USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 > Part 5
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
existence, it retains the communities in which it is established in a condition of apparent and comparative inertness. The lights of Science and the improvements of Art, which vivify and accele- rate elsewhere, cannot penetrate, or if they do, penetrate with dilatory inefficiency among its operatives. They are not merely instinctive and passive. While the intellectual industry of other parts of this country springs elastically forward at every fresh impulse, and manual labor is propelled and redoubled by count- less inventions, machines, and contrivances, instantly understood and at once exercised, the South remains stationary, inaccessible to such encouraging and invigorating aids. Nor is it possible to be wholly blind to the moral effect of this species of labor upon those freemen among whom it exists. A disrelish for humble and hardy occupation ; a pride adverse to drudgery and toil; a dread that to partake in the employments allotted to color may be accompanied also by its degradation, are natural and inevitable. The high and lofty qualities which, in other scenes, and for other purposes, characterize and adorn our Southern brethren, are fatal to the enduring patience, the corporal exertion, and the pains- taking simplicity by which only a successful yeomanry can be formed. When in fact, sir, the Senator [Mr. Hayne] asserts that 'slaves are too improvident, too incapable of that minute, con- stant, delicate attention, and that persevering industry which are essential to manufacturing establishments,' he himself admits the defect in Southern labor by which the progress of his favorite section must be retarded. He admits an inability to keep pace with the rest of the world. He admits an inherent weakness ; a weakness neither engendered nor aggravated by the Tariff --- which, as societies are now constituted and directed, must drag in the rear, and be distanced in the common race."
In one respect, however, this system of labor gave the domi- nant class a great advantage. The large wealth accumulated, afforded abundant leisure for travel, and for social and intellectual culture. Whatever could pamper the appetite and gratify the taste, was at their command. Rarely has the world seen a state of society in which such advantages have been enjoyed. Mr. Buckle, in his History, places this as the measure of civilization, declaring that the progress of a people is dependent in the first
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instance upon the accumulation of wealth, as without it there can be little leisure.
An idea early prevailed among the Southern leaders, borrowed doubtless from the crooked diplomacy of Europe, that a balance of power must be preserved between the North and the South. Instead of regarding the whole as one great, common country, with common interests and common privileges, opportunities were sought for arraying one section against the other, and of pressing the question, " In the interest of which section shall the General Government be administered?" The baneful influence of this attempt to maintain a balance of power has been manifest in all the subsequent internal troubles of the country. When the Con- stitution was adopted, the subject which created the greatest diversity of opinion was that of representation, the political status of the slave coming in question in settling the organic law. It was claimed by the public men of the South that slaves were chattels, and should not be allowed the right of suffrage; but that they should be counted as population in determining repre- sentation. It was contended on the part of the North that, if slaves were chattels and had not the right of suffrage, they should not be allowed representation in the National Government, as the Constitution expressly forbids property representation. This was one of the first practical issues between the two sections. The long and impassioned discussion upon this issue in the Convention which framed the Constitution, was finally settled by a compro- mise, practically identifying the slave with two natures, in part chattel and in part man, whereby three-fifths of a slave was allowed to count as human in determining representation in Con- gress and the number of votes in the electoral college, and the remaining two-fifths as chattel, but giving neither the three-fifths nor the two-fifths element the right of suffrage, thus yielding to a ballot in the South a preponderance of power over a ballot in the North.
As the old States increased in population, a disposition was manifested to push forward into the new and unsettled territories. The free laborer of the North did not desire to emigrate to a ter- ritory which would eventually become a slave State, nor would the planter from the South settle upon lands which could by any
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
possibility become free. The occupation of the territories consti- tuted a second issue between the two sections.
The cession to the General Government by the old States, which claimed vast stretches of country to the westward of their limits under their charters from the British Crown, of their right to such territory, brought a vast virgin domain to the common use. In 1784, immediately after the deed of cession had been executed, Mr. Jefferson introduced an ordinance for the govern- ment of the territory northwest of the Ohio, one article of which prohibited slavery. It failed of passage at that session ; but three years after, an ordinance drawn by Nathan Dane, of Massa- chusetts, founded upon the draft of Mr. Jefferson, was enacted. This postponed the conflict for a score of years, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, in the meantime, filling up with population and being admitted as free States, and Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana being settled and organized in the interest of slavery.
