A history of the United States

A HISTORY OF
THE UNITED STATES

Russell &• Sons photo

CECIL CHESTERTON

XA HISTORY OF
THE UNITED STATES

. BY

CECIL CHESTERTON

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

G. K. CHESTERTON

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS

1919

First ptiblished January 1 6, 1919
Second impression J anuary 17, 1919

All rights reserved

DEDICATED TO

MY COMEADE AND HOSPITAL MATE,

LANCE-COEPOKAL WOOD,

OP THE KING'S OWN LIVEEPOOLS,

CITIZEN OF MASSACHUSETTS,

WHO JOINED THE BEITISH AEMY IN

AUGUST, 1914.

... 0 more than my brother, how shall I thank thee for all ?
Each of the heroes around us has fought for his house and his line,
But thou hast fought for a stranger in hate of a wrong not thine,
Happy are all free peoples too strong to be dispossessed,
But happiest those among nations that dare to be strong for the rest."

— ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING,

INTRODUCTION

THE author of this book, my brother, died in a French
military hospital of the effects of exposure in the last fierce
fighting that broke the Prussian power over Christendom ;
fighting for which he had volunteered after being invalided
home. Any notes I can jot down about him must neces
sarily seem jerky and incongruous ; for in such a relation
memory is a medley of generalisation and detail, not to be
uttered in words. One thing at least may fitly be said
here. Before he died he did at least two things that he
desired. One may seem much greater than the other ; but
he would not have shrunk from naming them together.
He saw the end1 of an empire that was the nightmare of
the nations ; but I believe it pleased him almost as much
that he had been able, often in the intervals of bitter
warfare and by the aid of a brilliant memory, to put
together these pages on the history, so necessary and so
strangely neglected, of the great democracy which he never
patronised, which he not only loved but honoured.

Cecil Edward Chesterton was born on November 12,
1879 ; and there is a special if a secondary sense in which
we may use the phrase that he was born a fighter. It
may seem in some sad fashion a flippancy to say that he
argued from his very cradle. It is certainly, in the same
sad fashion, a comfort, to remember one truth about our
relations : that we perpetually argued and that we never
quarrelled. In a sense it was the psychological truth, I
fancy, that we never quarrelled because we always argued.
His lucidity and love of truth kept things so much on the
level of logic, that the rest of our relations remained, thank
God, in solid sympathy ; long before that later time when,
in substance, our argument had become an agreement.

vii I 2

viii INTRODUCTION

Nor, I think, was the process valueless; for at least we
learnt how to argue in defence of our agreement. But the
retrospect is only worth a thought now, because it illustrates
a duality which seemed to him, and is, very simple ; but
to many is baffling in its very simplicity. When I say his
weapon was logic, it will be currently confused with
formality or even frigidity: a silly superstition always
pictures the logician as a pale-faced prig. He was a living
proof, a very living proof, that the precise contrary is
the case. In fact it is generally the warmer and more
sanguine sort of man who has an appetite for abstract
definitions and even abstract distinctions. He had all the
debating dexterity of a genial and generous man like
Charles Fox. He could command that more than legal
clarity and closeness which really marked -the legal argu
ments of a genial and generous man like Danton. In his
wonderfully courageous public speaking, he rather preferred
being a debater to being an orator ; in a sense he main
tained that no man had a right to be an orator without
first being a debater. Eloquence, he said, had its proper
place when reason had proved a thing to be right, and it
was necessary to give men the courage to do what was
right. I think he never needed any man's eloquence to
give him that. But the substitution of sentiment for
reason, in the proper place for reason, affected him " as
musicians are affected by a false note." It was the com
bination of this intellectual integrity with extrordinary
warmth and simplicity in the affections that made the
point of his personality. The snobs and servile apologists
of the regime he resisted seem to think they can atone for
being hard-hearted by being soft-headed. He reversed, if
ever a man did, that relation in the organs. The opposite
condition really covers all that can be said of him in this
brief study ; it is the clue not only to his character but to
his career.

If rationalism meant being rational (which it hardly
ever does) he might at every stage of his life be called
a red-hot rationalist. Thus, for instance, he very early
became a Socialist and joined the Fabian Society, on the
executive of which he played a prominent part for some
years. But he afterwards gave the explanation, very

INTRODUCTION ix

characteristic for those who could understand it, that what
he liked about the Fabian sort of Socialism was its hard
ness. He meant intellectual hardness; the fact that the
society avoided sentimentalism, and dealt in affirmations
and not mere associations. He meant that upon the
Fabian basis a Socialist was bound to believe in Socialism,
but not in sandals, free love, bookbinding, and immediate
disarmament. But he also added that, while he liked their
hardness, he disliked their moderation. In other words,
when he discovered, or believed that he discovered, that
their intellectual hardness was combined with moral hard
ness, or rather moral deadness, he felt all the intellectual
ice melted by a moral flame. He had, so to speak, a
reaction of emotional realism, in which he saw, as suddenly
as simple men can see simple truths, the potterers of Social
Reform as the plotters of the Servile State. He was
himself, above all things, a democrat as well as a Socialist ;
and in that intellectual sect he began to feel as if he were
the only Socialist who was also a democrat. His dogmatic,
democratic conviction would alone illustrate the falsity of
the contrast between logic and life. The idea of human
equality existed with extraordinary clarity in his brain,
precisely because it existed with extraordinary simplicity
in his character. His popular sympathies, unlike so many'
popular sentiments, could really survive any intimac}7 with
the populace ; they followed the poor not only at public
meetings but to public houses. He was literally the only
man I ever knew who was not only never a snob, but
apparently never tempted to be a snob. The fact is almost
more important than his wonderful lack of fear ; for such
good causes, when they cannot be lost by fear, are often
lost by favour.

Thus he came to suspect that Socialism was merely
social reform, and that social reform was merely slavery.
But the point still is that though his attitude to it was now
one of revolt, it was anything but a mere revulsion of
feeling. He did, indeed, fall back on fundamental things,
on a fury at the oppression of the poor, on a pity for
slaves, and especially for contented slaves. But it is the
mark of his type of mind that he did not abandon Socialism
without a rational case against it, and a rational system to

x INTRODUCTION

oppose to it. The theory he substituted for Socialism is
that which may for convenience be called Distributivism ;
the theory that private property is proper to every private
citizen. This is no place for its exposition ; but it will be
evident that such a conversion brings the convert into
touch with much older traditions of human freedom, as
expressed in the family or the guild. And it was about the
same time that, having for some time held an Anglo-
Catholic position, he joined the Roman Catholic Church.
It is notable, in connection with the general argument, that
while the deeper reasons for such a change do not concern
such a sketch as this, he was again characteristically
amused and annoyed with the sentimentalists, sympathetic
or hostile, who supposed he was attracted by ritual, music,
and emotional mysticism. He told such people, somewhat
to their bewilderment, that he had been converted because
Rome alone could satisfy the reason. In his case, of course,
as in Newman's and numberless others, well-meaning
people conceived a thousand crooked or complicated ex
planations, rather than suppose that an obviously honest
man believed a thing because he thought it was true. He
was soon to give a more dramatic manifestation of his
strange taste for the truth.

The attack on political corruption, the next and perhaps
the most important passage in his life, still illustrates the
same point, touching reason and enthusiasm. Precisely
because he did know what Socialism is and what it is
not, precisely because he had at least learned that from the
intellectual hardness of the Fabians, he saw the spot where
Fabian Socialism is not hard but soft. Socialism means
the assumption by the State of all the means of production,
distribution, and exchange. To quote (as he often quoted
with a rational relish) the words of Mr. Balfour, that is
Socialism and nothing else is Socialism. To such clear
thinking, it is at once apparent that trusting a thing to the
State must always mean trusting it to the statesmen. He
could defend Socialism because he could define Socialism ;
and he was not helped or hindered by the hazy associations
of the sort of Socialists who perpetually defended what they
never defined. Such men might have a vague vision of red
flags and red ties waving in an everlasting riot above the

INTRODUCTION xi

fall of top-hats and Union Jacks ; but he knew that
Socialism established meant Socialism official, and con
ducted by some sort of officials. All the primary forms of
private property were to be given to the government ; and
it occurred to him, as a natural precaution, to give a glance
at the government. He gave some attention to the actual
types and methods of that governing and official class, into
whose power trams and trades a'nd shops and houses were
already passing, amid loud Fabian cheers for the progress
of Socialism. He looked at modern parliamentary govern
ment ; he looked at it rationally and steadily and not
without reflection. And the consequence was that he was
put in the dock, and very nearly put in the lock-up, for
calling it what it is.

In collaboration with Mr. Belloc he had written " The
Party System," in which the plutocratic and corrupt nature
of our present polity is set forth. And when Mr. Belloc
founded the Eye-Witness, as a bold and independent organ
of the same sort of criticism, he served as the energetic
second in command. He subsequently became editor of the
Eye-Witness, which was renamed as the New Witness. It
was during the latter period that the great test case of

Eolitical corruption occurred ; pretty well known in Eng-
ind, and unfortunately much better known in Europe, as
the Marconi scandal. To narrate its alternate secrecies
and sensations would be impossible here ; but one fashion
able fallacy about it may be exploded with advantage. An
extraordinary notion still exists that the New Witness
denounced Ministers for gambling on the Stock Exchange.
It might be improper for Ministers to gamble; but
gambling was certainly not a misdemeanor that would have
hardened with any special horror so hearty an Anti-
Puritan as the man of whom I write. The Marconi case
did not raise the difficult ethics of gambling, but the per
fectly plain ethics of secret commissions. The charge
against the Ministers was that, while a government con
tract was being considered, they tried to make money out
of a secret tip, giv^en them by the very government con
tractor with whom their government was supposed to be
bargaining. This was what their accuser asserted ; but this
was not what they attempted to answer by a prosecution.

xii INTRODUCTION

He was prosecuted, not for what he had said of the
government, but for some secondary things he had said of
the government contractor. The latter, Mr. Godfrey Isaacs,
gained a verdict for criminal libel ; and the judge inflicted
a fine of £100. Readers may have chanced to note the
subsequent incidents in the life of Mr. Isaacs, but I am
here only concerned with incidents in the life of a more
interesting person.

In any suggestion of his personality, indeed, the point
does not lie in what was done to him, but rather in what
was not done. He was positively assured, upon the
very strongest and most converging legal authority, that
unless he offered certain excuses he would certainly go to
prison for several years. He did not offer those excuses ;
and I believe it never occurred to him to do so. His
freedom from fear of all kinds had about it a sort of solid
unconsciousness and even innocence. This homogeneous
quality in it has been admirably seized and summed up
by Mr. Belloc in a tribute of great truth and power. " His
courage was heroic, native, positive and equal : always at
the highest potentiality of courage. He never in his life
checked an action or a word from a consideration of
personal caution, and that is more than can be said of any
other man of his time." After the more or less nominal
fine, however, his moral victory was proved in the one
way in which a military victory can ever be proved. It is
the successful general who continues his own plan of
campaign. Whether a battle be ticketed in the history
books as lost or won, the test is which side can continue
to strike. He continued to strike, and to strike harder
than ever, up to the very moment of that yet greater
experience which changed all such military symbols into
military facts. A man with instincts unspoiled and in that
sense almost untouched, he would have always answered
quite naturally to the autochthonous appeal of patriotism ;
but it is again characteristic of him that he desired, in
his own phrase, to " rationalize patriotism," which he did
upon the principles of Rousseau, that contractual theory
which, in these pages, he connects with the great name
of Jefferson. But things even deeper than patriotism
impelled him against Prussianism. His enemy was the

INTRODUCTION xiii

barbarian when he enslaves, as something more hellish
even than the barbarian when he slays. His was the
spiritual instinct by which Prussian order was worse than
Prussian anarchy; and nothing was so inhuman as an
inhuman humanitarianism. If you had asked him for
what he fought and died amid the wasted fields of France
and Flanders, he might very probably have answered that
it was to save the world from German social reforms.

This note, necessarily so broken and bemused, must
reach its useless end. I have said nothing of numberless
things that should be remembered at the mention of his
name ; of his books, which were great pamphlets and may
yet be permanent pamphlets ; of his journalistic exposures
of other evils besides the Marconi, exposures that have
made a new political atmosphere in the very election that
is stirring around us; of his visit to America, which
initiated him into an international friendship which is the
foundation of this book. Least of all can I write of him
apart from his work ; of that loss nothing can be said by
those who do not suffer it, and less still by those who do.
And his experiences in life and death were so much greater
even than my experiences of him, that a double incapacity
makes me dumb. A portrait is impossible ; as a friend he
is too near me, and as a hero too far away.

G. K. CHESTERTON.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

I HAVE taken advantage of a very brief respite from other,
and in my judgment more valuable, employment, to produce
this short sketch of the story of a great people, now our
Ally. My motive has been mainly that I do not think that
any such sketch, concentrated enough to be readable by
the average layman who has other things to do (especially
in these days) than to study more elaborate and authori
tative histories, at present exists, and I have thought that
in writing it I might perhaps be discharging some little
part of the heavy debt of gratitude which I owe to America
for the hospitality I received from her when I visited her
shores during the early months of the War.

This book is in another sense the product of that visit.
What I then saw and heard of contemporary America so
fascinated me that — believing as I do that the key to every
people is in its past — I could not rest until I had mastered
all that I could of the history of my delightful hosts. This
I sought as much as possible from the original sources,
reading voraciously, and at the time merely for my pleasure,
such records as I could get of old debates and of the
speech and correspondence of the dead. The two existing
histories, which I also read, and upon which I have drawn
most freely, are that of the present President of the United
States and that of Professor Rhodes, dealing with the period
from 1850 to 1876. With the conclusions of the latter
authority it will be obvious that I am in many respects by
no means at one; but I think it the more necessary to
say that without a careful study of his book I could neither
have formed my own conclusions nor ventured to challenge
his. The reading that I did at the time of which I speak
is the foundation of what I have now written. It will be

xvi AUTHOB'S PREFACE

well understood that a Private in the British Army, even
when invalided home for a season, has not very great
opportunities for research. I think it very likely that
errors of detail may be discovered in these pages ; I am
quite sure that I could have made the book a better one if
I had been able to give more time to revising my studies.
Yet I believe that the story told here is substantially true ;
and I am very sure that it is worth the telling.

If I am asked why I think it desirable at this moment
to attempt, however inadequately, a history of our latest
Ally, I answer that at this moment the whole future of our
civilization may depend upon a thoroughly good under
standing between those nations which are now joined in
battle for its defence, and that ignorance of each other's
history is perhaps the greatest menace to such an under
standing. To take one instance at random — how many
English writers have censured, sometimes in terms of
friendly sorrow, sometimes in a manner somewhat phari-
saical, the treatment of Negroes in Southern States in all
its phases, varying from the provision of separate waiting-
rooms to sporadic outbreaks of lynching ! How few ever
mention, or seem to have even heard the word " Recon
struction " — a word which, in its historical connotation,
explains all !

I should, perhaps, add a word to those Americans who
may chance to read this book. To them, of course, I must
offer a somewhat different apology. I believe that, with all
my limitations, I can tell my fellow-countrymen things
about the history of America which they do not know.
It would be absurd effrontery to pretend that I can tell
Americans what they do not know. For them, whatever
interest this book may possess must depend upon the value
of a foreigner's interpretation of the facts. I know that
I should be extraordinarily interested in an American's
view of the story of England since the Separation ; and I
can only hope that some degree of such interest may attach
to these pages in American eyes.

It will be obvious to Americans that in some respects
my view of their history is individual. For instance, 1 give
Andrew Jackson both a greater place in the development
of American democracy and a higher meed of personal

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xvii

praise than do most modern American historians and
writers whom I have read. I give my judgment for what
it is worth. In* my view, the victory of Jackson over the
Whigs was the turning-point of American history and
finally decided that the United States should be a de
mocracy and not a parliamentary oligarchy. ""''And I am
further of opinion that, both as soldier and ruler, " Old
Hickory" was a hero of whom any nation might well be
proud.

I am afraid that some offence may be given by my
portrait of Charles Sumner. I cannot help it. I do "not
think that between his admirers and myself there is any
real difference as to the kind of man he was. It is a kind
that some people revere. It is a kind that I detest — abso
lutely leprous scoundrels excepted — more than I can bring
myself to detest any other of God's creatures.

CECIL CHESTERTON,

SOMEWHEEE IN FRANCE,

May 1st, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE ENGLISH COLONIES

II. ARMS AND THE BIGHTS Off MAN

in. "WE, THE PEOPLE"

IV. THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON

V. THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY

VI. THE JACKSONIAN RESOLUTION

VII. THE SPOILS OF MEXICO

VIII. THE SLAVERY QUESTION

IX. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 156

X. " THE BLACK TERROR "

XI. THE NEW PROBLEMS %%<

INDEX 241

A HISTORY
OF THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER I

THE ENGLISH COLONIES

IN the year of Our Lord 1492, thirty-nine years after the
taking of Constantinople by the Turks and eighteen years
after the establishment of Caxton's printing press, one
Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor, set sail from Spain
with the laudable object of converting the Khan of Tartary
to the Christian Faith, and on his way discovered the
continent of America. The islands on which Columbus
first landed and the adjacent stretch of mainland from
Mexico to Patagonia which the Spaniards who followed
him colonized lay outside the territory which is now known
as the United States. Nevertheless the instinct of the
American democracy has always looked back to him as a
sort of ancestor, and popular American tradition conceives
of him as in some shadowy fashion a founder. And that
instinct and tradition, like most such national instincts and
traditions, is sound.

In the epoch which most of us can remember pretty
vividly — for it came to an abrupt end less than five years
ago — when people were anxious to prove that everything
important in human history had been done by " Teutons,"
there was a great effort to show that Columbus was not
really the first European discoverer of America ; that that
honour belonged properly to certain Scandinavian sea-
captains who at some time in the tenth or eleventh

I B

2 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

centuries paid a presumably piratical visit to the coast
of G-reerilartcL It may be so, but the incident is quite
irrelevent. That one set of barbarians from the fjords of
Norway came in their wanderings in contact with another
set of barbarians living in the frozen lands north of
Labrador is a fact, if it be a fact, of little or no historical
import. The Vikings had no more to teach the Esqui
maux than had the Esquimaux to teach the Vikings.
Both were at that time outside the real civilization of
Europe.

Columbus, on the other hand, came from the very
centre of European civilization and that at a time when
that civilization was approaching the summit of one of its
constantly recurrent periods of youth and renewal. In the
North, indeed, what strikes the eye in the fifteenth century
is rather the ugliness of a decaying order — the tortures,
the panic of persecution, the morbid obsession of the clause
macabre — things which many think of as Mediaeval, but
which belong really only to the Middle Ages when old and
near to death. But all the South was already full of the new
youth of the Renaissance. Boccaccio had lived, Leonardo
was at the height of his glory. In the fields of Touraine
was already playing with his fellows the boy that was to
be Rabelais.

Such adventures as that of Columbus, despite his pious
intentions with regard to the Khan of Tartary, were a
living part of the Eenaissance and were full of its spirit,
and it is from the Renaissance that American civilization
dates. It is an important point to remember about America,
and especially about the English colonies which were to
become the United States, that they have had no memory
of the Middle Ages. . They had and have, on the other
hand, a real, formative memory of Pagan antiquity, for
the age in which the oldest of them were born was full of
enthusiasm for that memory, while it thought, as most
Americans still think, of the Middle Ages as a mere feudal
barbarism.

Youth and adventurousness were not the only notes of
the Renaissance, nor the only ones which we shall see
affecting the history of America. Another note was pride,
and with that pride in its reaction against the old Christian

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 3

civilization went a certain un-Christian scorn of poverty
and still more of the ugliness and ignorance which go
with poverty ; and there reappeared — to an extent at least,
and naturally most of all where the old religion had been
completely lost — that naked Pagan repugnance which
almost refused to recognize a human soul in the barbarian.
It is notable that in these new lands which the Eenaissance
had thrown open to European men there at once reappears
that institution which had once been fundamental to
Europe and which the Faith had slowly and with difficulty
undermined and dissolved — Slavery.

The English colonies in America owe their first origin
partly to the English instinct for wandering and especially
for wandering on the sea, which naturally seized on the
adventurous element in the Kenaissance as that most
congenial to the national temper, and partly to the secular
antagonism between England and Spain. Spain, whose
sovereign then ruled Portugal and therefore the Portuguese
as well as Spanish colonies, claimed the whole of the New
World as part of her dominions, and frer practical authority
extended unchallenged from Florida to Cape Horn. It
would have been hopeless for England to have attempted
seriously to challenge that authority where it existed in
view of the relative strength at that time of the two
kingdoms; and in general the English seamen confined
themselves to hampering and annoying the Spanish com
merce by acts of privateering which the Spaniards naturally
designated as piracy. But to the bold and inventive mind
of the great Ealeigh there occurred another conception.
Spain, though she claimed the whole American continent,
had not in fact made herself mistress of all its habitable
parts. North of the rich lands which supplied gold and
silver to the Spanish exchequer, but still well within the
temperate zone of climate, lay great tracts bordering the
Atlantic where no Spanish soldier or ruler had ever set
his foot. To found an English colony in the region would
not be an impossible task like the attempt to seize any
part of the Spanish empire, yet it would be a practical
challenge to the Spanish claim. Ealeigh accordingly
projected, and others, entering into his plans, successfully
planted, an English settlement on the Atlantic seaboard

4 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to the south of Chesapeake Bay which, in honour of the
Queen, was named "Virginia."

In the subsequent history of the English colonies which
became American States we often find a curious and
recurrent reflection of their origin. Virginia was the first
of those colonies to come into existence, and we shall see
her both as a colony and as a State long retaining a sort
of primacy amongst them. She also retained, in the
incidents of her history and in the characters of many of
her great men, a colour which seems partly Elizabethan.
Her Jefferson, with his omnivorous culture, his love of
music and the arts, his proficiency at the same time in
sports and bodily exercises, suggests something of the
graceful versatility of men like Essex and Raleigh, and we
shall see her in her last agony produce a soldier about
whose high chivalry and heroic and adventurous failure
there clings a light of romance that does not seem to belong
to the modern world.

If the external quarrels of England were the immediate
cause of the foundation of Virginia, the two colonies which
next make their appearance owe their origin to her internal
divisions. James I. and his son Charles L, though by
conviction much more genuine Protestants than Elizabeth,
were politically more disposed to treat the Catholics with
leniency. The paradox is not, perhaps, difficult to explain.
Being more genuinely Protestant they were more in
terested in the internecine quarrels of Protestants, and
their enemies in those internecine quarrels, the Puritans,
now become a formidable party, were naturally the fiercest
enemies of the old religion. This fact probably led the
two first Stuarts to look upon that religion with more
indulgence. They dared not openly tolerate the Catholics,
but they were not unwilling to show them such favour as
they could afford to give. Therefore when a Catholic
noble, Lord Baltimore, proposed to found a new plantation
in America where his co-religionists could practise their
faith in peace and security, the Stuart kings were willing
enough to grant his request. James approved the project,
his son confirmed it, and, under a Royal Charter from King
Charles L, Lord Baltimore established his Catholic colony,
which he called "Maryland." The early history of this

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 5

colony is interesting because it affords probably the first
example of full religious liberty. It would doubtless have
been suicidal for the Catholics, situated as they were, to
attempt anything like persecution, but Baltimore and the
Catholics of Maryland for many generations deserve none
the less honour for the consistency with which they pursued
their tolerant policy. So long as the Catholics remained
in control all sects were not ( nly tolerated but placed on
a footing of complete equality before the law, and as a fact
both the Nonconformist persecuted in Virginia and the
Episcopalian persecuted in New England frequently found
refuge and peace in Catholic Maryland. The English
Revolution of 1689 produced a change. The new English
Government was pledged against the toleration of a
Catholicism anywhere. The representative of the Baltimore
family was deposed from the Governorship and the control
transferred to the Protestants, -who at once repealed the
edicts of toleration and forbade the practice of the Catholic
religion. They did not, however, succeed in extirpating it,
and to this day many of the old Maryland families are
Catholic, as are also a considerable proportion of the
Negroes. It may further be noted that, though the experi
ment in religious equality was suppressed by violence, the
idea seems never to have been effaced, and Maryland was
one of the first colonies to accompany its demand for
freedom with a declaration in favour of universal toleration.
At about the same time that the persecuted Catholics
found a refuge in Maryland, a similar refuge was sought
by the persecuted Puritans. A number of these, who had
found a temporary home in Holland, sailed thence for
America in the celebrated Mayflower and colonized New
England on the Atlantic coast far to the north of the planta
tions of Raleigh and Baltimore. From this root sprang
the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and
Rhode Island, and later the States of New Hampshire and
Maine. It would be putting it with ironical mildness to
say that the Pilgrim Fathers did not imitate the tolerant-
example of the Catholic refugees. Religious persecution
had indeed been practised by all parties in the quarrels of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; but for much of
the early legislation of the Puritan colonies one can find

6 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

no parallel in the history of European men. Calvinism,
that strange fierce creed which Wesley so correctly described
as one that gave God the exact functions and attributes
of Lthe devil, produced even in Europe a sufficiency of
madness and horror ; but here was Calvinism cut off from
its European roots and from the reaction and influence
of Christian civilization. Its records read like those of a
madhouse where religious maniacs have broken loose and
locked up their keepers. We hear of men stoned to-death
for kissing their wives on the Sabbath, of lovers pilloried or
flogged at the cart's tail for kissing each other at all with
out licence from the deacons, the whole culminating in a
mad panic of wholesale demonisrn and witchburning so
vividly described in one of the most brilliant of Mrs.
Gaskell's stories, "Lois the Witch." Of course, in time
the fanaticism of the first New England settlers cooled into
something like sanity. But a strong Puritan tradition
remained and played a great part in American history.
Indeed, if Lee, the Virginian, has about him something of
the Cavalier, it is still more curious to note that nineteenth-
century New England, with its atmosphere of quiet scholars
and cultured tea parties, suddenly flung forth in John
Brown a figure whose combination of soldierly skill with
maniac fanaticism, of a martyr's fortitude with a murderer's
cruelty, seems to have walked straight out of the seventeenth
century and finds its nearest parallel in some of the
warriors of the Covenant.

The colonies so far enumerated owe their foundation
solely to English enterprise and energy ; but in the latter
half of the seventeenth century foreign war brought to
England a batch of colonies ready made. At the mouth
of the Hudson River, between Maryland and the New
England colonies, lay the Dutch settlement of New Amster
dam. The first colonists who had established themselves
there had been Swedes, but from Sweden its sovereignty
had passed to Holland, and the issue of the Dutch wars
gave it to the English, by whom it was re-christened New
York in honour of the King's brother, afterwards James II.
It would perhaps be straining the suggestion already
made of the persistent influences of origins to see in the
varied racial and national beginnings of New York a

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 7

presage of that cosmopolitan quality which still marks the
greatest of American cities, making much of it a patch
work of races and languages, and giving to the electric stir
of Broadway an air which suggests a Continental rather
than an English city, but it is more plausible to note that
New York had no original link with the Puritanism of New
England and of the North generally, and that in fact we
shall find the premier city continually isolated from the
North, following a tradition and a policy of its own.

With New Amsterdam was also ceded the small Dutch
plantation of Delaware, which lay between Maryland and
the Atlantic, while England at the same time established
her claim to the disputed territory between the two which
became the colony of New Jersey.

Shortly after the cession, of New Amsterdam William
Penn obtained from Charles II. a charter for the establish
ment of a colony to the north of Maryland, between that
settlement and the newly acquired territories of New
Jersey and New York. This plantation was designed
especially as a refuge for the religious sect to which Penn
belonged", the Quakers, who had been persecuted by all
religious parties and especially savagely by the Puritan
colonists of New England. Penn, the most remarkable
man that ever professed the strange doctrines of that sect,
was a favourite with the King, who had a keen eye for
character, and as the son of a distinguished admiral he
had a sort of hereditary claim upon the gratitude of the
Crown. He easily carried his point with Charles, and him
self supervised the foundations of the new commonwealth
of Pennsylvania. Two surveyors were sent out by royal
authority to fix the boundary between Penn's concession
and the existing colony of Maryland — Mr. Mason and Mr.
Dixon by name. However elated these two gentlemen
may have been by their appointment to so responsible an
ofiice^they probably little thought that their names would
be immortalized. Yet so it was to be. For the line they
drew became the famous " Mason-Dixon " line, and was to
be in after years the frontier between the Slave States and
the Free.

In all that he did in the New World Penn showed him
self not only a great but a most just and wise man. He

8 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

imitated, with happier issue, the liberality of Baltimore in
the matter of religious freedom, and to this day the Catholics
of Philadelphia boast of possessing the only Church in the
United States in which Mass has been said continuously
since the seventeenth century. But it is in his dealings
with the natives that Penn's humanity and honour stand
out most conspicuously. None of the other founders of
English colonies had ever treated the Indians except as
vermin to be exterminated as quickly as possible. Penn
treated them as free contracting parties with full human
rights. He bought of them fairly the land he needed, and
strictly observed every article of the pact. that he made
with them. Anyone visiting to-day the city which he
founded will find in its centre a little strip of green, still
unbuilt upon, where, in theory, any passing Indians are at
liberty to pitch their camp — a monument and one of the
clauses of Penn's celebrated treaty.

In the same reign the settlement of the lands lying to
the south of Virginia had begun, under the charter granted
by Charles II. to the Hyde family, and the new plantations
were called after the sovereign " Carolina." But their
importance dates from the next century, when they received
the main stream of a new tide of immigration due to
political and economic causes. England, having planted a
Protestant Anglo-Scottish colony in North-East Ireland,
proceeded to ruin its own creation by a long series of
commercial laws directed to the protection of English manu
facturers against the competition of the colonists. Under
the pressure of this tyranny a great number of these
colonists, largely Scotch by original nationality and Pres
byterian by religion, left Ulster for America. They poured
into the Carolinas, North and South, as well as into
Pennsylvania and Virginia, and overflowed into a new colony
which was established further west and named Georgia. It
is important to note this element in the colonization of the
Southern States, because it is too often loosely suggested
that the later division of North and South corresponded to
the division of Cavalier and Puritan. It is not so. Virginia
and Maryland may be called Cavalier in their origin, but
in the Carolinas and Georgia there appears a Puritan
tradition, not indeed as fanatical as that of New England,

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 9

but almost as persistent. Moreover this Scotch-Irish stock,
whose fathers, it may be supposed, left Ireland in no very
good temper with the rulers of Great Britain, afterwards
supplied the most military and the most determined element
in Washington's armies, and gave to the Republic some of
its most striking historical personalities: Patrick Henry
and John Caldwell Calhoun, Jackson, the great President,
and his namesake the brilliant soldier of the Confederacy.

The English colonies now formed a solid block extend
ing from the coasts of Maine — into which northernmost
region the New England colonies had overflown — to the
borders of Florida. Florida was still a Spanish possession,
but Spain had ceased to be formidable as a rival or enemy
of England. By the persistence of a century in arms and
diplomacy, the French had worn down the Spanish power,
and France was now easily the strongest nation in Europe.
France also had a foothold, or rather two footholds, in North
America. One of her colonies, Louisiana, lay beyond
Florida at the mouth of the Mississippi; the other,
Canada, to the north of the Maine, at the mouth of the St.
Lawrence. It was the aim of French colonial ambition to
extend both colonies inland into the unmapped heart of
the American continent until they, should meet. This
would necessarily have had the effect of hemming in the
English settlements on the Atlantic seaboard and prevent
ing their Western expansion. Throughout the first half of
the eighteenth century, therefore, the rivalry grew more
and more acute, and even when France and England were
at peace the French and English in America were almost
constantly at war. Their conflict was largely carried on
under cover of alliances with the warring Indian tribes,
whose feuds kept the region of the Great Lakes in a
continual turmoil. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War
and the intervention of England as an ally of Prussia put
an end to the necessity for such pretexts, and a regular
military campaign opened upon which was staked the
destiny of North America.

It is not necessary for the purposes of this book to
follow that campaign in detail. The issue was necessarily
fought out in Canada, for Louisiana lay remote from the
English colonies and was separated from them by the

10 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

neutral territory of the Spanish Empire. England had
throughout the war the advantage of superiority at sea,
which enabled her to supply and reinforce her armies,
while the French forces were practically cut off from
Europe. The French, on the other hand, had at the
beginning the advantage of superior numbers, at least so
far as regular troops were concerned, while for defensive
purposes they possessed an excellent chain of very strong
fortresses carefully prepared before the war. After the earlier
operations, which cleared the French invaders out of the
English colonies, the gradual reduction of these strongholds
practically forms the essence of the campaign undertaken
by a succession of English generals under the political
direction of the elder Pitt. That campaign was virtually
brought to a close by the brilliant exploit of James Wolfe
in 1759 — the taking of Quebec. By the Treaty of Paris in
1763 Canada was ceded to England. Meanwhile Louisiana
had been transferred to Spain in 1762 as part of the price
of a Spanish alliance, and France ceased to be a rival to
England on the American continent.

During the French war the excellent professional army
which England was able to maintain in the field was
supported by levies raised from the English colonies,
which did good service in many engagements. Among the
officers commanding these levies one especially had attracted,
by his courage and skill, and notably by the part he bore in
the clearing of Pennsylvania, the notice of his superiors —
George Washington of Virginia.

England was now in a position to develop in peace the
empire which her sword had defended with such splendid
success and glory. Before we consider the causes which so
suddenly shattered that empire, it is necessary to take
a brief survey of its geography and of its economic
conditions.

The colonies, as we have seen, were spread along the
Atlantic seaboard to an extent of well over a thousand
miles, covering nearly twenty degrees of latitude. The
variations of climate were naturally great, and involved
marked differentiations in the character and products of
labour. The prosperity of the Southern colonies depended
mainly upon two great staple industries. Raleigh, in the

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 11

course of his voyages, had learned from the Indians the
use of the tobacco plant and had introduced that admirable
discovery into Europe. As Europe learned (in spite of
the protests of James I.) to prize the glorious indulgence
now offered to it, the demand for tobacco grew, and its
supply became the principal business of the colonies of
Virginia and Maryland. Further to the south a yet
more important and profitable industry was established.
The climate of the Carolinas and of Georgia and of the
undeveloped country west of these colonies, a climate at
once warm and humid, was found to be exactly suited to
the cultivation of the cotton plant. This proved the more
important when the discoveries of Watt and Arkwright
gave Lancashire the start of all the world in the manipula
tion of the cotton fabric. From that moment begins the
triumphant progress of " King Cotton," which was long to
outlast the political connection between the Carolinas and
Lancashire, and was to give in the political balance of
America peculiar importance to the " Cotton States."

But at the time now under consideration these cotton-
growing territories were still under the British Crown, and
were subject to the Navigation Laws upon which England
then mainly relied for the purpose of making her colonies
a source of profit to her. The main effect of these was to
forbid the colonies to trade with any neighbour save the
mother country. This condition, to which the colonists
seem to have offered no opposition, gave to the British
manufacturers the immense advantage of an unrestricted
supply of raw material to which no foreigner had access.
It is among the curious ironies of history that the prosperity
of Lancashire, which was afterwards to be identified with
Free Trade, was originally founded upon this very drastic
and successful form of Protection.

The more northerly colonies had no such natural
advantages. The bulk of the population lived by ordinary
farming, grew wheat and the hard cereals and raised cattle.
But during the eighteenth century England herself ^ was
still an exporting country as regards these commodities,
and with other nations the colonists were forbidden to
trade. The Northern colonies had, therefore, no consider
able export commerce, but on the seaboard they gradually

12 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

built up a considerable trac[e as carriers, and Boston and
New York merchant captains began to have a name on the
Atlantic for skill and enterprise. Much of the trans
oceanic trade passed into their hands, and especially one
most profitable if not very honourable trade of which, by
the Treaty of Utrecht, England had obtained a virtual
monopoly — the trade in Negro slaves.

The pioneer of this traffic had been Sir John Hawkins,
one of the boldest of the great Elizabethan sailors. He
seems to have been the first of the merchant adventurers
to realize that it might prove profitable to kidnap Negroes
from the West Coast of Africa and sell them into slavery
in the American colonies.. The cultivation of cotton and
tobacco in the Southern plantations, as of sugar in the
West Indies, offered a considerable demand for labour of a
type suitable to the Negro. The attempt to compel the
native Indians to such labour had failed ; the Negro proved
more tractable. By the time with which we are dealing
the whole industry of the Southern colonies already rested
upon servile coloured labour.

In the Northern colonies — that is, those north of Mary
land — the Negro slave existed, but only casually, and,, as it
were, as a sort of accident. Slavery was legal in all the
colonies — even in Pennsylvania, whose great founder had
been almost alone in that age in disapproving of it. As
for the New England Puritans, they had from the first
been quite enthusiastic about the traffic, in which indeed
they were deeply interested as middle-men ; and Calvinist
ministers of the purest orthodoxy held services of thanks
giving to God for cargoes of poor barbarians rescued from
the darkness of heathendom and brought (though forcibly)
into the gospel light. But though the Northerners had no
more scruple about Slavery than the Southerners, they had
far less practical use for it. . The Negro was of no value for
the sort of labour in which the New Englanders engaged ;
he died of it in the cold climate. Negro slaves there were
in all the Northern States, but mostly employed as domestic
servants or in casual occupations. They were a luxury,
not a necessity.

A final word must be said about the form of government
under which the colonists lived. In all the colonies, though

THE ENGLISH COLONIES 13

there were, of course, variations of detail, it was sub
stantially the same. It was founded in every case upon
Royal Charters granted at some time or other to the
planters by the English king. In every case there was a
Governor, who was assisted by some sort of elective assembly.
The Governor was the representative of the King and was
nominated by him. The legislature was in some form or
other elected by the free citizens. The mode of election
and the franchise varied from colony to colony — Massa
chusetts at one time based hers upon pew rents — but it
was generally in harmony with the feeling and traditions
of the colonists. It was seldom that any friction occurred
between the King's representative and the burgesses, as
they were generally called. While the relations between
the colonies and the mother country remained tranquil
the Governor had every motive for pursuing a conciliatory
policy. His personal comfort depended upon his being
popular in the only society which he could frequent. His
repute with the Home Government, if he valued it, was
equally served by the tranquillity and contentment of the
dominion he ruled.

In fact, the American colonists, during the eighteenth
century, enjoyed what a simple society left to itself almost
always enjoys, under whatever forms — the substance of
democracy. That fact must be emphasized, because without
a recognition of it the flaming response which met the first
proclamation of theoretic democracy would be unintelligible.
It is explicable only when we remember that to the
unspoiled conscience of man as man democracy will ever
be the most self-evident of truths. It is the complexity of
ouf civilization that blinds us to its self-evidence, teaching
us to acquiesce in irrational privilege as inevitable, and at
last to see nothing strange in being ruled by a class,
whether of nobles or of mere parliamentarians. But the
man who looks at the world with the terrible eyes of his
first innocence can never see an unequal law as anything
but an iniquity, or government divorced from the general
will as anything but usurpation.

CHAPTER II

AftMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN

SUCH was roughly the position of the thirteen English
colonies in North America when in the year 1764, shortly
after the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, George
Grenville, who had become the chief Minister of George III.
after the failure of Lord Bute, proposed to raise a revenue
from these colonies by the imposition of a Stamp" Act.

The Stamp Act and the resistance it met mark so
obviously the beginning of the business which ended in
the separation of the United States from Great Britain
that Grenville and the British Parliament have been fre
quently blamed for the lightness of heart with which they
entered upon so momentous a course. But in fact it did
not seem to them momentous, nor is it easy to say why
they should have thought it momentous. It is certain that
Grenville's political opponents, many of whom were after
wards to figure as the champions of the colonists, at first
saw its inomentousness as little as he. They offered to his
proposal only the most perfunctory sort of opposition, less
than they habitually offered to all his measures, good
or bad.

And, in point of fact, there was little reason why a
Whig of the type and class that then governed England
should be startled or shocked by a proposal to extend the
English system of stamping documents to the English
colonies. That Parliament had the legal right to tax the
colonies was not seriously questionable. Under the British
Constitution the power of King, Lords and Commons over
the King's subjects was and is absolute, and none denied
that the colonists were the King's subjects. They pleaded
indeed that their charters did not expressly authorize such

AKMS AND THE RIGHTS OP MAN 15

taxation ; but neither did they expressly exclude it, and on
a strict construction it would certainly seem that a power
which would have existed if there had been no charter
remained when the charter was silent.

It might further be urged that equity as well as law
justified the taxation of the colonies, for the expenditure
which these taxes were raised to meet was largely incurred
in defending the colonies first against the French and then
against the Indians. The method of taxation chosen was
not new, neither had it been felt to be specially grievous.
Much revenue is raised in Great Britain and all European
countries to-day by that method, and there is probably no
form of taxation at which men grumble less. Its introduc
tion into America had actually been recommended on its
merits by eminent Americans. It had been proposed by
the Governor of Pennsylvania as early as 1739. It had
been approved at one time by Benjamin Franklin himself.
To-day it must seem to most of us both less unjust and
less oppressive than the Navigation Laws, which the
colonists bore without complaint.

As for the suggestion sometimes made that there was
something unprecedentedly outrageous about an English
Parliament taxing people who were unrepresented there, it
is, in view of the constitution of that Parliament, somewhat
comic. If the Parliament of 1764 could only tax those
whom it represented, its field of taxation would be somewhat
narrow. Indeed, the talk about taxation without repre
sentation being tyranny, however honestly it might be
uttered by an American, could only be conscious or
unconscious hypocrisy in men like Burke, who were not
only passing their lives in governing and taxing people
who were unrepresented, but who were quite impenitently
determined to resist any attempt to get them represented
even in the most imperfect fashion.

All this is true ; and yet it is equally true that the
proposed tax at once excited across the Atlantic the
most formidable discontent. Of this discontent we may
perhaps summarize the immediate causes as follows.
Firstly, no English minister or Parliament had, as a fact,
ever before attempted to tax the colonies. That important
feature of the case distinguished it from that of the

16 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Navigation Laws, which had prescription on their side.
Then, if the right to tax were once admitted, no one could
say how far it would be pushed. Under the Navigation
Laws the colonists knew just how far they were restricted,
and they knew that within the limits of such restrictions
they could still prosper. But if once the claim of the
British Parliament to tax were quietly accepted, it seemed
likely enough that every British Minister who had nowhere
else to turn for a revenue would turn to the unrepresented
colonies, which would furnish supply after supply until
they were " bled white." That was a perfectly sound,
practical consideration, and it naturally appealed with
especial force to mercantile communities like that of Boston.

But if we assume that it was the only consideration
involved, we shall misunderstand all that followed, and be
quite unprepared for the sweeping victory of a purely
doctrinal political creed which brought about the huge
domestic revolution of which the breaking of the ties with
England was but an aspect. The colonists did feel it unjust
that they should be taxed by an authority which was in no
way responsible to them ; and they so felt it because, as has
already been pointed out, they enjoyed in the management
of their everyday affairs a large measure of practical
democracy. Therein they differed from the English, who,
being habitually governed by an oligarchy, did not feel it
extraordinary that the same oligarchy should tax them.
The Americans for the most part governed themselves, and
the oligarchy came in only as an alien and unnatural
thing levying taxes. Therefore it was resisted.

The resistance was at first largely instinctive. The
formulation of the democratic creed which should justify
it was still to come. Yet already there were voices, especially
in Virginia, which adumbrated the incomparable phrases
of the greatest of Virginians. Already Kichard Bland had
appealed to "the law of Nature and those rights of
mankind that flow from it." Already Patrick Henry had
said, " Give me liberty or give me death ! "

It was but a foreshadowing of the struggle to come. In
1766 the Rockingham Whigs, having come into power upon
the fall of Grenville, after some hesitation repealed the
Stamp Act, reaffirming at the same time the abstract right of^

AEMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 17

Parliament to tax the colonies. America was for the time
quieted. There followed in England a succession of weak
Ministries, all, of course, drawn from the same oligarchical
class, and all of much the same political temper, but all at
issue with each other, and all more or less permanently at
issue with the King. As a mere by-product of one of the
multitudinous intrigues to which this situation gave rise,
Charles Townshend, a brilliant young Whig orator who
had become Chancellor of the Exchequer, revived in 1768
the project of taxing the American colonies. This was
now proposed in the form of a series of duties levied on
goods exported to those colonies — the one most obnoxious
to the colonists and most jealously maintained by the
Ministers being a duty on tea. The Opposition had now
learnt from the result of the Stamp Act debate that American
taxation was an excellent issue on which to challenge the
Ministry, and the Tea Tax became at once a " Party Ques
tion " — that is, a question upon which the rival oligarchs
divided themselves into opposing groups.

Meanwhile in America the new taxes were causing
even more exasperation than the Stamp Act had caused-
probably because they were more menacing in their form,
if not much more severe in their effect. At any rate, it is
significant that in the new struggle we find the commercial
colony of Massachusetts very decidedly taking the lead.
The taxed tea, on its arrival in Boston harbour, was seized
and flung into the sea. A wise Government would have
withdrawn when it was obvious that the enforcement of the
taxes would cost far more than the taxes themselves were
worth, the more so as they had already been so whittled
down by concessions as to be worth practically nothing,
and it is likely enough that the generally prudent and
politic aristocrats who then directed the action of England
would have reverted to the Rockingham policy had not the
King made up his unfortunate German mind to the coercion
and humiliation of the discontented colonists. It is true
that the British Crown had long lost its power of indepen
dent action, and that George III. had failed in his youthful
attempts to recapture it. Against the oligarchy combined
he was helpless ; but his preference for one group of
oligarchs over another was still an asset, and he let it

o

18 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

clearly be understood that such influence as he possessed
would be exercised unreservedly in favour of any group
that would undertake to punish the American rebels. He
found in Lord North a Minister willing, though not without
considerable misgivings, to forward his policy and able to
secure for it a majority in Parliament. And from that
moment the battle between the Home Government and
the colonists was joined.

The character and progress of that battle will best be
grasped if we mark down certain decisive incidents which
determine its course. The first of these was the celebrated
" Boston Tea Party " referred to above. It was the first
act of overt resistance, and it was followed on the English
side by the first dispatch of an armed force — grossly in
adequate for its purpose — to America, and on the American
by the rapid arming and drilling of the local militias not
yet avowedly against the Crown, but obviously with the
ultimate intention of resisting the royal authority should
it be pushed too far.

The next turning-point is the decision of the British
Government early in 1774 to revoke the Charter of
Massachusetts. It is the chief event of the period during
which war is preparing, and it leads directly to all that
follows. For it raised a new controversy which could not
be resolved by the old legal arguments, good or bad.
Hitherto the colonists had relied upon their interpretation
of existing charters, while the Government contented itself
with putting forward a different interpretation. But the
new action of that Government shifted the ground of debate
from the question of the interpretation of the charters
to that of the ultimate source of their authority. The
Ministers said in effect, " You pretend that this document
concedes to you the right of immunity from taxation. We
deny it : but at any rate, it was a free gift from the
British Crown, and whatever rights you enjoy under it
you enjoy during His Majesty's pleasure. Since you insist
on misinterpreting it, we will withdraw it, as we are
perfectly entitled to do, and we will grant you a new charter
about the terms of which no such doubts can arise."

It was a very direct and very fundamental challenge,
and it inevitably produced two effects— the one immediate,

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 19

the other somewhat deferred. Its practical first-fruit was
the Continental Congress. Its ultimate but unmistakably
logical consequence was the Declaration of Independence.

America was unified on the instant, for every colony
felt the knife at its throat. In September a Congress met,
attended by the representatives of eleven colonies. Peyton
Randolph, presiding, struck the note of the moment with
a phrase: "I am not a Virginian, but an American."
Under Virginian leadership the Congress vigorously backed
Massachusetts, and in October a " Declaration of Colonial
Right " had been issued by the authority of all the colonies
represented there.

The British Ministers seem to have been incomprehen
sibly blind to the seriousness of the situation. Since they
were pledged not to concede what the colonists demanded,
it was essential that they should at once summon all the
forces at their command to crush what was already an
incipient and most menacing rebellion. They did nothing
of the sort. They slightly strengthened the totally inade
quate garrison which would soon have to face a whole
people in arms, and they issued a foolish proclamation
merely provocative and backed by no power that could
enforce it, forbidding the meeting of Continental Congresses
in the future. That was in January. In April the
skirmishes of Lexington and Concord had shown how
hopelessly insufficient was their military force to meet
even local sporadic and unorganized revolts. In May the
second ^Continental Congress met, and in July appeared
by its authority a general call to arms addressed to the
whole population of America.

Up to this point the colonists, if rebellious in their
practical attitude, had been strictly constitutional in their
avowed aims. In the " Declaration of Colonial Right " of
1774, and even in the appeal to arms of 1775, all suggestion
of breaking away from the Empire was repudiated. But
now that the sword was virtually drawn there were practical
considerations which made the most prudent of the rebels
consider whether it would not be wiser to take the final
step, and frankly repudiate the British Sovereignty alto
gether. For one thing, by the laws of England, and
indeed of all civilized nations, the man who took part in

20 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

an armed insurrection against the head of the State
committed treason, and the punishment for treason was
death. Men who levied war on the King's forces while still
acknowledging him as their lawful ruler were really inviting
the Government to hang them as 'soon as it could catch
them. It might be more difficult for the British Govern
ment to treat as criminals soldiers who were fighting under
the orders of an organized cle facto government, which at
any rate declared itself to be that of an independent
nation. Again, foreign aid, which would not be given for the
purpose of reforming the internal administration of British
dominions, might well be forthcoming if it were a question
of dismembering those dominions. These considerations
were just and carried no little weight ; yet it is doubtful
if they would have been strong enough to prevail against
the sentiments and traditions which still bound the colonies
to the mother country had not the attack on the charters
forced the controversy back to first principles, and so
opened the door of history to the man who was to provide
America with a creed and to convert the controversy from
a legal to something like a religious quarrel.

Old Peyton Randolph, who had so largely guided the

deliberations of the first Continental Congress, was at

the last moment prevented by ill-health from attending

'the second. His place in the Virginian Delegation was

taken by Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was not yet thirty when he took his seat in
the Continental Congress, but he was already a notable
figure in his native State. He belonged by birth to the
slave-holding gentry of the South, though not to the richest
and most exclusive section of that class. Physically he
was long limbed and loose jointed, but muscular, with a
strong ugly face and red hair. He was adept at the
physical exercises which the Southerners cultivated most
assiduously, a bold and tireless rider who could spend days
in the saddle without fatigue, and a crack shot even among
Virginians. In pursuit of the arts and especially of music
he was equally eager, and his restless intelligence was
keenly intrigued by the nlw wonders that physical science
was beginning to reveal to men ; mocking allusions to his
interest in the habits of horned frogs will be found in

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 21

American pasquinades of two generations. He had sat; in
the Virginian House of Burgesses and had taken a prominent
part in the resistance of that body to the royal demands.
As a speaker, however, he was never highly successful, and
a just knowledge of his own limitations, combined perhaps
with a temperamental dislike, generally led him to rely on
his pen rather than his tongue in public debate. For as
a writer he had a command of a pure, lucid and noble
English unequalled in his generation and equalled by
Corbett alone.

But for history the most important thing about the
man is his creed. It was the creed of a man in the fore
front of his age, an age when French thinkers were busy
drawing from the heritage of Latin civilizations those
fundamental principles of old Rome which custom and the
corruptions of time had overgrown. The gospel of the
new age had already been written: it had brought to
the just mind of Jefferson a conviction which he was to
communicate to all his countrymen, and through them
to the new nation which the sword was creating. The
Declaration of Independence is the foundation stone of the
American Republic, and the Declaration of Independence
in its essential part is but an incomparable translation and
compression of the Contrat Social. The aid which France
brought to America did not begin when a French fleet
sailed into Chesapeake Bay. It began when, perhaps
years before the first whisper of discontent, Thomas
Jefferson sat down in his Virginian study to read the latest
work of the ingenious M. Rousseau.

For now the time was rife for such intellectual leader
ship as Jefferson, armed by Rousseau, could supply. The
challenge flung down by the British Government in the
matter of the Charter of Massachusetts was to be taken up.
The argument that whatever rights Americans might have
they derived from Royal Charters was to be answered by
one who held that their " inalienable rights " were derived
from a primordial charter granted not by King George but
by his Maker.

The second Continental Congress, after many hesitations,
determined at length upon a complete severance with the
mother country. A resolution to that effect was carried

22 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

on the motion of Lee, the great Virginian gentleman, an
ancestor of the noblest of Southern warriors. After much
adroit negotiations a unanimous vote was secured for it. A
committee was appointed to draft a formal announcement
and defence of the step which had been taken. Jefferson
was chosen a member of the committee, and to him was most
wisely entrusted the drafting of the famous " Declaration."
The introductory paragraphs of the Declaration of
Independence contain the whole substance of the faith
upon which the new Commonwealth was to be built.
Without a full comprehension of their contents the subse
quent history of America would be unintelligible. It will
therefore be well to quote them here verbatim, and I do
so the more readily because, apart from their historic
importance, it is a pity that more Englishmen are not
acquainted with this masterpiece of English prose.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands ivhich have con
nected them with another and to assume among the poivers
of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws
of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
for the opinion of Mankind requires that they shall declare
the cause that impels the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
poivers from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any*
form of government becomes destructive of those ends it is the
right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to reinstate a
new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its poicers in such form as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The Declaration goes on to specify the causes of
grievances which the colonists conceive themselves to have
against the royal government, and concludes as follows : —

We, therefore, the representatives of the United Stairs
of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OP MAN 23

Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our inten
tions, do in the name and by the authority of the good people
of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these
United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and
Independent States.

The first principles set out in the Declaration must be
rightly grasped if American history is understood, for
indeed the story of America is merely the story of the
working out of those principles. Briefly the theses are
two : first, that men are of right equal, and secondly,
that the moral basis of the relations between governors
and governed is contractual. Both doctrines have in this
age had to stand the fire of criticisms almost too puerile
to be noticed. It is gravely pointed out that men are of
different heights and weights, that they vary in muscular
power and mental cultivation — as if either Rousseau or
Jefferson was likely to have failed to notice this occult fact !
Similarly the doctrine of the contractual basis of society is
met by a demand for the production of a signed, sealed,
and delivered contract, or at least for evidence that such
a contract was ever made. But Rousseau says — with a
good sense and modesty which dealers in ''prehistoric"
history would do well to copy — that he does not know how
government in fact arose. Nor does anyone else. What
he maintains is that the moral sanction of government is
contractual, or, as Jefferson puts it, that government
" derives its just powers from the consent of the governed."

The doctrine of human equality is in a sense mystical.
It is not apparent to the senses, nor can it be logically
demonstrated as an inference from anything of which
the senses can take cognizance. It can only be stated
accurately, and left to make its appeal to men's minds. It
may be stated theologically by saying, as the Christian
theology says, that all men are equal before God. Or it
may be stated in the form which Jefferson uses — that all
men are equal in their " inalienable rights." But it must
be accepted as a first principle or not at all. The nearest
approach to a method of proving it is to take the alterna
tive proposition and deduce its logical conclusion. Would
those who would maintain that the " wisest and best " have
rights superior to those of their neighbours, welcome a law

24 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

which would enable any person demonstrably wiser or
more virtuous than themselves to put them to death '? I
think that most of them have enough modesty (and
humour) to shrink, as Huxley did, from such a proposition.
But the alternative is the acceptance of Jefferson's doctrine
that the fundamental rights of men are independent of
adventitious differences, whether material or moral, and
depend simply upon their manhood.

The other proposition, the contractual basis of human
society and its logical consequences, the supremacy of the
general will, can be argued in the same fashion. It is best
defended by asking, like the Jesuit Suarez, the simple
question : " If sovereignty is not in the People, where is
it ? " It is useless to answer that it is in the " wisest
and best." Who are the wisest and best ? For practical
purposes the phrases must mean either those whom their
neighbours think wisest and best — in which case the
ultimate test of democracy is conceded — or those who
think themselves wisest and best : which latter is what in
the mouths of such advocates it usually does mean. Thus
those to whom the Divine Eight of the conceited makes no
appeal are forced back on the Jeffersonian formula. Let
it be noted that that formula does not mean that the people
are always right or that a people cannot collectively do
deliberate injustice or commit sins — indeed, inferentially it
implies that possibility — but it means that there is on
earth no temporal authority superior to the general will
0^1 a community.

It is, however, no part of the function of this book to
argue upon the propositions contained in the Declaration
of Independence. It is merely necessary to chronicle the
historical fact that Jefferson, as mouthpiece of the Continental
Congress, put forward these propositions as self-evident, and
that all America, looking at them, accepted them as such.
On th^it acceptance, the intensity and ardent conviction of
which showed itself, as will presently be seen, in a hundred
ways, the American Commonwealth is built. In the modern
haze of doubt and amid the denial of all necessary things,
there have been found plenty of sophists, even in America, to
dispute these great truisms. But if the American nation
as a whole ever ceases to believe in them, it will not merely

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 25

decay, as all nations decay when they lose touch with
eternal truths ; it will drop suddenly dead.

We must now turn back a little in time in order to
make clear the military situation as it stood when Jefferson's
" Declaration " turned the war into a war of doctrines.

The summer of 1775 saw the first engagement which
could well be dignified with the name of a battle. A small
English force had been sent to Boston with the object of
coercing the recalcitrant colony of Massachusetts. It was
absolutely insufficient, as the event showed, even for that
purpose, and before it had landed it was apparent that its
real task would be nothing less than the conquest of
America. The Massachusetts rebels wisely determined to
avoid a combat with the guns of the British fleet; they
abandoned the city and entrenched themselves in a strong
position in the neighbourhood known as Bunker's Hill. The
British troops marched out of Boston to dislodge them. This
they eventually succeeded in doing ; and those who regard
war as a game like billiards to be settled by scoring points
may claim Bunker's Hill as a British victory. But it
produced all the consequences of a defeat. The rebel army
was not destroyed; it was even less weakened than the
force opposed to it. It retired in good order to a position
somewhat further back, and the British force had no option
but to return to Boston with its essential work undone. For
some time England continued to hold Boston, but the State
of Massachusetts remained in American hands. At last, in
the absence of any hope of any effective action, the small
English garrison withdrew, leaving the original prize of
war to the rebels.

On the eve of this indecisive contest the American
Congress met to consider the selection of a commander-in-
chief for the revolutionary armies. Their choice fell on
General George Washington, a Virginian soldier who, as
has been remarked, had served with some distinction in the
French wars.

. The choice was a most fortunate one. America and
England have agreed to praise Washington's character so
highly that at the hands of the young and irreverent he is
iu some danger of the fate of Aristides. For the benefit of
those who tend to weary of the Cherry Tree and the Little

26 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Hatchet, it may be well to say that <JVashington was a very
typical Southern gentleman in his foibles as well as in his
virtues. Though his temper was in large matters under
strict control, it was occasionally formidable and vented
itself in a free and cheerful profanity. He loved good wine,
and like most eighteenth-century gentlemen, was not
sparing in its use. He had a Southerner's admiration for
the other sex — an admiration which, if gossip may be
credited, was not always strictly confined within monogamic
limits. He had also, in large measure, the high dignity
and courtesy of his class, and an enlarged liberality of
temper which usually goes with such good breeding. There
is no story of him more really characteristic than that of
his ceremoniously returning the salute of an aged Negro
and saying to a friend who was disposed to deride his
actions : " Would you have me let a poor ignorant coloured
man say that he had better manners than I?" For the
rest the traditional eulogy of his public character is not
undeserved. It may justly be said of him, as it can be
said of few of the great men who have moulded the
destinies of nations, that history can put its fingers on no
act of his and say : " Here this man was preferring- his own
interest to his country's."

As a military commander Washington ranks high. He
had not, indeed, the genius of a Marlborough or a Napoleon.
Rather he owed his success to a thorough grasp of his
profession combined with just that remarkably level and
unbiassed judgment which distinguished his conduct of
civil affairs. He understood very clearly the conditions of
the war in which he was to engage. He knew that Great
Britain, as soon as she really woke up to the seriousness of
her peril, would send out a formidable force of well-disciplined
professional soldiers, and that at the hands of such a force
no mere levy of enthusiastic volunteers could expect any
thing but defeat. The breathing space which the incredible
supineness of the British Government allowed him enabled
him to form something like a real army. Throughout the
campaigns that followed his primary object was not to win
victories, but to keep that army in being. So long as it
existed, he knew that it could be continually reinforced bj
the enthusiasm of the colonials, and that the recruits so

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 27

obtained could be consolidated into and imbued with the
spirit of a disciplined body. The moment it ceased to exist
Great Britain would have to deal simply with rebellious
populations, and Washington was soldier enough to know
that an army can always in time break up and keep down
a mere population, however eager and courageous.

