of the Gulf of California and the Colorado River. The territory acquired by this purchase contained 45,000 square miles—an area about equal to the state of New York.

458. The Martin Koszta Affair-1854.—In this administration the United States won a signal triumph in the field of diplomacy. Martin Koszta had been a prominent leader, along with Louis Kossuth, in the Hungarian rebellion. When the rebellion failed, he came to the United States, and immediately took out preliminary papers, thereby taking the first steps toward becoming a citizen of the United States, and therefore entitled to its protection in any country of the world. In the year 1854 he went to Turkey and was given permission by the Turkish authorities to go ashore at Smyrna, under the passport of an American citizen. While ashore, at the instigation of the Austrian consul at Smyrna, he was seized by bandits, thrown into the bay, picked up by an Austrian boat in waiting for the purpose, and taken on board an Austrian man-of-war. The American consul at once demanded his release. This being refused, the American sloop-of-war, St. Louis, then in the bay of Smyrna, loaded her guns, ran up her flag, prepared for action, and demanded Koszta's surrender at the cannon's mouth. Hereupon the Austrian authorities agreed to turn Koszta over to the French government for safe-keeping, and to refer the final question of his release to arbitration between the two governments. This proposal was at once agreed to by the American consul. In the controversy which ensued between the government at Washington and Austria, the United States was completely triumphant, and Koszta was released. This diplomatic victory greatly strengthened national pride. It was now felt that "to be an American citizen was a greater honor than to be a king."

459. Commodore Perry's Expedition to Japan - 18521854. In the year 1852, in Fillmore's administration, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, a brother of Oliver H. Perry of Lake Erie fame, organized a government expedition to Japan.

of the United States.

His mission was to make a treaty of friendship between the two powers, and to open the ports of Japan to the commerce When Perry sailed unannounced into the harbor of Yedo in 1853, he threw the populace of that port into a panic, from fear of a foreign invasion. He was immediately warned to leave Japanese waters, but this he refused to do until he could deliver the letter of President Fillmore to the Japanese governor. Permission was finally granted him, and Perry and his suite were received on shore with great pomp. The letter delivered, Perry set sail for China, stating that he would return to Yedo for an answer in the following spring. Accordingly, in the spring of 1854, he returned and was so cordially received that he at once negotiated a favorable treaty, which opened, almost for the first time in history, the ports of Japan to the commerce any nation. In 1854 Perry returned to the United States, where he was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm by President Pierce and the entire country. A brisk commerce between California and Japan was at once begun which has continued without interruption to the present day. Monuments have been erected to the memory of Commodore Perry in both America and Japan.

of

460. The Ostend Manifesto-1854.-In 1854 the country was still involved in trouble over Cuba-due to the determination on the part of the "filibusters" to annex that island to the United States. The political leaders in the south were especially anxious to annex Cuba in order that it might be divided into states which, when admitted to the union, would preserve the balance of power between the free and the slave states. Hence it was that filibustering schemes and expeditions were secretly encouraged in the south. Cuba's annexation, even in Polk's administration, had been attempted-Polk having made an offer to Spain of $100,000,000 for the "gem of the Antilles." During Taylor and Fillmore's administrations all filibustering movements had been promptly condemned. Pierce, knowing that the Span

ish government was in need of funds, thought the time now favorable to revive Polk's plan, and accordingly instructed the American minister at the court of Madrid, Pierre Soulé, to open negotiations for the purchase of Cuba. Soulé was soon joined by James Buchanan, minister to the court of London, and John Y. Mason, minister to the court of Paris. These three ministers at Pierce's suggestion met in conference at Ostend, Belgium, where they prepared a dispatch to the government at Washington, in which they declared that the sale of Cuba would be of advantage to both Cuba and the United States, and recommended, if Spain refused to sell Cuba, that the United States "wrest it from her," rather than see it become an African republic like San Domingo. This dispatch is known as the "Ostend Manifesto." It created great astonishment among European powers, which at once entered such vigorous protests against it that negotiations for the purchase of Cuba were cut short. Pierce, though urged to do so, refused to take steps looking toward the conquest of Cuba by force of arms.

