A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

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%364. Scott in Mexico.%--Meantime, General Winfield Scott was sent to
Mexico to assume chief command. He reached the mouth of the Bio Grande
in January, 1847, and called on Taylor to send him 10,000 men. Santa
Anna (sahn'-tah ahn'-nah), who commanded the Mexicans, hearing of this
order, marched at once against Taylor, who took up a strong position at
Buena Vista (bwa'-nah vees'-tah), where a desperate battle was fought
February 23, 1847. The Americans won, and Santa Anna hurried off to
attack Scott, who was expected at Vera Cruz. Scott landed there in
March, and, after a siege of a few days, took the castle and city, and
ten days later began his march westward along the national highway
towards the ancient capital of the Aztecs. It was just 328 years since
Cortez with his little band started from the same point on a precisely
similar errand. At every step of the way the ranks of Scott grew thinner
and thinner. Hundreds perished in battle. Hundreds died by the wayside
of disease more terrible than battle. But Scott would not turn back, and
victory succeeded victory with marvelous rapidity. April 8 he left Vera
Cruz. April 18 he stormed the heights of Cerro Gordo. April 19 he was at
Jalapa (hah-lah'-pah). On the 22d Perote (pa-ro'-ta) fell. May 15 the
city of Puebla (pweb'-lah) was his. There Scott staid till August 7,
when he again pushed westward, and on the 10th saw the city of Mexico.
Then followed in rapid succession the victories of Contreras
(con-tra'-rahs), Churubusco (choo-roo-boos'-ko), Molino del Rey
(mo-lee'-no del ra), the storming of Chapultepec (chah-pool-ta-pek'),
and the triumphal entry into Mexico, September 14, 1847. Never before in
the history of the world had there been made such a march.

[Illustration: %CAMPAIGN OF GEN. SCOTT%]

%365. The "Wilmot Proviso."%--In 1846 the Mexican War was very
hateful to many Northern people, and as a new House of Representatives
was to be elected in the autumn of that year, Polk thought it wise to
end the war if possible, and in August asked for $2,000,000 "for the
settlement of the boundary question with Mexico." This, of course, meant
the purchase of territory from her. But Mexico had abolished slavery in
1827, and lest any territory bought from her should be made slave soil,
David Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved that the money should be granted,
_provided_ all territory bought with it should be free soil. The proviso
passed the House, but not the Senate. Next year (1847) a bill to give
Polk $3,000,000 with which to settle the boundary dispute was
introduced, and again the proviso was attached. But the Senate rejected
it, and the House then gave way, and passed the bill without
the proviso.

%366. Conquest of New Mexico and California.%--While Taylor was
winning victories in northeastern Mexico, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny was
ordered to march into New Mexico. Leaving Fort Leavenworth in June,
1846, he went by the Upper Arkansas River to Bents Fort, thence
southwest through what is now Colorado, and by the old Santa Fe trail to
the Rio Grande valley and Santa Fe (p. 330). After taking the city
without opposition, he declared the whole of New Mexico to be the
property of the United States, and then started to seize California. On
arriving there, he found the conquest completed by the combined forces
of Stockton and Fremont.

%367. The Great American Desert.%--But how came Fremont to be in
California in 1846?

If you look at any school geography published between 1820 and 1850 you
will find that a large part of what is now Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado,
Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Texas is put down as "THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT."
Many believed it was not unlike the Desert of Sahara, and that nobody
would ever want to cross it, while there was so much fertile land to the
eastward. This view made people very indifferent as to our claims to
Oregon, so that when Thomas H. Benton, one of the senators from
Missouri, and one of the far-sighted statesmen of the day, wanted
Congress to seize and hold Oregon by force of arms, he was told that it
was not worth the cost. "Oregon," said one senator, "will never be a
state in the Union." "Build a railroad to Oregon?" said another. "Why,
all the wealth of the Indies would not be sufficient for such a work."

