The United States. An outline of political history, 1492-1871

Front matter

THE UNITED STATES AN OUTLINE OF POLITICAL HISTORY THE UNITED STATES AN OUTLINE OF POLITICAL HISTOEY 1492-1871 BY GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. " This 'will sometime hence be a vast Empire, the seat of power and learning. Nature has refused it nothing, and there -will grow a people out of our little spot, England, that will fill this vast space and divide this por tion of the globe with the Spaniards, -who are possessed of the other half." — General Wolfe " / am not -wanting in affection and love for America. I am rather wanting in distrust a?id ingratitude towards Europe." — Dr. Roque Saenz Pena, Speech at the Pan-American Conference at Washington, 1890 Hontion MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1893 All rights reserved Copyright, 1893, By MACMILLAN AND CO. Nortoootr 39rcss : J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Preface

. To an Englishman, particularly if he is visiting America, an outline of the political history of the United States may not be unwelcome. An American, being familiar with the main facts and the general relations of parties, would look for details. It is, therefore, for English rather than American readers that this sketch is intended. If it comes into the hands of an American, his liberality will make allowance for the position of an Englishman who regards the American Commonwealth as the great achieve ment of his race, and looks forward to the voluntary reunion of the American branches of the race within its pale, yet desires to do justice to the mother country, and to render to her the meed of gratitude which will always be her due. Should this volume find acceptance it may be followed by a companion volume on the same scale, and treating, necessarily with the same succinctness, the recent history of parties, and the questions of the present day.

A complete list of all the authorities consulted would be out of proportion to the book itself, but special obliga tions should be acknowledged to Gordon's " History of the American Revolution," Bancroft's " History of the United States," Hildreth's "History of the United States," v VI

PREFACE.

. Palfrey's " History of New England," Henry Adams's " History of the United States," Schouler's " History of the United States," McMaster's " History of the People of the United States," Bryant's " Popular History of the United States," Justin Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," Charles K. Adams's " Co lumbus," Draper's " The Civil War in America," the " Epochs of American History " series, the " History of the Civil War in America " by the Comte de Paris, the " Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and United States History," the " American Statesmen " series, the works of Professor Fiske, Swinton's "Decisive Battles of the War," Sabine's " Loyalists of the American Revolu tion," Blaine's " Twenty Years of Congress," Thomas Jones's " History of New York during the Revolutionary War," published by the New York Historical Society, and the " American Commonwealths " series, also Ban croft's " History of the Constitution of the United States."

The writer would be glad to think that his work had been instrumental in exciting the curiosity of English readers and leading them to resort to the sources of ampler infor mation mentioned in this list. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

The Colonies. Discovery of a western continent by Columbus — Early adventurers — The landing of the Mayflower — The Plymouth pilgrims — Their allegiance to the old land — The founding of Massachusetts — The Puritan commonwealth — Early religious strifes — Political aspect of Puritanism — Puritan democracy — A federation formed — Puritan legislation — Social life — Slavery — Relations with the Indians — The new colonies and the Crown — Massachusetts reduced to a dependency — William III and Massachusetts — Decay of Puritanism — Witchcraft — Increase of wealth — Virginia — Virginian life and society — Slavery and slave laws — Politics, the church, and education — The founding of Maryland — Religious strifes and political changes — Georgia — The founding of Pennsylvania — New York and New Jersey — Characteristics of the Middle States — Restrictions on colonial trade — Political embroilments — Benjamin Franklin Pages 1-63

Chapter II

Revolution, Independence, and Union. French hostilities in the new world — The quarrel with England — The colonial relationship — Cause of the revolt — Separation and the separators — Samuel Adams — Patrick Henry — Irritation of Massachusetts — Fomenting influences — Trade restrictions — The Stamp Act and the tea duty — Ebullition at Boston — Repression — The King's difficulties — Federation for defence — The Declaration of Independence—Opening of the war — Lexington — Bunker's Hill — Evacuation of Boston — The loyalists — Canada attacked — New York \ii Cl >NTENTS. VIII taken — Washington at Valley Forge — Character of Washington — Burgoyne's expedition— State of the country — Character of the troops — Financial disturbance — French aid — Arnold and Andre — British successes in the South — Capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown — Treatment of the loyalists — England and the separation — The colonies after the revolt — Constitutional and other changes — Impotency of Congress — Discontent rife — The federal convention — The con stitution — Provisions of the constitution . . . Pages 64-129

