405. Character of Pierce’s Administration.—The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the war in Kansas are the most important features of Pierce’s administration (§§ 411-414). The new President, being amiable and weak, yielded to the counsels of Jefferson Davis and Caleb Cushing[183] of his Cabinet, and took a strong pro-slavery position, with the result that he speedily lost his popularity, save in the South. At first, however, he pleased most of his fellow-citizens, especially on such occasions as his visit to the World’s Fair at New York in 1853, where he made a glowing speech. But although Pierce himself is almost forgotten, his administration is of great importance to the student, since its leading events and measures were most instrumental in bringing on the Civil War.
406. The Know-Nothings.—Pierce’s administration was distinguished by the rise of a new, short-lived party, which for a time caused apprehension in the older organizations, and had much to do with the overthrow of the Whigs. This was the American party, which became prominent in 1852. Its members were popularly known as “Know-Nothings,” because, being bound by oath to reveal nothing concerning their organization, they always answered inquiries in this negative fashion. It had “lodges,” which sent delegates to secret nominating conventions, and its strength could not be gauged before an election. Its chief object was to prevent foreigners from being too easily and speedily naturalized and to elect native-born Americans to office. Similar organizations had existed before and have been developed since; but the American people have never long tolerated illiberal and secret parties. The Know-Nothings carried some state elections and put candidates in the field for the campaign of 1856, but they soon after disappeared from the political stage. The party furnished a refuge to many Whigs, particularly from the South, for it was neutral on the slavery question. Its growth was accelerated by the bad influence on local politics, especially in New York City, exerted by the crowds of ignorant foreigners who sought our shores after the Revolution of 1848 and the great Irish famine. Nothing could have been more disgraceful than the corrupt municipal government of New York City about this time, and many citizens feared that the rest of the country would be contaminated.
407. Attempts to Secure Cuba.—Attempts to seize territory to the south in the interests of slavery, continued during Pierce’s administration. In 1853, a bold adventurer named William Walker gathered rash followers and made an attack on Lower California, which completely failed. The next year, leading Southerners like General Quitman, an adopted citizen of Mississippi and a distinguished soldier in the Mexican War, tried to secure Cuba by forcing the United States into a war with Spain on account of the confiscation of an American steamer, The Black Warrior. This attempt was merged in the intrigues that produced the Ostend Manifesto.
408. The Ostend Manifesto.—On the 16th of August, 1854, William L. Marcy, Pierce’s Secretary of State, wrote to Pierre SoulÉ, the American minister at Madrid, that “much advantage might accrue from an interchange of views between himself, Buchanan, and Mason” (the Ministers to Great Britain and France) “in regard to the acquisition of Cuba.” Accordingly, these three Ministers met at Ostend, Belgium, and after a conference of a few days, promulgated the paper known as the “Ostend Manifesto” (October 18, 1854). They declared, first, that Cuba should belong to the United States; second, that the government might well offer for the island the sum of one hundred and twenty million dollars; and third, that if Spain would not accept this sum, the matter of conquest ought to be considered. The manifesto was generally well received in the South, but in the North it was characterized as “the manifesto of brigands.”
409. Filibustering.—Soon Central America attracted the filibusters, as these adventurous invaders of peaceable states were called. In 1854 a little place named Greytown, on the Mosquito coast, was bombarded by an American ship for no very good reason. The next year, Walker interfered in a revolution in Nicaragua, and for a while got control of the state by making a creature of his, named Rivas, president. The new government was recognized by Pierce, but was shortly after overthrown.[184]
410. Perry’s Expedition.—Although the disgraceful actions of the filibusters and the war in Kansas seem to mark Pierce’s administration as a thoroughly discreditable one, it was not without bright features. In 1854 a commercial treaty with Japan was secured as the result of a naval expedition which had been sent out in 1852 under Commodore Matthew C. Perry. This treaty, which was promulgated in 1855, is memorable as opening a place for Japan among the great nations of the world.
Areas of Freedom and Slavery in 1854
KANSAS-NEBRASKA LEGISLATION.
411. Disappointment of the South: Kansas-Nebraska Bill.—The South was not only unable to secure Cuba and other slave territory, but could not help seeing that the advantage it had anticipated from the Fugitive Slave Law could never be realized. Some new measure was necessary, or all the benefits of the Compromise would go to the North. Such a measure presented itself in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, put forward by Senator Douglas of Illinois. This bill was framed on the untenable theory that the Missouri Compromise had been overthrown by the Compromise of 1850, and that the provision that slavery could not exist north of 36° 30' was no longer binding. In accordance with this theory, the author of the bill proposed that the Missouri Compromise should be declared “inoperative and void as being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the states and territories.” It was also proposed that all the lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30' should be organized as territories and in due time should be admitted as states, either free or slave, as the voters of each territory might determine. The great question was thus to be settled, not by United States law, but by what came to be called “Popular Sovereignty.”
412. Indignation of the North.—The bill aroused the greatest political agitation the country had ever known, for the opponents of the measure took the ground that it turned over to possible slavery a vast tract that had forever been dedicated to freedom. They said it was an outrageous violation of contract to take away half of the Missouri Compromise, when the advocates of slavery had enjoyed the advantage of the other half, as they had in the admission of Missouri as a slave state above the line of 36° 30'. The bill was opposed with the utmost vigor by Seward, Sumner, and other anti-slavery leaders, but it was passed and became a law, May 30, 1854.
