“Tom Thumb,” Peter Cooper’s Locomotive Working Model. First Used Near Baltimore in 1830.
The steamboat, the national highways, and the canals were all great aids to men in travel and in carrying goods. The next great improvement was the use of steam-power to transport people and goods overland. It was brought about by the railroad and the locomotive.
In this country, the first laying of rails to make a level surface for wheels to roll upon was at Quincy, Massachusetts. This railroad was three miles long, extending from the quarry to the seacoast. The cars were drawn by horses.
From an Old Time-table (furnished by the “A B C Pathfinder Railway Guide”).
Railroad Poster of 1843.
Our first passenger railroad was begun in 1828. It was called the Baltimore and Ohio and was the beginning of the railroad as we know it to-day. But those early roads would seem very strange now. The rails were of wood, covered with a thin strip of iron to protect the wood from wear. Even as late as the Civil War rails of this kind were in use in some places. The first cross-ties were of stone instead of wood, and the locomotives and cars of early days were very crude.
In 1833, people who were coming from the West to attend President Jackson’s second inauguration travelled part of the way by railroad. They came over the National Road as far as Frederick, Maryland, and there left it to enter a train of six cars, each accommodating sixteen persons. The train was drawn by horses. In this manner they continued their journey to Baltimore.
In the autumn of that year a railroad was opened between New York and Philadelphia. At first horses were used to draw the train, but by the end of the year locomotives, which ran at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, were introduced. This was a tremendous stride in the progress of railroad traffic.
Comparison of “DeWitt Clinton” Locomotive and Train, the First Train Operated in New York, with a Modern Locomotive of the New York Central R.R.
To be sure, the locomotives were small, but two or more started off together, each drawing its own little train of cars. Behind the locomotive was a car which was a mere platform with a row of benches, seating perhaps forty passengers, inside of an open railing. Then followed four or five cars looking very much like stage-coaches, each having three compartments, with doors on each side. The last car was a high, open-railed van, in which the baggage of the whole train was heaped up and covered with oilcloth. How strange a train of this sort would look beside one of our modern express-trains, with its huge engine, and its sleeping, dining, and parlor cars!
You will be surprised that any objection was raised to the railroad. Its earliest use had been in England, and when there was talk of introducing it in this country some people said: “If those who now travel by stage take the railroad coaches, then stage-drivers will be thrown out of work!” Little could they foresee what a huge army of men would find work on the modern railroad.
In spite of all obstacles and objections, the railroads, once begun, grew rapidly in favor. In 1833 there were scarcely three hundred and eighty miles of railroad in the United States; now there are more than two hundred and forty thousand miles.
The next stride which Progress made seemed even more wonderful. Having contrived an easier and a quicker way to move men and their belongings from one place to another, what should she do but whisper in the ear of a thinking man: “You can make thought travel many times faster.” The man whose inventive genius made it possible for men to flash their thoughts thousands of miles in a few seconds of time was Samuel Finley Breese Morse.
He was born in 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. His father was a learned minister, who “was always thinking, always writing, always talking, always acting”; and his mother was a woman of noble character, who inspired her son with lofty purpose.
When he was seven he went to Andover, Massachusetts, to school, and still later entered Phillips Academy in the same town. At fourteen he entered Yale College, where from the first he was a good, faithful student.
S.F.B. Morse.
As his father was poor, Finley had to help himself along, and was able to do it by painting, on ivory, likenesses of his classmates and professors, for which he received from one dollar to five dollars each. In this way he made considerable money.
At the end of his college course he made painting his chosen profession and went to London, where he studied four years under Benjamin West. Though for some years he divided his time and effort between painting and invention, he at last decided to devote himself wholly to invention. This change in his life-work was the outcome of an incident which took place on a second voyage home from Europe, where he had been spending another period in study.
On the ocean steamer the conversation at dinner one day was about some experiments with electricity. One of the men present said that so far as had been learned from experiment electricity passes through any length of wire in a second of time.
“Then,” said Morse, “thought can be transmitted hundreds of miles in a moment by means of electricity; for, if electricity will go ten miles without stopping, I can make it go around the globe.”
The First Telegraph Instrument.