When the wave of emigration crossed the Mississippi river, and entered upon territory over which there was no principle regu- lating settlement, the issue of freedom or slavery was again pre- sented. On the soil of Missouri the two classes of settlers met. Previous to the acquisition of the vast territory called Louisiana from the French in 1803, Saint Louis had become a trading post of considerable importance, having been settled by French Creoles from New Orleans. The nucleus of a slaveholding population had thus been formed before the soil had become a part of the United States. Accordingly, a Territorial Government was organized in the interest of slavery. Geographically, Missouri extends con- siderably to the north of any of the older slave States. Many of its inhabitants were emigrants from the North, whose interests would be in a measure sacrificed by its becoming a slave State. When the question of admission as such came up for considera- tion in Congress, it was violently opposed. The dominant party, however, favored the measure, and it was admitted accordingly, though its admission was coupled with another measure, called the Missouri Compromise, which provided that slavery in all ter- ritory north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes of north latitude, commencing upon the western boundary of Missouri, and extend- ing through to the eastern boundary of Mexico, should be forever
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ORIGIN OF REBELLION.
prohibited. This was supposed to settle the troublesome question for all time to come.
But the population of the North increased much more rapidly than that of the South. The preponderance which had prevailed in the South began from the opening of the present century to change in favor of the North. There seemed little affinity between free and slave labor. The free, skilled laborer of the North, and of Europe, the never-failing element of national power, could see little to tempt to emigration in a country where the habits and institutions of the people were based upon the degradation of labor. Hence, the principal source of increase in the South, beyond the natural one by birth, was the clandestine importation of negro slaves from Africa, and from the neighboring Antilles. The free institutions of the North, on the contrary, were peculiarly fitted to attract emigration. Abundance of food, cheap land, taxation only nominal, no standing army, free schools, a free press, the manhood of every class respected, to every one accorded a fair opportunity in the race of life,-were golden pros- pects towards which the oppressed in all lands turned with longing eyes. The emigrant who sought and secured a home in the land of freedom, wrote to his friends and neighbors whom he had left behind in the Fatherland, such glowing accounts of his fortunes and prospects, that many were induced to follow him. Thus, in addition to the increase of population by birth, there was a tide of emigration pouring into the free States, comprising the young and hardy and enterprising, and contributing the best elements of vitality and power. The intelligence and inde- pendence born of the free institutions of the North attracted attention in all lands. Dr. Franklin, the son of a tallow-chandler, and early the hard-working apprentice to a Philadelphia printer, when finally he appeared at the Court of St. James, and the Palace of Versailles, was a living demonstration of the excellence of the institutions of which he was the representative and the constant reminder.
The census of 1810 showed an excess of population in the free States of 278,008; in 1S20, 667,453; in 1830, 1,159,997; in 1840, 1,399,487; in 1850, 3,825,491; and in 1860, 6,813,046. The census of 1830, and again that of 1840, notwithstanding the
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rich rewards of cotton-growing after the invention of the cotton-gin, and the consequent tendency to multiply population, showed so unmistakably the increasing preponderance of numbers in the free States, that the advocates of an equality of power between the two sections became alarmed. Until 1840 the number of States had remained very evenly balanced, as will be seen by the following table :
1800
. 1810
1820
1830
1840
Number of Free States ...
11
13
13
13
15
Number of Slave States ..
9
11
13
14
14
1
In the Senate, therefore, where each State had two members, equality was substantially preserved; but in the popular branch, power had steadily gravitated to the side of the North. The admission of Iowa and Wisconsin into the enumeration of 1840, and the certain prospect that before another census would be taken, Minnesota would be included, made the Southern leaders restive, and eager to devise some scheme by which their theory of a balance of power could be maintained.
Stretching away to the southwest from the Sabine river, the boundary of the United States, was the vast territory of Texas, rich in physical resources, with a small white population, mostly emigrants from the United States, and with boundaries unsettled or only partially defined. Nominally, it was under the control of Mexico. Towards this virgin country the longing eyes of Southern leaders were turned. Various projects and overtures were made for its purchase, but without success, until in March, 1836, its independence was declared, and in 1845, upon the eve of President Tyler's administration, it was annexed to the United States. One of the terms of annexation was that new States of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to Texas, might be formed out of this acquired territory. Attempts . made to exclude slavery from a portion of this acquisition were fruitless, the provision for extending the Missouri Compromise line being gratuitous, as no part of the new territory extended so far north. The door thus opened for slavery expansion seemed to promise the restoration of the long contended for balance of power.
