should be received, "or entertained in any way whatever."

Against this arbitrary action John Quincy Adams, who, after his not altogether successful administration as President, had begun, in 1831, a brilliant career in the House of Representatives, vigorously protested. Adams owed his support at home in part to the abolitionists, with whose main purposes he was now in practical accord, and he refused to abate this agitation until, in 1844, the "gag-rule" was repealed. Rarely has the atmosphere of the House been more charged with passion and hate than during the years when Adams was waging his splendid fight for free speech and free thought. Petitions for his expulsion and threats of personal violence did not intimidate him. In February, 1837, there was talk of censuring him for presenting a petition signed by slaves, and the anger of the House was only increased when it finally came out that the prayer of the petitioners was against abolition, not in favor of it. An attempt to expel Adams, in 1842, happily failed. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, who ably seconded Adams's efforts, was censured by the House for his conduct, resigned his seat, was triumphantly reelected by his constituents, and shortly returned with an endorsement which even the angry and excited House dared not disregard.

A recent historian, whose attitude towards the early abolition agitation is far from friendly, gives it as his opinion that "the whole course of the internal history of the United States from 1836 to 1861 was more largely determined by the struggle in Congress over the abolition petitions and the use of the mails for the distribution of the abolition literature than

by anything else."1 The demand for immediate emancipation, indeed, had put slavery on the defensive, and while the North was slow in rousing, the extreme claims of southern leaders in Congress, revealing as they did an evident determination to suppress all discussion on the subject, were themselves a confession of weakness. The federal administration, however, was largely in the hands of able men from the southern States, as it had been for most of the years since 1789; and whether slavery was an evil or a good, it was not likely to be either overthrown or seriously restricted without prolonged resistance.

In 1840 the abolitionists were for the first time able to put a Presidential ticket in the field, though the decision so to do made a permanent breach in the abolition ranks, a large number, including Garrison, holding the formation of a third party to be inexpedient. The Democratic platform of 1840 denied the right of Congress to interfere with the domestic institutions of any State, and denounced the abolition agitation as "calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences" and to “endanger the stability and permanency of the Union." The Whigs were not yet prepared to take issue with the Democrats on this point. The abolition convention in December, 1839, held at Warsaw, New York, nominated James G. Birney, of New York, for President, and Thomas Earle, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-president. Birney had been an Alabama slaveholder, but had been converted to abolition through belief in colonization and gradual emancipation. In

1 Burgess, Middle Period, 274.

the election of 1840 these candidates polled but 7069 votes in a total vote of 2,411,187; but the day of greater things was at hand. Until the Thirteenth Amendment had abolished slavery, the question of abolition was destined not to be absent from any Presidential campaign. It remained to be seen whether, under the stress of practical politics, the agitation could be kept free from dangerous entanglements, or could accept the temporary expedients which are a necessary accompaniment of every great reform.

XX

TERRITORIAL SLAVERY

ACKSON'S choice of a successor fell upon his

of State and Vice-president, Van Buren had had experience in national administration, while his earlier membership in the political group known as the "Albany Regency" had given him an acquaintance with "practical politics" such as few men of his generation possessed. Born of an old New York family, bred to wealth and social position, he was in striking contrast to the rough-and-ready champion of democracy who now pressed his candidacy to a successful issue. Yet his path to the Presidency was strewn with difficulties. Van Buren, though Secretary of State, was well known to have been also intimate with the so-called kitchen cabinet to which Jackson, in his first administration, had given his confidence; and when, in 1831, following Calhoun's attack upon Jackson for the latter's course in the Seminole war, there came the break-up of the cabinet, the nomination of Van Buren to be Minister to Great Britain was rejected by the Senate. The rejection was the more humiliating because achieved by the casting vote of Calhoun, then Vice-president, and because Van Buren, confident of his confirmation, had already presented his credentials at the court of St.

James. In January, 1835, the legislature of Jackson's own State, Tennessee, though well aware of Jackson's wishes, had nominated Senator Hugh L. White, of that State, for President, and the nomination was shortly seconded by the legislature of Alabama.

The campaign which followed profited more by the dissensions and weakness of the opposition than by the strength of Van Buren. The Whig party, organized in 1834, was an unfused aggregation of National Republicans, moderate State-rights men or Nullifiers, Anti-Masons, and “Jackson men" who resented what they held to be the usurpation of executive authority by the President. The members of this party generally supported William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, the nominee of an Anti-Masonic convention at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The legislature of Ohio nominated Judge John McLean, of that State, and the Massachusetts Whigs presented Webster, who, it was thought, would carry New England. There were certainly candidates enough, and to spare. The Democratic party, on the other hand, had the better organization, and made the most of the popular opposition to the bank of the United States, with whose support the majority of the Whigs were identified. The Democratic convention, held in Baltimore in May, 1835-more than seventeen months before the election-cast a unanimous vote for Van Buren. In the election Van Buren received 170 electoral votes against 73 for Harrison, his principal competitor. The popular vote, however, showed no such overwhelming majority, the vote for Van Buren being 762,987, against 736,250 for the combined Whig opposition. Neither candidate for Vicepresident received a majority of the electoral votes,