A Sketch of the History of the United States from Independence to Secession. By J. M. L. To which is added the Struggle for Kansas. By T. Hughes

Front matter

A SKETCH OF T0K HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. A SKETCH OF the HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM INDEPENDENCE TO SECESSION. By J. M. LUDLOW, AUTHOR OF "BRITISH INDIA, ITS RACES AND ITS HISTORY;" "THE POLICY OF THE CROWN TOWARDS INDIA," &.C. TO WHICH IS ADDED, THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS. By THOMAS HUGHES, AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS ;" " TOM BROWN AT OXFORD," &C Cambribgt : MACMILLAN AND CO. AND 23, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, fonbon. 1862. [Tht Right of Translation is reserved.] LONDON BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WH1TEFRIARS.

Preface

. The History of the United States has yet to be written. It could not have been written hitherto ; or rather, to speak more strictly, it might have been prophesied, it could not have been narrated. It is Secession which has torn the veil that lay upon the facts of which it is composed, and has shown them in their true character, proportions, and bearings.* * Since the above was written, and whilst the present work was passing through the press, I have obtained a copy of Quac kenbos's " Illustrated School History of the United States" (New York, 1861), a work which appears to have been printed in 1857, but which did not appear in the booksellers' catalogues some months ago, when I vainly inquired for some such publi cation. I have been able to avail myself of it for a few correc tions and additions, but the entire difference of scope between it and the present work is sufficiently shown by the following figures : of its 458 pages of history, 188 are taken up with the colonial history of the United States, which I have disposed of in 8 pages ; 120 with the War of Independence and the Confedera tion, which take up 14 of mine ; 44 with the war with England, making 9 of mine ; 17 with the Mexican war, which occupies with me about 5 ; whilst, on the other hand, the Missouri com promise is disposed of in half a paragraph, the period between the treaty with Mexico and Mr. Buchanan's election, to which I have devoted 51 pages, in 16, &c, &c. In short, everything that I have cut short is treated of at length, and almost everything that I have considered in detail is summarily dismissed. The work stops, moreover, at Mr. Buchanan's election. i

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. VI The present work, so far as my share in it is con cerned, is essentially what it professes to be, a sketch. It is put together, with additional developments, from the materials for two lectures delivered by me at the Working Men's College, on the 23rd and 30th August, and 9th November, 1861, which were followed, on the 23rd November, by a lecture from my friend Mr. Hughes, on Kansas, also included in the present volume, as being a branch of the same subject. My own work leaves on one side many important aspects of American history, such as that of the religious and literary development of the nation, and barely glances at various others. In preparing it, I have not had leisure to consult either the proceedings, or even the Acts, of Congress. My principal authorities have been — besides Bancroft's " History of the United States," Elliott's " New England History," and Anderson's " History of the Colonial Church," for the colonial period, and the War of Independence, — Holmes's " Annals of America," extending to the year 1826 ; the " President's Messages" (of which, however, I have had no complete collection at hand since the date of General Harrison's presidency, 1840); Benton's " Thirty Years' View, or a History of the Working of the American Government," 1820-1850, supplemented by Mr. Palfrey's "Chapter of American History," published (without his name) in 1852; and for the last few years, the " Annuaire des Deux Mondes." Story on the " Constitution of the United States," has afforded me many valuable details ; Tocqueville's

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. VII "Democratic en AmeVique" a few ; I have borrowed others from the biographies of American Presidents in the " Penny Cyclopædia," from Mr. T. R. Cobb (of Georgia)'s " Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America," and from two admir able articles on American slavery, published by M. Elisee Reclus, in the " Revue des Deux Mondes," 15th December, 1860, and 1st January, 1861. The details of naval events are taken from Chamier's edition of James's " Naval History," checked by Fenimore Cooper's " History of the American Navy." For treaties, and most other diplomatic papers, I have consulted, I think invariably, Martens or his continua tors, or Hertslet ; some of the diplomatic correspondence is, however, quoted from Dr. Wheaton's " History of the Modern Law of Nations."