When once he began to think about this great possibility, the thought held him in its grip. In fact, it shut out all others. Through busy days and sleepless nights he turned it over and over. And often, while engaged in other duties, he would snatch his notebook from his pocket in order to outline the new instrument he had in mind and jot down the signs he would use in sending messages.
It was not long before he had worked out on paper the whole scheme of transmitting thought over long distances by means of electricity.
And now began twelve toilsome years of struggle to plan and work out machinery for his invention. All these years he had to earn money for the support of his three motherless children. So he gave up to painting much time that he would otherwise have spent upon his invention. His progress, therefore, was slow and painful, but he pressed forward. He was not the kind of man to give up.
In a room on the fifth floor of a building in New York City he toiled at his experiments day and night, with little food, and that of the simplest kind. Indeed so meagre was his fare, mainly crackers and tea, that he bought provisions at night in order to keep his friends from finding out how great his need was.
Modern Telegraph Office.
During this time of hardship all that kept starvation from his door was lessons in painting to a few pupils. On a certain occasion Morse said to one of them, who owed him for a few months’ teaching: “Well, Strothers, my boy, how are we off for money?”
“Professor,” said the young fellow, “I am sorry to say I have been disappointed, but I expect the money next week.”
“Next week!” cried his needy teacher; “I shall be dead by next week.”
“Dead, sir?” was the shocked response of Strothers.
“Yes, dead by starvation!” was the emphatic answer.
“Would ten dollars be of any service?” asked the pupil, now seeing that the situation was serious.
“Ten dollars would save my life,” was the reply of the poor man, who had been without food for twenty-four hours. You may be sure that Strothers promptly handed him the money.
But in spite of heavy trials and many discouragements, he had by 1837 finished a machine which he exhibited in New York, although he did not secure a patent until 1840.
The Operation of the Modern Railroad is Dependent upon the Telegraph.
Then followed a tedious effort to induce the government at Washington to vote money for his great enterprise. Finally, after much delay, the House of Representatives passed a bill “appropriating thirty thousand dollars for a trial of the telegraph.”
As you may know, a bill cannot become a law unless the Senate also passes it. But the Senate did not seem friendly to this one. Many believed that the whole idea of the telegraph was rank folly. They thought of Morse and the telegraph very much as people had thought of Fulton and the steamboat, and made fun of him as a crazy-brained fellow.
Up to the evening of the last day of the session the bill had not been taken up by the Senate. Morse sat anxiously waiting in the Senate Chamber until nearly midnight, when, believing there was no longer any hope, he left the room and went home with a heavy heart.
Imagine his surprise the next morning, when a young woman, Miss Ellsworth, congratulated him at breakfast upon the passage of his bill. At first he could scarcely believe the good news, but when he found that she was telling him the truth his joy was unbounded, and he promised her that she should choose the first message.
By the next year (1844) a telegraph-line, extending from Baltimore to Washington, was ready for use. On the day appointed for trial Morse met a party of friends in the chambers of the Supreme Court at the Washington end of the line and, sitting at the instrument which he had himself placed for trial, the happy inventor sent the message selected by Miss Ellsworth: “What hath God wrought!”
The telegraph was a great and brilliant achievement, and brought to its inventor well-earned fame. Now that success had come, honors were showered upon him by many countries. At the suggestion of the French Emperor, representatives from many countries in Europe met in Paris to decide upon some suitable testimonial to Morse as one who had done so much for the world. These delegates voted him a sum amounting to eighty thousand dollars as a token of appreciation for his great invention.
In 1872 this noble inventor, at the ripe age of eighty-one, breathed his last. The grief of the people all over the land was strong proof of the place he held in the hearts of his countrymen.
Tell all you can about John Fitch’s steamboats.
Give examples which indicate young Fulton’s inventive gifts. Imagine yourself on the banks of the North River on the day set for the trial of the Clermont, and tell what happened.
What and where was the National Road?
In what ways was the Erie Canal useful to the people?
Describe the first railroads and the first trains.
Tell what you can about Morse’s twelve toilsome years of struggle while he was working out his great invention. How is the telegraph useful to men?
What do you admire about Morse?
Are you making frequent use of your map?
CHAPTER XIV
In a preceding chapter you learned how the great territories of Louisiana and Florida came to belong to America. We are now to learn of still other additions, namely, the great regions of Texas and California.
