Part 1089

"It was arranged in December by the Peel ministry that Lord Ashburton should be sent to Washington as a special minister from Great Britain, with full powers to settle the boundary, and all other pending disputes with the United States. … Ashburton, formerly Alexander Baring, of the eminent banking firm of Baring Brothers, and a son of its original founder, was now an old man, who had retired on a princely fortune, and being indifferent to fame, aspired only to bring these two countries to more friendly terms. Like his father before him, he had tact and plain good sense, and understood well the American character, having married here during his youth. Lord Ashburton arrived early the next April, and on the 13th of June entered upon the duties of his mission. {3379} Maine and Massachusetts, the States most interested in the disputed boundary, sent commissioners of their own to yield an assent in this branch of the business. The whole business as conducted at our capital had an easy and informal character. Webster and Lord Ashburton represented alone their respective governments; no protocols were used, nor formal records; and the correspondence and official interviews went on after a friendly fashion in the heat of summer, and while Congress was holding its long regular session. … This Washington or Ashburton treaty, as it is called to this day, bore date of the day [August 9] when it was formally signed. It passed by the Oregon or north-western boundary, a point on which harmony was impossible, and this was the most pregnant omission of all; it passed by the 'Caroline' affair; it ignored, too, the 'Creole' case, for Great Britain would not consent to recognize the American claim of property in human beings. Nor, on the other side, were the debts of delinquent States assumed by the United States, as many British creditors had desired. Mutual extradition in crimes under the law of nations, and the delivery of fugitives from justice, were stipulated. But the two chief features of this treaty were: a settlement of the boundary between Great Britain and the United States on the north-east, extending westward beyond the great lakes, and a cruising convention for the mutual suppression of the slave-trade. As to the northeast territory in dispute, which embraced some 12,000 square miles, seven-twelfths, or about as much as the King of the Netherlands had awarded, were set off to the United States; Great Britain taking the residue and securing the highlands she desired which frown upon the Canadian Gibraltar, and a clear though circuitous route between Quebec and Halifax. Our government was permitted to carry timber down the St. John's River, and though becoming bound to pay Maine and Massachusetts $300,000 for the strip of territory relinquished to Great Britain, gained in return Rouse's Point, on Lake Champlain, of which an exact survey would have deprived us. By the cruising convention clause, which the President himself bore a conspicuous part in arranging, the delicate point of 'right of search' was avoided; for instead of trusting Great Britain as the police of other nations for suppressing the African slave-trade, each nation bound itself to do its full duty by keeping up a sufficient squadron on the African coast. It so happened that Great Britain, by softening the old phrase 'right of search' into 'right of visitation,' had been inducing other nations to guarantee this police inspection of suspected slave vessels. In December, 1841, ambassadors of the five great European powers arranged in London a quintuple league of this character. But France, hesitating to confirm such an arrangement, rejected that league when the Ashburton treaty was promulgated, and hastened to negotiate in its place a cruising convention similar to ours on the slave-trade suppression; nor was the right of search, against which America had fought in the war of 1812, ever again invoked, even as a mutual principle, until by 1862 the United States had grown as sincere as Great Britain herself in wishing to crush out the last remnant of the African traffic. This cruising convention, however, left the abstract question of search untouched, and in that light Sir Robert Peel defended himself in Parliament. The Ashburton treaty was honorable, on the whole, for each side; what it arranged was arranged fairly, and what it omitted was deferred without prejudice. … So satisfactory, in fine, was the treaty, despite all criticism, that the Senate ratified it by more than a three-fourths vote, and at a time, too, when the Whig Congress was strongly incensed against the administration, and Webster had made bitter enemies."

_J. Schouler, History of the United States, volume 4, chapter 17, pages 400-403._

ALSO IN: _D. Webster, Diplomatic and Official Papers._

_G. T. Curtis, Life of Webster, chapters 28-29 (volume 2)._

_Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other countries (edition of 1889), pages 432-438._

_I. Washburn, Jr., The Northeastern Boundary (Maine Historical Society Collections, volume 8)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1844. Fifteenth Presidential Election. Choice of James K. Polk.

