in which slavery, never very deeply rooted, was extinct or in process of extinction, were arrayed against the states of the South. The admissions to the Union hitherto had been of a slaveholding and non-slaveholding state alternately. Vermont and Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana had mutually offset each other; and in 1817 the slaveholding state of Mississippi was admitted, followed im-mediately in 1818 by non-slaveholding Illinois. Congress in its session of 1818-19 authorized the territory of Alabama, which was rapidly filling with a slaveholding population, to form a constitution without any prohibition of slavery. A similar bill was brought forward for the territory of Missouri, and James Tallmadge of New York moved in the house of representatives to insert a clause prohibiting any further introduction of slaves, and granting freedom to the children of those already there on their attaining the age of 25; and this motion was carried, 87 to 76. A few days later John W. Taylor of New York moved as an amendment to a bill for the organization of Arkansas, that slavery should not hereafter be introduced into any part of the territories of the United States N. of lat. 36° 30'. This was intended as a compromise, but was warmly opposed, a large number both of northern and southern members declaring themselves hostile to any compromise whatever, and the amendment was consequently withdrawn by Mr. Taylor. The slaveholders contended that for congress to prohibit slavery in the territories would be a violation of the constitutional right of the citizen to enjoy his property anywhere within the jurisdiction of the United States. The restrictionists, on the other hand, denied that men could be property under the jurisdiction of the United States, however the case might be under the laws of particular states; and they maintained that the constitutional question was conclusively settled by the action of the congress contemporaneous with the framing of the federal constitution, which in 1787 introduced into the bill for the government of the territory N. W. of the Ohio the proviso that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than in punishment for crime." And in further confirmation of their views, they brought forward the fact that the most distinguished statesman of the South, Thomas Jefferson, had in 1784 introduced and urged with all his influence the passing of a bill in congress prohibiting slavery, not only in all the territory held by the United States, but in all that might be afterward acquired. The debate on this subject was long and excited. The southern orators declared that if the restriction should be persisted in the South would retire and the Union be dissolved. Mr. Cobb of Georgia, looking significantly at Mr. Tallmadge, exclaimed that a fire had been kindled which all the waters of the ocean could not put out, and which only seas of blood could extinguish." Mr. Tallmadge replied with equal

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warmth: "If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be so! If civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it come! My hold on life is probably as frail as that of any man who now hears me; but while that hold lasts, it shall be devoted to the freedom of man. If blood is necessary to extinguish any fire which I have assisted to kindle, while I regret the necessity, I shall not hesitate to contribute my own." The senate refused to concur in the restriction imposed by the house, and consequently the Missouri bill failed for the session of 1818-19. During the recess of congress a strong public agitation against slavery arose in the middle states, and finally spread to New England, both democrats and federalists cooperating in it. An accidental advantage in the controversy, however, was furnished to the South by the erection of Maine into a state with the consent of Massachusetts, thus adding another to the list of free states, and forming a counterpoise to Alabama, which was admitted into the Union early in the session of 1819-'20, an event promptly followed by the admission of Maine. When the legislatures of the free states met in their annual session in 1820, the agitation among the people on the slavery question was forcibly expressed by their representatives. Pennsylvanis led off by a solemn appeal to the states "to refuse to covenant with crime," and by a unan imous declaration that it was the right and the duty of congress to prohibit slavery in the territories. The rest of the middle states also unanimously adopted similar resolutions. Ohio and Indiana took the same position; and though the New England legislatures were silent, numerous memorials from towns, cities, and public meetings in favor of freedom were laid before congress. The legislatures of the slave states expressed themselves, on the other hand, very strongly in opposition to restriction. In congress the debate was long and acrimonious. The senate sent to the house the Missouri bill with the prohibition of slavery in that state struck out, but with the proviso that it should not hereafter be tolerated N. of lat. 36° 30′, The striking out of the restrictive clause was reluctantly assented to by the house by a vote of 90 to 87, a very few northern members vot ing for it. The compromise by which slavery was prohibited for ever N. of 36° 30′ was then agreed to by a vote of 134 to 42. The northern states acquiesced in this compromise as a political necessity, and as finally settling a contro versy dangerous to the peace and stability of the Union, and the slavery agitation subsided for a time. The other great question of Mr. Monroe's administration was the recognition of the Spanish American republics, which had declared and maintained their independence for several years. Chiefly by the efforts and the eloquence of Henry Clay, their independence was acknowledged in 1822; and in the following year the president in his annual message declared that "as a principle the American