413. Occupation of Kansas.—Now began a race for the settlement of the new territory, as the only possible way in which freedom could be protected. As Kansas bordered on Missouri, it was evident that here was to be the battle ground. Slave owners from Missouri rushed in to take possession of the soil, but the people of the North were not slow to see the danger. An Emigrant Aid Society was quickly organized in Massachusetts, by Eli Thayer, to encourage and fit out emigrants to the new territory. Though the slaveholders were first in the field, people from the North soon followed in ever increasing numbers. Party spirit ran so high that collisions were inevitable. There was universal disorder and some bloodshed. Guerrilla bands of both parties wandered over the country and fought wherever they met. On the 21st of May, 1856, the town of Lawrence, the headquarters of the anti-slavery party, was attacked by marauders from Missouri, popularly known as “Border Ruffians,” and several of the most important buildings were sacked and burned. Three days later, a deliberately planned massacre of slave owners was perpetrated in retaliation, at Pottawatomie, by an anti-slavery band led by John Brown.
414. Advantages of the North in the Contest.—The anti-slavery cause was helped by the unusual severity of the winter of 1855–1856, which made it evident that slavery could not prosper in Kansas. The largest slaveholder in the territory was obliged, with his own hands, to cut and haul wood to keep his negroes warm, and even then one of them froze to death in his bed. Meanwhile, the Free State men increased rapidly in numbers.
415. Assault upon Sumner.—While the Kansas question was raising to a white heat all sections of the country, an event occurred to intensify the excitement. In the course of the long debate in Congress on the Kansas troubles, Charles Sumner,[185] on the 19th and 20th of May, 1856, delivered his celebrated speech, “The Crime against Kansas.” It was the most terrible philippic ever uttered in the Senate, and it exasperated the men of the South beyond measure. Particularly severe was Sumner’s attack on Senator Butler, of South Carolina. Two days after the delivery of this speech, Sumner was writing a letter at his desk, after the Senate had adjourned, when he was approached by Preston S. Brooks, from South Carolina, a nephew of Butler and a member of the House of Representatives. Brooks struck Sumner repeated blows on the head with a cane and felled him to the floor. The injuries Sumner received affected his spine and were so serious that it was more than three years before he could be restored to a fair amount of vigor. While, in the South, a few persons deprecated the assault, Brooks was welcomed by the masses as a hero. In the North the attack was universally condemned, and stirred the deepest indignation. An effort was made in the House of Representatives to expel Brooks, but only one Southerner voted for his expulsion, and the motion failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority. A severe vote of censure, however, was passed by a large majority; whereupon Brooks resigned his place, and appealed to his constituents for indorsement and reËlection. In the election that followed, only six votes were cast against him. The speech, the assault, and the indorsement of Brooks inflamed every part of the country.
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
416. Origin of the Republican Party.—It was during the excitement that followed the assault on Sumner that politicians prepared for the coming Presidential election of 1856. The overwhelming defeat of the Whigs at the election in 1852 seemed at the time to give the Democrats a long lease of power. In reality, they soon found themselves confronted by political foes more determined than the Whigs. The old Whig party had been shattered by differences on the question of slavery. Evidently there was call for a new party on the great questions now at issue, and the Republican party was the result. At a political meeting held at Ripon, Wisconsin, in May, 1854, it was resolved that another party should be formed and that it should be called “Republican.” It is generally admitted that the first formal adoption of the name, which was probably due to a suggestion of Horace Greeley, and the publication of an elaborate platform were the work of a convention held at Jackson, Michigan, on the 6th of July following. The new party designation was immediately adopted by state conventions in Maine, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa. So extremely vigorous was the organization of the Republicans, that, in the fall of 1854, they elected enough members to control the House of Representatives and chose as Speaker, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts. The first National Convention of the party was held at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856; but it was not until June 17, at Philadelphia, that a platform was adopted and candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency were chosen. The platform declared that “the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the Territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.” Upon the stand thus taken, the Republicans soon secured political supremacy in the North and West.
417. The Campaign of 1856.—The Republicans nominated John C. FrÉmont[186] of California, a famous explorer of the West, for President, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey for Vice President. The Democrats, shelving the now unpopular Pierce, nominated James Buchanan,[187]—a weak character, far past the prime of life, but a man who had held high positions and was likely to carry the important state of Pennsylvania. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky was chosen as Buchanan’s running mate. Buchanan won at the polls, securing one hundred and seventy-four electoral votes to FrÉmont’s one hundred and fourteen. But the Republicans had made a better fight than any new party had ever done before and had carried most of the Northern and some of the Western states. It was evident that the country was being divided sectionally in politics,—the North and West being destined to become more and more anti-slavery, or Republican, the South to be overwhelmingly pro-slavery, or Democratic. Many persons, especially in the South, argued that this state of things would warrant a dissolution of the Union, since the North and West combined might be strong enough to interfere with slavery in the states.
References.—See end of Chapter XXVI.
Walker made another attempt in 1857, but was arrested at Greytown and brought to the United States for trial. President Buchanan being himself desirous of acquisitions of territory to the south, and the pro-slavery leaders openly favoring Walker, the latter was not punished. In 1860 he made another descent on the Central American coast. This time he was captured, tried, and shot.
