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A  HISTOEY  OF 
THE   UNITED   STATES 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •   BOSTON    •  CHICAGO   •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  AND   CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •    BOMBAY    •    CALCUTTA    •    MADRAS 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
OF  CANADA,  LIMITED 

TORONTO 


A  HISTORY 


OF 


THE  UNITED  STATES 


BT 
EDWARD   CHANNING 


VOLUME  V 
THE  PERIOD  OF  TRANSITION 

1815-1848 


Neto  ff  otfc 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1943 


COPTBIORT,    1921, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved  —  no  part  of  this  book  may  be 
reproduced  in  any  form  without  permission  in  writing 
from  the  publisher,  except  by  a  reviewer  who  wishes 
to  quote  brief  passages  in  connection  with  a  review 
written  for  inclusion  in  magazine  or  newspaper. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  October,  1921. 


'  PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


YRL 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PA«« 

I.  THE  WONDERFUL  CENTURY  .......  1 

IL  THE  WESTWARD  MARCH       .        .    -  .        .        .        .        .37 

in.  THE  URBAN  MIGRATION         .        .        .....  70 

IV.  THE  FIRST  LABOR  MOVEMENT      ......  94 

V.  THE  PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM    .        .        .  120 

VI.  SOCIAL    READJUSTMENTS   IN    THE   FIRST   HALF    OF   THE 

CENTURY     ..........  172 

VII.  THE  CHANGING  RELIGIOUS  SCENE        .....  204 

VTQ.  EDUCATION       ..........  242 

IX.  LITERATURE    ..........  274 

X.  THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  JAMES  MONROE  .....  307 

XL  POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,  1824-1828  ......  351 

XII.  PRESIDENT  JACKSON       ........  378 

XIII.  SOUTH  CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION         ....  404 

XIV.  THE  BANK  AND  THE  PANIC  OF  1837    .....  434 
XV.  WESTERN  LANDS  AND  SETTLEMENTS  AFTER  1840       .        .  467 

XVI.  TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON       .....  499 

XVH.  THE  YEAR  1846       .........  550 

XVIIL  THE  CAMPAIGN  FOR  MEXICO  CITY       .....  587 

INDEX  ....  817 


MAPS 

MM! 

TRANSPORTATION  IN  1838      .     :  .        .     \.        •      ty»       »       >  !—  ^^ 

THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  1820       .        .       ...',.   1.-   Js<  .     .,     ..  ,  '.  46 

THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  1840       .      , .';'.'-             .        .  .  47 

GROWTH  OF  THE  STATES       .        .       .. ;-  =.-..:.  -  —v'V  *.    ^'    •  1  •  381 

TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON       .  ,  .  .»    » '"*..  •    s  *.]  *   ^  ~\  .  500 

TEXAS  IN  1835        .        .        .        .        .      :.        .       v.    .  -.        .  .  519 

"  THE  KING'S  MAP  "      .        ..,".'.'.        .        .        .  .537 

THE  NORTHEASTERN  BOUNDARY  .        V    '...        . ;     .        .      /,'.•  .  539 

BATTLE  OF  BUENA  VISTA     .        .        .  ^;.   .        .    ; ... -; . -'."i.      ,  •  595 

ROUTE  FROM  VERA  CRUZ  TO  MEXICO  CITT       .        .        .        ;  601 


Vii 


CHESAPEAKE    AND   OHIO  CANAL 

190.      ,  ......  aoo,  ,.,..,.  .100.  ...... 


TBANSPORTATION  IN  1838 

(From  Sterenson's  Civil  Engineering  of  North  America.    The  profiles  are  from 
Trotter's  Observations,  1839) 


A  HISTOKY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

THE  Roman  Emperor  Tiberius  travelled  two  hundred 
miles  in  northern  Italy  in  twenty-four  hours;  in  1800 
President  John  Adams,  journeying  from  Washington  to  his 
home  in  Quincy,  Massachusetts,  was  fortunate  if  he  could 
cover  fifty  miles  in  one  day.1  By  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  fifty  miles  an  hour  was  no  uncommon  speed 
on  an  American  railroad.  In  the  last  seventy  years  the 
application  of  steam  and  electricity  to  the  movement  of 
machinery  and  the  invention  of  the  internal  explosion  engine 
have  again  accelerated  the  rate  of  human  travel,  have  made 
all  parts  of  the  earth  accessible  to  man,  and  have  provided 
for  the  navigation  of  the  air  above  and  the  waters  underneath 
and  for  the  transmission  of  intelligence  and  administrative 
orders  from  one  part  of  the  world  to  another  without  other 
medium  than  the  atmosphere.  Why  all  this  should  have 
happened  in  the  Wonderful  Century  from  1815  to  1914  — 
in  the  hundred  years  between  the  world-wide  wars  —  is 
hard  to  ascertain.  Coal,  iron,  steam,  electricity,  have  all 
been  present  in  the  earth  and  in  its  atmosphere  from  the 

1  See  the  present  work,  vol.   iv,   2-  hired  coach.     Fifty  or  forty  miles  was 

8,  75,  and  Caroline  A.  J.  Skeel's  Travel  the  usual  speed  for  ordinary  travellers. 

in  the   First   Century  after   Christ,    69.  I    am   indebted    to    Professor   Clifford 

Tiberius    was    hastening   to   his   dying  H.   Moore  of  Harvard  University  for 

brother,    but    "the    Dictator    Julius"  this  reference, 
rode   one   hundred   miles   a   day   in   a 

VOL.  V. B  1 


2  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [On.  I 

carboniferous  age  and  yet  they  have  not  been  used  as  they 
now  are  until  the  era  of  machinery.  Why  was  it  left  for 
Watt  to  utilize  steam,  for  Fulton  to  apply  steam  to  the 
propulsion  of  boats,  for  Stephenson  to  make  the  first  prac- 
ticable locomotive,  and  for  Morse  to  use  electricity  for  the 
transmission  of  thought?  These  are  questions  at  present 
insoluble.  Certain  it  is  that  the  American  mind,  which 
had  concerned  itself  only  with  political  organization,  sud- 
denly turned  to  other  problems  of  human  existence  and 
became  renowned  for  fertility  of  invention,  for  greatness 
in  the  art  of  literary  expression,  and  for  the  keenest  desire 
for  the  amelioration  of  the  lot  of  humanity.1 

For  forty  years  before  1815  the  world  had  been  at  war 
and  the  French  Revolution  was  the  greatest  wrecker  of 
complacency  that  had  occurred  in  modern  times,  —  before 
1914.  In  itself,  war  is  a  frightful  scourge ;  but  in  its  effects 
it  oftentimes  has  produced  most  beneficent  results.  Wars 
and  revolutions  lead  to  readjustments  in  social  relations,  in 
political  affairs,  and  in  the  mental  outlook  of  nations  and 
of  races.  Ordinarily,  our  rules  and  regulations,  our  ordi- 
nances, and  our  laws  are  directed  to  the  preservation  of 
human  life,  to  the  protection  of  individual  liberties,  and  to 
the  conservation  of  property.  In  war,  on  the  other  hand, 
our  design  is  to  kill,  to  destroy,  and  to  make  existence 
painful  to  men  and  women  on  the  other  side  of  the  boundary 
line.  In  such  times,  the  mind  breaks  adrift  from  its  every- 
day moorings  and  turns  to  thoughts  and  theories  that  in 
peaceful  hours  seemed  fantastic  and  incapable  of  attain- 
ment. War  leads  to  a  loosening  of  the  mind,  to  a  breaking 

1  McMaster  treated  the  social  con-  tellectual  conditions  of  the  American 
dition  of  the  American  people  in  1784  people  in  1800,  —  the  last  four  of  these 
in  the  first  volume  of  his  History.  chapters  presenting  a  remarkable  anal- 
Henry  Adams  devoted  six  chapters  of  ysis  of  the  American  mind  in  the 
the  first  volume  of  his  United  States  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
to  a  description  of  the  social  and  in- 


1815]  INFLUENCE   OF   WAR  3 

of  associations,  to  new  thoughts  and  groupings ;  and  human- 
ity leaps  from  one  stage  of  civilization  to  another.  In  the 
thirty-five  years  after  1815,  men  and  women  threw  off 
the  shackles  of  the  past :  they  exalted  the  position  of  the 
individual  in  society,  burst  the  bonds  of  education  and  reli- 
gion, experimented  with  schemes  to  better  human  life, 
sought  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  the  reformation  of 
drunkards  and  criminals.  All  this  led  to  the  giving  the 
masses  of  the  people  more  direct  participation  in  the  govern- 
ment of  town,  city,  county,  State,  and  Nation.  Unfortu- 
nately with  the  good  there  was  also  the  bad,  for  war  leads 
to  a  slackening  of  the  moral  sense,  and  to  an  increase  in  the 
desire  for  rapid  gain.  In  such  times,  men  forget  their 
obligations  to  their  fellow  men  and  embark  on  speculative 
ventures  without  other  thought  than  self-enrichment. 
This  was  particularly  true  after  the  fall  of  the  Napoleonic 
Empire,  for  great  discoveries  in  mechanics,  in  chemistry, 
in  physics,  in  biology,  and  in  the  medical  sciences  gave 
opportunities  of  pecuniary  profit  that  the  world  had  never 
dreamed  of  before  in  historic  times.  For  America,  the 
most  important  of  them  all  was  the  application  of  the  new 
inventions  to  the  transportation  of  persons  and  of  goods 
and  to  the  transmission  of  intelligence  and  of  administrative 
orders  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another.  Modern 
life  in  all  its  branches  from  day  to  day,  in  peace  and  in  war, 
depends  upon  the  mobility  of  men  and  of  things,  for  it  is 
this  that  makes  possible  the  association  of  human  beings 
for  the  prosecution  of  sociological,  political,  and  economic 
objects.1  It  enables  them  to  work  in  larger  units  and  results 
in  the  enormous  and  rapid  accumulation  of  wealth.  After 

1  The    beginnings    of    the    machine-  R.    Coxe    and    Thomas    Cooper    and 

made   world   can    be   visualized   by   a  published  at  Philadelphia  in  the  years 

study  of    The    Emporium  of   Arts    &  1812-1814. 
Sciences    that    was    edited    by    John  For  a  radically  different  view  of  the 


4  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Ca.  I 

pondering  these  things  and  viewing  the  tremendous  devel- 
opment of  production  and  the  enormous  accumulation  of 
wealth  which  has  gone  on  with  constantly  accelerated  speed 
from  one  decade  to  another,  one  turns  to  Webster's  exhorta- 
tion that  in  the  "days  of  disaster,  which,  as  they  come  upon 
all  nations,  must  be  expected  to  come  upon  us  also,"  we  may 
turn  our  eyes  to  the  standards  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic 
and  be  assured  that  "the  foundations  of  our  national  power 
are  still  strong." 

In  1815,  the  horse-drawn  stage,  the  ox-drawn  wagon,  and 
the  wind-propelled  sloop  or  schooner  formed  the  main 
reliance  of  traveller  and  forwarder.  The  roads  were,  for  the 
most  part,  of  the  colonial  dirt  type.  Already,  a  glimpse  of 
the  future  might  be  discerned  in  a  few  stone  roads  leading 
out  from  the  largest  towns,  a  few  miles  of  canals  connecting 
important  water  courses,  and  a  few  steamboats  plying  along 
the  coast  and  on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers;  but  the 
lack  of  capital  and  the  want  of  technical  skill  stood  in  the 
way  of  rapid  development.  The  country  was  new,  the 
demands  for  capital  and  labor  were  great,  banking  facilities 
few,  and  credit  was  in  its  infancy.  Moreover,  knowledge 
of  modern  business  methods  was  lacking,  except  in  a  few 
isolated  spots.  There  was  not  a  technical  school  in  the 
country  and,  except  for  a  score  of  men  —  all  of  them  born 
on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean  —  there  was  no  mechanical 
skill  anywhere  to  be  found  and  there  were  no  machine- 
shops  where  actual  mechanical  work  could  be  done. 

The  first  advance  toward  the  betterment  of  transportation 
facilities  was  the  construction  of  stone  roads  after  the  mode 


main  springs  of  our  national  develop-  1906;     his   Rise   of  the   New    West   in 

ment  from  that  given  in  the  text,  see  Albert  Bushnell  Hart's  American  No- 

Frederick   J.    Turner's    "Contributions  lion   series;     and   his    The   Frontier  in 

of  the  West  to  American  Democracy"  American  History  (New  York,  1920"). 
in   the   Atlantic  Monthly  for  January, 


1815]  MACADAMIZED   ROADS  5 

proposed  by  John  Loudon  McAdam.  This  extraordinary 
man  was  born  in  Scotland,  came  to  America  with  an  uncle, 
and  went  back  to  Britain  with  the  Pennsylvania  Loyalists 
in  the  year  1783.  By  analysis  and  experiment,  helped  by 
observation,  McAdam  found  that  by  the  use  of  small 
angular  stone  fragments  —  none  of  them  exceeding  an  inch 
in  any  one  dimension  —  spread  ten  inches  deep,  a  roadway 
could  be  constructed  that  would  grow  stronger  with  time 
and  use.  Moreover,  it  could  be  made  nearly  flat  and  laid 
over  soft  ground  as  well  as  on  rock  foundation.  The 
expense  of  such  a  road  was  small  in  comparison  with  any 
kind  of  block  pavement  and  could  be  kept  in  repair  at 
small  annual  cost.1  The  establishment  of  the  new  govern- 
ment under  the  Constitution  greatly  stimulated  the  demand 
for  better  facilities  for  transportation  in  America  and  this 
demand  grew  more  and  more  insistent  in  the  years  of  em- 
bargo and  war.2  As  no  State  or  community,  in  the  crude 
methods  of  taxation  then  prevailing,  could  provide  the  means 
for  the  construction  of  any  extensive  system  of  roadway 
private  enterprise  came  in.  Corporations  were  formed  often 
with  financial  aid  from  the  State ;  they  procured  the  rest 
of  their  capital  by  lotteries  and  they  charged  tolls  for  the 
use  of  their  highways.  These  were  called  turnpikes  and  that 
word,  of  somewhat  obscure  origin,  was  generally  used  as 
synonymous  with  an  artificial  stone  road.  In  the  first 
twenty-one  years  of  the  century,  from  1800  to  1821,  twelve 
hundred  miles  of  road,  nearly  all  of  it  of  approved  con- 
struction, were  built.  Soon  after  that  time  canals  and  rail- 
roads attracted  public  attention,  and  the  turnpikes  failed  to 

1  See   John   L.    McAdam's   Remarks  on  pp.  199-236  of  this  book,  gives  the 

on  the  Present  System  of  Road  Making  best  idea  of  his  career  and  invention. 
(London,   1824),  34,   35.     There  is  no  2  See  ch.  x  for  a  treatment  of  the 

adequate    account    of    McAdam's    life  political     and     constitutional     aspects 

and  work.     His  evidence  before  a  com-  of  internal  improvements, 
mittee    of    the    House    of    Commons, 


6  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Ca.  I 

pay  expenses  and  had  to  be  taken  over  by  the  public.  In 
these  years,  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  had  subscribed 
nearly  two  million  dollars  to  the  capital  stock  of  the  road 
companies  within  her  limits,  besides  contributions  that  had 
been  made  by  counties  and  towns.  The  construction  of 
bridges  on  these  roads  was  usually  undertaken  by  other 
companies  which  were  also  often  aided  by  public  authorities.1 
Most  of  these  bridges  were  of  timber,  with  stone  abutments 
in  some  cases,  and  they  were  constantly  being  destroyed 
by  ice,  flood,  or  fire. 

Albert  Gallatin  made  the  first  suggestion  as  to  giving 
federal  aid  to  the  building  of  roads.  On  February  13,  1802, 
he  wrote  to  William  B.  Giles  of  Virginia,  who  was  then  chair- 
man of  the  committee  to  consider  the  admission  of  Ohio 
into  the  Union.  Gallatin  proposed  that  one-tenth  part  of 
the  net  proceeds  of  the  land  that  was  hereafter  sold  by  the 
national  government  within  the  boundaries  of  the  new 
State  should  be  applied  towards  making  roads  from  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  to  the  Ohio  Valley,  and,  later,  to  the 
Mississippi.  Giles  followed  Gallatin's  recommendation  and 
Ohio  was  admitted  to  the  Union  with  such  a  condition  in  the 
act  of  Congress.2  In  1806,  Congress  authorized  the  Presi- 
dent to  appoint  three  commissioners  to  survey  a  road  from 
Cumberland,  Maryland,  to  the  Ohio  and  appropriated 
thirty  thousand  dollars  to  defray  the  expense  of  laying  out 
and  making  the  road,3  —  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  as  Presi- 

1  See    the    section    on    "Turnpike,  *  Adams's    Writings    of   Gallatin,    i, 

or     Artificial     Roads"     in     Gallatin's  76;     Annals    of   Congress,    7th    Cong., 

Report  ...  on  ...  Public  Roads  and  1st    Sess.,    1100.     The    debate    follows 

Canals.     The  writings  of  early  travellers  on  succeeding  pages,  but  relates  almost 

are    filled    with    the    discomforts    and  entirely  to  the  constitutional  questions 

delays  of  stage-coach  travel  over  these  involved.     The  act  is  in  the  same  vol- 

roads.     Zadok   Cramer   states   that  in  ume,  1349. 

the  year  1813  no  less  than  4055  wagons  3  See  Annals  of  Congress,  9th  Cong., 

passed   along   "the  great  road"   from  1st  Sess.,   1237.     For  a  report  of  the 

Philadelphia   to   Pittsburg    (Navigator,  commissioners,  see  "Message  from  the 

9th  ed.,  p.  63  note).  President  of  the  United  States,  trans- 


1816]  THE   CUMBERLAND   ROAD  7 

dent,  by  his  signature  approved  the  act.  In  this  case  the 
consent  of  the  States  through  which  the  road  should  run  was 
to  be  obtained  before  beginning  the  actual  work  of  construc- 
tion. Within  the  next  dozen  years  or  so,  this  road  was 
constructed  from  Cumberland  on  the  Potomac  in  Maryland, 
to  Wheeling  on  the  Ohio  in  the  western  part  of  Virginia.1 
The  eastern  portion  of  the  Cumberland  Road  —  or  National 
Road  —  followed  generally  the  lines  of  the  old  Braddock 
Road,  which  had  itself  pursued  roughly  the  course  of  an 
Indian  path.  In  later  years  the  National  Road  was  con- 
tinued westwardly  through  Ohio  and  Indiana  to  central 
Illinois,  and  it  was  proposed  to  build  a  connecting  line 
southward  from  Zanesville  in  central  Ohio,  to  Maysville  in 
Kentucky  on  the  Ohio  River  and  thence  to  Lexington  and 
southwestwardly,  even  to  the  lower  Mississippi.  From 
1816  for  ten  or  fifteen  years,  the  eastern  and  middle  por- 
tions of  the  Cumberland  Road  were  literally  crowded  with 
emigrants,  their  families,  and  wagons  laden  with  household 
goods  and  chattels,  pursuing  their  westward  way.2  In 
later  years  it  was  equally  crowded  with  wagons  bringing  the 
products  of  western  farms  to  the  markets  of  the  East. 
Farther  south,  through  Cumberland  Gap  and  along  the 
Wilderness  Road,  a  smaller  tide  of  emigration  sought 
Kentucky  and  the  country  south  of  the  Ohio  River,  and,  at 
a  later  time,  many  of  these  migrants  or  their  children  crossed 
that  stream  into  the  States  of  the  Old  Northwest. 

mitting  a  Report  of  the  Commissioners  berland    Road,    and    Thomas    B.    Sea- 
appointed  under  .  .  .  'An  act  to  regu-  right's    The   Old   Pike.     A    History   of 
late  the  laying  out  and  making  a  road  the  National  Road,  but  none  of  these 
from  Cumberland, ' "  etc.,  dated  January  books  is  satisfying. 
31,  1807.  Mahlon   Dickerson   of   New   Jersey 

1  For  an   enumeration   of  the   acts,  stated    in    the    House    of    Representa- 

see  Statutes  at  Large,  ii,  357  and  note.  tives    (February    1,     1827)     that    the 

1  For  an  account  of  this  road,   see  Cumberland   Road   had   cost   fourteen 

Jeremiah    S.     Young's    Political    and  thousand   dollars   a   mile   up   to   1823, 

Constitutional    Study    of    the    Cumber-  or   about   one   and   a   quarter   million 

land  Road,  Archer  B.  Hulbert's  Cum-  dollars  for  a  road  130  miles  long. 


8  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Cn.  1 

The  opening  of  the  canal  between  Liverpool  and  Man- 
chester, England,  in  1772,  gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  pro- 
viding of  internal  water  communications  everywhere.  The 
Revolution  postponed  all  such  attempts  in  America,  but 
in  1783  Washington  noted  that  the  Mohawk  River  with 
Wood  Creek  and  Lake  Oneida  offered  what  seemed  to  be  a 
practical  route  to  the  western  country.1  As  a  Virginian, 
however,  his  interests  and  sentiments  pointed  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  James  and  Potomac  rivers  by  clearing 
their  beds,  accelerating  the  current  in  places  by  constructing 
wing  dams,  digging  canals  around  the  falls  and  impassable 
rapids,  and  connecting  the  highest  point  of  river  navigation 
by  roadways  with  the  Mississippi  system.  Companies 
were  formed,  individuals  subscribed  for  stock,  and  States 
also  were  induced  to  face  the  tax  payers  by  voting  money 
for  the  schemes ; 2  but  nothing  of  any  importance  was 
ever  accomplished  and  the  canal  and  canal  rights  of  the 
Potomac  Company  and  its  successor,  the  Chesapeake  and 
Ohio  Canal  Company,  proved  only  hindrances  in  the  way  of 
the  construction  of  the  National  Road  and  later  of  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad.  Early  in  the  new  century, 
a  water  route  from  the  Mohawk  to  Lake  Ontario  was  opened. 
It  accommodated  ten-ton  boats  at  ordinary  stages  of  the 
river,  but,  owing  to  its  dependence  upon  variable  water 
supplies,  it  was  never  satisfactory. 

1  Washington's  Writings  (Ford),  x,  Early  Life  of  Washington,  in  connec- 

325.  lion  with  Narrative  History  of  the  Po- 

*  See  John  E.  Semmes'a  John  H.  B.  tomac  Company  (New  York,  1856). 
Latrobe  and  his  Times,  1803-1891,  The  "Report"  of  a  committee  of  the 
pp.  336-352;  Corra  Bacon-Foster'a  House  of  Representatives  (May  22, 
Early  Chapters  in  the  Development  of  1826,  19th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  228) 
the  Potomac  Route  to  the  West  (reprinted  is  a  convenient  account  of  the  connec- 
from  the  Records  of  the  Columbia  His-  tion  between  the  Potomac  and  the 
torical  Society,  vol.  15) ;  G.  W.  Ward's  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  projects.  See 
"Early  Development  of  the  Chesa-  also  Journal  of  the  Internal  Improve- 
peake  and  Ohio  Canal  Project "  in  ment  Convention  .  .  .  8th  Day  of  De- 
Johns  Hopkins  Studies,  xvii;  and  cember,  1834,  which  is  preceded  by  an 
John  Pickell's  A  New  Chapter  in  the  interesting  map. 


1808]  GALLATIN'S  REPORT  9 

Many  short  canals  were  dug  to  overcome  obstructions 
in  otherwise  navigable  streams  and  attempts  were  made 
to  connect  the  bays  and  sounds  of  the  coast,  to  provide 
a  line  of  communication  from  Boston  to  Charleston  that 
would  be  sheltered  alike  from  storm  and  foe.  When 
Secretary  of  War  Henry  Knox  had  a  route  surveyed 
across  Cape  Cod  on  the  line  of  the  present  canal,  he  esti- 
mated the  expense  of  constructing  the  canal  at  half  a  million 
dollars  ! :  Robert  Morris  advocated  connecting  the  Dela- 
ware and  Ohio  by  canals  wherever  possible,  with  roads 
between.2  John  Nicholson,  writing  to  Jefferson 3  from 
Herkimer,  New  York,  in  1806,  proposed  that  the  national 
government  should  open  communications  for  vessels  of 
eighty  tons  between  the  Hudson  and  Lake  Ontario  and 
thence  to  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi,  using  canals  wherever 
necessary.  Nothing  came  of  any  of  these  schemes  at  the 
time ;  but  in  1803,  the  Middlesex  Canal 4  connecting  the 
Merrimac  with  Boston  Harbor  was  opened. 

The  discussions  over  the  Cumberland  Road  project  and 
the  growing  interest  in  canals  culminated  in  a  resolution  of 
the  Senate  requesting  Gallatin  to  prepare  and  report  a 
plan  for  "the  application  of  such  means  as  are  within  the 
power  of  Congress,  to  the  purposes  of  opening  roads,  and 
making  canals."  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  replied  on 
April  4,  1808,  with  one  of  the  most  remarkable  documents 

1  The  locks  were  to  be  120  feet  long.  *  Thomas    Jefferson    Correspondence 

The  labor  was  estimated  to  cost  about  (Boston,  1916),  p.  136. 
$250,000,    the    mechanical    utensils    to  *  See    "The    Middlesex    Canal"    in 

be  used  were  estimated  at  $3600  and  Lowell    Historical    Association's    Con- 

$1800   was   allowed   for   contingencies.  tributions,  iii,    273-308 ;    and   G.  Arm- 

"Knox    Papers"    and    The    Medley    or  royd's  Internal  Navigation  of  the  United 

Newbedford  Marine  Journal  for  Febru-  States,  32.     Writing  to  Knox  in  1793, 

ary  3,  1797.  James    Sullivan    and    Ishem    Russell 

*  Hazard's     Register,     ii,      119-122.  declared    that    they    needed    a    man 

A  convenient  statement  of  the  knowl-  "skilled    in    canal    business"    to    sur- 

edge  of  the  time  in  regard  to  canals  vey    the    proposed    Middlesex    Canal, 

may     be     found    in     A     Treatise     on  They  had  heard  that  "such  an  Artist" 

Internal     Navigation     (Ballston     Spa,  was     at     Philadelphia.      See      "Knox 

1817).  Papers"  under  date. 


10  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Cn.  I 

that  ever  came  from  his  pen.1  In  it  he  proposed  constructing 
a  line  of  canals  along  the  Atlantic  coast  and  other  systems 
connecting  the  seaboard  with  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the 
St.  Lawrence.  This  plan,  if  carried  out,  together  with  turn- 
pikes and  connecting  roads,  he  thought  would  cost  twenty 
million  dollars.  The  cost  of  the  canals  would  be  more  than 
sixteen  million  dollars  and  the  connecting  roads  or  canals 
about  three  or  four  millions  more.  Two  Appendixes  to  the 
"Report,"  written  by  B.  H.  Latrobe  and  Robert  Fulton, 
were  printed  at  the  time.  In  a  postscript  to  the  former, 
Latrobe  describes  "rail  roads."  These,  he  wrote,  were 
constructed  of  iron  or  of  timber  covered  with  rails  of  cast 
iron  forming  in  section  the  letter  "L"  on  its  back;  the 
gauge  of  these  railroads  was  from  three  and  a  half  to  five 
feet  and  the  total  cost  of  such  a  road  with  "  a  set  of  returning 
ways"  would  be  about  ten  thousand  dollars  a  mile.  The 
carriages  to  run  on  these  roads  might  be  of  various  dimen- 
sions, but  they  were  to  have  low  cast  iron  wheels  fastened 
to  the  axle.  Astonishing  loads,  Latrobe  wrote,  could  be 
drawn  on  these  railroads  with  one  horse.  The  objection 
to  them  was  that  ordinary  carriages  could  not  travel  upon 
them,  but  even  with  this  disadvantage,  they  might  supple- 
ment internal  navigation.2  Fulton  argued  most  strongly 

1  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas-  pendixes  E  and    F,  is  appended  to  A 

ury,    on   the    Subject    of   Public    Roads  Treatise   on   Internal  Navigation    (Ball- 

and  Canals;    made  in  pursuance  of  a  ston  Spa,  1817). 

Resolution  of  Senate,  of  March  2,  1807.  2  John  Stevens  of  Hoboken,  New 
April  12,  1808,  Printed  by  Order  of  the  Jersey,  whose  steam  propelled  Phoenix 
Senate  (Washington,  1808)  and  Ameri-  almost  anticipated  Fulton's  side- 
can  State  Papers,  Miscellaneous,  i,  wheeled  Clermont  published  in  1812 
No.  250  (pp.  724-921).  The  separate  a  pamphlet  entitled  Documents  tending 
issue  does  not  contain  Appendixes  A-D ;  to  prove  the  Superior  Advantages  of 
these  are  printed  in  the  State  Papers  Rail-Ways  and  Steam-Carriages  over 
and  contain  much  information  on  Canal  Navigation  (reprinted  in  Ab- 
contemplated  internal  improvements.  batt's  Magazine  of  History,  Extra 
Interesting  items  concerning  the  Cum-  Number  —  No.  54) .  In  this  Stevens 
berland  Road  are  in  Henry  Adams's  argued  that  railroads  on  which  wagons 
Writings  of  Gallatin,  i,  78,  79,  304,  could  be  hauled  by  horse  or  steam  power 
305,  309,  395.  Gallatin's  Report  .  .  .  would  be  much  cheaper  and  better  than 
of  Public  Roads  and  Canals,  with  Ap-  canals. 


1825]  THE   ERIE   CANAL  11 

for  the  construction  of  canals,  which  were  vastly  superior  to 
any  form  of  turnpike.  He  calculated  that  the  saving  on  the 
transportation  of  one  barrel  of  flour  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  miles,  if  carried  by  canal  instead  of  by  road,  would  be 
one  hundred  and  fifty  cents,  which  was  equal  to  the  existing 
import  duty  on  thirty  pounds  of  coffee  or  thirty  gallons  of 
molasses,  and  the  saving  on  the  bringing  of  fifty  thousand 
cords  of  wood  to  a  city  of  fifty  thousand  inhabitants  in 
one  year  would  pay  all  the  duties  levied  by  the  govern- 
ment on  those  people  during  that  time  and  leave  a  surplus.1 
It  followed,  therefore,  that  canals  could  be  dug  and  operated 
at  public  expense  with  a  great  saving  of  money  and  of 
effort,  even  though  they  were  operated  free  of  toll. 

The  Erie  Canal 2  stands  out  from  all  others  of  that  period 
in  its  influence  on  building  up  the  industries  of  the  East, 
peopling  the  farms  of  the  West,  and  providing  the  laboring 
masses  of  large  portions  of  Europe  with  food.  It  has  been 
so  successful  that  its  origin  has  been  clouded  by  the  claims 
of  many  persons  and  their  descendants.  It  makes  little 
difference  to  whom  the  idea  first  occurred,  for  the  canal  would 
not  have  been  dug  when  it  was  had  it  not  been  for  the 
powerful,  continuing  support  given  to  the  project  by  De 
Witt  Clinton  3  and  to  him,  therefore,  must  fairly  be  given 
the  credit  for  its  construction.  The  Western  Inland  Lock 
Navigation  Company  had  provided  a  somewhat  uncertain 

1  This   matter  is   summarized    from  sketches  of  the  canal  engineers  in  his 

Fulton's    Treatise   on   the    Improvement  second  volume. 
of  Canal  Navigation  (London,    1796).  'Clinton  published  essays  under  the 

*  On  the  New  York  canals,  see  Noble  names    of     "Atticus,"     "  Hibernicus," 

E.    Whitford's    History    of    the    Canal  and  "Tacitus"   and  he  was  president 

System    of  .  .  .  New     York     (2     vols.,  of  the  New  York  Association  for  the 

Albany,    1906,  —  forming   the   Supple-  Promotion   of   Internal   Improvements 

ment    to    the    Annual    Report    of    the  which  published  Considerations  on  the 

State   Engineer   for    1905,    and   issued  Great  Western  Canal  from  the  Hudson 

separately   with   the   above   title)    and  to  Lake  Erie  in  1818.     Of  these  papers 

Meyer  and  MacGill's  History  of  Trans-  his  Canal  Policy,  printed  in  1821,  had 

portation,  180-195,  etc.      Whitford  has  the  greatest  influence, 
a  long   bibliography   and   biographical 


12  THE  WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Cn.  I 

navigation  between  the  Mohawk  and  Lake  Ontario  using 
existing  water  courses  wherever  possible.1  The  Erie  Canal, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  constructed  independently  of  any 
parallel  river  or  lake  navigation2  and  connected  the  Mohawk 
with  the  Great  Lake  system  above  Niagara  Falls ;  it  ran 
by  the  side  of  the  Mohawk  and  even  crossed  it,  but  never 
utilized  its  bed.  The  canal  was  close  to  Lake  Ontario,  but 
soon  changed  its  course  for  Lake  Erie.  Its  only  dependence 
upon  lakes  and  rivers  was  for  the  necessary  water  to  operate 
the  locks.  In  this  way  it  avoided  all  the  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties besetting  river  navigation :  high  water,  low  water, 
rapids,  rocks,  and  tumultuous  current  —  and  connected  the 
Hudson  with  the  navigation  of  the  continental  interior 
and  not  with  that  of  the  St.  Lawrence  Valley.3  The  digging 
of  the  Erie  Canal  was  authorized  by  the  New  York  legis- 
lature in  1817  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  application  having 
been  made  in  vain  for  national  assistance.4  There  proved  to 
be  many  critical  engineering  problems  to  be  solved  and  no 
trained  engineers  to  face  them.  The  difficulties  of  the  enter- 
prise may  almost  be  said  to  have  laid  the  foundation  of 
American  constructive  engineering,  for  they  were  studied 
and  overcome  in  a  manner  that  aroused  the  admiration  of 
English  experts  who  visited  the  canal.  As  at  first  con- 

1  For  the  doings  of  this  company,  brought     in     seventy-three     thousand 

see  the  Report  of  the  Directors  of  the  dollars  in  tolls.     See  Whitford's  Canal 

Western  Inland  Lock-Navigation   Com-  System,    i,    113,    416-418,    979-987,    ii, 

pany  .  .  .  16th  February,   1798;    Buf-  1064. 

falo    Historical    Society's   Publications,  *  For  maps  and  profiles  of  New  York 

ii,    157 ;     and   Elkanah  Watson's  His-  canals,       see      Engravings  .  .  .  accom- 

tory    of   the    Rise  .  .  .  of   the    Western  panying     the    Annual    Report  ...  on 

Canals,  92,  93.  the  Canals  for  1859.      There  is  an  ex- 

*  The  bed  of  Tonawanda  Creek  for  cellent  short  "Account  of  the  Grand 

ten  or  twelve  miles  was  used  for  the  Canals"  in  A  Brief  Topographical  and 

canal ;    otherwise  it  followed  an   arti-  Statistical  Manual  of  the  State  of  New 

ficial  channel.  York     for     1822.     A     reduced     profile 

3  The  Champlain  Canal  connect-  of  the  Erie  Canal  and  some  interest- 
ing the  Hudson  and  St.  Lawrence  ing  details  are  to  be  found  in  the 
systems  was  opened  in  1822 ;  in  twelve  Biography  of  William  C.  Young,  —  one 
months,  from  October  1,  1825,  it  of  the  early  surveyors. 


1825]  THE   ERIE   CANAL  13 

structed,  it  was  363  miles  long  and  the  highest  point  was  at 
Lake  Erie,  568  feet  above  the  Hudson  at  Albany.  Owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  canal  ascended  and  descended  to  avoid 
expensive  cuttings  or  embankments,  the  total  lockage  was 
increased  to  about  700  feet. 

The  effect  produced  by  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal 
was  immediate  and  great.1  It  provided  a  comparatively 
easy  and  uninterrupted  mode  of  transportation  from  the 
Hudson  T,o  Lake  Erie.  It  facilitated  the  movements  of 
western  emigrants  and  provided  a  commercial  outlet  for 
the  surplus  products  of  their  farms.  At  once  the  increase 
in  the  demand  for  food  by  the  western  emigrants  raised 
the  price  of  grains  along  the  western  portions  of  the  canal, 
but  this  was  temporary.  Salt  making  at  Salina,  or  Syracuse, 
and  the  manufacturing  of  many  kinds  of  household  goods 
developed  at  several  points  along  the  canal ;  but  its  greatest 
effect  was  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  New  York  City.  The 
older  Western  Inland  Lock  Navigation  Company's  canal 
and  slack-water  system  had  lowered  the  cost  of  transpor- 
tation between  the  Hudson  River  and  Lake  Ontario,  but 
it  was  unsuitable  for  the  conveyance  of  bulky  and  heavy 
goods,  because  everything  had  to  be  shifted  from  boat  to 
wagon  and  back  again  several  times  to  pass  the  falls  and 
rapids  of  the  Mohawk.  Sections  of  the  Erie  Canal  were 
open  for  traffic  as  soon  as  completed.  By  1825,  when  it  was 
opened  for  its  full  length,  the  cost  of  transportation  of  one 
ton  of  merchandise  from  Buffalo  to  New  York  City  was 
reduced  from  one  hundred  dollars  to  less  than  eight  dollars.2 

1  For   some   illustrative   figures,    see  the    debt,    $78,862,153.84,    leaving    a 

Note  III  at  end  of  chapter.  balance  of  $42,599,717.25.     After  this 

*  Meyer    and    MacGill's    History    of  there   were   no   more   tolls   to   be   col- 

Transportation,     168    note.     In     1882,  lected,  as  the  canals  of  the  State  were 

the   State    auditor    reported    that    the  made     free.      Wm'tford's     History     of 

gross  revenue  of  the  Erie  Canal  to  date  the    Canal   System  .  .  .  of  New    York, 

was    $121,461,871.09,     the    gross    ex-  i,  317. 
penditure,     exclusive    of    interest    on 


14  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Ca.  I 

In  other  words  the  conveyance  of  merchandise  between  the 
Great  Lakes  and  the  seaboard  was  now  a  commercial 
possibility.  The  outstanding  and  continuing  result  was  the 
decline  in  prosperity  of  all  the  seaports  on  the  Atlantic  coast, 
north  and  south  of  New  York,  in  comparison  with  the 
wonderful  growth  of  that  commercial  metropolis.1  As  early 
as  1827  Governor  Troup  of  Georgia  wrote  that  the  wheat  of 
western  New  York  was  already  supplanting  that  of  Georgia 
in  the  Savannah  markets,  for  no  fertility  of  soil  or  geniality 
of  climate  can  overcome  "a  difference  of  freight  of  five 
to  one."  Since  1825  the  Erie  Canal  has  been  reconstructed 
again  and  again,  and,  practically  following  its  course,  run 
the  railroads,  from  Lake  Erie  to  the  Hudson.  The  ultimate 
influence  of  the  break  in  the  Appalachian  system  through 
which  these  lines  of  transportation  run  may  be  seen  in  the 
fact  that  in  1910  nearly  three-quarters  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  State  of  New  York  lived  within  five  miles  of  the  line  of 
water  communication  between  New  York  Harbor  and  the 
eastern  end  of  Lake  Erie.  Had  there  been  no  Erie  Canal 
the  development  of  that  region  would  have  been  delayed 
for  twenty  or  thirty  years  until  the  railroads  reduced 
transportation  costs,  but  it  would  have  come  then.  The 
settlement  of  the  Old  Northwest,  north  of  the  line  of  the 
National  Road,  would  also  have  been  greatly  retarded,  so 
greatly  retarded,  indeed,  that  the  War  for  Southern  In- 
dependence might  have  terminated  otherwise  than  it  did. 
Finally,  the  part  played  by  lessening  costs  of  transportation 
on  social  evolution  may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  of  the  four 

1  In  1829  a  paragraph  in  Hazard's  and  Lake  Erie  and  by  the  Erie  and 
Annals  of  Pennsylvania  (iii,  320)  Ohio  canals,  for  Jl.STj;  on  the 
stated  that  one  hundred  weight  of  other  hand,  it  cost  $1.50  to  transport 
goods  could  be  transported  from  New  the  same  weight  of  goods  by  wagon 
York  City  to  Middleburg  in  central  from  Philadelphia,  140  miles,  to  Mil- 
Ohio,  a  distance  of  750  miles,  all  the  ton  in  central  Pennsylvania. 
way  by  water  by  the  Hudson  River 


1834]  THE   PORTAGE   RAILWAY  15 

hundred  and  sixty  men  of  highest  literary  attainment  who 
were  born  and  nurtured  in  the  United  States  between  1815 
and  1850,  three  hundred  and  fifty-eight  first  saw  the  light 
of  day  in  the  section  north  of  the  Potomac  and  east  of  the 
Ohio. 

The  Pennsylvanians  earlier  had  enjoyed  an  almost  com- 
plete monopoly  of  western  traffic  between  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  north  of  the  Potomac. 
Conestoga  wagons  lined  the  roads  leading  westwardly 
through  Pennsylvania.  This  traffic  had  centred  at  Pitts- 
burg  for  so  long  a  time  that  at  first  the  Pennsylvanians  were 
disposed  to  minimize  the  dangers  of  impending  competition 
through  the  Mohawk  Valley.  They  may  also  have  been 
deterred  from  taking  up  any  canal  projects  through  their 
own  State  by  the  great  difficulty  of  overcoming  the  moun- 
tains that  nature  had  flung  from  north  to  south -across  its 
limits.1  With  the  actual  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal,  more 
attention  was  paid  to  westward  transportation  and,  in  1834, 
an  independent  route  by  canal  and  railroad  was  opened  from 
Philadelphia  to  Pittsburg.  This  system  was  often  referred 
to  as  the  Portage  Railway  from  the  name  of  the  project 

1  The  following  facts  are  taken  from  a  "Comparison  of  the  Great  Routes 
proposed  to  unite  the  Atlantic  with  the  Great  Lakes"  in  the  "Biddle  Manu- 
scripts" in  the  Library  of  Congress  under  date  of  February  12,  1825. 

No.  I.        New  York,  by  her  Grand  Canal      Lockage    655  ft.      Distance  506  miles 

No.  II.  The  National  Route  by  Harris- 
burg,  Wilkesbarre ;  Seneca 
Lake  to  Lake  Erie  ....  "  1593"  "  511  " 

No.  III.    Philadelphia      by     Schuylkill, 

Harrisburg  to  Lake  Erie  .     .  2033  "  559     ' 

No.  IV.  Trenton  by  Easton,  Lehigh, 
Wilkesbarre  to  Lake  Erie,  by 

upper  tunnel 3266 "  1  .,       ^og    « 

By  lower  do "        2700  "  / 

No.  V.  From  Washington  City,  by  Po- 
tomac River  and  Cumber- 
land, to  Lake  Erie  ....  "  4833  "  559  ' 

No.  VI.  From  Philadelphia  by  Union 
Canal,  Juniata  to  Alleghany 
and  thence  to  Lake  Erie  .  .  "  4410  "  "  650  " 


16  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Cn.  I 

by  which  the  mountainous  mass  was  overcome.  The 
total  distance  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburg  by  this  route 
was  395  miles.  David  Stevenson,  a  British  engineer,  made 
the  journey  over  this  line  in  1837.  He  covered  the  whole 
distance  in  91  hours'  travelling  time.  He  went  by  railroad 
from  Philadelphia  to  Columbia  on  the  Susquehanna  and 
then  by  canal  and  slack-water  navigation  to  the  eastern  end 
of  the  Portage  Railway.  The  highest  point  of  the  portage 
was  2326  feet  above  the  mean  level  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean.1 
This  was  overcome  by  ten  inclined  planes  with  stretches  of 
level  railroad  in  between.  The  planes  were  from  1480  feet 
in  length  to  over  3000  feet,  the  height  varied  from  150 
feet  to  307  feet.  Up  these  planes,  railroad  cars  and  canal 
boats  were  hauled  by  an  endless  rope,  actuated  by  stationary 
engines,  of  which  there  were  two  at  the  head  of  each  plane. 
Bits  of  railroad  from  one-sixth  of  a  mile  to  thirteen  miles 
in  length  connected  the  planes.  Stevenson  took  seven 
hours  to  pass  over  the  Portage  Railway.  In  the  first  seven 
months  that  it  was  open  nineteen  thousand  passengers  and 
thirty-seven  thousand  tons  of  merchandise  were  conveyed 
over  it,  —  a  most  convincing  proof  of  the  necessity  of  this 
particular  internal  improvement,  whether  it  could  or  could 
not  compete  with  the  New  York  route  or  whether  it  ever 
repaid  the  cost  of  construction  or,  indeed,  of  operation. 

The  temporary  success  of  the  early  trunk  line  canals 
incited  the  people  of  other  parts  of  Pennsylvania  to  demand 
the  construction  of  canals,2  either  connecting  their  towns  with 

1  See    David    Stevenson's    Sketch    of  vania  for  1898-99,  Pt.  iv,  No.  8,  xli- 

the  Civil  Engineering  of  North  America,  xcvi.     There  is  a  brief   and   clear   ac- 

262-274.     A     most     interesting      and  count  of  the  Portage  Railway  and  of 

ample  account,  giving  helpful  illustra-  the  connecting  systems  in  C.  B.  Trego's 

tions,    including    one    of    an    inclined  Geography     of     Pennsylvania      (1843), 

plane,    is    "  The  Evolution,  Decadence  147-156. 

and    Abandonment    of    the    Allegheny  2  The    canal    commissioner's    report 

Portage   Railroad,"  by  W.  B.  Wilson,  forms   "Appendix"    to   vol.   ii   of    The 

in    the    Annual    Report   of    the    Secre-  Journal  of  the  Senate  of  Pennsylvania 

tary    of    Internal    Affairs    of    Pennsyl-  of  1833-34. 


1833]  THE   OHIO  CANAL  17 

the  main  system  or,  in  some  cases,  merely  for  transportation 
of  goods  from  one  town  or  county  to  another.  The  legis- 
lators could  not  resist  these  appeals  and  multitudinous 
canals  were  dug.  Many  of  them  had  no  economic  justi- 
fication whatever  and  few  of  them  provided  enough  business 
to  repay  the  cost  of  operation.  Moreover,  there  was  great 
inefficiency  in  the  construction  and  carrying  on  of  these 
public  utilities  and  there  was  also  corruption  and  extrava- 
gance. The  State, -too,  had  gone  into  the  venture  of  public 
ownership  and  operation  without  making  any  adequate 
financial  provisions.  In  the  end  the  people  of  Pennsylvania 
found  themselves  burdened  with  canals,  most  of  them  not 
paying  expenses  and  unable  to  compete  with  the  railroad 
systems  when  they  came  to  be  built.1 

West  of  the  Alleghanies,  the  canal  fever  raged  with  nearly 
as  great  severity  as  it  did  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  In  1822, 
the  Ohio  legislature  authorized  a  survey  to  be  made  to 
determine  the  practicability  of  connecting  Lake  Erie  with 
the  Ohio  River  by  a  canal.  The  committee  reported  in 
1823,  and  ten  years  later  the  canal  was  opened  for  business 
from  the  "southwesterly  corner  of  the  Village  of  Cleveland" 
to  Portsmouth  on  the  Ohio.  It  was  308  miles  in  length 
and  its  summit  was  395  feet  above  Lake  Erie  and  491  feet 
above  its  entrance  into  the  Ohio.  On  portions  of  the  route, 
there  were  serious  engineering  difficulties  and  the  sudden 
risings  of  rivers  more  than  once  seriously  interfered  with  the 
maintenance  of  the  canal  after  it  was  opened  and  occasioned 
large  and  recurring  expenditures.  In  the  early  years  the 

1  See     Thomas     K.     Worthington's  scheme,    but   useful    also,    as    showing 

"Historical    Sketch    of    the    Finances  the  best  thought  of  the  time  on  trans- 

of   Pennsylvania"   in   the  Publications  portation,    in    the   Journal   of  the  In- 

of    the    American    Economic    Associa-  ternal  Improvement  Convention  that  was 

tion,  vol.  ii.     There  is  a  good  deal  of  held  at  Baltimore  in  1834  and  in  the 

interesting     matter     relating     mainly  "Report"  that  accompanies  it. 
to    the    Chesapeake    and    Ohio    Canal 

VOL.  V.  —  C 


18 


THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY 


[CH.  I 


traffic  on  this  canal  was  heavy,  —  the  tolls,  fines,  and  water 
rents  in  1837  amounted  to  nearly  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars.1  Its  early  success  led  to  visions  of  vast  interior 
navigations.  Some  of  these  were  abundantly  realized,  but 
for  the  most  part  there  was  disappointment.  There  were 
many  other  western  canals,  the  most  important,  perhaps, 
being  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  which  was  designed 
to  connect  Chicago  with  the  Mississippi  system.2  Work 
was  begun  on  it  in  1836  and  continued  off  and  on  for  a  dozen 
years  greatly  to  the  relief  of  many  groups  of  settlers  in 
northern  Illinois,  who  otherwise  would  have  found  difficulty 
in  securing  the  necessities  of  existence. 

The  Southerners  also  projected  extensive  systems  of 
canals ;  one  from  the  Tennessee  River  to  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  and  another  from  the  Flint  to  the  Savannah,3  but 
the  only  southern  canal  of  any  length  to  be  constructed  in 
this  period  was  that  connecting  the  Santee  and  Cooper 
rivers  in  South  Carolina.  It  was  very  expensively  con- 


gee "Annual  Reports"  of  the 
Ohio  Canal  Commissioners;  W.  F. 
Gephart's  Transportation  ...  in  the 
Middle  West,  107-128;  Dr.  R.  B. 
Way's  article  on  the  "Mississippi 
Valley  and  Internal  Improvements, 
1825-1840"  in  Mississippi  Valley  His- 
torical Association's  Proceedings,  iv, 
153-180;  James  L.  Bates's  Alfred 
Kelley,  69-93;  and  the  History  of  the 
Ohio  Canals  published  by  the  Ohio 
State  Archaeological  and  Historical 
Society  in  1905.  An  earlier  and 
shorter  account  is  Charles  M.  Morris's 
essay  in  American  Historical  Associa- 
tion's Papers,  iii,  107-136.  There 
is  a  valuable  "List  of  Works  relating 
to  Ohio  Canals"  in  C.  B.  Galbreath's 
Ohio  Canals,  8-17,  published  by  the 
Ohio  State  Library  in  1910. 

On  Indiana,  Logan  Esarey's  article 
in  the  Indiana  Historical  Society's 
Publications,  v,  No.  2,  is  detailed  and 
careful;  and  much  out-of-the-way 
material  can  be  gleaned  from  The 


State  of  Indiana  Delineated  that  was 
published  at  New  York  in  1838. 

2 See  James  W.  Putnam's  "Illinois 
and  Michigan  Canal"  forming  vol.  x 
of  Chicago  Historical  Society's  Collec- 
tions, and  see  also  the  Illinois  State  His- 
torical Library's  Collections,  vii,  pp.  htii- 
Ixxvii. 

*  E.  J.  Harden's  Life  of  George 
M.  Troup,  174,  180.  In  1824  Gov- 
ernor Troup  advocated  undertaking 
a  system  of  internal  improvements  by 
the  State  of  Georgia.  If  this  were 
done,  instead  of  "decaying  cities 
and  a  vacillating  trade  .  .  .  seeking 
an  emporium  elsewhere  than  within 
her  own  limits,  she  will  witness  the 
proud  and  animating  spectacle  of 
maritime  towns  restored  and  flourish- 
ing, new  ones  rising  up  —  her  trade 
steady  and  increasing  —  ...  and  she 
may  witness  .  .  .  the  Western  waters 
mingling  with  her  own,  and  the  trade 
of  Missouri  and  Mississippi  floated 
through  her  own  territory  to  her  own 


1830]  CANALS  19 

structed  and  without  adequate  engineering  oversight.1  It 
was  of  small  utility,  was  dug  and  operated  by  a  private 
corporation,  and  is  interesting  mainly  as  an  example  of 
Southern  desire  for  better  transportation  facilities.2  In  the 
country  as  a  whole,  in  1830,  there  were  3908  miles  of  canal 
either  finished  or  well  advanced  toward  completion  and 
6833  miles  more  either  under  construction  or  actively  con- 
templated.3 These  canals  were  constructed  at  vast  out- 
lays for  those  days.  States  and  municipalities  issued  bonds 
to  provide  the  necessary  funds  out  of  all  proportion  to  their 
ordinary  taxable  receipts.4  With  the  coming  of  the  steam- 
boat and  the  railroad,  most  of  the  canals  went  out  of  use 
and,  finally,  in  many  instances  they  proved  to  be  menaces 
to  the  public  health.  The  great  changes  that  the  appli- 
cation of  steam  to  transportation  on  coastal  and  inland 
waters  and  on  the  land  itself  were  to  make  within  a  score  of 
years  could  not  have  been  foreseen  by  the  statesmen, 
financiers,  and  promoters  of  that  time,  and  they  should  not 
be  held  blameworthy  for  these  miscalculations.  Of  all 
the  canals,  the  Erie  alone  retained  its  vitality.  Even  as 
late  as  1860,  it  had  a  grain  tonnage  equal  to  that  of  the 
railroads  paralleling  its  course,  partly  because  the  roads 
paid  heavy  taxes  from  which  the  canal  was  exempt. 

It  is  an  interesting  thought  how  one  invention  supplants 
another.  For  a  time,  the  cry  was  for  roads  and  more  roads ; 
the  Nation,  the  States,  and  private  companies  undertook 
their  construction  and  operation  usually  in  return  for  tolls 

seaports,  and  all  this  within  the  com-  Carolina  Booklet,  x,  122,  and  the  "Mur- 

pass  of  her  own  resources."  phey  Papers"   in  the   North  Carolina 

1 U.  B.   Phillips's   Transportation  in  Historical    Commission's    Publications, 

the  Eastern  Cotton  Belt,  34-43.  ii,  103-151. 

1  Alexander     Trotter's     Observations  *  George   Armroyd'a   Internal  Navi- 

on  the  .  .  .  Credit  of  such  of  the   States  gation,  447-482. 

.  .  .  as     have    contracted   Public    Debts  4  See  B.  R.  Curtis's  "DebtB  of  the 
(London,     1839),    chs.     v-viii.     J.     A.  States"    in    The   North   American   Re- 
Morgan's   "State   Aid   to   Transporta-  view  for  January,  1844. 
tion  in  North  Carolina"  in  the  North 


20  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Ca.  1 

that  were  levied  on  all  traffic  passing  over  them.  Then  came 
the  canals  which  rendered  partially  useless  the  stage- 
coach and  the  wagon,  and  also  the  stone  road  except  for 
merely  local  purposes.  In  their  turn  the  canals  were  hardly 
completed  as  a  system  when  the  steamboat  and  the  railway 
took  business  away  from  them.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the 
automobile  and  motor-truck  with  the  airplane  and  the 
electrically  propelled  car  will  one  day,  and  perhaps  a  not 
far  distant  one,  likewise  deprive  the  railroad  of  its  place 
in  the  transportation  system  of  this  country? 

The  Clermont  and  the  Phoenix  made  their  trial  trips  in 
1807 ;  but  the  application  of  steam  to  movement  by  water 
did  not  become  effective  on  the  seaboard  until  after  the 
close  of  the  War  of  1812  l  or  on  the  Mississippi  until  about 
1819,  and  even  later  on  the  Great  Lakes.  The  speed  of  the 
first  boats  was  very  slow,  from  four  to  six  miles  an  hour,  — 
a  rate  of  progression  that  was  ineffective  against  the  current 
of  a  rapidly  running  river.  The  early  Hudson  River  steam- 
boats took  thirty-six  hours  to  make  the  run  between  Albany 
and  New  York  City  which  is  now  covered  in  a  quarter  of 
that  time.2  By  1820,  however,  they  were  carrying  sixteen 

1  For  the  history  of  the  steamboat  ister  for  1831  (Utica,  N.  Y.,  p.  5). 

in  America,  see  Stevenson's  Sketch  My  attention  was  called  to  this  book 

of  the  Civil  Engineering  of  North  by  Mr.  F.  S.  Owen.  The  time  by 

America,  116-169.  The  successive  edi-  the  mail-coach  from  Boston  to  New 

tions  of  Samuel  Cumings's  Western  York,  210  miles,  was  forty-one  hours 

Pilot  from  1825  to  1841  give  an  ac-  and  the  fare  $11.00;  but  by  going 

count  of  the  Ohio  River  and  the  Mis-  somewhat  slower  by  stage  and  steam- 

sissippi  River  below  the  Missouri  boat  from  New  London,  Providence, 

and  of  the  towns  and  settlements  or  Norwich,  the  fare  was  $7.25  (The 

along  the  banks  of  those  streams.  New  England  Almanac  and  Masonic 

*  The  Republican  Crisis,  July  22,  Calendar  for  1828,  stage-list  at  end). 
1808.  The  "Telegraph  Coach"  with  The  rates  of  postage  had  increased 

seats  for  eight  passengers  only  was  since  1800,  being  15  cents  in  1816 

advertised  to  make  the  run  from  Al-  for  ninety  miles  for  a  single  letter  as 

bany  to  Buffalo  in  fifty-six  hours,  or  against  10  cents  in  1800  and  12^  in 

ninety-two  hours  in  all  by  steamboat  1832.  The  rate  on  the  shortest  dis- 

and  coach  from  New  York  City  to  Buf-  tance,  under  30  miles,  was  reduced  in 

falo,  —  four  days  for  the  run  that  is  this'  later  year  from  .12  to  .06.  See 

now  made  in  half  a  day  or  less.  See  the  present  work,  vol.  iv,  6,  and  al- 

The  Stage,  Canal,  and  Steamboat  Reg-  manacs  of  the  period. 


1820]  THE   STEAMBOAT  21 

thousand  passengers  a  year  between  the  two  cities  at  a  fare 
of  six  dollars  for  each  person.  By  that  time,  traffic  through 
Long  Island  Sound  was  also  active,  steamers  running  to 
Norwalk,  Hartford,  New  London,  and  even  to  Providence 
in  Rhode  Island.  The  use  of  steamboats  from  New  York 
southward  grew  more  slowly,  but  after  1820  there  were 
many  of  them  plying  along  the  seaboard.  In  1825,  Nicholas 
Biddle  wrote  to  William  H.  Crawford,  who  was  then  at 
Washington  slowly  recovering  from  an  illness.  He  invited 
him  to  come  to  Philadelphia  and  wrote  that  the  "steam- 
boats will  render  the  travelling  very  easy  —  and  in  less  than 
four  and  twenty  hours  you  can  be  in  Philadelphia,"  —  a 
distance  that  is  now  covered  by  train  in  one-eighth  of  that 
time.1  The  route  followed  in  1825  was  from  Washington 
to  Annapolis  by  coach,  across  Chesapeake  Bay  by  steamer, 
thence  to  Newcastle,  Delaware,  by  coach,  and  up  the  bay 
and  river  by  steamer  to  Philadelphia.  This  does  not  sound 
very  inviting  at  the  present  time,  but  the  people  of  those 
days  were  accustomed  to  great  hardships  in  travelling. 

The  first  steamer  to  be  launched  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley  was  the  New  Orleans,  which  was  built  at  Pittsburg 
in  1811.  She  was  constructed  for  Livingston,  Fulton,  and 
Nicholas  Roosevelt,  and  was  built  under  the  superintendence 
of  the  last  named.  In  September,  1811,  she  started  down 
stream  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  as  passengers.  After 
some  delays,  while  awaiting  high  water  at  the  falls  of  the 
Ohio  at  Louisville,  she  passed  them  safely  and  in  due  course 
reached  New  Orleans.2  For  two  years  she  plied  between 
that  city  and  Natchez,  but  in  1814  was  destroyed  by  acci- 
dent. In  1815,  the  Enterprise  that  had  been  built  at  Browns- 

l" Biddle  Manuscripts"  in  Library  Steamboat  Voyage  on  the  Western 

of  Congress,  under  .date  of  February  Waters"  in  Maryland  Historical  So- 

15, 1825.  ciety's  Fund-Pvklicatwn,  No.  6. 

'See    J.    H.    B.    Latrobe's    "First 


22  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [CH.  I 

ville,  in  Pennsylvania,  not  only  went  down  the  river,  but 
ascended  against  the  current  to  Louisville  and  thence  to 
Pittsburg,  thereby  demonstrating  the  possibility  of  river 
steamboat  navigation.1  The  building  of  steamboats  now 
proceeded  with  rapidity  and  before  the  end  of  1819,  no  less 
than  sixty  of  them  had  been  launched  on  the  waters  of  the 
Mississippi  or  its  affluents.  It  seems  to  be  impossible  to 
estimate  the  number  of  steamboats  plying  on  the  Mississippi 
and  its  branches  at  any  one  time,  for  the  life  of  a  river  steamer 
was  brief.  The  boats  were  flimsily  constructed,  the  engines 
were  weak  and  clumsy,  and  the  boilers  were  poorly  put 
together.  The  sudden  and  frequent  changes  from  motion  to 
rest  at  the  various  landings  made  it  very  difficult  to  control 
the  making  of  steam.  The  pressure  was  very  uneven  and 
resulted  in  blowing  out  of  cylinder  heads  and  bursting 
of  boilers,  —  the  burning  of  the  boat  being  an  almost  in- 
evitable result.  The  navigation  of  the  rivers  was  also 
peculiarly  perilous.  In  addition  to  shoals  and  swiftly 
running  currents,  they  were  infested  with  drifted  trees 
that  had  become  anchored  by  their  branches  to  the  river 
bottoms  with  the  trunks  swinging  down  the  stream  at  an 
angle  of  from  thirty  to  fifty  degrees.  These  were  the  snags, 
planters,  and  sawyers  that  brought  many  a  steamboat  to 
an  early  end.2  For  these  reasons,  the  life  of  an  early 
Mississippi  steamboat  was  about  four  years,  which  was 

1  Ben   Casseday's   History  of  Louis-  1836.     Donald     McLeod     (History     of 

ville,  129.  Wiskonsan,    Buffalo,     1846)    estimated 

1 J.    T.    Scharf'a    History    of    Saint  that  in   1842  there  were  450  steamers 

Louis,  ii,  1094-1123,  which  is  repeated  on  the  Mississippi  River  and  its  afflu- 

in   E.   W.   Gould's  Fifty    Years  on  the  ents    with    an    aggregate    tonnage    of 

Mississippi,     ch.     xxiv;       De     Bow's  90,000  and  valued  at  more  than  seven 

Commercial  Review  for  1849,   pp.  279-  million  dollars. 

288.     Chapter     xii     of     James     Hall's  The    spirit    of    western    steamboat 

Statistics  of  the  West  (Cincinnati,  1836)  navigation    of    this    early    time    is    set 

is    an    interesting    early    account.     A  down    in    John    Hay's    "Jim    Bludso" 

table  on  pp.  252-263  gives  the  names,  with  a  vigor  and  truthfulness  that  one 

tonnage,  and  dates  of  building  and  loss  seldom  finds  in  this  world, 
of    all    western    river    steamboats    to 


1820]  THE   STEAMBOAT  23 

later  increased  to  six.  In  1836  there  were  only  eighty-seven 
steamboats  on  the  river  that  had  been  launched  before 
1830.  In  1835  the  fare  for  cabin  passage  including  board 
from  Wheeling  to  New  Orleans,  a  distance  of  1908  miles, 
was  thirty-five  dollars  and  deck  passage  one-quarter  as 
much,  the  passenger  "finding  himself."  1  The  ten  years 
between  1840  and  1850  saw  river  navigation  at  its  height ; 
then  the  railroads  grew  quickly  west  of  the  mountains  and 
set  a  limit  to  the  commerce  of  the  northern  Mississippi 
Valley  by  way  of  New  Orleans. 

Steamboats  made  their  appearance  on  the  Great  Lakes 
at  a  later  day  than  they  did  in  the  Mississippi  region.  The 
Walk-in-the-Water  made  her  first  trip  in  1818  on  Lake  Erie. 
With  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal  the  demand  for  steam 
navigation  grew  and  it  was  supplied.  In  1834,  it  was  ar- 
ranged to  run  a  weekly  steamboat  from  Buffalo  to  Chicago 
during  the  summer.  In  1837,  there  were  said  to  be  forty-two 
steamboats  in  active  employment  on  Lake  Erie  and  six 
more  on  the  stocks.2  By  1840,  they  had  established  regular 
business  with  the  harbors  on  Lake  Michigan.  From  that 
time  on,  steamer  traffic  on  the  Lakes  exercised  an  extremely 
important  influence  on  the  settlement  of  the  northern  part  of 
the  Old  Northwest.  By  1848,  the  time  from  New  York  to  St. 
Louis  by  rail  and  steamer  had  been  cut  down  to  eight  days  and 
could  be  made  with  a  fair  amount  of  comfort  and  certainty. 

The  application  of  steam  to  transportation  on  land  was 
demonstrated  to  be  commercially  possible  by  George 
Stephenson,  an  Englishman.  There  were  locomotive  engines 
as  good  as  Stephenson's  from  the  theoretical  point  of  view, 

1  Hall's  Statistics  of  the  West,   249.  Steamboat  Travel  on  the  Ohio  River" 

Many  interesting  details  are  given  in  in   Ohio    Archaeological    and    Historical 

Monctte's     "Progress     of     Navigation  Quarterly,  xx,  358. 
...  of   the   Mississippi"   in   the   Mis-  z  J.  N.  Larned's  History  of  Buffalo 

sissippi    Historical    Society's    Publica-  i,  33,  45. 
lions,  vii,  and  L.  S.  Heushaw's  "Early 


24  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [On.  1 

but  he  managed  to  combine  correct  mechanical  appliances 
with  a  commercially  profitable  line  of  railroad.1  He  con- 
structed the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  railway  in  the  face 
of  doubt  and  legislative  refusal  of  aid.  It  was  open  for 
traffic  in  September,  1830,  and  its  success  spurred  on  the 
building  of  railroads  in  Europe  and  more  extensively  in 
America.  The  earliest  or  one  of  the  earliest  railroads  to  be 
built  was  the  five  miles  of  "way  leaves"  that  connected 
near-by  collieries  with  Sunderland,  England,  and  was  in 
working  order  in  1723.2  These  early  railroads  were  used  to 
haul  the  coal  from  the  pit  to  the  shipping  point.  Almost 
one  hundred  years  later,  Stephenson  equipped  the  railroad 
leading  from  a  colliery  to  Durham  with  a  steam  locomotive 
that  drew  seventeen  loaded  wagons  at  four  miles  an  hour.3 
The  first  railroads  to  be  built  in  America  were  one  on  Beacon 
Hill,  Boston,  and  another  in  Delaware  County,  Penn- 
sylvania, in  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but 
the  details  are  indefinite.  The  third  railroad  or  tramroad 
or  possibly  the  fourth  was  built  at  Falling  Creek,  Virginia, 
in  1810.  It  was  about  a  mile  long  and  at  one  point  ran 
across  a  trestle  some  seventy-five  feet  high.  One  of  the 
rails  was  grooved  and  the  other  tongued  to  fit  corresponding 
wheels  on  either  side  of  the  wagon.  The  sixth  road  was 

1  As  was  the  case  with  Fulton,  Ste-  that  these  inventions  were  combined 
phenson  combined  the  devices  and  ex-  to  produce  a  practicable  locomotive, 
periences  of  his  predecessors  in  the  See  Samuel  Smiles's  George  Stephen- 
production  of  a  machine  that  would  son  and  William  H.  Brown's  History 
go  commercially  and  keep  on  going  of  the  First  Locomotives  in  America. 
profitably :  these  were  the  smooth  *  Royal  Historical  Manuscript  Corn- 
wheel  in  place  of  the  cog  wheel  of  mission's  Report  on  Welbeck  Abbey 
earlier  types,  the  exhausting  the  steam  Manuscripts,  vi,  104. 
from  the  cylinders  directly  into  the  3  William  H.  Brown's  First  Loco- 
chimney,  thus  creating  a  strong  draft  motives  in  America  (ed.  1871),  55. 
without  the  use  of  bellows,  and  the  mak-  Lewis  H.  Haney's  "Congressional  His- 
ing  of  a  tubular  boiler  in  which  twenty-  tory  of  Railways  in  the  United  States 
five  three-inch  copper  tubes  con-  to  1850,"  forming  Bulletin  No.  211  of 
ducted  the  heated  gases  from  the  fur-  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  contains 
nace  to  the  chimney.  It  was  not  until  much  useful  information  in  a  brief 
the  making  of  the  "Rocket"  in  1829  compass. 


1830J  THE   RAILROAD  25 

built  at  Quincy,  Massachusetts,  in  1826.  This  road  had 
wooden  rails  laid  on  stone  sleepers  and  covered  with  iron 
plates,  the  wheels  of  the  wagons  being  flanged.1  These 
railroads  were  all  for  the  transportation  of  heavy  material 
for  short  distances.  They  were  either  gravity  roads  or  the 
propelling  power  was  provided  by  horses,  or,  on  one  of  the 
later  roads,  by  men.2  Some  of  the  early  roads,  especially  in 
Pennsylvania,  were  constructed  at  public  expense.  These 
were  open  to  any  one  who  had  the  necessary  locomotive 
or  horse  equipment  and  on  one  of  them  the  regulations 
provided  that  the  slower  conveyance,  whether  steam  or  horse 
drawn,  when  overtaken  by  a  speedier  must  make  for  the 
first  siding  and  allow  the  swifter  to  pass.3  The  first  steam 
locomotive  to  be  used  in  America  was  the  "Stourbridge 
Lion"  which  was  imported  from  the  Stephenson  engine 
works  in  1829.4  For  some  time  it  was  blocked  up  in  the 
yard  of  a  machine  shop  and  operated  with  steam  from  a 
stationary  boiler  to  run  the  machinery  of  the  shop.  At  a 
later  time  it  was  used  on  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  railroad, 
but  was  too  heavy  for  the  rails  and  disappeared.  The 
natural  prejudice  against  the  employment  of  steam  loco- 
motives comes  out  in  a  conversation  with  Governor  Troup 

1  See  article  by  Jamea  L.  Cowles  in  roads    were    built    at    public    expense, 

Boston    Evening     Transcript    for    May  they  were  open  for  use  by  any  one  who 

12,    1900;     W.    Hasell    Wilson's   Brief  had  the  proper  equipment  upon  pay- 

Review   of  Railroad   History,    20;     and  ment   of   a   toll.     The   rules   provided 

George    Smith's    History    of    Delaware  that  no   car  should   carry   more   than 

County,   389.     The  best  brief  account  three  and  a  half   tons   and   no    "bur- 

of    land    transportation    with    helpful  den  car"  should  travel  faster  than  five 

illustrations    is    George    G.    Crocker's  miles  an  hour.     The  occasional  shipper 

From     the     Stage     Coach     to  .  .  .  the  found  it  too  expensive  to  provide  the 

Street  Car.  vehicles  with  flanged  wheels  to  run  on 

1  The    advantages    of    railways    are  the  rails,  and  the  business  drifted  into 

set  forth  in  the  Report  as  to  the  prac-  the  hands  of  individuals  or  companies, 

ticability  and  expediency  of  construct-  See  abstract  of  Antes  Snyder's  article 

ing  a  railway  from  Boston  to  the  Hud-  in     Scientific     American     Supplement, 

son  River  that  was  presented  to  the  November  28,  1903. 
Massachusetts    House    of    Representa-  *  W.   H.   Brown's  First  Locomotive* 

tives  in  January,  1827.  in  America,  74-92. 

»Afl    the    early    Pennsylvania    rail- 


26  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [On.  I 

of  Georgia  in  which  he  assented  to  the  advisability  of  rail- 
roads, but  as  for  the  employment  of  steam  locomotives 
exclaimed,  "  Good  God,  I  cannot  stand  that ;  I  will  go  to  the 
extent  of  horse  power." 

The  "historic  moment"  in  the  railroad  history  of  America 
was  on  July  4,  1828,  when  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  the 
sole  surviving  Signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
laid  the  "corner  stone"  on  the  line  of  the  contemplated 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad.1  The  first  steam  railroad  to 
be  operated  in  the  United  States  was  the  Charleston  and 
Hamburg  Railway  connecting  South  Carolina's  great  sea- 
port with  the  Savannah  River,  opposite  Augusta,  in  the 
State  of  Georgia.  It  was  constructed  partly  at  the  cost  of 
South  Carolina  to  divert  the  commerce  of  the  upper 
Savannah  River  to  Charleston,  which  had  been  the  point  of 
transshipment  for  the  interior  trade  in  colonial  days.  It  was 
an  attempt  to  revive  the  waning  fortunes  of  Charleston, 
which  were  already  beginning  to  feel  the  effects  of  com- 
petition with  the  cotton  lands  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi 
and  the  diversion  of  trans-Atlantic  traffic  to  New  York, 
and  other  northern  seaports.  The  new  railway  was  lightly 
built,  running  for  miles  over  low  trestles,  and  the  final  ap- 
proach to  the  Savannah  River  was  made  by  an  inclined 
plane.  The  stage-coaches  had  carried  twelve  passengers 
or  so  a  week  between  Charleston  and  Augusta;  after  the 
opening  of  the  railroad  in  October,  1833,  the  number  of 
passengers  increased  to  fifty  a  day.  The  South  Carolinians 
deserve  great  credit  for  the  energy  and  public  spirit  that 
they  displayed  in  carrying  through  this  enterprise.  As  an 
instrument  of  transportation,  however,  the  road  was  not  a 
success  because  the  Georgians  forbade  its  extension  across 

1  Lewis  A.  Leonard's  Life  of  Charles  Brown's  First  Locomotives  in  America. 
Carroll  of  Carrollton,  229-231  and  83. 


1830]  THE    RAILROAD  27 

the  river  and  constructed  a  railroad  of  their  own  to  tap  the 
resources  of  the  State  above  Augusta  and  to  concentrate 
commerce  at  Savannah.1 

The  first  engines  used  on  the  early  railroads  were  very 
light  and  of  small  power,  and  the  earliest  lines  were  built 
with  sharp  curves  and  steep  pitches.  These  could  be  over- 
come in  dry  weather,  but  a  very  small  amount  of  moisture 
on  the  rails  stalled  the  locomotives.  An  example  occurs 
in  the  early  history  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Germantown 
Railway,  which  was  very  steep  in  places.  It  advertised 
that  a  locomotive  engine  will  depart  daily  with  a  train  of 
passenger  cars  "when  the  weather  is  fair" ;  when  not  fair, 
cars  drawn  by  horses  will  be  used.2  So  uncertain  was  early 
steam  locomotion  in  New  England  that  trains  were  some- 
times lost  in  rain  or  snow  and  it  was  thought  expedient  to 
provide  relays  of  horses  at  convenient  spots  to  rescue  any 
locomotive  that  might  be  unable  to  proceed.  It  was  also 
thought  dangerous  to  run  in  the  darkness  and  therefore  all 
motion  on  these  roads  came  to  an  end  at  sundown. 

The  electric  telegraph  came  into  existence  most  oppor- 
tunely to  make  possible  the  running  of  trains  on  the  rail- 
roads with  the  minimum  of  danger  and  the  maximum  of 
speed  and  certainty  of  operation.  As  was  the  case  with 
Fulton,  so  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse  3  was  a  portrait 
painter  by  profession.  He  was  the  son  of  Jedidiah  Morse, 
the  geographer  and  a  Calvinistic  minister.  Permitting  the 
son  to  study  art  must  have  seemed  a  good  deal  like  consigning 

1  U.  B.  Phillips's  History  of  Trans-  2  History  of  the  Baldwin  Locomotive 

portation    in    the    Eastern    Cotton    Belt,  Works,  1831   to  1907.      A  facsimile  of 

ch.  iii ;    T.  D.  Jervey's  Robert  Y.  Hayne  the   above   advertisement  is  on  p.  13. 

and  his  Times,  using  index;   H.  Ham-  3  See  E.   L.   Morse's  Samuel  F.  B. 

mond's  South  Carolina,  629-633 ;  Hand-  Morse:       His     Letters     and     Journals 

book  of  South  Carolina  (2nd  ed.,  1908),  (2  vols.,  Boston,  1914),  and  Samuel  I. 

pp.  505-508 ;  and  Meyer  and  MacGill's  Prime's  Life  of  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse, 

History  of  Transportation  in  the  United  LL.D.  (New  York,  1875). 
States,  422-427. 


28  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  iCa.  I 

him  to  perdition ;  but  his  parents  consented  and  the  profits 
of  the  "Geographies"  provided  the  necessary  funds.  While 
returning  home  from  one  of  his  European  trips,  a  fellow 
passenger  —  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson  of  Boston  —  asserted 
that  the  electric  current  went  instantly  from  one  end  of  a  line 
of  wire  to  the  other.  At  once  Morse  declared  that  if  that 
were  so  there  was  no  reason  why  "intelligence  may  not  be 
transmitted  instantaneously  by  electricity."  From  that 
moment  telegraphy  occupied  Morse's  mind  to  the  exclusion 
of  everything  else  except  that  he  was  obliged  to  exercise 
his  profession  to  procure  bread.  In  devising  the  telegraph, 
he  freely  used  information  that  he  obtained  from  Joseph 
Henry,  Alfred  Vail,  Ezra  Cornell,  and  others ;  but  the  success- 
ful assembling  of  their  ideas  and  combining  them  with  his 
own  to  produce  a  workable  electric  telegraph  has  given  him 
deserved  immortality.1  The  first  line  was  opened  in  1844. 
It  immediately  attracted  attention  and  the  telegraph  came 
into  common  use  within  a  few  years ;  but  Morse's  later  life 
was  very  largely  occupied  with  defending  his  invention 
against  the  infringements  of  others. 

The  first  improvement  in  the  railroad  was  the  substitution 
of  the  solid  U-shaped  iron  rail  for  a  combination  of  strap- 
iron  and  wood.  The  next  was  to  substitute  wooden  trans- 

1  An  account  of  the  origin  and  de-  depositions  from  various  persons  ex- 
velopment  of  Morse's  invention  by  posing  errors  of  dates  and  statements 
William  B.  Taylor  was  printed  in  the  of  his  opponents.  The  telegraph  com- 
Annual  Report  of  the  Smithsonian  panics  and  the  miles  of  wire  in  opera- 
Institution  for  1878,  pp.  262-360,  tion  in  1850  are  given  in  Report  of  the 
under  the  title  of  "Henry  and  the  Superintendent  of  the  Census  for  1852, 
Telegraph."  See  also  Alfred  Vail's  p.  112. 

Description    of    the    American    Electro  As  a  scientific  man  Joseph  Henry 

Magnetic   Telegraph:    now  in  operation  probably   deserves  in   our  history   the 

between   the   Cities   of   Washington   and  place  next  to  Franklin ;    but  he  was  an 

Baltimore     (Washington,      1845)      and  experimenter  rather  than  an  exploiter 

J.  C.  Vail's  Early  History  of  the  Electro-  and  the  oblivion  that  attends  the  man 

Magnetic  Telegraph.     From  Letters  and  in  the  laboratory  seems  to  have  sur- 

Journals   of  Alfred    Vail    (New   York,  rounded    him.     See     A     Memorial    of 

1914).     Morse,    himself,    prepared    an  Joseph   Henry.     Published  by  Order   of 

account     in     1867     entitled     Modern  Congress  (Washington,  1880). 
Telegraphy,  which  has,  as  an  appendix, 


1844]  THE   TELEGRAPH  29 

verse  sleepers  laid  on  the  surface  of  the  road  bed  instead  of  on 
the  stone  posts  or  walls  that  were  used  at  first  and  found  to 
be  inelastic  and  disturbed  by  the  frosts  of  northern  winters. 
As  it  was  financially  impossible  to  build  reasonably  straight 
and  level  road  beds  in  a  new  country  and  over  the  moun- 
tainous approaches  of  the  Appalachians,  it  proved  to  be 
feasible  to  change  the  form  of  the  locomotive  by  providing 
it  with  four  front  wheels  on  a  truck  to  which  the  engine  was 
attached  on  a  pivot.  A  locomotive  mounted  in  this  way 
could  go  around  a  sharp  curve,  and  then  the  same  principle 
was  applied  to  the  coaches  or  cars  in  which  the  passengers 
rode  or  freight  was  carried.  This  again  led  at  once  to  the 
substitution  of  a  long  boxlike  car  for  a  replica  of  the  old 
stage-coach,  which  had  been  the  form  of  the  first  railroad 
passenger  conveyances.  Then  a  doorway  was  cut  in  the 
end,  the  passengers  were  seated  on  either  side  of  an  aisle,  and 
thus  the  American  locomotive  and  coach  were  evolved. 

With  each  improvement  of  the  steamboat  and  the  railroad, 
speed  was  increased  and  the  conditions  of  travelling  were 
improved.  In  1817,  the  time  from  Boston  to  New  York 
had  been  cut  down  from  eighty  hours  to  forty  or  so.  Pas- 
sengers left  New  York  by  boat  on  Monday,  Wednesday,  or 
Friday  morning  for  New  Haven,  where  they  transshipped 
to  another  boat  for  New  London  and  from  there  proceeded 
by  stage-coach  to  Providence  and  Boston.  In  1826,  the 
time  was  further  reduced  to  twenty-four  hours.1  From 
New  York  southward,  one  went  by  railroad  through  New 
Jersey.  In  1833,  Adams  travelled  over  this  line.  He  timed 
the  rate  of  speed  at  sixteen  miles  in  fifty  minutes ;  "  We 
had  flakes  of  fire  floating  about  us  in  the  cars  the  whole 
time,"  he  wrote.  Between  Amboy  and  Bordentown  a 
wheel  on  one  of  the  coaches  burst  into  flame  and  slipped 

1  J.  Q.  Adams's  Memoirs,  iv,  4;  vii,  315;   viii,  541 ;  iz,  30;   rii,  70. 


30  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Cn.  I 

off  the  rail.  One  of  the  cars  was  overset  and  the  side 
crushed  in.  Two  persons  were  killed  and  one  only  in  that 
car  escaped  unhurt.  In  the  same  year  Audubon,  journeying 
southward,1  from  Petersburg,  Virginia,  was  dragged  in  a 
"car  drawn  by  a  locomotive"  at  the  rate  of  twelve  miles  an 
hour  and  "  sparks  of  fire"  came  into  the  car  in  such  quantities 
that  the  passengers  were  kept  constantly  busy  extinguishing 
them  on  their  clothes.  In  1844,  Adams  left  Baltimore  at 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  reached  the  Astor  House  in 
New  York  before  midnight  of  the  same  day. 

These  improvements  in  transportation  were  greatly  for 
the  public  benefit.  They  were  essential  to  the  peopling  of 
the  West  and  to  the  building  up  of  the  industries  of  the 
East.2  Capital  was  in  scant  supply  and  the  citizens  naturally 
turned  to  the  public  authorities  for  aid.  The  federal  Con- 
gress, State  legislatures,  and  the  cities  and  towns  answered 
the  demand.  The  Erie  Canal  was  constructed  by  the  State 
of  New  York ;  States  and  cities  subscribed  to  the  stock  of 
road  companies,  and  legislatures  gave  promoters  the  right 
to  hold  lotteries.  When  the  railroads  came,  therefore, 
the  people  were  accustomed  to  public  contribution.  In  the 
western  country  especially,  public  aid  was  very  necessary 
because  roads,  canals,  and  railroads  could  not  possibly  earn 
any  return  on  the  money  invested  in  them,  until  the  coun- 
try served  by  them  had  been  cleared  and  was  producing  a 
surplus  for  transportation.  The  result  was  a  mass  of  public 
debt  which  was,  for  the  most  part,  entirely  justifiable  from 
economic  and  political  standpoints,  but  was  none  the  less 
burdensome.  It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  many 
of  these  States  went  into  the  banking  business  with  the 

1  F.  H.  Hemck's  Audubon,  ii,  53.  Economics,  xvii;   D.  R.  Dewey'a  "State 

*G.    S.    Calender's    "Early    Trans-  Banking  Before  the  Civil  War"   (Sen- 

portation      and     Banking    Enterprises  ate  Document!,   61st  Cong.,   2nd  Seaa., 

of  the  States"  in  Quarterly  Journal  of  vol.34). 


1845]  TRANSPORTATION  31 

expectation,  apparently,  that  they  could  secure  enough 
profits  from  banking  to  relieve  themselves  of  a  part,  at 
least,  of  the  burdens  of  railroad  building.  In  many  cases 
these  hopes  proved  to  be  elusive,  but  in  some  States,  notably 
in  Virginia1  and  South  Carolina,  the  State  banks  were  well 
managed  and  profitable.  The  Bank  of  South  Carolina  was 
founded  in  1812.  The  act  for  its  establishment  provided 
that  all  the  assets  of  the  State  should  form  its  capital  and 
that  all  the  taxes  collected  by  the  State  should  be  deposited 
in  it.  The  bank  might  receive  private  deposits,  discount 
bills  of  exchange,  loan  money  even  on  mortgages,  and  issue 
paper  currency ;  but  the  amount  loaned  on  real  property 
was  to  be  apportioned  among  the  election  districts,  according 
to  the  number  of  representatives  in  the  Assembly.2  The 
income  of  this  bank  was  regarded  as  a  part  of  the  revenue 
of  the  State.  This  act  was  amended  from  time  to  time 
and  the  operations  of  the  bank  aroused  jealousies  and  envy 
on  the  part  of  legislators  and  of  financial  institutions.  It 
lived  down  all  these  troubles  and  in  1847  had  received  and 
paid  out  over  twenty-eight  million  dollars. 

Three  journeys  made  in  1796,  1836,  and  1845  reflect  the 
changing  conditions  of  travel.  The  first  was  made  by  Moses 
Austin,3  who  left  Virginia  on  December  8,  1796.  He  and 
his  comrades  rode  on  horseback  about  thirty  miles  a  day 
to  Harrodsburg,  Kentucky,  which  they  reached  on  the  23rd 
of  that  month.  On  the  29th  they  crossed  the  Ohio  by  ice 
and  by  boat  and  on  the  9th  of  January  reached  Kaskaskia 
on  the  Mississippi,  having  been  almost  exactly  a  month  on 

'Richard    L.     Morton's     "Virginia  'See  A  Compilation  of  All  the  Acts 

State    Debt    and    Internal    Improve-  ...  in  Relation  to  the  Bank  of  the  State 

merits,    1820-38"    in    Journal    of   Po-  of  South    Carolina    (Columbia,    S.    C., 

litical    Economy,    xxv,    No.    4,    April,  1848). 

1917;     and  William   L.   Royall's   His-  *  American     Historical     Review,     v, 

tory   of    Virginia   Banks  .  .  .  Prior   to  523. 
the  Civil  War. 


32  THE  WONDERFUL  CENTURY  [Ca.  1 

the  way.  The  second  journey  was  made  by  Lucian  Minor.1 
He  left  Baltimore  by  stage  on  November  29,  1836,  over  the 
National  Road,  which  he  described  as  a  "fine  McAdamized 
turnpike."  On  December  6  he  left  Wheeling  by  steam- 
boat for  Cincinnati.  The  ice  was  running  in  the  river  and 
the  voyage  proved  to  be  full  of  peril.  But  he  reached  Louis- 
ville on  the  16th.  There  he  passed  through  a  canal  with 
two  locks  which  had  cost  nearly  a  million  dollars,  five- 
sevenths  being  paid  by  the  United  States.  At  Louisville 
he  stayed  at  the  Gait  House,  which  he  described  as  "  a  new 
and  elegant  hotel,  almost  vicing  with  the  Tremont  of 
Boston  "  ;  he  had  a  warm  room  on  the  fourth  story  and  clean 
towels.  On  December  21  he  reached  Shawneetown  in 
Illinois.  Nine  years  later,  in  May,  1845,  W.  W.  Greenough  2 
travelled  by  steamer  and  railroad  from  Detroit  to  Boston 
in  less  than  three  days  and  a  half. 

By  1840  there  were  nearly  three  thousand  miles  of  steam 
railroad  in  operation  in  the  United  States.  About  one-half 
of  this  mileage  was  in  the  Middle  States,  —  Pennsylvania 
with  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles  having  the  greatest 
extent  of  railroad  of  any  State  in  the  country.  Indeed, 
there  were  more  miles  of  railroad  in  Pennsylvania  than  in 
all  the  Southern  States  put  together.  In  the  next  ten  years 
the  railroad  mileage  tripled  to  about  nine  thousand  miles  in 
all.  By  this  time,  New  York  had  outstripped  Pennsylvania 
and  Massachusetts  was  pressing  hard  upon  the  Keystone 
State.  In  1850,  something  less  than  one-quarter  of  the 
total  mileage  was  in  the  States  south  of  the  Potomac  and  the 
Ohio.  The  seasonal  variation  of  cotton  and  tobacco  carriage 
in  that  region  and  the  multiplicity  of  navigable  waters  made 
against  railroad  building.  In  Kentucky  there  were  only 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  *  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's 

Proceedings,  2nd  Ser.,  vii,  264.  Proceedings,  vol.  44,  p.  339. 


1850]  TRANSPORTATION  33 

seventy-eight  miles  of  completed  railroad,  and  in  Virginia 
there  were  less  than  four  hundred  miles  in  comparison  with 
thirteen  hundred  in  New  York.  Georgia,  indeed,  in  1850, 
was  the  only  Southern  State  that  had  a  railroad  system  in 
actual  operation  that  was  at  all  comparable  to  those  of  the 
States  of  the  Northeast.1 

Important  as  transportation  has  been  in  determining  the 
growth  of  cities  and  towns  and  the  settlement  of  farming 
areas  —  in  the  development  of  the  material  side  of  life  —  the 
effect  of  these  new  forces  on  the  relation  of  man  to  man  has 
been  even  greater.  By  making  practicable  the  working 
together  of  human  beings  in  larger  units  it  has  conduced 
to  the  development  of  democracy  and  direct  government ; 
democracy  has  outgrown  the  town  and  State  until  now,  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  Canada  to  Mexico,  the 
whole  force  of  the  community  in  a  brief  space  of  time  can 
be  thrown  in  any  one  desired  direction.  Peering  into  the 
future  and  embarking  on  the  dangerous  path  of  prophecy, 
it  is  not  at  all  out  of  the  realm  of  possibility  that  the  same 
forces  that  have  broken  down  sectional  barriers  within 
national  borders  will  shatter  national  barriers  themselves 
and  racial  lines,  too,  and  lead  to  international  action  on  a 
scale  and  in  directions  hitherto  undreamed  of.  So,  too,  in  a 
similar  way  and  for  similar  reasons  the  old  associations  of 
man  to  man,  of  the  employer  and  employed  working  to- 
gether, side  by  side,  have  disappeared.  The  man  of  executive 
mind  and  of  power  can  now  direct  far  more  than  the  gang 
of  working  men  laboring  by  his  side  or  within  easy  reach  by 
eye  or  horse ;  he  now  can  administer  a  factory  or  a  group  of 
them,  or  even  groups  of  groups  scattered  widely  over  the 

1  These  figures  are  taken  from  the  ures,      see     Dudley     Leavitt's     New- 

table   in   Poor's   Manual   of  the   Rail-  England    Almanack  .  .  .  for    the    Year 

roads  of  the  United  States,  for  1868-69,  1841,  pp.  41,  42. 
p.    20.     For    somewhat    different    fig- 

VOL.  V. D 


34  THE  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

country  or  the  world.  Entrepreneurs  combining  together 
can  conduct  operations  limited  only  by  the  demand  for 
their  goods,  without  much  regard  to  distance,  country,  or 
clime.  So,  also,  labor  has  been  forced  to  act  in  larger  and 
larger  units,  to  disregard  political  barriers,  and  even  to  leap 
over  the  bounds  of  race  and  religion :  the  town  guild  has 
become  the  labor  union  by  federation  extended  to  many 
trades  and  employments  and  tending  to  disregard  the  lines 
of  political  and  physical  geography.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, schemes  of  living  and  working  that  have 
hitherto  been  impracticable  are  every  day  coming  to  be 
more  and  more  the  usual  mode  of  action. 


NOTES  35 

NOTES 

I.  General  Bibliography.  —  Hildreth's  annalistic  work  stops  with 
the  year  1820  and  Henry  Adams's  survey  of  the  administrations  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison  closes  with  the  accession  of  Monroe  in  1817. 
James  Schouler's  History  of  the  United  States  (vols.  iii-iv)  is  the  only 
work  of  the  formal  historical  type  that  covers  the  period  from  1815 
to  1850  in  detail.  It  is  especially  worthy  of  note  for  this  time  because 
the  author  takes  a  sympathetic  view  of  Jacksonianism.  McMaster's 
History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States  (vols.  iv-vii)  covers  the  period 
in  a  most  comprehensive  manner.  The  author  has  discarded  the 
sprightly  style  of  the  opening  part  of  his  work  and  the  volumes  are 
unusually  hard  reading;  but  owing  to  the  mass  of  detail  in  them 
and  to  the  abundance  of  quotation  and  citation,  they  are  extremely 
useful.  Possibly  most  readers  will  find  Schurz's  Clay,  Lodge's 
Webster,  and  Shepard's  Van  Bur  en,  in  the  "  American  Statesmen" 
series,  more  useful  than  either  Schouler  or  McMaster.  Books  dealing 
with  the  more  important  topics  of  this  era  will  be  cited  in  later  notes.1 

n.  Transportation.  —  The  best  general  work  is  Meyer  and  Mac- 
Gill's  History  of  Transportation  .  .  .  before  1860  (Washington,  1917). 
A  much  shorter,  but  useful  essay  is  Henry  V.  Poor's  Sketch  of  the  Rise 
and  Progress  of  the  Internal  Improvements  .  .  .  of  the  United  States; 
this  was  first  printed  as  an  introduction  to  his  Manual  of  the  Railroads 
for  1881  and  was  published  separately  with  the  same  title,  but  with 
a  slightly  different  pagination.  An  earlier  comprehensive  sketch  is 
contained  in  the  Report  of  the  Superintendent  of  the  Census  for  Decem- 
ber 1,  1852.  David  Stevenson's  Sketch  of  the  Civil  Engineering  of 
North  America  (London,  1838)  and  George  Armroyd's  Connected 
View  of  the  Whole  Internal  Navigation  of  the  United  States  (Philadel- 
phia, 1830)  have  already  been  mentioned  several  times,  —  a  list  of 
canals  completed  and  projected  is  on  pp.  454^189  of  the  latter.  Part 
iv  of  the  second  volume  of  Noble  E.  Whitford's  History  of  the  Canal 
System  of  the  State  of  New  York  is  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
"  Canals  of  the  United  States  and  Canada."2  G.  G.  Huebner's  and 

1  The  student  of  inquiring  mind  can  but  really  has  a  much  wider  significance 

find    information    arranged    in    usable  than  its  title  implies, 
form  in  the  State  Gazetteers,   of  this  *  A  vast  amount  of  useful  informa- 

period,     especially     T.      F.     Gordon's  tion  on  these  topics  and  on  social  and 

Gazetteer  of  the  State  of  New  York  that  political   matters,    also,   may  be  easily 

was  published  at  Philadelphia  in  1836,  gathered  from  the  successive  volumes 


36  THE   WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

T.  W.  Van  Metre's  articles  on  "  The  Foreign  Trade  of  the  United 
States  since  1789,"  "  Internal  Commerce,"  and  "  The  Coastwise 
Trade"  in  E.  R.  Johnson  and  associates'  History  of  Domestic  and 
Foreign  Commerce  of  the  United  States  give  a  convenient  conspectus 
of  the  subjects  studied. 

m.  The  Effect  of  the  Erie  Canal.  —  It  appears  from  Delaval 
Carpenter's  Address  to  the  People  of  the  United  Kingdom,  on  the 
Corn  Laws  (London,  1840)  that  the  price  of  wheat  in  England  by 
the  quarter  of  eight  bushels  was  65  shillings  in  1820,  43  in  1822,  66  in 
1825,  and  thereafter  varied  from  fifty-six  to  sixty-six  until  1833, 
when  it  went  to  fifty-two ;  in  1835  it  went  to  the  lowest  point,  40 
shillings  a  quarter ;  but  in  1838  it  was  up  again  to  sixty-three  shillings. 
The  price  of  wheat  in  America  had  similar  inexplicable  variations. 
In  1820,  flour  by  the  barrel  was  $6.00  at  New  York ;  in  1829  it  was 
$8.50,  in  1831  was  $6.12,  in  1835  just  under  $5.00,  and  in  1837, 
$11.00  a  barrel.1  It  would  seem  from  this  that  other  factors  than 
cheapness  of  transportation  between  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  sea- 
board governed  the  price  of  food.2  The  figures  and  titles  in  this 
Note  were  given  to  me  by  Mr.  F.  E.  Milligan  of  Pittsburg,  Penn- 
sylvania. 

of   HezeMah    Niles's    Weekly   Register,  39s,    4d,  in  1835 

published     at     Baltimore     from     1811  64s,    Id,  in  1838 

onward ;     and   Samuel   Hazard's   Reg-  ,  a        ,       .  , ,         .   ., 

.  r,          ,       •      ii.     .e    ..       i  See  also  tables  of  the  exports  of 

ister  of  Pennsylvania,  the  first  volume  ,                                               ,     . 

,       /.  ,                     , ,.  ,    j        ,     T>VI  wheat,     flour,     and     manufactures     in 

of    which    was    published    at    Phila-  „,,             n     !~,       ,     Tr        ,    ,      ~     .. 

,  .   ,  .     .     ,orio       j  ,,                ,              e  Inomas  (j.    Cary  s    Use   of  the   Credit 

delphia  in  1828  and  the  six  volumes  of  ,    .,       e,  .      ,  J    .,       „  '          „,         , 

i.-       rr    -A  j      CIA  A                        •  ;          j  °f    t"-e    ototc    JOT    the    Hoosoc    Tunnel 

his     United     States     Commercial     and  ,v,     4         IQCO^           oo    oo 

„.....,„..           ,.,                    ,  (Boston,  1853),  pp.  22,  23. 

Statistical    Register     which    was    pub-  De   Bow>9 

hshed  at  the  same  place  beginning  with       p    ^  giyea  &  ^  Q{  ^  ^^ 

.,        r>    ,.  value    of    breadstuff  s    and    provisions 

>  According    to    the    Parliamentary  exported  by  five-year  periods  • 
Papers    (Accounts    and    Papers,    1843,  *          :?     '    "  ' 

liii,     No.    177,     p.    18)    the    "Annual  - 

Average  Prices"  of  wheat  in  England  g6-  830      : 

and    Wales    per    "Imperial    Quarter"  •»;}» 

1841-1845      =$80,016,657 

67s,  lOd,  in  1820  The  smallest  amount  exported  in  a 

44s,    Id,  in  1822  single   year    was    $9,588,359    in    1837 ; 

68s,    6d,  in  1825  and  the  largest  amount  was  $68,701,921 

62s,  lid,  in  1833  in  1848. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   WESTWARD   MARCH 

THE  migration  from  the  "Old  Thirteen  States"  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  and  from  European  countries  to  the 
Mississippi  Valley  is  one  of  the  marvellous  phenomena  of 
history.1  The  coming  of  the  Germanic  hordes  to  western 
Europe  in  the  days  of  Alaric,  the  West  Goth,  and  Attila, 
the  Hun,  and  their  overthrow  of  the  Roman  Empire  is  com- 
parable to  it  by  reason  of  far-reaching  success ;  it  has  no 
relation  to  the  occupation  of  the  trans-Appalachian  region 
in  point  of  size.  Moreover,  the  Germanic  invasions  de- 
stroyed, or  greatly  modified,  the  most  highly  developed 
institutions  of  that  time ;  the  migration  across  the  Alle- 
ghanies  and  the  occupation  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  sub- 
stituted civilization  for  savagery  at  the  cost  of  the  extinction 
of  the  original  occupiers  of  the  land,  to  the  accompaniment 
of  warfare,  treaties,  and  the  inevitable  effects  of  the  contact 
of  savagedom  with  the  vices  and  diseases  of  civilization. 

Transappalachia  includes  the  greatest  portion  of  the 
United  States.  Measuring  across  the  continent  from  Cape 
Henlopen  on  the  Atlantic  to  Cape  Mendocino  on  the  Pacific, 
seven-eighths  of  this  territory  is  to  the  west  of  the  Appala- 
chian Mountains.  In  1815  the  United  States  was  limited 
on  the  west  and  on  the  south,  but  by  the  Florida  Treaty  of 
1819,  the  Oregon  Treaty  of  1846,  and  the  treaties  following 

1  For  the  earlier  time,  see  the  present  work,  vol.  ii,  650  and  fol. ;  iii,  15-24; 
vol.  iv,  ch.  ix. 

37 


38  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [CH.  II 

on  the  close  of  the  Mexican  War  the  boundaries  of  the 
homelands  of  the  United  States  were  established  as  they 
are  today.  Transappalachia  may  be  roughly  divided  into 
the  Mississippi  Valley  with  the  accompanying  alluvial- 
coastal  plains,  the  Rocky  Mountain  region,  and  the  Pacific 
Coast.  For  practical  historical  purposes  the  country  west 
of  the  Appalachians  may  be  regarded  as  divided  by  the  one 
hundred  and  fourth  meridian  which  forms  the  eastern 
boundary  of  the  present  States  of  Montana  and  Wyoming. 
It  is  with  the  eastern  section  that  the  present  chapter  is 
concerned.  Journeying  westwardly  from  the  Alleghany 
Mountains,  one  came,  in  the  old  days,  to  a  densely  forested 
country  extending  almost  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf. 
The  hardwood  trees  were  of  no  structural  value  at  that 
time,  but  they  offered  a  great  impediment  to  the  pioneer 
as  they  must  be  cut  down  before  corn  could  be  grown  for 
the  sustenance  of  himself  and  his  family.  Nevertheless, 
for  years  the  pioneers  hesitated  to  go  out  from  the 
protection  of  the  trees  to  the  naked  prairies  beyond,  for 
there,  there  was  no  shelter  from  the  summer's  sun  or  the 
winter's  storms.  Moreover,  surface  water  was  scarce, 
although,  as  the  pioneers  did  not  know,  by  sinking  wells  it 
might  be  obtained  almost  anywhere.  The  prairies  stretch 
westwardly  to  about  the  ninety-seventh  meridian,  where 
they  are  succeeded  by  higher  and  drier  level  tracts  known  as 
the  "high  plains."  It  is  not  known  why  there  are  no  trees 
on  the  prairies  and  the  plains.  The  best  explanation 
perhaps  is  that  forests  to  live  require  a  certain  amount  of 
moisture.1  When  the  rainfall  is  below  that  point,  minor 

1  See    papers    by    J.    D.    Dana,    A.  lani.es,     ch.    ix.      See    also    Bowman's 

Winchell,     and     Leo     Lesquereux     in  Forest   Physiography,   427 ;     Daniel    E. 

Silliman's  American  Journal  of  Science  Willard's  Story  of  the  Prairies;   and  W. 

and  Arts,  vols.  xxxviii,  xxxix,  and  xl ;  V.  Pooley's  Settlement  of  Illinois.     An 

and    John    D.    Caton's    comments    on  interesting  old-time  view  is  in  Jamea 

Lesquereux's    theories    in    his    Miscel-  Hall's  Statistics  of  the  West,  ch.  vi. 


1830]  THE   PRAIRIES  39 

factors,  that  ordinarily  would  have  little  influence,  become 
decisive.  Thus  in  a  region  of  abundant  rainfall,  a  fire 
started  by  lightning  would  have  slight  effect,  but  in  a  drier 
country  it  might  prove  fatal  to  tree  life.  So,  too,  the  pulver- 
ization of  the  surface  soil  by  drought  keeps  the  scanty  supply 
of  water  near  the  surface  and  thereby  prevents  the  reforest- 
ation of  burned-over  areas.  With  artificial  encouragement, 
trees  can  be  grown  as  far  west  as  the  one  hundred  and 
fourth  meridian,  except  in  limited  areas  where  special 
considerations  apply. 

South  of  the  Ohio  River  and  between  the  mountains  and 
the  Mississippi,  the  country  is  suited  to  the  production  of 
corn,  tobacco,  and  cotton.  The  Black  Belt,  extending  from 
western  Georgia  to  the  Mississippi  River,  possesses  a  dark 
soil  which  in  its  pristine  condition  is  exactly  suited  to  the 
needs  of  the  cotton  plant,  and  the  rainfall  and  temperature 
of  this  belt  of  land  are  also  exactly  what  the  growing  cotton 
demands.1  Northward  of  the  Ohio  River,  corn  and  wheat 
grow  luxuriantly.  Indeed,  nowhere  else  on  the  earth's  sur- 
face is  there  a  block  of  half  a  million  square  miles  of  land  so 
thoroughly  suited  to  the  needs  of  agricultural  man  as  eastern 
Transappalachia  and  impinging  upon  it  are  areas  of  iron 
and  coal  and  copper,  in  richness  beyond  the  dreams  of  the 
most  ambitious  manufacturer. 

The  obstacles  to  the  occupation  of  this  country  had  been 
the  difficulty  of  reaching  it  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard  and 
the  lack  of  surplus  population  in  that  section  to  take  advan- 
tage of  such  means  of  transportation  as  then  existed.  In  1800 
there  were  not  enough  people  living  in  the  original  States 

1  See    J.    W.    Mallet's    Cotton  .  .  .  Survey  and  a  Ph.D.  of  G6ttingen.     A 

the  Actual   Conditions  and  Practice   of  modern  book  on  the  same  subject  is 

Culture  in  the  Southern  or  Cotton  States  C.  P.  Brooks's  Cotton:   its  Uses,  Varie- 

of    North     America     (London,     1862).  ties,    Fiber    Structure,    Cultivation,    and 

Professor   Mallet   was   analytic   chem-  Preparation  for  the  Market  and  as  an 

1st  of   the   Alabama   State   Geological  Article  of  Commerce  (New  York,  1898). 


40  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [Cn.  II 

to  more  than  scratch  the  surface  of  opportunity.  Those 
who  sought  the  lands  over  the  mountains  in  the  earlier 
time  were  actuated  mainly  by  the  love  of  adventure,  by 
the  lure  of  the  wilderness;  stern  economic  necessity  had 
not  as  yet  touched  the  people  of  the  older  settled  area. 
From  1800  to  1820,  the  embargo,  the  war,  and  the  hard 
times  spurred  on  migration ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  finan- 
cial revulsion  of  1837  and  the  critical  years  thereafter  that 
eastern  people  sought  the  western  wilds  in  great  numbers. 
This  gradual  strengthening  of  the  tide  of  emigration  from 
east  to  west  synchronized  with  the  development  of  the  new 
modes  of  transportation.1  Until  the  opening  of  the  National 
Road,  travel  toward  the  Mississippi  Valley  was  arduous, 
dangerous,  and  prolonged,  —  and  that  highway  served 
mainly  the  needs  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  States  to  the 
southward.  It  was  not  until  the  Erie  Canal  and  connecting 
links  of  transportation  became  available  about  1830  that 
emigrants  from  New  York  and  New  England  could  gain  the 
western  country  with  any  fair  degree  of  safety,  speed,  and 
comfort.2  By  1840  the  railroad  began  to  influence  migration, 
but  only  to  small  distances  from  tidewater.  It  was  not 
until  after  1850  that  this  mode  of  transportation  became  an 
important  element  in  the  settlement  of  the  Northwest. 

A  contributory  cause  to  the  growing  march  of  westward 
migration  was  the  development  of  the  national  land  system. 
Land  acts  were  passed  in  1800,  1820,  and  1841,  and  the 
movement  increased  in  volume  after  each  one  of  those  years, 
but  whether  there  was  any  direct  relation  between  these  two 
facts  cannot  be  stated.  It  is  certain  that  the  land  legis- 

1  Professor   Albert   P.    Brigham   has  count   of   the   Pennsylvania   route   be- 

a    readable    article    on     "The    Great  fore  the  days  of  the  Portage  Railway 

Roads    across    the    Appalachians"    in  in  his  Journal  (ed.  1824,  p.  147). 
the    Bulletin    of    the    American    Geo-  2  See     Michigan     Political     Science 

graphical     Society     for     June,      1905.  Association's  Publications,  iv,  13. 
Moses  Guest  gives  an  interesting  ac 


1820]  NATIONAL  LAND   SYSTEM  41 

lation  explains  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  western  settle- 
ment and,  therefore,  would  better  be  briefly  examined.  In 
1785,  when  the  land  ordinance  was  passed,  western  public 
lands  were  looked  upon  as  prospective  producers  of  wealth 
for  the  States  of  the  Confederation  and  the  idea  that  the 
lands  were  a  valuable  financial  asset  to  the  older  settled 
part  of  the  country  remained  into  the  constitutional  period 
as  can  be  seen  in  the  land  act  of  1796. 1  In  1800,  while  the 
Federalists  were  still -in  control  of  the  government,  a  land 
law  was  passed  that  marked  the  beginning  of  a  different 
policy.2  In  the  future,  the  national  domain  should  be  used 
for  the  benefit  of  the  country  as  a  whole  by  encouraging 
the  settlement  of  unoccupied  lands.  In  the  future,  land 
would  be  sold  in  good  sized  lots  to  settlers  at  a  minimum  price 
of  two  dollars  an  acre,  a  portion  being  paid  down  at  once 
and  the  remainder  in  instalments  at  interest,  —  the  govern- 
ment, on  the  other  hand,  allowing  a  discount  for  cash  on 
the  payments  that  might  be  deferred.  The  mode  of  sur- 
veying that  had  already  been  adopted  was  continued  with 
some  alterations.  Under  this  system,  settlers  often  outran 
the  surveyors  and  demanded  recognition  of  their  preemption 
rights.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  many  complications  might 
arise.  Men  were  often  tempted  to  buy  as  much  land  as 
they  had  money  in  hand  to  pay  the  first  instalment ;  and, 

1  For  this  and  later  land  laws  see  Jefferson  came  into  power,  and  W.  H. 

Annals  of  Congress  and  Statutes  at  Harrison,  himself  a  Virginian,  was 

Large  under  date ;  these  laws  and  il-  Ohio's  delegate  in  Congress,  a  new  act 

lustrative  matter  have  been  collected  was  secured,  largely  through  his  in- 

in  four  volumes  as  House  Miscellaneous  fluence,  which  permitted  tracts  of  320 

Documents,  47th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  acres  to  be  purchased  by  individuals." 

No.  45  (Washington,  1884).  For  a  It  is  perhaps  needless  to  point  out 

scholarly  r6sume  of  the  earlier  his-  that  in  1800,  the  Federalists  were 

tory  of  the  land  system,  see  Payson  still  in  power  and  this  act  was  ap- 

J.  Treat's  National  Land  System,  1785-  proved  by  President  John  Adams. 

1820.  Harrison  did  favor  it,  but  one  of  the 

1  See  however,  Robert  E.  Chad-  strongest  opponents  of  it  was  Henry 

dock's  Ohio  before  1850,  p.  54.  He  Lee,  likewise  a  Virginian,  and  father 

writes  "In  1800,  when  the  party  of  of  Robert  E.  Lee. 


42  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [Cn.  II 

with  the  frontiersman's  speculative  hopes,  relied  on  the 
future  to  provide  the  funds  necessary  for  the  deferred 
payments.  As  long  as  everything  went  well  —  as  long  as 
the  Indians  kept  quiet,  new  settlers  came  pressing  in  from 
the  East,  and  frost  and  malarial  sicknesses  held  off  —  the 
lands  would  constantly  increase  in  value  and  a  man  by  selling 
off  part  of  his  holdings  could  raise  the  money  to  pay  the 
instalments  as  they  came  due.  After  1810  for  a  dozen  years 
or  so,  there  were  Indian  troubles,  sicknesses,  and  droughts 
which  culminated  in  financial  distress.  On  September  30, 
1819,  it  appeared  that  settlers  owed  to  the  United  States 
government  more  than  twenty-four  million  dollars  of  unpaid 
instalments.  The  condition  called  for  a  remedy  and  had 
been  calling  for  a  remedy  ever  since  the  passage  of  the  act. 
So,  too,  had  the  case  of  the  unauthorized  dwellers  on  the 
government  land,  the  squatters  as  they  were  later  called. 
If  the  object  was  to  increase  the  power  and  strength  of  the 
United  States  by  the  rapid  occupation  of  lands  and  the 
building  of  homes,  why  should  men  wait  for  surveyors  to  run 
their  chains  over  bog  and  mountain  ?  Why  not  take  a  bit  of 
good  land  and  pay  for  it  when  the  surveyor  did  come  ?  But 
this  of  course  created  trouble.  Not  infrequently  it  happened 
that  when  a  man  had  regularly  purchased  land,  he  would  find 
one  of  these  pregmptioners  already  living  upon  it.  Some- 
times the  matter  might  be  amicably  settled  by  payment  for 
improvements,  but  often  there  was  friction.1  Settlers  were 
constantly  appealing  to  Congress  for  extensions  of  time  in 
which  to  make  their  payments  or  to  have  their  squatter 
rights  legalized.  Congress  might  have  insisted  upon  the 
law  being  rigidly  enforced  or  it  might  have  provided  some 
entirely  new  system.  It  did  neither,  but  granted  extension 

1  For  a  description  of  the  mode  by       Horseback   Tour"    in    Wisconsin    Hia- 
which   the    settlers   overrode    the   law,       toricol  Collections,  xv,  277. 
see  Alfred  Branson's  "Circuit  Rider's 


1820]  THE   PATHBREAKERS  43 

of  credit  no  less  than  thirteen  times  and  passed  no  less  than 
thirteen  preemption  acts  that  were  limited  in  their  appli- 
cation. At  length  in  1820,  Congress  put  an  end  to  the 
credit  system  and  provided  that  lands  should  be  sold  in 
eighty  acre  lots  at  a  minimum  price  of  one  dollar  and  a 
quarter  an  acre.  Twenty-one  years  later,  in  1841,  it 
passed  a  general  preemption  law,  and  twenty-one  years 
after  that  President  Lincoln  put  his  name  to  the  Homestead 
Act  by  which  it  was  hoped  that  actual  settlers  would  acquire 
farms  practically  without  money  payment.1  In  all  these 
earlier  years,  Congresses  and  Presidents,  generally,  stood 
firmly  against  making  special  grants  or  special  exceptions, 
but  there  were  some  instances  and  some  of  them  were  entirely 
commendable  as  the  presents  in  1803  and  1825  of  thousands 
of  acres  of  the  public  lands  to  General  Lafayette. 

The  first  settlers  were  backwoodsmen,  or  frontiersmen,  or 
pioneers,  or  pathbreakers,  —  they  cannot  be  called  farmers 
or  planters  because  as  soon  as  they  had  brought  a  little  patch 
of  ground  into  farming  condition,  they  sold  out  to  the  next 
comer  and  moved  away  into  the  wilderness.  They  were 
temporary  reversions  to  the  hunter  type ;  they  did  not 
belong  to  the  agricultural  stage.  They  loved  solitariness 
and  the  smell  of  the  smoke  of  a  neighbor's  chimney  was  in 
itself  enough  to  drive  them  back  to  the  wilderness  road. 
The  mother  and  children  had  as  great  a  fondness  for  the  life 
of  the  fringe  of  civilization  as  the  father  and  moved  willingly 
on  and  on  with  him.  Daniel  Boone  is  the  stock  represent- 
ative of  this  type  and  he  is  a  very  good  one,  because  not 
until  age  stiffened  his  limbs  could  he  be  brought  to  quiescent 
living.  Next  came  the  farming  and  planting  pioneers 

1  Emerick's    "The    Credit    System  horn's     "Some     Political     Aspects    of 

and  the  Public  Domain"  in  the  Pub-  Homestead    Legislation"    in    American 

lications    of    the    Vanderbilt    Southern  Historical  Review,  vi,  19. 
History    Society    (No.    3)     and    San- 


44  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [Cn.  II 

following  hard  on  the  first  rank  of  wilderness  invaders. 
They  exhibited  some  symptoms  of  settled  existence,  build- 
ing better  cabins  than  the  half-faced  camps.  They  cultivated 
the  fields  for  several  years  until  the  ground  was  free  from 
stumps,  the  soil  pulverized,  and  neighbors  appeared.  Then 
the  "Western  Fever"  seized  upon  them  and  drove  them 
once  more  to  the  wilderness :  —  to  the  Connecticut  River, 
to  New  York  State,  to  the  Western  Reserve,  to  Illinois,  to 
Minnesota  and  beyond.1  An  interesting  example  of  this 
restless  type  was  Hezekiah  Lincecum  and  his  son,  Gideon. 
The  latter  was  born  in  Georgia  in  1793.  In  the  course  of 
the  next  ten  years  or  so,  the  family  lived  in  eight  or  nine 
different  places  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina.  The  Lince- 
cums  2  then  settled  for  a  time  near  Tuscaloosa,  in  Alabama, 
and  finally  on  the  Tombigbee  River  near  Columbus,  Mis- 
sissippi. There  Gideon  struck  out  for  himself.  He  became 
a  self-taught  doctor  and  collector  of  insects  and  lived  his 
last  years  in  Texas  and  in  Mexico.  Although  belonging  to 
a  later  generation  Hamlin  Garland's  family  well  represents 
the  farming  wanderer.  The  grandparents  left  Maine 
before  the  Civil  War  and  moved  by  canal  and  steamer  to 
Wisconsin.  Hamlin's  father  was  a  soldier  in  the  Union 
army.  Returning  to  his  Wisconsin  home,  he  lived  there  for 
a  time;  then  "Fair  freedom's  star"  pointed  to  the  sunset 

1  "At  first  the  west  was  the  Con-  West,"  it  has  been  found  advisable 
necticut  river;  then  the  hill  country  to  use  a  definite  geographical  term  — 
of  Western  Massachusetts  .  .  .  and  Transappalachia  —  to  describe  the  coun- 
finally  the  regions  beyond."  Aaron  try  beyond  the  Old  Thirteen.  At 
W.  Field's  "Sandisfield:  Its  Past  the  present  time  (1920)  there  seema 
and  Present"  in  Berkshire  Histori-  to  be  a  reaction  against  the  term 
cal  and  Scientific  Society's  Collec-  "the  West"  as  used  by  Mr.  Field,  for 
tions  for  1894,  p.  81.  In  point  of  fact,  W.  P.  Shortridge  in  Minnesota  His- 
the  Atlantic  beach  was  really  the  first  torical  Bulletin,  iii,  116,  speaks  of  the 
frontier,  because  the  three  thousand  region  beyond  the  Alleghanies  as 
mile  voyage  across  the  ocean  brought  "the  first  real  American  West." 
to  many  a  man  and  woman  entirely  2  Mississippi  Historical  Society's 
new  ideas  of  the  responsibilities  and  Publications,  viii,  443-519.  See  also 
possibilities  of  life.  Owing  to  the  Southern  History  Association's  Pub- 
shifting  geographical  position  of  "the  lications,  i,  89-97. 


1820]  NUMBERS  45 

regions  and  away  he  and  his  wife  and  children  went  to 
Minnesota,  to  Iowa,  to  southern  Dakota.1  In  reading  this 
family  life  story,  one  is  impressed,  as  he  is  with  the  life 
stories  of  other  migrant  farming  families,  with  the  absence 
of  home  ties.  They  had  no  feelings  of  affection  for  the  houses 
and  lands  that  they  left  behind ;  they  only  looked  to  the 
future  and  over  the  mountains  and  rivers  to  the  westward. 
As  years  went  by  and  the  fringe  of  settlement  moved  out 
from  the  wooded  country  to  the  prairies,  the  hunting  pioneers 
disappeared.  Now,  when  the  railroad  brings  immigrants 
from  the  Atlantic  coast  in  one  journey  to  the  railhead  on 
the  prairie,  the  first  comer  is  no  longer  a  farming  migrant, 
but  himself  belongs  to  the  group  of  home  making  farmers 
or  homesteaders,  as  they  might  well  be  called. 

The  magnitude  of  the  westward  movement  and  its  mean- 
ing can  best  be  expressed,  perhaps,  by  a  study  of  population 
statistics  of  different  parts  of  the  country  in  years  that  are  a 
generation  apart.  In  1790,  ninety-four  per  cent  of  the 
total  population  of  the  country  of  about  four  million  human 
beings  lived  in  the  Old  Thirteen  States,  the  takers  of  that 
census  reporting  under  one-quarter  of  a  million  people  in 
the  western  settlements.  By  1820  practically  one-quarter 
of  the  whole  population  of  nine  and  a  half  million  people 

1  Hamlin    Garland's    A    Son   of   the  the  Vermont  and  New  York  shores  of 

Middle    Border.     The    author    himself  Lake  Champlain.     After  tarrying  there, 

came  to  Boston  for  training  in  litera-  representatives  of  the  family  moved  to 

ture  and  then  removed  to  New  York,  Michigan     and     Wisconsin     and     Ne- 

and  in  1893  brought  back  his  parents  braska;    some  of  them,    revivified    by 

from  their  Dakota  farm  to  Wisconsin.  contact   with    the   western   wilderness, 

The  family  history  of  my  colleague,  returning   to    their   first   landing    place 

Professor    Frederick    Jackson    Turner,  in  the  New  World. 

furnishes   an   admirable   example   of   a  A   good   illustration   of  re-migration 

migrant   and    re-migrant   family.     The  is    the    Ohio    Society    of    New    York, 

first  immigrants  from  England  settled  In    1889    a   list   of   its   303    members, 

in     eastern     Massachusetts.       Thence,  giving     the     places     in     Ohio     whence 

after    a    good    interval,     the    Turners  they    had    come    to    New    York,    was 

took    up    the   westward   march,    going  printed    in    Henry    Howe's    Historical 

first   to   Connecticut,    and   then   north-  Collections  of  Ohio,  i,  177-183. 
westwardly  through  Massachusetts  to 


THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  1820 
(From  The  Statistical  Atlas  of  the  Twelfth  Census.) 


THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  1840 
(From  The  Statistical  Atlas  of  the  Twelfth  Census.) 


47 


48 


THE   WESTWARD  MARCH 


[CH.  II 


lived  beyond  the  western  limits  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard 
States,  and  in  1850,  forty-five  per  cent  of  the  twenty-three 
million  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  lived  there.  Since 
that  time,  the  proportion  has  slowly  increased,  until  in 
1910,  nearly  fifty-nine  per  cent  of  the  dwellers  in  the  home- 
lands lived  to  the  westward  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York 
and  the  other  original  thirteen  States.1  So  great,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  been  the  growth  of  urban  population  that 
in  1910  as  many  people  lived  within  a  radius  of  thirty  miles 
of  the  New  York  custom  house  as  inhabited  the  country  to 
the  westward  of  the  one  hundred  and  fourth  meridian,  even 
to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  By  far  the  greatest  part 
of  the  increase  in  the  newer  part  of  the  country  was  by 
emigration  from  the  older  States  on  the  seaboard.  In  1820, 
the  western  population,  instead  of  being  less  than  half  a 


1  The  following  table  is  compiled 
from  the  Compendium  of  the  Seventh 
Census  (1850),  pp.  40,  41;  Census 
of  1870,  vol.  i,  p.  4;  and  Census  of 


1910,  vol.  i,  p.  146  and  fol.  It  illus- 
trates the  points  noted  in  the  text 
and  gives  comparisons  of  a  later 
date: 


TOTAL  POPULATION 
IN  UNITED  STATES 

POPULATION  OF 
ATLANTIC  SLOPE 

%  OF  POP. 
ON  ATLANTIC 
SLOPE 

POPULATION  OF 
TRANSAPPALACR  i  A 

%  OF  POP. 

IN  TBANS- 
APPALACHIA 

1790 

3,929,827 

3,708,116 

94ft 

221,711 

5ft 

1820 

9,638,131 

7,013,154 

72ft 

2,624,977 

27ft 

1860 

23,191,876 

12,729,859 

54ft 

10,462,017 

45ft 

1870 

33,589,377 

15,752,507 

46ft 

17,836,870 

53ft 

1900 

75,994,575 

31,490,175 

41* 

44,504,400 

58ft 

1910 

91,972,266 

38,063,468 

41ft 

63,908,798 

58ft 

1920 

105,708,771 

43,651,927 

41ft 

62,056,844 

58ft 

In  1800  the  total  urban  population 
of  the  United  States  as  a  whole  was 
less  than  one-quarter  of  a  million; 
in  1850  it  was  over  two  millions,  and  in 
1920  it  was  approximately  fifty-four 
millions  as  against  fifty  millions  as  the 
total  rural  population  of  the  country. 
In  1910  the  total  population  of  the 
States  west  of  the  104th  meridian, 
which  is  the  western  boundary  of  the 
Dakotas  and  Nebraska,  was  6,825,821 


and  at  the  same  time  there  were  more 
than  7,225,416  human  beings  living 
within  a  radius  of  thirty  miles  of  the 
New  York  custom  house.  In  fact, 
in  1910  more  people  lived  on  Staten 
Island  in  New  York  Harbor  than  in 
the  whole  State  of  Nevada.  The  people 
of  Nevada  were  represented  by  two 
Senators  in  Congress,  while  the  people 
of  Staten  Island  were  represented  by 
r  J  j  part  of  two  Senators. 


i850]  NUMBERS  49 

million  as  it  would  have  been  by  the  usual  excess  of  births 
over  deaths,  was  over  two  and  a  half  millions ; 1  at 
least  one  million  and  a  half  of  this  increase  represented  immi- 
grants from  the  older  States.  In  the  second  thirty  years 
from  1820  to  1850,  the  inhabitants  of  Transappalachia  more 
than  doubled  by  some  five  millions ;  the  seaboard  section, 
notwithstanding  the  great  immigration  from  Europe  in  the 
last  ten  years  of  that  time  failing  to  double  by  at  least  two 
millions.  It  would  seem  probable,  therefore,  that  in  those 
two  decades,  the  West  took  at  least  four  million  people  out 
of  the  East.  When  we  consider  also  that  the  migration 
from  the  farms  to  the  manufacturing  towns  and  commercial 
cities  was  very  large  in  these  sixty  years,  especially  in  the 
last  thirty  of  them,  we  can  realize  what  a  strain  was  placed 
upon  the  old  rural  population. 

Looking  over  the  figures  given  in  the  "Census  of  1850," 
one  is  impressed  with  the  large  proportion  of  the  migration 
from  the  four  South  Atlantic  States.  Two-fifths  of  the  free- 
born  South  Carolinians  —  whites  and  blacks  —  were  then 
living  outside  of  the  State  of  their  birth.  This  was  a  larger 
proportion  of  emigrants  than  from  any  other  State  in  the 
Union,  but  nearly  one-third  of  the  Virginians  and  North 
Carolinians  and  nearly  one-quarter  of  the  Georgians  had 

1  The  figures  given  in  the  text  are  estimate  of  the  total  loss  of  the  Ameri- 
based  upon  somewhat  intricate  cal-  can  army  in  the  whole  war,  including 
dilations  about  which  there  may  be  a  those  killed  in  action  and  those  dying 
good  deal  of  doubt.  In  a  new  coun-  of  disease  and  wounds,  as  less  than 
try  population  is  supposed  to  double  twenty-five  thousand.  See  the  pres- 
by  natural  reproduction  about  every  ent  work,  vol.  ii,  492  note  and  Wil- 
thirty  years,  but  the  rate  declines  liam  Jay's  "Table  of  the  Killed  and 
rapidly  as  a  country  emerges  from  the  Wounded  in  the  War  of  1812"  in  New 
pioneer  stage.  Some  of  the  accretion  York  Historical  Society's  Collections, 
of  the  population  of  Transappalachia  Second  Series,  ii,  447-466. 
was  due  to  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  For  other  calculations  limited  to 
which  brought  two  hundred  thousand  New  Englanders,  see  Professor  Tur- 
people  into  the  United  States  at  one  ner's  "Greater  New  England  in  the 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  the  in-  Middle  of  the  Nineteenth  Century" 
fluence  of  the  War  of  1812  may  be  in  American  Antiquarian  Society's  Pro- 
eliminated,  if  we  accept  William  Jay's  ceedings,  October,  1919. 

VOL.  V.  —  E 


50  THE    WESTWARD    MARCH  [Ce.  II 

likewise  sought  the  newer  lands.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
Southwest  from  Alabama  to  Arkansas  and  Texas  were 
almost  entirely  from  the  Old  South  ;  there  were  some  foreign 
born  immigrants  and  rather  more  from  the  Northern  States, 
especially  in  Texas,  but  most  of  the  settlers  were  Southerners 
born  and  bred.  Moreover,  Southerners  crossed  the  Ohio 
River  from  western  Virginia  and  from  Kentucky  and  formed 
the  predominant  element  in  the  Old  Northwest,  south  of 
the  line  of  the  National  Road.  Indeed,  the  New  Englanders 
at  Marietta  and  vicinity  were  almost  the  only  Northerners 
in  this  region.  The  causes  of  this  Southern  migration  are 
easily  found  in  the  crude  methods  of  agriculture  of  that 
region  and  in  the  tremendous  demand  for  cotton  that  devel- 
oped almost  beyond  belief  in  each  decade  from  1800.  The 
area  of  cotton  culture  rapidly  grew  and  the  cultivation  of  the 
plant  became  more  intense,  more  a  matter  of  business,  of  the 
application  of  capital  to  labor.  The  units  of  cultivation  grew 
larger  and  the  small  farmer  could  no  longer  compete  with 
the  man  of  capital.  By  1830  cotton  growing  had  spread 
from  western  Georgia  to  the  Mississippi  River.  The 
planters  in  the  older  States  could  not  compete  with  the 
cotton  growers  of  the  "black  belts."  J  The  only  thing  for 
the  less  advantageously  situated  planters  and  farmers  to 
do  was  to  go  to  the  newer  cotton  lands  and  westward  they 
went.  George  Tucker,  a  Virginian,  writing  in  1824,2  de- 
clared that  "the  west"  was  "the  el  Dorado  of  all  bad  man- 
agers" ;  but  he  was  unjust  to  his  neighbors,  for  it  was  the 

1  See  Phillips's  "Origin  and  Growth  or  Memoirs  of  the  Graysons,  i,  169. 

of  the  Southern  Black  Belts"  in  This  work  of  fiction,  which  was  printed 

American  Historical  Review,  xi,  798-  in  two  volumes  at  New  York  in  1824, 

816.  Some  conditions  of  life  in  the  gives  an  intimate  view  of  the  life  of  the 

South  and  circumstances  of  migra-  planters  of  Virginia  by  one  of  them- 

tion  are  vividly  set  forth  in  Edwin  J.  selves ;  Paulding's  The  Banks  of  the 

Scott's  Random  Recollections  (Co-  Ohio;  or  Westward  Ho !  (3  vols., 

lumbia,  S.  C.,  1884).  London,  1833)  is  a  remarkable  picture 

*  See    his     Valley    of    Shenandoah;  in  prose  of  the  Virginia  migration. 


1830]  SOUTHERN   MIGRATION  51 

general  economic  condition  of  Virginia  planting  life  and  not 
especially  bad  management  that  made  migration  inevitable. 
The  tobacco  plant  was  a  destroyer  of  the  soil  and  Virginia 
methods  were  undoubtedly  extravagantly  wasteful.  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson  were  both  of  them  disturbed  at  the 
outlook.  They  studied  books  and  corresponded  with  emi- 
nent agriculturists  in  other  parts  of  the  United  States  and  in 
Europe,  but  both  of  them  seem  to  have  been  helpless  in 
introducing  thorough-going  reforms  even  on  their  own 
estates.  Then,  as  the  century  advanced,  Kentucky-grown 
tobacco  appeared  in  the  markets  and  added  to  the  distress 
of  the  Virginians.  The  years  after  1815,  instead  of  bringing 
relief  from  the  conditions  of  embargo  and  war,  only  in- 
creased the  troubles  of  the  tobacco  men.  Droughts  and 
insect-pests  were  added  to  the  pressure  of  old  debts,  and 
the  hard  times  in  the  cotton  region  greatly  lessened  the 
demand  for  Virginia  slaves,  which  were  offered  for  sale  by 
the  thousands.1  Jefferson's  experience  is  interesting.  It 
would  seem  that  an  estate  of  over  five  thousand  acres  with 
one  hundred  and  thirty-two  slaves  might  have  been  made 
to  pay,  but  it  is  very  doubtful  if  Jefferson  ever  secured  any 
net  return  from  his  property.2  In  fact,  as  the  tobacco 
acreage  on  Virginia's  exhausted  fields  diminished,  the 
amount  of  labor,  as  measured  by  the  number  of  slaves, 
increased  so  that  the  plantation  slowly  ate  itself  up.  Vir- 
ginia planters,  following  the  example  of  the  South  Carolinians, 
migrated  to  the  westward,  taking  their  slaves  with  them, 

1  Speech    of    Thomas    J.    Randolph  esting    picture    of    the    condition    of 

...  on   the  Abolition   of  Slavery   .  .  .  Eastern    Virginia    at   the    time   of  the 

Jan.   21,   1832,   p.    11.     Ambler,   citing  westward  migration. 

Thomas  Marshall,  states  that  the  agri-  'See  the  "Jefferson  Papers"  in  the 

cultural  products  of  Virginia  in  1831-  cabinet  of  the  Massachusetts  Histori- 

32  were  "  worth  no  more  than  they  had  cal  Society  under  date  of  August   11 

been    eighty    years    prior    when    the  and  27,   1819,   and  his  Account  Book 

population  was  only  one-sixth  as  large."  for     1823.     "A    List"     of    Jefferson's 

Sectionalism  in  Virginia,  p.  111.     Pages  property    is    in     the    same    collection 

110-117   of   this   book   give   an   inter-  under  date  of  May  14,  1815. 


52  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [Cn.  II 

or  one  or  two  members  of  the  family  with  some  of  the 
slaves  established  new  homes  in  Transappalachia.  In  these 
years,  the  population  of  eastern  Virginia  including  the 
Valley  of  the  Shenandoah  was  actually  declining,  —  in  1840 
there  were  26,000  fewer  inhabitants  living  there  than  in  1830.1 
It  will  be  interesting  to  study  the  migration  from  a 
more  personal  point  of  view.  There  were  the  Cabells  of 
Virginia  who  were  connected  by  marriage  with  the  Brecken- 
ridges  of  Kentucky  and  Missouri  and  with  the  Shelbys  of 
Alabama ;  and  there  are  few  States  of  the  Union  that  have 
not  representatives  of  the  Cabells  and  their  kin.  The  best 
known  Southern-Western  migrating  family  was  that  of 
Jefferson  Davis.  His  grandfather  came  to  Pennsylvania 
from  Wales  and  moved  to  Georgia.  His  father  went  next 
to  western  Kentucky,  where  the  future  President  of  the 
Confederacy  was  born  in  the  year  1808.  In  infancy  he 
was  taken  by  his  father  to  Louisiana  and  then  to  Mis- 
sissippi. Also  in  western  Kentucky,  and  one  year  later  in 
point  of  time,  Abraham  Lincoln  first  saw  the  light  of  day. 
His  ancestors  had  come  to  Massachusetts  in  1637  and  the 
family  had  moved  slowly  through  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Virginia  to  Kentucky,  leaving  members  behind  at 
various  points  of  the  route.2  Abraham  Lincoln  with  his 
father  and  mother  crossed  the  Ohio  River  to  Indiana  and 
later  he  removed  to  central  Illinois.  Of  the  other  two  great 
characters  in  the  secession  struggle,  General  Grant  belonged 
to  a  Massachusetts  family 3  that  migrated  to  Ohio  by  way  of 

1  These    figures    were    compiled    for  of  tide-water  had   decreased   by  3274 

me    by    Mr.    R.    L.     Morton.     From  between  1820  and  1830 ;    and  five  Pied- 

them  it  appears  that  the  white  popu-  mont  counties  had  likewise  suffered  a  loss 

lation  of  the  Piedmont  district  actually  of  1522  white  inhabitants  in  those  years, 
decreased    over    4%    in    the    decade.  2  For    a    complete    and    careful    ac- 

J.  B.  Harrison  in  his  Review  of  the  Slave  count  of  the  Lincoln  family,   see  Lea 

Question  .  .  .  By    a    Virginian    (Rich-  and    Hutchinson's    Ancestry    of    Abra- 

mond,    1833),  p.   19,  gives  figures  that  ham  Lincoln  (Boston,  1909). 
show    that    the    white    population    of  3  Arthur  H.  Grant's  The  Grant  Family 

nine  Virginia  counties  below  the  head  .  .  .  Descendants  of  Matthew  Grant. 


1830]  NORTHERN  MIGRATION  53 

Pennsylvania ;  the  immediate  family  of  his  great  opponent, 
Robert  E.  Lee,  remained  persistently  in  Virginia,  being  the 
only  one  of  the  four  to  have  no  Western  associations. 

Viewing  the  course  of  the  movement  from  a  more  general 
standpoint,  one  is  impressed  by  the  part  played  by  Vermont 
and  central  and  western  New  York  and  western  Penn- 
sylvania as  temporary  abiding  places  for  these  western 
going  families.  An  almost  endless  procession  begins  in 
Massachusetts  and  moves  through  Connecticut  or  western 
Massachusetts,  to  Vermont  or  to  the  New  York  shore  of 
Lake  Champlain.  There  a  family  remained  for  a  generation 
or  two  and  then  in  the  1820's  moved  to  the  "  Genesee  coun- 
try" l  in  western  New  York,  and  then  another  generation 
went  farther  west.  If  the  migrant  family  found  itself  in 
western  Connecticut,  the  line  of  march  was  often  farther 
south  through  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  to  Ohio,  or 
sometimes  even  farther  south  to  Kentucky  by  way  of 
Virginia.  The  liberal  institutions  of  Vermont  coupled 
with  an  abundance  of  vacant  land  drew  people  to  that 
northern  country ;  but  the  life  there  was  very  hard,  the 
labor  severe,  and  the  reward  small.  Western  New  York 
attracted  families  of  passage  by  its  greater  economic  oppor- 
tunity, and  also  because  in  a  larger  and  rapidly  growing 
State  the  chance  for  service  and  personal  advancement 
was  much  greater  there  than  in  a  smaller  and  longer  settled 
community.  Frequently  ill  health  necessitated  a  freer  open- 
air  life  and  drove  many  a  promising,  but  physically  weak, 
lad  from  eastern  town  or  farm  to  the  western  wilderness,2 
as  was  the  case  with  Luther  Burbank. 

The  great  migration  from  central  and  western  New  York 

1 A  good  example  is  to  be  found  in  paternal    grandfather    from    Connecti- 

the  family  of  William  L.  Sill  of  Wyo-  cut. 

ming.     He  was  born  in  Wisconsin,  his  2  W.    S.    Harwood's   New    Creation* 

father   was    a    native    of    New    York ;  in  Plant  Life. 
his  mother  was  from  Vermont  and  his 


54  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [On.  II 

between  1830  and  1840  is  not  easily  accounted  for  At 
first  sight  it  would  seem  that  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal, 
by  subjecting  the  farmers  of  that  region  to  the  competition 
of  the  workers  of  the  fertile  lands  tributary  to  the  Great 
Lakes,  would  so  have  reduced  the  price  of  flour  and  other 
agricultural  products  that  the  New  Yorker  would  abandon 
his  farm  and  proceed  to  a  new  country.  It  does  not  appear, 
however,  that  the  price  of  flour  at  New  York  City  and  at 
Philadelphia  was  materially  affected  by  the  radical  reduction 
in  the  cost  of  transportation  from  Buffalo  to  tide-water. 
Moreover,  the  marvellous  increase  in  the  manufacturing 
population  of  the  Northeast  created  a  new  demand  for 
agricultural  products,  for  these  workers  abandoned  the 
production  of  food  for  the  making  of  shoes,  cloth,  and  other 
commodities.  It  is  probable  that,  contemporaneously 
with  the  drifting  into  towns,  there  was  a  change  in  the 
taste  in  food  from  bread  made  of  corn  and  the  dark  grains 
to  bread  made  from  wheaten  flour.  Owing  to  the  shifts  in 
the  methods  of  census  taking,  it  is  impossible  to  state  the 
growth  of  the  urban  population  as  distinguished  from  the 
rural  at  different  periods.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  urban  and  suburban 
population  had  grown  from  something  like  a  quarter  of  a 
million  in  1800  to  about  ten  times  that  amount,  or  two  and  a 
half  millions  in  1850  ;  none  of  these  town  dwellers  produced 
much,  if  any,  food,  and  every  one  of  them  had  to  be  fed  by 
the  labor  of  others.  The  Northeastern  farmer  of  the  olden 
type  was  of  about  the  best  human  material  that  America 
has  ever  seen.  He  lived  an  almost  ideal  political  and 
social  democratic  existence.  With  a  change  in  agricultural 
conditions  that  the  use  of  machinery  brought  in,  with  the 
establishment  of  manufacturing,  and  the  coming  of  immi- 
grants of  other  stocks,  an  abandonment  of  the  old  life  was 


1830]  MIGRATION  55 

necessary,  for  a  part  of  the  family,  at  any  rate.1  Some  of 
the  children  became  prosperous  farmers  in  Illinois  or  other 
Western  States,  others  of  them  entered  business  or  manu- 
facturing life  in  the  towns  of  the  Eastern  States,  and  after  a 
generation  or  two  became  prosperous  manufacturers  or 
commercial  men  or  bank  presidents  or  entered  one  or  another 
of  the  learned  professions.  Some  of  the  western  wanderers 
were  attracted  to  Transappalachia  by  ideals  of  freedom  or  the 
probability  of  economic  independence  offered  by  a  farm  in 
the  new  country.  But  many  men  sought  speculative 
opportunities  there;  not  a  few,  who  had  read  law,  per- 
ceived a  chance  to  acquire  wealth  in  the  endless  litigation 
that  was  sure  to  arise  over  western  lands  ;  and  others  sought 
political  preferment  in  new  communities  where  positions  were 
not  already  held  by  well  known  men.  In  the  earlier  years, 
the  emigrant  moved  by  short  stages  from  one  State  to 
another ;  but  after  1840  steamboat  navigation  on  the  Lakes 
made  it  almost  as  easy  to  go  from  Buffalo  or  Cleveland  to 
Milwaukee  or  Chicago  as  it  was  to  go  to  Toledo  or  Detroit. 
The  story  of  a  few  families  will  illustrate  the  points  made 
in  the  preceding  paragraph.  Of  New  Englanders,  perhaps, 
the  Fairbanks  family  is  the  most  interesting :  the  immigrant 
Jonathan  Fairebanke  came  from  England  to  Massachusetts 
in  the  1630's  and  at  Dedham  built  a  house  which  is  still 
standing  and  was  occupied  by  members  of  the  family  for 
eight  generations.  Descendants  of  the  original  settler  to 
the  number  of  a  thousand  or  more  have  lived  in  thirty-four 
States  of  the  Union :  at  Monroe  and  at  Leon  in  New  York ; 
at  Madelia  in  Minnesota ;  at  Waupun  in  Wisconsin,  at 
Berkeley,  California,  and  elsewhere.  The  first  Fairbanks 

'See  Charles  F.   Emerick's  "Anal-  tory  of  Daniel  Webster  admirably  il- 

ysis  of  Agricultural  Discontent  in  the  lustrates  the  motive  of  migration  from 

United    States"     in    Political    Science  the  "old  farm"  to  city  or  prairie. 
Quarterly,  xi,  436,  437;  the  early  his- 


56  THE  WESTWARD  MARCH  [Cn.  II 

were  farmers,  but  the  later  ones,  or  some  of  them,  have 
entered  many  occupations.  Among  them  were  Thaddeus 
Fairbanks  of  St.  Johnsbury,  Vermont,  who  invented  the 
standard  scales  that  bear  his  name ;  Nathaniel  Kellogg 
Fairbank,  who  began  as  an  apprentice  to  a  bricklayer  in 
Sodus,  Wayne  County,  New  York,  and  ended  his  life  in 
Chicago  as  a  princely  manufacturer;  and  Charles  Warren 
Fairbanks  of  Indianapolis,  who  was  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States.1  There  are  many  other  families  with  similar 
histories,  as  that  of  Henry  Kingsbury  who  came  to  Massa- 
chusetts from  England  in  the  Talbot  in  1630.  Since  then 
nearly  two  thousand  of  his  descendants  have  lived  in  thirty 
States  or  territories  of  the  Union.2  One  might  go  on  for 
page  after  page  giving  repeated  references  and  mentioning 
family  after  family,  but  it  would  be  a  mere  fortifying  of  a 
story  that  is  beyond  dispute.  Indeed,  of  the  seven  Pres- 
byterian ministers  commemorated  in  Hotchkin's  "Western 
New  York,"  five  came  from  Connecticut  and  of  the  three 
hundred  and  sixty-eight  original  settlers  of  Chautauqua 
County,  nearly  one-half  were  New  Englanders.3  New  York 
stood  in  the  relation  of  foster  parent  to  thousands  of  families 
who  paused  there  a  generation  or  two  on  the  way  from  New 
England  to  Ohio  and  the  States  farther  west,  even  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  notice- 

1  See  Lorenzo  S.  Fairbanks's  Gen-  L.  Doty's  Livingston  County,  New 

ealogy  of  the  Fairbanks  Family  in  York  (Geneseo,  1876) ;  Andrew  W. 

America,  1633-1897.  Young's  Chautauqua  County,  New  York 

»  F.  J.  Kingsbury  and  M.  K.  Tal-  (New  York,  1848) ;  O.  Turner's  Pioneer 

cott's  Genealogy  of  the  Descendants  Settlement  of  Phelps  and  Gorham's 

of  Henry  Kingsbury  of  Ipswich  and  Purchase  (Rochester,  1870) ;  and  an 

Haverhill,  Mass.  Of  the  nine  uncles  almost  endless  number  of  biographies, 

of  a  lady  from  Maine  of  my  acquaint-  local  histories,  and  publications  of 

ance  six  went  to  California,  made  some  historical  societies.  A  tabulation  of 

money,  and  then  abandoned  the  five  volumes  of  The  Mayflower  De- 

Golden  West.  Four  of  them  re-  scendant  shows  that  descendants  of  the 

turned  to  New  England ;  the  other  two  Pilgrims  have  lived  or  are  living  in  al- 

settled  in  Georgia  and  Kentucky.  most  every  part  of  the  United  States 

8  Besides   Hotchkin,    see   Lockwood  and  outlying  possessions. 


1830]  COURSE   OF  MIGRATION  57 

able  that  the  families  of  the  original  Dutch  settlers  of  New 
Netherland,  to  an  even  greater  extent  than  the  Pennsylvania 
Germans,  stayed  in  their  first  homes. 

Thousands  of  family  stories  present  certain  elements  of 
similarity.  There  is  the  closing  of  the  old  home,  the 
packing  of  household  goods  and  children,  sometimes  the 
mother  and  grandmother,  into  a  wagon  drawn  by  two,  four, 
or  six  horses  or  oxen  and  sometimes  by  a  mixed  team. 
Often  the  elder  children  and  the  mother  walked  with  the 
father,  an  uncle  or  two,  and  possibly  a  hired  man.  There 
were  always  troubles  with  the  road  whether  one  went  south 
or  north  or  through  the  Middle  States.  There  were  rivers 
to  be  forded,  mountains  to  be  crossed,  and  swamps  to  be 
passed.  Following  the  southern  and  middle  routes,  one 
went  directly  from  one's  former  home  to  the  newer  place  of 
living.  In  the  North,  the  first  part  of  the  journey  was 
sometimes  made  wholly  or  partly  by  canal  boat,  from  the 
Hudson  westward  to  Buffalo.  There  the  travelling  family 
with  its  paraphernalia  and  animals  embarked  on  a  steamboat 
to  go  by  water  to  a  port  in  Michigan,  or  Wisconsin,  or 
Illinois  and  then  to  take  up  the  landward  march.  These 
journeys  were  not  mere  matters  of  days  or  weeks,  but  often 
consumed  a  month  or  more.  The  desires  of  the  emigrant 
were  often  aroused  to  join  the  westward  movement  by  letters 
received  from  a  brother  who  had  gone  before  l  or  by  alluring 
circulars  from  land  speculators  who  were  able  to  acquire  large 
tracts  on  credit  under  the  act  of  1800.  Later  the  transporta- 
tion companies  became  active  and  touted  for  business.2 

1  Dr.  Solon  J.  Buck  in  the  "Intro-  Guide  through  the  United  States  (1838). 
duction"  to  the  "Letters  of  Gershom  Insets  give  detailed  information  as  to 
Flagg"    states    that    five    of    Flagg's  roads,  etc.,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  lead- 
brothers   and   sisters   followed  him   to  ing  cities. 
Illinois.  *  John    T.    Blois    in    his    Gazetteer 

For    roads,    distances,    steamboats,  of  the  State  of  Michigan  (Detroit,  1838, 

and  canal  routes,  see  the  map  accom-  p.  160)  says  that  in  Michigan  in  1837 

panying    S.    A.    Mitchell's    Traveller's  &  farm  of  80  acres  of  government  land 


58  THE   WESTWARD  MARCH  [Cn.  II 

Arrived  at  the  new  home  or  the  place  that  was  to  be  a 
new  home  for  five  or  ten  years,  the  family  either  moved 
into  a  frontier  hut  that  had  been  erected  on  a  half  cleared 
farm,  or,  if  the  emigrant  took  up  land  that  had  not  been 
touched  it  would  be  necessary  to  build  a  shelter  and 
then  construct  a  log  house.  Everything  was  of  the  rudest 
type,  necessarily  so  in  the  existing  conditions  of  trans- 
portation. Then  followed  the  work  of  clearing  the  land  or 
of  continuing  the  clearing  operations  of  an  earlier  occupier. 
Throughout  large  portions  of  the  western  country  fevers 
and  agues  and  stomachic  troubles  beset  the  settlers.  They 
generally  attributed  these  disorders  to  the  turning  up  of 
large  areas  of  sod  or  decaying  humus  in  the  forested  tracts. 
Probably  they  were  malarial  infections  and  were  unavoid- 
able in  the  existing  condition  of  hygienic  science.  They 
certainly  were  not  diminished  by  the  sudden  change  in  the 
condition  of  the  soil  covering.  As  to  remedies,  the  pioneers 
had  vigorous  constitutions,  otherwise  they  could  hardly  have 
survived  the  combination  of  disease  and  "cure"  ;  and  under 
the  circumstances  there  was  likely  to  be  resort  to  alcohol 
either  in  the  form  of  a  beverage  or  in  the  more  insidious  guise 
of  a  medicine.  When  one  had  cleared  his  land  and  got  his 
fields  in  fair  producing  order,  there  was  usually  no  market 
for  whatever  surplus  grain  or  live-stock  the  farm  might 
produce  and,  therefore,  there  was  no  money  with  which 
manufactured  commodities  could  be  purchased.  The  early 
farms  were  perforce  self-sustaining  in  that  the  women  made 
the  clothes  from  the  wool,  the  flax,  or  the  skin,  the  men  of 
the  family  helping  in  the  heavier  work,  as  boot-making. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  accounts  of  early  western  life 

cost  $100.00,  or     a  farm  of  640  acres  quality   of    land."     By    migration,    he 

cost     $800.00;      therefore     a     "father  would   better   his   own    condition    and 

may   sell  his  small   farm  in  the  East  that  of  each  member  of  his  family,  who 

for  a  sum  that  will  purchase  a  dozen  would  soon  become  independent, 
large   ones   in    the   West,    of   the   best 


1830]  FRONTIER  LIFE  59 

was  written  by  Gershom  Flagg,  an  early  New  England 
settler  in  southern  Illinois.  He  raised  corn  and  wheat  by 
the  hundred  bushels  and  could  do  nothing  with  it.  In 
1820  corn  was  selling  at  from  twelve  and  one-half  cents  to 
twenty  cents  a  bushel  at  Edwardsville  in  Illinois.1  A 
settler  in  the  earlier  days  was  almost  immobile.  Public 
conveyances  ran  infrequently,  if  they  ran  at  all,  the  fares 
were  very  high  and  the  distances  to  be  travelled  long. 
About  the  only  way,  therefore,  to  get  a  change  of  scene  was 
to  migrate  to  some  other  part  of  the  country.  If  one 
lived  within  a  day's  journey  of  a  navigable  river,  the  case 
was  perhaps  a  little  better,  but  even  the  teaming  of  farm 
produce  to  a  steamboat  landing  for  twenty  or  thirty  miles 
was  extremely  difficult  and  expensive.  It  was  under  these 
circumstances  that  the  farming  population  of  the  newer 
country,  territory,  or  State,  welcomed  any  kind  of  suggested 
improvement  in  transportation,  whether  road,  canal,  or  steam 
railroad,  and  cheerfully  consented  to  the  incorporation  of 
banks  and  to  the  incurring  of  debt  on  the  part  of  the  State 
or  town  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  the  opening  of  lines 
of  transportation. 

Religion,  idealism,  or  economic  causes  often  led  the  mi- 
gration to  assume  a  group  form.  There  are  examples  of 
concerted  movement  from  the  old  Puritan  settlements,  of  the 
transplanting  of  Southern  Quaker  "Meetings,"  and  of  the 
removal  from  Europe  to  America  of  particularistic  groups 
whose  religious  views  or  social  doctrines  were  displeasing  to 
some  European  ruler.  The  migration  from  Granville, 
Massachusetts,  to  Granville,  Ohio,  in  1805,  is  probably  the 

'Gershom  Flagg's  "Letters"  in  prices  are  for  St.  Louis  and  Edwards- 
Illinois  State  Historical  Society's  Trans-  ville,  Illinois,  which  was  within  easy 
actions  for  1910,  p.  167.  Corn  had  teaming  distance  of  the  Mississippi, 
been  selling  at  33  to  50  cents  in  1819 ;  Farther  inland  the  prices  of  farm 
in  1818  and  again  in  1825  it  was  as  produce  must  have  been  very  much 
high  as  75  cents  a  bushel.  These  less. 


60  THE   WESTWARD  MARCH  [Cn.  II 

most  perfect  example  of  the  continuance  of  the  old  Puritan 
system  of  group  migration.1  In  this  case,  a  "church"  of 
the  old  New  England  type  had  previously  been  organized 
and  a  constitutional  agreement  drawn  up  and  signed  in  the 
old  Granville  and  land  acquired  in  the  new.  In  the  first 
migration  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  persons  participated, 
fifty-two  of  them  being  heads  of  families ;  in  most  cases  the 
weaker  members  were  left  behind  to  follow  on  later.  They 
laid  out  their  town  on  the  New  England  model,  with  a  public 
square  in  the  centre  where  they  erected  a  log  house  that  in 
the  earlier  years  served  for  religion,  business,  and  education. 
In  1831,  the  people  of  Bergen  in  New  York,  incited  by  reli- 
gious zeal,  determined  to  become  a  church  in  the  wilderness 
as  the  Pilgrims  had  before  them.  Five  years  later,  just 
before  starting  on  their  westward  way,  they  covenanted 
"with  God  and  with  one  another"  to  found  such  a  church. 
In  1836  and  in  1837,  about  fifty  persons,  included  in  seven 
or  eight  families,  left  Bergen  and  journeyed  to  Illinois, 
across  Canada,  southern  Michigan,  and  northern  Indiana. 
They  occupied  nine  weeks  on  the  journey  and  founded  the 
settlement  of  Geneseo2  near  a  similar  colony  called  Princeton, 

1  See   Henry   Bushnell's   History   of  Pacific  Stales  and  long  resident  in  San 

Granville,    Licking    County,    Ohio    (Co-  Francisco,     was     born     in     Granville, 

lumbus,  Ohio,  1889)  and  The  Granville  Ohio ;     his    ancestors   having   lived   in 

Jubilee,   celebrated  at   Granville,   Mass.,  Granville  and  West  Springfield,  Massa- 

August  27   and  28,   1846    (Springfield,  chusetts,  the  first  of  them  landing  at 

1845).  Lynn  in  1632. 

Ordinarily,    little    reliance    can    be  2  Memorial       Address  .  .  .  of       the 

placed  on  names  of  towns  and  townships  Settlement   of  Geneseo,   Illinois.     Other 

in      deducing      institutional      relation-  instances  of  group  migration  from  New 

ships.     In  1816  Gershom  Flagg  states  England   are   those   from   Vermont   to 

that  there  were  then  in  Ohio  3  Con-  Vermontville     in      Michigan      (Michi- 

cords,    6    Fairfields,    11    Madisons,    7  gan    Pioneer   and    Historical    Society's 

Salems,  and  8  Springfields.     See  Flagg's  Collections,    xxviii,    pp.    197-265)    and 

"Letters,"  p.  143,  and  note  and  Mrs.  from  Durham  in  Connecticut  to  Dur- 

Martin's  "Origin  of  Ohio  Place  Names"  ham  in  New  York  (William  C.  Fowler's 

in    Ohio    Archaeological    and    Historical  History    of    Durham,    209,    214,     and 

Publications,  xiv,   272.     It  is  interest-  Lois  K.   Mathews'  Expansion  of  New 

ing  to  note  that  Hubert  Howe  Ban-  England,  228-230). 
oroft,  the  maker  of  the  History  of  the 


1830]  GROUP  MIGRATION  61 

which  had  been  established  in  1831  by  people  of  Northamp- 
ton, Massachusetts. 

Most  of  the  early  settlers  of  Ohio  and  Indiana  and  south- 
ern Illinois  were  from  the  Southern  States  and  Pennsylvania, 
sometimes  directly  and  sometimes  by  way  of  Kentucky. 
Many  of  them  were  attracted  to  Ohio  by  the  cheapness  of 
the  land  as  well  as  by  the  fertility  of  the  soil.  Large  tracts 
had  been  assigned  to  Virginia  at  the  time  of  the  cession  and 
a  great  deal  of  this  land  had  been  turned  over  to  Virginia's 
Revolutionary  soldiers  to  satisfy  their  claims  under  the 
bounty  laws  of  that  State,1  and,  besides,  Virginia  had  made 
many  private  grants  in  the  Ohio  region  before  the  cession. 
Many  of  the  soldiers  and  other  grantees  sold  their  warrants 
for  what  they  would  bring  to  speculators,  who  in  turn  sold 
them  below  the  government  rate  to  actual  settlers.  It  has 
often  been  asserted  that  many  of  the  early  Ohio  colonists 
left  their  Southern  homes  because  they  disliked  the  slave 
system  and  that  others  had  been  driven  out  of  the  South  by 
the  increasing  competition  of  slave  labor.  This  was  true 
in  some  cases,  but  probably  the  aversion  to  slavery  on  the 
part  of  the  Southern  settlers  in  Ohio  has  been  overem- 
phasized. It  certainly  strongly  influenced  the  migration  of 
Quakers  from  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia  to  the 
free  country  north  of  the  Ohio  River.  This  movement 
continued  throughout  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  century. 
In  some  cases  the  clearance  of  the  Quakers  from  their  old 
homes  to  the  interior  resulted  in  the  transference  of  their 
meetings  as  a  whole.  In  other  cases,  some  members  re- 
mained behind,  but  most  of  these  or  their  children  probably 
joined  the  earlier  emigrants  in  the  years  of  deepening  slavery 
and  secession  feeling  in  the  Southern  States.  An  idea  of  the 

1  Payaon  J.  Treat's  National  Land  general  and  from  100  to  300  acres  to  a 
System,  1785-1820,  p.  329.  Virginia  private,  according  to  the  length  of 
laws  promised  15,000  acres  to  a  major  service. 


62  THE    WESTWARD    MARCH  [Cn.  II 

size  of  this  Quaker  migration  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact  that  letters  transferring  the  membership  of  nearly  two 
thousand  persons  from  meetings  in  the  Southern  States 
to  the  Miami  Meeting  were  received  in  the  four  years  from 
1803  to  1807  ;  and  the  minute  books  of  Cedar  Creek  Meeting 
and  South  River  Meeting  in  Virginia  contained  more  than 
one  hundred  letters  of  dismissal  to  Ohio,  —  which  probably 
meant  the  migration  of  four  times  as  many  persons.  The 
Friends  went  to  Cincinnati,  to  Miami  County,  to  Fairfield, 
to  Plainfield,  and  to  other  places  in  Ohio.1  Their  aver- 
sion to  slavery  grew  rather  than  weakened  as  the  years 
went  by  and  this,  combined  with  their  industrious  and  law- 
abiding  habits,  made  them  an  exceedingly  important  element 
in  the  State. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with  the  Southern 
settlers  of  Ohio,  the  Southern  colonists  of  Indiana  and 
Illinois  were  not  impelled  by  any  religious  or  idealistic 
motives,  but  crossed  the  Ohio  River,  either  because  of  the 
love  of  adventure  or  because  on  the  northern  side  they 
hoped  to  make  a  living  more  easily  than  they  could  in 
western  Virginia  or  Kentucky.  Until  1840,  Indiana  and 
southern  Illinois  were  distinctively  Southern  in  thought  and 
institutions.  The  Black  Swamp  protected  Indiana  from 
invasion  from  the  north  and  the  distance  of  the  inhabited 
parts  of  Illinois  from  the  southern  end  of  Lake  Michigan 
made  against  migration  by  way  of  the  Great  Lakes.2  The 

1  Harlow    Lindley's    "The    Quakers  *  S.   J.  Buck's  "The  New  England 

in  the  Old  Northwest"  in  Proceedings  Element     in     Illinois     Politics     before 

of    the    Mississippi    Valley    Historical  1833"     (Mississippi    Valley    Historical 

Association,     v,     60-72 ;      Stephen    B.  Association's  Proceedings,  vi,  49)  brings 

Weeks's  "Southern   Quakers   and  Sla-  together  with  abundant  citations  many 

very"   in     Johns     Hopkins    University  interesting   and   not   easily   get-at-able 

Studies,  extra  volume  xv,   ch.  x ;    the  facts  as   to   early   Illinois   population ; 

Annals  of  Newberry  by  J.  B.  O'Neall  and    the    map    accompanying    S.    A. 

and  J.  A.  Chapman  (Newberry,  S.  C.,  Mitchell's    Illinois    in    1837    provides 

1892)    specially   Part  ii,   §  i ;   and  Our  tangible     information     as     to     county 

Quaker    Friends    of     Ye    Olden     Time  lines,  canals,  towns,  etc. 
(Lynchburg,  Va.,  1905). 


1830)  RELIGIOUS  COMMUNITIES  63 

settlers  of  southern  Indiana  and  Illinois  had  none  of  the  anti- 
slavery  sentiments  of  the  Southern  settlers  of  Ohio.  Indeed, 
they  would  gladly  have  introduced  slavery  into  their  new 
homes  and  came  very  near  doing  so.1 

Apart  from  the  Northern  and  Southern  groups  that  have 
just  been  mentioned,  one  of  the  first  religious  communities  to 
appear  in  the  Western  country  after  1800 2  was  led  by  George 
Rapp,  a  Wiirtemberger,  who  had  lost  faith  in  Lutheranism, 
had  denounced  its  vices  and  corruptions,  and  had  found  it 
desirable  to  abandon  the  land  of  his  birth.  With  his 
followers  he  migrated  to  Pennsylvania  and  later  sought  the 
Wabash  Valley  in  Indiana.  There  they  established  a  home 
in  the  wilderness  which  they  named  Harmony ;  but  the  spot 
was  unhealthy.  In  1825  they  sold  out  their  farms  and  vil- 
lage to  Robert  Owen  and,  returning  to  Pennsylvania,  estab- 
lished the  town  of  Economy  on  the  Ohio  River  about  eigh- 
teen miles  from  Pittsburg.  The  Rappists  were  celibates 
and  communists  and  believed  that  the  second  coming  of 
Christ  and  the  end  of  the  world  were  so  near  that  they 
themselves  would  see  them.  Another  German  religious 
body  to  come  to  Pennsylvania  was  that  composed  of  the 
followers  of  Joseph  Bimeler  or  Baumeler.  He  also  was  a 
Wurtemberger  and  either  he  or  one  of  his  comrades  had 
warned  Napoleon  of  his  danger,  owing  to  the  multitude  of 
souls  he  was  hurrying  into  eternity.  Bimeler  and  his 

1  See    T.    C.    Pease's    The    Frontier  books  there  cited ;   and  also  J.  I.  Mom- 

State    (Centennial    History   of    Illinois,  bert's  Lancaster  County,  354-362 ;    and 

ii)   ch.  iv;    N.   D.   Harris's  History  of  Hinds's    American    Communities    (2nd 

Negro  Servitude  in  Illinois,  chs.  iii  and  ed.),    16-26.     For    the    Rappists,    see 

iv;    E.  B.  Washburne's  Sketch  of  Ed-  ibid.,  69-98,  and  the  books  cited  on  the 

ward  Coles,   61-198;    and  William  H.  latter    page;      and    especially    J.    H. 

Brown's    "Historical     Sketch    of    the  Bailsman's    Beaver     County,     Pennsyl- 

Early    Movement   in    Illinois    for    the  vania,  ii,   1004-1030;    and  also  G.  B. 

Legalization  of  Slavery"   (Fergus  His-  Lockwood's  The  New  Harmony  Moie- 

torical  Series,  No.  4).  merit,  7-42. 

*  For     the     earlier     German     com-  A  list  of  books  on  American  com- 
munities   in     Pennsylvania,     see     the  munities  is  in  note  to  ch.  zv,  below, 
present    work,    vol.    ii,    411,    and    the 


64  THE   WESTWARD   MARCH  [Cn.  II 

people  landed  at  Philadelphia  in  1817.  They  soon  moved 
to  Ohio,  calling  the  place  of  their  settlement  Zoar.  As 
was  the  case  with  the  Rappists,  communism  had  been  no  part 
of  the  original  scheme  of  Joseph  Bimeler ;  but  the  struggle 
with  the  wilderness  convinced  the  Zoarites  that  in  no  other 
way  could  they  succeed  in  keeping  body  and  soul  together. 
For  a  time,  too,  celibacy  was  the  rule,  but  later  on  marriage 
was  permitted. 

Another  communal  experiment  of  this  early  time  is  that 
which  is  associated  with  the  name  of  Robert  Owen.  He  was 
a  native  of  Wales  who  had  some  very  pronounced  theories 
as  to  property  and  modes  of  living.1  He  had  been  a  mill 
manager  in  Scotland  and  had  greatly  contributed  to  the 
success  of  the  establishment  in  his  charge  by  reducing  the 
hours  of  labor,  increasing  the  wages  of  the  operatives,  and 
providing  for  the  happiness  of  the  working  people.  At  one 
time  he  had  hit  upon  the  belief  that  the  way  to  cure  most 
of  the  evils  of  society  was  for  men  to  associate  together,  to 
eliminate  the  distributing  middleman,  but  otherwise  to  be 
free  to  work  out  their  own  salvations.  In  1820,  the  idea 
came  to  him  that  reason  indicated  the  grouping  of  human 
beings  into  villages  of  about  a  thousand  souls  apiece.  Each 
person  in  one  of  these  settlements  should  be  allotted  an 
acre  of  land  or  possibly  two  ;  families  should  live  separately 
in  contiguous  houses,  the  members  taking  their  meals  in  a 
common  dining-room.2  Individualism  would  disappear  and 
each  and  every  one  would  work  for  the  benefit  of  all.  Owen 
thought  that  his  plan  to  be  successful  should  be  tried  on  a 

'Duke   Bernard    of    Saxe    Weimar,  of  Robert  Owen   (London,   1871),  p.  4. 

on  the  occasion  of  Owen's  death,  wrote  R.     Owen    at    New     Lanark;  .  .  .  By 

that  his  wish  had  been   "to  renovate  One  formerly  a    Teacher  at  New  Lan- 

the  world,  to  extirpate  all  evil,  to  ban-  ark     contains   many   illustrative   anec- 

ish    all    punishments,    to    create    like  dotes  of  Owen's  early  life, 
views    and   like   wants,    and    to    guard  2  Owen's    Report    to    the    County    of 

against   all   conflicts   and   hostilities";  Lanark  (ed.  1821),  pp.  24-26. 
G.  J.  Holyoake's  Life  and  Last  Dayt 


1825]  NEW   HARMONY  65 

great  scale,  but  not  raising  the  necessary  funds,  he  decided 
to  try  it  on  a  small  scale.  He  bought  out  the  Rappist 
improvements  in  Indiana,  and  in  1825  he  led  his  colonists 
thither,  and  renamed  the  settlement  New  Harmony.  The 
course  of  life  there  ran  anything  but  smoothly  after  the 
first  few  months.  There  was  incessant  debating  and  con- 
stitution making,  but  very  little  labor.  In  1827,  the 
experiment  as  a  community  came  to  an  end,  but  most  of  the 
Owenites  remained  in  Indiana,  although  Robert  Owen, 
himself,  eventually  returned  to  England.1 

The  story  of  the  founding  and  early  days  of  any  one  of 
the  newer  States  is  merely  a  replica  of  that  of  western  New 
York,  western  Pennsylvania,  Kentucky,  or  Tennessee. 
When  New  Englanders  and  New  Yorkers  moved  to  the 
newer  country,  they  carried  with  them  their  churches, 
their  schools,  and  their  ideas  of  corporate  responsibility.2 
The  Southerners  in  their  migration  likewise  carried  to  their 
new  homes  their  strong  individualism  and  their  peculiar 
labor  institutions.  In  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  the  two 
sets  of  ideas  began  to  jostle  one  another  as  these  States 
received  more  Northern  immigrants.  For  a  time,  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  friction,  but  finally  a  conglomerate  in- 
stitutional fabric  was  worked  out  under  which  Southerner, 
Pennsylvanian,  and  Northerner  lived  together  side  by  side 
in  reasonable  harmony.  After  1850,  when  the  rapidly  grow- 
ing network  of  railroads  opened  the  "Middle  West"  to 
Northern  influences  and  Northern  markets,  the  old  North- 

1  For  Robert  Owen  and  his  experi-  ment  and  the  books  mentioned  on  p. 

ments,    see   his   Life    (1  vol.,  London,  381. 

1857)  by  himself  and  a  Supplementary  2  John  T.  Blois  (Gazetteer  of  the  State 
Appendix  (London,  1858) ;  W.  L.  of  Michigan,  157,  158)  says  that  of  the 
Sargent's  Robert  Owen  (London,  1860) ;  white  population  in  Michigan  in  1837, 
New  Views  of  Mr.  Owen  of  Lanark  the  greater  portion,  estimated  at 
(London,  1819) ;  Owen's  New  View  of  nearly  two-thirds,  is  from  New  Eng- 
Society  (3rd  ed.,  London,  1817)  ;  and  land  or  western  New  York,  or  is  corn- 
George  B.  Lockwood's  New  Harmony  posed  of  "New  Englanders  or  their 
Communities  and  New  Harmony  Morse-  descendants,  and  mostly  of  the  latter." 
VOL.  V. F 


66  THE  WESTWARD  MARCH 

west  rapidly  changed  its  political  and  social  alignment. 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin  had  no  Southern  elements  in  their 
populations,  but  both  of  them  in  the  40's  and  50's  were  to  be 
powerfully  influenced  by  bands  of  immigrants  from  Germany 
and  Scandinavia. 

The  perusal  of  diaries,  journals,  and  letters  written  by 
these  early  settlers  of  Transappalachia  convinces  one  of  the 
attachment  of  these  pioneers  to  the  homes  of  their  youth, 
and  to  the  ideals  of  the  communities  whence  they  came. 
The  direct  contact  with  nature  and  the  hardness  of  frontier 
life  brought  back  to  the  race  those  qualities  that  easier 
existence  seemed  to  have  softened.  As  the  Reverend  J.  D. 
Butler  of  Madison,  Wisconsin,  phrased  it  in  1870  :  "  Through 
a  change  of  base  men  secure  a  vantage-ground  for  a  new 
start  after  failure,  they  gain  a  fair  field  for  new  experiments, 
they  plunge  into  that  necessity  which  is  the  mother  of 
invention,  —  they  cast  off  in  their  long  march  valueless 
heirlooms,  mental  no  less  than  material,  —  they  are  roused 
to  the  utmost  endeavors  by  new  hopes,  new  havings,  new 
potentialities  of  progress."  1 

1 C.  K.  Williams's  Centennial   Cele-  these  new  conditions,   for  the  Ameri- 

bration    of   the    Settlement    of   Rutland,  can   people  is  now   and  has  been   for 

Vt.,    51.     It   is    remarkable    how    ev-  some  years  among  the  most  conserva- 

anescent    has    been    the    influence    of  tive  of  the  nations  of  the  earth. 


NOTES  67 

NOTES 

I.  Bibliography.  —  Professor    Frederick    Jackson    Turner's    The 

Frontier  in  American  History  (New  York,  1920)  is  by  far  the  best 
book  on  the  subject  and,  besides,  itself  is  an  embodiment  of  the 
pioneer  spirit.  Detailed  citations  are  given  in  the  footnotes  of  this 
book  and  also  in  Turner's  List  of  References  on  the  History  of  the  West, 
published  by  the  Harvard  University  Press,  and  in  the  later  sections 
of  Channing,  Hart,  and  Turner's  Guide  to  the  Study  and  Reading  of 
American  History.  When  he  was  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
Professor  Turner  broke  away  from  the  ordinary  path  of  American 
historical  endeavor  and  with  his  students  organized  the  study  of 
"  the  West "  on  a  new  basis.  In  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  and  in  other  publications,1  he  set  forth  his  ideas.  His 
students,  in  the  volume  of  "  Turner  Essays  " 2  and  in  separate  con- 
tributions, have  reinforced  their  master's  theories.  J.  W.  Monette's 
History  of  the  Discovery  and  Settlement  of  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi 
was  published  in  1846  ;3  it  contains  a  mass  of  information  and  reflects 
the  thoughts  of  an  early  inhabitant  of  that  part  of  the  country. 
James  Hall's  four  books  4  well  set  forth  the  condition  of  the  West 
at  about  the  same  date.  Lois  K.  Mathews's  Expansion  of  New 
England  treats  the  Northern  stream  of  migration  and  Ulrich  B. 
Phillips  in  his  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  the  Southern  Black  Belts  " 
in  American  Historical  Review,  xi,  798,  in  his  chapters  in  The  South 
in  the  Building  of  the  Nation,  and  in  his  History  of  Transportation 
in  the  Eastern  Cotton  Belt  has  done  excellent  work  for  the  Southern 

1  Among   them   may   be   mentioned  l  Essays  in  American  History  dedi- 

"The    Significance    of    the    Frontier"  cated     to     Frederick     Jackson     Turner 

in    American    Historical    Association's  (New  York,  1910). 
Report  for   1893   (reprinted  with  some  *  Two  articles  by  Monette,  one  on 

changes    in    Wisconsin    Historical    So-  "The     Progress    of     Navigation     and 

ciety's  Proceedings  for  December,  1893 ;  Commerce      on      the  .  .  .  Mississippi 

and  also   as  chapter  ii  of  C.   J.   Bui-  River    and    the    Great    Lakes,"     the 

lock's  Selected  Readings  in  Economics);  other    on    "The    Mississippi    Floods," 

"The   Significance   of   the    Mississippi  are  printed  in  the  Publications  of  the 

Valley  in  American  History"  (Mis-  Mississippi  Historical  Society,  vol.  vii. 
sissippi  Valley  Historical  Association's  4  Sketches  of  History,  Life,  and 

Proceedings   for    1909);     "The    Middle  Manners,  in  the   West   (2  vols.,   Phila- 

West"     (International     Monthly,     iv) ;  delphia,    1835) ;    Statistics  of  the  West 

and   "The  Colonization   of  the   West,  (Cincinnati,  1836);    Notes  on  the  We»t- 

1820-1830"    (American    Historical   Re-  ern   States    (Philadelphia,    1838);     and 

view,    xi,     303-327)     and    with    some  The  West:    its  Commerce  and  Naviga- 

changes  as  chapter  v  of  his  Rise  of  the  lion  (Cincinnati,  1848). 
New  West. 


68  THE   WESTWARD  MARCH 

part  of  the  movement.  Possibly  McMaster's  chapters  in  the  fourth, 
fifth,  and  sixth  volumes  of  his  History  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States  taken  together  form  the  best  bit  of  writing  on  the  subject  that 
has  been  done.  Among  the  isolated  monographic  works  the  best  are 
Solon  J.  Buck's  Illinois  in  1818  (Springfield,  111.,  1917);  George 
N.  Fuller's  Economic  and  Social  Beginnings  of  Michigan  (Michigan 
Historical  Publications,  University  Series,  vol.  i) ;  Frederick  Merk's 
Economic  History  of  Wisconsin  during  the  Civil  War  Decade  (Wis- 
consin Historical  Society's  Publications,  "  Studies,"  vol.  i)  and  the 
second  part  of  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites'  Wisconsin  in  the  "  American 
Commonwealth "  series.1  Almost  innumerable  works  of  travel, 
exploration,  and  trade  were  printed  or,  at  all  events,  written  about 
the  country  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Rockies  before  1846. 
A  mass  of  these  narratives  has  been  gathered  by  Thwaites  in  his  Early 
Western  Travels  (32  vols.)  and  by  H.  M.  Chittenden  in  The  American 
Fur  Trade  of  the  Far  West  (3  vols.).2  Besides,  there  are  books  without 
number:  county  histories,  family  histories,  town  histories,  remi- 
niscences, and  diaries.8  Each  state  has  its  historical  society  and  the 
Mississippi  Valley  Historical  Association  has  gathered  into  its  Proceed- 
ings and  into  the  Review,  that  is  published  under  its  auspices,  material 
that  is  necessary  for  the  student  of  this  portion  of  American  history. 
II.  Indian  Treaties.  —  The  treaties  made  with  the  Indians  relat- 
ing to  cessions  and  compensations  were  numbered  by  the  hundreds, 
most  of  them  since  1815.  They  are  calendared  and  the  geographical 
extent  of  the  cessions  noted  in  the  18th  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ameri- 
can Ethnology,  Pt.  ii.  The  treaties  themselves  were  printed  in  1826 
in  a  volume  entitled  Indian  Treaties,  and  Laws  and  Regulations  relating 
to  Indian  Affairs,  again  in  1837  in  Treaties  between  the  United  States 
of  America  and  the  several  Indian  Tribes,  from  1778  to  1837,  a  third 

1 W.  V.  Pooley's  "Settlement  of  'One  of  the  best  contemporary 
Illinois  from  1830  to  1850"  (Bulletin  descriptions  of  Western  life  is  Bay- 
of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  No.  nard  R.  Hall's  The  New  Purchase  : 
220)  and  B.  H.  Hibbard's  "History  or,  Seven  and  a  Half  Years  in  the  Far 
of  Agriculture  in  Dane  County"  in  West.  By  Robert  Carlton,  Esq.  (2 
ibid.,  Economic  Series,  i,  are  of  greater  vols.,  New  York,  1843).  Substan- 
value  and  wider  application  than  their  tially  the  same  material  was  pub- 
titles  indicate.  lished  in  one  volume  at  New  Albany, 

'Solon    J.    Buck's    bibliography    of  Indiana,   in    1855.     In    1916,    an    "In- 

Travel     and     Description,     1765-1865,  diana   Centennial   Edition"   edited   by 

forming  vol.  ix  of  the  Collections  of  the  J.     A.   Woodburn    was    published    at 

Illinois    State    Historical    Library,    is  Princeton,  N.  J. 
excellent  within  the  years  treated. 


INDIAN  TREATIES 


69 


time  in  volume  vii  of  the  Public  Statutes  at  Large  of  the  United  States 
and  in  1904,  in  Indian  A/airs.  Laws  and  Treaties,  edited  by  Charles 
J.  Kappler,  vol.  ii  (Senate  Document,  No.  319,  58th  Cong.,  2nd 
Sess.).  There  are  differences  in  the  text  of  the  treaties  as  printed  in 
these  several  publications,  and  some  treaties  are  in  one  and  not  in 
any  of  the  others.  The  whole  subject  of  Indian  relations  and  of  the 
United  States  Indian  factory  system  needs  careful  and  extended 
treatment.  Up  to  the  present  time,  Cyrus  Thomas's  "  Introduction  " 
to  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology's  volume  above  cited,  and  the  "  Table  of 
Contents  "  to  the  volume  of  1837  of  Indian  treaties  already  mentioned 
are  the  best  official  statements  of  the  Indian  relations,  but  chapters 
xiii  and  xv  in  M.  M.  Quaife's  Chicago  and  the  Old  Northwest  gives  one, 
perhaps,  the  best  insight  into  the  matter  that  can  be  had.  The 
official  story  down  to  1826  as  told  in  documents  is  in  the  two  volumes 
of  American  State  Papers,  Indian  Affairs. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   URBAN  MIGRATION 

THE  westward  movement  forms  a  distinct  picture  in  our 
annals.  No  less  distinct,  but  much  less  known,  is  the  rise 
of  manufacturing  and  commercial  cities  and  towns,  princi- 
pally in  the  Northeast,  and  the  development  therein  of 
classes  and  of  an  industrial  social  system.  The  more 
venturesome  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  settled  popu- 
lation of  the  seaboard  sought  the  fertile  farming  lands  of  the 
West ;  others,  of  a  mechanical  turn  of  mind,  or  ambitious 
of  gain,  or  addicted  to  books,  found  employment  in  the 
factories,  countinghouses,  and  shops  in  the  cities  and  towns 
that  came  into  being  as  part  of  the  new  industrial  movement 
or  that  grew  out  of  some  demand  connected  with  the  dis- 
tribution of  agricultural  or  mechanical  products.  The 
settlement  of  the  West  was  a  dispersion  of  families  over  a 
great  space  of  territory  ;  the  building  up  of  the  cities  of  the 
Northeast  was  the  concentration  of  men  and  women  in 
limited  areas.1  As  the  latter  development  progressed  the 

1  New  England  towns  grew  or  de-  volume.     Samuel     Forbes  of   Canaan, 

clined    in    most    astonishing    fashion.  Litchfield    County,     Connecticut,    was 

Oftentimes    the    territorial    extent    of  an  admirable  example  of  a  New  Eng- 

a  town  would  diminish,  but  the  popu-  lander   of   diversified   modes   of   bread 

lation    would    increase    owing    to    the  winning.     He  was  one  of  the  earliest 

establishment  of  some  industry.     An-  iron    masters    in    the    United    States, 

other  town  might  lose   almost  all   its  kept  a   flourishing   general   store,    and 

inhabitants    owing    to     some    sudden  loaned   money   to   his  neighbors.     Dr. 

migration    of    industry    and    workers.  Percy  W.  Bidwell's  essay    on   "  Rural 

About   all    that   can    be   said   is   that,  Economy   in   New   England   in    1800" 

in    general,    agriculture    declined    and  (Transactions      of      the      Connecticut 

manufacturing   increased   in   the   older  Academy    of    Arts    and    Sciences,    xx, 

settled     parts     of     the     Northeastern  241-399)    gives    an    admirable    picture 

States   in    the    years    covered    in    this  of  the  conditions  of  life  in   that  sec- 

70 


THE   TOWNS  71 

demand  for  clerks  and  shop  hands  in  the  commercial  service, 
for  operatives  in  the  factories,  and  for  domestic  help  in 
the  household  became  stronger  and  stronger.1  This  in- 
crease of  the  farming  area  and  this  building  up  of  centres  of 
commerce  and  manufacture  depended  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  transportation  and  this  in  turn  created  a  demand 
for  labor;  but  the  steamboat  and  the  railroad  made  it 
possible  to  feed,  house,  and  warm  large  groups  of  people  in 
contracted  spaces.  At  the  same  time  the  constantly 
broadening  market  for  manufactured  goods  and  the  in- 
creasing area  from  which  the  manufacturer  could  draw  his 
supply  of  raw  material  rapidly  led  to  manufacturing  in  larger 
units  and  thereby  separated  the  owner  and  manager  from 
the  working  men  and  women.  The  growing  ease  of  move- 
ment also  tended  to  make  labor  mobile :  on  the  one  hand, 
the  worker  could  go  from  place  to  place ;  on  the  other  hand, 
any  particular  body  of  workers  became  liable  to  an  inun- 
dation from  outside  of  those  who  were  as  skilled  as  them- 
selves or  could  become  so  after  short  periods  of  instruction. 
The  revival  of  immigration  from  Europe  also  provided  the 
manufacturers  with  operatives  who  oftentimes  were  more 
skilful  than  the  native  American  and  were  accustomed  to 
work  for  smaller  compensation.  Not  infrequently  groups 
of  these  workers  were  imported  from  Great  Britain  to  aid 
in  the  establishment  of  some  new  manufacturing  industry, 
or  to  provide  a  supply  of  cheaper  labor,  —  and  these  also 
brought  to  their  new  homes  the  social  prejudices  and 
theories  of  their  old  places  of  habitation. 

tion  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  era.  Morgan's  Connecticut  as  a  Colony  and 

A  more  definite  picture  of  the  old  life  as  a  State,  iii,  bring  the  facts  together 

can  be  obtained  from  a  perusal  of  the  in  a  convenient  form, 

opening    pages    of    W.     H.     Francis's  l  The  Columbian  Centinel  of  Boston 

History  of  the  Hatting   Trade  in  Dan-  for   July   29,    1809,  has   an    advertise- 

bury.    Conn.  (1860),  which   practically  ment   of   an    "Intelligence   Office"    at 

is  repeated  in  Bailey's  History  of  Dan-  number  10  State  Street. 
bury,  ch.  xxxi.     Three  chapters  in  P. 


72  THE  URBAN  MIGRATION  [Ca.  Ill 

According  to  the  above  analysis,  the  rise  of  manufacturing 
in  the  United  States  depended  upon  mechanical  inventions 
that  were  common  to  Western  Europe  and  the  United 
States  and  to  the  development  of  transportation  facilities 
in  America  and  throughout  the  world.  In  those  days, 
government  protection  through  the  tariff  was  regarded 
as  an  important  element  in  the  successful  operation  of 
American  mills  and  of  other  manufacturing  establishments 
where  handworkers  were  employed  in  great  numbers  in 
proportion  to  the  total  product.1  Imposts  had  been  laid 
upon  foreign  manufactures  ever  since  the  formation  of  the 
government  under  the  Constitution;  but  they  had  not 
amounted  to  much  in  the  way  of  protection.  The  embargo 
of  1808,  the  commercial  war  that  followed  it,2  and  the  armed 
conflict  that  succeeded  had  provided  a  very  efficient  stimulus 
to  the  establishment  of  industries.  After  the  close  of  the 
war,  Congress  sought  to  limit  the  influx  of  goods  from  out- 
side by  the  passage  of  the  Tariff  Act  of  1816.  This  law  was 
followed  by  others  in  1824,  1828,  1832,  and  1833.  This  last 
act  provided  that  the  duties  then  levied  by  law  should  be 
gradually  reduced  during  a  period  of  ten  years.  In  1842, 
however,  the  condition  of  the  treasury  made  more  revenue 
necessary  and  the  tariff  was  again  increased  to  be  lessened 

1  By  1816,  even  Jefferson  had  begun  James  Monroe  (Philadelphia,  1818),  p. 

to    believe    that    some    encouragement  61. 

was  necessary  to  build  up  the  maim-  A  good  protective  argument  is  J.  S. 

factures     of     the     United     States :  —  Young's  Address  to  Congress  on  the  Pro- 

" Experience  has  taught  me,"  he  wrote,  lection  of  American  Labor  (Portsmouth, 

"that  manufactures  are  now  as  neces-  N.  H.,  1849). 

sary    to   our   independence   as   to   our  The   "Tariff  Acts"    are   printed   at 

comfort."      Jefferson's    Writings    (Me-  length  in  Senate  Report  No.  2130,  51st 

morial  ed.),  xiv,  392;    also  quoted  in  Cong.,   2nd    Sess.  and  in  House  Docu- 

The   Soundness   of  the   Policy   of  Pro-  ment  No.    562,   55th  Cong.,   2nd  Sess. 

tecting   Domestic    Manufactures,    issued  For  a  modern  statement  of  the  facts  see 

by    the    Philadelphia    Society    for    the  Frank  W.  Taussig's   Tariff  History  of 

Promotion  of  American  Manufactures,  the  United  States  (6th  ed.,  New  York 

in    1817.      See    also    Jefferson's   letter  and  London,  1914). 
to   D.   Lynch,   Jr.,   of  June  26,   1817,  2  See    the    present    work,    vol.    iv, 

in    A    Narrative    of   a    Tour    .  .  .    by  ch.  xiv. 


1824]  THE   TARIFF  73 

in  1846.  Some  manufacturers  and  some  students  main- 
tained in  those  days  and  have  ever  since,  that  special  duties 
were  necessary  to  equalize  the  cost  of  high-priced  American 
operatives  and  the  "pauper  labor"  of  Europe.  Others 
have  argued  that  this  end  would  be  more  certainly  gained  by 
stimulating  American  invention  and  efficiency  of  operation 
by  the  exposure  of  American  industry  to  active  competition 
from  outside.  Fortunately,  it  is  no  part  of  the  historian's 
duty  to  determine  which  of  these  two  views  is  correct,  or 
how  much  or  how  little  of  truth  there  was  —  and  is  —  in 
either  of  them,  because  down  to  1850  there  was  not  enough 
fixity  to  tariff  legislation  to  do  much  in  the  way  of  building 
up  manufacturing  industry.  Moreover,  there  were  many 
other  factors  that  exercised  an  unquestionable  influence 
on  manufacturing.  One  of  these  was  the  abundance  or  the 
lack  of  loanable  capital  in  America  and  Europe  that  accom- 
panied eras  of  prosperity  or  rising  prices,  or  eras  of  depression 
or  falling  prices,  —  for  industry  on  a  large  scale  can  be 
carried  on  only  by  the  use  of  borrowed  funds.  With  much 
of  the  ups  and  downs  in  the  demand  for  manufactured 
goods  and  abundance  or  dearth  of  capital,  conditions  in 
America  and  the  precise  percentage  of  "protection"  had 
next  to  nothing  to  do.  Iron  and  textiles  were  the  most  im- 
portant manufacturing  industries  at  that  time.  The 
development  of  the  iron  industry  grew  out  of  the  new  and 
urgent  demands  that  were  created  by  the  new  methods  of 
transportation  and  by  the  introduction  of  machinery 
actuated  by  water  or  steam  power  in  the  new  mills  and 
factories.  It  is  much  more  difficult  to  account  for  the 
enormous  growth  of  the  textile  industry  because  the  yardage 
of  manufactured  cloth  increased  out  of  proportion  to  the 
growth  of  population,  —  and  the  amount  of  cotton  cloth 
exported  was  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  total  production. 


74  THE   URBAN   MIGRATION  [CH.  Ill 

It  would  seem  probable  in  this  instance  as  in  many  others 
that  the  supply  of  cheap  and  attractive  fabrics  created  a 
demand.  The  same  thing  is  true  as  to  innumerable  small 
articles  of  utility,  convenience,  or  ornament,  —  their  pro- 
duction on  a  large  scale  and  at  low  cost  created  a  demand 
that  had  hitherto  been  lacking  or  dormant.  Bearing  in 
mind  all  these  considerations,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what 
effect,  if  any,  was  produced  by  an  ever-changing  protective 
policy. 

The  impulse  to  manufacturing  was  general  throughout 
the  country,  —  Southerners  and  Westerners  were  as  anxious 
to  partake  of  the  benefits  of  the  new  movement  as  were 
the  Northeasterners.  In  the  South,  factories  were  estab- 
lished at  Richmond,  Spartansburg,  Columbia,  Atlanta, 
Natchez,  and  at  many  other  places.  The  extent  and 
development  of  manufacturing  in  that  section,  apart  from 
bare  statements  like  the  above,  are  -impossible  to  discover 
and  describe  owing  to  the  absence  of  printed  records  and 
reports  and  to  the  destruction  of  quantities  of  manuscript 
material  in  the  course  of  the  War  for  Southern  Independence. 
In  itself  there  would  seem  to  be  no  reason  why  manufactur- 
ing should  not  have  flourished  there  in  slavery  days  as  it 
undoubtedly  has  prospered  in  the  years  of  freedom.  It  has 
often  been  said  that  slavery  and  manufacturing  could  not 
live  together,  but  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  good  reason 
for  this  opinion.  In  the  States  where  slavery  existed  in  a 
non-intensive  form,  it  was  no  uncommon  thing  for  the 
poorer  planters,  or  farmers,  owning  only  a  few  slaves  to 
work  with  them  in  the  field.  Possibly  free  whites  and  black 
slaves  could  not  work  together  in  a  textile  factory,  but 
surely  the  slaves  might  have  done  the  hard  labor  while  the 
whites  tended  the  machinery,  —  the  two  sets  of  workers 
being  in  separate  parts  of  a  building  or  in  different  buildings. 


1830]  SOUTHERN   MANUFACTURING  75 

[n  iron  manufacturing,  negro  slaves  certainly  were  used. 
The  payroll  of  the  Tredegar  Iron  Works  at  Richmond  indi- 
cates the  employment  of  several  hundred  negroes ; l  and 
the  negroes  belonging  to  the  Nesbitt  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany 2  of  South  Carolina  brought  seventy-five  thousand 
dollars  at  a  sale  of  the  company's  assets.  Probably  it  was 
not  the  existence  of  slave  labor  that  interfered  with  the 
prosperity  of  Southern  manufacturing ;  it  was  the  fact  that 
there  was  more  than  ample  employment  for  all  Southern 
capital  in  the  cultivation  of  the  cotton  plant. 

Iron  had  been  worked  up  in  Virginia  from  an  early  time 
and  in  1800,  there  were  several  furnaces  and  forges  in  opera- 
tion in  the  Old  Dominion.  Coal  was  also  mined  near  Rich- 
mond. It  was  not  until  the  establishment  of  the  Tredegar 
works  at  that  place  that  iron  manufacturing  beyond  the 
rougher  stages  was  carried  on  on  a  commercial  scale.  Those 
works  went  on  prospering  through  the  decades  and  in  the  War 
proved  to  be  of  great  utility  to  the  Confederacy.  The 
Nesbitt  Company  was  a  South  Carolina  corporation  that 
numbered  among  its  stockholders  some  of  the  most  prom- 
inent men  of  that  State.  It  owned  valuable  beds  of  iron, 
scattered  over  some  eight  thousand  acres  of  land ;  and  also 
possessed  water  power,  limestone,  and  forested  tracts. 
The  company  procured  machinery  and  workmen  from  New 
York  and  arranged  to  borrow  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
from  the  Bank  of  South  Carolina,  but  it  seems  never  to 
have  had  the  use  of  the  full  amount,  owing  to  the  financing 
of  the  Louisville,  Cincinnati,  and  Charleston  Railroad 
Company  of  South  Carolina  by  the  State  through  the  bank. 
Owing  to  various  difficulties,  among  which  were  trans- 

1  Miss    Kathleen    E.     Bruce    very  *  A    Compilation    of    Att    the    Actt 

kindly  placed  at  my  disposal  the  notes  ...  in  Relation  to  the  Bank  of  the  State 

of    her    research    on    the   Iron    Manu-  of  South  Carolina,  297. 
lacture  in  Virginia. 


76  THE   URBAN   MIGRATION  [On.  Ill 

portation  troubles  and  the  impossibility  of  securing  skilled 
workmen,  the  company  could  not  repay  the  money  that  it 
had  received  and  mortgaged  its  lands,  buildings,  and  one 
hundred  of  its  most  valuable  slaves  through  the  bank,  and 
later  all  its  property  was  put  up  at  auction  and  bid  in  for 
one  hundred  and  twenty-four  thousand  dollars,  three-fifths 
of  the  assets  being  scheduled  as  negroes.  It  appears  in  this 
case  as  in  the  case  of  other  Southern  manufacturing  and 
transportation  corporations,  subscribers  to  the  capital  stock 
oftentimes  paid  in  the  form  of  slaves,1  and  it  may  be  that 
the  fact  that  three-fifths  of  the  capital  stock  of  the  company 
was  invested  in  labor  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  its 
lack  of  success.  After  the  sale  a  new  corporation  was 
formed  which  agreed  to  pay  seven  per  cent  on  the  loan  an- 
nually for  five  years,  and  thereafter  to  pay  one-fifth  of  the 
debt  yearly  until  the  entire  amount  was  paid ;  but  what 
happened  to  the  Nesbitt  Company  after  that  is  unknown.2 
Very  little  has  been  written  about  early  Southern  cotton 
mills.  Half  a  dozen  or  so  were  in  operation  in  1825  and  at 
one  time  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of  enthusiasm  created 
over  the  establishment  of  cotton  mills  near  the  cotton  fields. 
There  was  abundant  labor  of  the  same  class  of  poor  whites 
that  formed  the  mainstay  of  the  later  mills  in  their  earlier 
years.  It  is  said  that  no  mill  that  was  founded  in  the  South 
before  1826  was  financially  successful  and  after  1830,3  the 
advocacy  of  manufacturing  in  the  Cotton  States  was  looked 
upon  locally  as  more  or  less  treasonable  in  that  it  implied 
some  slight  belief  in  tariff  and  the  rightfulness  of  protection. 

1  From  the  "Elmore  Manuscripts"  in  Relation  to  the  Bank  of  the  State  of 

it     appears     that     shareholders     con-  South  Carolina,  541-544,  643. 
tributed  negro   slaves   to   the   Nesbitt  3  See   Victor   S.    Clark's   History   of 

Company    instead    of    money    to    the  Manufactures    in    the     United     States, 

total    amount   of   $34,000, — forgemen  1607-1860;      August     Kohn's     Cotton 

being  valued  at  $2500  and  blacksmiths  Mitts    of    South    Carolina    (Columbia, 

at  $2000.  S.  C.,  1907);    Robert  Mills's  Statistics 

1  A  Compilation  of  all  the  Act*  ...  of  South  Carolina. 


1830]  WESTERN   MANUFACTURING  77 

In  the  Northwest,  in  the  country  beyond  the  Pennsylvania 
boundary  line,  manufacturing  had  been  begun  in  the  towns 
on  the  Ohio  River  and  its  affluents.  The  cost  of  transpor- 
tation to  and  from  the  Eastern  commercial  cities  was  well 
nigh  prohibitive :  Cincinnati  people  paid  about  double 
Philadelphia  prices  for  manufactured  goods  and  were 
obliged  to  sell  their  flour  and  pork  for  about  one-half  the 
amount  those  commodities  would  bring  at  Philadelphia 
and  Baltimore,  owing  to  the  high  freights  by  way  of  the 
New  Orleans  route.1  The  saying  was  that  it  required  four 
bushels  of  corn  to  buy  at  Cincinnati  what  one  bushel  would 
purchase  at  Philadelphia.  It  was  under  these  circumstances 
that  saw  mills  were  erected  for  fashioning  the  material  for 
frame  houses,  grist  mills  for  grinding  wheat  and  corn  grown 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  mills  for  spinning  wool  and  weav- 
ing cloth.  There  were  also  some  factories  for  working  up 
iron,  many  breweries,  and  a  few  distilleries.  In  1810,  the 
prospect  of  disseminated  manufacturing  in  the  Western 
country  was  very  good ;  but  road,  canal,  steamboat,  and 
locomotive  brought  the  high-priced  labor  of  the  newly 
settled  country  into  competition  with  the  lower-priced  labor 
of  the  Northeast  with  the  result  that  the  budding  manu- 
factures of  the  Western  country  either  died  or  experienced 
a  very  slow  development. 