Chapter III

Republic. Washington president — Presidential etiquette and state — Success of the constitution — Birth of parties — Alexander Hamilton — His ability, character, and principles — His Secretaryship of the Treasury — Thomas Jefferson — His character, theories, and political principles — Growth of the Republic — England and the new republic — George Ill's reception of John Adams — Washington's second term — The French Revolution and American parties — The question of belligerent rights — Jay's treaty — Retirement of Washington — The city of Washington — John Adams President — His appearance and character — Resentment against France — The feeling quelled — Bitterness of party spirit — Jefferson President — His inaugural address — Acquisition of Louisiana — Jefferson's first term — His second term — International complications : neutral trade, belligerent rights, impressment of seamen — Action of the Leopard and Chesapeake — Jefferson places an embargo on trade — Madison President — Diplomatic embroilments — Influence of Kentucky — Henry Clay — Motives leading to war — The war of 1812 — The treaty of Ghent — Battle of New Orleans — Results of the war — Boundaries in Maine and Oregon — Monroe President — The Monroe doctrine . . Pages 130-176

Chapter IV

Democracy and Slavery-. Monroe's Presidency — The era of good feeling — Geographical division between freedom and slavery — The Presidential fever and its effects — Reign of the " Machine " — Henry Clay — His character and principles — Daniel Webster — His character — His oratory — John C. Calhoun — His character and principles — Slavery and the Senate CONTENTS. IX debates — Benton — Randolph — The tariff question — Free trade vs. protection — Webster; Clay; McDuffie — Public land and improvements — John Quincy Adams — His character and principles — Mili tary renown as a political influence — Andrew Jackson's Presiden tial campaign — Jackson's inauguration — The spoils go to the victor — A court quarrel — Jackson's despotism — The National Bank question — South Carolina rises against the tariff — The Force Bill — Effects of Jackson's policy — Demagogism — Van Buren — Party lines — The anti- Masons — William Harrison's Presidential campaign — Tyler President — Texas and Mexico — Clay's candidature — Polk President — War with Mexico — Texas annexed — Tay lor President — Fillmore President — Close of Webster's career — Texas and slavery — End of the Whig party — Pierce President — ■ The Knownothings — The Irish vote — Growth of the Republic — Progress westward — Development and expansion — Political and social democracy Pages 177-220

Chapter V

Rupture and Reconstruction. Slavery forced to the front — The question a thing of the past — It:s source — Ancient compared with American slavery — Fusion of races impossible — Emancipation discouraged — Slavery not elevating — Condition of the negro — Sinister aspects and influences of slavery — Slave industry — Aggressive character of slavery — Apologies for the system — Possibilities of a peaceful solution — Dominance of slavery — Its adherents — Protests, political, philosophical, literary — AVilliam Lloyd Garrison — Wendell Phillips — Strong feeling in the South — Case of Anthony Burns — Stephen Douglas in politics — Squatter sovereignty — The Kansas- Nebraska Act — Case of Dred Scott — Free Soilers — Disorder in Kansas — Violent debates in Congress — The two parties, Republican and Democratic — John Brown — Abraham Lincoln — His early life — His appearance, capability, and character — His political principles — His powers of debate — Elected President — South Carolina secedes — Other States follow — A Southern Confederacy formed — Slavery the cause of secession — The Confederate government — Buchanan's vacillation — Concessions offered by Congress — The crisis unexpected — Possibilities of peaceful separation— State sovereignty — The struggle a regular war — Lincoln as President — His object the preservation of the Union — War breaks out by the capture of Fort Sumter — The military strength of North and South compared — Means adopted to obtain men and CONTENTS.

X money — England and the South — Neutrality of the British government — Capture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell — Foreign nations and the war — Strategy of the North — Chief scene of war — Bull Run — Northern military organization — General McClellan placed in command — McClellan and Lincoln — Generals Lee and Jackson Pope replaces McClellan — The equipment of the respective armies — Antietam. — Lincoln proclaims emancipation — Enlistment of ne groes — Fort Pillow — Burnside put in command — Battle of Fred ericksburg — Hooker replaces Burnside — Is defeated — General Grant — Fort Donelson taken — General Sherman — Battle of Shiloh — Vicksburg — Farragut — New Orleans taken — Benjamin Butler's proclamation — Murfreesborough — Character of the battles — The Merrimack and the Monitor — Blockade running — Lee enters Penn sylvania — Irish riot in New York — Battle of Gettysburg — Fall of Vicksburg — The South in straits — The army of the Potomac — Battle of the Wilderness — Cold Harbour — Early attacks Washing ton — Sheridan desolates the Shenandoah Valley — Mechanical skill displayed in Sheridan's campaign — Hood replaces Johnston — At lanta falls — Savannah and Charleston surrender — Nashville- — Rich mond evacuated — Lee surrenders at Appomattox — Lincoln re-elected — A"nd murdered — His statesmanship — Humanity on the two sides — The Sanitary Commission — Democracy and war — The war and the constitution — Little or no disturbance of life at the North — No military usurpation — Finances — Effects on the South — Economical evils — War literature — Cost of the war — — Foreign questions — The Alabama question — Reconstruction — Lincoln's views — Amnesty — Andrew Johnson — The status of the negro Pages 221-301

