A School History of the United States Part 40

_Fremont.

Stockton._

Conquest of California.

PEACE 1848.

Territory acquired from 42 to Gila River; from Rio Grande to the Pacific.

Effort to make the territory slave soil.

1848. _The Whigs._

No platform.

Elect Taylor and Fillmore.

1848. _The Democrats._

Nothing in platform as to slavery in new territory.

Defeated, 1848.

Complaints of the South against the North:

Popular sovereignty

1. Fugitive slaves.

2. Slavery in District of Columbia.

3. Territory acquired from Mexico to be open to slavery.

Discovery of gold in California, 1848.

Rush to California.

The three routes.

Free state of California, 1849.

Effort to keep the territory free.

The Wilmot Proviso, 1846, 1847.

The Free-soil party, 1848.

Demands of the party.

Defeated in 1848.

Demand-- 1. California a free state.

2. No slavery in District of Columbia.

3. No more slave states.

No more slave territories.

Whigs attempt a compromise.

COMPROMISE OF 1850.

1. California a free state.

2. Popular sovereignty in territory acquired from Mexico.

3. No slave trade in District of Columbia.

4. Texas takes present boundaries.

5. Two new territories, Utah and New Mexico.

6. New fugitive-slave law.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL

%384. Franklin Pierce, Fourteenth President.%--Although the struggle with slavery was thus growing more and more serious, the two great parties pretended to consider the question as finally settled. In 1852 the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce and William E. King, and declared in their platform that they would "abide by and adhere to" the Compromise of 1850, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs nominated General Winfield Scott, and declared that they approved the fugitive-slave law, and accepted the compromise measures of 1850 as "a settlement in principle" of the slavery question, and would do all they could to prevent any further discussion of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Franklin Pierce]

So far as the Whigs were concerned, the question was settled; for the Northern people, angry at their acceptance of the Compromise of 1850 and the fugitive-slave law, refused to vote for Scott, and Pierce was elected.[1]

[Footnote 1: Pierce carried every state except Ma.s.sachusetts, Vermont, Tennessee, and Kentucky.]

The Free-soilers had nominated John P. Hale and George W. Julian.

%385. The Nebraska Bill.%--Pierce was inaugurated March 4, 1853. He, too, believed that all questions relating to slavery were settled. But he had not been many months in office when the old quarrel was raging as bitterly as ever. In 1853 all that part of our country which lies between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, the south boundary of Kansas and 49, was wilderness, known as the Platte country, and was without any kind of territorial government. In January, 1854, a bill to organize this great piece of country and call it the territory of Nebraska was reported to the Senate by the Committee on Territories, of which Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was chairman. Every foot of it was north of 36 30', and according to the Missouri Compromise was free soil. But the bill provided for popular sovereignty; that is, for the right of the people of Nebraska, when they made a state, to have it free or slave, as they pleased.

%386. The Kansas-Nebraska Law.%--An attempt was at once made to prevent this. But Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another, providing for two territories, one to be called Kansas[1] and the other Nebraska, expressly repealing the Missouri Compromise,[2] and opening the country north of 36 30' to slavery.[3] The Free-soilers, led on by Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Seward of New York, and Charles Sumner of Ma.s.sachusetts, did all they could to defeat the bill; but it pa.s.sed, and Pierce signed it and made it law.[4]

[Footnote 1: The northern and southern boundaries of Kansas were those of the present state, but it extended westward to the Rocky Mountains.]

[Footnote 2: It declared that the slavery restriction of the Missouri Compromise "was suspended by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures, and is hereby declared inoperative."]

[Footnote 3: The "true intent and meaning" of this act, said the law, is, "not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic inst.i.tutions in their own way, subject only to the Const.i.tution of the United States." Read Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 425-490.]

[Footnote 4: May 30, 1854.]

%387. The Struggle for Kansas.%--Thus was it ordained that Kansas and Nebraska, once expressly set apart as free soil, should become free or slave states according as they were settled while territories by antislavery or proslavery men. And now began a seven years' struggle for Kansas. "Come on, then," said Seward of New York in a speech against the Kansas Bill; "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave states. Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it on behalf of freedom.

We will engage in compet.i.tion for the virgin soil of Kansas, and G.o.d give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers as it is in the right."

[Ill.u.s.tration: %THE UNITED STATES in 1851 SEVENTY FIVE YEARS AFTER INDEPENDENCE Showing Railroads and Overland Routes]

This described the situation exactly. The free-state men of the North and the slave-state men of the South were to rush into Kansas and struggle for its possession. The moment the law opening Kansas for settlement was known in Missouri, numbers of men crossed the Missouri River, entered the territory, held squatters' meetings,[1] drove a few stakes into the ground to represent "squatter claims," went home, and called on the people of the South to hurry into Kansas. Many did so, and began to erect tents and huts on the Missouri River at a place which they called Atchison.[2]

[Footnote 1: At one of their meetings it was resolved: "That we will afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this country."

"That we recognize the inst.i.tution of slavery as already existing in this territory, and advise stockholders to introduce their property as early as possible."]

[Footnote 2: Called after Senator Atchison of Missouri.]

But the men of the North had not been idle, and in July a band of free-state men, sent on by the New England Emigrant Aid Society,[1]

entered Kansas and founded a town on the Kansas River some miles to the south and west of Atchison. Other emigrants came in a few weeks later, and their collection of tents received the name of Lawrence.[2]

[Footnote 1: The New England Emigrant Aid Society was founded in 1854 by Hon. Eli Thayer of Worcester, Ma.s.s., in order "to plant a free state in Kansas," by aiding antislavery men to go out there and settle.]