§ 623] WAR WITH MEXICO 519 the Gila; and Mexico threatened to fight again rather than surrender her claim. Finally, in 1853, the United States secured full title by paying ten million dollars more, through our agent, Gadsden. This Gadsden Purchase was the last expansion of our territory before the overthrow of slavery; but it was not the last attempt by the Slave Power. Southern politicians had long looked with covetous desire at Cuba. Polk offered Spain a hundred million dollars for the island, but was refused. Then, about 1854, Southern leaders were ready for a more extreme program, and began frankly to advocate the seizure of Cuba by force.1 This piratical doctrine was set forth with particular emphasis in that year in the famous Ostend Manifesto, a document published in Europe by a group of leading American diplomatic representatives there, with James Buchanan among them. When Buchanan became President (1857), he renewed the attempts to buy Cuba and to secure slave territory in Central America. These sinister efforts ceased only when the Civil War began. 1 In 1851 the Lopez "filibusters," five hundred strong, sailed from New Orleans to invade Cuba. This, and other like attempts upon Central America, may well be studied by individual students, and presented in special reports. It is to be kept in mind that whatever the motives of the statesmen at Washington, the filibusters themselves, and the Southern people back of them, were impelled largely by the ancient land hunger and spirit of conquest and adventure which had brought their ancestors to Virginia and had sent their brothers to Texas. CHAPTER LIV THE STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THE NEW TERRITORY 624. Population increased in the decade 1840-1850 from seventeen to twenty-three millions. Immigration from Europe now took on large proportions. Until 1845, no one year had brought 100,000 immigrants (§ 486). That year brought 114,000; 1847 (during the Irish famine) brought 235,000; and 1849 (after the European "year of revolution") brought almost 300,000. This tremendous current, once started, continued unabated to the Civil War. It still came almost wholly from the northern European countries, and was composed mainly of sturdy laboring men, who naturally avoided the South with its slave labor. Florida became a State in 1845; but Slavery's gain in the Senate through the addition of that State and of Texas was balanced by the admission of Iowa (1846) and Wisconsin (1848). In the lower House of Congress the free States had nearly a half more members than the Slave States. This situation gave especial importance to the question whether slavery or freedom should control the new territory acquired from Mexico. All that territory, except Texas, had been "free" territory under Mexican law. But in the Northwest were looming up a band of future "free" commonwealths, from Minnesota to Oregon, while outside this Mexican cession there was no chance for more Slave States. 625. As soon as war began, the President had asked Congress for a grant of two million dollars to enable him to negotiate to advantage. It was understood that this money was to be used as a first payment in satisfying Mexico for territory to be taken from her. To this "Two-Million-Dollar Bill" in the House of Representatives, David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat, se 1 Cf. Modern Progress, 397. The German fugitives, after the failure of their gallant attempt at revolution, made a notable addition to the forces of Liberty in America. Among them were Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel. § 626] THE WILMOT PROVISO 521 cured an amendment providing that slavery should never exist in any territory (outside Texas) to be so acquired. Northwestern Democrats voted almost solidly for this Wilmot Proviso, partly from real reluctance to see slavery extended, partly to punish Polk and the Slave Power for "betraying" the Northwest in the Oregon matter. The session expired (August, 1846) before a vote was reached in the Senate. In the next session the Proviso again passed the lower House, but was voted down in the Senate, where the Slave Power had now rallied. Then (February, 1848) Calhoun presented the Southern program in a set of resolutions affirming that, since the territories were the common domain of all the States, Congress had no constitutional power to forbid the people of any part of the Union, with their property, from seeking homes in that domain. This meant, of course, the right of Southerners to carry their slaves - and slave law into any "Territory." Then, said the South, when the time for Statehood arrives, let the inhabitants of each Territory decide the matter of slavery or freedom for themselves. This was the doctrine to be known later as "squatter sovereignty" or "popular sovereignty." It appealed shrewdly to a liking for fair play, in claiming that the South "simply asked. not to be denied equal rights. . . in the common public domain." Even more powerfully it appealed to the democratic instincts of the West, claiming merely to turn the whole question over to the people most interested. 626. Some Northern congressmen now deserted the Wilmot Proviso in favor of "non-intervention by Congress," while others favored extending the old line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific. Finally, the country went into the presidential election of 1848 without having settled any civil government for the vast area recently acquired. This neglect was serious. New Mexico and California were seats of ancient Spanish settlement at such centers as Santa Fé and the various Missions near San Francisco; and the sensitive and highly civilized population resented military government by the American conquerors. |