son, though he had repudiated his early sentiments, could not undo what he had so bravely done. "He had," said Mr. Wilson, "strewn upon the earth the seminal principle of a great truth; he had advertised the world of the true character of slavery and the slave-trade; and that truth had taken deep root. It was destined to remain as indestructible as the great truths that lay at the foundation of the throne of God." Giving a rapid sketch of the successive steps of slavery aggression, he came to the annexation of Texas, of which he said: "It inflicted the deepest wound upon the Constitution that has ever been inflicted upon that time-honored instrument. It has depleted it to the very verge of endurance." Though prior to May, 1844, the whole North, he said, of all parties, was unanimously opposed to it, the Baltimore convention made annexation "a test of party fidelity." Certain party catchwords were adopted. "Texas and Oregon were tied together by a kind of illicit semi-hymencal bond." But the Northern Democrats were to be deceived. Oregon was thrown in to cheat them. General Cass spoke often and vigorously in its behalf. Another Western Senator cried aloud, with a voice that might be heard from Capitol Hill to the Grand Monadnock: "We will have 54° 40', or we will fight." "But the politicians of the South," he added, "were not sincere; they were only using General Cass, a Northern man, as the wood-chopper uses his beetle. They swung him round and round, bringing his great weight to bear, until, by repeated blows, they beat the brains out of the unfortunate little Dutchman; and then, upon examining the tool with which they had been operating, they found it battered, split, shivered into splinters, and they threw it unceremoniously away, as unfit for further use." In another mood, he spoke of his anxiety to do nothing in the contest which should wrong his conscience or leave a stain upon his reputation. "I have, sir, an only son, now a little fellow, whom some of this committee may have seen here. Think you that, when I am gone, and he shall grow up to manhood, and shall come forward to act his part among the citizens of his country, I will leave it to be cast into his teeth as a reproach that his father voted to send slavery into the Territories? No, O no! I look reverently up to the Father of us all, and fervently implore of him to spare that child that reproach. May God forbid it!" Even if the alternative should be presented to me of the extension of slavery or the dissolution of the Union, I would say, rather than extend slavery, let the Union, let the universe itself, be dissolved. Never, never will I raise my hand or my voice to give a vote by which slavery can or may be extended. As God is my judge, I cannot, I will not be moved from my purpose I have now announced." Speaking of the reform which had begun, and of which he spoke more confidently than subsequent events or even his own career justified, he said: "There was a time when, if the Slave Power had any special work to be donc, and wanted a Northern man to do it, they hunted him up from New Hampshire. Little unfortunate New Hampshire was called upon to furnish the scavenger to do the dirty work. That day, thank God! has gone by; and it will not come again very soon." CALIFORNIA. CHAPTER XVIII. ELECTION OF SPEAKER. President Taylor. · Personnel of his Cabinet. opposition. Excitement. THREATS OF DISUNION. - Past success of slave-masters. — Future scheines. - Overtures to California. Its constitution. Southern Contest for Speaker. - Threats. - Debate. Duer, Toombs, Baker, Stephens, Cleveland, Allen. Mr. Cobb's election. President's message. Father Mathew. - Vermont resolutions. Debate thereon. Hale, Chase, Phelps. — Missouri resolutions. Benton. - - ON the 5th of March, 1849, General Zachary Taylor was inaugurated President of the United States. A native of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, his interests and sympathies were unquestionably rather with the friends than with the foes of slavery. But he doubtless regarded it in its economic rather than in its civil relations, and had no very distinct opinions or wishes concerning it as an element of political power, whatever may have been the plans and purposes of those who presented him as a candidate for the high office he was chosen to fill. His selection of Cabinet officers indicated clearly his Southern proclivities, though he evidently was not a propagandist. He was, however, a fair-minded man, and undoubtedly intended to administer the government honestly and according to the Constitution as he understood it. John M. Clayton of Delaware, his Secretary of State, was able, and was regarded, too, as among the most liberal of Southern public men. Mr. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of War, was a man of moderate abilities and extreme opinions, whose connection with the Galphin claims had strengthened suspicions in regard to his integrity entertained by some. Mr. Preston of Virginia had early been an advocate of gradual emancipation, for which he earnestly and eloquently pleaded in her legislature in 1832. But the Southern pressure had been too strong, and, like other ambitious statesmen of that com monwealth, he had been compelled to succumb and become the advocate of the peculiar institution. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, his Attorney-General, one of the ablest lawyers of the country, was fully committed to the slaveholding side of the great issue. The Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing of Ohio, had long been in public life, and was a leading member of his party. He was a Virginian by birth. Born and nurtured in poverty, he was nevertheless aristocratic and conservative in his tendencies. Although representing a free State, the friends of freedom expected and received little from him. William M. Meredith of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury, was a gentleman of high character, a lawyer of distinction, but with little experience in public affairs. Jacob Collamer of Vermont was Postmaster-General. He was a statesman of recognized ability and firmness, and was unquestionably the most decided of any member of the Cabinet in his opposition to the increasing encroachments of the Slave Power. Thus constituted, the administration was called at once to grapple with the engrossing questions then forced with such pertinacity upon the country. Thus far, the Southern leaders had been successful beyond their most sanguine expectations. Texas had been annexed, a war with Mexico had been provoked and fought to a successful issue, and immense accessions of territory had been secured. These successes had been, indeed, achieved at a fearful cost, involving large loss of blood and treasure, national dishonor and peril, infractions of the Constitution at home and of treaties of amity abroad. Still the slave-masters had not reached the goal of their ambition and purpose. There were other infractions to be made, other rights to be invaded, and other guarantics to be ignored. And the new administration, among its first duties, was compelled not only to define its position, but to enter upon that line of policy deemed necessary to secure these ulterior purposes of the Slave Power. Whether General Taylor fully comprehended the extent of these purposes may be questioned. He did, however, with a good degree of promptitude, enter upon the work of proposing and encouraging the organization of State governments. VOL. II. 27 Within thirty days after his inauguration, Thomas Butler King, a Whig member of Congress from Georgia, was sent to California for the purpose of expressing to its inhabitants the desire of the administration that they would form a constitution, and ask for admission as a State. This they were ready to do, though for reasons very different from those which impelled the government to desire it. The discovery of gold had drawn to the Pacific coast many enterprising and adventurous young men from the Northern States, who, whatever might have been their moral or political sentiments or personal prejudices, had little desire to enter into competition or companionship with negro slaves. But they needed government; and, as Congress had failed to give them a Territorial organization, interest, the need of protection, and ambition prompted them to respond at once to these intimations of the administration. A proclamation was therefore issued on the 3d of June, 1850, by General Riley, military governor, calling a convention to form a constitution. That convention assembled, framed a constitution, and submitted it to the people. It was adopted, and at once transmitted to Washington. For the reasons suggested, instead of a provision for slavcry it contained a clause expressly prohibiting it. This was, of course, regarded as a fatal omission by those who, still sore and smarting from defeat in their attempts to force slavery into Oregon as a State, and to obtain its recognition in the Territorial organizations of California and New Mexico, saw slipping from their grasp the coveted fruits of annexation and the Mexican war. It was with infinite chagrin and alarm that they looked upon these evidences of their ill success; and they determined to renew the struggle with greater desperation, to turn the tide that seemed to be setting so strongly against the consummation of their long-cherished schemes. Both in Congress and in the legislatures of the slave States appeared simultaneously demonstrations of these renewed purposes of slaveholding aggressions. The legislature of Virginia requested the governor to call an extra session if Congress should enact the Wilmot proviso, and the governors of |