Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

by Americans, in 1867. Organized as a territory in 1868. Admitted in miles of railway, forty-sixth in population. First settlement, tories in cattle, fourteenth in gold, sixteenth in coal, thirty-fourth WYOMING, in 1880, ranked twelfth among the States and Terri

to the Union 1890.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

the popular, 647,231 for Jackson, 509,097 for Adams. As soon as he had taken up the reigns of power, Jackson removed some five hundred office-holders from their places, on Marcy's famous theory that "to the victors belong the spoils." Upon this principle the tenure of political office still practically, if not theoretically, depends.

The Tariff was exceedingly unpopular at the South, which was then as now, an agricultural rather than a manufacturing region. Several States had protested, and in 1830 Senator Hayne laid down the doctrine of Nullification—that any State could declare null and void any act of Congress. Webster answered this declaration in the debate which has since been famous. The original discussion was not on the tariff regulations, but on the sale of public lands. The struggle was a hot one. Jackson took occasion to put himself on record at once with his celebrated toast, "Our Federal Union, it must be preserved." The words were first uttered at a dinner in honor of his birthday. Calhoun took the opposite view, and in 1831 the president's cabinet was broken up by the issue. A new tariff bill was passed, but the South was still dissatisfied, and in 1832 South Carolina passed the Nullification ordinance. Jackson at once sent a naval force into Charleston harbor, and Congress passed a bill enforcing the tariff; but Henry Clay again came forward with a compromise which was accepted on both sides.

The United States Bank was the next bone of contention. It had been chartered in 1816 for twenty years. After a struggle with Congress, and with his secretary of the Treasury, Duane, who would not remove the national deposits from the bank, Jackson dismissed Duane and appointed Taney secretary of the Treas ury. The deposits ceased. The Senate at once passed a vote of censure on the president, but the House, after investigating the bank, sustained Jackson at every point and refused a new charter. The fight with the Senate, in which there was an adverse majority, continued until the end of Jackson's term. During his administration was the first weak beginning of the Abolition party. The Anti-Slavery Society was formed in 1833. It was the target for abuse and violence, which culminated in the assassination of Lovejoy. Congress solemnly declared that it would listen to no petitions upon the question of slavery, and Jackson asked that the sending of abolition documents through the mails should be prohibited. This the Senate refused.

The Democratic candidate, MARTIN VAN BUREN (18371841), the eighth president, was elected over W. H. Harrison and several other opposition nominees, including Daniel Webster. He followed out Jackson's policy to the letter, one part of which, the celebrated "specie circular," brought on the Great Panic of 1837.

This was an order to United States agents to receive only gold and silver for public lands. Banks collapsed, money became scarce, and failures were most frightfully numerous. In 1840 Van Buren was renominated, but the Whigs, by an attack on the Democratic financial policy, carried the country and elected W. H. HARRISON (1841) the ninth president. It was in this campaign that the abolitionists produced their first national platform, which favored the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories. In the same year the Democracy at Baltimore resolved that Congress had no power to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, which were the sole and proper judges of everything pertaining to their own affairs not prohibited by the Constitution, and that the efforts "by Abolitionists or others" to interfere with questions of slavery were calculated "to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences," ," "to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanence of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions." The convention also adopted a resolution to the effect that every attempt to abridge the rights or privileges of foreign born citizens should be resisted. This was aimed at the Know-nothing tendency then just appearing, which had, however, no affiliation with the Abolition movement, already vig

orous.

Harrison did not live out the year, and he was succeeded by the vice-president, JOHN TYLER (1841-1845), the tenth president. Tyler rapidly got into trouble with his cabinet, which, save Webster, deserted him on issues connected with his attempt to carry out Harrison's financial policy. The slavery question was pressing forward more and more urgently for solution all this time. An Ohio Congressman, Giddings, brought the issue into the House of Representatives, and was censured by that body for so doing. He resigned and was at once unanimously reelected. A new tariff bill was brought in, and the proposition then made for a division of the surplus among the States.

Finance, protection, internal improvements, and indeed every minor issue, had to give way to the great puzzle of slavery. It was coming on for adjustment, and no hand could stay it. In the campaign of 1844 it produced the dispute over the re-annexation of Texas. The Democratic platform declared the Great American Measures-the taking in of Texas and Oregon. As Texas would be a slave territory, the idea was antagonized in the North, but after a close and perplexed election JAMES K. POLK (1845-1849), the eleventh president, was elected. Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, was beaten by the vote of 62,300 which was given to Jas. G. Birney by the Liberty party.

[graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed]

Creoles, descendants of Spanish colonists. coast. The Mexicans are a very mixed race, about one-tenth being healthful in the elevated interior, but hot and pestilential along the are agriculture, mining and stock raising. Climate mild and and the territory of Lower California. The principal industries The Republic of Mexico comprises 27 States, a federal district

[ocr errors]
[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Central America and West Indies.-Central America consists of five independent republics and the British colony Balize. Principal products, coffee, sugar and dyewoods. In the elevated interior, gold, silver and coal abound. Sugar, tobacco and cigars, coffee and fruits are the principal products of Cuba. Two independent negro republics, Hayti and San Domingo, constitute the island of Hayti.

« PreviousContinue »