Zachary Taylor. After a photograph by Brady.
The Site of San Francisco in 1848.
[1848-1849]
In 1848, on the same day and almost at the same hour when the peace of
Guadalupe Hidalgo was concluded, gold was discovered in California. It
was on the land of one Sutter, a Swiss settler in the Sacramento Valley,
as some workmen were opening a flume for a mill. In three months over
4,000 persons were there, digging for gold with great success. By July,
1849, it is thought, 15,000 had arrived. Nearly all were forced to live
in booths, tents, log huts, and under the open sky. The sparse
population previously on the ground left off farming and grazing and
opened mines. People became insane for gold. Immigrants soon came in
immense hordes. In 1846, aside from roving Indians, California had
numbered not much over 15,000 inhabitants. By 1850, it seems certain
that the territory contained no fewer than 92,597. The new-comers were
from almost every land and clime--Mexico, South America, the Sandwich
Islands, China--though, of course, most were Americans. The bulk of
these hailed from the Northwest and the Northeast. To this land of
promise the sturdy pioneers from the Mississippi Valley found their way
on foot, on horseback, or in wagons, over the Rocky Mountains and the
Sierras, following trails previously untrodden by civilized man. Those
from the East made long detours around Cape Horn or across the Isthmus
of Panama.
Sutter's Mill, California, where Gold was First Discovered.
The yield of gold from the virgin placers was enormous, a laborer's
average the first season being perhaps an ounce a day, though many made
much more. During the first two years about $40,000,000 worth of gold
was extracted. According to careful estimates the gold yield of the
United States, mostly from California, which had been only $890,000 in
1847, increased to $10,000,000 in 1848, to $40,000,000 in 1849, to
$50,000,000 in 1850, to $55,000,000 in 1851, to $60,000,000 in 1852, and
in 1853 to $65,000,000.
Most interesting were the spontaneous governmental and legal
institutions which arose in these motley communities, some of them
finding their originals in the English mining districts, others in
Mexico and Spain, and still others recalling the mining customs of
medieval Germany. For a time many camps had each its independent
government, disconnected from all human authority around or above. Some
of these were modelled after the Mexican Alcaldeship, others after the
New England town. Over those who rushed to the vicinity of Sutter's mill
that gentleman became virtual Alcalde, though he was not recognized by
all. The men first opening a placer would seek to pre-empt all the
adjoining land, giving up only when others came in numbers too strong
for them. Officers were elected and new customs sanctioned as they were
needed. Partnerships were sacredly maintained, yet by no other law than
that of the camp. Crimes against property and life seem to have been
infrequent at first, but the unparalleled wealth toled in and developed
a criminal class, which the rudimentary government could not control.
San Francisco formed in 1851 a vigilance committee of citizens, by which
crimes could be more summarily and surely punished. The pioneer banking
house in California began business at San Francisco in January, 1849.
The same month saw the first frame house on the Sacramento, near
Sutter's Fort.
The vast acquisition of territory by the Mexican War seemed destined to
be a great victory for slavery, because nearly all of it lay south of 36
degrees 30 minutes and hence by the Missouri Compromise could become
slave soil. But there was the complication that under Mexico all this
wide realm had been free. To exist there legally slavery must therefore
be established by Congress, making the case very different from the
cases of Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, which came under United States
authority already burdened. This predisposed many who were not in
general opposed to slavery, against extending the institution hither.
Early in the war a bill had passed the House, failing almost by accident
in the Senate, which contained the famous Wilmot Proviso, so named from
its mover in the House, that, except for crime, neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude should ever exist in any of the territories to be
annexed. Wilmot was a Democrat, and at this time a decided majority of
his party favored the proviso. But the pro-slavery wing rallied, while
the Whigs, disbelieving in the war and in annexation both, offered the
proviso Democrats no hearty aid. In consequence it was defeated both
then and after the annexation.
