Part 7

The old "Liberty party," however, grew gradually into the larger and more powerful "Free Soil" party, of which the venerable John Quincy Adams became the champion in the House of Representatives, and Martin Van Buren the presidential candidate in 1848. It was still, of course, a small minority, but its influence was now distinctly felt in the legislative councils and in the politics of the country. The petitions in favor of abolition which invaded Congress created alarm in the South, and at last the southern members found it necessary to pass a rule excluding these "incendiary documents" altogether.

If the Free Soilers were becoming formidable, the South was also resolved to assume the offensive. Its triumph in securing the annexation of Texas as another slave State was followed, a few years after, by the celebrated "Compromise" of 1850; by which, while California was admitted as a free State, and the slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, the Fugitive Slave Law was also conceded. This aroused the indignation of very large numbers in the North, and the treatment of fugitives under it, notably that of Jerry in New York State, and of Anthony Burns in Boston, did much to develop and strengthen the anti-slavery feeling. The outrageous character of the law was too palpable to be unperceived and unresented.

The next effort of the slave power provoked the formation of a great national anti-slavery party, out of the old Free Soil elements. This effort, which, by the aid of the Pierce administration and some Northern statesmen, was successful, was to destroy the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and thus open the way to the creation of slave States north, as well as south, of Mason and Dixon's line. The immediate object of this policy was to make slave States of Kansas and Nebraska, two great territories which were ready for admission into the fatuity of the Union. No sooner had the Nebraska Bill passed, in May, 1854, than the terrible scenes of "border ruffianism" began. As the new law required that the inhabitants of the territories should themselves decide whether slavery should exist or not, the attempt was made to convert Kansas into a slave State by invasions of "border ruffians" from Missouri. After a long and bloody struggle, the cause of freedom triumphed in the two disputed territories.

The events in that part of the Union served to win many converts to the anti-slavery cause in the North. The Republican party was organized on the eve of the Presidential election of 1856. Its chief doctrine was that no more slave States whatever should be admitted to the Union. It put a ticket into the field with Colonel John Charles Fremont as the candidate for President, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey for Vice-President. It could not be expected that so young a party would triumph at its first essay; but when Fremont received 113 electoral votes, while Buchanan had only 177, it was appreciated everywhere that the "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and liberty was fast approaching its crisis.

The self-sacrificing heroism of a fanatic, the most salient incident of the slavery agitation during the Presidency of Buchanan, had a marked influence in hastening the final issue. This was John Brown's raid upon Harper's Ferry, for the purpose of setting free the slaves. The old man's courage, his utter self-devotion to his cause, his noble death, his simple and sincere character, appealed most strongly to the sympathy of the opponents of slavery, and even compelled words of strong praise from the lips of Henry A. Wise, the Virginia Governor, who signed his death-warrant.

The cause of free soil at last attained its triumph in the election of 1860. All things foreshadowed the success of Abraham Lincoln. The northern people were ripe for decisive action against the extension, at least, of human bondage. The Democratic party divided into two factions at Charleston, and the factions put each a candidate into the field, mutually to destroy each other. The South so far gave up the contest as to make preparations, while the presidential battle was yet raging, to withdraw from the Union. Then, as the grand, bitter, but necessary result of the long-continued slavery agitation, the war came, and wiped out slavery with the blood of patriots.

XIII. THE CIVIL WAR.

The great American Rebellion of 1861-65 is still, perhaps, too near to be judged with the calm and judicial spirit which gives its chief value to history. Thousands of those who took part in it on either side are yet living; millions who witnessed its progress, and watched its course with varying emotions of grief and joy, who mourned its dead, exulted in its victories, and hailed its termination, yet hold it in vivid memory. Moreover, all that could be said of it, from bald narrative to infinite discussion of this and that general, this and that campaign or stratagem, of causes and effects, has already been repeated till the tale has been, not twice, but many times told.

