History of American Abolitionism / Its four great epochs, embracing narratives of the ordinance of 1787, compromise of 1820, annexation of Texas, Mexican war, Wilmot proviso, negro insurrections, abolition riots, slave rescues, compromise of 1850, Kansas bill of 1854, John Brown insurrection, 1859, valuable statistics, &c., &c., &c., together with a history of the Southern Confederacy.

Laws of the most stringent character were passed by nearly all the Southern States to prevent the further dissemination among the Southern people of abolition doctrines, and an appeal was made to the Legislatures of the North to do the same thing. Indeed, the entire policy of that section as regards the previous license allowed to slaves and free negroes was changed so as to render it difficult, if not impossible, for any future influence of an insurrectionary character to be exerted upon them. Public meetings were also held, at which resolutions were passed declaratory of the determination to put down at all hazards these repeated attempts on the part of abolitionists to deluge their families and firesides in blood. In many of the principal cities a list of all persons arriving and departing was kept, that it might be known who were and who were not to be regarded with suspicion.

The effect upon the North was not less marked, and this prompt action on the part of their Southern brethren found thousands of sympathizers. Indignation was almost universal. The press teemed with articles upon the subject, and among the majority of the order-loving journals of the day, it was generally agreed that if the madmen who were scattering firebrands, arrows and death, could not be persuaded or rebuked to silence, no other alternative was allowed to the slaveholding States to protect themselves, except by the system of passports, examinations and punishments, which to some extent they had adopted, and in which they were justified.

The people, too, were smarting under the insults that were poured out upon the nation by the English emissaries and agents who were in the country lending their assistance to the prevailing mischief. Among these individuals was the famous George Thompson, an agent and orator of the British Anti-Slavery Society. Such was the excitement produced by his opprobrious language towards the South, that in many places where he appeared he was greeted with demonstrations of anything but a complimentary character. At Lynn, Mass., he was assaulted by females with rotten eggs and stones, and driven off the ground; and at New Bedford, in the language of the poet,

“When to speak the man essayed,
Gods! what a noise the fiddles made.”

He was emphatically “sung down.” At Boston the matter was still more serious. It having been announced that Garrison and Thompson would speak before a female anti-slavery meeting, the following hand-bill was circulated:—

“Thompson the Abolitionist.—That famous foreign scoundrel, Thompson, will hold forth this afternoon, at the Liberator office, No. 48 Washington street. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to ‘snake Thompson out!’ It will be a contest between the abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A purse of $100 has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first lay hands on Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle before dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant.”

It is needless to say that Thompson did not appear. Garrison did, however, or rather he was found ensconced, martyr-like, under a pile of shavings in a carpenter’s shop. A rope was then fastened around his neck, and he was gently lowered out of a window to the ground. A general exclamation from the assembled crowd, “Don’t hurt him,” indicated the gentleness of the mob, and, pale and convulsed, he was thus led to the Mayor’s office in the City Hall. Afterwards he was conducted to jail, and, as he sank exhausted into his place, he made the remark, “Never was man so rejoiced to get into jail before.” The rabble, which by the by, was of an unexceptionable character, soon after dispersed, their object having been effected, and the next morning Garrison was liberated from confinement. In Utica and Rochester, N. Y., Worcester, Mass., Canaan, N. H., and at various places in the New England States, the abolitionists met with similar treatment. Their assemblages were either disturbed or broken up, and they often found it required a large amount of determination to resist the indignation which their fanaticism had aroused against them. Meetings were also held in every portion of the North, at which influential citizens attended to denounce the policy of the abolitionists as subversive of the Union and Constitution, and to express their sympathy for the South. Several of the post-masters of the North, participating in this reactionary sentiment, on their own responsibility, even refused to allow the incendiary documents to pass through the mails. Such was the activity of the abolitionists, however, that in the month of August alone over 175,000 copies of their publications were circulated through the United States; and their presses, under the direction of the Tappans and Garrison & Co., were employed night and day to foment the excitement. It was said that these individuals had then planned an insurrectionary movement throughout the South, which was to have been developed on a certain day; but the whirlwind they raised in every section of the country rendered this impossible, and they were compelled to change their programme of operations.

Though somewhat modified by the restrictions with which public opinion had surrounded the abolitionists, this state of affairs continued through the year 1836. The subject of excluding from the mails the whole series of publications came under the consideration of government, and the proposition of the President, Andrew Jackson, regarding the propriety of passing a law for this purpose, being acted upon in Congress, resulted in a bill rendering it unlawful for any deputy postmaster to deliver to any person any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the State, Territory or District their circulation was prohibited. This healthy measure was defeated, however, on the final vote.

THE RIOT AT ALTON, ILL., AND DEATH OF REV. E. P. LOVEJOY.

The principal anti-slavery event of the year 1837 was a riot at Alton, Ill. For a long time the community of that town had been agitated by the abolitionists, and finally, on an attempt being made to resuscitate the Alton Observer, a newspaper previously edited by the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, (brother of Owen Lovejoy, the present member of Congress from Illinois,) a journal which, in his hands, had become conspicuous for the violence of its denunciations against the South and its institutions, a terrible riot ensued. It had been announced for several days that a printing press was hourly expected to arrive, intended for the purpose above named. This gave rise to an intense excitement and to open threats, that its landing would be resisted, if necessary, by force of arms. It was landed, however, and placed in a warehouse, under the protection of a guard of twenty or thirty gentlemen who had volunteered for the purpose. Almost immediately there were indications of an attack. The press was demanded by the mob, who insisted that they would not be satisfied with anything less than its destruction. The party in the building determined it should not be given up, and during the angry altercation which ensued, a shot was fired from one of the windows, which mortally wounded a man named Lyman Bishop. The crowd then withdrew, but with the death of Bishop the excitement increased to such an extent that they shortly appeared in greater numbers, armed with guns and weapons of different kinds, more than ever intent upon carrying out their original purpose. A rush was made upon the warehouse with the cries of “Fire the house,” “Burn them out,” &c. The firing soon became fearful. The building was surrounded, and the inmates threatened with extermination and death in the most frightful form imaginable. Fire was applied, and all means of escape by flight were cut off. The scene now became appalling.