As a rule, I have endeavoured to consult no publi cations issued since the date of Secession, or if any, those only by sympathisers with the South ; which will account for my not referring to Mr. Motley's well-known pamphlet. The only exception has been Mr. Olmsted's "Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom," which, as being in the main a con densation (or rather, unfortunately, a somewhat hasty reduction) of his three former works, and more likely than the originals to be accessible to my readers, I have freely referred to. No one who seeks to under stand the subject can indeed overlook Mr. Olmsted's testimony but at his peril. Where I have derived facts from other sources than I

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. VIII those above indicated, I believe I have always referred to them (as, indeed, I have often done in respect of the above-named works themselves), — except, perhaps in the case of some statistical data, to be found in almost any of the " Statesman's Manuals," or " Con stitutional text books," &c, &c, so copiously produced in America. And if I be asked why I have put forth a work which I earnestly trust to see one day superseded, I answer that I have had to learn so much in drawing it up, — I find the ignorance of my countrymen on the subject of which it treats so general, and feel that ignorance to be so dangerous in the feelings which it allows to grow up, and the conclusions to which it allows them to be led by newspaper writers, too often quite as ignorant as their readers, but only more audacious, that I have ventured to think no time should be lost in supplying some elementary but, I trust, correct data on which a safer judgment may be formed by any who choose to think for themselves.

As for my own opinions on the questions at issue, I have not affected to disguise them. I think but little of the man who should be able to go through the task I have done, without forming some opinion upon those questions ; and I believe that it is not the free expres sion of opinion, but the concealment of it, which is the real hindrance to the discovery of the truth. You may easily make allowance for an avowed preference, but a secret bias may poison almost every statement of fact, almost beyond cure.

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. IX I am not ashamed to confess, however, that, on one point, at least, my own previous opinions have been greatly modified by the study of the subject. I came to it, as I suppose nine-tenths of European readers would do, with a strong prejudice against Jackson, and with a special distrust of his partisan Benton. I rose from it, with a conviction that " Old Hickory " has been erroneously undervalued, and that Benton's two huge and most ill-digested volumes are yet a far more reliable repertory of historical facts for the period of which they treat than might be supposed. The fact is, from his peculiar position as a strong Southern Unionist, aided by his impartial intolerance of well nigh all that was not T. H. Benton, the " Hawk of Missouri," was able, with singular clear-sightedness, to point out the faults and blunders of both the North and the South ; whilst his loyalty (for I can call it by no other name) to Jackson enables him tojbring out in full relief the vigorous and massive character of his chief.

Certain it is, that, on passing from his work to the collection of Webster's speeches, I could not help feeling that I was in presence of a partisan at least as unscrupulous as himself, less reliable, because more adroit, and whose whole policy, except so far as it coincided with Jackson's, has been most signally con futed by events. The latter work, indeed, I have not once quoted, for I have borrowed nothing from it. Mr. Spence's much praised work on " the American Union," I should observe, only came into my hands when my own task was finished. Had I met with it

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. X before, I might have quoted some of its statements of fact ; I certainly should not have altered one jot or tittle of the views I have expressed. Mr. Spence warns us, indeed, of his being " strongly adverse " to the " doctrines and actions of the North ern party ; " and I must own that I never met with an instance in which a studied moderation of tone has more successfully shielded from hostile criticism not only extreme one-sidedness of view, but the most glaring contradictions in point of argument. I had to read the volume twice through before I could believe that, in devoting a whole chapter of forty eight pages to the " right of Secession," Mr. Spence had not thought it worth while to refer even once to Jackson's elaborate arguments against it, which yet he must have had ready to his hand, through the large quotations from them contained in "Justice Story's admirable Commentaries."

