



Produced by Ron Swanson





THE MIDDLE PERIOD




_THE AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES_




THE MIDDLE PERIOD

1817-1858

BY

JOHN W. BURGESS, PH.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, AND DEAN OF THE
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF
NEW YORK




_WITH MAPS_




NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1910




COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS




To the memory of my former teacher, colleague, and friend,

JULIUS HAWLEY SEELYE,

philosopher, theologian, statesman, and educator, this volume is
reverently and affectionately inscribed.




PREFACE


There is no more serious and delicate task in literature and morals
than that of writing the history of the United States from 1816 to
1860. The periods which precede this may be treated without fear of
arousing passion, prejudice, and resentment, and with little danger of
being misunderstood. Even the immaculateness of Washington may be
attacked without exciting anything worse than a sort of uncomfortable
admiration for the reckless courage of the assailant. But when we pass
the year 1820, and especially when we approach the year 1860, we find
ourselves in a different world. We find ourselves in the midst of the
ideas, the motives, and the occurrences which, and of the men who,
have, in large degree, produced the animosities, the friendships, and
the relations between parties and sections which prevail to-day.

Serious and delicate as the task is, however, the time has arrived
when it should be undertaken in a thoroughly impartial spirit. The
continued misunderstanding between the North and the South is an ever
present menace to the welfare of both sections and of the entire
nation. It makes it almost impossible to decide any question of our
politics upon its merits. It offers an almost insuperable obstacle to
the development of a national opinion upon the fundamental principles
of our polity. If we would clear up this confusion in the common
consciousness, we must do something to dispel this misunderstanding;
and I know of no means of accomplishing this, save the rewriting of
our history from 1816 to 1860, with an open mind and a willing spirit
to see and to represent truth and error, and right and wrong, without
regard to the men or the sections in whom or where they may appear.

I am by no means certain that I am able to do this. I am old enough to
have been a witness of the great struggle of 1861-65, and to have
participated, in a small way, in it. My early years were embittered by
the political hatreds which then prevailed. I learned before my
majority to regard secession as an abomination, and its chief cause,
slavery, as a great evil; and I cannot say that these feelings have
been much modified, if any at all, by longer experiences and maturer
thought. I have, therefore, undertaken this work with many misgivings.

Keenly conscious of my own prejudices, I have exerted my imagination
to the utmost to create a picture in my own mind of the environment of
those who held the opposite opinion upon these fundamental subjects,
and to appreciate the processes of their reasoning under the
influences of their own particular situation. And I have with sedulous
care avoided all the histories written immediately after the close of
the great contest of arms, and all rehashes of them of later date. In
fact I have made it an invariable rule to use no secondary material;
that is, no material in which original matter is mingled with
somebody's interpretation of its meaning. If, therefore, the facts in
my narration are twisted by prejudices and preconceptions, I think I
can assure my readers that they have suffered only one twist. I have
also endeavored to approach my subject in a reverent spirit, and to
deal with the characters who made our history, in this almost tragic
period, as serious and sincere men having a most perplexing and
momentous problem to solve, a problem not of their own making, but a
fatal inheritance from their predecessors.

I have been especially repelled by the flippant superficiality of the
foreign critics of this period of our history, and their evident
delight in representing the professions and teachings of the "Free
Republic" as canting hypocrisy. It has seemed to me a great misfortune
that the present generation and future generations should be taught to
regard so lightly the earnest efforts of wise, true, and honorable men
to rescue the country from the great catastrophe which, for so long,
impended over it. The passionate onesidedness of our own writers is
hardly more harmful, and is certainly less repulsive.

I recently heard a distinguished professor of history and politics say
that he thought the history of the United States, in this period,
could be truthfully written only by a Scotch-Irishman. I suppose he
meant that the Scotch element in this ideal historian would take the
Northern point of view, and the Irish element the Southern; but I
could not see how this would produce anything more than another pair
of narratives from the old contradictory points of view; and he did
not explain how it would.

My opinion is, on the contrary, that this history must be written by
an American and a Northerner, and from the Northern point of
view--because an American best understands Americans, after all;
because the victorious party can be and will be more liberal,
generous, and sympathetic than the vanquished; and because the
Northern view is, in the main, the correct view. It will not improve
matters to concede that the South had right and the North might, or,
even, that both were equally right and equally wrong. Such a doctrine
can only work injury to both, and more injury to the South than to the
North. Chewing the bitter cud of fancied wrong produces both spiritual
misery and material adversity, and tempts to foolish and reckless
action for righting the imagined injustice. Moreover, any such
doctrine is false, and acquiescence in it, however kindly meant, is
weak, and can have no other effect than the perpetuation of error and
misunderstanding. The time has come when the men of the South should
acknowledge that they were in error in their attempt to destroy the
Union, and it is unmanly in them not to do so. When they appealed the
great question from the decision at the ballot-box to the "trial by
battle," their leaders declared, over and over again, in calling their
followers to arms, that the "God of battles" would surely give the
victory to the right. In the great movements of the world's history
this is certainly a sound philosophy, and they should have held to it
after their defeat. Their recourse to the crude notion that they had
succumbed only to might was thus not only a bitter, false, and
dangerous consolation, but it was a stultification of themselves when
at their best as men and heroes.