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The annexation of Texas involved the country in a war with Mexico, which resulted in its occupation by United States armies, and in a treaty of peace, whereby a large extent of additional do- main was acquired. When the bill providing for the settlement of the terms of the treaty was under consideration in Congress, David Wilmot,* member of the lower House, from the Bradford district of Pennsylvania, offered a proviso, afterwards widely known as the Wilmot Proviso, forever excluding slavery there- from. In all former acquisitions of territory, as that of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, slavery already existed. But Mexico had abolished it in her domain some twenty years before, and it came to the United States free. The Wilmot Proviso was defeated ; but its discussion in Congress, upon the stump, and in the news- paper press, occasioned a large development of the sentiment that the newly acquired territory, being already free by the laws of Mexico, should remain free when it came under the flag of the Union, and that slavery should be restricted to the domain in which it was already legalized. This sentiment finally culminated in the formation of the Republican party.
The immediate result of the annexation of Texas was the ac- quisition of a vast area of fertile soil, and the flattering prospect to the South of its speedy settlement entirely in the interest of slavery.
But an event soon transpired which suddenly clouded the roseate view so complacently regarded, verifying the oft-repeated sentiment of the poet :
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley."
Gold was discovered in California. Attracted by the glittering prospect, thousands flocked to this new El Dorado. To mine gold required skilled labor, and a class who could endure great hard-
* On the tomb of Wilmot, in the cemetery at Towanda, where his remains lie buried, is this inscription :
DAVID WILMOT, Born January 20, 1814; Died March 16, 1868; Aged 54 years. ..
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in any part of said territory, except for crimes whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."
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ship. Neither of these conditions could be met by the employ- ment of slaves. Again was the superiority of the labor of the North over that of the South apparent. Thus, a law of nature determined the character of the population, in defiance of the laws of politicians. Attempts to establish a territorial government over the northern part, under the name of California, and the southern under that of New Mexico, the latter to be open to slavery, were overborne by the demand for a State organization rendered abso- lutely necessary by its vast and rapidly accumulating population. In June, 1849, a convention assembled, at the call of the military Governor of the Territory, and a State Constitution was framed, wherein slavery was prohibited; and in August, 1850, California was admitted as a free State, with a population of 165,000.
The territory of the new State extended north to the forty- second parallel, which forms the northern boundary of Pennsyl- vania, and south to the thirty-third parallel, which cuts the cen- tral part of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The largest part of the State is thus seen to lie south of the line of the Missouri Compromise. Its admission with these boundaries was strenu- ously opposed, because it infringed with a free population upon domain claimed for slavery, and gave to the North another power- ful new State, already excelling in number of States. So strong was this opposition, that, had the advice of a party at the South, under the leadership of General Quitman, a United States Senator from Mississippi, been heeded, violent measures would then have been adopted to convulse the Union and rend it in twain; but, . the conservative people of that section, headed by Henry Clay, were still too much attached to the national unity to give the advocates of violence promise of success.
The admission of California was a part of a series of measures which together were known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, of which Mr. Clay was the author and advocate. California was to be a free State with boundaries as proposed ; the compact with Texas, for the admission of new slave States, was to be faithfully executed; territorial governments were to be established over Utah and New Mexico, without the Wilmot Proviso; the boun- daries of Texas were to be fixed excluding New Mexico from its domain, receiving as compensation therefor $10.000,000 from
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the national treasury ; a more efficient law for the rendition of fugitive slaves escaping into the free States was to be enacted ; and slavery was to remain undisturbed in the District of Colum- bia, though the slave-trade in the District was to be prohibited under a heavy penalty. Upon these conditions, the leaders of the two great political parties, the Whig and the Democratic, united ; and they were proclaimed as the final settlement of the Slavery question.
But this vexatious matter, so often settled, would not. remain settled. The next field of conflict was on the plains of Kansas. A proposition, presented in Congress, abolishing the Missouri Com- promise, and legislating slavery into all the Territories of the United States, caused intense excitement throughout the North. Finally, on the 24th of May, 1854, after eliciting the most earnest discussion, and the violent denunciation of the press of the free States, a bill somewhat modified, providing that the people of the Territories should be left free to form and regulate their institu- tions in their own way, subordinate only to the Constitution of the United States, that the titles to slaves, and the right to per- sonal freedom, should be referred to the local tribunals, subject to appeal to the Supreme Court of the Nation, was passed.
