and for the most part sympathized with, the men who had fought for the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States.

The only thing that seemed now to imperil the integrity of parties was the anti-slavery movement. This Anti-slavery movement originated just as Jackson came movement. into power, had gathered head slowly, and had as yet little organic influence in politics. But it was steadily gaining a hold upon the minds of individuals and upon certain sections of the country; and it threatened the Democratic strength more than it threatened the Whig, simply because the Union between the Democrats and the South was of longer standing and of greater intimacy than the alliance between the southerners and the Whigs. Moreover, the anti-slavery feeling very early became conspicuous in politics by means of petitions poured in upon Congress praying against the slave-trade and slavery itself in the District of Columbia, and against the slave-trade between the States. The Democrats, under the leadership of the southern members, committed the fatal strategic blunder of refusing to allow these petitions to be read, printed, or referred. This of course gave the Abolitionists an important moral advantage. John Quincy. Adams, too, was now spokesman for them in Congress. He had been sent to the House of Representatives in 1831 by the Anti-Masons, and remained there, an irrepressible champion of his own convictions, until 1848. Immediately after shutting off anti-slavery petitions Congress passed an Act in still further defiance of the antislavery feeling. June 7, 1836, the area of the State of Missouri, and therefore of slavery, was considerably increased to the westward, in direct contravention of the Missouri compromise, by adding to it the territory between its old western frontier and the Missouri.

58. Character of the Jacksonian Period (1829-1841).

Disturbance.

It is not easy to judge justly the political character of this singular period as a whole. That the spoils system Political or- of appointment to office permanently demoralganization. ized our politics, and that the financial policy of Jackson temporarily ruined the business of the country, no one can fail to see; but who can say that these movements of reaction against the older scheme of our national politics were not inevitable at some point in the growth of our restless, raw, and suspicious democracy? Jackson certainly embodied the spirit of the new democratic doctrines. His presidency was a time of riot and of industrial revolt, of brawling turbulence in many quarters, and of disregard for law; and it has been said that the mob took its cue from the example of arbitrary temperament set it by the President. It is, however, more just to see, both in the President himself and in the mobs of his time of power, symptoms of one and the same thing; namely, a great democratic upheaval, the wilful self-assertion of a masterful people, and The will of of a man who was their true representative. the people. The organic popular force in the nation came to full self-consciousness while Jackson was President. Whatever harm it may have done to put this man into the presidency, it did the incalculable good of giving to the national spirit its first self-reliant expression of resolution and of consentaneous power.

III.

*THE SLAVERY QUESTION

Bibliographies.

(1842-1856).

59. References.

- Lalor's Cyclopædia, Alexander Johnston's articles, "Slavery," "Whig Party," ," "Democrat Party," "Annexations," "Wilmot Proviso," Wars," Compromises," "Fugitive Slave Laws," "Territories," "Republican Party;" Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vii. pp. 297-310, 323-326, 353-356, 413 ff., 550 ff.; W. E. Foster's References to the History of Presidential Administrations, 26-40; C. K. Adams's Manual of Historical Literature, 566-581, 602 ff. 652-654, 657-659, 663-666.

Historical Maps. Nos. 1, 2, this volume; Epoch Maps, Nos. 8, 11, 12; MacCoun's Historical Geography of the United States, series "National Growth," 1845-1848, 1848-1853, and series "Development of the Commonwealth," 1840, 1850, 1854; Labberton's Historical Atlas, plates lxix., Ixx.; Scribner's Statistical Atlas, plates 15, 16.

General Accounts. - James F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Congress of 1850, i., ii. 1-236; Schouler's History of the United States, iv. pp. 359 ff., v. to p. 370; H. Von Holst's Constitutional History of the United States, ii. 371 ff., iii., iv., v., vi. 96; Carl Schurz's Henry Clay, chaps. xxii.-xxvii.; Johnston's American Politics, chaps. xv.-xvii.; J. H. Patton's Concise History of the American People, chaps. 1.-lvii.; Bryant and Gay's Popular History of the United States, iv., chaps. xiii.-xvi.; Ridpath's Popular History of the United States, chaps. lvi.-lix.

