Part 41 (1/2)

[Sidenote: ”Uncle Tom's Cabin.”]

[Sidenote: Effects of this book.]

348. ”Uncle Tom's Cabin.”--It was at this time that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote ”Uncle Tom's Cabin.” In this story she set forth the pleasant side of slavery--the light-heartedness and kind-heartedness of the negroes. In it she also set forth the unpleasant side of slavery--the whipping of human beings, the selling of human beings, the hunting of human beings. Of course, there never was such a slave as Uncle Tom. The story is simply a wonderful picture of slavery as it appeared to a brilliant woman of the North. Hundreds of thousands of copies of this book were sold in the South as well as in the North.

Plays founded on the book were acted on the stage. Southern people when reading ”Uncle Tom” thought little of the unpleasant things in it: they liked the pleasant things in it. Northern people laughed at the pretty pictures of plantation life: they were moved to tears by the tales of cruelty. ”Uncle Tom's Cabin” and the Fugitive Slave Law convinced the people of the North that bounds must be set to the extension of slavery.

CHAPTER 34

THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS

[Sidenote: Campaign of 1852.]

[Sidenote: Pierce elected President.]

349. Pierce elected President, 1852.--It was now Campaign time for a new election. The Whigs had been successful with two old soldiers, so they thought they would try again with another soldier and nominated General Winfield Scott, the conqueror of Mexico. The Democrats also nominated a soldier, Franklin Pierce of New Hamps.h.i.+re, who had been in northern Mexico with Taylor. The Democrats and Whigs both said that they would stand by the Compromise of 1850. But many voters thought that there would be less danger of excitement with a Democrat in the White House and voted for Pierce for that reason. They soon found that they were terribly mistaken in their belief.

[Sidenote: The Nebraska bill, 1854. _Source-Book, 284-287._]

[Sidenote: Douglas a.s.serts Compromise of 1820 to be repealed.]

350. Douglas's Nebraska Bill.--President Pierce began his term of office quietly enough. But in 1854 Senator Douglas of Illinois brought in a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska. It will be remembered that in 1820 Missouri had been admitted to the Union as a slave state.

In 1848 Iowa had been admitted as a free state. North of Iowa was the free Territory of Minnesota. Westward from Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota was an immense region without any government of any kind. It all lay north of the compromise line of 1820 (p. 222), and had been forever devoted to freedom by that compromise. But Douglas said that the Compromise of 1820 had been repealed by the Compromise of 1850. So he proposed that the settlers of Nebraska should say whether that territory should be free soil or slave soil, precisely as if the Compromise of 1820 had never been pa.s.sed. Instantly there was a tremendous uproar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN PIERCE.]

[Sidenote: The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854.]

[Sidenote: Antislavery senators attack the bill.]

[Sidenote: The Independent Democrats.]

351. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854.--Douglas now changed his bill so as to provide for the formation of two territories. One of these he named Kansas. It had nearly the same boundaries as the present state of Kansas, except that it extended westward to the Rocky Mountains. The other territory was named Nebraska. It included all the land north of Kansas and between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains. The antislavery leaders in the North attacked the bill with great fury.

Chase of Ohio said that it was a violation of faith. Sumner of Ma.s.sachusetts rejoiced in the fight, for he said men must now take sides for freedom or for slavery. Some, independent Democrats published ”An Appeal.” They asked their fellow-citizens to take their maps and see what an immense region Douglas had proposed to open to slavery. They denied that the Missouri Compromise had been repealed. Nevertheless, the bill pa.s.sed Congress and was signed by President Pierce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Territory opened to slavery.]

[Sidenote: Abraham Lincoln, _Hero Tales_, 325-335.]

[Sidenote: Aroused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.]

352. Abraham Lincoln.--Born in Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln went with his parents to Indiana and then to Illinois. As a boy he was very poor and had to work hard. But he lost no opportunity to read and to study.

At the plow or in the long evenings at home by the firelight he was ever thinking and studying. Growing to manhood he became a lawyer and served one term in Congress. The pa.s.sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act aroused his indignation as nothing had ever aroused it before. He denied that any man had the right to govern another man, be he white or be he black, without that man's consent. He thought that blood would surely be shed before the slavery question would be settled in Kansas, and the first shedding of blood would be the beginning of the end of the Union.

[Sidenote: Seward's challenge to the Southerners. _McMaster_, 347-351.]

[Sidenote: The Sons of the South.]