care of the insane within their limits; the establishment of steam mails on the Pacific ocean; and the opening of political and commercial relations with Japan.

Mr. Seward addressed himself to the accomplishment of these important objects with his accustomed diligence and zeal. He introduced early in the session a bill for the construction of a railroad to the Pacific; and another for the establishment of steam mails between San Francisco and the Sandwich Islands, Japan, and China. The times seemed favorable for such legislation. The public treasury was overflowing. The slavery agitation apparently had died away both in congress and throughout the country. This calm, however, was doomed to a sudden interruption. The prospect of such extended beneficent legislation was destroyed by the introduction of a measure which at once supplanted all other subjects in congress and in the political interest of the people. This was the novel and astounding proposal of Mr. Douglas, in relation to the Kansas and Nebraska territories. The country saw with regret and mortification the homestead bill transformed into one of mere graduation of the prices of the public lands. The bills for the improvement of the army and navy, and the bill for regulating the transportation of immigrants, were dropped before coming to maturity. The bill for a grant of land to the states in aid of the insane was defeated in the senate for the want of a constitutional majority, after having been vetoed by the president. The bill for establishing the Pacific railroad was lost for want of time to debate it; and the bill for opening steam communication with the East, after passing the senate, failed in the house for want of consideration. Everything gave way to the renewed agitation of the slavery question-an agitation precipitated on an astounded nation by southern influence, yet for which the north has been held accountable ever since, by orators and presses devoted to slave predominance in public affairs, with a persistency that could be called adroit if it were not so obviously false.

The administration had a majority of nearly two to one in both houses; and the opponents of introducing slavery into the free territories constituted less than one-fifth of the senate, and were in a decided minority in the house.'

1 At the beginning of the session the house was classified, politically, democrats 159, whigs 71, freesoilers 4: the senate, democrats 36, whigs 20, freesoilers 2.

The measure, already alluded to, which produced this sudden derangement in congress, was a provision in the bill for the organization of a territory in Nebraska, declaring that the states which might at any future time be formed in the new territory should leave the question of slavery to be decided by the inhabitants thereof on the adoption of their constitution. This provision was, as explained by the bill itself, the application of the compromise policy of 1850 to Nebraska, and, as was evident, virtually repealed the Missouri compromise of 1820, which guarantied that slavery should be forever excluded from the territory in question.

But, in order to bring the supporters of the bill and its opponents to a more decided test, an amendment was moved expressly annulling that portion of the Missouri compromise which related to the subject. Mr. Douglas, after some deliberation, accepted the amendment, and modified his plan so far as to introduce a new bill for the organiza tion of Nebraska and Kansas within the same limits, instead of the territory of Nebraska alone, according to the original programme.

The administration lost no time in adopting this policy as their own. It was at first proposed to hasten the passage of the bill through both houses so rapidly as to prevent any remonstrance on the part of the people. But the opponents of the measure, including Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Truman Smith, Mr. Wade, Mr. Everett, Mr. Bell, Mr. Houston and Mr. Fessenden combined against it such an earnest and effective resistance that the attention of the country was aroused, and an indignant protest called forth from the people of the free states. The bill, however, passed the senate on the 4th day of March, 1854, after a discussion which had occupied nearly every day of the session since the 23d of January.'

Of the fourteen senators from free states who voted for the bill only three-Messrs Douglas, Gwin, and Thompson of New Jersey -have been reëlected, the others having been succeeded by reliable opponents of the slave power. Of the twelve from free states who voted against it, six have been reëlected, and the places of the others have been filled by republicans, with one exception."

1 The vote stood as follows: Yeas Adams, Atchison, Bayard, Badger, Benjamin, Brodhead, Brown, Butler, Cass, Clay, Dawson, Dixon, Dodge of Iowa, Douglas, Evans, Fitzpatrick, Geyer, Gwin, Hunter, Johnson, Jones of Iowa, Jones of Tennessee, Mason. Morton, Norris, Pettit, Pratt, Rusk, Sebastian, Shields, Slidell, Stuart. Thompson of Kentucky, Thompson of New Jersey, Toucey, Weller, Williams-37: Nays-Bell, Chase, Dodge of Wisconsin, Fessenden, Fish, Foot, Hamlin, Houston, James, Seward, Smith, Sumner, Wade, Walker-14.

2 Mr. Pugh, Democrat, by the vote of a Legislature, elected before the agitation began, succeeded Mr. Chase, Republican, who has in turn been recently chosen to succeed Mr. Pugh.

4

The bill as it passed the senate contained a provision, known as "Clayton's amendment," restricting the right of suffrage in the territories to citizens and those who had declared their intentions to become such.

On the 21st of March, Mr. Richardson of Illinois, in the house, moved to refer the bill, as it came from the senate, to the committee on territories, of which he was the chairman. Mr. Francis b. Cutting of New York, moved that it be sent to the committee of the whole where it could be freely discussed. His motion was carried, after a severe struggle, by a vote of 110 to 95. This was regarded as a triumph of the enemies of the bill and inspired hopes of its ultimate defeat in the house.