Manufacturing  began  in  the  Northeast  at  the  very  earliest 
time  and  progressed  through  the  colonial  and  Revolutionary 
periods,  practically  without  a  break.  After  the  Revolution, 
when  reports  of  the  new  English  manufacturing  processes 
began  to  reach  the  country,  efforts  were  made  to  reproduce 
them  in  America  and  make  the  United  States  independent 
of  the  Old  World.  Hamilton  and  Duer  were  at  the  head  of 

1  These  statements  are  taken  from  a  (xii,  768).  He  cites  two  local  papers, 
valuable  article  by  F.  P.  Goodwin  Liberty  Hatt  and  the  Western  Spy,  &e 
in  the  American  Historical  Review  his  authorities. 


78  THE  URBAN  MIGRATION  [Cn.  Ill 

what  was  to  be  a  great  manufacturing  enterprise  in  New 
Jersey ;  on  the  Hudson  there  were  active  iron  factories  and 
in  Pennsylvania  and  Connecticut  there  were  many  others. 
Woollen  mills  and  cotton  mills  were  in  operation  in  all  of 
these  States  and  also  in  Rhode  Island.  There  were  many 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  successful  prosecution  of  these 
designs.  There  was  lack  of  capital,  lack  of  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  modern  machinery,  very  little  skilled  labor,  and 
great  difficulty  in  procuring  raw  material.  It  appears  in  the 
case  of  a  Hartford  mill  that  the  cost  of  the  cleaning  and  prep- 
aration of  the  wool  for  the  spinning  machines  frequently  de- 
stroyed the  profits.  Indeed,  one  manufacturing  enterprise 
after  another  was  established,  only  to  fall  a  victim  to  one 
or  more  of  these  adverse  factors.  The  founding  of  the 
modern  textile  business  was  due  to  Samuel  Slater,1  an  Eng- 
lishman, and  Francis  Cabot  Lowell,  an  American.  They 
practically  reinvented  the  machinery  with  which  Slater  had 
been  familiar  in  the  old  country  and  which  Lowell  had  ex- 
amined there,  while  on  a  visit.  The  Jeffersonian  commercial 
policy  and  Madison's  War  of  1812  gave  American  spinners 
and  weavers  their  first  great  opportunity,  but  it  was  not 
until  the  1820's  that  the  American  textile  industry  really 
began  its  successful  career.  Thereafter,  there  were  many 
serious  setbacks  due  in  great  measure  to  financial  dis- 
turbances throughout  the  world,  but  taking  year  in  and 
year  out  there  was  a  constant  development.  The  "Census" 
of  1840  gives  a  rough  idea  of  the  progress  of  manufacturing 
in  the  United  States ;  according  to  this  there  were  nearly 
eight  hundred  thousand  people  employed  in  it  and  they 
produced  about  two  hundred  and  forty  million  dollars'  worth 
of  commodities  in  one  year.2  It  is  noteworthy  that  New 

1  George     S.      White's     Memoir     of  '  George    Tucker's    Progress    of   the 

Samuel  Slater,  71-78 ;  and  see  the  United  States  in  Population  and  Wealth 
present  work,  vol.  iii,  423  and  fol.  (1st  ed.,  pp.  137,  195). 


1830]  WESTERN   CITIES  79 

England  and  the  Middle  States  had  about  two-thirds  of  the 
total  number  of  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing  and  pro- 
duced nearly  four-fifths  of  the  total  value  of  commodities 
made  in  the  United  States.  Furthermore,  it  is  signifi- 
cant that  of  the  rest  of  the  country,  the  Northwestern  section 
produced  more  than  the  Southern  and  Southwestern  sec- 
tions put  together. 

The  growth  of  commercial  and  manufacturing  cities  and 
towns  was  phenomenal  in  these  years.  In  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  there  were  New  Orleans,  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati, 
Louisville,  and  Pittsburg,  to  which  might  be  added  Mobile 
although  that  town  is  not  within  the  limits  of  the 
Mississippi  watershed.  The  introduction  of  steam  navi- 
gation on  the  Mississippi  and  its  affluents  built  up  the  busi- 
ness of  New  Orleans,  which  became  a  distributing  centre 
for  imports,  as  well  as  a  place  of  concentration  for  up-river 
products  designed  for  exportation.  New  Orleans  also 
shared  with  Mobile  in  forwarding  the  cotton  grown  on  the 
rich  lands  of  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  and  it  handled  great 
quantities  of  tobacco  from  Kentucky  and  of  sugar  from 
Louisiana.  To  New  Orleans  also  came  immigrants  from 
Europe  bound  for  Texas,  or  for  points  up  the  Mississippi. 
St.  Louis  was  the  centre  of  the  mid-Mississippi  commerce 
and  of  the  fur  trade  of  the  western  country  except  that  which 
found  an  outlet  through  Canada.  It  also  was  the  shipping 
point  for  the  products  of  the  lead  mines  of  the  upper  river 
and  was  the  centre  of  the  steamboat  traffic  engaged  in 
collecting  the  grain  and  hog  products  from  the  shipping 
ports  of  the  Mississippi  and  its  navigable  affluents.  Cin- 
cinnati and  Louisville  performed  similar  functions  for  the 
Ohio.  The  importance  of  these  four  centres  of  river  steam- 
boat traffic  in  the  thirty  years  before  1850  can  hardly  be 
overstated,  for  in  those  years  practically  all  the  commerce 


80  THE   URBAN  MIGRATION  [Cn.  Ill 

of  the  Mississippi  Valley  gained  access  to  the  outer  world 
by  way  of  New  Orleans  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Mobile 
was  almost  entirely  dependent  upon  cotton  for  its  commercial 
life  and  its  period  of  great  prosperity  did  not  begin  until  the 
opening  of  the  Indian  lands  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi 
provided  fields  of  great  richness  for  the  cotton  planter. 

Pittsburg  has  a  most  astounding  history.1  Politically, 
it  belongs  to  Pennsylvania  and  the  East,  but  geographically 
it  is  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  standing  at  the  edge  of  the 
mountains  that  separate  the  Atlantic  seaboard  from  the 
interior  basin.  The  National  Road  reached  the  Ohio  River 
at  Wheeling  in  western  Virginia,  but  the  steamboat  traffic 
of  the  river  still  made  its  headquarters  at  Pittsburg.  The 
Portage  Railway  connected  it  with  Philadelphia  and  other 
routes  gave  it  access  to  the  Genesee  Valley  and  the  Erie 
Canal.  It  was  inevitable  that  manufacturing  should  begin 
at  an  early  date  in  such  a  centre  of  human  effort,  and  grist 
mills,  wood-working  establishments,  and  distilleries  were 
founded  there  or  in  the  vicinity  at  an  early  time.  Pittsburg 
stands  in  a  region  rich  almost  beyond  comparison  in  coal 
and  iron.  In  1803  Zadok  Cramer  stated  that  upwards  of 
$350,000  worth  of  manufactured  articles  were  made  at 
Pittsburg  in  one  year.  Of  this  amount  $56,000  represented 
manufactures  of  iron  ranging  from  axes  to  cowbells;  an- 
other $13,000  was  given  as  the  value  of  manufactured 
glass,  some  of  which  was  said  to  be  equal  to  any  cut  in  the 
states  of  Europe.  Then  there  were  nine  hundred  barrels 
of  beer  and  porter,  five  thousand  pairs  of  shoes,  "segars, 
snuff,  and  pig  tail  tobacco"  to  the  amount  of  $3000,  five 
thousand  yards  of  striped  cotton  and  ninety  dozen  chip 

1  See    J.    N.    Boucher's    A   Century  of    a    Tour,    ch.    xxxvii.     I.    Harris's 

and  a  Half  of  Pittsburg,  i,  chs.  xxi  and  Pittsburgh   Business   Directory,   for   the 

fol.,   and  the  books  cited  therein,   es-  Year  1837  gives  a  complete  picture  of 

pecially    Fortescue    Cuming's   Sketches  the  town  at  that  time. 


1830]  PITTSBURG  81 

hats.1  Even  in  1807  the  Pittsburg  atmosphere  was  de- 
scribed as  filled  with  soot.  Anne  Royall,  that  notorious, 
early,  strong-minded  female,  visited  Pittsburg  in  1828  and 
gave  a  most  interesting  account  of  the  town  and  its  people.2 
She  was  greatly  impressed  with  "the  polite,  chaste  and 
gentlemanly  deportment  of  her  [Pittsburg]  workmen  and 
mechanics  .  .  .  they,  as  a  body,  are  the  only  gentlemen 
in  the  city."  She  devotes  thirty-eight  pages  to  describing 
Pittsburg  factories,  including  those  in  what  were  then  the 
suburbs  of  Birmingham  and  Manchester.  She  spent  two 
weeks  wandering  around  them.  It  is  quite  evident  that  the 
growth  since  1803  had  been  very  great,  although  it  is  im- 
possible to  state  any  comparative  figures  from  her  descrip- 
tion. It  appears,  however,  that  the  value  of  the  castings 
made  by  the  Pittsburg  Foundry  in  1828  was  approximately 
as  much  as  the  value  of  all  similar  products  turned  out  in 
the  city  in  1803.  In  1850  Samuel  Fahnestock  estimated 
the  total  business  of  Pittsburg,  —  manufacturing  and  for- 
warding—to "not  fall  short  of  $50,000,000  annually."3 
There  were  then  thirteen  rolling  mills,  thirty  large  foundries, 
five  cotton  factories,  eight  glass  factories  besides  countless 
other  establishments  of  one  sort  or  another,  —  and  yet 
Pittsburg  was  only  at  the  threshold  of  her  career. 

Of  cities  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  —  and  of  the  country  as 

1 G.    H.    Thurston's    Pittsburgh    As  Royall  are :    The  Black  Book ;   Southern 

It  Is   [1857],  p.  81,   quoting   Cramer's  Tour,    or    Second    Series    of   the   Black 

Almanack  for   1804.     An  enumeration  Book    giving    descriptions    of    Wash- 

of    the    manufactures    in    1810    is    in  ington  society  in  the  Jacksonian  time ; 

Cramer's    Navigator    (9th   ed.),    P-    53  Letters  from    Alabama;     and    Sketches 

and  fol.     A  table  of  manufactures  in  of  History,  Life,  and  Manners,  in  the 

1818    is    in    Fearon's    Sketches,    205.  United    States.     S.     H.    Porter's    Life 

Charles     W.      Dahlinger's     Pittsburgh  and  Times  of  Anne  Royall  giveo  a  not 

.  .  .  Its  Early  Social  Life  (New   York,  uninteresting    sketch    of    this    woman, 

1916)    is    a    readable    account    of    the  who  was  greatly  and  justly  feared  by 

early   development   of   the   town   with  her  contemporaries, 
matter  quoted  from  newspapers.  *  N.    B.    Craig's    History    of    Pitts- 

1  Mrs.     Royall' s     Pennsylvania,     or  burgh,  311.     See  also  J.  N.  Boucher's 

Travels  Continued  in  the  United  States,  Century  and  a   Half  of  Pittsburg  and 

i,     48-132.     Other     works     by     Mrs.  her  People,  i,  ch.  rtv. 


VOL.  v.  —  a 


82 


THE   URBAN  MIGRATION 


[On.  Ill 


a  whole  —  New  York  stood  foremost  in  1850.  The  Revolu- 
tion left  it  in  distinctly  a  second  place,  being  inferior  to 
Philadelphia  in  population  and  in  business.  At  once  its 
period  of  phenomenal  growth  began.1  It  grew  faster  than 
Boston  or  Philadelphia  and  soon  outstripped  them  in 
population  and  commerce  and,  later,  it  exceeded  Philadelphia 
in  manufacturing.  Then  came  the  Erie  Canal,  tremendously 
accentuating  New  York's  commercial  business.  By  1830 
it  had  acquired  the  incontestable  primacy  in  population 
and  wealth,  and  had  grown  from  a  small  town  on  the 
southern  end  of  Manhattan  Island  to  occupy  about  one- 
fifth  of  its  present  area.  As  the  century  advanced  New 
York  absorbed  more  and  more  of  the  distributing  business  of 
the  Northeast.  It  became  an  American  counterpart  of 
Liverpool  as  a  collecting  and  forwarding  commercial  centre. 
It  is  inevitable  that  when  a  town  gains  a  certain  commercial 
position,  it  absorbs  to  itself  business  that  had  formerly 
belonged  to  its  rivals,  at  first  those  near  by  and  then  slowly 
those  farther  and  farther  off.  Commerce  is  attracted  to  such 
a  port  by  the  certainties  of  securing  conveyance  to  the 
destination ;  vessels,  railroads,  and  steamboats  likewise  seek 
it  because  of  the  certainty  of  freight  money  both  ways. 
Finally,  such  a  centre  of  commerce,  manufacturing,  and 

JThe  Census  of  1850  (p.  lii)  shows  the  growth  of  leading  cities  :  — 


CITIES 

1790 

1800 

1810 

1820 

1830 

1840 

1860 

Boston    . 

18,038 

24,937 

33,250 

43,298 

61,392 

93,383 

136,881 

New  York 

33,131 

60,489 

96,373 

123,706 

202,589 

312,710 

515,547 

Philadelphia 

42,520 

69,403 

91,874 

112,772 

161,410 

220,423 

340,045 

Baltimore 

13,503 

26,114 

35,583 

62,738 

80,625 

102,313 

169,054 

Charleston 

16,359 

20,473 

24,711 

24,780 

30,289 

29,261 

42,985 

Mobile     . 

1,500 

3,194 

12,672 

20,515 

New  Orleans 

17,242 

27,176 

46,310 

102,193 

116,375 

For  other  estimates,  see  Tucker's  Progress,  128,  and  Census  of  1880,  vol.  ii, 
"Manufactures,"  p.  xxii,  and  below,  p.  411  n. 


1830]  NEW  YORK  83 

distribution  becomes  naturally  a  centre  of  finance,  and 
New  York  from  about  1840  distinctly  assumes  the  position 
in  America  which  before  that  time  had  been  held  by  Phil- 
adelphia. The  accumulated  wealth  of  New  York  had  be- 
come very  great  compared  with  Philadelphia  and  Boston 
and  the  other  cities  on  the  seaboard.  But  when  one  speaks 
of  it  as  the  financial  centre  of  the  country,  one  means  that 
the  business  of  collecting  funds  —  money  and  credit  —  and 
exchanging  them  for  commodities  and  labor  all  over  the 
United  States  centred  at  that  point.  Philadelphia  and 
Baltimore  grew  steadily.  Each  of  them  made  great  efforts 
to  retain  the  business  that  had  once  been  theirs.  In  a 
measure  they  succeeded  in  extending  their  influence  into 
that  part  of  the  western  country  that  was  not  distinctly 
tributary  to  the  Great  Lakes,  the  Erie  Canal,  and  New 
York  City;  but  it  was  not  until  after  1850,  when  railroad 
connection  was  made  between  those  seaports  and  the  Middle 
West,  that  they  were  able  to  divert  much  of  the  western 
trade  from  New  York  and  New  Orleans  to  their  own  wharves 
and  warehouses.  Boston  found  itself  seriously  menaced  by 
the  commercial  augmentation  of  New  York  and  the  utmost 
that  it  could  do  only  deferred  the  loss  of  ocean-borne  com- 
merce. The  New  Englanders,  thereupon,  turned  their 
abundant  capital  and  energy  into  other  directions.  They 
built  up  great  manufacturing  enterprises  and  handled  most 
of  the  commerce  dependent  on  them;  but  as  the  years 
went  by  the  tendency  grew  more  and  more  to  concentrate 
the  commission  and  forwarding  business  of  New  England 
at  New  York. 

The  story  of  the  old  colonial  towns  of  the  South  is  a 
melancholy  one.  Williamsburg  almost  disappeared,  but 
Richmond,  owing  to  its  nearness  to  coal  and  iron,  not  only 
kept  its  place,  but  slowly  developed  although  the  project 


84  THE  URBAN  MIGRATION  [Cn.  Ill 

of  making  it  accessible  to  sea-going  vessels  was  defeated. 
With  the  growing  years,  Charleston  and  Savannah  slipped 
backwards ;  Charleston  absolutely,  and  Savannah  relatively 
to  the  other  shipping  ports.  The  new  cotton  country  except 
a  part  of  western  Georgia  was  tributary  to  the  Gulf ;  trans- 
Atlantic  vessels  no  longer  sought  the  Southeastern  harbors 
because  they  could  be  assured  of  freight  both  ways  by  going 
to  New  York.  Charleston  became  hardly  more  than  a 
port  of  call  for  coastwise  commerce,  and  its  population 
actually  declined.  Had  Robert  Y.  Hayne's  project  of  a 
great  railroad  line  connecting  Charleston  with  the  mid- 
Ohio  Valley  not  been  defeated,1  owing  partly  at  least  to 
the  efforts  of  Calhoun,  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  large 
part  of  the  business  of  the  Middle  West  might  have 
gone  to  Charleston,  instead  of  to  Baltimore  and  Philadel- 
phia, —  and  thereby  might  have  altered  the  course  of 
American  history. 

In  the  ways  described  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  there 
grew  up  great  centres  of  human  activity  in  different  parts 
of  the  country.  In  some  places,  owing  to  advantageous 
positions  on  lines  of  commerce,  to  nearness  to  iron  and  coal, 
or  to  proximity  to  abundant  water  power,  commercial  cities 
and  manufacturing  villages  and  towns  came  into  existence. 
On  the  Great  Lakes  there  were  Detroit,  Cleveland,  Buffalo, 
and  Chicago ;  in  Pennsylvania,  Lancaster  and  Wilkesbarre ; 
in  New  Jersey,  Paterson  and  Newark ;  Rochester  and 
Geneva  in  New  York ;  Meriden  and  Willimantic  in  Connec- 
ticut ;  Providence  and  Pawtucket  in  Rhode  Island ;  Lynn, 
Lowell,  and  Fall  River  in  Massachusetts ;  and  innumerable 
others  scattered  throughout  the  Middle  States  and  New 

1  See    T.     D.     Jervey's    Robert     Y.  Fourth  Convention  .  .  .  Held  in  Charles- 
Hayne    and    His    Times    and    his    The  ton,  S.  C.,  April  15,  1839,  for  the  Pro- 
Railroad     the     Conqueror     (Columbia,  motion  of  the   Direct   Trade,   especially 
S.  C.,  1913)  and  the  authorities  therein  p.  24. 
cited;    and  see  also  Proceedings  of  the 


1830]  MANUFACTURING  TOWNS  85 

England.  Some  of  them  were  old  towns  revived  to  new 
uses;  others,  perhaps  most  of  them,  owed  their  existence 
to  new  manufacturing  enterprises.  In  great  commercial 
centres  like  New  York  and  Philadelphia  there  were  always 
large  numbers  of  workers  who  were  not  connected  directly 
with  the  commercial  business  of  the  place.  And  the  larger 
the  city  the  greater  was  the  supply  of  non-commercial  labor. 
It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  manufacturing  enterprises 
should  develop  there,  especially  those  forms  of  manufacture 
that  required  comparatively  large  amounts  of  hand  work, 
as  was  the  case  with  the  making  of  shoes  and  clothes  before 
the  days  of  the  development  of  mechanical  sewing.  On  the 
other  hand,  enterprises  that  utilized  water-power  neces- 
sarily grew  up  from  the  beginning  near  the  rapids  or  falls 
of  some  river. 

Of  all  the  towns  that  have  been  mentioned  in  the  pre- 
ceding paragraphs,  none  have  more  interesting  beginnings 
than  the  cotton  mill  cities  of  Lowell  and  Fall  River.  The 
former  owes  its  origin  to  the  half  dozen  men  who  had  made 
a  successful  beginning  of  cotton  spinning  and  weaving  at 
Waltham  in  Massachusetts.1  Francis  Cabot  Lowell  was  the 
master  spirit  of  this  enterprise.  Being  in  England  in  1811 
and  possessing  a  mathematical  and  mechanical  turn  of  mind, 
he  studied  with  great  care  all  the  cotton  machinery  he  could 
see  and  gathered  information  as  to  that  which  he  could  not 
see.  Returning  home  in  1813,  he  duplicated  from  his 
memory  and  notes  of  conversations  the  power  loom  which 
he  had  not  seen  in  England  or  in  Scotland,  and  he  and  his  as- 

1  Nathan     Appleton's     Introduction  contains  a  great  deal  of  interesting  in- 

of  the  Power  Loom  and  Origin  of  Lowell  formation     and    Samuel    Batchelder's 

is  the  basis  of  all  accounts  of  the  es-  Introduction  and  Early  Progress  of  the 

tablishment    of    the    city    of    Lowell.  Cotton     Manufacture     in     the     United 

Of  the  later  books  James  B.  Francis's  States    has    some   definite   information 

Lowell    Hydraulic    Experiments     (Bos-  by  a  contemporary, 
ton,   1855,   2nd  ed.,   New  York,  1868) 


86  THE   URBAN   MIGRATION  [Cn.  Ill 

sociates  worked  out  readjustments  and  improvements  in  the 
other  machines  used  in  the  making  of  cotton  cloth  and  per- 
formed all  the  processes  in  one  establishment.  At  first  there 
was  a  prejudice  against  American  machine-woven  cotton 
cloth  and  it  was  difficult  to  dispose  of  the  early  products  of 
the  Waltham  mill.  Within  half  a  dozen  years  the  enterprise 
outgrew  the  space  and  water-power  at  Waltham.  It  was 
suggested  that  the  associates  should  buy  the  Pawtucket  Canal 
Company,  which  had  constructed  a  canal  around  Pawtucket 
Falls  of  the  Merrimac  River,  not  far  above  the  entrance  of 
the  Concord.  This  enterprise  had  never  paid  and  the  Wal- 
tham people  were  able,  therefore,  to  buy  up  the  stock  at  a 
low  figure.  They  also  secured  practically  all  the  land  on 
the  river  front  below  the  falls  for  what  might  well  be  termed 
a  nominal  sum.  They  also  purchased  the  "  rights  necessary 
to  control"  the  outlet  of  Lake  Winnepesaukee,  a  large  lake 
in  central  New  Hampshire,  which  furnished  most  of  the 
water  to  the  Merrimac  River.  They  formed  the  Merrimac 
Manufacturing  Company,  deepened  and  widened  the  canal, 
erected  the  necessary  buildings  and  machinery  and,  in  an 
astonishingly  small  space  of  time,  the  first  Merrimac  mill 
was  turning  out  cotton  cloth.  The  associates  then  esta.b- 
lished  a  separate  corporation  for  the  management  of  the 
water-power  and  disposal  of  factory  sites  in  their  new  town, 
which  they  named  Lowell  in  honor  of  the  founder  of  the 
Waltham  enterprise,  who  was  no  longer  living.  They 
disposed  of  their  surplus  water-power  to  others  at  extremely 
reasonable  rates.  The  first  steps  in  acquiring  the  stock  of 
the  old  Pawtucket  Company  were  taken  in  1821.  By  1839, 
there  were  twelve  distinct  manufacturing  corporations  at 
Lowell  with  a  combined  capital  of  twelve  million  dollars, 
and  the  town  which  had  only  a  few  hundred  inhabitants  in 
1820  had  over  twenty  thousand  in  1840,  and  over  thirty- 


1830]  LOWELL  87 

three  thousand  in  1850.1  One  thing  that  had  greatly  con- 
tributed to  the  growth  of  manufacturing  at  Lowell  was  the 
introduction  of  cloth  printing  by  machinery  and  soon  "  Merri- 
mac  prints"  had  a  country- wide  reputation.  The  first 
cotton  cloth  made  at  Waltham  was  thirty-seven  inches  wide 
and  was  sold  for  thirty  cents  a  yard ;  in  1843  the  price 
had  gone  down  to  six  and  a  half  cents  a  yard.  In  the  be- 
ginning the  old  style  breast  water-wheel  was  employed ; 
later  the  French  turbine,  greatly  improved,  was  introduced, 
thereby  raising  the  percentage  of  power  utilized  from  sixty 
or  seventy-five  per  cent  with  the  old  wheels  to  eighty-eight 
per  cent  with  the  improved  turbine.  The  establishment 
of  manufacturing  at  Lowell  is  the  best  example  of  the  diver- 
sion of  commercial  capital  and  experience  from  navigation 
and  trade  to  an  entirely  new  venture.  Fall  River  had  a 
much  more  normal  origin  and  development,  although  the 
circumstances  of  its  existence  were  in  themselves  quite  out 
of  the  ordinary  run. 

For  a  hundred  years,  more  or  less,  Massachusetts  and 
Rhode  Island  had  contended  for  lands  on  the  northeastern 
side  of  Narragansett  Bay.  When  an  agreement  was  finally 
reached,  most  of  these  lands  were  given  to  Rhode  Island, 
but  a  bit  of  territory  known  as  Freetown  and  bounded  by 
the  Fall  River  was  assigned  to  Massachusetts.  This  river, 
as  it  is  called,  is  really  a  natural  canal  two  miles  long  with  a 
granite  bottom.  It  drained  a  succession  of  small  lakes  or 
ponds  and  had  a  total  fall  of  more  than  one  hundred  and 
thirty-two  feet  in  less  than  half  a  mile.  So  narrow  was  the 
channel  that  it  was  possible  to  construct  mills  across  the 
stream,  the  wheels  being  placed  in  the  current  of  the  river. 
The  first  cotton  mill  was  erected  to  utilize  this  water-power 

1  See  Census  of  1850,  p.  Hi.  For  David  Stevenson's  Sketch  of  the  Civil 
statistics  of  Lowell  mills  in  1837,  see  Engineering  of  North  America,  319. 


88  THE  URBAN  MIGRATION  [Cs.  Ill 

in  1813 ;  but  it  was  not  until  1821  that  the  rapid  develop- 
ment of  manufacturing  began  with  the  establishment  of 
the  Iron  Works  Company  which  played  a  part  in  Fall  River 
something  like  that  of  the  Canal  Company  at  Lowell.  In 
1820,  there  were  about  five  hundred  people  living  at  Fall 
River  and  in  1840  nearly  seven  thousand.1 

Before  1820  the  growth  of  cities  and  towns  that  has  just 
been  described  was  retarded  by  the  difficulty  of  housing, 
feeding,  and  caring  for  large  numbers  of  human  beings  in 
restricted  areas.  By  that  year  new  transportation  systems 
had  become  sufficiently  developed  to  bring  food  and  fuel 
to  designated  places  with  some  degree  of  certainty  and 
despatch.  In  those  days,  people  had  no  idea  of  hygiene  and 
sanitation  and  no  laws  curbed  the  money-making  desires  of 
landlords.  Moreover,  the  construction  of  dwelling  houses 
was  primarily  for  the  single  family.  Occasionally  there 
was  much  overcrowding  with  resultant  loss  of  vitality  and 
earning  power.  Bacilli  and  bacteria  were  unknown  and  the 
mode  of  treatment  of  acute  disorders  was  such  that  they 
frequently  ran  into  chronic  stages.  Under  existing  condi- 
tions it  was  dangerous  to  gather  people  within  a  limited 
space,  but  it  was  impossible  to  disseminate  them  over  a  large 
tract  of  ground  as  there  was  no  system  of  public  urban  trans- 
portation that  would  enable  the  working  man,  the  clerk,  or 
the  professional  man  to  get  from  his  dwelling  to  his  place 
of  employment,  if  it  were  more  than  three  to  six  miles  away. 
Moreover,  those  were  the  days  of  riotousness  and  boisterous 
conduct;  there  was  a  spirit  of  intolerance  of  individual 
opinions ;  and  there  was  a  continuous  drinking  of  distilled 
liquor,  morning,  afternoon,  and  evening. 

By  the  close  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  century,  improved 
roads,  canals,  and  steamboats  had  all  contributed  to  bring 

»Oriu  Fowler's  History  of  Fall  River  (ed.  1841),  28,  29. 


1830]  URBAN  TRANSPORTATION  89 

food  and  household  supplies  from  distances  of  twenty  or 
thirty  miles  to  centres  of  population.  Sometime  before  1828 
Asa  Hall  established  an  omnibus  line  running  from  Wall 
Street  in  New  York  City  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  State 
Prison  in  Greenwich  Village.  In  1828,  the  service  was 
improved  by  the  addition  of  more  stages,  the  fare  at  that 
time  being  twelve  and  a  half  cents.  By  1850,  there  were 
four  distinct  lines  of  omnibuses  and  the  fare  had  been  cut 
in  half.  Most  of  the  early  omnibuses  had  been  drawn  by 
two  horses,  but  on  some  of  the  busier  routes  larger  vehicles 
with  four  horses  and  a  boy  collector  of  fares  in  addition  to 
the  driver  were  employed.  It  took  something  over  one 
hour  to  run  three  miles  through  the  crowded  parts  of  the 
city.1  The  first  omnibus  appeared  in  Philadelphia2  in 
1831  but  other  towns  waited  some  years  before  the  establish- 
ment of  public  urban  stage-coach  lines. 

Philadelphia  was  the  first  city  to  supply  any  large  pro- 
portion of  its  inhabitants  with  water  from  outside  the  city 
limits.  As  early  as  1791  or  1792,  the  introduction  of  Schuyl- 
kill  River  water  into  the  city  for  household  purposes  was 
advocated,  but  it  was  not  until  1799  that  the  matter  was 
taken  up  in  earnest.  Steam  pumping  engines  were  then 
installed  and  water  was  raised  from  the  river  to  a  reservoir 
and  thence  distributed  through  log  pipes  to  a  limited 
portion  of  the  city.  In  1819,  the  project  was  taken  up 
again  and  by  1822  the  Fairmount  Water  Works  were 
opened.3  In  this  system  the  water  was  taken  from  the 
Schuylkill  about  a  mile  and  a  half  from  what  was  then  the 

1  These  details  are  drawn  from  gineering  Societies  for  December,  1884, 

Charles  H.  Haswell's  Reminiscence*  and  George  G.  Crocker's  From  the 

of  New  York,  229,  231,  538.  Stage  Coach  to  ...  the  Street  Car. 

*  Scharf  and  Westcott's  History  '  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Watering 

of  Philadelphia,  iii,  2199.  See  also  Committee  .  .  .  1836  .  .  .  of  Philadel- 

George  L.  Vose's  "Notes  on  Early  phia:  to  which  are  prefixed  the  Report 

Transportation  in  Massachusetts"  in  /or  ...  1822  and  .  .  .  1823,  pp.  1,  6, 

the  Journal  of  the  Association  of  En-  10,  etc. 


90  THE   URBAN  MIGRATION  [On.  Ill 

occupied  part  of  the  city.  It  was  raised  by  the  surplus 
water-power  of  the  river  and  was  distributed  through  nearly 
forty  thousand  feet  of  iron  pipes,  most  of  which  had  been 
made  in  America.  In  New  York  the  house  pump  and 
cistern  were  the  main  reliance  until  the  nineteenth  century 
was  advanced.  The  Manhattan  Company,  that  much 
berated  corporation  which  was  mainly  devoted  to  banking, 
raised  a  large  amount  of  water  by  a  pumping  engine  from  a 
well  within  the  city  limits  and  distributed  it  through  log 
pipes  buried  in  the  streets.  This  water  supply  was  plainly 
inadequate  and  various  projects  were  put  forward  to  supply 
the  rapidly  growing  city.1  As  early  as  1798,  it  was  suggested 
that  water  might  be  obtained  from  the  Bronx  River,  but 
nothing  was  done.  In  1833,  it  was  proposed  that  Croton 
River  water 2  should  be  brought  into  the  city  through  an 
aqueduct.  The  actual  work  of  construction  was  begun  in 
1837  and  in  1842  the  works  were  so  far  completed  that 
water  could  be  turned  into  the  city  mains  for  the  use  of  the 
inhabitants,  which  was  done  with  nearly  as  much  ceremony 
as  when  the  waters  of  Lake  Erie  had  been  united  with  those 
of  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  By  that  time  all  the  larger  cities 
were  supplied  with  water  by  artificial  means.3 

Until  after  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812,  lard  and  whale 
oil  lamps  and  candles  were  the  only  means  of  lighting  houses 
and  streets  after  sundown.  Hydrogen  gas  or  some  other 
chemically  produced  illuminant  had  been  used  in  experiments 
and  in  pyro-technics.  In  April,  1816,  Charles  Willson 

1  See    Charles    H.    Haswell's    Rem-  by  the  Common  Council  of  the  Citj 

iniscences    of   New    York    by   an    Octo-  of  New  York  in  1847. 
genarian   using   index    under    "water,"  'An  interesting   account  of  Ameri- 

"  Manhattan     Company,"    and    "Cro-  can  water  works  in  1837  is  in   David 

ton."  Stevenson's  Sketch  of  the  Civil  Engineer- 

1  Charles  King's  Memoir  of  the  .  .  .  ing    of    North    America,    ch.    x.      The 

Croton    Aqueduct,    90,    125,    140,    144,  "  Introduction "  to  the  Manual  of  Ameri- 

225.     The  important  reports  and  offi-  can    Water-Works    contains    details    of 

cial  documents  were  brought  together  water  systems  in  all  parta  of  the  country. 


1830]  CITY   WATER  91 

Peale  advertised  that  his  museum,1  a  renowned  institution  of 
Philadelphia,  would  be  lighted  by  "lamps  burning  without 
wick  or  oil"  and  using  "carbonated  hydrogen  gas";  and 
the  Chestnut  Street  theatre  was  illuminated  in  a  similar 
manner  in  the  following  November.  New  York  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  city  to  undertake  the  public  lighting  of 
the  streets  by  gas.  By  1830  the  use  of  some  form  of  illu- 
minating gas  was  common  in  the  larger  cities,  not  without 
serious  disasters  in  its  train. 

In  the  preceding  pages  the  enormous  social  changes 
wrought  by  the  westward  movement  and  by  the  migration 
into  urban  areas  have  been  suggested  rather  than  described. 
In  the  new  western  homes,  conditions  were  not  essentially 
unlike  those  of  the  parental  estate  except  that  after  toilsome 
beginnings,  it  was  possible  to  produce  much  more  generously 
on  the  rich  soils  of  Transappalachia  than  could  be  done 
on  the  gravelly  farms  and  worn-out  plantations  of  the 
Original  Thirteen  States.  The  case  was  very  different 
with  those  who  sought  the  mill  town  or  the  commercial 
city.  There  the  farmer  boys  and  girls  found  themselves 
surrounded  by  entirely  new  conditions  of  life  and  thought. 
This  produced  an  awakening  that  was  as  remarkable  as  that 
engendered  by  the  long  journey  to  the  farms  of  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  the  other  Western  and  Southwestern  States. 
It  is  interesting  to  consider  for  the  moment  the  relation  of 
literary  and  scientific  activity  to  density  of  population. 
This  has  been  worked  out  by  several  investigators  with 
somewhat  different  results  as  to  details,  but  in  general 

1  Scharf   and  Westcott's   History  of  Illuminant    (Easton,    Pa.,     1912),    pp. 

Philadelphia,    i,    514,    583,    especially  12-14;     and    Victor    S.    Clark's    His- 

586,  643-646 ;    William  Dunlap's  His-  tory    of    Manufactures    in    the    United 

tory  .  .  .  of   the    Arts    of   Design    (ed.  States,    494    and    footnotes.     Thomas 

1918),  ii,  189;    Lecture  delivered  at  the  Cooper    published    at   Philadelphia    in 

Centenary  Celebration  of  the  First  Com-  1816,     Some     Information     concerning 

mercial  Gas  Company  to  sell  Gas  as  an  Gas  Lights. 


92 


THE   URBAN  MIGRATION 


the  agreement  is  remarkable.1  From  one  of  these  estimates 
it  appears  that  of  978  Americans  born  before  1851  who 
achieved  distinction  in  letters,  no  fewer  than  803  were  born 
in  the  Middle  States  and  New  England.  Also,  it  may  be 
remarked  how  persistently  men  of  literary  and  scientific 
attainments  reside  in  the  largest  cities,  and  the  same  thing 
is  observable  of  business  men  and  of  the  foremost  lights  of 
the  learned  professions.  Many  of  these  are  reared  on  the 
farm  or  in  the  small  town,  but  they  seek  the  great  centres  of 
industry  and  commerce  because  there  they  find  the  greatest 
chance  for  the  exercise  of  their  talents.  All  this  concen- 
tration of  industry,  commerce,  and  business  within  the 
limits  of  a  comparatively  small  number  of  cities  and  towns 
gave  rise  to  new  problems  that  the  people  living  in  the  thirty- 
five  years  from  1815  to  1850  strove  most  vigorously  and 
conscientiously  to  solve. 


1  Edwin  L.  Clarke's  "American 
Men  of  Letters;  their  Nature  and 
Nurture,"  57,  in  Columbia  Univer- 
sity's Studies  in  History,  vol.  Ixxii; 
George  R.  Davies'  "Statistical  Study 
in  the  Influence  of  Environment"  in 
Quarterly  Journal  of  the  University  of 
North  Dakota,  iv,  232 ;  James  McKeen 
Cattell's  "Statistical  Study  of  Ameri- 
can Men  of  Science"  originally  printed 
in  Science,  New  Series,  xxiv,  and  re- 
printed as  Appendix  to  the  2nd  ed.  of 
his  American  Men  of  Science,  a  Bio- 
graphical Dictionary  (New  York,  1910), 
pp.  537-596.  Clarke  summarizes  his 
work  in  chapter  iv  by  saying  that 


while  social  environment  appeared  to  be 
one  of  the  most  potent  influences; 
geographic  environment  was  very 
important,  and  a  disproportionate 
number  of  Literati  had  been  born  in 
large  cities.  The  majority  had 
been  college  trained.  Economic  se- 
curity and  early  religious  surround- 
ings also  exercised  an  influence.  He 
concludes  that  Galton's  proposition 
that  nature  is  much  more  powerful 
than  nurture  may  well  be  questioned, 
and  that  his  third  proposition  that  dif- 
ferences in  the  achievement  of  nations 
due  to  the  difference  of  natural  ability 
does  not  hold  good. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


93 


NOTE 

Industrial  Conditions.  —  Professor  F.  W.  Taussig  in  the  first 
two  chapters  of  his  Tariff  History  of  the  United  States  has  given  a 
succinct  view  of  industry  in  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  century.1 
The  student  who  wishes  to  go  further  will  find  a  mass  of  instructive 
and  useful  information  in  the  "  Reports  of  Committees  "  to  the 
General  Convention  of  the  Friends  of  Domestic  Industry  that  assem- 
bled at  New  York  in  October,  1831.  Especially  interesting  are  the 
reports  on  the  manufactures  of  cotton,  iron,  and  steel.  Of  course 
the  members  of  the  convention  were  distinctly  influenced  by  their 
protective  views,  but  the  figures  that  they  brought  together  are  not 
easily  duplicated  elsewhere.  Earlier  statistics  are  to  be  found  in 
Gallatin's  Report  .  .  .  on  the  Subject  of  American  Manufactures  of 
April  17,  1810,  and  in  Tench  Coxe's  Statement  of  the  Arts  and  Manu- 
factures of  the  United  States  .  .  .  for  the  year  1810  which  was  printed 
at  Philadelphia  in  1814.  This  is  provided  with  elaborate  tables  of 
statistics  which  were  gathered  from  official  sources.  The  later  period 
is  illustrated  in  George  Tucker's  Progress  of  the  United  States  ...  to 
1840;  the  edition  of  1855  carries  the  story  down  to  1850.  Much 
larger,  but  not  more  useful  for  the  first  half  of  the  century,  is  Eighty 
Years'  Progress  of  the  United  States  2  which  was  published  at  New 
York  in  1861,  and  reprinted  in  1864.  The  first  edition  of  this  work 
contains  a  useful  set  of  illustrations  showing  the  progress  of  industry 
and  transportation  at  the  time  of  publication.  Professor  Holla  M. 
Tryon's  Household  Manufactures  in  the  United  States,  1640-1860 
contains  interesting  material  gathered  from  all  kinds  of  sources 
and  illustrated  with  helpful  tables  laboriously  compiled.  Chapters 
vi  and  vii  describe  the  process  of  household  manufacturing  and  the 
transition  to  the  factory  system. 


1  All  accounts  of  this  earlier  time 
are  based  largely  on  J.  L.  Bishop's 
History  of  American  Manufactures 
from  1608  to  I860,  vol.  ii.  Recently, 
Victor  S.  Clark  has  gone  over  much 
of  the  same  ground  from  a  different 
standpoint  and  using  more  material 
in  his  History  of  Manufactures  in  the 
United  States.  The  Reports  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  from  1790  to 
1849  were  printed  at  Washington  in 
seven  volumes  in  the  years  1828-1851, 


and  contain  a  mass  of  information  on 
the  material  side  of  our  development 
that  has  as  yet  been  only  partially 
worked  up.  Much  of  this  material 
for  the  earlier  years  is  also  given  in 
American  State  Papers  in  the  volumes 
on  "Finance." 

2  Midway  in  point  of  time  is  R.  S. 
Fisher's  Progress  of  the  United  States, 
published  by  Colton  at  New  York 
in  1854. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FIRST  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

IN  colonial  days  outside  of  the  distinctly  Slave  States 
there  were  no  classes  in  the  producing  part  of  the  community. 
In  the  Middle  States  and  in  New  England,  ministers, 
lawyers,  doctors,  and  a  few  men  of  means  had  lived  somewhat 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  people ;  but  otherwise  there  had 
been  a  marked  homogeneity  in  the  population.  Markets 
were  very  restricted,  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of  household 
manufacturing,  commodities  being  made  in  limited  quan- 
tities by  the  family,  the  hired  help,  and  indentured  servants. 
These  goods  were  mainly  sold  in  the  neighborhood  except 
such  as  were  carried  by  sea  to  other  colonies  or  to  other 
parts  of  the  world.  In  each  town  there  were  a  few  mechanics 
who  worked  for  wages  and  in  the  seaports  there  were  ship 
carpenters  who  built  and  repaired  vessels.  In  some  places, 
shoes,  instead  of  being  made  on  the  farm  as  a  home  industry, 
were  manufactured  in  shops,  the  employer  and  his  operatives 
working  side  by  side.  This  condition  of  affairs  was  true 
also  as  to  a  few  other  trades,  but  everywhere  the  master 
worked  with  his  men  and  apprentices,  and  those  of  his 
employees  who  were  not  married  boarded  with  him. 
Roughly  speaking  there  was  no  wage  system,  labor  being 
performed  by  apprentices  and  indentured  servants  and  hired 
help  who  were  compensated  on  a  yearly  basis.  With  the 
quickening  of  business  life  that  followed  the  establishment 
of  the  government  under  the  Constitution,  with  the  widening 

94 


APPRENTICES  95 

of  markets  that  was  brought  about  by  the  breaking  down  of 
local  financial  systems  and  by  the  development  of  trans- 
portation, these  conditions  changed.  For  one  thing,  in- 
dentured service  disappears  as  an  institution  in  the  first 
quarter  of  the  century  l  except  as  to  apprentices  and  the 
number  of  these  constantly  and  rapidly  diminished.  There 
are  countless  instances  of  apprentices  who  did  not  serve 
out  their  time ;  they  ran  away  from  their  masters  and  worked 
for  other  employers,  —  half-journeymen,  they  were  some- 
times called.  If  the  apprentices,  after  a  few  years  of  service, 
were  desirous  of  leaving  their  masters,  the  masters  seemed 
to  be  equally  desirous  of  getting  rid  of  their  apprentices. 
The  laws  of  most  States  held  the  master  responsible  for  the 
pecuniary  obligations  of  an  apprentice,  unless  he  gave  notice 
that  an  apprentice  was  no  longer  in  his  employ.  This  the 
masters  frequently  did  by  advertising  in  the  newspapers. 
There  was,  for  example,  James  Van  Valkinburgh,  Jr.,  of 
Canaan,  New  York.  He  offered  "one  old  shoe"  and  no 
charges  paid  for  the  return  of  "Annonias  Gillet,"  an  ap- 
prentice boy.2  A  Baltimore  paper  of  the  same  year, 
1808,  announced  a  reward  of  five  cents  and  ten  lashes  to 
any  one  bringing  home  a  runaway  apprentice  girl  named 
Catharine  Fowler.3  Probably  the  servants  and  apprentices 

1  Apparently    the    latest    advertise-  see  the  present  work,  vol.  ii,  367-376. 

ment  of  the  sale  of  indentured  servants  *  The    Republican    Crisis  (Albany;, 

was  in   1817  in   a  Philadelphia  paper  September  16,  1808. 

and  two   months  later,   these  men  or  *  American   (Baltimore),  August  24, 

some   of   them   were   still   unsold.     In  1808.     Other  instances  are  as  follows : 

the  same  year  a  reward  of  thirty  dol-  The  Western  Star  of  June  26,   1797,  a 

lars   was   offered   for   the  return   of   a  Massachusetts    paper,     offered     "Two 

redemptioner.     This  is  the  latest  date  Pence  Reward!"    for  the  return  of  an 

of    an    advertisement    offering    a    real  indentured  apprentice  of  eighteen ;  the 

reward  for  the  return  of  an  indentured  Aurora    of    January    17,    1800,  offered 

servant.     Albert    Matthews    noted    an  "Six    Cents    Reward"    for   the   return 

instance  of  the  purchase  of  indentured  of  an  apprentice,  and  the  same  paper 

servants  "as  late  as  1817,"  presumably  for   May    16,    1800,  offered   two   cents 

in  Philadelphia,  in  his  paper  on  " Hired  reward   for    the    return    of   a    "young 

Man  and  Help"  in  Colonial  Society's  bound  white  girl," — most  of  the   ad- 

Publicationa,   v,    232,    note.     For   "in-  vertisements  adding  "no  charges  paid." 

dentured"  service  in  the  earlier  times,  Contrast  these  with  the  reward  of  $100 


96  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

yearned  to  escape  from  their  bonds  and  thought  they  could 
make  more  as  free  workers,  although  with  the  low  wages 
then  prevailing,  one  would  have  supposed  they  would  have 
been  better  off  in  their  masters'  families;  and  the  anxiety 
of  the  masters  to  escape  the  performance  of  all  the  obligations 
of  care  in  sickness  and  in  health  of  the  apprentice  system 
and,  instead,  to  pay  wages  points  in  the  same  direction. 
By  1815,  in  all  the  States  north  of  Maryland,  slavery  as  an 
effective  producing  institution  had  disappeared.  There 
were  slaves  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  but  the  system 
of  gradual  emancipation  was  rapidly  putting  an  end  to  the 
institution  in  all  the  old  Northern  States  where  it  stili 
had  a  legal  existence.  By  1820,  it  may  be  said  that  in  the 
Middle  States  and  in  New  England  the  wage  system  was 
established. 

Wages  in  those  days  were  low  when  measured  in  dollars 
and  cents,  the  hours  of  labor  were  long,  and  the  conditions 
under  which  the  operatives  worked  were  unsanitary  and 
arduous.  In  1800,  eighty  cents  had  been  the  ordinary  daily 
wage  for  partly  skilled  labor  in  rural  New  England  and  a 
few  cents  less  had  been  paid  in  the  Middle  States.  This 
amount  had  increased  to  an  even  dollar  or  thereabouts  in  a 
decade  and  by  1830  to  one  dollar  and  a  half.  The  ordinary 
laborer  received  a  few  cents  less  and  in  1820  his  wage  may 
be  set  down  at  an  even  dollar,  with  possibly  twenty-five 
cents  more  on  government  work.1  In  1815,  there  was 
printed  in  "Niles's  Register,"  which  was  published  at 
Baltimore,  a  rather  elaborate  series  of  calculations  intended 
to  show  that  the  laborer  was  much  better  off  in  America 

offered  for  the  return  of  a  negro  boy  These    later    figures    are    taken    from 

(The   Mirror,   July    14,    1808,    a   Ken-  various     sources     as     the      "Wendell 

tucky  paper)    and  $20  for  the  return  Manuscripts"  which  were  kindly  placed 

of  a  dark  brown  horse  and  roan  mare  at  my   disposal   by   Professor  Barrett 

(Western  Star,  June  26,  1797).  Wendell. 
1  See  the  present  work,   iv,   10-14. 


1830]  WAGES  97 

than  he  was  in  England.  In  this  article  the  daily  wage  of  the 
laborer  in  America  is  given  at  eighty  cents  with  the  quali- 
fication that  most  city  laborers  received  from  one  dollar 
and  a  quarter  to  one  dollar  and  a  half.  The  price  of  wheat 
was  stated  at  one  dollar  and  a  half  for  a  bushel  of  sixty 
pounds  and  beef  was  priced  at  six  cents  a  pound.  From 
this  and  other  calculations  it  appears  that  from  eight  to 
twelve  cents  a  day  would  purchase  food  for  one  adult  and 
one  day's  labor  would  provide  food  for  three  days  for  a 
family  of  father,  mother,  and  four  children.1  Running 
through  the  decades,  it  would  not  be  uninteresting  to  observe 
how  the  "real  reward"  of  bone  and  muscle  in  terms  of  daily 
food  has  remained  singularly  constant,  notwithstanding  the 
fluctuations  in  both  wages  and  commodity  prices.  The 
rise  in  real  reward  has  accompanied  the  change  from  mere 
bone  and  fibre  expenditure  to  the  training  of  muscle  and  to  the 
use  of  the  mind.  In  other  words  the  increase  in  the  "real 
reward"  of  the  operative  classes  has  come  about  by  the 
constant  advance  in  skill  and  in  the  utilization  of  mind  and 
nerve  for  the  operation  of  machinery,  and  not  from  any 
marked  rise  in  the  real  reward  of  any  one  class  in  the  labor- 
ing community.  As  to  the  skilled  workman  in  the  olden  time : 
in  1806  it  was  testified  in  court  that  a  Philadelphia  cord- 
wainer  could  earn  six  or  seven  dollars  a  week  on  piece  work 
and  a  very  good  and  rapid  worker  as  high  as  ten  or  even 
twelve  dollars.2 

As  to  hours  and  condition  of  employment,  these  were 
taken  directly  from  the  custom  of  the  farm,  where  men  and 
women,  and  children  too,  worked  from  sun  to  sun  —  from 
sunrise  to  sunset.  Those  engaged  on  piece  work  as  shoe- 
makers and  tailors  oftentimes  labored  for  twelve,  thirteen, 

1  Niles'a  Weekly  Register,  ix,  230.  *  John  R.  Commons's  American  In- 

dustrial Society,  iii,  83,  106. 


VOL.  V.  —  H 


98  THE   FIRST   LABOR   MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

or  fourteen  hours  a  day,  much  of  it  by  the  light  of  a  candle, 
or  a  whale  oil,  or  lard  oil,  lamp.  When  mills  and  factories 
were  established  and  the  working  man  went  from  his  own 
home  or  bench  to  a  place  in  his  employer's  shop,  or  a  girl 
came  from  the  parental  farm  to  a  factory  in  a  mill  town, 
the  accustomed  hours  of  labor  were  naturally  kept  up.  As 
to  the  conditions  of  employment,  no  one  in  those  days  knew 
anything  to  speak  of  about  hygiene,  or  the  effects  of  poor 
ventilation  on  the  human  body  and  mind.  In  point  of  fact 
a  closed  and  hot  room  was  regarded  as  rather  in  the  nature 
of  a  luxury,  in  the  winter  time,  at  any  rate.  In  those  days, 
also,  very  little  attention  was  given  to  the  purity  of  drinking 
water,  and  the  minor  human  ailments,  that  are  now  recog- 
nized as  a  breeding  ground  for  germs  of  serious  disorders, 
were  not  cared  for  at  all.  The  light  that  was  provided  in 
factory  and  shop  was  scanty  and  harmful  to  the  working 
people.  Furthermore  many  of  those  employed  in  mills  were 
children,  —  as  they  worked  on  the  farm,  why  should  they 
not  labor  in  the  factory?  In  1801,  Josiah  Quincy,  on  the 
beginning  of  a  trip  through  southeastern  New  England, 
visited  Pawtucket  and  gained  admittance  to  the  "cotton 
works."  All  the  processes  of  cleaning,  carding,  spinning,  and 
winding  the  cotton  fibre  were  performed  by  machinery 
actuated  by  water  wheels  and  "assisted  only  by  children 
from  four  to  Ten  years  old,  and  one  superintendent." 
There  were  more  than  one  hundred  children  employed  in  the 
factory  and  they  were  paid  from  twelve  to  twenty-five 
cents  a  day.  Quincy  pitied  those  "little  creatures,  plying 
in  a  contracted  room,  among  flyers  and  coggs,  at  an  age  when 
nature  requires  for  them  air,  space,  and  sports.  There  was 
a  dull  dejection  in  the  countenances  of  all  of  them,"  1  — 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  So-  Memories,  15.  In  1853,  the  Report  of 
ciety's  Proceedings,  Second  Series,  iv,  the  Commissioner,  appointed  to  as- 
124.  See  also  Robert  Collyer's  Some  certain  the  truth  as  to  child  labor 


1830]  CONDITIONS   OF  EMPLOYMENT  99 

their  condition  must  have  resembled  that  of  Robert  Collyer 
as  he  describes  his  boyhood  in  England. 

As  population  became  dense  in  the  commercial  cities 
and  towns  and  in  the  factory  villages,  working  people  came 
together  in  larger  and  larger  groups.  Associating  in  shop 
and  boarding  house  they  began  to  compare  notes  as  to  their 
wages  and  as  to  the  wages  paid  in  other  shops  and  other 
trades  and  in  other  towns,  for,  as  transportation  facilities 
increased,  there  was  more  and  more  migration  of  the  work- 
ing people  from  one  town  to  another  in  the  same  State  or 
in  separate  States.  Moreover,  as  factories  were  established 
it  became  necessary  to  import  workmen  from  abroad, 
especially  from  England  and  Scotland,  to  operate  machinery 
that  was  sometimes  imported  or,  at  all  events,  was  strange 
to  the  people  of  the  neighborhood  in  which  the  new  factory 
was  established,  and  these  people  brought  ideas  as  to  trade 
societies  that  had  been  worked  out  in  their  old  homes. 
Three  trades,  —  the  cordwainers  or  shoemakers,  the  tailors, 
and  the  printers  —  were  the  first  to  become  conscious  of  class 
distinctions  for  in  them  first  of  all  the  employer  left  his 
bench  by  the  side  of  his  workman  and  sat  apart  in  an  office 
busy  with  the  affairs  of  money,  of  buying  materials,  of 
selling  his  goods,  of  getting  payments,  of  enlarging  his 
market.  As  the  number  of  working  men  increased  one  of 
them  was  appointed  to  overlook  the  rest  and  became  a 
foreman  or  a  forewoman.  A  group  system  of  employment 
in  these  trades  first  appeared  in  Philadelphia  and  New  York 
and  it  is  in  those  cities  that  one  finds  what  appears  to  be 
the  beginning  of  the  movement  of  organized  labor  to  se- 

in  Rhode  Island,  provided  some  facts  relaxation     that     great     numbers     of 

for    contemplation :  —  in    some     mills  mill  children  enjoyed  was  due  to  the 

work  began  in  the  winter  at  5.30  A.M.,  occasional    stopping    of    the    mills    on 

making  more  than  thirteen  hours'  labor  account  of  low  water  or  for  repairs  to 

in    the    shortest    days,    and    the    only  the  machinery. 


100  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

cure  more  wages,  shorter  hours,  and  better  conditions  of 
working. 

There  may  have  been  a  few  strikes  of  shoemakers  in  colonial 
days,  but  the  evidence  for  them  is  very  vague,  and  it  is 
possible  that  the  printers  in  one  office  in  Philadelphia 
"turned  out"  in  the  1780's,  but  the  evidence  for  this  is 
even  more  indistinct.1  The  Philadelphia  cordwainers  formed 
a  society  in  1794  and  "turned  out"  in  1798  and  again  in  1799, 
but  the  strike  of  1805  is  the  first  of  which  we  have  ample 
evidence  and  this  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  in  1806  the 
leaders  in  the  movement  were  indicted  for  criminal  conspiracy 
and  the  trial  in  the  Mayor's  Court,  at  which  were  present  the 
mayor,  three  aldermen,  and  the  recorder,  was  fully  reported.2 
It  appears  that  a  working  man,  a  journeyman  cordwainer, 
Job  Harrison  by  name,  who  worked  for  Mr.  Bedford,  had 
been  making  shoes  or  dress  shoes  at  nine  shillings  a  pair, 
side  lining  them  with  silk.  In  1805,  the  cordwainers  struck 
to  secure  larger  wages  for  the  making  of  boots.  Harrison 
refused  to  turn  out  with  the  rest,  partly  because  he  had  a 
sick  wife  and  several  children  to  support  and  needed  all 
the  wages  he  could  get  and  partly  because  he  could  not 
understand  why  he,  who  was  satisfied  with  the  price  he  was 
getting  for  the  making  of  shoes,  should  strike  to  enable  the 
boot  makers  to  get  more  for  their  work.  He  was  still  a 
member  of  the  Cordwainers'  Society,  but  he  turned  "scab" 
and  continued  to  work.  A  committee  of  the  working  men 

1  In     1791,     the    Philadelphia    car-  Commons  and  others,  vol.  iii,  59-250. 

penters  struck  for  better  conditions  of  •  This  latter  publication  contains  much 

labor ;    but  the  accounts  of  this  strike  matter   of   great  value,  —  without   the 

are    dim    and    little   is    known    of    the  material     thus    made     accessible,     the 

organization.  present  chapter   could   not  have   been 

*  Thomas  Lloyd's   The   Trial  of  the  written.     Earlier,    Professor   Commons 

Boot     &    Shoemakers   of    Philadelphia:,  used  the  evidence  given  in  this  trial  as 

pp.  3,  5,  6,  13,  91,  141,  142,  147,  149.  the    basis   around   which    to    build    an 

This   pamphlet,    which   was   published  article     on     "American     Shoemakers" 

at   Philadelphia   in    1806,    is   reprinted  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 

in  A  Documentary  History  of  American  zziv,  39-81. 
Industrial  Society,  edited  by  John  R. 


1805]  AN   EARLY   STRIKE  101 

called  on  Mr.  Bedford  and  demanded  the  discharge  of 
Harrison.  Upon  Bedford's  refusal,  the  other  journeymen, 
fifteen  to  twenty  in  number,  walking  out,  "scabbed" 
Bedford's  shop,  leaving  only  Harrison  and  three  or  four 
other  men  at  work.  The  strikers  refused  to  board  at  the 
same  house  with  any  of  Bedford's  employees,  and  appointed 
a  "tramping  committee"  to  watch  his  shop.  In  an  interrup- 
tion in  the  court  proceedings  a  person  in  the  room  was 
heard  to  say  that  "a  scab  is  a  shelter  for  lice,"  whereupon 
he  was  fined  ten  dollars  "for  this  contempt  of  court  in 
interrupting  a  witness."  The  strike,  or  turn  out,  or  stand 
out  was  against  all  the  employers  in  town  who  had  not 
acceded  to  the  higher  wage  list  for  boot  making.  The 
evidence  is  minute  in  many  particulars,  showing  that  every 
journeyman  who  came  to  Philadelphia  was  expected  to  join 
the  society.  If  he  did  not  the  shop  in  which  he  might  find 
work  was  scabbed  until  he  was  discharged  or  until  he  joined 
the  society,  after  paying  a  fine.  Money  was  given  by  the 
society  to  needy  members  out  of  work.  Scabs  were  called 
upon  by  two  or  three  of  the  strikers  and  were  evidently 
frightened,  although  in  1805,  it  does  not  appear  that  actual 
violence  was  used.  Bedford,  the  employer,  testified  that 
the  strikers  would  come  by  his  house  and  abuse  him  and  that 
they  broke  his  windows  by  throwing  through  them  potatoes 
which  had  pieces  of  broken  shoemakers'  tacks  in  them, 
but  violence  was  not  the  policy  of  the  society.  He  said  that 
he  had  lost  four  thousand  dollars  in  business  by  the  strike. 
Another  employer  stated  that  the  strike  had  cost  him  two 
thousand  dollars  in  the  export  business  alone. 

The  lawyers  made  their  addresses  on  both  sides  and  then 
Moses  Levy,  the  recorder  or  judge,  made  his  charge  to 
the  jury.  He  stated  the  law  which  he  said  was  "the  will 
of  the  whole  community  .  .  .  and  the  most  imperious  duty 


102  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  [Ca.  IV 

demands  our  submission  to  it."  It  was  of  no  importance 
whether  the  journeymen  or  the  masters  were  the  prose- 
cutors, whether  the  defendants  were  poor,  or  rich,  or  their 
numbers  small  or  great,  or  whether  their  motives  were  to 
resist  the  supposed  oppression  of  their  masters,  or  to  insist 
upon  extravagant  compensation,  the  question  is  whether  the 
defendants  are  guilty  of  the  offences  charged  against  them. 
"  If  they  are  guilty  and  were  possessed  of  nine-tenths  of  the 
soil  of  the  whole  United  States,  and  the  patronage  of  the 
union,  it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  the  jury  to  declare  their 
guilt."  The  indictment  charged  the  defendants  with 
having  combined  unlawfully  to  increase  the  prices  usually 
paid  and  that  they  did  unlawfully  assemble  and  "  corruptly 
conspire,  combine,  confederate,  and  agree  together  that 
none  of  them  .  .  .  would  work  for  any  master  or  person 
whatever,  who  should  employ"  any  workman  who  broke 
any  "  of  the  said  unlawful  rules,  orders  or  bye  laws,  and  that 
they  would  by  threats  and  menaces  and  other  injuries" 
prevent  any  other  workmen  from  working  for  such  master. 
Recorder  Levy  said  that  a  combination  of  workmen  to  raise 
their  wages  might  be  either  to  benefit  themselves  or  to  injure 
those  who  do  not  join  their  Society.  The  contemporaneous 
report  made  by  Thomas  Lloyd  states  that  the  recorder 
declared  all  such  combinations  to  be  unlawful.  One  of 
his  successors  who  presided  at  the  trial  of  the  Journeymen 
Tailors  in  1827,  stated  that  Recorder  Levy  declared  that 
"a  combination  to  resist  oppression,  not  only  supposed  but 
real,  would  be  perfectly  innocent ;  where  the  act  to  be  done, 
and  the  means  to  accomplish  [it]  are  lawful,  and  the  object 
to  be  attained  meritorious,  combination  is  not  conspiracy."  l 
Levy  closed  his  charge  by  telling  the  jurymen  that  if  they 

1  M.  T.  C.  Gould's  Trial  of  Twenty-      Commons's    American    Industrial    So- 
four  Journeymen  Tailors  (Philadelphia,       ciety. 
1827),  p.  160;    reprinted  in  vol.  iv  of 


1805]  AN   EARLY   STRIKE  103 

could  reconcile  it  with  their  consciences  to  find  the  defendants 
not  guilty,  they  would  do  so,  otherwise  they  must  bring 
in  a  verdict  of  guilty.  The  defendants  were  convicted 
and  fined  eight  dollars  apiece  and  costs  of  the  suit. 

In  the  following  years  there  were  labor  contests  in  New 
York,  Baltimore,  and  elsewhere  and  these  brought  about 
prosecutions  which  usually  turned  upon  the  question  of 
conspiracy.  In  1842,  .in  the  case  of  the  Commonwealth 
against  Hunt  and  Others,  Chief  Justice  Lemuel  Shaw  of 
Massachusetts  ruled  that  it  was  a  criminal  offence  for  two 
or  more  persons  to  confederate  to  do  that  which  is  unlawful 
or  criminal.  This  rule,  he  said,  was  in  equal  force  in  England 
and  in  Massachusetts ;  but  it  depended  upon  the  local  law 
of  each  country  to  determine  whether  the  purposes  sought  to 
be  accomplished  by  the  combination  or  the  means  used  by 
the  confederates  were  unlawful  or  criminal  in  the  respective 
countries.  He  defined  a  conspiracy  as  concerted  action  to 
accomplish  some  criminal  purpose  or  by  the  use  of  criminal 
and  unlawful  means  to  accomplish  something  that  was  not 
in  itself  criminal.  He  went  on  to  say  that  the  inducing  all 
those  engaged  in  the  same  occupation  to  become  members 
of  an  association  is  not  unlawful  unless  the  avowed  object 
of  the  association  is  criminal.  Even  the  purpose  of  an 
association  that  had  a  tendency  to  impoverish  another 
person  might  not  be  criminal  and  unlawful ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  might  be  "highly  meritorious  and  public  spirited. 
The  legality  of  such  an  association  will  therefore  depend 
upon  the  means  to  be  used  for  its  accomplishment."  l  In 
this  case  as  in  many  others,  Chief  Justice  Shaw  furnished  the 
precedent  that  was  followed,  not  only  by  the  courts  in 
Massachusetts,  but  in  other  States  as  well. 

1  Theron  Metcalf's  Reports  of  Cases  Massachusetts,  iv,  121-137,  especially 
-  ,  .  in  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  134. 


104  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

From  1805  to  1820  there  were  labor  contests  in  different 
parts  of  the  country  but  the  times  were  against  agitation 
for  higher  wages  or  improved  conditions.  Beginning  with 
1820  and  more  particularly  after  1825,  a  new  chapter  opened. 
The  regeneration  of  the  second  United  States  Bank  following 
the  transfer  of  the  control  from  Langdon  Cheves  to  Nicholas 
Biddle  marked  a  new  era  of  prosperity  and  growth  which 
was  reflected  in  great  activity  in  building  roads  and  canals 
and  in  general  business.  All  this  created  a  demand  for 
labor  and  gave  laboring  men  their  chance  to  coerce  their 
employers.  At  first  the  great  point  at  issue  was  the  shorten- 
ing of  the  old  hours  of  labor,  from  sun  to  sun,  to  ten  hours  a 
day.  The  march  of  democracy  had  placed  the  franchise  in 
many  States  within  the  reach  of  considerable  numbers  of 
working  men  and  in  other  States  where  the  property  quali- 
fication had  been  merely  nominal,  as  in  Pennsylvania, 
arrangements  had  been  made  to  make  political  action  easier. 
The  working  men  argued  that  they  should  have  more  time 
for  educational  purposes,  that  they  should  have  leisure  to 
study  and  to  consult  about  political  matters  which  they 
could  not  do  at  the  end  of  a  thirteen-hour  day.  Of  course 
in  winter  in  many  trades,  where  work  was  performed  out  of 
doors,  working  men  had  ample  leisure  in  the  long  evenings  to 
study  and  to  contemplate;  but  with  the  cheapening  of 
artificial  illumination,  with  the  introduction  of  gas  into 
Philadelphia  and  New  York  and  with  the  more  common  use 
of  whale  oil  as  an  illuminant  everywhere,  the  hours  of  indoor 
labor  had  become  more  constant  throughout  the  year. 
As  long  as  the  hours  of  labor  had  been  short  in  the  winter 
months  and  indeed  in  the  early  spring  and  late  autumn  it 
had  seemed  not  unreasonable  to  even  up  matters  by  utilizing 
to  the  full  measure  the  long  hours  of  daylight  of  the  other  five 
or  six  months  of  the  year ;  but,  now,  when  labor  was  pro- 


1830]  THE   TEN-HOUR  DAY  105 

longed  throughout  the  year,  it  seemed  reasonable  to  recover 
the  average  yearly  time  by  reducing  the  length  of  the  work 
day  as  a  whole.  In  June,  1827,  several  hundred  Philadelphia 
journeymen  carpenters  "struck  out"  or  "stood  out"  for  the 
ten-hour  day.1  The  movement  spread  to  other  trades  and 
to  other  cities,  but  was  not  widely  successful  at  that  time, 
and,  indeed,  it  was  not  until  the  oncoming  of  the  War  for 
Southern  Independence  that  ten  hours  became  the  standard 
of  a  day's  labor  in  the  mechanic  trades  throughout  the 
country. 

The  ten-hour  movement  appealed  more  strongly  to  work- 
ing men  as  a  whole  than  the  earlier  contest  for  wages.  The 
mere  fact  that  all  working  men  —  except  agricultural 
laborers  and  other  distinctly  unskilled  outdoor  laborers  — 
were  now  fighting  for  some  one  thing  undoubtedly  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  the  extended  character  of  this  movement. 
At  all  events  all  kinds  of  trades  established  organizations 
and,  as  all  were  struggling  for  the  same  end,  the  different 
trade  organizations  naturally  came  together  to  concert 
measures  of  coercion.  This  led  to  the  entrance  of  labor 
into  the  political  field,  to  the  establishment  of  working 
men's  parties  in  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  and  elsewhere. 
For  several  years  the  Working  Men  placed  candidates  in  the 
field ;  but  they  were  no  match  for  the  professional  politicians 
and  succeeded  only  as  they  were  able  to  combine  with  one 
or  another  of  the  political  parties.  In  New  York,  the 
leaders  of  Tammany  Hall  promptly  adopted  the  cause  of 
the  "workies."  But  after  a  period  of  moderate  success,  the 
labor  movement  divorced  itself  from  politics. 

These  were  years  of  reformations.  New  York  City  seems 
to  have  vied  with  Brook  Farm  in  the  presence  of  radi- 

1  John  R.  Commons'  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  v, 
75,  80-84. 


106 


THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT 


[Cfl.  IV 


calism.1  Among  the  New  York  reformers  was  Thomas 
Skidmore,  who  had  an  idea  that  every  citizen  should  enjoy 
in  society  the  rights  that  belonged  to  him  in  a  state  of 
nature,  although  possibly  in  order  to  create  any  society 
some  portion  of  man's  natural  rights  had  to  be  abandoned. 
He  argued  for  true  equality  among  men  and  advocated  the 
taking  away  of  all  property  from  individuals  and  its  pro- 
rata  division  among  all  adults.  Another  radical  New  York 
reformer  was  George  Henry  Evans,  who,  like  so  many  of 
the  would-be  remodellers  of  the  American  social  organization, 
was  an  immigrant  from  England.  He  had  somewhat  defi- 
nite ideas  as  to  the  best  mode  to  parcel  out  property 
among  the  people.  The  prominence  of  these  reformers, 
combined  with  the  machinations  of  the  Tammany  Hall 
politicians,  killed  the  political  labor  movement  in  New 
York,  as  it  gave  the  more  conservative  elements  in  the  com- 
munity the  chance  to  stigmatize  the  Working  Men's  Party 
as  contaminated  by  association  with  the  irreligious  and  the 
levellers  and  with  those  of  anarchical  disposition. 

The  financial  measures  of  1830  and  the  next  few  years 


1  At  a  labor  convention  held  in 
Lowell,  Massachusetts,  March,  1845, 
Mr.  Ryckman  of  Brook  Farm  intro- 
duced the  following  resolution  which 
was  most  enthusiastically  received 
and  secured  him  an  election  to  the 
presidency  of  the  New  England  Work- 
ingmen's  Association :  —  "  Resolved, 
that  this  Convention  recommend  to  the 
N.  E.  Association  to  organize  as 
promptly  as  possible,  a  permanent  In- 
dustrial Revolutionary  Government 
...  to  direct  the  legal  political  action 
of  the  workingmen  so  as  to  destroy  the 
hostile  relations  that  at  present  pre- 
vail between  capital  and  labor,  and  to 
secure  to  all  the  citizens  without  ex- 
ception the  full  and  complete  de- 
velopment of  their  faculties."  Ameri- 
can Industrial  Society,  viii,  104. 

Eli  Moore,  the  labor  Representa- 
tive in  Congress  from  New  York,  speak- 


ing in  the  House  on  April  29,  1836, 
declared  that  the  laboring  classes  were 
"friends  of  freedom,  in  favor  of  equality 
of  political  franchise  .  .  .  and  op- 
posed to  monopolies  of  all  kinds.  .  .  . 
The  history  of  the  aristocracy,  through 
all  ages  of  the  world,  was  a  continued 
series  of  rapine,  plunder,  villany,  and 
perfidy,  without  a  single  ray  of  honor, 
virtue,  or  patriotism."  See  the  Con- 
gressional Globe,  under  date. 

Seth  Luther,  an  itinerant  labor 
agitator  who  lectured  in  the  New 
England  mill  towns  in  1832,  declared 
that  "while  music  floats  from  quiver- 
ing strings  through  perfumed  and 
adorned  apartments  ...  of  the  rich ; 
the  nerves  of  the  poor  woman  and 
child,  in  the  cotton  mill,  are  quiver- 
ing with  almost  dying  agony,  from 
excessive  labor  to  support  this  splen- 
dor." 


1830]  LABOR  SOCIETIES  107 

brought  on  a  period  of  terrific  speculation.  Everything 
went  up  in  price  —  houses,  lands,  food,  and  clothing  — 
and  the  working  men  felt  that  they,  too,  must  get  more 
money  for  the  only  commodity  they  had  to  sell,  the  labor 
of  their  hands  and  bodies.  For  a  time  the  ten-hour  move- 
ment gave  way  to  demands  for  increased  wages.1  In  this 
era  of  "prosperity,"  as  it  was  called,  trades  unions,  or  labor 
societies,  were  organized  and  reorganized  by  the  tens  and 
twenties.  No  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  trade 
societies  2  appeared  in  the  four  cities  of  New  York,  Balti- 
more, Philadelphia,  and  Boston,  in  the  four  years  from  1833 
to  1837 ;  and  in  1834,  at  the  beginning  of  the  movement, 
there  were  twenty-five  thousand  trade  unionists  in  those 
cities.3  In  the  same  years  in  the  country  as  a  whole  there 
were  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  strikes.4  Of  these  one 
hundred  and  three  were  for  higher  wages  and  twenty-six 
for  a  ten-hour  day.  All  kinds  of  trades  struck,  the  car- 
penters, bricklayers,  masons,  plasterers,  and  painters  — 
those  engaged  in  the  building  trades  —  to  the  number  of 
thirty-four  times ;  the  shoemakers  or  cordwainers  twenty- 
four  times,  and  the  rest  scattered  among  all  kinds  of  employ- 
ment, tailors,  hatters,  bakers,  sailors,  rope  makers,  printers, 
mechanics,  and  so  on.  Among  the  unions  of  especial  interest 
were  those  of  the  seamstresses,  female  factory  hands, 
female  book  binders,  shoe  binders,  and  umbrella  makers. 
These  had  unions  of  their  own  or  formed  branches  of  a  union, 


1  An     interesting     article     on     this  New  York  and  Brooklyn     11,500 

period    is     Evans    Woollen's     "Labor  Philadelphia  6,000 

Troubles  between   1834  and   1837"  in  Boston  4,000 

Yale  Review  for  May,  1892.  Baltimore  3,500 

1  See   list   prepared   by   Edward   B.  25,000 

Mittelman     in     Commons     and     As-  American  Industrial  Society,  vi,  191. 

soeiates'  History  of  Labour,  i,  472.  gee  also   The  South  in  the  Building  of 

*  They  were  distributed  as  follows :          i he  Nation,  v,  145. 

4  Commons    and    Associates'     His- 
tory of  Labour,  i,  478-484. 


108  THE   FIRST   LABOR   MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

but  where  there  were  only  a  few  women  employed  in  some 
one  trade  in  one  locality,  both  men  and  women  joined  in 
one  union.  Another  interesting  item  is  that  the  factory 
operatives  had  begun  to  strike,  the  carpet  weavers  at 
Thompsonville,  Connecticut,  for  higher  wages,  the  cotton 
factory  hands  at  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  for  an  eleven-hour 
day,  and  the  operatives  at  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  against 
a  reduction  in  wages.  A  few  of  these  strikes  were  against 
the  use  of  apprentices,  and  one,  that  of  the  Boston  printers, 
was  against  the  employment  of  girls.  The  last  of  these 
strikes  was  in  November,  1837.  Then  financial  panic  and 
hardness  of  the  times  resulting  in  lack  of  employment,  put 
an  end  to  all  sorts  of  striking  and  also  caused  the  disruption 
and  disintegration  of  the  trades  unions. 

Among  all  these  strikes,  the  one  that  took  place  at  Phil- 
adelphia in  the  summer  of  1835  is  particularly  interesting. 
Seventeen  trades  took  part  in  this  movement,  the  house 
builders  and  shoemakers  being  joined  by  the  leather  dressers, 
plumbers,  carters,  saddlers,  cigar  makers,  printers,  and 
bakers.  The  movement  was  almost  entirely  for  the  ten- 
hour  day,  or  for  higher  wages  in  connection  with  the  ten- 
hour  day.  The  bakers  did  not  ask  for  a  ten-hour  day  but 
demanded  the  discontinuance  of  baking  on  Sundays.  This 
time  the  "workies"  had  the  sympathy  of  the  professional 
classes,  —  lawyers,  physicians,  and  politicians  joining  them 
in  their  meetings.  The  politicians  were  so  much  impressed 
with  the  power  of  the  workers  that  they  provided  that  city 
employees  should  work  only  from  six  to  six  in  the  summer, 
allowing  one  hour  for  breakfast  and  one  for  dinner.  There 
was  no  particular  disorder  at  Philadelphia,  but  in  some  other 
places  there  was  more  intimidation  and  physical  coercion 
than  had  been  the  case  in  previous  years.  The  employers, 
too,  were  better  organized  and  in  some  places  and  in  some 


1833]  THE   THOMPSONVILLE   WEAVERS  109 

trades  made  use  of  the  black  list.  The  strike  of  the  weavers 
at  Thompsonville  in  Connecticut,  in  1833,  had  one  or  two 
features  out  of  the  ordinary  run.  The  carpet  mills  at 
that  place  had  been  recently  started,  operatives  had  been 
imported  from  Britain  to  work  the  new  machinery  and  the 
owners  of  the  mill  had  established  a  schedule  of  wages  that, 
according  to  their  own  account,  proved  to  be  more  than  was 
paid  for  similar  work  in  other  establishments.  When  they 
tried  to  rectify  this  matter,  the  workmen  struck,  refusing 
even  to  finish  the  carpets  that  were  in  the  looms.  The 
leading  operatives  then  wrote  to  friends  in  other  places  and 
to  the  keeper  of  the  Blue  Bonnet  Tavern  at  New  York,  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  rallying  point  of  British  operatives 
in  this  country.  These  letters  simply  stated  that  the  opera- 
tives at  Thompsonville  had  turned  out  and  asked  their 
correspondents  to  use  all  their  influence  to  keep  others  from 
coming  to  Thompsonville  until  the  strikers'  object  had  been 
attained,  and  also  to  give  them  support  in  their  undertaking. 
Certainly  influence  was  used  to  keep  men  from  going  to 
Thompsonville  and  those  that  did  get  there  were  urged  by 
the  strikers  not  to  work  at  the  mill.  The  operatives  in 
other  factories  also  sent  money  to  the  strikers.1  The  most 
interesting  case  of  these  years  —  1833  to  1837  —  was  that 
of  the  Geneva  shoemakers,  for  the  ruling  of  the  Chief  Justice 
of  the  New  York  Supreme  Court  in  that  case  was  the  prece- 
dent followed  by  the  New  York  courts  for  some  years. 

The  trouble  at  Geneva  originated  in  the  attempt  of  the 
bootmakers  and  shoemakers  to  compel  one  of  the  employers 
to  discharge  a  workman  who  was  willing  to  labor  for  less 
than  the  price  demanded  by  the  society.  The  leaders  of 
the  society  were  thereupon  indicted  for  a  conspiracy  in 

1  For  an  account  of  the  Thompsonville  weavers,  see  American  Industrial  Society, 
vol.  iv,  Supplement. 


110  THE   FIRST   LABOR   MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

obstructing  the  business  of  boot  and  shoemaking  to  the 
injury  of  the  trade  of  New  York.  A  clause  defining  con- 
spiracy as  combining  to  commit  an  act  injurious  to  public 
morals  or  trade  had  been  included  in  a  recent  codification 
of  the  laws  of  New  York.  The  case  was  carried  from  the 
lower  court  to  the  State  Supreme  Court  where  the  Chief 
Justice  laid  down  the  law  as  required  by  the  clause  in  the 
Code  of  1829.  If,  he  declared,  the  working  people  of  Geneva 
demand  so  high  wages  that  Geneva-made  boots  and  shoes 
cannot  be  sold  in  competition  with  those  made  elsewhere, 
it  was  an  act  injurious  to  trade.  Moreover,  while  one  man 
might  refuse  to  work  for  any  particular  wage,  he  had  no 
right  to  say  that  others  should  not  work  for  that  amount 
of  money  and  if  one  man  did  not  possess  such  a  right  a 
number  of  men  could  not  possess  it.  This  case  was  decided 
in  1835.1  In  that  year  also  the  tailors  of  the  City  of  New 
York,  having  already  formed  a  society,  increased  the  rate 
of  wages  demanded  for  its  members  and  in  1836  the  masters 
also  formed  a  society.  The  journeyman  society  had  com- 
pelled an  increase  in  prices  given  for  its  work;  but  the 
organized  masters,  when  the  dull  season  came  on,  reduced 
the  wages  and  the  employees  struck.  The  evidence  in  this 
case  is  quite  as  voluminous  as  was  that  of  the  Philadelphia 
cordwainers,  thirty  years  before.  There  was  now  black- 
listing, picketing,  and  coercion.  The  leaders  of  the  striking 
tailors  were  indicted  for  conspiracy.  The  jury  found  them 
guilty  and  the  judge,  after  a  week's  intermission,  sentenced 
them  to  pay  heavy  fines  or  go  to  jail.  In  his  charge  and 
again  in  sentencing  the  convicted  journeymen,  the  judge 
declared  that  the  law  governing  the  case  was  an  act  of  the 
State  legislature  which  not  only  had  reenacted  the  provision 

1  Commons   and  Associates'  History   of  Labour    in  the    United   States,    vol.    i, 
405-408. 


1835]  THE   GENEVA  CASE  111 

of  the  Common  Law  but  had  added  to  it  a  provision  that  an 
act  must  be  performed  by  one  or  more  members  of  the 
combination  to  bring  the  combination  within  the  scope  of 
the  law.  Every  individual  was  master  of  his  own  act,  the 
judge  said,  but  he  could  not  encroach  upon  the  rights  of 
others.  He  might  work  or  not  as  he  pleased,  but  he  "shall 
not  enter  into  a  confederacy  with  a  view  of  controlling 
others,  and  take  measures  to  carry  it  into  effect."  l 

The  Panic  of  1837,  in  relation  to  the  amount  of  business 
of  the  country,  was  the  severest  that  we  have  ever  ex- 
perienced, especially  as  one  wave  of  depression  followed 
another  for  eight  or  ten  years.  Masters  and  working  men 
were  both  affected.  In  such  circumstances  the  struggle 
became  one  for  existence,  rather  than  for  higher  profits 
and  greater  wages.  There  was  great  misery  in  many  parts 
of  the  country  and  this  aroused  the  attention  of  the  humani- 
tarians and  social  panaceists.  The  decade  beginning  with 
1840  was  replete  with  plans  for  the  making  over  of  society 
to  secure  justice  for  all.2  Association,  cooperation,  agrarian- 
ism  followed  one  another  and  merged  into  each  other. 
Horace  Greeley  led  in  the  attempt  to  reconstruct  society, 
giving  space  in  his  paper,  the  "New- York  Tribune," 
lending  money  to  what  seemed  to  be  promising  ventures,  and 
using  his  personal  influence  for  their  establishment.  The 
story  of  the  attempt  to  transplant  Fourierism  and  Icarianism 
from  the  Old  World  to  the  New  is  briefly  told  in  another 
chapter.3  Here  it  need  only  be  said  that  American  working 
men,  whether  native  born  or  foreigners,  who  had  been  in 
the  country  for  several  years,  did  not  take  kindly  to  any 
of  these  experiments  in  socialism  or  communism.  What 

1 J.    R.    Commons's   American  In-  America,     Albany     and     New     York, 

dustrial  Society,  iv,  319-333.  1843. 

*  See    for    example    E.    G.    Squier's  *  See  below,  oh.  xv. 

Lecture   on   the  .   .   .  Laboring   Class   of 


112  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

they  wanted  was  more  wages  for  a  given  amount  of  labor. 
What  these  people  offered  them  was  no  wages  and  living 
under  social  conditions  that  did  not  in  the  least  appeal  to 
them.  It  is  easy  to  see  why  all  the  schemes  of  association 
failed :  some  men  will  work  as  hard  without  supervision 
as  they  will  under  direction,  but  these  soon  become  masters ; 
other  men  will  do  as  little  work  as  possible  for  "a  living 
wage."  Moreover,  the  early  community  experiments  were 
not  carried  on  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale  for  one  thing  and 
came  into  direct  competition  with  more  effectively  managed 
private  business  enterprises  for  another.  Exactly  the  same 
thing  happened  as  to  cooperation.  This  was  of  two  gen- 
eral types,  productive  cooperation  and  distributive  coop- 
eration.1 It  would  seem,  at  first  glance  at  any  rate,  that 
one  hundred  workmen  joining  together  and  subscribing  from 
their  savings  or  borrowing  from  Horace  Greeley  or  some  other 
friend  of  labor  enough  money  to  purchase  or  hire  a  factory 
and  procure  the  necessary  materials  could  utilize  their  skill 
and  knowledge  so  advantageously  as  to  be  able  to  under- 
sell a  competing  work  carried  on  in  the  usual  way  with 
comparatively  large  overhead  expenses.  In  other  words 
the  elimination  of  the  employer  with  the  consequent  elim- 
ination of  the  profit  required  by  him  would  enable  the  work- 
ing men's  factory  to  pay  good  wages  and  live.  On  trial, 
however,  it  proved  to  be  quite  otherwise,  for  what  is  every 
man's  business  is  no  man's  business  and  where  the  com- 
bining and  overseeing  faculty  is  absent,  things  are  not  done 
that  should  be  done,  or  in  the  way  they  should  be  done,  or 
at  the  time  that  they  should  be  done.  In  distributive  coop- 
eration, there  seemed  to  be  much  greater  hope.  The  idea 
was  that  numbers  of  persons  should  each  subscribe  a  small 

1  The  constitutions  and  laws  of  half      aociative  Manual;    Part  I  (New  York, 
a     dozen     cooperative     bodies     were       1861). 
printed  by   Charles  Sully  in  his  At- 


1840]  COOPERATION  113 

amount  of  money  which  should  be  used  to  procure  a  few 
goods  that  would  be  sold  to  members  for  the  actual  cost  of 
purchase  plus  their  share  of  the  actual  cost  of  distribution 
and,  possibly,  plus  a  moderate  amount  that  might  be  used 
for  enlarging  the  business.  The  plan  seemed  to  offer  great 
possibilities  and  one  could  point  any  doubter  to  the  famous 
Rochdale  system  that  had  been  worked  out  in  England. 
Undoubtedly  cooperative  buying  and  selling  had  and  has 
great  advantages  for  the  consumer;  but  these  advantages 
are  often  overestimated  and  are  more  often  very  difficult 
to  secure.  These  attempts,  with  the  exception  of  a  very 
few  that  were  either  peculiarly  fortunate  or  were  much 
more  efficiently  managed  than  the  rest,  and  also  always 
excepting  a  few  of  the  community  settlements,  all  came  to 
early  and  untimely  ends.  One  of  the  points  that  attracts 
attention  in  the  distributive  cooperative  organizations  of 
the  1840's  was  the  difficulty  that  was  experienced  in  appor- 
tioning the  increased  price  that  should  be  charged  for  store 
management.  In  one  plan,  it  was  provided  that  the  person 
in  charge  should  add  to  each  article  sold  the  exact  amount  of 
time  consumed  by  him  in  the  distribution  of  that  particular 
purchase,  —  quite  forgetful  of  the  possibility  that  the 
amount  of  time  consumed  in  the  marketing  of  a  yard  of 
tape  might  well  have  been  longer  than  that  required  in  the 
disposal  of  a  pair  of  back-strap  boots. 

A  variant  of  the  cooperative  community  plan  was  devised 
by  Josiah  Warren,  who  had  been  a  foremost  follower  of 
Robert  Owen,  but  had  relapsed  into  excessive  individualism. 
He  devised  a  scheme  by  which  every  one  would  be  spurred 
on  to  labor,  but  there  would  be  no  money  and  no  wages.1 
In  his  plan  there  would  be  no  laws  or  regulations,  no  one 
would  have  any  power  over  another,  and  all  intercourse 

1  Josiah  Warren's  Equitable  Commerce  (2nd  Ed.,  Utopia,  Ohio.     1849). 

VOL.  V.  —  5 


114  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  (CH.  IV 

between  human  beings  would  be  voluntary.  In  the  trans- 
action of  business,  everything  would  be  done  upon  "the 
principle  of  an  Equal  Exchange  estimated  by  the  Time 
employed  on  the  service."  This  was  to  be  done  by  ascertain- 
ing the  average  amount  of  time  required  to  produce  various 
staple  articles.  These  estimates  when  completed  were  to 
be  hung  up  where  every  one  could  see  them.  Any  man  or 
woman  producing  any  commodity  and  bringing  it  to  the 
common  store  would  be  given  a  "Labour  Note"  for  the 
number  of  hours  required  to  produce  the  commodity.  This 
note  could  be  exchanged  at  the  store  or  "magazine"  for 
any  goods  requiring  the  same  amount  of  time  to  produce. 
This  plan  was  tried  more  or  less  completely  in  several 
places,  but  seems  never  to  have  produced  satisfactory 
results. 

The  founders  of  some  of  the  first  factory  towns,  recog- 
nizing that  the  establishment  of  spinning  and  weaving 
machinery  actuated  by  water-power  would  deprive  the 
women  of  the  farms  of  their  chance  to  labor  at  the  distaff 
and  the  hand  loom,  sought  to  make  the  life  in  the  new  mill 
town  attractive  to  the  operatives  that  would  be  drawn  to 
them  from  the  countryside.  At  Waltham,  and  later  at 
Lowell,1  wages  were  offered  that  attracted  young  women 
and  the  life  was  so  guarded  that  the  young  women  and  their 
parents  had  every  confidence  in  their  change  from  the  farm 

1  Harriet   H.    Robinson's   Loom  and  on  Manufactures   presented   to    Parlia- 

Spindle,  or  Life  Among  the  Early  Mitt  ment  in  1833,  p.   121,  where   an   Eng- 

Girls   and  her   "Early   Factory   Labor  lish    banker   stated   that   the   founders 

in    New    England"    in    Massachusetts  of  the  American  factory  system  thought 

Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor's  Four-  that  great  care  must  be  taken  of  the 

teenth  Annual  Report;  Henry  A.  Miles's  young    women    who    worked    in    their 

Lowell,  As  It  Was,  and  As  It  Is;  and  mills  in   order  that  such   employment 

William     Scoresby's     American     Fac-  might  be  considered  more  respectable 

tories     and     their     Female     Operatives  than    ordinary    housework.     See    also 

(Boston,     1845).     The    superiority    of  the    evidence    of    James    Kempton    in 

the   Lowell    labor    system   is   adverted  ibid.,  p.  147. 
to  in  the  evidence  given  in  the  Report 


1830]  THE    LOWELL  MILL   GIRLS  115 

house  to  the  factory  village.  Boarding  houses  were  estab- 
lished near  the  mills  which  were  kept  by  respectable  women, 
who  were  generally  widows  with  children,  and  they  were 
subsidized  by  the  mill  corporations  to  the  extent  of  twenty- 
five  cents  per  week  for  each  man  and  half  as  much  for  each 
woman  operative.  The  board  and  lodging  charged  the 
workers  was  $1.75  per  week  for  a  man  and  fifty  cents  less 
for  a  girl.1  At  Lowell -in  1848,  the  men  operatives  averaged 
$6.05  a  week,  the  women  $3.45.  The  agent  of  the  Lawrence 
Manufacturing  Company  estimated  that  after  paying  for 
board  and  clothing,  the  latter  costing  fifty-two  dollars  a 
year,  the  male  operative  would  have  a  weekly  profit  of 
$3.30,  and  the  woman  of  $1.52.2 

The  hours  of  labor  at  Lowell  and  in  the  other  manufac- 
turing towns  were  long.  The  operatives  reported  for  duty 
at  five  in  the  morning  and  worked  until  seven  at  night  with 
time  off  for  breakfast  and  for  dinner.  In  the  early  days 
the  work  was  not  intense.  The  children  who  took  the  full 
bobbins  off  the  frames  and  replaced  them  with  empty  ones 
worked  only  about  fifteen  minutes  in  every  hour.  They 
occupied  the  rest  of  the  time  in  study  or  play  and  sometimes 
went  home  and  helped  their  mothers  in  these  intervals. 

1  John    Aiken's    Labor    and    Wages,  of  the  woman   worker  at  Lowell  was 

At  Home  and   Abroad  (Lowell,    1849),  $2.00  a  week  "clear  of  board"  ;   that  of 

p.    13.     On    p.    29,    he    remarks    that  men  .80  per  day  also  "clear  of  board." 

since  1800  men's  wages  had  increased  There  were  then  6085  females  and  1827 

50  per  cent  and  women's  from  200  to  males    employed    in    these    factories. 

300  per  cent.     In  1832,  the  New  York  Sketch  of  the  Civil  Engineering  of  North 

Convention    of    the    Friends    of    Do-  America,  319,  320. 

mestic  Industry  gave  the  weekly  wages  2  The  Lawrence  Manufacturing  Com- 

of    Massachusetts    factory    hands    at  pany    at    Lowell    had    ordinarily    paid 

$2.25  besides  board  and  lodging,  Com-  on  the  average   about  eight  per  cent 

mons  and  Associates'  History  of  Labour,  in  dividends.     In  1848,  there  were  three 

i,  422.     There  is  much  information  in  hundred  and  ten  shareholders,  one  hun- 

the   "Minutes  of  Evidence   taken   be-  dred   and   fifty- three   of   them   having 

fore     the     Committee     on    Manufac-  only  one  or  two  shares  apiece,  the  value 

tures"  in  December,  1827,  and  January,  of  the  share  being  one  thousand  dol- 

1828    (House    Report,    No.    115,    20th  lars,  and  the  largest  stockholder  having 

Cong.,    1st   Sess.).     In    1837,    Steven-  seventy-five      shares.     Aiken's      Labor 

son  estimated  that  the  average  wage  and  Wages,  At  Home  and  Abroad. 


116  THE   FIRST   LABOR  MOVEMENT  [Cn.  IV 

The  speed  of  the  machinery  was  slow,  although  it  was 
faster  than  in  England  and  the  number  of  machines  tended 
by  any  one  operative  was  not  large.  Certain  it  is  that 
notwithstanding  the  long  hours,  the  Lowell  factory  girls 
of  the  thirties  and  the  forties  had  time,  strength,  and  in- 
clination for  intellectual  improvement.  Books  were  abun- 
dant and  girls  came  to  Lowell  and  worked  in  the  mills 
because  there  they  also  had  opportunity  to  read.  In  1840 
an  "Improvement  Circle"  was  organized  and,  later  in  the 
same  year  the  publication  of  a  magazine  —  "  The  Lowell 
Offering"  —  was  begun.1  The  articles  were  written  by 
the  women  operatives,  although  a  man's  name  was  given 
as  editor  for  the  first  couple  of  years  so  as  not  to  arouse  the 
hostility  of  the  public.  "The  Offering"  was  issued  for  five 
years  or  so  and  we  have  Charles  Dickens's  authority  for  the 
statement  that  it  would  "compare  advantageously  with  a 
great  many  English  annuals."  Of  its  contributors  Lucy 
Larcom,2  alone,  attained  more  than  local  fame.  Lowell, 
indeed,  in  these  early  days  seems  to  have  been  a  species  of 
money-making  Brook  Farm.3 

About  1850  a  new  chapter  opened  in  the  history  of  Lowell 
and  of  other  New  England  manufacturing  enterprises,  as  it 
did  in  many  of  those  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Penn- 
sylvania. The  founders  of  these  manufacturing  establish- 

1The  Lowell  Offering;     a  Repository  elements  of  community  life  that  never 

of  Original  Articles,   written  exclusively  existed    at    Lowell ;     and    lacked    en- 

by    Females   Actively   Employed    in    the  tirely  the  literary  stimulus   of   Lowell 

Mitts    (Lowell,    1841-1845).       For    an  and  Brook  Farm.     It  was  a  religious, 

account  of  this  magazine,  see  Harriet  social,    and    economic    experiment.     It 

H.   Robinson's  Loom  and  Spindle,  ch.  was     ultra-idealistic.     J.     H.     Benton 

vi  and  fol-  calls    these  Hopedale    dwellers    "relig- 

1  Lucy    Larcom's     account    of    her  ious    visionaries"    who     "claimed    all 

life  is  contained  in  her  New  England  the  benefits  of  citizenship,  while  they 

Girlhood    and    her    poem,    An   Idyl    of  refused  to  perform  any  of  its  duties." 

Work.     See  also   Daniel  D.   Addison's  See    "Argument"    of    J.    H.    Benton, 

Lucy  Larcom,  Life,  Letters,  and  Diary.  Jun.    in    Draper    Corporations    against 

3  The     Hopedale     experiment     dif-  the  People  of  Milford,  3. 
fered    from   either   of    these;     it   had 


1850]  CHANGED  CONDITIONS  117 

ments  were  no  longer  living  or  had  withdrawn  from  active 
business.  Instead  of  being  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men  of 
established  fortune,  the  mills  were  now  owned  by  numerous 
stockholders  and  were  managed  solely  for  purposes  of  gain.1 
The  first  type  of  operative  also  no  longer  entered  their 
gates.  Lowell  had  been  an  educational  force  in  fitting 
women  for  clerical  work ;  now  the  farmers'  girls  stayed  at 
home  or  went  directly  to  the  counting-rooms  of  the  cities 
and  their  places  in  the  mills  were  taken  by  immigrants. 
The  looms  were  speeded  up,  more  machines  were  allotted  to 
each  operative,  wages  were  reduced,  and  so  also  were  the 
hours  of  labor.  The  work  became  harder  and  more  intense 
as  the  decades  went  by,  labor  agitators  at  length  obtained 
a  hearing  there,  and  Lowell  ceased  to  be  unlike  other  centres 
of  manufacturing  industry. 

By  1850,  business  had  picked  up  again;  the  trade  so- 
cieties that  had  gone  out  of  existence  or  those  that  had  led 
a  lingering  life  were  resuscitated  or  reorganized  and  a  new 
contest  between  labor  and  capital  began.  T$y  this  time  the 
railroads  had  influenced  production  and  distribution,  both 
of  which  were  carried  on  in  larger  units  by  men  possessed  of 
greater  means  or  banded  together  in  corporations  with  con- 
siderable capital.  The  earlier  unions  had  been  usually 
temporary  societies,  largely  governed  by  idealism  as  the 
desire  for  greater  educational  opportunities,  or  the  shortening 
of  the  hours  of  labor  for  hygienic  reasons ;  the  new  unions 
were  devoted  purely  and  simply  to  the  task  of  getting  higher 
wages  and  they  were  much  more  effectively  organized  and 
fell  under  the  direction  of  abler  men  who  made  the  manage- 
ment of  the  union  their  sole  occupation.  Then  the  unions  in 
several  cities  combined  to  form  a  central  representative 

1  The  agitation  for  a  ten-hour  law      Laws  and  their  Enforcement  vrith  Special 
in  Massachusetts  is  traced  by  Charles       Reference  to  Massachusetts,  ch.  i. 
E.  Persons  in  S.  M.  Kingsbury's  Labor 


118 


THE    FIRST    LABOR   MOVEMENT 


body  and  in  some  cases  the  separate  trades  unions  through- 
out the  country  became  more  or  less  closely  combined  into 
national  organizations.  Strikes  again  became  the  order  of 
the  day ;  but  while  there  was  vigor  displayed,  there  were  no 
new  methods  employed.  Then  came  the  Panic  of  1857 
and  before  it  had  run  its  course,  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter 
brought  to  the  front  new  problems  and  new  conditions.  In 
the  sixty  years  since  1800,  labor  had  won  many  distinct 
triumphs ;  it  had  secured  the  ten-hour  day  and  the  right 
of  organization  with  the  power  to  compel  attention  to  its 
behests,  and  it  had  secured  a  constantly  rising  rate  of  wages. 
How  far  this  increase  in  compensation  corresponded  to  the 
ever  improving  conditions  of  American  life  is  quite  another 
question  and  may  well  be  reserved  for  later  volumes.  It 
may  also  be  a  question  for  debate  as  to  whether  it  is  correct 
to  say  that  the  right  of  organization  was  admitted,  but  it 
certainly  is  correct  to  assert  that  it  was  viewed  with  much 
greater  tolerance  by  the  law-makers  and  by  those  whose 
business  it  was  to  enforce  the  laws  than  it  had  been  in  the 
earlier  time. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  119 

NOTE 

Bibliography.  —  Professor  Richard  T.  Ely  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  became  interested  in  the  labor  movement  in  America 
when  he  was  Associate  in  Political  Economy  at  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity. In  1886,  he  published  a  book  entitled  The  Labor  Movement 
in  America  which  broke  the  ground  for  all  future  discussions  on  the 
subject.  Of  course,  as  a  first  attempt  in  a  difficult  and  unexplored 
field,  this  book  has  been  very  largely  superseded,  but  Professor  Ely 
brought  together  materials  and  students  and  thus  laid  the  foundation 
for  future  studies  of  the  subject.  In  1887,  George  E.  McNeill,  himself 
a  labor  leader,  published  a  book  entitled  The  Labor  Movement:  the 
Problem  of  To-day.  In  this  undertaking  he  had  the  aid  of  many 
other  persons,  as  Terence  V.  Powderly,  Edmund  J.  James,  Henry 
George,  and  leading  men  in  the  movement.  This  book  is  very  useful 
for  the  later  time.  It  was  not  until  the  publication  of  A  Documentary 
History  of  American  Industrial  Society  in  1910  (10  vols.  with  a 
"  Supplement  "  to  vol.  iv)  that  it  became  possible  to  study  the  history 
of  labor  in  the  years  covered  in  the  present  volume  without  going 
through  the  same  amount  of  work  that  was  performed  by  Professor 
John  R.  Commons  and  his  associate  editors  and  researchers.  The 
"  General  Introduction  "  to  volume  i  of  this  publication  was  written 
by  Professor  J.  B.  Clark  of  Columbia  University ;  it  is  a  luminous 
exposition  of  the  evolution  of  industrialism  that  might  well  be  read 
by  every  student  of  American  history.  The  History  of  Labour  in 
the  United  States  in  two  volumes  by  Professor  Commons  and  Associates 
(New  York,  1918)  points  the  way  through  a  maze  of  happenings  and 
theorizings  of  the  period.  Frank  T.  Carlton's  Organized  Labor  in 
American  History  (New  York,  1920)  contains  in  brief  compass  and 
in  readable  form  the  leading  facts  of  this  earlier  labor  movement.1 

McMaster,  in  the  volumes  of  his  History  covering  this  period,  has 
printed  a  mass  of  useful  information  on  the  labor  movement,  see  the 
indexes  to  the  separate  volumes  —  a  consolidated  index  to  the  whole 
work  would  add  greatly  to  its  value. 

1  Other  compendious  works  dealing  Economic  History.  Appendix  A  to 
with  the  labor  problem  are  Arthur  W.  the  latter  deals  with  "Child  Labor  in 
Calhoun's  Social  History  of  the  Ameri-  America  before  1870,"  which  is  re- 
con  Family,  ii ;  Edith  Abbott's  Women  printed  from  the  American  Journal  of 
in  Industry,  a  Study  in  American  Sociology  for  July,  1908. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND   ABOLITIONISM 

THE  humanitarian  impulse  that  has  just  been  described 
in  relation  to  the  new  labor  problem  of  the  North  also  found 
expression  as  to  the  new  labor  problem  that  had  grown  up  in 
the  South.  We  have  always  been  accustomed  to  think  of 
slavery  as  slavery,  as  practically  the  same  thing  throughout 
the  course  of  American  history ; l  in  reality,  there  was  a 
great  change  in  the  slave  system  in  the  first  forty  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  —  a  change  entirely  analogous  to 
that  which  has  just  been  described  as  to  the  industrial 
system  of  the  North.  In  the  South,  in  the  Revolutionary 
epoch,  slavery  was  distinctly  on  the  wane.  The  great 
Virginians  —  Washington,  Jefferson,  Henry,  Madison,  Mon- 
roe, and  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  —  all  condemned  it. 
Patrick  Henry  stigmatized  it  as  an  "abominable  practice" 
and  declared  it  to  be  a  "species  of  violence  and  tyranny" 
that  was  repugnant  to  humanity,  was  inconsistent  with 
religion,  and  was  destructive  of  liberty.2  Washington  and 
Randolph  provided  by  will  for  the  emancipation  of  their 
slaves,  and  Jefferson  to  the  end  of  his  life  argued  for  the 
adoption  of  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation  combined 

1  For  slavery  in  the  pre-Revolu-  Henry,  346,  from  "Bancroft,  ed.  1869, 

tionary  days,  see  the  present  work,  vi,  416—417."  See  also  on  the  gen- 

vol.  ii.  376-398,  512-515.  eral  subject  George  Livennore's  "His- 

*  The  Commercial  Register  (Norfolk,  torical  Research  respecting  the  Opin- 

Va.)  August  30,  1802 ;  reprinted  ions  of  the  Founders  ...  on  Negroes 

from  " a  Philadelphia  Magazine."  The  as  Slaves"  in  Massachusetts  Histori- 

same  passages  —  somewhat  differ-  cal  Society's  Proceedings  for  August, 

ently  worded  —  are  printed  in  Tyler's  1862. 

12P 


COTTON  PRODUCTION  121 

with  deportation.  The  South  Carolinians  on  every  occasion 
defended  most  vigorously  their  rights  to  their  property, 
but  for  years  a  South  Carolina  law  prohibited  the  im- 
portation of  slaves  into  that  State.  This  act  was  repealed 
in  1803  and  for  a  few  years  until  the  federal  law  of  1807 
went  into  effect  there  was  a  vigorous  importation  of  fresh 
negroes  from  Africa  into  Charleston.1 

The  persistent  and  ever  increasing  demand  for  cotton 
fibre,  the  improvement  of  the  cotton-gin,  and  the  discovery 
that  the  short  staple,  green  seed  cotton  plant  throve  marvel- 
lously in  the  uplands  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  and  in 
the  black  belt  to  the  westward,  changed  the  whole  course  of 
economic  and  social  existence  in  the  South  and,  indeed, 
governed  the  course  of  history  of  the  United  States  down  to 
the  year  1865.  In  so  far  as  Eli  Whitney's  perfection  of  the 
cotton-gin  contributed  to  the  cultivation  of  the  upland 
cotton  plant  on  a  great  scale  it  was  a  curse  to  the  South, 
to  the  United  States,  and  to  humanity.  In  the  earlier  time 
by  far  the  greater  number  of  Southern  slaveholders  pos- 
sessed only  a  few  slaves  each.  In  the  families  of  professional 
men  living  in  the  towns,  there  would  be  one  or  two  to  do 
the  household  work.  In  the  rural  districts,  the  smaller 
farmers  likewise  owned  one  or  two  slaves,  or  a  slave  family 
or  two,  and  the  whites  and  blacks  worked  together  in  the 
fields,  the  farmer  or  his  grown-up  son  often  setting  the 
pace  for  the  negroes.  Not  infrequently,  the  remnants  of  a 
once  well-to-do  family  owned  a  few  slaves  who  were  "hired 
out"  to  a  neighboring  planter,  their  wages  providing  the  old 
ladies  with  food  and  clothing  for  the  last  years  of  their  lives. 

l'McCbrd's  Statutes  of  South  Caro-  negroes  from  the  West  Indies  and  of 

Una,    vii,    449.     By    this    law    former  adult  negroes  from  the  "sister  States" 

acts    prohibiting    the    importation    of  was  forbidden.     See  also  the  present 

slaves   from   Africa   and   other   places  work,  vol.  iv,  432  n. 
were  repealed;   but  the  importation  of 


122         PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

Next  in  the  order  of  evolution  from  the  old  Southern 
slave  system  to  the  plantation  system  of  the  cotton  era  was 
the  production  of  cotton  or  tobacco  in  larger  units.  The 
larger  planter  possessed  from  ten  to  one  hundred  slaves. 
With  these  he  conducted  a  plantation,  growing  tobacco  or 
cotton  for  sale  and  sufficient  foodstuffs  and  animals  to 
maintain  his  family  and  his  slaves,  —  clothing,  tools,  and 
luxuries  being  procured  from  outside  with  the  proceeds  of 
the  staple  crops.  In  1790  there  were  twenty  thousand 
families  in  the  country  owning  one  slave  apiece,  somewhat 
more  than  fifteen  thousand  owning  from  five  to  nine  slaves 
each,  and  only  two  hundred  and  forty-three  families  possess- 
ing more  than  one  hundred  slaves  each,  and  of  these  families 
only  thirty-three  lived  outside  South  Carolina  and  Virginia.1 

As  the  production  of  cotton  became  more  and  more  prof- 
itable plantations  increased  in  size,  the  number  of  slaves 
on  each  estate  increasing  accordingly,  and  the  "gang  sys- 
tem" replaced  the  older  and  less  organized  modes  of  pro- 
duction. On  the  great  plantations,  the  slave  was  not  in  any 
sense  a  member  of  his  owner's  family,  he  was  simply  a  pro- 
ducing unit  in  a  larger  agricultural  machine.  Even  South- 
erners recognized  this.  Henry  A.  Wise,  who  passed  his 
boyhood  on  a  small  plantation  of  the  old  type  in  eastern 
Virginia,  on  visiting  friends  who  operated  a  large  plantation 
in  the  southwestern  part  of  the  State  noted  how  different 

were  the  lives  of  master  and  slave  and  the  attitude  of  the  one 
i  • 

1  Century     of     Population     Growth,  tion  country,  and  the   decline  or  sta- 

136.     See     Phillips's     article     on     the  tionary  status  of  slaveholdings  in  the 

"Origin  and  Growth  of  the  Southern  older  cotton   region   and  especially   in 

Black    Belts"    in    American   Historical  the  tobacco  States.     A  table  showing 

Review,     xi,     798-816.     In     the     last  the    distribution    of    the    negro    popu- 

pages  of  this  essay  Professor  Phillips  lation,   1810-1860,  is  in   The  South  in 

makes  an  interesting  study  of  typical  the  Building  of  the  Nation,  v,  111  note, 

counties   in   the   cotton  States   and  in  The  volume  on   "Agriculture"   of  the 

Virginia    and    Maryland,    showing   the  eighth  Census  contains  the  number  of 

growth  of  slaveholdings  in  the  cotton  slaveholders  and  slaves  by  counties, 
region,  especially  in  the  newer  plants- 


18301  PLANTATION   LIFE  123 

to  the  other  in  the  two  regions.  As  was  the  case  with  the 
development  of  the  factory  system  of  the  North,  so  with  the 
growth  of  the  plantation  system  of  the  South,  the  employers 
and  masters  no  longer  worked  side  by  side  with  their  laborers 
and  slaves,  but  lived  their  lives  apart  and  developed  new 
ways  of  thought  and  of  action.  Quantity  production  either 
in  factory  or  plantation  could  perhaps  be  carried  on  in  no 
other  way  at  that  time,  but  it  is  in  this  new  social  order  or 
disorder,  that  one  sees  much  of  the  cause  of  labor  discontent 
in  the  North  and  of  the  rise  of  a  demand  there  for  the  imme- 
diate and  total  extinction  of  the  slave  system  throughout  the 
country. 

The  life  on  one  of  these  great  plantations  must  have 
been  monotonous  in  the  extreme.  It  was  one  ceaseless 
round  of  looking  after  the  slaves,  keeping  them  in  health, 
seeing  that  they  did  not  steal  or  run  away,  and  super- 
intending the  superintendents  or  overseers.  The  slaves 
had  to  be  adequately  fed  and  clothed  or  they  would  lose 
their  bodily  vigor  and  become  unprofitable,  but  at  the  same 
time  there  were  great  opportunities  for  waste  and  peculation 
of  both  food  and  clothing  and  the  details  of  purchase  and 
distribution  had  to  be  most  carefully  and  continuously 
looked  into.  The  negroes,  especially  in  the  newly  cleared 
country,  were  liable  to  disease  and  in  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  there  were  epidemics  of  small-pox  and 
of  fevers  that  were  more  especially  prevalent  in  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley.1  On  some  occasions  one-third  of  the  slaves  on 
a  plantation  were  carried  off  by  one  of  these  epidemics 
within  a  few  weeks,  and  in  other  parts  of  the  country  slaves 
had  to  be  moved  every  year  from  the  low  lands  to  the  high 
lands  to  keep  their  health  from  deterioration.2  Then  there 

'See  Account  of  the  Epidemic   Yel-  *  For  instance  the  "Stock  and  Crop 

low  Fever  ...  in  New  Orleans,  .  .  .  Book"  of  Silver  Bluff  Plantation  in 
18SS  by  Dr.  Edward  H.  Barton.  South  Carolina  states  that  in  1833  a 


124          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [On.  V 

was  the  question  of  discipline.  It  was  very  necessary  to 
maintain  good  order  and  strictness,  for  the  planter,  his 
wife,  and  his  children  were  often  living  miles  away  from 
any  other  white  family  and  surrounded  by  hundreds  of 
blacks  with  only  two  or  three  white  overseers  to  aid  them 
in  case  of  trouble.  On  the  one  hand,  discipline  must  be 
severe  enough  to  impress  the  necessity  of  obedience  and 
regularity  on  the  minds  of  the  slaves  and  yet  not  be  so  severe 
as  to  limit  bodily  strength  or  in  any  way  to  lower  their  work- 
ing capacity,  —  for  a  non-working  slave  was  an  actual  burden 
upon  the  plantation  finances.  Finally,  there  was  the  ques- 
tion of  overseers  and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  most 
troublesome  problem  of  all  for  the  owner  of  a  great  plan- 
tation. They  were  difficult  to  procure  and  more  difficult  to 
keep,  for  if  an  overseer  had  the  faculty  of  raising  a  good  crop 
and  keeping  the  slaves  healthy  and  contented,  he  was  in 
great  demand  and  if  he  lacked  either  of  these  qualities,  he 
was  of  little  use  as  an  overseer.  On  the  great  plantations, 
elaborate  rules  were  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  overseers ; 
they  were  often  distinctly  limited  in  the*  amount  of  labor 
which  they  could  exact  and  in  the  amount  of  punishment 
they  could  inflict.  One  planter,  to  get  away  from  the 
harassments  of  slavery,  employed  a  gang  of  Irish  and  German 
immigrants  to  work  on  one  of  his  plantations ;  they  struck 
in  the  midst  of  the  picking  season  and  the  experiment  cost 
that  planter  ten  thousand  dollars.1  All  in  all,  the  troubles 
and  vexations  of  plantation  life  must  have  detracted  im- 
mensely from  the  pleasures  of  existence  and  to  this  must  be 
added  the  burden  of  debt  that  often  hung  over  the  owner  of 

"fresh"  ruined  part  of  the  corn  on  the  mond  Papers"  in  Library  of  Congress, 

plantation    so    that    there    was    barely  *  Charles  Lyell's  Second  Visit  to  the 

enough     left    for    the    needs    of    the  United  States,  ii,  126,  quoted  by  Phillips 

year  and  in  the  same  twelve  months,  in  American  Industrial  Society,  ii,  183. 

fourteen  slaves   died  from  illness  and  Lyell's  visit  was  made  in  1846. 
there   were  only  five   births.     "Ham- 


1830]  RUNAWAY  SLAVES  125 

thousands  of  acres  and  hundreds  of  slaves.  In  fact,  the 
great  planter  of  the  Cotton  Belt  had  all  the  business  cares 
of  the  prosperous  Northern  manufacturer  or  man  of  com- 
merce with  a  multitude  of  petty  human  details  thrown  in. 
It  is  by  no  means  improbable,  as  one  Southern  writer  has 
intimated,  that  the  slaves  were  often  happier  than  their 
masters. 

A  constant  cause  "of  anxiety  on  the  part  of  the  slave 
owner  was  the  propensity  of  the  negroes  to  run  away. 
This  was  oftentimes  due  to  excessive  severity  and  sometimes 
it  was  the  result  of  an  inborn  desire  for  freedom,  especially  on 
the  part  of  those  slaves  who  had  a  large  admixture  of  white 
blood  in  their  veins.  In  other  cases,  it  was  due  to  the 
desire  of  a  slave  to  rejoin  a  wife  or  child  who  had  been  sold 
away  from  the  plantation.  There  had  been  runaways  in 
colonial  days,  when  slavery  existed  by  law  in  every  colony, 
and  a  clause  in  the  New  England  Articles  of  Confederation 
of  1643  had  provided  for  the  return  of  fugitives  escaping 
from  one  of  the  confederated  colonies  to  another.  At  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  there  were  many  free  negroes  living 
in  Philadelphia  and  other  parts  of  Pennsylvania  and  also 
in  New  York,  but  how  far  these  were  fugitives  from  the 
South,  or  their  children,  is  impossible  of  determination.  At 
all  events  there  was  a  strong  feeling  in  the  distinctively 
Slave  States  that  runaways  should  be  returned  as  a  matter 
of  interstate  comity.  This  led  to  the  insertion  in  the 
Constitution  of  a  clause  providing  that  a  person  held  to 
service  in  one  State,1  escaping  into  another  "shall  be  de- 
livered up  on  Claim  of  the  Party  to  whom  such  Service 
or  Labour  may  be  due."  In  1793  Congress  passed  a  law  to 
carry  out  this  constitutional  provision,  but  the  machinery 
provided  in  the  act  was  so  vague  that  it  was  difficult  for 

1  Article  iv,  §  2,  third  paragraph. 


126       PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM         [Cn.  V 

masters  to  secure  the  return  of  their  runaways.1  As  point- 
ing to  the  difficulty  of  securing  runaways  under  this  law 
an  incident  that  comes  out  in  the  "Jefferson  Manuscripts" 
is  interesting.  It  appears  that  a  mulatto  slave  named 
Joe,  who  had  worked  for  ten  years  at  the  blacksmith  trade 
at  Monticello  and  had  never  received  a  blow  or  had  a  word 
of  difference  with  any  one  had  run  away  and  gone  toward 
Washington.  Jefferson,  writing  from  Monticello  to  his 
manager  at  the  President's  House  in  Washington,  directed 
him  to  use  all  possible  diligence  in  searching  for  the  run- 
away and  to  have  aid  to  take  him  for  he  was  strong  and 
resolute.  Jefferson's  surmises  were  correct  and  his  direc- 
tions were  followed  to  the  letter,  for  four  days  later  the 
fugitive  was  seen  in  the  President's  "yard,"  was  appre- 
hended, and  the  next  day  was  on  his  way  back  to  Monti- 
cello.2  This  instance  has  been  given  at  length  partly  be- 
cause it  shows  Jefferson's  administrative  power,  but  more 
especially  because  it  is  a  bit  of  presumptive  proof  against  the 
efficacy  of  the  Act  of  1793  and  exhibits  Jefferson's  attitude 
toward  his  own  slaves. 

There  was  undoubtedly  a  small  but  steady  stream  of  flee- 
ing slaves  from  the  South,  but  the  losses  from  this  cause  in 
the  Cotton  Belt  were  much  more  than  made  good  by  the 
constant  inflow  of  slaves  from  the  Border  States.3  This 
traffic  was  looked  down  upon  by  many  people  in  the  South 

1  See    W.    H.    Smith's    "The    First  Commonwealth  vs.  Aves,  and  the  slave's 

Fugitive    Slave    Case"    in    Report    of  name  was  Med.    See  also  B.  R.  Curtis's 

American    Historical    Association    for  Memoir    of   Benjamin   Robbins   Curtis, 

1893,  p.  93.     See  also   ibid.,    1895,    p.  LL.D.,  i,  85  and  fol.     For   Somerset's 

393,  and  W.  H.  Siebert's  Underground  case,  see  the  present  work,  vol.  iii,  555. 

Railroad   (New  York,   1898).  *  "Jefferson     Manuscripts"    in    the 

Until    1836    visiting     slave    owners  Cabinet  of  the  Massachusetts  Histori- 

brought  their  body  servants  into  Massa-  cal   Society   under   date   of   August  3, 

chusetts,  held  them  there  in  bondage,  1806. 

and  carried  them  away.     In  that  year  3  The   South  in  the   Building  of  the 

Chief  Justice  Shaw  set  free  such  a  slave  Nation,  iv,  217-226 ;    W.  H.   Collins's 

practically  on  the  ground  of  Somerset's  The  Domestic  Slave  Trade  of  the  South- 

case.     See  Frederic  H.  Chase's  Lemuel  ern  States. 
Shaw.  164 ;   the  case  was  that  of  the 


1830]  INTERSTATE   SLAVE   TRADE  127 

and  its  conductors  were  outside  the  pale.1  The  history 
of  it,  therefore,  is  indistinct.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  discount  largely  the  stories  told  by  abolitionists 
and  travellers ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  necessary  to 
place  slight  reliance  upon  the  disclaimers  of  Southern 
writers.  The  mortality  of  the  negroes  on  the  rice  planta- 
tions and  in  the  newly  cleared  cotton  lands  of  Alabama  and 
Mississippi  was  very  great,  owing  in  part  to  the  severity  of 
the  labor  and  in  part  to  the  adverse  climatic  conditions. 
The  birth-rate  was  very  high,  but  the  death-rate  seems  to 
have  counterbalanced  it  in  those  sections  as  the  mortality, 
especially  among  children,  was  very  great.  In  the  northern 
tier  of  the  Slave  States  the  conditions  of  climate  and  of 
living  were  distinctly  favorable  to  the  negro,  and  there  was 
a  constant  surplus  of  servile  black  laborers  for  sale  to  the 
Cotton  Belt.  Marital  relations  between  the  blacks  were 
very  flexible,  even  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  Undoubtedly, 
too,  miscegenation  was  by  no  means  rare.2  From  time  to 
time  it  is  not  unusual  for  men  to  argue  that  the  white  race 
and  the  black  race  are  different  and  that  they  are  incapable 
of  amalgamation.  This  may  all  be  true  as  to  the  ultimate 
merging  of  the  two  races,3  but  miscegenation  was  common  in 

1  The    attitude    of    a    typical    Vir-  tempt   to    reSnact   it   in    1822    failed, 

ginia  planter  of  the  olden  time  is  seen  Jervey's   The   Railroad   the   Conqueror, 

in  a  letter  from  J.  F.  Mercer  to  James  p.  6. 

Madison  informing  him  that  he  "  must  *  Rhodes's  United  States,  i,  334  and 

notwithstanding    the    repugnance    you  fol.     See    also    Arthur    W.    Calhoun's 

will   suppose,   sell   a   parcel  of  human  Social  History  of  the  American  Family 

beings  who  have  been  born  and  bred  (vol.  ii,  Cleveland,  1918). 
in  the  family  and  on  the  soil  which  they  *  See   John   Bachman's   Doctrine   of 

will  leave  with  the  greatest  reluctance."  the  Unity  of  the  Human  Race  (Charles- 

"  Madison  Manuscripts"  in  the  Library  ton,    1850);     Jervey's     The     Railroad 

of  Congress,  under  date  of  November  the     Conqueror,     p.     13 ;      Robert     B. 

14,    1799.     Virginia    slaves    were    ad-  Bean's  "Some   Racial    Peculiarities   of 

vertised   for   sale   at   New   Orleans   in  the  Negro  Brain"  in  American  Journal 

1808,    Courrier    de    la   Louisiana,    De-  of  Anatomy,  v,  353 ;    and  an  article  on 

cember     12,     1808.      South      Carolina  "  Present  British  Opinion  on  the  Negro 

by  law   restricted   the   importation   of  Problem"   in    LitteWs    Lining   Age   for 

slaves  from  other  States  in  1816 ;    the  August  2,  1919. 
act  was  repealed  in  1818  and  an  at- 


128          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [CH.  V 

the  Slave  States  before  1861,  although  it  may  be  going  too 
far  to  assert  that  it  was  a  distinct  menace  to  the  integrity 
of  the  white  race.  Certain  it  is  that  black  children  and 
mulatto  children  were  born  in  great  numbers  in  the  Border 
States  and  multiplied  so  greatly  that  the  land  under  the 
existing  modes  of  cultivation  could  not  support  them.  To 
the  masters  the  only  way  of  escape  from  bankruptcy  was 
to  sell  off  a  portion  of  their  human  chattels  and  there  was  an 
eager  market  for  them  in  the  Cotton  Belt.1 

The  external  slave  trade  ostensibly  came  to  an  end 
in  1808,2  but  there  are  many  indications  of  the  importation 
of  foreign  negroes  into  the  United  States  for  years  after  that 
time.  Opinions  differ  as  to  the  extent  of  this  traffic.  It 
had  to  be  carried  on  in  a  very  clandestine  manner,  especially 
after  European  nations  had  combined  to  put  an  end  to  the 
exportation  of  slaves  from  Africa  and  the  United  States 
haoSdeclared  the  slave  trade  to  be  piracy  and  had  joined 
with  Great  Britain  in  maintaining  a  fleet  on  the  African 
coast  to  capture  slave-running  vessels.  The  profits  were  so 
great,  however,  that  the  traffic  was  going  on  in  one  way  or 
another,  directly  or  indirectly,  through  all  these  years.3 
Taking  the  external  slave  trade  at  the  very  greatest  estimate 
of  those  who  have  argued  for  its  existence,  it  could  have 

1  Professor  Dew  had  "no  hesitation  it  would   appear  that  the   number  of 
in  saying,   that  upwards  of    6000    are  slaves    illegally    imported    by    way    of 
yearly  exported  to  other  States.       Vir-  Texas    has    been    greatly    exaggerated, 
ginia  is,  in  fact,  a  negro  raising  State  On  the  other  hand,   the  fact  that  an 
for  other  States ;    she  produces  enough  agent  to  receive  all  slaves  brought  into 
for  her  own  supply,  and  six  thousand  the  State  of  Alabama  in  violation  of 
for  sale."     The  Pro-Slavery  Argument,  the  federal  laws  prohibiting   the   slave 
359.  trade    was    authorized    by    the    legis- 

2  See   W.   E.  B.  Du  Bois's  Suppres-  lature  would  seem  to  point  to  the  fact 
aion   of  the  African  Slave-Trade  (Har-  of    large    and    constant    infractions    of 
vard  Historical  Studies,  i)  with  a  lengthy  those    laws.     Digest    of    the    Laws    of 
bibliography    of   books    printed    up  to  ...  Alabama  (1823),  p.  643. 

1904.     From  Eugene  C.  Barker's  arti-  3  See    House    Report    No.    59,    16th 

cle   on  "The  African   Slave   Trade  in  Cong.,  2nd    Sess.,    and    House   Report 

Texas"    (The  Quarterly   of   the   Texas  No.  348,  21st  Cong.,  1st  Sesa. 
State  Historical  Association,   vi,    145) 


1830]  THE   SLAVE   TRADE  129 

supplied  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  new  negroes  required 
in  the  rapidly  developing  production  of  cotton  and  sugar. 
The  rest  of  them  must  have  come  from  the  natural  increase 
in  the  negro  population  of  the  Cotton  Belt  and  Louisiana 
and  from  importation  from  the  Border  States. 

The  probability  of  a  large  exportation  of  slaves  from  Vir- 
ginia comes  out  in  the  average  valuation  set  upon  "prime 
field  hands"  by  the  State  authorities  in  conformity  with  laws 
that  provided  for  the  compensation  of  all  masters  whose 
slaves  were  executed  for  crime.1  In  1802,  the  value  was 
set  at  $400  and  reached  the  first  high  point  of  $800  in  1818. 
In  the  hard  times  that  followed  the  crisis  of  1819,  the  value 
went  back  to  $400 ;  but  in  1837,  it  was  fixed  at  $1000.  In 
1843,  it  went  down  to  $500  and  then  gradually  rose  until 
1860  when  it  was  fixed  at  $1200,  —  the  highest  point  it  ever 
reached.  These  extreme  prices  must  have  been  a  powerful 
spur  to  the  owner  of  surplus  slaves  to  dispose  of  them  to  the 
interstate  dealers.  Indeed,  the  mere  fact  that  this  rise 
and  fall  in  the  price  of  negro  slaves  in  Virginia  synchronizes 
so  closely  with  the  prosperity  and  dulness  of  cotton  growing 
in  the  South  is  in  itself  suggestive  of  the  close  connec- 
tion between  slave  breeding  in  the  Old  Dominion  and  the 
development  of  plantations  in  the  Cotton  Belt.  Of  course 
Virginia  tobacco  culture  had  its  ups  and  downs  with  the 
general  prosperity  of  the  country  and  of  the  world;  but 
owing  to  the  competition  of  Kentucky  and  North  Carolina 
in  the  production  of  tobacco  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of 
there  being  any  such  keen  demand  for  field  hands  in  the 
Old  Dominion  as  the  highest  of  these  figures  indicates. 

1  American    Historical    Review,    xix,  April  price  of  Upland  cotton  at  Bos- 

813,  xx,  340 ;    The  South  in  the  Build-  ton  was  as  follows :  —  1802,  25  cts.  per 

ing  of  the  Nation,  v,  127 ;  and  American  Ib. ;   1818,  32  cts. ;    1819,  25  cts. ;   1837, 

State    Papers,    Foreign    Relations,    vi,  17£  cts. ;     1843,  9  cts. 
339.     In  the  years  noted  in  text  the 

VOL.  V. — K 


130          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

Side  by  side  with  the  slaves  in  the  South  and  with  the 
free  white  workers  in  the  North,  but  not  of  them,  were  the  free 
blacks.  These  were  most  numerous,  comparatively  speak- 
ing, in  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  and  in  Richmond  and 
Norfolk,  Virginia,  in  the  Slave  States,  and  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  York,  in  the  free  States.  In  the  North,  the  free 
blacks  were  largely  the  offspring  of  legislative  emancipation,1 
but  some  of  them  were  refugees  from  the  South  and  still 
others  were  Southern  negroes  who  had  been  emancipated  by 
their  masters  or  had  purchased  their  freedom  by  working 
extra  hours  and  had  been  obliged  to  leave  the  State  of  their 
birth.  Many  of  them,  of  course,  had  been  born  free  in  the 
North,  —  the  children  of  those  who  were  themselves  free. 
However  they  had  become  free,  they  were  looked  upon  with 
suspicion  by  the  white  laborer  of  the  North  and  with  dread 
by  the  slave  owners  of  the  South.  Northern  farmers  did  not 
want  them  on  their  farms  and  Southern  planters  would  not 
permit  them  to  live  near  their  plantations  if  they  possibly 
could  help  it.  One  of  the  most  interesting  stories  of  the 
hardships  of  the  free  blacks  is  that  of  the  slaves  emancipated 
under  the  will  of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke.  The  freed- 
men  could  not  remain  in  Virginia,  as  the  laws  of  that  State 
required  every  emancipated  slave  to  leave  the  State  within 
twelve  months  or  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  "literary 
fund." 2  The  executors  of  Randolph's  will,  therefore, 

1  A  very  helpful   list  of  the   State  N.  Y.,  as  late  as  August  9,  1808,  ac- 

emancipation  laws  is  in  E.  R.  Turner's  cording  to  the  Farmers'  Register  of  that 

Slavery  in  Pennsylvania,  80  and  note.  date. 

Slavery  was  done  away  with  in  Massa-  J  See  H.  N.  Sherwood's  "Settlement 

chusetts     by     the     judicial     interpre-  of  the  John  Randolph  Slaves  in  Ohio" 

tation   of   the   Bill  of   Rights  (see  the  in  Proceedings  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 

present  work,   vol.   iii,  559)    and  also  ley     Historical     Association,     v,     39- 

in   New  Hampshire  by  judicial  inter-  59 ;    Revised     Code    of   .    .    .    Virginia 

pretation.     The  history  of  the  gradual  (1819)  i,    421-444,  §§  53,  61,  65;    and 

abolition    of    slavery    in    Pennsylvania  "Was  John    Randolph  a  Lunatic"    in 

is   well    told    in    E.    R.    Turner's    The  The  South  Atlantic  Quarterly  for  Jan- 

Negro    in    Pennsylvania,    78    and    fol.  uary,  1913. 
Slaves  were  bought  and  sold  at  Troy, 


1830]  FREE   BLACKS  131 

procured  land  in  central  Ohio  and  transported  the  freed 
blacks  thither.  But  when  they  reached  their  destination 
by  boat,  the  white  settlers  of  the  neighborhood  refused  to 
permit  them  to  land.  As  no  free  negro  could  be  brought 
into  Virginia  under  the  penalty  of  $333.33  for  each  negro, 
the  executors  were  in  a  quandary.  In  the  end  the  freedmen 
found  employment  in  various  places  in  Ohio  and  some  of  them 
were  even  permitted  to  settle  on  the  lands  that  had  been 
purchased  for  their  benefit. 

The  laws  of  Virginia  as  to  free  blacks  were  very  strict. 
Those  who  were  free  in  1819  were  permitted  to  remain  in 
the  State,  but  all  who  were  freed  after  that  date  were  obliged 
to  leave  within  twelve  months  under  penalty  of  being  sold 
into  slavery.1  Every  free  negro  who  was  permitted  to 
live  in  Virginia  must  be  registered  under  penalty  of  going  to 
jail  and  must  always  have  his  registration  paper  with  him, 
which  must  be  renewed  every  three  years.  If  a  registered 
free  negro  permitted  a  slave  to  use  his  paper,  he  could  be 
imprisoned  for  from  one  to  ten  years,  and  any  one  harboring 
an  unregistered  negro  was  liable  to  a  fine  of  five  dollars. 
Moreover,  free  blacks  were  to  pay  an  annual  tax  under 
penalty  of  being  hired  out  at  a  very  low  rate  until  the 
amount  of  the  tax  was  earned.  Otherwise,  they  were 
subjected  to  the  laws  governing  slaves.  They  could  not 
carry  a  weapon  without  a  license,  administer  medicine  to  a 
white  person,  have  any  commercial  dealings  with  any  one, 
or  assemble  with  the  slaves  of  the  neighborhood. 

The  District  of  Columbia,  as  the  meeting  point  of  the 
routes  of  transportation  from  north  to  south  and  as  the 
place  of  abode  for  Southerners,  was  necessarily  occupied 
more  or  less  permanently  by  a  considerable  free  black  popu- 
lation. Some  of  these  people  were  actual  residents  of  the 

i  Revised  Code  of  Virginia  (1819),  i,  436. 


132          PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Ga.  V 

District,  their  status  being  governed  by  the  laws  of  Virginia, 
if  they  lived  in  the  portion  of  the  District  that  lay  south 
of  the  Potomac,  or  by  the  laws  of  Maryland,  if  they  resided 
in  Washington  City  or  Georgetown.  Then  there  were  free 
blacks  who  came  to  the  District  on  their  own  account,  either 
for  some  business  purpose  or  to  search  for  a  lost  relation, 
and  there  were  persons  claiming  to  be  free  in  the  bands  con- 
stantly passing  through  the  District  under  the  guidance  of 
slave  dealers  from  Delaware  and  Maryland  to  the  slave 
markets  of  the  South.1  As  might  be  expected,  there  was 
much  confusion  and  undoubtedly  a  good  deal  of  injustice 
and  Congress  seems  to  have  been  singularly  remiss  in  not 
providing  clear  and  definite  rules  for  the  guidance  of  the 
law  officers  of  the  District.  The  best  known  case,  as 
pointing  to  the  possibilities  of  injustice  to  the  free  blacks, 
was  that  of  Gilbert  Horton.  He  was  a  free  negro  from  New 
York  who  came  to  Washington  on  business  in  1826  and  was 
arrested  and  confined  as  a  runaway  until  he  could  obtain 
evidence  of  his  freedom  from  New  York  and,  as  this  was  slow 
in  coming,  he  was  advertised  to  be  sold  in  payment  of  the 
jail  fees.  It  was  this  case  that  aroused  the  interest  of  Wil- 
liam Jay  of  New  York  and  led  him  in  a  somewhat  dramatic 
manner  to  stir  the  governor  of  that  State  to  write  to  the 
President  on  the  subject.  The  case  aroused  so  much  com- 

1  In  the  Slave  States  the  presump-  of  this  is  found  in  Charles  Ball's  Sta- 
tion of  law,  one  might  say,  was  in  very  in  the  United  States:  A  Narrative 
favor  of  a  person  of  color  being  a  (1836) ;  but  how  much  reliance  can 
slave,  —  the  burden  was  upon  him  be  placed  on  this  and  other  narratives 
or  her  to  prove  his  or  her  free  status.  supposed  to  have  come  from  the  pens 
No  doubt  many  free  blacks  were  sold  of  persons  of  color  may  well  be  doubted, 
into  slavery  for  jail  fees  or  because  The  best  evidence  as  to  the  existence 
they  could  not  prove  their  freedom.  of  the  practice  is  to  be  found  in  the 
It  is  also  undoubtedly  true  that  the  laws  of  the  Border  States  prohibiting 
high  price  set  on  a  slave  tempted  un-  it,  as,  for  example,  the  laws  of  Virginia 
principled  slave  dealers  to  kidnap  and  Kentucky,  which  provided  a  jail 
free  persons  of  color  in  the  Border  sentence  of  from  one  to  ten  years  for 
States  and  conduct  them  to  Southern  selling  a  free  person  as  a  slave, 
slave  markets.  The  stock  example 


1826]  FREE   BLACKS  133 

ment  that  a  congressional  committee  was  appointed  to  in- 
quire into  it.  It  appears  from  the  report  of  this  committee 
that  the  negro,  being  seen  wandering  about  the  wharves 
without  any  evidence  on  his  person  of  his  being  a  free  man, 
was  arrested  and  committed  as  a  runaway  by  a  justice  of  the 
peace.  The  officers  immediately  wrote  to  the  persons  in 
New  York  mentioned  by  Horton  and  it  appearing  that  he 
was  a  free  black,  he  was  set  at  liberty  without  being  sub- 
jected to  any  charge  or  expense.  About  two  months  later, 
he  was  again  arrested  as  a  runaway,  but  was  at  once  dis- 
charged, and  apparently  continued  to  live  unmolested l  in 
Washington. 

In  the  Northeastern  States,  in  Massachusetts,  New  York, 
and  Pennsylvania,  there  was  the  same  jealousy  and  dread  of 
the  free  black  population  that  there  was  in  the  Southern 
States.  The  "  Census  "  of  1800  gives  the  free  black  popula- 
tion of  Massachusetts  at  over  six  thousand.  Many  of  these 
were  old  and  helpless  and  the  town  authorities  were  dis- 
mayed at  the  prospect  before  them.  The  free  negroes  com- 
mitted crimes  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers 2 
and  insanity  was  not  at  all  uncommon.3  They  also  con- 
gregated in  the  towns  and  aroused  the  fears  of  their  neigh- 
bors. In  1788,  the  Massachusetts  legislature  provided  by 

1  See     Mary     Tremain's     "Slavery  'Boston  Prison  Discipline  Society's 

in   the   District  of   Columbia"   in   the  Annual  Reports,  i,  23,  24;    ii,  45.     On 

Seminary  Papers  of  the  University  of  p.  86  of  An  Account  of  the  State  Prison 

Nebraska,   No.  2,   p.  42 ;    B.  Tucker-  ...  in   the    City   of  New    York    it   is 

man's    William  Jay,   29;    and  Niles's  stated    that    the     "blacks    constitute 

Register,     xxxi,     345.     In     default     of  less  than  one  twenty-eighth  part  of  the 

federal   law  for  Washington   City  the  whole    population    of    the    State,    yet 

laws   of    Maryland   applied   there;     in  they  form  nearly  one-third  of  the  whole 

1806  the  Maryland  Assembly  enacted  number  of  convicts." 
that  no  free  negro  or  mulatto  should  3  See     Edward     Jarvis's     "Insanity 

come   into   the   State   to   settle   under  among    the    Coloured    Population    of 

penalty  of  a  fine  of  ten  dollars  for  each  the    Free    States"    in    the    American 

week  that  he  remained  in  the  State  —  Journal    of   the    Medical    Sciences    for 

after  the  first  two  and  should  be  sold  for  January,     1844  —  also    printed     sepa- 

time  sufficient  to  pay  costs  and  fines.  rately. 
Maxcy's  Laws  of  Maryland,  iii,  293. 


134          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Ca.  V 

law  that  no  African  or  negro,  other  than  a  citizen  of  some 
one  of  the  United  States  and  bringing  with  him  a  certificate 
from  the  Secretary  of  that  State,  should  tarry  within  the 
limits  of  the  Commonwealth  longer  than  two  months  under 
penalty  of  being  "whipped  not  exceeding  ten  stripes" 
and  this  law  was  still  in  force  in  1823.1  There  were  more 
negroes  in  Philadelphia  than  in  any  Massachusetts  town  and 
the  jealousy  and  the  dislike  of  them  on  the  part  of  the  whites 
was  very  marked.  Between  1790  and  1800,  the  black 
population  of  Philadelphia  county  increased  from  2489 
to  6880  and  there  were  at  the  last  of  these  two  dates,  no 
less  than  eleven  thousand  free  blacks  in  eastern  Pennsylva- 
nia.2 Those  in  Philadelphia  herded  together  in  one  part  of 
the  city.  In  1804,  there  were  riots  in  which  groups  of 
negroes  marched  through  the  streets,  knocked  down  one  or 
more  white  men,  and  declared  they  would  "  show  them  San 
Domingo."3  In  1834,  a  white  mob  drove  hundreds  of  free 
blacks  out  of  Philadelphia,  across  the  Delaware  River  to 
New  Jersey,  where  their  presence  at  once  aroused  appre- 
hensions on  the  part  of  the  white  inhabitants.4 

In  South  Carolina,  the  most  intense  slave  State  of  the 
older  time,  the  free  blacks,  curiously  enough,  were  in  places 
exceedingly  numerous.  As  they  became  emancipated,  for 
one  reason  or  another,  they  gravitated  to  Charleston  where 
they  were  able  to  find  employment  about  the  wharves  or 
in  mechanic  trades.  In  1820,  there  were  over  three  thou- 
sand of  them  in  the  city  in  comparison  with  1680  in  1810,  — 
the  increase  being  about  eighty-five  per  cent  in  ten  years 
in  comparison  with  an  increase  of  the  white  population  of 

1  Laws  of  .  .  .  Massachusetts  (1801),  p.  17,  and  the  Census  of  1800,  page  a. 
i,  413 ;  General  Laws  of  Massachusetts  *  The  Freeman's  Journal,  and  PhUa- 

(1823),  i,  324.  delphia    Daily    Advertiser    for    July    9, 

*W.    E.    B.    Du   Bois's    The   Phila-  1804. 

delphia     Negro     in     the     Publications  *  American     Industrial     Society,     ii, 

of    the    University    of    Pennsylvania,  159. 


1822]  FREE   BLACKS   IN   CHARLESTON  135 

only  fourteen  per  cent.1  Already  in  1806  the  Charleston 
city  council  had  endeavored  to  limit  the  congregation  of 
free  blacks  in  the  city.  They  evidently  thought  that  the 
practice  of  slave  owners  in  hiring  out  their  mechanically 
expert  slaves  to  city  employers  was  the  cause  of  the  con- 
stantly increasing  numbers  of  free  blacks,  as  these  hired-out 
slaves  when  they  had  accumulated  enough  money  bought 
their  freedom.  They  provided,  therefore,  that  no  slave 
should  occupy  a  house  in  the  city  without  a  ticket  from  his 
owner;  they  were  not  to  assemble  together  to  more  than 
the  number  of  seven  unless  some  white  person  was  present ; 
they  were  not  to  exercise  any  mechanic  employment,  own 
any  boat,  or  carry  on  any  trade  without  a  license,  —  all 
under  penalty  of  whippings  and  fines.2  By  1819,  their 
numbers  had  so  increased  that  the  city  council  again  under- 
took their  regulation.  In  1822,  the  Denmark  Vesey 
attempt  at  insurrection  in  Charleston3  again  aroused  the 
apprehensions  of  the  whites.  Vesey  was  an  exceedingly 
intelligent  colored  man  from  the  West  Indies  who  had  so 
devised  his  attempt  that  success  might  well  have  attended 
it,  for  the  moment,  at  any  rate,  had  not  a  faithful  slave 
disclosed  it  to  his  master.  Leading  men  of  Charleston  drew 
up  a  memorial 4  reprehending  severely  the  habit  of  slave- 
holders of  hiring  out  their  slaves  or  permitting  them  to  hire 

'"Memorial     of     the     Citizens     of  Negro   Plot.     An   Account   of  the  Late 

Charleston"     to    the    South    Carolina  Intended      Insurrection  .  .  .    Published 

legislature      in      American      Industrial  by  the  Authority  of  the  Corporation  of 

Society,  ii,  103-116.     The  United  States  Charleston     (Boston,     1822)  ;      T.     W. 

Census  for  1810  (p.  79)   and  for  1820  Higginson's  Travellers  and  Outlaws  (Bos- 

(p.  26)  give  quite  different  figures  for  ton,    1889),  p.    215,    and   bibliography 

the  free  colored  population  of  Charles-  on  p.  332;  and  A.  H.  Grimke's  "  Right 

ton.  on    the    Scaffold    or    the    Martyrs  of 

*  Digest  of  the  Ordinances  of  Charles-  1822"   in  the  American   Negro  Acad- 

ton    (1818),  p.    178,   and    "Appendix,"  emy's  Occasional  Papers,  No.  7. 
p.  32.  *  American     Industrial     Society,     ii, 

'On     the     Denmark     Vesey     plot,  103-116.     While     this     statement     is 

see   L.   H.   Kennedy   and   T.   Parker's  one-sided,  it  shows  the  reality  of  the 

Official  Report  of  the  Trials  of  Sundry  fears  of  the  whites. 
Negroes     (Charleston,     S.     C.,     1822); 


136          PLANTATION   SYSTEM   AND  ABOLITIONISM     [On.  V 

themselves  out,  or  allowing  them  to  work  overtime  for 
wages  which  were  sometimes  paid  by  the  owner  or  more 
often  by  a  neighbor.  These  "hired-out"  slaves  were 
ordinarily  mechanics.  They  had  a  good  deal  of  spare  time, 
lived  under  no  supervision  except  when  actually  at  work, 
competed  with  white  mechanics  and  tradesmen,  and  were  a 
menace  to  the  institution  of  slavery  in  many  ways.  For 
these  reasons,  the  memorialists  thought  the  practice  should 
be  absolutely  forbidden  by  law.  This  memorial  and  the 
excitement  attendant  upon  the  Vesey  plot  induced  the 
Charleston  city  council  to  provide  a  municipal  guard  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  men  to  protect  the  roads  leading  into 
Charleston  and  the  water  front  by  day  and  by  night,  when- 
ever necessity  should  seem  to  require  it.  To  defray  the 
expenses  of  this  guard  an  annual  tax  of  ten  dollars  was  levied 
on  all  houses  inhabited  by  persons  of  color  within  the  city 
and  a  further  tax  of  ten  dollars  upon  all  free  male  persons 
of  color  exercising  any  mechanic  trade  within  the  patrol 
limits.1  A  few  years  later,  the  council  provided  that  every 
ticket  giving  permission  to  a  person  of  color,  whether  slave  or 
free,  to  go  about  after  dark  should  designate  the  name  of  the 
street,  of  the  owner  of  the  premises  from  which  such  person 
had  permission  to  go,  the  place  of  destination,  and  the  per- 
mission to  return,  if  return  were  contemplated.  Any 
person  of  color  apprehended  without  a  ticket,  after  the 
guard  was  set,  should  be  dealt  with  according  to  law.  The 
State  legislature  also  took  up  the  matter,  and  passed  law 
after  law  2  designed  to  limit  what  seemed  to  them  to  be  a 

1 A    Collection   of  the   Ordinances   of  tern  of   South   Carolina  .  .  .  A    Digest 

Charleston  (1823),  p.  48;    see  also  T.  D.  of  Acts   (Charleston,   1835);   Digest   of 

Condy'a    Digest    of   the    Laws    of  .  .  .  the  Ordinances  of  .  .  .  Charleston  (1818) , 

South-Carolina  .  .  .  relating       to       the  and  Collection  of  the  Ordinances  of  .  .  . 

Militia;     with    an    Appendix,    contain-  Charleston  (1832). 

ing  the  Patrol  Laws ;    The  Laws  for  the  *  Cooper's     Statutes  .  .  .  of     South 

Government  of  Slaves  and  Free  Persons  Carolina,    vii,    461-474. 
of   Colour    (1830);     The    Militia    Sys- 


1830]  FREE   BLACKS   IN   CHARLESTON  137 

grave  menace  to  the  white  people  of  the  State  and  to  the 
institution  of  slavery.  By  these  laws  free  blacks  were 
forbidden  entrance  to  the  State  by  sea  and  by  land,  were 
made  liable  to  several  taxes,  and  were  forbidden  to  carry 
arms.  Moreover,  a  "guardian"  might  be  appointed  for  a 
free  black  l  on  very  slight  pretext  and  the  patrol  laws  for 
the  State  as  a  whole  were  extended  and  invigorated. 
Notwithstanding  all  these  attempts  at  restriction,  the  free 
blacks  in  the  State  and  in  Charleston  steadily  increased  in 
numbers.  In  1859,  three  hundred  and  fifty-five  "free 
persons  of  color"  living  within  the  city  limits  paid  a  tax  of 
$12,342.02  on  two  hundred  and  seventy-seven  slaves, 
worth  about  fifty-five  thousand  dollars,  and  on  other  prop- 
erty, almost  wholly  real  estate,  valued  at  $778,423.00. 
These  two  hundred  and  seventy-seven  slaves  were  owned 
by  one  hundred  and  eight  "free  persons  of  color."  2 

Throughout  the  country,  in  the  North  and  in  the  South, 
the  presence  of  free  persons  of  color  was  regarded  as  un- 
desirable. In  looking  about  for  a  method  of  escape,  the 
idea  of  deportation  occurred  to  many  people  and  the  Amer- 
ican Colonization  Society  was  founded  in  1817.  The  plan 
was  to  purchase  a  piece  of  land  on  the  western  coast  of  Africa, 
or  to  get  a  part  of  a  West  Indian  Island,  and  to  deport 

1  According  to  a  South  Carolina  the  "free  persons  of  color,"  paid  $675.63 
act  of  1822,  every  free  male  negro  to  the  city  of  Charleston  in  1859  on 
above  the  age  of  fifteen  was  com-  $41,575  worth  of  real  estate,  14  slaves 
pelled  to  have  a  guardian,  a  white  and  one  horse ;  while  Richard  E.  De- 
freeholder,  and  by  a  law  of  1823  no  reef,  another  free  black,  paid  a  tax 
free  person  of  color  could  come  into  the  of  $431.00  on  $25,000  worth  of  real 
State  in  any  manner,  not  even  as  a  estate,  12  slaves,  one  horse  and  $400.00 
cook  on  board  a  vessel.  Cooper  and  worth  of  "commissions."  The  tax 
McCord's  Statutes  of  South  Carolina,  on  real  estate  was  1J%  and  the  tax 
vii,  462,  463.  on  slaves  was  three  dollars  each :  List 

1  List  of  the  Tax  Payers  of  the  City  of  the  Tax  Payers  of  the  City  of  Charles- 

of  Charleston  for  1859  (Charleston,  ton  for  1859,  pp.  403,  387,  407.  The 

1860),  pp.  383-405.  For  a  somewhat  Census  of  .  .  .  Charleston  .  .  .For  the 

different  statement,  see  The  South  in  Year  1861,  p.  9,  places  the  total  free 

the  Building  of  a  Nation,  ii,  49.  Maria  colored  population  at  3785,  taking  it 

Weston,  the  largest  tax  payer  among  from  the  United  States  Census  of  1860. 


138          PLANTATION    SYSTEM   AND  ABOLITIONISM     [On.  V 

thence  such  free  blacks  as  were  willing  to  go  without  any 
expense  to  them.1  To  the  Northerners,  this  seemed  to  be  a 
feasible  mode  to  get  rid  of  the  constantly  increasing  free 
black  population  in  the  cities  and  towns.  To  the  South- 
erners, the  additional  argument  presented  itself  that  the 
deportation  of  free  persons  of  color  would  stimulate  eman- 
cipation, especially  in  the  Border  States,  but  there  were 
people  in  the  Far  South  who  were  anxious  to  emancipate 
their  slaves  and  were  only  kept  from  doing  so  by  the  in- 
advisability  of  adding  to  the  free  black  population.  Among 
the  founders  of  the  Colonization  Society  were  many  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  country  and  Bushrod  Washington  was  its 
first  president.2  As  a  class,  Robert  Goodloe  Harper  said 
the  free  blacks  3  were  "a  burden  and  a  nuisance"  ;  but  in  a 
proper  situation  might  become  a  virtuous  and  happy 
people.  The  idea  appealed  to  philanthropically  minded 
persons  throughout  the  country.  State  auxiliary  societies 
were  founded  and  county  and  city  societies  were  established 
to  aid  them  in  collecting  funds.  State  legislatures  and  Con- 
gress also  fell  in  with  the  idea  and  appropriated  public 
money  to  further  the  scheme.  The  British  already  had 
established  the  negro  state  of  Sierra  Leone  on  the  African 
coast  and  the  American  Colonization  Society  procured  a 

1  Jefferson  had  advocated  coloniza-  p.  11.  R.  C.  F.  Maugham's  The  Ra- 
tion as  early  as  1776  and  had  elaborated  public  of  Liberia  (London,  1920)  gives 
a  plan  in  his  Notes  on  Virginia  (ed.  the  first  adequate  account  of  the  Afri- 
1782,  p.  251).  In  1811,  he  returned  can  settlement, 
to  it  (American  Colonization  Society's  *  He  was  an  associate  justice  of  the 
Reports,  i,  6)  and  the  idea  formed  an  Supreme  Court  and  a  nephew  of  Gen- 
integral  part  of  his  latest  plan  of  eral  Washington.  See  Niles's  Weekly 
gradual  emancipation.  John  H.  T.  Register,  xi,  296.  A  good  repository 
McPherson's  "History  of  Liberia,"  of  the  more  important  documents 
chs.  ii,  iii,  in  Johns  Hopkins  Studies,  relating  to  the  Colonization  Society 
ix,  487-539,  has  a  good  and  concise  is  the  "Appendix"  to  House  .Re- 
account  of  the  colonization  movement.  ports,  21st  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  348. 
With  this  should  be  read  William  Among  the  vice-presidents  were  Craw- 
Jay's  Inquiry  into  the  Character  and  ford,  Clay,  and  Andrew  Jackson. 
Tendency  of  the  American  Colonization,  *  American  Colonization  Society's 
and  American  Anti-Slavery  Societies,  Reports,  i,  16. 


1817]  COLONIZATION   SOCIETY  139 

tract  of  land  farther  south  and  separated  from  the  British 
settlement  by  no  great  distance.  Up  to  this  point,  all  went 
well,  but  then  difficulties  gathered  in  the  path  of  the  colo- 
nizationists.1  The  amounts  of  money  collected,  while  seem- 
ingly large,  were  totally  inadequate  to  so  great  a  venture. 
The  bit  of  country  procured,  named  Liberia,  proved  to  be 
exceedingly  unhealthy,  not  only  to  the  white  people  who 
conducted  parties  of  negroes  thither,  but  also  to  the  blacks 
themselves,  for  in  the  course  of  generations  on  a  different 
soil  they  had  lost  much  of  the  acquired  immunity  of  the 
negro  race  to  African  diseases.  Moreover,  the  American 
negroes  did  not  want  to  leave  the  United  States  and  a  large 
section  of  Northern  philanthropists  felt  that  the  blacks 
had  gained  the  right  to  residence  in  the  United  States,  and 
that  immediate  emancipation  of  the  whole  negro  population 
and  not  the  deportation  of  a  small  portion  of  it  was  the  only 
way  to  deal  with  the  problem.  Finally,  the  Southerners 
themselves  came  to  look  down  upon  the  scheme  and  were 
able  to  point  to  the  fact,  as  were  the  Northern  abolitionists, 
that  in  fifteen  years  of  effort,  the  Colonization  Society  had 
deported  from  America  only  as  many  negroes  as  were  born 
into  slavery  in  five  days  and  a  half.2  In  1862,  President  Lin- 
coln addressing  a  delegation  of  men  of  color,  whom  he  had 
invited  to  confer  with  him,  stated  that  Congress  had  placed 

1  American     Colonization     Society's  number   of   slaves   annually   smuggled 
Reports,  xi,  94.     See  also  H.  N.  Sher-  into   the   South  was   "seven   times   as 
wood's  "Paul  Cuffe  and  his  contribu-  great  as  that  which  the  Colonization 
tion     to     the    American    Colonization  Society     has     transported     in     fifteen 
Society"    in    Mississippi    Valley    His-  years"  in  his  Thoughts  on  African  Col- 
torical     Association's     Proceedings,     vi  onization  (Boston,  1832),  p.  160. 

and  the  works  cited  therein ;    and  his  For    later    statistics    see    American 

"Movement   in    Ohio    to    Deport    the  Colonization   Society's   Reports,   xxxiv, 

Negro"  in  Ohio  Historical  and  Philo-  pp.   82-84.     The  last   emigrants    were 

sophical    Society's    Quarterly    Publica-  sent  out  in  1907 :  these  were  Edward  A. 

tions,  viii,  No.  1 :    and  Minutes  of  the  Caesar,    his   wife   Louise   Caesar,    and 

State  Conventions  of  the  colored  citi-  their   daughter,    Mary   Emma   Caesar, 

zens  of  Ohio,  1850-1860.  aged     two.     Even     now,     1920,     sub- 

2  William    Jay's    Inquiry,    78.     See  scriptions    are    being    solicited    in    aid 
also    Garrison's    statement    that    the  of  the  settlement  in  Liberia. 


140          PLANTATION   SYSTEM   AND   ABOLITIONISM     [On.  V 

at  his  disposal  a  sum  of  money  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the 
colonization  of  people  of  African  descent,  outside  the  limits 
of  the  United  States,  and  had  made  it  his  duty,  as  it  had  for 
a  long  time  been  his  inclination,  to  favor  that  mode  of  action. 
This  he  did  because  "You  and  we  are  different  races.  We 
have  between  us  a  broader  difference  than  exists  between 
almost  any  other  two  races.  .  .  .  Your  race  suffer  very 
greatly,  many  of  them,  by  living  among  us,  while  ours 
suffer  from  your  presence."  1  Therefore,  the  two  races  he 
thought  should  be  separated. 

By  1830  the  profits  that  were  coming  in  from  one  cotton 
crop  after  another  were  driving  all  thoughts  of  emancipation 
from  the  Southern  mind ;  and  the  planters  of  the  Border 
States,  who  could  not  then  produce  cotton,  were  finding  an 
eager  market  for  their  surplus  slaves  in  the  far  South. 
In  1834,  a  case  was  argued  in  a  North  Carolina  court  that 
shows  something  as  to  the  condition  of  the  Border  State 
mind  at  about  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  aggressive 
abolitionism.  It  appears  that  a  slave  named  Will,2  being 
pursued  by  the  overseer  of  his  master's  plantation  and  having 
been  shot  at,  drew  a  knife  and  stabbed  wildly  about  him, 
inflicting  fatal  wounds  upon  the  overseer.  At  the  trial, 
Bartholomew  Figures  Moore,  Will's  counsel,  asserted  that 
fear  of  death  so  far  justified  the  slave  in  resistance  as  to 
take  away  all  presumption  of  malice  or  premeditation  and 
therefore  converted  murder  into  manslaughter.  In  other 
words  a  slave,  circumstanced  as  Will  had  been,  might 
resist  seizure  without  fear  of  the  hangman.  The  argument 
so  affected  the  court  and  jury  that  the  accused  was  con- 
victed of  manslaughter  only. 

1  Nicolay     and     Hay's     Works     of  groes"    in    Journal   of  Negro    History, 

Abraham    Lincoln,    viii,    2.     See    also  iv,  7. 

Charles   H.   Wesley's   "Lincoln's   Plan  *  Historical   Papers   of   Trinity   Col- 

for  Colonizing   the  Emancipated   No-  lege,  of  Durham,  N.  C.,  Series  ii,  12-20. 


1830]  FUGITIVE   SLAVES  141 

Meantime,  in  the  fifteen  years  before  1830,  there  had 
certainly  arisen  in  the  South  a  distinct  feeling  against  the 
action  of  Northerners  in  promoting  the  flight  of  slaves  from 
the  plantations  to  the  free  States  and  in  placing  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  capturing  fugitives  under  the  provisions  of  the 
Constitution  and  the  law  of  1793.  Many  of  the  earlier 
settlers  of  Ohio  and  Indiana  were  Southern  people  who  had 
left  their  homes  to  get  away  from  contact  with  slavery. 
In  Ohio,  they  joined  anti-slavery  societies  and  welcomed 
fugitives  from  across  the  Ohio  River  and  passed  them  along 
on  their  journey  toward  Canada.  Some  Ohio  men  even 
went  into  Kentucky  and  incited  slaves  to  leave  their  masters. 
In  those  earlier  days,  however,  Pennsylvania  was  the  most 
hospitable  of  all  the  States  to  fugitive  slaves.  Its  proximity 
to  Maryland  and  Virginia  made  it  easy  for  them  to  reach 
free  soil  and  Philadelphia,  because  of  its  size,  afforded  fairly 
secure  hiding-places  not  only  for  those  who  came  overland 
from  the  neighboring  States,  but  also  for  those  who  came 
by  water  from  the  Carolinas.  The  federal  fugitive  slave 
law  of  1793  was  indistinct  as  to  the  agencies  for  its  enforce- 
ment and  relied  on  State  officials  and  State  facilities  for  the 
capture  and  detention  of  the  alleged  fugitives.  This  led  to 
jealousies  between  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania.  Maryland 
commissioners  visited  Pennsylvania  to  try  to  secure  aid  from 
the  legislature  of  that  State.  The  result  was  the  passage 
)f  a  law l  in  1826  that  appeared  to  make  it  easier  for  slave 
)wners  to  capture  alleged  fugitives.  In  reality,  under  the 

use  of  preventing  kidnapping,  the  new  law  made  it  more 
lifiicult  to  recover  fugitives.  In  1842,  the  Supreme  Court 
)f  the  United  States  apparently  gave  some  kind  of  standing 

the  idea  that  State  officials  could  not  be  required  to  aid 

1  G.  M.  Stroud's  Sketch  of  the  Laws  relating  to  Slavery  in  the  Several  States  of 
United  States,  173. 


142          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [CH.  V 

in  the  enforcement  of  federal  laws.1  By  this  decision,  the 
Pennsylvania  act  was  annulled,  but  a  dictum  gave  legis- 
lators of  many  States  some  justification  for  passing  laws 
practically  nullifying  the  federal  act  of  1793.  In  this  same 
period  North  Carolina  expressed  the  growing  uneasiness  of 
the  Southern  States  by  making  it  felony  to  steal  a  slave  for 
the  purpose  of  sending  him  out  of  the  State  or  to  aid  a  slave 
to  escape.8 

The  last  notable  Southern  attempt  to  do  away  with  slavery 
occurred  in  Virginia  in  1832.  A  few  years  earlier,  in  the  State 
constitutional  convention  of  1829-30,  a  debate  sprang  up  as 
to  representation  and  taxation,  —  whether  these  should 
continue  to  favor  the  eastern  portion  of  the  State  or  not. 
The  question  of  slavery  and  emancipation  inevitably  found 
its  way  into  the  arguments  of  the  principal  speakers,  among 
whom  were  James  Monroe  and  Benjamin  W.  Leigh,  who  a 
few  years  later  was  Virginia's  commissioner  to  the  South 
Carolina  nullifiers.3  Nothing  came  of  this  discussion  and 
not  much  of  the  convention ;  but  in  1832  a  most  important 
and  significant  debate  was  held  in  the  Virginia  Assembly. 
In  the  preceding  year  a  negro  slave,  Nat  Turner  by  name,  had 


1  Marion  G.  McDougall's  Fugitive 
Slaves  (1619-1 86 'ff)  forming  Fay  House 
Monograph,  No.  3,  pp.  24,  28,  107, 
108,  and  Annals  of  Congress,  17th 
Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  vol.  i,  553.  Be- 
cause of  the  inefficiency  of  the  old  law, 
the  Border  States  took  the  matter 
largely  into  their  own  hands.  In 
1822,  an  act  was  still  in  force  in  Ken- 
tucky that  had  been  passed  in  1798. 
It  provided  that  any  person  might  ap- 
prehend a  runaway  servant  or  slave, 
take  him  to  a  justice  of  the  peace, 
and  receive  ten  shillings  reward  and 
one  shilling  for  every  mile  of  his  jour- 
ney with  the  runaway ;  Digest  of  the 
Statute  Law  of  Kentucky  (1822),  ii, 
1105.  It  further  provided  that  no 
ferryman  or  other  person  shall  put 
over  the  Ohio  River,  any  slave  with- 


out the  owner's  consent  on  the  pen- 
alty of  a  fine  of  two  hundred  dollars. 

*  J.  S.  Bassett's  "Slavery  in  North 
Carolina"  in  Johns  Hopkins  Studies, 
xvii,  331. 

3  Charles  H.  Ambler's  Sectional- 
ism in  Virginia,  ch.  v ;  Carter  G.  Wood- 
son's  doctoral  thesis  on  "The  Dis- 
ruption of  Virginia,"  ch.  vii  (unpub- 
lished) ;  and  Proceedings  and  Debates 
of  the  Virginia  State  Convention  of 
1829-1830.  For  somewhat  similar 
movements,  see  Ivan  E.  McDougle's 
"Slavery  in  Kentucky"  in  Journal 
of  Negro  History,  iii,  211 ;  Asa  E.  Mar- 
tin's "Anti-Slavery  Movement  in  Ken- 
tucky prior  to  1850"  being  No.  29  of 
the  Filson  Club's  Publications;  Oliver 
P.  Temple's  East  Tennessee  and  tht 
Civil  War,  chs.  v  and  vi. 


1830]  SOUTHERN   ANTI-SLAVERY   FEELING  143 

organized  and  led  a  series  of  attacks  on  the  whites  in  South- 
ampton County,1  riding  from  house  to  house  until  fifty  or 
sixty  white  people  were  killed.  Had  not  Governor  Floyd 
acted  promptly  the  movement  might  well  have  assumed 
wide  proportions.  At  the  next  session  of  the  Assembly  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  policy  of  in- 
troducing anti-slavery  legislation  at  that  moment.  The 
committee,  to  avoid  debate,  reported  that  it  was  "in- 
expedient"; but  at  once  a  member  moved  to  substitute 
the  word  "expedient,"  and  still  another  moved  as  a  sub- 
stitute that  provision  should  be  made  for  the  immediate 
removal  from  the  State  of  all  negroes,  then  free,  or  who 
should  thereafter  become  free,  and  this  substitute  was 
adopted  by  the  House  of  Delegates  by  a  vote  of  65  to  58. 
Following  this,  a  plan  for  the  deportation  of  the  free 
blacks  was  passed  by  the  House,  but  it  was  defeated  in 
the  Senate.2  It  was  in  the  course  of  this  discussion  that 
one  member  referred  to  slavery  as  "the  heaviest  calamity 
which  has  ever  befallen  any  portion  of  the  human  race," 
and  another  declared  that  slavery  was  "a  curse  upon  him 
who  inflicts  as  upon  him  who  suffers  it."  3  On  January  21, 
1832,  before  the  matter  had  been  finally  disposed  of,  Thomas 
Jefferson  Randolph,  grandson  of  the  writer  of  the  great 
Declaration,  brought  forward  his  grandfather's  plan  of 
gradual  emancipation  in  a  concrete  form.4  He  proposed 

1  See  S.   B.   Weeks  in  Magazine  of  significant   entries   from   which   it   ap- 
American      History,      xxv,     448,     and  pears  that  the  interest  in  the  matter 
William  S.  Drewry's  Southampton  Mas-  was  mainly  sectional  and  that  the  slave 
sacre  (Washington,    1900).     A  bibliog-  owners   who  lived  to  the  eastward  of 
raphy  is   on   p.  198.     John  W.  Crom-  the  Blue   Ridge  did  not  wish  to  give 
well's    "Aftermath    of    Nat    Turner's  up   their   slaves   and   that  it  was   the 
Insurrection"  in  the  Journal  of  Negro  westerners,    who    had    no    slaves,    who 
History  contains  some  new  statements  favored  abolition. 

mainly     from     "the     recollections     of  3  See  the  "Debate  on  Emancipation, 

old  men."  in   the  Virginia  Legislature,   in    1832" 

2  B.    B.    Munford's    Virginia's    Atti-  in  Goodloe's  Southern  Platform,  43,  47. 
hide   toward  Slavery  and  Secession,    47.  4  Speech    of    Thomas    J.     Randolph 
Governor    John    Floyd's    Diary    (Dec.  (of  Albemarle)   ...  on  the  Abolition  oj 
26,     1832-Jan.    25,     1832)     has    some  Slavery:  .  .  .  Jan.     «/,     1832,     p.     5. 


144         PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 


that  no  slaves  born  after  the  year  1840  should  be  permitted 
to  live  within  the  Commonwealth  after  reaching  maturity. 
If  the  master  had  not  removed  them  by  that  time,  the  State 
should  remove  them,  "the  expenses  ...  to  be  remunerated 
out  of  the  property  itself."  In  the  next  year  Madison,1 
writing  to  President  Dew  of  William  and  Mary,  stated  his 
belief  that  the  extinguishment  of  slavery  would  be  easy 
and  cheap  by  a  combination  of  deportation  with  eman- 
cipation and,  especially,  if  the  State  were  to  purchase  all 
female  children  at  their  birth  and  deport  them  as  soon  as 
they  had  earned  the  charge  of  their  rearing  and  deportation. 
The  idea  underlying  the  deportation  plans  was  that  it  would 
encourage  private  emancipation.  Whether  the  scheme 
would  have  worked  out  as  its  promoters  believed  it  would 
can  only  be  a  matter  of  surmise,  but  one  excellent  observer, 
Charles  Bruce  of  Charlotte  County,2  Virginia,  expressed  his 
opinion  and  that  of  many  other  Virginians  that  had  the 
Colonization  Bill  of  1831  not  been  defeated,  as  it  was  by  a 
small  vote,  the  fire  that  lurked  in  the  slavery  question 
would  have  been  drawn  off  by  redoubled  exertion  on  the 
part  of  the  Virginia  anti-slavery  men  and  that,  if  this  had 


At  the  end  are  two  letters  from  Jeffer- 
son, one  written  in  1814,  the  other  in 
1824  advocating  some  such  plan  as 
that  proposed  by  his  grandson.  See 
also  The  Speech  of  John  A.  Chandler 
.  .  .  of  Virginia  with  respect  to  Her 
Slave  Population;  Speech  of  Charles 
Jos.  Faulkner;  Speech  of  James  M'- 
Dowell,  Jr. ;  The  Letter  of  Appomattox 
to  the  People  of  Virginia:  exhibiting 
a  connected  View  of  the  Recent  Pro- 
ceedings in  the  House  of  Delegates  (Rich- 
mond, 1832) ;  and  Jesse  Burton  Harri- 
son's Review  of  the  Slave  Question 
.  .  .  Based  on  the  Speech  of  Th:  Mar- 
shall. The  last  was  first  printed  in  the 
American  Quarterly  Review  for  Decem- 
ber, 1832,  was  reprinted  separately 
at  Richmond  in  1833,  and  is  included 
in  The  Harrisons  of  Skimino,  337-440. 


•Madison's  Writings  (Hunt  ed.), 
ix,  498. 

2  In  reaching  an  understanding  of 
this  contest  I  am  greatly  indebted  to 
William  Cabell  Bruce,  Esq.  of  Balti- 
more, whose  little  book  —  Below  the 
James  —  first  drew  my  attention  to 
the  importance  of  this  debate.  See 
also  Munford's  Virginia's  Attitude 
toward  Slavery  and  Secession,  p.  46,  and 
"Anti-Slavery  Sentiment  in  Virginia" 
in  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  i,  107. 
The  opinion  of  one  of  the  best  of  Vir- 
ginians on  what  he  regarded  as  "one 
of  the  heaviest  calamities"  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  Right  Rev.  William  Meade's 
Pastoral  Letter.  Religious  Instruction 
of  Servants,  delivered  in  1834  and 
printed  at  Richmond  in  1853. 


1816]  NORTHERN  ABOLITIONISM  145 

so  fallen  out,  Virginia  would  not  have  seceded  in  1861. 
Confirmatory  of  this  general  view  is  the  opinion  of  D.  R. 
Goodloe  that  had  the  abolition  plan  carried  in  Virginia, 
it  would  have  been  repeated  in  North  Carolina.  If  that 
had  been  done,  the  sectional  balance  in  the  federal  Senate 
would  have  been  broken  and  "secession  would  have  been 
blighted  ere  it  had  sprouted."  l  As  it  was,  the  failure  of  the 
anti-slavery  movement  in  Virginia  in  1832  heartened  the 
extreme  slave  advocates  in  that  State,2  enflamed  the  aboli- 
tionists at  the  North,  and  pushed  the  two  portions  of  the 
country  farther  apart. 

Until  about  1830,  the  anti-slavery  people  generally  had 
favored  gradual  emancipation  in  one  way  or  another,3 
usually  in  connection  with  some  form  of  deportation  and 
colonization.  In  1816,  George  Bourne  published  "The  Book 
and  Slavery  Irreconcilable."  4  In  this  he  argued  for  the 
immediate  abolition  of  slavery  throughout  the  country 
regardless  of  compensation  of  any  kind  whatsoever  to  the 
slave  owners.  This  plan  was  sometimes  called  "imme- 
diatism."  The  scheme  of  immediatism  was  later  combined 
with  gradual  abolitionism,  proposing  that  this  should  be 
immediately  put  into  practice,  —  this  was  called  "imme- 
diate gradualism."  All  these  schemes  were  distinctly 

1  Quoted  by  J.  S.  Bassett  in   "Sla-  14    and    11).     The    later    abolitionists 

very    in    North    Carolina"    in    Johns  thought    that    the    Missouri    Compro- 

Hopkins   University  Studies,  xvii,   325.  mise   was   largely   responsible   for   the 

*  Two    years    later — 1834  —  "pro-  "paralysis"     that    fell    on    the    anti- 

spective  abolition"  was   seriously  con-  slavery     sentiment     of     the     country, 

sidered    in    the    Tennessee     constitu-  Garrisons'  Garrison,  i,  89,  90  note. 

tional    convention   of   that   year ;     see  4  Other   publications   by    or   attrib- 

Journal  of  the  Convention,  85,  87,  98,  uted    to    George   Bourne  are  Pictures 

223,  etc.,  and  W.  L.  Imes  in  Journal  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States  of  America 

of  Negro  History,  iv,  262.  (Boston,    1838) ;     A    Condensed    Anti- 

1  For    sundry    plans    of    emancipa-  Slavery  Bible   Argument ;    By   A    Citi- 

tion,   see  Alice   D.   Adams's   Neglected  zen    of    Virginia    (New    York,    1845) ; 

Period    of    Anti-Slavery,    using    index.  Slavery  Illustrated  in  its  Effects  upon 

For    the    earlier    time,    see    Mary    S.  Woman  and  Domestic  Society  (Boston, 

Locke's  Anti-Slavery  .  .  .  [before]  1808  1837). 
(Raddiffti     College    Monographs,     Nos. 

VOL.  V. — L 


146        PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [On.  V 

passive.  They  were  advocated  warmly,  sometimes,  but 
not  in  any  savagely  aggressive  or  militant  spirit.1  One 
of  the  earliest  of  the  new  type  of  abolitionist  was  David 
Walker,  a  free  person  of  color  who  was  living  in  Boston. 
The  title  of  his  book  was  an  "Appeal  in  Four  Articles  .  .  . 
to  the  Colored  Citizens  of  the  World."  It  was  issued  at  that 
place  in  1829.  The  language  was  sometimes  rude  and  was 
often  inflammable,  as  was  natural  considering  that  he  was  a 
colored  man  writing  to  his  own  people.  He  could  hardly 
"move"  his  pen,  so  deeply  was  he  affected  by  the  miseries 
of  his  race.  The  whites  have  always  been  "an  unjust, 
jealous,  unmerciful,  avaricious  and  bloodthirsty  set  of 
beings,"  he  wrote.  He  expected  they  would  try  to  put 
him  to  death  "to  strike  terror  into  others  and  to  obliterate 
from  their  minds  the  notion  of  freedom."  The  whites 
wanted  slaves  and  they  wanted  the  blacks  for  slaves,  "but 
some  of  them  will  curse  the  day  they  ever  saw  us.  As  true 
as  the  Sun  ever  shone  in  its  meridian  splendour,  my  colour 
will  root  some  of  them  out  of  the  very  face  of  the  earth." 
It  was  this  book  that  aroused  the  Southerners  to  a  full  sense 
of  the  insecurity  of  their  social  fabric  and,  appearing  not 
very  long  before  the  Southampton  massacre,  they  naturally 
put  the  two  together,  and  began  to  look  with  abhorrence 
upon  all  anti-slavery  propaganda. 

One  might  fill  a  volume  with  quotations  and  abstracts 
from  books  and  articles  that  were  written  by  the  emanci- 
pationists before  1830,2  but  enough  has  been  said  to  show 

'Another  early  anti-slavery  tract  at  the  "Indiana  Register"  office  at 

was  published  at  Philadelphia  in  1819.  Vevay,  Indiana,  in  1824,  and  John 

It  was  entitled  Free  Remarks  .  .  .  Re-  Rankin's  Letters  on  American  Slavery 

specting  the  Exclusion  of  Slavery  from  which  were  printed  at  about  the  same 

the  Territories  and  New  States  .  .  .  time  and  reprinted  again  and  again 

By  a  Philadelphian.  after  1833.  Two  earlier  books  should 

2  To  Bourne's  and  Walker's  books  also  be  mentioned :  these  are  Thomas 

should  be  added  two  tracts  printed  Branagan's  Avenia:  or  a  Tragical 

in  Transappalachia :  James  Duncan's  Poem  on  the  Oppression  of  the  Human 

Treatise  on  Slavery  which  was  printed  Species  which  was  published  at  Phil»- 


1830]  NORTHERN  ABOLITIONISM  147 

that  many  persons  in  different  parts  of  the  country  disliked 
and  disapproved  the  slave  system  and  that  some  persons 
held  very  strong  ideas  on  the  subject.  One  of  these  deserves 
mention  here  because  of  his  later  public  labors.  This  is 
John  Quincy  Adams.  In  1820,  at  the  time  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  he  made  several  entries  in  his  diary  on  the 
subject.  The  first  of  these  recorded  a  conversation  with 
President  Monroe,  who  had  declared  that  the  slavery  ques- 
tion would  be  "winked  away  by  a  compromise."  Adams 
thought,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  was  destined  "to  survive 
his  [Monroe's]  political  and  individual  life  and  mine." 
A  month  later,  Adams  had  a  conversation  with  Calhoun  on 
the  subject  and,  after  stating  his  disagreement  with  the 
Secretary  of  War,  he  wrote  that  if  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  should  result  from  the  slave  question,  it  would 
shortly  afterwards  be  followed  by  universal  emancipation. 
And  again,  toward  the  close  of  the  year,  he  made  another 
entry  to  the  same  effect  that  secession  "for  the  cause  of 
slavery"  would  be  combined  with  a  war  between  the  two 
portions  of  the  Union  and  that  "its  result  must  be  the 
extirpation  of  slavery  from  this  whole  continent."  1 

With  the  establishment  of  "The  Liberator"  by  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  in  1831,  the  anti-slavery  agitation  took  on  a 
new  form,  passing  from  the  mere  advocacy  of  emancipation 
to  demands  for  immediate  abolition.  Garrison  on  some 
occasions  quoted  Bourne  and  other  early  writers  and  on 
other  occasions  he  paraphrased  their  sentences.  He  seldom 
exceeded  Bourne  and  Walker  in  vigor  of  language  or  strength 

delphia   in    1805    and    The   Penitential  representing    a    kneeling    and    praying 

Tyrant;      or,    Slave     Trader    Reformed  negro    with    manacled    hands   and    the 

(2nd  ed.,  New  York,  1807).     Branagan  legend    "Am    I    not    a    Man,    and    a 

was    an    Irishman,    born    in    Dublin,  Brother?"      may    have     suggested     a 

who  had   "crossed  the  ocean  and  ex-  similar  cut  to  the  later  abolitionists, 
perienced  the  Christian  religion."     The  l  J.   Q.   Adams's  Memoirs,  iv,   503, 

cut  on  the  title  page  of  the  latter  book  531 ;  v,  210. 

VOL.  V.  —  L 


148          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Ca.  V 

of  advocacy.  Now,  however,  the  constant  and  prolonged 
agitation  was  greatly  assisted  by  the  formation  of  societies 
and  by  the  activity  of  the  abolitionists  on  the  lecture  plat- 
form. "The  Liberator"  found  readers  in  every  part  of  the 
Northern  States  and  kept  alive  the  movement  whenever  it 
seemed  to  be  slackening.  William  Lloyd  Garrison 1  was 
the  son  of  parents  who  came  from  the  Maritime  Provinces 
to  Newburyport  some  months  before  his  birth.  His  for- 
bears were  English  or  Irish,  only  one  branch  having  ever 
lived  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States.  On  all  sides 
his  ancestors  were  strong,  determined  people,  as  one  might 
expect  from  Garrison's  own  career.  Moreover,  with  the 
improvements  in  transportation  that  came  so  rapidly  after 
1825,  Garrison  was  able  to  organize  the  new  movement  on  a 
much  larger  and  more  permanent  basis  than  had  been  possible 
in  the  earlier  time.  The  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society 
was  formed  in  1832.  In  December,  1833,  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society  was  organized  and  by  October,  1835, 
there  were  three  hundred  anti-slavery  societies  with  one 
hundred  thousand  members,  more  or  less,  in  a  more  or  less 
active  existence.  The  constitution  of  the  general  society 
declared  that  slaveholding  was  "a  heinous  crime  in  the 
sight  of  God"  and  should  be  abandoned  immediately.  The 
"  Declaration  of  Sentiments,"  that  was  adopted  at  the  same 
time  as  the  constitution,  maintained  2  that  the  cause  for 
which  the  emancipationists  were  striving  was  vastly  greater 

1  Lindsay  Swift's  William  Lloyd  scribing  Garrison's  ancestry  and  boy- 
Garrison  in  the  American  Crisis  Biog-  hood  first  appeared  in  The  Century 
raphies  is  a  perspicuous  study  of  the  Magazine  for  August,  1885.  The  joint 
career  of  the  abolitionist  leader  and  authors  were  Wendell  P.  Garrison  and 
has  a  bibliography  at  the  end,  and  F.  J.  Garrison.  They  placed  at  the 
Oliver  Johnson's  William  Lloyd  Garri-  head  of  the  title-page  Garrison's  own 
son  and  His  Times  affords  a  lifelike  sentiment:  —  "My  country  is  the 
glimpse  of  the  man  and  the  move-  world :  my  countrymen  are  all  man- 
ment.  For  the  family  account  see  kind." 

William    Lloyd    Garrison,    1805—1879 :  2  See     Platform     of     the     American 

The  Story  of  his  Life  told  by  his  Chil-  Anti-Slavery    Society    and    its    Auxil- 

dren     (4     vols.).     The     chapters     de-  iaries  published  by  the  society  at  New 


1833J 


ANTI-SLAVERY   SOCIETIES 


149 


than  that  for  which  the  Revolutionary  fathers  had  fought, 
for  they  "were  never  slaves  —  never  bought  and  sold  like 
cattle."  The  slaves  enjoyed  no  constitutional  or  legal 
protection ;  for  the  crime  of  having  the  dark  complexion 
they  suffered  hunger  and  brutal  servitude.  The  anti- 
slavery  people  maintained  that  no  man  had  a  right  to  "en- 
slave or  imbrute  his.  brother/'  that  it  was  as  great  a  sin 
to  enslave  an  American  negro  as  an  African,  and  that  every 
A.merican  citizen  who  retained  a  human  being  in  "involun- 
tary bondage"  was  a  man-stealer.  This  being  so  all  persons 
of  color  are  entitled  to  the  same  rights  as  others,  and  no 
compensation  should  be  given  to  the  planters  on  emanci- 
pating their  slaves,  because  they  were  not  the  "just  pro- 
prietors of  what  they  claim"  and  that  freeing  the  slaves  is  not 
depriving  them  of  property,  but  restoring  it  to  the  rightful 
owners ;  that  if  any  compensation  was  to  be  given  to  any- 
body, it  should  be  given  to  the  outraged  and  guiltless  slaves ; 
and  that  any  scheme  of  expatriation  was  delusive,  cruel, 
and  dangerous. 

The  influence  of  Garrison  and  of  "The  Liberator"  may 
perhaps  best  be  gathered  by  some  quotations  from  the 
actual  text.  Many  abolitionists  having  objected  to  the 
harshness  of  his  writings,  Garrison  addressed  them  in  the 
first  number,  saying  that  there  was  cause  for  severity  and 
that  on  this  subject  he  did  not  wish  to  think,  or  speak,  or 
write  with  moderation.  "Tell  a  man  whose  house  is  on 
fire,  to  give  a  moderate  alarm ;  .  .  .  tell  the  mother  to 
gradually  extricate  her  babe  from  the  fire  .  .  . ;  —  but 
urge  me  not  to  use  moderation  in  a  cause  like  the  present. 


York  in  1855.  The  best  that  can  be 
said  for  the  abolitionists  as  a  body 
is  in  John  F.  Hume's  The  Abolitionists, 
together  with  personal  memories  of  the 
Struggle  for  Human  Rights,  1880-1864; 
but  so  far  as  it  is  reminiscent  it  par- 


takes of  the  disadvantages  of  recol- 
lections of  old  men  as  a  source  of  his- 
tory, —  and  a  great  deal  of  other  matter 
about  the  abolition  struggle  is  of  that 
character. 


150         PLANTATION   SYSTEM   AND   ABOLITIONISM      [On.  V 

I  am  in  earnest  —  I  will  not  equivocate  —  I  will  not  excuse 
—  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch  —  AND  I  WILL  BE  HEARD." 
And  whatever  one  may  think  of  Garrison,  or  of  his  methods, 
or  of  immediatism,  one  must  admit  that  he  lived  up  to  his 
asseverations.  In  one  of  the  early  numbers  of  the  paper, 
he  printed  a  group  of  advertisements  taken  from  other 
journals  of  slaves  wanted  and  for  sale  and  asked,  "Is  this 
the  occupation  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  of  wo  —  and 
this  their  punishment,  to  prey  upon  each  other,  with  the 
inconceivable  ferocity  of  demons,  throughout  eternity  ?  .  .  . 
0  no !  ...  They  are  —  hear,  0  earth  !  and  be  astonished, 
0  heaven  !  —  American  men  —  American  women  !  .  .  . 
Blush  for  your  country,  and  pity  the  poor  slaves !"  In  the 
opening  remarks  in  the  first  number  of  the  second  volume 
of  "The  Liberator,"  which  was  issued  on  January  7,  1832, 
Garrison  declared  that  "We  are  a  nation  of  blind,  un- 
relenting, haughty,  cruel,  heaven-daring  oppressors."  He 
stated  that  sixty  to  one  hundred  thousand  infants  were  born 
to  slave  mothers  in  each  year  and  asked  whether  it  was 
not  "as  atrocious  a  crime  to  kidnap  these,  as  to  kidnap  a 
similar  number  on  the  coast  of  Africa?"  Indeed,  "negro 
thief,"  "negro  stealer, "  and  "negro  driver"  were  the  mildest 
epithets  employed  by  him.  In  the  seventeenth  number  of 
the  paper  the  plain  heading  was  replaced  by  a  wood-cut 
depicting  a  horse  sale  and  a  slave  auction  in  combination 
with  the  federal  capitol  with  a  liberty  pole  in  the  background 
and  a  slave  being  flogged  at  the  stake.  Later,  other  in- 
flammatory illustrations  appeared  as  the  headings  of  de- 
partments :  throwing  a  slave  over  the  side  of  a  ship,  selling 
negro  children,  and  a  half-naked  black  woman  on  her 
knees  with  manacled  hands  upraised  and  the  legend  "Am  I 
not  a  Woman  and  a  Sister?"  The  Southerners  declared 
"The  Liberator"  to  be  an  incendiary  publication  inciting 


1832]  "THE    LIBERATOR"  151 

their  laborers  to  rebellion,  and  it  must  be  said  that  if  the 
slaves  could  not  read  the  text,  they  certainly  could  under- 
stand the  lesson  taught  by  these  illustrations,  —  if  they 
should  see  them. 

The  New  Yorkers  were  not  far  behind  the  Garrisonians 
of  Boston.  They,  too,  established  a  paper  called  "The 
Emancipator"  that  competed  with  "The  Liberator"  in 
the  vigor  of  its  verbal  appeal.  On  March  23,  1833,  for 
example,  it  reprinted  from  another  paper  "A  Negro's 
Soliloquy  on  the  Ten  Commandments."  In  this  a  slave  is 
represented  as  commenting  on  the  commandment  "Honor 
thy  father  and  thy  mother."  The  negro  asks  who  "dey 
be?  ...  suppose  him  see  driver  flog  his  fader,  what  can 
he  do  ?  —  suppose  him  see  driver  throw  down  his  moder,  flog 
her,  lick  her ;  —  she  cry  —  she  bleed  ;  —  negro  say  one 
word,  he  too  be  throw  down ;  .  .  .  Oh  Lord,  tell  his  massa, 
let  poor  negro  alone,  to  honor  his  fader  and  moder ;  —  Oh 
Lord  my  God,  what  land  gave  dou  me?  gave  all  land  to 
massa;  —  he  live  long,  —  me  die  soon."  And  in  the  same 
number  there  was  the  following  from  a  sermon  to  ministers 
who  held  slaves :  "  1.  Colored  people  are  not  accounted 
as  human  beings.  2.  They  are  treated  in  all  respects  as  if 
they  were  an  inferior  order  of  cattle.  ...  3.  It  is  con- 
sidered the  greatest  insult  in  the  world  ...  to  take  any 
notice  of  a  gentleman's  killing  a  Negro."  1  Indeed,  one 
reading  the  abolitionist  literature  of  this  and  succeeding 
decades  would  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  people  of 
the  South  were  all  man-stealers  and  kidnappers,  and  that 
the  swish  of  the  lash  was  constantly  heard  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  from  the  beginning  of  the  year  to  the  end 
thereof.  Many  good  people,  thousands  of  them,  hundreds 

1  Stated  in  slightly  different  Ian-  Illustrated  in  its  Effects  upon  Woman, 
guage  in  George  Bourne's  Slavery  41. 


152         PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

of  thousands  of  them,  believed  this  word  picture  to  be  true. 
No  wonder,  then,  when  the  editor  of  "The  Emancipator" 
saw  in  a  Southern  paper  a  query  as  to  whether  the  aboli- 
tionists preferred  "a  perpetuity  of  slavery,  or  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union?"  he  unhesitatingly  answered  "The  latter, 
we  say,  by  all  odds."  l  Garrison,  as  was  his  wont,  assumed 
a  more  aggressive  attitude  and  some  years  afterward  went 
so  far  as  to  declare  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  "a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement  with 
hell." 

The  mass  of  the  people  of  the  North  did  not  in  the  least 
agree  with  the  aggressive  abolitionists.  They  loved  the 
Union ;  slavery  was  afar-off,  it  had  come  down  from  colonial 
time,  it  was  an  evil,  perhaps,  but  no  more  so  than  drinking 
intoxicating  beverages,  gambling  with  cards,  or  with  dice, 
or  through  the  medium  of  lotteries.  Many  of  them,  espe- 
cially the  working  people,  believed  the  slaves  to  be  better 
off  than  themselves.  The  Southerners,  too,  were  very  good 
customers  and  the  "business  interests"  of  the  North  were 
distinctly  opposed  to  anything  that  would  interrupt  Southern 
prosperity  and,  therefore,  trade.  Southern  gentlemen  and 
gentlewomen  habitually  visited  Northern  summer  resorts, 
bringing  some  of  their  personal  slaves  with  them ;  they  did 
not  in  any  way  resemble  the  monsters  of  iniquity  that  were 
described  in  "The  Emancipator"  and  "The  Liberator" 
and  by  Garrison  and  Thompson  and  other  anti-slavery 
orators  on  the  platform.  Nor  did  the  slaves  seem  unhappy 
or  show  marks  of  the  lash  or  of  blows.  In  short,  labor, 
business,  and  society  were  opposed  to  aggressive  aboli- 
tionism.2 At  Philadelphia,  a  mob  attacked  the  anti- 

1  Selections  from  the  Letters  and  abolitionists  frequently  stigmatized  the 

Speeches  of  the  Hon.  James  H.  Ham-  Garrisonians  as  "amalgamators"  or 

mond,  24.  persons  who  favored  the  amalgamation 

1  The    slaveholders    and    the    anti-  of   the   whites   and   the   blacks.     This 


1880]  NORTHERN  ANTI-ABOLITIONISTS  153 

slavery  people  and  drove  free  negroes  out  of  the  city;  at 
New  York,  mobs  broke  up  meetings  and  attacked  anti- 
slavery  agitators.  An  especial  object  of  wrath  was  George 
Thompson,  an  English  anti-slavery  propagandist,  who 
came  to  the  United  States  to  correct  the  morals  of  the 
American  people  and  build  up  a  better  social  state  in  this 
country,  —  and  he  was  only  one  of  many  British  visitors  who 
saw  much  to  blame  in  the  American  republic.  In  1835,  the 
announcement  that  Thompson  was  to  address  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Female  Anti-Slavery  Society  at  Boston  appeared 
to  the  anti-Garrisonians  to  be  a  good  opportunity  to  settle 
matters,  once  for  all.  Warned  in  time,  Thompson  did  not 
attend  the  meeting,  but  the  advance  guard  of  the  rioters 
discovered  Garrison  there.  The  mayor  of  the  city  appeared 
in  the  hall  and  advised  Garrison  to  leave  and  suggested  that 
the  ladies  should  also  depart.1  The  latter  were  permitted 
to  march  safely  away,  but  the  news  that  Garrison  was 
accessible  inflamed  the  mob.  He  had  withdrawn  at  first 
to  his  office  and  then  had  found  shelter  in  a  near-by  car- 
penter's shop,  being  concealed  by  the  carpenter  under  a 
bench  behind  a  pile  of  boards.  He  was  found  there  by  the 
vanguard  of  the  rioters,  taken  to  the  window,  and  slid  down 
to  the  ground  on  a  board,  a  rope  having  been  made  fast 

charge    was    fiercely    resented    by    the  l  The  family  account  of  this  episode 

anti-slavery    advocates,    especially    by  is    in    Garrisons'    Garrison,    ii,     1-72. 

those     living     in     Pennsylvania     and  Mayor  Lyman's  statement  of  his  own 

New  York.     Some   of   the   Massachu-  doings  that  day  is  in  Papers  Relating 

etts    abolitionists   seem   to    have   felt  to  the  Garrison  Mob,  edited  by  Theo- 

ifferently  on  this  subject  as  they  were  dore     Lyman,   3rd.     There     is     other 

instantly  agitating  for  the  repeal  of  matter    in    C.    F.    Adams's    "Memoir 

"tyrannical  section"  of  the  act  of  of  Theodore  Lyman"  in  the  Proceed- 

Massachusetts  legislature  of  June  ings   of   the    Massachusetts   Historical 

I,  1786,  which  provided  a  fine  of  fifty  Society  for  March,  1906,  p.  169.     Years 

aunds  for  any  one  celebrating  a  mar-  later,  Ellis  Ames  wrote  out  an  elaborate 

riage   between   a  white   person   and   a  series     of     "Reminiscences"     on     the 

negro,    Indian,    or   mulatto.     See    The  episode     which     moved     Edward     L. 

Liberator  for   Feb.    5,    1831,    and  Jan.  Pierce  to  deliver  a  paper  on  "Recol- 

21,    1832,    etc.;     and    the    Garrisons'  lections  as  a  Source  of  History"  (ibid., 

~  Lloyd  Garrison,  i,  254,  255.  for  February,  1881,  and  March,  1896). 


154         PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 


around  his  body,  presumably  to  prevent  too  rapid  a  descent. 
He  was  rescued  by  the  mayor  and  committed  to  the  jail 
for  safe  keeping. 

In  the  Western  country  the  aggressive  anti-slavery  move- 
ment lagged  for  a  time.  Large  portions  of  the  States  of  the 
Old  Northwest  were  settled  by  Southerners  who  did  not  be- 
lieve in  destroying  the  property  rights  of  their  cousins  in  the 
old  home  and  who  knew  that  a  great  deal  that  was  proclaimed 
by  the  abolitionists  did  not  represent  the  actual  existing 
fact.  It  is  instructive  to  notice  how  slowly  the  movement 
made  its  way  into  the  religious  organizations  that  were 
strongest  on  the  frontier.  For  years  the  Methodists  refused 
to  join  in  the  movement  and  the  fact  that  a  candidate  for 
the  ministry  was  an  abolitionist  was  good  cause  for  his 
rejection.1  Notwithstanding,  the  New  England  Methodists 
formed  anti-slavery  societies,  the  New  Yorkers  followed, 
and  then  the  whole  church  became  rent  in  twain  into  the 
Methodist  Church  and  the  Methodist  Church  South. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  formation  of  anti-slavery 
societies  in  the  Old  Northwest  was  slow  and  difficult  and 
was  made  to  the  accompaniment  of  mobs  and  assaults  of  all 
kinds.  As  was  natural,  the  conflict  was  especially  severe 
in  Kentucky  and  Missouri  and  anti-slavery  men,  driven 
from  those  States,  found  refuge  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois  where  some  of  them  continued  to  carry  on  their 
missionary  labors  by  means  of  newspapers  and  tracts. 
The  refugees  were  not  welcomed  by  the  dwellers  on  the 
Northern  side  of  the  Ohio  and  the  eastern  bank  of  the 
Mississippi.  In  1837,  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  a  clergyman  who 


1  William  W.  Sweet's  Circuit-Rider 
Days  in  Indiana,  86,  87,  and  index 
under  "slavery";  see  further  his 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  and  the 
Civil  War,  15-46.  For  the  official 


action  of  the  Presbyterians  in  the 
early  years  see  A  Digest;  Compiled 
from  the  Records  of  the  General  As- 
sembly (Philadelphia,  1820,  pp.  338- 
357). 


1837]  THE  ALTON  RIOT  155 

had  edited  an  anti-slavery  paper  in  St.  Louis,  was  obliged 
to  leave  that  city  and  essayed  to  carry  on  his  work  from  the 
town  of  Alton  in  Illinois.  The  people  there  destroyed  one 
printing  press  after  another,  and  finally,  when  Lovejoy  and 
his  friends  undertook  to  defend  his  property  by  arms,  they 
killed  him  and  another  man  and  wounded  several  more.1  On 
December  8,  1837,  an  assemblage  gathered  in  Faneuil  Hall  in 
Boston  to  take  action  on  the  Lovejoy  murder.  The  attorney- 
general  of  the  Commonwealth  spoke  advising  the  people  to 
be  calm,  for  the  mob  of  Alton  had  done  nothing  more  than 
pre-Revolutionary  rioters  at  Boston  had  done.  It  was  then 
that  Wendell  Phillips,  a  young  man  and  unknown,  made 
his  way  to  the  platform,  and,  with  voice  and  manner  that 
for  forty  years  charmed  and  aroused  his  countrymen,  said 
that  when  he  heard  the  words  of  the  attorney-general  placing 
the  Alton  murderers  side  by  side  with  Hancock  and  Adams, 
he  thought 2  "those  pictured  lips  [pointing  to  the  portraits 
in  the  hall]  would  have  broken  into  voice  to  rebuke  the 
recreant  American,  —  the  slanderer  of  the  dead." 

