A Brief History of the United States Part 38

[26] In 1824 W. H. Ashley led a party from St. Louis up the Platte River, over the mountains, and well down the Green River, and home by Great Salt Lake, the South Pa.s.s, the Big Horn, the Yellowstone, and the Missouri. In 1826 Ashley and a party went through the South Pa.s.s, dragging a six-pound cannon, the first wheeled vehicle known to have crossed the mountains north of the Santa Fe trail, The cannon was put in a trading post on Utah Lake.

[27] In 1826 Jedediah Smith with fifteen trappers went from near the Great Salt Lake to the lower Colorado River, crossed to San Diego, and went up California and over the Sierra Nevada to Great Salt Lake. In 1827, with another party, Smith went over the same ground to the lower Colorado, where the Indians killed ten of his men and stole his property. With two companions Smith walked to San Jose, where the Mexicans seized him. At Monterey (mon-te-ra) an American s.h.i.+p captain secured his release, and with a new band of followers Smith went to a fork of the Sacramento River.

While Smith and his party were in Oregon in 1828, the Indians ma.s.sacred all but five of them. The rest fled and Smith went on alone to Fort Vancouver, a British fur-trading post on the Columbia River. Up this river Smith went (in the spring of 1829) to the mountains, turned southward, and in August, near the head waters of the Snake River, met two of his partners. Together they crossed the mountains to the source of the Big Horn, and then one went on to St. Louis. Early in 1830 he returned with eighty-two men and ten wagons. This was the first wagon train on the Oregon trail.

[28] Wyeth had joined Kelley's party; but finding that it would not start for some time, he withdrew, and organized a company to trade in Oregon, and early in 1832, with twenty-nine companions, left Boston, went to St.

Louis, joined a band of trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and went with them to a great Indian fair on the upper waters of the Snake River. There some of his companions deserted him, as others had done along the way. With the rest Wyeth reached Fort Vancouver, where the company went to pieces, and in 1833 Wyeth returned to Boston.

CHAPTER XXV

MORE TERRITORY ACQUIRED

TYLER AND THE WHIGS QUARREL.--When Congress (in May, 1841) first met in Tyler's term, Clay led the Whigs in proposing measures to carry out their party principles. But Tyler vetoed their bill establis.h.i.+ng a new national bank. The Whigs then made some changes to suit, as they supposed, his objections, and sent him a bill to charter a Fiscal Corporation; but this also came back with a veto; whereupon his Cabinet officers (all save Daniel Webster, Secretary of State) resigned, and the Whig members of Congress, in an address to the people, read him out of the party. Later in his term Tyler vetoed two tariff bills, but finally approved a third, known as the Tariff of 1842. For these uses of the veto power the Whigs thought of impeaching him; but did not.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DISPUTED MAINE BOUNDARY.]

WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY.--When Tyler's cabinet officers resigned, Webster remained in order to conclude a new treaty with Great Britain, [1] by which our present northeastern boundary was fixed from the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence. Neither power obtained all the territory it claimed under the treaty of 1783, but the disputed region was divided about equally between them. [2]

Soon after the treaty was concluded Webster resigned the secretarys.h.i.+p of state, and the rupture between Tyler and the Whigs was complete.

THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS.--The great event of Tyler's time was the decision to annex the republic of Texas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ALAMO.]

In 1821 Mexico secured her independence of Spain, and about three years afterward adopted the policy of granting a great tract of land in Texas to anybody who, under certain conditions, and within a certain time, would settle a specified number of families on the grant. To colonize in this way at once became popular in the South, and in a few years thousands of American citizens were settled in Texas.

For a while all went well; but in 1833 serious trouble began between the Mexican government and the Texans, who in 1836 declared their independence, founded the republic of Texas, [3] and sought admission into our Union as a state. Neither Jackson nor Van Buren favored annexation, so the question dragged on till 1844, when Tyler made with Texas a treaty of annexation and sent it to the Senate. That body refused a.s.sent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WAR WITH MEXICO.]

THE DEMOCRATS AND TEXAS.--The issue was thus forced. The Democratic national convention of 1844 claimed that Texas had once been ours, [4] and declared for its "reannexation." To please the Northern Democrats it also declared for the "reoccupation" of Oregon up to 54 40'. This meant that we should compel Great Britain to abandon all claim to that country, and make it all American soil.

The Democrats went into the campaign with the popular cries, "The reannexation of Texas;" "The whole of Oregon or none;" "Texas or disunion"--and elected Polk [5] after a close contest.

