Part 15

The North had got rid of slavery. It had done more. Its voice had excluded slavery from the great North-West. But the South owed its growth to slave labor, and wherever her people went to found new States they carried their slaves with them. It was inevitable, that, whenever free and slave labor should meet on the same ground, a conflict must arise between them, though statesmen were anxious to avert the coming on of strife as long as possible.

It is hard to stay the march of events, or confute the logic of time. Even as far back as the beginning of the Union, men had foreseen the coming storm, with foreboding, yet these men were no wiser than the Massachusetts men of 1774; for at the time of the Union slavery might have been so restricted that it would eventually have died out in the land, or a way provided for the gradual emancipation of the blacks. Such steps were indeed talked of, but not consummated. So the nation was allowed to drift on, and the two opposing systems were left to work out their own results.

In 1819 Missouri asked for admission into the Union. Her doing so, with a constitution recognizing slavery, proved a rock of danger to the Republic, the wisest statesmen found it hard to steer clear of. It provoked violent opposition at the North, and equally vehement support in the South. Under French rule the people of the nascent State held slaves. Those who had since come in were mostly from slaveholding States, and wanted to have slavery recognized as part of their social and political system.

They demanded this, not as a privilege, but as a right guaranteed to them by the Constitution itself, in which property in slaves was distinctly recognized. So they stood firm for what they considered their rights, defending slavery from the charge of immorality, or inhumanity of man to man, as men would the most righteous cause.

The North contended, broadly, that slavery was a crime, discountenanced by Christian people and enlightened thought everywhere, of which the nation should purge itself. It was said that the idea of a nation being free, when it countenanced holding men in bondage, was a mockery of freedom. Many construed the ordinance of 1787 to have forbidden, if not in its letter, at least in spirit, the formation of slave States out of newly acquired territory. But these men did not propose to interfere with slavery in the States where it already existed.

Around these two differing ideas the men of the North and South clustered themselves. Underlying all, and governing all, was the conviction that a check to the extension of slavery meant a check to the political power of the South itself. This view made the South a unit, while in the North public sentiment was divided, for many there deprecated agitation of the question, as the entering wedge which should split the Republic asunder.

When, therefore, Congress took up the bill for the admission of Missouri, the opponents of slavery met it with the condition that no slaves should afterward be brought into the new State, while all children, born in it subsequent to its admission, should be free at the age of twenty-five years. In time this condition would have made Missouri a free State.

The matter was hotly debated. Of the twenty-two States then constituting the Union, ten were slave States. Two ominous phrases began to be heard. One was "State rights," the other "Balance of power." In the violence of party strife, patriotism was lost sight of.

The House of Representatives refused to admit Missouri without the condition; the Senate refused to do so with it. So Missouri was not admitted at this time.

With the two houses thus divided, it was apparent that no new State could be admitted, since the Southern party, having control of the Senate, would not vote to admit a free State so long as Missouri was kept out, and Maine was then ready to come in as a free State.

As neither party would yield, the more moderate, or timid, men of each tried to find some intermediate ground where the factions could come together, each giving up something for the sake of restoring harmony to the country. Finally a settlement was reached. Maine came in a free State. Missouri was admitted with slavery, but with the restriction attached that her southern boundary should thenceforward be the limit north of which no new slave States should be formed. Thus the line between freedom and slavery was first strictly drawn on the parallel of 36° 30´, but with a slave State above it. The first battle between the two warring systems had been fought, and slavery had won. The North had got a line, but the South had won a State.

ARKANSAS ADMITTED 1836.

Arkansas was admitted into the Union in 1836, as a slave State, retaining the name it had been given as a Territory, when formed from the Louisiana purchase,—a name originating with the once powerful nation Marquette found seated on the banks of the Mississippi. Thus three slave States had been made out of French Louisiana.

THOMAS H. BENTON'S IDEA.

"_There is the East! There lies the road to India._"

Lawyer, soldier and politician, but not yet a statesman, Thomas H. Benton went from Tennessee to Missouri after the war with England was over. Though St. Louis was yet only a large village, it was the focus of the activities of the Great West. Mr. Benton saw it was the place for a rising man to grow up in, and accordingly he settled there.

In St. Louis Mr. Benton found an aristocracy of fur-traders, whose attachment for their own usages and old form of government bound them together. They kept their own language and manners. With many it was a point of honor never to learn English at all. In all things they were as distinctively French as the French people of Canada are to-day. Thus this scion of refinement had been grafted on a rude frontier life, but would not assimilate with the coarser elements thrown upon it by emigration from the States.

