The burning of Washington


The final year of the war of 1812 was distinguished by a greater invasive energy of the British forces than had previously characterized them. The American territory was entered at three different points, by way of Lake Champlain, of Chesapeake Bay, and of the Mississippi.

During this period an attack was made on the capital city of Washington, which resulted disastrously to the Americans, and in a shameful instance of vandalism on the part of the British commanders.

For the whole summer the whole coast had been kept in a state of alarm by the British fleet, which had been largely reinforced, in consequence of the close of the war in Europe. Several places were taken, and many depredations committed on the coast, the only successful resistance being at Stonington, Connecticut. This town was bombarded for three days, fifty tons of iron in missiles being thrown into it. Yet it was so gallantly defended by about twenty men with two or three old guns that the fleet was finally forced to withdraw, with a loss of seventy men, while the loss of the defenders was only seven men wounded. Farther south the fleet of Admiral Cockburn for more than a year had harassed the coast of the Middle States, sending expeditions to plunder helpless villages or destroy plantations, without excuse or warrant in the laws of war. In August, General Ross, with thirty-five hundred veterans from Wellington's army, arrived in the Chesapeake and landed at Benedict on the Patuxent, forty miles below Washington. He was joined by one thousand marines from Cockburn's squadron. Though there was reason to expect some such movement, no efficient preparation had been made for it. The only immediately available force was about five hundred regulars and two thousand militia, under General Winder. The progress of the invaders might have been easily stayed had the roads been obstructed by fallen tress, but no such steps were taken. Barney's fleet of gunboats was given to the flames, and Winder retreated to Bladensburg, where he drew up his small army in a commanding position, behind the creek at that point, and on hills in the rear.

SUCH was the disposition of Winder's little army when, at noon, the enemy were seen descending the hills beyond Bladensburg and pressing on towards the bridge. At half-past twelve they were in the town, and came within range of the heavy guns of the first American line. The British commenced hurling rockets at the exposed Americans, and attempted to throw a heavy force across the bridge, but were driven back by their antagonists' cannon and forced to take shelter in the village and behind Lowndes's Hill, in the rear of it. Again, after due preparation, they advanced in double-quick time; and, when the bridge was crowded with them, the artillery of Winder's first and second lines opened upon them with terrible effect, sweeping down a whole company. The concealed riflemen, under Pinkney, also poured deadly volleys into their exposed ranks; but the British, continually reinforced, pushed gallantly forward, some over the bridge, and some fording the stream above it, and fell so heavily upon the first and unsupported line of the Americans that it was compelled to fall back upon the second. A company, whose commander is unnamed in the reports of the battle, were so panicstricken that they fled after the first fire, leaving their guns to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The first British brigade was now over the stream, and, elated by their success, did not wait for the second. They threw away their knapsacks and haversacks, and pushed up the hill to attack the American second line in the face of an annoying fire from Captain Burch's artillery. They weakened their force by stretching out so as to form a front equal to that of their antagonists. It was a blunder which Winder quickly perceived and took advantage of. He was then at the head of Sterett's regiment. With this and some of Stansbury's militia, who behaved gallantly, he not only checked the enemy's advance, but, at the point of the bayonet, pressed their attenuated line so strongly that it fell back to the thickets on the brink of the river, near the bridge, where it maintained its position most obstinately until reinforced by the Second Brigade. Thus strengthened, it again pressed forward, and soon turned the left flank of the Americans, and at the same time sent a flight of hissing rockets over and very near the centre and right of Stansbury's line. The frightened regiments of Schutz and Ragan broke, and fled in the wildest confusion. Winder tried to rally them, but in vain. Sterett's corps maintained their ground gallantly until the enemy had gained both their flanks, when Winder ordered them and the supporting artillery to retire up the hill. They, too, became alarmed, and the retreat, covered by riflemen, was soon a disorderly flight.

The first and second line of the Americans having been dispersed, the British, flushed with success, pushed forward to attack the third. Peter's artillery annoyed but did not check them; and the left, under the gallant Colonel Thornton, soon confronted Barney, in the centre, who maintained his position like a genuine hero, as he was. His eighteen-pounders enfiladed the Washington road, and with them he swept the highway with such terrible effect that the enemy field off into a field and attempted to turn Barney's right flank. There they were met by three twelve-pounders and marines under Captains Miller and Sevier, and were badly cut up. They were driven back to the ravine already mentioned as the duelling-ground, leaving several of their wounded officers in the hands of the Americans. Colonel Thornton, who bravely led the attacking column, was severely wounded, and General Ross had his horse shot under him.

The flight of Stansbury's troops left Barney unsupported in that direction, while a heavy column was hurled against Beall and his militia, on the right, with such force as to disperse them. The British light troops soon gained position on each flank, and Barney himself was severely wounded near a living fountain of water on the estate of the late Mr. Rives, which is still known as Barney's Spring. When it became evident that Minor's Virginia troops could not arrive in time to aid the gallant flotilla-men, who were obstinately maintaining their position against fearful odds, and that further resistance would be useless, Winder ordered a general retreat. The commodore, too severely hurt to be moved, became a prisoner of war, but was immediately paroled by General Ross, and sent to Bladensburg after his wound was dressed by a British surgeon. There he was joined by his wife and son and his own surgeon, and on the 27th was conveyed to his farm at Elkridge, in Maryland. The great body of Americans who were not dispersed retreated towards Montgomery Court-House, in Maryland, leaving the battle-field in full possession of the enemy, and their way to the national capital unobstructed except by the burning of the two bridges over the eastern branch of the Potomac. The Americans lost twenty-six killed and fifty-one wounded. The British loss was manifold greater. According to one of their officers who was in the battle, and yet living (Mr. Gleig, Chaplain-General of the British army), it was "upward of five hundred killed and wounded," among them "several officers of rank and distinction." The battle commenced at about noon, and ended at four o'clock.

Up to this time the conduct of the British had been in accordance with the rules of modern warfare. Now they abandoned them, and on entering the national capital they performed deeds worthy only of barbarians. In a proclamation issued by the President on the 1st of September he submitted the following indictment: "They wantonly destroyed the public edifices, having no relation in their structure to operations of war, nor used at the time for military annoyance; some of these edifices being also costly monuments of taste and of the arts, and others depositories of the public archives, not only precious to the nation as the memorials of its origin and its early transactions, but interesting to all nations as contributions to the general stock of historical instruction and political science." Let us briefly examine the testimony of history.

When Ross was assured of complete victory, he halted his army a short time on the field of battle, and then, with the fresh Third Brigade, which had not been in the conflict, he crossed the Eastern Branch Bridge. Assured of the retreat of the Americans beyond Georgetown, Ross left the main body a mile and a half from the Capitol, and entered the town, then containing about nine hundred buildings. He came to destroy the public property there. It was an errand, it is said, not at all coincident with his taste or habits, and what was done by him appears to have been performed as humanely as the orders of his superiors would allow. When, on his arrival in the Chesapeake, he had been informed by Admiral Cochrane that he (the admiral) had been urged by Sir George Prevost, the Governor-General of Canada (who was not satisfied with the terrible devastation of the Niagara frontier at the close of 1813), to retaliate in kind upon the Americans for the destruction of the government buildings at York and the village of Newark, he demurred, saying that they had carried on the war on the Peninsula and in France with a very different spirit, and that he could not sanction the destruction of public or private property, with the exception of military structures and warlike stores. "It was not," says one of Ross's surviving aides, Sir Duncan McDougall, in a letter to the author in 1861, "until he was warmly pressed that he consented to destroy the Capitol and President's house, for the purpose of preventing a repetition of the uncivilized proceedings of the troops of the United States." Fortunately for Ross's sensibility, there was a titled incendiary at hand in the person of Admiral Sir George Cockburn, who delighted in such inhuman work, and who literally became his torch-bearer.