Another  form  that  Northern  dislike  of  the  abolition  move- 
ment assumed  was  violent  opposition  to  the  education  of 
colored  children  of  the  free  blacks.  In  Canterbury,  Connect- 

1  A    letter    from    W.    S.    Oilman,  a  Narrative  of  Riots  at  Alton  was  written 

participant,  dated    the    day    after    the  by  a  man  who  had  some  part  in  the 

event   is    printed    in    The    Mississippi  earlier  stages  of  the  trouble  and  it  was 

Valley     Historical     Review,     iv,      492.  printed    at    Alton    in    1838.     Possibly 

Contemporary   accounts   of   the   Alton  the    best    brief    connected    account    is 

riots  are  Joseph  C.   and  Owen  Love-  contained  in  chs.  x  and  xi  of  Harvey 

joy's    Memoir     of  the   Rev.    Elijah    P.  Reid's    Biographical    Sketch    of    Enoch 

Lovejoy     and     William     S.     Lincoln's  Long     (Chicago     Historical     Society's 

Alton  Trials;   both  of  these  books  were  Collections,     ii).     The     best     extended 

printed  at  New  York  in  1838.     Henry  modern    account    is    N.     D.     Harris's 

Tanner's    Martyrdom    of    Lovejoy  .  .  .  History  of  Negro  Servitiide  in  Illinois, 

By  an  Eye-witness  and  his  brief  paper  chs.  vi,  vii.     A  contemporaneous  anti- 

on  the  History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  abolition  account  is  in  Henry  Brown's 

of  the  Alton  Riots  (Buffalo,  1878)  were  History  of  Illinois,   459. 
both  written  by  one  who  took  part  in  2  Wendell    Phillips's    Speeches,    Lec- 

the      defence     of     Lovejoy's     printing  tures,   and  Letters  (Boston,  1863),  p.  3, 

press,  but  long  after  the  event  which  and    Carlos    Martyn's    Wendell    Phil- 

they       describe.     Edward       Beecher's  lips:   the  Agitator,   96. 


156         PLANTATION   SYSTEM   AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

icut,  Prudence  Crandall,  a  Quakeress,  undertook  to  con- 
vert a  private  school  that  she  had  recently  opened  for  white 
girls  into  a  mixed  school  for  both  whites  and  blacks.  The 
white  parents  at  once  removed  their  children  and  she  then 
essayed  to  carry  on  the  school  for  blacks  exclusively.  From 
the  beginning,  the  townspeople  objected  to  Miss  Crandall's 
project  of  teaching  colored  people;  the  neighbors  visited 
her  and  remonstrated ;  the  selectmen  came  and  remon- 
strated ;  and  the  Canterburyites  held  a  town  meeting.  All 
was  in  vain,  for  urged  on  by  Garrison  and  other  abolitionists, 
although  perhaps  she  did  not  need  any  urging,  Miss  Crandall 
persisted.  In  the  spring  of  1833  the  school  opened  with  "  a 
dozen  or  so  quiet  little  colored  girls"  and  Miss  Crandall 
immediately  found  herself  the  object  of  legal  proceedings. 
In  the  interval,  the  Canterbury  townsmen  and  other  free- 
men of  Connecticut  had  petitioned  the  legislature  for  pro- 
tection and  the  legislature  had  replied  by  enacting  a  law  that 
no  person  should  set  up  any  institution  for  the  instruction 
of  "colored  persons  who  are  not  inhabitants  of  this  state" 
nor  teach  in  any  school,  or  board  any  colored  person  who  is 
not  an  inhabitant  of  "any  town  in  this  state"  without  con- 
sent in  writing  previously  obtained  of  magistrates  and 
selectmen.1  Miss  Crandall  was  haled  into  court  and  the 
lawyers  talked  on  both  sides  :  whether  a  free  colored  person 
was  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  whether  the  act  was  con- 
stitutional or  unconstitutional ;  and  they  went  from  one 
court  to  another  until  they  came  to  a  court  of  appeals,  when 
the  judges  ruled  that  the  "information"  under  which  the 
trials  were  held  was  insufficient,  and  therefore  reversed  the 
decision  of  the  court  below  and  put  an  end  to  the  legal 
contest.  The  townspeople  of  Canterbury  then  intervened 
in  their  own  manner.  Already  they  had  visited  the  Crandall 

i  Public  Statute  Laws  of  the  State  of  Connecticut  (Hartford,  1835),  p.  321. 


1833]  NORTHERN  ANTI-ABOLITIONISM  157 

premises ;  now  they  smashed  in  the  windows  of  the  house. 
Before  this  time,  a  month  or  so,  Prudence  Crandall  had 
married  the  Reverend  Calvin  Philleo,  a  Baptist  clergyman  of 
Ithaca,  New  York,  and  this  fact  may  have  made  the  closing 
of  the  school  less  painful,  pending  Mrs.  Philleo's  removal 
to  her  new  home.1 

The  Prudence  Crandall  school  affair  is  the  best  known 
exhibition  of  Northern  dislike  of  providing  educational 
facilities  for  the  free  colored  people,  probably  because  of  the 
notice  given  to  it  by  Garrison,  May,  and  other  literary 
abolitionists.  There  were  many  others,  however,  before 
and  after  1833.  Two  years  earlier,  great  excitement  had 
been  aroused  at  New  Haven.  The  Reverend  Simeon  S. 
Jocelyn,  a  clergyman  in  that  town,  and  Arthur  Tappan  had 
conceived  the  plan  of  establishing  there,  alongside  of  Yale 
College,  a  seminary  of  learning  for  colored  people  which  was 
also  to  give  them  instruction  in  the  mechanical  arts  and  was, 
in  short,  to  be  something  like  a  modern  manual  training 
school.2  Subscription  papers  were  opened  and  the  approval 
of  the  anti-slavery  people  was  obtained  when  the  townsmen 
and  freemen  of  New  Haven  met  and  condemned  the  project 
in  no  measured  tones  by  the  vote  of  some  seven  hundred 
against  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Jocelyn  and  three  others  in 

'See  Bernard  C.  Steiner's  "His-  jury  and  the  report  of  the  committee 
tory  of  Slavery  in  Connecticut"  (Johns  of  the  General  Assembly  on  which 
Hopkins  University  Studies,  xi,  415—  the  act  of  1833  was  founded ;  and 
422).  From  the  abolitionist  point  of  Samuel  J.  May's  Letters  to  Andrew  T. 
view,  the  best  account  is  in  Garri-  Judson,  Esq.  .  .  .  Relative  to  Miss 
eons'  Garrison,  i,  ch.  x.  Much  the  Crandall  and  her  School  for  Colored  Fe- 
same  is  in  Ellen  D.  Lamed' s  Wind-  males  (Brooklyn,  1833). 
ham  County,  Connecticut,  ii,  490-502.  *  See  Niles's  Register,  October  1, 
See  also  Report  of  the  Trial  of  Miss  1831,  p.  88,  from  the  New  Haven  Pal- 
Prudence  Crandall,  .  .  .  August  Term,  ladium  and  Paulson's  American  Daily 
1833 ;  Report  of  the  Arguments  of  Coun-  Advertiser;  Clarence  W.  Bowen's 
sd  in  the  Case  of  Prudence  Crandall  Arthur  and  Lewis  Tappan;  and  Garri- 
.  .  .  July,  1834 i  Andrew  T.  Judson's  sons'  Garrison,  i,  259,  260.  Jocelyn'a 
Remarks  to  the  Jury  .  .  .  Superior  own  account  is  in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
Court,  Oct.  Term,  1833,  which  also  College  for  Colored  Youth  that  was 
contains  the  judge's  charge  to  the  printed  at  New  York  in  1831. 


158          PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

favor.  In  New  Hampshire,  too,  in  Canaan,  in  Grafton 
County,  the  sturdy  farmers  met  and  with  sundry  yokes  of 
oxen  hauled  a  small  building  designed  for  a  school  house  for 
colored  children  into  a  neighboring  swamp.1  In  Boston, 
after  the  Revolution,  colored  children  —  some  of  them  — 
attended  the  town  schools  with  the  other  children.  In  1800, 
some  colored  people  petitioned  for  the  establishment  of  a 
separate  school  for  their  children.  This  petition  was 
refused,  but  a  separate  school  was  organized  by  the  blacks 
and  their  white  sympathizers,  and  was  partly  supported 
by  the  public  authorities  after  1806.  In  1835,  a  separate 
school  building  was  erected  near  by  and  there  the  school 
was  kept  in  successful  operation  for  years.  In  1846,  an 
agitation  began  for  the  abolition  of  the  separate  school  for 
colored  children  and  their  transference  to  the  common 
schools.  This  question  was  given  to  a  committee  to  examine 
and  the  majority  reported  decidedly  against  it,  and  in 
favor  of  continuing  the  existing  arrangement  of  separate 
schools.  But  there  was  a  minority  report  which  argued, 
with  some  interesting  evidence  from  other  Massachusetts 
towns,  for  the  inclusion  of  the  colored  children  in  the 
regular  educational  system.  The  principle  of  perfect 
equality  was  stated  to  be  the  vital  principle  of  the  common 
school  system  and  negro  children  were  lawfully  entitled 
to  the  benefits  of  the  free  schools.  The  minority  seem  to 
have  thought  that  exclusion  from  the  white  schools  was  akin 
to  the  expulsion  of  the  negroes  "  from  the  cabins  to  the  fore- 
decks  of  steam-boats,  from  the  first  class  to  the  jim  crow 
cars" 2  and  from  churches,  theatres,  and  other  places. 

1  Albert     Bushnell     Hart's     Slavery  Primary    School   Board    on    The    Caste 
and   Abolition,   245,    citing   the   Boston  Schools    (Boston,    1846) ;     Thomas    P. 
Morning  Post  for  August  18,  1835.  Smith's   Address   in   Opposition   to   the 

2  See  Report  to  the  Primary   School  Abolition  of  Colored  Schools,  December 
Committee,  June  15,  1846  (Boston  City  24, 1849  (Boston,  1850) ;  and  the  major- 
Documents,   1846,   No.   23) ;    Report  of  ity  and  minority  reports  on  the  same 
the  Minority   of  the   Committee   of  the  subject  in  1849. 


1850]  NORTHERN  ANTI-ABOLITIONISM  159 

Nevertheless,  it  was  some  years  before  the  colored  race 
attained  an  equality  with  the  whites  in  the  public  schools 
of  that  city.  These  instances  of  Northern  opposition  to 
the  abolitionists  might  be  largely  extended  ;  but  enough  has 
been  said  to  show  how  prevalent  it  was.  Unquestionably, 
the  mass  of  the  people  of  the  North  —  before  1850  —  did  not 
regard  the  negro  as  "a  man  and  a  brother."  On  the  con- 
trary,1 very  many  of  them  thought  that  he  belonged  to  a 
distinct  race  and  that  the  racial  distinctions  were  not  at  all 
agreeable. 

The  Southern  slaveholders  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  century 
had  grave  doubts,  to  say  the  least,  as  to  the  advisability  of 
the  slave  system.  This  opinion  continued  in  the  northern 
tier  of  the  Slave  States  until  1830,  but  the  profits  to  be  de- 
rived from  slave-grown  cotton  were  so  great  in  the  south- 
ern group  of  the  planting  States  that  the  people  there  before 
1830  had  come  to  regard  slavery  as  the  very  basis  of  their 
prosperity,  arguing  that  great  crops  of  cotton  could  not 
be  produced  by  white  labor  and  that  slavery  could  not  be 
eradicated  without  doing  great  injury  to  the  whites.  To  all 
the  slaveholders  in  both  tiers  of  States,  the  call  of  the  "imme- 
diate abolitionists"  came  as  a  challenge  and  a  reproach. 
They  resented  being  stigmatized  as  man-stealers.  Their 
peculiar  institution  had  come  down  to  them  from  "the 
fathers" ;  it  had  come  to  them  from  colonial  days  when  it 
was  universal  throughout  the  colonies  that  formed  them- 
jlves  into  the  Thirteen  Original  States.  It  had  become 
jonomically  unsound  in  the  Northern  States  and  had 
either  died  out  there  or  was  dying  out.  But  the  South- 
erners could  not  understand  why  their  prosperity  should  be 
attacked,  because  slavery  was  no  longer  profitable  in  the 

1  See  for  example  Richard  H.   Col-       and  Moral  Proofs  of  the  Natural  In- 
fax's  Evidence  against  the  Views  of  the      feriority    of  the  Negroet    (New    York, 
Ibolitionista,     Consisting     of    Physical       1833). 


160         PLANTATION   SYSTEM   AND   ABOLITIONISM      [Ca.  V 

North,  when  it  was  not  only  profitable  in  the  South,  but 
was  necessary  for  the  well-being  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
Southern  whites.  The  language  of  the  Garrisonians  alarmed 
them  and  aroused  all  their  fighting  instincts.  Moreover, 
South  Carolina  had  come  triumphantly  out  of  the  nulli- 
fication contest.  The  other  Southern  States  had  not  joined 
her  at  that  time,  but  the  arguments  which  justified  nulli- 
fication justified  resistance  to  any  Northern  attack  upon 
their  institutions.  Furthermore,  the  means  adopted  by  the 
abolitionists  to  propagate  their  ideas  —  their  papers  and 
their  printed  illustrated  posters  —  seemed  to  the  planters 
to  be  distinctly  dangerous,  and  they  were  being  disseminated 
far  and  wide  throughout  the  South. 

In  the  year  1835  a  wave  of  indignation  rolled  through  the 
Southern  States.  At  a  meeting  at  Charleston  resolutions 
were  passed  condemning  abolitionism  in  the  severest  terms 
and  demanding  the  exclusion  of  incendiary  publications  from 
the  mail.  Then  the  people  proceeded  to  destroy  by  fire  the 
abolition  papers  that  were  in  the  post-office  and  they  also 
closed  the  schools  for  the  free  colored  population  of  the  city.1 
J.  H.  Hammond  expressed  the  thought  of  very  many 
Southerners  in  a  letter  to  Mordecai  M.  Noah,  a  New  York 
newspaper  editor:  the  "Northern  Fanaticks,"  he  wrote, 
must  not  expect  to  find  in  South  Carolinians  the  unrepresented 
subjects  of  an  arrogant  monarchy ;  they  were  freemen,  they 
knew  their  rights  and  strength,  and  intended  to  stand  upon 
them.  The  abolitionist  leaders  could  be  "silenced  in  but 
one  way  —  Terror-death."  2  The  non-slaveholding  States 
must  give  up  Garrison  and  the  rest,  and  this  alone  could  save 
the  Union.  Another  South  Carolinian  —  a  Mr.  Bellinger  — 

1  See    Proceedings    of    the    Citizens  States  (Charleston,  1835). 
of  Charleston,  on  the  Incendiary  Mach-  *  Letter  of  August  19, 1835,  in  "  Ham- 

inations.     Now     in     Progress     against  mond    Papers"    in    Library    of    Con- 

the  Peace  and  Welfare  of  the  Southern  gress. 


1835] 


SOUTHERN   INDIGNATION 


161 


addressed  a  public  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Barnwell 
District  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  He  declared  that  slavery 
was  "  a  blessing  to  both  master  and  Slave/'  that  the  South- 
erners were  living  within  their  rights,  and  the  Northerners 
would  better  keep  their  hands  off.1  In  Alabama,  the  people 
took  official  action  when  the  grand  jury  of  Tuscaloosa 
County  returned  a  true  bill  against  the  editor  of  "The 
Emancipator"  of  New  York,  for  circulating  papers  of  a 
seditious  and  incendiary  character  tending  by  gross  mis- 
representations and  illicit  appeals  to  excite  the  slaves  of 
Alabama  to  insurrection  and  murder.  The  Governor  of 
Alabama  transmitted  the  indictment  to  the  Governor  of 
New  York  and  demanded  that  the  obnoxious  editor  be 
arrested  and  confined  until  he  could  "dispatch  an  Agent  to 
conduct  him  to  Alabama" ;  for,  although  the  offender  was 
not  in  the  State  when  the  crime  was  committed,  he  had 
"evaded  the  justice  of  our  laws"  2  and  therefore  should  be 
delivered  up  for  trial  within  the  State  as  a  fugitive  from 
justice. 

Already  the  Southerners  were  beginning  to  feel  the  re- 
proach cast  upon  them  by  public  opinion  outside  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  in  the 
British  West  Indies  in  1833  had  excited  their  apprehensions 
of  interference  from  outside.  They,  themselves,  constantly 
referred  to  the  lamentable  condition  of  the  laborers  of  Eng- 
land ;  but  they  did  not  at  all  relish  having  English  anti- 
slavery  people  advocate  abolitionism  in  the  United  States. 
Daniel  O'Connell  had  referred  to  the  deplorable  condition 


1  Edmund  Bellinger's  Speech  on  the 
Subject  of  Slavery  (Charleston,  1835). 
The  tone  of  the  meeting  may  be 
gathered  from  the  resolutions  that  were 
unanimously  adopted.  The  second 
reads  "That  we  view  with  abhor -ence 
and  detestation  the  attempt  to  deluge 

VOL.  V. — M 


our  State  with  Incendiary  publica- 
tions ;  and  that  we  consider  the  authors 
of  such  attempts  no  more  entitled  to 
the  protection  of  the  Laws  than  the 
ferocious  monster  or  venomous  reptile." 
2  Gulf  States  Historical  Magazine, 
ii,  26. 


162         PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

of  the  Southern  laboring  class  and  had  stigmatized  the 
masters  as  "felons  of  the  human  race"  doomed  to  extir- 
pation by  the  avengers  of  African  wrongs.  This  aroused 
"The  Charleston  Mercury"  to  protest  against  the  Irish 
agitator's  attitude.1  In  closing  the  writer  asked,  why  will 
the  South  fight  phantoms  at  such  a  time?  "Why  sleeps 
her  patriotism,  her  instinct  of  self-preservation?  Let  her 
rally  her  sons  under  one  banner  —  '  Southern  rights  and 
Southern  safety '  —  and  defy  '  A  World  in  arms. ' ' 

The  Southerners  were  by  no  means  content  to  stand  on  the 
defensive.  On  the  contrary  they  assumed  an  aggressive 
anti-abolitionist  attitude.  They  declared  that  slavery 
came  from  God,  that  it  was  the  ideal  social  condition,  and 
was  for  the  benefit  of  the  blacks  and  of  the  whites.  Some- 
what later,  Rabbi  Morris  J.  Raphall  stated  the  biblical 
argument  in  favor  of  slavery  in  its  baldest  form.  There, 
in  the  Ten  Commandments  given  on  Mt.  Sinai,  he  wrote, 
"There  where  His  finger  scorched,  the  tablet  shone." 
The  fourth  commandment  brought  rest  to  all  including 
"Thy  male  slave  and  thy  female  slave"  and  the  Lord  for- 
bade a  man  to  covet  his  neighbor's  house  or  "his  male  slave, 
or  his  female  slave,  or  his  ox,  or  his  ass."  And  Abraham 
and  Isaac,  who  themselves  talked  with  God,  were  slave- 
holders. Why  then  invent  a  new  sin  not  known  to  the 
Bible,  and  thus  exasperate  thousands  of  God-fearing,  law- 
abiding  citizens  of  the  South?  In  1919,  a  former  slave  of 
one  of  the  best-known  South  Carolina  families  was  "laid  to 
rest"  in  "the  God's  Acre"  on  the  old  plantation2  and  his 
former  mistress  gave  a  third  of  a  column  of  a  local  paper  to 
his  obituary,  telling  how  in  a  time  of  lawlessness  "this  wise 


1  The    Charleston    Mercury    of    July  *  The   Charleston  News  and   Courier 

31,  1835.     This  was  copied  for  me  by       for  March  28,  1919. 
Mr.  D.  Huger  Bacot  of  Charleston. 


1832]  DEFENCE    OP   SLAVERY  163 

and  faithful  man"  had  kept  his  sense  of  affection  for  those 
who  had  previously  done  everything  for  him ;  and  to  the 
end  gave  faithful  service  to  the  family  to  whom  he  and 
his  ancestors  had  belonged.  It  was  an  echo  from  the 
past. 

Thomas  Roderick  Dew,  Professor  of  History,  Metaphysics, 
and  Political  Law  in  William  and  Mary  College  in  Virginia, 
and  later  its  president,  came  forward  in  1832  as  the  opponent 
of  the  Virginia  anti-slavery  men.  He  declared  that  it  was 
wild  to  think  of  doing  away  with  slavery  in  Virginia  by  any 
process  of  gradual  emancipation  as  that  advocated  by 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  his  grandson.  Besides,  slavery  was 
good  for  the  blacks  and  for  the  whites.  It  was  a  benign 
institution  to  be  encouraged  and  not  destroyed.  In  1836, 
Professor  Dew  delivered  an  address  "On  the  Influence  of  the 
Federative  Republican  System  of  Government  upon  Liter- 
ature and  the  Development  of  Character."  1  In  an  ordinary 
condition  of  society,  he  said,  the  dependent  classes  will  be 
driven  forward  by  their  employers  or,  becoming  discon- 
tented, will  look  with  eyes  of  cupidity  upon  the  fortunes 
of  the  rich  and  plunder  them  by  legislative  action.  In  a 
slaveholding  country,  political  power  is  removed  from  the 
hands  of  those  who  might  abuse  it  and  the  moral  effects  of 
the  system  are  striking.  In  the  South,  the  relation  between 
capital  and  labor  is  kinder  than  anywhere  else  on  earth. 
The  slave  is  happy,  except  when  "the  very  demons  of 
Pandemonium"  come  and  destroy  his  happiness.  The 
negro  slave  compares  himself  with  his  own  race ;  he  does 
not  covet  the  wealth  of  the  rich,  but  identifies  his  interests 
with  those  of  his  master.  He  is  free  from  care  and  from 
that  constant  feeling  of  insecurity  that  haunts  the  poor  men 
of  other  countries.  There  are  no  riots  in  the  South,  no 

1  Southern  Literary  Messenger,  ii,  261-282. 


164         PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Ca.  V 


breaking  of  machinery,  no  scowl  of  discontent,  no  midnight 
murders.1  The  master  is  attached  to  his  slaves  by  interests 
and  by  sympathy ;  he  does  not  work  them  sixteen  hours  a 
day  and  turn  them  adrift  without  money  upon  a  cold 
and  inhospitable  world  when  their  labor  will  not  support 
them.  To  the  oft  repeated  argument  that  slavery  was  not 
only  wrong,  but  was  uneconomical,  was  wasteful  in  com- 
parison with  the  wage  system,  another  Virginian  —  George 
Fitzhugh  —  replied  that  that  could  only  be  because  the 
employer  of  the  free  laborer  secured  a  larger  part  of  the 
produce  of  the  wage  earner  than  the  master  did  of  his  slave. 
Free  laborers,  he  declared,  had  not  a  thousandth  part  of  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  negro  slaves.  By  1845,  the  Southerner 
had  come  to  look  upon  himself  as  a  superior  being ;  and 
this  was  not  confined  to  the  slave  owner,  but  was  held  by 
the  Southern  non-slave  owners,  and  one  might  almost  say 
that  the  slaves  were  actually  superior  to  white  wage  earners 
because  when  dangerous  and  excessively  laborious  work  was 
to  be  undertaken,  Southern  plantation  owners  sometimes 
employed  white  wage  earners  in  order  that  the  lives,  the 
health,  and  the  strength  of  their  negro  slaves  might  be 
conserved.  Indeed,  according  to  Fitzhugh,2  the  plantation 
system  was  a  "beautiful  example  of  communism,  where 
each  one  receives  not  according  to  his  labor,  but  according 
to  his  wants." 

Before  many  years  had  passed  away,  the  Southern  planters 
began  to  think  of  themselves  as  an  aristocracy.  According 
to  Gideon  Welles,  they  read  Sir  Walter  Scott's  romances 
and  in  their  "diseased  imaginations"  fancied  themselves 


1  This    speech    was    delivered    four 
years    after    the    Nat    Turner    insur- 
rection. 

2  George     Fitzhugh's     Sociology   for 
The  South,  or  the  Failure  of  Free  So- 
ciety   (Richmond,    1854),    p.    29.    See 


also  his  Cannibals  Att!  or,  Slaves 
without  Masters  (Richmond,  1857) ; 
and  Toombs's  defence  of  slavery  in 
1853  in  Phillips' s  Robert  Toombs,  162; 
and  Jeremiah  Smith's  Is  Slavery  Sin- 
ful f  (Indianapolis,  1863). 


1850]  SOUTHERN   CAVALIERS  165 

"Cavaliers,"  l  or  the  descendants  of  the  Cavaliers  of 
England  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  evident  contra- 
distinction to  the  offspring  of  the  Puritans!2  Governor 
J.  H.  Hammond  of  South  Carolina,  whose  words  have 
frequently  been  drawn  upon,  declared  that  "God  created 
negroes  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  be  the  subordinate 
'  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water '  —  that  is,  to  be  the 
slaves  of  the  white  race."  He  wished  to  see  negro  slaves  on 
every  spot  of  the  earth's  surface  where  their  labor  would  be 
beneficial  to  the  whites.3  Southern  slaves  were  much  better 
off  than  thousands  and  thousands  of  operatives  in  English 
factories  and  mines.  There  was  no  wretchedness  on 
Southern  plantations  comparable  with  that  of  English 
peasant  life,  where  workers  lived  in  filthy  hovels  with  their 
pigs  or  in  cellars  with  a  family  in  each  corner  and  where 
children  of  four  years  of  age  worked  below  ground.  It  was 
true  that  slaves  were  flogged,  but  so  were  the  sailors  and 
soldiers  of  England  ;  4  and  if  an  English  laborer  stole  a  lamb, 
he  might  be  transported  for  life.  As  to  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade,  Hammond  thought  that  was  an  impossibility. 
Before  its  ending  had  been  decreed  in  1787,  forty-five  thou- 

1  Diary   of  Gideon    Welles    (Boston,  *  Flogging   of  American   naval   sea- 

1911),   ii,    277,    312.     A    similar    idea  men    was    not    abolished    until    1850. 

was  expressed  by  Professor  William  E.  The   rules   of   Silver   Bluff   Plantation 

Dodd    in    his    stimulating    article    on  provided    that    the    negroes    must    be 

"The    Social    Philosophy    of    the    Old  flogged  as  seldom  as  possible  and  never 

South"    in    the    American   Journal    of  kicked   or   struck,    except    in    self-de- 

Sociology  for  July,  1917,  p.  742.  fence,    and    "the   highest   punishment 

*  See   the   present  work,   volume   i,  must  not  exceed  fifty  lashes  in  one  day." 
145  note.  For  the  rules  as  to  slaves  in  typical 

*  Selections    from    the    Letters     and  States,  see  H.  Toulmin's  Digest  of  the 
Speeches  of  the  Hon.  James  H.  Ham-  Laws    of  .  .  .  Alabama    (1823)     using 
mond,  of  South  Carolina,  p.  338.     The  index  under  "slaves,"  "negroes,"  etc.; 
quotation  is  from  the  speech  which  he  the  Revised  Code  of  the  Laws  of  Fir- 
delivered  at  Barnwell  Court  House  on  ginia    (2    vols.,     1819) ;      Littell    and 
October  29,  1858.     It  is  interesting  to  Swigert's  Digest  of  the  Statute  Law  of 
observe   that   the   tenth   rule   for   the  Kentucky    (2    vols.,    1822) ;     and    the 
guidance     of     Governor     Hammond's  Civil    Code    of  .  .  .  Louisiana    (1825). 
overseer  at  his  Silver  Bluff  Plantation  For  a  comparison  with  earlier  condi- 
commanded   that   "the   sick   must   be  tions,    see    the   present   work,    vol.    ii, 
treated  with  great  tenderness."  376-394. 


166         PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND   ABOLITIONISM     ICn.  V 


sand  Africans  were  carried  in  each  year  across  the  Atlantic 
with  the  loss  of  only  five  or  ten  in  every  hundred ;  but  in 
1840,  if  Sir  Thomas  Fowell  Buxton's  figures  were  right,  the 
number  of  Africans  annually  transported  across  the  sea  had 
increased  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  and  the  mortal- 
ity had  risen  to  twenty-five  or  thirty  in  each  hundred.1 
The  Southerners  now  carried  the  fight  into  Congress 
and  demanded  the  passage  of  a  law  excluding  incendiary 
publications  from  the  mails  and  the  silencing  of  the  abolition 
appeals  to  Congress  for  the  stoppage  of  the  slave  trade  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  which  the  extremists  of  the  North  were 
constantly  demanding  of  Congress.  A  bill  was  introduced 
to  carry  out  the  first  demand,  but  it  met  with  many  diffi- 
culties and  was  defeated.  In  fact  it  was  not  necessary, 
because  Amos  Kendall,  the  postmaster  general,  aided  and 
abetted  his  subordinates  in  taking  the  necessary  action 
themselves.  He  had  no  power  to  prescribe  rules  for  the 
exclusion  of  matter  from  the  mails  or  to  direct  the  non- 
delivery of  any  mail  matter,  he  wrote ;  but  if  he  were  a 
local  postmaster,  he  should  act  on  his  own  responsibility. 
It  really  made  very  little  difference  whether  such  a  law  was 
passed  or  whether  Amos  Kendall  wrote  or  did  not  write  to 
his  subordinates,  for  the  Southern  whites  were  determined 
that  the  flow  of  inflammatory  papers,  posters,  and  books  to 
their  plantations  and  people  should  cease.  If  the  local 
postmasters  did  not  do  their  duty,  as  the  Southerners 
saw  it,  they  themselves  took  possession  of  the  mails  2  and 
destroyed  whatever  they  listed. 


1  Hammond's  Two  Letters  on  Sla- 
very in  the  United  States  (Columbia, 
1845),  p.  4. 

*  Proceedings  of  the  Citizens  of 
Charleston  on  the  Incendiary  Machina- 
tions now  in  Progress  against  the  Peace 
and  Welfare  of  the  Southern  States 
(Charleston,  1835).  The  seventh  reso- 


lution declared  that  the  citizens  of 
Charleston  were  "united  as  one  man  in 
the  fixed  and  unalterable  determina- 
tion to  maintain  our  rights,  and  de- 
fend our  property  against  all  attacks, 
—  be  the  consequences  what  they 
may."  And  the  City  Council,  on  its 
part,  resolved  that  the  Committee  of 


1836)  ANTI-SLAVERY   PETITIONS  167 

By  1836  the  flood  of  anti-slavery  petitions  to  Congress 
had  reached  a  very  high  point.  Ordinarily,  the  number  of 
such  petitions  would  have  been  very  small ;  but  the  mere 
fact  that  the  Southerners  seemed  to  dread  their  coming 
incited  the  abolitionists  to  great  exertions.  Daniel  Webster 
in  the  Senate  and  John  Quincy  Adams  in  the  House  were 
the  members  through  whom  chiefly  these  papers  proceeded. 
They  both  presented  them  by  the  fifties  and  the  hundreds, 
—  on  one  occasion  Adams  put  in  as  many  as  511  at  one  time. 
Some  of  these  petitions  were  signed  by  thousands,  very  many 
of  the  signers  being  women.  Calhoun  was  deeply  affected 
by  this  manifestation  of  Northern  feeling  for  he  had  now 
come  to  be  the  champion  of  the  plantation  system  in  the 
Senate.  Many  Northern  Democrats  saw  the  danger  of 
limiting  the  right  of  petition  and  Buchanan  warned  the 
Southerners  that  if  it  were  once  understood  that  the  right  of 
petition  and  the  abolition  of  slavery  must  rise  and  fall  to- 
gether the  consequences  might  be  fatal.  It  was  in  the  House, 
however,  that  the  most  dramatic  scene  occurred  for  there 
was  John  Quincy  Adams,  the  venerable  ex-President.  All  his 
earlier  life,  with  the  exception  of  a  short  time  in  the  national 
Senate,  had  been  passed  in  the  diplomatic  service  or  in 
administrative  positions.  He  speedily  learned  the  art  of 
debating  and  soon  gained  a  knowledge  of  parliamentary 
practice  that  with  his  fearlessness,  vast  learning,  and 
mental  alertness,  even  in  these  later  years,  made  him  one 
of  the  most  dangerous  opponents  that  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives has  ever  known.  It  was  practically  impossible 
to  stop  him  when  he  once  got  started  and  it  was  practically 
impossible  to  prevent  his  getting  possession  of  the  floor. 
If  one  attempt  was  blocked,  he  made  another.  In  May, 

Citizens  appointed  at  this  meeting  be       of    mails   and   see   that   they   are    in- 
instructed     to     attend     the     arrivals       spected. 


168          PLANTATION  SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM     [Cn.  V 

1836,  the  House  adopted  a  rule  that  all  petitions  and  papers 
relating  in  any  way  to  the  subject  of  slavery  should,  with- 
out being  printed  or  being  referred  to  committees,  be  laid 
on  the  table  and  no  further  action  be  taken  thereon.  When 
his  name  was  called  for  his  vote,  Adams  refused  to  vote 
saying  that  he  held  "the  resolution  to  be  in  direct  violation 
of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  of  the  rules  of  this 
House,  and  of  the  rights  of  my  constituents."  l  It  was  in  the 
course  of  one  of  these  debates  that  Adams  informed  the  House 
(May  25,  1836)  that  the  instant  the  slaveholding  states  be- 
come the  theatre  of  war,  civil,  servile,  or  foreign,  from  that 
"instant  the  war  powers  of  Congress  extend  to  interference 
with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  every  way,"  —  to  sustain 
it,  or  to  abolish  it,  or  even  to  the  cession  of  a  Slave  State  to 
a  foreign  power.2  The  irritation  became  so  great  that  the 
House  adopted  a  further  rule  that  petitions  relating  to  slavery 
should  not  be  received  at  all.  In  February,  1837,  Adams 
presented  a  petition  purporting  to  come  from  twenty-two 
slaves  and  asked  the  Speaker  if  it  could  be  received.  The 
Southerners  stormed  with  fury.  They  demanded  that  he 
should  be  censured  and  expelled.  After  two  days  of  vitu- 
peration, Adams  gained  the  floor  and  stated  that  he  doubted 
the  genuineness  of  the  document ;  and  whether  it  was 
fraudulent  or  not,  the  petitioners  asked  that  the  Northerners 
should  cease  offering  emancipation  petitions  and  that  the 
members  who  persisted  in  presenting  them  should  be  expelled.3 

1  Journal  of  the  House  of  Represen-  and    Adams's    Diary    under    date    of 

tatives,  24th  Cong.,   1st  Sess.,  p.  889;  December  2,  1839. 

Register  of  Debates,  xii,  Pt.  iv,  4062 ;  2  The  best  description  of  J.  Q. 
and  Adams's  Memoirs,  ix,  287.  As  Adams's  opinions  on  the  effect  of  mar- 
showing  Adams's  place  in  the  esteem  tial  law  on  slavery  is  in  the  Proceed- 
of  his  fellow  members,  in  1839  for  eleven  ings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
days  at  the  beginning  of  the  session  Society  for  January,  1902,  p.  440. 
he  presided  over  the  House  without  '  Letters  from  John  Quincy  Adams 
any  other  authority  than  the  good  will  to  his  Constituents  of  the  Twelfth  Con- 
of  his  fellow  representatives.  See  gressional  District  in  Massachusetts 
J.  T.  Morae,  Jr.'s  /.  Q.  Adams,  291,  (Boston,  1837),  pp.  6,  7,  10-14 ;  Journal 


1836)  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  169 

In  December,  1844,  Mr.  Adams  had  the  satisfaction  of 
having  the  "gag  rule"  rescinded  on  his  motion.1  Other- 
wise, up  to  this  time,  the  abolitionists  had  accomplished 
nothing,  except  to  arouse  the  fiercest  resentment  of  the  cotton 
planters  of  the  South  and  to  make  them  fear  for  the  contin- 
uance of  their  prosperity  and  their  peculiar  form  of  society. 

of  the   House   of  Representatives,    24th  of   the    House   of  Representatives,   28th 

Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  p.  350  and  fol. ;    and  Cong.,    2nd    Seas.,     p.     10     (Dec.     3, 

Register   of  .Debates,   xiii,    Pt.    ii,    col.  1844) ;     and   Congressional  Globe,   xiv, 

1586  and  fol.  p.  7. 

1  Adams's  Memoirs,  zii,  115 ;  Journal  • 


170         PLANTATION   SYSTEM  AND  ABOLITIONISM      [Cn.  V 

NOTES 

I.  Bibliography.  —  The  papers  printed  in  the  first  two  volumes 
of  the  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society  are  valuable 
for  an  insight  into  the  slave  system.  The  Introduction  to  this  material 
by  Professor  Ulrich  B.  Phillips,  the  editor,  is  the  best  brief  survey  of 
the  system  that  has  been  written.1  A  longer  account  is  Phillips's 
American  Negro  Slavery  (New  York,  1918).  The  secondary  title 
of  this  book  is  "  A  Survey  of  the  Supply,  Employment  and  Control 
of  Negro  Labor  as  Determined  by  the  Plantation  Regime,"  which 
well  describes  the  contents ;  but  it  also  deals  briefly  with  town  slaves 
and  free  blacks.  It  is  based  on  much  more  material  than  that  which 
is  printed  in  the  Documentary  History.  Of  the  older  books,  R.  F. 
W.  Allston's  Essay  on  Sea  Coast  Crops;  F.  L.  Olmsted's  Journey 
in  the  Seaboard  Slave  States;  Charles  Lyell's  Second  Visit  to  the  United 
States;  Frances  Kemble's  Journal  of  a  Residence  on  a  Georgian  Plan- 
tation in  1838-1839;  J.  D.  B.  DeBow's  Industrial  Resources  .  .  .  of 
the  Southern  and  Western  States  and  the  successive  volumes  of  his 
Review  are  all  instructive.  Of  the  more  recent  books,  the  first  volume 
of  James  Ford  Rhodes 's  History  of  the  United  States  since  the  Com- 
promise of  1850  and  Albert  Bushnell  Hart's  Slavery  and  Abolition, 
1831-1841  in  the  "American  Nation  "  series  present  the  results  of  pro- 
longed studies  by  Northern  men.  There  is  a  brief  bibliography  of 
secondary  works  on  slavery  in  the  Documentary  History,  i,  105,  and 
a  more  extended  list  at  the  end  of  Professor  Hart's  volume.  The 
subject  may  be  easily  followed  in  the  footnotes  to  Phillips's  Negro 
Slavery  and  to  Rhodes's  chapters. 

n.  The  Moderates.  —  William  Jay  of  New  York  and  William 
Ellery  Channing,  the  Unitarian  minister  of  Boston,  trod  the  middle 
path  that  satisfies  no  one,  but  sometimes  is  the  path  of  wisdom.  Jay 
was  an  early  member  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society ;  but  he 
resigned  from  it  when  it  advocated  and  encouraged  measures  that 

1  A  list  of  Professor  Phillips's  writ-  Some   of   the   most   significant  matter 

ings  on  slavery  follows  this  introduc-  in    the    documents    in    the    American 

tion  ;  of  these  the  articles  on  "  Southern  Industrial    History    first    appeared    in 

Black    Belts"     in     American    Histori-  the  form  of  footnotes  to  these  articles 

col    Review,    xi,    798-816,    and    "The  and      Professor      Phillips's      contribu- 

Economic     Cost     of  Slaveholding "  in  tions  to   The  South  in  the  Building  of 

the     Political     Science     Quarterly     for  the  Nation  give  his  ideas  in  somewhat 

June,    1905,   are   the   most  suggestive.  different  form. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  171 

were  directly  against  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.1  Chan- 
ning,  in  a  tract  entitled  "  Slavery,"  that  was  published  at  Boston  in 
1835,  aroused  the  resentment  of  the  Garrisonians  by  condemning  the 
system  of  agitation  adopted  by  them  which  had  alarmed  the  con- 
siderate, had  alienated  multitudes,  and  had  stirred  up  bitter  passions. 
The  abolitionists  proposed  to  convert  the  slaveholders  by  exhausting 
on  them  the  vocabulary  of  abuse,  "  and  he  has  reaped  as  he  sowed." 
Defences  of  slavery  have  been  sent  forth  in  the  spirit  of  the  dark 
ages  and  "  something  has  been  lost  to  the  cause  of  freedom  and 
humanity."  Channing  had  lived  on  a  Virginia  plantation  as  a  tutor 
in  his  early  life  and  he  resented  the  abusive  tone  of  the  abolitionist 
papers  which  gave  the  impression  that  the  slave's  abode  was  "  per- 
petually resounding  with  the  lash,  and  ringing  with  shrieks  of  agony." 
He  thought  that  it  was  of  the  highest  importance  that  emancipation 
should  be  followed  by  friendly  relations  between  the  whites  and  the 
blacks  and  that  there  was  no  power  in  the  United  States  to  remove 
slavery  but  the  slaveholding  States  themselves. 

1  See  Bayard  Tuckerman's  William  Jay  and  the  Constitutional  Movement  for  the 
Abolition  of  Slavery. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  IN  THE  FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  CENTURY 

UNTIL  the  War  of  1812  the  people  of  the  United  States 
were  occupied  —  apart  from  the  necessary  bread  winning  — 
with  the  resettlement  of  the  political  fabric  after  the  separa- 
tion from  the  British  Empire.  There  had  been  reformers 
and  philanthropists  before  1783,  but  their  voices  had  been 
those  of  individual  men  and  women  crying  in  the  wilderness.1 
Of  these  the  most  interesting  were  Anthony  Benezet  and 
Benjamin  Rush,  both  of  Philadelphia.  The  former,  under 
the  sobriquet  of  "A  Lover  of  Mankind,"  published  a  book 
in  1774  with  the  descriptive  title  of  "The  Mighty  Destroyer 
Displayed,  In  some  Account  of  the  Dreadful  HAVOCK  made 
by  the  mistaken  USE  as  well  as  ABUSE  of  DISTILLED  SPIR- 
ITOUS  LIQUORS."  Benezet  declared  that  the  excessive  and 
increasing  use  of  liquors  in  America  must  be  highly  dis- 
pleasing to  the  Creator  who  must  see  "his  favourite  creature 
man  thus  debased,  disgraced,  and  destroyed  both  in  body  and 
soul."  The  curiously  wrought  human  frame  had  been 
abused  and  disordered,  so  Benezet  wrote,  by  irregularities 
of  many  kinds,  "but  never  before  to  the  enormous  degree 
that  it  has  of  late  years  arrived  at  by  the  excessive  abuse  of 
these  fermented,  distilled  spirituous  liquors,  which,  by  their 
mischievous  effects,  seem  to  claim  Satan  himself  for  their 

1  Mr.  T.    F.   Currier,  Assistant  Li-  pamphlets  in  the  Harvard  Library, 
brarian  of  Harvard  College,  has  greatly  For    drinking    habits    and    lotteries 

assisted  me  in  collecting  material  for  in  earlier  times,  see  the  present  work, 

this  chapter  by  searching  through  and  vol.  iv,  16  and  24. 
sorting    out    by   topics    the    unplaced 

172 


BENEZET   AND   RUSH  173 

author."  Dr.  Rush  was  Physician  General  to  the  Military 
Hospitals  of  the  United  States  in  the  early  years  of  the 
Revolutionary  War.1  In  the  performance  of  his  functions, 
he  drew  up  "Directions  for  Preserving  the  Health  of  Sol- 
diers." This  tract  was  published  first  in  the  "Pennsylvania 
Packet"  in  1777,  and  republished  as  a  small  pamphlet  by 
direction  of  the  Board  of  War.  Thirty-one  years  later  in 
1808  it  was  reprinted  in  Cutbush's  "Observations  on  the 
Means  of  Preserving  the  Health  of  Soldiers  and  Sailors" 
and  a  century  later  was  reproduced  in  facsimile.  Another 
of  Dr.  Rush's  temperance  publications  was  entitled  "An 
Inquiry  into  the  Effects  of  Spirituous  Liquors  on  the  Human 
Body."  2  This  was  even  more  popular  than  the  earlier  essay 
and  was  still  being  reprinted  in  1823.  Rush  thought  that 
rum,  instead  of  abating  the  effect  of  heat  and  cold,  increased 
them  and  left  the  body  languid  and  more  liable  to  be  affected 
by  heat  and  cold  afterwards.  Horses,  he  affirmed,  per- 
formed their  labors  with  no  other  liquor  than  cold  water 
and  the  soldiers  of  ancient  Rome  carried  vinegar  in  their 
canteens  instead  of  spirits.  One  of  the  most  effective  and 
revolting  pictures  of  drunkenness  to  be  found  in  the  tem- 
perance literature  is  in  Rush's  "Inquiry."  He  declared 

1  The  first  third  of  Harry  G.  Good's  mometer"  appears  either  at  the  end  or 
Benjamin  Rush    and    his     Services    to  the    beginning    of    the    "Inquiry."     It 
American   Education    (Berne,    Indiana,  met  with  such  favor  that  it  was  re- 
1918)  is  in  reality  a  sketch  of  Dr.  Rush's  produced  widely  in  temperance  publi- 
career.  cations.     It  is  noteworthy  that  Rush 

2  This  was  written  in  1784,  but  the  held  that  "small  beer"  led  to  serenity 
earliest  edition  that  I  have  seen  was  of    mind,    reputation,    long    life,    and 
printed  at  Boston  in  1790.     The  quo-  happiness,    and   that   cider,    wine,    and 
tations  in  the  text  are  taken  from  the  beer,    when   taken   in   small   quantities 
8th  edition,  which  was  printed  at  Bos-  and  at  meals  conduced  to  cheerfulness, 
ton  in  1823  with  the  following  title,  —  strength,  and  nourishment.     Punch  and 
An  Inquiry  into  the  Effects  of  Ardent  drams  were  all  below  zero  and  led  to 
Spirits    upon    the    Human    Body    and  the  debtor's  prison  or  to  the  gallows. 
Mind.     Either    in    whole    or    in    part  Attempts   were   also   made   to   express 
this    essay    was    repeated    again    and  the  dangers  of  intemperance  by  cartog- 
again    in    temperance    publications    of  raphy,   as  in  the  "Temperance  Map" 
one  sort  or  another.  by  C.  Wiltberger,  Jr. 

"A     Moral     and     Physical     Ther- 


174  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [CH.  VI 

that  the  drunkard  resembled  a  calf  in  folly,  an  ass  in  stupid- 
ity, a  tiger  in  cruelty,  a  skunk  in  fetor,  and  a  hog  in  filthiness. 
The  drunkard's  houses  were  gradually  stripped  of  their 
furniture,  their  windows  shattered,  their  barns  had  leaky 
roofs,  and  "their  children  [were]  filthy  and  half  clad, without 
manners,  principles,  and  morals."  The  good  doctor's  idea 
that  opium  and  water  would  be  a  good  cure  for  the  rum  habit 
is  rather  appalling  to  twentieth-century  practice.1 

With  the  close  of  the  Second  War  with  England,  the 
American  conscience  seemed  to  awaken  to  the  evils  of  every- 
day social  practices  and  this  awakening  process  went  on 
with  redoubled  vigor  every  decade  down  to  1860.  It  does 
not  by  any  means  follow  that  there  was  any  looser  sense 
of  moral  obligations  in  1820  than  there  had  been  in  1800 
or  in  1770.  The  concentration  of  the  population  in  commer- 
cial cities  and  industrial  towns  brought  poverty,  crime, 
and  intemperance  to  the  notice  of  the  people,  for  one 
drunkard  apiece  in  ten  towns  of  one  thousand  inhabitants 
each  would  arouse  little  thought,  whereas  ten  drunkards  in 
the  public  square  of  one  town  of  ten  thousand  inhabitants 
would  excite  animadversions.  The  rapid  fluctuations  in 
the  means  of  existence  that  were  concomitant  with  embargo, 
war,  and  financial  panic  possibly  increased  poverty  and  riches 
at  the  extremities  of  the  social  scale.  There  may  have 
been  more  drinking  in  these  classes  and  there  certainly 
was  a  development  of  crime  in  some  directions,  as  in 
counterfeiting ;  but  this  was  the  result  of  the  tremendous  in- 
crease in  paper  money.  The  recent  improvements  in  trans- 
portation brought  people  together  and  made  possible  asso- 
ciation for  carrying  on  this  or  that  social  readjustment. 

1  In    December,     1790,     the    physi-  restrict  the  use  of  spirits  as  beverages 

cians     of     Philadelphia  —  presumably  by  imposing  heavy  duties  upon  them, 

at      Dr.       Rush's       instigation  —  me-  See    American    State    Papers,    Miscel- 

morialized  the  federal    government    to  laneoua,  i,  20. 


1820]  DRINKING  HABITS  175 

Societies  were  organized,  committees  appointed,  and  reports 
made  as  to  social  matters  in  much  the  same  way  that  earlier 
local  political  affairs  had  been  reformed.  The  net  result  of 
all  this  inquiry,  consultation,  and  agitation  was  a  con- 
viction on  the  part  of  large  numbers  of  very  good  and  earnest 
persons  that  the  modes  of  treating  misfortune  and  crime  that 
had  come  from  England  by  way  of  the  colonies  required 
most  thorough  reformation,  and  that  the  labor  system  of  the 
North  and  the  South  needed  radical  readjustment. 

Whether  the  considerations  contained  in  the  preceding 
paragraph  are  true  or  false  there  can  be  no  question  what- 
ever that  the  first  half  century  under  the  Constitution  saw 
a  most  appalling  consumption  of  alcoholic  stimulants 
throughout  the  country  and  among  all  classes  of  people,1 
clergymen,  women,  and  even  children,  on  occasion  joining 
the  mass  of  mankind  in  this  custom.  Lyman  Beecher,  in 
his  "Autobiography,"  describes  the  scene  at  a  Connecticut 
ordination :  how  the  sideboard  was  set  with  decanters, 
glasses,  sugar  bowls,  and  lemons.  The  ministers  stepped 
up  again  and  again  to  get  a  drink,  and  as  the  day  wore  on 
the  sideboard  "with  the  spillings  of  water,  and  sugar,  and 
liquor,  looked  and  smelled  like  the  bar  of  a  very  active 
grog-shop."  2  Liquor  was  served  at  funerals,  to  the  mourn- 

1  Hamilton    in    his    report    on    the  quarter  of  the  century  is  in  P.  S.  White 
"Public   Credit"    of   January   9,    1790  and  E.  S.  Ely's  Vindication  of  the  Order 
(American      State      Papers,      Finance,  of  the  Sons  of  Temperance  (New  York, 
i,  22)   states  that  the  consumption  of  1848).     Beecher  in  1812  asserted  that 
ardent  spirits,   partly  because  of  their  five  gallons  of  distilled  spirits  per  capita 
cheapness,    "is   carried   to   an  extreme  was  the  ordinary  yearly  consumption, 
which  is  truly  to  be  regretted,  as  well  By  1840,  it  appears  that  the  per  capita 
in   regard   to   the   health   and   morals,  consumption  had  fallen  to  about  one- 
as  to  the  economy  of  the  community."  half    of   that    of    1810.     See    Beecher 
Should  the  increase  of  duties  that  he  on     the    Reformation    of    Morals,     9 ; 
suggested   tend   to   a   decrease   in   the  Tench  Coxe's  Statement  of  the  Arts  and 
consumption  of  spirits,  the  effect  would  Manufactures  of  the  United  States,  .  .  . 
be  desirable  in  every  way.  1810,    Tabular   Statement,    Pt.   i,    22 ; 

2  Lyman     Beecher's     Autobiography  Permanent    Temperance    Documents,    i, 
(New  York,  1864),  i,  245.     A  readable  493;        American      Temperance      So- 
and  probably  exaggerated   account  of  ciety's     Second     Annual     Report,     48; 
the    drinking    habits     of     the    second  Cyclopaedia    of    Temperance    and    Pro- 


176  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [Cn.  VI 

ers,  sometimes  repeatedly.  In  some  of  the  prisons,  as  in 
Massachusetts,  beer  was  served  to  the  inmates.  The  idea 
prevailed  that  no  strenuous  labor  could  safely  be  performed 
without  alcoholic  stimulation.  It  was  the  custom,  therefore, 
to  provide  large  quantities  of  crude  liquor  for  the  workers 
in  the  haying  fields  and  on  the  wharves.  At  house  raisings, 
where  the  friends  and  neighbors  gathered  to  assist,  spirits 
were  consumed  so  freely  that  it  was  desirable  to  have  a  doctor 
in  attendance  to  set  the  limbs  of  any  one  who  should  fall 
from  plate,  rafter,  or  ridgepole.  In  those  days  it  was 
customary  in  some  places  to  "vend"  the  poor  to  the  highest 
bidder,  that  is  to  the  man  who  would  pay  most  for  the 
services  of  those  able  to  work  and  charge  least  for  the  care 
of  the  aged  and  impotent ;  in  some  towns  this  practice  was 
made  still  worse  by  the  custom  of  furnishing  rum  and  other 
spirits  free  to  the  bidders.1  In  some  parts  of  the  country, 
whiskey  took  the  place  of  money  and  ministers  and  teachers 
received  their  compensation  in  the  form  of  gallons  of  spirits ; 
and  there  were  cases  where  clergymen  dealt  in  alcoholic 
beverages.2  There  were  towns  where  the  "settled"  minister 
was  entitled  to  a  free  dram  before  he  began  the  Sunday  ser- 
vices.3 Drinking  was  not  by  any  means  confined  to  the 

hibition,  129 ;    Tucker's  Progress  of  the  2  In    1816    the    General    Conference 

United  States,  163 ;    and  J.  D.  B.  De  of    the    Methodist    Episcopal    Church 

Bow's  Statistical   View,    182.     For  an-  resolved   "That  no   stationed  or  local 

other  estimate  see  Circular   Addressed  preacher     shall     retail     spirituous     or 

to    the    Members    of   the    Massachusetts  malt    liquors    without    forfeiting    his 

Society   for    Suppressing    Intemperance  ministerial      character      among      us." 

(Boston,  1814).  Daniel     Dorchester's    Liquor    Problem 

1  Levi  W.  Leonard's  History  of  Dub-  in  All  Ages,  193 ;    and  Journals  of  the 

lin,  N.  H.,  26,  269.     It  is  worthy  of  re-  General    Conference    of    the    Methodist 

mark   that   in    1842   a   Washingtonian  Episcopal    Church  .  .  .  17 96-1 836,     i, 

Society  was  formed  at  Dublin  and  in  168.     See    also    Sweet's    Circuit-Rider 

1844  the  town  went  "no  license"  and  Days  in  Indiana,  69,  and  Ohio  Church 

since  then  no  liquor  has  been  legally  History  Society's  Papers,  vi,  p.  8. 

sold   within   its   limits.      The   practice  3  See  T.  S.  Griffiths'  History  of  Bap- 

of  vending  the  paupers  and  of  supply-  tists  in  New  Jersey,  513;    on  the  other 

ing  the  bidders  with  drink,  was  common  hand   the   Baptist   church   at   Borden- 

in   those   days   as   in   the   neighboring  town  resolved  in   1832  to  admit  only 

town   of   Peterborough:     see   its   His-  total  abstainers,  ibid.,  511. 

tory  by  Albert  Smith,  p.  179.  Before    coffee    and    tea    came    into 


1820]  DRINKING  HABITS  177 

northern  part  of  the  country,  for  Moncure  D.  Conway  re 
lates  that  in  Falmouth,  Virginia,  there  was  a  "rough  corner'1 
where  whiskey  was  abundant ;  on  Saturday  nights  many  of 
the  country  folk  depended  on  the  sobriety  of  horse  or  mule  to 
get  them  safely  home.1  In  short,  in  the  dearth  of  recreations 
—  of  athletics  and  of  the  motion  picture  —  the  people 
drank  rum  in  New  England  and  whiskey  in  the  South  and 
in  the  West,  —  and  alcoholic  stimulants  were  so  cheap  that 
it  was  said  "  a  man  could  get  drunk  twice  in  America  for  six- 
pence." 

The  growing  poverty  of  large  portions  of  the  people  led 
men  and  women,  some  of  them  gathered  into  societies  and 
others  working  independently,  to  scan  closely  the  causes  of 
pauperism  and  crime.  In  Philadelphia  and  in  New  York, 
they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  intemperance  and  in- 
discriminate charity  were  the  chief  causes  of  distress  and 
wrong-doing.  Societies  made  reports  and  the  churches  took 
action.  In  the  West  and  in  the  South,  the  Methodist  Church 
became  a  temperance  society 2  and  in  New  England  the 
Congregational  Associations  took  up  the  matter.  In 
Connecticut,  where  the  temperance  movement  was  vigorous, 
the  Association  recommended  that  church  members  should 
exercise  vigilance,3  should  cease  to  use  ardent  spirits  ordi- 
narily in  the  family,  and  should  substitute  palatable  and 
nutritious  drinks  for  liquors  for  their  employees,  giving  them 

common  use  as  a  matutinal  stimulant,  of  this  early  crusade  against  the  use  of 

it   was   the   general   practice   in   Eng-  alcoholic  beverages, 
land  as  well  as  in  America  to  take  a  !  On    the    attitude    of    the    Metho- 

"  morning  draught."     See,  for  example,  dists   toward   temperance   see   W.    W. 

the  numerous  entries  to  this   effect  in  Sweet's  Circuit-Rider  Days  in  Indiana, 

the  diary  of  Samuel  Pepys.  69,   147 ;    E.  J.  Pilcher's  Protestantism 

1  Moncure    D.    Conway's   Autobiog-  in   Michigan,    130;     A.    H.    Bedford's 

raphy.    Memories    and    Experiences,   i,  Western   Cavaliers,    83 ;     and   innumer- 

14;     Arethusa   Hall's   Life   and    Char-  able  other  books  of  the  same  general 

acter    of    Sylvester    Judd,    315.     White  character. 

and  Ely's  Vindication  of  .  .  .  the  Sons  s  See     Intemperance.     An     Address, 

of     Temperance     (New     York,     1848)  to     the     Churches     and     Congregations 

contains  an  excellent  ex  parte  account  (Hartford,  1813). 

VOL.  V.  —  N 


178  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [Cn.  VI 

additional  compensation,  if  necessary,  instead  of  the  cus- 
tomary dram.1  Like  all  earnest  persons,  temperance 
reformers  saw  only  one  side  and  described  in  trenchant 
phrases  what  they  saw  or  what  they  thought  they  saw.  To 
read  some  of  their  descriptions  of  American  life  in  the  first 
thirty  years  of  the  century,  one  would  suppose  that  the 
country  was  on  the  edge  of  dissolution  instead  of  actually 
girding  up  its  loins  for  the  work  that  "Destiny"  had  pro- 
vided for  it.  An  article  in  "The  Clergyman's  Almanack" 
for  1812  after  dealing  with  the  evils  of  intemperance  sums 
up  the  whole  matter  in  an  answer  to  the  inquiry  as  to  "  Who 
hath  wo"?  and  who  in  the  morning  of  life  has  an  impaired 
memory,  a  bloated  face,  and  a  broken  constitution  by  saying 
that  it  is  "  they  who  greedily  swallow  liquid  fire,  and  are  '  never 
satisfied."1  Falsehood,  fraud,  theft,  and  profanity  are  the 
result  of  the  "cup  of  intemperance."  In  1826,  Lyman 
Beecher  of  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  preached  "Six  Sermons" 
which  inaugurated  the  new  temperance  movement  that 
culminated  in  the  legislation  of  the  middle  of  the  century.2 
He  had  been  impressed  with  the  evils  of  intemperance  in 
his  earlier  residence  as  pastor  of  a  Long  Island  parish  and 
things  that  he  had  seen  after  his  return  to  Connecticut 
had  in  no  way  softened  the  impression.  Daily  drinking,  he 
declared  in  one  of  his  "Six  Sermons,"  generated  a  host  of 
bodily  infirmities  and  diseases;  "loss  of  appetite  —  nausea 

1  The  reform  found  favor  with  the  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  all  persons 
owners  of  merchant  vessels  for  it  did  in  the  naval  service  might  commute 
away  with  a  distinct  item  of  expense,  their  spirit  ration  for  money  pay- 
as  Dana  noted  in  his  Two  Years  Be-  ment;  Writings  of  Levi  Woodbury, 
fore  the  Mast,  which  describes  a  voyage  i%454. 

made    in    the    years    1834-1836.     The  2  Beecher  relates  the   circumstances 

serving  of  grog  to  crews  of  naval  ves-  of  the  writing  of  these  sermons  in  his 

sels  lasted  much  longer  and  was  not  Autobiography,    ii,    ch.    v.     They   were 

finally    done    away    with    until    1862.  first  printed  in  1827  and  reprinted  over 

See    Allen's     "Introduction"     to     the  and  over  again  in  the  following  years. 

Papers  of  .  .  .  Dallas   (Publications  of  The   full   title   is   Six   Sermons   on   the 

the    Naval    History   Society,    viii),   p.  Nature,    Occasions,    Signs,    Evils,    and 

xxiii.     In  1831,  however,  by  order  of  Remedy  of  Intemperance. 


1826]  BEECHER'S  SIX   SERMONS  179 

at    the    stomach  —  disordered    bile  —  obstructions    of   the 
liver  —  jaundice  —  dropsy  —  hoarseness  of  voice  —  coughs 
—  consumptions  —  rheumatic     pains  —  epilepsy  —  gout  — 
colic  —  palsy  —  apoplexy  —  insanity,"  —  these     were     the 
results    of    moderate    tippling    according    to    this    clerical 
diagnostician.     Looking  about  him,  Beecher  was  dismayed 
at  the  difficulty  of  the  minority's  enforcing  laws  in  the  teeth 
of  the  opposition  of  the  majority ;    he  asserted  that  the 
magistrates  could  not  put  a  stop  to  the  drinking  of  ardent 
spirits  amid  a  population  who  are  in  favor  of  free  indulgence. 
Even  associations  to  support  the  authorities  were  ineffectual 
because  the  efforts  required  to  keep  up  their  energy  never 
had  been  and  never  would  be  made.     The  only  efficacious 
course  to  pursue  was  to  associate  for  the  special  purpose  of 
superintending    the    reformations    of   the    people's   habits. 
In  this  Beecher  was  no  doubt  mistaken,  for  it  seems  certain 
that  a  nation's  habits  can  be  markedly  changed  by  legis- 
lation which,  in  the  course  of  years,  sets  up  a  new  standard 
in  men's  minds  and  consciences.    The  license  system  aroused 
the  indignation  of  the  temperance  people  because  it  seemed 
to  give  the  sanction  of  the  community  to   the  selling  of 
liquor  and  gave  the  holder  of  a  license  a  feeling  that  he  had 
some  vested  rights  which  could  not  be  interfered  with.     An- 
other mode  of  dealing  with  the  problem  was  to  place  so  heavy 
a  tax  upon  the  distillation  and  sale  of  spirits  that  only  the 
rell-to-do  could  use  them,  and  a  third  method  had  much  the 
same  idea  at  bottom.     This  was  to  prohibit  the  importa- 
tion or  sale  of  rum,  whiskey,  or  brandy  in  smaller  quantities 
than  fifteen  gallons  or  twenty  gallons  or  ninety  gallons.1     Of 
course  all  expedients  of  high  taxes  and  limited  sales  bore 
heavily  upon  the  common  people,  while  leaving  the  rich  un- 

1  See    the    interesting    Argument    of      mittee    of    the     Massachusetts    legis- 
Peleg    Sprague,    Esq.    before    a    com-       lature,  February,  1839. 


180  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [On.  VI 

touched.  None  of  these  plans  found  favor  with  the  new  tem- 
perance reformers.  Limited  drinking,  license  systems,  fifteen 
gallon  laws,  were  about  as  bad  to  their  minds  as  absolute  free- 
dom. What  they  wanted  was  prohibition,  pure  and  simple. 

Societies  were  formed  in  several  States  and  an  educational 
propaganda  was  carried  on  by  means  of  the  press  and  of  the 
lecture  platform.  Mason  L.  Weems's  "Drunkard's  Looking 
Glass"  was  published  in  1812  and  recited  vividly  the  evils 
of  excessive  drinking  as  did  Peter  Parley's  "Five  Letters" 
and  Sargent's  "Temperance  Tales." 1  In  1833,  the  National 
Convention  of  Temperance  Workers  was  held  at  Phila- 
delphia. Four  hundred  and  forty  delegates  attended  from 
the  local  societies  and  adopted  resolutions  to  the  effect  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  all  men  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  ardent 
spirits  as  morally  wrong  and  that  pure  water  was  the  only 
substitute.  Within  twenty  years  seven  Presidents  or  ex- 
Presidents  of  the  United  States  acceded  to  a  declaration  that 
the  drinking  of  ardent  spirits  was  not  only  needless,  but 
hurtful  and  that  its  discontinuance  would  be  for  the  good 
of  the  country  and  the  world.2  The  man  who  by  indomitable 

1  Among  Sargent's  twenty-one  Tern-  fied  in  Poetry  and  Prose  with  Engrav- 

perance  Tales  in  seven  volumes  may  be  ings  that  was  published  at  Boston  in 

mentioned     "Kitty     Grafton,"     "The  1829.     For  some   years  a   Temperance 

Stage       Coach,"       and       "Margaret's  Almanac  was  published  by  the  Massa- 

Bridal."     G.   B.    Cheever's    True   His-  chusetts  Temperance  Union ;   the  num- 

tory    of   Deacon    Giles'    Distillery    and  bers    for    1841    and    1842    have    some 

The  Dream:    or   The   True  History   of  striking  illustrations  and   the  number 

Deacon   Giles's   Distillery,   and   Deacon  for   1843  has  an  article  by  Nathaniel 

Jones's  Brewery,  also  by  Cheever,  were  Hawthorne  entitled  "A  Rill  from  the 

landmarks  of  the  movement,   but  of-  Town   Pump."     Among   the   most   ef- 

fended  the  supposed  Deacon  Giles  and  fective     short     pieces     were     Thomas 

led  to  a  trial  for  libel  and  to  A  De-  Herttell's  Expose  of  the  Causes  of  In- 

fence    in    Abatement    of   Judgment    by  temperate  Drinking  and  the  Means   by 

Cheever.     These    seem    rather    forced  which   it   may   be   Obviated   which   was 

nowadays    as    also    do    Peter    Parley's  first  published  at  New  York,  in   1819 

Five    Letters    to    my    Neighbor    Smith,  and     Professor     Edward     Hitchcock's 

touching   the   Fifteen   Gallon   Jug,    and  Essay  on  Temperance,  addressed  partic- 

The   Cracked  Jug,   or   Five  Answers   to  ularly  to  Students  and  printed  at  Am- 

My    Neighbor     Parley's     Five     Letters  herst  in  1830. 

.  .  .  by  "Neighbor  Smith."     In  lighter  'See  "Thirteenth  Annual  Report," 

vein      and      not      so      effective     was  p.  37,  in  Permanent  Temptranct  Docu- 

The    Evils    of  Intemperance,    Exempli-  ments,  iii. 


1833]  TEMPERANCE   CONVENTION  181 

will  and  strong  physique  made  possible  the  passage  of  actual 
prohibitory  legislation  was  Neal  Dow  of  Portland,  Maine. 
He  had  been  led  to  interest  himself  in  the  matter  by  the 
misfortunes  of  a  neighboring  family  which  were  due  to  the 
intemperance  of  the  father.  Total  abstinence  to  him  seemed 
to  be  the  only  goal  to  gain.  At  first  he  tried  to  reach  it  by 
persuasion,  by  inducing  those  around  him  to  become  total 
abstainers.  He  travelled  up  and  down  the  State  speaking 
everywhere  with  great  effect  and  supported  by  a  band  of 
lecturers  and  by  literary  propaganda.  The  Washingtonian 
movement  also  came  to  his  aid.  This  was  started  by  a  group 
of  half  a  dozen  steady  drinkers  at  Baltimore,  who  had  them- 
selves been  greatly  stirred  by  a  temperance  lecturer,  Matthew 
Hale  Smith,  by  name.  They  pledged  themselves  not  to 
drink  any  spirituous  or  malt  liquors,  wine,  or  cider.  These 
reformed  drunkards  immediately  began  making  converts 
at  home;  soon  they  travelled  over  the  country  securing 
attention  by  reason  of  their  past  histories,  more,  perhaps, 
than  by  their  eloquence.  But  there  were  temperance 
lecturers  outside  of  the  Washingtonians  who  possessed 
power  to  attract  and  convert  their  fellow  men  and  women,  as 
John  B.  Gough,  although  he  gained  his  end  rather  by  the 
vigor  of  his  utterance  than  by  the  use  of  his  mind.  In 
1849,  Father  Mathew,  the  Irish  Catholic  temperance  re- 
former, landed  in  New  York  and  received  a  great  ova- 
tion.1 

In  1846,  Neal  Dow  induced  the  Maine  legislature  to  pass 
the  first  law  in  our  history  designed  to  absolutely  prohibit 
the  sale  of  liquor  as  a  beverage.  It  proved  to  be  difficult 
to  enforce  this  law.  In  1851,  Dow  drew  up  a  measure  which 
he  thought  would  be  effective  and  would  not  arouse  the 
extreme  opposition  that  the  earlier  act  had  excited.  He 

1  See  J.  F.  Maguire's  Father  Mathew,  460-518. 


182  SOCIAL   READJUSTMENTS  [Ca.  VI 

took  this  bill  with  him  to  the  State  capital  and  by  his  own 
efforts  prevailed  upon  the  legislature  to  pass  it.1  This  was 
the  famous  "Maine  Liquor  Law"  which  became  the  model 
for  all  similar  legislation.  By  it  the  sale  of  intoxicating 
liquors  and  the  manufacture  of  them  were  prohibited,  ex- 
cept for  medicinal  and  mechanical  purposes,  under  reasonable 
but  increasing  penalties.  At  first  these  were  fines,  but  for 
the  third  offence  a  jail  sentence  of  from  three  to  six  months 
was  provided  in  addition  to  the  fine  and  in  every  case  the 
seized  liquors  were  to  be  destroyed.  Dow,  himself,  was 
mayor  of  the  city  of  Portland.  Proceeding  home  he  gave 
the  liquor  dealers  a  limited  time  in  which  to  transport  their 
goods  out  of  the  State  and  then  he  seized  and  destroyed 
whatever  remained.  The  passage  of  this  law  marked  the 
beginning  of  the  incoming  tide  of  temperance  legislation. 
Some  years  before,  in  1839,  the  Ohio  legislature  had  provided 
for  partial  prohibition ;  in  1850  it  prohibited  all  retail 
trade  in  spirits  for  beverage  purposes  and  in  1851  an  amend- 
ment of  the  State  constitution  forbade  the  establishment  of 
any  system  licensing  the  sale  of  liquors  within  the  State. 
In  1851,  the  Illinois  legislature  by  law  prohibited  the  sale  of 
spirituous  liquors  to  be  drunk  on  the  premises.  By  the 
end  of  1856,  indeed,  thirteen  of  the  existing  States  had  more 
or  less  thoroughly  abolished  the  sale  of  spirituous  beverages.2 
In  all  these  States,  however,  cider  made  from  apples  grown 
within  the  State  limits  was  permitted  and  from  the  ex-parte 
accounts  of  the  reformers,  there  was  about  as  much  drunken- 
ness in  the  "cider-growing  States"  as  there  was  before  the 
passage  of  the  prohibitory  legislation.  In  running  over  the 
list  of  the  States,  one  is  impressed  with  the  fact  that  not 

1  Reminiscences  of  Neal  Dow,  ch.  xiv.  lected  statutes  of  Maine  and  separately. 
The  act  was  entitled  "An  Act  for  the  *  For  a  convenient  summary  of  this 

Suppression  of  Drinking  Houses  &  Tip-  legislation,     see     Woolley     and     John- 

pling  Shops"  and  is  printed  in  the  col-  son's  Temperance  Progress,  138-141. 


1851]  MAINE    LIQUOR   LAW  183 

one  of  them  below  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  prohibited  the 
sale  of  liquor  by  State  law  and  that  only  two  of  those  north 
of  that  line,  one  east  and  one  west  of  the  Appalachians,  did 
not  enact  prohibition.  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and  Ver- 
mont have  continued  prohibition  from  1860  down  to  the 
present  day ;  but  the  other  States  by  positive  enactment 
or  by  judicial  action  restored  freedom  or  local  option 
in  the  matter  of  making  and  selling  alcoholic  beverages. 
In  1868,  the  Massachusetts  prohibition  law  was  repealed 
largely  in  consequence  of  the  efforts  of  John  A.  Andrew, 
the  "War  Governor"  of  that  State,  who  held  that  no  govern- 
ment had  the  right  to  restrain  a  man's  rational  liberty  to 
regulate  his  private  conduct  and  affairs  l  or  "to  punish  one 
man  in  advance  for  the  possible  fault  of  another."  Prohibi- 
tion was  reenacted  in  1869,  but  in  1870,  the  sale  of  fermented 
liquors  was  allowed.  In  1875,  a  local  option  law  by  which 
the  voters  of  each  town  decided  each  year  whether  they  would 
have  license  or  prohibition  was  enacted.  In  the  same  year 
Michigan  repealed  her  prohibitory  law  and  Connecticut  had 
already  restored  the  license  system.  Indeed,  at  the  close 
of  that  year  only  three  States  were  constant  to  the  temper- 
ance ideals  of  1860.  In  all  the  discussions  of  these  laws, 
the  difficulty  of  enforcing  them  was  constantly  brought 
forward  and  the  impolicy  of  having  laws  on  the  statute 
book  that  could  not  be  carried  out  was  reiterated. 

The  philanthropists  and  reformers  were  united  in  regard- 
ing intemperance  in  the  use  of  alcoholic  beverages  as  the 
predisposing  cause  of  poverty  and  crime.  This  they  were 
all  agreed  on,  but  nowadays  students  would  attribute  much 
of  the  excess  in  pauperism  and  wickedness  to  the  social  unrest 
that  is  the  concomitant  and  follower  of  periods  of  war. 
However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  in  whatever  direction 

1  The  Errors   of  Prohibition  by  John  A.  Andrew. 


184  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [On.  VI 

the  American  investigator  turned  his  eyes  —  and  the  same 
thing  was  true  of  the  European  reformer  —  he  was  appalled 
at  the  conditions  of  the  prisons  and  of  the  prisoners.  In  the 
olden  time  the  American  colonists  had  simply  reproduced 
the  penology  of  their  English  forbears.1  That  had  been 
brutal,  as  it  was  contemporaneously  in  the  continental 
countries  of  Europe.  Death  met  the  convicted  perpetrator 
of  every  serious  crime,  and  the  rest  were  treated  with  pitiless 
publicity  combined  with  bodily  pain,  —  flogging,  mutilation, 
branding,  and  exposure  to  the  taunts  and  missiles  of  the 
populace.  The  non-payment  of  a  debt  in  "those  good  old 
days"  was  looked  upon  as  practically  equivalent  to  theft. 
In  the  course  of  long  exposure  to  new  conditions,  there  had 
been  some  changes  in  the  old  rules  for  dealing  with  crime 
and  some  of  those  that  had  not  been  changed  by  legislation 
had  been  seldom  if  ever  actually  used  in  practice  in  the 
colonies.  With  the  Revolution  began  a  new  outlook,  al- 
though it  must  be  said  that  such  amelioration  as  there  was 
was  slow  and  sporadic.  The  number  of  capital  crimes  was 
greatly  diminished  and  the  punishment  of  those  that  did  not 
bring  death  was  changed  from  pain  and  humiliation  to  im- 
prisonment.2 Before  this  time,  the  prison  had  been  looked 
upon  as  a  place  of  detention  for  those  owing  money  and  for 
persons  accused  of  crime  while  awaiting  trial ;  when  convicted 
of  felony  or  misdemeanor  the  punishment  was  not  another 
period  of  detention  in  prison,  but  some  form  of  summary 
punishment  or  execution. 

With  the  changed  ideas,  the  prison  became  the  instru- 
ment of  punishment  and  of  hoped-for  reformation,  but  the 
early  prisons  were  far  from  filling  either  of  these  require- 

1  See  the  present  work,  volume  i,  were  then  twelve  capital  offences  in 

index  under  "crime";  ii,  392-394;  Massachusetts  to  one  in  Pennsylvania. 

iii,  570-572.  In  the  Southern  States  death  was 

*  In  1829,  the  Boston  Prison  Dis-  provided  for  numerous  offences  on  the 

cipline  Society  reported  that  there  part  of  a  slave  (pp.  31-54). 


1820]  THE   PRISONS  185 

ments.1  In  them  the  prisoners  were  confined  in  large  rooms, 
there  being  ten,  twenty,  thirty  inmates  in  each.2  These 
were  indiscriminately  assigned  to  whichever  room  was  then 
filling  up  —  poor  debtors,  murderers  awaiting  execution, 
accused  persons  awaiting  trial  —  all  placed  together  —  men, 
women,  children,  white  and  black,  sane  and  insane.  These 
early  prisons  were  sinks  of  iniquity  and  schools  of  corruption 
and  crime.3  There  was  no  attempt  made  to  warm  them,  or 
ventilate  them,  or  keep  them  clean ;  the  inmates  slept  on 
the  floor  or  on  mattresses  if  they  had  money  to  procure  them, 
and  in  some  cases  hammocks  were  used  when  the  floor  was 
filled.  Attempts  were  occasionally  made  at  classification, 
placing  the  poor  debtors  by  themselves  and  relegating  the  in- 
sane to  the  cellar ;  but  in  these  early  days  women  were 
regarded  as  equals  of  men  and  treated  accordingly  without 
any  favors.  In  some  cases,  as  with  the  poor  debtors,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  early  prisons  were  permitted  to  labor  in 
the  daytime,  but  by  sundown  were  locked  up  in  the  night 
rooms.  The  Pennsylvanians  and  New  Yorkers  were  the 

1  For   a  summary  of   prison   condi-  they  proved  to  be  undesirable  and  the 

tions  up  to  1828  or  1829,  see  Boston  mines,  in  later  years,  were  used  only  as 

Prison  Discipline  Society's  Fourth  An-  sleeping  rooms  for  the  prisoners  who 

nual    Report    (2nd   ed.),  PP-    265-288;  were   employed  in   a   building   on   the 

especially  pp.  285-288.     Gamaliel  Brad-  surface    in    the    daytime.     See    Noah 

ford's   State   Prisons   and   the   Peniten-  A.      Phelps's     History     of     Simsbury, 

tiary  System   Vindicated   (Charlestown,  Granby  and   Canton   (Hartford,    1845), 

1821)    is    an    illuminating    essay    from  ch.  x;  and  an  illustrated  article  in  the 

several  points  of  view.     See  also  Harry  Magazine  of  American  History,  xv,  321. 

E.  Barnes's  History  of  the  Penal  ...  E.  A.  Kendall  visited  Simsbury  in  1807 

Institutions  of  .  .  .  New  Jersey  (Tren-  and  described  the  prison  in  his  Travels, 

ton,     1908).     New     York    City    Docu-  i,  ch.  xxi,  which  is  repeated  in  Barber's 

ment  No.  29   contains  a  survey  of   the  Connecticut  Historical  Collections,  95. 
old     penal     institutions     with     recom-  2  Boston  Prison  Discipline  Society's 

mendations  for  their  betterment.  Reports,  i,  38,  39. 

The  old  copper  mine  prison  at  Sims-  *  Counterfeiting     was     very     prev- 

bury,   Connecticut,   has  received  alto-  alent  in   those  days.     The  Second  Re- 

gether    undeserved     notoriety     owing,  port   of   the   Boston   Prison    Discipline 

probably   in    part,    to    Waiter   Bates's  Society     (1827,     p.     40)      enumerates 

The  Mysterious  Stranger;    or  Memoirs  "237    different    kinds    of    counterfeit 

of  .  .  .  WHliam  Newman  (New  Haven,  bills  on  the  banks  of  18  different  States 

1817).     The   copper   mines   were   used  and  Canada."     It  is  said  that  the  art 

for  a  time  as  prisons  and  Tories  were  was  regularly  taught  in  some  prisons 

confined  there  for  a  few  months,   but  —  also  lock-picking  and  pocket-picking 


186  SOCIAL   READJUSTMENTS  [Cn.  VI 

first  to  try  to  inaugurate  a  better  state  of  affairs.  As  the 
existing  prisons  were  seminaries  of  sin  where  experts  in 
crime  taught  counterfeiting,  lock-picking,  and  other  evil 
things  to  attentive  audiences,  one  way  out  seemed  to  be  to 
compel  solitude,  which  would  have  the  further  advantage  of 
providing  time  for  contemplation  and  possibly  for  self- 
reformation.  Another  plan  was  to  secure  all  the  advantages 
of  solitude  by  confinement  in  single  cells  at  night  and  a  gang 
system  of  labor  during  the  day  in  absolute  silence.  These 
came  to  be  known  as  the  Pennsylvania  and  the  Auburn  sys- 
tems of  prison  management,  or  sometimes  as  the  solitary  and 
congregate  systems.1  The  solitary  system  was  seen  at  its 
best  in  the  Eastern  Pennsylvania  Penitentiary  at  Philadel- 
phia.2 There  each  convict  occupied  a  single  cell  of  good 
size,  communicating  with  an  exercise  yard  into  which  he 
was  permitted  to  go  for  an  hour  or  so  a  day.  At  first  it 
was  not  intended  that  the  prisoners  should  engage  in  labor, 
but  should  spend  their  whole  time  in  solitary  contemplation. 
These  cells  were  lighted  from  above,  provided  with  water 
and  drainage,  and  were  heated.  In  this  system  no  attempt 
whatever  was  made  to  punish  or  reform  by  bodily  torments 
or  deprivations.  Everything  was  to  be  accomplished  by 
solitude,  by  enforced  and  absolute  solitude.  Before  the 
prison  was  opened,  a  change  was  made  in  the  plan  by  which 
labor  in  the  cells  was  provided.  This  change  had  been 
brought  about  by  an  experiment  that  had  been  made  on 
eighty  selected  convicts  at  Auburn,  New  York,  by  direction 
of  the  State  legislature  in  1821.  In  this  case  cells  were 
constructed  of  moderate  size,  the  convicts  were  placed  in 
their  cells  and  there  remained  under  constant  observation 

1  See  Note  II  at  the  end  of  chapter.  A    Vindication  of  the  Separate  System 

*  See     Description     of    the     Eastern  of  Prison  Discipline  from  the  Misrep- 

Penitentiary  published  by  C.  G.  Childs,  resentations    of     the     North    American 

Engraver  at  Philadelphia,  in  1829  and  Review,  July,  1839  (Philadelphia,  1839). 


1830]  SOLITARY    IMPRISONMENT  187 

without  work  and  not  allowed  to  speak  or,  during  the  day- 
time, to  lie  down.  The  consequence  was  that  in  less  than 
three  years'  time,  they  had  so  declined  in  health,  had 
died  from  consumption,  or  had  become  insane  that  the 
governor  pardoned  the  survivors.1  In  the  Eastern  Penn- 
sylvania Penitentiary  labor  was  combined  with  solitude, 
the  prisoners  making  shoes  or  textiles,  each  in  his  own 
cell.  As  years  went  by  the  austerity  of  the  system  was 
relaxed,  instruction  was  introduced  to  a  degree,  more 
books  were  permitted,  visitors  became  more  frequent,  and 
the  convicts  were  permitted  to  raise  flowers  in  their  little 
yards. 

The  Auburn  system  was  developed  by  Captain  Elam 
Lynds.  The  central  idea  was  solitude  gained  by  solitary 
confinement  at  night  in  small  cells,  only  a  little  longer  and 
wider  than  the  cot  on  which  the  prisoner  slept,  and  hard 
labor  during  the  day.  At  daybreak,  the  wardens  unlocked 
the  doors,  the  prisoners,  each  with  his  pail  and  mush-kid, 
"locked  marched"  to  the  shop,  depositing  his  utensils  on 
the  way.  At  the  appointed  hour  they  locked  marched 
to  the  eating  room  where  they  breakfasted  sitting  back  to 
back,  then  again  to  the  shop  and,  later,  to  dinner  and  then 
back  to  the  shops.  At  night,  after  labor  hours,  they  locked 
marched  to  the  water  supply  where  they  got  their  pails,  to 
the  kitchen  where  they  received  their  kids  of  mush  and 
molasses,  and  then  to  the  cell,  where  they  were  locked  in 
for  the  night.  At  nine  the  bugle  announced  the  time  of 
retirement  and  all  went  to  bed.  Discipline  was  enforced, 
partly  by  corporal  punishment  at  once  on  the  slightest 
infractions  of  the  rules  or,  in  serious  cases,  by  flogging  in  the 
presence  of  the  higher  officers.  More  especially,  however, 
it  was  enforced  by  the  remarkable  power  of  Elam  Lynds, 

1  G.  Powers'  Brief  Account  of  the  .  .  .  New-York  State  Prison  at  Auburn,  32-36. 


188  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [On.  VI 

who  is  said  to  have  gone  among  the  convicts  absolutely  un- 
armed. It  was  a  system  of  terrorism,  but  the  actual  amount 
of  bodily  punishment  inflicted  per  convict  was  very  small. 
Moreover,  the  labor  of  the  convicts  was  so  profitable  that 
several  prisons  conducted  on  the  Auburn  plan  actually 
brought  in  money  to  the  State.1  The  success  of  the  Auburn 
system  depended  in  great  measure  upon  the  construction  of 
the  prison.  The  cells  were  built  in  five  tiers  back  to  back  in 
the  centre  of  a  building  eighteen  to  twenty  feet  wider  than  the 
combined  length  of  two  cells.  A  platform  three  feet  wide  ran 
around  each  tier,  leaving  five  or  six  feet  next  to  the  side  of  the 
building  unoccupied  from  floor  to  ceiling.2  Escape  was  prac- 
tically impossible  and  the  slightest  noise  was  at  once  heard.3 
The  building  was  warmed  by  stoves  on  the  ground  floor  and 
there  was  a  ventilation  pipe  in  the  back  of  each  cell.  Com- 
mendable efforts  were  made  to  keep  the  cells  clean.  At 
Auburn,  the  atmosphere  seems  to  have  been  fair,  but  at 
Sing  Sing  and  at  other  prisons  which  were  constructed  on  the 
same  plan  as  Auburn,  the  dampness  of  the  surrounding 
country,  or  some  other  cause,  made  the  conditions  of  the 
night  cells  unfavorable  to  health.4 

The  two  systems  of  prison  discipline  had  scarcely  got  into 
working  order  when  disputations  began  between  the  advo- 

1  See   Beaumont    and    De   Tocque-  tion  of  the  prison  compelled  the  con- 

ville's      Penitentiary     System     in     the  finement  of  two  prisoners  in  one  of  these 

United  States,  279-285;    Boston  Prison  pits-    Boston    Prison     Discipline     So- 

Discipline     Society's     Second     Annual  ciety's    Second   Report  (Boston,   1827), 

Report  (1827) ,  p.  97,  and  Fourth  Annual  pp.  81-83. 

Report  (1829),  p.  94.  'See  Report  ofGershom  Powers,  Agent 

*  In  the  State  Prison,   at  Thomas-  and  Keeper  of  the  State  Prison  at  Auburn 

ton,    Maine,    the     night    rooms    were  (1828)  and  Letter  of  Gershom  Powers  .  .  . 

cellars    or     pits,    entered     by    ladders  in  relation  to  the  Auburn  State  Prison 

through  trap  doors  in  the  ceiling  as  one  (1829). 

entered  a  ship's  hold  through  a  hatch-  4  The  difficulty  of  heating  a  prison 

way.     This  arrangement  had  been  de-  of    this    type    is    brought    out    in    the 

signed   for   solitary   perpetual    confine-  Minutes     of    the     Testimony  .  .  .  [on] 

ment    but    was    never    used    for    that  the     Condition     of     Connecticut     State 

purpose;     it   proved    unwieldy  in    the  Prison    (Hartford,     1834),  pp.    4,    10, 

hard  labor,  solitary  night  system  and  68,  etc. 
especially  so  when  the  crowded  condi- 


1830]  CONGREGATE  SYSTEMS  189 

cates  of  one  or  the  other  of  them.  Societies  for  the  study 
and  improvement  of  prison  conditions  were  founded  in 
Pennsylvania,  New  York,  and  Massachusetts.  Of  these  the 
Massachusetts  society  was  active  in  printing  and  most  of  its 
officers  were  ardent  advocates  of  the  Auburn  plan.  It  will 
be  seen,  therefore,  that  easily  available  statistics  usually 
point  to  the  success  of  that  system  and  the  failure  of  the 
Pennsylvania  plan.  In  reality,  the  statistics  are  so  con- 
structed that  it  is  impossible  to  reach  any  valid  conclusion 
from  a  study  of  those  that  can  be  found,  and  the  arguments 
of  those  who  wrote  on  the  one  side  or  the  other  appear  to  be 
extremely  prejudiced.  It  would  seem  to  be  clear  that  almost 
any  plan  of  prison  administration  and  treatment  of  convicts 
works  well  in  the  beginning,  —  as  long  as  the  buildings  are 
new  and  the  administrators  enthusiastic.  In  time  the 
buildings  become  overcrowded  and  insanitary,  inferior 
persons  are  employed  as  underkeepers,  and  the  psychological 
glamour  of  the  earlier  years  is  replaced  by  a  general  peni- 
tentiary gloom.  Where  once  there  was  health  there  now  is 
disease ;  where  once  there  was  more  or  less  cheerful  acquies- 
cence there  now  is  friction.  In  the  history  of  all  experiments 
of  the  continuous  solitary  system,  consumption,  dementia, 
and  insanity  supervened  and  so  shocked  the  community 
that  modifications  had  to  be  made.  The  Auburn  system  at 
first  was  carried  on  by  fear :  the  new-comer  was  completely 
"curbed,"  to  use  Captain  Lynds's  expressive  word;  a 
wink  or  a  whisper  brought  a  blow  from  the  keeper  and 
"  stripes, "  which  was  a  politer  word  than  flogging,  awaited 
any  further  resistance.  Corporal  punishment  by  the  cowskin 
whip  or  the  cat  o'  nine  tails  was  going  out  of  fashion  as  the 
middle  of  the  century  approached,1  and  as  soon  as  the  nature 

1  In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  lashes  on  the  bare  back  (Esarey's 
century,  petty  larceny  was  punished  Indiana,  i,  148).  Massachusetts  did 
in  Indiana  by  not  exceeding  fifteen  away  with  whipping  as  a  punishment 


190 


SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS 


[Cn.  VI 


of  the  method  by  which  discipline  was  enforced  in  prisons 
of  the  congregate  system  became  public  by  some  distressing 
example,  it  was  inevitable  that  opinion  would  turn  against 
it  as  it  had  earlier  turned  against  the  solitary  system. 
Both  plans,  therefore,  were  modified.  The  inmates  of 
solitary  prisons  were  given  more  human  companionship 
and  more  opportunities  for  relaxation,  and  the  inmates  of 
congregate  prisons,  like  the  Massachusetts  State  prison, 
were  permitted  to  talk  while  at  work,  so  that  the  difference 
between  the  two  became  simply  one  of  laboring  alone  or  in 
company.1  The  keepers  of  the  prisons  of  that  time  seem  to 
be  fairly  united  in  doubts  as  to  the  reforming  of  any  con- 
siderable number  of  convicts.  The  solitary  plan  was 
believed  to  give  abundant  opportunity  for  introspection 
and  for  the  making  of  good  resolutions ;  but  the  number  of 
reconvictions  under  this  system  seems  to  have  been  suffi- 
ciently large  to  cast  doubts  on  its  efficacy  in  this  respect. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Auburn  system  in  its  pristine  vigor 
was  not  supposed  to  reform,  but  to  habituate  a  man  to 
obedience  and  labor;  it  is  certain,  however,  that  either  of 
them  was  preferable  to  the  old  plan  of  promiscuous  herding 
in  idleness.  When  the  prisoner's  term  of  service  was  over 
or  upon  his  pardon,  he  was  given  a  new  suit  and  three  or 


for  crime  in  1813  (Public  and  General 
IMWS  of  .  .  .  Massachusetts,  Boston, 
1816,  iv,  341).  The  Harrison  County 
whipping  post  in  western  Virginia 
was  hewed  down  in  1810  according  to 
Mr.  E.  C.  Smith  of  Clarksburg,  West 
Virginia.  In  1831,  Levi  Woodbury, 
who  was  then  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
informed  the  commanding  officers  that 
the  President  and  the  Department 
wished  them  to  substitute  fines,  badges 
of  disgrace,  and  "other  mild  correc- 
tions" for  whipping,  whenever  the  laws 
permitted  (Writings  of  Levi  Woodbury, 
i,  454).  Owing  to  the  persistent  en- 
deavors of  Senator  John  P.  Hale  of 
New  Hampshire,  flogging  in  the  navy 


was  abolished  in  1850  by  act  of  Con- 
gress (Statutes  at  Large,  ix,  515). 
As  a  rule  the  reformers  of  those  days 
were  more  solicitous  of  the  backs  of 
convicts  and  slaves  than  they  were  of 
the  backs  of  free  American  citizens. 
On  the  general  subject,  see  An  Essay 
on  Flogging  in  the  Navy,  reprinted  from 
the  Democratic  Review  for  1849,  and 
Gardner  W.  Allen's  "Introduction" 
to  The  Papers  of  .  .  .  Dallas  (Naval 
History  Society's  Publications,  viii), 
p.  xxiii. 

1  For  an  account  of  this  prison  see 
Gamaliel  Bradford's  Description  and 
Historical  Sketch  of  the  Massachusetti 
State  Prison  (Charlestown,  1816). 


1830)  RECONVICTIONS  191 

five  dollars  in  money.  Some  keepers  added  good  advice 
and  in  some  places  there  were  societies  for  the  aid  of  dis- 
charged prisoners.  The  number  of  reconvictions  was  dis- 
heartening, taking  the  country  through,  although  it  should 
be  said  that  those  who  had  experienced  the  Auburn  system 
in  its  first  days  preferred  to  commit  the  next  crime  outside 
the  limits  of  New  Yo'rk  State. 

In  the  preceding  paragraphs  the  treatment  of  persons 
convicted  of  crime  has  alone  been  considered ;  but  there  were 
four  or  five  poor  debtors  to  one  regular  criminal  in  the  pris- 
ons of  the  Northern  and  Middle  States.  In  a  period  of 
eight  months  and  eighteen  days  from  June,  1829,  to  February, 
1830,  817  persons  were  imprisoned  for  debt  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia  alone.  Of  these  30  owed  less  than  one  dollar 
each  and  233  between  one  dollar  and  five  dollars.  Nearly 
six  hundred  of  the  total  number  owed  less  than  twenty  dollars 
and  only  98  over  one  hundred  dollars.  In  Rochester,  New 
York,  in  the  year  1830,  24  persons  were  imprisoned  in  the 
county  jail  for  debts  of  less  than  one  dollar,  ranging  from 
six  cents  to  ninety  cents  apiece.1  Imprisonment  for  debt 
takes  us  back  to  the  England  of  Fielding  and  Smollett  and 
Daniel  Defoe.  The  Fleet  Prison,  with  its  great  halls  filled 
with  helpless,  hopeless  human  beings  had  its  replica  in 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  other  American  cities  and 
towns.  The  theory  underlying  imprisonment  for  debt 
was  that  the  unlawful  conversion  of  another  man's  property 
to  one's  own  use  was  criminal.  It  was  also  held  that  one 
way  to  secure  the  payment  of  the  debt  was  to  imprison 
the  debtor  and  thereby  arouse  the  active  interest  of  his 
family  and  of  all  those  who  were  likely  to  be  called  upon  to 

1  See  Boston   Prison   Discipline   So-  in  1818  under  the  title  of  A  Disquiai- 

ciety's  Reports,   v,  38,  50,   and  vi,  57.  lion  on  Imprisonment  for  Debt  as   the 

A  powerful   indictment  of  the  existing  Practice  exists  in  the  State  of  New  York. 

system   was   published    at   New   York  By  Howard. 


192  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [On.  VI 

take  any  part  in  his  support  to  bring  about  his  release  and, 
thereby,  enable  him  again  to  take  up  the  business  of  family 
bread  winning.  Many  of  the  imprisonments  for  small 
amounts  are  said  to  have  borne  the  character  of  spite  persecu- 
tions ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  a  man  would  take 
forethought  and  loan  a  proposed  victim  twenty-five  cents 
for  the  purpose  of  afterwards  imprisoning  him.  There  is 
no  question,  however,  as  to  the  multitude  of  imprisonments 
for  less  than  twenty  dollars,  and  the  position  of  these  small 
debtors  was  peculiarly  hard,  because  in  most  of  the  States 
they  could  not  claim  a  hearing  before  a  regular  judge,  but 
could  be  imprisoned  upon  an  execution  obtained  from  an 
exiguous  magistrate.  From  such  statistics  as  one  can  pro- 
cure and  such  other  indications  as  there  are,  it  would  seem 
that  the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  heyday 
of  prosecutions  for  debt.  There  may  have  been  more  poor 
debtors,  more  poverty  stricken  persons  in  those  times  of 
rapid  financial  changes,  or  it  may  be  that  in  the  recurrent 
financial  crises,  creditors  found  it  more  necessary  to  secure 
the  moneys  that  were  due  them.  The  prisons  were  over- 
flowing with  poor  debtors  and  the  scandalous  conditions 
attending  their  incarceration  aroused  the  attention  of 
philanthropists  and  legislators.  Alread}^  the  poor  debtor's 
oath  had  been  devised  by  which  a  confessed  bankrupt,  on 
giving  up  all  his  property,  with  certain  trifling  exceptions,1 
and  swearing  that  he  had  none  concealed,  could  be  released 
from  all  obligations  to  his  creditors.  As  time  went  on, 
the  amount  that  the  person  taking  the  poor  debtor's  oath 
could  retain  was  constantly  increased.  The  labor  societies 
also  added  to  the  protection  of  the  laboring  classes  by  secur- 
ing the  passage  of  laws  giving  mechanics  a  lien  on  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  labor  and  thereby  made  the  path  of  the  dis- 

1  See  the  present  work,  ii,  416-420. 


1830]  POOR   DEBTORS  193 

honest  employer  more  difficult.1  In  the  early  days  of  the 
poor  debtor  law  administration,  the  debtor  was  obliged  to 
maintain  himself  in  prison,  but  it  was  customary  to  grant 
him  considerable  enlargement,  sometimes  even  permitting 
him  to  live  and  work  anywhere  within  reach  of  the  jail. 
As  the  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  went  by,  the  ten- 
dency was  to  restrict  him  more  and  more  to  the  prison  walls 
and  to  compel  the  creditor  to  contribute  to  his  support. 
In  some  States,  the  authorities  maintained  the  debtor  for 
a  specified  time;  when  this  expired,  he  would  be  dis- 
charged unless  the  creditor  came  forward  and  assumed  the 
burden.  As  the  years  went  by  also,  there  is  observable  a 
general  tendency  throughout  the  States  to  limit  the  amount 
of  debt  under  which  a  person  could  be  imprisoned  to  twenty 
dollars  and  this  did  away  with  much  of  the  petty  persecution. 
With  the  development  of  the  credit  system  throughout  the 
country,  with  the  rapidly  changing  conditions  of  buying  and 
selling,  and  with  the  rise  of  cities  and  towns,  tremendous 
changes  occurred  in  the  modes  of  carrying  on  business. 
There  were  recurrent  panics  and  demi-panics  and  the  legis- 
lators of  State  and  nation  were  obliged  to  act  to  enable  the 
business  of  the  country  to  go  on.  In  the  olden  time,  bank- 
ruptcy had  been  a  matter  of  special  legislation  for  each  in- 
dividual or  for  a  group  of  cases.  One  of  the  earliest  American 
bankruptcy  laws  was  that  of  Maryland,  under  which  James 
Greenleaf  had  obtained  a  discharge  from  prosecution  by  his 
creditors  in  1798.  In  1800,  Congress  passed  a  federal  bank- 
ruptcy act  by  virtue  of  which  Robert  Morris  obtained  his 
freedom.2  These  and  other  similar  laws  related  to  persons 
who  were  engaged  in  trade  or  business ;  they  did  not  relieve 
ordinary  individuals  from  the  penalties  of  statutes  relating 

1  American     Industrial     Society,     v,       Congress,  6th  Cong.,  1452;   see  also  the 
28,  29,  121,  160,  161.  present  work,  iv,  111-113. 

*  Statutes  at  Large,  ii,  19 ;    Annals  of 
VOL.  v.  — 1» 


194  SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS  [Cu.  VI 

to  debt.  Even  with  these  limitations,  they  do  not  seem  to 
have  worked  well,  and  the  federal  act  and  some  of  the  others 
were  repealed.  The  Panic  of  1837,  and  the  widespread 
commercial  distress  that  followed  it,  again  brought  the 
question  before  the  country.  In  1841,  Congress  passed 
another  general  bankruptcy  law,1  but  this  like  the  earlier 
one  proved  to  be  unsatisfactory  in  many  respects  and  was 
repealed  not  long  afterward  and  no  more  general  legisla- 
tion was  attempted  until  after  the  close  of  the  War  for 
Southern  Independence. 

Of  all  the  unfortunate  and  incapacitated  persons  who 
come  down  to  us  in  the  pages  of  history,  none  so  arouse  our 
sympathies  as  those  who  were  afflicted  with  some  form  of 
insanity ;  but  in  the  older  time  they  aroused  no  sympathy 
whatever.  In  America,  as  in  England,  demented  persons 
were  regarded  as  guilty  of  having  done  something  wrong, 
although  what  it  was  that  they  had  done  no  one  could 
tell.  In  colonial  days  deranged  and  crazy  persons  were  cared 
for  by  their  families  and  neighbors  in  isolated  rooms  in  the 
house  or,  if  dangerously  violent,  they  were  confined,  some- 
times in  chains,  in  an  outhouse  or  in  a  cellar.  Poor  and 
lonely  insane  persons  who  "came  on  the  town"  were  treated 
in  a  similar  manner,  confined  by  themselves  in  the  alms- 
houses  or  otherwise  secured.  At  the  beginning  of  the  prison 
era,  they  were  handed  over  to  the  keepers  of  the  prisons  and 
jails,  who  often  were  extremely  unwilling  to  accept  them,  but 
could  not  help  themselves.  Occasionally  a  committee  from 
a  philanthropic  society  or  a  legislative  body  would  visit  a 
prison  or  two  and  describe  a  most  distressing  condition  of 
affairs ;  but  no  one  thought  of  doing  anything,  probably 
because  no  one  had  any  idea  of  what  could  be  done.  In 
December,  1837,  the  directors  of  the  Ohio  Lunatic  Asylum 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  v,  440,  614. 


1830]  THE    INSANE  195 

quoted  from  a  report *  that  a  committee  of  the  New  Hamp- 
shire legislature  had  drawn  up  with  a  view  to  explain  the  rea- 
son for  there  being  so  many  more  lunatics  in  that  State  than 
had  been  expected.  It  appears  from  this  report  that  many 
persons  "laboring  under  an  inoffensive  hallucination  of 
mind"  had  been  found  wandering  about  the  country  the 
sport  of  unthinking  boys  and  unprincipled  men.  Others 
had  been  found  in  close  confinement,  some  were  in  cages 
made  for  the  purpose,  others  in  outbuildings  or  garrets  or 
cellars  in  private  houses ;  and  still  others  had  been  found 
in  the  county  jails,  incarcerated  with  felons;  and  a  few 
had  been  discovered  in  the  cellars  of  almshouses  that  were 
"never  warmed  by  fire,  or  lighted  by  the  rays  of  the  sun." 
In  one  prison  in  Massachusetts,2  an  investigator  found 
a  man  confined  in  a  dark  room  in  a  cellar  where  he  had 
lived  for  seventeen  years ;  he  had  protected  himself  against 
the  cold  by  stuffing  hay  into  the  cracks  of  the  door,  his  food 
being  passed  to  him  through  a  wicket. 

The  Pennsylvanians  appear  to  have  been  the  first  to 
try  to  alleviate  the  lot  of  the  insane,  for  as  early  as  1751, 
some  provision  was  made  for  them  in  the  hospital  at  Phil- 
adelphia. But  the  first  public  institution  that  was  devoted 
exclusively  to  the  care  of  the  insane  was  the  Eastern  Lunatic 
Asylum  that  was  opened  at  Williamsburg  in  Virginia  in 
1773.3  In  1801,  the  commissioners  of  the  poor  of  Charleston, 


1  Directors    of     the    Ohio    Lunatic  as   to    Massachusetts   institutions,    see 

Asylum's     Third     Report     (December,  A  Memorial  to  the  Legislature  of  Massa- 

1837),  p.  4.  chusetts   signed    by    the    "Overseers    of 

*  For  innumerable  instances  of  harsh  the  Poor"  of  Danvers  and  dated  Febru- 

and     negligent     treatment     of     insane  ary     10,     1843.     One    of     Miss    Dix's 

persons,    see    Dorothea    L.   Dix's    Me-  most    remarkable    reports    was    a    Re- 

morial  to  the  Legislature    of  Massachu-  view    of   the    Present    Condition    of   the 

setts    which    is    dated  January,     1843,  State    Penitentiary    of  Kentucky    which 

and     subsequent     memorials     to     the  was  printed  at  Frankfort  in  1845. 
legislatures    of    Kentucky,    Tennessee,  3  See    the    present    work,    vol.    iii, 

Pennsylvania,    and   other   States.     For  571. 
denials    of    many    of    her    statements 


196 


SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS 


[Ca.  VI 


South  Carolina,  were  given  the  care  of  "all  lunatics,  or 
persons  disordered  in  their  senses"  who  might  be  confined 
in  the  poor  house.1  Little  more  seems  to  have  been  done 
for  the  care  of  the  mentally  unbalanced  until  the  era  of 
the  War  of  1812.  In  1813,  members  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  in  Philadelphia  associated  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
lishing an  asylum  for  the  relief  of  persons  deprived  of  the 
use  of  their  reason.2  In  1814,  Dr.  George  Parkman  of 
Boston  issued  a  pamphlet  entitled  "Proposals  for  Establish- 
ing a  Retreat  for  the  Insane"  and  followed  this  in  1817  with 
another  on  the  "  Management  of  Lunatics  with  Illustrations 
of  Insanity"  and  in  1818  with  "Remarks  on  Insanity."3 
Mainly  as  a  result  of  the  interest  in  the  treatment  of  the 
insane  that  is  indicated  in  these  and  other  writings  the 
McLean  Asylum  for  the  Insane  was  founded  in  1818  by 
private  benefaction  and  placed  under  the  charge  of  the 
management  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  a 
privately  supported  institution  at  Boston.4  State  legis- 
latures slowly  recognized  the  obligations  of  the  community 
to  provide  proper  care  and  surroundings  for  the  insane  poor, 
and  several  State  institutions  were  established  in  the  third 


1  Ordinances  of  the  City  Council  of 
Charleston  (1802),  p.  229.  This  or- 
dinance was  amended  in  1819  by 
authorizing  the  wardens  of  the  city  to 
commit  to  the  "Asylum  for  Lunatics" 
attached  to  the  city  poor  house  "per- 
sons laboring  under  insanity"  brought 
to  the  guard  house  or  found  stroll- 
ing in  the  streets  or  otherwise  incom- 
moding the  citizens;  see  A  Collection 
of  the  Ordinances  of  the  City  Council 
of  Charleston  (1823),  p.  7.  South 
Carolina  established  a  State  lunatic 
asylum  in  1822,  R.  Mills's  Statistics  of 
South  Carolina,  213. 

*The  "Annual  Reports"  (1813- 
1848)  of  this  institution  give  an  ex- 
cellent idea  of  the  progress  of  the 
treatment  of  insanity  in  the  earlier 
days. 


»Dr.  J.  L.  Hildreth's  Public  Care 
of  the  Insane  in  Massachusetts  (Cam- 
bridge, 1897)  is  a  brief  and  readable 
essay. 

4  See  R.  C.  Waterston's  Condi- 
tion of  the  Insane  in  Massachusetts 
(Boston,  1843) ;  Morrill  Wyman's 
Early  History  of  the  McLean  Asylum 
for  the  Insane.  For  an  account  of 
John  McLean's  bequest,  see  N.  I. 
Bowditch's  History  of  the  Massachu- 
setts General  Hospital  (Boston,  1872), 
pp.  64—67.  Reports  of  the  McLean 
Asylum  are  contained  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts General  Hospital's  Annual 
Reports.  For  a  hostile  view  of  the 
McLean  Asylum,  see  An  Account 
of  the  Imprisonment  and  Sufferings  of 
Robert  Fuller,  of  Cambridge. 


1850]  THE   INSANE  197 

decade  of  the  century.1  The  Ohio  Lunatic  Asylum  was 
opened  in  1839  and  proved  to  be  a  very  creditable  establish- 
ment for  that  time,  because  the  managers  had  taken  advan- 
tage of  all  the  earlier  experiments,  the  failures  as  well  as  the 
successes.2  The  Massachusetts  State  Asylum  at  Worcester, 
which  was  opened  in  1833,  was  regarded  by  contemporaries 
with  a  good  deal  of  admiration,  partly  because  it  was  built 
within  the  appropriation,  which  seems  to  have  been  an 
unusual  occurrence  even  in  those  days.  The  advocates  of 
better  methods  for  the  treatment  of  insane  persons  had 
argued  that  many  cases  of  insanity  were  curable.  In  the 
early  years,  however,  the  number  of  "cures"  was  not  large 
because,  so  it  was  said,  the  early  groupings  of  lunatics 
comprised  the  most  deplorable  cases  to  be  found.  More 
than  one-half  of  those  who  were  taken  to  Worcester  in  the 
first  year  came  from  jails  and  almshouses  and  the  majority  of 
them  had  already  been  confined  for  more  than  ten  years.3 
When  the  incoming  flow  of  patients  represented  the  normal 
amount  of  insanity,  a  considerable  portion  would  be  cured,  so 
it  was  expected,  but  up  to  1850  or  1860,  these  expectations 
had  not  been  fulfilled.4 

The  philanthropists  and  reformers  had  traced  much  of  the 
crime  and  distress  that  was  to  be  found  around  them  to  the 
habit,  that  was  quite  widespread  in  those  days,  of  pur- 

1  See    The   North   American   Review,  '  Reports   and   Other   Documents   re- 

xliv,     pp.     91—121 ;      Edward    Jarvis's  Sating    to    the    State    Lunatic    Hospital 

Insanity    and    Insane    Asylums;     John  at     Worcester,    Mass.     (Boston,     1837), 

M.  Gait's  Essays  on  Asylums  for  Per-  especially  p.  37  and  fol.     Part  of  this 

sons    of    Unsound    Mind    (Richmond,  report  is  in   Boston   Prison   Discipline 

1850)     and    "Second    Series"     (Rich-  Society's  Reports,  ix,  299. 
mond,    1853)  ;    and   George   L.   Ham-  4  Beginning  with   1840,   the   federal 

son's  Legislation  on  Insanity  .  .  .  Lu-  censuses    contain    information    on    the 

nacy    Laws  .  .  .  of   the    United    States  defective   and   dependent   classes;     see 

to  .  .  .  188S.  E.    C.   Lunt's  Key   to  the  .  .  .  Census, 

1  See  Directors  of  the  Ohio  Lunatic  §  K.     George  Tucker's  Progress  of  the 

Asylum's  Reports,  iii  (December,  1837) ;  United    States    (New    York,    1855),  ch. 

Directors   and   Superintendent   of   the  ix,  and  "Appendix,"  ch.  vi,  has  useful 

Ohio    Lunatic    Asylum's    Reports,    iii  information   on   the   subject   compiled 

(December,  1841).  from  the  censuses. 


198 


SOCIAL  READJUSTMENTS 


[Cn.  VI 


chasing  shares  in  lotteries.1  Ill  success  had  driven  men  to 
drink,  had  induced  them  to  steal,  and  had  even  deranged 
their  intellects.  Success,  however,  did  not  reward  the 
readj usters  so  soon  in  this  matter  as  it  had  in  others.  In- 
deed, until  the  multiplication  of  stocks  and  bonds  provided 
an  outlet  for  speculative  desire,  lotteries  maintained  their 
place  despite  reformers,  legislatures,  and  courts  of  law. 
The  truth  of  the  matter  seems  to  be  that  legislators  in 
those  days  hesitated  to  use  the  taxing  power  and  preferred 
to  raise  funds  for  schools  and  colleges  and  internal  improve- 
ments by  means  of  lotteries,2  for,  whatever  might  be  said 
against  them,  it  was  certain  that  money  raised  in  this  way 
was  always  "  cheerfully  paid."  It  was  an  expensive  process, 
for,  generally  speaking,  for  every  hundred  thousand  dollars 
paid  by  the  public  for  lottery  tickets,  about  one-half  went 
to  the  managers  of  the  enterprise  and  to  the  ticket  brokers 
and  sellers  and  of  the  other  half  about  one-third  went  to  the 
beneficiary  and  the  other  two-thirds  to  the  buyers  of  tickets 
in  the  form  of  prizes.  No  tax  ever  brought  in  so  small 
a  net  percentage  as  a  lottery. 

Moreover,  the  practice  of  "insuring"  or  betting  that 
a  number  would  be  lucky  or  unlucky  encouraged  gam- 
bling to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other  device  that  ever 
claimed  respectability.  And  there  were  very  serious  charges 


1  In  1830,  the  Grand  Jury  of  the 
City  of  New  York  "presented"  the 
great  and  growing  evils  of  lotteries. 
They  found  that  from  August  12  to 
November  10,  fourteen  lotteries  had 
been  drawn  in  the  city,  comprising 
five  hundred  thousand  tickets  that 
were  sold  for  nearly  two  and  one-half 
million  dollars  or  at  a  yearly  rate  of 
nearly  ten  million  dollars.  See  G.  W. 
Gordon's  Lecture  before  the  Boston 
Young  Men's  Society  on  the  Subject  of 
Lotteries  (Boston,  1833),  Appendix, 
Note  11. 


2  Job  R.  Tyson  on  page  29  of  his 
Brief  Survey  of  the  .  .  .  Lottery  Sy»- 
tem  (Philadelphia,  1833)  states  that 
there  were  about  four  hundred  lot- 
tery schemes  then  going  on  in  nine 
States,  the  yearly  amount  of  prizes 
in  them  being  something  over  fifty- 
three  million  dollars.  There  were  then 
two  hundred  lottery  offices  in  Phila- 
delphia, alone.  Thomas  Doyle's  Five 
Years  in  a  Lottery  Office  (Boston,  1841) 
contains  much  curious  information. 


1830]  LOTTERIES  199 

made  of  fraud,  although  in  many  cases  the  preparing  the 
numbers  and  the  drawing  them  from  the  wheel  was  all 
done  in  the  presence  of  some  high  official  as  a  Secretary 
of  State,  a  mayor,  a  governor,  and  the  public.  The  two 
decades  following  the  crisis  of  1819  that  saw  so  great  an  ad- 
vance in  manners  and  customs  of  the  people  in  one  way  or 
another  also  witnessed  the  greatest  development  of  lotteries  in 
our  history.  They  were  no  longer  confined  to  the  construction 
of  churches,  to  the  aid  of  privately  endowed  colleges,  or  to 
helping  corporations  to  dig  canals.  Now,  they  often  formed 
part  of  the  regular  financial  system  of  the  State,  as  the 
Literature  Fund  of  New  York  and  the  so-called  national 
lottery  for  the  building  of  a  court  house,  a  penitentiary, 
schoolhouses  and  other  public  buildings  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.1  Between  the  close  of  the  war  and  1820  several 
States  passed  acts  forbidding  the  sale  of  "foreign"  lottery 
tickets  within  the  State  limits,  prohibiting  private  lotteries, 
and  licensing  the  sellers  of  legal  lottery  tickets.2  The 
machinery  for  enforcing  these  laws  seems  to  have  been  very 
ineffective  as  a  rule,  but  one  case,  that  of  Philip  J.  and  Men- 
dez  Cohen  against  the  State  of  Virginia,  worked  its  way  into 
the  Supreme  Court  and  secured  immortality  through  a 
decision  made  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall.  By  1835  lotteries 
had  been  forbidden  in  most  of  the  Old  Thirteen  States, 
but  the  selling  of  tickets  in  lotteries  outside  of  these  States 
went  on,  apparently,  as  merrily  as  ever,  and  it  was  not  until 
half  the  century  was  passed  that  any  real  impression  had 

1  W.  Bogart  Bryan's  History  of  the  land"  in  Rider's  Rhode  Island  Historic 

National  Capital,  ii,  38,  81.  col  Tracts,  Second  Series,  No.  3,  and  in 

*  A.  R.  Spofford  collected  much  in-  A.  F.  Ross's  History  of  Lotteries  in  New 

teresting  information  in  his  "Lot-  York.  The  evidence  presented  in  the 

teries  in  American  History"  in  Ameri-  Report  of  the  Trial  of  Charles  N.  Bald- 

can  Historical  Association's  Report  win  (New  York,  1818)  will  repay 

for  1892,  pp.  171-195.  More  informa-  perusal  by  any  one  who  wishes  to  get 

tion  can  be  found  in  John  H.  Stiness's  an  actual  insight  into  an  institution  of 

"Century  of  Lotteries  in  Rhode  Is-  a  by-gone  age. 


200 


SOCIAL   READJUSTMENTS 


been  made  on  this  most  demoralizing  institution.  With 
this  exception,  however,  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  saw  more  progress  in  the  reconstruction  of 
American  morals  than  all  the  years  that  had  preceded  since 
the  first  settlement  at  Jamestown  in  Virginia. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  201 

NOTES 

I.  The  Temperance  Movement.  —  Chapter  xxxvii  of  the  fourth 
volume  of  McMaster's  History  is  by  far  the  best  collected  account 
of  the  social  readjustments  of  the  first  part  of  the  century ;  but  the 
author's  love  of  the  picturesque  sometimes  leads  a  reader  to  get  an 
overdrawn  impression. 

The  nine  Annual  Reports  of  the  American  Temperance  Society 
from  1827  to  1836,  were  printed  at  Boston  and  were  followed  after 
1838  by  the  Reports  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  American 
Temperance  Union.  The  fourth  to  the  sixteenth  Reports  of  the 
Society  were  printed  in  three  volumes  at  New  York  in  1852  and  1853 
under  the  title  of  Permanent  Temperance  Documents.  This  last 
publication  taken  by  itself  gives  the  best  generally  accessible  account 
of  this  early  temperance  movement.  In  addition  there  were  State 
societies  and  local  societies.  Some  of  these  printed  reports  and  others 
did  not.  The  Panoplist,  from  1810  to  1820,  contains  much  material 
on  the  earlier  time.  Besides  Beecher's  Autobiography  may  be  men- 
tioned John  B.  Gough's  Autobiography,  Neal  Dow's  Reminiscences, 
L.  A.  Biddle's  Memorial  .  .  .  of  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  and  John 
Marsh's  Temperance  Recollections  which  were  jotted  down  in  his  old 
age  and  published  at  New  York  in  1867.  A  digest  of  State  laws  is 
in  The  Cyclopaedia  of  Temperance  and  Prohibition,  275-360.  Of  the 
compendious  books,  Daniel  Dorchester's  Liquor  Problem  in  All 
Ages  is,  perhaps,  the  most  useful,  but  Woolley  and  Johnson's  Temper- 
ance Progress  of  the  Century  is  usable  and  accurate.  George  F. 
Clark's  History  of  the  Temperance  Reform  in  Massachusetts  is  clear  and 
concise  and  of  wider  interest  than  the  title  implies. 

n.  Prison  Discipline.  —  The  First  Annual  Report  of  the  Boston 
Prison  Discipline  Society  was  published  in  1826,  and  for  some  years 
thereafter  succeeding  reports  came  regularly  from  the  press.  The 
early  reports  attracted  so  much  attention  and  were  so  valuable  that 
they  were  reprinted  several  times,  partly  at  public  expense.  The 
first  report  contains  a  summary  of  the  actual  conditions  of  the  old 
style  prisons,1  the  second  report  contains  details  of  the  new  prisons 

1  An  earlier  account  is  C.  G.  Haines's  York  (1822).     A  later  account  of  the 

Report   on   the   Penitentiary   System   in  Auburn  system  is  Crime  and  Punish- 

the    United    States,    Prepared    under    a  ment    by    Blanchard    Fosgate,    at   one 

Resolution  of  the   Society  for  the  Pre-  time  physician  at  that  prison. 
wniion  of  Pauperism,  in  the  City  of  New 


202 


SOCIAL   READJUSTMENTS 


that  were  then  in  process  of  building  with  diagrams  showing  the 
arrangements.  In  later  reports  the  question  of  imprisonment  for 
debt  is  taken  up  at  length.  The  news  of  these  experiments  in  America 
spread  to  Europe  and  attracted  four  sets  of  explorers  into  the  doings 
of  the  trans-Atlantic  people.  Two  of  these  visitors,  De  Beaumont  and 
De  Tocqueville,  wrote  a  remarkable  report  which  was  translated  by 
Francis  Lieber  —  with  considerable  annotation  —  and  was  published 
at  Philadelphia  in  1833.1  In  the  "  Appendix  "  to  this  book  (p.  187) 
is  a  series  of  notes  on  conversations  with  prisoners  in  the  Eastern 
Pennsylvania  Penitentiary  and  on  page  199  notes  of  a  striking  con- 
versation with  Captain  Lynds  to  which  may  be  added  a  note  on  him 
printed  on  page  156.  These  researchers  were  attracted  by  the  Auburn 
system,  partly  perhaps  on  account  of  its  cheapness.  Another  in- 
vestigator, also  of  power  and  eminence,  Miss  Dorothea  L.  Dix,  published 
in  1845  Remarks  on  Prisons  and  Prison  Discipline  in  the  United  States, 
which  might  almost  be  described  as  a  report  on  the  condition  of 
affairs  in  that  year.  She  favored  the  Pennsylvania  system  as  it  had 
been  worked  out,  mainly  because  of  her  dislike  of  the  terrorism  that 
was  required  by  the  congregate  system,  if  it  were  really  to  amount 
to  anything.2  Of  publications  that  came  directly  from  the  prisons  is 
A  Brief  Account  of  the  Construction,  Management,  &  Discipline, 
etc.,  etc.,  of  the  New  York  State  Prison  at  Auburn.  This  was  written 
by  Judge  Gershom  Powers,  agent  and  keeper  of  the  prison  and  a 
remarkable  man.  The  "  General  Pvegulations  and  Discipline  "  are 
printed  on  pages  1  to  21.  Chapter  viii  of  Frederick  H.  Wines's 
Punishment  and  Reformation 3  contains  the  only  compendious  account 


1  The  title  is  On  the  Penitentiary 
System  in  the  United  States,  and  its 
Application  in  France  by  G.  De  Beau- 
mont and  A.  De  Tocqueville,  trans- 
lated by  Francis  Lieber. 

1  For  a  favorable  view  of  the  un- 
mitigated solitude  plan,  see  George 
W.  Smith's  Defence  of  the  System  of 
Solitary  Confinement  of  Prisoners  adopted 
by  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  This 
was  first  published  in  1829  and  was 
republished  in  1833  by  the  Philadelphia 
Society  for  Alleviating  the  Miseries 
of  Public  Prisons.  The  pros  and 
cons  were  summed  up  in  Dr.  S.  G. 
Howe's  An  Essay  on  Separate  and 
Congregate  Systems  of  Prison  Discipline 


(Boston,  1846),  Francis  C.  Gray's 
tract  on  Prison  Discipline  in  America 
(Boston,  1847),  F.  A.  Packard's  In- 
quiry into  the  Alleged  Tendency  of  the 
Separation  of  Convicts,  .  .  .  to  pro- 
duce Disease  and  Derangement.  By  a 
Citizen  of  Pennsylvania  (Philadelphia. 
1849),  and  in  George  Combe's  Re- 
marks on  ...  Criminal  Legislation, 
and  .  .  .  Prison  Discipline  (London, 
1854). 

3  The  full  title  is  Punishment  and 
Reformation.  An  Historical  Sketch  of 
the  Rise  of  the  Penitentiary  System. 
The  first  edition  was  published  in 
1895.  The  book  was  revised  by  the 
author  in  1910  and  "a  new  edition 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


203 


of  this  phase  of  penological  adjustment  by  an  expert  on  the  general 
subject. 


revised  and  enlarged "  by  Winthrop 
D.  Lane  was  printed  with  an  abbre- 
viated title  in  1919.  In  both  of 
these  later  editions  ch.  viii  on  "The 


Pennsylvania  and  Auburn  Systems" 
was  left  as  in  the  original  edition  and 
so  was  the  bibliographical  paragraph 
at  the  end  of  the  original  preface. 


CHAPTER  VII 

i    er'iT'Tvnr! 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE 


IN  colonial  days  Church  and  State  had  been  more  or  less 
intimately  connected,  no  matter  whether  the  religious  body 
was  termed  "established"  or  simply  recognized  by  the 
rulers  as  the  dominant  religious  organization.1  With  the 
separation  from  England  hierarchical  control  disappeared  for 
the  moment :  Roman  Catholic  laymen  enjoyed  some  of  the 
privileges  of  Congregationalism  and  the  Episcopalians  also 
managed  their  own  affairs.  Then,  too,  the  contest  for  the 
political  rights  of  man  temporarily  overshadowed  the  neces- 
sity of  providing  for  the  spiritual  care  of  the  soul  and  the 
intense  idealism  of  the  day  gave  other  means  of  satisfying 
the  desire  for  a  future  life.  Religious  systems  seemed  to  have 
broken  down.  This  opinion  may  reflect  only  the  feelings 
of  the  older  clergy  that  people  no  longer  listened  to  their 
ministrations  but  went  off  in  search  of  strange  gods,  —  gods 
that  to  us,  nowadays,  appear  to  be  quite  as  regular  as  the 
old  ones.  Thomas  Jefferson  represented  as  well  as  any  one 
this  radicalism  of  belief.  In  1820,  he  wrote  to  a  friend  thai 
he  hoped  the  "genuine  and  simple  religion  of  Jesus"  might 
be  restored,  for  it  had  become  so  "muffled  up  in  mysteries" 
that  it  was  concealed  from  the  vulgar  eye.  He  wished  thai 
now  men  would  use  "the  talent  of  reason"  that  God  hac 
confided  to  them.2  In  the  preceding  year  William  Ellei 

1  See  the  present  work,   vols.   i,   ii,  2  Buffalo    Historical    Society's  Pi 

and    iii,    using    the    index    under    "re-       Kcations,  vii,  28. 
ligion"  and  the  several  sects. 

204 


THE  UNITARIANS  205 

Channing  in  a  sermon  at  Baltimore  had  expressed  some- 
what similar  ideas.  That  sermon  was  in  the  nature  of  a 
declaration  of  independence  on  the  part  of  the  Unitarians 
and  an  exposition  of  their  beliefs.1  The  Scriptures,  he 
said,  were  "the  records  of  God's  successive  revelations  to 
mankind,  and  particularly  of  the  last  and  most  perfect 
revelation  of  His  will  by  Jesus  Christ"  who  is  the  only 
"master  of  Christians";  and  whatever  He  taught  "we," 
meaning  Unitarians,  "regard  as  of  divine  authority." 
Forty  years  later,  on  the  eve  of  the  War  for  Southern  Inde- 
pendence, Theodore  Parker,  the  foremost  Unitarian  minister 
of  that  time,  stated  that  the  New  Testament  contained  four 
doctrines2  that  had  been  "taught  even  by  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth" and  that  he,  Theodore  Parker,  took  "neither  him 
nor  the  New  Testament"  for  his  master.  What  was  good 
in  both  he  used  and  he  tried  to  lift  up  men  whom  he  saw 
"bowed  down  before  the  superstition  of  the  Protestants." 
On  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  and  his  daughter, 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  held  vigorous  opinions  of  Uni- 
tarianism,  even  of  the  earlier  type.  The  latter  declared 
that  the  Unitarian  denomination  was  "a  whole  generation 
in  the  process  of  reaction,"  while  her  father  regarded  it  as 
"the  deadly  foe  of  human  happiness, "  for  its  direct  tendency 
was  to  prevent  true  conviction,  stop  revivals,  and  leave  men 

1  This  sermon  may  most  easily  be  Reservoir.  He  can  pour  out  what  he 
found  in  The  Works  of  William  E.  has  reed,  but  he  has  no  permanent 
Channing  issued  by  the  American  sources  of  Ideas;  and  he  writes  for 
Unitarian  Association  in  1875,  p.  367.  popularity."  "Hammond  Papers"  in 
It  has  also  been  printed  in  many  other  Library  of  Congress, 
forms.  Dr.  Fenn's  article  on  Uni-  2  Theodore  Parker  to  Mrs.  S.  B. 
tarianism  in  The  Religious  History  of  White,  May  22,  1858;  Manuscript 
New  England:  King's  Chapel  Lee-  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So- 
tures,  pp.  77-133,  is  distinctly  inter-  ciety.  The  four  doctrines  enumerated 
esting.  Thomas  Cooper,  writing  to  by  Parker  are  "(1)  total  depravity, 
J.  A.  Hammond  in  1836,  said,  "Chan-  (2)  a  wrathful  God;  (3)  the  Salva- 
ging is  not  an  original  writer  —  his  tion  of  a  few  by  the  merits  of  Jesus, 
language  is  good,  and  his  religious  &  (4)  the  eternal  damnation  of  the  great 
opinions  liberal,  but  he  has  no  ideas  of  Mass  of  Mankind." 
hie  own.  He  is  not  a  Spring,  but  a 


206 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE          [Cn.  VII 


bound  hand  and  foot  under  the  power  of  the  adversary.1 
In  1825  he  prophesied  that  at  no  distant  day  Unitarianism 
would  "cease  to  darken  and  pollute  the  land,"  but  even 
Lyman  Beecher's  life  was  not  to  cease  without  charges  that 
he  himself  had  weakened  somewhat  on  one  of  the  cardinal 
beliefs  of  the  old  New  England  Calvinists.2  Moreover, 
the  fact  that  Channing's  sermon  was  preached  at  Baltimore, 
the  first  city  of  Maryland,  is  in  itself  significant  of  the  reli- 
gious change,  for  it  was  Maryland  that  had  provided  in  the 
"good  old  colonial  days"  boring  of  the  tongue,  branding 
of  the  forehead,  and  death  on  the  scaffold  for  him  who 
announced  his  disbelief  in  the  Holy  Trinity.3 

As  the  century  advanced  change  succeeded  change ;  new 
doctrines,  new  disciplines,  new  modes  of  procedure  are 
everywhere  to  be  discerned.4  To  a  twentieth  century 
historical  onlooker  it  is  oftentimes  difficult  to  comprehend 
what  some  of  these  differences  really  were  and  even  more 
difficult  to  understand  how  men  were  willing  to  sacrifice 
themselves  and  their  families  for  what  seem  to  have  been 
distinctly  doubtful  matters  or  matters  of  small  moment. 
But  so  it  was,  and  however  much  difficulty  one  may  have 
in  understanding,  there  is  no  question  whatsoever  that  the 
earnestness  of  purpose  and  tenacity  of  belief  of  the  holders 
of  any  one  of  these  hundred  or  more  religious  divisions 
deserve  the  most  earnest  and  respectful  consideration.5 


1  Lyman  Beecher's  Autobiography, 
ii,  66,  110. 

*  Trial  of  Lyman  Beecher,  D.D.  be- 
fore   the    Presbytery   of   Cincinnati,   on 
the    Charge    of     Heresy     (New     York, 
1835). 

*  See  the  present  work,  vol.   ii,  430 
and  note. 

4  Chapter  x,  Part  Second  of  Chap- 
man and  O'Neal's  Annals  of  Newberry, 
South  Carolina,  contains  a  detailed 
account  of  religion  in  that  one  county 


that  was  representative  of  a  type  of 
settlement. 

6  Census  Bureau's  Special  Reports, 
Religious  Bodies :  1906,  Pt.  i,  espe- 
cially pages  99  and  fol. ,  which  give  the 
date  of  organization.  In  the  "In- 
troduction "  there  is  a  comparative 
analysis  of  the  Censuses  of  1850  and  I860- 
John  Hayward's  Religion  Creeds  and 
Statistics  (Boston,  1836)  gives  details 
of  the  existing  denominations  of  the 
earlier  time. 


1830]  THE   SECTS 

Among  the  Baptists  there  were  a  dozen  different  bodies : 
there  were  the  regular  Baptists,  the  Seventh-day  Baptists, 
the  Free  Baptists,  the  Free-will  Baptists,  the  General 
Six  Principle  Baptists,  and  the  Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit 
Predestinarian  Baptists  and  there  were  three  colored  Baptist 
bodies.  There  were  also  a  dozen  or  so  Methodist  bodies : 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  the  regular  organ- 
ization and  then  there  were  the  Methodist  Protestant  Church, 
the  Congregational  Methodist  Church,  the  New  Congre- 
gational Methodist  Church,  and  the  Independent  Methodist 
Church.  The  regular  Methodist  organization  was  divided 
on  the  slavery  and  anti-slavery  question  into  the  "Church" 
and  the  "Church  South"  and  the  colored  Methodists 
worshipped  by  themselves  and  formed  their  own  church 
bodies,  as  the  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the 
African  Union  Methodist  Protestant  Church,  the  Union 
American  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  the  African  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Zion  Church,  and  the  Reformed  Zion  Union 
Apostolic  Church,  and  as  many  more.  The  Presbyterians 
were  not  so  thoroughly  subdivided,  but  there  were  half  a 
dozen  kinds  of  them,  as  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 
United  States,  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  of 
North  America.  Then  there  was  the  Welsh  Calvinist 
Methodist  Church  which  was  a  Presbyterian  body.  Some 
of  the  Presbyterian  Churches  were  divided  by  the  line 
between  freedom  and  slavery,  and  there  were  also  colored 
Presbyterian  Churches.  Besides  these  numerically  strong 
Protestant  organizations,  there  were  isolated  sects  as  the 
Adventists,  who  were  grouped  under  half  a  dozen  names : 
the  Shakers  or  United  Society  of  Believers  as  they  termed 
themselves,  the  Rappists,  the  Dunkers  or  German  Baptist 
Brethren  in  four  forms,  the  Quakers  in  four  forms,  the  Latter- 


208 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE          [Cn.  VII 


Day  Saints,  or  Mormons  as  they  are  usually  termed,  in  three 
forms,  a  dozen  kinds  of  Mennonites,  among  them  the 
Amish  and  the  Old  Amish,  the  Moravians  in  two  forms,  and 
the  Schwenkfelders,  the  Campbellites,  and  the  Millerites. 
Indeed,  with  the  coming  of  the  German  and  Scandinavian 
immigrants  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  there  was  a  further 
addition  to  the  minor  sects ;  but  if  the  Reverend  James 
W.  Alexander  was  right  in  his  assessment  of  them,  nine- 
tenths  of  the  German  Protestants  1  in  New  York  City  were 
infidels  and  radicals,  and  the  German  Reformed  Church 
itself  was  mad  after  a  "delusive  transcendentalism"  ;  but 
very  likely  he  was  ill  informed  and  generalized  on  insuffi- 
cient premises. 

The  multiplicity  of  sects  did  not  imply  a  lack  of  religious 
fervor  among  large  portions  of  the  people.2  Alexander's 
own  career  in  New  York  showed  that  there  was  opportunity 
for  evangelical  preaching  and  teaching.  After  a  preliminary 
settlement  of  some  years,  he  left  New  York  for  a  time,  but 
was  recalled  by  the  same  congregation.  For  his  second 
administration  a  great  church  was  built  and  the  sale  of  pews 
in  it  before  the  edifice  was  completed  brought  in  enough 
money  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  building  and  of  the  land  on 
which  it  was  situated.  To  provide  more  room  the  organ 
was  moved  from  its  usual  place  to  the  wall  behind  the  pulpit 
and  the  additional  pews  were  sold  before  they  were  finished. 
Alexander  seems  to  have  been  appalled  at  the  size  of  his 
audiences.  He  always  wished  to  try  the  experiment  of  a 
free  church  and  he  had  endeavored  to  secure  a  number  of 
free  pews  in  the  new  building.  To  satisfy  his  longings  his 
people  erected  a  mission  chapel  for  him  where  he  preached 
once  a  week  to  all  those  who  came  to  him.  And  Alexander 


1  Familiar     Letters     of    James     W- 
Alexander,  ii,  173,  176. 

*See,  however,  "Plain  Truth,"  pub- 


lished at  Canandaigua,  N.  Y.,  in  1822 
and  1823,  Ohio  Church  History  So- 
ciety's Papers,  vi,  1-22. 


1830] 


CHURCH   ACTIVITIES 


209 


was  only  one  of  many  strong,  eloquent,  and  earnest  preachers 
who  gave  joy  and  hope  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
and  women. 

As  the  years  went  by,  the  activities  of  the  churches  wi- 
dened.    The  religious  people  began  to  look  after  the  affairs 
of  the  body  and  before  long  devoted  so  much  time,  strength, 
and  resources  to  the  founding  and  maintaining  of  schools, 
hospitals,    and   recreative   organizations   that   the   modern 
observer  sometimes  finds  it  difficult  to  discriminate  between 
those  that  may  well  be  looked  upon  as  religious  and  those 
that  are  mainly  concerned  with  physical  and  mental  wel- 
fare.    The    Quakers   had    always    supervised   the   worldly 
doings  of  their  members  and  so  had  the  early  New  England 
Congregationalists ;    but  neither  of  these  bodies  had  gone 
outside   of  their   own   denomination.     Now,   the   churches 
became  seized  with  a  missionary  spirit  to  send  devout  men 
and  women  into  the  hidden  recesses  of  the  great  cities  and 
into  the  wildest  regions  of  America,  Africa,  and  Asia,1  to 
>reach  the  word  of  God  and  to  teach  the  proper  care  of  the 
dnd  and  body  to  those  of  other  ways  of  thinking  on  religion 
ind  possessing  different  ideas  as  to  the  duty  of  man  to 
imself  and  to  his  neighbor.     Alexander  envied  the  Epis- 
copalian,   Dr.    Mtihlenberg,   because  he  had   only   a   free 
church ;  but  he  also  records,  possibly  not  with  entire  appro- 
>ation,  that  Mtihlenberg  had  on  his  staff  an  apothecary  who 


1  The  history  of  the  American 
aard  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions  may  be  easily  traced  in 
Rufus  Anderson's  Memorial  Volume 
of  the  First  Fifty  Years  that  was  issued 
by  the  Board  in  1861.  The  first  two 
Annual  Reports  of  the  American 
Joard  give  the  details  of  its  organiza- 
tion. This  association  represented 
slaveholders  as  well  as  other  persons. 
Those  who  favored  missionary  enter- 
and  abhorred  slavery  formed 

VOL.  V.  —  P 


other  societies  which  united  in  1846 
in  the  American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion. See  Lewis  Tappan's  History  of 
the  American  Missionary  Association 
(New  York,  1855).  The  missionary 
spirit  is  vividly  shown  in  the  Memoirs 
of  the  Rev.  Samuel  J.  Mills  by  Gardiner 
Spring  (New  York,  1820)  and  in  the 
lives  of  Adoniram  Judson  by  his  son, 
Edward  Judson,  and  by  Francis  Way- 
land. 


210  THE    CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE          [CH.  VII 

administered  to  all  free  of  charge  and  four  Sisters  of  Mercy 
who  in  one  year  had  cared  for  twelve  thousand  persons. 
Had  Alexander's  life  been  prolonged,  it  would  have  been 
interesting  to  read  his  comments  on  the  Episcopal  sisterhood 
and  St.  Luke's  Hospital  founded  by  Miihlenberg.  How  it  all 
appeared  to  the  Reverend  James  Dixon,  an  English  Method- 
ist, who  visited  Boston  in  1848,  is  interesting.  He  noted 
that  the  Sabbath  there  was  strictly  observed,  but  it  was  a 
painful  reflection  to  him  —  nevertheless  —  that  the  churches 
should  be  "  occupied  by  a  race  who  preach  a  diluted  kind 
of  Socinianism"  and  that  the  bold,  broad,  deep  faith  of  the 
original  settlers1  should  be  replaced  by  "the  meagre  and 
flimsy  philosophy  now  announced  in  their  pulpits." 

Territorially  there  was  a  somewhat  free  distribution  of 
religious  bodies.  Louisiana  —  the  old  Louisiana  —  was 
peculiarly  the  abode  of  the  Roman  Catholics  as  was  natural 
from  its  early  history  ;  but  they  were  strong  in  the  homes  of 
the  Irish  immigrants,  —  in  New  England,  New  York,  and 
Philadelphia,  —  and  there  was  the  old  Catholic  population  of 
Maryland.2  Among  the  Evangelical  sects  the  Presbyterians 
were  strong  in  the  old  Northeastern  States,  but  there  the 
Methodists  and  Baptists  were  competing  vigorously  with 
them.  Transappalachia,  however,  was  the  harvesting  place 
for  the  Methodists  and  the  Baptists,  for  their  beliefs  and 
modes  of  procedure  were  peculiarly  fitting  to  the  wilderness 
and  to  the  pioneer.  This  mingling  of  religious  sects  was 
made  possible  by  the  breaking  down  of  the  old  barriers  and 
requirements.3  New  York  had  had  a  constitutional  require- 
ment that  made  it  impossible  for  the  Roman  Catholic  immi- 

1  James     Dixon's    Personal    Narra-  both  real  and  personal,  to  be  held  for 
tine  .  .  .  with    notices    of    the    History  the    benefit    of    the    Roman    Catholic 
and     Institutions     of     Methodism     in  Church :    Digest  of  the  Laws  of  Mary- 
America  (New  York,  1849),  p.  23.  land  (1799),  p.  466. 

2  In  1792,  the    Maryland   Assembly  3  See  the  present  work,  vol.  iii,  560- 
passed     a     law     permitting     property,  566. 


1830]  RELIGIOUS   FREEDOM  211 

grant  to  acquire  citizenship  or  to  hold  office,  but  this  was 
done  away  with  in  182 1.1  North  Carolina  retained  the  word 
"Protestant"  in  her  constitution  until  1835  and  then  only 
extended  the  limits  of  office-holding2  to  "Christians."  In 
Massachusetts,  in  Connecticut,  and  in  New  Hampshire 3 
the  general  rule  had  been  that  every  one  must  worship  the 
Creator  and  that  all  tax  payers  must  contribute  to  the 
support  of  the  public  Protestant  "teacher  of  piety"  in  his 
town.  Those  who  did  not  attend  or  support  the  regular 
organization  were  obliged  to  secure  a  certificate  from  the 
town  clerk  and  then  their  contributions  would  go  to  their 
own  parson  or  priest  and  they  themselves  could  worship 
in  their  own  church,  provided  they  were  Christians.  Office- 
holding,  however,  was  confined  to  Protestants.  Under 
this  scheme  a  Quaker  or  a  Roman  Catholic  might  worship 
in  his  own  way  and  hold  office  —  except  in  New  Hampshire, 
where  Roman  Catholics  were  debarred ;  but,  unless  there 
was  a  society  of  the  tax  payers'  own  kind  in  their  own  town, 
their  religious  taxes  went  to  the  support  of  the  regular  public 
minister.  Oftentimes,  also,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
experienced  in  securing  certificates  and  in  applying  their 
share  of  the  taxes  to  their  own  minister,  when  there  was 
one,  —  in  one  case  it  is  said  that  it  cost  one  hundred  dollars 
to  collect  four  dollars  from  a  town  treasurer  for  the  use 
of  a  Baptist  clergyman.  Moreover,  owing  to  the  pecul- 
iarities of  the  Methodist  organization,  its  ministers  were 
not  "settled"  and,  therefore,  could  not  secure  for  their  own 
use  any  of  the  town  tax  money  paid  by  their  own  communi- 
cants. In  1811,  "voluntary  societies"  of  Protestants  were 

1  See  the  present  work,  vol.  iii,  564 ;  J  North  Carolina  Booklet,  viii,  105. 

Journal  of  the  Convention  of  the  State  of  3  For     the     general      condition     of 

New-York  .  .  .  1821,  pp.  314-332,  462-  religion  in  New  England  in  this  period, 

4fi4 ;  L.  H.  Clarke's  Report  of  the  .  .  .  see  Paul  E.  Lauer's  Church  and  State 

Convention . . .  of  August,  1821,  p.  70,  etc. ;  in  New  England,  ch.  v. 
and  Poore's  Constitutions,  Pt.  ii,  1346. 


212 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 


recognized  by  law  in  Massachusetts.  This  relieved  the 
situation  for  the  less  closely  organized  Protestant  societies, 
but  did  not  in  any  way  help  the  Roman  Catholics.  These 
had  to  wait  until  the  constitution  was  amended  in  1833  before 
they  were  freed  from  the  obligation  of  contributing  to  the 
support  of  the  regular  Protestant  minister  as  well  as  of  their 
own  priest ; l  but  after  1821  Roman  Catholics  might  hold 
office  in  Massachusetts.2  The  requirement  that  the  Gov- 
ernor and  State  legislators  should  be  Protestants  was  not 
removed  in  New  Hampshire  until  1877,  and  the  require- 
ment that  the  "teacher  of  religion"  supported  by  public 
contributions  must  be  a  Protestant  was  also  omitted  at  the 
same  time.  In  Massachusetts  what  might  be  called  local 
option  in  religion  had  been  established  by  a  decision  of  the 
State  supreme  court  in  1820.3  Under  the  State  constitution 
and  laws,  the  voters  of  a  town  had  the  ultimate  right  of 
choosing  the  town  minister.  In  the  old  days  the  more 
devout  of  the  townspeople  had  formed  the  "church"  and 
had  selected  the  minister,  but  the  confirmation  of  the 
appointment  and  arrangement  as  to  compensation  belonged 
to  the  voters  in  town  meeting.  In  1818,  the  voters  of  the 
town  of  Dedham  decided  to  choose  a  minister  of  the  Uni- 
tarian persuasion,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  all  but 
two  or  three  members  of  the  regular  town  religious  or- 
ganization were  Orthodox  Trinitarian  Congregationalists. 
These  seceded,  demanded  the  town  ecclesiastical  property 
and,  being  denied  it  by  the  town  authorities,  sued  them 


1  In  1819  the  old  colonial  system 
was  done  away  with  in  New  Hamp- 
shire by  a  law  that  was  known  popu- 
larly as  the  "Toleration  Act."  At 
least  one  man  felt  called  upon  to 
protest  against  any  person  being  re- 
quired to  support  public  worship  in  a 
pamphlet  entitled  Some  Remarks  on 
the  "Toleration  Act"  of  1819  .  .  . 
By  a  Friend  to  the  "Public  Worship 


of   the    Deity"    (Exeter,  N.  H.,  1823). 

2  See  oath  of  governor  and  mem- 
bers of  the  legislature  in  Constitutions 
of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Massachusetts. 

1  The  Constitution  of  New  Hampshire 
as  amended  by  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention .  .  .  1876  (Concord,  1877),  pp. 
2,  9,  11,  15. 


1820]  THE   DEDHAM   CASE  213 

for  it.  The  court  decided  that  the  property  and  goods  of 
the  town  religious  organization  belonged  to  the  town  —  or 
to  the  parish  which  was  the  town  or  a  part  of  the  town  in  its 
ecclesiastical  form.  It  made  no  difference  how  many  of  the 
church  members  seceded,  the  religious  edifice  and  all  the 
religious  property,  even  the  communion  service,  belonged 
to  the  town  l  and  not  to  the  old  "church."  In  a  few  years 
the  eastern  part  of  the  State  was  about  equally  divided 
between  the  Orthodox  and  Unitarian  Congregationalists 2 
and  it  was  this  revolution  in  religion  that  led  to  the  de- 
struction of  the  old  Massachusetts  ecclesiastical  system  by 
the  amendment  to  the  constitution  that  was  adopted  in  1853. 
The  establishment  of  religious  toleration  and  religious 
freedom  is  best  seen  in  the  growth  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  within  the  limits  of  the  Old  Thirteen  States.  In 
common  with  the  two  other  hierarchically  controlled  reli- 
gious organizations,  the  Episcopal  Church  and  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  the  Roman  Catholics  had  been  seriously 
affected  by  the  severance  from  the  British  Empire.  In  the 
case  of  these  and  especially  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  it 
could  hardly  be  expected  that  the  revolutionists,  whether 
Catholic  or  Protestant,3  would  recognize  or  tolerate  the 
English  connection.  Indeed,  the  Revolution  had  been 
undertaken  in  part  to  limit  the  exercise  of  power  by  the 
Episcopal  authorities.  The  Roman  Catholics  had  no 


1  Edward  Buck's  Massachusetts  EC-  in  this  volume  there  were  about  130 
clesiastical  Law,  chs.  ii-v.  There  is  a  Unitarian  congregations  in  Massa- 
list  of  cases  following  the  index.  This  chusetts  as  a  whole  and  more  than 
decision  was  made  by  Chief  Justice  250  Orthodox  churches.  George  Bur- 
Parker,  who  had  recently  presided  over  gess's  Pages  from  the  Ecclesiastical 
the  deliberations  of  the  constitutional  History  of  New  England,  121. 
convention  of  1820  that  had  refused  to  *  See  John  Gilmary  Shea's  Life 
alter  the  religious  laws,  see  Journal  and  Times  of  the  Most  Rev.  John  Car- 
of  the  Debates  of  the  Convention  of  roll  (New  York,  1888)  forming  vol. 
1820-1821,  using  index  under  "Dec-  ii  of  Shea's  History  of  the  Catholic 
laration  of  Rights."  Church  within  the  Limits  of  the  United 

*  At  the  close  of  the  period  covered  States. 


214 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE 


[CH.  VII 


connection  with  the  English  government,  but  the  control 
of  the  church  in  English  America  had  been  exercised  through 
persons  domiciled  in  Great  Britain.  At  once  the  Roman 
Catholic  laymen  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  took 
possession  of  the  church  property  and  established  a  system 
of  trustees  in  whom  the  title  of  the  property  was  legally 
vested.1  Bishop  Carroll  felt  himself  obliged  to  assent  to  the 
establishment  of  this  system,  and  in  the  time  of  his  imme- 
diate successors,  the  Roman  Catholic  laymen  even  under- 
took to  exercise  some  option  as  to  the  choice  of  their  priests. 
The  liberality  and  quasi-independence  of  the  Church  in 
America  at  this  time  attracted  to  it  many  members  of  the 
old  colonial  families  in  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia. 
In  Massachusetts,  the  Catholics  rejoiced  in  the  presence  of 
two  remarkable  men,  Francis  A.  Matignon  and  John 
Lefebvre  Cheverus.  Like  so  many  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
priests  of  that  time  in  America,  they  were  Frenchmen  born 
and  were  men  of  culture.2  Under  their  administrations, 
Roman  Catholics  in  Boston,  who  had  numbered  about  one 
hundred  in  the  first  year  of  the  century  and  about  seven 
hundred  in  1808,  increased  to  over  two  thousand  in  1820.3 
In  New  York  the  opposition  to  the  Roman  Catholics  in  the 
early  decades  of  the  century  was  very  marked.  They 
belonged  to  the  church  of  the  old  French  invaders  and  the 
memories  of  Dutch  contests  with  Spanish  Catholics  in  the 
Netherlands  was  still  a  matter  of  vigorous  tradition.  But 
with  the  accession  to  power  of  Bishop  Hughes  a  period  of 
rapid  development  set  in.  In  the  years  after  Bishop 


1  Thomas     O'Gorman's     History     of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  269. 

2  There   are   some   interesting  notes 
on  the  beginnings  of  Roman  Catholicism 
in  New  England  and  references  to  other 
books  in  American  Catholic  Historical 
Researches    for    1887,    pp.    12-18.     See 
also    James    Fitton's    Sketches    of    the 


Establishment  of  the  Church  in  New 
England  (Boston,  1872)  and  Hamon'a 
Life  of  Cardinal  Cheverus  translated  by 
E.  Stewart. 

*  For  other  estimates  see  American 
Catholic  Historical  Researches  for  1887, 
p.  18. 


1830] 


THE   ROMAN   CATHOLICS 


215 


Carroll's  death  in  1815  the  Catholic  churches  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  York  had  become  almost  congregational  societies. 
In  Philadelphia,  Father  Hogan,  of  St.  Mary's  parish,  even 
celebrated  mass  contrary  to  orders  from  Rome,  for  which  he 
was  excommunicated  by  the  church  authorities.1  In  the 
end  the  trustees  aixd  congregations  in  Philadelphia  and 
New  York  and  elsewhere  were  obliged  to  give  way  and 
ultimately,  throughout  the  country,  the  local  Catholic 
authority,  or  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  has  come  to  be 
recognized  as  the  legal  holder  of  the  church  property.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  an  interesting 
case  came  up  for  settlement  in  New  York  as  to  the  respon- 
sibility of  a  priest  for  the  revelation  of  knowledge  that  had 
come  to  him  in  the  confessional.  Father  Anthony  Kohlman, 
who  was  then  administering  the  diocese,  being  questioned  on 
the  witness  stand,  refused  to  reveal  anything  that  had  been 
said  to  him  in  the  confessional.  He  was  ready  to  do  his 
duty  as  a  private  citizen,  he  said,  but  as  a  priest  his  con- 
science and  his  duty  would  prevent  him  from  stating  what 
had  learned  in  the  discharge  of  his  clerical  functions.2 
\)  do  otherwise  would  make  him  a  traitor  to  his  church,  his 
linistry,  and  his  God.  It  would  render  him  "guilty  of 
eternal  damnation"  and  he  would  go  to  prison  or  to  instanta- 
leous  death  before  endangering  his  soul.  The  court  through 
its  president,  De  Witt  Clinton,  thereupon  decided  that  a 
>riest  could  not  be  compelled  to  testify  as  to  what  had  come 
him  only  through  the  confessional. 


111  Documents  Relating  to  the  Case 
Rev.  William  Hogan,  and  the  Schism 
St.    Mary's    Church,    Philadelphia" 
in    Works   of  the   Right   Rev.   John 
England     (Baltimore,     1849),    v,     109- 
213.     A  copy  of  the  excommunication 
of  Father  Hogan  is  on  page  485  of  W. 
Oland    Bourne's    History   of  the  Public 
Society  of  the  City  of  New  York  ; 


see  also  p.  495  for  an  earlier  form  of 
excommunication . 

2  Thomas  O'Gorman's  History  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the 
United  States,  313,  314,  and  J.  G. 
Shea's  History  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
iii,  165-167.  The  trial  is  printed  in 
The  Catholic  Question  in  America  re- 
ported byW.  Sampson  (New  York,  1813). 


216 


[Cn.  VII 


The  first  great  accession  of  Roman  Catholics  came  with 
the  purchase  of  Louisiana  which  brought  into  the  religious 
population  of  the  country  about  one  hundred  thousand 
communicants  of  that  faith.  With  them  came  also  a  contest 
that  had  been  raging  for  some  years  between  the  regular 
church  authorities  of  Louisiana  and  the  Capuchins.  The 
latter  maintained  that  they  had  had  certain  proprietary 
rights  in  the  province  in  the  Franco-Spanish  days.  Ulti- 
mately they  were  obliged  to  yield,  but  not  until  the  dispute 
had  greatly  hindered  the  prosperity  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  With  the  annexation  of  Cali- 
fornia and  New  Mexico  in  the  course  of  the  Mexican  War, 
other  historic  bodies  of  Roman  Catholics  came  into  the 
American  commonwealth ;  but  the  great  accessions  to  the 
northeastern  part  of  the  United  States  were  Irish  immigrants 
from  the  old  country  across  the  Atlantic.  These  began 
coming  in  large  numbers  in  the  1840's.  They  settled  in 
the  commercial  cities  of  the  seaboard  for  the  most  part. 
Soon  English  and  continental  clerics  gave  place  to  Irish 
priests  and  the  church  rapidly  drifted  away  from  the  old 
population  of  the  country.  It  became  an  immigrant  church 
and  its  rapidly  growing  strength  alarmed  many  persons. 
Moreover,  as  it  increased  in  size  its  rulers  became  more  and 
more  insistent  upon  acquiescence  in  their  demands  and 
especially  in  freedom  to  carry  out  the  established  features 
of  their  faith.  In  New  York,  Bishop  Hughes  conducted  a 
manful  fight  to  bring  about  a  diversion  of  a  part  of  the 
public  school  fund  for  the  support  of  Roman  Catholic 
schools.  Objections  were  raised  to  the  books  used  in  the 
schools  that  were  then  under  the  care  of  the  Public  School 
Society.  This  was  a  private  corporation  that  had  been 
established  by  benevolent  persons  to  provide  better  in- 
struction for  the  poor  children  of  the  city.  Originally,  most 


1840] 


THE   ROMAN   CATHOLICS 


217 


of  its  members  had  belonged  to  the  Society  of  Friends,  but 
by  1840  it  included  members  of  many  evangelical  faiths. 
This  society  had  built  up  a  great  organization  that  was  prob- 
ably one  of  the  best  bits  of  pedagogical  enterprise  in  the 
country.  When  the  Roman  Catholics  objected  to  the  books 
used  in  their  schools  the  society  met  them  with  a  friendly 
spirit  and  blotted  out  passages  that  were  objectionable  as 
one  in  Maltebrun's  "Geography"  animadverting  on  the 
influence  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy  in  Italy ;  but  it  soon 
appeared  that  concessions  of  this  kind  were  not  at  all  what 
were  wanted.  In  1841,  the  Roman  Catholics  cast  enough 
votes  in  the  New  York  City  election  for  members  of  the 
State  Assembly  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  politicians 
and  to  bring  from  Governor  Seward  an  earnest  message. 
The  result  was  the  passage  of  the  School  Law  of  1842  which 
established  a  public  Board  of  Education  for  that  city  and 
diverted  the  public  money  to  it  from  the  School  Society. 
For  some  years  two  sets  of  schools  were  maintained ;  but 
this  was  a  condition  of  things  that  could  not  last  and  in  1853 
the  School  Society  turned  over  its  property  to  the  public 
authorities  and  went  out  of  existence.1 

As  the  century  advanced  and  the  Roman  Catholic  num- 
bers increased,  fear  of  them  became  acute.  They  had  estab- 
lished convents  and  houses  of  refuge  for  men  and  women  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  and  around  them  all  kinds 
of  stories  gathered.  These  finally  became  associated  in  the 
minds  of  many  people  with  the  so-called  confessions  of 
Maria  Monk,  who  was  supposed  to  have  been  an  inmate  of  a 
Catholic  institution  at  Montreal.  Escaping  from  this 
)lace,  according  to  her  story,  she  fell  into  the  hands  of 
persons  who  realized  what  an  effective  use  might  be  made 


1  W.  Oland  Bourne's  History  of  the 
Public  School  Society  of  the  City  of  New 
York.  The  greater  part  of  this  volume 


is  occupied  with  this  contest,  giving 
long  extracts  from  documents  on  both 
sides. 


218 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 


of  her.  Soon  the  "Awful  Disclosures  of  Maria  Monk" 
appeared.1  They  created  a  tremendous  stir  and  led  to 
further  confessions  by  herself  and  by  others.2  Later  a 
thoroughly  competent  historical  student  went  over  the 
Canadian  convent,  book  in  hand,  and  proved  the  whole 
story  to  be  false.3  The  tale,  however,  had  served  its  pur- 
pose by  adding  to  the  suspicion  and  dread  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  conventual  houses  held  by  very  many  Protestants. 
In  1844,  there  were  several  riots  in  Philadelphia  directed 
against  the  Irish  and  the  Roman  Catholics.  In  a  few  days 
buildings  were  burned  in  that  city  and  neighborhood,  the 
militia  and  public  officials  standing  idly  by.4  The  most 
spectacular  of  these  aggressions  on  the  Roman  Catholics 
was  the  burning  of  the  Ursuline  Convent  at  Somerville  near 
Boston  by  a  band  of  people  from  that  city  in  August,  1834. 
A  former  occupant  of  that  institution,  Rebecca  T.  Reed,  had 
related  stories  about  it  greatly  to  its  prejudice.6  In  1834, 
one  of  the  nuns  living  there  had  a  nervous  breakdown  and 
wandered  away.  The  next  day  she  was  brought  back  by 
the  Catholic  bishop  of  the  diocese,  for  the  convent  was 
the  best  place  for  her.  Everything  was  on  a  perfectly 
friendly  footing  and  she  was  at  entire  liberty  to  leave  at 
any  time  that  she  wished.  The  story,  however,  assumed  the 
form  of  an  account  of  an  imprisonment  of  a  woman  and  a 
Boston  mob  set  out  to  rescue  her.6  She  met  her  would-be 


1  First  printed  at  New  York  and 
reprinted  at  Philadelphia,  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  elsewhere.  See  also  the 
Works  of  the  Right  Rev.  John  England 
(Baltimore,  1849),  v,  347-418. 

*  See   Confessions  of  a   French  Cath- 
olic Priest  edited  by  S.   F.   B.   Morse 
(New  York,  1837). 

*  See     William    L.     Stone's     A  aria 
Monk   and    the   Nunnery   of  the   Hotel 
Dieu  (New  York,  1836). 

4  McMaster's  People  of  the  United 
States,  vii,  375-383;  Address  of  the 


Catholic  Lay  Citizens  of  .  .  .  Phila- 
delphia ...  in  Regard  to  the  Causes 
of  the  Late  Riots;  and  the  tracts  listed 
in  the  note  to  p.  383  of  McMaster. 

*  Later  these  were  collected  into  a 
book  and  printed  as  Six  Months  in  a 
Convent  (Boston,  1835).  For  a  Roman 
Catholic  view  see  An  Answer  to  Six 
Months  in  a  Convent  by  the  Lady  Su- 
perior (Boston,  1835)  and  the  Works  oj 
the  Right  Rev.  John  England,  v,  232-347. 

6  See  Report  of  the  Committee,  re- 
lating to  the  Destruction  of  the.  Ursu- 


1850] 


RELIGIOUS  STATISTICS 


219 


liberators  at  the  door  of  the  convent ;  but  nothing  she  could 
do  or  say  could  convince  them  that  she  was  safe  within 
its  walls.  They  compelled  all  the  inmates  of  the  building 
to  leave,  although  some  of  them  were  ill.  They  searched 
the  house  thoroughly,  plundered  it  effectively,  and  set  it 
on  fire.  The  religious  and  racial  jealousies  that  had  been 
aroused  by  the  occurrences  that  have  just  been  noted 
assumed  a  political  form  with  the  rise  of  the  Native  Ameri- 
can Party. 

Statistics  of  the  churches  are  more  vague  and  untrust- 
worthy than  those  of  population  and  industry,  —  which  is 
saying  a  good  deal ;  but  if  we  make  large  allowances  and 
do  not  draw  too  fixed  conclusions  from  them  the  figures  are 
worth  putting  together  and  setting  down.  The  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States  in  1850  was  a  little  over  twenty- 
three  millions  and  there  were  something  over  fourteen 
million  "aggregate  accommodations"  in  all  churches,  accord- 
ing to  the  "  Census  "  of  that  year,  by  which  must  be  under- 
stood seating  capacity.1  Of  this  total,  nearly  seven  hundred 
thousand  was  set  down  by  the  census  takers  of  1850  as 
belonging  to  the  Roman  Catholics  and  fifteen  thousand  to 
the  Jews,2  leaving  the  rest  to  the  Protestants.  It  has  been 
often  claimed  and  is  no  doubt  true  that  it  is  difficult  to  put 


Convent   (Boston,    1834) ;     Massa- 
lusetts    Historical    Society's    Proceed- 
gs,  2nd  Series,  iii,  216 ;    An  Account 
the    Conflagration    of    the    Ursuline 
Convent  (Boston,  1834) ;    Trial  of  John 
Buzzell  .  .  .  for  Arson  and    Burg- 
in    the     Ursuline     Convent    (Bos- 
,    1834) ;     The   Trial  of  the  Persons 
rged  loith  Burning  the  Convent  (Bos- 
Dn,  1834).     For  other  titles,  see  James 
?.  Hunnewell's  Bibliography  of  Charles- 
i,58. 

1  These  figures  are  taken  from  the 

Census  of   1850,   pp.  ix,   Ivii   and    fol., 

1016    and    fol.     The    figures    of    "ac- 

ammodations "  in  this  census  are  re- 


peated in  the  Compendium  of  the  Ninth 
Census,  516,  517. 

*In  1818,  Mordecai  M.  Noah  esti- 
mated the  number  of  Jews  in  the 
United  States  at  3000 ;  in  1848,  there 
were  50,000  according  to  M.  A.  Berk; 
see  United  States  Census,  Special  Re- 
ports, Religious  Bodies;  1906,  Pt.  ii, 
320.  Up  to  1919  the  Jews  have  pub- 
lished little  valuable  historical  ma- 
terial for  the  Publications  of  the  Ameri- 
can Jewish  Historical  Society  are 
largely  argumentative.  Ezekiel  and 
Lichtenstein's  History  of  the  Jews  of 
Richmond  gives  promise  of  better  things. 


220 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 


the  Roman  Catholic  figures  side  by  side  with  the  Protestant, 
because  in  the  Catholic  Church  several  persons  may  use  one 
accommodation  on  one  or  every  Sunday  of  the  year ;  whereas, 
in  the  Protestant  churches,  in  the  old  settled  regions,  one 
sitting  per  church  attendant  would  be  the  rule,  but  in  the 
newer  settled  country  and  in  the  church  of  some  popular 
city  preacher  the  number  of  attendants  greatly  exceeds  the 
number  of  sittings  and  far  exceeds  the  number  of  com- 
municants. Probably  it  would  not  be  far  out  of  the  way 
to  set  down  three-quarters  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  as  belonging  to  some  Christian  organization  in  1850, 
or  at  all  events,  as  considering  themselves  within  the  Chris- 
tian fold. 

Proceeding  now  to  an  endeavor  to  trace  the  growth  of 
some  of  the  Christian  bodies,  the  total  number  of  Roman 
Catholics  in  the  United  States  in  1800,  before  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  and  the  accession  of  Mexican  territory,  is  generally 
given  as  one  hundred  thousand  in  round  numbers,1  and  the 
number  of  Roman  Catholics  in  1850,  after  these  accessions 
and  the  first  wave  of  Irish  immigration,  is  set  down  as  one 
and  one-half  millions,  —  each  Roman  Catholic  sitting  ac- 
counting for  two  or  three  communicants.  Sorting  out, 
adding,  and  multiplying  the  numbers  of  "accommodations" 
as  given  in  the  "  Census  "  of  1850,  it  would  appear,  therefore, 
that  not  far  from  three  hundred  thousand  Roman  Catholics 
were  added  to  the  population  of  the  United  States  by  reason 
of  the  acquisitions  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Making  every  allowance  for  the  increase  of  the  native  Cath- 
olic population  since  1800,  it  would  appear  that  the  great 
mass  of  the  Roman  Catholic  communicants  in  1850  were  im- 
migrants, mainly  from  Ireland,  and  their  children.  Most  of 

Orleans    Territory 


JO'Gonnan  in  his  History  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  p.  293,  gives 
the  number  of  Catholics  in  the  United 


States    outside    of 
at  70,000. 


1850]  RELIGIOUS   STATISTICS  221 

the  remainder  were  of  Spanish  or  French  origin ;  in  other 
words  the  great  mass  of  the  Roman  Catholics  in  the  United 
States  had  not  grown  up  in  the  midst  of  American  political 
institutions. 

Apart  from  the  Roman  Catholic  exotic  growth  and  from 
the  increase  in  the  isolated  faiths  —  Unitarians,  Univer- 
salists,  and  others  —  the  interest  in  religious  development 
centred  about  the  Baptists,  the  Presbyterians,  and  the 
Methodists ;  for  these  were  the  three  great  frontier  religious 
organizations  that  grew  with  the  growth  of  Transappalachia. 
From  the  best  figures  attainable,  the  Presbyterians  increased 
in  the  fifty  years  from  forty  thousand  to  one-half  a  million, 
the  Baptists  from  one  hundred  thousand  to  eight  hundred 
thousand,  and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  all  its 
branches  from  sixty-five  thousand  to  over  one  and  one- 
quarter  millions.1  Of  course  some  of  this  growth  occurred 
in  the  "Old  Thirteen"  and  there  it  represented  a  withdrawal 
from  the  two  religious  bodies  that  might  well  be  called 
established,  the  English  Episcopalian  or  Anglican  Church 
and  the  Congregational  connection. 

Conditions  on  the  frontier  —  in  the  mountainous  regions 
of  the  older  States  and  in  the  newly  settled  regions  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  —  were  favorable  to  the  peculiar  in- 
fluences and  modes  of  procedure  of  the  Baptists  and  the 
Methodists  and  to  a  less  degree,  of  the  Presbyterians.  All 
these  represented  religious  proceedings  in  which  every  one 
could  take  part  and  the  manifestations  of  faith  had  some- 
thing tangible  in  them  and  emotional.  Among  "historical 
sources"  of  the  nineteenth  century  few  are  better  worth 
reading  than  the  reminiscences,  letters,  and  journals  of 

1  These  figures  as  to  the  strength  of  Evangelical     faiths.     Dr.      Dorchester 
religious  organizations  are  taken  from  put  a  great  deal  of  labor  into  this  corn- 
Daniel     Dorchester's     Christianity     in  pilation  and  under  each  entry  gives  a 
the  United  States,  p.  615  ror  the  Roman  definite  citation  to  his  authority. 
Catholics,   and    pp.   733-735    for    the 


222 


THE    CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE  [On.  VII 


Asbury  and  his  followers  and  of  the  Baptist l  and  Pres- 
byterian ministers.  The  activities  and  accomplishments  of 
the  itinerants  are  startling.  It  is  estimated  that  Asbury, 
the  Methodist  Bishop,  preached  more  than  sixteen  thousand 
sermons,  ordained  more  than  four  thousand  preachers,  and 
travelled  on  horseback  or  in  carriages  nearly  three  hundred 
thousand  miles  at  a  period  when  travelling  was  difficult  and 
oftentimes  dangerous.2  His  salary  was  sixty-four  dollars  a 
year  and  the  conditions  of  his  life  were  such  that  he  could 
not  think  of  marriage.  He  might  well  be  described  as  the 
greatest  of  the  circuit  riders,  although  he  never  rode  what 
was  technically  called  a  circuit ;  but  the  careers  of  the  actual 
circuit  riders  were  full  of  human  interest,  and  besides  carry- 
ing the  religious  impulse  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  land, 
they  bore  with  them  the  elements  of  education. 

The  astonishing  growth  of  the  Methodist,  Baptist,  and 
Presbyterian  sects  in  the  newer  part  of  the  country  dates 
back  to  the  Great  Revival  of  1800  in  eastern  Kentucky. 
The  people  living  there  were  of  the  primitive  type,  working 
and  sleeping  in  the  midst  of  danger  and  lacking  everything 
but  the  bare  necessities  of  existence.  Moreover,  they 
belonged  to  the  Scotch  Irish  race,  which,  for  the  most  part, 
was  singularly  impressionable.  James  McGready  appears 
to  have  been  the  first  moving  force,  but  it  was  not  until  the 
coming  of  the  brothers  McGee,  William  and  John,  one  a 
Methodist  and  the  other  a  Presbyterian,  that  the  movement 
assumed  the  proportions  of  a  religious  revolution.  Twenty 


1  The  hardships  and  the  spirit  of 
the  life  of  a  Baptist  minister  are  well 
illustrated  in  the  Memoir  of  Elder 
John  Peak,  written  by  himself  (Boston, 
1832)  and  P.  Donan's  Memoir  of 
Jacob  Creath,  Jr.  (Cincinnati,  1872). 

1  This  computation  is  from  J.  M. 
Buckley's  History  of  Methodists  in  the 
United  States,  345.  See  for  details 
of  a  journey  or  two  W.  P.  Strickland's 


Pioneer  Bishop :  or.  The  Life  and 
Times  of  Francis  Asbury,  chs.  vi,  ix. 
An  idea  of  the  extent  and  variety  of 
Asbury's  labors  may  be  had  from 
The  Heart  of  Asbury's  Journal,  edited 
by  E.  S.  Tipple  in  1904  or  from  H. 
M.  Du  Bose's  Francis  Asbury,  A 
Biographical  Study  (Nashville,  Tenn., 
1916). 


1800]  THE   GREAT   REVIVAL  223 

years  later,  the  latter  set  down  his  recollections  of  the  revival 
in  a  letter  1  that  has  been  widely  reprinted.  The  two  went 
to  the  Red  River  settlement  in  Kentucky  in  1799,  drawn 
thither  by  curiosity  to  witness  McGready's  methods  of 
exhortation,  about  which  they  had  heard  a  great  deal. 
After  he  and  two  other  ministers  had  preached  and  the  day 
was  drawing  to  a  close  and  the  other  ministers  had  left, 
the  McGees  remained  with  most  of  the  people.  William 
sat  down  on  the  floor  of  the  pulpit,  but  the  power  of  God 
was  upon  John.  He  told  the  people  that  he  was  appointed 
to  preach ;  he  exhorted  them  to  let  the  Lord  God  reign  in 
their  hearts  and  their  souls  should  live.  A  woman  suddenly 
broke  silence  and  "shouted  tremendously."  McGee  left 
the  pulpit  to  go  to  her,  but  hesitated  for  a  moment.  Then 
"the  power  of  God  was  strong  upon  me,"  so  he  asserted 
twenty  years  later.  He  turned  again,  and,  losing  sight  of  the 
fear  of  man,  went  through  the  house  "shouting  and  exhorting 
with  all  possible  ecstasy  and  energy."  The  floor  was  soon 
covered  with  "the  slain";  their  screams  for  mercy  pierced 
the  heavens  and  mercy  came  down.2  Soon  afterward,  the 
McGee  brothers  were  instrumental  in  instituting  the  first 
great  camp  meeting,  where  thousands  of  people  came 
together  from  "far  and  near"  to  enjoy  their  ministrations. 

1  A.  H.  Redford's  History  of  Meth-  wright,  the  Backwoods  Preacher  and 

odism  in  Kentucky,  i,  267-272,  citing  Richard  M'Nemar's  The  Kentucky 

the  Methodist  Magazine,  iv,  189-  Revival;  or  a  Short  History  of  the  Late 

191.  Extraordinary  Outpouring  of  the  Spirit 

*  D.  L.  Leonard's  "Kentucky  Re-  of  God  in  the  Western  States  of  America 
vival  of  1799-1805"  is  a  very  life-  are  most  widely  used  by  writers, 
like  and  not  sympathetic  account  of  M'Nemar's  book  was  printed  origi- 
this  event  (Papers  of  the  Ohio  Church  nally  in  1807  and  therefore  has  the 
History  Society,  v,  44-71).  A  much  merit  of  contemporaneousness.  Rob- 
longer  account  is  Catharine  C.  Cleve-  ert  Davidson's  History  of  the  Presby- 
land's  The  Great  Revival  in  the  West,  terian  Church  in  Kentucky  contains 
1797-1805.  A  fairly  complete  bibliog-  criticisms  of  the  doings  of  the  re- 
raphy  is  at  the  end  of  the  second  of  vivalists  which  are  vigorously  an- 
these  books,  but  Leonard  gives  a  brief  swered  in  the  last  half  of  F.  R.  Cos- 
list  of  available  works.  W.  P.  Strick-  sitt's  Life  and  Times  of  Rev.  Finit 
land's  Autobiography  of  Peter  Cart-  Swing. 


224  THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 

At  one  time,  night  came  on  and  the  task  was  not  finished,  so 
they  made  what  shelter  they  could  and  remained  —  whole 
families,  day  after  day  and  night  after  night  —  until  their 
food  was  exhausted  and  they  had  to  leave.  One  can 
imagine  the  scene  as  darkness  fell,  with  the  camp-fires 
blazing  and  the  sound  of  song  rising  and  falling  and  the 
preachers,  often  of  different  faiths,  two  or  three  of  them 
exhorting  at  one  time.  The  people  "fell"  by  the  hundreds, 
and  those  who  continued  prostrate  were  conveyed  to  the 
neighboring  meeting  house  or  to  a  tent  and  there  laid  away 
until  they  came  to.  Many  of  them  had  the  "jerks,"  which 
were  involuntary  hysterical  movements,  by  which  the 
head  swayed  from  side  to  side  and  sometimes  the  body 
bounded  over  the  ground.  At  one  great  camp  meeting,  one 
in  six  of  those  present  were  numbered  among  the  "slain." 
Possibly  the  best  description  of  the  "working  of  the  Lord" 
in  one  of  these  gatherings  was  written  by  a  New  Yorker  who 
went  to  a  Methodist  camp  meeting  in  Maryland  some  years 
later.  For  some  time  he  himself  had  been  wrestling  with 
the  spirit.  On  this  occasion  "the  Holy  Ghost  as  a  mighty 
rushing  wind"  came  into  his  soul.  He  rose  from  his  seat, 
gave  "two  or  three  jumps"  and  fell  upon  the  ground. 
Then  the  preacher  leaped  from  the^  stand  "as  a  giant  exhil- 
arated with  wine  and  went  through  the  congregation  shout- 
ing and  exhorting,  and  the  holy  fire  seemed  to  run  amongst 
the  stubble  with  a  perfect  blaze."  1  Revivals  were  not  by 
any  means  confined  to  the  frontier  or  to  the  Southern  and 
Middle  States,  they  were  also  a  regular  part  of  the  Congre- 
gational and  Presbyterian  religious  system  in  New  England. 
Lyman  Beecher  led  strenuous  revivals  in  Litchfield,  Con- 
necticut, and  later  in  Boston.  They  brought  many  converts 

1  Incidents     in    the    Life    of    George    W.    Henry    (Utica,     1846),    pp.     200- 
203. 


1830]  THE   METHODISTS  225 

to  the  church,  but  they  lacked  the  picturesqueness  and  the 
hysteria  of  the  frontier.1 

In  the  three-cornered  contest  for  converts  between  the 
Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and  Methodists,  the  last-named 
sect  was  most  successful,  although  all  three  added  greatly 
to  their  numbers  in  the  first  forty  years  of  the  century. 
The  success  of  the  Methodists  was  due  to  their  doctrinal 
liberality  in  comparison  with  the  Presbyterians  and  to  their 
wonderful  mechanical  organization  as  a  sect  in  comparison 
with  the  Baptists.  There  are,  indeed,  not  many  volumes  of 
proceedings  of  religious  bodies  that  offer  more  interest  to 
the  student  of  institutions  than  do  those  of  the  Methodist 
conferences.  Asbury  and  a  few  missionaries  came  to  America 
before  the  Revolution  under  authorization  from  Wesley, 
himself.  They  made  converts,  perhaps  not  as  many  as 
they  expected  to  make;  but  when  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  signed  most  of  them  returned  to  England. 
Asbury,  himself,  and  one  or  two  others,  remained.  After 
the  Revolution,  the  connection  with  England  was  only 
slowly  and  haltingly  resumed.  Wesley  recognized  Asbury, 
but  sent  Dr.  Coke  to  act  with  Asbury  as  joint  superintendent 
of  the  church Jn  the  United  States.  Asbury  maintained  his 
actual  hold  on  the  organization  and  Coke's  position  was 
finally  recognized  both  by  himself  and  by  the  conference  as 
untenable.2  Within  the  church  Asbury  was  equally  success- 
ful in  maintaining  the  right  of  the  bishop  to  rule.  The 
clergy  in  their  conferences  would  gladly  have  arranged 
the  appointments,  but  Asbury  was  firm  on  this  point  and 

1  Calvin  Colton  in  his  History  and  Comas's  The  Psychology  of  Religious 
Character  of  American  Revivals  of  Sects,  chs.  viii-xi  and  Frederick  M. 
Religion  (London,  1832)  defends  re-  Davenport's  Primitive  Traits  in  .Re- 
vivals as  a  regular  part  of  religious  ligious  Revivals. 

exercise    and    declares    that    the    evil  2  See  Samuel  Drew's  Life  of  the  Rev. 

things    connected   with   them    are    no  Thomas     Coke,     LL.D.,     New     York, 

worse  than  what  happens  out  of  them.  1837,  pp.  71-147. 
See  on  this  general  subject  H.  C.  Mc- 

VOL.  V. Q 


226  THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Ca.  VII 

won.  In  the  early  years  the  Methodist  minister  was  an 
itinerant  unless  ill  health  incapacitated  him  from  movement, 
in  which  case  he  was  given  a  superannuated  charge  or  was 
"located."  Remaining  stationary,  however,  was  a  mark  of 
feebleness  and  removed  one  from  the  possibility  of  doing 
great  service  to  the  church  in  making  converts.  The 
appointments  were  made  at  the  close  of  the  yearly  conference 
after  all  the  business  was  done ;  the  horses  were  ready  for  their 
riders  when  the  bishop  announced,  one  at  a  time,  the  appoint- 
ment of  each  circuit  for  the  coming,  year.  There  was  no 
appeal,  the  only  thing  to  do  was  to  accept  the  appointment 
and  do  the  best  that  one  could.  At  every  conference  the 
"  characters  "  of  the  members  were  passed  in  review.  Every 
year  a  man's  doings  were  canvassed  by  his  fellows,  and  failure 
met  its  speedy  reward  as  did  success,  —  the  latter  leading  to 
ever  greater  tasks  and  greater  opportunities.  As  long  as 
this  militant  discipline  was  maintained,  the  church  grew 
under  the  most  adverse  circumstances  that  one  can  well 
imagine. 

As  the  century  advanced,  the  sects  became  more  closely 
organized  and  supplemented  their  personal  efforts  by  a 
strong  printed  propaganda.  Each  of  them  had  its  publish- 
ing arrangements,  sometimes  independent  of  all  other 
printing  establishments,  but  sometimes  two  or  three  of  them 
united  for  some  special  purpose  or  some  particular  line  of 
action.  Of  these,  possibly  the  most  active  was  the  American 
Tract  Society  which  was  the  successor  of  the  New  England 
Religious  Tract  Society  that  had  been  founded  in  1814.  In 
1825,  the  different  tract  societies  were  merged  into  a 
national  organization  which  lasted  until  1859.  It  issued 
leaflets  and  books  of  from  four  to  sixteen  pages  each,  which 
were  gathered  into  twelve  volumes.  It  was  a  child  or  a 
replica  of  the  Religious  Tract  Society  that  had  been  insti- 


1830]  RELIGIOUS   PUBLICATIONS  227 

tuted  at  London  in  1799.  It  repeated  many  of  the  English 
tracts,  using  the  same  illustrations,  but  oftentimes  employed 
an  English  cut  for  a  purpose  unlike  that  of  its  original  use. 
In  1826,  the  directors  of  the  society  stated  that  they  had 
already  issued  more  than  two  and  one-half  million  tracts, 
and  their  efforts  had  only  begun.1  The  Bible  societies, 
denominational,  State,  and  national,  worked  together  and 
at  one  time  were  merged  into  one  organization.  The  ambi- 
tion of  the  leaders  in  this  enterprise  was  to  see  to  it  that 
every  family  in  the  United  States  possessed  a  Bible.  They 
also  supplied  hotels  and  prisons  so  that  in  the  United  States 
from  1830  to  1860,  the  Bible  was  everywhere  accessible  in  the 
settled  parts  of  the  country.  Several  of  the  sects  possessed 
their  own  publishing  houses.  Of  these  the  earliest  and  best 
known  was  the  Methodist  Book  Concern  that  may  be  said 
to  have  gone  back  to  1788. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  contests  in  the  denominational 
history  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  over 
slavery  and  abolition.  The  Methodists  were  very  strong 
throughout  the  South,  as  were  the  Baptists  and  the  Pres- 
byterians. Life  in  that  part  of  the  country  was  dependent 
upon  the  slave  system.  Farming  and  housekeeping,  except 
on  the  humblest  scale,  demanded  the  ownership  of  one  or 
more  negro  slaves,  because  they  were  the  only  farm  and 
domestic  labor  to  be  had.  Oftentimes,  also,  slaves  would 
come  to  a  clergyman  through  inheritance  of  himself  or  his 
wife,  for  in  many  Southern  States  it  was  practically  im- 
possible to  emancipate  a  slave.  In  the  first  decades,  these 
churches  were  either  silent  as  to  slavery  or  were  pro-slavery. 
The  Methodists  omitted  from  their  discipline  Wesley's 
prohibition  of  the  ownership  of  man  and  for  a  long  time  the 

1  Instances  of  wonderful  effects  of  of  the  American  Tract  Society,  pp. 
tracts  are  in  Eighth  Annual  Report  60-67. 


228  THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE          [Cn.  VII 

opposition  to  slaveholding  on  the  part  of  clergy  and  laity 
was  confined  to  New  England  and  to  New  York.1  Indeed, 
the  language  of  other  conferences  was  hostile  to  "the  mad- 
running  Garrisonian  abolitionists."  By  1840,  one  begins 
to  be  conscious  of  a  great  change  in  the  Northern  conferences. 
The  matter  came  to  a  head  over  the  case  of  Bishop  James  0. 
Andrew  of  Georgia,  who  had  inherited  a  slave  and  had 
married  a  woman  who  was  a  slaveholder  and^  in  both  cases 
it  was  impossible  to  free  them  owing  to  the  laws  and  to  the 
conditions  under  which  they  had  been  inherited.  In  1844, 
however,  the  General  Conference  voted  that  Bishop  Andrew 
must  either  get  rid  of  his  slaves  or  cease  to  exercise  the  func- 
tions of  a  Methodist  bishop.  The  adoption  of  this  vote  was 
the  signal  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Southern  conferences 
and  in  1845  they  set  up  for  themselves  as  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  South.2  They  sent  representatives  to  the 
General  Conference  the  next  year,  but  these  were  not 
admitted  within  the  bar.  For  the  next  few  years  there  was 
a  vigorous  contest  between  the  two  Methodist  church  bodies 
for  the  possession  of  the  Border  States.  In  the  course  of 
this  struggle  the  people  often  took  the  law  of  God  and  man 
into  their  own  hands  and  abused  and  even,  occasionally, 
tarred  and  feathered  cleric  and  layman,  who  were  not 
sympathetic  on  the  slave  question. 

The  Sunday  School  or  Sabbath  School  system,3  as  it  has 

1  W.  W.  Sweet's  Methodist  Episcopal  York,  1901)  and  the  works  mentioned 
Church  and  the  Civil  War,  15-18 ;   chap-  in  her  footnotes  and  in  a  bibliography 
ter  x  of  this  book  contains  an  excellent  on  pp.  246-257 ;    C.   S.   Lewis's   Work 
bibliography  on  the  "Slavery  Struggle  of    the    [Episcopalian]    Church    in    the 
in  the  Church."     Rev.  John  Wesley's  Sunday  School;    and  Lewis  G.   Fray's 
"Thoughts  upon   Slavery"   are  added  History  of  Sunday  Schools  and  of  Re- 
to   Rev.   O.   Scott's  Grounds  of  Seces-  ligious   Education   (Boston,  1847),  chs. 
sion   from    the    M.    E.    Church    (New  xxi,  xxii.    A.  D.  Matthews's  "  Memory 
York,  1851),  pp.  193-229.  Sketch  of  Early  Sunday-School  Work 

2  See    H.    B.    Bascom's    Methodism  in  Brooklyn,   New  York"  in  the  Ap- 
and  Slavery  (Frankfort,  Ky.,  1845).  pendix    to    E.    C.    Matthews's    A.    D. 

1  See    Marianna    C.    Brown's    Sun-       Matthews'    Autobiography    has    the    in- 
day-School  Movements  in  America  (New       terest  of  personal  recollection. 


1840]  THE   METHODISTS  AND   SLAVERY  229 

been  worked  out  in  the  Protestant  religious  organizations  in 
the  United  States,  has  a  two-fold  origin.  On  the  one  side  it 
is  a  duplication  of  the  effort  made  in  England  to  provide  some 
kind  of  education  for  the  children  who  worked  during  the 
week,  or  most  of  it,  in  the  factories  and  in  the  mines.1  This 
was  the  well-known  Raikes  system  as  it  was  called  from  its 
founder.  Otherwise,  it  grew  out  of  the  necessity  of  providing 
religious  instruction  for  children  in  a  country  where  Church 
and  State  are  absolutely  separated.  In  the  Roman  Catholic 
system  religious  instruction  is  as  much  the  duty  of  society  as 
secular  education,  and,  indeed,  more  so,  and  is  given  on 
week  days  and  supplemented  by  the  catechism  on  Sunday. 
In  the  United  States  the  Roman  Catholics  necessarily  were 
forced  to  provide  the  religious  instruction  themselves  and 
where  they  wished  to  combine  it  with  secular  education,  as 
in  European  countries,  to  establish  and  maintain  schools  of 
their  own  where  all  instruction  should  be  under  the  direction 
of  the  priests.  On  the  other  hand,  they  insisted  that  all 
religious  teaching  should  be  taken  out  of  the  schools  sup- 
ported by  taxation  and  that  the  Bible  should  not  be  read 
there.  In  these  ways  the  Protestant  churches  were  forced 
themselves  to  provide  religious  instruction  and  this  they 
did  by  the  establishment  of  the  Sunday  School.  These 
began  a  vigorous  existence  in  the  1820's  and  became 
organized  and  systematized  as  the  years  went  by.  More- 
over, as  to  these  there  seems  to  have  been  a  tendency 
towards  common  effort  on  the  part  of  the  sects,  as  was 

1  In  1781,  Robert  Raikes  of  Glouces-  See  William  B.  Tappan's  Sunday  School, 

ter,  England,  gathered   the   very  poor  22.     A  school  on  this  model  was  es- 

children     together     twice    on    Sunday  tablished    by   Samuel    Slater    in    1793 

for  two  hours  to  instruct  them  in  read-  for  poor   children   who  worked  in   his 

ing  and  learning  the  catechism  and  to  factory   in   Pawtucket,    Rhode   Island, 

lead    them    to    the    church.     His    plan  See  W.  R.  Bagnall's  Textile  Industries 

does  not  seem   to   have   been   strictly  of  the   United  States,  i,   161,   162,   and 

religious,   but  these  destitute  children  George  S.   White's  Memoir  of  Samuel 

worked  during   the  week  and  on   the  Slater.  117. 
Sabbath    were    idle    and    mischievous. 


. 

230  THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 

shown  by  the  joining  of  the  Congregationalists  and  Baptists 
and  other  of  the  evangelical  sects  into  school  unions  like  the 
Massachusetts  Sunday  School  Union,  which  was  an  auxiliary 
of  the  American  Sunday  School  Union.  In  a  table  giving 
a  summary  of  Sunday  Schools  in  1829—1830,  the  total  num- 
ber of  "scholars"  in  the  whole  world  is  given  as  one  and 
a  half  million,  no  less  than  one-third  of  them  being  in  the 
United  States.1  These  figures  are  another  attestation  of 
the  fact  that  has  already  been  noticed  that  the  splitting  up 
into  groups  of  religious  believers,  which  is  so  marked  in  the 
first  third  of  the  century,  did  not  in  any  way  mean  a  lessen- 
ing of  religious  desire.  Another  indication  of  the  same  trend 
is  in  the  stiffening  of  the  Sunday  laws  that  one  associates 
with  these  years. 

The  early  strictness  of  Sunday  observance  in  New  England 
is  familiar  to  every  one,  largely  on  account  of  the  publication 
of  the  bogus  Blue  Laws  of  Connecticut.  Throughout  New 
England  —  except  in  Rhode  Island  —  no  one  was  permitted 
to  labor  or  transact  business  of  any  kind  or  to  travel  or  be 
present  at  any  public  diversion  on  the  Lord's  Day.  On  the 
contrary,  every  one  must  apply  himself,  publicly  and 
privately,  to  the  duties  of  religion  and  piety  and  not  disturb 
public  worship  under  severe  penalties.  There  was  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  as  to  the  length  of  the  Lord's  Day,  as  to  its 
beginning  and  its  ending.  In  Massachusetts,  in  1823,  it 
legally  extended  from  the  midnight  preceding  to  the  follow- 
ing setting  of  the  sun,  but  no  one  should  be  present  at  any 
music  or  dancing  or  be  entertained  at  a  tavern  on  the  even- 
ing preceding  or  succeeding  the  Lord's  Day,  or  should  travel 
except  when  engaged  in  a  work  of  necessity  or  charity.2 

1  This  table  was  compiled  by  Daniel  2  General     Laws     of     Massachusetts 

Dorchester,  partly  from  the  American       (1823),  i,  407;  Public  Statute  Lawt  oj 
Quarterly  Register  for  1829-30  and  partly       .  .  .  Connecticut  (1821),  p.  385. 
from  official  sources  and  printed  in  hia 
Christianity  in  the  United  States,  428. 


1830]  SUNDAY   OBSERVANCES  231 

Moreover,  at  a  little  earlier  time,  no  vessel  should  unneces- 
sarily depart  from  any  of  the  harbors  of  the  State  of  Connect- 
icut and  no  vessel,  anchored  in  the  Connecticut  River  within 
two  miles  of  a  place  of  public  worship,  should  weigh  anchor 
between  morning  light  and  setting  sun  on  that  day,  unless 
to  get  nearer  to  the  place  of  public  worship.1  These  laws 
and  laws  like  them  have  generally  been  regarded  as  peculiar 
to  New  England  and  to  Congregationalism,  but  in  1822  the 
laws  of  the  State  of  Georgia  were  approximately  the  same. 
There  was  to  be  no  working  or  selling  of  goods  on  the 
Sabbath  in  that  State  and  no  sports  as  bear-baiting,  foot- 
ball playing,  and  horse  racing,  and  the  public  houses  were 
to  be  closed,  except  to  those  actually  living  within  them. 
In  Alabama,  in  1823,  no  worldly  business,  shooting,  sporting, 
or  gaming  was  to  be  practised  on  Sunday,  no  store  to  be  open, 
no  wagoner  to  ply  his  trade.  Similar  laws  —  but  a  little 
milder  —  were  to  be  found  in  Kentucky  and  in  the  States 
northwest  of  the  Ohio  River,2  where  the  influences  of  the 
various  bands  of  immigrants  combined  to  bring  about  a 
cessation  of  worldly  employments  on  the  Lord's  Day.  Of 
course,  it  is  doubtful  how  much  vitality  any  one  or  all  of 
these  laws  had  at  any  one  time  or  at  any  one  place,  or  in  the 
country  as  a  whole.  There  are  evidences,  however,  that  the 
tendency  was  toward  a  greater  strictness  of  the  observance 
of  the  Sabbath  as  we  find  petition  after  petition  presented 
to  Congress,  or  at  any  rate  drawn  up,  praying  for  the 
cessation  of  work  by  federal  law,  as  for  example  the  carriage 
of  the  mails,  within  those  hallowed  hours.  In  1828,  a  union 
was  formed  to  promote  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath,  and 

1  Statute      Laws      of  .  .  .  Connecti-  the    Statute  Law   of   Kentucky    (1822), 

cut,  Book  I  (1808),  p.  579.  ii,  997;    Acts  of  a  General  Nature  .  .  . 

1  Digest  of  the  Laws  of  .  .  .  Georgia  of  Ohio  (1824),  xxii,  196;  Revised  Lawt 

(1822),  510,  511;  Digest  of  the  Laws  of  of  Indiana  (1831),  194. 
.  .  .  Alabama    (1823),    216;   Digest   of 


232  THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 

in  1844,  a  convention  was  held  a,t  Baltimore  for  that  purpose 
which  was  presided  over  by  John  Quincy  Adams.1  The 
progress  that  was  made  may  be  judged  from  a  report  to 
the  effect  that  in  1850  forty  railroad  companies  had  stopped 
the  running  of  their  cars  on  the  Sabbath  on  about  four 
thousand  miles  of  road.  Another  evidence  of  the  religious 
earnestness  of  the  time  is  to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of 
educational  institutions  by  the  different  sects  at  their  own 
cost  throughout  the  country. 

It  seems  to  be  agreed  that  a  college  education  was  a  posi- 
tive disadvantage  to  the  camp  meeting  converter  or  the 
circuit  rider.  In  one  case  that  came  before  the  Indiana 
conference  where  two  men,  one  a  college  graduate,  the  other 
not,  rode  the  same  circuit,  the  non-college  man  "shouted" 
louder  than  his  companion,  sympathized  with  the  women, 
and  received  nearly  all  the  gifts,  which  he  generously  divided 
with  his  rival.  The  situation  reminds  one  of  the  New 
Englander  who  said  that  one  of  the  elders  in  his  church  never 
prayed  without  breaking  all  the  rules  of  syntax,  but  that  he 
would  rather  have  him  pray  "than  any  of  the  best  preachers 
in  New  York."  Readiness  in  repartee  and  earnestness  in 
conviction  and  in  demeanor  were  of  more  importance  to  the 
missionary  type  of  preacher,  whether  in  the  city  or  in  the 
forest,  than  polished  manners  or  a  college  training,  —  and 
religion  was  in  the  missionary  stage  in  America  in  these 
early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  recognized, 
however,  that  other  things  being  equal,  a  knowledge  of 
commentators  on  the  Scriptures  and  of  Bible  history  was  not 
amiss,  especially  in  debate  with  one  who  was  a  peer  in  argu- 
ment, but  did  not  possess  book  learning.  Then,  too,  it 
appeared  that  the  laity  was  being  debarred  from  temporal 

1  See     An     Account     of    Memorials       Dorchester's  Christianity  in  the  United 
presented  to  Congress  (New  York,  1829) ;       States,  476-477. 
3.  Q.  Adams's  Memoirs,  xii,   110-114; 


1840]  RELIGIOUS   SEMINARIES  233 

education,  because  people  of  one  faith  did  not  like  to  send 
their  sons  to  colleges  where  they  would  not  be  under  suitable 
denominational  influences  and  enjoy  the  ministrations  of 
their  own  clergymen.  The  State  universities  that  came  into 
being  in  these  years  did  not  supply  the  need  for  either 
minister  or  layman,  —  a  non-sectarian  institution  was  not 
what  was  wanted,  but  one  that  would  be  under  the  un- 
disputed control  of  Methodist,  or  Congregationalist,  or 
Roman  Catholic.  Seminaries  came  into  existence  in  num- 
bers and  colleges  for  the  education  of  one  kind  of  religious 
youth  and  of  others,  if  they  wanted  to  attend,  also  were 
founded.  Many  of  these  institutions  led  most  painful 
existences  and  many  of  them,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  dis- 
appeared altogether,  but  their  establishment  is  a  witness 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  beliefs  of  their  founders  and  to 
their  desire  that  the  coming  generations  should  have  better 
facilities  for  gaining  knowledge  than  they  themselves  had 
enjoyed.  And  some  of  these  colleges  and  universities  are 
today  among  the  strongest  spiritual  and  educational  in- 
fluences in  the  country. 

