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ESCAPE FROM DEMOCRACY

The orthodox view of economic policy holds that public deliberation

sets the goals or ends, and then experts select the means to
implement these goals. This assumes that experts are no more than
trustworthy servants of the public interest. David M. Levy and
Sandra J. Peart examine the historical record to consider cases in
which experts were trusted, with disastrous results, such as in the
field of eugenics, the regulatory use of security ratings, and central
economic planning. This history suggests that experts have not only
the public interest but also their own interests to consider. The
authors then recover and extend an alternative view of economic
policy that subjects experts’ proposals to further discussion, resulting
in transparency and ensuring that the public obtains the best
insights of experts in economics while avoiding pitfalls such as
expert bias.

David M. Levy is Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

He has worked with Sandra J. Peart at the University of Richmond
for fifteen years, and both have codirected the Summer Institute for
the History of Economics. He is a distinguished fellow of the History
of Economics Society.

Sandra J. Peart is Dean and Professor in the University of Richmond’s

Jepson School of Leadership Studies. She is a former president of
the History of Economics Society and President of the International
Adam Smith Society.
 ESC A P E F R OM
D EMOC R A C Y
The Role of Experts and the Public
in Economic Policy
David M. Levy
George Mason University

Sandra J. Peart
University of Richmond
 One Liberty Plaza, New York, NY 10006 USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org

Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781316507131

© David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart 2017

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the

provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part
may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2017

Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Levy, David M., author. | Peart, Sandra, author.

Title: Escape from democracy: the role of experts and the public in economic
policy /

David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart.

Description: New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

 Identifiers: LCCN 2016024201| ISBN 9781107142398 (hardback) |

ISBN 9781316507131 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Economics. | Economics – Sociological aspects. |

Economic policy. | Expertise. | Citizen participation. | Democracy.

Classification: LCC HB71.L544 2016 | DDC 330–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024201

ISBN 978-1-107-14239-8 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-316-50713-1 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and
does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or
appropriate.
Democratic action is hard. It means government by discussion, and
the organization of discussion itself, as I said before, involves the
main problems. Not much intercommunication is even theoretically
possible. As the world is built, the cards are heavily stacked in favor
of centralization. Even in one direction, communication is bad
enough; ... as to inter-communication – even with two persons there
is an insoluble problem of dividing the time for both between
speaking and listening; ... with larger numbers, the limitation
increases rapidly.
Frank Knight (1951)
 Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments

Part I Introductory Themes

1 Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Discussion
1.3 Linear versus Cyclical Policy Goals
1.4 Exogenous versus Endogenous Goals
1.5 Transparency
1.6 Sympathetic Bias
1.7 Ideology
1.8 Systems Gone Wrong
1.9 Some Possible Remedies
1.10 Concluding Thoughts

Part II The Discussion Tradition

2 On “Strongly Fortified Minds”: Self-Restraint and
Cooperation in the Discussion Tradition
2.1 Introduction
 2.2 Discussion, the Self, and Trade: Adam Smith
2.3 Discussion and Learning: J. S. Mill
2.4 Fair Play and Language
2.5 Discussion and Cooperation: Experimental
Evidence
2.6 Conclusion

3 The Knightian Moment

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Frank Knight’s Disciple, George Stigler
3.3 Free-Market Experts and Ordinary People
3.4 Milton Friedman’s Consumption Function
3.5 The Thomas Jefferson Center Proposal to the
Ford Foundation
3.6 Conclusion

4 The Rise of New Welfare Economics: An End to

Discussion?
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Lionel Robbins and Goal Endogeneity
4.3 New Welfare Economics
4.4 Conclusion

Part III When Linear Models Fail: Two

Cases
5 Experts and Eugenics: “Science” Privileges a Social
Goal
 5.1 Introduction
5.2 Experts on Ends: Human Happiness versus
Progress
5.3 Charles Bradlaugh, Annie Besant, and Charles
Darwin: Competing Experts
5.4 Expert Advice Cascades: Economists Change
Course
5.5 Experts Who Pick Results to Support the Ends
5.6 Conclusion

6 Expert Judgment and Soviet Growth

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Soviet Growth in US Economics Textbooks
6.3 Poor Forecasts: Ideology or Model Failure?
6.4 A Second-Best Test
6.5 Conclusion

Part IV An End to Discussion: Secrecy and

the Temptation to Bias
7 Experts and the Philosopher’s Stone: John Law’s
Secret Financial Alchemy
7.1 Introduction
7.2 John Law and the Mississippi Bubble
7.3 The Hidden: Alchemy in the Great Mirror of Folly
7.4 Uncovering the Fraud: Desiderius Erasmus on
Alchemy in the Great Mirror of Folly
7.5 Conclusion
 8 The Consequence of Suppressing Discussion:
Imprudence with Biased Experts
8.1 Introduction
8.2 The Early Criticism of Rating Agencies in
Regulation
8.3 Gilbert Harold’s Prudent Estimator of Investment
Quality
8.4 The Corporate Bond Study Responds to a Critic
8.5 The Corporate Bond Project of the National
Bureau of Economic Research
8.6 Conclusion

Part V Getting the Best from Experts

9 A Proposal for a Revised Code of Ethics for Experts
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Expert Economist’s Dilemma, Historically
Considered
9.3 Experts as Truth Seekers: A First-Best Option
9.4 Toward a (Partial) Solution to the Ethical
Dilemmas of Expertise
9.5 Conclusion

10 Mitigating the Consequences of Factional Expertise

10.1 Introduction
10.2 Gordon Tullock and the “Racket”
10.3 Karl Popper on Scientific Faction
 10.4 Bringing Out the Best of Expertise
10.5 Conclusion

11 Inducing Greater Transparency

11.1 Introduction
11.2 Clients and Experts: The Statisticians’ View
11.3 A Model of Sympathetic Expertise
11.4 Governance by Jury
11.5 Is Transparency Incentive Compatible?
11.6 Making Transparency Incentive Compatible
11.7 Conclusion

Part VI Conclusion
12 Vox Populi?
12.1 Returning to Discussion
12.2 A Radical Proposal

Bibliography
Index
 Figures
1.1 Fleeming Jenkins’s exchange diagram

3.1 Paul Samuelson’s graph of consumer expenditures

4.1 “Pat” Adams’s caricature of Lionel Robbins

4.2 John Rawls’s annotation of Lionel Robbins’s Nature &

Significance of Economic Science
4.3 John Rawls’s annotation of Lionel Robbins’s Nature &
Significance of Economic Science
4.4 John Rawls’s annotation of Lionel Robbins’s Nature &
Significance of Economic Science
4.5 “Pat” Adams’s caricature of Nicholas Kaldor

4.6 “Pat” Adams’s caricature of John Hicks

5.1 Indictment of Charles Bradlaugh

5.2 Annie Besant’s memorabilia

5.3 Charles Darwin’s letter to Charles Bradlaugh

5.4 J. S. Mill and the Bradlaugh-Besant Trial from John

Wallace

6.1 Campbell McConnell’s pie chart comparing US and USSR

investment 1963

6.2 Campbell McConnell’s pie chart comparing US and USSR

investment 1990
6.3 Paul Samuelson’s growth forecasts of US and USSR
1961

6.4 Paul Samuelson’s growth forecasts of US and USSR

1970

6.5 Robert Heilbroner’s 1968 comparison of the world

economies

6.6 Paul Samuelson’s 1948 production possibility set

6.7 Royall Brandis’s analysis of the Soviet economy

7.1 John Law in a car drawn by cocks (Mackay

reproduction)