Special Histories. Nebel's War between the United States and Mexico; Stanwood's History of Presidential Elections, chaps. xvi.-xix.; Colton's Life and Speeches of Henry Clay; Stephen's Constitutional View of the War between the States; Greeley's American Conflict, i, chaps. xi.-xx.; W. Goodell's Slavery and Antislavery, pp. 143-219, 272 ff.; G. T. Curtis's Life of James Buchanan, i. pp. 458-619, ii. pp. 1-186; Tyler's Lives of the Tylers; F. W. Seward's Seward at Washington, 1846-1861, chaps. i.-xxxviii. ; Hodgson's Cradle of the Confederacy, chaps. x.-xiii.; P. Stovall's Life of Toombs, pp. 1-139; Merriam's Life and Times of Samuel

Bowles, i. pp. 56-178; Olmstead's Cotton Kingdom; Draper's History of the Civil War, i., chaps. xxii-xxv.; E. A. Pollard's Lost Cause, chaps. i.-iv.; T. N. Page's The Old South; Sato's Land Question in the United States (Johns Hopkins University Studies), pp. 61-69; Taussig's Tariff History of the United States, pp. 109-154. Contemporary Accounts. Benton's Thirty Years' View, ii. 209 ff. (to 1850); Sargent's Public Men and Events, ii., chaps. vi.ix. (to 1853); Frederick L. Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, Back Country, and Texas Journey (Condensed reprint as Cotton Kingdom); Clay's Private Correspondence; Webster's Private Correspondence; McCulloch's Men and Measures of Half a Century; G. W. Curtis's Correspondence of J. L. Motley; F. W. Seward's Seward: An Autobiography, chaps. xxxiii. -lxvi.; Chevalier de Bacourt's Souvenirs of a Diplomat (temp. Van Buren, Harrison, and Tyler); Herndon's Life of Lincoln, chaps. ix.-xii.; Thurlow Weed's Autobiography, chaps. xlviii.-lxi.

CHAPTER V.

THE SLAVERY SYSTEM.

60. Conditions favorable to Agitation.

So many and so various were the forces which were operative during the period of Jackson's presidency, and Agitation so much did a single issue, the financial, and change. dominate all others during the administration of Van Buren, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to take accurately the measure of the times, to determine its principal forces, or to separate what is accidental in it from what is permanent and characteristic. During Jackson's eight years everything is changing, both society and politics are undergoing revolution; deep organic processes are in progress; significant atmospheric changes are setting in. The agitation has by no means ceased when Van Buren becomes President, but it manifests itself for the time being almost exclusively in profound

financial disorders, from which there is slow and painful recuperation. It is only after the first stages of the revolutionary ferment of this initial decade of the new democracy are passed that the permanent effects begin to show themselves. Then it is that the old phrases and costumes of our politics disappear, and the stage is cleared for the tragedy of the slavery question.

No one can contemplate the incidents of the presidential campaign of 1840 without becoming aware how much the whole atmosphere of national politics has changed since the old line of Presidents was broken, and a masterful frontiersman, type of a rough and ready democracy, put at the head of affairs. The Whigs, the party of conservative tradition and constructive pur

New campaign methods.

poses in legislation, put General Harrison forward as their candidate because he is a plain

man of the people; they play to the commonalty by means of picturesque processions and hilarious barbecues, proposing the while no policy, but only the resolve to put out the pygmy Van Buren and bring the country back to safe and simple principles of government, such as a great and free people must always desire. They accept the change which Jackson has wrought in the methods of politics.

Parties emerge from the decade 1830-1840, in short, with methods and standards of action radically changed, and with a new internal organization intended to make of them effective machines for controlling multitudes of votes. The franchise has everywhere throughout the country been made practically universal, and the organization of parties must be correspondingly wide and general, their united exertions correspondingly concerted and active. There is a nation to be served, a vast vote to be controlled, a multitude of common men to be attracted. Hosts must be marshalled by a system of discipline.