About the time the fire was communicated to the building, Rev. E. P. Lovejoy received four balls in the breast, near the door of the warehouse, and fell a corpse. Several persons engaged in the attack were also severely wounded. The contest raged for more than an hour, when the party in the house intimated that they would abandon the premises and the press, if allowed to pass out unmolested. This was granted, and they made their escape, though several shots were fired in the act. A large number of persons then rushed into the building, threw the press upon the wharf, where it was broken in pieces and thrown into the river. The fire was then extinguished, and without further attempts at violence, the mob dispersed. No further indications of disorder were manifested.

For a long time this outbreak served as a check upon the aggressive policy of the abolitionists, and, though not thoroughly cowed, both principals and agents found that the agitation of the subject was like the handling of a sword whose double edges cut in both directions. After this event, with the exception of the burning of a hall in 1838, in which they held their meetings, in Philadelphia, the country for a number of years became comparatively quiet, and the agitators took good care not to give occasion for further public demonstrations.

THIRD EPOCH.

CHAPTER VI.

The decade embraced between the years 1835 and 1845 may be termed the third epoch in the history of this movement. In that period, the grand experiment of the abolitionists was most effectually tried. They had felt the public pulse, developed their power and resources, had the benefit of experience, and ascertained to what extent the public mind could be prejudiced by the course of agitation which they had pursued. It was in fact an era of lessons, as well to the country as to themselves. From a mere handful, the original organization had grown to be a power within itself—a power at the ballot-box—a power for right or wrong, for good or mischief, too self-reliant and too strong to be disregarded. Neither legislative enactments, nor riots, nor personal chastisement, nor public opinion, had been able to restrain its rapid advances towards the consummation of its hopes. It lost ground nowhere, and in every non-slaveholding State its friends and funds were greatly multiplied. As an indication of its extraordinary growth, the number of anti-slavery societies in the United States, in the year 1838, may be safely estimated at two thousand, with at least two hundred thousand persons enrolled as members.

These, however, were not all entitled to the suffrages of the party. They were the children and wives of fanatics who learned their lessons of abolition in the Bible classes, Sunday and secular schools, and from their parents and husbands. The sentiment was intruded, indeed, in all the relations of life—social, financial and domestic, and even in the affairs of love, Cupid himself was made subservient to its ascendancy. The belles of the day would hardly look upon a suitor who was not as well a worshipper at the shrine of their political passion, as of their beauty, and no youngster’s domestic destiny was at all certain of fruition who was not sound upon what was then regarded as the soul-saving question of abolitionism. The youths of 1840 have become the men of 1860, and in the enormous increase of the republican party, we see the result of the early influences thus set at work.

For the first time in its history, the organization began to be regarded as a political element in the land, and worthy of a courtship by those who desired its influence and support. Candidates for office began to be catechised, and such men as William H. Seward, Levi Lincoln, William L. Marcy and others, found time to give lengthy replies to the authors of this new inquisition, setting forth their views. In local politics, it was the moral and political test by which men were measured, and it lay at the foundation of all the subsequent State action of the Northern Legislatures upon the subject of anti-slavery.

In both branches of Congress, also, the question of abolition for the first time occupied a large share of the deliberations, and was discussed under every possible aspect. From 1831, when John Quincy Adams presented fifteen petitions in a single bunch, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, similar documents, got up and circulated by anti-slavery societies, poured into both branches of the National Legislature in a steady stream. They also called for a prohibition of what was termed an “internal slave trade” between the States, avowing at the same time that their ultimate object was to abolish slavery, not only in the District, but throughout the Union. It was, indeed, the only mode in which the fanatics could agitate the question in Congress, and was a part of the scheme by which they expected to accomplish their purposes. Under the influence of the feelings excited by these causes, the Southern Senators and members declared, almost to a man, that if the Southern States could not remain in the Union without having their domestic peace continually disturbed by the systematic attempts of the abolitionists to produce dissatisfaction and revolt among the slaves and incite their wild passions to vengeance, the great law of self-preservation would compel them to separate from the North. This persistent demand of the abolitionists, through petitions, continued from session to session, until, becoming a nuisance, an effort was made to prevent their farther reception. The effort was, for a time, successful, and resulted in what was called the “era of gags”—these gags being simply a rule of the House, “That all petitions, memorials, resolutions and propositions relating in any way or to any extent to the question of slavery shall, without either being printed or referred, be laid on the table, and no further action whatever shall be had thereon.”

This was respectively passed in 1836, 1837 and 1838, and in 1840 it was incorporated into the standing rules of the House—being thenceforward known as the “Twenty-first Rule.” The vote upon this was—yeas, 128; nays, 78.

The excitement produced in the House on the occasion of these several votes was intense, and speeches were made upon the question by the most distinguished men of the country.

In 1837, the immediate occasion of the contest was the pertinacious effort of Mr. Slade, of Vermont, to make the presentation of abolition petitions the ground of agitation and action against the institution of slavery in the Southern States. Mr. Rhett, of South Carolina, warned him of the consequences of such inflammatory harangues, and his refusal to desist from them was the signal for a general disorder and uproar. The next morning a resolution similar to that above quoted was adopted by a vote of 135 yeas to 60 nays—the full two-thirds and fifteen. “This,” says Thomas H. Benton, “was one of the most important votes ever delivered in the House.” Upon its issue depended the quiet of the House on one hand, and on the other the renewal and perpetuation of the scenes of the day before—ending in breaking up all deliberation and all national legislation.

