These laws required the colored people to give bonds for good behavior as a condition of residence, excluded them from the schools, denied them the right of testifying in courts of justice when a white man was party on either side, and subjected them to other unjust and degrading disabilities. As Mr. Chase had been an avowed opposer of these inhuman statutes, they very properly selected him as their adviser, and requested him to draught a proper bill. This he did by preparing one that would secure substantially their object, but at the same time excite as little as possible the hostility of members who had at heart small sympathy with the purpose in view. Aiming to make the most of the favorable conjunction of circumstances, he incorporated into the proposed bill provisions which the most hopeful hardly expected to be enacted. He was sanguine, however, the Free Soil members were resolute, and the circumstances propitious. It was submitted to the examination and criticism of the Democrats, who unexpectedly accepted it and agreed to support it. How much the considerations they were expecting or had exacted from the Free Soil members had to do with their decision, and how much their indignation at the recent election of General Taylor, a Southern slaveholder, over their Democratic candidate, and their consequent relief from the responsibility for a national administration, may never be known. It is sufficient for this purpose to record their assent to its provisions, and its adoption in the House by a large majority. In the Senate it was referred to a committee, who modified it somewhat, and it was then passed. The House concurred, and the bill became a law. Thus, by this wise use of the power their position gave them, was a humane and just law enacted, somewhat, indeed, in advance of the popular sentiment and moral convictions of the people, and yet, being enacted, it was not likely to be reversed, while the very struggle needful to enact it and its presence on the statute-book tended to educate the popular mind and to lift it up to the plane on which it rested. It relieved the colored people from all their most onerous disabilities, gave them entrance into schools, and awakened hopes of the future which have been far more than realized. No question, however, of all that occupied and agitated public attention at that time excited deeper interest than that of the United States senatorship. The antislavery men were specially anxious to have a representative in the Senate, where the Slave Power had so long wielded an almost unquestioned sway, and where so few voices had ever been raised for freedom. Thomas Morris had spoken ably. In him Ohio had found a voice potential in behalf of human rights. Otherwise she had shared in the general recreancy, and had been either silent or had spoken at the behest of slavery. There was, indeed, John P. Hale, the Abolition Senator from New Hampshire, - strangely as those words sounded, that long-time stronghold of the Northern slavery-bestrode Democracy. But he was treated with contumely, and maintained his ground only by his talent and tact, by his unfailing wit and his unbounded good-humor. Most earnestly, therefore, did the antislavery men, not only of Ohio but of the North, desire that advantage should be taken of this fortunate conjunction of affairs to select and send to the Senate some worthy coadjutor of the eloquent representative of the Granite State. The thoughts of many, perhaps most, of the friends of humanity and equal rights were instinctively turned to Joshua R. Giddings, who had for years maintained an unequal contest with the champions of aggression in the lower house of Congress. His incorruptible integrity, his stern and sturdy independence, his unflinching advocacy of the unpopular cause, pointed to him as the proper person to be selected for that high office, not only for the service to be performed, but for the honor richly deserved. There were four candidates. The Democrats had selected William Allen; the Whigs, Thomas Ewing; and the two FreeSoilers were divided in their choice between Mr. Giddings and Mr. Chase. Mr. Allen was not only proslavery in sentiment, but his views were extreme and violent. Mr. Ewing was of Southern birth, and though not antislavery in his opinions he was opposed to the extension of the peculiar institution. Giddings was an antislavery Whig. Mr. Chase, though Democratic in principle and sympathy, was not a member of the VOL. II. 21 Mr. Democratic party. He was decidedly antislavery in sentiment and action, and had rendered essential service to the cause of human rights. In this state of the principal parties, it being understood that the Free Soil members would not give them their votes, it became evident that neither the Whigs nor the Democrats could elect their candidates. Nor could both of the Free Soil members be gratified with the choice of theirs. Some compromise must be effected. The Whigs, in order to defeat the election of the Democratic candidate, and, on the part of the antislavery portion, for the purpose of carrying out their views, were ready to substitute for Mr. Ewing some person of more pronounced antislavery sentiments. The two Free Soil members had agreed that either should vote for the candidate of the other whenever there should be a prospect of his election. The Whigs were ready, and most of them were anxious, with the exception of two members, to vote for Mr. Giddings. As, however, none of the Democrats would vote for him, and as the two recusant members obstinately refused to yield, after three unsuccessful ballotings his name was withdrawn. The Democrats, for the purpose of defeating the Whig candidate, and with the understanding that the Free Soil members would support their candidates for judges of the Supreme Court, having substituted the name of Hon. Rufus P. Spaulding, afterward Republican Representative in Congress, for that of Judge Read, whom they could not consistently support, expressed a willingness to cast their votes for Mr. Chase. By this arrangement he was elected on the fourth ballot. When the vote was announced, an enthusiastic antislavery man in the galleries exclaimed, "Thank God!" to which were many answering responses wherever Mr. Chase was known, not only on account of the service he had already rendered, but for the confident expectation cherished of the large additions of strength and prestige he would bring to the struggling cause on the wider and more conspicuous theatre of the United States Senate. Many, however, were greatly disappointed that the choice did not fall on Mr. Giddings. Indeed, some of his friends felt that he had been deprived of a position to which, by his longer and more self-sacrificing service, he was fairly entitled. The cause, however, was evidently the gainer by the decision which was finally reached; for, from that time onward, freedom had two potent advocates in the councils of the nation, instead of one; both, too, occupying in their respective spheres positions to which each seemed best adapted, and in which each rendered yeoman's service, for which the slave and the slave's friends should ever hold them in grateful remembrance. CHAPTER XV. STRUGGLES IN KENTUCKY. Slaveholding aggressions. Popular indorsement. — Growing prejudices and increasing severity of the black codes. — Counter movements of antislavery men. - Constitutional convention in Kentucky. - Attempt to secure provisions for freedom in the proposed constitution. - Henry Clay's position. — Public meeting at Lexington. Convention. Dr. Breckinridge's speech. - THE years intervening between the opening of negotiations for the annexation of Texas in 1843 and the close of the Presidential election in 1852 have no parallel for the intensity, variety, and disastrous results of the slavery struggle. During those years the successful attempt was made to annex the foreign nation of Texas to the United States; the war with Mexico was fought; vast accessions of territory were secured, and the effort to devote them to freedom was made and failed; the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted and mercilessly executed; the misnamed compromise measures proposed by the slavemasters were adopted and accepted as a "finality" by the conventions of the great national parties; while the crowning act of those years of disaster and infamy was the indorsement by the people of this whole series of aggressions by the triumphant election of Franklin Pierce, whose whole public and partisan carcer had ever been fully and even ostentatiously committed to the purposes and plans of the Slave Power. While, too, these aggressions were in progress on the wider domain of the nation at large, evidences of the same spirit and purpose were abundant in the States, as if prompted by a common inspiration, as they certainly tended to a common end. Even the attempts made by a few friends of the slave to ameliorate his condition and perhaps inaugurate measures for his ultimate emancipation were made the occasion, if not the |