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agreed to by Calhoun and other Nullifiers, was passed, became a law without the signature of President Jackson, and South Carolina once more became to all appearances a contented, law-abiding State of the Union.

But after-events proved conclusively that the enactment of this Compromise Tariff was a terrible blunder, if not a crime. Jackson had fully intended to hang Calhoun and his nullifying coadjutors if they persisted in their Treason. He knew that they had only seized upon the Tariff laws as a pretext with which to justify Disunion, and prophecied that "the next will be the Slavery or Negro question." Jackson's forecast was correct. Free Trade, Slavery and Secession were from that time forward sworn allies; and the ruin wrought to our industries by the disasters of 1840, plainly traceable to that Compromise Tariff measure of 1833, was only to be supplemented by much greater ruin and disasters caused by the Free Trade Tariff of 1846-and to be followed by the armed Rebellion of the Free Trade and ProSlavery States of the South in 1861, in a mad attempt to destroy the Union.

CHAPTER III.

GROWTH OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

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EMANCIPATION IN NORTHERN AND MIDDLE STATES-VIRGINIA'S UNSUCCESSFUL EFFORT CESSION OF THE FLORIDAS, 1819BALANCE OF POWER-ADMISSION OF ARKANSAS, 1836-SOUTHERN SLAVE HOLDERS' COLONIZATION OF TEXAS-TEXAN INDEPENDENCE, 1837-CALHOUN'S SECOND AND GREAT CONSPIRACYDETERMINATION BEFORE 1839 TO SECEDE-PROTECTIVE TARIFF FEATURES AGAIN THE PRETEXT CALHOUN, IN 1841, ASKING THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR AID-NORTHERN OPPOSITION TO ACQUISITION OF TEXAS-RATIONALE OF THE LOUISIANA AND FLORIDA ACQUISITIONS-PROPOSED EXTENSION OF SLAVERY LIMITS-WEBSTER WARNS THE SOUTH-DISASTERS FOLLOWING COMPROMISE TARIFF OF 1833-INDUSTRIAL RUIN OF 1840ELECTION AND DEATH OF HARRISON PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF 1842-POLK'S CAMPAIGN OF 1844-CLAY'S BLUNDER AND POLK'S CRIME SOUTHERN TREACHERY-THE NORTH HOODWINKEDPOLK ELECTED BY ABOLITION VOTE-SLAVE-HOLDING TEXAS 66

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UNDER A SHAM COMPROMISE"-WAR WITH MEXICO-FREE-
TRADE TARIFF OF 1846-WILMOT PROVISO-TREATY OF GUADA-
LUPE-HIDALGO-SLAVERY CONTEST IN CONGRESS STILL GROWING
-COMPROMISE OF 1850-A LULL-FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW-
NEBRASKA BILL OF 1852-3-KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL, 1853-4,
REPORTED-PARLIAMENTARY JUGGLERY "THE TRIUMPH OF
SLAVERY, IN CONGRESS-BLEEDING KANSAS-TOPEKA CONSTITU-
TION, 1855-KANSAS LEGISLATURE DISPERSED, 1856, BY UNITED
STATES TROOPS-LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION OF 1857-FRAUDu-
LENT TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY CONSTITUTION-ITS SUBSEQUENT
DEFEAT-ELECTION OF BUCHANAN, 1856—KANSAS ADMITTED—
MISERY AND RUIN CAUSED BY FREE-TRADE TARIFF OF 1846-
FILLMORE AND BUCHANAN TESTIFY..
Pages 31 to 46.

T will be remembered that during the period of the Missouri Struggle, 1818-1820, the Territory of Arkansas was formed by an Act of Congress out of that part of the Missouri Territory not included in the proposed State of Missouri, and that the Act so creating the Territory of Arkansas contained no provision restricting Slavery. Early

in 1836, the people of Arkansas Territory met in Convention and formed a Constitution under which, "and by virtue of the treaty of cession by France to the United States, of the Province of Louisiana," they asked admission to the Union as a State. Among other provisions of that Constitution was a section rendering the State Legislature powerless to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or to prevent emigrants to that State from bringing with them slaves. On June 15th of the same year, Arkansas was, under that Constitution, admitted to the Union as a Slave State, with the sole reservation, that nothing in the Act of admission should be "construed as an assent by Congress to all or any of the propositions contained" in the said Constitution.