7.2 Section of the original

7.3 Mississippi painted by Fancy

7.4 Mississippi actual

7.5 Icarus descending

8.1 Suppression of individual ratings in NBER/FDIC

documentation

8.2 Revision of text referring to Melchior Palyi

8.3 Memo responding to Congress about rating

9.1 A portion of John Rawls’s Index to Frank Knight’s Ethics

of Competition
10.1 Simulated distribution of ratings by agency

10.2 Simulated Harold and NBER adjustment for bias

10.3 Simulated rate shopping

11.1 The game of expert witness
 Tables
6.1 The sequence of McConnell’s comparisons of US and
USSR 1960–1990

6.2 The sequence of Samuelson’s growth forecasts 1961–

1980

6.3 Lorie Tarshis’s 1967 comparison of US and USSR

6.4 Expert ideology or model fragility?

6.5 Richard Lipsey and Peter Steiner’s hypothetical growth

comparisons

8.1 Bond ratings: distribution of issues by ratings, July 15,

1929

8.2 Gilbert Harold’s distribution of pessimistic rating

8.3 Gilbert Harold’s distribution of default ratios by agency

ratings

8.4 Gilbert Harold’s distribution of default ratios by

pessimistic rating

8.5 Braddock Hickman’s composite rating

11.1 Bias-seeking in simultaneous equations

11.2 The expert’s dilemma

11.3 Induced transparency by minimizing bootstrap

variance
 Acknowledgments
This book has been a long time in coming to fruition and
consequently we have many individuals and organizations to
acknowledge here. We began thinking about experts as we
presented our research on eugenics at the History of Economics
Society, the American Economic Association, and the Summer
Institute for the Preservation of the History of Economics. Colleagues
in those venues, including Dan Hammond, Eric Schliesser, Andrew
Farrant, Ed McPhail, Maria Paganelli, Niccola Tynan, Tim Leonard,
Charles McCann, and the late Laurence Moss were most helpful and
encouraging. The Summer Institute in those years received financial
support from the Earhart Foundation.
Subsequent versions of some chapters were presented at the
History of Political Economy Workshop at Duke University, the
American Economic Association, the History of Economics Society,
and the Joint Statistical Meetings. We received encouragement and
helpful comments from M. Ali Khan, Barkley Rosser, George
DeMartino, Craufurd Goodwin, Kevin Hoover, Bruce Caldwell, and
Roy Weintraub. Colleagues, including Tyler Cowen, Peter Boettke,
Alex Tabarrok, Deirdre McCloskey, Roger Koppl, Arye Hillman, Ross
Emmett, Steven Durlauf, and Virgil Storr have been helpful along the
way. To help assist with our thinking, we organized a Liberty Fund
colloquium on experts in 2009; the colloquium was most useful to
our thinking about the discussion tradition. Emily Chamlee-Wright
encouraged us to write a chapter for her edited volume on
discussion: that chapter forms the basis for Chapter 2. Portions of
other chapters have appeared in print and are reprinted with
permission here.
We are grateful for permission to print previously unpublished
writings. We thank Jo Ann Burgess for permission to publish the
correspondence of James Buchanan. We thank Laura Hicks of the
Foundation for Economic Education (https://fee.org/) for permission
to publish Orval Watts’s letter to Rose Wilder Lane. We thank Noel L.
Silverman, on behalf of the Little House Heritage Trust, for
permission to publish Rose Wilder Lane’s letter to Orval Watts. We
thank Leah Donnelly of the Special Collections Division of George
Mason University Library for permission to publish manuscripts in the
Clark E. Warburton Papers. We thank James Poterba, on behalf of
the National Bureau of Economic Research, for permission to publish
the correspondence among the participants in the NBER corporate
bond study. We thank Manfred Lube, on behalf of the University of
Klagenfurt / Karl-Popper-Library, for permission to publish Karl
Popper’s letter to Gordon Tullock. We thank Ning Wang for
permission to quote Ronald Coase’s unpublished words.
Chapter 2 first appeared in 2015 as “On ‘Strongly fortified
minds’: Self-restraint and cooperation in the discussion tradition,” in
Liberal Learning and the Art of Self-Governance edited by Emily
Chamlee-Wright (pp. 35–49). We thank the editor and the publisher,
Taylor & Francis, for permission to reprint. An earlier version of
Chapter 6 first appeared in the Journal of Economic Behavior &
Organization Vol. 78, April 2011 (pp. 110–125). We thank the editor,
William Neilson, and the publisher, Elsevier, for permission to reprint.
An earlier version of Chapter 9 appeared in 2016 in The Oxford
Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics, edited by George F.
DeMartino and Deirdre N. McCloskey (pp. 635–650). We thank the
editors and the publisher, Oxford University Press, for permission to
reprint. An earlier version of Chapter 10 first appeared in Public
Choice as “Tullock on motivated inquiry: expert-induced uncertainty
disguised as risk” Vol. 152, April 2012 (pp.163–180). We thank the
editor, William Shughart, and the publisher, Springer, for permission
to reprint. Chapter 12 first appeared in the Eastern Economic
Journal, Vol. 34, Winter 2008, pp. 103–114. We thank Nature
Publishing Group & Palgrave Macmillan for permission to reprint.
David Levy acknowledges financial support from the Earhart
Foundation and the Pierre and Enid Goodrich Foundation that
allowed us to hire research assistants for the study of textbooks
reported in Chapter 6. Without the efforts of Adam C. Smith, Emily
Skarbek, and Michael D. Thomas, the research could not have been
accomplished. The economics department at George Mason
University provided funds for August Hardy’s assistance with the
manuscript preparation. The Center for Study of Public Choice
provided research support, and Jane Perry has read and reread the
manuscript.
Neither of us has served in a consulting role while working on
the book manuscript. We did undertake a consulting project on
research and development for Statistics Canada, in 2006. David
Levy’s service on the Professional Ethics Committee of the American
Statistical Association was unpaid, as such things are usually
measured.
Sandra Peart acknowledges the support and encouragement of
her sons, Nathan and Matthew, and of Craig Heinicke. David Levy
remembers his parents and is grateful for Nicholas and Michelle.
When we began the project, Richard Ware, Gordon Tullock, and
James Buchanan were alive. Buchanan told us that we should visit
Ware to learn about G. Warren Nutter. There we first saw the letter
from W. W. Rostow. Tullock told the profession that economists were
no different than anyone else. Buchanan by himself saved the
Knightian tradition for a little while as a viable alternative to
orthodoxy.
Finally we thank Karen Maloney and her staff at Cambridge
University Press.
 Part I
◈

