THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE, A CHRONICLE OF THE GATHERING STORM

By Jesse Macy

New Haven: Yale University Press

Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. 

London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press

1919

CONTENTS

 I. INTRODUCTION

 II. THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CRUSADE

 III. EARLY CRUSADERS

 IV. THE TURNING-POINT

 V. THE VINDICATION OF LIBERTY

 VI. THE SLAVERY ISSUE IN POLITICS

 VII. THE PASSING OF THE WHIG PARTY

 VIII. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

 IX. BOOKS AS ANTI-SLAVERY WEAPONS

 X. "BLEEDING KANSAS"

 XI. CHARLES SUMNER

 XII. KANSAS AND BUCHANAN

 XIII. THE SUPREME COURT IN POLITICS

 XIV. JOHN BROWN

 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

The Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln marks the beginningof the end of a long chapter in human history. Among the earliestforms of private property was the ownership of slaves. Slavery as aninstitution had persisted throughout the ages, always under protest, always provoking opposition, insurrection, social and civil war, andever bearing within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Among thehistoric powers of the world the United States was the last to upholdslavery, and when, a few years after Lincoln's proclamation, Brazilemancipated her slaves, property in man as a legally recognizedinstitution came to an end in all civilized countries. 

Emancipation in the United States marked the conclusion of a century ofcontinuous debate, in which the entire history of western civilizationwas traversed. The literature of American slavery is, indeed, a summaryof the literature of the world on the subject. The Bible was made astandard text-book both for and against slavery. Hebrew and Christianexperiences were exploited in the interest of the contending partiesin this crucial controversy. Churches of the same name and orderwere divided among themselves and became half pro-slavery and halfanti-slavery. 

Greek experience and Greek literature were likewise drawn into thecontroversy. The Greeks themselves had set the example of arguing bothfor and against slavery. Their practice and their prevailing teaching, however, gave support to this institution. They clearly enunciated thedoctrine that there is a natural division among human beings; that someare born to command and others to obey; that it is natural to some mento be masters and to others to be slaves; that each of these classesshould fulfill the destiny which nature assigns. The Greeks alsorecognized a difference between races and held that some were bynature fitted to serve as slaves, and others to command as masters. Thedefenders of American slavery therefore found among the writings of theGreeks their chief arguments already stated in classic form. 

Though the Romans added little to the theory of the fundamental probleminvolved, their history proved rich in practical experience. There weretimes, in parts of the Roman Empire, when personal slavery eitherdid not exist or was limited and insignificant in extent. But theinstitution grew with Roman wars and conquests. In rural districts, slave labor displaced free labor, and in the cities servants multipliedwith the concentration of wealth. The size and character of theslave population eventually became a perpetual menace to the State. Insurrections proved formidable, and every slave came to be looked uponas an enemy to the public. It is generally conceded that the extensionof slavery was a primary cause of the decline and fall of Rome. Inthe American controversy, therefore, the lesson to be drawn from Romanexperience was utilized to support the cause of free labor. 

After the Middle Ages, in which slavery under the modified form offeudalism ran its course, there was a reversion to the ancient classicalcontroversy. The issue became clearly defined in the hands of theEnglish and French philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies. In place of the time-honored doctrine that the masses ofmankind are by nature subject to the few who are born to rule, thecontradictory dogma that all men are by nature free and equal wasclearly enunciated. According to this later view, it is of the verynature of spirit, or personality, to be free. All men are endowed withpersonal qualities of will and choice and a conscious sense of right andwrong. To subject these native faculties to an alien force is to makewar upon human nature. Slavery and despotism are, therefore, in theirnature but a species of warfare. They involve the forcing of men to actin violation of their true selves. The older doctrine makes governmenta matter of force. The strong command the weak, or the rich exerciselordship over the poor. The new doctrine makes of government anachievement of adult citizens who agree among themselves as to whatis fit and proper for the good of the State and who freely observe therules adopted and apply force only to the abnormal, the delinquent, andthe defective. 

Between the upholders of these contradictory views of human naturethere always has been and there always must be perpetual warfare. Theirdifference is such as to admit of no compromise; no middle ground ispossible. The conflict is indeed irresistible. The chief interest inthe American crusade against slavery arises from its relation to thisgeneral world conflict between liberty and despotism. 

The Athenians could be democrats and at the same time could uphold anddefend the institution of slavery. They were committed to the doctrinethat the masses of the people were slaves by nature. By definition, they made slaves creatures void of will and personality, and theyconveniently ignored them in matters of state. But Americans living inStates founded in the era of the Declaration of Independence could notbe good democrats and at the same time uphold and defend the institutionof slavery, for the Declaration gives the lie to all such assumptionsof human inequality by accepting the cardinal axiom that all men arecreated equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, amongwhich are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrineof equality had been developed in Europe without special reference toquestions of distinct race or color. But the terms, which are universaland as broad as humanity in their denotation, came to be applied toblack men as well as to white men. Massachusetts embodied in her stateconstitution in 1780 the words, "All men are born free and equal, " andthe courts ruled that these words in the state constitution had theeffect of liberating the slaves and of giving to them the same rights asother citizens. This is a perfectly logical application of the doctrineof the Revolution. 

The African slave-trade, however, developed earlier than the doctrineof the Declaration of Independence. Negro slavery had long been anestablished institution in all the American colonies. Opposition to theslave-trade and to slavery was an integral part of the evolution ofthe doctrine of equal rights. As the colonists contended for their ownfreedom, they became anti-slavery in sentiment. A standard complaintagainst British rule was the continued imposition of the slave-tradeupon the colonists against their oft-repeated protest. 

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, there appearedthe following charges against the King of Great Britain:

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its mostsacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant peoplewho never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery inanother hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportationthither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, isthe warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keepopen a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostitutedhis negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or torestrain this execrable commerce. "

Though this clause was omitted from the document as finally adopted, the evidence is abundant that the language expressed the prevailingsentiment of the country. To the believer in liberty and equality, slavery and the slave-trade are instances of war against human nature. No one attempted to justify slavery or to reconcile it with theprinciples of free government. Slavery was accepted as an inheritancefor which others were to blame. Colonists at first blamed Great Britain;later apologists for slavery blamed New England for her share in thecontinuance of the slave-trade. 

The fact should be clearly comprehended that the sentiments which led tothe American Revolution, and later to the French Revolution in Europe, were as broad in their application as the human race itself--that therewere no limitations nor exceptions. These new principles involveda complete revolution in the previously recognized principles ofgovernment. The French sought to make a master-stroke at immediateachievement and they incurred counterrevolutions and delays. TheAmericans moved in a more moderate and tentative manner towards thegreat achievement, but with them also a counter-revolution finallyappeared in the rise of an influential class who, by openly defendingslavery, repudiated the principles upon which the government wasfounded. 

At first the impression was general, in the South as well as inthe North, that slavery was a temporary institution. The cause ofemancipation was already advocated by the Society of Friends and someother sects. A majority of the States adopted measures for the gradualabolition of slavery, but in other cases there proved to be industrialbarriers to emancipation. Slaves were found to be profitably employed inclearing away the forests; they were not profitably employed in generalagriculture. A marked exception was found in small districts in theCarolinas and Georgia where indigo and rice were produced; and thoughcotton later became a profitable crop for slave labor, it was theproducers of rice and indigo who furnished the original barrier to theimmediate extension of the policy of emancipation. Representatives fromtheir States secured the introduction of a clause into the Constitutionwhich delayed for twenty years the execution of the will of the countryagainst the African slave-trade. It is said that a slave imported fromAfrica paid for himself in a single year in the production of rice. There were thus a few planters in Georgia and the Carolinas who had anobvious interest in the prolongation of the institution of slavery andwho had influence enough, to secure constitutional recognition for bothslavery and the slave-trade. 

The principles involved were not seriously debated. In theory all wereabolitionists; in practice slavery extended to all the States. In some, actual abolition was comparatively easy; in others, it was difficult. Bythe end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, actual abolitionhad extended to the line separating Pennsylvania from Maryland. Of theoriginal thirteen States seven became free and six remained slave. 

The absence of ardent or prolonged debate upon this issue in the earlyhistory of the United States is easily accounted for. No principleof importance was drawn into the controversy; few presumed to defendslavery as a just or righteous institution. As to conduct, eachindividual, each neighborhood enjoyed the freedom of a large, roomycountry. Even within state lines there was liberty enough. No keen senseof responsibility for a uniform state policy existed. It was thereforenot difficult for those who were growing wealthy by the use of importednegroes to maintain their privileges in the State. 

If the sense of active responsibility was wanting within the separateStates, much more was this true of the citizens of different States. Slavery was regarded as strictly a domestic institution. Families boughtand owned slaves as a matter of individual preference. None of theoriginal colonies or States adopted slavery by law. The citizens of thevarious colonies became slaveholders simply because there was no lawagainst it. * The abolition of slavery was at first an individual matteror a church or a state policy. When the Constitution was formulated, theseparate States had been accustomed to regard themselves as possessedof sovereign powers; hence there was no occasion for the citizens ofone State to have a sense of responsibility on account of thedomestic institutions of other States. The consciousness of nationalresponsibility was of slow growth, and the conditions did not thenexist which favored a general crusade against slavery or a prolongedacrimonious debate on the subject, such as arose forty years later. 

 * In the case of Georgia there was a prohibitory law, which was disregarded. 

In many of the States, however, there were organized abolitionsocieties, whose object was to promote the cause of emancipation alreadyin progress and to protect the rights of free negroes. The Friends, orQuakers, were especially active in the promotion of a propaganda foruniversal emancipation. A petition which was presented to the firstCongress in February, 1790, with the signature of Benjamin Franklinas President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, contained thisconcluding paragraph:

"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally, and is still, thebirthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanityand the principles of their institutions, your memorialists conceivethemselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bondsof slavery, and to promote the general enjoyment of the blessings offreedom. Under these impressions they earnestly entreat your attentionto the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance therestoration to liberty of those unhappy men, who, alone, in this land offreemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise meansfor removing this inconsistency of character from the American people;that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race;and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you fordiscouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellowmen. "*

 * William Goodell, "Slavery and Anti-Slavery, " p. 99. 

The memorialists were treated with profound respect. Cordial support andencouragement came from representatives from Virginia and other slaveStates. Opposition was expressed by members from South Carolina andGeorgia. These for the most part relied upon their constitutionalguaranties. But for these guaranties, said Smith, of South Carolina, his State would not have entered the Union. In the extreme utterances inopposition to the petition there is a suggestion of the revolution whichwas to occur forty years later. 

Active abolitionists who gave time and money to the promotion of thecause were always few in numbers. Previous to 1830 abolition societiesresembled associations for the prevention of cruelty to animals--infact, in one instance at least this was made one of the professedobjects. These societies labored to induce men to act in harmonywith generally acknowledged obligations, and they had no occasion forviolence or persecution. Abolitionists were distinguished for theirbenevolence and their unselfish devotion to the interests of the needyand the unfortunate. It was only when the ruling classes resorted to mobviolence and began to defend slavery as a divinely ordained institutionthat there was a radical change in the spirit of the controversy. Theirrepressible conflict between liberty and despotism which has persistedin all ages became manifest when slave-masters substituted the Greekdoctrine of inequality and slavery for the previously accepted Christiandoctrine of equality and universal brotherhood. 

CHAPTER II. THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CRUSADE

It was a mere accident that the line drawn by Mason and Dixon betweenPennsylvania and Maryland became known in later years as the dividingline between slavery and freedom. The six States south of that lineultimately neglected or refused to abolish slavery, while the sevenNorthern States became free. Vermont became a State in 1791 and Kentuckyin 1792. The third State to be added to the original thirteen wasTennessee in 1796. At that time, counting the States as they werefinally classified, eight were destined to be slave and eight free. Ohioentered the Union as a State in 1802, thus giving to the free Statesa majority of one. The balance, however, was restored in 1812 by theadmission of Louisiana as a slave State. The admission of Indiana in1816 on the one side and of Mississippi in 1817 on the other stillmaintained the balance: ten free States stood against ten slave States. During the next two years Illinois and Alabama were admitted, makingtwenty-two States in all, still evenly divided. 

The ordinance for the government of the territory north of the OhioRiver, passed in 1787 and reenacted by Congress after the adoptionof the Constitution, proved to be an act of great significance in itsrelation to the limitation of slavery. By this ordinance slavery wasforever prohibited in the Northwest Territory. In the territory southof the Ohio River slavery became permanently established. The river, therefore, became an extension of the original Mason and Dixon's Linewith the new meaning attached: it became a division between free andslave territory. 

It was apparently at first a mere matter of chance that a balance wasstruck between the two losses of States. While Virginia remained a slaveState, it was natural that slavery should extend into Kentucky, whichhad been a part of Virginia. Likewise Tennessee, being a part of NorthCarolina, became slave territory. When these two Territories becameslave States, the equal division began. There was yet an abundance ofterritory both north and south to be taken into the Union and, withoutany special plan or agitation, States were admitted in pairs, one freeand the other slave. In the meantime there was distinctly developed theidea of the possible or probable permanence of slavery in the South andof a rivalry or even a future conflict between the two sections. 

When in 1819 Missouri applied for admission to the Union with a stateconstitution permitting slavery, there was a prolonged debate over thewhole question, not only in Congress but throughout the entire country. North and South were distinctly pitted against each other with rivalsystems of labor. The following year Congress passed a law providingfor the admission of Missouri, but, to restore the balance, Maine wasseparated from Massachusetts and was admitted to the Union as a State. It was further enacted that slavery should be forever prohibited fromall territory of the United States north of the parallel 36 degrees 30', that is, north of the southern boundary of Missouri. It is this part ofthe act which is known as the Missouri Compromise. It was accepted asa permanent limitation of the institution of slavery. By this act Masonand Dixon's Line was extended through the Louisiana Purchase. As thewestern boundary was then defined, slavery could still be extended intoArkansas and into a part of what is now Oklahoma, while a great empireto the northwest was reserved for the formation of free States. Arkansasbecame a slave State in 1836 and Michigan was admitted as a free Statein the following year. 

With the admission of Arkansas and Michigan, thirteen slave States werebalanced by a like number of free States. The South still had Florida, which would in time become a slave State. Against this single Territorythere was an immense region to the northwest, equal in area to all theslave States combined, which, according to the Ordinance of 1787 and theMissouri Compromise, had been consecrated to freedom. Foreseeing thiscondition, a few Southern planters began a movement for the extensionof territory to the south and west immediately after the adoption ofthe Missouri Compromise. When Arkansas was admitted in 1836, there was aprospect of the immediate annexation of Texas as a slave State. This didnot take place until nine years later, but the propaganda, the object ofwhich was the extension of slave territory, could not be maintained bythose Who contended that slavery was a curse to the country. Virginia, therefore, and other border slave States, as they became committed tothe policy of expansion, ceased to tolerate official public utterancesagainst slavery. 

Three more or less clearly defined sections appear in the laterdevelopment of the crusade. These are the New England States, the MiddleStates, and the States south of North Carolina and Tennessee. In NewEngland, few negroes were ever held as slaves, and the institutiondisappeared during the first years of the Republic. The inhabitants hadlittle experience arising from actual contact with slavery. When slaverydisappeared from New England and before there had been developed in thecountry at large a national feeling of responsibility for its continuedexistence, interest in the subject declined. For twenty years previousto the founding of Garrison's Liberator in 1831, organized abolitionmovements had been almost unknown in New England. In various waysthe people were isolated, separated from contact with slavery. Theirknowledge of this subject of discussion was academic, theoretical, acquired at second-hand. 

In New York and New Jersey slaves were much more numerous than in NewEngland. There were still slaves in considerable numbers until about1825. The people had a knowledge of the institution from experience andobservation, and there was no break in the continuity of their organizedabolition societies. Chief among the objects of these societies was theeffort to prevent kidnapping and to guard the rights of free negroes. For both of these purposes there was a continuous call for activity. Pennsylvania also had freedmen of her own whose rights called forguardianship, as well as many freedmen from farther south who had comeinto the State. 

The movement of protest and protection did not stop at Mason and Dixon'sLine, but extended far into the South. In both North Carolina andTennessee an active protest against slavery was at all times maintained. In this great middle section of the country, between New England andSouth Carolina, there was no cessation in the conflict between freeand slave labor. Some of these States became free while others remainedslave; but between the people of the two sections there was continuouscommunication. Slaveholders came into free States to liberate theirslaves. Non-slaveholders came to get rid of the competition of slavelabor, and free negroes came to avoid reenslavement. Slaves fled thitheron their way to liberty. It was not a matter of choice; it was anunavoidable condition which compelled the people of the border States togive continuous attention to the institution of slavery. 

The modern anti-slavery movement had its origin in this great middlesection, and from the same source it derived its chief support. Thegreat body of active abolitionists were from the slave States orelse derived their inspiration from personal contact with slavery. Ascompared with New England abolitionists, the middlestate folk wereless extreme in their views. They had a keener appreciation of thedifficulties involved in emancipation. They were more tolerant towardsthe idea of letting the country at large share the burdens involvedin the liberation of the slaves. Border-state abolitionists naturallyfavored the policy of gradual emancipation which had been followed inNew York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Abolitionists who continuedto reside in the slave States were forced to recognize the fact thatemancipation involved serious questions of race adjustment. Fromthe border States came the colonization society, a characteristicinstitution, as well as compromise of every variety. 

The southernmost section, including South Carolina, Georgia, and theGulf States, was even more sharply defined in the attitude itassumed toward the anti-slavery movement. At no time did the cause ofemancipation become formidable in this section. In all these Statesthere was, of course, a large class of non-slaveholding whites, whowere opposed to slavery and who realized that they were victims of aninjurious system; but they had no effective organ for expression. Theruling minority gained an early and an easy victory and to the end helda firm hand. To the inhabitants of this section it appeared to be aself-evident truth that the white race was born to rule and the blackrace was born to serve. Where negroes outnumbered the whites fourfold, the mere suggestion of emancipation raised a race question which seemedappalling in its proportions. Either in the Union or out of the Union, the rulers were determined to perpetuate slavery. 

Slavery as an economic institution became dependent upon a fewsemitropical plantation crops. When the Constitution was framed, riceand indigo, produced in South Carolina and Georgia, were the two mostimportant. Indigo declined in relative importance, and the productionof sugar was developed, especially after the annexation of the LouisianaPurchase. But by far the most important crop for its effects uponslavery and upon the entire country was cotton. This single productfinally absorbed the labor of half the slaves of the entire country. Mr. Rhodes is not at all unreasonable in his surmise that, had it not beenfor the unforeseen development of the cotton industry, the expectationof the founders of the Republic that slavery would soon disappear wouldactually have been realized. 

It was more difficult to carry out a policy of emancipation when slaveswere quoted in the market at a thousand dollars than when the pricewas a few hundred dollars. All slave-owners felt richer; emancipationappeared to involve a greater sacrifice. Thus the cotton industry wentfar towards accounting for the changed attitude of the entire countryon the subject of slavery. The North as well as the South becamefinancially interested. 

It was not generally perceived before it actually happened that theborder States would take the place of Africa in furnishing the requiredsupply of laborers for Southern plantations. The interstate slave-tradegave to the system a solidarity of interest which was new. Allslave-owners became partakers of a common responsibility for the systemas a whole. It was the newly developed trade quite as much as the systemof slavery itself which furnished the ground for the later anti-slaveryappeal. The consciousness of a common guilt for the sin of slavery grewwith the increase of actual interstate relations. 

The abolition of the African slave-trade was an act of the generalGovernment. Congress passed the prohibitory statute in 1807, to go intoeffect January, 1808. At no time, however, was the prohibition entirelyeffective, and a limited illegal trade continued until slavery waseventually abolished. This inefficiency of restraint furnished anotherpoint of attack for the abolitionists. Through efforts to suppress theAfrican slave-trade, the entire country became conscious of a commonresponsibility. Before the Revolutionary War, Great Britain had beencensured for forcing cheap slaves from Africa upon her unwillingcolonies. After the Revolution, New England was blamed for the activityof her citizens in this nefarious trade both before and after it wasmade illegal. All of this tended to increase the sense of responsibilityin every section of the country. Congress had made the foreignslave-trade illegal; and citizens in all sections gradually becameaware of the possibility that Congress might likewise restrict or forbidinterstate commerce in slaves. 

The West Indies and Mexico were also closely associated with the UnitedStates in the matter of slavery. When Jamestown was founded, negroslavery was already an old institution in the islands of the CaribbeanSea, and thence came the first slaves to Virginia. The abolition ofslavery in the island of Hayti, or San Domingo, was accomplished duringthe French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. As incidental to theprocess of emancipation, the Caucasian inhabitants were massacredor banished, and a republican government was established, composedexclusively of negroes and mulattoes. From the date of the MissouriCompromise to that of the Mexican War, this island was united under asingle republic, though it was afterwards divided into the two republicsof Hayti and San Domingo. 

The "horrors of San Domingo" were never absent from the minds of thosein the United States who lived in communities composed chiefly ofslaves. What had happened on the island was accepted by Southernplanters as proof that the two races could live together in peace onlyunder the relation of master and slave, and that emancipation bodedthe extermination of one race or the other. Abolitionists, however, interpreted the facts differently: they emphasized the tyranny of thewhite rulers as a primary cause of the massacres; they endowed someof the negro leaders with the highest qualities of statesmanship andself-sacrificing generosity; and Wendell Phillips, in an impassionedaddress which he delivered in 1861, placed on the honor roll above thechief worthies of history--including Cromwell and Washington ToussaintL'Ouverture, the liberator of Hayti, whom France had betrayed andmurdered. 

Abolitionists found support for their position in the contention thatother communities had abolished slavery without such accompanyinghorrors as occurred in Hayti and without serious race conflict. Slaveryhad run its course in Spanish America, and emancipation accompanied orfollowed the formation of independent republics. In 1833 all slavesin the British Empire were liberated, including those in the importantisland of Jamaica. So it happened that, just at the time when Southernleaders were making up their minds to defend their peculiar institutionat all hazards, they were beset on every side by the spirit ofemancipation. Abolitionists, on the other hand, were fully convincedthat the attainment of some form of emancipation in the United Stateswas certain, and that, either peaceably or through violence, the slaveswould ultimately be liberated. 

CHAPTER III. EARLY CRUSADERS

At the time when the new cotton industry was enhancing the value ofslave labor, there arose from the ranks of the people those who freelyconsecrated their all to the freeing of the slave. Among these, BenjaminLundy, a New Jersey Quaker, holds a significant place. 

Though the Society of Friends fills a large place in the anti-slaverymovement, its contribution to the growth of the conception of equalityis even more significant. This impetus to the idea arises from afundamental Quaker doctrine, announced at the middle of the seventeenthcentury, to the erect that God reveals Himself to mankind, not throughany priesthood or specially chosen agents; not through any ordinance, form, or ceremony; not through any church or institution; not throughany book or written record of any sort; but directly, through HisSpirit, to each person. This direct enlightening agency they deemedcoextensive with humanity; no race and no individual is left without theever-present illuminating Spirit. If men of old spoke as they were movedby the Holy Spirit, what they spoke or wrote can furnish no reliableguidance to the men of a later generation, except as their minds alsoare enlightened by the same Spirit in the same way. "The letter killeth;it is the Spirit that giveth life. "

This doctrine in its purity and simplicity places all men and all raceson an equality; all are alike ignorant and imperfect; all are alike intheir need of the more perfect revelation yet to be made. Master andslave are equal before God; there can be no such relation, therefore, except by doing violence to a personality, to a spiritual being. Inharmony with this fundamental principle, the Society of Friends earlyrid itself of all connection with slavery. The Friends' Meeting becamea refuge for those who were moved by the Spirit to testify againstslavery. 

Born in 1789 in a State which was then undergoing the process ofemancipating its slaves, Benjamin Lundy moved at the age of nineteento Wheeling, West Virginia, which had already become the center of anactive domestic slave-trade. The pious young Quaker, now apprenticed toa saddler, was brought into personal contact with this traffic in humanflesh. He felt keenly the national disgrace of the iniquity. So deep didthe iron enter into his soul that never again did he find peace of mindexcept in efforts to relieve the oppressed. Like hundreds and thousandsof others, Lundy was led on to active opposition to the trade by anactual knowledge of the inhumanity of the business as prosecuted beforehis eyes and by his sympathy for human suffering. 

His apprenticeship ended, Lundy was soon established in a prosperousbusiness in an Ohio village not far from Wheeling. Though he now livedin a free State, the call of the oppressed was ever in his ears and hecould not rest. He drew together a few of his neighbors, and togetherthey organized the Union Humane Society, whose object was the reliefof those held in bondage. In a few months the society numbered severalhundred members, and Lundy issued an address to the philanthropistsof the whole country, urging them to unite in like manner with uniformconstitutions, and suggesting that societies so formed adopt a policy ofcorrespondence and cooperation. At about the same time, Lundy began topublish anti-slavery articles in the Mount Pleasant Philanthropist andother papers. 

In 1819 he went on a business errand to St. Louis, Missouri, where hefound himself in the midst of an agitation over the question of theextension of slavery in the States. With great zest he threw himselfinto the discussion, making use of the newspapers in Missouri andIllinois. Having lost his property, he returned poverty-strickento Ohio, where he founded in January, 1821, the Genius of UniversalEmancipation. A few months later he transferred his paper to the morecongenial atmosphere of Jonesborough, Tennessee, but in 1824 he went toBaltimore, Maryland. In the meantime, Lundy had become much occupied intraveling, lecturing, and organizing societies for the promotion of thecause of abolition. He states that during the ten years previous to 1830he had traveled upwards of twenty-five thousand miles, five thousandof which were on foot. He now became interested in plans for colonizingnegroes in other countries as an aid to emancipation, though hehimself had no confidence in the colonization society and its scheme ofdeportation to Africa. After leading a few negroes to Hayti in 1829, hevisited Canada, Texas, and Mexico with a similar plan in view. 

During a trip through the Middle States and New England in 1828, Lundymet William Lloyd Garrison, and the following year he walked all theway from Baltimore to Bennington, Vermont, for the express purpose ofsecuring the assistance of the youthful reformer as coeditor of hispaper. Garrison had previously favored colonization, but within the fewweeks which elapsed before he joined Lundy, he repudiated all forms ofcolonization and advocated immediate and unconditional emancipation. Heat once told Lundy of his change of views. "Well, " said Lundy, "thee mayput thy initials to thy articles, and I will put my witness to mine, and each will bear his own burden. " The two editors were, however, in complete accord in their opposition to the slave-trade. Lundy hadsuffered a dangerous assault at the hands of a Baltimore slave-traderbefore he was joined by Garrison. During the year 1830, Garrison wasconvicted of libel and thrown into prison on account of his scathingdenunciation of Francis Todd of Massachusetts, the owner of a vesselengaged in the slave-trade. 