[Illustration: ROUTES OF THE %EARLY EXPLORERS% of the West]

%368. The Santa Fe and Oregon Trails.%--Some explorations you
remember had been made. Lewis and Clark went across the Northwest to the
mouth of the Columbia in 1804-1805, and Zebulon M. Pike had penetrated
in 1806 to the wild mountainous region about the head waters of the
Platte, Arkansas, and Rio Grande and had probably seen the great
mountain that now bears his name. Major Long followed Pike in 1820, gave
his name to Longs Peak, and brought back such a dismal account of the
West that he was largely responsible for the belief in a desert. The
great plains from the sources of the Sabine, Brazos, and Colorado rivers
to the northern boundary Were, he said, "peculiarly adapted as a range
for buffaloes, wild Goats, and other wild game," and "might serve as a
barrier to prevent too great an expansion of our population westward;"
but nobody would think of cultivating the plains. For years after that
the American Fur Trading Company of St. Louis had annually sent forth
its caravans into Oregon and New Mexico. Because the way was beset by
hostile Indians, these caravans were protected by large and strongly
armed bands, and in time wore out well-beaten tracks across the prairies
and over the mountain passes, which came to be known on the frontier as
the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. In 1832 Captain Bonneville[1] took a
wagon train over the Rocky Mountain divide into the Green River Valley,
and Nathaniel J. Wyeth led a party from New England to the Oregon
country, and in 1834 established Fort Hall in what is now Idaho. Still
later in the thirties went Marcus Whitman and his party.

[Footnote 1: Bead his adventures as told by Washington Irving.]

%369. %Explorations of Fremont.%--By this time it was clear that the
tide of westward emigration would soon set in strongly towards Oregon.
Then at last Benton succeeded in persuading Congress to order an
exploration of the far West, and in 1842 Lieutenant Fremont was sent to
see if the South Pass of the rocky Mountains, the usual crossing place,
would best accommodate the coming emigration. He set out from Kansas
City (then a frontier hamlet, now a prosperous city) with Kit Carson, a
famous hunter, for guide, and following the wagon trails of those who
had gone before him, made his way to the pass. He found its ascent so
gradual that his party hardly knew when they reached the summit. Passing
through it to the valley beyond, he climbed the great peak which now
bears his name and stands 13,570 feet above the sea.

Though Fremont discovered no new route, he did much to dispel the
popular idea created by Long that the plains were barren, and the
American Desert began to shrink. In 1843 Fremont was sent out again.
Making his way westward through the South Pass, where his work ended in
1842, he turned southward to visit Great Salt Lake, and then pushed on
to Walla Walla on the Columbia River (see map on p. 330). Thence he went
on to the Dalles, and then by boat to Fort Vancouver, and then, after
returning to the Dalles, southward to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento
valley, and so back to the States in 1844.

In 1845 Fremont, who had now won the name of "Pathfinder," was sent out
a third time, and crossing what are now Nebraska and Utah, reached the
vicinity of Monterey in California. The Mexican authorities ordered him
out of the country. But he spent the winter in the mountains, and in the
spring was on his way to Oregon, when a messenger from Washington
overtook him, and he returned to Sutter's Fort.

%370. The Bear State Republic.%--This was in June, 1846. Rumors of
war between Mexico and the United States were then flying thick and
fast, and the American settlers in California, fearing they would be
attacked, revolted, and raising a flag on which an image of a grizzly
bear was colored in red paint, proclaimed California an independent
republic. These Bear State republicans were protected and aided by
Fremont and Commodore Stockton, who was on the California coast with a
fleet, and together they held California till Kearny arrived.

[Illustration: %TERRITORY CEDED BY MEXICO 1818 and 1853%]

%371. Terms of Peace.%--Thus when the time came to make peace, our
armies were in military possession of vast stretches of Mexican
territory which Polk refused to give up. Mexico, of course, was forced
to yield, and in February, 1848, at a little place near the city of
Mexico, called Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty was signed by which Mexico
gave up the land and received in return $15,000,000. The United States
was also to pay claims our citizens had against Mexico to the amount of
$3,500,000. This added 522,568 square miles to the public domain.[1]

[Footnote 1: This new territory included not only the present California
and New Mexico, but also Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Colorado
and Wyoming.]

%372. The Gadsden Purchase.%--When the attempt was made to run the
boundary line from the Rio Grande to the Gila River, so many
difficulties occurred that in 1853 a new treaty was made with Mexico,
and the present boundary established from the Rio Grande to the Gulf of
California. The line then agreed on was far south of the Gila River, and
for this new tract of land, 45,535 square miles, the United States paid
Mexico $10,000,000. It is generally called the Gadsden Purchase, after
James Gadsden, who negotiated it.

