THE SOUTHERN STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.
Thus panoplied they made a desperate contest for the possession of Kansas. They had found that all the crops grown in Missouri by slave labor could be as profitably cultivated in Kansas. Securing Kansas, they would gain more than the mere material advantage of an enlarged field for slave labor. New Mexico at that time included all of Arizona; Utah included all of Nevada; Kansas, as organized, absorbed a large part of what is now Colorado, stretched along the eastern and northern boundary of New Mexico, and, crossing the Rocky Mountains, reached the confines of Utah. If Kansas could be made a slave State it would control New Mexico and Utah, and the South could again be placed in a position of political equality if not of command. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise had shown them for the first time that they could absolutely consolidate the Southern vote in Congress in defense of slavery, regardless of differences on all other issues. But this power was of no avail, unless they could regain their equality in the Senate which had been lost by what they considered the mishap of California's admission. While Clay and Benton were in the Senate with their old reverence for the Union and their desire for the ultimate extinction of slavery, California could neither be kept out nor divided on the line of 36° 30´. But the new South, the South of Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens, of Robert Toombs and Judah P. Benjamin, of James M. Mason and John C. Breckinridge, had made new advances, was inspired by new ambitions, and was determined upon the consolidation of sectional power. The one supreme need was another slave State. If this could be acquired they felt assured that so long as the Union should exist no free State could be admitted without the corresponding admission of another slave State. They would perhaps have been disappointed. Possibly they did not give sufficient heed to the influences which were steadily working against slavery in such States as Delaware and Maryland, threatening desertion in the rear, while the defenders of slavery were battling at the front. They argued, however, and not unnaturally, that prejudice can hold a long contest with principle, and that in the general uprising of the South the tendency of all their old allies would be to remain firm. They reckoned that States with few slaves would continue to stand for Southern institutions as stubbornly as States with many slaves. In all the States of the South emancipation had been made difficult, and free negroes were tolerated, if at all, with great reluctance and with constant protest.
The struggle for Kansas was therefore to be maintained and possession secured at all hazards. Although, as the Southern leaders realized, the free States had flanked them by the admission of California with an anti-slavery constitution, the Southern acquisition of Kansas would pierce the very centre of the army of freedom, and would enable the South thenceforth to dictate terms to the North. Instead of the line of 36° 30´, upon which they had so frequently offered to compromise, as a permanent continental division, they would have carried the northern boundary of slave territory to the 40th parallel of latitude and even beyond. They slave States in pursuing this policy were directed by men who had other designs than those which lay on the surface. Since the struggle of 1850 the dissolution of the Union had been in the minds of many Southern leaders, and, as the older class of statesmen passed away, this design grew and strengthened until it became a fixed policy. They felt that when the time came to strike, it was of the first importance that they should have support and popular strength beyond the Mississippi. California, they were confident, could be carried in their interest, if they could but plant supporting colonies between the Missouri and the Sierras. The Democratic party was dominant in the State, and the Democracy was of the type personated by William M. Gwin. Both her senators voted for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and stood by the extremists of the South as steadily as if California bordered on the Gulf of Mexico. Dissolution of the Union on the scale thus projected would, as the authors of the scheme persuaded themselves, be certain of success. From the Mississippi to the Missouri they would carry the new confederacy to the southern line of Iowa. From the Missouri to the line of Utah they would have the 40th degree of latitude; from Utah westward they would have the 42d parallel, leaving the line of Oregon as the southern boundary of the United States on the Pacific.
THE SOUTHERN STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.