Introductory Themes
 1
Introduction
◈

One who is to act for another with special competence, superior

to that of his principal, and with fidelity, must be picked for
competence and trustworthiness by some intuitive process, and
must then be trusted. Sanctions of the sorts found in every
society no doubt help in securing trustworthiness. About all
these matters we have little knowledge, and the one thing that
can be said with assurance is that (peace to the shade of
Jeremy Bentham!) no machinery of sanctions can conceivably
function without very large aid from moral forces.
Frank Knight (1947, pp. 29–30)
 1.1 Introduction
The twenty-first century is surely the century of consultants,
advisors, and experts. We listen with great interest to pundits who
make predictions about an election, the World Series, or the Super
Bowl. When we rebalance our portfolio, buy a house or a car, or
adopt a healthier lifestyle, we visit websites where experts advise us
about how best to proceed. Consultants are hired at every turn. In
higher education they offer advice on bringing in a class at the
appropriate discount rate; developing a strategic plan that will please
multiple constituencies; or planning for a capital campaign.
Academia is not unique in this regard; throughout the for-profit and
the nonprofit world we seek and rely on the advice of experts –
those outside the organization who will independently verify our
thinking or point us in a new direction. Sometimes, this is a simple
process of validation: we on the inside have a hunch that, for
instance, higher rates of discount will yield greater retention rates at
a college; the consultants we hire collect the data and perform the
analysis that yields the advice we were looking for in the first place.
And this specialization and division of knowledge are good.1 We
want doctors and dentists to be experts and we rely on the
engineering expertise of those who design our cars and the rides at
Busch Gardens. No one who has visited a dentist in the last few
years would wish to return to the dental practices of even ten years
ago. If we decide to put a new policy in place – for instance to
increase a discount rate for superior students at a college – we need
reliable estimates of the costs and benefits associated with this
change.
It is straightforward to observe and appreciate the benefits
associated with access to expertise. There is, first, the simple fact
that our lives have been greatly improved as a consequence of
experts who made living easier by building bridges, discovering new
medical techniques, and producing washing machines and countless
other devices. In part for this reason, we typically defer to the
experts. We put them on TV, YouTube, blogs, and the radio. Experts
testify in court cases and before Congressional and Senate hearings.
Political leaders and judges defer to them. Doctors – themselves
experts – read evidence of the efficacy of a treatment and they rely
on the expert scientists who conducted the trials. Experts rate
securities, and firms and individuals base investment decisions on
these expert-backed ratings. Experts tell us at what rate China and
India are growing, what the balance sheet at the Federal Reserve
looks like, and whether to expect high winds with the storm that
promises to come through our region soon.
But another aspect of expertise has now burst into public
attention, the failure to replicate a large number of results reported
in scientific journals.2 Marcus Munafo, the coauthor of a 2015
Science study that could replicate fewer than half of the results
reported in a hundred articles in leading psychological journals,3
explained the problem in terms of motivation and he pointed to the
incentives facing the researcher:
 If I want to get promoted or get a grant, I need to be writing
lots of papers. But writing lots of papers and doing lots of small
experiments isn’t the way to get one really robust right answer.
What it takes to be a successful academic is not necessarily that
well aligned with what it takes to be a good scientist.4

