country, and, after the War of 1812, hundreds of American whalers in the North Pacific, habitually stopped there. Later in the nineteenth century, on more than one occasion, the United States protected the islands from seizure by European powers, and in 1843, along with Great Britain and France, recognized their independence. American missionaries reached the islands as early as 1819, and rapidly transformed the life and customs of the natives. Richard H. Dana, who visited Hawaii in 1860, paid the following tribute to the labors of these pioneer Americans. "It is no small thing to say of the missionaries of the American Board Progress of that in less than forty years they have taught this whole Hawaii. people to read and write, to cipher and sew. They have given them an alphabet, grammar, and dictionary; preserved their language from extinction; given it a literature, and translated into it the Bible and works of devotion, science, entertainment, etc. They have established schools, reared up native teachers, and so pressed their work that now the proportion of inhabitants who can read and write is greater than in New England; and whereas they found these islanders a nation of half-naked savages, living in the surf and on the sand, eating raw fish, fighting among themselves, tyrannized over by feudal chiefs, and abandoned to sensuality, they now see them decently clothed, recognizing the laws of marriage, knowing something of accounts, going to school and public worship with more regularity than the people at home." THE TREASURY AND THE TARIFF The third part of Polk's programme, in addition to the acquisition of California and of Oregon, was the reëstablishment of the independent treasury, first set up by the Democrats under The sub system. Van Buren and destroyed by the Whigs under Tyler. treasury The Democrats under Polk succeeded in restoring the system, and it remains to-day an essential feature of the national financial machinery. 1846. The fourth part of Polk's plan for his administration, the readjustment of the tariff, was accomplished by the Walker Tariff Act of 1846, so-called because in its enactment Congress was The Walker largely guided by the advice of Secretary of the Treasury, tariff of Robert J. Walker. Although, to secure his election, Polk had led the people of Pennsylvania, where the iron and coal interests demanded protection, to believe that he stood for high tariff rates, he accepted the low rates of the new law. This tariff remained on the statute books for a period of eleven years. GENERAL REFERENCES MCMASTER, United States, VII; SCHURZ, Henry Clay, II, 171-314; G. L. RIVES, The United States and Mexico. SPECIAL TOPICS 1. MARCUS WHITMAN AND THE WINNING OF OREGON. BOURNE, Essays, 3-109; M. EELLS, Reply to Professor Bourne; Epochs, VII, 10-13, and 26-35; H. H. BANCROFT, Works, XXIX, 391-424, 446-469, and 508-554; BRUCE, Expansion, 106-135; SPARKS, Expansion, 301-309. 2. EXPLORATIONS OF JOHN C. FREMONT. Old South Leaflets, II, 45; GRINNELL, Trails, 393-451; Epochs, VII, 53-60; J. C. FREMONT, Memoirs of My Life; BRUCE, Expansion, 136–165. 3. THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. Epochs, VII, 88–96; J. ROYCE, California, 220-246; The Argonauts of California, by a Pioneer; Contemporaries, IV, 42–47; H. H. BANCROFT, Works, XXIII, 1-250; SPARKS, Expansion, 336-350. 4. THE OPENING UP OF JAPAN. C. O. PAULLIN, Diplomatic Negotiations, 244–281; Old South Leaflets, VII, 151; FOSTER, American Diplomacy in the Orient, 133–202. ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL LOWELL, Present Crisis, and Biglow Papers, First Series; G. ATHERTON, Splendid Idle Forties; WHITTIER, Angels of Buena Vista, and Voices of Freedom; HARTE, Luck of Roaring Camp; IRVING, Astoria; HOWELLS, A Boy's Town; DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, and American Notes. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS Would it have been wise for President Tyler to dismiss the cabinet of ex-President Harrison at once and secure an entirely new one of his own appointment? On what ground can you condemn President Tyler's stand toward Whig measures? Distinguish between the remote and the immediate causes of the Mexican War. Was the attitude of the United States in this war contrary to the Monroe Doctrine? What was the influence of the discovery of gold in California on the problems of transportation in the United States? Why has the Clayton-Bulwer treaty been called a diplomatic mistake? Why were the slave-holding statesmen generally in favor of territorial expansion? Account for the traditional friendship of the United States for China and Japan. What were the leading issues in current politics before the people in the presidential campaign of 1844? CHAPTER XXI THE QUARREL OVER SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 PRESIDENT POLK's annexation policy raised again the question of what to do with slavery in the territories, after the Missouri Compromise had succeeded in keeping a degree of peace on the sub- The Wilmot ject for twenty-five years. Texas was naturally admitted Proviso. as a slave state, since slavery existed within her borders while she was an independent republic. The dispute over the question, as it concerned the lands to be acquired from Mexico, arose in Congress almost as soon as hostilities had begun with that country. David Wilmot precipitated the debate in 1846, by proposing in the House of Representatives to add to a bill appropriating money to defray the expenses of making peace an amendment or proviso, to the effect that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" should ever exist in any part of the territory to be gained from Mexico by the war. The proviso evoked wide public discussion, but although it passed the House of Representatives, it failed in the Senate, where the slave states were in a majority after the annexation of Texas. the problem of slavery in Another proposal for congressional action