ward a proposition to organize Kansas and Nebraska. In the bill reported for this purpose a clause was inserted providing that the people of the territories should decide for themselves whether the new State should be free or slaveholding. This was a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1821. From January until May, Mr. Douglas's report, known as THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL, was debated in Congress, and finally passed.

6. Whether the new State should admit slavery now depended upon the vote of the people. The territory was soon filled with an agitated mass of people, thousands of whom had been sent thither to

In the elections of 1854-55, the pro-slavery party was triumphant. The State Legislature at Lecompton framed a constitution permitting slavery. The Free Soil party, declaring the elections to have been illegal, assembled at Topeka, and framed a constitution excluding slavery. Civil war broke out between the factions. In September of 1855, the President appointed John W. Geary of Pennsylvania military governor of Kansas, with power to restore order. The hostile parties were soon quieted; but the agitation had already extended to all parts of the Union. The Kansas question became the issue in the presidential election of 1856.

7. James Buchanan of Pennsylvania was nominated as the Democratic candidate. He planted himself on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and secured a heavy vote both North and South. As the candidate of the Free Soil or People's party, John C. Fremont of California was brought forward. The exclusion of slavery from all the Territories was the principle of the Free Soil platform. The American or Know-Nothing party nominated Millard Fillmore. Mr. Buchanan was elected by a large majority, while the choice for the vice-presidency fell on John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky.

RECAPITULATION.

Sketch of Franklin Pierce.-A route for a Pacific Railroad is explored.-Settlement of the boundary of New Mexico.--The Japanese ports are opened to the United States.-The World's Fair.-A bill to organize Kansas and Nebraska is passed.-Renewal of the slavery agitation.-The troubles in Kansas.-Geary sent thither as military governor.-Marshaling of parties, on the slavery question.Buchanan is elected to the presidency

JAMES

CHAPTER LVIII.

BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION, 1857-1861.

AMES BUCHANAN was a native of Pennsylvania, born on the 13th of April, 1791. In 1831 he was appointed minister to Russia, was afterward Senator of the United States, and secretary of state under President Polk. In 1853 he received the appointment of minister to Great Britain. As secretary of state in the new cabinet General Lewis Cass of Michigan was chosen.

2. In the first year of Buchanan's administration, a serious trouble occurred with the Mormons. The difficulty arose from an attempt to enforce the authority of the United States over Utah. An army of two thousand five hundred men was sent to the territory in 1857 to establish courts and compel obedience. For a while the Mormons resisted; but when, in the following summer, the President proclaimed a pardon to all who would submit, they yielded; and order was restored. But the troops were not withdrawn from Utah until

1860.

3. Early in 1858, an American vessel, while exploring the Paraguay River, in South America, was fired on by a garrison. Reparation for the insult was demanded; but the government was obliged to send out a fleet to obtain satisfaction. The authorities of Paraguay finally quailed before the American flag, and apologies were made for the wrong which had been committed.

4. The 5th of August, 1858, was noted for the completion of THE FIRST TELEGRAPHIC CABLE across the Atlantic. The success of this great work was due to the genius of Cyrus W. Field of New York. The cable was stretched from Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, to Valentia Bay, Ireland; and telegraphic communication was established between the Old World and the New.

5. In 1858 Minnesota was added to the Union. The population of the new State was a hundred and fifty thousand. In the next

year, Oregon, the thirty-third State, was admitted, with a population of forty-eight thousand. On the 4th of the preceding March, General Sam Houston of Texas, one of the most remarkable civil and military heroes of the nation, bade adieu to the Senate of the

GENERAL SAM HOUSTON.

United States and re

tired to private life. 6. The slavery question continued to vex the nation. In 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States, after hearing the cause of Dred Scott, formerly a slave, decided that negroes are not, and cannot become, citizens. Thereupon, in several of the free States, PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS were passed, to defeat the Fugitive Slave Law. In the fall of 1859, John Brown of Kan

sas, with a party of twenty-one daring men, captured the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and held his ground for two days. The national troops were called out to suppress the revolt. Thirteen of Brown's men were killed, two made their escape, and the rest were captured. The leader and his six companions were tried by the authorities of Virginia, condemned and hanged. In Kansas the Free Soil party gained ground so rapidly as to make it certain that slavery would be interdicted from the State.

7. In the presidential canvass of 1860, the candidate of the Republican party was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The distinct principle of this party was opposition to the extension of slavery. In April the Democratic convention assembled at Charleston; but the

Southern delegates withdrew from the assembly. The rest adjourned to Baltimore and chose Douglas as their standard-bearer. There also the delegates from the South reässembled in June, and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The American party chose John Bell of Tennessee as their candidate. The contest resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln.

8. The leaders of the South had declared that the choice of Lincoln for the presidency would be a just cause for the dissolution of the Union. A majority of the cabinet and a large number of senators and representatives in Congress were advocates of disunion. It was seen that all the departments of the government would shortly pass under the control of the Republican party. The President was not himself a disunionist; but he declared himself not armed with the constitutional power to prevent secession by force. The interval, therefore, between the election and the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, was seized by the leaders of the South as the fitting time for dissolving the Union.

9. The work of secession began in South Carolina. On the 17th of December, 1860, a convention met at Charleston, and after three days passed a resolution that the union hitherto existing between South Carolina and the other States, was dissolved. The sentiment of disunion spread with great rapidity. By the first of February, 1861, six other States-Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas-had all passed ordinances of secession. Nearly all the senators and representatives of those States resigned their seats in Congress and gave themselves to the disunion cause.

10. In the secession conventions a few of the speakers denounced disunion as bad and ruinous. In the convention of Georgia, Alexander H. Stephens, afterward Vice-President of the Confederate States, undertook to prevent the secession of his State. He delivered a powerful oration in which he defended the theory of secession, but spoke against it on the ground that the measure was impolitic, unwise, disastrous.

11. On the 4th of February, 1861, delegates from six of the seceded States assembled at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a new government, called THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. On the 8th, the government was organized by the election of Jef

ferson Davis of Mississippi as provisional President, and Alexander H. Stephens as Vice-President. A few days previously a peace conference met at Washington, and proposed certain amendments to the Constitution. But Con

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

gress gave little heed; and the conference adjourned.

12. The country seemed on the verge of ruin. The army was on remote frontiers - the fleet in distant seas. The President was distracted. With the exception of Forts Sumter, Moultrie, Pickens, and Monroe, all the important posts in the seceded States had been seized by the Confederate authorities. Early in January, the Presi

dent sent the Star of the West to reinforce Fort Sumter. But the ship was fired on by a battery and driven away from Charleston. Thus in gloom and grief the administration of Buchanan drew to a close. Such was the alarming condition of affairs that it was deemed prudent for the new President to enter the capital by night.

RECAPITULATION.

Sketch of the President.-The Mormon difficulty is settled.-A trouble with Paraguay is quieted by treaty.-The first Atlantic cable is laid.-Minnesota is admitted.-Retirement of Houston.-The Dred Scott decision and Personal Liberty bills.-John Brown's insurrection.-The political parties again divide on the slavery question.-Lincoln is elected President.-Condition of affairs in the government.-Position of Buchanan.-Seven States withdraw from the Union.Position of Stephens.-Organization of the Provisional Confederate government.-Davis for President.-The peace movements end in failure.-Seizure of forts and arsenals by the Confederates.-The Star of the West is driven off from Sumter.-The President elect reaches Washington.