Thus was the work of 1820 undone, and the doctrine of Squat- ter Sovereignty substituted. The winds were let loose. The status of the proposed new State of Kansas was to depend upon its settlement by free or slave labor. The race of colonization was commenced by emigrants from the neighboring slave State of Missouri, aided by parties from several of the States of the far South. It was followed up by a large emigration from the North, of men seeking a permanent home in the new territory. The two parties met; and, though the territory was wide enough for all, yet the presence of free labor threatened the ultimate permanence and security of slavery, and collisions and deadly encounters fol- lowed. Jealousy and hatred ripened into bitter animosity and well meditated revenge. Pillage and arson and murder were of frequent occurrence. Through the long dreary years of the early settlement, the inhabitants were kept in a constant ferment, while a most harassing petty warfare was persevered in, with the hope that the one party or the other would achieve a triumph. The
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revolting details of these struggles form one of the blackest pages in territorial history. Finally, overborne by numbers, the slave party was obliged to yield, and Kansas and Nebraska were in due time admitted as free States.
While these scenes of violence were passing in the territory, the two sections of the country were rocking with excitement as in the throes of an earthquake. The press teemed with highly wrought descriptions of the horrors perpetrated on either side, and with appeals to the passions and prejudices of the people, against the wrongs to which the unhappy settlers were subjected. Be- fore this maelstrom of sectional strife the solid foundations of political parties, which from the origin of the Government had been preserved throughout the entire length and breadth of the nation, were rapidly being swept away.
With the Presidential canvass of 1852, wherein a Free Soil party headed by Martin Van Buren, in addition to the Whig and the Democratic, made its appearance, the Whig party disappeared from the arena of politics. Upon its ruins arose a new organiza- tion, at first called the Anti-Nebraska, and subsequently the Republican party. In 1856 Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Fremont were the candidates respectively of the Democratic and Republican parties, and Mr. Fillmore of the American, joined by the rem- nants of the old Whig party. Mr. Buchanan was successful ; but so strong was the voice of the opposition that it was plainly seen that at the next election it would undoubtedly be triumphant. Accordingly the Southern leaders busied themselves during the four years to elapse before that event would occur, in preparations for founding a Southern Confederacy,-" A great slave-holding Confederacy," was the language of the address put forth by South Carolina.
The defeat of their favorite theory of a balance of power, and the prospect of seeing the Government pass into the hands of a party bent on confining slavery to its then limits, induced them to seek independence. They called their method Secession, but it was in effect violent revolution. Mr. Lincoln, in his message of July 4th, 1861, says of this: "At the beginning, they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their
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people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride in, and reverence for, the his- tory and Government of their common country, as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophisin, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is, that any State of the Union may, consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union, or of any other State. The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice. With rebellion thus sugar-coated, they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years; and until, at length, they have brought many good men to a willing- ness to take up arms against the Government, the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical pretence of taking their State out of the Union, who could have been brought to no such thing the day before."
The sentiment of pride in the Government and reverence for its history here referred to was deep rooted even in the minds of those who eventually aided to destroy it. Alexander H. Stephens, who afterwards became Vice-President of the Confederacy, in an elaborate address at Milledgeville on the 14th of November, 1860, after denouncing Secession, and pleading most earnestly for delay and deliberation, said : "My countrymen, I am not of those who believe this Union has been a curse up to this time. True men, men of integrity, entertain different views from me on this subject. I do not question their right to do so; I would not impugn their motives in so doing. Nor will I undertake to say that this Government of our fathers is perfect. There is nothing perfect in this world, of a human origin-nothing connected with human nature, from man himself to any of his works. You may select the wisest and best men for your judges, and yet how many defects are there in the administration of justice ? And it is so in
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our Government. But that this Government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the objects of all good governments than any other on the face of the earth is my settled conviction. . . Where will you go, following the sun in its circuit round our globe, to find a government that better protects the liberties of its people, and secures to them the blessings we enjoy ? I think that one of the evils that beset us is a surfeit of liberty, an exuber- ance of the priceless blessings for which we are ungrateful. . . . When I look around and see our prosperity in everything, agricul- ture, commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and mental, as well as moral advancement, and our col- leges, I think in the face of such an exhibition, if we can, with- out the loss of power, or any essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to ourselves and to posterity to-let us not too readily yield to this temptation-do so. I look upon this country with our institutions as the Eden of the world, the paradise of the universe. It may be that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in telling you, that I fear if we rashly evince passion, and without sufficient cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous, and happy-instead of becoming gods, we will become demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's throats. . .. I believe in the power of the people to govern themselves when wisdom prevails and passion is silent. Look at what has already been done by them for their advancement in all that ennobles man. There is nothing like it in the history of the world. Look abroad from one extremity of the country to the other-contemplate our greatness. . We are now among the first nations of the earth. Shall it be said, then, that our institutions, founded upon principles of self-govern- ment, are a failure ?
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