The most prominent man in the events connected with our getting Texas was Sam Houston.
Sam Houston.
He was born, of Irish descent, in 1793, in a farmhouse in Virginia. When he was thirteen years old the family removed to a place in Tennessee, near the home of the Cherokee Indians. The boy received but little schooling out in that new country. In fact, he cared far less about school than he did for the active, free life of his Indian neighbors.
So when his family decided to have him learn a trade he ran away from home and joined the Cherokees. There he made friends, and one of the chiefs adopted him as a son. We may think of him as enjoying the sports and games, the hunting and fishing, which took up so much of the time of the Indian boys.
On returning to his home, at the age of eighteen, he went to school for a term at Marysville Academy. In the War of 1812 he became a soldier and served under Andrew Jackson in the campaign against the Creek Indians. In the battle of Horseshoe Bend he fought with reckless bravery. During that fearful struggle he received a wound in the thigh. His commander, Jackson, then ordered him to stop fighting, but Houston refused to obey and was leading a desperate charge against the enemy when his right arm was shattered. It was a long time before he was well and strong again, but he had made a firm friend in Andrew Jackson.
Later Houston studied law and began a successful practice. He became so popular in Tennessee that the people elected him to many positions of honor and trust, the last of which was that of governor. About that time he was married, but a few weeks later he and his wife separated. Then, suddenly and without giving any reason for his strange conduct, he left his home and his State and went far up the Arkansas River to the home of his early friends the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees had been removed to that distant country, beyond the Mississippi, by the United States Government.
About a year later Houston, wearing the garb of his adopted tribe, went in company with some of them to Washington. His stated purpose was to secure a contract for furnishing rations to the Cherokees.
But another purpose was in his mind. He had set his heart on winning Texas for the United States. Perhaps he talked over the scheme with his friend, President Jackson. However that may be, we know that some three years afterward Houston again left his Cherokee friends and went to Texas to live. His desire to secure this region for his country was as strong as ever.
Scene of Houston’s Campaign.
At that time Texas was a part of Mexico. Already before Houston went down to that far-away land many people from the United States had begun to settle there. At first they were welcomed. But when the Mexicans saw the Americans rapidly growing in numbers they began to oppress them. The Mexican Government went so far as to require them to give up their private arms, which would leave them defenseless against the Indians as well as bad men. Then it passed a law which said, in effect, that no more settlers should come to Texas from the United States, so that the few thousand Americans could not be strengthened in numbers.
Flag of the Republic of Texas.
Of course, the Texans were indignant, and they rebelled against Mexico, declaring Texas to be an independent republic. At the same time they elected Houston commander-in-chief of all the Texan troops. This began a bitter war. The Mexican dictator, Santa Anna, with an army four or five thousand strong, marched into Texas to force the people to submit to the government.
The first important event of this struggle was the capture of the Alamo, an old Texan fortress at San Antonio. Although the garrison numbered only one hundred and forty, they were men of reckless daring, without fear, and they determined to fight to the last.
Among these hardy fighters was David Crockett, a pioneer and adventurer who had led a wild, roving life. He was a famous hunter and marksman and, like some of our other frontiersmen, was never happier than when he was alone in the deep, dark forests.
Born in eastern Tennessee, in 1786, he received no schooling, but he was a man of good understanding. His amusing stories and his skill with the rifle had made him many friends, who chose him to represent their district in the Tennessee Legislature and later in Congress.
David Crockett.
Like Sam Houston, he had served under Andrew Jackson in the war with the Creek Indians, and when the struggle with Mexico broke out he was one of the many brave backwoodsmen who left their homes and went down to help the Texans.
After a long journey from Tennessee, in which more than once he came near being killed by the Indians or wild beasts, he at last reached the fortress of the Alamo. He knew he was taking great risks in joining the small garrison there, but that did not hold him back. In fact, he liked danger.
The Mexican army, upon reaching San Antonio, began firing upon the Alamo. Their cannon riddled the fort, making wide breaches in the weak outer walls through which from every side thousands of Mexicans thronged into it. The Americans emptied their muskets and then fought with knives and revolvers. They fought with desperate bravery until only five of the soldiers were left.