I had even more trouble in realising the fact, that whilst setting forth the Con stitution of the United States at full length, with its careful provision (Art. V.) for the framing of amendments to that Constitution, Mr. Spence should have treated a mere resolution of Congress (never ratified by a single state), for proposing an amendment against interference with slavery, as being an actual amendment (pp. 140, 141), and should have coolly tagged it as such in his Appendix to the amendments legally passed. Whilst apparently acquainted with the difference between a " state " and a " territory," he as sumes, without a scruple, that the provision of the

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. XI Constitution (Art. V., sect. 3), for the recovery of persons "held to service or labour" in a "state," extends to " territory," although the latter is specifically named, in distinction from " state," in the very next section ; wholly overlooking on this head the absence of all provision for the recovery of slaves in the Articles of Confederation, and as wholly ignoring both Jefferson's attempt absolutely to exclude slavery from all "territory" in 1784, and the ordinance of 1787, prohibiting it north-west of the Ohio, — circumstances which seem to show that, in the intention of the framers of the Constitution, the provision in question was never meant to apply to territory. Mr. Spence, indeed, accepts the Dred Scott decision at one gulp, boldly defying any uninterested person to view it as being otherwise than in accordance with the Constitution.

Quoting Benton repeatedly, he never theless indorses the common slave-owner's fallacy, which Benton has himself exposed, that because human flesh is held as property in one state, therefore it must be such in another, where it is expressly prohibited so to be held. But Mr. Spence's self-contradictions are even more surprising than his assertions. At page 23 he declares, that had those who are struggling to maintain the Constitution " really acted in its spirit, no convulsion would now have occurred ; the evils of the country arise from the fact, that the Constitution has not really been maintained." I turn the leaf, and lo ! on page 24, speaking of the same Constitution, I find the words :

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. " Our view is, that circumstances are so widely altered, that it suits them no longer, even if fairly interpreted." At page 114, speaking of the chances of avoiding the conflict, he says : " There is, indeed, one means of escape. It is possible for the Southerner to surrender all power to the North, to abandon all defence of what he holds to be his rights, to emancipate his slaves, not at the instigation of his own conscience, but in obedience to the conscience of other men. If that emanci pation be gradual, he may place himself under the direction of Northern men, who will regulate his affairs; if sudden, he can risk his life, and those of his children ; tind should his property be destroyed, he may emi grate." A single-minded reader would probably infer from this that the South secedes to avoid forced emancipation.

Not a bit of it. By page 135 Mr. Spence declares that, " so far as slavery is concerned, the South has every possible reason for remaining in the Union." It maybe said, he adds (page 136), "that the accession of the Republican party to power pro duced an apprehension that the strength of the North might be eventually exerted to abolish slavery, and that the South have acted in this anticipation. But this theory can only be entertained by those who are unac quainted with American politics." (!) At page 136, after asking what the Southerner has to gain by leaving the Union, he says : " Instead of the whole power of the continent to support him, two-thirds will be lost to him —perhaps arrayed against him. In place of the Northern states to prevent, to act as a prison wall to the escape

PREFACE.

. XIII of his slaves, and return them at his bidding, he makes them foreign and jealous powers. Instead of Abolitionism being the doctrine of a small sect, regarded as fanatical by the great majority of the North, he will have it adopted as an article of the general creed. It is difficult to imagine a change more dangerous, more disastrous, to his interests as a slave-owner." Read on to pages 161, 162, and the following passage stares you in the face : " It is argued that when the North becomes a foreign power, it will be impossible to prevent the escape of slaves, and that this must ensure the downfall of the system. This impression is a natural one, on a cursory view of the subject, but will not bear examination. The relative position of the slave and free states will be the same. . . . One of the most material changes that will result from a separation, will be the formation of a strong government in the North.

