manner.

The prize was now all but won, when an armistice was granted and negotiations for peace were again begun. The demands of the Mexicans were impossible, and Scott, convinced that they were only made to gain time, broke off negotiations and took Molino del Rey on September 8. He was now four miles from the city, but before him stood the rock Chapultepec, 150 feet high, crowned with batteries and flanked with outworks, all well manned. On the thirteenth he attacked this place, carrying it after the most desperate resistance and coming at nightfall to the very gates of the city. These he was ready to storm on the following morning when the city officials appeared with a flag of truce and handed over the keys. By this time the army of the defenders had withdrawn to Guadaloupe Hidalgo, and his own troops marched through the gates to the great plaza, where they raised their flag over "the Halls of the Montezumas.' With due allowance made for the inferior fighting ability of the Mexicans, it was a splendidly won campaign; and many an officer who served gallantly on one side or the other in the civil war saw here his first active service.

Polk began the war, thinking that Mexico would yield at the show of force, and Trist, chief clerk of the state department, accompanied Scott with the draft of a treaty of peace. This policy Treaty of was called "conquering a peace." It was Trist's pres

Guadaloupe
Hidalgo.

ence that caused Scott to halt twice in his march on the capital, a course which only made the Mexicans think the Americans timorous. This naturally angered Scott, who saw it interfered with the vigor of his campaign. His protests at last reached Washington, and just as the city of Mexico was entered there arrived orders for Trist to desist and return home. A strong feeling was arising in administration circles to demand all of Mexico. Meanwhile, Trist remained in Mexico, spite of his recall, and February 2, 1848, he signed the treaty of Gaudaloupe Hidalgo, in accordance with the instructions given him nearly a year earlier. It provided that the boundary should follow the Rio Grande to the New Mexican line, thence west to the first branch of the Gila, thence with the river to the Colorado, and from that point with the boundary between upper and lower California to the Pacific. The treaty was not strictly binding, as Trist's authority had expired; but Polk sent it to the senate, where it was accepted, March 10. It gave us New Mexico and California, for which we agreed to pay $15,000,000 and to assume the claims of American citizens against Mexico.

THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN A NEW FORM

Had the spirit of 1820 now prevailed it would have been possible to divide the newly acquired territory between freedom and slavery. Moderate men generally desired such an arrangement, but the most

SLAVERY AND THE NEW TERRITORY

451

The Wilmot

earnest persons on each side of the controversy would not have it. The North generally considered the war an act of Southern aggression and prepared a countermove. In 1846 a bill was before the house to appropriate money to enable the president Proviso. to make peace, when Wilmot, a Pennsylvania democrat, offered his celebrated proviso that none of the territory acquired in the war should be open to slavery. It passed the house, where the North was in control, and was barely defeated in the senate. It aroused a storm of protest in the South, which believed itself about to be excluded from its fair share in the domain for which it had borne the brunt of war. Spite of the efforts of party leaders, Southern whigs dared not support the measure, and Northern democrats showed a growing unwillingness to oppose it. Sectionalism was rampant, and the union seemed imperiled. But the North did not yield. It had definitely concluded that no more slave states should be admitted to the union. If this plan were followed, the power of the South would soon be broken, and slavery in the South itself would eventually be hampered by irritating and disastrous limitations. The proviso was again before congress in 1847, and again defeated through the opposition of the senate, where the South still maintained its hold.

While the country was awakening to this controversy, the election of 1848 drew near. The whigs nominated General Taylor, staking their all on a military hero. He had no political experience, but the good sense and kindliness which had led his soldiers to Election of 1848, call him "Old Rough and Ready" recommended him to Taylor popular favor. He was a war hero neglected by the demo- Nominated. cratic administration, and the people showed their disposition to right his wrongs. He was a Southerner and a slaveholder, which gave him strength in the South, and it was believed his war record would carry him through in the North. For vice-president Millard Filmore, of New York, was named. The whig convention tabled a resolution to adopt the Wilmot proviso.

and

The democratic party was handicapped by an internal conflict in the important state of New York. One faction was called barnburners. It favored reforms and got its name from a story of a Dutch farmer who burned his barn to destroy the rats in it. Silas Barnburners Wright was at the head of the group, but he had the sup- Hunkers. port of Van Buren, William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, and many other liberal minded men. The other group, called hunkers, were more practical men, and were supported by the Tammany society. Their leader was William L. Marcy, and they got their name because they were supposed to hunger, or "hunker," for office. The two factions hated one another so much that Polk was bound to have trouble. In the beginning of his administration he offered to take a barnburner into his cabinet, but the men selected declined, and he made Marcy secretary of war. Ther

followed trouble over the patronage, widening the breach until in 1848 nothing could bring the two factions to act together, and the result was two sets of delegates to the national nominating convention, which assembled at Baltimore, May 22, 1848.

Cass Nominated.