The Fight at the Alamo.
One of these was David Crockett. He had turned his musket about and was using it as a club in his desperate struggle with the scores of men who sought his life. There he stood, his back against the wall, with the bodies of the Mexicans he had slain lying in a semicircle about him. His foes dared not rush upon him, but some of them held him at bay with their lances, while others, having loaded their muskets, riddled his body with bullets. Thus fell brave David Crockett, a martyr to his country’s cause.
A few weeks after the tragedy of the Alamo, Santa Anna’s army massacred a force of five hundred Texans at Goliad. The outlook for the Texan cause was now dark enough. But Sam Houston, who commanded something like seven hundred Texans, would not give up. He retreated eastward for some two hundred and fifty miles. But when he learned that Santa Anna had broken up his army into three divisions and was approaching with only about one thousand six hundred men Houston halted his troops and waited for them to come up. On their approach he stood ready for attack in a well-chosen spot near the San Jacinto River, where he defeated Santa Anna and took him prisoner.
The Texans now organized a separate government, and in the following autumn elected Houston as the first President of the Republic of Texas. He did all he could to bring about the annexation of Texas to the United States and at last succeeded, for Texas entered our Union in 1845. It was to be expected that the people of Mexico would not like this. They were very angry, and the outcome was the Mexican War which lasted nearly two years.
In 1846 Texas sent Houston to the United States Senate, where he served his State for fourteen years. When the Civil War broke out he was governor of Texas and, although his State seceded, Houston remained firm for the Union. On his refusal to resign, he was forced to give up his office. He died in 1863.
Still another man who acted as agent in this transfer of land from Mexico was John C. Frémont. He helped in securing California.
He was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1813. His father died when he was a young child, and his mother went to Charleston, South Carolina, to live, and there gave her son a good education. After graduating from Charleston College he was employed by the government as assistant engineer in making surveys for a railroad between Charleston and Cincinnati, and also in exploring the mountain passes between North Carolina and Tennessee.
John C. Frémont
He enjoyed this work so much that he was eager to explore the regions of the far western part of our country, which were still largely unknown. Accordingly, he made several expeditions beyond the Rocky Mountains, three of which are of special importance in our story.
His first expedition was made in 1842, when he was sent out by the War Department to explore the Rocky Mountains, especially the South Pass, which is in the State of Wyoming. He made his way up the Kansas River, crossed over to the Platte, which he ascended, and then pushed on to the South Pass. Four months after starting he had explored this pass and, with four of his men, had gone up to the top of Frémont’s Peak, where he unfurled to the breeze the beautiful stars and stripes.
The excellent report he made of the expedition was examined with much interest by men of science in our own country and in foreign lands.
In this and also in his second expedition Frémont received much help from a follower, Kit Carson. Kit Carson was one of the famous scouts and hunters of the West, who felt smothered by the civilization of a town or city, and loved the free, roaming life of the woodsman.
Frémont’s Expedition Crossing the Rocky Mountains.
Before joining Frémont, Kit Carson had travelled over nearly all of the Rocky Mountain country. Up to 1834 he was a trapper, and had wandered back and forth among the mountains until they had become very familiar to him. During the next eight years, in which he served as hunter for Bent’s Fort, on the Arkansas River, he learned to know the great plains. He was, therefore, very useful to Frémont as a guide.
He was also well acquainted with many Indian tribes. He knew their customs, he understood their methods of warfare, and was well liked by the Indians themselves. He spoke their chief languages as well as he did his mother tongue.
After returning from his first expedition, Frémont made up his mind to explore the region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. He succeeded in getting orders from the government to do this, and set out on his second expedition in May, 1843, with thirty-nine men, Kit Carson again acting as guide.
Kit Carson.
The party left the little town of Kansas City in May and, in September, after travelling for one thousand seven hundred miles, they reached a vast expanse of water which excited great interest. It was much larger than the whole State of Delaware, and its waters were salt. It was, therefore, given the name of Great Salt Lake.
Passing on, Frémont reached the upper branch of the Columbia River. Then pushing forward down the valley of this river, he went as far as Fort Vancouver, near its mouth. Having reached the coast, he remained only a few days and then set out on his return (November 10).
