CHAPTER XXI.

FREEDOM AND SLAVERY-ADMINISTRATION OF FRANKLIN PIERCE-WHAT IT ACCOMPLISHED—

D

OPINIONS OF IT.

URING this discussion, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, gave utterance to this language:

"Mr. President, the constant and obstinate agitation of questions connected with the institution of slavery, has brought, I am satisfied, the public mind in those States where the institution prevails to the conviction that the preservation of that institution rests with themselves and with themselves only. Therefore, at this day, when it is the pleasure of Senators again to bring that institution under review upon this floor, in any connection whatever, as one of the Representatives of the South, I take no further interest in the discussion, or in the opinion which is entertained at the North in relation to it, than as it may confirm the hope that there is a public sentiment at the North yet remaining which unites with the South in the desire to perpetuate the Union, and that, by the aid of that public sentiment at the North, the Union will be preserved. But further than that, as a statesman, and as one representing a Southern State, where that institution prevails more largely than in any other, the public sentiment of the North is a matter indifferent to me, because I say again, we have attained the conviction that the safety of that institution will rest, must rest, and should rest, with the people of the States only where it prevails."

This man, who calls himself a statesman, pretended to be totally indifferent to the opinions of Northern men. Quite contrary to this sentiment was that of William Walker, the Nicaraguan filibuster, who was a champion of slavery, and somewhat unique in his theory of reaching the highest possible degree of civilization through that "institution." In speaking of Mr. Seward and his views at this period, Walker made this wonderful statement:

"I deem it a great error on the part of Southern men to attempt to belittle the intellect, or depreciate the motives of the leaders of the anti-slavery party. The higher their intellects, the purer their motives, the more dangerous are they to the South."

That was putting the question on wholly different grounds. Only the ignorant and impure could be relied upon as supporters of slavery? At any rate, according to this very outspoken person, the dangers to slavery increased with the increase of purity and intelligence. But this strange new doctrine should, perhaps, entitle its author to a position among fanatics, for who else could intimate that slavery must die with the increase of purity, and the growth and expansion of mind?

This was the last communication of any note made by President Pierce to Congress. An act was passed at this session providing for the prepayment of all transient matter through the mails; an act for the construction of a wagon-road from Fort Kearney in Nebraska through the South Pass to California; also for a military road in Oregon; for the prevention of

the importation of immoral pictures of various species; for granting more public lands for railroads, in Minnesota and Alabama; and the following important measures: Authorizing the people of Minnesota to form a State government; a tariff bill passed by a large majority of both Houses, called the "Tariff of 1857," and which went into effect on the first day of July, adding several articles to the free list, and greatly reducing the tariff on others, and altogether providing for an annual reduction of the revenue to the amount of fifteen millions of dollars; and a bill for aiding a company in laying a telegraphic cable between Great Britain and this country. This Atlantic Telegraph Bill provided that the Government should pay the company seventy thousand dollars a year for transmitting its messages, until the net profits of the business reached six per cent, and from that on fifty thousand yearly, Congress reserving the right to terminate the contract on its part after ten years by giving notice a year before. Congress, together with the British Government, was also to regulate the rates of charges; also in February a bill was passed for gathering up all old Spanish quarters, and other small pieces of money, circulating in the country, and turning them into the mints.

Kansas affairs also came in for a large share of attention, although as in all other cases, all attempts at pacification failed. Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, on the part of the Republican majority of the House Committee on Territories, reported a bill for the settlement of the difficulties, which the Republicans

deemed very fair. In this feeling, however, the Southern Congressmen did not share; and although the measure would have taken away the present matter of contention, there could be no assurance of its giving any permanent relief to Kansas or the country at large. The bill provided for the annulling of all the laws compiled for the Territory at the Shawnee Mission; for beginning anew, with every possible safeguard and protection to the actual settler and the ballot-box in a just and impartial attempt to carry out the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. This bill was finally passed in the House by a vote of ninety-eight yeas against seventy-nine nays; the yeas all being from Free States, ninety-two Republicans and six recent Know-Nothings. Fourteen of the nays were from the Free States, two Know-Nothings, and twelve Buchanan Democrats, one of whom was William H. English, of Indiana. The Senate laid this bill on the table by a vote of thirty to twenty. Of the twenty Senators voting against tabling the bill, two of them were from Slave States, Bell, of Tennessee, and Houston, of Texas. Eight of the yeas were from Free States. So was defeated by the South a measure the Republicans considered a fair and generous mode of further delaying the contest between freedom and slavery. On the night of the 3d of March the session closed, and on the following day Franklin Pierce ceased to be President of the United States. His administration had been a stormy one, and although not without good, it left the country in a worse condition than it ever had been in

before. Several able men occupied places in his Cabinet, and with these he maintained with spirit and skill the foreign affairs of the country, and greatly increased its commercial privileges among the other nations of the world. And at home, perhaps, more than the usual amount of progress had been made, in spite of the great political turmoil. But his general political policy was not satisfactory even to his own party in the North; and while the South praised him as the conscientious Constitutional President, it suffered most from the course he took; and although this fact soon became apparent, the tendency of the men of that part of the Union has always been to hold up Stephen A. Douglas as the scape-goat for the misfortunes which arose at that time and led on to the final overthrow of the great sectional and disuniting institution of slavery. The early and sanguine expectations as to this Administration were certainly not fulfilled; and although the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati indorsed it, Pierce's renomination was not considered advisable on the ground that the party could not be united on him, while the selection of Mr. Buchanan would take away the certainty of defeat. Yet somehow Mr. A. H. Stephens says in his "Compendium (or School) History of the United States" that "General Pierce retired to his home in Concord, N. H., with the confidence and esteem of a large majority of the true friends of the Union under the Constitution in all sections of the country." This peculiarly worded eulogium is, however, somewhat vague as to the class it really embraces.