CHAPTER XII.

THE PREPARATION FOR WAR.

The Politics of 1853. - Franklin Pierce, President. - The "Kansas and Nebraska Bill." - The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Sumner foresees the "Beginning of the End.” —A Convention of the Free-soil Party. - The Republican Party. - Workings of the Fugitive-slave Act. - Arrest of Anthony Burns. - A Famous Meeting. Indictments found against Phillips, Parker, and Others. The Result.-A Petition for the Removal of "Slave Commissioner" Loring. - Mr. Phillips's Argument. "The Crime against Kansas."- Assault on Charles Sumner. — Election of James Buchanan. — The Signs of the Times.-The John Brown Raid. · Mr. Phillips's Eulogy.· His Lecture in Brooklyn. Mr. Slack's Recollections. - Riotous Feeling in New York and Elsewhere. Anniversary Meeting in Boston. - A Riot prevented.

"Insurrection of thought always precedes the insurrection of arms."

"God gives us knowledge, keeps for us the weapon: all we need ask for is courage to use it."

"You and I are never to see peace, we are never to see the possibility of putting the army of this nation, whether it be made up of nineteen or thirty-four States, on a peace-footing, until slavery is destroyed."

"A civil war can hardly be any thing but a political war. That is, all civil wars are a struggle between opposite ideas, and armies are but the tools."-PHILLIPS.

RANKLIN PIERCE took the oath of office on

FRAN

the 4th of March, 1853. Thoroughly incapable of comprehending the past history of his country, it was not strange that his dull or diseased brain should fail

to forecast even the near or immediate future. The most remarkable event in the progress of the antislavery conflict happened during his administration. But for this event, which will ever perpetuate his name, President Pierce would long ago have faded out of remembrance.

In December, 1853, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois proposed a bill in the United-States Senate, to organize the immense region extending from the confines of Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota to the crest of the Rocky Mountains, and from 36° 30′ north latitude to the British Possessions, into two territories, to be known as Kansas and Nebraska. This bill contained a clause repealing the Missouri Compromise, under the plea that it was "inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the compromise measures of 1850." The people were taken by surprise; for the question, so destructive to national harmony, and which it was hoped had been settled forever, had assumed a new form. The Missouri Compromise had been deemed a sacred compact between the North and South, and, as such, for the third of a century had received the sanction of all parties.

The debates on the bill extended over many weeks. On the 25th of May, 1854, it passed Congress, and, having been signed on the following day by the President, at once became the law of the land.

"It is at once the worst and the best bill [exclaimed Charles Sumner] on which Congress ever acted! It is the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery. . . . It is the best bill, for it prepares the way for that All hail hereafter' when slavery must disappear. Standing at the very grave of freedom in Kansas and Nebraska, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection by which freedom will be secured hereafter, not only in these Territories, but everywhere under the National Government. More clearly than ever before, I now see 'the beginning of the end' of slavery. Proudly I discern the flag of my country, as it ripples in every breeze, at last become, in reality as in name, the flag of freedom, undoubted, pure, and irresistible. Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you are about to enact: joyfully I welcome all the promises of the future."

On the 31st of May a State convention of the Freesoil party was held in Boston, in Faneuil Hall, at which a series of resolutions, denunciatory of the Fugitive-slave Bill and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was passed. "The time has come," it was said, "to forget the past, obliterate the Fugitive-slave Act, and to do what we can to place the country perpetually on the side of freedom."

Shortly afterwards a strong effort was made in the State, to unite the opponents of the repeal of the Missouri prohibition, and to form a political organization that should be untrammelled by slaveholding alliances. On the 20th of July a mass convention of the people at Worcester declared in favor of a new organization, to be called the "Republican" party; and on the 7th

of September the first State convention of the party was held at the same place.

Meanwhile the Fugitive-slave Act was in workingorder. On the 23d of May Charles F. Suttle of Virginia presented to Edward Greeley Loring of Boston, judge of probate, and commissioner, a complaint praying for the seizure and enslavement of Anthony Burns. The warrant was issued; and on the next day Burns was arrested under the false pretext of burglary, and confined in the Suffolk-county court-house. At first the right of counsel was denied to the prisoner; but, at the remonstrance of Theodore Parker and others, counsel were assigned, and the 27th of May was appointed as the day for the hearing.

On the evening of the 26th a great meeting was held at Faneuil Hall. During the morning and afternoon of that day, certain members of the vigilance committee including Parker, Phillips, Higginson, Kemp, Stowell, and Dr. Howe discussed the plan of making a sudden attack on the court-house, and of using the Faneuil-hall crowd to this end. It was voted down, however, three to one. The meeting adjourned about five o'clock, and those gentlemen who were to address the gathering at the hall in the evening were cautioned not to allow the audience to break up for any unprepared attack on the court-house. Between the hour of adjournment and that fixed for the public meeting, certain members of the vigilance committee decided themselves to make the attack.

At the appointed hour Faneuil Hall was filled to overflowing. Samuel G. Howe called the meeting to order; George R. Russell presided; and speeches were made by Parker, Phillips, and others. The suppressed excitement of the audience was intense.

Said Theodore Parker,

But

"I am a clergyman and a man of peace. I love peace. there is a means, and there is an end. Liberty is the end, and sometimes peace is not the means toward it. There are ways of managing this matter [the Burns affair] without shooting anybody. Be sure that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston are cowards, every mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston without shooting a gun, then he won't go back. Now, I am going to propose, that, when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court Square to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. As many as are in favor of that motion will raise their hands.

Many hands were raised; and from the audience arose shouts of, "Let's go to-night. Let's pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House." The question was Revere House to

put, "Do you propose to go to the night? Then, show your hands. It is not a vote. We shall meet at Court Square at nine o'clock to-morrow morning."

At this point in the history, there is a conflict of evidence. It is not possible to determine whether Parker had been informed of the new plan, and waited for the signal agreed upon, but, thinking it was not given, con