TEXAS ANNEXED; OREGON DIVIDED.--Tyler, regarding the triumph of the Democrats as an instruction from the people to annex Texas, urged Congress to do so at once, and in March, 1845, a resolution for the admission of Texas pa.s.sed both houses, and was signed by the President. [6] The resolution provided also that out of her territory four additional states might be made if Texas should consent. The boundaries were in dispute, but in the end Texas was held to have included all the territory from the boundary of the United States to the Rio Grande and a line extending due north from its source.

After Texas was annexed, notice was served on Great Britain that joint occupation of Oregon must end in one year. The British minister then proposed a boundary treaty which was concluded in a few weeks (1846). The line agreed on was the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca (hoo-ahn' da foo'ca), and by it to the Pacific Ocean (compare maps, pp. 278 and 330).

WAR WITH MEXICO.--Mexico claimed that the real boundary of Texas was the Nueces (nwa'sess) River. When, therefore, Polk (in 1846) sent General Zachary Taylor with an army to the Rio Grande, the Mexicans attacked him; but he beat them at Palo Alto (pah'lo ahl'to) and again near by at Resaca de la Palma (ra-sah'ca da lah pahl'ma), and drove them across the Rio Grande. When President Polk heard of the first attack, he declared that "Mexico has shed American blood upon American soil.... War exists,... and exists by the act of Mexico herself." Congress promptly voted men and money for the war.

MONTEREY.--Taylor, having crossed the Rio Grande, marched to Monterey and (September, 1846) attacked the city. It was fortified with strong stone walls in the fas.h.i.+on of Old World cities; the flat-roofed houses bristled with guns; and across every street was a barricade. In three days of desperate fighting our troops forced their way into the city, entered the buildings, made their way from house to house by breaking through the walls or ascending to the roofs, and reached the center of the city before the Mexicans surrendered the town.

NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA.--Immediately after the declaration of war, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny with a force of men set off (June, 1846) by the old Santa Fe trail and (August 18) captured Santa Fe without a struggle, established a civil government, declared New Mexico annexed to the United States, and then started to take possession of California. But California had already been conquered by the Americans. In June, 1846, some three hundred American settlers, believing that war was imminent and fearing they would be attacked, revolted, adopted a flag on which was a grizzly bear, and declared California an independent republic. Fremont, who had been exploring in California, came to their aid (July 5), and two days later Commodore Sloat with a naval force entered Monterey and raised the flag there. In 1847 (January 8, 9) battles were fought with the Mexicans of California; but the Americans held the country.

BUENA VISTA.--Toward the close of 1846 General Winfield Scott was put in command of the army in Mexico, and ordered Taylor to send a large part of the army to meet him at Vera Cruz (va'ra kroos). Santa Anna, hearing of this, gathered 18,000 men and at Buena Vista, in a narrow valley at the foot of the mountains, attacked Taylor (February 23, 1847). The battle raged from morning to night. Again and again the little American army of 5000 seemed certain to be overcome by the 18,000 Mexicans. But they fought on desperately, and when night came, both armies left the field. [7]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL TAYLOR AT BUENA VISTA. From an old print.]

THE MARCH TO MEXICO.--Scott landed at Vera Cruz in March, 1847, took the castle and city after a siege of fifteen days, and about a week later set off for the city of Mexico, winning victory after victory on the way. The heights of Cerro Gordo were taken by storm, and the army of Santa Anna was beaten again at Jalapa (ha-lah'pa). Puebla (pwa'bla) surrendered at Scott's approach, and there he waited three months. But on August 7 Scott again started westward with 10,000 men, and three days later looked down on the distant city of Mexico surrounded by broad plains and snow-capped mountains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL, MEXICO.]

Then followed in quick succession the victory at Contreras (kon-tra'ras), the storming of the heights of Churubusco, the victory at Molino del Rey (mo-lee'no del ra') the storming of the castle of Chapultepec' perched on a lofty rock, and the triumphal entry into Mexico (September 14). [8]

THE TERMS OF PEACE (1848).--The republic of Mexico was now a conquered nation and might have been added to our domain; but the victors were content to retain Upper California and New Mexico--the region from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, and from the Gila River to Oregon (compare maps, pp. 318, 330). For this great territory we paid Mexico $15,000,000, and in addition paid some $3,500,000 of claims our citizens had against her for injury to their persons or property. [9]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT ON MEXICAN BOUNDARY.]

