The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences

tion; and the election of Franklin Pierce, in 1852, as President, on a platform strongly approving that Compromise, was promising. But anti-slavery leaders, instead of being convinced

resumptuous attempt to "arrest

lly authorized by the Constitution.[53] But in their present mood, no law that was efficient would have been satisfactory to the multitudes of people, by no means all "Abolitionists," who had already made up their minds against the "wicked" provision of the Constitution that required the delivery of fugitive slaves. This deep-seated feeling of opposition to the return

as it did, a very dark picture of slavery, it aroused sympathy for the escaping slave and pictured in glowing colors the dear, sweet men and women who dared, fo

-slavery party that was to be organized two years after its appearance. It was the most famous and successful novel ever written. It was translated into every language that has a literature, and has been more read by American p

man nature made Mrs. Stowe's picture as attractive in many of its pages as it was repulsive and unfair in others. Mrs. Shelby was a type of many a noble mistress, a Christian woman, and when financial misfortunes compelled the sale of the Shelby slaves and the separation of families, we have not only what might have been, but what sometimes was, one of the evils of slavery, which, by reason of the prevail

ks of the inconsistency between the picture of slavery drawn there and that other picture, which all the world now knows of-the Confederate soldier away in the army, his wife and children at home faithfully protected by slaves-not a case of viole

lations between master and slave. It is not to be denied that where the law gave so much power to the master there were individual instances of cruelty, nor is it supposable that there were not many slaves who were revengeful; but at the same time there was, quite naturally, among slaves who were all in l

oused the cause of anti-slavery in this country. He had absorbed the views of his political associates and now contended that secession was an empty threat and that secession was impossible. "The mere anticipation of a negro insurrection," he said, "will paralyze the whole South." And, after ridiculing the alarm created

r. Lincoln finally felt himself compelled to issue his proclamation of emancipation as a military necessity-the avowed

. It argues that the danger of bloody insurrections was perhaps not as great as had been apprehended where incendiary publications were sent amo

perty, whatever it might be, into the territories, which had been purchased with the common blood and treasure of both sections, a view afterward sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case. Douglas, "entirely of his own motion,"[5

On the other hand was Seward, an "old line Whig," aspiring to the same office. The South had been the dominant element in national politics and the North was g

thout slavery, as it might choose. Slave State and free State adventurers rushed into the new territory and struggled, and even fought, for supremacy. The Souther

with anxiety the increase of anti-slavery sentiment in the North. Both parties feared it. Alliance with the anti-slavery North would deprive a party of support South and denationalize it. For years prior to 1852 the drift of Northern voters who were opposed to slavery had been as to the two national parties toward the Whigs, and the tendency of conservative Northerners had been toward the Democratic party. Thus the g

as a blunder, too, because it gave the opponents of the Democratic party a plausible pretext for the contention, which they put forth then and which has been p

s: "It was, moreover, obvious to an astute politician like Seward, and probably to others, that a dissolution of parties was imminent; that to oppose the extension of slavery, the different anti-slav

ich soldiers already enlisted fell into ranks, under a new banner. Any other drum-call-the application of another slave State for admission into the Union-would have served quite as well. Thus the Republican party came into existence in 1854. Mr. Rhodes sums up the reason for the existence of the new party and what it subsequently accomplished in

an end to sectionalism. Its signal failure conveys an instructive lesson. After many and wide-spread rumors of its coming, the birth of the American party was formally announced in 1854. It had been organized in secret and was bound together with oaths and passwords; its members delighted to mystify in

for Protestantism, the faith of the Fathers, against Catholicism that was

n the fall elections of that year they polled over one-fourth of all the votes in New York, two-fifths in Pennsy

onalism by exacting of their

whom you know or believe to be in favor of a dissolution of

housands joined the new party that promised to save the Union.[59] But the attitude of the Northern and Southern members of the American party so

eded in electing a Speaker of the national House of Representatives in February, 1856, soon afterward went down to defeat. Even though led by such patriots as Jo

er these were extremely bitter. In their excitement the Democrats again delighted their adversaries by committing what now seems to have been another blunder. They advocated the admission of Kansas under the "L

es, the Macedonians. His speech occupied two days, May 28 and 29, 1855. At its conclusion, Senator Cass, of Michigan, arose at once and pronounced it "the most un-American and unpatriotic that ever grated on the ears of this high body." The speech attacked, without any sufficient excuse, the personal character of an absent senator, Butler of South Carolina, a gentleman of high character and older than Sumne

was in the field with its candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency-Fremont and Dayton-upon a platform decl

timent of conservatives when he said it was the "duty of every one to prevent the madness of the times from working its madde

emont's friends is the conquest of the South. I am

toral votes; Republicans 74, all Northern; and the

tionalism was n

ction and were only spontaneous movements, but they met with favor from the Southern public, the outgrowth of a feeling that, if these countries should be captured and annexed as slave States, the South could the better, by their aid, defend

d fled to br

d lost the

formed a government of their own their consti