for +submitting the constitution to the vote of the people. Voters were not +permitted to accept or reject the instrument; all votes were to be for +the constitution either "with slavery" or "with no slavery." But the +document itself recognized slavery as already existing and declared the +right of slave property like other property "before and higher than any +constitutional sanction." Other provisions made emancipation difficult +by providing in any case for complete monetary remuneration and for the +consent of the owners. There were numerous other provisions offensive +to free-state men. It had been rightly surmised that they would take no +part in such an election and that "the constitution with slavery" +would be approved. The vote on the constitution was set for the 21st of +December. For the constitution with slavery 6226 votes were recorded and +569 for the constitution without slavery. + +While these events were taking place, Walker went to Washington to enter +his protest but resigned after finding only a hostile reception by +the President and his Cabinet. Stanton, who was acting Governor in the +absence of Walker, then called together the free-state Legislature, +which set January 4, 1858, as the date for approving or rejecting the +Lecompton Constitution. At this election the votes cast were 138 for the +constitution with slavery, 24 for the constitution without slavery, +and 10,226 against the constitution. But President Buchanan had become +thoroughly committed to the support of the Lecompton Constitution. +Disregarding the advice of the new Governor, he sent the Lecompton +Constitution to Congress with the recommendation that Kansas be admitted +to the Union as a slave State. + +Here was a crisis big with the fate of the Democratic party, if not of +the Union. Stephen A. Douglas had already given notice that he would +oppose the Lecompton Constitution. In favor of its rejection he made a +notable speech which called forth the bitterest enmity from the South +and arrayed all the forces of the Administration against him. Supporters +of Douglas were removed from office, and anti-Douglas men were put in +their places. In his fight against the fraudulent constitution Douglas +himself, however, still had the support of a majority of Northern +Democrats, especially in the Western States, and that of all the +Republicans in Congress. A bill to admit Kansas passed the Senate, but +in the House a proviso was attached requiring that the constitution +should first be submitted to the people of Kansas for acceptance or +rejection. This amendment was finally accepted by the Senate with the +modification that, if the people voted for the constitution, the State +should have a large donation of public land, but that if they rejected +it, they should not be admitted as a State until they had a population +large enough to entitle them to a representative in the lower House. The +vote of the people was cast on August 2, 1858, and the constitution was +finally rejected by a majority of nearly twelve thousand. Thus resulted +the last effort to impose slavery on the people of Kansas. + +Although the war between slavery and freedom was fought out in miniature +in Kansas, the immediate issue was the preservation of slavery in +Missouri. This, however, involved directly the prospect of emancipation +in other border States and ultimate complete emancipation in all the +States. The issue is well stated in a Fourth of July address which +Charles Robinson delivered at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1855, after the +invasion of Missourians to influence the March election of that year, +but before the beginning of bloody conflict: + +"What reason is given for the cowardly invasion of our rights by our +neighbors? They say that if Kansas is allowed to be free the institution +of slavery in their own State will be in danger.... If the people +of Missouri make it necessary, by their unlawful course, for us to +establish freedom in that State in order to enjoy the liberty of +governing ourselves in Kansas, then let that be the issue. If Kansas and +the whole North must be enslaved, or Missouri become free, then let +her be made free. Aye! and if to be free ourselves, slavery must be +abolished in the whole country, then let us accept that due. If black +slavery in a part of the States is incompatible with white freedom +in any State, then let black slavery be abolished from all. As men +espousing the principles of the Declaration of the Fathers, we can do +nothing else than accept these issues." + +The men who saved Kansas to freedom were not abolitionists in the +restricted sense. Governor Walker found in 1857 that a considerable +majority of the free-state men were Democrats and that some were from +the South. Nearly all actual settlers, from whatever source they came, +were free-state men who felt that a slave was a burden in such a country +as Kansas. For example, during the first winter of the occupation of +Kansas, an owner of nineteen slaves was himself forced to work like a +trooper to keep them from freezing; and, indeed, one of them did freeze +to death and another was seriously injured. + +In spite of all the advertising of opportunity and all the pressure +brought to bear upon Southerners to settle in Kansas, at no time did the +number of slaves in the Territory reach three hundred. The climate and +the soil made for freedom, and the Governors were not the only persons +who were converted to free-state principles by residence in the +Territory. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE SUPREME COURT IN POLITICS + +The decision and arguments of the Supreme Court upon the Dred Scott +case were published on March 6, 1857, two days after the inauguration +of President Buchanan. The decision had been agreed upon many months +before, and the appeal of the negro, Dred Scott, had been decided +by rulings which in no way involved the validity of the Missouri +Compromise. Nevertheless, a majority of the judges determined to give +to the newly developed theory of John C. Calhoun the appearance of the +sanctity of law. According to Chief Justice Taney's dictum, those +who made the Constitution gave to those clauses defining the power +of Congress over the Territories an erroneous meaning. On numerous +occasions Congress had by statute excluded slavery from the public +domain. This, in the judgment of the Chief Justice, they had no right to +do, and such legislation was unconstitutional and void. Specifically the +Missouri Compromise had never had any binding force as law. Property in +slaves was as sacred as property in any other form, and slave-owners +had equal claim with other property owners to protection in all the +Territories of the United States. Neither Congress nor a territorial +Legislature could infringe such equal rights. + +According to popular understanding, the Supreme Court declared "that the +negro has no rights which the white man is bound to respect." But Chief +Justice Taney did not use these words merely as an expression of his own +or of the Court's opinion. He used them in a way much more contemptible +and inexcusable to the minds of men of strong anti-slavery convictions. +He put them into the mouths of the fathers of the Republic, who wrote +the Declaration of Independence, framed the Constitution, organized +state Governments, and gave to negroes full rights of citizenship, +including the right to vote. But how explain this strange inconsistency? +The Chief Justice was equal to the occasion. He insisted that in recent +years there had come about a better understanding of the phraseology of +the Declaration of Independence. The words, "All men are created equal," +he admitted, "would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if +they were used in a similar instrument at this day they would be so +understood." But the writers of that instrument had not, he said, +intended to include men of the African race, who were at that time +regarded as not forming any part of the people. Therefore--strange +logic!