continents, by the free and independent position which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power;" a declaration which has since been famous as the "Monroe doctrine."-Mr. Monroe declined being a candidate for a third term, and in the presidential election of 1824 the confused state of parties led to the nomination of four candidates, none of whom had a majority of the electoral votes. Andrew Jackson received 99, John Quincy Adams 84, William H. Crawford 41, and Henry Clay 37. The election went to the house of representatives, where Mr. Adams received the vote of 13 states, and was declared president. John C. Calhoun had been elected vice-president by the electoral colleges. The political views of Mr. Adams did not differ from those of Mr. Monroe, and his foreign and domestic policy was very similar. He appointed Henry Clay secretary of state; Richard Rush, of the treasury; James Barbour, of war; Samuel L. Southard, of the navy; and William Wirt, attorney-general. His administration was remarkable for order, method, and economy, though party spirit, springing from quarrels generated by the election, was higher and more rancorous than it had been for many years. Perhaps the most important event in his term was the adoption of what was called the American system of protecting home manufactures by a heavy duty upon foreign articles of the same kind, a system popular in the manufacturing North, but bitterly opposed in portions of the agricultural South. A tariff law enacted in 1828 on the principle of protection, led a few years later to political complications of a most serious character. The presidential contest of the same year was carried on with great animation and virulence, chiefly by means of discussions on the personal character and history of the candidates, Gen. Jackson having been nominated in opposition to Mr. Adams. The result was the election of Jackson by 178 votes to 83 for Adams, while John C. Calhoun was reelected vice-president in opposition to Richard Rush, who was supported by the friends of Mr. Adams. President Jackson selected for his cabinet Martin Van Buren, secretary of state; Samuel D. Ingham, of the treasury; John H. Eaton, of war; John Branch, of the navy; John McPherson Berrien, attorney-general; and William T. Barry, postmaster-general. The last named officer was now for the first time made a member of the cabinet. In his first annual message, Dec. 1829, the president took strong ground against the renewal of the charter of the United States bank, as an institution not authorized by the constitution. A long and excited contest ensued in congress and among the people on this question, between the friends of the bank and the partisans of the president. Congress in 1832 passed a bill to recharter the bank, but Jackson vetoed it; and as it failed to receive the votes of two thirds of the members of both houses, the bank