And now England at last did what, if she were deter
mined to enforce her will upon the colonists, she ought to
have done at least five years before. She sent out an army
on a scale at least reasonably adequate to the business for
which it was designed. It consisted partly of excellent
British troops and partly of those mercenaries whom the
smaller German princes let out for hire to those who chose
to employ them. It was commanded by Lord Howe. The
objective of the new invasion — for the procrastination of
the British Government had allowed the war to assume
that character — was the city of New York.

New York harbour possesses, as anyone who enters it
can see, excellent natural defences. Manhattan Island,
upon which the city is built, lies at the mouth of the
Hudson between two arms of that river. At the estuary
are a number of small islets well suited for the emplace
ment of powerful guns. The southern bank runs north
ward into a jrnarp promontory, at the end of which now
stands the most formidable of American fortresses. The
northern approach is covered by Long Island. The
British command decided on the reduction of Long Island
as a preliminary to an assault upon the city. The island
is long and narrow, and a ridge of high ground runs down
it like a backbone. This ridge Washington's army sought
to hold against the attack of the British forces. It was the
first real battle of the war, and it resulted in a defeat so
overwhelming that it might well have decided the fate of
America had not Washington, as soon as he saw how the
day was going, bent all his energies to the tough task of
saving his army. It narrowly escaped complete destruction,
but ultimately a great part succeeded, though with great
loss and not a little demoralization, in reaching Brooklyn
in safety.

The Americans still held New York, the right bank of
the Hudson ; but their flank was dangerously threatened,

28 A HISTOBY OF THE UNITED STATES

and Washington, true to his policy, preferred the damaging
loss of New York to the risk of his army. He retired inland,
again offered battle, was again defeated and forced back into
Pennsylvania. So decided did the superiority of the British
army prove to be that eventually Philadelphia itself, then
the capital of the Confederacy, had to be abandoned.

Meanwhile another British army under the command
of General Burgoyne held Canada. That province had
shown no disposition to join in the revolt ; an early attempt
on the part of the rebels to invade it had been successfully
repelled. Besides English and German troops, Burgoyne
had the aid of several tribes of Indian auxiliaries, whose
aid the British Government had been at some pains
to secure — a policy denounced by Chatham in a powerful
and much-quoted speech. Burgoyne was a clever and
imaginative though not a successful soldier. He conceived
and suggested to his Government a plan of campaign
which was sound in strategic principle, which might well
have succeeded, and which, if it had succeeded, would have
dealt a heavy and perhaps a decisive blow to American
hopes. How far its failure is to be attributed to his own
faulty execution, how far to the blunders of the Home
Government, and how far to accidents which the best
general cannot always avoid, is still disputed. But that
failure was certainly the turning-point of the war.

Burgoyne's project was this : He proposed to advance
from Canada and push across the belt of high land which
forms the northern portion of what is now New York
State, until he struck the upper Hudson. Howe was at
the same time to advance northward up the Hudson, join
hands with him and cut the rebellion in two.

It was a good plan. The cutting off and crushing of
one isolated district after another is just the fashion in
which widespread insurrectionary movements have most
generally been suppressed by militar}7 force. The Govern
ment accepted it, but, owing as it would seem to the
laziness or levity of the English Minister involved,
instructions never reached Howe until it was too late for
him to give effective support to his colleague. All, how
ever, might have prospered had Burgoyne been able to
move more rapidly. His first stroke promised well. The

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 29

important forfc of Triconderoga was surprised and easily
captured, and the road was open for his soldiers into the
highlands. But that advance proved disastrously slow.
Weeks passed before he approached the Hudson. His
supplies were running short, and when he reached Sara
toga, instead of joining hands with Howe he found himself
confronted by strongly posted American forces, greatly
outnumbering his own ill-sustained and exhausted army.
Seeing no sign of the relief which he had expected to the
south — though as a fact Howe had by this time learnt of
the expedition and was hastening to his assistance — on
October 6, 1777, he and his army surrendered to the
American commander, General Gates.

The effect of Burgoyne's surrender was great in America ;
to those whose hopes had been dashed by the disaster of
Long Island, the surrender of New York and Washington's
enforced retreat it brought not only a revival of hope but
a definite confidence in ultimate success. But that effect
was even greater in Europe. Its immediate fruit was Lord
North's famous " olive branch " of 1778 ; the decision of
the British Government to accept defeat on the original
issue of the war, and to agree to a surrender of the claim
to tax the colonists on condition of their return to their
allegiance. Such a proposition made three years earlier
would certainly have produced immediate peace. • Perhaps
it might have produced peace even as it was — though it is
unlikely, for the declaration had filled men's souls with a
new hunger for pure democracy — if the Americans had
occupied the same isolated position which was theirs when
the war began. But it was not in London alone that
Saratoga had produced its effect. While it decided the
wavering councils of the British Ministry in favour of
concessions, it also decided the wavering councils of the
French Crown in favour of intervention.

As early as 1776 a mission had been sent to Versailles
to solicit on behalf of the colonists the aid of France. Its
principal member was Benjamin Franklin, the one revolu
tionary leader of the first rank who came from the Northern
colonies. He had all the shrewdness and humour of the
Yankee with an enlarged intelligence and a wide knowledge
of men which made him an almost ideal negotiator in such

80 A HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES

a cause. Yet for some fcime his mission hung fire. France
had not- forgotten her expulsion from the North American
continent twenty years before. She could not but desire
the success of the colonists and the weakening or dis
memberment of the British Empire. Moreover, French
public opinion — and its power under the Monarchy,
though insufficient, was far greater than is now generally
understood — full of the new ideals which were to produce
the Eevolution, was warmly in sympathy with the rebellion.
But, on the other hand, an open breach with England
involved serious risks. France was only just recovering
from the effects of a great war in which she had on the
whole been worsted, and very decidedly worsted, in the
colonial field. The revolt of the English colonies might
seem a tempting opportunity for revenge ; but suppose
that the colonial resistance collapsed before effective aid
could arrive ? Suppose the colonists merely used the
threat of French intervention to extort terms from England
and then made common cause against the foreigner?
These obvious considerations made the French statesmen
hesitate. Aid was indeed given to the colonial rebels,
especially in the very valuable form of arms and muni
tions, but it was given secretly and unofficially, with the
satirist Beaumarchais, clever, daring, unscrupulous and
ready to push his damaged fortunes in any fashion, as
unaccredited go-between. But in the matter of open
alliance with the rebels against the British Government
France temporized, nor could the utmost efforts of Franklin
and his colleagues extort a decision.

Saratoga extorted it. On the one hand it removed a
principal cause of hesitation. After such a success it was
unlikely that the colonists would tamely surrender. On
the other it made it necessary to take immediate action.
Lord North's attitude showed clearly that the British
Government was ready to make terms with the colonists.
It was clearly in the interests of France that those terms
should be refused. She must venture something to make
sure of such a refusal. With little hesitation the advisers
of the French Crown determined to take the plunge. They
acknowledged the revolted colonies as independent States,
and entered into a defensive alliance with these States

AEMS AND THE EIGHTS OF MAN 31

against Great Britain. That recognition and alliance
immediately determined the issue of the war. What would
have happened if it had been withheld cannot be certainly
determined. It seems not unlikely that the war would have
ended as the South African War ended, in large surrenders
of the substance of Imperial power in return for a theoretic
acknowledgment of its authority. But all this is specula
tive. The practical fact is that England found herself,
in the middle of a laborious, and so far on the whole
unsuccessful, effort to crush the rebellion of her colonies,
confronted by a war with France, which, through the close
alliance then existing between the two Bourbon monarchies,
soon became a war with both France and Spain. This
change converted the task of subjugation from a difficult but
practicable one, given sufficient time and determination, to
one fundamentally impossible.

Yet, so far as the actual military situation was concerned,
there were no darker days for the Americans than those
which intervened between the promise of French help and
its fulfilment. Lord Cornwallis had appeared in the South
and had taken possession of Charleston, the chief port
of South Carolina. In that State the inhabitants were less
unanimous than elsewhere. The " Tories," as the local
adherents of the English Crown were called, had already
attempted a rebellion against the rebellion, but had been
forced to yield to the Eepublican majority backed by the
army of Washington. The presence of Cornwallis revived
their courage. They boasted in Taiieton, able, enterprising
and imperious, an excellent commander for the direction
of irregular warfare, whose name and that of the squadron
of horse which he raised and organized became to the
rebels what the names of Claverhouse and his dragoons
were to the Covenanters. Cornwallis and Tarleton between
them completely reduced the Carolinas, save for the strip
of mountainous country to the north, wherein many of
those families that Tarleton had " burnt out "found refuge,
and proceeded to overrun Georgia. Only two successes
encouraged the rebels. At the Battle of the Cowpens
Tarleton having, with the recklessness which was the defeat
of his qualities as a leader, advanced too far into the hostile
country, was met and completely defeated by Washington.

32 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The defeat produced little immediate result, but it was the one
definite military success which the American general achieved
before the advent of the French, and it helped to keep up
the spirit of the insurgents. Perhaps even greater in its
moral effect was the other victory, which from the military
point of view was even more insignificant. In Sumter and
Davie the rebels found two cavalry leaders fully as daring
and capable as Tarleton himself. They formed from among
the refugees who had sought the shelter of the Carolinian
hills a troop of horse with which they made a sudden raid
upon the conquered province and broke the local Tories at
the Battle of the Hanging Kock. It was a small affair so
far as numbers went, and Davie's troopers were a handful
of irregulars drawn as best might be from the hard-riding,
sharp-shooting population of the South. Many of them
were mere striplings ; indeed, among them was a boy of
thirteen, an incorrigible young rebel who had run away
from school to take part in the fighting. In the course
of this narration it will be necessary to refer to that boy
again more than once. His name was Andrew Jackson.

While there was so little in the events of the Southern
campaign to bring comfort to the rebels, in the North their
cause suffered a moral blow which was felt at the moment
to be almost as grave as any military disaster. Here the
principal American force was commanded by one of the
ablest soldiers the Rebellion had produced, a man who
might well have disputed the pre-eminent fame of Wash
ington if he had not chosen rather to challenge— and with
no contemptible measures of success — that of Iscariot.
Benedict Arnold was, like Washington, a professional
soldier whose talent had been recognized before the war.
He had early embraced the revolutionary cause, and had
borne a brilliant part in the campaign which ended in the
surrender of Bourgoyne. There seemed before him every
prospect of a glorious career. The motives which led him
to the most inexpiable of human crimes were perhaps
mixed, though all of them were poisonous. He was in
savage need of money to support the extravagance of his
private tastes : the Confederacy had none to give, while the
Crown had plenty. But it seems also that his ravenous
vanity had been wounded, first by the fact that the glory of

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN 33

Burgoyne's defeat had gone to Gates and not to him, and
afterwards by a censure, temperate and tactful enough and
accompanied by a liberal eulogy of his general conduct,
which Washington had felt obliged to pass on certain of his
later military proceedings. At any rate, the " ingratitude "
of his country was the reason he publicly alleged for his
treason ; and those interested in the psychology of infamy
may give it such weight as it may seem to deserve. For
history the important fact is that Arnold at this point in
the campaign secretly offered his services to the English,
and the offer was accepted.

Arnold escaped to the British camp and was safe. The
unfortunate gentleman on whom patriotic duty laid the
unhappy task of trafficking with the traitor was less
fortunate. Major Andre had been imprudent enough to
pay a visit to a spot behind the American lines, and, at
Arnold's suggestion, to do so in plain clothes. He was
taken, tried, and hanged as a spy. Though espionage was
not his intention, the Americans cannot fairly be blamed
for deciding that he should die. He had undoubtedly
committed an act which was the act of a spy in the eyes
of military law. It is pretty certain that a hint was given
that the authorities would gladly exchange him for Arnold,
and it is very probable that the unslaked thirst for just
vengeance against Arnold was partly responsible for the
refusal of the American commanders to show mercy.
Andre's courage and dignity made a profound impression
on them, and there was a strong disposition to comply
with his request that he should at least be shot instead
of hanged. But to that concession a valid and indeed
irresistible objection was urged. Whatever the Americans
did was certain to be scanned with critical and suspicious
eyes. Little could be said in the face of the facts if they
treated Andre as a spy and inflicted on him the normal
fate of a spy. But if they showed that they scrupled to
hang him as a spy, it would be easy to say that they had
shot a prisoner of war.

Arnold was given a command in the South, and the
rage of the population of that region was intensified into
something like torment when they saw their lands occupied
and their fields devastated no longer by a stranger from

D

34 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

overseas who was but fulfilling his military duty, but by
a cynical and triumphant traitor. Virginia was invaded
and a bold stroke almost resulted in the capture of the
author of the Declaration of Independence himself, who
had been elected Governor of that State. In the course
of these raids many abominable things were done which
it is unnecessary to chronicle here. The regular English
troops, on the whole, behaved reasonably well, but
Tarleton's native " Tories " were inflamed by a fanaticism
far fiercer than theirs, while atrocity was of course normal
to the warfare of the barbarous mercenaries of England,
whether Indian or German. It is equally a matter of
course that such excesses provoked frequent reprisals from
the irregular colonial levies.

But aid was at last at hand. Already Lafayette, a
young French noble of liberal leanings, had appeared in
Washington's camp at the head of a band of volunteers,
and the accession, small as it was, led to a distinct revival
of the fortunes of the revolution in the South. It was,
however, but a beginning. England, under pressure of the
war with France and Spain, lost that absolute supremacy
at sea which has ever been and ever will be necessary to
her conduct of a successful war. A formidable French
armament was able to cross the Atlantic. A French fleet
threatened the coasts. Cornwallis, not knowing at which
point the blow would fall, was compelled to withdraw
his forces from the country they had overrun, and to
concentrate them in a strong position in the peninsula
of Yorktown. Here he was threatened on both sides by
Washington and Rochambeau, while the armada of De
Grasse menaced him from the sea. The war took on
the character of a siege. His resources were speedily
exhausted, and on September 19, 1781, he surrendered.

It was really the end of the war so far as America was
concerned, though the struggle between England and
France continued for a time with varying fortunes in other
theatres, and the Americans, though approached with
tempting offers, wisely as well as righteously refused to
make a separate peace at the expense of their Allies. But
the end could no longer be in doubt. The surrender of
Burgoyne had forced North to make concessions ; the

ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OP MAN 35

surrender of Cornwallis made his resignation inevitable.
A new Ministry was formed under Rockingham pledged to
make peace. Franklin again went to Paris as representative
of the Confederation and showed himself a diplomatist
of the first rank. To the firmness with which he main
tained the Alliance against the most skilful attempts
to dissolve it must largely be attributed the successful
conclusion of a general peace on terms favourable to
the Allies and especially favourable to America. Britain
recognized the independence of her thirteen revolted
colonies, and peace was restored.

I have said that England recognized her thirteen
revolted colonies. She did not recognize the American
Republic, for as yet there was none to recognize. The war
had been conducted on the American side nominally by the
Continental Congress, an admittedly ad hoc authority not
pretending to permanency ; really by Washington and his
army which, with the new flag symbolically emblazoned
with thirteen stars and thirteen stripes, was the one
rallying point of unity. That also was now to be dissolved.
The States had willed to be free, and they were free.
Would they, in their freedom, will effectively to be a
nation ? That was a question which not the wisest
observer could answer at the time, and which was not
perhaps fully answered until well within the memory of
men still living. Its solution will necessarily form the
main subject of this book.

CHAPTER III

" WE, THE PEOPLE "

AN account of the American Revolution which took
cognizance only of the armed conflict with England would
tell much less than half the truth, and even that half would
be misleading. If anyone doubts that the real inspira
tion which made America a nation was drawn, not from
Whiggish quarrels about taxes, but from the great dogmas
promulgated by Jefferson, it is sufficient to point out that
the States did not even wait till their victory over England
was assured before effecting a complete internal revolution
on the basis of those dogmas. Before the last shot had
been fired almost the last privilege had disappeared.

The process was a spontaneous one, and its fruits
appear almost simultaneously in every State. They can
be followed best in Virginia, where Jefferson himself took
the lead in the work of revolutionary reform.

Hereditary titles and privileges went first. On this
point public feeling became so strong that the proposal to
form after the war a society to be called " the Cincinnati,"
which was to consist of those who had taken a prominent
part in the war and afterwards of their descendants,
was met, in spite of the respect in which Washington and
the other military heroes were held, with so marked an
expression of public disapproval that the hereditary part
of the scheme had to be dropped.

Franchises were simplified, equalized, broadened, so
that in practically every State the whole adult male popu
lation of European race received the suffrage. Social and
economic reforms having the excellent aim of securing and
maintaining a wide distribution of property, especially of
land, were equally prominent among the achievements of
that time. Jefferson himself carried in Virginia a drastic

36

"WE, THE PEOPLE" 37

code of Land Laws, which anticipated many of the essential
provisions which through the Code Napoleon revolutionized
the system of land-owning in Europe. As to the practical
effect of such reforms we have the testimony of a man
whose instinct for referring all things to practice was, if
anything, an excess, and whose love for England was the
master passion of his life. " Every object almost that
strikes my view," wrote William Cobbett many years
later, " sends my mind and heart back to England. In
viewing the ease and happiness of this people the contrast
fills my soul with indignation, and makes it more and more
the object of my life to assist in the destruction of the
diabolical usurpation which has trampled on king as well as
people."

Another principle, not connected by any direct logic
with democracy and not set forth in the Declaration of
Independence, was closely associated with the democratic
thesis by the great French thinkers by whom that thesis
was revived, and had a strong hold upon the mind of
Jefferson — the principle of religious equality, or, as it
might be more exactly defined, of the Secular State.

So many loose and absurd interpretations of this
principle have been and are daily being propounded, that
it may be well to state succinctly what it does and does
not mean.

It does not mean that anyone may commit any anti
social act that appeals to him, and claim immunity from
the law on the ground that he is impelled to that act by
his religion : can rob as a conscientious communist, murder
as a conscientious Thug, or refuse military service as
a conscientious objector. None understood better than
Jefferson — it was the first principle of his whole political
system — that there must be some basis of agreement
amongst citizens as to what is right and what is wrong, and
that what the consensus of citizens regards as wrong must
be punished by the law. All that the doctrine of the
Secular State asserted was that such general agreement
among citizens need not include, as in most modern States
it obviously does not include, an agreement on the subject
of religion. Keligion is, so to speak, left out of the Social
Contract, and consequently each individual retains his

38 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

natural liberty to entertain and promulgate what views he
likes concerning it, so long as such views do not bring him
into conflict with those general principles of morality,
patriotism and social order upon which the citizens of the
State are agreed, and which form the basis of its laws.

The public mind of America was for the most part well
prepared for the application of this principle. We have
already noted how the first experiment in the purely
secular organization of society had been made in the
Catholic colony of Maryland and the Quaker colony of
Pennsylvania. The principle was now applied in its
completeness to one State after another. The Episcopalian
establishment of Jeffer son's own State was the first to fall ;
the other States soon followed the example of Virginia.

At the same time penalties or disabilities imposed as
a consequence of religious opinions were everywhere
abrogated. Only in New England was there any hesitation.
The Puritan States did not take kindly to the idea of
tolerating Popery. In the early days of the revolution
their leaders had actually made it one of the counts of their
indictment against the British Government that that
Government had made peace with Anti-Christ in French
Canada — a fact remembered to the permanent hurt of the
Confederacy when the French Canadians were afterwards
invited to make common cause with the American rebels.
But the tide was too strong even for Calvinists to resist ;
the equality of all religions before the law was recognized
in every State, and became, as it remains to-day, a
fundamental part of the American Constitution.

It may be added that America affords the one
conspicuous example of the Secular State completely
succeeding. In France, where the same principles were
applied under the same inspiration, the ultimate result
was something wholly different : an organized Atheism
persecuting the Christian Faith. In England the principle
has never been avowedly applied at all. In theory the
English State still professes the form of Protestant
Christianity defined in the Prayer-book, and "tolerates"
dissenters from it as the Christian States of the^ middle
ages tolerated the Jews, and as in France, during the
interval between the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes

"WE, THE PEOPLE" 39

and its revocation, a State definitely and even pronouncedly
Catholic tolerated the Huguenots. Each dissentient religious
body claims its right to exist in virtue of some specific Act
of Parliament. Theoretically it is still an exception, though
the exceptions have swallowed the rule.

Moreover, even under this rather hazy toleration, those
who believe either more or less than the bulk of their
fellow-countrymen and who boldly proclaim their belief
usually find themselves at a political disadvantage. In
America it never seems to have been so. Jefferson him
self, a Deist (the claim sometimes made that he was a
" Christian " seems to rest on nothing more solid than the
fact that, like nearly all the eighteenth- century Deists, he
expressed admiration for the character and teaching of
Jesus Christ), never for a moment forfeited the confidence
of his countrymen on that account, though attempts were
made, notably by John Adams, to exploit it against him.
Taney, a Catholic, was raised without objection on that
score to the first judicial post in America, at a date when
such an appointment would have raised a serious tumult in
England. At a later date Ingersoll was able to vary the
pastime of " Bible-smashing " with the profession of an
active Republican wire-puller, without any of the embarrass
ments which that much better and honester man, Charles
Bradlaugh, had to encounter. The American Republic
has not escaped the difficulties and problems which are
inevitable to the Secular State, when some of its citizens
profess a religion which brings them into conflict with
the common system of morals which the nation takes for
granted ; the case of the Mormons is a typical example of
such a problem. But there is some evidence that, as the
Americans have applied the doctrine far more logically than
we, they have also a keener perception of the logic of its
limitations. At any rate, it is notable that Congress has
refused, in its Conscription Act, to follow our amazing
example and make the conscience of the criminal the judge
of the validity of legal proceedings against him.

Changes so momentous, made in so drastic and sweep
ing a fashion in the middle of a life and death struggle for
national existence, show how vigorous and compelling was
the popular impulse towards reform. Yet all the great

40 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

things that were done seem dwarfed by one enormous
thing left undone ; the heroic tasks which the Americans
accomplished are forgotten in the thought of the task which
stared them in the face, but from which they, perhaps
justifiably, shrank. All the injustices which were abolished
in that superb crusade against privilege only made plainer
the shape of the one huge privilege, the one typical injustice
which still stood — the blacker against such a dawn — Negro
Slavery.

It has already been mentioned that Slavery was at one
time universal in the English colonies and was generally
approved by American opinion, North and South. Before
the end of the War of Independence it was almost as
generally disapproved, and in all States north of the
borders of Maryland it soon ceased to exist.

This was not because democratic ideals were more
devotedly cherished in the North than in the South ; on
the whole the contrary was the case. But the institution
of Slavery was in no way necessary to the normal life and
industry of the North ; its abrogation made little difference,
and the rising tide of the new ideas to which it was
necessarily odious easily swept it away. In their method
of dealing with it the Northerners, it must be owned,
were kinder to themselves than to the Negroes. They
declared Slavery illegal within their own borders, but they
generally gave the slave-holder time to dispose of his
human property by selling it in the States where Slavery
still existed. This fact is worth noting, because it became
a prime cause of resentment and bitterness when, at a later
date, the North began to reproach the South with the guilt
of slave-owning. For the South was faced with no such
easy and manageable problem. Its coloured population
was almost equal in number to its white colonists ; in some
districts it was even greatly preponderant. Its staple
industries were based on slave labour. To abolish Slavery
would mean an industrial revolution of staggering magnitude
of which the issue could not be foreseen. And even if that
were faced, there remained the sinister and apparently
insoluble problem of what to do with the emancipated
Negroes. Jefferson, who felt the reproach of Slavery
keenly, proposed to the legislature of Virginia a scheme so

"WE, THE PEOPLE" 41

radical and comprehensive in its character that it is not
surprising if men less intrepid than he refused to adopt^ it.
He proposed nothing less than the wholesale repatriation
of the blacks, who were to set up in' Africa a Negro Kepublic
of their own under American protection. Jefferson fully
understood* the principles and implications of democracy,
and he was also thoroughly conversant with Southern
conditions, and the fact that he thought (and events have
certainly gone far to justify him) that so drastic a solution
was the only one that offered hope of a permanent and
satisfactory settlement is sufficient evidence that the

Eroblem was no easy one. For the first time Jefferson
died to carry Virginia with him ; and Slavery remained
an institution sanctioned by law in every State south of the
Mason-Dixon Line.

While the States were thus dealing with the problems
raised by the application to their internal administration
of the principles of the new democratic creed, the force of
mere external fact was compelling them to attempt some
sort of permanent unity. Those who had from the first a
specific enthusiasm for such unity were few, though
Washington was among them, and his influence counted
for much. But what counted for much more was the
pressure of necessity. It was soon obvious to all clear
sighted men that unless some authoritative centre of union
were created the revolutionary experiment would have been
saved from suppression by arms only to collapse in mere
anarchic confusion. The Continental Congress, the only
existing authority, was moribund, and even had it been
still in its full vigour, it had not the powers which the
situation demanded. It could not, for instance, levy taxes
on the State ; its revenues were completely exhausted and it
had no power to replenish them. The British Government
complained that the conditions of peace were not observed
on the American side, and accordingly held on to the
positions which it had occupied at the conclusion of the
war. The complaint was perfectly just, but it did not arise
from deliberate bad faith on the part of those who directed
(as far as anyone was directing) American policy, but from
the simple fact that there was no authority in America
capable of enforcing obedience and carrying the provisions

42 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of the treaty into effect. The same moral was enforced by
a dozen other symptoms of disorder. The Congress had
disbanded the soldiers, as had been promised, on the
conclusion of peace, but, having no money, could not keep
its at least equally important promise to pay them. This led
to much casual looting by men with arms in their hands
but nowhere to turn for a meal, and the trouble culminated
in a rebellion raised in New England by an old soldier of
the Continental Army called Shay. Such incidents as
these were the immediate cause of the summoning at
Philadelphia of a Convention charged with the task of
framing a Constitution for the United States.

Of such a Convention Washington was the only possible
President ; and he was „ drawn from a temporary and
welcome retirement in his Virginian home to re-enter in a
new fashion the service of his country. Under his presidency
disputed and compromised a crowd of able men representa
tive of the widely divergent States whose union was to be
attempted. There was Alexander Hamilton, indifferent or
hostile to the democratic idea but intensely patriotic, and
bent above all things upon the formation of a strong central
authority; Franklin with his acute practicality and his
admirable tact in dealing with men; Gerry, the New
Englander, Whiggish and somewhat distrustful of the
populace; Pinckney of South Carolina, a soldier and the
most ardent of the Federalists, representing, by a curious
irony, the State which was to be the home of the most
extreme dogma of State Rights ; Madison, the Virginian,
young, ardent and intellectual, his head full of the new
wine of liberty. One great name is lacking. Jefferson had
been chosen to represent the Confederacy at the French
Court, where he had the delight of watching the first act
of that tremendous drama, whereby his own accepted
doctrine was to re-shape France, as it had already re
shaped America. The Convention, therefore, lacked the
valuable combination of lucid thought on the philosophy
of politics and a keen appreciation of the direction of the
popular will which he above all men could have supplied.

The task before the Convention was a hard and perilous
one, and nothing about it was more hard and perilous than
its definition. What were they there to do ? Were they

"WE, THE PEOPLE" 43

framing a treaty between independent Sovereignties,
which, in spite of the treaty, would retain their indepen
dence, or were they building a nation by merging these
Sovereignties in one general Sovereignty of the American
people ? They began by proceeding on the first assumption,
re-modelling the Continental Congress — avowedly a mere
alliance — and adding only such powers as it was plainly
essential to add. They soon found that such a plan would
not meet the difficulties of the hour. But they dared not
openly adopt the alternative theory : the States would not
have borne it. Had it, for example, been specifically laid
down that a State once entering the Union might never
after withdraw from it, quite half the States would have
refused to enter it. To that extent the position afterwards
taken up by the Southern Secessionists was historically
sound. But there was a complementary historical truth
on the other side. There can be little doubt that in this
matter the founders of the Eepublic desired and intended
more than they ventured to attempt. The fact that men
of unquestionable honesty and intelligence were in after
years so sharply and sincerely divided as to what the
Constitution really icas, was in truth the result of a divided
mind in those who framed the Constitution. They made
an alliance and hoped it would grow into a nation. The
preamble 'of the Constitution represents the aspirations of
the American Fathers ; the clauses represent the furthest
they dared towards those aspirations. The preamble was
therefore always the rallying point of those who wished
to see America one nation. Its operative clause ran : " We,
the People of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect Union, ... do ordain and establish this Constitu
tion for the United States of America." That such
language was a strong point in favour of the Federalist
interpreters of the Constitution was afterwards implicitly
admitted by the extreme exponents of State Sovereignty
themselves, for when they came to frame for their own
Confederacy a Constitution reflecting their own views they
made a most significant alteration. The corresponding
clause in the Constitution of the Southern Confederacy ran,
" We, the deputies of the Sovereign and Independent States,
. , . do^ordain," etc., etc.

44 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

For the rest two great practical measures which involved
no overbold challenge to State Sovereignty were wisely
planned to buttress the Union and render it permanent.
A clause in the Constitution forbade tariffs between the
States and established complete Free Trade within the
limits of the Union. An even more important step was
that by which the various States which claimed territory
in the as yet undeveloped interior were induced to sur
render such territory to the collective ownership of the
Federation. This at once gave the States a new motive
for unity, a common inheritance which any State refusing
or abandoning union must surrender.

Meanwhile it would be unjust to the supporters of
State Rights to deny the excellence and importance of
their contribution to the Constitutional settlement. To
them is due the establishment of local liberties with safe
guards such as no other Constitution gives. And, in spite
of the military victory which put an end to the disputes
about State Sovereignty and finally established the
Federalist interpretation of the Constitution, this part of
their work endures. The internal affairs of every State
remain as the Constitution left them, absolutely in its own
control. The Federal Government never interferes save
for purposes of public taxation, and, in the rare case of
necessity, of national defence. For the rest nine-tenths
of the laws under which an American citizen lives, nearly
all the laws that make a practical difference to his life, are
State laws. Under the Constitution, as framed, the States
were free to form their separate State Constitutions according
to their own likings, and to arrange the franchise and the
test of citizenship, even for Federal purposes, in their own
fashion. This, with the one stupid and mischievous excep
tion made by the ill-starred Fifteenth Amendment, remains
the case to this day, with the curious consequence, among
others, that it is now theoretically possible for a woman to
become President of the United States, if she is the citizen
of a State where female suffrage is admitted.

Turning to the structure of the central authority which
the Constitution sought to establish, the first thing that
strikes us — in the teeth of the assertion of most British and
some American writers — is that it was emphatically not a

"WE, THE PEOPLE55 45

copy of the British Constitution in any sense whatever. It
is built on wholly different principles, drawn mostly from
the French speculations of that age. Especially one notes,
alongside of the careful and wise separation of the judiciary
from the executive, the sound principle enunciated by
Montesquieu and other French thinkers of the eighteenth
century, but rejected and contemned by England (to her
great hurt) as a piece of impracticable logic — the separation
of the executive and legislative powers. It was this principle
which made possible the later transformation of the Presidency
into a sort of Elective Monarchy.

This result was not designed or foreseen ; or rather it
was to an extent foreseen, and deliberately though un
successfully guarded against. The American revolutionists
were almost as much under the influence of classical antiquity
as the French. From it they drew the noble conception of
" the Republic," the public thing acting with impersonal
justice towards all citizens. But with it they also drew an
exaggerated dread of what they called " Csesarism," and
with it they mixed the curious but characteristic illusion
of that age — an illusion from which, by the way, Rousseau
himself was conspicuously free — that the most satisfactory
because the most impersonal organ of the general will is to
be found in an elected assembly. They had as yet imper
fectly learnt that such an assembly must after all consist
of persons, more personal because less public than an
acknowledged ruler. They did not know that, while a
despot may often truly represent the people, a Senate,
however chosen, always tends to become an oligarchy.
Therefore they surrounded the presidential office with
checks which in mere words made the President seem less
powerful than an English King. Yet he has always in fact
been much more powerful. And the reason is to be found
in the separation of the executive from the legislature.
The President, while his term lasted, had the full powers
of a real executive. Congress could not turn him out,
though it could in various ways check his actions. He
could appoint his own Ministers (though the Senate must
ratify the choice) and they were wisely excluded from the
legislature. An even wiser provision limited the appoint
ment of Members of Congress to positions under the

46 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

executive. Thus both executive and legislature were kept,
so far as human frailty permitted, pure in their normal
functions. The Presidency remained a real Government.
Congress remained a real check.

In England, where the opposite principle was adopted,
the Ministry became first the committee of an oligarchical
Parliament and later a close corporation nominating the
legislature which is supposed to check it.

The same fear of arbitrary power was exhibited, and
that in fashion really inconsistent with the democratic
principles which the American statesmen professed, in the
determination that the President should be chosen by the
people only in an indirect fashion, through an Electoral
College. This error has been happily overruled by events.
Since the Electoral College was to be chosen ad hoc for
the single purpose of choosing a President, it soon became
obvious that pledges could easily be exacted from its
members in regard to their choice. By degrees the
pretence of deliberate action by the College wore thinner
and thinner. Finally it was abandoned altogether, and
the President is now chosen, as the first magistrate of a
democracy ought to be chosen, if election is resorted to at all,
by the direct vote of the nation. At the time, however, it
was supposed that the Electoral College would be an inde
pendent deliberative assembly. It was further provided
that the second choice of the Electoral College should be
Vice-President, and succeed to the Presidency in the event
of the President dying during his term of office. If there
was a "tie" or if no candidate had an absolute majority
in the College, the election devolved on the House of
Representatives voting in this instance by States.

In connection with the election both of Executive and
Legislature, the old State Rights problem rose in another
form. Were all the States to have equal weight and repre
sentation, as had been the case in the old Continental
Congress, or was their weight and representation to be
proportional to their-population ? On this point a compromise
was made. The House of Representatives was to be chosen
directly by the people on a numerical basis, and in the
Electoral College which chose the President the same
principle was adopted. In the Senate all States were to

"WE, THE PEOPLE" 47

have equal representation; and the Senators were to be
chosen by the legislatures of the States ; they were regarded
rather as ambassadors than as delegates. The term of a
Senator was fixed for six years, a third of the Senate
resigning in rotation every two years. The House of
Representatives was to be elected in a body for two years.
The President was elected for four years, at the end of
which time he could be re-elected,

Such were the main lines of the compromises which
were effected between the conflicting views of the extreme
Federalists and extreme State Rights advocates, and the
conflicting interests of the larger and smaller States. But
there was another threatened conflict, more formidable and,
as the event proved, more enduring, with which the framers
of the Constitution had to deal. Two different types of
civilization had grown up on opposite sides of the Mason-
Dixon line. How far Slavery was the cause and how far a
symptom of this divergence will be discussed more fully in
future chapters. At any rate it was its most conspicuous
mark or label. North and South differed so conspicuously
not only in their social organization but in every habit of
life and thought that neither would tamely bear to be
engulfed in a union in which the other was to be pre
dominant. To keep an even balance between them was
long the principal effort of American statesmanship. That
effort began in the Convention which framed the Consti
tution. It did not cease till the very eve of the Civil War.

The problem with which the Convention had to deal
was defined within certain well-understood limits. No
one proposed that Slavery should be abolished by Federal
enactment. It was universally acknowledged that Slavery
within a State, however much of an evil it might be, was an
evil with which State authority alone had a right to deal.
On the other hand, no one proposed to make Slavery a
national institution. Indeed, all the most eminent Southern
statesmen of that time, and probably the great' majority of
Southerners, regarded it as a reproach, and sincerely hoped
that it would soon disappear, There remained, however,
certain definite subjects of dispute concerning which an
agreement had to be reached if the States were to live in
peace in the same household.

48 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

First, not perhaps in historic importance, but in the
insistence of its demand for an immediate settlement, was
the question of representation. It had been agreed that in
the House of Representatives and in the Electoral College
this should be proportionate to population. The urgent
question at once arose : should free white citizens only be
counted, or should the count include the Negro slaves?
When it is remembered that these latter numbered some
thing like half the population of the Southern States, the
immediate political importance of the issue will at once be
recognized. If they were omitted the weight of the South
in the Federation would be halved. In the opposite alter
native it would be doubled. By the compromise eventually
adopted it was agreed that the whole white population
should be counted and three-fifths of the slaves.

The second problem was this: if Slavery WfJ^' to be
legal in one State and illegal in another, what was ic be the
status of a slave escaping from a Slave State into^a free ?
Was such an act to be tantamount to an emancipation ?
If such were to be the case, it was obvious thftt slave
property, especially in the border States, would befcome an
extremely insecure investment. The average SSKHsrner
of that period was no enthusiast for Slavery. H$*?ta.v not
unwilling to listen to plans of gradual and cor&jfenlsated
emancipation. But he could not be expected to (^itern-
plate losing in a night property for which he hscjfperhaps
paid hundreds of dollars, without even the hope or £ecT)very.
On this point it was found absolutely necessary" to give
way to the Southerners, though Franklin, for one, ^sliked
this concession more than any other. It was t! cammed
that " persons held to service or labour " escdpfng into
another State should be returned to those " to whom such
service or labour may be due."

The last and on the whole the least defensible^ of the
concessions made in this matter concerned the "African
Slave Trade. That odious traffic was condemned b^'almost
all Americans — even by those who were actust&med to
domestic slavery, and could see little evil in it. JSfferson,
in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence,
had placed amongst the accusations against *he English
King the charge that he had forced the slsf^e. trade on

"WE, THE PEOPLE" 49

reluctant colonies. The charge was true so far at any rate
as Virginia was concerned, for both that State and its
neighbour, Maryland, had passed laws against the traffic
and had seen them vetoed by the Crown. But the extreme
South, where the cotton trade was booming, wanted more
Negro labour; South Carolina objected, and found an
expected ally in Massachusetts. Boston had profited more
by the Slave Trade than any other American city. She
could hardly condemn King George with<»it condemning
herself. And, though her interest in the traffic had
diminished, it had not wholly ceased. The paragraph in
quest ,n was struck out of the Declaration, and when the
Cony o \tion came to deal with the question the same curious
allianc^ thwarted the efforts of those who demanded the
immecKate prohibition of the trade. Eventually the Slave
Trade was suffered to continue for twenty years, at thel end
of which time Congress might forbid it. This was done in
1808, when the term of suffrance had expired.

Tims was Negro Slavery placed under the protection of
the Constitution . It would be a grave injustice to the
founr]- 3 of the American Commonwealth to make it seem
tha* of them liked doing this. Constrained by a cruel
nect^si v, they acquiesced for the time in an evil which
they Hoped that time would remedy. Their mind is
signiiK -itly mirrored by the fact that not once in the
Constitution are the words " slave " or " slavery " mentioned.
Some ^nphemism is always used, as "persons held to
service or labour," " the importation of persons," " free
persons." contrasted with "other persons," and so on.
Lincoiu, generations later, gave what was undoubtedly the
true explanation of this shrinking from the name of the
thing they were tolerating and even protecting. They
hoped that the Constitution would survive Negro Slavery,
and they would leave no word therein to remind their
children that they had spared it for a season. Beyond
questic-a they not only hoped but expected that the
concespion which for the sake of the national unity they
made to an institution which they hated and deplored would
be for a season only. The influence of time and the growth
of those ;r>;;eat doctrines which were embodied in the
Declaration of Independence could not but persuade all

50 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

men at last ; and the day, they thought, could not be far
distant when the Slave States themselves would concur in
some prudent scheme of emancipation, and make of Negro
Slavery an evil dream that had passed away. None the less
not a few of them did what they had to do with sorrowful
and foreboding hearts, and the author of the Declaration of
Independence has left on record his own verdict, that he
trembled for his country when he remembered that God
was just.

CHAPTER IV

THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON

THE compromises of the Constitution, on whatever grounds
they may be criticized, were so far justified that they gained
their end. That end was the achievement of union ; and
union was achieved. This was not done easily nor without
opposition. In some cities anti-Constitutional riots took
place. Several States refused to ratify. The opposition
had the support of the great name of Patrick Henry, who
had been the soul of the resistance to the Stamp Act,
and who now declared that under the specious name of
" Federation " Liberty had been betrayed. The defence
was conducted in a publication called The Federalist largely
by two men afterwards to be associated with fiercely
contending parties, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
But more persuasive than any arguments that the ablest
advocate could use were the iron necessities of the
situation. The Union was an accomplished fact. For
any State, and especially for a small State — and it was
the small States that hesitated most — to refuse to enter it
would be so plainly disastrous to its interests that the
strongest objections and the most rooted suspicions had
eventually to give way. Some States hung back long:
some did not ratify the Constitution until its machinery
was actually working, until the first President had been
chosen and the first Congress had met. But all ratified it
at last, and before the end of Washington's first Presidency
the complement of Stars and Stripes was made up.

The choice of a President was a foregone conclusion.
Everyone knew that Washington was the man whom the
hour and the nation demanded. He was chosen without
a contest by the Electoral College, and would undoubtedly

51

52 A HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES

have been chosen with the same practical unanimity by
the people had the choice been theirs. So long as he
retained his position he retained along with it the virtually
unchallenged pre-eminence which all men acknowledged.
There had been cabals against him as a general, and there
were signs of a revival of them when his Presidency was
clearly foreshadowed. The impulse came mostly from the
older and wealthier gentry of his own State — the Lees for
example — who tended to look down upon him as a " new
man." Towards the end of his political life he was
to some extent the object of attack from the opposite
quarter; his fame was assailed by the fiercer and less
prudent of the Democratic publicists. But, throughout,
the great mass of the American people trusted him as their
representative man, as those who abused him or conspired
against him did so to their own hurt. A less prudent
man might easily have worn out his popularity and
alienated large sections of opinion, but Washington's
characteristic sagacity, which had been displayed so
constantly during the war, stood him in as good stead in
matters of civil government. He propitiated Nemesis
and gave no just provocation to any party to risk its
popularity by attacking him. While he was President the
mantle of his great fame was ample enough to cover the
deep and vital divisions which were appearing even in his
own Cabinet, and were soon to convulse the nation in a
dispute for the inheritance of his power.

His Secretary to the Treasury was Alexander Hamilton.
This extraordinary man presents in more than one respect
a complex problem to the historian. He has an unques
tionable right to a place and perhaps to a supreme place
among the builders of the American Eepublic, and much of
its foundation-laying was his work. Yet he shows in history
as a defeated man, and for at least a generation scarcely
anyone dared to give him credit for the great work that he
really did. To-day the injustice is perhaps the other way.
In American histories written since the Civil War he is
not only acclaimed as a great statesman, but his overthrow
at the hands of the Jeffersonians is generally pointed at
as a typical example of the folly and Jngratitude of the
mob. This version is at least as unjust to the American

THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON 53

people as the depreciation of the Democrats was to him.
The fact is that Hamilton's work had a double aspect. In
so far as it was directed to the cementing of a permanent
union and the building of a strong central authority it
was work upon -the lines along which the nation was
moving, and towards an end which the nation really, if
sub-consciously, desired. But closely associated with this
object in Hamilton's mind was another which the nation
did not desire and which was alien to its instincts and
destiny. All this second part of his work failed, and
involved him in its ruin.

Hamilton had fought bravely in the Revolutionary
War, but for the ideals which had become more and more
the inspiration of the Revolution he cared nothing, and
was too honest to pretend to care. He had on the other
hand a strong and genuine American patriotism. Perhaps
his origin helped him to a larger view in this matter than
was common among his contemporaries. He was not born
in any of the revolted colonies, but in Bermuda, of good
blood but with the bar sinister stamped upon his birth.
He had migrated to New York to seek his fortune, but his
citizenship of that State remained an accident. He had
no family traditions tying him to any section, and, more
than any public man that appeared before the West began
to produce a new type, he felt America as a whole. He
had great administrative talents of which he was fully
conscious, and the anarchy which followed the conclusion
of peace was hateful to his instinct for order and strong
government. But the strong government which he would
have created was of a different type from that which
America ultimately developed. Theoretically he made no
secret of his preference for a Monarchy over a Republic,
but the suspicion that he meditated introducing monarchical
institutions into America, though sincerely entertained by
Jefferson and others, was certainly false. Whatever his
theoretic preferences, he was intensely alive to the logic of
facts, and must have known that a brand-new American
monarchy would have been as impossible as it would have
been ludicrous. In theory and practice, however, he really
was anti-democratic. Masses of men seemed to him
incapable alike of judgment and of action, and he thought

54 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

no enduring authority could be based upon the instincts
of the " great beast," as he called the mob. He looked for
such authority and what seemed to him the example of
history, and especially to the example of England. He
knew how powerful both at home and abroad was the
governing machine which the English aristocracy had
established after the revolution of 1689 ; and he realized
more fully than most men of that age, or indeed of this,
that its strength lay in a small but very national governing
class wielding the people as an instrument. Such a class
he wished to create in America, to connect closely, as the
English oligarchy had connected itself closely, with the
great moneyed interests, and to entrust with the large
powers which in his judgment the central government of
the Federation needed.

Jefferson came back from France in the winter of 1789,
and was at once offered by Washington the Secretaryship
of State. The offer was not a very welcome one, for he
jvas hot with the enthusiasm of the great French struggle,
and would gladly have returned to Paris and watched its
progress. He felt, however, that the President's insistence
laid upon him the duty of giving the Government the
support of his abilities and popularity. He had accepted
the Constitution which he had no share in framing, not
perhaps as exactly what he would have desired, but cer
tainly in full good faith and without reserve. It probably
satisfied him at least as well as it satisfied Hamilton, who
had actually at one time withdrawn from the Convention
in protest against its refusal to accept his views. Jeffer
son's criticisms, such as they were, related mostly to
matters of detail : some of them were just and some were
subsequently incorporated in amendments. But there is
ample evidence that for none of them was he prepared to
go the length of opposing or even delaying the settlement.
It is also worth noting that none of them related to
the balance of power between the Federal and State
Governments, upon which Jefferson is often loosely accused
of holding extreme particularist views. As a fact he
never held such views. His formula that " the States are
independent as to everything within themselves and united
as to everything respecting foreign nations" is really a

THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON 55

very good summary of the principles upon which the
Constitution is based, and states substantially the policy
which all the truest friends of the Union have upheld.
But he was committed out and out to the principle of
popular government, and when it became obvious that the
Federalists under Hamilton's leadership were trying to
make the 'central government oligarchical, and that they
were very near success, Jefferson quite legitimately invoked
and sought to confirm the large powers secured by the
Constitution itself to the States for the purpose of
obstructing their programme.

It was some time, however, before the antagonism
between the two Secretaries became acute, and meanwhile
the financial genius of Hamilton was reducing the economic
chaos bequeathed by the war to order and solvency. All
-of his measures showed fertility of invention and a thorough
grasp of his subject ; some of them were unquestionably
beneficial to the country. But a careful examination will
show how closely and deliberately he was imitating the
English model which we know to have been present to
his mind. He established a true National Debt similar to
that which Montague had created for the benefit of William
of Orange. In this debt he proposed to merge the debts
of the individual States contracted during the War of
Independence. Jefferson saw no objection to this at the
time, and indeed it was largely through his favour that
a settlement was made which overcame the opposition of
certain States.

This settlement had another interest as being one of
the perennial geographical compromises by means of which
the Union was for so long preserved. The support of
Hamilton's policy came mainly from the North ; the
opposition to it from the South. It so happened that
coincidentally North and South were divided on another
question, the position of the projected Capital of the
Federation. The Southerners wanted it to be on the
Potomac between Virginia and Maryland ; the Northerners
would have preferred it further north. At Jefferson's house
Hamilton met some of the leading Southern politicians,
and a bargain was struck. The Secretary's proposal as
to the State debts was accepted, and the South had its

56 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

way in regard to the Capital. Hamilton probably felt that
he had bought a solid advantage in return for a purely
sentimental concession. Neither he nor anyone else could
foresee the day of peril when the position of Washington
between the two Southern States would become one of
the gravest of the strategic embarrassments of the Federal
Government.

Later, when Hamilton's policy and personality had
become odious to him, Jefferson expressed remorse for
his conduct of the occasion, and blamed his colleague for
taking advantage of his ignorance of the question. His
sincerity cannot be doubted, 'but it will appear to the
impartial observer that his earlier judgment was the wiser
of the two. The assumption of State debts had really
nothing " monocratic" or anti-popular about it — nothing
even tending to infringe the rights and liberties of the
several States — while it was clearly a statesmanlike measure
from the national standpoint, tending at once to restore
the public credit and cement the Union. But Jefferson
read backwards into this innocuous and beneficent stroke
of policy the spirit which he justly perceived to inform
the later and more dubious measures which proceeded from
the same author.

Of these the most important was the creation of the
first United States Bank. Here Hamilton was quite
certainly inspired by the example of the English Whigs.
He knew how much the stability of the settlement made
in 1689 had owed to the skill and foresight with which
Montague, through the creation of the Bank of England,
had attached to it the great moneyed interests of the City.
He wished, through the United States Bank, to attach the
powerful moneyed interests of the Eastern and* Middle
States in the same fashion to the Federal Government.
This is how he and his supporters would have expressed
it. Jefferson said that he wished to fill Congress with a
crowd of mercenaries bound by pecuniary ties to the
Treasury and obliged to lend it, through good and evil
repute, a perennial and corrupt support. The two versions
are really only different ways of stating the same thing.
To a democrat such a standing alliance between the
Government and the rich will always seem a corrupt thing

THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON 57

—nay, the worst and least remediable form of corruption.
To a man of Hamilton's temper it seemed merely the
necessary foundation of a stable political equilibrium. Thus
the question of the Bank really brought the two parties
which were growing up in the Cabinet and in the nation
to an issue which revealed the irreconcilable antagonism
of their principles.

The majority in Congress was with Hamilton ; but his
opponents appealed to the Constitution. They denied the
competency of Congress under that instrument to establish
a National Bank. When the Bill was in due course sent
to Washington for signature he asked the opinions of his
Cabinet on the constitutional question, and both Hamilton
and Jefferson wrote very able State Papers in defence of
their respective views. After some hesitation Washington
decided to sign the Bill and to leave the question of
constitutional law to the Supreme Court. In due course
it was challenged there, but Marshal, the Chief Justice, was
a decided Federalist, and gave judgment in favour of the
legality of the Bank.

The Federalists had won the first round. Meanwhile
the party which looked to Jefferson as leader was organizing
itself. It took the name of " Republican," as signifying its
opposition to the alleged monarchical designs of Hamilton
and his supporters. Later, when it appeared that such
a title was really too universal to be descriptive, the
Jeffersonians began to call themselves by the more
genuinely characteristic title of " Democratic Republicans,"
subsequently abbreviated into "Democrats." That name
the party which, alone among American parties, can boast
an unbroken historic continuity of more than a century,
retains to this day.

At the end of his original term of four years, Washington
was prevailed upon to give way to the universal feeling of
the nation and to accept a second term. No party thought
of opposing him, but a significant division appeared over
the Vice-Presidency. The Democrats ran Clinton against
John Adams of Massachusetts, and though ^ they failed
there appeared in the voting a significant alliance, which
was to determine the politics of a generation. New York
State, breaking away from her Northern neighbours, voted

58 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

with the Democratic South for Clinton. And the same
year saw the foundation in New York City of that dubious
but very potent product of democracy, which has perhaps
become the best abused institution in the civilized world,
yet has somehow or other contrived to keep in that highly
democratic society a power which it could never retain
for a day without a genuine popular backing — Tammany
Hall.

Meanwhile the destinies of every nation of European
origin, and of none perhaps more, in spite of their
geographical remoteness, than of the United States, were
being profoundly influenced by the astonishing events that
were shaping themselves in Western Europe. At first all
America was enthusiastic for the French Revolution.
Americans were naturally grateful for the aid given them
by the French in their own struggle for freedom, and saw
with eager delight the approaching liberation of their
liberators. But as the drama unrolled itself a sharp,
though very unequal, division of opinion appeared. In
New England, especially, there were many who were
shocked at the proceedings of the French, at their violence,
at their Latin cruelty in anger, and, above all perhaps, at
that touch of levity which comes upon the Latin when he
is face to face with death. Massacres and carmagnoles
did not strike the typical Massachusetts merchant as
the methods by which God-fearing men should protest
against oppression. The strict military government which
succeeded to, controlled and directed in a national fashion
the violent mood of the people — that necessary martial law
which we call " the Terror " — seemed even less acceptable
to his fundamentally Whiggish political creed. Yet — and
it is a most significant fact — the bulk of popular American
opinion was not shocked by these things. It remained
steadily with the French through all those events which
alienated opinion — even Liberal opinion — in Europe. It
was perhaps because European opinion, especially English
opinion, even when Liberal, was at bottom aristocratic,
while the American people were already a democracy. But
the fact is certain. By the admission of those American
writers who deplore it and fail to comprehend it, the great
mass of the democracy of America continued, through good

THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON 59

and evil repute, to extend a vivid and indulgent sympathy
to the democracy of France.

The division of sympathies which had thus become
apparent was converted into a matter of practical politics
by the entry of England into the war which a Coalition was
waging against the French Kepublic. That intervention
at once sharpened the sympathies of both sides and
gave them a practical purpose. England and France
were now arrayed against each other, and Americans,
though their Government remained neutral, arrayed them
selves openly as partisans of either combatant. The
division followed almost exactly the lines of the earlier
quarrel which had begun to appear as the true meaning of
Hamilton's policy discovered itself. The Hamiltonians were
for England. The Jeffersonians were for France.

A war of pamphlets and newspapers followed, into the
details of which it is not necessary to go. The Federalists,
with the tide going steadily against them, had the good luck
to secure the aid of a pen which had no match in Europe.
The greatest master of English controversial prose that
ever lived was at that time in America. Normally,
perhaps, his sympathies would have been with the
Democrats. But love of England was ever the deepest
and most compelling passion of the man who habitually
abused her institutions so roundly. The Democrats were
against his fatherland, and so the supporters of Hamilton
found themselves defended in a series of publications over
the signature of " Peter Porcupine" with all the energy and
genius which belonged only to William Cobbett.

A piquancy of the contest was increased by the fact
that it was led on either side by members of the Adminis
tration. Washington had early put forth a Declaration of
Neutrality, drawn up by Kandolph, who, though leaning
if ? anything to Jefferson's side, took up a more or less
intermediate position between the parties. Both sides
professed to accept the principle of neutrality, but their
interpretations of it were widely different. Jefferson did
not propose to intervene in favour of France, but he did
not think that Americans were bound to disguise their
moral sympathies. They would appear, he thought, both
ungrateful and false to the first principles of their own

60 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

commonwealth if, whatever limitation prudence might
impose in their action, they did not desire that France should
be victorious over the Coalition of Kings. The great majority
of the American people took the same view. When Genet,
the envoy of the newly constituted Republic, arrived from
France, he received an ovation which Washington himself
at the height of his glory could hardly have obtained.
Nine American citizens out of ten hastened to mount the
tricolour cockade, to learn the " Marseillaise," and to take
their glasses to the victory of the sister Republic. So
strong was the wave of popular enthusiasm that the
United States might perhaps have been drawn into active
co-operation with France had France been better served by
her Minister.

Genet was a Girondin, and the Girondins, perhaps
through that defect in realism which ruined them at home,
were not good diplomatists. It is likely enough that the
warmth of his reception deranged his judgment ; at any
rate he misread its significance. He failed to take due
account of that sensitiveness of national feeling in a
democracy which, as a Frenchman of that time, he should
have been specially able to appreciate. He began to treat
the resources of the United States as if they had already
been placed at the disposal of France, and, when very
properly rebuked, he was foolish enough to attempt to
appeal to the nation against its rulers. The attitude of the
Secretary of State ought to have warned him of the
imprudence of his conduct. No man in America was a
better friend to France than Jefferson ; but he stood up
manfully to Genet in defence of the independent rights of
his country, and the obstinacy of the ambassador produced,
as Jefferson foresaw that it must produce, a certain
reaction of public feeling by which the Anglophil party
benefited.

At the close of the year 1793, Jefferson, weary of
endless contests with Hamilton, whom he accused, not
without some justification, of constantly encroaching on his
colleague's proper department, not wholly satisfied with the
policy of the Government and perhaps feeling that Genet's
indiscretions had made his difficult task for the moment
impossible, resigned his office. He would have done so

THE MANTLE OF WASHINGTON 61

long before had not Washington, sincerely anxious through
out these troubled years to hold the balance even between
the parties, repeatedly exerted all his influence to dissuade
him. The following year saw the " Whiskey Insurrection "
in Pennsylvania — a popular protest against Hamilton's
excise measures. Jefferson more than half sympathized
with the rebels. Long before, on the occasion of Shay's
insurrection, he had expressed with some exaggeration a
view which has much more truth in it than those modern
writers who exclaim in horror at his folly could be expected
to understand — the view that the readiness of people to
rebel against their rulers is no bad test of the presence of
democracy among them. He had even added that he hoped
the country would never pass ten years without a rebellion
of some sort. In the present case he had the additional
motives for sympathy that he himself disapproved of the
law against which Pennsylvania was in revolt, and detested
its author. Washington could not be expected to take the
same view. He was not anti-democratic like Hamilton ;
he sincerely held the theory of the State set forth in the
Declaration of Independence. But he was something of an
aristocrat, and very much of a soldier. As an aristocrat
he was perhaps touched with the illusion which was so
fatal to his friend Layfayette, the illusion that privilege
can be abolished and yet the once privileged class partially
retain its ascendancy by a sort of tacit acknowledgment by
others of its value. As a soldier he disliked disorder and
believed in discipline. As a commander in the war he had
not spared the rod, and had even complained of Congress
for mitigating the severity of military punishments.
It may be that the " Whiskey Insurrection," which he
suppressed with prompt and drastic energy, led him for the
first time to lean a little to the Hamiltonian side. At any
rate he was induced, though reluctantly and only under
strong pressure, to introduce into a Message to Congress a
passage reflecting on the Democratic Societies which were
springing up everywhere and gaining daily in power ; and
in return found himself attacked, sometimes with scurrility,
in the more violent organs of the Democracy:

Washington's personal ascendancy was, however,
sufficient to prevent the storm from breaking while he

62 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

was President. It was reserved for his successor. In 1797
his second term expired. He had refused a third, thereby
setting an important precedent which every subsequent
President has followed, and bade farewell to politics in
an address which is among the great historical documents
of the Republic. The two points especially emphasized
were long the acknowledged keynotes of American policy :
the avoidance at home of "sectional"- parties — that
is, of parties following geographical lines — and abroad
the maintenance of a strict independence of European
entanglements and alliances.

Had a Presidential election then been what it became
later, a direct appeal to the popular vote, it is probable that
Jefferson would have been the second President of the
United States. But the Electoral College was still a reality,
and its majority leant to Federalism. Immeasurably
the ablest man among the Federalists was Hamilton,
but for many reasons he was not an " available " choice.
He was not a born American. He had made many and
formidable personal enemies even within the party. Perhaps
the shadow on his birth was a drawback ; perhaps also the
notorious freedom of his private life — for the strength of
the party lay in Puritan New England. At any rate the
candidate whom the Federalists backed and succeeded in
electing [jwas John Adams of Massachusetts. By the
curiously unworkable rule, soon repealed, of the original
Constitution, which gave the Vice-Presidency to the
candidate who had the second largest number of votes,
Jefferson found himself elected to that office under a
President representing everything to which he was opposed.

John Adams was an honest man and sincerely loved
his country. There his merits ended. He was readily
quarrelsome, utterly without judgment and susceptible to
that mood of panic in which mediocre persons are readily
induced to act the " strong man." During his administra
tion a new quarrel arose with France — a quarrel in which
once again those responsible for that country's diplomacy
played the game of her enemies. Genet had merely been
an impracticable and impatient enthusiast. Talleyrand,
who under the Directory took charge of foreign affairs, was
a scamp ; and, clever as he was, was unduly contemptuous

THE MANTLE 0^ WASHINGTON 63

of America, where he had lived for a time in exile. He
attempted to use the occasion of the appearance of an
American Mission in Paris to wring money out of America,
not only for the French Treasury, but for his own private
profit and that of his colleagues and accomplices. A
remarkable correspondence, which fully revealed the
blackmailing attempt made by the agents of the French
Government on the representatives of the United States,
known as the " X.Y.Z." letters, was published and roused
the anger of the whole country. "Millions for defence
but not a cent for tribute " was the universal catchword.
Hamilton would probably have seized the opportunity to
go to war with France with some likelihood of a national
backing. Adams avoided war and thereby split his party,
but he did not avoid steps far more certain than a war to
excite the hostility of democratic America. His policy was
modelled upon the worst of the panic-bred measures by
means of which Pitt and his colleagues were seeking to
suppress " Jacobinism " in England. Such a policy was
odious anywhere; in a democracy it was also insane.
Further the Aliens Law and the Sedition Law which he
induced Congress to pass were in flagrant and obvious
violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution. They
were barely through Congress when the storm broke on
their authors. Jefferson, in retirement at Monticello, saw
that his hour was come. He put himself at the head of
the opposition and found a whole nation behind him.