--these men of the revolutionary era who treated negroes actually +as citizens having full equal rights did not understand the meaning of +their own words, which could be comprehended only after three-quarters +of a century when, forsooth, equal rights had been denied to all persons +of African descent. + +The ruling of the Court in the Dred Scott case came at a time when +Northern people had a better idea of the spirit and teachings of +the founders of the Republic regarding the slavery question than any +generation before or since has had. The campaign that had just closed +had been characterized by a high order of discussion, and it was also +emphatically a reading campaign. The new Republican party planted itself +squarely on the principles enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, the reputed +founder of the old Republican party. They went back to the policy of the +fathers, whose words on the subject of slavery they eagerly read. From +this source also came the chief material for their public addresses. +To the common man who was thus indoctrinated, the Chief Justice, in +describing the sentiments of the fathers respecting slavery, appeared to +be doing what Horace Greeley was wont to describe as "saying a thing and +being conscious while saying it that the thing is not true." + +The Dred Scott decision laid the Republicans open to the charge of +seeking by unlawful means to deprive slaveowners of their rights, and it +was to the partizan interest of the Democrats to stand by the Court and +thus discredit their opponents. This action tended to carry the entire +Democratic party to the support of Calhoun's extreme position on the +slavery question. Republicans had proclaimed that liberty was national +and slavery municipal; that slavery had no warrant for existence except +by state enactment; that under the Constitution Congress had no more +right to make a slave than it had to make a king; that Congress had no +power to establish or permit slavery in the Territories; that it was, on +the contrary, the duty of Congress to exclude slavery. On these points +the Supreme Court and the Republican party held directly contradictory +opinions. + +The Democratic platform of 1856 endorsed the doctrine of popular +sovereignty as embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, which +implied that Congress should neither prohibit nor introduce slavery into +the Territories, but should leave the inhabitants free to decide that +question for themselves, the public domains being open to slaveowners +on equal terms with others. But once they had an organized territorial +Government and a duly elected territorial Legislature, the residents of +a Territory were empowered to choose either slave labor or exclusively +free labor. This at least was the view expounded by Stephen A. Douglas, +though the theory was apparently rendered untenable by the ruling of the +Court which extended protection to slave-owners in all the Territories +remaining under the control of the general Government. It followed that +if Congress had no power to interfere with that right, much less had a +local territorial Government, which is itself a creature of Congress. +A state Government alone might control the status of slave property. A +Territory when adopting a constitution preparatory to becoming a State +would find it then in order to decide whether the proposed State should +be free or slave. This was the view held by Jefferson Davis and the +extreme pro-slavery leaders. Aided by the authority of the Supreme +Court, they were prepared to insist upon a new plank in future +Democratic platforms which should guarantee to all slave-owners equal +rights in all Territories until they ceased to be Territories. Over this +issue the party again divided in 1860. + +Republicans naturally imagined that there had been collusion between +Democratic politicians and members of the Supreme Court. Mr. Seward +made an explicit statement to that effect, and affirmed that President +Buchanan was admitted into the secret, alleging as proof a few words in +his inaugural address referring to the decision soon to be delivered. +Nothing of the sort, however, was ever proven. The historian Von Holst +presents the view that there had been a most elaborate and comprehensive +program on the part of the slavocracy to control the judiciary of the +federal Government. The actual facts, however, admit of a simpler and +more satisfactory explanation. + +Judges are affected by their environment, as are other men. The +transition from the view that slavery was an evil to the view that it +is right and just did not come in ways open to general observation, and +probably few individuals were conscious of having altered their views. +Leading churches throughout the South began to preach the doctrine +that slavery is a divinely ordained institution, and by the time of the +decision in the Dred Scott case a whole generation had grown up under +such teaching. + +A large proportion of Southern leaders had become thoroughly convinced +of the righteousness of their peculiar system. Not otherwise could they +have been so successful in persuading others to accept their views. +Even before the Dred Scott decision had crystallized opinion, Franklin +Pierce, although a New Hampshire Democrat of anti-slavery traditions, +came, as a result of his intimate personal and political association +with Southern leaders, to accept their guidance and strove to give +effect to their policies. President Buchanan was a man of similar +antecedents, and, contrary to the expectation of his Northern +supporters, did precisely as Pierce had done. It is a matter of record +that the arguments of the Chief Justice had captivated his mind before +he began to show his changed attitude towards Kansas. In August, +1857, the President wrote that, at the time of the passage of the +Kansas-Nebraska Act, slavery already existed and that it still existed +in Kansas under the Constitution of the United States. "This point," +said he, "has at last been settled by the highest tribunal known in +our laws. How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a mystery." +Granted that slavery is recognized as a permanent institution in +itself--just and of divine ordinance and especially united to one +section of the country--how could any one question the equal rights of +the people of that section to occupy with their slaves lands acquired +by common sacrifice? Such was undoubtedly the view of both Pierce and +Buchanan. It seemed to them "wicked" that Northern abolitionists should +seek to infringe this sacred right. + +By a similar process a majority of the Supreme Court justices had become +converts to Calhoun's newly announced theory of 1847. It undoubtedly +seemed strange to them, as it did later to President Buchanan, that any +one should ever have held a different view. If the Court with the force +of its prestige should give legal sanction to the new doctrine, it +would allay popular agitation, ensure the preservation of the Union, and +secure to each section its legitimate rights. Such apparently was the +expectation of the majority of the Court in rendering the decision. +But the decision was not unanimous. Each judge presented an individual +opinion. Five supported the Chief Justice on the main points as to the +status of the African race and the validity of the Missouri Compromise. +Judge Nelson registered a protest against the entrance of the Court +into the political arena. Curtis and McLean wrote elaborate dissenting +opinions. Not only did the decision have no tendency to allay party +debate, but it added greatly to the acrimony of the discussion. +Republicans accepted the dissenting opinions of Curtis and McLean as a +complete refutation of the arguments of the Chief Justice; and the +Court itself, through division among its members, became a partizan +institution. The arguments of the justices thus present a complete +summary of the views of the proslavery and anti-slavery parties, and the +opposing opinions stand as permanent evidence of the impossibility of +reconciling slavery and freedom in the same government. + +It was through the masterful leadership of Stephen A. Douglas that the +Lecompton Constitution was defeated. In 1858 an election was to be held +in Illinois to determine whether or not Douglas should be reelected +to the United States Senate. The Buchanan Administration was using its +utmost influence to insure Douglas's defeat. Many eastern Republicans +believed that in this emergency Illinois Republicans should support +Douglas, or at least that they should do nothing to diminish his chances +for reelection; but Illinois Republicans decided otherwise and nominated +Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the senatorship. Then followed +the memorable Lincoln-Douglas debates. + +This is not the place for any extended account of the famous duel +between the rival leaders, but a few facts must be stated. Lincoln +had slowly come to the perception that a large portion of the people +abhorred slavery, and that the weak point in the armor of Douglas was to +be found in the fact that he did not recognize this growing moral sense. +Douglas had never been a defender of slavery on ethical grounds, nor +had he expressed any distinct aversion to the system. In support of his +policy of popular sovereignty his favorite dictum had been, "I do not +care whether slavery is voted up or voted down." + +This apparent moral obtuseness furnished to Lincoln his great +opportunity, for his opponent was apparently without a conscience in +respect to the great question of the day. Lincoln, on the contrary, had +reached the conclusion not only that slavery was wrong, but that the +relation between slavery and freedom was such that they could not be +harmonized within the same government. In the debates he again put forth +his famous utterance, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," +with the explanation that in course of time either this country would +become all slave territory or slavery would be restricted and placed +in a position which would involve its final extinction. In other +words, Lincoln's position was similar to that of the conservative +abolitionists. As we know, Birney had given expression to a similar +conviction of the impossibility of maintaining both liberty and slavery +in this country, but Lincoln spoke at a time when the whole country +had been aroused upon the great question; when it was still uncertain +whether slavery would not be forced upon the people of Kansas; when the +highest court in the land had rendered a decision which was apparently +intended to legalize slavery in all Territories; and when the alarming +question had been raised whether the next step would not be legalization +in all the States. + +Lincoln was a long-headed politician, as well as a man of sincere moral +judgments. He was defining issues for the campaign of 1860 and was +putting Douglas on record so that it would be impossible for him, as +the candidate of his party, to become President. Douglas had many an +uncomfortable hour as Lincoln exposed his vain efforts to reconcile his +popular sovereignty doctrine with the Dred Scott decision. As Lincoln +expected, Douglas won the senatorship, but he lost the greater prize. + +The crusade against slavery was nearing its final stage. Under the +leadership of such men as Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln, a political party +was being formed whose policies were based upon the assumption that +slavery is both a moral and a political evil. Even at this stage the +party had assumed such proportions that it was likely to carry the +ensuing presidential election. Davis and Yancey, the chief defenders of +slavery, were at the same time reaching a definite conclusion as to +what should follow the election of a Republican President. And that +conclusion involved nothing less than the fate of the Union. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. JOHN BROWN + +The crusade against slavery was based upon the assumption that slavery, +like war, is an abnormal state of society. As the tyrant produces the +assassin, so on a larger scale slavery calls forth servile insurrection, +or, as in the United States, an implacable struggle between free white +persons and the defenders of slavery. + +The propaganda of Southern and Western abolitionists had as a primary +object the prevention of both servile insurrection and civil war. It was +as clear to Southern abolitionists in the thirties as it was to Seward +and Lincoln in the fifties that, unless the newly aroused slave power +should be effectively checked, a terrible civil war would ensue. To +forestall this dreaded calamity, they freely devoted their lives and +fortunes. Peaceable emancipation by state action, according to the +original program, was prevented by the rise of a sectional animosity +which beclouded the issue. As the leadership drifted into the hands of +extremists, the conservative masses were confused, misled, or deceived. +The South undoubtedly became the victim of the erroneous teachings of +alarmists who believed that the anti-slavery North intended, by unlawful +and unconstitutional federal action, to abolish slavery in all the +States; while the North had equally exaggerated notions as to the +aggressive intentions of the South. + +The opposing forces finally met on the plains of Kansas, and extreme +Northern opposition became personified in John Brown of Osawatomie. He +was born in Connecticut in May, 1800, of New England ancestry, the sixth +generation from the Mayflower. A Calvinist, a mystic, a Bible-reading +Puritan, he was trained to anti-slavery sentiments in the family of Owen +Brown, his father. He passed his early childhood in the Western Reserve +of Ohio, and subsequently moved from Ohio to New York, to Pennsylvania, +to Ohio again, to Connecticut, to Massachusetts, and finally to New +York once more. He was at various times tanner, farmer, sheep-raiser, +horse-breeder, wool-merchant, and a follower of other callings as well. +From a business standpoint he may be regarded as a failure, for he had +been more than once a bankrupt and involved in much litigation. He was +twice married and was the father of twenty children, eight of whom died +in infancy. + +Until the Kansas excitement nothing had occurred in the history of the +Brown family to attract public attention. John Brown was not conspicuous +in anti-slavery efforts or in any line of public reform. As a mere lad +during the War of 1812 he accompanied his father, who was furnishing +supplies to the army, and thus he saw much of soldiers and their +officers. The result was that he acquired a feeling of disgust for +everything military, and he consistently refused to perform the required +military drill until he had passed the age for service. Not quite in +harmony with these facts is the statement that he was a great admirer of +Oliver Cromwell, and Rhodes says of him that he admired Nat Turner, the +leader of the servile insurrection in Virginia, as much as he did George +Washington. There seems to be no reason to doubt the testimony of the +members of his family that John Brown always cherished