Chapter I. The Colonies

T^OUR centuries ago, Christopher Columbus, one of the Italian mariners whom the decline of their own republics had put at the service of the world and of adventure, seeking for Spain a westward passage to the Indies as a set-off against the achievements of Portuguese discoverers eastwards, lighted on America. The new continent was thus discovered by the man who had staked most on the belief that no such continent existed, and that the way to the Indies was open by sea. That the daring barques of the Northmen had long before found their way from Greenland to the coast of North America is likely, though not certain. What is certain is that nothing more came, or in that age could come, of their visit than of the visit of a flock of sea-gulls. The basement of an old mill at Newport, which fancy turned into a Norse fortress, the Dighton rock, on which fancy traced Norse runes, the dykes at Watertown, in Massachusetts, in which fancy still sees the defences of the Norse city of Norumbega, only attest the yearnings of a new nation for antiquity.

Columbus sailed in the age of enterprise and discovery, of re-awakened intellect and revived learning, of universal curiosity and romantic aspiration. He was in every way a typical man of his generation. He displayed in the high- CIIAf. 2 1565 est degree that daring spirit of adventure which could put forth in a tiny caravel without chart, quadrant, or even a full acquaintance with the compass, over the wide and wild Atlantic to an unknown shore ; and a shore which, when found, might teem with perils and be the abode of mon sters or of demons. Humanity, since that time, has ad vanced in many ways ; but it has hardly advanced in fortitude. Columbus was also a devotee of a religion with more in it of Rome and of the Crusades than of the Gos pel, and with more of the forms of devotion than of the spirit.

Morally he was a type of the age which came between the fall of the Catholic and the rise of the Prot estant faith, and had for its head Alexander VI, the moral monster of the Papacy, whose hand signed the Bull which divided the new world between two Catholic powers. In his youth it seems he served on board a pirate fleet. He began his intercourse with the natives of America by kid napping, and he gave the word for the opening of the slave trade. His dealings with his own companions were equivocal. He was always in greedy quest of gold, though he professed, and perhaps believed, that he meant to use the gold in a crusade. He became the father of a line of adventurers who, like himself, were gold-seekers or seekers of lucre, gilding their rapacity with the same profession of zeal for the extension of religion, who sacked Mexico and Peru, trampled to pieces there, under the hoofs of conquest, the highest development of Indian civilization, worked to death the soft inhabitants of the American islands, and replaced them by the importation of African slaves.

None of these adventurers looked upon America as a new home, or thought of founding a nation. The Huguenots might have founded a nation in Florida had I. 1527 to 1550. 1585 to 1587. 1607 they not been massacred by the Spaniards. Missionary enterprise, to some extent, accompanied and redeemed the gold-seeking. It founded the Jesuit Utopia in Para guay, and in the establishment of French Canada went hand in hand with that kingly thirst of dominion which, rather than colonization in the proper and beneficent sense, was the dominant motive of French enterprise in North America. But the aim of the Jesuit was not to found a nation. In the settlement of Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh, and, when Raleigh's romantic enterprise had failed, by a company of commercial adventurers, lucre, if not gold-seeking, was still the predominant motive.

Of a hundred and forty-three settlers sent out, a large proportion were broken-down gentlemen seeking to repair their fortunes ; a few only were labourers or mechanics ; the rest were servants. To show how faint was their pur pose of settlement, they brought no women. The subse quent reinforcements were of the same kind, with some goldsmiths and refiners to help in seeking for gold where no gold was. A ship went home laden with shining mica, which was mistaken for gold. Food these colonists had to beg or steal from the Indians. To the crew of vagabonds were afterwards added jail-birds. Convicts were offered their choice between the gallows and Virginia, and some, we are told, chose the gallows. Only by the personal force and genius of John Smith, the one true captain, who com pelled gentlemen to wield the axe, telling them that if they would not work they should not eat, was the colony saved from dissolution.