Kentucky, carved out of the western territory and
newly grown to Statehood, took the lead of resistance.
For her legislature Jefferson drafted the famous " Kentucky
Resolutions," which condemned the new laws as uncon
stitutional (which they were) and refused to allow them
to be administered within her borders. On the strength
of these resolutions Jefferson has been described as the
real author of the doctrine of " Nullification " : and
technically this may be true. Nevertheless there is all
the difference in the world between the spirit of the
Kentucky Resolutions and that of " Nullification," as South
Carolina afterwards proclaimed its legitimacy. About the
former there was nothing sectional. It was not pretended
that Kentucky had any peculiar and local objection to the

64 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Sedition Law, or was standing against the other States in
resisting it. She was vindicating a freedom common to
all the States, valued by all and menaced in all. She
claimed that she was making herself the spokesman of
the other States in the same fashion as Hampden made
himself the spokesman of the other great landed proprietors
in resisting taxation by the Crown.

The event amply justified her claim. The oppression
laws which the Federalists had induced Congress to pass
were virtually dead letters from the moment of their
passing. And when the time came for the nation to speak,
it rose as one man and flung Adams from his seat. The
Federalist party virtually died of the blow. The dream
of an oligarchical Republic was at an end, and the will of
the people, expressed with unmistakable emphasis, gave
the Chief Magistracy to the author of the Declaration of
Independence.

CHAPTER V

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY

I HAVE spoken of Jefferson's election as if it had been a
direct act of the people; and morally it was so. But in
the actual proceedings there was a certain hitch, which
is of interest not only because it illustrated a peculiar
technical defect in the original Constitution and so led to its
amendment, but because it introduces here, for the first
time, the dubious but not unfascinating figure of j Aaron Burr.
Burr was a politician of a type which democracies will
always produce, and which those who dislike democracy
will always use for its reproach. Yet the reproach is
evidently unjust. In all societies, most of those who
meddle with the government of men will do so in pursuit
of their own interests, and in all societies the professional
politician will reveal himself as a somewhat debased type.
In a despotism he will become a courtier and obtain favour
by obsequious and often dishonourable services to a prince.
In an old-fashioned oligarchy he will adopt the same
attitude towards some powerful noble. In a parliamentary
plutocracy, like our own, he will proceed in fashion with
which we are only too familiar, will make himself the paid
servant of those wealthy men who finance politicians, and
will enrich himself by means of "tips" from financiers
and bribes from Government contractors. In a democracy,
the same sort of man will try to obtain his ends by flattering
and cajoling the populace. It is not obvious that he is*
more mischievous as demagogue than he was as courtier,
lackey, or parliamentary intriguer. Indeed, he is almost
certainly less so, for he must at least in some fashion
serve, even if only that he may deceive them, those whose
servant he should be. At any rate, the purely self-seeking
demagogue is certainly a recurrent figure in democratic

65 F

66 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

politics, and of the self-seeking demagogue Aaron Burr was
an excellent specimen.

He had been a soldier not without distinction, and to
the last he retained a single virtue — the grand virtue of
courage. For the rest, he was the Tammany Boss writ
large. An able political organizer, possessed of much
personal charm, he had made himself master of the powerful
organization of the Democratic party in New York State,
and a* such was able to bring valuable support to the
party which was opposing the administration of Adams.
As a reward for his services, it was determined that he
should be Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
But here the machinery devised by the Convention played
a strange trick. When the votes of the Electoral College
came to be counted, it was found that instead of Jefferson
leading and yet leaving enough votes to give Burr the
second place, the votes for the two were exactly equal.
This, under the Constitution, threw the decision into the
hands of the House of Representatives, and in that House
the Federalists still held the balance of power. They
could not choose their own nominee, but they could choose
either Jefferson or Burr, and many of them, desiring at the
worst to frustrate the triumph of their great enemy, were
disposed to choose Burr; while Burr, who cared only for
his own career, was ready enough to lend himself to such
an intrigue.

That the intrigue failed was due mainly to the patriotism
of Hamilton. All that was best and worst in him concurred
in despising the mere flatterer of the mob. Jefferson was
at least a gentleman. And, unfairly as he estimated him
both morally and intellectually, he knew very well that the
election of Jefferson would not be a disgrace to the Republic,
while the election of Burr would. His patriotism overcame
his prejudices. He threw the whole weight of his influence
with the Federalists against the intrigue, and he defeated
it. It is the more to his honour that he did this to the
advantage of a man whom he could not appreciate and who
was his enemy. It was the noblest and purest act of his
public career. It probably cost him his life.

Jefferson was elected President and Burr Yice-President,
as had undoubtedly been intended by the great majority of

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 67

those who had voted the Democratic ticket at the elections.
But the anomaly and disaster of Burr's election had been
so narrowly avoided that a change in the Constitution
became imperative. It was determined that henceforward
the votes for President and Vice-President should be
given separately. The incident had another consequence.
Burr, disappointed in hopes which had almost achieved
fulfilment, became from that moment a bitter enemy of
Jefferson and his administration. Also, attributing the
failure of his promising plot to Hamilton's intervention, he
hated Hamilton with a new and insatiable hatred. Perhaps
in that Jhour he already determined that his enemy should
die.

Jefferson's inauguration was full of that deliberate and
almost ceremonial contempt of ceremony in which that age
found a true expression of its mood, though later and
perhaps more corrupt times have inevitably found such
symbolism merely comic. It was observed as striking the
note of the new epoch that the President rejected all that
semi-regal pomp which Washington and Adams had thought
necessary to the dignity of their office. It is said that he
not only rode alone into Washington (he was the first
President to be inaugurated in the newly built capital),
dressed like any country gentleman, but, when he
dismounted to take the oath, tethered his horse with his
' own hands. More really significant was the presence of the
_populaee that elected him — the great heaving, unwashed
crowd elbowing the dainty politicians in the very presence
chamber. The President's inaugural address was full
of a generous spirit of reconciliation. "We are all
Republicans," he said, "we are all Federalists." Every
difference of opinion was not a difference of principle, nor
need such differences interfere with " our attachment to
our Union and to representative government."

Such liberality was the more conspicuous by contrast
with the petty rancour of his defeated rival, who not only
refused to perform the customary courtesy of welcoming
his successor at the White House, but spent his last hours
there appointing Federalists feverishly to public offices
solely in order to compel Jefferson to choose between the
humiliation of retaining such servants and the odium of

68 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

dismissing them. The new President very rightly refused
to recognize nominations so made, and this has been
seized npon by his detractors to hold him up as the real
author of what was afterwards called "the Spoils System."
It would be far more just to place that responsibility upon
Adams.

The most important' event of Jefferson's first adminis
tration was the Louisiana Purchase. The colony of
Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi, with its vast
hinterland stretching into the heart of the American
continent, had, as we have seen, passed in 1762 from
French into Spanish hands. Its acquisition by the United
States had been an old project of Jefferson's. When
Secretary of State under Washington, he had mooted it when
settling with the Spanish Government the question of the
navigation of the Mississippi. As President he revived
it; but before negotiations could proceed far the whole
situation was changed by the retrocession of Louisiana to
France as part of the terms dictated by Napoleon to a
Spain which had fallen completely under his control. The
United States could not, in any case, have regarded the
transfer without uneasiness, and to all schemes of purchase
it seemed a death-blow, for it was believed that the French
Emperor had set his heart upon the resurrection of French
Colonial power in America. But Jefferson was an excellent
diplomatist, at once conciliatory and unyielding : he played
his cards shrewdly, and events helped him. The Peace
of Amiens was broken, and, after a very brief respite,
England and France were again at war. Napoleon's
sagacity saw clearly enough that he could not hope to hold
and develop his new colony in the face of a hostile power
which was his master on the sea. It would suit his
immediate purpose better to replenish his treasury with good
American dollars which might soon be urgently needed.
He became, therefore, as willing to sell as Jefferson was
to buy, and between two men of such excellent sense a
satisfactory bargain was soon struck. The colony of
Louisiana and all the undeveloped country which lay behind
it became the inheritance of the American Federation.

Concerning the transaction, there is more than one
point to be noted of importance to history. One is the light

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 69

which it throws on Jefferson's personal qualities, Because
this man held very firmly an abstract and reasoned theory of
the State, could define and defend it with • extraordinary
lucidity and logic, and avowedly guided his public conduct
by its light, there has been too much tendency to regard
him as a mere theorist, a sort of Girondia, noble in
speculation and rhetoric, but unequal to practical affairs
and insufficiently alive to concrete realities. He is often
contrasted unfavourably with Hamilton in this respect :
and yet he had, as events proved, by far the acuter sense
of the trend of American popular opinion and the practical
reuirements of a government that should command its
respect;" and he made fewer mistakes in mere political
tactics than did his rival. But his diplomacy is the best
answer to the charge. Let anyone who entertains it
follow closely the despatches relating to the Louisiana
purchase, and observe how shrewdly this supposed visionary
can drive a good bargain for his country, even when
matched against Talleyrand with Bonaparte behind him.
One is reminded that before he entered politics he enjoyed
among his fellow-planters a reputation for exceptional busi
ness acumen.

Much more plausible is the accusation that Jefferson
in the matter of Louisiana forgot his principles, and acted
in a manner grossly inconsistent with his attitude when
the Federalists were in power. Certainly, the purchase
can only be defended constitutionally by giving a much
larger construction to the powers of the Federal authority
than even Hamilton had ever promulgated. If the silence
of the Constitution on the subject must, as Jefferson had
maintained, be taken as forbidding Congress and the
Executive to charter a bank, how much more must a
similar silence forbid them to expend millions in acquiring
vast new territories beyond the borders of the Confederacy.
In point of fact, Jefferson himself believed the step he
and Congress were taking to be beyond their present
powers, and would have preferred to have asked for a
Constitutional Amendment to authorize it. But he readily
gave way on this to those who represented that such a course
would give the malcontent minority their chance, and
perhaps jeopardize the whole scheme. The fact is, that

70 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

" State Rights " were not to Jefferson a first principle, but
a weapon which he used for the single purpose of resisting
oligarchy. His first principle, in which he never wavered
for a moment, was that laid down in the " Declaration " —
the sovereignty of the General Will. To him Federalism
was nothing and State Sovereignty was nothing but the
keeping of the commandments of the people. Judged by
this test, both his opposition to Hamilton's bank and his
purchase of the Louisiana territory were justified ; for on
both occasions the nation was with him.

Jefferson's inconsistency, therefore, if inconsistency it
were, brought him little discredit. It was far otherwise
with the inconsistency of the Federalists. For they also
changed sides, and of their case it may be said that, like
Milton's Satan, they " rode with darkness." The most
respectable part of their original political creed was their
nationalism, their desire for unity, and their support of
a strong central authority. Had this been really the
dominant sentiment of their connection, they could not but
have supported Jefferson's policy, even though they might
not too unfairly have reproached him with stealing their
thunder. For not only was Jefferson's act a notable
example of their own theory of "broad construction3' of
the Constitution, but it was perhaps a more fruitful piece
of national statesmanship than the best of Hamilton's
measures, and it had a direct tendency to promote and
perpetuate that unity which the Federalists professed to
value so highly, for it gave to the States a new estate of
vast extent and incalculable potentialities, which they must
perforce rule and develop in common. But the Federalists
forgot everything, even common prudence, in their hatred
of the man who had raised the people against them. To
injure him, most of them had been ready to conspire with
a tainted adventurer like Burr. They were now ready
for the same object to tear up the Union and all their
principles with it. One of their ablest spokesmen, Josiah
Quincey, made a speech against the purchase, in which
he anticipated the most extreme pronouncements of the
Nullifyers of 1832 and the Secessionists of 1860, declared
that his country was not America but Massachusetts, that
to her alone his ultimate allegiance was due, and that

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 71

if her interests were violated by the addition of new
Southern territory in defiance of the Constitution, she
would repudiate the Union and take her stand upon her
rights as an independent Sovereign State.

By such an attitude the Federalists destroyed only
themselves. Some of the wiser among them left the party
on this issue, notably John Quincey Adams, son of the
second President of the United States, and himself to be
raised later, under somewhat disastrous circumstances, to
the same position. The rump that remained true, not to
their principles but rather to their vendetta, could make
no headway against a virtually unanimous nation. They
merely completed and endorsed the general judgment on
their party by an act of suicide.

But the chief historical importance of the Louisiana
purchase lies in the fact that it gave a new and for long
years an unlimited scope to that irresistible movement of
expansion westward which is the key to all that age in
American history. In the new lands a new kind of
American was growing up. Within a generation he was
to come by his own; and a. Westerner in the chair of
Washington was to revolutionize the Commonwealth.

Of the governing conditions of the West, two stand out
as of especial importance to history. *

One was the presence of unsubdued and hostile Indian
tribes. Ever since that extraordinary man, Daniel Boon
(whose strange career would make an epic for which there
is no room in this book), crossed the Alleghanies a decade
before the beginning of the Revolution and made an
opening for the white race into the rich valleys of Kentucky,
the history of the western frontier of European culture
had been a cycle of Indian wars. The native race had
not yet been either tamed or corrupted by civilization.
Powerful chiefs still ruled great territories as independent
potentates, and made peace and war with the white men
on equal terms. From such a condition it followed that
courage and skill in arms were in the West not merely
virtues and accomplishments to be admired, but necessities
which a man must acquire or perish. The Westerner was
born a fighter, trained as a fighter, and the fighting instinct
was ever dominant in him. So also was the instinct of

72 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

loyalty to his fellow-citizens, a desperate, necessary loyalty
as to comrades in a besieged city — as, indeed, they often
were.

The other condition was the product partly of natural
circumstances and partly of that wise stroke of statesman
ship which had pledged the new lands in trust to the
whole Confederacy. The Westerner was American — perhaps
he was the first absolutely instinctive American. The older
States looked with much pride to a long historical record
which stretched back far beyond the Union into colonial
times. The Massachusetts man would still boast of the
Pilgrim Fathers. The Virginian still spoke lovingly of the
" Old Plantation." But Kentucky and Tennessee, Ohio and
Indiana were children of the Union. They had grown to
statehood within it, and they had no memories outside it.
They were peopled from all the old States, and the pioneers
who peopled them were hammered into an intense and
instinctive homogeneity by the constant need of fighting
together against savage nature and savage man. Thus,
while in the older settlements one man was conscious
above all things that he was a New Englander, and another
that he was a Carolinan, the Western pioneer was primarily
conscious that he was a white man and not a Eed Indian,
nay, often that he was a man and not a grizzly bear.
Hence grew up in the West that sense of national unity
which was to be the inspiration of so many celebrated
Westerners of widely different types and opinions, of Clay,
of Jackson, of Stephen Douglas, and of Abraham Lincoln.

But this was not to take place until the loyalty of
the West had first been tried by a strange and sinister
temptation.

Aaron Burr had been elected Vice-President coincidently
with Jefferson's election as President ; but his ambition was
far from satisfied. He was determined to make another bid
for the higher place, and as a preliminary he put himself
forward as candidate for the Governorship of New York
State. It was as favourable ground as he could find to.try
the issue between himself and the President, for New York
had been the centre of his activities while he was still an
official Democrat, and her favour had given him his original
position in the party, But he could not hope to succeed

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 73

without the backing of those Federalist malcontents who
had nearly made him President in 1800. To conciliate
them he bent all his energies and talents, and was again
on the point of success when Hamilton, who also belonged
to New York State, again crossed his path. Hamilton
urged all the Federalists whom he could influence to have
nothing to do with Burr, and, probably as a result of his
active intervention, Burr was defeated.

Burr resolved that Hamilton must be prevented from
thwarting him in the future, and he deliberately chose a
simple method of removing him. He had the advantage
of being a crack shot. He forced a private quarrel on
Hamilton, challenged him to a duel, and killed him.

He can hardly have calculated the effect of his action :
it shocked the whole nation, which had not loved Hamilton,
but knew him for a better man than Burr. Duelling,
indeed, was then customary among gentlemen in the
United States, as it is to-day throughout the greater part
of the civilized world ; but it was very rightly felt that the
machinery which was provided for the vindication of out
raged honour under extreme provocation was never meant
to enable one man, under certain forms, to kill another
merely because he found his continued existence personally
inconvenient. That was what Burr had done ; and morally
it was undoubtedly murder. Throughout the whole East
Burr became a man marked with the brand of Cain. He
soon perceived it, but his audacity would not accept defeat.
He turned to the West, and initiated a daring conspiracy
which, as he hoped, would make him, if not President of
the United States, at least President of something.

What Burr's plan, as his own mind conceived it, really
was it is extremely difficult to say ; for he gave not only
different but directly opposite accounts to the various
parties whom he endeavoured to engage in it. To the
British Ambassador, whom he approached, he represented
it as a plan for the dismemberment of the Republic from
which England had everything to gain. Louisiana was to
secede, carrying the whole West with her, and the new
Confederacy was to become the ally of the Mother Country.
For the Spanish Ambassador he had another story. Spain
was to recover predominant influence in Louisiana by

74 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

detaching it from the American Republic, and recognizing
it as an independent State. To the French-Americans of
Louisiana he promised complete independence of both
America and Spain. To the Westerners, whom he tried
to seduce, exactly the opposite colour was given to the
scheme. It was represented as a design to provoke a war
with Spain by the invasion and conquest of Mexico; and
only if the Federal Government refused to support the
filibusters was the West to secede. Even this hint of
hypothetical secession was only whispered to those whom
it might attract. To others all thought of disunion was
disclaimed ; and yet another complexion was put on the plot.
The West was merely to make legitimate preparations
for the invasion of Mexico and Florida in the event of
certain disputes then pending with Spain resulting in
war. It was apparently in this form that the design was
half disclosed to the most influential citizen and commander
of the militia in the newly created State of Tennessee,
Andrew Jackson, the same that we saw as a mere school
boy riding and fighting at Hanging Rock.

Jackson had met Burr during the brief period when he
was in Congress as representative of his State. He had
been entertained by him and liked him, and when Burr
visited Tennessee he was received by Jackson with all the
hospitality of the West. Jackson was just the man to be
interested in a plan for invading Mexico in the event of
a Spanish war, and he would probably not have been much
shocked — for the West was headstrong, used to free fighting,
and not nice on points of international law — at the idea of
helping on a war for the purpose. But he loved the Union
as he loved his own life. Burr said nothing to him of his
separatist schemes. When later he heard rumours of them,
he wrote peremptorily to Burr for an explanation. Burr,
who, to do him justice, was not the man to shuffle or
prevaricate, lied so vigorously and explicitly that Jackson
for the moment believed him.' Later clearer proof came
of his treason, and close on it followed the President's
proclamation apprehending him, for Burr had been betrayed
by an accomplice to Jefferson. Jackson at once ordered
out the militia to seize him, but he had already passed
westward out of his control. The Secretary for War, who,

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 75

as it happened, was a personal enemy of Jackson's, thinking
his connection with Burr might be used against him, wrote
calling in sinister tone for an account of his conduct.
Jackson's reply is so characteristic of the man that it
deserves to be quoted. After saying that there was nothing
treasonable in Burr's communications to him personally, he
adds : " But, sir, when proofs showed him to be a Treator "
(spelling was never the future President's strong point),
" I would cut his throat with as much pleasure as I would
cut yours on equal testimony."

The whole conspiracy fizzled out. Burr could get no
help from any of the divergent parties he had attempted
to gain. No one would fight for him. His little band of
rebels was scattered, and he himself was seized, tried for
treason, and acquitted on a technical point. But his dark,
tempestuous career was over. Though he lived to an
unlovely old age, he appears no more in history.

Jefferson was re-elected President in 1804. He was
himself doubtful about the desirability of a second tenure, but
the appearance at the moment of a series of particularly
foul I attacks upon his private character made him feel
that to retire would amount to something like a plea of
guilty. Perhaps it would have served his permanent fame
better if he had not accepted another term, for, owing
to circumstances for which he was only partly to blame,
his second Presidency appears in history as much less
successful than his first.

Its chief problem was the maintenance of peace and
neutrality during the colossal struggle between France
under Napoleon and the kings and aristocracies of Europe
who had endeavoured to crush the French Revolution, and
who now found themselves in imminent peril of being
crushed by its armed and amazing child.

Jefferson sincerely loved peace. Moreover, the sympathy
for France, of which he had at one time made no disguise,
was somewhat damped by the latest change which had
taken place in the French Government. Large as was
his vision compared with most of his contemporaries, he
was too much soaked in the Republican tradition of
antiquity, which was so living a thing in that age, to see
in the decision of a nation of soldiers to have a soldier

76 A HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES

for their ruler and representative the fulfilment of
democracy and not its denial. But his desire for peace
was not made easier of fulfilment by either of the
belligerent governments. Neither thought the power of
the United States to help or hinder of serious account,
and both committed constant acts of aggression against
American rights. Nor was his position any stronger in
that he had made it a charge against the Federalists that
they had provided in an unnecessarily lavish fashion for
the national defence. In accordance with his pledges he
had reduced the army. His own conception of the best
defensive system for America was the building of a large
number of small but well-appointed frigates to guard her
coasts and her commerce. It is fair to him to say that
when war came these frigates of his gave a good account of
themselves. Yet his own position was a highly embarrassing
one, anxious from every motive to avoid war and yet
placed between an enemy, or rather two enemies, who
would yield nothing to his expostulations, and the rising
clamour, especially in the West, for the vindication of
American rights by an appeal to arms.

Jefferson attempted to meet the difficulty by a weapon
which proved altogether inadequate for the purpose
intended, while it was bound to react almost as seriously
as a war could have done on the prosperity of America.
He proposed to interdict all commerce with either of the
belligerents so long as both persisted in disregarding
American rights, while promising to raise the interdict in
favour of the one which first showed a disposition to treat
the United States fairly. Such a policy steadily pursued
by such an America as we see to-day would probably
have succeeded. But at that time neither combatant was
dependent upon American products for the essentials of
vitality. The suppression of the American trade might
cause widespread inconvenience, and even bring individual
merchants to ruin, but it could not hit the warring nations
hard enough to compel governments struggling on either
side for their very lives in a contest which seemed to
hang on a hair to surrender anything that might look like
a military advantage. On the other hand, the Embargo,
as it was called, hit the Americans themselves very hard

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 77

indeed. So great was the outcry of the commercial
classes, that the President was compelled to retrace his
steps and remove the interdict. The problem he handed
over unsolved to his successor.

That successor was James Madison, another Virginian,
Jefferson's lieutenant ever since the great struggle with the
Federalists and his intimate friend from, a still earlier
period. His talents as a writer were great; he did not
lack practical sagacity, and his opinions were Jefferson's
almost without a single point of divergence. But he
lacked Jefferson's personal prestige, and consequently the
policy followed during his Presidency was less markedly his
own than that of his great predecessor had been.

Another turn of the war-wheel in Europe had left
America with only one antagonist in place of two. Trafalgar
had destroyed, once and for all, the power of France on
the sea, and she was now powerless to injure American
interests, did she wish to do so. England, on the other
hand, was stronger for that purpose than ever, and was
less restrained than ever in the exercise of her strength.
A new dispute, especially provocative to the feelings of
Americans, had arisen over the question of the impressment
of seamen. The press-gang was active in England at
the time, and pursued its victims on the high seas. It
even claimed the right to search the ships of neutrals for
fugitives. Many American vessels were violated in this
fashion, and it was claimed that some of the men thus
carried off to forced service, though originally English,
had become American citizens. England was clearly in
the wrong, but she refused all redress. One Minister, sent
by us to Washington, Erskine, did indeed almost bring
matters to a satisfactory settlement, but his momentary
success only made the ultimate anger of America more
bitter, for he was disowned and recalled, and, as if in
deliberate insult, was replaced by a certain Jackson who,
as England's Ambassador to Denmark in 1804, had borne
a prominent part in the most sensational violation of the
rights of a neutral country that the Napoleonic struggle
had produced.

There seemed no chance of peace from any conciliatory
action on the part of Great Britain. The sole chance

78 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

hung on the new President's inheritance of Jefferson's
strong leaning in that direction. But Madison was by no
means for peace at any price ; and indeed Jefferson him
self, from his retreat at Monticello, hailed the war, when
it ultimately came, as unmistakably just. For a long
time, however, the President alone held the nation back
from war. The War Party included the Vice-President
Munroe, who had been largely instrumental in bringing
about the Louisiana purchase. But its greatest strength
was in the newly populated West, and its chief spokesman
in Congress was Henry Clay of Kentucky.

This man fills so large a space in American politics for
a full generation that some attempt must be made to give
a picture of him. Yet a just account of his character is
not easy to give. It would be simple enough to offer a
superficial description, favourable or hostile, but not one
that would account for all his actions. Perhaps the best
analysis would begin by showing him as half the aboriginal
Westerner and half the Washington politician. In many
ways he was very Western. He had a Westerner's
pugnacity, and at the same time a Westerner's geniality
and capacity for comradeship with men. He had to the last
a Westerner's private tastes — especially a taste for gambling
— and a Westerner's readiness to fight duels. Above all,
from the time that he entered Congress as the fiercest of
the " war hawks " who clamoured for vengeance on England,
to the time when, an old and broken man, he expended the
last of his enormous physical energy in an attempt to bridge
the widening gulf between North and South, he showed
through many grievous faults and errors that intense
national feeling and that passion for the Union which
were growing so vigorously in the fertile soil beyond the
Alleghanies. But he was a Western shoot early engrafted
on the political society of Washington — the most political
of all cities, for it is a political capital and nothing else.
He entered Congress young and found there exactly the
atmosphere that suited his tastes and temperament. He
was as much the perfect parliamentarian as Gladstone.
For how much his tact and instinct for the tone of the
political assembly in which he moved counted may be
guessed from this fact: that while there is no speech of

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 79

his that has come down to us that one could place for
a moment beside some of extant contemporary speeches of
Webster and Calhoun, yet it is unquestionable that he was
considered fully a match for either Webster or Calhoun in
debate, and in fact attained an ascendancy over Congress
which neither of those great orators ever possessed. At
the management of the minds of men with whom he was
actually in contact he was unrivalled. No man was so
skilful in harmonizing apparently irreconcilable differences
and choosing the exact line of policy which opposing factions
could agree to support. Three times he rode what seemed
the most devastating political storms, and three times
he imposed a peace. But with the strength of a great
parliamentarian he had much of the weakness that goes
with it. He thought too much as a professional ; and in his
own skilled work of matching measures, arranging parties
and moving politicians about like pawns, he came more and
more to forget the silent drive of the popular will. All this,
however, belongs to a later stage of Clay's development.
At the moment, we have to deal with him as the ablest
of those who were bent upon compelling the President
to war.

Between Clay and the British Government Madison's
hand was forced, and war was declared. In America there
were widespread rejoicings and high hopes of the conquest
of Canada and the final expulsion of England from the
New World. Yet the war, though on the whole justly
entered upon, and though popular with the greater part
of the country, was not national in the fullest sense. It
did not unite, rather it dangerously divided, the Federation,
and that, unfortunately, on geographical lines. New
England from the first was against it, partly because
most of her citizens sympathized with Great Britain in her
struggle with Napoleon, and partly because her mercantile
prosperity was certain to be hard hit, and might easily
be ruined by a war with the greatest of naval powers.
WThen, immediately after the declaration of war, in
1812, Madison was put forward as Presidential candidate
for a second term, the contest showed sharply the line
of demarcation. North-east of the Hudson he did not
receive a vote.

80 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The war opened prosperously for the Republic, with the
destruction by Commander Perry of the British fleet on
Lake Ontario — an incident which still is held in glorious
memory by the American Navy and the American people.
Following on this notable success, an invasion of Canada
was attempted; but here Fortune changed sides. The
invasion was a complete failure, the American army was
beaten, forced to fall back, and attacked, in its turn, upon
American soil. Instead of American troops occupying
Quebec, English troops occupied a great part of Ohio.

Meanwhile, Jefferson's frigates were showing their metal.
In many duels with English cruisers they had the advantage,
though we in this country naturally hear most — indeed, it
is almost the only incident of this war of which we ever do
hear — of one of the cases in which victory went the other
way — the famous fight between the Shannon and the
Chesapeake. On the whole, the balance of such warfare
leant in favour of the American sea-captains. But it was
not by such warfare that the issue could be settled.
England, summoning whatj strength she could spare from
her desperate struggle with the French Emperor, sent an
adequate fleet to convoy a formidable army to the American
coast. It landed without serious opposition at the mouth
of the Chesapeake, and marched straight on the national
capital, which the Government was forced to abandon.

No Englishman can write without shame of what
followed. All the public buildings of Washington were
deliberately burnt. For this outrage the Home Govern
ment was solely responsible. The general -'in command
received direct and specific orders, which he obeyed
unwillingly. No pretence of military necessity, or even of
military advantage, can be pleaded. The act, besides being
a gross violation of the law of nations, was an exhibition of
sheer brutal spite, such as civilized war seldom witnessed
until Prussia took a hand in it. It had its reward. It burnt
deep into the soul of America ; and from that incident far
more than from anything that happened in the War of
Independence dates that ineradicable hatred of England
which was for generations almost synonymous with patriotism
in most Americans, and which almost to the hour of President
Wilson's intervention made many in that country doubt

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 81

whether, even as against Prussia, England could really be
the champion of justice and humanity.

Things never looked blacker for the Republic than in
those hours when the English troops held what was
left of Washington. Troubles came thicker and thicker
upon her. The Creek Nation, the most powerful of the
independent Indian tribes, instigated partly by English
agents, partly by the mysterious native prophet Tecumseh,
suddenly descended with fire and tomahawk on the scattered
settlements of the South- West, while at the same time a
British fleet appeared in the Gulf of Mexico, apparently
meditating either an attack on New Orleans or an invasion
through the Spanish territory of Western Florida, and
in that darkest hour when it seemed that only the utmost
exertions of every American could save the United States
from disaster, treason threatened to detach an important
section of the Federation from its allegiance.

The discontent of New England is intelligible enough.
No part of the Union had suffered so terribly from the war,
and the suffering was the bitterer for being incurred in a
contest which was none of her making, which she had
desired to avoid, and which had been forced on .her by
other sections which had suffered far less. Her commerce,
by which she largely lived, had been swept from the seas.
Her, people, deeply distressed, demanded an immediate
peace. Taking ground as discontented sections, North and
South, always did before 1864, on the doctrine of State
Sovereignty, one at least, and that the greatest of the New
England States, began a movement which seemed to point
straight to the dilemma of surrender to the foreigner or
secession and dismemberment from within.

Massachusetts invited representatives of her sister States
to a Convention at Hartford. The Convention was to be
consultative, but its direct and avowed aim was to force the
conclusion of peace on any terms. Some of its promoters
were certainly prepared, if they did not get their way, to
secede and make a separate peace for their own State.
The response of New England was not as unanimous as the
conspirators had hoped. Vermont and New Hampshire
refused to send delegates. Rhode Island consented,
but qualified her consent with the phrase "consistently

82 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

with her obligations" — implying that she would be no
party to a separate peace or to the break-up of the Union.
Connecticut alone came in without reservation. Perhaps
this partial failure led the plotters to lend a more moderate
colour to their policy. At any rate, secession was not
directly advocated at Hartford. It was hinted that if
such evils as those of which the people of New England
complained proved permanent, it might be necessary ; but
the members of the Convention had the grace to admit that
it ought not to be attempted in the middle of a foreign war.
Their good faith, however, is dubious, for they put forward
a proposal so patently absurd that it could hardly have
been made except for the purpose of paving the way for a
separate peace. They declared that each State ought to be
responsible for its own defences, and they asked that their
share of the Federal taxes should be paid over to them for
the purpose. With that and a resolution to meet again at
Boston and consider further steps if their demands were
not met, they adjourned. They never reassembled.

In the South the skies were clearing a little. Jackson
of Tennessee, vigorous and rapid in movement, a master of
Indian warfare, leading an army of soldiers who worshipped
him as the Old Guard worshipped Napoleon, by a series of
quick and deadly strokes overthrew the Creeks, followed
them to their fastnesses, and broke them decisively at
Tohopeka in the famous "hickory patch" which was the
holy place of their nation.

He was rewarded in the way that he would have most
desired : by a commission against the English, who had
landed at Pensacola in Spanish territory, perhaps with the
object of joining hands with theirjlndian allies. They found
those allies crushed by Jackson's energy, but they still
retained their foothold on the Florida coast, from which they
could menace Georgia on the one side and New Orleans
on the other. Spain was the ally of England in Europe,
but in the American War she professed neutrality. As,
however, she made no effort to prevent England using a
Spanish port as a base of operations, she could not justly
complain when Jackson seized the neighbouring port of
Mobile, from which he marched against the British and
dislodged them. But the hardest and most glorious part

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 83

of his task was to come. The next blow was aimed at
New Orleans itself. Jackson hastened to its defence.
The British landed in great force at the mouth of the
Mississippi and attacked the city from both sides. Jackson's
little army was greatly outnumbered, but the skill with
which he planned the defence and the spirit which he
infused into his soldiers (the British themselves said that
Jackson's men seemed of a different stuff from all other
American troops they had encountered) prevailed against
heavy odds. Three times Jackson's lines were attacked :
in one place they were nearly carried, but his energy
just repaired the disaster. At length the British retired
with heavy losses and took to their ships. New Orleans
was saved.

Before this last and most brilliant of American victories
had been fought and won, peace had been signed at Ghent.
News travelled slowly across the Atlantic, and neither
British nor American commanders knew of it for months
later. But early in the year negotiations had been opened,
and before Christmas they reached a conclusion. Great
Britain was more weary of the war than her antagonist.
If she had gone on she might have won a complete
victory, or might have seen fortune turn decisively against
her. She had no wish to try the alternative. Napoleon
had abdicated at Fontainbleau, and been despatched to
Elba, and there were many who urged that the victorious
army of the Peninsula under Wellington himself should
be sent across the Atlantic to dictate terms. But England
was not in the mood for more fighting. After twenty years
of incessant war she saw at last the hope of peace. She
saw also that the capture of Washington had not, as had
been hoped, put an end to American resistance, but had
rather put new life into it. To go on meant to attempt
again the gigantic task which she had let drop as much
from weariness as from defeat a generation before. She
preferred to cry quits. The Peace, which was signed on
behalf of a Republic by Clay — once the most vehement of
" war-hawks " — was in appearance a victory for neither
side. Frontiers remained exactly as they were when the
first shot was fired. No indemnity was demanded or paid
by either combatant. The right of impressment — the

84 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

original cause of war, was neither affirmed nor disclaimed,
though since that date England has never attempted to use
it. Yet there is no such thing in history as " a drawn
war." One side or the other must always have attempted
the imposition of its will and failed. In this case it was
England. America will always regard the war of 1812
as having ended in victory ; and her view is substantially
right. The new Republic, in spite of, or, one might more
truly say, because of the dark reverses she had suffered
and survived, was strengthened and not weakened by her
efforts. The national spirit was raised and not lowered.
The mood of a nation after a war is a practically unfailing
test of victory or defeat ; and the mood of America after
1814 was happy, confident, creative — the mood of a boy
who has proved his manhood.

In 1816 Madison was succeeded by Monroe. Monroe,
though, like his successor, a Virginian and a disciple of
Jefferson, was more of a nationalist, and had many points
of contact with the new Democracy which had sprung up
first in the West, and was daily becoming more and more
the dominant sentiment of the Republic. " Federalism "
had perished because it was tainted with oligarchy, but
there had been other elements in it which were destined to
live, and the "National Republicans," as they came to call
themselves, revived them. They were for a vigorous
foreign policy and for adequate preparations for war. They
felt the Union as a whole, and were full of a sense of its
immense undeveloped possibilities. They planned expensive
schemes of improvement by means of roads, canals, and
the like to be carried out at the cost of the Federal
Government, and they cared little for the protests of the
doctrinaires of " State Right." To them America owes,
for good or evil, her Protective system. The war had for
some years interrupted commerce with the Old World,
and native industries had, perforce, grown up to supply
the wants of the population. These industries were
now in danger of destruction through the reopening of
foreign trade, and consequently of foreign competition.
It was determined to frame the tariff hitherto imposed
mainly, if not entirely, with a view to revenue in
such a way as to shelter them from such peril. The

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 85

exporting Cotton States, which had nothing to gain from
Protection, were naturally hostile to it ; but they were
overborne by the general trend of opinion, especially in the
West. One last development of the new " national "
policy — the most questionable of its developments and
opposed by Clay at the time, though he afterwards made
himself its champion — was the revival, to meet the financial
difficulties created by the war, of Hamilton's National
Bank, whose charter, under the Jeffersonian regime, had
been suffered to expire.

But the Western expansion, though it did much to
consolidate the Republic, contained in it a seed of dissension.
We have seen how, in the Convention, the need of keeping
an even balance between Northern and Southern sections
was apparent. That need was continually forced into
prominence as new States were added. The presence or
absence of Negro Slavery had become the distinguishing
badge of the sections ; and it became the apple of discoid
as regards the development of the West. Jefferson had
wished that Slavery should be excluded from all the
territory vested in the Federal authority, but he had been
overruled, and the prohibition had been applied only to
the North-Western Territory out of which the States of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois were carved. The South-West had
been left open to Slavery, and it had become the custom,
with the purpose of preserving the balance in the Senate,
to admit Slave States and Free in pairs. This worked
satisfactorily enough so long as the States claiming
admission were within a well-defined geographical area.
But when Missouri became sufficiently populated to be
recognized as a State, there was a keen contest. Her
territory lay across the line which had hitherto divided
the sections. She must be either a Northern promontory
projecting into the south or a Southern promontory pro
jecting into the north. Neither section would yield, and
matters were approaching a domestic crisis when Clay
intervened. He was in an excellent position to arbitrate,
for he came from the most northern of Southern States,
and had ties with both sections. Moreover, as has been
said, his talents were peculiarly suited to such management
as the situation required. He proposed a settlement which

86 A HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES

satisfied moderate men on both sides, was ratified by a
large majority in Congress, and accepted on all hands as
final. Missouri was to enter the Union, as she apparently
desired to do, as a Slave State, but to the west of her
territory the line 36° 30' longitude, very little above her
southern border, was to be the dividing line of the sections.
This gave the South an immediate advantage, but at
a heavy ultimate price, for it left her little room for
expansion. But one more Slave State could be carved out
of the undeveloped Western Territory — that of Arkansas.
Beyond that lay the lands reserved by treaty to the Indian
tribes, which extended to the frontier of the Western
dominions of Mexico. Clay, who, though by no means
disposed to be a martyr on the question, sincerely desired
to bring about the gradual extinction of Slavery, may well
have deliberately planned this part of his compromise
to accomplish that end. At the same time, Maine — a
territory hitherto attached to Connecticut — was admitted
as a Free State to balance Missouri.

Such was the great Missouri Compromise which kept
the peace between the sections for a generation, and which
gradually acquired an almost religious sanction in the
minds of Americans devoted to the Union. It struck the
note of the new era, which is called in American history
" the era of good feeling." Sectional differences had been
settled, political factions were in dissolution. Monroe's
second election was, for the first time since Washington's
retirement, without opposition. There were no longer
any organized parties, such as Hamilton and Jefferson and
even Clay had led. There were, of course, still rivalries
and differences, but they were personal or concerned with
particular questions. Over the land there was a new
atmosphere of peace.

Abroad, America had never been stronger. To this
period belongs the acquisition of Florida from Spain, an
acquisition carried through by purchase, but by a bargain
rather leonine in character. It cannot, however, be said
that the United States had no reasonable grievance in the
matter. Spain had not been able— or said that she had
not been able — to prevent the British from taking forcible
possession of one of her principal ports during a war in

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 87

which she was supposed to be neutral. She declared
herself equally unable to prevent the Creek and Seminole
Indians from taking refuge in her territory and thence
raiding the American lands over the border. Monroe had
a good case when he pressed on her the point that she
must either maintain -order in her dominions or allow
others to do so. Jackson, who was in command against
the Seminoles, insisted — not unreasonably — that he could
not deal with them unless he was allowed to follow them
across the Spanish frontier and destroy their base of
operations. Permission was given him, and he used it
to the full, even to the extent of occupying important towns
in defiance of the edicts of their Spanish governors. Monroe's
Cabinet was divided in regard to the defensibility of
Jackson's acts, but these acts probably helped to persuade
Spain to sell while she could still get a price. The bargain
was struck : Florida became American territory, and Jackson
was appointed her first governor.

But the best proof that the prestige of America stood
higher since the war of 1812 was the fact that the Power
which had then been her rather contemptuous antagonist
came forward to sue for her alliance. The French
Revolution, which had so stirred English-speaking America,
had produced an even greater effect on the Latin colonies
that lay further south. Almost all the Spanish dominions
revolted against the Spanish Crown, and after a short
struggle successfully established their independence.
Naturally, the rebels had the undivided sympathy of the
United States, which was the first Power to recognize their
independence. Now, however, the Holy Alliance was
supreme in Europe, and had reinstated the Bourbons on the
Spanish as on the French throne. It was rumoured that
the rulers of the Alliance meditated the further step of
re-subjugating Spam's American empire. Alexander I. of
Russia was credited with being especially eager for the
project, and with having offered to dispatch a Russian
army from Siberia for the purpose : it was further believed
that he proposed to reward himself by extending his own
Alaskan dominions as far south as California. England,
under Canning's leadership, had separated herself from the
Holy Alliance, and had almost as much reason as the United

88 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

States to dread and dislike such a scheme as the Czar was
supposed to meditate. Canning sent for the American
Ambassador, and suggested a joint declaration against any
adventures by European powers on the American Continent.
The joint declaration was declined, as seeming to commit
the United States too much to one of those "entangling
alliances " against which Washington had warned his
fellow-countrymen ; but the hint was taken.

Monroe put forth a proclamation in which he declared
that America was no longer a field for European colonization,
and that any attempt on the part of a European power
to control the destiny of an American community would
be taken as a sign of " an unfriendly disposition towards
the United States."

Canning let it be understood that England backed the
declaration, and that any attempt to extend the operations
of the Holy Alliance to America would have to be carried
out in the teeth of the combined opposition of the two
great maritime powers so recently at war with each other.
The plan was abandoned, and the independence of the
South American Republics was successfully established.

But much more was established. The " Monroe
Doctrine " became, and remains to-day, the corner-stone
of American foreign policy. It has been greatly extended
in scope, but no American Government has ever, for a
moment, wavered in its support. None could afford to do
so. To many Englishmen the doctrine itself, and still
more the interpretation placed upon it by the United
States in later times, seems arrogant — just as to many
Americans the British postulate of unchallengable supremacy
at sea seems arrogant. But both claims, arrogant or no,
are absolutely indispensable to the nation that puts them
forward. If the American Republic were once to allow the
principle that European Powers had the right, on any
pretext whatever, to extend their borders on the American
Continent, then that Republic would either have to perish
or to become in all things a European Power, armed to
the teeth, ever careful of the balance of power, perpetually
seeking alliances and watching rivals.. The best way to
bring home to an honest but somewhat puzzled American
— and there are many such — why we cannot for a moment

THE VIRGINIAN DYNASTY 89

tolerate what is called by some " the freedom of the seas,"
is to ask him whether he will give us in return the
"freedom" of the American Continent. The answer in
both cases is that sane nations do not normally, and with
their eyes open, commit suicide.

CHAPTER VI

THE JACKSONIAN BEVOLUTION

DURING the " era of good feeling " in which the Virginian
dynasty closed, forces had been growing in the shadow
which in a few short years were to transform the Republic.
The addition to these forces of a personality completed the
transformation which, though it made little or no change
in the laws, we may justly call a revolution.

The government of Jefferson and his successors was a
government based on popular principles and administered
by democratically minded gentlemen. The dreams of an
aristocratic republic, which had been the half-avowed
objective of Hamilton, were dissipated for ever by the
Democratic triumph of 1800. The party which had
become identified with such ideas was dead ; no politician
any longer dared to call himself a Federalist. The dogmas
of the Declaration of Independence were everywhere
recognized as the foundation of the State, recognized and
translated into practice in that government was by consent,
and in the main faithfully reflected the general will. But
the administration, in the higher branches at least, was
exclusively in the hands of gentlemen.

When a word is popularly used in more than one sense,
the best course is perhaps to define clearly the sense in
which one uses it, and then to use it unvaryingly in that
sense. The word "gentleman," then, will here always be
used in its strictly impartial class significance without
thought of association with the idea of " Good man " or
" Quietly conducted person," and without any more intention
of compliment than if one said " peasant" or "mechanic."
A gentleman is one who has that kind of culture and ^ habit
of life which usually go with some measure of inheritance
in wealth and status. That, at any rate, is what is meant

90

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 91

when it is here said that Jefferson and his immediate
successors were gentlemen, while the growing impulses to
which they appealed and on which they relied came from
men who were not gentlemen.

This peculiar position endured because the intense
sincerity and single-mindedness of Jefferson's democracy
impressed the populace and made them accept him as their
natural leader, while his status as a well-bred Virginian
squire, like Washington, veiled the revolution that was
really taking place. The mantle of his prestige was large
enough to cover not only his friend Madison, but Madison's
successor Monroe. But at that point the direct inheritance
failed. Among Monroe's possible successors there was no
one plainly marked out as the heir of the Jeffersonian
tradition. Thus— though no American public man saw it
at the time — America had come to a most important parting
of the ways. The Virginian dynasty had failed ; the chief
power in the Federation must now either be scrambled for
by the politicans or assumed by the people.

Among the politicians who must be considered in the
running for the presidency, the ablest was Henry Clay of
Kentucky. He was the greatest parliamentary leader that
America has known. He was unrivalled in the art of
reconciling conflicting views and managing conflicting wills.
We have already seen him as the triumphant author of the
Missouri Compromise. He was a Westerner, and was
supposed to possess great influence in the new States.
Politically he stood for Protection, and for an interpretation
of the Constitution which leaned to Federalism and away
from State Sovereignty. Second only to Clay — if, indeed,
second to him — in abilities was John Caldwell Calhoun of
South Carolina. Calhoun was not yet the Calhoun of the
'forties, the lucid fanatic of a fixed political dogma. At
this time he was a brilliant orator, an able and ambitious
politician whose political system was unsettled, but tended
at the time rather in a nationalist than in a particularist
direction. The other two candidates were of less intellectual
distinction, but each had something in his favour. William
Crawford of Georgia was the favourite candidate of the
State Rights men ; he was supposed to be able to command
the support of the combination of Virginia and New York,

92 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

which had elected every President since 1800, and there
lingered about him a sort of shadow of the Jeffersonian
inheritance. John Quincey Adams of Massachusetts was
the grandson of Washington's successor, but a professed
convert to Democratic Republicanism — a man of moderate
abilities, but of good personal character and a reputation
for honesty. He was Monroe's Secretary of State, and had
naturally a certain hereditary hold on New England.

Into the various intrigues and counter-intrigues of these
politicians it is not necessary to enter here, for from the
point of view of American history the epoch-making event
was the sudden entry of a fifth man who was not a politician.
To the confusion of all their arrangements the great Western
State of Tennessee nominated as her candidate for the
Presidency General Andrew Jackson, the deliverer of New
Orleans.

Jackson was a frontiersman and a soldier. Because he
was a frontiersman he tended to be at once democratic in
temper and despotic in action. In the nough and tumble
of life in the back blocks a man must often act without
careful inquiry into constitutional privileges, but he must
always treat men as men and equals. It has already been
noted that men left to themselves always tend to be
roughly democratic, and that even before the Revolution
the English colonies had much of the substance of
democracy; they had naturally more of it after the
Revolution. But even after the Revolution something like
an aristocracy was to be noted in the older States, North
and South, consisting in the North of the old New England
families with their mercantile wealth and their Puritan
traditions, in the South of the great slave-owning squires.
In the new lands, in the constant and necessary fight with
savage nature and savage man, such distinctions were
obliterated. Before a massacre all men are equal. In the
presence of a grizzly bear " these truths " are quite
unmistakably self-evident. The West was in a quite new
and peculiar sense democratic, and was to give to
America the great men who should complete the work of
democracy.

The other side of Jackson's character, as it influenced
his public life, was the outlook which belonged to him as

THE JACKSONIAN KEVOLUTION 93

a soldier. He had the soldier's special virtue of loyalty.
He was, throughout his long life, almost fanatically loyal
in word and deed to his wife, to his friends, to his country.
But above all he was loyal to the Jeffersonian dogma of
popular sovereignty, which he accepted quite simply and
unquestioningly, as soldiers are often found to accept a
religion. And, accepting it, he acted upon it with the same
simplicity. Sophistications of it moved him to contempt
and anger. Sovereignty was in the people. Therefore
those ought to rule whom the people chose ; and these
were the servants of the people and ought to act as the
people willed. All of which is quite unassailable; but
anyone who has ever mixed in the smallest degree in politics
will understand how appalling must have been the effect
of the sudden intrusion in that atmosphere of such truisms
by a man who really acted as if they were true. With
this simplicity of outlook Jackson possessed in an almost
unparalleled degree the quality which makes a true leader
— the capacity to sum up and interpret the inarticulate will
of the mass. His eye for the direction of popular feeling
was unerring, perhaps largely because he shared or rather
incarnated the instincts, the traditions — what others would
call the prejudices — of those who followed him. As a
military leader his soldiers adored him, and he carried
into civil politics a good general's capacity for identifying
himself with the army he leads.

He had also, of course, the advantage of a picturesque
personality and of a high repute acquired in arms. The
populace called him " Old Hickory " — a nickname originally
invented by the soldiers who followed him in the
frontier wars of Tennessee. They loved to tell the tale of
his victories, his duels, his romantic marriage, and to
recall and perhaps exaggerate his soldier's profanity of
speech. But this aspect of Jackson's personality has been
too much stressed. It was stressed by his friends to adver
tise his personality and by his enemies to disparage it.
It is not false, but it may lead us to read history falsely.
Just as Danton's loud voice, large gesture and occasional
violence tend to produce a portrait of him which ignores
the lucidity of his mind and the practicality of his
instincts, making him a mere chaotic demagogue, so the " Old

94 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Hickory" legend makes Jackson too much the peppery
old soldier and ignores his sagacity, which was in essential
matters remarkable. His strong prejudices and his hasty
temper often led him wrong in his estimate of individuals,
but he was hardly ever at fault in his judgment of masses
of men — presenting therein an almost exact contrast to his
rival and' enemy, Clay. With all his limitations, Jackson
stands out for history as one of the two or three genuine
creative statesmen that America has produced, and you
cannot become a creative statesman merely by swearing
and fighting duels.

Jackson accepted the nomination for the Presidency.
He held, in strict accordance with his democratic creed,
that no citizen should either seek or refuse popular election.
But there seems no reason to think that at this time he
cared much whether he were elected or no. He was not
an ambitious man, he made no special efforts to push his
cause, and he indignantly refused to be involved in any of
the intrigues and bargains with which Washington was
buzzing, or to give any private assurances to individuals
as to the use which he would make of his power and
patronage if chosen. But when the votes were counted it
was clear that he was the popular favourite. He had by
far the largest number of votes in the electoral college,
and these votes came from all parts of the Republic
except New England, while so far as can be ascertained
the popular vote showed a result even more decidedly
in his favour. But in the College no candidate had an
absolute majority, and it therefore devolved, according to
the Constitution, upon the House of Representatives,
voting by States, to choose the President from among
the three candidates whose names stood highest on the
list.

The House passed over Jackson and gave the prize to
Adams, who stood next to him — though at a considerable
interval. That it had a constitutional right to do so cannot
be disputed : as little can it be disputed that in doing so
it deliberately acted against the sentiment of the country.
There was no Congressman who did not know perfectly
well that the people wanted Jackson rather than Adams.
This, however, was not all. The main cause of the decision

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 95

to which the House came was the influence of Clay. Clay
had been last on the list himself, for the West, where his
main strength lay, had deserted him for Jackson, but his
power in Congress was great, and he threw it all into
Adams' scale. It is difficult to believe that a man of such
sagacity was really influenced by the reasons he gave at
the time — that he " would not consent by contributing to
the election of a military chieftain to give the strongest
guarantee that the Republic will march in the fatal road
which has conducted every Republic to ruin." Jackson
was a soldier, but he had no army, nor any means of
making himself a Caesar if he had wished to do so. Yet Clay
may reasonably have felt, and was even right in feeling,
that Jackson's election would be a blow to Republican
Institutions as he understood them. He was really a
patriot, but he was above all things a Parliamentarian,
and the effect of Jacksonian democracy really was to
diminish the importance of Parliamentarianism. Altogether
Clay probably honestly thought that Adams was a fitter
man to be President than Jackson.

Only he had another motive ; and the discovery of this
motive moved not only Jackson but the whole country to
indignation. Adams had no sooner taken the oath than,
in accordance with a bargain previously made between the
backers of the two men, unofficially but necessarily with
their knowledge, he appointed Clay Secretary of State.

Jackson showed no great resentment when he was
passed over for Adams : he respected Adams, though he
disliked and distrusted Clay. But when, in fulfilment of
rumours which had reached him but which he had refused
to credit, Clay became Secretary, he was something other
than angry : he was simply shocked, as he would have
been had he heard of an associate caught cheating at
cards. He declared that the will of the people had been
set aside as the result of a " corrupt bargain." He was
not wrong. It was in its essence a corrupt bargain, and
its effect was certainly to set .aside the will of the people.
Where Jackson was mistaken was in deducing that Adams
and Clay were utterly dishonourable and unprincipled men.
He was a soldier judging politicians. But the people
judged them in the same fashion.

96 A HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES

From that moment Jackson drew the sword and threw
away the scabbard. He and his followers fought the Adams
administration step by step and hour by hour, and every
preparation was mftde for the triumphant return of Jackson
at the next election. If there was plenty of scurrility
against Adams and Clay in the journals of the Jacksonian
party, it must be owned that the scribblers who supported
the Administration stooped lower when they sought to
attack Jackson through his wife, whom he had married
under circumstances which gave a handle to slander.
The nation was overwhelmingly with Jackson, and the
Government of Quincey Adams was almost as much hated
and abused as that of old John Adams had been. The
tendency of recent American writers has been to defend the
unpopular President and to represent the campaign against
him and his Secretary as grossly unjust. The fact is that
many of the charges brought against both were quite
unfounded, but that the real and just cause of the popular
anger against the Administration was its tainted origin.

The new elections came in 1828, and the rejected of
Congress carried the whole country. The shadowy figment
of the "Electoral College," already worn somewhat thin,
was swept away and Jackson was chosen as by a plebiscite.
That was the first and most important step in the
Jacksonian Revolution. The founders of the Eepublic,
while acknowledging the sovereignty of the people, hVl
nevertheless framed the Constitution with the intention of
excluding the people from any direct share in the election
of the Chief Magistrate. The feeble check which they had
devised was nullified. The Sovereign People, baulked in
1824, claimed its own in 1828, and Jackson went to the
White House as its direct nominee.

His first step was to make a pretty thorough clearance
of the Departmental Offices from the highest to the lowest.
This action, which inaugurated what is called in America
the " Spoils System " and has been imitated by subsequent
Presidents down to the present time, is legitimately regarded
as the least defensible part of Jackson's policy. There can
be little doubt that the ultimate effect was bad, especially as
an example ; but in Jackson's case there were extenuating
circumstances. He was justly conscious of a mandate from

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 97

the people to govern. He had against him a coalition of
the politicians who had till that moment monopolized power,
and the public offices were naturally full of their creatures.
He knew that he would have a hard fight in any case with
the Senate against him and no very certain majority in the
House of Representation. If the machinery of the Executive
failed him he could not win, and, from his point of view,
the popular mandate would be betrayed.

For the most drastic measures he could take to strengthen
himself and to weaken his enemies left those enemies still
very formidable. Of the leading politicians, only Calhoun,
who had been chosen as Vice-President, was his ally, and
that alliance was not to endure for long. The beginning
of the trouble was, perhaps, the celebrated " Eaton " affair,
which is of historic importance only as being illustrative
of Jackson's character. Of all his Cabinet, Eaton, an old
Tennessee friend and comrade in arms, probably enjoyed
the highest place in the President's personal affections.
Eaton had recently married the daughter of an Irish
boarding-house keeper at whose establishment he stayed
when in Washington. She had previously been the wife
of a tipsy merchant captain who committed suicide, some
said from melancholia produced by strong drink, others
from jealousy occasioned by the levity of his wife's behaviour.
There seems no real evidence that she was more than
flirtatious with her husband's guests, but scandal had been
somewhat busy with her name, and when Eaton married
her the ladies of Washington showed a strong disposition
to boycott the bride. The matrons of the South were
especially proud of the unblemished correctitude of their
social code, and Calboun's wife put herself ostentatiously
at the head of the movement. Jackson took the other side
with fiery animation. He was ever a staunch friend, and
Eaton had appealed to his friendship. Moreover, his own
wife, recently dead, had received Mrs. Eaton and shown a
strong disposition to be friends with her, and he considered
the reflections on his colleague's wife were a slur on her,
whose memory he honoured almost as that of a saint, but
who, as he could not but remember, had herself not been
spared by slanderers. He not only extended in the most
conspicuous manner the protection of his official countenance

98 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

to his friend's wife, but almost insisted upon his Cabinet
taking oath, one by one, at the point of the sword, that
they believed Mrs. Eaton to be " as chaste as a virgin."
But the Ministers, even when overborne by their chivalrous
chief, could not control the social behaviour of their wives,
who continued to cold-shoulder the Eatons, to the President's
great indignation and disgust. Van Buren, who regarded
Calhoun as his rival, and who, as a bachelor, was free to
pay his respects to Mrs. Eaton without prejudice or
hindrance, seems to have suggested to Jackson that Calhoun
had planned the whole campaign to ruin Eaton. Jackson
hesitated to believe this, but close on the heels of the affair
came another cause of quarrel, arising from the disclosure
of the fact that Calhoun, when Secretary for War in Monroe's
Cabinet, had been one of those who wished to censure
Jackson for his proceedings in Florida— a circumstance
which he had certainly withheld, and, according to Jackson,
deliberately lied about in his personal dealings with the
general. Private relations between the two men were
completely broken off, and they were soon to be ranged on
opposite sides in the public quarrel of the utmost import
to the future of the Republic.

We have seen how the strong Nationalist movement
which had sprung from the war of 1812 ^ had produced,
among other effects, a demand for the protection of American
industries. The movement culminated in the Tariff of
1828, which the South called the " Tariff of Abominations."
This policy, popular in the North and West, was naturally
unpopular in the Cotton States, which lived by their vast
export trade and had nothing to gain by a tariff. South
Carolina, Calhoun's State, took the lead in opposition, and her
representatives, advancing a step beyond the condemnation
of the taxes themselves, [challenged the constitutional
right of Congress to impose them. The argument was not
altogether without plausibility. Congress was undoubtedly
empowered by the Constitution to raise a revenue, nor was
there any stipulation as to how this revenue was to be
raised. But it was urged that no power was given to levy
taxes for any other purpose than the raising of such revenue.
The new import duties were, by the admission of their
advocates, intended to serve a wholly different purpose not

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 99

mentioned in the Constitution— the protection of native

industries. Therefore, urged the Carolinian Free Traders,

they were unconstitutional and could not be lawfully
imposed.

This argument, though ingenious, was not likely to
convince the Supreme Court, the leanings of which were
at this time decidedly in favour of Nationalism. The
Carolinans therefore took their stand upon another principle,
for which they found a precedent in the Kentucky
Resolutions. They declared that a State had, in virtue of
its sovereignty, the' right to judge as an independent nation
would of the extent of its obligations under the Treaty of
Union, and, having arrived at its own interpretation, to act
upon it regardless of any Federal authority. This was the
celebrated doctrine of " Nullification," and in pursuance of
it South Carolina announced her intention of refusing to
allow the protective taxes in question to be collected at her
ports.

Calhoun was not the originator of Nullification. He
was Vice-President when the movement began, and could
with propriety take no part in it. But after his quarrel
with Jackson he resigned his office and threw in his lot with
his State. The ablest and most lucid statements of the
case for Nullification are from his pen, and when he took
his seat m the Senate he was able to add to his contribution
the weight of his admirable oratory.

Much depended upon the attitude of the new President,
and the Nullifiers did not despair of enlisting him on their
side. Though he had declared cautiously in favour of a
moderate tariff (basing his case mainly on considerations of
national defence), he was believed to be opposed to the
high Protection advocated by Clay and Adams. He was
himself a Southerner and interested in the cotton industry,
and at the late election he had had the unanimous backing
of the South; its defection would be very dangerous for
him. Finally, as an ardent Democrat he could hardly
fail to be impressed by the precedent of the Kentucky
Resolutions, which had Jefferson's authority behind
them, and, perhaps to enforce this point, Jefferson's birthday
was chosen as the occasion when the President was to be
committed to Nullification.