Unfortunately, the consequences of such motivated inquiry have

occasionally been severe. Perhaps the best-known example followed
a 1998 article published in The Lancet that asserted that childhood
vaccines against measles and other diseases led to higher rates of
autism. We now know that the author concealed his financial
interests and the biased estimation procedures that strongly
influenced his results. Obviously the editors, who had no such
interests, were not aware of the concealment. Had the private goals
of the author and the statistical procedures been obvious to the
editors, or even suspected, there is no reason to believe the article
would have been published. Experts – and here we simply defer to
authority – claim that this widely diffused result has led to a
disastrous fall in the vaccination rates.5
In what follows, we focus on experts in economics because it is
easier for us to read the technical literature in economics than in
other fields. Thus, our attention is confined to those who have a
claim to scientific authority in economics and who use their expertise
to influence policy, broadly construed. Such experts have attained
great stature over the last century, and some notoriety recently.6
The influence of the Chicago School of Economics in creating a
neoliberal world is controversial in large part because their claims of
expertise seem to have overruled democratic institutions.7 In that
context, Chicago School experts in economics are viewed by some as
akin to physicians who prescribed the bitter medicine of “shock
therapy” with the admonition, “take this, we know what’s good for
you.”
Economists were concerned with questions such as the
motivations of economic experts and the replicability of their results
long before the “shock treatment” characterization of economic
advice.8 These misgivings, largely out of the public eye, have
gradually reformed submission policies for academic journals in
economics. Publication of applied statistical articles is now often
contingent upon submission of the data as well as the computer
commands to implement the statistical procedures. This is a
remarkable change from the era in which data sharing was
voluntary, motivated only by scientific duty, as an editorial in the
Journal of Political Economy in 1975 informed its readers (Stigler
1975).
In line with such concerns, we hold that all inquiry is motivated.
This follows from our presumption that all experts have at least
some private (as opposed to purely public) motivations. As is well
known, throughout his career James Buchanan made the simple but
important claim that policy makers are neither more nor less public
spirited than the public.9 We have used the phrase “analytical
egalitarianism” to describe the presumption that people are all
approximately the same messy combination of interests. In our view,
it is now time to apply this homogeneity claim not only to policy
makers but also to the experts who influence policy.10 This book
extends analytical egalitarianism to economic experts who influence
policy, and this explains our cautionary approach to expertise: If one
suspects the expert has a point of view not fully in line with that of
society writ large, then one might be well advised to take
precautions against the uncritical adoption of the expert’s advice.
It is important to emphasize at the outset that we do not claim
that experts in economics are untrustworthy or greedy, at least no
more so than the rest of us. Instead, our position is that they are
humans and like the rest of us they are subject to motivations to do
good for all and to do good for themselves. Sometimes, by contrast
(and sometimes to our peril, we suggest), people presume that
experts pursue only the truth or that bias is costly for them because
their only interest is the pursuit of truth. But when experts’ models
have alternative uses, when they are instruments for policy or to
please those with whom they are connected, the motivations
become more complicated. Our main concern in the book is how to
ensure that the public obtains the best insights of experts in
economics while avoiding the pitfalls associated with uncritical
deference.
 1.2 Discussion
The vision described in section 1 of the Chicago School economist as
a physician, is actually antithetical to the teaching of Frank Knight, a
founder of Chicago economics, for whom democracy is government
by discussion. In Part II we offer a reconstruction of Knight’s view in
which expertise is constrained by democratic consensus. Most
important, independent of the “school” of economics in which expert
advice originates, this book advocates for an alternative account in
which the economist as expert is constrained by discussion and
transparency. Such a constraint, we argue, may prevent policy
disasters such as those detailed in Part III. Discussion works both
ways: by ensuring that results can be discussed and checked, it
leads to the publication of trustworthy results; by allowing for results
to be discussed and checked, it helps foster a healthy amount of
skepticism.
We recognize in Part II and again in Part V that it is both messy
and quite difficult to constrain experts by discussion. Our point in
Part II is that the benefits associated with discussion may be great.
There we shall read J. S. Mill’s explanation of how moderation in
expression is important for those who dissent from social
conventions. Mill put this view into practice, and as a consequence
his views on contraception expressed in his definitive Principles of
Political Economy were considered at the trial that led to a de facto
legalization of the dissemination of contraceptive information in a
form that poor women could afford. The larger context of the trial is
considered in Chapter 5. In the context of our examination of the
benefits of discussion, Chapter 2 also reviews experimental evidence
on how cooperation is enhanced by discussion.
In Part III we suggest that the costs of neglecting fuller
discussion may be quite high, and they include the trampling of
human desires and well-being through the adoption of sterilization
policies to prevent births that experts deemed unwanted. Part V
offers some recommendations for obtaining consensus and
constraining experts that are less costly than discussion among an
entire polity. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the obvious difficulties
associated with discussion among large numbers, Knight drew
attention to these. Chapters 11 and 12 offer ways to overcome the
intractability of discussion among large numbers by relying on a
random draw from the full public.
 1.3 Linear versus Cyclical Policy Goals
A key question in this book is whether policy goals are determined
once and for all and then implemented by experts (what we call the
linear model) or whether they are determined in an ongoing process
of review and discussion (what we call the cyclical process). The
dominant point of view about the role of (economic) experts in a
democracy uses the linear model. In this formulation, society
articulates ends through a process of democratic discussion. Experts
are then tasked with finding the means (optimal solutions) to
achieve those predetermined ends in something akin to an
engineering calculus. A second point of view, which we defend,
takes ends and means as determined simultaneously. Ends are
articulated and means are proposed but these proposed means and
even the ends are subject to continued review and discussion. The
ends and means are then refined and the process continues.11
Unfortunately, all too often the role for review and discussion is
minimal in the process of implementing policy. Indeed, once a
decision is made, the overwhelming temptation for those in charge is
to avoid continuous review and discussion. We argue that the
separation of democratically established goals and means is costly at
best and dangerous at worst. The linear model depends on experts
being both trustworthy and effective. It neglects the temptation
associated with power, with having the means to achieve an end
that, once chosen, becomes disassociated from the people who
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votes—he contending for district elections, and the delegates to vote
individually. South Carolina was not represented in the convention.
After the first ballot Mr. Van Buren’s vote sensibly decreased, until
finally, Mr. James K. Polk, who was a candidate for the Vice-
Presidency, was brought forward and nominated unanimously for
the chief office. Mr. Geo. M. Dallas was chosen as his colleague for
the Vice-Presidency. The nomination of these gentlemen, neither of
whom had been mentioned until late in the proceedings of the
convention, for the offices for which they were finally nominated,
was a genuine surprise to the country. No voice in favor of it had
been heard; and no visible sign in the political horizon had
announced it.
The Whig convention nominated Henry Clay, for President; and
Theodore Frelinghuysen for Vice-President.
The main issues in the election which ensued, were mainly the
party ones of Whig and Democrat, modified by the tariff and Texas
questions. It resulted in the choice of the Democratic candidates,
who received 170 electoral votes as against 105 for their opponents;
the popular majority for the Democrats being 238,284, in a total vote
of 2,834,108. Mr. Clay received a larger popular vote than had been
given at the previous election for the Whig candidate, showing that
he would have been elected had he then been the nominee of his
party; though the popular vote at this election was largely increased
over that of 1840. It is conceded that the 36 electoral votes of New
York State gave the election to Mr. Polk. It was carried by a bare
majority; due entirely to the Gubernatorial candidacy of Mr. Silas
Wright, who had been mentioned for the vice-presidential
nomination in connection with Mr. Van Buren, but who declined it
after the sacrifice of his friend and colleague; and resigning his seat
in the Senate, became a candidate for Governor of New York. The
election being held at the same time as that for president, his name
and popularity brought to the presidential ticket more than enough
votes to make the majority that gave the electoral vote of the State to
the Democrats.
President Tyler’s annual and last message to Congress, in
December 1844, contained, (as did that of the previous year) an
elaborate paragraph on the subject of Texas and Mexico; the idea
being the annexation of the former to the Union, and the assumption
of her causes of grievance against the latter; and a treaty was pending
to accomplish these objects. The scheme for the annexation of Texas
was framed with a double aspect—one looking to the then pending
presidential election, the other to the separation of the Southern
States; and as soon as the rejection of the treaty was foreseen, and
the nominating convention had acted, the disunion aspect
manifested itself over many of the Southern States—beginning with
South Carolina. Before the end of May, a great meeting took place at
Ashley, in that State, to combine the slave States in a convention to
unite the Southern States to Texas, if Texas should not be received
into the Union; and to invite the President to convene Congress to
arrange the terms of the dissolution of the Union if the rejection of
the annexation should be persevered in. Responsive resolutions were
adopted in several States, and meetings held. The opposition
manifested, brought the movement to a stand, and suppressed the
disunion scheme for the time being—only to lie in wait for future
occasions. But it was not before the people only that this scheme for
a Southern convention with a view to the secession of the slave States
was a matter of discussion; it was the subject of debate in the Senate;
and there it was further disclosed that the design of the secessionists
was to extend the new Southern republic to the Californias.
The treaty of annexation was supported by all the power of the
