CHAPTER Some Preparatory Steps. 1849. When the delusions of the Presidential campaign had passed away, the South realized its peril. The Whigs had triumphed on the issue of the Wilmot Proviso; the Democrats had done battle for the issue of squatter sovereignty. Foremost of young Democrats to discern the party superiority of the Cass doctrine of squatter sovereignty, over the Wilmot Proviso, was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a Senator from Illinois. Neither Ghenkis Kahn or Napoleon ever contemplated conquest so entrancing as that which tempted the powerful civilization of the free States, westward to the Pacific. Wide rivers and rich valleys, abounding gold and silver, new seaports open to China stood out from the picture. In Europe, the French king had been dethroned, Germany was awakening, Froebel had conceived his educational process for the poor, the Prince Consort was busily engaged in preparing the first World's Fair, destined to play so important a part in arousing the energies of the people. Ireland was prostrate in famine. The free States now rapidly lost the original American Constitutional character. Naturalization laws and land laws of Congress precipitated the process. In the year 1821 only 9,127 foreigners landed in the United States, but in 1841 there came 80,289, and, in 1851, 379,464. An insignificant proportion only, of the total immigration, settled in the slave States. New England forgot her interest in the protective tariff while her capital sought employment in the land speculations of the West, and her merchants found fresh markets in the ever recurring multiplication of new Western towns built by European populations. The revolution had moved forward in the essential faculties of it. The evidence was not in vague outwardness but in the abounding likenesses of the vital type. The discerning insight of deep men did not mistake them; superficial leaders only were doomed to paint them in false colors. A practical excess of political power, ever accumulating from inexhaustible sources of supply, was fixed in the free States. The slave States looked in vain for justification of their ever augmenting humiliation. They had greatly prospered since the final overthrow of the American System. Cotton shipments to Europe, which were a little more than a million bales, in 1838-39, were in excess of two and a quarter millions, in 1848-49. Had the Southern people been remiss in contributions of treasure or blood to acquire the Mexican land? With one-third of the population of the Union, the slave States had contributed 45,640 volunteers, while the free States, with two-thirds of the population of the Union, had contributed only 23,084 volunteers to the Mexican war. The slave States had contributed the two commanding Generals of the war on the American side. Why should the South seek ease from the strife? When Congress met, in December, the air of triumph worn by the more aggressive leaders of the North in that body, greatly alarmed the Southern members. Ere the session had advanced more than a few weeks the following bills were introduced: A bill to exclude slavery from California and New Mexico, by a member from Ohio; a bill, by another member from Ohio, to take the vote of the inhabitants of the District of Columbia on the question of abolishing slavery therein, and that slaves and free negroes should vote on the question; a resolution, introduced by a member from Massachusetts, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. Adams dying just before the Presidential campaign opened, there was a practical amalgamation of his party with the Whigs of the North, in the present session of Congress, with Senator W. H. Seward, from New York, in the leadership. A meeting of Senators and Representatives from the slave States was held in the Senate chamber, in January preceding President Taylor's inauguration, in 1849. After much deliberation, extending over a week in different meetings, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Clayton, of Delaware, and others withdrew. The last meeting seems to have been on January 22. An Address to the People of the South was then put forth, written by Mr. Calhoun and signed by R. M. T. Hunter, James M. Mason, Archibald Atkinson, Thomas M. Bayly, R. L. T. Beale, Henry Bedinger, Thomas S. Bocock, William G. Brown, R. K. Meade and R. A. Thompson, Virginia; J. R. J. Daniel and A. W. Venable, North Carolina; A. P. Butler, J. C. Calhoun, Armistead Burt, I. E. Holmes, R. B. Rhett, R. F. Simpson, D. Wallace and J. A. Woodward, South Carolina; H. V. Johnson, Alfred Iverson, Hugh A. Haralson, Georgia; David L. Yulee, Florida; William R. King, B. Fitzpatrick, John Gayle, F. W. Bowdon, S. W. Harris and S. W. Inge, Alabama; Jefferson Davis, Henry S. Foote, P. W. Tompkins, A. G. Brown, W. S. Featherstone and Jacob Thompson, Mississippi: S. W. Downs, J. H. Harmanson, Emile La Sere and I. E. Morse, Louisiana; T. Pilsbury and David S. Kaufman, Teras; Solon Borland, J. K. Sebastian and R. W. Johnson, Arkansas; Hopkins L. Turney and E. P. Stanton, Tennessee. The Address was a statement of the sectional issue. It said: "Owing (the blacks) their emancipation to them (the Northern whites) they would regard them as friends, guardians and patrons, and centre, accordingly, all their sympathy in them. The people of the North would not fail to reciprocate and favor them instead of the whites. Under the influence of such feelings and impelled by fanaticism and love of power, they would