The bulk of the invaders, having crossed the Eastern Branch, halted upon the plain between the Capital and the site of the Congressional Burying-Ground, when General Ross, accompanied by Cockburn and a guard of two hundred men, rode into the city at eight o'clock in the evening. They were fired upon from behind the house of Robert Sewell, near the Capitol, by a single musket, and the horse on which the general was riding was killed. Mr. Sewell's house was immediately destroyed. The same fate awaited the materials in the office of the National Intelligencer, the government organ, whose strictures on the brutality of Cockburn had filled that marauder with hot anger. These, and some houses on Capitol Hill, a large rope-walk, and a tavern, comprised the bulk of private property destroyed, thanks to the restraining power of General Ross. Several houses and stores were also plundered. The unfinished Capitol, in which was the library of Congress, the President's house, a mile distant, the Treasury buildings, the Arsenal, and barracks for almost three thousand troops, were soon in flames, whose light was plainly seen in Baltimore, about forty miles northward. In the course of a few hours nothing of the superb Capitol and the Presidential mansion was left but their smoke-blackened walls. Of the public buildings only the Patent Office was saved.

All the glory that the British had won on the battlefield was lost in this barbarian conflagration. "Willingly," said the London Statesman newspaper, "would we throw a veil of oblivion over our transactions at Washington. The Cossacks spared Paris, but we spared not the capital of America." The British Annual Register for 1814 denounced the proceedings as a "return to the times of barbarism." "It cannot be concealed," the writer continued, "that the extent of devastation practised by the victors brought a heavy censure upon the British character, not only in America, but on the continent of Europe." Continental writers and speakers condemned the act in unmeasured terms; and yet the government of England, which had seldom represented the sentiments of the people, caused the Tower guns to be fired in honor of Ross's victory, thanked the actors through Parliament, decreed a monument to that general in Westminster Abbey at his death, and, making additions to his armorial bearings, authorized his descendants forever to style themselves "Ross of Bladensburg"!

While the public buildings in Washington were in flames, the national shipping, stores, and other property were blazing at the navy-yard; also the great bridge over the Potomac, from Washington City to the Virginia shore. Commodore Thomas Tingey was in command of the navyyard, and, before the battle, had received orders to set fire to the public property there in the event of the British gaining a victory, so as to prevent its falling into the hands of the invaders. Tingey delayed the execution of the order for four hours after the contingency had occurred. When, at half-past eight in the evening, he was informed that the enemy was encamped within the city limits, near the Capitol, he applied the torch, and property valued at about a million of dollars was destroyed. The schooner Lynx was saved, and most of the metallic work at the navy-yard remained but little injured. The fine naval monument [to the officers who fell at Tripoli] was somewhat mutilated, but whether accidentally at the time of the conflagration, or wantonly by the British, who went there the next day to complete the destructive work, is an unsettled question. At the same time, the Long Bridge over the Potomac was fired at both ends. The Americans on the Virginia side thought a large body of British troops were about to pass over, and fired that end to foil them, while the British on the city side, perceiving, as they thought, a large body of Americans about to cross over from the Virginia side, fired the Maryland end of the bridge. The value of the entire amount of property destroyed at Washington by the British and Americans was estimated at about two million dollars. The walls of the Capitol and President's house stood firm, and were used in rebuilding.

President Madison, and other civil officers who went out to see the fight and give such assistance as they might, remained on the field until Barney fell, when they fled to the city as fast as swift-footed horses could carry them, and were among the first to announce the startling intelligence that the British, victorious, were probably marching on the town. Mrs. Madison had already been apprised of the danger. When the flight of Congreve rockets caused the panic-stricken militia to fly, the President sent messengers to inform her that the defeat of the Americans and the capture of the city seemed to be promised, and to advise her to fly to a place of safety. These messengers reached her between two and three o'clock. Mrs. Madison ordered her carriage, and sent away in a wagon silver plate and other valuables, to be deposited in the Bank of Maryland. She anxiously waited for her husband, and in the mean time took measures for preserving the full-length portrait of Washington, painted by Stuart, which hung in the Presidential mansion. Finding the process of unscrewing the frame from the wall too tedious for the exigency, she had it broken in pieces, and the picture removed with the "stretcher," or light frame on which the canvas was nailed. This she did with her own hands. Just as she had accomplished so much, two gentlemen from New York, one of whom was the now [1867] venerable New Orleans banker, Jacob Barker, entered the room. The picture was lying on the floor. The sounds of approaching troops were heard. They might be the invaders, who would be delighted by the possession of so notable a captive as the beautiful wife of the President. It was time for her to fly. "Save that picture," she said to Mr. Barker and Mr. R. G. L. De Peyster, his companion, -"save that picture, if possible; if not possible, destroy it: under no circumstances allow it to fall into the hands of the British." Then, snatching up the precious parchment on which was written the Declaration of Independence and the autographs of the signers, which she had resolved to save also, she hastened to the carriage with her sister (Mrs. Cutts) and her husband and two servants, and was borne away to a place of safety beyond the Potomac.

Just a Barker and De Peyster had taken the picture from the stretcher and rolled it up, a portion of the flying American army came up, and halted in front of the President's house. Some refreshments were given to them, when they marched up towards Montgomery Court-House, the appointed place of rendezvous for the broken army, followed by those gentlemen with the picture. The left it in charge of a farmer in whose house they lodged that night, and a few weeks afterwards Mr. Barker restored the portrait to Mrs. Madison. It now hangs upon the wall in the Blue Room of the Presidential mansion.

It was not the design of the British to hold the territory which they had, unexpectedly to themselves, acquired. Indeed, the whole movement up the Chesapeake was originally intended as a feint, -- a menace of Baltimore and Washington, to engage the attention of the government and people, and to draw in that direction the military force of the country, while the far more important measure of invading Louisiana with a formidable force and taking possession of the Mississippi Valley should be matured and executed. Accordingly, when Winder's forces were defeated and routed, the President and his Cabinet driven from the national capital, and the public buildings destroyed, the invaders retreated precipitately, evidently in the fear of a reactive blow. While the British cabinet, judging from metropolitan influence in European countries, were disposed to believe that, with the loss of their capital, the Americans would consider all gone, and would yield in despair to their victor, those conquerors, on the spot, saw too well the danger to be apprehended from the spirit of a people aroused to greater exertions, and with more united energy, because of that very misfortune.

Impressed with a sense of this danger, Ross and Cochrane moved away with their forces with great secrecy on the night of the 25th of August, after ordering every inhabitant of Washington to remain within-doors from sunset to sunrise, on pain of death, and increasing their camp-fires, so as to deceive the Americans. It was immediately after the passage of a terrific tempest of wind, lightning, and rain, during which houses were unroofed and trees were uprooted. Softly these victors stole away in the gloom. "No man spoke above his breath," says one of the British officers who was present. "Our very steps were planted lightly, and we cleared the town without exciting observation." At midnight, just as the moon arose and cast a pale light over the scenes, they passed the battle-field and Bladensbug, leaving their dead unburied, and full ninety of their wounded to the humanity of Commodore Barney and his men. It was humiliating to the British troops thus to steal away in the dark from the field of their conquest. They moved sullenly onward, so wearied with fatigue and loss of sleep that when the columns halted for a few minutes the roads would be filled with sleeping soldiers. At seven o'clock in the morning, finding themselves but little annoyed by pursuers, they halted for rest and refreshments for several hours. At noon they moved forward, encamped at Marlborough, and, marching leisurely, reached Benedict on the 29th, where they embarked on the transports the next day.

History of American slavery until 1820

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, slavery existed in all the thirteen colonies. Though the fact of its existence was not always recognized by the English government, yet the ministry had been during colonial times steadily in favor of the slavetrade, and vetoed every effort of the colonies to prevent the importation of slaves.

The Quakers were the first to agitate the question of slavery from a moral point of view. By the end of the seventeenth century they had begun to instruct the slaves in religion, and to protest against their importation. During the eighteenth century the emancipation of slaves had become an active measure of the Quakers as a society, not of individuals only, as in other sects. The negro, who had long been classed with domestic animals, now began to be looked upon as a man. Yet no attack upon slavery where it existed was thought of. It was supposed that by stopping the importation of slaves the institution would gradually disappear. At the outbreak of the Revolution there were about half a million slaves in the country. (In 1790 there were 697, 897 slaves, of whom 40,370 were held in the Northern States.) The increase of the free population was greater than that of the slave, and it was erroneously argued that the importance of the institution would steadily diminish. Antislavery sentiment was not confined to the North, but even made its appearance in the South, while the political aspect of the question of slavery was confined to importation. The Congress of 1774 adopted resolutions opposed to importation, and in 1776 this prohibition was repeated without opposition. The first step in the opposite direction was made when the passage decrying slave-importation was stricken from the Declaration of Independence.

