The Project Gutenberg ebook of a brief History of the United States

on desperately, and when night came, both armies left the field. [7]

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 (pwâ'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.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL, MEXICO.]
Then followed in quick succession the victory at Contreras (kôn-trâ'ras),

the storming of the heights of Churubusco, the victory at Molino del Rey

(mô-lee'no del râ') the storming of the castle of Chapultepec' perched on

a lofty rock, and the triumphal entry into Mexico (September 14). [8]

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]
[Illustration: 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]

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.

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

ships 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]
[Illustration: 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 constitution, 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.

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.

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 pass 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."
[Illustration: 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.

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 passed, and (5) the slave _trade_ was

prohibited in the District of Columbia. These measures together were

called the Compromise of 1850.

died (July 9, 1850) and Fillmore was sworn into office as President for

the remainder of the term.

SUMMARY
1. Congress in 1841 passed two bills for chartering a new national bank,

but President Tyler vetoed both. The Whig leaders then declared that Tyler

was not a Whig.

dispute over the northeastern boundary.

and elected Polk President. Congress then quickly decided to admit Texas

to the Union.
4. War with Mexico followed a dispute over the Texas boundary. In the

course of it Taylor won victories at Monterey and Buena Vista; Scott made

a famous march to the city of Mexico; and Kearny marched to Santa Fe and

on to California.

Mexico. Meanwhile, the Oregon country had been divided by treaty with

Great Britain.
6. The acquisition of Mexican territory brought up the question of the

admission of slavery, for the territory was free soil under Mexican rule.

in 1848, and drew off enough Democratic votes so that the Whigs elected

Taylor and Fillmore.
8. Meanwhile gold had been discovered in California, and a wild rush for

the "diggings" began.

for admission to the Union.

had to be settled, lest the Union be broken, the Whigs and Democrats

arranged the Compromise of 1850.
11. This made California a free state, but left the new territories of

Utah and New Mexico open to slavery.

FOOTNOTES

matters were possible causes of war with Great Britain. (1) Her cruisers

had been searching our vessels off the African coast to see if they were

slavers. (2) In the attack on the _Caroline_ (p. 297) one American was

killed, and in 1840 a Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was arrested in New

York and charged with the murder. Great Britain now avowed responsibility

for the burning of the _Caroline_, and demanded that the man should

be released. McLeod, however, was tried and acquitted.

order to stop the slave trade each nation was to keep a squadron (carrying

at least eighty guns) cruising off the coast of Africa. (2) It was agreed

that any person who, charged with the crime of murder, piracy, arson,

robbery, or forgery, committed in either country, shall escape to the

other, shall if possible be seized and given up to the authorities of the

country which he fled.
[3] A war between Mexico and Texas followed, and was carried on with great

cruelty by the Mexicans. Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, having

driven some Texans into a building called the Alamo (ah'la-mo), in San

Antonio, carried it by storm and ordered all of its defenders shot. A band

of Texans who surrendered at Goliad met the same fate. In 1836, however,

General Samuel Houston (hu'stun) beat the Mexicans in the decisive battle

of San Jacinto. The struggle of the Texans for independence aroused

sympathy in our country; hundreds of volunteers joined their army, and

money, arms, and ammunition were sent them. Read A. E. Barr's novel

_Remember the Alamo_.

Louisiana Purchase extended west to the Rio Grande.

parents to Tennessee in 1806, where in 1823 he became a member of the

legislature. From 1824 to 1839 he was a member of Congress, and in 1839

was elected governor of Tennessee. Polk was the first presidential "dark

horse"; that is, the first candidate whose nomination was unexpected and a

surprise. In the Democratic national convention at Baltimore the contest

was at first between Van Buren and Cass. Polk's name did not appear till

the eighth ballot; on the ninth the convention "stampeded" and Polk

received every vote. When the news was spread over the country by means of

railroads and stagecoaches, many people would not believe it till

confirmed by the newspapers. The Whigs nominated Henry Clay; and the

Liberty party, James G. Birney. Tyler also was renominated by his friends,

but withdrew.
[6] Read Whittier's _Texas_.
[7] In the course of the fight a son of Henry Clay was killed, and