a lively interest +in the African race and a deep sympathy with them. As a youth he had +chosen for a companion a slave boy of his own age, to whom he became +greatly attached. This slave, badly clad and poorly fed, beaten with +iron shovel or anything that came first to hand, young Brown grew to +regard as his equal if not his superior. And it was the contrast between +their respective conditions that first led Brown to "swear eternal war +with slavery." In later years John Brown, Junior, tells us that, on +seeing a negro for the first time, he felt so great a sympathy for +him that he wanted to take the negro home with him. This sympathy, he +assures us, was a result of his father's teaching. Upon the testimony of +two of John Brown's sons rests the oft-repeated story that he declared +eternal war against slavery and also induced the members of his family +to unite with him in formal consecration to his mission. The time given +for this incident is previous to the year 1840; the idea that he was +a divinely chosen agent for the deliverance of the slaves was of later +development. + +As early as 1834 Brown had shown some active interest in the education +of negro children, first in Pennsylvania and later in Ohio. In 1848 the +Brown family became associated with an enterprise of Gerrit Smith in +northern New York, where a hundred thousand acres of land were offered +to negro families for settlement. During the excitement over the +Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 Brown organized among the colored people of +Springfield, Massachusetts, "The United States League of Gileadites." +As an organization this undertaking proved a failure, but Brown's formal +written instructions to the "Gileadites" are interesting on account +of their relation to what subsequently happened. In this document, +by referring to the multitudes who had suffered in their behalf, he +encouraged the negroes to stand for their liberties. He instructed them +to be armed and ready to rush to the rescue of any of their number who +might be attacked: + +"Should one of your number be arrested, you must collect together as +quickly as possible, so as to outnumber your adversaries who are taking +an active part against you. Let no able-bodied man appear on the ground +unequipped, or with his weapons exposed to view: let that be understood +beforehand. Your plans must be known only to yourself, and with the +understanding that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven to +be guilty. Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart +early from Mount Gilead" (Judges, vii. 3; Deut. xx. 8). Give all cowards +an opportunity to show it on condition of holding their peace. Do NOT +DELAY ONE MOMENT AFTER YOU ARE READY: YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR RESOLUTION +IF YOU DO. LET THE FIRST BLOW BE THE SIGNAL FOR ALL TO ENGAGE: AND WHEN +ENGAGED DO NOT DO YOUR WORK BY HALVES, BUT MAKE CLEAN WORK WITH YOUR +ENEMIES,--AND BE SURE YOU MEDDLE NOT WITH ANY OTHERS. By going about +your business quietly, you will get the job disposed of before the +number that an uproar would bring together can collect; and you will +have the advantage of those who come out against you, for they will be +wholly unprepared with either equipments or matured plans; all with them +will be confusion and terror. Your enemies will be slow to attack you +after you have done up the work nicely; and if they should, they will +have to encounter your white friends as well as you; for you may safely +calculate on a division of the whites, and may by that means get to an +honorable parley." + +He gives here a distinct suggestion of the plans and methods which he +later developed and extended. + +When Kansas was opened for settlement, John Brown was fifty-four years +old. Early in the spring of 1855, five of his sons took up claims near +Osawatomie. They went, as did others, as peaceable settlers without +arms. After the election of March 30, 1855, at which armed Missourians +overawed the Kansas settlers and thus secured a unanimous pro-slavery +Legislature, the freestate men, under the leadership of Robinson, began +to import Sharp's rifles and other weapons for defense. Brown's sons +thereupon wrote to their father, describing their helpless condition and +urging him to come to their relief. In October, 1855, John Brown himself +arrived with an adequate supply of rifles and some broadswords and +revolvers. The process of organization and drill thereupon began, and +when the Wakarusa War occurred early in December, 1855, John Brown was +on hand with a small company from Osawatomie to assist in the defense +of Lawrence. The statement that he disapproved of the agreement with +Governor Shannon which prevented bloodshed is not in accord with a +letter which John Brown wrote to his wife immediately after the event. +The Governor granted practically all that the freestate men desired +and recognized their trainbands as a part of the police force of +the Territory. Brown by this stipulation became Captain John Brown, +commander of a company of the territorial militia. + +Soon after the Battle of Wakarusa, Captain Brown passed the command of +the company of militia to his son John, while he became the leader of a +small band composed chiefly of members of his own family. Writing to his +wife on April 7, 1856, he said: "We hear that preparations are making in +the United States Court for numerous arrests of free-state men. For one +I have not desired (all things considered) to have the slave power cease +from its acts of aggression. 'Their foot shall slide in due time.'" This +letter of Brown's indicates that the writer was pleased at the prospect +of approaching trouble. + +When, six weeks later, notice came of the attack upon Lawrence, John +Brown, Junior, went with the company of Osawatomie Rifles to the relief +of the town, while the elder Brown with a little company of six moved in +the same direction. In a letter to his wife, dated June 26, 1856, more +than a month after the massacre in Pottawatomie Valley, Brown said: + +"On our way to Lawrence we learned that it had been already destroyed, +and we encamped with John's company overnight.... On the second day +and evening after we left John's men, we encountered quite a number of +pro-slavery men and took quite a number of prisoners. Our prisoners we +let go, but kept some four or five horses. We were immediately after +this accused of murdering five men at Pottawatomie and great efforts +have been made by the Missourians and their ruffian allies to capture +us. John's company soon afterwards disbanded, and also the Osawatomie +men. Since then, we have, like David of old, had our dwelling with the +serpents of the rocks and the wild beasts of the wilderness." + +There will probably never be agreement as to Brown's motives in slaying +his five neighbors on May 24, 1856. Opinions likewise differ as to the +effect which this incident had on the history of Kansas. Abolitionists +of every class had said much about war and about servile insurrection, +but the conservative people of the West and South had mentioned the +subject only by way of warning and that they might point out ways of +prevention. Garrison and his followers had used language which gave +rise to the impression that they favored violent revolution and were +not averse to fomenting servile insurrection. They had no faith in the +efforts of Northern emigrants to save Kansas from the clutches of the +slaveholding South, and they denounced in severe terms the Robinson +leadership there, believing it sure to result in failure. To this class +of abolitionists John Brown distinctly belonged. He believed that so +high was the tension on the slavery question throughout the country +that revolution, if inaugurated at any point, would sweep the land and +liberate the slaves. Brown was also possessed of the belief that he was +himself the divinely chosen agent to let loose the forces of freedom; +and that this was the chief motive which prompted the deed at +Pottawatomie is as probable as any other. + +Viewed in this light, the Pottawatomie massacre was measurably +successful. Opposing forces became more clearly defined and were +pitted against each other in hostile array. There were reprisals and +counter-reprisals. Kansas was plunged into a state of civil war, but it +is quite probable that this condition would have followed the looting of +Lawrence even if John Brown had been absent from the Territory. + +Coincident with the warfare by organized companies, small irregular +bands infested the country. Kansas became a paradise for adventurers, +soldiers of fortune, horse thieves, cattle thieves, and marauders of +various sorts. Spoiling the enemy in the interest of a righteous cause +easily degenerated into common robbery and murder. It was chiefly in +this sort of conflict that two hundred persons were slain and that two +million dollars' worth of property was destroyed. + +During this period of civil war the members of the Brown family were not +much in evidence. John Brown, Junior, captain of the Osawatomie Rifles, +was a political prisoner at Topeka. Swift destruction of their property +was visited upon all those members who were suspected of having a share +in the Pottawatomie murders, and their houses were burned and their +other property was seized. Warrants were out for the arrest of the elder +Brown and his sons. Captain Pate who, in command of a small troop, was +in pursuit of Brown and his company, was surprised at Black Jack in the +early morning and induced to surrender. Brown thus gained control of a +number of horses and other supplies and began to arrange terms for +the exchange of his son and Captain Pate as prisoners of war. The +negotiations were interrupted, however, by the arrival of Colonel Sumner +with United States troops, who restored the horses and other booty and +disbanded all the troops. With the Colonel was a deputy marshal with +warrants for the arrest of the Browns. When ordered to proceed with his +duty, however, the marshal was so overawed that, even though a federal +officer was present, he merely remarked, "I do not recognize any one for +whom I have warrants." + +After the capture of Captain Pate at Black Jack early in June, little is +known about Brown and his troops for two months. Apart from an encounter +of opposing forces near Osawatomie in which he and his band were +engaged, Brown took no share in the open fighting between the organized +companies of opposing forces, and his part in the irregular guerrilla +warfare of the period is uncertain. Towards the close of the war one of +his sons was shot by a preacher who alleged that he had been robbed +by the Browns. After peace had been restored to Kansas by the vigorous +action of Governor Geary, Brown left the scene and never again took an +active part in the local affairs of the Territory. + +John Brown's influence upon the course of affairs in Kansas, like +William Lloyd Garrison's upon the general anti-slavery movement of the +country, has been greatly misunderstood and exaggerated. Brown's object +and intention were fundamentally contradictory to those of the freestate +settlers. They strove to build a free commonwealth by legal and +constitutional methods. He strove to inaugurate a revolution which would +extend to all pro-slavery States and result in universal emancipation. +John Brown was in Kansas only one year, and he never made himself at one +with those who should have been his fellow-workers but went his solitary +way. Only in three instances did he pretend to cooperate with the +regular freestate forces. He could not work with them because his +conception of the means to be adopted to attain the end was different +from theirs. Probably before he left the Territory in 1856, he +had realized that his work in Kansas was a failure and that the +law-and-order forces were too strong for the execution of his plans. +Certain it is that within a few weeks after his departure he had +transferred the field of his operations to the mountains of Virginia. +Kansas became free through the persistent determination of the rank +and file of Northern settlers under the wise leadership of Governor +Robinson. It is difficult to determine whether the cause of Kansas was +aided or hindered by the advent of John Brown and the adventurers with +whom his name became associated. + +During the fall of 1856 and until the late summer of 1857 Brown was +in the East raising funds for the redemption of Kansas and for the +reimbursement of those who had incurred or were likely to incur losses +in defense of the cause. For the equipment of a troop of soldiers under +his own command he formulated plans for raising $30,000 by private +subscription, and in this he was to a considerable extent successful. +It can never be known how much was given in this way to Brown for the +equipment of his army of liberation. It is estimated that George L. +Stearns alone gave in all fully $10,000. Because Eastern abolitionists +had lost confidence in Robinson's leadership, they lent a willing ear to +the plea that Captain Brown with a well-equipped and trained company of +soldiers was the last hope for checking the enemy. Not only would Kansas +become a slave State without such help, it was said, but the institution +of slavery would spread into all the Territories and become invincible. + +The money was given to Brown to redeem Kansas, but he had developed an +alternative plan. Early in the year 1857, he met in New York Colonel +Hugh Forbes, a soldier of fortune who had seen service with Garibaldi +in Italy. They discussed general plans for an aggressive attack upon the +South for the liberation of the slaves, and with these plans the needs +of Kansas had little or no connection. "Kansas was to be a prologue to +the real drama," writes his latest biographer; "the properties of +the one were to serve in the other." In April six months' salary was +advanced out of the Kansas fund to Forbes, who was employed at a +hundred dollars a month to aid in the execution of their plans. Another +significant expenditure of the Kansas fund was in pursuance of a +contract with a Mr. Blair, a Connecticut manufacturer, to furnish at a +dollar each one thousand pikes. Though the contract was dated March 80, +1857, it was not completed until the fall of 1859, when the weapons were +delivered to Brown in Pennsylvania for use at Harper's Ferry. + +Instead of rushing to the relief of Kansas, as contributors had +expected, the leader exercised remarkable deliberation. When August +arrived, it found him only as far as Tabor, Iowa, where a considerable +quantity of arms had been previously assembled. Here he was joined by +Colonel Forbes, and together they organized a school of military tactics +with Forbes as instructor. But as Forbes could find no one but Brown and +his son to drill, he soon returned to the East, still trusted by Brown +as a co-worker. It would seem that Forbes himself wished to play the +chief part in the liberation of America. + +While he was at Tabor, Brown was urged by Lane and other former +associates of his in Kansas to come to their relief with all his forces. +There had, indeed, been a full year of peace since Geary's arrival, +but early in October there was to occur the election of a territorial +Legislature in which the free-state forces had agreed to participate, +and Lane feared an invasion from Missouri. But although the appeal was +not effective, the election proved a complete triumph