Long ere this, all the Northern and Middle States had made provision for the emancipation of such slaves as remained within their borders, and only a few years previous (in 1829 and 1831-32) Virginia had made strong but insufficient efforts toward the same end. The failure to free Virginia of Slavery-the effort to accomplish which had been made by some of the greatest of her statesmen-only served to rivet the chains of human bondage more securely throughout all the Slave States, and from that time on, no serious agitation occurred in any one of them, looking toward even the most gradual emancipation. On the other hand, the advocates of the extension of the Slave-Power by the expansion of Slave-territory, were ever on the alert, They considered it of the last importance to maintain the balance of power between the Slave States and the Free States. Hence, while they had secured in 1819 the cession from Spain to the United States of the Slave-holding Floridas, and the organization of the Slave Territory of Florida in 1822-which subsequently came in as a Slave State under the same Act (1845) that admitted the Free State of Iowatheir greedy eyes were now cast upon the adjoining rich territories of Mexico.

Efforts had (in 1827-1829) been made to purchase from Mexico the domain which was known as Texas. They had failed. But already a part of Texas had been settled by ad

venturous Americans under Mexican grants and otherwise; and General Sam Houston, an adherent of the Slave Power, having become a leading spirit among them, fomented a revolution. In March, 1836, Texas, under his guidance, proclaimed herself a Republic independent of Mexico.

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The War that ensued between Texas and Mexico ended in the flight of the Mexican Army and the capture of Santa Anna at San Jacinto, and a treaty recognizing Texan independence. In October, 1836, General Houston was inaugurated President of the Republic of Texas. Close upon this followed (in August, 1837) a proposition to our Government from the Texan envoy for the annexation of Texas to the United States. President Van Buren declined the offer. The Northern friends of Freedom were as much opposed to this annexation project as the advocates of Slavery were anxious for it. Even such conservative Northern Statesmen as Daniel Webster strongly opposed the project. a speech * delivered in New York, after showing that the chief aim of our Government in the acquisition of the Territory of Louisiana was to gain command of the mouths of the great rivers to the sea, and that in the acquisition of the Floridas our policy was based on similar considerations, Mr. Webster declared that "no such necessity, no such policy, requires the annexation of Texas," and that we ought "for numerous and powerful reasons to be content with our present boundaries." He recognized that Slavery already existed under the guarantees of the Constitution and those guarantees must be fulfilled; that "Slavery, as it exists in the States, is beyond the power of Congress. It is a concern of the States themselves," but "when we come to speak of admitting new States, the subject assumes an entirely different aspect. Our rights and our duties are then both different. The Free States, and all the States, are then at liberty to accept or to reject ;" and he added, “In my opinion the people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a new, vastly extensive and Slaveholding country, large enough for a half a dozen or a dozen States. In my opinion, they ought not to consent to it." * At Niblo's Garden, March, 1837.

Farther on, in the same speech—after alluding to the strong feeling in the Northern States against the extension of Slavery, not only as a question of politics, but of conscience and religious conviction as well-he deems him a rash man indeed "who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised." Said he: "It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with; it may be made willing-I believe it is entirely willing-to fulfill all existing engagements and all existing duties—to uphold and defend the Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it, should this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."

In 1840, General Harrison, the Whig candidate, was elected to the Presidency, but died within a few weeks after his inauguration in 1841, and was succeeded by John Tyler. The latter favored the Slave Power; and on April 12th, 1844, John C. Calhoun, his Secretary of State, concluded with Texas a treaty of annexation-which was, however, rejected by the Senate. Meanwhile the public mind was greatly agitated over the annexation and other questions.* Threats and

*In the London Index, a journal established there by Jefferson Davis's agents to support the cause of the rebellious States, a communication appeared during the early part of the war, Dec. 4, 1861, supposed to have been written by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in which he said: "To tell the Norths, the Butes, the Wedderburns of the present day, that previous to the year 1839 the sovereign States of the South had unalterably resolved — on the specific ground of the violation of the Federal Constitution by the tariff of spoliation which the New England States had imposed upon them -to secede from the Union; to tell them that in that year the leader of the South, Calhoun, urged an English gentleman, to whom he had fully explained the position of the South, and the intolerable tyranny which the North inflicted upon it, to be the bearer of credentials from the chief persons of the South, in order to invite the attention af the British Government to the coming event; that on his death-bed (Washington, March 31, 1850), he called around him his political friends-one of whom is now in England-warned them that in no event could the Union survive the Presidential election of 1860, though it might possibly break up before that;

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