successfully. From no lower ground than that of the impossibility of legalizing slavery can you make headway against the pirates whose power consists in the admitted legality of their piracy." With their chosen leaders the three parties went into the contest. The Free-Soilers did not expect to win even a single elector. A vote with them was a simple " testimony," an entering wedge, by which they fondly hoped to break the long and ill-starred connection between slavery and the government. Their leaders had distinguished themselves in Congress for their manly and courageous stand against the Slave Power, and were well worthy of the high distinction of leading freedom's forlorn hope in that dark hour. The Whigs entered upon the canvass with little heart or hope. It was not only that they were called upon to confront a triumphant and arrogant foe, harmonious and compact, accustomed to victory and determined still to win, but they were themselves hopelessly divided in spirit and aim, in purpose and plan, and the convention had caused and left bitter resentments and heart-burnings. Though the Southern wing had dictated the terms of the platform, they were disappointed in their candidate. Mr. Fillmore's adherents, the Southern extremists and the Northern "silver grays," - being thus defeated in their candidate, lent but a lukewarm and ineffective support, while Mr. Webster made no concealment of his want of sympathy with the ticket and his willingness to see it defeated. And not only did Mr. Webster refuse his support to the Whig party, but he spoke of it as moribund, predicted its speedy dissolution, and expressed his conviction that after the election it would be known" only in history." Notwithstanding its Southern platform and its concessions, notwithstanding all its words of conciliation, Stephens and Toombs of Georgia, Jones and Gentry of Tennessee, and others, issued a card early in July expressive of their refusal to support General Scott, for the assigned reason that he was the favorite of the Free Soil wing of the party, and had suffered his name to be used by avowed enemies of the compromise measures. On the other hand, the antislavery supporters of General Scott were obliged to occupy a most equivocal position, to accept a platform exceedingly distasteful, and against which seventy votes had been recorded, so that men and presses, while advocating his election, were compelled, or felt constrained, to "spit on the platform " on which he stood. With such elements of weakness and under omens so inauspicious did the Whig party go into the contest of 1852. There was little or no division in the Democratic ranks. They, indeed, who had acted with the Free Soil movement of 1848 had reason for embarrassment as they attempted to reconcile their conduct in forsaking their party four years before with their "hot haste," as expressed by Mr. Hale in his letter of acceptance of the Free Soil nomination, " to enroll themselves under a banner upon which are inscribed sentiments and principles sevenfold more odious and abominable than those against which they revolted." And, though they made the attempt, it was generally perceived that it did but render more glaring their inconsistency and profligacy of principle. Even the New York "Evening Post," their leading organ, in its attempted justification, while denouncing the platform as "a farce," deemed it a legitimate reason for supporting Mr. Pierce that he was "uncommitted," as the other candidates had committed themselves, " by any letter"; so easily convinced, and on such slight pretences, did the men who subscribed to the doctrines and joined in the protestations of the Buffalo platform ignore that record, and join in a campaign unprecedented for the completeness of its surrender to the new demands and far-reaching encroachments of the Slave Power. But the most humiliating page of this history is that which records the result, the triumph of the Democratic party. Nor was it mere success; it was decisive and signal. Its conquering legions swept the country. All but four States recorded their votes in its favor. And yet it implied the indorsement of the compromise measures, freighted as they were with crime and cruelty, without the abatement, urged in the Whigs' behalf, that there was a large minority in the party opposed to their adoption. Nor was that all. The crowning infamy of that disastrous campaign was the popular indorsement of that most flagitious resolution, adopted by both conventions, that these measures should be regarded as "final"; that, wicked and oppressive as they were, there should be no further agitation of the subject. Neither the poor boon of protest nor even an attempt to repeal or modify was allowed. The nation was to be not only bound, but dumb. And to all this the people gave their emphatic sanction. No darker day, not even the most critical period of the Rebellion, has ever marked the history of the Republic. For this only threatened the forcible subjection of the body; that betokened the complete enslavement of the soul. In the face of all the pulpits and presses of the land, notwithstanding the antislavery agitations of a quarter of a century, only one hundred and fifty thousand, out of more than three millions, were found ready to refuse their votes even for measures so infamous and wrong. And this was the statesmanship of the hour. Nor was it an unfitting climax, or culmination, of much that had preceded it. Much has been claimed for the great statesmen of the earlier and palmier days of the Republic, especially of the time now passing in review. Without detracting