wards in a new convention, or should all amendments be required to be made before admission? The President advocated the first course, Congress had voted for the second ; and on the 4th of May, 1858, by means of an act called the English Compromise, an expedient was found. Resting on the fact that the people of Kansas had demanded for the support of the common schools twice the quantity of "public lands ever before accorded to any State upon entering the Union," Congress decreed that Kansas should not be admitted until after a new election, by which its inhabitants should accept lesser grants, equivalent to those made to Minnesota. Congress reserved to itself the right of approv ing this constitution, without interfering with the question of slavery, in conformity with the principle of non-intervention, known as the Nebraska Bill.

The election took place August 2d, 1859, and the people rejected the proposition of Congress. It was necessary, therefore, to make a third constitution.

But a new difficulty was raised by the Presidential message.

Did the Territory contain the number of inhabitants required to elect a member of the House of Representatives, namely, 93,420? To be certain of this, a preliminary census was necessary; but it was quite probable that, during this succession of elections, riots, and constitutions made, broken, remade, and to be remade, since 1854, a large number of the inhabitants had quitted so disturbed a country, and that the census would result in a new postponement. The President proposed to Congress to extend the census to all the new Territories; he was shocked at the idea that hordes spread over a country scarcely cleared should have the same privilege of sending members to the Senate as the ancient State of Virginia; he added, that, the Senate having in certain cases to elect a Vice-President of the United States from among its number, who might be

come President in case of the death of the President during his term of office, the proud confederacy was thus exposed to the danger of having for its head a citizen chosen by the ignoble ballot of Kansas or Utah.

But would Congress adopt this resolution? Would Kansas accept this new delay? Would the census be taken peaceably? Behold the extremity to which a people come thither to labor and to live, a fertile and extensive territory, the neighboring States, in short, the whole confederation, was reduced; - and why? Because Congress had abandoned, for the discussion of vulgar interests, the question whether men endowed with souls could be slaves!

§ 3. FROM THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT BUCHANAN TO THE INSURRECTION AT HARPER'S FERRY.

1856-1860.

Since the Kansas question was raised, the Presidency, in 1857, had changed hands. The election which gave the majority to Mr. Buchanan was another most significant incident of this lamentable drama, which strongly resembled the prelude to civil war. M. de Tocqueville says truly: "The choice of the President matters little to each citizen. .... But parties make use of the name of the Presidential candidate as a symbol. They personify their theories in him.”*

The whole struggle, like that of the preceding elections, hinged upon the question of slavery. All the old party denominations were effaced before those of the Free-Soilers, and the partisans of what was called, by a contemptible subterfuge, the peculiar institutions of the South. Party

*Tom. I. p. 218.

†The Free-Soilers are the Republican, their adversaries the Democratio party. The Northern States are designated as the Labor States; the Southern as the Capital States.

spirit, on the rostrum and in the press, rose to a pitch of violence exceeding all imagination; while the Abolitionists were not a whit behind their adversaries, thus endangering in the highest degree the cause of emancipation.

It is well known that the victory remained with the partisans of slavery. On the 4th of March, 1857, they elected President Buchanan. Sixty-six years of age, Secretary of State of President Polk at the time of the annexation of Texas, and afterwards Minister to England, this old diplomatist had, besides his eminent talents, three claims to their favor. He was openly known to be in favor of the annexation of Cuba; he had been one of the Ostend Conference, which encouraged the adventurer Lopez, to whom Mr. Marcy, then Secretary of State, dared write, November 13, 1854, "to oppose the abolition of slavery in Cuba, before any one should take a fancy that such a measure would not be prejudicial to the interests (say, rather, covetousness) of the United States ; and he had for his political motto the Monroe Doctrine,* which may be summed up in the maxims, The Americanization of America; America for Americans; that is, the appropriation of the whole continent, and the expulsion of foreigners. Lastly, he was of a genuinely diplomatic character, and, always irresolute,† he vibrated between the two parties, saying to the Slave States, "Keep your slaves, the Constitution permits it"; to the Free States, "Do not meddle with the slaves, the Constitution forbids it"; to the new States, "Vote as you please, I confide in the ballot-box, the American remedy, always sure to redress all wrongs."

Elected on account of these qualities, and in these circumstances, President Buchanan saw the four years of his administration glide by, neither satisfying nor dissatisfying

*The first and most exact formula of this doctrine is found in the message of President Monroe, 1823.

† See his letter, Journal des Débats, Aug. 15, 1857.

any one, provoking Spain by degrees, and endeavoring to hold equally balanced the scales that leaned more and more to the side of slavery.

However, the time came to create for himself a new claim, either to a new election,* or to a grateful remembrance if he were not re-elected, his last messages lay down more boldly the policy to which he was ambitious to et the seal and bequeath his name.

The Kansas election appears to us as an exact picture of political customs within. The messages of President Buchanan in 1858, 1859, and 1860 are the characteristic exposition of American politics abroad.

We know what clearness and brevity distinguish the official communications of the European governments; the art of saying everything in a few words, or sometimes of saying nothing in grandiloquent language, has been carried to a great length in England and France. The diplomatic portfolios, closed unfortunately even after events have taken their place in history, contain treasures and finished models, too little known, of perfect literature. Very different from these documents, the messages to the United States are interminable, monotonous, and confused papers. To penetrate, wade through, and understand them needs the patience and resolution of an explorer of the virgin forests, advancing step by step, and making his way axe in hand. This courage does not always meet its reward The messages of 1858, 1859, and 1860 deserve the trouble of

"It is impossible to regard the ordinary course of events in the United States without perceiving that the wish to be re-elected rules the thoughts of the President; that all the policy of his administration tends to this point, that his slightest movements are subordinated to this object; that especially, as the critical moment approaches, private interest takes the place of public interest in his mind. Being re-eligible, he is nothing more than a docile instrument in the hands of the majority; he loves what it loves, hates what it hates, forestalls its pleasures, anticipates its complaints, yields to its slightest wishes; intended by the lawgivers to guide, he follows it." (De Tocqueville, I. p. 223.)

analyzation; beneath the enormous mass of subjects, facts, figures, and words are discovered declarations of vast importance to the repose of Europe and the world, as in the army of Macbeth, ambushed behind the tangled wood, swords and lances are found. It may not be uninteresting to extract and sum up, to render them more conspicuous, the articles of the programme of Mr. Buchanan's foreign policy.

In China and Japan, the plenipotentiary, with incomparable shrewdness and address,* has profited by the demonstrations of two great nations to obtain the same advantages for his own without striking a blow. America has played the part of Austria in the Eastern war, - that of winning without hazarding a stake. Concluded at Tientsin on the 18th of June, 1858, and ratified by the President by advice of the Senate on the 21st of the following December, the treaty has been returned to Pekin by Mr. John Ward, and the ratifications exchanged at Peit-sang on the 16th of August, 1859.†

The President has achieved a notable diplomatic success in 1858 in negotiating the abandonment of the right of search by England; on which he congratulates himself by saying, very justly: "No two nations have ever existed on the face of the earth which could do each other so much

good or so much harm.” He adds, that "the repeated acts of British cruisers in boarding and searching our merchantvessels in the Gulf of Mexico and the adjacent seas are so much the more injurious and annoying, as these waters are traversed by a large portion of the commerce and navigation of the United States, and their free and unrestricted use is essential to the security of the coastwise trade between the different States of the Union." This coastwise trade might remind us somewhat of that on the Coast of Africa.

* Message of 1858.

† Message of 1859