A very prominent condition of peace will doubtless be the rendition of slaves. But such a condition would then be enforced by a strong government, and demanded by a rival power. Again, the agitation against slavery, though it will continue, will cease to be a matter of party politics, and this will remove from it the main element of its power." Mr. Spence dilates upon hostile tariffs as one of the causes of disruption, — though indeed, he does in one place admit them to be perhaps the "least active agent" in that behalf; speaks of the South having protested against them " for thirty years in vain." Yet he admits that the South maintained its original political supremacy, "not only long after the

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. XIV change in relative population had removed its solid foundation, but down to the present day" (page 104); admits that " the Northerner has been practically ex cluded from the rule of his own country" (p. 317). The Abolitionists are spoken of, at page 136, as standing " apart in their action from that of the Washington government," and as being " one of its most perplex ing difficulties ;" whilst at page 311 they " are now in favour, they are useful, they give an impetus, they work in the common direction," &c, &c. Once on our guard, indeed, against a writer so vari able in his reasoning, we may find much that is valuable in Mr. Spence's book. His two first chapters on the effects of the Union, although little more than a development of Tocqueville carried down to the present day, with the substitution of the word " Union " for " Democracy," afford much matter for reflection.

The difficulties of the " struggle to maintain the Union " are in Chapter VII. ably forecast. But I venture to think, that no unprejudiced man can read his book without feeling that it leads simply from fallacy to fallacy to that crowning one of supposing that a stable government can ever be formed on the basis of a right of secession; that freedom is to be promoted by the triumph of the slaveholders— that the evil tree is to bring forth good fruit. For those who may recollect that I have written on another historical subject before, I may add, that for years I have been accustomed to consider American slavery and Indian reform as interdependent. You

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. XV cannot do justice to India without striking a blow at the fetters of the American slave ; you cannot free the latter without giving an enormous impetus to the development of India. This truth, seen many years ago, by Thomas Clarkson, and which a long defunct and forgotten society (the " British India Society "), of whose workings I was a close spectator, endeavoured for some years, at great expense to a few earnest men, to keep prominently before the public mind nearly a quarter of a century ago, is fast becoming univer sally recognised, and by the force of things, self evident. One word more. I have retained the form of lec tures in the present publication, although much of the work was not delivered orally at all, and much of it delivered in a different shape and connection. To those who may dislike the form, I will only say, that it is pleasanter for me by means of it, to feel myself still addressing my friends, the students of the Working Men's College, than merely to write for an unknown, impalpable, indefinite public; and I trust that my pupils themselves will in like manner take the book itself, so addressed primarily to them, as some compensation for the haste and imperfection which marked, I am well aware, my actual lectures.

Postscript. — The above pages (except so much as relates to Mr. Spence's work) were written long before the intelligence reached England of the stoppage of the " Trent " by the " San Jacinto," and the carrying

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. XVI off of the Southern Commissioners. The mischievous absurdity of the act was to none more painful than to those who, like myself, confess to an absolute want of sympathy with the Southern cause. In doing so, America, as she has herself since practically admitted, behed the whole tradition of her' past history, and that staunch maintenance of the rights of neutrals which alone gave once a character to her foreign policy. Americans are proverbially touchy in matters affecting the national honour ; and it required but common sense to feel that we, their kinsmen, could not brook such an outrage as Captain Wilkes chose to perpetrate. They should have known that, in the face of an affront to a policy, which the interests of liberty throughout the world require to be preserved inviolable, there could be no distinction of parties, no selection of sympathies, in England, but a full reliance on the sense of national honour in the Government, and a full determination to support it in any measures which it might deem fit for vindicating that honour.

The consciousness of England's strength was the only consideration which could enable an Englishman to bear with some calmness an act so irritating in form and in substance, and which the folly of the American press and American Congress contrived to render yet more offensive. But since a war,— than which none could be more pernicious to the best interests of mankind,— has been averted by the timely release of the Commissioners, and by a return to better feeling on the part of the American people,

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. XVII I trust that same consciousness of strength will avail England still to look on unmeddling, whilst this dread battle is being waged, where the cause is so great, and its champions seem yet so small, — knowing that God can use the most unworthy instruments to fulfil His ends of. love, — knowing that the Judge of all the earth shall do right. J. M. L. Lincoln's Inn, Feb. 6th, 1862. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE CHARACTER OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES — THE DECLA- RATION OF INDEPENDENCE — THE CONFEDERATION (1776-1789) 1 LECTURE II. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES — SLAVERY, AND THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 23 LECTURE III. FROM THE CONSTITUTION TO THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE (1789- 1820) — THE INDIAN WAPS— PARTIES — THE PURCHASE OF LOUIS- IANA — THE WAR WITH ENGLAND 52 (Washington, 1789-97 ; J. Adams, 1797-1801 ; Jefferson, 1801-9; Madison, 1809-17 ; Monroe, from 1817.)