administration, but failed; and it was rejected by the Senate by a two-
thirds vote against it. Following this, a joint resolution was early
brought into the House of Representatives for the admission of Texas
as a State of the Union, by legislative action; it passed the House by a
fair majority, but met with opposition in the Senate unless coupled
with a proviso for negotiation and treaty, as a condition precedent. A
bill authorizing the President and a commissioner to be appointed to
agree upon the terms and conditions of said admission, the question
of slavery within its limits, its debts, the fixing of boundaries, and the
cession of territory, was coupled or united with the resolution; and in
this shape it was finally agreed to, and became a law, with the
concurrence of the President, March 3, 1845. Texas was then in a
state of war with Mexico, though at that precise point of time an
armistice had been agreed upon, looking to a treaty of peace. The
House resolution was for an unqualified admission of the State; the
Senate amendment or bill was for negotiation; and the bill actually
passed would not have been concurred in except on the
understanding that the incoming President (whose term began
March 4, 1845, and who was favorable to negotiation) would act
under the bill, and appoint commissioners accordingly.
Contrary to all expectation, the outgoing President, on the last day
of his term, at the instigation of his Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun,
assumed the execution of the act providing for the admission of
Texas—adopted the legislative clause—and sent out a special
messenger with instructions. The danger of this had been foreseen,
and suggested in the Senate; but close friends of Mr. Calhoun,
speaking for the administration, and replying to the suggestion,
indignantly denied it for them, and declared that they would not
have the “audacity” to so violate the spirit and intent of the act, or so
encroach upon the rights of the new President. These statements
from the friends of the Secretary and President that the plan by
negotiation would be adopted, quieted the apprehension of those
Senators opposed to legislative annexation or admission, and thus
secured their votes, without which the bill would have failed of a
majority. Thus was Texas incorporated into the Union. The
legislative proposition sent by Mr. Tyler was accepted: Texas became
incorporated with the United States, and in consequence the state of
war was established between the United States and Mexico; it only
being a question of time and chance when the armistice should end
and hostilities begin. Although Mr. Calhoun was not in favor of war
with Mexico—he believing that a money payment would settle the
differences with that country—the admission of Texas into the Union
under the legislative annexation clause of the statute, was really his
act and not that of the President’s; and he was, in consequence,
afterwards openly charged in the Senate with being the real author of
the war which followed.
The administration of President Polk opened March 4, 1845; and
on the same day, the Senate being convened for the purpose, the
cabinet ministers were nominated and confirmed. In December
following the 29th Congress was organized. The House of
Representatives, being largely Democratic, elected the Speaker, by a
vote of 120, against 70 for the Whig candidate. At this session the
“American” party—a new political organization—first made its
appearance in the National councils, having elected six members of
the House of Representatives, four from New York and two from
Pennsylvania. The President’s first annual message had for its chief
topic, the admission of Texas, then accomplished, and the
consequent dissatisfaction of Mexico; and referring to the
preparations on the part of the latter with the apparent intention of
declaring war on the United States, either by an open declaration, or
by invading Texas. The message also stated causes which would
justify this government in taking the initiative in declaring war—
mainly the non-compliance by Mexico with the terms of the treaty of
indemnity of April 11, 1839, entered into between that State and this
government relative to injuries to American citizens during the
previous eight years. He also referred to the fact of a minister having
been sent to Mexico to endeavor to bring about a settlement of the
differences between the nations, without a resort to hostilities. The
message concluded with a reference to the negotiations with Great
Britain relative to the Oregon boundary; a statement of the finances
and the public debt, showing the latter to be slightly in excess of
seventeen millions; and a recommendation for a revision of the tariff,
with a view to revenue as the object, with protection to home
industry as the incident.
At this session of Congress, the States of Florida and Iowa were
admitted into the Union; the former permitting slavery within its
borders, the latter denying it. Long before this, the free and the slave
States were equal in number, and the practice had grown up—from a
feeling of jealousy and policy to keep them evenly balanced—of
admitting one State of each character at the same time. Numerically
the free and the slave States were thus kept even: in political power a
vast inequality was going on—the increase of population being so
much greater in the northern than in the southern region.
The Ashburton treaty of 1842 omitted to define the boundary line,
and permitted, or rather did not prohibit, the joint occupation of
Oregon by British and American settlers. This had been a subject of
dispute for many years. The country on the Columbia River had been
claimed by both. Under previous treaties the American northern
boundary extended “to the latitude of 49 degrees north of the
equator, and along that parallel indefinitely to the west.” Attempts
were made in 1842 and continuing since to 1846, to settle this
boundary line, by treaty with Great Britain. It had been assumed that
we had a dividing line, made by previous treaty, along the parallel of
54 degrees 40 minutes from the sea to the Rocky mountains. The
subject so much absorbed public attention, that the Democratic
National convention of 1844 in its platform of principles declared for
that boundary line, or war as the consequence. It became known as
the 54–40 plank, and was a canon of political faith. The negotiations
between the governments were resumed in August, 1844. The
Secretary of State, Mr. Calhoun, proposed a line along the parallel of
49 degrees of north latitude to the summit of the Rocky mountains
and continuing that line thence to the Pacific Ocean; and he made
this proposition notwithstanding the fact that the Democratic party—
to which he belonged—were then in a high state of exultation for the
boundary of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and the presidential canvass, on
the Democratic side, was raging upon that cry.
The British Minister declined this proposition in the part that
carried the line to the ocean, but offered to continue it from the
summit of the mountains to the Columbia River, a distance of some
three hundred miles, and then follow the river to the ocean. This was
declined by Mr. Calhoun. The President had declared in his
inaugural address in favor of the 54–40 line. He was in a dilemma; to
maintain that position meant war with Great Britain; to recede from
it seemed impossible. The proposition for the line of 49 degrees
having been withdrawn by the American government on its non-
acceptance by the British, had appeased the Democratic storm which
had been raised against the President. Congress had come together
under the loud cry of war, in which Mr. Cass was the leader, but
followed by the body of the democracy, and backed and cheered by
the whole democratic newspaper press. Under the authority and
order of Congress notice had been served on Great Britain which was
to abrogate the joint occupation of the country by the citizens of the
two powers. It was finally resolved by the British Government to
propose the line of 49 degrees, continuing to the ocean, as originally
offered by Mr. Calhoun; and though the President was favorable to
its acceptance, he could not, consistently with his previous acts,
accept and make a treaty, on that basis. The Senate, with whom lies
the power, under the constitution, of confirming or restricting all
treaties, being favorable to it, without respect to party lines, resort
was had, as in the early practice of the Government, to the President,
asking the advice of the Senate upon the articles of a treaty before
negotiation. A message was accordingly sent to the Senate, by the
President, stating the proposition, and asking its advice, thus shifting
the responsibility upon that body, and making the issue of peace or
war depend upon its answer. The Senate advised the acceptance of
the proposition, and the treaty was concluded.
The conduct of the Whig Senators, without whose votes the advice
would not have been given nor the treaty made, was patriotic in
preferring their country to their party—in preventing a war with
Great Britain—and saving the administration from itself and its party
friends.
The second session of the 29th Congress was opened in December,
1847. The President’s message was chiefly in relation to the war with
Mexico, which had been declared by almost a unanimous vote in
Congress. Mr. Calhoun spoke against the declaration in the Senate,
but did not vote upon it. He was sincerely opposed to the war,
although his conduct had produced it. Had he remained in the
cabinet, to do which he had not concealed his wish, he would, no
doubt, have labored earnestly to have prevented it. Many members of
Congress, of the same party with the administration, were extremely
averse to the war, and had interviews with the President, to see if it
was inevitable, before it was declared. Members were under the
impression that the war could not last above three months.
The reason for these impressions was that an intrigue was laid,
with the knowledge of the Executive, for a peace, even before the war
was declared, and a special agent dispatched to bring about a return
to Mexico of its exiled President, General Santa Anna, and conclude a
treaty of peace with him, on terms favorable to the United States.
And for this purpose Congress granted an appropriation of three
millions of dollars to be placed at the disposal of the President, for
negotiating for a boundary which should give the United States
additional territory.
While this matter was pending in Congress, Mr. Wilmot of
Pennsylvania introduced and moved a proviso, “that no part of the
territory to be acquired should be open to the introduction of
slavery.” It was a proposition not necessary for the purpose of
excluding slavery, as the only territory to be acquired was that of
New Mexico and California, where slavery was already prohibited by
the Mexican laws and constitution. The proviso was therefore
nugatory, and only served to bring on a slavery agitation in the
United States. For this purpose it was seized upon by Mr. Calhoun
and declared to be an outrage upon and menace to the slaveholding
States. It occupied the attention of Congress for two sessions, and
became the subject of debate in the State Legislatures, several of
which passed disunion resolutions. It became the watchword of party
—the synonym of civil war, and the dissolution of the Union. Neither
party really had anything to fear or to hope from the adoption of the
proviso—the soil was free, and the Democrats were not in a position
to make slave territory of it, because it had just enunciated as one of
its cardinal principles, that there was “no power in Congress to
legislate upon slavery in Territories.” Never did two political parties
contend more furiously about nothing. Close observers, who had
been watching the progress of the slavery agitation since its
inauguration in Congress in 1835, knew it to be the means of keeping
up an agitation for the benefit of the political parties—the
abolitionists on one side and the disunionists or nullifiers on the