The election of 1848 went for the Whigs, and the next March 4th, General
Taylor became President. Though a southerner and a slave-holder, he was
moderate and a true patriot. So rapid had been the influx into
California that the Territory needed a stable government. Accordingly,
one of Taylor's first acts as President was to urge California to apply
for admission to statehood. General Riley, military governor, at once
called a convention, which, sitting from September 1st to October 13th,
framed a constitution and made request that California be taken into the
Union. This constitution prohibited slavery, and thus a new firebrand
was tossed into the combustible material with which the political
situation abounded. By this time nearly all the friends of freedom were
for the proviso, but its enemies as well had greatly increased. The
immense growth, actual and prospective, of northern population, greatly
inspired one side and angered the other.
[1850]
Resort was now had again to the old, illusive device of compromise, Clay
being the leader as usual. He brought forward his "Omnibus Bill," so
called because it threw a sop to everybody. It failed to pass as a
single measure, but was broken up and enacted piecemeal. Stubborn was
the fight. Radicals of the one part would consent to nothing short of
extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; those of the
other stood solidly for the unmodified proviso.
In this crisis occurred President Taylor's death, July 9, 1850, which
was most unfortunate. He was known not to favor the pro-slavery
aggression which, in spite of Clay's personal leaning in the opposite
direction, the omnibus bill embodied. Mr. Fillmore, as also Webster,
whom he made his Secretary of State, nervous with fear of an
anti-slavery reputation, went fully Clay's length. The debate on this
compromise of 1850 was the occasion when Webster deserted the free-soil
principles which were now dominant in New England. His celebrated speech
of March. 7th marked the crisis of his life. He argued that the proviso
was not needed to prevent slavery in the newly gotten district, while
its passage would be a wanton provocation to the South From this moment
Massachusetts dropped him. When she next elected a senator for a full
term, it was Charles Sumner, candidate of the united Democrats and
Free-soilers, who went to Congress pledged to fight slavery to the
death.
But the omnibus compromises were passed. California was, indeed,
admitted free, September 9, 1850--the thirty-first State in order--and
slave-trade in the District of Columbia slightly alleviated. On the
other hand, Texas was stretched to include a huge piece of New Mexico
that was free before, and paid $10,000,000 to relinquish further claims.
This was virtually a bonus to holders of her scrip, which from seventeen
cents the dollar instantly rose to par. New Mexico and Utah were to be
organized as Territories without the proviso, and were made powerless to
legislate on slavery till they should become States. Least sufferable, a
fugitive slave law was passed, so Draconian that that of 1793, hitherto
in force, was benign in comparison. It placed the entire power of the
general Government at the slave-hunter's disposal, and ordered rendition
without trial or grant of habeas corpus, on a certificate to be had by
simple affidavit. Bystanders, if bidden, were obliged to help marshals,
and tremendous penalties imposed for aid to fugitives.
This act facilitated the recovery of fugitives at first, but not
permanently. Many who had labored for its passage soon saw that it was a
mistake. It powerfully fanned the abolition flame all over the North.
New personal liberty laws were enacted. A daily increasing number
adopted the view that the new act was unconstitutional, on the ground
that the Constitution places the rendition of slaves as of criminals in
the hands of States, and guarantees jury trial, even upon title to
property, if over twenty dollars in value. After the act had been
justified in the courts, multitudes of moderate northern men urged to a
dangerous degree the doctrine of state rights in defence of the liberty
laws. Others adopted the cry of the "higher law," and without joining
Garrison in denouncing the Government, did not hesitate to oppose in
every possible way the operation of this drastic legislation for
slave-catching.
Millard Fillmore.
From a painting by Carpenter in 1853, at the City Hall, New York.
The country's growth made escape from bondage continually easier and
easier. Once across the border a runaway was sure to find many friends
and few enemies. Openly, or, if this was required, by stealth, he was
passed quickly along to the Canada line. Between 1830 and 1860 over
30,000 slaves are estimated to have taken refuge in Canada. By 1850,
probably no less than 20,000 had found homes in the free States. The new
law moved many of these across into the British dominions. It was hence
increasingly difficult for the slave-owner to recover stray property.
