Slavery and Four Years of War Part 15

The angry flash of Sharps' rifles was seen on the plains; the Bible and the shot-gun were companions of the free State advocate, and many were the daring deeds of men, and women, too, to save fair Kansas to liberty. John Brown (Osawatomie) here first became famous for his zeal in the cause of freedom; and it is said he did not fail to retaliate, blood for blood, man for man.

Douglas, who, by his "Popular Sovereignty" invention, brought on the contest over Kansas which came so near making it slave, lived to see his new doctrine fail in practice, but first to be cast down by the Supreme Court, as we shall presently see.

Douglas, however, cannot, in justice to him, be thus carelessly dismissed. After being defeated in the previous election, he held his great opponent's hat when the latter was inaugurated President, and gave him warm a.s.surance of support in maintaining the Union, personally and by speech and votes in Congress; and, on the war breaking out, in April, 1861, he proclaimed to the people, from the political rostrum, that "there are now only two parties in this country: _patriots and traitors_." He appealed to his past party friends to stand by the Union and fight for its integrity, come what might. But he, too, did not live to see the triumph of freedom and of his country. He died June 3, 1861.

It is believed by many that if slavery had been forced upon California and into the New Mexico and Nebraska Territories four more slave States would soon have been admitted from Texas (as the act of annexation provided), and that thus the slave power having secured such domination in the Union as was desired and expected by its leaders, there would have been no secession,--no rebellion, but, instead, slavery would have become _national_.

But with California free and Kansas free, all hope of further extending slavery in the United States was forever gone.

Had Kansas even become slave, what then?

The final contest in Kansas was augmented and intensified by a national event partly pa.s.sed over.

During the Kansas struggle the excitement of debate in Congress rose to its zenith, surpa.s.sing any other period.

The North had been bullied into a frenzy over the demands of those desiring the extension of slavery. The anti-slavery members of Congress met this in many instances by sober, candid discussion, but in others by sharp invective, dealt out by superior learning and consummate skill in the use of the English language.

Charles Sumner of Ma.s.sachusetts was a profound student and scholar, and an inveterate hater of slavery and all that was incident to it.

On May 19 and 20, 1856, he p.r.o.nounced his famous philippic against slavery and its supporters. Regarding the opening of the Kansas- Nebraska Territory to the influx of slavery, and the evident purpose of the Administration to dedicate it to slavery, he poured out warning invectives against all who in any way favored the new policy of opening this Territory to the chance of coming into the Union as slave States. Mr. Sumner's remarks were personal in the extreme, only justified by the general dictatorial and bullying att.i.tude of some Southern Senators. A mere extract here would do him and the occasion injustice. Senators Ca.s.s and Douglas, on the floor of the Senate, resented this speech of Sumner.

On the 22nd of May, two days after the speech, at the close of a session of the Senate, while Sumner was seated at his desk in the Senate chamber writing, he was approached by Preston Brooks, a member of the House from South Carolina, who accosted him: "I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine," and he forthwith a.s.saulted Mr. Sumner by blows on the head with a gutta-percha cane one inch in diameter at the larger end. The blows were repeated, the cane broken, and Brooks still continued to strike with the broken parts of it. Sumner, thus taken by surprise, and being severely injured, could not defend himself, and soon, after vain efforts to protect himself, fell prostrate to the floor, covered with his own blood. He was severely injured, and though he lived for many years, he never wholly recovered from the injuries. He died March 11, 1874.

This outrage did much to precipitate events and to intensify hostility to slavery. Southern Senators and Representatives a.s.sumed to justify the a.s.sault.(85)

The House did not expel Brooks, as the requisite two thirds vote was not obtained. He resigned, and was re-elected by his district, six votes only being cast against him, but he died in January, 1857. Butler, of South Carolina, the alleged immediate cause of Brooks' a.s.sault on Sumner, died in the same year.

The whole North looked upon the personal a.s.sault upon Sumner as not only brutal, but as intended to be notice to other Senators and members of Congress of a common design and plan to intimidate the friends of freedom. The a.s.sault was largely justified throughout the South, also by leading Southern statesmen in both branches of Congress.(86)

Remarks on the manner of Brooks' a.s.sault in the House made by Burlingame of Ma.s.sachusetts led to a challenge from Brooks, which was accepted, the duel to be fought near the Clifton House, Canada; but Brooks declined to fight at the place named, alleging a fear to go there through the enraged North.

Brooks also, for remarks in the Senate characterizing the a.s.sault, challenged Henry Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts, but the latter declined the challenge because he "regarded duelling as the lingering relic of a barbarous civilization, which the law of the country has branded as a crime."(86)

So threatening, then, was the att.i.tude of the Southern members of both Senate and House that Senators Wade of Ohio, Chandler of Michigan, and Cameron of Pennsylvania made a compact to resent any insult from a Southerner by a challenge to fight.(87)

A last attempt was made in Buchanan's administration, pending the Kansas agitation, to buy and annex Cuba in the interest of the slave power. It was then a province of Spain. Buchanan was both dull and perverse in obeying the demands of his party, especially on the slavery issue. In his Annual Message of 1858 he expressed satisfaction that the Kansas question no longer gave the country trouble. He also expressed grat.i.tude to "Almighty Providence" that it no longer threatened the peace of the country, and congratulated himself over his course in relation to the Lecompton policy, saying, "it afforded him heartfelt satisfaction." He, in the same message, set forth his anxiety to acquire Cuba, a.s.signing as a reason that it was "the only spot in the civilized world where the African slave trade is tolerated."