Thus were stifled, and in future, for a few years at least, prevented in the House the inflammatory debates on these disturbing petitions. It was the great session of their presentation, being offered by hundreds and signed by hundreds of thousands of persons—many of them women, who forgot their sex and their duties to mingle in the inflammatory work; and some of them clergymen, who forgot their mission of peace to stir up strife among those who should be brethren. After long and protracted efforts by John Quincy Adams, who was then champion of the abolitionists on the floor of the House, this restriction upon the right of petition was removed in December, 1845, by a vote of 108 to 80. Among the acts of this statesman in 1839, was the presentation of a resolution that the following amendments to the Constitution of the United States should be proposed to the several States of the Union:—

This proposition of course received no favor either North or South, and was speedily laid aside. Subsequently he presented a petition praying for a dissolution of the Union—the first of the kind ever offered to the government—whereupon a resolution was submitted to Congress to the effect that Mr. Adams in so doing had offered the deepest indignity to the House and insult to the people of the United States, and that, for thus permitting, through his instrumentality, a wound to be aimed at the Constitution and existence of his country he merited expulsion from the national council and the severest censure. It concluded—“This they hereby do for the maintenance of their own purity and dignity; for the rest, they turn him over to his own conscience and the indignation of all true American citizens.”

The resolution was discussed for several days, in which Mr. Adams and his anti-slavery propagandism were handled without gloves; but finally the whole subject was laid upon the table.

THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.

Another source of discussion, both in and out of Congress, about this time, was the Texas question. As far back as 1829, the annexation of Texas was agitated in the Southern and Western States, being urged on the ground of the strength and extension it would give to the slaveholding interest. This fact at once enlisted opposition from the entire anti-slavery sentiment of the North, in which British abolitionism took part, and every effort was made on the other side of the water to increase the sectional jealousy already known to be existing. The English press, Parliament and statesmen, all treated the proposed acquisition as one in which they felt called upon to interfere. The famous “Texan plot,” which was matured at the “World’s Anti-Slavery Convention,” held in London in 1840, was one of the results.

The part to be performed by the British government embraced a double object. The large territory claimed by Texas was known to contain most of the remaining cotton lands of North America. A virtual control of these lands would, therefore, be invaluable to British commerce. The country was but thinly settled, and the number of slaves was small enough to render emancipation of easy attainment. Thus, if by a timely interposition of her influence and diplomacy, Great Britain could establish a rival cotton producing country at our very door, and prevent the growth of slavery there, she would partially prevent a growing dependence on the slave products of the United States, and at the same time set up a barrier to the further extension of Southern civilization in that direction. There was but one obstacle in the way. Texas preferred annexation to the United States, and, notwithstanding British assistance, believed to have been proffered to Santa Anna in 1842, when he resolved to send an invading army into the territory for the purpose of declaring emancipation, and other objects; notwithstanding the resolutions of Northern Legislatures and acrimonious debates in Congress; notwithstanding every effort, home and foreign, to prevent annexation; through the patriotic efforts of General Jackson, President Tyler, Mr. Calhoun and other statesmen, on the 16th of December, 1845, Texas was admitted into the Union.

Though thus defeated in their immediate designs, one point was gained by the friends of anti-slavery. They succeeded in obtaining a position in Congress which enabled them to agitate the whole Union. From that time their power began to increase, until the infection has diseased the great mass of the people of the North, who, whatever may be their opinion of the original abolition party, which still keeps up its distinctive organization, never fail, when it comes to acting, to co-operate in carrying out their measures.

THE BEGINNING OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY—THE LIBERTY PARTY.

The year 1840 was marked by two important events, namely, the formation of a distinct political party of abolitionists, and a division in the two leading anti-slavery societies of the country. The Liberty Party arose from the fact that, after a protracted experiment, the candidates of the old parties could not, to any extent, however questioned or pledged, be depended upon to do the work which the abolitionists demanded of them. Such an organization was advocated by Mr. Garrison as early as 1834; but it was not until the annual meeting of the New York Anti-Slavery Society at Utica, in September, 1838, that a series of resolutions or a platform was adopted, setting forth the principles of political action, and solemnly pledging those who adopted them to vote for no candidates who were not fully pledged to anti-slavery measures. In July, 1839, a National Anti-Slavery Convention was held at Albany, and the mode of political action against slavery, including the question of a distinct party, was fully discussed, but without coming to any definite decision by vote farther than to refer the question of independent nominations to the judgment of abolitionists in their different localities. The Monroe county convention for nominations at Rochester, N. Y., September, 1839, adopted a series of resolutions and an address prepared by Myron Holly, which have been regarded as laying the real corner-stone of the Liberty party. He may, therefore, be regarded, more than any other man, as its founder.

In January, 1840, a New York State Anti-Slavery Convention was held in Genesee county. The traveling at that season of the year was bad, and delegates were in attendance from only six States. Among these were Myron Holly and Gerrit Smith. By this convention, a call was issued for a National Convention, and accordingly, April 1, 1840, it assembled at Albany—Alvan Stuart presiding. After a full discussion, the Liberty party was organized, and James G. Birney and Thomas Earle were nominated for President and Vice-President of the United States. At the Presidential election in the autumn of that year, the entire vote of the Liberty party amounted to 7,059. In 1844, the Liberty candidates, James G. Birney and Thomas Morris, received 62,300 votes. These, however, were but a small part of the professed abolitionists of the United States, the great majority voting for the nominees of the old parties—Harrison, Van Buren, Polk and Clay.

The other event of the year 1840, to which we have alluded, was the division in the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, and a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society of New York, the causes in each case being more or less identified with each other. Without going into the subject, it may be briefly stated that the principal cause in both instances was a difference of opinion on theological questions as applied to politics and reformatory measures, and especially theological jealousies. The most rabid among the abolitionists have been infidels, or little less, from the start, and have absorbed every species of fanaticism, in whatever shape it has appeared since. Another question resulting in the division appears to have been “Woman’s Rights,” or, in other words, what position females ought to occupy in the society. As early as 1835, these moral hermaphrodites were in the habit of delivering public lectures and scattering publications through the land; but their wagging tongues finally became such a nuisance that several clergymen published a pastoral letter in 1837, strongly censuring all such unwomanly interference. The result was, as has been stated, great excitement and a subsequent separation of the respective opponents.