Jefferson Davis, afterward President of the Confederate States of America,

was wounded. At one stage of the battle Lieutenant Crittenden was sent to

demand the surrender of a Mexican force that had been cut off; but the

Mexican officer in command sent him blindfolded to Santa Anna. Crittenden

thereupon demanded the surrender of the entire Mexican army, and when told

that Taylor must surrender in an hour or have his army destroyed, replied,

"General Taylor never surrenders." Read Whittier's _Angels of Buena

Vista_.
[8] The war was bitterly opposed by the antislavery people of the North as

an attempt to gain more slave territory. Numbers of pamphlets were written

against it. Lincoln, then a member of Congress, introduced resolutions

asking the President to state on what spot on American soil blood had been

shed by Mexican troops, and James Russell Lowell wrote his famous

_Biglow Papers_.

James Gadsden, we acquired a comparatively small tract south of the Gila,

called the Gadsden Purchase (compare maps, pp. 330, 352). The price was

$10,000,000. The purchase was made largely because Congress was then

considering the building of a railroad to the Pacific, and because the

route likely to be chosen went south of the Gila.

of freedom. Polk had asked for $2,000,000 with which to settle the

boundary dispute with Mexico, and when the bill to appropriate the money

was before the House, David Wilmot moved to add the proviso that all

territory bought with it should be free soil. The House passed the Wilmot

Proviso, but the Senate did not; so the bill failed. The following year

(1847) a bill to give Polk $3,000,000 was introduced, and again the

proviso was added by the House and rejected by the Senate. Then the House

gave way, and passed the bill; but the acquisition of California and New

Mexico by treaty left the question still unsettled.

a slave than to make a king; (2) that there must be "free soil for a free

people"; (3) that there must be "no more slave states, no more slave

territories"; (4) that "we inscribe on our banner, 'Free soil, free

speech, free labor, and freemen.'"
[12] The Liberty party nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire, but he

withdrew in favor of Van Buren. The Liberty party was thus merged in the

Free-soil party, and so disappeared from politics. The Democratic

candidates for President and Vice-President were Lewis Cass and William O.

Butler.
[13] Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia in 1784, was taken to Louisville,

Kentucky, while still a child, and grew up there. In 1808 he entered the

United States army as a lieutenant, and by 1810 had risen to be a captain.

For a valiant defense of Fort Harrison on the Wabash, he was made a major.

He further distinguished himself in the Black Hawk and Seminole wars. In

the Mexican War General Taylor was a great favorite with his men, who

called him in admiration "Old Rough and Ready." Before 1848 he had taken

very little interest in politics. He was nominated because of his record

as a military hero.
[14] Millard Fillmore was born in central New York in 1800, and at

fourteen was apprenticed to a trade, but studied law at odd times, and

practiced law at Buffalo. He served three terms in the state assembly, was

four times elected to Congress, and was once the Whig candidate for

governor. In 1848 he was nominated for the vice presidency as a strong

Whig likely to carry New York.

their ships as soon as they entered port. One California newspaper

suspended its issue because editor, typesetters, and printer's devil had

gone to the gold fields. In June the Star stopped for a like reason, and

California was without a newspaper. Some men made $5000, $10,000, and

$15,000 in a few days. California life in the early times is described in

Kirk Munroe's _Golden Days of '49_, and in Bret Harte's _Luck of Roaring

Camp_ and _Tales of the Argonauts_.

the wrecks of their wagons, the bones of their oxen and horses, and the

graves of many of the men were to be seen along the route. This route was

from Independence in Missouri, up the Platte River, over the South Pass,

past Great Salt Lake, and so to "the diggings."
[17] Some miners obtained gold by digging the earth, putting it into a tin

pan, pouring on water, and then shaking the pan so as to throw out the

muddy water and leave the particles of gold. Others used a box mounted on

rockers and called a "cradle" or "rocker."

Orations_, Vol. II. Webster's speech gave great offense in the North.

