nificance of the names North and South became more definite. The admission of Maine to the Union in 1820 balanced the admission of Missouri in 1821. Arkansas balanced Michigan. Florida gave the South the preponderance. But territory available for slave States was now used up; nothing remained south of the parallel 36° 30′ but the Indian Territory, which had already been dedicated to the Indian tribes. At the North, Iowa and Wisconsin were on the threshold of Statehood; while southwest and west of those States, lay the great region out of which numerous States have since been carved. This state of things Southern statesmen strove to meet by securing the admission of Texas to the Union in 1845.

636. The Mexican Annexations and Wilmot Proviso.—The annexation of Texas was shortly followed by the Mexican War, which closed in 1848 with a large annexation of Mexican territory. Again, in 1853, a second, though much smaller, annexation was made. Before the war closed, the following proposition was offered in the House of Representatives:

"Provided that, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall be first duly convicted."

This proposition is known as the Wilmot proviso, from Mr. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, who offered it. Mexico had abolished slavery; and those who favored this proviso, as the majority of the Northern people did, desired to perpetuate the act so far as any Mexican territory coming to the United States was concerned. It failed, however, of adoption.

637. The Compromise of 1850.-Almost at once it became necessary to deal with the territory acquired in 1848. This was done, for the time, by the adoption of a series of measures known together as the Compromises of 1850, of which these are the chief ones: The admission of California to the Union as a free State; the enacting of the Fugitive Slave Law; the understanding that new States, in the future, might be carved out of Texas, to be free or slave as their inhabitants should decide; the prohibition of the slave-trade, but not of slavery, in the District of Columbia; the payment to Texas of $10,000,000 for so much of the present territory of New Mexico as lies east of the Rio Grande, which she claimed; and the organization of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah without slavery being either expressly prohibited or permitted. The Compromise of 1820 was in no way disturbed. In these disputes was

evolved the dogma called "popular sovereignty," according to which the question whether there should be slavery in any Territory should be left for the people of the Territory thereof to settle for themselves.

638. North and South.-In these transactions the North and the South did not act as units. A number of men at the South always opposed the aggressive pro-slavery policy; a still larger number at the North opposed, or were indifferent to, the anti-slavery sentiment of that section. Political parties had never been organized with reference to slavery; thus the issue tended to become more bitter and more sectional, and parties and politics were national only so long as slavery was kept out of sight.

639. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.-The bill for organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, approved by President Pierce, May 30, 1854, declared the prohibition of 1820 "inoperative and void, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures." The true intent and meaning of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was also declared to be: "Not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

640. Position of Parties in 1856.-The new-formed Republican party disclaimed any intention of interfering with slavery in the States where it existed; but its first platform denied the right of any authority, whether of Congress or a Territorial government, to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States, and declared also that the Constitution gave Congress sovereign power over the Territories, and that it was both the right and duty of Congress in exercising this power to prohibit polygamy and slavery. On the other hand, the Democratic party put forth in 1856 the declaration, "Non-interference with slavery in the States and Territories, or in the District of Columbia." Slavery in the Territories now became the great political issue. Mr. Buchanan, the Democratic candidate for President, was elected on this issue in 1856.

641. Dred Scott Decision. 1-In delivering the decision of the Supreme Court in this celebrated case, in 1857, Chief Justice Taney denied that negroes had a legal existence as persons in the United States, or that they could sue in the National courts. He denied, also, that Congress had supreme control over the Territories, and pronounced the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional. Jus1 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard 528.

tices McLean and Curtis dissented. This decision greatly tended to intensify the anti-slavery sentiment of the North, as the Fugitive Slave Law had also done.