100 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

A Democratic banquet was held at Washington in honour
of the founder of the party. Jackson was present, and so
were Calhoun and the leading Nullifiers. Speeches had to
be made and toasts given, the burden of which was
a glorification of State Sovereignty and a defence of
Nullification. Then Jackson rose and gave his famous toast :
" Our Union : it must be preserved." Calhoun tried to
counter it by giving : " Our Union, next to our liberties
most dear." But everyone understood the significance of
the President's toast. It was a declaration of war.

The Nullifiers had quite miscalculated Jackson's attitude.
He was a Southerner by birth, but a frontiersman by up
bringing, and all the formative influences of his youth were
of the West. It has been noted how strongly the feeling
of the West made for the new unity, and in no Westerner
was the national passion stronger than in Jackson. In
1814 he had told Monroe that he would have had the
leaders of the Hertford Convention hanged, and he applied
the same measure to Southern as to Northern sectionalism.
To the summoning of the Nullifying Convention in South
Carolina, he replied by a message to Congress asking for
powers to coerce the recalcitrant State. He further told
his Cabinet that if Congress refused him the powers
he thought necessary he should have no hesitation in
assuming them. He would call for volunteers to maintain
the Union, and would soon have a force at his disposal that
should invade South Carolina, disperse the State forces,
arrest the leading Nullifiers and bring them to trial before
the Federal Courts.

If the energy of Jackson was a menace to South Caro
lina, it was a grave embarrassment to the party regularly
opposed to him in Congress and elsewhere. That this
party could make common cause with the Nullifiers seemed
impossible. The whole policy of high Protection against
which South Carolina had revolted was Clay's. Adams had
signed the Tariff of Administrations. Daniel Webster of
Massachusetts, the leading orator of the party and the
greatest forensic speaker that America has produced, had
at one time been a Free Trader. But he was deeply
committed against the Nullifiers, and had denounced the
separatist doctrines which found favour in South Carolina

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 101

in a speech the fine peroration of whick America a school
boys still learn by heart. Webster, indeed, wnether from
shame or from conviction, separated himself to some extent
from his associates and gave strenuous support to the
" Force Bill " which the President had demanded.

But Clay was determined that Jackson should not have
the added power and prestige which would result from the
suppression of Nullification by the strong hand of the
Executive. His own bias was in favour of a strong and
unified Federal authority, but he would have made Congress
that authority rather than the President — a policy even
less favourable than Jackson's to State Eights, but more
favourable to the Parliamentarianism in which Clay
delighted and in which his peculiar talents shone. At all
costs the Kentucky politician resolved to discount the
intervention of the President, and his mind was peculiarly
fertile in devising and peculiarly skilful in executing such
manoeuvres as the situation required. The sacrifice of his
commercial policy was involved, but he loved Protection
less than he hated Jackson, and less, to do him justice,
than he loved the Union. Negotiations were opened with
Calhoun, and a compromise tariff proposed, greatly
modified in the direction of Free Trade and free of
the " abominations " of which South Carolina specially
complained. This compromise the Nullifiers, awed perhaps
by the vigour of Jackson, and doubtful of the issue if
matters were pushed too far, accepted.

Jackson did not like the Clay-Calhoun compromise,
which seemed to him a surrender to treason ; but in such
a matter he could not control Congress. On one thing Jie
insisted : that the Force Bill should take precedence over
the new Tariff. On this he carried his point. The two
Bills were passed by Congress in the order he demanded,
and both were signed by him on the same day.

Upon this the South Carolinian Convention repealed its
ordinance nullifying the Tariff, and agreed to the collection
of the duties now imposed. It followed this concession
by another ordinance nullifying the Force Bill. The
practical effect of this was nil, for there was no longer
anything to enforce. It was none the less important. It
meant that South Carolina declined to abandon the weapon

102 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

of Nullification. Indeed, it might plausibly be urged that
that weapon had justified itself by success. It had been
defended as a protection against extreme oppression, and
the extreme oppression complained of had actually ceased
in consequence of its use. At any rate, the effect was
certainly to strengthen rather than to weaken extreme
particularism in the South. On this point Jackson saw
further than Clay or any of his contemporaries. While
all America was rejoicing over the peaceful end of what
had looked like an ugly civil quarrel, the President was
writing to a friend and supporter : " You have Nullifiers
amongst you. Frown upon them. . . . The Tariff was a
mere excuse and a Southern Confederacy the real object.
The next excuse ivill be the Negro or Slavery Question."

The controversy with the Nullifiers had exhibited
Jackson's patriotism and force of character in a strong and
popular light, but it had lost him what support he could
still count upon among the politicians. Calhoun was now
leagued with Clay and Webster, and the "front bench"
men (as we should call them) were a united phalanx of
opposition. It is characteristic of his courage that in face
of such a situation Jackson ventured to challenge the
richest and most powerful corporation in America.

The first United States Bank set up by Alexander
Hamilton as part of his scheme for creating a powerful
governing class in America was, as we have seen, swept
away by the democratic reaction which Jefferson led to
victory. The second, springing out of the financial
embarrassments which followed the war with Great Britain,
had been granted a charter of twenty years which had
now nearly expired. The renewal of that charter seemed,
however, to those who directed the operations of the Bank
and to those who were deep in the politics of Washington,
a mere matter of course.

The Bank was immensely powerful and thoroughly
unpopular. The antinomy would hardly strike a modern
Englishman as odd, but it was anomalous in what was
already a thoroughly democratic state. It was powerful
because it had on its side the professional politicians, the
financiers, the rich of the great cities generally — in fact, what
the Press which such people control calls " the intelligence

THE JACKSONIAN EEVOLUTION ^103

of the nation." Rut it was hated by the people, and
it soon appeared that it was hated as bitterly by the
President.^ Writers who sympathize with the plutocratic
side in the quarrel had no difficulty in convicting Jackson
of a regrettable ignorance of finance. Beyond question he
had not that intimate acquaintance with the technique of
usury which long use alone can give. But his instincts in
such a matter were as keen and true as the instincts of the
populace that supported him. By the mere health of his
soul he could smell out the evil of a plutocracy. He
knew that the bank was a typical monopoly, and he knew
that such monopolies ever grind the faces of the poor and
fill politics with corruption. And the corruption with
which the Bank was filling America might have been
apparent to duller eyes. The curious will find ample
evidence in the records of the time, especially in the
excuses of the Bank itself, the point at which insolence
becomes comic being reached when it was gravely pleaded
that loans on easy terms were made to members of
Congress because it was in the public interest that such
persons should have practical instruction in the principles
of banking ! Meanwhile everything was done to corner
the Press. Journals favourable to the Bank were financed
with loans issued on the security of their plant. Papers
on the other side were, whenever possible, corrupted by the
same method. As for the minor fry of politics, they were
of course bought by shoals.

It is seldom that such a policy, pursued with vigour
and determination by a body sufficiently wealthy to stick
at nothing, fails, to carry a political assembly. With
Congress the Bank was completely successful. A Bill to
re-charter that institution passed House and Senate by
large majorities. It was immediately vetoed by the
President.

Up to this point, though his private correspondence
shows that his mind had long been made up, there had been
much uncertainty as to what Jackson would do. Biddle,
the cunning, indefatigable and unscrupulous chairman
of the Bank, believed up to the last- moment that, if
Congress could be secured, he would not dare to interpose.
To do so was an enterprise which certainly required

104 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

courage. It meant fighting at the same time an immensely
strong corporation representing two-thirds of the money
power of the nation, and with tentacles in every State in
the Union, and a parliamentary majority in both Houses
led by a coalition of all the most distinguished politicians
of the day. The President had not in his Cabinet any
man whose name carried such public weight as those of
Clay, Webster, or Calhoun, all now in alliance in support
of the Bank ; and his Cabinet, such as it was, was divided.
The cleverest and most serviceable of his lieutenants, Van
Buren, was unwilling to appear prominently in the matter.
He feared the power of the Bank in New York State, where
his own influence lay. McLane, his Secretary of the
Treasury, was openly in favour of the Bank, and continued
for some time to assure Biddle of his power to bring the
President round to his views.

But, as a fact, the attitude of Jackson was never really
in doubt. He knew that the Bank was corrupting public
life ; the very passage of the Bill, against the pledges
given by any Congressmen to their constituents, was
evidence of this, if any were needed. He knew further
that it was draining the productive parts of the country,
especially the South and West, for the profit of a lucky
financial group in the Eastern States. He knew also that
such financial groups are never national : he knew that
the Bank had foreign backers, and he showed an almost
startling prescience as to the evils that were to follow in the
train of cosmopolitan finance, " more formidable and more
dangerous than the naval and military power of an enemy."
But above all he knew that the Bank was odious to the
people, and he was true to his political creed, whereby
he, as the elect of the people, was bound to enforce its
judgment without fear or favour.

Jackson's Veto Message contained a vigorous exposition
of his objections to the Bank on public grounds, together
with a legal argument against its constitutionality. It
was admitted that the Supreme Court had declared the
chartering of the Bank to be constitutional, but this, it was
urged, could not absolve the President of the duty of following
his own conscience in interpreting the Constitution he had
sworn to maintain. The authority of the Supreme Court

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 105

must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or
the Executive, but have only such influence as the force of
its reasoning may discover. It is believed that this part
of the message, which gave scandal to legalists, was supplied
by Taney, the Attorney-General. It is a curious coincidence,
if this be so, that more than twenty years later we shall
find another great President, though bred in the anti-
Jacksonian Whig tradition, compelled to take up much the
same attitude in regard to a Supreme Court decision
delivered by Taney himself.

Biddle and his associates believed that the Message
would be fatal to the President. So did the leaders of
the political opposition, and none more than Clay.
Superlatively skilful in managing political assemblies, he
was sometimes strangely at fault in judging the mind of
the mass — a task in which Jackson hardly ever failed. He
had not foreseen the anger which his acceptance of a place
for Adams would provide ; and he now evidently believed
that the defence of the Bank would be a popular cry in the
country. He forced the "Whig" Convention — for such
was the name which the very composite party opposed to
Jackson had chosen — to put it in the forefront of their
programme, and he seems to have looked forward com
placently to a complete victory on that issue.

His complacency could not last long. Seldom has a
nation spoken so directly i through the complex and often
misleading machinery of elections as the American nation
spoke in 1832 against the bank. North, south, east
and west the Whigs were routed. Jackson was re-elected
President by such an overwhelming expression of the popular
choice as made the triumph of 1828 seem a little thing.
Against all the politicians and all the interests he had
dared to appeal to Caesar, and the people, his unseen ally,
had in an instant made his enemies his footstool.

It was characteristic of the man that he at once
proceeded to carry the war into Africa. Biddle, though
bitterly disappointed, was not yet resigned to despair. It
was believed — and events in the main confirm the belief—
that he contemplated a new expedient, the use of what still
remained of the financial power of the Bank to produce
deliberate scarcity and distress, in the hope that a reaction

106 A HISTOEY OP THE UNITED STATES

against the President's policy would result. Jackson
resolved to strike the Bank a crippling blow before such
juggling could be attempted. The Act of Congress which
had established the Bank gave him power to remove the
public deposits at will; and that power he determined to
exercise.

A more timid man would have had difficulty with his
Cabinet. Jackson overcame the difficulty by accepting full
personal responsibility for what he was about to do. He
did not dismiss the Ministers whose opinion differed from
his, he brought no pressure to bear on their consciences ;
but neither did he yield his view an inch to theirs. He
acted as he had resolved to act, and made a minute in the
presence of his Cabinet that he did so on his own initiative.
It was essential that the Secretary of the Treasury, through
whom he must act, should be with him. McLane had
already been transferred to the State Department, and
Jackson now nominated Taney, a strong-minded lawyer,
who was his one unwavering supporter in the struggle.
Taney removed the public deposits from the United States
Bank. They were placed for safe keeping in the banks of
the various States. The President duly reported to Congress
his reasons for taking this action.

In the new House of Representatives, elected at the
same time as the President, the Democrats were now
predominant ; but the Senate changes its complexion more
slowly, and there the " Whigs " had still a majority. This
majority could do nothing but exhibit impotent anger, and
that they most unwisely did. They refused to confirm
Taney's nomination as Secretary to the Treasury, as a little
later they refused to accept him as a Judge of the High
Court. They passed a solemn vote of censure on the
President, whose action they characterized, in defiance of
the facts, as unconstitutional. But Jackson, strong in the
support of the nation, could afford to disregard such natural
ebullitions of bad temper. The charter of the Bank lapsed
and was not renewed, and a few years later it wound up its
affairs amid a reek of scandal, which sufficed to show what
manner of men they were who had once captured Congress
and attempted to dictate to the President. The Whigs
were at last compelled to drink the cup of humiliation to

THE JACKSONIAN REVOLUTION 107

the dregs. Another election gave Jackson a majority even
in the Senate, and in spite of the protests of Clay, Webster
and Calhoun the censure on the President was solemnly
expunged from its records.

After the triumphant termination of the Bank, Jackson's
second term of office was peaceful and comparatively
uneventful. There were indeed some important questions
of domestic and foreign policy with which it fell to him to
deal. One of these was the position of the Cherokee
Indians, who had been granted territory in Georgia and
the right to live on their own lands there, but whom the
expansion of civilization had now made it convenient to
displace. It is impossible for an admirer of Jackson to
deny that his attitude in such a matter was too much
that of a frontiersman. Indeed, it is a curious irony that
the only American statesman of that age who snowed
any disposition to be careful of justice and humanity in
dealing with the native race was John C. Calhoun, the
uncompromising defender of Negro Slavery. At any rate,
the Indians were, in defiance, it must be said, of the plain
letter of the treaty, compelled to choose between submission
to the laws of Georgia and transplantation beyond the
Mississippi. Most of them were in the event transplanted.

Jackson's direction of foreign policy was not only
vigorous but sagacious. Under his Presidency long
standing disputes with both France and England were
brought to a peaceful termination on terms satisfactory to
the Republic . To an Englishman it is pleasant to note
that the great President, though he had fought against the
English — perhaps because he had fought against them —
was notably free from that rooted j antipathy to Great
Britain which was conspicuous in most patriotic Americans
of that age and indeed clown to very recent times. " With
Great Britain, alike distinguished in peace and war," he
wrote in a message to Congress, " we may look forward to
years of peaceful, honourable, and elevated competition.
Everything in the condition and history of the two nations
is calculated to inspire sentiments of mutual respect and to
carry conviction to the minds of both that it is their policy
to preserve the most cordial relations." It may also be of
some interest to quote the verdict of an English statesman,

108 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

who, differing from Jackson in all those things in which
an aristocratic politician must necessarily differ from the
tribune of a democracy, had nevertheless something of the
same symbolic and representative national character and
something of the same hold upon his fellow-countrymen.
A letter from Van Buren, at that time representing the
United States at the Court of St. James's, to Jackson
reports Palmer ston as saying to him that " a very strong
impression had been made here of the dangers which this
country had to apprehend from your elevation, but that
they had experienced better treatment at your hands than
they had done from any of your predecessors."

So enormous was Jackson's popularity that, if he had
been the ambitious Csssarist that his enemies represented,
he could in all probability have safely violated the Wash
ington-Jefferson precedent and successfully sought election
a third time. But he showed no desire to do so. He had
undergone the labours of a titan for twelve eventful and
formative years. He was an old man ; he was tired. He may
well have been glad to rest for what years were left to him
of life in his old frontier State, which he had never ceased
to love. He survived his Presidency by nine years. Now
and then his voice was heard on a public matter, and,
whenever it was heard, it carried everywhere a strange
authority as if it were the people speaking. But he never
sought public office again.

Jackson's two periods of office mark a complete revolution
in American institutions ; he has for the Republic as it
exists to day the significance of a second founder. From
that period dates the frank abandonment of the fiction
of the Electoral College as an independent deliberative
assembly, and the direct and acknowledged election of the
nation's Chief Magistrate by the nation itself. In the
constitution of the Democratic Party, as it grouped itself
round him, we get the first beginnings of the " primary,"
that essential organ of direct democracy of which English
Parliamentarism has no hint, but which is the most vital
feature of American public life. But, most of all, from his
triumph and the abasement of his enemies dates the
concentration of power in the hands of the President as the
real unifying centre of authority. His attitude towards his

THE JACKSONIAN KEVOLUTION 109

Cabinet has been imitated by all strong Presidents since.
America does not take kindly to a President who shirks
personal responsibility or hides behind his Ministers.
Nothing helped Lincoln's popularity more than the story —
apocryphal or no — of his taking the vote of his Cabinet on
a proposition of his own and then remarking : " Ayes one ;
Noes six. The Ayes have it." Even the " Spoils System,"
whatever its evils, tended to strengthen the Elect of the
People. It made the power of an American President more
directly personal than that of the most despotic rulers
of Continental Europe; for they are always constrained
by a bureaucracy, while his bureaucracy even down to
its humblest members is of his own appointment and
dependent on him.

The pa^rty, or rather coalition, which opposed these
changes, selected for itself, as has been seen, the name of
" Whig." The name was, perhaps, better chosen than the
American Whigs realized. They meant— and it was true
as far as it went— that, like the old English Whigs, they
stood for free government by deliberative assemblies against
arbitrary personal power. They were not deep enough in
history to understand that they also stood, like the old
English Whigs, for oligarchy against the instinct and
tradition of the people. There is a strange irony about the
fate of the parties in the two countries. In the Monarchy
an aristocratic Parliamentarism won, and the Crown
became a phantom. In the Kepublic a popular sovereignty
won, and the President became more than a king.

CHAPTEK VII

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO

THE extent of Jackson's more than monarchical power is
well exemplified by the fact that Van Buren succeeded him
almost as a king is succeeded by his heir. Van Buren was
an apt master of electioneering and had a strong hold upon
the democracy of New York. He occupied in the new
Democratic Party something of the position which Burr
had occupied in the old. But while Burr had sought his
own ends and betrayed, Van Buren was strictly loyal to his
chief. He was a sincere democrat and a clever man ; but
no one could credit him with the great qualities which the
wielding of the immense new power created by Jackson
seemed to demand. None the less he easily obtained the
Presidency as Jackson's nominee. Since the populace,,
whose will Jackson had made the supreme power in the
State, could not vote for him, they were content to vote for
the candidate he was known to favour.

Indeed, in some ways the coalition which called itself
the Whig party was weakened rather than strengthened
by the substitution of a small for a great man at the head
of the Democracy. Antagonism to Jackson was the real
cement of the coalition, and some of its members did not
feel called upon to transfer their antagonism unabated to
Van Buren.

The most eminent of these was Calhoun, who now
broke away from the Whigs and appeared prepared to give
a measure of independent support to the Administration.
He did not, however, throw himself heartily into the
Democratic Party or seek to regain the succession to its
leadership which had once seemed likely to be his. From
the moment of his quarrel with Jackson the man changes out

no

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 111

of recognition : it is one of the most curious transforma
tions in history, like an actor stripping off his stage costume
and appearing as his very self. Political compromises,
stratagems, ambitions drop from him, and he stands out as
he appears in that fine portrait whose great hollow eyes
look down from the walls of the Capitol at Washington, the
enthusiast, almost the fanatic, of a fixed idea and purpose.
He is no longer national, nor pretends to be. His one
thought is the defence of the type of civilization which he
finds in his own State against the growing power of the
North, which he perceives with a tragic clearness and the
probable direction of which he foresees much more truly
than did any Northerner of that period. He maintains
continually, and without blurring its lines by a word of
reservation or compromise, the dogma of State Sovereignty
in its most extreme and almost parricidal form. His great
pro-Slavery speeches belong to the same period. They are
wonderful performances, full of restrained eloquence, and
rich in lucid argument and brilliant illustration. Sincerity
shines in every sentence. They serve to show how strong
a case an able advocate can make out for the old pre-
Christian basis of European society ; and they will have a
peculiar interest if ever, as seems not improbable, the
industrial part of Northern Europe reverts to that basis.

Van Buren, on the whole, was not an unsuccessful
President. He had many difficulties to contend with. He
had to face a serious financial panic, which some consider
to have been the result of Jackson's action in regard to the
Bank, some of the machinations of the Bank itself. He
surmounted it successfully, though not without a certain
loss of popularity. We English have some reason to speak
well of him in that he resisted the temptation to embroil
his country with ours when a rebellion in Canada offered
an opportunity which a less prudent man might very well
have taken. For the rest, he carried on the government
of the country on Jacksonian lines with sufficient fidelity
not to forfeit the confidence of the old man who watched
and advised him, sympathetically but not without anxiety,
from his " Hermitage " in Tennessee.

One singular episode may conveniently be mentioned
here, though the incident in which it originated rather

112 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

belongs to the Jacksonian epoch. This is not the place
to discuss the true nature of that curious institution called
Freemasonry. Whatever its origin, whether remote and
derived from Solomon's Temple as its devotees assert, or,
as seems more intrinsically probable, comparatively modern
and representing one of the hundreds of semi-mystical fads
which flourished in the age of Cagliostro, it had acquired
considerable importance in Europe at the end of the
eighteenth century. At some unknown date it was carried
across the Atlantic, and sprouted vigorously in America;
but it does not seem to have been taken particularly
seriously, until the States were startled by an occurrence
which seemed more like part in what is known in that
country as " a dime novel " than a piece of history.

A journalist named Morgan, who had been a Freemason,
announced his intention of publishing the inviolable secrets
of the Society. The announcement does not seem to have
created any great sensation ; probably the majority of
Americans were as sceptical as is the present writer as
to the portentous nature of the awful Unspeakabilities
which so many prosperous stock-brokers and suburban
builders keep locked in their bosoms. But what followed
naturally created a sensation of the most startling kind.
For on the morrow of his announcement Morgan dis
appeared and never returned. What happened to him is
not certainly known. A body was found which may or
may not have been his. The general belief was that he
had been kidnapped and murdered by his fellow- Craftsmen,
and, indeed, it really seems the natural inference from the
acknowledged facts that at least some one connected with
the Brotherhood was responsible for his fate. A violent
outcry against Masonry was the natural result, and, as some
of the more prominent politicians of the day, including
President Jackson himself, were Masons, the cry took
a political form. An Anti-Masonic Party was formed, and
at the next Presidential election was strong enough to carry
one State and affect considerably the vote of others. The
movement gradually died down and the party disappeared ;
but the popular instinct that secret societies, whether
murderous or not, have no place in a Free State was none
the less a sound one.

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 113

Jhave said that Van Buren's election was a sign of
Jackson's personal influence. But the election of 1840
was a more startling sign of the completeness of his moral
triumph, of the extent to which his genius had transformed
the State. In 1832 the Whigs pitted their principles against
his and lost. In 1840 they swallowed their principles,
mimicked his, and won.

The Whig theory— so far as any theory connected the
group of politicians who professed that name — was that
Congress and the political class which Congress represented
should rule, or at least administer, the State. From that
theory it seemed to follow that some illustrious Senator or
Congressman, some prominent member of that political
class, should be chosen as President. The Whigs had acted
in strict accord with their theory when they had selected
as ^ their candidate their ablest and most representative
politician, Clay. But the result had not been encouraging.
They now frankly abandoned their theory and sought to
imitate the successful practice of their adversaries. They
looked round for a Whig Jackson, and they found him in
an old soldier from Ohio named Harrison, who had achieved
a certain military reputation in the Indian wars. Following
their model even more closely, they invented for him the
nickname of ^ Old Tippercanoe," derived from the name
of one of his victories, and obviously suggested by the
parallel of "Old Hickory." Jackson, however, really had
been called ^ Old Hickory" by his soldiers long before he
took a leading part in politics, while it does not appear
that Harrison was ever called " Tippercanoe " by anybody
except ^for electioneering purposes. However, the name
served its immediate purpose, and—

" Tippercanoe,
And Tyler too I "

became the electoral war-cry of the Whigs. Tyler, a
Southern Whig from Virginia, brought into the ticket to
conciliate the Southern element in the party, was their
candidate for the Vice-Presidency.

Unfortunately for themselves, the Democrats played the
Whig game by assailing Harrison with very much the same
taunts which had previously been used by the Whigs against
Jackson, The ignorance of the old soldier, his political

114 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

inexperience, even his poverty and obscurity of origin, were
exploited in a hundred Democratic pamphlets by writers
who forgot that every such reflection made closer the
parallel between Harrison and Jackson, and so brought
to the former just the sort of support for which the Whigs
were angling.

" Tipper canoe " proved an excellent speculation for the
Whig leaders. It was "Tyler too," introduced to meet
the exigencies of electioneering (and rhyme) that altogether
disconcerted all their plans.

Tyler was a Southerner and an extreme Particularist.
He had been a Nullifier, and his quarrel with Jackson's
Democracy had simply been a quarrel with his Unionism.
His opinions on all subjects, political, administrative, and
fiscal, w«re as remote from those of a man like Clay as any
opinions could be. This was perfectly well known to those
who chose him for "Vice-President. But while the President
lives and exercises his functions the Vice-President is in
America a merely ornamental figure. He has nothing to
say in regard to policy. He is not even a member of the
Administration. He presides over the Senate, and that is all.
Consequently there, has always been a strong temptation
for American wire-pullers to put forward as candidate for
the Vice-Presidency a man acceptable to some more or
less dubious and detached group of their possible supporters,
whose votes it is desired to obtain, but who are not intended
to have any control over the effective policy of the
Government. Yet more than one example has shown how
perilous this particular electioneering device may turn out
to be. For if the President should die before the expiration
of his term, the whole of his almost despotic power passes
unimpaired to a man who represents not the party, but a
more or less mutinous minority in the party.

It was so in this case. Harrison was elected, but barely
lived to take the oath. Tyler became President. For a short
time things went comparatively smoothly. Harrison had
chosen Webster as Secretary of State, and Tyler confirmed
his appointment. But almost at once it became apparent
that the President and his Secretary differed on almost
every important question of the day, and that the Whig
Party as a whole was with the Secretary. The President's

THE SPOILS OE MEXICO 115

views were much nearer to those of the Democratic
opposition, but that opposition, smarting under its defeat, was
not disposed to help either combatant out of the difficulties
and humiliations which had so unexpectedly fallen on both
in the hour of triumph. Yet, if Webster were dismissed
or driven to resign, someone of note must be I found to
take his place. Personal followers the President had none.
But in his isolation he turned to the one great figure in
American politics that stood almost equally alone. It was
announced that the office vacated by Webster had been
offered to and accepted by John Caldwell Calhoun.

Calhoun's acceptance of the post is sometimes treated
as an indication of the revival of his ambitions for a national
career. It is suggested that he again saw a path open to
him to the Presidency which he had certainly once coveted.
But though his name was mentioned in 1844 as a possible
Democratic candidate, it was mentioned only to be found
wholly unacceptable, and indeed Calhoun's general conduct
when Secretary was not such as to increase his chances of
an office for which no one could hope who had not a large
amount of Northern as well as Southern backing. It seems
more likely that Calhoun consented to be Secretary of
State as a means to a definite end closely connected with
what was now the master-passion of his life, the defence of
Southern interests. At any rate, the main practical fruit of
his administration of affairs was the annexation of Texas.

Texas had originally been an outlying and sparsely
peopled part of the Spanish province of Mexico, but even
before the overthrow of Spanish rule a thin stream of
immigration had begun to run into it from the South-
Western States of America. The English-speaking element
became, if not the larger part of the scant population,
at least the politically dominant one. Soon after the
successful assertion of Mexican independence'against Spain,
Texas, mainly under the leadership of her American
settlers, declared her independence of Mexico. The occasion
of this secession was the abolition of Slavery by the native
Mexican Government, the Americans who settled in Texas
being mostly slave-owners drawn from the Slave States.
Some fighting took place, and ultimately the independence
of Texas seems to have been recognized by one of the

116 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

many governments which military and popular revolutions
and counter-revolutions rapidly set up and pulled down in
Mexico proper. The desire of the Texans — or at least of
that governing part of them that had engineered the
original secession — was to enter the American Union, but
there was a prolonged hesitation at Washington about
admitting them, so that Texas remained for a long time
the "Lone Star State," independent alike of Mexico and
the United States. This hesitation is difficult at first
sight to understand, for Texas was undoubtedly a valuable
property and its inhabitants were far more willing to be
incorporated than, say, the French colonists of Louisiana had
been. The key is, no doubt, to be found in the internecine
jealousies of the sections. The North — or at any rate New
England — had been restive over the Louisiana purchase
as tending to strengthen the Southern section at the
expense of the Northern. If Texas were added to Louisiana
the balance would lean still more heavily in favour of the
South. But what was a cause of hesitation to the North
and to politicians who looked for support to the North
was a strong recommendation to Calhoun. He had, as he
himself once remarked, a remarkable gift of foresight —
an uncomfortable gift, for he always foresaw most clearly
the things he desired least. He alone seems to have
understood fully how much the South had sacrificed by
the Missouri Compromise. He saw her hemmed in and
stationary while the North added territory to territory and
State to State. To annex Texas would be, to an extent at
least, to cut the bonds which limited her expansion. When
the population should have increased sufficiently it was
calculated that at least four considerable States could be
carved out of that vast expanse of country.

But, though Calhoun's motive was probably the poli
tical strengthening of the South, his Texan policy could
find plenty of support in every part of the Union. Most
Northerners, especially in the new States of the North-
West, cared more for the expansion of the United States
than for the sectional jealousies. They were quite prepared
to welcome Texas into the Union ; but, unfortunately for
Calhoun, they had a favourite project of expansion of their
own for which they expected a corresponding support.

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 117

The whole stretch of the Pacific slope which intervenes
between Alaska and California, part of which is now
represented by the States of Washington and Oregon and
part by British Columbia, was then known generally as
" Oregon." Its ownership was claimed both by British
and American Governments upon grounds of prior
exploration, into the merits of which it is hardly necessary
to enter here. Both claims were in fact rather shadowy, but
both claimants were quite convinced that theirs was the
stronger. For many years the dispute had been hung up
without being settled, the territory being policed jointly by
the two Powers. Now, however, there came from the
Northern expansionists a loud demand for an immediate
settlement and one decidedly in their favour. All territory
south of latitude 47° 40' must be acknowledged as American,
or the dispute must be left to the arbitrament of arms.
" Forty- seven-forty or fight ! " was the almost unanimous
cry of the Democracy of the North and West.

The Secretary of State set himself against the Northern
Jingoes, and though his motives may have been sectional,
his arguments were really unanswerable. He pointed out
that to fight England for Oregon at that moment would be
to fight her under every conceivable disadvantage. An
English army from India could be landed in Oregon in a
few weeks. An American army sent to meet it must either
round Cape Horn and traverse the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans in the face of the most powerful navy in the world
or march through what was still an unmapped wilderness
without the possibility of communications or supports. If,
on the other hand, the question were allowed to remain in
suspense, time would probably redress the balance in
favour of the United States. American expansion would
in time touch the borders of Oregon, and then the dispute
could be taken up and settled under much more favourable
circumstances. It was a perfectly just argument, but it
did not convince the " forty-seven-forty-or-fighters," who
roundly accused the Secretary — and not altogether unjustly
—of caring only for the expansion of his own section.

Calhoun was largely instrumental in averting a war
with England, but he did not otherwise conduct himself in
such a manner as to conciliate opinion in that country,

118 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

England, possibly with the object of strengthening her
hand in bargaining for Oregon, had intervened tentatively
in relation to Texas. Lord Aberdeen, then Peel's Foreign
Secretary, took up that question from the Anti-Slavery
standpoint, and expressed the hope that the prohibition
of Slavery by Mexico would not be reversed if Texas
became part of the American Union. The intervention,
perhaps, deserved a snub — for, after all, England had only
recently emancipated the slaves in her own colonies — and
a sharp reminder that by the Monroe Doctrine, to which
she was herself a consenting party, no European Power
had a right to interfere in the domestic affairs of an
American State. Calhoun did not snub Lord Aberdeen :
he was too delighted with his lordship for giving him the
opportunity for which he longed. But he did a thing
eminently characteristic of him, which probably no other
man on the American continent would have done. He sat
down and wrote an elaborate and very able State Paper
setting forth the advantages of Slavery as a foundation for
civilization and public liberty. It was this extraordinary
dispatch that led Macaulay to say in the House of Commons
that the American Republic had " put itself at the head
of the nigger-driving interest throughout the world as
Elizabeth put herself at the head of the Protestant
interest." As regards Calhoun the charge was perfectly
true ; and it is fair to him to add that he undoubtedly
believed in Slavery much more sincerely than ever Elizabeth
did in Protestantism. But he did not represent truly
the predominant feeling of America. Northern Democratic
papers, warmly committed to the annexation of Texas,
protested vehemently against the Secretary's private fad
concerning the positive blessedness of Slavery being put
forward as part of the body of political doctrine held by
the United States. Even Southerners, who accepted Slavery
as a more or less necessary evil, did not care to see it thus
blazoned on the flag. But Calhoun was impenitent. He
was proud of the international performance, and the only
thing he regretted, as his private correspondence shows,
was that Lord Aberdeen did not continue the debate which
he had hoped would finally establish his favourite thesis
before the tribunal of European opinion.

THE SPOILS, OF MEXICO 119

was duly annexed, and Tyler's Presidency drew
towards its close. He seenis to have hoped that the
Democrats whom he had helped to defeat in 1840 would
accept him as their candidate for a second term in 1844 ;
but they declined to do so, nor did they take kindly to the
suggestion of nominating Calhoun. Instead, they chose
one Polk, who had been a stirring though not very eminent
politician in Jacksonian days. The choice is interesting
as being the first example of a phenomenon recurrent in
subsequent American politics, the deliberate selection of a
more or less obscure man on the ground of what Americans
call "availability."

It is the product of the convergence of two things — the
fact of democracy as indicated by the election of a First
Magistrate by a method already frankly plebiscitary, and
the effect of a Party System, becoming, as all Party
Systems must become if they endure, at once increasingly
rigid and increasingly unreal.

The aim of party managers — necessarily professionals
-. — was to get their party nominee elected. But the
conditions under which they worked were democratic. They
could not, as such professionals can in an oligarchy like
ours, simply order the electors to vote for any nincompoop
who was either rich and ambitious enough to give them,
the professionals, money in return for their services, or
needy and unscrupulous enough to be their hired servant.
They were dealing with a free people that would not have
borne such treatment. They had to consider as a practical
problem for what man the great mass of the party would
most readily and effectively vote. And it was often discovered
that while the nomination of an acknowledged "leader"
led, through the inevitable presence (in a democracy)
of conflicts and discontents within the party, to the loss
of votes, the candidate most likely to unite the whole
party was one against whom no one had any grudge and
who simply stood for the " platform " which was framed in
a very democratic fashion by the people themselves voting
in their " primaries." When this system is condemned
and its results held up to scorn, it should be remembered
that among other effects it is certainly responsible for the
selection of Abraham Lincoln.

120 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Polk was not a Lincoln, but he was emphatically an
" available " candidate, and he won, defeating Clay, to
whom the Whigs had once more reverted, by a formidable
majority. He found himself confronted with two pressing
questions of foreign policy. During the election the
Democrats had played the " Oregon " card for all it was
worth, and the new President fotfnd himself almost
committed to the " forty-seven-forty-or-fight " position. But
the practical objections to a war with England on the
Oregon dispute were soon found to be just as strong as
Calhoun had represented them to be. Moreover, the
opportunity presented itself for a war at once much more
profitable and much less perilous than such a contest was
likely to prove, and it was obvious that the two wars could
not be successfully undertaken at once.

The independence of Texas had been in some sort
recognized by Mexico, but the frontier within which that
independence formally existed was left quite undefined,
and the Texan view of it differed materially from the
Mexican. The United States, by annexing Texas, had
shouldered this dispute and virtually made it their own.

It is seldom that historical parallels are useful ; they
are never exact. But there are certain real points of like
ness between the war waged by the United States against
Mexico in the 'forties and the war waged by Great Britain
against the Boer Republics between 1899 and 1902. In
both cases it could be plausibly represented that the
smaller and weaker Power was the actual aggressor. But
in both cases there can be little doubt that it was the
stronger Power which desired or at least complacently
contemplated war. In both cases, too, the defenders of
the war, when most sincere, tended to abandon their
technical pleas and to take their stand upon the principle
that the interests of humanity would best be served by
the defeat of a " backward " people by a more " progressive "
one. It is not here necessary to discuss the merits of such
a plea. But it may be interesting to note the still closer
parallel presented by the threefold division of the opposition
in both cases. The Whig Party was divided in 1847, almost
exactly as was the " Liberal " Party in 1899. There was,
especially in New England, an ardent jind sincere minority

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 121

which was violently opposed to the war and openly denounced
it as an unjustifiable aggression. Its attitude has been made
fairly familiar to English readers by the first series of
Lowell's "Bigelow Papers." This minority corresponded
roughly to those who in England were called " Pro-Boers."
There was another section which warmly supported the
war : it sought to outdo the Democrats in their patriotic
enthusiasm, and to reap as much of the electoral harvest of
the prevalent Jingoism as might be. Meanwhile, the body
of the party took up an intermediate position, criticized the
diplomacy of the President, maintained that with better
management the war might have been avoided, but refused
to oppose the war outright when once it had begun, and
concurred in voting supplies for its prosecution.

The advocates of the war had, however, to face at its
outset one powerful and unexpected defection, that of
Calhoun. No man had been more eager than he for the
annexation of Texas, but, Texas once annexed, he showed
a marked desire to settle all outstanding questions with
Mexico quickly and by a compromise on easy terms. He
did all he could to avert war. When war actually came,
he urged that even the military operations of the United
States should be strictly defensive, that they should confine
themselves to occupying the disputed territory and repelling
attacks upon it, but should under no circumstances attempt
a counter-invasion of Mexico. There can be little doubt
that Calhoun's motive in proposing this curious method of
conducting a war was, as usual, zeal for the interests of his
section, and that he acted as he did because he foresaw the
results of an extended war more correctly than did most
Southerners. He had coveted Texas because Texas would
strengthen the position of the South. Slavery already
existed there, and no one doubted that if Texas came into
the Union at all it must be as a Slave State. But it would
be otherwise if great conquests were made at the expense of
Mexico. Calhoun saw clearly that there would be a strong
movement to exclude Slavery from such conquests, and,
having regard to the numerical superiority of the North,
he doubted the ability of his own section to obtain in
the scramble that must follow the major part of the
spoil.

122 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Calhoun, however, was as unable to restrain by his
warnings the warlike enthusiasm of the South as were the
little group of Peace Whigs in New England to prevent
the North from being swept by a similar passion. Even
Massachusetts gave a decisive vote for war.

The brief campaign was conducted with considerable
ability, mainly by Generals Taylor and Scott. Such army
as Mexico possessed was crushingly defeated at Monterey.
An invasion followed, and the fall of Mexico City completed
the triumph of American arms. By the peace dictated in
the captured capital Mexico had, of course, to concede the
original point of dispute in regard to the Texan frontier.
But greater sacrifices were demanded of her, though not
without a measure of compensation. She was compelled
to sell at a fixed price to her conqueror all the territory to
which she laid claim . on the Pacific slope north of San
Diego. Thus Arizona, New Mexico, and, most important
• of all, California passed into American hands.

But before this conclusion had been reached a significant
incident justified the foresight of Calhoun. Towards the
close of the campaign, a proposal made in Congress to
grant to the Executive a large supply to be expended during
the recess at the President's discretion in purchasing Mexican
territory was met by an amendment moved by a Northern
Democrat named Wilmot, himself an ardent supporter of
the war, providing that from all territory that might be so
acquired from Mexico Slavery should be for ever excluded.
The proviso was carried in the House of Representatives by
a majority almost exactly representative of the comparative
strength of the two sections. How serious the issue thus
raised was felt to be is shown by the fact that the
Executive preferred dispensing with the money voted to
allowing it to be pushed further. In the Senate both
supply and condition were lost. But the " Wilmot Proviso "
had given the signal for a sectional struggle of which no
man could foresee the end.

Matters were further complicated by a startlingly
unexpected discovery. On the very day on which peace was
proclaimed, one of the American settlers who had already
begun to make their way into California, in digging for
water on his patch of reclaimed land, turned up instead a

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 123

nugget of gold. It was soon known to the ends of the
earth that the Republic had all unknowingly annexed one
of the richest goldfields yet discovered. There followed all
the familiar phenomena which Australia had already
witnessed, which South Africa was later to witness, and
which Klondyke has witnessed in our time. A 'stream of
immigrants, not only from every part of the United States
but from every part of the civilized world, (began to pour into
California drunk with the hope of immediate and enormous
gains. Instead of the anticipated gradual development of
the new territory, which might have permitted considerable
delay and much cautious deliberation in the settlement of
its destiny, one part of that territory at least found itself
within a year the home of a population already numerous
enough to be entitled to admission to the Union as a State,
a population composed in great part of the most restless
and lawless of mankind, and urgently in need of some sort
of properly constituted government.

A Convention met to frame a plan of territorial
administration, aud found itself at once confronted with the
problem of the admission or exclusion of Slavery. Though
many of the delegates were from the Slave States, it was
decided unanimously to exclude it. There was nothing
sentimentally Negrophil about the attitude of the
Californians ; indeed, they proclaimed an exceedingly
sensible policy in the simple formula : "No Niggers, Slave
or Free ! " But as regards Slavery their decision was
emphatic and apparently irreversible.

The Southerners were at once angry and full of anxiety.
It seemed that they had been trapped, that victories won
largely by Southern valour were to be used to disturb
still more the balance already heavily inclining to the
rival section. In South Carolina, full of the tradition of
Nullification, men already talked freely of Secession. The
South, as a whole, was not yet prepared for so violent a
step, but there was a feeling in the air that the type of
civilization established in the Slave States might soon have
to fight for its life.

On the top of all this vague unrest and incipient division
came a Presidential election, the most strangely unreal in
the whole history of the United States. The issue about

124 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

which alone all men, North and South, were thinking was
carefully excluded from the platforms and speeches of either
party. Everyone of either side professed unbounded
devotion to the Union, no one dared to permit himself the
faintest allusion to the hot and human passions which were
patently tearing it in two. The Whigs, divided on the late
war, divided on Slavery, divided on almost every issue by
which the minds of men were troubled, yet resolved to
repeat the tactics which had succeeded in 1840. And the
amazing thing is that they did in fact repeat them and
with complete success. They persuaded Zachary Taylor,
the victor of Monterey, to come forward as their candidate.
Taylor had shown himself an excellent commander, but
what his political opinions might be no-one knew, for it
transpired that he had never in his life even recorded a
vote. The Whigs, however, managed to extract from him
the statement that if he had voted at the election of 1844 —
as, in fact, he had not — it would have been for Clay rather
than for Polk ; and this admission they proceeded, rather
comically, to trumpet to the world as a sufficient guarantee
from " a consistent and truth- speaking man " of the
candidate's lifelong devotion to " Whig " principles.
Nothing further than the above remark and the frank
acknowledgment that he was a slarve-owner could be
extracted from Taylor in the way of programme or
profession of faith. But the Convention adopted him with
acclamation. Naturally such a selection did not please
the little group of Anti-War Whigs — a group which was
practically identical with the extreme Anti- Slavery wing
of the party — and Lowell, in what is perhaps the most
stinging of all his satires, turned Taylor's platform or
absence of platform to ridicule in lines known to thousands
of Englishmen who know nothing of their occasion : —

" Ez fer my princerples, I glory i
In hevin' nothin' of the sort.
I ain't a Whig, I ain't a Tory,
I'm jest a— Candidate in short."

" Monterey," however, proved an even more successful
election cry than " Tippercanoe." The Democrats tried to
play the same game by putting forward General Cass, who
had also fought with some distinction in the Mexican War

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 125

and had the advantage— if it were an advantage — of having
really proved himself a stirring Democratic partisan as
well. But Taylor was the popular favourite, and the Whigs
by the aid of his name carried the election.

He turned out no bad choice. For the brief period
during which he held the Presidential office he showed con
siderable firmness and a sound sense of justice, and seems
to have been sincerely determined to hold himself strictly
impartial as between the two sections into which the Union
was becoming every day more sharply divided. Those
who expected, on the strength of his blunt avowal of slave-
owning, that he would show himself eager to protect and
extend Slavery were quite at fault. He declared with the
common sense of a soldier that California must come into
the Union, as she wished to come in, as a Free State, and
that it would be absurd as well as monstrous to try and
compel her citizens to be slave-owners against their will.
But he does not appear to have had any comprehensive
plan of pacification to offer for the quieting of the distracted
Union, and, before he could fully develop his policy, what
ever it may have been, he died and bequeathed his power
to Millard Filmore, the Vice-President, a typical " good
party man " without originality or initiative.

The sectional debate had by this time become far more
heated and dangerous than had been the debates which the
Missouri Compromise had settled thirty years before. The
author of the Missouri Compromise still lived, and, as
the peril of the Union became desperate, it cam« to be said
more and more, even by political opponents, that he and
he alone could save the Republic. Henry Clay, since his
defeat in 1844, had practically retired from the active
practice of politics. He was an old man. His fine physique
had begun to give way, as is often the case with such men,
under the strain of a long life that had been at once
laborious and self-indulgent. But he heard in his half-
retirement the voice of the nation calling for him, and he
answered. His patriotism had always been great, great
.also his vanity. It must have been strangely inspiring to
him, at the end of a career which, for all its successes, was
on the whole a failure — for the great stake for which he
played was always snatched from him — to live over again

126 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the great triumph of his youth, and once more to bequeath
peace, as by his last testament, to a distracted nation. God
allowed him that not ignoble illusion, and mercifully sent
him to his rest before he could know that he had failed.

The death of Taylor helped Clay's plans; for the
soldier-President had discovered a strong vein of obstinacy.
He had his own views on the question, and was by no
means disposed to allow any Parliamentary leader to over
ride them. Filmore was quite content to be an instrument
in the hands of a stronger man, and, after his succession,
Clay had the advantage of the full support of the Executive
in framing the lines of the last of his great compromises.

In the rough, those lines were as follows : California was
to be admitted at once, and on her own terms, as a Free
State, Arizona and New Mexico were to be open to Slavery
if they should desire its introduction; their Territorial
Governments, when formed, were to decide the question.
This adjustment of territory was to be accompanied by
two balancing measures dealing with two other troublesome
problems which had been found productive of much
friction and bitterness. The district of Columbia — that
neutralized territory in which the city of Washington stood
— having been carved out of two Slave States, was itself
within the area of legalized Slavery. But it was more than
that. It was what we are coming to call, in England, a
" Labour Exchange." In fact, it was the principal slave
mart of the South, and slave auctions were carried on at
the very doors of the Capitol, to the disgust of many who
were not violent in their opposition to Slavery as a domestic
institution. To this scandal Clay proposed to put an end
by abolishing the Slave Trade in the district of Columbia.
Slavery was still to be lawful there, but the public sale and
purchase of slaves was forbidden. In return for this
concession to Anti- Slavery sentiment, a very large counter-
concession was demanded. As has already been said, the
Constitution had provided in general terms for the return
of fugitive slaves who escaped from Slave States into the
Free. But for reasons and in a fashion which it will be
more convenient to examine in the next chapter, this
provision of the Constitution had been virtually nullified by
the domestic legislation of many Northern States. To put

THE SPOILS OF MEXICO 127

an end to this, Clay proposed a Fugitive Slave Law which
imposed on the Federal Government the duty of recovering
escaped slaves, and authorized the agents of that Govern
ment to do so without preference to the Courts or Legislature
of the State in which the slave might be seized.

The character of the settlement showed that its author's
hand had in no way forgotten its cunning in such matters.
As in the Missouri Compromise, every clause shows how
well he had weighed and judged the conditions under
which he was working, how acutely he guessed the points
upon which either side could be persuaded to give way, and
the concessions for which either would think worth paying
a high price. And in fact his settlement was at the time
accepted by the great mass of Union-loving men, North
and South. Some Northern States, and especially Massa
chusetts, showed a disposition to break away under what
seemed to them the unbearable strain of the Fugitive Slave
Law. But in dealing with Massachusetts Clay found a
powerful ally in "Webster. That orator was her own son,
and a son of whom she was immensely proud. He had,
moreover, throughout his public life, avowed himself a
convinced opponent of Slavery. When, therefore, he lent
the weight of his support to Clay's scheme he carried with
him masses of Northern men whom no one else could have
persuaded. He proclaimed his adhesion of the Compromise
in his famous speech of the 10th of May — one of the greatest
that he ever delivered. It was inevitable that his attitude
should be assailed, and the clamour raised against him by
the extreme Anti- Slavery men at the time has found an
echo in many subsequent histories of the period. He is
accused of having sold his principles in order that he might
make an unscrupulous bid for the Presidency. That he
desired to be President is true, but it is not clear that the
10th of May speech improved his chances of it ; indeed, the
reverse seems to have been the case. A candid examination
of the man and his acts will rather lead to the conclusion
that throughout his life he was, in spite of his really noble
gift of rhetoric, a good deal more of the professional
lawyer-politician than his admirers have generally been
disposed to admit, but that his " apostacy " of 1850 was,
perhaps, the one act of that life which was least influenced

128 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

by professional motives and most by a genuine conviction
of the pressing need of saving the Union.

The support of a Southern statesman of like authority
might have done much to give finality to the settlement.
But the one Southerner who carried weight comparable to
that of Webster in the North was found among its
opponents. A few days after Webster had spoken, the
Senate listened to the last words of Calhoun. He was
already a dying man. He could not even deliver his final
protest with his own lips. He sat, as we can picture him,
those great, awful eyes staring haggardly without hope
into nothingness, while a younger colleague read that protest
for him to the Assembly that he had so often moved,
yet never persuaded. Calhoun rejected the settlement;
indeed, he rejected the whole idea of a territorial
settlement on Missouri lines. It is fair to his sagacity to
remember that the mania for trying to force Slavery on
unsuitable and unwilling communities which afterwards
took possession of those who led the South to disaster could
claim no authority from him. His own solution is to be
found in the " Testament " published after his death —
amazing solution, based on the precedent of the two Roman
Consuls, whereby two Presidents were to be elected, one by
the North and one by the South, with a veto on each other's
acts. He probably did not expect that the wild proposal
would be accepted. Indeed, he did not expect that anything
that he loved would survive. With all his many errors
on his head, there was this heroic thing about the man —
that he was one of those who can despair of the Republic
and yet not desert it. With an awful clearness he saw the
future as it was to be, the division becoming ever wider, the
contest more bitter, the sword drawn, and at the last — defeat.
In the sad pride and defiance of his dying speech one catches
continually an echo of the tragic avowal of Hector : " For
in my heart and in my mind I know that Troy shall fall."

He delivered his soul, and went away to die. And the
State to which he had given up everything showed its
thought of him by carving above his bones, as sufficient
epitaph, the single word : " CALHOUN:'

CHAPTER VIII

THE SLAVERY QUESTION

THE Compromise of 1850, though welcomed on all sides as
a final settlement, failed as completely as the Missouri
Compromise had succeeded. It has already been said that
the fault was not in any lack of skill in the actual framing
of the plan. As a piece of political workmanship it was
even superior to Clay's earlier masterpiece, as the rally to
it at the moment of all but the extreme factions, North and
South, sufficiently proves. That it did not stand the wear
of a few years as well as the earlier settlement had stood
the wear of twenty was due to a change in conditions, and
to understand that change it is necessary to take up again
the history of the Slavery Question where the founders of
the Republic left it.

It can hardly be said that these great men were wrong
in tolerating Slavery. Without such toleration at the time
the Union could not have been achieved and the American
Republic could not have come into being. But it can
certainly be said that they were wrong in the calculation
by means of which they largely justified such toleration
not so much to their critics as to their own consciences.
They certainly expected, when they permitted Slavery for a
season, that Slavery would gradually weaken and disappear.
But as a fact it strengthened itself, drove its roots deeper,
gained a measure of moral prestige, and became every year
harder to destroy.

Whence came their miscalculation ? In part no doubt
it was connected with that curious and recurrent illusion
which postulates in human affairs — a thing called " Pro
gress." This illusion, though both logically and practically

129 K

130 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

the enemy of reform — for if things of themselves tend to
grow better, why sweat and agonize to improve them ? — is
none the less characteristic, generally speaking, of reforming
epochs, and it was not without its hold over the minds
of the American Fathers. But there were also certain
definite causes, some of which they could hardly have
foreseen, some of which they might, which account for the
fact that Slavery occupied a distinctly stronger position
halfway through the nineteenth century than it had seemed
to do at the end of the eighteenth.

The main cause was an observable fact of psychology,
of which a thousand examples could be quoted, and which
of itself disposes of the whole " Progressive " thesis — the
ease with which the human conscience gets used to an evil.
Time, so far from being a remedy — as the " Progressives"
do vainly talk — is always, while no remedy is attempted,
a factor in favour of the disease, We have seen this
exemplified in the course of the present war. The mere
delay in the punishment of certain gross outrages against
the moral traditions of Europe has made those outrages
seem just a little less horrible than they seemed at first, so
that men can even bear to contemplate a peace by which
their authors snould escape punishment— a thing which
would have been impossible while the anger of decent men
retained its virginity. So it was with Slavery. Accepted
at first as an unquestionable blot on American Democracy,
but one which could not at the moment be removed, it
came gradually to seem something normal. A single
illustration will show the extent of this decline in moral
sensitiveness. In the first days of the Ptepublic Jefferson,
a Southerner and a slave- owner, could declare, even while
compromising with Slavery, that he trembled for his
country when he remembered that God was just, could
use of the peril of a slave insurrection this fine phrase:
" The Almighty has no attribute that could be our ally
in such a contest." Some sixty years later, Stephen
Douglas, as sincere a democrat as Jefferson, and withal
a Northerner with no personal interest in Slavery,
could ask contemptuously whether if Americans were
fit to rule themselves they were not fit to rule "a few
niggers."

THE SLAVERY QUESTION

131

The next factor to be noticed was that to which Jefferson
referred in the passage quoted above — the constant dread
of a Negro rising. ' Such a rising actually took place in
Virginia in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It
was a small affair, but the ghastly massacre of whites which
accompanied it was suggestive of the horrors that might
be in store for the South in the event of a more general
movement among the slaves. The debates which this crisis
produced in the Virginian legislature are of remarkable
interest. They show how strong the feeling against Slavery
as an institution still was in the greatest of Slave States.
Speaker after speaker described it as a curse, as a perma
nent peril, as a "upas tree " which must be uprooted before
the State could know peace and security. Nevertheless
they did not uproot it. And from the moment of their
refusal to uproot it or even to make a beginning of
uprooting it they found themselves committed to the
opposite policy which could only lead' to its perpetuation.
From the panic of that moment date the generality of the
Slave Codes which so many of the Southern States adopted
— codes deliberately framed to prevent any improvement in
the condition of the slave population and to make impossible
even their peaceful and voluntary emancipation.

There was yet another factor, the economic one, which
to most modern writers, starting from the basis of historical
materialism, has necessarily seemed the chief of all. It
was really, I think, subsidiary, but it was present, and it
certainly helped to intensify the evil. It consisted in the,
increased profitableness of Slavery, due, on the one hand,
to the invention in America of Whitney's machine for
extracting cotton, and, on the other, to the industrial
revolution in England, and the consequent creation in
Lancashire of a huge and expanding market for the products
of American slave labour. This had a double effect. It not
only strengthened Slavery, but also worsened its character.
In place of the generally mild and paternal rule of the old
gentlemen-planters came ia many parts of the South a
brutally commercial regime, which exploited and used up
the Negro for mere profit. It was said that in this further
degradation of Slavery the agents were often men from
the commercial North ; nor can this be pronounced a mere

132 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

sectional slander in view of the testimony of two such
remarkable witnesses as Abraham Lincoln and Mrs.
Beecher Stowe.

All these things tended to establish the institution of
Slavery in the Southern States. Another factor which,
whatever its other effects, certainly consolidated Southern
opinion in its defence, was to be found in the" activities of
the Northern Abolitionists.

In the early days of the Bepublic Abolition Societies
had existed mainly, if not exclusively, in the South. This
was only natural, for, Slavery having disappeared from the
Northern States, there was no obvious motive for agitating
or discussing its merits, while south of the Mason-Dixon line
the question was still a practical one. The Southern Aboli
tionists do not appear to have been particularly unpopular
with their fellow-citizens. They are perhaps regarded as
something of cranks, but as well-meaning cranks whose
object was almost everywhere admitted to be theoretically
desirable. At any rate, there is not the suspicion of any
attempt to suppress them ; indeed, the very year before the
first number of the Liberator was published in Boston, a
great Conference of Anti- Slavery Societies, comprising
delegates from every part of the South, met at Baltimore,
the capital city of the Slave State of Maryland.

Northern Abolitionism was, however, quite a different
thing. It owed its inception to William Lloyd Garrison,
one of those enthusiasts who profoundly affect history solely
by the tenacity with which they hold to and continually
enforce a burning personal conviction. But for that tenacity
and the unquestionable influence which his conviction
exerted upon men, he would be a rather ridiculous figure,
for he was almost every sort of crank — certainly a non-
resister, and, I think, a vegetarian and teetotaller as well.
But his burning conviction was the immorality of Slavery ;
and by this he meant something quite other than was
meant by Jefferson or later by Lincoln. When these great
men spoke of Slavery as a wrong, they regarded it as a
social and political wrong, an evil and unjust system which
the community as a community ought as soon as possible
to abolish and replace by a better. But by Garrison slave-
holding was accounted a personal sin like murder or adultery.

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 133

The owner of slaves, unless he at once emancipated them
at whatever cost to his own fortunes, was by that fact a
wicked man, and if he professed a desire for ultimate
extinction of the institution, that only made him a hypocrite
as well. This, of course, was absurd ; fully as absurd
as the suggestion sometimes made in regard to wealthy
Socialists, that if they were consistent they would give up
all their property to the community. A man living under
an economic system reposing on Slavery can no more help
availing himself of its fruits than in a capitalist society
he can help availing himself of capitalist organization.
Obviously, unless he is a multi-millionaire, he cannot buy
up all the slaves in the State and set them free, while, if he
buys some and treats them with justice and humanity, he
is clearly making things better for them than if he left
them in the hands of masters possibly less scrupulous.
But, absurd as the thesis was, Garrison pushed it to its
wildest logical conclusions. No Christian Church ought,
he maintained, to admit a slave-owner to communion. No
honest man ought to count a slave-owner among his
friends. No political connection with slave-owners was
tolerable. The Union, since it involved such a connection,
was " a Covenant with Death and an Agreement with Hell."
Garrison publicly burnt the Constitution of the United
States in the streets of Boston.

Abolitionist propaganda of this kind was naturally
possible only in the North. Apart from all questions of
self-interest, no Southerner, no reasonable person who
knew anything about the South, though the knowledge
might be as superficial and the indignation against Slavery
as intense as was Mrs. Beecher Stowe's, could possibly
believe the proposition that all Southern slave-owners were
cruel and unjust men. But that was not all. Garrison's
movement killed Southern Abolitionism. It may, perhaps,
be owned that the Southern movement was not bearing
much visible fruit. There was just a grain of truth, it
may be, in Garrison's bitter and exaggerated taunt that the
Southerners were ready enough to be Abolitionists if they
were allowed "to assign the guilt of Slavery to a past
generation, and the duty of emancipation to a future
generation." Nevertheless, that movement was on the right

134 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

lines. It was on Southern ground that the battle for the
peaceful extinction of Slavery ought to have been fought.
The intervention of the North would probably in any case
have been resented ; accompanied by a solemn accusation
of specific personal immorality it was maddeningly provo
cative, for it could not but recall to the South the history
of the issue as it stood between the sections. For the
North had been the original slave-traders. The African
Slave Trade had been their particular industry. Boston
itself, when the new ethical denunciation came, had risen
to prosperity on the profits of that abominable traffic.
Further, even in the act of clearing its own borders of
Slavery, the North had dumped its negroes on the South.
" What," asked the Southerners, " could exceed the effrontery
of men who reproach us with grave personal sin in owning
property which they themselves have sold us and the price
of which is at this moment in their pockets ? "

On a South thus angered and smarting under what is
felt to be undeserved reproach, yet withal somewhat uneasy
in its conscience, for its public opinion in the main still
thought Slavery wrong, fell the powerful voice of a great
Southerner proclaiming it "a positive good." Calhoun's
defence of the institution on its merits probably did much
to encourage the South to adopt a more defiant tone in
place of the old apologies for delay in dealing with a difficult
problem — apologies which sounded over-tame and almost
humiliating in face of the bold invectives now hurled at the
slave-owners by Northern writers and speakers. I cannot,
indeed, find that Calhoun's specific arguments, forcible as
they were — and they are certainly the most cogent that can
be used in defence of such a thesis — were particularly
popular, or, in fact, were ever used by any but himself.
Perhaps there was a well-founded feeling that they proved
too much. For Calhoun's case was as strong for white
servitude as for black : it was a defence, not especially of
Negro Slavery, but of what Mr. Belloc has called "the
Servile State." More general, in the later Southern
defences, was the appeal to religious sanctions, which in
a nation Protestant and mainly Puritan in its traditions
naturally became an appeal to Bible texts. St. Paul was
claimed as a supporter of the fugitive slave law on the

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 135

strength of his dealings of Onesimus. But the favourite
text was that which condemns Ham (assumed to be the
ancestor of the Negro race) to be "a servant of servants."
The Abolitionist text-slingers were not a whit more intelli
gent ; indeed, I think it must be admitted that on the whole
the pro- Slavery men had the best of this absurd form of
controversy. Apart from isolated texts they had on their
side the really unquestionable fact that both Old and New
Testaments describe a civilization based on Slavery, and
that in neither is there anything like a clear pronounce
ment that such a basis is immoral or displeasing to God.
It is true that in the Gospels are to be found general
principles or, at any rate, indications of general principles,
which afterwards, in the hands of the Church, proved
largely subversive of the servile organization of society;
but that is a matter of historical, not of Biblical testimony,
and would, if followed out, have led both Northern and
Southern controversialists further than either of them
wanted to go.

