History of the United States Volume Iii Part 14

To pierce the city was even now by no means easy. The approach was by two roads, one entering the Belen gate, the other the San Cosme. General Quitman advanced toward the Belen, but at the entrance was stopped by a destructive cannonade from the citadel itself. Those fighting their way toward the San Cosme succeeded in entering the city, Lieutenant U. S.

Grant making his mark in the gallant work of this day. The city was evacuated that night, and on the 15th of September, 1847, was fully in the hands of Scott.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848. It established the Rio Grande as the boundary between the two countries, and New Mexico, of course including what is now Arizona and also California, was ceded to the United States for $15,000,000. The United States also a.s.sumed, to the sum of $3,250,000, the claims of American citizens upon Mexico. For Gadsden's Purchase, in 1853, between the Gila River and the Mexican State of Chihuahua, we paid $10,000,000 more. Our territory thus received in all, as a consequence of the Mexican War, an increment of 591,398 square miles.

Inseparable from the politics of the Mexican War is the Oregon question, since Oregon's re-occupation and "fifty-four forty or fight" had been democratic cries for securing to Polk west-northern votes in 1844. We had, however, no valid claim so far north, except against Russia--by the treaty of 1824. The Louisiana purchase, indeed, had vested us with whatever--very dubious--rights France had upon the Pacific, and the Florida treaty of 1819 gave us the far better t.i.tle of Spain to the coast north of 42 degrees. This treaty, with Gray's discovery of the Columbia in 1792, Lewis and Clarke's official explorations of the Columbia valley in 1804-05-06, England's retrocession, in 1818, of Astoria, captured during the War of 1812, and extensive actual settlements upon the river by American citizens from 1832 on, made our claim perfect up to 49 degrees at least. This parallel the convention with Great Britain in 1818 had already fixed as our northern line from the Lake of Woods to the Rocky Mountains. Between this and 54 degrees 40 minutes, England's t.i.tle, from exploration and settlement, was superior to ours, which was based upon alleged old Spanish discovery. The same convention of 1818, renewed in 1827, opened the Oregon country to occupation by settlers from both nations. Increase of immigration rendering a fixing of jurisdictions imperative, England pressed for the line of the Columbia below its intersection of the forty-ninth parallel.

We had twice offered to settle upon 49 degrees, which limit the rapid growth of our population in the region induced England in 1836 to accept. Whether Polk's bl.u.s.tering demand for "all Oregon," which came near bringing on war with England, and his much condemned recession later, were mere opportunist acts, is still a question. Many consider them pieces of a deep-laid policy by Polk to tole Mexico to war in hope of England's aid, then, suddenly pacifying England, to devour Mexico at his leisure.

CHAPTER IV.

CALIFORNIA AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

[1846]

One of the campaigns at the beginning of the Mexican War was that of General Stephen W. Kearney, from Fort Leavenworth, against New Mexico.

It was opened in May, 1846. He invaded the country without much opposition, arrived at Santa Fe August 18th, having marched 873 miles, declared the inhabitants free from all allegiance to Mexico, and formed a territorial government over them as United States subjects.

Captain John C. Fremont had previously, but in the same year, 1846, been sent to California at the head of an exploring expedition, and in May he was notified to remain in the country in antic.i.p.ation of hostilities. On June 15th he captured Samona. Meanwhile, Commodore Sloat was erecting our flag over the towns on the coast. In July Sloat was superseded by Commodore Stockton, who routed the Mexican commander, De Castro, at Los Angeles, joined Fremont, and on August 13th seized Monterey, the then capital. The two commanders now placed themselves at the head of a provisional government for California.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Zachary Taylor. After a photograph by Brady.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hillside facing bay, with about 35 houses. About 100 s.h.i.+ps are in the bay.]

The Site of San Francisco in 1848.