for the North. +Late in October, after the signal victory of the law-and-order party +at the election, Brown was again urged with even greater insistence to +muster all his forces and come to Kansas, and there were hints in Lane's +letter that an aggressive campaign was afoot to rid the Territory of +the enemy. Instead of going in force, however, Brown stole into the +Territory alone. On his arrival, two days after the date set for a +decisive council of the revolutionary faction, he did not make himself +known to Governor Robinson or to any of his party but persuaded several +of his former associates to join his "school" in Iowa. From Tabor +he subsequently transferred the school to Springdale, a quiet Quaker +community in Cedar County, Iowa, seven miles from any railway station. +Here the company went into winter quarters and spent the time in rigid +drill in preparation for the campaign of liberation which they expected +to undertake the following season. + +While he was at Tabor, Brown began to intimate to his Eastern friends +that he had other and different plans for the promotion of the general +cause. In January, 1858, he went East with the definite intention of +obtaining additional support for the greater scheme. On February 22, +1858, at the home of Gerrit Smith in New York, there was held a council +at which Brown definitely outlined his purpose to begin operations at +some point in the mountains of Virginia. Smith and Sanborn at first +tried to dissuade him, but finally consented to cooperate. The secret +was carefully guarded: some half-dozen Eastern friends were apprised of +it, including Stearns, their most liberal contributor, and two or three +friends at Springdale. + +As early as December, 1857, Forbes began to write mysterious letters to +Sanborn, Stearns, and others of the circle, in which he complained of +ill-usage at the hands of Brown. It appears that Forbes erroneously +assumed that the Boston friends were aware of Brown's contract with +him and of his plans for the attack upon Virginia; but, since they were +entirely ignorant on both points, the correspondence was conducted +at cross-purposes for several months. Finally, early in May, 1858, it +transpired that Forbes had all the time been fully informed of Brown's +intentions to begin the effort for emancipation in Virginia. Not only +so, but he had given detailed information on the subject to Senators +Sumner, Seward, Hale, Wilson, and possibly others. Senator Wilson was +told that the arms purchased by the New England Aid Society for use in +Kansas were to be used by Brown for an attack on Virginia. Wilson, in +entire ignorance of Brown's plans, demanded that the Aid Society be +effectively protected against any such charge of betrayal of trust. The +officers of the Society were, in fact, aware that the arms which had +been purchased with Society funds the year before and shipped to Tabor, +Iowa, had been placed in Brown's hands and that, without their consent, +those arms had been shipped to Ohio and just at that time were on +the point of being transported to Virginia. This knowledge placed the +officers of the New England Aid Society in a most awkward position. +Stearns, the treasurer, had advanced large sums to meet pressing needs +during the starvation times in Kansas in 1857. Now the arms in Brown's +possession were, by vote of the officers, given to the treasurer in part +payment of the Society's debt, and he of course left them just where +they were. * On the basis of this arrangement Senator Wilson and the +public were assured that none of the property given for the benefit of +Kansas had been or would be diverted to other purposes by the Kansas +Committee. It was decided, however, that on account of the Forbes +revelations the attack upon Harper's Ferry must be delayed for one year +and that Brown must go to Kansas to take part in the pending elections. + + * "When the denouement finally came, however, the public and + press did not take a very favorable view of the transaction; + it was too difficult to distinguish between George L. + Stearns, the benefactor of the Kansas Committee, and George + L. Stearns, the Chairman of that Committee." Villard, "John + Brown," p. 341. + +Though Brown arrived in Kansas late in June, he took no active part in +the pending measures for the final triumph of the free-state cause. It +is something of a mystery how he was occupied between the 1st of July +and the middle of December. Under the pseudonym of "Shubal Morgan" he +was commander of a small band in which were a number of his followers +in training for the Eastern mission. The occupation of this band is not +matter of history until December 20, 1858, when they made a raid into +the State of Missouri, slew one white man, took eleven slaves, a large +number of horses, some oxen, wagons, much food, arms, and various other +supplies. This action was in direct violation of a solemn agreement +between the border settlers of State and Territory. The people in +Kansas were in terror lest retaliatory raids should follow, as would +undoubtedly have happened had not the people of Missouri taken active +measures to prevent such reprisals. + +Rewards were offered for Brown's arrest, and free-state residents +served notice that he must leave the Territory. In the dead of winter he +started North with some slaves and many horses, accompanied by Kagi and +Gill, two of his faithful followers. In northern Kansas, where they +were delayed by a swollen stream, a band of horsemen appeared to dispute +their passage. Brown's party quickly mustered assistance and, giving +chase to the enemy, took three prisoners with four horses as spoils of +war. In Kansas parlance the affair is called "The Battle of the Spurs." +The leaders in the chase were seasoned soldiers on their way to Harper's +Ferry with the intention of spending their lives collecting slaves and +conducting them to places of safety. For this sort of warfare they were +winning their spurs. It was their intention to teach all defenders of +slavery to use their utmost endeavor to keep out of their reach. As +Brown and his company passed through Tabor, the citizens took occasion +at a public meeting to resolve "that we have no sympathy with those who +go to slave States to entice away slaves, and take property or life when +necessary to attain that end." + +A few days later the party was at Grinnell, Iowa. According to the +detailed account which J. B. Grinnell gives in his autobiography, Brown +appeared on Saturday afternoon, stacked his arms in Grinnell's parlor +and disposed of his people and horses partly in Grinnell's house and +barn and partly at the hotel. In the evening Brown and Kagi addressed +a large meeting in a public hall. Brown gave a lurid account of +experiences in Kansas, justified his raid into Missouri by saying the +slaves were to be sold for shipment to the South, and gave notice that +his surplus horses would be offered for sale on Monday. "What title can +you give?" was the question that came from the audience. "The best--the +affidavit that they were taken by black men from land they had cleared +and tilled; taken in part payment for labor which is kept back." + +Brown again addressed a large meeting on Sunday evening at which each of +the three clergymen present invoked the divine blessing upon Brown and +his labors. The present writer was told by an eye-witness that one of +the ministers prayed for forgiveness for any wrongful acts which their +guest may have committed. Convinced of the rectitude of his actions, +however, Brown objected and said that he thanked no one for asking +forgiveness for anything he had done. + +Returning from church on Sunday evening, Grinnell found a message +awaiting him from Mr. Werkman, United