His plan was to make his way around the Great Basin, a vast, deep valley lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. But it was not long before heavy snow on the mountains forced him to go down into this basin. He soon found that he was in a wild desert region in the depths of winter, facing death from cold and starvation. The situation was desperate.
Frémont judged that they were about as far south as San Francisco Bay. If this was true, he knew that the distance to that place was only about seventy miles. But to reach San Francisco Bay it was necessary to cross the mountains, and the Indians refused to act as guides, telling him that men could not possibly cross the steep, rugged heights in winter. This did not stop Frémont. He said: “We’ll go, guides or no guides!” And go they did.
It was a terrible journey. Sometimes they came to places where the snow was one hundred feet deep or more. But they pushed forward for nearly six weeks. Finally, after suffering from intense cold and from lack of food, they made their way down the western side of the mountains, men and horses alike being in such a starved condition that they were almost walking skeletons.
At last they reached Sutter’s Fort, now the city of Sacramento, where they enjoyed the hospitality of Captain Sutter. After remaining there for a short time, Frémont recrossed the mountains, five hundred miles farther south, and continued to Utah Lake, which is twenty-eight miles south of Great Salt Lake. He had travelled entirely around the Great Basin.
From Utah Lake he hastened across the country to Washington, with the account of his journey and of the discoveries he had made.
In 1845 Captain Frémont—for he had now been promoted to the rank of captain by the government—started out on his third expedition, with the purpose of exploring the Great Basin and then proceeding to the coast of what is now California and upward to Oregon.
Frémont’s Western Explorations.
Having explored the basin, he was on his way to Oregon, when he learned that the Mexicans were plotting to kill all the Americans in the valley of the Sacramento River. He therefore turned back to northern California, and with a force made up in part of American settlers gathered from the country round about, he took possession of that region, marched as fast as possible to Monterey, and captured that place also. Within about two months he had conquered practically all of California for the United States.
Frémont then made his home in California. On the 4th of the following July he was elected governor of the territory by the settlers then living there. Eleven years later the Republican party of the United States nominated him for President, but failed to elect him. He died in 1890. He has well been called “the Pathfinder.”
Frémont’s conquest of California was, in effect, a part of the Mexican War, which began in 1846. After nearly two years of fighting a treaty of peace was signed, by which Mexico ceded to the United States not only California but also much of the vast region now included in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
This region, which is called the Mexican Cession, contained five hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-three square miles, while Texas included five hundred and seventy-six thousand one hundred and thirty-three square miles. These two areas together were, like Louisiana, much larger than the whole of the United States at the end of the Revolution. With the addition of Louisiana in 1803, of Florida in 1819, of Texas in 1845, and of this region in 1848, the United States had enormously increased her territory.
On the same day on which the treaty of peace was signed with Mexico (February 2, 1848), gold was discovered in California.
Captain Sutter, a Swiss pioneer living near the site of the present city of Sacramento—at Sutter’s Fort, where Frémont stopped on his second expedition—was having a water-power sawmill built up the river at some distance from his home. One day one of the workmen, while walking along the mill-race, discovered some bright yellow particles, the largest of which were about the size of grains of wheat. On testing them, Captain Sutter found that they were gold.
Sutter’s Mill.
He tried to keep the discovery a secret, but it was impossible to prevent the news from spreading. “Gold! Gold! Gold!” seemed to ring through the air. From all the neighboring country men started in a mad rush for the gold-fields. Houses were left half built, fields half ploughed. “To the diggings!” was the watchword. From the mountains to the coast, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, settlements were abandoned. Even vessels that came into the harbor of San Francisco were deserted by their crews, sailors and captains alike being wild in their desire to dig for gold.
Within four months of the first discovery four thousand men were living in the neighborhood of Sacramento. The sudden coming together of so many people made it difficult to get supplies, and they rose in value. Tools of many kinds sold for large prices. Pickaxes, crowbars, and spades cost from ten dollars to fifty dollars apiece. Bowls, trays, dishes, and even warming-pans were eagerly sought, because they could be used in washing gold.
It was late in the year before people in the East learned of the discovery, for news still travelled slowly. But when it arrived, men of every class—farmers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, and even ministers—started West.