It had been started on the false principle of joint stock industry, which deprives labour of its mainspring. Its place, Jamestown, has long been deso late, and only fragments of ruin mark the site. In these CHAT. 1608, days steam carries all the implements of husbandry, now brought to marvellous perfection, and all needful stores, with the emigrant into his field of settlement. In those days colonization was a death-struggle with nature. Some sustaining motive higher than gain was necessary to give man the victory and enable him to make for himself a new home in the wilderness, and to found a nation. Such a motive, together with the necessary habits of labour and powers of endurance, was present in the little train of emigrants who, after beating up and down for some days upon a bleak and wintry coast and receiving as their welcome to it a volley of Indian arrows, dis embarked from the Mayflower on the 22nd of December, 1620.

Their landing was on the shore to which John Smith, its first explorer, had given the name of New England, at a spot which they named Plymouth, after the English port of that name from which they had sailed. Setting rhetorical exaggeration aside, we need not doubt that in watching that sad yet hopeful proces sion of men, women, and children, we are witnessing one of the great events and one of the heroic scenes of history. The story of these emigrants is well known. They were dissenters from the Established Church of England, with simple hearts full of the intense faith and zeal inspired in those days by the new revelation of the pure Gospel. They had fled from the emissaries of church law, first to Holland. There they had found themselves surrounded by a community highly commercial, whose manners their austere simplicity deemed corrupting, which did not strictly keep the Sabbath, and into whose worldliness their children were in danger of being drawn.

They feared also the loss of their nationality, to which, though persecuted in England, they clung. They had then determined to seek a home beyond the Atlantic where they might enjoy their religion uncontaminated and in peace. A chartered company, the usual organ of commercial venture in those days, formed the English basis of their enterprise and the source of needful supplies. The Plymouth pilgrims, landing in mid-winter on a grim coast, underwent the severest sufferings. They were ill sheltered ; they had no bread, and were reduced to shellfish for food. More than half their number died. At one time only seven of them were left strong enough to tend the sick. It seems that they were saved from the Indian tomahawk only by a distemper which happened to prevail among the Indians. To use their own words, " all great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both undertaken and con firmed with answerable courages."

" It is not," they had said, " with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage or small discontents cause to wish themselves home again." Their language is instinct with the simple heroism of their enterprise. " Let it not be grievous to you," said their friends in England, " that you have been instruments to break the ice for others ; the honour shall be yours to the world's end." To the world's end the honour is theirs. If Columbus discovered the new conti nent, they discovered the new world. Before landing, the pilgrims, " seeing that some among them were not well affected to concord," had drawn up this voluntary compact : — " In the name of God, amen ; we, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, . . . having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony.

Unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." It is true that this covenant was not a political mani festo. It is not less true that it heralded a polity of self-government, and may thus rank among the great documents of history. It breathes good-will to the land which the pilgrims had left, though the rulers of that land had cast them out. The Puritan exile did not say " Farewell, Babylon," but " Farewell, dear England." Unhappily these, in common with other colonists of the period, retained not only their love of the old land, but their political tie to it. They deemed themselves still liegemen of a sovereign on the other side of the Atlantic. This created a relation false from the beginning. Herein lay the fatal seeds of misunderstanding, of encroach ment on the side of the home government, of revolt on that of the growing colony, and ultimately of revolution.

The Hellenic colonist had gone forth to make his home in a new land, taking with him the sacred fire from the altar-hearth of his native city, but free from any political tie. His only bond to his native city was that of filial I. 1606. affection, gracefully expressed in honours paid to her representatives. The Hellenic colony was a colony in the true sense of the word, not a dependency. The English colony unhappily was a dependency, and when it grew strong enough to spurn dependence there was a bond to be broken which was not likely to be broken without violence and a breach of affection. Dependence was the result of two notions combined, that of the territorial light of discovery, and that of personal and indefeasible alle giance. Let a mariner land and set up a flag on a strange shore, let him even sight that shore from his vessel, the whole region thenceforth, according to the European law of nations, belonged to his sovereign, and was that sov ereign's to grant to whom he pleased.

His Majesty of England by his charter granted North America, so far as it was then known, between certain degrees of latitude, in full property, with exclusive rights of jurisdiction, settlement, and traffic, to certain persons incorporated respec tively as the London and Ptymouth Companies. The Pope's pretension to divide the new world between Catho lic powers was hardly more baseless. From the feudal system came down the idea of personal and indefeasible allegiance, with the lingering traces of which international law and diplomacy in our own day have had to deal. This was the beginning of woes, the full measure of which came in 1765. The foundation of New Plymouth was followed by that of Massachusetts, the great Puritan colony of all, and the leading shoot of American civilization, which presently drew to it New Plymouth, while it threw out from it, in different ways and partly by repulsion, the off -shoots which became Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and 1629. 1633. 1633, 1633.