other—to accomplish their own purposes. This was the celebrated
Wilmot Proviso, which for so long a time convulsed the Union;
assisted in forcing the issue between the North and South on the
slavery question, and almost caused a dissolution of the Union. The
proviso was defeated; that chance of the nullifiers to force the issue
was lost; another had to be made, which was speedily done, by the
introduction into the Senate on the 19th February, 1847, by Mr.
Calhoun of his new slavery resolutions, declaring the Territories to
be the common property of the several States; denying the right of
Congress to prohibit slavery in a Territory, or to pass any law which
would have the effect to deprive the citizens of any slave State from
emigrating with his property (slaves) into such Territory. The
introduction of the resolutions was prefaced by an elaborate speech
by Mr. Calhoun, who demanded an immediate vote upon them. They
never came to a vote; they were evidently introduced for the mere
purpose of carrying a question to the slave States on which they
could be formed into a unit against the free States; and so began the
agitation which finally led to the abrogation of the Missouri
Compromise line, and arrayed the States of one section against those
of the other.
The Thirtieth Congress, which assembled for its first session in
December, 1847, was found, so far as respects the House of
Representatives, to be politically adverse to the administration. The
Whigs were in the majority, and elected the Speaker; Robert C.
Winthrop, of Massachusetts, being chosen. The President’s message
contained a full report of the progress of the war with Mexico; the
success of the American arms in that conflict; the victory of Cerro
Gordo, and the capture of the City of Mexico; and that negotiations
were then pending for a treaty of peace. The message concluded with
a reference to the excellent results from the independent treasury
system.
The war with Mexico was ended by the signing of a treaty of peace,
in February, 1848, by the terms of which New Mexico and Upper
California were ceded to the United States, and the lower Rio
Grande, from its mouth to El Paso, taken for the boundary of Texas.
For the territory thus acquired, the United States agreed to pay to
Mexico the sum of fifteen million dollars, in five annual installments;
and besides that, assumed the claims of American citizens against
Mexico, limited to three and a quarter million dollars, out of and on
account of which claims the war ostensibly originated. The victories
achieved by the American commanders, Generals Zachary Taylor
and Winfield Scott, during that war, won for them national
reputations, by means of which they were brought prominently
forward for the Presidential succession.
The question of the power of Congress to legislate on the subject of
slavery in the Territories, was again raised, at this session, on the bill
for the establishment of the Oregon territorial government. An
amendment was offered to insert a provision for the extension of the
Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean; which line thus
extended was intended by the amendment to be permanent, and to
apply to all future territories established in the West. This
amendment was lost, but the bill was finally passed with an
amendment incorporating into it the anti-slavery clause of the
ordinance of 1787. Mr. Calhoun, in the Senate, declared that the
exclusion of slavery from any territory was a subversion of the
Union; openly proclaimed the strife between the North and South to
be ended, and the separation of the States accomplished. His speech
was an open invocation to disunion, and from that time forth, the
efforts were regular to obtain a meeting of the members from the
slave States, to unite in a call for a convention of the slave States to
redress themselves. He said: “The great strife between the North and
the South is ended. The North is determined to exclude the property
of the slaveholder, and, of course, the slaveholder himself, from its
territory. On this point there seems to be no division in the North. In
the South, he regretted to say, there was some division of sentiment.
The effect of this determination of the North was to convert all the
Southern population into slaves; and he would never consent to
entail that disgrace on his posterity. He denounced any Southern
man who would not take the same course. Gentlemen were greatly
mistaken if they supposed the Presidential question in the South
would override this more important one. The separation of the North
and the South is completed. The South has now a most solemn
obligation to perform—to herself—to the constitution—to the Union.
She is bound to come to a decision not to permit this to go on any
further, but to show that, dearly as she prizes the Union, there are
questions which she regards as of greater importance than the
Union. This is not a question of territorial government, but a
question involving the continuance of the Union.” The President, in
approving the Oregon bill, took occasion to send in a special
message, pointing out the danger to the Union from the progress of
the slavery agitation, and urged an adherence to the principles of the
ordinance of 1787—the terms of the Missouri compromise of 1820—
as also that involved and declared in the Texas case in 1845, as the
means of averting that danger.
The Presidential election of 1848 was coming on. The Democratic
convention met in Baltimore in May of that year; each State being
represented in the convention by the number of delegates equal to
the number of electoral votes it was entitled to; saving only New
York, which sent two sets of delegates, and both were excluded. The
delegates were, for the most part, members of Congress and office-
holders. The two-thirds rule, adopted by the previous convention,
was again made a law of the convention. The main question which
arose upon the formation of the platform for the campaign, was the
doctrine advanced by the Southern members of non-interference
with slavery in the States or in the Territories. The candidates of the
party were, Lewis Cass, of Michigan, for President, and General Wm.
O. Butler, of Kentucky, for Vice-President.
The Whig convention, taking advantage of the popularity of Genl.
Zachary Taylor, for his military achievements in the Mexican war,
then just ended; and his consequent availability as a candidate,
nominated him for the Presidency, over Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster and
General Scott, who were his competitors before the convention.
Millard Fillmore was selected as the Vice-presidential candidate.
A third convention was held, consisting of the disaffected
Democrats from New York who had been excluded from the
Baltimore convention. They met at Utica, New York, and nominated
Martin Van Buren for President, and Charles Francis Adams for
Vice-President. The principles of its platform, were, that Congress
should abolish slavery wherever it constitutionally had the power to
do so—[which was intended to apply to the District of Columbia]—
that it should not interfere with it in the slave States—and that it
should prohibit it in the Territories. This party became known as
“Free-soilers,” from their doctrines thus enumerated, and their party
cry of “free-soil, free-speech, free-labor, free-men.” The result of the
election, as might have been foreseen, was to lose New York State to
the Baltimore candidate, and give it to the Whigs, who were
triumphant in the reception of 163 electoral votes for their
candidates, against 127 for the democrats; and none for the free-
soilers.
The last message of President Polk, in December following, gave
him the opportunity to again urge upon Congress the necessity for
some measure to quiet the slavery agitation, and he recommended
the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean,
passing through the new Territories of California and New Mexico,
as a fair adjustment, to meet as far as possible the views of all parties.
The President referred also to the state of the finances; the excellent
condition of the public treasury; government loans, commanding a
high premium; gold and silver the established currency; and the
business interests of the country in a prosperous condition. And this
was the state of affairs, only one year after emergency from a foreign
war. It would be unfair not to give credit to the President and to
Senator Benton and others equally prominent and courageous, who
at that time had to battle against the bank theory and national paper
money currency, as strongly urged and advocated, and to prove
eventually that the money of the Constitution—gold and silver—was
the only currency to ensure a successful financial working of the
government, and prosperity to the people.
 The new President, General Zachary Taylor, was inaugurated
March 4, 1849. The Senate being convened, as usual, in extra
session, for the purpose, the Vice-President elect, Millard Fillmore,
was duly installed; and the Whig cabinet officers nominated by the
President, promptly confirmed. An additional member of the Cabinet
was appointed by this administration to preside over the new “Home
Department” since called the “Interior,” created at the previous
session of Congress.
The following December Congress met in regular session—the 31st
since the organization of the federal government. The Senate
consisted of sixty members, among whom were Mr. Webster, Mr.
Calhoun, and Mr. Clay, who had returned to public life. The House
had 230 members; and although the Whigs had a small majority, the
House was so divided on the slavery question in its various phases,
that the election for Speaker resulted in the choice of the Democratic
candidate, Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, by a majority of three votes. The
annual message of the President plainly showed that he
comprehended the dangers to the Union from a continuance of
sectional feeling on the slavery question, and he averred his
determination to stand by the Union to the full extent of his
obligations and powers. At the previous session Congress had spent
six months in endeavoring to frame a satisfactory bill providing
territorial governments for California and New Mexico, and had
adjourned finally without accomplishing it, in consequence of
inability to agree upon whether the Missouri compromise line should
be carried to the ocean, or the territories be permitted to remain as
they were—slavery prohibited under the laws of Mexico. Mr. Calhoun
brought forward, in the debate, a new doctrine—extending the
Constitution to the territory, and arguing that as that instrument
recognized the existence of slavery, the settlers in such territory
should be permitted to hold their slave property taken there, and be
protected. Mr. Webster’s answer to this was that the Constitution
was made for States, not territories; that it cannot operate anywhere,
not even in the States for which it was made, without acts of
Congress to enforce it. The proposed extension of the constitution to
territories, with a view to its transportation of slavery along with it,
was futile and nugatory without the act of Congress to vitalize slavery
under it. The early part of the year had witnessed ominous
movements—nightly meetings of large numbers of members from
the slave States, led by Mr. Calhoun, to consider the state of things
between the North and the South. They appointed committees who
prepared an address to the people. It was in this condition of things,
that President Taylor expressed his opinion, in his message, of the
remedies required. California, New Mexico and Utah, had been left
without governments. For California, he recommended that having a
sufficient population and having framed a constitution, she be
admitted as a State into the Union; and for New Mexico and Utah,
without mixing the slavery question with their territorial
governments, they be left to ripen into States, and settle the slavery
question for themselves in their State constitutions.