These events brought to a crisis the publication of the Genius ofUniversal Emancipation. The editors now parted company. Again Lundymoved the office of the paper, this time to Washington, D. C. , but itsoon became a peripatetic monthly, printed wherever the editor chancedto be. In 1836 Lundy began the issue of an anti-slavery paper inPhiladelphia, called the National Inquirer, and with this was merged theGenius of Universal Emancipation. He was preparing to resume the issueof his original paper under the old title, in La Salle County, Illinois, when he was overtaken by death on August 22, 1839. 

Here was a man without education, without wealth, of a slight frame, notat all robust, who had undertaken, singlehanded and without the shadowof a doubt of his ultimate success, to abolish American slavery. He began the organization of societies which were to displace theanti-slavery societies of the previous century. He established the firstpaper devoted exclusively to the cause of emancipation. He foresaw thatthe question of emancipation must be carried into politics and that itmust become an object of concern to the general Government as well as tothe separate States. In the early part of his career he found the mostcongenial association and the larger measure of effective support southof Mason and Dixon's Line, and in this section were the greater numberof the abolition societies which he organized. During the later yearsof his life, as it was becoming increasingly difficult in the Southto maintain a public anti-slavery propaganda, he transferred his chiefactivities to the North. Lundy serves as a connecting link between theearlier and the later anti-slavery movements. Eleven years of his earlylife belong to the century of the Revolution. Garrison recorded hisindebtedness to Lundy in the words: "If I have in any way, howeverhumble, done anything towards calling attention to slavery, or bringingout the glorious prospect of a complete jubilee in our country at nodistant day, I feel that I owe everything in this matter, instrumentallyunder God, to Benjamin Lundy. "

Different in type, yet even more significant on account of its peculiarrelations to the cause of abolition, was the life of James GillespieBirney, who was born in a wealthy slaveholding family at Dansville, Kentucky, in the year 1792. The Birneys were anti-slavery planters ofthe type of Washington and Jefferson. The father had labored to makeKentucky a free State at the time of its admission to the Union. His sonwas educated first at Princeton, where he graduated in 1810, and thenin the office of a distinguished lawyer in Philadelphia. He began thepractice of law at his home at the age of twenty-two. His home trainingand his residence in States which were then in the process of gradualemancipation served to confirm him in the traditional conviction of hisfamily. While Benjamin Lundy, at the age of twenty-seven, was engaged inorganizing anti-slavery societies north of the Ohio River, Birney atthe age of twenty-four was influential as a member of the KentuckyLegislature in the prevention of the passing of a joint resolutioncalling upon Ohio and Indiana to make laws providing for the returnof fugitive slaves. He was also conspicuous in his efforts to secureprovisions for gradual emancipation. Two years later he became a planternear Huntsville, Alabama. Though not a member of the ConstitutionalConvention preparatory to the admission of this Territory intothe Union, Birney used his influence to secure provisions in theconstitution favorable to gradual emancipation. As a member of the firstLegislature, in 1819, he was the author of a law providing a fair trialby jury for slaves indicted for crimes above petty larceny, and in 1826he became a regular contributor to the American Colonization Society, believing it to be an aid to emancipation. The following year he wasable to induce the Legislature, although he was not then a member of it, to pass an act forbidding the importation of slaves into Alabamaeither for sale or for hire. This was regarded as a step preliminary toemancipation. 

The cause of education in Alabama had in Birney a trusted leader. Duringthe year 1830 he spent several months in the North Atlantic Statesfor the selection of a president and four professors for the StateUniversity and three teachers for the Huntsville Female Seminary. Thesewere all employed upon his sole recommendation. On his return he had animportant interview with Henry Clay, of whose political party he had forseveral years been the acknowledged leader in Alabama. He urged Clayto place himself at the head of the movement in Kentucky for gradualemancipation. Upon Clay's refusal their political cooperationterminated. Birney never again supported Clay for office and regardedhim as in a large measure responsible for the pro-slavery reaction inKentucky. 

Birney, who had now become discouraged regarding the prospect ofemancipation, during the winter of 1831 and 1832 decided to remove hisfamily to Jacksonville, Illinois. He was deterred from carrying outhis plan, however, by his unexpected appointment as agent of thecolonization society in the Southwest--a mission which he undertook froma sense of duty. 

In his travels throughout the region assigned to him, Birney becameaware of the aggressive designs of the planters of the Gulf States tosecure new slave territories in the Southwest. In view of these factsthe methods of the colonization society appeared utterly futile. Birneysurrendered his commission and, in 1833, returned to Kentucky with theintention of doing himself what Henry Clay had refused to do three yearsearlier, still hoping that Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee might beinduced to abolish slavery and thus place the slave power in a hopelessminority. His disappointment was extreme at the pro-slavery reactionwhich had taken place in Kentucky. The condition called for more drasticmeasures, and Birney decided to forsake entirely the colonizationsociety and cast in his lot with the abolitionists. He freed his slavesin 1834, and in the following year he delivered the principal addressat the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society held in NewYork. His gift of leadership was at once recognized. As vice-presidentof the society he began to travel on its behalf, to address publicassemblies, and especially to confer with members of state legislaturesand to address the legislative bodies. He now devoted his entire time tothe service of the society, and as early as September, 1835, issued theprospectus of a paper devoted to the cause of emancipation. This calledforth such a display of force against the movement that he could neitherfind a printer nor obtain the use of a building in Dansville, Kentucky, for the publication. As a result he transferred his activities toCincinnati, where he began publication of the Philanthropist in 1836. With the connivance of the authorities and encouragement from leadingcitizens of Cincinnati, the office of the Philanthropist was three timeslooted by the mob, and the proprietor's life was greatly endangered. The paper, however, rapidly grew in favor and influence and thoroughlyvindicated the right of free discussion of the slavery question. Another editor was installed when Birney, who became secretary of theAnti-slavery Society in 1837, transferred his residence to New YorkCity. 

Twenty-three years before Lincoln's famous utterance in which heproclaimed the doctrine that a house divided against itself cannotstand, and before Seward's declaration of an irrepressible conflictbetween slavery and freedom, Birney had said: "There will be nocessation of conflict until slavery shall be exterminated or libertydestroyed. Liberty and slavery cannot live in juxtaposition. " He spokeout of the fullness of his own experience. A thoroughly trained lawyerand statesman, well acquainted with the trend of public sentiment inboth North and South, he was fully persuaded that the new pro-slaverycrusade against liberty boded civil war. He knew that the white men inNorth and South would not, without a struggle, consent to be permanentlydeprived of their liberties at the behest of a few Southern planters. Being himself of the slaveholding class, he was peculiarly fitted toappreciate their position. To him the new issue meant war, unlessthe belligerent leaders should be shown that war was hopeless. By hismoderation in speech, his candor in statement, his lack of rancor, hiscarefully considered, thoroughly fair arguments, he had the rare facultyof convincing opponents of the correctness of his own view. 

There could be little sympathy between Birney and William LloydGarrison, whose style of denunciation appeared to the former as anincitement to war and an excuse for mob violence. As soon as Birneybecame the accepted leader in the national society, there wasfriction between his followers and those of Garrison. To denouncethe Constitution and repudiate political action were, from Birney'sstandpoint, a surrender of the only hope of forestalling a direcalamity. He had always fought slavery by the use of legal andconstitutional methods, and he continued so to fight. In this policy hehad the support of a large majority of abolitionists in New England andelsewhere. Only a few personal friends accepted Garrison's injunction toforswear politics and repudiate the Constitution. 

The followers of Birney, failing to secure recognition for their viewsin either of the political parties, organized the Liberty party and, while Birney was in Europe in 1840, nominated him as their candidatefor the Presidency. The vote which he received was a little over seventhousand, but four years later he was again the candidate of the partyand received over sixty thousand votes. He suffered an injury during thefollowing year which condemned him to hopeless invalidism and broughthis public career to an end. 

Though Lundy and Birney were contemporaries and were engaged in the samegreat cause, they were wholly independent in their work. Lundy addressedhimself almost entirely to the non-slaveholding class, while all ofBirney's early efforts were "those of a slaveholder seeking to inducehis own class to support the policy of emancipation. " Though a Northernman, Lundy found his chief support in the South until he was driven outby persecution. Birney also resided in the South until he was forced toleave for the same reason. The two men were in general accord in theirmain lines of policy: both believed firmly in the use of political meansto effect their objects; both were at first colonizationists, thoughLundy favored colonization in adjacent territory rather than bydeportation to Africa. 

Women were not a whit behind men in their devotion to the cause offreedom. Conspicuous among them were Sarah and Angelina Grimke, born inCharleston, South Carolina, of a slaveholding family noted for learning, refinement, and culture. Sarah was born in the same year as James G. Birney, 1792; Angelina was thirteen years younger. Angelina was thetypical crusader: her sympathies from the first were with the slave. As a child she collected and concealed oil and other simple remedies sothat she might steal out by night and alleviate the sufferings of slaveswho had been cruelly whipped or abused. At the age of fourteen sherefused to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church because the ceremonyinvolved giving sanction to words which seemed to her untrue. Two yearslater her mother offered her a present of a slave girl for a servant andcompanion. This gift she refused to accept, for in her view the servanthad a right to be free, and, as for her own needs, Angelina felt quitecapable of waiting upon herself. 

Of her own free will she joined the Presbyterian Church and laboredearnestly with the officers of the church to induce them to espouse thecause of the slave. When she failed to secure cooperation, she decidedthat the church was not Christian and she therefore withdrew hermembership. Her sister Sarah had gone North in 1821 and had become amember of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. In Charleston, SouthCarolina, there was a Friends' meeting-house where two old Quakersstill met at the appointed time and sat for an hour in solemn silence. Angelina donned the Quaker garb, joined this meeting, and for an entireyear was the third of the silent worshipers. This quiet testimony, however, did not wholly satisfy her energetic nature, and when, in1830, she heard of the imprisonment of Garrison in Baltimore, she wasconvinced that effective labors against slavery could not be carried onin the South. With great sorrow she determined to sever her connectionwith home and family and join her sister in Philadelphia. There theexile from the South poured out her soul in an Appeal to the ChristianWomen of the South. The manuscript was handed to the officers of theAnti-slavery Society in the city and, as they read, tears filledtheir eyes. The Appeal was immediately printed in large quantities fordistribution in Southern States. 

Copies of the Appeal which had been sent to Charleston were seized by amob and publicly burned. When it became known soon afterwards that theauthor of the offensive document was intending to return to Charlestonto spend the winter with her family, there was intense excitement, andthe mayor of the city informed the mother that her daughter would not bepermitted to land in Charleston nor to communicate with any one there, and that, if she did elude the police and come ashore, she would beimprisoned and guarded until the departure of the next boat. On accountof the distress which she would cause to her friends, Miss Grimkereluctantly gave up the exercise of her constitutional right to visither native city and in a very literal sense she became a permanentexile. 

The two sisters let their light shine among Philadelphia Quakers. Inthe religious meetings negro women were consigned to a special seat. TheGrimkes, having first protested against this discrimination, took theirown places on the seat with the colored women. In Charleston, Angelinahad scrupulously adhered to the Quaker garb because it was viewed as aprotest against slavery. In Philadelphia, however, no such meaning wasattached to the costume, and she adopted clothing suited to the climateregardless of conventions. A series of parlor talks to women which hadbeen organized by the sisters grew in interest until the parlors becameinadequate, and the speakers were at last addressing large audiences ofwomen in the public meeting-places of Philadelphia. 

At this time when Angelina was making effective use of her unrivaledpower as a public speaker, she received in 1836 an invitation from theAnti-slavery Society of New York to address the women of that city. Sheinformed her sister that she believed this to be a call from God andthat it was her duty to accept. Sarah decided to be her companion andassistant in the work in the new field, which was similar to that inPhiladelphia. Its fame soon extended to Boston, whence came an urgentinvitation to visit that city. It was in Massachusetts that men began tosteal into the women's meetings and listen from the back seats. In Lynnall barriers were broken down, and a modest, refined, and naturallydiffident young woman found herself addressing immense audiences of menand women. In the old theater in Boston for six nights in succession, audiences filling all the space listened entranced to the messenger ofemancipation. There is uniform testimony that, in an age distinguishedfor oratory, no more effective speaker appeared than Angelina Grimke. It was she above all others who first vindicated the right of women tospeak to men from the public platform on political topics. But it mustbe remembered that scores of other women were laboring to the same endand were fully prepared to utilize the new opportunity. 

The great world movement from slavery towards freedom, from despotismto democracy, is characterized by a tendency towards the equality ofthe sexes. Women have been slaves where men were free. In barbarous ageswomen have been ignored or have been treated as mere adjuncts to theruling sex. But wherever there has been a distinct contribution to thecause of liberty there has been a distinct recognition of woman's sharein the work. The Society of Friends was organized on the principle thatmen and women are alike moral beings, hence are equal in the sight ofGod. As a matter of experience, women were quite as often moved to breakthe silence of a religious meeting as were the men. 

For two hundred years women had been accustomed to talk to both menand women in Friends' meetings and, when the moral war against slaverybrought religion and politics into close relation, they were readyspeakers upon both topics. When the Grimke sisters came into the churchwith a fresh baptism of the Spirit, they overcame all obstacles and, with a passion for righteousness, moral and spiritual and political, they carried the war against slavery into politics. 

In 1833, at the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Societyin Philadelphia, a number of women were present. Lucretia Mott, adistinguished "minister" in the Society of Friends, took part in theproceedings. She was careful to state that she spoke as a mere visitor, having no place in the organization, but she ventured to suggest variousmodifications in the report of Garrison's committee on a declaration ofprinciples which rendered it more acceptable to the meeting. It had notthen been seriously considered whether women could become members ofthe Anti-Slavery Society, which was at that time composed exclusivelyof men, with the women maintaining their separate organizations asauxiliaries. 

The women of the West were already better organized than the men andwere doing a work which men could not do. They were, for the most part, unconscious of any conflict between the peculiar duties of men andthose of women in their relations to common objects. The "libraryassociations" of Indiana, which were in fact effective anti-slaverysocieties, were to a large extent composed of women. To the librarywere added numerous other disguises, such as "reading circles, " "sewingsocieties, " "women's clubs. " In many communities the appearance of menin any of these enterprises would create suspicion or even raise a mob. But the women worked on quietly, effectively, and unnoticed. 

The matron of a family would be provided with the best riding-horsewhich the neighborhood could furnish. Mounted upon her steed, she wouldsally forth in the morning, meet her carefully selected friends ina town twenty miles away, gain information as to what had beenaccomplished, give information as to the work in other parts of thedistrict, distribute new literature, confer as to the best means ofextending their labors, and return in the afternoon. The father ofsuch a family was quite content with the humbler task of cooperation bysupplying the sinews of war. There was complete equality between husbandand wife because their aims were identical and each rendered the servicemost convenient and most needed. Women did what men could not do. Inthe territory of the enemy the men were reached through the gradual andtentative efforts of women whom the uninitiated supposed to be spendingidle hours at a sewing circle. Interest was maintained by the use ofinformation of the same general character as that which later took thecountry by storm in Uncle Tom's Cabin. In course of time all disguisewas thrown aside. A public speaker of national reputation would appear, a meeting would be announced, and a rousing abolition speech would bedelivered; the mere men of the neighborhood would have little conceptionhow the surprising change had been accomplished. 

On rare occasions the public presentation of the anti-slavery viewwould be undertaken prematurely, as in 1840 at Pendleton, Indiana, whenFrederick Douglass attempted to address a public meeting and was almostslain by missiles from the mob. Pendleton, however, was not given overto the enemy. The victim of the assault was restored to health in thefamily of a leading citizen. The outrage was judiciously utilizedto convince the fair-minded that one of the evils of slavery was thedevelopment of minds void of candor and justice. On the twenty-fifthanniversary of the Pendleton disturbance there was another great meetingin the town. Frederick Douglass was the hero of the occasion. The womanwho was the head of the family that restored him to health was on theplatform. Some of the men who threw the brickbats were there to makepublic confession and to apologize for the brutal deed. 

In the minds of a few persons of rare intellectual and logicalendowment, democracy has always implied the equality of the sexes. Fromthe time of the French Revolution there have been advocates of thisdoctrine. As early as 1820, Frances Wright, a young woman in Scotlandhaving knowledge of the Western republic founded upon the professedprinciples of liberty and equality, came to America for the expresspurpose of pleading the cause of equal rights for women. To thegeneral public her doctrine seemed revolutionary, threatening the veryfoundations of religion and morality. In the midst of opposition andpersecution she proclaimed views respecting the rights and duties ofwomen which today are generally accepted as axiomatic. 

The women who attended the meetings for the organization of the AmericanAnti-Slavery Society were not suffragists, nor had they espoused anyspecial theories respecting the position of women. They did not wish tobe members of the men's organizations but were quite content with theirown separate one, which served its purpose very well under prevailinglocal conditions. James G. Birney, the candidate of the Liberty partyfor the Presidency in 1840, had good reasons for opposition to theinclusion of men and women in the same organization. He knew that byacting separately they were winning their way. The introduction of anovel theory involving a different issue seemed to him likely to be asource of weakness. The cause of women was, however, gaining groundand winning converts. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton weredelegates to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention at London. Theylistened to the debate which ended in the refusal to recognize themas members of the Convention because they were women. The tone ofthe discussion convinced them that women were looked upon by men withdisdain and contempt. Because the laws of the land and the customs ofsociety consigned women to an inferior position, and because there wouldbe no place for effective public work on the part of women until theselaws were changed, both these women became advocates of women's rightsand conspicuous leaders in the initiation of the propaganda. TheReverend Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, New York, preached a sermon in 1845in which he stated his belief that women need not expect to have theirwrongs fully redressed until they themselves had a hand in the makingand in the administration of the laws. This is an early suggestionthat equal suffrage would become the ultimate goal of the efforts forrighting women's wrongs. 

At the same time there were accessions to the cause from a differentsource. In 1833 Oberlin College was founded in northern Ohio. Into someof the first classes there women were admitted on equal terms with men. In 1835 the trustees offered the presidency to Professor Asa Mahan, ofLane Seminary. He was himself an abolitionist from a slave State, and herefused to be President of Oberlin College unless negroes were admittedon equal terms with other students. Oberlin thus became the firstinstitution in the country which extended the privileges of the highereducation to both sexes of all races. It was a distinctly religiousinstitution devoted to radical reforms of many kinds. Not only was theuse of all intoxicating beverages discarded by faculty and students butthe use of tobacco as well was discouraged. 

Within fifteen years after the founding of Oberlin, there were womengraduates who had something to say on numerous questions of publicinterest. Especially was this true of the subject of temperance. Intemperance was a vice peculiar to men. Women and children were thechief sufferers, while men were the chief sinners. It was important, therefore, that men should be reached. In 1847 Lucy Stone, an Oberlingraduate, began to address public audiences on the subject. At the sametime Susan B. Anthony appeared as a temperance lecturer. The manner oftheir reception and the nature of their subject induced them to uniteheartily in the pending crusade for the equal rights of women. The threecauses thus became united in one. 

Along with the crusade against slavery, intemperance, and women'swrongs, arose a fourth, which was fundamentally connected with theslavery question: Quakers and Southern and Western abolitionists wereardently devoted to the interests of peace. They would abolish slaveryby peaceable means because they believed the alternative was a terriblewar. To escape an impending war they were nerved to do and dare and toincur great risks. New England abolitionists who labored in harmony withthose of the West and South were actuated by similar motives. Sumnerfirst gained public notice by a distinguished oration against war. Garrison went farther: he was a professional non-resistant, a root andbranch opponent of both war and slavery. John Brown was a fanaticalantagonist of war until he reached the conclusion that according to theDivine Will there should be a short war of liberation in place of thecontinuance of slavery, which was itself in his opinion the most cruelform of war. 

Slavery as a legally recognized institution disappeared with the CivilWar. The war against intemperance has made continuous progress and thisproblem is apparently approaching a solution. The war against war asa recognized institution has become the one all-absorbing problem ofcivilization. The war against the wrongs of women is being supplanted byefforts to harmonize the mutual privileges and duties of men and womenon the basis of complete equality. As Samuel May predicted more thanseventy years ago, in the future women are certain to take a hand bothin the making and in the administration of law. 

CHAPTER IV. THE TURNING-POINT

The year 1831 is notable for three events in the history of theanti-slavery controversy: on the first day of January in that yearWilliam Lloyd Garrison began in Boston the publication of the Liberator;in August there occurred in Southampton, Virginia, an insurrection ofslaves led by a negro, Nat Turner, in which sixty-one white personswere massacred; and in December the Virginia Legislature began its longdebate on the question of slavery. 

On the part of the abolitionists there was at no time any sudden breakin the principles which they advocated. Lundy did nothing but revive andcontinue the work of the Quakers and other non-slaveholding classesof the revolutionary period. Birney was and continued to be a typicalslaveholding abolitionist of the earlier period. Garrison began hiswork as a disciple of Lundy, whom he followed in the condemnation of theAfrican colonization scheme, though he went farther and rejected everyform of colonization. Garrison likewise repudiated every planfor gradual emancipation and proclaimed the duty of immediate andunconditional liberation of the slaves. 

The first number of the Liberator contained an Address to the Public, which sounded the keynote of Garrison's career. "I shall contend for theimmediate enfranchisement of our slave population--I will be as harsh astruth and as uncompromising as justice on this subject--I do not wish tothink, or speak, or write with moderation--I am in earnest--I will notequivocate--I will not retreat a single inch, and I WILL BE HEARD!"

The New England Anti-Slavery Society, of which Garrison was the chieforganizer, was in essential harmony with the societies which Lundy hadorganized in other sections. Its first address to the public in 1833distinctly recognized the separate States as the sole authority inthe matter of emancipation within their own boundaries. Through moralsuasion, eschewing all violence and sedition, its authors proposed tosecure their object. In the spirit of civil and religious liberty and byappealing to the Declaration of Independence, the Liberty party of 1840and 1844, by the Freesoil party of 1848, and later by the Republicanparty, and that nearly all of the abolitionists continued to be faithfuladherents to those principles, are sufficient proof of the essentialunity of the great anti-slavery movement. The apparent lack of harmonyand the real confusion in the history of the subject arose from thepeculiar character of one remarkable man. 

The few owners of slaves who had assumed the role of public defenders ofthe institution were in the habit of using violent and abusive languageagainst anti-slavery agitators. This appeared in the first debate onthe subject during Washington's administration. Every form of rhetoricalabuse also accompanied the outbreak of mob violence against thereformers at the time of Garrison's advent into the controversy. He wasespecially fitted to reply in kind. "I am accused, " said he, "of usinghard language. I admit the charge. I have not been able to find a softword to describe villainy, or to identify the perpetrator of it. " Thiswas a new departure which was instantly recognized by Southern leaders. But from the beginning to the bitter end, Garrison stands aloneas preeminently the representative of this form of attack. It wassignificant, also, that the Liberator was published in Boston, theliterary center of the country. 

There is no evidence that there was any direct connection between thepublication of the Liberator and the servile insurrection which occurredduring the following August. * It was, however, but natural that theSouth should associate the two events. A few utterances of the paperwere fitted, if not intended, to incite insurrection. One passagereads: "Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and theoppressor--the weapons being equal between the parties--God knows thatmy heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor. Therefore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slaveinsurrections. " Again: "Rather than see men wearing their chains ina cowardly and servile spirit, I would, as an advocate of peace, muchrather see them breaking the heads of the tyrant with their chains. "

 * Garrison himself denied any direct connection with the Nat Turner insurrection. See "William Lloyd Garrison, the Story of His Life told by His Children, " vol. I, p. 251. 

George Thompson, an English co-laborer with Garrison, is quoted assaying in a public address in 1835 that "Southern slaves ought, orat least had a right, to cut the throats of their masters. " * Suchutterances are rare, and they express a passing mood not in the leastcharacteristic of the general spirit of the abolition movement; yetthe fact that such statements did emanate from such a source made itcomparatively easy for extremists of the opposition to cast odium uponall abolitionists. The only type of abolition known in South Carolinawas that of the extreme Garrisonian agitators, and it furnished atleast a shadow of excuse for mob violence in the North and for completesuppression of discussion in the South. To encourage slaves to cutthe throats of their masters was far from being a rhetorical figure ofspeech in communities where slaves were in the majority. Santo Domingowas at the time a prosperous republic founded by former slaves who hadexterminated the Caucasian residents of the island. Negroes from SantoDomingo had fomented insurrection in South Carolina. The Nat Turnerincident was more than a suggestion of the dire possibilities of thesituation. Turner was a trusted slave, a preacher among the blacks. Hesucceeded in concealing his plot for weeks. When the massacre began, slaves not in the secret were induced to join. A majority of the slainwere women and children. Abolitionists who had lived in slave Statesnever indulged in flippant remarks fitted to incite insurrection. Thiswas reserved for the few agitators far removed from the scene of action. 

 * Schouler, "History of the United States under the Constitution, " vol. V, p. 217. 

Southern planters who had determined at all hazards to perpetuate theinstitution of slavery were peculiarly sensitive on account of what wastaking place in Spanish America and in the British West Indies. Mexicoabolished slavery in 1829, and united with Colombia in encouraging Cubato throw off the Spanish yoke, abolish slavery, and join the sisterhoodof New World republics. This led to an effective protest on the part ofthe United States. Both Spain and Mexico were advised that theUnited States could not with safety to its own interests permit theemancipation of slaves in the island of Cuba. But with the BritishEmancipation Act of 1833, Cuba became the only neighboring territory inwhich slavery was legal. These acts of emancipation added zeal to thedetermination of the Southern planters to secure territory for theindefinite extension of slavery to the southwest. When Lundy and Birneydiscovered these plans, their desire to husband and extend the directpolitical influence of abolitionists was greatly stimulated. To thisend they maintained a moderate and conservative attitude. They tookcare that no abuse or misrepresentation should betray them into anyexpression which would diminish their influence with fair-minded, reasonable men. They were convinced that a clear and complete revelationof the facts would lead a majority of the people to adopt their views. 

The debate in the Virginia Legislature in the session which met threemonths after the Southampton massacre furnishes a demonstration that thetraditional anti-slavery sentiment still persisted among the rulers ofthe Old Dominion. It arose out of a petition from the Quakers of theState asking for an investigation preparatory to a gradual emancipationof the slaves. The debate, which lasted for several weeks, was able andthorough. No stronger utterances in condemnation of slavery were evervoiced than appear in this debate. Different speakers made the statementthat no one presumed to defend slavery on principle--that apologists forslavery existed but no defenders. Opposition to the petition was in themain apologetic in tone. 