The journey might be made in three ways. One was by sailing-vessels around Cape Horn. This route took from five to seven months. Another way was to sail from some Eastern port to the Isthmus of Panama, and crossing this, to take ship to San Francisco. The third route was overland, from what is now St. Joseph, Missouri, and required three or four months. This could not be taken until spring, and some who were unwilling to wait started at once by the water-routes.
Men were so eager to go that often several joined together to buy an outfit of oxen, mules, wagons, and provisions. They made the journey in covered wagons called “prairie-schooners,” while their goods followed in peddlers’ carts. It often happened that out on the plains they missed their way, for there was no travelled road, and a compass was as necessary as if they had been on the ocean.
Placer-Mining in the days of the California Gold Rush.
Journeying thus by day, and camping by night, they suffered many hardships while on the way. Disease laid hold of them. Four thousand died from cholera during the first year, and many more for lack of suitable food. In some cases they had to kill and eat their mules, and at times they lived on rattlesnakes. The scattered bones of men and beasts marked the trail; for in the frantic desire to reach the diggings the wayfarers would not always stop to bury their dead.
When the gold region was reached, tents, wigwams, bark huts, and brush arbors served as shelter. The men did their own cooking, washing, and mending, and food soared to famine prices. A woman or a child was a rare sight in all that eager throng, for men in their haste had left their families behind.
It was a time of great excitement. Perhaps you have a grandparent who can tell you something of those stirring days. The gold craze of ‘49 is a never-to-be-forgotten event in our history. As the search for nuggets and gold-dust became less fruitful, many of the men turned homeward, some enriched and some—alas!—having lost all they possessed.
What kind of boy was Houston? What kind of man? What did he do for Texas?
Tell about David Crockett’s heroism at the Alamo.
When reading about Frémont’s explorations look up on the map every one of them. What do you think of him?
Who was Kit Carson, and how did he help Frémont?
Locate on your map every acquisition of territory from the end of the Revolution to 1848.
Imagine yourself going to California across the plains and mountains in 1849, and give an account of your experiences.
CHAPTER XV
The territory which we obtained from Mexico added much to the vastness of our country. But it led to a bitter dispute between the North and the South over slavery. For the North said: “All this territory shall be free.” The South said: “It must all be open to slavery.”
John C. Calhoun.
The trouble over slavery was no new thing. It had begun to be really serious and dangerous many years before the Mexican War. To understand why, a year or two after the close of this war, there should be such deep and violent feeling over the question of making the territory free or opening it to slavery, we must go back to some earlier events in the history of the Union.
In doing so, we shall find it simpler to follow the careers of three great statesmen, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, who took each a prominent part in the events.
John C. Calhoun, born in South Carolina in 1782, was the youngest but one of a family of five children. His father died when he was only thirteen, and until he was eighteen he remained on the farm, living a quiet, simple out-of-door life, ploughing, hunting, riding, and fishing.
Then his brother, who had observed John’s quickness of mind, persuaded him to get an education. After studying two years and a quarter in an academy, he entered the junior class at Yale College. Graduating in 1804, he at once took a course in the law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, and then returned home to complete his studies for the bar.
Calhoun’s Office and Library.
Calhoun’s conduct in school was above reproach, and as a man he was always steady and serious-minded. During the early years of his public life he won much praise for his close attention to work, his stately speeches, and his courteous manners. His slender and erect form, his dignified bearing, and his piercing dark eyes made him an impressive figure; while, as a speaker, his powerful voice and winning manner were sure to command attention.
In 1808 he entered the South Carolina Legislature. This was the beginning of his long public career of more than forty years. During this time he served his country as a representative in Congress, Secretary of War, Vice-President of the United States, Secretary of State, and United States senator.
In all these many years he was a prominent leader, especially in those events which concerned the slave-holding Southern planter. This we shall see later, after we have made the acquaintance of the second of the powerful trio of great statesmen, Henry Clay.
Henry Clay was born near Richmond, Virginia, in 1777, in a low, level region called “the Slashes.” He was one of seven children. His father was a Baptist clergyman, of fine voice and pleasing manner of speaking. He died when little Henry was four years old, leaving but a small sum for his family to live upon.