The  intense,  long-continued  introspection,  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  old  type  of  Congregationalist  and  of  those 
who  were  near  to  him,  as  the  Baptists  and  the  Presbyterians, 
and  the  protracted  communing  with  the  invisible  power, 
together  with  the  strictness  of  daily  life,  led  to  tremendous 
reactions  when  public  religious  control  was  slackened  or 
removed.  These  manifested  themselves  in  reformations  of 
all  kinds,  from  redeeming  one's  neighbor  from  the  rum  habit 
to  rescuing  Southern  society  from  the  curse  of  negro  slavery ; 
and  they  led  to  the  greatest  literary  efflorescence  in  our 
history,  and  to  most  extraordinary  religious  seekings.  Of  the 
religious  readjusters,  Alexander  Campbell,  Joseph  Smith, 
and  William  Miller  are  the  most  interesting.  The  last  two 


234  THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 

sprang  originally  from  the  New  England  soil,  but  did  not 
bear  fruit  until  after  transplantation  to  New  York  and  even 
to  the  Western  Reserve  in  northern  Ohio.1  Alexander 
Campbell  was  not  a  New  Englander,  but  the  son  of  a 
Scottish  immigrant.  He  had  grown  up  in  Presbyterianism, 
but  had  broken  away  from  it  and  had  adopted  "  the  primitive 
Christian  faith."  2  He  seems  to  have  been  a  born  religious 
controversialist  and  the  result  of  his  religious  debating  was 
the  conversion  of  a  very  large  portion  of  the  Baptist  popu- 
lation of  the  Western  Reserve.  They  abandoned  their 
covenants  and  beliefs  and  followed  Alexander  Campbell. 
William  Miller  began  his  labors  in  New  York  and  Vermont. 
He  studied  the  Bible  persistently  and  took  it  literally  from 
one  cover  to  the  other.  After  making  the  most  elaborate  cal- 
culations, which  can  be  followed  in  a  chart  appended  to  his 
"Evidence  ...  of  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ,  about  the 
Year  1843,"  3  Miller  prophesied  the  ending  of  the  world 
within  the  twelve  months  after  March,  1843.  The  number  of 
his  followers  was  extraordinary  —  more  than  extraordinary 
—  because  any  one  who  sincerely  followed  him  must  be 
prepared  on  a  certain  moment  of  time  to  abandon  all 
earthly  things  and  with  the  others  of  the  faithful  commune 
in  the  ether  with  the  Lord  at  his  second  coming.  Some  of 
them  closed  their  business  well  in  advance  and  sat  down 
awaiting  the  second  advent.  Others  kept  on,  because  the 
Lord  had  commanded  them  to  "occupy"  until  his  coming. 

1  Mrs.     L.  A.    M.    Bosworth's    "A  Campbell,  Leader  of  the  Great  Reforma- 

Stonny  Epoch,   1825—1850"  in  Papers  tion    of    the    Nineteenth    Century    (St. 

of    the    Ohio    Church    History    Society,  Louis,    1897)   states  the  main  facts  in 

vi,  1-22  is  a  brief,  well  written  account  brief   compass   and   in   readable  form, 

of    the    religious    life    of    the    Western  Campbell's    method    can    be    gathered 

Reserve      in      the      Campbellite-Mil-  from    a    perusal    of    a    section    of    his 

lerite-Mormon       period.        The       re-  Debate   on   Christian   Baptism,    between 

ligious  spirit  of  the  time  and  place  is  The    Rev.     W.    L.    Maccalla  .  .  .  and 

well  seen  in  J.   A.   Williams's  Life  of  Alexander  Campbell  (Buffaloe,  1824). 

Elder  John  Smith  (Cincinnati,  1870).  'Miller's   Evidence   was   printed   at 

*  Thomas    W.    Grafton'a    Alexander  Trov.  N.  Y.,  in  1838. 


1843]  THE   MILLERITES  235 

When  nothing  in  particular  happened  in  1843,  it  was  found 
that  errors  had  been  made  in  the  calculation,  which  could 
hardly  have  failed  to  be  the  case  considering  the  intricacies 
of  the  computations  and  combinations.1  When  nothing 
happened  on  the  later  appointed  time,  believers  began  to 
fall  away. 

The  Church  of  Christ  of  the  Latter-day  Saints  or  the 
Mormon  Church,  as  it  is  usually  called,  had  its  rise  in  the 
imaginings  and  business  capacity  of  a  very  remarkable 
man,  Joseph  Smith.  He  came  of  a  family  that  had  been 
long  on  the  New  England  soil.  He,  himself,  was  born  in 
Vermont  and  when  ten  or  eleven,  removed  to  New  York 
State.  His  early  life  was  unsuccessful  from  the  usual  point 
of  view.  In  the  autumn  of  1823,  when  not  quite  eighteen 
years  of  age  and  living  at  Manchester,  Wayne  County, 
New  York,  he  received  a  visit  from  a  "Messenger  of  God" 
who  warned  him  that  the  preparatory  work  for  the  second 
coming  of  the  Messiah  was  about  to  begin  and  that  he  had 
been  chosen  as  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Lord  to 
bring  about  some  of  the  purposes  of  this  dispensation.  In 
1827  the  "Angel  of  the  Lord"  delivered  to  him  certain 
plates  that  had  the  appearance  of  gold.  The  plates  were 
seven  inches  wide  by  eight  inches  long  and  the  package 
was  nearly  six  inches  through — each  plate  being  about  the 
thickness  of  tin.  "With  the  records  was  found  a  curious 


1  James     White's     Sketches     of    the  that  shows  more  clearly  than  the  lec- 

Christian    Life    and    Public    Labors    of  tures  the  results  of  Miller's  study  and 

William  Miller   (Battle   Creek,    Mich.,  cogitation.     Those    who    wish    to    go 

1875)    and    William    Miller's   Evidence  farther  can  read   in    the  "Second  Ad- 

.  .  .  of  the   Second    Coming   of   Christ  vent  Library"  in  eight  volumes  and  in 

about  the  Year  1843  (also  in  the  "Ad-  Advent     Tracts,    especially     No.     2     in 

vent    Library")     taken    together    will  vol.     ii     entitled    "First     Principles." 

exhibit    to    the    ordinary    reader     the  The  "Appendix"  to  Ellen  G.  White's 

thoughts    and    theories    of    the    great  Great    Controversy    between    Christ    and 

Adventist    preacher.     At    the    end    of  Satan  is  a  clear  statement  of  Miller's 

the  1841  edition  of  the  Evidence  is  a  views   as   to    the   time   of   the   second 

"Chronological   Chart  of  the   World"  advent. 


236  THE   CHANGING  RELIGIOUS  SCENE          [Cn.  VII 

instrument,  called  by  the  ancients  the  Urim  and  Thummim, 
which  consisted  of  two  transparent  stones,  clear  as  crystal, 
set  in  two  rims  of  a  bow";  with  these  was  a  breastplate 
and  a  sword.  The  plates  were  covered  with  marks.  These 
"by  the  gift  and  power  of  God"  and  by  the  use  of  "Urim 
and  Thummim"  Joseph  Smith  translated  and  dictated  to  a 
scribe,  —  and  in  this  way  the  Book  of  Mormon  was  written 
down  and  the  plates  were  then  borne  away  by  the  "Angel 
of  the  Lord."  "The  Book  of  Mormon"  was  first  printed 
in  1830.1  It  describes  the  coming  of  a  colony  to  America 
from  the  Tower  of  Babel  and  its  history  in  the  New  World. 
The  language  closely  follows  that  of  the  Old  Testament 
in  the  King  James  version  and  the  story  told  in  it  is  a  variant 
of  the  Old  Testament  narrative.  As  originally  printed 
there  were  many  errors  of  grammar,  some  New  York  pro- 
vincialisms, and  some  paraphrases  of  the  New  Testament. 
Critics,  then  and  since,  have  marvelled  that  the  Lord  should 
have  used  such  phrases  in  the  "Golden  Book  of  Cumorah," 
that  chroniclers  before  the  Christian  era  should  have  been 
familiar  with  the  New  Testament,  and  should  have  re- 
peated the  phrasings  of  the  King  James  Bible.  To  this 
it  has  been  answered  that  "the  highest  interpretation" 
was  a  reflex  of  the  Prophet's  mind  and  that  Joseph  Smith, 
therefore,  in  dictating,  repeated  phrases  with  which  he  was 
familiar.  It  has  also  been  argued  that  the  "Book  of  Mor- 
mon" is  an  adaptation  from  a  manuscript  written  by: 
Solomon  Spaulding.  He  was  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth,  had 
once  been  a  clergyman,  had  later  failed  in  business,  and  had 
solaced  his  declining  years  by  writing  a  supposititious  history 
of  the  American  Indians  in  Biblical  language.  The  Spauld- 
ing manuscript  has  never  been  produced,  but  it  is  averred 
that  somehow  it  came  into  the  hands  of  Joseph  Smith  and 

1  For  a  bibliography  of  Mormonism,  aee  Note  IV  at  end  of  chapter. 


1840]  THE   MORMONS  237 

by  him  was  used  as  the  basis  for  the  "  Golden  Bible  "  or 
"Book  of  Mormon." 

At  first,  as  is  always  the  case  in  religious  movements, 
the  gathering  of  disciples  proceeded  slowly.  It  was  not  until 
Smith  removed  to  Kirtland  in  Ohio,  some  twenty  miles 
to  the  eastward  of  Cleveland  and  in  the  centre  of  the  Camp- 
bellite  country,  that  converts  flocked  to  the  new  dispen- 
sation. Smith  introduced  into  the  new  life  an  element  of 
communism  by  which  the  Latter-day  Saints  lived  very 
much  by  themselves  and  conducted  their  own  business 
operations  apart  from  those  of  the  outer  world.  This  won 
for  them  the  hostility  of  the  neighbors  who  used  the  first 
legal  means  that  came  within  reach  to  eject  Smith  from 
their  midst.  He  and  his  followers  removed  to  Missouri 
where  they  increased  in  numbers,  but  again  aroused  the  ill 
will  of  those  around  them.  They  were  most  inhumanly 
driven  out  of  the  State  and  settled  in  Illinois  at  Nauvoo, 
just  above  the  Des  Moines  rapids  on  the  Mississippi  River. 
There  they  again  increased  in  numbers,  again  aroused  the 
enmity  of  the  neighbors,  and  again  fled,  but  not  until  after 
Smith  himself  had  been  murdered  and  his  place  taken  by 
another  remarkable  man,  also  of  New  England  stock, 
Brigham  Young.  From  this  time  on  Mormonism  lost  some 
of  its  missionary  character  and  became  partly,  at  any  rate, 
a  community  experiment  and  a  very  successful  one  in  the 
heart  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  region.  Today  (1920)  it  is 
supposed  that  the  Church  of  the  Latter-day  Saints  numbers 
more  than  half  a  million  adherents  in  the  regular  church  in 
Utah  and  its  mission  establishments  throughout  the  country 
and  in  the  dissenting  Mormon  faiths,  as  the  "Reorganized 
Church"  of  Joseph  Smith,  Jr.,  which  is  established  again 
at  Kirtland  on  the  property  of  the  original  church. 

In  this  brief  survey  of  the  changing  religious  scene,  it  has 


238 


THE   CHANGING   RELIGIOUS   SCENE 


not  been  possible  to  follow  the  stories  of  the  Episcopalians, 
the  Baptists,  the  Univeralists,  and  others  among  the  sects. 
Enough  has  been  said,  however,  to  show  that  seldom  in  his- 
tory have  men  and  women  developed  a  more  widespread 
and  active  religious  life  than  they  did  in  the  United  States 
in  the  years  that  followed  the  great  wars  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  of  Napoleon. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  239 


NOTES 

I.  General    Works.  —  Daniel    Dorchester's    Christianity    in    the 
United  States  (New  York,  1889)  traces  religious  activities  from  the 

earliest  time  to  1887.  It  is  the  result  of  long  research  and  is  dis- 
tinctly usable.  Containing  such  a  mass  of  details  it  is  necessarily 
unreadable  and  should  be  used  as  a  cyclopaedia  of  religion.  There 
is  no  bibliography  but  the  footnotes  point  the  way  to  the  best  au- 
thorities. The  American  Church  History  Series  contains  denomina- 
tional histories  published  under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Society 
of  Church  History.  The  thirteenth  volume  is  Leonard  W.  Bacon's 
History  of  American  Christianity.  It  is  a  literary  survey  rather  than 
a  cyclopaedia  and  distinctly  reflects  the  author's  religious  views. 
Robert  Baird's  Religion  in  America  (New  York,  1844)  was  written  to 
exhibit  the  condition  of  Christianity  in  the  United  States  to  people 
of  the  countries  of  continental  Europe,  who  found  it  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  a  "  Church  "  could  live  without  a  close  connection  with  the 
temporal  power.  It  is  even  today  the  best  brief  statement  of  the 
religious  condition  of  the  American  people  in  the  first  forty  years  of 
the  century. 

II.  The  Roman  Catholics.  —  The  best  brief  book  is  the  History 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States  by  Thomas  O'Gorman, 
Professor  of  Church  History  in  the  Catholic  University  at  Washington, 
which  forms  volume  ix  of  The  American  Church  History  Series.     The 
bibliography  prefixed  to  this  work,  while  brief  and  incomplete,  is 
useful.     John  Gilmary  Shea's   History  of  the  Catholic  Church  within 
the  Limits  of  the  United  States  in  four  large  volumes  is  a  work  of  scholarly 
research.     Volume  i  relates  to  colonial  times ;    volume  ii  bears  the 
sub-title  of  Life  and  Times  of  the  Most  Rev.  John  Carroll  and  brings 
the  story  down  to  1815.     Volumes  iii  and  iv  carry  it  on  to  1866.     This 
work   is   abundantly   supplied  with    footnotes,   but   has   no  formal 
bibliography.     Thomas  Hughes's   History  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in 
North  America  contains  a  mass  of  documentary  material  that  throws 
most    interesting    lights    here    and    there.      The    American    Catholic 
Historical  Researches,  the  Records  of  the  American  Catholic  Historical 
Society  of  Philadelphia,  and  the  American  Catholic  Quarterly  Review 
contain  much  important  historical  material ;   but  most  of  the  articles 
in  the  last  named  are  argumentative  rather  than  historical. 


240  THE   CHANGING  RELIGIOUS  SCENE 

HI.  The  Methodists.  —  The  Journal  of  the  Rev.  Francis  Asbury 
.  .  .  from  August  7,  1771,  to  December  7,  1816  (3  vols.,  New  York, 
1821)  is  necessarily  the  foundation  on  which  all  extended  accounts  of 
the  rise  of  American  Methodism  are  based.  W.  P.  Strickland's 
Life  and  Times  of  Francis  Asbury  follows  it  closely.  J.  M.  Buckley's 
Methodists  in  the  American  Church  History  Series  has  a  useful 
bibliography  and  is  a  good  book  in  itself.  The  best  way,  however, 
to  gain  an  insight  is  to  read  in  the  journals  of  tthe  conferences  as,  for 
instance,  the  Journals  of  the  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church;  the  first  volume  brings  the  story  down  to  1836. 
Of  the  separate  conferences,  the  "  Minutes  of  the  Indiana  Conference, 
1832-1844  "  forming  part  ii  of  W.  W.  Sweet's  Circuit-Rider  Days  in 
Indiana  is  most  useful  in  throwing  light  on  the  early  Methodist  spirit, 
and  part  i,  which  is  an  historical  summary,  is  very  helpful.1  It 
may  be  supplemented  by  the  volume  on  the  North  Indiana  Con- 
ference by  Professor  Sweet  and  H.  N.  Herrick  that  relates  the  history 
of  the  Methodist  church  in  northern  Indiana  down  to  the  present 
century.  An  earlier  book,  J.  C.  Smith's  Reminiscences  of  Early 
Methodism  in  Indiana,  contains  biographical  sketches  of  members  of 
this  conference  and  there  are  also  separate  and  more  detailed  bi- 
ographies of  many  of  them.  A.  H.  Redford's  History  of  Methodism 
in  Kentucky  in  three  volumes  is  serviceable,  bringing  the  story  down 
to  1832.  An  extremely  hostile  examination  of  Methodism  is  J.  R. 
Graves's  The  Great  Iron  Wheel;  or,  Republicanism  Backwards  and 
Christianity  Reversed,  to  which  a  reply  was  made  by  W.  G.  Brownlow, 
the  "  Fighting  Parson,"  in  The  Great  Iron  Wheel,  Examined,  and  by 
Francis  Hodgson,  in  The  Great  Iron  Wheel  Reviewed  (Philadelphia, 
1848).  The  cut  showing  "  Methodism  Mechanically  Illustrated  " 
facing  p.  160  of  the  first  of  these  books  is  a  forcible  illustration  of  the 
discipline  of  the  Methodist  church. 

IV.   The  Latter-day  Saints. —  There  is  no  adequate  bibliography 
of  Mormonism.     The  Book  of  Mormon:    An  Account  Written  by  the 
Hand  of  Mormon  .  .  ,  By  Joseph  Smith,  Junior,  Author  and  Pro- 
prietor was  published  at  Palmyra,  N.  Y.,  in  1830.    The  second  edition 

1  Greenough    White's    An    Apostle  are  Rev.  Charles  Elliott's  South-Western 

of  the  Western  Church  is  an  interesting  Methodism   and   Rev.  A.    M.    Chreitz- 

account    of   religion   in    the     Western  berg's   Early   Methodism   in   the   Caro- 

States  woven  around  the  life  of  Bishop  linos. 
Jackson  Kemper.     Other  useful  books 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  241 

—  the  one  now  in  use  —  was  published  at  Kirtland,  Ohio,  in  1837. 
This  is  conveniently  found  in  the  volume  issued  by  the  Mormon 
Church  in  1907  which  also  contains  The  Doctrine  and  Covenants 
and  The  Pearl  of  Great  Price,  a  Selection  from  the  Revelations,  Trans- 
lations, and  Narrations  of  Joseph  Smith.  Nowadays,  the  Church 
seems  to  rely  for  spiritual  guidance  more  on  the  last  two  than  it  does 
on  The  Book  of  Mormon.  The  "  Articles  of  Faith  "  are  printed  at 
the  end  of  The  Pearl  of  Great  Price.  C.  W.  Penrose's  "  Mormon  " 
Doctrine,  Plain  and  Simple  published  by  the  Missions  of  the  Church 
(3rd  ed.,  1917)  is  a  brief  plain  statement  of  its  doctrines  at  the  turn  of 
the  century.1  George  Q.  Cannon's  Life  of  Joseph  Smith,  theProphet 
(Salt  Lake  City,  1888)  states  the  case  for  Mormonism  as  does  B.  H. 
Roberts's  Defense  of  the  Faith  and  the  Saints  that  was  printed  in  1907- 
1912.  The  other  side  is  set  forth  by  Charles  A.  Shook  in  The  True 
Origin  of  The  Book  of  Mormon  and  Cumorah  Revisited.  Neither  of 
these  volumes  has  a  bibliography,  but  the  citations  at  the  foot  of 
the  pages  will  take  the  student  as  far  as  he  wishes  to  go.2  An  ex- 
tremely hostile  contemporaneous  account  by  an  inhabitant  of  Palmyra 
or  its  vicinity  is  in  O.  Turner's  History  of  .  .  .  Phelps  and  Gorham's 
Purchase,  212-217.  Possibly  the  best  way  to  get  at  the  spirit  of 
Mormonism  is  to  read  a  volume  or  two  of  their  serial  publications8 
in  combination  with  fifty  pages  or  so  of  The  Pearl  of  Great  Price. 

1  The  official   account  of   the  origin  Reserve    Historical     Society's     Tracts, 

of  the  sect  is  the  History  of  the  Church  iii,  187). 

of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints  in  *  From  1832  to  the  present  day  the 
six  volumes.  It  was  published  at  Salt  Mormon  Church  has  used  the  serial 
Lake  City  in  1902-1912.  The  portion  publication  as  a  vehicle :  —  Evening 
covering  the  story  to  1844  is  said  to  and  Morning  Star  (Independence,  Mo., 
have  been  written  by  Joseph  Smith,  and  Kirtland,  Ohio,  1832-1834) ;  Latter 
the  Prophet.  A  series  with  the  same  Day  Saints'  Messenger  and  Advocate 
title  was  issued  by  the  "Reorganized  (Kirtland,  1834-1836);  Elders'  Journal 
Church"  at  Lamoni,  Iowa,  in  four  (Kirtland  and  Far  West,  Mo.,  1837- 
volumes  in  1897-1908.  The  first  two  1838) ;  Times  and  Seasons  (Corn- 
volumes  contain  the  history  of  the  merce  and  Nauvoo,  111.,  1839-1846). 
Church  to  1844 ;  the  last  two  the  later  The  Latter-Day  Saints  Millennial  Star 
history  of  the  "  Reorganized  Church."  has  been  printed  in  England  by  the 

1  This   matter  was   re-examined   by  missionaries   there   from    1841    to   the 

Jamea  H.  Fairchild  in  1886  (Western  present  time. 


VOL.  V.  —  B 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EDUCATION 

THE  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  usually  re- 
garded as  the  most  barren  in  the  educational  history  of 
English  America ; l  yet  that  was  the  precise  time  when  the 
reading  habit  was  the  most  widespread  among  our  people, 
when  the  writing  of  verse  and  prose  was  most  common,  and 
when  our  greatest  writers  were  doing  their  best  work  or 
securing  their  mental  stimulus.  It  is  true  that  there  were 
few  public  secondary  schools  outside  of  the  largest  towns ; 
but  their  places  were  taken  for  a  portion  of  the  population 
by  the  academies.  These  were  day  schools  or  boarding 
schools  or  mixed  day  and  boarding  schools  that  were  sup- 
ported in  part  by  public  endowments  which  were  largely 
supplemented  by  private  gifts  and  fees.  Oftentimes,  too, 
pupils  worked  for  their  board  and  sometimes  for  their  board 
and  tuition.  Besides  the  academies,  there  were  private 
schools  supported  entirely  by  payments  of  the  pupils. 
In  the  Southern  States,  academies  and  private  boarding 
schools  were  not  at  all  infrequent 2  and  many  of  the  richer 
families  employed  private  tutors  to  teach  their  sons  and  the 
sons  of  their  friends.  Oftentimes,  everywhere  in  the  coun- 

1  For  accounts  of  earlier  times,  see  These    were    numerous    and    active   in 
the  present  work,  vol.  ii,  ch.  xvi  and  the  South.     See  Mrs.   I.   M.  E.  Blan- 
iii,  566-570.  din's   History   of   Higher   Education   of 

2  Many  of  the  academies  admitted  Women    in    the    South    Prior    to    1860 
girls  and  there  were  many  academies  (New   York,    1909)    and    the    memoirs 
and  schools  that  admitted   girls  only.  of  Southern  men  and  women. 

242 


SCHOOLS  AND   COLLEGES  243 

try,  a  cultivated  maiden  aunt  exercised  a  distinct  influence 
over  the  children  of  a  family.  Moreover,  the  colleges  of  those 
days  were  hardly  more  than  secondary  schools,  boys  habit- 
ually entering  them  at  from  thirteen  to  fifteen  years  of  age. 
If  the  object  of  education  is  to  produce  scholars,  the  educa- 
tional system  of  that  time  was  singularly  successful.  But  its 
influence  was  not  widespread.  The  mass  of  the  people  had 
very  slight  educational  opportunities  and  most  of  them, 
indeed,  had  no  educational  opportunities  beyond  the  un- 
graded schools.  These  were  small  institutions,  having  one 
teacher  and  from  a  dozen  to  thirty  pupils,  and  they  were 
open  only  from  three  to  five  months  in  the  year.  To  them 
came  children  and  young  men  and  women  from  five  to 
seventeen  years  of  age.  They  brought  with  them  whatever 
text-books  their  homes  afforded  and  proceeded  to  study 
whatever  they  could  under  these  circumstances.  Given  a 
born  teacher,  one  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  more  fruitful 
field  for  the  display  of  pedagogical  talents.  Undoubtedly  in 
many  a  town  and  district  there  was  such  a  teacher  and  the 
young  people  who  came  under  his  or  her  influence  must  have 
been  mentally  stimulated  and  educated  in  the  truest  sense 
of  the  word,  —  far  beyond  what  they  can  gain  in  the  ex- 
cellent graded  schools  and  with  the  admirable  text-books 
of  our  own  time. 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  some 
colleges  had  been  founded  and  schools  established  and  im- 
portant legislative  measures  had  been  enacted  that  were  to 
bear  fruit  eventually ;  but  the  unrest  of  those  years  gave 
an  excuse  to  the  handlers  of  public  money  to  divert  what- 
ever funds  they  could  get  hold  of  to  other  uses.  In  1789, 
the  Massachusetts  State  legislature  seriously  impaired  the 
old  colonial  school  system  by  providing  that  the  towns, 
which  had  formerly  been  obliged  to  establish  secondary 


244  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

schools  whenever  the  number  of  families  within  the  town 
limits  reached  the  one  hundred  mark,  should  in  the  future 
be  obliged  to  provide  those  facilities  only  when  the  number 
of  families  had  increased  *  to  two  hundred.  In  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  other  States  many  laws  were  passed 
between  1790  and  1820  dealing  with  general  education ;  but 
very  little  public  money  was  provided  for  education  in  any 
of  these  States.  In  the  Southern  States,  or  in  some  of 
them,  "Literary  Funds"  were  established.  These  generally 
were  based  upon  lotteries  or  on  some  peculiar  financial 
source.  For  example,  in  Delaware,  in  1796,  the  legislature 
provided  that  the  money  that  came  into  the  State  treasury 
in  the  next  ten  years  from  marriage  and  tavern  licenses 
should  be  devoted  to  the  establishment  of  local  schools 
where  children  should  be  taught  English  and  arithmetic 
free  of  cost,  but  none  of  this  money  should  be  used  for  acad- 
emies or  colleges.  This  generosity  to  education  continued 
for  only  a  year  when  the  legislature  provided  that  the  money 
arising  from  these  sources  should  be  devoted  first  of  all  to 
paying  the  salaries  of  the  judges  and  then  what  was  left 
over  should  be  given  to  the  cause  of  free  education.2  In 
some  of  the  States,  especially  in  the  newer  ones,  money 
arising  from  the  public  lands  was  devoted  to  the  education 
of  the  people,  either  by  the  voluntary  action  of  the  State, 
as  in  the  case  of  Connecticut,  or  by  reason  of  the  conditions 
of  the  grant  as  in  the  States  organized  on  the  public  domain.3 
In  Virginia  the  money  derived  from  the  sale  of  the  Church 

1  Laws  of  .  .  .  Massachusetts  (1807) ,  History  of  the  Surplus  Revenue  of  18S7, 

i,  469-473 ;   see  also,  the  present  work,  p.  52. 
vol.    i,    432-434;     vol.    iii,    566-570.  *  See  Clement  L.  Martzolff's  "Land 

*Laws   of  .  .  .  Delaware   (1797),  ii,  Grants    for    Education    in    the    Ohio 

1296-1298,    1352-1354.     Delaware    in-  Valley    States"    in   Ohio    Archaeological 

vested   her   share   of   the    surplus    de-  and     Historical     Quarterly,     xxv,     59; 

posits  of   1837  in   bank  stock  and  in  Frank    W.    Blackmar's    "Federal    and 

railroad    bonds;     the    income    she    de-  State    Aid    to    Higher    Education"    in 

voted   to   her   schools,    and   was   still  Bureau    of    Education's    Circular    of 

doing    it    in    1880.     E.    G.    Bourne's  Information,  No.  1,  1890. 


1820]  LITERARY  FUNDS  245 

lands  and  from  some  other  sources  was  to  be  paid  into  the 
"Literary  Fund."  l  This  was  to  be  used  for  the  education 
of  the  poor  and  for  such  other  purposes  as  the  legislatures 
might  direct.  In  Kentucky  a  similar  fund  was  established 
from  the  profits  of  the  Bank  of  the  Commonwealth.2  Elab- 
orate provisions  were  made  in  the  laws  in  some  of  these 
States  for  education,  but  many  of  them  did  not  amount  to 
very  much.  In  1796,  the  Virginia  Assembly  provided  that 
all  free  children,  male  and  female,  should  receive  tuition 
free  for  three  years  and  after  that  as  much  longer  "at  their 
private  expense"  as  "their  parents,  guardians,  or  friends, 
shall  think  proper."  The  electors  in  each  county  were  to 
choose  three  of  their  best  men  to  be  termed  "aldermen"  to 
divide  the  county  into  sections,  provide  school  houses,  and 
pay  the  teachers ; 3  but  not  a  single  county  had  carried  the 
plan  into  effect  by  1801. 4  Of  the  States  west  of  the  Appa- 
lachians, Alabama  is  in  some  ways  the  most  interesting. 
Her  land  grant  was  well  managed  and  provided  an  appre- 
ciable revenue  for  education.  The  income  was  to  be  used 
for  the  support  of  the  University  and  academies,  and 
township  schools  were  to  be  established,  so  that  each  school 
district  should  contain  between  thirty  and  forty  pupils.5 
It  is  a  most  interesting  paper  educational  project;  but  the 
speedy  conversion  of  Alabama  into  a  cotton-producing  State 
and  the  consequent  dispersal  of  the  white  population  made 
impossible  the  carrying  out  of  any  such  plan.  The  acade- 
mies, however,  grew  and  flourished  and  the  University  for 

1  Revised       Code       of  .  .  .  Virginia  *  Governor    James    Monroe    to    the 

(1819),  i,  89.  Virginia    Assembly    in    his     Writings, 

1  Digest       of  .  .  .  Law       of      Ken-  iii,  309. 

tucky    (1822,   vol.   ii,    p.    871).     North  6  These   laws   were   enacted   in   the 

Carolina  also  had  a  "Literary  Fund,"  years  1818-23,  see  Digest  of  the  Laws 

see  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  xiii,  270,  .  .  .  of    Alabama    (1823),    643,     647, 

361.  552,  670,  etc. 

*  Collection  of  Acts  of  the  General  As- 
sembly of  Virginia  (1803,  p.  354,  355). 


246  EDUCATION  [Ca.  VIII 

some  years  was  remarkably  successful,  ranking  number 
thirty-nine  in  the  list  of  collegiate  institutions  in  1850,  out 
of  a  total  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-one. 

Of  the  States  organized  on  the  territory  northwest  of  the 
Ohio  River,  Ohio  and  Indiana  made  the  most  progress 
toward  a  free  school  system  of  any  of  the  newer  States  in 
the  first  half  of  the  century.1  Professor  Calvin  E.  Stowe 
of  Lane  Seminary  in  Cincinnati,  who  married  Harriet 
Beecher,  seems  to  have  given  the  direct  stimulus  to  the 
establishment  of  common  schools  in  Ohio.  His  attention 
had  been  attracted  to  the  German  system  of  education. 
In  1831,  Victor  Cousin  had  been  sent  by  the  French  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction  to  report  upon  the  educational  machin- 
ery of  Germany.2  His  report  was  printed  at  Paris  in  1833 
and  in  English  at  New  York  in  1835.  It  aroused  great 
interest  in  America  as  well  as  in  France.  Cousin  declared 
that  in  1831  there  was  not  a  single  human  being  in  Prussia 
who  did  not  receive  an  education  "sufficient  for  the  moral 
and  intellectual  wants  of  the  laborious  classes."  Moreover, 
secondary  education  was  well  attended  to  there,  normal 
schools  for  teaching  the  teachers  were  abundant,  and  over 
all  was  the  university,  —  the  whole  establishment  from 
bottom  to  top,  or  from  top  to  bottom,  being  under  the  control 
of  the  central  governing  authority.  In  1836  Professor  Stowe 
delivered  an  address  on  the  "Prussian  System  of  Public 
Education  and  its  Applicability  to  the  United  States."  He 
then  sailed  for  Europe  to  buy  books  for  Lane  Seminary  and 
to  investigate  the  school  systems  there  for  the  State.  On 

1  President  Butler    (Monographs   on  *  M.  V.  Cousin's  Rapport  sur  L'Etat 

Education   in    the    United    States,    i,    p.  de    L' Instruction    Publique    dans    Quel- 

vii)  tells  us  that  land  greater  in  area  ques   Pays    de  L'Allemagne,   et   Partic- 

than   New  England,   New  York,   New  ulierement   en  Prusse   (new  ed.,    Paris, 

Jersey,    Maryland,    and    Delaware    all  1833)   and  translated  into  English  by 

put  together  has  been  set  apart  at  one  S.  T.  Austin  as  Report  on  the  State  o) 

time   or  another  for  educational   pur-  Public    Instruction    in    Prussia    (New 

poses.  York,  1835). 


1830]  WESTERN  SCHOOLS  247 

his  return  he  delivered  a  report 1  to  the  Legislature  that  was 
most  favorable  to  the  German  system  and  was  adopted  as 
the  basis  of  the  educational  fabric  of  Ohio.  The  legislature 
at  once  established  a  fund  for  the  purpose  of  free  education 
and  decreed  that  profits  to  be  derived  from  the  canal  system 
and  bonuses  that  might  be  received  from  the  State  Bank 
should  be  paid  into  it.2  It  was  under  these  circumstances 
that  the  free  common  school  system  of  Ohio  was  established 
in  1837.3  Indiana  managed  her  public  lands  with  a  thrift 
that  was  not  usual.  By  laws  passed  in  1824  and  1831,  a 
complete  system  of  education  was  provided,  including  a 
university  or  two,  primary  schools,  academies,  and  free 
common  schools.  Funds  came  in  slowly,  however,  and 
succeeding  legislatures  were  lax  in  passing  laws  for  which 
there  was  no  urgent  demand  on  the  part  of  the  voter.  It 
happened,  therefore,  that  there  was  really  no  system  of  free 
schools  above  those  of  the  district  grade  before  1850  and, 
owing  to  the  strength  of  the  religious  sects  in  the  State,  the 
public  university  did  not  get  the  support  that  it  deserved.4 

1  Calvin  E.  Stowe's  Common  Schools  O.     Randall     and    Daniel    J.     Ryan's 

and      Teachers'      Seminaries      (Boston,  History  of  Ohio,  iii,  367-396 :  and  Caleb 

1839),    pp.    5-64.     His     "Report     on  Atwater's  History  of  the  State  of  Ohio 

Elementary      Public      Instruction      in  (2nd  ed.) ,  298. 

Europe"  waa  made  to  the  36th  Gen-  *  According    to     the     first     Annual 

eral  Assembly  of  Ohio,   on   December  Report  of  Samuel  Lewis,  Superintendent 

19,  1837.  of  the  Ohio  Common  Schools  issued  in 

1  Two  acts  were  passed  for  the  sup-  January,     1838,     there    were    468,812 

port     of     common     schools    in     1831.  children  in  Ohio  between  the  ages  of 

These   were   altered   and   extended   in  four    and    twenty-one    years    (242,518 

1833,    1834,   and    later    years   and    in  males;      226,294    females).     Of    these 

1838  a  State  superintendent  of  public  only    146,440   attended   school   in   the 

schools  was  appointed.     See  Acts  of  a  preceding    year    and    of    them    84,296 

General    Nature  .  .  .  of    the    State    of  attended  for  less  than  four  months. 

Ohio    (Columbus,  1831) ,  vol.  xxix,  pp.  4  See  Revised  Laws  of  Indiana  (Cory- 

414,  423.     For  the  later  laws  see  ibid.,  don,    1824),   p.   379,   Act   of    January 

vol.  xxx,  p.  4;    vol.  xxxi,  p.  24;    vol.  31,  1824,  and  Revised  Laws  of  Indiana 

xxxii,  p.  35,  etc.;   Statutes  of  .  .  .  Ohio  (Indianapolis,    1831),    p.    463,    Act    of 

(1841),  819-845,   etc.;    A.   D.   Mayo's  February  10,  1831.     For  a  good,  brief 

"Development  of  the  Common  School  summary  of  early  education  in  Indiana, 

in   the   Western   States   from    1830   to  see  A.  D.  Mayo's  "Development  of  the 

1865"   forming   chapter  viii  of   Report  Common   School,"   373—380,  in  United 

of    the    United    States    Commissioner  States    Commissioner    of    Education's 

of  Education   for   1898-99,   vol.  i;    E.  Report,  1898-1899,  vol.  i. 


248  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

In  fact  these  paper  educational  systems,  based  on  federal 
land  grants  and  on  adventitious  financial  sources  as  tavern 
licenses,  do  not  seem  to  have  had  much  life  in  the  early  days 
and  it  was  not  until  the  people  began  to  pay  for  them  as  tax 
payers  —  direct  or  indirect  —  that  they  began  to  take  an 
effective  interest  in  them.  The  best  example  of  the  deaden- 
ing effect  of  education  without  cost  to  the  voters  is  seen  in 
the  case  of  Connecticut,  where  the  funds  derived  from  the 
sale  of  lands  in  the  Western  Reserve  obviated  the  necessity 
of  public  grants  by  the  State  and  local  units.  As  far  as  this 
money  went,1  the  school  system  was  well  provided  for,  but 
as  the  population  grew  and  systems  increased  in  cost, 
Connecticut  lagged  behind  her  two  great  neighbors. 

The  schools,  such  as  they  were,  were  "free"  in  the  sense 
only  that  no  white  person  was  excluded  from  them  by  reason 
of  poverty  or  position  in  the  social  scale.  Ordinarily,  the 
local  school  unit  was  authorized  to  levy  a  moderate  tax 
upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  school  area  for  educational 
purposes.  This  was  usually  inadequate  for  the  payment  of 
the  teacher's  wages,  small  though  they  were.  The  balance 
was  made  up  by  the  teacher's  "boarding  round"  — •  staying 
in  each  family  so  many  days,  according  to  the  number  of 
children  that  came  from  that  house  to  the  school.  Fuel 
was  provided  by  the  families  according  to  the  number  of 
pupils  in  each  household.  Whatever  money  had  to  be 
raised  by  the  district  to  pay  the  teacher's  wages  and  to  repair 
the  school  house  was  divided  among  the  families,  also, 
according  to  the  children  of  school  age.  This  was  called 
the  rate  bill,  and  in  many  States  the  assessors  were  authorized 

to  excuse  from  the  payment  of  the  school  rate  those  persons 

. 

1  See    an    act    of    the    General    As-  share   of   this   fund   for  religious   pur- 

eembly,     dated     May,      1795,     which  poses,  they  may  do  so ;   Acts  and  Laws 

provides  that  if  two-thirds  of  the  legal  of  .  .  .  Connecticut  (1796),  p.  31. 
voters  in  any  town  wish  to  use  their 


1830]  THE   MIDDLE   STATES  249 

who  were  unable  to  pay  it.  Their  children  could  go  to 
school,  but  they  were  referred  to  officially  as  "pauper  pupils" 
or  "charity  pupils." 

A  good  example  of  the  working  of  the  charity  school 
system  is  to  be  found  in  Pennsylvania.  The  constitution  of 
that  State  of  1790  directed  the  legislative  body  to  provide 
education  for  the  poor  gratis,  as  soon  as  convenient.1 
Naturally,  nothing  was  done  for  some  years.  In  1812, 
however,  provision  was  made  for  the  free  education  of  poor 
children,  but  it  was  done  in  such  a  way  as  to  put  a  stigma 
upon  the  child,  as  the  recipient's  name  was  entered  upon  a 
special  list  as  a  poor  person.  The  working  people  looked 
askance  at  the  system :  they  wanted  their  children  to  be 
educated,  but  were  not  able  to  pay  for  it,  or  thought  they 
were  not,  and  felt  that  the  tax-paying  part  of  the  community 
ought  to  provide  for  the  education  of  the  children  of  the 
"workies"  in  common  with  their  own.2  In  answer,  the 
Pennsylvania  legislature  established  a  permissive  system  of 
common  schools  at  public  expense  so  far  as  the  different 
portions  of  the  State  wished  to  have  them.  Not  very  much 
was  accomplished  under  this  law,  partly  because  of  the 
racial  distinctions  that  prevailed  in  the  different  parts  of 
the  State.3  In  1801,  the  legislature  of  New  York  authorized 

1  Constitutions        of       Pennsylvania  ments  relating  to  this  subject  are  printed 

(Harrisburg,   1916),  p.  194,  article  vii,  in  American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  v. 
sec.    1.     The   second   section   provides  *  Proceedings    and    Debates    of    the 

that  "The  arts  and  sciences  shall  be  Convention    of    the     Commonwealth    of 

promoted   in   one   or   more   seminaries  Pennsylvania     (Harrisburg,    1838),    v, 

of    learning."     These    two    provisions  183.     For   further   debates   on   educa- 

were   repeated    verbatim   in    the    con-  tion,   see  ibid.,   vols.   xi,   xii,   and  xiv, 

Btitution    of    1838.     It   was   not   until  using    the    indexes,    and    pp.    297-305 

the    constitution    of    1873    (article    x,  of   Isaac   Sharpless'    Two   Centuries   of 

sec.    1)    that    a    direct    provision    was  Pennsylvania,    History.     In    1837,    the 

made  in  the  fundamental  law  of  the  Secretary  of   State   reported   that   the 

State  for  the  maintenance  of  a  system  "public  cost  of  education"  amounted  to 

of  public  schools  (see  ibid.,  p.  67).  $585,000  for  primary  instruction,  acad- 

1  See     Commons     and     Associates'  emies  had  received  $106,900  and  land 

History  of  Labour  in  the  United  States,  worth     $135,000,     and     colleges     had 

using    index    under    "education,"    es-  been  paid  in  money  and  land  $260,000. 

pecially  vol.  i,  223-230.     Many  docu-  Moreover,  a  school  house  fund  of  nearly 


250  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

the  raising  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  by  four  successive 
lotteries  for  the  promotion  of  literature.  A  part  of  this 
money  was  to  be  given  to  institutions  of  a  higher  grade,1 
but  a  part  was  to  be  paid  over  to  those  who  were  actually 
educating  the  children  in  the  common  schools  of  the  State 
and  there,  as  in  Philadelphia,  the  work  was  being  done  by 
private  societies.  And  there,  as  in  Philadelphia,  the  working 
people  thought  that  their  children  should  be  educated  by 
the  public  without  any  expense  to  the  parents. 

The  leaders  in  this  movement  for  free  public  schools  in  the 
two  great  industrial  States  were  Robert  Dale  Owen  and 
Frances  Wright.  Owen  had  been  a  pupil  of  Fellenberg's 
at  Hofwyl  in  Switzerland.  Their  plan  was  worked  out  in 
the  "Sketch  of  a  System  of  National  Education"  by  Frances 
Wright.2  According  to  this  plan  the  State  should  be  or- 
ganized into  districts.  All  the  children  within  each  district 
from  two  to  sixteen  years  of  age  should  be  gathered  into 
public  schools  in  three  groups,  the  middle  group  comprising 
those  from  six  to  twelve  years.  The  parents  were  to  be 
allowed  to  visit  the  children  at  stated  times,  but  were  not 
to  interfere  in  any  way  with  them.  The  pupils  were  to  be 
instructed  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  intellectual  and 
operative,  or  vocational.  The  produce  of  the  labor  of  the 
older  pupils  would  in  time  exceed  the  cost  of  their  own 
training  and  the  surplus  could  be  devoted  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  others.  For  the  rest,  the  parents  were  to  pay  some- 
thing in  money,  labor,  produce,  or  domestic  manufactures, 
and  whatever  other  expense  there  was  should  be  met  by  a 
progressively  increasing  tax  on  property.  From  the  age  of 

half  a  million  had  been  expended,  Pro-  *  Popular  Tracts,  No.  3  (New  York, 

ceedings   and  Debates  of  the  Convention  1830).      For   a   substantial   account   of 

.  .  .  of  Pennsylvania  (1837),  iii,  pp.  6,  7.  her,   see  G.   B.   Lockwood's  New  Har- 

1  Laws     of  .  .  .  New     York     passed  many,  186  and  fol. 
...  in  the  year  1801   (Albany,   1887), 
v,  299. 


18371  HORACE   MANN  251 

two  years,  the  children  would  be  under  the  care  of  the 
State.  No  inequality  of  any  kind  would  be  allowed,  they 
would  be  clothed  in  a  common  garb,  "uniting  neatness  with 
simplicity  and  convenience"  and  would  eat  at  a  common 
table  and  exercise  common  duties.  This  nationalization  of 
children  did  not  commend  itself  to  any  large  number  of 
persons  at  that  time,  1830 ;  but  something  similar  to  it 
was  tried  in  more  than  one  of  the  "communities"  which 
were  so  frequent  in  the  first  part  of  the  century.1 

Resulting  partly  from  the  work  of  semi-professional 
agitators  and  partly  from  the  widespread  reformatory 
spirit  of  the  time,  legislatures  and  those  interested  in  educa- 
tion pushed  forward  the  establishment  of  common  schools. 
These  were  schools  above  the  primary  grade  that  were  free  to 
all  and  entirely  supported  by  public  money,  and  in  which 
the  studies  taught  were  modernized  by  the  dropping  of 
Greek  and  Latin  and  better  facilities  were  provided  for  the 
comfort  of  pupils  and  teachers.2  The  person  who  had 
most  to  do  with  the  practical  bringing  to  pass  of  the  changes 
in  the  school  system  was  Horace  Mann  of  Massachusetts. 
Largely  owing  to  his  efforts,  a  State  Board  of  Education 
was  established  in  Massachusetts,  in  1837,  thus  introducing 
the  Prussian  system  of  educational  organization.3  Mann 
became  secretary  of  this  board.  He  travelled  all  over  the 
State  examining  schools  and  drew  up  reports  that  put  an 
end  forever  to  the  old  idea  of  local  control  of  educational 

1  See  below,  ch.  xv.  the    area   of    Virginia    "it   is   unques- 

1  See   "Report"   of   the   Committee  tionable   that   she   has   more   influence 

on    Education    of    the    Massachusetts  in  our  confederacy  than  any  other  State 

House    of    Representatives,    presented  in  it.     Whence  this  ascendancy  ?     From 

January  29,  1827,  Massachusetts  House  her    attention    to    education,   unques- 

Reports,  1826-27,  Nos.  29  and  34.  tionably.     There    can    be   no   stronger 

1  Jefferson,  in  1820,  speaking  of  the  proof  that  knowledge  is  power,  and  that 

influence    of    the    old    Massachusetts  ignorance  is  weakness."     Early  History 

school     system,     said     that     although  of    the     University     of     Virginia,  .  .  . 

that  State  was  the  twenty-first  State  in  the  Letters  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and 

in    point   of   size    and   only   one-tenth  Joseph  C.  Cabell,  193. 


252  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

institutions.  New  standards  were  set  up  and  the  schools, 
not  only  of  Massachusetts  but  of  other  States,  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  come  up  to  them  or  to  approach  them  at  any  rate. 
Horace  Mann  also  brought  about  the  establishment  of  a 
few  normal  schools  for  the  training  of  teachers.1  This 
meant  the  formation  of  a  class  of  professional  pedagogues, 
—  for  up  to  that  time  teachers,  apart  from  the  keepers  of 
"dame  schools,"  had  been  college  students  in  the  seven 
weeks  winter  vacation  or  students  of  law,  physic,  or  theol- 
ogy.2 There  was  great  opposition  to  these  changes  by  the 
old  timers  and  their  influence  was  so  strong  with  the  legis- 
lature that  Horace  Mann,  although  a  public  official,  was  at 
one  time  obliged  to  rely  upon  the  contributions  of  rich 
men  to  keep  the  new  system  alive.  In  1847,  he  resigned  his 
office  to  become  a  member  of  Congress,  but  in  ten  years 
he  had  directed  the  tide  of  interest  in  educational  matters 
towards  improved,  free,  secondary  schools  of  an  unsectarian 
character.3  In  time  free  high  schools  were  superadded  to 
this  system  which  in  its  perfected  form  was  intended  to 
provide  free  instruction  of  the  old  collegiate  grade  for  every 
child  in  the  State.  As  a  part  of  the  general  movement, 
state-aid  was  taken  away  from  academies  and  the  old 


1  See    Putnam's    Primary    and    Sec-  defence  of  them  will  be  found  in  Re- 

ondary  Education  in  Michigan,  136.  marks   on   the   Seventh   Annual   Report 

*  In  1804,  commencement  was  usu-  of   the    Hon.    Horace    Mann    (Boston, 
ally  at  the  end  of  August,  the  winter  1844);     his    Reply    to    the    "Remarks" 
vacation   seven   weeks  from  the   third  (Boston,     1844) ;      Leonard     Withing- 
or    fourth    Wednesday    in    December,  ton's  Penitential  Tears;    or  a  Cry  from 
and  two  weeks  in  May  and  four  weeks  the  Dust,   by  "  The   Thirty-One,"   Pros- 
after    commencement,    Columbian    Al-  trated  and   Pulverized   by   the   Hand   of 
manack  for  1804,  p.  43.  Horace  Mann,  Secretary,    &c.    (Boston, 

*  Mrs.      Mary      Peabody      Mann's  1845) ;    and  George  B.  Emerson's  06- 
Life   and    Works    of   Horace   Mann    (3  servations  on  a  Pamphlet  entitled  "  Re- 
vols.,     Boston,      1865-68).     His     edu-  marks."     Much     interesting     informa- 
cational  papers   are  included  in   these  tion  is  to  be  found  in  the  reports  of  the 
volumes,    which    were    later    enlarged  "Visiting  Committees"  of  the  Boston 
and    reprinted    by    his    son,     Horace  schools  as  that  for  1845  forming  "City 
Mann,  in  5  volumes  in  1891.     A  strong  Document"  No.  26  for  that  year, 
criticism  of  Mann's  methods  and  his 


1840]  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS  253 

colleges,  which  in  the  future  had  to  rely  on  private  bene- 
factions and  tuition  fees  for  support. 

The  tax  payers  and  the  well-to-do  generally  were  against 
any  scheme  of  the  kind  such  as  Horace  Mann  and  his  fellow 
laborers  wished  to  see  established.  They  paid  for  the 
education  of  their  own  children  and  failed  to  see  why  they 
should  also  pay  for  the  education  of  the  children  of  their 
neighbors.  As  the  century  advanced  and  an  industrial 
class  came  into  being  and  as  the  number  of  immigrants  in- 
creased an  entirely  new  outlook  was  presented.  It  was 
then  easy  to  argue  that  with  the  extension  of  the  franchise 
and  the  establishment  of  a  laboring  class,  education  would 
be  a  species  of  insurance  against  attacks  on  property, 
pauperism,  and  crimes  of  violence.  Jefferson,  with  his 
keen  insight,  asserted  that  the  establishment  of  a  free  public 
educational  system  at  the  cost  of  the  tax  payers  would  be  a 
direct  benefit  to  the  rich  man.  It  would  people  his  neighbor- 
hood with  "  honest,  useful,  and  enlightened  citizens,  under- 
standing their  own  rights,  and  firm  in  their  perpetuation." 
Moreover,  within  three  generations,  the  rich  man's  descend- 
ants would  themselves  be  poor  and  would  benefit  by  the 
free  public  school  system  that  had  been  established  by  their 
grandfathers'  money. 

It  is  truly  remarkable  how  slight  America's  contribution 
had  been  to  the  practice  and  organization  of  teaching.  Our 
school  system  comes  from  Prussia,  our  pedagogics  down 
to  1860  at  any  rate  from  Switzerland,  from  Pestalozzi, 
Emanuel  Fellenberg,  and  Louis  Agassiz.  The  ideas  seem 
to  have  been  those  of  Pestalozzi,  but  their  first  practical 
exemplification  was  by  Fellenberg,  his  disciple  or  follower. 
L.ccording  to  this  idea  instruction,  instead  of  being  a  matter 
)f  memory  and  of  acquisition,  should  be  the  result  of  thought 

id  of  analysis.     Children  should  be  employed  in  all  kinds 


254 


EDUCATION 


[CH.  VIII 


of  work  and  play  and  these  should  be  frequently  changed  so 
as  not  to  become  wearisome ;  they  should  study  languages 
and  mathematics  under  competent  direction,  engage  in 
games  under  supervision,  and  cultivate  the  soil  under  proper 
guidance.  Fellenberg's  "Institutions"  were  at  Hofwyl  in 
Switzerland.  They  provided  for  the  children  of  both  the 
rich  and  the  poor.  These  did  not  live  together,  but  the 
surplus  fees  of  the  rich  were  used  to  augment  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  poor  who  were  taught  scientific  farming  by 
actual  practice.  It  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  any  exact  con- 
clusion as  to  the  success  of  the  Hofwyl  experiment.1  Most 
of  the  information  that  we  have  about  it  is  controversial 
and  comes  from  sympathizers,  but  one  thing  is  certain 
that,  owing  in  part  at  least  to  the  conditions  of  the  times, 
no  long  life  attended  Fellenberg's  Institutions. 

In  the  establishment  of  free  education,  whether  by 
private  societies  or  by  public  means,  the  question  of  ex- 
pense always  came  forward.  One  way  of  economizing  that 
enjoyed  great  prosperity  for  a  while  was  to  have  the  older 
pupils  teach  the  younger.  This  system  was  devised  by 


1  According  to  Fellenberg,  educa- 
tion should  "develop  all  the  faculties 
of  our  nature,  physical,  intellectual, 
and  moral,  and  to  endeavor  to  train 
and  unite  them  into  one  harmonious 
system,  which  shall  form  the  most 
perfect  character  of  which  the  indi- 
vidual is  susceptible;  and  thus  pre- 
pare him  for  every  period,  and  every 
sphere  of  action  to  which  he  may  be 
called."  As  an  example  of  his  method 
in  teaching  mineralogy,  he  called  upon 
the  pupil  to  use  his  own  senses  to  de- 
scribe the  color  and  form  of  the  mineral 
presented,  to  observe  its  weight,  and  to 
test  its  hardness,  and  to  compare  it 
with  other  objects  and  other  minerals, 
and  then  he  is  given  the  name.  The 
best  description  of  the  Hofwyl  In- 
stitutions is  in  the  Letters  written  by 
William  C.  Woodbridge  and  printed 


in  the  American  Annals  of  Education 
in  1831  and  1832,  and  also  as  the  Ap- 
pendix to  Letters  from  Hofwyl  by  a 
Parent  (London,  1842),  pp.  225  and  fol. 
For  a  brief  account  of  Hofwyl  see 
Edinburgh  Review  for  December.  1818 
and  Educational  Institutions  of  Emanuel 
de  Fellenberg  by  his  son,  Wilhelm  de 
Fellenberg  (London,  1859).  See  also 
Lettre  de  M.  Ch.  Pictet,  published  at 
Paris  in  1812 ;  and  other  worka  of 
Pictet  have  other  matter  relating  to 
Hofwyl.  An  interesting  engraving 
showing  the  Hofwyl  Institutions  is 
in  J.  K.  Bellweger's  Die  Schweizerischen 
Armenschulen  nach  Fellenberg' schen 
Grundsaken  (Trogen,  1845).  There  is  a 
lifelike  glimpse  of  Hofwyl  in  Robert 
Dale  Owen's  Threading  My  Way,  146 
and  fol. 


1830] 


LANCASTERIAN  SYSTEM 


255 


Andrew  Bell  or  by  Joseph  Lancaster  *  or  by  both  of  them. 
The  idea  is  said  to  have  come  to  Bell  in  India  by  observing 
the  children  of  a  Malabar  school  writing  with  their  fingers 
on  the  sand.  As  the  system  was  worked  out,  the  children 
sat  at  tables  covered  with  fine  sand  on  which  they  wrote 
with  rattan  styluses.  An  older  pupil,  or  monitor,  wrote  a 
letter  or  a  syllable  on  a  blackboard  and  pronounced  it ;  the 
pupils  copied  it  on  their  sand  tables  and  then  repeated  the 
sound  in  unison.  The  method  at  once  found  favor  in  Eng- 
land and  even  greater  favor  in  America.  Primary  education 
in  New  York  2  and  Philadelphia  was  then  in  the  hands  of 
private  societies  which  were  maintained  largely  by  the 
Quakers.  These  naturally  adopted  Lancaster's  system 
because  that  was  supported  by  the  English  dissenters 
while  Bell's  plans  had  been  adopted  by  the  Established 
Church  people.  With  the  advancing  decades  the  system 
became  more  and  more  elaborate,  until  the  teachers  were 
really  more  than  older  pupils,  being  paid  and  partly  trained. 
As  far  as  numbers  went,  the  Lancasterian  schools  were  very 
successful.  They  spread  from  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
as  far  west  and  south  as  Detroit  and  Cincinnati,  Louis- 
ville and  Baltimore,  and  there  was  a  "monitorial  school" 
in  Boston  in  1823.3  This  was  conducted  on  the  "  united 
plans  of  Lancaster  and  Pestalozzi " ;  there  were  seventy- 
five  pupils,  their  ages  ranging  from  five  years  to  eighteen. 


1  See  Note  II  at  end  of  chapter. 

lSee  "Sketch  of  the  New- York 
Free  School"  prefixed  to  the  Ameri- 
can edition  of  Lancaster's  Improve- 
ments in  Education  (New  York,  1807) ; 
J.  F.  Reigart's  "Lancasterian  System 
of  Instruction  in  the  Schools  of  New 
York  City"  (Columbia  University  Con- 
tributions to  Education,  No.  81) ;  and  C. 
C.  Ellis's  Lancasterian  Schools  in  Phila- 
delphia. This  and  the  preceding 
essay  contain  helpful  bibliographies. 


Wm.  Oland  Bourne  on  pages  14-24 
of  his  History  of  the  Public  School 
Society  of  the  City  of  New  York  prints 
De  Witt  Clinton's  address  of  1809, 
which  is  one  of  the  very  best  brief  ac- 
counts of  the  introduction  of  the  moni- 
torial system  in  America. 

SW.  B.  Fowle's  First  Biennial  Re- 
port of  the  Trustees  and  Instructer  of 
the  Monitorial  School,  Boston  (Bos- 
ton, 1826). 


256  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

So  well  thought  of  were  the  Lancasterian  schools  that  in 
1819  the  Massachusetts  Peace  Society  declared  the  aboli- 
tion of  war  would  provide,  among  other  things,  for  the 
establishment  of  such  schools  "over  the  globe,"  in  which 
all  the  children  of  the  world  could  be  constantly  taught ! 
On  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  enemies  of  the  system,  referring 
to  the  fact  that  neither  paper  nor  slate  was  necessary,  be- 
cause the  characters  were  written  by  a  rattan  stylus  in  sand 
sprinkled  on  a  table  —  declared  that  the  Lancasterian 
system  "was  cheap,  very  cheap!  Sand  and  rattan  were 
its  chief  outlay,  and  .  .  .  sand  and  rattan  were  its  chief 
returns." 

The  colleges  in  point  of  numbers  and  in  scholastic 
quality  were  poorer  off  in  1800  than  they  had  been  in  1750 ; 
but  they  began  to  arouse  themselves  in  the  early  years  of 
the  century.  The  governing  boards  of  Harvard  College 
provided  that  the  conditions  of  admission  must  be  higher 
than  heretofore.  Besides  both  Greek  and  Latin  transla^ 
tion  and  grammar  and  the  turning  of  English  into  Latin, 
students  in  the  future  were  to  be  examined  in  addition  and 
subtraction  and  other  branches  of  arithmetic  and  in  some 
approved  "Compendium  of  Geography."1  Within  a  few 
years  the  instruction  in  the  college  itself  was  considerably 
modified  and  in  the  1830's,  it  looked  for  a  time  as  if  the 
German  influence  would  bring  about  an  extension  of  the 
curriculum,  or  even  the  establishment  of  something  approach- 
ing an  elective  system.  A  similar  tendency  toward  change 
and  experimentation  was  shown  in  the  reorganization  of 
the  governing  board.  Until  1800  Harvard  was  practically 
a  State  university  and  was  so  recognized  in  the  constitution 
of  1780.  Its  governing  board  included  the  principal  State 
officials  and  certain  Congregational  ministers.  In  1810, 

1  Boston  Independent  Chronicle  for  February  6,  1804. 


1830]  THE   COLLEGES  257 

provision  was  made  for  the  election  of  fifteen  Congregational 
ministers  and  fifteen  laymen  by  the  existing  Board  of  Over- 
seers in  addition  to  the  principal  political  officers  of  the 
State.  In  1812,  this  arrangement  was  overturned  and  the 
old  colonial  organization  restored.  But  two  years  later  in 
1814,  the  act  of  1810  was  restored  with  the  addition  that 
the  members  of  the  State  Senate  should  be  added  to  the 
Board  of  Overseers.  In  1834,  the  requirement  that  the 
clergymen  should  be  Congregationalists  disappeared,  and 
in  1851  the  requirement  that  any  of  its  members  should  be 
ministers  was  abandoned.  In  1865,  State  officials  ceased 
to  sit  on  the  Board  and  the  election  of  Overseers  was  given 
to  the  alumni.  In  the  early  days  the  colony  had  provided 
a  large  part  of  the  funds  for  the  support  of  the  college.  Its 
financial  interest  in  the  institution  declined,  however,  and 
after  the  Revolution  practically  ceased.1  Tuition  fees  and 
salaries  were  diminutive  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  In  1828  fifty-five  dollars  and  forty  cents  were  paid 
for  board,  tuition,  and  breakage  for  a  boy  at  Harvard  for  a 
term.  This  amount  was  excessive  in  comparison  with  M. 
M.  Strong's  quarter  bill  at  Middlebury  College  in  the  pre- 
ceding year,  which  was  only  nine  dollars  and  eighty-eight 
cents  for  tuition,  lodging,  and  the  use  of  the  college  library, 
and  thirty-eight  cents  for  repairs.2  Scholastic  desire,  how- 
ever, was  in  the  air  and  boys  of  fourteen  read  wide  and 
deeply,  far  beyond  the  requirements  of  their  teachers  and 
became  the  scholars  of  the  century. 

The  list  of  studies  in  those  days  included  no  science  or 
technical   subjects.     Professor  John   Winthrop   had   given 

1  General     Laws     of     Massachusetts  to  that  institution. 

(ed.  1823),  ii,  251,  312,  347,  405,  etc.;  *  Strong  Mss.  in  the  library  of  the 

Massachusetts  House  of  Representatives  Wisconsin  Historical  Society.     On  the 

Reports  for  1827,  No.  28.     The  annual  other  hand  he  paid  six  dollars  for  a 

Catalogue    of    Harvard    University    re-  copy  of  "Jones's  Lexicon." 
prints   the   official   documents   relating 

VOL.  V.  —  8 


258  EDUCATION  [Ca.  VIII 

some  lectures  on  astronomy  and  scientific  matters  in  the 
preceding  century  but  he  seems  to  have  had  no  immediate 
successor.  In  1788,  the  Harvard  Corporation  authorized 
Dr.  Benjamin  Waterhouse,  who  had  been  lecturing  on 
natural  history  at  Providence  for  a  year  or  two,  to  deliver 
annually  a  course  of  lectures  on  this  subject  "to  such  stu- 
dents as  shall  obtain  permission,  under  the  hands  of  their 
Parents  or  Guardians"  at  one  guinea  for  each  hearer. 
Waterhouse  lectured  for  years,1  drawing  his  information 
from  the  best  writers  of  the  time  and  stimulating  many 
persons  to  the  study  and  endowment  of  science. 

Philadelphia  was  the  first  seat  of  American  science, 
partly  no  doubt  because  it  had  for  years  sheltered  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  David  Rittenhouse.  As  far  back  as  1728, 
Franklin  had  instituted  a  scientific  society  that  in  1769 
was  refounded  as  the  American  Philosophical  Society 2 
with  himself  as  president.  The  University  of  Pennsylvania 
had  recognized  the  desirability  of  scientific  instruction  and 
in  1800  possessed  a  professor  of  chemistry,3  mineralogy, 
and  physics.  His  name  was  James  Woodhouse  and  his 
lectures  served  to  pass  on  the  scientific  learning  of  one 
generation  to  the  next.  More  important  in  every  way 
was  Robert  Hare.4  He  was  the  son  of  a  brewer  and  watch- 

1  In    1803,    Waterhouse    began    the  School,  178S-1902  edited  by  Dr.  Harold 

publication  of  articles  on  botany  and  C.   Ernst  and  published  at  Boston  in 

other  scientific  themes  in  the  Monthly  1906,  pp.  15-20. 

Anthology   and   Boston   Review.     These  *  For  the  early  history  of  this  or- 

articles  greatly  enlarged  were  gathered  ganization   see  Laws   and    Regulations 

into    a    book    entitled     The    Botanist.  of  the   American  Philosophical  Society 

Being    the    botanical    part    of   a    course  (Philadelphia,  1833) ,  pp.  27,  28. 

of    lectures    (Boston,     1811).     He    also  'John    Penington's     Chemical    and 

dabbled    in    literature,   writing   a   ro-  Economical  Essays  published  at  Phila- 

mance     entitled     A     Journal,     of     a  delphia  in  1790  was  the  first  book  to  be 

Young  Man  of  Massachusetts,  ...  on  printed    in    America    devoted  entirely 

Board     An     American     Privateer     and  to  chemistry. 

printed  a  substantial  volume  on  Junius  *  See  Edgar  F.  Smith's  Life  of  Robert 

and  his  Letters  (Boston,  1831).     There  Hare,    an    American    Chemist    (Phila- 

is  a  sketch  of  the  life  of  Dr.  Waterhouse  delphia,    1917)    and    his  Chemistry  in 

in  a  book  entitled  The  Harvard  Medical  America  (New  York,  1914),  ch.  viii. 


1800]  SCIENCE  259 

ing  the  processes  of  brewing  may  have  incited  him  to  in- 
quiry. While  still  a  mere  lad,  he  made  the  first  workable 
oxy-hydrogen  blow-pipe,  although  possibly  he  cannot  be 
regarded  as  the  discoverer  of  it.  His  development  had  been 
influenced  greatly  by  Priestley  and  later  as  a  professor  in 
the  University,  he  devoted  himself  mainly  to  electricity. 
The  popularization  of  science,  however,  is  connected  with 
Yale  College  and  with  the  names  of  Timothy  Dwight  and 
Benjamin  Silliman.  The  former  was  a  Congregational 
clergyman  of  stupendous  industry,  wide  range  of  learning, 
and  remarkable  judgment.  He  published  many  /books 
and  his  posthumous  "Travels  in  New-England  and  New- 
York"  l  can  be  read  with  profit,  even  now.  At  the  age  of 
forty-three  and  in  the  year  1795,  Dwight  became  president 
of  Yale  College.  He  redirected  the  course  of  that  institu- 
tion into  the  orthodox  path,  but,  besides,  was  happily 
inspired  with  the  thought  that  the  students  might  well  be 
somewhat  weaned  from  the  classics  and  theology  and  given 
a  taste  of  science.  There  was  no  one  in  America  who  could 
do  what  he  wished  and  he  hesitated  to  import  a  foreigner. 
Looking  about  him,  he  selected  Tutor  Silliman  for  the  job. 
This  young  man  was  then  twenty-one  years  of  age,  was  teach- 
ing the  ancient  languages  and  studying  law,  and  was  as 
innocent  of  science  as  any  man  in  Connecticut.  Dwight's 
plan  was  that  a  "chair"  of  chemistry  and  natural  history 
should  be  established,  that  Silliman  should  be  appointed 
to  fill  it,  and  should  then  study  the  subject  at  the  expense 
of  the  college.  After  some  hesitation  Silliman  agreed  to 
the  plan,  the  trustees  ratified  the  scheme,  and  the  new  pro- 
fessor departed  for  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  He  got 
little  help  at  the  first-named  place,  but  in  the  latter  he 

1  This  was  published  in  four  volumes  at  New  Haven  in  1821-22.     An  edition 
appeared  in  London  in  1823. 


260  EDUCATION  ICH.  Vlft 

listened  to  Woodhouse,  conversed  with  Priestley,  and  worked 
with  Hare.  Returning  to  New  Haven,  he  lectured  on  science 
with  illustrative  experiments  and  won  an  audience  at  once. 
His  apparatus  was  crude  and,  according  to  his  own  account, 
his  lectures  were  less  scientific  than  his  experiments.1  The 
college  authorities  were  so  well  satisfied  with  him  that  they 
sent  him  to  England  to  buy  apparatus  for  his  laboratory  and 
books  for  the  college  library,  —  paying  him  his  salary  and 
giving  him  a  percentage  on  the  money  expended  for  appara- 
tus and  books.  At  London  and  Edinburgh,  Silliman  made 
good  use  of  his  opportunities  for  scientific  study.  Return- 
ing to  New  Haven,  he  renewed  his  college  lecturing  and 
sought  wider  opportunities  of  service.  In  1818,  he  estab- 
lished "The  American  Journal  of  Science  and  Arts"  and 
edited  it  so  well  that  in  a  few  years  it  became  self-supporting. 
He  also  lectured  to  the  people  of  New  Haven  and  neighbor- 
ing towns  and  gradually  sought  larger  centres  until  he  be- 
came a  well-known  figure  on  the  platform.  As  a  student, 
and  as  an  inciter  to  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  by  others, 
Benjamin  Silliman's  life  was  one  of  the  most  striking  in 
our  annals. 

Apart  from  the  awakening  of  the  older  collegiate  institu- 
tions in  response  to  the  intellectual  movement  of  the  age  of 
Emerson,  the  foundation  of  the  Universities  of  New  York 
and  of  Virginia  and  the  opening  of  the  Southern  and  West- 
ern State  Universities  are  points  of  interest.  The  origin 
of  the  New  York  University  is  confused.2  Some  people 

1  See  George  P.  Fisher's  Life  of  Ben-  University   of  the   State   of  New    York, 
jamin  Silliman.   especially  vol.  i,   chs.  Origin,   History  and  Present  Organiza- 
iii  and  iv  and  Edgar  F.  Smith's  Chem-  tion  forming  Regents'  Bulletin,  No.  11, 
istry  in  America,  ch.  ix.  January,  1893  or  "Appendix  3"  of  the 

2  For    accounts    of    the    University  106th    Annual    Report    of   the    Regents. 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  see  Frank-  The  statutory  condition    of   education 
lin   B.   Hough's   Historical  and   Statis-  in  New  York,  both  primary  and  higher, 
tical    Record    of   the    University    of   the  may  most  easily  be  seen  in  the  Revised 
State  of  New   York  .  .  .  1784  to  1884  Statutes  of  the  State  of  New-York  (1829), 
(Albany,  1885)  and  Sidney  Sherwood's  chap.  xv. 


1818]  SILLIMAN'S  JOURNAL  261 

have  argued  that  the  intention  was  to  found  something 
like  an  English  University  composed  of  a  group  of  semi- 
independent  colleges  under  one  management,  the  difference 
being  that  the  colleges  instead  of  being  within  the  limits  of 
one  town  as  in  England  would  be  within  the  limits  of  one 
State  of  the  American  union.  The  other  theory  is  that  the 
New  York  legislature  was  influenced  by  French  ideas,  by  the 
thought  of  combining  all  education  within  the  State  limits 
under  one  governing  board.  In  1784,  the  State  legislature 
established  the  Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  of 
New  York.  They  had  the  right  of  visitation  of  all  incor- 
porated institutions  of  learning  in  the  State  and  such  second- 
ary schools  as  they  should  take  into  their  care.  They  were 
authorized  to  hold  property  to  the  amount  of  an  annual  in- 
come equal  to  the  value  of  forty  thousand  bushels  of  wheat 
and  were  to  apportion  whatever  funds  came  to  them  from  the 
State  among  the  institutions  under  their  charge  according 
to  rules  of  scholastic  efficiency  to  be  laid  down  by  them. 
At  first  the  history  of  the  new  university  was  hardly  more 
than  the  story  of  a  contest  between  the  State  authorities 
and  King's  College,  which  changed  its  name  to  Columbia.1 
The  law  establishing  the  Regents  of  the  University  has  been 
modified  from  time  to  time  and  the  control  of  primary  and 
secondary  education  has  been  entrusted  to  a  separate  board ; 
but,  when  all  has  been  said,  it  is  still  true  that  this  institu- 
tion has  played  a  very  great  part  in  the  history  of  the  de- 
velopment of  education  in  New  York  and  in  the  United 
States. 

The  University  of  Virginia  was  peculiarly  the  child  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  still  lives 2  with  many  of  the  dis- 

1  Laws    of   the    State    of  New    York  "Appendix." 

(Albany,  1886) ,  i,   686 ;   Van  Amringe  *  The  best  account  of  the  founding 

(editor),  Historical  Sketch  of  Columbia  of  the  University  of  Virginia  is  in  the 

College  .  .  .  1754-1876,   especially   the  Early  History  of  the  University  of  Vir- 


262 


EDUCATION 


[On.  VIII 


tinctive  features  that  he  looked  upon  as  of  great  importance, 
and  in  the  first  thirty  or  forty  years  of  its  existence  it  pro- 
duced a  most  remarkable  set  of  men.  In  1817,  Jefferson 
drew  up  a  plan  for  the  division  of  Virginia  into  districts, 
in  each  of  which  there  should  be  a  free  public  school  pro- 
viding primary  and  secondary  instruction.  Grouping  these 
districts  together  into  nine  collegiate  divisions,  he  proposed 
to  provide  a  college  for  each,  so  that  no  house  in  the  State 
should  be  more  than  a  day's  ride  from  a  college.  Above 
them  all,  at  some  central  point,  there  should  be  a  university 
at  which  every  branch  of  learning  should  be  taught.  He 
and  his  friends  found  their  way  beset  with  difficulties. 
The  genius  of  Virginia  society  was  opposed  to  any  such 
scheme  of  primary  and  secondary  education.  Moreover, 
the  religious  bodies  were  unfalteringly  hostile  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  non-sectarian  collegiate  institutions  and  a  State 
university,  especially  by  the  expenditure  of  public  money, 
while  they  themselves  were  struggling  hard  to  keep  their 
own  colleges  alive.  When  Jefferson  had  once  put  his  hands 
to  the  plough,  it  was  difficult  to  make  him  turn  back,  al- 
though he  might  seem  to  be  diverted  from  his  purpose.  In 


ginia,  as  contained  in  the  Letters  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  Joseph  C.  Ca- 
bell  (Richmond,  1856).  Cabell  was 
Jefferson's  right  hand  man  and,  in- 
deed, deserves  to  be  called  the  co- 
founder  of  the  University.  This 
volume,  in  a  series  of  Appendices, 
contains  nearly  all  the  original  matter 
relating  to  the  subject.  A  brief  ac- 
count largely  founded  on  this  book 
is  J.  S.  Patton's  Jefferson,  Cabell,  and 
the  University  of  Virginia  (New  York, 
1906).  The  "Memorial  Association's" 
edition  of  Jefferson's  Writings  con- 
tains practically  all  the  Jefferson  ma- 
terial. Herbert  B.  Adams's  Thomas 
Jefferson  and  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia (U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education's 
Circular  of  Information,  No.  1,  1888)  is 
an  elaborate  account  of  the  founding 


and  later  history  of  the  institution. 
Possibly  the  most  interesting  thing  that 
has  been  written  on  the  subject  is  P. 
A.  Bruce's  "Background  of  Poe's 
University  Life"  in  The  South  Atlantic 
Quarterly,  x,  212,  and  the  first  part  of 
D.  M.  R.  Culbreth's  University  of 
Virginia  (New  York,  1908)  is  a  read- 
able account  of  the  early  time.  There 
are  some  interesting  glimpses  of  the 
institution  in  its  earliest  days  in  Ed- 
ward Warren's  A  Doctor's  Experiences 
in  Three  Continents,  pp.  92,  100,  115. 
In  May,  1810,  Jefferson  had  outlined 
a  part  of  his  ideas  as  to  a  university 
in  a  letter  to  Hugh  L.  White,  in  which 
he  refused  to  sell  lottery  tickets  for  the 
benefit  of  East  Tennessee  College ;  — • 
American  Historical  Magazine,  i,  296. 


1825]  UNIVERSITY   OF   VIRGINIA  263 

this  case  no  opportunity  escaped  him  to  forward  his  plan, 
although  for  a  time  his  interest  appeared  to  be  torpid.  He 
turned  an  inchoate  Albemarle  Academy  into  what  he 
called  Central  College  and  then,  in  1819,  secured  an  appro- 
priation from  the  Virginia  legislature  for  the  conversion  of 
that  college  into  his  long-hoped-for  non-sectarian  Univer- 
sity of  the  State  of  Virginia.  Already,  he  had  provided 
elaborate  plans  for  university  buildings.  These  would 
cost  a  great  deal  of  money,  but  would  constantly  instil 
culture  into  those  who  lived  in  them  and  used  them.  A 
rotunda,  one-half  the  size  of  the  Pantheon,  would  serve  as  a 
library  and  a  centre.  Stretching  from  it  was  a  range  of 
pavilions  and  cloisters.  The  pavilions  were  to  be  occupied 
by  professors  who  were  expected  to  be  bachelors  at  appoint- 
ment and  to  remain  so,  and  the  cloisters  and  the  cells  opening 
on  them  were  for  the  students.  As  the  buildings  pro- 
gressed and  the  demands  for  money  became  an  annual 
feature,  public  opinion  turned  against  the  project.  Then 
Jefferson  struck  his  last  blow.  Virginia  was  sending  her 
sons  to  Princeton  and  to  Harvard,  he  wrote,  where  they  were 
learning  anti-Missourian  principles  and  were  imbibing  ideas 
absolutely  opposed  to  those  held  by  the  people  of  the  State 
in  which  they  were  born  and  in  which  they  must  pass  their 
lives  ! l  Why  not  provide  an  institution  within  the  State 
that  would  give  them  a  better  education,  or  at  any  rate  as 
good  a  one?  The  university  was  opened  in  1825  and  im- 
mediately overflowed  with  students.2  The  sectarians  were 
more  alarmed  than  ever,  for  Jefferson  had  made  no  pro- 
vision for  a  professor  of  theology  and  some  of  the  professors 
that  he  had  drawn  from  abroad  were  free  thinkers.  In 
reply,  he  suggested  that  each  religious  sect  should  appoint 

1  Early  History  of  the   University  of  *  See  Enactments  relating  to  the  Con- 

Virginia  .  .  .  Letters  of  .  .  .  Jeffer-  stitution  and  Government  of  the  Uni- 
ton  and  .  .  .  Cabell,  201.  versity  of  Virginia  (Philadelphia,  1838). 


264  EDUCATION  [On.  VIII 

and  maintain  a  professor  of  its  own  kind  or  establish  a 
college  on  the  outskirts  of  the  university.  With  his  liberality 
as  to  administration,  he  provided  that  the  students  should 
govern  themselves,  most  of  them  being  of  the  mature  years 
of  from  thirteen  to  sixteen.1  It  is  sad  to  think  that  the  last 
year  of  his  life  and  of  his  career  as  Rector  of  the  University 
was  troubled  by  the  ill  behavior  of  a  few  of  the  first  set  of 
students  to  whom  scholastic  freedom,  such  as  Jefferson 
prescribed,  was  not  comprehensible. 

Of  the  collegiate  institutions  in  the  country  west  of  the 
mountains,  Transylvania  University  at  Lexington  in  Ken- 
tucky had  possibly  the  most  interesting  history  in  the  early 
time.2  It  was  originally  in  the  hands  of  the  Presbyterians, 
but  in  1818  Dr.  Horace  Holley,  then  pastor  of  the  Hollis 
Street  Church  at  Boston  and  a  Unitarian,  became  presi- 
dent. The  next  few  years  saw  a  most  astonishing  growth 
in  the  medical  as  well  as  in  the  academic  departments. 
Holley  was  soon  driven  out  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a 
Socinian  and  taught  "morality  and  the  beauty  of  nature 
and  not  Christ  crucified";  his  enemies  declaring  that  the 
gospel  was  "of  more  value  to  the  western  country  than 
all  the  science  upon  the  earth."  The  attendance  soon  fell 
off,  there  being  only  two  hundred  and  seventeen  students 
in  the  academic  department  in  1842.  Numbers,  of  course, 
mean  very  little  ordinarily  in  assessing  the  value  of  educa- 
tional effort ;  but  in  this  case  they  certainly  seem  to  show 
that  there  was  an  urgent  demand  for  good  non-sectarian 

1  Massachusetts        Historical        So-  Genius  and  Character  of  the  Rev.  Hor- 
ciety's   Collections,   7th  Series,   i,   356-  ace   Holley    (Boston,    1828)    containing 
360.  an    "Appendix"    by    "several    pens." 

2  See    Robert   and   Johanna   Peter's  Jefferson     Davis     attended     Transyl- 
Transylvania    University    (Filson    Club  vania  in   1821-1824  and  W.  L.   Flem- 
Publications,    No.    11).     This    and    all  ing's  "Early  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis" 
other  books  on  the  history  of  the  Uni-  in    the    Mississippi    Valley    Historical 
versity  down  to  1828  are  largely  based  Review  for  April,  1917,  has  a  few  pages 
on  Charles  Caldwell's  Discourse  on  the  on  the  institution  and  a  bibliography. 


1854J  BARNARD'S   REPORT  265 

instruction  in  Transappalachia  at  that  time.  In  fact, 
after  1840,  the  educational  impulse  in  the  Southwestern 
country  distinctly  diminished.  In  1854,  the  trustees  of 
the  University  of  Alabama  directed  the  faculty  of  that 
institution  to  draw  up  a  plan  for  the  establishment  of  the 
system  of  the  University  of  Virginia  at  Tuscaloosa.  This 
led  to  the  presentation  of  a  remarkable  report  by  Professors 

F.  A.  P.  Barnard  and  John  W.  Pratt.     This  is  in  some  ways 
the  best  survey  of  higher  education  in  the  United  States  in 
1850  to  be  found  in  print.     The  comparative  numbers  of 
students  in  the  universities  of  Virginia  and  Alabama  con- 
vinced them  that  there  was  no  demand  among  the  people 
of  the  latter  State  for  an  institution  of  the  Virginia  type. 
The  demand  was  really  for  the  opportunity  to  study  any- 
thing that  one  chose.     It  was  impossible  for  the  University 
to  provide  instruction  in  any  branch  that  any  Alabama  boy 
or  man,  regardless  of  his  previous  training,  might  desire, 
and  it  was  absurd  to  turn  the  University  into  a  sort  of  un- 
graded higher  institution  of  learning.     The  real  underlying 
objection  of  the  people  to  the  University  seems  to  have  been 
that  they  wished  for  vocational  training,  while  it  thought 
only  of  disciplining  the  mind.     Barnard  and  his  colleague  1 
closed  the  discussion  by  stating  that  after  leaving  college 
one  might  forget  his  Greek  and  Latin  and  retain  the  mental 
discipline  that  he  had  derived  from  the  study  of  the  classics 
which  he  could  apply  to  the  prosecution  of  any  business  in 
which  he  might  happen  to  engage,  —  to  the  practice  of  the 
law,  or  of  medicine,  or  of  theology,  or  to  the  prosecution 
of  any  technical  work,  or  to  the  pursuit  of  any  career. 

In  1800,  there  were  no  technical  schools  in  the  country 

1  See  Professor   Barnard's  Report   on  States    Bureau    of   Education's    Circu- 

Collegiate       Education       (New      York,  lar    of   Information  No.  3,    1889,  and 

1854).     On     the     general     subject     of  also    Dr.    Alva    Woods'    Literary    and 

education      in     Alabama,     see     Willis  Theological  Addresses  (Providence,  1868), 

G.  Clark's  monograph  forming  United  p.  64. 


266  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

and  few  schools  for  training  in  the  learned  professions. 
There  were  medical  schools  in  Philadelphia  and  in  New 
York.  The  Harvard  Medical  School  was  already  estab- 
lished at  Cambridge  1  and  within  a  few  years  the  College 
of  Medicine  opened  its  doors  at  Baltimore.  Jefferson  pro- 
vided for  law  and  medicine  in  his  University  and  there  were 
schools  of  law  and  medicine  attached  to  Transylvania.  In 
fact,  by  1830,  the  study  of  medicine  was  generally  prosecuted 
in  some  special  school.  With  law,  the  case  was  different. 
The  lawyer's  office  maintained  its  position  as  the  best  place 
for  legal  training  although  Judge  Gould's  Law  School  at 
Litchfield,  Connecticut,  was  flourishing  in  the  first  quarter 
of  the  century.  The  charge  for  tuition  at  this  school  was 
high,  being  one  hundred  dollars  for  the  first  year  and  sixty 
for  the  second.2  In  most  of  the  universities  there  were 
lectures  given  on  law,  or  constitutional  law,  or  "natural 
law,"  or  on  the  Common  Law.3  But  this  instruction  was 
intended  to  be  additional  to  the  more  important  work  in 
the  lawyer's  office.  Theology,  alone,  of  the  learned  pro- 
fessions was  well  taken  care  of.  Each  one  of  the  leading 
sects  had  one  or  more  seminaries  that  were  well  attended 
and  vigorous  institutions. 

Near  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  several  associa- 

1  Thomas   F.    Harrington's   Harvard  Gazetteer        of  .  .  .  Connecticut        and 

Medical  School  in  three  volumes  (New  Rhode-Island,   233 ;    and  Life  of   Hor- 

York,    1905)    is    almost    a    history    of  ace  Mann,  By  His  Wife,  30. 
medicine  in  the  United  States  in  the  *  The    Harvard    Law    School    was 

earlier    time.     Some     Account     of    the  founded     in     1817.     Its     early     years 

Medical    School    in    Boston    that    was  were  feeble,  but  in  1829  with  the  ac- 

printed   in    1824   gives   one   a   glimpse  cession    of   Joseph   Story   to   its   staff, 

of  those  days  of  small  things,  but  of  it  at  once  assumed  the  foremost  place 

high    aspirations.     An    extremely    use-  that  it  has  since  held.     For  a  dozen 

ful  publication  is   The  Harvard  Medi-  years,  from  1833  to  1845,  it  had  only 

col  School  1782-1906     issued  in  1906.  two  professors,  Story  and  Simon  Green- 

*  For   accounts   of    this   school,    see  leaf,  but  those  two  gave  to  it  a  distinc- 

the   reprint  of   1900   of    The  Litchfield  tion  that  few  Law  Schools  have  had 

Law  School  which  contains  a  catalogue  before    or   since.     See    The    Centennial 

of  the  pupils  from  1798  to  1833;    the  History   of    the    Harvard    Law   School, 

"Moses    M.    Strong    Manuscripts"    in  1817-1917. 
Madison,    Wis. ;      Pease    and    Nilea's 


1839]  THE   LOWELL  INSTITUTE  267 

tions  of  men  of  learning  were  founded ;  the  oldest  was  the 
American  Philosophical  Society  that  was  instituted  in 
Philadelphia  1  in  1769.  The  next  was  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Arts  and  Sciences  which  was  founded  at  Boston  in 
1780,  and  thereafter  associations  of  the  kind  were  estab- 
lished in  different  parts  of  the  country.2  West  Point 
Military  Academy  and  the  United  States  Coast  Survey 
bred  a  remarkable  succession  of  men  for  technical  service 
in  civil  life.  No  technical  schools  of  the  modern  type  were 
established  until  after  1820.  The  earliest  were  the  Rens- 
selaer  Polytechnic  Institute  at  Troy,  the  Sheffield  Scientific 
School  at  New  Haven,  and  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School 
at  Cambridge.  Otherwise,  engineers  and  men  of  science 
got  their  training  in  Europe  or  were  Europeans  by  birth, 
or  were  taught  in  the  school  of  experience  in  America. 
One  thing  that  took  the  place  of  professional  and  techni- 
education  —  to  a  very  limited  degree,  however  —  was 
the  lecture  platform.  This  was  the  epoch  of  lecturing  when 
the  foremost  men  in  letters,  and  art,  and  science  in  the 
country  sought  to  enlighten  and  stimulate  their  fellow 
citizens  by  the  spoken  word.  Courses  of  lectures  were 
promoted  by  professional  organizers  and  institutes  were 
endowed  by  philanthropists  for  the  enlightenment  of  their 
countrymen.  Of  them  all  the  most  remarkable  was  the 
Lowell  Institute.  It  was  in  1835  that  John  Lowell,  Jr., 
amidst  the  ruins  of  Thebes,  completed  the  happy  idea  of 
establishing  by  bequest  an  Institute  in  Boston  for  the  dis- 
semination of  knowledge  among  the  people  of  his  native 

1  G.  Brown  Goode  printed  a  most  *  The  Massachusetts  Historical  So- 
serviceable  essay  on  the  origin  of  the  ciety  was  founded  at  Boston  in  1790. 
"National  Scientific  and  Educational  At  first  it  collected  and  studied  both 
Institutions"  in  the  Papers  of  the  human  and  natural  history,  but  after 
American  Historical  Association  for  a  time  the  natural  history  collections 
April,  1890.  For  the  organization  of  were  transferred  to  another  society; 
these  national  technical  schools,  see  pp.  and  since  then  it  has  devoted  ite  atten- 
109,  110,  130-135.  tion  entirely  to  human  history. 


268  EDUCATION  [Cn.  VIII 

town  and  State.  Some  of  the  provisions  of  his  bequest 
are  peculiar  and  deserve  notice :  —  none  of  the  money 
was  to  be  put  into  bricks  and  mortar  for  the  Institute's 
purposes,  although  it  might  be  invested  in  productive  real 
estate  or  mortgages ;  the  care  of  the  property  and  the  con- 
duct of  the  Institute  were  confided  to  a  single  trustee  whose 
first  business  was  to  nominate  his  successor,  if  possible,  from 
those  who  bore  the  name  of  the  donor.1  Furthermore,  no 
more  than  the  equivalent  of  two  bushels  of  wheat  could  ever 
be  charged  for  the  privilege  of  attending  any  one  course  of 
lectures  or  instruction.  Mr.  Lowell's  idea  was  to  give  prac- 
tically free  instruction  in  technical  subjects  to  mechanics 
and  other  persons  whose  labors  prevented  attendance  at  the 
usual  schools  and  institutions;  and  to  provide  lectures 
by  leading  men  for  the  instruction  of  the  serious  minded 
in  the  best  thought  and  practice  of  the  day.  The  Institute 
was  opened  in  1839.  One  of  the  first  persons  to  whom  the 
trustee  turned  was  Benjamin  Silliman,  who  in  four  succes- 
sive years  gave  a  series  of  twelve  lectures,  repeating  the 
course  for  those  who  could  not  get  seats  for  the  original 
lectures.  For  years  the  Lowell  Institute  has  performed  a 
service  that  is  almost  without  parallel  in  alluring  by  high 
payments  the  foremost  men  of  the  world  to  stimulate  the 
minds  of  the  people  of  New  England.  In  its  success,  its 
practical  freedom  from  tuition  fees,  and  its  absence  of 
"plant,"  the  Lowell  Institute  stands  alone  as  a  tribute 
to  its  founder  and  to  those  who  have  managed  its  interests. 
The  early  connection  between  portrait  painting,  inven- 
tion, and  the  study  of  natural  history  was  very  marked. 
Fulton  was  an  artist  before  he  studied  the  application  of 
steam  to  navigation ;  Morse  supported  himself  and  his 

1  Harrietts  K.  Smith's  History  of  the      Edward     Everett's     Memoir     of    Mi 
Lowell    Institute    (Boston,    1898)     and       John  Lowell,  Jun. 


1830]  NATURAL  HISTORY  269 

family  by  portrait  painting  while  he  was  putting  together 
the  various  parts  of  the  telegraph ;  and  Audubon  pro- 
vided whatever  sustenance  he  did  provide  for  his  family 
by  the  same  means.  The  three  earliest  students  of  natural 
history  in  the  field  devoted  themselves  mainly  to  the  study 
of  birds  and  they  were  all  foreigners  by  birth ;  but  they 
may  well  be  regarded  as  American  by  reason  of  long  habita- 
tion within  the  United  States.  These  were  Alexander 
Wilson,  Charles  Lucian  Bonaparte,  and  John  James  Audubon. 
Wilson  was  a  Scot  and  had  been  apprenticed  to  a  weaver. 
He  came  to  America  in  1794,  travelled  the  country  over, 
especially  the  Southwestern  part  of  it,  and  published  at 
Philadelphia,  in  the  years  1808-1814,  nine  volumes  entitled 
"American  Ornithology." 1  He  had  been  aided  on  the 
botanical  side  of  his  research  by  William  Bartram,  and 
Bonaparte  added  four  volumes  to  Wilson's  nine  as  a  sort 
of  appendix.  Considering  the  infancy  of  the  country  and 
the  difficulties  of  book  making,  this  work  must  be  re- 
garded as  supremely  creditable,  but  it  was  so  superseded  by 
Audubon's  "  Birds  "  that  few  persons  out  of  the  ornithological 

alks  have  ever  heard  of  Wilson. 

John  James  Audubon  was  born  in  Haiti,  April  26,  1785. 
His  father  was  a  French  sea  officer  and  his  mother  a  Creole 
of  San  Domingo.  Audubon's  own  youth  was  passed  in 
France.2  Coming  to  America,  like  most  men  of  genius  he 

1  American     Ornithology;       or,      the  Charles     Lucian     Bonaparte     supple- 

NatuTdl    History    of    the    Birds    of   the  mented  this  work  by  printing  an  Ameri- 

United    States.     Illustrated   with    Plates  can     Ornithology;  .  .  .  of     Birds     In- 

(9     vols.,      Philadelphia,      1808-1814).  habiting  the  United  States,  not  given  by 

Unfortunately  Wilson  died  before  the  Wilson    (4    vols.,    Philadelphia,    1825- 

8th  volume  was  printed  and  his  friend  1833) ;    thus  making  fourteen  volumes 

George   Ord   edited   the   last  two   vol-  in  all. 

umes,   prefixing  a  brief  sketch  of  the  *  For    accounts    of    Audubon,     see 

life    of    Wilson    to    the    9th    vol.     In  Lucy     Bakewell     Audubon's     Life     oj 

1825,  Ord  printed  a  Supplement  to  the  John    James    Audubon     (New    York, 

9th    volume    containing    a    much    en-  1869)  and  Maria  R.  Audubon's  Audu- 

larged  account  of  Wilson's  life  and  birds  bon  and  his  Journals  with  .  .  .  Notet 

which  were  omitted  from  volume  ix.  by  Elliott  Coues  (2  vols.,  New  York, 


W£ 


270 


EDUCATION 


[Ca.  VIII 


thwarted  the  paternal  plans  and  failed  in  business.  He  lived 
for  long  periods  in  the  wilderness,  and  painted  birds  and 
plants  in  colors  wonderfully  like  the  originals.  In  1826, 
he  went  to  England,  made  friends  there  and  secured  enough 
subscribers  to  permit  the  beginning  of  the  actual  work  of 
making  the  engravings  from  his  own  portraits  of  birds  in 
their  natural  surroundings.  The  plates  were  engraved  at 
first  in  Scotland  at  Edinburgh  and  afterwards  at  London, 
the  coloring  being  done  by  hand  and  the  execution  of  the 
work  was  spread  over  a  number  of  years.1  Naturally, 
therefore,  there  is  great  difference  in  the  plates  and  in  the 
colorings ;  but  the  work  still  stands  apart  as  a  masterful 
expression  of  the  verities  of  nature. 

In  1840,  the  census  takers,  for  the  first  time,  inquired  into 
the  scholastic  condition  of  the  people  and  into  the  ma- 
chinery that  had  been  provided  for  their  enlightenment. 
From  the  resulting  tables,  it  appears  that  there  were  173 
colleges  and  universities  in  the  whole  country,  more  than 
3000  academies  and  grammar  schools,  and  over  47,000 
primary  schools.  As  to  pupils  there  were  16,000  in  the 
colleges,  164,000  in  the  secondary  schools,  and  about  2,000,- 
000  in  the  primary  schools.  In  other  words,  over  eight- 
tenths  of  the  people  had  no  schooling  beyond  the  primary 
grade.2  In  1840,  also,  there  were  half  a  million  white  per- 
sons over  twenty  years  of  age  who  could  neither  read  nor 


1897).  These  and  all  other  works 
are  now  superseded  by  Francis  H. 
Herrick's  Audubon  the  Naturalist  (2 
vols.,  New  York,  1917). 

1  The  Birds  of  America;  from 
Original  Drawings  by  John  James 
Audubon  (London,  1827-1838).  It  was 
originally  published  in  double  ele- 
phant folio,  measuring  39  ^  by  29  J 
inches  untrimmed,  and  issued  in  87 
parts  at  2  guineas  a  part,  costing 
more  than  $100,000  to  produce  (see 
F.  H.  Herrick's  Audubon,  i,  358  and 


fol.).  A  copy  was  recently  sold  in 
Philadelphia  at  over  $4000.  An  edi- 
tion in  royal  octavo  in  seven  volumes 
was  published  at  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  in  1840-1844,  entitle 
The  Birds  of  America,  from  Drawir* 
made  in  the  United  States  and 
Territories. 

2  See  Tucker's  Progress  of  the  Unite 
States  (New  York,  1855),  pp.  144  and 
145.     His  figures   are  taken  from  the 
Census  of  1840  (p.  475)  but  differ  from 
it  slightly  in  one  or  two  cases.     The 


1840]  SCHOOL  ATTENDANCE  271 

write.  These  figures  were  bad  enough;  but  the  "Census" 
of  1850  shows  a  very  slight  lengthening  of  the  school  period 
and  the  number  of  white  illiterates  had  nearly  doubled  in 
ten  years  owing  to  the  great  increase  in  foreign  immigration. 
Up  to  that  time,  therefore,  it  would  seem  that  the  educa- 
tional movement  of  the  first  half  of  the  century  had  pro- 
duced very  little  result.  There  were  more  colleges  and 
more  secondary  schools  in  proportion  to  the  total  popula- 
tion than  there  were  in  1800  or  in  1820,  but  so  far  they  do 
not  seem  to  have  greatly  affected  the  average  intelligence 
of  the  American  people,  and  it  was  the  education  of  democ- 
racy and  not  the  breeding  of  scholars  that  underlay  the 
whole  educational  movement  of  that  time.  Indeed,  by 
1860,  the  golden  age  of  American  scholarship  was  passed. 

table  on  p.  145  deals  entirely  with  white  pupils  and  shows  the  percentage  of  pupils 
in  each  class  of  schools : 

College  students 0.8  per  cent 

Scholars  in  grammar  schools 8.1  per  cent 

Scholars  in  primary  schools 91.1  per  cent 

100.    per  cent 

See  also  the  Census  of  1850,  p.  bri ;  the  white  illiterates  formed  about  -fa  of  the  total 
population  of  the  United  States  in  1840,  and  ^  in  1850. 


272  EDUCATION 

NOTES 

I.  Bibliography.  —  The  successive  Reports  of  the  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Education,  which  began  in  1868  with  Henry  Barnard's 
survey  of  the  field,  contain  masses  of  historical  detail.  In  1887  the 
Bureau  began  the  publication  of  a  series  of  "  Contributions  to 
American  Educational  History "  under  the  editorship  of  Herbert 
B.  Adams  that  opened  new  fields  of  historical  investigation.  Similar 
reports  of  the  State  commissioners,  especially  those  of  Illinois,  New 
York,  and  Massachusetts,  are  store-houses  of  facts.  Beginning  with 
the  publication  of  the  American  Journal  of  Education  l  at  Boston  in 
1826,  there  have  been  almost  continuous  serial  educational  publications 
which  reflect  the  changing  educational  ideals  of  successive  decades. 
Of  bibliographies,  the  Columbia  University  Library  Bulletin,  No.  2, 
"  Books  on  Education  "  is  useful  although  divided  into  small  groups. 
Elmer  E.  Brown's  Making  of  Our  Middle  Schools,  Edwin  G.  Dexter's 
History  of  Education  in  the  United  States,  and  G.  H.  Martin's  Evolu- 
tion of  the  Massachusetts  Public  School  System  bring  together  within 
small  compass  the  results  of  prolonged  study. 

McMaster's  statements  as  to  the  paucity  of  Southern  educational 
facilities  in  the  first  volume  of  his  History  aroused  interest  on  the 
subject  in  the  South  and  led  to  the  publication  of  numerous  articles. 
Of  these  General  McCrady's  "  Education  in  South  Carolina  "  was 
first  in  point  of  time  and  is  still  interesting.  Stephen  B.  Weeks  has 
a  very  useful  article  on  "  The  Beginnings  of  the  Common  School 
System  in  the  South  "  in  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education  for  1896-97,  ch.  xxix. 

n.  Bell  and  Lancaster.  —  Dr.  Andrew  Bell's  principal  writings 
are :  An  Analysis  of  the  Experiment  in  Education,  made  at  Egmore,  near 
Madras  (3rd  ed.,  London,  1807) ;  Instructions  for  Conducting  a  School 
Through  the  Agency  of  the  Scholars  themselves  (4th  ed.,  London, 
1813) ;  and  Mutual  Tuition  ...  or  Manual  of  Instructions  for 
conducting  Schools  through  the  Agency  of  the  Scholars  themselves  (7th 

1  This  was  followed  by  the  Ameri-  Barnard,    which    began    in    1856    and 

can  Annals  of  Education  and  Instruc-  continued    under    various    editors    and 

tion   (Boston,    1831-1834) ;     the   Quar-  various    forms    to    the    present    day. 

terly  Register  and  Journal  of  the  Ameri-  The  Introductory  Discourse  &  Lectures 

can  Education   Society   that   was   pub-  .  .  .  assembled    to   form    the    American 

lished  from  1829  to  1846  with  slightly  Institute   of  Instruction   has    continued 

varying     titles:      and     the     American  with    somewhat    different    titles    from 

Journal  of  Education  edited  by  Henry  1830  into  the  twentieth  century. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  273 

ed.,  London,  1823).  The  second  volume  of  the  Southeys*  Life  of 
the  Rev.  Andrew  Bett  (London,  1844)  relates  to  the  Indian  portion 
of  his  career.  A  shorter  and  more  usable  work  is  J.  M.  D.  Meikle- 
john's  An  Old  Educational  Reformer,  Dr.  Andrew  Bett  (Edinburgh, 
1881). 

The  Epitome  of  Some  of  the  Chief  Events  .  .  .  in  the  Life  of  Joseph 
Lancaster  .  .  .  Written,  by  himself  (New  Haven,  1833)  is  perhaps  the 
best  account  of  Lancaster's  career ;  but  the  shorter  account  by  David 
Salmon  (London,  1904)  is  sufficient  for  most  students.  The  best 
known  of  Lancaster's  pedagogical  writings  is  Improvements  in  Edu- 
cation as  it  respects  the  Industrious  Classes  of  the  Community  (1st  ed., 
London,  1803).  There  are  some  interesting  pictures  showing  this 
system  in  Reigart's  Lancasterian  System  and  in  the  Manual  of  the 
System  of  Primary  Instruction,  pursued  in  the  Model  Schools  of  the 
British  and  Foreign  School  Society  (London,  1844). 


VOL.  v.  • 


CHAPTER  IX 

LITERATURE 

GREAT  as  were  the  changes  in  the  outlook  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  that  have  been  noted  in  the  preceding 
chapters,  it  is  in  the  domain  of  literature  that  the  renaissance 
of  the  American  mind  is  most  noticeable.  Before  the  Revo- 
lution there  was  no  literature  or  very  little  that  can  be  so 
accounted  and  the  Revolutionary  epoch  itself  was  taken  up 
from  the  literary  side  with  the  production  of  a  series  of  most 
remarkable  political  papers  that  reach  their  highest  point 
in  "The  Federalist."  With  the  turn  of  the  century  the 
production  of  works  of  fiction,  poems,  and  essays  pro- 
ceeded on  an  ever  increasing  scale,  both  as  to  quantity  and 
as  to  quality  until  it  culminated  in  the  literary  efflorescence 
that  is  associated  with  the  names  of  Emerson,  Hawthorne, 
Thoreau,  and  the  others  of  the  New  England  group.  Fifty 
thousand  separate  books,  pamphlets,  and  periodicals,  and 
probably  more,  were  printed  in  the  United  States  in  the 
thirty  years  after  1800,  and  some  of  them  went  through 
several  editions.1  Included  in  this  list  are  works  on  law  and 
politics,  reprints  of  foreign  books,  and  translations  of  French 
and  German  romances.2  Considering  the  comparative 

1  For    this    estimate    I    am    greatly  into  German.     Dr.  S.  A.  Green  in  his 
indebted    to    Mr.    Charles    Evans    of  Journal    kept    by    Count    William    de 
Chicago,  whose  American  Bibliography  Deux-Ponts,  1780-81,  p.  xi  note,  points 
has    already    facilitated    the    work    of  out  that  during  "the  American  Revo- 
the  literary  historian.  lution,  it  was  not  uncommon  for  books 

2  On  the  other  hand,   the  works  of  published  in  Paris  to  bear  the  imprint 
many  American  writers,  Irving,  Cooper,  of  Boston  or  Philadelphia." 
Paulding,   and  others  were  translated 

274 


LIBRARIES  275 

smallness  of  the  population,  these  figures  seem  to  show  that 
the  demand  for  works  of  literature  and  for  technical  books 
was  great.  There  were  a  few  proprietary  libraries  at 
Charleston,  South  Carolina;  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  and 
Philadelphia  and  New  York.  Then,  too,  the  booksellers 
loaned  copies  from  their  stock  upon  the  payment  of  a  small 
rental  or  subscription ;  but  the  circulating  library,  as  it 
exists  today  in  England,  never  gained  any  large  measure 
of  popularity  in  America,  owing  probably  to  the  open- 
ing of  public  libraries,  supported  by  taxation  and  free 
to  every  one.  In  1827  there  was  a  project  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  libraries  of  valuable  books  in  each  State  which 
was  to  be  financed  by  means  of  a  lottery.1  Whether  this 
scheme  ever  amounted  to  anything  is  not  known.  It  is 
certain,  however,  that  the  second  third  of  the  century  saw 
the  founding  of  a  multitude  of  subscription  and  free 
public  libraries,  and  libraries  open  to  particular  classes  of 
people.2  It  may  well  be  that  the  presence  of  these  collections 
of  books  easily  attainable  by  the  people  led  to  a  great  change 
in  the  reading  habit,  and  that  books  by  1860  ceased  to  be 
regarded  as  prizes  to  be  acquired  by  effort  and  privation 
and  preserved  as  heirlooms  in  the  family. 

Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  this  surmise  that  the 
establishment  of  public  libraries  put  an  end  to  the  private 
accumulation  of  books,  it  seems  certain  that  book  buying 
was  much  more  general  and  on  a  much  larger  scale  in  those 

1  Letter  from  "Sam  Brown"  to  convenient  list  of  books  relating  to 
Andrew  Jackson,  dated  Philadelphia,  American  libraries  is  appended  to  C. 
Nov.  23,  1827.  In  it  he  refers  to  the  K.  Bolton's  "Proprietary  and  Sub- 
generous  support  that  Jackson  had  scription  Libraries"  in  the  Manual 
"already  given  to  the  cause  of  litera-  of  Library  Economy,  ch.  v  (Chicago, 
ture  in  aiding  the  University  Lottery."  1912).  Of  the  books  mentioned  by 

1  In   1876  the  Bureau  of  Education  Bolton,    Lindsay   Swift's    "  Proprietary 

issued  a  large  report  written  by  several  Libraries  and  Public  Libraries"  in  the 

hands  entitled  Public  Libraries  in  the  Library  Journal  for   1906  is  the  most 

United    States    of   America,    their    His-  useful. 
torjj,    Condition,    and    Management.     A 


276  LITERATURE  (Cn.  IX 

days  than  now.  The  "Columbian  Centinel"  for  March  7, 
1810,  contains  a  list  of  over  five  hundred  books  for  sale 
at  "The  Sign  of  Franklin's  Head,"  Court  Street,  Boston. 
Among  them  were  Cruden's  "Concordance,"  Anderson's 
"History  of  Commerce,"  Fourcroy's  "Philosophy  of  Chem- 
istry," and  Ossian's  "Poems,"  besides  the  books  that  one 
would  ordinarily  associate  with  New  England  in  those 
days  as  Knox's  "Sermons."  Another  list  of  books  is 
appended  to  Bason's  "Country  Almanack"  for  1821, 
which  was  published  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina.  This 
list  includes  seven  hundred  title;.  Among  them  are  "Abe- 
lard  and  Eloisa,"  "The  Arabian  Nights"  in  four  volumes, 
and  "The  Abbot,  a  New  Novel  by  the  Author  of  Waverley." 
There  was  also  Clarkson's  "Slave  Trade"  in  two  volumes. 
The  "Western  Spectator,"  published  at  Marietta,  Ohio, 
in  October,  1811,  contains  an  advertisement  of  two  hundred 
and  forty  books  for  sale.  Among  them  were  the  "Art  of 
Contentment,"  "Beddoes  on  Consumption,"  LempriSre's 
"Classical  Dictionary,"  and  Weems's  "Washington."1 
In  1816,  the  editor  of  an  almanac  estimated  that  about 
twelve  hundred  tons  of  paper  were  made  and  consumed 
annually  in  the  United  States,  six  hundred  tons  of  it  being 
used  for  newspapers  and  the  rest  for  books ;  and  the  com- 
pilers of  these  statistics  averred  that  twenty-two  million 
newspapers  were  annually  printed  in  the  country.  With 

1  Other  interesting  lists  are  in  the  Milton's   Paradise    Lost,    Cook's    Voy- 

Kentucky    Gazette,    published    at    Lex-  ages,   Adventures  of  Baron  Trenck,  Life 

ington,    on    February    28,    1807.     Be-  of  Belisarius,  and  Duncan's  Cicero. 
sides  a  lot  of  law  books,  this  list  con-  The   five    thousand   and   fifty-seven 

tains      "Edwards     on      Redemption,"  titles  enumerated  in   the   Catalogue  of 

"Hunter  on  the  Blood,"  and   Hume's  the    Charleston    Library    Society    that 

History    of   England.     In    July,    1798,  was  printed  in  1826  give  a  very  good 

the  Political  Focus,  published  at  Leom-  idea    of    the    scholarly    taste    of    that 

inster,  a  small  inland  village  of  Massa-  time,    and    may    be    supplemented    by 

chusetts,  contained  a  list  of  72  books  the  titles  in  the  Catalogue  of  the  John 

offered  for  sale;    among  these  was  the  Adams   Library  issued   by   the  Boston 

usual  assortment  of  sermons  and  other  Public  Library  in  1917. 
books  of  an  entirely  different  cast,  as 


1830]  BOOK-BUYING  277 

the  high  cost  of  postage  that  prevailed  in  the  earlier  years 
of  the  century,  it  was  an  expensive  matter  to  send  books  and 
papers  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another.  The  num- 
ber of  small  presses  scattered  throughout  the  country  was 
very  large  and  one  constantly  comes  across  books  printed 
in  most  unexpected  places.  Looking  at  the  matter  from 
another  point  of  view,  it  appears  that  Franklin  H.  Elmore 
of  South  Carolina  in  the  year  1836  bought  among 
other  books  "Humphrey  Clinker,"  "Lives  of  the  Necro- 
mancers/' Hill's  "Reports,"  Earle's  "Medical  Companion," 
and  "Paulding  on  Slavery."  John  Quincy  Adams  had  five 
thousand  books  in  his  library  in  1809  and  Jefferson's  library 
contained  6488  volumes ;  among  them  were  222  on  moral 
philosophy,  304  on  religion,  210  on  zoology,  and  208  on 
poetry.  In  1829,  two  hundred  and  thirty-eight  books  from 
Timothy  Pickering's  library  were  offered  for  sale ;  the  list 
included  Sterne's  "  Sentimental  Journey,"  Anson's  "  Voyage," 
Scott's  "Napoleon,"  and  many  of  his  novels,  Boswell's 
"Life  of  Johnson,"  and  editions  of  Virgil  and  Horace.1 
Certainly  the  reading  habit  was  widespread  in  those  days. 

The  fifty  thousand  separate  works  that  were  printed  hi 
the  first  thirty  years  of  the  century  were  published  widely 
)ver  the  country  and  were  often  written  near  the  place  of 
mblication.  Some  of  them  belonged  to  the  great  men  of 
lerican  literature  as  Irving  and  Cooper,  but  most  of  these 
>ooks  were  the  work  of  writers  whose  names  are  unknown 
low  and  have  been  for  half  a  century.  They  chose  morbid 
lemes,  —  death  and  destruction,  unrequited  love  and  ship- 
reck  ; 2  but  some  of  them  have  distinct  historical  merit. 

1  "Pickering  Manuscripts,"  vol.  55,  duodecimo  was  begun  at  Salem,  Massa- 

.  290,  in  the  cabinet  of  the  Massa-  chusetts,  in  September,  1828.  It  was 

lusetts  Historical  Society.  The  list  named  The  Hive  and  was  as  full  of 

f  Jefferson's  books  is  on  the  back  of  death,  tragedy,  and  gloom  as  the 

alio  94  of  the  same  volume.  magazines  and  books  designed  for  the 

1 A    child's    weekly    of    four    pages  older  folk. 


278  LITERATURE  [Cn.  IX 

There  was  the  Reverend  Jonathan  Fan's  "Sunday  School 
Teacher's  Funeral,"  which  was  published  at  Boston  in 
1835.  At  first  sight  it  seems  to  be  painfully  lacking  in  every 
quality  that  gives  life  to  most  literature ;  but  it  is  one  of 
the  most  effective  bits  of  writing  in  the  English  language 
and  whoever  reads  the  opening  page  will  be  reasonably 
certain  to  go  on  to  the  end.  Captain  M'Clintock's  "John 
Beedle's  Sleigh  Ride,  Courtship,  and  Marriage,"  which 
was  published  at  New  York  in  1841,  deals  with  love  to  be 
sure,  but  the  manner  of  treatment  is  amusing  rather  than 
tragical.  George  Tucker's  "Voyage  to  the  Moon"  is  in  an 
entirely  different  vein  and  is,  even  now,  somewhat  readable 
in  parts.1  John  Peck's  poem  entitled  "The  Spirit  of 
Methodism"  is  really  a  political  screed  and  contains  more- 
over a  good  stroke  at  the  Presbyterians.  William  C. 
Foster's  "Poetry  on  Different  Subjects"  that  was  published 
at  Salem  in  New  York  in  1805  is  of  the  time  :  in  one  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  pages  there  are  seven  poems  on  death, 
five  on  love,  and  five  on  Washington ;  but  the  rest  are  in 
lighter  vein  as  "The  Bachelor  and  Cat,"  and  "The  Washing 
Day."  Of  these  second  class  writers,  Mason  L.  Weems 
probably  stands  first.  He  created  the  Washington  of  tradi- 
tion and  gave  us  Francis  Marion.  He  attempted  to  do  the 
same  thing  by  Franklin  but  the  latter's  fragmentary  auto- 
biography has  rescued  him  forever  from  the  pen  of  the 
Maryland  romancer.  Weems  also  wrote  many  reforma- 
tory tracts  exhorting  drunkards,  gamblers,  and  celibates  to 
mend  their  ways.  Well  over  a  million  copies  of  his  books 
have  appeared.  An  edition  of  his  "Washington"  was 
printed  in  1918  and  ranks  with  "The  Federalist"  and 

»The  full  title  is  A   Voyage  to  the  terly  (New  York,   1827).     The  plan  of 

Moon :    with  some  Account  of  the  Man-  the    book    is    directly    borrowed ;     but 

ners    and    Customs,    Science    and    Phi-  there    are    some    pleasing   suggestions 

losophy,    of   the    People    of    Morosofia,  scattered  through  it. 
and   other   Lunarians.     By  Joseph  At- 


1830]  SOUTHERN  AUTHORS  279 

Franklin's  "Autobiography"  as  possessing  the  longest  life 
of  any  American  book.  As  a  "Maker"  of  history,  Mason 
L.  Weems  vies  with  the  household  poets.1 

The  geographical  distribution  of  writers,  readers,  and 
students  shows  that  all  sections  of  the  country  were  in- 
terested in  literature,  using  that  word  in  its  widest  meaning. 
In  the  South,  the  whites,  whom  it  must  be  remembered 
formed  but  a  portion  of  the  total  population,  were  divided 
between  farmers  and  those  interested  in  the  government 
of  the  country.  These  devoted  to  public  work  talents 
that  in  the  North  were  more  often  directed  to  what  is  some- 
times called  polite  literature ;  but  the  state  papers  that  they 
produced  were  of  a  high  order  of  nferit.  Moreover,  there 
were  few  men  in  the  country  who  had  a  greater  knowledge 
of  the  literature  of  the  past  than  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke. 
From  the  youth  of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  the  famous 
Waddell  school  turned  out  many  brilliant  scholars.  Of 
these  John  C.  Calhoun  easily  stands  first  and  his  "Dis- 
quisition on  Government"  is  one  of  the  most  memorable 
books  on  politics  that  this  country  has  yet  produced.  There 
were  poets  without  number  in  the  South,  nearly  all  of  them 
LOW  forgotten,  and  many  writers  of  prose  fiction.2  Of 
these  William  Gilmore  Simms  alone  stands  in  recollection 
today,  but  he  resided  for  a  large  part  of  his  working  life  in 
ie  North.  Simms  is  not  in  the  first  rank,  but  his  "Yemas- 
i"  and  his  "Partisan"  and  one  or  two  others  of  his  books 
ire  still  readable. 

1  See    William    S.    Baker's    Biblio-  cans  than  any  of  these.     See  also  the 

Washinatoniana,  31.     The  Wash-  present  work,  vol.  iv,  p.  57. 
n  of  Weems   undoubtedly   comes  J  Many  of   these   Southern   literary 

near  to  historic  fact  as  large  portions  productions  have  been  gathered  into  the 

if  Bancroft's   United  Stales,  the  Mylea  Library   of  Southern   Literature   in   six- 

indish   of   Longfellow,    or   the   Bar-  teen  volumes,   with  a  collective  index 

ra   Frietchie   of   Whittier ;     and   the  in  volume  xvi  and  with  sketches  of  the 

ik  has  had  equal  or  greater  influence  lives  of  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty 

succeeding    generations   of   Ameri-  Southern  authors. 


280  LITERATURE  [On.  IX 

The  earliest  school  of  literature  was  localized  in  Con- 
necticut and  is  known  as  the  "Hartford  Wits."  The  most 
attractive  of  this  group,  which  included  Trumbull  and 
Dwight,  was  Joel  Barlow.1  On  leaving  Yale  College,  he 
set  out  to  be  a  poet ;  but  his  lack  of  means  and  love  for  a 
lady  impelled  him  to  other  exertions.  He  served  as  a  chap- 
lain in  the  Revolutionary  Army,  was  admitted  to  the  bar 
as  a  practising  lawyer,  and  was  sent  abroad  by  Duer  and 
Craigie  in  the  capacity  of  land  agent.  While  serving  as 
chaplain,  he  had  married  the  lady  of  his  choice  without 
the  consent  of  her  father.  At  Paris  his  land  activities  were 
somewhat  unfortunate,  —  to  those  who  bought  of  him ; 
but  his  own  foolhardy  or  fortunate  investments  in  French 
securities  —  before  the  rise  of  Napoleon  —  made  Barlow 
a  rich  man  for  the  rest  of  his  life  and  enabled  him  to  indulge 
his  poetical  fancies.  He  had  an  idea  that  the  history  of 
America  was  as  deserving  of  verse  as  the  siege  of  Troy  or 
the  settlement  of  Rome,  and  he  carried  his  idea  into  effect 
in  a  most  sumptuous  volume,  entitled  "The  Columbiad." 
It  appeared  in  1807  in  a  quarto  of  four  hundred  and  forty- 
eight  pages  with  a  dozen  engravings  at  the  cost  of  twenty 
dollars  a  copy.  In  the  last  "vision,"  Columbus  sees  a 
general  congress  of  nations  settling  their  affairs  by  arbitra- 
tion, and  inaugurating  perpetual  peace,  till  at  last  they 
grasp  fraternal  hands  in  union  o'er  the  world !  More 
worthy  of  remembrance  is  the  mock  heroic  and  pastoral 
poem  singing  the  praises  of  hasty  pudding,  for  which 
Barlow  had  searched  in  vain  in  Paris  "that  corrupted 
town"  and  in  London  "lost  in  smoke  and  steep'd  in 
tea."  It  begins 

"  Ye  Alps  audacious,  thro'  the  Heavens  that  rise, 

I  sing  not  you  " 
1  See  Charles  B.  Todd's  Life  and  Letters  of  Joel  Barlow,  LL.D. 


1830]  AMERICAN  EPICS  281 

but  the  charms  of  hasty  pudding  which  he  had  unexpectedly 
come  across  in  Savoy.  Barlow  was  not  the  only  one  to 
praise  food  in  rhyme  for  an  anonymous  poem  entitled  "The 
Buckwheat  Cake"  in  some  ways  is  not  left  far  behind  by 
Barlow's  masterpiece.  The  American  epic  was  not  an  un- 
common form  of  poetic  expression  in  those  days.  It  was  in 
1827  that  Dr.  Richard  Emmons  of  Philadelphia  and  Great 
Crossing,  Kentucky,  delivered  himself  of  four  volumes  en- 
titled "The  Fredoniad :  or  Independence  Preserved," 
which,  strangely  enough,  went  through  three  editions  as 
did  Barlow's  "Columbiad."  In  1833,  Thomas  H.  Genin 
published  "The  Napolead"  at  St.  Clairsville,  Ohio,  in  three 
hundred  and  forty-two  duodecimo  pages.  "The  Nosiad ; 
or  the  Man  of  Type  and  the  Major  Domo"  by  Icabod 
Satiricus  gives  an  idea  of  the  heavy  humor  of  1829,  which 
may  also  be  seen  in  Miss  Mary  Elizabeth  Talbot's 
"Rurality,"  which  is  a  collection  of  "desultory  tales"  that 
also  deals  with  the  common  subjects  of  the  day,  as  ship- 
wrecks and  duels. 

From  the  mass  of  third  and  fourth  rate  authors,  there 
step  out,  as  one  runs  them  over  in  recollection,  four  Aliens. 
There  was  Benjamin,  first  of  all,  who  signed  himself 
"Osander"  and  again  "Juba"  and  wrote  "The  Death  of 
Abdallah";  Benjamin,  Jr.,  who  printed  "Urania  ...  a 
Poem";  Mrs.  Brasseya  Allen,  who  published  "Pastorals, 
Eligies,  and  Odes"  at  Abingdon  in  Maryland  in  1806;  and 
Miss  Elizabeth  Allen,  who  affixed  her  name  to  a  singularly 
mis-entitled  book  of  poems,  "The  Silent  Harp,"  at  Burling- 
ton, Vermont,  in  1832.  The  poem  on  "Soliloquy"  in  this 
volume  is  the  most  stilted  bit  of  writing  except  possibly 
Harrison  Gray  Otis's  "Eulogy  on  Alexander  Hamilton." 

The  possibilities  of  printed  political  propaganda  seem  to 
have  first  been  realized  by  those  who  were  intent  upon  push- 


282 


LITERATURE 


[Cn.  IX 


ing  the  fortunes  of  Andrew  Jackson.  As  early  as  1817, 
books  appeared  reciting  the  events  of  his  life  up  to  the  date  of 
publication,  so  far  as  these  would  appeal  to  the  favorable 
prejudices  of  the  voters  and  those  who  influenced  them. 
Within  ten  years  there  were  eight  or  ten  books  of  the  type. 
The  most  interesting  of  them  is  the  "Civil  and  Military 
History"  of  Jackson  by  an  "American  Officer."  It  was 
published  at  New  York  in  1825  and  the  account  of  the 
"Day  of  Thanksgiving  and  Praise"  for  the  victory  obtained 
by  the  "Hero  of  New  Orleans"  has  seldom  been  surpassed 
in  our  campaign  literature.1  In  1829,  Jackson  appeared  in 
the  Gift  Books,  —  "The  Jackson  Wreath,  or  National 
Souvenir."  This  is  a  good  example  of  a  book  of  the  kind. 
It  contained  a  well-written  memoir,  a  dirge  to  the  memory  of 
Mrs.  Jackson,  a  bit  of  music  entitled  "Jackson's  Grand 
March  &  Quick  Step,"  some  excellent  engravings,  and  a 
map  of  the  United  States  of  high  historical  value  at  the 
present  day. 

The  newspaper  literature  of  the  South  was  fully  as  vig- 
orous and  as  influential  as  that  of  the  North,  and  of  as  great 
value  to  the  historical  student.  The  "  Richmond  Enquirer," 
published  and  edited  by  Thomas  Ritchie,  was  as  influential 
in  moulding  political  opinion  in  the  Old  Dominion  for 
nearly  half  a  century  as  any  paper  that  has  ever  been  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States.  The  magazines  which  were  so 
plentiful  at  the  North  in  those  days  were  not  so  largely 
duplicated  in  the  South.  In  1834,  the  first  number  of  "The 
Southern  Literary  Messenger"  appeared  at  Richmond.  It 
was  noteworthy  as  having  for  a  short  time  been  edited  by 


1  The  following  extract  from  the 
opening  paragraph  of  chapter  xvii 
of  this  book  will  show  the  style  of  the 
time:  —  "The  attention  of  the  reader 
is  now  to  be  called  from  scenes  of  car- 
nage, wounds,  death,  defeat,  and  vic- 


tory .  .  .  from  those  appalling  scenes, 
which,  if  tears  are  permitted  to  soil  the 
purity  of  heaven  must  make  the  angels 
weep,  to  one  which  must  make  them  re- 
joice." 


1830]  MAGAZINES  283 

Edgar  Allan  Poe  and  as  having  lived  for  a  considerable 
period.  It  was  originated  as  a  protest  against  "vassalage 
to  our  Northern  neighbors" ;  but  its  contents  were  mainly 
an  echo  of  the  magazines  that  were  printed  at  Philadelphia 
and  New  York.  In  1845,  Simms  published  at  Charleston 
"The  Southern  and  Western  Monthly  Magazine  and  Re- 
view" which  was  to  release  the  South  from  the  Northern 
literary  yoke.  Twelve  numbers  satisfied  him  and  the  sub- 
scribers and  the  periodical  was  merged  in  "The  Southern 
Literary  Messenger."  All  in  all,  the  Southerners  were 
eager  for  books  and  for  the  exercise  of  literary  expression, 
but  so  many  of  them  were  engaged  in  growing  cotton  and 
governing  the  country  that  the  few  who  were  left  with 
leisure  and  learning  produced  little  of  actual  literary  work 
before  the  era  of  the  War  for  Southern  Independence. 

The  case  was  very  different  with  the  Middle  States, 
for  Philadelphia  and  New  York  were  the  literary  capitals 
of  the  country  for  a  generation.  The  close  connection  be- 
tween commercial  prosperity  and  literary  outlook  has  been 
oftentimes  adverted  to,  but  is  still  difficult  of  explanation, 
for  it  would  seem  that  the  pursuit  of  gain  would  be  un- 
congenial to  the  effort  of  the  literary  mind.  It  has  been 
said,  however,  that  the  leisure  provided  by  the  business 
success  of  a  community  or  a  family  has  enabled  the  fortunate 
idlers  to  produce  works  of  literature.  It  is  true  that  many 
examples  can  be  found,  as  those  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper 
and  William  Hickling  Prescott,  where  absence  of  necessity 
has  led  to  literary  expression.  But,  on  the  other  side,  one 
finds  men  of  poverty,  as  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  Hawthorne, 
winning  the  foremost  places  in  the  works  of  the  mind. 
Possibly,  a  market  for  literature  is  a  necessity  of  its  pro- 
duction and  this  is  provided  by  the  dense  population  of  a 
commercial  community.  Whatever  the  reason  for  their 


284  LITERATURE  [Ca.  IX 

prominence,  it  is  certain  that  the  two  great  commercial 
cities  of  the  Middle  Atlantic  States  occupied  the  first  place 
in  our  literary  history  for  many  years.  Authors  and  would- 
be  authors  flocked  to  them  from  the  East  and  the  West 
and  the  South.  Of  those  from  across  the  Appalachians, 
Alice  and  Phoebe  Gary  alone  won  extended  fame  before 
I860.1  The  magazines  naturally  made  their  homes  in  the 
largest  cities,  for  in  those  days  of  high  postage  rates  periodi- 
cal publications  necessarily  found  their  subscribers  within 
reasonable  distances  from  the  printing  office.  For  years 
Hezekiah  Niles's  "Weekly  Register,"  published  at  Balti- 
more, Mathew  Carey's  "American  Museum"  and  Dennie's 
"Portfolio,"  both  published  at  Philadelphia,  occupied  the 
first  place  among  American  magazines  and  deservedly  ; 2  but 
the  "North  American  Review"  after  1820  began  to  fill  in 
part  the  field  once  held  by  these  publications  and  to  add  an 
element  of  scholarly  criticism  that  one  had  formerly  asso- 
ciated with  the  British  quarterlies.  These  serials  are  filled 
with  original  poems  and  tales  and  also  with  serious  articles 
partly  of  an  historical  and  scientific  character.  In  1830, 
the  New  York  newspapers  began  to  occupy  a  prominent 
place.  The  names  of  the  early  editors,  Bryant,  Greeley, 
George  Ripley,  Henry  J.  Raymond,  and  Mordecai  M.  Noah, 
are  familiar  in  the  political  history  and  literature  of  the 
second  third  of  the  century. 

1 W.  H.  Venable's  Beginnings  of  takes  one  into  the  very  heart  of  the 
Literary  Culture  in  the  Ohio  Valley  pioneer's  home.  The  Western  Lit- 
(Cincinnati,  1891).  The  other  West-  erary  Magazine,  and  Journal  of  Edu- 
ern  names  that  are  associated  in  one's  cation.  Science,  Arts,  and  Morals  was 
recollection  with  this  period  are  Tim-  published  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  in  1853 
othy  Flint  and  James  Hall.  Flint's  and  well  represents  the  community  of 
Arthur  denning,  published  at  Phila-  artistic  and  literary  desires  of  the 
delphia,  has  some  of  the  character-  people  living  on  both  sides  of  the  Ap- 
istics  of  the  modern  novel ;  Hall's  palachian  Mountains, 
works  are  a  mine  of  facts  and  tradi-  !  Algernon  Tassin's  The  Magazine 
tions  of  his  adopted  country;  and  in  America  (New  York,  1916)  is  a  use- 
Alice  Gary's  Clovernook  or  Recollec-  ful  and  gossipy  book;  chs.  ii-viii  re- 
tions  of  Our  Neighborhood  in  The  West  late  to  the  earlier  time. 


1830]  IRVING  AND   COOPER  285 

The  Philadelphia  and  New  York  authors  of  that  day  en- 
joyed great  reputations  among  their  contemporaries.  Of 
these,  Charles  Brockden  Brown  serves  as  a  sort  of  standard 
for  writers  on  American  literature,  partly  because  he  was 
the  first  to  devote  himself  professionally  to  the  literary 
art.  Irving  and  Cooper  easily  stand  first  of  this  group. 
Washington  Irving  was  born  of  British  parents  in  New 
York.  In  1809,  he  put  forth  anonymously  "A  History  of 
New  York,  from  the  Beginning  of  the  World  ...  by 
Diedrich  Knickerbocker."  It  may  be  regarded  as  the  earliest 
American  work  of  imaginative  literature.  After  an  interval, 
he  published  the  "Sketch  Book"  in  which  foreign  folk- 
lore is  adapted  to  the  scenery  of  the  Catskills.  From  this 
point,  Irving  fell  more  and  more  under  foreign  influences. 
His  "Columbus"  and  his  "Conquest  of  Granada"  might  as 
well  have  been  written  by  an  Englishman,  born  and  bred. 
The  middle  period  of  his  life,  Irving  passed  in  England  and 
Spain,  engaged  in  business  and  diplomacy  and  in  gathering 
materials  and  impressions  for  his  books.  After  his  return 
to  the  United  States  and  in  his  last  years,  he  wrote  the  histor- 
ical work  that  best  gives  him  his  place,  the  "Life  of  George 
Washington,"  the  fifth  volume  of  which  was  published  only 
a  short  time  before  Irving's  death  in  1859  at  the  age  of 
seventy-six.  Cooper  came  of  old  colonial  ancestry  and  was 
born  in  New  Jersey.  His  father  moved  to  a  wilderness 
section  of  New  York  when  Fenimore  was  a  child.  The 
future  author  grew  up  therefore  on  the  frontier  and  in  his 
truly  great  " Leatherstocking  Tales"  repeats  his  boyhood 
impressions  of  scenery  and  of  men.  Being  dismissed  from 
Yale  College,  Cooper  followed  the  sea  for  a  few  years  and 
thus  gained  the  knowledge  of  ships  and  of  seamanship  that 
made  him  easily  first  of  marine  romancists.  He  also  ven- 
tured on  history  and  wrote  on  the  "Navy  of  the  United 


286 


LITERATURE 


[Cn.  IX 


States"  with  so  much  vigor  and  honesty  that  he  speedily 
became  embroiled  with  some  of  those  whose  deeds  or  mis- 
deeds he  had  described.  Like  Irving,  Cooper  spent  a  large 
portion  of  his  middle  life  in  Europe  and  like  Irving,  also, 
reserved  his  historical  labor  for  his  later  life.  Irving  and 
Cooper  took  so  prominent  a  place  among  the  writers  of  the 
Middle  States  and  occupied  it  for  so  long  a  time  that  they 
may  fairly  be  said  to  have  eclipsed  their  contemporaries. 
In  the  second  rank  were  J.  K.  Paulding  and  Herman  Mel- 
ville. In  the  third  rank,  there  was  a  crowd  of  competitors. 
The  selection  is  dangerous,  but  John  Lofland's  "Harp  of 
Delaware;  or,  the  Miscellaneous  Poems  of  the  Milford 
Bard"  remains  in  memory  as  an  example  of  the  ordinary 
versification  of  the  Middle  States  of  America  in  1828.  The 
poem  to  "The  Mother"  is  expressive  of  deep  feeling,  that 
on  "Fame"  evinces  the  horror  of  war  that  was  even  then 
deep  in  the  heart,  and  his  lines  on  the  19th  of  April,  1775, 

"  In  Lexington  the  sons  of  Freedom  form 
On  the  green  square,  and  wait  the  coming  storm  " 

reveal  the  quiet  courage  of  that  gallant  band. 

Typical  books  of  that  day  were  "Queechy"  and  "The 
Wide,  Wide  World"  by  Elizabeth  Wetherell,  who  really 
was  Susan  Warner.  The  latter  is  a  long-drawn-out  tale  of 
petty  female  persecution  and  love  mingled  with  religion. 
It  was  first  printed  in  1849,  saw  a  fourth  edition  in  1851, 
was  reprinted  in  England,  and  again  and  again  in  America, 
as  late  indeed,  as  1895.  If  a  permanence  of  half  a  century 
entitles  any  novelist  to  glory,  it  certainly  does  Susan  Warner. 
Moreover,  it  represents  the  type  of  book  that  men  and 
women  of  that  time  were  eager  to  read,  but  now  seems 
intolerable.  Is  it  that  our  taste  has  become  blunted  and 
can  be  satisfied  only  with  intense,  blood-curdling  novels? 


1830J  GIFT  BOOKS  AND  ANNUALS  287 

Is  modern  life,  itself,  so  strenuous  that  the  account  of  quiet 
humdrum  existence  of  a  village  no  longer  satisfies  ?  Is  life  so 
rapid,  nowadays,  that  one  can  no  longer  read  books  like 
"The  Wide,  Wide  World  "  ?  Possibly  it  is  that  we  require 
double  the  action  for  every  thousand  words  that  our  fathers 
did. 

The  Middle  Staces  were  the  homes  of  magazines  and 
"Gift  Books"  and  Annuals.  Of  the  first  none  enjoyed  long 
life  or  great  reputation.  "The  Knickerbocker,"  which  was 
published  at  New  York,  was  perhaps  the  most  popular  and 
the  most  permanent.  These  serials  contained  the  first 
attempts  at  the  American  short  story,  which  were  really 
nothing  more  than  replicas  of  English  tales  with  an  American 
dressing  and  like  the  poems  of  that  early  time  dealt  with 
love,  disease,  and  death,  mainly  with  the  last.  By  1850 
the  public  mind  was  beginning  to  tire  of  this  form  of  en- 
tertainment, if  the  publishers  of  "Wright's  Casket"  had 
good  business  sense  in  beginning  publication  of  a  monthly 
paper  that  should  contain  "no  silly  love  tales,  or  other 
deleterious  matter."  The  publication  of  magazines  was 
still  widespread  and  the  smaller  towns  produced  them  as 
well  as  the  great  commercial  cities.  An  example  of  these, 
and  a  very  good  one,  is  "The  Rural  Repository"  that  was 
published  at  Hudson,  New  York,  for  several  years  beginning 
with  1824 ;  about  one-eighth  of  the  contents  was  poetry, 
most  of  it  original,  but  a  good  deal  of  the  prose  matter  was 
taken  from  other  publications  as  the  "American  Monthly 
Magazine,"  "The  Emporium,"  and  "The  New-York  States- 
man" and  some  of  it  was  translated  from  the  French. 

The  Gift  Books  begin  in  1824,  but  are  most  numerous  in 
the  late  40's  and  early  50's.1  Their  popularity  may  be 

1 F.  W.  Faxon  in  his  Literary  An-  books  as  having  been  published  in 
nuals  and  Gift-Books  has  listed  one  America.  He  has  prefaced  his  list 
thousand  and  twenty-two  separate  with  an  interesting  article  on  the  books 


288 


LITERATURE 


ICa.  IX 


seen  from  the  fact  that  in  one  year  no  less  than  sixty  separate 
works  of  the  kind  were  published  in  America.  They  ranged 
from  duodecimo  to  quarto  and  were  bound  in  ornately 
decorated  cloth  or  leather  with  heavily  gilded  edges.  Many 
of  America's  best-known  men  and  women  of  letters  found 
their  way  to  public  notice  through  the  pages  of  these  books, 
or,  having  achieved  reputation,  acquired  money  by  contribut- 
ing to  them.  Some  of  these  books  were  beautifully  illus- 
trated by  the  best  engravers  who  have  flourished  in  America, 
as  John  Cheney,  A.  B.  Durand,  and  the  elder  Sartain.  It 
is  these  engravings,  as  Sartain's  "The  Mother"  in  "The 
Diadem"  for  1847,  or  Cheney's  "Viola"  in  "The  Gift" 
for  1844,  or  Durand's  representation  of  "The  Duchess  and 
Sancho"  in  "The  Atlantic  Souvenir"  for  1832  that  give 
the  Annuals  and  Gift  Books  their  greatest  attraction.  The 
last  named  engraving  was  an  illustration  of  Miss  Leslie's 
poem  with  the  same  title.  One  verse  of  this  has  interest 
even  now : 

"  The  wreath  of  the  warrior  has  faded  and  gone, 
While  the  laurel  of  genius  is  green  in  the  land ; 
And  the  fight  of  Lepanto  will  only  be  known, 
As  the  fight  where  Cervantes  was  maim'd  of  his  hand." 

The  demand  for  good  literature  and  fine  illustrations  that 
was  shown  by  the  continuing  publication  of  these  very 
expensive  books  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  indications 
of  the  condition  of  the  American  mind  of  this  time,  more 
especially  in  the  Middle  States. 

A  genius  who  has  no  geographic  bounds  was  Edgar 
Allan  Poe.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  and  pub- 
lished his  first  book  there,1  but  his  father  was  a  Marylander 


themselves ;  he  shows,  among  other 
things,  that  many  of  these  titles  were 
repetitions  and  where  that  was  not  the 
case,  old  articles  and  old  plates  were 


used  in  different  combinations. 

1  This  work  was  entitled  Tamer- 
lane and  Other  Poems  and  waa  pub- 
lished in  1827. 


1830]  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  289 

and  his  mother  an  English  actress  who  happened  to  be  per- 
forming in  the  Puritan  capital  at  the  time  of  his  birth.  They 
soon  migrated  to  Richmond  where  John  Allan,  a  Scotch 
merchant  of  the  Richmond  tobacco  exporting  firm  of  Ellis 
and  Allan,  took  the  child  into  his  family.1  Poe's  early  youth 
was  passed  in  Virginia  and  in  England  and  he  spent  a  brief 
space  at  the  University  at  Charlottesville,  when  gambling 
and  drink  forced  his  removal.  Later  he  edited  "The  South- 
ern Literary  Messenger"  at  Richmond  for  a  time,  but  his 
working  years  were  mainly  passed  at  New  York  as  a  literary 
critic  and  writer  of  prose,  none  of  which  is  read  now  except 
by  professors  of  English  and  their  pupils.  It  is  upon  the  three 
poems  "The  Raven,"  "The  Bells,"  and  "Annabel  Lee" 
that  Poe's  reputation  rests 2  and  makes  the  world  forget  the 
insanity  and  debauchery  that  were  so  closely  associated  with 
his  life. 

Philadelphia  and  New  York  were  the  centres  of  the  ex- 
pression of  the  dramatic  art,  whether  by  writing  or  by  acting. 
The  production  of  dramas  was  widespread,  almost  as  much 
so  as  the  writing  of  poetry,  both  being  in  those  days  a  com- 
mon form  of  expression  and  not  confined  to  a  more  or  less 
professional  class.  The  plays,  like  the  poems,  dealt  with 
the  tragic  side  of  love  and  with  death.  The  actors  on  the 
stage,  the  principal  actors  I  mean,  were  almost  entirely  from 
England,  although  a  few  Americans  like  Edgar  Allan  Poe's 
father  had  drifted  into  the  theatrical  profession.  There 
were  stock  companies  at  Philadelphia  and  at  New  York  and 
these,  after  a  "season,"  travelled  into  New  England  and 

1  Poe'a  undated  letter  to  "Mr.  Poe's  life.  "Appendix  C"  at  the  end 

Wm.  Poe"  giveS  details  as  to  his  family  of  vol.  ii  of  Woodberry's  Life  of  Edgar 

history  (Gulf  States  Historical  Maga-  Allan  Poe  is  a  bibliography  with  notes. 

zine,  i,  281).  Susan  A.  Weiss'  Home  Life  of  Poe 

1"The  Raven"  appeared  in  1845,  (New  York,  1907)  contains  the  Rich- 

"The  Bells"  in  1849,  and  "Annabel  mond  traditions  set  down  by  a  lady 

Lee "  in  the  same  year,  —  they  are~~all  in  her  old  age,  who  had  known  the 

associated  with  the  closing  period  of  Allans  in  Poe's  childhood. 

VOL.  V.  —  U 


290  LITERATURE  [Cn.  IX 

southward  to  Richmond  and  even  to  Charleston.  After 
1825,  New  York  may  be  regarded  as  the  centre  of  the  theat- 
rical profession,  having  by  that  time  outstripped  Philadelphia 
in  that  respect,  as  in  literature  and  in  commerce.  In  1820, 
there  seems  to  have  been  only  one  theatre  in  New  York, 
but  play-houses  multiplied  after  that  time.1  The  "pit" 
was  still  the  pit,  not  having  yet  become  the  parquet,  and  a 
restaurant  and  a  bar  were  usually  included  within  the 
theatre  walls.  In  the  later  theatres,  these  features  disap- 
peared. Another  form  of  amusement  was  connected  with 
what  were  called  "gardens"  as  Niblo's  Garden.  This 
establishment  included  a  hotel,  a  theatre,  and  a  garden, 
the  last  being  provided  with  walks,  flower-beds,  and  summer- 
houses.  But  before  long  it  became  a  theatre,  pure  and 
simple.  Outside  of  New  York  there  was  horse-racing, 
bull-baiting,  and  cock-fighting  and  in  New  York  there  were 
exhibitions  of  curiosities.  In  1825,  an  Italian  opera  com- 
pany appeared  in  "The  Barber  of  Seville"  which  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  professional  operatic  performance  in 
the  United  States.  In  the  next  year  Mme.  Malibran  re- 
ceived six  hundred  dollars  for  each  appearance  in  opera; 
but  it  was  not  until  twenty-six  years  later  that  the  first 
"  long  run  "  took  place  when  Edwin  Forrest  played  "  Damon  " 
for  sixty-nine  consecutive  nights.  A  French  danseuse 
appeared  at  the  Bowery  Theatre  in  February,  1827,  and 
from  that  time  on  dancing  was  a  favorite  form  of  entertain- 
ment, Mile.  Celeste,  Madame  Vestris,  and  a  child,  Emma 
Wheatly,  six  years  of  age,  all  appearing  within  two  years ; 
and  this  culminated  in  1840  with  the  appearance  of  Fanny 


1  See    Charles    H.    Haswell's    Rem-  William  Dunlap's  History  of  the  Ameri- 

iniscences   of  New    York,    using   index.  can    Theatre   is   a   contemporary   view 

This    is    an    invaluable    book    for    the  down  to  about  1830.     There  is  a  good 

tracing  of  social  history,  as  it  is  for  the  bibliography  of   "The  Early   Drama" 

coming    and    development    of    public  in  The  Cambridge  History  of  American 

utilities    and    manners    and    customs.  Literature,  i,  490-507. 


1830]  THE  DRAMA  291 

Elssler  before  an  enormous  audience  in  "La  Cracovienne." 
Of  the  famous  actors  of  those  days,  besides  those  that  have 
been  mentioned,  there  were  James  H.  Hackett,  Charles  Kean, 
Charles  Kemble  and  his  daughter,  Fanny,  Tyrone  Power, 
and  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  to  mention  no  others.  Theatres 
were  not  numerous,  perhaps,  taking  the  country  through  and 
the  performances  were  not  numerous,  but  judging  by  the  effect 
produced  upon  the  audiences  and  the  permanence  of  their 
fame,  the  actors  then  must  have  been  of  a  very  superior  order. 
Literature,  common  and  polite,  does  not  owe  as  much 
to  foreigners  as  did  the  theatre,  but  its  debt  is  very  great, 
nevertheless.  The  first  newspapers  of  political  moment 
after  1789  were  edited  by  recent  immigrants,  and  law,  theol- 
ogy, and  science  owed  a  great  deal  to  outside  stimulus. 
Of  the  early  newspapers,  those  edited  by  Callender,  Chee- 
tham,  Duane,  and  John  Binns  achieved  remarkable  noto- 
riety and  had  enough  influence  to  arouse  the  wrath  of  the 
rulers.  Of  the  fugitives  from  England,  Joseph  Priestley  and 
Thomas  Cooper,  his  devoted  friend,  had  the  most  influence 
in  scholarly  directions.  The  latter  was  a  lawyer  by  train- 
ing, but  had  dabbled  in  politics  and  the  natural  sciences. 
His  radicalism  compelled  his  departure  from  England  and 
brought  him  within  the  scope  of  the  Sedition  Act  in  America. 
Jefferson  recognized  his  scholarly  qualities  and  secured  for 
him  an  appointment  as  professor  of  chemistry  and  law  in 
the  newly  established  University  of  Virginia.1  Objections 
being  raised  to  his  religious  radicalism,  he  never  entered 

1  He  resigned  before  the  University  History  of  the  University  of  South  Caro- 

was    open    for    students.     See    Early  Una,   34-55,   332-343;     and   Edgar   F. 

History   of  the    University   of    Virginia  Smith's    Chemistry    in    America,    128- 

.  .  .  Letters  of    Thomas    Jefferson    and  146.     Cooper    wrote    to    J.    A.    Ham- 

Joseph  C.  Cabell,  88,   164-172,  234  n. ;  mond  in  1836  that  the  "Idea  of  these 

Herbert    B.    Adams's     Thomas    Jeffer-  New   England    theologians,    that    their 

son    and    the     University    of    Virginia,  notions  of  religious  duty  are  to  super- 

106-109 ;     Colyer     Meriwether's     His-  cede  all  law,  is  quite  inconsistent  with 

tory    of    Higher    Education    in    South  the   well   being    of    civil    Society   &    it 

Carolina,   143-156 ;    Edwin  L.  Green's  elevates  every  ignorant  fanatic  into  an 


292  LITERATURE  [Ca.  IX 

upon  the  discharge  of  his  duties  there.  Shortly  afterwards 
he  became  the  head  of  the  University  of  South  Carolina  and 
rendered  a  great  service  to  that  State  by  collecting  its  laws 
into  one  series  of  printed  volumes.  In  his  last  years  he 
became  one  of  the  most  ardent  advocates  of  States'-rights 
to  be  found  anywhere,  and  did  a  great  deal  towards  building 
up  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  Southern  nationalism  lead- 
ing up  to  the  nullification  episode.  Priestley  was  a  clergyman 
by  profession,  but  was  by  nature  a  man  of  science.  His 
radicalism  also  compelled  him  to  leave  England.  In 
America  he  joined  in  the  distrust  of  Washington  and  Adams, 
who  cordially  distrusted  him.  He  corresponded  with  men 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  promoted  the  scientific 
activities  of  Robert  Hare  and  James  Woodhouse,  and  pub- 
lished scientific  articles.1  Among  the  productions  of  his 
later  years  was  "A  Comparison  of  the  Institutions  of  Moses 
with  those  of  the  Hindoos  and  Other  Ancient  Nations"  and 
"The  Doctrine  of  Phlogiston  established;  with  Observa- 
tions on  the  Conversion  of  Iron  into  Steel."  William 
Thornton,  who  was  a  West  Indian  by  birth,  won  the  Magel- 
lanic  Gold  Medal  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society  in 
1793  for  a  most  stimulating  scientific  paper  entitled  "  Cad- 
mus :  or,  a  Treatise  on  the  Elements  of  Written  Language." 
He  proposed  to  simplify  the  alphabet  and  thus  lay  the 
foundation  for  an  American  language  that  would  be  as 

irresponsible      dictator,"  —  a      dictum  With  a  Continuation  .  .  .  By  his  Son 

which  unfortunately  he  did  not  apply  (2  vols.,  London,  1805) ;    John  Carry's 

to  himself.     The  "Hammond  Papers"  Life  of  Joseph  Priestley  (Birmingham, 

in  the  Library  of  Congress.  1804);     "Memoir"    by    Dr.    Aikin    in 

The  Case  of  Thomas   Cooper,  M.  D.  Lucy  Aikin's  Memoir  of  John  Aikin, 

(Columbia,   S.   C.,    1831);    Letter  of  a  460.     Self-revealing    letters    of    Priest- 

Layman  to  Any  Member  of  Congress ;  ley  to  George  Thacher  are  in  the  Massa- 

and  Reply  to  Censor  give   an  idea  of  chusetts    Historical    Society's   Proceed- 

Cooper's   methods    and   of   the   condi-  ings,  2nd  Series,  iii,  pp.  13-40.     Edgar 

tion  of  thought  in  South  Carolina  at  F.  Smith's  Chemistry  in  America  (New 

the  time.  York,    1914),   ch.    v   describes    his   in- 

1  See  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Joseph  Priestley  fluence  upon  science  in  Pennsylvania. 
to  the    Year  1795,   written  by  himself: 


1830]  FOREIGN  INFLUENCE  293 

distinct  from  the  languages  of  Europe  as  government  in 
America  was  free  from  "the  dangerous  doctrines  of  Euro- 
pean powers."  As  a  part  of  this  work  he  wrote  an  essay 
upon  the  proper  method  to  teach  the  deaf  and  dumb  to 
speak.  These  should  be  induced  to  imitate  the  efforts  of  a 
hearing  child  to  speak,  studying  the  motions  of  one's  own 
vocal  organs  in  a  looking  glass  and  noting  in  a  book  the 
proper  arrangement  of  those  organs  for  any  given  word.1 
The  great  buildings  at  Washington  were  the  work  of  for- 
eigners, Thornton,  Latrobe,  and  Hoban,  and  the  plan  of  the 
city  came  from  the  mind  of  another  foreigner,  LJ Enfant.2 
There  was  no  technical  skill  whatever  among  native  Ameri- 
cans and  for  every  public  work  engineers  had  to  be  im- 
ported until  native  born  Americans  could  become  trained, 
or  train  themselves  in  the  school  of  experience.  Among 
the  foreigners  was  Clodius  Crozet,  who  had  served  in  the 
armies  of  Napoleon,  had  taught  engineering  at  West  Point, 
had  written  a  "Treatise  on  Descriptive  Geometry,"  and  had 
then  become  the  State  engineer  of  Virginia.  While  thus 
acknowledging  our  indebtedness  to  those  who  came  to  our 
aid  from  outside,  it  must  ever  be  kept  in  mind  that  it  was 
the  grandeur  of  the  imagination  of  Washington  and  Jefferson 
and  other  Americans  that  made  possible  the  construction  of 
such  great  works  as  the  City  of  Washington,  the  Erie  Canal, 
and  the  Portage  Railway  system. 

JThe     actual     education     of     deaf  comes  from  Europe.     In  America  ita 

mutes  in   America  is   associated   with  beginning  is  associated  with  the  name  of 

the    name   of    Thomas  H.    Gallaudet,  Samuel  G-  Howe,   who  for  years  was 

who     visited     Europe    to    study    the  at  the  head  of  the  Perkins  Institution 

methods    in    use    there.     The    benefi-  for  the  Blind  at  Boston.     See  the  Ad- 

cence  of  Amos  Kendall  led  to  the  es-  dress  of  the   Trustees  of  the  New-Eng- 

tablishment    of    the    national    institu-  land   Institution  for   the    Education   of 

tion     at     Washington.     See     Edward  the  Blind  (Boston,  1833)    and  the  An- 

A.  Fay's  Histories  of  American  Schools  nual  Reports  of  the  Institution  which 

for  the  Deaf  (3  vols.,  Washington,  1893)  became    the     Perkins     Institution    in 

and  E.  M.  Gallaudet's  Life  of  Thomas  1840. 
Hopkins  Gallaudet  (New  York,  1888).  *  See    the    present    work,    vol.    iv, 

The  education  of  the  blind  likewise  106-108,  112. 


294  LITERATURE  [CH.  IX 

The  school  books  used  in  America  in  the  Revolutionary 
epoch  were  of  European  authorship,  although  many  of  them 
were  printed  in  the  United  States.  To  provide  books  more 
suitable  to  American  needs  attracted  the  attention  of  three 
remarkable  men  of  Connecticut :  Noah  Webster,  Jedidiah 
Morse,  and  Samuel  Griswold  Goodrich,  who  is  much  better 
known  under  his  pen  name  of  "Peter  Parley."  Noah 
Webster  1  was  given  a  Continental  note  for  eight  dollars 
by  his  father  in  1778  and  sent  out  into  the  world  to  fight 
for  himself.  He  became  a  school  master  and,  impressed 
with  the  poverty  of  the  existing  books  for  the  teaching  of 
English,  set  out  to  make  better  ones.  The  book  that 
afterwards  became  known  as  "The  American  Speller" 
was  published  at  Hartford  in  1783  as  Part  I  of  "A  Gram- 
matical Institute  of  the  English  Language."  A  few  years 
later,  Morse's  "American  Geography"2  found  its  way  to 
the  printer,  delayed,  as  was  Webster's  work,  by  the  struggle 
to  obtain  recognition  by  law  for  the  production  of  a  man's 
brains.3  The  almost  instant  popularity  of  these  books 
shows  how  great  was  the  need  for  them  and  how  well 
their  authors  had  judged  the  necessities  of  American  peda- 
gogics at  that  period.  In  all  fifty  million  copies  of  the 
"Speller"  are  said  to  have  been  printed  and  sold.  To  it 
more  than  to  any  other  one  thing  is  due  the  uniformity 
of  the  spoken  and  written  English  language  throughout 
the  United  States,  —  but  whether  this  is  an  indication  of 
strength  or  of  weakness  may  well  be  questioned. 

1This     account    is    largely     drawn  author   of    A    Compendious   and    Com- 

from    Ford    and   Skeel's   Notes    on   the  plete     System     of    Modern     Geography 

Life   of  Noah    Webster    (2    vols.,    New  (Boston,    1814)    and  of  smaller  works 

York,  1912).  and    of    innumerable    revised    editions 

*  Hia  American  Geography  was  first  of   the    above.     See   W.    B.    Sprague's 

printed  at  Elizabeth  Town,   N.  J.,  in  Life  of  Jedidiah  Morse,  ch.  iv. 
1789 ;     his    American    Universal    Geog-  '  See    Copyright    Enactments,    1788- 

raphy    at    Boston    in    1793 ;     and    his  1900     (Library     of     Congress,     Copy- 

Gazcttcer   in    1797.     He   was   also    the  right  Office,  Bulletin  No.  3). 


4828]  WEBSTER'S   DICTIONARY  295 

For  a  time  Webster  edited  a  paper  in  New  York  City  and 
gained  considerable  credit  as  a  political  writer.  Ultimately 
the  profits  from  the  sale  of  his  school  books  enabled  him 
to  devote  his  whole  time  to  the  carrying  out  of  a  long- 
cherished  plan  of  making  a  dictionary  of  the  English  lan- 
guage.1 For  ten  years  he  resided  at  Amherst  in  Massachu- 
setts, but  his  life  is  mainly  associated  with  New  Haven.  He 
sought  the  aid  of  others,  even  going  to  Europe  to  gain  it. 
He  met  with  little  success  in  this  endeavor  and  was  forced 
to  rely  upon  himself.  The  picture  of  this  solitary  scholar 
perambulating  the  periphery  of  a  table  made  in  the  form  of  a 
hollow  circle  and  covered  with  dictionaries  in  Greek,  Hebrew, 
Arabic,  and  all  the  known  languages,  working  steadfastly 
for  twenty-eight  years  at  one  object  and  succeeding  in  his 
self-imposed  task,  is  one  of  the  most  inspiring  in  the  annals 
of  American  literary  endeavor.  The  "Dictionary"  was 
originally  published  in  1828  in  two  quarto  volumes  of  more 
than  one  thousand  pages  each.  It  contained  twelve  thou- 
sand words  and  thirty  thousand  definitions  that  had  never 
before  been  in  any  dictionary  of  the  English  language. 
Since  that  time  it  has  passed  through  innumerable  editions 
and  printings  and  editings  until  today  the  dictionary  based 
on  Webster's  work  is  the  standard  among  all  English 
speakers,  the  world  over.  Like  all  reformers  and  men  of 
positive  ideas,  Noah  Webster  had  some  crotchets  that  have 
given  comfort  to  carping  critics  in  his  own  day  and  since. 
Noting  that  many  English  spellings  of  the  early  Middle 
Ages  were  no  longer  used  by  any  one,  he  thought  it  would  be 
well  to  omit  letters  that  no  longer  had  any  significance 
in  pronunciation  as  the  u  in  honour,  or  the  final  e  in  fugitive. 
Moreover,  it  was  a  matter  of  the  greatest  difficulty  to  decide 

1  See  Ford  and  Skeel's  Notes  on  the  letter  to  Judge  Dawes  on  p.  65.  Vol- 
Life  of  Noah  Webster,  ii,  116;  his  con-  ume  ii  of  this  work  deals  mainly  with 
•eptions  of  his  task  are  given  in  a  the  Dictionary. 


296  LITERATURE  [CH.  DC 

on  the  proper  pronunciation  of  words  and  on  the  proper 
spelling  of  them.  Webster  desired  help  in  deciding  these 
questions,  but  was  denied  it,  and  he  had  to  make  up  his 
own  mind  as  between  the  pronunciations  of  different 
sections  of  the  United  States  and  of  different  strata  of 
English  society.  The  permanence  of  the  greater  part  of  his 
work  and  the  enormous  influence  that  it  has  had  and  now 
possesses  is  proof  of  the  general  catholicity  of  Webster's 
judgment  and  of  the  certainty  and  sweep  of  his  scholarship. 
Goodrich  belonged  to  the  next  generation.  Although 
born  in  Connecticut,  he  passed  his  working  life  mainly  at 
Boston,  where,  for  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  he  edited  "The 
Token,"  one  of  the  most  successful  and  creditable  of  the 
annual  Gift  Books.  In  1827,  he  published  the  first  "Peter 
Parley"  book  under  the  title  of  "The  Tales  of  Peter  Parley 
about  America."  A  later  book,  "Peter  Parley's  Method  of 
Telling  about  Geography,"  in  its  various  forms  had  enor- 
mous popularity,  two  million  copies  having  been  sold.  In 
all  Goodrich  estimated  that  seven  million  copies  of  his 
books  were  sold  in  the  thirty  years  after  1827.  Unfor- 
tunately, he  had  parted  with  all  right,'  to  the  "Geography" 
at  the  time  of  its  publication.1  He  died  in  poverty,  leaving 
behind  him  "  Recollections  of  a  Lifetime"  that  has  permanent 
value.  The  "Peter  Parley"  books  were  not  literary  master- 
pieces, nor  were  they  works  of  deep  scholarship,  but  they 
were  precisely  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  schools  that 
were  becoming  common  throughout  nearly  all  parts  of  the 

1  Goodrich  or  "Peter  Parley"  was  Goodrich,  see  his  Recollection*  of  a 
the  author  or  editor  of  "about  one  Lifetime  (2  vols.,  New  York,  1856) 
hundred  and  seventy  volumes  —  one  and  the  "Appendix"  to  vol.  ii  for  a 
hundred  and  sixteen  bearing  the  name  complete  list  of  his  publications.  Na- 
of  Peter  Parley."  At  least  twenty  thaniel  Hawthorne  collaborated  with 
other  American  productions  were  falsely  Goodrich  for  a  time  and,  indeed,  wrote 
attributed  to  him,  and  no  less  than  Peter  Parley's  Universal  History  on  the 
twenty-eight  English  ones.  For  an  basis  of  Geography.  For  the  use  of  Fowl- 
interesting  account  of  Samuel  G.  tiiet  (Boston,  1837). 


1830]  PETER  PARLEY  297 

country  and  they  rank  with  Webster's  "Speller"  as  an  edu- 
cational force  in  the  nation.1  Another  native  of  Connect- 
icut greatly  to  influence  the  education  of  American  youth 
was  Emma  Willard.  She  was  a  believer  in  the  education 
of  women.  In  1819,  she  appeared  before  the  New  York 
legislature  in  advocacy  of  "A  Plan  for  Improving  Female 
Education."  She  argued  that  the  improvement  of  the 
education  of  the  daughters  of  the  enlightened  citizens  of 
America  was  a  worthy  object  in  itself  and  that  the  raising  of 
"the  female  character  .  .  .  must  inevitably  raise  that  of 
the  other  sex."  So  far  female  education  had  been  left  to 
"the  mercy  of  private  adventurers."  "Feminine  delicacy" 
required  that  girls  should  be  taught  by  their  own  sex.  The 
best  way  to  do  this  was  in  boarding  schools  where  the  pupils 
should  be  properly  classed  and  provided  with  libraries  and 
philosophical  apparatus,  all  of  which,  so  far  as  Mrs.  Willard 
was  concerned,  she  hoped  would  be  subsidized  by  the  State 
of  New  York.2  As  in  the  case  of  Webster,  Mrs.  Willard 
was  impressed  with  the  poverty  of  American  text-books, 
which  were  entirely  unsuited  to  her  methods  of  teaching. 
She  set  to  work,  therefore,  to  provide  better  books  in 
history  and  geography.  Her  first  "History  of  the  United 
States"  was  printed  at  Hartford  in  1828  and  reprinted  in 
different  forms  again  and  again,  and  translated  into  "pure 
Castilian"  to  answer  the  call  for  it  from  Spanish  America. 
Her  other  books 3  were  connections  between  history  and 
geography,  as  her  "Guide  to  the  Temple  of  Time." 

1  Two    brothers,    Jacob    and    John  Mary    Lyon,    followed    in    1837.     For 

S.  C.  Abbott,   performed  a  somewhat  the  higher  education  of  women  in  the 

similar    service    in    the    production    of  early  time,  see  ch.  i  of  Sarah  D.  Stow's 

The  Franconia  Stories,  The  Rollo  Books,  History  of  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary. 
and  The  History  of  Napoleon.  *  Ancient     Geography     as     connected 

*  Mrs.  Willard  was  not  successful  with  Chronology  (Hartford,  1822,  form- 
in  this,  but  in  1821  she  opened  the  ing  a  volume  of  W.  C.  Woodbridge's 
Troy  Female  Seminary,  as  a  private  Universal  Geography)  and  Geography 
enterprise.  Mt.  Holyoke  College,  for  Beginners:  or  the  Instmcter's  As- 
which  is  associated  with  the  name  of  sistant,  in  giving  First  Lessons  from 


298 


LITERATURE 


[Ca.  IX 


Literary  men  of  that  day  owed  much  to  the  protracted 
study  of  the  great  writers  of  England  of  the  preceding  cen- 
tury. English  books  also  had  a  great  circulation  in  the 
United  States,1  largely  in  copies  printed  in  America.  In  the 
teaching  of  the  history  of  England,  an  abridgment  of  Oliver 
Goldsmith's  "History  of  England  ...  to  the  Close  of  the 
Reign  of  George  II"  was  printed  in  a  dozen  editions,  at 
Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  also  at  Alexandria,  Virginia, 
and  Hallowell,  Maine.  Young's  "Night  Thoughts  on  Life, 
Death,  and  Immortality"  was  even  more  widely  used  for 
instruction  in  the  English  language.  Two  dozen  editions 
were  printed  in  America,  at  Troy  in  New  York,  Exeter  in 
New  Hampshire,  Brookfield  in  Massachusetts,  and  else- 
where. Possibly  as  better  showing  the  universal  acknowl- 
edgment of  English  leadership  was  the  reprinting  —  with 
adaptations  —  of  Thomas  Cook's  "Universal  Letter  Writer" 
at  Baltimore,  in  1819. 

Perhaps  in  no  way  was  the  influence  of  England  and  of 
Europe  more  marked  on  the  working  out  of  American  ambi- 
tion than  in  building  up  a  school  of  painting.  John  Singleton 
Copley,2  Gilbert  Stuart,3  Edward  Greene  Malbone,4  Ben- 
jamin West,  John  Trumbull,  Washington  Allston,  and  John 
Vanderlyn  were  none  of  them  of  the  first  rank,  or  possibly 


Maps  in  the  style  of  Familiar  Con- 
versation (Hartford,  1826).  See  John 
Lord's  Life  of  Emma  Willard  (New 
York,  1873)  and  the  memoir  pre- 
fixed to  Emma  Willard  and  her  Pupils 
which  was  published  by  Mrs.  Russell 
Sage  at  New  York  in  1898.  It  should 
be  added  that  Mrs.  Willard's  Series 
of  Maps,  which  was  prepared  to  ac- 
company her  History  of  the  United 
States,  would  do  credit  to  a  modern 
historical  cartographer. 

1  One  of  the  early  protesters  against 
this  literary  vassalage  was  J.  W. 
Simmons.  America  stood  to  Europe, 
he  thought,  in  much  the  same  way 


that  Rome  stood  to  Greece,  which  was 
a  misfortune,  —  to  his  mind.  See  his 
"Observations  on  American  Literature" 
in  a  volume  entitled  The  Maniac's 
Confession  (Philadelphia,  1821,  pp. 
105-164). 

1  Martha  B.  Amory's  Domestic  and 
Artistic  Life  of  John  Singleton  Copley, 
R.  A.  and  A.  T.  Perkins's  Sketch  of  the 
Life  .  .  .  of  John  Singleton  Copley. 

*  George  C.  Mason's  Life  and  Works 
of  Gilbert  Stuart. 

4  For  an  account  of  Malbone,  see 
William  Dunlap's  History  of  the  .  .  . 
Arts  of  Design  in  the  United  States 
(New  York,  1834),  ii,  14-29. 


1830]  THE  ARTISTS  299 

of  the  second ;  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  duplicate  so  good  a 
group  of  artists  in  any  other  country  at  any  one  time.1 
Of  them  all,  Benjamin  West  stands  first  in  point  of  worldly 
success  and  influence  on  his  brethren,  —  he  was  an  artistic 
Franklin  whose  wilderness  beginnings  commended  him  to 
London  "society."2  West  was  of  English-Pennsylvania- 
Quaker  stock,  but  he  was  not  born  a  Quaker  and  never 
became  one.  He  passed  most  of  his  life  in  England  painting 
a  few  noteworthy  pictures  —  and  many  others  —  and  trainr 
ing  a  school  of  American  artists.  His  first  important  work 
was  a  representation  in  color  of  "The  Death  of  Wolfe" 
on  the  Plains  of  Abraham.  Instead  of  depicting  the  dying 
general  in  classic  robes,  as  was  then  the  custom,  he  clothed 
him  in  the  uniform  of  a  British  general  and  defended  this 
barbaric  innovation  by  saying  that  historic  painting,  no 
less  than  historic  writing,  should  be  true  to  the  facts. 
This  statement  may  possibly  be  in  itself  quite  unhistorical, 
but  the  picture  represents  what  West  believed  to  be  the 
fact.  His  other  important  large  paintings  were  "Penn's 
Treaty  with  the  Indians,"  "Christ  Healing  the  Sick,"  and 
"Death  on  the  Pale  Horse."  "Penn's  Treaty"  and  the 
"Wolfe"  have  done  more  to  form  pseudo-historical  tradition 
than  almost  anything  of  the  kind,  but  West's  other  two 
large  pictures  had,  if  possible,  greater  popularity.  They 
were  copied  time  and  time  again  and  exhibited  all  over  the 
United  States.  West  found  favor  also  with  the  British 
nobility  and  with  George  III  and  became  president  of  the 

1  Samuel  Isham's  History  of  Amen-  2  Charles  H.  Hart's  Benjamin  West's 

can  Painting  (New  York,  1905) ;    there  Family  .  .  .  Not     a     Quaker     (Phila- 

is  a  general  bibliography  on  p.  565  and  delphia,   1908).     For  the  old  time  tra- 

fol.     See    also    Dunlap's    Arts    of  De-  ditional   view   of   West   and   his   place 

sign  and  Henry  T.  Tuckerman's  Artist-  in  the  history  of  art,  see  John  Gait's 

Life:    or  Sketches  of  American  Painters  Life,  Studies,  and   Works  of  Benjamin 

(New     York,     1847).     On     Trumbull.  West,  Esq.  (London,  1820).     The  "Ap- 

see  John  F.  Weir's  John  Trumbull,  A  pendix"   gives  a  list  of  four  hundred 

Brief  Sketch  of  His  Life.  and  ten  of  West's  pictures. 


300  LITERATURE  [Cn.   IX 

Royal  Academy,  —  a  career  that  has  seldom  been  surpassed. 
Most  of  the  artistic  work  of  that  time  was  in  portraiture. 
Artists  travelled  from  town  to  town  in  America,  reproducing 
with  more  or  less  faithfulness  the  lineaments  of  almost 
countless  men  and  women.  Oftentimes  they  charged  small 
prices  for  their  services  and  spent  little  time  at  the  work ; 
but  they  perpetuated  for  us  the  faces  and  forms  of  their 
generation  of  American  men  and  women.  The  silhouettists 
and  the  fabricators  of  wax  portraits  also  helped  to  preserve 
the  features  of  our  ancestors.  From  1810  to  1840  was  the 
period  in  which  the  silhouette  makers  flourished.1  The 
most  remarkable  of  them  was  Auguste  Edouart,  who  came  to 
America  from  France  by  way  of  London.  He  and  some  of 
the  others  delineated  family  groups  and  some  of  these  are 
among  the  most  striking  representations  of  the  figures  of 
the  past. 

Ordinarily,  having  procured  a  little  money  by  portrait 
painting,  an  artist  sought  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  and 
almost  inevitably  found  himself  in  West's  studio  in  London. 
Returning  to  the  home  land,  he  painted  more  portraits  of 
greater  artistic  merit,  though  perhaps  of  not  greater  historic 
truth,  and  then  yielded  place  to  younger  men.  Of  them 
all,  the  career  of  Washington  Allston  possesses  the  greatest 
attraction  as  showing  the  progress  of  the  American  mind. 
Allston2  was  born  in  South  Carolina  in  1779,  passed  his  boy- 
hood in  Rhode  Island,  which  even  then  was  sought  by  "the 
most  fashionable  influential  Characters  from  Maryland  to 
Georgia,"3  and  entered  Harvard  College  in  1796.  There, 
the  coloring  of  Symbert's  copy  of  Vandyke's  portrait  of 

1  Charles  Henry  Hart  in   The  Out-  Nevill  Jackson's  History  of  Silhouettes 

look  for  October  6,    1900,   has  an  in-  (London,  1911). 

teresting  article  on  "The  Last  of  the  2Jared  B.  Flagg's  Life  and  Letters  of 

Silhouettists."  The  best  work  is  Ethel  Washington  Allston  (New  York,  1892). 
S.  Bolton's  Wax  Portraits  and  Sil-  *G.  L.  Rives's  Correspondence  of 

houettes    (Boston,    1915).     See   also   E.  Thomas  Barclay,  144. 


1830]  WASHINGTON  ALLSTON  301 

Cardinal  Bentivoglio  attracted  him  and  did  much  to  turn 
his  attention  to  art.  He  studied  with  West  at  London,  spent 
four  years  at  Rome,  and  at  one  time  or  another  passed  seven 
years  in  England.  Finally  returning  to  America,  he  devoted 
his  last  years  to  the  remaking  of  a  large  picture  of  "  Bel- 
shazzar's  Feast "  and  died  before  the  work  was  done.  Allston 
delivered  a  series  of  lectures  on  art  which  were  the 
first  of  their  kind  in  America  and  even  now  are  interesting. 
He  protested  against  "  faithful  transcripts."  Art  should 
be  characterized  by  originality,  by  poetic  truth,  by  imagi- 
nation, and  by  unity.  The  difference  between  nature  and 
art  is  that  one  is  "  the  work  of  the  Creator,  and  the  other 
of  the  creature."  Washington  Allston  also  printed  a  volume 
of  poems  and  a  rather  striking  work  of  fiction  entitled  "  Mo- 
naldi,"  which  is  worth  reading  even  now.  And  five  lines  of 
his  poetry  linger  in  the  memory : 

" '  Tis  sad  to  think,  of  all  the  crowded  Past, 
How  small  a  remnant  in  the  memory  lives  I 
A  shadowy  mass  of  shapes  at  random  cast 
Wide  on  a  broken  sea  the  image  gives 
Of  most  that  we  recall." 

The  earliest  chronicler  of  the  painters  and  the  actors  was 
William  Dunlap,  himself  an  artist,  a  theatrical  manager,  and 
a  dramatist,  besides  being  the  writer  of  two  distinctly  useful 
books,  a  "  History  of  the  American  Theatre  "  and  a  "  History 
,of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Arts  of  Design  in  the  United 
States."  The  latter  was  published  in  New  York  in  1834 
when  many  of  those  who  are  memorialized  in  its  pages  were 
still  alive  and  able  to  contribute  to  the  work.  Dunlap 
quoted  largely,  but  he  rejected  many  of  the  stock  anecdotes 
that  came  to  him  from  Gait's  biography  of  Benjamin  West. 
Dunlap  painted  partly  from  memory  and  partly  from 


302  LITERATURE  [CH.    IX 

sketches1  replicas  of  West's  large  pictures.  These,  with 
some  of  his  own  productions,  he  exhibited  all  over  the 
country,  in  Transappalachia  as  well  as  in  the  Old  Thirteen 
States,  and  his  series  of  exhibitions  was  only  one  of  many. 
Doubtless  the  artistic  merit  of  many  of  the  pictures  and  of 
other  objects,  as  Hiram  Powers's  "  Greek  Slave  "  in  marble, 
was  not  great,  but  the  fact  that  thousands  of  people  wished 
to  see  them  and  were  willing  to  pay  for  the  privilege  is  an 
indication  of  a  quickened  artistic  sense.  Powers's  "  Greek 
Slave  "  and  Greenough's  "  Washington  "  pall  on  the  modern 
taste.2  The  latter  was  designed  for  the  interior  of  the 
Capitol  and  in  its  half-clothed  condition  out  of  doors  the 
figure  of  the  seated  Washington  strikes  modern  observers  as 
somewhat  bizarre.  There  have  been  critics  who  have  been 
rude  enough  to  suggest  that  the  fame  of  the  Greek  Slave  was 
largely  due  to  its  being  the  first  unclad  life-size  female 
figure  to  be  exhibited  in  America ;  but  the  further  assertion 
that  it  was  simply  a  copy  of  a  second-rate  antique  and  not 
the  result  of  a  frontier  genius  is  unjust  to  Powers,  who  lived 
for  years  in  Cincinnati,  although  he  was  born  and  nurtured 
in  Vermont,  and  did  most  of  his  work  in  Italy. 

Whence  come  genius  and  talent  ?  Do  they  arise  from  the 
soil,  come  from  one's  parents,  from  one's  early  environ- 
ment, or  from  the  circumstances  of  one's  working  career? 
In  the  preceding  pages  care  has  been  taken  to  note  all  four 
of  these  points,  partly  with  a  view  to  illustrating  this  very 
matter.  Recently,  attention  has  been  drawn  to  the  com-, 
parative  influence  of  "  nature  and  nurture  "  in  forming 
men's  lives,  partly  as  a  test  of  Galton's  famous  thesis. 
Edwin  L.  Clarke  has  tabulated  the  birth-places 3  of  four 

»See  Oral  S.  Coad's  William  Dun-  American  Sculpture  (New  York,  19l3)i 

lap,  A  Study  of  his  Life  and  Dunlap's  Pt.  i. 

own  account  in    his  Arts  of  Design,  i,  'Edwin  L.  Clarke's  American  Men 

243-311.  of  Letters;    their  Nature  and  Nurture, 

2  See     Lorado     Taft's     History     of  80. 


18301  NATURE    AND    NURTURE  303 

hundred  and  sixty  American  Literati  born  before  1851. 
Of  these  218  were  born  in  New  England,  140  in  the  Middle 
States,  48  in  the  South  Atlantic  States,  44  in  all  the  rest 
of  the  United  States,  and  8  in  Canada.  At  first  sight  it 
would  appear  that  there  was  some  peculiar  quality  inherent 
in  the  rocks  and  sands  of  New  England,  so  that  people  born 
there  were  influenced  by  the  geographic  character  of  the 
place,  by  its  soil  and  its  climate.  Looking  a  little  farther 
Clarke  placed  these  460  literary  persons  according  to  the 
religious  surroundings  of  their  families.  It  appears  that 
119  were  "  trained  "  as  Congregationalists,  73  as  Presby- 
terians, 49  as  Unitarians,  7  as  Universalists,  and  20  as 
Quakers,  or  268  in  all  belonging  to  the  religious  faiths  that 
had  been  prominent  in  early  New  England.  When  one 
considers  the  relative  size  of  the  population  served  by  these 
religious  faiths,  the  picture  is  startling ;  but  when  one 
goes  beneath  the  surface  a  bit  and  looks  into  the  circum- 
stances of  the  careers  of  these  men,  or  of  the  most  famous 
group  of  them,  one  finds  that  it  was  not  so  much  their 
religious  training  as  it  was  a  revolt  from  the  ideas  of  their 
fathers  and  grandfathers  that  influenced  them.  The  great- 
est of  them  produced  their  most  effective  works  in  New 
England  in  the  second  third  of  the  century.1  It  was  the 
time  when  Church  and  State  were  separated,  when  the 
old  ideas  suffered  a  most  severe  shock.  Emerson  tells  us 


'The  following  dates  are  associated  ley's  New  York  Tribune  begins ;  1848, 
with  the  names  of  the  foremost  mem-  Lowell's  Fable  for  Critics  and  the 
here  of  the  New  England  group:  Biglow  Papers;  1849,  Thoreau's  Week 
1821,  Bryant's  Poems;  1830,  Holmes's  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers, 
"Old  Ironsides,"  1858,  Autocrat  of  the  and  1854,  Walden.  Of  the  historians, 
Breakfast  Table;  1831,  Whittier's  Leg-  the  first  volume  of  Bancroft's  United 
ends  of  New  England,  1841,  Voices  of  States  appeared  in  1834 ;  Prescott's 
Freedom;  1836,  Emerson's  Nature,  1838,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  in  1837  ;  Park- 
The  American  Scholar;  1837,  Haw-  man's  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac  in  1851  ; 
thorne's  Twice-Told  Tales,  1850,  The  and  Motley's  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
Scarlet  Letter;  1839,  Longfellow's  Hy-  public  in  1856. 
perion,  1847,  Evangeline;  1841,  Gree 


304  LITERATURE  [Cn.  IX 

to  think  for  ourselves ;  Thoreau  to  see  for  ourselves ;  Chan- 
ning  to  interpret  the  Bible  for  ourselves ;  and  Hawthorne 
gives  a  picture  of  the  older  time  that  makes  one's  flesh 
creep  even  now.  Longfellow  and  Whittier  objurgated  the 
preceding  generations  in  verse,  and  Holmes  gently  chided 
his  ancestors  and  their  companions  as  the  New  England 
Brahminical  class.  All  of  them  threw  precedents  to  the 
winds  and  in  their  mental  revolt  they  broke  away  from  the 
old  social  order  and  inaugurated  a  period  of  freethinking. 
It  was  not  the  New  England  soil  and  climate,  it  was  not 
any  physical  or  mental  peculiarity  of  the  old  New  England 
stock,  it  was  not  any  particular  schooling  that  bred  these 
men,  it  was  the  reaction  of  the  period  and  the  place  from  the 
old  conditions  and  the  bounding  forth  into  a  new  and  freer 
life  that  produced  them.  Moreover,  the  idea  that  family 
scholasticism  was  an  essential  element  in  the  production  of 
the  New  England  literary  school  does  not  seem  to  be  borne 
out  by  the  facts  of  these  men's  nurture.  Emerson  and 
Holmes  were  sons  of  Congregational  ministers,  but  Thoreau 
and  Whittier  were  farmer  boys,  and  Hawthorne's  father  was 
a  merchant,  and  whenever  one  approaches  this  particular 
theme,  the  career  of  Abraham  Lincoln  at  once  comes  to 
mind  as  controverting  all  theories  on  nature  and  nurture. 
It  may  well  be  that  the  simplicity  of  existence  in  that  time 
gave  men  and  women  opportunity  to  turn  from  bread  and 
luxury  winning  to  affairs  of  the  imagination. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  was  the  clearest  thinker  that 
America  has  yet  produced  and  one  of  the  clearest  thinkers 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  his  English  is  of  the  kind 
that  is  eternal.  Thoreau  in  his  lifetime  was  not  at  all 
appreciated,  but  as  the  years  have  gone  by  and  people 
have  come  to  know  him  better,  especially  through  the  pub- 
lication of  his  "Journal,"  it  is  clear  that,  in  some  respects, 


1830]  THE  HISTORIANS  305 

he  has  had  no  equal  in  this  country  and  few  anywhere. 
Hawthorne,  curiously  enough,  had  little  fame  in  his  lifetime 
compared  with  that  which  has  since  visited  him.  It  is 
interesting  to  think  of  these  men  as  Americans  who  drew 
their  inspirations  from  America,  who  in  their  formative 
years  never  went  far  from  their  boyhood  homes.  Besides 
the  poets  and  essayists  who  have  been  enumerated  in  the 
preceding  paragraphs,  New  England  produced  a  quartette 
of  historians  who  enjoyed  great  vogue  in  their  lives  and 
whose  fame  is  not  yet  dead.  Of  these,  George  Bancroft 
was  the  earliest  in  point  of  time  and  represents  for  America 
the  doctrinaire  historical  writer,  and  it  is  as  a  protest  against 
the  theory  of  the  aristocratic  march  of  American  history  that 
his  work  can  still  be  used.  Prescott  and  Motley  had  none  of 
the  usual  equipment  of  the  successful  historical  student : 
they  were  not  poor,  they  were  not  teachers,  they  had  no 
scientific  training.  They  were  subject  to  the  English 
historical  method  and  sought  by  literary  expertness  to  make 
historic  scenes  and  events  appeal  to  their  readers,  —  and 
they  succeeded.  The  fourth  in  the  list,  Francis  Parkman, 
combined  careful  scientific  historical  investigation  with  great 
literary  charm.  No  historian  can  hope  to  live  as  can  a  poet 
or  an  essayist,  because  new  facts  will  constantly  arise  to 
invalidate  his  most  careful  conclusions ;  but  these  four  men 
have  enjoyed  a  life  beyond  that  generally  awarded  to  his- 
torians. In  short,  this  half-century  in  the  United  States 
in  poetry,  in  fiction,  and  in  history  stands  apart,  —  it  is 
without  an  equal  since  the  days  of  Shakespeare,  Francis 
Bacon,  and  John  Milton. 


VOL.V. — X 


306 


LITERATURE 


NOTE 

General  Bibliography.  —  The  bibliographies  at  the  ends  of  the  first 
two  volumes  of  the  Cambridge  History  of  American  Literature  are  of 
great  value  to  the  student  and  include,  not  only  works  of  "  pure  " 
or  "  polite  "  literature,  but  also  sections  on  travels,  newspapers,  and 
orators.1  Histories  of  American  literature  have  been  written  by 
Barrett  Wendell,  Bliss  Perry,  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  William 
P.  Trent,  and  George  E.  Woodberry ; 2  but  they  are  all  mainly  con- 
cerned with  "  the  Augustan  Period  of  American  Literature  "  or  the 
"  Renaissance  of  American  Letters,"  meaning  thereby  the  period  of 
New  England  literary  flowering.3  Earl  L.  Bradsher's  Mathew  Carey, 
Editor,  Author,  and  Publisher  (New  York,  1912)  is  one  of  the  few 
essays  to  give  a  view  of  the  American  non-classical  literature. 


1  A  comprehensive  list  of  the  writ- 
ings of  Southerners  is  at  the  end  of  vol. 
xvi  of  the  Library  of  Southern  Litera- 
ture. 

*  A  Literary  History  of  America  by 
Barrett  Wendell ;  History  of  Litera- 
ture in  America  by  Wendell  and  C.  N. 
Greenough;  The  American  Mind  by 
Bliss  Perry;  A  Reader's  History  of 
American  Literature  by  T.  W.  Higgin- 
son and  H.  W.  Boynton ;  The  Cam- 
bridge History  of  American  Literature 
edited  by  W.  P.  Trent  and  others; 


America  in  Literature  by  G.  E.  Wood- 
berry;  C.  F.  Richardson's  American 
Literature  (2  vols.,  New  York,  1887); 
D.  D.  Addison's  Clergy  in  American 
Life  and  Letters. 

*  William  B.  Cairns's  essay  "On  the 
Development  of  American  Literature 
from  1815  to  1833"  (Bulletin  of  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  Literature 
Series,  i,  No.  1)  is  almost  the  only  at- 
tempt to  give  an  adequate  place  to  the 
literary  activity  of  this  early  time. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   PRESIDENCY  OP  JAMES  MONROE 

POLITICALLY  and  superficially  the  ten  years  from  1815  to 
1825  were  years  of  calm  within  the  boundaries  of  the  federal 
government.  They  have  often  been  termed  the  Era  of 
Good  Feeling  and  are  usually  regarded  as  having  no  interest 
and  as  being  of  little  importance.  In  reality  they  were  a 
formative  period  in  our  political  history  and  in  our  inter- 
national history  of  the  greatest  interest  and  of  the  highest 
importance.  It  was  in  that  time  that  forces  were  taking 
shape  that  were  to  determine  the  history  of  the  United  States 
down  to  the  year  1865.  The  Southerners  consolidated  their 
grip  upon  the  government  of  the  country  and  developed  the 
solidarity  of  society  to  the  southward  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  that  was  to  become  apparent  to  every  one  in  1850.  John 
Quincy  Adams  noted  the  general  high  ability  of  the  Southern 
congressmen  and  government  officials  in  comparison  with 
that  of  the  Northerners  with  whom  he  had  to  do  in  Wash- 
ington. A  leisured  class  had  developed  in  the  South ;  its 
members  were  only  slightly  interested  in  "reforms"  or  in 
literature,  but  they  were  absorbed  in  politics.  This  was  not 
confined  to  the  very  rich  men,  because  many  well-to-do 
planters,  who  were  actively  engaged  in  the  management  of 
their  plantations,  were  able  to  leave  their  fields  and  slaves 
to  the  care  of  overseers  and  managers  and  attend  the  meet- 
ings of  the  State  legislatures  and  of  the  federal  Congress. 
In  the  North  the  members  of  the  leisured  classes  were  either 

307 


308 


THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Cn.  X 


engaged  in  reforming  the  abuses  that  had  come  down  from 
colonial  times,  or  were  devoted  to  literature;  and  the 
strong  men  of  affairs  were  so  immersed  in  business  that  they 
could  not  enter  public  life ;  and,  in  the  newer  country  of  the 
Northwest,  the  farmers  were  obliged  to  stick  to  their  ploughs. 
There  were  exceptions  to  this  rule  as  to  any  other,  —  John 
Quincy  Adams,  himself,  was  a  most  marked  exception ;  but, 
generally  speaking,  political  matters  in  the  North  were  left 
to  the  professionals  whose  horizons  were  bounded  by  petty 
offices  and  personal  advancements.  One  could  enumerate 
twenty-five  or  fifty  men  in  the  South  in  this  period  whose 
abilities  could  not  be  matched  by  more  than  a  dozen  North- 
ern politicians.  It  is  true  that,  with  its  rapidly  growing 
population,  the  North  was  steadily  outstripping  the  South 
in  Congress  —  notwithstanding  the  working  of  the  federal 
ratio,  but  so  far  the  Southerners  by  combining  with  the 
democratic  elements  in  the  Northern  population  had  been 
able  to  keep  their  grip  on  the  federal  government.  In  1816, 
James  Monroe,1  a  Virginia  planter  like  Jefferson  and 
Madison,  had  been  elected  President  by  183  electoral  votes 
to  only  34  for  his  Federalist  opponent,  Rufus  King  of  New 
York.  In  1820,  there  was  no  Federalist  candidate  at  all 
and  Monroe  was  reflected  President,  receiving  all  but  one 
of  the  electoral  votes.  That  single  vote  was  given  by 
William  Plumer  of  New  Hampshire  to  John  Quincy  Adams, 
because  he  thought  that  Monroe  had  shown  "a  want  of 
foresight  and  economy."  2 

One  department  alone  had  resisted  the  triumph  of  th( 


1  The  Writings  of  James  Monroe 
were  edited  by  S.  M.  Hamilton  and 
published  in  seven  volumes  in  New 
York  in  1903.  These  volumes  re- 
produce the  most  important  part  of 
the  papers  purchased  from  Monroe's 
heirs  in  1849.  These  manuscripts  are 
in  the  Library  of  Congress  and 


have  been  listed  by  W.  C.  Ford  in 
volume  entitled  Papers  of  James  Mo 
roe. 

2  William  Plumer  to  William  Plumer, 
Jr.,  January  8,  1821,  in  the  "Plumer 
Mss. "  in  the  Library  of  Congress,  and 
in  the  American  Historical  Review, 
xxi,  318. 


1803)  CHIEF  JUSTICE  JOHN  MARSHALL  309 

Republicans,  the  federal  judiciary  as  represented  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  It  is  true  that  by 
1820,  all  but  two  of  the  judges  were  Republicans  and  the 
Chief  Justice  himself  was  a  Southerner.  But  that  Chief 
Justice,  John  Marshall,  was  a  Virginian  of  the  George 
Washington  type.  In  point  of  fact,  in  some  respects  he 
strongly  resembled  that  great  man.  Like  him  he  was  not 
deeply  versed  in  the  minutiae  of  learning,  but  like  him  he 
had  steadfastness  of  purpose  and  the  power  of  commanding 
the  learning  of  those  who  worked  with  him.  Decades  came 
and  decades  went ;  for  thirty-five  years  Marshall  remained 
at  the  head  of  the  national  judiciary,  and  for  thirty-five 
years  he  remained  a  Federalist.  Moreover,  as  one  of  the 
old  Federalist  justices  after  another  died  and  his  place 
was  filled  by  a  Republican  appointed  by  one  of  the  Virginia 
Republican  Presidents,  he  fell  immediately  under  the  over- 
whelming influence  of  the  Chief  Justice.  In  seven  leading 
cases  spread  over  the  twenty-one  years  from  1803  to  1824 
Marshall  and  his  colleagues  announced  the  supremacy  of  the 
federal  government  over  the  States  of  the  Union  so  far  as 
powers  had  been  delegated  to  it  by  the  sovereign  people 
through  the  medium  of  the  Constitution.1  In  Marbury  vs. 
Madison,  the  earliest  decision  in  point  of  time,  the  supremacy 
of  the  Supreme  Court  over  the  federal  legislature  was  enun- 

JThe  cases  are  as  follows:  Mar-  and  the  "Letters"  of  Marshall  to  Judge 
bury  vs.  Madison,  1803;  Fletcher  vs.  Story,  printed  in  the  Proceedings 
Peck,  1810 ;  Martin  vs.  Hunter's  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So- 
Lessee,  1816 ;  M'Culloch  vs.  Mary-  ciety  for  November,  1900,  throw  a 
land,  1819 ;  Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  1821 ;  flood  of  light  on  the  personal  and 
Osborn  vs.  Bank  of  the  United  States,  mental  characteristics  of  the  great 
1824 ;  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  1824.  These  Chief  Justice  and  his  ablest  sup- 
cases  may  be  most  convienently  con-  porter. 

suited  in  J.  B.  Thayer's  Cases  on  Con-  Monroe  —  when    governor   of   Vir- 

stilutional    Law,    in    The    Writings    of  ginia  —  wrote    to    Jefferson    in    1801 : 

John  Marshall,  and  in  the  "Reports"  "Each  govt.   [federal  and  State]    is  in 

of    the    Supreme    Court.        Albert    J.  its    sphere    sovereign,    so    far    as    the 

Beveridge's    John    Marshall,    in    four  term  is  applicable  in  a  country  where 

volumes,  is  one  of  the  most  illuminat-  the    people     alone     are    so."     Works, 

ing    of    American    biographical    works  iii,  282. 


310  THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Cn.   X 

ciated.  In  the  last  of  them,  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden,  in  1824, 
the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution  over  State  constitutions 
and  laws  was  set  forth  in  a  decision  that  navigation,  so  far 
as  it  could  be  included  within  the  phrase  "regulate  com- 
merce" between  the  States,  was  within  federal  control.  In 
the  case  of  Cohens  vs.  Virginia  in  1821  and  in  Martin  vs. 
Hunter's  Lessee  in  1816,  the  Supreme  Court  actually  had 
the  temerity  to  issue  orders  to  Virginia  State  courts.  In 
M'Culloch  vs.  Maryland  and  in  Osborn  vs.  the  Bank,  the 
power  of  the  United  States  government  to  regulate  the  finan- 
cial concerns  of  the  several  States  and  practically  of  every 
individual  within  the  United  States  was  laid  down  with  un- 
deniable distinctness.  It  is  true  that  the  persons  and  powers 
directly  affected  by  some  of  these  decisions  paid  little 
attention  to  the  orders  of  the  federal  Supreme  Court ; 
but  the  orders  and  the  principles  and  the  reasoning  upon 
which  these  decisions  were  based  remained  and  remain  to  this 
day  practically  the  supreme  law  of  the  land.  In  death, 
indeed,  the  Federalist  party  triumphed. 

One  of  the  most  distinctive  features  of  the  Hamiltonian 
policy  had  been  the  concentration  of  the  control  of  the 
finances  of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States  within  the 
grasp  of  a  great  financial  institution  that  had  been  in- 
corporated by  act  of  Congress  in  1791  and  had  been  more 
thoroughly  hated  than  any  other  creation  of  the  Federalists. 
In  1811,  the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  had 
expired  by  its  limitation.  For  several  years  one  attempt 
after  another  had  been  made  to  prolong  its  life  by  a  new 
charter  embodying  some  peculiarly  favorable  features  so 
far  as  the  central  government  was  concerned.1  All  had 

1  See  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  siderations  on  the  Currency  and  Bank- 
Treasury  on  the  Subject  of  a  National  ing  System  of  the  United  States  (Phila- 
Bank  (March  2,  1809).  Gallatin's  delphia,  1831).  A  vigorous  and  viru- 
later  ideas  are  to  be  found  in  his  Con-  lent  attack  on  the  Bank  was  made  by 


1816] 


BANK    OF    THE   UNITED    STATES 


311 


been  in  vain.  The  Jeffersonians  had  aroused  the  jealousies 
of  the  people  against  centralized  financial  power,  the 
Jeffersonian  government  had  sold  bank  stock  belonging  to 
the  United  States  to  English  capitalists  through  the  Barings 
of  London,1  and  Albert  Gallatin,  who  was  still  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  had  aroused  the  anger  and  distrust  of  politi- 
cians and  local  financiers  partly  by  his  insistence  on  things 
that  were  good  in  themselves  and  partly  by  an  ignorance  of 
the  ordinary  methods  of  business  transactions,2  —  and  be- 
sides he  was  of  foreign  birth.  His  enemies  combined  with 
those  Congressmen  who  naturally  distrusted  banks  and  with 
the  anti-British  people  to  defeat  every  attempt  to  renew  its 
existence.  When  the  war  came,  the  difficulty  of  collect- 
ing government  funds  and  paying  them  out  was  greatly  in- 
creased by  the  lack  of  a  central  financial  institution,  and  from 
time  to  time  it  became  almost  impossible  to  provide  the 

loney  to  purchase  supplies  in  distant  parts  of  the  country. 

rold  and  silver  disappeared  from  circulation,  except  in 
New  England.  This  was  mainly  due  to  the  vicious  banking 
systems  of  other  parts  of  the  country,  but  it  was  helped  on 
by  the  exportation  of  seven  million  dollars  in  specie  to  pay 
the  foreign  holders  of  the  stock  of  the  first  United  States 
Bank  at  the  precise  moment  that  gold  and  silver  were  most 
needed  in  the  United  States.3  Moreover,  the  demise  of 
the  old  bank  had  been  followed  by  the  chartering  of  in- 


Jesse  Atwater  in  Considerations  on  the 
Approaching  Dissolution  of  the  United 
States  Bank  (New  Haven,  1810). 

'See  "Letter  from  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury"  dated  January  23, 
1811,  in  which  he  says  that  three- 
fourths  of  the  shares  of  the  Bank  of 
the  United  States  were  held  by  for- 
eigners. 

2  See  the  present  work,  vol.  iv,  403. 

*  Henry  Clay's  speech  against  the 
rechartering  of  the  old  Bank  in  1811 
(Annals  of  Congress,  llth  Cong.,  3rd 


Sess.,  219)  shows  in  a  graphic  way  the 
feeling  of  a  large  part  of  the  Ameri- 
can public  against  the  Bank.  In  view 
of  this  it  is  rather  curious  to  reflect 
that  Clay's  salary,  as  one  of  the  Com- 
missioners at  Ghent,  and  the  salaries 
of  the  other  diplomatic  representa- 
tives abroad  were  paid  through  the 
Barings  of  London  —  in  time  of  war 
between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain.  See  American  Historical  As- 
sociation's Report  for  1913  (ii,  210  and 
note). 


312  THE  PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Cn.  X 

numerable  State  banks  which  had  been  created  without  any 
restrictions  on  their  doings.  These  had  naturally  issued 
paper  money,  practically  without  stint,  and  loaned  funds 
oftentimes  on  very  slight  security.  At  the  time  of  the  rati- 
fication of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  the  financial  condition  of 
the  United  States  was  desperate. 

Alexander  J.  Dallas  l  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in 
1815.  He  thought  that  the  establishment  of  a  national 
bank  was  the  best  method  to  adopt  to  rehabilitate  the 
federal  finances,  restore  the  currency,  and  revive  public  and 
private  credit  by  controlling  the  excesses  of  the  local  State 
banks.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  opposition  to  the  plan, 
but  in  April,  1816,  the  second  Bank  of  the  United  States 
was  incorporated  by  act  of  Congress.2  In  many  ways,  it 
resembled  the  old  Hamiltonian  institution.  The  govern- 
ment was  to  subscribe  to  a  portion  of  the  capital  stock  and 
was  to  appoint  five  of  the  twenty-five  directors.  The 
government  funds  were  to  be  deposited  in  the  Bank  unless  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  should  think  it  was  inadvisable 
so  to  do ;  but  if  he  did  not  so  deposit  them,  he  was  to 
state  his  reasons  to  Congress  as  soon  as  possible.  The 
Bank  was  to  transfer  the  public  funds  from  one  part  of  the 
country  to  another  without  any  expense  to  the  government, 
but  it  was  not  to  pay  interest  on  the  public  money.  The 
capital  stock  of  the  Bank  might  be  largely  composed  of 
government  securities,  the  institution  was  to  perform  certain 
functions  in  the  handling  of  government  loans,  and  the 
Bank  was  to  pay  a  bonus  to  the  government  of  one  and  a 
half  million  dollars  in  three  payments  within  four  years 

1  Like  Morris,  Hamilton,  and  Gal-  Annals  of  Congress,  14th  Cong.,  1st 

latin,  Dallas  was  born  outside  the  Sess.,  col.  1812 ;  American  State  Papers, 

limits  of  the  United  States,  —  on  the  Finance,  ii,  892 ;  and  in  Appendix  i 

island  of  Jamaica.  to  R.  C.  H.  Catterall's  Second  Bank 

*  The  charter  is  printed  in   full   in  of  the  United  States. 