Shortly after this division, we find the American Anti-Slavery Society, at one of its annual meetings, raising the flag of “No Union with Slaveholders,” demanding a dissolution of the Union, and denouncing the federal constitution as pro-slavery—“a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.”

To resume the history of the progress of the party. In 1835 a State Convention of abolitionists was held at Port Byron, New York, at which an address was presented embodying the views of a number of individuals, who, while they were abolitionists at heart, were not rabid or ultra enough to be prepared to act with the Liberty party. This was printed, circulated, and gained adherents, and upon its basis, in 1847, a convention assembled at Macedon, New York, when Gerrit Smith and Elihu Burrit were nominated for President and Vice-President of the United States; but the latter declining, the name of Charles C. Foote was afterwards substituted. This party was known by the name of the Liberty League. Subsequently its principles became merged into the Buffalo platform of 1847. Gerrit Smith was then again proposed as a candidate for the Presidency; but the course of leading men in the convention required the nomination of a different man. Accordingly, Hon. John P. Hale, of New Hampshire—an “independent democrat,” as he termed himself—and Hon. Leicester King, of Ohio, were nominated. This, however, was only temporary; and another convention was called, and held at Buffalo, August 9, 1848, composed of “the opponents to slavery extension, irrespective of parties,” and including, of course, all those committed to the one idea of abolition. It was one of the most remarkable political meetings on record, for it was the beginning of the political drama which has since resulted in a dissolution of the Union. Vast multitudes, from all parts of the non-slaveholding States, of all political parties, came together, and seemed to be melted into one by their common zeal against the aggressions of slavery. Though they looked only to the restraint of slavery within the bounds which they claimed our fathers had erected for its protection, still the opposition sprang from the strong anti-slavery sentiment already pervading the country. It was the springing up of the green blade, and the forming of the ear from the many years sowing of the abolitionists. The nomination of Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, was made with great unanimity and enthusiasm, though by a body composed of original elements of the most extreme contrariety. Messrs. Hale and King, as was expected, withdrew their names. The old Liberty party was absorbed in the new organization, whose platform was broad enough to satisfy any reasonable abolitionist. Mass meetings were held in every village to hear the new word, and within a few months an impulse was communicated to the great mass of the Northern mind which has constituted the basis of its action ever since. The number of votes cast for these candidates in 1848 was 291,263.

The platform was substantially as follows:—That the people propose no interference by Congress with slavery within the limits of any State; that the federal government has no constitutional power over life, liberty or property without due legal progress; that Congress has no more power to make a slave than to make a king—no more power to establish slavery than to establish a monarchy; that Congress ought to prohibit slavery in all the territories; that the issue of the slave power is accepted—no more slave States and no slave territory; no more compromises; and finally, the establishment of a free government in California and New Mexico.

In 1852, this same party nominated John P. Hale and George W. Julian. The number of votes then cast was 155,825. The platform was much the same as that which preceded it four years before, though more progressive and revolutionary in several of its ideas, one of its clauses being “that slavery is a sin against God and a crime against man, which no human enactment nor usage can make right, and that Christianity, humanity and patriotism, alike demand its abolition.” Another clause was to the effect that the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, being repugnant to the principles of Christianity and the principles of the common law, had no binding force upon the American people.

The republican party of 1856 was merely an enlargement or extension of the old free-soil organization of the preceding eight years. It was modified, it is true, by many of the events of the time, but its foundation was laid upon precisely the same principles that had been enunciated during the previous twelve years. It was emphatically a Northern party, extending only here and there by some straggling outposts over the slave boundary. It was so far anti-slavery as to resent the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and oppose the introduction of slavery into new territory. As events progressed, the forces combatting on either side of the great question of the day became more concentrated and determined, and more inspirited by a single purpose, until the one idea of anti-slavery became distinctly developed and firmly fixed in the Northern mind.

The Republican Convention assembled at Philadelphia, June 18, 1856, when John C. Fremont and Wm. L. Dayton were nominated for President and Vice President of the United States, and in the following November received 1,341,264 votes.

The election for 1860 has only recently terminated in the elevation to the head of the Federal Government of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, by a purely anti-slavery vote of 1,865,840. The events which preceded it are too fresh to require repetition; but, for the first time in the history of our confederacy, we look upon the spectacle of a sectional party, defiant, unyielding and uncompromising, whose principles aim a blow direct at the annihilation of one of the institutions of the South, in the full flush of victory, singing pœans of glory over its success, with a Union dissolving around it, while another portion of the country is agitated to its very centre in preparations for self-protection against the usurpations which, from press and pulpit, and floor of Congress, have been so boldly threatened. Whether as abolition, liberty, free-soil or republican, the party has always shown the cloven hoof, and the best efforts of its more considerate friends have never been able to cover the deformity. Into the masses it has instilled the most unrelenting hatred to slavery, until all other ideas, feelings and passions have, for the time, been swallowed up in this one overwhelming sentiment.

It has dissolved the Union, though formed and cemented in the blood of our fathers, rather than it should tolerate an institution which is older than the Union. It has shed the blood of innocent white men while engaged in the discharge of their sworn duty, and made widows and orphans rather than return an escaped servant to his master and obey the Constitution of the country. Such is the spirit which controls this party, by whatever name it may be known.

Its leaders, claiming to stand by principle, hug to their bosom the most damning political heresies. Pretending to obey God and reverence the Bible, some of them are the most unblushing infidels, who boldly proclaim that the Sacred Word is not worth the paper upon which it is printed, unless it denounce slavery and applaud abolitionism, and would teach that the Constitution of our country is the consummation of every iniquity. Some of them aspire to be the followers of Jesus, but convert their sacred desks into political rostrums, from which are fulminated the falsest denunciations that a diseased mind can conjure into existence. Claiming to be teachers of religion and peace, they prove the authenticity of their holy commission by exhorting to civil war, making collections for Sharpe’s rifles, and playing the role of spiritual demagogues among the falling ruins of the republic.