was that Congress should run the Missouri Compromise line across the Mexican lands to the Pacific and exclude slavery north of that line in the new Two other territory as well as in the Louisiana country. The prin- proposed ciple of congressional action in any form was rejected by Calhoun, who contended that slavery must be allowed to enter the territories with the Constitution, because slaves were property, and ownership of property was guaranteed to all wherever the Constitution was in force. Congress could come to no decision, and in the annexation treaty with Mexico the question was left unsettled. the terri tories. Oregon devoted to The more northern country of Oregon, where slavery naturally would not thrive, was not coveted by the pro-slavery faction with such ardor as were the Mexican lands, and after some debate Oregon was organized as a territory in 1848 with slavery excluded. freedom. 66 Squatter of the Demo- The presidential campaign of 1848, which was the second presidential contest fought out on the slavery issue, served to bring into prominence still another proposed solution of the problem of territorial slavery. The Democratic party placed at the head of its ticket a "northern man with southern principles," Lewis Cass of Michigan, who had a creditable political record. He had served as the governor of the territory of Michigan, as Secretary of War under Jackson, and later as minister to France. Casting aside not only the principle of congressional restriction of slavery in the territories, involved in the Wilmot Proviso and in the Missouri Compromise, but also Calhoun's theory that slavery went into the territories with the Constitution, Cass led his party in an attempt to please both sides, by favoring "squatter sovereignty," or "popular sovereignty" on the question. By his plan the people in the territories were to be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not slavery should exist in their midst. The Whigs, without a positive declaration on the question, named as their leader General Taylor of Louisiana of Mexican War fame, The Whigs in the campaign. who may be characterized by way of contrast to Cass as a "southern man with northern principles." A rough soldier, strictly trained to his profession, Taylor knew little of the refinements of life or of the principles and arts of politics. He was a slaveholder, but he had never manifested any interest in the extension of slavery. The Freesoilers. The Free Soil party, composed largely of the remnants of the old Liberty party, inscribed on their banners, "Free soil, free speech, free labor, free men," and indorsed as their candidate exPresident Van Buren, who had already been nominated by the "Barn-Burners," a dissenting Democratic faction in New York. The Free Soilers rejected the vague and compromising stand of the two larger parties which were endeavoring to please both sides, and openly favored the principles of the Wilmot Proviso; but they refused to take the radical stand of the Liberty party, which had aimed to abolish slavery in the states and territories alike. The result. California's decision Taylor was elected by a vote of 163 to 127 in the electoral colleges. When the first Congress of the Taylor administration came together in December, 1849, the country was surprised to learn that California, with 90,000 settlers, too impatient to await organization as a territory and waiving the formality of the "enabling act," usually passed by Congress to authorize a territory to prepare for statehood, had organized a state govern against slavery. ment, framed a constitution, and was applying to Congress for immediate statehood. Taking no counsel of the national lawmakers, who were struggling to find a solution of the question of territorial slavery, California had calmly settled the matter, so far as she herself was concerned, by inserting in her constitution a clause forbidding slavery. The explanation of this decided stand was not far to seek. Rough mining camps, where sanitary conditions were anything but wholesome, where property rights were insecure and even human life unsafe, were not attractive places for the slaveholders with their valuable slave property; and the long journey across the continent was so full of perils that few attempted it with their slaves. Moreover, the soil of California was not suited to cotton-raising, and mining operations required more skill than slaves possessed. Consequently there were too few slaveholders in California to vote slavery into the new constitution. The old champions, Calhoun, Webster, and Clay, came forward and wrangled in Congress for the last time. It was much like the debate on the question of slavery in the territories in 1820 over again, though the new discussion referred to slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico, while that of 1820 concerned slavery in the Louisiana country. the The great debate in Congress. compromise. As in the crises of 1820 and of 1832, a compromise was proposed to please all sides and save the Union. Henry Clay, now called "The Great Pacificator," was the author of the Compromise Henry of 1850. The preamble of the resolutions which he Clay's plan of offered in the Senate declared their purpose to be peace, concord and harmony of the Union of these states, to settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy between them, arising out of the institution of slavery, upon a fair, equitable and just basis." Speaking to his fellow-senators, Clay said: "Coming from a slave state, as I do, I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed. . . . Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us." He asked his southern friends to give up their bitterness, pointing out to them that their section had made great gains in the recent acquisitions. He would have the North, on its part, forego its efforts to forbid territorial slavery. Referring to the threat of the dissatisfied Southern States |