States marshal at Iowa City, who +was a friend of Grinnell. The message in part read: "You can see that it +will give your town a bad name to have a fight there; then all who aid +are liable, and there will be an arrest or blood. Get the old Devil away +to save trouble, for he will be taken, dead or alive." Grinnell showed +the message to Brown, who remarked: "Yes, I have heard of him ever since +I came into the State.... Tell him we are ready to be taken, but will +wait one day more for his military squad." True to his word he waited +till the following afternoon and then moved directly towards Iowa City, +the home of the marshal, passing beyond the city fourteen miles to his +Quaker friends at Springdale. Here he remained about two weeks until +he had completed arrangements for shipping his fugitives by rail to +Chicago. In the meantime, where was Marshal Werkman of Iowa City? Was +he of the same mind as the deputy marshal who had accompanied Colonel +Sumner? Two of Brown's men had visited the city to make arrangements for +the shipment. The situation was obvious enough to those who would see. +The entire incident is an illuminating commentary on the attitude of +both government and people towards the Fugitive Slave Law. In March the +fugitives were safely landed in Canada and the rest of the horses +were sold in Cleveland, Ohio. The time was approaching for the move on +Virginia. + +Brown now expended much time and attention upon a constitution for the +provisional government which he was to set up. In January and February, +1858, Brown had labored over this document for several weeks at the home +of Frederick Douglass at Rochester, New York. A copy was in evidence +at the conference with Sanborn and Gerrit Smith in February, and the +document was approved at a conference held in Chatham, Canada, on May 8, +1858, just at the time when Forbes's revelations caused the postponement +of the enterprise. It is an elaborate constitution containing +forty-eight articles. The preamble indicates the general purport: + +Whereas, Slavery throughout its entire existence in the United States is +none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of +one portion of its citizens upon another portion the only conditions +of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absolute +extermination; in utter disregard and violation of those eternal and +self-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence: +Therefore, we the citizens of the United States, and the Oppressed +People, who, by a decision of the Supreme Court are declared to have no +rights which the White Man is bound to respect; together with all other +people degraded by the laws thereof, Do, for the time being ordain and +establish for ourselves, the following PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION AND +ORDINANCES, the better to protect our Persons, Property, Lives and +Liberties and to govern our actions. + +Article Forty-six reads: + +The foregoing articles shall not be construed so as in any way to +encourage the overthrow of any State Government or of the general +government of the United States; and look to no dissolution of the +Union, but simply to Amendment and Repeal. And our flag shall be the +same that our Fathers fought under in the Revolution. + +In Article Forty, "profane swearing, filthy conversation, and indecent +behavior" are forbidden. The document indicates an obvious intention to +effect a revolution by a restrained and regulated use of force. + +Mobilization of forces began in June, 1859. Cook, one of the original +party, had spent the year in the region of Harper's Ferry. In July the +Kennedy farm, five miles from Harper's Ferry, was leased. The Northern +immigrants posed as farmers, stock-raisers, and dealers in cattle, +seeking a milder climate. To assist in the disguise, Brown's daughter +and daughter-in-law, mere girls, joined the community. Even so it was +difficult to allay troublesome curiosity on the part of neighbors at the +gathering of so many men with no apparent occupation. Suspicion might +easily have been aroused by the assembling of numerous boxes of arms +from the West and the thousand pikes from Connecticut. Late in August, +Floyd, Secretary of War, received an anonymous letter emanating from +Springdale, Iowa, giving information which, if acted upon, would have +led to an investigation and stopped the enterprise. + +The 24th of October was the day appointed for taking possession of +Harper's Ferry, but fear of exposure led to a change of plan and the +move was begun on the 16th of October. Six of the party who would have +been present at the later date were absent. The march from Kennedy farm +began about eight o'clock Sunday evening. Before midnight the bridges, +the town, and the arsenal were in the hands of the invaders without a +gun having been fired. Before noon on Monday some forty citizens of the +neighborhood had been assembled as prisoners and held, it was explained, +as hostages for the safety of members of the party who might be taken. +During the early forenoon Kagi strongly urged that they should escape +into the mountains; but Brown, who was influenced, as he said, by +sympathy for his prisoners and their distressed families, refused to +move and at last found himself surrounded by opposing forces. Brown's +men, having been assigned to different duties, were separated. Six of +them escaped; others were killed or wounded or taken prisoners. Brown +himself with six of his men and a few of his prisoners made a final +stand in the engine-house. This was early in the afternoon. All avenues +of escape were now closed. Brown made two efforts to communicate with +his assailants by means of a flag of truce, sending first Thompson, one +of his men, with one of his prisoners, and then Stevens and Watson Brown +with another of the prisoners. Thompson was received but was held as a +prisoner; Stevens and Watson Brown were shot down, the first dangerously +wounded and the other mortally wounded. Later in the afternoon Brown +received a flag of truce with a demand that he surrender. He stated the +conditions under which he would restore the prisoners whom he held, but +he refused the unconditional surrender which was demanded. + +About midnight Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived from Washington with a +company of marines. He took full command, set a guard of his own men +around the engine-house and made preparation to effect a forcible +entrance at sunrise on Tuesday morning in case a peaceable surrender was +refused. Lee first offered to two of the local companies the honor of +storming the castle. These, however, declined to undertake the perilous +task, and the honor fell to Lieutenant Green of the marines, who +thereupon selected two squads of twelve men each to attempt an entrance +through the door. To Lee's aide, Lieutenant Stuart, who had known +Brown in Kansas, was committed the task of making the formal demand for +surrender. Brown and Stuart, who recognized each other instantly upon +their meeting at the door, held a long parley, which resulted, as had +been expected, in Brown's refusal to yield. Stuart then gave the signal +which had been agreed upon to Lieutenant Green, who ordered the first +squad to advance. Failing to break down the door with sledge-hammers, +they seized a heavy ladder and at the second stroke made an opening near +the ground large enough to admit a man. Green instantly entered, rushed +to the back part of the room, and climbed upon an engine to command a +better view. Colonel Lewis Washington, the most distinguished of the +prisoners, pointed to Brown, saying, "This is Osawatomie." Green leaped +forward and by thrust or stroke bent his light sword double against +Brown's body. Other