While, therefore, great care has been taken, in the following pages,
to attribute to the Southern leaders and the Southern people sincerity
of purpose in their views and their acts, while their ideas and their
reasoning have been, I think, duly appreciated, and patiently
explained, while the right has been willingly acknowledged to them and
honor accorded them whenever and wherever they have had the right and
have merited honor, and while unbounded sympathy for personal
suffering and misfortune has been expressed, still not one scintilla
of justification for secession and rebellion must be expected. The
South must acknowledge its error as well as its defeat in regard to
these things, and that, too, not with lip service, but from the brain
and the heart and the manly will, before any real concord in thought
and feeling, any real national brotherhood, can be established. This
is not too much to demand, simply because it is right, and nothing can
be settled, as Mr. Lincoln said, until it is settled right. Any
interpretation of this period of American history which does not
demonstrate to the South its error will be worthless, simply because
it will not be true; and unless we are men enough to hear and accept
and stand upon the truth, it is useless to endeavor to find a bond of
real union between us. In a word, the conviction of the South of its
error in secession and rebellion is absolutely indispensable to the
establishment of national cordiality; and the history of this period
which fails to do this will fail in accomplishing one of the highest
works of history, the reconciliation of men to the plans of Providence
for their perfection.

I have not, in the following pages, undertaken to treat _all_ of the
events of our experience from 1816 to 1860. The space allowed me would
not admit of that. And even if it had, I still would have selected
only those events which, in my opinion, are significant of our
progress in civilization, and, as I am writing a political history,
only those which are significant of our progress in political
civilization. The truthful record, connection, and interpretation of
such events is what I call history in the highest sense, as
distinguished from chronology, narrative, and romance. Both necessity
and philosophy have confined me to these.

I cannot close these prefatory sentences without a word of grateful
acknowledgment to my friend and colleague, Dr. Harry A. Cushing, for
the important services which he has rendered me in the preparation of
this work.

JOHN W. BURGESS.

323 WEST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.

JANUARY 22, 1897.




CONTENTS

                                                                 PAGE
CHAPTER I.
  THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY,.......    1

CHAPTER II.
  THE ACQUISITION OF FLORIDA, .................   19

CHAPTER III.
  SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1820, ..........   39

CHAPTER IV.
  THE CREATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MISSOURI, ........   61

CHAPTER V.
  THE BEGINNING OF THE PARTICULARISTIC REACTION,........  108

CHAPTER VI.
  THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1824,..............  131

CHAPTER VII.
  THE DIVISION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, ............  145

CHAPTER VIII.
  DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION TO INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND PROTECTION,  166

CHAPTER IX.
  THE UNITED STATES BANK AND THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1832,.  190

CHAPTER X.
  NULLIFICATION,........................  210

CHAPTER XI.
  ABOLITION,..........................  242

CHAPTER XII.
  THE BANK, THE SUB-TREASURY, AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN 1832
  AND 1842, ..........................  278

CHAPTER XIII.
  TEXAS,............................  289

CHAPTER XIV.
  OREGON, ...........................  311

CHAPTER XV.
  THE "RE-ANNEXATION OF TEXAS AND THE RE-OCCUPATION OF OREGON,"   318

CHAPTER XVI.
  THE WAR WITH MEXICO,.....................  327

CHAPTER XVII.
  THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF
  1850, ............................  340

CHAPTER XVIII.
  THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND THE ELECTION OF
  1852, ............................  365

CHAPTER XIX.
  THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE,............  380

CHAPTER XX.
  THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS,...................  407

CHAPTER XXI.
  THE DRED SCOTT CASE,.....................  449

CHAPTER XXII.
  THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS CONCLUDED,..............  460


APPENDIX I.
  THE ELECTORAL VOTE IN DETAIL, 1820-1856,...........  475

APPENDIX II.
  THE CABINETS OF MONROE, ADAMS, JACKSON, VAN BUREN, HARRISON,
  TYLER, POLK, TAYLOR, FILLMORE, PIERCE, AND
  BUCHANAN--1816-1858,.....................  485


CHRONOLOGY, ..........................  491

BIBLIOGRAPHY, .........................  497

INDEX,.............................  503




LIST OF MAPS.
                                                               FACING
                                                                PAGE
FLORIDA AT THE TIME OF ACQUISITION, ..............   32

TEXAS AT THE TIME OF ANNEXATION,................  296

OREGON AS DETERMINED BY THE TREATY OF 1846, ..........  312

CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO IN 1850,...............  336

NEBRASKA AND KANSAS, 1854-1861, ................  468




THE MIDDLE PERIOD




{1}

CHAPTER I.

THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY

General Character of the Acts of the Fourteenth Congress--Madison's
Message of December 5th, 1815--Change in the Principles of the
Republican Party--The United States Bank Act of 1816--Report of the
Bank Bill by Mr. Calhoun--Mr. Calhoun's Argument in Favor of the
Bill--Webster's Objections to the Bank Bill--Mr. Clay's Support of the
Bank Bill--Passage of the Bank Bill by the House of
Representatives--The Passage of the Bank Bill by the Senate--The
United States Bank of 1816 a Southern Measure--The Tariff Bill Framed
by the Committee on Ways and Means--The Tariff Bill Reported--The
Character of the Tariff Bill--Mr. Calhoun's Speech upon the Tariff
Bill--The Passage of the Tariff Bill--The Army and Navy Bills--The
Bill for National Improvements--Mr. Calhoun's Advocacy of this
Bill--The Opposition to the Internal Improvements Bill--Passage of the
Bill by Congress--Veto of the Bill by the President--The Failure of
Congress to Override the Veto.


It is no part of my task to relate the events of the War of 1812-15.
That has already been sufficiently done in the preceding volume of
this series. I take up the threads of the narrative at the beginning
of the year 1816, and my problem in this chapter will be to expound
the acts and policies of the Fourteenth Congress in the light of the
experiences of that War.

{2} [Sidenote: General character of the acts of the Fourteenth
Congress.]

Those acts and policies were shaped and adopted under the influence of
those experiences, and this influence was so predominant, at the
moment, in the minds of the leading men in the Government and
throughout the country as to exclude, or at least to overbalance, all
other influences. This is especially manifest in the attitude of the
statesmen of the slave-holding Commonwealths, and most especially in
the attitude of their great leader, Mr. Calhoun, who was the chief
champion of some of the most national measures voted by that Congress.
A clear appreciation of his views and his acts at that period of his
career will enable us far better than anything else to understand the
terrible seriousness of the slavery question, which subsequently drove
him into lines of thought and action so widely divergent from those
upon which he set out in early life.

[Sidenote: Madison's message of December 5th, 1815.]

It was the President himself, however, one of the chief founders of
the "States' rights" party, Mr. Madison, who set the direction toward
centralization in the Congressional legislation of 1815-17. In his
annual message of December 5th, 1815, he recommended the increase and
better organization of the army and the navy, the enlargement of the
existing Military Academy and the founding of such academies in the
different sections of the country, the creation of a national
currency, the protection of manufactures, the construction of roads
and canals, and the establishment of a national university.

This is a very different political creed from that promulgated by
President Jefferson when the Republican party first gained possession
of the Government at Washington. Then, decrease in all the elements of
power in the hands of the central Government, and careful maintenance
of all the rights and powers of the {3} "States," were recommended and
urged upon the attention of the national lawgivers.

[Sidenote: Change in the principles of the Republican party.]

From a "States'-sovereignty" party in 1801, the Republican party had
manifestly become a strong national party in 1816; that is, if we are
to take the two Presidential messages, to which we have referred, as
containing the political principles of that party at these two periods
of its existence.

As the Congress of 1801 showed itself, in its legislation, to be in
substantial accord with President Jefferson's views and sentiments, so
did the Congress of 1815 manifest, in its legislation, the same
general harmony with the views and sentiments of President Madison. In
order that the latter part of this statement may be set down as an
established fact of history, we will review with some particularity
the two cardinal acts of this Congress--the United States Bank Act and
the Tariff Act.

[Sidenote: The United States Bank Act of 1816.]

So soon as the reading of President Madison's message before the House
of Representatives was completed, that body resolved to refer that
part of the message which related to the establishment of an uniform
national currency to a select committee. The committee chosen was
composed of Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Macon, Mr. Pleasants, Mr. Tucker, Mr.
Robertson, Mr. Hopkinson, and Mr. Pickering. The first five of these
gentlemen were from Commonwealths south of the Pennsylvania line, and
only two, therefore, from what began now to be called the
"non-slave-holding States." In other words, it was a Southern
committee, and the great South Carolinian was its chairman. It is,
therefore, just to regard the bill which this committee brought in,
and the arguments with which they supported it, as containing the
views and the sentiments of the leading Southern Republicans in the
House.

{4} [Sidenote: Report of the Bank Bill by Mr. Calhoun.]