During the Revolutionary War opinions in favor of emancipation grew in strength in the North, the abolition societies of Pennsylvania became more energetic, and similar societies were founded in the other States. Even in Virginia, in 1788, the importation of slaves was forbidden, and steps were taken in favor of gradual emancipation. But in the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention the Southern delegates showed very clearly that they did not expect or desire any rapid vanishment of the institution. There were two questions to be considered,-the status of the slaves in taxation, and their status in representation. The first of these was decided, by the casting vote of New Jersey, in favor of the exemption of slaves from taxation. The second was decided, in accordance with a compromise measure proposed by Wilson of Pennsylvania, by reckoning five slaves as equal to three freemen in representation. The compromise, as passed, prohibited Congress from forbidding the importation of slaves until 1808. In the debates on these measures a strong division of opinion appeared, but it was based solely on the political and financial interests of the two sections, not on any idea of the morality or immorality of human slavery. In 1787 an act was adopted prohibiting slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio, but providing for the surrender of fugitive slaves from that territory. The Constitution also contained a provision to the effect that any person lawfully bound to "service or labor" in any State, and fleeing to another State, should be delivered up on demand. However it appeared then, it has since become painfully evident that the slave-holding interest gained decided victories in the formation of the Constitution, and placed the institution of slavery on a solid basis from which it would not easily be overthrown.

In 1789 North Carolina, and in 1802 Georgia, ceded their western territory to the United States, with the proviso that no action should be taken prohibitory of slavery in this territory. The cessions were accepted with this proviso. This was the first step towards extending the dominion of slavery. In 1793 a fugitive-slave law was passed by Congress, which ordered the return of a slave from any State or Territory to which he had fled. A case occurred under this law in 1797. Four North Carolina slaves had been freed by their masters. Being condemned under a State law to be sold again, they fled to Philadelphia. They were here seized as fugitive slaves, and, though a petition in their favor was presented to Congress, its consideration was rejected by a vote of fifty to thirty-three. A petition from these negroes was brought before Congress three years later, with the same result, and petitions in regard to slavery from the Quakers of Pennsylvania were similarly refused a hearing.

On January 1, 1808, the first day on which Congress had a right to act upon it, a bill forbidding the importation of slaves was passed unanimously. Yet its effect was not prohibitory, since the smuggling of slaves immediately took the place of their open importation. Efforts were made to break up this illicit trade, but with little effect, it being estimated by southern members that from thirteen thousand to fifteen thousand slaves were annually smuggled into the country. In 1819 Congress declared the slave-trade to be piracy, though none of its participants seem to have been condemned as pirates.

That the number of slaves was rapidly increasing became very evident, and colonization-schemes were proposed to dispose of free negroes and illegally-imported slaves. It was supposed that by this method some amelioration of slavery might be produced, though it was not clear what useful effect could result.

There had by this time arisen a decided distinction between the industrial systems of the two sections of the country. The North had grown more and more distinctively commercial and manufacturing, the South more and more agricultural. In the one slavery became destitute of utility; in the other it appeared to be absolutely essential. The cotton-gin, invented by Whitney in 1793, made cotton-raising the special industry of the South, the cultivation of this staple at once receiving a vigorous impulse. Slave labor, which had begun to grow highly unsatisfactory, at once advanced in importance, and the demand for slaves rapidly increased. Meanwhile, the representation of the Northern States in Congress was steadily outnumbering that of the South. In 1790 the North had thirty-eight representatives to the South's thirty-one. In 1820 the North had one hundred and eight, the South eighty-one. The South was evidently losing power in legislation, and saw the necessity of taking active measures to increase its representation. This could be done only by an extension of slave territory. The Territory of Missouri applied in 1819 for admission as a State, and the question of slavery-extension at once came up in Congress.

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Life is a tale told by an idiot...

The Compromise of 1820


IN February, 1819, the House of Representatives went into committee of the whole over the admission of Missouri as a State. The recommendation of the committee provided in the ordinary manner what was necessary to this end. Tallmadge of New York moved the amendment that the admission should be made dependent upon the two following conditions: prohibition of the further introduction of slaves, and emancipation of all the slave children born after the admission as soon as they reached the age of twenty-five. This motion gave life to the whole strife, and the idea embraced in it remained the essence of the strife until the decision of its most important points. The majority of the House of Representatives voted to make the admission of Missouri as a State dependent upon such a limitation of her power in regard to slavery; but the majority of the Senate decided against this. Both houses insisted on their respective resolves, and Congress adjourned without coming to any final decision.

When the question again came up in the next session, the opponents of the so-called "Missouri limitation" found them-selves materially aided by a new circumstance. Maine, which had hitherto been a district of Massachusetts, applied for admission as an independent State. The majority of the Senate coupled together the Maine and Missouri bills, and so put before the majority of the House the alternative of admitting Missouri without any limitation, or denying, for the present, the admission of Maine. The House was not yet ready to acknowledge itself so easily beaten. Neither earlier nor later has a struggle been fought out in Congress in which the majorities of both houses have stood by the decision once arrived at with such stiff-neckedness. The close of the session constantly drew nearer, and an agreement seemed farther off than ever. The whole country was in a state of feverish excitement. At the last moment, in the night between the 2d and 3d of March, 1820, free labor and the principle of nationality yielded to slavery and the principle of State sovereignty. It the matter had affected Missouri alone, the defeat would have been of small practical significance; but two principles had been given up, and these two principles involved the weal and woe of the republic.

The South by no means limited itself to a discussion of the mere question of law, but brought forward a cloud of pleas in justification. It was asserted that the Louisiana Territory, to which Missouri belonged, had been obtained at a cost of the whole Union, and that it would there-fore be unjust to deprive the inhabitants of half the Union of the "colonization right;" but this would evidently be the case if they were forbidden to take their property with them. It was said, on the other hand, that slavery would present an impassable wall to immigration from the North. Where labor bears the stamp of shame the free laborer cannot turn his steps. But how could there be hesitation when the choice was to be made between the exclusion of slavery or free labor? The Union should be a nursery of freedom, and not a breeding-place for slavery. The South itself declaimed with the greatest pathos over the curse of slavery. Was it not, then, a self-evident duty to preserve the land from any extension of the curse?

The last part of this argument was repelled with great decision by the majority of Southern members. They affirmed that when it was proposed to allow the importation of slaves from Africa, or from any foreign country, the South would be first and most earnest in protesting against it. But by compliance with the wish expressed by the South the slave population of the Union "would not be increased by a single soul." Over and over again it was affirmed, with Jefferson in his old age, "All know that permitting the slaves of the South to spread into the West . . will increase the happiness of those existing, and, by spreading them over a larger surface, will dilute the evil everywhere and facilitate the means of getting rid of it, an event more anxiously wished by those on whom it presses than by the noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity."

This false reasoning, however, was readily overthrown, it being undeniable that increased subsistence would increase population, while the higher prices arising from a widened market would be a strong impulse towards an increase in the supply of slaves. The question of State rights was next brought in as an element of the debate, it being claimed that the Constitution was but an "international compact," which could exercise no other powers than those originally granted it by the sovereign States, and could impose no conditions on new States not directly specified in that instrument.

It was indeed said that the slavery limitation did not really withdraw a "fundamental right," but rather did away with a "fundamental wrong." But the Constitution had left to the original States the right of tacitly letting the fundamental wrong stand as a "right" or of making it one. If several States made no use of this prerogative, and if the facts of every day showed it to be more than a destructive fiction that slavery was a "purely municipal institution," yet this did not change the positive right. Slavery eat into the life-marrow of the whole Union; therefore not only considerations of morality, but the highest self-interest of the Union demanded the absolute prohibition of its further extension. But morality and self-interest could not do away with the fact that the whole Constitution rested upon the foundation of the equality of the members of the Union, and that the original members had full freedom of action in regard to this particular question.

The unconquerable obstacle can be expressed in a single sentence: the fact could not be done away with that the Union was composed of free and slave States, that is, the fact could not be done away with that the attempt had been made to construct out of heterogeneous elements not only a harmonious but a homogeneous whole.

Arguments could not bring the question any nearer to a solution. After the differences of principle between the two parties had been clearly established, the debates served only to excite passion. The slave-holders sought more than ever to make a bridge of threats upon which they could cross to their goal. It is said that Randolph proposed to Clay to abandon the House to the Northern members, and that Clay actually gave the project serious consideration.