By the side of this middle-class (_bourgeois_) aristocracy stood the Catholic clergy, with its traditions of the old _régime_ in Canada, its proud record of discovery and missionary work among the barbarians of these Western wilds, whose every stream and fountain had its story of zeal and heroism to tell.

This was society at the core. The clergy was its rock of support. Boys were taught in the parish school, and girls in a nunnery. So education was as much in the keeping of the Church as religion itself. Nations may change, but the Roman Church never abandons its people or its objects.

Around this foundation was grouped the community of French Creoles, whom the great fur companies employed and who were their dependants. And around them clustered again an increasing population of American adventurers, coming mostly from the Southern States in search of a living, for whom St. Louis was the magnet which attracts to itself the scattered atoms of society far and near.

Outside of St. Louis, Missouri owed her rapid growth to the in-coming of actual settlers. In 1816 only thirty families were found on the left bank of the Missouri, above Callaway County. In three years the number had increased to eight hundred families. Here was the real bone and sinew of the State.

Mr. Benton found the American Fur-Trading Company sending forth its yearly caravans over the great plains to the mountains, and from the mountains, through passes known only to the Indians and fur-traders, into Sonora, New Mexico and Oregon. Since the way was beset by hostile Indians, these caravans went armed to the teeth. The same Indians might fight them one day and trade the next. In time, the passing to and fro of these traders had marked out well-beaten paths up the Arkansas and the Platte, which presently came to be known on the frontier as the Santa Fé Trail and Oregon Trail.[1]

At bottom the St. Louis fur-traders were not more friendly to colonization than the English fur-traders, but they were quite as eager to push their business into Oregon, conceiving they had the best right there, as the English companies were to keep them out of it so that they themselves might reap all the profit; and so there was rivalry and ill blood between them.

Mr. Benton was energetic, ambitious and self-reliant, qualities which soon identified him with the thought and interests of the people among whom he had cast in his lot in life. Thoroughly Southern in his feelings, he had borne an active part in making Missouri a slave State, and when that result was accomplished the people sent him to the United States Senate as a reward for his zeal in their behalf.

When the war with England was over, our Government wished to have the boundary between our own and the British possessions defined and settled. Though proposed to be run on the forty-ninth parallel it had never been done, and in buying Louisiana we inherited a dispute which, so long as that vast region was unexplored and unknown, had slept, but was now become a source of irritation and danger between England and the United States. The Columbia River and its basin[2] were the bone of contention. Both wanted them. Neither would give them up. Since Astoria[3] had been sold, the Hudson's Bay and North-west Companies had held uninterrupted possession of the whole country, to the exclusion of our own ships and traders, whose interests had suffered in consequence; but as England would not yield her pretensions peaceably, the people of the Atlantic coast were unwilling to go to war about a region so remote, the more so because they were just recovering from the effects of the one lately ended, and felt that they would be the greatest sufferers if war again broke out between the two nations.

So the two countries compromised their differences by agreeing to hold Oregon in common, first for ten years (1818-1828), and afterward from year to year. All this time England was growing stronger in Oregon, and the United States losing the hold her citizens had first obtained there, for though it was neutral ground on paper, the English with their free access by land and sea were able to shut out our traders, and did so.

This state of things was humiliating to the West. It was as though the nation were eating humble-pie rather than offend England. Continual agitation of the question served to keep up a feverish feeling about Oregon, but since Major Long had said it was of no use to think of cultivating the land between the meridian of Council Bluffs and the Rocky Mountains, it seemed settled that nobody but fur-traders would want to cross this desert while so much fertile land remained vacant in the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys. If settlement must stop at the edge of this desert, then the idea of geographical unity vanished, and Oregon would, in truth, be worth little to us. Mr. Benton, himself, was at one time of this opinion.

So when Mr. Benton wanted the Government to take Oregon with an armed force, he was told it was not worth the trouble, for Oregon could never become a State if we did.

There was another element to the dispute, which found much favor in the West. This was Mr. Monroe's declaration that no European power would be allowed to subdue or overturn the independent governments of our continent. This was a notice to England that she could not have Oregon. It has since been known as the Monroe Doctrine,[4] and so Mr. Monroe became the author of a national policy.

Mr. Benton mastered all the details of the vexatious Oregon question. The interests of his constituents were at stake. His patriotism was aroused. He felt equal disgust with the artifices by which England kept us out of Oregon, as with the cautious spirit of the East, which counted the cost of every thing beforehand, less, it seemed to him, in the spirit of statesmanship, than for what it would be worth at the present moment.

It should not be forgotten, however, that New England enterprise had first made known the resources of our possessions on the Pacific.