The Texas treaty of annexation had been held in committee in the Senate "till the national conventions of the two parties should declare themselves. Both conventions met in Baltimore, in May, to name candidates and avow policies. The Whigs were unanimous as to who should be their candidate: it could be no one but Henry Clay. Among the Democrats there was a very strong feeling in favor of the renomination of Van Buren. But both Clay and Van Buren had been asked their opinion about the annexation of Texas, both had declared themselves opposed to any immediate step in that direction, and Van Buren's declaration cost him the Democratic nomination. He could have commanded a very considerable majority in the Democratic convention, but he did not command the two-third's majority required by its rules, and James K. Polk of Tennessee became the nominee of his party." Polk had been Speaker of the House of Representatives, and was honorably though slightly known to the country. The only new issue presented in the party "platforms" was offered by the Democrats in their resolution demanding "'the reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexation of Texas, at the earliest practicable period'; and this proved the makeweight in the campaign. … The 'Liberty Party,' the political organization of the Abolitionists, commanded now, as it turned out, more than 60,000 votes. … Had the 'Liberty' men in New York voted for Clay, he would have been elected."

_W. Wilson, Division and Reunion, 1829-1889, section 73 (chapter 6)._

Polk received of the popular votes, 1,337,243, against 1,299,062 cast for Henry Clay, Whig, and 62,300 cast for James G. Birney, candidate of the Liberty Party. Electoral vote: Polk, 170; Clay, 105; Birney, none. George M. Dallas was elected Vice President.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1844-1845, The annexation of Texas and the agitation preceding it.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1836-1845.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1844-1846. The Oregon boundary question and its settlement.

See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845. Preserving the equilibrium between Free and Slave States. Admission of Iowa and Florida.

"The slave-masters … had long pretended that the equilibrium between the free and slave States must be preserved at all hazards, and twice had they resorted to the violent device of arbitrarily linking two measures that had nothing in common for that purpose,—in 1820 combining the bills for the admission of Missouri and Maine, and in 1836 those for the admission of Michigan and Arkansas. In pursuance of the same purpose and line of policy, they were now unwilling to receive without a consideration the free State of Iowa, which had framed a constitution in the autumn of 1844, and was asking for admission. Some makeweight must be found before this application could be complied with. This they managed to discover in an old constitution, framed by the Territory of Florida five years before. Though Florida was greatly deficient in numbers, and her constitution was very objectionable in some of its features, they seized this occasion to press its claims, and to make its admission a condition precedent to their consent that Iowa should be received. The House Committee on Territories reported in favor of the admission of the two in a single measure. In the closing hours of the XXVIIIth Congress the bill came up for consideration. … The constitution of Florida not only expressly denied to the legislature the power to emancipate slaves, but gave it the authority to prevent free colored persons from immigrating into the State, or from being discharged from vessels in her ports." All attempts to require an amendment of the Florida constitution in these particulars before recognizing that ill-populated territory as a State, were defeated, and the bill admitting Florida and Iowa became a law on the 3d of March, 1845.

_H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 1._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846. The Slavery question in the Democratic Party. Hunkers and Barnburners. The Wilmot Proviso.