With a view to meet the wishes of all parties, and arrive at some
definite and permanent adjustment of the slavery question, Mr. Clay
early in the session introduced compromise resolutions which were
practically a tacking together of the several bills then on the calendar,
providing for the admission of California—the territorial government
for Utah and New Mexico—the settlement of the Texas boundary—
slavery in the District of Columbia—and for a fugitive slave law. It
was seriously and earnestly opposed by many, as being a concession
to the spirit of disunion—a capitulation under threat of secession;
and as likely to become the source of more contentions than it
proposed to quiet.
The resolutions were referred to a special committee, who
promptly reported a bill embracing the comprehensive plan of
compromise which Mr. Clay proposed. Among the resolutions
offered, was the following: “Resolved, that as slavery does not exist
by law and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory
acquired by the United States from the Republic of Mexico, it is
inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction
into or exclusion from any part of the said territory; and that
appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by
Congress in all of the said territory, and assigned as the boundaries
of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any
restriction or condition on the subject of slavery.” Mr. Jefferson
Davis of Mississippi, objected that the measure gave nothing to the
South in the settlement of the question; and he required the
extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific Ocean as
the least that he would be willing to take, with the specific
recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line;
and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as
States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the
option of their owner.
Mr. Clay in reply, 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, either south
or north of that line.*** If the citizens of those territories choose to
establish slavery, and if they come here with constitutions
establishing slavery, I am for admitting them with such provisions in
their constitutions; but then it will be their own work, and not ours,
and their posterity will have to reproach them, and not us, for
forming constitutions allowing the institution of slavery to exist
among them.”
Mr. Seward of New York, proposed a renewal of the Wilmot
Proviso, in the following resolution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, otherwise than by conviction for crime, shall ever be
allowed in either of said territories of Utah and New Mexico;” but his
resolution was rejected in the Senate by a vote of 23 yeas to 33 nays.
Following this, Mr. Calhoun had read for him in the Senate, by his
friend James M. Mason of Virginia, his last speech. It embodied the
points covered by the address to the people, prepared by him the
previous year; the probability of a dissolution of the Union, and
presenting a case to justify it. The tenor of the speech is shown by the
following extracts from it: “I have, Senators, believed from the first,
that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by
some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining
this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the
attention of each of the two great parties which divide the country to
adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without
success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no
attempt to resist it, until it has reached a period when it can no
longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have
had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever
come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?
*** Instead of being weaker, all the elements in favor of agitation are
stronger now than they were in 1835, when it first commenced, while
all the elements of influence on the part of the South are weaker.
Unless something decisive is done, I again ask what is to stop this
agitation, before the great and final object at which it aims—the
abolition of slavery in the States—is consummated? Is it, then, not
certain that if something decisive is not now done to arrest it, the
South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession?
Indeed as events are now moving, it will not require the South to
secede to dissolve the Union.*** If the agitation goes on, nothing will
be left to hold the States together except force.” He answered the
question, How can the Union be saved? with which his speech
opened, by suggesting: “To provide for the insertion of a provision in
the constitution, by an amendment, which will restore to the South
in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself, before
the equilibrium between the sections was destroyed by the action of
the government.” He did not state of what the amendment should
consist, but later on, it was ascertained from reliable sources that his
idea was a dual executive—one President from the free, and one from
the slave States, the consent of both of whom should be required to
all acts of Congress before they become laws. This speech of Mr.
Calhoun’s, is important as explaining many of his previous actions;
and as furnishing a guide to those who ten years afterwards
attempted to carry out practically the suggestions thrown out by him.
Mr. Clay’s compromise bill was rejected. It was evident that no
compromise of any kind whatever on the subject of slavery, under
any one of its aspects separately, much less under all put together,
could possibly be made. There was no spirit of concession
manifested. The numerous measures put together in Mr. Clay’s bill
were disconnected and separated. Each measure received a separate
and independent consideration, and with a result which showed the
injustice of the attempted conjunction; for no two of them were
passed by the same vote, even of the members of the committee
which had even unanimously reported favorably upon them as a
whole.
Mr. Calhoun died in the spring of 1850; before the separate bill for
the admission of California was taken up. His death took place at
Washington, he having reached the age of 68 years. A eulogy upon
him was delivered in the Senate by his colleague, Mr. Butler, of South
Carolina. Mr. Calhoun was the first great advocate of the doctrine of
secession. He was the author of the nullification doctrine, and an
advocate of the extreme doctrine of States Rights. He was an
eloquent speaker—a man of strong intellect. His speeches were plain,
strong, concise, sometimes impassioned, and always severe. Daniel
Webster said of him, that “he had the basis, the indispensable basis
of all high characters, and that was unspotted integrity, unimpeached
honor and character!”
In July of this year an event took place which threw a gloom over
the country. The President, General Taylor, contracted a fever from
exposure to the hot sun at a celebration of Independence Day, from
which he died four days afterwards. He was a man of irreproachable
private character, undoubted patriotism, and established reputation
for judgment and firmness. His brief career showed no deficiency of
political wisdom nor want of political training. His administration
was beset with difficulties, with momentous questions pending, and
he met the crisis with firmness and determination, resolved to
maintain the Federal Union at all hazards. His first and only annual
message, the leading points of which have been stated, evinces a
spirit to do what was right among all the States. His death was a
public calamity. No man could have been more devoted to the Union
nor more opposed to the slavery agitation; and his position as a
Southern man and a slaveholder—his military reputation, and his
election by a majority of the people as well as of the States, would
have given him a power in the settlement of the pending questions of
the day which no President without these qualifications could have
possessed.
In accordance with the Constitution, the office of President thus
devolved upon the Vice-President, Mr. Millard Fillmore, who was
duly inaugurated July 10, 1850. The new cabinet, with Daniel
Webster as Secretary of State, was duly appointed and confirmed by
the Senate.
The bill for the admission of California as a State in the Union, was
called up in the Senate and sought to be amended by extending the
Missouri Compromise line through it, to the Pacific Ocean, so as to
authorize slavery in the State below that line. The amendment was
introduced and pressed by Southern friends of the late Mr. Calhoun,
and made a test question. It was lost, and the bill passed by a two-
third vote; whereupon ten Southern Senators offered a written
protest, the concluding clause of which was: “We dissent from this
bill, and solemnly protest against its passage, because in sanctioning
measures so contrary to former precedents, to obvious policy, to the
spirit and intent of the constitution of the United States, for the
purpose of excluding the slaveholding States from the territory thus
to be erected into a State, this government in effect declares that the
exclusion of slavery from the territory of the United States is an
object so high and important as to justify a disregard not only of all
the principles of sound policy, but also of the constitution itself.
Against this conclusion we must now and for ever protest, as it is
destructive of the safety and liberties of those whose rights have been
committed to our care, fatal to the peace and equality of the States
which we represent, and must lead, if persisted in, to the dissolution
of that confederacy, in which the slaveholding States have never
sought more than equality, and in which they will not be content to
remain with less.” On objection being made, followed by debate, the
Senate refused to receive the protest, or permit it to be entered on
the Journal. The bill went to the House of Representatives, was
