although it remained passive as an organization, it furnished a shelter to bodies of men who sympathized with the South.

When it was discovered by the leading men of the country that the equilibrium between the North and the South could not be preserved, the contest for supremacy began.

The equality of States and of representation in the Senate could not be changed, except by the admission of new States into the Union; but the increase of population in the contending sections could not be controlled by statutes, and at the close of every decennial period there was a new distribution of power in the House of Representatives and in the electoral colleges.

The re-distribution of political power was required by the Constitution, and thus by the Constitution was the equilibrium between the Free and Slave States destroyed. In 1790 the representative power of the Slave States to the Free States was as 87 to 100; in 1800 it was as 85 to 100; in 1810 it was as 92 to 100; in 1820 it was as 88 to 100.

The loss from 1810 to 1820 made it manifest that the equality of the South could not be maintained in the House of Representatives. It was then that the District of Maine applied for admission into the Union as a State. By the treaty of 1803 with France the territory of Louisiana was ceded to the United States. France had acquired the territory of Spain by a treaty made in 1763. It was claimed that the territory of Louisiana included all the country west of the Mississippi, except a small region near the Gulf of Mexico. Slavery, existed in the territory. The application of Maine for admission into the Union was met by an application by the inhabitants of a portion of the territory of Missouri for admission as a Slave State. Missouri had been formed out of the original territory of Louisiana. After a long and bitter contest, the act for the admission of Maine was approved March 3, 1820, and on the sixth day of the same month an act was passed, authorizing the inhabitants of Missouri to form a constitution, and providing for the admission of the territory into the Union as a State. By the eighth section of that act slavery was prohibited in the territory acquired by the treaty of 1803, north of the parallel 36° 30'. Missouri was north of that parallel, but the new State was excepted from the inhibition. It was a hope, if not a confident belief on the part of the South, that Slave States could be formed from the territory south of that line, in set-off to the States that might be formed from the territory north of that line.

Arkansas was admitted into the Union in 1836, and in 1837 the

equilibrium of States was re-established by the admission of Michigan. It then became apparent that the equality of States could not be maintained through the next decade. Of slave territory only Florida remained, while in the North there was the vast waste out of which the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, and Nebraska have been organized. The greatness of the future of these States was not foreseen, but their coming was anticipated and accepted on all sides as of the inevitable. The equilibrium of representation in the House had been destroyed, and the struggle was therefore intensified for the preservation of the equality of the Slave States in the Senate. As the slave-holding class ruled the South, it was possible always for that class to decide a presidential election, and hence the whig and democratic parties were rival bidders for southern support. The presidency was sold in the market. The South usually dictated the candidates of each party, and, unless the election of Harrison in 1840 was an exception, the South achieved a victory in every contest from 1828 to 1856 inclusive.

By the aid of organized bodies of men from the United States, and chiefly from the South, the State of Texas had declared its independence of Mexico, and organized a separate government. The governing force in Texas was composed largely of immigrants from the Slave States. Their policy was dictated by Southern statesmen, and directed to the annexation to the United States of the Lone Star State," as Texas was then called. By the death of President Harrison, in April, 1841, John Tyler succeeded to the presidency. By birth, political training, and sectional feeling, he was allied to the slave-holding class, and his public policy was directed to the annexation of Texas as the leading and historical measure of his administration. In the canvass of 1844 Mr. Clay represented the Whig party, and Mr. Polk the Democratic party. Both of those men were in the interest of slavery. Mr. Polk made no claim to anti-slavery opinions. He was an open advocate of the annexation of Texas. Mr. Clay may have had misgivings as to the system of slavery, but he was wanting in principle, or he lacked the courage to make a declaration of his real opinions, if they were hostile to the institution. The Whig party of the North was opposed to the annexation of Texas, but during the campaign Mr. Clay made a public surrender on the question, and by that surrender he lost the State of New York and the presidency.

The election of Mr. Polk was treated as an endorsement of the

scheme, and the outgoing Congress, by a joint resolution approved March 1, 1845, provided for the annexation of Texas to the United States. The resolution contained a guarantee that States, not exceeding five in all, might be formed out of the territory, and admitted into the Union under the provisions of the federal constitution. The States formed out of the territory south of 36° 30' were to be admitted into the Union, either with or without slavery, as the people of each State asking admission might desire. In the States formed out of territory north of that line, slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment of crime, were prohibited. As in the end there was no territory north of the line 36° 30', slavery gained one State in the outset, with the prospect of acquiring four other States, while the North gained nothing by the inhibition. Thus was an open way made for the organization of new Slave States, to be used in set-off against the coming States of the north-west.