This committee came speedily to the conclusion that the
nationalization of the monetary system was the most pressing need of
the country, and within a month from the date of the appointment of
its members the chairman of the committee reported a bill for the
creation of an United States Bank, a mammoth national banking
corporation, which should have a capital of thirty-five millions of
dollars; in which the central Government should own one-fifth of the
stock and be represented by one-fifth of the directors; the president
of which should always be selected from among the Government's
directors; the demand notes and bills of which should be received in
all payments to the United States; and the chartered privileges of
which should be made a monopoly for twenty years.

[Sidenote: Mr. Calhoun's argument in favor of the Bill.]

In his great argument in support of the bill, delivered on February
26th, Mr. Calhoun dismissed at the outset any consideration of the
constitutionality of the bill. That is, he simply assumed that
Congress had the power to pass the bill, and declared that the public
mind was entirely made up and settled upon that point.

Only five years before this, even the national-minded Clay had
pronounced the dictum that Congress had no power to grant a national
bank charter, and the fact that Congress then declined to grant such a
charter is good evidence that the majority of the people of the
country held the same view. There can be little question that the
Republican party, down to 1812, regarded the establishment of an
United States bank by Congress as an usurpation of power not granted
by the Constitution.

Five years constitute a short period of time for the accomplishment of
so important a change in the public {5} opinion. Five years of
ordinary experience would not have produced it. It was, without doubt,
the strain brought upon the finances of the country by the necessities
of the War that had developed a powerful national opinion upon the
subject of the financial system of the country.

Mr. Calhoun also declined to discuss the question whether banks were
favorable or unfavorable to "public liberty and prosperity." He
assumed, here again, that public experience had settled that question,
and said that such an inquiry was now purely metaphysical. This
statement is certainly prime evidence that the practical experiences,
made in conducting the Government under the pressure of war, had about
knocked the metaphysics of the year 1800 out of the Republican party,
and had led the party on to a much more positive stage of political
opinion.

Mr. Calhoun furthermore dismissed the question whether a "national
bank would be favorable to the administration of the finances of the
Government," since there was not enough doubt, he said, in the public
mind upon that point to warrant a discussion of it.

He declared, finally, that the only questions which demanded
consideration were those relative to the existing disorders of the
currency, and the efficiency of a national bank in working their cure.
Upon these two points he was distinct, decided, and thoroughly
national. He said that the Constitution had without doubt placed the
monetary system of the country entirely within the control of
Congress; that the "States" had usurped the power of making money by
chartering banks of issue in the face of the constitutional provision
forbidding the "States" to emit bills of credit; that the two hundred
millions of dollars of irredeemable bank-notes, paper, and credits,
issued by these banks, were the cause of the {6} financial disorders
of the country; and that the remedy for this condition of things was,
in his opinion, to be found in a great specie-paying national bank,
sustained by the power of the general Government in the work of
bringing such a pressure upon these "State" banks as would force them
either to pay specie or go into liquidation. This was clear, generous,
and patriotic. No one made a fairer statement of the case, and no one
advocated a more national remedy in its treatment.

[Sidenote: Webster's objections to the Bank Bill.]

On the other hand, it was Webster who, at this time, appeared narrow
and particularistic. He objected to the large amount of the capital,
and to the stock feature of the proposed bank, and expressed alarm at
the proposition to place it under such strong governmental control. He
thought that the bills and paper of the "State" banks would be good
enough, if the general Government would only force them to redeem
their currency in specie by refusing to accept for Government dues the
bills of banks which did not pay specie on demand.

Whatever may be thought of Webster's attitude from the point of view
of political economy, it was certainly, from the point of view of
political science, the attitude of a "States'-rights" man rather than
that of a nationalist. Webster did not, however, call the
constitutionality of the bill in question. That was conceded upon all
sides.

The friends of the measure felt more anxiety in regard to Mr. Clay. He
had, only five years before, as we have seen, pronounced a similar
bill unconstitutional in his opinion, and he was now the Speaker of
the House, with all the power over the procedure in the House which
that position involved. It was generally felt that the fate of the
measure would be largely determined by his attitude toward it.

[Sidenote: Mr. Clay's support of the Bank Bill.]

Mr. Clay did not leave the House long in doubt {7} concerning his
views. He quickly revealed and avowed that noted change of opinion
upon this subject, which has been commonly accounted one of his
greatest inconsistencies, but which may be very properly considered as
simply manifesting that growth in patriotism and national spirit
experienced by almost all the leading men of the country, outside of
New England, in consequence of the vicissitudes of the period of war
under which the nation suffered between the dates of Mr. Clay's two
utterances. He frankly confessed that he had changed his opinion, and
explained the change by saying that the power of Congress in respect