1816]  THE   SECOND   BANK  313 

after  its  organization.  The  Bank  might  establish  branches 
in  different  parts  of  the  country  and  it  could  issue  circu- 
lating notes  which  must  be  signed  by  the  president  and 
cashier  of  the  Bank.  In  opposing  the  adoption  of  the  charter 
John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  prophesied  that  the  Bank  would 
become  "an  engine  of  irresistible  power  in  the  hands  of  any 
administration"  and  an  instrument  by  which  the  federal 
executive  could  hurl  the  whole  nation  to  destruction.1  His 
financial  ineptitude  was  as  glaring  as  that  of  any  man  in  the 
country ;  but  he  forecasted  future  events  with  painful  accur- 
acy, in  this  case,  at  least.  Other  financial  legislation  that  was 
passed  at  about  the  same  time  looked  to  the  resumption  of 
specie  payment  within  twelve  months.2  The  subscription 
to  the  stock  of  the  new  national  Bank  proceeded  slowly,  but 
at  length  it  opened  its  doors.  For  the  first  four  or  five 
years,  it  was  badly  managed.  Numerous  branches  were 
established,  especially  in  the  South  and  the  West  where  there 
were  many  State  banks  and  where  paper  money  had  been 
issued  in  the  greatest  abundance.  Undoubtedly  the  attempt 
to  bring  about  deflation  in  so  short  a  time  and  by  means 
of  a  national  financial  institution  was  most  unwise  and 
accounted  for  the  great  unpopularity  of  the  Second  Bank 
in  large  portions  of  the  country ;  and  also  did  something  at 
least  to  bring  about  the  hard  times  of  the  next  few  years. 
In  1820,  William  H.  Crawford  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
He  declared  that  the  demands  for  gold  and  silver  coin  that 
were  constantly  made  by  the  United  States  Bank  and  its 
branches  led  people  to  ascribe  to  it  all  the  evils  that  had 
been  suffered  from  the  rapid  contraction  of  the  currency ; 
but  in  bringing  this  about  the  Bank  had  really  been  only  a 
passive  agent  in  the  hands  of  the  government.3 

1  Annals    of   Congress,    14th    Cong.,       Congress,   14th  Cong.,   1st  Sess.,   1919. 
1st  Sess.,  1110.  3  American    State   Papers,     Finance, 

2  Act  of  April  30,   1816;    Annals  of      iii,    508.     These   sentences   are   at   the 


314 


THE   PRESIDENCY   OP  JAMES  MONROE         [Ca.  X 


What  would  have  happened  to  the  country  without  this 
financial  legislation  cannot  be  stated.  The  Bank  did  a 
great  deal  towards  stabilizing  business  and  Dallas's  master- 
ful policy  aided  powerfully  the  reestablishment  of  sound 
financial  methods.  But  the  times  and  seasons  and  con- 
ditions throughout  the  world  were  most  unusual  in  this 
period  of  reaction  after  the  European  struggle  against  the 
domination  of  Napoleon  and  of  France.  Harvests  were  bad 
in  England  and  on  the  Continent  and  riots  and  outrages 
were  common.  In  America,  the  condition  of  affairs  was 
even  more  attended  with  danger  than  in  Europe.  One 
season  of  bad  harvest  succeeded  another.  Year  after  year 
there  were  droughts,  hot  spring  weather,  cold  summer 
weather,  and  crop-devouring  insects.1  From  1816  to  1819 
and  to  1821,  farmers  were  unable  to  buy  goods,  or  to  pay  for 
goods  that  had  already  been  purchased.  With  the  re- 
opening of  the  ocean  routes  and  of  the  ports  of  the  United 
States,  European  commodities  were  sent  from  the  eastern 
side  of  the  Atlantic  and  sold  for  what  they  would  bring. 
Factories  were  closed,  employment  reduced,  and  wages 
lowered,  so  that  the  purchasing  power  of  the  working  people 
was  everywhere  diminished.  Letters  and  diaries  of  promi- 
nent men  of  that  time  are  filled  with  statements  showing 
how  impossible  it  was  to  meet  the  ordinary  financial  obliga- 


end  of  the  report,  but  the  whole  docu- 
ment, which  begins  on  p.  494,  and 
Crawford's  later  report  on  "Banks 
of  Deposite"  on  pp.  718-782  deserve 
thoughtful  reading. 

'In  August,  1818,  Charles  Ellis, 
writing  from  Richmond  to  John  Allan, 
who  was  then  in  London,  noted  many 
failures  in  Virginia  and  that  property 
would  only  bring  as  many  hundreds 
as  it  would  have  commanded  thou- 
sands eighteen  months  earlier.  East- 
ern banks,  he  said,  were  calling  loans 
and  Western  banks  were  closing  their 


doors.  In  February,  1819,  there  were 
more  failures,  and  in  the  following 
March  a  "general  curtail"  took  place. 
Negroes  were  unsalable  and  the 
hard  times  continued  in  parts  of  the 
country  as  late  as  1825,  when  Vincent 
Nolte's  firm  failed  at  New  Orleans. 
See  Nolte's  Fifty  Years  in  Both  Hemi- 
spheres, p.  329.  It  is  also  worth 
noting  that  the  cashier  of  the  New  York 
Branch  foretold  failures  in  New  York 
Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  as  far 
back  as  October,  1818. 


1816]  TARIFF  ACT  315 

tions  of  everyday  life,  and  year  by  year  the  Bank  incessantly 
called  for  payment  of  debts  that  were  due  to  it,  and  its 
example  was  necessarily  followed  by  the  State  banks  so 
that  men  found  it  difficult  to  look  ahead  from  one  season  to 
another  —  whether  they  were  mill  owners,  or  farmers,  or 
retailers  of  merchandise.  The  manufacturers  appealed  to 
Congress  for  aid  and  in  1816  a  tariff  act  was  passed  with 
the  direct  intention  of  giving  them  assistance.1  By  this 
act  moderate  duties  were  laid  on  the  principal  commodities 
that  were  or  could  be  made  in  the  United  States,  and  "a 
minimum  duty"  was  provided  on  cotton  cloth  2  by  enacting 
that  all  imported  cottons  should  be  valued  at  twenty-five 
cents  per  square  yard  at  the  lowest,  for  the  purpose  of  cal- 
culating the  import  duty.  This  impost  was  twenty-five 
per  cent  ad  valorem  until  1819  and  twenty  per  cent  there- 
after. It  may  well  be  questioned  whether  this  law  pro- 
vided any  efficient  "protection"  for  the  languishing  manu- 
factures ;  but  it  assuredly  was  the  beginning  of  the  new  pro- 
tective period  and  of  the  "minimum"  principle.  About 
both  of  these  many  fierce  political  battles  were  to  be  waged 
in  the  coming  years,  —  and  about  them  there  was  to  be 

1  Annals    of   Congresi,    14th    Cong.,  created  a  new  demand  for  their  cotton ; 

1st  Sess.,  1870.  they  argued,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 

*  This  part  of  the  law  was  aimed  greatly  increased  price  of  cotton 
against  the  importation  of  low-priced  cloth,  which  was  due  to  this  legis- 
India  cottons.  Some  of  these  cost  lation,  was  equivalent  to  compelling 
as  little  as  six  cents  a  square  yard,  at  them  to  pay  a  duty  of  seventy-five 
which  price  American  manufacturers  per  cent  on  the  cloth  they  purchased 
could  not  hope  to  compete.  By  ap-  for  their  slaves.  Moreover,  the  price 
praising  these  cheap  cloths  at  twenty-  of  cotton  was  fixed  at  Liverpool  and 
five  cents  a  yard  and  levying  a  duty  depended  upon  the  prosperity  of 
of  one-quarter  or  one-fifth  on  this  English  manufacturers  of  hardware, 
appraised  value,  the  price  of  these  etc.  Anything,  the  American  tariff 
imported  Indian  cottons  was  raised  to  for  instance,  that  interfered  with  this 
a  figure  at  which  American  manu-  prosperity  lowered  the  price  of  cotton 
facturers  could  compete  and  thus  at  Liverpool  and  on  every  plantation 
provided  a  market  for  Southern  grown  in  America.  See  Governor  Ham- 
cotton.  The  Southerners  seem  to  mond's  "Message  of  November  26, 
have  been  entirely  unaffected  by  the  1844." 
argument  that  this  arrangement 


316 


THE   PRESIDENCY    OF  JAMES   MONROE         [Ca.  X 


much  argument  as  to  who  paid  the  tariff  duty  and  who  re- 
ceived the  benefits  from  it,  and  whether  they  lived  in  the 
South,  or  the  North,  or  the  West. 

The  improvement  of  the  transportation  facilities  of  the 
country,  or  of  portions  of  it,  at  the  general  expense  or  at  the 
expense  of  one  or  two  colonies  or  States  was  undertaken  even 
in  colonial  times  when  a  passable  route  from  Portsmouth 
in  New  Hampshire  southward  to  Baltimore  was  opened.1 
With  the  establishment  of  the  government  under  the  Con- 
stitution, it  was  generally  recognized  that  the  defence  of  the 
country  as  a  whole  and  the  building  up  of  the  economic  and 
social  welfare  of  the  people  would  be  greatly  facilitated 
by  better  means  of  transportation  overland  and  by  water 
through  the  sounds  and  bays  and  up  and  down  the  rivers 
that  separated  and  at  the  same  time  connected  different 
parts  of  the  country.  During  the  Federalist  regime,  Con- 
gress and  the  administration  had  been  so  busily  occupied 
with  matters  of  primary  organization  that  they  had  no  time 
to  devote  to  schemes  of  internal  improvement.  And,  be- 
sides, if  Martin  Van  Buren  can  be  trusted,  Hamilton  thought 
an  amendment  of  the  Constitution  would  be  necessary  to 
authorize  the  general  government  to  open  canals  through 
the  territory  of  two  or  more  States.2  Gallatin  thought 
otherwise  and  on  his  advice  Congress  included  in  the  act 
admitting  Ohio  to  the  Union  as  a  State  a  provision  that  one- 
twentieth  part  of  the  net  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the  public 
lands  within  the  limits  of  the  new  State  "shall  be  applied 
to  the  laying  out  and  making  public  roads"  from  the  sea- 


1  The  economical  and  social  aspects 
of    internal    improvements    have    been 
treated  in  ch.  i. 

2  In    the    "Van    Buren    Papers"    at 
Washington  is  a  paper  given  by  Hamil- 
ton   to    Senator    Drayton    advocating 
such    an    amendment,    partly    because 


the  making  of  these  improvements 
by  the  federal  government  would  be 
"a  useful  source  of  influence";  but 
how  this  paper,  if  it  is  genuine,  came 
into  Van  Buren's  possession  is  not 
stated  in  the  endorsement  upon  it. 


1807]  INTERNAL   IMPROVEMENTS  317 

board  into  and  through  the  State  of  Ohio,  "  such  roads  to  be 
laid  out  under  the  authority  of  Congress  with  the  consent 
of  the  several  states  through  which  the  road  shall  pass."  l 
The  act  containing  this  clause  was  approved  by  President 
Jefferson,  —  such  was  the  origin  of  the  Cumberland  Road. 
In  1807,  the  matter  of  internal  improvements  again  arrested 
Gallatin's  attention.  He  caused  a  friendly  Senator  to  call 
for  a  report  from  him  on  the  general  subject  of  internal 
improvement  and  replied  with  the  report  of  April  4,  1808, 
which  has  been  already  mentioned.2  About  a  year  earlier, 
February  10,  1807,  a  bill  authorizing  the  survey  of  the  coast 
had  been  passed  by  Congress  and  approved  by  Jefferson, 
although  no  organization  was  effected  until  1816.3  Thus 
the  policy  of  internal  improvements  by  federal  action,  in- 
cluding the  surveying  and  protecting  of  the  coasts,  the 
deepening  and  betterment  of  rivers  and  harbors,  and  the 
making  of  national  roads  belongs  in  its  first  phase  distinctly 
to  Gallatin  and  to  Jefferson. 

Although  Jefferson  fell  in  with  Gallatin's  desires  as  to 
physical  improvements  by  the  national  government,  he 
thought  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  would  be 
necessary  to  legalize  such  proceedings,  —  thus  agreeing  in 
this  with  Hamilton.  In  his  Annual  Message  to  Congress 
in  December,  1806,  Jefferson  states  that  there  will  soon  be 
surplus  revenues.4  He  asks,  shall  the  government  avoid 
collecting  more  money  than  it  needs  for  current  expenses 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  ii,  173.     See  also  had  looked  upon  any  kind  of  internal 
Adams's   Gallatin,   350    and   the   Writ-  improvement  as  "a  source  of  bound- 
ings  of  Albert  Gallatin,  i,  78.  less   patronage   to   the   executive,  job- 

2  See  above,  p.  9.  bing  to  members  of  Congress  &   their 

3  See  Laws  of  1807,  1882,  and  1843,  friends,    and    a    bottomless    abyss    of 
relating  to  the  Survey  of  the  Coast  of  the  public  money.  ...     It  will  be  a  scene 
United    States ;     Statutes    at    Large,    ii,  of  eternal  scramble   among  the  mem- 
413 ;    and  in  the  Centennial  Celebration  bers,    who    can    get    the    most    money 
of  the  Coast  Survey,  p.  175."  wasted  in  their  State ;    and  they  will 

4  Annals    of    Congress,    9th    Cong.,  always   get   most   who    are   meanest." 
2nd    Sess.,    14.     It    is    interesting    to  Writings  (Ford  ed.),  vii,  63. 

note  that   ten  years  earlier,   Jefferson 


318  THE    PRESIDENCY    OP   JAMES   MONROE        |CH.   X 

and  the  discharge  of  the  public  debt  by  Suppressing  the 
imposts  and  giving  just  so  much  "advantage  to  foreign 
over  domestic  manufactures,"  or  shall  it  apply  the  surplus 
to  "public  education,  roads,  rivers,  canals,  and  such  other 
objects  of  public  improvement  as  it  may  be  thought  proper 
to  add  to  the  Constitutional  enumeration  of  federal 
powers  "  ?  Although  Jefferson  doubted  the  constitutionality 
of  internal  improvements  without  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  he  signed  the  bills  for  the  survey  of  the  Cum- 
berland Road  and  the  rivers  and  harbors  on  the  coast.1 
The  early  Presidents  seem  to  have  discerned  some  con- 
stitutional difference  between  spending  money  on  surveys 
and  on  construction  that  is  not  now  comprehensible.  The 
embargo  and  the  War  of  1812  interfered  with  the  prosecution 
of  these  designs  as  it  did  with  so  many  others ;  and  it  was 
not  until  1816,  when  the  prospect  of  receiving  some  ready 
money  from  the  new  Bank  of  the  United  States  awakened 
fresh  interest  in  the  subject.  On  the  16th  day  of  December 
in  that  year  John  C.  Calhoun  of  South  Carolina  declared 
that  the  auspicious  circumstances  under  which  the  sub- 
scription to  the  stock  of  the  National  Bank  had  begun 
made  it  desirable  to  consider  whether  the  course  of  internal 
improvement  was  a  proper  direction  to  give  to  the  national 
profits  to  be  derived  from  that  institution.  He  moved 
for  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  inquire  into  the  expe- 
diency of  setting  apart  these  profits  as  a  permanent  fund 
for  internal  improvements.2  The  committee  was  appointed 
and,  as  its  chairman  on  December  23,  1816,  Calhoun  intro- 
duced a  bill,  "to  set  apart  and  pledge,  as  a  permanent  fund 
for  internal  improvements"  the  profits  received  from  the 
Bank.  In  the  debate  that  followed  John  Randolph  of 

1  Statutes    at    Large,    ii,    357,    375,  2  Annals    of   Congress,    14th    Cong., 

413.  2nd  Sess..  296,  361. 


18161  INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS  319 

Roanoke  declared  that  the  old  States  ought  to  have  a  share 
in  the  "sunshine  of  government"  and  that  the  navigation 
of  the  Roanoke,  the  Catawba,  and  the  Yadkin  rivers  ought 
to  be  improved,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Tombigbee.  The 
bill  passed  and  went  to  the  President  and  on  March  3,  1817, 
on  the  last  day  of  his  public  career,  James  Madison  vetoed 
it,  being  "constrained,"  he  wrote,  "by  the  insuperable 
difficulty"  of  reconciling  the  bill  with  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  Having  thus  killed  the  measure,  Madi- 
son stated  that  he  fully  realized  the  great  importance 
of  roads  and  canals  and  improved  navigation,  but  that  no 
power  to  provide  for  internal  improvements  was  given  by  the 
Constitution  to  the  National  Legislature  or  could  be  deduced 
from  any  part  of  it  without  "an  inadmissible  latitude  of 
construction."  He  hinted  that  an  amendment  might  well 
be  made  authorizing  such  expenditures.  Monroe  in  his  first 
message  declared  that  he,  likewise,  was  convinced  that  Con- 
gress did  not  possess  the  right  to  construct  roads  and  canals 
and  he  also  suggested  that  an  amendment  should  be  adopted 
to  make  it  possible. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Henry  Clay  stepped  into  the 
arena  and  made  the  subject  of  internal  improvements  a 
cardinal  point  in  his  policy  for  the  next  dozen  years.  Clay 
believed  that  Congress  had  ample  power  to  do  what  he 
desired  and  that  no  amendment  to  the  Constitution  was 
necessary.  Before  long  the  question  of  internal  improve- 
ments at  the  expense  of  the  nation  became  commingled 
with  the  maintenance  of  a  protective  tariff,  —  the  com- 
bination being  termed  the  "American  System."  With  his 
marvellous  powers  of  speech  and  boldness  of  purpose,  Clay 
took  the  leading  part  in  the  formulation  of  this  programme ; 
but,  as  is  not  infrequently  the  case,  the  statement  of  the 
scheme  was  made  in  a  more  usable  form  by  persons  of  talents 


320  THE  PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE        iCn.  X 

distinctly  inferior  to  his.  One  of  these  was  Andrew  Stewart, 
a  member  of  Congress  from  Pennsylvania,  who  was  very 
well  regarded  by  many  people  of  that  time.  The  true 
American  policy,  according  to  him,1  was  to  cherish  national 
industry  so  as  to  secure  at  home  an  abundant  amount  of 
food,  clothing,  housing,  and  articles  of  defence.  The  articles 
of  luxury  consumed  by  the  rich  should  be  taxed  for  revenue 
purposes,  but  the  necessaries  of  life  that  were  consumed  by 
the  poor  and  all  articles  that  could  not  be  produced  in  the 
United  States  should  be  free  from  all  taxation.  Whatever 
surplus  revenue  might  accrue  should  be  used  for  national 
improvements,  —  those  of  a  local  character  being  left  to 
the  care  of  the  States.  Economy  should  be  pursued  in 
public  expenditure  that  financial  burdens  might  be  light- 
ened and  the  rewards  of  labor  increased.  To  this  general 
outline  of  the  American  System  should  be  added  the  con- 
tribution to  the  internal  improvement  fund  of  the  money 
received  from  the  sales  of  the  public  lands.  In  its  most 
optimistic  form  this  system,  so  it  was  said,  would  render 
the  United  States  independent  of  the  world,  would  promote 
the  manufacturing  interests  of  the  Northeast  and  the 
agricultural  interests  of  Transappalachia,  and  would  bind 
together  by  arteries  of  commerce  and  by  ties  of  mutual  bene- 
fit the  different  parts  of  the  country.  It  certainly  was  a 
grand  conception.  Unfortunately,  the  interstate  commerce 
clause  of  the  Constitution  had  not  then  been  interpreted, 
not  even  by  John  Marshall,  to  authorize  the  federal  govern- 
ment to  do  whatever  it  wished,  so  long  as  its  wish  stepped 
over  a  State  line.  Monroe  vetoed  every  bill  that  came  before 
him  that  involved  federal  construction  in  a  State;  but,  in 
1822,  he  sent  a  very  long  dissertation2  to  Congress  on  the 


his  American  System,  322-343.       ternal     Improvements"     in     Mess 
2  See  "Views  of  the  President  of  the       and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,   ii,    144, 
United  States  on  the  Subject  of  In-      and  "Annual  Message,"  pp.  185-195. 


1830]  INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS  321 

subject  of  internal  improvements  and,  later,  he  again  rec- 
ommended the  adoption  of  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution authorizing  the  national  government  to  make 
internal  improvements  at  the  national  expense.  The 
Cumberland  Road,  or  the  National  Road,  was  built  to  the 
Ohio  River  and  further  on  the  western  side  of  that  stream 
according  to  the  earlier  laws ;  but  every  effort  that  was 
made  to  repair  that  highway  or  to  improve  it  was  sternly 
resisted  although  Monroe  signed  his  name  to  an  act  for 
surveying  the  extension  of  the  road  to  the  Mississippi.1 

Curiously  enough  although  the  repair  of  the  National 
Road  was  regarded  by  many  persons  as  beyond  the  con- 
stitutional power  of  the  federal  government,  river  and  harbor 
improvements  in  the  earlier  days  did  not  strike  the  same 
constitutional  snags,2  although  there  were  not  wanting  signs 
of  doubt  in  the  executive  mind  as  to  whether  these  were 
within  the  purview  of  the  fundamental  law.  Thus  matters 
stood  when  Monroe  laid  down  the  reins  of  office  and  John 
Quincy  Adams  and  Henry  Clay  came  into  power  as  President 
and  Secretary  of  State  and  proceeded  to  do  whatever  they 
could  to  push  on  the  American  System,  but  without  much 
success.  Years  after,  James  K.  Polk,  when  President, 
could  see  no  difference  between  harbor  and  river  improve- 
ments and  canal  digging  and  road  making  by  the  federal 
government.  Whenever  such  a  measure  came  before  him,  he 
vetoed  it  and  explained  to  the  members  of  Congress  that  a 
thing  that  is  convenient  is  not  always  "necessary  and 
proper"  and  therefore  constitutional.  Like  Jefferson,  Madi- 

The  "Views"  may  be  found  also  in  of  Congress,  18th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  vol. 

Monroe's  Writings,  vi,  216-284.  ii,  3227.  Jackson,  who  was  then  in 

1  Statutes  at  Large,  iii,  604 ;  Act  the  Senate,  voted  for  this  bill  as  he 

of  May  15,  1820.  did  for  the  Survey  Bill  of  the  same 

2 On  May  24,  1824,  Monroe  signed  year:  Sioussat's  "Memphis  as  a  Gate- 

the  act  to  improve  the  navigation  of  way  to  the  West"  in  Tennessee  Histori- 

the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers  :  Annals  rai  Magazine,  March,  1917. 

VOL.  v.  —  y 


322  THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  JAMES  MONROE        [Cn.  X 

son,  and  Monroe,  President  Polk  recognized  somewhat 
grudgingly  the  need  of  providing  "aids  to  navigation"  that 
were  immediately  connected  with  foreign  commerce  and 
were  for  the  protection  and  security  of  American  naval 
vessels.  He  thought  that  when  one  advanced  a  step  beyond 
this  point,  it  was  extremely  difficult  to  know  where  to  stop. 
As  long  as  he  was  President,  no  river  or  harbor  or  part  of  a 
river  or  harbor  above  a  port  of  entry  or  delivery  had  any 
chance  of  improvement.  Polk  even  anticipated  the  possible 
passage  of  such  a  measure  by  writing  out  a  veto  message  in 
advance,  so  as  to  have  it  in  readiness  in  case  Congress  should 
pass  a  river  and  harbor  bill  in  the  very  last  hours  of  the  ses- 
sion.1 He  thought  that  if  Congress  had  power  to  improve  a 
harbor,  it  had  power  to  deepen  inlets  and  to  make  harbors 
where  there  were  none  ;  and  in  the  scramble  for  the  contents 
of  the  Treasury  the  true  interests  of  the  country  would 
be  lost  sight  of  and  the  most  artful  and  industrious  persons 
would  be  the  most  successful.2  It  will  be  interesting,  before 
dropping  this  subject,  to  see  how  Jefferson  felt  toward 
public  ownership  and  management  in  general.  He  thought 
that  the  only  way  to  secure  good  and  safe  government  was 
to  divide  and  subdivide  the  administration  until  every  one 
managed  his  own  affairs.  "The  generalizing  and  concen- 
trating all  cares  and  powers  into  one  body"  has  destroyed 
liberty  and  the  rights  of  man  in  every  government  that 
had  ever  existed.  This  was  written  in  1816.  In  1825  he 
actually  drew  up  a  "solemn  Declaration  and  Protest  of  the 
commonwealth  of  Virginia"  against  the  internal  improve- 
ment policy,  but  it  was  not  approved  of  by  his  two  presiden- 


1  The  idea  that  a  President  had  ten  2  See  Diary  of  James  K.  Polk  during 

days  after  the  close  of  a  session  of  Con-  his  Presidency  (4  vols.,  Chicago,  1910) 

gress  to  consider  measures  passed  by  using  index  under  "Harbor, "  "Internal 

both    Houses   had    not    then    been   in-  Improvements,"  and  "Message,  veto." 
vented. 


1820]  MISSOURI   COMPROMISE  323 

tial  friends  and  was  never  acted  upon.1  It  is  worth  noting, 
however,  as  having  been  drawn  up  by  Thomas  Jefferson 
in  the  next  to  the  last  year  of  his  life. 

It  was  in  1803  that  the  United  States  had  come  into 
possession  of  the  French-Spanish  province  of  Louisiana. 
The  southern  part  of  this  province  was  erected  into  the 
Territory  of  Orleans  and  later  was  admitted  to  the  Union 
as  the  State  of  Louisiana ;  the  northern  part  was  for  a  time 
fastened  to  the  Territory  of  Indiana  forming  a  district, 
which  came  to  be  known  as  the  District  of  Louisiana  and 
later  as  the  Territory  of  Missouri.  Negro  slavery  had 
existed  in  Louisiana  as  a  French  Province  and  as  a  Spanish 
Province.  The  Louisiana  Purchase  Treaty  had  distinctly 
provided  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  province  should 
be  protected  in  their  liberty,  property,  and  religion.  How 
many  slaves  there  were  in  Upper  Louisiana  in  1804  is  not 
precisely  known ; 2  but  there  were  presumably  somewhere 
near  a  thousand  of  them  within  the  limits  of  the  settled 
part  of  what  are  now  the  States  of  Missouri  and  Arkan- 
sas. Soon  after  the  delivery  of  the  province,  Captain 
Amos  Stoddard,  an  officer  of  the  United  States  army  and  first 
Civil  Commandant  at  St.  Louis,  was  approached  by  a  com- 
mittee of  the  leading  citizens  of  that  place.  They  were 
anxious,  so  they  said,  as  to  the  conduct  of  their  slaves  in 
the  altered  condition  of  affairs.  Stoddard  replied  that  he 


1  Early  History  of  the    University  of  Review,     xv,      36-52).     According      to 

Virginia,  pp.  54,  55 ;   Jefferson's  Writ-  Professor   Viles    (ibid.,   v,    No.   4)    the 

ings  (Ford  ed.),  x,  349-352.  total    slave    population    of    the    Mis- 

1  In    1799,    there   were   883     slaves  souri  settlements  in  1803-1804  was  1349 

in    Upper    Louisiana    (American    State  or    a    few    more.     Trexler    (Slavery   in 

Papers,  Miscellaneous,  i,  383)  ;   in  1810,  Missouri,  1804-1865,   p.  9)  makes  the 

there    were    3011     (Aggregate    Amount  number   of   slaves   in    1803   to   be   be- 

of  .  .  .  Persons  unthin  the  United  States,  tween  two  and  three  thousand.     Viles's 

.  .  .  in  the  year  1810,  p.  84)  ;    in  1820,  figures    are    based    largely    on    Amos 

there    were    10,222    (Census    for    1820,  Stoddard's  Sketches  of  Louisiana,  211, 

under     Missouri,     and     Viles's     "Mis-  214,217,221,224. 
souri  in    1820"   in   Missouri   Historical 


324  THE  PRESIDENCY  OP  JAMES  MONROE         [CH.   X 

would  enforce  such  rules  as  "  appear  necessary  to  restrain 
the  .  .  .  slaves  and  to  keep  them  more  steadily  to  their 
duty."  Rules  were  drawn  up  and  submitted  to  Stoddard, 
were  accepted  by  him,  and  were  promulgated  over  all  Upper 
Louisiana.1  Captain  Stoddard's  actions  were  never  directly 
disavowed  by  the  authorities  at  Washington,  and  therefore 
it  would  seem  that  slavery  was  recognized  by  the  national 
government  as  an  institution  in  that  part  of  the  Louisiana 
Purchase.  In  all  of  the  fundamental  laws  establishing  the 
territorial  and  district  governments  in  Upper  Louisiana 
that  have  just  been  enumerated,  there  is  no  mention  what- 
ever of  slavery,  and  in  1818  there  must  have  been  between 
two  and  three  thousand  slaves  in  that  country.  Neverthe- 
less, in  1818,  when  the  people  of  Missouri  applied  to  Con- 
gress for  admission  to  the  Union  as  a  State  and  the  question 
of  the  passage  of  an  enabling  act  came  up  for  debate  in 
Congress,  General  James  Tallmadge  of  New  York,  then 
serving  his  one  term  in  the  national  House  of  Represent- 
atives, moved  to  amend  the  bill  by  prohibiting  the  further 
introduction  of  slaves  into  Missouri  and  by  providing  that 
all  children  of  slaves  born  after  the  admission  of  Missouri  as 
a  State  should  become  free  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  years.2 
The  precise  meaning  of  the  Tallmadge  amendment  was  not 
clear  then  and  is  not  now,  because  as  it  was  never  adopted 

1  Houck's    History    of  Missouri,   ii,  but  may  be  held  to  service  until  the 
375.  age  of  twenty-five  years. " 

2  The     words     of     the     Tallmadge  In    the    Annals    of   Congress    (15th 
amendment  as  printed  in  the  Journal  Cong.,    2nd    Sess.,    i,    1170-1214)    the 
of  the   House   of  Representatives,    15th  last  phrase  is  altered  to  read  "shall  be 
Cong.,   2nd   Sess.,   p.   272,   are  as  fol-  free  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  years," 
lows:  and  the  words  "of  slaves"  after  "chil- 

"And  provided  also,  That  the  dren"  are  omitted.  Greeley's  Text- 
further  introduction  of  slavery  or  invol-  Book  of  1860,  p.  55,  gives  the  words 
untary  servitude  be  prohibited,  except  of  the  amendment  correctly.  The 
for  the  punishment  of  crimes,  whereof  Speech  of  the  Hon.  James  Tallmadge, 
the  party  shall  be  duly  convicted ;  and  ...  on  Slavery  [on  his  amendment] 
that  all  children  of  slaves,  born  within  was  printed  as  a  "separate"  at  Bos- 
the  said  state,  after  the  admission  ton  in  1849 ;  it  does  not  contain  the 
thereof  into  the  Union,  shall  be  free  words  of  the  amendment. 


1820]  MISSOURI  COMPROMISE  325 

it  has  never  received  any  interpretation  except  at  the  hands 
of  political  debaters.  It  has  been  stated  that  the  amend- 
ment did  not  propose  "  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty in  that  Territory." l  Probably  those  who  used  this 
argument  were  thinking  of  Rufus  King's  contention  that  the 
wording  of  the  Louisiana  Treaty  was  "  the  common  formula 
of  treaties  ,  .  .  to  secure  such  inhabitants  the  permanent  or 
temporary  enjoyment  of  their  former  liberties,  property,  and 
religion ;  leaving  to  the  new  sovereign  full  power  to  make 
such  regulations  respecting  the  same,  as  may  be  thought 
expedient,  provided  these  regulations  be  not  incompatible 
with  the  stipulated  security."  Senator  King2  argued  that  the 
term  property  in  its  common  meaning  does  not  include 
slaves  and,  therefore,  if  the  makers  of  the  treaty  had  in- 
tended to  include  slaves  in  the  word  "  property  "  they  would 
have  said  so.  Of  course,  these  niceties  of  interpretation  were 
confined  to  lawyers  and  other  professional  arguers.  The 
plain  people  of  the  North  seem  to  have  thought  that  as 
slavery  had  been  prohibited  in  the  territory  covered  by  the 
Northwest  Ordinance  of  1787,  in  some  way  this  prohibition 
had  projected  itself  or  had  been  extended  across  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  and  that  admitting  Missouri  to  the  Union  as 
a  Slave  State  meant  the  enlargement  of  slave  territory ;  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  slavery  had  existed  in  the  trans-Mississippi 
region  ever  since  its  settlement  by  Europeans,  and  to  any 
Southerner,  as  to  Monroe,  one  of  the  negotiators  of  the  treaty 
of  1803,  the  word  "  property  "  plainly  included  slaves,  — 
indeed,  they  formed  the  bulk  of  the  movable  property  of 
the  richer  people  in  the  South.  At  all  events,  to  them  the 
Tallmadge  amendment  seemed  to  be  a  blow  directed  at  their 
peculiar  institution,  and  they  attacked  the  aggressors  with 

1  American   Historical  Association's       ...  on    the    Subject    of    the    Missouri 
Report  for  1893,  p.  256.  Bill.     By  the  Hon.  Rufus  King  (New 

•  See     Substance     of    two     Speeches       York,  1819),  pp.  16,  24. 


326  THE  PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Cn.   X 

all  the  vigor  and  fury  that  they  were  capable  of.1  In  1847 
David  Wilmot  asserted,  without  reservation  of  any  kind, 
that  the  Missouri  controversy  was  "  a  struggle  ...  to 
abrogate  the  law  of  slavery."  2 

The  Missouri  question  has  been  treated  in  the  preceding 
paragraph  from  the  social  point  of  view ;  it  also  had  a 
political  significance,  and  many  people  at  the  time  and  since 
have  regarded  its  political  significance  as  outweighing  its 
social.  At  the  time  of  the  making  of  the  Constitution, 
the  North  and  the  South  had  been  political  equals.  Since 
that  time  the  industrial  advance  of  the  North  and  the  move- 
ment of  settlers  into  the  Old  Northwest  had  so  increased 
the  population  and  power  of  the  North  —  of  the  free  North 
—  that  it  had  gained  a  majority  in  the  federal  House  of 
Representatives.  The  only  way  that  the  South  could  pro- 
tect itself  from  attack  on  the  slave  system  was  to  possess 
a  majority  in  the  Senate  and,  therefore,  possess  a  veto  on 
federal  legislation.  In  1818,  the  free  States  outnumbered 
the  slave  by  one,  but  Alabama  and  Missouri  were  asking 
admission  and  the  admission  of  Alabama  as  a  Slave  State 
was  inevitable.  The  further  admission  of  Missouri  as  a 
Slave  State  would  give  the  South  a  majority  in  the  Senate. 
It  happened  that  in  1819  the  people  of  the  northeastern  part 
of  Massachusetts  applied  for  admission  to  the  Union  with 

1  Jefferson's  letter  to  John  Holmes,  tion  "was  got  up  by  a  few  designing 
Representative  from  Massachusetts,  politicians  in  order  to  extend  their  in- 
dated  Monticello,  April  22,  1820,  con-  fluence  and  power ;  and  that  the 
tains  the  well-known  fire  bell  state-  tendency  of  the  question  was  of  the  most 
ment  and  also  a  keen  prophecy :  —  mischievous  character,  being  such  as 
"A  geographical  line,  coinciding  with  was  well  calculated  to  alienate  the 
a  marked  principle  moral  &  political  affections  of  the  people  of  one  section 
once  conceived  and  held  up  to  the  from  the  other.  .  .  .  The  North  con- 
angry  passions  of  men,  will  never  be  sidered  it  as  a  single  question  involv- 
obliterated."  Writings  of  Jefferson  ing  only  the  extension  of  slavery." 
(Ford),  x,  157  and  in  many  other  places.  The  Gulf  States  Historical  Magazine, 
In  1821,  Calhoun,  writing  to  Charles  i,  103. 

Tait,   a  Virginian   then   living  in  Ala-  2  Proceedings  of  the   Herkimer   Mass 

bama,  stated  that  the   Missouri  ques-  Convention  of  Oct.  26,  1847,  p.  13. 


1820]  MISSOURI   COMPROMISE  327 

the  consent  of  that  State  as  a  separate  and  free  State. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  question  of  the  admission  of 
Missouri  as  a  Slave  State  lost  some  of  its  political  significance, 
for  coming  in  with  Maine  the  equality  of  power  would  be 
preserved  in  the  Senate,1  and  the  North  would  continue  to 
have  the  greater  number  of  the  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  notwithstanding  the  tremendous  extension 
of  cotton  growing  in  the  Southwest.  No  doubt  there 
was  an  apprehension  on  one  side  and  a  feeling  of  hopefulness 
on  the  other  that  the  development  of  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
and  Louisiana  with  the  help  of  the  federal  ratio  and  the 
slowing  down  of  industry  in  the  North  —  which  was  plainly 
visible  —  might  give  the  Slave  States  a  majority  of  the 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  was  to  this 
that  Rufus  King  alluded  when  he  asserted  that  Congress 
possessed  complete  power  over  slavery  in  purchased  territory 
and  objected  to  the  further  extension  of  slave  territory  while 
the  federal  ratio  operated  to  give  slaveholders  representation 
in  the  national  House  and  in  the  electoral  college  in  pro- 
portion to  the  number  of  slaves  they  owned  "so  that  five 
free  persons  in  Virginia  have  as  much  power  in  the  choice 
of  representatives  in  congress,  and  in  the  appointment  of 
presidential  electors,  as  seven  free  persons  in  any  of  the 
states  in  which  slavery  does  not  exist."  Finally,  as  Rep- 
resentative Timothy  Fuller  of  Massachusetts  asserted, 

1  Some    inhabitants    of    Maine   ob-  in    Massachusetts   Historical   Society's 

jected  to  her  being  "a  mere  pack-horse  Proceedings  for  1878,  p.    180.      In  the 

to   transport   the  odious,   anti-republi-  preceding     October,     Francis     Corbin 

can  principle  of  slavery  into  the  new  of   Virginia   had    written    to    Madison 

State  of  Missouri,  against  reason  and  that    this    "Union    must    snap    short 

the  fundamental  grounds  of  the  great  at   last   where   Liberty  ends,  and  Sla- 

fabric     of     American     liberty."     This  very  begins.     The  Missouri  Question  is 

sentence     from     a     letter     of     George  bringing    on    the    Crisis."     Ibid.,    vol. 

Thacher  of  Biddeford,  Maine,  to  John  43,    p.    261.     There   is   an    article   on 

Holmes  and  dated  January   16,    1820,  "The     Separation     of     Maine     from 

undoubtedly     expressed     the  belief  of  Massachusetts"  in  ibid.,  June,  1907. 
many    Northern    men.     It    is    printed 


328 


THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES   MONROE         [Ca.  X 


Congress  had  made  conditions  in  1812  at  the  time  of  the 
admission  of  Louisiana  to  the  Union  and  might  make  con- 
ditions now. 

Eventually  the  Missouri-Maine  matter  took  on  the  form 
of  the  admission  of  both  States  to  the  Union  without  con- 
ditions ;  but  slavery  should  be  forever  prohibited  in  all  the 
remainder  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  north  of  the  parallel 
of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes  of  north  latitude, 
which  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  southern  boundary  of 
Missouri  for  the  greater  part  of  its  length.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  Missouri  and  Maine  entered  the  Union.1  This 
settlement  is  always  spoken  of  as  the  Missouri  Compromise 
and  it  is  generally  supposed  to  have  put  off  the  "  irrepressible 
conflict"  for  a  generation  and  therefore  to  have  been 
justifiable  from  the  anti-slavery  point  of  view.  There  is 
another  way  of  looking  at  it.  This  attempt  of  the  Northern 
politicians  and  Northern  abolitionists,  or  both,  to  limit  the 
power  of  the  South  by  destroying  the  institution  of  slavery 
in  Upper  Louisiana  aroused  the  whole  slaveholding  popu- 


1  When  the  Missouri  bill  came  be- 
fore Monroe,  he  asked  the  opinions 
of  his  constitutional  advisers  in  writ- 
ing. These  were  given  after  a  con- 
siderable discussion  had  been  had  and 
they  were  filed  away  in  the  archives 
of  the  State  Department.  See  Memoirs 
of  J.  Q.  Adams,  v,  6-14,  and  Hart's 
American  History  Told  by  Contem- 
poraries, iii,  452. 

When  the  proposed  constitution  of 
Missouri  came  before  Congress  and 
the  question  came  up  of  counting  the 
electoral  vote  of  Missouri  in  the  presi- 
dential election  of  1820,  there  was 
renewed  excitement,  for  the  consti- 
tution provided  that  the  State  Legis- 
lature should  pass  a  law  "to  prevent 
free  negroes  and  mulattoes"  from 
coming  into  the  State.  This  was 
clearly  contrary  to  the  clause  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States 
guaranteeing  the  rights  of  "citizens," 
but  the  makers  of  the  Missouri  consti- 


tution presumably  did  not  regard 
colored  persons  as  coming  within  the 
purview  of  citizenship.  The  lan- 
guage used  by  members  on  both  sides 
and  the  threats  that  were  bandied 
forward  and  backward  were  beyond 
anything  that  Congress  had  known  up 
to  that  time.  Finally,  the  matter 
was  "compromised"  by  admitting 
Missouri  and  counting  her  electoral 
vote  provided  that  the  clause  in  ques- 
tion should  never  be  construed  to 
authorize  the  passage  of  any  law 
Curiously  enough  in  making  this  de- 
mand and  in  all  the  subsequent  his- 
tory of  the  matter  the  wrong  part  of 
the  section  of  the  Missouri  constitu- 
tion was  referred  to ;  but  no  attempt 
was  ever  made  to  pass  any  such  law. 
See  the  books  on  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise and  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  for 
February,  1900,  p.  448. 


1820]  MISSOURI   COMPROMISE  329 

lation  of  the  South  to  defend  their  rights,  —  as  they  saw 
them.  At  the  moment  the  South  and  the  Southern  leaders 
acquiesced  in  the  settlement  from  a  sense  of  the  value  of  the 
Union  and  from  a  sentimental  attachment  to  it.1  But  from 
that  moment  may  be  dated  the  beginning  of  Southern 
section-nationalism.  It  developed  slowly  at  first,  but  by 
1825  it  threw  off  disguise  in  South  Carolina  and  by  1830  had 
acquired  considerable  solidarity,  although  not  enough  to 
bring  the  other  slaveholding  States  to  the  side  of  South 
Carolina.  In  reality,  therefore,  the  Missouri  Compromise 
of  1820  marked  the  ending  of  one  epoch  in  our  history  and 
the  beginning  of  another. 

Following  on  the  Peace  of  Ghent  and  the  overturn  at 
Waterloo,  the  world  passed  through  a  series  of  years  of 
revolution  and  unrest  and  of  coercion,  either  singly  by  the 
authorized  rulers  of  this  country  or  that,  or  by  the  league 
of  nations  that  in  those  days  went  by  the  name  of  the  Holy 
Alliance.  In  these  years,  the  position  of  the  United  States 
was  full  of  danger.  She  stood  alone  without  a  friend  in  the 
world  and  with  debts  to  collect  and  matters  to  settle  with 
the  leading  military  powers  of  Europe.  Fortunately,  at  the 
head  of  her  affairs  were  several  remarkable  men  and  these 
were  guided  in  great  measure  by  the  two  Virginia  ex- 
Presidents,  Thomas  Jefferson  and  James  Madison.  James 
Monroe,  who  succeeded  Madison  in  1817  as  chief  executive 
and  remained  in  office  for  eight  years,  until  1825,  was  not  a 
great  man.  Nobody  would  have  called  him  so,  except 
possibly  himself  and  a  few  devoted  friends  and  relatives, 
but  he  was  a  man  of  experience  in  the  management  of  public 
affairs  and  in  the  paths  of  diplomacy,  —  and  this  experience 
had  been  gathered  in  pain  and  humiliation  and,  therefore, 

1  For  example  J.  W.  Barbour  wrote  "a  lesser  evil  than  dividing  the  Union, 
to  J.  C.  Crittenden  in  February,  1820,  or  throwing  it  into  confusion."  Cole- 
that  the  proposed  compromise  was  man's  Crittenden,  i,  41. 


330  THE  PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE        [Cn.   X 

was  all  the  more  valuable.  Monroe's  Secretary  of  State  for 
the  whole  time  of  his  administration  —  except  the  first 
few  months  —  was  John  Quincy  Adams.  Adams  was  not  a 
lovable  man  nor  a  companionable  man  and  he  had  eccen- 
tricities of  temper  and  awkwardnesses  of  action  that  con- 
cealed his  real  capacities  and  aroused  enmities  where  none 
need  have  existed.  But  very  few  men  have  ever  controlled 
the  foreign  affairs  of  a  great  country  in  an  exceedingly 
critical  time  who  possessed  the  power  of  the  younger  Adams 
to  appraise  a  difficult  situation  and  especially  to  deal  with  it 
with  a  courage  and  a  tenacity  almost  unsurpassed.  In 
friendly  union  with  Monroe's  cautiousness  and  the  almost 
childlike  acumen  of  the  venerable  Jefferson  and  Madison, 
the  United  States  was  carried  triumphantly  through. 

In  Great  Britain  starvation  and  rioting  were  not  infre- 
quent in  these  years  and  her  own  poverty  and  critical  con- 
dition induced  or  even  compelled  those  who  guided  her 
destinies  to  stand  up  for  what  they  conceived  to  be  her 
best  interests  and  to  endeavor  to  bring  into  British  coffers 
every  penny  of  profit  that  could  be  garnered.  Moreover, 
George  Canning  was  still  prominent  and  toward  the  close  of 
this  period  again  occupied  the  British  Foreign  Office,  —  and 
no  more  ill-omened  secretary  ever  occupied  it,  not  even 
Palmerston,  so  far  as  the  United  States  was  concerned. 
Stated  in  brief,  and  to  state  it  in  any  other  way  would  take 
one  too  far  afield,  the  British  policy  towards  the  United 
States  was  to  close  the  British  West  Indies  and  the  British 
Maritime  Provinces  to  our  shipping,  to  absorb  as  much  as 
possible  of  the  oceanic  trade  to  and  from  the  United  States, 
and  to  secure  every  possible  relaxation  of  American  laws 
restricting  the  entry  of  British  goods  into  the  American 
republic.  On  our  part,  of  course,  we  wished  to  do  just  the 
opposite.  We  wished  to  have  free  trade  with  Great  Britain, 


1818]  BRITISH  TREATY  331 

with  the  British  West  Indies,  and  with  the  Maritime  Prov- 
inces, to  exclude  British  ships  absolutely  from  our  coast- 
ing trade,  and  to  shut  our  ports  to  the  introduction  of 
every  manufactured  commodity  that  we  could  make  in 
our  own  factories.  Then,  too,  there  were  questions  as  to 
boundaries  :  the  northeastern  boundary,  the  northern  boun- 
dary of  New  York,  the  northern  boundary  west  of  the  Lake  of 
the  Woods,  the  possession  of  Oregon,  and  the  question  of 
the  policing  of  the  Great  Lakes.  All  these  questions  were 
full  of  unpleasant  possibilities,  and  the  attempt  to  coerce 
Great  Britain  in  any  one  direction  was  so  certain  to  bring 
reprisals  in  another  that  it  was  very  difficult  to  know  which 
way  to  turn  or  what  to  do.  And  possibly  the  only  way  to 
accomplish  anything  was  to  let  the  whole  matter  alone  until 
time  and  circumstance  should  so  increase  the  economic  and 
military  powers  of  the  United  States  that  even  the  authorities 
at  Downing  Street  would  think  twice  before  they  aroused 
the  resentment  of  the  American  people.  The  story  of  the 
trade  relations  is  so  intricate  and  so  little  came  out  of  it 
that  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  more  than  mention  the  few 
things  that  were  settled  before  the  end  of  Monroe's  term,  in 
March,  1825.  In  1818,  a  treaty  was  signed  and  promptly 
ratified  that  made  the  forty-ninth  parallel  from  the  Lake 
of  the  Woods  to  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  or  Stony  Mountains, 
the  dividing  line  between  the  United  States  and  British 
America.1  It  seems  to  be  a  little  bit  incongruous  to  appor- 
tion a  vast  wilderness  between  two  nations  by  an  imaginary 
line ;  but  in  this  particular  case  the  settlement  proved  to  be 

1  On   August   26,  1719,  the  British  Latitude"  to  the  southward  of  which 

Board   of   Trade   instructed   its  repre-  the  French  should  not  pass.     Professor 

sentatives   at   Paris   that   from   a   cer-  O.    M.    Dickerson    copied    this    entry 

tain  point  "where  the  said  Line  shall  for    me    from    the    "Board    of    Trade 

cut  the  49th  Degree  of  northern  Lati-  Journal,"    xxix,     135.     Apparently    it 

tude,   another  Line  shall  begin,   &  be  is  the  first  mention  of  the  49th  parallel 

extended  westward  from  the  said  Lake  as  a  boundary  line, 
upon    the    49th    Degree    of    Northern 


332  THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  JAMES  MONROE        [Cn.   X 

very  happy.  As  to  the  country  to  the  westward  of  the 
mountains,  as  no  agreement  could  be  reached  it  was  arranged 
that  it  should  be  "open  for  the  term  of  ten  years  ...  to 
the  vessels,  citizens,  and  subjects  of  the  two  Powers"; 
but  this  "  joint  occupation,"  as  it  has  generally  been  termed, 
was  not  to  be  construed  to  the  prejudice  of  any  claim  of 
either  of  the  two  parties  or  of  any  other  power  or  state.1 
In  1817,  an  arrangement  had  already  been  entered  into  by 
which  the  British  and  American  governments  agreed  to 
limit  the  naval  forces  on  Lake  Champlain  and  the  Great 
Lakes  to  one  vessel  each  on  Lake  Champlain  and  on  Lake 
Ontario  and  two  on  the  Upper  Lakes,  none  of  the  vessels  to 
exceed  one  hundred  tons  burden  or  to  carry  more  than  one 
eighteen  pound  gun.2  In  this  time,  too,  one  question  after 
another  was  submitted  to  arbiters  for  settlement  or  to  joint 
commissions  for  investigation  or  report ; 3  but  all  these 
attempts  met  with  delays  and  when  reports  or  decisions 
were  rendered  they  were  evaded  or  not  accepted  by  one  or 
both  countries  concerned.  In  all  there  were  half  a  dozen 
treaties  negotiated  with  Great  Britain  in  the  eight  years  of 
Monroe's  presidency,4  but  with  the  exception  of  the  northern 
boundary  treaty  they  made  slight  impression  on  our  develop- 
ment as  a  nation  —  the  greatest  disappointment  of  all  being, 
possibly,  that  no  other  arrangement  could  be  made  as  to 
commerce  except  a  mere  renewal  of  the  Treaty  of  1815. 
With  France  the  case  was  no  better,  for  the  condition  of 
affairs  in  that  country,  and  in  Europe,  was  so  critical  that 
no  government  could  agree  to  make  any  payment  of  money 

1  See   Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  sociation's  Report  for  1895,  pp.  367-392. 
1873),    p.    351.     This    whole    subject  » The   first  part  of  vol.   i  of  J.  B. 
is  admirably  treated  by  J.  C.  B.  Davis  Moore's  International  Arbitrations  con- 
in  "Notes"  appended  to  this  volume,  tains  the  official  papers  on  these  arbi- 
p.  1022.  trations  and  commissions. 

2  See  J.  M.  Callahan's  "Agreement  4  Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  1873), 
of   1817"  in  American  Historical  As-  pp.  348-362. 


1817]  POLICING  THE  LAKES  333 

for  spoliations  by  the  rulers  of  France  before  1815,  —  and 
hope  to  live.  It  is  with  Spain  that  the  main  interest  lies 
in  these  years,  for  the  fate  of  her  American  colonies  was 
inextricably  commingled  with  that  of  the  United  States. 

Ever  since  the  occupation  of  the  Iberian  Peninsula  by 
Napoleon  and  the  French,  Spanish  America  had  been  restless 
and  one  revolution  had  succeeded  another.  Most  of  these 
insurrections  were  successful,  for  succeeding  governments  in 
Spain  could  not  maintain  themselves,  much  less  reconquer 
distant  colonies.  The  declining  power  of  Spain  and  Portugal 
in  America  and  the  constantly  increasing  strength  of  the 
insurgents  opened  the  way  for  great  irregularities  on  the  sea 
and  on  the  adjacent  shores.  Piratical  bands  seized  Spanish 
territory  that  was  contiguous  to  the  United  States,  and 
established  there  a  so-called  republic  with  which  President 
Madison  had  had  to  deal.  This  he  had  done  by  seizing 
Amelia  Island,  driving  off  the  pirates  or  insurgents,  and 
returning  it  to  the  jurisdiction  of  Spain.  Amelia  Island  is 
scarcely  more  than  an  anchorage  within  the  mouth  of  the 
St.  Mary's  River.  Its  position  made  it  a  favorite  spot  for 
illicit  traders.  There  they  could  anchor  in  Spanish  waters 
and  at  the  same  time  be  within  a  few  cables'  lengths  of  the 
American  boundary  and  could  covertly  slip  in  goods  by  the 
boatload,  without  paying  duties,  or  tonnage  dues,  or  in  any 
way  complying  with  the  commercial  laws  of  the  United 
States.  Every  now  and  then,  a  French,  or  a  Spanish,  or  a 
Portuguese,  vessel  would  be  seized  by  irritated  and  zealous 
United  States  officials,  with  the  result  of  compelling  Adams 
to  hold  many  conversations  with  foreign  representatives  in 
this  country  and  to  write  many  letters  to  them  and  also  to 
our  own  diplomatic  officers  abroad  ;  but  without  accomplish- 
ing very  much,  except  to  keep  things  as  they  were.  Pri- 
vateers, commissioned  by  Spanish  American  revolutionists, 


334  THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  JAMES  MONROE         [On.  X 

appeared  upon  the  ocean  and  entered  American  ports  for  the 
purpose  of  fitting  or  re-fitting  their  hulls  and  armaments 
and  getting  needful  supplies.1  These  vessels  carried  crews 
of  several  nationalities  and  could  appear  as  American  vessels 
or  as  South  American,  or  French,  or  Spanish,  as  the  occasion 
might  demand.  Many  people  at  Philadelphia,  Baltimore, 
and  Norfolk  and  also  at  Charleston  found  profit  in  equipping 
these  vessels  and  doubtless  sympathized  with  the  warfare 
that  they  carried  on  against  other  than  American  seafarers. 
Attempts  of  United  States  officials  to  put  down  this  practice 
and  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  these  seagoers  in  any 
lawful  manner  added  greatly  to  the  labors  of  the  adminis- 
tration and  also  to  its  embarrassments.  At  length  the 
Portuguese  minister,  the  Abbe"  Correa  de  Serra,  worn  out 
with  age  and  worry,  informed  Adams  that  United  States 
judges  were  not  doing  their  duty  ;  but,  on  being  pressed  for 
names  and  specifications,  he  took  his  departure  for  Rio  de 
Janeiro,2  —  the  only  time  that  an  official  animadversion 
had  been  made  against  the  national  judiciary  up  to  1820. 
There  were  also  numerous  trials  of  American  citizens  on 
charges  of  piracy  and  not  a  few  executions,  much  against  the 
will  of  the  President. 

Even  more  serious  was  the  inattention  of  the  Spanish  au- 
thorities in  Florida  to  their  obligations  under  the  treaty  of 
1795.3  By  this  Spain  had  bound  herself  to  be  a  good  neighbor 
to  the  United  States  and  not  to  permit  her  lands  and  her 

1  As  early  as  1798-1799,  American       Americanism  and  in  ch.  vii  of  Fuller's 
vessels  were  in  the  River  Plate.     See       Purchase  of  Florida. 

documents  collected  and  edited  by  C.  8  Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  1873), 

L.     Chandler    in    American    Historical  p.  776.     On  the  Floridas,  see  John  L. 

Review,  xxiii  816-826.  Williams's  View  of  West  Florida  (Phila- 

2  Writings,  of  John    Quincy    Adams,  delphia,     1827)     and    his    Territory    of 
vii,   68,  73  and  footnotes.     There  are  Florida    (New    York,     1837).     Official 
many   entries   relating   to    the   general  papers  are  printed  in  connection  with 
subject  in  his  Diary,  and  much  useful  the    President's    "Messages"    of    Feb. 
and    out-of-the-way   matter    has    been  22,    1817,    March   14,    1818,   and  Nov. 
brought    together    in    Lockey's    Pan-  17,  1818. 


1819]  THE  FLORIDA  TREATY  335 

ports  to  be  made  use  of  by  the  enemies  of  the  American 
republic.  Spain's  position  was  one  of  great  difficulty. 
Every  soldier  that  she  could  transport  across  the  Atlantic 
was  needed  in  the  attempt  to  preserve  her  colonies.  As 
Florida  was  one  of  the  few  that  did  not  rebel,  it  was  denuded 
of  troops  and  the  Spanish  officials  were  helpless,  —  they 
could  not  perform  the  plain  requirements  of  the  treaty. 
Moreover,  its  northern  borders  became  the  place  of  refuge 
for  runaway  Southern  slaves  and  hostile  Indians  from  the 
United  States.  These  frequently  recrossed  the  boundary 
and  stole  and  murdered  where  they  could.  To  put  a  stop 
to  these  outrages  General  Gaines  was  directed  to  pursue 
hostile  bands  across  the  boundary  to  the  limits  of  the 
Spanish  posts.  As  he  accomplished  nothing  the  task  was 
handed  over  to  Andrew  Jackson,  the  original  orders  to 
Gaines  being  repeated  to  him.  Jackson  pursued  the  Indians 
across  the  border,  followed  them  into  the  Spanish  towns  of 
Pensacola  and  St.  Mark,  and  took  possession  of  those  posts 
in  April,  1818.  When  Monroe  learned  of  these  doings  and  of 
the  execution  of  two  British  subjects  —  Alexander  Arbuthnot 
and  Robert  C.  Ambrister  —  in  the  course  of  the  campaign,  he 
was  greatly  disturbed.  The  orders  had  not  been  perfectly 
clear  and  the  President  felt  that  Jackson  must  have  acted 
on  facts  that  were  unknown  to  the  administration.  When 
the  matter  came  before  the  Cabinet,  Adams  was  the  only 
member  who  justified  Jackson's  doings  as  being  compatible 
with  the  dictates  of  international  law.  Of  the  other  mem- 
bers, Calhoun,  who  was  then  Secretary  of  War,  thought  that 
Jackson's  "  conduct  "  ought  to  be  "  the  subject  of  investi- 
gation before  a  military  tribunal"1  and  Crawford  agreed 

'See     Correspondence    of    John    C.  this   same   subject   is   in  this  volume. 

Calhoun,  p.  285,  forming  vol.  ii  of  the  See  also  Monroe's  Writings,  vi,  54—61 ; 

American  Historical  Association's  Re-  vii,  209-213,  225-230;    J.  Q.  Adams's 

port  for  1899.     Much  other  matter  on  Memoirs,   iv,    107-119,   and   his   Writ- 


336  THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Ca.  X 

with  him  that  the  general  should  be  sternly  dealt  with. 
Monroe  handled  the  matter  in  his  own  way.  He  wrote  to 
Jackson  *  that  he  had  acted  on  facts  unknown  at  Wash- 
ington, but  that  the  Constitution  gave  the  power  to  declare 
war  to  Congress  and  not  to  the  Executive.  It  followed, 
therefore,  that  the  posts  must  be  handed  back  to  Spain ; 
but  as  the  ill-faith  of  the  Spanish  authorities  had  made  his 
actions  necessary,  it  was  for  the  Spanish  government  to 
punish  its  own  officials  and  also  to  perform  its  treaty 
obligations.  Reviewing  the  evidence  given  in  the  trials  of 
Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister  and  having  in  mind  the  facts 
stated  by  Adams  in  his  correspondence  with  our  ministers 
at  London  and  at  Madrid,2  one  cannot  help  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  Jackson's  doings  in  Florida  were  amply 
justified.  The  politicians  in  Congress  thought  differently. 
They  moved  resolutions  and  made  speeches,  but  after  an 
acrid  debate  nothing  was  accomplished,  except  to  arouse  the 
fierce  anger  of  Andrew  Jackson. 

Meantime,  Adams  had  been  engaged  in  a  long  and  trying 
negotiation  with  Don  Luis  de  Onis,3  the  Spanish  minister 
at  Washington,  and  in  the  Spaniard's  periods  of  ill-health 
with  Hyde  de  Neuville,  the  French  minister,  who  acted  the 
part  of  friend  to  both  the  United  States  and  Spain.  Beside 

ings,   vi,   474-502.     Professor   Bassett,  '  The  final  section  of  Don  Luis  de 

in  his  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson,  i,  266  Ofiis's    Memoria     sobre     las     Negocia- 

and  fol.,  gives  an  excellent  account  of  ciones    entre    Espana   y   Los    Estados- 

the    whole     affair    with     citations    to  Unidos    de    America     (Madrid,    1820) 

original  material.  relates  to  the  actual  negotiations  of  1795 

On   July   20,    1818,    Calhoun   wrote  and    1819   and   is   followed   by   an   ex- 

to  Judge  Charles  Tait  that  the  "tak-  ceedingly     valuable     "Appendix"     of 

ing    of    Pensacola  .  .  .  was    unauthor-  documents   including   the   text   of   the 

ized."     Gulf    States    Historical    Maga-  treaties   of   the   retrocession   of   Louis- 

zine,  i,  93.  iana,  etc. ;    but  only  this  single  docu- 

1  See  Note  II  at  end  of  chapter.  ment  is  repeated  in  the  translation  by 

2  Ford  prints  Adams's  letter  of  Nov.  Tobias   Watkins   of   this   memoir   that 
28,   1818,  to  G.  W.  Erving,  our  Min-  was  printed   at   Baltimore  in    1821,  — 
ister  to  Spain,  in  the  Writings  of  J.  Q.  which   also  lacks  the  extremely  inter- 
Adams,  vi,  474-502,  with  citations  to  esting     map     that     accompanies     the 
American  State  Paper*-  original. 


1819] 


THE    FLORIDA   TREATY 


337 


the  Floridian  troubles,  there  were  old  claims  against  Spain 
for  spoliations  that  had  been  more  or  less  connected  with  her 
in  the  period  of  the  French  Wars,1  and  there  was  a  conflict 
over  the  boundaries  of  Louisiana.  Adams  asserted  that 
that  province,  as  the  United  States  had  acquired  it,  extended 
to  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte,  or  the  Rio  Bravo,  as  it  was 
often  called  in  those  days.2  The  Spaniards  maintained,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  western  boundary  of  Louisiana  was 
the  Mississippi  as  far  north  as  the  Red  River.  As  to 
Florida,  the  United  States,  for  one  reason  or  another,  had 
seized  it  as  far  east  as  the  Perdido  River,3  which  it  claimed 
was  included  in  the  old  Louisiana.  Finally,  to  the  west  of  the 
Mississippi  and  north  of  the  Red  River,  the  United  States 
had  "taken  possession"  of  the  country  as  far  west  as  the 
Stony  Mountains,  and,  indeed,  had  exercised  some  sort  of 
control  or  jurisdiction  even  farther  west  to  the  shores  of  the 


1  Yrujo  secured  the  opinions  of  five 
leading  lawyers  against  the  validity 
of  these  claims ;  American  State  Papers 
Foreign  Relations,  ii,  604.  Madison's 
opinion  of  this  proceeding  is  in  ibid., 
ii,  615,  and  is  worth  reading.  These 
citations  were  given  to  me  by  Mr.  J.  P. 
Harley  of  Los  Angeles,  California. 

*On  April  20,  1818,  Adams  wrote 
to  G.  W.  Erving,  then  American 
minister  at  Madrid,  "of  our  unques- 
tionable right  to  the  Rio  Bravo  as  the 
western  boundary."  Again  in  June, 
in  thanking  Joseph  Hopkinson  for 
calling  his  attention  to  Moll's  Atlas 
of  1720  giving  the  Rio  Bravo  as  the 
western  limit  of  Louisiana,  Adams 
stated  that  he  had  "so  thoroughly 
convinced"  himself  of  the  justice  of 
that  boundary  that  with  his  good  will 
no  further  offer  should  be  made  to 
Spain  of  any  other  western  boundary. 
See  Writings  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  vi,  307, 
345 ;  and  the  present  work,  volume 
iv,  320  n.,  332. 

*  According  to  the  American  view, 
the  United  States  had  acquired  by  the 
Louisiana  Purchase  Treaty  of  1803 

VOL.  V.  — Z 


a  complete  title  to  all  of  the  old  French 
Louisiana  as  far  east  as  the  Perdido 
River  and,  in  one  way  or  another,  it 
had  taken  possession  of  that  territory. 
The  Spaniards  maintained,  however, 
that  the  Louisiana  of  the  retrocession 
was  bounded  on  the  east  by  the  old 
western  boundary  of  West  Florida,  or 
included  only  the  island  on  which  New 
Orleans  stands.  On  the  whole  matter, 
see  H.  B.  Fuller's  Purchase  of  Florida; 
P.  J.  Hamilton's  Colonial  Mobile; 
and  the  present  work,  volume  ii,  596, 
iii,  20,  and  iv,  304,  348,  415. 

For  the  St.  Mary's  River  as  the 
boundary  between  British  East  Florida 
and  Georgia,  see  Lawrence  Shaw  Mayo's 
The  St.  Mary's  River.  A  Boundary. 

Extracts  from  the  official  docu- 
ments are  brought  together  in  Ameri- 
can History  Leaflets,  No.  5,  from 
Martens  and  Cussy's  Recueil  des  Traites, 
i,  30;  The  Annual  Register  for  1763, 
pp.  208-213;  Bioren  and  Duane's 
Laws  of  the  United  States,  i,  450-452; 
and  Treaties  and  Conventions  between 
the  United  States  and  Other  Powers,  316. 


338  THE   PRESIDENCY    OF  JAMES  MONROE          [Cn.  X 

Pacific  Ocean.  The  rightfulness  of  this  occupation  had 
been  in  some  measure  recognized  by  the  British  when  they 
"restored"  to  the  United  States  the  fur-trading  post  of 
Astoria  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River  in  conformity 
with  the  provision  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  that  all  places 
taken  during  the  war  should  be  restored  by  both  parties. 
The  propositions  that  underlay  the  negotiations  of  1818  were 
that  the  Spaniards  should  give  up  all  claims  to  territory  on 
the  North  American  continent  east  of  the  Mississippi  River 
and  also  to  the  territory  on  the  Northwest  Coast  north  of 
California.1  In  exchange  the  United  States  would  give  up 
all  claims  to  Texas  or  to  the  country  between  the  Rio  Grande 
and  one  of  the  Texan  Rivers,  —  the  Colorado,  the  Sabine, 
or  some  other  —  and  in  addition  pay  five  million  dollars  to 
its  own  citizens  to  extinguish  claims  that  they  were  supposed 
to  have  against  the  Spanish  government  for  spoliations 
committed  on  American  commerce  during  the  French  wars. 
Jefferson  had  some  objections  to  any  bargain  that  would 
restrict  the  western  extent  of  the  United  States.  Monroe 
answered  him  that  the  boundary  in  that  wilderness  could  be 
easily  arranged  with  whatever  new  government  might  be 
formed  in  Mexico,  —  which  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of 

1  On  March  12,  1818,  John  Quincy  European  nation  makes  a  discovery 

Adams,  writing  to  Don  Luis  de  Ofiis  and  takes  possession  of  any  portion  of 

laid  down  three  rules  for  the  regula-  this  continent,  and  another  after- 

tion  of  land  titles  in  America  which  he  wards  does  the  same  at  some  distance 

said  were  "sanctioned  alike  by  im-  from  it,  where  the  boundary  between 

mutable  justice  and  the  general  practice  them  is  not  determined  by  the  prin- 

of  the  European  nations"  interested  ciple  above  mentioned,  the  middle 

in  the  American  colonization :  distance  becomes  such  of  course.' 

"First.  'That  when  any  European  "Thirdly.  'That  whenever  any 

nation  takes  possession  of  any  extent  European  nation  has  thus  acquired  a 

of  seacoast,  that  possession  is  under-  right  to  any  portion  of  territory  on 

stood  as  extending  into  the  interior  this  continent,  that  right  can  never 

country  to  the  sources  of  the  rivers  be  diminished  or  affected  by  any 

emptying  within  that  coast,  to  all  other  Power,  by  virtue  of  purchases 

their  branches,  and  the  country  they  made,  by  grants  or  conquests  of  the 

cover,  and  to  give  it  a  right  in  ex-  natives  within  the  limits  thereof.'" 

elusion  of  all  other  nations  to  the  same.'  American  State  Papers,  Foreign  Rela- 

" Secondly.     'That    whenever    one  tiona,  iv,  470. 


1819]  THE  FLORIDA  TREATY  339 

seceding  from  Spain.  He  maintained,  moreover,  that  the 
immediate  settlement  of  our  western  boundary  was  necessary 
for  the  internal  peace  of  the  country.1  The  negotiations 
dragged  on  and  on,  until  Adams  was  thoroughly  tired.  His 
general  proposition  was  to  take  Florida  and  give  up  all 
territory  west  of  the  Texan  Colorado  and  south  of  the 
forty-first  parallel ;  De  Onis,  on  his  part,  proposed  the 
Sabine  River  and  the  forty-third  parallel.  Finally,  some- 
what against  his  will,  but  in  conformity  with  the  wish  of 
the  President,  Adams  compromised  on  the  Sabine  and  the 
forty-second  parallel.  The  treaty  was  signed  on  February 

22,  1819,  the  American  ratifications  were  handed  over  and 
the  documents  were  sent  to  Spain.2 

Adams  had  scarcely  written  a  joyful  sentence  or  two  in 
his  diary  over  the  completion  of  the  Florida  negotiations 
when  doubt  arose  as  to  the  completeness  of  the  settlement. 
The  treaty  had  provided  that  all  grants  of  land  made  by 
the  Spanish  authorities  before  January  24,  1818,  should  be 
regarded  as  valid ;  it  now  appeared  that  some  very  large 
grants  which  the  negotiators  had  in  mind  in  selecting  this 
date  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  actually  dated  January 

23,  and  therefore  had  been  validated  by  the  provision  of  this 
treaty  which  had  purposely  been  drawn  to  exclude  them. 

1  See  Jefferson's  letter  of  May  14,  time.  At  first  he  had  been  in  charge 

1820,  in  Writings  (Ford  ed.),  x,  158,  of  the  negotiations,  which  had  been 

and  Monroe's  reply  in  Writings,  vi,  transferred  to  Washington,  retransferred 

119.  to  Madrid,  and  transferred  back  again 

1  Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  1873),  to  Washington.  In  the  course  of  this 
p.  785.  At  the  moment  the  acquisi-  correspondence  Erving  stated  that  if  he 
tion  of  Florida  was  very  dear  to  the  had  been  let  alone,  he  could  have  se- 
Southern  heart.  Monroe  had  practi-  cured  the  Colorado  limit,  and  this  as- 
cally  forced  the  treaty  on  Adams  and  sertion  was  gleefully  laid  hold  of  by 
Andrew  Jackson  heartily  approved  it.  Adams's  enemies.  See  J.  L.  M.  Curry's 
Later,  it  became  the  Southern  fashion  "Acquisition  of  Florida"  in  Magazine 
to  reprobate  Adams  for  his  weak  con-  of  American  History,  xix,  286 ;  doc- 
cessions  to  Spain.  In  the  course  of  the  uments  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Mas- 
discussion,  use  was  made  of  a  letter  sachusetts  Historical  Society  for  Octo- 
written  by  George  W.  Erving,  who  ber,  1889 ;  Adams's  Memoirs,  xii,  using 
had  been  our  minister  to  Spain  at  the  index  under  "Erving." 


340  THE  PRESIDENCY  OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Cn.  X 

Adams  at  once  addressed  De  Onis.  The  Spaniard  appeared 
to  be  shocked  and  signed  a  statement  that  the  validity  of 
these  land  grants  was  not  recognized  in  the  treaty.1  Before 
many  months  passed  away,  further  mortification  appeared 
in  the  shape  of  the  refusal  of  the  Spanish  government  to 
ratify  the  treaty  at  all.  Possibly,  some  one  in  authority  at 
Madrid  wished  to  barter  ratification  for  a  recognition  of 
these  land  grants;  but  it  is  more  likely  that  the  Spanish 
government  hoped  that  by  withholding  ratification  it  could 
postpone  the  recognition  of  the  Spanish  American  republics, 
perhaps  indefinitely.2  The  six  months  provided  for  the 
exchange  of  ratifications  passed  away  and  then  came  a 
revolution  in  Spain  that  made  the  king  a  constitutional 
monarch  and  deprived  him  of  the  power  to  alienate  Spanish 
territory.  As  the  probability  of  the  ratification  of  the  treaty 
faded  away,  its  value  became  more  manifest  to  American 
eyes.  Monroe  and  Jefferson  and  Adams  were  one  in  con- 
demning the  actions  of  the  Spaniards.  It  was  even  sug- 
gested that  the  United  States  might  be  justified  in  taking 
possession  of  Florida  without  any  ratification ;  but  before 
anything  was  done,  the  Spanish  Cortes  and  the  king  decided 
to  ratify  and  the  transaction  was  completed  at  Washington 
on  February  22,  1821,  two  years  to  a  day3  after  the  actual 
signing  of  the  instrument  by  Adams  and  DeOnis. 

The  ratification  of  the  treaty  did  not  put  an  end  to  the 

1 J.     Q.     Adams's     Memoirs    using  Mexico     by    a     treaty     concluded     in 

index    under   "Spain";     his    Writings,  January,    1828,    and   ratified    in    1832. 

vi,    535,    537 ;     and    American    State  In     1836,     Webster,     Livingston,     and 

Papers,  Foreign  Relations,  iv,  650  and  Joseph  M.  White  declared  in  so  many 

fol.  legal  opinions  that  one  of  the  grants 

2  For    information    on    the   general  mentioned    above    was    legal    notwith- 
subject   see   Frederic   L.   Paxson's  In-  standing  the  fact  that  in  the  Spanish 
dependence     of     the     South     American  ratification  of  the  treaty  it  had  been 
Republics.  expressly  stated  that  the  grants  were 

3  By  this  time  Mexico  had  become  invalid ;     see    Legal    Opinions    of    the 
free    from    Spain,    but    the    limits    of  Honorable  Joseph  M.  White,  etc.  (New 
Texas  laid  down  in  the  Florida  Treaty  York,    1836)    and    Treaties    and    Con- 
were  ratified  by  the  United  States  and  ventions  (ed.  1873),  p.  794. 


1821]  JACKSON  IN  FLORIDA  341 

friction  between  American  officials  and  the  Spaniards.  The 
treaty  obliged  the  latter  to  hand  over  the  province  within 
six  months  after  the  exchange  of  ratifications  and  to  deliver 
up  the  forts  and  the  archives.  The  archives  had  been  re- 
moved to  Havana,  for  Florida  had  been  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  governor  general  of  Cuba.  An  American 
officer  was  sent  to  Havana,  but  after  many  delays  he  came 
away  without  the  papers.  Then,  too,  questions  arose  as  to 
whether  forts  included  artillery  and  whether  the  obligation 
of  the  United  States  to  transport  Spanish  officials  and  em- 
ployees and  their  families  from  Florida  to  Cuba  included 
feeding  them  on  the  voyage.  Adams  declared  that  a  fort 
included  artillery  and  the  Spaniards  insisted  that  trans- 
portation included  provisions.  Monroe  sent  Andrew  Jack- 
son to  take  possession  of  the  ceded  province  and  govern  it, 
until  other  arrangements  should  be  made.  Congress  had  al- 
ready provided  that  for  a  limited  time  the  officers  appointed 
by  the  President  to  take  possession  of  Florida  should  have 
all  the  powers  that  the  Spanish  authorities  had  exercised ; 
and,  as  they  had  exercised  practically  all  powers,  Jackson's 
authority  was  unlimited  by  law  or  usage.1  Jackson  pro- 
ceeded to  Pensacola,  "  took  possession,"  issued  decrees 
and  orders,  and  then,  in  the  somewhat  naive  language  of  his 
biographers,  was  waited  upon  by  a  daughter  of  a  deceased 
Spanish  official.  She  declared  that  the  Spaniards,  who  had 
not  yet  gone,  were  taking  with  them  papers  that  were  neces- 
sary to  prove  her  title  to  land  and  property  in  Florida. 
Jackson  at  once  sent  an  officer  to  demand  the  papers  and 
upon  these  being  refused,  he  directed  them  to  be  seized  and 
also  that  Colonel  Callava,  the  recalcitrant  official,  should 
be  brought  before  him.  This  was  done  and,  after  some 
debate,  Jackson  sent  him  to  prison  (1821).  It  was  at  this 

>  Annals  of  Congress,  16th  Cong.,  2nd  Seas.,  1809. 


342  THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [Ca.  X 

point  that  Eligius  Fromentin,  whom  Monroe  had  appointed 
judge  in  Florida,  ordered  Callava  to  be  produced  bodily 
in  his  court,  which  led  to  Fromentin's  being  summoned 
into  Jackson's  presence.  From  this  point,  the  matter  dif- 
fused into  letter  writing  and  Jackson  soon  after  resigned 
his  appointment  and  retired  to  his  Tennessee  plantation. 

The  other  important  diplomatic  occurrence  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  James  Monroe  and  the  occupation  of  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  State  by  John  Quincy  Adams  was  the  enuncia- 
tion of  what  was  known  then  and  has  been  known  ever 
since  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The  relations  of  the  United 
States  to  the  rebellious  Spanish  colonies  was  one  of  the  most 
delicate  questions  that  ever  came  before  the  rulers  of  the 
United  States :  too  early  recognition  meant  war  with  Spain 
and  her  European  friends;  too  late  recognition  meant  the 
hostility  of  the  new  republics.  The  question  as  to  when 
and  how  these  should  be  recognized  was  one  on  which  the 
responsible  officials  and  members  of  Congress  might  easily 
take  sides :  Monroe  and  Adams  were  obliged  to  walk  warily 
no  matter  what  their  sympathies  were ;  while  Clay  and 
other  eloquent  members  of  both  Houses  could  express  their 
sympathies  openly  without  any  fear  that  the  government 
would  carry  their  wishes  into  execution  at  the  cost  of  war 
to  the  country.  It  is  interesting  to  read  Adams's  official 
correspondence  with  different  foreign  ministers  at  this 
time  and  his  remarks  upon  the  subject  in  his  diary.  The 
question  was  not  entirely  one  of  sympathy  with  the  oppressed, 
for  the  plain  dictates  of  international  duty  played  some 
part  in  the  management  of  the  affair.  Had  there  not  been 
so  many  causes  of  friction  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain,  the  two  powers  whose  interests  and  sym- 
pathies in  these  matters  were  very  close  might  have  marched 
hand  in  hand ;  but  before  1822,  there  were  so  many  causes 


1823]  THE  MONROE   DOCTRINE  343 

of  irritation  between  them  that  this  was  quite  impossible. 
By  that  year,  however,  three-quarters  of  the  causes  of  dis- 
pute had  been  done  away  with  and  both  countries  were  in 
a  frame  of  mind  to  approach  with  some  degree  of  cordiality, 
or  cooperation,  the  menacing  attitude  of  continental  Euro- 
pean governments.  In  August,  1822,  George  Canning  suc- 
ceeded Castlereagh  at  the  foreign  office.  For  a  few  weeks, 
he  was  friendship  itself.  He  fairly  startled  Richard  Rush, 
our  minister  at  London,  by  suggesting  that  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  should  sail  abreast  in  their  dealings 
with  Spanish-American  revolutionists,  declaring  that  if  they 
did  so,  nobody  else  would  have  much  of  anything  to  say 
and  it  would  not  make  much  difference  what  they  said  or 
did.1  At  the  moment,  Canning  was  disturbed  by  the  pro- 
posed action  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  which  had  given  a  mandate 
to  France  to  set  the  Spanish  monarch  on  his  throne  again, 
and  there  was  some  probability  of  Continental  intermed- 
dling with  Spanish- American  affairs.  Under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, Canning  suspected  American  republics  and  espe- 
cially any  league  of  them  under  the  guidance  or  guardianship 
of  the  United  States,  but  possibly  it  would  be  worse  to  have 
France  interfering  in  American  affairs  than  to  have  the 
United  States  asserting  its  foremost  position  in  the  Western 

*W.  C.  Ford's  "Genesis  of  the  Residence  at  the  Court  of  London  .  .  . 
Monroe  Doctrine  "  in  Massachusetts  from  1819  to  1825.  Including  Negotia- 
Historical  Society's  Proceedings,  2nd  tions  on  the  Oregon  Question  is  practically 
Series,  xv,  373—436 ;  Richard  Rush's  a  continuation  of  the  earlier  volume. 
Memoranda  of  a  Residence  at  the  Court  In  1873,  at  London,  Benjamin  Rush 
of  London  (ed.  1845),  414-423,  429-  published  a  new  edition  of  his  father's 
443.  The  bibliography  of  Rush's  later  work  under  the  title  The  Court  of 
works  is  somewhat  confused.  The  London  from  1819  to  1825;  with  Sub- 
fast  edition  of  the  Memoranda  was  sequent  Occasional  Productions,  now 
printed  at  Philadelphia  in  1833 ;  a  first  published  in  Europe ;  the  last 
second  edition,  revised  and  enlarged,  sixty  pages  of  this  work  contain  four 
was  issued  at  the  same  place  in  the  same  chapters  from  another  book  of  Rich- 
year,  but  by  a  different  publisher  and  ard  Rush's  entitled  Occasional  Pro- 
a  different  printer.  Another  volume,  ductions,  Political,  Diplomatic,  and 
published  at  Philadelphia  in  1845,  Miscellaneous  (Philadelphia,  1860). 
with  a  similar  title,  Memoranda  of  a 


344 


THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES   MONROE         [On.  X 


World.  Rush  had  no  instructions  on  this  precise  point 
and  all  that  he  could  reply  was  that  he  would  lay  the  matter 
before  his  government.  After  a  few  more  conversations 
between  the  two,  Canning  visibly  lost  interest,1  probably 
because  he  had  used  such  assertions  as  Rush  had  felt 
himself  willing  to  make  on  the  general  theme  of  French 
interference  in  America  to  coerce  the  French  govern- 
ment into  holding  its  hands  or,  at  all  events,  into  not 
doing  anything. 

Side  by  side  with  these  important  conversations  and  sug- 
gestions were  equally  important  suggestions  and  conver- 
sations from  and  with  Russian  representatives.  The 
authority  of  the  Czar  in  the  preceding  half  century  had 
gradually  extended  eastwardly  across  Siberia  to  Bering 
Strait  and  Sea  and  to  America  and  to  the  exploitation  of 
the  fur  trade  on  the  Northwest  Coast.2  The  Russians  had 
established  posts  at  Bodega  Bay  to  the  northward  of  the 
Golden  Gate,  and  on  the  Farallones  at  the  entrance  to  San 
Francisco  Bay.  Not  much  was  known  of  these  endeavors  at 
Washington  until  Baron  Poletica,  in  February,  1822,  trans- 


1  Canning's  own  account  of  this 
episode  is  contained  in  a  letter  dated 
January  22,  1824,  to  Charles  Bagot, 
formerly  British  minister  to  the  United 
States,  but  now  ambassador  at  St. 
Petersburg  (Josceline  Bagot's  George 
Canning  and  his  Friends,  London, 
1909,  vol.  ii,  p.  215) ;  and  see  also  pp, 
222,  232,  and  274;  and  Augustus  G. 
Stapleton's  The  Political  Life  of  George 
Canning,  ii,  ch.  viii.  In  the  idea  ex- 
pressed in  his  famous  phrase  of  call- 
ing in  the  "New  World  to  redress  the  . 
balance  of  the  Old,"  Canning  had 
reference  to  trade  and  not  to  politics, 
except  as  these  reflect  economic  condi- 
tions. James  Workman  writing  in 
1797  seems  to  have  anticipated  him  in 
this  when  he  suggested  that  an  equiva- 
lent for  the  lost  trade  of  the  Nether- 
lands might  be  found  in  Louisiana, 


La  Plata,  Mexico,  and  Peru.  See 
Workman's  Political  Essays  (Alex- 
andria, 1801),  p.  138  and  Rush's  Oc- 
casional Productions,  188. 

2  See  F.  A.  Golder's  Russian  Ex- 
pansion on  the  Pacific,  1641-1850; 
Irving  B.  Richman's  California  under 
Spain  and  Mexico,  using  index  under 
"Russia";  Greenhow's  Oregon  and 
California,  and  the  .  .  .  North-west 
Coast;  Joseph  Schafer's  History  of 
the  Pacific  Northwest;  and  the  Alaska 
volume  of  H.  H.  Bancroft's  Pacific 
States.  The  main  facts  from  Adams's 
"Diary"  and  the  State  Department 
Archives  are  brought  together  in  John 
C.  Hildt's  "Early  Diplomatic  Negotia- 
tions of  the  United  States  with  Russia  " 
(Johns  Hopkins  Kfudies,  xxiv,  Nos. 
5,6). 


1823]  THE   MONROE   DOCTRINE  345 

mitted  to  Adams  an  ukase  1  of  his  imperial  master.  It  was 
dated  September  4,  1821,  and  ordered  all  non-Russian 
vessels,  including  American,  to  keep  away  from  the  coast 
of  Russian  America  to  the  distance  of  one  hundred  Italian 
miles.  Later,  Baron  Tuyll,  Poletica's  successor,  informed 
Adams  that  he  had  been  instructed  to  announce  to  the 
American  government  that  the  Russian  Czar  would  never 
receive  a  diplomatic  representative  from  the  revolutionized 
Spanish-American  provinces.2  Then  followed  most  interest- 
ing letters  between  Monroe  and  the  two  ex-Presidents  and  be- 
tween Richard  Rush,  Baron  Tuyll,  and  John  Quincy  Adams. 
As  these  have  come  to  light  the  whole  genesis  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  has  slowly  found  its  way  to  the  printed  page. 
Adams  thought  that  the  British  advances  should  be  de- 
clined, because  he  believed  that  Canning  wished  to  separate 
the  United  States  from  the  Spanish-American  republics 
and  that,  at  any  rate,  the  United  States  would  better  sail 
alone  than  be  a  cock-boat 3  in  the  wake  of  the  British  man- 
of-war.  As  to  his  former  friend,  the  Czar  Alexander,  he 
proposed  to  read  him  a  lesson  in  the  principles  of  govern- 
ment and  to  suggest  that  his  doings  did  not  comport  with 
the  Christian  spirit  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  Finally  Adams 
declared  that  the  time  had  come  to  suggest  that  the  Ameri- 
can continents  were  no  longer  open  to  new  European  colo- 
nizers. Monroe  hesitated,  but  in  the  end  he  outstripped 
his  masterful  Secretary  of  State  and  together  they  elabo- 
rated the  paragraphs  in  the  presidential  message  of  Decem- 
ber 2,  1823,  that  announced  in  well-known  phrases  that  the 

1  American    State    Papers,     Foreign  *  Writings    of    James    Monroe,    vi, 
Relations,     iv,    857-864.     The      Writ-  343,  the  letter  itself  is  on  p.  390 ;  Mem- 
ings    of   J.    Q.    Adams,    vii,    212,    214  oirs  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  vi,  201 ;    Massa- 
also  prints  Adams's  letters.     See  also  chusetts   Historical    Society's   Proceed- 
American  Historical  Review,  rviii,  309-  ings  (January,  1902),  p.  378. 
345   and  Memoirs  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  vi,            *  Memoirs  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  vi,  179. 
157. 


346 


THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE         [On.  X 


American  continents  were  closed  to  future  colonization 
by  Europeans,  that  the  United  States  did  not  propose  to 
interfere  with  European  affairs/  and  that  any  interference 
with  the  independence  of  the  Spanish-American  republics 
would  be  regarded  as  "the  manifestation  of  an  unfriendly 
disposition  toward  the  United  States." 

Russia  was  the  first  to  see  the  meaning  of  the  plain  speak- 
ing of  the  American  President.  She  had  contended  that 
the  Russian  territory  on  the  Northwest  coast  extended 
as  far  south  as  the  fifty-first  parallel.  When  Adams  and 
Tuyll  took  up  the  debate,  Adams  restricted  the  Russian 
claim  to  latitude  fifty-five.2  After  a  short  negotiation,  the 


1  The  exact  words  are  as  follows : 
"...  The  occasion  has  been  judged 
proper  for  asserting,  as  a  principle  .  .  . 
that  the  American  continents,  by  the 
free  and  independent  condition  which 
they  have  assumed  and  maintain, 
are  henceforth  not  to  be  considered 
as  subjects  for  future  colonization  by 
any  European  powers."  As  to  inter- 
vention Monroe  said :  "...  The 
citizens  of  the  United  States  cherish 
sentiments  the  most  friendly  in  favor 
of  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  their 
fellow-men  on  that  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
In  the  wars  of  the  European  powers 
in  matters  relating  to  themselves  we 
have  never  taken  any  part,  nor  does 
it  comport  with  our  policy  so  to  do. 
It  is  only  when  our  rights  are  invaded 
or  seriously  menaced  that  we  resent 
injuries  or  make  preparation  for  our 
defense.  With  the  movements  in  this 
hemisphere  we  are  of  necessity  more 
immediately  connected,  and  by  causes 
which  must  be  obvious  to  all  enlightened 
and  impartial  observers.  The  po- 
litical system  of  the  allied  powers 
is  essentially  different  in  this  respect 
from  that  of  America.  This  differ- 
ence proceeds  from  that  which  exists 
in  their  respective  Governments ;  and 
to  the  defense  of  our  own,  which  has 
been  achieved  by  the  loss  of  so  much 
blood  and  treasure,  and  matured  by 
the  wisdom  of  their  most  enlightened 
citizens,  and  under  which  we  have  en- 


joyed unexampled  felicity,  this  whole 
nation  is  devoted.  We  owe  it,  there- 
fore, to  candor  and  to  the  amicable 
relations  existing  between  the  United 
States  and  those  powers  to  declare  that 
we  should  consider  any  attempt  on  their 
part  to  extend  their  system  to  any 
portion  of  this  hemisphere  as  dan- 
gerous to  our  peace  and  safety.  With 
the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies 
of  any  European  power  we  have  not 
interfered  and  shall  not  interfere.  But 
with  the  Governments  who  have  de- 
clared their  independence  and  main- 
tained it,  and  whose  independence 
we  have,  on  great  consideration  and  on 
just  principles,  acknowledged,  we  could 
not  view  any  interposition  for  the 
purpose  of  oppressing  them,  or  controll- 
ing in  any  other  manner  their  destiny, 
by  any  European  power  in  any  other 
light  than  as  the  manifestation  of  an 
unfriendly  disposition  toward  the 
United  States." 

This  text  is  taken  from  Monroe's 
Writings  (Hamilton  ed.),  vi,  328,  339, 
340.  Other  copies  of  the  message, 
differing  slightly  in  spelling,  capitaliza- 
tion, and  punctuation,  are  Message 
from  the  President  of  the  United  States 
.  .  .  December  2,  1823  (Washington, 
1823)  and  Annals  of  Congress,  18th 
Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  vol.  i,  14,  22,  23. 

*  Adams  to  Middleton,  July  22, 
1823,  in  American  State  Papers,  For- 
eign Relations,  v,  436. 


1824]  RUSSIAN   TREATY  347 

two  came  together  by  agreeing  that  latitude  54°  40'  should 
be  the  southern  boundary  of  Russian  America.  This  instru- 
ment was  signed  in  April,  1824  ; l  on  the  4th  of  the  following 
March,  1825,  John  Quincy  Adams  took  the  oath  of  office  as 
the  sixth  President  of  the  United  States. 

1  Treaties  and  Contentions  (Washington,  1873) ,  733. 


348  THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE 


NOTES 

I.  The  Missouri  Compromise.  —  The  best  works  on  the  Missouri 
Compromise  are  Floyd  C.  Shoemaker's  Missouri's  Struggle  for  State- 
hood, 1804-1821;  James  A.  Woodburn's  "Historical  Significance 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise "  in  American  Historical  Association's 
Reports  for  1893,  pp.  251-297 ;  Frank  H.  Hodder's  "  Side  Lights  on 
the  Missouri  Compromises  "  in  ibid,  for  1909,  pp.  153-161 ;  Harrison 
A.  Trexler's  Slavery  in  Missouri,  1804-1865  (Johns  Hopkins  Studies, 
xxxii,  No.  2) ;  Louis  Houck's  History  of  Missouri,  iii,  ch.  xxix ;  Annals 
of  Congress,  15th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  vol.  i,  591  and  the  six  following 
volumes,  using  the  indexes ;  and  Niles's  Weekly  Register,  vol.  xiii,  p.  176 
and  following  volumes  through  vol.  xx,  p.  388,  using  indexes.  Some 
interesting  entries  on  this  subject  are  to  be  found  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  and  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  volumes  of  the  Memoirs  of  J.  Q. 
Adams.  Free  Remarks  .  .  .  Respecting  the  Exclusion  of  Slavery 
From  the  Territories  and  New  States  .  .  .  By  a  Philadelphian  (Phila- 
delphia, 1819)  which  is  attributed  to  Robert  Walsh,  is  a  well-sustained 
argument  from  the  Northern  point  of  view. 

The  True  History  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  its  Repeal  by 
Susan  B.  Dixon,  the  widow  of  Senator  Dixon  (Cincinnati,  1899) 
and  James  C.  Welling's  article  entitled  "  Slavery  in  the  Territories 
Historically  Considered "  in  the  Magazine  of  American  History, 
xxvii,  throw  some  new  light  on  the  general  question.1 

n.  Jackson  and  the  Seminole  War.  —  Jackson's  doings  in  Florida 
in  the  campaign  against  the  Seminoles  and  the  executions  of  Arbuthnot 
and  Ambrister  led  to  such  important  results  for  Jackson  and  other 
participants  in  the  affair,  that  much  material  is  to  be  found  in  the 
books  without  shedding  very  much  light  upon  the  matter.  The 
official  papers  are  printed  in  the  Congressional  documents ; 2  Monroe's 

'The   Missouri    question    produced  "The    High    and    Mighty,    the    Bur- 

eeveral    fictional   productions.      Madi-  gesses  of  the  Royal  State  of  Virginia" 

eon    took    up    his    pen    and    in    Jona-  (copyrighted  in  Connecticut). 
than  Bull  &  Mary  Butt  drew  a  parallel  2  Message    from    the    President  .  .  . 

between    a    family    conflict    and    this  transmitting    Information    in     Relation 

political     struggle     (Hunt's     Writings  to  the  War  with  the  Seminoles  (March 

of   Madwon,    ix,    77    and    also    sepa-  25,    1818)    in   State  Papers,    15   Cong., 

rately).     Two    other    publications    of  1st   Sess.,    No.    173;     House   Executive 

larger  size  were  Fragments  of  the  His-  Documents,  15  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  No.  14, 

tory   of  Bawlfredonia  .  .  .  by    Herman  forming  also  No.  35  of  papers  printed 

Thwackus   (copyrighted   in    Maryland)  by  order  of  the  Senate,  15  Cong.,  2nd 

and   Pocahontas;     A    Proclamation   by  Sess.     Many  of   these   documents   are 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  349 

Writings,  vi,  54,  74,  75 ;  Writings  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  vi,  386,  409,  434, 
474,  511,  545;  Memoirs  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  iv,  31-248,  274. 
What  is  known  as  Jackson's  "  Exposition  "  is  printed  in  Benton's 
Thirty  Years'  View,  i,  169-180.  The  supposed  letter  to  Monroe  of 
January  6,  1818,  is  there  printed  and  has  been  reprinted  in  Parton's 
Jackson,  ii,  433  and  J.  S.  Bassett's  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson,  i,  245 
and  elsewhere.  This  letter  led  to  what  is  known  as  the  Rhea  affair. 
The  last  original  document  in  the  story  is  in  Monroe's  Writings, 
vii,  234,  a  "  Denunciation  "  of  Rhea's  story  made  by  Monroe  on  his 
death  bed  and  witnessed  by  two  attendants.  Summations  of  the 
affair  have  been  made  by  Professor  Bassett  in  his  Jackson,  i,  245-250, 
especially  the  note  on  page  249  and  by  James  Schouler  in  The  Magazine 
of  American  History,  xii,  308-322. 

in.  The  Monroe  Doctrine.  —  The  standard  account  of  the  genesis 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  by  Worthington  C.  Ford  in  the  Proceedings 
of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  for  January,  1902.  This 
may  well  be  supplemented  by  H.  W.  V.  Temperley's  paper  on  "  The 
Later  American  Policy  of  George  Canning  "  in  American  Historical 
Review,  xi,  779-796.  A  succinct  and  useful  summary  is  in  Hart's 
Monroe  Doctrine,  20-68.  The  leading  documents  are  brought  to- 
gether in  Ford's  article ;  but  most  of  them  may  be  found  in  the  pub- 
lished writings  of  Monroe,  Adams,  and  Jefferson  and  in  the  American 
State  Papers,  Foreign  Relations  and  the  British  and  Foreign  State 
Papers.  The  careful  student  will  wish  to  read  the  "  Correspondence 
of  the  Russian  Ministers  in  Washington,  1818-1825 ''  in  American 
Historical  Review,  xviii,  309-345,  537-562;  "The  Papers  of  Sir 
Charles  Vaughan  "  —  the  British  minister  at  Washington,  1826-1833 
—  in  ibid.,  vii,  304-328,  500-533 ;  and  "  Protocols  of  Conferences 
of  Representatives  of  the  Allied  Powers  respecting  Spanish  America, 

also  printed  in  the  Annals  of  Congress,  sadly  need   correlation.     See  also   The 

15  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  vol.  ii,  1629,  2136;  Trials  of  A.  Arbuthnot   &  R.   C.  Am- 

and  a  few  of  them  are  collected  in  the  brister    (London,    1819)    and   John   D. 

Correspondence    between    Gen.     Andrew  Lawson's    American    State     Trials,    ii, 

Jackson    and    John    C.    Calhoun,  .  .  .  862,     891,     and    Memoirs     of    General 

in  the  Seminole  War,  printed  by  Duff  Andrew  Jackson,  together  with  the  Letter 

Green    (Washington,     1831).     In    con-  of  Mr.  Secretary  Adams,  in  vindication 

nection     with     the     President's     mes-  of  the  execution  of  Arbuthnot  and  Am- 

sages  of  November   16,    1818   (usually  brister,  and  the  other  Public  Acts  of  Gen. 

cited  as  of  November   17,  the  day  of  Jackson,  in  Florida  (Bridgeton,  N.  J., 

reception)   and  of  February  22,   1819,  1824).     Many  of  these  documents  are 

see    American    State    Papers,    Military  printed  in  NUes's  Register,  xv. 
Affairs,     i,     681-769.     These     papers 


350  THE   PRESIDENCY   OF  JAMES  MONROE 

1824-1825"  in  ibid.,  xxii,  595-616.  See  also  W.  S.  Robertson's 
article  on  "  The  United  States  and  Spain  in  1822  "  in  ibid.,  xx,  781-800. 
Even  now  —  1920  —  it  would  be  well  if  some  one  would  correlate 
and  analyze  this  material  more  carefully  than  has  hitherto  been  done.1 

'A.  F.  Pollard's  article  on  the  iii  the  British  relations  with  South 
Monroe  Doctrine  in  History,  The  America.  Herbert  Kraus's  Die  Man- 
Quarterly  Journal  of  the  [English]  roedoktrin  in  ihren  Beziehungen  zur 
Historical  Association  for  April,  1919,  amerikanischen  Diplomatic  und  turn 
is  a  penetrating  analysis  of  the  general  Volkerrecht  (Berlin,  1913),  is  pre- 
situation  in  1823  from  the  point  of  view  ceded  by  a  useful  bibliography.  W. 
of  an  English  student  of  European  F.  Reddaway,  in  a  small  volume  en- 
history;  Frederic  L.  Paxson's  The  titled  The  Monroe  Doctrine  that  was 
Independence  of  the  South  American  published  by  the  Cambridge  Press  in 
Republics  (Philadelphia,  1903),  chap-  1898,  states  the  English  idea  of  the 
ter  ii,  describes  the  South  Ameri-  matter  in  a  brief  compass, 
can  policy  of  the  United  States  and 


CHAPTER  XI 

POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828 

EVER  since  his  early  days  John  Quincy  Adams  had  been 
in  the  service  of  his  country.  In  1778,  at  the  age  of  eleven, 
he  accompanied  John  Adams,  his  father,  to  France.  Soon 
after  his  arrival  there  he  resolved  to  keep  a  diary  and  in- 
formed his  "Honoured  Mamma"  that  although  the  journal 
of  a  lad  of  eleven  could  not  "be  expected  to  contain  much 
of  Science,  Litterature,  arts,  wisdom,  or  wit,  yet  it  may 
serve  to  perpetuate  many  observations  that  I  may  make." 
He  began  the  actual  diary  some  months  later  and  continued 
it,  at  times  spasmodically,  and  sometimes  with  regrettable 
breaks  to  within  a  few  months  of  his  death.  The  journal 
certainly  perpetuated  many  of  John  Quincy  Adams's  obser- 
vations to  the  dismay  of  the  descendants  of  some  of  his 
contemporaries,  and  oftentimes  to  the  confusion  of  kings, 
Congressmen,  and  Presidents.  In  1794,  when  not  quite 
twenty-seven  years  of  age,  he  was  appointed  by  President 
Washington,  minister  to  the  Hague,  and  three  years  later 
was  transferred  to  Berlin.  In  1801,  he  returned  to  Massa- 
chusetts and  the  next  year  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Senate  of  that  State.  In  1803,  he  took  his  seat  in  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  and,  espousing  the  side  of  Jeffer- 
son, voted  for  the  embargo.  Being  defeated  for  reelection, 
he  was  appointed  minister  to  Russia  and  was  one  of  the 
Commissioners  at  Ghent.  As  John  Adams  was  the  first 
minister  of  the  United  States  to  Great  Britain  after  the 

351 


352  POLITICAL  SBETHINGS,    1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

Revolution,  so  his  son  was  the  first  American  minister 
at  the  Court  of  St.  James  after  the  War  of  1812,  and  it 
may  be  added  that  his  son,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  was  our 
representative  there  during  the  extremely  critical  years  of 
the  War  for  Southern  Independence.  In  1817,  John  Quincy 
Adams  returned  to  his  native  land  to  take  up  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  State,  and  was  performing  the  duties  of 
that  high  station  when  he  was  elected  President.  After 
his  four  years  in  the  White  House,  he  returned  to  Quincy, 
his  birthplace,  to  pass  his  declining  years  in  seclusion.  It 
was  not  so  to  be,  for  a  year  later,  some  of  the  voters  of  his 
congressional  district  waited  upon  him  and  inquired  if  he 
thought  it  would  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  one  who  had 
exercised  the  presidential  office  to  serve  in  the  national 
House  of  Representatives.  Adams  replied  that  he  thought 
it  would  be  entirely  proper  for  him  to  serve  in  any  office 
to  which  he  might  be  chosen  by  the  voters,1  even  that  of  a 
selectman  of  a  town.  Accordingly,  he  took  his  seat  in 
Congress  in  1831  and  for  seventeen  years  thereafter  upheld 
the  rights  of  his  countrymen  and  fought  for  liberty,  until 
he  fell  senseless  from  his  chair  to  the  floor  of  the  House  in 
1848.2  Hardly  anything  in  the  twelve  printed  volumes  of 
his  "Diary,"  not  even  the  characterizations  of  his  con- 
temporaries, so  impresses  the  reader  as  the  reiterated  ex- 
pressions of  his  gratitude  for  the  confidence  that  his  country- 
men, from  humble  voter  to  President  Washington,  had 
given  him  in  this  long  series  of  years.  He  never  stood 
higher  in  public  esteem  than  he  did  on  the  day  of  his  death, 
and  his  funeral  was  a  pageant  without  example  up  to  that 
time  in  the  City  of  Washington. 

1  Memoirs   of  John  Quincy   Adams,  in  which  he  was  held  by  his  enemies 

viii,  238-240.  is  to  read  one  of  his  speeches,  as  the  one 

J  Possibly  the  best  way  to  gain  an  delivered  in  June  and  July,  1838,  on  the 

insight  into  Adams's  method  and  an  annexation  of  Texas, 
understanding  of  the  fear  and  respect 


1824]  MONROE'S   CABINET  353 

In  Monroe's  Cabinet  were  four  of  the  dozen  most  eminent 
men  then  in  active  life :  Adams,  John  C.  Calhoun,  William 
H.  Crawford,  and  William  Wirt.  The  last  named,  who 
occupied  the  office  of  Attorney  General,  was  wedded  to 
the  law  ; l  but  the  others  had  immediate  presidential  aspira- 
tions. Crawford  had  been  a  candidate  against  Monroe 
in  1816,  when  they  had  both  been  members  of  Madison's 
official  family ;  but  he  had  consented  to  continue  to  hold 
the  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  the  administra- 
tion of  his  successful  rival  and  eight  years  later  sought  to 
succeed  him  in  the  White  House.  William  H.  Crawford 
enjoyed  great  reputation  in  Georgia,  his  native  State,  and 
Southern  writers  always  speak  of  him  in  eulogistic  terms; 
but  it  is  difficult  to  understand  wherein  his  greatness  con- 
sisted.2 Apparently,  in  those  days,  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina  were  overflowing  with  "distinguished  and  cele- 
brated lawyers"  and  among  them,  such  as  they  were, 
Crawford  attained  high  place.  As  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, he  made  no  great  mark.  Indeed,  the  principal  thing 
associated  with  him  was  the  passage  by  Congress  of  an  act 
providing  that  the  greater  number  of  presidential  appointees 
to  office  should  hold  their  places  for  four  years  only  and 
should  be  removable  at  pleasure.3  This  has  always  been 
regarded  as  an  electioneering  device  on  Crawford's  part  to 
secure  subserviency  to  himself  among  the  treasury  officials 
throughout  the  country;  but  it  is  not  unlikely  that  he 

1  Wirt  occupied  the  Attorney  Gen-  State  Papers,  and  in  the  correspondence 

eral's  office  for  twelve  years  until  of  Adams,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  others, 

Adams's  exit  in  1829,  but  two  years  including  an  interesting  letter  from 

later  Wirt,  himself,  was  nominated  for  Nathaniel  Macon  in  James  Sprunt 

the  presidency  by  the  Anti-Masons.  Historical  Monographs,  No.  2,  p.  67. 

*J.  E.  D.  Shipp's  Giant  Days;  or  'Act  of  May  15,  1820,  Statutes  at 

'he  Life  and  Time.s  of  William  H.  Craw-  Large,  iii,  582 ;  Annals  of  Congress, 

jord  (Americus,  Georgia,  1909).  There  16th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  vol.  ii,  2597. 

is  much  to  be  read  about  Crawford  It  affected  district  attorneys,  collectors 

and  there  are  many  of  his  letters  to  be  and  surveyors  of  the  customs,  receivers 

found  in  the  Annals  of  Congress,  in  the  of  public  money,  paymasters,  etc. 


354  POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

pushed  it  forward  to  make  it  possible  to  rid  the  service  of 
inefficient  employees  without  hurting  their  feelings  and 
arousing  resentments  among  the  voters.1  For  the  last 
year  or  two  he  had  been  ill  and  by  1824  he  had  been  "bled 
to  the  verge  of  death,  defitalised  into  fits,  and  ptyalized 
to  infantine  helplessness."  2  With  this  chronic  ill  health 
upon  him,  Crawford  made  a  good  fight  for  the  presidency ; 
and,  had  he  been  well,  would  probably  have  been  elected. 
Another  member  of  Monroe's  Cabinet,  John  C.  Calhoun, 
also  desired  to  be  his  successor  in  the  White  House.  Cal- 
houn was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  his  day.  He 
stands  second  only  to  Franklin  in  power  of  analysis ;  many 
of  his  papers  are  models  of  reasoning  and  expression.  Never- 
theless he  was  not  a  man  of  extensive  learning.3  Entering 
Congress,  he  at  once  took  a  prominent  place  and  he  showed 
administrative  ability  in  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War. 
In  the  course  of  his  long  career,  Calhoun  made  many  enemies, 
and  his  life  was  not  free  from  contradictions.  It  is  easy  to 
attribute  his  change  of  attitude  as  to  internal  improvements 
and  nationalism  to  ambition,  but  Southern  leaders  generally 
shifted  at  the  same  time,  and  it  might  well  be  that  they 
were  convinced,  in  common  with  many  other  Southerners, 
that  the  action  of  Northern  political  leaders  and  of  North- 
ern manufacturers  was  impoverishing  the  South  and  espe- 
cially South  Carolina.  The  most  difficult  thing  in  Calhoun's 


1  See     Carl     Russell     Fish's     "The  to  considerable  advantage.     See  Charles 

Crime  of  W.  H.  Crawford"  in  Ameri-  T.  Jackson's  and  William  P.  Blake's 

can  Historical  Review,  xxi,  545.  "Reports"     in     the    volume     entitled 

'"Van    Bufen     Mss."    in    Library  The    Gold    Placers    of   the    Vicinity    of 

of  Congress.     Gales  and  Seaton  to  M.  Dahlonega,     Georgia     (Boston,      1859) 

Van  Buren,  September  15,   1824.  and   Yeates's  report   of    1896   forming 

*  At  one    time   Calhoun   was   inter-  Bulletin    No.    4-A.    of    the    Geological 

ested  in  a  Georgia  gold  mine  in  the  Survey  of  Georgia.     The  discovery  of 

Dahlonega    district    near    a    little    vil-  gold  was  made  in   1829  and  by  1879 

lage  which  was  named  at  his  sugges-  fourteen  million  dollars'  worth  had  been 

tion    Auraria.     From    time    to    time,  produced  by  the  Georgia  mines, 
these  gold  deposits  have  been  exploited 


1824J  PRESIDENTIAL   CANDIDATES  355 

career  to  reconcile  with  his  personal  honor  is  his  permitting 
Andrew  Jackson  for  years  to  look  upon  him  as  having  been 
his  defender  in  the  Cabinet  at  the  time  of  the  Seminole 
War ; l  but  possibly  it  is  not  necessaiy  for  a  politician  to 
go  out  of  his  way  to  make  enemies.  The  other  Cabinet 
member  who  aspired  to  the  presidential  succession  was 
John  Quincy  Adams.  Reading  his  "Diary,"  one  would 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  Crawford  and  Calhoun  were 
persistent  presidency  seekers,  while  he,  Adams,  was  simply 
and  solely  "in  the  hands  of  his  friends."  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  two  first  were  more  active  in  their  efforts 
to  secure  the  coveted  honor.  They  dallied  with  newspapers 
and  possibly  appointed  to  office  some  persons  who  might 
be  politically  useful  to  them.  It  is  certain  that  Adams 
refused  to  purchase  newspaper  support  and  he  had  very 
few  offices  at  his  disposal  for  any  purpose ;  but  if  he  had 
had  them,  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  believe  that  he 
would  have  used  them  for  his  own  personal  advancement. 

Outside  of  the  Cabinet,  there  were  two  formidable  aspi- 
rants for  the  presidency,  —  Henry  Clay 2  and  Andrew 
Jackson.  Like  Calhoun  and  Crawford,  Clay  had  been  long 
in  political  life.  He  was  a  Virginian  by  birth,  but  had 
moved  to  Kentucky  when  a  young  man  and  since  that  time 
technically  had  resided  there.  Clay  had  been  one  of  the 
Commissioners  at  Ghent,  but  his  career  had  been  identified 
with  the  national  House  of  Representatives  over  which  he 
had  presided  with  brief  interruptions  for  fourteen  years. 
He  had  borne  a  foremost  part  in  bringing  on  the  War  of 
1812  and,  more  recently,  had  been  the  leading  advocate  of 

1  See  the  present  volume,  pp.  334-  Sargent's   Life  and   Public   Services   of 

336.  Henry  Clay,  p.  322  to  the  end  of  the 

*  For  an  informing  account  of  Clay,  volume  is  Greeley's  own  account  and 

see  Carl  Schurz's  Life  of  Henry  Clay,  deals  with  the  years  after  1848. 
2    vola. ;     Greeley's    edition    of    Epes 


356  POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

internal  improvements.  But  he  and  his  fellow-workers 
were  far  ahead  of  their  time,  for  any  such  scheme  demands 
a  community  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  several 
sections  of  the  country  and  all  the  signs  at  that  moment 
were  pointing  to  an  era  of  sectionalism  and  of  the  upbuild- 
ing of  the  community  spirit  in  the  South  apart  from  the 
rest  of  the  Union.  Andrew  Jackson,  the  fifth  figure  in  this 
group  of  presidency  seekers,  was  a  Carolinian  by  birth,1 
but  a  Tennesseean  by  reason  of  residence  and  land  owner- 
ship. His  military  career  is  most  familiar  to  us,  but  he  had 
served  in  the  national  Senate  for  parts  of  two  terms  and  in 
the  House  for  part  of  a  term.2  He  had  had  no  civil  adminis- 
trative experience,  but  conducting  the  business  of  an  army 
had  brought  out  very  strong  executive  qualities  in  him. 

Of  the  five  candidates  for  the  presidency,  Adams  was  the 
only  one  from  the  North.  It  was  reasonably  certain  that 
he  would  carry  New  England  and  might  carry  New  York, 
—  these  together  would  give  him  seventy-three  electoral 
votes.  The  eighty-eight  Southern  votes  would  be  divided 
somewhat  among  the  four  Southern  candidates.  Consider- 
ing this  fact,  it  seemed  fairly  certain  that  the  election  would 
turn  on  the  twenty-eight  votes  of  Pennsylvania  and  the 
twenty-four  votes  of  the  Northwestern  States.3  In  some 
manner  that  is  not  at  all  explicable  from  accessible  books 
and  manuscripts,  Jackson  appealed  to  the  democracy  of 


1  In     The    North    Carolina    Booklet,  1823    through    1825.     Annala    of   Con- 

ix,  232,  Bruce  Craven  argues  that  the  gresa,    4th    Cong.,    2nd    Sess.,     1589; 

McKemey    cabin    in    which    Jackson  5th   Cong.,    vol.    i,   470;     18th   Cong., 

first  saw  the  light  of  day  was  in  Meek-  1st  Sess.,   vol.   i,   24 ;     Register  of  De- 

lenburg  County,   North  Carolina,   and  bates,  18th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  Appendix, 

not  on  the  South  Carolina  side  of  the  p.  1. 

line,   as  Jackson  himself  thought,  but  3  A    convenient    table    showing    the 

a  man  has  slight  personal  knowledge  of  apportionment    of    representation    ac- 

his  birth-place.  cording  to  the  Cemrus  of  1790  through 

z  Jackson     served     in     the     House  the  Census  of  1840  is  in  Tucker's  Prog~ 

from  1796  to  1797,  and  in  the  Senate  ress,  123. 
from    1797    tp    1798    and    again    from 


1824J  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  357 

Pennsylvania  and  his  adherents  in  that  State  were  much 
better  led  than  were  the  partisans  of  any  other  candidate. 
As  the  election  of  1824  drew  nearer,  it  became  increasingly 
evident  that  Calhoun  had  no  chance  whatever,  for  there 
appeared  to  be  little  doubt  that  the  vote  of  New  York 
would  be  divided  between  Adams  and  Crawford  and  that 
Jackson  would  get  the  better  part  of  the  twenty-eight 
Pennsylvania  votes.  Calhoun,  therefore,  accepted  a  practi- 
cally unopposed  election  to  the  vice-presidency.  After  the 
withdrawal  of  Calhoun,  Crawford  would  naturally  have 
absorbed  most  of  the  strength  of  the  South,  but  long  con- 
tinuance in  office  and  long-continued  intriguing  for  the 
presidency  had  greatly  diminished  his  hold  upon  workers 
and  voters.  As  it  was,  he  received  the  twenty-four  votes  of 
Virginia  and  the  nine  of  Georgia.  Besides  he  had  five 
from  New  York  and  three  others  or  forty-one  in  all.  Clay 
received  the  fourteen  votes  of  his  own  State,  Kentucky ; 
the  sixteen  of  Ohio,  four  of  New  York  and  three  of  Missouri, 
making  thirty-seven  in  all.  Adams  received  the  fifty-one 
votes  of  New  England,  twenty-six  of  the  thirty-six  cast  by 
New  York  and  seven  scattering,  or  eighty-four  electoral 
votes  in  all.  Jackson  stood  at  the  head  of  the  list  with 
ninety-nine  votes,  receiving  twenty-eight  from  Pennsyl- 
vania, all  of  the  Carolinas  and  all  of  Tennessee  and  Mis- 
sissippi, Alabama  and  Indiana  and  some  others.1  As  no 
candidate  had  received  a  majority  of  the  electoral  vote  as 
demanded  by  the  provisions  of  the  Twelfth  Amendment, 
the  actual  choice  of  the  President  for  the  next  four  years 
lay  with  the  House  of  Representatives,  voting  by  States 
and  confined  to  the  three  highest  on  the  list.2 

1  Journal  of  the  Senate,  18th  Cong.,  *  This   election   led   to   renewed   in- 

2nd    Sess.,    p.    149.     See    also    Niles's  terest  in  the  proposition  to  elect  the 

Register    for    February     12,     1825,     p.  President  directly  by  districts  and  to 

382.     The    vote   for   the    President   in  take  away  the  election  from  Congress, 

the  House  immediately  follows.  See   H.    V.    Ames's   Proposed   Amend- 


358  POLITICAL  SBETHINGS,   1824-1828  [On.  XI 

As  soon  as  the  way  in  which  the  members  of  the  electoral 
college  would  cast  their  votes  become  known  at  Washington, 
rumor  and  scandal  became  rife  in  the  capital.  Clay  was  out 
of  the  running,  being  a  low  fourth.  He  had  polled  the  votes 
of  Kentucky,  Ohio,  and  Missouri.  Adding  these  States 
to  the  seven  that  were  almost  certain  to  vote  for  Adams 
would  give  him  the  votes  of  ten  States  and  as  he  needed  only 
thirteen,  it  would  probably  mean  his  election.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  friends  of  the  several  candidates 
busied  themselves  and  rumors  flew  rapidly  through  the 
corridors  of  the  capitol  and  around  the  rooms  of  the  mess- 
houses.1  If  Jackson  were  chosen  would  he  make  Clay  his 
Secretary  of  State?  Or,  if  Adams  were  elected,  would  he 
likewise  offer  this  position  to  Clay?  No  conjectures  of  the 
kind  were  made  as  to  Crawford,  because  his  relations  with 
Clay  were  not  at  all  cordial  and  his  health  was  such  that  it 
was  difficult  to  approach  him.  The  three  candidates  were 
in  Washington,  Jackson  being  a  Senator  from  Tennessee. 
A  coalition  between  Jackson  and  Clay  was  entirely  out  of 
the  question,  for  Clay  had  openly  attacked  Jackson  and  no 
one  who  had  done  that  had  ever  been  forgiven.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  entirely  natural  for  Adams  and  Clay 
to  coalesce :  they  both  believed  in  the  American  System, 
they  both  distrusted  Crawford,  and  neither  of  them  had 
much  faith  in  Jackson's  administrative  capacities.  It 

merits  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  cations,  x,  61)  that  the  practical 
States,  89,  and  the  speeches  of  Me-  equality  of  votes  in  Illinois  enabled 
Duffie,  Everett,  Polk,  and  others  de-  Daniel  P.  Cooke  to  vote  for  Adams  al- 
livered  in  the  course  of  a  six  weeks'  de-  though  he  had  agreed  to  vote  with  his 
bate  in  the  House  of  Representatives  State  and  two  of  her  three  electoral 
in  1826.  votes  had  been  given  to  Jackson  and 
1  As  showing  the  spirit  of  the  time  only  one  to  Adams.  Duff  Green, 
and  also  the  difficulty  of  reaching  a  writing  in  old  age  but  doubtless  re- 
conclusion  at  the  present  day  it  is  in-  peating  the  stories  of  his  early  years, 
teresting  to  note  that  Willie  P.  Mangum  gives  some  interesting  gossip  (Facts 
wrote  to  Bartlett  Yancey  in  December,  and  Suggestions,  New  York,  1866,  p. 
1824  (James  Sprunt  Historical  Publi-  25  and  fol.) 


1824]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  359 

happened,  therefore,  that  Adams  was  chosen  on  the  first 
ballot.  Adams  and  Jackson  had  been  on  very  good  terms 
owing  to  Adams's  defence  of  the  General's  Florida  deeds  in 
1818,1  and  it  is  said  that  on  meeting  Adams  soon  after  the 
vote  in  the  House,  Jackson  congratulated  him  and  declared 
that  he  was  better  fitted  for  the  place  than  himself.  Some 
of  the  far-seeing  manipulators,  however,  determined  to 
arouse  Jackson's  enmity.  At  the  moment,  it  was  supposed 
that  if  the  General  were  elected,  he  would  serve  for  only 
one  term  and  therefore  that  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State 
would  be  as  good  as  a  nomination  for  the  presidency  in 
1828.  In  January,  1825,  an  "unsigned  letter"  appeared  in 
the  newspapers,  stating  that  Clay  and  Adams  had  made  a 
bargain  by  which  Adams  was  to  be  elected  and  was  then  to 
appoint  Clay  his  Secretary  of  State.  Shortly  afterward, 
George  Kremer,  an  insignificant  Representative  from 
Pennsylvania,  acknowledged  the  authorship  of  this  letter. 
Thereupon  Clay  took  the  floor  of  the  House  and  called  for 
an  inquiry,  but  Kremer  refused  to  appear  either  as  accuser 
or  as  a  witness.2  Two  years  later  Jackson,  himself,  reiter- 

1 "  We  thenceforth  heard  the  praises  Clay,    to    the   Public;     containing    Cer- 

of    Mr.    Adams    sounded    throughout  tain    Testimony    in    Refutation    of    the 

the    military    camp."     Jesse    Benton's  Charges    against    him,    made    by    Gen. 

Address    to    the    People    of   the    United  Andrew  Jackson.     This  was  printed  by 

States    (Nashville,     1824).     This    is    a  Peter  Force  at  Washington  in  1827. 
good  —  and  readable  —  example  of  the  The  Buchanan  side  of  the  case  is 

political  pamphlets  of  the  times.  stated   in   Curtis's   Life   of  Buchanan, 

1  See  the  Condensed  Speech  of  Hon.  i,  49-56  and  Works  of  James  Buchanan, 
Linn  Boyd,  of  Kentucky  .  .  .  April  SO,  i,  260-271,  viii,  444.  The  episode  is 
1844:  Colton's  Life  of  Henry  Clay,  also  treated  at  length  in  Bassett's 
chs.  xiv-xviii;  and  Clay's  "Address  Andrew  Jackson,  i,  356-368  and 
to  his  Constituents,  March  26,  1825"  Schurz's  Clay,  i,  241.  The  Jacksonian 
in  Colton,  Reed,  and  McKinley's  side  of  the  controversy  was  set  forth 
Works  of  Henry  Clay,  v,  299.  This  at  length  in  the  "Reply  by  the  Jack- 
address  was  originally  printed  at  son  Corresponding  Committee  of  the 
Washington  in  1825  with  the  title  "To  District  of  Columbia"  which  was 
The  People  of  the  Congressional  printed  in  the  United  States  Telegraph, 
District  composed  of  the  Counties  vol.  i,  Nos.  10-12;  and  see  also  "Cal- 
of  Fayette,  Woodford,  and  Clarke,  in  endar  of  Jackson-Lewis  Letters"  in 
Kentucky."  The  most  interesting  of  Bulletin  of  the  New  York  Public  Li- 
these  papers  is  An  Address  of  Henry  brary,  iv,  292. 


360  POLITICAL   SEETHINGS,    1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

ated  the  charge  and  then  upon  investigation  it  appeared 
that  the  velvet  hands  of  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania 
had  pushed  Jackson  forward,  but  that  the  latter  had  mis- 
understood his  astute  manager  in  the  Keystone  State. 
Altogether  it  was  a  discreditable  piece  of  business  for  all 
concerned,  but  it  exercised  none  the  less  a  baleful  influence 
on  the  lives  of  two  good  men,  for  unfortunately  Adams, 
looking  upon  Clay  as  the  ablest  man  for  the  secretaryship 
of  state,  offered  the  place  to  him  and  Clay  felt  obliged  to 
accept  it  so  as  not  to  give  color  to  the  charge.1  Possibly 
the  reason  for  the  lack  of  the  highest  success  in  political 
warfare  on  the  part  of  these  two  men  may  be  seen  in  this 
incident. 

Whatever  his  failings,  John  Quincy  Adams  possessed 
honesty  of  mind  and  of  purpose.  Replying  to  the  com- 
mittee that  notified  him  of  his  election,  he  said  that  as  one 
of  the  other  candidates  had  had  "a  larger  minority  of  the 
primary  electoral  suffrages"  than  he  had,  he  should  not 
have  hesitated  to  decline  the  presidential  office,  could 
his  refusal  have  given  "an  immediate  opportunity  to 
the  people"  to  express  again  their  wishes.  As  it  was  he 
necessarily  accepted  the  result  of  the  election  by  the  House 
of  Representatives.  The  greatest  part  of  Adams's  Inaugural 
Address  was  devoted  to  the  achievements  of  the  American 
Republic  2  up  to  that  time ;  but  he  made  some  suggestions 
as  to  the  future.  The  prosecution  of  internal  improvements, 
he  thought,  would  bring  down  upon  the  heads  of  those 
who  made  them  the  blessings  of  "  unborn  millions  of  our 

1  In    1850,    according   to    Henry   S.  self  in  a  false  position  before  the  coun- 

Foote    (Casket    of    Reminiscences,    27)  try,  and  often  have  I  painfully  felt  that 

Clay  declared  that  if  he  were  to  live  I  had  seriously  impaired  my  own  ca- 

his  life   over   again  he   would  not  ac-  pacity  for  public  usefulness." 
cept  from  Mr.    Adams  the   Secretary-  *  Richardson's  Messages  and  Paper* 

ship  of  State.     "By  doing  so  I  injured  of  the  Presidents,  ii,  292-299. 
both  )»*•»»  and  myself;    I  placed  my- 


1825]  ADAMS'S   INAUGURAL  361 

posterity."  As  to  the  constitutional  objections  that  had 
been  raised  to  the  prosecution  of  this  design,  he  thought 
these  might  be  obviated  by  friendly  deliberations;  but  no 
consideration  should  induce  Congress  "to  assume  the 
exercise  of  powers  not  granted  ...  by  the  people."  In 
his  first  message  to  Congress,  he  reiterated  this  desire  for 
internal  improvements  and  coupled  other  subjects  with  it, 
as  the  founding  of  a  national  university.1  Congress  was 
deaf  to  all  appeals  of  the  kind  and  paid  no  attention  to 
them. 

In  the  Inaugural,  Adams  had  also  stated  that  the  new 
Spanish-American  republics  had  invited  the  United  States 
to  send  representatives  to  a  meeting  of  Congress  to  be  held 
at  Panama  for  consultation  and  action  as  to  objects  of  com- 
mon interest.-  He  had  accepted  the'  invitation  and  com- 
missioners would  be  sent  to  take  part  in  the  conference  so 
far  "as  may  be  compatible  with  that  neutrality"  from 
which  the  United  States  does  not  intend  to  depart.  On 
the  26th  of  December,  1825,  he  sent  a  message  to  the  Senate 
repeating  the  invitation  from  the  Spanish-American  republics. 
He  added  that  although  the  acceptance  of  this  invitation 
"was  deemed  to  be  within  the  constitutional  competency 
of  the  Executive"  he  had  not  taken  any  step  in  it  and  wished 
to  ascertain  whether  his  opinion  of  its  expediency  would 
be  agreed  to  by  both  Houses  of  Congress.  With  the  message 
there  were  documents  and  also  nominations  of  commis- 
sioners.2 This  Panama  Congress  had  been  summoned  by 
Bolivar  and  both  the  United  States  and  England  had  been 
invited  to  it.  In  respect  to  foreign  policy,  the  administra- 
tion of  John  Quincy  Adams  was  hardly  more  than  a  continu- 

*"  Message   from   the   President   of  *  Executive   Proceedings   of  the   Sen- 

the    United    States  .  .  .  December    6,  ate  .  .  .  Congress     at     Panama     (19th 

1825":    House  Documents,  19th  Cong.,  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  68);   also  printed 

1st  Sess.,  vol.  i,  No.  1,  pp.  6,  15.  separately  at  Washington  in  1826. 


362  POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

ation  of  that  of  Monroe,  and  the  Panama  Congress  was 
expected  to  be  a  capstone  to  the  Spanish-American  revolu- 
tions. Had  everything  gone  well,  it  is  conceivable  that  a 
league  of  American  nations  —  North,  South,  and  Central 
—  might  have  been  formed  then  that  would  have  power- 
fully affected  the  progress  of  the  world.  The  United  States 
would  naturally  have  taken  the  lead  and  this  would  have 
been  most  distressing  to  George  Canning  who  was  then  at 
the  head  of  the  British  government,  for  he  had  determined 
to  prevent  the  United  States  assuming  such  a  position 
and  also  to  prevent  the  absorption  of  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico 
by  France  or  by  the  United  States.  Moreover,  he  wished 
to  bring  the  great  American  Republic  within  the  scope  of 
European  politics.1  Adams  was  equally  determined  to 
keep  his  country  out  of  the  European  entanglements,  to 
facilitate  the  voluntary  incorporation  of  Cuba  and  Texas 
with  the  United  States,  and  to  have  all  the  American  powers 
adopt  the  principles  of  that  republic  as  to  the  freedom  of 
the  seas.  The  sources  of  political  opposition  to  the  partici- 
pation of  the  United  States  in  the  Panama  Congress  are  not 
easy  to  fathom.  Possibly  the  Jacksonian  partisans  may 
have  looked  upon  its  defeat  as  a  blow  dealt  at  Jackson's 
rivals.  Possibly,  also,  they  may  have  thought  opposition 
to  it  would  place  their  candidate  distinctly  at  the  head  of 
the  Southern  party.  Some  of  the  subjects  that  would 
necessarily  come  up  for  debate  at  Panama  would  have  to 
do  with  negro  slavery  and  with  the  future  of  the  colored 
races  in  America.  At  all  events  a  most  factious  opposi- 
tion to  Adams's  plan  appeared  in  the  Senate.  It  must 
be  confessed  that  Adams's  action  was  weak  and  ill  con- 
sidered ;  he  had  accepted  the  invitation  and  then  had  asked 

1  Temperley's      "Later      American      can    Historical    Review,    xi,    779    and 
Policy  of  George  Canning"  in  Ameri-      fol. ;   and  his  Life  of  Canning,  ch.  z. 


1826]  PANAMA  CONGRESS  363 

the  Senate  if  the  United  States  should  be  represented.  He 
had  declared  that  the  appointment  of  commissioners  was 
within  the  power  of  the  Executive  and  had  then  asked  the 
consent  of  the  two  Houses  to  such  appointments.  The 
Senate  committee,  to  whom  the  subject  was  referred,  doubted 
the  constitutional  authority  of  the  government  to  negotiate 
with  foreign  nations  for  the  purpose  of  settling  and  pro- 
mulgating principles  of  internal  polity  or  abstract  proposi- 
tions. By  strict  observance  of  their  old  course  of  policy, 
the  United  States  had  grown  up  in  happiness,  so  the  com- 
mittee asserted.  Were  they  now  to  embark  upon  an  un- 
known ocean,  directed  by  little  experience  and  with  no 
certain  destiny,  and  especially  since  in  such  a  voyage  the 
dissimilarities  of  language,  religion,  customs,  and  laws 
would  generate  discords  ?  It  was  true  that  the  Senate  might 
reject  any  agreements  that  were  entered  into ;  but  long 
experience  had  shown  that  it  was  difficult  and  sometimes 
impossible  to  escape  from  the  embarrassment  of  the  mere 
act  of  entering  into  the  negotiations.  The  Senate  con- 
firmed the  nominations,  nevertheless,  and  the  House  voted 
the  necessary  funds.  One  of  the  United  States  delegates 
died  and  the  other  did  not  go  to  Panama.  There  was  an 
English  diplomatic  representative  there  and  possibly  two 
or  three  other  Europeans.  Probably  nothing  would  have 
come  of  the  enterprise  had  the  United  States  been  repre- 
sented at  Panama  and  it  may  have  been  for  the  best  that 
no  such  league  of  American  nations  was  formed.  The 
one  thing  that  strikes  the  observer  in  reading  the  available 
documents  is  that  both  Canning  and  Bolivar  succeeded  in 
their  policy  l  in  so  far  as  they  prevented  the  United  States 

1  See  H.   W.  V.   Temperley's  "The  ton's    Some   Official    Correspondence   of 

Later     American     Policy     of     George  George  Canning,  i,   using  the   table  of 

Canning"    and    his    Life    of   Canning  contents. 
(London,  1905) ;   and  also  E.  J.  Staple-  For    Bolivar's    views   on    the    Con- 


364  POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828  [CH.  XI 

from  taking  the  position  of  leadership  that  should  have 
belonged  to  it.  Bolivar  failed,  however,  in  his  plan  of  estab- 
lishing a  Spanish-American  league  in  close  agreement  with 
Great  Britain.  But  had  Adams  and  Clay  been  given 
hearty  support  by  their  own  countrymen,  the  United  States 
might  even  then  have  taken  the  foremost  position  in  a 
League  of  Nations  of  the  American  continents. 

Another  critical  and  disappointing  episode  of  these  years 
had  to  do  with  the  partly  civilized  Indians  of  western 
Georgia  and  the  neighboring  counties  of  Alabama.  These 
were  the  Cherokees.  In  1791,  President  Washington  had 
entered  into  a  treaty  with  them  by  which  they  were  assured 
that  they  would  never  be  driven  from  their  lands.1  In 
1802,  Gallatin,  on  behalf  of  the  federal  government  and  as  a 
part  of  the  Yazoo  land  settlement,  had  agreed  to  put  Georgia 
in  possession  of  the  Indian  lands  within  her  limits.2  Chris- 
tian missionaries  also  had  sought  out  the  Cherokees,  had 
converted  some  of  them  to  Christianity,  and  had  taught 
them  something  of  the  arts  of  civilization.3  Administra- 
tion followed  administration  and  the  Georgians  who  needed 
more  lands  for  cultivation  of  the  cotton  plant  were  kept  out 
of  the  acres  that  they  regarded  as  rightfully  theirs.  In 

gress   of   Panama,    I    am   indebted   to  Bee  also  the  present  work,  volume  iv, 

Professor     Julius     Klein,   who     kindly  290    note.     The    later    documents    are 

placed    at   my    disposal    some    printed  printed    in     House    Reports,     No.    98, 

notes     from     an     unpublished     manu-  19th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess. 
script  in  the  archives  at  Caracas  that  *  On    the    general    subject    of    the 

were   presented    at    the    second    Pan-  removal  of  the  Indians  see  Miss  Annie 

American     Scientific     Congress      that  H.  Abel's  "Indian  Consolidation  West 

was     held     at    Washington     in     1916.  of  the  Mississippi"   in  American  His- 

For    a    somewhat    different    view    see  torical     Association's     Annual     Report 

W.    R.    Shepherd's    "Bolivar    and    the  for    1906,    i,    233    with    an    extensive 

United  States"  in  Hispanic  American  bibliography  on  pp.   413-438.     Joseph 

Historical  Review,  i,  270.  Hodgson's    Cradle    of   the    Confederacy 

1  American  State  Papers,  Indian  (ch.  viii)  and  G.  L.  Sioussat's  "Ten- 
Affairs,  i,  124,  art.  7;  "The  United  nessee  and  the  Removal  of  the  In- 
States  solemnly  guaranty  to  the  Chero-  dians"  in  the  Sewanee  Review  for 
kee  nation,  all  their  lands  not  hereby  July,  1908,  have  been  especially  use- 
ceded."  ful. 

*  Ibid.,  Public  Lands,  i,  126,  art.  4 ; 


1828]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  365 

Monroe's  administration,  matters  were  greatly  compli- 
cated by  personal  and  political  hostilities  between  Governor 
Troup  of  Georgia  and  the  federal  Indian  Agent  which  were 
not  at  all  allayed  by  the  bad  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  gov- 
ernor toward  the  missionaries  and  between  the  missionaries 
themselves,  for  they  were  of  different  sects.1  Troup  ad- 
dressed communications  to  the  heads  of  the  federal  depart- 
ments in  the  language  of  a  sovereign  commanding  his 
servants  ;  but  he  gained  nothing  at  the  moment.  Adams's 
weak  administration  seemed  to  the  Georgians  to  be  the 
appointed  time,  and  they  marched  into  the  coveted  lands, 
notwithstanding  the  utmost  opposition  that  the  Washington 
government  could  make.  It  was  one  of  the  most  un- 
fortunate episodes  in  the  history  of  the  presidency. 

The  election  of  1828  marked  the  breaking  down  of  the 
old  system  and  the  coming  into  power  of  the  democracy 
of  the  next  thirty  years  that  was  ushered  in  by  the  trium- 
phant election  of  Andrew  Jackson  to  the  presidency.  There 
is  something  peculiarly  interesting  about  Jackson  and  his 
political  and  presidential  career,  fully  as  interesting  in  its 
way  as  the  story  of  his  earlier  military  performances.  He 
seems  to  have  had  slight  desire  in  the  beginning  for  high 
executive  place  and  in  1825  to  have  welcomed  Adams,  and, 
indeed,  they  had  been  on  friendly  terms.  He  was  put  forward 
for  the  presidency  by  a  group  of  active  and  aspiring  politi- 
cians, of  whom  William  B.  Lewis  and  Amos  Kendall  were 
the  ablest.  Lewis  was  a  neighbor  of  Jackson's  and  for 
some  years  had  acted  as  a  literary  friend,  putting  the 
General's  roughly  written  communications  into  the  forms 
in  which  we  possess  them.2  How  early  Jackson's  friends  be- 

1  Report   of  the   Select   Committee   of  J  S.  G.  Heiskell  in  his  Andrew  Jack- 

the    House    of    Representatives,    March  son     and     Early      Tennessee      History 

S,  1827  (19th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  H.  of  (Nashville,  1918)  has  a  few  interesting 

R.   No.   98) ;     E.   J.   Harden's   Life  of  paragraphs  on  Lewis,  pp.  441-446. 
George  M.  Troup,  chs.  ix-xii. 


366  POLITICAL  SEETHINQS,    1824-1828  (Cn.  XI 

gan  to  put  him  forward  as  a  public  character  is  not  quite 
clear,  but  they  conducted  a  skilful  propaganda,  certainly 
as  far  back  as  1817,  when  John  Henry  Eaton  completed  a 
biography  that  really  was  a  campaign  document.1  By  1826, 
it  was  evident  that  Crawford  was  out  of  the  presidential 
race.  Thereupon  Calhoun  was  led  to  believe,  or  came  to 
believe,  that  continuing  in  the  vice-presidency  through 
Jackson's  term,  provided  the  General  were  elected  to  the 
chief  magistracy,  would  make  him,  Calhoun,  the  Jack- 
sonian  candidate  for  the  first  place  in  1832.  It  is  impossible 
to  prove  that  any  definite  proposition  of  the  kind  was  made 
to  Calhoun,  or  that  any  categorical  statement  of  Jackson's 
determination  to  serve  only  one  term  was  ever  made.  But 
it  is  evident  that  for  some  reason  best  known  to  themselves, 
Calhoun  and  his  friends  thought  that  it  would  be  wise  for 
him  to  continue  in  the  second  place.  Crawford  and  Calhoun 
being  thus  removed  from  the  presidential  race,  the  only 
other  Southern  competitor  was  Henry  Clay,  and  systematic 
efforts  were  at  once  begun  to  blast  his  reputation  and  make 
his  candidacy  impossible. 

Rumors  of  bargain  and  corruption  had  been  rife  in  1824 
and  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  had  given  them  a  place  in 
popular  imagination  by  stigmatizing  the  cooperation  of 
Adams  and  Clay  as  the  "  coalition  of  Blifil  and  Black  George, 
—  the  combination,  unheard  of  till  then,  of  the  Puritan 
with  the  blackleg/'3  and  by  fighting  a  duel,  a  bloodless  one, 
with  Clay.  The  story  was  brought  up  again  in  1827  and 
led  to  letters  and  pamphlets.  From  them  it  appears  that 
Jackson  thought  or  was  made  to  say  that  he  thought  that, 

1  The  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson  .  .  .  dren  of  John  Reid."     Reprinted  with 

Commenced  by  John  Reid,  .  .  .     Com-  Eaton's  name  alone  on  the  title-page 

pleted   by  John  Henry  Eaton.     It  was  at  Philadelphia  in  1824  and  later, 
published    by    Carey    at    Philadelphia  *  Schurz'a   Clay,   i,   273 ;    Garland's 

in  1817  "For  the  Benefit  of  the  Chil-  Randolph,  ii,  254. 


1828]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  367 

in  1824,  he  had  been  approached  and  been  told  that  if 
he  would  not  appoint  Adams  Secretary  of  State  the  presi- 
dential contest  would  at  once  be  decided  in  his  favor. 
Upon  demanding  the  name  of  the  person  who  had  made  this 
offer,  Jackson  replied  that  it  was  James  Buchanan ;  but 
Buchanan  declared  that  what  he  said  was  if  Jackson  would 
agree  not  to  continue  Adams  in  the  Secretary  of  State  office, 
the  Clay  men  would  vote  for  him,  Jackson,  and  thus  decide 
the  contest.  Buchanan  said  he  had  no  idea  that  he  could 
have  been  mistaken  for  a  representative  of  Clay  and,  if  one 
can  believe  him,  he  appears  to  have  undertaken  the  mission 
out  of  a  simple  desire  to  bring  about  Jackson's  election  and 
without  having  any  authority  whatever  from  Clay.  The 
latter  now  secured  written  testimony  from  his  adherents 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  1824  and  published  it 
with  private  letters  of  his  own,  written  at  the  time,  with 
a  view  to  making  it  clear  that  he  and  his  friends  had  voted 
against  Jackson  and  for  Adams  from  the  highest  motives 
of  duty.  Nothing  was  of  any  avail.  The  more  Clay  pro- 
tested, the  more  firmly  his  countrymen  disbelieved  him,  and 
he  was  definitely  put  out  of  the  presidential  running  for 
the  time  being.  The  Southern  vote  was,  therefore,  secure  for 
Jackson  and  probably  the  twenty-four  votes  of  the  Old 
Northwest  would  also  be  given  to  him.  These  would  not 
be  enough  and  it  would  therefore  be  necessary  to  gain  elec- 
toral votes  in  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  to  make  the 
result  certain. 

In  1824,  Jackson  had  had  only  a  small  following  in  New 
York,  for  the  politicians  of  that  State  and  their  followers 
supported  Crawford,  and  the  other  voters  generally  stood 
behind  Adams.  The  two  principal  leaders  in  New  York  at 
that  time  were  William  L.  Marcy  and  Martin  Van  Buren. 
The  former  was  a  politician  of  that  time  and  place,  but  Van 


368  POLITICAL  SEBTHINGS,   1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

Buren  cannot  be  so  easily  dismissed,  partly  because  he  him- 
self achieved  the  presidential  office,  but  more  especially 
because  he  was  unjustly  dealt  with  by  his  contemporaries 
and  has  been  even  more  so  by  historical  writers  since. 
He  grew  up  a  poor  boy  at  Kinderhook,  New  York.  He  made 
his  own  way  in  the  world,  standing  up  for  the  humble  and 
downtrodden,  and  gained  influence  by  reason  of  his  clear- 
ness of  thought  and  cogency  of  utterance.  He  was  a  wire- 
puller, like  nearly  every  one  else  in  public  life  and,  being  one 
of  the  ablest  men  of  the  day,  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  wire- 
pullers of  New  York  and  Washington.  Van  Buren  and 
Marcy  and  others  of  inferior  abilities  formed  the  Albany 
Regency,  as  the  ruling  body  of  a  portion  of  the  old  Republi- 
can Party  of  the  State  was  called.  Among  the  minor  New 
York  politicians  was  Churchill  C.  Cambreleng,  who  might 
be  described  as  Van  Buren's  lieutenant.  Together  they 
travelled  through  the  South,  visiting  Crawford  in  Georgia 
and  other  politicians  along  the  route.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  Van  Buren  probably  entered  into  some  kind  of 
alliance  with  the  Jackson  forces  because  Jackson's  name, 
as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency,  appears  in  the  Van 
Buren  papers  for  the  first  time  in  October,  1826.  Writing 
to  Thomas  Ritchie  in  January,  1827,  Van  Buren  advo- 
cated a  political  combination  between  the  planters  of  the 
South  and  "the  plain  Republicans  of  the  North,"  and  not 
long  afterwards  he  practically  took  charge  of  the  Jackson 
campaign  in  New  York.  In  1827,  the  Jackson  Republi- 
cans secured  most  of  the  assemblymen  from  the  city  of 
New  York,  which  greatly  encouraged  them  not  only 
within  the  State  but  also  without ;  and  the  sudden  death 
of  Governor  De  Witt  Clinton  in  February,  1828,  removed 
from  the  political  field  the  anti-Jacksonian  whom  Van 
Buren  most  *  feared.  In  the  end,  with  exceeding  craft 


1828]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  369 

and  cunning *  he  secured  for  Jackson  twenty  of  the  thirty- 
six  votes 2  of  the  Empire  State  and  the  governor's  office  for 
himself. 

From  Revolutionary  days  western  Pennsylvania  and 
Philadelphia  had  been  the  homes  of  the  most  advanced 
American  democrats.  They  had  troubled  Washington, 
and  Jefferson  had  not  fully  appreciated  them.  Now,  for 
the  first  time,  they  could  exercise  political  power  com- 
mensurate with  their  numbers  because  the  electoral  system 
of  the  State  had  been  so  changed  that  it  was  possible  for 
the  country  voter  to  record  his  vote  without  undue  expendi- 
ture of  time  and  strength.  Henry  Clay  had  had  a  strong 
following  in  Pennsylvania  because  of  his  championship  of 
the  tariff  and  Adams  also  had  had  many  friends  in  the 
State,  especially  among  the  Germans,  or  "Pennsylvania 
Dutch."  To  break  down  the  hold  of  Clay  and  Adams  on 
the  Pennsylvania  people  all  kinds  of  stories  were  put  into 
circulation :  —  the  election  of  Adams  in  1824  had  defeated 
the  "will  of  the  people";3  Adams  and  Clay  had  been 

1  Two   letters   from   Van   Buren   to  brief.     The    political    history    of    New 

Jackson   in    the    Library    of    Congress  York  must  be  studied  by  any  one  who 

throw  light  upon  the  relations  of  the  wishes  to  understand  this  period,  but 

two  men  as  early  as  September,  1827,  it    is    most    difficult    to    comprehend, 

and  also  give  some  information  as  to  Jabez    D.    Hammond's   History  of  Po- 

election    methods.     In    the    first,    Van  litical  Parties  in  New   York  in  2  vols. 

Buren    assures    Jackson    that    he    will  and   D.    S.   Alexander's   Political   His- 

have    "a   very    decided    majority"    of  tory  of  New  York  in  3  vols.  pave  the 

the    votes    of    New   York,    if   nothing  way ;   and  the  perusal  of  R.  H.  Gillet's 

turns  up  to  change  the  present  aspect  Life   and    Times    of   Silas    Wright   will 

of    things.     Pennsylvania,    also,    looks  fill  in  a  portion  of  the  picture, 

more  hopeful,  as  of  the  fifty  Republi-  *  Journal  of  the  Senate,  20th  Cong., 

can  papers  in  that  State,  all  but  three  2nd  Sess.,  p.  120. 

have  come  out  for  Jackson.     "All  that  is  *  The   Twelfth   Amendment   to   the 

necessary  to  rout  the  enemy  is  that  he  Constitution    provided    that    the    per- 

[Van  Buren J  be  left  alone"   and  that  son    having    the    greatest    number    of 

Jackson    make   no    statements    or   ex-  electoral  votes  for  President  shall    be 

planations.     Again,    about    six    weeks  the  President,  if  such  number  were  a 

later,  Van  Buren  urges  "quiet."  majority    of    the    whole    number    of 

There  is  no  fitting  life  of  Van  Buren.  electors ;    but  if  no  person  had  such  a 

Edward    M.    Shepard's    book    in    the  majority    the    House    of    Representa- 

American     Statesmen     series     is     very  tives    voting    by    States    shall    choose 

good   for   its    size,    but   is    necessarily  immediately   by   ballot   the   President 

VOL.  V.  —  2fi 


370 


POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828 


[Ca.  XI 


guilty  of  bargaining  and  fraud ;  and  the  Adams  adminis- 
tration was  corrupt.  More  especially,  to  shock  the  eco- 
nomical sense  of  the  German  farmers,  Adams  was  accused 
of  having  received  enormous  sums  of  public  money,  —  the 
amount  being  calculated  by  adding  together  all  the  salaries 
and  money  for  expenses  that  had  been  paid  to  him  in  the 
thirty  years  of  his  political  career.  Finally,  the  moral  sense 
of  the  Presbyterians  was  assailed  by  charging  Adams  with 
having  bought  a  billiard  table  with  public  money  and  having 
installed  it  in  the  President's  Palace.1  It  was  of  no  use  to 
point  out  that  Adams,  by  faithful  and  prolonged  service, 
had  earned  all  the  money  that  had  been  paid  to  him,  or  to 
demonstrate  that  of  the  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  that 
Congress  had  voted  for  the  rejuvenation  of  the  White  House, 
only  six  thousand  had  been  spent,2  or  that  the  billiard  table 
had  been  purchased  with  the  President's  own  money. 
Almost  never  in  our  history  have  reputations  been  so  un- 
warrantedly  attacked  and  so  successfully  as  were  those  of 
Henry  Clay  and  John  Quincy  Adams  in  this  campaign.3 


"from  the  persons  having  the  highest 
numbers  not  exceeding  three  on  the 
list  of  those  voted  for  as  President." 
In  voting  the  representation  of  each 
State  should  have  one  vote,  two- 
thirds  of  the  States  should  constitute  a 
quorum,  but  "a  majority  of  all  the 
States  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice." 
From  this  it  is  clear  that  the  Repre- 
sentatives were  entitled  to  pick  the 
President  from  the  three  highest  on  the 
list  without  defeating  the  will  of  the 
people  or  doing  anything  of  the  sort; 
otherwise  the  amendment  makers  and 
ratifiers  would  have  provided  that  the 
person  receiving  the  highest  num- 
ber of  electoral  votes  without  any  re- 
gard to  its  being  a  majority  should  be 
President. 

1 S.  G.  Heiskell,  the  Tennesseean 
biographer  of  Andrew  Jackson  (p. 
306)  states  that  Jackson  was  devoted 
to  the  game  of  billiards. 

*  An    "Inventory    of    Furniture    in 


the  President's  House,  taken  the  24th 
day  of  March,  1825"  (House  Docu- 
ments, 19th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  2). 

*  One  of  the  most  interesting  charges 
levelled  against  an  opponent  was  that 
he  had  been  a  Federalist  at  some 
anterior  time,  particularly  in  1808. 
Theodore  Lyman,  Junior,  having  in- 
advertently said  something  of  the 
kind  as  to  Daniel  Webster,  was  charged 
with  criminal  libel.  See  A  Notable  Libel 
Case,  by  Josiah  H.  Benton,  Jr.  (Bos- 
ton, 1904).  It  is  interesting  to  read 
in  a  letter  from  a  well-known  politi- 
cian to  Van  Buren,  dated  June  18, 
1827,  to  the  effect  that  in  1824,  Web- 
ster had  come  to  him  and  had  said  if 
Adams  were  not  chosen  on  the  first 
ballot,  he  had  a  letter  to  show  him 
stating  that  Adams  could  not  do 
justice  to  the  old  Federalists  by  ad- 
mitting them  "to  a  proper  share  in  the 
influence  of  his  administration." 


1828]  TARIFF  OF  ABOMINATIONS  371 

Moreover,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  anti-Jackson  cam- 
paign was  very  poorly  conducted.  It  had  been  suggested 
that  Adams  should  attend  a  large  meeting  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Germans  and  address  them  in  their  own  language, 
but  this  he  refused  to  do  on  the  ground  that  it  was  not  be- 
coming the  holder  of  the  chief  magistracy  to  harangue  on  his 
own  behalf.1  He  also  refused  to  do  anything  to  prevent 
holders  of  federal  offices  from  taking  part  in  the  election  and 
attacking  him  in  unmeasured  terms.  And,  indeed,  it 
would  seem  that  Adams's  ultra-sensitive  attitude  as  to  the 
offices,  however  right  it  may  have  been,  harmed  him  greatly 
because  his  managers  could  hold  out  no  hope  to  any  one 
who  took  his  part  in  the  campaign  of  securing  any  pecuniary 
advantage  whatever.  Finally,  Jackson's  interests  in  Penn- 
sylvania were  most  ably  managed  by  James  Buchanan  and 
his  lieutenants. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  feats  that  was  performed  by 
the  Jacksonians  was  to  appear  to  disapprove  of  a  protective 
tariff  in  the  eyes  of  the  Southern  supporters  and  at  the 
same  time  to  appear  to  further  the  wishes  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania protectionists ;  but  the  Jacksonians  accomplished 
the  apparently  impossible  by  bringing  about  the  passage  of 
the  abominable  tariff  of  1828.  As  it  was  certain  that  the 
New  Englanders  would  vote  for  Adams,  in  any  event,  and 
equally  certain  that  the  Pennsylvanians  would  desert  any 
man  who  destroyed  the  protection  of  iron,  the  policy  of  the 
Jackson  men  was  fairly  clear.  The  tariff  must  appear  to  be 
the  work  of  the  Northeasterners  and  then  be  amended  in 
such  a  way  that  all  protection  should  be  taken  from  the 
textile  manufactures.  It  was  expected  that  this  would 
cause  the  New  Englanders  to  vote  against  the  bill  and 

1  In  1843  Calhoun  refused  to  take  spectacle,  or  considered  an  elec- 
the  stump  in  his  own  behalf  because  tioneerer."  Jameson's  Correspondence 
he  was  "adverse  to  being  made  a  of  Calhoun,  541. 


372  POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828  [Cn.  XI 

thereby  defeat  it,  make  the  Pennsylvanians  hostile  to 
Adams  and  favorable  to  Jackson,  and  preserve  the  good 
will  of  the  Southerners.1  This  scheme  is  generally  attributed 
to  Martin  Van  Buren,  but  there  is  little  evidence  to  con- 
nect him  with  it,  and  Van  Buren  was  not  the  man  to  show 
his  hand  to  contemporaries  or  to  posterity.  At  all  events 
the  plan  succeeded  too  well,  which  is  another  reason  for 
supposing  it  was  not  the  work  of  Van  Buren.  The  New 
Englanders  voted  for  it,  because  they  were  certain  that  before 
long  they  could  secure  changes  favorable  to  themselves, — 
and,  meanwhile,  the  bill  prolonged  the  life  of  the  protective 
system.  It  passed  and  Adams  approved  it.  The  Penn- 
sylvanians voted  for  Jackson  and  the  Southerners  neces- 
sarily voted  for  him,  too ;  but  there  was  added  hatred  in 
their  hearts  toward  the  federal  government  that  persisted 
in  taxing  them  for  the  benefit  of  others,  —  according  to 
their  mode  of  thinking. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  from  what  has  been  said  in  the 
preceding  paragraphs  that  the  Adams  men  were  free  from 
reproach  in  their  campaign.  Adams,  himself,  was  above 
blame.  To  every  doubtful  suggestion,  he  invariably  said 
"No!"  He  declared  that  he  had  never  sought  public 
office  and  was  not  going  to  begin  to  seek  it  at  his  time  of 
life.  His  adherents,  however,  were  bound  by  no  such 
scruples.  There  is  a  curious  collection  of  letters  that  passed 
between  Edward  Everett  and  John  McLean  whom  Adams 
had  retained  in  office,  although  it  was  fairly  certain  that 

1  John    Bailey,    writing    to    J.    B.  chusetts   Historical   Society's   Proceed- 

Davis     from     Washington,     May     10,  ings  for  February,  1916,  p.  212.     The 

1828,   stated  that  the  tariff  bill  "was  ideas  of  the  time  as  to  the  relation  of 

engendered  between  the  avowed  anti-  manufacturing    and    farming    and    the 

tariff  men  of  the  South,  and  the  pro-  justification  of  the  tariff  question  may 

fessed  tariff  Jackson  men  of  the  middle  be  seen  in  George  Tibbits's  Essay  on 

states,   and  framed  most  pointedly  so  the    Expediency    and    Practicability    of 

as  to  bear  heavily  and  injuriously  on  Improving   or   Creating   Home   Markets 

New    England,    in    the    hope    that    it  for    the    Sale    of   Agricultural    Produc- 

vould     thus     be     defeated."     Masse-  tions  (Philadelphia,  1827). 


1828]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  373 

McLean  favored  Jackson  and  was  even  working  in  his 
interests.  Everett  criticised  severely  the  giving  of  a  con- 
tract to  carry  the  mail  to  Isaac  Hill,  a  New  Hampshire 
newspaper  man  and  Jacksonian  politician,  for  it  was  a 
condition  of  the  contract  —  as  of  other  contracts  to  carry 
the  mail  —  that  the  contractor  could  transport  his  own 
products  free.  This  enabled  Hill  to  carry  on  an  intense 
printed  propaganda  against  Adams  among  the  farmers 
of  New  Hampshire.  McLean  insisted  that  a  contract  must 
be  awarded  to  the  lowest  bidder,  and  that  no  discrimination 
as  to  terms  could  be  made.  Also  replying  to  Everett  he 
declared  l  that  Adams  could  not  have  made  changes  in  the 
offices  because  the  hostile  Senate  would  not  have  confirmed 
his  new  appointments.  Adams  refused  to  give  money  or 
place  to  secure  newspaper  support,  but  some  newspaper 
editors  supported  him,  nevertheless.  One  of  these  was 
John  Binns,  an  Englishman  who  had  successfully  conducted 
a  paper  in  Pennsylvania  in  opposition  to  the  Duane  Repub- 
licans. Binns  had  hit  upon  the  scheme  of  pictorial  prop- 
aganda and  had  prepared  posters  depicting  the  most  dis- 
tressing incidents  in  Jackson's  career,  some  of  them  resting 
on  mere  rumor.  One  of  the  things  that  it  was  thought 
would  excite  hostility  against  Jackson  was  the  shooting  of 
militiamen  to  preserve  discipline.  The  Revolutionary 
device  of  coffins  at  the  head  of  a  handbill  containing  the 
printed  particulars  of  the  deed  that  was  denounced  was 
again  brought  into  requisition.2  Binns  also  printed  posters 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  So-  braries.  The  two  copies  of  the  original 
ciety's  Proceedings  for  February,  1908,  posters  in  the  Library  of  Congress 
p.  391.  There  is  an  interesting  letter  vary  in  important  details.  See  also 
from  Isaac  Hill  to  Henry  Lee,  dated  Official  Record  from  the  War  Depart- 
"  Concord,  N.  H.,  Sept.  16,  1828"  in  ment  and  the  Orders  of  General  Jack- 
ibid.,  for  October,  1909.  son  for  Shooting  The  Six  Militia  Men 

1  The  handbills  were  entitled  "Some  .  .  .  showing  that  these  American  Citi- 

Account  of  some  of  the  Bloody  Deeds  zens  were  Inhumanly  and  Illegally  Ma»- 

of     GEN.      JACKSON."      Facsimiles  sacred  (Concord,  1828). 
are   not   uncommon   in    the    larger   li- 


374  POLITICAL   SEETHINQS,    1824-1S2S  [On.  XI 

and  handbills  after  the  manner  of  tombstones,  reciting  in 
"Monumental  Inscriptions"  the  misdeeds  of  General  Jack- 
son, and  reprinted  them  as  a  pamphlet;  but  the  "Binns 
Coffin  Hand  Bills,"  as  these  were  called,  do  not  seem  to 
have  stirred  the  Pennsylvania  farmers  as  they  were  ex- 
pected to. 

The  Adams  men  established  a  political  paper,  "Truth's 
Advocate  and  Monthly  Anti-Jackson  Expositor."  1  It  was 
published  at  Cincinnati  and  charged  Jackson  with  specu- 
lating in  western  public  lands  and  also  printed  the  old  tales 
of  his  pre-marital  relations  with  Mrs.  Jackson.  The  land 
speculations  were  indignantly  denied  and  there  is  no  proof 
whatever  that  Jackson  had  "speculated"  in  western  lands 
before  1828 ;  but  while  he  was  President  he  tried  to  buy  lands 
in  Mississippi  and  failed  to  do  so  owing  to  the  high  prices 
at  which  they  were  held,  —  of  course  this  was  before  the 
issuing  of  the  "specie  circular."  The  fact  that  he  tried  to 
buy  lands  and  failed  does  not  of  course  prove  that  he  specu- 
lated in  lands  at  an  earlier  period,  but  it  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate no  great  feeling  of  delicacy  on  his  part.  Finally,  some 
of  the  Jackson  leaders  thought  —  whether  justly  or  not 
is  unknown  —  that  the  Adams  men  had  in  mind  a  scheme 
to  report  Jackson  as  dead  just  before  the  election,  to  prevent 
people  voting  for  him,  as  had  been  done  in  the  case  of 
Governor  Snyder  of  Pennsylvania  twenty  years  earlier.2 

1  A  good  way  to  get  an  idea  of  the  October  18,   1808,  is  a  despatch  from 
spirit   of    the    presidential    election    of  Philadelphia    announcing    the    murder 
this    year    is    to    read    consecutively  of  Simon  Snyder  with  a  circumstantial 
Truth's   Advocate,   pp.   4-20,    117-119;  account    of    finding    the    corpse.     An 
and    twenty    or    thirty    pages    in    the  editorial    comment    says    that    this    is 
Jacksonian    paper,    The    United    States  impossible    as   no    mention    was    made 
Telegraph  .  .  .  Extra       published       at  of  the  fact  in  Philadelphia  papers  of  a 
Washington  by  Green  and  Jarvis.  later  date,  —  and  Snvder  was  elected 

2  William  B.  Lewis  to  Martin  Van  Governor     soon     after.     For     a     still 
Buren,    September    27,    1828,    in    the  earlier  instance  of  the  same  manreuvre, 
"Van     Buren     Manuscripts"     in     the  see     the     Richmond     and     Manchester 
Library  of  Congress.  Advertiser  of  November  8,  1796. 

In    the   Petersburg   Intelligencer    for 


1828]  JACKSON   ELECTED  375 

All  together  the  story  of  the  presidential  campaign  ending  in 
1828  is  one  of  the  most  woful  in  our  annals. 

When  the  votes  were  counted,  it  appeared  that  one 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  electoral  votes  had  been  cast 
for  Andrew  Jackson  of  Tennessee  and  only  eighty-three 
for  John  Quincy  Adams  of  Massachusetts.1  This  was 
hailed  by  the  Jackson  men  as  a  great  popular  triumph  and 
it  did  mark  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  our  history. 
None  the  less,  it  is  worth  while  to  analyze  the  figures  a  bit 
before  acceding  to  this  or  any  other  assertion.  Jackson 
received  the  electoral  votes  of  every  State  south  of  Mary- 
land and  of  the  three  Northwestern  States.  He  also  re- 
ceived the  twenty-eight  votes  of  Pennsylvania,  and  twenty 
of  the  thirty-six  votes  of  New  York.  The  one  hundred  and 
five  Southern  presidential  electors  who  had  voted  for  Jack- 
son received  two  hundred  and  four  thousand  votes,  while 
John  Quincy  Adams  received  over  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  popular  votes.  The  four  and  three  quarters  mil- 
lions of  free  people  in  the  North  in  1828  had  one  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  votes  in  the  electoral  college,  while  the  two 
and  one-half  million  Southern  whites  possessed  one  hundred 
and  five  electoral  votes,  each  Southern  presidential  elector 
representing  twenty-five  thousand  free  people,  while  each 
Northern  presidential  elector  represented  not  far  from  thirty- 
five  thousand  free  persons.2  This  was  due  to  the  working 
of  the  federal  ratio.3  Indeed,  Jackson  was  really  chosen  to 

1  The   electoral   vote   of   1828  is   in  white  population  of  700,745.     By  the 
Journal  of  the  Senate,  20th  Cong.,  2nd  working  of  the   federal  ratio   Virginia 
Sess.,  p.  120.  and    Georgia    had    thirty-three    votes 

2  Taking  a  definite  case,  New  Hamp-  in    the    national    Senate    and    House 
shire    and    South    Carolina    each    had  of   Representatives   to    Massachusetts' 
244,000   free   inhabitants  according   to  twenty-two  votes.     At  the  same  time 
the  Census  of  1820.     But  New  Hamp-  Massachusetts    was    paying    into    the 
shire  had  only  8  presidential  electors  federal  revenue  $2,774,226.34  while  the 
to     11     for    South    Carolina.     Again :  two    Southern    States    together    were 
in  1810  Virginia  and  Georgia  together  paying  $596,428.26. 

had  a  total  white  population  of  729,319  » See  Census  for  1820  (Washington, 

while     Massachusetts,     alone,     had    a       1821).     The   tables   of   population   are, 


376 


POLITICAL  SEETHINGS,    1824-1828 


the  presidency  by  the  solid  South,  as  was  quite  proper  as 
he  was  a  Southern  man,  a  slaveholder,  and  a  cotton  grower. 
At  the  same  time,  he  could  not  have  received  a  majority  of 
the  electoral  votes,  even  adding  the  twenty-four  electoral 
votes  of  the  Western  States  to  his  Southern  votes,  without 
the  aid  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  for  if  we  subtract 
the  forty-eight  votes  received  in  those  States  from  Jackson's 
one  hundred  and  seventy-eight  and  add  them  to  Adams's 
eighty-three,  Jackson  would  have  received  one  less  electoral 
vote  than  Adams.  Finally,  the  twenty-four  votes  of  the 
Northwestern  States  in  this  election,  as  things  were,  practi- 
cally counted  for  nothing  because  if  they  had  all  been  given 
to  Adams,  and  the  Pennsylvania  and  the  New  York  votes 
had  remained  as  they  were,  Adams  would  have  had  only  one 
hundred  and  seven  electoral  votes  to  148  for  Jackson.1 
Indeed,  however  one  manipulates  the  figures,  it  would  seem 
that  Jackson  was  raised  to  the  presidency  by  the  over-rep- 
resentation of  the  South  combined  with  the  employment 
of  most  unjustifiable  methods  by  his  partisans  in  Penn- 
sylvania and  in  New  York.  On  the  whole,  possibly  it  was 
more  honorable  to  have  been  defeated  in  1828  than  to  have 
been  elected. 


summarized  at  the  beginning.  Practi- 
cally the  same  figures  are  given  in 
Edwin  Williams'a  New-York  Annual 
Register  /or  ...  1830,  p.  335. 

Williams' s  Politician's  Manual 
(New- York,  October,  1832)  contains 
the  vote  for  presidential  electors  in 
1828  and  for  the  nearest  local  election, 
making  it  useful  for  purposes  of  com- 
parison with  the  above.  Ibid.,  for 
1834  gives  additional  local  figures. 
McMaster  (History  of  the  .  .  .  United 
States,  v,  518)  gives  slightly  different 
figures,  but  does  not  state  his  au- 
thority. The  figures  given  in  Wil- 
liams's  Annual  Register  for  .  .  .  1832 
(p.  387)  seem  to  be  most  carefully 


compiled  and  are  repeated  in  the 
Politician's  Manual  (p.  4) ;  they  are 
somewhat  different  from  those  in  the 
Annual  Register  for  .  .  .  1830  (p. 
344). 

1  Nevertheless,  Professor  Paxson  in 
the  Mississippi  Historical  Review  (ii, 
3)  states  that  "the  political  revolu- 
tion of  1828  opened  a  period  of  twelve 
years  in  which  the  Mississippi  Valley 
•  •  •  controlled  the  destinies  of  the 
United  States"  and  Professor  Mc- 
Laughlin  has  told  us  that  with  the  en- 
trance of  Jackson  to  the  White  House 
"the  West  took  the  whip  hand"  in 
driving  forward  the  United  States. 


DEMOCRACY  377 

NOTE 

Democracy,  Historically  Considered.  —  In  its  ordinary  definition, 
"  democracy  "  implies  the  direct  rule  of  the  people ;  but  the  term 
people  is  susceptible  of  many  definitions.1  As  it  was  used  by  ancient 
philosophers  and  by  the  "  Fathers  "  it  denoted  the  aggregation  of 
persons  who  shared  in  the  rule  of  the  community,  city,  or  state  that 
was  under  discussion.  In  its  widest  meaning,  it  would  include  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  from  birth  to  death  —  the  babe,  the  senile 
man  and  woman,  the  criminal,  the  pauper,  the  hard-working  laborer, 
and  the  long-houred  brain  worker.  Obviously,  all  these  cannot  take 
part  in  the  direct  rule  of  the  state.  There  must  be  some  limitations* 
but  the  approximation  to  direct  rule  marks  the  steps  toward  the 
realization  of  democracy.  In  Washington's  time  the  franchise  was 
limited  by  law  and  even  more  limited  by  the  geographical  difficulty 
of  exercising  it.  Government  was  on  a  republican  basis.  The 
voters  represented  the  community  and  deputed  some  of  themselves 
to  represent  them  and  those  whom  they,  in  turn,  represented.2  The 
development  from  this  republican  form  of  government  to  that  of  an 
absolute  democracy,  where  every  one  takes  a  direct  share  in  the 
government,  is  marked  by  the  enlargement  of  the  franchise,  the  pro- 
viding greater  facilities  for  exercising  it,  and  the  remodelling  of  the 
apportionment  to  do  away  with  advantages  of  wealth  or  of  political 
and  financial  corporations. 

1  Professor  W.  S.  Ferguson  of  Har-  beings  in  the  period  of  limited  suffrage, 
vard  University  has  given  me  the  *  In  the  Virginia  Convention  of 
following  definition  of  "democracy"  1829-1830,  Mr.  Leigh  of  Chesterfield 
in  ancient  days:  "Democracy  asked  the  members  to  observe  "how 
among  the  Greeks  meant  the  rule  of  generally  the  introduction  of  Univer- 
the  demos.  The  demos  in  a  strictly  sal  Suffrage  has  been  followed  by  the 
technical  sense  was  the  legally  con-  caucus  system  of  nomination  .  .  . 
stituted  citizen  body  whether  it  in-  or  convention  to  make  a  regular  nomi- 
cluded  a  few  only  or  the  many.  In  nation  of  candidates,  to  discipline 
popular  usage  it  meant  the  supremacy  parties,  to  whip  in  all  who  hope  [to 
in  this  legally  organized  body  of  the  gain]  a  share  of  the  loaves  and  fishes 
middle  and  lower  classes.  Democ-  in  their  turn,  and  to  whip  out  all  who 
racy  always  implied  the  settlement  of  show  a  disposition  to  rebel  against 
all  important  political  questions  by  the  'regular  nomination.'  .  .  .  The  elec- 
citizens  met  in  a  general  assembly."  tive  body,  in  fact,  is  the  caucus.  .  . 
Moreover,  the  demos  did  not  include  The  freeholders  of  Virginia  .  .  .  want 
women,  children,  slaves,  or  ineffectives,  no  ballot-box  to  hide  their  votes  from 
so  that  the  demos  itself  represented  their  neighbours,  and  to  screen  them 
human  kind  within  the  geographical  from  the  indignation  of  others."  Pro- 
limits  of  the  state,  —  in  much  the  ceedings  and  Debates  of  the  Virginia 
same  way  that  "the  voters"  rep-  State  Convention  of  1829-30  (Richmond, 
resented  the  whole  mass  of  human  1830)  p.  406. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PRESIDENT  JACKSON 

ANDREW  JACKSON  of  Tennessee  was  inaugurated  President 
of  the  United  States  on  March  4,  1829.  Fifteen  or  twenty 
thousand  persons  listened  to  his  address  which,  according 
to  one  favorable  hearer,  was  "excellent,  chaste,  patriotic, 
sententious,  and  dignified."  To  others  who  were  not  so 
favorably  inclined  to  the  new  President,  it  appeared  to  have 
nothing  in  it.  This  variety  of  opinion  was  more  than  usually 
marked  as  to  Jackson.  George  Livermore,1  a  Massachusetts 
man  who  later  became  a  strong  abolitionist,  described  Jack- 
son as  "gentle  and  affable  in  private  conversation."  On  the 
other  hand,  Jefferson  refused  to  appoint  Jackson  to  office 
in  1804,  declared  him  to  be  "rude,  malignant,  and  muddy 
headed"  in  1809,  and  warned  Monroe  years  afterward  not 
to  send  the  "Hero  of  New  Orleans"  to  Russia,  for  if  he  did 
Jackson  would  get  the  United  States  into  trouble  within 
one  month.  To  the  American  people  at  large  Jackson 
seemed  to  be  a  radical  and  was  acclaimed  as  such  by  some 
and  dreaded  by  others.  In  reality,  at  this  period  of  his 
life,  whatever  he  may  have  been  at  other  times,  Andrew 
Jackson  was  distinctly  a  conservative  and  used  the  powers 
of  his  high  office  to  restrain  rather  than  to  excite. 

The  older  writers,  who  were  mostly  from  the  North,  and 
James  Parton,  an  Englishman  by  birth,  have  usually  de- 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  Proceedings  for  1867-1869,  p.  420. 

378 


PRESIDENT  JACKSON  379 

scribed  Jackson  as  a  man  of  small  mentality,  slight  knowledge 
of  books,  unversed  in  affairs,  and  having  a  frontiersman's 
illiterate  roughness.  All  these  statements  have  some  truth 
in  them,  but  the  general  expression  of  this  truth  is  greatly 
exaggerated.  It  is  true  that  Jackson  was  in  the  habit  of 
having  his  letters  copied  for  him  and  of  using  state  papers 
prepared  by  others,  but  so  was  Washington,  our  first 
President,  and  no  one  would  assert  that  he  was  unversed 
in  affairs  or  illiterate.  In  the  "Jackson  Papers"  at  Wash- 
ington there  are  many  letters  in  Jackson's  unmistakable 
handwriting.  In  them  there  are  errors  in  spelling  and  in 
punctuation,  but  not  more  than  one  finds  in  the  productions 
of  high  school  graduates  and  many  college  undergraduates 
of  the  present  day,  none  of  whom  can  be  spoken  of  as 
"illiterate."  In  point  of  fact,  Jackson's  spelling  belonged 
to  the  generation  before  Noah  Webster  placed  such  things 
in  the  cast  iron  jackets  that  Jefferson  refused  to  respect  and 
that  many  good  people  of  our  own  time  have  tried  to 
modify  under  the  guise  of  "simplified  spelling."  For  vigor 
of  expression  and  cogency  of  reasoning,  Jackson's  rough 
drafts  are  distinctly  creditable.  In  the  New  Orleans  cam- 
paign and  in  the  crises  of  his  presidential  career  his  judgment 
was  rapid  and  extraordinarily  certain.  It  is  true  that  he 
had  slight  knowledge  of  books,  but  he  had  read  the  Bible  or 
had  stored  in  his  memory  what  he  had  heard  others  read 
of  that  great  example,  and  he  sometimes  used  Shakespearian 
expressions.  He  was  no  scholar  or  man  of  books,  but  he 
probably  had  read  a  few  of  them  and  had  pondered  somewhat 
those  that  he  had  read.  He  came  into  office  at  the  moment 
when  the  Hamiltonian  republican  form  of  government  was 
changing  to  the  more  democratic  institution  of  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Jackson  was  placed  by  circum- 
stances at  the  head  of  this  movement,  and  being  there,  he 


380 


PRESIDENT   JACKSON 


[CH.    XII 


fought  for  it  as  intelligently  and  as  strongly  as  he  had  fought 
for  his  country  at  New  Orleans.  Moreover,  he  was  not  only 
the  representative  of  the  rising  democracy  of  Pennsylvania 
and  New  York  and  of  frontier  radicalism,  he  was  more 
particularly  the  representative  of  the  cotton  planters.  To 
harmonize  Southern  agricultural  and  Northern  democratic 
interests  was  no  mean  task  and,  whether  we  like  Jackson 
and  his  policies  or  detest  him  and  them,  it  must  be  con- 
ceded that  from  his  own  point  of  view  he  performed  the 
task  that  came  to  his  hand  exceedingly  well. 

Jackson's  administrations  form  so  interesting  an  epoch 
in  our  history  that  it  will  be  well  to  look  for  a  moment  at  the 
statistical  and  industrial  condition  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  in  those  years.  In  1830  the  total  population  of  the 
country  was  between  twelve  and  thirteen  millions.  These 
figures  1  include  not  only  the  whites  but  the  free  colored 
persons  and  slaves.  Of  the  thirteen  millions  nearly  two  of 
them  lived  in  New  England,  three  and  one-half  in  the  Middle 
States,  and  three  and  one-quarter  in  the  Old  South.  West 
of  the  mountains  and  south  of  the  Ohio  River  there  were  two 
millions  more  and  in  Missouri  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand.  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  numbered  nearly 
one  and  a  half  millions  and  in  the  Territories  and  the  Dis- 


1  The  exact  figures  of  the  popula- 
tion in  1830  are  hard  to  get  at,  as  the 
tables  in  the  official  Census  of  1830 
are  somewhat  crude  in  arrangement. 
The  numbers  in  the  text  have  been 
reached  by  combining  and  by  add- 
ing and  subtracting  the  figures  given 
in  this  volume  (pp.  162,  163)  and  the 
figures  given  in  S.  N.  D.  North's  Cen- 
tury of  Population  Growth  and  George 
Tucker's  Progress  of  the  United  States 
in  Population  and  Wealth  in  Fifty 
Years.  The  first  edition  of  this  valu- 
able work  was  published  at  New  York 
in  1843 ;  an  edition  that  was  printed 
at  the  same  place  in  1855  has  an  "Ap- 


pendix" that  carries  the  story  through 
the  Census  of  1850.  The  figures  are 
as  follows : 

POPULATION 
IN  1830 

New  England 1,954,717 

Middle  States 3,664,412 

Old  South 3,251,282 

The  Southwest 2,031,498 

Missouri 140,455 

Old  Northwest 1,438,379 

Territories    (Michigan,    Ar- 
kansas, Florida)       .     .     .  96,757 
District  of  Columbia  .     .     .  39,834 
12,617,334 


Scale  of  Population 
600,000  1.000,000 


1.800,000 


Maine 


N.H. 


AUA  —  66,000  aq.  miles 


R.I. 


Conn. 


I  Mich. 


Scale  of  Population 
SOO.OOO 1.000.000 


1.500.000 


(The  lowest  line  in  each,  group  represent!  the  population  by  th*  census  of  ISWl 
tht  next  lint  above,  the  population  by  tht  census  of  1830  and  to  on.) 

From  Tucker's  Progress,  p.  126. 
381 


382  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [Cn.  XII 

trict  of  Columbia  there  were  one  hundred  and  thirty-six 
thousand.  Grouping  the  figures  somewhat  differently,  we 
find  that  there  were  nine  millions  in  the  States  on  the  sea- 
board and  three  and  a  half  millions  in  Transappalachia.  If 
we  draw  the  line  a  third  way,  putting  the  free  soil  on  one  side 
and  the  slave  soil  on  the  other,  it  appears  that  in  the  former 
there  were  over  seven  million  people  and  in  the  latter  five 
and  one-half  millions  including  the  slaves.  Some  thirty- 
five  hundred  of  the  population  of  the  free  States  were  re- 
turned as  slaves,  for  the  gradual  emancipation  plans  had 
not  yet  borne  their  full  fruit ;  in  the  Slave  States  and  Terri- 
tories there  were  over  two  million  slaves  to  over  three  and 
a  half  million  free  whites  and  free  blacks.  There  were 
then  three  hundred  and  nineteen  thousand  free  colored 
persons  in  the  United  States  as  a  whole,  of  whom  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-eight  thousand  were  in  the  Slave  States ; 
of  these  more  than  one-half  were  in  Maryland  and  Virginia 
and  the  District  of  Columbia.  Looking  forward  to  1840,  it 
is  noticeable  that  in  this  decade,  notwithstanding  the  tre- 
mendous abolition  agitation,  the  total  free  colored  population 
had  increased  only  sixty-seven  thousand  or  about  twenty 
per  cent,  which  is  certainly  much  less  than  one  would  have 
expected. 

Studying  the  figures  of  these  two  censuses,  one  is  im- 
pressed with  the  growing  importance  of  the  urban  population 
of  the  North.  New  York  had  already  hopelessly  outstripped 
Philadelphia  and  Boston,  and  had  become  a  great  manu- 
facturing centre  and  point  of  distribution  for  products  of  all 
kinds  and  from  nearly  all  parts  of  the  country.  South  of 
the  Potomac  and  the  Ohio,  there  were  no  large  cities  in  1830, 
—  New  Orleans  with  forty-six  thousand  inhabitants  was  the 
only  city  that  could  compete  in  size  with  Northern  commer- 
cial ports.  In  the  next  ten  years,  owing  to  the  prosperity 


1830] 


POPULATION 


383 


of  the  cotton  and  sugar  plantations  that  were  tributary  to 
the  Mississippi  River,  the  population  of  New  Orleans  in- 
creased one  hundred  and  twenty-one  per  cent.  It  had  out- 
stripped Boston  and  was  very  nearly  as  large  as  Baltimore. 
The  " Censuses"  of  1820  and  1840  contain  figures  as  to  the 
number  of  persons  engaged  in  agriculture,  commerce,  and 
manufacturing,  and  the  "  Census  "  of  1840  gives  the  value  of 
the  year's  products  in  dollars.  The  science  of  statistics 
was  then  quite  rude  and  probably  these  figures  are  not  exact 
in  any  respect,  but  they  afford  an  interesting  glimpse  of  what 
the  people  were  doing,  —  which  is  sufficient  for  the  present 
study.  In  1820,  two  and  a  third  million  persons  were 
returned  as  engaged  in  industry  in  the  whole  United  States ; 
and  of  them  over  two  million  (83.4%)  were  employed 
in  agriculture,  three  hundred  and  forty-nine  thousand 
(13.7%)  in  manufactures,  and  over  seventy-two  thousand 
(2.9%)  in  commerce.  In  1840  the  number  of  agriculturists 
had  increased  to  nearly  three  and  three-quarters  millions 
(80.4%)  but  the  percentage  had  declined.  On  the  other 
hand  the  number  engaged  in  manufacturing  had  increased 
to  over  three-quarters  of  a  million,  while  the  proportion 
of  those  engaged  in  commerce  remained  almost  stationary. 
Looking  at  the  matter  now  from  the  point  of  value  of  prod- 
ucts, it  appears  from  the  "Census"  of  1840  as  interpreted 
by  Professor  Tucker  1  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  that  the 
value  of  the  total  annual  production  of  the  United  States 
was^  one  billion  sixty-three  million  dollars.  Of  this  six 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  were  agricultural  products,  two 


1  See  his  Progress  of  the  United  States, 
pp.  135rl42,  150-201,  especially  the 
table  on  p.  195.  The  Census  of  1840 
gives  no  values  of  annual  productions 
of  manufactures  and  commerce,  but 
Tucker  deduced  his  figures  by  estimat- 
ing the  annual  products  as  the  equiv- 
alent oi  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the 


capital  employed.  He  thought  that 
the  inaccuracies  and  inconsistencies 
would  correct  one  another.  His  fig- 
ures may  be  used,  however,  in  the 
rough  way  in  which  they  are  in  the 
text  of  the  present  volume  without 
any  pretence  to  exactness. 


384  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [CH.  xn 

hundred  and  thirty-nine  millions  manufactures,  and  only 
seventy-nine  millions  commerce.  The  distribution  by  geo- 
graphical sections  is  particularly  instructive.  It  appears 
that  the  free-soil  North  produced  three  hundred  and 
forty-two  million  dollars'  worth  of  agricultural  products  to 
only  three  hundred  and  twelve  million  dollars'  worth  for  the 
Slave  States  as  a  whole,  including  in  this  latter  designation, 
Maryland,  Delaware  and  the  District  of  Columbia.  As  to 
manufacturing,  New  England  and  the  other  States  north  of 
Mason  and  Dixon  line  and  the  Ohio  River,  not  including 
Missouri,  produced  manufactures  to  the  annual  value  of 
nearly  two  hundred  millions,  while  the  whole  South  is 
credited  by  Tucker  with  the  production  of  only  forty-two 
millions.  His  figures  as  to  commerce  include  in  that 
designation  the  marketing  of  commodities  at  home  as  well 
as  external  commerce  and  navigation.  He  credits  the  North 
with  a  commerce  of  sixty-one  millions  and  the  South  with  a 
commerce  of  thirty-five  millions,  and  he  gives  the  annual 
product  of  the  "Fisheries"  at  nearly  twelve  million  dollars, 
and  of  this  nine  and  one-half  millions  are  allotted  to  New 
England  and  over  one  and  a  quarter  millions  of  the  remain- 
der to  New  York. 

Governmental  institutions  were  still  on  the  Jeffersonian 
model  in  1830  and  remained  so  substantially  for  some 
years  thereafter.  Jefferson's  idea,  as  has  already  been 
stated,  was  that  the  less  government  there  was  the  better, 
that  the  qualities  of  each  individual  should  be  developed 
to  the  utmost,  and  that  as  little  as  possible  should  be  taken 
from  the  people  by  taxation,  reasoning  that  all  such  exactions 
ultimately  fell  upon  the  working  man  in  the  form  of  increased 
rents  and  increased  prices  for  commodities  —  the  clothing 
and  food  and  fuel  for  himself  and  family.  This  had  been 
the  good  old  New  England  idea,  although  never  so  for- 


1829]  JACKSON'S   INAUGURAL  385 

mulated.  In  the  South,  too,  each  great  plantation  formed  a 
little  community  by  itself,  and  the  functions  that  were  left 
for  the  State  governments  were  distinctly  limited.  Apart 
from  the  transportation  of  the  mails,  the  federal  government 
did  not  engage  in  any  social  function.  State  ownership 
and  operation  of  some  public  utilities,  as  canals,  and  also 
the  attempt  to  absorb  some  of  the  profits  derived  by  capital 
through  the  partnership  in  State  banks,  was  marked  at  this 
time,  but  a  few  years  demonstrated  to  the  voters  all  over 
the  country  that  the  State  governments  and  the  federal 
government  were  not  then  equipped  to  carry  on  such  enter- 
prises. The  army  and  the  navy  were  both  very  small,  and 
the  year  1840  may  be  regarded,  perhaps,  as  the  acme  of 
inefficiency  of  both  these  branches  before  1860.  The  task, 
therefore,  to  which  Jackson  set  himself  was  something  so  un- 
like that  to  which  Presidents  after  1860  were  obliged  to 
address  themselves  that  it  is  rather  difficult  to  realize  his 
point  of  view  and  his  reasons  for  action. 

Jackson  came  to  Washington  armed  with  a  "Rough 
Draft"  of  an  inaugural  address  written  in  his  own  hand.1 
It  deserves  close  attention,  although  for  reasons  of  political 
expediency  it  was  thoroughly  made  over  before  delivery. 
The  rough  draft  is  Jackson's  own.  In  it  he  says  that  he 
has  been  called  to  administer  the  affairs  of  a  government 
"whose  vital  principle  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  controul 
its  measures."  Among  the  important  duties  of  the  pres- 
idency is  the  filling  of  the  offices  with  "individuals  uniting 
as  far  as  possible  the  qualifications  of  the  head  &  heart," 

1 A    convenient    collection    of      the  430.     In  the  first  form  of  this  paper 

Messages     of    Gen.     Andrew    Jackson  Jackson  had  written  "protection  high 

was  published  at  Concord,  New  Hamp-  enough    to  insure,"   but    in   the   copy 

shire,   in   1837.     The   "Rough   Draft"  taken  to  Washington  he  had  changed 

IB  among  the  "Jackson  Papers"  in  the  the   phrase   to  read   "Judicious  Tariff 

Library    of    Congress    and    is    printed  imposing    duties    high    enough    to    in- 

in   Bassett's  Andrew  Jackson,   ii,  425-  sure." 

VOL.  V.  —  2c 


386  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [On.  XII 

for  the  demand  for  moral  qualities  should  be  superior  to  that 
of  talents,  as  in  a  republic  fidelity  and  honest  devotion 
must  be  the  first  qualification.  The  general  safety  must 
be  provided  for,  which  implies  the  provision  of  "those  internal 
supplies  which  constitute  the  means  of  war."  A  "Judicious 
Tariff"  insuring  against  the  lack  of  these  supplies  will 
meet  with  his  cooperation ;  but  beyond  this  point  laws 
affecting  "the  natural  relation  of  the  labour  of  the  States 
are  irreconcilable  to  the  objects  of  the  Union,  and  threaten- 
ing to  its  peace  and  tranquility."  The  national  revenue 
should  be  applied  to  the  payment  first  of  the  national  debt 
and  for  the  support  of  the  government  and  for  the  safety  of 
the  Union.  The  necessity  of  conforming  to  this  principle  "is 
illustrated  by  the  dissatisfaction  which  the  expenditures  for 
the  purposes  of  improvement  has  already  created  in  several 
of  the  States."  No  line  can  be  drawn  between  the  powers 
granted  to  the  general  government  and  those  reserved  to 
the  States  and  to  the  people,  and  the  settlement  of  such  a 
line  must  be  governed  by  the  good  sense  of  the  nation  in  a 
spirit  of  compromise.  In  the  last  paragraph  Jackson  states 
some  of  the  topics  intimately  connected  with  the  prosperity 
of  the  country,  as  the  liquidation  of  the  national  debt,  the 
observance  of  the  strictest  economy,  a  judicious  tariff, 
"  combined  with  a  fostering  care  of  commerce  &  agriculture," 
just  respect  for  States'-rights  as  the  best  check  to  the 
tendencies  to  consolidation  and  the  distribution  of  the  sur- 
plus revenue  amongst  the  States  for  purposes  of  education 
and  internal  improvement.  It  will  be  interesting  to  observe 
how  closely  Jackson's  career  as  President  followed  the  pre- 
scription of  the  inaugural.  It  is  noteworthy  also  that  the 
only  things  not  mentioned  that  were  to  arouse  great  con- 
troversy in  the  next  eight  years,  were  the  Bank  and  the 
currency. 


1829]  THE   CABINET  387 

Jackson's  first  task  was  to  select  his  official  advisers,  and 
in  the  performance  of  this  duty  he  was  not  fortunate.  As 
a  military  man,  he  naturally  wanted  persons  about  him  who 
would  be  efficient  in  the  administration  of  their  own  depart- 
ments, would  not  be  officious  in  giving  advice,  and  would 
be  men  in  whom  he  had  every  confidence.  As  it  turned  out, 
he  abandoned  the  sage  politicians  of  the  old  school,  either 
because  he  was  in  a  condition  of  tutelage  or  because  he  dis- 
trusted their  motives.  Instead  he  appointed  personal 
friends  and  politicians  whose  fortunes  were  closely  bound  up 
with  his  own.1  One  of  them  was  Major  Eaton,  who  was 
almost  a  member  of  his  family.  To  him  he  gave  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  War.  The  one  good  appointment  was  that 
of  Martin  Van  Buren  to  be  Secretary  of  State ;  for,  however 
much  confidence  Jackson  felt  in  his  own  ability  to  manage 
home  affairs,  he  wanted  a  strong  man  to  stand  between  him 
and  foreign  powers.  Van  Buren  was  not  a  great  man,  but 
he  had  principles,  and  at  this  time  his  principles  were  in 
harmony  with  those  of  Jackson,  although  later  his  anti- 
slavery  attitude  was  not  at  all  pleasing  to  the  Southern 
cotton  growers,  among  whom  Jackson  must  always  be 
reckoned.  Native  ability  combined  with  long  experience 
in  dealing  with  men  and  situations,  not  always  in  a  wire- 
pulling sense,  had  made  Van  Buren  an  expert  politician, 
and  he  soon  acquired  a  very  strong  influence  with  the  new 
President.  In  treating  of  Jackson's  administrations,  one 
always  writes  of  "the  Kitchen  Cabinet,"  which  was  a  name 
given  by  his  enemies  to  a  group  of  confidential  advisers  who 
had  served  Jackson  long  and  faithfully  and  were  men  of 

1  Charles     H.     Ambler's    Life    and  pointment   to   some   high   office.     The 

Diary  of  John  Floyd,  97  and  123.     Floyd  Diary  runs  from  March,  1831,  to  Feb- 

had   done  everything  possible  to  pro-  ruary,    1834,    and    in    its    vigor    and 

mote  Jackson's  election  and  was  keenly  vituperation  of  Jackson  and  hie  minions 

disappointed   at  not  receiving   an   ap-  rivals  that  of  J.  Q.  Adams. 


388  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [CH.  XII 

peculiar  abilities  as  William  B.  Lewis  and  Amos  Kendall. 
These  were  given  minor  offices  and  Jackson  sought  their 
advice,  as  he  had  in  the  case  of  Lewis  for  some  years  and  of 
Kendall  for  a  shorter  time,  and  they  essayed  to  direct  the 
presidential  steps  in  the  ways  that  seemed  best  to  them. 
The  whole  proceeding  was  unusual,  but  has  received  undue 
opprobrium.  The  phrase  "Kitchen  Cabinet"  conveys  an 
entirely  wrong  impression,  as  its  inventors,  who  hated 
Jackson,  doubtless  meant  it  should.  It  is  pleasing  to  look 
upon  another  picture  of  his  life  in  the  "Palace,"  as  the 
White  House  was  often  called,  even  as  late  as  1830.  We 
can  picture  him  sitting  with  his  nephew's  family,  with 
the  children  playing  about.  It  was  in  one  of  the  larger 
parlors  with  an  open  fire  and  Jackson  was  smoking,  a  habit 
which  was  not  nearly  so  common  among  men  in  those  days 
as  it  was  later,  for  then  most  male  tobacco  users,  especially 
in  the  South,  chewed  rather  than  smoked,  and  probably  it 
was  for  this  reason  that  Jackson's  smoking  attracted 
attention.  We  may  imagine  Van  Buren,  Lewis,  or  Kendall 
as  being  announced,  and  when  the  visitor  appeared,  he  and 
Jackson  would  sit  together  in  front  of  the  fire  or,  if  there 
was  anything  very  private  to  be  considered,  would  retire 
to  a  corner  of  the  room  or  perhaps  to  an  adjoining  apartment, 
and  there  consult  together.  At  this  stage  of  his  career, 
Jackson  was  distinctly  a  gentleman  and,  when  undisturbed, 
an  agreeable  companion.  A  most  unfortunate  situation 
arose  in  connection  with  Major  Eaton.  In  January,  1829, 
he  had  married  a  rather  too  well-known  Washington  woman. 
Almost  at  once,  a  furious  feud  arose  between  the  wives  of 
the  other  Cabinet  officers  and  Mrs.  Eaton,  who  was  ener- 
getically upheld  by  the  President.1  Stories  had  circulated 

'  Bassett's  Jackson,  ch.  xxii.     Governor  John  Floyd  constantly  recurs  to  this 
subject  in  his  Diary. 


1829]  THE  EATON  AFFAIR  389 

about  his  and  Mrs.  Jackson's  premarital  relations.  He 
insisted  that  there  was  just  as  little  truth  in  the  Eaton  scan- 
dal as  there  had  been  in  the  earlier  Jackson  scandal,  and 
that  was  none  at  all.  The  principal  person  to  profit  by  this 
situation  was  Martin  Van  Buren,  who  was  a  widower  and 
therefore  able  to  recognize  Mrs.  Eaton  without  a  household 
insurrection,  while  Calhoun,  the  Vice-President,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  absolutely  incapable  of  doing  anything  to 
placate  Jackson.  It  was  a  condition  that  could  not  con- 
tinue, and  was  terminated  by  the  disruption  of  the  Cabinet 1 
and  the  appointment  of  new  heads  of  departments  who  were 
greatly  superior  to  the  first.  Van  Buren  went  to  London 
as  minister,  and  some  time  later  Eaton  went  to  Madrid  as 
American  representative  there,  taking  his  wife  with  him  — 
and  the  first  doubts  had  been  planted  in  President  Jackson's 
mind  as  to  the  uprightness  of  Calhoun's  character. 

