PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860

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protected by Congress. The Douglas Democrats took the middle ground that Congress must keep its hands off, and that the people of a territory must decide for themselves whether slavery should exist among them. If the Douglas party should win, the great subject would simply be left unsettled; if Lincoln or Breckenridge should carry the election, the issue would be squarely joined and the defeated party must yield to the majority, or resist by violence. Threats of dissolving the Union, in case of Lincoln's election, were freely made in the South; but in the North it was not generally believed that such a step would be taken. Had the North fully realized the gravity of the situation, the election of Lincoln would have been doubtful; for the people, a great many of them, whatever their hatred of slavery, dreaded still more a dissolution of the Union or civil war. Douglas made a noble fight. He spoke in many states; but with all his tireless energy and eloquence, the tide against him was too great to be overcome. Nor could Breckenridge hope to carry a northern state, and, as all the southern electors were not enough to make a choice, his election was impossible. Bell could not dream of carrying more than a few states. This left Lincoln as the only candidate whose election was possible, and in case of his failure the election would go to the House. But the House was hopelessly divided, no party controlling a majority of the states.

The Republicans, however, felt confident. If the Democrats had united at any time during the summer or early autumn, with Douglas as their candidate, they might possibly have carried the election; but not after the October elections in a few of the Northern states. When Pennsylvania voted in October and was carried by the Lincoln party, electing Andrew Curtin governor by thirty-two thousand majority, the last hope of successful opposition was crushed. Nothing under heaven could now prevent the election of Lincoln. This fact almost pleased the extreme South. The slaveholders preferred the election of Lincoln to that of Douglas; for if Douglas were elected, the great question would remain unsettled; if Lincoln were successful, the South would become united against the North and would have an adequate pretext for disunion.1

The great battle of the ballots was fought on November 6. Lincoln received the votes of all the Northern states except New Jersey, and in that state he won four of the seven electors, the other three going to Douglas through a fusion arrangement. Lin

1 Greeley, Vol. I, p. 329.

coln's electoral vote reached 180, while 152 were sufficient to elect. Breckenridge received seventy-two electoral votes, Bell captured three slave states, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, thirty-nine electors, while Douglas, whose popular vote was far greater than that of Breckenridge or Bell, received but twelve electoral votes — those of Missouri and three from New Jersey. The secessionists of the South were extremely chagrined at the fact that Bell, who stood on a distinctively union platform, had polled over half a million votes, almost as many as Breckenridge. This want of southern

unity might have proved very embarrassing to the disunionists the following year, but for the fact that Bell, and most of his followers, probably on the issue of coercing a state, cast their lot with them.

The meaning of the result of this great election was plain to the world. It meant that the voice of the people in all the Northern states pronounced slavery an evil and forbade its further spread in the United States. For many years a few thousand slaveholders had dominated the government, had dictated every presidential policy, had laid down the law for the millions. But at last the multitude had risen in its might and declared that this condition should endure no longer.

The Black Warrior. — In the early spring of 1854 an incident known as the Black Warrior affair threatened the peaceful relations between the United States and Spain. The Black Warrior was a merchant steamer plying between New York and Mobile, usually stopping at Havana. On February 28 this vessel was seized and declared confiscated with its cargo by the Spanish authorities at Havana, on the pretense that she had violated the trade regulations of the port. Her captain abandoned the vessel and appealed to the United States government for protection. President Pierce and his Cabinet made a demand that Spain make proper reparation, and communicated with Soulé, our minister at Madrid, to that effect. But Soulé exceeded his instructions, offended the Spanish government, and received a haughty reply. Soulé and the slaveholders now hoped for a war with Spain, that the United States might acquire Cuba, but northern sentiment refused to support this project. The Black Warrior was at length released, and the war spirit subsided. This affair had something to do with bringing out the Ostend Manifesto a few months later. See p. 572. The Nicaragua Filibusters. In 1854 William Walker of California proIceeded with a band of reckless men to Nicaragua, and allied himself with one of the warring factions of that country. In a short time he had possession of the city of Granada and proclaimed himself President of Nicaragua. Soon after he had succeeded in usurping the power, he issued a decree reëstablishing slavery in the country, where it had not existed for many years. This revealed the true object of his expedition-to secure Central America for slavery, and eventually to add those states to our Union in the interests of the slaveholders. After he had held the country for two years, a coalition against him drove him out. Twice afterward he made attempts to regain his hold on Nicaragua; but on the last of these trips he was overpowered, captured, tried by court martial, condemned, and shot to death.

