and unconscious, till the rage of his | ized, however, but New York; where immediate assailant was thoroughly-owing, in part, to local questions satiated. Mr. Sumner was so much and influences- Fremont's magnifiinjured as to be compelled to aban- cent plurality of 80,000 was changed don his seat and take a voyage to to a Democratic plurality of 18,000. Europe, where, under the best medi- It appeared in this, as in most other cal treatment, his health was slowly Free States, that the decline or dissorestored. The infliction on Brooks, lution of the "American" or Fillby a Washington court, of a paltry more party inured mainly to the fine for this outrage, tended to deep- benefit of the triumphant Democraen and diffuse popular indignation at cy; though Pennsylvania, and possithe North, which the unopposed re- bly Rhode Island, were exceptions. election of Brooks-he having re- To swell the resistless tide, Minnesigned, because of a vote of censure sota and Oregon-both in the exfrom a majority of the House-did treme North-each framed a State not tend to allay. Of Fremont's ag- Constitution this year, and took pogregate vote-1,341,812-it is proba- sition in line with the dominant ble that all above 1,200,000 was giv- party-Minnesota by a small, Oreen him on grounds personal to him- gon by an overwhelming, majority self, or from impulses growing out of the Sumner outrage.

Accordingly, the elections of 1857 exhibited a diminution of Republican strength-the eleven States which had voted for Fremont, giving him an aggregate popular majority of over 250,000, now giving but little over 50,000 for the Republican tickets. All the New England States were still carried by the Republicans, but by majorities diminished, in the average, more than half, while that of Connecticut was reduced from 7,715 to 546. So, in Ohio, Gov. Chase was this year reëlected by 1,481, though Fremont had 16,623; while Gov. Lowe, in Iowa, had but 2,151, where Fremont had received 7,784; and Gov. Randall was chosen in Wisconsin by barely 118, where Fremont had received 13,247. No Republican State was actually revolution

2 Of $300.

3 Minnesota chose three Members to the House, on the assumption that her population was sufficient to warrant her in claiming that

the two swelling by four Senators and four Representatives the already invincible strength of the Democracy.

The Opposition was utterly powerless against this surge; but what they dare hardly undertake, Mr. Buchanan was able to effect. By his utterly indefensible attempt to enforce the Lecompton Constitution upon Kansas, in glaring contradiction to his smooth and voluble professions regarding "Popular Sovereignty," "the will of the majority," etc., etc., he enabled the Republicans, in 1858, to hold, by majorities almost uniformly increased, all the States they had carried the preceding year, and reverse the last year's majority against them in New York; carry Pennsylvania for the first time by over 26,000 majority; triumph even in New Jersey under an equiv

number-or, at least, soon would be. She has since chosen but two, being entitled to no more in fact, hardly to so many-under the Census of 1860.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

301

ocal organization; bring over Min- | Union cannot permanently endure nesota by a close vote; and swell half Slave and half Free. Said Mr. their majority in Ohio to fully 20,000. Lincoln : They were beaten in Indiana on the State ticket by a very slender majority, but carried seven of the eleven Representatives in Congress, beside helping elect an anti-Lecompton Democrat in another district; while Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin, chose Republican tickets-as of late had been usual with them-by respectable majorities, and the last named by one increased to nearly 6,000. California and Oregon still adhered to Democracy of the most pro-Slavery type, by decisive majorities.

"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to Slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will be

A

come all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the pubthe course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South."

lic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in

This almost prophetic statement, from one born in Kentucky, and who had been known, prior to the appearance of the Dred Scott decision, as a rather conservative Whig, was put forth, more than four months before Gov. Seward,' as if under a like premonition of coming events, said:

Illinois was this year the arena of a peculiar contest. Senator Douglas had taken so prominent and so efficient a part in the defeat of the Lecompton abomination, that a number of the leading Republicans of other States were desirous that their Illinois brethren should unite in choosing a Legislature pledged to return him, by a vote substantially unanimous, to the seat he had so ably filled. But it was hardly in human nature that those thus appealed to should, because of one good act, recognize and treat as a friend one whom they had known for nearly twenty years as the ablest, most indefatigable, and by no means the most scrupulous, of their dental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeadversaries. They held a sort of ral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irState Convention, therefore, and pre- repressible conflict between opposing and sented ABRAHAM LINCOLN as a Re-United States must and will, sooner or later, enduring forces; and it means that the publican competitor for Mr. Douglas's seat; and he opened the canvass at once, in a terse, forcible, and thoroughly" radical" speech, wherein he enunciated the then startling, if not absolutely novel, doctrine that the

At Springfield, Ill., June 17, 1858.

"These antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision

results.