LECTURE IV. FROM THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE TO THE PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL JACKSON (1820-1829) — THE SLAVERY QUESTION AS RESPECTS THE TERRITORIES 100 (Monroe, to 1825; J. G. Adams, 1825-9.) LECTURE V. FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF GENERAL JACKSON TO THE END OF THAT OF MR. VAN BUREN (1829-1841) — THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN TOWER — SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICATION — THE SLAVERY QUESTION AS RESPECTS THE TARIFF AND CONSUMPTION — THE UNITED STATES' BANK 130 (Jackson, 1829-37; Van Buren, 1837-41.) CONTENTS. XX LECTURE VI. PAGE FROM THE CLOSE OF VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION TO THE FUGI- TIVE SLAVE LAW (1841-1850)— THE ERA OF MEDIOCRE PRESI- DENTS—THE NATURE AND RULE OF THE SLAVE POWER — THE ADMISSION OF TEXAS — THE MEXICAN WAR — CALIFORNIA . . 186 (Harrison, 1841 ; Tyler, 1841-5 ; Polk, 1845-9 ; Taylor, 1849-50 ; Fillmore, from 1850.)

LECTURE VII. FROM THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW TO THE JUDGMENT IN THE " DRED scott" case (1S50-1856) — resistance to the fugitive slave LAW — FILIBUSTERING — REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE — KANSAS— THE REPUBLICAN PARTY — FREMONT'S OANDLDATESHIP 236 (Fillmore, to 1853 ; Pierce, from 1853.) LECTURE VIII. FROM THE JUDGMENT IN THE DRED SCOTT CASE TO SECESSION (1856- 1861) — THE SLAVE-POWER AND THE SUPREME COURT — FREE- SOIL VICTORY IN KANSAS — OFFICIAL SC ANDALS — H ARPER's FERRY — BREAK-UP OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY — ELECTION OF LINCOLN— NATURE OF THE PRESENT CONFLICT . . . 268 (Pierce, to 1857; Buchanan, 1857-61.) THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. Pp. 118 and 127. The treaty with Spain of 1819 is erro neously referred to as if never ratified. From the minutes of cession of Florida, it appears that the ratifications were "duly exchanged at Washington" on the 22nd February, 1821.

P. 181. Van Buren's Sub-Treasury Act, it should be observed, was repealed under Tyler. But it had done its work, and the Executive was never more threatened by an over bearing money power. P. 207. The Ashburton treaty. There are stories of with held maps in reference to this treaty which, I think resolve themselves into nothing. According to the version with which we are familiar, the United States' Government was in possession of a map authenticated by a note in Franklin's hand writing, besides one found in Jefferson's collection, showing the exact line contended for by Great Britain, and even con ceding something more. According to the American version, as set forth amongst ourselves in the House of Lords by Lord Brougham, England was in possession of the map used by Oswald, the British Commissioner in 1783, with a note up an it probably in the handwriting of George III., and giving the American line, and not the British.

The simple fact seems to be, that at the negotiations of 1783, there had been an exchange of maps, each party being put in possession of, and retaining c ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. XXII the one showing his adversary's claim. The whole wrangle on the subject seems thus to be one about a mare's nest. P. 214. The second treaty of Washington was dated " June " 15, 1850, and not "January." It is also quoted from an incorrect text. The main portion of its first article runs as follows : — " From the point on the 49th parallel of North Latitude where the boundary laid down in existing treaties and conven tions between Great Britain and the United States terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of Her Britannic Majesty and those of the United States shall be continued westward along the said 49th parallel of North Latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and then southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's Straits to the Pacific Ocean."