The results of that awful yet necessary conflict are still being felt, in one way or another, by all of us. Many a household still mourns the loss of those who died on southern battle-fields. We feel the war in our business, in our pockets. We feel it in the financial enigmas which even yet await solution. And although we have come to a period of reconciliation, when we can with free hearts garland with roses the graves alike of the blue and the gray, we feel still the indirect influences of the war in our political contests.

The war may be said to have had its origin in two not necessarily connected circumstances. It was the fruit, on the one hand, of a certain political doctrine; on the other, of a threatened and to-be-defended social condition. The political doctrine was that called "State's rights," from which two corollaries were deduced by Calhoun and his disciples: "nullification," or the right of a State to disobey a United States law; and "secession," or the right of a State to withdraw from the Union at will. The social condition was that of slavery, threatened, as the South thought, by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and to be defended under cover of the political doctrine which Calhoun had taught the South to credit and to cherish. Thus, while the cause of the rebellion was slavery, its justification was an asserted constitutional right. The North did not believe in slavery, or at least in the extension of slavery. But what the North at first undertook to subdue was not slavery in the States, but the altogether destructive doctrine of secession.

The threat loudly uttered during the election of 1860, that the South would secede if Lincoln were chosen, was duly followed up by action in a few weeks after that event. Before Christmas South Carolina had passed her famous "ordinance," and by early February, 1861, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas had followed in her footsteps. The senators and representatives of these States in Congress retired front its halls, breathing defiance as they went. South Carolina took the lead in military, as she had done in political action. Claiming the national property within her limits, she attached and took Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The way had been prepared for this by Secretaries Floyd and Toucey of the Buchanan Cabinet, who had sent South materials of war, and so disposed the navy as to render it for the time powerless for aid in the Union cause.

Lincoln was now President. The guns fired at Sumter roused the North, and gave the signal of war, proving that a conflict could no longer be avoided. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas were hurried out of the Union by the political leaders. On the day following the fall of Sumter, the President issued his call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and the governors were urged to send such forces as they could at once to Washington, which was threatened with an attack. Then came the assault upon the gallant Sixth Massachusetts in the streets of Baltimore, the isolation of Washington, and its relief. A blockade of the southern ports was proclaimed.

After a few minor engagements, such as those in Western Virginia, in which McClellan was successful, and at Big Bethel, the first great battle was fought on July 21, 1861, at Bull Run. This was in consequence of an attempt by General Scott to advance upon Richmond. The result was the total defeat of the Union army, which recoiled in confusion upon Washington. Later in the first year of the war, General Lyon gained some advantages over the rebels in Missouri, and naval expeditions were sent to Hatteras and Port Royal; General Scott yielded the command-in-chief to General McClellan, and rebel privateers appeared upon the ocean, and began their destructive depredations upon our commerce. Great Britain had too hastily recognized the belligerent rights of the rebels, and in November the capture of Mason and Slidell was followed by their delivery again to the protection of the British flag.

The second year of the war found no less than half a million of soldiers enlisted in the army of the Union. It seemed as if we were now ready to cope with rebellion in all its extent and strength. The hope of an approaching and decisive triumph animated the hearts of the loyal. McClellan now led the Army of the Potomac against Richmond, approaching it from the east. Then followed the battle of Fair Oaks, and the Seven Days' battles, of which that at Malvern Hill was the most hotly contested. The Confederates were beaten, with terrible loss on both sides. Cedar Mountain and the second Bull Run followed, the latter proving a disaster as serious as the former struggle on the same field had been.

Then came Lee's advance into Maryland, his capture of Frederick City, and that great battle, Antietam, in which Lee was repulsed and retreated into Virginia. But McClellan, having failed to follow up his advantage, was relieved of the command-in-chief, which was conferred on Burnside. Burnside's repulse at Fredericksburg was followed by a discouraging retreat. But though the attempt to capture Richmond was foiled, in other parts of the country many advantages were obtained by the Union forces in the year 1862.