A darker picture of the blighting effects of slavery on the industriesof the country was never drawn than appears in these speeches. Slaverywas declared to be driving free laborers from the State, to have alreadydestroyed every industry except agriculture, and to have exhausted thesoil so that profitable agriculture was becoming extinct, while pinebrush was encroaching upon former fruitful fields. "Even the wolf, " saidone, "driven back long since by the approach of man, now returns, afterthe lapse of a hundred years, to howl over the desolations of slavery. "Contrasts between free labor in northern industry and that of the Southwere vividly portrayed. In a speech of great power, one member referredto Kentucky and Ohio as States "providentially designated to exhibit intheir future histories the differences which necessarily result from acountry free from, and a country afflicted with the curse of slavery. "

The debate was by no means confined to industrial or materialconsiderations. McDowell, who was afterwards elected Governor of theState, thus portrays the personal relations of master and slave "Youmay place the slave where you please--you may put him under any process, which, without destroying his value as a slave, will debase and crushhim as a rational being--you may do all this, and the idea that hewas born to be free will survive it all. It is allied to his hope ofimmortality--it is the ethereal part of his nature which oppressioncannot reach--it is a torch lit up in his soul by the hand of the Deity, and never meant to be extinguished by the hand of man. "

Various speakers assumed that the continuance of slavery involved abloody conflict; that either peaceably or through violence, slaveryas contrary to the spirit of the age must come to an end; that theagitation against it could not be suppressed. Faulkner drew a luridpicture of the danger from servile insurrection, in which he referred tothe utterances of two former speakers, one of whom had said that, unlesssomething effective was done to ward off the danger, "the throats of allthe white people of Virginia will be cut. " The other replied, "No, thewhites cannot be conquered--the throats of the blacks will be cut. "Faulkner's rejoinder was that the difference was a trifling one, "forthe fact is conceded that one race or the other must be exterminated. "

The public press joined in the debate. Leading editorials appeared inthe Richmond Enquirer urging that effective measures be instituted toput an end to slavery. The debate aroused much interest throughout theSouth. Substantially all the current abolition arguments appeared in thespeeches of the slave-owning members of the Virginia Legislature. Andwhat was done about it? Nothing at all. The petition was not granted;no action looking towards emancipation was taken. This was indeed aturning-point. Men do not continue to denounce in public their ownconduct unless their action results in some effort toward correctivemeasures. 

Professor Thomas Dew, of the chair of history and metaphysics in Williamand Mary College and later President of the College, published an essayreviewing the debate in the Legislature and arguing that any plan foremancipation in Virginia was either undesirable or impossible. This essay was among the first of the direct pro-slavery arguments. Statements in support of the view soon followed. In 1885 the Governor ofSouth Carolina in a message to the Legislature said, "Domestic slaveryis the corner-stone of our republican edifice. " Senator Calhoun, speaking in the Senate two years later, declared slavery to be apositive good. W. G. Simms, Southern poet and novelist, writing in 1852, felicitates himself as being among the first who about fifteen yearsearlier advocated slavery as a great good and a blessing. HarrietMartineau, an English author who traveled extensively in the South in1885, found few slaveholders who justified the institution as being initself just. But after the debates in the Virginia Legislature, therewere few owners of slaves who publicly advocated abolition. The spiritof mob violence had set in, and, contrary to the utterances of Virginiastatesmen, free speech on the subject of slavery was suppressed in theslave States. This did not mean that Southern statesmen had lostthe power to perceive the evil effects of slavery or that they wereconvinced that their former views were erroneous. It meant simply thatthey had failed to agree upon a policy of gradual emancipation, and theonly recourse left seemed to be to follow the example of James G. Birneyand leave the South or to submit in silence to the new order. 

CHAPTER V. THE VINDICATION OF LIBERTY

With the changed attitude of the South towards emancipation there wasassociated an active hostility to dearly bought human liberty. Freedomof speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, the right ofassembly, trial by jury, the right of petition, free use of the mails, and numerous other fundamental human rights were assailed. Birneyand other abolitionists who had immediate knowledge of slavery earlyperceived that the real question at issue was quite as much thecontinued liberty of the white man as it was the liberation of the blackman and that the enslavement of one race involved also the ultimateessential enslavement of the other. 

In 1831 two slave States and six free States still extended to freenegroes the right to vote. During the pro-slavery crusade theseprivileges disappeared; and not only so, but free negroes were banishedfrom certain States, or were not permitted to enter them, or wereallowed to remain only by choosing a white man for a guardian. It wasmade a crime to teach negroes, whether slaves or free men, to read andwrite. Under various pretexts free negroes were reduced to slavery. Freedom of worship was denied to negroes, and they were not allowed toassemble for any purpose except under the strict surveillance of whitemen. Negro testimony in a court of law was invalid where the rights of awhite man were involved. The right of a negro to his freedom was decidedby an arbitrary court without a jury, while the disputed right of awhite man to the ownership of a horse was conditioned by the safeguardof trial by jury. 

The maintenance of such policies carries with it of necessity thesuppression of free discussion. When Southern leaders adopted the policyof defending slavery as a righteous institution, abolitionists in theSouth either emigrated to the North or were silenced. In either casethey were deprived of a fundamental right. The spirit of persecutionfollowed them into the free States. Birney could not publish his paperin Kentucky, nor even at Cincinnati, save at the risk of his life. Elijah Lovejoy was not allowed to publish his paper in Missouri, and, when he persisted in publishing it in Illinois, he was brutallymurdered. Even in Boston it required men of courage and determinationto meet and organize an anti-slavery society in 1832, though only afew years earlier Benjamin Lundy had traveled freely through the Southitself delivering anti-slavery lectures and organizing scores of suchsocieties. The New York Anti-Slavery Society was secretly organized in1832 in spite of the opposition of a determined mob. Mob violence waseverywhere rife. Meetings were broken up, negro quarters attacked, property destroyed, murders committed. 

Fair-minded men became abolitionists on account of the crusade againstthe rights of white men quite as much as from their interest in therights of negroes. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was led to espouse the causeby observing the attacks upon the freedom of the press in Cincinnati. Gerrit Smith witnessed the breaking up of an anti-slavery meeting inUtica, New York, and thereafter consecrated his time, his talents, andhis great wealth to the cause of liberty. Wendell Phillips saw Garrisonin the hands of a Boston mob, and that experience determined him to makecommon cause with the martyr. And the murder of Lovejoy in 1837 mademany active abolitionists. 

It is difficult to imagine a more inoffensive practice than givingto negro girls the rudiments of an education. Yet a school for thispurpose, taught by Miss Prudence Crandall in Canterbury, Connecticut, was broken up by persistent persecution, a special act of theLegislature being passed for the purpose, forbidding the teachingof negroes from outside the State without the consent of the townauthorities. Under this act Miss Crandall was arrested, convicted, andimprisoned. 

Having eliminated free discussion from the South, the Southern Statessought to accomplish the same object in the North. In pursuance of aresolution of the Legislature, the Governor of Georgia offered a rewardof five thousand dollars to any one who should arrest, bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction under the laws of Georgia the editor ofthe Liberator. R. G. Williams, publishing agent for the AmericanAnti-Slavery Society, was indicted by a grand jury of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, and Governor Gayle of Alabama made a requisition on GovernorMarcy of New York for his extradition. Williams had never been inAlabama. His offense consisted in publishing in the New York Emancipatora few rather mild utterances against slavery. 

Governor McDuffie of South Carolina in an official message declaredthat slavery was the very corner-stone of the republic, adding thatthe laboring population of any country, "bleached or unbleached, " wasa dangerous element in the body politic, and predicting that withintwenty-five years the laboring people of the North would be virtuallyreduced to slavery. Referring to abolitionists, he said: "The laws ofevery community should punish this species of interference with deathwithout benefit of clergy. " Pursuant to the Governor's recommendation, the Legislature adopted a resolution calling upon non-slaveholdingStates to pass laws to suppress promptly and effectively all abolitionsocieties. In nearly all the slave States similar resolutionswere adopted, and concerted action against anti-slavery effort wasundertaken. During the winter of 1835 and 1836, the Governors of thefree States received these resolutions from the South and, instead ofresenting them as an uncalled-for interference with the rights of freecommonwealths, they treated them with respect. Edward Everett, Governorof Massachusetts, in his message presenting the Southern documents tothe Legislature, said: "Whatever by direct and necessary operation iscalculated to excite an insurrection among the slaves has been held, byhighly respectable legal authority, an offense against this Commonwealthwhich may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law. " Governor Marcyof New York, in a like document, declared that "without the power topass such laws the States would not possess all the necessary means forpreserving their external relations of peace among themselves. " Evenbefore the Southern requests reached Rhode Island, the Legislature hadunder consideration a bill to suppress abolition societies. 

When a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature had been dulyorganized to consider the documents received from the slave States, theabolitionists requested the privilege of a hearing before the committee. Receiving no reply, they proceeded to formulate a statement of theircase; but before they could publish it, they were invited to appearbefore the joint committee of the two houses. The public had beenaroused by the issue and there was a large audience. The case forthe abolitionists was stated by their ablest speakers, among whom wasWilliam Lloyd Garrison. They labored to convince the committee thattheir utterances were not incendiary, and that any legislative censuredirected against them would be an encouragement to mob violence and thepersecution which was already their lot. After the defensive argumentshad been fully presented, William Goodell took the floor and proceededto charge upon the Southern States which had made these demands aconspiracy against the liberties of the North. In the midst of greatexcitement and many interruptions by the chairman of the committee, hequoted the language of Governor McDuffie's message, and characterizedthe documents lying on the table before him as "fetters for Northernfreemen. " Then, turning to the committee, he began, "Mr. Chairman, areyou prepared to attempt to put them on?"--but the sentence was only halffinished when the stentorian voice of the chairman interrupted him: "Sitdown, sir!" and he sat down. The committee then arose and left the room. But the audience did not rise; they waited till other abolitionistsfound their tongues and gave expression to a fixed determination touphold the liberties purchased for them by the blood of their fathers. The Massachusetts Legislature did not comply with the request ofGovernor McDuffie of South Carolina to take the first step towards theenslavement of all laborers, white as well as black. And Rhode Islandrefused to enact into law the pending bill for the suppression ofanti-slavery societies. They declined to violate the plain requirementsof their Constitution that the interests of slavery might be promoted. Not many years later they were ready to strain or break the Constitutionfor the sake of liberty. 

In the general crusade against liberty churches proved more pliablethan States. The authority of nearly all the leading denominationswas directed against the abolitionists. The General Conference of theMethodist Episcopal Church passed in 1836 a resolution censuring two oftheir members who had lectured in favor of modern abolitionism. TheOhio Conference of the same denomination had passed resolutions urgingresistance to the anti-slavery movement. In June, 1836, the New YorkConference decided that no one should be chosen as deacon or elder whodid not give pledge that he would refrain from agitating the church onthe subject. 

The same spirit appeared in theological seminaries. The trustees of LaneSeminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, voted that students should not organizeor be members of anti-slavery societies or hold meetings or lecture orspeak on the subject. Whereupon the students left in a body, and manyof the professors withdrew and united with others in the founding of ananti-slavery college at Oberlin. 

A persistent attack was also directed against the use of the UnitedStates mails for the distribution of anti-slavery literature. Mobviolence which involved the post-office began as early as 1830, whenprinted copies of Miss Grimke's Appeal to the Christian Women of theSouth were seized and burned in Charleston. In 1835 large quantities ofanti-slavery literature were removed from the Charleston office andin the presence of the assembled citizens committed to the flames. Postmasters on their own motion examined the mails and refusedto deliver any matter that they deemed incendiary. Amos Kendall, Postmaster-General, was requested to issue an order authorizing suchconduct. He replied that he had no legal authority to issue such anorder. Yet he would not recommend the delivery of such papers. "We owe, "said he, "an obligation to the laws, but a higher one to the communitiesin which we live, and if the former be perverted to destroy the latter, it is patriotism to disregard them. Entertaining these views, I cannotsanction, and will not condemn, the step you have taken. " This is anearly instance of the appeal to the "higher law" in the pro-slaverycontroversy. The higher law was invoked against the freedom of thepress. The New York postmaster sought to dissuade the Anti-slaverySociety from the attempt to send its publications through the mails intoSouthern States. In reply to a request for authorization to refuse toaccept such publications, the Postmaster-General replied: "I amdeterred from giving an order to exclude the whole series of abolitionpublications from the Southern mails only by a want of legal power, andif I were situated as you are, I would do as you have done. "

Mr. Kendall's letters to the postmasters of Charleston and New Yorkwere written in July and August, 1835. In December of the same year, presumably with full knowledge that a member of his Cabinet wasencouraging violations of law in the interest of slavery, PresidentJackson undertook to supply the need of legal authorization. In hisannual message he made a savage attack upon the abolitionists andrecommended to Congress the "passing of such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, throughthe mail, of incendiary publications. "

This part of the President's message was referred to a select committee, of which John C. Calhoun was chairman. The chairman's report was againstthe adoption of the President's recommendation because a subject ofsuch vital interest to the States ought not to be left to Congress. The admission of the right of Congress to decide what is incendiary, asserted the report, carries with it the power to decide what isnot incendiary and hence Congress might authorize and enforce thecirculation of abolition literature through the mails in all the States. The States should themselves severally decide what in their judgment isincendiary, and then it would become the duty of the general Governmentto give effect to such state laws. The bill recommended was in harmonywith this view. It was made illegal for any deputy postmaster "todeliver to any person whatsoever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, orother printed paper, or pictorial representation touching the subjectof slavery, where by the laws of the said State, territory, or districttheir circulation is prohibited. " The bill was defeated in the Senate bya small margin. Altogether there was an enlightening debate on the wholesubject. The exposure of the abuse of tampering with the mail created ageneral reaction, which enabled the abolitionists to win a spectacularvictory. Instead of a law forbidding the circulation of anti-slaverypublications, Congress enacted a law requiring postal officials underheavy penalties to deliver without discrimination all matter committedto their charge. This act was signed by President Jackson, and Calhounhimself was induced to admit that the purposes of the abolitionists werenot violent and revolutionary. Henceforth abolitionists enjoyed theirfull privileges in the use of the United States mail. An even moredramatic victory was thrust upon the abolitionists by the inordinateviolence of their opponents in their attack upon the right of petition. John Quincy Adams, who became their distinguished champion, was nothimself an abolitionist. When, as a member of the lower House ofCongress in 1831, he presented petitions from certain citizens ofPennsylvania, presumably Quakers, requesting Congress to abolishslavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, he refused tocountenance their prayer, and expressed the wish that the memorialmight be referred without debate. At the very time when a New Englandex-President was thus advising abolitionists to desist from sendingpetitions to Congress, the Virginia Legislature was engaged in thememorable debate upon a similar petition from Virginia Quakers, in whichmost radical abolition sentiment was expressed by actual slaveowners. Adams continued to present anti-slavery memorials and at the same timeto express his opposition to the demands of the petitioners. Whenin 1835 there arose a decided opposition to the reception of suchdocuments, Adams, still in apparent sympathy with the pro-slavery Southon the main issue, gave wise counsel on the method of dealing withpetitions. They should be received, said he, and referred to acommittee; because the right of petition is sacred. This, he maintained, was the best way to avoid disturbing debate on the subject of slavery. He quoted his own previous experience; he had made known his oppositionto the purposes of the petitioners; their memorials were duly referredto a committee and there they slept the sleep of death. At that timeonly one voice had been raised in the House in support of the abolitionpetitioners, that of John Dickson of New York, who had delivered aspeech of two hours in length advocating their cause; but not a voicewas raised in reply. Mr. Adams mentioned this incident with approval. The way to forestall disturbing debate in Congress, he said, wasscrupulously to concede all constitutional rights and then simply torefrain from speaking on the subject. 

This sound advice was not followed. For several months a considerablepart of the time of the House was occupied with the question of handlingabolition petitions. And finally, in May, 1836, the following resolutionpassed the House: "Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatever tothe subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without beingeither printed or referred, be laid on the table, and that no furtheraction whatever shall be had thereon. " This is commonly known as the"gag resolution. " During four successive years it was reenacted in oneform or another and was not repealed by direct vote until 1844. 

When the name of Mr. Adams was called in the vote upon the passage ofthe above resolution, instead of answering in the ordinary way, he said:"I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution ofthe United States, of the rules of this House, and of the rights of myconstituents. " This was the beginning of the duel between the "old maneloquent" and a determined majority in the House of Representatives. Adams developed undreamed-of resources as a debater and parliamentarian. He made it his special business to break down the barrier against theright of petition. Abolitionists cooperated with zeal in the effort. Their champion was abundantly supplied with petitions. The gagresolution was designed to prevent all debate on the subject of slavery. Its effect in the hands of the shrewd parliamentarian was to fomentdebate. On one occasion, with great apparent innocence, after presentingthe usual abolition petitions, Adams called the attention of the Speakerto one which purported to be signed by twenty-two slaves and askedwhether such a petition should be presented to the House, since he washimself in doubt as to the rules applicable in such a case. This led toa furious outbreak in the House which lasted for three days. Adams wasthreatened with censure at the bar of the House, with expulsion, withthe grand jury, with the penitentiary; and it is believed that only hisgreat age and national repute shielded him from personal violence. Afternumerous passionate speeches had been delivered, Adams injected a fewimportant corrections into the debate. He reminded the House that hehad not presented a petition purporting to emanate from slaves; on thecontrary, he had expressly declined to present it until the Speakerhad decided whether a petition from slaves was covered by the rule. Moreover, the petition was not against slavery but in favor of slavery. He was then charged with the crime of trifling with the sensibilitiesof the House; and finally the champion of the right of petition tookthe floor in his own defense. His language cut to the quick. Hiscalumniators were made to feel the force of his biting sarcasm. Theywere convicted of injustice, and all their resolutions of censure werewithdrawn. The victory was complete. 

After the year 1838 John Quincy Adams had the effective support ofJoshua R. Giddings from the Western Reserve, Ohio--who also fought apitched battle of his own which illustrates another phase of the crusadeagainst liberty. The ship Creole had sailed from Baltimore to NewOrleans in 1841 with a cargo of slaves. The negroes mutinied on the highseas, slew one man, gained possession of the vessel, sailed to Nassau, and were there set free by the British Government. Prolonged diplomaticnegotiations followed in which our Government held that, as slaves wereproperty in the United States, they continued to be such on the highseas. In the midst of the controversy, Giddings introduced a resolutioninto the House, declaring that slavery, being an abridgment of liberty, could exist only under local rules, and that on the high seas there canbe no slavery. For this act Giddings was arraigned and censured bythe House. He at once resigned, but was reelected with instructions tocontinue the fight for freedom of debate in the House. 

In the campaign against the rights of freemen mob violence was firstemployed, but in the South the weapon of repressive legislation wassoon substituted, and this was powerfully supplemented by social andreligious ostracism. Except in a few districts in the border States, these measures were successful. Public profession of abolitionism wassuppressed. The violence of the mob was of much longer duration in theNorth and reached its height in the years 1834 and 1835. But Northernmobs only quickened the zeal of the abolitionists and made converts totheir cause. The attempt to substitute repressive state legislation hadthe same effect, and the use of church authority for making an end ofthe agitation for human liberty was only temporarily influential. 

As early as 1838 the Presbyterian Church was divided over questions ofdoctrine into Old School and New School Presbyterians. This served toforestall the impending division on the slavery question. The Old Schoolin the South became pro-slavery and the New School in the North becameanti-slavery. At the same time the Methodist Church of the entirecountry was beset by a division on the main question. In 1844 SouthernMethodist Episcopalian conferences resolved upon separation andcommitted themselves to the defense of slavery. The division in theMethodist Church was completed in 1846. A corresponding division tookplace in the Baptist Church in 1845. The controversy was dividing thecountry into a free North and an enslaved South, and Southern white menas well as negroes were threatened with subjection to the demands of thedominant institution. 

CHAPTER VI. THE SLAVERY ISSUE IN POLITICS

Some who opposed mob violence became active abolitionists; others wereled to defend the rights of abolitionists because to do otherwise wouldencourage anarchy and general disorder. The same was true of those whodefended the right of petition and the free use of the mails and theentire list of the fundamental rights of freemen which were threatenedby the crusade against abolitionists. Birney's contention that unlessthe slave is freed no one can be free was thus vindicated: the issueinvolved vastly more than the mere emancipation of slaves. 

The attack made in defense of slavery upon the rights of freemen wasearly recognized as involving civil war unless peaceable emancipationcould be attained. So soon as John Quincy Adams faced the new spirit inCongress, he was convinced that it meant probable war. As early asMay, 1836, he warned the South, saying: "From the instant that yourslaveholding States become the theater of war, civil, servile, orforeign, from that moment the war powers of the Constitution extendto interference with the institution of slavery. " This sentiment hereiterated and amplified on various occasions. The South was dulywarned that an attempt to disrupt the Union would involve a war of whichemancipation would be one of the consequences. With the exceptionof Garrison and a few of his personal followers, abolitionists wereunionists: they stood for the perpetual union of the States. 

This is not the place to give an extended account of the Mexican War. *There are, however, certain incidents connected with the annexationof Texas and the resulting war which profoundly affected the crusadeagainst slavery. Both Lundy and Birney in their missions to promoteemancipation through the process of colonization believed that they hadunearthed a plan on the part of Southern leaders to acquire territoryfrom Mexico for the purpose of extending slavery. This discoverycoincided with the suppression of abolition propaganda in the South. Hitherto John Quincy Adams had favored the western expansion of ourterritory. He had labored diligently to make the Rio Grande the westernboundary of the Louisiana Purchase at the time of the treaty with Spainin 1819. But though in 1825 he had supported a measure to purchase Texasfrom Mexico, under the new conditions he threw himself heartily againstthe annexation of Texas, and in 1838 he defeated in the House ofRepresentatives a resolution favoring annexation. To this end Adamsoccupied the morning hour of the House each day from the 16th of June tothe 7th of July, within two days of the time fixed for adjournment. This was only a beginning of his fight against the extension of slavery. There was no relenting in his opposition to pro-slavery demands until hewas stricken down with paralysis in the streets of Boston, in November, 1846. He never again addressed a public assembly. But he continued tooccupy his seat in Congress until February 23, 1848. 

 * See "Texas and the Mexican War" (in "The Chronicles of America"). 

The debate inaugurated in Congress by Adams and others over theextension of slave territory rapidly spread to the country at large, and interest in the question became general. Abolitionists were therebygreatly stimulated to put into practice their professed duty of seekingto accomplish their ends by political action. Their first effort wasto secure recognition in the regular parties. The Democrats answeredin their platform of 1840 by a plank specifically denouncing theabolitionists, and the Whigs proved either noncommittal or unfriendly. The result was that abolitionists organized a party of their own in1840 and nominated James G. Birney for the Presidency. Both of theolder parties during this campaign evaded the issue of the annexation ofTexas. In 1844 the Whigs again refrained from giving in their platformany official utterance on the Texas issue, though they were understoodto be opposed to annexation. The Democrats adroitly asserted in theirplatform their approval of the re-annexation of Texas and reoccupationof Oregon. There was a shadowy prior claim to both these regions, andby combining them in this way the party avoided any odious partialitytowards the acquisition of slave territory. But the voters in bothparties had become interested in the specific question whether thecountry was to enter upon a war of conquest whose primary object shouldbe the extension of slavery. In the North it became generally understoodthat a vote for Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, was an expression ofopposition to annexation. This issue, however, was not made clear in theSouth. In the absence of telegraph and daily paper it was quite possibleto maintain contradictory positions in different sections of thecountry. But since the Democrats everywhere openly favored annexation, the election of their candidate, James K. Polk, was generally acceptedas a popular approval of the annexation of Texas. Indeed, actionimmediately followed the election and, before the President-elect hadbeen inaugurated, the joint resolution for the annexation of Texaspassed both Houses of Congress. 

The popular vote was almost equally divided between Whigs and Democrats. Had the vote for Birney, who was again the candidate of the Libertyparty, been cast for Clay electors, Clay would have been chosenPresident. The Birney vote was over sixty-two thousand. The Libertyparty, therefore, held the balance of power and determined the result ofthe election. 

The Liberty party has often been censured for defeating the Whigsat this election of 1844. But many incidents, too early forgotten byhistorians, go far to justify the course of the leaders. Birney and Claywere at one time members of the same party. They were personal friends, and as slave holders they shared the view that slavery was a menace tothe country and ought to be abolished. It was just fourteen years beforethis election that Birney made a visit to Clay to induce him to acceptthe leadership of an organized movement to abolish slavery in Kentucky. Three years later, when Birney returned to Kentucky to do himself whatHenry Clay had refused to do, he became convinced that the reactionwhich had taken place in favor of slavery was largely due to Clay'sinfluence. This was a common impression among active abolitionists. It is not strange, therefore, that they refused to support him as acandidate for the Presidency, and it is not at all certain that hiselection in 1844 would have prevented the war with Mexico. 

Northern Whigs accused the Democrats of fomenting a war with Mexico withthe intention of gaining territory for the purpose of extending slavery. Democrats denied that the annexation of Texas would lead to war, andmany of them proclaimed their opposition to the farther extension ofslavery. In harmony with this sentiment, when President Polk asked for agrant of two million dollars to aid in making a treaty with Mexico, theyattached to the bill granting the amount a proviso to the effect thatslavery should forever be prohibited in any territory which might beobtained from Mexico by the contemplated treaty. The proviso was writtenby an Ohio Democrat and was introduced in the House by David A. Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, after whom it is known. It passed the Houseby a fair majority with the support of both Whigs and Democrats. At thetime of the original introduction in August, 1846, the Senate did notvote upon the measure. Davis of Massachusetts moved its adoption butinadvertently prolonged his speech in its favor until the hour foradjournment. Hence there was no vote on the subject. Subsequently theproviso in a new form again passed the House but failed of adoption inthe Senate. 

During the war the Wilmot Proviso was the subject of frequent debatein Congress and of continuous debate throughout the country untilthe treaty with Mexico was signed in 1848. A vast territory had beenacquired as a result of the war, and no decision had been reached asto whether it should remain free or be opened to settlement byslave-owners. Another presidential election was at hand. For fully tenyears there had been ever-increasing excitement over the question ofthe limitation or the extension of slavery. This had clearly becomethe topic of supreme interest throughout the country, and yet the twoleading parties avoided the issue. Their own membership was divided. Northern Democrats, many of them, were decidedly opposed to slaveryextension. Southern Whigs with equal intensity favored the extension ofslavery into the new territory. The platforms of the two parties weresilent on the subject. The Whigs nominated Taylor, a Southern generalwho had never voted their party ticket, but they made no formaldeclaration of principles. The Democrats repeated with colorlessadditions their platforms of 1840 anti 1844 and sought to win theelection with a Northern man, Lewis Cass of Michigan, as candidate. 

