The Middle Period, 1817-1858. John William Burgess
the country from the great catastrophe which, for so long, impended over it. The passionate onesidedness of our own writers is hardly more harmful, and is certainly less repulsive.
I recently heard a distinguished professor of history and politics say that he thought the history of the United States, in this period, could be truthfully written only by a Scotch-Irishman. I suppose he meant that the Scotch element in this ideal historian would take the Northern point of view, and the Irish element the Southern; but I could not see how this would produce anything more than another pair of narratives from the old contradictory points of view; and he did not explain how it would.
My opinion is, on the contrary, that this history must be written by an American and a Northerner, and from the Northern point of view—because an American best understands Americans, after all; because the victorious party can be and will be more liberal, generous, and sympathetic than the vanquished; and because the Northern view is, in the main, the correct view. It will not improve matters to concede that the South had right and the North might, or, even, that both were equally right and equally wrong. Such a doctrine can only work injury to both, and more injury to the South than to the North. Chewing the bitter cud of fancied wrong produces both spiritual misery and material adversity, and tempts to foolish and reckless action for righting the imagined injustice. Moreover, any such doctrine is false, and acquiescence in it, however kindly meant, is weak, and can have no other effect than the perpetuation of error and misunderstanding. The time has come when the men of the South should acknowledge that they were in error in their attempt to destroy the Union, and it is unmanly in them not to do so. When they appealed the great question from the decision at the ballot-box to the "trial by battle," their leaders declared, over and over again, in calling their followers to arms, that the "God of battles" would surely give the victory to the right. In the great movements of the world's history this is certainly a sound philosophy, and they should have held to it after their defeat. Their recourse to the crude notion that they had succumbed only to might was thus not only a bitter, false, and dangerous consolation, but it was a stultification of themselves when at their best as men and heroes.
While, therefore, great care has been taken, in the following pages, to attribute to the Southern leaders and the Southern people sincerity of purpose in their views and their acts, while their ideas and their reasoning have been, I think, duly appreciated, and patiently explained, while the right has been willingly acknowledged to them and honor accorded them whenever and wherever they have had the right and have merited honor, and while unbounded sympathy for personal suffering and misfortune has been expressed, still not one scintilla of justification for secession and rebellion must be expected. The South must acknowledge its error as well as its defeat in regard to these things, and that, too, not with lip service, but from the brain and the heart and the manly will, before any real concord in thought and feeling, any real national brotherhood, can be established. This is not too much to demand, simply because it is right, and nothing can be settled, as Mr. Lincoln said, until it is settled right. Any interpretation of this period of American history which does not demonstrate to the South its error will be worthless, simply because it will not be true; and unless we are men enough to hear and accept and stand upon the truth, it is useless to endeavor to find a bond of real union between us. In a word, the conviction of the South of its error in secession and rebellion is absolutely indispensable to the establishment of national cordiality; and the history of this period which fails to do this will fail in accomplishing one of the highest works of history, the reconciliation of men to the plans of Providence for their perfection.
I have not, in the following pages, undertaken to treat all of the events of our experience from 1816 to 1860. The space allowed me would not admit of that. And even if it had, I still would have selected only those events which, in my opinion, are significant of our progress in civilization, and, as I am writing a political history, only those which are significant of our progress in political civilization. The truthful record, connection, and interpretation of such events is what I call history in the highest sense, as distinguished from chronology, narrative, and romance. Both necessity and philosophy have confined me to these.
I cannot close these prefatory sentences without a word of grateful acknowledgment to my friend and colleague, Dr. Harry A. Cushing, for the important services which he has rendered me in the preparation of this work.
JOHN W. BURGESS.
323 WEST FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY.
JANUARY 22, 1897.
CHAPTER I. THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAPTER II. THE ACQUISITION OF FLORIDA CHAPTER III. SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1820 CHAPTER IV. THE CREATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MISSOURI CHAPTER V. THE BEGINNING OF THE PARTICULARISTIC REACTION CHAPTER VI. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1824 CHAPTER VII. THE DIVISION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAPTER VIII. DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION TO INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND PROTECTION CHAPTER IX. THE UNITED STATES BANK AND THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1832 CHAPTER X. NULLIFICATION CHAPTER XI. ABOLITION CHAPTER XII. THE BANK, THE SUB-TREASURY, AND PARTY DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN 1832 AND 1842 CHAPTER XIII. TEXAS CHAPTER XIV. OREGON CHAPTER XV. THE "RE-ANNEXATION OF TEXAS AND THE RE-OCCUPATION OF OREGON" CHAPTER XVI. THE WAR WITH MEXICO CHAPTER XVII. THE ORGANIZATION OF OREGON TERRITORY AND THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 CHAPTER XVIII. THE EXECUTION OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW, AND THE ELECTION OF 1852 CHAPTER XIX. THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE CHAPTER XX. THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS CHAPTER XXI. THE DRED SCOTT CASE CHAPTER XXII. THE STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS CONCLUDED
APPENDIX I. THE ELECTORAL VOTE IN DETAIL, 1820–1856 APPENDIX II. THE CABINETS OF MONROE, ADAMS, JACKSON, VAN BUREN, HARRISON, TYLER, POLK, TAYLOR, FILLMORE, PIERCE, AND BUCHANAN—1816–1858
CHRONOLOGY BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
LIST OF MAPS.
FLORIDA AT THE TIME OF ACQUISITION TEXAS AT THE TIME OF ANNEXATION OREGON AS DETERMINED BY THE TREATY OF 1846 CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO IN 1850 NEBRASKA AND KANSAS, 1854–1861
THE MIDDLE PERIOD
CHAPTER I.
THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE OLD REPUBLICAN PARTY
General Character of the Acts of the Fourteenth Congress—Madison's Message of December 5th, 1815—Change in the Principles of the Republican Party—The United States Bank Act of 1816—Report of the Bank Bill by Mr. Calhoun—Mr. Calhoun's Argument in Favor of the Bill—Webster's