Apart  from  the  Eaton  Affair,  the  first  noticeable  incident 
in  the  Jacksonian  administration  was  the  removal  of  a 
large  number  of  office-holders  and  the  appointment  of  good 
"Jackson  men"  to  their  places.  As  Andrew  Jackson  had 
been  the  choice  of  the  "solid  South,"  there  were  naturally 
very  few  changes  among  the  officers  in  that  section,  for 
they  were  all  Jackson  men 2 ;  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 

•William  T.  Barry,  the  Postmaster-  and  in  Lucy  M.  Salmon's  "Appoint- 

General,  was  retained  —  although  he  ing  Power  of  the  President"  in  Ameri- 

offered  his  resignation.  There  are  can  Historical  Association's  Papers, 

some  interesting  and  inconsequential  i,  347.  In  his  "Removal  of  Officials 

letters  from  him  to  his  daughter  in  the  by  the  Presidents"  in  American  His- 

American  Historical  Review,  xvi,  327-  torical  Association's  Reports  for  1899, 

336.  i,  74,  Fish  gives  a  list  of  presidential 

1  On  March  24,  1830,  Postmaster-  offices  vacated  at  this  time.  He  sug- 

General  Barry  reported  the  number  of  gests  that  the  figures  in  this  latter 

deputy  postmasters  removed  between  table  mean  very  little  because  only 

March  4,  1829  and  March  22,  1830  heads  of  departments  are  included, 

at  491,  of  whom  63  were  in  the  South.  but  the  change  of  one  of  these  officers 

See  Senate  Documents,  21st  Cong.,  might  mean  the  discharge  of  many  old 

1st  Sess.,  No.  106.  This  table  is  re-  employees  and  the  appointment  of 

peated  in  Niles's  Weekly  Register,  other  persons.  It  is  impossible  to  do 

xxxviii,  105.  It  is  given  also  in  Fish's  better,  because  the  "Executive  Jour- 

Civil  Service  and  the  Patronage,  126,  nala  of  the  Senate"  for  the  first  three 


390  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [Ca.   XII 

removals  were  in  New  England,  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Washington  City,  where  the  offices  were  largely  occupied 
by  Adams  men.  Up  to  Jackson's  accession  in  1829,  public 
office-holding  had  been  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  more 
aristocratic  modes  of  bread-winning  and  the  offices  had  been 
filled  with  people  from  the  so-called  "upper  walks  of  life." 
Moreover,  office-holding  had  been  looked  upon  as  a  per- 
manent occupation,  —  a  man,  once  in  a  custom-house  job 
or  a  post-office  place,  expected  to  continue  in  it  as  long  as 
he  lived,  or,  at  all  events,  as  long  as  he  could  work  or  make 
a  pretence  of  so  doing,  and  the  chances  were  good  that  he 
would  pass  on  the  office  to  his  son  or  his  son-in-law,  or  a 
nephew,  perhaps.  In  1829,  there  were  in  the  departments 
officials  whose  appointments  bore  the  signature  of  President 
Washington.  The  office-holders  at  the  capital  and  through- 
out the  country  had  acquired  house  property  and  lived  on  a 
scale  commensurate  to  their  salaries,  expecting  that  these 
would  continue.  They  looked  upon  government  jobs  as  the 
holders  of  business  places  regarded  their  positions  in  those 
days,  —  the  duties  of  the  place  were  to  be  discharged  faith- 
fully and  to  the  best  of  a  man's  abilities,  and  that  being  done 
the  position  would  be  his  as  long  as  he  could  carry  on  the 
work.  In  Pennsylvania  and  in  New  York,  more  especially 
perhaps  in  the  latter,  a  system  had  grown  up  of  distributing 
the  local  State  offices  among  the  members  of  the  party  in 
power.  The  system  was  based  upon  the  idea  that  the 
offices  belonged  to  the  victors.  This  development  was  partly 
due  to  the  extraordinary  pre-Revolutionary  conditions 
that  had  prevailed  in  Pennsylvania,  where  practically  all 
power  had  been  centred  in  a  very  small  portion  of  the 
people  living  in  one  geographical  unit.  The  rest  of  the 

years  of  Jackson's  administration  are  peculiarly  irritating  in  the  vagueness  of  the 
information  therein  given. 


1829]  THE   SPOILS  SYSTEM  391 

people  of  Pennsylvania  had  had  no  share  in  the  management 
of  the  affairs  of  the  province.  They  were  divided  geo- 
graphically and  racially,  and  the  subsequent  political  con- 
tests became  very  bitter.  It  was  quite  natural  that  the 
Pennsylvania  common  people  when  they  gained  control 
of  affairs  should  look  upon  salaries  paid  by  the  State  as  part 
of  that  control,  and  when  they  in  turn  became  divided  into 
two  parties  it  was  likewise  perfectly  natural  that  whichever 
party  was  successful  should  regard  the  offices  as  belonging 
to  itself.  In  New  York,  the  case  was  somewhat  different 
—  somewhat  worse,  if  possible.  The  first  constitution  of 
that  State  had  given  the  appointment  of  State  officers  to  the 
governor  and  four  senators  sitting  as  a  Council  of  Appoint- 
ment. Any  political  party  that  could  capture  this  Council 
and  a  legislative  majority  had  the  whole  political  patronage 
of  New  York  at  its  disposal,  and,  under  the  circumstances, 
the  easiest  way  to  keep  in  power  was  to  use  the  public  offices 
as  a  fund  with  which  to  reward  or  punish  one's  political  friends 
or  political  enemies.  "To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils  of 
victory/'  which  was  attributed  to  Governor  Marcy  of 
New  York,  simply  stated  the  truth  as  to  that  State.  It  was 
natural  and  inevitable  that  the  New  Yorkers  and  Penn- 
sylvanians  and  the  people  of  the  Transappalachian  North- 
west —  who  agreed  with  them  in  political  methods — should 
carry  those  methods  into  national  politics,  and  this  they  now 
proceeded  to  do. 

For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  one  political  party 
had  occupied  the  national  offices,  for  Jefferson,  Madison, 
and  Monroe  were  all  of  one  political  family  and  John  Quincy 
Adams  regarded  himself  as  their  natural  political  successor. 
There  had  been  no  political  changes  in  the  offices  for  twenty- 
eight  years,  and  it  is  remarkable  how  well  the  government 
had  been  administered  in  that  generation.  Methods  that 


392  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [Cn.  XII 

had  come  down  from  colonial  times  and  had  been  imported 
originally  from  England  had  been  gradually  changed  to 
adapt  themselves  to  early  nineteenth  century  conditions. 
There  were  still  great  vagaries  in  accounting  and  the  Third 
Auditor  of  the  Treasury  and  after  him  the  Comptroller 
reported  the  unpaid  balances  year  after  year.  Some  of 
these  statements  are  worth  a  moment's  notice.  For  years 
an  unpaid  balance  was  reported  due  from  John  Adams,  even 
as  late  as  1837,  eleven  years  after  his  death,  of  over  twelve 
thousand  dollars  of  an  appropriation  that  had  been  made 
for  the  "accommodation  of  his  household"  at  the  time  of  the 
removal  to  Washington,  because  the  Auditor  of  the  Treasury 
and  the  President's  steward  had  not  agreed  as  to  the  form  of 
voucher.1  Another  case  was  that  of  Benjamin  Austin,  also 
of  Massachusetts,  who  was  for  years  returned  with  an  unpaid 
balance  against  him  of  over  two  thousand  dollars,  which 
appears  to  have  arisen  out  of  a  conflict  between  the  federal 
and  State  governments  as  to  whose  business  it  was  to  sup- 
port the  incapacitated  soldiers  of  the  War  of  1812.  In 
1818,  Nicholas  J.  Roosevelt  was  debited  with  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars  on  a  contract  for  manufacturing  copper. 
Roosevelt  and  one  of  his  sureties  had  been  imprisoned  and 
had  been  released  by  order  of  a  former  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  presumably  for  good  reasons,  —  but  the  unpaid 
balance  was  carried  on  the  books.  The  clerks  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  as  custodians  of  the  contingent  fund 
fared  ill  because  of  differences  of  opinion  with  successive 
auditors ;  in  1819,  John  Beckley's  executors  were  charged 
with  over  five  thousand  dollars  for  which  a  judgment  had 
been  obtained.  Charles  Pinckney  was  charged  with  an 
unpaid  balance  of  over  twelve  thousand,  as  minister  to 


1  The  following  details  are  taken  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury  .  .  .  Feb- 
from  the  "List  of  Balances"  trans-  ruary  16,  1820,"  House  Document*, 
mitted  with  the  "Letter  from  the  16th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  80. 


1829]  THE   SPOILS   SYSTEM  393 

Spain  years  before,  but  he  alleged  that  the  United  States 
owed  him  a  great  deal  more  than  that.  It  seems  to  be  cer- 
tain that  Edmund  Randolph  still  owed  fourteen  thousand 
of  the  original  forty-nine  thousand  for  which  judgment  had 
been  entered  against  him  for  money  unaccounted  for  on  his 
resignation  from  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State  in  1794.  It 
is  evident  that  any  one  adding  up  all  these  figures  and  taking 
as  proven  every  statement  made  by  a  treasury  official 
could  make  out  a  very  bad  case  against  the  administrations 
from  Washington  to  J.  Q.  Adams,  and  that  detailed  analyses 
of  them,  showing  that  pretty  much  everything  could  be 
explained,  would  have  no  effect  upon  the  popular  mind.  At 
all  events,  the  holders  of  public  office  in  1829  were  looked 
upon  as  "rascals"  by  those  who  wanted  to  be  their  suc- 
cessors. The  few  cases  of  actual  fraud  that  were  found 
were  treated  with  a  ferocity  that  showed  how  difficult  it 
was  to  justify  the  actual  division  of  the  spoils  of  victory 
among  the  victors. 

The  Jackson  men  thronged  to  Washington  and  demanded 
jobs.  One  man  asked  for  anything  that  would  yield  any- 
where from  three  hundred  to  three  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
except  a  clerkship.  Upon  being  pressed  for  his  reasons  for 
the  exception,  he  acknowledged  that  he  could  not  write. 
Some  of  the  friends  of  the  new  government  advised  that  all 
the  applicants  should  be  sent  to  their  homes.  This  would 
give  the  excitement  a  chance  to  subside  and  the  whole 
subject  could  be  taken  up  in  the  coming  autumn.  But  it 
was  not  so  to  be,  and  the  proceedings  of  the  next  few  months 
as  to  the  offices  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  scandals 
in  our  history,  although  probably  the  enemies  of  the  new 
regime  greatly  exaggerated  the  hardships  of  the  displaced 
officials  and  the  number  of  them.  One  man,  who  wanted  a 
scientific  berth  in  an  exploring  expedition,  repaired  to  the 


394 


PRESIDENT   JACKSON 


[Ca.  XII 


capital.  He  wrote  that  when  the  office-seekers  had  long 
faces  he  began  to  conceive  hopes  of  the  "General"  because 
the  new  President  might  have  done  as  he  pleased,  if  he  had 
"kicked  his  pretended  jackals  to  the  devil,  but  it  seems  that 
every  Jackson  dog  and  cat,  born  and  unborn,  is  to  be  pro- 
vided for."  *  Like  all  great  soldiers,  Jackson  had  unbounded 
faith  in  himself  and  every  confidence  in  his  friends,  —  and 
appointed  them  to  office  without  any  regard  to  their  capac- 
ities and  experience.  One  of  these  men  was  Samuel  Swart- 
wout,  who  had  attracted  Jackson's  attention  at  the  time  of 
the  Burr  trials  in  Richmond  by  the  courage  and  pertinacity 
with  which  he  maintained  himself.  Swartwout  went  to 
Washington  to  get  anything  that  he  could  pick  up  "in  the 
general  scramble  for  plunder."  Somewhat  to  his  surprise, 
he  was  given  the  most  profitable  job  in  the  whole  range  of 
the  federal  offices,  the  collectorship  of  customs  at  New  York. 
In  a  few  years  time  he  was  a  defaulter  to  the  extent  of  one 
and  one  quarter  million  dollars  and  a  fugitive  in  a  foreign 
country ;  but  it  is  not  unlikely  that  he  was  the  victim 
of  the  bad  conduct  of  those  under  him2  and  of  his  own 


1  Letter  of  William  Oakes  dated 
March  17,  1829,  in  the  possession  of 
Mr.  Walter  Deane  of  Cambridge. 
Oakes  was  a  distinguished  early  New 
England  botanist. 

An  example  of  the  thoroughness  of 
the  Pennsylvania  politicians  is  the 
Findlay  or  Finley  family;  of  them, 
five  members  of  one  generation  were  in 
office  in  1830;  "Torrence  Papers" 
in  Ohio  Historical  and  Philosophical 
Society's  Quarterly,  i,  80  note,  and 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  other  similar 
illustrative  matter  in  the  same  num- 
ber. 

It  is  noticeable  that  in  August, 
1828,  John  McLean  wrote  to  Edward 
Everett  that  it  was  impossible  to  be- 
lieve that  Jackson  would  "lend  him- 
self and  the  powers  of  his  office,  to  the 
miserable  caterers  for  office,  who  look 
upon  the  Treasury  of  the  Union  as 


spoil  won  by  their  efforts."  On  the 
contrary,  McLean  thought  that  the 
General  would  exhibit  evidences  of 
magnanimity  which  would  "flush  the 
cheek  of  his  bitterest  enemies."  It  is 
worth  noting  that  McLean,  refusing  to 
dismiss  postmasters,  was  made  a  judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court.  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society's  Proceedings, 
3rd  Series,  i,  386. 

2  Walter  Barrett's  Old  Merchants  of 
New  York  City,  third  series,  255.  Fish 
(Civil  Service  and  the  Patronage,  ch. 
vi)  has  brought  together  a  mass  of  in- 
formation as  to  the  defalcations  of  this 
period.  He  is  very  severe  on  Swart- 
wout and  writes  that  he  "passed  the 
evening  of  his  days  abroad."  Ac- 
cording to  Barrett  he  died  peacefully 
in  New  York  City  in  1856,  which  would 
seem  to  confirm  the  statement  that  the 
government  ultimately  lost  nothing 


1829]  THE    SPOILS   SYSTEM^  395 

inability  to  distinguish  between  good  men  and  bad.  The 
number  of  actual  removals  from  office  and  the  proportion 
of  the  removals  to  the  total  number  seems  to  have  been 
greatly  exaggerated  in  the  minds  of  historical  writers.  Of 
some  six  hundred  and  twelve  presidential  officers,  only 
two  hundred  and  fifty-two  were  removed,  and  the  highest 
estimate  of  the  number  of  deputy  postmasters  removed  was 
six  hundred,  and  there  were  then  about  eight  thousand 
deputy  postmasters  in  the  country.1 

Apart  from  the  reconstruction  of  the  public  service,  where 
Jackson's  ideas  closely  followed  Northern  radicalism,  he 
showed  himself  to  be  distinctly  conservative.  As  to  the 
tariff,  he  had  to  tread  very  warily,  because  his  supporters  in 
the  different  parts  of  the  country  had  very  different  ideas 
on  protection,  and  they  came  near  splitting  the  Union  over 
their  differences.  As  to  internal  improvements,  however, 
Jackson  felt  himself  strong  enough  to  put  an  end  to  that 
part  of  the  American  System ;  and,  if  the  tariff  had  to  be 
continued  and  produced  a  surplus  revenue,  he  suggested 
that  after  the  debt  was  all  paid,  the  surplus  should  be  dis- 
tributed among  the  States  according  to  the  federal  ratio 
and  be  by  them  expended  in  internal  improvements2  or 
otherwise  as  each  State  might  determine  for  itself.  While 
in  the  Senate,  Jackson  had  voted  for  the  Survey  Bill  of 

by  Swartwout.  The  latter  with  his  John  P.  Timberlake,  the  former  hus- 
father  had  for  a  long  time  been  en-  band  of  Mrs.  Eaton,  was  indebted 
gaged  in  reclaiming  low-lying  lands  in  to  the  treasury  to  the  amount  of  over 
the  vicinity  of  New  York  City,  and  these  fourteen  thousand  dollars,  and  that 
were  turned  over  to  the  government  no  suit  had  been  entered  against  her 
(see  "Annual  Report  of  the  Solicitor  father's  estate  as  a  surety  because  the 
of  the  Treasury,"  November,  1843,  district  attorney  had  "inferred"  that 
in  House  of  Representatives  Documents,  he  had  died  insolvent.  See  for  a  some- 
28th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  35,  p.  63).  what  different  account  the  Diary  of 
Samuel  Swartwout's  wife  was  the  niece  John  Floyd,  215-220. 
of  Cadwallader  D.  Golden.  This  re-  l  Fish's  Civil  Service  and  the  Pat- 
port  of  the  solicitor  of  the  treasury  ronage,  125. 

deserves    careful    analysis.     From    an-  2  Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers, 

other  entry   it   appears   that   the   late  ii,  452. 


396  PRESIDENT   JACKSON  [Cn.  XII 

1824  and  also  for  the  bill  to  improve  the  navigation  of  the 
Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers,1  the  first  river  and  harbor  bill  in 
our  history ;  and  his  ideas  on  the  subject  seem  to  have  been 
as  confused  as  those  of  President  Monroe  who  had  accepted 
the  principle  that  Congress  could  vote  money  for  an  internal 
improvement,  but  could  not  undertake  the  actual  construc- 
tion of  such  an  improvement. 

The  test  came  suddenly  over  a  bill  that  passed  both  Houses 
of  Congress  to  authorize  the  federal  government  to  sub- 
scribe to  the  stock  of  the  "Maysville,  Washington,  Paris, 
and  Lexington  Turnpike  Road  Company."  Great  systems 
of  internal  improvements  had  been  brought  forward.2 
Among  these  was  the  establishment  of  a  line  of  communi- 
cation from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  One 
idea  was  to  open  a  road  from  Buffalo  to  Washington  City ; 
thence  to  follow  the  Cumberland  Road  to  Ohio  and  so  on  in 
a  general  southwestwardly  direction  to  New  Orleans. 
Another  project  called  for  a  road  through  the  western  parts 
of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  to  the  National  Road  and 
thence  across  the  Ohio  River  to  the  Gulf.  It  was  planned 
that  either  of  these  lines  would  cross  the  Ohio  River  at 

•See  St.  George  L.  Sioussat's  Orleans.  On  March  18,  1828,  a  "Re- 

"  Memphis  as  a  Gateway  to  the  West"  port  of  the  Reconnoissance  of  A  Route 

(Tennessee  Historical  Magazine,  March  for  a  National  Road  from  Zanesville, 

and  June,  1917).  This  paper  has  a  Ohio  to  Florence,  Alabama"  was 

much  broader  interest  than  the  title  transmitted  to  Congress  (House  Docu- 

indicates.  ments,  20th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  209). 

*  There  is  a  good  deal  of  uncorre-  This  was  followed  on  December  21. 
lated  information  on  internal  im-  1830,  by  "A  Statement  of  Disburse- 
provements,  both  from  the  economic  ments''  made  since  1789  for  fortifica- 
and  political  aspects  in  the  printed  tions,  light-houses,  pensions,  and  in- 
public  documents  and,  doubtless,  ternal  improvements  (House  Docu- 
much  more  in  manuscript.  Among  the  ments,  21st  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  No.  11). 
printed  reports  are  a  "Letter  from  the  From  this  it  appears  that  $5,310,930.11 
the  Post-Master  General"  dated  had  been  spent  for  internal  improve- 
November  28,  1803,  giving  details  ments,  rivers,  and  harbors.  In  the 
as  to  unprofitable  post  roads.  An-  same  period  over  thirteen  million  dol- 
other  report  dated  March  21,  1806,  lars  had  been  spent  for  fortifications, 
gives  an  estimate  of  the  probable  three  millions  for  light-houses,  twenty 
expense  of  opening  a  "Horse  Road"  millions  for  pensions,  and  one  hundred 
between  Athens,  Georgia,  and  New  and  eighty  millions  for  the  public  debt. 


1830]  THE   MAYSVILLE   VETO  397 

Ma3'sville  and  thence  run  to  Lexington,  Kentucky.  From 
that  point  the  road  would  proceed  by  one  of  several  routes 
through  Tennessee.  The  bill  was  abruptly  brought  for- 
ward and  passed  without  adequate  discussion.  What  the 
anti-Jackson  men  had  in  their  minds  can  only  be  surmised ; 
but,  knowing  Jackson  and  Jackson's  power  as  we  now  do,  it 
seems  almost  inconceivable  that  even  so  maladroit  politicians 
as  Henry  Clay  and  his  followers  should  have  selected  an 
internal  improvement  confined  to  the  State  of  Kentucky 
to  test  Jackson's  sincerity  and  power.  Possibly  the  fact 
that  the  next  portion  of  the  road  would  be  through  Tennessee 
suggested  to  them  that  it  might  meet  with  his  favor.  Martin 
Van  Buren  was  one  with  his  chief  on  this  subject.  He  saw 
with  glee  the  chance  that  the  bill  gave  him.  He  at  once 
told  the  President  what  was  going  forward.  They  were 
riding  out  together  on  the  Tenallytown  Road.  Jackson 
listened  intently  and  asked  his  friend  to  put  his  ideas  into 
writing.  Thereupon  Van  Buren  pulled  a  written  document 
from  his  pocket  and  handed  it  to  the  President.  Jackson 
took  it  home  with  him  and  said  nothing  about  it  for  several 
days.  The  friends  of  the  measure,  not  liking  the  delay,  visited 
the  President  to  persuade  him  to  approve  the  bill ;  but  Jack- 
son remained  firm,  and  on  May  27,  1830,  sent  in  his  first  veto 
message,1  and  thus  he  put  an  end  for  a  generation  to  the  build- 
ing up  of  a  land  transportation  system  at  federal  expense. 

1  Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers  ing  scenes  in  my  endeavors  to  prevent 

of    the   Presidents,    ii,   483 ;     Bassett's  him  from   avowing  his  intentions  be- 

Andrew  Jackson,  ii,  475-496.  fore   the   bill   passed   the   two   houses. 

On  January   30,    1854,   Van  Buren  My   apprehension   being,    that   if   Mr. 

wrote  to  F.  P.  Blair.  Clay    could    be    made    to    believe    it 

"You    &    I    can    never    forget   the  possible  that  the  Genl  would  dare  to 

ardor  with   which   Genl   Jackson   pur-  veto  an  Int  Imp  Bill  in  the  then,  state 

sued  such  objects  &  the  world  knows  of  public  opinion,  he  would  change  ita 

the    success    which    crowned    its    ef-  character   from   a   local    to    a   general 

forts.     I  think  I  have  pointed  out  to  object." 

you  the  spot  in  the  vicinity  of  Wash-  For  this  quotation   and  many  valu- 

ington,  where  the  Maysville  veto  was  able  citations,   I   am  indebted  to  Mr. 

decided  upon,  &  I  had  the  most  amus-  B.  M.  Hulley  of  De  Land,  Florida. 


398  PRESIDENT   JACKSON  [Cu.  XII 

Other  most  interesting  achievements  of  Jackson's  time 
were  the  securing  access  to  the  British  West  Indies  and 
the  wrenching  payment  for  spoliations  from  France.  At 
first  sight  it  would  seem  remarkable  that  Jackson,  Van 
Buren,  and  Edward  Livingston  should  have  been  able  to 
achieve  what  experienced  diplomatists  like  James  Monroe 
and  John  Quincy  Adams  had  failed  to  accomplish.  Jack- 
sonian  historians  have  attributed  it  to  the  might  of  their 
hero  coupled  with  the  suppleness  of  Van  Buren;  but  in 
reality  these  remarkable  successes  in  the  field  of  inter- 
national politics  were  due  to  the  march  of  events  rather  than 
to  any  skill  on  the  part  of  the  Jacksonians.  The  question 
of  commercial  relations  with  Great  Britain  is  so  full  of 
turnings  and  twistings  that  one  can  read  diplomatic  papers 
by  the  hundreds  of  pages  and  fail  to  gain  any  clear  under- 
standing of  it.  American  trade  was  confined  mainly 
to  trans-oceanic  commerce  —  the  greater  part  of  which 
went  to  Britain,  —  to  supplying  the  West  Indians  with  food 
—  taking  their  produce  in  exchange,  —  and  to  the  coastwise 
trade  of  the  United  States  itself.  The  New  Englanders 
wished  to  reestablish  their  commerce  with  the  British  West 
Indies,  with  the  Maritime  Provinces,  and  with  Newfound- 
land. On  the  other  hand  it  had  become  a  cardinal  principle 
of  American  policy  to  exclude  all  foreign  vessels  from  the 
coastwise  trade.  The  British,  on  their  part,  were  perfectly 
willing  to  admit  American  shipping  to  the  trans-oceanic 
trade,  but  they  very  much  desired  to  build  up  the  industries 
and  commerce  of  the  Maritime  Provinces,  Newfoundland, 
and  Canada  by  giving  them  a  monopoly  of  provisioning 
the  British  West  Indies.1  At  the  same  time  the  British 

1  The  official  papers  relating  to  the  may     be     mentioned     the     following: 

long-drawn-out    contest    as    to    trade  House    Documents,     19th    Cong.,     2nd 

between    the    United    States    and    the  Sess.,    No.   2   (Colonial  Trade) ;     ibid., 

British    colonies    are     buried     in    the  No.  45   (British  Statutes  and  Acts  of 

governmental     documents.     Of     these  Congress    on    Trade    with    the    West 


1830]  INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS  399 

wished  to  retain  the  carriage  of  their  West  Indian  products 
to  Europe  to  their  own  vessels.  This  commerce  in  several 
of  its  branches,  at  any  rate,  would  be  greatly  facilitated  by 
allowing  British  vessels  to  take  part  in  the  coastwise  com- 
merce of  the  United  States.  We  may  suppose  a  British 
ship,  sailing  from  London  to  Halifax,  there  leaving  one 
cargo,  taking  on  board  another,  and  going  to  New  York. 
Perhaps  a  cargo  might  be  obtained  at  that  port  for  Jamaica ; 
but  undoubtedly  it  would  often  add  greatly  to  the  profits 
of  the  voyage  if  a  part  of  a  cargo,  at  any  rate,  could  be  taken 
from  the  Northern  port  of  call  to  Charleston  or  Savannah, 
where  more  cargo  might  be  obtained  for  Jamaica.  Any  such 
traffic  between  ports  of  the  United  States  was  prohibited 
by  the  provisions  of  the  navigation  laws.  On  the  other  hand, 
Americans  were  practically  debarred  from  direct  commerce 
with  the  Maritime  Provinces  and  with  the  British  West 
Indies.  During  a  large  part  of  this  time,  British-American 
international  relations  were  largely  in  the  hands  of  George 
Canning,  Britain's  foreign  minister;  and  Stratford  Canning, 
his  cousin,  the  British  representative  at  Washington.  The 
persistent  hostility  of  the  first  of  these  to  the  United  States 
has  already  been  sufficiently  adverted  to  in  the  present  work. 
Stratford  Canning  was  a  conscientious  Englishman,  who 
possessed  rather  more  temper  than  did  John  Quincy  Adams, 
then  Secretary  of  State,  —  which  is  saying  a  good  deal.  It 
must  not  be  supposed  for  one  instant  that  either  of  these 
gentlemen  had  anything  but  the  best  interests  of  his  own 
country  at  heart ;  but  they  did  not  get  on  well  together  and 
Stratford  Canning  left  Washington  for  another  post.  In 
1827,  George  Canning  died,  and  in  1829,  Lord  Aberdeen, 

Indies) ;     ibid..    No.    144    (Exports   to  British  and  Foreign  State  Papers,  vols- 

and    Imports    from    British    American  iv,  v,  xiv,  xvii,  xviii;    Edward  Smith's 

Colonies) ;       House     Documents,     21st  England    and    America    after    Indepen- 

Cong.,   2nd  Sess.,   No.   22  (Papers  re-  dence,    ch.   xvi,    and   Bassett's   Andrew 

lating    to    the    settlement    of    1830) ;  Jackson,  ii,  656-663. 


400  PRESIDENT  JACKSON  [Cn.  XII 

always  conciliatory,  was  at  the  head  of  the  British  foreign 
office.  Van  Buren  instructed  McLane,  our  representative 
at  London,  to  pursue  an  extremely  conciliatory  attitude 
toward  Great  Britain  on  the  ground  that  the  United  States 
had  too  long  and  too  tenaciously  resisted  the  right  of  Great 
Britain  to  impose  protecting  duties  in  her  colonies  and  in 
other  ways.  The  British  government  on  its  part  laid  hold 
of  the  words  of  Jackson's  first  Annual  Message  to  Congress 
that  we  might  "  look  forward  to  years  of  peaceful,  honorable, 
and  elevated  competition"  with  Great  Britain  and  "pre- 
serve the  most  cordial  relations"  with  her.  Moreover,  Con- 
gress had  authorized  the  Executive  to  dispense  with  some 
of  the  requirements  that  had  stood  in  the  way  of  friendly 
commercial  relations.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  negotiations  which  for  fifteen  years 
had  been  hopeless  were  now  rapidly  carried  to  a  conclusion 
by  which  both  countries  drew  back  somewhat  from  their 
extreme  pretensions  and  agreed  to  modify  their  commercial 
regulations.1  In  the  outcome,  possibly  the  most  interesting 
feature  of  the  whole  matter  was  that  when  Van  Buren  was 
appointed  minister  to  England  after  his  retirement  from  the 
Cabinet,  this  nomination  failed  of  confirmation  by  the 
Senate  because  of  what  seemed,  to  many  members  of  that 
body,  the  pusillanimous  attitude  displayed  in  the  instructions 
to  McLane.  In  the  upshot,  he  became  the  Jacksonian  can- 
didate for  the  vice-presidency,  and  being  elected  enjoyed 
the  satisfaction,  such  as  it  was,  of  presiding  over  the  body 
that  had  refused  to  confirm  his  nomination. 

'The  papers  relating  to  this  nego-  Intercourse,    1783-1872    (Westminster, 

tiation   are  in    House   Executive   Docu-  1900)     gives     a     connected     view     of 

menta,  21st  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  No.  22;  the    relations  between   the   two   coun- 

British     and     Foreign     State     Papers,  tries     from     the     British     standpoint. 

1830-1831,     pp.     1181-1212.     Edward  The    Jacksonian     case    is    stated    at 

Smith's    England    and    America    after  length   in    Bassett's    Andrew   Jackson. 

Independence  ,  .  .  Their    International  ii. 


1830]  INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS  401 

The  other  triumph  of  Jacksonian  diplomacy  was  in  secur- 
ing payment  from  France  for  certain  depredations  that  had 
been  committed  years  before  in  the  course  of  the  Napoleonic 
strivings  for  world  power,  when  the  ordinary  rules  of  inter- 
national intercourse  had  been  widely  departed  from.  Mon- 
roe and  Adams  had  tried  their  hands  at  the  solution  of  this 
problem,  also,  but  the  question  of  its  settlement  had  always 
been  connected  by  the  French  government  with  the  granting 
of  favors  to  French  commerce,  and  this  had  been  out  of  the 
question.  In  1830,  a  new  revolution  placed  on  the  French 
throne  the  younger  branch  of  the  old  ruling  family  in  the 
person  of  Louis  Philippe.  Toward  France,  Jackson  adopted 
a  rather  menacing  attitude.  Edward  Livingston,  who  had 
been  Secretary  of  State,  went  to  Paris  as  American  repre- 
sentative. The  French  government  agreed  to  pay  five 
million  dollars  in  satisfaction  of  these  old  claims,1  but  before 
the  legislative  branch  acted,  knowledge  of  Jackson's  aggres- 
sive language  became  known  at  Paris.  Thereupon,  the 
French  Chambers  refused  to  vote  any  money  to  carry  out 
the  agreement.  In  the  end,  they  drew  back,  but  not  until 
the  American  minister  had  left  France  and  all  diplomatic 
intercourse  between  the  two  countries  had  been  suspended. 
Ultimately  the  French,  seeing  in  the  President's  later  utter- 
ances something  which  they  could  regard  as  "an  explana- 
tion," voted  the  money,  and  relations  between  the  two 
countries  were  resumed  and  a  long-standing  cause  of  griev- 
ance against  France  was  removed. 

In  all  these  matters,  even  as  to  re-allotting  federal  offices, 
dealing  a  master  blow  at  Clay's  American  System,  and 
bringing  to  an  end  foreign  complications  that  had  long 
threatened  the  continuance  of  profitable  intercourse  with 
America's  two  best  customers,  Jackson's  administration 

1  Bassett's  Andrew  Jackson,  ii,  663-673. 
VOL.  V.  — 2D 


402  PRESIDENT  JACKSON 

was  successful  beyond  dispute.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
introduction  of  the  "spoils  system"  should  not  be  regarded 
as  a  cause  of  satisfaction,  and  it  should  not ;  but  the  change 
from  the  old  colonial  system  of  permanent  official  tenure  to 
the  more  democratic  mode  of  political  rotation  in  the  public 
offices  was  inevitable,  and  Jackson  may  fairly  be  said  to  have 
minimized  the  blow.  The  real  interest  of  his  administration 
lies  in  the  relation  between  the  federal  government  and  the 
growing  power  of  Southern  sectionalism,  as  shown  in  the 
nullification  episode  and  the  rising  spirit  of  capitalistic 
industrialism  in  the  North  as  exemplified  in  the  bank  struggle 
and  in  the  contest  over  national  ownership  and  operation  of 
public  utilities.  In  the  upshot,  Southern  ideas  triumphed, 
although  nullification  and  secession  were  laid  at  rest  for  a 
generation.  It  is  curious  to  note  in  passing  that  it  has  been 
left  for  a  later  Democratic  administration  to  go  back  behind 
the  gospels  of  Jacksonism  and  reincarnate  the  system  of 
national  ownership  and  operation  of  public  utilities  that 
was  so  dear  to  the  hearts  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Henry 
Clay 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  403 

NOTE 

Bibliography.  —  A  very  valuable  "  List  of  Publications  "  as  to 
Jackson,  his  times,  and  contemporaries  is  prefixed  to  James  Parton's 
Life  of  Andrew  Jackson  (3  vols.,  New  York,  1860).  The  "  list  "  was 
practically  made  by  William  Gowans,  the  best-known  second-hand 
book  dealer  of  that  day.  Bassett  provides  no  formal  bibliography  in 
his  Andrew  Jackson  (2  vols.,  New  York,  1911),  but  his  footnotes  with 
Parton's  "  List "  open  wide  the  door  to  the  researcher.  Parton's 
"  Life  "  was  a  remarkable  book  at  the  time  of  its  publication,  but  so 
much  material  has  been  made  accessible  since  that  it  is  now  superseded 
by  Bassett's  two-volume  work.  W.  G.  Sumner's  Andrew  Jackson 
as  a  Public  Man  in  the  "  Statesmen  "  series  deals  especially  with  the 
financial  side,  and  William  G.  Brown's  Andrew  Jackson  in  the  "  River- 
side Biographical  "  series  gives  an  admirable  personal  setting.  J.  Q. 
Adams's  Report  on  Manufactures  that  was  presented  to  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  February  28,  1833,  is  a  most  illuminating  and 
caustic  review  of  Jacksonism. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SOUTH   CAROLINA   AND   NULLIFICATION 

IN  the  early  time,  in  the  years  following  the  Revolutionary 
War,  there  had  been  slight  thought  of  the  people  of  the  Thir- 
teen States  forming  a  "Nation."  Noah  Webster,  in  1783, 
in  the  introduction  to  the  first  edition  of  his  "Spelling  Book," 
unconsciously  expressed  this  idea  1  when  he  wrote  that  the 
object  of  his  book  was  to  promote  the  prosperity  of  "the 
confederated  republics  of  America."  The  makers  of  the 
Constitution  refrained  from  using  the  word  "nation"  in 
that  instrument,  although  the  aim  of  some  of  them  was 
to  establish  a  consolidated  government.  One  of  the  earliest 
changes  in  the  Constitution  was  to  take  away  from  the 
federal  Supreme  Court  the  power  to  adjudicate  disputes 
between  a  State  and  citizens  of  another  State.  In  1798 
the  States  had  been  almost  on  the  point  of  flying  at  each 
other's  throats  2 ;  in  1803  and  again  in  1808  disunion  had 
been  rife  in  New  England  and  in  New  York ;  and  the  hostile 
attitude  toward  the  government  at  Washington  by  the  New 
Englanders  in  the  most  perilous  years  of  the  War  of  1812 
had  been  almost  heartrending.  With  the  coming  of  peace 
in  1815,  a  distinct  tendency  toward  greater  unity  set  in. 
But  there  was  not  then  and  there  is  not  now  (1920)  in  the 
United  States  a  true  nationalism.  The  American  people 
comprises  many  races  and,  while  the  English  language  has 

1  Skeel's  Noah  Webster,  i,  61.  gives  a  connected  account  of  most  of  the 

*  E.    P.    Powell   in   his   Nullification       early  separatist  movements. 
and    Secession    in    the     United    States 

404 


EARLY   SOUTHERN   UNIONISM  405 

been  predominant  throughout  the  country  as  a  whole,  other 
languages  have  held  their  places  persistently.  Nationalism 
in  the  United  States  means  unity  of  aspiration  and  accom- 
plishment, or,  possibly,  unity  of  social  and  political  senti- 
ments. In  the  first  two  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  national  spirit  was  stronger  in  the  South  than  in  any 
other  part  of  the  country.  In  1808,  at  the  time  of  the 
Federalist  secession  movement  in  New  England,  the  Vir- 
ginia presidential  electors  who  had  voted  for  Madison  dined 
together  at  Richmond  with  Spencer  Roane  at  the  head  of 
the  table,  and  drank  to  the  toast,  " The  Union  of  the  States: 
The  majority  must  govern.  It  is  treason  to  secede."  l 
In  1819  forty-six  gentlemen  of  Charleston  came  together 
and  founded  the  New  England  Society  in  memory  of  their 
common  origin,  and  in  the  next  year  Calhoun  and  other 
Southern  Congressmen  voted  for  the  Missouri  Compromise 
rather  than  endanger  the  existence  of  the  Union.  Indeed, 
as  late  as  1824,  the  South  Carolina  House  of  Representatives 
voted  that  no  power  had  been  given  to  a  State  legislature  to 
impugn  the  motives  of  the  federal  Congress 2 ;  but  the  next 
year  the  succeeding  House  passed  resolutions  of  directly 
opposite  tenor. 

The  Missouri  Compromise  marked  the  end  of  the  first 
chapter  in  the  history  of  nationalism.  From  that  time 
for  forty  years,  the  whole  spirit  of  our  development  was 
towards  dualism,  —  for  the  Missouri  Compromise  practically 
marked  the  division  of  the  country  into  two  groups,  having 
distinctly  different  economic  interests.  The  first  note  of  the 
new  sectionalism  was  sounded  in  Virginia  by  Spencer  Roane 


1  Secession-Letters   of  Amos   Kendatt  effect  that  the  Federal  Convention  did 

(Washington,  1861),  p.  20.  not    regard    "the    State    Governments 

1  Ames's    State    Documents,    iv,     6.  as  sentinels  upon  the  watch-towers  of 

In  a  note  he  gives  an  extract  from  a  freedom." 
speech    of   George     McDuffie    to    the 


406 


SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND   NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 


and  John  Taylor  of  Caroline.1  The  last  named  had  been  for 
separation  in  1799  and  very  likely  had  never  given  over  the 
idea  that  Virginia  would  be  better  off  without  any  alliance 
with  the  States  north  of  the  Potomac  or  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line.  He  now  took  to  the  writing  of  essays,  —  "Construc- 
tion Construed"  (1820)  and  "Tyranny  Unmasked"  (1822).2 
He  was  especially  excited  by  Marshall's  opinions  in  the  cases 
of  Martin  and  Hunter's  Lessee  and  Cohens  against  Virginia. 
In  both  of  these  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
had  taken  to  itself  cases  that  had  been  adjudicated  in  the 
Virginia  courts  and  had  even  issued  commands  to  them. 
Roane  wrote  one  series  of  communications  after  another. 
These  were  printed  in  the  "Richmond  Enquirer"  that  had 
been  founded  by  him  and  was  edited  by  his  brother-in-law, 
Thomas  Ritchie.3  The  most  famous  of  the  series  was  signed 
"Algernon  Sydney  "  and  was  reprinted  separately.4  In  these 
writings  Roane  sought  to  combat  the  pretensions  of  the 
federal  Supreme  Court  by  denying  its  supremacy  and  by 
exalting  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  State  courts  and 
through  them  the  rights  of  the  States.  Possibly  Marshall 
went  too  far  when  he  wrote  to  Judge  Story  that  Roane  was 
"the  champion  of  dismemberment"  and  not  of  States'- 
rights.  However  this  may  be,  it  would  seem  certain  that 


1  Phillips' s  chapter  on  "The  Eco- 
nomic and  Political  Essays  of  the  Ante- 
Bellum  South,"  in  The  South  in  the 
Building  of  the  Nation,  vii,  ch.  viii, 
brings  together  the  main  facts  in  brief 
compass  and  in  an  interesting  way. 

*  Taylor  also  wrote  An  Inquiry  into 
the  .  .  .  Government  of  the  United  States 
(1814)  and  New  Views  on  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  (1823). 
Taylor's  writings  had  great  influence 
among  certain  groups  of  Southerners ; 
now  they  seem  extraordinarily  dull 
and  quite  commonplace.  There  is  a 
long  article  on  his  life  in  John  P. 
Branch  Historical  Papers,  ii. 


'  See  C.  H.  Ambler's  Thomas  Ritchie. 
In  the  Richmond  Times-Dispatch  of 
Dec.  1,  1913,  President  Lyon  G. 
Tyler  points  out  that  Dr.  Ambler  is 
not  a  Virginian  by  birth  and  training 
and  is  out  of  sympathy  with  the  east- 
ern section  of  the  State  from  which  his 
forbears  came.  There  is  a  mass  of 
Ritchie's  letters  in  the  Branch  Papers, 
iii,  iv. 

4  The  two  sets  of  letters  to  the 
Richmond  Enquirer  signed  "Hamp- 
den"  and  "Algernon  Sydney"  are 
reprinted  in  the  Branch  Papers,  i, 
357  and  ii,  78. 


1830]  COTTON  407 

to  Roane  belongs  whatever  honor  or  dishonor  there  may  be 
in  being  the  original  Southern  secessionist,1  for  one  can  trace 
the  movement  directly  from  him  to  Fort  Sumter. 

The  administrations  of  John  Adams  and  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  his  son,  fell  within  the  closing  years  of  distinct 
epochs  in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  The  election  of 
Jefferson  in  1800  marked  the  ending  of  the  Revolutionary 
epoch,  and  the  election  of  Jackson  in  1828  witnessed  the 
assured  dominance  of  cotton  raising  in  the  South  and  the 
rise  of  a  spirit  of  unity  there  that  was  distinctly  bounded 
by  geographical  lines.  The  modern  history  of  cotton 
remains  to  be  written.  Few  things  in  this  world  have  so 
greatly  influenced  modern  life  as  the  fibre  of  the  upland 
cotton  plant.  The  development  of  the  demand  for  cotton 
goods  throughout  the  world  is  one  of  the  extraordinary 
phenomena  of  the  nineteenth  century.  People  left  off  wearing 
garments  that  had  been  handed  down  by  elder  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  from  fathers  and  mothers,  and  clad  themselves 
in  clothing  made  of  cheap  and  unen during  cotton  fibre  instead 
of  the  more  expensive  and  longer  wearing  flax  and  wool. 
Families  laid  aside  their  linen  sheets  for  those  of  cotton,  and 
the  sailing  ships  of  the  world  —  with  the  exception  of  men- 
of-war  —  ceased  the  use  of  linen  duck  in  favor  of  cotton  sail- 
cloth. And  whole  races  of  mankind  and  womankind,  who 
before  had  been  innocent  of  clothing,  now  attired  themselves 
in  yard  upon  yard  of  cotton  cloth.  This  almost  fabulous 
increase  in  the  demand  for  cotton  fabrics  synchronizes  with 
the  development  of  machinery  driven  by  water  power  or  by 
steam  for  the  spinning  and  weaving  of  these  fibres  into  the 
cloth  of  everyday  use.  But  he  would  be  a  courageous  man 
who  would  say  that  the  demand  led  to  the  invention,  or 

1  Professor  William  E.  Dodd  has  a  readable  article  on  Roane  in  the  American 
Historical  Review,  xii,  776. 


408          SOUTH  CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIIi 

that  the  presence  of  cheap  cotton  cloth  created  the  demand. 
In  1791  the  United  States  produced  about  two  million 
pounds  of  pure  cotton,  and  in  1834  four  hundred  and  fifty- 
seven  million  pounds.  By  1830  cotton  produced  within 
the  limits  of  the  Un  ted  States  had  driven  all  other  cotton 
fibres  from  the  British  mills,  because,  although  labor  was 
cheaper  in  India  and  Brazil  whence  cotton  had  formerly 
come,  it  was  so  inefficient  that  cotton  could  not  be  grown  in 
those  countries  —  in  ordinary  years  —  in  competition  with 
the  slave-driven  production  of  the  Southern  States,  which 
was  also  more  uniform  in  quality  and  of  better  color.  Un-. 
fortunately,  as  the  production  of  cotton  increased,  the  price 
constantly  declined,  for  the  supply  was  overtaking  the 
demand.  In  1801,  cotton  brought  at  New  York  from  thirty 
to  forty-four  cents  a  pound1  for  "middling  uplands,"  and  by 
1832  had  declined  to  seven  cents.  It  is  impossible  to  ascer-- 
tain  accurately  what  the  planter  received  for  his  crop,  but 
it  was  probably  not  far  from  one-half  of  the  average  yearly 
price  at  New  York. 

The  tremendous  increase  in  the  size  of  the  cotton  crops 
that  has  been  noted  in  the  preceding  paragraph  was  accom- 
panied by  a  great  change  in  the  methods  of  cultivation,  or 
new  methods  of  cultivation  led  to  a  great  increase  in  the 
total  production.  New  plantations  were  opened  in  western 
Georgia  and  in  the  country  to  the  westward  as  far  as  the 
Mississippi  River  and,  decade  by  decade,  the  size  of  the 
cotton-producing  unit  increased.  Soon  the  planters  on  the 
old  uplands  of  Carolina  and  Georgia  found  themselves  at  a 
serious  disadvantage  in  comparison  with  the  planters  on 


1  Jamea   L.   Watkins's   "Production  only    figures    available    for    the    early 

and  Price  of  Cotton  for  One  Hundred  time  are  the  prices  paid  at  New  York 

Years"     (Department    of    Agriculture  and    Liverpool,  and   these    were   often 

publications,       Miscellaneous       Series,  highly  speculative. 
Bulletin,   No.   9,   pp.   7,   9,   10).     The 


1830]  COTTON  CULTURE  409 

the  newer  lands.  The  result  was  a  constant  movement  of 
planters  and  slaves  from  the  seaboard  to  the  Black  Belt.1 
The  amount  of  fibre  grown  in  the  old  seaboard  States  reached 
its  highest  point  in  1826,  when  the  price  paid  at  New  York 
was  at  the  lowest  point  in  the  first  third  of  the  century. 
The  increase  in  the  amount  of  cotton  produced  in  the  Black 
Belt  was  startling.  In  1801  only  one  million  pounds  were 
grown  in  the  western  country,  —  all  of  it  in  Tennessee ;  in 
1826  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  pounds  were 
grown  there  and  in  1833  two  hundred  and  forty  million 
pounds.2  By  1828  the  Southwest  had  outstripped  the 
Southeast.  Moreover,  the  conditions  of  transportation3 
were  such  that  the  crops  of  the  new  country  were  exported 
from  New  Orleans,  Mobile,  and  other  Gulf  ports  and  not 
from  Charleston  and  Savannah.  There  is  no  means  of 
proving  it  conclusively,  but  there  seems  every  reason  to 
believe  that  the  Western  planters  were  making  money  out 
of  cotton,  while  those  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  taking  them 
together,  were  losing  money  every  year,  although  the  con- 
ditions were  so  peculiar  that  this  fact  was  not  known  to 
many  of  those  who  were  running  into  insolvency.4 

1  In  this  connection  it  is  noticeable  2  For  more  detailed  figures,  see 
that  the  emigration  from  the  old  States  Note  at  end  of  chapter, 
north  of  the  Potomac  River  was  about  a  U.  B.  Phillips  in  his  History  of 
replaced  by  the  coming  in  of  people  Transportation  in  the  Eastern  Cotton 
from  other  States  or  from  European  Belt  to  1860  shows  not  only  how  ear- 
countries.  In  the  three  States  south  nestly  the  two  eastern  cotton  States 
of  the  Potomac  precisely  the  opposite  were  striving  to  secure  for  themselves 
was  the  case.  In  1850  there  were  as  much  of  the  traffic  of  the  new  cotton 
388,059  persons  born  in  Virginia  liv-  States  as  they  could,  but  also  how 
ing  in  other  States  and  only  76,210  futile  these  efforts  were,  especially 
persons  were  living  in  that  State  who  as  to  Charleston. 

were    born    outside    of   it   whether   in  4  See    U.    B.    Phillips's    "Economic 

America  or  in  Europe.     The  case  was  Cost   of   Slaveholding    in    the    Cotton 

even  worse  as  to   South  Carolina,   for  Belt"     in     Political  Science  Quarterly, 

there  were   only   21,363   outsiders  liv-  xx,  257-275. 

ing  in  that  State  as  against  186,479  Some  extracts  from  the  "Stock  and 
South  Carolinians  living  in  other  Crop  Book  of  Silver  Bluff  Plantation" 
parts  of  the  Union.  In  these  figures  in  South  Carolina,  kept  by  J.  H.  Ham- 
can  be  seen  a  cause  of  unrest  in  the  Old  mond  and  now  in  the  Library  of 
.Dominion  and  in  the  Palmetto  State.  Congress,  will  be  to  the  point.  It  ap- 


410          SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 

Contemporaneously  with  the  slipping  backward  of  the 
agriculture  of  the  Southern  seaboard  there  was  a  distinct 
loss  of  trade  at  Charleston  and  other  South  Carolina  ports 
that  was  patent  to  every  one.  New  York  had  become  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  This  was 
due  in  part  to  the  amount  of  business  that  was  brought  to 
her  wharves  by  the  Erie  Canal  route.  It  was  also  owing 
to  the  fact  that  that  city  had  become  the  greatest  manu- 
facturing centre  of  the  country  and  also  because  her  mer- 
chants were  absorbing  the  distribution  of  the  products  of 
mills  in  New  England  and  New  Jersey,  and  also  the  agricul- 
tural products  of  the  whole  Atlantic  seaboard  to  the  south- 
ward of  the  Chesapeake.  A  vessel  sailing  across  the  Atlantic 
from  Liverpool  and  elsewhere  and  returning  to  some  Euro- 
pean port  was  reasonably  certain  to  have  full  cargoes  both 
ways,  if  she  went  to  New  York.  If  she  sailed  to  Charleston 
her  hold  would  be  scantily  filled  with  European  manu- 
factured goods  on  the  westward  trip.  She  might  have  a  full 
cargo  on  the  return  voyage ;  *  but  the  total  freight  money 
earned  on  a  voyage,  let  us  say,  from  Liverpool  to  Charleston 


pears  that  there  were  in  the  30's  from  as  the  annual  net  income  from  an  in- 

80    to    147    slaves    on    the    plantation.  vestment  of  $92,000,   plus  increase  in 

The    average    expenses    were    worked  slaves    and    minus    decreasing    fertility 

out  as  $3,696.98;    the  average  sales  at  of  soil.     A  few  other  items  are  worth 

$11,491.86.     The     expenses     consisted  noting.     It    appears     that    cotton    in 

in  the  salary  of  an  overseer,  which  is  those  years  brought  from  12  to  16  cents 

given  as  about  $500  a  year,   taxes  on  a  pound  to   the  planter,  which  shows 

lands   and   on   negroes,    cost   of   negro  that    the    product    of    the    Hammond 

cloths    and    shoes,    salt,    bagging,    and  plantation    was    of    superior    quality, 

rope  used  on  the  plantation  and  the  The  average  profit  per  slave  was  $75 

wear  and  tear  of  tools  and  work  ani-  a  year. 

mals.     The    family,    overseer,    slaves,  *  S.  S.  Huebner,  in  The  South  in  the 

and   animals  were   subsisted   from   the  Building  of  the  Nation,  v,   407,  states 

plantation,    except     that     the     family  that   the   tariffs   of    1816    and   on,    by 

purchased  coffee,  tea,  etc.,  through  the  preventing    the    importation    of    slave 

agent.     The      estimate      includes      no  cloths  from  England,  led  to  a  change 

'overhead"  except  the  overseer's  $500  in  southern   commercial  currents.     He 

and   only   a   small   amount  for   depre-  attributes  the  unrest  in  the  Old  Cotton 

ciation.      Putting     the     master's     and  States   to  that    cause,    in    combination 

mistress"  superintending  care  at  $5000  with  the  decline  in  the  profits  from  cot- 

a  year,  leaves  less  than  $3000  a  year  ton  growing. 


1830] 


CHARLESTON 


411 


and  back  was  certain  to  be  much  less  than  that  gained  on 
a  similar  voyage  from  Liverpool  to  New  York.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  cotton  of  the  seaboard  States 
found  its  way  to  European  markets  through  New  York, 
and  the  commerce  of  Charleston  and  Savannah  was  con- 
fined almost  entirely  to  coastwise  voyages.  The  tariff 
undoubtedly  had  something  to  do  with  building  up  the  trade 
of  New  York  and  with  the  decline  of  Southern  importations 
from  England ;  but  the  combined  movement  was  the  result 
of  much  more  vital  factors  than  any  or  all  of  the  tariff  acts 
that  were  passed  before  1828,  —  and  that  were  enacted 
after  that  time.  In  1830  there  were  one-quarter  of  a  mil- 
lion human  beings  living  on  Manhattan  Island,  and  twenty 
years  later  —  in  1850  —  the  population  of  New  York  City 
was  greater  than  that  of  the  whole  State  of  South  Carolina.1 
These  were  surface  conditions,  but  the  delver  into  figures 
could  easily  find  that  while  three  million  dollars  worth  of 
foreign  merchandise  had  been  imported  directly  into  South 
Carolina  ports  in  1821,  less  than  one-half  of  that  amount 
had  passed  through  the  custom  houses  there  in  1831,  al- 


1  The  following  population  figures, 
taken  from  the  Census  of  1910,  "Popu- 
lation," vol.  i,  pp.  31,  80,  86,  and 


from  De  Bow's  Statistical  View  of  the 
United  States  (1854),  p.  192,  give  an 
interesting  comparison : 


1800 

1820 

1830 

1850 

New  York  City  .... 

79,216 

152,056 

242,278 
9,207 

696,115 
36,403 

6,474 

33.383 

Charleston,  S.  C.      ... 

20,473 

24,780 

30,289 

42,985 

South  Carolina    .... 
Virginia      

345,591 

880,200 

502,741 
1,065,366 

581,185 
1,211,405 

668,507 
1,421,661 

In  1833  the  Charlestonians,  led  by 
Joel  R.  Poinsett,  issued  a  Statement 
of  the  Comparative  Advantages  of  Charles- 
ton over  the  ports  to  the  northward 
which  completely  evaded  the  real 


point  in  issue  —  the  land  connec- 
tions of  the  several  seaports.  See  also 
the  Proceedings  of  the  Fourth  Con- 
vention of  Merchants  and  Others  (Charles- 
ton, 1839). 


412          SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION     [Ca.  XIII 

though  the  total  value  of  the  goods  imported  into  the 
United  States  in  1831  was  nearly  double  what  it  had  been  ten 
years  earlier.  Moreover,  in  that  decade  the  registered 
tonnage  of  South  Carolina  had  been  cut  nearly  in  halves, 
declining  from  thirty  thousand  tons  in  1821  to  a  little 
over  fifteen  thousand  in  1831,  although  the  total  registered 
tonnage  of  the  entire  country  had  nearly  doubled  in  those 
ten  years.1  This  decline  in  the  commerce  of  the  city  that 
once  had  been  the  foremost  mart  of  the  South  was  perfectly 
clear  to  the  importer  and  even  to  the  simple  city  dweller  in 
Charleston.  The  planter  oftentimes  was  not  aware  of  the 
seriousness  of  his  own  position  or  that  of  his  neighbors. 
He  kept  looking  forward  to  the  next  season  when  the 
climate  and  the  rainfall  would  be  more  favorable  to  the 
development  of  the  cotton  plant,  or  his  slaves  would  be  in 
better  health,  or  the  new  overseer  would  get  more  out  of 
the  worn  acres  and  the  slow  moving  negroes.  Some  South- 
erners attributed  the  recession  of  prosperity  in  the  Old  South 
to  the  deadening  effects  of  the  slave  system  ;  others  thought 
that  it  was  due  to  the  persistent  devotion  to  a  single  crop.2 
In  reality  it  was  the  inevitable  result  of  the  competition  of 
the  old  East  with  the  new  West.  In  the  North  the  farmers 
of  New  England  no  longer  tried  to  compete  with  those  of 
the  Northwest ;  instead  they  turned  to  trade  and  manu- 
facturing on  a  large  scale.  The  planters  of  the  Old  South, 
on  the  contrary,  persisted  in  trying  to  compete  with  the 
planters  of  the  richer  lands  to  the  westward,  and  they  were 
continuously  and  insensibly  consuming  their  capital.3 

1  Watterson  and  Van  Zandt's  Tabu-  'William      Gilmore      Simms      (The 
lar  Statistical  Views    (1828),    pp.    104-  Southern  and   Western  Monthly  Maga- 
113,    and    their    Continuation    (1833),  zine,    i,    142)    wrote    that    "the    devo- 
pp.  152-155,  168-172.  tion  of  our  planters  to  the  culture  of 

2  There  is  an  interesting  letter  from  cotton  only,  until  they  fail  of  food  and 
Macon    to    Bartlett   Yancey   on    these  clothing,  is  precisely  that  of  the  Vir- 
general  themes  in  James  Sprunt  His-  ginians  in  their  devotion  to  tobacco," 
torical  Monographs,  No.  2,  p.  76.  and  the  policy  of  the  North  toward  the 


1S30]  MANUFACTURING  413 

In  the  earlier  years  of  the  century,  the  South  Carolinians 
had  established  many  manufacturing  plants.  Some  of 
these  were  successful  for  a  time,  but  then  were  either  shut 
up  or  went  into  bankruptcy.  It  was  said  that  the  reason 
why  the  Southern  textile  mills  could  not  compete  with  those 
of  the  North  was  that  each  mill  sought  to  produce  many 
varieties  of  cloth,  instead  of  being  devoted  to  one  staple 
article.  Others  declared  that  it  was  owing  to  the  presence 
of  slavery  that  manufacturing  was  not  successfully  carried 
on  in  the  Cotton  States.1  Possibly  a  better  explanation 
than  either  of  these  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  profits  that 
were  derived  from  cotton  raising  in  extraordinary  years,  — 
so  great  were  they,  indeed,  that  planters  withdrew  their 
slaves  from  all  outside  employments,  such  as  grading  rail- 
roads, and  even  sought  to  restrict  the  production  of  food- 
stuffs on  the  plantations,  so  as  to  put  every  available  ounce 
of  labor  to  the  production  of  cotton.  Whatever  the  cause  of 
the  decline  of  manufacturing  may  have  been,  it  not  only 
had  declined,  but,  so  keen  had  become  the  popular  distaste, 
that  to  be  a  favorer  of  even  local  manufacturing  and  thereby 
to  share  in  the  federal  protection  of  industry  was  anathema 
and  was  sufficient  to  ruin  or  retard  a  South  Carolinian's 
political  career.  In  one  case,  indeed,  the  fact  that  the 
brother  of  a  candidate  for  office  was  interested  in  manu- 
facturing was  used  by  his  opponents  as  a  political  asset.2 

South    is   like    that   of    James    I    and  Kohn's  Cotton  Mills  of  South  Carolina 

Charles    II    toward    Virginia    in    the  republished  from  the  Charleston  News 

seventeenth  century.  and  Courier  and  issued  by  the  South 

1 C.     S.      Boucher's    "  Ante-Bellum  Carolina   Department   of    Agriculture, 

Attitude    of    South    Carolina    towards  Commerce,   and   Immigration  in   1907 

Manufacturing    and    Agriculture"     in  is  by  far  the  best  essay  on  the  subject. 

Washington  University  Studies,  iii,  Pt.  "Article  ii."    pp.  6-16,   relates  to  the 

ii,   No.  2.     Victor  S.   Clark  has  given  period    before     1840.     H.    T.    Cook's 

some    attention    to    the    material    side  Life  .  .  .  of  David   Rogerson   Williams 

of  the  problem  in  his  History  of  Manu-  has  a  few  pages  on  manufacturing  in 

factures  in  the   United  States  and  has  South  Carolina. 

two    pages    on    early    South    Carolina  *  Washington    University's    Studies, 

factories  in  The  South  in  the  Building  ii,  Pt.  ii,  243. 
of   the    Nation,    v,    320,    321.     August 


414  SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION     [On.  XIII 

In  1822  the  extreme  view  as  to  the  harmfulness  of  manu- 
facturing was  expressed  by  John  Taylor  of  Caroline  in  his 
'Tyranny  Unmasked."  Manufacturing  was  an  offering  to 
avarice,  he  wrote,  and  "the  people"  —  presumably  those 
of  the  United  States  as  a  whole  —  are  "worked"  out  of  sixty 
million  dollars  a  year  by  the  protective  system  and  banking. 
Governor  Troup  of  Georgia  stated  the  general  view  of  his 
section  when  he  wrote  that  no  evil  is  more  to  be  dreaded 
in  the  general  government  than  the  regulation  of  industry. 
The  example  he  gave  was  the  duty  of  five  cents  per  yard  on 
cotton  bagging.  This,  he  said,  was  levied  to  enable  the 
people  of  the  Western  States  to  supply  it  on  their  own  terms, 
but  the  proceeds  would  be  used  for  internal  improvements 
in  the  North.1  In  1826  a  bill  was  brought  into  Congress  by 
the  friends  of  the  American  Colonization  Society  for  the 
appropriation  of  a  sum  of  money  in  aid  of  that  enterprise.2 
Originally  the  colonization  scheme  had  been  favored  in  the 
Slave  States.  By  this  time,  however,  in  South  Carolina 
the  project  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  facili- 
tate emancipation  and  thereby  reduce  the  mass  of  available 
slave  labor.  The  "  Charleston  Mercury  "  of  April  24,  1830,3 
contained  a  fiery  letter  by  Henry  L.  Pinckney.  He  asked 
will  Congress  "violate  the  Constitution  by  legislating  on  a 
subject  with  which  it  is  expressly  forbidden  to  interfere"? 
Will  it  tax  the  people  of  the  South  for  schemes  leading  to 
their  destruction  and  do  this  at  the  "imminent  hazard  of 
rending  the  Union  to  atoms"?  Men  might  remonstrate 
about  internal  improvements  "by  which  one  section  of 
the  country  is  drained  and  fleeced  for  the  enrichment  of 

1  Harden's  Troup,  511.  apprehended  from  the  successful  carry- 

1  House    Reports,    21st    Cong.,     1st  ing  out  of  the  project. 
Sess.,    No.   348.     This   contains  in   an  3  Mr.   D.   Huger  Bacot  of  Charles- 

" Appendix"    a    mass    of    material    on  ton  kindly  called  my  attention  to  this 

Liberia  and  on  the  slave  trade  that  ap-  letter  and  copied  a  portion  of  it  for 

parently  attracted  the  attention  of  the  me. 
cotton  planters  to  the  dangers  to  be 


1826  THOMAS  COOPER  415 

others" ;  but  the  proposed  act  would  be  so  monstrous  and 
the  consequences  so  awful  that  the  Southern  States  would 
"burst  their  bonds  and,  at  all  hazards,  cast  off  a  govern- 
ment" which  could  thus  meditate  their  destruction.  These 
are  only  a  few  examples  that  might  be  largely  continued  1  to 
show  the  restlessness  of  the  Carolinians  under  what  they 
regarded  as  intolerable  burdens  and  oppressions. 

Of  all  the  fomenters  of  discord,  Thomas  Cooper,  an 
Englishman  by  birth  and  then  connected  with  the  University 
of  South  Carolina,  might  well  be  regarded  as  first  in  ability 
and  in  influence.  In  1826  he  published  his  "  Lectures  on  the 
Elements  of  Political  Economy."  In  this  book  he  de- 
clared that  no  government  had  ever  interfered  to  regulate 
trade  without  doing  mischief.  Government  was  instituted 
to  protect  and  not  to  direct,  and  every  individual  must 
judge  for  himself  in  these  matters.  In  1827,  Cooper  wrote 

1  See,  for  example,  Robert  J.  Turn-  By  Hamilton.     First  Published  in  the 

bull's    The   Crisis :    or,   Essays   on  the  Charleston  Courier  (Charleston,  1828) ; 

Usurpations     of    the     Federal     Govern-  The   Crisis:    A    Solemn   Appeal   to  the 

ment.     By   Brutus   (Charleston,    1827) ,  President  .  .  .  on  the  destructive  tendency 

p.    53:  —  "What  is  it   to  us  whether  of  the  present  policy  of  this  country  on 

the  great  Cumberland   Road   be   kept  its  agriculture,  manufacture,    commerce, 

in  repair  or  not?  .  .  .     Has  the  Gov-  and  finance  (Philadelphia,    1823);    the 

ernment    subscribed     to     our     Santee  "Colleton    Address     of     R.     Barnwell 

Canal    Company?  .  .  .     We    are    not  Smith  (Rhett) "  in  the  Charleston  Mer- 

yet    sufficiently    fleeced.     The    GREAT  cury  of  June  18,  1828;  a  "Letter"  de- 

SOUTHERN   GOOSE   will   yet   bear  more  scribing  the  feelings  of   the  people   of 

Plucking."     And    p.    112:  —  "As    for  the  interior  of  the  State  over  the  tariff 

myself,   I   cannot  conceive   a  measure  in  ibid.,  for  July  8,  1828;  and   Jame- 

more    fraught    with    permanent    mis-  son's  Correspondence  ofCalhoun,  403. 
chiel  and  ruin  to  the  Plantation  States,  *  Cooper's    Lectures,    138,    139    and 

than  the  Tariff.     It  is  not  simply  to  note,    142,    196.     These    Lectures    and 

tax  us  to  support  our  Northern  brethren,  Cooper's  Manual  of  Political  Economy 

but  it  is  also  to  destroy  all  our  means  together  with  Thomas  R.   Dew's  Lee 

to    acquire    the    ability    to    pay   those  tures  on  the  Restrictive   System  shaped 

taxes."     He  admits  that  the  Northern  Southern  sentiment  on  the  tariff  and 

manufacturers    now    furnished    "some  in  general  on  the  working  of  economic 

coarse  fabrics  cheaper  than  the  Eng-  laws   so   far   as   they    applied    to    the 

lish   dealer,"    but   he   is   protected   by  South.     See     also     "Letters     of     Dr. 

duties,  —  but     the     whole     pamphlet  Thomas    Cooper"     in    the    American 

should  be  read  to  understand  one  bun-  Historical    Review,     vi,     725.     H.     M. 

dredth  part  of  the  South  Carolina  mind  Ellis  has  brought  together  the  leading 

of  that  epoch.  facts  of  Cooper's  life  in  The  South  At- 

See  also  the  Review  of  a  Late  Pam-  lantic  Quarterly  for  1920. 
phlet,  under  the  Signature  of  "Brutus." 


416          SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND   NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 

to  Martin  Van  Buren  that  if  the  tariff  bill,  which  was  then 
being  debated  in  Congress,  should  be  carried,  the  South 
Carolina  legislature  would  be  ripe  for  a  motion  to  recall  the 
South  Carolinians  from  Congress.  And  if  the  American 
System  were  persisted  in,  the  State  would  separate  and  declare 
Charleston  a  free  port,  because  the  South  could  not  exist 
under  a  system  that  transfers  her  money  into  Northern 
pockets  without  an  equivalent.1  Other  writers  elaborated 
this  thesis  and  declared  that  imposts  are  in  the  nature  of  a 
bounty  upon  manufactures.  Upon  the  "staple  growing 
states"  fell  almost  the  entire  burden  of  supporting  the 
federal  government,  they  asserted,  but  only  one-twentieth  of 
the  revenue  raised  by  the  tariff  was  expended  in  that  section.2 
A  Southerner,  indeed,  was  in  contact  with  the  "emblems 
of  oppression,"  namely,  tariff-stimulated  Northern  manu- 
factures, from  the  time  he  went  to  bed  at  night  until  the 
close  of  the  next  day.3  His  sheets  were  from  Northern  mills 
and  so  was  his  clothing,  and  "the  very  light  of  heaven" 
came  to  him  through  "Boston  window  glass"  that  was 
heavily  charged  with  "tributary  taxation."  One  Georgia 
planter  declared  that  he  would  rather  sit  in  the  dark  than 
pay  tribute  to  the  Massachusetts  manufacturers.  With 

1 "  Van  Buren  Manuscripts "  in  the  vention    of    Merchants    and    Others    at 

Library    of    Congress    under    dates    of  Charleston,  April  15,  1839. 

July  5,  and  31,  1827.  Governor  Floyd  of  Virginia  in   his 

*  See  an  article  reprinted  from  the  Diary   under   date   of   April    30,    1832, 

"Southern  Review"  in  The  Free  Trade  writes  that  the  Northerners  claim  that 

Advocate,    i,    147.     The    "Cooper    line  Congress  had  the  right  to  lay  protec- 

of  argument"  was  set  forth  with  great  tive  taxes  upon  importations.     "Hence 

clarity  in  a  Memorial  of  the   [Charles-  all    the    states    to    the    South    of     the 

ton]  Chamber  of  Commerce  presented  to  Potomac  became  dependent  upon   the 

Congress  in  1827.     On  p.  9  it  is  stated  Northern  States  for  a  supply  of  what- 

that    "the    present    duty    on    woollens  ever  thing  they  might  want,  and  in  this 

is    equal    to    an     assessment    of    three  way  the  South  was  compelled   to  sell 

sixteenths  per  cent"  on  Southern  capi-  its    products    low    and    buy    from    the 

tal  and  formed  "an  annual  tax  of  be-  North    all     articles    it    needed,     from 

tween    60    and    70    thousand    dollars"  twenty-five  to  one  hundred  and  twenty- 

on  slave  cloths.     Another  clear  state-  five  per  cent  higher  than  from  France 

ment  of  the  theory  is  in  "The  Report  or  England." 

of    the    Committee    of    Twenty-one"  » The   Free   Trade   Advocate,   i,    133, 

in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Fourth  Con-  134. 


1830]  SOUTHERN   IDEAS 

these  ideas  in  their  minds,  the  proposition  that  a  surplus 
revenue  should  be  raised  by  means  of  tariff  imposts  to 
pay  for  internal  improvements  mostly  in  the  North  seemed 
to  Southerners  to  be  outrageous  in  the  highest  degree.1 
This  attitude  was  best  expressed  by  Langdon  Cheves  some 
years  later  when  he  wrote  that  resistance  to  the  insufferable 
and  insulting  oppression  of  the  North  was  justifiable.  He 
believed  that  the  threat  of  separation  would  bring  the  North 
to  terms ;  for  without  the  agriculture  of  the  South  and  the 
Southwest,  the  grass  would  grow  in  the  streets  of  the 
Northern  cities.2 

The  South  Carolinians  and  Georgians  had  no  objection 
to  government  ownership  and  operation  of  public  utilities 
in  themselves,  but  the  only  large  schemes  that  aroused  much 
interest  in  the  country  had  to  do  almost  entirely  with  the 
North  and,  according  to  their  view,  would  be  paid  for  by  the 
Southerners  through  increased  prices  for  the  clothing  and 
other  necessary  goods  for  their  slaves  and  themselves. 

The  Southerners  had  no  hostility  to  banks  and  banking, 
and  two  of  the  most  successful  State-owned  banks  were  in 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina.  The  opposition  that  arose  in 
that  section  to  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  grew  out  of  the 

1  The    following    figures    have    been       cember    20,    1830    (House    Documents, 
compiled   from  the   "Letter  from   the       21st  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  No.  11)  :  — 
Secretary    of    the    Treasury"    of    De- 

DlSBURSEMENTS  FOR   INTERNAL   IMPROVEMENTS   FROM    1789   TO    1830 

Old  North  (including  Md.  &  Del.) I    567,543.65 

Old  South 37,434.68 

Old  Northwest  &  Mich.  Terr 671,056.37 

New  South  (including  Ark.  &  Mo.) 224,704.40 

Florida 102,955-16 

Cumberland  Road 2,443,420.20 

Federal  Subscriptions  to  canals 1,083,500-00 

Improving  Miss.  &  Ohio  rivers 180.315.65 

Total  $5,310,930.11 

*  Letter  of  Langdon  Cheves  in  an  interesting  article  on  Cheves  in  the 
Southern  State  Rights,  Anti-Tariff  <fe  Papers  of  the  American  Historical  As- 
Anti-Abolition  Tract  No.  1.  There  is  sociation  for  1896,  p.  363. 

VOL.  v.  —  2E 


418  SOUTH  CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION    [Cn.  XIII 

erratic  conduct  of  that  institution.  Under  its  early  pres- 
idents, it  had  loaned  freely,  but  after  the  change  of  manage- 
ment in  the  early  twenties  one  curtailment  succeeded  another. 
As  the  mobile  capital  of  the  country  was  mainly  in  the 
North,  the  Southerners  soon  found  themselves  owing  large 
sums  of  money  to  creditors  on  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac. 
It  is  probable  also  that  in  this  respect,  as  in  others,  it  was  a 
change  in  business  methods  that  especially  annoyed  the 
South  Carolinians.  Formerly,  their  staples  had  gone  directly 
to  Liverpool  from  their  own  ports ;  now  they  went  through 
New  York,  and  their  business  instead  of  being  financed 
from  England  was  largely  arranged  from  New  York; 
and  the  credits  allowed  by  American  bankers  were  much 
shorter  than  those  that  had  been  allowed  by  the  Englishmen. 
For  all  these  reasons  it  was  not  at  all  unnatural  that  Southern 
planters  should  look  with  hostile  eyes  upon  Northern  capi- 
talists and  oppose  whatever  schemes  were  brought  into  the 
federal  Congress  for  the  building  up  of  Northern  industry 
and  navigation. 

It  happened  most  unfortunately  that  the  hard  times  that 
began  in  1818  and  lasted  over  into  the  twenties  impelled  the 
Northern  manufacturers  to  appeal  to  Congress  again  for 
assistance  in  the  shape  of  increased  protection  to  their 
industries.  This  movement  resulted  in  the  Tariff  Act  of 
1824.  It  was  not  a  high  tariff  in  any  way,  but  it  was  the 
first  truly  protective  tariff  in  our  history.  The  attitude  of 
the  Southerners  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  of  the 
fifty-six  or  fifty-eight  members  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives from  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  and  the  five  Cotton 
States  to  the  southward,  only  one  —  Johnson  of  Virginia, 
from  the  Monongahela  District  —  voted  for  it.1  In  1827,  a 

1  Journal  of  the  House  of  Represen-      Calhoun,    i,    274 ;     and    Ames's    Stale 
tatives,    18th    Cong.,     1st    Sess.,    428,      Documents,  iv,  12. 
429;    W.   M.   Meigs's    John    CaldweU 


1830]  SOUTHERN   IDEAS  419 

convention  of  the  Friends  of  Domestic  Industry  met  at 
Harrisburg  in  Pennsylvania  and  called  for  more  protection. 
This  in  turn  excited  the  South  Carolinians  to  renewed 
agitation,  and  the  State  legislature  adopted  a  report  and 
resolutions  declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  "a  compact  between  the  people  of  the  different 
States  with  each  other,  as  separate,  independent  sovereign- 
ties, "  and  the  view  that  the  Constitution  emanated  from 
the  people  as  a  whole  was  a  dangerous  doctrine.  Georgia 
and  North  Carolina  also  protested  against  the  protective 
system.  The  actual  passage  of  the  Tariff  of  Abominations 
in  1828  gave  the  signal  for  more  radical  demonstrations. 
Governor  Taylor  of  South  Carolina,  in  a  message  to  the  legis- 
lature, advised  that  the  act  should  be  declared  unconstitu- 
tional and  that  adequate  measures  should  be  taken  to  enforce 
the  action  of  the  State. 

John  C.  Calhoun  now  comes  to  the  front.  In  earlier 
years  he  had  advocated  internal  improvements  and  pro- 
tection to  industry  and  had  sponsored  the  act  chartering  the 
second  Bank  of  the  United  States.1  Apparently  during 
Monroe's  administration,  he  had  seen  nothing  wrong  in 
these  policies ;  but  now  he  took  charge  of  the  rhetorical 
campaign  and  used  his  great  powers  of  analysis  and  of 
literary  expression  to  put  the  best  face  possible  upon  the 
proposition  that  a  State  could  refuse  obedience  to  an  act  of 
Congress  and  at  the  same  time  not  be  in  a  condition  of 
rebellion.  Calhoun's  change  of  front  has  naturally  caused 
much  trouble  to  his  biographers  and  to  students  of  the 

1  Calhoun's  actions  and  early  opin-  written  by  a  Southerner.    "Calhoun  as 

ions   on   these   matters   are   admirably  Seen   by   his   Political   Friends,    1831- 

set  forth  in   Measures,   Not  Men.     II-  1848,"  in  the  Publications  of  the  South- 

lustraled    by  Some    Remarks   upon  .  .  .  ern  History  Association,  vii,   159,   353, 

John  C.  Calhoun.     By  a  Citizen  of  New  419,  is  an  interesting  series  of  minutes 

York.     This    was    published    in    1823  of  unpublished  letters  from  Duff  Green, 

and  judging  by  the  subject  matter  was  D.  H.  Lewis,  and  R.  K.  Cralle. 


420          SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION     [Ca.  XIII 

nullification  episode.  Houston  gives  one  the  impression 
that  he  looks  upon  it  as  an  instance  of  Calhoun's  time  serv- 
ing and  restoration  of  his  political  fences ;  Von  Hoist  seems 
to  regard  it  as  the  natural  action  of  a  slaveholder.  It  would 
seem  that  Houston  was  nearer  right  and  that  political  con- 
siderations and  not  convictions  caused  Calhoun  to  assume 
leadership.  After  all,  the  dearest  wish  of  his  life  was  the 
attainment  of  the  President's  Palace.  Seldom  has  a  man 
succeeded  in  reaching  that  goal  who  has  not  had  his  State  be- 
hind him,  or,  at  all  events,  has  not  had  the  indorsement 
of  his  own  political  party  in  his  own  State.  Calhoun  wrote 
the  report  of  the  committee  of  the  State  legislature  on 
Governor  Taylor's  message  which  was  adopted  in  December, 
1828,  and  made  public  early  in  1829. 1  For  a  time,  his 
authorship  was  kept  secret,  probably  because  it  might  have 
seemed  ill-fitting  for  the  Vice-President  to  affix  his  name  to 
a  document  justifying  the  annulment  of  an  act  of  Congress. 
Jefferson,  in  writing  the  Kentucky  Resolutions  of  1798, 
had  done  precisely  this  thing,  but  he,  too,  had  carefully  cov- 
ered up  the  traces  of  his  participation.  The  nullification 
doctrine,  as  one  finds  it  in  the  "Exposition"  of  1828  and  in 
Calhoun's  speech  on  the  Force  Bill  in  1833,2  rests  on  the 
assumption  that  the  people  of  each  State  was  sovereign  at 

1  The  "Exposition"  and  "Report"  of  them."  American  Historical  .Re- 
are  printed  in  Cralle's  Works  of  Cal-  view,  xiii,  311.  Probably  Crallfe's  text 
houn,  vi.  According  to  the  "Preface"  best  represents  the  thoughts  of  Cal- 
these  are  copied  "from  the  originals  houn.  Sundry  resolutions  that  were 
in  the  handwriting  of  the  author.  introduced  into  the  legislature  are 
The  first  varies  somewhat  from  the  printed  in  the  Southern  History  As- 
printed  copy."  The  "  Exposition  "  sociation's  Publications,  iii,  212. 
and  "  Report  "  are  in  Niles's  Register  '  The  1833  speech  may  most  conven- 
and  in  the  official  publications  of  iently  be  found  in  Calhoun's  Works, 
Congress  and  of  South  Carolina  (Ames's  ii,  197.  Possibly  the  case  is  more 
State  Documents,  iv,  20).  R.  Barn-  clearly  stated  in  Chancellor  William 
well  Rhett,  writing  in  1854,  stated  Harper's  address  that  was  delivered 
that  the  "Exposition"  was  "greatly  at  Columbia  on  September  20,  1830, 
altered  by  the  Committee.  .  .  .  Mr.  and  printed  in  1832  under  the  title  of 
Calhoun  had  nothing  to  do  with  these  The  Remedy  by  State  Interposition, 
corrections  and  I  know  disapproved  Nullification;  explained  and  advocated. 


18281  CALHOUN'S   EXPOSITION  421 

the  time  of  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  and,  in  ratify- 
ing that  instrument,  acted  in  its  separate  and  sovereign 
capacity.  The  Constitution,  therefore,  was  a  compact  to 
which  each  State  was  a  party  and  each  one  of  them  had  a 
right  to  judge  of  its  infractions  and  to  interpose  to  main- 
tain the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  State  within  its  limits. 
The  general  government  is  only  "the  joint  agent  of  two 
distinct  sovereignties"  and  the  Union  is  "a  union  of  States 
as  communities,  and  not  a  union  of  individuals"  and  there 
is  no  immediate  connection  between  individuals  and  the 
general  government.  It  followed,  therefore,  that  the  people 
of  a  State  in  its  sovereign  capacity  could  declare  an  act  of 
the  federal  government  null  and  void  and  not  binding  on 
it,  and  could  by  legislative  action  protect  the  citizens  of 
that  State  against  the  federal  government.  The  scene  of 
action  now  shifts  to  Washington  and  centres  about  the  person 
of  Daniel  Webster. 

The  history  of  Webster's  famous  series  of  speeches  which 
have  come  to  be  known  collectively  as  the  "  Reply  to  Hayne" 
has  never  been  written,  although  they  were  probably  the 
most  famous  speeches  ever  delivered  in  the  national  Senate.1 
The  usual  story  is  that  Senator  Foote  of  Connecticut  moved 
the  adoption  of  a  resolution  which  seemed  to  the  Westerners 
to  be  part  and  parcel  of  a  scheme  to  curb  migration  to  that 
region.  The  Westerners  objecting,  the  Southerners  thought 
they  saw  the  opportunity  to  separate  the  two  groups  of 

1  On  Webster  see  Edward  Everett's  of  the  Constitution  (New  York,   1905) ; 

Works  of  Daniel  Webster  (6  vols.,  Bos-  and  Lodge's  Webster  in  the  American 

ton,  1851)  ;   Fletcher  Webster's  Private  Statesmen  series.     Wheeler's  book  con- 

Correspondence    of  Daniel    Webster    (2  tains  a  good  deal  of  legal  information 

vols.,  Boston,  1857) ;    The  Writings  and  in  an  understandable  form ;  but  Lodge's 

Speeches   of  Daniel    Webster    (National  Webster  will  satisfy  the  needs  of  nearly 

Edition,      18     vols.,     Boston,      1903) ;  every    one.     Peter    Harvey's  Reminis- 

Van   Tyne's  Letters   of  Daniel   Webster  cences   and   Anecdotes   of  Daniel    Web- 

from    Documents    (New    York,    1902) ;  ster   (Boston,    1877)   ia   the   tribute    of 

G.  T.  Curtis's  Life  of  Daniel  Webster  an  old    friend;     but    oftentimes    lacks 

(2    vols.,    New    York,    1870);     E.    P.  vitality. 
Wheeler's  Daniel  Webster,  the  Expounder 


422          SOUTH   CAROLINA   AND  NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 

Northerners  by  joining  forces  with  the  West.  In  his  first 
speech,  Senator  Hayne,1  whose  voice  was  described  as  like 
"morning's  music  on  the  air,"  confined  himself  to  justify- 
ing the  aggrieved  feelings  of  the  Westerners.  It  was  then 
that  Webster  gently  drew  him  away  from  that  theme  into 
setting  forth  the  South  Carolina  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people  of  the  States.  Having  achieved  this,  Webster 
fell  upon  him  with  pll  the  might  of  his  power  of  mind  and 
of  speech  in  sentences  that  have  long  thrilled  the  American 
heart  and  might  well  be  repeated  every  Fourth  of  July 
after  the  reading  of  the  immortal  Declaration.  He  was 
really  replying  to  Calhoun  and  the  South  Carolinians,  and 
it  may  well  be  that  the  whole  thing  was  a  shrewdly  devised 
scheme  to  provide  a  proper  setting  for  the  enunciation  of 
the  Union  doctrine.  The  Constitution,  Webster  declared, 
was  "the  people's  Constitution."  The  government  was 
the  people's  government ;  "  made  for  the  people,  made  by  the 
people,  and  answerable  to  the  people.  .  .  .  The  general 
government  and  the  State  governments  derived  their  author- 
ity from  the  same  source."  In  cases  of  conflict  a  method 
of  relief  had  been  provided  in  the  Federal  Judiciary,  in 
frequent  elections,  and  in  the  power  of  amendment.  It 
cannot  be  overthrown  by  direct  assault  and  will  not  be 
"evaded,  undermined,  nullified"  if  the  representatives  of 
the  people  conscientiously  discharge  the  public  trust  com- 
mitted to  them. 

Andrew  Jackson  held  to  the  full  the  Southern  ideas  as 
to  the  undesirability  of  internal  improvements  at  federal 
expense.  He  thought  there  was  no  justification  to  raise  a 
surplus  revenue  by  taxation  of  goods  imported  into  the 

1  Theodore    D.    Jervey's    Robert    Y.  ton,  1878)  give  one  a  certain   amount 

Hayne    and    his    Times    (New    York,  of  knowledge  of  South  Carolina  hopes 

1909)   and  Paul  H.   Hayne's  Lives  of  and   fears,    but   Hayne   deserves   even 

.  .  .  Hayne  and  .  .  •  Legate   (Charles-  more  extended  commemoration. 


1830)  JACKSON  AND  STATES'-RIGHTS  423 

country.  He  distrusted  banks  and  bankers  and  espe- 
cially doubted  the  wisdom  and  good  faith  of  many  officials 
of  the  United  States  Bank.  In  all  these  matters,  he  agreed 
with  the  South  Carolinians  and  with  the  other  cotton 
planters.  But  there  he  stopped.  He  had  saved  the  Union 
at  New  Orleans  and  he  would  brook  no  interference  with  it. 
To  him  the  Union  was  sacred.  He  was  a  States'-rights 
man,  like  most  other  Southerners,  but  that  dogma  should 
never  be  used  to  justify  action  derogatory  to  the  continu- 
ance of  the  Union.  It  is  rather  singular  that  the  South 
Carolina  leaders  should  not  have  realized  what  Jackson's 
real  feelings  on  the  matter  were ;  but  most  of  them  had  no 
conception  of  the  strength  of  his  affection  for  the  Union 
or  realized  the  length  to  which  he  would  go  in  the  perform- 
ance of  what  he  looked  upon  as  his  duty.  The  "Tariff  of 
Abominations"  had  been  a  distinctly  Jacksonian  election- 
eering device,  but  the  leaders  of  Charleston  and  Columbia 
refused  to  see  in  it  anything  but  a  Northern  attempt  still 
further  to  tax  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  people  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Potomac.  The  election  of  Jackson  was  so  prob- 
able, however,  that  they  postponed  action  until  he  should  be 
in  the  presidential  mansion,  when  they  could  act  with  a 
freer  hand.1  For  two  years  afterwards,  there  was  a  strange 
calm  in  South  Carolina  which  was  ended  by  the  passage  of 
the  Adams  Tariff  of  1832.  Meantime  Jackson's  feelings 
had  been  aroused  against  the  chief  of  the  nullifiers,  or  the 
person  who  seemed  to  be  the  chief  of  the  nullifiers,  John  C. 
Calhoun,  then  Vice-President  of  the  United  States. 

In  1818,  at  the  time  of  Jackson's  raid  into  Florida  and 

1  In  resolutions  that  were  submitted  just,     moderate     and     impartial     ad- 
to    the   South    Carolina   legislature   in  ministration  of  public  affairs" ;    South- 
December,  1828,  the  "happy  election"  ern     History     Association's     Publica- 
of  Jackson  is  adverted  to  as  holding  lions,  iii,  216. 
it  "a  well-founded  hope  of  a  more 


424          SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND   NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 

the  execution  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister,  Calhoun,  who 
was  then  Secretary  of  War,  had  proposed  in  Cabinet  meeting, 
that  the  over  energetic  general  should  be  placed  under  an 
arrest  and  brought  before  a  military  court  of  inquiry. 
President  Monroe  and  the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet, 
except  the  Secretary  of  State,  had  felt  much  the  same  way 
as  had  Calhoun,  and  it  was  John  Quincy  Adams  who  single- 
handed  had  defended  Jackson  against  his  chief  and  all  the 
other  members  of  the  Cabinet,  and  had  gained  his  point. 
It  fell  to  Calhoun,  however,  to  communicate  the  decision  of 
the  government  to  Jackson  and  the  latter  had  concluded  that 
it  was  Calhoun  who  had  defended  him.  For  years  Jack- 
son and  Calhoun  maintained  the  friendliest  relations.  Cal- 
houn wrote  to  Jackson  in  1826  that  his  name"would  be  found 
in  the  future,  "as  it  always  has  been  on  the  side  of  liberty 
and  your  country,"  and  Jackson,  on  his  part,  had  toasted 
Calhoun  as  "An  honest  man  —  the  noblest  work  of  God." 
Some  time  after  1824,  but  exactly  when  cannot  be  stated, 
and,  indeed,  is  immaterial,  those  around  Jackson  began  to 
hear  suggestions  that  it  was  Calhoun  who  had  been  Jack- 
son's enemy  in  1818.  The  first  authentic  information  of  this 
came  to  William  B.  Lewis  indirectly  from  Crawford,  and. 
although  it  was  indirect,  it  was  evidently  worthy  of  credence. 
Lewis  kept  this  knowledge  to  himself  for  a  year  or  so  until  it 
seemed  that  the  time  had  come  to  excite  President  Jackson's 
feelings  against  the  Vice-President.  Then  it  was  done  so 
craftily  that  the  General  could  not  fail  to  notice  it,  but  at 
the  same  time  was  not  in  any  way  aroused  to  take  Calhoun's 
part.  The  first  information  had  come  in  a  letter  from  John 
Forsyth,  who  merely  reported  what  Crawford  had  said  to 
him.  Jackson  declared  that  he  could  take  no  notice  of 
the  matter  until  information  came  directly  from  Crawford. 
Thereupon,  he  was  written  to  and  he  replied  in  almost  the 


1830]  JACKSON   AND   CALHOUN  425 

exact  language  of  the  letter  to  Forsyth.  Jackson  forwarded 
Crawford's  letter  to  Calhoun  with  a  request  for  an  explana- 
tion and  received  one  or  more  1  which,  however,  could  not 
explain  what  was  unexplainable.  Jackson  now  was  fully 
convinced  of  "the  duplicity  &  insincerity  of  the  man, 
.  .  .  the  entire  want  of  those  high,  dignified,  &  honorable 
feelings  which  I  once  thought  he  possessed"  and  left  him  to 
"the  gnawings  of  a  guilty  conscience."  And  it  would  seem 
on  the  surface  that  there  was  some  reason  for  Jackson's 
stigma,  for  when  John  C.  Hamilton,  who  had  Forsyth's 
letter  in  his  custody,  asked  Calhoun  whether  any  motion 
had  been  made  in  the  Cabinet  meeting  at  the  time  of  the 
Seminole  affair  to  bring  Jackson  before  a  military  court, 
Calhoun  had  answered  2  that  "  no  such  motion  had  been 
made."  This  was  literally  true,  as  Calhoun  had  only  pro- 
posed or  suggested  that  Jackson's  conduct  should  be  in- 
quired into.  One  thing  was  certain,  that  Calhoun's  hopes 
of  succession  to  the  presidency  or,  indeed,  to  any  leading 
part  in  the  Democratic  organization,  were  entirely  at  an  end, 
until  time  should  remove  Andrew  Jackson  from  his  hold 
on  the  party  What  effect  the  rupture  with  Calhoun  had  on 
Jackson's  treatment  of  nullification  is  by  no  means  clear. 
It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  irritation  he  certainly 
felt  toward  Calhoun  may  have  influenced  him ;  but  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  absolutely  clear,  clear  as  anything  is  in 
history,  that  Andrew  Jackson  would  have  done  his  duty 
as  he  saw  it,  and  long  before  this  time  his  devotion  to  the 

1  See    Correspondence    between    Gen.  Hamilton's   account   which   is   printed 
Andrew    Jackson    and    John    C.    Col-  on  the  preceding  page  differs  somewhat 
houn.     President     and     Vice-President  in   the   phraseology,   Calhoun   denying 
of  the    U.   States   (Washington,    1831) ;  that  the   propriety   of   arresting  Gen- 
reprinted  in  the  "Appendix"  to  Crallc's  eral    Jackson    was    "discussed."     The 
Works  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  vol.  vi.  episode  is  treated  at  length  in  Meigs's 

2  NUes's  Weekly  Register,  xl,  p.  42.  Calhoun,   i,   401.     Bassett  in   his   An- 
This   is   Calhoun's   own    statement   of  drew   Jackson    (ii,    502-512)    gives   by 
the      conversation      with      Hamilton.  far  the  best  account  of  this  intrigue. 


426          SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION    [CH.  XIII 

Union  had  been  clearly  expressed.  Jackson's  diction  and 
grammar  are  not  often  those  of  the  schoolmaster,  but  when 
his  mind  was  excited,  he  could  express  himself  so  plainly 
that  few  persons  could  misunderstand  him,  notwithstanding 
faults  of  punctuation,  spelling,  and  grammar.  It  was  in  a 
letter  to  his  wife's  nephew  and  his  old  comrade  in  arms, 
General  John  Coffee,  that  he  wrote  it  was  absurd  to  hold  that 
"a  state  has  a  right  to  secede  &  destroy  this  union  .  .  . 
or  nullify  the  laws  of  the  union.  .  .  .  The  people  are  the 
sovereigns,  they  can  altar  &  amend  .  .  .  but  the  moral 
obligations  is  binding  upon  all  to  fulfill  the  obligations.  .  .  . 
Therefore,  when  a  faction  in  a  state  attempts  to  nullify 
a  constitutional  law  of  congress  .  .  .  the  ballance  of  the 
people  composing  this  union  have  a  perfect  right  to  coerce 
them  to  obedience."  l  He  had  a  passionate  love  for  the 
Union,  "The  union  must  be  preserved  ...  I  will  die  with 
the  union."  That  his  own  people  could  have  misunder- 
stood him  seems  almost  incredible ;  but  Jackson  had  a 
sphinx-like  capacity  for  concealing  his  thoughts  until 
the  time  came  to  exhibit  them.  As  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in 
the  midst  of  the  bank  contest,  a  military  man  keeps  his 
army  in  reserve  until  the  time  comes  to  use  it.  Partly  to 
discover  his  thoughts  and  partly  to  pledge  him  to  them- 
selves, the  Southerners  got  up  a  banquet  on  the  anniversary 
of  Jefferson's  birth  and  invited  Jackson  to  be  the  guest  of 
honor.  He  took  his  place  at  the  table  and  when  the  time 
came  stood  up,  and,  to  the  dismay  of  his  hearers,  proposed 
a  toast  "Our  federal  union,  —  it  must  be  preserved!" 
How  any  one  could  have  misinterpreted  his  sentiment  after 
that  is  a  mystery,  but  they  tried  to  explain  his  words  to 
mean  much  the  same  as  their  own.2  On  May  1,  1833,  Jack- 

1  American  Historical  Magazine,  iv,       ii,  569,  570. 

236,    237.   Given    in    part   with    some  *  Henry    Barnard,     writing    in    hia 

changes  in  Bassett's    Andrew  Jackson,      journal  at  Beaufort,   South  Carolina, 


1832]  TARIFF   ACT  427 

son  wrote  to  an  humble  relative  who  had  not  got  the  precise 
office  he  had  wished  and  having  explained  that,  went  on  to 
say  something  about  nullification,  for  its  "actors  and 
exciters"  will  be  execrated  by  the  people  and  "Hainan's 
gallows  ought  to  be  the  fate  of  all  such  ambitious  men, 
who  would  involve  their  country  in  civil  wars  .  .  .  that 
they  might  reign  and  ride  on  its  whirlwinds  and  direct  the 
storm."  It  was  in  this  letter,  too,  that  Jackson  wrote  that 
the  tariff  was  only  the  pretext  for  nullification,  which  had 
disunion  and  a  Southern  confederacy  as  its  real  object; 
the  "next  pretext  will  be  the  negro,  or  slavery,  question."  1 
For  a  couple  of  years  the  nullifiers  kept  quiet  until  in 
1832  the  passage  of  the  new  tariff  law  seemed  to  give  them 
a  chance  to  renew  the  agitation.  The  act  of  1832  was  prob- 
ably the  most  equitable  tariff  law  that  had  been  passed  for 
twenty  years ;  but  owing  to  the  necessity  of  securing  major- 
ity votes  in  Congress  its  provisions  were  not  such  as  would 
commend  themselves  to  any  one  political  party  or  group.2 
In  other  words,  it  was  a  compromise  and,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  had  not  gone  far  enough  to  satisfy  those  who  dreaded 
a  surplus  because  of  its  effect  on  the  morals  of  politicians. 
Nor  had  it  at  all  satisfied  those  who  held  what  J.  Q.  Adams 
was  pleased  to  call  the  "Mulatto  doctrine  of  political  econ- 
omy," 3  which  was  that  two-thirds  of  the  federal  revenue 

April  30,  1833,  states  that  the  "leading  traders  can  be  best  seen  in  An  Exposi- 
men  of  this  State  had  the  surest  tion  of  the  Unequal,  Unjiist  and  Op- 
pledges  that  Jackson  was  with  them  pressive  Operation  of  the  present  tariff 
in  their  views  of  the  Constitution.  system  in  relation  to  Iron,  Wool,  Hemp, 
.  .  .  Their  hatred  of  him  amounts  to  Paper  .  .  .  by  a  Select  Committee  op- 
madness."  Maryland  Historical  Maga-  pointed  by  the  Free  Trade  Convention 
zine,  xiii,  361.  (Philadelphia,  1832). 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  So-  *  American  Historical  Review,  xi, 

ciety's  Proceedings,  viii,  172,  and  2nd  340.  The  phrase  "Mulatto  doctrine" 

Series,  vol.  xiv,  371.  refers  to  the  "forty  bale  theory"  of 

1  See  Massachusetts  Historical  So-  McDuffie  of  South  Carolina:  —  "If 

ciety's  Proceedings  for  December,  1905,  the  duties  upon  imports  were  levied 

and  Brooks  Adams's  Introduction  in  kind,  and  the  planters  made  their 

to  The  Degradation  of  the  Democratic  own  exchanges  with  the  foreign  manu- 

Idea.  The  ideas  of  the  Northern  free  facturers,  without  the  intervention 


428 


SOUTH    CAROLINA   AND   NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 


being  derived  from  a  tax  on  imported  goods,  some  of  which 
were  used  in  the  Southern  States,  was  really  "a  tax  upon 
the  export  of  Cotton!"  It  makes  no  difference  whatever 
whether  the  law  was  harmful  to  Southern  interests  or  not, 
a  majority  of  the  ruling  class  in  South  Carolina  believed 
that  it  was  injurious.  When  the  legislature  met,  it  was 
clear  that  the  majority  was  distinctly  on  the  side  of  State 
interposition.1  With  some  difficulty,  two-thirds  of  the 
legislature  voted  to  call  a  State  convention  for  the  purpose 
of  considering  the  condition  of  affairs  and  taking  such  action 
in  the  name  of  the  sovereign  people  of  South  Carolina  as 
seemed  best  in  the  circumstances.  As  the  election  of 
members  of  the  convention  was  conducted  on  the  same  rules 
that  prevailed  as  to  the  election  of  members  of  the  legisla- 
ture, it  represented  precisely  the  same  mass  of  opinion. 
The  Union  men  or  anti-nullifiers  took  a  lukewarm  part  in 
the  election  because  the  case  seemed  to  be  pre-judged. 
The  nullifiers  had  a  great  majority  and  were  able  to  carry 
their  desires  into  action  without  very  much  discussion  and 


either  of  money  or  commercial  agents, 
the  most  unreflecting  would  perceive 
that  the  import  duties  were  direct 
taxes  upon  the  productions  of  the 
planters.  If,  for  example,  forty  bales 
of  cotton  were  taken  out  of  every  hun- 
dred when  it  passed  the  customhouse, 
going  abroad,  it  would  be  impossible 
for  them  to  obtain  any  larger  quantity 
of  goods  for  the  remaining  sixty,  in 
consequence  of  this  levy ;  because  the 
agents  of  the  Government  would 
carry  the  other  forty  into  the  foreign 
market,  and,  of  course,  the  supply 
would  be  undiminished "  (House  Re- 
ports, 22nd  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  279). 
An  interesting  critique  of  this  report 
is  the  speech  of  Nathan  Appleton  of 
Massachusetts  of  May  30,  1832,  in 
Gales  &  Seaton's  Register  of  Debates, 
viii,  Pt.  iii,  3188;  also  printed  sepa- 
rately. The  extreme  South  Caro- 
lina view  is  succinctly  set  forth  in  The 


Prospect  Before  Us;  or  Strictures  on 
the  Late  Message  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States  .  .  .  By  Aristides 
(Charleston,  1832).  McDufEe's  re- 
port should  be  read  by  every  student 
who  wishes  to  understand  the  South- 
ern point  of  view  and  may  be  regn- 
forced  by  a  passage  in  one  of  Calhoun's 
letters  in  American  Historical  As- 
sociation's Report  for  1899,  vol.  ii,  pp. 
401-404. 

1  Various  details  —  mostly  of  little 
historical  value  —  can  be  found  in 
Henry  D.  Capers'  Life  and  Times  of 
C.  G.  Memminger  (Richmond,  1893, 
pp.  37  and  fol.) ;  W.  J.  Grayson's 
James  Louis  Petigru.  A  Biographi- 
cal Sketch  (New  York,  1866);  and 
"George  McDuffie"  in  J.  H.  Car- 
lisle, Jr.'s  Addresses  of  J.  H.  Car- 
lisle (Columbia,  S.  C.,  1910)  p.  208  and 
fol. 


1832]  NULLIFICATION  429 

without  any  delay.  The  convention  met  November  19, 
1832,  and  passed  a  Nullification  Ordinance  declaring  the 
federal  tariff  act  of  1832  to  be  null  and  void.  They  also 
called  upon  the  State  legislature  to  pass  the  necessary  laws 
to  protect  the  people  in  their  disobedience  to  the  federal 
law  and  to  prevent  the  United  States  authorities  from 
enforcing  it.  The  legislature  at  once  responded  and  passed 
a  series  of  laws  that  were  most  comprehensive  and  well 
designed  to  produce  the  results  that  were  aimed  at.  It 
authorized  the  raising  of  a  volunteer  military  force  and 
appropriated  money  for  the  purchase  of  arms.  The  legis- 
lature also  adopted  resolutions  declaring  it  to  be  expedient 
"that  a  Convention  of  the  States  be  called"  to  consider 
questions  that  had  arisen  "between  the  States  of  the  con- 
federacy and  the  General  Government"  ;  but  this  plan  met 
with  slight  favor. 

Senator  Hayne  now  became  governor  of  South  Carolina 
and  exchanged  speech-making  for  the  administration  of  the 
State  in  one  of  the  three  most  critical  times  in  its  history. 
He  took  the  necessary  steps  to  enroll  and  train  a  military 
force,  a  portion  of  which  consisted  of  mounted  minute 
patrolmen.  How  effective  this  force  was,  or  would  have 
been  had  it  ever  been  properly  supplied  with  arms  and 
trained,  we  cannot  say.1  We  have  definite  information 
as  to  it,  but  as  to  the  opposing  forces  provided  by  the  Union- 
ists, possibly  in  a  more  inchoate  condition,  we  have  no 
tangible  information,  except  that  the  Union  men  were 
feared  by  the  nullifiers.  How  much  this  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  Union  men  had  the  confidence  of  President 
Jackson  is  not  perfectly  clear.  Jackson  was  in  secret  corre- 
spondence with  Poinsett  and  some  other  leading  Unionist 

'"Letters  on  the  Nullification  1834,"  in  American  Historical  Review, 
Movement  in  South  Carolina,  1830-  vi,  736-765,  vii,  92-119. 


430          SOUTH  CAROLINA  AND  NULLIFICATION     [Cn.  XIII 

men  in  the  State.  He  made  provision  for  the  assembling 
of  large  forces  and  for  providing  them  with  arms,  but  also 
insisted  that  these  should  be  kept  from  sight  until  the  time 
came  to  act.  He  sent  a  few  hundred  soldiers  to  Charles- 
ton, an  extra  revenue  cutter  or  two,  a  ship  of  war,  and, 
much  more  important  than  any  of  these,  General  Win- 
field  Scott,  who  certainly  performed  a  very  useful  task  in 
heartening  the  anti-nullifiers,  making  plans  for  military 
movements,  and  in  keeping  the  iron  hand  very  well  con- 
cealed within  the  military  glove,  —  although  the  presence 
of  the  military  glove  was  quite  evident.  Nathaniel  Jarvis, 
a  Massachusetts  man,  happened  to  arrive  off  Charleston 
harbor  in  the  Spanish  brig  Hermosa  from  Havana  on  the 
first  day  of  February,  1833.  When  within  three  miles  of 
the  port,  the  United  States  revenue  cutter  Alert  ran  along- 
side and  ordered  the  captain  to  drop  anchor  until  he  could 
give  bonds  to  secure  the  duties  on  his  cargo  or  pay  the  prob- 
able amount  in  dollars.  Jarvis  describes  the  condition 
of  affairs  at  Charleston  after  his  landing  as  "nigh  rebellion 
as  one  could  well  be  without  having  made  any  overt  acts."  l 
The  other  Cotton  States  showed  slight  sympathy  with 
South  Carolina  and  no  intention  of  following  her  into  nulli- 
fication. In  Virginia  the  planters  of  the  old  tide-water 
region  seemed  to  agree  with  the  nullifiers,  but  they  were 
held  in  check  by  the  members  of  the  legislature  from  the 
western  counties,  and  all  that  they  could  do  was  to  secure 
the  appointment  of  a  "commissioner"  to  go  to  South 
Carolina  and  ask  her  to  take  more  time.  North  Carolina 
was  opposed  to  both  her  neighbors,  one  of  her  leading  men, 
William  Gaston,  declaring  that  it  would  be  better  for  her 
to  "personate  the  drowsy  hero  of  Washington  Irving,  than 

1  Journal   kept   by  Nathaniel  Jarvia       J.  Stille's  Life  and  Service  of  Joel  R. 
of   a   trip   to   Havana   and  return   by      Poinaeti. 
way  of  Charleston.     See  also  Charles 


1832]  JACKSON'S   PROCLAMATION  431 

excite  the  mingled  horror  and  ridicule  of  mankind  by  repre- 
senting the  combined  characters  of  Captain  Bobadil  and 
Cataline."  l  In  January,  1833,  Jackson  asked  for  the  pas- 
sage of  an  act  giving  him  powers  adequate  to  meet  the  crisis, 
and  he  had  already  issued  a  proclamation,  December  10,  1832, 
informing  the  people  of  his  "native  State,"  as  he  always 
regarded  South  Carolina,  that  "Disunion  by  armed  force 
is  treason.  Are  you  really  ready  to  incur  its  guilt?  .  .  . 
On  your  unhappy  State  will  inevitably  fall  all  the  evils  of 
the  conflict  you  force  upon  the  Government  of  your  country. 
It  can  not  accede  to  the  mad  project  of  disunion,  of  which 
you  would  be  the  first  victims.  Its  First  Magistrate  can 
not,  if  he  would,  avoid  the  performance  of  his  duty."  2  He 
also  suggested  a  modification  of  the  tariff  system.  In  point 
of  fact  very  many  good  people  at  the  time  were  convinced 
that  protection  had  been  carried  too  far  and  should  be 
abated.  This  opinion  had  been  growing  regardless  of 
South  Carolina  nullification,  which,  however,  brought  tariff 
revision  within  the  range  of  practical  politics  at  that  precise 
moment.  For  once,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Webster  acted 
together;  the  first  named  to  save  what  he  could  of  the 
American  System,  the  second  to  rescue  his  fellow  nullifiers 
from  the  edge  of  Jackson's  wrath,  and  the  third  to  preserve 
the  Union.  The  result  was  that  the  Force  Bill  and  Clay's 
Compromise  Tariff  were  passed  at  the  same  time  and 
approved  by  President  Jackson.3  And  this  was  the  end, 

1  Records  of  the  American  Catholic  "Compromise  Tariff"  provided  for  a 

Historical  Society  of  Philadelphia,  vi,  gradual  reduction  of  duties  spread  over 

236.  ten  years,  one-tenth  of  the  existing 

•These  exact  ideas  in  different  Ian-  duties  above  "twenty  per  centum  on 

guage  may  be  found  in  Lincoln's  First  the  value  thereof"  to  be  taken  off 

Inaugural;  see  Richardson's  Mes-  every  other  year  until  1841,  when  one- 

sages  and  Papers,  vi,  p.  11.  half  of  the  residue  should  be  removed, 

*  F.  L.  Nussbaum  has  brought  the  and  in  1842,  the  other  half,  bringing 

leading  facts  together  within  reason-  the  tariff  down  to  the  horizontal  rate 

able  compass  in  The  South  Atlantic  of  twenty  per  cent.  See  Statutes  at 

rly  for  October,  1912.  The  Large,  iv,  629.  The  other  law  was 


432 


SOUTH   CAROLINA  AND   NULLIFICATION     [Ca.  XIII 


for  the  South  Carolina  nullifiers,  having  achieved  a  part 
of  their  desire  in  securing  an  important  modification  of 
the  tariff,  held  a  somewhat  informal  meeting  of  the  Con- 
vention, advised  the  executive  officers  not  to  enforce  the 
nullifying  ordinance,  and  substituted  for  it  an  ordinance 
nullifying  the  Force  Act.1  They  undoubtedly  agreed  with 
Henry  L.  Pinckney  that  "the  Genius  of  Carolina"  had 
planted  itself  firmly  upon  the  federal  Constitution  and  with 
the  Kentucky  Resolutions  in  one  hand  and  the  palmetto 
banner  in  the  other,  had  proclaimed  resistance  to  the  Wash- 
ington government.  "Yes,  Volunteers,  you  have  saved 
the  State.  Your  firmness  and  constancy  have  given  us  the 
victory.  The  doctrine  of  Nullification,  once  the  theme  of 
ridicule,  is  now  the  theme  of  praise.  The  State  of  South 
Carolina,  lately  so  fettered  and  degraded,  is  now  honoured 
and  respected,  and,  in  saving  her,  you  have  saved  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  Union." 2  In  the  future,  as  another 
orator  declared,  South  Carolina  would  come  before  Congress 
"not  as  a  suppliant,  but  as  an  equal." 


entitled  "An  Act  further  to  provide 
for  the  Collection  of  Duties  on  Im- 
ports" (ibid.,  iv,  632).  It  was  com- 
monly called  the  "Force  Bill"  and, 
like  the  preceding  act,  was  approved 
on  March  2,  1833.  It  gave  great  dis- 
cretionary power  to  the  President  as 
to  the  details  of  collection  and  author- 
ized him  to  use  the  forces  of  the  United 
States  practically  in  any  way  he  saw 
fit  to  enforce  the  federal  laws  "until 
the  end  of  the  next  session  of  Con- 
gress, and  no  longer." 


1  The  most  important  of  the  Nullifi- 
cation documents  were  published  in 
1834  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
under  the  title,  —  State  Papers  of  Nulli- 
fication. The  "  Journal  of  the  Conven- 
tion "  is  on  pp-  295-375 ;  the  "  Report  " 
or  "  Exposition  "  on  p.  1 ;  and  the  body 
of  the  book  contains  the  answering  reso- 
lutions of  Maine  and  the  other  States, 
etc. 

1  Oration  ...  on  the  Jfh  of  July, 
1833  (Charleston,  1833),  pp.  21,  64. 


COTTON   STATISTICS 


433 


NOTE 

Cotton.  —  The  figures  of  production  in  the  following  table  are 
drawn  from  Levi  Woodbury's  report l  and  the  prices  from  Watkins's 
paper.2 

COTTON  CROP  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  MILLIONS  OF  POUNDS 


STA.TE 

1791 

1801 

1811 

1821 

1826 

1833 

1834 

Va     

5 

8 

12 

25 

13 

10 

N.  C  

s.  c  

Ga  

li 

i 

4 
20 

10 

7 
4Q 
20 

10 
50 
45 

18 
70 
75 

10 
73 

88 

9J 
65i 
75 

Total      .     .     . 

2 

39 

75 

117 

188 

184 

160 

Ala  

20 

45 

65 

85 

Tenn  
Miss  
La  

1 

3 

2 

20 
10 
10 

45 
30 

38 

50 
70 
55 

45 

85 
62 

Total  .... 

1 

5 

60 

158 

240 

277 

Fla  

2 

15 

20 

Ark  

i 

1 

* 

Total      .     .     . 

2* 

15J 

20* 

Grand  Total  .     . 

2 

40 

80 

177 

348J 

439  J 

457  £ 

Price   per   lb.   at 
New  York  . 

26 

44 

15.50 

14.32 

12.19 

12.32 

12.90 

In  1848  the  total  production  of  cotton  in  the  United  States  was  over  one  billion 
pounds  and  in  1860  was  over  two  billions- 

See  also  diagram  in  Harry  Hammond's  South  Carolina,  13. 


1  It  is  entitled  "Cotton,  Cultiva- 
tion, Manufacture,  and  Foreign  Trade 
of"  and  forms  No.  146  of  the  House 
Executive  Documents  (24th  Cong., 
1st  Sess.,)  and  is  most  easily  used  in 
the  Writings  of  Levi  Woodbury,  iii, 
248.  Matthew  B.  Hammond's  "The 
Cotton  Industry"  in  the  Publications 
of  the  American  Economic  Associa- 
tion (New  Series,  No.  1)  is  the  result 


of  great  labor  and  is  extremely  useful. 
*  James  L.  Watkins's  "Production 
and  Price  of  Cotton  for  One  Hun- 
dred Years"  is  in  the  publications  of 
the  Department  of  Agriculture,  Mis- 
cellaneous Series,  Bulletin  No.  9. 
Very  useful  condensed  tables  showing 
both  production  and  prices  are  in 
The  South  in  the  Building  of  the  Nation, 
v,  211,  431-434. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  BANK  AND  THE  PANIC  OP  1837 

APART  from  the  offices  and  the  struggle  with  the 
milliners,  the  main  interest  in  Jackson's  administrations 
has  to  do  with  financial  matters.  It  was  inevitable  that 
this  should  be  the  case  because,  by  1829,  the  country  had 
recovered  from  the  long  period  of  depression  that  began  with 
the  embargo,  and  in  every  year  of  his  term  of  office  business 
activity  was  greater  than  in  any  preceding  twelve  months. 
A  reaction  from  this  period  of  agricultural  and  industrial 
expansion  was  inevitable,  but  it  must  be  said  that  both  the 
going  up  and  the  coming  down  were  greatly  hastened  by 
the  actions  of  the  President.  Jackson,  himself,  had  never 
had  anything  that  could  be  remotely  termed  a  business 
education.  He  had  a  plantation  and  slaves,  but  his  income 
for  the  most  part  had  been  derived  from  offices  that  he  had 
held  and  especially  in  the  later  years  from  his  position  in  the 
army.  As  a  frontiersman,  he  regarded  credit  and  banks  as 
something  provided  by  nature  and  the  government  for  the 
benefit  of  the  converter  of  new  lands  to  the  uses  of  civiliza- 
tion. There  is  something  fascinating  in  the  ingenuousness 
of  the  frontiersman  in  these  matters.1  He  has  no  objection 
whatever  to  the  establishment  of  banks  by  the  State  or  by 
individuals  and  at  once  proceeds  to  borrow  money,  giving  a 
mortgage  on  his  crops  and  lands  in  return.  As  the  people 

1  In   the   following   analysis   I   have  statement    in    these    paragraphs    must 

greatly  profited  by  conversations  with  be  charged  to  me  and  not  to  Professor 

Professor    E.    E.    Dale    of    Oklahoma  Dale. 
University;    but  all  errors  of  fact  or 

434 


FRONTIERSMEN  AND  CREDIT  435 

come  from  the  East,  as  the  forest  is  cleared  away  and  the 
ground  brought  under  cultivation,  his  property  will  double, 
treble,  or  quadruple  in  value.  To  him  it  is  worth  not  what 
he  paid  for  it  or  what  he  could  sell  it  for  at  the  moment,  but 
what  he  can  obtain  for  it  in  eight  or  ten  years'  time,  if  every- 
thing goes  well.  To  him  time  is  no  object :  in  the  spring 
he  plows  and  plants  and  through  the  summer  and  into  the 
early  autumn  watches  the  forces  of  nature  bringing  the  crops 
to  fruition  with  a  little  hoeing  or  cultivating,  now  and  then ; 
and  in  the  autumn  he  collects  the  reward  of  his  labor  and 
of  nature's  work.  As  he  joyfully  ponders  the  affairs  of 
his  farm  or  plantation,  it  appears  certain  that  if  he  can 
clear  more  land  and  employ  more  labor  he  will  gain  ever 
increasing  returns.  It  is  at  this  point  that  he  goes  to  a 
banker  to  borrow  money  and  finds  the  man  of  the  counter 
possessed  of  a  "horror  of  land,"  1  for  it  is  difficult  to  handle 
if  taken  on  execution.  Moreover  the  banker  is  ill  appre- 
ciative of  future  land  values.  He  will  loan  money  only  on 
a  portion  of  the  actual  selling  value  of  the  land  at  the  mo- 
ment. And  then  the  banker  will  sharply  limit  the  duration 
of  his  loan  to  three  months  or  possibly  to  six.  Farm  im- 
provements mature  slowly,  and  when  the  time  for  payment 
comes  the  frontiersman  sees  no  reason  for  haste.  The 
land  is  constantly  improving  in  value,  and  the  bank,  there- 
fore, is  perfectly  secure.  The  interest  will  go  on,  corn  or 
cotton  will  be  much  higher  in  thirty  days  or  in  two  or  three 
months ;  why  not  postpone  the  payment,  therefore,  espe- 
cially as  money  is  a  little  scarce  at  the  moment,  the  demand 
for  labor  on  the  farm  urgent,  and  travelling  difficult?  To 
the  banker,  the  aspect  of  things  is  very  different ;  his  obliga- 
tions must  be  met  on  the  moment  and,  therefore,  if  the  debtor 
cannot  or  does  not  pay  what  he  has  promised,  the  only 

1  This  is  Riddle's  phrase  in  a  letter  dated  December  23,  1833. 


436  THE   BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Cu.  XIV 

thing  to  do  is  to  take  the  property  that  was  mortgaged  as 
security  and  sell  it  for  what  it  will  bring.  There  was  thus 
a  wide  gulf  between  the  ideas  of  the  farm  and  of  the  bank. 
Furthermore  there  was  little  capital  in  newly  settled  regions 
that  was  not  already  invested  in  land ;  the  capital  for  new 
enterprises  necessarily  came  from  the  older  settled  parts 
of  the  country.  It  seemed,  therefore,  as  if  a  few  capitalists, 
living  afar  off,  were  consuming  the  fruits  of  the  farmers' 
labors.  Jackson  sets  forth  the  frontier  view  in  his  letters. 
He  declared  that  banks  are  capitalistic  institutions  whose 
sole  function  is  to  make  money,  and  capitalists  united  in 
corporations  are  devoid  of  ideals.  In  short,  according  to 
him  a  bank  is  not  a  charitable  institution  as  it  should  be, 
but  one  where  profit  is  the  sole  object  even  at  the  cost  of 
oppression  to  the  people.  Somewhat  similar  ideas  as  to 
banks  and  bankers  were  held  by  most  people  throughout  the 
country,  even  in  the  Old  Thirteen.  To  them  there  was  some- 
thing obscure  in  the  workings  of  financial  concerns  and  the 
word  "credit"  possessed  little  meaning.  A  banker  or  a 
bank  opened  an  office,  issued  notes  in  exchange  for  mort- 
gages or  other  collateral  security,  and  demanded  interest 
oftentimes  at  a  high  rate,  from  twelve  to  twenty-five  per 
cent  a  year.  The  borrower  took  the  notes  and  immediately 
paid  them  out  to  the  government  for  more  land  or  to  a 
trader  for  more  stock  or  slaves.  It  seemed  as  if  nothing 
had  been  transmuted  into  something,  lands,  cattle,  or  labor ; 
and  the  only  person  to  profit  immediately  was  the  banker, 
and  thus  he  who  had  contributed  nothing  tangible  was  the 
first  person  to  be  rewarded.  It  is  true  that  the  banker  was 
required  by  law  to  have  on  hand  a  certain  amount  of  gold 
and  silver  and  oftentimes  he  was  obliged  to  redeem  in  specie 
all  of  his  notes  that  were  presented  to  him ;  but  he  issued 
notes  seemingly  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  amount  of  specie 


1830]  BANKS  437 

in  his  possession,  six  or  eight  times  as  much  and  frequently 
more.  The  way  for  a  frontier  community  to  deal  with  this 
problem  was  for  itself  to  establish  a  bank,  preferably  one 
that  should  be  regulated  by  local  law  and  would  be  respon- 
sible to  local  opinion.  There  were  three  general  types  of 
banks :  (l)  private  banks  that  lived  solely  on  the  credit 
of  the  bankers,  (2)  local  banks  that  were  established  under 
some  "free  banking  law"  that  involved  some  kind  of  super- 
vision by  the  State  government  and,  in  some  cases,  were 
more  or  less  closely  connected  with  the  loan  system  of  the 
State  by  requiring  State  bonds  as  a  basis  of  the  bank  note 
circulation,  and  (3)  a  State  bank  that  was  sometimes  a 
part  of  the  treasury  organization  and  in  other  cases  was 
closely  connected  with  the  State  fiscal  system.1  The  State 
banks  often  had  branches  in  different  parts  of  the  State 
and  thus  brought  the  benefits  of  banking  to  every  one. 

Of  the  banks  described  above,  the  first  were  the  famous 
"wildcat  banks"  which  consisted  of  little  more  than  a 
banker  or  two,  a  valise  or  trunk  filled  with  printed  bank 
notes  of  their  own  issue,  and  an  office  with  the  smallest 
amount  of  furniture.2  When  one  of  these  banks  or  insti- 
tutions had  achieved  a  moderate  amount  of  success,  it  turned 
into  a  more  settled  form  of  bank,  and  when  it  failed,  the 

1  State    ownership    of    banks    north  17,    1913.     Gershom   Flagg  has   some- 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  and  east  of  thing  to  say  on  the  subject  in  Illinois 
the    mountains    was    confined    to    the  State     Historical     Society's     Transac- 
years    1789-1812;     in   the   Old   South  tions,  for  1910,  p.  32.     For  Ohio,   see 
it  continued  until  1861 ;    in  the  North-  C.  C.  Huntington's  article  in  the  Ohio 
west    the    greatest    activity    was    be-  Archceological   and  Historical  Quarterly 
tween    1820    and    1857,    and    in    the  for  July,    1915.     R.   Hildreth's  Banks, 
Southwest  from  1824  to  1840.  Banking,   and   Paper    Currencies    (Bos- 

2  See  Logan  Esarey's  "State  Bank-  ton,      1840)  '  is     a      contemporaneous 
ing  in  Indiana"  in  Indiana  University  account,  and  the  sixth  chapter  of  Sum- 
Studies,  No.  15,  —  the  "Bibliography"  ner's  Andrew    Jackson   is    a  lucid  and 
at  the  end  will  point  the  way  to  a  study  unsympathetic     account     of     banking 
of  state   banking  in   general ;     and  G.  in     Kentucky     and     Tennessee.     The 
W.   Dowrie's   "Development  of  Bank-  statement  in  S.  Dean's  History  of  Bank* 
ing    in    Illinois,    1817-1863"    in    Uni-  ing,  159  178,  is  clear  and  brief. 
versity   of  Illinois   Bulletin,    November 


438  THE  BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Cn.  XIV 

whole  establishment  disappeared.  Of  the  banks  that  were 
more  or  less  under  State  control  some,  as  in  Massachusetts, 
joined  to  put  pressure  upon  any  banks  that  were  dilatory 
in  redeeming  their  paper  issues ; 1  or,  as  in  New  York,  they 
contributed  specie  to  a  safety  fund  that  was  administered 
by  the  State  for  the  redemption  of  the  notes  of  any  New 
York  bank  that  failed  to  redeem  its  paper  ;2  or  their  circula- 
tion was  founded  on  State  bonds  and  administered  more  or 
less  by  a  State  functionary,  as  was  the  case  in  Indiana  under 
the  Bank  Act  of  1852.  There  was  little  to  choose  between 
these  systems  as  systems,  for  their  success  depended  upon 
the  efficient  administration  of  them  by  some  officer  or 
officers.  The  State  banks,  so  called,  were  really  parts  of 
the  State  financial  administration  :  they  received  the  taxes 
and  other  public  moneys,  kept  them,  and  paid  them  out  on 
order  of  the  proper  official.  Their  capital  was  based  on 
State  loans  besides  the  public  funds,  and  in  some  cases 
they  were  to  lend  money  on  mortgage  to  land  owners, 
generally  in  proportion  to  the  political  strength  of  the 
various  parts  of  the  State.  The  Bank  of  South  Carolina 
had  been  founded  to  preserve  the  land  owners  of  that 
State  from  ruin  and  had  accomplished  that  design.  From 
the  beginning,  it  had  as  a  rule  been  well  managed,  and, 
as  was  the  case  with  the  State  bank  of  Virginia,  remained 
an  efficient  institution  down  to  1861.  One  reason  for  the 
regstablishment  of  these  public  banks  was  a  feeling  that 
the  State  as  a  political  entity  should  reap  some  of  the 
harvest  to  be  gained  from  the  use  of  credit  facilities. 
This  view  left  out  of  account  entirely  the  fact  that  any 

1Tbis     was     called     the     "Suffolk  graphs   as   to   the   Suffolk   Bank   Sys- 

Bank  System"  from  the  name  of  the  tern  are  reprinted  in  Gouge's  Journal 

bank  that  acted  as  agent.     See  Nathan  of  Banking,  34. 

Appleton's   Remarks   on   Currency   and  *  D.     R.     Dewey's    Financial    Hia- 

Banking    (Boston,    1841).     The    para-  tory  of  the  United  States,  §  69. 


1830]  SECOND  BANK  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  439 

proper  use  of  credit  is  simply  the  employment  of  the 
strength  of  a  community  for  its  good.  The  banker  is 
simply  a  distributive  agent  for  the  community  in  securing 
the  best  employment  of  its  faculties. 

As  one  period  of  business  inflation  and  of  hard  times  suc- 
ceeded another,  the  number  of  .banks  went  up  and  down. 
The  demise  of  the  old  Bank  of  the  United  States  in  1811 
led  to  the  establishment  of  many  local  banks.  The  govern- 
ment was  obliged  to  make  use  of  these  to  carry  on  its  finan- 
cial business  and  in  the  extremely  difficult  years  of  1814  and 
1815  suffered  heavy  losses.  It  was  to  obviate  these  that  the 
Second  Bank  of  the  United  States  was  founded  in  1816. l 
The  federal  government  was  to  own  stock  in  this  in- 
stitution, deposit  in  it  all  its  receipts,  and  give  over  to 
the  Bank  the  management  of  its  loans  and  pensions.  Be- 
sides managing  these,  the  Bank  was  to  keep  the  government 
moneys  and  pay  them  out  on  drafts  from  the  proper  officials 
and  transfer  the  public  funds  from  one  part  of  the  country 
to  the  other,  —  all  without  charge ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  was  to  pay  no  interest  on  government  deposits,  —  the 
cost  of  carrying  on  these  government  duties  being  regarded 
as  approximately  equal  to  the  sum  that  might  be  gained 
from  the  use  of  that  portion  of  the  federal  funds  that  was 
not  held  in  the  vaults  for  the  purpose  of  honoring  any  calls 
made  by  the  government.  One  of  the  principal  motives 
for  the  establishment  of  the  new  Bank  was  to  bring  about 
a  more  reliable  and  more  uniform  currency.  The  notes 
of  the  State  banks  of  one  sort  or  another  usually  depreciated 
in  proportion  to  the  distance  from  the  counter  of  the  bank 
of  issue.  The  United  States  Bank  at  once  went  into  the 
business  of  transferring  funds,  public  and  private,  from  one 

»  For  the  act,   see  Annals  of  Con-      Of  the  United  States  (ed.  1903),  pp.  21, 
areas,  14th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  Col.  1812,       479-488. 
and  R.  C.  H.  Catterall's  Second  Bank 


440 


THE   BANK   AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Ca.  XIV 


part  of  the  country  to  the  other ;  to  do  this,  it  established 
branch  banks  in  important  commercial  centers.  With  the 
command  of  more  funds  than  any  other  banking  institu- 
tion and  with  these  antennae  branch  banks,  scattered  all 
over  the  country,  it  was  able  to  put  pressure  upon  almost 
any  State  bank  by  collecting  a  bunch  of  the  notes  of  that 
bank,  presenting  them  for  payment  and  refusing  to  take 
anything  in  exchange  except  specie.1  In  its  first  years,  the 
Bank  exhibited  as  many  faults  as  the  State  banks  and 
exhibited  them  on  an  extended  scale  owing  to  its  large  re- 
sources. When  the  hard  times  came  in  1819,  it  was  obliged 
to  curtail  and  to  change  its  management.  The  Bank  carried 
out  the  process  of  deflation  with  an  iron  hand.  Under  the 
circumstances,  doubtless,  this  was  necessary  for  the  safety 
of  the  Bank  and  of  the  country ;  but  it  was  coincident  with 
a  period  of  falling  prices  and  bankruptcies  of  banks  and 
bankers,  of  farmers,  merchants,  traders,  and  planters.2  Of 
course  this  was  the  inevitable  result — as  things  were  —  of  the 
preceding  inflation  and  of  the  crude  state  of  knowledge  of 
the  laws  of  finance;  but,  not  unnaturally,  the  people  laid 
it  to  the  unwarrantable  actions  of  the  "monster  bank" 
at  Philadelphia  which  with  its  branches  seemed  to  them  to 
resemble  a  gigantic  octopus,  sucking  the  blood  from  the 
arteries  of  the  toilers  on  the  farm  and  in  the  shop.3 

All  the  local  banking  institutions  were  regarded  by  the 


1  Ebenezer  S.  Thomas  states  that 
in  1816  he  paid  28%  premium  for 
specie  at  Baltimore  and  that  in  two 
years'  time  the  premium  had  dis- 
appeared. Reminiscences  of  the  Last 
Sixty-five  Years,  ii,  84. 

1  As  showing  the  severity  of  the 
crisis,  it  may  be  noted  that  in  1819  a 
pamphlet  of  170  pages  of  double 
column  was  published  at  Albany 
containing  a  list  of  lands  to  be  sold  for 
arrears  of  taxes. 


*On  the  other  hand  the  "great 
bank"  exercised  a  modifying  in- 
fluence on  the  tendency  of  the  New 
York  banks  to  combine  and  monop- 
olize financial  business.  In  1825  it 
was  stated  that  the  City  Bank  of  New 
York  by  means  of  interlocking  di- 
rectorates controlled  twelve  or  four- 
teen "monied  institutions"  with  a 
capital  of  six  millions.  See  I.  Law- 
rence to  Biddle,  June  9, 1825,  in  "Biddle 
Papere." 


1830]  THE  BRANCH  DRAFTS  441 

State  legislatures  as  so  many  business  establishments  that 
could  be  taxed  like  any  other  business  establishments,  and 
they  were  ordinarily  so  taxed.  When  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  began  to  establish  branches  in  the  several 
States  it  did  so  without  entering  into  any  kind  of  negotia- 
tions with  the  State  authorities  or  securing  permission  of 
any  sort  from  them.  When  established,  the  branches  at 
once  competed  vigorously  with  the  local  banks  for  the  local 
business  and  took  a  large  proportion  of  it  away  from  the 
local  banks.  Then,  too,  the  notes  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States  came  into  general  circulation  and,  being  equally 
good  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  supplanted  the  local  issues, 
except  in  the  commercial  centers.  For  some  reason  a 
clause  had  been  inserted  in  the  charter,  requiring  all  the 
notes  of  the  bank  to  be  signed  by  the  president  and  cashier. 
Whether  the  object  of  this  clause  was  to  limit  the  circula- 
tion of  the  notes  of  the  great  Bank  or  was  for  some  other 
reason,  it  certainly  soon  became  evident  that  it  operated 
to  defend  the  local  note  circulation  against  a  tremendously 
increasing  United  States  Bank  note  circulation  and  Con- 
gress, therefore,  absolutely  refused  to  grant  any  modifica- 
tion. The  Bank  authorities  then  hit  upon  the  expedient 
of  branch  drafts.  These  were  drawn  at  any  one  branch 
on  the  parent  Bank  at  Philadelphia,  signed  by.  the  cashier 
of  the  branch,  and  drawn  to  the  order  of  an  employee.  He 
endorsed  the  draft  and  it  became,  in  effect,  a  circulating 
note  which  would  be  paid  at  any  branch  of  the  United 
States  Bank  and  was  really  as  good  currency  as  there  was 
in  the  country ;  but  the  device  worked  still  further  to  lessen 
the  profits  of  the  local  banks  so  far  as  they  were  derived 
from  note  circulation.  As  local  business  enterprises  the 
State  banks  were  subject  to  taxation  as  every  other  business 
concern,  and  the  branches  of  the  great  Bank  were  likewise 


442  THE   BANK   AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [On.  XIV 

taxed  by  the  State  authorities.  It  was  at  this  point  that 
the  federal  Supreme  Court  interfered  and  decided  that  a 
State  could  not  tax  a  corporation  chartered  by  the  United 
States,  and  thereby  gave  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and 
its  branches  still  another  chance  to  compete  successfully 
with  the  local  banks.1  Putting  all  these  things  together, 
the  great  curtailment  of  credit  in  the  early  twenties,  the 
competition  of  the  notes  of  the  United  States  Bank  with 
the  local  note  issues,  and  the  freedom  it  enjoyed  from  local 
taxation,  it  is  easy  to  see  why  jealousies  arose  against  the 
"monster  institution." 

In  1823  Nicholas  Biddle  of  Philadelphia  succeeded  to 
the  presidency  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  He  owed 
his  appointment  primarily  to  James  Monroe,  who  had  be- 
come acquainted  with  him  during  his  European  diplomatic 
residence.  Biddle  had  had  no  business  training,  but  he 
was  a  man  of  strong  administrative  capacity.  He  was 
not  a  good  judge  of  men,  he  possessed  the  fatal  gift  of 
literary  fluency,  and,  in  his  attitude  toward  men  and  things, 
he  reflected  the  views  of  Philadelphia  society  and  not  at 
all  those  of  the  "men  of  the  street."  Biddle  and  banking 
circles  watched  with  apprehension  the  rise  of  Andrew  Jack- 
son to  the  presidency  and  Biddle  somewhat  childishly 
sought  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  "Hero  of  New  Orleans." 
He  might  well  feel  apprehensive  because  Jackson  had  ex- 
perienced to  the  full  many  of  the  evils  of  banks  and  of  the 
sordid  character  of  many  monied  men.  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky  in  his  lifetime  had  gone  through  severe  financial 
struggles.  Banks  had  come  up  and  failed  and  relief  meas- 


1  See  E.   L.   Bogart's   "Taxation  of  of  the  Bank  in  Ohio  had  threatened  a 

the  Second  Bank  of  the  United  States  State  official   with  ruin  if  he  did  not 

by  Ohio"   in   American  Historical  Re-  'secure  the  repeal  of  the  hostile  legis- 

view,    xvii,    312-331.     In    1826    Biddle  lation  was  "nonsense." 
wrote  that  the   story  that  the   agent 


1830]  JACKSON  AND  THE  BANK  443 

ures  of  most  questionable  character  had  been  adopted. 
Jackson,  himself,  had  had  an  unpleasant  experience  with 
one  of  the  branch  banks  which  had  refused  to  honor  a  draft 
of  his  except  at  a  discount.  In  his  First  Annual  Message  1 
he  called  the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  approaching  termi- 
nation of  the  bank  charter  and  suggested  that  the  question 
of  the  continuance  of  its  life  should  be  taken  up  at  an  early 
day.  It  would  seem  that  the  question  of  recharter  or 
demise  was  one  to  be  worked  out  between  the  bank  author- 
ities and  the  government;  but  for  some  inconceivable 
reason  Henry  Clay  thought  that  he  saw  in  the  question 
elements  of  political  popularity,  and  took  possession  of  it 
for  the  anti-Jacksonians.  Of  course  this  acted  as  a  chal- 
lenge to  Jackson,  which  was  about  the  worst  possible  thing 
that  could  happen.  Biddle  certainly  did  not  manage  this 
part  of  the  business  with  discretion.  He  permitted  himself 
to  be  drawn  into  a  somewhat  acrimonious  correspondence 
with  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  which  he  assumed  an 
unjustifiable  attitude  of  independence,  and  when  he  realized 
this,  he  had  to  retreat  as  well  as  he  might ;  but  a  man  of 
discretion  and  experience  would  never  have  permitted  him- 
self to  be  placed  in  so  humiliating  a  situation.  For  a  time, 
it  seemed  as  if  he  would  overcome  Jackson's  prejudices. 
He  apparently  was  willing  to  accept  a  good  part  at  least 
of  Jackson's  plan  for  a  national  bank  of  some  kind  provided 
the  prolongation  of  the  life  of  the  existing  institution  was 
assured.2  It  was  at  this  point  that  the  politicians  inter- 
fered and  almost  compelled  Biddle  to  apply  for  a  recharter 
in  order  that  the  Whigs  might  have  some  reason  for  political 
existence.  This  was  in  1832  when  the  election  was  coming 
on.  More  than  once  Biddle  wished  to  take  the  other  tack 

1  Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers,       Correspondence     of     Nicholas     Biddle, 
ii,  462.  142    and    fol.,   and    Catterall's  Second 

>  See     the     letters     in     McGrane's      Bank.  224-228. 


444  THE   BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Ca.  XIV 

and  bring  it  about  that  the  administration  itself  should  pass 
a  rechartering  bill  that  Jackson  would  sign.  But  it  was  all 
in  vain,  and  the  reports  of  an  investigating  committee  which 
was  known  from  its  chairman's  name  as  the  Clayton  Com- 
mittee,1 while  clearing  the  Bank  of  financial  bad  manage- 
ment, brought  many  things  to  light  that  were  decidedly 
disadvantageous  to  the  renewal  of  the  life  of  that  institu- 
tion. Moreover,  it  distinctly  appears  that  the  resources 
of  the  Bank  had  already  been  used  in  ways  that  must  have 
influenced  political  opinion,  although  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  in  authorizing  these  transactions,  Biddle  had 
anything  of  the  kind  in  contemplation.  For  example, 
there  r/as  a  loan  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  to  General 
Duff  Green,2  the  editor  of  the  "Washington  Telegraph," 
whose  daughter  had  married  a  son  of  John  C.  Calhoun. 
This  loan  had  been  made  originally,  when  Duff  Green  was  a 
Jackson  man,  to  enable  him  to  undertake  the  public  print- 
ing, for  many  preparations  and  much  work  had  to  be  done 
before  any  payment  would  be  received  from  the  government. 
The  matter  was  brought  before  the  Bank  authorities  by 
Mr.  Hemphill,  a  South  Carolina  congressman,  who  stated 
that  the  making  of  the  loan  would  bring  about  no  change  in 
the  political  opinions  expressed  by  Green's  paper.  To  this 
Biddle  replied  that  the  loan  was  a  mere  matter  of  business 
and  that  no  change  in  the  newspaper's  political  attitude  was 
desired.  With  Calhoun's  fall  from  Jacksonian  grace,  the 
paper  had  turned  and  it  is  possible  that  it  was  Jackson's 
finding  Duff  Green's  name  among  those  to  whom  the  Bank 

1  See  Clayton's  "Report  on  Be-  by  Clayton  and  one  by  McDuffie  (p. 
half  of  the  Majority  of  the  Com-  297)  for  the  minority,  and  a  third  by 
mittee  Appointed  ...  to  Examine  into  John  Quincy  Adams  (p.  369)  on  be- 
the  Proceedings  of  the  Bank  of  the  half  of  himself  contain  a  mass  of  ma- 
United  States"  (Reports  of  the  Com-  terial  which  any  one  who  wishes  to 
mittees  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  understand  the  bank  business  must 
22nd  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  460).  The  read, 
three  reports  of  this  committee,  that  *  Ibid.,  No.  460,  p.  109. 


1830]  BANK  LOANS'  445 

had  loaned  money  that  finally  determined  him  to  veto  the 
recharter  bill,1  for  was  it  not  evident  that  the  Bank  besides 
being  dangerous  in  itself  was  a  Calhoun  institution  ?  Among 
the  "Biddle  Papers"  in  Washington  are  letters  showing  that 
the  Bank  had  loaned  forty-three  thousand  dollars  to  President 
Monroe 2  and  on  March  1,  1825,  three  days  before  his  exit 
from  the  White  House,  had  refused  to  lend  him  any  more. 
It  also  appears  that  McDuffie,  the  South  Carolina  Repre- 
sentative who  had  signed  a  report  distinctly  favorable  to 
the  Bank,  had  secured  a  loan  for  Mr.  Hampton,  another 
South  Carolinian  who  offered  his  land  as  security.  Biddle 
at  once  replied  that  the  Bank  did  not  habitually  lend  on 
mortgage  and  that  the  threat  to  withdraw  the  public  de- 
posits had  induced  it  to  confine  its  loan  to  terms  of  not  over 
ninety  days.  Nevertheless  in  this  case  the  loan  would  be 
made  and  authority  be  given  to  the  cashier  to  renew  the 
notes  as  they  became  due.3  Another  example  of  the  close 
connection  between  the  Bank  and  the  politicians  was  the 
case  of  Daniel  Webster,  who  was  Senator  from  Massa- 
chusetts, for  three  years  a  director  of  the  Bank,  and  also 
acted  as  its  counsel.  Webster  was  indebted  to  the  Bank 
as  principal  or  endorser  to  the  amount  of  seventeen  thousand 
dollars,  and  he  asked  for  a  renewal  of  his  retainer  as  counsel : 
but  Biddle  thought  that  the  time  was  not  opportune  for 
such  "refreshment"  and  refused.4  Another  loan  that  has 

1  This  was  the  rumor  current  at  New      large  part  of  it  having  been  taken  up 
Orleans.     See    Vincent    Nolte's    Fifty      by    the     sale    of     Monroe's    Virginia 
Years,    236,    237.     There    is    a    good       property. 

notice  of  Duff  Green  in  Southern  His-  *  Biddle's    letter     to     McDuffie     is 

tory     Association's     Publications,     vii,  dated  August  29,  1833. 

160.  4  Biddle's  letter  is  dated  December 

2  The  exact  amount  was  $43,605.97  25,    1834 ;    but  the  practice  to  which 
minus  $2500.00.     Monroe  was  to  have  it  alluded  was  evidently  of  long  stand- 
reduced  this  total  by  the  payment  of  ing.     As    Biddle    thought    the    Wash- 
81000.00  a  month,   but  had  not  done  ington   post-office   "faithless"  he    had 
so.     In  Biddle's  memorandum  of  1837  his  letter  addressed  by  another  hand. 
(Correspondence     of    Nicholas     Biddle,  Incidentally,    he    remarked,    that    he 
p.  358)  the  loan  is  stated  at  $10,596,  a  always  burned  what  he  was  requested 


446 


THE   BANK   AND   THE   PANIC   OP    1837      [On.  XIV 


certain  elements  of  interest  in  it  was  one  made  to  Asbury 
Dickins,  Chief  Clerk  of  the  Treasury  Department.  It 
seems  that  in  1828  he  owed  the  Bank  twenty-five  hundred 
dollars  which  he  could  not  pay.  The  cashier  of  the  Wash- 
ington branch  suggested  that  the  demand  for  payment 
be  not  pressed  and,  indeed,  that  another  twenty-five  hun- 
dred dollars  be  loaned  to  Dickins  to  enable  him  to  pay  off 
his  other  debts.  The  printed  correspondence  does  not  say 
what  happened,  but  the  loan  was  probably  made,  as  Dickins, 
who  had  "the  management  of  the  Bank  accounts"  for  the 
Treasury  Department,  remained  most  amicably  disposed 
toward  the  Bank.1  All  these  loans,  of  course,  may  have 
been  perfectly  justifiable,  as  also  may  have  been  absolutely 
right  those  to  Clay,  Crawford,  Calhoun,  Livingston,  Amos 
Kendall,  W.  B.  Lewis,  and  J.  H.  Eaton  ;  but  it  was  inevitable 
in  1832  and  still  is  that  another  construction  would  be 
placed  upon  the  practice  of  attaching  so  many  persons  in 
high  places  to  the  interests  of  the  institution.2 

It  is  difficult  to  fathom  the  motives  that  led  Henry  Clay 
and  his  political  companions  to  stake  their  success  at  the 
polls  in  the  election  of  1832  on  the  question  of  rechartering 
the  Bank.  The  struggle  between  the  Bank  and  the  anti- 
bank  men  was  really  a  part  in  the  never  ending  contest 
between  localism  and  nationalism;  the  question  was  as  to 
whether  the  local  banking  system  should  flourish  or  should 
be  destroyed  by  the  institution  which  had  been  chartered 
by  the  federal  Congress.  Moreover,  the  sympathies  of  the 


to  burn.  Curtis,  in  his  Life  of  Webster, 
i,  493-500,  devotes  several  pages  to 
trying  to  clear  Webster's  reputation 
in  this  regard. 

1 R.  C.  McGrane's  Correspondence 
of  Nicholas  Biddle,  53. 

2  The  names  of  borrowers  are  noted 
in  the  reports  of  the  Clayton  com- 
mittee and  at  the  end  of  the  Corre- 
spondence of  Nicholas  Biddle  is  a  list 


of  the  members  of  Congress,  news- 
paper editors,  and  officers  of  the  gen- 
eral government  "who  have  been  or 
are  responsible  to  the  Bank  as  drawers 
or  endorsers  of  notes  during  the  last 
few  years  "  As  this  was  drawn  up  in 
1837,  the  amounts  and  even  the  names 
do  not  always  agree  with  the  reports  of 
1832;  but  the  lessons  to  be  drawn  from 
the  different  lists  of  figures  are  identical. 


1832]  JACKSON   RE-ELECTED  447 

average  man  were  distinctly  opposed  to  the  money  lender, 
dignify  him  as  you  please.  The  combination  between  the 
localists  and  the  ordinary  voter  proved  to  be  irresistible. 
Jackson  received  707,217  votes  to  328,561  given  to  Clay1 
and  two  hundred  and  nineteen  electoral  votes  to  forty- 
nine  for  Clay  and  eighteen  for  other  candidates.  As  it 
was,  it  was  one  of  the  completest  victories  in  the  history 
of  the  presidency  and  impelled  Jackson  forward  to  the 
prosecution  of  his  design  to  put  an  end  to  the  monster 
Bank  at  Philadelphia  and  all  its  branches.  The  campaign 
for  justice  to  the  Bank  had  about  as  much  chance  of  success 
as  a  campaign  for  "Justice  to  the  Profiteers"  of  the  present 
day  would  have.  The  fact  that  they  could  save  a  little 
on  their  loans  and  have  a  better  currency  with  the  Bank 
than  without  it  meant  nothing  to  the  localists ;  what  they 
wanted  was  that  they  and  their  neighbors  should  enjoy 
whatever  profits  were  to  be  secured  from  lending  money  or 
loaning  credit,  and  not  contribute  to  the  money-bags  of 
far-off  capitalists  at  Philadelphia  and  New  York. 

The  election  over,  Jackson  turned  his  attention  to  the 
next  step  in  the  warfare  on  the  Bank ;  its  demise  as  a  national 
institution  being  certain  in  1836,  by  the  provisions  of  the 
charter,  he  seems  to  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  its 
death  agonies  would  better  be  prolonged  as  much  as  pos- 
sible in  order  that  the  shock  to  business  might  be  lessened. 
He  expected  to  accomplish  this  by  reducing  its  loanable 
funds  at  once,  by  not  placing  any  more  government  money 
in  the  Bank.  Moreover,  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  Jack- 
son, after  reading  all  the  evidence  that  is  now  accessible 
and  pondering  other  facts  that  were  known  to  him,  but 
are  now  inaccessible,  should  have  come  to  the  conclusion 

1  Edwin  Williams's  Politician's  litical  Text-Book  (p.  239)  are  somewhat 
Manual  (New  York,  1834),  p.  35.  different;  —  687,502  for  Jackson  and 
The  figures  given  in  Greeley's  Po-  530,189  for  Clay. 


448  THE   BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Cn.  XIV 

that  the  public  funds  were  not  safe  in  the  control  of  Biddle 
and  the  Bank  men.1  He  proposed,  therefore,  to  stop  de- 
positing the  government  moneys  with  the  Bank  and  to 
withdraw  in  the  ordinary  course  of  business  the  funds  that 
were  already  there.  This  turned  out  to  be  not  so  easy  as 
one  might  have  supposed  it  would  be.  Ever  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  government,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  has 
occupied  a  peculiar  position  toward  the  President  and 
toward  Congress.  He  is  nominated  by  the  President,  con- 
firmed or  rejected  by  the  Senate  and,  except  for  the  period 
of  the  tenure  of  office  act,  has  been  removable  by  the  Presi- 
dent. Unlike  all  other  executive  officials,  however,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  reports  directly  to  Congress  at 
the  opening  of  each  session,  and  his  independence  of  the 
Chief  Magistrate  and  dependence  upon  Congress  were 
further  accentuated  in  the  charter  of  the  Second  Bank  by 
prescribing  that  he  should  direct  the  bestowal  of  the  gov- 
ernment funds  and,  if  these  were  not  deposited  in  the  Bank, 
to  state  the  reasons  to  Congress.2  Louis  McLane  was  then 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  He  was  friendly  to  the  Bank, 
could  see  no  reason  to  question  the  solvency  of  the  institu- 
tion, and  apparently  thought  that  in  the  existing  condition 
of  affairs  the  public  money  would  be  much  safer  in  the  Bank 
than  anywhere  else.  As  he  was  a  man  of  very  considerable 
influence,  Jackson  evidently  thought  that  it  was  better 
not  to  dismiss  him.  He  appointed  him  Secretary  of  State 
in  place  of  Edward  Livingston,  who  went  to  France  as  our 
representative  at  Paris.  McLane's  place  was  given  in 
1833  to  William  J.  Duane,  who  knew  nothing  of  finance 

1  Jackson  is  reported  as  saying  to  a  —  see  the  large  amount  of  the  funds 

committee     that     went     from     Pitts-  of  the  government  applied  to  corrupt 

burgh  to  Washington  to  protest  against  the  press."     B.   A.   Konkle's  Life  and 

the   removal   of   the   deposits   that   he  Speeches  of  Thomas  Williams,  \,  59. 

would  never  "return  the  deposits  .  .  .  2  Catterall's     Second    Bank     of    the 

I  will  protect  the  morals  of  the  people  United  States,  Appendix  I,  §  16. 


1833]  REMOVAL  OF  THE   DEPOSITS  449 

or  of  the  conduct  of  public  business,  but  was  the  son  of  the 
editor  of  the  "Aurora,"  whose  influence  was  still  supposed 
to  be  important  in  Pennsylvania.  Apparently,  Duane 
was  not  informed  as  to  what  he  was  to  do  when  he  was 
appointed.  When  he  found  out  that  he  was  expected  to 
"remove  the  deposits"  and  thereby  kill  the  Bank  at  the 
bidding  of  the  President,  he  refused  to  obey.1  He  also  re- 
fused to  resign  and  made  it  necessary  for  Jackson  to  re- 
move him.  Jackson  then  transferred  the  Attorney  General 
to  the  Treasury  Department,  this  time  there  being  full 
understanding  as  to  what  should  be  done.  This  man  was 
Roger  B.  Taney,  a  former  Maryland  Federalist  who  had 
renounced  his  earlier  political  faith  and  was  now  a  zealous 
Jacksonian.  Taney  was  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  the 
country,  from  whose  advice  Jackson  had  already  profited. 
He  made  no  trouble  and  signed  the  order  directing  his 
subordinates  to  cease  depositing  money  with  the  United 
States  Bank  or  its  branches  on  September  26, 1833. 2  He  also 
signed  several  drafts  on  the  Bank  for  considerable  sums, 
sending  them  to  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia  to  be  used  in 
case  the  Bank  should  prove  to  be  fractious.  One  of  these 
drafts  for  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  sent  to  the 
president  of  a  Baltimore  bank  in  which  Taney  himself  was 
a  director.  This  particular  draft  was  cashed  at  an  early 
day  and  the  money  used  by  the  president  of  the  Baltimore 
bank  for  speculative  purposes.  The  United  States  Bank 
was  naturally  compelled  to  restrict  its  discounts,  as  the 
withdrawal,  gradual  though  it  was,  of  nine  millions  of 
government  deposits  could  hardly  fail  to  make  such  action 

1  See  W.  J.   Duane's  Narrative  and  Life  and    Times   of  Henry   Clay    (2nd 
Correspondence  concerning  the   Removal  ed.),    ii,    chs.    iii,    iv.    Taney's    report 
of  the  Deposites  (Philadelphia,  1838).  of  December  3,  1833  as  to  the  removal 

2  Samuel   Tyler's   Memoir   of  Roger  of    the    deposits    forms    House    Docu- 
Brooke    Taney,    206.     For    the    other  ment.  No.  2,  23rd  Cong.,   1st  Sesa. 
side  of  the  story,  see    Calvin   Colton's 


450  THE  BANK  AND  THE  PANIC  OF  1837      [Cn.  XIV 

necessary ;  but  Jackson  viewed  this  proceeding  as  quite 
unnecessary  and  as  directed  against  himself.1 

The  later  history  of  the  Bank  and  its  president  is  not 
pleasant  reading.  Biddle  secured  a  State  charter  calling 
the  new  institution  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. It  seems  reasonably  certain  that  this  charter  was 
secured  by  underhand  means.2  As  the  president  of  a  State 
bank,  Biddle  threw  caution  to  the  wind  and  used  the  funds 
of  the  institution  for  speculative  purposes.  Had  times 
remained  good,  these  speculations  might  have  succeeded. 
As  it  was,  in  the  perilous  years  from  1837  to  1843,  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  of  Pennsylvania  closed  its  doors  again 
and  again  until  the  latter  year,  when  it  closed  them  forever. 
Nicholas  Biddle,  himself,  died  in  1844,  while  still  in  middle 
life,  a  broken  man. 

Whatever  its  shortcomings,  the  Second  Bank  of  the 
United  States  had  performed  a  very  useful  work  in  taking 
care  of  the  public  funds  and  in  transferring  the  government 
money  to  points  where  it  was  needed  in  the  transaction  of 
business.  The  question  as  to  what  should  be  done  with  the 
public  moneys  when  there  no  longer  was  a  monster  Bank 
with  its  branches  all  over  the  country  proved  to  be  a  difficult 
matter  to  adjust.  The  government  itself  had  no  vaults  for 
the  storage  of  bullion  or  paper  money.  The  only  thing  to 
do  was  to  utilize  the  State  banks>  and  this  proved  to  be  a 
matter  of  difficulty  and  of  danger.  The  general  idea  of 
politicians  was  that  banks  should  be  of  political  service 

1  On  the  other  hand,  in  September,  Attempt  to  Corrupt  the  Integrity  and 
1833,  Biddle  described  the  Jack-  Influence  the  Vote  of  Jacob  Krebs 
sonians  as  "the  gang  of  bankrupt  (Harrisburg,  1836)  ;  Record  of  the 
gamblers  who  now  wield  the  executive  Testimony,  Proceedings  ...  o/  an  Al- 
power  and  who  are  aiming  to  throw  the  leged  Attempt  .  .  .  Corruptly  to  In- 
country  into  disorder  in  hopes  of  plun-  fluence  and  Bribe  the  Vote  of  Jacob 
dering  during  the  confusion."  Krebs,  Esq.  (Harrisburg,  1836) ;  and 

*  See    Proceedings    of   the   Senate   of  Report   of  the   Joint   Committee   of  In- 

Pennsylvania,   together  with  the  Record  vestigation  (Harrisburg,  1842). 
of   the    Testimony  .  .  .  of   the    Atteged 


1833]  THE   "PET  BANKS"  451 

and  likewise  that  successful  party  men  should  be  of  service 
to  the  banks  which  favored  them.  In  the  Northeastern 
States  there  were  fairly  sound  State  banks  that  were  officered 
and  capitalized  by  Democrats  that  could  be  expected  to 
weather  storms  of  ordinary  violence.  In  the  South  and 
West,  however,  most  of  the  banks  were  organized  on  perilous 
foundations  and  were  already  transacting  business  in  a 
hazardous  manner.  The  government  prescribed  stringent 
conditions  as  the  price  of  receiving  public  deposits,  but  the 
selection  of  the  favored  banks  was  distinctly  a  matter  of 
politics,  like  the  appointment  of  treasury  officials  in  Wash- 
ington and  financial  officers  elsewhere.  And  it  was  by  no 
means  an  easy  task  to  differentiate  between  Democratic 
banks.  The  banks  selected  were  as  good  as  could  be  found, 
complying  with  the  requirements  of  "sound  politics"  and 
willingness  to  assume  the  responsibilities  attached  to  the 
holding  of  government  funds ;  but  it  was  inevitable  that 
these  "pet  banks,"  as  they  came  to  be  called,  should  make 
many  bad  loans  and  should  loan  money  with  a  free  hand 
to  their  friends.1 

The  years  of  Jackson's  second  administration  witnessed 
the  wildest  speculation  that  had  taken  place  in  the  United 
States  up  to  that  time.  Everybody  was  making  money 
and  putting  it  into  lands,  banks,  roads,  canals,  railroads, 
buildings,  factories,  and  cotton.  The  speculative  activity 
was  not  peculiar  to  any  one  part  of  the  country ;  it  obtained 
in  New  England  and  New  York,  as  well  as  in  Wisconsin, 
Tennessee,  and  Alabama.  In  New  England  the  money 
went  into  factories ;  in  New  York  into  farms,  factories,  and 

1  The    reports    of    Levi    Woodbury,  of  this  report  without  the  accompany- 

Secretary    of    the    Treasury,    of    1837  ing  documents  is  printed  in  his  Wrti- 

and     1841     have     much     information  ings,    i,    425.     The   report   of    1841    is 

about  State    banking    and    public    de-  printed  in  full  in  ibid.,  i,  432,  with  the 

posits.     See    House    Documents,    25th  documents  in  the  "  Appendix." 
Cong..    1st    Sess.,    No.    2.     A    portion 


452  THE    BANK   AND   THE   PANIC    OF    1837      [Ca.  XIV 

commerce ;  in  Wisconsin  into  developing  lands  and  mines ; 
in  Tennessee  and  Alabama  into  lands  and  slaves  for  the  most 
part  to  increase  the  area  of  cotton  cultivation.  Rates 
for  money  advanced  until  in  1836  two  and  even  four  per 
cent  a  month  was  not  unusual.  In  such  circumstances  un- 
scrupulous men  always  come  to  the  fore,  and  this  time  was 
no  exception.  "Paper  towns"  in  Wisconsin  were  sold  in 
New  York  l  and  Georgia  gold  mines  were  capitalized  and 
put  on  the  markets  at  one  hundred  or  two  hundred  per 
cent  above  their  value.  New  banks  were  organized  and 
went  into  wild  competition  with  their  neighbors.  There 
was  not  nearly  enough  capital  in  the  country  to  finance  these 
operations.  The  high  interest  rates  prevailing  in  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Boston,  Charleston,  and  other  commercial 
centers  attracted  capital  from  abroad,  especially  from  Eng- 
land, so  that  by  1836  the  country  was  heavily  indebted  to 
Europe.  The  reckless  speculation  in  frontier  lands  aroused 
Jackson's  attention  and  apprehension.  He,  himself,  had 
caught  something  of  the  fever  and  had  dispatched  Alfred 
Moore  to  the  Southwest  to  seek  out  and  buy  lands  adapted 
to  the  growing  of  cotton.  On  March  6,  1836,  Moore  re- 
ported that  the  good  unimproved  lands  in  Alabama  and 
Mississippi  were  in  the  hands  of  speculators  and  that  the  im- 
proved lands  were  held  at  prices  at  which  it  would  be  ruinous 
to  purchase.  For  these  reasons  he  had  done  nothing.2  The 
increase  of  banking  capital  and  loans  in  this  period  is  star- 
tling. In  1830,  the  banking  capital  of  the  country  was  one 

1  On  October  13,  1836,  J.  R.  Dorr  date  of  April  22,  1836,  there  is  a  letter 

wrote  from  Detroit  about  the  sale  from  Henry  Clay  introducing  his 

in  New  York  of  lots  in  the  "City  of  brother  Porter  Clay  of  Jacksonville, 

Lafontain"  and  adds  "our  Banks  will  Illinois,  to  Biddle  with  a  statement 

not  discount  a  Dollar."  See  "  M.  L.  that  he  had  formed  "an  association 

Martin  Manuscripts"  in  the  cabinet  ...  to  make  investments,  as  agents 

of  the  Wisconsin  Historical  Society.  for  others,  in  the  purchase  of  public 

*  See  Moore's  letter  in  the  "Jack-  lands."  This  was  only  one  of  multi- 
son  Papers"  in  the  Library  of  Con-  tudinous  agencies  that  were  operating 
iwess.  In  the  "Biddle  Papers"  under  in  the  Western  country. 


1836] 


THE   "SPECIE  CIRCULAR" 


453 


hundred  and  ten  millions,  in  1837,  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  millions.1  Whichever  way  one  looks,  one  comes  upon 
similar  facts  all  pointing  to  the  increasing  strain  on  credit. 
Good  observers  thought  that  the  crash  would  come  in  the 
spring  or  early  summer  of  1836 ;  but,  although  there  were 
great  difficulties  in  that  year,  they  were  obviated  for  the 
moment. 

Jackson  and  the  treasury  officials  did  what  they  could 
to  stem  the  tide  of  inflation  which  they  had  partly  set  in 
motion  by  providing  the  "pet  banks"  with  loanable  funds. 
In  April,  1835,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  ordered  his 
subordinates  to  receive  no  bank  notes  of  denominations 
under  five  dollars.  In  July,  1836,  he  issued  the  "Specie  Cir- 
cular." 2  In  this  he  directed  government  agents  to  accept 
only  gold  or  silver  or  Virginia  script  in  payment  for  public 
lands,  except  that  until  December  15  of  that  year  actual 
settlers  buying  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres  or  less  might 
pay  for  them  as  formerly.  This  circular  stated  that  it  had 
been  issued  in  consequence  of  complaints  that  had  been 
made  of  frauds,  speculations,  and  monopolies  which  had 
been  aided  by  excessive  bank  credits. 

The  last  act  in  the  Jacksonian  financial  drama  was  the 
distribution  of  the  surplus  government  revenues  to  the 
States.  Whether  a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing 
or  not  may  be  doubtful,  but  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  a 
national  surplus  is  a  curse.  One  of  Jackson's  firmest  con- 
victions, in  which  he  followed  his  great  predecessor,  Thomas 


'Benjamin  R.  Curtis  in  The  North 
American  Review,  Iviii,  p.  113. 

*  Senate  Documents,  24th  Cong., 
2nd  Sess.,  No.  15.  The  last  para- 
graph states  that  the  object  of  the 
measure  was  "to  repress  alleged  frauds, 
and  to  withhold  any  countenance  or 
facilities  in  the  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment from  the  monopoly  of  the  public 


lands  in  the  hands  of  speculators  and 
capitalists,  to  the  injury  of  the  actual 
settlers  in  the  new  States,  and  of  emi- 
grants in  search  of  new  homes,  as  well 
as  to  discourage  the  ruinous  exten- 
sion of  bank  issues,  and  bank  credits." 
The  "Specie  Circular"  is  also  printed 
in  Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers 
x,  104. 


454  THE  BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Cn.  XIV 

Jefferson,  was  that  the  national  debt  must  be  paid  off  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment.  Under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, when  this  had  been  accomplished  the  government 
revenues  could  be  reduced.  But  under  the  Compromise 
Tariff  Act  of  1833  the  duties  collected  on  imported  goods 
could  be  reduced  only  by  the  amounts  provided  in  the  act.1 
The  government  paid  off  the  final  instalment  of  its  debt  in 
1835,  but  until  the  year  1842  could  not  reduce  its  revenues 
to  meet  the  demands  of  current  expenses  only.  There 
was  likely  to  be  a  large  surplus  in  1837,  and  what  should  be 
done  with  it  was  a  difficult  question.  In  other  times  it 
might  have  been  used  to  pay  for  the  completion  of  the  Great 
National  Road,  or  the  construction  of  a  line  of  canals  along 
the  coast ;  but  Jackson's  veto  of  the  Maysville  Bill  made 
any  such  disposition  of  the  surplus  revenues  impossible 
The  only  thing  that  could  be  done  was  to  deposit  it  with 
the  pet  banks  or  to  distribute  it  to  the  States.  No  one 
seems  to  have  advocated  pouring  any  more  money  into  the 
government  banks,  and  there  were  grave  doubts  as  to 
whether  the  Constitution  authorized  the  federal  government 
to  collect  money  to  pay  over  to  the  States.  In  the  end  this 
particular  objection  was  euphemistically  evaded  by  loaning 
the  money  to  the  States  or  depositing  it  with  them,  — 
every  one  being  agreed  that  they  would  never  be  asked  to 
pay  it  back.  Another  difficult  question  was  how  the 
money  should  be  apportioned,  whether  it  should  be  by 
population  or  by  the  federal  ratio.2  In  the  act  as  passed  the 
latter  method  was  chosen.  The  surplus  funds  were  to  be 
deposited  in  quarterly  instalments ;  but  when  three  of 
these  had  been  made,  the  Panic  of  1837  put  an  end  to  im- 

1  See  ante,  p.  431  and  n.  pursued  into  wearisome  lengths  in  the 
1  Statutes  at  Large,  v,  55.     The  ac-  biographies  of  Clay  and  other  states- 
count  in   McMaster's  History  (vi,   319  men  of  that  time  and  in  the  works  on 
and  fol.)  is  detailed,  and  the  subject  is  economic  and  financial  history. 


1837]  DISTRIBUTION  OF  THE  SURPLUS  455 

portation  and  to  the  surplus.  Probably  it  is  not  going  too 
far  to  say  that  three-quarters  of  the  money  paid  over  to 
the  States  in  this  way  was  wasted.1  It  does  not  seem,  how- 
ever, that  the  "distribution"  contributed  to  bring  on  the 
crash  of  1837,  but  it  has  often  been  so  regarded.  One 
observer,  who  was  not  unfriendly  to  Jackson  in  the  main, 
declared  that  the  increase  of  loanable  funds  due  to  the  Jack- 
sonian  financial  policy  led  to  the  panic  and  inflicted  untold 
injuries  upon  the  poorer  classes  —  upon  those  who  were 
least  able  to  bear  hardships  and  who  had  benefited  very 
little  by  the  inflation  of  the  currency.2 

The  causes  of  the  Panic  of  1837  are  by  no  means  so  simple 
of  ascertainment  as  our  historians  have  usually  held.  Jack- 
son's financial  misdeeds  could  not  have  had  much  effect  in 
bringing  on  the  crisis,  because  it  was  world  wide.  No  doubt 
the  tremendous  inflation  that  had  taken  place  in  the  United 
States  did  contribute  materially  to  make  the  crisis  more 
severe  and  more  prolonged  in  America  and  in  Europe.  The 
word  " speculation"  is  a  hateful  term  and  is  easily  used  to 
discredit  whatever  one  does  not  like.  It  connotes  failure 
or  cessation  of  development.  Investments  in  lands,  build- 
ings, and  industry,  if  they  succeed,  are  included  in  the 
phrase  "good  business  judgment"  ;  if  they  fail,  they  are 
stigmatized  as  speculation.  The  primal  cause  of  the  crash 
of  1837  was  outside  of  the  United  States.  The  high  interest 

1  Edward  G.  Bourne's  History  of  the  loaned    to    corporations    and    to   indi- 

Surplus  Revenue  of  1837   (New  York,  viduals    at    seven    per    cent    interest. 

1885)  is  a  very  useful  compilation  from  Sometimes    these    loans    were    secured 

the  more  accessible  sources.     The  "Re-  by    mortgage;      at    other     times    by 

port   of   the   Auditor   of   the   State   of  "other    adequate    security"    or    "per- 

Ohio,  relative  to  the  Surplus  Revenue,  sonal  security."     Some  of  it  was  used 

February   3,    1837"    forms    Document  to  buy  bank  stock,  some  was  loaned  to 

No.   40  of  Documents,  including  Mes-  transportation    companies,    and    some 

sages  .  .  .  made     to     the     Thirty-Sixth  was  loaned  to  towns  to  use  in  erecting 

General    Assembly    of  .  .  .  Ohio     (Co-  public  buildings. 

lumbus,    1837).     By    this    it    appears  2  See    Henry    Lee's    Letters    to    the 

that  the  Ohio  money  was  paid  out  to  the  Cotton  Manufacturers  of  Massachusetts, 

several    counties    and    by    them    was  128.  - 


456  THE  BANK  AND  THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Ca.  XIV 

rates  paid  for  the  use  of  capital  in  America  had  attracted 
large  loans  from  England.  English  capital,  moreover,  had 
been  freely  used  to  develop  manufacturing  enterprises  at 
home,  and  English  capitalists  in  order  to  finance  these  opera- 
tions in  Britain  and  America  had  drawn  upon  Europe  for 
support.  The  earliest  demand  for  the  return  of  funds  came 
from  Europe.  This  impelled  the  great  English  banking 
houses  to  call  upon  their  debtors  for  the  repayment  of  funds 
advanced  to  them  and  to  refuse  to  make  further  loans. 
This  had  fallen  with  heaviest  weight  on  English  bankers 
who  were  intimately  connected  with  America,  and  had  com- 
pelled them  to  take  similar  action  at  New  York,  Charles- 
ton, New  Orleans,  and  other  financial  centers  in  America. 
The  pressure  from  England  came  at  the  precise  moment 
when  there  was  already  a  great  strain  in  America  owing 
to  the  speculations  in  western  lands  and  in  the  enlargement 
of  the  area  of  cotton  production.  Also  a  disastrous  fire  in 
New  York  in  1835  had  destroyed  a  large  amount  of  property 
and  created  a  demand  for  funds  with  which  to  reconstruct. 
The  Specie  Circular  no  doubt  drew  gold  and  silver  away 
from  the  Atlantic  financial  centers  at  the  moment  when 
British  bankers  were  demanding  the  return  of  funds  that 
had  been  loaned  in  America.  On  the  other  hand,  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  surplus,  that  came  after  the  crash,  may  have 
minimized  its  effects  by  providing  the  banks  with  loanable 
funds  that  would  otherwise  have  been  held  inactive  by  the 
government. 

The  primal  cause  of  financial  disturbances  which  have 
followed  each  other  with  some  degree  of  regularity  may 
possibly  be  found  in  the  workings  of  the  forces  of  nature.1 

1  See  for  varying  views,  W.  S.  Jev-  H.  L.  Moore's  Economic  Cycles :   Their 

ons's    Investigations    in    Currency    and  Law    and    Cause    (New    York,    1914) ; 

Finance,  ch.  vi;    H.  S.  Jevons  in  the  E.  D.  Jones's  Economic  Crises;    Her- 

Contemporary  Review  for  August,  1909 ;  bert  Foster's  Trade  Cycles.      The  Pe* 


1837]  THE  PANIC  457 

Before  everything  else,  human  activities  depend  upon  the 
production  of  food  stuffs.1  A  succession  of  bad  harvests 
reacts  upon  industry  and  upon  finance.  It  is  an  interesting 
fact  that  the  crises  of  1837  and  1857  synchronized  with  a 
maxima  of  sun  spots.  Going  back  to  Benjamin  Franklin 
and  reading  his  letters  to  Cadwallader  Golden  of  1751 
and  1752  and  his  papers  on  electricity  2  one  is  struck  with 
the  resemblance  between  his  ideas  and  the  modern  theory 
of  electron.  It  is  not  impossible  that  a  diminution  of  solar 
activity  influences  agricultural  production  and  thus  affects 
all  human  activities.  At  all  events  the  Panic  of  1837  was  of 
world  wide  extent  and  the  causes  underlying  it  were  so 
widespread  that  one  can  attribute  only  a  very  small  portion 
of  it  to  the  financial  vagaries  of  the  Jacksonian  Democracy. 
In  these  discussions,  students  seem  to  have  failed  to  dif- 
ferentiate between  accumulated  capital  and  credit.  The 
amount  of  accumulated  capital  at  any  one  time  in  the 
world  is  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  total  amount  of  capital 
used  in  production.  Anything  that  impairs  credit  puts  a 
brake  on  the  forces  of  productivity ;  but  the  amount  of  accu- 
mulated capital  remains  practically  the  same.  If  this  view 
is  correct,  the  amount  of  credit  involved  in  all  the  enter- 
prises that  were  going  on  in  the  United  States  in  1836  would 
have  sufficed  to  sustain  those  enterprises,  if  something  had 
not  impaired  its  vitality.  If  these  enterprises  could  have 
sustained  themselves  for  a  few  years,  the  country  would 
have  caught  up  with  them.  And  then,  instead  of  condemna- 

riodic  Rise  and  Fatt  in  Prices,  Wages:  Quarterly    Journal    of    Economics,    xx, 

and    C.    Juglar's   DCS    Crises    Commer-  323-351. 

dales    et    de    leur    Retour    Periodigue  *  Franklin's     Works     (Bigelow    ed.) 

(2nd  ed.,  Paris,    1889).     Jones's   book  ii,  251,  and  Franklin's  Works    (Sparkp 

has  a  good  bibliography  down  to  1900,  ed.),   v.      See  on   Franklin's    electrica. 

and  later  titles  may  be  found  in  Moore's  theories    John    Trowbridge's    "  Frank- 

Cycles.  lin  as  a  Scientist"  in  the  Publications 

1  A..     P.     Andrew's     "Influence     of  of  the  Colonial  Society  of  Massachu* 

Crops    on    Business    in    America"    in  setts,  rviii,  p.  1. 


458 


THE   BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Ca.  XIV 


tion  of  speculation  and  of  Jackson,  historian  after  historian 
would  have  marvelled  at  the  sagacity  of  the  Democratic 
administration  and  at  the  shrewdness  of  the  business  men 
and  cotton  growers  of  that  day. 

Martin  Van  Buren1  had  acquired  the  confidence  of  Andrew 
Jackson  in  1828  and  years  of  association  had  in  nowise 
diminished  it.  He  was  the  administration  candidate  for 
President  and  no  other  Democrat  had  the  slightest  chance 
of  being  nominated  or  elected  in  face  of  the  opposition  of 
"the  General."  The  Whigs,  as  the  anti-democratic  party 
had  come  to  call  itself,  put  forward  as  their  candidate 
General  William  Henry  Harrison  of  Ohio,  a  Virginian  by 
birth,  and  descendant,  so  it  is  said,  of  the  Puritan  Major 
General  Harrison,  "the  Fifth  Monarchy  Man"  of  Oliver 
Cromwell's  time.2  They  did  this  in  the  hope  that  another 
military  hero  might  overwhelm  the  cool-blooded  lawyer  of 
Kinderhook,  as  General  Jackson  had  defeated  John  Quincy 
Adams,  eight  years  before.  The  time  was  not  yet  ripe  and 
Van  Buren  was  elected  by  good  majorities.3 

In  the  election  of  1836  many  new  elements  came  to  the 
surface  of  political  life.  Some  of  these  had  been  in  existence 
for  years,  but  Jackson's  popularity  had  then  obscured  every- 


1  There  is  no  adequate  account  of 
Van  Buren's  life  and  services.  His 
Jacksonian  affiliations  prejudiced  him 
with  the  Northern  literary  group  and 
his  later  anti-slavery  convictions  de- 
prived him  of  the  favor  of  the  South- 
erners. Edward  M.  Shepard's  Martin 
Van  Buren  in  the  American  Statesmen 
series  is  the  best  book  that  has  yet 
appeared,  but  it  is  very  brief.  W.  M. 
Holland's  Life  and  Political  Opinions 
of  Martin  Van  Buren  that  was  pub- 
lished at  Hartford  in  1835  is  better 
than  most  campaign  biographies,  and 
its  "authenticity"  was  admitted  by 
Van  Buren  himself.  In  later  life  the 
ex-President  prepared  an  autobiog- 
raphy which  was  published  in  1920  by 


the  American  Historical  Association 
under  the  editorship  of  John  C.  Fitz- 
patricks.  In  1910  the  Library  of  Con- 
gress published  a  Calendar  of  lf,e  Papers 
of  Martin  Van  Buren  which  are  in  that 
institution. 

2  See  F.  A.  Inderwick's  Side-Lights 
on  the  Stuarts  (London,  1891),  p.  289. 

*  Van  Buren  received  170  or  lf>7 
electoral  votes  —  as  one  included  or 
excluded  Michigan  —  to  73  for  Harri- 
son. The  popular  vote  was  761,549 
for  Van  Buren  to  736,656  for  all 
others-  Journal  of  tlie  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, 24th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  pp. 
357-360,  and  Greeley  and  Cleveland's 
Political  Text-Book  for  I860,  p.  239.. 


1836]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  459 

thing  else.  Of  these  the  Anti-Masonic  faction  or  party,  as  it 
later  became,1  was  the  most  extraordinary  and  the  most  im- 
portant. It  grew  out  of  the  excitement  over  the  disappear- 
ance of  William  Morgan,  who  was  on  the  point  of  betraying 
Masonic  secrets  or  had  betrayed  them.  There  is  much 
doubt  as  to  the  story,  but  the  exactness  or  inexactness  of 
this  detail  or  that  is  of  slight  consequence.  The  important 
fact  was  the  discovery  that  in  New  York  —  and  in  some  other 
States  as  well  —  practically  all  the  State  office-holders, 
including  the  judges,  were  Masons.  So  powerful  was  the 
order  that  it  seemed  to  be  impossible  to  ascertain  the  truth 
as  to  anything  where  a  Mason  was  involved,  or  to  bring  any 
of  them  to  justice.  No  doubt  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
exaggeration.  As  one  man  expressed  it,  anti-masonry 
was  "a  moral  and  political  cholera."  Nevertheless,  the 
hue  and  cry  against  masonry  gave  a  rallying  point  for 
discontented  Democrats  and  Whigs.  Another  group  of  the 
politically  restless  was  composed  of  radical  reformers  who 
suddenly  came  into  prominence  in  1836  and  flourished  so 
luxuriantly  in  some  localities  for  short  spaces  of  time  that 
they  caused  dismay  to  regular  party  leaders.  These  f  eople 
were  called  Loco-focos.2  Then  there  were  the  labor  candi- 
dates, but  these  were  not  formidable.  The  Loco-focos  aiid 
the  Anti-Masons  were  strong  in  New  York  and  the  per- 
turbations and  hopes  of  the  politicians  of  that  State  were 
correspondingly  strong.  Van  Buren  was  himself  a  good  deal 
of  a  radical,  but  the  Democratic  party  was  distinctly  conserv- 

1  See  Note  at  end  of  chapter.  Jefferaonian,  a  paper  that  was  edited 

2  See    William    Trimble's    "  Diverg-  by  Horace  Greeley  and  published  at 
ing  Tendencies  in  New  York  Democ-  Albany  in   1838.     The  Loco-focos   at- 
racy "   in   American   Historical  Review,  tained     this     name     through     having 
xxiv,   396-421,  and   the  books   therein  provided     themselves     with     loco-foco 
cited,  especially  F.   Byrdsall's   History  or  self-igniting  matches  and  also  with 
of  the  Loco-Foco  or  Equal  Rights  Party.  candles  to  foil  a  plot  by  the  regulars  to 
The   disreputable   political   scandal   of  destroy  their  meeting  by  turning  out  the 
the   day   has   been   preserved   in    The  lights. 


460  THE   BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Ca. 

ative.  In  the  upshot,  and  largely  because  of  his  promise 
to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  President  Jackson,  Van  Buren 
was  elected  in  1836,  but  it  was  inevitable  that  the  forces 
of  unrest  should  gather  around  the  opposition  party  in  the 
next  four  years. 

Van  Buren  was  scarcely  comfortably  installed  in  the 
White  House,  when  the  panic  swept  over  the  country : 
everywhere  the  banks  closed  their  doors,1  the  imports 
fell  off,  and  with  them  the  customs  revenues  and  the  dwin- 
dling receipts  from  the  land  offices  stopped  altogether. 
When  three  of  the  four  instalments  of  the  distribution  had 
been  made,  the  treasury  was  wholly  empty  and  the  govern- 
ment was  unable  to  pay  the  salaries  of  the  clerks  in  the 
departments.  The  Specie  Circular  had  greatly  diminished 
the  demand  for  the  notes  of  the  "pet  banks"  and  had  also 
greatly  lessened  their  business.  The  deposit  of  the  surplus 
revenue  had  been  badly  managed.  It  would  have  been 
possible  for  the  States  to  enter  into  some  arrangement  by 
which  the  federal  money  which  they  received  could  have 
been  slowly  transferred  from  the  "pet  banks"  to  the 
institutions  that  were  used  by  the  States  or  to  the  State 
treasuries.  As  it  was,  the  depository  banks  were  obliged 
to  curtail  credits  and  hold  funds  inactive  in  their  vaults 
when  they  would  have  been  usefully  employed  outside. 
The  question  at  once  came  up  for  decision  at  Washington  as 
to  what  could  be  done  with  the  funds  that  were  slowly 
dribbling  in.  They  could  not  be  deposited  in  the  "pet 
banks,"  for  many  of  them  had  closed  their  doors  and  most 
of  the  rest  were  preparing  to  do  likewise  and,  of  course, 
the  successor  of  Jackson  could  not  direct  the  deposit  of 

1  F.  H.  Elmore,  writing  from  Charles-  awful  and  every  hour  adds  to  the  spread 

ton  on  April  13,  1837,  describes  second  of  ruin."  "Elmore  Papers"  in   Library 

hand  "the  crashing  of  the  merchants  of  Congress. 
[at    New    York].     The    accounts    are 


1837]  THE  INDEPENDENT  TREASURY  461 

federal  money  in  the  Biddle  Bank  at  Philadelphia  or  in  the 
undemocratic  banks  of  the  Northeast.  The  only  thing  that 
could  be  done  at  the  moment  was  to  direct  the  receivers  of 
public  funds  to  care  for  them  as  well  as  they  could.  When 
Congress  met  in  the  autumn  in  special  session,  Van  Buren 
greeted  it  with  a  message  advocating  the  establishment  of  a 
treasury  system  entirely  independent  of  the  business  of  the 
country.1  In  the  future,  according  to  this  plan,  all  moneys, 
as  they  came  in,  should  be  deposited  in  the  treasury  at 
Washington,  in  the  vaults  of  the  mints  at  Philadelphia,  New 
Orleans,  or  Dahlonega,  or  in  subsidiary  treasuries  in  the 
principal  importing  cities  where  vaults  would  be  built. 
The  Whigs  fought  the  scheme  with  all  their  strength,  but  in 
1840  there  was  a  sufficient  administration  majority  in 
Congress  to  pass  the  acts  necessary  to  establish  the  In- 
dependent Treasury  system.  There  were  several  weak 
points  in  the  plan.  While  the  necessary  vaults  were  being 
constructed,  it  would  have  been  perfectly  feasible  to  deposit 
the  federal  monies  in  the  vaults  of  existing  banks  where  they 
could  be  held  and  drawn  upon  by  the  government  without 
being  in  any  way  made  the  basis  of  loans.  The  act  forbade 
the  treasury  officials  to  make  any  use  whatever  of  the  existing 
banking  institutions.  They  could  not  receive  the  notes 
of  any  of  them  or  receive  payment  in  the  form  of  drafts  on 
them.  In  1837  the  government  asked  for  authority  to 
issue  treasury  notes  to  tide  itself  over  the  period  until 
customs  revenues  should  again  begin  to  come  in.  This 
authority  was  granted  and  the  country  saw  a  government 

1  Message  of  September  4,  1837  for  payment  at  any  particular  place 
(Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers,  which,  in  a  well-conducted  govern- 
iii,  324).  It  is  interesting  to  read  that  ment,  ought  to  have  as  much  credit 
Jefferson  on  December  13,  1803,  had  as  any  private  draft,  or  bank  note,  or 
already  suggested  that  the  government  bill,  and  would  give  us  the  same  fa- 
should  hold  its  own  funds — "letting  cili ties  which  we  derive  from  the  banks." 
the  treasurer  give  his  draft  or  note  Writings  (Memorial  ed.),  x,  439. 


462  THE   BANK   AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Cn.  XIV 

that  had  recently  been  depositing  millions  with  the  States 
incurring  new  debts  to  pay  its  everyday  expenses. 

As  one  year  succeeded  another,  the  financial  condition 
of  the  country  did  not  improve,  except,  of  course,  in  some 
localities  and  then  only  for  brief  periods.  Some  of  the 
banks,  especially  in  the  Northeastern  States,  resumed  specie 
payments  after  a  few  months,  but  most  of  them  were  again 
compelled  to  suspend.  This  process  of  alternately  paying 
and  not  paying  went  on  until  many  banks  closed  their 
doors  forever.  In  this  time  of  stress,  people  naturally  laid 
the  cause  of  their  troubles  upon  the  existing  administration. 
It  was  the  Whigs'  opportunity ;  but  instead  of  selecting  their 
real  leader,  Henry  Clay,  to  lead  them  to  victory  when  vic- 
tory was  fairly  certain,  they  again  brought  forward  the 
"Hero  of  Tippecanoe,"  General  William  Henry  Harrison. 
Undoubtedly  there  was  a  certain  glamour  surrounding  a 
successful  military  personage  and,  possibly,  the  discontented 
would  not  have  ranged  themselves  behind  the  banner  of 
Henry  Clay.  For  the  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency, 
the  Whigs  turned  to  John  Tyler  of  Virginia,  one  of  the  few 
anti-Jackson  Democrats  to  be  found  in  the  country.1 
The  campaign  began  sluggishly  until  a  Harrisburg  politician 
chanced  upon  an  ill-natured  jibe  of  a  Baltimore  editor  to  the 
effect  that  if  Harrison  were  given  two  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  a  log  cabin,  and  a  barrel  of  cider  he  would  be  perfectly 
happy  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  The  Harrisburger  went  at 
once  to  a  sign  painter  and  had  him  paint  a  log  cabin  and  the 
accessories  and  paraded  it  before  the  ratification  meeting 
that  was  held  at  that  place.2  The  suggestion  aroused  en- 

1  Among     the     innumerable     publi-  hold   the   principles   of  Jefferson :     the 

cations  of  the  campaign  may  be  men-  first  numbers  were  dignified  in  tone,  but 

tioned  The  Northern  Man  with  South-  as  the  campaign  progressed  the  tone 

ern  Principles   and    The   Rough-Hewer.  became  scurrilous. 

The   latter   was   published    at   Albany  *  Richard    S.    Elliott's    Notes    taken 

from  February  20,  1840,   to  December  in   Sixty    Years    (St.    Louis,    1883),  p 

24  of  that  year.     It  purported  to  up-  120. 


1840]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  463 

thusiasm  and  thereupon  began  a  campaign  of  "  Hurrah ! " 
and  unreason  that  has  never  been  paralleled  in  the  United 
States.  Log-cabins  with  a  table  and  a  jug  of  cider,  with  a 
coon  skin  nailed  on  the  door,  and  a  representation  of  the 
General  sitting  by  and  drinking  out  of  a  gourd,  were  dragged 
through  the  streets  by  thousands  of  men  wearing  "wide- 
awake" or  soft  broad-brimmed  hats  instead  of  the  more  for- 
mal stiff  top  hats  that  were  now  fitting  only  for  Democratic 
aristocrats  like  Van  Buren,  who  sat  in  a  stuffed  chair  in  the 
President's  Palace  and  used  a  gold  spoon  wherewith  to  take 
his  food.  As  the  marching  men  proceeded,  they  burst  into 
song,1  the  favorite  being  "Tippecanoe,  and  Tyler,  too"  to 
the  tune  of  "The  Little  Pig's  Tail"  : 

Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too, 

Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too ! 
And  with  them  we'll  beat  little  Van,  Van,  Van, 

And  with  them  we'll  beat  little  Van  — 
Oh  !  Van  is  a  used-up  man ! 

When  the  votes  were  counted,  it  was  found  that  Harrison 
and  Tyler,  too,  had  been  elected  by  large  majorities  in  the 
popular  vote  and  in  the  electoral  vote.2 

On  March  4,  1841,  President  Harrison  delivered  his  inaug- 
ural and  took  up  his  residence  in  the  White  House.  Thou- 
sands had  come  to  Washington  to  ereet  him  and  to  secure 

1  Elliott's  Notes,    125.     A   good  ac-  roast   beef."     E.    S.    Martin's    Choate, 

count  of  the  choral  aspects  of  the  cam-  i,  52. 

paign    is    C.    B.    Galbreath's    "Song  *  Harrison    received     234     electoral 

Writers  of  Ohio"  in  Ohio  Archaeological  votes    to    60    for    Van    Buren.     The 

and     Historical     Quarterly,      xiv,      62.  popular  vote  was  1,275,011  for  Harri- 

Among   the   effective  means  of   arous-  son  to  1,122,912  for  Van  Buren.     It  is 

ing    enthusiasm    was    the    propulsion  worth    noting   that   in  addition  James 

of  a  gigantic  ball  by  the  campaigners  G.  Birney,  the    abolitionist   candidate, 

from  town  to  town  and  from  State  to  received    7059    votes.     Journal    of   the 

State,    accompanied   by   song-     "Hail  House  of  Representatives,   26th   Cong., 

to    the    ball   which   in    grandeur    ad-  2nd   Sess.,    pp.   251-254    and   Greeley 

vances."     According     to     Joseph     H.  and    Cleveland's    Political     Text-Book 

Choate,  the  winning  campaign  cry  was  for  1860,  p.  239. 
Harrison  and  "Two  dollars  a  day  and 


464  THE  BANK  AND   THE   PANIC   OF   1837      [Cn.  XIV 

offices,  for  the  "rascals"  were  to  be  turned  out  and  good  men 
and  true,  who  had  voted  the  Whig  ticket,  given  the  jobs. 
The  office-seekers  filled  the  boarding  houses  and  over- 
flowed into  the  public  spaces  and  some  of  them  even  slept 
in  the  doorways  of  the  President's  Palace.  One  of  these 
office-seekers,  who  had  played  an  important  part  in  the 
election,  went  to  Washington  to  see  what  he  could  get.  He 
was  well  known  and  well  recommended.  Making  little 
headway  in  his  quest,  he,  too,  sought  out  the  President, 
was  received  graciously  by  him,  and  invited  to  dinner.  The 
opportunity  seemed  to  have  come,  but  the  President 
managed  the  conversation  so  skilfully  that  no  mention  of 
office  was  made  during  the  whole  time.  However,  this 
particular  applicant  ultimately  procured  an  Indian  agency 
from  which  there  seemed  to  be  hope  of  gain  and  departed 
with  a  somewhat  different  idea  of  the  simple-minded  old 
general  than  that  with  which  he  had  entered  the  capital 
city. 

In  a  month  President  Harrison  was  dead  and,  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history,  a  Vice-President  succeeded  to  the 
chief  magistracy.  The  precise  place  that  John  Tyler  ought 
to  hold  in  our  annals  is  very  difficult  to  determine.1  He 
certainly  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  having  opposed 
Jackson  when  such  opposition  meant  apparently  the  loss  of 
political  position.  He  made  so  many  enemies  and  we  know 
so  little  of  his  inner  life  that  one  cannot  say  whether  he  was 
a  high-minded  man  of  principle  or  a  weak-minded  Virginian 
who  broke  his  word  for  the  hope  of  election  to  the  presidency 
in  1844.  The  story,  so  far  as  it  is  known,  is  a  simple  one. 
Clay  and  the  Whigs  carried  through  Congress  a  bill  to 

1  The     family    view    is     given     in  Monument  in   1915  presents  the  Vir- 

Lyon  G.  Tyler's  Letters  and    Times  of  ginian   estimate  in  brief  and  readable 

the     Tylers.     Armistead    C.    Gordon's  form. 
Address  at  the  dedication  of  the  Tyler 


1841] 


JOHN  TYLER 


465 


charter  a  new  national  bank  which  lacked  some  of  the 
objectionable  features  of  the  older  ones,  but  when  the  bill 
was  presented  to  Tyler  he  vetoed  it.  Then  another  bill 
was  prepared,  this  time  embodying  what  it  was  understood 
Tyler  would  approve ;  but  it  too  was  vetoed.  Probably 
the  exact  truth  in  the  matter  has  never  been  stated  and 
possibly  it  never  can  be,1  for  subterranean  negotiations 
are  very  difficult  to  trace  and  also  many  documents  perished 
in  the  four  years  of  the  War  for  Southern  Independence. 
The  "Whigs  broke  with  the  President,  and  the  extraordinary 
spectacle  was  to  be  seen  of  a  President  without  a  party 
and  an  overwhelmingly  victorious  party  without  any  control 
of  the  Executive  which  it  and  misfortune  had  placed  in  the 
chief  magistracy.  For  the  next  few  years  the  treasury  got 
on  as  well  as  it  could  without  any  formally  organized  system 
of  holding  the  national  funds.  In  1846,  in  the  time  of 
President  Polk,  the  independent  treasury  system  was  re- 
established and  continued  for  over  sixty  years  in  vigorous 
operation,  —  until  it  was  replaced  in  part  by  the  Federal 
Reserve  scheme  of  tying  the  whole  banking  organization  of 
the  country  to  the  government  at  Washington. 


1  The    anti-Tyler    side    comes    out 
strongly    in    the    "Diary    of    Thomas 


Ewing"    in    American    Historical    Re- 
view, xviii,  97-112. 


VOL.  V  —  2H 


466  THE  BANK  AND  THE  PANIC   OF   1837 

NOTE 

Anti-Masonry.  —  Henry  Gassett  prefixed  an  elaborate  arraign- 
ment of  Masonry  to  his  Catalogue  of  B  oks  on  the  Masonic  Institution 
in  Public  Libraries  of  Twenty-eigh1  States  of  the  Union  (Boston,  1852). 
The  two  sides  of  the  controversy  may  be  best  seen  in  William  L. 
Stone's  Letters  on  Masonry  and  Anti-Masonry  (New  York,  1832)  and 
John  Quincy  Adams's  Letters  on  the  Masonic  Institution  (Boston,  1847). 
Stone's  book  is  really  an  answer  to  letters  that  Adams  had  written  in 
1831  which  are  collected  and  printed  in  the  second  of  these  volumes. 
William  Morgan's  Illustrations  of  Masonry  published  by  David  C. 
Miller  in  1827  is  sometimes  attributed  to  Morgan.  The  second  edition 
is  a  good  deal  fuller  than  the  earlier  one.  Henry  Brown's  Narrative 
of  the  Anti-Masonick  Excitement  that  was  published  at  Batavia,  New 
York,  in  1829,  and  the  Narrative  of  the  .  .  .  Kidnapping  and  Pre- 
sumed Murder  of  William  Morgan  that  was  printed  at  Brookfield  in 
1827  give  that  contact  with  the  actualities  of  the  day  that  is  so 
interesting  to  the  historical  student.  Charles  McCarthy's  "  The 
Antimasonic  Party "  in  American  Historical  Association's  Report 
for  1902,  vol.  i,  365-574,  brings  together  modern  information  on  the 
subject  and  has  an  excellent  bibliography. 


CHAPTER  XV 

WESTERN   LANDS   AND   SETTLEMENTS  AFTER   1840 

IN  1840  the  population  of  Transappalachia  was  nearly 
seven  millions ;  by  1850  this  had  increased  to  over  ten  and 
one-half  millions  and  by  1860  to  more  than  fifteen  millions. 
Before  1840  the  immigration  from  abroad  had  been  small 
in  comparison  with  the  total  population  of  the  United 
States  at  that  time  or  with  the  immigration  of  the  next 
twenty  years.1  In  the  decade  ending  with  September,  1829, 
only  128,502  foreign  immigrants  were  noted  by  the  officials ; 
in  the  ten  years  ending  June  1,  1840,  over  one-half  million 
of  them  arrived  in  the  United  States.  In  the  next  decade 
the  number  rose  to  over  one  and  one-half  millions,  and  in  the 
ten  years  ending  in  1860  the  number  had  risen  to  nearly 
three  millions.  In  1840  there  could  not  have  been  many 
over  three-quarters  of  a  million  persons  of  foreign  birth  in 
the  country,2  but  by  1860  this  number  had  risen  to  over  four 

1  The  figures  in  the   text  are   taken  1872  Dr.  Jarvis,  using  European  emi- 

from    William    J.    Bromwell's    History  gration    reports    and    estimating    the 

of    Immigration    to    the    United    States  number  of  natives  of  the  British  prov- 

(New  York,  1856),  p.  175;   the  Census  inces  who  had  come  into  the  country 

of  1860,  i,  pp.  xix,  xxix ;  and  Edward  by   land,    determined   the    number   of 

Jarvis's    History    of    the    Progress    of  immigrants    arriving    in    the     United 

Population  of  the   United  States,  p.  9.  States  in  the  ten  years  ending  in  1830 

Similar  figures  may  be  deduced  from  as  200,000,  instead  of  143,439  as  given 

the      Statistical      View  .  .  .  A      Com-  by    Bromwell    and    repeated    in    the 

pendium  of  the  Seventh  Census,  p.  122.  Census  of  1860  (p.  xix). 

Jesse     Chickering     (Immigration     into  2  In  1869,  Friedrich  Kapp  estimated 

the  United  States,  Boston,    1848)    gives  that  in   1850   the   descendants  of  the 

tables  of  the  foreign  passengers  arriv-  white   and  free   colored  population  of 

ing    according    to    the    custom    house  the     country     in     1790     would     have 

returns.     There    can    be    little    ques-  amounted  by  natural  reproduction  to 

tion  but  that  all  the  estimates  based  7,355,423.     The     population     of     the 

on    these    returns    are    defective    and  United  States  then,  exclusive  of  slaves, 

much  under  the  actual  numbers.     In  was   19,987,563.     From   this  it  would 

467 


468  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [On.  XV 

millions.  Of  the  immigrants  who  came  in  the  years  before 
1850  about  one-half  of  them  had  remained  in  or  near  the 
port  of  debarkation.  A  few  of  the  new-comers  sought  the 
Far  South,  but  the  great  mass  of  those  who  did  not  stay  on 
the  Northern  seaboard  could  be  found  in  the  Old  Northwest 
and  in  the  country  just  across  the  Mississippi.1  In  the 
decade  after  1850,  the  immigrants  came  in  different  pro- 
portions from  different  countries,  but,  after  their  arrival 
in  the  United  States,  they  went  the  same  ways. 