charter expired by limitation in 1836. The commercial part of the community in this contest generally took the side of the bank, and the party formed in opposition to the president assumed the name of whig, while his supporters adhered to the old name of democracy. The tariff of 1828 had always been distasteful to the cotton-growing states, and on the passing of an act of congress in the spring of 1832 imposing additional duties upon foreign goods, the discontent of South Carolina broke out in almost actual rebellion. A state convention held there in November declared the tariff' acts unconstitutional and therefore null and void, and proclaimed that any attempt by the general government to collect duties in the port of Charleston would be resisted by force of arms, and would produce the secession of South Carolina from the Union. The chief leaders of the nullifiers, as this South Carolina party was called, from their assertion of the right of a state to nullify an act of congress which she deemed unconstitutional, were John C. Calhoun, who had recently resigned the vice-presidency and become a senator of the United States; Robert Y. Hayne, also a senator; and George McDuffie, governor of the state. To support their position they made considerable military preparations, and for a time civil war between South Carolina and the federal government seemed inevitable. In this crisis Jackson (who had just been reëlected for a second term by 219 electoral votes, against a divided opposition which cast 49 votes for Henry Clay, 11 for John Floyd, and 7-for William Wirt, Mr. Van Buren being at the same time chosen vice-president) acted with the promptness and energy which always marked his career. All the disposable army was ordered to assemble at Charleston under Gen. Scott, and a ship of war was sent to that port to insure the collection of duties. A proclamation was issued, Dec. 10, 1832, denying the right of a state to nullify any act of the federal government, and warning all engaged in fomenting the rebellion that the laws against treason would be enforced at all hazards and to their utmost penalties. The leaders of the nullifiers were also privately given to understand that if they committed any overt act they should surely be hanged. The firmness of the president, who in this conjuncture was warmly supported by the great mass of the nation of all parties, gave an effectual check to the incipient rebellion, and the affair was finally settled by a proposition brought forward in congress by Henry Clay, the leading champion of the protective system, for the modification of the tariff by a gradual reduction of the obnoxious duties-a compromise which was accepted by the nullifiers as the only means of escape from the perilous position in which they had placed themselves. Meanwhile a personal quarrel had led to changes in the cabinet, which in the latter part of 1831 was constituted thus: Edward Livingston, secretary of state; Louis McLane,

of the treasury; Lewis Cass, of war; Levi Woodbury, of the navy; and Roger B. Taney, attorney-general. In his annual message in Dec. 1832, the president recommended the removal of the public funds from the bank of the United States, where they were by law deposited. Congress by a decisive vote refused to authorize the removal, and the president on his own responsibility directed the secretary of the treasury to withdraw the deposits and place them in certain state banks. Mr. McLane declined to do so without better reasons than were apparent, and was transferred to the state department, which had become vacant by the appointment of Mr. Livingston as minister to France. William J. Duane, who succeeded Mr. McLane in the treasury department, was as unmanageable as his predecessor, and was finally removed, and Roger B. Taney, the attorney-general, appointed in his place, Benjamin F. Butler succeeding to the attorneygeneralship. Mr. Taney at once removed the deposits to the local banks selected as agents of the government. This and other steps indicating a settled hostility to the bank were attended by a financial panic, and great commercial distress immediately ensued. Intense excitement prevailed throughout the country, and considerable numbers who had hitherto supported Jackson in all his measures went over to his opponents. The opposition in the senate, headed by Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, denounced him with great power and severity, and a resolution censuring his policy was adopted by a vote of 26 to 20. This was expunged from the journal, March 28, 1837, on motion of Mr. Benton, by a vote of 24 to 19. The house of representatives, however, sustained the president. The foreign diplomacy of President Jackson was very successful. Use ful commercial treaties were made with several countries, and indemnities for spoliations on American commerce were obtained from France, Spain, Naples, and Portugal. At home the principal events of his administration, beside those already mentioned, were the extinction of the national debt, the beginning of the war with the Seminole Indians in Florida, and the admission of Michigan and Arkansas into the Union in 1836. At the end of his second term, March 4, 1837, Jackson retired from public life with a reputation, which, at first confined to his own party, has gradually become universal, inferior to that of no American president for energy, patriotism, and practical sagacity. In the presidential contest of 1836 Mr. Van Buren was supported by the democrats, while the opposition or whig vote was divided between William Henry Harrison, Judge White, Daniel Webster, and Willie P. Mangum, the greater part of it being given to Gen. Harri

son.