Henry went, like the other boys of “the Slashes,” to a tiny log school without windows or floor. The schoolmaster, who knew very little himself, taught the boys to read, write, and cipher. But that was all.
Outside of school hours Henry shared in the farm work. He helped with the ploughing and often rode the family pony to the mill, using a rope for a bridle and a bag of corn, wheat, meal, or flour for a saddle. For this reason he has been called “the Mill Boy of the Slashes.”
Henry Clay.
When fourteen years old he was given a place as clerk in a Richmond drug store. But he was not to stay there long, for about this time his mother married again, and his stepfather became interested in him. Realizing that Henry was a boy of unusual ability, he secured for him a place as copying clerk in the office of the Court of Chancery at Richmond.
The Birthplace of Henry Clay, near Richmond.
Henry was fifteen years old, tall, thin, and homely, when he entered this office. The other clerks were inclined to jeer at his awkwardness and his plain, home-made, ill-fitting clothes. But Henry’s sharp retorts quickly silenced them, and they soon grew to respect and like him. He was an earnest student. He stayed indoors and read in the evenings, while the other young fellows were idling about the town. He was eager to do something in the world. His opportunity soon came in the ordinary course of his daily work. His fine handwriting attracted the notice of the chancellor, a very able lawyer. This man was wise and kindly and had a deep influence on his young friend.
The Schoolhouse in “the Slashes.”
Clay joined the Richmond Debating Society and soon became the star speaker. He improved his speaking by studying daily some passage in a book of history or science, and then going out into a quiet place and declaiming what he had learned.
The chancellor knew about this, and it pleased him. He advised Henry Clay to study law, and within a year after his studies began, when he was only twenty-one years old, he was admitted to the bar.
To begin his law practice, he went to Lexington, Kentucky, which was then a small place of not more than fifty houses; but Clay very soon built up a good practice. Although he had arrived with scarcely a penny, within a year and a half he had been so successful that he was able to marry the daughter of a leading family. He soon owned a beautiful estate near Lexington, which he called “Ashland,” and with it several slaves.
He became a great favorite among the people of the State, largely because he was absolutely truthful and honest in all his dealings. He was also talented, good-natured, and friendly to all. It is said that no man has ever had such power to influence a Kentucky jury as Clay.
Twice he was sent to the United States Senate to fill seats left vacant by resignation, and here his power as a speaker was so marked that when it was known that he would address the Senate the galleries were always full.
Such was the beginning of his life as a statesman. It lasted some forty years, and during this long period he was a prominent leader in the great events having to do with the country’s future.
He filled various national offices. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives for many years, was four years Secretary of State, and during much more than half of the time between 1831 and 1852 he was in the United States Senate. Three times he was a candidate for President, but each time he failed of election.
He would not swerve by a hair’s breadth from what he considered his duty, even for party ends. “I would rather be right than be President,” he said, and men knew that he was sincere.
Living in a Southern State, he would naturally have the interests of the South at heart. But he did not always take her part. While Calhoun was apt to see but one side of a question, Clay was inclined to see something of both sides and to present his views in such a way as to bring about a settlement. Therefore he was called “the Great Peacemaker.”
His most important work as a peacemaker had to do with the Missouri Compromise (1820), the compromise tariff (1833), and the Compromise of 1850—all of which we look into a little farther on, after we come to know something about the last and perhaps the greatest of our three statesmen, Daniel Webster. For all three were interested in the same great movement.
Daniel Webster was born among the hills of New Hampshire, in 1782, the son of a poor farmer, and the ninth of ten children. As he was a frail child, not able to work much on the farm, his parents permitted him to spend much of his time fishing, hunting, and roaming at will over the hills. Thus he came into close touch with nature and absorbed a kind of knowledge which was very useful to him in later years.
He was always learning things, sometimes in most unusual ways, as is shown by an incident which took place when he was only eight years old. Having seen in a store near his home a small cotton handkerchief with the Constitution of the United States printed upon it, he gathered up his small earnings to the amount of twenty-five cents and eagerly secured the treasure. From this unusual copy he learned the Constitution, word for word, so that he could repeat it from beginning to end.
Daniel Webster.