There was, therefore, a clear field for a party having fully definedviews to express on a topic of commanding interest. The cleavage in theDemocratic party already begun by the debate over the Wilmot Proviso wasfarther promoted by a factional division of New York Democrats. MartinVan Buren became the leader of the liberal faction, the "Barnburners, "who nominated him for President at a convention at Utica. The spirit ofindependence now seized disaffected Whigs and Democrats everywherein the North and Northwest. Men of anti-slavery proclivities heldnonpartizan meetings and conventions. The movement finally culminatedin the famous Buffalo convention which gave birth to the Freesoil party. The delegates of all political persuasions united on the one principleof opposition to slavery. They adopted a ringing platform closing withthe words: "Resolved, That we inscribe on our banner 'Free Soil, FreeSpeech, Free Labor, and Free Men, ' and under it will fight on, andfight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions. " Theyaccepted Van Buren as their candidate. The vote at the ensuing electionwas more than fourfold that given to Birney in 1844. The Van Burensupporters held the balance of power between Whigs and Democrats intwelve States. Taylor was elected by the vote of New York, which exceptfor the division in the party would have gone to Cass. There was nolonger any doubt of the fact that a political force had arisen whichcould no longer be ignored by the ruling parties. One of the partiesmust either support the new issue or give place to a party which woulddo so. 

A political party for the defense of liberty was the fulfillment of theaspirations of all earnest anti-slavery men and of all abolitionistsnot of the radical Garrisonian persuasion. The national anti-slaverysocieties were for the most part limited in their operations to theAtlantic seaboard. The West organized local and state associationswith little reference to the national association. When the disruptionoccurred between Garrison and his opponents in 1840, the Westernabolitionists continued their former methods of local organization. Theyrecognized no divisions in their ranks and continued to work inharmony with all who in any way opposed the institution of slavery. Thepolitical party was their first really effective national organization. Through party committees, caucuses, and conventions, they became a partof the forces that controlled the nation. The older local clubs andassociations were either displaced by the party or became mere adjunctsto the party. 

The lines for political action were now clearly defined. In theStates emancipation should be accomplished by state action. With a fewindividual exceptions the leaders conceded that Congress had no powerto abolish slavery in the States. Upon the general Government they urgedthe duty of abolishing both slavery and the slave-trade in the Districtof Columbia and in all areas under direct federal control. They furtherurged upon the Government the strict enforcement of the laws prohibitingthe foreign slave-trade and the enactment of laws forbidding theinterstate slave-trade. The constitutionality of these main lines ofaction has been generally conceded. 

Abolitionists were pioneers in the formulation of political platforms. The declaration of principles drawn up by Garrison in 1833 and adoptedby the American Anti-Slavery Society was of the nature of a politicalplatform. The duty of voting in furtherance of the policy ofemancipation was inculcated. No platform was adopted for the firstpolitical campaign, that of 1840; but four years later there was anelaborate party platform of twenty-one resolutions. Many things hadhappened in the eleven years intervening since the declaration ofprinciples of the American Anti-Slavery Society. In the earlier platformthe freedom of the slave appears as the primary object. That of theLiberty party assumes the broad principle of human brotherhood as thefoundation for a democracy or a republic. It denies that the party isorganized merely to free the slave. Slaveholding as the grossest form ofdespotism must indeed be attacked first, but the aim of the party is tocarry the principle of equal rights into all social relations. It is nota sectional party nor a party organized for a single purpose. "It is nota new party, nor a third party, but it is the party of 1776, revivingthe principles of that memorable era, and striving to carry them intopractical application. " The spirit of '76 rings, indeed, throughoutthe document, which declares that it was understood at the time of theDeclaration and the Constitution that the existence of slavery was inderogation of the principles of American liberty. The implied faithof the Nation and the States was pledged to remove this stain upon thenational character. Some States had nobly fulfilled that pledge; othersshamelessly had neglected to do so. 

These principles are reasserted in succeeding platforms. The lateropponents of slavery in their principles and policies thus alliedthemselves with the founders of the republic. They claimed the right tocontinue to repeat the words of Washington and Jefferson and those ofthe members of the Virginia Legislature of 1832. No new doctrines wererequired. It was enough simply to reaffirm the fundamental principles ofdemocracy. 

The names attached to the party are significant. It was at firstpopularly styled the Abolition party, then officially in turn theLiberty party, the Freesoil party, and finally the Republican party. Republican was the name first applied to the Democratic party--the partyof Jefferson. The term Democrat was gradually substituted under theleadership of Jackson before 1830. Some of the men who participatedin the organization of the later Republican party had themselves beenRepublicans in the party of Jefferson. They not only accepted the namewhich Jefferson gave to his party, but they adopted the principles whichJefferson proclaimed on the subject of slavery, free soil, and humanrights in general. This was the final stage in the identification of thelater anti-slavery crusade with the earlier contest for liberty. 

CHAPTER VII. THE PASSING OF THE WHIG PARTY

The middle of the last century was marked by many incidents which haveleft a permanent impress upon politics in general and upon the slaveryquestion in particular. Europe was again in the throes of popularuprisings. New constitutions were adopted in France, Switzerland, Prussia, and Austria. Reactions in favor of autocracy in Austria andGermany sent multitudes of lovers of liberty to America. Kossuth, theHungarian revolutionist, electrified American audiences by his appealson behalf of the downtrodden in Europe. Already the world was growingsmaller. America did not stop at the Pacific but crossed the ocean toestablish permanent political and commercial relations with Japan andChina. 

The industries of the country were being reorganized to meet newconditions created by recent inventions. The electric telegraph wasjust coming into use, giving rise to a new era in communication. Thediscovery of gold in California in 1848 was followed by competingprojects to construct railroads to the Pacific with Chicago and St. Louis as the rival eastern terminals. The telegraph, the railway, and the resulting industrial development proved great nationalizinginfluences. They served also to give increased emphasis to the contrastbetween the industries of the free and those of the slave States. TheCensus of 1850 became an effective anti-slavery argument. 

The telegraph also gave new life to the public press. The presidentialcampaign of 1848 was the last one in which it was possible to carry oncontradictory arguments in support of the same candidate. If slaverycould not endure the test of untrammeled discussion when there were nomeans of rapid intercommunication such as the telegraph supplied, howcould it contend against the revelations of the daily press with the newtype of reporter and interviewer which was now developed?

It is a remarkable coincidence that in the midst of the passing of theold and the coming in of the new order there should be a change in thepolitical leadership of the country. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, John QuincyAdams, not to mention others, all died near the middle of the century, and their political power passed to younger men. Adams gave his blessingto a young friend and co-laborer, William H. Seward of New York, intimating that he expected him to do much to curb the threatening powerof the slaveholding oligarchy; while Andrew Jackson, who died earlier, had already conferred a like distinction upon young Stephen A. Douglas. There was no lack of aspirants for the fallen mantles. 

John C. Calhoun continued almost to the day of his death to modify hisinterpretation of the Constitution in the interest of his section. Asa young man he avowed protectionist principles. Becoming convinced thatslave labor was not suited to manufacture, he urged South Carolina todeclare the protective tariff laws null and void within her limits. When his section seemed endangered by the distribution of anti-slaveryliterature through the mail, he extemporized a theory that each Statehad a right to pass statutes to protect itself in such an emergency, inwhich case it became the duty of the general Government and of all otherStates to respect such laws. When it finally appeared that the territoryacquired from Mexico was likely to remain free, the same statesman madefurther discoveries. He found that Congress had no right to excludeslavery from any Territory belonging to the United States; that theowners of slaves had equal rights with the owners of other property;that neither Congress nor a territorial authority had any powerto exclude slaves from a Territory. This doctrine was accepted byextremists in the South and was finally embodied in the Dred Scottdecision of 1857. 

Abolitionists had meantime evolved a precisely contradictory theory. They asserted that the Constitution gave no warrant for property in man, except as held under state laws; that with this exception freedom wasguaranteed to all; that Congress had no more right to make a slave thanit had to make a king; and that it was the duty of Congress to maintainfreedom in all the Territories. Extremists expressed the view that allpast acts whereby slavery had been extended were unconstitutionaland therefore void. Between these extreme conflicting views was everyimaginable grade of opinion. The prevailing view of opponents ofslavery, however, was in harmony with their past conduct and maintainedthat Congress had complete control over slavery in the Territories. 

When the Mexican territory was acquired, Stephen A. Douglas, as theexperienced chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Senate, wasalready developing a theory respecting slavery in the Territorieswhich was destined to play a leading part in the later crusade againstslavery. Douglas was the most thoroughgoing of expansionists and wouldacknowledge no northern boundary on this side of the North Pole, nosouthern boundary nearer than Panama. He regarded the United States, with its great principle of local autonomy, as fitted to becomeeventually the United States of the whole world, while he held it to bean immediate duty to make it the United States of North America. As theson-in-law of a Southern planter in North Carolina, and as the fatherof sons who inherited slave property, Douglas, although born in Vermont, knew the South as did no other Northern statesman. He knew also theinstitution of slavery at first hand. As a pronounced expansionistand as the congressional leader in all matters pertaining to theTerritories, he acquired detailed information as to the qualities ofthese new possessions, and he spoke, therefore, with a good degree ofauthority when he said, "If there was one inch of territory in the wholeof our acquisitions from Mexico where slavery could exist, it was in thevalleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin. " But this region was atonce preempted for freedom upon the discovery of gold. 

Douglas did not admit that even the whole of Texas would remaindedicated to slavery. Some of the States to be formed from it would befree, by the same laws of climate and resources which determined thatthe entire West would remain free. Before the Mexican War the Senatorhad become convinced that the extension of slavery had reached itslimit; that the Missouri Compromise was a dead letter except as apsychological palliative; that Nature had already ordained that slavelabor should be forever excluded from all Western territory both northand south of that line. His reply to Calhoun's contention that a balancemust be maintained between slave and free States was that he had plansfor forming seventeen new States out of the vast Western domains, everyone of which would be free. And besides, said he, "we all look forwardwith confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee will adopt agradual system of emancipation. " Douglas was one of the first to favorthe admission of California as a free State. According to the MissouriCompromise law and the laws of Mexico, all Western territory wasfree, and he was opposed to interference with existing conditions. TheMissouri Compromise was still held sacred. Finally, however, it was withDouglas's assistance that the Compromise measures of 1850 were passed, one of which provided for territorial Governments for Utah and NewMexico with the proviso that, when admitted as States, slavery should bepermitted or prohibited as the citizens of those States should determineat the time. Congress refrained from any declaration as to slavery inthe Territories. It was this policy of "non-intervention" which fouryears later furnished plausible excuse for the repeal of the MissouriCompromise. 

It was not strange that there was general ignorance in all parts of thecountry as to the resources of the newly acquired territory. The rushto the goldfields precipitated action in respect to California. BeforeGeneral Taylor, the newly elected President, was inaugurated, therewas imminent need of an efficient government. An early act of theAdministration was to send an agent to assist in the formation of astate Government, and a convention was immediately called to frame aconstitution. By unanimous vote of the convention, slavery was excluded. The constitution was approved by popular vote and was presented toCongress for final acceptance in December, 1849. 

In the meantime a great commotion had arisen among the people. Southernstate legislatures passed resolutions demanding that the rights of theirpeculiar institution should be recognized in the new Territory. Northernlegislatures responded with resolutions favoring the admission ofCalifornia as a State and the application of the Wilmot Proviso to theremaining territory. Northern Democrats had very generally denied thatthe affair with Mexico had as a chief purpose the extension of slavery. Democrats therefore united with Whigs in maintaining the principle offree soil. In the South there was a corresponding fusion of the twoparties in support of the sectional issue. 

General concern prevailed as to the attitude of the Administration. Taylor's election had been effected by both a Southern and a Northernsplit in the Democratic party. Northern Democrats had voted for theFree-soil candidate because of the alleged pro-slavery tendencies oftheir own party. Southern Democrats voted for Taylor because of theirdistrust of Lewis Cass, their own candidate. Some of these met inconvention and formally nominated Taylor, and Taylor accepted theirnomination with thanks. Northern anti-slavery Whigs had a difficult taskto keep their members in line. There is evidence that Taylor held thetraditional Southern view that the anti-slavery North was disposedto encroach upon the rights of the South. Meeting fewer NorthernWhig supporters, he became convinced that the more active spirit ofencroachment was in the pro-slavery South. California needed a stateGovernment, and the President took the most direct method to supplythat need. As the inhabitants were unanimous in their desire to excludeslavery, their wish should be respected. New Mexico was in a similarsituation. As slavery was already excluded from the territory underMexican law, and as there was no wish on the part of the inhabitants tointroduce slavery, the President recognized existing facts and madeno change. When Southern leaders projected a scheme to enlarge theboundaries of Texas so as to extend slavery over a large part of NewMexico, President Taylor set a guard of United States troops to maintainthe integrity of the Territory. When a deputation of Southern Whigsendeavored to dissuade him from his purpose, threatening a dissolutionof the Union and intimating that army officers would refuse to actagainst citizens of Texas, the soldier President replied that in such anevent he would take command in person and would hang any one caught inacts of treason. When Henry Clay introduced an elaborate project for acompromise between the North and the South, the President insistedthat each question should be settled on its own merits and directed theforces of the Administration against any sort of compromise. The debateover Clay's Omnibus Bill was long and acrimonious. On July 4, 1850, the President seemed triumphant. But upon that day, notwithstanding hisapparent robust health, he was stricken down with an acute disease anddied five days later. With his passing, the opposing Whig faction cameinto power. The so-called compromise measures were at length one by onepassed by Congress and approved by President Fillmore. 

California was admitted as a free State; but as a palliative to theSouth, Congress passed bills for the organization of territorialGovernments for New Mexico and Utah without positive declarationsregarding the powers of the territorial Legislatures over slavery. Allquestions relating to title to slaves were to be left to the courts. Meantime it was left in doubt whether Mexican law excluding slavery wasstill in force. Southern malcontents maintained that this act was amere hoax, using words which suggested concession when no concession wasintended. Northern anti-slavery men criticized the act as the enteringwedge for another great surrender to the enemy. Because of theuncertainty regarding the meaning of the law and the false hopes likelyto be created, they maintained that it was fitted to foment discord andprolong the period of distrust between the two sections. At all eventssuch was its actual effect. 

A third act in this unhappy series gave to Texas ten millions of dollarsfor the alleged surrender of claims to a part of New Mexico. This hadlittle bearing on the general subject of compromise; yet anti-slaverymen criticized it on the ground that the issue raised was insincere;that the appropriation was in fact a bribe to secure votes necessary topass the other measures; that the bill was passed through Congressby shameless bribery, and that even the boundaries conceded to Texasinvolved the surrender of free territory. 

The abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia wassupported by both sections of the country. The removal of the slavepens within sight of the Capitol to a neighboring city deprived theabolitionists of one of their weapons for effective agitation, but itdid not otherwise affect the position of slavery. 

Of the five acts included in the compromise measures, the one whichprovided for the return of fugitive slaves was most effective in thepromotion of hostility between the two sections. During the six monthsof debate on the Omnibus Bill, numerous bills were presented to take theplace of the law of 1793. Webster brought forward a bill which providedfor the use of a jury to establish the validity of a claim to an escapedslave. But that which was finally adopted by a worn-out Congress ischaracterized as one of the most barbarous pieces of legislation everenacted by a civilized country. A single incident may indicate thenature of the act. James Hamlet, for three years a resident of New YorkCity, a husband and a father and a member of the Methodist Church, wasseized eight days after the law went into effect by order of the agentof Mary Brown of Baltimore, cut off from all communication with hisfriends, hurried before a commissioner, and on ex parte testimony wasdelivered into the hands of the agent, by whom he was handcuffed andsecretly conveyed to Baltimore. Mr. Rhodes accounts for the enactmentin the following words: "If we look below the surface we shall find astrong impelling motive of the Southern clamor for this harsh enactmentother than the natural desire to recover lost property. Early in thesession it took air that a part of the game of the disunionists was topress a stringent fugitive slave law, for which no Northern man couldvote; and when it was defeated, the North would be charged with refusalto carry out a stipulation of the Constitution. .. . The admission ofCalifornia was a bitter pill for the Southern ultras, but they wereforced to take it. The Fugitive Slave Law was a taunt and a reproach tothat part of the North where the anti-slavery sentiment ruled supremely, and was deemed a partial compensation. " Clay expressed surprise thatStates from which few slaves escaped demanded a more stringent law thanKentucky, from which many escaped. 

Whatever may have been the motives leading to the enactment, itsimmediate effect was the elimination of one of the great nationalparties, thus paving the way for the formation of parties alongsectional lines. Two years after the passage of the compromise acts theDemocratic national convention assembled to nominate a candidate forthe Presidency. The platform adopted by the party promised a faithfulexecution of the acts known as the compromise measures and added "theact for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included; which act, being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed nor so changed as to destroyor impair its efficiency. " When this was read, the convention broke outin uproarious applause. Then there was a demand that it should be readagain. Again there was loud applause. 

Why was there this demand that a law which every one knew had proved acomplete failure should be made a permanent part of the Constitution?And why the ungovernable hilarity over the demand that its "efficiency"should never be impaired? Surely the motive was something other than adesire to recover lost property. Upon the Whig party had been fastenedthe odium for the enactment of the law, and the act unrepealed meant thedeath of the party. The Democrats saw good reason for laughter. 

CHAPTER VIII. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Wherever there are slaves there are fugitives if there is an availableplace of refuge. The wilds of Florida were such a refuge during theearly part of last century. When the Northern States became free, fugitive slaves began to escape thither, and Canada, when it could bereached, was, of course, the goal of perfect security and liberty forall. 

A professed object of the early anti-slavery societies was to preventthe enslavement of free negroes and in other ways to protect theirrights. During the process of emancipation in Northern States largenumbers of colored persons were spirited off to the South and sold intoslavery. At various places along the border there were those who madeit their duty to guard the rights of negroes and to prevent kidnapping. These guardians of the border furnished a nucleus for the development ofwhat was later known as the Underground Railroad. 

In 1796 President Washington wrote a letter to a friend in New Hampshirewith reference to obtaining the return of a negro servant. He wascareful to state that the servant should remain unmolested rather than"excite a mob or riot or even uneasy sensations in the minds of welldisposed citizens. " The result was that the servant remained free. President Washington here assumed that "well disposed citizens" wouldoppose her return to slavery. Three years earlier the President hadhimself signed a bill to facilitate by legal process the return offugitives escaping into other States. He was certainly aware that suchan act was on the statute books when he wrote his request to his friendin New Hampshire, yet he expected that, if an attempt were made toremove the refugee by force, riot and resistance by a mob would be theresult. 

Not until after the foreign slave-trade had been prohibited and thedomestic trade had been developed, and not until there was a pro-slaveryreaction in the South which banished from the slave States allanti-slavery propaganda, did the systematic assistance renderedto fugitive slaves assume any large proportions or arouse bitterresentment. It began in the late twenties and early thirties ofthe nineteenth century, extended with the spread of anti-slaveryorganization, and was greatly encouraged and stimulated by the enactmentof the law of 1850. 

The Underground Railroad was never coextensive with the abolitionmovement. There were always abolitionists who disapproved the practiceof assisting fugitives, and others who took no part in it. Of thosewho were active participants, the larger proportion confined theiractivities to assisting those who had escaped and would take no part inseeking to induce slaves to leave their masters. Efforts of that kindwere limited to a few individuals only. 

Incidents drawn from the reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the reputedpresident of the Underground Railroad, may serve to illustrate theorigin and growth of the system. He was seven years old when he firstsaw near his home in North Carolina a coffle of slaves being driven tothe Southern market by a man on horseback with a long whip. "The driverwas some distance behind with the wagon. My father addressed the slavespleasantly and then asked, 'Well, boys, why do they chain you?' Oneof the men whose countenance betrayed unusual intelligence and whoseexpression denoted the deepest sadness replied: 'They have taken us fromour wives and children and they chain us lest we should make our escapeand go back to them. "' When Coffin was fifteen, he rendered assistanceto a man in bondage. Having an opportunity to talk with the members of agang in the hands of a trader bound for the Southern market, he learnedthat one of the company, named Stephen, was a freeman who had beenkidnapped and sold. Letters were written to Northern friends of Stephenwho confirmed his assertion. Money was raised in the Quaker meeting andmen were sent to recover the negro. Stephen was found in Georgia andafter six months was liberated. 

During the year 1821 other incidents occurred in the Quaker community atNew Garden, near Greensboro, North Carolina, which illustrate differentphases of the subject. Jack Barnes was the slave of a bachelor whobecame so greatly attached to his servant that he bequeathed to himnot only his freedom but also a large share of his property. Relativesinstituted measures to break the will, and Jack in alarm took refugeamong the Quakers at New Garden. The suit went against the negro, andthe newspapers contained advertisements offering a hundred dollars forinformation which should result in his recovery. To prevent his returnto bondage, it was decided that Jack should join a family of Coffins whowere moving to Indiana. 

At the same time a negro by the name of Sam had for several months beenabiding in the Quaker neighborhood. He belonged to a Mr. Osborne, aprototype of Simon Legree, who was so notoriously cruel that otherslave-owners assisted in protecting his victims. After the Coffins, withJack, had been on the road for a few days, Osborne learned that a negrowas with them and, feeling sure that it was his Sam, he started in hothaste after them. This becoming known to the Friends, young Levi Coffinwas sent after Osborne to forestall disaster. The descriptions given ofJack and Sam were practically identical and it was surmised that whenOsborne should overtake the party and discover his mistake, he wouldseize Jack for the sake of the offered reward. Coffin soon came up withOsborne and decided to ride with him for a time to learn his plans. In the course of their conversation, it was finally agreed that Coffinshould assist in the recovery of Sam. Osborne was also generous andinsisted that if it proved to be the other "nigger" who was with thecompany, Coffin should have half the reward. How the young Quakeroutwitted the tyrant, gained his point, sent Jack on his way to liberty, and at the same time retained the confidence of Osborne so that upontheir return home he was definitely engaged to assist Osborne in findingSam, is a fascinating story. The abolitionist won from the slaveholderthe doubtful compliment that "there was not a man in that neighborhoodworth a d--n to help him hunt his negro except young Levi Coffin. "

Sam was perfectly safe so long as Levi Coffin was guide for thehunting-party, but matters were becoming desperate. For the fugitivesomething had to be done. Another family was planning to move toIndiana, and in their wagon Sam was to be concealed and thus conveyed toa free State. The business had now become serious. The laws of the Stateaffixed the death penalty for stealing a slave. At night when youngCoffin and his father, with Sam, were on their way to completearrangements for the departure, horsemen appeared in the road near by. They had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground behind alog. From the conversation overheard, they were assured that they hadnarrowly escaped the night-riders on the lookout for stray negroes. Thenext year, 1822, Coffin himself joined a party going to Indiana by thesouthern route through Tennessee and Kentucky. In the latter State theywere at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a petdog, but whose real purpose was to recover runaway slaves. They insistedupon examining the contents of the wagons, for in this way only a shorttime previous a fugitive had been captured. 

These incidents show the origin of the system. The first case ofassistance rendered a negro was not in itself illegal, but was intendedmerely to prevent the crime of kidnapping. The second was illegal inform, but the aid was given to one who, having been set free by will, was being reenslaved, it was believed, by an unjust decision of a court. The third was a case of outrageous abuse on the part of the owner. Thenegro Sam had himself gone to a trader begging that he would buy him andpreferring to take his chances on a Mississippi plantation rather thanreturn to his master. The trader offered the customary price and wasmet with the reply that he could have the rascal if he would wait untilafter the enraged owner had taken his revenge, otherwise the pricewould be twice the amount offered. A large proportion of the fugitivesbelonged to this maltreated class. Others were goaded to escape by theprospect of deportation to the Gulf States. The fugitives generallyfollowed the beaten line of travel to the North and West. 

In 1826 Levi Coffin became a merchant in Newport, Indiana, a town nearthe Ohio line not far from Richmond. In the town and in its neighborhoodlived a large number of free negroes who were the descendants of formerslaves whom North Carolina Quakers had set free and had colonized in thenew country. Coffin found that these blacks were accustomed to assistfugitives on their way to Canada. When he also learnt that some had beencaptured and returned to bondage merely through lack of skill on thepart of the negroes, he assumed active operations as a conductor on theUnderground Railroad. 

Coffin used the Underground Railroad as a means of making converts tothe cause. One who berated him for negro-stealing was adroitly inducedto meet a newly arrived passenger and listen to his pathetic story. Atthe psychological moment the objector was skillfully led to hand thefugitive a dollar to assist him in reaching a place of safety. Coffinthen explained to this benevolent non-abolitionist the nature of hisact, assuring him that he was liable to heavy damages therefor. Thereply was in this case more forcible than elegant: "Damn it! You'vegot me!" This conversion he publicly proclaimed for the sake of itsinfluence upon others. Many were the instances in which those ofsupposed pro-slavery convictions were brought face to face with anactual case of the threatened reenslavement of a human being escapingfrom bondage and were, to their own surprise, overcome by the natural, humane sentiment which asserted itself. For example, a Cincinnatimerchant, who at the time was supposed to be assisting one of hisSouthern customers to recover an escaped fugitive, was confronted athis own home by the poor half-starved victim. Yielding to the impulse ofcompassion, he gave the slave food and personal assistance and directedthe destitute creature to a place of refuge. 

The division in the Quaker meeting in Indiana with which Levi Coffin wasintimately associated may serve to exemplify a corresponding attitudein other churches on the question of slavery. The Quakers availedthemselves of the first great anti-slavery movement to rid themselvescompletely of the burden. Their Society itself became an anti-slaveryorganization. Yet even so the Friends had differences of opinion as tofit methods of action. Not only did many of them disapprove of renderingaid to fugitives but they also objected to the use of the meetinghousesfor anti-slavery lectures. The formation of the Liberty party served toaccentuate the division. The great body of the Friends were anti-slaveryWhigs. 