The result was the election of Mr. Van Buren by 170 electoral votes, against 124 for all the other candidates. Richard M. Johnson was elected vice-president by the senate, in opposition to Francis Granger, John Tyler, and Wil

liam Smith. President Van Buren selected as his cabinet, John Forsyth, secretary of state; Levi Woodbury, of the treasury; Joel R. Poinsett, of war; Mahlon Dickerson, of the navy; B. F. Butler, attorney-general; and Amos Kendall, postmaster-general; all of whom except Mr. Poinsett had been members of President Jackson's cabinet at the close of his last term. The

new administration commenced under most untoward circumstances, the business of the country, affected by excessive speculation and overtrading, and by sudden contractions and expansions of the currency, being on the verge of almost utter ruin. Within two months after the inauguration of the president the mercantile failures in the city of New York alone amounted to more than $100,000,000. Nearly the whole of Mr. Van Buren's term was occupied by attempts to remedy these evils by legislative measures for the establishment of a stable currency, and a sound system of govern ment finance. A favorite measure of the president was the independent treasury system for the custody of the public funds, which ultimately was sanctioned by congress, and is still in force. The war with the Seminoles was continued through the whole of Mr. Van Buren's term, and in fact was not ended till 1842, after it had cost the United States nearly $40,000,000. In June, 1838, Mr. Dickerson resigned the secretaryship of the navy, and James K. Paulding was appointed in his place. In the same year B. F. Butler resigned as attorneygeneral, and Felix Grundy was appointed, who in the following year was succeeded by Henry D. Gilpin. John M. Niles succeeded Amos Kendall as postmaster-general in May, 1840. The pecuniary troubles of the country were imputed in great measure to the financial policy of the administration by its political opponents; and as the presidential election of 1840 approached, the state elections indicated that Mr. Van Buren had not inherited all the popularity of his immediate predecessor, and that the power of the democratic party was in imminent danger of at least a temporary overthrow. A whig national convention (the congressional caucus system for nominating candidates having been abandoned) was held at Harrisburg, Dec. 4, 1839, and after several ballotings Gen. Harrison was nominated as a candidate for president, with John Tyler for vice-presi dent. The national democratic convention met at Baltimore, May 5, 1840, and unanimously nominated Mr. Van Buren. The canvass was one of the most animated and exciting that has ever taken place, and the result was that Harrison and Tyler each received 234 electoral votes, and Van Buren 60, while the same num ber were divided between R. M. Johnson, L W. Tazewell, and James K. Polk as democratic candidates for the vice-presidency.-Gen. Har rison was inaugurated March 4, 1841, and selected as his cabinet Daniel Webster, secretary of state; Thomas Ewing, of the treasury; John Bell, of war; George E. Badger, of the navy;

Francis Granger, postmaster-general; and J. J. Crittenden, attorney-general. Before, however, any distinctive line of policy could be adopted by the new administration, the president died, April 4, just one month after his inauguration. The presidential office devolved on John Tyler, who retained the cabinet of his predecessor until the following September, when all but the secretary of state resigned in consequence of the unexpected development of a policy on the part of the president in relation to a national bank much more in accordance with the views of the democratic party, to which he had formerly been attached, than to those of the whigs, by whom he had been elevated to power. He repeatedly vetoed acts of congress chartering a national bank or fiscal agent, and was consequently vehemently denounced by the whigs as having betrayed the trust they had put in him. The places or the retiring members of the cabinet were filled by Walter Forward, appointed secretary of the treasury; John C. Spencer, of war; Abel P. Upshur, of the navy; Charles A. Wickliffe, postmaster-general; and Hugh S. Legaré, attorney-general. Mr. Webster continued to hold the office of secretary of state for the purpose of conducting negotiations with Great Britain on the subject of the north-western boundary, which was finally settled by a treaty concluded between him and Lord Ashburton, and ratified by the senate Aug. 20, 1842. In May, 1843, Mr. Webster resigned, and Mr. Legaré, the attorney-general, was made acting secretary of state, but died in the following June. Mr. Upshur was then transferred from the navy department to that of state, and Mr. Thomas W. Gilmer was made secretary of the navy; but both those gentlemen were killed, Feb. 28, 1844, by the bursting of a gun on board the U. S. war steamer Princeton, and John C. Calhoun was made secretary of state, and John Y. Mason of the navy. On April 12, 1844, a treaty to annex Texas to the United States was concluded by Mr. Calhoun and the agents of the new republic, but was rejected by the senate, on the ground that it would involve the country in a war with Mexico. The Texas question, however, immediately became the prominent issue in the presidential contest of that year, the democratic party supporting and the whigs opposing annexation. At the South it was advocated as a means of strengthening the slavery interest, and at the North it was in great part opposed for the same reason, the anti-slavery element in both the parties being at this period of considerable strength. The friends of Texas soon obtained control of the democratic party, and at the national convention of that party at Baltimore, May 27, 1844, Mr. Van Buren, who had expressed himself unconditionally opposed to annexation, was rejected as a candidate for the presidency, and James K. Polk, formerly governor of Tennessee and speaker of the U. S. house of representatives, was nominated, with George M. Dal