from the well-earned fame of many, not only is there the testimony of John Quincy Adams that up to his day "the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of slavery" had ever been "the animating spirit” of the American government, but the statement is due to historic verity that a main feature of the national policy had been from the outset that of retreat. As the government began its existence by yielding vantage-ground it might have retained, so did its great and leading men, especially after the great Missouri struggle, too often signalize their career by some new concession, some new form of compromise to the Slave Power; until, driven from one position after another, the nation seemed, by the voice and vote of this election, to have made a full surrender, and to have sought an ignoble peace by both ceasing resistance and promising never to resume it. According to the military maxim that it requires greater skill to conduct a successful retreat than to achieve a victory, merit may not be wanting, though he would be hardly esteemed a great general whose only excellence consists in conducting retreats. CHAPTER XXX. THE ABROGATION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. The Missouri compromise. Bill for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska. Lost in the Senate. - President Pierce's message. The Nebraska bill. Dixon's proposition to abrogate the Missouri compromise. - Its repeal reported by Mr. Douglas. - President's commitment. Meeting of New York Democrats. Mr. Fenton's visit to the President and Secretary of State. Secretary Marcy's position. The appeal of the Free Soil members. — Bill for the organization of Kansas and Nebraska. Speech of Mr. Douglas. Mr. Chase's amendment and speech. - Speeches of Wade, Everett, Smith, Houston. Mr. Douglas's amendment. Mr. Chase's amendment. Speeches - Closing Memorial of the New Eng - : of Seward, Sumner, Toombs, Fessenden. Badger's amendment. speech of Mr. Douglas. Passage of the bill. land clergy. — Excited debate. Mr. Richardson's House bill. - Speeches of Meacham, Stephens, Breckinridge, Yates, Keitt, Clingman, Washburn of Maine, Smith, Benton, Goodrich. — Defence of the clergy by Banks. — Great struggle in the House. - Passage of the bill. - Excited debate in the Senate. Passage through that body. - Triumph of the Slave Power. No event in the progress of the great conflict stands out more prominently than the abrogation of the compromise of 1820. As both effect and cause it defies competition and almost comparison with any single measure of the long series of aggressions of the Slave Power. It was more than a milestone, indicating the distance which the nation had travelled in its disastrous journey; it was a beacon, giving warning of approaching danger. No single act of the Slave Power ever spread greater consternation, produced more lasting results upon the popular mind, or did so much to arouse the North and to convince the people of its desperate character. Lulled by the siren song and drugged by the sorceries of compromise, they had learned to regard with equanimity and to acquiesce in the fixed facts of slavery as, exclusively and perpetually, a Southern system, confined within established limits, and kept back by impassable barriers. So long as it was only the slave that was crushed by its power, and the slaveholding States that were cursed by its presence, the North, sordid and safe, accepted its existence, and even welcomed its pecuniary and political aid, because it put money in its coffers and gave it votes, pleading ever the compact of the fathers as their confident reply to the simple claims, however urgent, of justice and humanity. But when the compromise itself was abrogated, and its obligations were treated as a thing of naught; when the monster, who had been hitherto restricted in his limits, and could only glare across the line, gave no equivocal indications of his purpose to spring upon the fair domain of freedom, and range at will over territory that compromise had made inviolate, then the cry of danger reached ears that were deaf to the voice of duty. Though large masses of the people were still craven, and ready, for present advantage, to eat the bread of dishonor, this flagrant outrage increased the number of those who comprehended the situation, and who were willing to co-operate with others to resist encroachments that were becoming so serious. Men who sat unmoved under the fulminations of the Abolitionists, answering their arguments and warding off their appeals by the cool assumption that they were but the words of fanaticism and folly, did not remain quite as serene when they witnessed these encroachments and anticipated the day, seemingly not very remote, when the whole country would be laid open thereto. Never before had so much feeling been elicited; never before had so many been found ready to disown their former allegiance to the Slave Power and combine for its overthrow. At the time of the admission of Missouri with the prohibition of slavery north of 36° 30′ there was a vast and fertile region lying west and northwest of that State and stretching away to the Rocky Mountains. That beautiful territory, now covered by the States of Kansas and Nebraska, had been forever consecrated to freedom by the compromise of that act. Sixteen years afterward, the western boundary of Missouri, lying in the Platte country, was extended westward, adding thereby territory enough to make seven counties. This conversion of free territory into slave soil was, however, in direct violation of the Missouri compromise, and was carried through |