and the British troops, had been but just prevented, (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, to whom was committed the negotiation upon the boundary, and upon various other points of controversy. Soon after his arrival in Washington, (April, 1842,) conferences were opened between him and the American secretary; commissioners from Maine and Massachusetts being consulted upon all subjects pertaining to the boundary. The treaty of Washington, ratified by the Senate four months afterwards, (August 20,) embraced almost every subject of dissension with Great Britain. It settled the north-eastern boundary; it 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. Such were the advantages gained by the United States on both these points, the leading ones of the treaty, that it was styled in England the Ashburton capitulation. The treaty also provided for the mutual surrender of fugitives from justice; an object of great importance, considering the recent experiences on the Canada frontier. For the affair of the Caro

line, an apology, or what amounted to one, was made by the British minister. Even the old quarrel about impressment was put to rest, not by the treaty, but by a letter from Webster to Ashburton, repeating the rule originally laid down by Jefferson, "that the vessel being American shall be evidence that the seamen on board are such," adding, as the present and future principle of the American government, that "in every regularly documented American merchant vessel, the crew who navigate it will find their protection in the flag which is over them." In short, every difficulty with Great Britain was settled by the treaty, or by the accompanying negotiations, except one, the boundary of Oregon, on which no serious difference had as yet appeared.

Land

our history

"I am willing," said Webster in the Senate, mark in nearly four years subsequently, "to appeal to the public men of the age, whether, in 1842, and in the city of Washington, something was not done for the suppression of crime, for the true exposition of the principles of public law, for the freedom and security of commerce on the ocean, and for the peace of the world." He might have made an even broader appeal. The treaty of Washington raised the growing nation to its place as a foremost power on the earth. Compare it with all previous treaties with Great Britain, compare it with even the recent treaty with France, which had done much to elevate the national position of the United States, and we find that the treaty of Washington is a landmark in our history.

Sedition

To return to internal relations. The eye is at in Rhode once caught by strange and threatening movements Island. in Rhode Island. That state, still under its charter government, now a century and three quarters old, had long been agitated by efforts to change its ancient institutions. It must be acknowledged that these admitted of

Approach.

improvement, both on the score of suffrage, to which none but freeholders and their eldest sons were entitled, and on that of representation, the freeholders themselves being very unequally represented, in consequence of changes in the population of the towns, a town of former importance enjoying a larger representation than one that had latterly become its superior. New constitutions were twice proposed, (1824, 1834;) but in vain. At length, a Suffrage Association, as it was styled, spread itself, with meetings, processions, and badges, over the state, calling upon the people, without regard to the legal voters or the legal authorities, to unite in a convention, and organize a new constitution, (1840.)

The sedition thus prepared broke out with the

Outbreak. meeting of the convention, (October, 1841.)

A

constitution, establishing universal suffrage and equal representation, was adopted, and submitted to the popular vote. Before the vote was taken, another constitution, of very nearly the same tenor,† was begun upon by a convention called by the legislature, according to the forms of law, (November.) The first constitution, called the People's, was adopted by a nominal vote of fourteen thousand, the whole number of voters in the state being twenty-two thousand; but as the people's party never again mustered eight thousand votes, it is fair to conclude as was proved, indeed, by depositions at the time that the fourteen thousand were the results of deception, (December.) The Landholders' Constitution, as the second instrument was styled, on being completed, (February, 1842,) and submitted

* Of an estate valued at $134, or renting for seven dollars. the rule of 1798.

This was

†The chief differences being in the length of residence entitling a native to vote, and in the requirement by the second constitution that a naturalized citizen must be a freeholder before he could vote.

not merely to the freeholders, but to the citizens at large, was rejected, chiefly because the party in favor of retaining the charter government united with the people's party in opposition, (March.) This left the charter and the People's Constitution face to face, the former being the law of the state, the latter the law of a faction. To sustain the law of the state, the legislature declared fine and imprisonment the penalties of presiding at illegal meetings or of figuring upon illegal tickets, in other words, of taking part in the elections under the law of the faction. A call for aid was at the same time made upon the president of the United States by the governor of Rhode Island. President Tyler replied that aid should be forthcoming upon the commission of any act of violence by the faction. This body, nowise intimidated by either state or national authorities, went on with its elections, choosing its leader, Thomas W. Dorr, to be governor of Rhode Island, (April.)

Civil war.

War soon followed. Dorr organized his government in the midst of armed men at Providence, while at Newport Governor King, surrounded by the constituted authorities, renewed his summons for assistance from the nation. United States troops were moved to Newport, (May.) On the 18th of the same month, Dorr, at the head of an armed force, made an ineffectual attempt to get possession of the Providence arsenal, defended as it was by braver men than he or his soldiers. At this, all the better men of his faction, including most of his legislature and state officers, abandoned his cause, while he fled the state. But it was only more decisively to try his fortunes in the field. A month had hardly passed when news came that Dorr, with two or three hundred followers, was throwing up intrenchments at Chepachet, a village about ten miles from Providence. It took but a week for three thousand volunteers to come together and march against the

post of the insurgents, which was found abandoned. There ended the civil war, (June 27.) Three months later a convention of the state adopted a new constitution, providing for the reforms which Dorr and his party had sought through sedition and strife, (September.*)

New

Other states were organizing themselves more states peaceably. Arkansas, the first state admitted since and terri- Missouri, (June 15, 1836,) was followed by Michitories. gan, (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 à member of the Union.

Movements concern

ing Texas.

All the while, Texas remained the object of desire and of debate. The administration continued its negotiations, now with Mexico, deprecating the continuance of hostilities with Texas, and then again with Texas itself, proposing new motives of alliance and new means of annexation with the United States. President Tyler was strongly in favor of consummating the annexation. In this he was supported by a stronger and stronger inclination to the same end on the part of the south. But the north was growing more and more adverse to the plan. The old arguments were mingled with new ones. A great deal of stress was now laid on the danger of Texas throwing itself into the arms of another nation, of Great Britain, for instance, or of France; the idea being that the United States would suffer from having upon their frontier a state in foreign dependence. But the main dispute as to Texas came from the question of slavery.

* Accepted in November, and put in operation in the following May, (1843.) It was similar in its provisions to the Landholder's Constitution of a few months before.

† Again in 1846, but not actually entering until 1848.