Of  the  groups  of  foreigners  who  came  to  the  United 
Sta.tes,2  the  Scandinavians  left  their  northern  homes  mainly 
because  of  economic  pressure,  but  religious  beliefs  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  migration  of  many  of  them.  It  was  in 
the  year  1825  that  the  sloop  Restaurationen  sailed  from 
Stavanger  for  New  York  and  in  just  under  one  hundred 
days  entered  the  latter  port.  She  left  Norway  with  fifty- 
two  passengers  on  board  and  reached  New  York  with  fifty- 
three,  for  a  child  had  been  born  on  the  voyage.  These  first 
Norwegian  pilgrims  settled  at  Kendall  in  New  York  State 
and  cultivated  their  farms  there  for  the  rest  of  their  lives ; 

appear   that  foreign   immigrants  since  1,952,332.     Of     these     no     less     than 

1790  and  their  descendants  numbered  1,451,905  were  in  the  Old  Northwest, 

in    1850,   12,632,140.     Probably   Kapp  Wisconsin,   Iowa,   California,   and   Ne- 

underestimated  the  proportion  of  chil-  vada ;  there  being  no  fewer  than  146,528 

dren    born    in    new    communities    (see  foreigners  in  California  in  that  year, 
his     "Immigration"     in     Journal     of  Various    means    were    tried    to    re- 

Social  Science  for  1870).  strain     immigrants     from     going     to 

1  The    information    on    these    sub-  Transappalachia ;  among  them  was  the 

jects   in   the    Censuses   of    1830,    1850,  issuing    of    a    pamphlet    entitled     To 

and    1860,    and    in    the    several    com-  Persons       Inclining      to    Emigrate    to 

pendiums    compiled    from     them,     is  America    which     showed    the    advan- 

somewhat  vague  and  not  at  all  easy  tages     of     western     Pennsylvania     in 

to   handle;     but   the   following   figures  comparison  with  "the  dangers  of  the 

have   been   compiled   and   are   printed  middle  West." 

here  for  what  they  are  worth.  In  Caroline  E.  MacGill  has  an  inter- 
1830  the  total  foreign  population  of  esting  study  of  foreign  immigration  to 
Transappalachia  was  10,313.  Of  this  the  Southern  States  in  The  South  in 
8005  were  in  the  Old  Northwest ;  in  the  Building  of  the  Nation,  v,  595,  with 
1850  the  total  number  had  risen  to  a  list  of  books  at  the  end. 
800,742,  of  whom  566,310  were  in  the  2  Rasmus  B.  Anderson's  First  Chap- 
Old  Northwest  and  Wisconsin  and  ter  of  Norwegian  Immigration,  54- 
lowa.  In  1860  the  total  number  was  131. 


1830]  THE  SCANDINAVIANS  469 

but  their  descendants  are  scattered  widely  over  the  country, 
although  few  of  them  can  be  found  south  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  The  letters  that  the  "sloop"  party  wrote  to 
their  friends  and  former  neighbors  in  the  old  land  were 
copied  and  passed  from  house  to  house,  being  read  by  hun- 
dreds of  persons.  It  was  some  time  before  the  settlers  in 
New  York  had  much  to  write  about  their  new  homes,  but 
by  1836  Norwegians  and  Swedes  by  the  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands sailed  across  the  Atlantic,  passed  through  New  York 
and  over  the  Lakes  to  Illinois  and  Wisconsin.  Some  of 
them  and  many  of  their  descendants  went  farther  west, 
even  to  the  Pacific.  This  later  movement  was  greatly 
accelerated  by  the  publication  of  Ole  Rynning's  "True 
Account  of  America  for  the  Information  and  Help  of  Peasant 
and  Commoner."  l  Rynning  had  come  to  America  in  1837 
and  had  settled  with  his  party  at  Beaver  Creek  to  the  south- 
ward of  Chicago,  in  Illinois.  They  suffered  greatly  from 
malaria,  and  most  of  those  who  survived  removed  to  other 
parts  of  the  State.  Rynning's  little  book  was  written  when 
he  had  been  in  America  only  eight  months,  but  it  was  the 
work  of  a  keen  observer.  The  United  States,  so  he  wrote, 
was  more  than  twenty  times  the  size  of  Norway  and  con- 
tained all  kinds  of  lands.  It  was  so  extensive  that  there  was 
no  danger  of  immediate  over-population  and  the  Americans 
welcomed  industrious  and  moral  people.  Land  could  be 
easily  obtained  and,  when  paid  for,  belonged  absolutely  to 
the  purchaser.  There  were  many  speculators  who  were 
accustomed  to  lie  in  wait  for  the  stranger  and  cheat  him. 
There  is  no  king  in  the  United  States ;  but  there  is  a  man 
called  "president,"  who  "exercises  just  about  as  much 

X 

1  This   was   printed   at   Christiania,  4,  pp.  221-269.     See  also  R.  B.  Ander- 

in  1838,  and  is  translated  in  full  with  a  son's  First  Chapter  of  Norwegian  1m- 

valuable  introduction  by  T.  C.  Blegen  migration,  202-218. 
in  Minnesota  History  Bulletin,  ii,   No. 


470  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Ca.  XV 

authority  as  a  king."  There  are  laws  and  government  and 
authorities  in  America,  but  everyone  is  free  to  engage  in  any 
honorable  occupation  and  to  go  wherever  he  wishes  without 
a  passport.  The  author  declared  that  he  knew  several  bach- 
elors, each  of  whom  had  saved  two  hundred  dollars  clear  by 
ordinary  labor  in  one  year's  time.  Rynning's  book  and 
other  accounts  in  writing  and  in  print  led  to  a  greatly  in- 
creased migration  from  Scandinavian  lands  after  1840. 

The  Norwegians  and  the  Swedes  came  in  groups  composed 
of  families  that  had  lived  as  neighbors  in  the  old  land.  At 
first  the  members  of  each  group  lived  together;  but  their 
descendants  scattered  far  and  wide  over  the  country  north 
of  the  State  of  Arkansas.  In  later  years  more  of  them  have 
remained  in  the  Eastern  States,  especially  in  New  York 
and  in  Massachusetts.1  Of  all  the  groups  or  colonies  that 
came  out  from  Sweden,  none  has  attracted  more  attention 
than  the  community  which  followed  Eric  Janson  to  the  New 
World  and  named  their  settlement  Bishop  Hill  from  Bishop- 
skulla,  his  birthplace.  Like  some  other  religious  enthu- 
siasts, Janson  believed  that  he  represented  Christ  and  that 
the  glory  of  his  work  would  "far  exceed  that  .  .  .  accom- 
plished by  Jesus  and  his  Apostles."  2  In  Sweden  the  Jan- 
sonist  or  Devotionalist  movement  at  first  attracted  little 
attention.  As  its  followers  increased  in  numbers,  perse- 
cution began  and  waxed  stronger  and  stronger  until  they 
determined  to  migrate  to  America.  To  do  this  they  were 
obliged  to  combine  their  worldly  goods  to  provide  for  the 
emigration  of  the  poorer  families,  but  communism  was  not 

1  Kendric     C.     Babcock's     Scandi-  ing  the  growth  and  distribution  of  the 

navian    Element    in    the    United    States  Scandinavians. 

(University    of    Illinois,    Bulletin,    xii,  2  Michael     A.      Mikkelsen's     "The 

'No.    7).  •  There   is  a  valuable  bibliog-  Bishop    Hill    Colony"    in   Johns    Hop- 

raphy  at  the  end  of    this    essay.      G.  kins  Studies,  x,  No.   1 ,  p.  25.     At  the 

T.  Flora's  History  of  Norwegian  Immi-  end  is  a  list  of  books  on  this  settle- 

gration  to  the   United  States  has  some  ment.     See  also  W.  A.  Hinds's  Ameri- 

interesting  tables  in  Appendix  I,  show-  can  Communities  (ed.  1908),  340-360. 


1846]  THE   DEVOTIONALISTS 

a  part  of  Janson's  religious  plan.  The  Devotionalists 
began  to  arrive  at  New  York  in  1846.  They  slowly  and 
painfully  made  their  way  thence  to  Henry  County,  Illi- 
nois, —  some  of  them  going  on  foot  the  greater  part  of  the 
way.  A  part  of  Janson's  plan  was  to  convert  all  mankind 
to  the  blessings  of  the  new  dispensation.  At  once  some  of 
the  younger  men,  filled  with  missionary  zeal,  set  to  work  to 
learn  English  and  soon  departed  from  Bishop  Hill  to  spread 
the  new  faith.  After  the  Devotionalists  had  been  in  the 
country  two  or  three  years  and  were  beginning  to  see  some 
prosperity  ahead  of  them,  Janson  was  murdered  by  an 
American  convert  who  had  married  a  cousin  of  the  prophet 
and  later  wished  to  abandon  the  faith  and  take  his  wife  with 
him.  She  declined.  Janson  supported  her  in  her  refusal 
and  the  husband  killed  him.  For  a  time  the  affairs  of  the 
colony  prospered ;  but  then  misfortunes  came  upon  the 
community  and  eventually  the  Bishop  Hill  colony  went 
into  the  hands  of  a  receiver. 

The  German  migration  to  our  country  began  in  colonial 
days.1  There  were  the  Palatines,  the  Mennonites,  and 
others  who  settled  in  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  and  else- 
where. They  and  their  children  fought  on  the  American 
side  in  the  Revolution  while  their  cousinry  from  Hesse 
Cassel  and  other  German  states  fought  for  their  British 
employers.  After  the  Revolution,  the  Germans  began 
coming  again,  but  the  history  of  the  movement  is  indistinct 
before  1830.  The  statisticians  assert  that  in  the  preceding 
ten  years  6761  Germans  and  Prussians  arrived  in  the  United 
States  by  sea ;  but  this  number  is  too  small.  It  probably 
does  not  include  those  who  came  by  way  of  Quebec,  or  those 
who  landed  in  Texas  before  annexation  to  the  United  States.2 

1  For  books  on  the  German  migra-  !  See    Moritz   Tiling's   German   Ela- 

tion, see  Note  I  at  end  of  the  chapter.  ment  in  Texas,  125. 


472  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Cn.  XV 

After  1830,  the  German  migration  greatly  increased,  and  in 
the  five  years  beginning  with  1850  no  fewer  than  654,251 
immigrants  from  German  lands  disembarked  at  United 
States  ports.1 

Individual  Germans  and  some  families  had  come  to  Texas 
before  1830.  The  first  movement  of  any  size  began  after 
the  revolutionary  activities  in  France,  which  filled  many 
Germans  with  radical  ideas,  and  it  was  stimulated  by  the 
publication  in  1829  of  Gottfried  Duden's  "Reise  nach  den 
westlichen  Staaten  Nordamerika's."  2  Princes,  dukes,  and 
other  German  potentates  arrested  and  imprisoned  the  radi- 
cals in  their  principalities  and  dukedoms,  and  those  who 
escaped  found  it  desirable  to  emigrate.  Thereupon  they  hit 
upon  the  idea  of  founding  a  "German  State"  in  the  United 
States.  It  would  have  to  be  a  member  of  the  Union, 
but  its  existence  would  "assure  the  continuance  of  German 
customs,  German  language  and  create  a  genuine  free  and 
popular  life  ...  in  order  that  a  German  republic,  a  rejuve- 
nated Germany  may  arise  in  North  America."  Others  had 
larger  ideas  and  suggested  founding  several  States  which 
would  be  predominantly  German  in  character  and  in  lan- 
guage; and,  if  this  were  found  to  be  impossible,  would 
secede.3  Emigration  societies  were  formed  in  Germany  and 
colonies  were  sent  out  to  the  newer  parts  of  the  United  States 
and  thousands  of  individuals  came  with  their  wives  and 
children  on  their  own  resources.  The  societies  died  after  a 
few  years,  and  the  settlers,  while  living  together  in  towns  or 
communities  to  a  very  great  extent,  gave  up  all  expectation 

1  See  Bromwell's  Immigration  to  the  do.     An    interesting    account    of    the 

United  States,  177.  Germans,  themselves,  is  in  F.  L.  Olm- 

*  K.    F.    W.    Wander's    Auswande-  sted's    Journey    Through    Texas    (New 

rungs-Katechismus    .    .    .    fur  Auswan-  York,  1857)  ch.  iii. 
derer  .  .  .  nach  Nordamerika  that  was  *  See    Moritz    Tiling's    German   Ele 

published    at    Glogau    in    1852    gives  ment   in    Texas,    15,    and   books   cited 

one  an  idea  of  what  a  German  emi-  therein, 
grant   of   that    time   was   expected   to 


1830]  THE  GERMANS  473 

of  founding  a  distinctively  German  State.  Probably  Wis- 
consin came  near  to  answering  their  expectation.1  The 
climate  there  was  suited  to  them  and  the  conditions  of 
agriculture  were  not  unlike  those  of  the  Fatherland.  In 
the  period  treated  in  this  volume,  the  German  immigrants 
were  farmers  for  the  most  part;  but  in  later  times  they 
gathered  into  certain  cities  until  some  of  them,  as  Mil- 
waukee, became  practically  German  communities.  Many  of 
the  Germans  took  an  active  part  in  local  politics  and  some 
of  them  rose  to  eminence  in  the  national  government.  In 
1848  there  was  another  revolutionary  epoch  in  Europe. 
Again  the  movement  was  unsuccessful  in  Germany  and 
led  to  a  renewed  migration,  this  time  on  a  very  large  scale. 
Although  the  Germans  never  achieved  the  early  ideal  of 
founding  a  distinctively  German  State,  they  preserved  their 
language  and  national  customs  by  the  formation  of  societies 
for  social  and  cultural  purposes,  many  of  which  have  had 
long  and  vigorous  lives. 

Of  all  the  German  societies  that  were  formed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  encouraging  emigration  to  America,  none  was  more 
interesting  than  the  "League  of  the  Nobility"  or  the  "Main- 
zer  Adelsverein."  It  was  founded  in  1842.  The  Duke  of 
Nassau  was  honorary  president,  and  among  its  twenty-one 
noble  members  were  the  Prince  of  Leiningen,  Prince  Frederic 
William  of  Prussia,  the  Prince  of  Solms-Braunfels,  and 
Count  Carl  von  Castell.  Two  members  of  the  society  came 
to  Texas  on  a  prospecting  tour  in  1842  and  having  secured 
a  grant  of  land  returned  to  Germany.  The  princely  pro- 
moters then  fell  into  the  hands  of  unscrupulous  speculators 
who  sold  them  temporary  rights  of  preemption  that  were 

1  Kate  A.  Everest  (afterwards  Mrs.  papers :  in    Transactions    of    the    Wia- 

Levi)   has  studied  the  German  immi-  consin  Academy,   vii,  289 ;    Wisconsin 

gration  to   Wisconsin  with  great  care  State    Historical    Society's    Collections, 

and    embodied    the    results    in    three  xii,  299  and  xiv,  341. 


474  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Cn.  XV 

bought  by  the  Germans  on  the  supposition  that  they  were 
grants  in  fee  simple.  In  1844  three  vessels  brought  from 
four  hundred  to  seven  hundred  Germans  to  Texas  with 
their  household  goods.  Prince  Solms  had  preceded  them 
and  had  made  the  unpleasant  discovery  that  their  land  grant 
was  already  forfeited  by  reason  of  not  having  been  used 
within  the  specified  time.  There  was  plenty  of  unoccupied 
land  in  Texas,  however,  and  the  authorities  were  eager  for 
hard-working  colonists.  Slowly  and  painfully,  the  Germans 
made  their  way  from  Galveston  to  the  interior.  And  in 
the  next  few  years  they  were  joined  by  at  least  six  thousand 
more  new-comers  from  the  Fatherland.  They  had  under- 
stood that  the  Adelsverein  would  provide  for  them  until 
they  could  shift  for  themselves,  but  they  were  left  practically 
to  their  own  resources.  Then  came  the  Mexican  War, 
which  necessarily  disturbed  the  ordinary  course  of  coloniza- 
tion in  Texas,  and  epidemics  due  to  climatic  changes  and 
the  turning  up  of  the  virgin  soil  also  attacked  the  colonists. 
One  thousand  of  them  are  said  to  have  died  in  one  year,  and 
the  Adelsverein  went  into  bankruptcy  and  dissolved.  A 
beginning  had  been  made,  and  the  Texas  settlements 
continued  to  attract  thousands  of  other  Germans,  and  in 
1850  they  and  their  children  are  said  to  have  formed  one- 
fifth  of  the  total  white  population  of  that  State.1 

In  1850  there  were  more  than  two  million  foreigners  in 
the  United  States  and  in  1860  almost  double  that  number.2 
In  both  years  the  immigrants  from  the  British  Empire 
greatly  outnumbered  those  from  the  rest  of  the  world ;  but 
in  each  year  the  Germans  greatly  outnumbered  those  from 
the  non-British  countries.  Of  the  new-comers  from  the 

1  German  writers  give  this  proper-  the    figures    of    the    Census    of    1850, 

tion:    see  Moritz  Tiling's  German  Ele-  which  gives  the  total  German  "born" 

ment   in    Texas,  125,    and    Gilbert    G.  in  Texas  as  8191. 

Benjamin's    Germans    in     Texas,     59.  *  Census     of      1860,     "Population," 

It   is    difficult    to    reconcile    this    with  p.  xxviii. 


1850] 


STATISTICS  OF  IMMIGRATION 


475 


British  Empire,  numbering  nearly  a  million  and  a  half  in 
1850,  not  quite  one  million  had  come  from  Ireland.  Of  the 
non-British  immigrants  and  non-Irish  immigrants,  more  than 
half  a  million  were  listed  as  of  German  birth  in  1850  and 
more  than  one  million  and  a  quarter  in  1860.  It  is  easy  to 
see  from  these  figures  that  Irish  and  German  immigrants 
formed  the  great  mass  of  the  foreign-born  population  of 
the  United  States  in  this  period.1  It  will  not  be  out  of  the 
way  to  note,  perhaps,  that  in  1850  there  were  758  persons 

1  SELECTED  FOREIGN  NATIONALITIES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  1850 


GREAT  BRITAIN 

SCANDINAVIAN 

SECTIONS 

(ENGLAND, 
SCOTLAND, 

IRELAND 

GERMANY 

LANDS  (NOR- 
WAY, SWEDEN, 

WALES) 

DENMARK) 

Atlantic  seaboard  north 

of  Potomac  .... 

230,942 

745,605 

241,830 

2,731 

Atlantic  seaboard  so.  of 

Potomac  incl.  District 

of  Columbia      .     .     . 

9,509 

22,714 

10,693 

234 

Transappalachia,  north 

of  Ohio  R-  and  east 

of  Miss.  R  

107,568 

126,608 

222,590 

12,825 

Transappalachia,  south 

of  Ohio  R.  and  east 

of  Miss.  R  

7,221 

17,673 

16,907 

179 

Transappalachia,     west 

of  Miss.  R.,  north  of 

Arkansas     to     109th 

11,578 

19,890 

51,645 

870 

Transappalachia,     west 

of  Miss-  R.  and  south 

of  Missouri  to  109th 

meridian  

6,425 

26,475 

26,429 

818 

Pacific  Slope  west  of  the 

109th  meridian     V    . 

5,850 

2,754 

3,131 

418 

Totals     

379,093 

961,719 

573,225 

18,047 

Besides  the  above  enumerated  im- 
migrants from  the  British  Empire,  there 
were  147,711  from  British  America,  most 
of  whom  probably  were  born  within  the 
dominions  of  the  British  king.  The 
total  number  of  all  foreigners  in  the 
United  States,  including  those  enumer- 


ated above,  in  1850  was  2,210,839. 
Of  these  1,690,699  were  in  the  States 
north  of  the  Potomac  and  Ohio  rivera 
and  east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  85,130 
south  of  the  Potomac  and  Ohio  rivera 
and  east  of  the  Mississippi  River. 


476  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Ca.  XV 

of  Chinese  birth  in  the  country  and  that  this  number  had 
risen  to  35,567  in  1860. 

The  English,  the  Scots,  and  the  Welsh  were  impelled 
to  migration  by  economic  distress,  with  the  exception  of  those 
who  followed  Mormon  missionaries  to  the  New  World  and 
those  who  belonged  to  the  Shakers  or  to  some  other  of  the 
sects.  They  spread  all  over  the  country.  Some  of  them 
went  to  the  South.  Many  of  them  went  to  Wisconsin  and 
other  Northwestern  States,  but  possibly  one-quarter  of  the 
whole  number  remained  within  the  limits  of  the  State  of 
disembarkation.  They  were  drawn  to  Wisconsin  by  the 
opportunities  for  farming  there  and  by  the  mineral  wealth  of 
the  southwestern  part  of  the  State.  It  is  said  that  no  less 
than  seven  thousand  Cornish  people  settled  around  Mineral 
Point  before  1850. 1  Of  the  farmers  there  was  one  named 
Samuel  Skewes  who  came  from  the  southern  part  of  Eng- 
land. He  sailed  from  Falmouth  to  Quebec,  paying  three 
pounds  passage  money  for  each  member  of  his  family. 
Arrived  at  Quebec,  he  left  for  Montreal  on  the  steamboat 
and  thence  to  Toronto  and  Lewestown.  From  that  place  he 
went  by  "rail  carrs"  to  Buffalo  and  there  took  another 
steamer  to  Racine.  The  total  time  consumed  on  the  jour- 
ney from  England  to  Wisconsin  was  two  months  and  seven 
days.  The  Canadian  route  by  Quebec  was  much  frequented 
in  those  years  in  the  months  when  the  St.  Lawrence  was  free 
from  ice.  Skewes  had  friends  in  Racine  and  in  the  neigh- 
boring town  of  Yorkville.  He  appears  to  have  been  a  man 
of  some  means,  as  he  at  once  acquired  improved  land  and 
bought  more  unimproved  land  from  the  government.  He 
prospered  from  the  start  and  soon  became  a  substantial 

1  T.  S.  Allen's  Directory  of  the  City  eminent  of  an  early  settlement  in  Wis- 

of   Mineral   Point  for    the    Year    1859  consin  may  be   understood    by  reading 

contains      an      interesting      historical  the  Act  of  Incorporation  .  .  .  of  Mineral 

sketch  and  some  illustrative   statistics  Point  which  was   printed  at  that  place 

and  advertisements.     The  form  of  gov-  in  1855. 


1850]  THE  ENGLISH  477 

citizen  of  his  new  home.  Samuel  Skewes  must  have  been 
typical  of  the  English  farming  class,  but  there  are  very  few 
diaries  that  have  been  preserved  that  give  us  so  interesting 
a  picture  as  does  his.1 

A  group  of  English  settlers,  who  also  came  to  Wisconsin, 
offers  another  study,  fully  as  interesting,  but  very  different. 
This  enterprise  was  set  on  foot  by  the  "British  Temperance 
Emigration  Society"  which  was  organized  at  Liverpool, 
England.  Apparently  it  was  a  money-making  venture  with 
philanthropic  aspirations.  There  was  stock  which  was 
subscribed  for  and  the  emigrants  expected  to  pay  rent  for 
their  lands  in  America  as  people  paid  rent  for  their  farms  in 
England.  The  Society,  or  some  of  its  leading  men,  seem 
to  have  tried  to  cultivate  the  soil  of  the  New  World  while 
they  themselves  lived  in  England.  This  colony  was  located 
at  Mazomanie  in  Dane  County,  to  the  northwestward  of 
Madison  and  not  far  from  it.  The  first  settlers  came  out 
in  1843,  each  one  having  eighty  acres  allotted  to  him.  In 
the  next  eight  years,  about  six  hundred  persons  came  to 
the  settlement  from  twelve  English  counties,  from  Wales, 
Scotland,  and  the  Isle  of  Man.  They  at  once  began  to  find 
fault  with  the  scheme  of  rent  paying,  for  no  one  around  them 
paid  rent.  There  was  litigation  between  the  company's 
agents  and  the  farmers,  and  the  later  history  of  the  enter- 
prise is  uncertain ;  but  the  Temperance  Society  was  still  in 
existence  in  1851. 2 

There  were  many  Irish  men  and  women  in  America  before 
the  Revolution  and  they  played  their  parts  in  that  move- 

»"  Diary   of   Samuel    Skewes,    1839  *  Manuscripts  of   the  British  Tem- 

to  1870"  (Mss.)  in  the  cabinet  of  the  perance  Society  are  in  the  Library  of 

Wisconsin  Historical  Society.  the  Wisconsin  Historical  Society.     See 

An  interesting  and  much  more  elabo-  also    William    Kittle's    History    of    the 

rate  account  of  a  migration  is  to  be  found  Township   ano\   Village    of    Mazomanie 

in  "The  Letters  of  Edwin  Bottomlcy,  (Madison,  1900). 
1842--1850  '  (Wisconsin  State  Historical 
Society's  Collections,  xxv). 


478  WESTERN   LANDS   AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Cn.  XV 

ment ;  but  the  great  Irish  migration  began  in  the  1840's  and 
continued  as  prosperity  or  adversity  visited  the  land  of 
their  birth  or  the  country  to  which  they  came.  The  famine  in 
Ireland  in  1847  l  and  the  following  years  has  been  ascribed 
to  various  causes,  as  the  Union  of  1800  and  an  excess  of  rain- 
fall. Local  sources  of  relief  were  speedily  exhausted  and 
England  could  do  little  for  the  sufferers  because  she  also 
was  in  distress.  As  the  months  went  by,  beggars  crept 
through  the  streets  and  lanes  of  the  Irish  towns ;  the  starv- 
ing and  penniless  lay  half  naked  in  their  fireless  and  foodless 
cabins,  counting  the  days  to  the  inevitable  death ;  and  in  no 
long  time  the  dead  became  so  numerous  that  they  were 
laid  away  between  two  boards  wound  about  with  ropes  of 
straw.  There  was  nothing  for  the  survivors  to  do  but 
to  leave  the  land  of  their  birth  and  those  who  could  did  so. 
In  1841  the  population  of  Ireland  was  a  little  over  eight 
millions ;  in  ten  years  time  it  had  dropped  to  six  and  a  half 
millions.2  In  1840  there  came  to  the  United  States  40,642 
persons  from  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland.  Ten  years  later  in  1850  there  were  living  in  the 
United  States  961,719  immigrants  of  Irish  birth.3  Unlike 
the  English,  the  Germans,  and  the  Swedes,  the  Irish  came  as 
individuals  and  families ;  there  was  no  occasion  for  them  to 
form  themselves  into  colonies  and  communities,  because 
their  race  and  religion  bound  them  together  indissolubly. 
Some  Irishmen  took  up  farming  lands  in  the  West ; 4  others 

1  See    Asenath    Nicholson's    Annalt  America,  241.     See  also  Spencer  Wal- 
of  the  Famine  in  Ireland,  in  1847,  1848,  pole's    History    of   England  (ed.    1890), 
and  1849  (New  York,  1851).  v,    209    note,  and    "The    Irish    Crisis" 

2  J.    D.    B.    DeBow's    Compendium  in     The    Edinburgh    Review    for    Jan. 
of  the  Seventh  Census,  124,  and  Census  1848. 

of    1850,    p.    xxxvii.     P.    H.    Bagenal  *  Cardinal    Gibbons    has    an    inter- 

(American     Irish,     28)     gives     58,043  esting  and  brief  study  of  the  numbers 

Irish  arriving  in  the  United  States  in  of   Irish   immigrants  in   his  Retrospect 

1846;    111,984  in  1847;    dwindling  to  of  Fifty  Years,  i,  268  and  fol. 
56,328  in   1855.     But  it  is  not   clear  4  See  O'Hanlon's  Life  and  Scenery  in 

whence    the    figures    came.    See     also  Missouri  (Dublin,  1890),  ch.  xxiv. 
Edward  Young's  Labor  in  Europe  and 


1850]  THE  IRISH  479 

settled  on  vacant  acres  in  the  older  States ;  but  the  great 
mass  of  them  remained  in  or  near  New  York,  Boston,  and 
Philadelphia.  They  had  no  technical  skill  to  speak  of  or 
special  mental  aptitudes,  but  they  had  strength  of  body  and 
fche  will  to  work.  There  was  abundant  labor  for  them ; 
but  their  living  together  in  cities  and  towns  and  their 
strong  racial  and  religious  feelings  kept  them  for  fifty  years 
or  so  in  the  same  places  and  positions  that  they  were  in  in  the 
first  ten  years  of  their  coming.  In  church  and  politics,  only, 
did  the  first  generation  or  two  shine  conspicuously.  The 
Irish  have  always  demanded  priests  of  their  own  race  and 
everywhere  have  secured  political  position  and  power. 

Some  of  the  Germans  and  Scandinavians  came  through 
England,  but  for  the  most  part  they  sailed  the  Atlantic  in 
vessels  of  German  or  Scandinavian  management  and  owner- 
ship. There  were  many  heartrending  stories  of  mis- 
adventure, especially  in  connection  with  the  navigation  of 
the  western  Gulf  on  the  way  to  Texas.  For  the  most  part, 
however,  their  sufferings  were  as  nothing  compared  with 
those  of  the  Irish  in  the  first  years  of  the  great  migration. 
The  movement  caught  English  ship-owners  and  English 
authorities  unprepared.  Suddenly,  tens  of  thousands  of 
Irish  men,  women,  and  children  crossed  to  Liverpool  and 
demanded  passage  to  America.  They  had  no  knowledge 
of  the  sea  and  very  little  money  and  were  accompanied  by 
old  people,  for  their  family  ties  were  very  strong.  They 
were  packed  away  on  shipboard  with  very  slight  attention 
to  health  and  even  less  to  comfort.  In  the  pressing  demand 
for  shipping  of  any  kind,  unfit  vessels  were  made  over  for 
the  emigrants  and  sent  out  ill-manned  and  ill-found.  The 
passengers  were  supposed  to  provide  themselves  with  food 
and  other  necessities,  but  a  great  many  of  them  went  to  sea 
with  very  little  in  the  way  of  food  and  very  poorly  supplied 


480 


WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS      [Cu.  XV 


with  bedding.  Some  of  the  vessels  were  obliged  to  return 
to  port  after  weeks  of  buffeting  the  westerly  gales  of  the 
Atlantic.  Their  cargoes  of  emigrants  were  transferred  to  the 
first  ships  that  could  take  the  seas,  and  it  was  on  these  that 
the  greatest  suffering  occurred,  for  these  emigrants  were  worn 
down  with  sickness  and  want  before  they  started  pn  their 
final  voyage,  and  it  was  on  these  vessels  that  the  "ship 
fever"  found  its  largest  numbers  of  victims.  These  con- 
ditions led  to  the  passage  of  laws  by  the  United  States  and 
by  Great  Britain  for  the  regulation  of  the  emigrant  trade, 
and  these  laws  were  constantly  improved  in  the  next  few 
years.1  The  amounts  of  deck  space  and  air  space  were 
regulated  and  ship  owners  were  obliged  to  provide  enough 
food  and  water  to  insure  the  passengers  against  famine. 
After  1851  there  was  much  less  suffering  than  there  had  been 
and  the  situation  was  greatly  improved  when  steamers  began 
to  be  fitted  for  the  carriage  of  steerage  passengers  across  the 
Atlantic  Ocean. 

From  1825  to  1840  there  was  a  distinct  lull  in  the  found- 
ing of  new  communities ;  but  with  the  beginning  of  the 
fifth  decade  there  was  a  renewed  movement.  The  earlier 
communities  had  been  primarily  religious.  With  the 
publication  in  1840  of  Albert  Brisbane's  "Social  Destiny  of 
Man :  or,  Association  and  Reorganization  of  Industry," 
the  founding  of  the  Hopedale  community,  and  the  Brook 
Farm  experiment,  an  era  of  gropings  for  an  ideal  future  of 
mankind  dawned  upon  the  minds  of  many  persons.  Brook 
Farm  embodied  the  aspirations  of  a  band  of  idealists  who 


1  Friedrich  Kapp  in  his  Immigra- 
tion, and  the  Commissioners  of  Emi- 
gration (New  York,  1870)  has  set 
forth  with  great  distinctness  the  hard- 
ships of  the  voyage  and  of  the  first 
few  days  in  the  New  World  in  the  1840's 
and  '50's,  as  well  as  later. 

The  early  important  laws  regulat- 


ing the  transportation  of  emigrants 
across  the  Atlantic  were  15  &  16  Vic- 
toria, c.  44  (June  30,  1852),  and  18  A 
19  Victoria,  c.  119  (August  14,  1855; 
Statutes  of  the  United  Kingdom,  xxi, 
61;  xxii,  796),  and  the  act  of  March 
3,  1855  (Statutes  at  Large  of  the  United 
States,  x,  715). 


COMMUNITIES  481 

expected  to  regenerate  the  world  by  establishing  a  coop- 
erative farm.  They  were  high-minded  men  and  women  and 
some  of  them  possessed  great  intellectual  capacities.  They 
had  slight  knowledge  of  agriculture  and  its  adjoining  pur- 
suits and  their  lands  were  worn  out  and  unfertile.1  After 
a  few  years  of  spectacular  existence,  the  Brook  Farmers 
became  Fourierites  and  speedily  dissolved,  owing  partly  to  a 
conflagration  that  destroyed  their  new  phalanstery.  An- 
other enterprise  on  somewhat  similar  lines  was  Bronson 
Alcott's  little  brotherhood  at  Fruitlands,  also  in  Massa- 
chusetts. His  theories  were  akin  to  those  of  the  "English 
Christians"  who  thought  it  wrong  to  slaughter  animals 
and  eat  their  carcasses,  to  drink  milk  from  cows  or  goats,  or 
to  devour  the  eggs  of  hens.  They  hoped  that  it  might  not  be 
necessary  to  employ  animals  to  draw  the  plough.  They  set 
out  to  do  all  the  work  of  the  farm  themselves  with  spade 
and  hoe,  and  found  competition  with  near-by  farmers,  who 
had  no  objection  to  urging  forward  the  laboring  ox,  a  difficult 
matter.  Nevertheless,  it  is  pleasant  to  think  of  Alcott  and 
his  friends  sitting  at  eve  after  a  toilsome  day  refreshed  with 
"chaste  supplies  for  the  bodily  needs"  looking  across  the 
pleasant  valley  to  the  barren  hills  beyond.2 

Brisbane  drew  his  ideas  from  Charles  Fourier,  a  French- 
man, and  placed  his  master's  thoughts  in  a  form  that  men 
of  usual  understanding  could  comprehend.  Fourier  fore- 
saw with  prophet's  eye  many  things  that  have  happened 
since  his  death  in  1837 :  cooperation  in  buying,  cooperation 

1  John    T.    Codman's    Brook    Farm,  harvard,    275-284 ;     Alcott's    reminis- 
Historic  and  Personal  Memoirs;    Lind-  cences     of     Fruitlands     thirty     years 
say    Swift's    Brook    Farm,    Its    Mem-  later  in  Sanborn  and  Harris's  A.  Bron- 
bers,   Scholars,   and   Visitors;    a  list  of  son   Alcott,    ii,    385,    386;     and    Louisa 
books  is  on  p.  283.     Hawthorne  in  his  M.     Alcott's     "Transcendental     Wild 
Blithedale     Romance     figures     his     ex-  Oats"   in  Silver  Pitchers  and  in  Clara 
perience  at  Brook  Farm.  E.    Sears'    Bronson  Alcott's  Fruitlands, 

2  For    accounts    of    Fruitlands,    see  which  contains  much   new  matter  on 
H.  S.  Nourse's  History  of  the  Town  of  this  curious  experiment. 

VOL.  V  —  2 1 


482  WESTERN  LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Cn.  XV 

in  production  through  stockholding  in  corporations  and 
trusts  or  otherwise  named  groups.  He  clothed  his  ideas  in 
fantastic  phrase  and  elaborated  his  illustrations  to  tiresome 
and  phantasmal  extreme.  He  was  regarded  as  a  semblant 
lunatic  —  harmless  or  vicious,  according  to  one's  point  of 
view.  His  followers  in  America  sought  to  do  in  1840  what 
possibly  may  be  practicable  in  1940.  Their  failure  showed 
their  lack  of  sense  and  not  the  insanity  of  the  master  or  the 
absurdity  of  his  ideas.  Had  he  written  in  smooth,  didactic 
phrase  with  less  confidence  in  his  own  infallibility,  he  would 
have  died  unhonored  and  unknown.  As  it  was,  he  attracted 
the  unprofitable  and  inefficient,  and  failure  followed  every 
conscious  effort  to  carry  out  his  ideas.  He  thought  that 
the  society  of  his  day  was  out  of  joint  —  man  and  his 
environment  were  out  of  harmony.  As  God  made  man  and 
man  made  the  environment,  the  way  to  bring  God  and  man 
into  harmonious  association  and  to  use  all  the  forces  that 
God  had  given  man  was  to  change  the  environment.  This 
he  proposed  to  do  by  bringing  men,  women,  and  children 
into  harmonious  action,  avoiding  waste,  and  utilizing  human 
desires  to  bring  about  greatly  increased  production  with 
greatly  lessened  effort.  Everywhere,  advantage  and  in- 
equality were  to  be  found  in  man  and  beast,  but  man  alone 
had  no  joy  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  no  love  of  labor  for 
its  own  sake.  Fourier  proposed  to  substitute  the  passions 
of  humanity  for  wages,  for  as  all  passions  were  given  to  man 
by  God  they  must  be  good ;  at  any  rate  they  could  not  be 
got  rid  of.  By  having  every  one  do  the  work  that  was  most 
pleasing  to  him,  and  by  combining  workers  in  one  branch  of 
industry  in  groups  laboring  side  by  side,  the  spirit  of  rivalry 
would  be  utilized  to  increase  production.  By  changing  em- 
ployment after  an  hour  or  two,  the  desire  for  variety  would 
make  labor  pleasant.  By  cooperation  in  housekeeping 


18401  FOURIERISM  483 

great  economies  of  woman's  time  and  of  the  community's 
stores  would  be  effected,  and  there  would  be  one  place  in  the 
world  where  woman's  work  would  come  to  a  definite  diurnal 
ending.  He  wished  to  eliminate  hirelings  and  middlemen 
and  the  ordinary  standards  of  value.  Capital  would  be 
employed  and  rewarded  in  inverse  proportion  to  the  amount 
invested  by  an  individual ;  the  holder  of  one  share  getting, 
perchance,  twenty  per  cent,  while  the  holder  of  two  hundred 
shares  would  have  to  content  himself  with  three  or  four  per 
cent.  Every  adult,  whether  man  or  woman,  possessed  the 
vote  in  the  Fourier  state,  but  the  government  was  represent- 
ative. Each  industrial  group  selected  its  chief  and  the 
"serie,"  that  was  composed  of  groups,  chose  a  representative 
to  the  general  governing  body ;  thus  the  Fourier  state 
was  not  a  democracy.  In  1842,  1843,  and  1844  more  than 
thirty  Fourierite  communities  were  established  in  America, 
including  the  made-over  Brook  Farm.1  There  were  seven 
of  them  in  New  York,  six  in  Ohio,  six  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  others  scattered  over  the  land.  The  largest  was  the 
Clarkson  Industrial  Association  of  New  York,  which  had 
four  hundred  and  twenty  members  and  lived  for  six  months ; 
one  of  the  smallest  was  the  Marlboro  Association  of  Ohio 
which  had  twenty-four  members  and  lived  for  four  years. 
The  most  successful  was  the  Wisconsin  Phalanx  at  Ceresco,2 
but  the  one  that  we  know  most  about  was  the  North  Amer- 
ican Phalanx  which  was  founded  by  New  Yorkers  in  New 
Jersey. 

Fourier  had  designed  to  have  his  experiment  tried  by  a 
large  number  of  persons  with  a  capital  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars.  When  the  North  American  Phalanx 

1  Commons    and    Associates     (His-  quit's  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United 

tory   of  Labour,    i,    505)    speak   of    "at  States  (ed.  1910),  ch.  iii. 
least    forty"    Fourierite    organizations  2  See  Wisconsin  in  Three  Centuries, 

and  Hinds  gives  a  list  of  thirty  (Ameri-  iii,  ch.  vii. 
can  Communities,  250).     See  also  Hill- 


484  WESTERN  LANDS  AND  SETTLEMENTS       [CH.  XV 

issued  its  call  for  recruits  and  money,  few  persons  came 
forward  and  little  money  was  subscribed;  dissatisfied 
laborers  saw  little  relation  between  "  association  "  and  the 
adjustment  of  their  grievances,  and  capitalists  saw  more 
profitable  use  for  their  money  elsewhere.  In  1843  the  North 
American  Phalanx  began  the  great  experiment  with  only 
half  a  dozen  families  and  with  less  than  seven  thousand 
dollars,1  of  which  they  were  obliged  to  pay  five  thousand 
dollars  down  on  account  of  the  purchase  of  seven  hundred 
acres  of  land  near  Red  Bank,  New  Jersey.  At  the  end  of 
three  months,  the  members  nearly  came  to  blows  over 
the  conduct  of  their  business  affairs.  At  first  they  were 
obliged  to  hire  a  few  working  men,  but  after  that  they  de- 
pended entirely  on  their  own  exertions.  Each  year  the 
standard  price  of  the  ordinary  day's  labor  was  fixed  by 
vote,  but  those  skilled  in  administration  were  rated  some- 
what higher.  Easy  and  attractive  work  was  appraised  at 
the  lowest  rate  and  each  group  assessed  the  performance 
of  its  members,  there  being  no  discrimination  for  sex  or  age. 
Every  day  each  person  set  down  on  a  public  card  the  number 
of  hours  he  or  she  had  worked.  These  accounts  were  footed 
up  monthly,  the  amount  produced  by  each  group  was 
stated  and  the  workers  credited  on  the  books  of  the  asso- 
ciation with  the  number  of  computed  hours  of  labor.  They 
were  debited  with  the  cost  of  lodging  and  of  board  and  with 
goods  procured  at  the  general  store.  Before  long  the  me- 
chanics became  dissatisfied  with  the  system  and  declared 
that  the  workers  of  the  neighborhood  were  receiving  higher 
wages,  and  some  of  them  removed  from  the  Phalanx.  Reli- 
gious troubles  also  assailed  the  association.  The  members 
were  of  many  sects,  and  those  of  their  faiths  outside,  fearing 

1  Charles  Sears'  The  North  Ameri-  W.  A.  Hinds'  American  Communities, 
can  Phalanx,  An  Historical  and  De-  266-275 ;  and  Commons'  History  oj 
tcriptive  Sketch  (Prescott,  Wis.,  1886) ;  Labour,  ii,  204. 


1840]  FOURIERISM  485 

for  their  souls,  visited  the  community  and  meeting  with  a 
cold  reception  held  it  up  to  scorn  in  their  papers.  In  1855 
the  enterprise  came  to  a  sudden  ending  with  the  burning  of 
the  grist  mill  which  was  stored  with  grain  that  had  not  been 
paid  for.  When  the  question  of  what  could  be  done  was 
discussed  in  general  meeting  it  was  voted  to  dissolve. 
Brook  Farm  had  broken  up  in  a  similar  way  and  the  Wis- 
consin Phalanx  at  a  later  time  went  to  pieces  almost  as 
rapidly.  In  all  three  cases  it  was  probably  discontent  with 
the  life  that  led  to  dissolution.  For  a  time  ordinary  people 
can  live  on  enthusiasm  and  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal ;  but  it  is 
only  extraordinary  men  and  women  who  can  keep  up  the 
search  for  any  length  of  time  when  others  in  "The  World" 
about  them  are  tasting  of  forbidden  fruits  or  drinks,  are 
accumulating  capital,  and  are  living  in  leisured  luxury. 
Besides,  a  too  sheltered  existence  is  irksome  to  many  people, 
especially  in  their  early  years.  They  like  to  contend  with 
the  forces  of  nature  and  with  their  fellow  men  and  women,  — 
the  humdrum  life  of  a  community,  where  one  has  no  thought 
for  his  food  or  his  shelter  or  his  clothing,  has  slight  attrac- 
tions for  such  as  these.  If  the  world  were  thoroughly 
fourierized  there  would  be  no  forbidden  drinks,  no  capi- 
talists, no  leisured  class,  —  all  would  be  on  a  dead  level,  or 
within  appreciable  distance  of  it.  It  is  interesting  to  look 
about  the  world  in  which  one  lives  and  note  how  far  the 
law  of  association  has  come  to  be  the  measure  of  human 
effectiveness,  how  far,  indeed,  we  have  progressed  toward 
Fourier's  seventh  state  of  civilization. 

The  community  of  the  Inspirationists  at  Amana,  Iowa,1 

1  See    Bertha    M.    H.    Shambaugh's  Monographs,  No.  I)  is  briefer  and  has 

Amana,    The   Community   of   True  In-  a     bibliography.     Charles     F.      Noe's 

spiral-ion    (Iowa   City,    1908);     W.    R.  "  Brief  History  of  the  Amana  Society " 

Perkins  and  B.  L.  Wick's  "History  of  is  the  work  of  a  member  of  the  so- 

the   Amana   Society"    in    the    Univer-  ciety    (Iowa    Journal    of    History    ant 

rity   of   Iowa   Publications    (Historical  Politics  for  April,   1904). 


486  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Cn.  XV 

and  the  surrounding  villages  has  possessed  the  longest  life 
of  any  American  society,  except  the  Shakers.  The  In- 
spirationists  had  their  rise  in  eighteenth  century  Ger- 
many and  were  descended  from  the  Pietists  of  the  century 
before.  They  had  their  own  ideas  as  to  religion,  were 
pacifists,  and  had  peculiar  beliefs  as  to  education.  They 
found  Germany  a  difficult  place  to  live  in  and  many  of  them 
in  1842  removed  to  New  York.  Originally  they  had  no 
communal  ideas,  but,  in  order  to  provide  for  the  emigration 
of  the  poorer  families  among  them,  the  richer  were  obliged 
to  invest  their  property  in  the  enterprise.  They  first  settled 
in  the  vicinity  of  Buffalo,  but  in  1855,  having  outgrown 
their  quarters  there,  removed  to  Iowa,  taking  ten  years  to 
wind  up  the  affairs  of  one  settlement  and  get  the  other  into 
prosperous  working  condition.  In  1900  there  were  seven- 
teen hundred  or  more  Inspirationists  in  their  settlement. 
They  employed  a  couple  of  hundred  hireling  laborers  and 
did  a  good  deal  of  mechanical  work  as  well  as  cultivating 
their  lands.  They  lived  in  families,  although  marriage 
was  rather  frowned  upon,  but  they  ate  in  common  kitchen- 
houses.  Unlike  most  of  the  communities,  whether  religious 
or  not,  there  were  no  restrictions  on  the  use  of  tobacco  or 
alcoholic  beverages  and  women  did  not  hold  office. 

Another  community  that  has  had  a  long  life,  although  a 
somewhat  checkered  one,  is  the  Iowa  settlement  of  the 
Icarians,  as  the  followers  of  Etienne  Cabet  are  usually 
called.1  Like  Fourier,  Cabet  was  a  Frenchman,  but  unlike 
Fourier,  he  was  an  extreme  radical.  The  French  Revolution 
of  1830  did  not  satisfy  him  and  he  was  obliged  to  seek 
safety  in  England.  In  1840,  his  "Voyage  en  Icarie"  was 
published.  It  describes  an  Utopia  where  advantage  and 
class  injustice  were  no  more.  Before  long  groups  of  Icarians 

1  For  a  bibliography,  see  Note  III  at  end  of  chapter. 


1849]  THE   ICARIANS  487 

appeared  in  France,  Switzerland,  and  Germany,  and  estab- 
lished little  communistic  societies  entirely  against  the 
wishes  of  those  in  power.  Persecutions  followed  and  it  was 
determined  to  establish  a  colony  in  the  New  World.  Cabet's 
desires  were  illimitable,  —  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
and  large  sums  of  money.  Thousands  of  emigrants  joined 
the  movement  and  there  was  a  substantial  amount  of  capital. 
At  first  they  thought  of  trying  their  experiment  in  Texas, 
but  after  many  vicissitudes,  in  1849,  they  pitched  upon  the 
deserted  Mormon  city  of  Nauvoo  as  a  place  of  habitation. 
There  the  Icarians  passed  some  years  of  communistic 
happiness,  apparently  being  guided  and  governed  by  Cabet, 
himself.  He  then  turned  the  community  over  to  its  members 
and  two  parties  were  immediately  formed.  The  minority 
refused  to  work  and  was  thereupon  deprived  of  food  by  the 
majority.  Cabet,  himself,  was  expelled  from  his  own 
society  and  died  not  long  after  in  1856.  For  nearly  fifty 
years,  bands  of  Icarians  of  one  party  or  the  other  lived  in 
communal  settlements  in  Missouri,  Iowa,  and  California,  — 
for  Nauvoo  had  to  be  abandoned.  Sooner  or  later  all  of 
these  settlements  became  individualized. 

The  Mormon  movement  to  Utah  in  some  respects  was  like 
other  religio-communistic  enterprises ;  but  in  size,  success, 
and  permanence,  it  far  outstripped  them.1  Also  it  deserves 

1  The    books    on    the    Mormon    mi-  son's     The    Mormons,     or,     Latter-Day 

gration    are    innumerable.     A    list    of  Saints  in  the   Valley  of  the  Great  Salt 

them  preceeds  H.  H.  Bancroft's   Utah  Lake.     This    was    published    in     1852 

that    was    printed    in    1889.     Bancroft  and    went    through     several    editions, 

in  this  volume  aimed  to  be  fair  to  both  Jules    Remy's     Voyage    au    Pays    dea 

sid»,  generally  putting  one  side  in  the  Mormons    was    published    in    two    vol- 

text    and    the   other   in    the   foot-note.  umes  at  Paris  in  1860  and  appeared  in 

He    arid    Mrs.    Bancroft   went   to    Salt  an  English  dress  in  the  following  year. 

Lake  City  and  personally  interviewed  It    is    a    singularly    faithful    account, 

some   of   the  leading   survivors   of   the  From  the  Mormon  point  of  view  B.  H. 

early    days    and    their    wives.     Never-  Roberts's     The    Missouri    Persecutions 

theless  the  work,  so  far  as  it  is  based  and  his  Rise  and  Fall  of  Nauvoo  and 

on  these  reminiscences,  partakes  of  all  James  A.  Little's  From  Kirtland  to  Salt 

the  imperfections  of  such  books.     An  Lake     City    may     be    mentioned.     Of 

earlier  book  is  Lieutenant  J.  W.  Gunni-  the    anti-Mormon    books    Thomas    B. 


188  WESTERN   LANDS  AND  SETTLEMENTS       [Ca.  XV 

treatment  by  itself  as  a  leading  factor  in  the  acquisition  of 
California,  for  the  routes  from  the  High  Plains  to  the 
Sacramento  Valley  led  through  the  Utah  Basin,  and  Salt 
Lake  City  became  a  place  of  succor  for  successive  bands 
of  gold-seekers  and  pioneers.  The  Mormons  at  first  settled 
at  Kirtland  in  Ohio,  about  twenty  miles  from  Cleveland. 
Thence  they  went  westwardly  to  the  frontiers  of  Missouri, 
where  they  established  several  thriving  settlements.  They 
aroused  the  hostility  of  their  neighbors  and  were  driven  out 
in  the  middle  of  winter  to  Iowa.  They  then  recrossed  the 
Mississippi  River  to  Illinois  and  built  a  flourishing  town, 
which  they  named  Nauvoo.1  At  that  place  they  enjoyed 
a  brief  season  of  peace  and  prosperity  before  their  neighbors 
turned  upon  them.2  By  this  time  some  of  the  leading  men 
practiced  polygamy,  although  whether  this  was  known  to 
outsiders  is  not  clear.  The  Mormons  had  their  own  min- 
isters, settled  their  disputes  among  themselves  without 
going  to  courts  of  law,  and  healed  their  sick  by  their  own 
methods,  —  and  thereby  aroused  the  jealousies  of  ministers, 
lawyers,  doctors,  and  politicians.  They  were  a  "queer" 
people  and  the  ordinary  everyday  American  has  always 
distrusted  queerness  in  others.  It  is  probable,  also,  that 
the  power  of  the  Mormons  to  accumulate  property  aroused 
ill-feeling  among  the  people  round  about  them.  In  1844, 
Joseph  Smith,  the  Prophet,  and  his  brother  Hyrum  were 


H.   Stenhouse's    The   Rocky  Mountain  *  One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the 

Saints  and  Mrs.   Stenhouse's  "  Tell  It  Mormon    off-shoots    was    the    colony 

All":    the  Story  of  a  Life's  Experience  that    gathered    around    James    Strang 

and    Judge    R.    N.    Baskin's   Reminis-  on    Beaver    Island    in    the    Straits    01 

cences  of  Early  Utah  will  suffice  for  the  Mackinac.     Edwin     O.     Woods'     His- 

needs  of  most  persons.  toric   Mackinac,    i,     ch.    xviii ;     H.    E. 

1  An     interesting     contemporaneous  Legler's    A    Moses    of    the    Mormons, 

account  of  Nauvoo  is  in  Henry  Brown's  Strong's    City    of    Refuge    and    Island 

History  of  Illinois   (New  York,    1844),  Kingdom;     and    Wisconsin    in    Three 

pp.  395-403,  487-492.  See  also,  Pooley's  Centuries,  iii,  125-136. 
"Settlement  of  Illinois,"  ch.  zii,  and  the 
books  cited  by  him. 


18461  THE  MORMONS  489 

murdered  by  a  mob  at  Carthage,  Illinois.  Then  followed 
months  of  distressing  conflict  which  compelled  the  Mormons 
to  undertake  another  pilgrimage. 

On  the  death  of  Joseph  Smith  and  his  brother,  Brigham 
Young  seized  the  reins  of  authority  and  until  his  death  led 
the  Mormon  host  successfully  in  peace  and  in  war.  As  a 
"  captain  of  industry  "  he  ranks  with  the  best  of  them  Some- 
what earlier,  foreseeing  the  trend  of  events,  Joseph  Smith 
had  prophesied  that  the  "Saints  would  be  driven  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  would  become  a  mighty  people."  1 
He  had  even  organized  an  expedition  to  explore  that  region, 
but  nothing  further  had  been  done  before  his  death.2  Brig- 
ham  Young  appears  to  have  investigated  carefully  the  routes 
leading  westward  and  to  have  counselled  with  those  who  had 
already  been  in  the  mountains.  In  the  early  spring  of  1846, 
the  bulk  of  the  Mormons  left  Nauvoo  and  began  their  west- 
ward way,  at  first  over  the  ice  and  snow,  and  then  halted  until 
the  growing  grass  provided  food  for  the  cattle,  when  the 
march  was  resumed.  On  reaching  the  Missouri  River,  a 
permanent  camp  was  established  not  far  from  the  present 
Omaha.  It  was  known  as  Winter  Quarters  and  for  some 
years  was  the  rallying  point  for  successive  Mormon  expedi- 
tions. Seven  hundred  log  cabins  were  erected,  the  lands 
were  cleared,  and  food  crops  raised.  Before  the  end  of  the 
year  they  were  all  settled  there,  but  their  sufferings  in  the 
following  winter  were  keen,  as  the  roofs  of  their  cabins 
leaked  and  they  had  .insufficient  fuel.  Often  the  women's 
clothes  were  frozen  stiff  and  remained  so  day  after  day 
and  one  "could  hear  them  rattle  as  they  struck  against 
anything."  3  While  at  this  place  the  Mormons  entered  into 

'John  Taylor's  Ms.  "Reminis-  'Mrs.  Richards  in  her  "Reminis- 
cences," p.  13.  cences"  relates  that  the  log  huts  at 

*  Wilford  Woodruff's  Ms.  "Rem-  Winter  Quarters  were  just  large  enough 

oiiscences,"  p.  3.  to  hold  two  beds  and  two  chairs,  and 


490  WESTERN   LANDS   AND   SETTLEMENTS      [Cn.  XV 

an  arrangement  with  the  federal  government  by  which  some 
five  hundred  of  them  enlisted  in  the  "Mormon  Battalion"1 
and  followed  Colonel  Kearny  to  California  by  way  of  Santa 
F6  and  thence  after  a  year  or  so  made  their  way  eastwardly 
through  the  mountains  to  the  Utah  Valley. 

In  the  winter  of  1846  and  1847  about  twelve  thousand 
people,  men,  women,  and  children,  old  and  young,  well  and 
sick,  were  gathered  at  Winter  Quarters  and  vicinity.  In 
April,  1847,  Brigham  Young  led  an  advance  party  westward 
to  find  a  place  of  settlement.  They  went  through  the 
South  Pass  to  Fort  Bridger  and  thence  through  the  moun- 
tains until  they  looked  down  upon  the  valley  of  the  Great 
Salt  Lake.  "This  is  the  place,"  said  Young.  At  once 
they  picked  out  a  site  for  their  town,  staked  off  the  land,  and 
began  a  system  of  irrigation.2  On  September  19,  1847,  the 
van  of  the  main  expedition  with  five  hundred  and  eighty 
wagons  and  over  two  thousand  oxen  besides  other  animals 
arrived,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year  there  were  four  thousand 
settlers  in  the  valley.  The  Utah  Valley  had  been  visited 
by  trappers  twenty-five  years  and  more  before,  and  there 
were  a  few  settlers  living  there  when  the  Mormons  came. 
These  bought  out  their  rights  and  at  once  spread  out  over 
the  land,  taking  stations  at  the  mouths  of  the  canons,  thus 
controlling  the  water  supply  of  the  whole  region.  Within  the 
next  few  years  the  greater  part  of  the  fugitives  from  Nauvoo 
joined  the  original  settlers  in  the  Utah  Valley.  From  the 
very  beginning  of  their  life  as  a  distinct  sect,  the  Mormons 
were  active  in  missionary  enterprises.  They  sent  their 
young  men  and  some  of  their  leaders  to  different  parts  of 

the  roof  was  made  of  logs  covered  with  Utah  (Baltimore,  1898)  and  Hamil- 

marsh  flags  with  the  earth  spread  over  ton  Gardner's  "Cooperation  among  the 

them.  Mormons"  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of 

1  See  below  (p.  586)  for  books  on  the  Economics,  xxxi,  461.  A  list  of  books 

Mormon  Battalion.  on  the  subject  is  in  Brough's  paper, 

1  See  C.  H.  Brough's  Irrigation  in  p.  xiii. 


1846]  THE  MORMONS  491 

the  United  States  and  to  European  countries.  They  made 
converts  in  great  numbers  and  it  was  difficult  to  bring  them 
from  the  western  settlements  to  the  Utah  Valley.  In  1856 
there  were  so  many  of  them  that  the  leaders  hit  upon  the 
scheme  of  having  the  new-comers  walk  the  whole  way, 
drawing  their  supplies  in  handcarts.  There  were  five 
companies  in  all.  The  first  three  fared  well  enough,  but 
the  last  two,  starting  late  in  the  year,  did  not  reach  the 
mountains  until  the  snows  began  to  fall.  Many  of  them 
perished  and  the  others  were  rescued  by  expeditions  sent 
from  Salt  Lake  City.  One  of  the  rescuers  wrote  that  when 
they  came  upon  them  they  saw  "aged  men  and  women, 
with  children  of  both  sexes  pulling  and  pushing  their  hand- 
carts through  the  snow  with  their  clothing  wet  to  their 
knees."  *  Nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  these  two  last 
handcart  parties  perished  on  the  way.  Otherwise,  the 
conduct  of  the  Utah  migration  was  so  successful  that  nature 
and  man  appeared  to  work  for  them  in  a  way  that  they 
deemed  miraculous.  In  1849,  the  rush  to  California  began 
and  thousands  of  gold-seekers  passed  through  the  Utah 
Valley  on  the  way  to  the  Coast.  They  were  generally  short 
of  food,  but  had  many  things  that  the  Salt  Lake  people 
needed,  and  this  gave  to  the  Mormons  a  profitable  market 
for  their  surplus  grain  and  meat.  From  the  beginning, 
Brigham  Young  set  his  face  most  sternly  against  his  people 
engaging  in  mining  enterprises,  for  he  felt  that  agriculture 
was  the  only  sound  basis  of  permanent  settlement.  When- 
ever any  of  his  people  showed  a  desire  to  go  to  the  mines,  he 
told  them  they  were  free  to  go,  but  could  never  return.  He 
also  declared  that  it  \\  as  better  to  feed  the  Indians  than  to 

1  H.      H.      Cluff's      "Overland      in  material  in  that  library,  I  am  greatly 

Winter,"   p.   7;   Ms.    in   the  Bancroft  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Professor 

Library    at    the    University    of    Cali-  Herbert   E.    Bolton    and   his   able   as- 

fornia.     For  the  use  of  this  and  other  sistants. 


492  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS       [Cn.  XV 

fight  them,  and  the  Mormons  were  always  singularly  free 
from  the  usual  excitements  of  frontier  life. 

The  Mormon  state  was  a  combination  of  almost  unlimited 
democracy  with  an  unlimited  autocracy.  It  would  appear 
as  if  the  two  elements  were  incapable  of  combination  in  one 
community,  but  they  certainly  seem  to  have  been  combined 
in  Mormon  Utah.  As  Prophet,  Brigham  Young  was  the 
direct  representative  of  God  to  his  people,  combining  in  his 
own  person  supreme  authority  in  Church  and  State.  The 
working  of  the  system  was  well  described  by  the  editor  of 
the  "Millennial  Star"  at  a  later  period  in  1867.  According 
to  him  the  utmost  freedom  of  speech  was  permitted  in  the 
legislature;  "but  any  measure  that  cannot  be  unanimously 
decided  on,  is  submitted  to  the  President  of  the  Church, 
who  by  the  wisdom  of  God  decides  the  matter."  *  As  the 
representative  of  the  Almighty  in  ecclesiastical  and  tem- 
poral affairs,  a  man  of  the  business  capacity  of  Brigham 
Young  exercised  authority  almost  unknown  in  any  modern 
state.  The  Prophet  was  assisted  by  two  councillors,  and 
these  three  with  others  formed  the  First  Presidency,  which 
was  the  chief  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  body  in  the 
community  as  well  as  the  chief  religious  body. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  line  from  the  Prophet  and  the 
First  Presidency  were  the  "Bishop"  and  the  "Ward."  In 
early  times  the  latter  was  the  civic  and  ecclesiastical  unit. 
Most  Utah  towns  comprised  one  ward,  but  Salt  Lake  City 
had  thirteen  of  them  and  more.  The  record  book  of  the 
Thirteenth  Ward  has  been  preserved  and  deserves  careful 


1  The   Latter-Day   Saints'  Millennial  placing    at    my    disposal    an    unpub- 

Star,     November     23,     1867.      I     am  fished    paper    of    his    on    "Separatism 

indebted    to     Professor     Franklin     D.  in   Utah."     It  is  one  of  the  first  at- 

Daines  of  the  Utah  State  Agricultural  tempts    to    study    the    history    of   the 

College    for    calling    my    attention    to  Mormon    enterprise    apart    from    re- 

this  passage,  and  for  much  help  in  my  ligious  bias. 
study     of     Mormon     institutions,     in 


1850]  THE  MORMONS  493 

perusal  by  students  of  institutions.1  The  Bishop  presided 
at  the  ward  meetings,  which  were  opened  with  singing  and 
prayer.  In  the  year  1854  there  were  twelve  ward  meetings. 
To  these  came  all  the  male  inhabitants  of  the  ward,  and  they 
determined  by  majority  vote  such  business  questions  as 
repairing  streets,  opening  ditches,  setting  out  shade  trees, 
fencing  the  school  house  lot,  and  appointing  water  masters, 
practically  as  a  New  England  town  in  colonial  days  had 
managed  its  affairs.  One  of  the  ward  meetings  in  1854  was 
a  "Blessing  Meeting"  at  which  converts  and  children  were 
blessed  on  their  entrance  into  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  the  Latter-day  Saints.  There  were  inspectors  in  each 
ward  who  visited  each  house  within  its  limits  and  reported 
to  the  ward  meeting  all  those  who  did  not  have  family  prayers 
or  who  did  not  take  proper  care  of  their  children  and  house. 
Generally,  the  report  was  sufficient  to  bring  compliance 
with  religious  and  civil  rule ;  but  in  obstinate  cases  the  ward 
meeting  voted  to  separate  the  culprit  from  the  Church. 
This  seems  to  have  been  the  highest  penalty  inflicted  in 
Mormon  Utah  ;  in  the  early  days  it  was  equivalent  to  death 
by  starvation.  The  Bishop  held  court  at  his  own  house 
with  two  counsellors.  At  one  of  these  Bishop's  Courts  one 
man  prosecuted  another  for  assault.  Each  party  stated 
his  side  of  the  case.  The  Bishop  and  his  counsellors  then 
conferred  together  and  ordered  the  defendant  to  pay  twenty- 
five  dollars  to  the  plaintiff  for  having  treated  him  with 
violence.  There  were  no  lawyers,  no  rules  of  evidence,  and 
no  speeches  of  any  kind.  In  other  cases,  there  were  wit- 
nesses and  some  attempts  at  explanation  that  might  fairly 
be  termed  speech  making,  but  ordinarily  the  proceedings 

1  Professor    Levi    Edgar    Young    of  City  and  has  greatly  helped  me  in  the 

the    University   of   Utah   most   kindly  elucidation  of  many  points  of  Mormon 

placed   at  my  disposal   "Book  B"   of  history, 
the    Thirteenth    Ward    of    Salt    Lake 


494  WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS 

were  simple  and  rapid.  Bishop  Woolley  of  the  Thirteenth 
Ward  was  a  little  overbearing  at  times  and  was  criticized 
in  general  ward  meeting.  He  asked  for  a  vote  of  confidence 
from  the  meeting,  which  was  given  him. 

In  the  records  of  the  "Blessing  Meetings"  the  names  of 
the  persons  blessed  are  given  with  their  birthplaces.  There 
were  rather  more  than  one  thousand  blessed  in  the  record 
book  under  examination.  Of  these  no  fewer  than  four 
hundred  and  seventy-one  came  from  the  dominions  of  the 
British  king,  about  four-fifths  being  natives  of  England. 
One  hundred  and  forty  more  came  from  outside  the  United 
States ;  of  these  ninety-six  were  from  Sweden,  Norway,  and 
Denmark,  and  the  converts  were  from  places  as  far  apart  as 
Iceland  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Of  the  natives  of  the 
United  States,  one  hundred  and  fourteen  were  born  in 
Utah  and  Winter  Quarters,  belonging  therefore  to  the 
second  Mormon  generation.  Of  the  rest  one  hundred  came 
from  New  England,  another  hundred  from  the  Middle 
States,  and  seventy-six  from  the  Old  Northwest.  The 
Thirteenth  Ward  may  not  have  been  typical  of  the  rest  of 
Salt  Lake  City  and  the  other  Mormon  settlements;  but 
these  figures,  such  as  they  are,  testify  to  the  remarkable 
success  of  Mormon  missionary  labors  and  to  the  large 
number  of  children  born  in  the  first  years  after  the  migra- 
tion. A  list  of  the  original  band  of  pioneers,  one  hundred 
and  forty-eight  in  number,  has  been  preserved.1  Nearly 
two-thirds  of  these  were  born  in  the  United  States.  More- 
over, they  had  little  of  the  ordinary  pioneer  spirit  of  restless- 
ness, as  only  thirty-three  of  them  died  outside  of  Utah. 

1  For  this  list  of  the  "Original  Band  of  Pioneers,"  I  am  indebted  to  Professor 
L.  E.  Young. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  495 

NOTES 

I.  The  German  Migration.  —  The  first  volume  of  Albert  B.  Faust's 
The  German  Element  in  the  United  States  (Boston,  1909)  gives  a  con- 
tinuous historical  outline  of  the  German  immigrations  from  the  earliest 
time  to  1900  in  591  pages  and  has  an  exhaustive  bibliography  at  the  end 
of  the  second  volume.1     The  histories  of  the  States,  counties,  cities, 
and  towns  in  which  the  Germans  congregated  necessarily  form  isolated 
treatments  of  the  movement.     As  is  the  case  with  the  other  nationali- 
ties, there  is  great  need  of  correlation  and  literary  treatment.     Until 
this  is  done  the  Germans  cannot  hope  to  gain  the  place  in  United 
States  history  that  their  quality  and  numbers  and  services  to  the 
country  entitle   them  to.     Two  serial  publications  have  historical 
matter    on    this    subject:       Deutsch-Amerikanische    Geschichtsbldtter 
and   the   German    American    Annals   Continuation   of    the   Quarterly 
Americana    Germanica.     The    former    contains    Ernest    Bruncken's 
"  German  Political  Refugees  in  the  United  States  .  .  .  1815-1860  " 
(vols.  3  and  4) ;   the  latter  contains  G.  G.  Benjamin's  "  Germans  in 
Texas  "  with  a  bibliography  (new  series,  vols.  vi,  vii).     Both  of  these 
articles   are   reprinted   separately.     Moritz  Tiling's    History  of  the 
German  Element  in  Texas  brings  together  in  convenient  form  current 
knowledge  of  this  part  of  the  German  migration  and  gives  a  brief 
bibliography  on  p.    183.     Of  biographies,   the  first  volume  of  the 
Works  of  Charles  Follen  contains  a  memoir  by  his  widow,  Eliza  L. 
Follen,  and  Carl  Schurz's  Reminiscences  give  an  insight  into  the  lives 
of  two  Germans  of  eminence  in  very  different  walks  of  life  who  came 
to  America  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  apart  and  exerted  influences 
for  good  in  their  respective  walks. 

II.  The  Irish.  —  Several  books  have  been  published  relating  more 
or  less  to  the  Irish  immigration  to  America;    but  none  of  them  is 
satisfactory  for  this  period,  partly  because  of  the  lack  of  definite 
statistics.     Possibly  the  best  account  of  this  early  immigration  is 
Edward   E.    Bale's    Letters   on    Irish    Emigration    (Boston,    1852) 
Chapter  iii  of  Philip  H.  Bagenal's    The  American   Irish  and  theii 
Influence  on  Irixh  Politics  (Boston,  1882)  contains  some  interesting 
but  unauthenticated  statistics.     Hamilton  A.  Hill's  paper  on  "  Im- 

1  Gustav  Korner's  Das  deutsche  1880) ,  presents  the  story  of  the  earlier 
Element  in  den  Vereinigten  Staaten  von  German  migration  in  a  compendious 
Nordamerika,  1818-1848  (Cincinnati,  form. 


496 


WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS 


migration,"  read  before  the  May,  1875,  meeting  of  the  American 
Social  Science  Association,  has  some  interesting  statements  on  this 
subject,  but  most  of  Hill's  paper  relates  to  a  later  time.  The  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  Rev.  Stephen  Byrne's  Irish  Emigration  to  the 
United  States  (New  York,  1874).  All  these  authors  refer  to  Edward 
Young's  Labor  in  Europe  and  America  (Philadelphia,  1875)  which 
has  been  freely  drawn  on  in  several  chapters  of  the  present  work. 
A  list  of  "  Books  relating  to  the  American  Irish  "  is  appended  to  H. 
J.  Desmond's  "  Century  of  Irish  Immigration  "  in  American  Catholic 
Quarterly  Review,  xxv,  528. 

III.  The  Communities.  —  Part  I  of  Morris  Hillquit's  History 
of  Socialism  in  the  United  States  (New  York,  1903)  is  devoted  to  a 
clear  and  brief  account  of  these  forerunners  of  what  is  now  termed 
"Socialism."  Charles  Nordhoff  visited  such  communities  as  were 
still  in  existence  in  or  about  the  year  1870  and  described  his  observa- 
tions in  a  readable  book  entitled  The  Communistic  Societies  of  the  United 
States  (New  York,  1875).  It  has  a  few  illustrations  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  Lossing's  Field-Books  that  really  tell  one  a  great  deal,  so 
far  as  they  go.  William  Alfred  Hinds,  himself  interested  in  com- 
munism, published  a  small  volume  at  Oneida,  N.  Y.,  in  1878,  entitled 
American  Communities:  Brief  Sketches  of  Economy,  Zoar,  .  .  .  and 
The  Brotherhood  of  the  New  Life.  A  first  revision  of  this  work  greatly 
enlarged  was  printed  at  Chicago  in  1902,  which  was  followed  by  a 
second  revision,  still  larger,  in  1908.  This  last  has  been  of  great  use 
in  preparing  several  paragraphs  of  the  present  volume.  At  the  close 
of  most  of  the  sections  of  Hinds's  second  revision  is  a  brief  list  of  the 
books  relating  to  the  particular  community  treated  in  that  section. 
This  edition  has  an  index  and  is  continued  practically  down  to  date. 
An  older  book,  but  one  still  of  service,  is  John  H.  Noyes's  History 
of  American  Socialisms  (Philadelphia,  1870)  .*  Selections  from  the 
Works  of  Fourier  with  an  Introduction  by  Charles  Gide  translated  by 
Julia  Franklin  forms  a  number  of  the  Social  Science 2  series  published 


1  There  are  a  few  pages  on  "Fourier 
and  Association"  in  Commons  and 
Associates'  History  of  Labour,  i,  496, 
and  considerable  extracts  from  official 
documents,  etc.,  in  American  Indus- 
trial Society,  vii. 

*  A  list  of  Fourier's  writings  is  on 
p.  44  of  Gide's  Introduction.  What 
purported  to  be  the  (Euvres  Com- 


pletes de  Ch.  Fourier  was  published 
at  Paris  in  1841-1845  in  six  volumes 
(3rd  ed.,  Paris,  1846-1848).  Charles 
Pellarin's  Vie  de  Charles  Fourier  was 
translated  into  English  by  Francis  G. 
Shaw  (New  York,  1848),  and  C.  T. 
Wood  compiled  from  the  French  of 
Madame  Gatti  de  Gamond  a  small 
work  entitled  Fourier  and  his  System 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  497 

at  London  in  1901.  The  Introduction  in  forty-five  pages  gives  a 
clear  survey  of  Fourier's  theories  and  the  selections  are  admirably 
made  and  translated.  Any  one  reading  this  book  will  readily  under- 
stand the  influence  exercised  by  Fourier  upon  the  intellectuals  of  the 
idealistic  age.  Albert  Brisbane's  publications  in  book  form  and  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  day  greatly  influenced  the  people  of  the  1840's. 
Hinds  likens  his  Social  Destiny  :  in  importance  to  Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin.  The  most  useful,  as  unfolding  in  consecutive  and  in- 
telligible form  the  ideas  of  the  master,  is  Brisbane's  summation  in 
English  of  Fourier's  Theory  of  Universal  Unity,  but  his  Concise 
Exposition  of  the  Doctrine  of  Association,  or  Plan  for  a  Re-Organization 
of  Society  .  .  .  (based  on  Fourier's  Theory  of  Domestic  and  Industrial 
Association),  the  eighth  edition  of  wliich  was  published  at  New  York 
in  1844,  is  possibly  more  instructive.  Gide's  little  Introduction, 
however,  will  serve  the  purposes  of  all  but  the  most  energetic  student. 
See  also  M.  Ferraz's  chapter  on  "  Charles  Fourier  et  L' Attraction 
Passionnelle  "  in  his  Etude  sur  la  Philosophic  en  France  au  xixe  Siecle 
(Paris,  1877),  ch.  ii.  Frederick  A.  Bushee  in  his  useful  article,  "  Com- 
munistic Societies  in  the  United  States  "  (Political  Science  Quarterly, 
vol.  xx,  No.  4) ,  has  a  helpful  list  of  these  societies  at  the  end. 

Cabet  and  Icaria  attracted  attention  only  second  to  that  of  the 
Mormons,  their  predecessors  at  Nauvoo ;  but  the  literature  concern- 
ing them  is  not  great.  Albert  Shaw's  Icaria,  A  Chapter  in  the  History 
of  Communism  (New  York,  1884)  is  extremely  laudatory  and  has 
usually  been  drawn  upon  for  descriptions  of  the  Icarians.  Lifelike 
details  of  the  Nauvoo  enterprise  can  be  obtained  from  successive 
leaflets  issued  by  the  Icarians  in  Paris  in  the  years  1856-1858.  They 
were  compiled  by  J.  P.  Beluze ;  of  them  possibly  Compte-Rendu  de 
la  Situation  Morale  et  Materielle  de  la  Colonie  Icarienne  is  the  most 
useful  and  the  Mori  du  Fondateur  D'Icarie  is  the  most  truly  Icarian. 
Jules  Prudhommeaux,  in  his  Icarie  et  son  Fondateur  Etienne  Cabet 
(Paris,  1907),  has  given  a  prolonged  and  satisfying  account  of  this 
experiment  and  has  illustrated  it  with  some  interesting  photographs 
of  Nauvoo  as  it  appeared  in  the  Mormon  and  Cabetian  epochs  and 
in  1900.  The  paragraphs  in  the  text  are  based  very  largely  upon 

with  a  brief  biography  extracted  from  C.  M'Laren's  Boa  Constrictor,  or  Fourier 

the  London  Phalanx  (London,  1842).  Association     Self-Exposed     (Rochester, 

1  A  keen  criticism  of  Fourierism  as  1844). 
interpreted    by    Brisbane    is    Donald 

VOL.  V. — 2K 


498 


WESTERN   LANDS  AND   SETTLEMENTS 


a  perusal  of  Cabet's  Colony,  or  Republic  of  Icaria  in  the  United 
States  of  America;  its  History,  that  was  printed  at  the  Icarian  printing 
office,  Nauvoo  (Illinois),  1852. 

IV.  The  Black  Hawk  War. —This  Indian  conflict  played  an 
important  part  in  the  opening  of  northern  Illinois  and  southern 
Wisconsin  to  settlers.  In  the  forces  opposing  the  natives  were 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Jefferson  Davis,  and  Winfield  Scott,  and  the  war, 
therefore,  always  finds  a  place  in  biographies,  books  of  reminiscences, 
etc.  Black  Hawk,  moreover,  produced  an  autobiography  or  something 
that  passes  as  such.1  Finally,  the  conflict  between  the  soldiers  of 
the  regular  army  and  the  cholera  is  one  of  the  dramatic  bits  of  our 
military  history.  For  these  reasons  the  literature  of  the  Black  Hawk 
War  is  large.  Reuben  G.  Thwaites  has  two  brief  articles  on  this 
subject  with  abundant  citations  in  the  Magazine  of  Western  History, 
v,  32,  181,  and  in  Wisconsin  Historical  Collections,  xii,  217-265.  An 
intelligible  map  by  Mr.  Thwaites  precedes  the  latter  article.  Chapters 
xxxvi-xl  of  C.  R.  Tuttle's  History  of  the  Border  Wars  of  Two  Centuries 
(Madison,  Wis.,  1876)  give  a  not  uninteresting  view  of  this  conflict. 
The  real  reason  for  the  conflict  and  other  Indian  wars  comes  out  in 
Milo  M.  Quaife's  chapter  on  "  The  Vanishing  of  the  Red  Man  " 
at  the  end  of  his  Chicago  and  the  Old  Northwest,  and  the  preceding 
pages  give  some  heartrending  incidents  of  the  struggle  of  Scott  and  his 
soldiers  with  the  cholera. 


lIAfe  of  .  .  .  Black  Hawk  (Bos- 
ton, 1834).  There  are  numerous  edi- 
tions, the  most  useful  being  that 
edited  by  Dr.  Quaife  (The  Lakeside 
Classics,  Chicago,  1916).  A  contem- 
porary* account  by  an  Illinois  settler 
who  took  part  in  the  war  is  John  A. 
Wakefield's  History  of  the  War  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  the  Sac 


and  Fox  Nations  (Jacksonville,  111., 
1834).  Frank  E.  Stevens's  Black  Hawk 
War  published  at  Chicago  in  1903  is  a 
detailed  account  of  the  conflict  and  its 
genesis,  but  has  no  bibliography. 
The  papers  of  General  John  R.  Wil- 
liams, edited  by  C.  M.  Burton,  are  in 
the  Collections  of  the  Michigan  Pioneer 
Society,  xxi,  313-471. 


TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND  OREGON 

IN  the  thirty-five  years  after  1815  the  United  States  ac- 
quired all  the  continent  south  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel 
and  north  of  the  Rio  Grande  from  the  western  limit  of 
Louisiana  and  the  line  of  the  Florida  Treaty  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  It  is  now  (1920)  included  in  the  territory  of  a  little 
over  nine  States  with  a  total  population  of  nearly  twelve 
million  human  beings.  It  is  a  country  of  marvellous  agri- 
cultural and  mineral  capacities,  possessing  rich  forests  and 
enjoying  climates  surpassing  those  of  the  most  favored 
regions  of  the  earth  in  either  Eastern  or  Western  hemis- 
pheres. The  Spaniards  had  looked  upon  this  farthest  west- 
ern country  as  their  own,1  but  they  had  made  little  use  of  it 
because  their  eyes  had  been  fixed  on  the  greater  immediate 
possibilities  of  Mexico  and  South  America.  All  the  people 
and  strength  of  Spain  had  not  sufficed  for  the  utilization  of 
the  resources  of  those  countries,  but  the  Spaniards  were  as 
jealous  of  the  possessions  that  they  did  not  use  2  as  they  were 
of  those  that  they  did  use.  This  farthest  western  country 
was  divided  geographically,  politically,  and  internationally 
into  four  blocks :  Texas,  New  Mexico,  California,  and 

1  The  early  history  of  this  part  of  the  Columbia.     Her     appearance     in     the 

United  States  is  succinctly  set  forth  in  Pacific  drew  forth  orders  for  her  ex- 

Bolton  and  Marshall's  Colonization  of  elusion  that  reached  their  destination 

North  America,  1492-1783  (New  York,  about  one  year  after  that  famous  ship 

1920)  especially  ch.  xxi.  had   passed   by.     See   Robertson's  un- 

*  An  example  of  the  inefficiency  of  published     essay     entitled  "From  Al- 

Spanish     colonial     administration     oc-  calde  to  Mayor,"  p.  36. 
curred  as  to  the  first  voyage  of  the 

499 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON 
(From  Map  at  end  of  Luis  De  Onis's  Memoria) 


500 


1850]  THE  FAR  WEST  501 

Oregon.  Eastwardly  from  California 1  and  Oregon  and 
northwardly  from  Texas  and  New  Mexico  there  was  a  stretch 
of  mountainous  country  that  comprised  the  headwaters  of 
the  rivers  flowing  eastwardly  into  the  Mississippi,  west- 
wardly  into  the  Pacific,  and  southwardly  into  the  Gulf  of 
California  or  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  This  land  might 
be  regarded  as  pertinent  to  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the 
United  States  or  to  the  regions  claimed  by  Spain.  Texas, 
as  a  geographical  phrase,  included  the  lands  between  Louisi- 
ana and  the  Rio  Grande,  and  New  Mexico  was  the  country 
to  the  westward  as  far  as  California.  The  northward  limit 
of  Texas  and  New  Mexico  was  indistinct,  but  those  geo- 
graphical units  included  certainly  the  watersheds  of  the 
Rio  Grande  and  Colorado  rivers.  California  was  the  coastal 
land  from  Mexico  to  the  forty-second  parallel,  and  Oregon 
was  the  region  stretching  northwardly  from  that  parallel 
for  an  indefinite  extent.  These  names  and  boundaries 
are  used  here  in  what  might  be  called  the  ordinary  geo- 
graphical sense  and  not  as  accurately  descriptive  of  political 
countries  at  any  one  time. 

Originally,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  this  whole  extent  of  land  had  belonged  to  Spain 
or  had  been  claimed  by  her,  so  far  as  it  had  belonged  to  or 
had  been  claimed  by  any  one.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  British  and  American  fur  traders  had 
anchored  in  the  harbors  along  the  coast  and  had  established 
a  profitable  commerce  with  the  Indians.2  The  Russians, 
crossing  Bering's  Strait,  had  likewise  entered  into  the  fur 

1  As  to  the  origin  of  the  name  Cali-  satisfy    the    needs    of    most    readers, 
fornia,    see   Ruth   Putnam    and   H.    I.  G.    C.    Davidson's   North    West    Com- 
Priestley's   article   in   the   Publications  pany    (University    of    California    Pub- 
of    the    University    of    California,    for  lications  in  History,   vii)   sets  forth  in 
December,  1917,  pp.  293-365.  great    detail    certain    aspects    of    the 

2  Professor    Joseph    Schafer's    His-  history  of  the   Northwest  with  abun- 
tory    of    the    Pacific    Northwest    in    its  dant  citations. 

revised  form    (New  York,    1918)    will 


502 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [Cn.  XVI 


trade  of  the  Northwest  and  had  founded  stations  at  various 
places  on  the  American  shore.1  In  1790,  by  the  Nootka 
Sound  Treaty,2  Spain  abandoned  some  of  her  pretensions  to 
the  northern  part  of  the  region  in  favor  of  Great  Britain ; 
but  the  precise  terms  of  the  treaty  are  of  no  service  for  the 
present  purpose,  because  no  two  persons  of  different  national- 
ities have  ever  interpreted  them  alike.  Whatever  they 
meant,  they  certainly  clouded  the  Spanish  title  to  the 
northernmost  part  of  the  coast  and  gave  Great  Britain  vague 
rights  of  trade  and  possibly  something  more.  In  their 
voyages  along  the  coast,  whether  on  exploring  expeditions 
or  on  trips  to  and  from  the  Philippines,  Spanish  navigators 
had  noticed  breakers  at  a  certain  place  south  of  the  Strait 
of  Juan  de  Fuca ;  but  it  was  reserved  for  Captain  Gray  of 
the  Boston  trading  ship  Columbia  to  sail  through  this  swirl 
of  waters  and  enter  the  actual  mouth  of  the  river  that  still 
bears  his  vessel's  name.  This  was  in  May,  1792.3  Captain 
Gray  was  not  in  the  service  of  the  United  States  government, 
his  ship  was  a  private  trading  vessel,  and  the  voyage  had  no 
official  standing  whatever ;  but  in  this  instance  these  factors 
were  overlooked.  At  the  time  that  Gray  was  on  the  coast 
Captain  Vancouver  of  the  British  navy  was  also  there  in 
command  of  an  exploring  expedition.  He  had  recently 
passed  by  the  mouth  of  the  river  without  entering  it ;  but, 
on  being  apprised  of  its  existence  by  Captain  Gray,  he  sent 


1 F.  A.  Golder's  Russian  Expan- 
sion on  the  Pacific,  1641-1850  has  a 
wider  interest  than  the  title  indicates 
and  is  provided  with  an  excellent  bib- 
liography. His  Bering's  Voyages  in  2 
vols.  (1921)  brings  the  story  to  Ameri- 
can shores. 

*  See    the    present    work,    vol.    iv, 
118-123,    and     E.     S.    Meany's    Van- 
couver's    Discovery     of    Puget     Sound, 
ch.  iii. 

*  House    Reports,    25th    Cong.,    3rd 


No.  101 ;  Appendix  F  gives  an 
extract  from  the  log-book  of  the  Co- 
lumbia. See  a  following  "Supple- 
mental Report"  also  numbered  101. 
The  log-book  extract  is  repeated  in 
Robert  Greenhow's  History  of  Oregon 
and  California,  434 ;  see  also  ch.  xi  of 
the  latter  book ;  Schafer's  History  oj 
the  Pacific  Northwest  (ed.  1918),  p.  22; 
and  H.  H.  Bancroft's  Northwest  Coast, 
i,  250,  258-260. 


1792]  THE  COLUMBIA  RIVER  503 

a  boat  party  to  verify  the  discovery.  This  expedition 
ascended  the  river  sixty  miles  or  more  above  the  point  where 
the  Columbia  had  anchored.1  In  1803,  the  United  States 
acquired  Louisiana  and  thereby  may  have  gained  some 
rights  as  to  the  region  to  the  westward  of  the  headwaters 
of  the  affluents  of  the  Mississippi.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  French  bishopric  of  Louisiana  extended  westwardly  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean ;  but,  if  such  a  claim  was  ever  made  by 
the  French,  no  official  action  of  any  importance  was  ever 
taken  to  make  good  such  pretensions.  On  the  other  hand, 
French  fur  traders  and  trappers  seem  to  have  been  ubiqui- 
tous. Mentions  of  their  activities  are  constantly  turning 
up,  and  no  one  would  be  bold  enough  to  assert  that  any  par- 
ticular trapper  was  the  first  to  carry  his  pack  to  the  head- 
waters of  any  particular  river  in  this  western  country  or  was 
the  first  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  any  particular  mountain 
pass.2  It  may  well  be,  therefore,  that  the  territory  which 
can  fairly  be  regarded  as  tributary  to  the  St.  Louis  fur 
market  covered  a  much  greater  extent  than  has  formerly 
been  supposed.  Whatever  claims  these  fur  trading  expedi- 
tions gave  to  France  or  to  Spain,  her  successor  in  the  owner- 
ship of  Louisiana,  passed  to  the  United  States  in  1803. 
They  were  still  in  existence  in  1840,  except  as  they  were 
limited  by  the  Florida  Treaty  of  1819  and  by  subsequent 
agreements  with  Russia  and  with  Great  Britain. 

In  the  winter  of  1805-1806,  Lewis  and  Clark,  on  their 
memorable  exploring  trip,  had  wintered  in  a  camp  not  far 

1  A  Voyage  of  Discovery  to  the  North  *  Harlow  Lindley's  "Western  Travel, 

Pacific  Ocean  .  .  .  under  .  .  .  Captain  1800-1820"  in  the  Mississippi  Valley 

George     Vancouver    (3    vols.,    London,  Historical  Review,  vi,   167-191,  is  very 

1798)    i,    422     ii,    ch.    iii.     Professor  useful  in  placing  the  early  expeditions, 

Schafer  has  set  forth  the  facts,   with  and  see  also  Bolton's  "French  Intru- 

abundant    citations,    in    the    Bulletin  sions  into  New  Mexico"  in  The  Pacific 

of  the  University  of  Oregon,  vi.     The  Ocean  in  History,  389-407. 
first   volumes  of   H.   S.  Lyman's   His- 
tory of  Oregon  cover  the  period  treated 
in  this  chapter. 


504 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [On.  XVI 


from  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River.  In  the  spring  of 
1811,  John  Jacob  Astor,  a  New  York  merchant  who  was 
greatly  interested  in  the  fur  trade,  had  established  a  post 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River  and  had  named  it 
Astoria.1  This  post  had  been  sold  to  the  North  West  Fur 
Company  before  its  seizure  by  the  British  on  December 
12, 1813.2  Nevertheless  in  1818  it  was  restored  to  the  United 
States  under  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  but  the 
North  West  Company  was  not  disturbed  in  its  trade.3  In 
1819,  by  the  Florida  Treaty,  the  Spaniards  handed  ove. 
to  the  United  States  all  their  existing  rights  to  the  North- 
west Coast,  north  of  the  forty-second  parallel.4  Five  years 
later,  in  1824,  another  treaty  was  made,  this  time  between 
the  United  States  and  Russia,  by  which  the  latter  agreed 
to  retire  from  the  Pacific  coast  of  America,  south  of  54°  40' 
N.  L.5  In  this  way  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
became  the  only  two  countries  to  have  interests  in  the 
region  which  was  called  Oregon.  As  neither  of  them  could 
make  any  effective  settlement  there  for  the  time  being, 
they  agreed  in  1818  to  occupy  the  country  jointly  for  ten 
years.6  This  agreement  was  renewed  in  1827  to  last  until 
one  or  the  other  party  to  it  gave  notice  a  year  in  advance 
of  the  termination  of  this  joint  occupation.7  At  the  moment, 
the  British  were  apparently  in  the  better  position  to  utilize 
whatever  rights  might  accrue  under  these  treaties,  as  in 
1821  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  by  the  absorption  of  the 


1  Gabriel  Franchere's  Narrative  of  a 
Voyage  to  the  Northwest  Coast,  ch.  xv; 
H.  M.  Chittenden's  American  Fur 
Trade  of  the  Far  West,  i,  223;  Alex- 
ander Ross'  Adventures  of  the  First 
Settlers  on  the  Oregon  or  Columbia 
River,  259 ;  Bancroft's  Northwest  Coast, 
i,  331,339. 

*  The  bill  of  sale  was  signed  Octo- 
ber 16,  1813,  "at  entrance  of  Columbia 
River  North  West  Coast  of  America," 


see  G.  C.  Davidson's  The  North  Wesi 
Company,  138,  139,  293,  forming 
vol.  vii  of  the  University  of  California 
Publications  in  History. 

'Ibid.,  164. 

4  Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  1873) 
p.  785. 

«/&id.,  p.  733. 

« Ibid.,  350. 

7  Ibid.,  365. 


1818]  OREGON  505 

North  West  Company l  had  combined  all  British  and 
Canadian  fur  trading  interests  under  one  extremely  efficient 
management  —  and  were  carrying  on  a  remarkably  profit- 
able business  in  the  Columbia  River  region.  As  the  years 
went  by,  however,  they  found  themselves  more  and  more 
hampered  by  the  coming  of  American  fur  traders,  settlers, 
and  missionaries. 

As  early  as  1796,  when  the  United  States  took  over  the 
Northwestern  posts  from  the  British,  attempts  had  been 
made  to  attach  the  Indians  to  American  interests  by  estab- 
lishing government  trading  stations,  but  little  had  been 
accomplished.  In  January,  1803,  Jefferson  took  up  the 
subject  of  western  lands  and  Indian  management  with  his 
usual  mixture  of  altruism  and  advantage.2  The  tribes, 
he  said,  were  becoming  uneasy  at  the  constant  diminution 
of  their  hunting  grounds.  To  counteract  this  restlessness 
they  should  be  encouraged  to  apply  themselves  to  agricul- 
ture, stock  raising,  and  domestic  manufacture.  Govern- 
ment trading  houses  should  be  established  among  them  to 
lead  them  to  civilization  and  to  sell  them  articles  that  they 
needed  and  that  were  good  for  them  at  lower  rates  than 
private  traders  could  sell  them,  thus  winning  the  good  will 
of  the  Indians  and  disposing  of  the  traders  at  the  same 
time.  This  public  commerce  among  the  Indians  might 
even  be  extended  to  the  Missouri  River,  and  a  party  of  ten 
or  a  dozen  men  led  by  an  intelligent  officer  might  explore 
even  as  far  as  the  "Western  Ocean."  A  few  surveying 
instruments,  their  muskets,  "and  light  and  cheap  presents 
for  the  Indians  would  be  all  the  apparatus  they  could  carry." 

1  See  G.  C.  Davidson's  North  West  be  well  to  lead  the  Indians  into  debt 

Company,   176  and  fol.    (University  of  under  the  pressure  of  which  they  might 

California  Publications  in  History,  vii).  be  more  willing  to  part  with  their  lands. 

*  See    the     Message     in    Annals    of  Writings  of  Jefferson  (Congress  ed.)  iv. 

Congress,  7th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess.,  24-26.  472;  ix,  460. 
Jefferson  also  suggested  that  it  might 


506 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [Cn.  XVI 


As  to  the  Spaniards,  they  would  not  interfere,  although 
Missouri  still  belonged  to  them,  as  they  would  regard  the 
expedition  as  a  literary  pursuit.1  Jefferson  asked  for  an 
appropriation  of  twenty-five  hundred  dollars,  "for  the 
purpose  of  extending  the  external  commerce  of  the  United 
States."  He  counselled  secrecy  to  "prevent  the  obstruc- 
tions which  interested  individuals  might  otherwise  pre- 
viously prepare  in  its  way."  At  the  moment  Jefferson  had 
no  thought  of  purchasing  this  part  of  Louisiana  and  the 
proposition  simply  was  to  open  up  the  trade  of  a  large  part 
of  Spanish  America  to  United  States  merchants  without 
the  knowledge  or  consent  of  the  Spaniards.  Congress 
assented  and  Jefferson  placed  Meriwether  Lewis  and  William 
Clark  at  the  head  of  the  expedition.  He  instructed  them  2 
to  discover  if  possible  a  "practicable  water-communica- 
tion across  the  continent,  for  the  purposes  of  commerce." 

Starting  in  May,  1804,  Lewis  and  Clark  slowly  ascended 
the  Missouri  River.  They  passed  the  winter  in  the  country 
of  the  Mandan  Indians  not  far  from  the  present  town  of 
Bismark  in  North  Dakota.  The  next  spring,  1805,  they 
pushed  on  and  by  mid-summer  had  gained  the  headwaters 
of  that  river.  They  supported  themselves  by  hunting  and 
had  few  excitements  except  an  occasional  encounter  with 
grizzly  bears,  but  the  mosquitoes  and  "blowing"  flies 
troubled  them  greatly.  Arrived  at  the  mountains  they 
most  fortunately  happened  on  a  band  of  Indians  of  the  same 
tribe  as  the  Indian  wife  of  a  Frenchman  they  had  taken  with 
them  as  a  guide.  In  the  mountains  they  made  friends 


1  The  geographical  knowledge  of 
the  time  is  well  portrayed  in  a  map 
which  is  reproduced  by  photography 
in  connection  with  an  article  by  Miss 
A.  H.  Abel  in  the  Geographical  Re- 
view, i,  329-345.  Frederick  J.  Teg- 
p;art's  "Notes  Supplementary  to  any 


Edition  of  Lewis  and  Clark"  (Ameri- 
can Historical  Association's  Reports, 
1908,  vol.  i,  185)  contain  an  astonish- 
ing amount  of  information  in  a  small 
compass. 

8  For  the  instructions,  see  Writings 
of  Jefferson  (Ford  ed.),  viii,  194  note. 


1805]  LEWIS  AND  CLARK  507 

with  one  Indian  tribe  after  another,  procured  horses  without 
great  difficulty,  but  were  often  straitened  for  food.  At 
length  they  came  to  one  of  the  upper  streams  of  the  Co- 
lumbia system  that  could  be  navigated.  At  this  point 
they  constructed  canoes  by  digging  or  burning  out  the  hearts 
of  giant  trees  and  in  them  floated  down  the  streams,  often- 
times encountering  perils  that  seem  incredible  even  in  the 
reading.  On  November  7,  1805,  Captain  Clark  wrote  that 
they  came  "in  view  of  the  Ocian  .  .  .  the  roreing  or  noise 
made  by  the  waves  brakeing  on  the  rockey  Shores"  was 
heard  from  a  great  distance.  The  following  winter,  which 
they  passed  in  rude  huts  near  the  sea,  was  most  disagree- 
able. In  July,  1806,  they  repassed  the  mountains  and  on 
September  21  regained  St.  Louis.1 

In  1805,  while  Lewis  and  Clark  were  toiling  through 
the  Stoney  Mountains,  as  the  Rockies  were  usually  termed 
in  those  days,  Zebulon  Montgomery  Pike  was  laboriously 
ascending  the  Mississippi  River  to  ascertain  its  sources  and 
to  discover  the  condition  of  trade  in  its  upper  valley.  In 
April,  1806,  he  was  back  in  St.  Louis  and  in  the  following 
July  started  on  an  exploring  expedition  to  the  westward 

1  Nicholas  Biddle  of  Philadelphia  of  Lewis  and  a  succinct  account  of  the 
undertook  to  compile  an  account  of  purchase  of  Louisiana  by  Professor 
this  expedition  from  the  journals  of  McMaster.  In  1904-1905,  there  was 
Lewis  and  Clark  and  their  comrades  issued  a  definitive  edition  of  the  Lewis 
and  such  other  matter  as  was  ob-  and  Clark  journals  under  the  editor- 
tainable.  He  did  an  admirable  bit  of  ship  of  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites  giving 
work,  but  the  book,  which  was  pub-  the  different  accounts,  word  for  word, 
lished  in  1814  as  History  of  the  Ex-  with  ruthless  and  exhausting  accu- 
pedition  under  the  command  of  Cap-  racy.  In  1916,  his  successor,  M.  M. 
tains  Lewis  and  Clark  has  on  its  title-  Quaife,  printed  in  the  Wisconsin  His- 
page  the  name  of  its  final  editor,  torical  Society's  Collections  (vol.  xxii) 
Paul  Allen.  In  1893,  Elliott  Coues  Journals  of  Captain  Meriwether  Lewis 
published  an  edition  of  this  work  with  and  Sergeant  John  Ordway.  C.  D. 
an  immense  amount  of  annotation.  Wheeler's  The  Trail  of  Lewis  and 
The  most  convenient  reprint  is  that  in  Clark  (2  vols.,  New  York,  1904)  con- 
The  Trail  Makers  series.  This  is  in  tains  a  mass  of  useful  local  information 
three  small  volumes  without  foot-  mingled  with  extraordinary  state- 
notes  ;  but  each  volume  has  a  few  pages  ments  as  to  the  international  history 
of  geographical  identifications  and  the  of  the  United  States, 
whole  is  preceded  by  Jefferson's  memoir 


508 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [On.  XVI 


but  far  to  the  south  of  the  route  followed  by  Lewis  and  Clark. 
He  seems  to  have  been  despatched  on  this  quest  by  General 
James  Wilkinson,  but  the  precise  genesis  of  the  expedition 
is  still  obscure.1  His  instructions  were  exceedingly  vague. 
They  directed  him  to  go  from  one  Indian  nation  to  another 
when  he  would  probably  find  himself  on  the  headwaters 
of  the  Arkansas  and  Red  rivers  —  "  approximated  to  the 
settlements  of  New  Mexico."  He  was  ordered  to  be  very 
careful  to  cultivate  harmonious  intercourse  with  the  Span- 
iards. It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Aaron  Burr  began  his  journey 
at  almost  the  same  time,  but  whether  there  was  any  con- 
nection between  the  two,  otherwise  than  indistinct  relations 
with  Wilkinson,  is  unknown.  Before  long,  Pike  came  across 
the  trail  of  a  large  Spanish  expedition  that  had  been  operat- 
ing on  ground  that  was  clearly  included  within  the  limits 
of  the  ceded  province  of  Louisiana.  On  November  15, 
1806,  he  thought  he  saw  a  mountain  in  the  distance  which 
appearedlike  a  small  blue  cloud  and  was  in  reality  the  peak 
that  bears  his  name,  which  rises  eight  thousand  feet  from  the 
plains  and  fourteen  thousand  from  the  level  of  the  sea. 
After  wandering  about  in  the  cold  of  winter,  climbing  moun- 
tains, and  going  over  passes,  Pike  built  a  stockaded  fort  on 
the  banks  of  the  Rio  Grande  at  some  distance  above  Santa 
Fe.2  At  this  point,  Dr.  Robinson,  a  volunteer,  left  the 
expedition  and  alone  went  to  Santa  F6,  ostensibly  to  arrange 
some  financial  matters  but  really  to  apprise  the  Spaniards 
of  Pike's  whereabouts.  Within  a  few  days  they  appeared 
in  force  and  invited  the  American  to  come  to  the  Spanish 


1  As  to  the  origin  of  this  expedition 
see  Professor  I.  J.  Cox's  informing 
"Introduction  to  "Papers  of  Zebulon 
M.  Pike"  in  American  Historical  Re- 
view, xiii,  798. 

8  Professor  H.  E.  Bolton  throws  a 
great  deal  of  light  on  the  doings  of  the 


Spaniards  in  the  country  north  and 
east  of  the  Rio  Grande  in  the  earlier 
time  in  the  introduction  to  his  Atha- 
nase  de  Mezieres  and  the  Louisiana- 
Texas  Frontier,  1768-1780  (Cleve- 
land, 1914;. 


1805]  PIKE'S  EXPEDITION  509 

town.  Arrived  there,  Pike  exhibited  surprise  at  finding 
himself  on  the  Rio  Grande  instead  of  the  Red  River,  but^he 
convinced  the  Spanish  commander  of  his  official  character 
and  was  conducted  to  El  Paso  and  finally  to  the  American 
posts  on  the  Louisiana  line,1  —  thus  completing  an  ex- 
tremely interesting  round  of  international  geographic 
exploration. 

Another  official  exploring  expedition  that  belongs  to  the 
same  series  was  that  of  William  Dunbar  to  the  Hot  Springs 
of  Arkansas.  It  was  begun  in  the  autumn  of  1804.  Com- 
pared with  the  journeys  of  Lewis  and  Clark,  and  Pike,  this 
expedition  was  mere  child's  play  from  the  point  of  distance 
covered  and  dangers  encountered.  Its  interest  is  in  the 
scientific  data  gathered  by  the  explorers  and  in  the  specu- 
lations which  they  aroused.  They  found  something  that 
looked  like  coal  and  many  salt  licks  that  might  possibly 
develop  into  commercially  profitable  salt  wells.  The  Hot 
Springs  themselves  were  interesting  and  gave  rise  to  many 
remarks.2  The  Spaniards  told  Pike  of  Dunbar's  expedition 
and  were  evidently  disposed  to  limit  the  territory  acquired 
by  the  United  States  from  France  to  a  mere  strip  of  land 
along  the  lower  Mississippi.  It  was  only  the  convulsions  in 
Europe  and  in  Spain  that  induced  them  to  withdraw  their 
opposition  to  our  occupation  of  any  portion  of  the  western 
basin  below  the  Missouri  or  below  the  Arkansas.  These 

1  Pike  prepared  An  Account  of  Ex-  brought  out  a  two-volume  edition  of 
peditions  to  the  Sources  of  the  Mis-  the  original  with  an  amazing  amount 
'issippi,  and  through  the  Western  of  annotation  under  the  title  of  The 
Parts  of  Louisiana.  This  was  first  Expeditions  of  Zebulon  Montgomery  Pike. 
printed  in  1810.  An  English  edition  -  Documents  relating  to  The  Purchase 
with  the  title  Exploratory  Travels  &  Exploration  of  Louisiana,  containing 
through  the  Western  Territories  of  I.  "The  Limits  and  Bounds  of  Louisi- 
North  America  was  brought  out  with  ana"  by  Thomas  Jefferson;  II.  "The 
some  attempt  at  literary  revision  in  Exploration  of  the  Red,  the  Black,  and 
1811  and  from  this  the  work  was  the  Washita  Rivers"  by  William  Dun- 
translated  into  French  and  Dutch  in  bar.  It  was  printed  from  the  original 
1811  and  1812.  The  English  edition  manuscripts  in  the  library  of  the  Ameri- 
was  reproduced,  word  for  word,  at  Den-  can  Philosophical  Society  (Boston  and 
ver  in  1889.  Dr.  Elliott  Coues  in  1895  New  York,  1904). 


510 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [Cn.  XVI 


were  all  the  official  expeditions  for  the  exploration  of  western 
Louisiana,  but  before  many  years  the  fur  traders  were  roam- 
ing everywhere  through  that  country.1 

Of  the  hosts  of  accounts  2  of  the  earlier  fur  traders  and 
adventurers  on  the  western  plains,  in  the  mountains,  and  on 
the  Pacific  slope,  that  of  Captain  Bonneville  stands  out  as 
possessing  interest  because  of  the  many  hairbreadth  adven- 
tures of  the  raconteur.  These  were  due  in  part  to  his  own 
lack  of  experience,  to  the  bad  character  of  his  employees, 
and,  in  great  measure,  to  the  literary  charm  which  Washing- 
ton Irving  threw  about  the  narrative.  Bonneville  was  an 
officer  in  the  United  States  army  who  thought  he  saw  a 
chance  for  fortune  in  the  fur  trade  of  the  mountains.  He 
obtained  leave  of  absence  and  proceeded  northwestwardly 
from  St.  Louis  bent  on  adventure  and  gain.  He  left  Fort 
Osage,  on  the  Missouri,  on  May  1,  1832,  and  returned  three 
years  later  having  outstayed  his  leave  and  probably  poorer 
in  purse  than  he  was  at  the  outset.  In  the  interval  he  had 
traversed  mountains,  voyaged  down  and  up  rivers,  and  en- 
countered many  Indian  tribes.  On  one  occasion  he  had 
received  hospitality  at  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  post  at 
Walla  Walla,  near  the  present  boundary  line  between  Wash- 


1  John  C.  Luttig's  Journal  of  a  Fur- 
Trading     Expedition     on     the     Upper 
Missouri,    1812-1813,    issued    by    the 
Missouri    Historical    Society    in    1920, 
is  a  very  lifelike  picture  and  the  "Ap- 
pendix"   and   "Bibliography"    at   the 
end  of  the  volume  are  excellent. 

2  These  are  summarized,  for  the  most 
part,  in  Chittenden's  Fur   Trade.     Of 
other  accounts,  T.  M.  Marshall's  "St. 
Vrain's    Expedition    to    the    Gila    in 
1826"    (Southwestern    Historical    Quar- 
terly,   xix,     251)     and    Elliott    Coues' 
Journal   of  Jacob   Fowler   and   his   On 
the    Trail   of  a   Spanish   Pioneer   have 
been  found  useful  as  giving  historical 
color.     H.  C.  Dale's  The  Ashley-Smith 
Explorations  .  .  .  1 822-1889  goes  over 


some  of  the  same  ground  from  a  very 
different  angle. 

For  the  more  important  works  of 
Father  De  Smet,  S.  J.,  see  Letters  and 
Sketches:  with  a  Narrative  of  a  Year's 
Residence  among  the  Indian  Tribes  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  (Philadelphia, 
1843)  and  Oregon  Missions  and  Travels 
oner  the  Rocky  Mountains,  in  1845-4& 
(New- York,  1847),  the  latter  being  re- 
printed in  French  in  1848  at  Ghent 
in  Belgium.  All  his  works  are  col- 
lected into  four  volumes  by  H.  M. 
Chittenden  and  A.  T.  Richardson 
as  Life,  Letters  and  Travels  of  Father 
Pierre- Jean  De  Smet,  S.  J.,  1801- 
1873  (New  York,  1905) ;  volume  i. 
144  gives  an  ample  bibliography. 


1830]  TRAPPERS  AND  TRADERS  511 

ington  and  Oregon ;  but  the  commandant  of  the  post  re- 
fused to  give  him  any  supplies,  although  he  and  his  party 
were  in  a  starving  condition,  for  he  felt  that  his  duty  to  the 
Company  forbade  the  sale  of  food  and  ammunition  to  its 
rivals.  One  portion  of  Bonneville's  expedition,  proceeding 
sbuthwestwardly  from  the  general  rendezvous,  passed 
through  the  Salt  Lake  Valley  and  the  mountains  to  Mon- 
terey, in  California,  on  the  Pacific.1  At  different  times 
Bonneville  fell  in  with  Nathaniel  Wyeth.  He  was  a  Massa- 
chusetts man  who  had  conceived  the  idea  of  establishing  a 
trading  post  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River  which 
would  be  a  convenient  point  of  supply  and  exchange  for 
traders  from  overland  and  from  oversea  and  would  lead  to 
the  American  occupation  of  the  country.  Wyeth  had  great 
capacity  for  adventure,  but  his  means  were  not  commen- 
surate with  his  desires.2  After  sufferings  and  disappoint- 
ments the  project  of  the  trading  post  was  finally  abandoned. 
Some  of  Wyeth's  men,  or  of  Bonneville's,  or  of  other  un- 
mentioned  expeditions  may  have  remained  in  the  Columbia 
Valley  and  established  themselves  there  as  farmers,  as  some 
of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company's  employees  did.  The  first 
organized  band  of  American  settlers  came  overland  under 
the  lead  of  Methodist  missionaries  to  Oregon  in  1834,  and 
in  1836  another  band  led  by  Presbyterian  or  Congregational 
missionaries  also  came  overland.3  These  proved  to  be  the 
precursors  of  numberless  migrations;  in  1843  no  less  than 

1  The  Rocky    Mountains:  .  .  .  from  During  the    Years   18S8  .  .  .  184S   (v, 

the  Journal  of  Captain  B.  L.  E.  Bonne-  ch.  vi). 

ville    (2   vols.,   Philadelphia,    1837)    by  » Bancroft's  Oregon,  i,  chs.  iii  and  v, 

Washington    Irving.     This    has    been  and     James     W.     Bashford's     Oregon 

reprinted   in   many   forms   in   his   col-  Missions.     The  Story  of  How  the  Line 

lected  works  and  in  special  editions.  was     Run     between    Canada    and    the 

1  " Correspondence  and  Journals  of  United  States  (New  York,  1918).     The 

Captain    Nathaniel    J.    Wyeth,   1831-  earlier  books  on  the  Columbia  Valley 

6"    (Sources  of  the  History  of  Oregon,  are   enumerated    at   the   beginning   of 

i) ;    Charles  Wilkes's  Narrative  of  the  Bancroft's    Oregon.     For    a    somewhat 

United    State*    Exploring    Expedition.  different  view  see  Sir  George    Simp- 


512  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON       [Cn.  XVI 

one  thousand  persons  crossed  the  plains  and  mountains 
to  the  fertile  valleys  of  Oregon.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
first  half-century,  the  white  population  west  of  the  moun- 
tains,1 north  of  the  forty-second  parallel  and  south  of  54°  40' 
was  between  ten  and  twenty  thousand  souls. 

Entirely  unlike  the  history  of  Oregon  was  the  early 
development  of  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  California : 2  the 
first  proceeded  on  the  lines  of  Anglo-Saxon  commercial 
colonization,  the  last  three  developed  or  failed  to  develop  in 
the  politico-ecclesiastical  direction  that  seemed  to  be  the 
guiding  post  of  Spanish-American  policy.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  commerce  and  colonization,  Spain  had  no  need  of 
northern  Mexican  provinces ;  but  from  the  political  and 
ecclesiastical  view-points,  their  acquisition  and  maintenance 
were  important  to  Spain  and  to  Mexico,  or  seemed  to  be. 
Frenchmen  and  later  Americans  were  constantly  intruding 
themselves  into  Texas  and  New  Mexico,  and  British  and, 
later,  Americans  were  active  on  the  California  coast.  The 
easiest  and  perhaps  the  only  method  by  which  Spain  could 
secure  any  kind  of  possession  of  these  regions  was  to  con- 
son's  Narrative  of  a  Journey  Round  liographical  notes  which  will  serve 
the  World,  i,  ch.  vi;  "Letters  of  Sir  to  carry  the  student  far  toward  his 
George  Simpson,  1841-1843"  (Ameri-  goal.  Dealing  more  especially  with 
can  Historical  Review,  xiv,  70-94) ;  Texas,  Herbert  E.  Bolton's  Texas  in 
and  "John  McLoughlin's  Last  Letter"  the  Middle  Eighteenth  Century  gives 
(ibid.,  xxi,  104-134).  one  a  picture  of  Spanish  administra- 

1  Bancroft     (Oregon,     i,     251     note)       tion  in  any  part  of  the  world,  and  in  a 
estimates    the    population   in    1841    at       brief  article  in  the  American  Histori- 
500  souls,  and  nearly  ten  years   later,       cal    Review,     xxiii,     42-61,     Professor 
at  about  20,000  (ibid.,ii,  251).  Bolton  has  set  forth  vividly  the  char- 

2  The   books  on   Spanish   California       acter  and  history  of  the  "Mission  as 
in  the  early  time  are  really  histories       a  Frontier  Institution."      An  excellent 
of     the     Spanish     occupation     of    the       detailed    description    of    the    Spanish 
trans-Mississippi     country.     Of     these       system   is   Herbert   I.   Priestley's  Jose 
Charles    E.    Chapman's    Founding    of      de     Gdlvez,      Visitor-General     of     New 
Spanish   California,  the   Northwestward       Spain  in  the  Publications  of  the  Uni- 
Expansion   of  New   Spain,    1687-1783      versity    of    California,     v.     An    older 
and    Irving    B.    Richman's    California       book,  but  giving  a  very  good  brief  ac- 
under    Spain   and    Mexico,    1535-1847       count  of  the  history   and  institutions, 
contain    much   interesting   information       is  George  P.  Garrison's  Texas;   a  Con- 
and   are   supplied   with   excellent  bib-      test  of  Civilizations  (Boston,  1903). 


1800]  THE  MISSION  SYSTEM  513 

vert  the  Indians  to  the  true  faith,  redeem  them  from  their 
wandering  life,  settle  them  around  mission  stations  and 
colonize,  in  the  vicinity,  bodies  of  soldiers  who  seem  to 
have  belonged  largely  to  the  convict  class,  and  who  prob- 
ably were  most  of  them  of  mixed  Spanish  and  aboriginal 
Mexican  blood.  This  policy  harmonized  with  the  wish  of 
the  Church  to  convert  the  heathen  and  to  redeem  their 
souls  from  torment  everlasting.  Moreover,  a  country  of 
missions  and  presidios,  or  military  stations,  would  be  an 
admirable  barrier  to  foreign  aggression  from  the  North. 
Missions  were  established  at  convenient  points  in  Texas 
and  later  in  New  Mexico  and  California.  Indians  were 
gathered  around  the  first  mission  station;  soldiers  were 
established  near  by  in  a  presidio,  partly  to  protect  the  mis- 
sionaries from  Indian  attack,  but  more  especially  to  round  up 
the  Indians  for  the  Fathers'  ministrations  and  bring  back 
such  of  them  as  wandered  away  from  the  mission.  With  the 
help  of  Indians  already  tamed,  the  missionaries  taught  the 
wild  natives  the  truths  of  the  Christian  faith  and  habits  of 
industry.  They  made  good  Catholics  of  whole  Indian 
tribes,  reclaimed  them  from  a  wandering  existence,  and  tied 
them  down  to  definite  areas  and  to  agriculture.  In  ten 
years  or  so  lands  were  allotted  to  the  natives  in  severalty 
and  the  mission  became  a  parish.  The  missionaries  with  a 
body  of  tame  Indians  and  a  few  soldiers  then  moved  away 
to  the  wilderness  to  found  a  new  mission,  convert  and  civilize 
a  new  tribe  of  natives,  and  move  the  frontier  just  so  far  into 
new  territory.  After  the  missionaries  and  soldiers,  came 
white  men  and  women,  and  men  and  women  of  mixed  blood 
who  built  a  town  or  pueblo  near  by  or  around  the  mission 
station.  The  process  of  amalgamation  and  dispossession 
then  proceeded  until  the  natives  lost  their  lands  and  their 
racial  identity,  or  died  out,  or  ran  away. 

VOL.  V.  —  2lt 


514  TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON       [Cn.  XVI 

In  all  our  history  there  is  hardly  a  more  attractive  story 
than  that  of  the  Texas  and  California  missions.     This  is 
partly  due  to  the  equableness  of  the  climate,  partly  to  the 
high  character  of  the  missionaries  themselves,  and  partly  to 
the  sad  fate  that  overtook  the  converted  Red  Men.     The 
system  had  worked  well  in  Mexico,  for  there  the  Indians 
were  more  susceptible  to  the  teachings  of  the  missionaries. 
There  also  the  white  colonists  were  more  under  the  eye  of  the 
government  and  were  obliged  to  treat  the  natives,  converted 
or  otherwise,  with  some  degree  of  humanity.     In  the  north- 
ern provinces  the  Indians  were  wilder  and  more  stubborn, 
becoming  wilder  and  stubborner  as  one  went  farther  north. 
In  Texas,  and  especially  in  California,  the  whites  were  far 
removed    from    civil    control.     This    irresponsibility    was 
greatly  increased  by  the  breaking  away  from  the  Spanish 
empire  and  by  the  subsequent  round  of  revolutions  in  Mexico 
and  rebellions  in  California.     The  story  of  the  devotion 
of  Father  Junipero  Serra  and  the  rest  belongs  to  the  heroic 
age  of  colonization.1    Their  ideals  were  high,  their  lives 
were  filled  with  perilous  services,  with  no  hope  of  reward 
on  earth,  except  in  the  satisfaction  of  a  worthy  task  worthily 
accomplished.     Their   daily   round    of   work   is   attractive 
as  it  appears  in  their  accounts.    There  were  many  disappoint- 
ments, but  there  was  much  joy  in  the  doing  of  what  they 
thought  was  good,  and  the  little  glimpses  of  human  frailties 
that  appear,  especially  among  the  neophytes  and  the  soldiers, 
connect  them  with  other  lands,  and  other  peoples.     The 
time  for  the  secularization  of  the  California  missions  had 
arrived  before  Mexico  split  off  from  Spain,  and  the  order 
for  this  had  been  given  but  had  not  been  carried  out  at 
the  time  of  the  achievement  of  Mexican  independence.     In 

1  Those  who  wish  to  secure  an  in-  go  to  FT.  Zephyrin  Engelhardt's  The 
timate  knowledge  of  the  mission  sys-  Missions  and  Missionaries  of  Cali- 
tem  from  one  of  the  missionaries,  should  fornia  in  four  volumes. 


1830]  THE  MISSIONS  515 

due  course  thereafter  secularization  proceeded.1  There  was 
nothing  else  to  be  done.  The  missions  were  not  self-sup- 
porting, the  Mexicans  had  no  funds  for  their  maintenance, 
and  the  California  colonists  had  eyes  eagerly  fixed  on  the 
orchards  and  improved  lands  around  the  missions.  Sec- 
ularization was  ordered ;  the  Indians,  as  opportunity  served, 
took  to  the  hills,  and  the  whites  possessed  themselves  of 
their  lands,  herds,2  and  orchards.  Meantime,  cultivation 
and  tame  cattle  had  driven  away  the  wild  game  and,  within 
a  few  years,  the  occupation  of  the  foothills  by  the  whites 
deprived  the  natives  of  their  supply  of  acorns.  The  herds 
of  the  whites  were  the  Indians'  only  hope  —  both  cattle 
and  horses,  for  the  natives  relished  one  as  well  as  the  other. 
As  the  Indians  could  not  secure  these  by  purchase  or  barter, 
they  stole  them,  and  war  between  the  Californians  and  the 
runaway  Indians  began.  Diseases,  as  the  measles,  small- 
pox, scurvy,  and  pneumonia,  attacked  the  natives  and  swept 
them  off  in  large  numbers.  Doubtless  these  disorders,  or 
some  of  them,  had  not  been  uncommon  in  the  Indian  villages 
around  the  missions ;  but  when  the  natives  were  under  the 
missionaries'  care  they  had  better  food  and  medical  aid  than 
they  could  get  in  the  mountains.  In  1849  there  were  from 
sixty  to  one  hundred  thousand  Indians  within  the  limits  of 
the  present  State  of  California ; 3  in  1900  there  were  not 

'See    "Provisional    regulations    for  *  C.  Hart  Memam's  "  Indian  Popu- 

the   secularization   of   the   missions   of  lation   of   California"    (American   An- 

Upper  California  promulgated  by  Gov-  thropolagist)    vii,    594.     For   this   cita- 

ernor    Jose    Figueroa    on    the    9th    of  tion    and    much   valuable   information 

August,    1834"    in    Senate   Documents,  on   the   California   Indians,    I   am   in- 

Rep.    Com.    No.    18,    31st   Cong.,    1st  debted  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Ellison  of  Santa 

Sess.,  p.  150.  Barbara.     Merriam     (p.     598)     writes 

*  Walter    Colton    (Three    Years    in  that  in  1834  "the  total  Indian  popu- 

California,    441,    443,    444,    449)    gives  lation  of  California  .  .  .  could  hardly 

figures  as  to  the  numbers  of  cattle  and  have    been    less    than    210,000."       On 

horses  and  sheep  at  different  missions;  p.   600  he  estimates  it  at   100,000  in 

—  at  Santa  Clara,  for  instance,  in  1823,  1849. 
there  were  22,400  calves,  74,280  cattle, 
82,540  sheep,  and  6125  horses. 


516  TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON       [Cn.  XVI 

five  thousand  persons  of  tolerably  pure  Indian  blood  in  that 
State,  although  there  are  many  whites  and  negroes  with 
Indian  blood  in  their  veins  in  California  today. 

The  secularization  of  the  missions  and  the  reversion  of 
the  natives  to  savagery  occurred  during  the  Mexican  rule, 
a  dozen  years  or  so  before  the  American  conquest.  In 
1835,  when  Richard  H.  Dana  was  on  the  coast,  the  missions 
were  already  dilapidated  and  half  deserted.1  At  that  time 
and  for  years  thereafter,  there  were  bands  of  Indians  on 
many  of  the  ranches  or  cattle  farms.  John  A.  Sutter,  a 
German-Swiss  immigrant,2  had  established  a  fort  and  trad- 
ing station  on  the  site  of  the  modern  city  of  Sacramento. 
He  had  collected  and  trained  a  body  of  Indians  to  take  care 
of  the  cattle  and  to  chase  away  any  marauders  who  attempted 
to  run  off  his  cows  and  horses.  These  copper-colored  re- 
tainers seemed  to  have  lost  whatever  civilization  they  may 
once  have  had  and  fed  like  pigs  from  a  trough.3  After  the 
discovery  of  gold  in  1848,  the  natives  were  used  by  the  miners, 
especially  by  the  Californians  and  the  Mexicans,  to  do  the 
hard  work.  As  the  gold-bearing  slopes  and  canons  were 
occupied  by  the  white  miners,  the  wild  Indians  were  driven 
farther  and  farther  into  the  mountains  where  food  was 
scarcer  than  it  was  in  the  foothills.  It  was  then  that  the 
natives  began  to  steal  and  even  to  attack  isolated  parties  of 
whites ;  and  the  miners  and  settlers  retaliated  by  shooting 
an  Indian  on  sight,  until  finally  the  survivors  were  confined 
on  reservations. 

Texas  and  New  Mexico,  as  outlying  parts  of  New  Spain, 

1  See  his  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast.  fornia    (London,     1839) ;     and    Edwin 

This  remarkable  book  was  first  printed  Bryant's    What    I    Saw    in    California 

at  New  York  in  1840,  and  was  at  once  .  .  .  in    the    Years    1846,    1847    (New 

reprinted  in  America  and  in  England.  York,  1848). 

Other  books  of  this  time  are  A.  Robin-  2  Sutter's  "Personal  Reminiscences" 

son's    Life    in    California  .  .  .  by    An  is  in  the  Bancroft  Library. 
American  (New  York,  1846;    reprinted  3" Diary"    of   Col.    James   Clyman, 

in     1891);     Alexander    Forbes'     Cali-  p.  122  (Ms.),  in  the  Bancroft  Library. 


1820]  TEXAS  517 

were  hardly  more  than  geographical  expressions  with  a  few 
missions  and  trading  posts  thrown  in.  El  Paso  and  Santa 
Fe"  were  the  only  two  towns  of  any  importance  in  New 
Mexico  and,  with  the  exception  of  some  cultivators  and 
some  Indian  traders,  about  all  the  white  inhabitants  lived 
in  those  two  towns.  Texas  had  interested  the  Spanish 
authorities  mainly  as  a  buffer  against  possible  French  en- 
croachments, and  when  Spain  acquired  Louisiana,  this 
cause  of  interest  disappeared.  The  garrisons  of  eastern 
Texas  were  withdrawn,  the  missions  were  starved,  and  there 
was  a  general  backward  tendency.  In  1820,  Moses  Austin, 
then  living  in  Missouri,  espoused  the  cause  of  Texas  col- 
onization from  the  United  States.  At  the  moment,  the 
Florida  Treaty  by  which  the  United  States  surrendered  its 
claims  to  Texas  beyond  the  Sabine  River1  was  still  un- 
ratified  in  the  hands  of  the  Spanish  government.  In  1821, 
when  Spain  consented  to  it,  Mexico  or  New  Spain  was 
practically  independent.  It  was  at  such  a  moment  that 
Austin  visited  Texas  and  applied  to  the  representative  of 
the  dying  Spanish  government  for  a  grant  of  land.  After 
some  demur,  this  was  given  to  him  in  the  form  of  permis- 
sion to  bring  in  a  certain  number  of  families.  This  was  the 
last  act  of  Moses  Austin's  remarkable  career,  as  he  died  soon 
after  his  return  to  the  United  States.  His  plans  were  then 
taken  up  by  his  son,  Stephen  Fuller  Austin.2  When  he 
arrived  in  Texas  to  secure  a  confirmation  of  his  father's 
grant  he  found  the  Mexican  revolutionists  triumphant. 
He  went  to  the  City  of  Mexico  and  there  secured  a  new  grant 

1  On   the   boundaries  of  Texas,   see  and  Louisiana  they  talked  of  moving 

Bolton's   Texas  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen-  the    western    boundary    of    Louisiana 

tury,  p.  1,  and  T.  M.  Marshall's  His-  westwardly  to  the  Sabine  River,   but 

tory    of   the    Western   Boundary    of  the  nothing  was  done  at  that  time. 
Louisiana    Purchase.     The    first    two  *  A  good,  brief  account  of  Stephen 

paragraphs  of  Bolton's  text  state  the  F.  Austin  is  L.  A.   Wight's  Life  .  .  . 

matter    admirably.     It    appears    that  of  Stephen  F.  Austin  in  Austin  College 

vhen  the  Spaniards  owned  both  Texas  Bulletin  for  October,  1910. 


518  TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON        [Cn.  XVI 

from  the  new  government.  Spanish  authority  once  over- 
thrown, change  after  change,  revolutions,  as  they  are  termed, 
followed  in  Mexico.  At  first  there  was  a  revolutionary 
emperor,  but  in  1824  a  federal  republic  was  established, 
somewhat  on  the  model  of  the  United  States.  As  there 
were  not  enough  white  inhabitants  in  Texas  to  form  a 
separate  state,  it  was  joined  with  its  next  southern  neighbor 
as  the  State  of  Coahuila  and  Texas,  the  capital  being  in 
the  southern  part.  The  younger  Austin,  thereupon,  secured 
renewed  concessions.  The  land  system  of  New  Spain,  of 
the  Mexican  Republic,  and  of  Coahuila  and  Texas  was 
entirely  unlike  that  of  the  United  States.1  Land  was  not 
granted  to  Austin  or  other  leaders  of  colonization  in  fee 
simple ;  they  were  given  the  right  to  bring  in  a  certain 
number  of  families  and  settle  them  within  rather  ill-defined 
boundaries,  taking  up  specified  quantities  of  land  on  account 
of  each  family.  Austin  and  the  others  were  termed  empre- 
sarios  or  contractors.  The  financial  arrangements  made  by 
Austin  are  impossible  to  unravel.2  He  undoubtedly  ex- 
pected to  make  something  out  of  the  venture,  either  by 
retaining  portions  of  the  lands  or  by  securing  contributions 
from  his  colonists.  He  was  a  man  of  remarkable  skill  in 
certain  directions  and  somehow  contrived  to  maintain 
himself  and  receive  the  good  will  of  those  who  settled  under 
his  auspices.  These  colonists  came  from  the  United  States, 
mainly  from  the  South,3  but  there  were  some  from  New 

1  The  Laws  and  Decrees  of  the  State  in  Southern  History  Association's  Pub- 

of   Coahuila    and    Texas    published    at  lications  for  April,  1899. 
Houston    in    1839    by    order    of    the  *  Professor   James   E.    Winston   has 

Texan     Secretary     of    State     contains  brought  forward  many  facts  concern- 

an    amazing    amount   of   useful    infor-  ing  the  Texan  colonists  in  The  South- 

mation.     A    very    much    briefer    pub-  western   Historical   Quarterly   for   July, 

lication     entitled     Texas    Lands     con-  1912;      January,     1913;     July,     1917; 

tains    most    of    the    important    docu-  etc. 
ments.  The  following  four  titles  have  been 

'See    Lester    G.    Bugbee's    "Some  selected  from  a  mass  of  more  or  less  con- 
Difficulties    of    a    Texas    Empresario"  temporary    material    on    this    part   of 


TEXAS  IN  1835 
(Redrawn  from  A  Visit  to  Texas,  1834.     The  inset  shows  settled  areas  in  1835.) 


619 


520 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON    [Ca.  XVI 


York  and  New  England  and  other  parts  of  the  North.  Un- 
doubtedly, many  of  them  were  adventurers  whose  absence 
from  the  United  States  was  welcome;  but  the  letters, 
diaries,  and  reminiscences  that  have  come  down  to  us  give 
the  impression  that  most  of  the  colonists  were  hard-working, 
God-fearing  men  and  women  of  the  very  best  type  for  so 
arduous  an  enterprise.  The  success  of  Austin  attracted 
other  men  of  vision  and  also  those  of  speculative  proclivities. 
These  obtained  large  grants  or  contracts,  and  colonies  were 
formed  at  various  places  under  their  auspices.  Looking 
at  a  map  of  Texas  of  1830  with  these  "grants"  marked  in 
different  colored  inks,  one  gathers  the  impression  of  a 
settled  area  which  was  very  far  from  the  truth.  Estimates 
differ  widely  as  to  the  number  of  white  inhabitants  of  Texas,1 
but  in  1830  there  were  enough  of  them  there  to  have  a  feeling 
of  racial  solidarity  and  of  political  consciousness.2 

Meantime,  one  revolutionary  government  had  succeeded 
another  in  Mexico,  —  this  revolutionary  leader  and  that 
"pronouncing"  against  whomsoever  happened  to  be  in 
power  and  generally  attracting  enough  followers  by  the  hope 


Texan  history,  simply  because  they 
seem  to  shed  light  to  the  present  writer's 
eyes :  A  Visit  to  Texas :  being  the 
Journal  of  a  Traveller  (New  York, 
1834);  Texas  in  1840,  or  the  Emi- 
grant's Guide  (New  York,  1840); 
Prairiedom :  Rambles  and  Scrambles 
in  Texas  .  .  .  By  A-  Suthron  (New 
York,  1845);  and  W.  B.  Dewees's 
Letters  from  an  Early  Settler  of  Texas 
(Louisville,  Ky.,  1854.) 

1  The  population  of  Texas  in  these 
early  years  has  been  variously  esti- 
mated. The  first  census  was  taken 
in  1847.  From  that  it  has  been  de- 
duced that  Texas  in  1840  had  in  all 
about  55,000  white  inhabitants ;  in 
1836  anywhere  from  30,000  to  50,000; 
see  George  L.  Rives's  United  States  and 
Mexico,  i,  391,  464.  Yoakum  states 
that  in  1831  the  "American  popula- 
tion of  Texas  .  .  .  now  numbered 


about  twenty  thousand";  History  of 
Texas,  i,  274  (reprinted  in  Wooten's 
Comprehensive  History  of  Texas,  i, 
134).  The  largest  estimate  was  made 
by  F.  C.  Sheridan,  a  British  official 
at  the  Barbados  in  1840.  He  says 
that  the  population  may  be  estimated 
at  150,000  souls  (Texas  State  Histori- 
cal Association's  Quarterly,  xv,  220). 
The  editors  of  the  Quarterly  state  that 
this  is  an  excessive  estimate  and  as  latft 
as  1847,  the  white  population  was 
"but  a  little  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand."  See  also  Garrison's  Texas, 
270. 

*  W.  L.  McCalla's  Adventures  in 
Texas  chiefly  in  .  .  .  1840  (Phila- 
delphia, 1841)  gives  a  glimpse  of  the 
conditions  of  life  in  the  republic  in 
the  interval  between  San  Jacinto  and 
annexation. 


18301  THE  MEXICAN  REPUBLIC 

of  public  plunder  to  oust  the  existing  tenant.  Of  these 
leaders,  the  most  remarkable  was  Antonio  Lopez  de  Santa 
Anna.  Opinions  have  widely  differed  as  to  his  motives 
and  his  capacities  and  appraisal  of  them  is  extraordinarily 
difficult,  because  only  a  person  deeply  versed  in  Spanish- 
Mexican  character  can  hope  to  understand  them.  It 
seems  evident  that  he  was  a  man  of  remarkable  power  of 
arousing  enthusiasm  among  his  own  people  and  of  making, 
perhaps  not  the  best,  but  something  approaching  it  of  the 
people  with  whom  he  had  to  work.  The  ups  and  downs  of 
his  career,  his  military  successes  and  defeats,  and  the  charm 
of  his  personality  certainly  compel  admiration  and  his 
blood-thirstiness,  his  craftiness,  and  his  instability  belong 
to  his  people,  place,  and  time.  It  was  natural  that  a  political 
and  military  leader  of  this  type  should  feel  restive  under 
the  federal  organization  of  the  Mexican  Republic  which 
may  or  may  not  have  been  a  good  form  of  government  for 
that  country  at  that  time.1  It  was  certainly  much  easier 
for  a  successful  revolutionist  to  rule  the  whole  republic 
from  Mexico  City,  than  to  have  to  consult  the  susceptibilities 
of  the  political  leaders  of  vu  score  of  states.  At  all  events, 
Santa  Anna  became  the  head  of  the  Centralists  and  his 
accession  to  power  in  1834  meant  the  overthrow  of  the 
federalist  system.  This  movement  was  especially  dis- 
liked by  the  people  of  California,  New  Mexico,  and  Texas. 
These  were  so  far  away  from  the  capital,  not  only  in  miles 
but  in  modes  of  communication,  and,  so  far  as  Texas  was 
concerned,  so  alien  in  political  desire,  that  they  were  restive 

1  Of  the  innumerable    books  about  la    Barca's    Life    in    Mexico    (Boston, 

Mexico,  the  following  have  been  use-  1843) ;     Brantz    Mayer's    Mexico  .  .  . 

ful    to    the     present    writer :      H.    G.  Historical    Sketch    of    the    Late     War 

Ward's     Mexico     (2nd     ed.,     London,  (Hartford,   Conn.,    1852) ;     and   C.   R. 

1829) ;      W.     Bullock's     Six     Months  Enock's     Mexico,     Its     Ancient     and 

Residence  ...  in     Mexico     (2nd     ed.,  Modern  Civilisation  (London,  1912). 
London,    1825) ;     Mme.    Calderon    de 


522  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON         [Ce.  XVI 

under  domination  of  whatever  political  leader  happened 
to  make  himself  supreme  at  the  capital.  In  Texas,  also, 
there  were  other  causes  of  dissatisfaction.  The  Mexican 
government  tried  to  collect  duties  on  all  goods  imported  into 
Texas.  This  could  only  be  done  by  stationing  soldiers, 
who  seem  to  have  been  generally  of  a  very  low  type,  in  the 
few  towns  through  which  goods  were  admitted  from  the 
outside  world  and  this  greatly  increased  the  cost  of  the  few 
commodities  that  were  brought  in.1  Under  the  circum- 
stances, smuggling  was  inevitable  and  the  Mexican  enforce- 
ment of  its  laws  was  so  spasmodic  and  arbitrary  that  added 
irritation  was  aroused.  Another  thing  which  occasioned 
trouble  was  the  presence  of  negro  slaves  in  Texas.  In  1829, 
slavery  was  abolished  throughout  the  Mexican  Republic. 
So  far  as  the  Mexican  portions  of  Mexico  were  concerned 
this  did  not  mean  very  much,  because  the  system  of  peonage, 
by  which  the  Indians  and  the  poorer  of  the  mixed  class  were 
held  in  perpetual  bondage,  took  the  place  of  slavery  so-called. 
In  Texas  the  case  was  very  different,  for  the  Southern  immi- 
grants or  some  of  them  had  brought  their  slaves  with  them 
from  their  old  homes  to  their  new,  and  not  only  did  they 
desire  to  preserve  their  "property,"  but  they  dreaded  above 
all  things,  the  presence  of  free  negroes.  Their  remonstrances 
were  so  loud  that  the  matter  was  compromised  and  the 
law  as  to  slavery  was  not  enforced  among  them.  Among 
the  conditions  in  all  these  land  contracts,  or  grants,  was 
one  requiring  the  colonists  introduced  by  an  empresario 
to  be  Roman  Catholics.  Some  attention  seems  to  have 
been  paid  to  this  requirement,  but  a  rigid  enforcement  of  it 
might  at  any  time  destroy  many  land  titles  in  Texas  so  far 
as  the  new-comers  were  concerned.  It  is  easy  to  see,  bearing 

1  See     Eugene   C.   Barker's   "  Diffi-      Texas  Historical  Association  for  Janu- 
culties  of  a  Mexican  Revenue  Officer      ary,  1901. 
in    Texas"    in    the    Quarterly    of    the 


1832]  TEXAS  AND  MEXICO  523 

in  mind  the  difference  in  race,  religion,  and  political  methods, 
that  the  Texans  would  become  very  restive  whenever  the 
authorities  at  Mexico  City  should  endeavor  to  carry  out 
the  plain,  legal  requirements  of  their  residence  there. 

In  1832  matters  came  to  a  crisis.1  The  Texans  held 
a  convention  or  consultation.  They  resolved  to  separate 
from  Coahuila  and  to  stand  by  the  constitution  of  1824. 
Stephen  F.  Austin  proceeded  to  Mexico  City  to  present 
an  address  to  this  effect  to  the  successful  revolutionary 
Centralist  authorities  at  the  capital.  He  was  at  once  put 
hi  prison  and  measures  were  taken  to  compel  the  recalci- 
trant Texans  to  recognize  the  existing  government  of  the 
Republic.  After  eight  months'  incarceration,  Austin  was 
released.  He  returned  to  Texas  and  advised  acquiescence 
in  the  demands  of  the  constituted  authorities,  at  least  for  the 
time  being. 

As  the  year  1834  progressed,  the  strained  relations  be- 
tween the  Texans  and  the  Mexicans  increased.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1835,  parties  of  irrepressible  and  irresponsible  Texans 
took  the  field  and  captured  the  towns  of  Goliad  and  San 
Antonio  de  Bexar.  In  November,  the  American  settlers 
in  Texas  held  a  consultation,  as  they  called  it,  because  the 
Mexicans  seemed  to  dislike  the  word  convention.  At  this 
meeting,  they  appointed  a  provisional  government  to  look 
after  their  affairs  as  a  separate  state  of  the  Mexican  Republic. 
In  taking  this  action  they  were  partly  conservative  as  up- 
holding the  federative  constitution  of  1824.  Otherwise, 
their  doings  were  distinctly  revolutionary,  for  they  pro- 
posed to  carry  out  their  wishes  as  to  existence  apart  from 

1  See     Eugene     C.     Barker's     "Or-  ing    article    on    the    attitude    of    the 

ganization   of   the   Texas   Revolution "  United  States  newspapers  toward  Texan 

and     illustrative     documents     in     the  independence  in  the  Proceedings  of  the 

Publications   of   the   Southern   History  Mississippi   Valley   Historical   Associa- 

Association,   v,  451   and  vi,   33.     Pro-  tion,  viii,  160. 
fessor  J.  E.  Winston  has  an  interest- 


524  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON        [CH.  XVI 

Coahuila  and  refused  to  recognize  the  existing  government 
at  Mexico  City.  Santa  Anna  was  compelled  to  act.  At  this 
time,  Mexico  is  supposed  to  have  contained  about  seven 
million  inhabitants  and  Texas  from  thirty  to  fifty  thousand 
people.  The  numerical  discrepancy  was  certainly  great, 
but  in  reality  the  two  opponents  were  not  so  unequally 
matched  as  the  figures  would  indicate.  Mexican  people  were 
sharply  divided  into  classes  and  masses.  The  classes  com- 
prised those  with  European  blood  in  their  veins  —  more  or 
less  of  it.  These  were  the  clericals,  the  politicians,  the  mili- 
tary officers,  the  civil  officers,  and  professional  and  business 
men,  together  with  the  large  land  owners  of  the  country. 
The  masses  comprised  all  the  rest,  those  with  a  smaller 
amount  of  European  blood  in  their  veins  and  a  good  many 
of  combined  negro  and  Indian  blood,  —  and  there  were,  of 
course,  some  fairly  pure-blooded  Indians  and  pure-blooded 
negroes.  The  classes  as  a  rule  were  more  concerned  with 
the  perpetuation  of  their  privileges  than  they  were  with 
the  future  of  their  country.  Patriotism,  indeed,  in  the 
present-day  sense  of  the  word  was  lacking  and  was  replaced 
by  a  sentimental  belief  in  themselves  and  a  contempt  for 
the  outer  world.  Having  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  Spain 
without  any  preliminary  training  in  self  government,  the 
Mexicans  proved  to  be  hopelessly  inept.  Revolution 
succeeded  revolution ;  few  presidents  ever  served  out  their 
terms  of  office,  and  the  Army  and  the  Church  threw  their 
weight  first  one  way  and  then  another,  as  their  interests 
for  the  moment  seemed  to  dictate.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, it  may  well  be  believed  that  the  national  finances 
were  always  in  a  hopeless  condition.  This  meant  that  it  was 
well-nigh  impossible  to  maintain  any  military  force  in  the 
field  or  any  naval  force  on  the  water.  We  read  of  armies  of 
ten  thousand,  of  twenty  thousand,  of  twenty-five  thousand. 


1835,'  TEXAS  AND  MEXICO  525 

For  the  most  part  these  were  little  more  than  collections 
of  half-breeds  and  Indians  commanded  by  a  disproportionate 
number  of  officers  who  spent  very  little  of  their  time  in 
drilling  their  men.  There  was  no  commissariat  and  no 
quartermasters'  department.  Whenever  there  was  any 
money,  some  of  it  was  given  to  the  soldiers  and  they  pro- 
cured their  own  food,  —  at  other  times  they  seized  it,  or 
went  without.  Whatever  was  taken  on  a  campaign  was 
carried  on  the  backs  of  the  soldiers.  These  possessed  aston- 
ishing marching  powers ;  twenty  or  even  thirty  miles  a  day 
with  equipment  and  baggage  seem  to  have  been  attained 
by  them.  But  when  the  fighting  began,  for  the  most 
part  they  were  helpless.  They  fired  from  the  hip  without 
aim  and  bayonet  practice  seems  to  have  been  unknown. 
The  rapidity  with  which  an  army  of  this  character  disap- 
peared while  on  the  march  and  after  a  battle  is  almost 
beyond  belief,  but  the  figures  cannot  all  of  them  lie,  —  de- 
sertion was  the  one  hope  of  salvation. 

While  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  California  had  been  more 
or  less  integral  parts  of  New  Spain  and  were  states  of  the 
Mexican  Republic,  in  reality  they  were  separated  geo- 
graphically from  the  populous  portion  of  Mexico.  From 
the  Nueces  to  the  Rio  Grande  was  a  desert  tract  that  was 
supposed  to  be  valuable  on  account  of  the  possibility  ol 
obtaining  salt  there.  South  of  the  Rio  Grande  for  hundreds 
of  miles  there  was  little  cultivation  and  few  towns  even  as 
far  as  Tampico  and  San  Luis  Potosi.  Westward,  the  route 
through  Chihuahua  to  New  Mexico  and  through  Sonora 
to  California  was  even  longer  and  more  devoid  of  towns 
and  cultivated  acres.  In  short,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and 
California  belonged  economically  to  the  United  States  and 
not  to  Mexico.  The  easiest  approach  to  Texas  was  by 
water  from  Vera  Cruz  and  to  California  by  water  from 


526  TEXAS,    CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON        [Ca.  XVI 

Mazatlan;  but  the  Mexicans  were  no  water  men  and, 
indeed,  their  coastal  commerce  was  mainly  carried  on  in 
American  and  British  vessels.  Constant  political  up- 
heavals, continuing  lack  of  money,  and  the  want  of  any 
real  patriotic  impulse  made  it  exceedingly  difficult  for  any 
person,  who  happened  to  be  momentarily  in  power  in  Mexico 
City,  to  lead  an  expedition  of  any  size  to  any  great  distance 
from  the  capital,  —  and  to  send  a  rival  in  command  of  such 
a  military  force  was  merely  to  invite  a  new  revolution. 
Nevertheless,  Santa  Anna,  with  his  abounding  energy  and 
tremendous  optimism,  possibly  spurred  on  by  the  necessity 
of  doing  something  to  save  his  position,  levied  an  army  and 
marched  to  the  subjugation  of  Texas. 

Texas  accepted  the  challenge.  In  March,  1836,  a  conven- 
tion adopted  a  constitution  on  the  American  model,  the 
chief  executive  bearing  the  title  of  president.  Military 
forces  were  called  out  to  meet  the  threatened  Mexican 
attack.  The  ordinary  pioneer  possessed  courage  and 
capacity  for  conflict,  but  he  was  not  easily  amenable  to 
guidance,  much  less  to  discipline.  Each  Texan  soldier 
was  in  reality  a  commander.  The  titular  commander 
simply  carried  out  the  wishes  of  the  majority  of  his  men  and 
quite  likely  some  of  the  minority  marched  off  in  another 
direction.  The  result  of  these  various  factors  of  Mexican 
and  Texan  national  and  military  traits  might  easily  be 
foretold.  Mexicans  appeared  in  greatly  superior  numbers 
and  marched  from  one  town  to  another,  but  the  Texans 
defended  themselves  with  an  ardor  and  courageous  perti- 
nacity that  made  one  victory  or  two,  or  the  capture  of  one 
town  or  two  a  matter  of  small  moment  in  the  final  outcome. 
In  a  Mexican  revolution,  one  set  of  soldiers  had  pointed 
guns  at  another  set,  and  possibly  had  done  some  random 
shooting.  Then  an  agreement  had  been  reached  by  which 


1836]  THE  TEXAS  REVOLUTION  527 

a  few  leading  men  had  been  executed  and  victory  had  been 
proclaimed  for  one  side  or  the  other.  Now,  matters  went 
very  differently.  The  Texan  defenders  of  San  Antonio 
de  Bexar,  as  their  numbers  dwindled,  shut  themselves 
up  in  an  old  mission  building,  called  the  Alamo,  and  there 
they  fought  until  th*  last  man  was  dead  or  dying,  —  one 
hundred  and  eighty  Texans  held  off  three  thousand  Mexicans 
for  seven  or  eight  days  and  then  perished  to  a  man. 
"Thermopylae  had  her  messenger  of  defeat  —  the  Alamo 
had  none,"  said  General  Edward  Burleson  1  when  the  news 
of  the  glorious  tragedy  reached  him  at  Gonzales. 

By  the  middle  of  April,  1836,  the  Mexicans  had  over- 
run the  Texo-American  settlements  as  far  as  Galveston 
Bay.  In  the  course  of  their  progress,  they  had  captured  the 
town  of  Goliad  with  its  defenders  under  the  command  of 
Colonel  Fannin.  Resistance  being  hopeless,  the  Texans 
had  surrendered  as  prisoners  of  war.  Regardless  of  this, 
the  Mexicans  looked  upon  them  as  fellow  rebels.  After 
a  few  days  they  marched  them  out  onto  the  prairie  and 
shot  them  down  in  cold  blood,  a  few  managing  to  escape 
by  rapid  flight.  The  Alamo,  the  Goliad  massacre,  and 
other  bloody  deeds  by  the  Mexicans  drove  the  Texans 
away  from  their  farms  and  towns ;  they  burned  their  build- 
ings, destroyed  their  stores,  and  fled  toward  the  American 
frontier.  Santa  Anna  believed  the  rebellion  was  crushed 
and  even  thought  of  returning  to  Mexico  to  reckon  with  his 
political  enemies.  Then,  as  is  so  often  the  case  in  war,  an 
accident  occurred  that  changed  the  whole  course  of  Texan 
history  and,  indeed,  that  of  the  United  States  and  of  Mexico. 

The  commander-in-chief  of  the  Texan  military  forces,  if  such 
a  phrase  can  be  used,  was  Sam  Houston,  —  once  a  member 

1  Texas  State  Historical  Associa-  exist  as  to  the  authorship  of  those 
tion's  Quarterly,  vii,  328.  Some  doubts  words;  see  ibid.,  vi,  309. 


528  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON        [Cn.  XVI 

of  the  United  States  Congress  and  governor  of  Tennessee, 
later  a  chief  of  the  Cherokee  Indians,  and  now  the  leader 
of  frontiersmen.1  "Marital  troubles"  had  led  to  his  flight 
from  Tennessee  and  a  happy  marriage  in  Texas  at  a  later 
day  gave  him  renewed  status  among  his  countrymen.  The 
story  of  his  life  for  this  middle  period  is  extremely  uncertain. 
To  one  set  of  seekers  he  represents  the  highest  form  of  states- 
manship and  diplomacy,  playing  off  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain,  one  against  the  other;  to  another,  he  is  a 
mere  opportunist  whom  chance  had  thrown  at  the  head  of 
affairs.  The  story  of  the  next  few  weeks  in  the  military 
history  of  Texas  and  of  Sam  Houston  is  equally  vague.  To 
one  set  of  writers  he  is  the  military  commander  par  excel- 
lence, advising  and  executing  by  his  own  power  of  mind  and 
will.  To  the  other  set  he  is  hardly  more  than  the  obedient 
executor  of  the  commands  of  his  own  soldiers,  —  they  and 
not  he  determining  on  the  campaign  and  enforcing  their 
own  decisions.  A  few  things  seem  to  stand  out  from  the 
general  uncertainty.  After  the  Alamo  and  Goliad,  Houston 
saw  that  the  only  salvation  for  Texas  and  Texans  was  to 
stop  the  panic,  gather  the  fighting  men  together,  and  strike 
a  blow.  He  and  his  men  then  acted  in  a  fortunate  and  skil- 
ful manner.  They  concentrated,  with  a  good  measure  of 
secrecy,  while  the  Mexicans  dispersed  into  four  bands, 
Santa  Anna  being  at  the  head  of  one  detachment.  The 
movements  of  the  hostile  groups  are  very  puzzling  to  trace 
on  a  map  and  correlate  as  to  point  of  time ;  but  it  really 
is  not  necessary.  Santa  Anna,  with  perhaps  eight  hundred 
men,  advanced  eastwardly  to  the  vicinity  of  Galveston 


1  There  is  no  life  of  Houston  at  all  his  doings  as  commander  of  the  Texan 

commensurate    with    the    possibilities  army    in    a    speech    delivered    in    the 

of   the    subject.     Henry    Bruce's   little  Senate  on  February  28,   1859 ;    but  it 

book  in  the  Makers  of  America  series  is  not  very  convincing, 
has  literary  merit.     Houston  defended 


1836]  SAN  JACINTO  529 

Bay  and  pitched  his  camp  on  the  western  bank  of  the  San 
Jacinto  River,  not  far  from  its  entrance  into  the  bay.  There 
he  was  joined  by  another  detachment  bringing  the  number 
up  to  eleven  or  twelve  hundred.  For  some  days,  the  con- 
solidated Texan  force  having  somehow  slipped  in  between 
the  Mexican  detachments,  had  been  following  Santa  Anna 
and  his  men.  On  the  20th  of  April  they  came  upon  them  in 
a  sort  of  entrenched  camp,  the  river  and  swamp  being  back 
of  the  Mexican  position  and  the  front  being  protected  by 
pack  saddles  and  other  impedimenta  of  the  expedition. 
Santa  Anna  had  selected  this  place  because  the  river  and 
swamp  protected  his  rear  and  flank;  but  the  Texans,  dis- 
daining strategic  operations,  after  some  prolonged  prelimi- 
nary skirmishings,  suddenly,  on  the  afternoon  of  April  21, 
1836,  at  about  half-past  three,  yelling  at  the  top  of  their 
lungs,  "Remember  the  Alamo!"  "Remember  Goliad!" 
dashed  over  the  obstructions  and  clubbing  their  muskets, 
for  they  had  no  bayonets,  beat  the  Mexicans  from  their 
camp-fires  and  tents,  killed  them  as  they  ran,  and  shot  to 
death  those  who  tried  to  escape  through  the  marsh  or  over 
the  river.1  At  the  moment  Santa  Anna  was  enjoying  his 
siesta.  Two  days  later,  some  soldiers  scouting  for  prisoners 
in  the  open  prairie,  saw  a  figure  of  a  man  in  the  grass.  Re- 
ceiving no  reply  from  him,  one  of  them  kicked  him  and 
told  him  to  get  up.  He  complied  and,  speaking  to  them  in 
Spanish,  declared  that  he  was  a  private  soldier.  As  the 
party  entered  the  camp,  the  Mexican  prisoners  saluted  the 
captive  as  "El  Presidente."  It  was,  indeed,  Santa  Anna, 
and  Houston  had  all  that  he  could  do  to  preserve  the  life  of 

1  See   G.    L.    Rives's    United   States  has  gathered  together  nearly  all  avail- 

and  Mexico,  i,  ch.  xiv.     This  account  able   information   in   the   Texas   State 

of  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto,  as  well  as  Historical        Association's        Quarterly 

all    others,    is    mainly    based    on    H.  for    April,    1901,    with    a    convenient 

Yoakum's  History  of  Texas  (ed.  1856)  "list  of  books"  at  the  end. 
ii,  ch.  v.     Professor  Eugene  C.  Barker 

VOL.  V. 2M 


530  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON        [Cn.  XVI 

the  man  responsible  for  the  Alamo  and  Goliad.  It  would 
have  been  well,  perhaps,  for  Mexico,  Texas,  and  the  United 
States  had  some  accident  removed  Santa  Anna  from  politics 
and  war.  As  it  was  he  was  all  compliance  and  ordered 
his  subordinates  to  retire  from  Texas  beyond  the  Rio  Grande. 
In  the  battle  or  massacre  of  San  Jacinto,  the  Texan  loss  was 
two  killed  and  twenty-three  wounded  against  a  Mexican 
loss  of  hundreds  killed  and  wounded,  and  as  many  more 
taken  prisoners.1 

The  annals  of  Texas  for  the  next  eight  years  after  San 
Jacinto  are  as  difficult  to  unravel  as  is  the  story  of  that  cam- 
paign. There  were  three  possible  courses  open  for  Texas, 
or  three  possible  positions  that  might  be  achieved.  She 
might  come  to  terms  with  Mexico  and  remain  a  part  of 
that  Republic  with  a  good  measure  of  home  rule.  She 
might  become  a  part  of  the  United  States.  Remaining 
independent,  she  might  become  the  nucleus  of  another  great 
North  American  republic,  embracing  all  the  present  area 
of  the  United  States  to  the  west  and  south  of  the  line  of 
1819  with  a  considerable  portion  of  Northern  Mexico  in 
addition.  Thus  the  new  nation  would  include  the  greater 
part  of  the  present  State  of  Colorado,  all  of  Utah,  Nevada, 
and  California  on  the  north  and  extend  southwardly  across 
the  Rio  Grande  to  include  the  greater  part  of  Coahuila, 
Chihuahua,  and  Sonora,  —  besides  Texas,  New  Mexico, 
and  Arizona.  It  was  an  imperial  domain,  equivalent  in  area 
to  about  one-third  of  the  United  States.  As  leaders  of  an 
independent  republic,  great  careers  awaited  the  heroes  of 
the  Texan  Revolution,  Houston,  Anson  Jones,  Ashbel  Smith, 
David  G.  Burnet,  and  the  rest.  Texas  alone  could  even- 
tually produce  more  cotton  than  all  the  Southern  States  of 

1  As  to  the  exact  figures  of  Mexi-       United  States  and  Mexico,  i,  350  and 
can   losses,    see    Yoakum's   History   of      note. 
Texas,  ii,   146,  501   and  G.  L.  Rives'e 


1836]  THE  REPUBLIC  OF  TEXAS  531 

the  American  Union,  at  least,  so  it  was  asserted.  Moreover, 
Texas  being  outside  of  the  American  Union  and  the  Mexican 
Republic,  could  arrange  her  tariff  system  to  suit  her  own 
needs  and  not  those  of  Pennsylvania  or  New  England,  or 
of  the  politicians  of  Mexico  City.  It  was  surely  an  alluring 
prospect,  and  had  the  leaders  of  Texas  been  men  of  larger 
calibre,  it  might  have  been  carried  through  triumphantly. 
As  to  the  first  alternative,  coming  to  some  arrangement 
with  Mexico  as  to  more  or  less  complete  autonomy,  that 
proved  to  be  out  of  the  range  of  possibilities.  The  Mexicans, 
while  unable  to  compel  Texas  to  do  their  bidding,  were  so 
affected  by  sentimental  nationalism  that  no  government 
could  have  stood  a  month  that  had  come  out  openly  for 
the  recognition  of  Texan  independence  in  any  form.  Iso- 
lated in  their  valley  stronghold,  the  ruling  classes  in  Mexican 
politics  believed  themselves  secure  from  all  attack.  The 
Spaniards  had  tried  it  and  been  repelled,  the  French  had 
tried  it,  and  had  not  advanced  beyond  Vera  Cruz.  How 
could  it  be  possible  that  the  Texans,  even  with  the  aid  of 
the  United  States,  could  ever  maintain  their  independence  ? 
The  American  Army  was  less  in  size  than  that  of  Mexico 
and  composed  of  German,  Irish,  and  British  renegades,  of 
men  who  fought  for  money  and  not  like  the  Mexican  soldiers, 
for  love  of  country !  For  eight  years  one  revolutionary 
government  after  another  in  Mexico  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
all  suggestions  of  recognition.  The  United  States,  Great 
Britain,  France,  and  other  countries  of  the  world  recognized 
Texas  as  an  independent  power;  but  Mexico  would  not. 
In  1843,  for  a  moment,  there  appeared  what  looked  like  a 
change  of  heart.  James  W.  Robinson,  at  one  time  high 
in  place  in  Texas  and  now  a  prisoner  in  the  fortress  of 
Perote  in  Mexico,  suggested  to  Santa  Anna,  who  was  then 
at  the  head  of  affairs  in  Mexico,  that  an  arrangement  might 


532       TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [Cn.  XVI 

be  made  whereby  Texas  should  acknowledge  the  sovereignty 
of  Mexico  and  Mexico  should  recognize  Texas  as  an  "inde- 
pendent department"  of  the  Mexican  Republic.  It  seemed 
as  if  something  might  come  of  this  project.  Texas  even  pro- 
claimed an  armistice  ;  but  then  political  conditions  compelled 
a  change  in  Mexico's  policy.  Again,  in  1844,  this  time  under 
the  guidance  of  the  British  representative  in  Texas,  Captain 
Charles  Elliot,  Mexico  listened  favorably  to  a  somewhat 
similar  proposition,  but  her  action  was  then  taken  too 
late  to  fend  off  annexation  to  the  United  States. 

The  third  possibility  was  union  with  the  United  States. 
As  far  back  as  1825,  and  again  in  1827  John  Quincy  Adams  l 
and  Henry  Clay  had  put  forward  propositions  for  the  pur- 
chase of  Texas  from  Mexico.  Adams  had  opposed  —  alone 
in  Monroe's  cabinet  —  the  giving  up  of  Texas  in  1819. 
He  now  took  the  first  opportunity  to  try  to  retrieve  what 
he  regarded  as  Monroe's  error,  but  the  Mexicans  would  not 
listen.  Jackson  renewed  the  proposition  in  a  somewhat 
different  guise,  as  a  rectification  of  the  boundary,2  for  al- 
though he  had  approved  of  the  Florida  Treaty  at  the  time, 
he  had  come  since  to  regard  it  as  a  blunder.  But,  again, 
there  was  no  response  and  the  matter  was  so  badly  handled 
that  added  resentment  was  aroused  on  the  part  of  the 
Mexicans.  Then  came  San  Jacinto  and,  not  long  thereafter, 
a  proposition  from  Texas  for  recognition  as  an  independent 
State  and  annexation  to  the  American  Republic.  Now, 
Jackson,  who  had  been  eager  for  the  acquisition  of  Texas 
by  purchase  and  had  later  advocated  the  recognition  of  the 
new  republic  as  an  independent  power,  stood  firmly  on  the 
obligations  of  the  United  States  to  Mexico.  The  Texans 

1  American  State  Papers,  Foreign  Revolution"  in  American  Historical 
Relations,  vi,  578-581 ;  and  J.  Q.  Review  for  July,  1907,  and  W.  R.  Man- 
Adams's  Memoirs,  vii,  239,  240.  ning's  Early  Diplomatic  Relations  be- 

*  See  Professor  E.  C.  Barker's  tween  the  United  States  and  Mexico 

"President  Jackson  and  the  Texas  (Baltimore,  1916). 


X837]  THE  REPUBLIC  OF  TEXAS  533 

were  disappointed  but  Jackson  was  immovable.  Congress 
then  authorized  the  President  to  appoint  a  diplomatic 
agent  whenever  he  should  feel  satisfied  as  to  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  new  republic.  He  at  once  acted  by  nominating  a 
Charge  d' Affaires  to  the  Republic  of  Texas  on  March  3, 1837.  * 

Great  Britain,  on  her  part,  pursued  a  fairly  steady  policy 
of  advocating  Texan  independence  and  recognition  thereof 
by  Mexico.2  Her  statesmen  preferred  to  see  Texas  an  in- 
dependent power,  because  that  would  have  broken  the 
cotton  monopoly  of  the  United  States.  The  one  great 
objection  to  it  was  that  many  of  the  supporters  of  the 
Peel  government  that  came  into  power  in  1841  were  abo- 
litionists and  an  independent  Texas,  or  a  Texas  annexed 
to  the  United  States,  meant  the  perpetuation  of  slavery. 

In  1842,  Charles  Elliot  appeared  in  Texas  as  representative 
of  Great  Britain.  He  was  a  naval  officer  of  good  family 
who  had  bungled  matters  at  the  time  of  the  opium  contro- 
versy with  China.  Presumably,  he  was  sent  to  Texas  be- 
cause there  was  no  better  place  for  him.  He  had  been 
there  scarcely  three  months  when  he  wrote  a  letter  advo- 
cating the  reconstruction  of  Texan  society  by  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  and  the  restriction  of  the  franchise  to  persons 
of  education  and  wealth  !  His  letters  give  one  the  impres- 
sion that  he  was  intimate  with  Houston.  It  is  very  possible 
that  the  Texan  revolutionist  used  him  to  draw  an  offer 
from  the  British  government  that  would  be  of  service  in 
negotiations  with  the  United  States ;  but  this  theory  pre- 
supposes a  degree  of  foresightedness  in  Houston  and  also 
a  desire  for  annexation  to  the  United  States  which  he  may 

1 J.     H.     Smith's     Annexation     of  Adams's   British   Interests   and   Actin- 

Texas,  52-62.  ties  in  Texas,  1838-1846;  J.  S.  Reeves's 

*  See  Justin  H.  Smith's  "The  Mexi-  American  Diplomacy  under    Tyler  and 

can  Recognition  of  Texas"  in  Ameri-  Polk;    and  G.  L.  Rives's  United  States 

can    Historical    Review,    xvi,    36;     his  and  Mexico,  i,  chs.  xv,  xvi. 
Annexation    of    Texas;     Ephraim    D. 


534 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [On.  XVI 


not  have  had.  It  is  certain  that  the  British  government 
desired  Texas  to  be  independent,  without  slavery  if  possible, 
but  with  slavery,  if  necessary.1  It  was  not  willing  to  go 
to  war  with  anybody  on  this  issue.  As  Mexico  would  not 
recognize  Texan  independence  unless  compelled  to  do  so, 
and  as  an  open  abolition  propaganda  seemed  likely  to  lead 
to  trouble  with  the  United  States,  Aberdeen  drew  back. 
In  this  he  was  impelled  partly  by  the  suggestion  from  the 
British  minister  at  Washington  that  his  relations  with  the 
Texan  representative  at  London  and  with  the  abolitionists 
were  aiding  the  election  of  the  pro-annexation  Democratic 
candidate  for  the  presidency. 

In  1841,  at  the  accession  of  Peel  and  Aberdeen  to  power, 
the  relations  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
were  so  grave  that  war  seemed  to  be  imminent.  There 
were  the  long-standing  controversies  as  to  the  Northeastern 
boundary  and  as  to  the  division  of  Oregon.2  Besides,  the 
destruction  of  an  American  vessel  by  a  party  of  Canadians 


1  Aberdeen's  famous  declaration  is 
in  a  letter  of  Ashbel  Smith  to  Anson 
Jones,  dated  Paris,  July  31,  1843, 
in  Garrison's  Diplomatic  Correspon- 
dence of  .  .  .  Texas,  pp.  1116,  1117 
in  the  American  Historical  Associa- 
tion's Report  for  1908,  vol.  ii  and  is  as 
follows : 

"  His  Lordship  replied,  in  effect, 
that  it  is  the  well-known  policy  and 
wish  of  the  British  Government  to 
abolish  slavery  every  where:  that  its 
abolition  in  Texas  is  deemed  very  de- 
sirable and  he  spoke  to  this  point  at 
some  little  length,  as  connected  with 
British  policy  and  British  interests 
and  in  reference  to  the  United  States. 
He  added,  there  was  no  disposition  on 
the  part  of  the  British  Govt  to  interfere 
improperly  on  this  subject,  and  that 
they  would  not  give  the  Texian  Govt 
any  cause  to  complain :  '  he  was  not 
prepared  to  say  whether  the  British 
Government  would  consent  hereafter 
to  make  such  compensation  to  Texas 
as  would  enable  the  Slaveholders  to 


abolish  slavery,  the  object  is  deemed 
so  important  perhaps  they  might, 
though  he  could  not  say  certainly.' 
1  here  remarked  to  his  Lordship,  that 
any  compensation  received  by  Texas 
from  a  foreign  power  for  the  abolition 
of  slavery  would  be  derogatory  to  our 
national  honor  and  degrade  and  dis- 
grace us  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 
He  observed  such  things  can  be  so  done 
as  not  to  be  offensive,  etc.,  but  I  be- 
lieve his  Lordship  was  of  my  opin- 
ion. 

"  Lord  Aberdeen  also  stated  that 
despatches  had  been  recently  sent  to 
Mr.  Doyle,  the  British  Charge  d' Affaires 
at  Mexico,  instructing  him  to  renew 
the  tender  of  British  Mediation  based 
on  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas, 
and  declaring  that  abolition  would 
be  a  great  moral  triumph  for  Mexico. 
Your  Department  will  not  fail  to  re- 
mark that  this  despatch  to  Mr.  Doyle 
appears  to  introduce  a  new  and  im- 
portant condition  into  'mediation.'" 

2  See  Note  II  at  end  of  chapter. 


1842]  THE  NORTHEASTERN  BOUNDARY  535 

within  American  territorial  waters  had  aroused  great  resent- 
ment in  New  York.1  At  the  other  end  of  the  line,  the 
active  British  propaganda  for  the  suppression  of  the  African 
slave  trade  angered  the  Southerners  and  their  feelings  were 
not  at  all  appeased  by  the  release  of  negroes,  who  had  cap- 
tured a  coasting  vessel  —  the  Creole  —  while  on  a  voyage 
from  Norfolk  to  New  Orleans,  by  the  British  authorities 
at  Nassau  in  the  Bahamas.2  These  controversies  interested 
the  people  of  the  North,  the  West,  and  the  South.  At  the 
moment  the  weak  government  of  Tyler  was  in  office,  with 
Daniel  Webster  holding  on  to  the  Secretaryship  of  State 
after  all  his  original  colleagues  had  resigned.  Most  for- 
tunately, economic  considerations,  according  to  the  financial 
authorities,  made  it  practically  impossible  for  Great  Britain 
at  this  precise  time  to  go  to  war  with  the  United  States.  No 
doubt  Aberdeen,  the  new  Foreign  Secretary,  in  succession 
to  Palmerston  was  desirous  of  doing  what  was  right,  but  in 
the  actual  condition  of  affairs,  it  would  have  been  very 
difficult  to  have  maintained  the  old  Canning-Palmerston 
attitude  toward  the  United  States.  It  was  in  these  cir- 
cumstances that  Alexander  Baring,  Lord  Ashburton,3 
was  sent  on  a  special  mission  to  Washington  to  settle  as 
many  of  these  questions  as  he  could.  The  instructions 
given  him  were  very  broad  and  he  was  a  man  of  such  posi- 
tion and  of  such  firmness  of  character  that  he  was  willing  to 
take  upon  himself  responsibilities  that  very  few  diplomatists 
had  ever  been  willing  to  incur.  The  Oregon  question 
proved  to  be  insoluble  at  the  moment  and  was  set  aside. 

1  See  O.  E.  Tiffany's  "Relations  of  2J.   B.    Moore's  Digest   of  Interna- 

the    United    States    to    the    Canadian  tional  Law,  ii,  358-361. 
Rebellion  of   1837-1838"   in  the  Pub-  3  For  many  years  Baring  had  been 

lications     of     the     Buffalo     Historical  intimately    connected    with    American 

Society,  viii,  1-147.     There  are  ample  financial    affairs    and    had    married    a 

footnotes  to  this  article  and  there  is  a  Philadelphian  who  had  inherited  large 

bibliography  on  p.  115.     A  more  com-  tracts  of  land  in  the  State  of  Maine, 

plete  list  is  in  ibid.,  v,  427.  See  the  present  work,  vol.  iv,  110. 


536 


TEXAS,  CALIFORNIA,  AND  OREGON   [Cn.  XVI 


The  Northeastern  boundary  controversy  takes  one  back 
to  the  Treaty  of  1783. *  The  language  of  that  instrument 
was  certainly  capable  of  more  than  one  interpretation 
and  it  was  found  impossible  to  harmonize  some  of  the  geo- 
graphical expressions  in  it  with  the  actual  topography. 
Commissions  were  appointed,  but  little  progress  was  made 
except  to  ascertain  the  identity  of  the  St.  Croix  River.  This 
stream  was  small  in  itself,  but  it  was  of  great  importance  in 
this  boundary  controversy,  because  it  was  from  the  source 
of  this  river  that  the  boundary  line  between  Maine  and 
New  Brunswick  proceeded  due  north  to  the  "angle"  which 
was  formed  by  its  junction  with  the  highlands  that  separate 
the  rivers  that  flow  into  the  St.  Lawrence  from  those  that 
empty  themselves  into  "the  sea"  or  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
In  the  War  of  1812  the  British  had  found  great  difficulty 
in  reinforcing  their  troops  in  Canada  and  supplying  them 
with  provisions  and  munitions,  for  the  St.  Lawrence  is 
navigable  for  only  a  portion  of  each  year.  It  seemed  to 
be  necessary  for  the  future  of  the  British  Empire  that  the 
Northeastern  boundary  should  be  so  arranged  that  sufficient 
territory  would  be  obtained  for  a  military  road  wholly  in 
British  control  from  the  St.  Lawrence  opposite  Quebec  to 
Halifax.2  It  also  appeared  that  American  settlers  had 


1  See  the  present  work,  volume  iii, 
ch.  xii.  The  most  recent  treatments 
of  this  boundary  dispute  are  H.  S. 
Burrage's  Maine  in  the  Northeastern 
Boundary  Controversy  and  J.  F. 
Sprague's  chapter  in  Hatch's  Maine, 
A  History,  i,  247-281.  Of  the  official 
documents  Gallatin's  Right  of  the  United 
States  of  America  to  the  North-Eastern 
Boundary  (New  York,  1840)  is  the  most 
helpful.  See  also  The  Message  from  the 
President  .  .  .  December  7, 1842  (House 
Document,  No.  2,  27th  Cong.,  3rd 
Sess.  and  the  Report  of  the  Committee 
on  the  North-Eastern  Boundary  that 
was  printed  by  order  of  the  Maine 
Senate  in  1841.  A  letter  from  Wil- 


liam Pitt  Preble  dated  at  The  Hague, 
25th  Jan.,  1831,  and  addressed  to 
Louis  McLane,  American  minister 
at  London,  in  the  Appendix  to  The 
Decision  of  the  King  of  the  Netherlands 
considered  in  reference  to  the  rights  of 
the  United  States  and  of  the  State  of 
Maine  (Portland,  1831)  gives  the 
American  side  of  the  case  most  clearly. 
An  excellent  topographical  treatment 
of  the  question  is  William  F.  Ganong's 
"Evolution  of  the  Boundaries  of  the 
Province  of  New  Brunswick"  in  the 
Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
Canada,  2nd  Series,  vol.  vii,  Section  ii. 
*  In  his  letter  to  Ashburton  of  March 
31,  1842,  Aberdeen  informs  him  that 


'B3 


70 


"THE  KINO'S  MAP" 

CAn  extract,  redrawn  from  the  colored  facsimile  in  Col.  Dudley  A.  Mills's  article  in  the 
United  Empire,  vol.  ii,  No.  10.) 


637 


538 


TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,  AND   OREGON        [Ca.  XVI 


seated  themselves  on  territory  that  was  clearly  British  at 
the  head  of  the  Connecticut  River  and  at  the  northern 
end  of  Lake  Champlain.  Under  these  circumstances  it 
would  have  been  well  had  the  British  said  in  effect  to  the 
United  States  that  "we  want  territory  that  clearly  belongs 
to  you,  and  some  of  your  people  are  living  within  our  limits. 
Can  we  not  make  some  arrangement  that  will  be  mutually 
satisfactory?"  Instead  of  doing  this,  successive  British 
governments  attacked  the  soundness  of  the  American  title. 
At  length,  in  1827,  the  Adams  administration  agreed  to  sub- 
mit the  controversy  to  the  king  of  the  Netherlands  as 
arbiter,  although,  as  Adams  must  have  known,  he  was  under 
considerable  obligations  to  Great  Britain.  Instead  of  de- 
ciding for  one  party  or  the  other,  this  royal  arbiter  undertook 
to  divide  the  disputed  territory  between  the  two  countries.1 
The  decision  was  made  in  1831.  In  1832,  President  Jackson 
asked  the  Senate  whether  it  would  "advise  a  submission 
to  the  opinion  delivered  by  the  sovereign  arbiter,  and  con- 
sent to  its  execution."  On  June  23  of  that  year,  the  Senators 
voted  that  they  "do  not  advise  .  .  .  and  do  not  consent" 
to  the  award.2  Seven  years  later,  in  1839,  hostilities  be- 
tween Maine  frontiersmen  and  British  settlers  in  the  Aroos- 
took  country  had  been  averted  only  by  the  patriotic  and 
skilful  conduct  of  General  Winfield  Scott  and  Governor 
Harvey  of  New  Brunswick.3 


although  a  conventional  line  may  be 
agreed  upon  "  there  is  a  limit,  beyond 
which  a  regard  for  the  safety  of  these 
Provinces  must  forbid  us  to  recede  " ; 
but  the  whole  letter  should  be  read  by 
any  one  interested  in  this  subject. 
American  Historical  Review,  xvii,  768. 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  in  1839, 
when  there  was  a  possibility  that 
Webster  might  represent  the  United 
States  at  London,  he  had  thought  that 
''a  conventional  line"  would  better 


be  agreed  to.     Van  Tyne's  Letters  of 
Daniel  Webster,  217. 

1 J.  B.  Moore's  History  .  .  .  of 
the  International  Arbitrations  to  which 
the  United  States  has  been  a  Party, 
i,  pp.  1-161. 

2  See   Senate   Journal,    22nd   Cong., 
1st  Sess.,  "Appendix,"  pp.  516-531. 

3  The  seriousness  of  the  affair  comes 
out  in  the   "  Roster  of  Commissioned 
Officers  and  Enlisted  Men"  who  were 
called  into  service  in  1839  by  the  State 


1763-1783. 

Great  Britain  was  in  full  possession  of  the  whole  country. 
The  proclamation  of  1763  fixed  the  southern  boundary  of  Quebec 
at  the  watershed  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Successive  commissions 
to  Governors  of  Nova  Scotia  fixed  the  western  boundary  of  Nova 
Scotia  at  the  River  St.  Croix,  and  a  line  drawn  due  north  from 
its  source  to  the  southern  boundary  of  Quebec. 


1783-1831. 

The  Treaty  of  1783  by  which  Great  Britain 
recognized  the  independence  of  the  United 
States,  defined  its  north-eastern  boundary  ae 
follows :  — 

"From  the  North-west  angle  of 
Nova  Scotia,  viz.,  that  angle 
which  is  formed  by  a  line  drawn 
due  North  from  the  source  of  St. 
Croix  River  to  the  Highlands; 
along  the  said  Highlands  which 
divide  those  Rivers  that  empty 
themselves  into  the  River  St. 
Lawrence  from  those  which  fall 
into  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  to  the 
North-westernmost  head  of  Con- 
necticut River ;  .  .  .  East  by  a  line 
to  be  drawn  along  the  middle  of  the 
River  St.  Croix  from  its  mouth  in 
the  Bay  of  Fundy  to  its  source, 
and  from  its  source  directly  North 
to  the  aforesaid  Highlands,  which 
divide  the  Rivers  that  fall  into  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  from  those  which 
fall  into  the  River  St.  Lawrence ; " 


1842. 


The  Ashburton  Treaty  settled  the  boundary.  The  area  in 
square  miles,  according  to  the  figures  accepted  tradi- 
tionally both  in  Canada  and  the  United  States,  was  — 


GREAT  BRITAIN  .  •  • 


UNITED  STATES  . . . 


By  the  proposal  of  the 
King  of  Holland 


4,119 


7,908 


By  the 

Ashburton  Treaty 


5,012 


7,015 


Total  disputed  area     12,027 


THE  NORTHEASTERN  BOUNDARY 

(Reproduced  by  permission  from  Col.  Dudley  A.  Mills's  article  in  the  United  Empire,  vol.  ii, 

No.  10.) 
539 


540  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,  AND   OREGON        [Cn.  XVI 

The  people  of  Maine  thought  that  their  State  had  a  good 
title  to  the  disputed  lands  and  were  very  unwilling  to  do 
anything  to  lessen  their  rights.  It  happened  that  Jared 
Sparks  had  found  a  map  in  Paris  on  which  there  was  a  red 
line  that  justified  the  British  claim.1  For  some  unknown  rea- 
son he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  this  was  the  map  upon 
which  Franklin  had  drawn  a  line  showing  the  extent  of  the 
United  States  under  the  Treaty  of  Independence.  Un- 
doubtedly Franklin  drew  a  line  on  a  map  which  he  presented 
to  Vergennes;  but  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose 
that  it  was  this  map.  It  served  Webster's  purpose,  how- 
ever, because  on  Sparks  exhibiting  it  to  the  Maine  legis- 
lators, they  consented  to  the  appointment  of  commissioners 
to  go  to  Washington  to  advise  Webster  in  the  negotiation. 
He  also  used  it  to  secure  the  consent  of  the  Senate  to 
the  treaty  that  he  and  Ashburton  drew  up ;  but  he  did 
not  show  it  to  Ashburton  until  after  the  treaty  was  signed. 
Earlier,  in  1839,  Sir  Anthony  Panizzi,  the  Director  of  the 
British  Museum,  had  called  Palmerston's  attention  to  a 
map  in  that  institution  that  had  on  it  a  red  line  marked 
"boundary  as  described  by  Mr.  Oswald."  This  is  known 
as  "The  King's  Map."  It  bore  out  the  American  conten- 
tion as  to  the  line  in  its  entirety.  Palmerston  at  once 

of     Maine;       see     pamphlet    entitled,  with    J.    D.    Graham's    "Map    of    the 

Aroostook   War,  published  at  Augusta,  Boundary   Lines    between    the    United 

Maine,  in  1904.  States  and  the  Adjacent  British  Prov- 

1  For    the    red-line    map,    see    Life  mces"  that  was  issued  in  March,  1843. 

and   Writings  of  Jared  Sparks,   ii,   ch.  Colonel   Mills  most  kindly  placed  his 

xxvii ;      and    Winsor's    Narrative    and  Ms.    notes  at   my    disposal,  and    Pro- 

Critical     History,     vii,      180.     Colonel  fessor   Ephraim   D.   Adams's   essay  in 

Dudley    A.   Mills,    R.E.,    has    printed  the   American   Historical   Review    (xvii, 

a   full-sized    facsimile    of    the    Oswald  764)  has  been  of  great  service.     There 

map  in  the    United  Empire   Magazine  is  a  list  of  books  in  the  7th  volume  of 

for     October,      1911.     This     may     be  Winsor's    Narrative    and    Critical    His- 

compared  with  an  extract  from  "Mr.  tory,  and  A.  R.  Hasse's  "References" 

Jay's  Map"  that  is  prefixed  to  Galla-  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  New  York  Public 

tin's     Memoir     on     the     North-Eastern  Library  for   December,    1900,   is  most 

Boundary  that  was  printed  for  the  New  useful. 
York   Historical   Society  in    1843,  and 


1842]  THE  ASHBURTON  TREATY  541 

impounded  it  in  the  recesses  of  the  Foreign  Office  and  it  was 
unknown  to  Aberdeen  and  to  Ashburton  until  after  the 
latter's  return  to  England  in  1843,  and  it  was  not  known  to 
students  until  1896.  The  negotiators  proceeded  upon  the 
principle  that  it  was  desirable  to  "draw  a  conventional  line" 
that  wojuld  give  England  the  territory  she  wanted  and 
would  permit  the  Americans  to  stay  on  the  lands  they  had 
occupied  within  British  territory  at  the  head  of  the  Connec- 
ticut River  and  at  the  northern  end  of  Lake  Champlain. 
They  also  managed  to  come  to  an  agreement  as  to  the  other 
disputed  matters  in  a  way,  however,  that  was  not  pleasing 
to  any  one  and,  therefore,  may  have  been  a  fair  compromise. 
This  arrangement  was  included  in  the  treaty  that  was 
ratified  by  the  Senate  in  1842. 

In  1843,  Texan  annexation  became  a  distinct  issue  in 
American  politics.  John  Tyler  of  Virginia,  now  President 
by  the  accidental  death  of  William  Henry  Harrison,  was  an 
ardent  annexationist  and  always  had  been.  He  believed 
that  the  United  States  should  own  not  only  Texas,  but 
California  as  well,  and  with  them,  of  course,  the  intervening 
province  of  New  Mexico.  The  trouble  with  Tyler  was  that 
he  had  no  party  behind  him  and  while  he  could  block  by 
his  veto  legislation  proposed  by  the  Whigs,  he  could  not 
by  Democratic  strength  get  any  positive  measures  passed 
c-hrough  Congress.  In  1843,  Webster  retired  from  the  State 
Department,  where  his  presence  had  made  annexation  by 
treaty  impossible.  Houston  was  again  President  of  Texas 
and,  while  favoring  annexation  by  treaty,  he  seemed  deter- 
mined to  make  certain  beforehand  of  adequate  protection 
by  the  United  States  against  the  wrath  of  the  Mexican 
Republic  before  beginning  active  negotiations.1  It  was 
difficult  for  an  executive  officer  at  Washington  to  give  any 

1  J.  H.  Smith's  Annexation  of  Texas,  164,  166. 


542  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON        [Cn.  XVI 

such  assurance  or  to  station  soldiers  and  ships  for  the 
defence  of  Texas  because  the  Constitution  confided  to 
Congress  the  power  to  declare  war.  Webster's  successor 
in  the  State  Department  was  Abel  P.  Upshur,  a  Virginian 
and  a  favorer  of  Tyler's  plan.  The  treaty  for  the  annex- 
ation of  Texas  as  a  "territory"  was  practically  completed 
when  the  explosion  of  a  gun  on  the  American  warship 
Princeton  killed  Upshur,  February  28,  1844.  He  was 
succeeded  by  John  C.  Calhoun  and  the  treaty  was  signed 
and  sent  to  the  Senate.1  Up  to  this  time,  the  prospect 
of  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  was  bright.2  It  happened 
that  Calhoun  found  on  Upshur's  desk  a  letter  from  Aberdeen 
to  Pakenham  which  the  latter  had  laid  before  the  American 
Secretary  of  State.  It  was  dated  December  26,  1843,  and 
was  intended  to  allay  excitement  by  denying  that  Great 
Britain  had  any  "occult  design"  upon  Mexico  or  upon  Texas. 
Aberdeen  avowed  that  he,  himself,  wished  to  see  slavery 
abolished  throughout  the  world,  but  only  open  and  un- 
disguised means  would  be  adopted  by  Great  Britain  to 
secure  "this  humane  and  virtuous  purpose."  Calhoun  at 
once  undertook  to  answer  this  letter.  He  may  have  hoped 
to  end  forever  the  abolition  propaganda;  he  may  have 
expected  to  rally  anti-abolition  opinion  to  his  side ;  or  he 
may  have  designed  to  split  his  own  country  into  two  sec- 
tions and  to  consolidate  the  national  spirit  of  the  South. 
In  this  letter,  Calhoun  restated  the  Southern  view  that 
slavery  was  a  beneficent  institution,  blessed  alike  to  the 

1  The  letters  and  other  papers  that  It  was  widely  printed  and  was  the  oc- 

passed  during  the  negotiations  are  casion  of  many  replies.  Among  them 

printed  in  Senate  Documents,  No.  may  be  mentioned  Sidney's  Letters  to 

341,  28th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.  William  E.  Channing  .  .  .  First  Pub- 

1  One  finds  articles  opposing  the  lished  in  the  "  Charleston  Courier." 

annexation  of  Texas  in  the  New  Eng-  Of  the  later  remonstrances  are  The 

land  papers  as  early  as  September,  Legion  of  Liberty  published  in  1843 ; 

1829.  In  August,  1837,  the  Reverend  The  Texan  Revolution  by  "Probus." 

William  Ellery  Channing  addressed  1843  and  The  Taking  of  Naboth't 

&  letter  to  Henry  Clay  on  this  subject.  Vineyard,  printed  in  1845. 


i843]  CALHOUN'S  LETTER  54E 

slave  and  to  the  owner.1  The  avowal  of  Britain's  desire  for 
universal  abolition  necessitated  the  absorption  of  Texas 
into  the  United  States  to  obviate  so  great  a  calamity  to  the 
world.  This  letter  was  the  supreme  example  of  Southern 
provincialism.  For  no  one  who  had  known  the  North  or 
Europe  and  wished  for  Texas  annexation  could  have  written 
it.  It  aroused  the  anti-slavery  men  of  the  North  and  made 
abolitionists  of  them.  It  converted  many  a  waverer  on  the 
question  of  Texas  annexation  to  the  theory  that  that 
movement  was  a  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  slaveholders  to 
increase  their  power  for  evil.  What  had  seemed  to  be 
questionable  was  regarded  now  as  positively  injurious.  It 
became  impossible  to  procure  the  two-thirds  vote  necessary 
in  the  Senate  for  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  and  it  was 
defeated.2  President  Tyler  thereupon  asked  Congress  to 
provide  for  the  annexation  of  Texas  by  joint  resolution,  which 
only  required  a  majority  vote  in  the  two  Houses.  The  annex- 
ation of  Texas  now  became  a  distinct  political  issue  and  the 
presidential  campaign  of  1844  was  fought  to  bring  it  about. 
Political  conditions  were  exceedingly  peculiar  at  that 
time.  Tyler,  naturally  enough,  wished  to  be  elected 
President;  but  his  joining  with  the  Whigs  had  lost  him 
Democratic  support  and  his  refusal  to  approve  Whig 
measures  had  made  him  unpopular  with  Clay  and  his  fol- 
lowers. Enough  office-holders  and  personal  friends  came 
together  to  nominate  Tyler  for  the  presidency,  but  his 
candidacy  had  no  vitality.  Clay  was  the  inevitable  can- 
didate of  the  Whigs  and  Van  Buren  looked  upon  himself  as 
the  rightful  standard  bearer  of  the  Democrats.  When  the 
Democratic  convention  was  held,  the  Calhoun  men,  while 
not  strong  enough  to  nominate  the  South  Carolinian,  were 

1  Senate  Document,  No.  341,  pp.  48,  *  Journal  of  the  Senate,  28th  Cong., 

60,  28th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.  1st  Sesa.,  "Appendix,"  pp.  421^38. 


544  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON        {Cn.  XVI 

strong  enough  to  make  Van  Buren's  nomination  impossible 
by  carrying  through  the  convention  the  rule  that  required  a 
two-thirds  vote  for  the  nomination.  For  a  time  it  seemed 
as  if  the  nomination  of  any  one  was  impossible.  Suddenly, 
it  occurred  to  George  Bancroft,  a  member  of  the  Massachu- 
setts delegation  who  combined  politics  with  history,  that 
the  nomination  of  Governor  Polk  of  Tennessee  would  satisfy 
all  factions.  Bancroft  suggested  this  to  Gideon  J.  Pillow, 
who  had  formerly  been  Folk's  law  partner  and  in  the  Balti- 
more convention  was  hoping  to  secure  for  Polk  the  nomi- 
nation to  the  vice-presidency.  He  eagerly  fell  in  with 
Bancroft's  plan.  The  fatigued  and  baffled  delegates  re- 
ceived it  rejoicingly  and  voted  unanimously  for  Polk,  who 
thus  became  the  first  "dark  horse"  in  the  history  of  the 
presidency.1 

As  soon  as  the  nomination  of  Polk  was  made,  John  Tyler 
withdrew  from  the  contest.  His  own  chances  were  hopeless, 
and  by  remaining  in  the  race  he  would  divide  the  Democratic 
vote.  He  was  assured  that  his  own  friends  would  be  taken 
care  of  by  Polk  and  thereby  was  enabled  to  retire  grace- 
fully, for  Polk  was  also  heartily  in  favor  of  the  annexation 
of  Texas.  Henry  Clay  seemed  to  have  no  settled  opinion 
on  the  subject.  In  April,  1844,  he  opposed  it.2  At  the 
moment  he  probably  believed  Southern  opinion  to  be 
doubtful.  The  legal  status  of  slavery  was  still  undeter- 
mined in  Texas  and,  in  any  event,  that  country  was  certain 
to  be  a  strong  competitor  with  the  existing  States  in  the 
production  of  cotton  fibre.  Clay  mistook  his  own  feelings 

•On    the    nomination    of    Polk    see  Cave  Johnson  in  the  years  1833-1844 

"Letters  of  ...  Pillow  to  ...  Polk,  (Tennessee    Historical    Magazine,    Sep- 

1844"   in  American  Historical  Review,  tember,  1915). 

xi,  832.     For  the  Bancroft  side  of  the  'See      the      well-known      "Raleigh 

matter,  see  American  Antiquarian  So-  Letter,"  dated  April  17,  1844,  in  Cal- 

ciety's    Proceedings    for    April,     1891,  vin  Colton's  Life  of  Henry  Clay  (New 

p.  244.     Folk's  capacity  as  a  politician  York,  1857),  iii,  25. 
comes  out  in  the  letters  he  wrote  to 


1844]  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION  545 

for  those  of  Southern  people  in  general  and  misinterpreted 
political  sentiment  in  this  case  as  he  had  in  many  others. 
In  reality  the  annexation  of  Texas  would  almost  certainly 
add  to  the  existing  slave  territory,  would  open  new  lands  for 
colonization  to  the  planters  of  the  Cotton  Belt,  and  would 
provide  a  new  market  for  slaves  to  the  slaveholders  of  the 
Border  States.  As  months  went  by,  it  became  more  and 
more  evident  that  Clay  had  taken  the  wrong  side ;  but  his 
friends  implored  him  to  be  silent  and  to  write  no  letters, 
for  then  the  Texas  issue  might  be  minimized.  He  could 
not  do  this  and  wrote  other  letters  shifting  his  ground  and 
thereby  offended  the  abolitionists  without  gaining  any 
important  strength  in  the  South.  As  it  was,  the  election 
was  very  close  *  and  was  determined  by  the  action  of  the 
abolitionists  in  New  York  State.  After  much  cogitation 
and  with  many  misgivings,  the  anti-slavery  men  there  deter- 
mined to  vote  for  James  G.  Birney  for  the  presidency. 
There  was  no  possibility  of  his  election  and  the  anti-slavery 
men  by  voting  with  the  Whigs  would  have  given  the  Texas 
annexation  scheme  a  heavy  blow;  but  they  would  not 
cooperate  with  any  one  who  did  not  believe  the  slavery  issue 
itself  to  be  the  most  important  thing  at  stake.2  Birney 
drew  enough  votes  away  from  the  Whig  electors  in  New  York 
to  give  the  electoral  vote  of  that  State  to  Polk  and  thereby 
made  him  President.3  When  Congress  met  in  December, 

'An  idea  of  the  vigor  with  which  feU  Detector,    or   the   Leaders   of  "The 

this    campaign    was    waged    may    be  party"  Exposed. 

gained  by  a  perusal  of  a  series  of  ten  *  Possibly  the  best  exposition  of  the 

papers   published   by   a   committee   of  abolitionist  view  of  the  wickedness  of 

the  Democratic  members  of  Congress,  slave-expansion     is     Loring     Moody's 

especially    numbers    7    and    8,    giving  History  of  the  Mexican  War,  or  Facts 

fifty    reasons    why    Polk    should    be  for  the  People,  showing  the  relation  of 

elected  and  Clay  defeated.     The  means  the  United  States  Government  to  Slavery 

used  by  politicians  to  accomplish  their  (Boston,  1848). 

purposes  in   those  days  were  fully  as  *  In   the   New   York   popular   vote, 

tortuous  as  they  were  in  the  election  Polk  had  237,588;    Clay  had  232,482; 

of  1828.     See,  for  example,  The  Counter-  and   Birney   had   15,812.     Adding   the 


546  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,   AND   OREGON        [Cn.  XVI 

Tyler  urged  on  his  scheme  of  annexation  by  resolution  and 
in  February,  1845,  the  two  Houses  passed  a  joint  resolution 
for  the  annexation  of  Texas  and  its  admission  into  the 
Union  as  one  State. 

"Who  is  James  K.  Polk?"  was  frequently  asked  and  the 
only  answer  that  could  be  given  by  most  persons  was 
"He  is  the  President  of  the  United  States."  That  was 
about  all  that  was  known  of  him,  although  he  had  been 
Speaker  of  the  Federal  House  of  Representatives  and 
governor  of  Tennessee.  It  was  not  until  the  publication 
of  his  "Diary"  in  1910  that  it  was  possible  to  make  a  much 
better  appraisal,  except,  of  course,  one  could  rehearse  the 
principal  events  of  the  four  years  of  his  inhabitancy  of  thf 
White  House.  In  reality  Polk  1  has  suffered  severely  at  the 
hands  of  contemporaries  and  historians.  He  had  no  glamour 
of  popularity  about  him.  He  shut  himself  up  in  the  presi- 
dential mansion  and  worked  sixteen  hours  a  day,  including 
the  keeping  of  his  "Diary."  Much  of  his  time  was  taken 
up  with  office  hunters.  Polk  was  a  partisan  and  saw  no 
virtue  in  Whigs ;  but  he  was  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the 
carrying  out  of  this  part  of  his  duties.  For  the  rest  he 
gives  the  impression  of  a  man  who  saw  his  duty  clearly  and 
was  determined  to  do  it.  Undoubtedly,  he  was  not  of 

Birney  votes  to  the  Clay  votes  —  sup-  of  Texas.     The  above  figures  are  taken 

posing    all    the    anti-slavery    men    had  from     Greeley's     Political     Text-Book, 

voted  for  Clay  —  he  would  have  had  p.    239    and   Journal   of  the   House   of 

248,294     votes.     As     the     presidential  Representatives,  28th  Cong.,  2nd  Sess., 

electors  in  New  York  were  voted  for  p.  372. 

on  a  general  ticket  in  that  year,   the  *  Milo    M.    Quaife's    "Biographical 

36  electoral  votes  of  New  York  would  Sketch"   prefixed  to  volume  i  of  the 

have    been    cast    for    Clay    instead    of  Diary  is  possibly  the  best  assessment 

for   Polk.     Subtracting    these   36   elec-  of    Polk.     The    Diary    of    James    K. 

toral  votes  from  Folk's  170  would  have  Polk    during    his    Presidency    (4    vels., 

left  him  with  134;   and  adding  them  to  Chicago,    1910)    is   the    best   memorial 

Clay's  105  electoral  votes  would  have  of    him.     In    the    American    Historical 

given  Clay   141   and  made  him  Presi-  Magazine  for  April,  1896,  p.  154,  M.  W. 

dent.     Nevertheless,    it    was    held    by  Garrett    states    that    President    Polk 

the  Democrats  that  the  people  in  the  was  descended  from   "a  great  noble" 

election  had  approved  the  annexation  named  "Fulbert  the  Saxon." 


1846]  TEXAS  ANNEXED  547 

great  mental  calibre  nor  of  much  education ;  but  he  possessed 
a  strong  will  and  an  inflexible  determination  to  do  the  right 
rhing  as  he  saw  it.  In  a  Cabinet  council  composed  of 
Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania,  Walker  of  Mississippi,  Marcy 
of  New  York,  Mason  of  Virginia,  and  Bancroft  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Polk  was  certainly  the  master  spirit,  and  in  every 
crisis  of  his  administration,  it  was  his  hand  that  guided 
events.  He  at  once  proceeded  to  carry  out  "the  will  of  the 
people"  as  expressed  in  his  own  election  by  pushing  on  the 
annexation  of  Texas.1  The  president  of  that  country  at 
the  moment  was  Anson  Jones.  He  did  not  favor  annexation, 
but  the  voice  of  the  Texan  people  was  too  strong  for  him 
and  he  was  obliged  to  take  the  necessary  steps  to  ascertain 
the  popular  wish.  On  July  4,  1845,  a  convention  at  San 
Felipe  de  Austin  determined,  with  a  few  dissentient  votes, 
to  accept  the  proposal  of  the  United  States ;  but  the  later 
steps  of  actually  admitting  Texas  to  the  Union  were  not 
completed  until  the  end  of  that  year. 

lSee  the  Diary  of  J.  K.  Polk,  i,  17,  121  and  H.  B.  Learned's  "  Cabinet  Meet- 

etc.,    and    some    interesting   letters   in  ings  under  President  Polk"  in  Ameri- 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  Pro-  can     Historical     Association's     Report 

ceedings  for  November,  1909,  pp.  110-  for  1914,  vol.  i,  pp.  231-242. 


