THE TARIFF AND SLAVERY.

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Presidential campaigns was to break out in its fiercest form, was daily increasing in intensity. The tariff divided the North and the South, for the one, relying on its manufactures, shipping and commerce, wished an amount of protection that the other, largely dependent upon agriculture, did not demand. The North also favored the abolition of the slave trade by act of Congress, and the South, though in its State Legislatures moving toward this end, did not approve federal interference with the institution. The subject of the action of Congress regarding slavery in the Territories began to constitute a bone of contention.* Jefferson had proposed the exclusion of slavery from the Northwestern Territory,† and that point had been settled, but while the North claimed that this action formed a precedent to be followed, the South thought otherwise, and when "the Territory south of the Ohio" was organized, in 1790, it was with the agree

On the twelfth of February, 1793, in order to carry into effect the clauses in Article IV. of the Constitution, Congress passed a law entitled "an act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters." This was not the first fugitive slave law of the country, though from the fact that the records of the New England Confederacy lay in manuscript until 1794, when portions were printed by Ebenezer Hazard, it seems not to have been remembered that a similar provision was made in the Articles of Confederation of 1643. This applied, of course, to the New England Colonies only, but by a treaty made by them with Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of the New Netherlands, in 1650, it was extended to that Colony, and it is said that, on application, a slave who had escaped to New England was returned to a master living still further southward. See Mr. Webster's letter of May 15th, 1850, to Edward S. Rand, and other citizens of Newburyport, Mass.

† Jefferson claimed that "the prohibition of the further importation of slaves" was one of the important measures for which his influence was responsible.

ment that Congress should not make any regulations tending to the emancipation of slaves.

An Indian war of great violence broke out in 1790, and was not quelled until five years of bloodshed had wasted the region west of the Ohio. The Indians fought to regain territory which had been ceded to the United States, and at the close of the war Congress seemed to acknowledge that the whites had been the aggressors, for it gave the tribes that were conquered indemnities on their retiring further west, and for the first time, it took steps for the improvement of the Indians, and their protection from unscrupulous traders. Washington said that experiment had not diminished hopes for their elevation, and that the accomplishment of their civilization would "reflect undecaying lustre on our national character, and administer the most gratefu consolation that virtuous minds can know." In this war Colonel Hardin had circumvented the savages, General Harmer had been foiled, and General Saint Clair had been surprised, and his forces utterly routed, before the whites under "mad Anthony" Wayne, had been able to bring the Indians to terms.

If Washington was embarrassed by the state of affairs at home, much more was his task difficult when he came to contemplate the foreign relations of the government. The French revolution broke out at the opening of his administration, and it was natural that the sympathies of the nation should be enlisted by the exciting scenes among a people which had so warmly seconded the efforts against Great Britain, especially when they saw among the leaders of the movement the man who had stood at the side of

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

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Washington in the darkest moments of the Revolution.

France did not have the sympathies of all, however, for the wiser and more calm were startled at the scenes of blood that marked the wild orgies in that fair land, and when, in 1793, Washington issued his memorable proclamation of neutrality, he found himself supported by the Federalists, and by those who saw the dangers of anarchy resulting from unrestrained license. The feeling for France was, on the other hand, deepened by the antipathy to England, which it was to take many years to dissipate.

The month that Washington issued his proclamation saw an ignorant and arrogant representative of the French Republic land, not at Philadelphia, the Federal capital, but at Charleston, S. C. demand an active support from the government, and upon its refusal, fit out privateers to prey upon English commerce. He even ventured, with the support of the Republican party, to threaten to appeal from the government to the people, and thus to inaugurate on American soil, the bloody drama that he had been playing a part in at home; but Washington demanded his recall, and the demand was heard. A new ambassador took the place of "Citizen Genet." great was the excitement at this juncture that war with England was demanded by the Republican party; Marat, Robespierre, and the other actors in the French Revolution, were daily toasts at table, and the cries of the multitude about his house were so riotous that Washington exclaimed: "I had rather be in my grave than in this excitement!"

So

War with Great Britain was not only demanded by the Republicans, but the action of that country made