The year 1841 was marked by another attempt at insurrection. On the 22d of July, during a hot night, several negroes were overheard conversing in their quarters, on a plantation, near New Orleans, respecting an insurrection in which they intended to join. An investigation was made the next day, and resulted in tracing out a widely-extended organization among the slaves of the neighborhood, having a general rising in view. This early discovery of the plot of course prevented its consummation, and the execution and punishment of the instigators soon quelled every design of an outbreak.

In 1845 we find Cassius M. Clay mobbed in Lexington, Ky., and his paper, the True American, stopped, the presses, type, &c., being packed up and forwarded to Cincinnati, for advocating the incendiary doctrines of the abolitionists, and thereby producing an excitement among the slaves, and arousing apprehensions in the community lest they should rise in rebellion against the whites.

THE MEXICAN WAR.

We have already brought our chronological history down to the year 1845, when Texas was admitted as a State. It was during the progress of annexation that the government of Mexico served a formal notice on the United States that annexation would be viewed in the light of a declaration of war. This notice, however, was of little avail, and before the close of the year 1845, Congress had consummated the act. The war broke out in April, 1846, the second year of Mr. Polk’s administration, and on the 11th of May the President issued his proclamation to that effect. A large portion of the western domain of Texas, as now described, was disputed territory, occupied by Mexicans and under Mexican rule at the time of and after annexation. General Taylor was ordered to march from Corpus Christi, and take up his position on the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, thus traversing the disputed territory from its eastern to its western border. The Mexican army, on the opposite side of the river, immediately commenced hostilities, and soon after followed the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. How the war was continued and terminated are matters of general history. Peace was at last dictated to Mexico on the 30th of May, 1848, and resulted in a surrender by her of a large belt of her northern territories, extending from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, including California, though at that time its immense wealth and great importance were not fully appreciated. In Congress and among the people of the North the war was not popular. It was said to be a scheme for the acquirement of more slave territory, and this fact of itself excited contention throughout the land.

THE WILMOT PROVISO.

On the 12th of August, 1846, a bill being under consideration in the Committee of the Whole, making further provision for the expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and Mexico, Mr. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved the following amendment:—

“Provided, that as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of territory from the republic of Mexico, by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.”

This amendment was adopted by a vote of yeas 77, nays 58. The bill was not voted on in the Senate, that body adjourning sine die before it reached that stage.

On the 8th of February, the Three Million Bill being under consideration, a similar amendment was offered in the House, and on the 15th was adopted by a vote of 115 yeas and 106 nays. The Senate having passed a similar bill, which came before the House on the 3d of March, 1847, Mr. Wilmot moved to amend the same by adding his proviso thereto; but it was rejected by a vote of yeas 97, nays 102. The Senate bill, without the amendment of Mr. Wilmot, then became a law. This celebrated proviso has been offered, by different senators and representatives, to various bills since. Its popular use, in fact, since that time, constitutes a great chapter in the political history of the country. For a long time it has rung in the ears of the public, and it will never cease until the question of slavery ceases to be a political question in the organization of new Territories and new States.

In 1848, Connecticut, which had never passed a law completely abolishing slavery, and which then contained some eight or ten slaves, through her Legislature enacted its total abolition forever, compelling the masters of the few slaves existing to support them for life.

The escape of slaves from the South has been one of the principal practical effects of abolition ever since the idea assumed shape, in 1830. Men and women have been found, North and South, who, either from philanthropic motives or under the pecuniary inducements of abolition societies, have aided in their escape. Among these, New England “schoolmarms” and schoolmasters have played an active part, and several were from time to time arrested.

One Delia Webster suffered for such an interference with other people’s affairs by an incarceration in the penitentiary at Lexington, Ky., in 1845, for two years. Another, Rev. Charles Torrey, for similar offences, was sentenced to six years in the Maryland penitentiary, but died before the expiration of the sentence.

Many other instances of a similar nature might be cited; but these are enough to indicate the extent to which fanaticism carried its followers.

The year 1848 was characterized by the usual venom which the anti-slavery societies industriously endeavored to distil into the community. Fred. Douglas, Edmund Quincy, Francis Jackson, Abby Kelly, Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, and a retinue of negro orators, escaped slaves and others, regularly held their meetings and indulged in their customary rhodomontades. At the New England Convention, which assembled during this year, a series of one hundred conventions for the purpose of agitating the question of dissolution of the Union was commenced in Massachusetts, and funds were raised for the purpose. Some of these meetings were broken up by indignant mobs, but they were mainly allowed to go on, and accumulated disciples.

THE FOURTH EPOCH.

CHAPTER VII.

The next important move upon the political chessboard with reference to slavery preceded the adoption of the celebrated measures familiarly known by the above title, or as the “Omnibus Bill of 1850.” The events which led to this measure may be briefly stated thus:—

Ever since 1848, a storm had been lowering in the political horizon of the country on the slavery question, threatening to dissolve the Union, which necessarily burst over Congress in Legislating for the new Territories brought into the Union by the result of the Mexican war. Probably no subject has been presented since the adoption of the federal constitution involving questions of such deep and vital importance to the inhabitants of the different States of the confederacy as that in reference to the territory thus acquired. Not only was the sentiment avowed of the existence of danger to the Union, but in various quarters was heard an open and undisguised declaration of a necessity and desire for its dissolution. General Taylor was elected, a new administration came into power, and being somewhat identified with the Northern anti-slavery elements, as opposed to the Democratic party, a tremendous agitation was at once created, and the whole question of slavery thrown again into the crucible.

The Thirtieth Congress had adjourned without organizing the new Territories, or settling any great principle as to their future government and destiny. California had gone forth without asking leave, formed a State government prohibiting slavery, and put its machinery in operation. Utah was governed by a high and arbitrary spiritual despotism, and New Mexico was under military rule, ordered from the seat of federal power at Washington. In addition to this, it was discovered that Mexico had abolished slavery, and consequently that the lex loci of all the countries ceded by Mexico to the United States excluded slavery. The Wilmot Proviso had been carried in the House, but failed in the Senate, and waited only for the admission of California, which would give sixteen free States against fifteen slave States.