This policy was not absolute but alternative. If the slave-holders could maintain their supremacy in the Union, they would prefer to remain. If they were to be outvoted and, as they thought, outraged by free-State majorities, then they would break up the government and form a confederacy of their own. To make such a confederacy effective, they must not take from the Union a relatively small section, but must divide it from ocean to ocean. They could not acquire a majority of the total population, but they aimed to secure by far the larger share of the vast domain comprised in the United States. The design was audacious, but from the stand-point of the men who were committed to it, it was not illogical. Their entire industrial system was founded upon an institution which was bitterly opposed in the free States. They could see no way, and they no longer desired to see a way, by which they might rid themselves of the servile labor which was at once their strength and their weakness. To abandon the institution was to sacrifice four thousand millions of property specially protected by law. It was for the existing generation of the governing class in the South to vote themselves into bankruptcy and penury. Far beyond this, it was in their judgment to blight their land with ignorance and indolence, to be followed by crime and anarchy. Their point of view was so radically different from that held by a large number of Northern people that it left no common ground for action,—scarcely, indeed, an opportunity for reasoning together. In the South they saw and felt their danger, and they determined at all hazards to defend themselves against policies which involved the total destruction of their social and industrial fabric. They were not mere malcontents. They were not pretenders. They did not aim at small things. They had ability and they had courage. They had determined upon mastery within the Union, or a Continental Empire outside of it.
While the South had thus resolved to acquire control of the large Territory of Kansas, the North had equally resolved to save it to freedom. The strife that ensued upon the fertile plains beyond the Missouri might almost be regarded as the opening battle of the civil war. The proximity of a slave State gave to the South an obvious advantage at the beginning of the contest. Many of the Northern emigrants were from New England, and the distance they were compelled to travel exceeded two thousand miles. There were no railroads across Iowa, none across Missouri. But despite all impediments and all discouragements, the free-State emigrants, stimulated by anti-slavery societies organized for the purpose, far outnumbered those from the slave States. Had the vexed question in the Territory been left to actual settlers it would have been at once decided adversely to slavery. But the neighboring inhabitants of Missouri, as the first election approached, invaded the Territory in large numbers, and, with boisterous disturbance and threats of violence, seized the polls, fraudulently elected a pro-slavery Legislature, and chose one of their leaders named Whitfield as delegate to Congress. Over six thousand votes were polled, of which some eight hundred only were cast by actual settlers. There were about three thousand legal voters in the Territory. The total population was somewhat in excess of eight thousand, and there were between two and three hundred slaves. The governor of the Territory, Andrew H. Reeder, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, tried faithfully and earnestly to arrest the progress of fraud and violence; but he was removed by President Pierce, and Wilson Shannon of Ohio was sent out in his stead. The free-State settlers, defrauded at the regular election, organized an independent movement and chose Governor Reeder their delegate to Congress to contest the seat of Whitfield. These events, rapidly following each other, caused great indignation throughout the country, in the midst of which the Thirty-fourth Congress assembled in December, 1855. After a prolonged struggle, Nathaniel P. Banks was chosen Speaker over William Aiken. It was a significant circumstance, noted at the time, that the successful candidate came from Massachusetts, and the defeated one from South Carolina. It was a still more ominous fact that Banks was chosen by votes wholly from the free States, and that every vote from the slave States was given to Mr. Aiken, except that of Mr. Cullen of Delaware, and that of Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, who declined to vote for either candidate. It was the first instance in the history of the government in which a candidate for Speaker had been chosen without support from both sections. It was a distinctive victory of the free States over the consolidated power of the slave States. It marked an epoch.
CANVASS FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
The year 1856 opened with this critical, this unprecedented condition of affairs. In all classes there was deep excitement. With thoughtful men, both North and South, there was serious solicitude. The country approached the strife of another Presidential election with the consciences of men thoroughly aroused, with their passions profoundly stirred. Three parties were coming into the field, and it seemed impossible that any candidate could secure the approval of a majority of the voters in the Union. In the Democratic ranks there was angry contention. President Pierce, who had risked every thing for the South, and had received unmeasured obloquy in the North, was naturally anxious that his administration should be approved by his own party. With all the patronage at his command, he vigorously sought a renomination. But the party desired victory, and they feared a contest which involved an approval of the President's recreancy to solemn pledges voluntarily given. He had been inaugurated with the applause and confidence of a nation. He was sustained in the end by a helpless faction of a disorganized party.
