against the United States to the amount of $ 40,000,000, on account of Indian depredations. To be sure he never expected to collect the money, but a claim was always a good diplomatic talking point, to be held in reserve. It might be useful sometime. Furthermore, the Pierce administration, with Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, actually in charge, was planning for a transcontinental railway, over the southern route to California, by way of Texas and Santa Fe. A part of the proposed line ran through the Gila River Valley in northern Mexico. Gadsden was instructed to settle the points in dispute, and to buy the land needed for the right of way for the road.

According to newspaper reports, some of which had the appearance of truth, Gadsden had been secretly instructed to buy, if possible, the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Sonora, and Lower California. The New York Herald, a paper which frequently secured news surreptitiously from the State Department, announced positively that Gadsden had closed the deal with Santa Anna for northwestern Mexico, for the sum of $50,000,000. In proof of this assertion the Herald printed some articles, which were described as the first draft of Gadsden's treaty.

The reason the big sale never went through, so the Herald concluded, was the activity of William Walker, later the hero in Nicaragua, in Lower California. This intrepid adventurer, with a following of two hundred men, landed at La Paz, in Lower California, took possession of the country, declared it independent, and set up a republic with all the regular institutions, president-Walker of course-Congress, army, and navy, all with two hundred men and one boat. This attempt to steal the province so enraged Mexican public opinion that Santa Anna did not dare to carry out his agreement with Gadsden.

The final draft of the Gadsden Treaty provided for the settlement of a few claims, for new arrangements regarding Indian depredations, for the settlement of the boundary dispute, and for the sale of the Gila valley. The price to be paid was $15,000,000, for thirty-nine million acres, a strip so small that it looks insignificant when compared with the Louisiana Purchase or the Mexican Cession. According to report, Robert J. Walker, a shrewd Democratic politician and railroad man, had already arranged to buy the same identical territory for six thousand five hundred dollars.

The newspapers were loud in their criticism of the treaty. While

it was still pending in the Senate, the Herald characterized it as a "plundering operation against the United States Treasury," and in the same paragraph, as "a diplomatic humbug of the first water." Later the same paper hailed it as "the most corrupt job ever undertaken in Washington, and the most profligate attempt ever made to plunder the Treasury for the advancement of a foreign military adventurer."

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The Senate cut the purchase price to $10,000,000, which Santa Anna somewhat ruefully accepted. Fifteen would have been better, but ten was more pleasing than the sixty-five hundred offered by Walker. After the document was ratified, the Herald asserted that it was the "most unblushing swindle ever perpetrated upon the country." Greeley of the Tribune described the territory acquired as 'an arid waste," with boundaries so run "that every valuable part of that desolate country is reserved to Mexico. What is included in the purchase would not support a flock of prairie hens. A more heaven-forsaken piece of earth does not lie out of doors. . . . The more we have of such country, the worse we are off." Not to be outdone, the Herald described the acquisition as "worth just nothing at all, being simply a wild, hideous, howling, God-forsaken desert.” Such were the circumstances attendant upon the last acquisition of territory bordering directly upon any part of the United States.

JAPAN

Aside from this active interest in projects of expansion at the expense of Latin America, there was no consistency of purpose or definiteness of aim in the foreign policy of the United States. There was however, ample evidence of activity. In 1853 Commodore Mathew C. Perry succeeded in breaking down the traditional Japanese policy of isolation. During his negotiations, Perry interested the Japanese by running a telegraph line from his headquarters on shore to the ships of his fleet, and by constructing a short railroad line. A treaty signed in 1854 permitted American ships to obtain provisions, coal, and supplies at certain points. In 1858 Japan agreed to receive a diplomatic representative from the United States. In the same year, a new treaty was signed with China, which made possible the activities of foreign missionaries in the country.

One of the most important treaties negotiated during this period was that signed with Great Britain in 1854, providing for Canadian

reciprocity. Rights of American fishermen were more clearly defined, and Canadian fish was allowed to come into American ports free of duty. Also the Canadians were given the rights of navigation on Lake Michigan, in return for which the Americans received similar rights on the St. Lawrence and the Canadian canals. This arrangement was to last for twelve years.

CHAPTER XLI

THE SLAVERY DISPUTE REVIVED

With the adoption of the compromise measures and the approval of the "finality" policy, politics in the United States was left with no compelling issue. The leaders were anxiously guarding against any resurgence of the temper of 1849, a negative task that left them in the position so often occupied by politicians, that of sitting on the lid. In the Congressional session of 1851-1852, lasting nine months, little was done beyond passing a "pork-barrel" bill and granting public lands. In their anxiety to avoid touching the disturbing problem of slavery, public officials touched nothing.

That this condition of political drought was far more beneficial than the heated contests which preceded it was generally agreed. It had other advantages. For example, the two parties were able to turn to the presidential campaign of 1852 with nothing to embarrass them. The Democrats were in excellent shape. The Barnburners had returned to their allegiance, and the Free Soil movement was negligible except possibly in Massachusetts. The Whigs had clearly lost ground. Never a strong party, and never entrusted with the presidency on their own merits, owing their victory in 1848 to the factional fight in New York, they seemed unable to make any compelling appeal.

In making their nominations, the Democrats could not agree on any one of their more prominent leaders, such as Cass, Marcy, Buchanan, or Douglas, and, on the forty-ninth ballot, the convention swung to Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. The new candidate had the sort of noncommittal record which is a valuable asset in politics. He was handsome in person, kindly in his dealings with his associates, with no enemies, eminently safe in all respects.

The Whigs were more under the influence of their southern contingent, and allowed the Georgians to write their platform. For candidates the party had Fillmore, Webster, and the other idol of the Mexican War, General Winfield Scott. It took fifty-three ballots to convince the Whigs that nobody but Scott could get the nomina

tion. In spite of his nomination Scott could not win the support of the southern Whigs, because they doubted his loyalty to the compromise. In the election many "bolted" the candidate, some voting for Webster, while nowhere in the South did Scott make a favorable impression. The Whig party was doomed. Pierce carried every state but five, getting two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes to Scott's forty-two.

THE NEW LEADERS

Although the election and inauguration of Pierce meant no change in national policies, and no political change of any kind, except among the office-holders, his accession happened to coincide with an unusual change among the leaders in Congress. The old leaders, the men who were responsible for the compromise, had largely ended their careers before March 4, 1853. Henry Clay died in June, 1852, and the whole country mourned his loss. With all of his weaknesses, and even with all of his pettiness, he had done enough in behalf of the Union to give him lasting fame. Webster followed Clay in October of the same year. Others either retired or were forced out of politics. Van Buren ceased to be a figure in politics after 1848, Winthrop of Massachusetts retired in 1851, in the same year that Thomas Hart Benton lost his seat in the Senate.

These men had all been unionists, and their loss could not be replaced. They had been trained in politics in the period after 1815, when nationalism flourished almost as a gospel, and as long as they were in Congress neither southern secessionism nor northern abolitionism could go unrebuked. Unionists remained, to be sure, but they were younger men, without the balance and the experience of Webster and Clay. Perhaps the most conspicuous of the group of younger unionists was Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the cleverest parliamentarian in Congress. He upheld the compromise, and he never became disturbed over slavery as an institution. No one denied his ability, but observers felt that his courage and determination might sometimes run away with his judgment. With Douglas there were Cass of Michigan, and Marcy of New York, both determined champions of the compromise. Among the southern unionists were to be listed Bell of Tennessee, Crittenden of Kentucky, and Clayton of Delaware. Whether this group would be strong enough to cope with their opponents remained to be seen.