Of course the whole South rose in arms against the consequences of this disappointment. They would not admit California; they declared that slavery did exist in the territories acquired from Mexico; that in any case the Constitution of the United States would carry it there and protect it there; and that they would dissolve the Union if the Wilmot Proviso became a law.

In this state of affairs, Henry Clay, on the 29th of January, brought forward in the Senate his famous resolutions of compromise, and laid the basis of an adjustment which might have lasted till this day but for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854. Subsequently, a Committee of Thirteen was appointed by the Senate, charged with the duty of considering all the subjects, of which Mr. Clay was appointed chairman. On the 8th of May, 1850, this committee reported a series of measures, differing but inconsiderably from the original resolutions of Mr. Clay. These were:—

1. The admission of California as a free State, according to the expression of the will of her people.

2. The establishment of Territorial governments, without the Wilmot Proviso, for New Mexico and Utah, embracing all the territory recently acquired by the United States from Mexico, not contained in the boundaries of California. The question of slavery was left without any other restriction than the will of the people.

3. The establishment of the western and northern boundary of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdiction of all New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pecuniary equivalent.

4. More effectual enactments for the recovery of fugitive slaves.

5. Abstaining from abolishing slavery, but under a heavy penalty prohibiting the slave trade, in the District of Columbia.

Separate bills were drawn embodying all the main features of this compromise, and eight months having been consumed in their discussion, the two houses were at last brought to a vote on each bill by itself.

The Utah Territorial Bill passed the Senate, August 10, 1850, by a vote of yeas 32, nays 18.

The Texas Boundary Bill passed the Senate, August 10, 1850, by a vote of yeas 30, nays 20.

The bill for the admission of California passed the Senate, August 13, 1850, by a vote of 34 to 18.

The New Mexico Bill passed the Senate, August 14, 1850, by a vote of 27 to 10.

The Fugitive Slave Bill passed the Senate on the 23d of August, 1850, by a vote of 27 to 12.

The bill abolishing the slave trade in the District of Columbia passed the Senate, September 14, 1850, by a vote of 33 to 19.

In the House, the vote on the several bills was:—

New Mexico and Texas boundary, Sept. 6, 1850, yeas 180, nays 97.

Admission of California, Sept. 7, 1850, yeas 150, nays 53.

Utah Bill, Sept. 7, 1850, yeas 97, nays 85.

Fugitive Slave Bill, Sept. 12, 1850, yeas 109, nays 76.

Slave trade in the District of Columbia, Sept. 17, 1850, yeas 124, nays 59.

Out of Congress the abolitionists were aroused almost to a pitch of frenzy by the passage of the Compromise measures and the Fugitive Slave Law. Addresses were immediately issued by thousands, which were freely circulated in all the Northern States, counseling resistance to the law under every circumstance. Conventions were held of whites and negroes, in which was proclaimed death to every slaveholder who attempted to carry out the provisions of the infamous enactment. The tide of runaway slaves from the South, which had been flowing for so many years, swelled into a flood. Where one slave formerly made a successful escape, scores made good their flight now. New England became the goal of the fugitives, and here they found friends without number, who furnished them with the means of extending their journey to the Canadian provinces.

One of the first and most successful attempts to resist the Fugitive Slave Law was in Boston, in April, 1851, when one Thomas Sims, who had escaped from Georgia, was taken in custody by the city authorities, on a warrant issued by the United States Commissioner. A mob was the result. The military was called out, and for several days the most intense excitement ensued. The law finally triumphed, however, and amid the cry of “Sims, preach liberty to your fellow slaves,” he was put on a steamtug and sent where he belonged.

Shortly after this, a meeting was called by the Vigilance Committee, which was presided over by Hon. Horace Mann, when Anson Burlingame, Henry Wilson, Remond, Higginson and several other negroes appeared and made denunciatory speeches against the law and in favor of the resolutions, which proclaimed the necessity of resistance to the uttermost.

On September 11, 1851, occurred the celebrated Christiana affair. Edward Gorsuch, of Maryland, his son and a party of friends, accompanied by a United States Commissioner, appeared in the neighborhood of Christiana, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in pursuit of a slave. An attack was made upon them by negroes, and both father and son were killed. The United States marines were ordered to the spot, and for several days the place was under martial law. The slave, of course, escaped. We might also refer to the rescues of Shadrack, Anthony Burns, the slave Jerry at Syracuse, and similar incidents that occurred in various parts of the Northern States; but the circumstances are most of them too recent and familiar to require more than a passing allusion.

It is only necessary to say that this kind of agitation—resistance to the laws and disturbance of the peace—has been a part of the tactics of abolitionists down to the present moment. They have never allowed an opportunity to pass of showing their utter disregard for law and order, and of interposing every obstacle in the way of those whose sincere desire it is to promote the peace and prosperity of the country. The breeze has become a gale, and the gale has swelled into a tempest, under the influence of which the mind of a portion of the North has been lashed into insane fury.

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE, AND FORMATION OF THE
TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS OF KANSAS AND NEBRASKA.

It was reserved for the years 1853 and 1854 to be a period of agitation—revived under the auspices of such men as Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, Caleb Cushing, David Atchinson and other politicians intent upon the Presidency—unrivalled in the annals of the country.

The new danger came up in the shape of a proposition to establish a Territorial government in Nebraska (then embracing Kansas), a Territory which, with Missouri, originally constituted the upper part of the province of Louisiana, and was acquired from the French in 1803 by the payment of 60,000,000 francs.