Prominent among these were the victory of the Monitor over the Merrimac, in Hampton Roads; the capture of Roanoke Island and Fort Pulaski; Grant's gallant victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, at Island No. 10, and, later, at Pittsburg Landing; and the heroic taking of New Orleans by Farragut and Butler.

At the very threshold of the third year of the war, President Lincoln issued the "Proclamation of Emancipation." Thus not only was the crime of slavery wiped away, but a new source of strength to our forces was provided by the emancipated negroes, who were enlisted to aid in the confirmation of their freedom by final victory. The first half of the year 1863 witnessed what was perhaps the gloomiest and most disheartening period of the war. Hooker succeeded Burnside, only to meet at Chancellorsville the same disastrous fate which had overtaken his predecessor at Fredericksburg. General Lee was encouraged to assume the offensive, and to invade Pennsylvania. The North was discouraged; the expense of the war began to be grievously felt; the draft was becoming very obnoxious; the desertions from the army were alarming in number.

Lee advanced by the Shenandoah Valley into the Northern States. But at Gettysburg he met the reorganized Union army, under Meade. The collision of one hundred and sixty thousand men, lasting for three days, resulted in that hard-won Union victory which proved the turning-point of the war. On the day of Lee's retreat from Gettysburg, the Fourth of July, Vicksburg was surrendered to Grant. Soon after, Port Hudson fell, and the Mississippi was opened to the passage of troops. Then the Battle of Chattanooga was fought and won, and Tennessee was rid of Confederate occupation. Meanwhile, the siege of Charleston was proceeding on the coast, and before the end of the year Fort Wagner was taken.

We have now reached the fourth year of the war, 1864. It was now clear that the result was only a question of time. The first events of the year were not brilliant. Kilpatrick made his famous but futile raid near Richmond; Hanks met with disaster at Red River; Forrest captured Fort Pillow and killed three hundred negro troops. The last act of the momentous drama began by the elevation of General Ulysses S. Grant to the command-in-chief in March. The two great movements which were together to seal the fate of the Confederacy were at once prepared. Grant, assuming command of the Army of the Potomac, made Richmond his objective point. He advanced deliberately towards the southern capital, and fought the terrific battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor. He laid siege to Petersburg, but without immediate result. Meanwhile the gallant Sherman began his marvellous march to the sea, took Atlanta, and at last entered Savannah in triumph. Sheridan, making his famous ride, defeated Early at Cedar Creek. The Alabama was sunk by the Kearsarge off the French coast. Mobile was captured by Farragut. The Albermarle was destroyed.

The Confederates were now penned in, and it only remained to make a last strenuous effort to end the war. While Sherman advanced northward, taking Charleston by the way, and Terry captured Fort Fisher, the siege of Richmond became closer and more vigorous. Then Sheridan conquered at Five Forks, turning the flank of the hunted and hounded Lee. Finally, on the 3d of April, 1865, the Union troops occupied Richmond and Petersburg; Lee surrendered on the 9th, at Appomattox; Johnston followed by yielding to Sherman; and the Southern Confederacy was no more.

XIV. THE PRESIDENTS.

Between 1789, when the government organized by the constitution began its functions, and 1886, the people of the United States have twenty-five times chosen a President; and of the Presidents, seven have been chosen for a second term. Four of them, having died in office, were succeeded by Vice Presidents. While the number of terms, therefore, has been twenty-five, the executive chair has been filled by twenty-two individuals. In referring to the line of Presidents, and scanning the names of those who have exercised powers more extensive than those of English royalty, we are struck by the fact that very few of our Presidents have ranked first, in point of intellect, in their own generation. It may be said, indeed, that Jefferson alone of them all was without dispute the foremost statesman of his day.