A crisis in the affairs of the Society of Friends in the State ofIndiana was reached in 1843 when the radicals seceded and organized anindependent "Anti-Slavery Friends Society. " Immediately there appearedin numerous localities duplicate Friends' meeting-houses. In and aroundone of these, distinguished as "Liberty Hall, " were gathered those whosesupreme religious interest was directed against the sin of slavery. Never was there a church division which involved less bad blood or senseof injury or injustice. Members of the same family attended separatechurches without the least difference in their cordial relations. Noimportant principle was involved; there were apparently good reasonsfor both lines of policy, and each party understood and respected theother's position. After the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850and the passing of the Whig party, these differences disappeared, theseparate organization was disbanded, and all Friends' meetinghousesbecame "liberty halls. "

The disposition to aid the fugitive was by no means confined to theNorth nor to Quakers in the South. Richard Dillingham, a young Quakerwho had yielded to the solicitations of escaped fugitives in Cincinnatiand had undertaken a mission to Nashville, Tennessee, to rescue theirrelatives from a "hard master, " was arrested with three stolen slaveson his hands. He made confession in open court and frankly explainedhis motives. The Nashville Daily Gazette of April 13, 1849, has words ofcommendation for the prisoner and his family and states that "he was notwithout the sympathy of those who attended the trial. " Though Dillinghamcommitted a crime to which the death penalty was attached in some ofthe States, the jury affixed the minimum penalty of three years'imprisonment for the offense. As Nashville was far removed from Quakerinfluence or any sort of anti-slavery propaganda, Dillingham was himselfastonished and was profoundly grateful for the leniency shown him byCourt, jury, and prosecutors. This incident occurred in the year beforethe adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. It is well known that inall times and places which were free from partizan bitterness therewas a general natural sympathy for those who imperiled their life andliberty to free the slave. Throughout the South men of both races wereready to give aid to slaves seeking to escape from dangers or burdenswhich they regarded as intolerable. While such a man as FrederickDouglass, when still a slave, was an agent of the Underground Railroad, Southern anti-slavery people themselves were to a large extent theoriginal projectors of the movement. Even members of the families ofslaveholders have been known to assist fugitives in their escape to theNorth. 

The fugitives traveled in various ways which were determined partly bygeographical conditions and partly by the character of the inhabitantsof a region. On the Atlantic coast, from Florida to Delaware, slaveswere concealed in ships and were thus conveyed to free States. Thencesome made their way towards Canada by steamboat or railroad, though mostmade the journey on foot or, less frequently, in private conveyances. Stalwart slaves sometimes walked from the Gulf States to the freeStates, traveling chiefly by night and guided by the North Star. Havingreached a free State, they found friends among those of their own race, or were taken in hand by officers of the Underground Railroad and werethus helped across the Canadian border. 

From the seacoast the valley of the Connecticut River furnished aconvenient route for completing the journey northward, though the way ofthe fugitives was often deflected to the Lake Champlain region. In lateryears, when New England became generally sympathetic, numerous lines ofescape traversed that entire section. Other courses extended northwardfrom the vicinity of Philadelphia, Delaware, and Maryland. Here, throughthe center of American Quakerdom, all conditions favored the escapeof fugitives, for slavery and freedom were at close quarters. Theactivities of the Quakers, who were at first engaged merely inpreventing the reenslavement of those who had a legal right to freedom, naturally expanded until aid was given without reservation to anyfugitive. From Philadelphia as a distributing point the route went byway of New York and the Hudson River or up the river valleys of easternPennsylvania through western New York. 

In addition to the routes to freedom which the seacoast and rivervalleys afforded, the Appalachian chain of mountains formed anattractive highway of escape from slavery, though these mountain pathslead us to another branch of our subject not immediately connected withthe Underground Railroad--the escape from bondage by the initiative ofthe slaves themselves or by the aid of their own people. Mountains havealways been a refuge and a defense for the outlaw, and the fewdwellers in this almost unknown wilderness were not infrequently eitherindifferent or friendly to the fugitives. The escaped slaves might, ifthey chose, adopt for an indefinite time the free life of the hills;but in most cases they naturally drifted northward for greater securityuntil they found themselves in a free State. Through the mountainousregions of Virginia many thus escaped, and they were induced to remainthere by the example and advice of residents of their own color. Thenegroes themselves excelled all others in furnishing places of refuge tofugitives from slavery and in concealing their status. For this reasonJohn Brown and his associates were influenced to select this region fortheir great venture in 1859. 

But there were other than geographical conditions which helped todetermine the direction of the lines of the Underground Railroad. Westof the Alleghanies are the broad plains of the Mississippi Valley, andin this great region human elements rather than physical characteristicsproved influential. Northern Ohio was occupied by settlers from theEast, many of whom were anti-slavery. Southern Ohio was populatedlargely by Quakers and other people from the slave States who abhorredslavery. On the east and south the State bordered on slave territory, and every part of the region was traversed by lines of travel for theslave. In eastern and northern Indiana a favorable attitude prevailed. Southwestern Indiana, however, and southern Illinois were occupied bythose less friendly to the slave, so that in these sections there islittle evidence of systematic aid to fugitives. But with St. Louis, Missouri, as a starting-point, northern Illinois became honeycombed withrefuges for patrons of the Underground Railroad. The negro also foundfriends in all the settled portions of Iowa, and at the outbreak of theCivil War a lively traffic was being developed, extending from Lawrence, Kansas, to Keokuk, Iowa. 

There is respectable authority for a variety of opinions as to therequirements of the rendition clause in the Constitution and of the Actof Congress of 1793 to facilitate the return of fugitives from serviceor labor; but there is no respectable authority in support of the viewthat neither the spirit nor the letter of the law was violated bythe supporters of the Underground Railroad. This was a source of realweakness to anti-slavery leaders in politics. It was always true thatonly a small minority of their numbers were actual violators of the law, yet such was their relation to the organized anti-slavery movement thatresponsibility attached to all. The platform of the Liberty party for1844 declared that the provisions of the Constitution for reclaimingfugitive slaves were dangerous to liberty and ought to be abrogated. It further declared that the members of the party would treat theseprovisions as void, because they involved an order to commit an immoralact. The platform thus explicitly committed the party to the supportof the policy of rendering aid to fugitive slaves. Four years laterthe platform of the Free-soil party contained no reference whatever tofugitive slaves, but that of 1852 denounced the Fugitive Slave Act of1850 as repugnant to the Constitution and the spirit of Christianity anddenied its binding force on the American people. The Republican platformof 1856 made no reference to the subject. 

The Underground Railroad filled an insignificant place in the generalplan for emancipation, even in the minds of the directors. It was alesser task preparatory to the great work. As to the numbers of slaveswho gained their freedom by means of it, there is a wide range ofopinion. Statements in Congress by Southern members that a hundredthousand had escaped must be regarded as gross exaggerations. In anyevent the loss was confined chiefly to the border States. Besides, ithas been stated with some show of reason that the danger of servileinsurrection was diminished by the escape of potential leaders. 

From the standpoint of the great body of anti-slavery men who expectedto settle the slavery question by peaceable means, it was a calamityof the first magnitude that, just at the time when conditions weremost favorable for transferring the active crusade from the generalGovernment to the separate States, public attention should be directedto the one point at which the conflict was most acute and irrepressible. 

Previous to 1850 there had been no general acrimonious debate inCongress on the rendition of fugitive slaves. About half of those whohad previously escaped from bondage had not taken the trouble to goas far as Canada, but were living at peace in the Northern States. Fewpeople at the North knew or cared anything about the details of a lawthat had been on the statute books since 1793. Members of Congress wereduly warned of the dangers involved in any attempt to enforce a morestringent law than the previous act which had proved a dead letter. To those who understood the conditions, the new law also was doomed tofailure. So said Senator Butler of South Carolina. An attempt to enforceit would be met by violence. 

This prediction came true. The twenty thousand potential victimsresiding in Northern States were thrown into panic. Some rushed off toCanada; others organized means for protection. A father and son fromBaltimore came to a town in Pennsylvania to recover a fugitive. An alarmwas sounded; men, mostly colored, rushed to the protection of the onewhose liberty was threatened. Two Quakers appeared on the sceneand warned the slavehunters to desist and upon their refusal oneslave-hunter was instantly killed and the other wounded. The fugitivewas conveyed to a place of safety, and to the murderers no punishmentwas meted out, though the general Government made strenuous efforts todiscover and punish them. In New York, though Gerrit Smith and a localclergyman with a few assistants rescued a fugitive from the officers ofthe law and sent him to Canada, openly proclaiming and justifying theact, no attempt was made to punish the offenders. 

After a dozen years of intense and ever-increasing excitement, whenother causes of friction between North and South had apparently beenremoved and good citizens in the two sections were rejoicing atthe prospect of an era of peace and harmony, public attention wasconcentrated upon the one problem of conduct which would not admit ofpeaceable legal adjustment. Abolitionists had always been stigmatized aslawbreakers whose aim was the destruction of slavery in utter disregardof the rights of the States. This charge was absolutely false; theirsettled program involved full recognition of state and municipal controlover slavery. Yet after public attention had become fixed upon conducton the part of the abolitionists which was illegal, it was difficult toescape the implication that their whole course was illegal. This was thetragic significance of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. 

CHAPTER IX. BOOKS AS ANTI-SLAVERY WEAPONS

Whittier offered up "thanks for the fugitive slave law; for it gaveoccasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin. '" Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had beenmistress of a station on the Underground Railroad at Cincinnati, thestorm-center of the West, and out of her experience she has transmittedto the world a knowledge of the elemental and tragic human experiencesof the slaves which would otherwise have been restricted to a selectfew. The mistress of a similar station in eastern Indiana, though sheheld novel reading a deadly sin, said: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is nota novel, it is a record of facts. I myself have listened to the samestories. " The reading public in all lands soon became sympatheticparticipants in the labors of those who, in defiance of law, werelending a hand to the aspirants for liberty. At the time of thepublication of the story in book form in March, 1852, America was beingprofoundly stirred by the stories of fugitives who had escaped fromEuropean despotism. Mrs. Stowe refers to these incidents in herquestion: "When despairing Hungarian fugitives make their way, againstall the search-warrants and authorities of their lawful governments toAmerica, press and political cabinet ring with applause and welcome. When despairing African fugitives do the same thing--it is--what IS it?"Little did she think that when the eloquence of the Hungarian refugeehad been forgotten, the story of Eliza and Uncle Tom would ringthroughout the world. 

The book did far more than vindicate the conduct of those who renderedassistance to the fugitive from slavery; it let in daylight upon theessential nature of slavery. Humane and just masters are shown to beforced into participation in acts which result in intolerable cruelty. Full justice is done to the noble and admirable character of Southernslave-owners. The author had been a guest in the home of the "Shelbys, "in Kentucky. She had taken great pains to understand the Southern pointof view on the subject of slavery; she had entered into the real trialsand difficulties involved in any plan of emancipation. St. Clair, speaking to Miss Ophelia, his New England cousin, says:

"If we emancipate, are you willing to educate? How many families of yourtown would take in a negro man or woman, teach them, bear with them, andseek to make them Christians? How many merchants would take Adolph, ifI wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics, if I wanted to teach him atrade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schoolsare there in the Northern States that would take them in? How manyfamilies that would board them? And yet they are as white as many awoman north or south. You see, cousin, I want justice done us. We are ina bad position. We are the more obvious oppressors of the negro; butthe unchristian prejudice of the north is an oppressor almost equallysevere. "

Throughout the book the idea is elaborated in many ways. Miss Opheliais introduced for the purpose of contrasting Northern ignorance and NewEngland prejudice with the patience and forbearance of the better classof slave-owners of the South. The genuine affection of an unspoiledchild for negro friends is made especially emphatic. Miss Opheliaobjected to Eva's expressions of devotion to Uncle Tom. Her fatherinsists that his daughter shall not be robbed of the free utterance ofher high regard, observing that "the child is the only true democrat. "There is only one Simon Legree in the book, and he is of New Englandextraction. The story is as distinctly intended to inform Northernignorance and to remove Northern prejudice as it is to justify theconduct of abolitionists. 

What was the effect of the publication? In European countries farremoved from local partizan prejudice, it was immediately received asa great revelation of the spirit of liberty. It was translated intotwenty-three different languages. So devoted were the Italians to thereading of the story that there was earnest effort to suppress itscirculation. As a drama it proved a great success, not only in Americaand England but in France and other countries as well. More than amillion copies of the story were sold in the British Empire. LordPalmerston avers that he had not read a novel for thirty years, yethe read Uncle Tom's Cabin three times and commended the book for thestatesmanship displayed in it. 

What is in the story to call forth such commendation from thecold-blooded English statesman? The book revealed, in a way fitted tocarry conviction to every unprejudiced reader, the impossibility ofuniting slavery with freedom under the same Government. Either all mustbe free or the mass subject to the few--or there is actual war. Thisprinciple is finely brought out in the predicament of the Quakerconfronted by a fugitive with wife and child who had seen a sister soldand conveyed to a life of shame on a Southern plantation. "Am I going tostand by and see them take my wife and sell her?" exclaimed the negro. "No, God help me! I'll fight to the last breath before they shall takemy wife and son. Can you blame me?" To which the Quaker replied: "Mortalman cannot blame thee, George. Flesh and blood could not do otherwise. 'Woe unto the world because of offences but woe unto them through whomthe offence cometh. '" "Would not even you, sir, do the same, in myplace?" "I pray that I be not tried. " And in the ensuing events theQuaker played an important part. 

Laws enacted for the protection of slave property are shown to bedestructive of the fundamental rights of freemen; they are inhuman. TheOhio Senator, who in his lofty preserve at the capital of his countrycould discourse eloquently of his readiness to keep faith with theSouth in the matter of the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, becomes, when at home with his family, a flagrant violator of the law. Elemental human nature is pitted against the apparent interests of a fewindividual slaveowners. The story of Uncle Tom placed all supportersof the new law on the defensive. It was read by all classes North andSouth. "Uncle Tom's Cabin as it is" was called forth from the South as areply to Mrs. Stowe's book, and there ensued a general discussion of thesubject which was on the whole enlightening. Yet the immediate politicaleffect of the publication was less than might have been expected froma book so widely read and discussed. Its appearance early in the decadedid not prevent the apparent pro-slavery reaction already described. ButMr. Rhodes calls attention to the different impression which the bookmade upon adults and boys. Hardened sinners in partizan politics couldread the book, laugh and weep over the passing incidents, and then goon as if nothing had happened. Not so with the thirteen-year-old boy. He never could be the same again. The Republican party of 1860 wasespecially successful in gaining the first vote of the youthful citizenand undoubtedly owed much of its influence to "Uncle Tom's Cabin. "

Two lines of attack were rapidly rendering impossible the continuanceof slavery in the United States. Mrs. Stowe gave effective expression tothe moral, religious, and humanitarian sentiment against slavery. In theyear in which her work was published, Frederick Law Olmsted began hisextended journeys throughout the South. He represents the impartialscientific observer. His books were published during the years 1856, 1857, and 1861. They constitute in their own way an indictment againstslavery quite as forcible as that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " but anindictment that rests chiefly upon the blighting influence of theinstitution of slavery upon agriculture, manufactures, and the generalindustrial and social order. The crisis came too soon for thesepublications to have any marked effect upon the issue. Their appealwas to the deliberate and thoughtful reader, and political control hadalready drifted into the hands of those who were not deliberate andcomposed. 

In 1857, however, there appeared a book which did exert a markedinfluence upon immediate political issues. There is no evidence thatHinton Rowan Helper, the author of "The Impending Crisis, " had anyknowledge of the writings of Olmsted; but he was familiar withNorthern anti-slavery literature. "I have considered my subject moreparticularly, " he states in his preface, "with reference to its economicaspects as regards the whites--not with reference, except in a veryslight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects. To the latterside of the question, Northern writers have already done full and timelyjustice. .. . Yankee wives have written the most popular anti-slaveryliterature of the day. Against this I have nothing to say; it is allwell enough for women to give the fictions of slavery; men should givethe facts. " He denies that it had been his purpose to cast unmeritedopprobium upon slaveholders; yet a sense of personal injury breathesthroughout the pages. If he had no intention of casting unmeritedopprobrium upon slaveholders, it is difficult to imagine what languagehe could have used if he had undertaken to pass the limit of deservedreprobation. In this regard the book is quite in line with the style ofSouthern utterance against abolitionists. 

Helper belonged to a slaveholding family, for a hundred years residentin the Carolinas. The dedication is significant. It is to three personalfriends from three slave States who at the time were residing inCalifornia, in Oregon, and in Washington Territory, "and to thenon-slaveholding whites of the South generally, whether at home orabroad. " Out of the South had come the inspiration for the religious andhumanitarian attack upon slavery. From the same source came the call forrelief of the poverty-stricken white victims of the institution. 

Helper's book revived the controversy which had been forcibly terminateda quarter of a century before. He resumes the argument of the members ofthe Virginia legislature of 1832. He reprints extended selections fromthat memorable debate and then, by extended references to later officialreports, points out how slavery is impoverishing the South. The Southis shown to have continuously declined, while the North has made immensegains. In a few years the relation of the South to the North wouldresemble that of Poland to Russia or of Ireland to England. The authorsees no call for any arguments against slavery as an economic system; hewould simply bring the earlier characterization of the situation down todate. 

Helper differs radically from all earlier speakers and writers in thathe outlines a program for definite action. He estimates that for theentire South there are seven white non-slaveholders for every threeslaveholders. He would organize these non-slaveholding whites intoan independent political party and would hold a general convention ofnon-slaveholders from every slave State to adopt measures to restrain"the diabolical excesses of the oligarchy" and to annihilate slavery. Slaveholders should be entirely excluded from any share in government. They should be treated as criminals ostracized from respectable society. He is careful to state, however, that by slaveholder he does not meansuch men as Benton of Missouri and many others throughout the slaveStates who retain the sentiments on the slavery question of the"immortal Fathers of the Republic. " He has in mind only the new order ofowners, who have determined by criminal methods to inflict the crime ofslavery upon an overwhelming majority of their white fellow-citizens. 

The publication of "The Impending Crisis" created a profound sensationamong Southern leaders. So long as the attack upon the peculiarinstitution emanated from the North, the defenders had the full benefitof local prejudice and resentment against outside intrusion. Helper washimself a thorough-going believer in state rights. Slavery was to beabolished, as he thought, by the action of the separate States. Herehe was in accord with Northern abolitionists. If such literature asHelper's volume should find its way into the South, it would be nolonger possible to palm off upon the unthinking public the patentfalsehood that abolitionists of the North were attempting to impose byforce a change in Southern institutions. All that Southern abolitionistsever asked was the privilege of remaining at home in their own South inthe full exercise of their constitutional rights. 

Southern leaders were undoubtedly aware of the concurrent publicationsof travelers and newspaper reporters, of which Olmsted's books wereconspicuous examples. Olmsted and Helper were both sources of proof thatslavery was bringing the South to financial ruin. The facts were gettinghold of the minds of the Southern people. The debate which had beenadjourned was on the eve of being resumed. Complete suppression ofthe new scientific industrial argument against slavery seemed toslave-owners to furnish their only defense. 

The Appalachian ranges of mountains drove a wedge of liberty and freedomfrom Pennsylvania almost to the Gulf. In the upland regions slaverycould not flourish. There was always enmity between the planters of thecoast and the dwellers on the upland. The slaveholding oligarchy hadalways ruled, but the day of the uplanders was at hand. This is theexplanation of the veritable panic which Helper's publication created. A debate which should follow the line of this old division between thepeoples of the Atlantic slave States would, under existing conditions, be fatal to the institution of slavery. West Virginia did become a freeState at the first opportunity. Counties in western North Carolina claimto have furnished a larger proportion of their men to the Union armythan any other counties in the country. Had the plan for peaceableemancipation projected by abolitionists been permitted to take itscourse, the uplands of South Carolina would have been pitted againstthe lowlands, and Senator Tillman would have appeared as a rampantabolitionist. There might have been violence, but it would have beenconfined to limited areas in the separate States. Had the crisis beenpostponed, there surely would have been a revival of abolitionism withinthe Southern States. Slavery in Missouri was already approaching acrisis. Southern leaders had long foreseen that the State would abolishslavery if a free State should be established on the western boundary. This was actually taking place. Kansas was filling up with free-statesettlers and, by the act of its own citizens, a few years later didabolish slavery. 

Republicans naturally made use of Helper's book for party purposes. Acheap abridged edition was brought out. Several Republican leaders wereinduced to sign their names to a paper commending the publication. Amongthese was John Sherman of Ohio, who in the organization of the newlyelected House of Representatives in 1859 was the leading candidate ofthe Republicans for the speakership. During the contest the fact thathis name was on this paper was made public, and Southern leaders werefurious. Extracts were read to prove that the book was incendiary. Millson of Virginia said that "one who consciously, deliberately, and ofpurpose lends his name and influence to the propagation of such writingsis not only not fit to be speaker, but he is not-fit to live. " It is oneof the ironies of the situation that the passage selected to prove theincendiary character of the book is almost a literal quotation from thedebate in the Virginia Legislature of 1832. 

CHAPTER X. "BLEEDING KANSAS"

Both the leading political parties were, in the campaign of 1852, fullycommitted to the acceptance of the so-called Compromise of 1850 as afinal settlement of the slavery question; both were committed to thesupport of the Fugitive Slave Act. The Free-soil party, with John P. Hale as its candidate, did make a vigorous attack upon the FugitiveSlave Act, and opposed all compromises respecting slavery, butFree-Boilers had been to a large extent reabsorbed into the Democraticparty, their vote of 1852 being only about half that of 1848. Though theWhig vote was large and only about two hundred thousand less than thatof the Democrats, yet it was so distributed that the Whigs carried onlyfour States, Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The otherStates gave a Democratic plurality. 

Had there been time for readjustment, the Whig party might haverecovered lost ground, but no time was permitted. There was in progressin Missouri a political conflict which was already commanding nationalattention. Thomas H. Benton, for thirty years a Senator from Missouri, and a national figure, was the storm-center. His enemies accused him ofbeing a Free-Boiler, an abolitionist in disguise. He was professedly astanch and uncompromising unionist, a personal and political opponent ofJohn C. Calhoun. According to his own statement he had been opposedto the extension of slavery since 1804, although he had advocated theadmission of Missouri with a pro-slavery constitution in 180. Hewas, from the first, senior Senator from the State, and by a peculiarcombination of influences incurred his first defeat for reelection in1851. 

Benton's defeat in the Missouri Legislature was largely the result ofnational pro-slavery influences. In a former chapter, reference wasmade to the Ohio River as furnishing a "providential argument againstslavery. " The Mississippi River as the eastern boundary of Missourifurnished a like argument, but on the north not even a prairiebrook separated free labor in Iowa from slave labor in Missouri. Theinhabitants of western Missouri, realizing that the tenure of theirpeculiar institution was becoming weaker in the east and north, earlybecame convinced that the organization of a free State along theirwestern boundary would be followed by the abolition of slavery intheir own State. This condition attracted the attention of the nationalguardians of pro-slavery interests. Calhoun, Davis, Breckinridge, Toombs, and others were in constant communication with local leaders. A certain Judge W. C. Price, a religious fanatic, and a pro-slaverydevotee, was induced to visit every part of the State in 1844, callingthe attention of all slaveholders to the perils of the situation andpreparing the way for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. SenatorBenton, who was approached on the subject, replied in such a way thatall radical defenders of slavery, both national leaders and localpoliticians, were moved to unite for his political defeat. 

David R. Atchison, junior Senator from Missouri, had been made theleader of the pro-slavery forces. The defeat of Benton in the MissouriLegislature did not end the strife. He at once became a candidate forAtchison's place in the election which was to occur in 1855, and he wasin the meantime elected to the House of Representatives in 1852. Themost telling consideration in Benton's favor was the general demand, inwhich he himself joined, for the immediate organization of the westernterritory in order to facilitate the building of a system of railwaysreaching the Pacific, with St. Louis as the point of departure. For atime, in 1859, and 1853, Benton was apparently triumphant, and Atchisonwas himself willing to consent to the organization of the new territorywith slavery excluded. The national leaders, however, were not of thesame mind. The real issue was the continuance of slavery in theState; the one thing which must not be permitted was the transfer ofanti-slavery agitation to the separate States. Henry Clay's proposalof 1849 to provide for gradual emancipation in Kentucky was bitterlyresented. It had long been an axiom with the slavocracy that theinstitution would perish unless it had the opportunity to expand. Out ofthis conviction arose Calhoun's famous theory that slaveowners had underthe Constitution an equal right with the owners of all other forms ofproperty in all the Territories. The theory itself assumed that the actprohibiting slavery in the territory north of the southern boundaryof Missouri was unconstitutional and void. But this theory had not yetreceived judicial sanction, and the time was at hand when the questionof freedom or slavery in the western territory was to be determined. Between March and December, 1853, the discovery was made that the Actof 1850 organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah had supersededthe Compromise of 1820; that a principle had been recognized applicableto all the Territories; that all were open to settlement on equal termsto slaveholders and non-slaveholders; that the subject of slavery shouldbe removed from Congress to the people of the Territories; and that theyshould decide, either when a territorial legislature was organized orat the time of the adoption of a constitution preparatory to statehood, whether or not slavery should be authorized. These ideas foundexpression in various newspapers during the month of December, 1853. Though the authorship of the new theory is still a matter of dispute, it is well known that Stephen A. Douglas became its chief sponsor andchampion. The real motives and intentions of Douglas himself and ofmany of his supporters will always remain obscure and uncertain. But nouncertainty attaches to the motives of Senator Atchison and the leadersof the Calhoun section of the Democratic party. For ten years at leastthey had been laboring to get rid of the Missouri Compromise. Theirmotive was to defend slavery and especially to forestall a successfulmovement for emancipation in the State of Missouri. 

From early in January, 1854, until late in May, Douglas's Nebraska billheld the attention of Congress and of the entire country. At first themeasure simply assumed that the Missouri Compromise had been supersededby the Act of 1850. Later the bill was amended in such a way as torepeal distinctly that time-honored act. At first the plan was toorganize Nebraska as a single Territory extending from Texas to Canada. Later it was proposed to organize separate Territories, one west ofMissouri under the name of Kansas, the other west of Iowa under the nameof Nebraska. Opposition came from Free-soilers, from Northern Whigsand a few Whigs from the South, and from a large proportion of NorthernDemocrats. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise came like a thunderboltout of a clear sky to the people of the North. For a time Douglas wasthe most unpopular of political leaders and was apparently repudiated byhis party. The first name designating the opponents of the Douglas billwas "Anti Nebraska men, " for which the name Republican was graduallysubstituted and in 1858 became the accepted title of the party. 

