Part 41 (1/2)

[Footnote 2: After Amos A. Lawrence, secretary of the Aid Society. It was a city of tents. Not a building existed. Later came the log cabin, which was a poor affair, as timber was scarce. The sod hut now so common in the Northwest was not thought of. In the early days the ”hay tent”

was the usual house, and was made by setting up two rows of poles, then bringing their tops together, thatching the roof and sides with hay. The two gable ends (in which were the windows and doors) were of sod.]

What was thus taking place at Lawrence happened elsewhere, so that by October, 1854, that part of Kansas along the Missouri River was held by the slave-state men, and the part south of the Kansas River by the free-state men.[1]

[Footnote 1: The proslavery towns were Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton, Kickapoo. The antislavery towns were Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Waubunsee, Hampden, Ossawatomie.]

In November of the same year the struggle began. There was to be an election of a territorial delegate[1] to represent Kansas in Congress, and a day or two before the time set for it the Missourians came over the border in armed bands, took possession of the polls, voted illegally, and elected a proslavery delegate.

[Footnote 1: Each territory is allowed to send a delegate to the House of Representatives, where he can speak, but not vote.]

%388. Kansas a Slave Territory.%--The election of members of the territorial legislature took place in March, 1855, and for this the Missourians made great preparations. On the principle of popular sovereignty the people of Kansas were to decide whether the territory should be slave or free. Should the majority of the legislature consist of free-state men, then Kansas would be a free territory. Should a majority of proslavery men be chosen, then Kansas was doomed to have slavery fastened on her, and this the Missourians determined should be done. For weeks before the election, therefore, the border counties of Missouri were all astir. Meetings were held, and secret societies, called Blue Lodges, were formed, the members of which were pledged to enter Kansas on the day of election, take possession of the polls, and elect a proslavery legislature. The plan was strictly carried out, and as election day drew near, the Missourians, fully armed, entered Kansas in companies, squads, and parties, like an invading army, voted, and then went home to Missouri. Every member of the legislature save one was a proslavery man, and when that body met, all the slave laws of Missouri were adopted and slavery was formally established in Kansas.

%389. The Topeka Free-State Const.i.tution.%--The free-state men repudiated the bogus legislature, held a convention at Topeka, made a free-state const.i.tution, and submitted it to the popular vote. The people having ratified it (of course no proslavery men voted), a governor and legislature were chosen. When the legislature met, senators were elected and Congress was asked to admit Kansas into the Union as a state.

%390. Personal Liberty Laws; the Underground Railroad.%--The feeling of the people of the free states toward slavery can be seen from many signs. The example set by Vermont in 1850 was followed in 1854 by Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Michigan, and in 1855 by Maine and Ma.s.sachusetts, in each of which were pa.s.sed ”Personal Liberty laws,”

designed to prevent free negroes from being carried into slavery on the claim that they were fugitive slaves. Certain state officers were required to act as counsel for any one arrested as a fugitive, and to see that he had a fair trial by jury. To seize a free negro with intent to reduce him to slavery was made a crime.

Another sign of the times was the sympathy manifested for the operations of what was called the Underground Railroad. It was, of course, not a railroad at all, but an organization by which slaves escaping from their masters were aided in getting across the free states to Canada.

%391. Breaking up of Old Parties.%--Thus matters stood when, in 1856, the time came to elect a President, and found the old parties badly disorganized. The political events of four years had produced great changes. The death of Clay[1] and Webster[2] deprived the Whigs of their oldest and greatest leaders. The earnest support that party gave to the Compromise of 1850 and the execution of the fugitive-slave law estranged thousands of voters in the free states. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, opposed as it was by every Northern Whig, completed the ruin and left the party a wreck.

[Footnote 1: June 29, 1852.]

[Footnote 2: October 24, 1852.]

But the Democrats had also suffered because of the Kansas-Nebraska law and the repeal of the Compromise of 1820. No anti-extension-of-slavery Democrat could longer support the old party. Thousands had therefore broken away, and, acting with the dissatisfied Whigs, formed an unorganized opposition known as ”Anti-Nebraska men.”

%392. The Movement against Immigrants.%--Many old Whigs, however, could not bring themselves to vote with Democrats. These joined the American or Know-nothing party. From the close of the Revolution there had never been a year when a greater or less number of foreigners did not come to our sh.o.r.es. After 1820 the numbers who came each twelvemonth grew larger and larger, till they reached 30,000 in 1830, and 60,000 in 1836, while in the decade 1830-1840 more than 500,000 immigrants landed at New York city alone.

As the newcomers hurried westward into the cities of the Mississippi valley, the native population was startled by the appearance of men who often could not speak our language. In Cincinnati in 1840 one half the voters were of foreign birth. The cry was now raised that our inst.i.tutions, our liberties, our system of government, were at the mercy of men from the monarchical countries of Europe. A demand was made for a change in the naturalization law, so that no foreigner could become a citizen till he had lived here twenty-one years.

%393. The American Republicans or Native Americans.%--Neither the Whigs nor the Democrats would endorse this demand, so the people of Louisiana in 1841 called a state convention and founded the American Republican, or, as it was soon called, the Native American party. Its principles were

1. Put none but native Americans in office.

2. Require a residence of twenty-one years in this country before naturalization.

3. Keep the Bible in the schools.

4. Protect from abuse the proceedings necessary to get naturalization papers.

As the members would not tell what the secrets of this party were, and very often would not say whom they were going to vote for, and when questioned would answer ”I don't know,” it got the name of ”Know-nothing” party.[1]

[Footnote 1: Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. II., pp.

51-58; McMaster's _With the Fathers_, pp. 87-106.]

For a time the party flourished greatly and secured six members of the House of Representatives, then it declined in power; but the immense increase in immigration between 1846 and 1850 again revived it, and.

somewhere in New York city in 1852 a secret, oath-bound organization, with signs, grips, and pa.s.swords, was founded, and spread with such rapidity that in 1854 it carried the elections in Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, and Delaware. Next year (1855) it elected the governors and legislatures of eight states, and nearly carried six more. Encouraged by these successes, the leaders determined to enter the campaign of 1856, and called a party convention which nominated Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donelson. Delegates from seven states left the convention because it would not stand by the Missouri Compromise, and taking the name North Americans nominated N. P. Banks. He would not accept, and the bolters then joined the Republicans.