



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