Of course, this was a most remarkable thing for an eight-year-old boy to do, but the boy was himself remarkable. He spent much of his time poring over books. They were few in number but of good quality, and he read them over and over again until they became a part of himself. It gave him keen pleasure to memorize fine poems and also noble selections from the Bible, for he learned easily and remembered well what he learned. In this way he stored his mind with the highest kind of truth.
When he was fourteen his father sent him to Phillips Exeter Academy. The boys he met there were mostly from homes of wealth and culture. Some of them were rude and laughed at Daniel’s plain dress and country manners. Of course, the poor boy, whose health was not robust and who was by nature shy and independent, found such treatment hard to bear. But he studied well and soon commanded respect because of his good work.
After leaving this school he studied for six months under a private tutor, and at the age of fifteen he was prepared to enter Dartmouth College. Although he proved himself to be a youth of unusual mental power, he did not take high rank in scholarship. But he continued to read widely and thoughtfully and stored up much valuable knowledge, which later he used with clearness and force in conversation and debate.
After being graduated from college Daniel taught for a year and earned money enough to help pay his brother’s college expenses. The following year he studied law and in due time was admitted to the bar. As a lawyer he was very successful, his income sometimes amounting to twenty thousand dollars in a single year. In those days that was a very large sum.
But he could not manage his money affairs well and, no matter how large his income, he was always in debt. This unfortunate state of affairs was owing to a reckless extravagance, which he displayed in many ways.
Indeed, Webster was a man of such large ideas that of necessity he did all things on a large scale. It was vastness that appealed to him. And this ruling force in his nature explains his eagerness to keep the Union whole and supreme over the States. This we shall soon clearly see.
Having taken this glimpse of our three heroes, let us see how the great events of their time were largely moulded by their influence. All of these events, as we are soon to learn, had a direct bearing on slavery, and that was the great question of the day.
Up to the Revolution there was slavery in all the thirteen colonies. Some of them wished to get rid of it; but England, the mother country, would not allow them to do so, because she profited by the trade in slaves. After the Revolution, however, when the States were free to do as they pleased about slavery, some put an end to it on their own soil, and in time Pennsylvania and the States to the north and east of it became free States.
Many people then believed that slavery would by degrees die out of the land, and perhaps this would have happened if the growing of cotton had not been made profitable by Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton-gin.
After that invention came into use, instead of slavery’s dying out, it took a much stronger hold upon the planters of the South than it had ever done before.
This fact became very evident when Missouri applied for admission into the Union. The South, of course, wished it to come into the Union as a slave State; the North, fearing the extension of slavery into the Louisiana Purchase, was equally set upon its coming in as a free State.
The struggle over the question was a long and bitter one, but finally both the North and the South agreed to give up a part of what they wanted; that is, they agreed upon a compromise. It was this: Missouri was to enter the Union as a slave State, but slavery was not to be allowed in any part of the Louisiana Purchase which lay north or west of Missouri. This was called the Missouri Compromise (1820).
It was brought about largely through the eloquence and power of Henry Clay, and because of his part in it he was called “the Great Peacemaker.” But Calhoun was one of the men who did not think the Missouri Compromise was a good thing for the country. He therefore strongly opposed it.
The next clash between the free States and the slave States was caused by the question of the tariff, or tax upon goods brought from foreign countries. Not long after the Missouri Compromise was agreed upon, Northern manufacturers were urging Congress to pass a high-tariff law. They said that, inasmuch as factory labor in England was so much cheaper than in this country, goods made in England could be sold for less money here than our own factory-made goods, unless a law was passed requiring a tax, or duty, to be paid upon the goods brought over. Such a tax was called a protective tariff.
Calhoun, who voiced the feeling of the Southern planters, said: “This high tariff is unfair, for, while it protects the Northern man, it makes us of the South poorer, because we have to pay so high for the things we do not make.”
You understand, there were no factories in the South, for the people were mostly planters. With the cheap slave labor, a Southern man could make more money by raising rice, cotton, sugar, or tobacco than he could by manufacturing. Also, it was thought that the soil and climate of the South made that section better fitted for agriculture than for anything else.
“So the South should be allowed,” said Calhoun, “to buy the manufactured goods—such as cheap clothing for her slaves, and household tools and farming implements—where she can buy them at the lowest prices.”