Missouri herself took an extremely arrogant position. When Taylor moved, December 16, 1819, to defer the consideration of the bill till the first Monday in February, 1820, Scott, the delegate of the Territory, objected that Missouri would, in this case, go on and organize a State government without waiting any longer for leave from Congress. And this threat of the Territorial delegate against the whole Union was not punished as a piece of laughable insolence. Reid of Georgia declared that Missouri would "indignantly throw off the yoke" and "laugh Congress to scorn." Tyler of Virginia, the future President, asked what would be done if "Missouri sever (herself) from the Union?" And Jefferson, the ex-President, expressed the fear that Missouri would be "lost by revolt."

During the whole struggle the decision had depended only upon a few votes, for a number of Northern representatives had voted, from the beginning, with the South. That it was, nevertheless, so long before the South obtained, by threats and worse means, the necessary number of votes, is a plain proof that an independent and honorable spirit was then much more common among Northern politicians than later. The restriction was finally stricken out by a majority of only three votes.

The results of this defeat were immense; but still more fraught with evil was the second defeat which the North suffered at the same time, and almost, indeed, without a struggle. . Since only the northern part of Missouri Territory was to be organized as a State, the southern part, the so-called Arkansas district, had to receive a Territorial government of its own When the bill concerning this came up for discussion in the House, Taylor proposed an amendment in regard to slavery like the one which Tallmadge had brought up in the case of Missouri. In committee of the whole the amendment was rejected by eighty to sixty-eight votes. In the House it had a some-what better fate. The first part, which forbade the further introduction of slaves, was rejected by seventy-one to seventy votes; but the second part, which freed slave children born in the Territory upon their twenty-fifth birthday, was adopted by seventy-five to seventy-three votes. With the help of parliamentary rules, however, the question was brought once more before the House. By the casting vote of the Speaker, Clay, the bill was referred back to the committee, and on the same day, in accordance with its report, the previously adopted amendment was rejected by eighty-nine to eighty-seven votes.

The attempt to lay hand upon the peculiar institution in this Territory was regarded by the slave-holders as an especial bit of spitefulness, because Arkansas was regarded as belonging to the peculiar domain of the South. This opinion influenced some Northern representatives, and to it the easy victory of the South is to be ascribed. .

The eighth section of the Missouri act of March 6, 1820, provided "that in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of 36 deg 30' north latitude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude .. shall be, and is hereby forever prohibited." This was the second half of the so-called Missouri Compromise, and the responsibility for its adoption does not wholly rest upon a few weak or venal delegates from the North. Only five Northern members voted against it. The North thus gave its approval by an overwhelming majority to the division of the Territories between free labor and slavery. It was indeed only declared that slavery should not be allowed north of 36 deg 30', but this was self-evidently equivalent to saying that south of this line no hindrance would be put in the way of the slave-holders. The first suggestion of such a compromise was made by McLane in February, 1819, and he then expressly declared that the Territories should be "divided" between the free and slave States. It was never afterwards denied that this was a fair interpretation of the compromise. The action of the Northern members can be justified from no point of view. Even in mitigation of their fault it can only be alleged that when they had decided to make a bargain the one agreed upon did not seem disadvantageous, provided men did not look beyond the present time. The Louisiana territory -- according to the boundaries set to it by the United States -- was divided into two nearly equal parts by the line of 36 deg 30'. But, while the Missouri question was still pending, an agreement was reached with Spain concerning the boundary-line by which a great part of the southern half was lost to the United States.

The result of this compromise was that the country was practically divided into free and slave sections, upon a fixed geographical basis. Though there was nothing in the bill to declare that slavery should exist everywhere south of the line of demarcation, it had become a tacit bargain which was not likely to be successfully questioned.

The South had allowed itself to pursue a purely idealistic policy where European relations were concerned, but where the interest of the slave-holders was touched upon it had followed from the beginning a policy that was not only realistic in the highest degree, but wise. It took good care to demand everything forthwith. What it needed at the moment satisfied it for the moment. It propped the planks securely, and then shoved them just so much farther that it could safely take the next step when it became necessary. It had done this at present, and therefore was contented for the present. Up to this time the free States had always been one more in number than the slave States. Now the latter got Alabama and Missouri into the Union, and the former only Maine. The balance of power in the Senate was therefore fully established. Their territorial possessions were, in the mean time, ample; Florida, just acquired from Spain, Arkansas and the rest of the southern part of the Louisiana territory, balanced for a while the northwest, which, as Charles Pinckney wrote, had been inhabited until now only by wild beasts and Indians. Why express alarm now over things which could become realities only after the lapse of many years? But it did not follow from this that alarm should never be expressed over them. Reid of Georgia had already asked why a partition-line should not be drawn between the two sections "to the Pacific Ocean.". .

Up to this time the division of the Union into two sections had been only a fact: henceforth it was fixed by law. . Each of the two groups inevitably constantly consolidated more and more; and the more they consolidated the more the Missouri line lost its imaginary character. For the first time there was, in the full sense of the term, a free North and a slave-holding South. "Political prudence," as it was hyper-euphemistically called, might lead one to oppose this with the strength of despair; but all political artifices were put to shame by the power of facts. Even the last resource, the erasure of the black line from the map by another law and by judicial decisions, remained without effect: the line was etched too deeply into the real ground. Only one thing could erase it, and this one thing was the destruction of the gloomy power that had drawn it. From the night of March 2, 1820, party history is made up, without interruption or break, of the development of geographical parties.

This was what was really reached when men breathed free, as if saved from a heavy nightmare. The little and cowardly souls congratulated themselves that the slavery question had been buried forever; and yet men never shook themselves free from the Missouri question.

The strife was kindled again by a clause of the Constitution of Missouri by which the legislature was obliged to pass laws against the entry of free colored persons into the State. The North declared that this clause infringed upon the constitutional provision according to which "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The slaveholders affirmed that free blacks were not to be considered as citizens "in the sense of the Constitution." The Northern Congressmen opposed to this the fact that free blacks were citizens in some Northern States, and that the clause in question spoke of "citizens of every State." The debate was finally lost in endless arguments over the meaning of the words "citizens" and "citizens of the United States," without reaching any results.

A compromise was finally proposed by Henry Clay, which permitted the objectionable clause to remain in the State Constitution provided that the State would agree never to pass a law to make it operative. This assurance was given by the Missouri legislature, and the conflict ended.

Three constitutional questions -- two of them of cardinal importance -- had been discussed. Men had fought shy of all three for the moment, and for this reason the originators of the compromise claimed that they had postponed the decision to the Greek kalends. From a legal point of view, only one positive result had been reached, and this was on a point concerning which no legal question existed. The Northern majority had indirectly renounced the right of Congress to forbid slavery, as far as the territory lying south of the line of 36 deg 30' was concerned, and it had agreed to this renunciation because the Southern minority had renounced, on its side, its claims to having the question of law involved decided now in its favor, provided its concrete demands, which it based upon its interpretation of the Constitution, were complied with.

This was the true nature and substance of the "compromise" which gave Henry Clay the first claim to the proud name of "the great peace-maker."

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The Election of 1860


The war between the North and the South had its actual beginning in 1855, in the sanguinary struggle on the soil of Kansas between the settlers and the invading Missourians. The next step of violence in this contest was the brutal attack of Brooks on Sumner, on the floor of the Senate-chamber, on May 22, 1856. It was continued by the warlike acts of John Brown in Kansas and Missouri, and his assault upon Harper's Ferry.

These direct acts of violence were accompanied by a war of words and threats whose significance was not then properly appreciated. The debates in Congress were conducted with a bitterness of recrimination that has never been equalled before or since, while from 1850 onward the threat of secession was openly made whenever any pro-slavery measure met with strong opposition. In the Presidential election of 1856 the strength of the Republican party was shown in a vote for Fremont of 1,341,264 to 1,838,169 for Buchanan. Fillmore, the candidate of the American party,--which deprecated any interference with the right of the actual settlers of a Territory to frame their Constitution and laws,--received 874,534 votes.

