United CHAPTER VII. ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. TURNING back to some events which we have passed by, we enter upon a controversy no less severe than that between freedom and slavery. It is between President Jackson and the democratic party on the one side, and on the other the United States Bank and the whig party, then in opposition, and under the leadership of Clay and Webster. After putting a veto on the renewal of the bank charter, (1832,) the president, now in his second term, (1833,) directed the secretary of the treasury to remove the treasury deposits from the bank; and when the secretary then in office declined to do so, he was displaced by another, Roger B. Taney, who consented. The Senate charged the president with violating the Constitution, and Webster called upon "all who mean to die as they live, citizens of a free country," to "stand together for the supremacy of the laws." The question was political as well as financial, and thus excited universal interest. Financially, the country was in a singular condition. The public debt was paid off, (1835,) and twenty-eight millions of surplus revenue were distributed among the states, (1837.) But the course of trade, the speculations and disorders among business men, brought about a commercial crisis, from which almost every body suffered capitalists failing, laborers losing employment, and families sinking into want. Specie pay Finances. ments were suspended by the banks, first of New York, then of other cities; and a deputation waited upon the president, now Martin Van Buren, to ask the suspension of payment in specie to the treasury, and the summons of Congress in an extra session. The extra session was held in September, but the president's proposal of a system by which the public moneys should be deposited in public. offices, instead of banks, was not adopted until a later time. It was not for the government, but for the people themselves, to restore their broken fortunes. State in One great obstacle was the financial condition of solvency. the states. In the two years preceding the crisis, state debts had been. contracted to the amount of nearly one hundred millions. It soon became difficult to meet even the interest on these obligations. Indiana, Arkansas, and Illinois stopped paying interest; Maryland and Pennsylvania paid only by certificates, and by those only in part. Michigan and Louisiana ceased not merely to pay, but also to acknowledge their debts, while Mississippi repudiated five millions at once, on the ground that the bank in whose favor her bonds had been issued had sold them on terms contrary to its charter. Eight states and a territory (Florida) thus became bankrupt, or worse than bankrupt, in the course of eighteen months, (1841–2.) Rhode Island met with a peculiar trial. Civil war Island. Its in Rhode charter government, now a century and a quarter old, had long been the object of reform. Two new constitutions were proposed, (1841,) one by a convention called by a Suffrage Association, the other by a convention which the legislature had summoned. The latter was rejected; the former was accepted by popular vote; but not having been framed according to the forms of law, it was opposed by the state authorities. Its supporters chose Thomas W. Dorr governor, who, with an armed force, attacked the arsenal at Providence, and, failing there, af terwards threw up intrenchments, ten miles off, at Chepachet. Three thousand volunteers marched against this post, but found it abandoned; and so the civil war ended, (June, 1842.) A few months later, a new constitution, providing for the reforms which Dorr and his party had sought through strife, was adopted. New tories. Other states were organizing themselves more states peaceably. Arkansas, the first state admitted since and terri- Missouri, (June 15, 1836,) was followed by Michigan, (January 26, 1837.) Wisconsin, organized as a single territory, (1836,) was presently divided as Wisconsin and Iowa, (1838.) Then Iowa was admitted a state, (March 3, 1845,*) and at the same date Florida became a member of the Union. Indian Relations with the Indians were frequently diswars. turbed. A war with the Sacs and Foxes, under Black Hawk, broke out on the north-west frontier, but was soon brought to an end by a vigorous campaign on the part of the United States troops and the militia, under Generals Scott and Atkinson, (1832.) Another war arose with the Seminoles, under their chief Osceola, in Florida. It was attended by serious losses from the beginning,(1835.) On the junction of the Creeks with the Seminoles, affairs grew still worse, the war extending into Georgia and Alabama, (1836.) The Creeks were subdued under the directions of General Jessup; but the Seminoles continued in arms amidst the thickets of Florida for many years. Foreign The standing grievance of the United States relations: against the European powers consisted in the inFrance. demnities long due for spoliations of American commerce. These were at last settled with Denmark, Portugal, Spain, and Naples, (1830-4.) But with France Again in 1846, but not actually entering until 1848. there were some high-sounding phrases before our claims were satisfied. A treaty with the government of Louis Philippe fixed the amount at about five millions; but the Chamber of Deputies refused to provide the money, and the draft of the United States government for the first instalment was protested, (1834.) The president proposed to Congress to authorize reprisals upon French property; whereupon the French minister at Washington was recalled, and the American minister at Paris was offered his passports. More phrases followed. Great Britain offered mediation, and it was accepted; but, without waiting for it, the French government paid the five millions, (1836.) Not long after this, we were in trouble with Great Great Britain. Britain. On the outbreak of an insurrection in Canada, (1837,) some of our people undertook to join it, and encamped on Navy Island, a British possession in the Niagara River, to which they transported arms and stores in a steamer called the Caroline. This steamer, though at the time on the American bank of the river, was destroyed by a British detachment accompanied by Alexander McLeod, sheriff of Niagara; and an American citizen lost his life in the fray. Three years afterwards, McLeod, being in New York, was arrested on a charge of murder by the state authorities. The British government demanded his release, and were sustained by the United States administration, on the ground that he had acted as an agent or soldier of Great Britain. But the authorities of New York held fast to their prisoner, and brought him to trial. Had harm come to him, his government stood pledged to declare war; but he was acquitted for want of proof, (1841.) Congress subsequently passed an act requiring that similar cases should be tried only before United States courts. The release of McLeod did not settle the burning of the Caroline on the American shore; this still remained. There had been other difficulties with Great Britain upon the Maine frontier, where the boundary line was undetermined. Collisions took place, and the Maine militia and the British troops had been but just prevented from fighting, (1839.) Nor was this all. Far away, upon the African coast, British cruisers were claiming a right to visit American vessels, in carrying out the provisions for the suppression of the slave trade. The right was asserted in a quintuple treaty, to which Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia were parties, (October, 1841;) but the United States denied it altogether. Treaty Meanwhile William Henry Harrison, the choice of Wash- of the whig party, had succeeded to the presidency, ington. (March 1841.) On his death, a month after, John Tyler, vice president, became president. His secretary of state, Daniel Webster, proposed to the British minister at Washington to take up the question of the north-eastern boundary. The offer led to the appointment by the British government of a special envoy in the person of Lord Ashburton, (1842.) Conferences between him and the American secretary were shared by commissioners from Maine and Massachusetts upon all subjects pertaining to the boundary, but other points in controversy were separately considered. The treaty of Washington, ratified by the Senate four months afterwards, (August 20,) settled the north-eastern boundary; put down the claim to a right of visit, and in such a way as to lead to the denial of the claim by European powers who had previously admitted it; provided for the mutual surrender of fugitives from justice; and as to the affair of the Caroline, the British envoy made an apology, or what amounted to one. Even the old quarrel about impressment was put to rest, not by the treaty, but by a letter from Webster to Ashburton, |