As early as Dec. 11, 1844, Mr. Douglas gave notice to the House of his intention to introduce a bill for this purpose, which he did on the 17th instant following. After being favorably reported upon, it was referred to the Committee of the Whole, where, owing to the importance of other measures pending, it was not again acted upon during the session. On the 15th of March, 1848, he introduced a similar bill, and again it met a similar fate. In the Senate, in 1852, Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, early introduced a resolution, which was passed, instructing the Committee on Territories to inquire into the expediency of organizing the Territory; but no further action was taken upon it until the House of Representatives had passed its bill for that purpose. On December 17, the petition of Mr. Guthrie for a seat as a delegate from Nebraska, was received and referred, and on the 2d day of February, 1853, the Committee on Territories, through Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, their chairman, reported their bill for organizing Nebraska, which, after three days consideration, was passed on the 10th, by a vote of 98 to 43. It was silent on the subject of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Senate received it the next day, and on the 17th instant, the Committee on Territories reported it without amendment. On the 3d of March, 1853, it was laid upon the table. In the debate which immediately preceded this disposition, Senator Atchison, of Missouri, openly avowed the ground of his opposition to be that the law excluding slavery from the Territory of Louisiana, north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, would be enforced in the new Territory, “unless specially rescinded.” He did not appear, however, to entertain any hope that this desirable object could be effected. He said he should, therefore, oppose the organization, unless the whole South could go into the Territory with rights and privileges, respecting property, equal to other people of the Union. The idea of the possibility of a repeal of the Missouri Compromise was thus, for the first time, thrown out and left to take root in the minds of the nation, with the chance of growing up to perfection. Even the most ultra among the Southerners then regarded this as a thing rather to be hoped for than realized.

On the 4th of January, 1854, Mr. Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, (which consisted of Messrs. Douglas, of Illinois; Houston, of Texas; Johnson, of Arkansas; Bell, of Tennessee; Jones, of Iowa, and Everett, of Massachusetts,) to whom had been referred the bill of Mr. Dodge, reported back the same with amendments and a report which contained the first open, and as it were official, declaration of the impending coup d’etat. This report assumed as its basis that the Compromise acts of 1850, which, it will be recollected, leave to the people of the Territories to decide for themselves whether or not there shall be slavery in their midst, were the supreme, authentic law of the land, and the Missouri Compromise was cited and put aside as immaterial, because it came in collision with this latest legislation and adjustment of the question. This perpetual prohibition Mr. Douglas proposed incidentally to repeal by the following provision in the bill:—

“And when admitted as a State or States, the said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received in the Union with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe at the time of their admission.”

Later in this month the same committee submitted an amended bill by which two Territories—Kansas and Nebraska—were to be created out of the domain in question.

On the 22d of January, Messrs. Chase and Sumner, of the Senate, and Messrs. Giddings, Wade, Dewitt and Gerrit Smith, of the House, issued a stirring appeal to the people of the United States, urging and imploring instant action to avert the pending calamity. This was circulated over the whole country, and aided not a little in adding fuel to the already furious flame of excitement.

The discussion of the bill in the Senate was continued from time to time through January. It swallowed up all other interests, and was the absorbing topic throughout the country. The vote was finally reached at five o’clock in the morning of March 4, 1854, when the bill passed the Senate by a vote of thirty-seven to fourteen. Fourteen of the votes in its favor were given by Senators from the free States, and two of those against it by Senators from the slave States—Messrs. Houston, of Texas, and Bell, of Tennessee.

On the 14th of March Mr. Everett presented the famous mammoth memorial, signed by 3,050 clergymen of New England, protesting against the passage of the bill.

In the House of Representatives the bill was brought up on the 31st of January, 1853. The debate upon it was closed on the 19th of May, 1854, and on the 22d of May, 1854, it passed the House by the following vote:—Yeas, 113; nays, 100. The vote of the Senate on the final passage of the bill was, yeas, 35; nays, 13.

On the 20th of December, 1854, the Hon. John H. Whitfield, delegate elect from the Territory of Kansas, was sworn in and admitted to a seat in the House. It was alleged that his election had been carried by an importation of Missourians into the Territory, but no contest was made on his right, and he held his position during the remainder of the Thirty-third Congress.

During the recess between the 4th of March and the 1st of December, 1855, the history of Kansas was marked by the most exciting events. The removal of the seat of government by the Territorial Legislature from the place which had been fixed by Governor Reeder, was deemed by the latter to have made void, ab initio, all acts enacted by them subsequent to such removal, on the ground that the power to locate the same was vested in him alone.

The free State party backed up Governor Reeder, while the pro-slavery party endorsed the action of the Legislature. Governor Reeder was in the meantime removed from office.

The free State party met at Big Springs and resolved to repudiate the acts of the Territorial Legislature and organize a State government. A Convention was accordingly called and held at Topeka, on the 4th Tuesday of October, framed what was called the Topeka Convention, and set on foot a State Government which soon came in conflict with the regularly constituted authorities, and resulted in the indictments against the former for treason, which followed.

Meanwhile, finding opposition to the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act unavailing in Congress and under the forms of the Constitution, combinations were entered into at the North to control the political destinies and form and regulate the domestic institutions of these Territories through the machinery of emigrant aid societies, by which means large numbers of persons were forwarded to the debatable ground. In order to give consistency to the movement and surround it with the color of legal authority, an act of incorporation was procured from the Legislature of Massachusetts for an association by the name of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society, the ostensible purpose of which was to enable emigrants to settle in the West. It was a powerful corporation, with a capital of five millions of dollars, invested in houses and lands, in merchandise and mills, in cannons and rifles, in powder and lead—in all the implements of art, agriculture and war, and employing a corresponding number of men under the management of directors who remained at home and pulled the wires of this immense political automaton. In a measure they succeeded. Thousands of these emigrants poured into the Territory, armed with Sharpe’s rifles and the Word of God, and located themselves wherever their votes were most necessary. The result might have been anticipated. Under the influence of inflammatory appeals and stung by the irritating threats of the free-state men, the most intense indignation was aroused in the States near the Territory of Kansas, and especially in Missouri, whose domestic peace was thus the most directly endangered. Counter movements consequently ensued. Bands of men came over the State border and appeared at the polls, and on both sides angry accusations followed that the elections were carried by fraud and violence. In the meantime, statements entirely unfounded or grossly exaggerated concerning events within the Territory, were sedulously diffused through remote States to feed the flame of sectional animosity there, and the agitators in the States in turn exerted themselves to encourage and stimulate strife within the Territory.

