The election for 1860 has only recently terminated in the elevation to the head of the Federal Government of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, by a purely anti-slavery vote of 1,865,840. The events which preceded it are too fresh to require repetition; but, for the first time in the history of our confederacy, we look upon the spectacle of a sectional party, defiant, unyielding and uncompromising, whose principles aim a blow direct at the annihilation of one of the institutions of the South, in the full flush of victory, singing pœans of glory over its success, with a Union dissolving around it, while another portion of the country is agitated to its very centre in preparations for self-protection against the usurpations which, from press and pulpit, and floor of Congress, have been so boldly threatened. Whether as abolition, liberty, free-soil or republican, the party has always shown the cloven hoof, and the best efforts of its more considerate friends have never been able to cover the deformity. Into the masses it has instilled the most unrelenting hatred to slavery, until all other ideas, feelings and passions have, for the time, been swallowed up in this one overwhelming sentiment.
It has dissolved the Union, though formed and cemented in the blood of our fathers, rather than it should tolerate an institution which is older than the Union. It has shed the blood of innocent white men while engaged in the discharge of their sworn duty, and made widows and orphans rather than return an escaped servant to his master and obey the Constitution of the country. Such is the spirit which controls this party, by whatever name it may be known.
Its leaders, claiming to stand by principle, hug to their bosom the most damning political heresies. Pretending to obey God and reverence the Bible, some of them are the most unblushing infidels, who boldly proclaim that the Sacred Word is not worth the paper upon which it is printed, unless it denounce slavery and applaud abolitionism, and would teach that the Constitution of our country is the consummation of every iniquity. Some of them aspire to be the followers of Jesus, but convert their sacred desks into political rostrums, from which are fulminated the falsest denunciations that a diseased mind can conjure into existence. Claiming to be teachers of religion and peace, they prove the authenticity of their holy commission by exhorting to civil war, making collections for Sharpe’s rifles, and playing the role of spiritual demagogues among the falling ruins of the republic.
The year 1841 was marked by another attempt at insurrection. On the 22d of July, during a hot night, several negroes were overheard conversing in their quarters, on a plantation, near New Orleans, respecting an insurrection in which they intended to join. An investigation was made the next day, and resulted in tracing out a widely-extended organization among the slaves of the neighborhood, having a general rising in view. This early discovery of the plot of course prevented its consummation, and the execution and punishment of the instigators soon quelled every design of an outbreak.
In 1845 we find Cassius M. Clay mobbed in Lexington, Ky., and his paper, the True American, stopped, the presses, type, &c., being packed up and forwarded to Cincinnati, for advocating the incendiary doctrines of the abolitionists, and thereby producing an excitement among the slaves, and arousing apprehensions in the community lest they should rise in rebellion against the whites.
THE MEXICAN WAR.
We have already brought our chronological history down to the year 1845, when Texas was admitted as a State. It was during the progress of annexation that the government of Mexico served a formal notice on the United States that annexation would be viewed in the light of a declaration of war. This notice, however, was of little avail, and before the close of the year 1845, Congress had consummated the act. The war broke out in April, 1846, the second year of Mr. Polk’s administration, and on the 11th of May the President issued his proclamation to that effect. A large portion of the western domain of Texas, as now described, was disputed territory, occupied by Mexicans and under Mexican rule at the time of and after annexation. General Taylor was ordered to march from Corpus Christi, and take up his position on the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, thus traversing the disputed territory from its eastern to its western border. The Mexican army, on the opposite side of the river, immediately commenced hostilities, and soon after followed the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. How the war was continued and terminated are matters of general history. Peace was at last dictated to Mexico on the 30th of May, 1848, and resulted in a surrender by her of a large belt of her northern territories, extending from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, including California, though at that time its immense wealth and great importance were not fully appreciated. In Congress and among the people of the North the war was not popular. It was said to be a scheme for the acquirement of more slave territory, and this fact of itself excited contention throughout the land.
THE WILMOT PROVISO.
On the 12th of August, 1846, a bill being under consideration in the Committee of the Whole, making further provision for the expenses attending the intercourse between the United States and Mexico, Mr. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved the following amendment:—