Cuba was wanted simply to make more slave States to extend the waning slave power, and thus to offset the incoming new free States, which then seemed to the observing as inevitable.

Buchanan suggested that circ.u.mstances might arise where the law of self-preservation might call on us to acquire Cuba by force, thus affirming the policy set forth in the Ostend Manifesto, prepared and signed by Mason, Soule, and himself four years earlier.

Slidell of Louisiana, from the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate, promptly reported a bill appropriating $30,000,000 to be used by the President to obtain Cuba; and it soon transpired that Southern Senators were willing to make the sum $120,000,000.

The introduction of the bill caused a sensation in Spain, and her Cortes voted at once to support her King in maintaining the integrity of the Spanish dominions.

A most violent debate ensued in Congress, reopening afresh the slavery question.

The bill was antagonized by the friends of a homestead bill--"A question of homes; of lands for the landless freemen." The friends of the latter bill denominated the Cuba bill a "question of slaves for the slaveholders."

Toombs of Georgia, ever a fire-eater, save in war,(88) vehemently denounced the opponents of the Cuba appropriation and the friends of "lands for the landless" as the "s.h.i.+vering in the wind of men of particular localities." This brought to his feet Senator Wade of Ohio, impetuous to meet attacks from all quarters, who exclaimed:

"I am very glad this question has at length come up. I am glad, too, it has antagonized with the n.i.g.g.e.r question. We are 's.h.i.+vering in the wind,' are we, sir, over your Cuba question? You may have occasion to s.h.i.+ver on that question before you are through with it. The question will be, shall we give n.i.g.g.e.rs to the n.i.g.g.e.rless, or land to the landless, etc... . When you come to n.i.g.g.e.rs to the n.i.g.g.e.rless, all other questions sink into perfect insignificance."(89)

Although a majority of the Senate seemed to favor the bill, Mr.

Slidell withdrew it after much discussion, declaring it was then impracticable to press it to a final vote.

The once famous Ostend Manifesto, dated October 18, 1854, was a remarkable doc.u.ment, prepared and signed by Pierre Soule, John Y.

Mason, and James Buchanan, then Ministers, respectively, to Spain, France, and England, at a conference held at Ostend and Aix-la- Chapelle, France. It a.s.sumed to offer $120,000,000 for Cuba, and, if this were refused, it announced that it was the duty of the United States to apply the "great law" of "self-preservation" and take Cuba in "disregard of the censures of the world." The further excuse stated in the Manifesto was that "Cuba was in danger of being Africanized and become a second St. Domingo."

The real purpose, however, was to acquire it, and then admit it into the Union as two or more slave States.

Buchanan, as Secretary of State under Polk, had offered $100,000,000 for Cuba. His efforts to obtain Cuba secured for him the support of the South for President in 1856.

There was no special instance of acquiring or attempting to acquire territory by the United States authorities to dedicate to freedom.

Cuba is still Spanish (though not slave) (90) and just now in the throes of insurrection, and the Congress of the United States has just voted (April, 1896) to grant the Cuban Provisional Government belligerent rights.(91)

(84) From one election, held in 1857 at Oxford, Kansas, a roll was returned on which 1624 persons' names appeared which had been copied in alphabetical order from a Cincinnati directory. These persons were reported as voting with the anti-slavery party.

(85) Keitt of South Carolina and Edmundson of Virginia stood by during the a.s.sault, in a menacing manner, to protect Brooks from a.s.sistance that might come to Sumner.

(86) _Life of Sumner_ (Lesten), pp. 250, etc.

(87) Appleton's _Cyclop. Am. Biography_, vol. vi., p. 311.

(88) _Mana.s.sas to Appotmattox_ (Longstreet), pp. 113, 161.

(89) In 1862 the first homestead bill became a law, under which, by July 30, 1878, homesteads were granted to the number of 384,848; in area, 61,575,680 acres, or 96,212 square miles; greater in extent by 7000 square miles than England, Wales, and Scotland.

(90) In 1870 the Spanish Government enacted a law emanc.i.p.ating all slaves in Cuba over sixty years of age, and declaring all free who were born after the enactment. In 1886 but 25,000 slaves remained, and these were emanc.i.p.ated _en ma.s.se_ by a decree of the Spanish Cortes. The last vestige of slavery (the patronato system) was swept away by a royal decree dated October 7, 1886.

(91) But see _Service in Spanish War_, Appendix A.

XIX DRED SCOTT CASE--1857

On March 6, 1857, two days after Buchanan was inaugurated President of the United States, the famous Dred Scott case was decided.

Chief-Justice Taney of Maryland, Justices Wayne of Georgia, Catron of Tennessee, Daniel of Virginia, Campbell of Alabama, Grier of Pennsylvania, and Nelson of New York concurred in the decision, though some of them only in a qualified way.

Chief-Justice Taney read the opinion of the court.

Justices McLean of Ohio and Curtis of Ma.s.sachusetts dissented on all points. All the justices read opinions at length.(93)

Chief-Justice Taney was a devout Roman Catholic, given much to letters, of great industry, and generally regarded as a great jurist. When the case was decided he was nearly eighty years of age, and he was then, in the distracted condition of the country, deeply imbued with the idea that the Supreme Court had the power to and could settle the slavery question.

All the other justices were eminent jurists and men of learning.

The decision reached marked an epoch in American history, and it gave slavery an apparent perpetual lease of life; this was, however, only apparent.