During the Presidential campaign of 1856 Kansas may be said to have been in a state of civil war. Life was nowhere safe. Armed men espousing both sides of the question roamed throughout the country, committing depredations and atrocities which find their equal only in the records of savage barbarity. Men, women and children were murdered in their beds, and few could aver themselves either as free-state men or pro-slavery men without danger of being shot down in their tracks. It was during this period that the notorious John Brown, with his band, made his appearance and commenced those villanies for which he has since met a just reward upon the gallows.

To return to Congress, however: on the 7th of April, 1856, a memorial of the Senators and Representatives of the so-called State of Kansas, accompanied by the Constitution adopted at Topeka, praying the admission of the same into the Union, was presented in the House of Representatives and referred. The Committee on Territories reported a bill to that effect, which was rejected on the 30th of June by a vote of yeas 106, nays 107.

On motion of Mr. Barclay, of Pennsylvania, the question was reconsidered, and the vote being taken on the passage of the bill, it was carried by yeas 107, nays 106, the abovenamed gentleman changing his ballot, and one other voting aye who was not present before.

The bill being brought before the Senate, that body substituted for it a bill of its own, which was returned to the House, where no action was taken upon it. Several other attempts were subsequently made in both the Senate and House, during 1856, to pass bills to authorise the people of Kansas to form a Constitution and State government, but without success—neither body endorsing the act of the other.

On the 29th of July, 1856, a bill reported by Mr. Grow, from the Committee on Territories, “To annul certain acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Kansas,” being before the House, Mr. Dunn, of Indiana, moved an amendment to the same, which substantially re-established the compromise of 1820. This was carried by a vote of 89 yeas and 77 nays. The bill reached the Senate, and a report upon it was made by the Committee on Territories on the 11th of August, 1856, recommending that it be laid upon the table, which was done, by a test vote of 35 to 12.

On the 11th of July, 1856, the committee appointed by the House to proceed to Kansas and investigate all matters connected with the contested election case between A. H. Reeder and John W. Whitfield, each of whom claimed to have been elected a delegate to Congress, made a majority and minority report, Messrs. W. A. Howard, of Michigan, and Lewis Campbell, of Ohio, affirming that everything connected with the Territorial Legislature and the election of Whitfield was wrong; and Mr. Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri, affirming that everything was right, and that Mr. Reeder was not duly elected according to law.

These reports were acted upon on the 29th of July, when Mr. Whitfield was declared not to be entitled to a seat in the House by a vote of 110 yeas to 92 nays, and Mr. Reeder was likewise declared not to be entitled to a seat by a vote of 88 yeas and 113 nays. On the 1st Of December, 1856, however, Mr. Whitfield, having again been elected a delegate, was sworn in by a vote of 112 yeas to 108 nays.

The effect of this agitation in Congress upon the people was immense, and every power that could be brought to bear to influence the result one way or another was unsparingly employed. It was almost the sole hinge upon which, for a time, swung the welfare of the country. The immediate admission of Kansas, with her free constitution, formed at Topeka, was engrafted upon the republican platform of 1856, and men were arraigned at the bar of public opinion and proved guilty or innocent by their standing with reference to this great question. Happily, however, the election of Mr. Buchanan threw oil upon the troubled waters, and with his inauguration the country relapsed once more into a state of comparative quiet. The predatory bands engaged in Kansas in acts of rapine, under cover of existing political disturbances, were arrested or dispersed, the troops were withdrawn, and tranquillity was once more restored to the hitherto agitated territory.

On the first Monday of September, 1857, a Convention was called together by virtue of an act of the Territorial Legislature, whose lawful existence had been recognized by various enactments of Congress, to frame a constitution for Kansas. A large proportion of the citizens did not think proper to register their names and vote at the election for delegates; but an opportunity to do this having been afforded, in the language of Mr. Buchanan, “their refusal to avail themselves of their right, could in no manner affect the legality of the Convention.” But little difficulty occurred except on the question of slavery, and after an excited and angry debate on this subject, by a majority of only two, it was decided to submit the question of slavery to the people.

This was the famous Lecompton Convention. They adopted a constitution, and the form of submission was “constitution with slavery,” or “constitution without slavery.” A great many people were indignant because the constitution was made thus imperative, and more than one-half stayed away from the polls. The constitution was consequently adopted by the party voting for it with slavery. In that form it was submitted to the President, and the President submitted it to Congress. After a protracted discussion in both houses, the admission of Kansas under that instrument was defeated, and a compromise was adopted to submit the Lecompton constitution back to the people, with the condition that if accepted they should immediately come into the Union by a proclamation of the President, and that, if rejected, they should wait until they had ninety-three thousand inhabitants, to be ascertained by a census. They rejected the constitution by some ten thousand majority. In the meantime, under the operation of the Territorial Legislature and the Lecompton Convention acting in conjunction with each other, the anti-slavery elements rallied and elected an anti-slavery Legislature. There were, however, bogus returns from two or three counties, which, if admitted, would have changed the complexion of the Legislature into a pro-slavery body; but these were cast out by Governor Walker, and the Legislature was thus left in the possession of the free-soil party.

After the rejection of the Lecompton constitution, the people called another Convention, which assembled at Wyandot, and adopted an anti-slavery constitution. This they laid before Congress, and at the same time elected a Legislature and a member of Congress, the Legislature in turn electing two Senators, in anticipation of the admission of the State under the Wyandot constitution. The bill for the admission of the State was taken up in Congress during the present session and passed, and on Wednesday, the 30th of January, was returned to Congress with the signature of the President, thus forever setting at rest a question which has so long disturbed the country.

The following are the State officers of Kansas elected under the Wyandot constitution, and who will assume to administer the new State government:—