"With Polk's accession and the Mexican war, the schism in the Democratic ranks over the extension of American slave territory became plainer. Even during the canvass of 1844 a circular had been issued by William Cullen Bryant, David Dudley Field, John W. Edmonds, and other Van Buren men, supporting Polk, but urging the choice of congressmen opposed to annexation. Early in the new administration the division of New York Democrats into 'Barnburners' and 'Old Hunkers' appeared. The former were the strong pro-Van Buren, anti-Texas men, or 'radical Democrats,' who were likened to the farmer who burned his barn to clear it of rats. The latter were the 'northern men with southern principles,' the supporters of annexation, and the respectable, dull men of easy consciences, who were said to hanker after the offices. The Barnburners were led by men of really eminent ability and exalted character: Silas Wright, then governor, Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Dix, chosen in 1845 to the United States senate, Azariah C. Flagg, the famous comptroller, and John Van Buren, the ex-president's son. … Daniel S. Dickinson and William L. Marcy were the chief figures in the Hunker ranks. Polk seemed inclined, at the beginning, to favor, or at least to placate, the Barnburners. … Jackson's death in June, 1845, deprived the Van Buren men of the tremendous moral weight which his name carried, and which might have daunted Polk. It perhaps also helped to loosen the weight of party ties on the Van Buren men. After this the schism rapidly grew. In the fall election of 1845 the Barnburners pretty thoroughly controlled the Democratic party of the state [of New York] in hostility to the Mexican war, which the annexation of Texas had now brought. Samuel J. Tilden of Columbia county, and a profound admirer of Van Buren, became one of their younger leaders. Now arose the strife over the 'Wilmot proviso,' in which was embodied the opposition to the extension of slavery into new territories. Upon this proviso the modern Republican party was formed eight years later; upon it, fourteen years later, Abraham Lincoln was chosen president; and upon it began the war for the Union, out of whose throes came the vastly grander and unsought beneficence of complete emancipation. David Wilmot was a Democratic member of Congress from Pennsylvania; in New York he would have been a Barnburner. In 1846 a bill was pending to appropriate $3,000,000 for use by the president in a purchase of territory from Mexico as part of a peace. Wilmot proposed an amendment that slavery should be excluded from any territory so acquired. All the Democratic members, as well as the Whigs from New York, and most strongly the Van Buren or Wright men, supported the proviso. The Democratic legislature [of New York] approved it by the votes of the Whigs with the Barnburners and the Soft Hunkers, the latter being Hunkers less friendly to slavery. It passed the house at Washington, but was rejected by the senate."

_E. M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren, chapter 11._

In the slang nomenclature which New York politics have always produced with great fertility Hard-Shell and Soft-Shell were terms often used instead of Hunker and Barnburner.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1846. The Walker Tariff.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1846-1861.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1846-1847. War with Mexico. Conquest of California and New Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1846; 1846-1847; and 1847; also, CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847; and NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1846.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1847. Calhoun's aggressive policy of agitation, forcing the Slavery issue upon the North. His program of disunion.