Vermont. The founders of Massachusetts were not, when they came out, Independents, like the company of the Mayflower, but Puritans in the proper sense of the term, that is, members of the Church of England who desired to remain within her pale, but to purify her from the vestiges of Rome, and at the same time to uplift her to a higher standard of Christian life. They even anxiously disclaimed any intention of separation. " They esteemed it their hon our," they said, " to call the Church of England their dear mother, and could not part from their native countrj-, where she specially resided, without much sadness of heart and many tears in their eyes ; ever acknowledging that such hope and part as they had attained in the common salvation they had received in her bosom and sucked from her breasts."

But practical divorce from the Anglican hierarchy and ordinances, together with the liberating air of the new world, soon made them, like the Plymouth emigrants, Independents. From Charles I, who was no doubt glad to see the Puritan spirit carried off by emigra tion, the Massachusetts Company received a liberal charter, which became the palladium of advancing independence. The colony was an object of fervent interest to the Puri tans at home, and was recruited with some of their best blood. Hither the excellent Cotton led from Boston in Lincolnshire, and the fair church that rises over it, a part of his flock to a Boston which soon became, and has remained, the centre of New England and the focus of New England civilization. Hither came Hugh Peters, the chaplain that was to be of the regicide republic.

Hither for a time came Henry Vane, as has been said, " young in years, but not yet in sage counsel old," for he brought with him a disquieting ambition. The first governor was Winthrop, a wealthy Sussex gentleman, who left his manor house at the age of forty-two to help in planting a Gospel kingdom in the new world. He was a noble specimen of the Puritan character, uniting with its force the gentle grace which Mrs. Hutehinson has por trayed in her picture of Colonel Hutehinson ; a wise coun sellor, skilful as Hampden in the management of men, and in all distractions piously serene. Endicott and Dudley were Puritans of the sterner type. Besides Cotton, other clergymen came, highly educated at Oxford or Cambridge ; more from Cambridge than from Oxford, because Cambridge lay in the eastern coun ties, the home of Cromwell and the Ironsides.

The inflow of Puritan life did not cease till the rising of the English nation against Charles and Laud gave the party hope and work at home. In Massachusetts also the first settlers had their sufferings to undergo on that bleak coast, though not such suf ferings as were undergone by the founders of Plymouth, the Massachusetts colony being better provided with funds and more assisted from home. Whatever was to be borne they bore. Like their precursors at Plymouth, they were bent on "laying some good foundation, or at least making some way thereto, for the propagating and advancing the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world ; yea, even though they should be but as stepping stones unto others for the performing of so great a work." The Puritan commonwealth was a theocracy.

It was mainly for the purpose of founding a Christian state that these men had given up all and gone forth into the wilderness. No one could be a citizen of Massachusetts who was not in close communion with one of the churches. The churches were organized on the Con gregational principle, forming a group, each member of which was independent of the rest and chose its own pastor. But they were bound together by complete sympathy, identity of doctrine and of system was preserved, and discipline was practically enforced by them in con cert. Baptism was limited to the children of those who were in close communion, and only to those who were in close communion was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper administered. Every citizen was required to contribute to the maintenance of a church. Thus, not only was there a union of church and state, but church and state were one.

This was still the religious ideal of the time, however far men might desire to carry church reform. It has been the ideal in our own day of such a liberal as Dr. Arnold. Puritan theocracy, though strict, and sure to melt away when the sun of freedom had mounted higher in the heaven, was not reactionary or obscurantist. It had for its rule the Bible, but the Bible interpreted by reason. It owed paramount allegiance not ;to authority but to truth. Robinson, the adored pastor of the Plymouth exiles, had charged them at part ing, before God and all the angels, to "follow him no further than he followed Christ ; and if God should reveal anything to them by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever they were to receive any truth by his ministry; for he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy Word."

Of light and truth to break forth from nature read by science beyond God's word the Puritan pastor in those days could have no thought. 1636, 1700. Reformers may wish to arrest reform at their own line, but they set in action the forces which will carry it further. The clergy were the leaders, to a considerable extent they were the masters, of the Puritan society and commonwealth. But they were not mere priests. They were well educated ; some of them were very learned, and could not fail to have their share of the liberality of learning. Their ascendancy was moral and intellectual; it was not that of caste or of thaumaturgy. Very early Massachusetts founded, out of her poverty and in troublous times, the University of Harvard, which is now the glory of the literary republic. Harvard's present rival, Yale, was founded in New Haven later, yet at a date early as compared with the material progress of the colony.