The admission of Texas into the Union presented a fresh opportunity to the South, but it was an opportunity fraught with the gravest peril. When Texas declared its independence it named the Rio Grande as its southern boundary. On the other hand, Mexico made claim to the territory between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River. By annexation the United States accepted the controversy, and the war which then existed between Texas and Mexico. Mr. Polk was President. General Taylor was ordered to the left bank of the Rio Grande, near Matamoras. His army was first termed an army of observation, then an army of occupation, and finally it became an army of invasion. In the month of May, 1846, the war opened which ended in the capture of the City of Mexico by General Scott, and the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, signed the second day of February, 1848, by which a vast territory, including New Mexico and Upper California, was ceded to the United States. The Missouri compromise line had been extended across Texas by the joint resolution of March 1, 1845, but now the acquisition of a vast area, both north and south of that line, gave fresh consequence to the slavery issue. Of the new acquisition California alone contained a population sufficient for a State, and the larger part of its area, and much the larger part of its inhabitants, were north of the line 36° 30'. The Union was then composed of fifteen Slave States and fifteen Free States. The admission of California, whether as a Slave State or a Free State, would destroy the equilibrium. By the census of 1850

the representative power of the Slave States to the Free States was as 63 to 100.

The equilibrium in the House of Representatives and the Electoral Colleges had been destroyed, and beyond recovery. The cotton-gin had not only stimulated the growth of cotton, and increased the value of slaves, it had also stimulated the manufacture of cotton goods in the north and east, enhanced the wages of labor, added to the comforts of the laboring classes, and thereby encouraged immigration to the North.

In another form slavery itself contributed to the overthrow of the slave power. Wherever slavery existed manual labor was dishonored; and hence all the immigrants from Europe who had not the means and the ambition to become landholders chose their homes in the Free States. By the force of these combined agencies and influences the representative power of the South was broken down. By the annexation of Texas, the consequent war with Mexico, ending with the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, California was presented for admission into the Union as a free State, and at a time when the control of the House of Representatives was irretrievably lost to the South.

In this exigency Mr. Calhoun's dying speech was read in the Senate, March 4, 1850, by James M. Mason, of Virginia. He admitted the overthrow of the equilibrium between the Free and the Slave States, and he attributed it to the action of the general government. He closed with a demand for an amendment to the Constitution, by which equality of political power should be guaranteed to the South, and he coupled the demand with a threat of secession in case it should be refused. But Mr. Calhoun had then lost faith in the permanence of the institution. There is good reason to believe, but not the means to prove, that Mr. Calhoun, a few months before his/ death, said to a friend, "Slavery will go down, sir; it will go down in the twinkling of an eye, sir." His Essay on Government contained a statement of his plan for preserving, or rather for re-establishing the equilibrium between the Free States and the Slave States. He advocated an amendment of the Constitution, which should provide for two presidents, one from the South and one from the North. Their powers were to be equal, and consequently every executive act would require the concurrence of both presidents. The scheme was designed, manifestly, to effect a dissolution of the Union, and under

circumstances which would enable each party to charge the responsibility upon the other.

The people of California framed a Constitution without the authority of Congress, and resistance to its admission into the Union was put upon that ground.

That position was a pretext. The exclusion of slavery was in fact the real reason. The bill for the admission of California was approved the 9th day of September, 1850. It was silent upon the subject of slavery, but two other bills were approved the same day-one for the organization of the Territory of New Mexico and the adjustment of the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, and the other for the organization of the Territory of Utah. Although the whole of the Territory of Utah was north of the line 36° 30', and although a part of New Mexico was also north of that line, both statutes contained a provision that the States that might be formed out of said Territories should be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their Constitutions might prescribe. These three measures, and the bill for the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the bill for the surrender of fugitives from slavery, were carried under the lead of Mr. Clay. To Texas the sum of ten million dollars was paid for a surrender to New Mexico of the territory north of 36° 30', and thus were the Free States led to abandon whatever advantage was contemplated by the extension of the Missouri compromise line across Texas, by the joint resolution of March 1, 1845.

All the territory of Louisiana was slave territory at the time of its purchase from France in 1803. Hence the application of the Missouri compromise line was a gain to the free States, inasmuch as the region of country north of the line 36° 30' was relieved of slavery and consecrated to freedom.

All the territory acquired of Mexico by the treaty of Gaudaloupe Hidalgo was free territory. Hence the provision in the statutes for the organization of New Mexico and Utah, by which the question of slavery was remitted to the inhabitants who might occupy those Territories when they should apply for admission into the Union, was a concession to slavery. Slavery was thereby made possible in a Territory theretofore free. Except for slavery, the question of the admission of California would have been considered by itself.

As the death of President Harrison in 1841 had made the annexation of Texas possible during the term for which he had been elected, so the death of President Taylor in July, 1850, made it possible for