461. Other Filibustering Schemes: The Walker Expeditions-1853-54.-Pierce's administration was also disturbed by ilibustering schemes against Mexico and the Central American countries. The most noted of these was the expedition led by the bold and unscrupulous adventurer, General William Walker, in the years 1853-54. Walker eluded the government's officers at San Francisco and made an invasion of Lower California and the Mexican province of Sonora, where he was defeated and made a prisoner. He was turned over by the Mexican government to the authorities at San Francisco, where he was tried and acquitted. He at once organized a second expedition and set out for Central America. He landed in Nicaragua, where the natives rallied to his standard, thereby enabling him to win several important battles, which so added to his renown that he was elected president of the Nicaraguan republic, and was immediately recognized as such by President Pierce.

However, in 1857, the Central American countries combined against Walker, overthrew his authority, and made him a prisoner, though he soon regained his liberty. This bold spirit was no sooner released than he repaired to New Orleans, organized a third expedition, and, returning to Central America, made a descent upon the republic of Honduras. Through the prompt action of the president of Honduras, Walker was foiled, and by the aid of a British man-of-war, overpowered and taken prisoner for a third time. This time he was court-martialed and shot September 12, 1860. Walker's expeditions created much excitement at the time. It was generally believed in the north that the leaders of the slaveholding sections were secretly aiding him. No proof, however, was ever produced to sustain this charge.

462. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill: "Squatter Sovereignty”— 1854. The sober second thought of the country had acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850, and a general feeling had obtained, that the interests of both the north and the south demanded that the discussion of the slavery question be dropped by congress. Therefore, great was the astonishment of the whole country when Stephen A. Douglas, senator from Illinois, reported a bill in the senate providing for the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska -the bill expressly stating that the question of slavery should be left entirely to the settlers themselves, without any interference whatsoever on the part of congress. The method of thus disposing of the slavery question became known as "squatter sovereignty." This unannounced step on the part of Douglas came upon the people like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, and produced the greatest excitement. The whole slavery question was at once reopened, not to be closed again until the principle of the Wilmot Proviso was written into the constitution of the United States. The antislavery advocates rightly claimed that this was a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which had expressly stated that this territory should be forever free. Douglas

claimed that the Missouri Compromise was already repealed in the Compromise of 1850, and that therefore this bill was necessary in order to settle the status of these territories before they should apply for admission as states. After the most violent debates in both houses of congress, which at times threatened bloodshed, the bill was passed May 22, 1854. Congress had surrendered to "squatters" and frontier settlers its constitutional authority over the public domain, and in its reference of the whole question of slavery to these settlers, had invited the issue of civil war in the prairie states of the west. The debate in the senate, which preceded the adoption of the bill, while not so able as that which preceded the passage of the Compromise of 1850, was far more bitter and produced animosities between the north and the south which it was impossible to overcome in later years. The bill was looked upon in the north as an outrage committed in the name of the constitution. Charles Sumner, Webster's successor in congress, referred to it as the "crime against Kansas." All classes of people arrayed themselves against it and bitterly opposed it. The clergy in nearly every free state spoke against it from the pulpit. Congress was flooded by petitions protesting against it. One petition alone from New England, was signed by more than three thousand clergymen from that section-including every clergyman in New England.

463. The Struggle for Kansas.-The Kansas-Nebraska bill had no sooner passed congress than the struggle for Kansas began. The south, on its part, was determined that

The

Kansas should come into the union as a slave state. north was equally determined that Kansas should be free. At the time of the passage of the bill, Kansas was an Indian country, and had then only a few white inhabitants within its borders. Lying to its east was the slave state of Missouri. The south accordingly looked to Missouri to people the prairies of Kansas and capture the state government in the interests of slavery. In this she had the antislavery