In fine, Mr. Benton made himself the champion of the growing West. He had already become, in a sense, the trustee of Mr. Jefferson's pet scheme of a great overland highway to India, which, indeed, proved too great for the time that wise man lived in, but only waited for the people to grow up to it. Mr. Benton knew from Mr. Jefferson's own lips what results had been hoped for, but not realized,—how the best-laid plans had been thwarted, or suffered to sleep the sleep of oblivion,—and the Missouri senator had gone away from his memorable interview more than ever impressed with the greatness of the mission he was henceforth to take upon himself as Mr. Jefferson's disciple.

England managed, in one or another way, to delay a settlement just forty-nine years. A few Americans had gone into Oregon, but as yet they were only a handful. In 1832 Captain Bonneville[5] took the first wagon train across the Wind River chain into the Green River Valley, thus proving the mountains were practicable for vehicles. The same year Nathaniel J. Wyeth[6] led a party all the way from New England to Fort Vancouver, after a journey lasting seven months, in which some of his men were killed by the Blackfeet. In 1834 and 1835 some American missionaries[7] were sent out to Oregon, one of whom, Marcus Whitman, was to figure largely in its history. In the following year Dr. Whitman went through to Fort Walla Walla with a wagon, thus doing what had been declared impossible. Yet up to the close of 1841 not quite a hundred and fifty Americans, in all, had settled in Oregon, though the Oregon Trail was largely shorn of its terrors by the intrepidity of these real pathfinders. For his part, Dr. Whitman saw clearly, that, since diplomacy was purposely hindering it, emigration must step in and settle the question who should have Oregon. And Dr. Whitman was not only a man of clear sight, but of action.

FOOTNOTES

[1] SANTA FÉ TRAIL and OREGON TRAIL. Independence was long the farthest white settlement in Missouri, and consequently became the starting point. So far the Missouri River could be followed. See map. Westport, and finally Kansas City, grew from this cause. As settlements extended up the river, the main trails were struck from many points, as Fort Leavenworth, St. Joseph, Council Bluffs, etc.,—like trunk roads with many branches.

[2] THE COLUMBIA AND ITS BASIN. England claimed that Drake and Cook had first discovered and taken possession of Oregon, which then included the present Oregon, Idaho, Washington and part of Montana. In 1671 Saint Lusson, at Sault Ste. Marie, had taken possession of all the country west to the South Sea for France. (See preceding chapters.) Whatever rights France acquired became ours by purchase from her. But Spain had the better title on the Pacific. She, however, relinquished to us, on the cession of the Floridas, in 1819, all north of 42°, the present north line of California. We thus became possessed of all rights either power had laid claim to north of that parallel. The north boundary, between Louisiana and the British Possessions, was supposed to be fixed by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) at the forty-ninth degree.

[3] ASTORIA was restored to us (1818), after much wrangling, but the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Vancouver, ninety miles up the Columbia, so cutting off Astoria from the upper valleys. It was burnt to the ground in 1821, except a few huts.

[4] THE MONROE DOCTRINE. "The American Continents, by the free and independent condition they have assumed and maintain, are not to be considered as subjects for colonization by European powers."

[5] CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE'S adventures are related by Washington Irving.

[6] NATHANIEL J. WYETH established Fort Hall on Lewis River, in what is now Idaho. The Hudson's Bay Company at once set up a rival post called Fort Boisé below it, so compelling Wyeth to sell out to it or be ruined by its competition.

[7] THESE MISSIONARIES were Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee sent by the Methodist denomination, and Revs. Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman sent by the American Board. The Methodist mission was at the Dalles, the other at Walla Walla. This was the first introduction of Protestant missions among the Oregon tribes.

WITH THE VANGUARD TO OREGON.

"_This army does not retreat!_"

Emigration was to be our army of occupation in Oregon. In this conviction Mr. Benton was looking about him for the means to set it in motion, when he chanced to meet Lieutenant John C. Fremont, of the topographical engineers, who had just returned from surveying the Upper Mississippi, with Nicollet.[1]

Mr. Benton wanted the Oregon route surveyed in aid of emigration to the Lower Columbia. The subject led to an intimacy between the two men, in the course of which Fremont fell in love with Mr. Benton's daughter Jessie, whom a little later he married, so uniting his fortunes with the distinguished senator's family, as well as his plans.

It resulted in sending Fremont (1842) to find out whether the South Pass[2] of the Rocky Mountains, the usual crossing-place, would best accommodate the coming emigration.

This was the very first step taken by our Government in aid of emigration to Oregon. Hitherto it had reflected the prevailing belief in the worthlessness of Oregon for any such purpose. We were, at this time, thick in the dispute with England about the boundary, and so the expedition was rather assented to, in deference to Western men, than authorized as a Government measure.

