XXI

THE PRELUDE TO THE CIVIL WAR

HERE were not wanting those who looked upon

THE

the compromise of 1850 as a final adjustment of the slavery controversy. Troublesome as the question had been, it had now, it was thought, been settled, and settled on principle. So long as slavery was not to be abolished as a moral evil, what better or fairer adjustment could there be than to let each new State, as it came into the Union, decide for itself whether its labor should be slave or free? So thought many. Webster went about the country defending the arrangement, albeit speaking of his opponents with a bitterness which was not his wont. Eight hundred leading men of Boston and vicinity, among them George Ticknor, Rufus Choate, William H. Prescott, and Jared Sparks, signed an address approving the doctrine of his seventh-of-March speech, and enthusiastic admirers cancelled his notes and gave him presents of money. But Webster's work was nearly done. The blow which his defence of the fugitive-slave act gave to the antislavery cause recoiled speedily upon his own head. He lived long enough to be dethroned by the New England which had looked up to him as to a god, to be repudiated by those whose political convictions he had done much to form, and to be denounced as an apostate

and a renegade by those to whom human freedom and not political expediency had become the one great issue. The condemnation was harsh and extreme, and took little account of the legal and constitutional soundness of much of his argument, but under its crushing weight Webster sank rapidly. In July, 1850, before the debate on the compromise measures was over, the death of President Taylor, and the succession of Vice-president Fillmore, gave Webster once more the office of Secretary of State; and he was still secretary when, on October 24, 1852, he died. History has been kind to him, for while it cannot overlook the clouded evening of his momentous life, it thinks most of the long and brilliant day, when the greatest of American statesmen used with consummate power his splendid endowments of intellect, voice, and presence for the maintenance of liberty and union, and the establishment of the Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

Two diplomatic matters only of special importance developed during Webster's last term as Secretary of State. The first was connected with the revolution of 1848 in Hungary, and the popular demand in this country for the recognition of Hungarian independence. Complaint by Hülsemann, the Austrian chargé d'affaires at Washington, of the action of the United States in sending an agent to Hungary to investigate the conditions there, called out the famous "Hülsemann letter," in which Webster sharply rebuked the Austrian representative and brilliantly vindicated, though in language needlessly direct and emphatic, the course of this government. Later, when Kossuth and other Hungarian refugees were

brought to the United States in an American war vessel, their enthusiastic reception again threatened a breach with Austria, but Webster succeeded in maintaining friendly relations between the two governments, while at the same time expressing his personal sympathy for Kossuth and his cause. So far as recognition or financial aid was concerned, Kossuth's mission, like the movement for Hungarian independence of which he had been the leader, was a failure.

The other episode grew out of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850. By this treaty the United States and Great Britain had declared that neither government would ever obtain or assert any exclusive control over any ship-canal that might be constructed through Nicaragua or any other part of Central America, but would guarantee its neutrality, to the end that the canal might always be free and open to the commerce of all nations. The treaty led to a long correspondence with Great Britain over the claim of the latter to levy port charges on the so-called Mosquito coast in Nicaragua, and to a controversy with Mexico regarding the right of way across Tehuantepec, both of which questions were satisfactorily settled. Similar success attended the adjustment of difficulties which followed the fitting out of filibustering expeditions against Cuba, and an attack by a mob on the Spanish consulate at New Orleans.

All other issues were relegated to second place, however, by the increasing excitement which attended the enforcement of the fugitive-slave law in the North. The terms of the act were of the utmost stringency. The act authorized the owner of any fugitive slave, or his agent or representative, to pur

sue the fugitive into any State or Territory, arrest him, and have the captor's claim to ownership immediately examined by the courts or by commissioners especially appointed for the purpose. The testimony of the negro could not be received as evidence in any trial or hearing. Any person aiding in the rescue or escape of a fugitive slave, or interfering with the custody of him by his alleged owner, was liable to a fine of $1000, or imprisonment for six months, and to the forfeiture of the further sum of $1000 "by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct." Officers charged with the custody or return of fugitives were authorized to employ such aid as might be necessary to enable them to perform the service. In short, the act was so contrived as, naturally, to throw all the presumption on the side of the owner or his agent, while at the same time placing at his disposal, for the enforcement of his claim, the whole physical power of the community.

Wide-spread opposition was not long in showing itself. The pulpit, long silent, began to speak out, and public meetings both voiced and nourished the popular feeling that the law, however constitutional, was cruel and unjust. Slave-owners and their agents, the latter often men of brutal instincts and coarse manners, found the pursuit and apprehension of fugitive negroes increasingly difficult and dangerous. In September, 1851, one Gorsuch, a Baltimore physician, was shot and killed in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, by a party of armed negroes while attempting to carry off a fugitive slave; and, although more than thirty persons were arrested, none could be convicted. In Syracuse, New York, a negro named Jerry

McHenry, held in jail for trial under the law, was rescued by a party headed by Gerrit Smith, a prominent abolitionist and later a member of Congress, and Rev. Samuel J. May, and was aided in making his escape to Canada. A raid upon a settlement of fugitives in Michigan by an armed party from Kentucky was forcibly resisted, the Kentuckians being arrested and put on trial for kidnapping, and, although all were acquitted, their purpose was foiled. These were but a few instances out of many. There were, of course, successful attempts to recover runaways under the law, but in most such instances the expense incurred was ruinous. The most famous case, perhaps, was that of Anthony Burns, who was held in Boston in spite of an attempt to rescue him, and after a trial before the United States commissioner was remanded to his captors, and escorted to a revenue-cutter in the harbor through streets guarded by 1100 troops and the entire police force of the city. Well might the Richmond Enquirer say, "A few more such victories and the South is undone."

These were the violent outbursts on the surface. A secret but more effectual nullification of the obnoxious law was worked by the "underground railroad." Throughout the North there had for years been many persons, white and colored, who did not hesitate to aid fleeing negroes in their dangerous progress from the border States to Canada. The fugitive slave law hardened this desultory aid into something resembling a system. Various "routes," or "lines," with "stations" at convenient distances, speedily developed under the energetic, but secret, agitation of radical antislavery advocates. Houses, barns, sheds, and thickets served as shelters where