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is acci

become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. Either

the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina

and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charles

ton and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the ryefields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts

At Rochester, N. Y., Oct. 25, 1858.

and New York must again be surrendered | State ticket of their own men, adoptby their farmers to slave culture and to the ed the expedient of selecting their production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade candidates alternately from the tickets in the bodies and souls of men. It is the of the two great parties—of course, failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at powerfully aiding that which must final compromise between the Slave and otherwise have been beaten throughFree States; and it is the existence of out. The 25,000 votes thus cast this great fact that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain and elected three of the Democratic canephemeral." didates by majorities of 328 to 1,450; while the Republicans placed on the "American ticket" had majorities ranging from 45,104 to 49,447; and one Republican candidate was chosen over the joint vote of both the adverse parties. In this "balance-of-power" movement of the Americans was foreshadowed the "Fusion" electoral tickets of 1860.

Mr. Lincoln, in his brief Springfield speech, furnished the shortest and sharpest exposition ever yet given of the doctrine vaunted as 'Popular Sovereignty,' viz. :

"This necessity [for a popular indorsement of the policy embodied in the NebraskaKansas bill had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of Squatter Sovereignty,' otherwise called 'sacred right of self-government;' which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted, in this attempted use of it, as to amount to just this: That, if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object."

Mr. Douglas promptly joined issue; and an oral canvass of unequaled interest, considering the smallness of the stake, was prosecuted by these capable and practiced popular debaters, before immense audiences of their fellow-citizens, up to the eve of the State Election. In the event, Mr. Douglas was successful, securing 54 to 46 of the members of the Legislature, and being promptly reëlected by them; but the candidates favorable to Mr. Lincoln had a plurality of the popular vote."

The Elections of 1859 were not especially significant, save that, in New York, what remained of the "American" party, instead of nominating a

• For Lincoln, 124,698; for Douglas, 121,130; Lincoln's plurality, 3,568. But over 4,000 Democratic votes were scattered and lost, in obe

The indignant, scornful rhetoric wherewith Mr. Webster had scouted the suggestion, that Slavery might possibly be established in New Mexico, and spurned the idea of " reenacting the laws of God" by prohibiting it there, had scarcely died out of the public ear, when the Legislature of that vast Territory proceeded, at its session in 1859, to do the very thing which he had deemed so inconceivable. Assuming the legal existence of Slavery in that Territory, in accordance with the Dred Scott decision, the Legislature proceeded to pass "An act to provide for the protection of property in slaves," whereby severe penalties were provided for "stealing," or "enticing away” said property, or "inciting" said property to "discontent" or "insubordination." The spirit of this notable act is fairly exhibited in the following provisions:

dience to directions from Washington-Mr. Douglas's apprehended return being exceedingly distasteful to President Buchanan.

SLAVERY LEGALIZED IN NEW MEXICO.

|

servience to the Slave Power was assured by the mere legalization of lifelong bondage and unrequited labor on its narrow but fertile intervales, and in its mines of precious ore.

The XXXVIth Congress assembled at Washington Monday, December 5, 1859. The Senate was still strongly Democratic, though the Republican minority therein had grown gradually, until it numbered twenty-four. Indiana, Minnesota, California, and Oregon, were still represented by Democrats, as were in part Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois; but the strong anti-Lecompton wave of 1858 had swept into the House delegations from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, decidedly hostile to the Administration; and these, with unanimous Republican delegations from all the New England States, left no clear majority for any party. On the first ballot for Speaker, Thomas S. Bocock, Dem., of Virginia, received eighty-six votes; John Sherman, Rep., of Ohio, sixty-six; Galusha A. Grow, Rep., of Pennsylvania, fortythree twenty-two were divided between three "Americans" or Southern Whigs, and thirteen were scattered mainly upon anti-Lecompton Democrats: whole number cast, 230; necessary for a choice, 116.

Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky, now moved that the House adjourn till to-morrow, which was negativedYeas 100; Nays 130: whereupon Mr. John B. Clark,' of Missouri, rose, and, amid a shower of objections and interruptions, proposed the following preämble and resolution:

The book thus advertised was written by a young North Carolinian of the poorer middle class, who, having migrated to California, and spent some time in the Northern States, had imbibed ideas respecting Slavery which it was not safe to express in his native State. Those ideas he had embodied in his "Impending Crisis," which was, in substance, a vehement appeal to the poor whites of the South against persistence in servility to the slaveholders, backed by ample statistics, proving Slavery specially injurious and degrading to them, as well as baleful and blighting to the entire South. This book, being deemed effective as an antiSlavery argument, whether in the North or in the South, had been recommended to general attention, in a circular signed by two thirds, at least, of the Republican members of the last Congress, including, of course, many of those returned to the present. Messrs. Sherman and Grow, between whom the Republican vote for Speaker was divided, were both among the signers of this circular. Hereupon, Mr. Clark proceeded to make, amid interruptions and questions of order, such a speech as a slaveholder might be expected to make on such a theme; urging

Since known as an active and bitter Rebel.