The provision for two territorial governments instead of one carriedwith it the idea of a continued balance between slave and free States;Kansas, being on a geographical parallel with the slave States, wouldprobably permit slavery, while Nebraska would be occupied by free-stateimmigrants. Though this was a commonly accepted view, Eli Thayer ofWorcester, Massachusetts, and a few others took a different view. Theyproposed to make an end of the discussion of the extension of slaveryby sending free men who were opposed to slavery to occupy the territoryopen for settlement. To attain this object they organized an EmigrantAid Company incorporated under the laws of the State. Even before thebill was passed, the corporation was in full working order. Thayerhimself traveled extensively throughout the Northern States stimulatinginterest in western emigration, with the conviction that the disturbingquestion could be peacefully settled in this way. California had thusbeen saved to freedom; why not all other Territories? The new companyhad as adviser and co-laborer Dr. Charles Robinson, who had crossedthe Kansas Territory on his way to California and had acquired valuableexperience in the art of state-building under peculiar conditions. 

The first party sent out by the Emigrant Aid Company arrived in Kansasearly in August, 1854, and selected the site for the town of Lawrence. During the later months of the year, four other parties were sent out, in all numbering nearly seven hundred. Through extensive advertisementby the company, through the general interest in the subject and thenatural flow of emigration to the West, Kansas was receiving largeaccessions of free-state settlers. 

Meanwhile the men of Missouri, some of whom had striven for a decade tosecure the privilege of extending slavery into the new Territory, werenot idle. Instantly upon the removal of legal barriers, they occupiedadjacent lands, founded towns, staked out claims, formed plans forpreempting the entire region and for forestalling or driving out allintruders. They had at first the advantage of position, for they did notfind it difficult to maintain two homes, one in Kansas for purposes ofvoting and fighting and another in Missouri for actual residence. AndrewH. Reeder, a Pennsylvania Democrat of strong pro-slavery prejudices, wasappointed first Governor of the Territory. When he arrived in Kansasin October, 1854, there were already several thousand settlers on theground and others were continually arriving. He appointed the 29th ofNovember for the election of a delegate to Congress. On that day severalhundred Missourians came into the Territory and voted. There was noviolence and no contest; the free-state men had no separate candidate. Notwithstanding the violence of language used by opposing factions, notwithstanding the organization of secret societies pledged to driveout all Northern intruders, there was no serious disturbance untilMarch 30, 1855, the day appointed for the election of members of theterritorial Legislature. On that day the Missourians came full fivethousand strong, armed with guns, bowie-knives, and revolvers. Theymet with no resistance from the residents, who were unarmed. Theytook charge of the precincts and chose pro-slavery delegates with oneexception. Governor Reeder protested and recommended to the precinctsthe filing of protests. Only seven responded, however, and in thesecases new elections were held and contesting delegates elected. 

The Governor issued certificates to these and to all those who inother precincts had been chosen by the horde from Missouri. When theLegislature met in July, the seven contests were decided in favor ofthe pro-slavery party, the single freestate member resigned, and theassembly was unanimous. 

Governor Reeder fully expected that President Pierce would nullify theelection, and to this end he made a journey to Washington in April. On the way he delivered a public address at Easton, Pennsylvania, describing in lurid colors the outrage which had been perpetratedupon the people of Kansas by the "border ruffians" from Missouri, and asserting that the accounts in the Northern press had not beenexaggerated. 

While Governor Reeder in contact with the actual events in Kansas wasbecoming an active Free-Boiler, President Pierce in association withJefferson Davis and others of his party was developing active sympathieswith the people of western Missouri. To the President this invasionof territory west of the slave State by Northern men aided by Northerncorporations seemed a violation of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, andhe sought to induce Reeder to resign. This, however, the Governorpositively refused to do unless the President would formally approvehis conduct in Kansas--an endorsement which required more fortitude thanPresident Pierce possessed. On his return to Kansas, determined to dowhat he could to protect the Kansas people from injustice, he calledthe Legislature to meet at Pawnee, a point far removed from the Missouriborder. Immediately upon their organization at that place the membersof the Legislature adjourned to meet at Shawnee, near the border ofMissouri. The Governor, who decided that this action was illegal, thenrefused to recognize the Assembly at the new place. A deadlock thusensued which was broken on the 15th of August by the removal of GovernorReeder and the appointment of Wilson Shannon of Ohio in his place. Inthe meantime the territorial Legislature had adjourned, having "enacted"an elaborate proslavery code made up from the slave code of Missouriwith a number of special adaptations. For example, it was made apenitentiary offense to deny by speaking or writing, or by printing, orby introducing any printed matter, the right of persons to holdslaves in the Territory; no man was eligible to jury service who wasconscientiously opposed to holding slaves; and lawyers were bound byoath to support the territorial statutes. 

The free-state men, with the approval of Reeder, refused to recognizethe Legislature and inaugurated a movement in the fall of 1855 to adopta constitution and to organize a provisional territorial Governmentpreparatory to admission as a State, following in this respect theprocedure in California and Michigan. A convention met in Topeka inOctober, 1855, and completed on the 11th of November the draft of aconstitution which prohibited slavery. On the 15th of December theconstitution was approved by a practically unanimous vote, onlyfree-state men taking part in the election. A month later a Legislaturewas elected and at the same time Charles Robinson was elected Governorof the new commonwealth. In the previous October, Reeder had been chosenFree-soil delegate to Congress. The Topeka freestate Legislature met onthe 4th of March, 1856, and after petitioning Congress to admit Kansasunder the Topeka constitution, adjourned until the 4th of July pendingthe action of Congress. Thus at the end of two years two distinctGovernments had come into existence within the Territory of Kansas. Itspeaks volumes for the self-control and moderation of the two partiesthat no hostile encounter had occurred between the contestants. When thearmed Missourians came in March, 1855, the unarmed settlers offered noresistance. Afterward, however, they supplied themselves with Sharp'srifles and organized a militia. With the advent of Governor Shannonin September, 1855, the proslavery position was much strengthened. InNovember, in a quarrel over a land claim, a free-state settler by thename of Dow was killed. The murderer escaped, but a friend of the victimwas accused of uttering threats against a friend of the murderer. Forthis offense a posse led by Sheriff Jones, a Missourian, seized him, and would have carried him away if fourteen freestate men had not"persuaded" the Sheriff to surrender his prisoner. This interference wasaccepted by the Missourians as a signal for battle. The rescuers mustbe arrested and punished. A large force of infuriated Missourians andpro-slavery settlers assembled for a raid upon the town of Lawrence. In the meantime the Lawrence militia planned and executed a systematicdefense of the town. When the two armies came within speaking distance, a parley ensued in which the Governor took a leading part in settlingthe affair without a hostile shot. This is known in Kansas history asthe "Wakarusa War. "

The progress of affairs in Kansas was followed with intense interest inall parts of the country. North and South vied with each other in theencouragement of emigration to Kansas. Colonel Buford of Alabama sold alarge number of slaves and devoted the proceeds to meeting the expenseof conducting a troop of three hundred men to Kansas in the winter of1856. They went armed with "the sword of the spirit, " and all providedwith Bibles supplied by the leading churches. Arrived in the territory, they were duly furnished with more worldly weapons and were drilled foraction. About the same time a parallel incident is said to have occurredin New Haven, Connecticut. A deacon in one of the churches had enlisteda company of seventy bound for Kansas. A meeting was held in the churchto raise money to defray expenses. The leader of the company declaredthat they also needed rifles for self-defense. Forthwith ProfessorSilliman, of the University, subscribed one Sharp's rifle, and othersfollowed with like pledges. Finally Henry Ward Beecher, who was thespeaker of the occasion, rose and promised that, if twenty-fiverifles were pledged on the spot, Plymouth Church in Brooklyn wouldbe responsible for the remaining twenty-five that were needed. He hadalready said in a previous address that for the slaveholders of Kansas, Sharp's rifles were a greater moral agency than the Bible. This ledto the designation of the weapons as "Beecher's Bibles. " Such was thespirit which prevailed in the two sections of the country. 

President Pierce had now become intensely hostile towards the free-stateinhabitants of Kansas. Having recognized the Legislature elected onMarch 30, 1855, as the legitimate Government, he sent a specialmessage to Congress on January 24, 1856, in which he characterized asrevolutionary the movement of the free-state men to organize a separateGovernment in Kansas. From the President's point of view, the emissariesof the New England Emigrant Aid Association were unlawful invaders. In this position he not only had the support of the South, but waspowerfully seconded by Stephen A. Douglas and other Northern Democrats. 

The attitude of the Administration at Washington was a source of greatencouragement to Sheriff Jones and his associates, who were anxious towreak their vengeance on the city of Lawrence for the outcome of theWakarusa War. Jones came to Lawrence apparently for the express purposeof picking a quarrel, for he revived the old dispute about the rescuingparty of the previous fall. As a consequence one enraged opponentslapped him in the face, and at last an unknown assassin entered thesheriff's tent by night and inflicted a revolver wound in his back. Though the citizens of Lawrence were greatly chagrined at this event andoffered a reward for the discovery of the assailant, the attack upon thesheriff was made the signal for drastic procedure against the town ofLawrence. A grand jury found indictments for treason against Reeder, Robinson, and other leading citizens of the town. The United Statesmarshal gave notice that he expected resistance in making arrestsand called upon all law-abiding citizens of the Territory to aid inexecuting the law. It was a welcome summons to the pro-slavery forces. Not only local militia companies responded but also Buford's companyand various companies from Missouri, in all more than seven hundred men, with two cannon. It had always been the set purpose of the free-statemen not to resist federal authority by force, unless as a last resort, and they had no intention of opposing the marshal in making arrests. Heperformed his duty without hindrance and then placed the armed troopsunder the command of Sheriff Jones, who proceeded first to destroy theprinting-press of the town of Lawrence. Then, against the protest of themarshal and Colonel Buford, the vindictive sheriff trained his guns uponthe new hotel which was the pride of the city; the ruin of the buildingwas made complete by fire, while a drunken mob pillaged the town. 

On May 22, 1856, the day following the attack upon Lawrence, CharlesSumner was struck down in the United States Senate on account of aspeech made in defense of the rights of Kansas settlers. The two events, which were reported at the same time in the daily press, furnishedthe key-note to the presidential campaign of that year, for nominatingconventions followed in a few days and "bleeding Kansas" was theall-absorbing issue. In spite of the destruction of property in Lawrenceand the arrest of the leaders of the free-state party, Kansas had notbeen plunged into a state of civil war. The free-state party had firedno hostile shot. Governor Robinson and his associates still relied uponpublic opinion and they accepted the wanton attack upon Lawrence as thebest assurance that they would yet win their cause by legal means. 

A change, however, soon took place which is associated with the entranceof John Brown into the history of Kansas. Brown and his sons were livingat Osawatomie, some thirty miles south of Lawrence. They were present atthe Wakarusa War in December, 1855, and were on their way to the defenseof Lawrence on May 21, 1856, when they were informed that the town hadbeen destroyed. Three days after this event Brown and his sons with twoor three others made a midnight raid upon their pro-slavery neighborsliving in the Pottawatomie valley and slew five men. The authors of thisdeed were not certainly known until the publication of a confession ofone of the party in 1879, twenty years after the chief actor had wonthe reputation of a martyr to the cause of liberty. The Browns, however, were suspected at the time; warrants were out for their arrest; andtheir homes were destroyed. 

For more than three months after this incident, Kansas was in a stateof war; in fact, two distinct varieties of warfare were carried on. Publicly organized companies on both sides engaged in acts of attack anddefense, while at the same time irresponsible secret bands were busy inviolent reprisals, in plunder and assassination. In both of these formsof warfare, the free-state men proved themselves fully equal to theiropponents, and Governor Shannon was entirely unable to cope with thesituation. It is estimated that two hundred men were slain and twomillion dollars' worth of property was destroyed. 

The state of affairs in Kansas served to win many Northern Democratsto the support of the Republicans. The Administration at Washington washeld responsible for the violence and bloodshed. The Democratic leadersin the political campaign, determined now upon a complete change inthe Government of the Territory, appointed J. W. Geary as Governor andplaced General Smith in charge of the troops. The new incumbents, bothfrom Pennsylvania, entered upon their labors early in September, andbefore the October state elections Geary was able to report that peacereigned throughout the Territory. A prompt reaction in favor of theDemocrats followed. Buchanan, their presidential candidate, rejoiced inthe fact that order had been restored by two citizens of his own State. It was now very generally conceded that Kansas would become a freeState, and intimate associates of Buchanan assured the public that hewas himself of that opinion and that if elected he would insure to thefree-state party evenhanded justice. Thousands of voters were thus wonto Buchanan's support. There was a general distrust of the Republicancandidate as a man lacking political experience, and a strongconservative reaction against the idea of electing a President by thevotes of only one section of the country. At the election in November, Buchanan received a majority of sixty of the electoral votes overFremont, but in the popular vote he fell short of a majority by nearly400, 000. Fillmore, candidate of the Whig and the American parties, received 874, 000 votes. 

There was still profound distrust of the administration of the Territoryof Kansas, and the free-state settlers refused to vote at the electionset for the choosing of a new territorial Legislature in October. The result was another pro-slavery assembly. Governor Geary, however, determined to secure and enforce just treatment of both parties. Hewas at once brought into violent conflict with the Legislature in anexperience which was almost an exact counterpart of that of GovernorReeder; and Washington did not support his efforts to secure fairdealings. A pro-slavery deputation visited President Pierce in February, 1857, and returned with the assurance that Governor Geary would beremoved. Without waiting for the President to act, Geary resigned indisgust on the 4th of March. Of the three Governors whom PresidentPierce appointed, two became active supporters of the free-state partyand a third, Governor Shannon, fled from the territory in mortal terrorlest he should be slain by members of the party which he had tried toserve. 

CHAPTER XI. CHARLES SUMNER

The real successor to John Quincy Adams as the protagonist of theanti-slavery cause in Congress proved to be not Seward but CharlesSumner of Massachusetts. This newcomer entered the Senate withoutprevious legislative experience but with an unusual equipment forthe role he was to play. A graduate of Harvard College at the age ofnineteen, he had entered upon the study of law in the newly organizedlaw school in which Joseph Story held one of the two professorships. He was admitted to the bar in 1834, but three years later he left hisslender law practice for a long period of European travel. This threeyears' sojourn brought him into intimate touch with the leading spiritsin arts, letters, and public life in England and on the Continent, andthus ripened his talents to their full maturity. He returned to hislaw practice poor in pocket but rich in the possession of lifelongfriendships and happy memories. 

Sumner's political career did not begin until 1847, when as a Whig henot only opposed any further extension of slavery but strove to commithis party to the policy of emancipation in all the States. Failing inthis attempt, Sumner became an active Free-Boiler in 1848. He was twicea candidate for Congress on the Free-soil ticket but failed of election. In 1851 he was elected to the United States Senate by a coalitionbetween his party and the Democrats. This is the only public office heever held, but he was continuously reelected until his death in 1874. 

John Quincy Adams had addressed audiences trained in the old school, which did not defend slavery on moral grounds. Charles Sumner facedaudiences of the new school, which upheld the institution as a righteousmoral order. This explains the chief difference in the attitude of thetwo leaders. Sumner, like Adams, began as an opponent of pro-slaveryaggression, but he went farther: he attacked the institution itself as agreat moral evil. 

As a constitutional lawyer Sumner is not the equal of his predecessor, Daniel Webster. He is less original, less convincing in the enunciationof broad general principles. He appears rather as a special pleadermarshaling all available forces against the one institution whichassailed the Union. In this particular work, he surpassed all others, for, with his unbounded industry, he permitted no precedent, no legaladvantage, no incident of history, no fact in current politics fittedto strengthen his cause, to escape his untiring search. He showed amarvelous skill in the selection, arrangement, and presentation ofhis materials, and for his models he took the highest forms of classicforensic utterance. 

Sumner exhibited the ordinary aloofness and lack of familiarity withactual conditions in the South which was characteristic of the NewEngland abolitionist. He perceived no race problem, no peculiardifficulty in the readjustments of master and slave which were involvedin emancipation, and he ignored all obstacles to the accomplishment ofhis ends. Webster's arraignment of South Carolina was directed againstan alleged erroneous dogma and only incidentally affected personalmorality. The reaction, therefore, was void of bitter resentment. Sumner's charges were directed against alleged moral turpitude, andthe classic form and scrupulous regard for parliamentary rules which heobserved only added to the feeling of personal resentment on the part ofhis opponents. Some of the defenders of slavery were themselvesdevoted students of the classics, but they found that the orations ofDemosthenes furnished nothing suited to their purpose. The result was ahumiliating exhibition of weakness, personal abuse, and vindictivenesson their part. 

There was a conspiracy of silence on the slavery question in 1852. Eachof the national parties was definitely committed to the support of thecompromise and especially to the faithful observance of the FugitiveSlave Law. Free-soilers had distinctly declined in numbers and influenceduring the four preceding years. Only a handful of members in each Houseof Congress remained unaffiliated with the parties whose platforms hadordained silence on the one issue of chief public concern. It was by amere accident in Massachusetts politics that Charles Sumner was sent tothe Senate as a man free on all public questions. 

While the parties were making their nominations for the Presidency, Sumner sought diligently for an opportunity in the Senate to giveutterance to the sentiments of his party on the repeal of the FugitiveSlave Act. But not until late in August did he overcome the resistanceof the combined opposition and gain the floor. The watchmen were caughtoff guard when Sumner introduced an amendment to an appropriation billwhich enabled him to deliver a carefully prepared address, several hoursin length, calling for the repeal of the law. 

The first part of this speech is devoted to the general topic of therelation of the national Government to slavery and was made in answerto the demand of Calhoun and his followers for the direct nationalrecognition of slavery. For such a demand Sumner found no warrant. Bythe decision of Lord Mansfield, said he, "the state of slavery"was declared to be "of such a nature, that it is incapable of beingintroduced on any reasons, moral or political, but ONLY BY POSITIVELAW. .. . It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it butpositive law. " Adopting the same principle, the Supreme Court of theState of Mississippi, a tribunal of slaveholders, asserted that "slaveryis condemned by reason and the Laws of Nature. It exists, and can ONLYexist, through municipal regulations. " So also declared the SupremeCourt of Kentucky and numerous other tribunals. This aspect of thesubject furnished Sumner occasion for a masterly array of all theutterances in favor of liberty to be found in the Constitution, in theDeclaration of Independence, in the constitutional conventions, in theprinciples of common law. All these led up to and supported the onegrand conclusion that, when Washington took the oath as President of theUnited States, "slavery existed nowhere on the national territory"and therefore "is in no respect a national institution. " Apply theprinciples of the Constitution in their purity, then, and "in allnational territories slavery will be impossible. On the high seas, under the national flag, slavery will be impossible. In the District ofColumbia, slavery will instantly cease. Inspired by these principles, Congress can give no sanction to slavery by the admission of new slaveStates. Nowhere under the Constitution can the Nation by legislation orotherwise, support slavery, hunt slaves, or hold property in man. .. . Asslavery is banished from the national jurisdiction, it will cease tovex our national politics. It may linger in the States as a localinstitution; but it will no longer engender national animosities when itno longer demands national support. "

The second part of Sumner's address dealt directly with the FugitiveSlave Act of 1860. It is much less convincing and suggests more of thecharacteristics of the special pleader with a difficult case. Sumnerhere undertook to prove that Congress exceeded its powers when itpresumed to lay down rules for the rendition of fugitive slaves, andthis task exceeded even his power as a constitutional lawyer. 

The circumstances under which Sumner attacked slavery were such as tohave alarmed a less self-centered man, for the two years following theintroduction of the Nebraska bill were marked by the most acrimoniousdebate in the history of Congress, and by physical encounters, challenges, and threats of violence. But though Congressmen carriedconcealed weapons, Sumner went his way unarmed and apparently incomplete unconcern as to any personal danger, though it is known that hewas fully aware that in the faithful performance of what he deemed to behis duty he was incurring the risk of assassination. 

The pro-slavery party manifested on all occasions a disposition to makethe most of the weak point in Sumner's constitutional argument againstthe Fugitive Slave Law. He was accused of taking an oath to support theConstitution though at the same time intending to violate one of itsprovisions. In a discussion, in June, 1854, over a petition praying forthe repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, Senator Butler of South Carolinaput the question directly to Senator Sumner whether he would himselfunite with others in returning a fugitive to his master. Sumner's quickreply was, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" EnragedSoutherners followed this remark with a most bitter onslaught uponSumner which lasted for two days. When Sumner again got the floor, hesaid in reference to Senator Butler's remark: "In fitful phrase, whichseemed to come from unconscious excitement, so common with the Senator, he shot forth various cries about 'dogs, ' and, among other things, askedif there was any 'dog' in the Constitution? The Senator did not seemto bear in mind, through the heady currents of that moment that, by thefalse interpretation he fastens upon the Constitution, he has helpedto nurture there a whole kennel of Carolina bloodhounds, trained, withsavage jaw and insatiable in scent, for the hunt of flying bondmen. No, sir, I do not believe that there is any 'kennel of bloodhounds, ' or evenany 'dog' in the Constitution. " Thereafter offensive personal referencesbetween the Senators from Massachusetts and South Carolina becamehabitual. These personalities were a source of regret to many ofSumner's best friends, but they fill a small place, after all, in hisgreat work. Nor were they the chief source of rancor on the part ofhis enemies, for Southern orators were accustomed to personalities indebate. Sumner was feared and hated principally because his presence inCongress endangered the institution of slavery. 

Sumner's speech on the crime against Kansas was perhaps the mostremarkable effort of his career. It had been known for many weeks thatSumner was preparing to speak upon the burning question, and his friendshad already expressed anxiety for his personal safety. For the largerpart of two days, May 19 and 20, 1856, he held the reluctant attentionof the Senate. For the delivery of this speech he chose a time which wasmost opportune. The crime against Kansas had, in a sense, culminated inMarch of the previous year, but the settlers had refused to submit tothe Government set up by hostile invaders. They had armed themselves forthe defense of their rights, had elected a Governor and a Legislatureby voluntary association, had called a convention, and had adopted aconstitution preparatory to admission to the Union. That constitutionwas now before the Senate for approval. President Pierce, StephenA. Douglas, and all the Southern leaders had decided to treat astreasonable acts the efforts of Kansas settlers to secure an orderlygovernment. Their plans for the arrest of the leaders were well advancedand the arrests were actually made on the day after Sumner had concludedhis speech. 

A paragraph in the address is prophetic of what occurred within a week. Douglas had introduced a bill recognizing the Legislature chosen by theMissourians as the legal Government and providing for the formation of aconstitution under its initiative at some future date. After describingthis proposed action as a continuation of the crime against Kansas, Sumner declared: "Sir, you cannot expect that the people of Kansaswill submit to the usurpation which this bill sets up and bids thembow before, as the Austrian tyrant set up the ducal hat in the Swissmarket-place. If you madly persevere, Kansas will not be without herWilliam Tell, who will refuse at all hazards to recognize the tyrannicaledict; and this will be the beginning of civil war. "

To keep historical sequence clear at this point, all thought of JohnBrown should be eliminated, for he was then unknown to the public. Itmust be remembered that Governor Robinson and the free-state settlerswere, as Sumner probably knew, prepared to resist the general Governmentas soon as there should be a clear case of outrage for which theAdministration at Washington could be held directly responsible. Sucha case occurred when the United States marshal placed federal troops inthe hands of Sheriff Jones to assist in looting the town of Lawrence. Governor Robinson no longer had any scruples in advising forcibleresistance to all who used force to impose upon Kansas a Governmentwhich the people had rejected. 

In the course of his address Sumner compared Senators Butler andDouglas to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, saying: "The Senator fromSouth Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself achivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course hehas chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though uglyto others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of theworld, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot Slavery. Let her beimpeached in character, or any proposition be made to shut her outfrom the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner orhardihood of assertion is then too great for the Senator. "

When Sumner concluded, the gathering storm broke forth. Cass ofMichigan, after saying that he had listened to the address with equalsurprise and regret, characterized it as "the most unAmerican andunpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of the members of that highbody. " Douglas and Mason were personal and abusive. Douglas, recallingSumner's answer to Senator Butler's question whether he would assist inreturning a slave, renewed the charge made two years earlier that Sumnerhad violated his oath of office. This attack called forth from Sumneranother attempt to defend the one weak point in his speech of 1852, forhe was always irritated by reference to this subject, and at the sametime he enjoyed a fine facility in the use of language which irritatedothers. 

One utterance in Douglas's reply to Sumner is of special significance inview of what occurred two days later: "Is it his object to provokesome of us to kick him as we would a dog in the street, that he may getsympathy upon the just chastisement?" Two days later Sumner was sittingalone at his desk in the Senate chamber after adjournment when PrestonBrooks, a nephew of Senator Butler and a member of the lower House, entered and accosted him with the statement that he had read Sumner'sspeech twice and that it was a libel on South Carolina and upon akinsman of his. Thereupon Brooks followed his words by striking Sumneron the head with a cane. Though the Senator was dazed and blinded bythe unexpected attack, his assailant rained blow after blow until hehad broken the cane and Sumner lay prostrate and bleeding at his feet. Brooks's remarks in the House of Representatives almost a month afterthe event leave no doubt of his determination to commit murder had hefailed to overcome his antagonist with a cane. He had also taken theprecaution to have two of his friends ready to prevent any interferencebefore the punishment was completed. Toombs of Georgia witnessed apart of the assault and expressed approval of the act, and everywherethroughout the South, in the public press, in legislative halls, inpublic meetings, Brooks was hailed as a hero. The resolution for hisexpulsion introduced in the House received the support of only onevote from south of Mason and Dixon's Line. A large majority favored theresolution, but not the required two-thirds majority. Brooks, however, thought best to resign but was triumphantly returned to his seat withonly six votes against him. Nothing was left undone to express Southerngratitude, and he received gifts of canes innumerable as symbols of hisvalor. Yet before his death, which occurred in the following January, he confessed to his friend Orr that he was sick of being regarded asthe representative of bullies and disgusted at receiving testimonials oftheir esteem. 

With similar unanimity the North condemned and resented the assault thathad been made upon Sumner. From party considerations, if for no otherreasons, Democrats regretted the event. Republicans saw in the brutalattack and in the manner of its reception in the South another evidenceof the irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom. They wereready to take up the issue so forcibly presented by their fallenleader. A part of the regular order of exercises at public meetings ofRepublicans was to express sympathy with their wounded champion and withthe Kansas people of the pillaged town of Lawrence, and to adoptways and means to bring to an end the Administration which they heldresponsible for these outrages. Sumner, though silenced, was eloquentin a new and more effective way. A half million copies of "TheCrime against Kansas" were printed and circulated. On the issue thuspresented, Northern Democrats became convinced that their defeat at thepending election was certain, and their leaders instituted the change intheir program which has been described in a previous chapter. They hadmade an end of the war in Kansas and drew from their candidate for thePresidency the assurance that just treatment should at last be meted outto harassed Kansas. 

