CHAPTER XV.

THE FREMONT CAMPAIGN.

HE year 1856 opened with an annual message from

an

rately justified the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and ignored the outrages in Kansas. The message of the Governor of Massachusetts was equally silent regarding those outrages, pleaded for the repeal of the personal liberty law, and discussed at length the favorite topics of Americanism. The national House of Representatives sent a committee to investigate the situation in Kansas, and their report of facts had a power beyond all argument to teach the Northern people what they had to deal with. A still more startling lesson was given them. Charles Sumner made a speech in the Senate, in which the rhetorical finish and observance of parliamentary forms made only more effective the biting severity against the slave power and its leading representatives. His sharpest edge was turned against Senator Butler of South Carolina. A day or two later a nephew of Mr. Butler, and member of the House, Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, came upon Mr. Sumner as he sat at his desk in the empty Senate chamber, knocked him down. with a heavy cane before he could rise or resist, and beat him so severely that he was incapacitated for senatorial service for four years afterward. Indeed, he never after

ward was the same man,- to splendid physical vigor there succeeded a life-long struggle with ill health. Mr. Brooks was punished only by a paltry fine in the local court. In the House, a motion of expulsion failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote. Receiving a formal censure, he resigned, but was instantly and triumphantly reëlected and resumed his seat. He was a Southern gentleman, and his standing among Southern gentlemen was not impaired by his act. From many places in the South he received votes of thanks, and canes marked "Hit him again." In Congress, only the mildest disapprobation was uttered by his political allies from either section. It was left to Republican congressmen to rightly characterize the assault. Wilson, in the Senate, called it "brutal, murderous, and cowardly." Brooks sent him a challenge, and in reply he refused to withdraw his words, and repudiated the duelist's code. In the House, Burlingame denounced the assault, in the name not only of humanity and civilization, but of "that fair play which bullies and prize-fighters respect." Brooks challenged him; he accepted, and named a meeting-place in Canada, but Brooks declined to follow him there. The duelist's way of redress was not the Massachusetts way. Burlingame lost nothing at home by his action. But when after five years more of patience the state struck her blow, it was not against an individual, but against slavery, and by the arms, not of one man, but of sixty thousand.

At a

At the South, Brooks was treated as a hero. gathering to do him honor in the following October, Senators Butler and Toombs participated, both of them taking occasion to utter threats of disunion in case the Republicans elected their President. Senator Mason of Virginia wrote of Brooks: "I know of none whose public career I hold more worthy the full and cordial approba

tion of his constituents than his," and added that if a Republican President was elected, but one course remained for the South, "immediate, absolute, and eternal separation."

The Republican (May 29) treated the assault as an illustration of the reigning influence in the country. It sought to turn the passionate resentment of the hour into the practical channel whereby alone redress was possible. It said:

"There is no denying the humiliating fact that this country is under the reign of ruffianism. Ruffianism has become national. It is the policy of the Administration, the policy of the Democratic party, and decidedly and confessedly the policy of the ruling interest in the country. The Administration backs up ruffianism in Kansas, and, under its sanction, ruffianism practices its cowardly acts in Congress. Free men are denied a settlement on the public domain, are denied the privilege of making their own laws, and have even to struggle for life against a ruffianly mob and a ruffianly Federal government. Free speech is denied in Congress, and may only be indulged in at the cost of a broken head. The highest representative of the noblest of the 'Old Thirteen' wins laurels for himself and the commonwealth only to have them soaked in his own blood. What do you think of this, O men of the North? The remedy for ruffianism resides in a united North. Old party names must be forgotten, old party ties surrendered, organizations based upon secondary issues abandoned, momentary self-interest sacrificed to the country and its welfare, and all must come together and fight and labor side by side until the great question which overshadows all others has found issue in the triumph of justice."

The great need of the time, the great service of the press, was to bring into clear light the question on which the people must divide and decide. Two influences were at work to obscure and confuse the main question. One was the American party; the other was the duplicity of

the Democratic leaders upon the subject of "popular sovereignty." Another National Council of the Americans was held in Philadelphia in February, and again Mr. Bowles reported its proceedings for the Republican and the Tribune, but this time the convention made no attempt at secrecy. The Southern element was victorious; a substantially pro-slavery platform was adopted, and Millard Fillmore was nominated for the presidency. Again there was a secession of Northern members. The organization in Massachusetts hung doubtful. A majority of the state council-differing from those of all the other New England states-accepted the nomination of Fillmore. A secession-such as had become a regular incident of almost every Know-nothing gathering-took place, and delegates were sent to a Northern American convention in June.

The Democratic Convention met first, in Cincinnati. Mr. Bowles reported it for his paper. Pierce and Douglas were discarded as candidates in favor of James Buchanan, an old Pennsylvania politician, who had been Pierce's minister to England, and had engaged in discreditable maneuvers toward gaining Cuba for America and slavery, but otherwise had not been involved in recent controversies, and was of good personal repute. The Republican (June 10) gave the reason why Pierce and Douglas, faithful and efficient servants of the South, had been rejected and Buchanan preferred.

"There is a game to be played with the people. The respectable name of James Buchanan-the name of one who, with becoming prudence, has contrived to keep himself dissociated from the acts which have made that of Franklin Pierce execrable-has been put forward as a gilded bait to troll upon the political waters, to make the simple fish forget that it is tied to a string of resolutions every strand of which is either a cheat or a falsehood."

The convention declared in its resolutions for "noninterference by Congress with slavery in state or territory, or in the District of Columbia." What interpretation this was sure to receive in practice, Mr. Bowles pointed out (June 9):

"The right of the people of territories to decide upon the existence of slavery in the administration of the territorial government, which was the original intent and meaning of squatter sovereignty as expounded by Mr. Cass, is nowhere stated. The power over slavery in the territories is denied Congress and given to no other authority. The rights of the citizens over it are not supposed by this platform to begin until they proceed to form a state government, and in the exercise of such a right then no party has denied them, or proposed to deny them, full power. The Republican doctrine is simply that Congress has the right and should exercise it, of excluding slavery from the territories while they are territories. The Democratic platform solely, in terms, denies this. But in its purpose and meaning it goes farther, and justifies and protects slavery in the territories if slave-owners choose to carry it there. So it will be translated at the South,- so it was accepted by the unanimous vote of the South in the convention to-day. The substance of the resolutions in this respect is that slavery is the equal of freedom everywhere under the constitution and in the administration of the general government."

But the resolutions had been so worded that it might be maintained at the North that the Democratic theory was that of a real, bona fide self-government by the people of the territories. Thus stated it seemed to put the territorial residents entirely on a level with the residents of a state, in the control of their local affairs. This was undoubtedly the plea by which the Democratic ticket won most of its votes at the North. The candidate for Vice-President was John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky.

The first National Republican Convention met at Philadelphia. It nominated for President John Charles Fre