Much of this territory acquired in 1848, especially New Mexico and
California, had long been settled by the Spaniards. But the acquisition
of it by the United States at once put an end to the old Mexican
government, and made it necessary for Congress to provide new
governments. There must be American governors, American courts, American
judges, customhouses, revenue laws; in a word, there must be a complete
change from the Mexican way of governing to the American way. To do this
ought not to have been a hard thing; but Mexico had abolished slavery in
all this territory in 1827. It was free soil, and such the
anti-extension-of-slavery people of the North insisted on keeping it.
The proslavery people of the South, on the other hand, insisted that it
should be open to slavery, and that any slaveholder should be allowed to
emigrate to the new territory with his slaves and not have them set
free. The political question of the time thus became, Shall, or shall
not, slavery exist in New Mexico and California?

%373. The Free-soil Party.%--As a President to succeed Polk was to be
elected in 1848, the two great parties did their best to keep the
troublesome question of slavery out of politics. When the Whig
convention met, it positively refused to make a platform, and nominated
General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, and Millard Fillmore of New York,
without a statement of party principles.

When the Democratic convention met, it made a long platform, but said
nothing about slavery in the territories, and nominated Lewis Cass of
Michigan and William O. Butler.

This refusal of the two parties to take a stand on the question of the
hour so displeased many Whigs and Wilmot-Proviso Democrats that they
held a convention at Buffalo, where the old Liberty party joined them,
and together they formed the "Free-soil party." They nominated Martin
Van Buren and Charles F. Adams, and in their platform made four
important declarations:

1. That Congress has no more power to make a slave, than to make a king.

2. That there must be "free soil for a free people."

3. "No more slave states, no more slave territories."

4. That we will inscribe on our banners "Free soil, free speech, free
labor, and free men."

They also asked for cheaper postage, and for free grants of land to
actual settlers.

The Whigs won the election.

%374. Zachary Taylor, Twelfth President.%--Taylor and Fillmore were
inaugurated on March 5,1849, because the 4th came on Sunday. Their
election and the triumph of the Whigs now brought on a crisis in the
question of slavery extension.

[Illustration: %Zachary Taylor%]

%375. State of Feeling in the South.%--Southern men, both Whigs and
Democrats, were convinced that an attempt would be made by Northern and
Western men opposed to the extension of slavery to keep the new
territory free soil. Efforts were at once made to prevent this. At a
meeting of Southern members of Congress, an address written by Calhoun
was adopted and signed, and published all over the country. It

1. Complained of the difficulty of capturing slaves when they escaped to
the free states.

2. Complained of the constant agitation of the slavery question by the
abolitionists.

3. And demanded that the territories should be open to slavery.

A little later, in 1849, the legislature of Virginia adopted resolutions
setting forth:

1. That "the attempt to enforce the Wilmot Proviso" would rouse the
people of Virginia to "determined resistance at all hazards and to the
last extremity."

2. That the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia
would be a direct attack on the institutions of the Southern States.

The Missouri legislature protested against the principle of the Wilmot
Proviso, and instructed her senators and representatives to vote with
the slaveholding states. The Tennessee Democratic State Central
Committee, in an address, declared that the encroachments of their
Northern brethren had reached a point where forbearance ceased to be a
virtue. At a dinner to Senator Butler, in South Carolina, one of the
toasts was "A Southern Confederacy."

%376. State of Feeling in the North.%--Feeling in the free states ran
quite as high.

1. The legislatures of every one of them, except Iowa,[1] resolved that
Congress had power and was in duty bound to prohibit slavery in the
territories.

[Footnote 1: Iowa had been admitted December 28, 1846.]

2. Many of them bade their congressmen do everything possible to abolish
slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

The struggle thus coming to an issue in the summer of 1849 was
precipitated by a most unlooked-for discovery in California, which led
the people of that region to take matters into their own hands.

%377. Discovery of Gold in California.%--One day in the month of
January, 1848, while a man named Marshall was constructing a mill race
in the valley of the American River in California, for a Swiss immigrant
named Sutter, he saw particles of some yellow substance shining in the
mud. Picking up a few, he examined them, and thinking they might be
gold, he gathered some more and set off for Sutter's Fort, where the
city of Sacramento now stands.