[1848-1849]

In 1848, on the same day and almost at the same hour when the peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo was concluded, gold was discovered in California. It was on the land of one Sutter, a Swiss settler in the Sacramento Valley, as some workmen were opening a flume for a mill. In three months over 4,000 persons were there, digging for gold with great success. By July, 1849, it is thought, 15,000 had arrived. Nearly all were forced to live in booths, tents, log huts, and under the open sky. The spa.r.s.e population previously on the ground left off farming and grazing and opened mines. People became insane for gold. Immigrants soon came in immense hordes. In 1846, aside from roving Indians, California had numbered not much over 15,000 inhabitants. By 1850, it seems certain that the territory contained no fewer than 92,597. The new-comers were from almost every land and clime--Mexico, South America, the Sandwich Islands, China--though, of course, most were Americans. The bulk of these hailed from the Northwest and the Northeast. To this land of promise the st.u.r.dy pioneers from the Mississippi Valley found their way on foot, on horseback, or in wagons, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierras, following trails previously untrodden by civilized man. Those from the East made long detours around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus of Panama.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A few log buildings and a tent in a small clearing.]

Sutter's Mill, California, where Gold was First Discovered.

The yield of gold from the virgin placers was enormous, a laborer's average the first season being perhaps an ounce a day, though many made much more. During the first two years about $40,000,000 worth of gold was extracted. According to careful estimates the gold yield of the United States, mostly from California, which had been only $890,000 in 1847, increased to $10,000,000 in 1848, to $40,000,000 in 1849, to $50,000,000 in 1850, to $55,000,000 in 1851, to $60,000,000 in 1852, and in 1853 to $65,000,000.

Most interesting were the spontaneous governmental and legal inst.i.tutions which arose in these motley communities, some of them finding their originals in the English mining districts, others in Mexico and Spain, and still others recalling the mining customs of medieval Germany. For a time many camps had each its independent government, disconnected from all human authority around or above. Some of these were modelled after the Mexican Alcaldes.h.i.+p, others after the New England town. Over those who rushed to the vicinity of Sutter's mill that gentleman became virtual Alcalde, though he was not recognized by all. The men first opening a placer would seek to pre-empt all the adjoining land, giving up only when others came in numbers too strong for them. Officers were elected and new customs sanctioned as they were needed. Partners.h.i.+ps were sacredly maintained, yet by no other law than that of the camp. Crimes against property and life seem to have been infrequent at first, but the unparalleled wealth toled in and developed a criminal cla.s.s, which the rudimentary government could not control.

San Francisco formed in 1851 a vigilance committee of citizens, by which crimes could be more summarily and surely punished. The pioneer banking house in California began business at San Francisco in January, 1849.

The same month saw the first frame house on the Sacramento, near Sutter's Fort.

The vast acquisition of territory by the Mexican War seemed destined to be a great victory for slavery, because nearly all of it lay south of 36 degrees 30 minutes and hence by the Missouri Compromise could become slave soil. But there was the complication that under Mexico all this wide realm had been free. To exist there legally slavery must therefore be established by Congress, making the case very different from the cases of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, which came under United States authority already burdened. This predisposed many who were not in general opposed to slavery, against extending the inst.i.tution hither.

Early in the war a bill had pa.s.sed the House, failing almost by accident in the Senate, which contained the famous Wilmot Proviso, so named from its mover in the House, that, except for crime, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should ever exist in any of the territories to be annexed. Wilmot was a Democrat, and at this time a decided majority of his party favored the proviso. But the pro-slavery wing rallied, while the Whigs, disbelieving in the war and in annexation both, offered the proviso Democrats no hearty aid. In consequence it was defeated both then and after the annexation.

The election of 1848 went for the Whigs, and the next March 4th, General Taylor became President. Though a southerner and a slave-holder, he was moderate and a true patriot. So rapid had been the influx into California that the Territory needed a stable government. Accordingly, one of Taylor's first acts as President was to urge California to apply for admission to statehood. General Riley, military governor, at once called a convention, which, sitting from September 1st to October 13th, framed a const.i.tution and made request that California be taken into the Union. This const.i.tution prohibited slavery, and thus a new firebrand was tossed into the combustible material with which the political situation abounded. By this time nearly all the friends of freedom were for the proviso, but its enemies as well had greatly increased. The immense growth, actual and prospective, of northern population, greatly inspired one side and angered the other.