las as candidate for vice-president. The whig national convention, which met at Baltimore, May 1, had already nominated for president Henry Clay, and for vice-president Theodore Frelinghuysen. The result of the election was 170 electoral votes for Polk and Dallas, and 105 for the whig candidates. The management of the Texas question was now assumed by congress, and joint resolutions for annexing that country to the United States as one of the states of the Union passed the house of representatives Jan. 25, 1845, by a vote of 120 to 98, and the senate March 1, by a vote of 27 to 25. They were immediately signed by President Tyler, whose last important official act was to sign two days later the bill admitting Florida and Iowa into the Union.-President Polk appointed as his cabinet James Buchanan, secretary of state; Robert J. Walker, of the treasury; William L. Marcy, of war; George Bancroft, of the navy; Cave Johnson, postmaster-general; and John Y. Mason, attorneygeneral. At the beginning of his administration the president found the country involved in disputes with Mexico, growing out of the annexation of Texas to the United States. Gen. Zachary Taylor was sent with a small army to occupy the region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, which the United States claimed as belonging to Texas, while the Mexicans maintained that Texas had never extended beyond the Nueces. In April, 1846, a slight collision occurred on the Rio Grande between Gen. Taylor's army and that of the Mexican commander, Gen. Arista. When the news reached Washington, the president, on May 11, sent a special message to congress declaring that "war existed by the act of Mexico," and asking for men and money to carry it on. Congress, by a vote of 142 to 14 in the house, and of 40 to 2 in the senate, promptly appropriated $10,000,000, and gave authority to call out 50,000 volunteers. Taylor meanwhile had defeated the Mexicans at Palo Alto, May 8, and at Resaca de la Palma, May 9, and subsequently on being reenforced continued the war by brilliant victories at Monterey in September, and at Buena Vista, Feb. 22, 1847. (See TAYLOR, ZACHARY.) The conduct of the war, which had so far been intrusted to Gen. Taylor, was now assumed by Gen. Scott, commanding in chief. The American forces, naval and military, were concentrated in the gulf of Mexico, and on March 9, 1847, Scott landed near Vera Cruz with about 12,000 men. That city was immediately besieged, and surrendered March 29. Gen. Scott soon began his march toward the city of Mexico, which he entered triumphantly Sept. 14, after a series of hard-fought and uniformly successful battles. (See SCOTT, WINFIELD.) Meanwhile Gen. Stephen W. Kearny, at the head of a small force, had marched from Fort Leavenworth over the great plains to Santa Fé, and conquered New Mexico in Aug. 1846. He instituted an American government over the province, and then resumed his march toward California, which