blows were administered and his victim fell +senseless, and it was believed that the leader had been slain in action +according to his wish. + +The first of the twelve men to attempt to follow their leader was +instantly killed by gunshot. Others rushed in and slew two of Brown's +men by the use of the bayonet. To save the prisoners from harm, Lee had +given careful instruction to fire no shot, to use only bayonets. The +other insurgents were made prisoners. "The whole fight," Green reported, +"had not lasted over three minutes." + +Of all the prisoners taken and held as hostages, not one was killed or +wounded. They were made as safe as the conditions permitted. The eleven +prisoners who were with Brown in the engine-house were profoundly +impressed with the courage, the bearing, and the self-restraint of the +leader and his men. Colonel Washington describes Brown as holding a +carbine in one hand, with one dead son by his side, while feeling the +pulse of another son, who had received a mortal wound, all the time +watching every movement for the defense and forbidding his men to +fire upon any one who was unarmed. The testimony is uniform that +Brown exercised special care to prevent his men from shooting unarmed +citizens, and this conduct was undoubtedly influential in securing +generous treatment for him and his men after the surrender. + +For six weeks afterwards, until his execution on the 2d of December, +John Brown remained a conspicuous figure. He won universal admiration +for courage, coolness, and deliberation, and for his skill in parrying +all attempts to incriminate others. Probably less than a hundred people +knew beforehand anything about the enterprise, and less than a dozen +of these rendered aid and encouragement. It was emphatically a personal +exploit. On the part of both leader and followers, no occasion was +omitted to drive home the lesson that men were willing to imperil their +lives for the oppressed with no hope or desire for personal gain. Brown +especially served notice upon the South that the day of final reckoning +was at hand. + +It is natural that the consequences of an event so spectacular as +the capture of Harper's Ferry should be greatly exaggerated. +Brown's contribution to Kansas history has been distorted beyond all +recognition. The Harper's Ferry affair, however, because it came on the +eve of the final election before the war, undoubtedly had considerable +influence. It sharpened the issue. It played into the hands of +extremists in both sections. On one side, Brown was at once made +a martyr and a hero; on the other, his acts were accepted as a +demonstration of Northern malignity and hatred, whose fitting expression +was seen in the incitement of slaves to massacre their masters. + +The distinctive contribution of John Brown to American history does not +consist in the things which he did but rather in that which he has been +made to represent. He has been accepted as the personification of the +irrepressible conflict. + +Of all the men of his generation John Brown is best fitted to exemplify +the most difficult lesson which history teaches: that slavery and +despotism are themselves forms of war, that the shedding of blood is +likely to continue so long as the rich, the strong, the educated, or the +efficient, strive to force their will upon the poor, the weak, and the +ignorant. Lincoln uttered a final word on the subject when he said that +no man is good enough to rule over another man; if he were good enough +he would not be willing to do it. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +Among the many political histories which furnish a background for the +study of the anti-slavery crusade, the following have special value: + +J. F. Rhodes, "History of the United States from the Compromise of +1860," 7 vols. (1893-1906). The first two volumes cover the decade to +1860. This is the best-balanced account of the period, written in +an admirable judicial temper. H. E. von Holst, Constitutional anal +Political History of the United States," 8 vols. (1877-1892). A vast +mine of information on the slavery controversy. The work is vitiated by +an almost virulent antipathy toward the South. James Schouler, "History +of the United States," 7 vols. (1895-1901). A sober, reliable narrative +of events. Henry Wilson, "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave +Power in America," 3 vols. (1872-1877). The fullest account of the +subject, written by a contemporary. The material was thrown together by +an overworked statesman and lacks proportion. + +Three volumes in the "American Nation Series" aim to combine the +treatment of special topics of commanding interest with general +political history. A. B. Hart's "Slavery and Abolition" (1906) gives an +account of the origin of the controversy and carries the history down to +1841. G. P. Garrison's "Westward Extension" (1906) deals especially with +the Mexican War and its results. T. C. Smith's "Parties and Slavery" +(1906) follows the gradual disruption of parties under the pressure of +the slavery controversy. + +From the mass of contemporary controversial literature a few titles of +more permanent interest may be selected. William Goodell's "Slavery +and Anti-slavery" (1852) presents the anti-slavery arguments. A. T. +Bledsoe's "An Essay on Liberty and Slavery" (1856) and "The Pro-slavery +Argument" (1852), a series of essays by various writers, undertake the +defense of slavery. + +Only a few of the biographies which throw light on the crusade can be +mentioned. "William Lloyd Garrison," 4 vols. (1885-1889) is the story +of the editor of the Liberator told exhaustively by his children. Less +voluminous but equally important are the following: W. Birney, "James G. +Birney and His Times" (1890); G. W. Julian, "Joshua R. Giddings" (1892); +Catherine H. Birney, "Sarah and Angelina Grimke" (1885); John T. Morse, +"John Quincy Adams." Those who have not patience to read E. L. Pierce's +ponderous "Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner," 4 vols. (1877-1893), +would do well to read G. H. Haynes's "Charles Sumner" (1909). + +The history of the conflict in Kansas is closely associated with the +lives of two rival candidates for the honor of leadership in the cause +of freedom. James Redpath in his "Public Life of Captain John Brown" +(1860), Frank B. Sanborn in his "Life and Letters of John Brown" (1885), +and numerous other writers give to Brown the credit of leadership. +The opposition view is held by F. W. Blackmar in his "Life of Charles +Robinson" (1902), and by Robinson himself in his Kansas Conflict (2d +ed., 1898). The best non-partizan biography of Brown is O. G. Villard's +"John Brown, A Biography Fifty Years After" (1910). + +The Underground Railroad has been adequately treated in W. H. Siebert's +"The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom" (1898), but Levi +Coffin's "Reminiscences" (1876) gives an earlier autobiographical +account of the origin and management of an important line, while Mrs. +Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" throws the glamour of romance over the +system. + +For additional bibliographical information the reader is referred to +the articles on "Slavery, Fugitive Slave Laws, Kansas, William Lloyd +Garrison, John Brown, James Gillespie Birney," and "Frederick Douglass" +in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica" (11th Edition). + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Anti-Slavery Crusade, by Jesse Macy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE *** + +***** This file should be named 3034.txt or 3034.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/3034/ + +Produced by The James J. 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