It would, however, be hasty, I think, to affirm that even
to the very end of these processes a majority of Southerners
thought with Calhoun that Slavery was " a positive good."
The furthest, perhaps, that most of them went was the
proposition that it represented the only relationship in
which white and black races could safely live together in
the same community — a proposition which was counte
nanced by Jefferson and, to a considerable extent at least,
by Lincoln. To the last the full Jeffersonian view of the
inherent moral and social evil of Slavery was held by many
Southerners who were none the less wholeheartedly on the
side of their own section in the sectional dispute. The
chief soldier of the South in the war in which that dispute
culminated both held that view and acted consistently
upon it.

On the North the effect of the new propaganda was
different, but there also it tended to increase the antagonism
of the sections. The actual Abolitionists of the school of
Garrison were neither numerous nor popular. Even in
Boston, where they were strongest, they were often mobbed
and their meetings broken up. In Illinois, a Northern
State, one of them, Lovejoy, was murdered by the crowd.

136 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Such exhibitions of popular anger were not, of course, due
to any love of Slavery. The Abolitionists were disliked in
the North, not as enemies of Slavery but as enemies of the
Union and the Constitution, which they avowedly were.
But while the extreme doctrine of Garrison and his friends
met with little acceptance, the renewed agitation of the
question did bring into prominence the unquestionable fact
that the great mass of sober Northern opinion thought
Slavery a wrong, and in any controversy between master and
slave was inclined to sympathize with the slave. This feeling
was probably somewliat strengthened by the publication
in 1852 and the subsequent huge international sale of
Mrs. Stowe's ''Uncle Tom's Cabin." The practical effect
of this book on history is generally exaggerated, partially
in consequence of the false view which would make of the
Civil War a crusade against Slavery. But a certain effect
it undoubtedly had. To such natural sympathy in the
main, and not, as the South believed, to sectional jealousy
and deliberate bad faith, must be attributed those " Personal
Liberty Laws " by which in many Northern States the
provision of the Constitution guaranteeing the return
of fugitive slaves was virtually nullified. For some of the
provisions of those laws an arguable constitutional case
might be made, particularly for the provision which assured
a jury trial to the escaped slave. The Negro, it was urged,
was either a citizen or a piece of property. If he were a
citizen, the Constitution expressly safeguarded him against
imprisonment without such a trial. If, on the other hand,
he were property, then he was property of the value of
more than $50, and in cases where property of that value
was concerned, a jury was also legally required. If two
masters laid claim to the same Negro the dispute between
them would have to be settled by a jury. Why should it
not be so where a master claimed to own a Negro and the
Negro claimed to own himself? Nevertheless, the effect,
and to a great extent the intention, of these laws was to
defeat the claim of bond fide owners to fugitive slaves, and
as such they violated at least the spirit of the constitutional
compact. They therefore afforded a justification for Clay's
proposal to transfer the power of recovering fugitive slaves
to the Federal authorities. But they also afforded an even

THE SLAVERY 'QUESTION 137

stronger justification for Lincoln's doubt as to whether the
American Commonwealth could exist permanently half
slave and half free.

Finally, among the causes which made a sectional
struggle the more inevitable must be counted one to which
allusion has already been made in connection with the
Presidential Election of 1848 — the increasingly patent
unreality of the existing party system. I have already said
that a party system can endure only if it becomes unreal,
and it may be well here to make clear how this is so.

Fundamental debates in a Commonwealth must be
settled, or the Commonwealth dies. How, for instance,
could England have endured if, throughout the eighteenth
century, the Stuarts had alternately been restored and
deposed every seven years ? Or, again, suppose a dispute
so fundamental as that between Collectivism and the philo
sophy of private property. How could a nation continue
to exist if a Collectivist Government spent five years in
attempting the concentration of all the means of production
in the hands of the State and an Anti-Collectivist Govern
ment spent the next five years in dispersing them again,
and so on for a generation ? American history, being the
history of a democracy, illustrates this truth with peculiar
force. The controversy between Jefferson and Hamilton was
about realities. The Jeffersonians won, and the Federalist
Party disappeared. The controversy between Jackson
and the Whigs was originally also real. Jackson won, and
the Whigs would have shared the fate of the Federalists
if they stood by their original principles and refused to
accept the consequences of the Jacksonian Revolution.
As a fact, however, they did accept these consequences
and so the party system endured, but at the expense
of its reality. There was no longer any fundamental
difference of principle dividing Whigs from Democrats :
they were divided arbitrarily on passing questions of
policy, picked up at random and changing from year to
year. Meanwhile a new reality was dividing the nation
from top to bottom, but was dividing it in a dangerously
sectional fashion, and for that reason patriotism as well as
the requirements of professional politics induced men to
veil it as much as might be. Yet its presence made the

138 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

professional play-acting more and more unmeaning and
intolerable.

It was this state of things which made possible the
curious interlude of the " Know-Nothing " movement, which
cannot be ignored, though it is a kind of digression from
the main line of historical development. The United States
had originally been formed by the union of certain seceding
British colonies, but already, as a sort of neutral ground in
the New World, their territory had become increasingly the
meeting-place of streams of emigration from various Euro
pean countries. As was natural, a1 certain amount of mutual
jealousy and antagonism was making itself apparent as
between the old colonial population and the newer elements.
The years following 1847 showed an intensification of the
problem due to a particular cause. That year saw the
Black Famine in Ireland and its aggravation by the insane
pedantry and folly of the British Government. Innumerable
Irish families, driven from the land of their birth, found a
refuge within the borders of the Republic. They brought
with them their native genius for politics, which for the
first time found free outlet in a democracy. They were
accustomed to act together and they were soon a formidable
force. This force was regarded by many as a menace, and
the sense o^menace was greatly increased by the fact that
these immigrants professed a religious faith which the
Puritan tradition of the States in which they generally
settled held in peculiar abhorrence.

The " Know-Nothings " were a secret society and owed
that name to the fact that members, when questioned,
professed to know nothing of the ultimate objects of the
organization to which they belonged. They proclaimed a
general hostility to indiscriminate immigration, for which a
fair enough case might be made, but they concentrated
their hostility specially on the Irish Catholic element. I
have never happened upon any explanation of the secrecy
with which they deliberately surrounded their aims. It
seems to me, however, that a possible explanation lies on
the surface. If all they had wanted had been to restrict or
regulate immigration, it was an object which could be
avowed as openly as the advocacy of a tariff or of the
restriction of Slavery in a territory. But if, as their

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 139

practical operations and the general impression concerning
their intentions seem to indicate, the real object of those
who directed the movement was the exclusion from public
trust of persons professing the Catholic religion, then, of
course, it was an object which could not be avowed without
bringing them into open conflict with the Constitution,
which expressly forbade such differentiation on religious
grounds.

Between the jealousy of new immigrants felt by the
descendants of the original colonists and the religious
antagonism of Puritan New England to the Catholic
population growing up within its borders, intensified by
the absence of any genuine issue of debate between the
official candidates, the Know-Nothings secured at the
Congressional Election of 1854 a quite startling measure of
success. But such success had no promise of permanence.
The movement lived long enough to deal a deathblow to
the Whig Party, already practically annihilated by the
Presidential Election of 1852, wherein the Democrats,
benefiting by the division and confusion of their enemies,
easily returned their candidate, Franklin Pierce.

It is now necessary to return to the Compromise of
1850, hailed at the time as a final settlement of the sectional
quarrel and accepted as such in the platforms of both the
regular political parties. That Compromise was made by
one generation. It was to be administered by another.
Henry Clay, as has already been noted, lived long enough
to enjoy his triumph, not long enough to outlive it. Before
a year was out the grave had closed over Webster. Calhoun
.had already passed away, bequeathing to posterity his last
hopeless protest against the triumph of all that he most
feared. Congress was full of new faces. In the Senate
among the rising men was Seward of New York, a Northern
Whig, whose speech in opposition to the Fugitive Slave
clause in Clay's Compromise had given him the leadership
of the growing Anti-Slavery opinion of the North. He was
soon to be joined by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts,
null in judgment, a pedant without clearness of thought or
vision, but gifted with a copious command of all the
rhetoric of sectional hate. The place of Calhoun in the
leadership of the South had been more and more assumed

140 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

by a soldier who had been forced to change his profession
by reason of a crippling wound received at Monterey.
Thenceforward he had achieved an increasing repute in
politics, an excellent orator, with the sensitive face rather
of a poet than of a man of affairs, vivid, sincere and careful
of honour, though often uncertain in temper and judgment :
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. But for the moment none
of these so dominated politics as did the Westerner whom
Illinois had recently sent to the Senate — Stephen Douglas,
surnamed " the Little Giant."

The physical impression which men seem to have
received most forcibly concerning Douglas, and which was
perhaps responsible for his nickname, was the contrast
between his diminutive stature and the enormous power of
his voice — trained no doubt in addressing the monster
meetings of the West, where tens of thousands crowded
everywhere to hear him speak. Along with this went the
sense of an overwhelming vitality about the man; he
seemed tingling with excess of life. His strong, square,
handsome face bore a striking resemblance to that of
Napoleon Bounaparte, and there was really something
Napoleonic in his boldness, his instinctive sense of leader
ship, and his power of dominating weaker men. Withal he
was a Westerner — perhaps the most typical and complete
Westerner in American history, for half of Clay was of
Washington, and Jackson and Lincoln were too great to be
purely sectional. He had a Westerner's democratic feeling
and a Westerner's enthusiasm for the national idea. But,
especially, he had a peculiarly Western vision which is
the key to a strangely misunderstood but at bottom very
consistent political career.

This man, more than any other, fills American history
during the decade that intervened between the death of
Clay and the election of Lincoln. That decade is also full
of the ever-increasing prominence of the Slavery Question.
It is natural, therefore, to read Douglas's career in terms
of that question, and historians, doing so, have been
bewildered by its apparent inconsistency. Unable to trace
any connecting principle in his changes of front, they have
put them down to interested motives, and then equally
unable to show that he himself had anything to gain from

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 141

them, have been forced to attribute them to mere caprice.
The fact is that Douglas cannot be understood along those
lines at all. To understand him one must remember that
he was indifferent on the Slavery Question, " did not care,"
as he said, " whether Slavery was voted up or voted down,"
but cared immensely for something else. That something
else was the Westward expansion of the American nation
till it should bridge the gulf between the two oceans. The
thought of all those millions of acres of virgin land, the
property of the American Commonwealth, crying out for
the sower and the reaper, rode his imagination as the
wrongs of the Negro slave rode the imagination of Garrison.
There is a reality about the comparison which few will
recognize, for this demagogue, whom men devoted to the
Slavery issue thought cynical, had about him also some
thing of the fanatic. He could forget all else in his one
enthusiasm. It is the key to his career from the day when
he entered Congress clamouring for Oregon or war with
England to the day when he died appealing for soldiers to
save the Union in the name of its common inheritance.
And it is surely not surprising that, for the fulfilment of
his vision, he was willing to conciliate the slave-owners,
when one remembers that in earlier days he had been willing
to conciliate the Mormons.

Douglas stands out in history, as we now see it, as the
man who by the Kansas and Nebraska Bill upset the totter
ing Compromise of 1850. Why did he so upset it ? Not
certainly because he wished to reopen the Slavery Question ;
nothing is less likely, for it was a question in which he
avowedly felt no interest and the raising of which was
bound to unsettle his plans. Not from personal ambition ;
for those who accuse him of having acted as he did for
private advantage have to admit that in fact he lost by it.
Why then did he so act ? I think we shall get to the root of
the matter if we assume that his motive in introducing his
celebrated Bill was just the avowed motive of that JBill and
no other. It was to set up territorial governments in
Kansas and Nebraska. Douglas's mind was full of schemes
for facilitating the march of American civilization west
ward, for piercing the prairies with roads and railways, for
opening up communications with Oregon and the Pacific

142 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Slope. Kansas and Nebraska were then the outposts of
such expansion. Naturally he was eager to develop them,
to encourage squatters to settle within their borders, and
for that purpose to give them an assured position and a
form of stable government. If he could have effected this
without touching the Slavery Question I think that he
would gladly have done so. And, as a matter of fact, the
Nebraska Bill as originally drafted by him was innocent
of the clause which afterwards caused so much controversy.
That clause was forced on him by circumstances.

The greater part of the territory which Douglas pro
posed to develop lay within the limits of the Louisiana
Purchase and north of latitude 36° 30'. It was therefore
free soil by virtue of the Missouri Compromise. But the
Southerners now disputed the validity of that Congressional
enactment, and affirmed their right under the Constitution
as they interpreted it to take and hold their " property " in
any territories belonging to the United States. Douglas
had some reason to fear Southern opposition to his plans
on other grounds, for the South would naturally have
preferred that the main road to the Pacific Slope should
run from Tennessee through Arizona and New Mexico to
California. If Kansas and Nebraska were declared closed
against slave property their opposition would be given a
rallying cry and would certainly harden. Douglas there
fore proposed a solution which would at any rate get rid
of the Slavery debate so far as Congress was concerned,
and which had also a democratic ring about it acceptable
to his Western instincts and, as he hoped, to his Western
following. The new doctrine, called by him that of
" Popular Sovereignty " and by his critics that of " Squatter
Sovereignty," amounted to this : that the existing settlers
in the territories concerned should, in the act of forming
their territorial governments, decide whether they would-
admit or exclude Slavery.

It was a plausible doctrine ; but one can only vindicate
Douglas's motives, as I have endeavoured to do, at the
expense of his judgment, for his policy had all the con
sequences which he most desired to avoid. It produced
two effects which between them brought the sectional
quarrel to the point of heat at which Civil War became

THE SLAVEKY QUESTION 143

possible and perhaps inevitable. It threw the new
territories down as stakes to be scrambled for by the rival
sections, and it created by reaction a new party, necessarily
sectional, having for its object the maintenance and
reinforcement of the Missouri Compromise. It will be
well to take the two points separately.

Up to the passing of Kansas and Nebraska Law,
these territories had been populated exactly as such
frontier communities had theretofore been populated, by
immigrants from all the States and from Europe who
mingled freely, felt no ill-will to each other, and were early
consolidated by the fact of proximity into a homogeneous
community. But from the moment of its passage the whole
situation was altered. It became a political object to both
sections to get a majority in Kansas. Societies were formed
in Boston and other Northern cities to finance emigrants
who proposed to settle there. The South was equally
active, and, to set off against the disadvantage of a less
fluid population, had the advantage of the immediate
proximity of the Slave State of Missouri. Such a contest,
even if peaceably conducted, was not calculated to promote
either the reconciliation of the sections or the solidarity
and stability of the new community. But in a frontier
community without a settled government, and with a
population necessarily armed for self-defence, it was not
likely to be peaceably conducted. Nor was it. For years
Kansas was the scene of what can only be described as
spasmodic civil war. The Free Soil settlement of Lawrence
was, after some bloodshed, seized and burnt by " border
ruffians," as they were called, from Missouri. The North
cried out loudly against " Southern outrages," but it is fair
to say that the outrages were not all on one side. In fact,
the most amazing crime in the record of Kansas was
committed by a Northerner, the notorious John Brown.
This man presents rather a pathological than a historical
problem. He had considerable military talents, and a
curious power of persuading men. But he was certainly
mad. A New England Puritan by extraction, he was
inflamed on the subject of Slavery by a fanaticism some
what similar to that of Garrison. But while Garrison
blended his Abolitionism with the Quaker dogma of

144 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Non-Resistance, Brown blended his with the ethics of
a seventeenth-century Covenanter who thought himself
divinely commanded to -hew the Amalakites in pieces before
the Lord. In obedience to his peculiar code of morals he not
only murdered Southern immigrants without provocation,
but savagely mutilated their bodies. If his act did not
prove him insane his apology would. In defence of his
conduct he explained that "disguised as a surveyor" he
had interviewed his victims and discovered that every one
of them had " committed murder in his heart."

The other effect of the Kansas-Nebraska policy was the
rise of a new party formed for the single purpose of
opposing it. Anti-Slavery parties had already come into
being from time to time in the North, and had at different
times exerted a certain influence on elections, but they
made little headway because they were composed mainly
of extremists, and their aim appeared to moderate men
inconsistent with the Constitution. The attack on the
time-honoured Missouri Compromise rallied such men to
the opposition, for it appeared to them clearly that theirs
was now the legal, constitutional, and even conservative
side, and that the Slave Power was now making itself
responsible for a revolutionary change to its own advantage.
Nor was the change on the whole unjust. The
programme to which the South committed itself after the
direction of its policy fell from the hands of Calhoun was
one which the North could not fail to resent. It involved
the tearing up of all the compromises so elaborately devised
and so nicely balanced, and it aimed at making Slavery
legal certainly in all the new territories and possibly even
in the Free States. It was, indeed, argued that this did
not involve any aggravating of the evil of Slavery, if it
were an evil. The argument will be found very ingeniously
stated in the book which Jefferson Davis subsequently
wrote — professedly a history of the Southern Confederacy,
really rather an Apologia pro Vita Sua. Davis argues that
since the African Slave Trade was prohibited, there could
be no increase in the number of slaves save by the ordinary
process of propagation. The opening of Kansas to Slavery
would not therefore mean that there would be more slaves.
It would merely mean that men already and in any case

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 145

slaves ^yould be living in Kansas instead of in Tennessee ;
and, it is further suggested, that the taking of a'Negro slave
from Tennessee, where Slavery was rooted and normal, to
Kansas, where it was new and exceptional, would be a
positive advantage to him as giving him a much better
chance of emancipation. The argument reads plausibly
enough, but it is, like so much of Davis's book, out of touch
with realities. Plainly it would make all the difference in
the world whether the practice of, say, the Catholic religion
were permitted only in Lancashire or were lawful throughout
England, and that even though there were no conversions,
and the same Catholics who had previously lived in Lanca
shire lived wherever they chose. The former provision
would imply that the British Government disapproved of
the Catholic religion, and would tolerate it only where it
was obliged to do so. The latter would indicate an attitude
of indifference towards it. Those who disapproved of
Slavery naturally wished it to remain a sectional thing
and objected to its being made national. But the primary
feeling was that it was the South that had broken the
truce. The Northerners had much justification in saying
that their opponents, if not the aggressors in the Civil
War, were at least the aggressors in the controversy of
which the Civil War was the ultimate outcome.

Under the impulse of such feelings a party was formed
which, adopting — without, it must be owned, any particular
appropriateness — the old Jeffgrsonian name of " Republican,"
took the field at the Presidential Election of 1856. Its real
leader was Seward of New York, but it was thought that
electioneering exigencies would be better served by the
selection of Captain Fremont of California, who, as a
wandering discoverer and soldier of fortune, could be made
a picturesque figure in the public eye. Later, when
Fremont was entrusted with high military command he
was discovered to be neither capable nor honest, but in
1856 he made as effective a figure as any candidate could
have done, and the results were on the whole encouraging
to the new party. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate,
was elected, but the Republicans showed greater strength
in the Northern States than had been anticipated. The
Whig Party was at this election finally annihilated.

L

146 A HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES

The Republicans might have done even better had the
decision of the Supreme Court on an issue which made
clear the full scope of the new Southern claim been known
just before instead of just after the election. This decision
was the judgment of Roger Taney, whom, we have seen at
an earlier date as Jackson's Attorney- General and Secretary
to the Treasury, in the famous Dred Scott case. Dred
Scott was a Negro slave owned by a doctor of Missouri.
His master had taken him for a time into the free territory
of Minnesota, afterwards bringing him back to his original
State. Dred Scott was presumably not in a position to
resent either operation, nor is it likely that he desired to do
so. Later, however, he was induced to bring an action in
the Federal Courts against his master on the ground that
by being taken into free territory he had ipso facto ceased
to be a slave. Whether he was put up to this by the Anti-
Slavery party, or whether — for his voluntary manumission
after the case was settled seems to suggest that possibility
— the whole case was planned by the Southerners to get a
decision of the territorial question in their favour, might
be an interesting subject for inquiry. I can express no
opinion upon it. The main fact is that Taney, supported
by a bare majority of the judges, not only decided for the
master, but laid down two important principles. One was
that no Negro could be an American citizen or sue in
the American courts ; the other and more important that
the Constitution guaranteed the right of the slave-holder
to his slaves in all United States territories, and that
Congress had no power to annul this right. The Missouri
Compromise was therefore declared invalid.

Much of the Northern outcry against Taney seems to
me unjust. He was professedly a judge pronouncing on
the law, and in giving his ruling he used language which
ems to imply that his ethical judgment, if he had been
called upon to give it, would have been quite different.
But, though he was a great lawyer as well as a sincere
patriot, and though his opinion is therefore entitled to
respect, especially from a foreigner ignorant of American
law, it is impossible to feel that his decision was not
open to criticism on purely legal grounds. It rested upon
the assertion that property in slaves was " explicitly

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 147

recognized " by the Constitution. If this were so it would
seem to follow that since under the Constitution a man's
property could not be taken from him " without due process
of law " he could not without such process lose his slaves.
But was it so ? It is difficult, for a layman at any rate, to
find in the Constitution any such " explicit recognition."
The slave is there called a " person " and defined as a
"person bound to service or labour" while his master is
spoken of as one " to whom such service or labour may be
due." This language seems to suggest the relation of
creditor and debtor rather than that of owner and owned.
At any rate, the Republicans refused to accept the judgment
except so far as it determined the individual case of Dred
Scott, taking up in regard to Taney's decision the position
which, in accordance with Taney's own counsel, Jackson
had taken up in regard to the decision which affirmed the
constitutionality of a bank.

Douglas impetuously accepted the decision and, for
getting the precedent of his own hero Jackson, denounced
all who challenged it as wicked impugners of lawful
authority. Yet, in fact, the decision was as fatal to his
own policy as to that of the Republicans. It really made
"Popular Sovereignty" a farce, for what was the good of
leaving the question of Slavery to be settled by the
territories when the Supreme Court declared that they
could only lawfully settle it one way ? This obvious point
was not lost upon the acute intelligence of one man, a
citizen of Douglas's own State and one of the " moderates "
who had joined the Republican Party on the Nebraska
issue.

Abraham Lincoln was by birth a Southerner and a
native of Kentucky, a fact which he never forgot and of
which he was exceedingly proud. - After the wandering
boyhood of a pioneer and a period of manual labour as a
"rail-splitter" he had settled in Illinois, where he had
picked up his own education and become a successful
lawyer. He had sat in the House of Representatives
as a Whig from 1846 to 1848, the period of the Mexican
War, during which he had acted with the main body of his
party, neither defending the whole of the policy which led
to the war nor opposing it to the extent of refusing

118 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

supplies for its prosecution. He had voted, as he said, for
the Wilmot Proviso " as good as fifty times," and had made
a moderate proposition in relation to Slavery in the district
of Columbia, for which Garrison's Liberator had pilloried
him as " the Slave-Hound of Illinois." He had not offered
himself for re-election in 1848. Though an opponent of
Slavery on principle, he had accepted the Compromise of
1850, including its Fugitive Slave Clauses, as a satisfactory
all-round settlement, and was, by his own account, losing-
interest in politics when the action of Douglas and its
consequences called into activity a genius which few, if
any, had suspected.

A man like Lincoln cannot be adequately described in
the short space available in such a book as this. His
externals are well appreciated, his tall figure, his powerful
ugliness, his awkward strength, his racy humour, his fits
of temperamental melancholy ; well appreciated also his
firmness, wisdom and patriotism. But if we wish to grasp
the peculiar quality which makes him almost unique among
great men of action, we shall perhaps find the key in the
fact that his favourite private recreation was working out
for himself the propositions of Euclid. He had a mind
not only peculiarly just but singularly logical, one might
really say singularly mathematical. His reasoning is
always so good as to make his speeches in contrast to the
finest rhetorical oratory a constant delight to those who
have something of the same type of mind. In this he had
a certain affinity with Jefferson. But while in Jefferson's
case the tendency has been to class him, in spite of his
great practical achievements, as a mere theorizer, in
Lincoln it has been rather to acclaim him as a strong,
rough, practical man, and to ignore the lucidity of thought
which was the most marked quality of his mind.

He was eminently practical; and he was not less but
more practical for realizing the supreme practical import
ance of first principles. According to his first principles
Slavery was wrong. It was wrong because it was inconsis-
tent with the doctrines enunciated in the Declaration of
Independence in which he firmly believed. Really good
thinking like Lincoln's is necessarily outside time, and
therefore he was not at all affected by the mere use and

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 149

wont which had tended to reconcile so many to Slavery.
Yet he was far from being a fanatical Abolitionist. Because
Slavery was wrong it did not follow that it should be
immediately uprooted. But it did follow that whatever
treatment it received should be based on the assumption
of its wrongness. An excellent illustration of his attitude
of mind will be found in the exact point at which he drew
the line. For the merely sentimental opponent of Slavery,
the Fugitive Slave Law made a much more moving appeal
to the imagination than the extension of Slavery in the
territories. Yet Lincoln accepted the Fugitive Slave Law.
He supported it because, as he put it, it was " so nominated
in the bond." It was part of the terms which the Fathers
of the Republic, disapproving of Slavery, had yet made
with Slavery. He also, disapproving of Slavery, could
honour those terms. But it was otherwise in regard to
the territorial controversy. Douglas openly treated Slavery
not as an evil difficult to cure, but as a thing merely
indifferent. Southern statesmen were beginning to echo
Calhoun's definition of it as " a positive good." On the
top of this came Taney's decision making the right to own
slaves a fundamental part of the birthright of an American
citizen. This was much more important than the most
drastic Fugitive Slave Law, for it indicated a change in
first principles.

This is the true meaning of his famous use of the text
" a house divided against itself cannot stand," and his
deduction that the Union could not "permanently exist
half slave and half free." That it had so existed for eighty
3^ears he admitted, but it had so existed, he considered,
because the Government had acted on the first principle
that Slavery was an evil to be tolerated but curbed, and the
public mind had " rested in the belief that it was in process
of ultimate extinction." It was now, as it seemed, proposed
to abandon that principle and assume it to be good or at
least indifferent. If that principle were accepted there was ^
nothing to prevent the institution being introduced not
only into the free territories but into the Free States. And
indeed the reasoning of Taney's judgment, though not
the judgment itself, really seemed to point to such a
conclusion.

150 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Lincoln soon became the leader of the Illinois
Republicans, and made ready to match himself against
Douglas when the " Little Giant" should next seek
re-election. Meanwhile a new development of the Kansas
affair had split the Democratic Party and ranged Senator
Douglas and President Buchanan on opposite sides in an
open quarrel. The majority of the population now settled
in Kansas was of Northern origin, for the conditions of life
in the North were much more favourable to emigration
into new lands than those of the slave-owning States. Had
a free ballot been taken of the genuine settlers there would
certainly have been a large majority against Slavery. But
in the scarcely disguised civil war into which the competi
tion for Kansas had developed, the Slave- State party had
the support of bands of " border ruffians " from the neigh
bouring State, who could appear as citizens of Kansas one
day and return to their homes in Missouri the next. With
such aid that party succeeded in silencing the voices of the
Free State men while they held a bogus Convention at
Lecompton, consisting largely of men who were not really
inhabitants of Kansas at all, adopted a Slave Constitution,
and under it applied for admission to the Union. Buchanan,
who, though a Northerner, was strongly biassed in favour
of the Slavery party, readily accepted this as a bond fide
application, and recommended Congress to accede to it.
Douglas was much better informed as to how things were
actually going in Kansas, and he felt that if the Lecompton
Constitution were acknowledged his favourite doctrine of
Popular Sovereignty would be justly covered with odium
and contempt. He therefore set himself against the
President, and his personal followers combined with the
Republicans to defeat the Lecompton proposition.

The struggle in Illinois thus became for Douglas a
struggle for political life or death. At war with the
President and with a large section of his party, if he could
not keep a grip on his own State his political career was
over. Nor did he underrate his . Republican opponent ;
indeed, he seems to have had a keener perception of the
great qualities which were hidden under Lincoln's rough
and awkward exterior than anyone else at that time
exhibited. When he heard of his candidature he looked

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 151

grave. " He is the strongest man of his party," he said,
" and thoroughly honest. It will take us all our time to
beat him."

It did. Douglas was victorious, but only narrowly and
after a hard-fought contest. The most striking feature of
that contest was the series of Lincoln-Douglas debates in
which, by an interesting innovation in electioneering, the
two candidates for the Senatorship contended face to face
in the principal political centres of the State. In reading
these debates one is impressed not only with the ability of
both combatants, but with their remarkable candour, good
temper and even magnanimity. It is very seldom, if ever,
that either displays malice or fails in dignity and courtesy
to his opponent. When one remembers the white heat
of political and sectional rivalry at that time — when one
recalls some of Sumner's speeches in the Senate, not to
mention the public beating which they brought on him — it
must be confessed that the fairness with which the two
great Illinois champions fought each other was highly to
the honour of both.

Where the controversy turned on practical or legal
matters the combatants were not ill-matched, and both
scored many telling points. When the general philosophy
of government came into the question Lincoln's great
superiority in seriousness and clarity of thought was at
once apparent. A good example of this will be found in
their dispute as to the true meaning of the Declaration
of Independence. Douglas denied that the expression
" all men " could be meant to include Negroes. It only
referred to " British subjects in this continent being equal
to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain."
Lincoln instantly knocked out his adversary by reading
the amended version of the Declaration: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all British subjects who were
on this Continent eighty-one years ago were created equal
to all British subjects born and then residing in Great
Britain." This was more than a clever debating point.
It was a really crushing exposure of intellectual error.
The mere use of the words "truths" and "self-evident"
and their patently ridiculous effect in the Douglas
version proves conclusively which interpreter was nearest

152 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to the mind of Thomas Jefferson. And the sense of his
superiority is increased when, seizing his opportunity, he
proceeds to offer a commentary on the Declaration in its
bearing on the Negro Question so incomparably lucid and
rational that Jefferson himself might have penned it.

In the following year an incident occurred which is of
some historical importance, not because, as is sometimes
vaguely suggested, it did anything whatever towards the
emancipation of the slaves, but because it certainly increased,
not unnaturally, the anger and alarm of the South. Old
John Brown had suspended for a time his programme
of murder and mutilation in Kansas and returned to New
England, where he approached a number of wealthy men
of known Abolitionist sympathies whom he persuaded to
provide ' jm with money for the purpose of raising a slave
insurrection. That he should have been able to induce
men of sanity and repute to support him in so frantic
and criminal an enterprise says much for the personal
magnetism which by all accounts was characteristic of
this extraordinary man. Having obtained his supplies, he
collected a band of nineteen men, including his own sons,
with which he proposed to make an attack on the Govern
ment arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia, which, when
captured, he intended to convert into a place of refuge and
armament for fugitive slaves and a nucleus for the general
Negro rising which he expected his presence to produce.
The plan was as mad as its author, yet it is characteristic
of a peculiar quality of his madness that lie conducted the
actual operations not only with amazing audacity but with
remarkable skill, and the first part of his programme was
successfully carried out. The arsenal .was surprised, and
its sleeping and insufficient garrison overpowered. Here,
however, his success ended. No fugitives joined him, and
there was not the faintest sign of a slave rising. In fact,
as Lincoln afterwards said, the Negroes, ignorant as they
were, seem to have had the sense to see that the thing
would come to nothing. As soon as Virginia woke up to
what had happened troops were sent to recapture the
arsenal. Brown and his men fought bravely, but the issue
could not be in doubt. Several of Brown's followers and
all his sons were killed. He himself was wounded,

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 153

captured, brought to trial and very properly hanged — unless
we take the view that he should rather have been confined
in an asylum. He died with the heroism of a fanatic.
Emerson and Longfellow talked some amazing nonsense
about him which is frequently quoted. Lincoln talked
some excellent sense which is hardly ever quoted. And
the Republican party was careful to insert in its platform
a vigorous denunciation of his Harper's Ferry exploit.

Both sides now began to prepare for the Presidential
Election of 1860. The selection of a Republican candidate
was debated at a large and stormy Convention held in
Chicago. Seward was the most prominent Republican
politician, but he had enemies, and for many reasons it
was thought that his adoption would mean the loss of
available votes. Chase was the favourite of the Radical
wing of the party, but it was feared that the selection of a
man who was thought to lean to Abolitionism would alienate
the moderates. To secure the West was an important
element in the electoral problem, and this, together
with the zealous backing of his own State, within whose
borders the Convention met, and the fact that he was
recognized as a "moderate," probably determined the
choice, of Lincoln. It does not appear that any of those
who chose him knew that they were choosing a great man.
Some acute observers had doubtless noted the ability he
displayed in his debates with Douglas, but in the main he
seems to have been recommended to the Chicago Conven
tion, as afterwards to the country, mainly on the strength
of his humble origin, his skill as a rail- splitter, and his
alleged ability to bend a poker between his fingers.

While the Republicans were thus choosing their cham
pion, much fiercer quarrels were rending the opposite
party, whose Convention met at Charleston. The great
majority of the Northern delegates were for choosing
Douglas as candidate, and fighting on a programme of
" popular sovereignty." But the Southerners would not
hear of either candidate or programme. His attitude on
the Leconroton business was no longer the only count
against TTouglas. The excellent controversial strategy of
Lincoln had forced from him during the Illinois debates an
interpretation of "popular sovereignty" equally offensive

154 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to the South. Lincoln had asked him how a territory
whose inhabitants desired to exclude Slavery could, if the
Dred Scott decision were to be accepted, lawfully exclude it.
Douglas had answered that it could for practical purposes
exclude it by withholding legislation in its support and
adopting " unfriendly legislation " towards it. Lincoln
at once pointed out that Douglas was virtually advising
a 'territorial government to nullify a judgment of the
Supreme Court. The cry was caught up in the South and
was fatal to Douglas's hopes of support from that section.

The Charleston Convention, split into two hostile
sections, broke up without a decision. The Douglas men,
who were the majority, met at Baltimore, acclaimed him
as Democratic candidate and adopted his programme. The
dissentients held another Convention at Charleston and
adopted Breckinridge with a programme based upon the
widest interpretation of the Dred Scott judgment. To add
to the multiplicity of voices the rump of the old Whig
Party, calling themselves the party of "the Union, the
Constitution and the Laws," nominated Everett and Bell.

The split in the Democratic Party helped the Republicans
in another than the obvious fashion of giving them the
chance of slipping in over the heads of divided opponents.
It helped their moral position in the North. It deprived
the Democrats of their most effective appeal to Union-loving
men — the assertion that their party was national while
the Republicans were sectional. For Douglas was now
practically as sectional as Lincoln. As little as Lincoln
could he command any considerable support south of the
Potomac. Moreover, the repudiation of Douglas seemed
to many Northerners to prove that the South was arrogant
and unreasonable beyond possibility of parley or compro
mise. The wildest of her protagonists could not pretend
that Douglas was a "Black Abolitionist," or that he
meditated any assault upon the domestic institutions of the
Southern States. If the Southerners could not work with
him, with what Northerner, not utterly and unconditionally
subservient to them, could they work? It seemed to
many that the choice lay between a vigorous protest now
and the acceptance of the numerically superior North of a
permanently inferior position in the Confederation.

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 155

In his last; electoral campaign the "Little Giant" put
up a plucky fight against his enemies North and South.
But he had met his Waterloo. In the whole Union he
carried but one State and half of another. The South was
almost solid for Breckinridge. The North and West, from
New England to California, was as solid for Lincoln. A
few border States gave their votes for Everett. But, owing
to the now overwhelming numerical superiority of the Free
States, the Republicans had in the Electoral College a
decided majority over all other parties.

Thus was Abraham Lincoln elected President of the
United States. But many who voted for him had hardly
recorded their votes before they became a little afraid of
the thing they had done. Through the whole continent
ran the ominous whisper : " What will the South do ? "

And men held their breath, waiting for what was to
follow.

CHAPTER IX

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR

IT is a significant fact that the news of Lincoln's election
which caused so much dismay and searching of heart
throughout the Southern and Border States was received
with defiant cheers in Charleston, the chief port of South
Carolina. Those cheers meant that there was one Southern
State that was ready to answer on the instant the whispered
question which was troubling the North, and to answer it
by no means in a whisper.

South Carolina occupied a position not exactly parallel
to that of any other State. Her peculiarity was not merely
that her citizens held the dogma of State Sovereignty. All
the States from Virginia southward, at any rate, held that
dogma in one form or another. But South Carolina held
it in an extreme form, and habitually acted on it in an
extreme fashion. It is not historically true to say that she
learnt her political creed from Calhoun. It would be truer
to say that he learnt it from her. But it may be that the
leadership of a man of genius, who could codify and expound
her thought, and whose bold intellect shrank from no
conclusion to which his principles led, helped to give a
peculiar simplicity and completeness to her interpretation
of the dogma in question. The peculiarity of her attitude
must be expressed by saying that most Americans had
two loyalties, while the South Carolinan had only one.
Whether in the last resort a citizen should prefer loyalty to
his State or loyalty to the Union was a question concerning
which man differed from man and State from State.
There were men, and indeed whole States, for whom the
conflict was a torturing, personal tragedy, and a tearing of

156

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 157

the heart in two. But practically all Americans believed
that some measure of loyalty was due to both connections.
The South Carolinan did not. All his loyalty was to his
State. He scarcely pretended to anything like national
feeling. The Union was at best a useful treaty of alliance
with foreigners to be preserved only so far as the interests
of the Palmetto State were advantaged thereby. His repre
sentatives in House and Senate, the men he sent to take
part as electors in the choosing of a President, had rather
the air of ambassadors than of legislators. They were in
Congress to fight the battles of their State, and avowed
quite frankly that if it should ever appear that " the Treaty
called the Constitution of the United States " (as South
Carolina afterwards designated it in her Declaration of
Independence) were working to its disadvantage, they
would denounce it with as little scruple or heart-burning as
the Washington Government might denounce a commercial
treaty with England or Spain.

South Carolina had been talking freely of secession for
thirty years. As I have said, she regarded the Union
simply as a diplomatic arrangement to be maintained while
it was advantageous, and again and again doubts had been
expressed as to whether in fact it was advantageous. The
fiscal question which had been the ostensible cause of the
Nullification movement in the 'thirties was still considered
a matter of grievance. As an independent nation, it was
pointed out, South Carolina would be free to meet England
on the basis of reciprocal Free Trade, to market her cotton
in Lancashire to the best advantage, and to receive in
return a cheap and plentiful supply of British manufactures.
At any moment since 1832 a good opportunity might have
led her to attempt to break away. The election of Lincoln
was to her not so much a grievance as a signal — and
not altogether an unwelcome one. No time was lost in
discussion, for the State was unanimous. The legislature
had been in session choosing Presidential electors — for in
South Carolina these were chosen by the legislature and
not by the people. When the results of the voting in
Pennsylvania and Indiana made it probable that the
Republicans would have a majority, the Governor intimated
that it should continue to sit in order to consider the

158 A HISTORY OF THE , UNITED STATES

probable necessity of taking action to save the State. The
news of Lincoln's election reached Charleston on the 7th
of November. On the 10th of November the legislature
unanimously voted for the holding of a specific Convention
to consider the relations of South Carolina with the United
States. The Convention met early in December, and before
the month was out South Carolina had in her own view
taken her place in the world as an independent nation.
The Stars and Stripes was hauled down, and the new
" Palmetto Flag " — a palm tree and a single star — raised
over the public buildings throughout the State.

Many Southerners, including not a few who were inclined
to Secession as the only course in the face of the Republican
victory, considered the precipitancy of South Carolina
unwise and unjustifiable. She should, they thought,
rather have awaited a conference with the other Southern
States and the determination of a common policy. But in
fact there can be little doubt that the audacity of her
action was a distinct spur to the Secessionist movement.
It gave it a focus, a point round which to rally. The idea
of a Southern Confederacy was undoubtedly already in
the air. But it might have remained long and perhaps
permanently in the air if no State had been ready at once
to take the first definite and material step. It was now no
longer a mere abstract conception or inspiration. The
nucleus of the thing actually existed in the Republic of
South Carolina, which every believer in State Sovereignty
was bound to recognize as a present independent State.
It acted, so to speak, as a magnet to draw other alarmed
and discontented States out of the Union.

The energy of the South Carolinian Secessionists might
have produced less effect had anything like a corresponding
energy been displayed by the Government of the United
States. But when men impatiently looked to Washington
for counsel and decision they found neither. The conduct
of President Buchanan moved men at the time to con
temptuous impatience, and history has echoed the con
temporary verdict. Just one fact may perhaps be urged
in extenuation : if he was a weak man he was also in a
weak position. A real and very practical defect, as it seems
to me, in the Constitution of the United States is the four

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 159

months' interval between the election of a President and
his installation. The origin of the practice is obvious
enough : it is a relic of the fiction of the Electoral College,
which is- supposed to be spending those months in searching
America for the fittest man to be chief magistrate. But
now that everyone knows on the morrow of the election of
the College who is to be President, the effect may easily be
to leave the immense power and responsibility of the
American Executive during a critical period in the hands
of a man who has no longer the moral authority of a
popular mandate — whose policy the people have perhaps
just rejected. So it was in this case. Buchanan was
called upon to face a crisis produced by the defeat of his
own party, followed by the threatened rebellion of the men
to whom he largely owed his election, and with it what
moral authority he might be supposed to possess. Had
Lincoln been able to take command in November he might,
by a combination of firmness and conciliation, have checked
the Secessionist movement. Buchanan, perhaps, could do
little ; but that little he did not do.

When all fair allowance has been made for the real
difficulties of his position it must be owned that the
President cut a pitiable figure. What was wanted was
a strong lead for the Union sentiment of all the States
to rally to. What Buchanan gave was the most self-
confessedly futile manifesto that any American President
has ever penned. His message to the Congress began by
lecturing the North for having voted Republican. It went
on to lecture the people of South Carolina for seceding, and
to develop in a lawyer-like manner the thesis that they
had no constitutional right to do so. This was not likely
to produce much effect in any case, but any effect that it
might have produced was nullified by the conclusion which
appeared to be intended to show, in the same legal fashion,
that, though South Carolina had no constitutional right to
secede, no one had any constitutional right to prevent her
from seceding. The whole wound up with a tearful demon
stration of the President's own innocence of any responsi
bility for the troubles with which he was surrounded.

It was not surprising if throughout the nation there
stirred a name and memory, and to many thousands of

160 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

lips sprang instinctively and simultaneously a single
sentence : " Oh for one hour of Jackson ! "

General Scott, who was in supreme command of the
armed forces of the Union, had, as a young man, received
Jackson's instructions for " the execution of the laws " in
South Carolina. He sent a detailed specification of them
to Buchanan ; but it was of no avail. The great engine of
democratic personal power which Jackson had created and
bequeathed to his successors was in trembling and incapable
hands. With a divided Cabinet — for his Secretary of State,
Cass, was for vigorous action against the rebellious State,
while his Secretary for War, Floyd, was an almost avowed
sympathizer with secession — :andwith a President apparently
unable to make up his own mind, or to keep to one policy
from hour to hour, it was clear that South Carolina was not
to be dealt with in Jackson's fashion. Clay's alternative
method remained to be tried.

It was a disciple of Clay's, Senator Crittenden, who
made the attempt, a Whig and a Kentuckian like his
master. He proposed a compromise very much in Clay's
manner, made up for the most part of carefully balanced
concessions to either section. But its essence lay in its
proposed settlement of the territorial problem, which con
sisted of a Constitutional Amendment whereby territories
lying south of latitude 36° 30' should be open to Slavery, and
those north of that line closed against it. This was virtually
the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the
Pacific, save that California, already accepted as a Free
State, was not affected. Crittenden, though strenuously
supported by Douglas, did not meet with Clay's measure of
success. The Senate appointed a committee to consider
the relations of the two sections, and to that committee, on
which he had a seat, he submitted his plan. But its most
important clause was negatived by a combination of extremes,
Davis and the other Southerners from the Cotton States
combining with the Republicans to reject it. There is,
however, some reason to believe that the Southerners would
have accepted the plan if the Republicans had done so.
The extreme Republicans, whose representative on the
committee was Wade of Ohio, would certainly have refused
it in any case, but the moderates on that side might

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 161

probably have accepted and carried it had not Lincoln, who
had been privately consulted, pronounced decidedly against
it. This fixes upon Lincoln a considerable responsibility
before history, for it seems probable that if the Crrttenden
Compromise had been carried the Cotton States would
not have seceded, and South Carolina would have stood
alone. The refusal, however, is very characteristic of his
mind. No-one, as his whole public conduct showed, was
more moderate in counsel and more ready to compromise
on practical matters than he. Nor does it seem that he
would have objected strongly to the Crittenden plan —
though he certainly feared that it would lead to filibustering
in Mexico and Cuba for the purpose of obtaining more
slave territory — if it could have been carried out by
Congressional action alone. But the Dred Scott judgment
made it necessary to give it the form of a Constitutional
Amendment, and a Constitutional Amendment on the lines*
proposed would do what the Fathers of the Republic had
so carefully refrained from doing — make Slavery specifically
and in so many words part of the American system. This
was a price which his intellectual temper, so elastic in
regard to details, but so firm in its insistence on sound first
principles, was not prepared to pay.

The rejection of the Crittenden Compromise gave the
signal for the new and much more formidable secession
which marked the New Year. Before January was spent
Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi were, in their own view,
out of the Union. Louisiana and Texas soon followed
their example. In Georgia the Unionists put up a much
stronger fight, led by Alexander Stephens, afterwards Vice-
President of the Confederacy. But even there they were
defeated, and the Cotton States now formed a solid phalanx
openly defying the Government at Washington.

The motives of this first considerable secession — for I
have pointed out that the case of South Carolina was
unique — are of great importance, for they involve our whole
view of the character of the war which was to follow. In
England there is still a pretty general impression that the
States rose in defence of Slavery. I find a writer so able
and generally reliable as Mr. Alex. M. Thompson of the
Clarion giving, in a recent article, as ad example of a just

M

162 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

war, " the war waged by the Northern States to extinguish
Slavery." This view is, of course, patently false. The
Northern States waged no war to extinguish Slavery ; and,
had they done so, it would not have been a just but a
flagrantly unjust war. No-one could deny for a moment
that under the terms of Union the Southern States had
a right to keep their slaves as long as they chose. If any
one thought such a bargain too immoral to be kept, his
proper place was with Garrison, and his proper programme
the repudiation of the bargain and the consequent disruption
of the Union. But the North had clearly no shadow of
right to coerce the Southerners into remaining in the
Union and at the same time to deny them the rights
expressly reserved to them under the Treaty of Union.
And of such a grossly immoral attempt every fair-minded
historian must entirely acquit the victorious section. The
Northerners did not go to war to abolish Slavery. The
original basis of the Republican party, its platform of
1860, the resolutions passed by Congress, and the explicit
declarations of Lincoln, both before and after election, all
recognize specifically and without reserve the immunity of
Slavery in the Slave States from all interference by the
Federal Government.

American writers are, of course, well acquainted with
such elementary facts, and, if they would attempt to make
Slavery the cause of the rebellion, they are compelled to use
a different but, I think, equally misleading phrase. I find,
for instance, Professor Rhodes saying that the South went
to war for " the extension of Slavery." This sounds more
plausible, because the extension of the geographical area
over which Slavery should be lawful had been a Southern
policy, and because the victory of the party organized to
oppose this policy was in fact the signal for secession.
But neither will this statement bear examination, for it
must surely be obvious that the act of secession put a final
end to any hope of the extension of Slavery. How could «
Georgia and Alabama, outside the Union, effect anything tci
legalize Slavery in the Union territories of Kansas and New
Mexico ?

A true statement of the case would, I think, be this
The South felt itself threatened with a certain peril

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 163

Against that peril the extension of the slave area had been
one attempted method of protection. Secession was an
alternative method.

The peril was to be found in the increasing numerical
superiority of the North, which must, it was feared, reduce
the South to a position of impotence in the Union if once
the rival section were politically united. Lowell spoke
much of the truth when he said that the Southern grievance
was the census of 1860 ; but not the whole truth. It was
the census of 1860 plus the Presidential Election of 1860,
and the moral to be drawn from the two combined. The
census showed that the North was already greatly superior
in numbers, and that the disproportion was an increasing
one. The election showed the North combined in support
of a party necessarily and almost avowedly sectional, and
returning its candidate triumphantly, although he had
hardly a vote south of the Mason-Dixon line. To the
South this seemed to mean that in future, if it was to
remain in the Union at all, it must be on sufferance. A
Northerner would always be President, a Northern majority
would always be supreme in both Houses of Congress, for
the admission of California, already accomplished, and the
now certain admission of Kansas as a Free State had
disturbed the balance in the Senate as well a* in the House.
The South would henceforward be unable to influence in
any way the policy of the Federal Government. It would
be enslaved.

It is true that the South had no immediate grievance.
The only action of the North of which she had any sort
of right to complain was the infringement of the spirit of
the Constitutional compact by the Personal Liberty Laws.
But these laws there was now a decided disposition to
amend or repeal — a disposition strongly supported by the
man whom the North had elected as President. It is also
true that this man would never have lent himself to any
unfair depression of the Southern part of the Union. This
last fact, however, the South may be pardoned for not
knowing. Even those Northerners who had elected Lincoln
knew little about him except that he was the Republican
nominee and had been a " rail-splitter." In the South, so
far as one can judge, all that was heard about him was that

164 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

he was a " Black Abolitionist," which was false, and that in
appearance he resembled a gorilla, which was, at least by
comparison, true.

But, even if Lincoln's fairness of mind and his
conciliatory disposition towards the South had been fully
appreciated, it is not clear that the logic of the Secessionist
case would have been greatly weakened. The essential point
was that the North, by virtue of its numerical superiority,
had elected a purely Northern candidate on a purely
Northern programme. Though both candidate and
programme were in fact moderate, there was no longer
any security save the will of the North that such moderation
would continue. If the conditions remained unaltered,
there was nothing to prevent the North at a subsequent
election from making Charles Sumner President with a
programme conceived in the spirit of John Brown's raid.
It must be admitted that the policy adopted by the
dominant North after the Civil War might well appear
to afford a measure of posthumous justification for these
fears.

In the North at first all seemed panic and confusion of
voices. To many — and among them were some of those
who had been keenest in prosecuting the sectional quarrel
of which Secession was the outcome — it appeared the
wisest course to accept the situation and acquiesce in the
peaceable withdrawal of the seceding States. This was the
position adopted almost unanimously by the Abolitionists,
and it must be owned that they at least were strictly
consistent in taking it. "When I called the Union *a
League with Death and an Agreement with Hell,' " said
Garrison, " I did not expect to see Death and Hell secede
from the Union." Garrison's disciple, Wendell Phillips,
pronounced the matter one for the Gulf States themselves
to decide, and declared that you could not raise troops in
Boston to coerce South Carolina or Florida. The same
line was taken by men who carried greater weight than did
the Abolitionists. No writer had rendered more vigorous
service to the Republican cause in 1860 than Horace
Greeley of the New York Tribune. His pronouncement in
that journal on the Southern secessions was embodied in
the phrase : " Let our erring sisters go."

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 165

But while some of the strongest opponents of the South
and of Slavery were disposed to accept the dismemberment
of the Union almost complacently, there were men of a
very different type to whom it seemed an outrage to be
consummated only over their dead bodies. During the
wretched months of Buchanan's incurable hesitancy the
name of Jackson had been in every mouth. And at
the mere sound of that name there was a rally to the
Union of all who had served under the old warrior in the
days when he had laid his hand of steel upon the Nullifiers.
Some of them, moved by that sound and by the memory of
the dead, broke through the political ties of a quarter of
a century. Among those in whom that memory overrode
every other passion were Holt, a Southerner and of late the
close ally of Davis ; Cass, whom Lowell had pilloried as the
typical weak-kneed Northerner who suffered himself to be
made the lackey of the South ; and Taney, who had denied
that, in the contemplation of the American Constitution,
the Negro was a man. It was Black, an old Jacksonian,
who in the moment of peril held the nerveless hands of
the President firm to the tiller. It was Dix, another such,
who sent to New Orleans the very Jacksonian order : " If
any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot
him at sight."

War is always the result of a conflict of wills.

The conflict of wills which produced the American Civil
War had nothing directly to do with Slavery. It was the
conflict between the will of certain Southern States to
secede rather than accept the position of a permanent
minority and the will expressed in Jackson's celebrated
toast : " Our Union, it must be preserved." It is the
Unionist position which clearly stands in need of special
defence, since it proposed the coercion of a recalcitrant
population. Can such a defence be framed in view of the
acceptance by most of us of the general principle which has
of late been called " the self-determination of peoples " ?

I think it can. One may at once dismiss the common
illusion — for it is often in such cases a genuine illusion,
though sometimes a piece of hypocrisy — which undoubtedly
had possession of many Northern minds at the time, that
the Southern people did not really want to secede, but were

166 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

in some mysterious fashion " intimidated " by a disloyal
minority. How, in the absence of any special means of
coercion, one man can " intimidate " two was never
explained any more than it is explained when the same
absurd hypothesis is brought forward in relation to Irish
agrarian and English labour troubles. At any rate in this
case there is not, and never has been, the slightest justifi
cation for doubting that Secessionism was from the first
a genuine popular movement, that it was enthusiastically
embraced by hundreds of thousands who no more expected
ever to own a slave than an English labourer expects to
own a carriage and pair ; that in this matter the political
leaders of the States, and Davis in particular, rather lagged
behind than outran the general movement of opinion ; that
the Secessionists were in the Cotton States a great majority
from the first ; that they became later as decided a majority
in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee; and that by
the time the sword was drawn there was behind the
Confederate Government a unanimity very rare in the
history of revolutions — certainly much greater than existed
in the colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independ
ence. To oppose so formidable a mass of local opinion and
to enforce opposition by the sword was for a democracy a
grave responsibility.

Yet it was a responsibility which had to be accepted
if America was to justify her claim to be a nation. To
understand this certain further propositions must be
grasped.

First, the resistance of the South, though so nearly
universal, was not strictly national. You cannot compare
the case with that of Ireland or Poland. The Confederacy
was never a nation, though, had the war had a different
conclusion, it might perhaps have become one. It. is
important to remember that the extreme Southern view
did not profess to regard the South as a nationality. It
professed to regard South Carolina as one nationality,
Florida as another, Virginia as another. But this view,
though it had a strong hold on very noble minds, was at
bottom a legalism out of touch with reality. It may be
doubted whether any man felt it in his bones as men feel
a genuine national sentiment.

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 167

On the other hand American national sentiment was
a reality. It had been baptized in blood. It was a reality
for Southerners as well as for Northerners, for Secessionists
as well as for Union men. There was probably no American,
outside South Carolina, who did not feel it as a reality,
though it might be' temporarily obscured and overborne
by local loyalties, angers, and fears. The President of the
Confederacy had himself fought under the Stars and
Stripes, and loved it so well that he could not bear to part
with it and wished to retain it as the flag of the South.
Had one generation of excited men, without any cognate
and definable grievance, moved only by anger at a political
reverse and the dread of unrealized and dubious evils, the
right to undo the mighty work of consolidation now so
nearly accomplished, to throw away at once the inheritance
of their fathers and the birthright of their children ? Nor
would they and their children be the only losers : it was
the great principles on which the American Commonwealth
was built that seemed to many to be on trial for their life.
If the Union were broken up, what could men say but that
Democracy had failed ? The ghost of Hamilton might grin
from his grave; though his rival had won the laurel, it
was he who would seem to have proved his case. For the
first successful secession would not necessarily have been
the last. The thesis of State Sovereignty established by
victory in arms — which always does in practice establish
any thesis for good or evil — meant the break-up of the
free and proud American nation into smaller and smaller
fragments as new disputes arose, until the whole fabric
planned by the Fathers of the Republic had disappeared.
It is impossible to put this argument better than in the
words of Lincoln himself. " Must a government, of necessity,
be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak
to maintain its own existence?" That was the issue as
he saw it, an issue which he was determined should be
decided in the negative, even at the cost of a long and
bloody Civil War.

I have endeavoured to state fairly the nature of the
conflict of wills which was to produce Civil War, and to
explain how each side justified morally its appeal to arms.
Further than that I do not think it necessary to go. But

168 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATED

I will add just this one historical fact which, I think,
supplies some degree of further justification for the attitude
of the North — that concerning this matter of the Union,
which was the real question in debate, though not in regard
to other subsidiary matters which will demand our attention
in the next chapter, the South was ultimately not only
conquered but persuaded. There are among the millions
of Southerners alive to-day few who will admit that their
fathers fought in an unjust cause, but there are probably
still fewer, if any at all, who would still wish to secede if
they had the power. Jefferson Davis himself could, at the
last, close his record of his own defeat and of the triumph
of the Union with the words Esto Perpetua.

Lincoln took the oath as President on March 4, 1861.
His Inaugural Address breathes the essential spirit of his
policy — firmness in things fundamental, conciliation in
things dispensable. He reiterated his declaration that he
had neither right nor inclination to interfere with Slavery
in the Slave States. He quoted the plank in the Republican
platform which affirmed the right of each State to control
its own affairs, and vigorously condemned John Brown's
insane escapade. He declared for an effective Fugitive
Slave Law, and pledged himself to its faithful execution. He
expressed his approval of the amendment to the Constitution
which Congress had just resolved to recommend, forbidding
the Federal Government ever to interfere with the domestic
institutions of the several States, "including that of
persons held to service." But on the question of Secession
he took firm ground. " I hold that, in contemplation of
universal law and of the Constitution, the union of these
States is perpetual. ... It follows from these views
that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully
get out of the Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that
effect are legally void; and that acts of violence within
any State or States, against the authority of the United
States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to
circumstances." He accepted the obligation which the
Constitution expressly enjoined on him, to see " that the
laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States."
He would use his power " to hold, occupy, and possess the
property and places belonging to! the Government and to

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 169

collect the duties and imposts," but beyond that there
would be no interference or coercion. There could be no
conflict or bloodshed unless the Secessionists were them
selves the aggressors. " In your hands, my dissatisfied
fellow-countrymen, and not in mine is the momentous issue
of Civil War. . . . You have no oath registered in heaven
to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn
one to ' preserve, protect and defend it.'"

He ended with the one piece of rhetoric in the whole
address — rhetoric deliberately framed to stir those emotions
of loyalty to the national past and future which he knew
to endure, howsoever overshadowed by anger and misunder
standing, even in Southern breasts. " We are not enemies,
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion
may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the
chorus of Union, when again touched, as surely they will
be, by the better angels of our nature."

But there was not much evidence of the active operation
of such " better angels " at the moment. Half the Southern
States had not only seceded, but had already formed
themselves into a hostile Confederacy. They framed a
Constitution modelled in essentials on that of the United
States, but with the important difference that "We the
deputies of the Sovereign and Independent States " was
substituted for " We the people of the United States," and
with certain minor amendments, some of which were
generally thought even in the North to be improvements.

They elected Jefferson Davis as President, and as Vice-
President Alexander Stephens of Georgia, who had been a
Unionist, but had accepted the contrary verdict of his State.

The choice was, perhaps, as good as could have been
made. Davis was in some ways well fitted to represent the
new Commonwealth before the world. He had a strong
sense of what befitted his own dignity and that of his office.
He had a keen eye for what would attract the respect and
sympathy of foreign nations. It is notable, for instance,
that in his inaugural address, in setting forth the grounds
on which secession was to be justified, he made no allusion

170 A HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES

to the institution of Slavery. There he may be contrasted
favourably with Stephens, whose unfortunate speech
declaring Slavery to be the stone which the builders of the old
Constitution rejected, and which was to become the corner
stone of the new Confederacy, was naturally seized upon
by Northern sympathizers at the time, and has been as
continually brought forward since by historians and writers
who wish to emphasize the connection between Slavery and
the Southern cause. Davis had other qualifications which*
might seem to render him eminently fit to direct the policy
of a Confederation which must necessarily begin its
existence by fighting and winning a great and hazardous
war. He had been a soldier and served with distinction.
Later he had been, by common consent, one of the best
War Secretaries that the United States had possessed. It
was under his administration that both Lee and McClellan,
later to be arrayed against each other, were sent to the
Crimea to study modern war at first hand.