The distinguished secretary of State suffered with the President. Mr. Marcy had personally disapproved the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, but he made no opposition, and the people held him equally if not doubly guilty. It was said at the time that New- York friends urged him to save his high reputation by resigning his seat in the cabinet. But he remained, in the delusive hope that he should receive credit for the evil he might prevent. He was pertinently reminded that the evil he might prevent would never be known, whereas the evil to which he consented would be read of all men. New York had hopelessly revolted from Democratic control, and Mr. Marcy's name was not presented as a Presidential candidate, though he was at that time the ablest statesman of the Democratic party. Mr. Douglas was also unavailable. He had gained great popularity in the South by his course in repealing the Missouri Compromise, but he had been visited with signal condemnation in the North. His own State, always Democratic, which had stood firmly for the party even in the overthrow of 1840, had now failed to sustain him,—had, indeed, pointedly rebuked him by choosing an opposition Legislature and sending Lyman Trumbull, then an anti- slavery Republican, as his colleague in the Senate. General Cass was seventy-four years old, and he was under the same condemnation with Pierce and Marcy and Douglas. He had voted to repeal the Missouri Compromise, and Michigan, which had never before faltered in his support, now turned against him and embittered his declining years by an expression of popular disapproval, which could not have been more emphatic.
The candidates urged for the nomination were all from the North. By a tacit but general understanding, the South repressed the ambition of its leaders and refused to present any one of the prominent statesmen from that section. Southern men designed to put the North to a test, and they wished to give Northern Democrats every possible advantage in waging a waging a warfare in which the fruits of victory were to be wholly enjoyed by the South. If they had wished it, they could have nominated a Southern candidate who was at that moment far stronger than any other man in the Democratic party. General Sam Houston had a personal history as romantic as that of an ancient crusader. He was a native of Virginia, a representative in Congress from Tennessee, and Governor of that State before he was thirty-five. He was the intimate and trusted friend of Jackson. Having resigned his governorship on account of domestic trouble, he fled from civilized life, joined the Indians of the Western plains, roved with them for years, adopted their habits, and was made chief of a tribe. Returning to association with white men, he emigrated to Texas and led the revolt against Mexico, fought battles and was victorious, organized a new republic and was made its President. Then he turned to his native land, bearing in his hand the gift of a great dominion. Once more under the Union flag, he sat in the Capitol as a senator of the United States from Texas. At threescore years he was still in the full vigor of life. Always a member of the Democratic party he was a devoted adherent of the Union, and his love for it had but increased in exile. He stood by Mr. Clay against the Southern Democrats in the angry contest of 1850, declaring that "if the Union must be dismembered" he "prayed God that its ruins might be the monument of his own grave." He "desired no epitaph to tell that he survived it." Against the madness of repealing the Missouri Compromise he entered a protest and a warning. He notified his Southern friends that the dissolution of the Union might be involved in the dangerous step. He alone, of the Southern Democrats in the Senate, voted against the mischievous measure. When three thousand clergymen of New England sent their remonstrance against the repeal, they were fiercely attacked and denounced by Douglas and by senators from the South. Houston vindicated their right to speak and did battle for them with a warmth and zeal which specially commended him to Northern sympathy. All these facts combined—his romantic history, his unflinching steadiness of purpose, his unswerving devotion to the Union—would have made him an irresistibly strong candidate had he been presented. But the very sources of his strength were the sources of his weakness. His nomination would have been a rebuke to every man who had voted for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and, rather than submit to that, the Southern Democrats, and Northern Democrats like Pierce and Douglas and Cass, would accept defeat. Victory with Houston would be their condemnation. But in rejecting him they lost in large degree the opportunity to recover the strength and popularity and power of the Democratic party which had all been forfeited by the maladministration of Pierce.