[Illustration: %Sutter's mill%]

As soon as he had reached the fort and found Mr. Sutter, the two locked
themselves in a room and examined the yellow flakes Marshall had
brought. They were gold! But to keep the secret was impossible. A Mormon
laborer, watching their excited actions at the mill race, discerned the
secret, and then the news spread fast, and the whole population went
wild. Every kind of business stopped. The stores were shut. Sailors left
the ships. Soldiers defiantly left their barracks, and by the middle of
the summer men came rushing to the gold fields from every part of the
Pacific coast. Later in the year reports reached the East, but so slowly
did news travel in those days that it was not till Polk in his annual
message confirmed it, that people really believed there were gold fields
in California. Then the rush from the East began. Some went overland,
some crossed by the Isthmus of Panama, some went around South America,
filling California with a population of strong, adventurous, and daring
men. These were the "forty-niners."

[Illustration: %San Francisco in 1847%]

%378. The Californians make a Free-State Constitution.%--When Taylor
heard that gold hunters were hurrying to California from all parts of
the world, he was very anxious to have some permanent government in
California; and encouraged by him the pioneers, the "forty-niners," made
a free-state constitution in 1849 and applied for admission into
the Union.[1]

[Footnote 1: For an account of this movement to make California a state,
see Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 111-116.]

%379. Clay proposes a Compromise.%--When Congress met in 1849 there
were therefore a great many things connected with slavery to be settled:

1. Southern men complained that the existing fugitive-slave law was not
enforced in the free states and that runaway slaves were not returned.

2. The Northern men insisted that slavery should be abolished in the
District of Columbia.

3. Southern men demanded the right to go into any territory of the
United States, as New Mexico or Utah or even California, and take their
slaves with them.

4. The Free-soilers demanded that there should be no more slave states,
no more slave territories.

5. The North wanted California admitted as a free-soil state. The South
would not consent.

So violent and bitter was the feeling aroused by these questions, that
it seemed in 1850 as if the Union was about to be broken up, and that
there were to be two republics,--a Northern one made up of free states,
and a Southern one made up of slave states.

Happily this was not to be; for at this crisis Henry Clay, the
"Compromiser," the "Pacificator," the "Peacemaker," as he was fondly
called, came forward with a plan of settlement.

To please the North, he proposed, first, that California should be
admitted as a free state; second, that the slave trade--that is, the
buying and selling of slaves--should be abolished in the District of
Columbia. To please the South, he proposed, third, that there should be
a new and very stringent fugitive-slave law; fourth, that New Mexico and
Utah should be made territories without reference to slavery--that is,
the people should make them free or slave, as they pleased. This was
called "popular sovereignty" or "squatter sovereignty." Fifth, that as
Texas claimed so much of New Mexico as was east of the Rio Grande, she
should give up her claim and be paid money for so doing.

%380. Clay, Calhoun, Seward, and Webster on the Compromise.%--The
debate on the compromise was a great one. Clay's defense of his plan was
one of the finest speeches he ever made.[1] Calhoun, who was too feeble
to speak, had his argument read by another senator. Webster, on the "7th
of March," made the famous speech which still bears that name. In it he
denounced the abolitionists and defended the compromise, because, he
said, slavery could not exist in such an arid country as New Mexico.
William H. Seward of New York spoke for the Free-soilers and denounced
all compromise, and declared that the territories were free not only by
the Constitution, but by a "higher law" than the Constitution, the law
of justice and humanity.[2]

[Footnote 1: Henry Clay's _Works_, Vol. II., pp. 602-634.]

[Footnote 2: Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. II., pp. 123-219, for
the speeches of Calhoun, Webster, and Clay.]

After these great speeches were made, Clay's plan was sent to a
committee of thirteen, from which came seven recommendations:

1. The consideration of the admission of any new state or states formed
out of Texas to be postponed till they present themselves for admission.

2. California to be admitted as a free state.

3. Territorial governments without the Wilmot Proviso to be established
in New Mexico and Utah.

4. The combination of No. 2 and No. 3 in one bill.

5. The establishment of the present northern and western boundary of
Texas. In return for ceding her claims to New Mexico, Texas to receive
$10,000,000. This last provision to be inserted in the bill provided
for in No. 4.

