Republican.' "1 With them were associated many Northern Democrats, who were dissatisfied because their old political leaders were friendly toward slavery. The Republican party was enthusiastic and strong enough to hold a national convention in 1856 and nominate a presidential ticket.2

305. Commodore Perry in Japan. Another interesting event in Pierce's Administration was the visit made to Japan in March,

1854, by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, brother of the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie, with a fleet of our naval vessels. Perry entered into a friendly commercial treaty with the Island Empire, which before that time had refused to have anything to do with the nations of Europe or America. Ever since Perry's visit Japan has been a firm friend of the United States.3

3

1 The churches also were now splitting up on the question of slavery. The Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians divided into Northern and Southern branches on this issue.

2 Another new party to enter this presidential election was that of the "Know Nothings," a name originating in the fact that it was a secret organization; when members were questioned about it, they said they "knew nothing" about the matter. These men were afraid that European immigrants would soon overrun our country and lord it over native Americans; so they asked for restrictions on naturalization, and laws forbidding the foreign-born to hold office. After exhibiting much strength for several years their party went to pieces.

3 Another event of importance was the holding in New York City, in 1853, of a World's Fair. In a great building made of glass and iron, called the Crystal Palace, exhibits were collected from every leading country on the globe. It served to show the Americans that in all kinds of labor-saving inventions, especially in farming implements, this nation had, as a whole, made more progress than any other in the world.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

1. Show whether the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was a movement toward Nationalism or States' rights.

2. Let the class imagine it is the Senate. Debate the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Some are Southerners, some are Northerners, some believe in compromise for the sake of peace.

3. One writer says, "The Kansas-Nebraska Bill sowed the wind; the whirlwind was not long in coming." Show the truth of this statement. 4. In the struggle for Kansas, immigration became a political rather than a personal matter. Explain.

5. Why was Perry's mission to Japan particularly difficult? What has the opening of Japan meant to us? To Japan?

6. If you had helped plan the exhibits for the World's Fair of 1853, what particular inventions of the previous half-century would you have recommended for exhibition?

7. Make an outline of the chapter.

COMPOSITION SUBJECTS

1. Write a speech for a mass meeting called to protest against the KansasNebraska Bill.

2. Imagine that you have gone to Kansas in 1855 from Wisconsin. Write a letter home in which you describe the experience of a day.

3. Imagine that you were with Perry in Japan. Write your impressions of this unknown people and the part they are likely to play in the world.

CHAPTER XXXII

BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION: THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

1857-1861

306. The financial panic of 1857. James Buchanan1 was the next President. He had been in office but five months when the country was visited by one of the worst financial panics in its history. It is easy to trace the origin of this disturbance. Business men, manufacturers, and speculators had had their fingers burned in 1837; so after that, for a few years, they were very cautious. But as business slowly grew better, they gradually became more daring and eager in seeking riches, and took greater and greater risks. As usual, their investments were largely in city lots and Western lands, and in the building of more railroads and factories than the country as yet needed. A large share of these purchases of lands and goods was not made with real money, but with notes, which are merely promises to pay money, that is, the transactions were made on credit. Nearly everybody seemed to be doing business in this way. But credit is like a soap-bubble; it can be stretched and stretched to a certain size at last, however, comes a moment when it is stretched too far, and then the bubble bursts. The crash came in August, 1857. A business house in Cincinnati was unable to pay its bills, and it failed. Just as a box built of cards collapses when one card is withdrawn, so hundreds of banks, factories, and stores suddenly failed because of this one failure. Indeed, the entire commercial system in the United States seemed to go to pieces all at once. The shock was felt throughout the civilized world, and business did not fully recover from it for several years.

1 Buchanan was born in Pennsylvania in 1791, and died there in 1868. After being educated as a lawyer, he sat in the legislature of his State, and later in both houses of Congress. He was President Polk's Secretary of State, and served as our minister to Russia and then to England.

307. The Dred Scott decision. In the spring of 1857 occurred another event that brought even greater and more lasting harm to the nation than had the disastrous panic. The anti-slavery men had always contended that when a slave was taken by his master into a free State, and lived there awhile, he thereby became a free man. But the Fugitive Slave Law, which provided for the return of runaway slaves to their masters, had been passed under the idea that a slave could not obtain freedom either by running away to a free State or by living on free soil. Now, if this were so, any slaveholder might take his negroes into the free States and Territories and keep them there as securely as in the South; so that it really would make no difference to him whether Congress declared a new State to be free or slave. It had become very important, therefore, that the Federal Supreme Court should decide as to which was the correct view.

A few days after Buchanan's inauguration the Court made such a decision. Some years before, a negro named Dred Scott had been taken by his master from the slave State of Missouri into a free State of the North, but recently he had been carried back again to Missouri. Scott thereupon asked the courts to declare him a free man, for the reason that he had so long resided on free soil. But the Supreme Court said:

(a) That Scott was still a slave and not a citizen, therefore he had no legal rights and could not seek justice in our courts. He had gained nothing by living on free soil.

(b) That slaves were just like horses, cattle, and other property, and might be taken into the Territories of the United States, if the owner wished.

(c) That the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had set aside certain Northern soil as free, was null and void, for Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the Territories.

This meant that the long and terrible struggle over Kansas had been in vain; and that slavery might be carried

into the free Territories of Oregon and Washington. The South was pleased at this decision. But Northerners were staggered at the utter defeat of their hopes, and sullen discontent was expressed in tens of thousands of homes. Everywhere men were now coming to realize that the two sections could not live happily together so long as slavery continued. 308. "Honest Abe " Lincoln. In the summer of 1858 the eyes of the whole nation were directed to Illinois, where there was being waged one of the fiercest political battles ever known in

sas-Nebraska Bill, wished to be reëlected to the Federal Senate, and was the candidate of the Democrats for this office.

The candidate of the Illinois Republicans was Abraham Lincoln,1 one of the ablest and most popular lawyers in that State. As his parents were extremely poor, he was in youth obliged to do the hardest and coarsest kind of work, such as splitting rails for fences and serving as a hand on a flatboat, and for many years his only home was a rude log cabin. Little by little he worked his way up, until by this time he had become a leader in his profession. In person, he was tall, lean, and ungainly; but his qualities of heart 1 See biographical sketch of Lincoln, on page 336.