But Davis had faults of temper which often endangered
and perhaps at last ruined the cause he served. They can
be best appreciated by reading his own book. There is
throughout a note of querulousness which weakens one's
sympathy for the hero of a lost cause. He is always
explaining how things ought to have happened, how the
people of Kentucky ought to have been angry with Lincoln
instead of siding with him, and so on. One understands
at once how he was bested in democratic diplomacy by his
rival's lucid realism and unfailing instinct for dealing with
men as men. One understands also his continual quarrels
with his generals, though in that department he was from
the first much better served than was the Government at
Washington. A sort of nervous irritability, perhaps a part
of what is called " the artistic temperament," is everywhere
perceptible. Nowhere does one find a touch of that spirit
which made Lincoln say, after an almost insolent rebuff
to his personal and official dignity from McClellan : "Well,
I will hold his horse for him if he will give us a victory."

The prize for which both parties were contending
in the period of diplomatic skirmishing which marks
the opening months of Lincoln's administration was the
adherence of those Slave States which had not yet seceded.

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 171

So far disruptional doctrines had triumphed only in the
Cotton States. In Virginia Secession had been rejected
by a very decided majority, and the rejection had been
confirmed by the result of the subsequent elections for the
State legislature. The Secessionists had also seen their
programme defeated in Tennessee, Arkansas, and North
Carolina, while Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland had as
yet refused to make any motion towards it. In Texas the
general feeling was on the whole Secessionist, but the
Governor was a Unionist, and succeeded for a time in
preventing definite action. To keep these States loyal,
while keeping at the same time his pledge to " execute the
laws," was Lincoln's principal problem in the first days of
his Presidency.

His policy turned mainly on two principles. First, the
South must see that the administration of the laws was really
impartial, and that the President executed them because he
had taken an oath to do so ; not because the North wanted
to trample on the South. This consideration explains
the extreme rigour with which he enforced the Fugitive
Slave Law. Here was a law involving a Constitutional
obligation, which he, with his known views on Slavery,
could not possibly like executing, which the North certainly
did not want him to execute, which he could be executing
only from a sense of obligation under the Constitution.
Such an example would make it easier for moderate Southern
opinion to accept the application of a similar strictness to
the seceding States.

The second principle was the strict confinement of his
intervention within the limits presented by his Inaugural.
This was calculated to bear a double effect. On the one
hand, it avoided an immediate practical challenge to the
doctrine of State Sovereignty, strongly held by many in
the Middle States who were nevertheless opposed to
Secession. On the other, it tended, if prolonged, to
render the Southern assumption of the role of " a people
risen against tyrants " a trifle ridiculous. A freeman
defying the edicts of the oppressor is a dignified spectacle :
not so that of a man desperately anxious to defy edicts
which the oppressor obstinately refuses to issue. It was
possible for Lincoln to put the rebels in this position

172 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

because under the American Constitution nine-tenths of the
laws which practically affected the citizen were State and
not Federal laws. When people began to talk of protesting
against tyranny by refusing to allow the tyrant to deliver
their mails to them, it was obvious how near the comic the
sublime defiance of the Confederates was treading. There
were men in the South who fully realized the disconcerting
effect of the President's moderation. " Unless you baptize
the Confederacy in blood," said a leading Secessionist of
Alabama to Jefferson Davis, " Alabama will be back in the
Union within a month."

Unfortunately Lincoln's attitude of masterly inactivity
could not be kept up for so long, for a problem, bequeathed
him by his predecessor, pressed upon him, demanding
action, just where action might, as he well knew, mean a
match dropped in the heart of a powder-magazine. On an
island in the very harbour of Charleston itself stood Fort
Sumter, an arsenal held by the Federal Government.
South Carolina, regarding herself as now an independent
State, had sent an embassy to Washington to negotiate
among other things for its surrender and transfer to the
State authorities. Buchanan had met these emissaries
and temporized without definitely committing himself.
He had been on the point of ordering Major Anderson, who
was in command of the garrison, to evacuate the fort, when
under pressure from Black, his Secretary of State, he
changed his mind and sent a United States packet, called
Star of the West, with reinforcements for Anderson. The
State authorities at Charleston fired on the ship, which,
being unarmed, turned tail and returned to Washington
without fulfilling its mission. The problem was now passed
on to Lincoln, with this aggravation : that Anderson's troops
had almost consumed their stores, could get no more from
Charleston, and, if not supplied, must soon succumb to
starvation. Lincoln determined to avoid the provocation
of sending soldiers and arms, but to despatch a ship with
food and other necessaries for the garrison. This resolution
was duly notified to the authorities at Charleston.

Their anger was intense. They had counted on the
evacuation of the fort, and seem to have considered that
they held a pledge from Seward, who was now Secretary of

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 173

State, and whose conduct in the matter seems certainly to
have been somewhat devious, to that effect. The Stars and
Stripes waving in their own harbour in defiance of their
Edict of Secession seemed to them and to all their people a
daily affront. Now that the President had intimated in the
clearest possible fashion that he intended it to be permanent,
they and all the inhabitants of Charleston, and indeed of
South Carolina, clamoured loudly for the reduction of the
fortress. In an evil hour Jefferson Davis, though warned
by his ablest advisers that he was putting his side in the
wrong, yielded to their pressure. Anderson was offered
the choice between immediate surrender or the forcible
reduction of the fortress. True to his military duty, though
his own sympathies were largely Southern, he refused to
surrender, and the guns of three other .forts, which the
Confederates had occupied, began the bombardment of
Sumter.

It lasted all day, the little fortress replying with great
spirit, though with insufficient and continually diminishing
means. It is an astonishing fact that in this, the first
engagement of the Civil War, though much of the fort
was wrecked, no life was lost on either side. At length
Anderson's ammunition was exhausted, and he surrendered
at discretion. The Stars and Stripes were pulled down and
the new flag of the Confederacy, called the Stars and Bars,
waved in its place.

The effect of the news in the North was electric. Never
before and never after w,as it so united. One cry of anger
went up from twenty million throats. Whitman, in the
best of his "Drum Taps," has described the spirit in which
New York received the tidings ; how that great metropolitan
city, which had in the past been Democrat in its votes and
half Southern in its political connections — "at dead of
night, at news from the South, incensed, struck with
clenched fist the pavement."

It is important to the true comprehension of the motive
power behind the war to remember what this " news from
the South " was. It was not the news of the death of
Uncle Tom or of the hanging of John Brown. It had not
the remotest connection with Slavery. It was an insult
offered to the flag. In the view of every Northern man and

174 A HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES

woman there was but one appropriate answer — the sentence
which Barrere had passed upon the city of Lyons : " South
Carolina has fired upon Old Glory : South Carolina is no
more."

Lincoln, feeling the tide of the popular will below him
as a good boatman feels a strong and deep current, issued
an appeal for 75,000 militia from the still loyal States to
defend the flag and the Union which it symbolized. The
North responded with unbounded enthusiasm, and the
number of volunteers easily exceeded that for which
the President had asked and Congress provided. In the
North-West Lincoln found a powerful ally in his old
antagonist Stephen Douglas. In the dark and perplexing
months which intervened between the Presidential Election
and the outbreak of the Civil War, no public man had
shown so pure and selfless a patriotism. Even during the
election, when Southern votes were important to him and
when the threat that the election of the Kepublican nominee
would lead to secession was almost the strongest card in his
hand, he had gone out of his way to declare that no possible
choice of a President could justify the dismemberment
of the Kepublic. When Lincoln was elected, he had
spoken in several Southern States, urging acquiescence in
the verdict and loyalty to the Union. He had taken care
to be present on the platform at his rival's inauguration,
and, after the affair of Sumter, the two had had a long and
confidential conversation. Returning to his native West, he
commenced the last of his campaigns — a campaign for no
personal object but for the raising of soldiers to keep the
old flag afloat. In that campaign the " Little Giant " spent
the last of his unquenchable vitality ; and in the midst of
it he died.

For the North and West the firing on the Stars and
Stripes was the decisive issue. For Virginia and to a great
extent for the other Southern States which had not yet
seceded it was rather the President's demands for State
troops to coerce a sister State. The doctrine of State
Sovereignty was in these States generally held to be a
fundamental principle of the Constitution and the essential
condition of their liberties. They had no desire to leave the
Union so long as it were understood that it was a union of

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAE 175

Sovereign States. But the proposal to use force against
a recalcitrant State seemed to them to upset the whole
nature of the compact and reduce them to a position of
vassalage. This attitude explains the second Secession,
which took Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and
Arkansas out of the Union. It explains also* why the
moment the sword was drawn the opinion of these States,
strongly divided up to that very moment, became very
nearly unanimous. Not all their citizens, even after the
virtual declaration of war against South Carolina, wanted
their States to secede, but all, or nearly all, claimed that
the}7 had the right to secede if they wanted to, and therefore
all, or nearly all, accepted the decision of their States even
if it were contrary to their own judgment and preference.

It is important to understand this attitude, not only
because it was very general, but because it was the attitude
of one of the noblest sons the Kepublic ever bore, who
yet felt compelled, regretfully but with full certitude that
he did right, to draw the sword against her.

Robert Lee was already recognized as one of the most
capable captains in the service of the United States. When
it became obvious that General Scott, also a Virginian, but
a strong Unionist, was too old to undertake the personal
direction of the approaching campaign, Lee was sounded as
to his readiness to take his place. He refused, not desiring
to take part in the coercion of a State, and subsequently,
when his own State became involved in the quarrel,
resigned his commission. Later he accepted the chief
command of the Virginian forces and became the most
formidable of the rebel commanders. Yet with the
institution, zeal for which is still so largely thought to have
been the real motive of the South, he had no sympathy.
Four years before the Republican triumph, he had, in his
correspondence, declared Slavery to be " a moral and political
evil." Nor was he a Secessionist. He deeply regretted
and so far as he could, without meddling in politics — to
Vhich, in the fashion of good soldiers, he was strongly
averse — opposed the action which his State eventually took.
But he thought that she had the right to take it if she
chose, and, the fatal choice having been made, he had no
option in his own view but to throw in his lot with her and

176 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

accept his portion of whatever fate might be in store for
her arnlies and her people.

Virginia now passed an Ordinance of Secession, and
formed a military alliance with the Southern Confederacy.
Later she was admitted to membership of that Confederacy,
and the importance attached to her accession may be j udged
by the fact that the new Government at once transferred
its seat to her capital, the city of Richmond. The example
of Virginia was followed by the other Southern States
already enumerated.

There remained four Southern States in which the
issue was undecided. One of them, Delaware, caused no
appreciable anxiety. She was the smallest State in the
Union in population, almost the smallest in area, and though
technically a Slave State, the proportion of negroes within
iher borders was small. It was otherwise with the three
formidable States which still hung in the balance,
Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland. That these were saved
to the Union was due almost wholly to the far-sighted
prudence and consummate diplomacy of Abraham Lincoln.

Missouri was the easiest to hold. Geographically she
was not really a Southern State at all, and, though she was
a Slave State by virtue of Clay's Compromise, the institution
had not there struck such deep roots as in the true South.
The mass of her people were recruited from all the older
States, North and South, with a considerable contingent
fresh from Europe. Union feeling was strong among them
and State feeling comparatively weak. Her Governor,
indeed, was an ardent Southern sympathizer and returned
a haughty and defiant reply to Lincoln's request for soldiers.
But Francis Blair, a prominent and popular citizen, and
Captain Lyon, who had raised and commanded a Union
force within her borders, between them carried the State
against him. He was deposed, a Unionist Governor
substituted, and Missouri ranged herself definitely with
the North.

The case of Maryland was much more critical, for it
appeared to involve the fate of the Capital. Washington lay
between Maryland and Virginia, and if Maryland joined
Virginia in rebellion it could hardly be held. Yet its
abandonment might entail the most serious political

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 177

consequences, certainly an enormous encouragement to
the seceding Confederacy, quite probably its immediate
recognition by foreign Powers. At first the omens looked
ugly. The populace of Baltimore, the capital of the State,
were at this time pronouncedly Southern in their sentiments,
and the first Massachusetts regiment sent to the relief of
Washington was hustled and stoned in its streets. The
soldiers fired on the mob and there were casualties on both
sides. Immediately afterwards the legislature of Maryland
protested against the violation of its territory. Lincoln
acted with admirable sense and caution. He pointed out that
the Federal armies could not fly, and that therefore to reach
Washington they must pass over the soil of Maryland ; but
he made no point of their going through Baltimore, and he
wisely provided that further contingents should, for a time,
proceed by water to Annapolis. Meanwhile he strained
every nerve to reassure and conciliate Maryland with
complete success. Within a month or two Federal troops
could be brought to Baltimore without the smallest friction
or disturbance. Later the loyalty of Maryland was, as we
shall see, put to a much more critical test and passed it
triumphantly.

The President naturally felt a special interest in the
attitude of his native state, Kentucky. That attitude
would have perplexed and embarrassed a less discerning
statesman. Taking her stand on the dogma of State
Sovereignty Kentucky declared herself "neutral" in the
impending war between the United and Confederate States,
and forbade the troops of either party to cross her territory.
Lincoln could not, of course, recognize the validity of such
a declaration, but he was careful to avoid any act in open
violation of it. Sometimes openly and sometimes secretly
he worked hard to foster, consolidate, and encourage the
Union party in Kentucky. With his approval and probably
at his suggestion loyalist levies were voluntarily recruited on
her soil, drilled and prepared for action. But no Northern
troops were sent across her frontier. He was undoubtedly
working for a violation of Kentuckian " neutrality " by the
other side. Circumstances and geographical conditions
helped him. The frontier between Kentucky and
Tennessee was a mere degree of latitude corresponding

N ''

178 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to no militarily defensible line, nor did any such line
exist to the south of it capable of covering the capital of
Tennessee. On the other hand, an excellent possible line
of defence existed in Southern Kentucky. The Confederate
commanders were eager to seize it, but the neutrality of
Kentucky forbade them. When, however, they saw the hold
which Lincoln seemed to be acquiring over the counsels of
the " neutrals," they felt "they dared not risk further delay.
Justifying their act by the presence in Kentucky of armed
bodies of local Unionists, they advanced and occupied the
critical points of Columbus and Bowling Green, stretching
their line between them on Kentuckian soil. The act at
once determined the course of the hesitating State. Torn
hitherto between loyalty to the Union and loyalty to State
rights, she now found the two sentiments synchronize. In
the name of her violated neutrality she declared war on the
Confederacy and took her place under the Stars and Stripes.

The line between the two warring confederations of
States was now definitely fixed, and it only remained to
try the issue between them by the arbitrament of the
sword.

At first the odds might seem very heavy against the
Confederacy, for its total white population was only about
five and a half million, while the States arrayed against it
mustered well over twenty million. But there were certain
considerations which tended to some extent to equalize the
contest.

First there is the point which must always be taken
into consideration when estimating the chances of war —
the political objective aimed at. The objective of the
North was the conquest of the South. But the objective of
the South was not the conquest of the North. It was the
demonstration that such conquest as the North desired was
impracticable, or at least so expensive as not to be worth
pursuing. That the Union, if the States that composed it
remained united and determined and no other factor were
introduced, could eventually defeat the Confederacy was
from the first almost mathematically certain ; and between
complete defeat and conquest there is no such distinction
as some have imagined, for a military force which has
destroyed all military forces opposed to it can always

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAK 179

impose its will unconditionally on the conquered. But

, that these States would remain united and determined was

; not certain at all. If the South put up a sufficiently

energetic fight, there might arise in the dominant section

a considerable body of opinion which felt that too high a

I price was being paid for the enterprise. Moreover, there

1 was always the possibility and often the probability of

. another factor — the intervention of some foreign Power in

, favour of the South, as France had intervened in favour of

I the Americans in 1781. Such were the not unlikely

chances upon which the South was gambling.

Another factor in favour of the South was preparation.

j South Carolina had begun raising and drilling soldiers for

i a probable war as soon as Lincoln was elected. The other

| Southern States had at various intervals followed her

• example. On the Northern side there had been no

I preparation whatever under the Buchanan regime, and

Lincoln had not much chance of attempting such preparation

before the war was upon him.

Further, it was probably true that, even untrained, the

mass of Southerners were better fitted for war than the

mass of Northerners. They were, as a community, agrarian,

accustomed to an open-air life, proud of their skill in

riding and shooting. The first levies of the North were

drawn mostly from the urban population, and consisted

largely- of clerks, artisans, and men of the professional

class, in whose previous modes of life there was nothing

calculated to prepare them in any way for the duties of

a soldier. To this general rule there was, however, an

important reservation, of which the fighting at Fort

jDonelson and Shiloh afforded an early illustration. In

tdash and hardihood, and what may be called the raw

\ materials of soldiership the South, whatever it may have

i had to teach the North, had little to teach the West.

i In the matter of armament the South, though not

. exactly advantageously placed, was at the beginning not so

: badly off as it might well have been. Floyd, at one time

j Buchanan' s*6ecretary for War, was accused, and indeed,

after he had joined the Secessionists, virtually admitted

having deliberately distributed the arms of the Federal

Government to the advantage of the Confederacy. Certainly

180 A HISTOBY OF THE UNITED STATES

the outbreak of war found some well-stocked arsenals within
the grasp of the rebellion. It was not until its later phases
that the great advantage of the industrial North in facilities
for the manufacture of armaments made itself apparent.

But the great advantage which the South possessed,
and which accounts for the great measure of military
success which it enjoyed, must be regarded as an accidental
one. It consisted in the much greater capacity of the
commanders whom the opening of the war found in
control of its forces. The North had to search for
competent generals by a process of trial and error, almost
every trial being marked by a disaster; nor till the very
end of the war did she discover the two or three men who
were equal to their job. The South, on the other hand,
had from the beginning the good luck to possess in its
higher command more than one captain whose talents were
on the highest possible level.

The Confederate Congress was summoned to meet at
Richmond on July 20th. A cry went up from the North
that this event should be prevented by the capture before
that date of the Confederate capital. The cry was based
on an insufficient appreciation of the military resources of
the enemy, but it was so vehement and universal that the
Government was compelled to yield to it. A considerable
army had by this time been collected in Washington,
and under the command of General McDowell it now
advanced into Virginia, its immediate objective being
Manasses Junction. The opposing force was under the
Southern commander Beauregard, a Louisianian of French
extraction. The other gate of Eastern Virginia, the
Shenandoah Valley, was held by Joseph Johnstone, who
was to be kept engaged by an aged Union general named
Patterson. Johnstone, however, broke contact and got away
from Patterson, joining Beauregard behind the line of a
small river called Bull Run, to which the latter had retired.
Here McDowell attacked, and the first real battle of the
Civil War followed. For a time it wavered between the two
sides, but the arrival in flank of the forces of Johnstone's
rearguard, which had arrived too late for the opening of
the battle, threw the Union right wing into confusion.
Panic spread to the whole army, which, with the exception

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 181

of a small body of regular troops, flung away its arms and
fled in panic back to Washington.

Thus unauspiciously opened the campaign against the
Confederacy. The impression produced on both sides was
great. The North set its teeth and determined to wipe out
the disgrace at the first possible moment. The South was
wild with joy. The too-prevalent impression that the
" Yankees " were cowards who could not and would not
fight seemed confirmed by the first practical experiment.
The whole subsequent course of the war showed how false
was this impression. It has been admitted that the
Southerners were at first, on the whole, both better fitted
and better prepared for war than their opponents. But all
military history shows that what enables soldiers to face
defeat and abstain from panic in the face of apparent
disaster is not natural courage, but discipline. Had the
fight gone the other way the Southern recruits would
probably have acted exactly as did the fugitive Northerners.
Indeed, as it was, at an earlier stage of the battle a panic
among the Southerners was only averted by the personal
exertions of Beauregard, whose horse was shot under him,
and by the good conduct of the Virginian contingent and
its leader. "Look at Jackson and his Virginians," cried
out the Southern commander in rallying his men, " standing
like a stone wall." The great captain thus acclaimed bore
ever after, through his brief but splendid military career,
the name of " Stonewall " Jackson.

Bull Run was fought and won in July. The only other
important operations of the year consisted in the successful
clearing, by the Northern commander, McClellan, of
Western Virginia, where a Unionist population had seceded
from the Secession. Lincoln, with bold statesmanship,
recognized it]as a separate State, and thus further consolidated
the Unionism of the Border. In recognition of this service
McClellan was appointed, in succession to McDowell, to the
command of the army of the Potomac, as the force entrusted
with the invasion of Eastern Virginia was called.

At the first outbreak of the war English sympathies,
except perhaps for a part of the travelled and more or less
cosmopolitan aristocracy which found the Southern gentle
man a more socially acceptable type than the Yankee, seem

182 A EI8TOBY OF THE UNITED STATES

to have been decidedly with the North. Public opinion
in this country was strong against Slavery, and therefore
tended to support the Free States in the contest of which
Slavery was generally believed to be the cause. Later
this feeling became a little confused. Our people did not
understand the peculiar historical conditions which bound
the Northern side, and were puzzled and their enthusiasm
damped by the President's declaration that he had no
intention of interfering with Slavery, and still more by the
resolution whereby Congress specifically limited the objective
of the war and the preservation of the Union, expressly
guaranteeing the permanence of Slavery as a domestic
institution. These things made it easy for the advocates
of the South to maintain that Slavery had nothing to do
with the issue — as, indeed, directly, it had not. Then came
Bull Run — the sort of Jack-the-Giant-Killer incident which
always and in a very human fashion excites the admiration
of sportsmanlike foreigners. One may add to this the fact
that the intelligent governing class at that time generally
regarded the Americans, as the Americans regarded us,
as rivals and potential enemies, and would not have
been sorry to see one strong power in the New World
replaced by two weak ones. On the other hand, the British
Government's very proper proclamation of neutrality as
between the United States and the Confederacy had been
somewhat unreasonably criticized in America.

Yet the general sympathy with the Free as against the
Slave States might have had a better chance of surviving
but for the occurrence in November, 1861, of what is called
the " Trent " dispute. The Confederacy was naturally anxious
to secure recognition from the Powers of Western Europe,
and with this object despatched two representatives, Mason
of Virginia and Slidell of South Carolina, the one accredited
to the Court of St. James's and the other to the Tuilleries.
They took passage to Europe in a British ship called the
Trent. The United States cruiser San Jacinto, commanded
by Captain Wilkes of the American Navy, overhauled this
vessel, searched it and seized and carried off the two
Confederate envoys.

The act was certainly a breach of international law ; but
that was almost the smallest part of its irritant effect. In

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 183

every detail it was calculated to outrage British sentiment.
It was an affront offered to us on our own traditional
element — the sea. It was also a blow offered to pur
traditional pride as impartial protectors of political exiles
of all kind. The Times— in those days a responsible and
influential organ of opinion — said quite truly that the
indignation felt here had nothing to do with approval of
the rebellion ; that it would have been just as strong if,
instead of Mason and Slidell, the victims had been two of
their own Negro slaves. Indeed, for us there were no longer
Northern and Southern sympathizers : there were only
Englishmen indignant at an insult openly offered to the
Union Jack. Northerners might have understood us better,
and been less angry at our attitude, if they had remembered
how they themselves had felt when the guns opened on
Bumter.

. The evil was aggravated byrthe triumphant rejoicings
with which the North celebrated the capture and by the
complicity of responsible and even official persons in the
honours showered on Captain Wilkes. Seward, who had
a wild idea that a foreign quarrel would help to heal
domestic dissensions, was somewhat disposed to defend the
capture. But the eminently just mind of Lincoln quickly
saw that it could not be defended, while his prudence
perceived the folly of playing the Southern game by forcing
England to recognize the Confederacy. Mason and Slidell
were returned, and the incident as a diplomatic incident
was closed. But it had its part in breeding in these islands
a certain antagonism to the Government at Washington,
and thus encouraging the growing tendency to sympathize
with the South.

With the opening of the new year the North was
-cheered by a signal and very important success. In the
course of February Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, essential
strategic points on the front which the Confederate invaders
had stretched across Southern Kentucky, were captured
by General Ulysses Grant, in command of a Western army.
The Confederate forces were compelled to a general retire
ment, sacrificing the defensive line for the sake of which
they had turned the " neutral " border State into an enemy,
uncovering the whole of Western Tennessee, including the

184 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

capital of Nashville, and also yielding the Upper Mississippi.
The importance of the latter gain— for the Mississippi, once
mastered, would cut the Confederacy in two— was clearly
apparent to Beauregard, who at once marched northward
and attacked Grant at Shiloh. The battle was indecisive,
but in its military effect it was a success for the North.
Grant was compelled to abandon the ground upon which
his army stood, but he kept all the fruits of his recent
campaign.

Another incident, not only picturesque in itself but of
great importance in the history of naval war, marks the
opening months of 1862. After the failure of the first
attempt to take Richmond by a coup de main the war
became in its essence a siege of the Confederacy. To give
it this character, however, one thing was essential — the
control of the sea by the Union forces. The regular United
States navy — unlike the regular army, which was divided
— was fully under the control of the Federal Government, .
and was able to blockade the Southern ports. Davis had
attempted to meet this menace by issuing letters of marque
to privateers ; but this could be little more than an irritant
to the dominant power. It so happened, however, that
a discovery had recently been made which was destined to
revolutionize the whole character of naval war. Experiments
in the steel-plating of ships had already been made in
England and in France, but the first war vessel so fitted
for practical use was produced by the Southern Confederacy
—the celebrated Merrimac. One fine day she steamed into
Hampton Roads under the guns of the United States fleet
and proceeded to sink ship after ship, the heavy round shot
leaping off her like peas. It was a perilous moment, but
the Union Government had only been a day behind in
perfecting the same experiment. Next day the Monitor
arrived on the scene, and the famous duel between the first
two ironclads ever constructed commenced. Each proved
invulnerable to the other, for neither side had yet
constructed pieces capable of piercing protection, but
the victory was so far with the North that the hope that
the Confederacy might obtain, by one bold and inventive
stroke, the mastery of the sea was for the moment at
an end.

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 185

Meanwhile all eyes were fixed on McClellan, who was
busy turning the mob that had fled from Bull Run into an
army. His work of organization and discipline was by
common consent admirable ; yet when the time came when
he might be expected to take the field, that defect in his
quality as a commander showed itself which was to pursue
him throughout his campaigns. He was extravagantly
over-cautious. His unwillingness to fight, combined with
the energy he put into bringing the army into an efficient
state and gaining influence over its officers and men, gave
rise to the wildest rumours and charges. It was suggested
that he intended to use the force he was forming, not
against Richmond but against Washington ; to seize
supreme power by military force and reconcile the warring
States under the shadow of his sword. It is certain that
there was no kind of foundation for such suspicions.
He was a perfectly patriotic and loyal soldier who studied
his profession diligently. Perhaps he had studied it too
diligently. He seems to have resolved never to risk an
engagement unless under conditions which according to
the text-books should assure victory. Ideal conditions of
this sort were not likely to occur often in real war,
especially when waged against such an antagonist as
Robert Lee.

McClellan remained in front of the Confederate positions
throughout the winter and early spring. In reply to urgent
appeals from Washington he declared the position of the
enemy to be impregnable, and grossly exaggerated his
numbers. When at last, at the beginning of March, he
was induced to move forward, he found that the enemy had
slipped away, leaving behind, as if in mockery, a large
number of dummy wooden guns which had helped to
impress McClellan with the hopelessness of assailing his
adversaries.

The wooden guns, however little damage they could do
to the Federal army, did a good deal of damage to the
reputation of the Federal commander. Lincoln, though
pressed to replace him, refused to do so, having no one
obviously better to put in his room, and knowing that the
outcry against him was partly political — for McClellan was
a Democrat. The general now undertook the execution of

186 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

a plan of his own for the reduction of Richmond. Leaving
McDowell on the Potomac, he transported the greater part
of his force by water and effected a landing on the peninsula
of Yorktown, where some eighty years before Cornwallis
had surrendered to Washington and Rochambeau.

The plan was.not a bad one, but the general showed the
same lack of enterprise which had made possible the
escape of Johnstone. It is probable that if he had struck
at once at the force opposed to him, he could have destroyed
it and marched to Richmond almost unopposed.

Instead of striking at a vulnerable point he sat down in
a methodical fashion to besiege Yorktown. While he was
waiting for the reinforcements he had demanded, the
garrison got away as Johnstone had done from before
Manassas, and an attempt to push forward resulted in the
defeat of his lieutenant, Hooker, at Williamsburg.

McDowell, who was at Fredericksburg, was ordered
to join and reinforce McClellan, but the junction was
never made, for at the moment Jackson took the field and
effected one of the most brilliant exploits of the war. The
Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley were much more
numerous than the force which Jackson had at his disposal ,
but they were scattered at various points, and by a series
of incalculably rapid movements the Southern captain
attacked and overwhelmed each in turn. The alarm at
Washington was great, and McDowell Chastened to cut him
off, only to discover that Jackson had slipped past him and
was back in his own country. Meanwhile McClellan, left
without the reinforcements he had expected, was attacked
by Lee and beaten back in seven days' consecutive fighting
right to Harrison's Landing, where he could only entrench
himself and stand on the defensive. Richmond was as far
off as ever.

One piece of good news, however, reached Washington
at about this time, and once again it came from the West.
Towards the end of April Farragut, the American admiral,
captured the city of New Orleans. The event was justly
thought to be of great importance, for Grant already
dominated the Upper Mississippi, and if he could join hands
with a Union force operating from the mouth of the great
river, the Confederacy would be cut in two.

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 187

Perhaps the contrast between the good fortune which
had attended the Federal arms in the West and the failure
of the campaign in Eastern Virginia was responsible for the
appointment of a general taken from the Western theatre
of war to command the army of the Potomac. Lincoln,
having supported McClellan as long as he could, was now
obliged to abandon his cause, and General Pope was
appointed to supreme command of the campaign in Eastern
Virginia.

The change brought no better fortune ; indeed, it was the
prelude to a disaster worse than any that McClellan had
suffered. Pope advanced by the route of the original
invasion, and reached exactly the point where McDowell's
army had been routed. Here he paused and waited
While he lay there Jackson made another of his daring
raids, got between him and Washington and cut his
communications, while Lee fell upon him and utterly
destroyed his army in the second battle of Bull Run.

Lee's victory left him in full possession of the initiative,
with no effective force immediately before him and with a
choice of objectives. It was believed by many that he
would use his opportunity to attack Washington. But he
wisely refrained from such an attempt. Washington was
guarded by a strong garrison, and its defences had been
carefully prepared. To take it would involve at least
something like a siege, and while he was reducing it the
North would have the breathing space it needed to rally
its still unexhausted powers. He proposed to himself an
alternative, which, if he had been right in his estimate of
the political factors, would have given him Washington and
much more, and probably decided the war in favour of the
Confederacy. He crossed the Potomac and led his army
into Maryland.

The stroke was as much political as military in its
character. Maryland was a Southern State, There was
a sort of traditional sisterhood between her and Virginia.
Though she had not seceded, it was thought that her
sympathies must be with the South. The attack on the
Union troops in Baltimore at the beginning of the war had
seemed strong confirmation of this belief. The general
impression in the South, which the Southern general

188 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

probably shared, was that Maryland was at heart Secessionist,
and that a true expression of her will was prevented
only by force. The natural inference was that when a
victorious Southern commander appeared within her borders,
the people would rally to him as one man, Washington
would be cut off from the North, the President captured,
the Confederacy recognized by the European Powers, and
the North would hardly continue the hopeless struggle.
This idea was embodied in a fierce war-song which had
recently become popular throughout the Confederate States
and was caught up by Lee's soldiers on their historic march.
It began—

" The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland 1 My Maryland 1 "

And it ended —

" She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb !
Hurrah 1 She spurns the Yankee scum !
She breathes ! She lives 1 She'll come 1 she'll come !
Maryland ! My Maryland ! "

But Maryland did not come. The whole political
conception which underlay Lee's move was false. It may
seem curious that those who, when everything seemed to
be in favour of the North, had stoned Union soldiers in the
streets of the State capital, should not have moved a finger
when a great Southern soldier came among them with the
glamour of victory around him and proclaimed himself their
liberator. Yet so it proved. The probable explanation
is that, Maryland lying under the shadow of the capital,
which was built for the most part on her territory, Lincoln
could deal with her people directly. And wherever
he could get men face to face and show the manner of
man he was, he could persuade. Maryland was familiar
with "the despot" and did not find his " heel" at all
intolerable. The image of the horrible hairy Abolitionist
gloating constantly over the thought of a massacre of
Southerners by Negroes, which did duty for a portrait of
Lincoln in the South, was not convincing to Marylanders,
who knew the man himself and found him a kindly,
shrewd, and humorous man of the world, with much in
his person and character that recalled his Southern origin,
who enforced the law with strict impartiality wherever his

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 189

power extended, and who, above all, punctiliously returned
any fugitive slaves that might seek refuge in the District of
Columbia.

Lee issued a dignified and persuasive proclamation in
which he declared that he came among the people of
Maryland as a friend and liberator. But Maryland showed
no desire to be liberated. He and his soldiers were
everywhere coldly received. Hardly a volunteer joined them.
In many towns Union flags were flaunted in their faces —
a fact upon which is based the fictitious story of Barbara
Fritchit.

The political failure of the move led to considerable
military embarrassments. Lee met with no defeat in arms,
but his difficulties increased day by day.

Believing that he would be operating among a friendly
population he had given less thought than he would
otherwise have done to the problem of supplies, supposing
that he could obtain all he needed from the country. That
problem now became acute, for the Marylanders refused
to accept the Confederate paper, which was all he had to
tender in payment, and the fact that he professed to be
their liberator actually made his position more difficult, for
he could not without sacrificing a moral asset treat them
avowedly as an enemy people. He found himself compelled
to send Jackson back to hold Harper's Ferry lest his
communications might be endangered. Later he learnt that
McClellan, who had been restored to the chief command
after Pope's defeat, was moving to cut off his retreat. He
hastened back towards his base, and the two armies met by
Antietam Creek.

Antietam was not really a Union victory. It was followed
by the retirement of Lee into Virginia, but it is certain
that such retirement had been intended by him from the
beginning — was indeed his objective. The objective of
McClellan was, or should have been, the destruction of the
Confederate army, and this was not achieved. Yet, as
marking the end of the Southern commander's undoubted
failure in Maryland, it offered enough of the appearance of
a victory to justify in Lincoln's judgment an executive act
upon which he had determined some months earlier, but
which he thought would have a better effect coming after a

190 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

military success than in time of military weakness and
peril.

We have seen that both the President and Congress
had been careful to insist that the war was not undertaken
on behalf of the Negroes. Yet the events of the war had
forced the problem of the Negro into prominence. Fugitive
slaves from the rebel States took refuge with the Union
armies, and the question of what should be done with them
was forced on the Government. Lincoln knew that in this
matter he must move with the utmost caution. When in
the early days of the war, Fremont, who had been appointed
to military commander in Missouri, where he showed an
utter unfitness, both intellectual and moral, for his place,
proclaimed on his own responsibility the emancipation of
the slaves of " disloyal " owners, his headstrong vanity
would probably have thrown both Missouri and Kentucky
into the arms of the Confederacy if the President had not
promptly disavowed him. Later he disavowed a similar
proclamation by General Hunter. When a deputation of
ministers of religion from Chicago urged on him the
desirability of immediate action against Slavery, he met
them with a reply the opening passage of which is one of
the world's masterpieces of irony. When Horace Greeley
backed the same appeal with his "Prayer of Twenty
Millions," Lincoln in a brief letter summarized his policy
with his usual lucidity and force.

" My paramount object in this struggle is to save the
Union, and is not either to save or to destroy Slavery. If
I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I
would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing some and
leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I
do about Slavery and the coloured race, I do because I
believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear,
I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the
Union."

At the time he wrote these words Lincoln had already
decided on a policy of military emancipation in the rebel
States. He doubtless wrote them with an eye of the
possible effects of that policy. He wished the Northern
Democrats and the Unionists of Border States to under
stand that his action was based upon considerations of

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 191

military expediency and in no way upon his personal
disapproval of Slavery, of which at the same time he made no
recantation. On the military ground he had a strong case.
If, as the South maintained, the slave was simply a piece
of property, then the slave of a rebel was a piece of enemy
property — and enemy property used or usable for purposes
of war. To confiscate enemy property which may be of
military use was a practice as old as war itself. The same
principle which justified the North in destroying a Southern
cotton crop or tearing up the Southern railways justified
the emancipation of Negroes within the bounds of the
Southern Confederacy. In consonance with this principle
Lincoln issued on September 22nd a proclamation declaring
slaves free as from January 1, 1863, in such districts as
the Pr&sident should on that date specify as being in
rebellion against the Federal Government. Thus a chance
was deliberately left open for any State, or part of a State,
to save its slaves by submission. At the same, time
Lincoln renewed the strenuous efforts which he had
already made more than once to induce the Slave States
which remained in the Union to consent voluntarily to
some scheme of gradual and compensated emancipation.

One effect of the Emancipation Proclamation upon which
Lincoln had calculated was the approval of the civilized
world and especially of England. This was at that moment
of the more importance because the growing tendency of
Englishmen to sympathize with the South, which was largely
the product of Jackson's daring and picturesque exploits,
had already produced a series of incidents which nearly
involved the two nations in war. The chief of these was the
matter of the Alabama. This cruiser was built and fitted up
in the dockyards of Liverpool by the British firm of Laird.
She was intended, as the contractors of course knew, for the
service of the Confederacy, and, when completed, she took
to the sea under pretext of a trial trip, in spite of the protests
of the representative of the American Kepublic. The order
to detain her arrived too late, and she reached a Southern
port, whence she issued to become a terror to the commerce
of the United States. That the fitting up of such a vessel,
if carried out with the complicity of the Government, was
a gross breach of neutrality is unquestionable. That tha

192 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Government of Lord Russell connived at the escape of the
Alabama, well knowing her purpose and character, though
generally believed in America at the time, is most unlikely.
That the truth was known to the authorities at Liverpool,
where Southern sympathies were especially strong, is on the
other hand almost certain, and these authorities must be
held mainly responsible for misleading the Government
and so preventing compliance with the quite proper
demands of Adams, the American Ambassador. Finally,
an International Court found that Great Britain had not
shown " reasonable care " in fulfilling her obligations, and in
this verdict a fair-minded student of the facts will acquiesce.
At a later date we paid to the United States a heavy sum as
compensation for the depredations of the Alabama.

Meanwhile, neither Antietam nor the Proclamation
appeared to bring any luck to the Union armies in the field.
McClellan showed his customary over-caution in allowing
Lee to escape unhammered; once more he was superseded,'
and once more his supersession only replaced inaction by
disaster. Hooker, attempting an invasion of Virginia, got
caught in the tangled forest area called " the Wilderness."
Jackson rode round him, cutting his communications and
so forcing him to fight, and Lee beat him soundly at
Chancellorsville. The battle was, however, won at a heavy
cost to the Confederacy, for towards the end of the day the
mistake of a picket caused the death by a Southern bullet
of the most brilliant, if not the greatest, of Southern
captains. As to what that loss meant we have the testimony
of his chief and comrade-in-arms. " If I had had Jackson
with me," said Lee after Gettysburg, " I should have won a
complete victory." This, however, belongs to a later period.
Burnside, succeeding Hooker, met at Lee's hands with an
even more crushing defeat at Fredericksburg.

And now, as a result of these Southern successes, began
to become dangerous that factor on which the South had
counted from the first — the increasing weariness and division
of the North. I have tried in these pages to put fairly the
case for the defeated side in the Civil War. But one can
have a reasonable understanding of and even sympathy with
the South without having any sympathy to waste on those
who in the North .were called " Copperheads," A Northerner

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 193

might, indeed honestly think the Southern cause just and

coercion ot the seceding States immoral. But if so he

should have been opposed to such coercion from the first.

uonfederate case was in no way morally stronger in 1863

n8 iw* * been-in -186L If' therefore> a man had been

favour of coercion m 1861-as practically all Northerners

-his weakening two years later could not point to

ofnf^rn T?683 t0 dS lnJustice> but onlJ to ^e operation
fear or fatigue as deterrents from action believed to be
just. Moreover, the ordinary " Copperhead " position was
)lamly in contradiction of known facts that it must be
pronounced either imbecile or dishonest. If these men had
i the acceptance of disunion as an accomplished fact,
a case might be made out for them. But they generally
professed _ the strongest desire to restore the Union
accompanied by vehement professions of the belief that this
in some fashion be achieved by « negotiation " The
>lly of such a supposition was patent. The Confederacy was
in arms for the one specific purpose of separating itself from
h I m' S° far its.aPPeal to arms had been on the

for which it was fighting for any other reason than miHtaTy

eat was, on the face of it, quite insanely unlikely; and

as might have been expected, the explicit declarations of

Davis and all the other Confederate leaders were at th?s

time uniformly to the effect that peace could be had by the

recognition of Southern independence and in no other

fashion The -Copperheads," however, seem to have

from that amazing illusion which we have learnt

Q recent times to associate with the Russian Bolsheviks
1 their admirers in other countries-the illusion that if

ne side leaves off fighting the other side will immediately
do the same, though all the objects for which it ever wanted
to fight are unachieved. They persisted in maintaining that
in some mysterious fashion the President's " ambition » was
standing between the country and a peace based on reunion.
Ine same^ folly was put forward by Greeley, perhaps the
most consistently wrong-headed of American public men •
L^L was the more absurd since on the one issue*
tier than that of union or separation, which offered anv"
possible material for a compromise, that of Slavery he

194 A HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES

was professedly against all compromise, and blamed the
President for attempting any.

Little as can be said for the " Copperhead " temper, its
spread in the Northern States during the second year of
the war was a serious menace to the Union cause. It
showed itself in the Congressional elections, when the
Government's majority was saved only by the loyalty of
the Border Slave States, whose support Lincoln had been
at pains to conciliate in the face of so much difficulty and
misunderstanding. It showed itself in the increased activity
of pacifist agitators, of whom the notorious Vallandingham
may be taken as a type.

Lincoln met the danger in two fashions. He met

the arguments and appeals of the "Copperheads" with

unanswerable logic and with that lucidity of thought and

expression of which he was a master. One pronouncement

of his is worth quoting, and one wishes that it could have

been reproduced everywhere at the time of the ridiculous

Stockholm project. " Suppose refugees from the South

and peace men of the North get together and frame and

proclaim a compromise embracing a restoration of the

Union : in what way can that compromise be used to keep

Lee's army out of Pennsylvania ? Meade's army can keep

Lee's out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive

it out of existence. But no paper compromise, to which the

controllers of Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect

that army." Reasoning could not be more conclusive ; but

Lincoln did not stop at reasoning. Now was to be shown

how powerful an instrument of authority the Jacksonian

revolution had created in the popular elective Presidency.

Perhaps no single man ever exercised so much direct

personal power as did Abraham Lincoln during those four

years of Civil War. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended

by executive decree, and those whose action was thought

a hindrance to military success were arrested in shoals by

the orders of Stanton, the new energetic War Secretary, a

Jacksonian Democrat whom Lincoln had put in the place

of an incompetent Republican, though he had served under

Buchanan and supported Breckenridge. The constitutional

justification of these acts was widely challenged, but the

people in the main supported the Executive.

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 195

Lincoln, like Jackson, understood the populace and
knew just how to appeal to them. " Must I shoot a simple-
minded boy for deserting, and spare the wily agitator whose
words induce him to desert ? " Yallandingham himself met
a measure of justice characteristic of the President's humour
and almost recalling the jurisprudence of Sir W. S. Gilbert's
Mikado. Originally condemned to detention in a fortress,
his sentence was commuted by Lincoln to banishment, and
he was conducted by the President's orders across the army
lines and dumped on the Confederacy ! He did not stay
there long. The Southerners had doubtless some reason to be
grateful to him ; but they cannot possibly have liked him.
With their own Vallandinghams they had an even shorter way.

The same sort of war-weariness was perhaps a
contributory cause of an even more serious episode — the
Draft Riots of New York City. Here, however, a special
and much more legitimate ground of protest was involved.
The Confederacy had long before imposed Conscription
upon the youth of the South. It was imperative that the
North should do the same, and, though the constitutional
power of the Federal Government to make such a call
was questioned, its moral right to do so seems to me
unquestionable, for if the common Government has not the
right in the last resort to call upon all citizens to defend its
own existence, it is difficult to see what rights it can possess.
Unfortunately, Congress associated with this just claim a
provision for which there was plenty of historical precedent
but no justification in that democratic theory upon which
the American Commonwealth was built. It provided that
a man whose name had been drawn could, if he chose, pay
a substitute to serve in his stead. This was obviously a
privilege accorded to mere wealth, odious to the morals of
the Republic and especially odious to the very democratic
populace of New York. The drawing of the names was
there interrupted by violence, and for some days the city
was virtually in the hands of the insurgents. The popular
anger was complicated by a long-standing racial feud
between the Irish and the Negroes, and a good many
lynchings took place. At last order was restored by the
police, who used to restore it a violence as savage as that
of the crowd they were suppressing.

196 A HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES

We must now turn back to the military operations.
Lee had once more broken through, and was able to choose
the point where a sortie might most effectually be made.
He resolved this time to strike directly at the North itself,
and crossing a strip of Maryland he invaded Pennsylvania,
his ultimate objective being probably the great bridge over
the Susquehanna at Harrisburg, the destruction of which
would seriously hamper communication between North and
West. At first he met with no opposition, but a Federal
army under Meade started in pursuit of him and caught
him up at Gettysburg. In the battle which followed, as at
Valmy, each side had its back to its own territory. The
invader, though inferior in numbers, was obliged by the
conditions of the struggle to take the offensive. The main
feature of the fighting was the charge and repulse of
Pickett's Brigade. Both sides stood appalling losses with
magnificent steadiness. The Union troops maintained
their ground in spite of all that Southern valour could do
to dislodge them. It is generally thought that if Meade
had followed up his success by a vigorous offensive Lee's
army might have been destroyed. As things were, having
failed in its purpose of breaking the ring that held the
Confederacy, it got back into Virginia unbroken and almost
unpunished.

Gettysburg is generally considered as the turning-point
of the war, though perhaps from a purely military point of
view more significance ought to be attached to another
success which almost exactly synchronized with it. The same
4th of July whereon the North learnt of Lee's failure brought
news of the capture of Vicksburg by Grant. This meant
that the whole course of the Mississippi was now in Federal
hands, and made possible an invasion of the Confederacy
from the West such as ultimately effected its overthrow.

Lincoln, whose judgment in such matters was exception
ally keen for a civilian, had long had his eye on Grant.
He had noted his successes and his failures, and he had
noted especially in him the quality which he could not find
in McClellan or in Meade — a boldness of plan, a readiness
to take risks, and above all a disposition to press a success
vigorously home even at a heavy sacrifice. " I can't spare
that man ; he fights," he had said when some clamoured

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 197

for Grant's recall after Shiloh. For those who warned him
that Grant was given to heavy drinking he had an even
more characteristic reply : " I wish I knew what whisky he
drinks : I would send a cask to some of the other generals."

Meade's hesitation after Gettysburg and Grant's
achievement at Vicksburg between them decided him.
Grant was now appointed to supreme command of all the
armies of the Union.

Ulysses S. Grant stands out in history as one of those
men to whom a uniform seems to be salvation. As a
young man he had fought with credit in the Mexican war ;
later he had left the army, .and seemingly gone to the
dogs. He took to drink. He lost all his employments.
He became to all appearances an incorrigible waster, a
rolling stone, a man whom his old friends crossed the road
to avoid because a meeting with him always meant an
attempt to borrow money.

Then came the war, and Grant grasped — as such
broken men often do — at the chance of a new start. Not
without hesitation, he was entrusted with a subordinate
command in the West, and almost at once he justified
those who had been ready to give him a trial by his
brilliant share in the capture of Fort Donelson. From
that moment he was a new man, repeatedly displaying not
only the soldierly qualities of iron courage and a thorough
grasp of the practice of fighting, but moral qualities of a
high order, a splendid tenacity in disaster and hope deferred,
and in victory a noble magnanimity towards the conquered.
One wishes that the story could end there. But it must,
unfortunately, be added that when at last he laid aside
his sword he seemed to lay aside all that was best in him
with it, while the weaknesses of character which were so
conspicuous in Mr. Ulysses Grant, and which seemed so
completely bled out of General Grant, made many a
startling and disastrous reappearance in President Grant.

Grant arrived at Washington and saw the President for
the first time. The Western campaign he left in the hands
of two of his ablest lieutenants — Sherman, perhaps in
truth the greatest soldier that appeared on the Northern
side, and Thomas, a Virginian Unionist who had left his
State at the call of his country. There was much work for

198 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

them to do, for while the capture of Vicksburg and its
consequences gave them the Mississippi, the first attempt to
invade from that side under Eosecrans had suffered defeat
in the bloody battle of the Chickamauga. Sherman and
Thomas resolved to reverse this unfavourable decision and
attacked at the same crucial point. An action lasting four
days and full of picturesque episodes gave them the victory
which was the starting-point of all that followed. To that
action belongs the strange fight of Look Out Mountain
fought " above the clouds " by men who could not see the
wide terrain for the mastery of which they were contending,
and the marvellous charge of the Westerners up Missionary
Eidge, one of those cases where soldiers, raised above
themselves and acting without orders, have achieved a feat
which their commander had dismissed as impossible. To
the whole action is given the name of the Battle of
Chattanooga, and its effect was to give Sherman the base he
needed from which to strike at the heart of the Confederacy.

Grant in Virginia was less successful. An examination
of his campaign will leave the impression that, however
superior he was to previous Northern commanders in
energy, as a strategist he was no match for Lee. The
Southern general, with inferior forces, captured the
initiative and did what he chose with him, caught him in
the Wilderness as he had previously caught Hooker, and
kept him there on ground which gave every advantage to the
Confederate forces, who knew every inch of it, where Grant's
superiority in numbers could not be brought fully into play,
and where his even greater superiority in artillery was
completely neutralized. At the end of a week's hard
fighting, Grant had gained no advantage, while the Northern
losses were appalling — as great as the total original numbers
of the enemy that inflicted them. At Spottsylvania, where
Grant attempted a flanking movement, the same tactics
were pursued with the same success, while a final attempt
of the Northern general at a frontal assault ended in a
costly defeat.

In the darkest hour of this campaign Grant had told
the Government at Washington that he would " fight it out
on that line if it took all the summer." It was, however, on
another line that the issue was being fought out and

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 199

decided against the Confederacy. From Chattanooga
Sherman moved on Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. Joseph
Johnstone disputed every step of the advance, making it as
costly as possible, but wisely refused to risk his numerically
inferior army in a general engagement. He fell back
slowly, making a stand here and there, till the Northern
general stood before Atlanta.

It was at this moment that the leaders of the
Confederacy would have acted wisely in proposing terms
of peace. Their armies were still in being, and could even
boast conspicuous and recent successes. If the war went
on it would probably be many months before the end came,
while the North was bitterly weary of the slaughter and
would not tolerate the refusal of reasonable settlement.
Yet, if the war went on, the end, could no longer be ^ in
doubt. Had that golden moment been seized, the seceding
States might have re-entered the Union almost on their
own terms. Certainly they could have avoided the
abasement and humiliation which was to come upon them as
the consequence of continuing their resistance till surrender
had to be unconditional. It might seem at first ^that
Emancipation Proclamation had introduced an additional
obstacle to accommodation. But this was largely neutralized
by the fact that every one, including Jefferson Davis
himself, recognized that Slavery had been effectively destroyed
by the war and could never be revived, even were the South
victorious. The acceptance by the Confederacy of a policy
suggested by Lee, whereby Negroes were to be enlisted as
soldiers and freed on enlistment, clinched this finally. On
the other hand, Lincoln let it be clearly understood that if
the Union could be restored by consent he was prepared to
advocate the compensation of Southern owners for the loss
of their slaves. The blame for the failure to take advantage
of this moment must rest mainly on Davis. It wasjie who
refused to listen to any terms save the recognition of
Southern independence; and this attitude doomed the
tentative negotiations entered into at Hampton Roads to
failure.

Meanwhile, in the North, Lincoln was chosen President
for a second terra. At one time his chances had looked
gloomy enough. The Democratic Party had astutely chosen

200 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

General McClellan as its candidate, His personal popularity
with the troops, and the suggestion that he was an honest
soldier ill-used by civilian politicians, might well gain him
much support in the armies, for whose voting special
provision had been made, while among the civil population
he might expect the support of all who, for one reason or
another, were discontented with the Government. At the
same time the extreme Anti- Slavery wing of the Republican
Party, alienated by the diplomacy of the President in
dealing with the Border States, and by the moderation of
his views concerning the Negro and his future, put forward
another displaced general, Fremont But in the end
circumstances and the confidence which his statesmanship
had created combined to give Lincoln something like a
walk-over. The Democratic Party got into the hands of
the " Copperheads " at the very moment when facts were
giving the lie to the " Copperhead " thesis. Its platform
described the course of the war as " four years of failure,"
and its issue as hopeless, while before the voting began
even a layman could see that the Confederacy was, from
the military point of view, on its last legs. The War
Democrats joined hands with the Republicans, and the
alliance was sealed by the selection of Andrew Johnson, a
Jacksonian Democrat from Tennessee, as candidate for the
Vice-Presidency. The Radical Republicans began to discover
how strong a hold Lincoln had gained on the public mind
in the North, and to see that by pressing their candidate
they would only expose the weakness of their faction.
Fremont was withdrawn and McClellan easily defeated. A
curious error has been constantly repeated in print in this
country to the effect that Lincoln was saved only by the
votes of the army. There is no shadow of foundation for
this statement. The proportion of his supporters among
the soldiers was not much greater than among the civil
population. But in both it was overwhelming.

Meanwhile Atlanta had fallen, and Davis had unwisely
relieved Johnstone of his command. It was now that
Sherman determined on the bold scheme which mainly
secured the ultimate victory of the North. Cutting himself
loose from his base and abandoning all means of communi
cation with the North, he advanced into the country of the

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 201

enemy, living on it and laying it waste as he passed. For
a month his Government had no news of him. Ultimately
he reached the sea at Savannah, and was able to tell his
supporters that he had made a desert in the rear of
the main Confederate armies. Thence he turned again,
traversed South Carolina, and appeared, so to speak, on the
flank of the main Confederate forces which were holding
Grant.

The ethics of Sherman's famous March to the Sea have
been much debated. He was certainly justified by the
laws of war in destroying the military resources of the
Confederacy, and it does not seem that more than this
was anywhere done by his orders. There was a good deal
of promiscuous looting by his troops, and still more by
camp followers and by the Negroes who, somewhat to his
annoyance, attached themselves to his columns. The march
through South Carolina was the episode marked by the
harshest conduct, for officers and men had not forgotten
Sumter, and regarded the devastation of that State as a
just measure of patriotic vengeance on the only begetter
of the rebellion; but the burning of Columbus seems to
have been an accident, for which at least Sherman himself
was not responsible. It is fair to him to add that in the
very few cases — less than half a dozen in all — where a
charge of rape or murder can be brought home, the offender
was punished with death.

As a military stroke the March to the Sea was decisive.
One sees its consequences at once in the events of the
Virginian campaign. Lee had suffered no military defeat ;
indeed, the balance of military success, so far as concerned
the army directly opposed to him, was in his favour.
Sheridan's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley had delighted
the North as much as Jackson's earlier exploits in the same
region had delighted the South ; but its direct military
effect was not great. From the moment, however, of
Sherman's successful completion of his march, the problem
of the Southern general becomes wholly different. It is
no longer whether he can defeat the enemy, but whether
he can save his army. He determined to abandon Richmond,
and effect, if possible, a union with Johnstone, who was
again watching and checking Sherman,

202 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Did space permit, it would be a noble task to chronicle
the last wonderful fight of the Lion of the South; how,
with an exhausted and continually diminishing army, he
still proved how much he was to be feared ; how he turned
on Sheridan and beat him, checked Grant and broke away
again only to find his path barred by another Union army.

At Appomatox Court House the end came. The lion
was trapped and caught at last. There was nothing for
it but to make the best terms he could for his men. The
two generals met. Both rose to the nobility of the occasion.
Lee had never been anything but great, and Grant was
never so great again. The terms accorded to the vanquished
were generous and honourable to the utmost limit of the
victor's authority. " This will have the happiest effect on
my people," said Lee, in shaking hands with his conqueror.
They talked a little of old times at West Point, where they
had studied together, and parted. Lee rode away to his
men and addressed them : " We have fought through this
war together. I did my best for you." With these few
words, worth the whole two volumes of Jefferson Davis's
rather tiresome apologetics, one of the purest, bravest, and
most chivalrous figures among those who have followed the
noble profession of arms rides out of history.

CHAPTER X

THE surrender of Lee and his army was not actually the
end of the war. The army of General Johnstone and some
smaller Confederate forces were still in being ; but their
suppression seemed clearly only a matter of time, and
all men's eyes were already turned to the problem of
reconstruction, and on no man did the urgency of that
problem press more ominously than on the President.

Slavery was dead. This was already admitted in the
South as well as in the North. Had the Confederacy, by
some miracle, achieved its independence during the last
year of the war, it is extremely unlikely that Slavery would
have endured within its borders. This was the publicly
expressed opinion of Jefferson Davis even before the adoption
of Lee's policy of recruiting slaves and liberating them on
enlistment had completed the work which the Emancipation
Proclamation of Lincoln had begun. Before the war was over,
Missouri, where the Slavery problem was a comparatively
small affair, and Maryland, which had always had a good
record for humanity and justice in the treatment of its slave
population, had declared themselves Free States. The new
Governments organized under Lincoln's superintendence
in the conquered parts of the Confederacy had followed
suit. It was a comparatively easy matter to carry the
celebrated Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
declaring Slavery illegal throughout the Union.

But, as no one knew better than the President, the
abolition of Slavery was a very different thing from the
solution of the Negro problem. Six years before his election
he had used of the problem of Slavery in the South these

203

204 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

remarkable words : "I surely will not blame them (the
Southerners) for not doing what I should not know how
to do myself. If all earthly power was given I should not
know what to do as to the existing institution." The words
now came back upon him with an awful weight which he
fully appreciated. All earthly power was given — direct
personal power to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history
— and he had to find out what to do.

His own belief appears always to have been that the
only permanent solution of the problem was Jefferson's.
He did not believe that black and white races would
permanently live side by side on a footing of equality, and
he loathed with all the loathing of a Kentuckian the thought
of racial amalgamation. In his proposal to the Border
States he had suggested repatriation in Africa, and he now
began to develop a similar project on a larger scale.

But the urgent problem of the reconstruction of the
Union could not wait for the completion of so immense a
task. The seceding States must be got into their proper
relation with the Federal Government as quickly as possible,
and Lincoln had clear ideas as to how this should be done.
The reconstructed Government of Louisiana which he
organized was a working model of what he proposed to
do throughout the South. All citizens of the State who
were prepared to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal
Government] were to be invited to elect a convention and
frame a constitution. They were required to annul the
ordinanceslof Secession,Sto'ratify the Thirteenth Amendment,
and to repudiate the Confederate Debt. The Executive
would then recognize the State as already restored to its
proper place within the Union, with the full rights of
internal self-government which the Constitution guaranteed.
The freedmen were of course not citizens, and could,
as such, take no part in these proceedings ; but Lincoln
recommended, without attempting to dictate, that the
franchise should be extended to " the very intelligent and
those who have fought for us during the war."

Such was Lincoln's policy of reconstruction. He was
anxious to get as much as possible of that policy in working
order before Congress should meet. His foresight was
justified, for as soon as Congress met the policy was

"THE BLACK TEEEOE" 205

challenged by the Eadical wing of the Republican Party,
whose spokesman was Senator Simmer of Massachusetts.

Charles Sumner has already been mentioned in these
pages. The time has come when something like a portrait
of him must be attempted. He was of a type which exists
in all countries, but for which America has found the exact
and irreplaceable name. He was a "high-brow." The
phrase hardly needs explanation ; it corresponds somewhat
to what the French mean by intellectuel, but with an
additional touch of moral priggishness which exactly suits
Sumner. It does not, of course, imply that a man can think.
Sumner was conspicuous even among politicians for his
ineptitude in this respect. But it implies a pose of
superiority both as regards culture and as regards what
a man of that kind calls " idealism " which makes such an
one peculiarly offensive to his fellow-men. " The Senator
so conducts himself," said Fessenden, a Republican, and
to a great extent an ally, " that he has no friends." He
had a peculiar command of the language of insult and
vituperation that was all the more infuriating because
obviously the product not of sudden temper, but of careful
and scholarly preparation. In all matters requiring
practical action he was handicapped by an incapacity for
understanding men; in matters requiring mental lucidity
by an incapacity for following a line of consecutive
thought.