not stop at emancipation. Another step would be taken to raise them to a political and social equality with their former owners, by giving them the right of voting and holding office under the federal government. We see the first step toward it in the bill to vest the free blacks and slaves with the right to vote on the question of emancipation in this District. But when once raised to an equality, they would become the fast political associates of the North, acting and voting with them on all questions, and, by this political union, holding the white race at the South in complete subjection. The blacks and profligate whites that might unite with them would become the principal recipients of federal offices and patronage, and would, in consequence, be raised above the whites of the South in' the political and social scale." California was the apple of discord. An hundred thousand men had suddenly collected there, and still they came by ship loads and over the plains, Americans, Europeans, Asiatics with no settled purpose of abode, growing rich in the mines owned by the United States, and in no sense prepared to erect a Commonwealth in any of the traditions of America. But California already had a government suitable to the prevailing conditions. General Persifer F. Smith, soldier, lawyer and statesman was military Governor. Commodore Jones enforced the collection of tariff duties, in the total absence of federal collectors or revenue laws. Before Congress adjourned, March 4, 1849, much had been said about erecting the customary Territorial government there. The mines owned by the United States were considered sufficiently valuable to command a high rent and thus to repay a large part of the outlay incurred in the acquisition. Mr. William Ballard Preston, from Virginia, made a motion in the House to establish a Territorial government over California, with or without slavery as the people might choose, but Whigs, Democrats and Abolitionists, from the free States, voted it down. Mr. Walker, from Wisconsin, a political friend of Mr. Calhoun, offered a resolution in the Senate that the Constitution and laws of the United States, where applicable, be extended to California. The Legislature of his State promptly called for his resignation, as a rebuke. In every form of ordinary expression the people of the free States gave notice to the people of the slave States of their debarment from the enjoyment of any of the new Territory. "The President is honest, but the most ignorant man of public affairs whom I ever saw in office," ejaculated Toombs, as he walked away from the Executive Mansion. In the recess of Congress, foreseeing the bitter struggle to follow when it re-assembled over the erection of a Territorial government in California, the President commanded General Riley, of the army, to convene a Convention there for the purpose of framing a State Constitution. There was no precedent for such Executive action. Congress alone, under the Constitution, had power to make needful rules and regulations" for the governing of all the territory which the Constitution -contemplated, and the treaty with Mexico provided a civil 66 - protectorate, by the United States, of the ceded lands, and their population, until they should become States of the Union. No civil population occupied California, no women, no cultivators of the soil, only miners, speculators and gamblers of all nations, with no intent to find domicile. General Riley, without authority of law, collected $175,000 from the shipping in the port of San Francisco to defray the expenses of the civil duties he was ordered to perform. He issued orders apportioning delegates to prescribed territory. He sat daily through the deliberations of the Convention. Thus was prepared an organic law for the second largest State of the Union, and the fairest of all one hundred and eighty-eight thousand square miles, equal to four States larger than New York, and a large part of its area south of the parallel 36° 30′ lately recognized by the South as a valid division of free from slave territory by the act annexing Texas. The simple but arbitrary course of the President had not established peace, but fomented discord. When the Constitution of California, prohibiting slavery, was presented by him to Congress, and the sections took sides on the question of the admission of the State, the argument of the South was fully matured and, from a Constitutional stand point, was invincible. The humiliation of the weaker section, for which it was unprepared, and the final exaltation of the stronger section, already lustful and boastful, were of the manifestations of the course of the President. Returning briefly to Mr. Yancey's public history, of the year 1849, he delivered an address of welcome to the ex-President, Mr. Polk, and his family of wife and two nieces, Misses Rucker and Reed, in the name of the people of Montgomery, on the arrival there of the distinguished travelers on their journey to their home in Tennessee, by way of the Western rivers. Few of the people, as opportunity then presented itself, had ever seen a President. A committee of the city authorities, lead by Colonel J. J. Seibles, an officer of the Mexican war and now editor of the daily Advertiser, went up the railroad to meet the expected company to arrive in the stage coach at the terminus of the road, Opelika. Awaiting there the return of the cars to the city, Mr. Polk stood on the platform engaging in familiar conversation with the farmers |