548  TEXAS,   CALIFORNIA,  AND   OREGON 

NOTES 

I.  Texas  Bibliography.  —  Our  knowledge  of  early  Texas  has  been 
derived  mainly,  until  recent  years,  from  the  work  of  H.  Yoakum 
which  was  published  in  1856  in  two  volumes  with  the  title  of  History 
of  Texas  ...  to  its  Annexation  to  the  United  States  in  1846.  This 
forms  the  basis  of  D.  G.  Wooten's  Comprehensive  History  of  Texas. 
William  Kennedy's  Texas  in  two  volumes  was  published  at  London 
in  1841.  He  was  an  Englishman  who  had  travelled  extensively  in 
America  and  occupied  a  diplomatic  post  in  Texas  under  Charles 
Elliot,  the  British  consul  general.  It  is  a  serious  painstaking  work 
and  undoubtedly  represents  contemporary  opinion  in  Texas.  Frank 
W.  Johnson,  who  participated  in  the  Texas  Revolution,  wrote  out  his 
recollections  in  later  life  and  fortified  them  with  abundant  documents. 
Professor  Eugene  C.  Barker  edited  this  narrative,  adding  other 
documents.  This  forms  volume  i  of  A  History  of  Texas  and  Texans, 
edited  by  Eugene  C.  Barker  with  the  assistance  of  Ernest  W.  Winkler ; 
the  second  volume  of  this  work  contains  much  instructive  local  in- 
formation. The  last  three  volumes  are  of  the  usual  type  of  sub- 
scription State  histories,  of  biographies  of  persons  who  are  willing  to 
provide  material  and  illustrations.  It  differs  from  most  of  these 
works,  however,  in  having  an  exceedingly  good  editor  and  presenting 
an  original  contemporaneous  account  of  th>  origin  of  one  of  our 
States.  Less  useful  books  are  Henry  S.  Fcote's  Texas  and  the  Texans; 
or,  Advance  of  the  Anglo-Americans  to  th<-  South-west  (2  vols.,  Phila- 
delphia, 1841)  and  J.  H.  Brown'  History  of  Texas  (2  vols.,  St.  Louis, 
1892).  George  P.  Garrison's  Texas  in  the  American  Commonwealth 
series  has  the  merit  of  brevity,  but  it  lacks  all  bibliographical  apparatus. 
Herbert  E.  Bolton  of  the  University  of  California  and  Eugene  C. 
Barker  of  the  University  of  Texas  have  established  new  schools  of 
research  in  promoting  the  intensive  study  of  episodes  of  the  early 
history  of  the  Pacific  Slope  and  the  Southwest.  They  and  their 
students  and  co-workers  have  explored  the  archives  of  Mexico, 
California,  and  Texas  and  brought  to  light  much  valuable  material. 
They  have  published  many  studies  and  much  original  matter  in  the 
publications  of  the  Universities  of  California  and  Texas,  in  The 
Quarterly  of  the  Texas  State  Historical  Association,  and  in  the  Pub- 
lications of  the  Southern  History  Association.  Specific  references 
have  been  given  to  many  of  these  articles  in  the  preceding  footnotes. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  549 

The  American  Historical  Association  has  undertaken  the  publication 
of  the  Stephen  F.  Austin  papers  under  the  editorship  of  Professor 
Barker  and  has  already  printed  a  great  mass  of  diplomatic  papers 
under  the  editorship  of  the  late  Professor  Garrison.1 

n.  The  Whitman  Story.  —  In  the  1860's  a  story  was  started  to 
the  effect  that  Webster  had  been  on  the  point  of  giving  up  Oregon  in 
exchange  for  the  cod  fisheries,  when  he  was  compelled  to  desist  by 
representations  made  by  a  missionary  named  Whitman,  and  this 
idea  became  almost  an  article  of  faith  among  certain  good  people. 
William  I.  Marshall,  a  Chicago  school-teacher,  in  1882  learned  that 
there  was  no  evidence  to  support  this  story  and  spent  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  gathering  the  facts  and  putting  them  together  to  prove  the 
negative.  See  his  "  Marcus  Whitman :  a  Discussion  of  Professor 
Bourne's  Paper  "  in  Report  of  the  American  Historical  Association 
for  1900,  pp.  221-236;  in  1904  Marshall  published  three  essays 
entitled  History  vs.  The  Whitman  Saved  Oregon  Story  and  after  his 
death  the  material  that  he  had  collected  with  so  much  labor  was 
printed  at  the  expense  of  "  a  number  of  citizens  of  the  States  of 
Oregon  and  Washington  "  under  the  title  of  Acquisition  of  Oregon 
and  the  Long  Suppressed  Evidence  about  Marcus  Whitman  (2  vols., 
Seattle,  1911).  Not  knowing  of  Marshall's  studies,  Professor  Edward 
G.  Bourne  attacked  the  same  problem  and  set  forth  the  results  of  his 
research  in  a  paper  which  he  read  at  the  meeting  of  the  American 
Historical  Association  in  December,  1900.  This  was  printed  in  the 
American  Historical  Review  for  January,  1901,  and  the  same  matter 
considerably  expanded  is  printed  under  the  title  of  "  The  Legend  of 
Marcus  Whitman "  in  Bourne's  Essays  in  Historical  Criticism, 
3-109.  In  this  paper  he  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to  Marshall 
and  gives  abundant  citations. 

It  would  seem  that  the  fact  that  Whitman  reached  Washington 
City  months  after  the  ratification  of  the  Treaty  of  1842  and  the 
departure  of  Ashburton  for  England  would  have  caused  historical 
students  to  question  the  accuracy  of  the  story  in  other  respects. 

1  American  Historical  Association's  Report  for  1907. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  YEAR   1846 

THE  year  1846  is  one  of  the  most  memorable  in  our  his- 
tory ;  it  witnessed  the  settlement  of  the  dispute  of  decades 
over  Oregon,  the  occupation  of  California,  the  march  of  the 
Mormons  to  Utah,  and  the  opening  campaigns  of  the  Mexi- 
can War.  It  was  the  destiny  of  the  United  States  to  extend 
to  the  Pacific  and  as  far  south  as  the  arid  portions  of 
Mexico.  California,  New  Mexico,  Texas,  and  Oregon  in  its 
old  geographical  sense  were  all  practically  unutilized  by  man 
in  1835.  Of  course,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  had  any  moral  right  to  take  over  lands  that 
had  been  practically  unused  by  another  people ;  but  it  must 
be  said  that  the  moral  argument  for  the  retention  of  these 
splendid  lands  by  a  people  who  did  not  and  could  not 
convert  them  to  the  benefit  of  humanity  raises  a  strong 
presumption  in  favor  of  their  acquisition  by  those  who  could 
make,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  have  made,  a  good  use  of 
them.1  The  United  States  was  ready  to  pay  Mexico  an 
adequate  sum  for  their  transfer.  For  years,  there  had 
been  a  continual  diplomatic  wrangling  over  the  refusal 
of  the  Mexicans  to  treat  American  merchants  with  fairness. 
They  encouraged  them  to  start  enterprises  on  Mexican  soil 

1  Matias  Romero's  Mexico  and  the  Mexico    and    her    resources.     Charles 

United    States     and    his    Geographical  H.   Owen  gives  an  American  view  of 

and  Statistical  Notes  on  Mexico,   both  Mexican     psychology     and     deeds     in 

published  at  New  York  in  1898,  con-  The  Justice  of  the  Mexican  War  (New 

tain   the   best  modern   description   of  York,  1908). 

550 


CLAIMS  AGAINST  MEXICO  551 

and  then  refused  them  all  facilities  for  so  doing.  In  this 
way  and  in  other  ways,  pecuniary  claims  by  American 
citizens  against  Mexico  arose.  Allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  disorganized  political  condition  of  the  Mexican 
people.  Their  governments  lacked  stability  and  any  con- 
cession to  an  outside  power  was  the  signal  for  a  new  revolu- 
tion. Mexican  politicians,  therefore,  were  afraid  to  comply 
with  the  plain  dictates  of  justice.  Recognizing  their 
weakness  and  helplessness,  the  United  States  yielded  to  the 
verge  of  ignominy.  At  length,  in  1839,  a  treaty  was  signed 
providing  for  the  arbitration l  of  the  American  claims. 
After  long  delays,  Mexico  was  adjudged  to  pay  certain  sums 
of  money  and  as  her  coffers  were  in  the  usual  depleted 
condition,  time  was  given  for  making  these  payments  by 
instalments.  Mexico  paid  one  or  two  of  them  and  then 
paid  no  more  and  further  negotiations  were  entered  into. 
Then,  also,  American  citizens,  who  had  no  call  to  go  into 
Mexican  territory,  except  for  the  pursuit  of  gain,  mere 
curiosity,  or  love  of  adventure,  found  themselves  in  Mexican 
prisons.  Some  of  them  were  inhumanly  treated.  The 
United  States  protested,  but  received  scant  consideration 
at  the  hands  of  the  Mexican  authorities.  The  fact  was  that 
the  ruling  classes  of  Mexico  had  a  feeling  of  contempt  for 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  those  of  them  who  had 
lived  outside  of  Mexico  and  who  could  judge  of  the  relative 
strength  of  the  two  republics  either  had  little  power  in 
Mexico  or  saw  that  their  personal  advantage  would  not 
admit  of  their  doing  the  right  thing.  This  was  the  case, 
not  only  with  the  United  States,  but  also  with  France  and 
Great  Britain.  They,  too,  had  claims  and  they  also  nego- 
tiated. In  1838,  France  lost  patience  and  collected  her 
claims  at  the  cannon's  mouth.  British  commercial  interests 

1  Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  1873),  pp.  557, 560. 


552  THE    YEAR    1846  [Cn.  XVII 

in  Mexico  were  so  large  that  for  years  that  country  forebore 
to  collect  what  was  due  to  her  people.  The  annexation  of 
Texas  by  the  United  States  brought  on  a  crisis,  for  the 
occupation  of  any  part  of  it  was  an  act  of  spoliation  of 
Mexican  territory,  —  according  to  Mexican  belief. 

In  the  summer  of  1845,  General  Zachary  Taylor  was 
ordered  to  the  Texan  boundary.  He  was  instructed  to 
occupy  a  position  "on  or  near  the  Rio  Grande"  as  soon  as 
the  Texans  had  voted  for  annexation.  Orders  were  also  sent 
to  Commodore  Sloat,  commanding  the  American  naval  force 
in  the  Pacific,  to  seize  California  in  case  of  a  declaration  of 
war.  In  view  of  the  probability  of  Mexican  attack  on 
Texas  while  the  consideration  of  the  annexation  plan  was 
proceeding,  the  strengthening  of  the  American  army  in 
Louisiana  was  perfectly  justifiable,  if  the  annexation  of 
Texas  was.  As  the  independence  of  the  Texan  Republic 
had  been  recognized  by  Great  Britain,  France,  and  the 
United  States  for  eight  years  or  more,  and  as  the  Texans 
had  been  governing  themselves  all  that  time  without  any 
adequate  attempt  on  the  part  of  Mexico  to  reconquer  her 
lost  province,  the  rightfulness  of  annexation  would  seem 
to  be  beyond  the  line  of  argument.  As  to  California  and 
New  Mexico,  which  lay  between  that  province  and  Texas, 
if  Mexico  made  war  on  the  United  States  on  account  of  this 
perfectly  justifiable  annexation,  then  those  provinces  might 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  an  'indemnity  for  the  expendi- 
ture which  Mexico  would  force  upon  the  United  States,  and 
in  that  point  of  view  the  seizure  of  California  and  New 
Mexico  would  be  right  and  proper. 

As  soon  as  it  became  certain  that  the  Texans  were  going 
to  vote  for  annexation  to  the  United  States,  Taylor  made 
preparation  for  the  military  occupation  of  the  new  State 
and,  by  the  end  of  July,  1845,  found  himself  with  regulars, 


1845]  TAYLOR  IN  TEXAS  553 

infantry  and  artillery,  in  camp  at  Corpus  Christi  on  the 
southwestern  side  of  the  estuary  of  the  Nueces  River,  and 
soon  afterward  he  was  joined  by  a  cavalry  force.  In 
October,  he  suggested  to  the  government  at  Washington 
that  an  advance  to  the  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande  would  be 
advisable  for  military  reasons.1  The  Mexicans  viewed  with 
astonishment  this  invasion  of  their  territory  by  the  military 
forces  of  the  United  States,  —  for  the  moment  Taylor 
crossed  the  Sabine,  he  was  within  Mexican  territory  accord- 
ing to  Mexican  belief.  They  determined  to  resist,  and  to 
attack  the  invader.  To  do  this,  money  was  appropriated 
by  the  revolutionary  government  then  in  power  and  soldiers 
were  sent  to  Matamoros,  a  town  on  the  western  bank  of  the 
Rio  Grande,  and  not  far  from  its  mouth.  And  so  matters 
were  in  the  autumn  of  1845. 

The  winter  of  1845-1846  saw  two  most  extraordinary 
diplomatic  or  quasi-diplomatic  transactions.  The  adminis- 
tration wanted  Texas  and  California,  but  it  did  not  want 
war,  for  it  was  quite  uncertain  what  position  the  people 
would  take  on  the  matter,  and  the  influence  of  military 
victories  or  defeats  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  Democratic 
party  were  exceedingly  dubious.  Polk  determined  to  make 
one  more  effort  to  secure  a  peaceable  settlement.  At  the 
moment  there  was  no  American  representative  in  Mexico, 
but  an  assurance  was  given  by  the  authorities  there 
that  an  American  minister  would  be  received  by  the  govern- 
ment. John  Slidell,  a  New  Yorker  living  in  New  Orleans, 
was  appointed  envoy  to  Mexico  to  settle  all  the  disputes  with 
that  country  or  as  many  of  them  as  he  could.  When  he  got 
there  the  existing  government  was  tottering.  It  was  unable 
even  to  appear  to  yield  to  American  pressure.  It  tried  to 
get  out  of  the  dilemma  by  asserting  that  it  had  agreed  to 

»  Hou*e  Document  No.  60,  30th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  p.  107. 


554  THE   YEAR   1846  [Ca.  XVII 

receive  a  commissioner  to  negotiate  on  the  Texas  question 
and  an  envoy  had  been  sent  to  settle  everything,1  Slidell 
and  the  Washington  government  exhibited  a  great  deal  of 
patience,  but  without  reward,  for  a  new  Mexican  regime 
refused  to  receive  any  diplomatic  representative  from  the 
United  States,  no  matter  what  he  was  called. 

At  this  time  Santa  Anna  was  living  in  exile  at  Havana. 
In  February,  1846,  A.  J.  Atocha  appeared  at  Washington 
and  sought  the  President.  Polk  received  him  and  was  led 
to  believe  that  Santa  Anna,  if  he  could  again  find  himself 
in  Mexico,  would  do  what  he  could  to  bring  about  friendly 
relations  with  the  United  States.  It  is  by  no  means  clear 
that  Atocha  had  any  right  to  act  in  any  way  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  former  President  of  the  Mexican  Republic, 
but  Polk  fell  into  the  trap,  —  if  it  were  a  trap.  He  sent 
Alexander  Slidell  Mackenzie  to  Havana  to  find  out  the  facts. 
Mackenzie  was  a  naval  officer  of  mark.  He  was  well  re- 
ceived by  Santa  Anna  and  given  some  extraordinary  advice 
as  to  the  best  mode  of  attacking  Mexico.  Meantime,  in 
January,  1846,  at  the  beginning  of  this  intrigue,  a  report 
came  from  Slidell  that  the  Mexican  government  refused 
to  receive  him  or  even  to  listen  to  him.  Thereupon,  it  was 
decided  to  reinforce  diplomacy  by  arms.  Taylor  was 
ordered  2  (January  13,  1846)  to  the  Rio  Grande.  Commo- 
dore Conner  was  directed  to  take  his  fleet  to  Vera  Cruz,3  — 
and  later  was  instructed  to  permit  Santa  Anna  to  pass 

1  Smith's    War    with    Mexico,    i.    95  official    correspondence    to    April    22, 

and   fol.,    436    and    fol. ;     and   George  1846.     The    papers    from     that    date 

L.    Rives's    "Mexican    Diplomacy    on  to    December   29,   1846,  are   on    pages 

the  Eve  of  War  with  the  United  States "  274-515:    and  the  following  pages  to 

in   American   Historical    Review,    xviii,  769  relate  the  attempts  to  outfit  the 

275-294.     The    papers   are   printed  in  expedition,  —  a  melancholy  story. 
House  Document,   No.   60,  30th  Cong.,  '  See  P.   S.  P.   Conner's  articles  on 

1st  Sess.,  pp.  11-79.  Commodore     Conner    in     The     United 

*  House    Document,     No.     60,     30th  Service  magazine  for  1894,  1895,  1896, 

Cong.,    1st    Sess.,    p.    90.     Pages    79-  1897,  and   see  also   The   Knickerbocker 

148    of    this    document    contain    the  for  1847. 


1846]  TAYLOR  ON  THE   RIO  GRANDE  555 

through  the  blockading  squadron,  —  but  he  could  not  have 
prevented  the  entrance  of  that  redoubtable  personage  into 
Mexico,  if  he  had  tried.  The  march  of  Taylor  and  the 
appearance  of  warships  off  Vera  Cruz  produced  no  effect 
upon  the  Mexican  rulers.  The  Rio  Grande  was  a  long  way 
off  and  the  Castle  of  San  Juan  de  Ultia  in  front  of  Vera 
Cruz  was  believed  to  be  impregnable,  for  it  had  been  greatly 
strengthened  since  the  French  battered  it  eight  years 
before.  Finally,  it  was  inconceivable  to  the  Mexican  mind 
that  the  British  would  permit  the  Americans  to  work  their 
will  in  Texas  and  in  California,  and  the  Mexicans  did  not 
believe  that  the  Americans  would  fight. 

In  March,  1846,  Taylor  with  his  troops  reached  the  Rio 
Grande  opposite  Matamoros  and  began  the  construction  of 
a  fort.  As  to  Taylor  1  and  his  doings  in  Texas  and  Mexico 
great  contrariety  of  opinion  has  developed.  Many  persons 
have  believed  that  his  victories  were  won  by  the  display 
of  high  military  qualities  in  spite  of  the  lukewarm  support 
of  the  administration  at  Washington  and  the  removal  of  his 
best  troops  to  carry  on  the  Vera  Cruz-Mexico  City  cam- 
paign. It  was  this  belief,  coupled  with  a  certain  rugged 
charm,  that  made  Zachary  Taylor  President  of  the  United 
States.  At  a  later  day,  historical  students  have  insisted 
that  Taylor  was  devoid  of  any  knowledge  of  warfare  on  any 
scale  beyond  campaigns  against  the  Indians.  They  assert 
that  he  took  no  steps  to  find  out  what  the  enemy  was  doing 
and  issued  practically  no  orders.2  Undoubtedly,  Taylor 
surprised  his  contemporaries.  Charles  Elliot,  the  British 

1  A  discriminating  memoir  by  Wil-  9,  1846,  that  during  the  Battle  of  Palo 
Ham    H.    Samson    is    prefixed    to    the  Alto  he  was  "at  the  side  of  General 
Letters    of    Zachary     Taylor    from    the  Taylor,  and  communicating  his  orders." 
Battle-Fields     of     the     Mexican     War  In  a  later  letter,  he  stated  that  Tay- 
(from  the  Bixby  Collection,  Rochester,  lor  did  not  make  the  use  of  the  en- 
1908).  gineers  and  other  members  of  his  staff 

2  General   Meade,   who  was  then  a  that   he   might   have   done.     See   Life 
lieutenant,  wrote  to  his  wife  on   May  and  Letters  of  G.  G.  Meade,  i,  80,  101. 


556  THE   YEAR   1846  [Cn.  XVII 

representative  in  Texas,  declared  that  Taylor  had  too  few 
soldiers  to  do  anything,  that  too  few  of  those  he  had  were 
cavalry,  and  that  his  artillery  was  out  of  all  proportion  to 
his  needs  and  could  not  be  effectively  used  in  the  Texan 
climate.  It  has  been  said  that  although  Taylor  was  a 
veteran  of  the  War  of  1812  he  had  passed  the  best  years  of 
his  life  in  army  posts  on  the  frontier,  superintending  the 
petty  details  of  his  command  and  failing  to  improve  him- 
self in  military  science.  It  must  be  confessed  that  Taylor 
was  deficient  in  book  learning  and  had  never  exercised 
thousands  of  soldiers  together.  It  seems  true,  also,  that  he 
undervalued  foreknowledge  of  the  enemies'  numbers  and 
movements.  On  the  other  side,  every  one  admits  that  he 
was  a  man  of  unsurpassed  courage  and  had  the  invaluable 
quality  of  inspiring  his  troops  with  confidence  in  themselves 
and  in  him.  He  had  no  brilliant  staff  about  him,  and  his 
vigorous  language  attracted  attention  at  the  time  and  has 
been  repeated  often  since.  It  seems  safe  to  say  that  where 
a  military  commander  exhibits  a  fairly  long  line  of  victories 
achieved  under  perilous  circumstances,  there  must  have 
been  something  in  him  of  the  soldier,  that  he  must  have 
issued  orders,  and  have  known  what  he  was  about.  Any 
modern  student  of  the  campaigns  of  1846  to  1848  must 
constantly  bear  in  mind  that,  while  so  near  to  our  own  time, 
they  were  conducted  as  to  transportation  and  intelligence 
with  about  the  same  facilities  as  General  Washington  had 
in  the  Revolutionary  War.  Moreover,  the  distances  in 
Mexico  and  in  Texas  were  greater  than  they  seem  to  be  on  a 
map,  and  the  Mexicans,  whatever  their  fighting  qualities 
may  have  been,  possessed  a  mobility  that  could  hardly 
have  been  expected  by  any  one  who  had  not  experienced 

1  There  is  an  interesting  letter,  dated       Mrs.  Chapman  Coleman'a  Life  of  John 
September   15,    1846,   from   Taylor  in       J.  CriUenden,  i,  251. 


1846]  GENERAL  TAYLOR  557 

it.  One  trouble  in  assessing  Taylor's  deeds  arises  from  the 
fact  that  his  reports  were  written  by  Major  Bliss,  his  able 
adjutant,  and  later  his  son-in-law,  who  resembled  so  closely 
in  some  ways  the  modern  publicity  agent  that  students  have 
not  regarded  them  as  stating  the  actual  facts. 

Taylor's  base  after  he  reached  the  Rio  Grande  was 
Point  Isabel,  which  was  the  port  of  Matamoros,  because  the 
navigation  of  the  lower  reaches  of  the  river  was  very  un- 
certain.1 Taylor  blockaded  the  Rio  Grande  because  the 
Mexican  commander  refused  him  facilities  to  gather  supplies. 
There  was  a  curious  hesitation  on  both  sides  to  bring  matters 
to  a  decision,  but  finally  General  Arista,  the  Mexican  com- 
mander at  Matamoros,  was  spurred  to  activity  by  the 
authorities  at  Mexico  City.  An  officer  of  the  American 
army  was  murdered,  reconnoitering  parties  were  attacked, 
and  one  of  these,  commanded  by  Captain  Thornton,  was 
captured  by  the  Mexicans  after  several  soldiers  had  been 
killed.  This  was  on  April  25,  1846.  The  report  of  the 
encounter  reached  Washington  on  May  9.  Two  days  later, 
President  Polk  informed  Congress  that  war  exists  and  that 
American  blood  had  been  shed  on  American  soil  by  the 
Mexicans.2  On  May  13,  Congress  authorized  the  President 
to  accept  volunteers  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war  which 
exists  between  Mexico  and  the  United  States  by  the  act  of 
the  Republic  of  Mexico,  and  thus  recognized  a  status  of 
war.3  Meantime,  on  the  8th  and  9th  of  that  month,  Taylor 
had  won  two  battles. 

1  On   the   geographical   relations   of  agents  of  the  United  States.     In  this 
these  places  see  J.  A.  Stevens's  Valley  they    are    informed    that    Mexico    has 
of  the  Rio  Grande,  1-8.  "mistaken   our   forbearance   for   pusil- 

2  Richardson's  Messages  and  Papers,  lanimity.     Encouraged,    probably,    by 
iv,  437.  this    misapprehension,    her    army    has 

3  Statutes  at  Large,  ix,  9.     On  May  at  length  passed  the  Del  Norte,  —  has 
14,      1846,     a     printed     "Confidential  invaded  the  territory  of  our  country, — 
Circular"    was    signed    by   James    Bu-  and  has  shed  American  blood  upon  the 
chanan    and    sent    to    the    diplomatic  American  soil.  ...     In  conversing  on 


568  THE   YEAK   1846  (Cn.  XVII 

Throughout  the  campaign,  Taylor's  anxieties  were  mainly 
concerned  with  transportation  and  supplies.  He  was  at 
Fort  Brown  with  his  little  army  and  his  supplies  were  at 
Point  Isabel,  twenty-seven  miles  away.  Possibly  in  view  of 
a  threatened  Mexican  crossing  of  the  Rio  Grande,  Taylor 
took  by  far  the  greater  part  of  his  force  to  Point  Isabel  for 
the  purpose  of  escorting  these  supplies  across  the  country 
to  Fort  Brown.  It  was  at  this  point  of  time  that  Arista 
passed  the  river  and,  finding  Taylor  gone,  pursued  him. 
At  the  moment,  Taylor  was  on  his  way  back  with  the  supply 
train.  The  two  forces  came  together  on  the  8th  of  May  at 
Palo  Alto.  The  combat  was  a  most  surprising  one.  The 
Mexicans  relied  upon  the  cavalry  and  the  lance.  When 
they  advanced  to  the  charge,  they  were  met  by  an  artillery 
fire  of  an  intensity  that  they  had  never  dreamed  of.  Their 
ranks  stood  fast,  men  being  shot  down  at  what  seemed 
to  be  a  safe  distance  from  the  enemy.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Mexican  cannon  balls  were  propelled  by  such  poor 
powder  that  they  fell  early  to  the  earth  and  proceeded  by 
leaps  and  bounds  to  the  American  ranks,  their  progress 
being  so  slow  that,  for  the  most  part,  it  was  easy  to  avoid 
them.  A  prairie  fire,  which  disconcerted  the  Mexican 
plans,  and  a  flank  attack  completed  the  affair.  Night  fell, 
and  when  morning  dawned  the  Mexicans  were  not  in  their 
positions.  Taylor,  thereupon,  resumed  his  march  and 
some  miles  farther  on  came  across  the  Mexicans  near  a 
ravine  known  as  Resaca  de  la  Palma.  Here,  again,  the 
same  story  was  repeated.1  The  American  soldier  as  a  fighter 
was  so  superior  to  the  Mexican,  that  the  resistance  of  the 

the  objects  and  purposes  of  the  war,  Collection)  p.   1.     In  the   "Appendix" 

you  will  be  guided  by  the  sentiments  to  this  volume  is  a  letter  from  Tay- 

expressed    in    the    President's   message  lor  to  Buchanan,   defending  his  cam- 

and    this   dispatch."     Larkin    Mss.    in  paigns,  —  but  very  likely  it  was  written 

the  Bancroft  Library.  by  his  future  son-in-law. 
1  Letters   of  Zachary    Taylor    (Bixby 


1846]  PALO  ALTO  559 

latter  broke  down  and  ended  in  flight  to  the  Rio  Grande  and 
across  it.  In  these  two  engagements  Taylor  had  about 
2000  men  and  the  Mexicans  numbered  at  least  twice  as  many. 
The  losses  were  out  of  all  proportion,  Taylor  reporting  170, 
of  whom  only  38  were  killed,  and  Arista  having  lost  according 
to  his  own  accounts  800  killed,  wounded,  and  missing,  and 
according  to  Taylor  probably  twice  as  many  at  least.1 

One  thing  that  had  induced  the  Mexicans  to  attack  the 
American  soldiers  had  been  the  strong  probability  of  war 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  and  a  hoped- 
for  armed  intervention  by  the  latter  power  between  Mexico 
and  the  United  States.  British  travellers  and  writers  for 
years  had  lost  few  opportunities  of  saying  unpleasant  things 
about  "the  people  of  the  States,"  2  and  the  governments  at 
Washington  and  London  exhibited  determination  to  main- 
tain their  respective  positions  as  to  the  Oregon  country. 
Beginning  in  Adams's  time,3  successive  American  govern- 
ments had  proposed  to  divide  Oregon  by  extending  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  This  line  had  been  adopted  in  1818  as  the  boundary 
between  Canada  and  the  United  States  from  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  On  the  face  of  it,  the 
proposition  to  extend  this  line  westward  to  the  Pacific 

1  Smith's   War  with  Mexico,  i,   169,  The   Domestic  Manners   of  the    Ameri- 
176,  466.     Meade  writing  to  his  wife  cans   that   was   published   at   Glasgow 
on  May  9,  reported  somewhat  differ-  in  1836 .   and  Charles  Dickens's  Ameri- 
ent   figures.     On    May    15,    he    stated  can  Notes  and  Martin  Chuzzlewit  that 
the   American   force   at  2000   and   the  came  out  in   the  1840's  added  to  the 
Mexican   at   between   6000   and  7000 '  flame  of  indignation.     A  rather  clumsy 
Meade's  Life  and  Letters,  i,  81,  83.  attempt  at  retaliation  was  The  Slave- 

2  Justin  H.  Smith  sets  forth  the  atti-  holder  Abroad;    or  Billy   Buck's    Visit, 
tude  of  the  British  in  these  years  in  with    his    Master,    to    England    (Phila- 
the   Proceedings   of   the   Massachusetts  delphia,  1860)  detailing  in  the  form  of 
Historical  Society  for  June,   1914,  and  letters  from   "Dr.   Jones  of  Georgia" 
at  greater  length  in  his  War  with  Mexico,  murders    and   other    crimes    that    were 
ch.  xxxv.  found  in  a  file  of  contemporary  Eng- 

Excerpts  from  the  writhigs  of  Mrs.  lish  newspapers. 

Trollope,  Captain  Basil  Hall,  and  other  *  See    Clay's   letter    to    Gallatin    of 

British    visitors    may    conveniently    be  June    19,    1826,    in     House    Document, 

found   in  a  sixty-page  booklet  entitled  No.  199,  20th  Cong.,  1st  Sess. 


560  THE   YEAR   1846  [[Cn.  XVII 

seemed  reasonable.  When  one  looked  into  it  closely, 
however,  it  was  found  to  deprive  the  British  of  all  partici- 
pation in  the  trade  of  the  Columbia  River  basin,  of  the 
navigation  of  Puget  Sound,  and  to  deprive  them  of  any 
control  of  the  strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca.  The  British  refused 
again  and  again  to  accept  this  proposition.  At  one  time 
Tyler  and  Webster  seemed  willing  to  yield  so  far  as  to  give 
the  British  the  northern  part  of  the  Columbia  basin  on 
consideration  of  their  not  opposing  the  acquisition  of  San 
Francisco  Bay  and  northern  California  by  the  Americans. 
Nothing  came  of  this  and  the  American  government  returned 
to  its  old  position.  In  his  Inaugural  Message,  Polk  de- 
clared that  we  had  a  good  title  to  all  of  Oregon.  As  the 
British  had  refused  all  offers  of  compromise,  he  withdrew 
them  and  in  December,  1845,  suggested  the  ending  of  the 
joint  occupation.  In  April,  1846,  the  notice  was  given  and 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  stood  face  to  face  on  the 
Oregon  question.1  Buchanan  feared  that  this  action  would 
bring  on  war  between  the  two  countries.  Polk  stood  firm. 
He  declared  that  the  way  to  deal  with  John  Bull  was  to 
look  him  straight  in  the  eye.  It  cannot  be  said  that  Bu- 
chanan was  reassured,  but  the  event  justified  Folk's  position. 
The  English  government  could  not  involve  that  country 
in  war  with  the  United  States  because  the  voters  would  not 
have  stood  behind  it.  At  first  Aberdeen  suggested  arbi- 
tration, but  no  one  in  America  exhibiting  any  interest  in 
that  plan,  he  recurred  to  a  hint  that  Edward  Everett,  the 
American  minister  at  London,  had  let  fall  some  time  before 
and  directed  the  British  representative  at  Washington  to 


related  aspects  of  the  Oregon  pee's   "Federal   Relations  of  Oregon" 

matter  are  treated  in  Schafer's  "The  in  the  Quarterly  of  the  Oregon  Histori- 

British    Attitude    toward    the    Oregon  cal  Society,   xix,   89,    189,   283.     Both 

Question"  in  American  Historical  Re-  articles  are  abundantly  supplied  with 

view,  xvi,  273-299,  and  in  L.  B.  Ship-  citations. 


1846]  THE   OREGON  TREATY  561 

suggest  that  the  dividing  line  should  be  the  forty-ninth 
parallel  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  middle  of  the 
channel  between  the  continent  and  Vancouver's  Island 
and  through  that  channel  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  He  also 
laid  down  the  condition  that  the  Hudson  Bay  Company 
should  enjoy  the  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia  River. 
Polk  at  once  saw  the  bearing  of  this  new  attitude  of  the 
British  government  on  the  Mexican  War.1  Moreover,  he 
had  become  convinced  that  the  British  by  making  actual 
settlements  in  the  country  north  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel 
had  acquired  rights  by  settlement  in  that  region,2  similar 
to  those  that  the  United  States  had  acquired  south  of  that 
parallel.  After  what  he  had  said  in  his  Inaugural,  he  could 
hardly  give  way  on  his  own  part.  He  therefore  laid  the 
whole  matter  before  the  Senate  and  asked  its  advice  as  to 
whether  he  should  negotiate  on  the  terms  proposed.  After 
two  days'  debate  the  Senate  advised  him  to  do  so.  Three 
days  later,  on  June  15,  1846,  the  treaty  was  signed  and  was 
promptly  ratified.3  Two  weeks  after  this,  but  of  course 
before  the  news  of  the  actual  settlement  reached  England, 
Aberdeen  addressed  a  note  to  Bankhead,  the  British  minister 
in  Mexico,  declining  to  interfere  between  Mexico  and  the 
United  States.  He  had  repeatedly  warned  the  Mexican 
nation  of  the  danger  and  it  was  in  consequence  of  "wilful 

1  See  Folk's  Message  of  June  10,  contemplated  in  the  treaty.  In  1871, 

1846,  in  Richardson's  Messages  and  the  question  was  referred  to  the  Ger- 

Papers,  iv,  449,  and  Folk's  Diary,  i,  man  Emperor  as  arbiter  (Treaties  and 

62-66,244-253,467.  For  the  executive  Conventions,  426).  He  decided  in  favor 

proceedings  see  Journal  of  the  Senate,  of  the  United  States  in  1872.  The 

"Appendix,"  pp.  547,  551.  documents  relating  to  this  controversy 

J  Folk's  Diary,  i,  p.  70.  were    brought    together   in    1873    and 

3  Senate  Documents,  Nos.  476,  489  printed  by  order  of  Parliament  under 

(29th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.) ;  Treaties  and  the  general  title  of  North-West  Ameri- 

Conventions  (ed.  1873),  p.  375.  The  can  Water  Boundary  (A.-G.).  For 

Polk  end  of  the  story  is  in  his  Diary,  an  English  view  of  the  question,  see 

(index  under  "  Oregon ").  Viscount  Milton's  History  of  the  San 

It  proved  to  be  a  difficult  matter  to  Juan  Water  Boundary  Question  (Lon- 

decide  precisely  what  was  the  "  channel "  don,  1869). 

VOL.  V.  —  2o 


562  THE   YEAR   1846  [Cn.  XVII 

contempt  of  that  warning"  that  it  had  plunged  headlong 
down  the  precipice.  If  Great  Britain  intervened,  it  would 
mean  war  with  the  United  States.  He  directed  Bankhead 
to  make  this  decision  known  in  "explicit  but  courteous  terms" 
to  the  Mexican  government.  Bankhead  was  also  directed 
to  assure  it  that  Great  Britain  by  "friendly  interposition" 
would  be  willing  to  save  Mexico  as  far  as  might  yet  be  possi- 
ble from  the  fatal  consequences  of  the  policy  that  successive 
Mexican  governments  had  pursued  toward  Texas  and  the 
United  States. 

Relying  on  the  intrigue  with  Santa  Anna  and  anxious  to 
avoid  war,  President  Polk  made  one  more  effort  for  a  peace- 
able settlement.  Early  in  August,  1846,  he  asked  Congress 
to  give  him  money  to  purchase  territory  from  Mexico.1 
When  this  matter  was  before  the  House  of  Representatives, 
David  Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania  moved  to  amend  the  res- 
olution by  providing  "as  an  express  and  fundamental  con- 
dition to  the  acquisition  of  any  territory  from  the  Republic 
of  Mexico"  that  "neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude 
shall  ever  exist  in  any  part"  of  the  territory  so  acquired. 
Wilmot  was  not  the  author  of  this  proviso  ;  he  was  a  regular 
Democrat,  and  it  is  not  clear  why  he  took  it  upon  himself  to 
introduce  it.  A  vigorous  debate  at  once  took  place.  Finally, 
the  House  passed  the  resolution  with  the  proviso.  Possibly  it 
would  have  passed  the  Senate  also  had  not  a  Massachusetts 
Senator  prolonged  the  debate  until  the  moment  set  for  the 
termination  of  the  session.  Historical  students  have 
generally  condemned  his  action.  It  may  well  be  that  his 
motive  was  to  block  any  attempt  to  acquire  territory  from 
Mexico  with  or  without  slavery.2  For  the  moment,  the 

1  Folk's  Diary,  ii,  59-73.  The  Presi-  *  The  history  of  the  Wilmot  Pro- 
dent  euphemistically  asked  for  the  viso  is  even  now  practically  unknown, 
money  "to  facilitate  negotiations  with  Besides  the  general  histories  and  the 
Mexico"!  biographies,  see  C.  E.  Persinger  on 


1840]  CALIFORNIA  563 

project  was  dead ;  but  the  Wilmot  Proviso  was  moved  again 
and  again,  whenever  the  question  of  the  acquisition  of 
territory  from  Mexico  came  up.  On  August  16  Santa  Anna 
appeared  off  Vera  Cruz  and  was  allowed  to  pass  through 
the  blockading  squadron. 

Meantime,  California  had  been  occupied  by  American 
naval  forces,  although  this  was  not  known  at  Washington 
until  September.  The  settlements  of  the  whites  in  Cali- 
fornia were  few  in  number  and  of  small  extent  in  area  and 
population.  There  were  a  few  houses  at  San  Diego,  a  pueblo 
or  village  at  Los  Angeles,  another  at  Santa  Barbara,  and  a 
small  town  at  Monterey,  which  was  supposed  to  be  the  seat 
of  government.  At  San  Francisco,  farther  north,  there  was 
a  dilapidated  mission  and  at  Sonoma  a  small  collection  of 
houses  around  the  seat  of  General  Vallejo,  who  was  the 
richest  and  most  respectable  Hispano-Mexican-Californian 
in  the  whole  country.  Sutter's  Fort  near  the  confluence 
of  the  American  Fork  with  the  main  stream  of  the  Sacra- 
mento River  was  at  the  strategic  point  of  the  overland  route 
from  the  United  States  by  the  way  of  Nevada  and  Utah. 
Two  thousand  would  probably  have  included  every  human 
being  possessing  an  appreciable  amount  of  Caucasian  blood  l 
in  all  Alta  California,  or  California,  as  we  always  term  it. 
In  the  valleys  between  the  ranges  of  mountains  that  roughly 
parallel  the  coast  there  were  ranches  of  huge  extent,  pas- 
turing thousands  of  cattle  and  horses  and  large  flocks  of 

"The  Origin  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso"  Correspondence,"    Pt.   ii,    Des.   66,    p. 

in    American    Historical    Association's  95,  gives  the  population   of   California 

Report  for  1911,  vol.  i,  189-195.     The  in  1846  at  15,000  and  1000  foreigners, 

views    of    a    Southern    Whig    can    be  Dr.   Marsh  in  a  letter  to  Lewis  Cass, 

found   in   Select' o^  a  from   the   Speeches  written    in    1846,  estimates  it  at  7700, 

and  Writings  of  Hon.  Thomas  L.  Cling-  Elliott's    Illustrations    of   Contra    Costa 

man,  197.     Folk's  view  is  given  in  his  County,   p.   5,   6.     Possibly   the  differ- 

Diary,  ii,  75,  etc.  ence   in   figures   reflects   the   effort   to 

'Mary    Floyd    Williams's    "Intro-  separate  the  pure-blooded  whites  from 

duction"    to   her    Vigilance    Committee  the  Indian  and  mixed  population. 
of  1851.     Larkin  in  his  Ms.   "Official 


564  THE   YEAR   1846  [CH.  XVII 

sheep.  The  inaccessibility  of  California  by  land  from 
Mexico  and  the  tremendous  distances  in  California  itself 
made  administration  so  difficult  that  it  was  practically 
independent  of  Mexico  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  itself 
subdivided  into  three  quasi-independent  areas.  The  revenue 
was  derived  from  duties  on  imports  which  were  so  high  that 
the  inducement  to  smuggling  was  great.  There  was  a 
governor  in  California  who  was  generally  some  broken-down 
Mexican  politician  who  came  with  a  small  band  of  soldiers 
whom  the  local  writers  generally  stigmatized  as  convicts. 
The  military  commander  in  California  was  usually  at  swords' 
points  with  the  governor,  although  the  two  ordinarily 
lived  so  far  apart  that  there  was  not  much  actual  collision 
between  them.  When  one  realizes  the  tremendous  difficulty 
of  getting  from  one  part  of  the  country  to  another  before  the 
days  of  railroads  one  has  gone  far  toward  realizing  the  facts 
of  early  California  history.  Furthermore,  in  three  months 
of  the  year  there  is  oftentimes  so  much  rain  that  the  streams 
became  swollen  and  the  roadways  impassable.  The  people 
of  each  settlement  and  each  ranch  lived  their  own  lives  as 
much  cut  off  from  one  another  and  from  the  world  as  if 
they  were  inhabitants  of  separate  islands. 

When  Dana  was  on  the  coast  in  1835-1836,  there  were  few 
Americans  in  California,  although  there  were  some  at  each 
of  the  four  towns  or  villages  from  Monterey  southward. 
There  were  also  some  British  subjects,  a  few  Frenchmen, 
and  fewer  Germans,  but  put  all  together,  the  foreigners 
offered  no  occasion  for  jealousy  to  the  native  Calif ornians. 
The  dislike  of  outsiders  appears  in  1840  for  almost  the  first 
time  in  what  is  known  as  the  Graham  Affair.  It  seems  that 
Isaac  Graham,  an  American,  had  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
wrong  political  leader.  He  and  certain  others,  among  them 
some  Englishmen,  were  seized  by  the  governor  and  sent  by 


1840]  CALIFORNIA  565 

sea  to  Mexico,  but  were  released  through  the  intercession 
of  the  American  and  British  representatives  in  Mexico  and 
some  of  them  returned  to  California,  with  more  or  less 
promise  of  compensation  for  their  sufferings  and  losses.1 
The  Graham  Affair  was  of  no  great  consequence  in  itself, 
but  the  memory  of  it  gave  point  to  American  suspicion  of 
Californian  good  faith  in  the  next  half  dozen  years.  In 
1832,  Thomas  0.  Larkin  opened  a  store  at  Monterey.  He 
was  a  Massachusetts  man  who  had  failed  in  business  in 
South  Carolina,  but  had  somewhere  acquired  facility  in 
intercourse  with  men  of  varying  nationalities  and  opinions. 
He  speedily  secured  the  friendship  of  the  leaders  of  the 
different  cliques  in  California,  standing  well  with  the 
American  traders,  the  Commandante  of  the  Californians, 
the  Governor  General,  and  the  native  ranchers.  He  sup- 
plied them  all  with  goods  on  credit  and  talked  politics  with 
them.2  In  1844,  he  was  appointed  American  consul  at 
Monterey,  and  this  official  position  enabled  him  to  extend 
his  trade  and  his  influence. 

After  1840,  American  trappers,  traders,  and  settlers 
appeared  in  ever  increasing  numbers.  One  party  of  trappers 
came  over  the  San  Bernardino  pass.  They  had  been  taking 
fur-bearing  animals  in  the  mountains  of  New  Mexico  and 
having  exhausted  their  supplies  came  down  to  the  coast. 
While  there  they  caught  sea  otters  without  a  license  or 

1  See  T.  H.  Hittell's  History  of  Cali-  held  under  grants  from  the  Mexican 

fornia,  ii,  272,  and  Rives's  United  States  or  Californian  authorities.  For  sev- 

and  Mexico,  ii,  32,  36,  37.  eral  entries  to  this  effect,  I  am  in- 

*  In  1844  it  appears,  from  a  state-  debted  to  Mr.  Owen  C.  Coy  of  the 

ment  in  the  "Larkin  Manuscripts"  California  Historical  Survey.  A  bio- 

that  he  had  loaned  to  the  governor  and  graphical  sketch  of  Larkin  forms 

commandante  of  "this  department"  "Appendix  1"  to  R.  W.  Kelsey's 

no  less  than  $3700,  some  of  it  at  12  "The  United  States  Consulate  in  Cali- 

per  cent  interest.  It  is  also  fairly  fornia"  in  the  Publications  of  the 

certain  from  entries  in  his  papers  and  Academy  of  Pacific  Coast  History,  i, 

in  the  California  local  records  that  No.  5.  An  account  of  the  "Larkin 

Larkin  was  largely  interested  in  lands  Papers"  is  in  ibid.,  i,  p.  104. 


566  THE   YEAR   1846  [CH.  XVII 

permission  of  any  kind  from  any  Mexican  authority.  They 
were  arrested,  but  after  some  detention  they  were  released. 
The  story  is  expressive  of  the  attitude  of  the  American  fron- 
tiersman toward  the  Californian.  The  first  large  American 
party  reached  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  in  1843.  It  came 
overland  and  was  composed  for  the  most  part  of  persons 
who  had  originally  migrated  from  New  England  and  New 
York  to  the  Northwest,  and  then  had  determined  for  no 
apparent  reason  to  go  to  the  Pacific  Coast.  Some  of  them 
found  employment ,  on  the  ranches  or  in  the  towns,  and 
others  "squatted"  on  lands  in  the  vicinity  of  Sutter's 
Fort  and  in  the  country  to  the  northward.  In  the  next 
two  years,  1844  and  1845,  other  bands  arrived  in  California. 
Apparently  there  was  no  concert  of  action  between  them 
and  they  had  no  other  motive  for  migration  than  the 
difficulty  of  making  a  living  in  the  United  States  in  the 
years  of  financial  stress  that  followed  the  panic  of  1837. 
By  the  beginning  of  1846  there  were  at  least  five  hundred 
Americans  in  California,  including  in  that  number  all  who 
had  come  from  the  United  States,  whether  they  were  natives 
or  immigrants  from  abroad.  Their  numbers  were  not 
large,  but,  bearing  in  mind  the  small  numerical  strength 
of  the  native  Californians  and  their  wide  dispersal  along  five 
hundred  miles  from  Sonoma  to  San  Diego,  the  presence  of 
even  so  few  Americans  settled  within  one  hundred  miles  of 
Sutter's  Fort  was  likely  to  arouse  apprehension  among 
the  rulers  of  the  land. 

For  years  the  Californians  had  been  practically  indepen- 
dent, and  about  the  only  bond  they  had  with  the  Mexicans 
was  their  racial  affinity.  Representatives  of  the  United 
States,  Great  Britain,  and  France  had  been  throwing  out 
suggestions  of  the  advisability  of  independence  from  Mexico 
and  of  cooperation  with  the  country  of  the  speaker.  James 


1844]  UNREST  IN  CALIFORNIA  567 

Alexander  Forbes,  the  British  agent  in  California,  was 
appealed  to  by  a  body  of  influential  Californians  who  asked 
him  whether  their  country  could  be  "received  under  the 
protection  of  Great  Britain?"  He  replied  that  he  was 
unauthorized  to  enter  into  any  such  affair.  He  reported 
the  matter  to  his  superiors  who,  in  turn,  reported  to  Aber- 
deen. On  December  31,  1844,  the  British  foreign  secretary 
replied  l  that  Her  Majesty's  government  could  have  nothing 
to  do  with  any  insurrectionary  movement  in  California ; 
nor  did  they  desire  their  agents  there  to  encourage  such 
movements,  for  that  would  be  contrary  to  good  faith  on  the 
part  of  England.  If  California  threw  off  the  Mexican  yoke, 
it  would  be  of  importance  to  Great  Britain  that  that  coun- 
try should  not  assume  any  tie  "which  might  prove  inimical 
to  British  interests."  He  wrote,  however,  that  the  Cali- 
fornians might  be  informed  that  "Great  Britain  would  view 
with  much  dissatisfaction  the  establishment  of  a  protectoral 
power  over  California  by  any  other  foreign  state."  This 
letter  reached  Forbes  in  May,  1845,  and  must  have  been  very 
discouraging.  Sir  George  Seymour  then  commanded  the 
British  naval  forces  on  the  western  American  coast.  He 
took  very  little  interest  in  California  before  1845.  At 
the  time  the  French  were  active  among  the  islands  of  the 
Pacific.  Seymour's  principal  task  seems  to  have  been  to 
watch  them  and  also  to  oppose  any  Russian  intrigues  look- 
ing to  settlement  below  54"*  40'. 2  In  December,  1845, 
Seymour  was  at  Valparaiso  with  his  vessels  after  a  visit  to 

1  E.    D.    Adams's    British    Interests  *  When  the  Russians  withdrew  from 

and  Activities  in   Texas,   247.     A  year  the  Oregon  country  after  the  treaties 

and   a   half   later,    on    May    14,    1846,  of  1824  and  1825,  they  had  retained  a 

Abel    Stearns    wrote    to    Larkin    from  post   on   Bodega   Bay,    some   sixty   or 

"Angeles"     that     he     was     "certain"  seventy  miles  to  the  northward  of  the 

that    overtures    had    been    made    by  Golden  Gate.     This  station  had  been 

British   agents   to   the   government   of  the  cause  of  constant  expense  to  the 

California  to  declare  its  independence  Russians  and  they  had  gladly  disposed 

and   place  itself  under  the  protection  of  it  to  Captain  Sutter.  ' 

of  Great  Britain.     "Larkin  Msa." 


568  THE   YEAR   1846  [Cn.  XVII 

Honolulu  and  the  Friendly  Islands.  From  that  place  he 
addressed  a  letter  (March,  1846)  to  the  Admiralty  asking 
for  an  increased  force.  He  thought  that  war  with  the 
United  States  was  possible,  and  he  may  have  been  led  to 
write  this  letter  by  the  recent  increase  of  the  American 
naval  force  in  the  Pacific.  In  June,  1846,  the  matter  was 
taken  up  in  London.  The  Admiralty  refused  to  grant  any 
increase  unless  the  government  would  guarantee  a  larger 
naval  appropriation.  The  Foreign  Office  was  appealed  to 
and  replied  that  no  material  change  in  the  Pacific  squadron 
was  necessary  because  there  was  no  probability  of  war  with 
the  United  States.1  In  the  spring  of  1846  Seymour  had  no 
greater  strength  and  no  instructions  as  to  California  or 
Oregon.  In  May,  1846,  at  about  the  time  of  Palo  Alto,  he 
left  the  American  fleet  lying  at  anchor  off  Mazatlan  and 
steered  southward  one  hundred  miles  or  so  to  San  Bias.2 
He  was  there  on  June  8  when  the  American  squadron 
under  Commodore  Sloat  left  Mazatlan  for  Monterey  in 
Alta  California.  The  story  of  French  activities  in  Cali- 
fornia is  even  more  vague.  It  is  said  that  Duflot  de  Mofras, 
an  attache"  of  the  French  legation  at  Mexico,  made  some  kind 
of  an  offer  of  "French  protection"  in  case  the  Calif ornians 
set  up  for  themselves.  He  was  in  California  in  the  years 
1840-1842  and  wrote  two  volumes 3  on  his  travels,  —  but 
the  whole  matter  is  exceedingly  uncertain. 

In  October,  1845,  Larkin  had  been  appointed  confidential 
agent  by  President  Polk,  and  had  been  instructed  to  stir  up 
disaffection  among  the  Californians  against  Mexico  and  to 

1 E.    D.    Adams's    British    Interests  on  Seizure  of  California"  in  The  Cen- 

...  in  Texas,  255.  tury   Magazine,    for   August,    1890,    p. 

*  Justin    H.     Smith    suggests    that  792. 

Seymour  went  to  San  Bias  "to  wait  3  Eugene    Duflot    de    Mofras'    Ex- 

for  orders"  (War  with  Mexico,  i,  531).  ploration    du     Territoire    de     I'Oregon, 

Josiah  Royce  shows  conclusively  that  des   Californies  et  de  la  Mer  Vermeille, 

no1  "race  for  California"   or  anything  .  .  .  1840,  1841  et  1842  (2  vols.,  Paris, 

approaching    it    occurred,    in    "Light  1844,  with  an  Atlas). 


1845]  LARKIN'S  INTRIGUES  569 

induce  them  to  seek  annexation  with  the  United  States  or 
to  establish  their  independence  under  American  protection. 
By  this  time  Larkin  had  acquired  great  influence  with  the 
Californians,  and  he  seems  to  have  been  possessed  of  power 
of  charm  and  animadversion.  He  had  been  intriguing 
with  the  Californians  for  some  time  and  thought  that  he 
had  made  such  an  impression  upon  them  that  by  the  middle 
of  the  century,  at  most,  they  would  of  their  own  accord  ask 
union  with  the  Americans  in  one  form  or  another.1  He  had 
been  interfered  with  hi  his  plans  of  conciliation  and  dis- 
affection by  two  American  officers,  Commodore  Ap  Catesby 
Jones  of  the  navy  and  Lieutenant  John  Charles  Fremont 
of  the  army.  Jones  was  on  the  coast  in  1842  with  a  small 
naval  force.  He  was  greatly  stirred  by  the  news  that  came 
to  him  of  exceedingly  disrespectful  proceedings  on  the  part 
of  the  Mexicans  toward  the  United  States  and  of  unusual 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  British  fleet.  He  made  up  his 
mind  ihat  the  British  were  on  the  point  of  seizing  Cali- 
fornia and  determined  to  forestall  them,  feeling  certain  that 
the  United  States  had  by  this  time  resented  the  Mexican 
insults  by  war.  He  sailed  to  Monterey,  landed  a  force, 
took  possession  of  the  fort  and  public  buildings,  and  hoisted 
the  American  flag.  After  he  had  done  all  this  Larkin  showed 
him  the  most  recent  newspapers,  which  proved  that  relations 
between  the  United  States  and  Mexico  were  still  outwardly 
friendly  and  there  was  no  appearance  of  any  aggressive 
action  on  the  part  of  the  British.  Indeed,  as  we  know  now, 
the  British  commodore  was  concerned  only  with  Russian 
and  French  movements  and  had  no  thought  whatever  of 
seizing  California.  Under  the  circumstances  the  only  thing 
that  Ap  Catesby  Jones  could  do  was  to  haul  down  the  flag, 

1See  R.  G.  Cleland's   "Early   Sen-       fornia"  in  The  Southwestern  Historical 
timent    for   the    Annexation    of    Cali-       Quarterly,  rviii. 


570 


THE   YEAR   1846 


[Cn.  XVII 


ree"mbark  his  men,  apologize  to  the  Mexican  authorities,1 
and  try  to  explain  matters  to  his  own  government. 

Fremont  was  a  more  enigmatical  person  and  a  more  suc- 
cessful one.  He  was  a  South  Carolinian  of  mixed  parentage, 
his  father  being  a  Frenchman  and  his  mother  a  Virginian, 
and  he  first  saw  the  light  of  day  at  Savannah  in  Georgia.2 
He  married  the  daughter  of  Senator  Benton  and  thereby 
gained  powerful  backing  for  future  advancement.  In  1842, 
he  was  placed  at  the  head  of  a  western  exploring  expedition 
and  in  the  following  years  led  two  more  expeditions  to 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  His  reports  were  well  written  and 
instructive.3  They  introduced  the  western  country  to  the 
American  people  and  thereby  gained  for  Fremont  the  title 
of  "the  Patftfinder,"  -  but  the  paths  that  he  described  had 
been  familiar  to  trappers  and  to  traders  before  he  ever  set 
eyes  on  them.  In  1845,  he  was  sent  on  his  third  expedition 
to  seek  the  best  route  to  the  Pacific  coast  south  of  Oregon. 
He  was  then  an  officer  in  the  United  States  army  and  he  had 
with  him  paid  employees  of  the  United  States,  some  thirty 
in  number.  The  expedition  running  out  of  supplies,  Fre"- 
mont  in  January,  1846,  visited  Monterey  and  asked  per- 
mission of  Commandante-General  Castro  to  secure  the 
necessary  supplies  and  equipment  for  his  return  to  the 


1  Jesse  S.  Reeves  in  his  American 
Diplomacy  under  Tyler  and  Polk, 
105,  says  that  had  Jones  "been  right 
in  his  conjecture  he  might  have  been 
a  precursor  of  Dewey;  the  conqueror 
of  California  and  a  hero  in  our  naval 
history." 

s  Fremont's  career  either  attracted 
or  repelled  literary  men  as  it  did  every 
one  else.  There  is  no  adequate  memoir 
of  him.  Of  the  campaign  lives,  John 
Bigelow's  is  by  far  the  best.  The 
first  volume  of  the  Memoirs  of  My 
Life  by  John  Charles  Fremont  gives 
his  own  account,  somewhat  dressed  up 
by  his  wife,  and  illustrated  with  re- 
markable steel  engravings.  It  brines 


his  life  down  to  1847,  and  no  further 
volumes  were  ever  published. 

*  Fremont's  reports  of  the  ex- 
peditions of  1842  and  1843  were 
printed  by  order  of  the  Senate  in  1845 
(Senate  Document,  No.  174,  28th  Cong., 
2nd  Sess.)  and  also  in  the  same  year 
by  order  of  the  House  (Document 
No.  166).  They  were  widely  reprinted 
in  1846  and  in  1849.  His  Notes  of 
Travel  in  California  often  cited  as 
Geographical  Memoir  upon  Upper  Cali- 
fornia was  dated  June,  1848.  The 
Fremont  narratives  were  reprinted 
with  Emory's  Overland  Journey  in  one 
convenient  double  columned  volume 
at  New  York  in  1849. 


1846]  FRfiMONT  IN  CALIFORNIA  571 

United  States.  Larkin  acted  as  intermediary,  but  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  misunderstanding.  At  all  events,  a 
few  weeks  later  Fremont  reappeared  in  the  vicinity  of 
Monterey  with  his  whole  expedition.  The  Californians 
were  alarmed ;  Castro  ordered  Fremont  away  and  got 
together  what  men  he  could  to  drive  him  off.  On  the 
other  hand,  Fremont,  notwithstanding  the  advice  of  Larkin 
to  retire  peacefully,  hoisted  the  American  flag  over  his 
camp  on  Gavilan  Mountain,  declared  himself  ready  to  repel 
force  by  force,  and  then  marched  off  to  the  north. 

Fremont  had  proceeded  on  his  northward  march  as  far 
as  the  shores  of  Klamath  Lake,  when  he  was  overtaken  by 
Lieutenant  Gillespie  of  the  American  navy  with  des- 
patches and  letters.  Fremont  at  once  retraced  his  steps 
to  the  vicinity  of  Sutter's  Fort.  Gillespie  had  made  a 
remarkable  journey  from  Washington.  Leaving  the  capital 
early  in  November,  1845,  he  had  crossed  Mexico,  actually 
outrunning  the  beginning  of  hostilities.  He  probably 
brought  orders  to  Sloat  and  certainly  gave  a  communication 
to  Larkin  from  Buchanan,1  instructing  him  as  to  his  duties 
as  confidential  agent  of  the  President  in  California.  After 
he  had  done  this,  Gillespie  pursued  Fremont  and  it  was 
after  their  meeting  that  Fremont  turned  back  from  the 
northward  journey.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Castro  em- 
bodied an  armed  expedition.  As  no  warlike  movement 
could  be  performed  in  California  without  horses,  he  sent  a 
party  across  the  Sacramento  River  to  secure  them  and  bring 
them  to  Monterey.  It  is  certain  that  what  Castro  had  in 
mind  was  a  conference,  more  or  less  preceded  by  warlike 
demonstrations  with  Governor  Pio  Pico  at  Los  Angeles  or 

1  The  despatch  of  October  17,  1845,  California "  (Publication  of  the  Academy 

is  printed  from  the  copy  sent  by  ship  of  Pacific  Coast  History,  i.   No.  5,  p. 

around  Cape  Horn  in  R.  W.  Kelsey's  100). 
"The     United     States     Consulate     in 


572 


THE    YEAR    1846 


[CH.  XVII 


somewhere  between  that  place  and  Monterey.  The  Amer- 
ican settlers  in  the  Sacramento  Valley  suspected  that  his 
design  was  to  drive  them  from  their  farms  and  prevent  the 
coming  in  of  any  more  immigrants  from  the  United  States.1 
They  had  some  ground  for  their  apprehension,  for  the 
Mexican  government  had  issued  stringent  orders  that  new 
settlers  should  not  be  allowed  to  come  in  and  that  those 
already  there  should  be  ejected.2  The  American  settlers 
had  no  legal  rights  to  the  lands  they  occupied,  and  the 
Graham  Affair  was  still  fresh  in  memory,  and  its  details  un- 
doubtedly lost  nothing  in  passing  from  man  to  man,  espe- 
cially in  this  time  of  excitement.  Some  of  the  settlers 
dashed  down  upon  Castro's  men  as  they  were  proceeding 
southward  (June  10,  1846).  They  took  the  horses  from 
them,  but  permitted  the  officer  and  his  men  to  proceed  to 
Monterey.3  Four  days  later  (June  14,  1846)  a  party  of 
American  settlers,  twenty-five  to  forty  in  number,  rode  into 
Sonoma  at  break  of  day,  captured  General  Vallejo,  his 
brother,  his  son-in-law,  who  was  an  American  named  Jacob 
Leese,  and  some  others  and  sent  them  under  a  guard  to 
Sutter's  Fort.  There  they  were  strictly  confined.  The  rest 
of  the  party  retained  possession  of  the  Californian  village. 


1  As  early  as  February  15,  1846, 
Dr.  Marsh  wrote  to  Larkin  that  the 
rumors  of  mighty  events  had  induced 
him  to  leave  his  farm.  "It  appears 
that  the  present  year  will  bring  great 
changes  over  the  face  of  California." 

J  On  December  2,  1845,  the  Min- 
ister of  Exterior  Relations  at  Mexico 
City  wrote  to  the  Governor  of  the 
Department  of  California  that,  al- 
though "strangers"  had  established 
themselves  on  the  Sacramento  River, 
he  hoped  the  Governor  would  "re- 
double his  precautions  to  avoid  the 
introduction  of  those  strangers."  The 
Monterey  Californian  of  August  29, 
1846,  has  a  long  account  of  the  Baar 
Flag  War  which  is  useful  as  giving  the 


local  knowledge  of  that  time.  Re- 
ferring to  the  affair  of  the  preceding 
June  it  asserts  that  "An  Indian" 
stated  that  two  hundred  or  three 
hundred  armed  men  on  horseback 
were  advancing  up  the  Sacramento 
Valley  to  attack  Fremont.  There- 
upon the  Americans  rushed  from 
every  direction  to  assist  him.  Fur- 
thermore, it  was  believed  that  Castro 
intended  to  build  a  fort  near  the  Bear 
River  Pass  "for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting the  ingress  of  the  expected 
emigration  from  the  United  States." 

'"New  Helvetia  Diary,  June  10, 
1846,"  and  the  Monterey  Californian, 
August  29,  1846. 


1846]  THE   "BEAR  FLAG"  573 

One  of  them  —  William  B.  Ide  —  indited  a  proclamation 
somewhat  after  the  Mexican  manner  declaring  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  American  settlements.  As  a  sign  of  their  new 
status  they  painted  a  bear  and  a  star  on  a  piece  of  white 
cotton  cloth  and  hoisted  this  "Bear  Flag"  on  a  staff  in  the 
plaza  at  Sonoma.1  Following,  there  were  some  small  engage- 
ments with  Californians  from  the  southern  side  of  San 
Francisco  Bay,  but  the  Americans  remained  in  control  of 
Sonoma  and  of  their  prisoners.  Exactly  what  the  settlers 
had  in  mind  when  they  rode  into  Sonoma  is  unknown, 
possibly  nothing  more  than  to  secure  hostages  against  the 
vengeance  of  the  Californians  for  the  attack  of  June  10. 
Nor  is  it  known  exactly  how  far  Fremont  himself  was  impli- 
cated. It  seems  certain  that  he  was  consulted,  and  when  the 
Americans  were  endangered,  he  undoubtedly  took  their  part. 
At  the  moment  it  would  appear  that  Fre'mont  was  intending 
to  return  to  the  United  States  and  that  the  events  of  June 
and  those  of  July  diverted  him  from  this  purpose.  It  has 
been  supposed  that  Fremont  was  acting  under  orders  from 
President  Polk  or  Senator  Benton,  and  again  that  he  set  on 
foot  the  Bear  Flag  revolt  to  revenge  himself  of  Castro's 
insult.  It  may  well  be,  however,  that  he  was  really  what  he 
seemed  to  be,  an  officer  of  the  American  engineers  in  charge 
of  an  exploring  party  who  had  proceeded  somewhat  beyond 
his  legitimate  sphere  of  action  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
supplies  and  information  in  a  friendly  country ;  that  his 
turning  back  from  his  northward  march  was  due  to  the 

1  The  Monterey  Californian  for  Sep-  by  rumors  and  suspicions  excited  by  the 

tember   5,    1846.     The   Sonoma   affair  actions   of   the   Spanyards."     And   see 

was  prompted  by  a  desire  to  put  an  also    William    B.    Ide's    "Bear    Flag 

end    to    "the    oppression    which    they  War, "p.  18,  in  the  Bancroft  Library, 

[the  American  settlers]  had  felt  weigh-  An    excellent   reminiscent   pioneer   ac- 

ing  heavily  upon  them  —  they  wanted  count  of   these   transactions  is  in  the 

equal    rights    and    equal    laws."     Wil-  History    of   San    Mateo    County,    CoW- 

Ham    Baldridge,    writing    years    later,  fornia  (San  Francisco,  1883) . 
states  that  the  settlers  were  "aroused 


574  THE   YEAR   1846  iCn.  XVII 


difficulties  of  the  route,  including  the  hostilities  of  the 
Indians,  and  that  his  final  determination  to  remain  in 
California  was  governed  by  what  seemed  to  be  the  critical 
condition  of  his  fellow  countrymen  at  the  moment.1  The 
later  unfortunate  career  of  Fremont,  his  financial  vagaries, 
the  mystery  which  has  enshrouded  his  doings,  and  the  ex- 
traordinary claims  that  were  put  forward  in  his  behalf  have 
angered  historical  writers  and  induced  them  to  attribute  to 
him  qualities  which  he  did  not  possess  and  to  deny  to  him 
qualities  that  he  certainly  had.  Whatever  his  looseness  as 
to  law  and  money  may  have  been,  he  carried  through 
exceedingly  difficult  operations  and  bore  his  responsibility 
with  a  courage  that  deserves  commendation.  Moreover, 
he  won  the  good  opinion  of  large  numbers  of  his  fellow 
countrymen  who  sent  him  to  Congress  as  one  of  the  first 
Senators  from  California  and  put  him  forward  as  candidate 
of  the  Republican  Party  for  the  presidency  in  1856. 

Commodore  John  D.  Sloat,  commander  of  the  American 
naval  force  on  the  Pacific  coast,  was  a  veteran  of  the  War  of 
1812.  He  was  in  poor  health,  and  was  hampered  by  some- 
what contradictory  instructions.2  One  set  directed  him  to 
seize  Californian  ports  when  Mexico  should  have  declared 
war  ;  but  he  should  be  careful  otherwise  not  to  do  anything 
that  could  be  construed  as  an  act  of  aggression.  A  later 
set  directed  him  to  carry  out  these  instructions  "in  the 
event  of  actual  hostilities."  On  May  17,  1846,  he  heard  of 
the  disaster  to  the  Thornton  party,  and  on  the  last  day  of 
the  month  of  the  battles  of  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  de  la 

'From   a  letter    from  Gillespie    to  Cong.,    2nd    Seas.,    pp.    74-111,    and 

Larkin,    dated    June    7,    1846    ("Lar-  ibid.,    No.    60,    30th   Cong.,    1st   Sees., 

kin  Mss."  in  the  Bancroft  Library)  it  pp.     230-271.     Edwin     A.     Sherman's 

appears  that  at  that  moment  Fremont  Life    of   the    Late    Pear-  Admiral    John 

intended     to     return    to     the     United  Drake     Sloat     (Oakland,     Cal.,     1902) 

States  as  soon  as  he  could.  has     much     interesting     information, 

*  The  important  papers  are  printed  largely  of  a  pro-Sloat  character. 
in     House    Document,     No.     19,     29th 


1846]  SEIZURE   OP  MONTEREY  575 

Palma.  Probably  regarding  these  as  border  affairs  and 
not  as  "actual  hostilities"  or  proof  of  a  Mexican  declaration 
of  war,  he  held  fast  to  his  moorings  at  Mazatlan.  On  June 
7,  he  learned  that  Conner  was  actually  blockading  Vera 
Cruz.  The  next  day,  he  weighed  anchor  and  sailed  for 
Monterey,  which  he  reached  on  July  2.  There  he  and  Larkin 
had  long  and  intimate  discussions.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  latter  had  been  appointed  confidential  agent  of  the 
President  in  California  and  that  he  was  in  possession  of 
instructions  which  ordered  him  to  conciliate  the  Cali- 
f ornians  and  to  "  arouse  in  their  bosoms  that  love  of  liberty 
and  independence  so  natural  to  the  American  Continent." 
He  was  not  to  awaken  the  jealousy  of  the  English  and  French 
agents  and  was  to  act  in  harmony  with  Lieutenant  Gillespie. 
One  can  well  understand  the  feelings  of  Commodore  Sloat 
when  conferring  with  Larkin,  who  had  every  confidence  that 
the  Californians,  if  left  to  themselves,  would  declare  their 
independence  from  Mexico  and  presumably  join  the  United 
States.  California  was  a  large  country,  Sloat  had  a  small 
force  at  his  disposal,  and  the  example  of  Ap  Catesby  Jones 
was  before  his  eyes.  After  five  days'  consideration,  on  July 
7,  in  the  morning  he  sent  a  party  on  shore,  hoisted  the 
American  flag,  and  proclaimed  possession  of  California  for 
the  United  States.  It  has  been  supposed  that  Sloat  acted 
in  consequence  of  receiving  information  as  to  Fremont's 
doings.  This  may  have  been  so,  but  he  certainly  had  no 
official  statement  at  the  time  he  sent  his  men  on  shore.1 
On  July  16,  Seymour  in  the  British  ship  Collingwood  and 
with  other  vessels,  greatly  outnumbering  the  American  force, 
anchored  at  Monterey.  He  viewed  Sloat's  proceedings  with 

1  The  actual  facts  are  set  forth  at  History,  i,  pp.  78-80.     See  also  Edwin 

length   in   the   text   and   foot-notes   of  A.    Sherman's    Life    of  .  .  .  Rear-Ad- 

R.  W.  Kelsey's  article  in  the  Publica-  miral  John  Drake  Sloat. 
tions  of  the  Academy  of  Pacific  Coast 


576  THE  YEAR   1846  [Cn.  XVII 

great  calmness.1  Indeed,  the  American  occupation  seems 
to  have  aroused  no  comment  on  the  flagship  and  after  a 
week's  visit  there  Seymour  sailed  away. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Commodore  Stockton,  in  the 
frigate  Congress,  arrived  from  the  United  States  after  a 
leisurely  voyage  around  Cape  Horn.  He  had  been  directed 
to  take  over  the  command  from  Sloat,  who  had  asked  to  be 
relieved.  For  a  time  after  Stockton's  arrival,  Sloat  seems 
to  have  hesitated  about  striking  his  flag,  but  by  the  end 
of  the  month,  Stockton  was  in  command.  The  appearance 
of  a  regular  American  force  and  the  taking  possession  of 
Monterey  had  ended  the  Bear  Flag  Republic.  Fremont 
gathered  together  some  of  the  frontiersmen  and  with  them 
and  some  of  his  own  men  rode  south  to  Monterey  and  offered 
his  services  to  Stockton.  The  other  ports  and  Los  Angeles 
were  occupied  without  trouble,  and  there  the  matter  should 
have  rested.  Unfortunately,  however,  what  with  Stockton's 
bombast  and  Gillespie's  arbitrary  action  at  Los  Angeles, 
the  Californians  became  discontented  and  took  up  arms.2 
Gillespie  was  forced  out  of  the  town  and  other  places  were 
also  occupied  by  the  "rebels."  It  was  difficult  to  deal 
with  them  because  Los  Angeles  being  twenty-three  miles 
from  the  sea  could  not  be  easily  attacked  by  a  naval  force. 
In  the  emergency,  Stockton  did  what  he  could.  He  landed 
seamen  at  San  Diego  and  marched  with  them  for  the  town, 
hauling  a  few  guns  by  hand.  Meantime,  General  Kearny 
of  the  United  States  army  had  seized  Santa  Fe"  (August  18, 

1  Clements  R.  Markham,  President  oner  in  the  hands  of  the  Californians, 

of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  Larkin  said  that  Captain  Gillespie 

was  then  a  midshipman  on  Seymour's  "punished,  fined,  and  imprisoned  who 

flagship.  His  diary  kept  at  the  time  and  when  he  pleased  without  any 

shows  no  sign  of  excitement  on  the  hearing."  He  thought  that  had  any 

Collingwood  when  she  anchored  at  "proper  or  prudent  person"  been  in 

Monterey  with  the  American  flag  command  at  Los  Angeles  "all  this 

floating  over  the  town.  "Ms."  in  the  disturbance  would  not  have  happened." 

Bancroft  Library.  "Larkin  Mss."  under  date  of  December 

*  Writing  to  his  wife,  while  a  pris-  14,  1846. 


1846]  THE  CONQUEST  COMPLETED  577 

1846)  and  ridden  westward  with  several  hundred  mounted 
men.     Unfortunately  he  was  met  (October  6,  1846)  on  the 
way  by  a  messenger  bearing  the  news  of  the  complete  suc- 
cess of  the  Americans  in  California,  which  was  true  at  the 
time   the   dispatch  was   written.     Kearny,  therefore,   sent 
back  the  greater  part  of  his  troopers  and  with  only  a  hundred 
and  fifty  or  so  rode  on  toward  San  Diego.     About  thirty- 
nine  miles  from  that  place  he  came  upon  a  body  of  armed 
Californians  in  battle  array.     A  conflict  ensued  in  which 
Kearny's  men  lost  severely,  but  they  maintained  their  posi- 
tion.    This  gave  Stockton  opportunity  to  enter  Los  Angeles, 
and  liberal  terms  being  given  to  the  Californians  they  de- 
sisted from  their  enterprise  and  the  conquest  was  completed. 
The  history  of  California  in  the  next  few  years  is  a  dis- 
tressing  tale   of   American   ineptitude.     Besides   Kearny's 
small  force,  the  Mormon  Battalion,  painfully  reduced  in 
numbers,  reached  the  coast,  a  regiment  recruited  in  New 
York  came  around  Cape  Horn,  and  a  ship-load  of  artillery 
and  munitions  with  some  artillerymen  arrived  by  the  same 
route.1    After  the  summer  of   1847,   the  troubles   of  the 
Americans  were  not  of  a  military  kind,  but  were  of  a  political 
and   personal   nature.     Kearny   brought   with  him   orders 
constituting  him  commander-in-chief  and  military  governor. 
Stockton  had  already  given  Fremont  the  title  of  major 
and  some  kind  of  political  commission.     Fremont  refused  to 
obey  Kearny's  orders  and  Stockton  and  Kearny  did  not  get 
on  well   together.     This   conflict  of   authority   was   ended 
by   the   appearance  of  Colonel  Riley  with  orders  to  assume 
military  control  and  the  departure  of  Stockton,  Kearny,  and 
Fremont  overland  for  Washington.2 

1  It  is  noticeable  that  the  orders  2  Fremont's  conduct  was  inquired 
for  these  preparations  for  war  in  Cali-  into  by  a  court,  and  he  resigned  from 
fornia  had  been  issued  in  June,  1846,  the  service  in  consequence  of  its  find- 
within  a  few  weeks  of  the  declaration  ing,  and  Senator  Benton  stopped 
of  war  by  Congress.  visiting  the  White  House,  because 
VOL.  V.  —  2? 


578  THE   YEAR   1846  [Cn.  XVII 

The  troubles  of  the  Americans  and  the  Californians, 
all  of  whom  after  1846  seem  to  have  been  anxious  to  do  the 
best  they  could  for  their  country  —  and  for  themselves  — 
were  owing  mainly  to  the  inability  of  Americans  to  compre- 
hend Californian  institutions  and  susceptibilities  and  to  an 
equal  lack  of  knowledge  of  American  institutions  and  modes 
of  procedure  on  the  part  of  the  Californians.1  The  con- 
querors naturally  wished  to  gain  lands  and  herds,  but  Mexi- 
can titles  were  very  indistinct,  so  that  when  a  man  had 
paid  good  money  for  an  estate,  he  found  it  very  difficult  to 
discover  what  lands  he  had  really  bought.  The  leading 
Spanish  official  in  the  old  days  had  been  the  alcalde,  for 
governor  and  general  had  been  hardly  more  than  high- 
sounding  appellations.  Stockton  appointed  his  chaplain, 
Walter  Colton,  alcalde  of  Monterey,2  and  later  when  affairs 
had  settled  down  somewhat  an  election  was  held  and  Colton 
was  chosen  to  that  office  by  the  combined  votes  of  Cali- 
fornians and  Americans.  He  has  left  an  exceedingly  in- 
teresting account  of  the  difficulties  and  satisfactions  of  his 
office.  He  had,  as  chief  magistrate,  to  look  after  both  civil 

Polk  did  not  intervene.     All  the  docu-  de  Alcaldes   y  Juecea  de  Paz   (Mexico 

ments  and  evidence  are  given  in  Senate  City,  1845). 

Documents,    No.    33,    30th    Cong.,    1st  In   the  earliest  days  naval   officers 

Sess.     The  Kearny  side  of  the  contro-  were    obliged    to    administer    justice, 

versy  is  succinctly  set  forth  by  Valen-  In  the  archives  of  the  county  clerk  at 

tine  M.  Porter  in  the  Annual  Publica-  Santa   Rosa,    there   is   an   illuminating 

tions     of     the     Historical     Society     of  entry.     The  case  was  one  of  larceny, 

Southern  California,  viii.  and  the  court  ordered  "that  there  be 

1  Miss     Mary    F.    Williams    in    the  inflicted    without    delay    fifteen    lashes 

"Introduction"  to  her  Vigilance  Com-  by    hard    switches''    on    the    culprit's 

mittee,   writes  that  "the  American  al-  bare    back.     "The   foregoing    sentence 

caldes    inherited    not    only    the    tradi-  is    approved    and    Lieut.    Sears    is    di- 

tional     institutions     of     the     Spanish  rected  to  have  it  carried  into  execu- 

colonial  system,  but  also  the  confusion  tion    forthwith.     J.    W.     Revere,    Lt. 

and    abuses    resulting    from    years    of  U.  S.  Navy  commanding  at  Sonoma." 

turmoil    in    Mexico    and    the    Depart-  This    was    communicated    to    me    by 

ment  of  California."  Mr.    Coy  of   the   California   Historical 

!  Walter    Colton's    Three    Years    in  Survey.     It  was  not  until   December, 

California.     The   duties   of   an   alcalde  1848,  that  local  and  territorial  govern- 

are  set  forth  in   Juan  W.   Barquera's  ments  were   organized   on   the  Ameri- 

A  Los  Sefiores  Alcaldes   (Mexico  City,  can  system. 
1826)  and  in  Luis  de  Ezeta's  Manual 


1847]  AFTER  THE  CONQUEST  579 

and  criminal  affairs,  arrange  the  marital  disputes  of  husband 
and  wife,  and  arbitrate  land  difficulties  of  neighboring  ranch- 
men —  for  his  jurisdiction  extended  for  some  miles  inland. 
Unfortunately  not  all  the  alcaldes  were  as  forceful  and  wise 
as  Colton,  and  as  Americans  became  more  numerous,  a 
reversion  to  methods  more  closely  appealing  to  American 
ideas  was  necessary.  Colton,  himself,  established  jury 
trial,  having  an  equal  number  of  Americans  and  Calif ornians 
on  the  jury.  But  any  such  expedients  were  necessarily 
nothing  more  than  palliatives.  Immediately  after  the 
American  occupation,  San  Francisco,  which  at  the  time 
comprised  only  a  few  stores  and  houses,  rose  into  importance 
as  the  best  place  of  distribution  of  goods  from  sea-going 
vessels  to  the  American  settlements  around  the  bay  and  on 
the  rivers  leading  into  it.  There  the  difficulties  of  adminis- 
tration were  most  keenly  felt.  Affairs  were  in  some  such 
train  as  this  when  J.  W.  Marshall  picked  up  some  bits  of  gold 
in  the  mill-race  of  the  saw-mill  that  he  was  constructing  at 
Coloma  about  thirty  miles  from  the  fort  of  Colonel  Sutter, 
his  employer. 

General  Stephen  W.  Kearny's  ride  from  Independence, 
Missouri,  to  Monterey,  California,  is  one  of  the  half-dozen 
most  extraordinary  episodes  of  the  Mexican  War.  At  the 
outset,  the  government  had  recognized  the  necessity  of 
securing  the  southern  overland  route  to  California,  and  that 
meant  the  conquest  of  New  Mexico  and  possibly  of  Chihua- 
hua, the  next  Mexican  state  to  the  southward.  Kearny 
was  detailed  for  this  service  with  some  three  hundred 
dragoons,  a  Missouri  volunteer  regiment,  and  other  troops 
including  the  Mormon  Battalion.  He  acted  with  astonishing 
vigor,  and  the  people  of  the  trans-Mississippi  settlements 
seconded  him  most  remarkably.  He  set  out  from  Inde- 
pendence, a  few  miles  from  the  modern  Kansas  City  in 


580  THE    YEAR    1846  [Cn.  XVII 

Missouri,  and  proceeded  along  the  Santa  F6  trail.  After  a 
painful  beginning,  the  foot  soldiers  acquired  powers  of 
marching  superior  to  those  of  the  horsemen  and,  indeed, 
led  the  advance.  Going  for  hundreds  of  miles  through  an 
uninhabited  country  and  across  large  waterless  spaces,  it 
was  necessary  to  carry  provisions  and  sometimes  water 
in  a  transport  train.  Everything  was  admirably  managed 
and  the  command  gained  the  vicinity  of  Santa  Fe  after  great 
hardships,  but  without  opposition.  The  people  at  that  place 
had  long  been  engaged  in  more  or  less  illicit  traffic  with  the 
Americans  from  St.  Louis,  and  they  also  had  been  as  thor- 
oughly misgoverned  by  the  representatives  of  Mexican 
politicians  as  any  people  in  that  Republic.  The  governor 
issued  proclamations  and  informed  his  superiors  at  Mexico 
City  that  he  was  making  every  preparation  for  a  glorious 
defence ;  but  when  Kearny  actually  arrived  within  com- 
municating distance,  he  departed  secretly  for  the  South. 
The  people  welcomed  the  conquerors,  who  in  turn,  it  must  be 
said,  in  some  cases  behaved  very  badly.  Later. in  the  year, 
Colonel  Doniphan,  with  a  body  of  exceedingly  irregular 
but  hardy  pioneers,  left  Santa  F6.  On  one  of  the  last  days 
of  December,  1846,  Doniphan  and  his  men  entered  El  Paso, 
practically  without  resistance.  After  a  respite,  they  again 
took  up  the  march  and  rode  southward  over  mountains  and 
across  deserts  to  the  city  of  Chihuahua.  As  they  approached 
that  place,  they  met  sterner  resistance,  but  their  movements 
were  so  rapid  and  so  unusual  that  the  defenders  fled  into 
the  town  and  for  the  most  part  surrendered  at  discretion, 
March  1,  1847.  Before  long  it  appeared  that  the  military 
and  territorial  importance  of  Chihuahua  had  been  mis- 
judged. Doniphan,  therefore,  again  took  up  the  line  of 
march  and  after  more  hardships  and  perils,  joined  Taylor's 
forces  at  Saltillo  in  the  following  May.  Probably,  no  better 


1846]  KEARNY  AND  DONIPHAN  581 

example  of  the  evil  effects  of  the  combination  of  a  soft  climate 
and  continuing  misgovernment  can  be  found  in  our  annals 
than  the  slight  resistance  offered  to  Kearny  and  Doniphan. 
The  narrative  left  General  Taylor  with  his  small  but  effec- 
tive fighting  force  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande  after  the 
successful  encounters  at  Palo  Alto  and  the  Resaca  in  May, 
1846.  He  occupied  Matamoros  on  the  Mexican  side  of  the 
Rio  Grande  without  much  trouble,  and  then  month  after 
month  through  the  summer  remained  practically  stationary. 
Taylor  had  a  totally  inadequate  force  to  hold  any  large 
extent  of  country  and  at  the  same  time  encounter  hostile 
armies  in  the  field.  He  asked  for  more  soldiers  and  was 
given  volunteers  commanded  by  politicians.  President 
Polk  seems  to  have  thought  that  it  was  only  necessary  to 
clothe  a  man  more  or  less  completely  in  uniform,  give  him  a 
musket,  and  he  would  do  the  rest.  Polk  even  said  on  one 
occasion  that  officers  were  not  necessary.  It  may  be  that 
had  the  soldiers  gone  forward,  they  would  have  found  the 
Mexicans  in  quite  as  moblike  condition  as  themselves  and 
have  settled  the  matter  in  a  few  months.  As  it  was,  what 
with  the  summer  heats,  lack  of  transportation  and  supplies, 
this  was  impossible ;  the  forces  of  nature  as  well  as  man 
had  to  be  reckoned  with.  Moreover,  Taylor  had  the  prej- 
udices of  a  trained  soldier.  Few  men  have  shown  more 
courage  than  he,  but  he  hesitated  to  advance  into  a  very 
difficult  country,  poorly  supplied  with  food,  and  often  over- 
supplied  with  water,  without  having  provisions  and  muni- 
tions with  him  or  a  line  of  communication  with  stores  of 
food  and  supplies  of  all  kinds.  At  length,  having  received 
some  of  the  essentials  of  warfare,  Taylor  advanced  up  the 
river  and  then  to  Monterey  on  the  edge  of  the  Sierra  Madre 
mountains  in  the  Mexican  State  of  Nuevo  Leon.  Mon- 
terey was  naturally  a  good  military  position ;  it  had  been 


582  THE    YEAR    1846  [Cn.  XVII 

fortified  by  the  Mexicans  and  was  strongly  garrisoned. 
Taylor  had  with  him  very  little  siege  apparatus  and  his 
troops  had  not  acquired  that  military  cohesion  that  comes 
only  with  long  drilling  or  arduous  campaigning.  He 
attacked  the  town  from  two  opposite  sides  at  once.  The 
courage  shown  by  the  American  soldiers  was  admirable  and 
the  skill  and  tenacity  of  their  officers  remarkable,  but  there 
was  lack  of  correlation  between  the  two  attacks,  and  be- 
tween the  units  of  each  attacking  force.  It  would  seem  that 
such  misadventures  are  almost  inevitable  in  the  beginning 
of  campaigns,  and  we  must  always  remember  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  days  before  telegraph,  telephone,  wireless, 
and  air-craft,  when  the  horseback  rider  was  almost  the 
sole  instrument  of  communication  between  parts  of  armies 
in  the  field.  As  it  was  the  Americans  penetrated  into  the 
town  and  placed  it  in  so  great  jeopardy  that  the  Mexican 
commander  asked  for  a  truce.1  After  some  parleying,  it  was 
arranged  that  the  Mexicans  should  retire  without  giving 
their  paroles  and  that  hostilities  should  be  suspended  for 
eight  weeks  or  until  the  instructions  of  the  respective 
governments  could  be  received.  It  was  a  long  way  from 
Monterey  to  Washington  and  no  orders  for  a  resumption  of 
hostilities  could  be  received  until  Taylor  got  his  men  into 
fighting  trim  again.  The  President  was  indignant  at  Tay- 
lor's weakness  and  directed  him  to  put  an  end  to  the  armis- 
tice and  renew  hostilities.  Now,  opinion  seems  to  be  that 
Taylor  was  amply  justified  by  the  condition  of  his  troops  and 
of  his  supplies  in  giving  the  terms  that  he  did. 

Meantime,  General  John  E.  Wool,  another  veteran  officer 


1  The   Monterey   campaign   is  quite  teer  (chs.  iv-x).     General  O.  O.  Howard 

fully  treated  in  The  Life  and  Letters  of  in  his  General  Taylor  (chs.  xi-xiv)  gives 

George     Gordon     Meade     (New     York,  an  excellent  account  of  this  part  of  the 

1913),   i,    105-150,    and    in    John    R.  campaign. 
Kenly's  Memoirs  of  a  Maryland  Volun- 


1846]  TAYLOR'S  CAMPAIGN  583 

of  the  regular  army,  but  not  a  Whig,  had  been  put  in  com- 
mand of  volunteer  regiments  assembling  at  San  Antonio  in 
the  central  part  of  the  settled  region  of  Texas.  From  there 
he  was  to  advance  to  Chihuahua,  apparently  either  to  co- 
operate with  Doniphan  or  to  rescue  him.  Wool  found  his 
task  rather  confusing,  but  in  time  he  crossed  the  Rio  Grande 
and  advanced  to  Monclova,  reaching  that  place  on  October 
29, 1846.  While  there  he  received  orders  to  join  Taylor,  and 
by  the  end  of  November  he  was  within  reach  of  the  main 
army.  In  the  interval,  Tampico,  an  important  seaport  about 
midway  between  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  Vera  Cruz, 
had  been  occupied  by  American  naval  forces.  At  the  end 
of  1846,  soldiers  and  sailors  of  the  United  States  were  in  pos- 
session of  the  most  important  places  in  northern  Mexico 
from  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico ;  but 
the  recognition  of  American  possession  of  this  vast  region 
or  of  any  part  of  it  by  the  government  of  the  Mexican  Re- 
public seemed  to  be  as  far  off  as  it  ever  had  been. 


584  THE   YEAR   1846 

NOTES 

I.  California  Bibliography.  —  In  the  Bancroft  Library  at  Berkeley, 
California,  there  is  a  mass  of  material  on  the  early  history  of  that 
State,  but  the  matter  relating  to  the  American  occupation  is  dis- 
appointing. The  manuscripts  of  Thomas  O.  Larkin,  comprising  his 
account-books,  and  letter-books,  are  interesting.  Most  of  the  other 
material  consists  of  reminiscences  of  pioneers  written  thirty  years 
and  more  after  the  event.  The  volumes  on  the  history  of  California 
in  the  "  Bancroft  History  of  the  Pacific  States  "  appear  to  have  been 
written  by  Henry  L.  Oak,1  Mr.  Bancroft's  first  assistant,  and  to  have 
been  printed  substantially  as  written  by  him.  The  quotations  in 
these  volumes  are  very  accurate,  so  far  as  they  have  been  compared 
with  the  original  manuscripts ;  but  Mr.  Oak,  while  painstaking  and 
diligent,  did  not  differentiate  between  matter  written  at  the  time  and 
the  recollections  of  old  men.  It  is  impossible  to  disentangle  them  in 
the  notes  or  bibliographies  of  his  volumes.  Furthermore,  as  he  was 
required  to  turn  out  ten  pages  of  completed  manuscript  per  diem, 
there  was  much  haste  and  imperfect  correlation.  Otherwise,  these 
volumes  stand  as  a  monument  to  their  author. 

Josiah  Royce's  California  in  the  "  American  Commonwealth " 
series  is  devoted  mainly  to  the  period  of  the  conquest.  Professor 
Royce  was  born  in  California  and  grew  up  there.  While  proceeding 
with  his  work,  he  became  intensely  interested  in  the  Fremont  episode 
and  spent  much  time  and  thought  in  trying  to  unravel  it.  He  had 
access  to  the  papers  in  the  Bancroft  Collection  so  far  as  they  were 
then  arranged,  and  Mr.  Oak,  who  was  then  engaged  in  the  writing  of 
the  volumes,  gave  him  much  assistance.  There  is  no  better  state- 
ment of  the  case  against  Fremont  than  Royce's  volume.  T.  H. 
Hittell's  History  of  California  in  four  volumes  presents  all  the  im- 
portant facts,  so  far  as  they  were  known  in  1885 ;  but  the  book  is 
sparsely  supplied  with  citations.  The  nineteenth  volume  (new 
series)  of  The  Century  Magazine  contains  a  remarkable  series  of 
articles  on  California.  Among  them  may  be  mentioned  Guadalupe 
Vallejo's  "  Ranch  and  Mission  Days  in  Alta  California,"  John  Bid- 
well's  "  First  Emigrant  Train,"  and  Josiah  Royce's  "  Montgomery 
and  Fremont."  2 

'See    Henry    L.     Oak's     "Literary  2  J.    M.    Cutts's    Conquest    of   Cali- 

Industries"     in    a    New    Light     (San      fornia  and  New  Mexico  (Philadelphia, 
Francisco,  1893,  pp.  42,  81).  1847)    contains   a   good   contemporary 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  585 

The  bibliography  of  California  and  the  Northwest  Coast  is  ex- 
tensive, as  may  be  gathered  by  looking  over  the  list  of  books  prefixed 
to  the  volumes  in  the  "  Bancroft  History."  In  1914,  R.  E.  Cowan 
published  A  Bibliography  of  the  History  of  California  and  the  Pacific 
West,  1510-1906.  This  includes  "  about  1000  titles."  A  list  that 
will  satisfy  most  students  is  in  "  Appendix  5  "  to  Kelsey's  article  in 
the  Publications  of  the  Academy  of  Pacific  Coast  History,  i. 

Most  of  the  important  documents  relating  to  the  Mexican  War  in 
its  widest  aspect  were  printed  in  House  Document,  No.  60,  30th  Cong., 
1st  Sess.,  and  in  House  Document,  No.  17,  31st  Cong.,  1st  Sess.  Other 
material  may  be  found  by  consulting  the  index  to  the  Executive 
Documents  of  this  session  that  is  printed  therewith.  Citations  to  other 
official  volumes  are  given  in  the  preceding  foot-notes  of  this  chapter. 
A  great  deal  of  information  can  be  gathered  from  the  pages  of  evi- 
dence taken  in  the  innumerable  lawsuits  over  lands  that  occupied  the 
California  courts  for  many  years,  —  as  those  connected  with  the 
names  of  Jose  Y.  Limantour,  the  New  Almaden  Mine,  and  the  opinions 
of  Judge  Hoffman  in  the  Larkin  cases. 

n.  The  Kearny-Doniphan  Expeditions.  —  These  have  attracted 
great  attention,  partly  by  reason  of  their  intrinsic  importance,  but 
more  especially,  perhaps,  because  of  the  adventures  and  the  hard- 
ships encountered.  Probably  the  best  account  of  the  march  from 
Missouri  to  San  Diego  is  W.  H.  Emory's  Notes  of  a  Military 
Reconnaissance.1  Most  of  the  documents  are  printed  in  connection 
with  the  President's  Message  of  December  22,  1846  ( House  Document, 
No.  19, 29th Con.,  2nd  Sess.,  pp.  1-73,  and  in  ibid.,No.  60, 30th Cong., 
1st  Sess.,  pp.  149-229).  R.  S.  Elliott  participated  in  the  Chihuahua 
end  of  the  campaign  and  wrote  most  entertainingly  of  it  in  his  Notes 
taken  in  Sixty  Years,  pp.  217-255.  Other  accounts  by  participants 
were  written  by  John  T.  Hughes  of  the  First  Missouri  Cavalry2 

account,  abundantly  documented.    What  1848.     The  first  two  are  almost  iden- 

/    Saw    in    California  .  .  .  by    Edwin  tical,    but    the    second    of    them    con- 

Bryant,   late   Alcalde  of    St.   Francisco  tains  some  supplementary  reports. 

(New     York,     1848,     chs.     xxiii-xxxi)  *  Doniphan's    Expedition;     contain- 

contains    an    excellent    and    generally  ing  An  Account  of  the  Conquest  of  New 

contemporaneous  account  of  the  con-  Mexico.     This    was    first    printed    in 

quest.  1847  at  Cincinnati  and  was  reprinted 

1  This      exists      in      three      forms :  with  a  map  at  the  same  place  in  1848, 

Senate  Document,   No.   7,  30th  Cong.,  and  it  forms  the  basis  of  W.  E.  Con- 

1st    Sess. ;     Executive    Document,    No.  nelley's    Doniphan's    Expedition    (To- 

41,    30th    Cong.,    1st    Sess.;     and    re-  peka,  Kansas,  1907). 
published  for  the  trade  by  Harpers  in 


586 


THE   YEAR   1846 


and  by  F.  S.  Edwards,  "  A  Volunteer."  *  The  former  has  some  re- 
markable pictures  that  have  been  reproduced  again  and  again  and 
the  latter  is  provided  with  a  really  usable  map.  R.  E.  Twitchell 
sets  out  at  length  the  facts  concerning  the  first  part  of  the  expedition 
in  his  History  of  the  Military  Occupation  of  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico 
(Denver,  1909). 

D.  Tyler's  Concise  History  of  the  Mormon  Battalion  and  B.  H. 
Robert's  Mormon  Battalion,  Its  .  .  .  Achievements  (Salt  Lake  City, 
1919)  bring  together  the  leading  incidents  of  this  famous  march. 
The  "  Report  of  Lieut.  Col.  P.  St.  George  Cooke  (Commander  of  the 
Battalion)  of  his  March  from  Santa  Fe",  New  Mexico,  to  San  Diego, 
Upper  California  "  is  sometimes  printed  in  connection  with  Emory's 
Notes.  In  April,  1907,  the  Tempe  Normal  Student,  published  at 
Tempe,  Arizona,  printed  the  "  Journal  "  kept  by  Captain  Henry 
Standage  of  the  Battalion  during  the  march.  This  gives  an  excellent 
idea  of  the  hardships  and  achievements  of  this  part  of  the  expedition. 
For  other  books  on  the  Kearny-Doniphan  expeditions,  see  the  list 
prefixed  to  H.  H.  Bancroft's  Arizona  and  New  Mexico. 

1  A  Campaign  in  New  Mexico  with  Colonel  Doniphan  (Philadelphia,  1847). 


THE  CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO   CITY 

BY  October,  1846,  the  occupation  of  California,  the 
seizure  of  Santa  F6,  and  the  armistice  following  the  capture 
of  Monterey  were  all  known  at  Washington.  The  question 
at  once  arose  as  to  the  future.  All  clearly  available  territory 
for  American  colonization  was  occupied,  but  the  Mexicans 
would  not  recognize  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation  and 
confirm  these  territories  and  Texas  to  the  United  States. 
More  coercion  was  clearly  necessary  to  "conquer  a  peace," 
and  the  sole  question  was  how  that  coercion  could  best 
be  applied.  Taylor  suggested  that  the  capture  of  Mexico 
City  would  be  necessary  and  that  this  could  be  best  accom- 
plished by  the  way  of  Vera  Cruz.  The  road  south  from 
Saltillo  through  San  Luis  Potosi  was  long  and  for  the 
first  part  of  the  way  devoid  of  supplies ;  for  long  distances 
it  lacked  even  water.  Moreover,  so  extended  a  line  of  com- 
munication would  mean  the  utilization  of  large  numbers  of 
soldiers  for  guard  post  duties.  This  line  might  be  shortened 
by  using  Tampico  as  a  base;  but  there  were  several  good 
objections  to  that  route  also.  Before  Taylor's  letter  reached 
Washington,  Winfield  Scott,  the  commanding  general  of 
the  army,  drew  up  a  memorial  as  to  the  future  operations 
and  presented  it  to  Marcy,  the  Secretary  of  War.  Scott 
thought  that  Vera  Cruz  should  be  occupied.  Probably  that 
would  bring  the  Mexicans  to  terms,  as  it  would  mean  the 
practical  isolation  of  the  Republic.  If  the  Mexicans  did 

587 


588  THE   CAMPAIGN  FOR  MEXICO  CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

not  submit,  then  an  advance  on  Mexico  City  should  at  once 
be  undertaken.  Although  Taylor  gained  the  presidency, 
Scott  was  really  the  outstanding  figure  of  the  war.1  In  the 
War  of  1812,  while  still  under  thirty,  he  had  won  renown  at 
Lundy's  Lane  and  Chippewa.  He  and  Taylor  were  both 
Virginians  by  birth,  but  there  all  resemblance  between  them 
ceases,  except  that  both  were  good  soldiers  and  both  were 
Whigs.  Scott  was  a  man  of  education  and  was  a  master 
figure  wherever  he  happened  to  be.  He  was  widely  read  in 
military  lore  and  had  travelled  extensively.  He  had  lived 
long  in  Washington  and  distrusted  politicians  of  the  Demo- 
cratic faith.  In  the  dearth  of  Democratic  generals,  Polk 
had  naturally  turned  to  the  commanding  officer  of  the  army. 
When  the  two  came  together,  the  President  estimated  Scott 
as  a  man  of  scientific  mind,  rather  than  a  practical  soldier. 
In  1846,  Scott  wrote  three  letters  that  worked  injury  to  him 
for  the  rest  of  his  life.  In  one  of  them  he  informed  a 
Senator  that  he  would  make  no  suggestions  as  to  officers,  for 
they  were  certain  to  be  disregarded  by  the  administration. 
The  second  letter  was  directed  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  In 
it  he  declared  that  unless  he  could  have  the  cordial  support 
of  the  administration  he  would  prefer  to  have  the  command 
given  to  some  one  else,  as  "  a  fire  upon  my  rear  from  Washing- 
ton," of  all  things,  was  the  most  perilous.  Marcy  carried 
the  letters  to  the  President,  who  promptly  withdrew  his  offer 
of  active  employment.2  The  news  of  this  rebuff  came  to 
Scott  as  he  was  taking  "  a  hasty  plate  of  soup,"  to  use  his  own 
words.  The  publication  of  these  phrases  caught  the  people's 
eye.  Scott  behaved  very  well  under  the  provocation,  keeping 
his  mouth  shut  and  his  pen  still.  In  the  autumn,  the  Whigs 

1  Scott  wrote  his  Memoirs  in  1863.  pilations.     The    best   life   of   Scott   is 

The  book  was  published  at  New  York  that    by    Marcus    J.    Wright    in    the 

in  1864  (2  vols.)  and  at  once  achieved  Great  Commanders  series, 

popularity.     It  is  interesting,  but  has  *  Folk's  Diary,  i,  413, 420,  and  Smith's 

all    the    defects   of   reminiscent   com-  War  with  Mexico,  i,  199,  477. 


1846]  GENERAL  WINFIELD  SCOTT  589 

began  to  talk  of  nominating  Taylor  for  the  presidency. 
This,  with  Folk's  dislike  of  the  armistice  after  Monterey, 
turned  the  attention  of  the  administration  back  to  Scott, 
and  the  thought  of  changing  the  commanding  general  in 
the  field  was  further  strengthened  by  some  plain  writing  by 
Taylor  as  to  the  insufficiency  of  the  means  given  him  to  do 
the  work  he  was  ordered  to  do.  The  President  sent  for 
Scott  and  there  was  an  affecting  scene  in  the  course  of  which 
the  General  wept/ —  according  to  Polk.  In  November, 
1846,  Scott  presented  two  memoranda  as  to  the  disposal  of 
troops  and  a  plan  of  operations  for  the  coming  year  that 
gave  the  needed  impulse  to  the  administration. 

Meantime  the  President  had  an  interesting  conversation 
with  Senator  Benton  of  Missouri,  who  suggested  that  the 
Vera  Cruz-Mexico  City  campaign  would  be  decisive  of  the 
war.  Senator  Benton  stated  that  he  would  like  to  be  placed 
in  command  of  all  the  armies  in  the  field.  Polk  offered  to 
appoint  him  a  major  general ; l  but,  as  this  would  make  him 
inferior  to  Scott  and  Taylor,  a  plan  was  hit,  upon  to  resurrect 
the  grade  of  lieutenant-general.  The  President  could  then 
appoint  Benton  to  this  place  and  thus  give  him  command 
over  Scott  and  Taylor.  Congress  rejected  this  scheme ;  but 
when  Scott  in  Mexico  learned  of  it,  his  indignation  knew  few 
bounds,  and  he  must  have  recurred  to  his  statement  as  to 
the  dangers  of  a  "fire"  in  the  rear.  .Scott's  position  and  the 
President's  and  that  of  the  Secretary  of  War  were  all  natural 
enough.  We  were  a  peace-loving  people  with  an  ingrained 
dislike  of  regular  soldiers  and  an  utter  ignorance  of  what  war 
properly  conducted  really  meant.  Scott  asked  for  more  than 
twenty  thousand  men,  abundant  supplies  of  food  and  muni- 
tions, and  also  for  things  essential  to  getting  an  army  on 

1  Polk'a  Diary,  ii,  221  and  fol.,  using  index,  and  Smith's  War  with  Mexico,  ii,  75, 
364. 


590  THE   CAMPAIGN  FOR  MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

shore  in  front  of  Vera  Cruz.  These  numbers  could  not  be 
supplied  except  by  raising  new  regiments  and  stripping 
Taylor  of  his  best  soldiers.  There  seems  to  have  been  no 
objection  on  the  part  of  the  government  to  taking  men  away 
from  Taylor.  When  that  general  found  himself  actually 
second  in  command  in  the  field  and  relegated  to  a  distinctly 
subordinate  position,  he  felt  aggrieved  and  stated  his  griev- 
ances to  Scott, 1  who  answered  him  most  kindly,  but  insisted 
on  having  the  men.  There  was  nothing  approaching  a 
general  staff  in  those  days,  and  the  burden  placed  upon  the 
commissaries  and  quartermasters  at  Washington  was  too 
great  for  them.  There  was  also  a  good  deal  of  ignorance 
on  the  part  of  many  officers,  who  should  have  known  better, 
as  to  the  necessities  of  the  case,  and  as  to  the  best  method 
of  going  to  work.  When  Scott  finally  set  out  from  the 
capital,  he  was  given  instructions  which  practically  placed 
all  responsibility  upon  him.2  Recognizing  the  great  danger 
from  disease  at  yellow  fever-cursed  Vera  Cruz,  Scott  was 
anxious  to  begin  his  campaign  in  time  to  capture  that  city 
and  gain  the  high  lands  of  the  interior  before  "yellow  Jack" 
made  his  annual  appearance.  Delays  and  insubordinations 
on  the  part  of  political  officers  who  felt  sure  of  support  at 
Washington  tried  Scott  severely,  but  he  proceeded  with  a 
courage  and  vigor  that  have  seldom  been  equalled  and  almost 
never  surpassed.  Instead  of  the  twenty  thousand  men  that 
he  desired,  he  never  had  more  than  ten  thousand  effectives 
at  any  one  time  during  the  campaign.  Moreover,  he  was 
forced  for  months  to  live  off  the  country  and  to  fight  battles 
in  great  measure  with  ammunition  captured  from  the  enemy. 

1  Letters   of   Zachary    Taylor    (Bixby  criticism  of  this  attitude  is  contained 
Collection),  p.  87-97.  in  The  Evolution  of  Myth  as  Exempli- 

2  The  soldiers'   dislike   of  Polk  and  fied    in    General    Grant's    History  .  .  . 
Marcy  comes  out  in  Grant's  Personal  by  Senex  (Washington,  1890). 
Memoirs,    i,    119-122.        A    trenchant 


1847]  VERA  CRUZ  591 

Vera  Cruz  is  protected  from  the  Gulf  by  a  series  of  coral 
reefs.  Upon  these  the  Spaniards  had  constructed  a  castle  — 
San  Juan  de  Ultia  • —  which  had  been  strengthened  from  time 
to  time  and  very  greatly  improved  since  the  French  attack 
in  1838.  The  naval  men  thought  it  was  out  of  the  question 
to  capture  it  from  the  sea  ;  the  alternative  was  to  land  on  the 
beach,  seize  Vera  Cruz,  itself,  and  assail  the  castle  on  the 
harbor  side.  On  March  9,  1847,  the  disembarkation  took 
place  on  the  beach'  to  the  southward  of  the  city.  Not  a 
Mexican  was  in  sight  and  the  men  once  ashore  marched  over 
the  sand  hills,  through  the  semi-tropical  undergrowth  of  the 
low  places,  and  in  an  almost  incredibly  short  time  had  en- 
circled the  town.  Storms,  rain,  and  insects  interfered  with 
the  work,  but  heavy  guns  were  landed,  batteries  were 
erected,  and  fire  opened  upon  the  city.  Eighteen  days 
from  the  time  that  the  first  man  leaped  out  of  the  first  boat 
that  touched  the  beach,  Vera  Cruz  surrendered  and  with  it 
the  castle,  March  27,  1847.1 

The  feeble  defence  of  Vera  Cruz  by  the  Mexicans  and  the 
lack  of  any  serious  attempt  to  relieve  the  pressure  upon  the 
city  by  an  attack  from  the  interior  was  not  what  Scott  had 
expected  and  is  not  entirely  easy  to  understand.  Santa 
Anna,  after  his  return  from  Havana  —  by  the  grace  of 
President  Polk  —  had  at  first  found  himself  in  a  difficult 
position.  With  his  unexampled  optimism,  political  audacity, 
and  great  organizing  ability,  he  had  speedily  regained  his 
position  and  was  now  again  the  first  man  in  Mexico.  Realiz- 
ing fully  the  character  of  the  coming  blow,  Santa  Anna  had 

1  The  American  loss  in  this  opera-  An    Artillery    Officer    in    the    Mexican 

tion    was    less    than    100    killed    and  War  (New  York,   1911; ;    and  in   The 

wounded.     The    Mexican   loss   was   so  Mexican  War  Diary  of  George  B-  Mc- 

indefinite  that  the  only  thing  to  do  is  Clellan,    53-73.     The    account    of    the 

to  refer  to  Smith's  Mexico,  ii,  26-33,  341.  work  of  the  naval   battery  in  W.   E. 

Interesting  accounts  of  this  part  of  the  Griffis's   Matthew   Calbraith  Perry,   ch. 

campaign    are   in    Robert    Anderson's  xxiii,  is  graphic  and  authentic. 


592  THE   CAMPAIGN  FOR  MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

two  or  three  modes  of  resistance.  He  might  retire  to  the 
Mexican  plateau  and  fight  the  foe  at  the  mountain  passes; 
he  might  defend  Vera  Cruz  so  stubbornly  that  its  capture 
would  be  very  costly,  if  not  impossible ;  or  he  might  attack 
and  destroy  isolated  American  forces  in  the  north.  Any 
one  of  these  courses  or  a  combination  of  them  was  open  to 
him.  What  he  did  was  to  levy  a  strong  army,  as  armies 
went  in  those  days,  practically  abandon  Vera  Cruz,  and 
march  to  the  north.  Santa  Anna  holds  a  low  place  in  the 
writings  of  American  historians,  but  this  would  seem  to  be 
somewhat  undeserved.  Stable  political  administration  was 
impossible  in  the  Mexico  of  that  day,  and  he  treated  Texan 
rebels  precisely  as  he  would  have  treated  rebels  of  his  own 
race.  As  to  the  disaster  at  San  Jacinto,  even  a  Mexican 
president  and  general  is  obliged  to  leave  something  to  his 
subordinates,  and  neither  Texan  nor  Mexican  would  have 
been  justified  in  counting  upon  the  sudden  and  violent 
return  to  the  offensive  on  the  part  of  Sam  Houston  and  the 
men  with  him.  Santa  Anna  had  a  few  good  officers  and 
he  had  a  few  good  soldiers,  but  the  great  mass  of  the  human 
material  that  he  had  to  work  with  was  helplessly  inefficient 
and  hopelessly  corrupt.  Making  what  preparations  he 
could,  he  advanced  at  the  head  of  a  large  body  of  troops  to 
San  Luis  Potosi.  There  he  was  about  midway  between 
Taylor  at  Saltillo  and  Vera  Cruz,  where  Scott  might  be 
expected  at  some  time  in  the  future.  It  is  perfectly  possible 
that  Santa  Anna,  having  given  all  the  orders  he  could  and 
all  the  money  that  he  could  for  the  defence  of  Vera  Cruz, 
intended  to  himself  march  with  his  men  to  the  relief  of  that 
place  whenever  it  should  be  strongly  attacked.  Of  course, 
a  general  should  anticipate  every  possible  movement  on  the 
part  of  the  enemy,  and  Santa  Anna  should  have  realized 
that  Scott  would  waste  no  time  in  fruitless  and  costly  assaults 


1847]  SANTA  ANNA  593 

on  San  Juan  de  Uliia ;  but  every  one  before  him  had  done 
exactly  that  thing.  In  reality,  whatever  were  Santa  Anna's 
plans,  his  hands  were  forced  by  an  attack  upon  him  by  his 
political  enemies  which  practically  compelled  him  to  put  an 
end  to  preparings  at  San  Luis  and  strike  the  enemy.  The 
only  enemy  that  could  be  struck  at  that  moment  was 
Taylor ;  and  so  with  fifteen  or  sixteen  thousand  men  Santa 
Anna  took  the  northward  road  from  San  Luis  Potosi  for 
Buena  Vista,  Saltillo,  and  Monterey. 

The  expectation  at  Washington  had  been  that  Taylor 
would  withdraw  from  his  advanced  positions  and  retire  to 
Monterey.  Instead,  he  held  on  at  Saltillo,  and  kept  his 
main  forces  to  the  southward  of  that  place  even  as  far  as  the 
northward  edge  of  a  waterless  tract,  at  Agua  Nueva. l 
There  seems  to  have  been  great  remissness  in  reconnoitering 
and  guarding  posts  and  camps.  The  Mexicans  captured 
two  parties  of  Americans  and  almost  seized  a  supply  depot 
before  it  could  be  destroyed.  Taylor  and  his  generals  and 
his  soldiers  appear  to  have  thought  the  Mexicans'  power 
for  the  offensive  had  been  destroyed  and  that  whatever 
bodies  of  men  might  be  reported  from  various  directions  were 
predatory  bands.  At  length  it  became  certain  that  there 
was  a  strong  force  of  the  enemy  advancing  from  the  south. 
Taylor  at  the  moment  was  at  Saltillo,  and  General  Wool 
posted  the  soldiers  to  good  advantage  where  one  defender 
equalled  three  or  four  assailants  owing  to  the  narrowness  of 
any  possible  front  of  attack.  The  scene  of  combat  was 
peculiar.2  It  was  in  a  valley  about  two  miles  wide  at  the 

1  The    documents   relating   to    Tay-  article   on   Buena   Vista   in   Papers   of 
lor's    1847    campaign    are    printed    in  the    Military    Historical    Society,    xiii, 
House  Document,  No.  60,  30th  Cong.,  543-558.     Francis   Baylies's    Narrative 
1st     Sess.,     pp.      1092-1215,     and    in  of  Major  General  Wool's  Campaign  in 
Senate  Document,   No.    1,   30th  Cong.,  Mexico   (Albany,   1851)   is  an  interest- 
1st  Sess.,  pp.  97  and  fol.  ing    contemporaneous    account   of    the 

2  Smith's  War  with  Mexico,  i,  ch.  xx.  Monclova  campaign  and  the  battle  of 
General  W.  B.  Franklin  has  a  succinct  Buena  Vista.      The  account  of  Buena 

VOL.  V.  —  2Q 


594  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO  CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

ranch  of  Buena  Vista.  The  road  followed  the  bottom  of  the 
valley  beside  a  small  stream.  At  right  angles  to  this  little 
valley  and  the  road  were  ten  or  a  dozen  ravines  on  one  side 
and  a  series  of  gullies  on  the  other.  The  only  practicable 
way  up  and  down  the  valley  for  horses  and  cannon  was  by  the 
road  or  by  the  foot  hills  at  the  head  of  the  ravines  and 
gullies.  Wool  placed  a  battery  at  the  narrowest  point 
between  the  ravines  and  gullies,  at  a  place  called  La  Angos- 
tura. In  the  early  afternoon  of  February  22,  1847,  the 
Mexicans,  having  made  a  forced  march  almost  without  food 
and  water,  attacked  along  the  road  and  were  at  once  brought 
to  a  stop  by  cannon  fire.  The  remainder  of  that  day  and  all 
of  the  next,  they  essayed  to  turn  one  flank  or  the  other  of  the 
American  army  by  moving  around  the  heads  of  the  ravines 
and  gullies.  They  succeeded  in  gaining  positions  on  the 
slopes  that  made  the  American  defence  very  doubtful.  It 
was  when  affairs  seemed  most  critical  that  Taylor,  taking  an 
advanced  position  on  his  white  horse,  sat  there  immovable, 
literally  turning  defeat  into  victory.  Regiments  that  had 
given  way  returned  to  the  battlefield  and  every  one  fought 
with  greater  vigor.  At  one  time  the  Mexicans  actually 
gained  the  rear  of  the  American  position,  but  the  peculiar 
disposal  of  ravines  and  flat  lands  enabled  the  American 
artillery  to  be  moved  from  one  place  to  another.  When  the 
sun  went  down,  the  line  had  been  restored.  That  night  was 
a  fearful  one  for  the  Americans.  They  had  little  food, 
no  shelter,  and  disaster  threatened  at  dawn.  The  sentries, 
as  they  paced  their  beats,  watched  the  Mexican  camp- 
fires.  When  the  sun  came  up  on  the  morning  of  the  24th, 

Vista    in    Gen.    S.    G.    French's    Two  Battle    of    Buena   Vista"    in    Old   and 

Wars:     an    Autobiography    (Nashville,  New  for  June  and  July,  1871,  also  ap- 

1901),  pp.  73-84,  was  apparently  written  pears  to  represent  something  more  than 

from  notes ;    it  certainly  is  clear  and  reminiscence.      Captain  T.  W.  Gibson's 

interesting.      "An     Engineer    Officer's  Letter  of   March   6,    1847,   dated  Agua 

Recollections     of     Mexico     and     the  Nueva,  is  graphic. 


impmimiimniiii iiiniiiiiiiiiiiiii """"" ! 


nmmnmmiimiiiiim MM 


Aqua  Nueva 


BATTLE  OP  BUENA  VISTA 
(Prom  Gibson's  Letter,  1847.    "  D.R."  shows  the  Mexican  flanking  movement.) 

595 


596  THE   CAMPAIGN  FOR  MEXICO  CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

astonished,  they  saw  the  backs  of  the  retiring  Mexican  rear 
guard.1  The  preceding  nightfall,  Santa  Anna  had  given 
the  order  for  retreat,  as  further  attacks  seemed  hopeless. 
Leaving  a  guard  to  keep  up  the  fires,  the  Mexican  army  had 
moved  away  and,  by  dawn,  the  advance  had  reached  Agua 
Nueva.  There  some  food  was  found.  After  a  day  or  two, 
the  retreat  was  taken  up  again.  Every  mile  of  the  way 
across  the  waterless  desert  to  San  Luis  Potosl,  the  men  fell 
out  by  the  tens  and  hundreds.  Of  the  fifteen  to  twenty 
thousand  men  that  Santa  Anna  had  with  him  before  he  set 
out  for  the  North,  he  was  able  to  place  in  the  campaign  for 
the  defence  of  the  capital  only  five  or  six  thousand.  Never- 
theless, having  captured  three  American  guns  and  a  stand- 
ard, he  announced  himself  the  victor  and  was  hailed  as  such 
by  his  countrymen. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  most  heartrending  lessons 
that  one  draws  from  a  study  of  the  Mexican  War  is  the  fierce 
and  mutual  distrust  of  regulars  and  volunteers  for  one 
another.2  This  is  a  good  place  to  examine  the  whole  ques- 
tion because  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista  was  won  by  volunteers, 
there  not  being  more  than  six  hundred  soldiers  of  the  regular 
army  on  the  field.  The  administration  at  Washington 

1  The  numbers  are  unusually  vague.  *  The  best  way  to  comprehend  this 

It  would  seem  that  Taylor  had  less  than  feeling    is    to    read    considerable    por- 

6000    troops    on    the    battle-field,    first  tions  in  the  diaries  and  memoirs  of  the 

and    last,    and    lost    673    killed    and  regular  and  volunteer  officers,  as  J.  R. 

wounded,    besides    1500    or    1800    who  Kenly's     Memoirs     of     a      Maryland 

"quit   the   field."     Smith's   Mexico,   i,  Volunteer;    J.   J.   Oswandel's  Notes  of 

374,  396,  and  561.  the   Mexican    War;     and   Luther   Gid- 

Of  Santa  Anna's   15,000  or    16,000  dings's    Sketches    of   the    Campaign    in 

men  who  left  San  Luis  Potosl  for  the  Northern    Mexico    of    the    volunteers: 

north,  it  is  unknown  how  many  reached  the  Diary  of  McClellan  and  Letters  of 

the    actual    battle-field.     Smith    (ibid.,  Meade,    George    A.     McCall's    Letters 

i,  397)  thinks  that  not  less  than  1800  from  the  Frontiers,  and  W.  S.  Henry's 

Mexicans    were    killed    and    wounded  Campaign    Sketches    of     the     regulars, 

at  the  battle  and  Santa  Anna  reported  To  these  may  well  be  added  Raphael 

more  than  4000  "had  left  him  during  Semmes's   Service    Afloat    and    Ashore 

the   battle";     and   probably    (ibid.,   i,  during  the  Mexican  War. 
399)   "not  less  than  3000  men"  were 
lost  on  the  road  back  to  San  Luis. 


1847]  REGULARS  AND  VOLUNTEERS  597 

seems  to  have  had  the  idea  that  the  only  thing  necessary  to 
be  done  was  to  raise  a  large  body  of  volunteers,  officers  and 
men,  and  send  them  to  the  front.1  The  diaries  of  many  of- 
ficers of  the  regular  army  who  later  gained  distinction  in  the 
War  for  Southern  Independence  contain  passage  after  pas- 
sage referring  to  the  lack  of  discipline  of  the  volunteers,  to 
their  ignorance  of  military  hygiene,  and  to  their  brutal  treat- 
ment of  the  Mexicans.  Scott,  himself,  stated  that  a  regiment 
of  regulars  within  an  hour  after  pitching  camp  would  be  well 
secured  and  in  order  for  any  night  attack,  and  at  their 
comfortable  supper,  "merry  as  crickets."  The  volunteers, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  eat  their  meat  raw,  lie  down  wet, 
and  leave  their  arms  and  ammunition  exposed  to  rain.  He 
declared  that  "the  want  of  the  touch  of  the  elbow  .  .  .  the 
want  of  the  sure  step  .  .  .  the  want  of  military  confidence 
in  each  other,  and,  above  all,  the  want  of  reciprocal  con- 
fidence between  officers  and  men"2  caused  frightful  losses 
in  battle.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  whatever,  that  the  per- 
sistent employment  of  volunteers  in  this  war  occasioned  far 
greater  loss  in  human  lives  and  cost  much  more  in  the  way 
of  money  spent  than  would  have  been  the  case  had  the  new 
regiments  received  a  few  months'  training  and  been  com- 
manded by  officers  of  the  regular  army,  assisted  by  such  of 

1  Col.  G.  T    M.  Davis  in  his  Auto-  H.    Claiborne's   John    A.    Quilman,    i, 

biography,  pp.  96  and  110,  relates  that  301-307. 

in  forwarding  the  commission  to  Gen-  *  Scott     to     Marcy,     January     16, 

eral    Shields,    as   Brigadier-General    of  1847 ;     printed   in    Smith's    War    with 

Volunteers,  Polk  accompanied  it  with  Mexico,  ii,  512. 

a  statement  that  the  appointment  was  An  idea  of  the  conditions  prevail- 

a  personal  act  and  that  their  official  ing  in  some  volunteer  regiments  can  be 

relations  would  be  of  "a  strictly  con-  gathered  from  the  evidence  printed  in 

fidential    nature."     It   may   be   added  House  Document,  No.  78,  30th  Cong., 

that    General    Gideon    J.    Pillow    had  1st  Sess.     The  student  will  also  go  to 

been  Polk's  law  partner  and  John  A.  Davis's     Autobiography,     to     Meade's 

Quitman  a  prominent  Mississippi  poli-  Letters    and    to   the  "Letters  of    Cap- 

tician.     None  of  the  three  had  seen  any  tain    E.    Kirby    Smith    to    his    Wife" 

military    service.     The    intriguing    of  published   under   the   title    To   Mexico 

these  generals  against  one  another  and  with  Scott.     The  first  half  of  the  last 

against    their    commander    was    most  book  relates  to  Taylor's  campaign, 
distressing.     See,    for    example,    J.    F. 


598  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR   MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

the  volunteers  as  showed  marked  ability  during  the  drilling 
period.  Thousands  of  soldiers  were  sent  to  Taylor  inade- 
quately supplied  with  the  impedimenta  of  war.  They  had 
no  stretchers  for  the  wounded  and  no  proper  equipment  of 
medical  supplies.1  On  one  occasion,  a  volunteer  officer 
deployed  his  men  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  them  directly 
under  the  enfilading  fire  of  the  enemy.  And  so  one  might 
go  on.  But  the  volunteers  won  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista 
and  contributed  most  materially  to  the  winning  that  of 
Cerro  Gordo.  Their  losses  from  disease  were  frightful,  and 
it  must  be  said  that  the  ill  conduct  of  some  of  them  toward 
the  native  Mexicans  changed  in  a  measure  the  character 
of  the  conflict,  especially  along  the  Rio  Grande. 

One  reason  why  the  Mexicans  did  not  fear  the  military 
power  of  the  United  States  was  the  fact  that  from  one- 
quarter  to  one-third  of  the  soldiers  of  the  regular  army  were 
aliens  —  Irishmen,  Englishmen,  Scotsmen,  and  Germans. 
A  similar  condition  of  affairs  prevailed  in  the  navy.2  The 
discipline  was  very  severe  and,  as  a  rule,  the  soldiers  had  no 
love  for  the  service.  They  enlisted  to  save  themselves  from 
starvation.  Under  these  circumstances,  desertion  was  by  no 
means  uncommon.  Indeed,  the  San  Patricio  battalion  in 
the  Mexican  service  was  composed  of  deserters  from  the 
American  forces.  Many  of  these  were  captured  at  Churu- 
busco  and  elsewhere  and  were  hanged  or  were  flogged  and 
branded.3  When  all  has  been  said  that  can  be  said  in  their 
dispraise,  it  remains  true  that  the  gallantry,  endurance,  and 

JOn     August     24,     1846,     General  the    Navy."     This    is    signed    "Harry 

Quitman    wrote    from    Camargo    that  Bluff,"  which  is  supposed  to  have  been 

"the  twelve-months  troops  are  armed  the  pen  name  of  Lieut.  M.  F.  Maury. 

with  refuse  muskets,   and  their  knap-  It   was    dated    "October,    1840."     See 

sacks,    canteens,    haversacks,    and   car-  also    S.    R.    Franklin's   Memories   of  a 

tridge-boxes     are    unfit    for    service."  Rear- Admiral,  chs.  i-viii. 
Claiborne's  Quitman,  i,  242.  *  See   Autobiography   of   Col.   G.   T. 

*  See  "Our  Navy,  Extracts  from  The  M.  Davis,  203,  205,  223-229. 
Lucky  Bag,  on  the  Reorganization  of 


1847)  FINANCES  599 

general  good  faith  of  the  American  volunteers  and  regulars 
in  these  campaigns  were  remarkable  and  worthy  of  remem- 
brance. 

The  employment  of  so  great  a  proportion  of  volunteers 
had  been  due  partly  to  the  supposition  that  they  were  much 
cheaper  than  the  regular  soldiers.  The  armies,  also,  had 
been  poorly  supplied  with  the  necessities  of  warfare  because 
money  was  not  plentiful  at  Washington.  Folk's  adminis- 
tration came  at  the  end  of  the  period  of  business  depressions 
that  followed  the  crash  of  1837.  The  Democrats  were 
pledged  to  restore  the  sub-treasury  system  and  to  replace 
the  protective  tariff  of  1842  with  a  purely  revenue  measure.1 
The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  Robert  J.  Walker,  a 
Northern  man  who  had  gone  to  Mississippi  and  had  fully 
identified  himself  with  the  pernicious  financial  system  that 
had  brought  that  State  to  repudiation.  Few  men  in 
America  at  that  time  had  any  idea  of  the  cost  of  warfare 
and  especially  of  conducting  campaigns  at  a  distance  from 
the  home  country.  Nevertheless,  the  Democrats  carried 
out  their  system  to  the  letter.  The  sub-treasury  was  restored 
and  with  it  the  refusal  of  the  government  to  accept  any- 
thing except  specie  in  payment  of  dues.  The  tariff  was 
changed  to  a  non-protective  basis  and  the  duties  were  all 
made  ad  valorem.  The  year  1846  saw  a  remarkable  suc- 
cession of  ups  and  downs  in  business  and  in  credit.  It 
happened,  however,  that  famine  in  Europe,  especially  in 
the  British  Islands,  created  a  demand  for  wheat  on  a  scale 
that  had  never  been  known  before,  and  that  was  the  real 
beginning  of  the  exportation  of  foodstuffs  in  great  quantities 
to  Europe.  In  return,  importations  from  Europe  increased 
and  with  them  the  duties  collected  at  New  York  and  other 

1  The  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  kinds  of  goods  were  imported  and 
Treasury  and  other  documents  setting  produced  were  printed  as  Senate  Doc- 
forth  the  conditions  under  which  all  ument.  No.  444,  29th  Cong.,  1st  Sess. 


600  THE   CAMPAIGN  FOR  MEXICO   CITY     [On.  XVIII 

important  centres  grew  and  the  foodstuffs  that  were  not  paid 
for  by  the  exportation  of  commodities  from  Europe  were  paid 
for  by  exportation  of  specie.  It  happened,  therefore,  at  the 
precise  moment  when  the  financial  task  of  the  administration 
should  have  been  exceedingly  difficult,  the  government  was 
able  to  borrow  money  at  six  per  cent  interest,  —  and  this 
at  the  very  time  when  the  money-lending  part  of  the  country 
was  lukewarm  towards  the  war.  As  to  the  cost  of  the  con- 
flict, that  seems  to  be  impossible  of  ascertainment,  but  the 
best  estimate  in  round  numbers  gives  it  at  one  hundred 
millions, , including  the  amount  paid  to  Mexico  as  the  price 
of  the  treaty.  Taking  everything  into  consideration,  this 
must  be  regarded  as  a  small  sum  to  pay  for  the  acquisition  of 
Texas,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  Utah,  and  California. 

Vera  Cruz  in  Scott's  power,  he  pushed  on  in  every  possible 
way  the  preparations  for  the  advance  to  the  interior.1  Santa 
Anna  had  arrived  from  Buena  Vista  and  taken  personal 
charge  of  the  defence  of  the  National  Road  leading  from 
Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico  City.  About  fifty-five  miles  from 
Vera  Cruz  the  road  suddenly  rises  into  the  mountains  at 
Cerro  Gordo,  the  name  of  a  height  that  dominated  the  pass. 
Ten  days  after  the  triumphant  entry  into  Vera  Cruz,  on 
the  twenty-ninth  of  March,  1847,  the  head  of  the  American 
army  marched  out  from  its  camps  and  took  its  way  into  the 
interior.  At  first  the  road  was  hardly  more  than  a  sandy 
track,  and  the  fatigue  was  great  for  the  troops  who,  up  to 
that  time,  had  had  very  little  marching  since  landing  almost 
a  month  before.  By  the  llth  of  April,  they  had  reached 
the  National  Bridge  and  on  the  13th  came  to  the  fortified 
Mexican  positions.  The  leading  regiments  necessarily 
waited  until  other  men  and  the  general-in-chief  came  up. 

1  The  correspondence  between  Scott  is  printed  in  House  Document.  No. 
and  the  War  Department  from  No-  60,  30th  Cong.,  1st  Seas.,  pp.  833- 
vember  19,  1846  to  February  9,  1848,  1WO.  1216-1277. 


1847] 


CERRO   GORDO 


601 


Scott  was  most  fortunate  in  having  with  him  on  his  staff 
as  officers  and  engineers,  Robert  E.  Lee,  P.  G.  T.  Beauregard, 
George  B.  McClellan,  George  G.  Meade,  Zealous  B.  Tower, 
and  Isaac  I.  Stevens.  No  danger  was  too  great  to  be  en- 
countered by  these  men,  and  sounder  advice  than  they  gave 
to  their  commander  has  seldom  been  given  by  staff  officers 
to  their  chief.  Reconnoitering,  Lee  discovered  that  a  rough 
way,  available  for  artillery,  could  be  made  through  the 


ROUTB  FROM  VBRA  CBUZ  TO  MEXICO  CITY 

woods  to  a  point  on  the  road  in  the  rear  of  Cerro  Gordo. 
Scott's  plan  was  at  once  formed :  to  send  a  strong  force  by 
this  road  when  constructed  and  to  menace  the  main  posi- 
tion in  front.  Unfortunately  lack  of  obedience  and  lack  of 
professional  knowledge  on  the  part  of  his  division  com- 
manders prevented  the  carrying  out  of  the  scheme  in  the 
precise  mode  that  had  been  devised.  The  commanding 
officer  on  the  right,  seeing  a  good  opportunity  to  attack 
before  he  reached  the  road,  made  it  possible  for  a  large  part 
of  the  Mexicans  to  escape  and  entailed  some  loss  of  life. 
On  the  left,  lack  of  military  knowledge  precipitated  the 


602  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

assault  at  that  point,  also  with  unnecessary  loss.  Other- 
wise the  movement  succeeded  beyond  all  reasonable  antici- 
pation. The  Mexicans  abandoned  their  positions,  leaving 
their  guns  behind  them,  and  fled  in  confusion,  April  18, 
1847,  —  Santa  Anna  himself  on  a  mule,  sliding  down  into  a 
ravine.1  After  the  battle,  forgetting  all  jealousies  and  fore- 
going all  recriminations,  Scott  and  his  army  proceeded  to 
Jalapa,  the  first  large  town  in  the  interior,  and  then  marched 
on  by  the  castle  or  prison  of  Perote  to  the  large  city  of 
Puebla,  which  was  reached  on  May  15,  almost  exactly  a 
month  after  Cerro  Gordo. 

At  Puebla  a  new  crisis  confronted  Scott.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  delays  and  disappointments,  he  had  carried  through 
triumphantly  the  first  part  of  his  task ;  he  had  captured 
Vera  Cruz,  had  outrun  the  yellow  fever,  and  was  estab- 
lished in  the  second  city  of  Mexico.  There,  however, 
he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  only  ten  thousand  troops, 
one-half  the  size  of  the  force  he  had  asked  for.  None  of 
the  new  volunteers  had  come  forward  and  many  of  the  old 
volunteer  regiments  had  enlisted  for  short  terms  that  would 
be  completed  within  a  month  or  two.  His  supplies  were 
entirely  inadequate,  his  soldiers  were  badly  clothed,  and 
money  was  lacking.  Moreover,  the  roads  from  Puebla 
to  Vera  Cruz  ran  through  a  country  peculiarly  favorable 
to  guerilla  warfare,  and  Scott's  whole  force  might  easily 
have  been  employed  in  guarding  his  communications  with 
the  coast.  Finally,  the  exposure  to  a  new  climate  and  un- 
accustomed food  and  drink  had  brought  about  a  great  deal 
of  sickness.  A  thousand  of  his  men  were  in  the  hospitals 
or  were  unable  to  do  duty.  The  government  had  expected 
that  many  of  the  volunteers  would  reenlist,  but  this  they 

1  Smith  (Mexico,  ii,  44,  50,  58,  59,  total  loss  at.  from  1000  to  1200.  He 
347)  gives  the  total  Mexican  force  at  gives  Scott's  force  at  8500  and  hia 
from  10,000  to  15,000  men  and  the  loss  at  64  killed  and  353  wounded. 


1847]  AT  PUEBLA  003 

did  not  do  to  any  extent.  Scott,  feeling  that  it  would  be 
very  unfair  to  send  them  to  Vera  Cruz  in  the  sickly  season, 
decided  to  start  them  for  the  coast  at  once,  while  they  still 
had  four  or  six  weeks  to  serve.  The  government  had  ex- 
pected him  to  seize  food  and  other  supplies,  but  Scott,  think- 
ing that  it  would  be  a  great  deal  wiser  to  act  with  abundant 
fairness  to  the  Mexican  people,  had  paid  for  whatever  he 
took.  He  now  obtained  money  by  cashing  drafts  on  the 
United  States  through  British  firms  doing  business  in  Mexico. 
Calling  up  the  garrisons  he  had  left  on  the  road  and  severing 
his  communications  with  Vera  Cruz,  he  was  able  to  gather 
a  force  of  10,738  men,  rank  and  file.  Leaving  the  sick 
and  convalescents  at  Puebla  with  a  guard  of  four  hundred 
sound  men  all  under  Colonel  Childs,  Scott  set  out  for  Mexico 
City  and  the  final  conquest  of  seven  millions  of  people. 
Some  reinforcements  were  on  the  way ;  2000  of  them  had 
already  arrived  at  Vera  Cruz  and  others  were  on  shipboard 
between  that  port  and  New  Orleans.  The  time  of  the 
arrival  of  these  troops  at  the  front  in  the  heart  of  the  Mexican 
Republic,  and  whether  they  would  ever  arrive,  being  vol- 
unteers fresh  from  civil  life  led  by  political  officers,  was 
questionable.  It  turned  out  to  be  even  more  questionable 
than  Scott  could  have  foreseen.  Nevertheless,  he  set  out 
and  passed  the  mountainous  rim  of  the  Mexican  plateau  in 
safety  with  Popocatepetl  rising  18,000  feet  above  the  sea 
on  the  left,  and  the  beautiful  lakes  of  the  Mexican  Valley 
in  front.  Not  an  attempt  was  made  to  stop  him  in 
the  rocky  defiles  throusrh  which  the  army  necessarily 
passed. 

In  the  face  of  impending  danger,  Santa  Anna  had  once 
again  found  himself  in  his  element.  He  issued  appeals 
to  the  people  to  come  forward  for  the  defence  of  their  city ; 
he  compelled  the  clergy  —  who  seem  to  have  been  quite  un- 


604  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

willing  to  unite  with  him  —  to  preach  resistance.  With 
care  and  a  good  deal  of  skill,  he  fortified  Penon  Mountain 
on  the  main  road  leading  toward  the  city.  Scott  reached 
Ayotla  in  the  Valley  on  August  11  and  investigated  the 
task  before  him.  The  engineers  reported  that  Penon  could 
be  successfully  attacked  only  with  great  loss  of  life ;  but  a 
road  led  round  the  southern  side  of  Chalco  Lake  and  ap- 
proached the  city  from  the  south  instead  of  from  the  east. 
Taking  that  route,  Scott  found  his  advance  stopped  by 
fortifications  thrown  across  the  road  at  San  Antonio.1 
These  extended  from  Lake  Chalco  to  a  large  field  of  lava,  a 
pedregal  as  the  Mexicans  called  it.  On  the  other  side  of 
this,  another  road  led  to  Churubusco  where  the  road  by  San 
Antonio  joined  it.  The  indefatigable  engineers  again 
exercised  their  abilities.  They  discovered  a  way  through 
the  lava  bed  to  the  road  in  the  rear  of  Contreras,  where  a 
strong  Mexican  force  had  gathered  to  stop  any  advance  on 
that  side  of  the  pedregal.  By  the  time  that  a  few  Americans 
had  struggled  through  the  lava  to  the  high  ground,  Santa 
Anna  with  a  strong  body  of  men  appeared  on  the  other 
side  of  a  ravine,  for  he  had  come  to  the  succor  of  the  threat- 
ened post.  Night  was  falling  and  he  with  his  men  re- 
turned to  a  neighboring  village  for  shelter.  More  Ameri- 
cans joined  the  advance  and  they  spent  a  miserable  night 
in  the  cold  and  wet,  —  without  fires.  At  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  without  an  alarm,  they  made  their  way 
through  a  rough  ravine  led  by  an  engineer  and,  as  day  broke, 
advanced  to  the  attack  while  the  main  body  assailed  the 
position  in  front.  The  Mexicans,  those  of  them  who  could 
not  get  away,  surrendered,  and  with  their  guns  were  found 
two  of  the  three  that  Taylor  had  lost  at  Buena  Vista. 

1  General  George  H.  Gordon  has  a       tary   Historical   Society   of   Massachu- 
very  good  article  on  this  part  of  the       setts,  xiii,  No.  xiv. 
campaign  in  Proceedings  of  the   Mili- 


1847]  IN  THE  MEXICAN  VALLEY  605 

Without  careful  reconnoitring,  Scott  sent  his  men  down 
the  Churubusco  road,  and  the  San  Antonio  line  also  being 
abandoned  the  main  body  passed  on  there.  The  defences 
of  Churubusco  were  far  stronger  than  any  one  had  antici- 
pated. Another  encircling  march  cleared  it  of  the 
enemy.  The  night  of  August  20  found  the  way  open  to 
Chapultepec  and  the  Gates  of  Mexico  City  at  the  cost  of 
one  thousand  killed  and  wounded  since  leaving  Puebla.1 
Santa  Anna  asked  for  an  armistice  and  Scott  granted  the 
request.2 

Meanwhile,  at  Washington  the  administration  had  been 
filled  with  a  desire  for  peace.  Politically,  the  situation  was 
very  serious  in  the  United  States,  for  the  war  was  unpopular 
in  the  North  and  was  likely  to  be  more  unpopular  as  taxes 
grew  and  demands  for  men  became  more  insistent.  There  is 
always  danger  in  war,  and  Polk  had  slight  confidence  in 
Scott  or  Taylor.  Besides,  if  either  one  of  them  covered 
himself  with  glory,  he  would  be  a  formidable  Whig  candidate 
for  the  presidency  in  1848.  The  United  States  had  been 
the  traditional  friend  of  Mexico,  and  having  secured  all  the 
territory  that  the  administration  wished  to  have,  it  was  time 
to  make  peace.  Undoubtedly,  there  were  leaders  in  Mexico, 
Santa  Anna  himself  among  them,  who  would  gladly  have  made 
peace  with  the  United  States  and  resumed  faction  fighting 
among  themselves.  But  after  describing  his  defeats  as 

1  Besides  the  authorities  cited  by  be  that  both  these  remarkable  men. 

Smith  (War  with  Mexico,  ii,  377)  one  conscious  of  the  seriousness  of  the 

can  get  a  lifelike  glimpse  of  this  part  problem  they  had  to  face  and  of 

of  the  campaign  in  a  letter  from  Silas  the  imperfection  of  the  weapon  that 

Casey  to  Dr.  L.  Goodale  dated  "St.  was  in  their  hands  to  solve  it,  may 

Angels  .  .  .  Aug.  24,  1847"  and  have  taken  a  more  serious  view  of  the 

printed  in  Correspondence  of  the  Late  matter  and  a  more  accurate  one  than  the 

James  Kilbourne,  86.  administration  and  the  historians. 

z  Taylor  and  Scott,  both  notable  Probably  it  was  the  ineptitude  of  the 

soldiers,  entered  into  armistices  with  Mexicans  for  war  that  made  the  solu- 

the  enemy.  These  were  generally  con-  tion  less  difficult  than  any  soldier  would 

demned  by  politicians  at  that  time  have  been  justified  iu  thinking  that 

and  by  historians  since.  It  may  well  it  would  be. 


506  THE    CAMPAIGN   FOR   MEXICO   CITY      [Ca.  XVIII 

victories,  it  was  difficult  for  Santa  Anna  to  place  himself 
openly  at  the  head  of  any  such  movement  and,  indeed,  he 
was  more  fitted  to  stir  up  strife  than  to  allay  it.  It  was 
rumored  also  that  he  had  come  to  some  kind  of  an  agreement 
with  the  United  States.  Besides  those  Mexicans  who  did 
not  want  to  make  peace  for  what  might  be  called  patriotic 
motives,  there  were  a  great  many  who  desired  the  war  to 
continue  because  they  were  better  off  as  they  were  than 
when  ruling  themselves.  Both  Taylor  and  Scott  and  the 
soldiers  under  them  —  with  of  course  some  exceptions  — 
had  treated  the  Mexicans  in  the  occupied  towns  better 
than  any  army  had  ever  treated  them  before.  Not  realiz- 
ing all  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  negotiation,  Polk  deter- 
mined to  send  a  diplomatic  agent,  with  the  provisions  of  a 
treaty  in  his  portfolio,  to  accompany  Scott  on  his  march  and 
take  advantage  of  any  opening  for  a  negotiation  that  might 
occur.  The  person  picked  out  for  this  extremely  delicate 
and  difficult  task  was  the  Chief  Clerk  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment, Nicholas  P.  Trist  by  name.  He  was  selected  because 
he  could  be  easily  disavowed  or  recalled,  as  the  Secretary 
of  State  or  a  minister  plenipotentiary  could  not  be.  Trist 
was  a  Virginian  by  birth,  the  grandson-in-law  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  and  for  a  short  time  had  been  private  secretary 
to  President  Jackson  —  facts  which  he  could  never  forget. 
He  had  been  long  a  minor  office  holder,  and  as  consul  at 
Havana  had  been  implicated  in  some  doubtful  proceedings.1 
Trist  had  an  idea  of  his  own  importance  which  oftentimes 
goes  with  contact  in  a  small  way  with  great  men  and  trans- 
actions.2 

In  April,  1847,  Buchanan  provided  Trist  with  elaborate 

1  See  House  Report,  No.  707,  26th  is  written  from  the  point  of  view  of 

Cong.,  1st  Sess.  Folk's  diary.  It  may  advanta- 

1  J.S.  Reeves's  article  on  "The  Treaty  geousiy  be  read  with  the  accounts  in 

of  Guadalupe-Hidalgo "  in  the  Ameri-  Smith's  War  wiih  Mexico,  uaing  index 

can  Historical  Review,  x,  309-324  under  "Trist." 


1847]  NEGOTIATIONS  607 

and  well-devised  instructions  telling  him  exactly  what  he 
was  to  do  —  what  terms  he  was  to  offer  to  the  Mexicans 
and  how  much  money  he  could  offer  them.  It  was  un- 
doubtedly supposed  at  Washington  that  he  would  act  in 
harmony  with  Scott,  who  at  the  moment  was  advancing 
to  the  battle  of  Cerro  Gordo.  Arrived  at  Vera  Cruz,  Trist 
sent  to  Scott  despatches,  which  he  asked  him  to  place  in 
the  hands  of  the  Mexican  commander;  and  Scott  read  in 
Marcy's  explanatory  letter  to  him  that  Trist  was  authorized 
to  enter  into  arrangements  for  the  suspension  of  hostilities. 
He  at  once  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  his  prerogative  as 
commander  in  the  field  had  been  infringed.  He  refused  to 
forward  the  papers,  and  he  and  Trist,  both  of  them  inordi- 
nate letter  writers,  engaged  in  a  voluminous  and  acrid  corre- 
spondence.1 The  Chief  Clerk  landed  at  Vera  Cruz,  May  6, 
1847.  He  at  once  became  ill  and  it  was  some  time  before 
he  was  able  to  get  to  Puebla.  When  he  reached  that  city, 
Scott,  who  possessed  the  instincts  of  a  true  gentleman, 
personally  looked  after  Trist's  quarters  and  subsistence. 
This  appealed  to  the  latter,  and  in  a  very  short  time  from 
being  hostile  to  one  another  the  two  Virginians  became 
fast  friends,  a  condition  of  affairs  that  pleased  Polk  less 
than  did  the  other.  At  this  time  the  English  merchants 
and  diplomatists  in  Mexico  City  were  extremely  desirous  of 
putting  an  end  to  hostilities  that  interfered  with  trade  and 
were  decidedly  against  the  best  interests  of  Mexico.  Edward 
Thornton,  an  attache1  of  the  British  legation  at  Mexico 
City  —  and  years  later  British  minister  at  Washington  — 
visited  Trist  at  Puebla,  on  June  11,  and  again  on  the  24th 
of  that  month.  Santa  Anna  was  undoubtedly  desirous  of 
ending  hostilities,  and  the  expenditure  of  money  among 
Mexican  politicians  was  not  an  unusual  method  of  bring- 

1  See  House  Document,  No.  60,  30th  Cong.,  1st  Sesa.,  pp.  812-831. 


608  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

ing  about  results.  Somehow  or  other,  Santa  Anna,  or  per- 
haps it  would  be  better  to  say  Mexican  circumstances,  out- 
witted Scott  and  Trist,  and  procured  the  armistice  and 
a  small  supply  of  money.  But  then  the  scene  shifted. 
Santa  Anna  probably  could  not  fulfil  his  engagements, 
or  what  seemed  to  be  his  engagements,  and  the  Mexicans 
not  adhering  strictly  to  the  conditions  of  the  armistice, 
Scott  put  an  end  to  it,  September  6,  1847,  and  advanced  to 
the  attack  on  Mexico  City  itself. 

The  City  of  Mexico  stood  in  the  midst  of  a  marsh  that 
once  had  been  a  lake  and  was  approached  from  different 
directions  by  causeways  built  of  stone.  Any  advance 
across  them  was  certain  to  be  dangerous,  and  the  choice 
of  the  point  of  attack  was  really  a  matter  of  chance.  In 
some  way,  Scott's  attention  had  been  called  to  a  group  of 
factory  buildings,  the  royal  mill  —  el  Molino  del  Rey  1  —  at 
which  the  manufacture  of  war  materials  was  said  to  be  pro- 
gressing. He  thought  it  would  be  easy  to  seize  the  estab- 
lishment and  destroy  it  by  night  attack,  but  yielded  to  the 
suggestion  that  it  would  better  be  done  by  daylight  and 
by  a  larger  force  of  men  than  he  had  expected  would  be 
necessary.  The  attack  was  made  on  September  8  and 
succeeded,  but  at  the  cost  of  seven  hundred  and  six  killed 
and  wounded.  The  loss  was  trifling  as  modern  casualties  go, 
but  was  a  serious  diminution  of  Scott's  small  force  of 
some  eight  thousand  in  round  numbers.  Dominating 
the  end  of  the  two  most  available  causeways  was  the  hill 
of  Chapultepec,  upon  which  stood  the  buildings  of  a  military 
college.  The  height  and  sharpness  of  the  ascent  made  it 
appear  easier  to  defend  than  it  really  was  and  more  difficult 

1  General    George    H.    Gordon    has  No.  xv.    Smith's  account  of  these  battles 

an     interesting    and    valuable    article  and   of   the   entrance    to    the    City   of 

on   Molino   del  Rey  and  Chapultepec  Mexico    is    much    more    detailed    and 

in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Military  His-  based   on   much   more   material    (Wat 

torical  Society  of   Massachusetts,    xiii,  with  Mexico,  ii,  ch.  zxviii.) 


1847]  IN  MEXICO  CITY  609 

to  attack.  Its  occupation  appeared  to  be  necessary  before 
an  advance  could  be  made  into  the  city  from  that  particular 
quarter  and  Scott  ordered  its  capture.  A  number  of  small 
misadventures  marred  the  general  brilliancy  of  the  opera- 
tion, but  in  the  end  it  was  captured  at  a  total  loss  of  450 
men.  In  all,  in  these  two  minor  operations  at  Molino  del 
Rey  and  Chapultepec,  Scott  lost  for  the  time  being  more 
than  one  thousand  men,  one-fifth  of  whom  and  probably 
one-quarter  would  never  see  the  ranks  again.  This  left 
him  with  less  than  seven  thousand  men  to  seize  and  hold  the 
greatest  city  of  Mexico,  until  reinforcements  could  arrive 
from  the  coast.  Nevertheless,  the  troops  pressed  on. 
Advancing  by  two  causeways,  they  distracted  the  enemy's 
attention,  and  aqueducts  carried  in  the  air  by  arches  resting 
on  the  causeways  enabled  the  assailants  to  stalk  the  enemy 
something  after  the  mode  of  the  Red  Man  of  jumping  from 
tree  to  tree.  Reaching  the  fortifications  at  the  gateways 
or  garitas,  the  assailants  burrowed  through  the  walls.  By 
nightfall  (September  13)  both  columns  were  within  the  city 
walls.  The  next  day,  Scott  in  person  took  possession  of  the 
city.  Then  followed  a  period  of  serious  disorder.  The 
retiring  Mexicans  had  opened  the  prisons,  the  criminals 
had  secured  arms,  and  attacked  the  invaders  from  the 
housetops  and  other  points  of  vantage.  Scott  adopted 
stern  measures  of  repression,  and  after  a  few  days  of  cannon 
firing  in  the  streets  and  summary  shootings,  the  city  be- 
came quiet  and  remained  so  throughout  the  American 
occupation. 

When  Scott  had  moved  out  from  Puebla,  he  had  left 
Colonel  Childs  there  with  four  hundred  able-bodied  men  to 
protect  the  sick  men  who  were  in  the  hospitals  or  were  con- 
valescent and  to  provide  a  resting-place  for  the  volunteer 
regiments  that  would  come  up  from  the  coast.  Childs 

VOL.  V.  —  2R 


610  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR   MEXICO   CITY     [Cn.  XVIII 

was  an  exceedingly  good  man,  but  his  task  was  difficult,  for 
the  irregular  bands  of  the  country  between  Mexico  City 
and  Puebla  concentrated  their  efforts  upon  the  latter. 
Childs  held  them  off  by  exceedingly  good  management, 
but  the  situation  was  perilous,  especially  after  the  fall  of 
Mexico.  Then  Santa  Anna,  disdaining  quiet,  embodied  a 
force  of  men,  or  took  some  of  the  organized  units  that  were 
left,  and  marched  to  Puebla.  But  nothing  came  of  this. 
He  then  continued  his  way  toward  his  plantations  near  the 
coast  and  sought  to  waylay  the  regiments  of  volunteers  on 
their  march  up  country  from  Vera  Cruz.  Before  leaving 
government  headquarters  he  had  resigned  the  presidency, 
and  now  the  new  government  ordered  him  to  lay  down  his 
command,  return  to  headquarters  and  justify  his  military 
conduct.  This  Santa  Anna  refused  to  do  and,  instead,  he 
proceeded  to  one  of  his  plantations  more  or  less  under  guard 
of  American  soldiers  and  soon  after  left  the  country,  return- 
ing in  later  years  again  to  become  president  in  less  troubled 
times. 

Success  and  comparative  quiet  after  the  last  strenuous 
weeks  brought  no  peace  to  Scott,  nor  to  his  division  com- 
manders. They  turned  fiercely  upon  one  another  and 
Scott  put  three  of  them  under  arrest.  The  story  is  an  un- 
pleasant one  of  an  attempt  to  substitute  political  aspira- 
tions for  military  obedience.  General  Worth,  for  whom 
Scott  had  done  everything,  turned  against  him,  and  General 
Pillow,  formerly  President  Folk's  law  partner,  ably  seconded 
Worth  in  his  efforts  to  bring  into  disgrace  the  commander-in- 
chief.  Instead  of  mutual  felicitations,  court-martials  be- 
came the  order  of  the  day.  Scott,  himself,  was  displaced 
by  order  of  the  President  and  directed  to  report  at  Wash- 
ington. It  was  a  pitiful  ending  of  a  glorious  adventure  and 
recalls  to  mind  the  measure  of  gratitude  meted  out  to 


1847]  NEGOTIATIONS  611 

Scott's  illustrious  predecessor,  Hernan  Cortez.  But  great 
in  disgrace  as  he  had  been  in  victory,  he  outlived  the  malice 
of  his  foes  and  was  again  commander-in-chief  of  the  Ameri- 
can army  when  James  Buchanan  laid  down  the  presidential 
office,  March  4,  1861. 

As  was  inevitable  in  Mexico  and  especially  in  such  a 
crisis  as  that  following  the  occupation  of  the  capital  city  and 
the  dismissal  of  Santa  Anna,  governmental  affairs  were  in  a 
chaotic  condition.  There  seemed  to  be  no  settled  adminis- 
tration that  was  capable  of  prosecuting  the  war  or  making 
peace.  It  was  suggested,  indeed,  that  the  United  States 
would  be  obliged  to  set  up  a  government  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  and  maintain  it  in  power  for  an  indefinite  time  to 
make  certain  that  the  provisions  of  that  instrument  were 
executed.1  Happily  this  was  made  unnecessary  by  a  sudden 
change  of  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  ruling  Mexican  classes. 
After  Trist's  offers  had  been  turned  down  more  than  once 
and  he  had  received  his  orders  to  return  home,  the  Mexican 
Congress  voted  for  peace  and  com  muni  cation  was  once 
more  opened  with  Trist.  This  time  again  the  British  diplo- 
matic representatives  and  probably  the  merchants  of  that 
nation  in  Mexico  exerted  a  powerful  pressure  on  the  existing 
government  by  demonstrating  the  necessity  of  peace  and 
stating  unreservedly  that  Great  Britain  would  not  intervene. 
Trist's  position  was  extraordinary:  he  had  been  recalled 
and  had  sent  a  notification  of  his  recall  to  the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment. He  felt  that  the  putting  an  end  to  the  negotia- 
tions with  which  he  had  been  intrusted  was  done  at  Washing- 

1The  documents  relating  to  the  ne-  port,  No.  261,  41st  Cone.,  2nd  Sew.), 

gotiation  are  printed  in  Senate  Docu-  Smith  has  an  extended  account  in  eh. 

••eat,    No.   52.   30th   Cong.,    1st  Seas.  xxxii  of  his  War  with  Mexico  and  at- 

Senator  Sumner.   in   1870,   included  a  tendant  notes.     Julius  Klein  printed  a 

brief  history  of  the  negotiations  in  his  long    article   on    the    subject   in    Uni- 

report  on  a  bill  to  compensate  Trist  for  versity    of    California's    Chronicle    for 

hn  services  as  negotiator  (Senate  Be-  July.  1905  (vol.  vti.  No.  4). 


612  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO   CITY    (Cn.  XVIII 

ton  under  an  entire  misapprehension  of  the  existing  condi- 
tion of  affairs  in  Mexico.  Acting  on  the  suggestion  that, 
as  negotiations  had  already  begun,  his  recall  would  not 
apply  to  them,  and  there  being  no  means  of  getting  away 
from  Mexico  City,  he  decided  to  go  on  with  the  parleys. 
As  Justin  H.  Smith  says,  "it  was  a  truly  noble  act,"  for  the 
immediate  consequences  to  him  must  be  very  unpleasant. 
This  was  on  December  4,  1847.  The  terms  that  Trist  could 
offer  were  set  forth  clearly  in  his  instructions  and,  under  the 
circumstances,  he  could  not  vary  them.  He  seems  to  have 
conducted  himself  in  an  entirely  dignified  and  considerate 
manner.  After  some  weeks  of  conferring,  the  negotiations 
came  to  a  deadlock,  and  on  January  29  Trist  declared  them 
at  an  end.  Now,  again,  the  British  intervened  and  arranged 
that  one  more  communication  should  be  received  and  also 
informed  the  government  that  the  Americans  would  pro- 
tect it,  should  the  treaty  be  signed.  Four  days  later,  on 
February  2,  1848,  the  treaty  was  signed  at  Guadalupe 
Hidalgo. 

President  Folk's  feelings  may  be  imagined  when  a  message 
was  brought  to  him  that  Trist  had  arrived  in  the  United 
States  and  that  the  treaty  negotiated  by  him  was  on  the 
way  to  Washington.  He  wrote  down  some  severe  strictures 
on  his  former  Chief  Clerk  of  the  State  Department.  When 
the  treaty  arrived  on  February  19,  1848,  however,  it  was 
found  to  be  exactly  what  Trist  had  been  ordered  to  negotiate. 
At  first  Polk  did  not  know  what  to  do,  but  finally  determined 
to  send  it  to  the  Senate  and  place  the  responsibility  for 
peace  or  the  continuance  of  the  war  on  that  body.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  Senators  and  more  were  distinctly  of  the  opinion 
that  it  should  be  ratified  with  a  few  changes  of  no  great  im- 
portance. On  March  10,  1848,  they  so  voted,  and  on  May 
30,  the  amended  treaty  was  ratified. 


1848]  GUADALUPE   HIDALGO  613 

According  to  the  treaty,1  upon  ratification  the  United 
States  troops  would  be  withdrawn  from  the  occupied  areas 
as  far  north  as  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte.  The  new  bound- 
ary between  the  two  republics  should  follow  that  river  from 
its  mouth  to  the  southern  boundary  of  New  Mexico  "north 
of  the  town  called  Paso"  and  thence  somewhat  irregularly 
to  the  Gila  River  and  down  that  stream  to  the  Colorado 
and  thence  following  the  southern  boundary  of  Upper 
California  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  southern  and  western 
limits  of  New  Mexico  were  defined  as  these  were  laid  down  in 
Disturnell's  "Map  of  the  United  Mexican  States"  that  was 
published  at  New  York  in  1847.  "In  consideration  of  the 
extension  acquired  by  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States" 
in  the  present  treaty,  the  "Government  of  the  United 
States"  engages  to  pay  the  sum  of  fifteen  million  dollars  to 
the  Mexican  Republic.  Three  millions  were  to  be  paid 
down  and  the  other  twelve  in  annual  instalments  of  three 
million  dollars  each  with  six  per  cent  interest.  The  United 
States  also  assumed  the  payments  of  the  claims  of  American 
citizens  against  the  Mexican  Republic.  There  were  many 
other  provisions  in  the  treaty  and  in  the  amendments  made 
by  the  United  States  Senate;  but  they  need  not  concern 
us  here. 

The  boundary  by  the  Treaty  of  1848  proved  to  be  im- 
possible of  delineation  on  the  ground.  The  map  was  in- 
accurately drawn  —  necessarily  so  in  the  existing  condition 
of  geographical  knowledge.  Moreover,  it  soon  came  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  authorities  at  Washington  that  the  best 
route  from  Texas  to  California  followed  the  path  or  road 
taken  by  the  Mormon  Battalion.  This  proved  to  be  south 
of  the  Gila  River.  This  country,  which  was  inaccurately 
included  under  the  name  of  Mesilla  Valley,  was  south  of  the 

1  Treaties  and  Conventions  (ed.  1873),  p.  662. 


614  THE   CAMPAIGN   FOR  MEXICO   CITY 

boundary  line  by  any  possible  interpretation  of  the  boundary 
of  New  Mexico  as  laid  down  on  Disturnell's  map.1  In  1853 
therefore,  James  Gadsden,  acting  for  the  United  States. 
negotiated  a  treaty  with  the  Mexicans  by  which  for  the  sum 
of  ten  million  dollars  they  ceded  a  roughly  rectangular 
shaped  tract  that  included  the  coveted  route  and  mines  and 
something  more.  And  the  line  as  thus  drawn  remains  today 
the  southwestern  boundary  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  third  of  the  century  described  in  the  preceding 
pages,  the  American  people  threw  off  the  social  conditions 
of  colonial  days.  They  kept  their  old  forms  of  govern- 
ment, but  altered  the  spirit  of  administering  them  in  the 
direction  of  democracy.  They  crossed  the  Appalachians  in 
great  numbers  into  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  and  over 
that  river  into  the  lands  that  they  had  acquired  from  France. 
"Manifest  destiny"  urged  them  on  to  the  acquisition  of 
Florida,  to  the  regaining  of  Texas  on  the  South,  and  to 
the  possession  of  the  lands  westward  from  the  crest  of  the 
Rockies  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  It  remained 
for  the  future  to  show  what  would  be  the  effect  of  these 
great  changes  in  society  and  these  immense  accessions  of 
territory.  Would  the  Republic  remain  one  united  country, 
or  would  it  be  divided  according  to  the  social  and  economic 
desires  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  several  sections  into  which 
it  was  geographically  divided  ? 

•The  reports  of  the  different  *ur-  468-473,     491-494.     The     two     most 

veying    parties    of    the    boundary    be-  interesting  reports  are  J.  R.  Bartlett's 

tween  the   United  States  and   Mexico  Personal  Narrative  of  Explorations  and 

are    enumerated    in    G.    K.    Warren's  Incidents    (2    vols.,    New    York,    1854) 

"Memoir    of    Explorations    and    Sur-  and    W.    H.    Emory's    Report    on    the 

veys"    forming    Appendix   F  to  vol.   i  United   States   and   Mexican   Boundary 

of  G.  M.  Wheeler's  Report  Upon  .  .  .  Survey    (3    vols.,    Washington,     1857- 

Geographical   Surveys    West  of  the  One  1859).     This    forms    House    Document, 

Hundredth  Meridian  (p.  584) .     Another  No.   135,  34th  Cong.,  1st  Sesa.  and  is 

enumeration    is    in    the    foot-notes    to  illustrated,  as  is  Bartlett's. 
Bancroft's   Arizona  and   New   Mexico, 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  615 

NOTE 

Bibliography.  —  For  guidance  in  the  writing  of  the  preceding  three 
chapters,  I  have  relied  on  Justin  H.  Smith's  remarkable  history  of 
The  War  with  Mexico  (2  vols.,  New  York,  1919).  It  is  the  result  of 
prolonged  and  widely  extended  researches.  Oftentimes  the  most  val- 
uable information  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Remarks  "  that  are  buried 
with  other  matter  in  the  "  Notes  "  at  the  ends  of  both  volumes. 
Smith's  research  was  so  profound  and  his  judgment  generally  so  just 
that  one  can  place  peculiar  reliance  on  his  statements.  At  the  same 
time,  like  all  historical  students,  he  has  his  prejudices.  George  L. 
Rives's  The  United  States  and  Mexico,  1821-1848  (2  vols.,  New  York, 
1913)  is  readable,  but  is  based  on  insufficient  evidence.  Grant's 
account  of  the  Mexican  War  in  his  Personal  Memoirs  (vol.  i,  chs. 
v-xiii)  may  almost  be  regarded  as  an  historical  sketch  of  the  war  and 
must  have  been  based  upon  a  considerable  collection  of  documents. 

Of  the  older  books,  one  may  mention  Isaac  I.  Stevens's  Campaigns 
of  the  Rio  Grande  and  of  Mexico  (New-York,  1851) ; x  and  N.  C.  Brooks's 
Complete  History  of  the  Mexican  War  (Philadelphia,  1849).  Cadmus 
M.  Wilcox's  History  of  the  Mexican  War  (Washington,  1892)  can 
hardly  be  described  as  readable,  but  it  was  written  by  a  military 
officer  who  had  done  a  great  deal  of  preparatory  research.2  The 
important  documents  are  in  House  Document,  No.  60,  30th  Cong., 
1st  Sess.,  and  Senate  Document,  No.  1,  30th  Cong.,  1st  Sess. 

1  This  was  written  in  reply  to  R.  S.  with  Mexico  is  very  useful. 

Ripley's    War    with    Mexico    (2    vols..  In  closing  this  volume,  the  author 

New  York,  1849).     Ripley's  book  was  wishes  to  thank  numerous  friends  and 

prepared,   apparently,   to  promote  the  many  students,  past  and  present,  who 

fortunes   of    General   Pillow.     Were   it  have  aided  him  in  countless  different 

not  for  its  one-sidedness,  it  would  still  ways.      The  names  of   some  of   them 

be  a  valuable  work.     Hazard  Stevens's  are  included  in  the   foot-notes.     Espe- 

Life  of  Isaac  Ingalls  Stevens   (Boston,  cially  he  wishes   again    to    record    his 

1900)  contains  an  excellent  account  of  obligations  to  his  friend  George  Parker 

Scott's  campaign.  Winship  for  reading  the  proofs  and  to 

1  Smith  gives  abundant  citations  in  his  secretary,  Miss  Eva  G.  Moore,  to 

his  "Notes."     H.  E.  Haferkorn's  "Se-  whom    the    accuracy   of    citation    and 

lect  Bibliography"   entitled   The   War  statement  is  very  largely  due. 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lord,  British  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, 534  ;  and  slavery,  534  n. 

Abolitionists,  the  aggressive,  145-155; 
George  Bourne,  145  ;  David  Walker, 
146 ;  W.  L.  Garrison,  147-151 ;  see 
also  Emancipation. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  and  emancipation,  147; 
and  petitions,  167-169  ;  Secretary  of 
State,  330-347;  his  Three  Rules  as 
to  territory,  338  n. ;  account  of,  351, 
352;  elected  President,  1824,  357- 
359;  his  presidency,  360-365;  and 
Texas,  532. 

Alamo,  the,  527. 

Alcoholic  beverages,  178-183  ;  on  ships, 
178  n. 

Allston,  Washington,  300. 

Alton,  anti-slavery  riot,  155  and  n. 

Anti-abolitionism,  in  the  North,  152- 
159. 

Anti-Masonry,  see  Masons. 

Anti-slavery  Societies,  148. 

Apprentices,  95. 

Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister,  execution  of, 
335. 

Art,  early  American,  298-302. 

Asbury,  Francis,  Methodist  Bishop, 
222  and  n.,  225. 

Ashburton  Treaty,  the,  534-541. 

Astoria,  restored,  338,  504. 

Audubon,  J.  J.,  his  Birds  of  America, 
269. 

Austin,  Moses,  517. 

Austin,  S.  F.,  and  Texans,  517-520,  523. 

Authors,  Southern,  279,  282  ;  Northern, 
280,  285,  289. 

Bank  of  the  U.  S.,  the  second,  310-313, 
434-451 ;  and  deflation,  439 ;  and 
local  taxation,  440-442 ;  the  "  branch 
drafts,"  441. 

Bankruptcy  laws,  193. 

Banks,  State,  437-439. 

Baptists,  the,  221. 

Barker,  Eugene  C.,  548. 

Barlow,  Joel,  280. 

Bear  Flag  War,  the,  571-573. 

Beaumont,  De,  and  De  Tocqueville, 
report  on  prison  discipline,  188  n.,  202. 


Beecher,  Lyman,  and  the  temperance 
movement,  175,  178. 

Bell,  Andrew,  254,  272. 

Benezet,  A.,  his  Mighty  Destroyer  Dis- 
played, 172. 

Benton,  Senator  Thomas  H.,  and  the 
Mexican  War,  589. 

Bibliographies,  the  telegraph,  28  n. ; 
transportation,  35 ;  Transappalachia, 
67-69;  F.  J.  Turner,  67;  U.  B. 
Phillips,  67,  170  and  n. ;  manufac- 
turing, 93  ;  labor,  119;  slavery,  170; 
temperance,  175  n.,  201 ;  prison  dis- 
cipline, 185  n.,  201-203  ;  the  insane, 
196  n.,  197  n. ;  religion,  239  ;  Roman 
Catholics,  239;  Methodists,  240; 
Mormons,  240,  487  n. ;  education, 
247  n.,  254  n.,  255  n.,  272;  University 
of  Virginia,  261  n. ;  literature,  303  n., 
306;  Florida,  334  n.,  335  n.,  337  n., 
348 ;  Andrew  Jackson,  335  n.,  336  n., 
403;  Monroe  Doctrine,  343  n.,  344  n., 
349 ;  Northwest  Coast,  344  n.,  501- 
504  notes ;  Missouri  Compromise, 
348 ;  Daniel  Webster,  421  n. ;  panics, 
456  n. ;  Martin  Van  Buren,  458  n. ; 
Anti-Masonry,  466  ;  Germans,  495  ; 
Irish,  495  ;  communities,  496  ;  Lewis 
and  Clark,  507  n. ;  Spanish  missions, 
512  n. ;  Texas,  517-520  notes,  548; 
Northeastern  boundary,  536-540 
notes ;  J.  C.  Fremont,  570  n. ;  Cali- 
fornia, 584  ;  Kearny-Doniphan,  585  ; 
war  with  Mexico,  615. 

Biddle,  Nicholas,  442-450. 

Black  Belt,  the,  39. 

Black  Hawk  War,  498. 

Bolton,  Herbert  E.,  548. 

Books,  widespread  purchase  of,  275-277. 

Boston,  Mass.,  colored  schools  in,  158. 

Boundaries  of  U.  S.,  northern,  331 
Louisiana  Purchase,  337  and  n. 
Northeastern,  534-541 ;  bibl.,  536  n. 
Oregon,  559-561. 

Buchanan,  James,  intrigues  against 
Clay,  359  n. ;  Secretary  of  State,  547. 

Buena  Vista,  battle  of,  593-596. 


Cabet,  Etieuue,  486 ;  bibl.,  497. 


617 


618 


INDEX 


Calhoun,  John  C.,  advocates  internal 
improvements,  318 ;  on  Jackson  in 
Florida,  335 ;  candidate  for  the 
presidency,  1824,  353,  354;  Vice- 
President,  357;  and  nullification, 
419-421;  and  Jackson,  423-425; 
his  letter  on  s'avery,  542. 

California,  499  and  fol. ;  seized  by 
United  States,  563-579 ;  population 
of,  563  and  n. ;  Americans  in,  564- 
566;  British  Intrigue,  566-570; 
Fremont  in,  570,  573 ;  bibl.,  584. 

Camp  meetings,  224. 

Campbellites,  the,  233. 

Canals,  8-19 ;  early  project,  8,  9 ;  Erie, 
11-14;  Portage  Railway  system,  15; 
Ohio  Canal,  17 ;  mileage  of,  in  1830, 19. 

Canning,  and  Monroe  Doctrine,  343. 

Carroll,  Bishop,  214. 

Case  of  Med.,  126  n. 

Cerro  Gordo,  battle  of,  600. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  and  slavery,  170;  on 
the  Scriptures,  204. 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  84 ;  free  blacks  in, 
134-137 ;  decline  of,  410. 

Charleston  and  Hamburg  Railway,  26. 

Cheverus,  J.  L.,  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop,  214. 

Child  labor,  98  and  n. 

Cities,  growth  of,  79-84 ;  statistics  of, 
82  n.,  411  n. ;  life  in,  88-91. 

Clay,  Henry,  and  the  American  System, 
319-321 ;  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency, 355 ;  intrigue  against,  358- 
360,  366;  and  the  Bank,  443-447; 
and  Texas,  532,  543-545. 

Coast  Survey,  origin,  317  and  n. 

Colleges  and  Universities,  256-265; 
denominational,  232. 

Colonization  of  free  blacks,  the  Amer- 
ican Society  for,  137-140;  Lincoln 
on,  139. 

Colonization  Society,  the  American, 
137-140. 

Columbia  River,  discovered,  502.  - 

Commons,  J.  R.,  his  Documentary  His- 
tory, 100  n.,  119;  his  History  of 
Labour,  119. 

Communities,  Harmony,  63 ;  Zoar,  63  ; 
Owenites  at  New  Harmony,  64 ;  ex- 
periments in  the  1840's,  111 ;  Brook 
Farm,  480;  Fruitlands,  481;  the 
Fourierite,  481-485;  the  Inspira- 
tionists,  485;  the  Icarians,  486, 
Mormons,  487-494 ;  bibl.,  496-498. 

Conner,  Commodore,  blockades  Vera 
Cru»,  564. 


Conspiracy  in  labor  movements,  101- 
109. 

Cooper,  J.  Fenimore,  285. 

Cooper,  Thomas,  291,  415. 

Cooperation,  112. 

Cotton,  early  cultivation  of,  39  and  n. ; 
in  1830,  407-409;  manufacturing, 
76,  78,  85-88 ;  statistics  of,  433. 

Crandall,  Prudence,  and  negro  educa- 
tion, 155-157  and  n. 

Crawford,  William  H.,  313;  candidate 
for  the  presidency,  353. 

Crime,  treatment  of,  183-191. 

Cumberland  Road,  6,  317,  321 

Dallas,  Alexander  J.,  312. 

Debtors,  poor,  191-193. 

Dedham  case,  212. 

Denominational  colleges,  232. 

Dew,  T.  R.,  defends  slavery,  163. 

Doniphan,  Col.  A.  W.,  his  expedition, 

580 ;  bibl.,  585. 

Dow,  Neal,  and  prohibition,  181. 
Drama,  289-291. 
Drinking   habits,   in   early   nineteenth 

century,  175-177. 

Dunbar,  William,  expedition  of,  509 
Dunlap,  William,  301. 

Eaton,  Major  J.  H.,  366;  Secretary  of 
War,  387  ;  the  "  Eaton  affair,"  388. 

Education,  242-273;  literary  funds, 
244 ;  German  influence,  246 ;  Calvin 
E.  Stowe  on,  246 ;  common  schools, 
244-253 ;  bibl.,  247  n.,  254  n.,  255  n., 
272;  charity  schools,  248-250; 
Frances  Wright's  system,  250 ; 
Horace  Mann,  251-253  ;  Pestalozzi's 
system,  253 ;  Fellenberg's  system, 
253 ;  Lancasterian  method,  254-256  ; 
scientific,  257-260;  colleges,  260- 
265 ;  statistics,  270. 

Elections,  presidential,  of  1824,  353- 
357;  of  1828,  365-376;  of  1832, 
446 ;  of  1836,  458 ;  of  1840,  462 ;  of 
1844,  543-545. 

Emancipation,  plan  for  gradual,  in 
Virginia  in  1832,  142-145;  see  also 
Abolition. 

Emancipator,  The,  151. 

Emigration,  from  the  Old  South,  49- 
52 ,  from  New  England  and  New 
York,  53 ;  from  farm  to  town,  70 ; 
of  Southern  Quakers  to  Northwest, 
59,  61,  62. 

English,  the,  immigration  of,  476. 

Erie  Canal,  11-14  ;  effect  of,  36,  54. 


INDEX 


619 


Fall  River.  87. 

Families,  migrant.  44,  52,  55-57. 
Fellenberg,  E.,  and  his  Hofwyl  experi- 
ment, 253-  bibl.,  254  n. 
Flogging,   in  American   Navy,  165  n., 

189  n. 
Florida,  333-336     bibl.,  334  n.,  335  n., 

337   n.,    348;     acquired    by    U.    S., 

336-342. 

Forty  bale  theory,  427  n. 
Fourier,  Charles,  481-485  :  bibl.,  496. 
France,    relations    with,  in    Jackson's 

time,  401. 

Free  blacks,  see  Negroes,  free. 
Fr6mont,  John  C.,  in  California,  570, 

573. 

Frontiersmen,  43. 
Fugitive  slaves,  125-127 :   Act  of  1793, 

125 •  in  1815-1830,  141. 
Fulton,  R.,  on  canals,  10. 
Fur  traders,  the,  510. 

Gadsden  Purchase,  the,  613. 

Gag-rule,  the,  167-169. 

Gallatin,    Albert,    and    the    National 

Road,  6;   Report  (1808),  9-11,  316. 
Garrison,   W.   L.,   and  abolition,   147- 

151 ;  books  on,  148  n. 
Garrison  mob,  the,  153  and  n. 
Georgia  and  the  Cherokee  Indians,  364. 
Germans,  the,  immigration  of,  471-474  ; 

bibl.,  495. 

Gift  Books  and  Annuals,  287. 
Gillespie  despatch,  the,  571-573. 
Goliad,  massacre  of,  527. 
Goodrich,  S.  G.,  296. 
Great    Britain,    relations    with,    1815- 

1818,    330-333;    in   Jackson's   time, 

398-400;      and    Texas,     533;      and 

Mexico,   561 ;    and  California,  566- 

570. 

Great  Lakes,  steamboats  on,  23. 
Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  treaty  of,  612. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  on  internal  im- 
provements, 317. 

Hare,  Robert,  258. 

Harrison,  W.  H.,  defeated  for  presi- 
dency in  1836,  458 ;  elected  in  1840, 
462  ;  death  of,  464. 

Hofwyl  Institutions,  see  Fellenberg. 

Houston,  Sam,  527. 

Hughes,  Bishop,  of  New  York,  214. 

Immigration,  statistics  of,  467  and  n., 
474—475  and  n. ;  Scandinavian,  468- 
471 ;  German,  471-474;  bibl.,  495 


English,  476:  Irish.  477-480;  bibl.. 
495. 

Indentured  servants,  95. 

Indian  treaties,  68. 

Indians,  Calif ornian,  515,  516. 

Insane,  treatment  of  the,  194-197. 

Internal  improvements  by  U.  S.  Gov't., 
6,  9,  316-323,  395-397;  disburse- 
ments for,  417  n. 

Irish,  the,  immigration  of,  477-480; 
bibl.,  495. 

Irving,  Washington,  285. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  in  Florida,  334-336, 
341,423-425;  bibl.,  348;  candidate 
for  the  presidency,  356 ;  elected  Presi- 
dent, 365-376;  his  presidency,  378 
and  fol. ;  character,  378-380;  his 
Inaugural,  385 ;  his  cabinet,  387- 
389;  the  spoils  system,  389-395; 
and  internal  improvements,  395- 
397  ;  and  foreign  affairs,  398-401 ; 
bibl.,  403;  and  States'-rights,  422; 
and  Calhoun,  423-425;  and  the 
Union,  436 ;  his  action  on  nulli- 
fication, 429-431 ;  and  the  Bank, 
434-451 ;  and  the  Specie  Circular, 
451-453 ;  and  distribution  of  the 
surplus,  453-455 ;  and  Texas,  532. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  on  manufacturing, 
72  n. ;  and  runaway  slaves,  126  ;  on 
religion,  204  •  on  Massachusetts 
schools,  251  n.  and  the  University 
of  Virginia,  261—264 ;  and  internal 
improvements,  317,  322  ;  on  Missouri 
Compromise,  326  n. 

Jones,  Commodore  A.  C.,  seises  Mon- 
terey, 569. 

Kearny,  Gen.  Stephen  W.,  in  New 
Mexico  and  California,  576,  579 ; 
bibl.,  585 

"  Kitchen  Cabinet,"  the,  387. 

Labor,  early  conditions  of,  94  ;  appren- 
tices and  indentured  servants,  95 ; 
wage  system,  96-98  ;  unions,  99-111 ; 
conditions  at  Lowell,  114-117. 

Labor  movement,  first,  94-119;  bibl., 
119. 

Lancaster,  Joseph,  254,  272. 

Land  system,  national,  40-43. 

Larkin,  Thomas  O.,  American  consul 
565  ;  confidential  agent,  568-571. 

Latrobe,  B.  H.,  on  railroads,  10. 

Latter-day  Saints,  see  Mormons. 

Law  schools,  266. 


620 


INDEX 


Learned  societies,  266. 

Lewis  and  Clark,  expedition  of,  503, 
505-507  and  n. 

Liberator,  The,  147-151. 

Liberia,  139. 

Libraries,  275. 

Lighting,  early,  in  houses,  90. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  family  of,  52  and  n. ; 
on  colonization  of  free  blacks,  139. 

Literary  funds,  the,  244. 

Literature,  274-306  ;  early  output,  274  ; 
reading  habits,  274-277;  character 
of,  277-279 ;  Southern  authors,  279, 
282;  Northern  authors,  280,  285, 
289 ;  nature  and  nurture  of  literary 
men,  302-304  ;  bibl.,  303  n.,  306. 

Loco-focos,  the,  459. 

Lotteries,  197-200. 

Louisiana  Purchase,  boundary  of,  337 
and  n. 

Lovejoy  murder,  155  and  n. 

Lowell,  F.  C.,  78. 

Lowell,  Mass.,  85-87;  conditions  of 
labor  at,  114-117. 

Lowell  Institute,  the,  267. 

Lynds,  Elam,  187. 

McAdam,  J.  L.,  5. 

Madison,  James,  and  internal  improve- 
ments, 319. 

Maine  Liquor  Law,  181. 

Mann,  Horace,  251-253. 

Manufacturing,  rise  of,  72-88 ;  Jefferson 
on,  72  n. ;  in  the  South,  75,  413 ;  in 
the  Northwest,  77  ;  in  the  Northeast, 
77-88 ;  bibl.,  93. 

Marshall,  John,  his  decisions,  309, 
310. 

Marshall,  W.  I.,  on  the  Whitman  story, 
549. 

Masons,  the,  opposition  to,  459 ;  bibl., 
466. 

Maysville  Veto,  395-397. 

Medical  schools,  265. 

Methodist  Church  South,  154,  228. 

Methodists,  the,  221,  225,  227;  and 
anti-slavery,  154,  227 ;  bibl.,  240. 

Mexico,  520  and  fol. ;  claims  against, 
550  and  fol. ;  British  advice  to,  561. 

Mexico,  War  with,  causes  of,  550-557 ; 
begins,  557 ;  Vera  Cruz-Mexico  City 
campaign,  587-611 ;  the  U.  S.  army, 
596-599;  battles  in  the  Mexican 
Valley,  602-605,  608 ;  peace  negotia- 
tions, 605-608,  611;  Treaty  of 
Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  612 ;  bibl.,  615. 

Migration,    from    Old    South,    49-52, 


409  n. ;  conditions  of,  57-59 ;  group, 

60-65. 

Millerites,  the,  233-235  and  n. 
Mission  system,  the  Spanish,  512—516 . 

bibl.,  512  n. 
Mississippi  Valley,  steamboat  traffic  in, 

21-23  ;  routes  to,  40. 
Missouri  Compromise,  323-329  ;    bibl., 

348. 

Mobile,  79. 
Mobs  or  riots,  against  Abolitionists  at 

Philadelphia,  152  ;   at  New  York  and 

at    Boston,     153 ;     at    Alton,     165 , 

against  Roman  Catholics,  217-219. 
Monitorial     schools,     254-256;     bibl., 

272. 
Monroe,    James,    presidency    of,    307- 

350 ;   on  internal  improvements,  319, 

321. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  the,  342-346  and  n. ; 

bibl.,  349. 

Mormon  Battalion,  the,  490,  579,  586. 
Mormons,    the,    or   Latter-day   Saints, 

235-237;    bibl.,   240,  487  n. ;    as  a 

community,  487—494. 
Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  27 ;  and  the  telegraph, 

28  and  n. 

National  land  system,  40-43. 

Natural  History,  269. 

Nature  and  nurture,  302-304. 

Navy,  the,  discipline  in,  165  n.,  189  n. 

Negroes,  free,  in  Virginia,  130 ;  in  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  131-133 ;  case  of 
Gilbert  Horton,  132;  in  the  North- 
east, 133;  in  South  Carolina,  134- 
137 ;  owning  slaves,  137  and  n. ; 
colonization  of,  137—140 ;  proposed 
seminary  at  New  Haven,  157 ;  Boston 
schools  for,  158. 

New  England,  emigration  from,  53. 

New  England  literary  group,  303-305 ; 
dates  of  leading  works,  303  n. 

New  Haven,  proposed  negro  seminary 
at,  157. 

New  Mexico,  499  and  fol. 

New  Orleans,  79. 

New  York  City,  82. 

New  York  State,  western,  emigration 
from,  53. 

Newspapers  and  magazines,  282-284, 
287,  291. 

Nootka  Sound  Treaty,  502. 

Northeastern  boundary,  534— 541 ;  bibl., 
536-540  notes. 

Northwest,  the  Old,  Southern  Quakers 
in,  59,  61,  62. 


INDEX 


621 


Northwest  Coast,  344,  501-504 ;   bibl., 

344  n.,  501-504  notes. 
Nullification,  in  South  Carolina,  404- 

433. 

Ohio  Canal,  17. 

Oregon,  499  and  fol. ;    claims  to,  501- 

507 ;     joint    occupation,    504,    560 ; 

American  settlers  in,  511 ;   Treaty  of 

1846,  559-561. 
Owen,    Robert,    and    his    community 

ideas,  64,  65  and  notes. 

Palo  Alto,  battle  of,  558. 

Panama  Congress,  361-364! 

Panics,  of  1819,  314  ;  of  1837,  455-458 ; 
cause  of,  456  ;  bibl.,  456  n. 

Parker,  Theodore,  205. 

Pestalozzi,  influence  on  education,  253. 

"  Peter  Parley  "  books,  296. 

Petitions,  anti-slavery,  to  Congress, 
167-169. 

Phillips,  Ulrich  B.,  bibl.,  67,  170  and  n. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  155. 

Pike,  Z.  M.,  his  explorations,  507-509 
and  n. 

Pioneers,  the,  43. 

Pittsburg,  80. 

Poe,  E.  A.,  288. 

Polk,  James  K.,  on  internal  improve- 
ments, 321 ;  elected  President,  544- 
546 ;  his  presidency,  546  and  fol.  ; 
his  character,  546. 

Poor  debtors,  see  Debtors. 

Population,  statistics,  U.  S.  in  1790, 
1820,  1850,  and  by  sections,  45-49; 
in  1830,  380-382 ;  in  1840-1860,  467 ; 
of  cities,  82  n. ;  of  selected  nationali- 
ties, 475  n.;  of  Texas,  520  n. ;  of 
California,  515,  516,  563  and  n. 

Portage  Railway,  15. 

Powers,  Hiram,  302. 

Prairies,  38. 

Presbyterians,  the,  221,  222,  225,  227. 

Priestley,  Joseph,  259,  260,  291. 

Prison  discipline,  in  1800,  184-186; 
Pennsylvania  system  of,  186,  188 ; 
Auburn  system  of,  187-191 ;  bibl., 
201-203. 

Prohibition,  laws,  1856,  182 ;  repealed, 
183  ;  see  also  Temperance. 

Quakers,  Southern,  in  the  Old  North- 
west, 59,  61,  62. 

Railroads,  23-30;  early,  10;  Portage, 
15,  16;  locomotives  on,  23,  25,  27; 


early  American,  24-30 ;  running 
time,  1826,  1833,  1844,  29;  as 
public  utilities,  30;  mileage,  1840, 
1850,  32. 

Randolph,  John,  of  Roanoke,  frees  his 
slaves,  130  ;  and  Bank  of  U.  S.,  313  ; 
and  Adams  and  Clay,  366. 

Religion,  204-241 ;  division  over 
slavery,  154,  227  ;  Jefferson  on,  204  ; 
W.  E.  Channing  on,  204 ;  Unitarian- 
ism,  205,  212 ;  the  sects,  207 ;  their 
numbers  and  distribution,  210,  219- 
221 ;  missionaries,  209  and  n. ;  dis- 
qualification, 211 ;  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics, 213-219;  statistics,  219-221; 
on  the  frontier,  221-227;  the  Bap- 
tists, 221 ;  the  Presbyterians,  221, 
222,  225,  227;  publications,  226; 
Sunday  Schools,  228-230;  Sunday 
observance,  230-232 ;  denomina- 
tional colleges,  232 ;  bibl.,  239. 

Removal  of  the  deposits,  447-450. 

Resaca  de  la  Palma,  battle  of,  558. 

Revivals,  222-225. 

Richmond,  83. 

Rio  Grande,  the,  as  a  boundary,  337- 
339. 

Roads,  macadamized,  5 ;  Cumberland 
or  National  Road,  6,  7. 

Roane,  Spencer,  405. 

Roman  Catholics,  the,  213-219;  dis- 
tribution of,  216  ;  riots  against,  217- 
219;  bibl.,  239. 

Rush,  Dr.  Benjamin,  his  temperance 
publications,  173. 

Russia,  and  the  Northwest  Coast,  344, 
501 ;  treaty  with,  1824,  346. 

Sabine  River,  the,  as  a  boundary,  338, 
339. 

St.  Louis,  79. 

San  Jacinto,  battle  of,  528. 

San  Juan  boundary,  561  n. 

Santa  Anna,  A.  L.  de,  521 ;  captured, 
529  ;  intrigue  with,  554  ;  president 
and  commander  of  the  Mexican 
forces,  591  and  fol. 

Scandinavians,  the,  immigration  of, 
468-4^1. 

Schools,  the  common,  244-253 ;  the 
charity,  248-250. 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfield,  plans  Vera  Cruz- 
Mexico  City  campaign,  687 ;  hia 
character,  588. 

Seymour,  British  Admiral,  567. 

Silliman,  Benjamin,  259. 

Simms,  W.  G.,  279,  283. 


622 


INDEX 


Slater,  Samuel,  78. 

Slave  insurrections,  Denmark  Vesey, 
135 ;  Nat  Turner,  142. 

Slave  trade,  internal,  126-129;  ex- 
ternal, 128,  165. 

Slaveholders,  the,  and  abolitionism, 
159-166 ;  and  incendiary  publica- 
tions, 160,  166;  believe  themselves 
cavaliers,  164. 

Slavery,  opinions  of  the  "  Fathers  "  on, 
120;  in  early  times,  121;  on  the 
great  plantations,  123 ;  in  the 
churches,  154,  227 ;  defence  of,  162- 
164;  bibl.,  170;  in  Texas,  522; 
Lord  Aberdeen  on,  534  n. ;  Calhoun 
on,  542. 

Slaves,  fugitive,  125-127,  141. 

Slidell,  John,  his  mission  to  Mexico,  553. 

Sloat,  J.  D.,  American  Commodore, 
568,  574  and  n. ;  seizes  California, 
574-576. 

Smith,  Justin  H.,  his  War  with  Mexico, 
615. 

Societies  and  strikes,  99-111. 

South,  the  Old,  migration  from,  49-52. 

South  American  Republics,  recognition 
of,  342-344. 

South  Carolina,  404—133;  nullifies 
Tariff  Act  of  1832,  428. 

Spain,  relations  with,  333-342. 

Specie  Circular,  the,  453. 

Spoils  system,  389-395. 

Steamboats,  20-23;  on  Atlantic  sea- 
coast,  20 ;  in  Mississippi  Valley,  21- 
23 ;  on  the  Great  Lakes,  23. 

Stevens,  J.,  on  railroads,  10  n. 

Stockton,  Commodore,  in  California, 
676. 

Stowe,  Calvin  E.,  his  report  on  educa- 
tion, 246. 

Strikes,  Philadelphia  cordwainers,  1805, 
100-103;  1833-1837,  107-109;  Ge- 
neva shoemakers,  109. 

Sunday  observance,  230-232. 

Sundav  Schools,  228-230. 

Supreme  Court,  the  Federal,  308-310. 

Surplus,  distribution  of  the,  453-455 
and  n. 

Sutter,  J.  A.,  in  California,  516. 

Swartwout,  Samuel,  394  and  n. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  449. 

Tariff   acts,    of    1816,    315;     effect   of, 

410  n.;   of  Abominations,  1828,  371, 

419;    of   1824,   418;    of   1832,   427; 

nullified    by    South    Carolina,    428; 

Compromise  of  1833,  431  and  n. 


Taylor,  John,  of  Caroline,  406,  414. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  in  Texas,  552 ;  char- 
acter of,  555-557  ;  on  the  Rio  Grande, 
557 ;  the  Monterey  campaign,  581 ; 
at  Buena  Vista,  593-596. 

Telegraph,  Morse  and  the,  28  and  n. 

Temperance,  early  movement  for,  172- 
183  ;  Washingtonian,  181 ;  laws,  182 ; 
bibl.,  201. 

Texas,  499  and  fol. ;  given  up  by  U.  S., 
338;  Americans  in,  516-534;  bibl., 
517-520  notes,  548 ;  as  a  Mexican 
state,  518 ;  population,  520  n. ; 
slavery  in,  522 ;  revolution  in,  523- 
530;  battle  of  San  Jacinto,  528; 
independence  of,  531 ;  annexation 
of,  541-547. 

Thompson,  George,  English  abolition 
agitator,  153. 

Thornton,  William,  292. 

Transappalachia,  settlement  of,  37; 
bibl.,  67-69. 

Transportation,  in  1815,  4 ;  roads,  5-7 ; 
canals,  8-19 ;  effects  of  Erie  Canal 
on,  13-15,  36;  steamboats,  20-23; 
railroads,  23-30;  bibl.,  35;  urban, 
89. 

Transylvania  University,  264. 

Travel,  in  1796,  1836,  1845,  31,  32. 

Treasury,  the  Independent,  460. 

Treaties,  Indian,  68;  British,  1818, 
331 ;  Florida,  336-342 ;  Russian, 
1824,  346;  Nootka  Sound,  502; 
Ashburton,  534-541;  Oregon,  1846, 
559-561 ;  Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  612. 

Trist,  Nicholas  P.,  U.  S.  commissioner, 
606-608,  611. 

Turner,  F.  J.,  45  n. ;  writings  of,  4  n., 
67  and  n. 

Turnpikes,  5. 

Tyler,  John,  elected  Vice-President, 
462 ;  succeeds  Harrison,  464 ;  and 
Texas,  541-546. 

Union  and  disunion,  to  1825,  404. 

Unitarianism,  205,  212. 

United  States,  population  in  1790,  1820, 
1850,  45-49;  in  1830,  380-382;  re- 
lations with  Great  Britain,  1815- 
1818,  330-333 ;  in  Jackson's 
time,  398-400 ;  boundaries,  331 ;  ac- 
quires Florida,  336-342 ;  purchases 
Louisiana,  337  and  n. ;  statistics  of 
production,  383  ;  and  France,  401 ; 
Jackson  on  the  Union,  436;  im- 
migration, 467-480,  495 ;  and  Texas. 
516-534 ;  541-547 ;  and  Mexico,  520 


INDEX 


623 


and  fol.,  550  and  fol. ;  seizes  Cali- 
fornia, 563-579;  army  in  Mexican 
War,  596-599  ;  finances,  599  ;  Gads- 
den  Purchase,  613. 

University  of  Virginia,  261-264  ;  bibl., 
261  n. 

Urban  life,  effect  of,  91. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  and  Jackson  cam- 
paign in  New  York,  367-369  and  n. : 
Secretary  of  State,  387 ;  and  the 
Maysville  veto,  397  ;  Vice-President, 
400;  elected  President,  458;  his 
presidency,  460-464 ;  defeated  in 
1840,  462 ;  in  1844,  543, 

Vera  Cruz,  capture  of,  591. 

Virginia,  and  gradual  emancipation, 
142-145. 

Virginia,  University  of,  founding  of, 
261  and  n.-264. 

Wages  and  conditions  of  labor,  96-98. 
Washing  to  nian  movement,  181. 


Water,  beginning  of  city  supplies,  89, 

90. 

Waterhouse,  Dr.  Benjamin,  258  and  n. 
Webster,  Daniel,  reply  to  Hayne,  421 ; 

bibl.,  421  n.;    and  the  Bank,  445 ; 

and  Treaty  of  1842,  535-541. 
Webster,    Noah,    and    his    Dictionary, 

294-296. 

Weems,  M.  L.,  180,  278. 
West,  Benjamin,  299. 
West,  the,  see  Transappalachia. 
Westward  March,  37-69  ;   character  of, 

37,   44 ;    size   of,   45-49 ;    migration 

from  Old  South,  49-52 ;    conditions 

of,  57-59. 

Whitman  story,  the,  549. 
Whitney's  cotton-gin,  effect  of,  121. 
Willard,  Emma,  297. 
Wilmot  Proviso,  562. 
Wilson,  A.,  his  Ornithology,  269. 
Wool,  Gen.  John  E.,  582. 
Wright,  Frances,  her  school  system,  250 
Wyeth,  N..  511. 


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