The thesis of which Sumner appeared as the champion
was about as silly as ever a thesis could be. It was that
the United States were bound by the doctrine set out in
the Declaration of Independence to extend the Franchise
indiscriminately to the Negroes.

Had Sumner had any sense it might have occurred to
him that the author of the Declaration of Independence
might be presumed to have some knowledge of its meaning
and content. Did Thomas Jefferson think that his doctrines
involved Negro Suffrage ? So far from desiring that Negroes
should vote with white men, he did not believe that they
could even live in the same free community. Yet since
Sumner 's absurd fallacy has a certain historical importance
through the influence it exerted on Northern opinion, it
may be well to point out where it lay.

206 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The Declaration of Independence lays down three
general principles fundamental to Democracy. One is
that all men are equal in respect of their natural rights.
The second is that the safeguarding of men's natural rights
is the object of government. The third that the basis
of government is contractual — its "just powers" being
derived from the consent of the governed to an implied
contract.

The application of the first of these principles to the
Negro is plain enough. Whatever else he was, the Negro
was a man, and, as such, had an equal title with other men
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But neither
Jefferson nor any other sane thinker ever included the
electoral suffrage among the natural rights of men. Voting
is part of the machinery of government in particular
States. It is, in such communities, an acquired right
depending according to the philosophy of the Declaration
of Independence on an implied contract.

Now if such a contract did really underlie American, as
all human society, nothing can be more certain than that
the Negro had neither part nor lot in it. When Douglas
pretended that the black race was not included in the
expression "all men" he was talking sophistry, but when
he said that the American Republic had been made "by
white men for white men" he was stating, as Lincoln
readily acknowledged, an indisputable historical fact. The
Negro was a man and had the natural rights of a man;
but he could have no claim to the special privileges of an
American citizen because he was not and never had been
an American citizen. He had not come to America as a
citizen ; no one would ever have dreamed of bringing him
or even admitting him if it had been supposed that he was
to be a citizen. He was brought and admitted as a slave.
The fact that the servile relationship was condemned by
the democratic creed could not make the actual relationship
of the two races something wholly other than what it
plainly was. A parallel might be found in the case of a
man who, having entered into an intrigue with a woman,
wholly animal and mercenary in its character, comes under
the influence of a philosophy which condemns such a
connection as sinful. He is bound to put an end to the

"THE BLACK TERROR" 207

connection. He is bound to act justly and humanely
towards the woman. But no sane moralist would maintain
that he was bound to marry the woman — that is, to treat
the illicit relationship as if it were a wholly different lawful
relationship such as it was never intended to be and never
could have been.

Such was the plain sense and logic of the situation.
To drive such sense into Sumner's lofty but wooden head
would have been an impossible enterprise, but the mass of
Northerners could almost certainly have been persuaded to
a rational policy if a sudden and tragic catastrophe had
not altered at a critical moment the whole complexion of
public affairs.

Lincoln made his last public speech on April 11, 1865,
mainly in defence of his Reconstruction polic}- as exemplified
in the test case of Louisiana. On the following Good Friday
he summoned his last Cabinet, at which his ideas on the
subject were still further developed. That Cabinet meeting
has an additional interest as presenting us with one of the
best authenticated of those curious happenings which we may
attribute to coincidence or to something deeper, according
to our predilections. It is authenticated by the amplest
testimony that Lincoln told his Cabinet that he expected
that that day would bring some important piece of public
news — he thought it might be the surrender of Johnstone
and the last of the Confederate armies — and that he gave
as a reason the fact that he had had a certain dream, which
had come to him on the night before Gettysburg and on
the eve of almost every other decisive event in the history
of the war. Certain it is that Johnstone did not surrender
that day, but before midnight an event of far graver and
more fatal purport had changed the destiny of the nation.
Abraham Lincoln was dead.

A conspiracy against his life and that of the Northern
leaders had been formed by a group of exasperated and
fanatical Southerners who met at the house of a Mrs.
Suratt in the neighbourhood of Washington. One of the
conspirators was to kill Seward, who was confined to his
bed by illness, but on whom an unsuccessful attempt was
made. Another, it is believed, was instructed to remove
Grant, but the general unexpectedly left Washington, and

208 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

no direct threat was offered to him. The task of making
away with the President was assigned to John Wilkes
Booth, a dissolute and crack-brained actor. Lincoln and
his wife were present that night at a gala performance of
a popular English comedy called " Our American Cousin."
Booth obtained access to the Presidential box and shot his
victim behind the ear, causing instant loss of consciousness,
which was followed within a few hours by death. The
assassin leapt from the box on to the stage shouting :
"Sic semper Tyrannis!" and, though he broke his leg
in the process, succeeded, presumably by the aid of a
confederate among the theatre officials, in getting away.
He was later hunted down, took refuge in a bar, which was
set on fire, and was shot in attempting to escape.

The murder of Lincoln was the work of a handful of
crazy fools. Already the South, in spite of its natural
prejudices, was beginning to understand that he was its
best friend. Yet on the South the retribution was to fall.
It is curious to recall the words which Lincoln himself had
used in repudiating on behalf of the Republican Party the
folly of old John Brown, words which are curiously apposite
to his own fate and its consequences.

"That affair, in its philosophy," he had said, "corresponds
to the many attempts related in history at the assassination
of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the
oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned
by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt,
which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsim's
attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's attempt
at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely
the same. The eagerness to cast blame on Old England
in the one case and on New England in the other does not
disprove the sameness of the two things." It may be
added that the " philosophy " of Booth was also " precisely
the same" as that of Orsini and Brown, and that the
" eagerness to cast blame " on the conquered South was
equally unjustifiable and equally inevitable.

The anger of the North was terrible, and was intensified
by the recollection of the late President's pleas for lenity
and a forgetfulness of the past. "This is their reply to~
magnanimity ! " was the almost universal cry. The wild

"THE BLACK TERROR" 200

idea that the responsible heads of the Confederacy were
privy to the deed found a wide credence which would have
been impossible in cooler blood. The justifiable but
unrestrained indignation which Booth's crime provoked
must be counted as the first of the factors which made
possible the tragic blunders of the Reconstruction.

Another factor was the personality of the new President
Andrew Johnson occupied a position in some ways analogous
to that of Tyler a generation earlier. He had been chosen
V ice-President as a concession to the War Democrats and
to the Unionists of the Border States whose support had
been thought necessary to defeat McClellan. With the
Northern Republicans who now composed the great majority
of Congress he had no political affinity whatever. Yet at
the beginning of his term of office he was more popular
with the Radicals than Lincoln had ever been. He seemed
to share to the full the violence of the popular mood His
declaration that as murder was a crime, so treason was a
crime, and "must be made odious," was welcomed with
enthusiasm by the very men who afterwards impeached
him. Nor, when we blame these men for trafficking with
perjurers and digging up tainted and worthless evidence
for the purpose of sustaining against him the preposterous
charge of complicity in the murder of his predecessor
must we forget that he himself, without any evidence at
ail, had under his own hand and seal brought the same
monstrous accusation against Jefferson Davis. Davis when
apprehended, met the affront with a cutting reply "'There
is one man at least who knows this accusation to be false—
the man who makes it. Whatever else Andrew Johnson
knows, he knows that I preferred Mr. Lincoln to him "

It was true. Between Johnson and the chiefs of the
Confederacy there was a bitterness greater than could be
found in the heart of any Northerner. To him they were
the seducers who had caught his beloved South in a net of
disloyalty and disaster To them he was a traitor who had
TTL r .Yankee oppressor. A social quarrel
intensified the political one. Johnson, who had been a
tailor by trade was the one political representative of the
"poor whites" of the South. He knew that the great
slave-owning squires despised him, and he hated them in

•210 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

return. It was only when the issues cut deeper that it
became apparent that, while he would gladly have hanged
Jeff Davis and all his Cabinet on a sufficient number of sour
apple trees (and perhaps he was the one man in the United
States who really wanted to do so), he was none the less a
Southerner to the backbone ; it was only when the Negro
question was raised that the Northern men began to realize,
what any Southerner or man acquainted with the South
could have told them, that the attitude of the " poor white "
towards the Negro was a thousand times more hostile than
that of the slave-owner.

Unfortunately, by the same token, the new President
had not, as Lincoln would have had, the ear of the North.

Had Lincoln lived he would have approached the task
of persuading the North to support his policy with many
advantages which his successor necessarily lacked. He
would have had the full prestige of the undoubted Elect
of the People — so important to an American President,
especially in a conflict with Congress. He would have had
the added prestige of the ruler under whose administration
the Rebellion had been crushed and the Union successfully
restored. But he would also have had an instinctive
understanding of the temper of the Northern masses and a
thorough knowledge of the gradations of opinion and temper
among the Northern politicians.

Johnson had none of these qualifications, while his faults
of temper were a serious hindrance to the success of his
policy. He was perhaps the purest lover of his country
among all the survivors of Lincoln : the fact that told so
heavily against his success, that he had no party, that he
broke with one political connection in opposing Secession
and with another in opposing Congressional Reconstruction,
is itself a sign of the integrity and consistency of his
patriotism. Also he was on the right side. History, seeing^
how cruelly he was maligned and how abominably he was
treated, owes him these acknowledgments. But he was not
a prudent or a tactful man. Too much importance need
not be attached to the charge of intemperate drinking, which
is probably true but not particularly serious. If Johnson
had got drunk every night of his life he would only
have done what some of the greatest and most successful

"THE BLACK TERROR" 211

statesmen in history had done before him. But there was
an intemperance of character about the man which was more
disastrous in its consequences than a few- superfluous
whiskies could have been. He was easily drawn into
acrimonious personal disputes, and when under their
influence would push a quarrel to all lengths with men
with whom it was most important in the public interest
that he should work harmoniously.

For the extremists, of whom Suniner was a type, were
still a minority even among the Republican politicians ; nor
was Northern opinion, even after the murder of Lincoln,
yet prepared to support their policy. There did, however,
exist in the minds of quite fair-minded Northerners, in and
out of Congress, certain not entirely unreasonable doubts,
which it should have been the President's task — as it would
certainly have been Lincoln's — to remove by reason and
persuasion. He seems to have failed to see that he had
to do this ; and certainly he altogether failed to do it.

The fears of such men were twofold. They feared that
the " rebel " States, if restored immediately to freedom of
action and to the full enjoyment of their old privileges,
would use these advantages for the purpose of preparing
a new secession at some more favourable opportunity. And
they feared that the emancipated Negro would not be safe
under a Government which his old masters controlled.

It may safely be said that both fears were groundless,
though they were both fears which a reasonable man quite
intelligibly entertains. Naturally, the South was sore ; no
community likes having to admit defeat. Also, no doubt,
the majority of Southerners would have refused to admit
that they were in the wrong in the contest which was now
closed; indeed, it was by pressing this peculiarly tactless
question that Sumner and his friends procured most of
their evidence of the persistence of " disloyalty " in the
South. On the other hand, two facts already enforced
in these pages have to be remembered. The first is that
the Confederacy was not in the full sense a nation. Its
defenders felt their defeat as men feel the downfall of a
political cause to which they are attached, not quite as
men feel the conquest of their country by foreigners. The
second is that from the first there had been manv who

212 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

while admitting the right of secession — and therefore, by
implication, the justice of the Southern cause — had yet
doubted its expediency. It is surely not unnatural to
suppose that the disastrous issue of the experiment had
brought a great many round to this point of view. No
doubt there was still a residue — perhaps a large residue —
of quite impenitent " rebels " who were prepared to renew
the battle if they saw a good chance, but the conditions
under which the new Southern Governments had come
into existence offered sufficient security against such men
controlling them. Irreconcilables of that type would not
have taken the oath of allegiance, would not have repealed
the Ordinances of Secession or repudiated the Confederate
Debt, and, if they had no great objection to abolishing
Slavery, would probably have made it a point of honour
not to do it at Northern dictation. What those who were
now asking for re-admission to their ancient rights in
the Union had already done or were prepared to do was
sufficient evidence that moderation and an accessible temper
were predominant in their counsels.

The other fear was even more groundless. There might
in the South be a certain bitterness against the Northerner ;
there was none at all against the Negro. Why should there
l)e ? During the late troubles the Negro had deserved very
well of the South. At a time when practically every active
male of the white population was in the fighting line, when
a slave insurrection might have brought ruin and disaster
on every Southern home, not a slave had risen. The great
majority of the race had gone on working faithfully, though
the ordinary means of coercion were almost necessarily in
abeyance. Even when the Northern armies came among
them, proclaiming their emancipation, many of them
continued to perform their ordinary duties and to protect
the property and secrets of their masters. Years afterwards
the late Dr. Booker Washington could boast that there was
no known case of one of his race betraying a trust. All
this was publicly acknowledged by leading Southerners and
one-time supporters of Slavery like Alexander Stephens,
who pressed the claims of the Negro to fair and even
generous treatment at the hands of the Southern whites.
Jt is certain that these in the main meant well of the black

"THE BLACK TERROR" 213

race. It is equally certain that, difficult as the problem
was, they were more capable of dealing with it than were
alien theorizers from the North, who had hardly seen a
Negro save, perhaps, as a waiter at an hotel.

It is a notable fact that the soldiers who conquered the
South were at this time practically unanimous in support
of a policy of reconciliation and confidence. Sherman, to
whom Johnstone surrendered a few days after Lincoln's
death, wished to offer terms for the surrender of all the
Southern forces which would have guaranteed to the seceding
States the full restoration of internal self-government.
Grant sent to the President a reassuring report as to
the temper of the South which Sumner compared to the
" whitewashing message of Franklin Pierce " in regard to
Kansas.

Yet it would be absurd to deny that the cleavage between
North and South, inevitable after a prolonged Civil War,
required time to heal. One event might indeed have
ended it almost at once, and that event almost occurred.
A foreign menace threatening something valued by both,
sections would have done more than a dozen Acts of
Congress or Amendments to the Constitution. There were
many to whom this had always appeared the most hopeful
remedy for the sectionable trouble. Among them was
Seward, who, having been Lincoln's Secretary of State,
now he^ld the same post under Johnson. While secession
was still little more than a threat he had proposed to
Lincoln the deliberate fomentation of a dispute with some
foreign power — he did not appear to mind which. It
is thought by some that, after the war, he took up and
pressed the Alabama claims with the same notion. That
quarrel, however, would hardly have met the case. The
ex-Confederates could not be expected to throw themselves
with enthusiasm into a war with England to punish her
for providing them with a navy. It was otherwise with
the trouble which had been brewing in Mexico.

Napoleon III. had taken advantage of the Civil War to
violate in a very specific fashion the essential principle of
the Monroe Doctrine. He had interfered in one of the
innumerable Mexican revolutions and taken advantage of
it to place on the throne an emperor of his own choice,

214 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Maximilian, a cadet of the Hapsburg family, and to support
his nominee by French bayonets. Here was a challenge
which the South was even more interested in taking up
than the North, and, if it had been persisted in, it is
quite thinkable that an army under the joint leadership of
Grant and Lee and made up of those who had learnt to
respect each other on a hundred fields from Bull Run to
Spottsylvania might have erased all bitter memories by
a common campaign on behalf of the liberties of the
continent. But Louis Napoleon was no fool ; and in this
matter he acted perhaps with more regard to prudence
than to honour. He withdrew the French troops, leaving
Maximilian to his fate, which he promptly met at the
hands of his own subjects.

The sectional quarrel remained unappeased, and
the quarrel between the President and Congress began.
Congress was not yet Radical, but it was already
decidedly, though still respectfully, opposed to Johnson's
policy. While only a few of its members had yet made
up their minds as to what ought to be done about
Reconstruction, the great majority had a strong professional
bias which made them feel that the doing or not doing
of it should be in their hands and not in those of the
Executive. It was by taking advantage of this prevailing
sentiment that the Radicals, though still a minority,
contrived to get the leadership more and more into their
own hands.

Of the Radicals Sumner was the spokesman most
conspicuous in the public eye. But not from him came
either the driving force or the direction which ultimately
gave them the control of national policy.

Left to himself, Sumner could never have imposed the
iron oppression from which it took the South a life-and-
death wrestle of ten years to shake itself free. At the
worst he would have been capable of imposing a few paper
pedantries, such as his foolish Civil Rights Bill, which
would have been torn up before their ink was dry. The
will and intelligence which dictated the Reconstruction
belonged to a very different man, a man entitled to a
place not with puzzle-headed pedants or coat-turning
professionals but with the great tyrants of history.

-THE BLACK TERROR" 215

Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania was in almost
every respect the opposite of his ally, Charles Sumner
of Massachusetts. Sumner, empty of most things, was
especially empty of humour. Stevens had abundance of
humour of a somewhat fierce but very real kind. Some of
his caustic strokes are as good as anything recorded of
Talleyrand : notably his reply to an apologist of Johnson
who "urged in the President's defence that he was "a
selfmade man." " I am delighted to hear it," said Stevens
grimly ; " it relieves the Creator of a terrible responsibility."
With this rather savage wit went courage which could face
the most enormous of tests ; like Rabelais, like Danton, he
could jest with death when death was touching him on the
shoulder. In public life he was not so much careless of
what he considered conventions as defiantly happy in
challenging them. It gave him keen delight to outrage at
once the racial sentiments of the South and the Puritanism of
the North by compelling the politicians whom he dominated
and despised to pay public court to his mulatto mistress.

The inspiring motive of this man was hatred of the
South. It seems probable that this sentiment had its origin
in a genuine and honourable detestation of Slavery.

As a practising lawyer in Pennsylvania he had at
an earlier period taken a prominent part in defending
fugitive slaves. But by the time that he stood forward as
the chief opponent of the Presidential policy of conciliation,
Slavery had ceased to exist; yet his passion against the
former slave-owners seemed rather to increase than to
diminish. I [think it certain, though I cannot produce
here all the evidence that appears to me to support such
a conclusion, that it was the negative rather than the
positive aspect of his policy that attracted him most.
Sumner might dream of the wondrous future in store for
the Negro race— of whose qualities and needs he knew
literally nothing — under Bostonian tutelage. But I am
sure that for Stevens the vision dearest to his heart was
rather that of the proud Southern aristocracy compelled
to plead for mercy on its knees at the tribunal of its
hereditary bondsmen.

Stevens was a great party leader. Not such a leader
as Jefferson or Jackson had been : a man who sums up and

216 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

expresses the will of masses of men. Nor yet such a
leader as later times have accustomed us to ; a man who
by bribery or intrigue induces his fellow-professionals to
support him. He was one of those who rule by personal
dominance. His courage has already been remarked ;
and he knew how much fearlessness can achieve in a
profession where most men are peculiarly cowardly. It
was he who forced the issue between the President and
Congress and obtained at a stroke a sort of captaincy in the
struggle by moving in the House of Representatives that the
consideration of Reconstruction by Congress would precede
any consideration of the President's message asking for the
admission of the representatives of the reorganized States.

By a combination of forceful bullying and skilful
strategy Stevens compelled the House of Representatives
to accept his leadership in this matter, but the action of
Congress on other questions during these early months of
the contest shows how far it still was from accepting his
policy. The plan of Reconstruction which the majority
now favoured is to be found outlined in the Fourteenth
Constitutional Amendment which, at about this time, it
recommended for adoption by the States.

The provisions of this amendment were threefold.
One, for which a precedent had been afforded by the
President's own action, declared that the public debt
incurred by the Federal Government should never be
repudiated, and also that no State should pay or accept
responsibility for any debt incurred for the purpose of
waging war against the Federation. Another, probably
unwise from the point of view of far-sighted statesmanship
but more or less in line with the President's policy, provided
for the exclusion from office of all who, having sworn
allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, had
given aid to a rebellion against its Government. The third,
which was really the crucial one, provided a settlement
of the franchise question which cannot be regarded as
extreme or unreasonable. It will be remembered that
the original Constitutional Compromise had provided for
the inclusion, in calculating the representation of a State,
of all "free persons" and of three-fifths of the "other
persons " — that is, of the slaves. By freeing the slaves

"THE BLACK TERROR" 217

the representation to which the South was entitled was
automatically increased by the odd two-fifths of their
number, and this seemed to Northerners unreasonable,
unless the freedmen were at the same time enfranchised.
Congress decided to recommend that the representation of
the South should be greater or less according to the extent
to which the Negro population were admitted to the franchise
or excluded from it. This clause was re-cast more than
once in order to satisfy a fantastic scruple of Sumner's
concerning the indecency of mentioning the fact that some
people were black and others white, a scruple which he
continued to enforce with his customary appeals to the
Declaration of Independence, until even his ally Stevens lost
all patience with him. But in itself it was not, perhaps,
a bad solution of the difficulty. Had it been allowed to
stand and work without further interference it is quite
likely that many Southern States would have been induced
by the prospect of larger representation to admit in course
of time such Negroes as seemed capable of understanding
the meaning of citizenship in the European sense. Such,
at any rate, was the opinion of General Lee, as expressed
in his evidence before the Reconstruction Committee.

The South was hostile to the proposed settlement
mainly on account of the second provision. It resented the
proposed exclusion of its leaders. The sentiment was an
honourable and chivalrous one, and was well expressed by
Georgia in her protest against the detention of Jefferson
Davis: "If he is guilty so are 'we." But the rejection of
the Amendment by the Southern States had a bad effect in
the North. It may be convenient here to remark that
Davis was never tried. He was brought up and admitted
to bail (which the incalculable Greeley found for him),
and the case against him was not further pressed. In
comparison with almost every other Government that has
crushed an insurrection, the Government of the United
States deserves high credit for its magnanimity in dealing
with the leaders of the Secession. Yet the course actually
pursued, more in ignorance than in malice so far as the
majority were concerned, probably caused more suffering
and bitterness among the vanquished than a hundred
executions.

218 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

For the Radicals were more and more gaining control of
Congress, now openly at war with the Executive. The
President had been using his veto freely, and, as many
even of his own supporters thought, imprudently. The
Republicans were eager to obtain the two-thirds majority
in both Houses necessary to carry measures over his veto,
and to get it even the meticulous Sumner was ready to'stoop
to some pretty discreditable manoeuvres. The President
had taken the field against Congress and made some
rather violent stump speeches, which were generally
thought unworthy of the dignity of the Chief Magistracy.
Meanwhile alleged " Southern outrages " against Negroes
were vigorously exploited by the Radicals, whose
propaganda was helped by a racial riot in New Orleans,
the responsibility for which it is not easy to determine, but
the victims of which were mostly persons of colour. The
net result was that the new Congress, elected in 1866, not
only gave the necessary two- thirds majority, but was more
Radical in its complexion and more strictly controlled by
the Republican machine than the old had been.

The effect was soon apparent. A Reconstruction Bill
was passed by the House and sent up to the Senate. It
provided for the military government of the conquered
States until they should be reorganized, but was silent
in regard to the conditions of their re-admission. The
Republican caucus met to consider amendments, and
Sumner moved that in the new Constitutions there should
be no exclusion from voting on account of colour. This was
carried against the strong protest of John Sherman, the
brother of the general and a distinguished Republican
Senator. But when the Senate met, even he submitted to
the decision of the caucus, and the Amendment Bill was
carried by the normal Republican majority. Johnson vetoed
it, and it was carried by both Houses over his veto. The
Radicals had now achieved their main object. Congress
was committed to indiscriminate Negro Suffrage, and the
President against it ; the controversy was narrowed down
to that issue. From that moment they had the game in
their hands.

The impeachment of Johnson may be regarded as an
interlude. The main mover in the matter was Stevens.

"THE BLACK TERROR" 219

The main instrument Ben Butler — a man disgraced alike
in war and peace, the vilest figure in the politics of that
time. It was he who, when in command at New Orleans
(after braver men had captured it), issued the infamous order
which virtually threatened Southern women who showed
disrespect for the Federal uniform with rape — an order
which, to the honour of the Northern soldiers, was never
carried out. He was recalled from his command, but
his great political " influence " saved him from the public
disgrace which should have been his portion. Perhaps
no man, however high his character, can mix long in the
business of politics and keep his hands quite clean. The
leniency with which Butler was treated on this occasion
must always remain an almost solitary stain upon the
memory of Abraham Lincoln. On the memory of Benjamin
Butler stains hardly show. At a later stage of the war
Butler showed such abject cowardice that Grant begged
that if his political importance required that he should have
some military command he should be placed somewhere
where there was no fighting. This time Butler saved
himself by blackmailing his commanding officer. At the
conclusion of peace the man went back to politics, a trade
for which his temperament was better fitted ; and it was he
who was chosen as the chief impugner of the conduct and
honour of Andrew Johnson !

The immediate cause of the Impeachment was the
dismissal of Stanton, which Congress considered, wrongly
as it would appear, a violation of an Act which, after the
quarrel became an open one, they had framed for the
express purpose of limiting his prerogative in this direction.
In his quarrel with Stanton the President seems to have
had a good case, but he was probably unwise to pursue
it, and certainly unwise to allow it to involve him in
a public quarrel with Grant, the one man whose prestige
in the North might have saved the President's policy.
The quarrel threw Grant, who was already ambitious
of the Presidency, into the hands of the Republicans,
and from that moment he ceased to count as a factor
making for peace and conciliation.

Johnson was acquitted, two or three honest Republican
Senators declaring in his favour, and so depriving the

220 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

prosecution of the two-thirds majority. Each Senator gave
a separate opinion in writing. These documents are of
great historical interest ; Sumner's especially — which is of
inordinate length and intensely characteristic — should be
studied by anyone who thinks that in these pages I have
given an unfair idea of his character.

In the meantime far more important work was being
done in the establishment of Negro rule in the South.
State after State was "reconstructed" under the terms
of the Act which had been passed over the President's
veto. In every case as many white men as possible were
disfranchised on one pretext or another as " disloyal." In
every case the whole Negro population was enfranchised.
Throughout practically the whole area of what had been
the Confederate States the position of the races was
reversed.

So far, in discussing the Slavery Question and' all the
issues which arose out of it, I have left one factor out
of account — the attitude of the slaves themselves. I have
done so deliberately because up to the point which we have
now reached that attitude had no effect on history. The
slaves had no share in the Abolition movement or in the
formation of the Republican Party. Even from John
Brown's Raid they held aloof. The President's proclamation
which freed them, the Acts of Congress which now gave
them supreme power throughout the South, were not of
their making or inspiration. In politics the negro was
still an unknown factor.

There can be little doubt that under Slavery the
relations of the two races were for the most part kindly
and free from rancour, that the master was generally
humane and the slave faithful. Had it not been so, indeed,
the effect of the transfer of power to the freedmen must
have been much more horrible than it actually was. On
the other hand, it is certain that when some Southern
apologists said that the slaves did not want their freedom
they were wrong. Dr. Booker Washington, himself a slave
till his sixth or seventh year, has given us a picture of the
vague but very real longing which was at the back of their
minds which bears the stamp of truth. It is confirmed by
their strange and picturesque hymnology, in which the

"THE BLACK TERROR" 221

passionate desire to be " free," though generally apparently
invoked in connection with a future life, is none the
less indicative of their temper, and in their preoccupation
with those parts of the Old Testament — the history of
the Exodus, for instance — which appeared applicable to
their own condition. Yet it is clear that they had but
the vaguest idea of what " freedom " implied. Of what
" citizenship " implied they had, of course, no idea at all.

It is very far from my purpose to write contemptuously
of the Negroes. There is something very beautiful about
a love of freedom wholly independent of experience and
deriving solely from the just instinct of the human soul as
to what is its due. And if, as some Southerners said, the
Negro understood by freedom mainly that he need not work,
there was a truth behind his idea, for the right to be idle if
and when you choose without reason given or permission
sought is really what makes the essential difference between
freedom and slavery. But it is quite another thing when
we come to a 'complex national and historical product like
American citizenship. Of all that great European past,
without the memory of which the word " Republic " has no
meaning, the Negro knew nothing : with it he had no link.
A barbaric version of the more barbaric parts of the Bible
supplied him with his only record of human society.

Yet Negro Suffrage, though a monstrous anomaly, might
have "done comparatively little practical mischief if the
Negro and his white neighbour had been left alone to find
their respective levels. The Negro might have found a
certain picturesque novelty in the amusement of voting ;
the white American might have continued to control the
practical operation of Government. But it was no part of
the policy of those now in power at Washington to leave
either black or white alone. " Loyal " Governments were to be
formed in the South ; and to this end political adventurers
from the North — " carpet-baggers," as they were called —
went down into the conquered South to organize the Negro
vote. A certain number of disreputable Southerners, known
as " scallywags," eagerly took a hand in the game for
the sake of the spoils. So of course did the smarter and
more ambitious of the f reedmen. And under the control of
this ill-omened trinity of Carpet-Bagger, Scallywag, and

222 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Negro adventurer grew up a series of Governments the like
of which the sun has hardly looked upon before or since.

The Negro is hardly to be blamed for his share in the
ghastly business. The whole machinery of politics was
new to him, new and delightful as a toy, new and even
more delightful as a means of personal enrichment. That
it had or was intended to have any other purpose probably
hardly crossed his mind. His point of view — a very natural
one, after all — was well expressed by the aged freedman
who was found chuckling over a pile of dollar bills, the
reward of some corrupt vote, and, when questioned,
observed : " Wai, it's de fifth time I's been bo't and sold,
but, 'fo de Lord, it's de fust I eber got de money ! " Under
administrations conducted in this spirit the whole South
was given up to plunder. The looting went on persistently
and on a scale almost unthinkable. The public debts
reached amazing figures, while Negro legislators voted each
other wads of public money as a kind of parlour game, amid
peals of hearty African laughter.

Meanwhile the Governments presided over by Negroes,
or white courtiers of the Negro and defended by the bayonets
of an armed black militia, gave no protection to the persons
or property of the whites.

Daily insults were offered to what was now the subject
race. The streets of the proud city of Charleston, where
ten years before on that fatal November morning the
Palmetto flag had been raised as the signal of Secession,
were paraded by mobs of dusky freedmen singing : " De
bottom rail's on top now, and we's g'wine to keep it dar ! "
It says much for the essential kindliness of the African race
that in the lawless condition of affairs there were no
massacres and deliberate cruelties were rare. On the
other hand, the animal nature of the Negro was strong, and
outrages on white women became appallingly frequent and
were perpetrated with complete impunity. Every white
family had to live in something like a constant state of
siege.

It was not to be expected that ordinary men of European
origin would long bear such government. And-those on
whom it was imposed were no ordinary men. They were
men whose manhood had been tried by four awful years of

"THE BLACK TERROR " 223

the supreme test, men such as had charged with Pickett
up the bloody ridge at Gettysburg, and disputed with the
soldiers of Grant e,very inch of tangled quagmire in the
Wilderness. They found a remedy.

Suddenly, as at a word, there appeared in every part of
the downtrodden country bands of mysterious horsemen.
They rode by night, wearing long white garments with hoods
that hid their faces, and to the terror-stricken Negroes who
encountered them they declared themselves — not without
symbolic truth— the ghosts of the great armies that had
died in defence of the Confederacy. But superstitious
terrors were not the only ones that they employed.

The mighty secret society called the Ku-Klux-Klan was
justified by the only thing that can justify secret societies
— gross tyranny and the denial of plain human rights.
The method they employed was the method so often
employed by oppressed peoples and rarely without success
—the method by which the Irish peasantry recovered their
land. It was to put fear into the heart of the oppressor.
Prominent men, both black and white, who were identified
with the evils which afflicted the State, were warned
generally by a message signed " K.K.K." to make themselves
scarce. If they neglected the warning they generally met
a sudden and bloody end. At the same time the Klan
unofficially tried and executed those criminals whom the
official Government refused to suppress. These executions
had under the circumstances a clear moral justification.
Unfortunately it had the effect of familiarizing the people
with the irregular execution of Negroes, and so paved the
way for those " lynchings " for which, since the proper
authorities are obviously able and willing to deal adequately
with such crimes, no such defence can be set up.

Both sides appealed to Grant, who had been elected
President on the expiration of Johnson's term in 1868.

Had he been still the Grant of Appomatox and of the
healing message to which reference has already been made,
no man would have been better fitted to mediate between
the sections and to cover with his protection those who had
surrendered to his sword. But Grant was now a mere tool
in the hands of the Republican politicians, and those
politicians were determined that the atrocious system

224 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

should be maintained. They had not even the excuse of
fanaticism. Stevens was dead ; he had lived just long
enough to see his policy established, not long enough to
see it imperilled. Sumner still lived, but he had quarrelled
with Grant and lost much of his influence. The men
who surrounded the President cared little enough for the
Negro. Their resolution to support African rule in the
South depended merely upon the calculation that so long
as it endured the reign of the Republican party and
consequently their own professional interests were safe.
A special Act of Congress was passed to put down the
Ku-Klux-Klan, and the victorious army of the Union was
again sent South to carry it into execution. But this
time it found an enemy more invulnerable than Lee had
been — invulnerable because invisible. The whole white
population was in the conspiracy and kept its secrets. The
army met with no overt resistance with which it could
deal, but the silent terrorism went on. The trade of
" Carpet-bagger " became too dangerous. The ambitious
Negro was made to feel that the price to be paid for his
privileges was a high one. Silently State after State was
wrested from Negro rule.

Later the Ku-Klux-Klan — for such is ever the peril of
Secret Societies and the great argument against them when
not demanded by imperative necessity — began to abuse
its power. Reputable people dropped out of it, and traitors
were found in its ranks- About 1872 it disappeared. But
its work was done. In the great majority of the Southern
-States the voting power of the Negro was practically
eliminated. Negroid Governments survived in three only
— South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. For these the
end came four years later.

The professional politicians of the North, whose motive
for supporting the indefensible regime established by the
Reconstruction Act has already been noted, used, of course,
the "atrocities" of the Ku-Klux-Klan as electioneering
material in the North. " Waving the bloody shirt," it was
called. But the North was getting tired of it, and was
beginning to see that the condition of things in the conquered
States was a national disgrace. A Democratic House of
Representatives had been chosen, and it looked as if the

"THE BLACK TERROR" 225

Democrats would carry the next Presidential election. In
fact they did carry it. But fraudulent returns were sent
in by the three remaining Negro Governments, and these
gave the Republicans a majority of one in the Electoral
College. A Commission of Enquiry was demanded and
appointed, but it was packed by the Republicans and
showed itself as little scrupulous as the scoundrels who
administered the " reconstructed " States. Affecting a
sudden zeal for State Rights, it declared itself incompetent
to inquire into the circumstances under which the returns
were made. It accepted them on the word of the State
authorities and declared Hayes, the Republican candidate,
elected.

It was a gross scandal, but it put an end to a grosser
one. Some believe that there was a bargain whereby the
election of Hayes should be acquiesced in peaceably on
condition that the Negro Governments were not further
supported. It is equally possible that Hayes felt his
moral position too weak to continue a policy of oppression
in the South. At any rate, that policy was not continued.
Federal support was withdrawn from the remaining Negro
Governments, and they fell without a blow. The second
rebellion of the South had succeeded where the first
had failed. Eleven years after Lee had surrendered to
Grant at Appomatox, Grant's successor in the Presidency
surrendered to the ghost of Lee.

Negro rule was at an end. But the Negro remained,
and the problem which his existence presented was, and is,
to-day, further from solution that when Lincoln signed
the Emancipation Proclamation. The signs of the Black
Terror are still visible everywhere in the South. They
are visible in the political solidarity of those Southern
States — and only of those States — which underwent the
hideous ordeal, what American politicians call " the solid
South." All white men, whatever their opinions, must
vote together, lest by their division the Negro should again
creep in and regain his supremacy. They are visible in
those strict laws of segregation which show how much
wider is the gulf between the races than it was under
Slavery — when the children of the white slave-owner, in
Lincoln's words, " romped freely with the little negroes."

Q

226 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

They are visible above all in acts of unnatural cruelty
committed from time to time against members of the
dreaded race. These things are inexplicable to those who
do not know the story of the ordeal which the South
endured, and cannot guess at the secret panic with which
white men contemplate the thought of its return.

Well might Jefferson tremble for his country. The
bill which the first slave-traders ran up is not yet paid.
Their dreadful legacy remains and may 'remain for
generations to come a baffling and tormenting problem
to every American who has a better head than Sumner's
and a better heart than Legree's.

CHAPTER XI

THE NEW PROBLEMS

MOST of us were familiar in our youth with a sort of game
or problem which consisted in taking a number, effecting a
series of additions, multiplications, subtractions, etc., and
finally "taking away the number you first thought of."
Some such process might be taken as representing the later
history of the Republican Party.

That party was originally founded to resist the further
extension of Slavery. That was at first its sole policy and
objective. And when Slavery disappeared and the Anti-
Slavery Societies dissolved themselves it might seem that
the Republican Party should logically have done the same.
But no political party can long exist, certainly none can.
long hold power, while reposing solely upon devotion to
a single idea. For one thing, the mere requirements of
what Lincoln called " national housekeeping " involves an
accretion of policies apparently unconnected with its
original doctrine. Thus the Republican Party, relying at
first wholly upon the votes of the industrial North, which
was generally in favour of a high tariff, took over from the
old Whig Party a Protectionist tradition, though obviously
there is no logical connection between Free Trade and
Slavery. Also, in any organized party, especially where
politics are necessarily a profession, there is an even more
powerful factor working against the original purity of its
creed in the immense mass of vested interests which it
creates, especially when it is in power — men holding
positions under it, men hoping for a " career " through its
triumphs, and the like. It may be taken as certain that no
political body so constituted will ever voluntarily consent

/ 227

228 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

to dissolve itself, as a merely propagandist body may
naturally do when its object is achieved.

For some time, as has been seen, the Republicans
continued to retain a certain link with their origin by
appearing mainly as a pro-Negro and anti- Southern party,
with " Southern outrages " as its electoral stock-in-trade
and the maintenance of the odious non-American State
Governments as its programme. The surrender of 1876 put
an end even to this link. The " bloody shirt " disappeared,
and with it the last rag of the old Republican garment.
A formal protest against the use of "intimidation" in
the " Solid South" continued to figure piously for some
decades in the quatrennial platform of the party. At
last even this was dropped, and its place was taken by the
much more defensible demand that Southern representa
tives should be so reduced as to correspond to the numbers
actually suffered to vote. It is interesting to note that
if the Republicans had not insisted on supplementing
the Fourteenth Amendment by the Fifteenth, forbidding
disqualification on grounds of race or colour, and consequently
compelling the South to concede in theory the franchise of
the blacks and then prevent its exercise, instead of formally
denying it them, this grievance would automatically have
been met.

What, then, remained to the Republican Party .when
the " number it first thought of " had been thus taken
away ? The principal thing that remained was a connection
already established by its leading politicians with the
industrial interests of the North-Eastern States and with
the groups of wealthy men who, • in the main, controlled
and dealt in those interests. It became the party of
industrial Capitalism as it was rapidly developing in
the more capitalist and mercantile sections of the
Union.

The first effect of this was an appalling increase of
political corruption. During Grant's second Presidency
an amazing number of very flagrant scandals were brought
to light, of which the most notorious were the Erie Railway
scandal, in which the rising Republican Congressional
leader, Elaine, was implicated, and the Missouri Whisky
Ring, by which the President himself was not urrbesmirched.

THE NEW PROBLEMS 220

The cry for clean government became general, and had
much to do with the election of a Democratic House of
Representatives in 1874 and the return by a true. majority
vote — thought defeated by a trick — of a Democratic President
in 1876. Though the issue was somewhat overshadowed
in 1880, when Garfield was returned mainly on the tariff
issue — to be assassinated later by a disappointed place-
hunter named Guiteau and succeeded by Arthur — it revived
in full force in 1884 when the Republican candidate was
James G. Elaine.

Elaine was personally typical of the degeneration of the
Republican Party after the close of the Civil War. He had
plenty of brains, was a clever speaker and a cleverer
intriguer. Principles he had none. Of course he had in
his youth " waved the bloody shirt " vigorously enough,
was even one of the last to wave it, but at the same time
he had throughout his political life stood in with the great
capitalist and financial interests of the North-East — and
that not a little to his personal profit. The exposure of
one politico-financial transaction of his — the Erie Railway
affair — had cost him the Republican nomination in 1876,
in spite of Ingersoll's amazing piece of rhetoric delivered
on his behalf, wherein the celebrated Secularist orator
declared that " like an armed warrior, like a plumed
knight, James G. Elaine strode down the floor of Congress
and flung his shining lance, full and fair" — at those
miscreants who objected to politicians using their public
status for private profit. By 1884 it was hoped that the
scandal 'had blown over and was forgotten.

Fortunately, however, the traditions of the country
were democratic. Democracy is no preservative against
incidental corruption ; you will have that wherever politics
are a profession. But it is a very real preservative against
the secrecy in which, in oligarchical countries like our own,
such scandals can generally be buried. The Erie scandal
met Elaine on every side. One of the most damning
features of the business was a very compromising letter
of his own which ended with the fatal words : " Please
burn this letter." As a result of its publication, crowds of
Democratic voters paraded the streets of several great
American cities chanting monotonously —

230 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

" Burn, burn, burn this letter !

James G. Blaine.
Please, please ! Burn this letter !

James G. Blaine.
Oh I Do ! Burn this letter !
James G. Blaine."

The result was the complete success of the clean govern
ment ticket, and the triumphant return of Grover Cleveland,
the first Democrat to take the oath since the Civil War,
and perhaps the strongest and best President since Lincoln.

Meanwhile, the Republic had found itself threatened
with another racial problem, which became acute at about
the time when excitement on both sides regarding the Negro
was subsiding. Scarcely had the expansion of the United
States touched the Pacific, when its territories encountered
a wave of immigration from the thickly populated countries
on the other side of that ocean. The population which
now poured into California and Oregon was as alien in
race and ideals as the Negro, and it was, perhaps, the
more dangerous because, while the Negro, so far as he
had not absorbed European culture, was a mere barbarian,
these people had a very old and elaborate civilization of
their own, a civilization picturesque and full of attraction
when seen afar off, but exhibiting, at nearer view, many
characteristics odious to the traditions, instincts and morals
of Europe and white America. There was also the economic
evil — really, of course, only an aspect of the conflict of
types of civilization — arising from the fact that these
immigrants, being used to a lower standard of life, undercut
and cheapened the labour of the white man.

Various Acts were passed by Congress from time to
time for the restriction and exclusion of Chinese and other
Oriental immigrants, and the trouble, though not even yet
completely disposed of, was got under a measure of control.
Surnner lived long enough to oppose the earlier of these
very sensible laws, and, needless to say, trotted out the
Declaration of Independence, though in this case the
application was even more absurd than in that of the Negro.
The Negro, at any rate, was already resident in America,
and had been brought there in the first instance without
his own consent; and this fact, though it did not make
him a citizen, did create a moral responsibility towards him

THE NEW PROBLEMS 231

on the part of the American Commonwealth. Towards the
Chinaman it had no^ responsibility whatever. Doubtless
he had, as a man, his* natural rights to " life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness" — in China. But whoever said
anything so absurd as that it was one of the natural rights of
man to live in America ? It was, however, less to the increased
absurdity of his argument than to the less favourable bias
of his audience that Sumner owed his failure to change
the course of legislation in this instance. An argument
only one degree less absurd had done well enough as a
reason for the enslavement and profanation of the South
a year or two before. But there was no great party hoping
to perpetuate its power by the aid of the Chinese, nor was
there a defeated and unpopular section to be punished for
its " treason " by being made over to Mongolian masters.
Indeed, Congress, while rejecting Sumner's argument,
made a concession to his monomania on the subject of
Negroes, and a clause was inserted in the Act whereby no
person " of African descent " should be excluded — with the
curious result that to this day, while a yellow face is a bar
to the prospective immigrant, a black face is, theoretically
at any rate, actually a passport.

The exclusion of the Chinese does but mark the
beginning of a very important change in the attitude of
the Republic towards immigration. Up to this time, in spite
of the apparent exception of the Know-Nothing movement,
of which the motive seems to have been predominantly
sectarian, it had been at once the interest and the pride
of America to encourage immigration on the largest possible
scale without troubling about its source or character : her
interest because her undeveloped resources were immense
and apparently inexhaustible, and what was mainly needed
was human labour to exploit them ; her pride, because she
boasted, and with great justice, that her democratic creed
was a force strong enough to turn any man who accepted
citizenship, whatever his origin, into an American. But
in connection with the general claim, which experience
has, on the whole, justified, there are two important
reservations. One is that such a conversion is only possible
if the American idea — that is, the doctrine set forth by
Jefferson — when once propounded awakens an adequate

232 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

response from the man whom it is hoped to assimilate.
This can generally be predicted of Europeans, since the
idea is present in the root of their own civilization : it
derives from Rome. But it can hardly be expected of
peoples of a wholly alien tradition from which the Roman
Law and the Gospel of Rousseau are alike remote. This
consideration lies at the root of the exception of the Negro,
the exception of the Mongol, and may one day produce the
exception of the Jew.

The other reservation is this : that if the immigration
of diverse peoples proceeds at too rapid a rate, it may be
impossible for absorption to keep pace with it. Na}r,
absorption may be grievously hindered by it. This has
been shown with great force and clearness by Mr. Zangwill
under his excellent image of the "Melting Pot." Anyone
even casually visiting New York, for instance, can see on
every side the great masses of unmelted foreign material
and their continual reinforcement from overseas, probably
delaying continually the process of fusion — and New York
is only typical in this of other great American cities.

A new tendency to limit immigration and to seek some
test of its quality has been a marked feature of the last
quarter of a century. The principle is almost certainly
sound; the right to act on it, to anyone who accepts
the doctrine of national self-government, unquestionable.
Whether the test ultimately imposed by a recent Act passed
by Congress over President Wilson's veto, that of literacy,
is a wise one, is another question. Its tendency may well
be to exclude great masses of the peasantry of the Old
World, men admirably fitted to develop by their industry
the resources of America, whose children at least could
easily be taught to read and write the American language
and would probably become excellent American citizens.
On the other hand, it does not exclude the criminal, or at
any rate the most dangerous type of criminal. It does not
exclude the submerged population of great European cities,
the exploitation of whose cheap labour is a menace to the
American workman's standard of life. And it does not,
generally speaking, exclude the Jew.

The problem of the Jew exists in America as elsewhere —
perhaps more formidably than elsewhere. This, of course,

THE NEW PROBLEMS 238

is not because Jews, as such, are worse than other people :
only idiots are Anti-Semites in that sense. It arises from
the fact that America, more than any other nation, lives
by its power of absorbtion, and the Jew has, ever since
the Roman Empire, been found a singularly unabsorbable
person. He has an intense nationalism of his own that
transcends and indeed ignores frontiers, but to the
nationalism of European peoples he is often consciously
and almost always subconsciously hostile. In various
ways he tends to act as a solvent of such nationalism.
Cosmopolitan finance is one example of such a tendency.
Another, more morally sympathetic but not much less
dangerous to nationalism in such a country as America,
is cosmopolitan revolutionary idealism. The Socialist and
Anarchist movements of America, divided of course in
philosophy, but much more akin in temper than in
European countries, are almost wholly Jewish, both in
origin and leadership. For this reason, since America's
entrance into the Great War, these parties, in contrast
to most of the European Socialist parties, have shown
themselves violently anti-national and what we now call
" Bolshevist."

But organized Socialism is, in America, almost a
negligible force ; not so organized labour. In no country has
the Trade Union movement exercised more power, and in
no country has it fought with bolder weapons. In the
early struggles between the organized workers and the
great capitalists, violence and even murder was freely
resorted to on both sides, for if the word must be applied
to the vengeance often wreaked by the Labour Unions on
servants of the employer and on traitors to the organiza
tion, the same word must be used with a severer moral
implication of the shooting down of workmen at the orders
of men like Carnegie, not even by the authorized police
force or militia of the State, but by privately hired
assassinators such as the notorious Pinkerton used to
supply.

The labour movement in America is not generally
Collectivist. Collectivism is alien to the American temper
and ideal, which looks rather to a community of free men
controlling, through personal ownership, their own industry.

234 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

The demand of American labour has been rather for the
sharp and efficient punishment of such crimes against
property as are involved in conspiracies to create a monopoly
in some product and the use of great wealth to " squeeze
out" the small competitor. Such demands found emphatic
expression in the appearance in the 'nineties of a new
party calling itself " Populist " and formed by a combina
tion between the organized workmen and the farmers of
the West, who felt themselves more and more throttled by
the tentacles of the new commercial monopolies which
were becoming known by the name of " Trusts." In the
elections of 1892, when Cleveland was returned for a second
time after an interval of Republican rule under Harrison,
the Populists showed unexpected strength and carried
several Western States. In 1896 Democrats and Populists
combined to nominate William Jennings Bryan as their
candidate, with a programme the main plank of which was
the free coinage of silver, which, it was thought, would
weaken the hold of the moneyed interests of the East upon
the industries of the Continent. The Eastern States,
however, voted solid for the gold standard, and were joined,
in the main, by those Southern States which had not been
"reconstructed" and were consequently not included
politically in the "Solid South." The West, too, though
mainly Bryanite, was not unanimous, and McKinley, the
Republican candidate, was returned. The Democratic
defeat, however, gave some indication of the tendencies
which were to produce the Democratic victory of 1916,
when the West, with the aid of the " Solid South," returned
a President whom the East had all but unanimously
rejected.

McKinley 's first term of office saw the outbreak and
victorious prosecution of a war with Spain, arising partly
out of American sympathy with an insurrection which had
broken out in Cuba, and partly out of the belief, now pretty
conclusively shown to have been unfounded, that the
American warship Maine, which was blown up in a Spanish
harbour, had been so destroyed at the secret instigation of
the Spanish authorities. Its most important result was
to leave, at its conclusion, both Cuba and the Philippine
Islands at the disposal of the United States. This practically

THE NEW PROBLEMS 235

synchronized with the highest point reached in this country,
just before the Boer War, by that wave of national feeling
called "Imperialism." America, for a time, seemed to
catch its infection or share its inspiration, as we may prefer
to put it. But the tendency was not a permanent one.
The American Constitution is indeed expressly built for
expansion, but only where the territory acquired can be
thoroughly Americanized and ultimately divided into self-
governing States on the American pattern. To hold
permanently subject possessions which cannot be so treated
is alien to its general spirit and intention. Cuba was soon
abandoned, and though the Philippines were retained, the
difficulties encountered in their subjection and the moral
anomaly involved in being obliged to wage a war of
conquest against those whom you have professed to liberate,
acted as a distinct check upon the enthusiasm for such
experiments.

After the conclusion of the Spanish war, McKinley was
elected for a second time ; almost immediately afterwards
he was murdered by an Anarchist named Colgosc, some
times described as a "Pole," but presumably an East
European Jew. The effect was to produce a third example
of the unwisdom — though in this case the country was
distinctly the gainer — of the habit of using the Vice-
Presidency merely as an electioneering bait. Theodore
Roosevelt had been chosen as candidate for that office solely
to catch what we should here call the " khaki " sentiment,
he and his " roughriders " having played a distinguished
and picturesque part in the Cuban campaign. But it soon
appeared that the new President had ideas of his own which
were by no means identical with those of the Party Bosses.
He sought to re-create the moral prestige of the Republican
Party by identifying it with the National idea — with which
its traditions as the War Party in the battle for the Union
made its identification seem not inappropriate — with a
spirited foreign policy and with the aspiration for expansion
and world-power. But he also sought to sever its damaging
connection with those sordid and unpopular plutocratic
combinations which the nation as a whole justly hated.
Of great energy and attractive personality, and gifted with
a strong sense of the picturesque in politics, President

236 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Roosevelt opened a vigorous campaign against those Trusts
which had for so long backed and largely controlled his
party. The Republican Bosses were angry and dismayed,
but they dared not risk an open breach with a popular
and powerful President backed by the whole nation
irrespective of party. So complete was his victory that not
only did he enjoy something like a national triumph when
submitting himself for re-election in 1904, but in 1908 was
virtually able to nominate his successor.

Mr. Taft, however, though so nominated and professing
to carry on the Rooseveltian policy, did not carry it on to
the satisfaction of its originator. The ex-President roundly
accused his successor of suffering the party to slip back
again into the pocket of the Trusts, and in 1912 offered
himself once more to the Republican Party as a rival to his
successor. The Party Convention at San Francisco chose
Taft by a narrow majority. Something may be allowed
for the undoubtedly prevalent sentiment against a breach
of the Washingtonian tradition of a two-terms limit ; but
the main factor was the hostility of the Bosses and the
Trusts behind them, and the weapon they used was their
control of the Negro " pocket boroughs " of the Southern
States, which were represented in the Convention in
proportion to their population of those States, though
practically no Republican votes were cast there. Colonel
Roosevelt challenged the decision of the Convention, and
organized an independent party of his own under the title
of " Progressive," composed partly of the defeated section
of the Republicans and partly of all those who for one
reason or another were dissatisfied with existing parties.
In the contest which followed he justified his position by
polling far more votes than his Republican rival. But the
division in the Republican Party permitted the return of
the Democratic candidate, Dr. "Woodrow Wilson.

The new President was a remarkable man in more ways
than one. By birth a Southerner, he had early migrated
to New Jersey. He had a distinguished academic career
behind him, and had written the best history of his own
country at present obtainable. He had also held high
office in his State, and his term had been signalized by the
vigour with which he had made war on corruption in the

TfiE NEW PEOBLEMS 237

public service. During his term of office he was to exhibit
another set of qualities, the possession of which had perhaps
been less suspected : an instinct for the trend of the
national will not unlike that of Jackson, and a far-seeing
patience and persistence under misrepresentation and abuse
that recalls Lincoln.

For Mr. Wilson had been in office but a little over a
year when Prussia, using Austria as an instrument and
Serbia as an excuse, forced an aggressive war on the whole
of Europe. The sympathies of most Americans were with
the Western Allies, especially with France, for which
country the United States had always felt a sort of spiritual
cousinship. England was, as she had always been, less
trusted, but in this instance, especially when Prussia opened
the war with a criminal attack upon the little neutral
nation of Belgium, it was generally conceded that she was
in the right. Dissentients there were, especially among
the large German or German-descended population of the
Middle West, and the Prussian Government spent money
like water to further a German propaganda in the States.
But the mass of American opinion was decidedly favourable
to the cause of those who were at war with the German
Empire. Yet it was at that time equally decided and much
more unanimous against American intervention in the
European quarrel.

The real nature of this attitude was not grasped in
England, and the resultant misunderstanding led to
criticisms and recriminations which everyone now regrets.
The fact is that the Americans had very good reason for
disliking the idea of being drawn into the awful whirlpool
in which Europe seemed to be perishing. It was not
cowardice that held her back : her sons had done enough
during the four terrible years of civil conflict in which her
whole manhood was involved to repel that charge for ever.
Bather was it a realistic memory of what such war means
that made the new America eager to keep the peace as long
as it might. There was observable, it is true, a certain
amount of rather silly Pacifist sentiment, especially in
those circles which the Russians speak of as " Intelli-
genzia," and Americans as " high-brow." It went, as it
usually goes, though the logical connection is not obvious,

238 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

with teetotalism and similar fads. All these fads were
peculiarly rampant in the United States in the period
immediately preceding the war, when half the States went
" dry," and some cities passed what seems to us quite
lunatic laws — prohibiting cigarette-smoking and creating
a special female police force of " flirt- catchers." The whole
thing is part, one may suppose, of the deliquescence of the
Puritan tradition in morals, and will probably not endure.
So far as such doctrinaire Pacifism is concerned, it seems
to have dissolved at the first sound of an American shot.
But the instinct which made the great body of sensible and
patriotic Americans, especially in the West, resolved to
keep out of the war, so long as their own interests and
honour were not threatened, was of a much more solid and
respectable kind. Undoubtedly most Americans thought
that the Allies were in the right; but if every nation
intervened in every war where it thought one or other side in
the right, every war must become universal. The Republic
was not pledged, like this country, to enforce respect for
Belgian neutrality; she was not, like England, directly
threatened by the Prussian menace. Indirectly threatened
she was, for a German victory would certainly have been
followed by an attempt to realize well-understood German
ambitions in South America. But most Americans were
against meeting trouble halfway.

Such was the temper of the nation. The President
carefully conformed to it, while at the same time guiding
and enlightening it. For nearly two years he kept his
country out of the war. The task was no easy one. He
was assailed at home at once by the German propagandists,
who wanted him, in defiance of International Law, to forbid
the sale of arms and munitions to the Allies, and by Colonel
Roosevelt, who wished America to declare herself definitely
on the Allied side. Moreover, Prussia could understand
no argument but force, and took every sign of the pacific
disposition of the Government at Washington as an indication
of cowardice or incapacity to fight. But he was excellently
served in Berlin by Mr. Gerard, and he held to his course.
The Lusitania was sunk and many American citizens were
drowned as a part of the Prussian campaign of indiscrimi
nate murder on the high seas ; and the volume of feeling

THE NEW PROBLEMS 239

in favour of intervention increased. But the President still
resisted the pressure put upon him, as Lincoln had so long
resisted the pressure of those who wished him to use his
power to declare the slaves free. He succeeded in obtaining
from Germany some mitigation of her piratical policy, and
with that he was for a time content. He probably knew
then, as Mr. Gerard certainly did, that war must come.
But he also knew that if he struck too early he would
divide the nation. He waited till the current of opinion had
time to develop, carefully though unobtrusively, directing
it in such a fashion as to prepare it for eventualities.
So well did he succeed that when in the spring of 1917
Prussia proclaimed a revival of her policy of unmitigated
murder directed not only against belligerents but avowedly
against neutrals also, he felt the full tide of the general will
below him. And when at last he declared war it was with
a united America at his back.

Such is, in brief, the diplomatic history of the interven
tion of the United States in the Great War. Yet there is
another angle from which it can be viewed, whereby it
seems not only inevitable but strangely symbolic. The
same century that saw across the Atlantic the birth of the
young Republic, saw in the very centre of Europe the rise
of another new Power. Remote as the two were, and
unlikely as it must have seemed at the time that they could
ever cross each other's paths, they were in a strange fashion
at once parallel and antipodean. Neither has grown in the
ordinary complex yet unconscious fashion of nations. Both
were, in a sense, artificial products. Both were founded on
a creed. And the creeds were exactly and mathematically
opposed. According to the creed of Thomas Jefferson,
all men were endowed by their Creator with equal rights.
According to the creed of Frederick Hohenzollern there
was no Creator, and no one possessed any rights save the
right of the strongest. Through more than a century the
history of the two nations is the development of the two
ideas. It would have seemed unnatural if the great Atheist
State, in its final bid for the imposition of its creed on
all nations, had not found Jefferson's Republic among its
enemies. That anomaly was not to be. That flag which,
decked only with thirteen stars representing the original

240 A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

revolted colonies, had first waved over Washington's raw
levies, which, as the cluster grew, had disputed on equal
terms with the Cross of St. George its ancient lordship of
the sea, which Jackson had kept flying over New Orleans,
which Scott and Taylor had carried triumphantly to
Monterey, which on a memorable afternoon had been lowered
over Sumter, and on a yet more memorable morning
raised once again over Richmond, which now bore its full
complement of forty-eight stars, symbolizing great and free
States stretching from ocean to ocean, appeared for the first
time on a European battlefield, and received there as its
new baptism of fire a salute from all the arsenals of Hell.

