as a reproach that his father voted to send slavery into the Territories? No, O no! I look reverently up to the Father of us all, and fervently implore of him to spare that child that reproach. May God forbid it!" Even if the alternative should be presented to me of the extension of slavery or the dissolution of the Union, I would say, rather than extend slavery, let the Union, let the universe itself, be dissolved. Never, never will I raise my hand or my voice to give a vote by which slavery can or may be extended. As God is my judge, I cannot, I will not be moved from my purpose I have now announced." Speaking of the reform which had begun, and of which he spoke more confidently than subsequent events or even his own career justified, he said: "There was a time when, if the Slave Power had any special work to be done, and wanted a Northern man to do it, they hunted him. up from New Hampshire. Little unfortunate New Hampshire was called upon to furnish the scavenger to do the dirty work. That day, thank God! has gone by; and it will not come again very soon."

CHAPTER XVIII.

CALIFORNIA.

President Taylor.

ELECTION OF SPEAKER.

THREATS OF DISUNION.

Personnel of his Cabinet. Past success of slave-masters. — Future schemes. - Overtures to California. - Its constitution. — Southern opposition. Excitement. - Contest for Speaker. Threats. Debate.

· Delute

Duer, Toombs, Baker, Stephens, Cleveland, Allen. — Mr. Cobb's election. — President's message. - Father Mathew. - Vermont resolutions. thereon. — Hale, Chase, Phelps. — Missouri resolutions.

Benton.

ON the 5th of March, 1849, General Zachary Taylor was inaugurated President of the United States. A native of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, his interests and sympathies were unquestionably rather with the friends than with the foes of slavery. But he doubtless regarded it in its economic rather than in its civil relations, and had no very distinct opinions or wishes concerning it as an element of political power, whatever may have been the plans and purposes of those who presented him as a candidate for the high office he was chosen to fill. His selection of Cabinet officers indicated clearly his Southern proclivities, though he evidently was not a propagandist. He was, however, a fair-minded man, and undoubt edly intended to administer the government honestly and according to the Constitution as he understood it.

John M. Clayton of Delaware, his Secretary of State, was able, and was regarded, too, as among the most liberal of Southern public men. Mr. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of War, was a man of moderate abilities and extreme opinions, whose connection with the Galphin claims had strengthened suspicions in regard to his integrity entertained by some. Mr. Preston of Virginia had early been an advocate of gradual emancipation, for which he earnestly and eloquently pleaded in her legislature in 1832. But the Southern pressure had been too strong, and, like other ambitious statesmen of that com

monwealth, he had been compelled to succumb and become the advocate of the peculiar institution. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, his Attorney-General, one of the ablest lawyers of the country, was fully committed to the slaveholding side of the great issue. The Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing of Ohio, had long been in public life, and was a leading member of his party. He was a Virginian by birth. Born and nurtured in poverty, he was nevertheless aristocratic and conservative in his tendencies. Although representing a free State, the friends of freedom expected and received little from him. William M. Meredith of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury, was a gentleman of high character, a lawyer of distinction, but with little experience in public affairs. Jacob Collamer of Vermont was Postmaster-General. He was a

statesman of recognized ability and firmness, and was unquestionably the most decided of any member of the Cabinet in hist opposition to the increasing encroachments of the Slave Power. Thus constituted, the administration was called at once to grapple with the engrossing questions then forced with such pertinacity upon the country.

Thus far, the Southern leaders had been successful beyond their most sanguine expectations. Texas had been annexed, a war with Mexico had been provoked and fought to a successful issue, and immense accessions of territory had been secured. These successes had been, indeed, achieved at a fearful cost, involving large loss of blood and treasure, national dishonor and peril, infractions of the Constitution at home and of treaties of amity abroad. Still the slave-masters had not reached the goal of their ambition and purpose. There were other infractions to be made, other rights to be invaded, and other guaranties to be ignored. And the new administration, among its first duties, was compelled not only to define its position, but to enter upon that line of policy deemed necessary to secure these ulterior purposes of the Slave Power. Whether General Taylor fully comprehended the extent of these purposes may be questioned. He did, however, with a good degree of promptitude, enter upon the work of proposing and encouraging the organization of State governments.

Within thirty days after his inauguration, Thomas Butler King, a Whig member of Congress from Georgia, was sent to California for the purpose of expressing to its inhabitants the desire of the administration that they would form a constitution, and ask for admission as a State. This they were ready to do, though for reasons very different from those which impelled the government to desire it. The discov ery of gold had drawn to the Pacific coast many enterprising and adventurous young men from the Northern States, who, whatever might have been their moral or political sentiments or personal prejudices, had little desire to enter into competition or companionship with negro slaves. But they needed government; and, as Congress had failed to give them a Territorial organization, interest, the need of protection, and ambition prompted them to respond at once to these intimations of the administration. A proclamation was therefore issued on the 3d of June, 1850, by General Riley, military governor, calling a convention to form a constitution. That convention assembled, framed a constitution, and submitted it to the people. It was adopted, and at once transmitted to Washington.

For the reasons suggested, instead of a provision for slavery it contained a clause expressly prohibiting it. This was, of course, regarded as a fatal omission by those who, still sore and smarting from defeat in their attempts to force slavery into Oregon as a State, and to obtain its recognition in the Territorial organizations of California and New Mexico, saw slipping from their grasp the coveted fruits of annexation and the Mexican war. It was with infinite chagrin and alarm that they looked upon these evidences of their ill success; and they determined to renew the struggle with greater desperation, to turn the tide that seemed to be setting so strongly against the consummation of their long-cherished schemes. Both in Congress and in the legislatures of the slave States appeared simultaneously demonstrations of these renewed purposes of slaveholding aggressions. The legislature of Virginia requested the governor to call an extra session if Congress should enact the Wilmot proviso, and the governors of

Georgia and Alabama recommended that provision should be made for conventions of the people should Congress legislate for the prohibition of slavery in the Territories. Menaces of disunion, too, which had seemed to be losing something of their power, we re renewed.

The whole South seemed greatly moved. Her leading and most violent men were very active in breeding discontent and firing the Southern heart. Just before the session of Congress a correspondence between Mr. Foote of Mississippi and Mr. Clingman was published. In Mr. Clingman's response he expressed the opinion that the slave States ought to resist any action of Congress for the exclusion of slavery from any of the Territories. Though this avowal of the policy of disunion was that of two rather vain and ambitious men, neither of whom was entitled to much weight or influence, it was, nevertheless, an indication of Southern feeling and purpose. The cry of disunion, now uttered with more vehemence than ever, and manifestly designed to overawe the timid and dragoon the weak, secured the results for which it had been raised. Many were panic-stricken, and yielded to fear what conscience and reason, humanity and patriotism, urged them to maintain. Appalled by these menaces of disunion, they openly and pitiably disavowed their solemnly declared opinions, abjured their own repeated acts, and thus proved recreant to the enduring interests of the nation.

In consequence of this disturbed condition of affairs, this transition state of the public mind, as it was passing from the old traditional policy which had hitherto obtained to the new which it was about to adopt, the first session of the XXXIst Congress, beginning on the 3d of December, 1849, was marked by a variety of propositions, abstract and practical, introduced by both the friends and the foes of slavery. It was remarkable also for its length, its heated debates, its devotion to slavery, its submission to the Slave Power, and its disastrous compromises. In it, too, the nation took a new departure in its marauding crusade against the rights of man and the fundamental principles of public and personal morality.

The Senate had a clear Democratic majority. In the