Though Sumner's injuries were at first regarded as slight, theyeventually proved to be extremely serious. After two attempts to resumehis place in the Senate, he found that he was unable to remain; yet whenhis term expired, he was almost unanimously reelected. Much of his timefor three and a half years he spent in Europe. In December, 1859, heseemed sufficiently recovered to resume senatorial duties, but it wasnot until the following June that he again addressed the Senate. Onthat occasion he delivered his last great philippic against slavery. The subject under discussion was still the admission of Kansas as afree State, and, as he remarked in his opening sentences, he resumed thediscussion precisely where he had left off more than four years before. 

Sumner had assumed the task of uttering a final word against slavery asbarbarism and a barrier to civilization. He spoke under the impellingpower of a conviction in his God-given mission to utilize a greatoccasion to the full and for a noble end. For this work his whole lifehad been a preparation. Accustomed from early youth to spend ten hoursa day with books on law, history, and classic literature, he knew as noother man then knew what aid the past could offer to the struggle forfreedom. The bludgeon of the would-be assassin had not impaired hismemory, and four years of enforced leisure enabled him to fulfill hishighest ideals of perfect oratorical form. Personalities he eliminatedfrom this final address, and blemishes he pruned away. In his earlierspeeches he had been limited by the demands of the particular questionunder discussion, but in "The Barbarism of Slavery" he was free to dealwith the general subject, and he utilized incidents in American slaveryto demonstrate the general upward trend of history. The orator wassustained by the full consciousness that his utterances were in harmonywith the grand sweep of historic truth as well as with the spirit of thepresent age. 

Sumner was not a party man and was at no time in complete harmony withhis coworkers. It was always a question whether his speeches had afavorable effect upon the immediate action of Congress; there can, however, be no doubt of the fact that the larger public was edified andinfluenced. Copies of "The Crime against Kansas" and "The Barbarism ofSlavery" were printed and circulated by the million and were eagerlyread from beginning to end. They gave final form to the thoughts andutterances of many political leaders both in America and in Europe. More than any other man it was Charles Sumner who, with a wealthof historical learning and great skill in forensic art, put theirrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom in its proper settingin human history. 

CHAPTER XII. KANSAS AND BUCHANAN

In view of the presidential election of 1856 Northern Democratsentertained no doubts that Kansas, now occupied by a majority offree-state men, would be received as a free State without further ado. The case was different with the Democrats of western Missouri, alreadyfor ten years in close touch with those Southern leaders who weredetermined either to secure new safeguards for slavery or to form anindependent confederacy. Their program was to continue their efforts tomake Kansas a slave State or at least to maintain the disturbance thereuntil the conditions appeared favorable for secession. 

In February, 1857, the pro-slavery territorial Legislature provided forthe election of delegates to a constitutional convention, but GovernorGeary vetoed the act because no provision was made for submitting theproposed constitution to the vote of the people. The bill was passedover his veto, and arrangements were made for registration whichfree-state men regarded as imperfect, inadequate, or fraudulent. 

President Buchanan undoubtedly intended to do full justice to thepeople of Kansas. To this end he chose Robert J. Walker, a MississippiDemocrat, as Governor of Kansas. Walker was a statesman of high rank, who had been associated with Buchanan in the Cabinet of James K. Polk. Three times he refused to accept the office and finally undertook themission only from a sense of duty. Being aware of the fate of GovernorGeary, Walker insisted on an explicit understanding with Buchanan thathis policies should not be repudiated by the federal Administration. Late in May he went to Kansas with high hopes and expectations. But thefree-state party had persisted in the repudiation of a Government whichhad been first set up by an invading army and, as they alleged, hadsince then been perpetuated by fraud. They had absolutely refused totake part in any election called by that Government and had continued tokeep alive their own legislative assembly. Despite Walker's effortsto persuade them to take part in the election of delegates to theconstitutional convention, they resolutely held aloof. Yet, as theybecame convinced that he was acting in good faith, they did participatein the October elections to the territorial Legislature, electing nineout of the thirteen councilors and twenty-four out of the thirty-ninerepresentatives. Gross frauds had been perpetrated in two districts, andthe Governor made good his promise by rejecting the fraudulent votes. In one case a poll list had been made up by copying an old Cincinnatiregister. 

In the meantime, thanks to the abstention of the free-state people, thepro-slavery party had secured absolute control of the constitutionalconvention. Yet there was the most absolute assurance by the Governorin the name of the President of the United States that no constitutionwould be sent to Congress for approval which had not received thesanction of a majority of the voters of the Territory. This was Walker'sreiterated promise, and President Buchanan had on this point beenequally explicit. 

When, therefore, the pro-slavery constitutional convention met atLecompton in October, Kansas had a free-state Legislature duly elected. To make Kansas still a slave State it was necessary to get rid of thatLegislature and of the Governor through whose agency it had been chosen, and at the same time to frame a constitution which would secure theapproval of the Buchanan Administration. Incredible as it may seem, allthis was actually accomplished. 

John Calhoun, who had been chosen president of the Lecompton convention, spent some time in Washington before the adjourned meeting of theconvention. He secured the aid of master-hands at manipulation. Walkerhad already been discredited at the White House on account of hisrejection of fraudulent returns at the October election of members tothe Legislature. The convention was unwilling to take further chanceson a matter of that sort, and it consequently made it a part of theconstitution that the president of the convention should have entirecharge of the election to be held for its approval. The free-statelegislature was disposed of by placing in the constitution a provisionthat all existing laws should remain in force until the election of aLegislature provided for under the constitution. 

The master-stroke of the convention, however, was the provision forsubmitting the constitution to the vote of the people. Voters were notpermitted to accept or reject the instrument; all votes were to be forthe constitution either "with slavery" or "with no slavery. " But thedocument itself recognized slavery as already existing and declared theright of slave property like other property "before and higher than anyconstitutional sanction. " Other provisions made emancipation difficultby providing in any case for complete monetary remuneration and for theconsent of the owners. There were numerous other provisions offensiveto free-state men. It had been rightly surmised that they would take nopart in such an election and that "the constitution with slavery"would be approved. The vote on the constitution was set for the 21st ofDecember. For the constitution with slavery 6226 votes were recorded and569 for the constitution without slavery. 

While these events were taking place, Walker went to Washington to enterhis protest but resigned after finding only a hostile reception bythe President and his Cabinet. Stanton, who was acting Governor in theabsence of Walker, then called together the free-state Legislature, which set January 4, 1858, as the date for approving or rejecting theLecompton Constitution. At this election the votes cast were 138 for theconstitution with slavery, 24 for the constitution without slavery, and 10, 226 against the constitution. But President Buchanan had becomethoroughly committed to the support of the Lecompton Constitution. Disregarding the advice of the new Governor, he sent the LecomptonConstitution to Congress with the recommendation that Kansas be admittedto the Union as a slave State. 

Here was a crisis big with the fate of the Democratic party, if not ofthe Union. Stephen A. Douglas had already given notice that he wouldoppose the Lecompton Constitution. In favor of its rejection he made anotable speech which called forth the bitterest enmity from the Southand arrayed all the forces of the Administration against him. Supportersof Douglas were removed from office, and anti-Douglas men were put intheir places. In his fight against the fraudulent constitution Douglashimself, however, still had the support of a majority of NorthernDemocrats, especially in the Western States, and that of all theRepublicans in Congress. A bill to admit Kansas passed the Senate, butin the House a proviso was attached requiring that the constitutionshould first be submitted to the people of Kansas for acceptance orrejection. This amendment was finally accepted by the Senate with themodification that, if the people voted for the constitution, the Stateshould have a large donation of public land, but that if they rejectedit, they should not be admitted as a State until they had a populationlarge enough to entitle them to a representative in the lower House. Thevote of the people was cast on August 2, 1858, and the constitution wasfinally rejected by a majority of nearly twelve thousand. Thus resultedthe last effort to impose slavery on the people of Kansas. 

Although the war between slavery and freedom was fought out in miniaturein Kansas, the immediate issue was the preservation of slavery inMissouri. This, however, involved directly the prospect of emancipationin other border States and ultimate complete emancipation in all theStates. The issue is well stated in a Fourth of July address whichCharles Robinson delivered at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1855, after theinvasion of Missourians to influence the March election of that year, but before the beginning of bloody conflict:

"What reason is given for the cowardly invasion of our rights by ourneighbors? They say that if Kansas is allowed to be free the institutionof slavery in their own State will be in danger. .. . If the peopleof Missouri make it necessary, by their unlawful course, for us toestablish freedom in that State in order to enjoy the liberty ofgoverning ourselves in Kansas, then let that be the issue. If Kansas andthe whole North must be enslaved, or Missouri become free, then lether be made free. Aye! and if to be free ourselves, slavery must beabolished in the whole country, then let us accept that due. If blackslavery in a part of the States is incompatible with white freedomin any State, then let black slavery be abolished from all. As menespousing the principles of the Declaration of the Fathers, we can donothing else than accept these issues. "

The men who saved Kansas to freedom were not abolitionists in therestricted sense. Governor Walker found in 1857 that a considerablemajority of the free-state men were Democrats and that some were fromthe South. Nearly all actual settlers, from whatever source they came, were free-state men who felt that a slave was a burden in such a countryas Kansas. For example, during the first winter of the occupation ofKansas, an owner of nineteen slaves was himself forced to work like atrooper to keep them from freezing; and, indeed, one of them did freezeto death and another was seriously injured. 

In spite of all the advertising of opportunity and all the pressurebrought to bear upon Southerners to settle in Kansas, at no time did thenumber of slaves in the Territory reach three hundred. The climate andthe soil made for freedom, and the Governors were not the only personswho were converted to free-state principles by residence in theTerritory. 

CHAPTER XIII. THE SUPREME COURT IN POLITICS

The decision and arguments of the Supreme Court upon the Dred Scottcase were published on March 6, 1857, two days after the inaugurationof President Buchanan. The decision had been agreed upon many monthsbefore, and the appeal of the negro, Dred Scott, had been decidedby rulings which in no way involved the validity of the MissouriCompromise. Nevertheless, a majority of the judges determined to giveto the newly developed theory of John C. Calhoun the appearance of thesanctity of law. According to Chief Justice Taney's dictum, thosewho made the Constitution gave to those clauses defining the powerof Congress over the Territories an erroneous meaning. On numerousoccasions Congress had by statute excluded slavery from the publicdomain. This, in the judgment of the Chief Justice, they had no right todo, and such legislation was unconstitutional and void. Specifically theMissouri Compromise had never had any binding force as law. Property inslaves was as sacred as property in any other form, and slave-ownershad equal claim with other property owners to protection in all theTerritories of the United States. Neither Congress nor a territorialLegislature could infringe such equal rights. 

According to popular understanding, the Supreme Court declared "that thenegro has no rights which the white man is bound to respect. " But ChiefJustice Taney did not use these words merely as an expression of his ownor of the Court's opinion. He used them in a way much more contemptibleand inexcusable to the minds of men of strong anti-slavery convictions. He put them into the mouths of the fathers of the Republic, who wrotethe Declaration of Independence, framed the Constitution, organizedstate Governments, and gave to negroes full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote. But how explain this strange inconsistency?The Chief Justice was equal to the occasion. He insisted that in recentyears there had come about a better understanding of the phraseology ofthe Declaration of Independence. The words, "All men are created equal, "he admitted, "would seem to embrace the whole human family, and ifthey were used in a similar instrument at this day they would be sounderstood. " But the writers of that instrument had not, he said, intended to include men of the African race, who were at that timeregarded as not forming any part of the people. Therefore--strangelogic!--these men of the revolutionary era who treated negroes actuallyas citizens having full equal rights did not understand the meaning oftheir own words, which could be comprehended only after three-quartersof a century when, forsooth, equal rights had been denied to all personsof African descent. 

The ruling of the Court in the Dred Scott case came at a time whenNorthern people had a better idea of the spirit and teachings ofthe founders of the Republic regarding the slavery question than anygeneration before or since has had. The campaign that had just closedhad been characterized by a high order of discussion, and it was alsoemphatically a reading campaign. The new Republican party planted itselfsquarely on the principles enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, the reputedfounder of the old Republican party. They went back to the policy of thefathers, whose words on the subject of slavery they eagerly read. Fromthis source also came the chief material for their public addresses. To the common man who was thus indoctrinated, the Chief Justice, indescribing the sentiments of the fathers respecting slavery, appeared tobe doing what Horace Greeley was wont to describe as "saying a thing andbeing conscious while saying it that the thing is not true. "

The Dred Scott decision laid the Republicans open to the charge ofseeking by unlawful means to deprive slaveowners of their rights, and itwas to the partizan interest of the Democrats to stand by the Court andthus discredit their opponents. This action tended to carry the entireDemocratic party to the support of Calhoun's extreme position on theslavery question. Republicans had proclaimed that liberty was nationaland slavery municipal; that slavery had no warrant for existence exceptby state enactment; that under the Constitution Congress had no moreright to make a slave than it had to make a king; that Congress had nopower to establish or permit slavery in the Territories; that it was, onthe contrary, the duty of Congress to exclude slavery. On these pointsthe Supreme Court and the Republican party held directly contradictoryopinions. 

The Democratic platform of 1856 endorsed the doctrine of popularsovereignty as embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, whichimplied that Congress should neither prohibit nor introduce slavery intothe Territories, but should leave the inhabitants free to decide thatquestion for themselves, the public domains being open to slaveownerson equal terms with others. But once they had an organized territorialGovernment and a duly elected territorial Legislature, the residents ofa Territory were empowered to choose either slave labor or exclusivelyfree labor. This at least was the view expounded by Stephen A. Douglas, though the theory was apparently rendered untenable by the ruling of theCourt which extended protection to slave-owners in all the Territoriesremaining under the control of the general Government. It followed thatif Congress had no power to interfere with that right, much less had alocal territorial Government, which is itself a creature of Congress. A state Government alone might control the status of slave property. ATerritory when adopting a constitution preparatory to becoming a Statewould find it then in order to decide whether the proposed State shouldbe free or slave. This was the view held by Jefferson Davis and theextreme pro-slavery leaders. Aided by the authority of the SupremeCourt, they were prepared to insist upon a new plank in futureDemocratic platforms which should guarantee to all slave-owners equalrights in all Territories until they ceased to be Territories. Over thisissue the party again divided in 1860. 

Republicans naturally imagined that there had been collusion betweenDemocratic politicians and members of the Supreme Court. Mr. Sewardmade an explicit statement to that effect, and affirmed that PresidentBuchanan was admitted into the secret, alleging as proof a few words inhis inaugural address referring to the decision soon to be delivered. Nothing of the sort, however, was ever proven. The historian Von Holstpresents the view that there had been a most elaborate and comprehensiveprogram on the part of the slavocracy to control the judiciary of thefederal Government. The actual facts, however, admit of a simpler andmore satisfactory explanation. 

Judges are affected by their environment, as are other men. Thetransition from the view that slavery was an evil to the view that itis right and just did not come in ways open to general observation, andprobably few individuals were conscious of having altered their views. Leading churches throughout the South began to preach the doctrinethat slavery is a divinely ordained institution, and by the time of thedecision in the Dred Scott case a whole generation had grown up undersuch teaching. 

A large proportion of Southern leaders had become thoroughly convincedof the righteousness of their peculiar system. Not otherwise could theyhave been so successful in persuading others to accept their views. Even before the Dred Scott decision had crystallized opinion, FranklinPierce, although a New Hampshire Democrat of anti-slavery traditions, came, as a result of his intimate personal and political associationwith Southern leaders, to accept their guidance and strove to giveeffect to their policies. President Buchanan was a man of similarantecedents, and, contrary to the expectation of his Northernsupporters, did precisely as Pierce had done. It is a matter of recordthat the arguments of the Chief Justice had captivated his mind beforehe began to show his changed attitude towards Kansas. In August, 1857, the President wrote that, at the time of the passage of theKansas-Nebraska Act, slavery already existed and that it still existedin Kansas under the Constitution of the United States. "This point, "said he, "has at last been settled by the highest tribunal known inour laws. How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a mystery. "Granted that slavery is recognized as a permanent institution initself--just and of divine ordinance and especially united to onesection of the country--how could any one question the equal rights ofthe people of that section to occupy with their slaves lands acquiredby common sacrifice? Such was undoubtedly the view of both Pierce andBuchanan. It seemed to them "wicked" that Northern abolitionists shouldseek to infringe this sacred right. 

By a similar process a majority of the Supreme Court justices had becomeconverts to Calhoun's newly announced theory of 1847. It undoubtedlyseemed strange to them, as it did later to President Buchanan, that anyone should ever have held a different view. If the Court with the forceof its prestige should give legal sanction to the new doctrine, itwould allay popular agitation, ensure the preservation of the Union, andsecure to each section its legitimate rights. Such apparently was theexpectation of the majority of the Court in rendering the decision. But the decision was not unanimous. Each judge presented an individualopinion. Five supported the Chief Justice on the main points as to thestatus of the African race and the validity of the Missouri Compromise. Judge Nelson registered a protest against the entrance of the Courtinto the political arena. Curtis and McLean wrote elaborate dissentingopinions. Not only did the decision have no tendency to allay partydebate, but it added greatly to the acrimony of the discussion. Republicans accepted the dissenting opinions of Curtis and McLean as acomplete refutation of the arguments of the Chief Justice; and theCourt itself, through division among its members, became a partizaninstitution. The arguments of the justices thus present a completesummary of the views of the proslavery and anti-slavery parties, and theopposing opinions stand as permanent evidence of the impossibility ofreconciling slavery and freedom in the same government. 

It was through the masterful leadership of Stephen A. Douglas that theLecompton Constitution was defeated. In 1858 an election was to be heldin Illinois to determine whether or not Douglas should be reelectedto the United States Senate. The Buchanan Administration was using itsutmost influence to insure Douglas's defeat. Many eastern Republicansbelieved that in this emergency Illinois Republicans should supportDouglas, or at least that they should do nothing to diminish his chancesfor reelection; but Illinois Republicans decided otherwise and nominatedAbraham Lincoln as their candidate for the senatorship. Then followedthe memorable Lincoln-Douglas debates. 

This is not the place for any extended account of the famous duelbetween the rival leaders, but a few facts must be stated. Lincolnhad slowly come to the perception that a large portion of the peopleabhorred slavery, and that the weak point in the armor of Douglas was tobe found in the fact that he did not recognize this growing moral sense. Douglas had never been a defender of slavery on ethical grounds, norhad he expressed any distinct aversion to the system. In support of hispolicy of popular sovereignty his favorite dictum had been, "I do notcare whether slavery is voted up or voted down. "

This apparent moral obtuseness furnished to Lincoln his greatopportunity, for his opponent was apparently without a conscience inrespect to the great question of the day. Lincoln, on the contrary, hadreached the conclusion not only that slavery was wrong, but that therelation between slavery and freedom was such that they could not beharmonized within the same government. In the debates he again put forthhis famous utterance, "A house divided against itself cannot stand, "with the explanation that in course of time either this country wouldbecome all slave territory or slavery would be restricted and placedin a position which would involve its final extinction. In otherwords, Lincoln's position was similar to that of the conservativeabolitionists. As we know, Birney had given expression to a similarconviction of the impossibility of maintaining both liberty and slaveryin this country, but Lincoln spoke at a time when the whole countryhad been aroused upon the great question; when it was still uncertainwhether slavery would not be forced upon the people of Kansas; when thehighest court in the land had rendered a decision which was apparentlyintended to legalize slavery in all Territories; and when the alarmingquestion had been raised whether the next step would not be legalizationin all the States. 

Lincoln was a long-headed politician, as well as a man of sincere moraljudgments. He was defining issues for the campaign of 1860 and wasputting Douglas on record so that it would be impossible for him, asthe candidate of his party, to become President. Douglas had many anuncomfortable hour as Lincoln exposed his vain efforts to reconcile hispopular sovereignty doctrine with the Dred Scott decision. As Lincolnexpected, Douglas won the senatorship, but he lost the greater prize. 

The crusade against slavery was nearing its final stage. Under theleadership of such men as Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln, a political partywas being formed whose policies were based upon the assumption thatslavery is both a moral and a political evil. Even at this stage theparty had assumed such proportions that it was likely to carry theensuing presidential election. Davis and Yancey, the chief defenders ofslavery, were at the same time reaching a definite conclusion as towhat should follow the election of a Republican President. And thatconclusion involved nothing less than the fate of the Union. 

CHAPTER XIV. JOHN BROWN

The crusade against slavery was based upon the assumption that slavery, like war, is an abnormal state of society. As the tyrant produces theassassin, so on a larger scale slavery calls forth servile insurrection, or, as in the United States, an implacable struggle between free whitepersons and the defenders of slavery. 

The propaganda of Southern and Western abolitionists had as a primaryobject the prevention of both servile insurrection and civil war. It wasas clear to Southern abolitionists in the thirties as it was to Sewardand Lincoln in the fifties that, unless the newly aroused slave powershould be effectively checked, a terrible civil war would ensue. Toforestall this dreaded calamity, they freely devoted their lives andfortunes. Peaceable emancipation by state action, according to theoriginal program, was prevented by the rise of a sectional animositywhich beclouded the issue. As the leadership drifted into the hands ofextremists, the conservative masses were confused, misled, or deceived. The South undoubtedly became the victim of the erroneous teachings ofalarmists who believed that the anti-slavery North intended, by unlawfuland unconstitutional federal action, to abolish slavery in all theStates; while the North had equally exaggerated notions as to theaggressive intentions of the South. 

The opposing forces finally met on the plains of Kansas, and extremeNorthern opposition became personified in John Brown of Osawatomie. Hewas born in Connecticut in May, 1800, of New England ancestry, the sixthgeneration from the Mayflower. A Calvinist, a mystic, a Bible-readingPuritan, he was trained to anti-slavery sentiments in the family of OwenBrown, his father. He passed his early childhood in the Western Reserveof Ohio, and subsequently moved from Ohio to New York, to Pennsylvania, to Ohio again, to Connecticut, to Massachusetts, and finally to NewYork once more. He was at various times tanner, farmer, sheep-raiser, horse-breeder, wool-merchant, and a follower of other callings as well. From a business standpoint he may be regarded as a failure, for he hadbeen more than once a bankrupt and involved in much litigation. He wastwice married and was the father of twenty children, eight of whom diedin infancy. 

Until the Kansas excitement nothing had occurred in the history of theBrown family to attract public attention. John Brown was not conspicuousin anti-slavery efforts or in any line of public reform. As a mere ladduring the War of 1812 he accompanied his father, who was furnishingsupplies to the army, and thus he saw much of soldiers and theirofficers. The result was that he acquired a feeling of disgust foreverything military, and he consistently refused to perform the requiredmilitary drill until he had passed the age for service. Not quite inharmony with these facts is the statement that he was a great admirer ofOliver Cromwell, and Rhodes says of him that he admired Nat Turner, theleader of the servile insurrection in Virginia, as much as he did GeorgeWashington. There seems to be no reason to doubt the testimony of themembers of his family that John Brown always cherished a lively interestin the African race and a deep sympathy with them. As a youth he hadchosen for a companion a slave boy of his own age, to whom he becamegreatly attached. This slave, badly clad and poorly fed, beaten withiron shovel or anything that came first to hand, young Brown grew toregard as his equal if not his superior. And it was the contrast betweentheir respective conditions that first led Brown to "swear eternal warwith slavery. " In later years John Brown, Junior, tells us that, onseeing a negro for the first time, he felt so great a sympathy forhim that he wanted to take the negro home with him. This sympathy, heassures us, was a result of his father's teaching. Upon the testimony oftwo of John Brown's sons rests the oft-repeated story that he declaredeternal war against slavery and also induced the members of his familyto unite with him in formal consecration to his mission. The time givenfor this incident is previous to the year 1840; the idea that he wasa divinely chosen agent for the deliverance of the slaves was of laterdevelopment. 

As early as 1834 Brown had shown some active interest in the educationof negro children, first in Pennsylvania and later in Ohio. In 1848 theBrown family became associated with an enterprise of Gerrit Smith innorthern New York, where a hundred thousand acres of land were offeredto negro families for settlement. During the excitement over theFugitive Slave Act of 1850 Brown organized among the colored people ofSpringfield, Massachusetts, "The United States League of Gileadites. "As an organization this undertaking proved a failure, but Brown's formalwritten instructions to the "Gileadites" are interesting on accountof their relation to what subsequently happened. In this document, by referring to the multitudes who had suffered in their behalf, heencouraged the negroes to stand for their liberties. He instructed themto be armed and ready to rush to the rescue of any of their number whomight be attacked:

"Should one of your number be arrested, you must collect together asquickly as possible, so as to outnumber your adversaries who are takingan active part against you. Let no able-bodied man appear on the groundunequipped, or with his weapons exposed to view: let that be understoodbeforehand. Your plans must be known only to yourself, and with theunderstanding that all traitors must die, wherever caught and proven tobe guilty. Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and departearly from Mount Gilead" (Judges, vii. 3; Deut. Xx. 8). Give all cowardsan opportunity to show it on condition of holding their peace. Do NOTDELAY ONE MOMENT AFTER YOU ARE READY: YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR RESOLUTIONIF YOU DO. LET THE FIRST BLOW BE THE SIGNAL FOR ALL TO ENGAGE: AND WHENENGAGED DO NOT DO YOUR WORK BY HALVES, BUT MAKE CLEAN WORK WITH YOURENEMIES, --AND BE SURE YOU MEDDLE NOT WITH ANY OTHERS. By going aboutyour business quietly, you will get the job disposed of before thenumber that an uproar would bring together can collect; and you willhave the advantage of those who come out against you, for they will bewholly unprepared with either equipments or matured plans; all with themwill be confusion and terror. Your enemies will be slow to attack youafter you have done up the work nicely; and if they should, they willhave to encounter your white friends as well as you; for you may safelycalculate on a division of the whites, and may by that means get to anhonorable parley. "

He gives here a distinct suggestion of the plans and methods which helater developed and extended. 

When Kansas was opened for settlement, John Brown was fifty-four yearsold. Early in the spring of 1855, five of his sons took up claims nearOsawatomie. They went, as did others, as peaceable settlers withoutarms. After the election of March 30, 1855, at which armed Missouriansoverawed the Kansas settlers and thus secured a unanimous pro-slaveryLegislature, the freestate men, under the leadership of Robinson, beganto import Sharp's rifles and other weapons for defense. Brown's sonsthereupon wrote to their father, describing their helpless condition andurging him to come to their relief. In October, 1855, John Brown himselfarrived with an adequate supply of rifles and some broadswords andrevolvers. The process of organization and drill thereupon began, andwhen the Wakarusa War occurred early in December, 1855, John Brown wason hand with a small company from Osawatomie to assist in the defenseof Lawrence. The statement that he disapproved of the agreement withGovernor Shannon which prevented bloodshed is not in accord with aletter which John Brown wrote to his wife immediately after the event. The Governor granted practically all that the freestate men desiredand recognized their trainbands as a part of the police force ofthe Territory. Brown by this stipulation became Captain John Brown, commander of a company of the territorial militia. 