On the approach of the period for the 1860 election the state of public feeling had grown far more violent, and the hot-headed leaders of Southern politics were so determined upon having all or nothing that they divided their party and insured their defeat, rather than accept the moderate views of the Northern section of the party. Stephen A. Douglas, the candidate of the Northern Democrats, was opposed by John C. Breckenridge as a candidate of the Southerners. The "Constitutional Union" (late "American") party nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, while the Republicans offered as their candidate Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, whose record on the question at issue was embraced in a sentence of a recent speech: "I believe this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free." The issue between freedom and slavery was for the first time clearly defined in a political contest. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery were pitted against each other in the most momentous election-contest the country had ever known. Lincoln might have been elected in any case. As it was, the division of their party by the Southerners insured his election,--a result, indeed, rather desired than deprecated by the South, to judge from the spirit of rejoicing with which the news of the Republican victory was received in South Carolina.

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The secession of the southern states


Already in 1856 an intention not to submit to the decision of the people, if adverse to the views of the slave-holders, had been manifested. A secret convention of Southern governors was held at Raleigh, North Carolina, in October, 1856, whose animus was afterwards indicated by Governor Wise, of Virginia, in the statement that if Fremont had been elected an army of twenty thousand men would have marched to Washington and seized the Capitol, in order forcibly to prevent his inauguration. In October, 1860, a meeting of prominent politicians was held in South Carolina, which resolved on secession in the event of Lincoln's election. Similar meetings were held in several of the Gulf States. This was no idle threat. The most joyful enthusiasm was manifested in Charleston, South Carolina, when the news of Lincoln's election reached the "Fire-Eaters" of that city, and they felt that the opportunity for what they had long desired was at hand. The fact that the Democrats still retained a majority in Congress was not enough for the ultra Southern leaders. The passions of the people were at fever-heat. Secession had been already determined upon. It could at that time be attempted with advantage, from the fact that the administration was still Democratic, and there was little fear of active interference with measures of disunion before March, 1861. Compromises were attempted, but no one would listen to them. Before New-Year's day, 1861, South Carolina had passed an ordinance of secession and set up as an independent power. Other States followed,--Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The northern range of slave States as yet refused to follow this example, and did not do so until after war had actually broken out.

These acts of secession were quickly followed by the seizure of the United States forts and arsenals in the seceding States, to which action the authorities at Washington manifested no opposition, and indeed, as has been declared, took good care that they should be well supplied with munitions of war. Major Robert Anderson, in charge of the forts in Charleston harbor, promptly evacuated Fort Moultrie, as incapable of defence, and established himself in Fort Sumter with his small garrison of one hundred and twenty-eight men. The remaining forts and the arsenal were at once seized, and volunteers came pouring into the city. Similar seizures were made in the other seceding States, and even in North Carolina, which had not seceded. About thirty forts, mounting over three thousand guns, and having cost the United States twenty million dollars, were thus forcibly taken possession of. A convention was held at Montgomery, Alabama, a Constitution adopted, and Jefferson Davis elected President, with Alexander H. Stephens for Vice-President, of the Confederated Southern States.

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Before New-Year's day, 1861, South Carolina had passed an ordinance of secession and set up as an independent power. Other States followed,--Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The northern range of slave States as yet refused to follow this example, and did not do so until after war had actually broken out.

These acts of secession were quickly followed by the seizure of the United States forts and arsenals in the seceding States, to which action the authorities at Washington manifested no opposition, and indeed, as has been declared, took good care that they should be well supplied with munitions of war. Major Robert Anderson, in charge of the forts in Charleston harbor, promptly evacuated Fort Moultrie, as incapable of defence, and established himself in Fort Sumter with his small garrison of one hundred and twenty-eight men. The remaining forts and the arsenal were at once seized, and volunteers came pouring into the city. Similar seizures were made in the other seceding States, and even in North Carolina, which had not seceded. About thirty forts, mounting over three thousand guns, and having cost the United States twenty million dollars, were thus forcibly taken possession of. A convention was held at Montgomery, Alabama, a Constitution adopted, and Jefferson Davis elected President, with Alexander H. Stephens for Vice-President, of the Confederated Southern States.

On the 11th of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln left his home in Springfield, Illinois, and began his journey to Washington. On reaching Harrisburg, indications of a purpose violently to oppose his progress became apparent, and his journey from this point was performed secretly. His inaugural address, delivered on the 4th of Marc, was conciliatory in tone, and the envoys from the Confederate government, afterwards sent to Washington, were received with a lack of plain-speaking that gave them hopes of a non-interference policy. It was not until April that any decisive action was taken by the new administration. Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, was beleaguered by a Confederate force. Was it to be given up without a struggle? This was just then the vital question, and the decision of the administration was manifested by secret but rapid preparations to relieve the fort. Early in April a well-appointed fleet sailed southward for this purpose. As soon as the fact came clearly to the knowledge of the leaders at Charleston, hostilities were determined upon, unless Anderson would at once consent to evacuated the fort. On April 12 he offered to evacuate on the 15th if not by that date aided by the government. In reply he was given one hour in which to decide, at the end of which time fire would be opened on the fort.

Punctually at the hour indicated--twenty minutes past four A.M.--the roar of a mortar from Sullivan's Island announced the war begun. A second bomb from the same battery followed; then Fort Moultrie answered with the thunder of a columbiad; Cumming's Point next, and the Floating Battery, dropped in their resonant notes; then a pause, but only for a moment. A roar of fifty guns burst in concert, a chorus to the solemn prelude which must have startled the spirits of the patriotic dead in their slumbers.

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Civil War highlights

The capture of the defences of the upper Mississippi, and the fall of New Orleans with the forts that covered it, by no means completed the task of opening the great Western river, four hundred miles of which remained under Confederate control. Two strongly-fortified places, Vicksburg on the north and Port Hudson on the south, with an intermediate intrenched position at Grand Gulf, defended this portion of the river, and were destined to give the Union armies no small trouble before they could be taken and the river again made a national highway. Before describing the movements by which this great purpose was effected, it is necessary to bring up our review of Western events to the date of these operations.

The advance of Lee into Maryland had its parallel in a vigorous northward raid made by Bragg in the West, in which he crossed the national line of defence and advanced nearly to the Ohio. The capture of Corinth by the Union forces had been succeeded by some important military operations, which may be briefly epitomized. Chattanooga, a town situated on the Tennessee River just north of the Georgia State line, and on the eastern flank of the Cumberland Mountains, became now a point of great military importance, and Buell was ordered to occupy it with his army. He commenced his march on June 10, 1862, but moved too deliberately to effect his purpose. Bragg, the Confederate commander, as soon as he discerned the object of Buell's march, hastened with the greatest rapidity to the place, and took firm possession of it before Buell could reach it. The latter was forced to retreat, and reinforcements were sent him from Grant's army, to strengthen him against an advance by Bragg. This fact was taken advantage of by Price and Van Dorn, who confronted Grant with a force of considerable strength. They made movements intended to induce Grant to weaken his army still further, hoping for an opportunity to seize Corinth. Grant at once assumed the offensive. Rosecrans was sent to Iuka, to which place Price had advanced. He reached this place on September 19. A battle ensued, which ended in both sides holding their ground. During the night, however, the Confederates decamped, and marched too rapidly to be overtaken. On October 3, Van Dorn and Price in conjunction assailed Rosecrans at Corinth, Grant being then at Jackson. Rosecrans had about twenty thousand men. The Confederates had about forty thousand, and made their assault with great vigor and persistency. Their charge on the works, however, ended in a severe and sanguinary repulse and a hasty retreat, in which they were pursued for sixty miles. They lost, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, about nine thousand men. The Union loss was about two thousand four hundred.

While these operations were taking place, Bragg was engaged in an invasion of Kentucky that threatened disaster to the Union cause. He marched actively northward with an army of fifty thousand men, reaching the line of the Nashville and Louisville Railroad at Munfordsville, whose garrison he captured. A division of his army, under Kirby Smith, marched from Knoxville, and at Richmond, Kentucky, routed General Manson. Smith claimed to have killed and wounded one thousand and taken five thousand prisoners, with a valuable spoil in arms, ammunition, and provisions. He then passed through Lexington, and reached Cynthiana.