[1850]

Resort was now had again to the old, illusive device of compromise, Clay being the leader as usual. He brought forward his "Omnibus Bill," so called because it threw a sop to everybody. It failed to pa.s.s as a single measure, but was broken up and enacted piecemeal. Stubborn was the fight. Radicals of the one part would consent to nothing short of extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; those of the other stood solidly for the unmodified proviso.

In this crisis occurred President Taylor's death, July 9, 1850, which was most unfortunate. He was known not to favor the pro-slavery aggression which, in spite of Clay's personal leaning in the opposite direction, the omnibus bill embodied. Mr. Fillmore, as also Webster, whom he made his Secretary of State, nervous with fear of an anti-slavery reputation, went fully Clay's length. The debate on this compromise of 1850 was the occasion when Webster deserted the free-soil principles which were now dominant in New England. His celebrated speech of March. 7th marked the crisis of his life. He argued that the proviso was not needed to prevent slavery in the newly gotten district, while its pa.s.sage would be a wanton provocation to the South From this moment Ma.s.sachusetts dropped him. When she next elected a senator for a full term, it was Charles Sumner, candidate of the united Democrats and Free-soilers, who went to Congress pledged to fight slavery to the death.

But the omnibus compromises were pa.s.sed. California was, indeed, admitted free, September 9, 1850--the thirty-first State in order--and slave-trade in the District of Columbia slightly alleviated. On the other hand, Texas was stretched to include a huge piece of New Mexico that was free before, and paid $10,000,000 to relinquish further claims.

This was virtually a bonus to holders of her scrip, which from seventeen cents the dollar instantly rose to par. New Mexico and Utah were to be organized as Territories without the proviso, and were made powerless to legislate on slavery till they should become States. Least sufferable, a fugitive slave law was pa.s.sed, so Draconian that that of 1793, hitherto in force, was benign in comparison. It placed the entire power of the general Government at the slave-hunter's disposal, and ordered rendition without trial or grant of habeas corpus, on a certificate to be had by simple affidavit. Bystanders, if bidden, were obliged to help marshals, and tremendous penalties imposed for aid to fugitives.

This act facilitated the recovery of fugitives at first, but not permanently. Many who had labored for its pa.s.sage soon saw that it was a mistake. It powerfully fanned the abolition flame all over the North.

New personal liberty laws were enacted. A daily increasing number adopted the view that the new act was unconst.i.tutional, on the ground that the Const.i.tution places the rendition of slaves as of criminals in the hands of States, and guarantees jury trial, even upon t.i.tle to property, if over twenty dollars in value. After the act had been justified in the courts, mult.i.tudes of moderate northern men urged to a dangerous degree the doctrine of state rights in defence of the liberty laws. Others adopted the cry of the "higher law," and without joining Garrison in denouncing the Government, did not hesitate to oppose in every possible way the operation of this drastic legislation for slave-catching.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Millard Fillmore.

From a painting by Carpenter in 1853, at the City Hall, New York.

The country's growth made escape from bondage continually easier and easier. Once across the border a runaway was sure to find many friends and few enemies. Openly, or, if this was required, by stealth, he was pa.s.sed quickly along to the Canada line. Between 1830 and 1860 over 30,000 slaves are estimated to have taken refuge in Canada. By 1850, probably no less than 20,000 had found homes in the free States. The new law moved many of these across into the British dominions. It was hence increasingly difficult for the slave-owner to recover stray property.

All possible legal obstructions were placed in his way, and when these failed he was likely still to be opposed by a mob which might prove too powerful for the marshal and any posse which he could gather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Three angry men looking out a window at crowd of citizens and soldiers in large plaza.]