Soon after the Battle of Wakarusa, Captain Brown passed the command ofthe company of militia to his son John, while he became the leader of asmall band composed chiefly of members of his own family. Writing to hiswife on April 7, 1856, he said: "We hear that preparations are making inthe United States Court for numerous arrests of free-state men. For oneI have not desired (all things considered) to have the slave power ceasefrom its acts of aggression. 'Their foot shall slide in due time. '" Thisletter of Brown's indicates that the writer was pleased at the prospectof approaching trouble. 

When, six weeks later, notice came of the attack upon Lawrence, JohnBrown, Junior, went with the company of Osawatomie Rifles to the reliefof the town, while the elder Brown with a little company of six moved inthe same direction. In a letter to his wife, dated June 26, 1856, morethan a month after the massacre in Pottawatomie Valley, Brown said:

"On our way to Lawrence we learned that it had been already destroyed, and we encamped with John's company overnight. .. . On the second dayand evening after we left John's men, we encountered quite a number ofpro-slavery men and took quite a number of prisoners. Our prisoners welet go, but kept some four or five horses. We were immediately afterthis accused of murdering five men at Pottawatomie and great effortshave been made by the Missourians and their ruffian allies to captureus. John's company soon afterwards disbanded, and also the Osawatomiemen. Since then, we have, like David of old, had our dwelling with theserpents of the rocks and the wild beasts of the wilderness. "

There will probably never be agreement as to Brown's motives in slayinghis five neighbors on May 24, 1856. Opinions likewise differ as to theeffect which this incident had on the history of Kansas. Abolitionistsof every class had said much about war and about servile insurrection, but the conservative people of the West and South had mentioned thesubject only by way of warning and that they might point out ways ofprevention. Garrison and his followers had used language which gaverise to the impression that they favored violent revolution and werenot averse to fomenting servile insurrection. They had no faith in theefforts of Northern emigrants to save Kansas from the clutches of theslaveholding South, and they denounced in severe terms the Robinsonleadership there, believing it sure to result in failure. To this classof abolitionists John Brown distinctly belonged. He believed that sohigh was the tension on the slavery question throughout the countrythat revolution, if inaugurated at any point, would sweep the land andliberate the slaves. Brown was also possessed of the belief that he washimself the divinely chosen agent to let loose the forces of freedom;and that this was the chief motive which prompted the deed atPottawatomie is as probable as any other. 

Viewed in this light, the Pottawatomie massacre was measurablysuccessful. Opposing forces became more clearly defined and werepitted against each other in hostile array. There were reprisals andcounter-reprisals. Kansas was plunged into a state of civil war, but itis quite probable that this condition would have followed the looting ofLawrence even if John Brown had been absent from the Territory. 

Coincident with the warfare by organized companies, small irregularbands infested the country. Kansas became a paradise for adventurers, soldiers of fortune, horse thieves, cattle thieves, and marauders ofvarious sorts. Spoiling the enemy in the interest of a righteous causeeasily degenerated into common robbery and murder. It was chiefly inthis sort of conflict that two hundred persons were slain and that twomillion dollars' worth of property was destroyed. 

During this period of civil war the members of the Brown family were notmuch in evidence. John Brown, Junior, captain of the Osawatomie Rifles, was a political prisoner at Topeka. Swift destruction of their propertywas visited upon all those members who were suspected of having a sharein the Pottawatomie murders, and their houses were burned and theirother property was seized. Warrants were out for the arrest of the elderBrown and his sons. Captain Pate who, in command of a small troop, wasin pursuit of Brown and his company, was surprised at Black Jack in theearly morning and induced to surrender. Brown thus gained control of anumber of horses and other supplies and began to arrange terms forthe exchange of his son and Captain Pate as prisoners of war. Thenegotiations were interrupted, however, by the arrival of Colonel Sumnerwith United States troops, who restored the horses and other booty anddisbanded all the troops. With the Colonel was a deputy marshal withwarrants for the arrest of the Browns. When ordered to proceed with hisduty, however, the marshal was so overawed that, even though a federalofficer was present, he merely remarked, "I do not recognize any one forwhom I have warrants. "

After the capture of Captain Pate at Black Jack early in June, little isknown about Brown and his troops for two months. Apart from an encounterof opposing forces near Osawatomie in which he and his band wereengaged, Brown took no share in the open fighting between the organizedcompanies of opposing forces, and his part in the irregular guerrillawarfare of the period is uncertain. Towards the close of the war one ofhis sons was shot by a preacher who alleged that he had been robbedby the Browns. After peace had been restored to Kansas by the vigorousaction of Governor Geary, Brown left the scene and never again took anactive part in the local affairs of the Territory. 

John Brown's influence upon the course of affairs in Kansas, likeWilliam Lloyd Garrison's upon the general anti-slavery movement of thecountry, has been greatly misunderstood and exaggerated. Brown's objectand intention were fundamentally contradictory to those of the freestatesettlers. They strove to build a free commonwealth by legal andconstitutional methods. He strove to inaugurate a revolution which wouldextend to all pro-slavery States and result in universal emancipation. John Brown was in Kansas only one year, and he never made himself at onewith those who should have been his fellow-workers but went his solitaryway. Only in three instances did he pretend to cooperate with theregular freestate forces. He could not work with them because hisconception of the means to be adopted to attain the end was differentfrom theirs. Probably before he left the Territory in 1856, hehad realized that his work in Kansas was a failure and that thelaw-and-order forces were too strong for the execution of his plans. Certain it is that within a few weeks after his departure he hadtransferred the field of his operations to the mountains of Virginia. Kansas became free through the persistent determination of the rankand file of Northern settlers under the wise leadership of GovernorRobinson. It is difficult to determine whether the cause of Kansas wasaided or hindered by the advent of John Brown and the adventurers withwhom his name became associated. 

During the fall of 1856 and until the late summer of 1857 Brown wasin the East raising funds for the redemption of Kansas and for thereimbursement of those who had incurred or were likely to incur lossesin defense of the cause. For the equipment of a troop of soldiers underhis own command he formulated plans for raising $30, 000 by privatesubscription, and in this he was to a considerable extent successful. It can never be known how much was given in this way to Brown for theequipment of his army of liberation. It is estimated that George L. Stearns alone gave in all fully $10, 000. Because Eastern abolitionistshad lost confidence in Robinson's leadership, they lent a willing ear tothe plea that Captain Brown with a well-equipped and trained company ofsoldiers was the last hope for checking the enemy. Not only would Kansasbecome a slave State without such help, it was said, but the institutionof slavery would spread into all the Territories and become invincible. 

The money was given to Brown to redeem Kansas, but he had developed analternative plan. Early in the year 1857, he met in New York ColonelHugh Forbes, a soldier of fortune who had seen service with Garibaldiin Italy. They discussed general plans for an aggressive attack upon theSouth for the liberation of the slaves, and with these plans the needsof Kansas had little or no connection. "Kansas was to be a prologue tothe real drama, " writes his latest biographer; "the properties ofthe one were to serve in the other. " In April six months' salary wasadvanced out of the Kansas fund to Forbes, who was employed at ahundred dollars a month to aid in the execution of their plans. Anothersignificant expenditure of the Kansas fund was in pursuance of acontract with a Mr. Blair, a Connecticut manufacturer, to furnish at adollar each one thousand pikes. Though the contract was dated March 80, 1857, it was not completed until the fall of 1859, when the weapons weredelivered to Brown in Pennsylvania for use at Harper's Ferry. 

Instead of rushing to the relief of Kansas, as contributors hadexpected, the leader exercised remarkable deliberation. When Augustarrived, it found him only as far as Tabor, Iowa, where a considerablequantity of arms had been previously assembled. Here he was joined byColonel Forbes, and together they organized a school of military tacticswith Forbes as instructor. But as Forbes could find no one but Brown andhis son to drill, he soon returned to the East, still trusted by Brownas a co-worker. It would seem that Forbes himself wished to play thechief part in the liberation of America. 

While he was at Tabor, Brown was urged by Lane and other formerassociates of his in Kansas to come to their relief with all his forces. There had, indeed, been a full year of peace since Geary's arrival, but early in October there was to occur the election of a territorialLegislature in which the free-state forces had agreed to participate, and Lane feared an invasion from Missouri. But although the appeal wasnot effective, the election proved a complete triumph for the North. Late in October, after the signal victory of the law-and-order partyat the election, Brown was again urged with even greater insistence tomuster all his forces and come to Kansas, and there were hints in Lane'sletter that an aggressive campaign was afoot to rid the Territory ofthe enemy. Instead of going in force, however, Brown stole into theTerritory alone. On his arrival, two days after the date set for adecisive council of the revolutionary faction, he did not make himselfknown to Governor Robinson or to any of his party but persuaded severalof his former associates to join his "school" in Iowa. From Taborhe subsequently transferred the school to Springdale, a quiet Quakercommunity in Cedar County, Iowa, seven miles from any railway station. Here the company went into winter quarters and spent the time in rigiddrill in preparation for the campaign of liberation which they expectedto undertake the following season. 

While he was at Tabor, Brown began to intimate to his Eastern friendsthat he had other and different plans for the promotion of the generalcause. In January, 1858, he went East with the definite intention ofobtaining additional support for the greater scheme. On February 22, 1858, at the home of Gerrit Smith in New York, there was held a councilat which Brown definitely outlined his purpose to begin operations atsome point in the mountains of Virginia. Smith and Sanborn at firsttried to dissuade him, but finally consented to cooperate. The secretwas carefully guarded: some half-dozen Eastern friends were apprised ofit, including Stearns, their most liberal contributor, and two or threefriends at Springdale. 

As early as December, 1857, Forbes began to write mysterious letters toSanborn, Stearns, and others of the circle, in which he complained ofill-usage at the hands of Brown. It appears that Forbes erroneouslyassumed that the Boston friends were aware of Brown's contract withhim and of his plans for the attack upon Virginia; but, since they wereentirely ignorant on both points, the correspondence was conductedat cross-purposes for several months. Finally, early in May, 1858, ittranspired that Forbes had all the time been fully informed of Brown'sintentions to begin the effort for emancipation in Virginia. Not onlyso, but he had given detailed information on the subject to SenatorsSumner, Seward, Hale, Wilson, and possibly others. Senator Wilson wastold that the arms purchased by the New England Aid Society for use inKansas were to be used by Brown for an attack on Virginia. Wilson, inentire ignorance of Brown's plans, demanded that the Aid Society beeffectively protected against any such charge of betrayal of trust. Theofficers of the Society were, in fact, aware that the arms which hadbeen purchased with Society funds the year before and shipped to Tabor, Iowa, had been placed in Brown's hands and that, without their consent, those arms had been shipped to Ohio and just at that time were onthe point of being transported to Virginia. This knowledge placed theofficers of the New England Aid Society in a most awkward position. Stearns, the treasurer, had advanced large sums to meet pressing needsduring the starvation times in Kansas in 1857. Now the arms in Brown'spossession were, by vote of the officers, given to the treasurer in partpayment of the Society's debt, and he of course left them just wherethey were. * On the basis of this arrangement Senator Wilson and thepublic were assured that none of the property given for the benefit ofKansas had been or would be diverted to other purposes by the KansasCommittee. It was decided, however, that on account of the Forbesrevelations the attack upon Harper's Ferry must be delayed for one yearand that Brown must go to Kansas to take part in the pending elections. 

 * "When the denouement finally came, however, the public and press did not take a very favorable view of the transaction; it was too difficult to distinguish between George L. Stearns, the benefactor of the Kansas Committee, and George L. Stearns, the Chairman of that Committee. " Villard, "John Brown, " p. 341. 

Though Brown arrived in Kansas late in June, he took no active part inthe pending measures for the final triumph of the free-state cause. Itis something of a mystery how he was occupied between the 1st of Julyand the middle of December. Under the pseudonym of "Shubal Morgan" hewas commander of a small band in which were a number of his followersin training for the Eastern mission. The occupation of this band is notmatter of history until December 20, 1858, when they made a raid intothe State of Missouri, slew one white man, took eleven slaves, a largenumber of horses, some oxen, wagons, much food, arms, and various othersupplies. This action was in direct violation of a solemn agreementbetween the border settlers of State and Territory. The people inKansas were in terror lest retaliatory raids should follow, as wouldundoubtedly have happened had not the people of Missouri taken activemeasures to prevent such reprisals. 

Rewards were offered for Brown's arrest, and free-state residentsserved notice that he must leave the Territory. In the dead of winter hestarted North with some slaves and many horses, accompanied by Kagi andGill, two of his faithful followers. In northern Kansas, where theywere delayed by a swollen stream, a band of horsemen appeared to disputetheir passage. Brown's party quickly mustered assistance and, givingchase to the enemy, took three prisoners with four horses as spoils ofwar. In Kansas parlance the affair is called "The Battle of the Spurs. "The leaders in the chase were seasoned soldiers on their way to Harper'sFerry with the intention of spending their lives collecting slaves andconducting them to places of safety. For this sort of warfare they werewinning their spurs. It was their intention to teach all defenders ofslavery to use their utmost endeavor to keep out of their reach. AsBrown and his company passed through Tabor, the citizens took occasionat a public meeting to resolve "that we have no sympathy with those whogo to slave States to entice away slaves, and take property or life whennecessary to attain that end. "

A few days later the party was at Grinnell, Iowa. According to thedetailed account which J. B. Grinnell gives in his autobiography, Brownappeared on Saturday afternoon, stacked his arms in Grinnell's parlorand disposed of his people and horses partly in Grinnell's house andbarn and partly at the hotel. In the evening Brown and Kagi addresseda large meeting in a public hall. Brown gave a lurid account ofexperiences in Kansas, justified his raid into Missouri by saying theslaves were to be sold for shipment to the South, and gave notice thathis surplus horses would be offered for sale on Monday. "What title canyou give?" was the question that came from the audience. "The best--theaffidavit that they were taken by black men from land they had clearedand tilled; taken in part payment for labor which is kept back. "

Brown again addressed a large meeting on Sunday evening at which each ofthe three clergymen present invoked the divine blessing upon Brown andhis labors. The present writer was told by an eye-witness that one ofthe ministers prayed for forgiveness for any wrongful acts which theirguest may have committed. Convinced of the rectitude of his actions, however, Brown objected and said that he thanked no one for askingforgiveness for anything he had done. 

Returning from church on Sunday evening, Grinnell found a messageawaiting him from Mr. Werkman, United States marshal at Iowa City, whowas a friend of Grinnell. The message in part read: "You can see that itwill give your town a bad name to have a fight there; then all who aidare liable, and there will be an arrest or blood. Get the old Devil awayto save trouble, for he will be taken, dead or alive. " Grinnell showedthe message to Brown, who remarked: "Yes, I have heard of him ever sinceI came into the State. .. . Tell him we are ready to be taken, but willwait one day more for his military squad. " True to his word he waitedtill the following afternoon and then moved directly towards Iowa City, the home of the marshal, passing beyond the city fourteen miles to hisQuaker friends at Springdale. Here he remained about two weeks untilhe had completed arrangements for shipping his fugitives by rail toChicago. In the meantime, where was Marshal Werkman of Iowa City? Washe of the same mind as the deputy marshal who had accompanied ColonelSumner? Two of Brown's men had visited the city to make arrangements forthe shipment. The situation was obvious enough to those who would see. The entire incident is an illuminating commentary on the attitude ofboth government and people towards the Fugitive Slave Law. In March thefugitives were safely landed in Canada and the rest of the horseswere sold in Cleveland, Ohio. The time was approaching for the move onVirginia. 

Brown now expended much time and attention upon a constitution for theprovisional government which he was to set up. In January and February, 1858, Brown had labored over this document for several weeks at the homeof Frederick Douglass at Rochester, New York. A copy was in evidenceat the conference with Sanborn and Gerrit Smith in February, and thedocument was approved at a conference held in Chatham, Canada, on May 8, 1858, just at the time when Forbes's revelations caused the postponementof the enterprise. It is an elaborate constitution containingforty-eight articles. The preamble indicates the general purport:

Whereas, Slavery throughout its entire existence in the United States isnone other than a most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war ofone portion of its citizens upon another portion the only conditionsof which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absoluteextermination; in utter disregard and violation of those eternal andself-evident truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence:Therefore, we the citizens of the United States, and the OppressedPeople, who, by a decision of the Supreme Court are declared to have norights which the White Man is bound to respect; together with all otherpeople degraded by the laws thereof, Do, for the time being ordain andestablish for ourselves, the following PROVISIONAL CONSTITUTION ANDORDINANCES, the better to protect our Persons, Property, Lives andLiberties and to govern our actions. 

Article Forty-six reads:

The foregoing articles shall not be construed so as in any way toencourage the overthrow of any State Government or of the generalgovernment of the United States; and look to no dissolution of theUnion, but simply to Amendment and Repeal. And our flag shall be thesame that our Fathers fought under in the Revolution. 

In Article Forty, "profane swearing, filthy conversation, and indecentbehavior" are forbidden. The document indicates an obvious intention toeffect a revolution by a restrained and regulated use of force. 

Mobilization of forces began in June, 1859. Cook, one of the originalparty, had spent the year in the region of Harper's Ferry. In July theKennedy farm, five miles from Harper's Ferry, was leased. The Northernimmigrants posed as farmers, stock-raisers, and dealers in cattle, seeking a milder climate. To assist in the disguise, Brown's daughterand daughter-in-law, mere girls, joined the community. Even so it wasdifficult to allay troublesome curiosity on the part of neighbors at thegathering of so many men with no apparent occupation. Suspicion mighteasily have been aroused by the assembling of numerous boxes of armsfrom the West and the thousand pikes from Connecticut. Late in August, Floyd, Secretary of War, received an anonymous letter emanating fromSpringdale, Iowa, giving information which, if acted upon, would haveled to an investigation and stopped the enterprise. 

The 24th of October was the day appointed for taking possession ofHarper's Ferry, but fear of exposure led to a change of plan and themove was begun on the 16th of October. Six of the party who would havebeen present at the later date were absent. The march from Kennedy farmbegan about eight o'clock Sunday evening. Before midnight the bridges, the town, and the arsenal were in the hands of the invaders without agun having been fired. Before noon on Monday some forty citizens of theneighborhood had been assembled as prisoners and held, it was explained, as hostages for the safety of members of the party who might be taken. During the early forenoon Kagi strongly urged that they should escapeinto the mountains; but Brown, who was influenced, as he said, bysympathy for his prisoners and their distressed families, refused tomove and at last found himself surrounded by opposing forces. Brown'smen, having been assigned to different duties, were separated. Six ofthem escaped; others were killed or wounded or taken prisoners. Brownhimself with six of his men and a few of his prisoners made a finalstand in the engine-house. This was early in the afternoon. All avenuesof escape were now closed. Brown made two efforts to communicate withhis assailants by means of a flag of truce, sending first Thompson, oneof his men, with one of his prisoners, and then Stevens and Watson Brownwith another of the prisoners. Thompson was received but was held as aprisoner; Stevens and Watson Brown were shot down, the first dangerouslywounded and the other mortally wounded. Later in the afternoon Brownreceived a flag of truce with a demand that he surrender. He stated theconditions under which he would restore the prisoners whom he held, buthe refused the unconditional surrender which was demanded. 

About midnight Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived from Washington with acompany of marines. He took full command, set a guard of his own menaround the engine-house and made preparation to effect a forcibleentrance at sunrise on Tuesday morning in case a peaceable surrender wasrefused. Lee first offered to two of the local companies the honor ofstorming the castle. These, however, declined to undertake the periloustask, and the honor fell to Lieutenant Green of the marines, whothereupon selected two squads of twelve men each to attempt an entrancethrough the door. To Lee's aide, Lieutenant Stuart, who had knownBrown in Kansas, was committed the task of making the formal demand forsurrender. Brown and Stuart, who recognized each other instantly upontheir meeting at the door, held a long parley, which resulted, as hadbeen expected, in Brown's refusal to yield. Stuart then gave the signalwhich had been agreed upon to Lieutenant Green, who ordered the firstsquad to advance. Failing to break down the door with sledge-hammers, they seized a heavy ladder and at the second stroke made an opening nearthe ground large enough to admit a man. Green instantly entered, rushedto the back part of the room, and climbed upon an engine to command abetter view. Colonel Lewis Washington, the most distinguished of theprisoners, pointed to Brown, saying, "This is Osawatomie. " Green leapedforward and by thrust or stroke bent his light sword double againstBrown's body. Other blows were administered and his victim fellsenseless, and it was believed that the leader had been slain in actionaccording to his wish. 

The first of the twelve men to attempt to follow their leader wasinstantly killed by gunshot. Others rushed in and slew two of Brown'smen by the use of the bayonet. To save the prisoners from harm, Lee hadgiven careful instruction to fire no shot, to use only bayonets. Theother insurgents were made prisoners. "The whole fight, " Green reported, "had not lasted over three minutes. "

Of all the prisoners taken and held as hostages, not one was killed orwounded. They were made as safe as the conditions permitted. The elevenprisoners who were with Brown in the engine-house were profoundlyimpressed with the courage, the bearing, and the self-restraint of theleader and his men. Colonel Washington describes Brown as holding acarbine in one hand, with one dead son by his side, while feeling thepulse of another son, who had received a mortal wound, all the timewatching every movement for the defense and forbidding his men tofire upon any one who was unarmed. The testimony is uniform thatBrown exercised special care to prevent his men from shooting unarmedcitizens, and this conduct was undoubtedly influential in securinggenerous treatment for him and his men after the surrender. 

For six weeks afterwards, until his execution on the 2d of December, John Brown remained a conspicuous figure. He won universal admirationfor courage, coolness, and deliberation, and for his skill in parryingall attempts to incriminate others. Probably less than a hundred peopleknew beforehand anything about the enterprise, and less than a dozenof these rendered aid and encouragement. It was emphatically a personalexploit. On the part of both leader and followers, no occasion wasomitted to drive home the lesson that men were willing to imperil theirlives for the oppressed with no hope or desire for personal gain. Brownespecially served notice upon the South that the day of final reckoningwas at hand. 

It is natural that the consequences of an event so spectacular asthe capture of Harper's Ferry should be greatly exaggerated. Brown's contribution to Kansas history has been distorted beyond allrecognition. The Harper's Ferry affair, however, because it came on theeve of the final election before the war, undoubtedly had considerableinfluence. It sharpened the issue. It played into the hands ofextremists in both sections. On one side, Brown was at once madea martyr and a hero; on the other, his acts were accepted as ademonstration of Northern malignity and hatred, whose fitting expressionwas seen in the incitement of slaves to massacre their masters. 

The distinctive contribution of John Brown to American history does notconsist in the things which he did but rather in that which he has beenmade to represent. He has been accepted as the personification of theirrepressible conflict. 

Of all the men of his generation John Brown is best fitted to exemplifythe most difficult lesson which history teaches: that slavery anddespotism are themselves forms of war, that the shedding of blood islikely to continue so long as the rich, the strong, the educated, or theefficient, strive to force their will upon the poor, the weak, and theignorant. Lincoln uttered a final word on the subject when he said thatno man is good enough to rule over another man; if he were good enoughhe would not be willing to do it. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Among the many political histories which furnish a background for thestudy of the anti-slavery crusade, the following have special value:

J. F. Rhodes, "History of the United States from the Compromise of1860, " 7 vols. (1893-1906). The first two volumes cover the decade to1860. This is the best-balanced account of the period, written inan admirable judicial temper. H. E. Von Holst, Constitutional analPolitical History of the United States, " 8 vols. (1877-1892). A vastmine of information on the slavery controversy. The work is vitiated byan almost virulent antipathy toward the South. James Schouler, "Historyof the United States, " 7 vols. (1895-1901). A sober, reliable narrativeof events. Henry Wilson, "History of the Rise and Fall of the SlavePower in America, " 3 vols. (1872-1877). The fullest account of thesubject, written by a contemporary. The material was thrown together byan overworked statesman and lacks proportion. 

Three volumes in the "American Nation Series" aim to combine thetreatment of special topics of commanding interest with generalpolitical history. A. B. Hart's "Slavery and Abolition" (1906) gives anaccount of the origin of the controversy and carries the history down to1841. G. P. Garrison's "Westward Extension" (1906) deals especially withthe Mexican War and its results. T. C. Smith's "Parties and Slavery"(1906) follows the gradual disruption of parties under the pressure ofthe slavery controversy. 

From the mass of contemporary controversial literature a few titles ofmore permanent interest may be selected. William Goodell's "Slaveryand Anti-slavery" (1852) presents the anti-slavery arguments. A. T. Bledsoe's "An Essay on Liberty and Slavery" (1856) and "The Pro-slaveryArgument" (1852), a series of essays by various writers, undertake thedefense of slavery. 

Only a few of the biographies which throw light on the crusade can bementioned. "William Lloyd Garrison, " 4 vols. (1885-1889) is the storyof the editor of the Liberator told exhaustively by his children. Lessvoluminous but equally important are the following: W. Birney, "James G. Birney and His Times" (1890); G. W. Julian, "Joshua R. Giddings" (1892);Catherine H. Birney, "Sarah and Angelina Grimke" (1885); John T. Morse, "John Quincy Adams. " Those who have not patience to read E. L. Pierce'sponderous "Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, " 4 vols. (1877-1893), would do well to read G. H. Haynes's "Charles Sumner" (1909). 

The history of the conflict in Kansas is closely associated with thelives of two rival candidates for the honor of leadership in the causeof freedom. James Redpath in his "Public Life of Captain John Brown"(1860), Frank B. Sanborn in his "Life and Letters of John Brown" (1885), and numerous other writers give to Brown the credit of leadership. The opposition view is held by F. W. Blackmar in his "Life of CharlesRobinson" (1902), and by Robinson himself in his Kansas Conflict (2ded. , 1898). The best non-partizan biography of Brown is O. G. Villard's"John Brown, A Biography Fifty Years After" (1910). 

The Underground Railroad has been adequately treated in W. H. Siebert's"The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom" (1898), but LeviCoffin's "Reminiscences" (1876) gives an earlier autobiographicalaccount of the origin and management of an important line, while Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" throws the glamour of romance over thesystem. 

For additional bibliographical information the reader is referred tothe articles on "Slavery, Fugitive Slave Laws, Kansas, William LloydGarrison, John Brown, James Gillespie Birney, " and "Frederick Douglass"in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica" (11th Edition).