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however had already been conquered by Col. Fremont and Commodore Stockton. On his arrival at Monterey, Gen. Kearny assumed the office of governor, and on Feb. 8, 1847, proclaimed the annexation of California to the United States. While Kearny was on his way to California, Col. Doniphan, at the head of 1,000 Missouri volunteers, had performed a prodigious march across the plains, and taken the city of Chihuahua, after routing, Feb. 28, 4,000 Mexicans, who met him about 18 miles from the city. Gen. Scott's army occupied the Mexican capital until after the ratification of a treaty of peace which was negotiated at Guadalupe Hidalgo, Feb. 2, 1848, by Nicholas P. Trist on the part of the United States. By this treaty Mexico granted to the United States the line of the Rio Grande as a boundary, and also ceded New Mexico and California. On their part the United States agreed to pay Mexico $15,000,000, and to assume the debts due by Mexico to American citizens to an extent not exceeding $3,750,000. At the beginning of the Mexican war negotiations were going on between Great Britain and the United States in relation to Oregon, which the latter had long considered as one of their territories. "The whole of Oregon up to 54° 40′" had been one of the watchwords of the democratic party during the recent presidential canvass, and Mr. Polk in his inaugural address had declared that our title to the country of the Oregon was clear and unquestionable." Great Britain, however, on various pretexts, asserted a claim to the whole country, and the president after much negotiation finally offered as an amicable compromise the boundary of the parallel of 49°, with a modification which gave to her the whole of Vancouver island, which was agreed to by Great Britain. The other important measures of Mr. Polk's administration were the modification of the tariff in 1846, by which its protective features were lessened, and the admission of Wisconsin into the Union as the 30th state, May 29, 1848.-Mr. Polk, in accepting the democratic nomination in 1844, had pledged himself not to be a candidate for reelection; and in the democratic national convention which met at Baltimore in May, 1848, Lewis Cass was nominated for president, and William C. Butler for vice-president. By the whig convention, which met at Philadelphia on June 1, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore were nominated for the same offices. The question of slavery had a powerful influence on the political combinations of this period. After the subsidence of the Missouri agitation in 1821, slavery attracted little attention until the establishment of the "Liberator" newspaper by William Lloyd Garrison at Boston, Jan. 1, 1831, and the formation of anti-slavery societies in the free states in 1832-3 by Arthur Tappan and others. These societies relied exclusively on moral and religious influences to promote emancipation, and avoided political action, affirming that congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the states, though they

petitioned that body to abolish the institution in the territories, in the District of Columbia, and wherever else the federal government had constitutional jurisdiction. They declared that their principles led them "to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage." Their lecturers, newspapers, public meetings, and petitions to congress rapidly made converts, and created great excitement throughout the country. Violent attempts were made in 1834 and subsequent years, by the opponents of emancipation, to suppress this agitation; and serious riots, attended in some instances by loss of life and destruction of property, took place in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Alton, and other northern cities. In the South the legislatures of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and some other states passed resolutions calling upon the northern states to suppress the agitation by penal enactments prohibiting the printing of anti-slavery publications. President Jackson, in his annual message of Dec. 1835, recommended to congress to pass a law prohibiting the circulation through the mail of anti-slavery publications; and a bill framed in accordance with this suggestion reached a third reading in the senate in 1836, but was finally rejected. In the house a rule was adopted in the same year, "that all petitions, memorials, resolutions, and propositions relating in any way or to any extent whatever to the subject of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid on the table, and no further action whatever shall be had thereon." This rule, which was repeatedly rescinded and reenacted, led to long and excited debates on the right of petition, in which ex-president John Quincy Adams, then a representative from Massachusetts, was conspicuous in defence of that right; and the rule was finally rescinded in Dec. 1845. In 1840 a disagreement among the abolitionists led to their separation into two divisions, one of which, under the lead of Mr. Garrison, in 1844 took the position that the compromises of the constitution on the subject of slavery were immoral, and that consequently it was sinful to swear to support that instrument or to hold office or vote under it, and that the union of the states was " an agreement with hell and a covenant with death," which ought to be at once dissolved. This body, though conspicuous by the zeal, energy, and eloquence of Mr. Garrison, Mr. Wendell Phillips, and a few others of its leaders, has had-from the scantiness of its numbers, amounting to only a few hundreds, its abstinence from political action, and the unpopularity of its opinions, not only respecting the Union and the constitution, but upon woman's rights, the condition of the churches, and other questions-little or no direct influence on public affairs. The other and far more numerous division of the abolitionists, with whom the followers of Mr. Garrison were often erroneously confounded, adhered