"On Friday, the 19th of February [1847], Mr. Calhoun introduced into the Semite his new slavery resolutions, prefaced by an elaborate speech, and requiring an immediate vote upon them. They were in these words: 'Resolved, That the territories of the United States belong to the several States composing this Union, and are held by them as their joint and common property. Resolved, That Congress, as the joint agent and representative of the States of this Union, has no right to make any law, or do any act whatever, that shall directly, or by its effects, make any discrimination between the States of this Union, by which any of them shall be deprived of its full and equal right in any territory of the United States acquired or to be acquired. Resolved, That the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, into any of the territories of the United States, will make such discrimination, and would, therefore, be a violation of the constitution, and the rights of the States from which such citizens emigrated, and in derogation of that perfect equality which belongs to them as members of this Union, and would tend directly to subvert the Union itself. {3381} Resolved, That it is a fundamental principle in our political creed, that a people, in forming a constitution, have the unconditional right to form and adopt the government which they may think best calculated to secure their liberty, prosperity, and happiness; and that, in conformity thereto, no other condition is imposed by the federal constitution on a State, in order to be admitted into this Union, except that its constitution shall be republican; and that the imposition of any other by Congress would not only be in violation of the constitution, but in direct conflict with the principle on which our political system rests.' These resolutions, although the sense is involved in circumlocutory phrases, are intelligible to the point, that Congress has no power to prohibit slavery in a territory, and that the exercise of such a power would be a breach of the constitution, and leading to the subversion of the Union. … Mr. Calhoun demanded the prompt consideration of his resolutions, giving notice that he would call them up the next day and press them to a speedy and final vote. He did call them up, but never called for the vote, nor was any ever had. … In the course of this year, and some months after the submission of his resolutions in the Senate denying the right of Congress to abolish slavery in a territory, Mr. Calhoun wrote a letter to a member of the Alabama Legislature, which furnishes the key to unlock his whole system of policy in relation to the slavery agitation, and its designs, from his first taking up the business in Congress in the year 1835, down to the date of the letter; and thereafter. The letter was in reply to one asking his opinion 'as to the steps which should be taken' to guard the rights of the South. … It opens with this paragraph: 'I am much gratified with the tone and views of your letter, and concur entirely in the opinion you express, that instead of shunning, we ought to court the issue with the North on the slavery question. I would even go one step further, and add that it is our duty—due to ourselves, to the Union, and our political institutions, to force the issue on the North. We are now stronger relatively than we shall be hereafter, politically and morally. Unless we bring on the issue, delay to us will be dangerous indeed. It is the true policy of those enemies who seek our destruction. Its effects are, and have been, and will be to weaken us politically and morally, and to strengthen them. Such has been my opinion from the first. Had the South, or even my own State backed me, I would have forced the issue on the North in 1835, when the spirit of abolitionism first developed itself to any considerable extent. It is a true maxim, to meet danger on the frontier, in politics as well as war. Thus thinking, I am of the impression, that if the South act as it ought, the Wilmot Proviso, instead of proving to be the means of successfully assailing us and our peculiar institution, may be made the occasion of successfully asserting our equality and rights, by enabling us to force the issue on the North. Something of the kind was indispensable to rouse and unite the South. On the contrary, if we should not meet it as we ought, I fear, greatly fear, our doom will be fixed. It would prove that we either have not the sense or spirit to defend ourselves and our institutions.' The phrase 'forcing the issue' is here used too often, and for a purpose too obvious, to need remark. The reference to his movement in 1835 confirms all that was said of that movement at the time by senators from both sections of the Union. … At that time Mr. Calhoun characterized his movement as defensive—as done in a spirit of self-defence: it was then characterized by senators as aggressive and offensive: and it is now declared in this letter to have been so. He was then openly told that he was playing into the hands of the abolitionists, and giving them a champion to contend with, and the elevated theatre of the American Senate for the dissemination of their doctrines, and the production of agitation and sectional division. All that is now admitted, with a lamentation that the South, and not even his own State, would stand by him then in forcing the issue. So that chance was lost. Another was now presented. The Wilmot Proviso, so much deprecated in public, is privately saluted as a fortunate event, giving another chance for forcing the issue. The letter proceeds: 'But in making up the issue, we must look far beyond the proviso. It is but one of many acts of aggression, and, in my opinion, by no means the most dangerous or degrading, though more striking and palpable.' … So that, while this proviso was, publicly, the Pandora's box which filled the Union with evil, and while it was to Mr. Calhoun and his friends the theme of endless deprecation, it was secretly cherished as a means of keeping up discord, and forcing the issue between the North and the South. Mr. Calhoun then proceeds to the serious question of disunion, and of the manner in which the issue could be forced. 'This brings up the question, how can it be so met, without resorting to the dissolution of the Union? … There is, in my opinion, but one way in which it can be met; and that is … by retaliation.' … Then follows an argument to justify retaliation. … Retaliation by closing the ports of the State against the commerce of the offending State: and this called a constitutional remedy, and a remedy short of disunion. … The letter proceeds with further instructions upon the manner of executing the retaliation: 'My impression is, that it should be restricted to sea-going vessels, which would leave open the trade of the valley of the Mississippi to New Orleans by river, and to the other Southern cities by railroad; and tend thereby to detach the North-western from the North-eastern States.' … This confidential letter from Mr. Calhoun to a member of the Alabama legislature of 1847, has come to light, to furnish the key which unlocks his whole system of slavery agitation which he commenced in the year 1835. That system was to force issues upon the North under the pretext of self-defence, and to sectionalize the South, preparatory to disunion, through the instrumentality of sectional conventions, composed wholly of delegates from the slaveholding States."

_T. H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, volume 2, chapters 167-168._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848. Peace with Mexico. The Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. The acquisition of Territory.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1848.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848. Admission of Wisconsin into the Union.

See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848. Increased reservation of public lands for School support.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1785-1880.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848. The Free Soil Convention at Buffalo and its nominations.