INDEX

ABERDEEN, Lord, Calhoun's reply to, 118
Abolitionists, Southern, no attempt to
suppress, 132 ; hold Congress in Baltimore,
132 ; Northern, different attitudes ot, 132 ;
their hostility to the Union, 133; their
sectional character, 133 ; Southern Aboli
tionism killed by. 133 ; anger of South
against, 134; unpopularity of, in North,
135 ; acquiesce in Secession, 164

Adams, Francis, American Minister in Lon
don, 192 ; protests against the sailing of
the Alabama, 192

Adams, John, opposed by Democrats for
Vice-President, 57 ; chosen President by
Electoral College, 62 ; his character and
policy, 62-63 ; defeated by Jefferson, 63 ;
refuses to receive Jefferson at the White
House, 67 ; fills offices with Federalists, 67

Adams, John Quincey, leaves Federalist
Party, 71 ; a candidate for the Presidency,
92 ; chosen President by House of Repre
sentatives, 94 ; appoints Clay Secretary of
State, 95 ; unpopularity of his govern
ment, 96 ; defeated by Jackson, 96

Alabama secedes from the Union, 161

Alabama, the, built in Liverpool, 191 ; her
devastations, 191 ; Great Britain declared
responsible for, 192 ; compensation paid
on account of, 192

Alexander I. of Russia wishes to intervene
in America, 87

Aliens Law, 63

America, discovery of, i ; claimed by Spain,
3 ; English colonies in, 3 ; European
intervention in, forbidden by Monroe
Doctrine, 88. (Stf also United States)

Anderson, Major, in command of Fort
Sumter, 172 ; surrenders, 173

Andre, Major, relations of, with Arnold,
33 ; shot as a spy, 33

Antietam, Battle of, 189

Anti-Masonic Party formed, 112

Anti-Slavery Societies, Conference of, at
Baltimore, 132 ; dissolve themselves, 227

Arkansas, only new Slave State possible
under Missouri Compromise, 86 ; rejects
Secession, 171 ; secedes, 175

Arizona acquired from Mexico, 122 ; open
to Slavery, 126

Arnold, Benedict, career of, 32 ; treason of,
33 ; commands in South, 33

Arthur, President, succeeds Garfield, 229

Appomatox Court House, Lee's surrender
at, 202

Atlanta, Georgia, Sherman moves on, 199;
fate of, 200

BALTIMORE, Maryland, Congress of Anti-
Slavery Societies meets in, 132 ; Douglas
Democrats hold Convention at, 154;
Union troops stoned in, 177

Baltimore, Lord, a Catholic, 4 ; founds
colony of Maryland, 4 ; his family de
posed, 5

Bank, United States, creation of, proposed
by Hamilton, 56 ; opposition to, 56 ; con
stitutionality of, disputed, 56 ; Washington
signs Bill for, 57 ; Supreme Court decides
in favour of, 57; revived after War of
1812.. 85; power — unpopularity of, 102-
103 ; Jackson's attitude towards, 103 ;
corrupt influence of, 103 ; Bill for re-
charter of, passes Congress, 103 ; vetoed
by Jackson, 103 ; Whig championship of,
105 ; elections adverse to, 105 ; Jackson
removes deposits from, 106 ; its end, 106

Beaumarchais, instrumental in supplying
arms to the Colonists, 30

Beauregard, General, opposed to McDowell
in Virginia, 180 ; commands at Bull Run,
1 80 ; rallies Southern troops, 180 : attacks
Grant at Shiloh, 184

Belgium, Prussian invasion of, 237

Black, Judge, supports the Union, 165 ;
urges reinforcement of Fort Sumter, 172

Blaine, James G., implicated in Erie Railway
scandal, 228; character of, 229; candi
date for Presidency, 229-230 ; defeated
by Cleveland, 230

Blair, Francis, saves Missouri for the Union,
176

Bland, Richard, appeals to "the Law of
Nature," 16

Boon, Daniel, 71

Booth, John Wilkes, assassinates Lincoln,
208 ; death of, 208

"Border Ruffians," 143, 150

Boston, Mass., taxed tea thrown into harbour
at, 17; evacuated by Colonists, 25; aban
doned by British troops, 25 ; Slave Trade
profitable to, 49; Hartford Convention
resolves to meet again at, 82

"Boston Tea Party," the, 17, 18

Breckinridge, nominated for Presidency by
Southern Democrats, 154 ; Southern sup
port of, 155

Brown, John, character of, 143 ; his murders
in Kansas, 144 ; his project for a slave

241

242

INDEX

insurrection, 153 ; captures Harper's Ferry,
152; execution of, 153; repudiated by
Republican Convention, 153 ; Lincoln on,
i53, 208

Bryan, William J., nominated for Presi
dency, 234 ; defeated by McKinley, 234

Buchanan, James, elected President, 145 ;
accepts Lecompton Constitution, 150 ;
quarrels with Douglas, 150 ; weakness of,
158-159; his Message to Congress, isg;
rejects advice of General Scott, 160 ; his
divided Cabinet, 160; attempts to rein
force Fort Sumter, 172

Bull Run, first Battle of, 180-181 ; second
Battle of, 187

Bunker's Hill, Battle of, 18

Burgoyne, General, commands British forces
in Canada, 28; bis plan, 28; his failure
and surrender, 29

Burke, Edmund, inconsistency of, 15

Burnside, General, defeated by Lee at
Fredericks burg, 192

Burr, Aaron, 65 ; Democratic candidate for
the Vice-Presidency, 66 ; ties with Jefferson
for the Presidency, 66 ; his intrigues with
Federalists defeated by Hamilton, 66;
elected Vice-President, 66; becomes an
enemy of Jefferson, 67 ; candidate for
Governorship of New York, 72 ; Hamilton's
influence again defeats, 73 ; fights and kills
Hamilton, 73 ; his plans regarding the
West, 73-74 ; approaches Jackson, 74 ;
Jackson on, 75 ; arrest and trial of, 75

Butler, Benjamin, instrumental in the im
peachment of Johnson, 219 ; his character
and career, z \g

CALHOUN, JOHN CAIDWKLL, superior to Clay
as an orator, 79 ; in the running lor the
Presidency, 90 ; chosen Vice- President,
97; his connection with the Eaton affair,
97-93 ; bis quarrel with Jackson, 98 ; de
fends Nullification, 99; compromises with
Clay, 101 ; joins coalition against Jackson,
102 ; his attitude towards the Indians, 107;
leaves the Whigs, 110; his transforma
tion after quarrel with Jackson, in : his
advocacy of State Rights, 111 ; his defence
of Slavery, in, 134; appointed Secretary
of State, 115 ; eager for annexation of
Texas, 116; resists clamour for war with
England, 117; his argument, 117 ; defends
Slavery in despatch to Lord Aberdeen,
118 ; his action condemned by Northern
Democrats, 118; not favoured for Presi
dency, 119; opposes war with Mexico,
12 1 ; advocates strictly defensive policy,
121 ; foresees consequences of large an
nexations, 121-122 ; opposes Compromise
of 1850.. 128; his "Testament," 128; his
death and epitaph, 128 ; influence of his
defence of Slavery on Southern opinion,
134 ; Jefferson Davis succeeds to position
of, 140

California acquired from Mexico, 122 ; gold
discovered in, 123 ; decision of, to exclude
Slavery, 123 ; Taylor advocates admission
of, as a Free State, 125 ; admitted under
Compromise of 1850. . i?6

Canada, a French colony, Q; conquered
by Great Britain, 10 Burgoyne com

mands in, 28; not disposed to join re
bellion, 28; conquest of, hoped for, 80;
rebellion in, in

Canning, George, opposes European inter
vention in America, 87 ; suggests joint
action by Great Britain and U.S., 88

Carnegie, Andrew, massacre of workmen by,
223

Carolinas, colonization of, 8; overrun by
Cornwallis and Tarleton, 31. (See also
North and South Carolinas)

" Carpet-Baggers," 221, 224

Cass, General, Democratic candidate for
Presidency, 125 ; Secretary of State under
Buchanan, 160 ; for vigorous action
against Secession, 160, 165

Catholics, reasons of first Stuarts for leniency
to, 4 ; find a refuge in Maryland, 5 ;

establish religious equality, 5 ; dispos
sessed of power, 5 ; New England dislikes
tolerating, 38 ; " Know-Nothing " move
ment directed against, 138-139

Chancellorsville, Battle of, 192

Charles I. grants charter of Maryland, 4

Charles II. grants William Penn charter for
Pennsylvania, 7 ; grants charter of Caro
linas to Hyde family, 8

Charleston, South Carolina, occupied by
Cornwallis, 21 ; Democratic Convention
meets at, 153 ; Breckinridge nominated
at, 154 ; cheers election of Lincoln, 156 ;
Fort Sumter in harbour of, 172 ; Negro
demonstrations in, 222

Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of, directs war
against France, 10 ; denounces employ
ment of Indians, 28

Chattanooga, Battle of, 198

Cherokee Indians, problem of the, 107 ;
Jackson's attitude towards, 107 ; re
moved beyond the Mississippi, 107

Chesapeake, the, duel with the Shannon, 80

Chickamanga, Battle of, 198

Chicago, 111., Republican Convention meets
at, 153

Chinese, immigration of, 230 ; Sumner's
plea for, 230 ; exclusion of, 231

Civil War. the, not fought over Slavery, 162 ;
motives' of South, 163-164 ; case for
North stated, 166-167 ; issue of, as
defined by Lincoln, 167 ; progress of, 180-
202

Clay, Henry, leader of " war hawks," 78 ;
character of, 78-79 ; signs peace with
Great Britain, 83 ; arranges Missouri
Compromise, 85 ; a candidate for the
Presidency, 91 ; deserted by the West,

§5 ; supports Adams, 95 ; Secretary of
tate, 98 ; responsible for Protectionist
policy, 100 ; seeks a compromise with
Calhoun, 101 ; supports U.S. Bank, 105 ;
crushing defeat of, 105 ; the appropriate
Whig candidate for Presidency, 113 ;
passed over for Harrison, 113 ; partial
retirement of, 125 ; called upon to save
the Union, 125 ; his last Compromise,
126-^127; death of, 126, 129 ; Crittenden a
disciple of, 160

Cleveland, Grover, elected President, 230 ;
second election, 234

Clinton, Democratic candidate for Vice-
Presidency, 57

INDEX

Cobbelt, William, on American prosperity,

37 ; supports Federalists, 59
Collectivism, alien to the American temper,

223
Colonies (see English, French, Dutch, Spanish

Colonies)

Columbia, South Carolina, burning of, 201
Columbia, district of, slavery legal in, 126 ;

slave-trade abolished in, 126
Columbus, Christopher, discovers America,

i ; American view of, I ; and the Renais

sance, 2
Compromise of 1850, drafted by Clay, 126 ;

supported by Webster, 127 ; opposed by

Calhoun, 128 ; reasons for failure of,

129 seq. ; administered by a new genera

tion, 139 ; Seward's speech on, 139

Compromises (tee Constitution, Crittenden,
Missouri)

Confederate Debt, repudiation of, demanded,
204, 216

Confederate States, Constitution of, 169 ;
Davis President of, 169 ; flag of, raised
over Fort Sumter, 173 ; Kentucky
declares war on, 178 ; military position
of, 178-180 ; Congress of, summoned to
meet at Richmond, 180 ; send Mason
and Slidell to Europe, 182 ; blockaded
184 ; opportunity to make peace offered
to, 199 ; slavery dead in, 199, 203

Congress, how elected, 47 ; U.S. Bank
secures, 103 ; recommends amendments to
the Constitution protecting slavery, 168 ;
opposed to policy of President Johnson,
214 ; committed to Negro Suffrage, 2r8

Connecticut, a Puritan colony, 5 ; accepts
invitation to Hartford Convention, 81

Conscription, adopted by both sides in
Civil War, 195 ; form of, imposed in the
North, 195 ; New York City resists, 195

Constitution of United States not modelled
on British, 45 ; essential principles of,
45-46 ; compromises of, 46-49 ; slavery
protected by, 49, 162 ; opposition to,
51 ; publicly burnt by Garrison, 133 ;
described by South Carolina as a " Treaty,"
157; in relation to expansion, 234-235;
amendments to, 54, 67, 161, 168, 203,
216, 228

Constitution of Confederate States, 169

Continental Congress, first meets, 19 ; issues
" Declaration of Colonial Right," 19 ;
meeting of, forbidden by British Govern
ment, 19 ; second meets, 19 ; issues a
general call to arms, 19 ; resolves on
separation from Great Britain, 21 ;
adopts " Declaration of Independence,"
24 ; moribund, 41 ; attempt to remodel
fails, 43

Convention meets to frame Constitution,
42 ; Washington presides over, 42 ;
debates of, 42 ; Jefferson absent from,
42, 54 ; difficulties confronting, 43 ;
decisions of, 44-49

"Copperheads," name given to Northern
Pacifists, 192 ; their futility, 193 ; Lin
coln's policy regarding, 194-195 ; capture
Democratic, Party, 200

Cornwallis, Lord, invades South Carolina,
31 ; retreats to Yorktown, 34 ; surrender
of, 34

Cotton industry in American colonies,
ii ; has nothing to gain from Protection,
85, 98, 157

Cowpens, Battle of, 32

Crawford, William, of Georgia, a candidate
for the Presidency, 91-92

Creek Indians, descend on South-west, 81 ;
Jackson overthrows, 82 ; take refuge in
Florida, 87 ; pursued by Jackson, 87

Crittenden, Senator, a disciple of Clay,
1 60 ; proposes his compromise, 160 ; his
compromise unacceptable to Lincoln, 161 ;
rejected, 161

Cuba, Lincoln fears filibustering in, 161 ;
American sympathy with insurrdfction in,
234 ; at disposal of U.S., 234 ; abandoned,
235

Czolgose, assassinates McKinley, 235

DAVIE, cavalry leader, 32 ; at Battle of
Hanging Rock, 32

Davis, Jefferson, of Mississippi, successor of
Calhoun, 140 ; on extension of Slavery,
144-145 ; elected President of the Con
federacy, 169 ; bis qualifications and
defects, 169-170 ; an obstacle to peace,
199 ; believes Slavery dead, 199, 203 ;
relieves Johustone of his command,
200 ; accused of complicity with Lincoln's
murder, 209 ; his retort on Johnson, 209 ;
never brought to trial, 217

" Declaration of Colonial Right," 19

" Declaration of Independence," drafted
by Jefferson, 22 ; quoted, 22 ; its implica
tions, 23-24 ; Slave Trade condemned
in original draft, 48-49 ; Slavery in
consistent with, 148 ; misinterpreted by
Douglas, 151 ; misunderstood by Sumner,
205-207 ; invoked by Sumner in favour
of Chinese, 232

De Grasse, in command of French fleet,

Delaware, acquired from Dutch, 7 ; small
slave population of, 176

Democracy, in English colonies, 13, 16 ;
theory of, 23-24 ; application of, in
America, 36-37 ; unjust charges against,
65 ; characteristic of the West, 92 ;
Jackson's loyalty to, 93 ; its true bearing
on the Negro problem, 206-207 ; effect
of, on corruption, 229

Democratic Party, name ultimately taken
by followers of Jefferson, 57 ; organiza
tion of, under Jackson, 96, 108 ; unwise
attacks on Harrison by, 113-114 ; refuses
to come to rescue of Tyler, 115 ; chooses
Polk as Presidential candidate, 119 ;
holds Convention at Charleston, 153 ;
split in, 154; captured by "Copper
heads," 200 ; defeated by trickery in 1876,
225, 22 y ; returns Cleveland, 230 ; unites
with Populists in support ot Bryan,
234 ; returns Wilson, 236

Donalson, Fort, captured by Grant, 183

Douglas, Stephen, on Slavery, 130, 141 ;
Senator for Illinois, 140 ; character of,
140-141 ; motives of, 141-142; introduces
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 142 ; his doctrine
of " Popular Sovereignty," 142 ; upsets
Missouri Compromise, 142 ; results of
his policy, 143-144 ; accepts Dred Scott

244

INDEX

decision, 147 ; rejects Lecompton Constitu
tion, 150; his quarrel with Buchanan, 150;
his contest with Lincoln, 150 ; debates
with Lincoln, 151-152 ; rejected by the
South, 153 ; nominated for Presidency,
154 ; defeat of, 155 ; supports Crittenden
Compromise, ifio ; his patriotism, 174 ;
present at Lincoln's inauguration, 174 ;
his last campaign and death, 174

Draft Riots in New York, 195

Dred Scott decision delivered by Taney,
146 ; its implications, 146-147 ; rejected
by Republicans, 147 ; accepted by
Douglas, 147 ; fatal to " Popular Sove
reignty," 147 ; necessitates an amend
ment to Constitution, 161

Dutch colonies in America, 7

EATON, Major, in Jackson's Cabinet, 97 ;
marriage of, 97; Calhoun accused of
wishing to ruin, 98

Eaton, Mrs., charges against, 97 ; boycott
of, 97 ; Jackson takes part of, 97-98

Electoral College, original theory of, 46 ;
responsible for choice of Adams, 62 ;
tie between Jefferson and Burrin, 66 ;
figment of, destroyed, 96 ; Lincoln's
majority in, 155

Emancipation Proclamation, decision to
issue after Antietam, 189 ; Lincoln's
defence of, 191 ; effect abroad, 191

Embargo, imposed by Jefferson, 76; with
drawn, 77

Emerson on John Brown, 153

England and Spain, 3. (See also Great
Britain)

English colonies in America, 3 ; French
attempt to hem in, 9 ; economic position
of, 10-12 ; government of, 12-13 ', de
mocracy in, 13 ; proposal to tax, 14-15,
17; attitude of, 16-17; unite, 19;
declare their independence, 22 ; France
forms alliance with, 30 ; independence of,
recognized by Great Britain, 35 ; in
ternal revolution in, 36

" Era of Good Feeling," 86, 90

Erie Railway scandal, 228, 229

Erskine, British Minister at Washington, 77

Everett, nominated as candidate for Presi
dency, 154 ; Border States support, 155

FARRAGUE, Admiral, takes New Orleans, 186
Federalist, The, established to defend the
Constitution, 51 ; Hamilton and Madison
contribute to, 51

Federalist Party, support a National Bank,
57 ; sympathies of, with England against
France, 59 ; pass Alien and Sedition Acts,
63 ; Burr's intrigues with, 66, 72 ; oppose
Louisiana Purchase, 70 ; suicide of, 71
Fessenden, Senator, on Charles Sumner, 205
Fifteenth Amendment, effect of, 228
Filmore, Millard, succeeds Taylor as Presi
dent, 125 ; his succession favourable to
Clay, 126

Florida, British land in, 82; Jackson
expels British from, 82 ; acquired by U.S.,
86-87 ; secedes from Union, 161 ; Negro
government of, makes fraudulent return,
225
FJoyd, Secretary for War under Buchanan,

1 60 ; his sympathy with secession, 160 ;
his distribution of the U.S. armament, 179

Force Bills, demanded by Jackson, 100 ;
supported by Webster, 101 ; precedence
for, insisted on, 101 ; signed by Jackson,
101 ; nullified by South Carolina, 101

" Forty-Seven-Forty-or- Fight," 117, 120

Fourteenth Amendment, provisions of,
216 ; Southern opposition to, 217 ; Lee's
views on, 217

France and England in America, 9 ; War
with, 9-10 ; hesitates to recognize
American independence, 29 ; forms alli
ance with revolted colonies, 30 ; Jefferson
Minister to, 42 ; Jefferson's sympathy with,
59-60 ; badly served by Genet, 60 ;
anger with, over " X.Y.Z. letters," 63 ;
acquires Louisiana, 68 ; sells to U.S., 68 ;
Jackson settles disputes with, 107 ; inter
vention of, in Mexico, 213; American
sympathy with, 237

Franklin, Benjamin, goes to France to
solicit help for, 29 ; represents Con
federation at Peace Congress, 35 ; a
member of the Convention, 42 ; dislikes
provision regarding fugitive slaves, 48

Frederick the Great, his creed contrasted
with Jefferson's, 239

Freemasons, origin of, 112 ; death of Morgan
attributed to, 112 ; outcry against, 112 ;
President Jackson a, 112

Free Trade, established between States, 44 ;
with England, South Carolina's desire for,
157. (See aho Protection)

Fremont, General, Republican candidate
for Presidency, 145 ; commands in Mis
souri, 190 ; proclamation of, regarding
slaves repudiated by Lincoln, 190 ; candi
date of Radical Republicans for the
Presidency, 200 ; withdrawn, 200

French Canadians, antagonized by New
England intolerance, 38

French Colonies in America, 9-10

French Revolution, Jefferson's interest in,
54 ; American enthusiasm for, 58 ; New
England shocked at, 58 ; continued
popularity of, 60; effect of, in Latin
America. 87

Fugitive Slaves, their return provided for
by Constitution, 48 ; provision nullified
by some Northern States, 127, 136

Fugitive Slave Law, part of Compromise of
1850.. 127; accepted by Lincoln, 149,
1 68 ; Lincoln's strict enforcement of,
171, 189

GARFIELD, President, elected, 229 ; mur
dered, 229

Garrison, William Lloyd, founder of Northern
Abolitionism, 132 ; his view of Slavery,
133 ; his hostility to the Union, 133 ;
on Southern Abolitionism, 133 ; ou
Secession, 164

Gates, General, Burgoyne surrenders to, 29

Genet, French Minister to U.S., 60; his
reception, 60 ; his mistakes, 60

George III. determined on subjection of
American Colonies, 17

German mercenaries employed by Great
Britain, 27, 34

German population in U.S., 237

INDEX

245

German propaganda in U.S., 237

Germany (see Prussia)

Gerrard, James W., American Ambassador
at Berlin, 238 ; foresees war, 239

Gerry, a member of the Convention, 42

Gettysburg, Battle of, 196

Ghent, Peace of, 83

" Good Feeling, Era of," 86, 90

Grant, Ulysses S., captures Forts Henry
and Donalson, 183 ; attacked at Shiloh,
184; captures Vicksburg, 196 ; appointed
commander of U.S. forces, 197 ; his
career and character, 197 ; in Virginia
198 ; outmanoeuvred by Lee, 198 ; fights
in the Wilderness, 198 ; Lee surrenders to,
202 ; his report on temper of the South,
213 ; quarrel with Johnson, 219 ; elected
President, 223 ; a tool of the politicians,
223 ; corruption under, 228 ; implicated
in Missouri Whisky scandal, 228

Great Britain imposes taxes on her colonies,
14 ct seq. ; revokes charter of Massa
chusetts, 1 8 ; inadequate military action
of, 19 ; prohibits Continental Congresses,
19 ; practical reasons for repudiating
sovereignty of, 20 ; Continental Congress
resolves on separation from, 21 ; sends
out expedition under Howe, 27; effect
of Burgoyne's surrender on, 29 ; loses
mastery of the sea, 31 ; recognizes inde
pendence of the colonies, 35 ; complains
of non-fulfilment of peace terms, 41 ;
goes to war with French Revolution,
59 ; claims right to search American
ships, 77 ; war with, 79 ; hatred of, con
sequent on burning of Washington, 80 ;
sends fleet to the Gulf of Mexico, 81 ;
weary of war, 83 ; peace concluded with,
83 ; separates from Holy Alliance, 87 ;
proposes joint declaration with U.S.,
88 ; her postulate of naval supremacy
compared with the Monroe Doctrine,
88-89 5 Jackson settles disputes with,
107 ; Jackson's tribute to, 107 ; war
with, avoided, in ; claims in Oregon, 117 ;
clamour for war with, 117; Calhoun's
objections to war with, 117; intervenes
in Texas question, 118; Calhoun's
despatch to, 118 ; variation of opinion
in, concerning Civil War, 181-182 ; pro
claims neutrality, 182 ; anger in, over
Trent affair, 183 ; Alabama built in, 192 ;
declared not to have shown " reasonable
care," 192 ; pays compensation, 192 ;
war with no remedy for sectional divisions,
213 ; less popular in America than
France, 237 ; allowed to be in the right
against Prussia, 237

Greeley, Horace, editor of New York Tribune,
164 ; on Secession, 164 ; his " Prayer
of the Twenty Millions," 190 ; Lincoln's
reply to, 190 ; his inconsistency, 193 ;
goes bail for Davis, 217
Grenville, George, proposes Stamp Duty

for America, 14
Guiteau, murders President Garfield, 329

HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, a member of the
Convention, 42 ; writes for the Federalist,
51 ; Secretary to the Treasury, 52 ; his
opinions and policy, 53-54 ; his financial

successes, 55 ; proposes taking over State
Debts, 55 ; buys off Southern opposition,
55 ; proposes creation of National Bank,
56 ; opposition to, 57 ; defeats Burr's
intrigues for the Presidency, 66 ; opposes
Burr's candidature in New York, 73 ;
death of, 73

Hampton Roads, negotiations at, 199

Hanging Rock, Battle of, 32

Harper's Ferry, John Brown captures, 152 ;
Jackson sent back to hold, 189

Harrison, General, an imitation Jackson,
113; his nickname of " Tippercanoe,"
113 ; elected President, 114 ; dies soon
after election, 114

Harrison, Benjamin, Republican President,
234

Hartford Convention, summoned, 81 ; pro
ceedings of, 82 ; Jackson on conveners
of, 100

Hawkins, Sir John, pioneer of the Slave
Trade, 12

Hayes, President, fraudulent election of,
225

Henay Fort, captured by Grant, 183

Henry, Patrick, on Stamp Act, 16 ; opposes
Constitution, 51

Holt, a Southerner, supports the Union,
165

Holy Alliance proposes to re-subjugate
Spanish colonies, 87 ; Great Britain
separated from, 87

Hooker, General Joseph, defeated at Wil-
liamsburg, 186; trapped in the Wilder
ness, 192 ; defeated at Chancellorsvillc,
192

House of Representatives, how elected, 47 ;
Burr's intrigues in, 66 ; chooses Adams for
President, 94 ; a Democratic majority
secured in, 229

Howe, Lord, commands British expedition
to America, 27

ILLITERATES, exclusion of, 232

Immigration of Irish, 138 ; of Chinese, 230 ;
change in attitude towards, 231 ; Act
passed over President Wilson's Veto, 233

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, 218

Imperialism in U.S., 234

Indians, Penn's Treaty with, 8 ; employed
by Great Britain, 28 ; effect of, on the
West, 71. (See also Cherokee, Creek
Seminole)

Ingersoll, Robert, defends Elaine, 229

Irish, immigration of, 138 ; qualities and
power of, 138 ; " Know-Nothing " agita
tion against, 138 ; antagonism to Negroes,
195. (Set also Scotch-Irish)

JACKSON, ANDREW, fights at Hanging Rock,
32 ; commands Tennessee militia, 74;
relations with Burr, 74-75 ; defeats the
Creek Indians, 82 ; expels British from
Florida, 82 ; successful defence of New
Orleans by, 83 ; pursues Indians into
Florida, 87 ; conduct in Florida, 87 ;
appointed Governor, 87 ; nominated for
Presidency, 92 ; bis character, 93-94 ;
passed over for Adams, 94 ; shocked at
the Adams-Clay bargain, 95 ; attacked
through bis wife, 96 ; elected President

246

INDEX

96 ; his clearance of Government offices,
96-97 ; coalition against, 97 ; his quarrel
with Calhoun, 98 ; his toast at the Jeffer
son Banquet, 100 ; demands the coercion
of S. Carolina, 100 ; dislikes Clay-Calhoun
compromise, 101 ; insists on precedence
for Force Bill, 101 ; signs Force Bill and
New Tariff, 101 ; on Nullification and
Secession, 102 ; his attitude towards
U.S. Bank, 103 ; vetoes Bill for re-charter,
103 ; triumphant re-election, 105 ; orders
removal of Bank deposits, 106 ; censured
by Senate, 106 ; censure on, expunged,
107 ; treatment of Cherokees by, 107 ;
foreign policy of, 107 ; on relations with

. Great Britain, 107 ; Palmerston on, 108 ;
retirement of, 108 ; results of his Presi
dency, 108-109 ; nominates his successor,
no; Harrison's candidature an imitation
of, 113; his memory invoked in, 1860. .
1 60 ; his plans for coercing S. Carolina
sent to Buchanan, 160

Jackson, " Stonewall," nickname earned
at Bull Run, 181 ; campaign in Shenan-
doah Valley, 186 ; sent back to hold
Harper's Ferry, 189 ; death of, 192 ;
Lee's tribute to, 192

Jackson, replaces Erskine as British repre
sentative at Washington, 77

Jacksonians, rally of, to the Union, 165

James I., attitude of, towards Catholics, 4 ;
approves Baltimore's project, 4

Jefferson, Thomas, delegate to Second Con
tinental Congress, 20 ; his character, 20-
21 ; his political creed, 21 ; drafts
" Declaration of Independence," 22 ;
nearly captured by the British, 34 ;
effects reforms in Virginia, 36 ; his belief
in religious equality, 36 ; a Deist, 39 ;
his project for extinguishing Slavery, 41 ;
.Minister to France, 42 ; on Slavery, 50,
130; returns to America, 54; Secretary
of State, 54 ; accepts the Constitution,
54 ; helps to settle taking over of State
Debts, 55 ; repents of his action, 55 ;
his view of American neutrality, 59 ; his
sympathy with France, 60 ; on insur
rections, 61 ; drafts Kentucky Resolu
tions, 63-64 ; elected President, 64 ; bis
inauguration, 67 ; his Inaugural Address,
67 ; refuses to recognize Adams' appoint
ments, 68 ; negotiates purchase of Louis
iana, 68 ; his diplomacy, 6y ; his
alleged inconsistency, 69-70 ; orders
arrest of Burr, 74 ; res-elected, 75 ; atti
tude regarding Napoleonic Wars, 76 ;
places embargo on American trade, 76 ;
withdraws embargo, 77 ; favours pro
hibition of Slavery in Territories, 85 ;
character of his government, 90 ; Demo
cratic Banquet on his birthday, 100 ;
his doctrine misrepresented by Sumner,
205 ; his fears justified, 226 ; his creed
contrasted with Frederick the Great's,
239

Jewish problem in America, 233 ; Influence
in American Socialism, 233

Johnson, Andrew, elected Vice-President,
200 ; becomes President, 209 ; accuses
Davis of complicity in murder of Lincoln,
209 ; Davis's retort on, 209 ; bitterness

of, against Confederate leaders, 209 ;
bis difficulties and defects, 210; his
electioneering campaign, 218 ; vetoes
Reconstruction Bill, 218; impeachment
of, 218 ; acquittal of, 218
Jobnstone, General Joseph E., in Shenaudoah
Valley, 180; joins Beauregard at Bull
Run, 180 ; eludes McClellan, 186 ; con
tests Sherman's advance, 199 ; relieved
of his command, 200 ; Lee attempts to
effect a junction with, 201 ; surrenders
to Sherman, 213

KANSAS, sectional quarrels in, 143 ; con
stitution for, adopted at Lecompton, 150
Kansas-Nebraska Bill introduced by Douglas,
141 ; doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty "
introduced into, 142 ; effect of, in Kansas,
143 ; Republican Party formed to oppose,
145

Kentucky, protest of, against Alien and
Sedition Laws, 63-64 ; opened to coloniza
tion by Boon, 71 ; Lincoln a native of,
147; proclaims "neutrality" in Civil
War, 177; Lincoln's diplomatic treat
ment of, 177-178 ; her soil violated by
Confederates, 178 ; declares war on
Confederacy, 179
Kentucky Resolutions, 63-64
" Know-Nothing " party, 138-139
Ku-Klux-Klan, organization and methods
of, 223 ; Act passed to put down, 224 ;
its work done, 224

LABOUR Unions, 223 ; movement not Col-
lectivist, 223 ; hostility of, to the Trusts,
223-224

Lafayette, the Marquis de, comes to America,

Lawrence, Free Soil settlement of, burnt,
*43

Lecompton Constitution framed, 150 ; ac
cepted by Buchanan, 150 ; rejected and
defeated by Douglas, 150

Lee proposes separation from Great Britain,

22

Lee, Robert E., sent by Davis to the Crimea,
170 ; sounded as to accepting command
of Federal forces, 175; refuses, 176;
resigns his commission, 176; accepts
Virginian command, 176; on Slavery,
176 ; opposed to Secession, 176 ; his
view of State Rights, 176-177; defeats
McClellan, 186 ; defeats Pope, 187 ;
invades Maryland, 187 ; his proclamation,
189 ; fights McClellan at Antietam, 189 ;
retires into Virginia, 189 ; defeats Hooker
at Chancellorsville, 192 ; defeats Burn-
side at Fredericksburg, 192 ; invades
Pennsylvania, 196; defeated at Get
tysburg, 196 ; gets back unhammered,
196 ; outmanoeuvres Grant, 198 ; fights
in the Wilderness, 198 ; his proposal to
recruit Negroes, 199 ; effect of Sherman's
march on, 201 ; attempts to join John-
stone, 201 ; surrenders to Grant, 202 ;
his views on Fourteenth Amendment, 217

Liberator, the, founded by Garrison, 133 ;
Lincoln denounced by, 148

Lincoln, Abraham, joins Republican Party,
147 ; his career and charactei, 148-149 ;

INDEX

247

his contest with Douglas, 150 ; debates
with Douglas, 151 ; chosen candidate
for the Presidency, 153 ; elected Presi
dent, 155 ; objects to Crittenden Com
promise, 161 ; South ignorant of character
of, 163-164 ; defines issue of Civil War,
167 ; his Inaugural Address, 168-169 ;
his policy, 171-172 ; sends supplies to
Foit Sumter, 172 ; calls for soldiers, 174 ;
returns Mason and Slidell, 183 ; refuses
to supersede McClellan, 185 ; replaces
McClellan by Pope, 187 ; effect of his
personality on Maryland, 188 ; decides
to issue Emancipation Proclamation, 189 ;
his reply to Greeley, 190 ; defends procla
mation as a military measure, 191 ; on
Grant, 196-197; appoints Grant com-
mander-in-chief, 197 ; prepared to com
pensate Southern slave owners, 199 ; re-
elected, 199 ; opposition of Radicals to,
200 ; his policy of Reconstruction, 204 ;
on Negro Suffrage, 204 ; last public speech,
207 ; assassinated, 208 ; his advantages
lacked by Johnson, 210

'Little Giant, the," nickname of Stephen
Douglas, 140

Longfellow on John Brown, 153

L,ong Island, Battle of, 27

-ook-Out Mountain, Battle of, 198

^ouisiana. a French colony, 9 ; ceded to
Spain, 10 ; re-ceded to Napoleon, 68 ;
bought by U.S., 68 ; Burr's plans re
garding, 73-74 J secedes from the Union,
161 ; Lincoln's plan for reconstruction
of, 204 ; Negro government of, makes

-fraudulent returns, 225

-ovejoy, killed, 135

x>well, James Russell, expresses sentiments
of Anti-War Whigs, 121 ; his satire on
Taylor's candidature, 124

lusitania, the, sunk, 238

>yon, Captain, commands Union forces in
Missouri, 176

^ACAULAY on Calhoun's dispatch, 118

dcClellan, General, sent to Crimea by Davis,
170 ; clears West Virginia of Confederates,
181 ; supersedes McDowell, 181 ; trains
army of the Potomac, 185 ; his defects,
185 ; lands on Yorktown peninsula,
186 ; besieges Yorktown, 186 ; beaten
by Lee, 186 ; retires to Harrison's Land
ing, 186 ; superseded, 187 ; reinstated,
189 ; fights Lee at Antietam, 189 ; Demo
cratic candidate for the Presidency, 200 ;
defeat of, 200

McDowell, General, advances into Virginia,
180 ; defeated at Bull Run, 180-181 ;
superseded, 181 ; ordered to join Mc
Clellan, 186 ; fails to cut off Jackson, 186

IcKinley, William, elected President, 234 ;
re-elected, 235 ; assassinated, 235

dcLane, Jackson's Secretary to the Treasury,
104 ; favourable to the U.S. Bank, 104 ;
transferred to State Department, 106

rtadison, James, a member of the Con
vention, 42 ; writes for the Federalist,
51 ; President, 77 ; his pacific leanings,
78 ; war forced on, 79 ; re-elected by
sectional vote, 79

Maine, colonized from New England, 5 ;
admitted as a State, 86

Maine, the, blown up, 234

March to the Sea, Sherman's, 201

Maryland, founded by Lord Baltimore, 4 ;
early history of, 5 ; strategic importance
of, 177 ; menacing attitude of, 177 ;
Lincoln's success with, 177 ; Lee invades,
187 ; Southern illusions concerning, 188 ;
refuses to rise, 188-189 ; becomes a Free
State, 203

" Maryland ! My Maryland ! " 188

Mason-Dixon Line drawn, 7 ; becomes
boundary of Slave States, 41

Mason and Slidell, Confederate envoys to
Europe, 182 ; seized by Captain Wilkes,
182 ; English anger over seizure of, 183 ;
Northern rejoicings over, 183 ; returned
by Lincoln, 183

Massachusetts, a Puritan Colony, 5 ; resists
Tea Tax, 17 ; charter of, revoked, 18 ;
attempt to coerce, 25 ; Hartford Con
vention called by, 81 ; votes for War with
Mexico, 120; Webster's influence with,
127 ; Sumner Senator for, 139 ; troops
from, stoned in Baltimore, 177

Maximilian, placed on Mexican throne, 213 ;
his death, 214

Mayflower, the, voyage of, 5

Meade, General, defeats Lee at Gettysburg,
196 ; permits him to retire unhammered,
196

Metrimac, the, exploits of, 184 ; duel with
the Monitor, 184

Mexican War, outbreak of, 120 ; compared
to Boer War, 120-121 ; opposition to,
12 1 ; successful prosecution of, 122;
results of, 122-123

Mexico, Texas secedes from, 115 ; dispute
with, over Texan boundary, 120; U.S.
goes to war with, 120 ; Calhoun opposes
invasion of, 121 ; defeat of, 122 ; peace
terms dictated to, 122 ; Lincoln fears
filibustering in, 161 ; Napoleon III. inter
feres in, 213

Mexico City taken, 120

Ministers, excluded from Congress, 45

Missionary Ridge, charge up, 198

Mississippi, Davis Senator tor, 140 ; secedes
from Union, 161

Mississippi River, upper, secured by Grant's
victories, 184 ; whole in Federal control,
196

Missouri, disputes regarding admission of,
85; admitted as a Slave State, 86;
settlers from, invade Kansas, 143, 150 ;
defeat of ^Secessionists in, 176 ; becomes
a Free State, 203

Missouri Compromise effected, 86 ; terms
of, 86 ; validity of, disputed, 142 ; vio
lated by Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 142 ;
party formed to defend, 143 ; declared
invalid, 147

Missouri Whisky Ring, 228

Monitor, the, duel with the Merrimac, 184

Monroe, James, a member of the War
Party, 78; President, 84; declares European
intervention unfriendly to U.S., 88 ; last
of the Virginian dynasty, 91

Monroe Doctrine, propounded, 88 ; keystone
of American policy, 88-89 ; application

248

INDEX

to Texas, 118; Napoleon III. violates,

213
Monterey, defeat of Mexicans at, 120;

Davis wounded at, 140
Morgan, murder of, 1x2

NA.POLEON I., obtains Louisiana, 68; sells
to U.S., 68 ; Jefferson's attitude towards,
76

Napoleon III., intervenes in Mexico, 213 ;
withdraws, 214

Nashville, Tennessee, abandoned by Con
federates, 184

National Debt, establishment of, 55 ; not
to be repudiated, 216

" National Republicans," policy of, 84

Navigation Laws, n, 15

Navy, U.S., successes of, in War of, 1812 . .
80 ; use of, by North, 184 ; New Orleans
captured by, 186

Negroes, brought to America as slaves, 12 ;
Jefiferson's views on, 75 ; Irish antagonism
to> 195 ; Lee proposes recruitment of,
199 ; problem of, not settled by emanci
pation, 203 ; behaviour of, during Civil
War, 212 ; Southern feeling towards,
212-313 ; their desire for freedom, 221 ;
their political incompetence, 221 ; organi
zation of, 221 ; conduct of, 222 ; thrown
over by the Republican Party, 228 ;
concession to, in Immigration Law, 231

Negro Rule, imposed on the South, 220 ;
effects of, 222 ; resistance offered to, 223 ;
overthrow of, 224-225 ; results of, 225-
226

Negro Slavery (see Slavery)

Negro Suffrage, Lincoln's proposals regard
ing, 204 ; provisions of Fourteenth Amend
ment as to, 217 ; Lee on prospects of, 217 ;
Congress committed to, 218 ; imposed on
the South, 220

New Hampshire, colonized foi New England,

New Jersey, acquisition of, 7

New Mexico, acquired by U.S., 122 ;

to Slavery, 126
New Orleans, attacked by British, 83 ;
Jackson successfully defends, 83 ; message
of Dix to, 165 ; captured by Farragut,
1 86 ; racial riot in, 218
New York, origin of, 6 ; becomes a British
possession, 6 ; the objective of Lord
Howe, 27 ; votes with the South, 58 ;
Tammany Hall founded in, 58 ; Burr
controls Democratic organization of, 66 ;
runs for Governor of, 72 ; Van Buren
fears power of Bank in, 104 ; riots against
Draft in, 195

New York Tribune, on Secession, 164
North, the, insignificance of Slavery in, 40 ;
Slavery abolished in, 40 ; divergence
between South and, 47 ; balance between
South and, 47, 85 ; Abolitionists un
popular in, 135 ; attitude of, towards
slave -owning, 136; resents abrogation
of Missouri Compromise, 144 ; vote of,
for Lincoln, 155 ; opinions in, regarding
Secession, 164-165 ; anger of, over Fort
Sumter, 173 ; effect of Lincoln's assassina
tion on, 208-209 ; Johnson out of touch
with, 210 ; doubts of, regarding Recon-

open

struction, 211-212 ; tired of protecting,;

Negro Governments, 224
North Carolina rejects Secession, 171 ; ;

secedes fiom Union, 175
North, Lord, consents to coerce Colonies

1 8 ; offers terms, 29 ; resignation of, 34
"Nullification" foreshadowed in Kentucky

Resolutions, 63-64 ; proclaimed by South!)

Carolina, 99 ; defended by Calhoun, 99 ; ;

repudiated by Jackson, 100 ; applied to >

Force Bill, 101 ; not discredited in South.

102
Nulliflers, attitude ol, 98-99 ; miscalculate •:

Jackson's temper, 100 ; Jackson proposes •

to coerce, 100 ; Jackson's warning against

102

OHIO, invaded by British, 80

" Old Hickory," nickname of Andrew Jack
son, 93, 113

Oregon, dispute concerning territory of,
117; outcry for war over, 117; Calhoun <
on disadvantages of war over, 117

" PALMETTO Flag " oi South Carolina, 158
Parliament, claim of, to tax the colonies, ,

14 et seq.

Party System, unreality necessary to a, 137
Penn, William, founds Pennsylvania, 7.

establishes religious equality, 8 ; his

treaty with the Indians, 8 ; disapproves

of Slavery, 12
Pennsylvania, founded by Penn, 7 ; cleared !

of the French, 10 ; Slavery legal in, 12 ;

Washington retreats into, 28; "Whisky,

Insurrection " in, 61 ; invaded by Lee, igt'
Pensacola, British occupy, 82 ; dislodged,

from, 82
Perry, Commander, burns British fleet on

the Lakes, 80
Personal Liberty Laws passed in certain

Northern States, 136; disposition to

repeal, 163

Personal Rights Bill, Sumner's, 214
Philadelphia, capital of Pennsylvania, 8;

abandoned by Washington, 28 ; Conven*

tion meets at, 42
Phillipine Islands, left at disposal of U.S.,

234 ; annexed, 235
Phillips, Wendell, on Secession, 164
Picketfs Brigade, charge of, 196
Pierce, Franklin, elected President, 139)

Sumner compares Grant to, 213
Pinckney, of South Carolina, a member ot

the Convention, 42
Pinkerton, private assassinators hired by,,

Polk, chosen as Democratic candidate foi
Presidency, 119; elected, 120; embarrassed
over Oregon question, 120; decides foi
war with Mexico, 120 ; asks for supply to
purchase Mexican territory, 122

Pope, General, succeeds McClellan, 187;
defeated at second Battle of Bull Ruty
187

Populist Party, objects of, 234 ; supports
Bryan, 234

President, powers of, 45 ; method of election,
46; effect of Jacksonian Revolution on
position of, 109

Progressive Party formed by Roosevelt, 230

INDEX

249

rotection adopted after War of 1812.. 84 ;
Cotton States opposed to, 85, 98 ; Re
publican Party and tradition of, 227
russia forces war on Europe, 237 ; attacks
neutral Belgium, 237 ; sinks Lusitania,
238 ; revives campaign of murder at sea,
239 ; contrasted with U.S., 239
Puritan Colonies in America, 5-6 ; dislike
of Catholicism in, 38 ; feeling against
Irish, 138-139

QUEBEC, taken by Wolfe, 10
Quincey, Josiah, protest of against Louisiana
Purchase, 70

RADICAL Republicans, Chase favoured by,
153 ; adopt Fremont as candidate, 200 ;
oppose Lincoln on Reconstruction, 204. ;
Sumner spokesman of, 205 ; still a mi
nority, 2 1 1 ; increased power in Congress, i
218 ; commit Congress to Negro Suffrage, j
218

Raleigh, Sir Walter, projects Colony of ;
Virginia, 3-4

Randolph, John, draws up declaration of |
neutrality, 59

Randolph, Peyton, presides at first Conti- I
nental Congress, 19 ; absent from second, \
20

Reconstruction, Lincoln's views on, 204 ;
Congress takes up, 216; Bill passed by j
Congress over Johnson's veto, 218. (See ;
also Negro Rule)

Religious Equality, established in Maryland, i
5 ; in Pennsylvania, 8 ; true theory of, !
36-38 ; in American Constitution, 38
Republican " original name of Jefferson's !
party, 57. (See also Democratic Party)

Republican Party formation of, 145 ; Fre"- j
mont Presidential candidate of, 145 ; j
adopts Lincoln as candidate, 153 ; victory J
°f> *55 J Johnson out of touch with, !
209 ; reasons for supporting Negro
rule, 224 ; secures Presidency by a trick,
225 ; change in character of, 227-228 ;
abandons cause of Negro, 228 ; becomes
Capitalist party, 228 ; Roosevelt's efforts
to reform, 235

Revolution of 1689 transfers government of
Maryland to Protestants, 5 ; Hamilton's
admiration for, 54

Revolution, French (see French Revolution)

'Rhode Island, a Puritan Colony, 5 ; pro
visional acceptance of invitation to
Hartford Convention, 81

'Richmond, Virginia, capital of Confederacy
transferred to, 176 ; Confederate Congress
to meet at, 180 ; Northern demand for
capture of, 180 ; abandoned by Lee, 201

Rochambeau, co-operates with Washington
against Cornwallis, 34

Rockingham Whigs, repeal Stamp Act, 16 ;
conclude peace, 35

Roosevelt, Theodore, elected Vice- President,
235 ; succeeds McKinley, 235 ; his cam
paign against Trusts, 235 ; popularity of,
235 ; denounces his successor, 236 ;
tounds Progressive Party, 236 ; wishes
U.S. to join Allies, 238

Rosecrans, General, defeated at Chicka-
mange, 198

SANFRANCisco,Repub)icanConventionat,236

Saratoga, Burgoyne's surrender at, 29 ;
effect of, 29-30

"Scallywags," 221

Scotch- Irish, immigration of, 8-9

Secession, contemplated at Hartford Con
vention, 81 ; talked of in South Carolina,
123 ; of South Carolina, 158 ; of Gulf
States, 161 ; motives of, 163-164 ;
Northern views of, 164 ; Abolitionists
favour. 164 ; Greeley on, 164 ; Jack-
sonians oppose, 165 ; a popular movement,
160 ; Lincoln denies right of, 160 ; Douglas
resists, 174 : of Virginia, etc., 176

Sedition Law, 63

Seminole Indians, Jackson pursues, 87

Senate, how chosen, 47 ; Whig majority
in, 106 ; refuses to confirm appointment
of Tancy, 106 ; censures Jackson, 106 ;
Censure expunged, 107 ; Northern ma
jority in, 163

Seven Years' War, outbreak of, 9

Seward, William, Senator, for New York,
139 ; his speech on Fugitive Slave Law,
139 ; passed over for Fremont, 145 ;
for Lincoln, 1*3 ; Secretary of State,
172 ; attempt to assassinate, 207 ; his
desire for foreign war, 213

Shannon, the, duel with the Chesapeake, 80

Shay's Insurrection, 42 ; Jefferson on, 61

Shenandoah Valley, johnstone in, 180 ;
Jackson's campaign in, 186 ; Sheridan in,
201

Sheridan, General, his campaign in Shenan
doah Valley, 2or

Sherman, Senator John, opposes Negro
Suffrage, 218

Sherman, General William T., left in com
mand in the West, 197 ; wins Battle of
Chattanooga, 198 ; moves on Atlanta,
199 ; takes Atlanta, 200 ; his march to the
sea, 201 ; receives surrender of Johnstone,
213 ; his proposed terms of peace, 213

Slavery, reappears in New World, 3 ; legal
in all English Colonies, 12 ; difference in
North and South, 12 ; general disapproval
of, 40 ; disappears in Northern States,
40 ; Jefferson's proposals for extinction
of, 41 ; Constitutional Compromises over,
48-49 ; opinion on American Fathers
regarding, 49, 50, 129 ; Jefferson on,
50 ; excluded from North- West Terri
tories, 85 ; Missouri Compromises con
cerning, 86; Calhoun's defence of, in,
118, 134 ; California decides to exclude,
123 ; Arizona and New Mexico open to,
126 ; strengthening of, 129 ; decline in
public reprobation of, 130; debates on,
in Virginian legislature, 131 ; effect of
economic changes on, 131 ; Garrison's
view of, 133 ; Scriptural appeals regarding,
134-135 ; Douglas's attitude towards, 141 ;
Lincoln's view of, 148-140 ; Crittenden
compromise concerning, 160 ; not the
issue of the Civil War, 162 ; Lincoln's
pledge regarding, i6P ; not referred to by
Davi<=, 169-170 ; Stephen' on, 170 ; Lee
on, 176 ; Lincoln's Emancipation Proclama
tion, 189-191 ; destroyed by the War,
199 ; dead, 203 ; Thirteenth Amendment
abolishes, 203

250

INDEX

Slave Trade, in hands of Northern Colonists,
12 ; condemned in first draft of Declara
tion of Independence, 49 ; suffered to
continue for 20 years, 49 ; prohibition of,
49 ; abolished in District of Columbia, 126

Slidell (see Mason and Slidell)

Socialism, character of American, 233
" Solid South, the," 225, 228, 234

South, the, staple industries of, based on
Slavery, 40 ; divergence between North
and, 47 ; balance between North and,
47, 85; changes of view of Slavery in,
129-135 ; aggressive policy of, 144-145 ;
rejects Douglas, 153 ; votes for Breckin-
ridge, 155 ; motives of Secession of, 163-
164 ; military capabilities of, 179 ; attitude
of, after the war, 211-212 ; attitude of,
towards Negroes, 212 ; Grant on temper of,
213 ; Negro rule established in, 221-222 ;
liberation of, 224-225 ; Negro problem in,
225-226

South America, colonized by Spain, i ;
influence of French Revolution on, 87 ;
freedom of, guaranteed by Monroe Doc
trine, 88 ; German ambitions in, 238
South Carolina, colonization of, 8 ; " Tories "
in, 31 ; Cornwallis and Tar'eton in, 31 ;
dislike of Protection in, 98 ; nullifies
Tariff, 99 ; nullifies Force Bill, 101 ;
tilk of Secession in, 123 ; election of
Lincoln cheered in, 156 ; peculiar attitude
of, 156-157; secedes from the Union,
158 ; demands surrender of Sumter, 172 ;
anger against, 173-4 5 Sherman's march
through, 201

Southern Confederacy, anticipated by Jack
son, 1 02 ; formed, 169. (See also Con
federate States.)

Spain, Columbus sails from, i ; claims
the New World, 3 ; decline of, 9 ; Louisiana
transferred to, 10 ; dominated by Napo
leon, 68 ; Burr seeks support from, 73 ;
proposes war with, 74 ; neutral in war of
1812 . .82 ; U.S. complaints against, 86-87 >
sells Florida to U.S., 87 ; war with, 234

Spanish Colonies, 1,3; revolt of, 87

" Spoils System," the, JeGerson accused of
oiiginating, 68 ; Jackson inaugurates,
96 ; effect of, 109

Spottsylvania, Battle of, 198

" Squatter Sovereignty," hostile nickname
for " Popular Sovereignty " (q.v.), 142

Stamp Act, imposed, 14 ; resistance to,
15-16; repealed, 17

Stan ton, appointed Secretary for War,
194 ; dismissal of, 219

Stars and Bars, the flag of the Confederacy,
173

Stars and Stripes, the, origin of, 35 ; South
Carolina hands down, 158 ; affection of
Davis for, 167; anger at affront to,
1 73~- 74 ; first appearance of, on European
battlefields, 239-240

States, independence of, recognized severally,
35 ; powers of, under the Constitution,
44 ; representation of, in Congress, 47

State Sovereignty, question of, left un
defined by the Convention, 43 ; doctrine
of, affirmed by Quincey, 70 ; Hartford
Convention takes its stand on, 82 ; Cal-
houn maintains, in ; extreme view of,

taken by South Carolina, 156-157; Lincok
avoids overt challenge to, 171 ; Vir-;
ginia's adherence to, 174-175 ; Lee's
belief in, 175-176 ; Kentucky's interpret*
tion of, 177-178

Stephens, Alexander H., opposes secession o:
Georgia, 161 ; chosen Vice- President o:
the Confederacy, 169; on Slavery, 170;
urges claims of Negroes, 212

Stevens, Thaddeus, dictator of Reconstruc
tion policy, 214 ; his character and aims,
214-216 ; compels House to accept his.
leadership, 216; mover in Impeachment
of Johnson, 218 ; death of, 224 "

Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, 132, 133, 136

Sumner, Charles, enters Senate, 139 ; his
speeches and beating, 151 ; spokesman
of Radicals, 205 ; his character, 205 ;
misunderstands Declaration of Inde
pendence, 205-207; censures Grant's
report, 213 ; not director of Reconstruc
tion, 214 ; his scruple about mentioning
black men, 217 ; his opinion on the
Impeachment of Johnson, 220 ; his
contention regarding Chinese, 230 ; con
cession to, 231

Sumter, cavalry leader, 32

Sumter Fort, held by Federal Government,

172 ; attempt to reinforce, 172 ; Lincoln
sends supplies to, 172 ; Davis consents to
bombardment of, 173 ; surrender of,

173 ; anger at attack on, 173-174
Supreme Court, independence of, 45 ; pro
nounces a National Bank constitutional,
57 ; Jackson on, 105 ; decides against Dred
Scott, 146

Surratt, Mrs., 207

TAFT, President, succeeds Roosevelt, 136 ;
denounced by Roosevelt, 236

Talleyrand and " X.Y.Z. letters," 63 ;
Jefferson's negotiations with, 69

Tammany Hall, foundation of, 58

Taney, Roger, a Catholic, 39 ; Attorney*
General, 105 ; and Jackson's Veto Message,
105 : appointed Secretary to the Treasury,
106 ; Senate refuses to confirm, 106;
his judgment in the Dred Scott case,
146 ; supports the Union, 165

" Tariff of Abominations," the, 98

Tarleton, leader of South Carolina " Toi ies,"
31 ; defeated at Cowpens, 31

Taxation of the Colonies, 14-16

Taylor, Zachary, defeats Mexicans, 122 J
Whig candidate for Presidency, 124;
Lowell's satire on, 124; elected, 125;
on California, 135 ; an obstacle to Clay,
126 ; death of, 126

Tea Tax, imposed, 17 ; resisted in Boston, 17

Tennessee, Jackson commands in, 74 ; nomi
nates Jackson for Presidency, yz ; rejects
Secession, 171 ; secedes, 175

Territories surrendered to Federal Govern
ment, 44 ; Slavery in, 85, 142 el seq.,
160 ; Douglas eager for development of,
141-142

Texas, secedes from Mexico, 115 ; the
" Lone Star State," 116 ; seeks admission
to the Union, 116 ; Calhoun eager to
annex, ut>; boundary of, in dispute,
117; Secesskmism in, 171

INDEX

251

rirteenth Amendment, Slavery abolished i

by, 20?

homas, General, a Virginian Unionist, 97 ; |

associated with Sherman in the West, 97
Tippercanoe," nickname of Harrison, 113
obacco industry in American colonies, n
ownshend, Charles, proposes taxation of

Colonies, 17

rent, the, Mason and Slidell take passage

on, 182 ; stopped by Captain Wilkes,

182 ; anger in England over, 183
rusts, unpopularity of, 234 ; Roosevelt

attacks, 235
yler, Whig candidate for Vice-Presidency,

113 ; succeeds Harrison as President,

114; differences with Whig leaders,

114-115 ; appoints Calhoun Secretary

of State, 115 ; Democrats refuse to accept

as candidate, 119

UNCLE Tom's Cabin," 136

nion, urgent need for, 41-42 ; difficulties
of, 43 ; achieved, 51 ; Western feeling
for, 73 ; Jackson'e devotion to the, 100 ;
Clay called upon to save the, 125 ; Aboli
tionists hostile to the, 133, 136 ; South
Carolina's view of the, 157 ; Lincoln
declares perpetual, 168 ; calls for soldiers
to defend the, 174

Jnited States, Constitution framed for,
42 et seq. ; neutrality of, 59 ; enthusiasm
for France in, 60 ; Louisiana purchased
by, 68 ; war with Great Britain, 79 ;
Great Britain makes peace with, 83 ; feeling
of victory in, 84 ; Florida acquired by,
87 ; European intervention in America
declared unfriendly to 83 ; Monroe
Doctrine essential to, 88-89 ', Jackson's
importance for, 108 ; claims of, to Oregon,
117; Texas desires to join, 118; dispute
between Mexico and, 120 ; successful
in war against Mexico, 122 ; California, etc.,
acquired by, 122 ; secessions from, 158,
161, 176 ; anger in Great Britain with,
183 ; protests of, in Alabama case, 192 ;
compensation paid to, 192 ; Napoleon III.
avoids conflict with, 214 ; immigration
problems in, 230-231 ; labour movement
in, 233-234 ; attitude of, towards European
War, 237-238 ; declares war, 239 ; con-
.trast between Prussia and, 239

'ALLANDINGHAM, a typical " Copperhead,"
194 ; sent across Confederate lines, 195

/an Buren, accuses Calhoun of conspiring
against Eaton, 98 ; fears power of U.S.
Bank in New York, 104; reports Palmer-
ston on Jackson, 108 ; President, no ;
avoids war with Great Britain, 1 1 1

Vermont, a Puritan Colony, 5 ; refuses
invitation to Hartford Convention, 81

^ice-President, how chosen, 46 ; change
in method of choosing, 67 ; Calhoun,
97; Tyler, 114; unimportance of, 114 ;
Johnson, 200 ; Roosevelt, 235

/icksburg, capture of, 196

/ikings, unimportance of, 2

/irginia, foundation of, 3-4 ; opposition
to Stamp Act in, 16 ; sends Jefferson
to Continental Congress, 20 ; invaded
by British forces, 34 ; Jefferson's reforms
in, 36 et seq. ; fails to adopt his plan i

regarding Slavery, 41 ; slave insurrection
in, 130 ; legislature of, discusses slavery,
130 ; John Brown plans slave rising in,
152 ; rejects Secession, 171 ; objects to
coercion of a State, 174-175 ; secedes
from the Union, 176 ; joins Confederacy,
176; invaded, 180, 186, 187, 192, 198

WAR of 1812. .79-84 ; effect of, 84, 87

War of Independence, 25-35

War with Spain, 234-235. (See aiso Civil
War, Mexican War)

Washington, City of, site agreed on, 55 ;
Jefferson inaugurated in, 67 ; burnt by
British, 80; Slave Trade abolished in, 126;
attack on, feared, 187

Washington, Booker, quoted, 212, 220

Washington, George, serves in French War,
10 ; chosen to command American forces,
25 ; his character and strategy, 26-27 ;
defeated at Long Island, 27 ; abandons
Philadelphia, 28 ; defeats Tarleton at
Cowpens, 31 ; besieges Yorktown, 34.5
presides over Convention, 42 ; Presi
dent, 51 ; national confidence in, 52 ;
signs Bill for a National Bank, 57 ; re-
elected, 57 ; declares U.S. neutral, 59 ;
suppresses " Whisky Insurrection," 61 ;
condemns Democratic societies, 6r ; de
clines a third term, 62 ; his farewell
address, 62

Webster, Daniel, as an actor, 79, 100 ; sup
ports Force Bill, 101 ; leagued with Clay
and Calhoun, 102 ; Secretary of State,
114 ; supports Compromise of 1850. .127 ;
death of, 139

Wellington, proposal to send to America, 83

West, the, opened up by Daniel Boon, 71 ;
its governing conditions, 71-72 ; influence
ol, on Clay, 78 ; Slavery in, 85 ; deserts
Clay lot Jackson. 9,-) ; Douglas a product
of, I40-i4r ; Douglas appeals to, 174;
military qualities of, 196

West Virginia, clared by McClellan, 181 ;
recognized as a State, 1*1

Whig Party, name adopted by Coalition
against Jackson, 105 ; committed to
defence of Bank, 105 ; defeat of, 105 ;
appropriateness of name for, 109 ; abandon
ment of principles by, 113 ; victory of,
114 ; Tyler out of sympathy with, 114 ;
runs Taylor for President, 124 ; dis
appearance of, 139, 145

Whitman, Walt, quoted, 173

Wilderness, the, Hooker trapped in, 192 ;
Lee fights Grant in, 19^

Williamsburg, Hooker defeated at, 186

Wilkes, Captain, seizes Mason and Slidell,
182 ; compliments to, 183

Wilmot Proviso, 122

Wilson, Woodrow, elected President, 236 ;
career and character of, 236 ; his policy
regarding European War, 238-239 ; sup
ported by nation in declaring war, 239

Wolte, James, takes Quebec, 160

" X.Y.Z." Letters, 63

YORKTOWN Peninsula, Cornwallis retires to,

34 ; McClellan lands on, 166
Yorktown, surrenders, 34 ; McClellan besieges,

1 86

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