SHALL THE NEWLY ACQUIRED TERRITORY BE SLAVE SOIL OR FREE?--The treaty with Mexico having been ratified and the territory acquired, it became the duty of Congress to provide the people with some American form of government.

There needed to be American governors, courts, legislatures, customhouses, revenue laws, in short a complete change from the Mexican way of governing. To do this would have been easy if it had not been for the fact that (in 1827) Mexico had abolished slavery. All the territory acquired was therefore free soil; but the South wished to make it slave soil. The question of the hour thus became, Shall New Mexico and California be slave soil or free soil? [10]

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1848.--So troublesome was the issue that the two great parties tried to keep it out of politics. The Democrats in their platform in 1848 said nothing about slavery in the new territory, and the Whigs made no platform. This action of the two parties so displeased the antislavery Whigs and Wilmot Proviso Democrats that they held a convention, formed the Free-soil party, [11] nominated Martin Van Buren for President, and drew away so many New York Democrats from their party that the Whigs carried the state and won the presidential election. [12]

On March 5, 1849 (March 4 was Sunday), Taylor [13] and Fillmore [14] were inaugurated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEMOCRATIC CARTOON IN CAMPAIGN OF 1848]

GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.--By this time the question of slavery in the new territory was still more complicated by the discovery of gold in California. Many years before this time a Swiss settler named J. A. Sutter had obtained a grant of land in California, where the city of Sacramento now stands. In 1848 James W. Marshall, while building a sawmill for Sutter at Coloma, some fifty miles away from Sutter's Fort, discovered gold in the mill race. Both Sutter and Marshall attempted to keep the fact secret, but their strange actions attracted the attention of a laborer, who also found gold. Then the news spread fast, and people came by hundreds and by thousands to the gold fields. [15] Later in the year the news reached the East, and when Polk in his annual message confirmed the rumors, the rush for California began. Some went by vessel around Cape Horn. Others took s.h.i.+ps to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed it on foot, and sailed to San Francisco. Still others hurried to the Missouri to make the overland journey across the plains. [16] By August, 1849, some eighty thousand gold hunters, "forty-niners," as they came to be called, had reached the mines.

[17]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROCKER.]

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.--As Congress had provided no government, and as scarcely any could be said to exist, the people held a convention, made a free-state const.i.tution, and applied for admission into the Union as a state.

ISSUES BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.--The election of Taylor, and California's application for statehood, brought on a crisis between the North and the South.

Most of the people in the North desired no more slave states and no more slave territories, abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and the admission of California as a free state.

The South opposed these things; complained of the difficulty of capturing slaves that escaped to the free states, and of the constant agitation of the slavery question by the abolitionists; and demanded that the Mexican cession be left open to slavery.

Since 1840 two slave-holding states, Florida and Texas (1845), and two free states, Iowa (1846) and Wisconsin (1848), had been admitted to the Union, making fifteen free and fifteen slave states in all; and the South now opposed the admission of California, partly because it would give the free states a majority in the Senate.

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.--At this stage Henry Clay was again sent to the Senate. He had powerfully supported two great compromise measures--the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the Compromise Tariff of 1833. He believed that the Union was in danger of destruction; but that if the two parties would again compromise, it could be saved.

To please the North he now proposed (1) that California should be admitted as a free state, and (2) that the slave trade (buying and selling slaves), but not the right to own slaves, should be abolished in the District of Columbia. To please the South he proposed (1) that Congress should pa.s.s a more stringent law for the capture of fugitive slaves, and (2) that two territories, New Mexico and Utah, should be formed from part of the Mexican purchase, with the understanding that the people in them should decide whether they should be slave soil or free. This principle was called "squatter sovereignty," or "popular sovereignty."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLAY ADDRESSING THE SENATE IN 1850. From an old engraving.]

Texas claimed the Rio Grande as part of her west boundary. But the United States claimed the part of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, and both sides seemed ready to appeal to arms. Clay proposed that Texas should give up her claim and be paid for so doing.

During three months this plan was hotly debated, [18] and threats of secession and violence were made openly. But in the end the plan was accepted: (1) California was admitted, (2) New Mexico and Utah were organized as territories open to slavery, (3) Texas took her present bounds (see maps, pp. 318, 330) and received $10,000,000, (4) a new fugitive slave law [19] was pa.s.sed, and (5) the slave _trade_ was prohibited in the District of Columbia. These measures together were called the Compromise of 1850.

DEATH OF TAYLOR.--While the debate on the compromise was under way, Taylor died (July 9, 1850) and Fillmore was sworn into office as President for the remainder of the term.

SUMMARY