St. Louis is no longer to be considered as a starting-point for the mountains. Already this had gone three hundred and fifty miles west. Fremont's journey therefore began at the little village of Kansas,[3] now a city larger than any then existing west of the Alleghanies, but then only a landing for Chouteau's trading-post, ten miles up the Kansas River. From this place, early in June, Fremont's party set out for the mountains. Kit Carson of Taos, a famous hunter, was their guide.

For most of the way Fremont's wagons only followed in the track of those that had gone before them, sometimes with guides, but oftener without them. The road was plain, and led over ground where vehicles pass everywhere with ease, except when gullies or streams cross their path. So Fremont's men journeyed on quite at their ease. At nightfall the wagons were drawn together in a circle, thus forming an enclosed and barricaded camp, in which the travellers pitched their tents.

Fremont went up the Kansas valley as far as the Big Blue, crossing thence over to the Platte, which was now to be his guide for the rest of his journey.

Now and then Fremont would come across the abandoned camp of some Oregon emigrants, who thus seemed piloting him on, instead of he them.

At the forks of the Platte the party was divided, Fremont himself going down the South Fork, to St. Vrain's Fort,[4] while the rest kept on up the North Fork, to Fort Laramie,[5] where Fremont presently joined them again.

When firewood grew scarce the men would have to make their fires of dried buffalo-dung, as the Arabs of the desert do with that of the camel.

At Laramie, Fremont learned that the mountains beyond swarmed with Indians, who were out on the war-path, and had declared the road shut to the whites. But Fremont went on to the South Pass, which was found to rise by so gradual an ascent that the exploring party hardly knew when they had reached its summit.

In the valley beyond this pass, the explorers rested. Before turning back, Fremont himself, with a few others, made their way into the mountains and up to the summit of the high peak now known by his name, which rose, the monarch of all in this region, 13,570 feet above the sea. In this way the three greatest landmarks of the Rockies make memorable the names of three explorers, Pike, Long and Fremont.

While Fremont did little that had not been done already, his careful record of distances, fords, camping-places where grass, wood and water could be had, was just what outgoing emigrants needed to know, and so, immediately, they began to go forward with confidence. It was besides a token that Government had taken hold of the matter at last, and would, it was thought, now foster and protect the emigration.

Fremont said it would be necessary to have permanent military posts at Laramie, St. Vrain's and Bent's Fort, to keep the Indians from killing our people, as they passed through their country. Until this should be done the road could not be called safe. But he did the most for emigration in correcting the popular error about the barrenness of the great plains, to which Major Long gave currency, and which everybody to this time had believed. He showed that where the buffalo roamed in such vast herds, and found food, could not be a desert, for the wild grass they lived on would certainly keep the emigrants' cattle, while no man need starve in the midst of such abundance of wild game as constantly roved these plains before their eyes. It was much to have all these things set down in an orderly manner by some friendly hand, and with the seal of Government authority. Fremont did this as it had not been done before.

Fremont's first expedition met with such favor that he was immediately sent on a second (1843), and much more important one. This time he was to begin at the South Pass, and go through the Lower Columbia country. He was well on his way when the War Department suddenly recalled him to Washington, but Mrs. Fremont took the responsibility of suppressing the order until the explorer was too far off for it to reach him.

At the moment of starting from the Missouri, Fremont met a large party of emigrants who were going to California under the lead of J. B. Childs. This party took with them that modern civilizing engine, a saw-mill, ready to be put up on reaching the Sacramento. As Fremont moved west, trains of wagons were seldom out of sight. The great march had begun in earnest.

Fremont decided to explore the mountains in the neighborhood of St. Vrain's Fort to see if they would afford a practicable passage on a more direct east-and-west line than the old way up the Platte. He therefore struck into them, north of Long's Peak, and by following the Cache-à-la-Poudre[6] River came out on the other side, where his journey of the previous year had ended. From here he passed on into the valley of Bear River, and so on to the Great Salt Lake,[7] which he also explored.

From Salt Lake, Fremont went north to the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort Hall, striking the Oregon Trail again by the way. The explorers divided here, part going back to the States and part down the river with Fremont. Fort Boisé[8] they found was only an ordinary dwelling-house. Going on they next came to the mission Dr. Whitman had founded among the Nez Percés, near Walla Walla. It then consisted of but one adobe house, though more were going up around it. Its cornfields and potato-patches, which Dr. Whitman had cleared and planted, were a pleasant sight to men worn down with travel and fasting, but not more so to Fremont than the little colony of emigrants now collected here after their long march of two thousand miles,—men, women and children,—all in robust health, and all regaling themselves with Dr. Whitman's potatoes.