Read McMaster's _Daniel Webster_, pp. 314-324, and Whittier's poem

_Ichabod_. The debate and its attendant scenes are well described in

Rhodes's _History of the U. S._, Vol. I, pp. 104-189.
[19] The fugitive slave law gave great offense to the North. It provided

that a runaway slave might be seized wherever found, and brought before a

United States judge or commissioner. The negro could not give testimony to

prove he was not a fugitive but had been kidnapped, if such were the case.

All citizens were "commanded," when summoned, to aid in the capture of a

fugitive, and, if necessary, in his delivery to his owner. Fine and

imprisonment were provided for any one who harbored a fugitive or aided in

his escape. The law was put in execution at once, and "slave catchers,"

"man hunters," as they were called, "invaded the North." This so excited

the people that many slaves when seized were rescued. Such rescues

occurred during 1851 at New York, Boston, Syracuse, and at Ottawa in

Illinois. Read Wilson's _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_,

Chap. 26.
In the midst of this excitement Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her

story of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. Mrs. Stowe's purpose was "to show the

institution of slavery truly just as it existed." The book is rather a

picture of what slavery might have been than of what slavery really was;

but it was so powerfully written that everybody read it, and thousands of

people in the North who hitherto cared little about the slavery issue were

converted to abolitionism.
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1850.]

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1852.--The Compromise of 1850 was thought to

be a final settlement of all the troubles that had grown out of slavery.

The great leaders of the Whig and Democratic parties solemnly pledged

themselves to stand by the compromise, and when the national conventions

met in 1852, the two parties in their platforms made equally solemn

promises.
The Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce [1] of New Hampshire for

President, and declared they would "abide by and adhere to" the

compromise, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out

of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs selected Winfield

Scotland declared the compromise to be a "settlement in principle" of the

slavery question, and promised to do all they could to prevent further

agitation of it. The Free-soilers nominated John P. Hale of New Hampshire.

The refusal of the Whig party to stand against the compromise drove many

Northern voters from its ranks. Pierce carried every state save four and,

March 4, 1853, was duly inaugurated. [2]

office when the quarrel over slavery was raging once more. In January,

1854, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced into the Senate a bill to

organize a new territory to be called Nebraska. Every foot of it was north

of 36° 30' and was, by the Compromise of 1820 (p. 274), free soil. But an

attempt was made to amend the bill and declare that the Missouri

Compromise should not apply to Nebraska, whereupon such bitter opposition

arose that Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another. [3]

territories, one to be called Kansas and the other Nebraska; for the

repeal of the Missouri Compromise, thus opening the country north of 36°

30' to slavery; and for the adoption of the doctrine of popular

sovereignty.
The Free-soilers, led by Salmon P. Chase, William H. Seward, and Charles

Sumner, tried hard to defeat the bill. But it passed Congress, and was

signed by the President (1854). [4]
[Illustration: GOVERNOR'S MANSION, KANSAS, IN 1857. Contemporary drawing.]
THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.--And now began a seven years' struggle between

the Free-soilers and the proslavery men for the possession of Kansas. Men

of both parties hurried to the territory. [5] The first election was for

territorial delegate to Congress, and was carried by the proslavery party

assisted by hundreds of Missourians who entered the territory, voted

unlawfully, and went home. The second election was for members of the

territorial legislature. Again the Missourians swarmed over the border,

and a proslavery legislature was elected. Governor Reeder set the

elections aside in seven districts, and in them other members were chosen;

but the legislature when it met turned out the seven so elected and seated

the men rejected by the governor. The proslavery laws of Missouri were

adopted, and Kansas became a slave-holding territory.

elected, looking on it as illegal and usurping, the free-state men framed

a state constitution at Topeka (1855), organized a state government, and

applied to Congress for admission into the Union as a state. The House of

Representatives voted to admit Kansas, but the Senate would not consent,

and (July 4, 1856) United States troops dispersed the legislature when it

attempted to assemble under the Topeka constitution. Kansas was a slave-

holding territory for two years yet before the free-state men secured a

majority in the legislature, [6] and not till 1861 did it secure admission

as a free state.