642. Presidential Election of 1860.-In this canvass the Republican party stood united in opposition to the extension of slavery. The Democratic party, on the other hand, divided on the true intent and meaning of the non-interference principle. Both the Douglas and the Breckenridge wings agreed that Congress had nothing to do with the domestic institutions of the Territories and States; the people themselves, or the popular sovereigns, they said, must decide such questions. But when, and in what capacity, should the people assert their power? The Breckenridge platform said the people could exercise it only when forming a constitution for admission to the Union, and that, in the meantime, all citizens of the United States had an equal right to settle in a Territory with their property of all kinds, without their rights of person or property being destroyed or injured by Congressional or Territorial legislation. The Douglas platform said, whether a Territorial Legislature could or could not prohibit slavery was a question for the Supreme Court to determine. The result of the election was that Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, received 180 electoral votes out or 303, and was declared duly elected.

Now followed the secession of the eleven States, as related in a previous chapter.

643. Emancipation Proclamation.-At the North, slavery was generally considered the cause of the Rebellion, and the belief gained ground, as time went on, that it could not be finally suppressed without destroying its cause. President Lincoln, who shared this belief, issued a preliminary proclamation, September 22, 1862, warning the inhabitants of the insurrectionary States that, on the first day of January, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof should then be in rebellion against the United States, should be then and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. As the seceded States paid no heed to this proclamation, on the day named the President issued his Emancipation Proclamation, in which he designated Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, except (thirteen enumerated parishes), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, except forty-eight counties (or West Virginia and seven enumerated counties in the eastern part of the State), as the States and parts of States which were in rebellion, and to which the proc

lamation applied, in accordance with the terms of the previous proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a war measure; no one pretended that the President could have issued it in time of peace. It ran: “I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do," etc.

644. Amendment XIII. President Lincoln's proclamation left slavery undisturbed in Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, and parts of Virginia and Louisiana. To these States and parts of States his power as commander-in-chief did not extend, as they were not in rebellion. But the conviction that slavery should come to an end with the war, continued to spread. So Congress the Senate, April 8, 1864, and the House of Representatives, January 31, 1865-proposed an amendment in these words:

ARTICLE XIII.

"Section 1.-Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as ▲ punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Section 2.-Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation."

Secretary of State Seward issued his certificate December 18, 1865, announcing that the Amendment had received the ratifications of the requisite number of States, and declaring it valid as a part of the Constitution. The first section calls for no comment; of the second one it may be said, as of the similar sections found in the two succeeding amendments, that they are mere surplusage, as Congress would possess such great power without a formal delegation.

In his certificate, Mr. Seward named twenty-seven of the thirtysix States as having ratified the Amendment, just three-fourths. Eight of these had seceded; they had fɔrmed new State constitutions under the proclamations of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, but not

one of them was represented in Congress, and not one had Congress declared restored to the Union. Subsequently, Congress declared these eight States, and two others, in a state of insurrection. Hence the validity of the ratification was sometimes questioned. Two replies have been made to the objection. First, that the nineteen loyal States that ratified were two-thirds of the States of that class, and that these were all the States that should be consulted. Secondly, that Congress had not, at the time, declared the ten States in insurrection, and that the subsequent act was not retroactive. The Amendment, however, was sent to all the States indifferently. In connection with the first answer it may be remarked, that the ten first amendments did not receive the ratification of three-fourths of the thirteen States, but only of the eleven that had ratified the Constitution at the time of their adoption. Four loyal States ratified Amendment XIII. after Mr. Seward's certificate was issued.

645.

Amendment XIV. This Amendment, which was a part of the plan of reconstruction then favored by a majority of Congress, was proposed June 16, 1866. Its ratification by the ten States that were declared in insurrection in March, 1867, was made a condition of their being formally restored to the Union. By July 20, 1868, six of these States and twenty-three others had given their ratifications, although Ohio and New Jersey had subsequently withdrawn theirs. Twenty-nine States are three-fourths of thirty-seven States, but twenty-seven are not. Secretary Seward, on the date last given, issued his certificate reciting the facts, and stating that the Amendment had been ratified, provided the ratifications of Ohio and New Jersey were to be counted, a point that he had not, he said, legal power to decide. Congress immediately adopted a concurrent resolution declaring the Amendment ratified, and a part of the Constitution, and instructing the Secretary to issue a certificate to that effect. This he accordingly did July 28, 1868. Subsequently other ratifications were given, making thirty-three in all.

Section 1.-All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enfore any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of