THE BURNING OF THE CAROLINE. 185 of and fortified Navy Island, a British island in the Niagara river. Hence, on our part, the well-known incident of the seizure, on the American side of the river, of the "Caroline," a vessel used to carry munitions to the American sympathisers on Navy Island, and its destruction, and the many stormy discussions and long diplomatic correspondence which followed it. The excitement on the subject came to a head in 1840, by the arrest in the United States, and the commitment for murder and arson, of a Mr. McLeod, as having taken part in the affair. But such excitement went down again as rapidly, when it turned out -that he was not present. Van Buren seems, on the whole, to have behaved honourably in his foreign policy. He disavowed these lawless proceedings; declined, as we have seen, to admit Texas (though recognising it by a convention to settle American claims for the capture of two vessels by the Texans, 11th April, 1838, and afterwards by a boundary treaty, 25th April, 1838); treated with Mexico. He fell from power, probably from being too good for his party, which, however, fell for awhile with him. The Whig candidate, his former opponent, was elected in December, 1840. It may be mentioned here, at once, that under Van Buren's administration the designs of the American slave power on Texas were, in fact, aided by the mistaken policy of Great Britain, in acknowledging Texan independence (Treaty of Commerce, 13th November, 1840). France did the same. LECTURE VI. FROM THE CLOSE OF VAN BUREN'S ADMINISTRATION TO THE PRESIDENTS-THE NATURE AND RULE OF THE SLAVE POWER (Harrison, 1841; Tyler, 1841-5; Polk, 1845—9; Taylor, 1849; Fillmore.) IF the Missouri Compromise forms an era in the history of the United States, the exit of Van Buren from office forms one in that of the Presidents of the republic. During a period of fifty-two years, from Washington to Van Buren inclusively (1789-1841), the Presidential chair had been held by eight Presidents, all of them, if not always of first-rate ability, yet without exception able men, fit to be the first officers of a great country, which, in five instances out of eight, had confirmed its choice by a re-election, thus giving an eight years' tenure of office to these five, or an average one of six and a half for the whole number. During the ensuing period of twenty years (1841-61), the same chair will be held by seven Presidents, all of whom, except probably one who was prematurely cut off, gave evidence of being altogether inferior to their great office, and who held, none of them, that office for MEDIOCRE PRESIDENTS. 187 more than a single term of four years-the average period of holding, owing to the premature deaths of two, being even below that figure, or not quite three years. We enter, in short, upon the era of mediocre Presidents, which is at the same time an era of unvarying instability of rule. During this period the foremost politicians of the day-the Clays, Websters, Calhouns, -kept out of, or spurning the President's chair, reach no higher than the desk of the Secretary of State. The government thus becomes a sort of ugly copy of constitutional monarchy, except that the second-rate personages who fill the highest place have not the good sense of an ordinary constitutional sovereign in Europe, in shielding themselves behind their cabinets, and are invested by the Constitution with too much power to be harmless. Hence, instead of a simple change of ministry and of policy, as would happen in Europe, when they are checked by the legislative body, they are found frequently spending nearly their whole term of office in unseemly wranglings with one or both Houses of Congress. But this period of mediocre Presidents, and instability of rule, is emphatically one of the ascendency of the slave-power. No doubt the history of the United States hitherto ever has been one of almost unbroken Southern ascendency; since the only three Northern Presidents (the two Adamses, Van Buren) are precisely those who have held office for a single term only, and one of them (Van Buren), the candidate of the Demo 188 ASCENDENCY OF THE SLAVE-POWER; * cratic party, came into power pledged to support the abdication by Congress of its jurisdiction as to slavery, over precisely that portion of American soil which is most directly subject to it-viz., the district of Columbia. But Southern ascendency has not till now meant the ascendency of the slave-power. So long as lasted the revolutionary dynasty of the great Virginians -slave-holders opposed to slavery, and longing for its extinction and again, during what may be called the Jacksonian era, of Southerners who yet held the Union as sovereignly paramount to any Southern interestthat ascendency had, on the whole, been used for the general good. Henceforth, on the contrary, although, of the seven Presidents who held office during the period, only three are directly elected by the Southern party, two of whom are men from the free states, yet the ascendency of the slave-power is really interrupted only during one term of Presidential office (that of Taylor and Fillmore), giving even then a President from the slave states. By means of the Virginian, Tyler, shifted from the Vice-Presidency to the Presidency, through the early death of General Harrison, it will establish itself even after a defeat at the Presi * Reckoning at a somewhat later period (1845), Mr. Palfrey shows that at that time the slave states had named, as against the free, 17 Judges of the Supreme Court to 10, 14 AttorneysGeneral to 5, 61 Presidents of the Senate to 16, 21 Speakers of the House of Representatives to 11, and 80 Foreign Ministers to 54; thus showing that, over and above the Presidential chair, of which they had secured the possession during four-fifths of the time, they had kept in their hands the bulk of all the high offices in the state. ITS CHARACTER. 189 dential election; and its most audacious encroachments will take place under the rule of its Northern instruments. Let us now consider for a moment the nature of this slave-power. We have seen how slavery starves the consumption of the slaveholding states, and by the exhaustive effect of its special cultures, unsettles and disperses the population, leaving no money to be invested in public buildings and institutions. Now, in most countries, now-a-days, education is to a great extent a matter of demand and supply. The cases are few where, as in Iceland, a high traditional standard of intellectual attainments is kept up, chiefly by their own exertions, amongst a thinly scattered peasantry. Least of all is this the case in America. We should expect, therefore, to find that education is deficient among the Southern population. This is fully admitted by the South itself: "A slaveholding state," says Mr. Cobb, "can never be densely populated. Another result of a sparse population is, that a perfect system of thorough common-school education is almost an impossibility. Extensive plantations occupied by slaves only, independent of the exhausting crops cultivated and annually adding to barren fields, render a perfect system of common schools impossible" ("Historical Sketch of Slavery," pp. ccxiv., ccxv.). Let us test this statement by a few details. Virginia claims still to stand "pre-eminent" among her sister states "in intellect and fitness to command." In the year 1838, Governor Campbell told her legis |