But his efforts were only more futile than those for the regular ticket, and the count of the votes in Indiana showed the following result:

CHAPTER XII.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE WAR OF SECESSION.

"Old, unhappy, far off things,

And battles long ago."

The foregoing pages have related in some detail the incidents of the Kansas-Nebraska conflict, which was the culmination of the forty years' parliamentary contest that preceded the civil war. A summary review of that contest from the beginning, with a statement of the position of the Democracy at each stage of its progress, is essential at this point to an appreciation of the position of the party throughout the conflict of arms.

The course of events, as inevitable as the tread of destiny, had bound upon the neck of the South the yoke of slavery; and the weight of that yoke, light at first, had gradually increased till no peaceful force could lift it. The record of these events, as given in the pages of the philosophical historian, is in the highest degree instructive, as showing how an intelligent and humane people may be warped by self interest and a false idea into a condition of mind and feeling antagonistic to modern progress and at variance with the spirit of the age. Through the influence of slavery, a people of Anglo-Saxon blood had become Orientalized; in the 19th century they lived in an atmosphere of Mediævalism; in the heart of America they cherished the institutions and ideals of Asia.

In the early decades of the Republic the institution of

slavery had no influence upon political parties. It was prohibited in the Northwest Territory in 1784, with but little opposition. It existed in 1790 in all the States except Massachusetts, where it had recently died of inanition, upon a judicial decision and without legislative action. In the eight Northern States there were less than fifty thousand slaves, while in the five Southern States there were more than half a million; and indications of a tendency to divide upon this issue may have been dimly apparent to the prescience of Washington when he uttered his impressive warnings against sectionalism. Yet the leading minds of the South shared with those of the North the belief that slavery was an evil to be abated; and in framing the Federal Constitution, men from all the States joined in preparing the way for a suppression of the African slave trade, in the belief, doubtless, that slavery itself would not long survive when that source of the supply should be cut off. The conscience of the South was not at ease as to the righteousness of the institution, and many Southerners at that day would easily have consented to gradual emancipation. But circumstances entirely unconnected with politics soon produced a complete revolution of sentiment.

The invention of improved machinery for cotton spinning, and the enormous development of that industry in England, created an immense demand for the raw material. Eli Whitney's gin, by enabling the planter to turn the expensive hand labor of his slaves from the tedious process of extracting the seed to the production of the plant, made it possible to supply that demand with profit. The soil of the South was peculiarly adapted to the culture, and that section rapidly became the cotton garden of the world, supplying at one time seven-eighths of the total amount produced. The expansion was immense. In 1790 no cotton was exported; in 1860 the export reached 2,000 millions of pounds.

This great development of the cotton trade and culture made slave labor profitable, created an urgent demand for slaves, and raised their value proportionately. In 1790 an able-bodied slave could be bought for a trifle; in 1860 he was worth $1,500. The slave population did not keep pace with the demand for labor. though in the cotton States it increased nearly eightfold in fifty years. The increase in the other Slave States was less than 70 per cent. It is thus seen that the growth of slavery was everywhere in proportion to the profit of slave labor. In New England it was unprofitable and died out; in the Middle States where grain and tobacco yielded but moderate returns, its growth was small; in the cotton States, where the profits of the crop had become so enormous, the number of slaves had, by natural increase and a constant drain upon the Middle States, grown 773 per cent., and yet fell short of the demand.

These varying conditions in the different sections of the country promoted opposite views as to the rightfulness of slavery. Among those who were removed from its influence and without participation in its profits, the belief in its immorality, which was almost general at the formation of the Constitution, gained ground. The Abolition Society, founded in Philadelphia in 1774, was followed in 1832 by the New England Anti-Slavery Society; and the agitation rapidly spread throughout the North. For a short time the South also was affected, and even Virginia thought of emancipation and colonization. Measures for these ends failing in her Legislature, many of her citizens liberated their slaves and aided them to settle in Liberia or the North, while some even migrated themselves to the free States, with the avowed purpose of removing their children from the evil influences of a slave community. But the vast material interests of the South outweighed the promptings of philanthropy, and speedily united that section in determined opposition.

Their interests being, as they supposed, so dependent on slavery, the people of the South quieted the remonstances of conscience by appeals to antiquity and the scriptures, and by contemplation of the improved condition of the African when brought to this country and Christianized. "Whenever States have come to greatness," reported the committee of a convention at Montgomery in 1858, "they have exhibited the condition of unequal classes. There were citizens and slaves in Greece, patricians and plebeians in Rome, peers and villeins in England, nobles and peasants in Central Europe; and generally, wherever there has been social progress and power there has been articulation, a ruling and a a subject class, if not a ruling and subject race-an artificial, if not a natural dualism." "I tell you," declaimed a Georgia delegate in the Charleston Convention, that the African slave trader is the true Union man; I tell you that the slave trader of Virginia is more immoral, more unchristian in every possible view than that African slave trader who goes to Africa and brings a heathen and worthless man here, making him a useful man, Christianizing him, and sending him and his posterity down the stream of time to enjoy the blessings of civilization. * * I represent the African slave trade interest. I am proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe that the African slave trader is a true missionary and true Christian.”

Moreover, the hot climate of the South produced its usual effect-the indisposition to physical exertion which leads men who have the power to exact labor from others. These specious arguments and overpowering influences produced an intellectual atmosphere in which slavery seemed not only lawful, but the greatest of social blessings, alike profitable to the master and beneficent to the slave.

Slavery," said the report of a legislative commit