The Rendition of Anthony Burns in Boston.

In Boston, when a slave named Shadrach was arrested, his friends made a sudden dash, rescued him from the officers and freed him. With Simms the same was attempted, but in vain. The removal of Anthony Burns from that city in 1855 was possible only by escorting him down State Street to the revenue cutter in waiting, inside a dense hollow square of United States artillerymen and marines, with the whole city's militia under arms and at hand. Business houses as well as residences were closed and draped in mourning. It was an indignity which Ma.s.sachusetts never forgot. At Alton, Ill., slave-hunters seized a respectable colored woman, long resident there, who fully believed herself free. She was surrounded by an infuriated company of citizens, and would have been wrenched from her captors' clutch had not they, in their terror, offered to sell her back into freedom. The needed $1,200 was raised in a few minutes, and the agonized creature restored to her family. Judge Davis, whom the evidence had compelled to deliver the woman, on rendering the sentence resigned his commission, declaring: "The law gives you your victim. Thank it and not me, and may G.o.d have mercy on your sinful souls."

CHAPTER V.

THE FIGHT FOR KANSAS

[1850-1854]

The measures of 1850 proved anything but the "finality" upon slavery discussion which both parties, the Whigs as loudly as the Democrats, promised and insisted that they should be. Elated by its victory in 1850, and also by that of 1852, when the anti-slavery sentiment of northern Whigs drove so many of their old southern allies to vote for Pierce, giving him his triumphant election, the slavocracy in 1854 proceeded in its work of suicide to undo the sacred Missouri Compromise of 1820. Douglas, the ablest northern Democrat, led in this, succeeding, as official pacificator between North and South, somewhat to the office of Clay, who had died June 29, 1852. The aim of most who were with him was to make Kansas-Nebraska slave soil, but we may believe that Douglas himself cherished the hope and conviction that freedom was its destiny.

This rich country west and northwest of Missouri, consecrated to freedom by the Missouri Compromise, had been slowly filling with civilized men.

It did not promise to be a profitable field for slavery, nor would economic considerations ever have originated a slavery question concerning it. But politically its character as slave or free was of the utmost consequence to the South, where the resolution gradually arose either to secure it for the peculiar inst.i.tution or else prevent its organization even as a Territory. A motion for such organization had been unsuccessfully made about 1843, and it was repeated, equally without effect, each session for ten years. None of these motions had contained any hint that slavery could possibly find place in the proposed Territory. The bill of December 15, 1853, like its predecessors, had as first drawn no reference whatever to slavery, but when it returned from the committee on Territories, of which Douglas was chairman, the report, not explicitly, indeed, made the a.s.sumption, unheard of before, that Kansas-Nebraska stood in the same relation to slavery in which Utah and New Mexico had stood in 1850; and that the compromise of that year, in leaving the question of slavery to the States to be formed from these Territories, had already set aside the agreement of 1820. These a.s.sumptions were totally false. The act of 1850 gave Utah and New Mexico no power as Territories over the debatable inst.i.tution, and contained not the slightest suggestion of any rule in the matter for territories in general.

But the hint was taken, and on January 16th notice given of intention to move an out-and-out abrogation of the Missouri Compromise. Such abrogation was at once incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska bill reported by Douglas, January 23, 1854. This separated Kansas from Nebraska, and the subsequent struggle raged in reference to Kansas alone. The bill erroneously declared it established by the acts of 1850 that "all questions as to slavery in the Territories," no less than in the States which should grow out of them, were to be left to the residents, subject to appeal to the United States courts. It pa.s.sed both houses by good majorities and was signed by President Pierce May 30th. Its animus appeared from the loss in the Senate of an amendment, moved by S. P.

Chase, of Ohio, allowing the Territory to prohibit slavery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Franklin Pierce.

From a painting by Healy, in 1852, at the Corcoran Art Gallery.