6. A new and stringent fugitive-slave law.

7. Abolition of the slave trade, but not of slavery, in the District of
Columbia.

Three bills to carry out these recommendations were presented:

1. The first bill provided for (a) the admission of California as a free
state; (b) territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah without any
_restriction_ on slavery; (c) the present northern and western boundary
for Texas, with a gift of money. President Taylor nicknamed this "the
Omnibus Bill," because of its many provisions.

2. The second bill prohibited the slave trade, but not slavery, in the
District of Columbia.

3. The third provided for the capture and delivery of fugitive-slaves.

During three months these bills were hotly debated, and threats of
disunion and violence were made openly.

%381. Death of Taylor; Fillmore becomes President.%--In the midst of
the debate, July 9, 1850, Taylor died, and Fillmore was sworn into
office. Calhoun had died in March. Webster was made Secretary of State
by Fillmore. In some respects these changes helped on the measures, all
of which were carried through. Two of them were of great importance.

[Illustration: Millard Fillmore]

%382. Popular Sovereignty.%--The first provided that the two new
territories, New Mexico and Utah, when fit to be admitted as states,
should come in with or without slavery as their constitutions might
determine; meantime, the question whether slavery could or could not
exist there, if it arose, was to be settled by the Supreme Court.

%383. The Fugitive-Slave Law.%--The other important measure of the
compromise was the fugitive-slave law. The old fugitive-slave law
enacted in 1793 had depended for its execution on state judges. This new
law of 1850

1. Gave United States commissioners power to turn over a colored man or
woman to anybody who claimed the negro as an escaped slave.

2. Provided that the negro could not give testimony.

3. "Commanded" all good citizens, when summoned, to aid in the capture
of the slave, or, if necessary, in his delivery to his owners.

4. Prescribed fine and imprisonment for anybody who harbored a fugitive
slave or prevented his recapture.

[Illustration: %Results of the COMPROMISE of 1850%]

No sooner was this law enacted than the slave owners began to use it,
and during the autumn of 1850 a host of "slave catchers" and "man
hunters," as they were called, invaded the North, and negroes who had
escaped twenty or thirty years before were hunted up and dragged back to
slavery by the marshals of the United States. This so excited the free
negroes and the people of the North, that several times during 1851 they
rose and rescued a slave from his captors. In New York a slave named
Hamet, in Boston one named Shadrach, in Syracuse one named Jerry, and at
Ottawa, Illinois, one named Jim, regained their liberty in this way. So
strong was public feeling that Vermont in 1850 passed a "Personal
Liberty Law," for the protection of negroes claimed as slaves.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the Compromise of 1850 read Rhodes's _History of the
United States_, Vol. I., pp. 104-189; Schurz's _Life of Clay_, Vol. II.,
Chap. 26. Do not fail to read the speeches of Calhoun, Clay, Webster,
Seward; also Lodge's _Life of Webster_, pp. 264-332. For the rescue
cases read Wilson's _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_,
Chap. 26.]

The North was now becoming strongly antislavery. It had long been
opposed to the extension of slavery, but was now becoming opposed to its
very existence. How deep this feeling was, became apparent in the summer
of 1852, when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her story of _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_. It was not so much a picture of what slavery was, as of
what it might be, and was so powerfully written that it stirred and
aroused thousands of people in the North who, till then, had been quite
indifferent. In a few months everybody was laughing and crying over
"Topsy" and "Eva" and "Uncle Tom"; and of those who read it great
numbers became abolitionists.

SUMMARY

1. The Mexican state of Texas revolts and in 1837 becomes independent.

2. President Tyler secretly negotiates a treaty for the annexation of
Texas to the United States, but this is defeated (1844).

3. The labors of Elijah White and others lead to the rapid settlement of
the Oregon country.

4. The annexation of Texas and the occupation of the whole of Oregon
become questions in the campaign of 1844. The Democrats carry the
election, Texas is annexed, and the Oregon country is divided between
Great Britain and the United States.

5. The question of the boundary of Texas brings on the Mexican War, and
in 1848 another vast stretch of country is acquired.

6. The acquisition of this new territory, which was free soil, causes a
struggle for the introduction of slavery into it.

7. The refusal of the Whigs and Democrats to take issue on slavery in
the territories leads to the formation of the Free-soil party.

8. The discovery of gold in California, the rush of people thither, and
the formation of a free state seeking admission into the Union force the
question of slavery on Congress.

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