CHAPTER XXV

AN ANTE-BELLUM VIEW

A HURRIED view of the great people that were now about to engage in the bloodiest of all civil wars in the annals of history will here be appropriate. Soon after the second war with England the people of the United States began to feel a consciousness of national greatness and power as never before, and the marvelous development of the country in the half century that followed gave evidence that this national pride rested on a sound basis. Within that period the population was greatly increased; the nation took its place among the greatest of manufacturing and commercial peoples; in literature, education, and invention it more than kept pace with the world's advancing civilization. A few of these developments may be described under separate heads, beginning with

INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

No other country ever gave to the world in the same length of time such a series of useful inventions as did the United States in the thirty years ending with 1860. First among them in importance is perhaps the electric telegraph, the patent for which was granted to Samuel F. B. Morse in 1837, though twenty years passed before it came into very general use. In 1858 the first Atlantic

The

telegraph.

cable was laid through the efforts of Cyrus W. Field. It reached from Newfoundland to Ireland, a distance of seventeen hundred miles; but after it had been in operation for three weeks, several hundred messages having been exchanged, the cable parted, and eight years passed before another was successfully laid. To show how this wonderful invention has made the world akin, a comparative illustration is useful: I have before me a New York newspaper dated August 4, 1815. Its chief foreign news item is an account of the great battle between the French and the allied powers at Waterloo in which Napoleon was overthrown. This was the first

news to reach America of that famous battle, which had been fought on the eighteenth of June, nearly seven weeks before, and several weeks were yet to pass before it could reach the interior of the country. How great the contrast with the following: The Coronation of King Edward VII of England took place on August 9, 1902, at noon, and some hours before noon of the same day the account of the event was read on the streets of the American cities. in hand with the telegraph came the cylinder press, first operated in 1847, by which, with all its improvements to this day, the news received from the wires and put in type, is printed and folded in newspaper form at the rate of fortyeight thousand an hour.

Hand

Cylinder

press.

Mower and

reaper.

Among labor-saving machines the mower and reaper, patented by Cyrus McCormick in 1831, and the sewing machine, invented by Elias Howe in 1846, must be placed in the first rank. The reaper which enabled one man to do the work of many, made possible the great wheat farms of the West and cheapened breadstuffs throughout the world. Before the invention of the sewing machine woman was a slave to the needle; but with the coming of that exceedingly useful machine woman was set free in a great measure and enabled to Sewing read, travel, and become interested in public questions.1 This invention also reduced the price of clothing and shoes for all classes.

machine.

Ether.

Among the other discoveries and inventions of this period was the discovery of ether, or rather of its application as an anæsthetic,2 which has proved one of the greatest boons to suffering humanity. By its use the patient sleeps like a child while undergoing a surgical operation. Another discovery of a very different nature was made in western Pennsylvania in 1859. A company of men, boring into the earth some seventy feet, "struck oil," which flowed at the rate of a thousand barrels a day. The news awakened the greatest enthusiasm, and through. this and similar discoveries in other parts of the country and in Canada the petroleum business has become one of the greatest industries of the world. Another remarkable discovery dates from this same year, 1859. Some miners were digging along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in what is now

1 See Thorpe's "History of the American People," p. 429.

? By D. W. T. G. Morton of Boston.

Petroleum.