On the 22d of May, after a most exciting contest, lasting nearly two months, in committee of the whole, Mr. Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, by an extraordinary, stratagem in parliamentary tactics succeeded in closing the debate and bringing the bill to a vote in the house, where it finally passed, before adjournment, by a vote of 113 to 100.1

As the bill passed the house it differed from the one that came from the senate, chiefly, in being divested of Mr. Clayton's amendment, excluding aliens from voting. It was therefore necessary that it should go back to the senate to be again considered and voted upon. On the 24th of May, two days after it passed the house, the senate, on motion of Mr. Douglas, proceeded to act upon the bill.

Mr. Pearce of Maryland, renewed Mr. Clayton's amendment, but it now received only seven votes-Messrs. Bayard, Bell, Brodhead, Brown, Clayton, Pearce, and Thompson of Kentucky.

The bill was met on its return by Messrs. Seward, Sumner and Chase with a continued and powerful opposition. But it was all to no effect. The bill again passed the senate by a vote of 35 to 13; and amid the firing of cannon and the shouting of its friends, it was sent to the president for his signature, at three o'clock in the morning of May 26, 1854. President Pierce promptly gave it his approval, and the odious measure became the law of the land.

1 Among the Democrats who voted in the minority were Messrs. Banks of Massachusetts, Davis of Rhode Island, Fenton of New York, Grow of Pennsylvania, Jones of New York, Wentworth of Illinois, and several others who have since returned to the democratic party. From the south Messrs Benton of Missouri, Cullom, Etheridge and Taylor of Tennessee, Hunt of Louisiana, Millson of Virginia, Puryear and Rogers of North Carolina, voted against the measures. With these exceptions the bill was supported by the democrats of the north and south and the southern whigs.

Thus was abrogated the Missouri compromise-a law enacted thirty years before with all the solemnity of a compact between the free and the slave states-and a territory as large as the thirteen original states opened to slavery. The act was consummated by the coöperation of the north. Originating with a senator from a free state, it was passed by a congress containing in each branch a majority of members from the free states, and was sanctioned by the approval of a free state president.

The friends of this legislation attempted to defend it on the pretence that it was not an original act, but only declaratory of the true intent and significance of the compromise measures of 1850. For his resistance to those measures, Mr. Seward had been vehemently denounced. But at the very commencement of the Nebraska struggle, the friends of freedom at the north turned their eyes toward him as their devoted champion. He was beset with appeals on all sides to awaken the country to the atrocity of the proposed transac tion. In no quarter were these appeals more urgent than in the city of New York, where his opposition to the compromise of 1850 had been most severely condemned. With his usual sagacity and confidence in the popular impulse, and faithful to his innate sense of personal dignity, he kept aloof from these overtures, and was content with the zealous discharge of his senatorial duties on the floor of congress. A characteristic letter, in reply to an invitation to address a public meeting in the city of New York, in the midst of the excitement, will be found in this volume. He closes his letter with these

words:

"I beg you to be assured that, while declining to go into popular assemblies as an agitator, I shall endeavor to do my duty here, with as many true men as shall be found in a delegation which, if all were firm and united in the maintenance of public right and justice, would be able to control the decision of this question. But the measure of success and effect which shall crown our exertions must depend now, as heretofore, on the fidelity with which the people whom we represent shall adhere to the policy and principles which are the foundation of their own unrivalled prosperity and greatness."

The pledges given in this letter were nobly fulfilled. The first of his speeches on the Nebraska bill was a profound and dispassionate statement of the whole argument against the measure, alike remarkable for compact narrative and logical arrangement. Though

it failed of preventing the accomplishment of the measure in congress, it acted with magnetic power on the people of the free states, arousing them to a spirit of unconquerable resistance to the aggressions of slavery. The conclusion of this speech, as we read it now, seems like the prophecy of inspiration. Its last words were: "There "is a Superior Power that overrules all your actions and all your “refusals to act, and I fondly hope and trust overrules them to the "advancement of the happiness, greatness and glory of our country— "that overrules, I know,' not only all your actions and all your refu "sals to act, but all human events, to the distant but inevitable result "of the equal and universal liberty of all men."

It was a gloomy night for the lovers of freedom when the telegraphic despatches flashed throughout the country, announcing that the ill-omened bill was on its final reading in the senate. Mr. Seward chose that hour of intense excitement to close the debate on his part. The commencement of his speech was solemn and impressive. He reviewed the sophistries which had been offered in defense of the bill with a clearness and power that might almost have arrested its progress even on the verge of enactment. Presenting to the free states the evidences of their ability to procure a repeal of the law, he urged, by conclusive arguments, the importance of such a step, and, at the same time, luminously expounded the methods of excluding slavery from Nebraska, Kansas, and the vast unsettled regions of the west, by aiding and promoting a rapid and systematic emigration into the territories in question. The effect of this speech was cheering in the extreme. It threw a rainbow across the dark cloud that hung over the country. The auspicious omen was accepted; and the faith of the people has since been rewarded by the most gratifying results.'

Besides these two important speeches, Mr. Seward made several other elaborate efforts in the senate during this eventful session. One, on the bill granting lands to the several states for the relief of the indigent insane, is deserving of especial notice. This measure (known as "Miss Dix's bill for the insane") had passed both houses,2 and been returned to the senate by the president with a veto message

1 An Emigrant Aid Society was immediately formed in Washington among members of congress, and others soon sprang up in New England and various parts of the country.

2 In the senate it received 35 votes, with but 12 against it. In the house the yeas were 81, the mays 53.