All possible legal obstructions were placed in his way, and when these
failed he was likely still to be opposed by a mob which might prove too
powerful for the marshal and any posse which he could gather.
The Rendition of Anthony Burns in Boston.
In Boston, when a slave named Shadrach was arrested, his friends made a
sudden dash, rescued him from the officers and freed him. With Simms the
same was attempted, but in vain. The removal of Anthony Burns from that
city in 1855 was possible only by escorting him down State Street to the
revenue cutter in waiting, inside a dense hollow square of United States
artillerymen and marines, with the whole city's militia under arms and
at hand. Business houses as well as residences were closed and draped in
mourning. It was an indignity which Massachusetts never forgot. At
Alton, Ill., slave-hunters seized a respectable colored woman, long
resident there, who fully believed herself free. She was surrounded by
an infuriated company of citizens, and would have been wrenched from her
captors' clutch had not they, in their terror, offered to sell her back
into freedom. The needed $1,200 was raised in a few minutes, and the
agonized creature restored to her family. Judge Davis, whom the evidence
had compelled to deliver the woman, on rendering the sentence resigned
his commission, declaring: "The law gives you your victim. Thank it and
not me, and may God have mercy on your sinful souls."
CHAPTER V.
THE FIGHT FOR KANSAS
[1850-1854]
The measures of 1850 proved anything but the "finality" upon slavery
discussion which both parties, the Whigs as loudly as the Democrats,
promised and insisted that they should be. Elated by its victory in
1850, and also by that of 1852, when the anti-slavery sentiment of
northern Whigs drove so many of their old southern allies to vote for
Pierce, giving him his triumphant election, the slavocracy in 1854
proceeded in its work of suicide to undo the sacred Missouri Compromise
of 1820. Douglas, the ablest northern Democrat, led in this, succeeding,
as official pacificator between North and South, somewhat to the office
of Clay, who had died June 29, 1852. The aim of most who were with him
was to make Kansas-Nebraska slave soil, but we may believe that Douglas
himself cherished the hope and conviction that freedom was its destiny.
This rich country west and northwest of Missouri, consecrated to freedom
by the Missouri Compromise, had been slowly filling with civilized men.
It did not promise to be a profitable field for slavery, nor would
economic considerations ever have originated a slavery question
concerning it. But politically its character as slave or free was of the
utmost consequence to the South, where the resolution gradually arose
either to secure it for the peculiar institution or else prevent its
organization even as a Territory. A motion for such organization had
been unsuccessfully made about 1843, and it was repeated, equally
without effect, each session for ten years. None of these motions had
contained any hint that slavery could possibly find place in the
proposed Territory. The bill of December 15, 1853, like its
predecessors, had as first drawn no reference whatever to slavery, but
when it returned from the committee on Territories, of which Douglas was
chairman, the report, not explicitly, indeed, made the assumption,
unheard of before, that Kansas-Nebraska stood in the same relation to
slavery in which Utah and New Mexico had stood in 1850; and that the
compromise of that year, in leaving the question of slavery to the
States to be formed from these Territories, had already set aside the
agreement of 1820. These assumptions were totally false. The act of 1850
gave Utah and New Mexico no power as Territories over the debatable
institution, and contained not the slightest suggestion of any rule in
the matter for territories in general.
But the hint was taken, and on January 16th notice given of intention to
move an out-and-out abrogation of the Missouri Compromise. Such
abrogation was at once incorporated in the Kansas-Nebraska bill reported
by Douglas, January 23, 1854. This separated Kansas from Nebraska, and
the subsequent struggle raged in reference to Kansas alone. The bill
erroneously declared it established by the acts of 1850 that "all
questions as to slavery in the Territories," no less than in the States
which should grow out of them, were to be left to the residents, subject
to appeal to the United States courts. It passed both houses by good
majorities and was signed by President Pierce May 30th. Its animus
appeared from the loss in the Senate of an amendment, moved by S. P.
Chase, of Ohio, allowing the Territory to prohibit slavery.