This raid had necessitated a rapid reverse movement on the part of Buell, who was forced with all haste to march from southern Tennessee to the Ohio, a distance of three hundred miles. From Munfordsville Bragg moved to Frankfort, where he formed a junction with Kirby Smith. The one had made feigned movements against Nashville, and the other against Cincinnati, but intercepted despatches taught Buell that their true object was Louisville, and to this place he hastened with all speed. Bragg had moved too slowly. He had been six weeks in marching from Chattanooga to Frankfort. Yet he would have captured Louisville but for detention by a burnt bridge, which enabled Buell to get in advance. The latter had hastened north with the utmost speed, leaving a garrison at Nashville, and reaching Louisvill on September 25. He found that city in a panic. At this point he was reinforced by troops from all quarters, till his army reached the number of one hundred thousand men.

Meanwhile, Bragg had issued a proclamation to the Kentuckians in emulation of that which Lee had issued in Maryland, and with like unsatisfactory results. The people of Kentucky had fully decided to remain in the Union. Bragg's foraging-parties scoured and devastated the surrounding country, carrying off all the spoil they could find. Men were conscripted and forced into his army. He now commenced a deliberate retreat, while Buell advanced upon him. A severe battle took place on October 8 at Perryville, in which both sides lost heavily and neither gained a decisive advantage. Bragg's retreat, however, continued, and he reached Chattanooga without further loss. Buell's movements in pursuit were so annoyingly slow that he was removed from his command by the government and replaced by Rosecrans. Bragg's expedition, so far as political ends were concerned, had proved a failure. He had, however, carried off vast quantities of provisions and clothing.

New movements quickly supervened. Rosecrans at once reorganized his army, and concentrated it at Nashville. Bragg had hardly reached Chattanooga before he was ordered to march northward again. He reached Murfreesborough, to the south of Nashville, whence he sent out detachments of cavalry to cut Rosecrans's communications, and where he indulged in Christmas festivities, with Davis, the Confederate President, as his guest. Yet Rosecrans had no intention of remaining idle. He made a sudden march on December 26, drove back the Confederate outposts, and on the 30th confronted Bragg, who was stationed two miles in front of Mur-freesborough. Rosecrans had forty-three thousand and Bragg sixty-two thousand men. A battle took place at this point on the 31st, Bragg assailing with such strength as to drive back the right wing of the Union army. The next division, commanded by Sheridan, held its own with much energy, but was finally forced back, though in unbroken order. The other divisions were obliged to follow.

So far the advantage had been with the Confederates. But Rosecrans readjusted his army, formed a new line, and awaited the triumphant advance of his foe. The assault was tremendous, but it was met with a withering fire of musketry and artillery, and though four times repeated, the Union line remained unbroken. A fresh division of seven thousand men was brought forward and assailed Rosecrans's left flank, but with the same ill fortune. Night fell, the closing night of 1862. On New-Year's day the armies faced each other without a renewal of the battle. So they continued till the 3d, Rosecrans strongly intrenching his position. On the night of the 3d Bragg secretly withdrew, leaving his antagonist in possession of the battle-field, though too much crippled to pursue. Each army had lost about one-fourth of its whole force. Rosecrans had lost more than a third of his artillery, and a large portion of his train. But he had bravely held his ground, and taught his enemies that the Ohio River was beyond their reach. The Cumberland Mountains were thenceforward to be the boundary of the Confederacy in that quarter.

The military events in the West during 1863 were of the utmost importance, ending in the opening of the Mississippi and the capture of Chattanooga. The first achievement had been attempted by Farragut, immediately after the taking of New Orleans. He sent a part of his fleet up the river, captured Baton Rouge and Natchez, and advanced to Vicksburg. This city refused to surrender, and was bombarded by Farragut, who ran the batteries with his fleet. Orders from Washington checked these operations, there being no land-force ready to co-operate, and the fleet being unable to silence the batteries.

In the autumn of 1862 Grant made his first efforts towards his projected reduction of Vicksburg. His army was now large, and he advanced, driving Pemberton, the Confederate commander at Vicksburg, before him. Sherman was sent with a strong force to march down the Mississippi, while Grant moved by an inland route, to take the city in the rear. His scheme was frustrated by an unforeseen event. Holly Springs had been established as his depot of supplies. Van Dorn, with the Confederate cavalry, made a rapid movement to Grant's rear, and captured this place, then guarded by only a single regiment, on December 20. The vast stores that had been accumulated, valued at more than two millions of dollars, were destroyed by fire. Grant was forced to give up his overland route, and move to the river.

In the mean time, Sherman had reached the vicinity of Vicksburg. At this locality a line of high bluffs border the river, with but a narrow space between them and the stream. The Yazoo River joins the Mississippi above the city, while the surrounding soil is cut by numerous deep bayous, and the low lands are very swampy. A fortified line, fifteen miles in length, had been constructed along the bluffs. Sherman made a strong but ineffectual assault upon the fortifications, and found that the Confederates were being reinforced so rapidly, while he was surrounded with such difficulties, that he was obliged to abandon the expedition. The only success gained was the reduction of a stronghold on the Arkansas River, which had served as a basis for steamboat expeditions against his line of supplies. Here five thousand prisoners and much valuable material were taken.

The fortifications at Vicksburg were now strengthened until it became an exceedingly strong post. Grand Gulf and Port Hudson, farther down the river, were also fortified. Against these strong-holds the efforts of the Western armies were now mainly directed. General Banks, aided by Farragut's fleet, entered upon the siege of Port Hudson, while Grant put forward all his strength against Vicksburg, assisted by the gunboats under Admiral Porter. The Army of the Tennessee now numbered one hundred and thirty thousand men, of whom fifty thousand men took part in the expedition against Vicksburg. Porter had a fleet of sixty vessels, carrying two hundred and eighty guns and eight hundred men.

Grant arrived and took command of the expedition on January 30, 1863. The first plan of operations adopted was to dig a canal across the neck of land made by a wide bend in the river at Vicksburg, with the hope that the Mississippi would take this new course and abandon the city. Two months were spent on this, yet a rise in the river rendered the labor unavailing, by overflowing all the surrounding space. Then strenuous efforts were made to transport the fleet and army below Vicksburg by way of the bayous and larger streams that bordered the river. Efforts of this kind were made both east and west of the river, but in both cases without success. The surrounding country meanwhile was so overflowed and marshy as to interfere greatly with land-operations. It was next determined to run the batteries with the fleet. The night of the 16th of April was fixed for this exploit. It was achieved with much greater success than had been expected. Several of the vessels were wrecked, but the great bulk of the fleet passed in safety. A land-force had been sent down west of the river, to meet the vessels. The next project was to attack the fortifications at Grand Gulf, fifty miles below. An assault by the fleet on this place proved futile. A land-force was then carried across the river, which attacked and carried Port Gibson and defeated several detachments in the field. The successes thus gained rendered Grand Gulf untenable, and it was evacuated, and taken possession of by Grant's army.

It was now early May. Three months had been spent in the operations against Vicksburg, and it was still as far from capture as ever. Grant's whole army was now in the vicinity of Grand Gulf, and a new system of operations was adopted. Cutting loose from all lines of communication, he marched out into the open country, determined to subsist his army on the people, defeat all the defenders of Vicksburg in the field, and carry that place by assault from the rear. General J. E. Johnston commanded the Confederate forces in the field, and several engagements ensued, in all of which the Union army was successful. The city of Jackson was captured, and Pemberton, who marched out from Vicksburg to co-operate with Johnston, was defeated and forced to retreat to his intrenchments. Grant rapidly pursued, and on the 19th of May took possession of the outer works of the Vicksburg lines, definitely shutting the enemy within his fortifications. The important post of Haines' Bluff was taken, and communication opened with the fleet.

The campaign had lasted twenty days. In that time Grant had marched two hundred miles, beaten two armies in five successive battles, captured twenty-seven heavy cannon and sixty-one pieces of field-artillery, taken six thousand five hundred prisoners, and killed and wounded about six thousand men. He had forced the evacuation of Grand Gulf, seized Jackson, the State capital, destroyed thirty miles of railroad, and ended by investing the strong-hold of Vicksburg. Starting with two days' rations, he had subsisted his army on the country, and reached his goal with a loss in all of four thousand three hundred and thirty-five men.