P. 248. The Ostend Conference. I am assured that this proceeding was actually directed by the American Government, and that, though Mr. Buchanan drew up and signed the minutes, he went to the conference most reluctantly. The actual place of meeting moreover, it appears, was Aix-la- Chapelle. P. 250. The proposed treaty with the Dominican repubhc is alleged by the Americans to have been rejected at the instigation of France and England, on account of an intended cession to the United States of a coaling station at Samana ; probably a very fair ground of opposition, considering the slave-trading and annexation propensities of the then dominant faction in America. ERRATA. P. 57, line 13 from bottom, for " Miamis," read " Miami." P. 178, fine 10 from top, and p. 179, line 15 from top, for "Pennsylvania Bank of the United States," read "United States' Bank of Pennsylvania."

P. 186, line 7 from top, for "Taylor, 1849," read "Taylor 1849-50." SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, EROM INDEPENDENCE TO SECESSION. LECTURE I. CHARACTER OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES — THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE — THE CONFEDERATION (1776—1789). In undertaking to lecture to you on the history of the United States of America, my chief object has been to enable you to understand better the nature and drift of the present crisis. It is for this reason that I leave on one side not only the colonial history of the United States, but the War of Independence, and although starting from the Declaration of Independence in a political point of view, do not mean to chronicle the subsequent events of the war, the most momentous, in a military point of view, of all. My task would have been far easier as well as far more interesting, had I chosen to dwell on that earlier history.

Documents respecting it abound. The Americans are never tired of telling and retelling the story of both their colonial and revolutionary periods. But there is absolutely no standard work TEE VARIOUS ELEMENTS 2 for the later period, and the unexpected difficulty I have found in my task has painfully convinced me of its utility. But without dwelling on the colonial history of the United States, there are certain broad facts which it is necessaryfor us to bear in mind in reference to the settlement of the country. Whatever other elements may have been mixed up in forming the American people, there is no doubt that the so-called Anglo-Saxon one has remained the largely and unquestionably predomi nant one ; that the great republic of the west is in the main an English colony separated from the mother country.

But we should never overlook how vast a portion of the area over which it extends was originally settled, or at least more or less ruled and overrun, by other European races. The dominion of the Spanish race has extended from ocean to ocean, — from the extreme East of Florida and Carolina to the shores of the Pacific, and the dislodgment of that race by the Anglo-Saxon one belongs entirely to the present century, and has been in the main accomplished within the last twenty-five years (independence of Texas, 1836). Where that dominion was broken, it was broken by that of the French race, which almost cut in two the whole present area of the United States. Through the great colonies of Canada and Louisiana (then a single province, now a whole congeries of states), it had command of the basin of the St. Lawrence and that of the Mississippi and its affluents, — its hunters and trappers, who easily amalgamated with the Indian IN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 3 tribes, venturing already even into the wilderness of the west, — and seemed likely to hem the Anglo-Saxon race within limits which would embrace only a fraction of its present area of habitation.

The presence of these widely-spread foreign elements, in blood, in legislation, in religion, in habits, should always be borne in mind, however they may have been overgrown by the Anglo- Saxon one. Nor should we forget that, when a man leaves his country for one subject to a foreign rule, it must in general be either that he does not care for it, or that it does not care for him ; it must either be that he is so little attached to the institutions of his own country that he is willing to submit to those of another, or that he despises the latter sufficiently to look forward to replacing them by those of his own. Wherever, therefore, the soil of the United States was once occupied by Spain or France, we may be sure that a set of bold and hardy adventurers, — often mere out laws, — formed at least a large portion of the first representatives within it of the now dominant Anglo- Saxon element, and have left more or less impressed upon the community the stamp of their own character.