Aside from the New York wrangle, the meeting was harmonious. Recognizing the Wilmot proviso as a dangerous subject, the leaders kept it in the background, and a resolution in its behalf was tabled by a large majority. Several persons were suggested as candidates, but Lewis Cass, of Michigan, led from the first ballot and secured the nomination on the fourth. He had been in Jackson's cabinet, and was a man of ability and a popular leader in the West. With a candidate who pleased the West and a platform which pleased the South success seemed assured. The hope was defeated by the New York factions, each of which had been allowed to cast half of the state's vote. Each refused this settlement, but the hunkers pledged themselves to support Cass, while the other faction protested against the tabling of the Wilmot proviso and repudiated Cass. Returning from the convention, the barnburners called a state convention at Utica and nominated Van Buren for the presidency on a

Free Soil Party Organized.

platform which demanded the adoption of the Wilmot proviso. Then followed a movement to consolidate all who opposed the extension of slavery. In November, 1847, the liberty party had nominated Hale of New Hampshire, while a radical offshoot of that party, the liberty league, in June, 1848, nominated Gerrit Smith. Moreover, many democrats and whigs were disappointed because their respective conventions had avoided the slavery issue. To unite all these elements a convention was called at Buffalo, August 9, which founded the free soil party, two of whose demands were that the territories be devoted to freedom and that the public lands be distributed free to actual settlers. This done, Van Buren was made the free soil candidate for president and Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, the candidate for vice-president. Hale withdrew, and the liberty party and the barnburner organization was merged into the free soil party. In the election which followed the New York situation was the deciding factor. Taylor The Election carried the state with 218,000 votes against 120,000 for Van Buren and 114,000 for Cass; and this meant a whig victory. Had the barnburners supported Cass, he would probably have carried the state. He had 127 electoral votes and Taylor had 163. Although both democrats and whigs avoided in their platforms the question of slavery in the territories, the issue would not down. It

Results.

Oregon made a Territory.

was now more urgent than ever, because a government must be established in Oregon and because gold having been discovered in California the country was filling up with an adventurous population. The issue was strongly drawn in May, 1848, when Polk sent congress an urgent request for a

GROWING BITTERNESS

453

territorial government for Oregon. A bill was framed which approved the laws already adopted by the temporary government there. Calhoun objected because, as he said, congress had no power to exclude slavery from any territory. The antislavery men, on the other hand, demanded specific restrictions. There was a long debate, the upshot of which was a compromise bill applying the principles of the Northwest Ordinance to Oregon and creating the territories of California and New Mexico without power to pass on slavery, either for or against it. The house tabled the bill, and finally, after much bitterness, the provisions of the bill in relation to Oregon were passed as a separate act. Thus Oregon became a territory without slavery, but California and New Mexico must wait.

sion of Congress, 1848

The next session of congress was a short one. The house passed a bill to organize the territory of California without slavery, but the senate refused to concur. Various other propositions on the same subject were made, but none were acceptable. Futile SesIn this session, as in the former, Polk urged that the whole question be settled by extending the Missouri compromise 1849. to the Pacific, and some favored the idea. Probably the South would have accepted it, but the North was aroused and was determined to check the spread of slavery, so that Polk's suggestion was not adopted. While this subject was being discussed, Northern members brought in a bill to forbid the slave trade in the District of Columbia. It passed the house, but was reconsidered and tabled. The Southern members were aroused, and replied by asking for a committee to prepare a more effective fugitive slave law. The request was not granted, but it served to call the attention of the country to a concrete grievance of the South. The Southern congressmen in an address described the growth of discrimination, and soon afterwards the southern legislatures passed resolutions of similar nature. Northern legislatures replied by demanding the exclusion of slavery from the territories.

Threats of

Disunion.

On March 4, 1849, congress adjourned after three months of bitter debate, in which no progress was made toward removing the sectional differences. Threats of disunion were freely uttered by Southerners, and before adjournment they organized a committee which sent forth an address on the position of the South. It reviewed the rise of opposition to slavery, arraigned the aggressive spirit of the North on the question, declared the South was denied a fair share of the territory it had done so much to conquer in the recent war, and called on all Southern people to stand as a unit in resistance of the treatment it received. The address was warmly commended in the slave states by both whigs and democrats. In the North there was also much excitement, and many legislatures there passed resolutions for the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

ing for Harmony.

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850

When the next congress met, December 3, 1849, affairs were no nearer a settlement. California, tired of awaiting the action of congress, had set up an irregular state government with the The Long- tacit approval of President Taylor, and was asking for statehood, while New Mexico suffered many inconveniences through the lack of a regular government. Something must be done, but no one could say what. Behind all was the ominous and growing movement for disunion. Cool-headed men, business interests, and conservatives generally recognized the necessity of compromise; and party managers, alarmed at the way negro slavery interfered with older political alignments, wished to find some road to harmony. The issue was fast destroying the whig party in the South, and it threatened to undermine the democracy in the North. Three suggestions of compromise came into the minds of the leaders. One was the extension of the Missouri line to the Pacific. We have seen that this was opposed by the antislavery North. Popular The second was to refer the question to the territories. Sovereignty. It was first made in 1847, when the Wilmot proviso was being discussed; and Cass in the same year adopted it in a letter to a Tennessee supporter. It meant that congress should do nothing about slavery in a territory, allowing slaveholders and non-slaveholders to settle there as they chose, and that the people of the territory should decide the question for themselves when the territory became a state. This doctrine, so consonant with the theory of state rights, would probably have been accepted by the South in 1848. Brought up later by Douglas, who named it "popular sovereignty,' it played an important part in the conflict over Kansas and Nebraska. The suggestion did not please the antislavery men, who meant that slavery must be given no opportunity in the territories.

Clay's
Suggestion.

The third suggestion came from Clay. For nearly eight years he had been in retirement, and was now sent back to the senate because his friends thought he could do something to save the union. At heart he favored the Wilmot proviso, and since California and New Mexico evidently wished to save themselves from slavery, he thought they ought to be gratified. Looking over the field he prepared a plan of compromise which gave something to each side. He thought all moderate men would unite to pass it in order to remove the slavery question definitely from the field of national politics. It appealed to his imagination that "the Great Compromiser," as he was called, who had done good services in the crises of 1820 and 1833 should finish his career with another compromise, greater in its significance than either of the other two.