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The assassination of Abraham Lincoln

There was a large section of the Democrats of the North who were dissatisfied with the conduct of the war. These chose General McClellan as their candidate against Lincoln, who was re-elected in 1864. Fremont had been nominated by dissatisfied Republicans, but he withdrew before the election. Lincoln had an overwhelming majority in the Electoral College, but the popular vote was as follows: Lincoln, 2,216,067; McClellan, 1,808,725. Electoral vote: Lincoln, 212; McClellan, 21.

This showed a closer division than might have been expected. McClellan received almost the same number of votes that Lincoln got in 1860, while Lincoln gained less than 400,000. The slavery question was still in politics. The Emancipation Proclamation had not been received well in some portions of the North, where the question of slavery was of less importance than that of preserving the Union, and it was feared it would prevent a restoration on any terms. It appeared to Mr. Lincoln that re-election by Republican votes alone was impossible, so he determined to secure the nomination of a War Democrat for Vice-President. He first offered the nomination to General Butler, who declined it, and then to Andrew Johnson, who accepted it. Johnson was a man of little education, but of great will power. He had been Governor of Tennessee, Senator, and then Military Governor, rising from the tailor's bench in a little mountain town.

Great was the joy in the North over the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee. Just four years had the fighting lasted, and peace was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm, only to be dampened by the murder of the President. On the night of Good Friday, April 14, 1865, in Ford's Theatre, Washington, John Wilkes Booth, the actor, entered the box where the President was seated, shot him, and jumped to the stage, shouting "Sic semper tyrannis!" He broke the bones of his ankle in the jump from the box, but managed to escape and, by aid of confederates, crossed the Potomac and got into Virginia, but in a few days was discovered. Refusing to surrender, he was shot. On the same night that Lincoln was shot, Secretary Seward was stabbed seriously, and Grant escaped only by absence from the city. Lincoln survived until Saturday morning, April 15, 1865, but died without recovering consciousness.

Terrible was the wrath of the North over the event, and the best men in the South regretted it equally, for all had come to respect Lincoln, and they realized that his murder would be laid upon the South, which would suffer accordingly -- a presentiment that was correct. It developed that there was a small conspiracy involved, but that it included no one outside of Washington and was not inspired by any Southern leaders. Just how much each of the parties to the conspiracy knew is uncertain. The meetings were at the home of Mrs. Surratt. The others who were found to be most closely involved were men named Harold, Payne, and Atzerott, who, with Mrs. Surratt, were executed. Others who in any way aided Booth to escape were punished severely.

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The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson

Within three hours after Abraham Lincoln expired, Andrew Johnson took the oath of office as the seventeenth President of the United States. the Presidential life of Lincoln had been one long period of civil war. That of his successor was destined to be one of political difficulty and struggle, in which the war seemed transferred from the nation to the government, and a bitter strife arose between Congress and the president. The task of reconstruction of the conquered territory was no light one, and could hardly, in any case, have been achieved without some degree of controversy, but Johnson, who at first expressed himself in favor of severely punishing the rebellious States, soon placed himself squarely in opposition to Congress.

He declared that a State could not secede, and that none of the Southern States had actually been out of the Union, and took measures to reconstruction of which Congress decidedly disapproved. Johnson's doctrine was ignored by a Congressional declaration that the seceding States actually were out of the Union, and could be readmitted only under terms prescribed by Congress. The Civil Rights Bill, which made negroes citizens of the United States, was enacted April 19, 1866. Shortly afterwards a fourteenth amendment to the Constitution was proposed, guaranteeing equal civil rights to all persons, basing representation on the number of actual voters, declaring that no compensation should be given for emancipated slaves, etc. This was adopted by the requisite number of States, and became a part of the Constitution on July 28, 1868.

As the work of reconstruction proceeded, the breach between the President and Congress grew more decided. Bill after bill was passed over his veto, and finally, February 24, 1868, the House passed a resolution, by a large majority, to impeach the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors" in the conduct of his office. Of the acts of President Johnson, on which this resolution was based, that of the removal of Secretary Stanton from his cabinet office was the most essential. It was in direct contravention of the Tenure of Office Act, which declared that no removal from office could be made without the consent of the Senate. Stanton protested against this removal, and was sustained in his protest by the Senate, yet was soon afterwards removed again by the President. This brought the quarrel to a climax, and the impeachment proceedings immediately began.

The impeachment trial continued until May, on the 16th of which month the final vote was taken. It resulted in a verdict of "not guilty." The excitement into which the country had been aroused gradually died away, and "the sober second thought" of the community sustained the action of the Senate, though for a time very bitter feeling prevailed.

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United States Industrial Revolution of the 19th century

[TAKEN FROM AN ARTICLE TITLED "American Supremacy: Industrial; Commercial; Financial; by One Hundred American Writers," WRITTEN BY SENATOR CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, IN THE EARLY PART OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.]


OUR own country is peculiarly the pride of the nineteenth century. It has been the most complete example ever presented of the working out under favorable conditions of the principles and opportunities of civil and religious liberty. The marvelous development of the United States cannot be attributed solely or mainly to climate, to soil, to the virgin forests, or to unlimited and unoccupied territory. South America, Central America, and Mexico were as well, if not better, equipped in these respects. The garden of Eden, that fertile and fruitful portion of Asia, which for ages was the seat of empire, civilization, art, and letters, and for centuries the hive from which swarmed the conquerors of Europe, has returned to aboriginal conditions of desert and wilderness. Every industry whose growth is a feature of our progress is the expression and witness of the beneficent principles of our freedom and liberty of individual action.

The stories of battles and conquest, of the founding of dynasties and the dissolving of empires, of the sieges of cities and the subduing of peoples, which constitute the body of written history from the beginning of recorded time, are in ghastly contrast to the glorious, beneficent, and humanitarian picture of the achievements of the nineteenth century.

A philosopher has said that he is a benefactor of mankind who makes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before. We celebrate harvests in inventions and discoveries where existed only Saharas. We find that the nineteenth century has not only added enormously to the productive power of the earth, but, in the happiness which has attended its creative genius, it has made the sunlight penetrate where the sunbeam was before unknown.

A little more than a hundred years ago the first cotton-mill was running with 250 spindles. Whitney invented the cotton-gin, which created the wealth of the Gulf States and made the cotton industry over all the world tributary to them. Other inventors improved the machinery, and the single mill of that period has expanded into 1,000, and the 250 spindles have increased to 21,000,000. In 1794 the first wool-carding machine was put in operation, mainly under the impulse of American invention. There were in 1895 2,500 wool manufactories. The production of textile fabrics in this country supports about 600,000 employees. At the beginning of the century a few thousand tons of iron were manufactured. In 1899 the United States produced over 13,000,000 tons of pig iron, being more than any other country; while in the manufactured products of iron and steel we are also in the advance of nations.

These astonishing figures give only the basic results of production, for from them collaterally flow car-building, the miracles of the sewing-machine, of the vast employment and earnings of machinery manufacturing, of building and building materials, of the manipulation and composition of other metals, as silver and gold and copper and brass, of the singularly rapid rise of American glass interests, of the incalculable demands made upon furnace and mill and shop for railway appliances, of the immense production of utensils useful in domestic life and in agriculture, of the great supplies of material comprehended under the name of dry-goods, and of the machinery required for the telegraph, the telephone, and the creation of electrical energy.

The twentieth century will be a truth-seeking century. The nineteenth has been one of experiment. Invention and discovery have made the last fifty years of the nineteenth century the most remarkable of recorded time. Nature has been forced to reveal her secrets, and they have been utilized for the service of man. Lightning drawn from the clouds, through the experiments of Franklin, has become the medium of instantaneous globe-circling communication through the genius of Morse, of telephonic conversation by the discoveries of Bell, and the element of illumination and motive power by the marvellous gifts of Edison. Steam, which Fulton utilized upon the water and Stephenson upon the land, has created the vast system of transportation which has given the stimulus to agriculture and manufacturing products by which millions of people have been enabled to live in comfort where thousands formerly dwelt in misery and poverty. The forces of destruction, or rather the powers of destruction, have been so developed that, while the nations of the earth are prepared for war as never before, the knowledge of its possibilities for the annihilation of life and property is so great that peace has been maintained among the great powers of Europe, and our war with Spain was shortened by the scientific perfection of weapons and the skill of those who used them. Physical progress and material prosperity have led to better living, broader education, higher thinking, more humane principles, larger liberty, and a better appreciation in preaching and in practice of the brotherhood of man over all the globe.