Comparing our elected chief magistrates with the various lines of hereditary sovereigns of Europe, we find that pre-eminent ability is scarcely more frequent among them than is presented by the houses of Romanoff, Hohenzollern, and Hapsburg. When, however, we consider their moral qualities as rulers--their patriotism and purity, their freedom from a too grasping ambition, the fidelity and zeal with which they have served the country as best they knew how--we are perhaps not unreasonable in judging them superior, as a line of rulers, to any royal house of which history affords record. Very rarely has it been that a President has been even suspected of craving increased power for himself, or of using his office for unworthy personal ends. Some have been weak, some perverse and obstinate; but as the clouds of party passion, which have sometimes obscured the motives and the acts of our chief magistrates, pass away, we may recognize in their action honest though now and then ill directed efforts to use their high office for the general weal.

Our intellectually ablest men have not, with the exception of Jefferson, attained the Presidency, though many of them have aspired to it. No one can doubt that Hamilton was a greater political genius than the first two Presidents. It can scarcely be questioned that Webster, Calhoun, and Clay were greater in this respect than the three Presidents who succeeded Jefferson. Madison was a man of culture, clear vision, and political learning, but he was the disciple of Jefferson, and did not reveal qualities of originality and constructiveness in statesmanship. Monroe was a man of yet more limited capacity, unless Polk be excepted, Monroe was the least able of all our Presidents. But he had a large experience in public affairs, he was judicious and cool-tempered, and thoroughly honest and simple-minded. He was personally liked, and after Washington was the only President who was the unanimous choice of the country.

John Quincy Adams, a trained statesman, who had been an ambassador, a Senator, and a Secretary of State, was still inferior in point of political intellect to Clay, his own Secretary of State, and to Calhoun, the Vice-President; and there were several others at that time who might justly be competed with him. So, although Andrew Jackson was perhaps the greatest of our Presidents in executive vigor and stern force of will, as a political figure his most devoted admirers would scarcely rank him with Clay or Webster. Van Buren was rather a shrewd politician than an eminent statesman; but he was a politician in a higher sense, and no stain of dishonor attaches to his career, while his presidential term was an honest and able one.

Many public men might be named who, living at the time of Harrison's elevation, were very much his political superiors; in his very cabinet were at least three, Webster, Crittenden, and Ewing; and John Tyler was very far from being in the front rank of American statesmen, though his political capacity has sometimes been underrated.

Polk was the weakest of all our later Presidents, and he too presided over at least three secretaries who were intellectually larger men, in Marcy, Robert J. Walker, and Buchanan. The same may be said in comparing General Taylor with his advisers, and Fillmore, Pierce, and Lincoln with theirs; for while no one can fail to revere the grand moral and practical qualities which make Lincoln illustrious, in purely intellectual eminence he was excelled by Seward, Chase, and perhaps Stanton.

Ours has always been a conservative Republic. The French Republicans of '93 and '48, the Communards of '71, did not derive their wild and visionary fanaticism from our example, although there can be no doubt that our Revolution had not a little influence in hastening that of France. When the people have been called upon to choose a chief magistrate, therefore, they have not sought men of extreme views, nor have humble birth and limited education often been recommendations of candidates. It is notable that the first six Presidents were selected from the class which in England is called the "gentry." Washington, indeed, belonged to the high rural aristocracy of Virginia; Mount Vernon was as much a patrician manor-house as are the "halls," "priories," and "manors" of rural England; and he lived there in the style of a country magnate, John Adams belonged to the sturdy New England yeomanry sprung from the Pilgrims, and, as the descendant of John Alden, had some reason to pride himself upon good blood. The three succeeding Virginia Presidents were sons of gentlemen-farmers, and belonged to the cultivated gentry of the Old Dominion. Jackson was the first of the plebeian Presidents, and then came Van Buren, of the gentry by birth; Harrison, the son of a signer of the Declaration, and thus well born, and Tyler, another Virginia gentleman, the lord of Sherwood Forest. Polk belonged to the same rural condition. Fillmore was the next President of humble beginnings, and Lincoln the third; while Andrew Johnson, who learned to read after he was married, and began life as a country tailor, was the most lowly born of all our chief magistrates.