readily passed, and promptly approved by the President. Thus was
virtually accomplished the abrogation of the Missouri compromise
line; and the extension or non-extension of slavery was then made to
form a foundation for future political parties.
The year 1850 was prolific with disunion movements in the
Southern States. The Senators who had joined with Mr. Calhoun in
the address to the people, in 1849, united with their adherents in
establishing at Washington a newspaper entitled “The Southern
Press,” devoted to the agitation of the slavery question; to presenting
the advantages of disunion, and the organization of a confederacy of
Southern States to be called the “United States South.” Its constant
aim was to influence the South against the North, and advocated
concert of action by the States of the former section. It was aided in
its efforts by newspapers published in the South, more especially in
South Carolina and Mississippi. A disunion convention was actually
held, in Nashville, Tennessee, and invited the assembly of a Southern
Congress. Two States, South Carolina and Mississippi responded to
the appeal; passed laws to carry it into effect, and the former went so
far as to elect its quota of Representatives to the proposed new
Southern Congress. These occurrences are referred to as showing the
spirit that prevailed, and the extraordinary and unjustifiable means
used by the leaders to mislead and exasperate the people. The
assembling of a Southern “Congress” was a turning point in the
progress of disunion. Georgia refused to join; and her weight as a
great Southern State was sufficient to cause the failure of the scheme.
But the seeds of discord were sown, and had taken root, only to
spring up at a future time when circumstances should be more
favorable to the accomplishment of the object.
Although the Congress of the United States had in 1790 and again
in 1836 formally declared the policy of the government to be non-
interference with the States in respect to the matter of slavery within
the limits of the respective States, the subject continued to be
agitated in consequence of petitions to Congress to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia, which was under the exclusive control of
the federal government; and of movements throughout the United
States to limit, and finally abolish it. The subject first made its
appearance in national politics in 1840, when a presidential ticket
was nominated by a party then formed favoring the abolition of
slavery; it had a very slight following which was increased tenfold at
the election of 1844 when the same party again put a ticket in the
field with James G. Birney of Michigan, as its candidate for the
Presidency; who received 62,140 votes. The efforts of the leaders of
that faction were continued, and persisted in to such an extent, that
when in 1848 it nominated a ticket with Gerritt Smith for President,
against the Democratic candidate, Martin Van Buren, the former
received 296,232 votes. In the presidential contest of 1852 the
abolition party again nominated a ticket, with John P. Hale as its
candidate for President, and polled 157,926 votes. This large
following was increased from time to time, until uniting with a new
party then formed, called the Republican party, which latter adopted
a platform endorsing the views and sentiments of the abolitionists,
the great and decisive battle for the principles involved, was fought
in the ensuing presidential contest of 1856; when the candidate of
the Republican party, John C. Fremont, supported by the entire
abolition party, polled 1,341,812 votes. The first national platform of
the Abolition party, upon which it went into the contest of 1840,
favored the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and
Territories; the inter-state slave trade, and a general opposition to
slavery to the full extent of constitutional power.
Following the discussion of the subject of slavery, in the Senate
and House of Representatives, brought about by the presentation of
petitions and memorials, and the passage of the resolutions in 1836
rejecting such petitions, the question was again raised by the
presentation in the House, by Mr. Slade of Vermont, on the 20th
December 1837, of two memorials praying the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia, and moving that they be referred to a select
committee. Great excitement prevailed in the chamber, and of the
many attempts by the Southern members an adjournment was had.
The next day a resolution was offered that thereafter all such
petitions and memorials touching the abolition of slavery should,
when presented, be laid on the table; which resolution was adopted
by a large vote. During the 24th Congress, the Senate pursued the
course of laying on the table the motion to receive all abolition
petitions; and both Houses during the 25th Congress continued the
same course of conduct; when finally on the 25th of January 1840,
the House adopted by a vote of 114 to 108, an amendment to the
rules, called the 21st Rule, which provided:—“that no petition,
memorial or resolution, or other paper, praying the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia, or any state or territory, or the
slave-trade between the States or territories of the United States, in
which it now exists, shall be received by this House, or entertained in
any way whatever.” This rule was afterwards, on the 3d of December,
1844, rescinded by the House, on motion of Mr. J. Quincy Adams, by
a vote of 108 to 80; and a motion to re-instate it, on the 1st of
December 1845, was rejected by a vote of 84 to 121. Within five years
afterwards—on the 17th September 1850,—the Congress of the
United States enacted a law, which was approved by the President,
abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia.
On the 25th of February, 1850, there was presented in the House
of Representatives, two petitions from citizens of Pennsylvania and
Delaware, setting forth that slavery, and the constitution which
permits it, violates the Divine law; is inconsistent with republican
principles; that its existence has brought evil upon the country; and
that no union can exist with States which tolerate that institution;
and asking that some plan be devised for the immediate, peaceful
dissolution of the Union. The House refused to receive and consider
the petitions; as did also the Senate when the same petitions were
presented the same month.
The presidential election of 1852 was the last campaign in which
the Whig party appeared in National politics. It nominated a ticket
with General Winfield Scott as its candidate for President. His
opponent on the Democratic ticket was General Franklin Pierce. A
third ticket was placed in the field by the Abolition party, with John
P. Hale as its candidate for President. The platform and declaration
of principles of the Whig party was in substance a ratification and
endorsement of the several measures embraced in Mr. Clay’s
compromise resolutions of the previous session of Congress, before
referred to; and the policy of a revenue for the economical
administration of the government, to be derived mainly from duties
on imports, and by these means to afford protection to American
industry. The main plank of the platform of the Abolition party (or
Independent Democrats, as they were called) was for the non-
extension and gradual extinction of slavery. The Democratic party
equally adhered to the compromise measure. The election resulted in
the choice of Franklin Pierce, by a popular vote of 1,601,474, and 254
electoral votes, against a popular aggregate vote of 1,542,403 (of
which the abolitionists polled 157,926) and 42 electoral votes, for the
Whig and Abolition candidates. Mr. Pierce was duly inaugurated as
President, March 4, 1853.
The first political parties in the United States, from the
establishment of the federal government and for many years
afterwards, were denominated Federalists and Democrats, or
Democratic-Republicans. The former was an anti-alien party. The
latter was made up to a large extent of naturalized foreigners;
refugees from England, Ireland and Scotland, driven from home for
hostility to the government or for attachment to France. Naturally,
aliens sought alliance with the Democratic party, which favored the
war against Great Britain. The early party contests were based on the
naturalization laws; the first of which, approved March 26, 1790,
required only two years’ residence in this country; a few years
afterwards the time was extended to five years; and in 1798 the
Federalists taking advantage of the war fever against France, and
then being in power, extended the time to fourteen years. (See Alien
and Sedition Laws of 1798). Jefferson’s election and Democratic
victory of 1800, brought the period back to five years in 1802, and
reinforced the Democratic party. The city of New York, especially,
from time to time became filled with foreigners; thus naturalized;
brought into the Democratic ranks; and crowded out native
Federalists from control of the city government, and to meet this
condition of affairs, the first attempt at a Native American
organization was made. Beginning in 1835; ending in failure in
election of Mayor in 1837, it was revived in April, 1844, when the
Native American organization carried New York city for its
Mayoralty candidate by a good majority. The success of the
movement there, caused it to spread to New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, it was desperately opposed by the
Democratic, Irish and Roman Catholic element, and so furiously,
that it resulted in riots, in which two Romish Churches were burned
and destroyed. The adherents of the American organization were not
confined to Federalists or Whigs, but largely of native Democrats;
and the Whigs openly voted with Democratic Natives in order to
secure their vote for Henry Clay for the Presidency; but when in
November, 1844, New York and Philadelphia both gave Native
majorities, and so sapped the Whig vote, that both places gave