The nineteenth century has closed with civilization more advanced in the arts and in letters than in the best days of Greece or Rome or the Renaissance; with the development in mechanical arts, in chemistry and in its appliances, in agriculture and in manufactures, beyond the experience of all preceding centuries put together. The political, social, and productive revolutions and evolutions of the period mark it as unique, beneficent, and glorious in the story of the ages. It has been the era of emancipation from bigotry and prejudice, from class distinctions and from inequalities in law, from shackles upon the limbs and padlocks upon the lips of mankind. It has been conspicuously the century of civilization, humanity, and liberty. As its presiding and inspiring genius looks proudly over the results, he may well say to the angel of the twentieth century, "You can admire, you can follow, but whither can you lead?"

The imaginary line drawn on the thirty-first day of December, 1900, between the past and the future cannot stop the wheels of progress nor curb the steeds, instinct with the life of steam and electricity, which are to leap over this boundary in their resistless course. The twentieth century will be pre-eminently the period for the equitable adjustment of the mighty forces called into existence by the spirit of the nineteenth century, and which have so deranged the relations of capital and labor, of trades and occupations, of markets and commercial highways. There will come about a oneness of races and nationalities by which the moral sense of civilization will overcome the timidity of diplomacy to prevent or to punish the repetition of such atrocities as have been perpetrated in Armenia. The Turk will either adopt the laws and recognize the rights of life, liberty, and property commonly recognized among Christian nations, or his empire will be dismembered and distributed among the great powers of Europe. Militarism, which is crushing the life out of the great nations of the Continent, will break down because of the burdens it imposes and the conditions it exacts. The peoples of those countries, groaning under this ever-increasing and eventually intolerable load, will revolt. They will teach their rulers that that peace is not worth the price which can only be maintained by armaments which are increased on the one side as rapidly as on the other, so that peace depends upon an equilibrium of trained soldiers and modern implements of war. They will discover closer ties of international friendship, which will strengthen year by year, and in the camaraderie of international commerce they will come to maintain amicable relations with one another before tribunals of arbitration and under the principles of justice. The world will discover, as we found in our own country in our Civil War, and again in 1898, that a free people quickly respond to the call of patriotism to meet every requirement of war in defence of their nation, and that armies of citizen soldiers, when the danger is past, resume at once their places in the industries of the land. The twentieth century will realize the prophecy, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks."

The pessimist has proved with startling accuracy that with the exhaustion of fuel supplies in the forests and in the coal mines, the earth can no longer support its teeming populations, and that we are rushing headlong into anarchy and chaos. The twentieth century will find in the methods of the production of electrical power an economy of fuel and an increase of force which will accelerate progress and conserve our storage of supplies. Transportation both by land and by sea will be done solely by electricity. The same power will run the mills, the furnaces, and the factories. It will revolutionize and economize the processes of domestic life. It will shift and alter centres of production to places where electrical power can be more cheaply evolved, and that power will be utilized at long distances from its sources.

The hospitals of the world reached their highest and best conditions in the nineteenth century for the care and cure of the sick and the injured. The hospitals of the twentieth century will perform this work as well, if not better, but they will also be schools of investigation and experiment. It is the peculiarity of each generation that it accepts as a matter of course that which was the astonishment and wonder of its predecessor. The antiseptic principle, which has made possible modern surgery - the discovery of a surgeon still living,- is the commonplace of our day. So are the wonderful revelations which came through the trained brains and skilled hands of Pasteur and of Koch. Systematic and scientific research under liberal and favorable conditions will make the hospitals of the twentieth century the very sources of life. As the Gatling gun and the mitrailleuse enable the explorer in central Africa to disperse hordes of savages and open up unlimited territories for settlement and civilization, so will the leaders of the hospital laboratory produce the germicides which will destroy the living principles of consumption, of tuberculosis, of cancer, of heart, nerve, brain, and muscular troubles, and of all the now unknown and incalculable enemies which give misery and destroy life.

Continuing concentration and centralization of capital in great enterprises and in every field of production will be compelled by small margins of profit and the competition of instantaneous and world-wide communication. At the same time labor, more skilled, better educated, more thoroughly organized, finding a larger purchasing power in wages, and intelligently commanding its recognition by international compacts, will improve its condition, will find the means of quick and peaceable settlement with capital, and the relations of these two great forces will be much more beneficent and friendly.

Artists, whether with brush or chisel, or upon the lyric or dramatic stage, will require for success profounder study, broader experience, and more universal masters; but they will secure these essentials in schools at convenient centres, not only of countries, but of territorial divisions of countries. The great artist who can produce a picture which will rank with the works of Raphael or Titian and of the best exponents of modern schools will receive as adequate reward as ever for his masterpieces, and at the same time the processes of copying by the assistance of nature and chemistry will be so accurate that, with a copyright, his revenues will be increased, and his picture, perfect in every detail and expression, as well as in its general effect, and cheaply reduplicated, can be the delight, the inspiration, and the instruction of millions of homes.

Then there will be an increase in socialistic ideas and tendencies. The aim will be for a full and complete experiment of the principles of State paternalism and municipal communism. As we face the future we have no doubts as to the result, nor do we doubt that the inherent vigor of nations is greater as their institutions rest upon the liberty of the individual; yet, like the French Revolution and the theories and experiments which carried away the best thought and the highest aspirations of our own country in the earlier years of the century, the popular tendency is for the trial of these methods of escape from ever-present poverty and misery and old-age disability. Human nature, however, has in all ages manifested itself in the social organization according to its lights and its education. Light and intelligence both accompany opportunity and experiment, and control them; and the twentieth century will close with the world better housed and better clothed, its brain and moral nature better developed, and on better lines of health and longevity. It will also exhibit increased and more general happiness, and the relations of all classes and conditions with one another will be on more humane and brotherly lines than we find them as we look back.

Let us reckon American manufacturers from the infancy of the cotton and wool production in 1794 at practically zero on the one side, and on the other Europe, with the accumulated capital of over a thousand years and the accretion of the skill of all the centuries. The race-course of progress was open to the Old World and the New. Father Time kept the score, and Liberty said, "Go." To-day, after one hundred years, the American farm has become the granary of the world; the American loom and spindle and furnace and factory and mill supply the wants of 76,000,000 people in our land, and we exported in the fiscal year ending in June, 1900, domestic merchandise to the enormous value of $1,370,000,000. Europe, pushing forward on a parallel course, finds herself outstripped at the close of the century by this infant of its beginning in agricultural production, in manufactured products, in miles of telegraph and of railway, and in every element of industrial and material production and wealth. She finds one after another of her industries leaving her to be transplanted to this country, even with the conditions of labor, which makes up ninety per cent. of the cost of all manufactures, nearly fifty per cent. in her favor. American inventive genius has cheapened the cost of production on this side of the Atlantic to the advantage of American wages, and the principles of the Declaration of Independence have done the rest. Our population has grown from 3,000,000 to 76,000,000; our accumulated wealth, from less than $100,000,000 to about $70,000,000,000; the number of our farms, from probably about 100,000 to 5,000,000; our agricultural products, from just sufficient for the support of 3,000,000 people to an annual commercial value of $4,000,000,000. The workers upon our farms have increased from about 400,000 to 9,000,000; the operatives in our factories, from a handful to 5,000,000; and their earnings, from a few thousand dollars to $2,300,000,000. The increase in wages has been correspondingly great. Ever since 1870, it has been sixty per cent., and the purchasing power of money has enhanced about the same. Our public school system was very crude at the beginning of the century, and the contribution of the States for its support very small. Now we spend for education annually $156,000,000, as against $124,000,000 for Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy combined.

It is easy to see that Europe, with its overcrowded populations, its more difficult and almost insoluble problems, and with the limitations imposed upon development and opportunity by its closely peopled territories, must advance in wealth and material prosperity and the bettering of the condition of the masses by destructive revolutions or by processes which are painfully slow. The United States, with a country capable of supporting a population ten times in excess of that with which the new century opens, with its transportation so perfected that it can be quickly extended as necessity may require, with its institutions so elastic that expansion strengthens instead of weakening the powers of the government and the cohesion of its States, will advance by leaps and bounds to the first place among the nations of the world, and to the leadership of that humanitarian civilization which is to be perfected by people speaking the English tongue.

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Life is a tale told by an idiot...