made for popular election of officers, the legislative department of government became an object of suspicion, and the executive was correspondingly advanced in popular favor. These numerous and important changes marked the rise of a new democracy, widely different from that of Revolutionary times, or the early days of the Republic. The new type of government was as much an advance on that of the Revolutionary period, as that of those days was upon the contemporary government in England. The only exception to the democratic movement was the position in regard to slavery. In the Southern states, accompanying the democratic changes in government, there were laws of increasing severity in respect to those held in bondage. With this exception, the new democracy had taken the country by

storm.

In spite of these marked democratic changes, there was little advance in the fundamental principles of political theory. The Jacksonian democracy carried out in large measure the ideas which the Jeffersonian democracy either had not thought of carrying out, or was unable to carry out. The theory was not new, but such a wide application of these ideas was a decided innovation. In fact, there was on some points a perceptible reaction from the principles of 1776. This was notable in the case of the contract theory, which was subjected to important modifications. Story, for ex

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ample, held that the doctrine of the contract requires many limitations and qualifications when applied to the actual condition of nations, even of those which are most free in their organization. Every state, however organized, embraces many persons in it who have never assented to its form of government, and many who are deemed incapable of such assent, and yet who are held bound by its fundamental institutions and laws."1 On the other hand, Calhoun and his associates, who upheld the cause of slavery, repudiated altogether the "natural right" theory of politics and came out boldly with another doctrine. With these two tendencies coincided that of the German refugee, Lieber. Thus the Revolutionary theory, although still widely accepted and defended by many writers and thinkers,2 was already seriously undermined. Although the organization of the government and the spirit of social institutions was more democratic than before, there were strong evidences of a change in the character of the political theory. This movement was in the direction of a new basis for democracy - a new theory of republican institutions, fundamentally different from that of the founders of the Republic. The nature of this

1 Commentaries, sec. 327.

2 See Considerations upon the Nature and Tendency of Free Institutions (1848), by Frederick Grimke -a diffuse work covering the entire field of politics; Nathaniel Chipman, Principles of Politics (1833), 1st edition, 1793.

new philosophy will be considered in a subsequent chapter on modern tendencies.1

1 Attention may be called at this point to a change in the prevalent theory as to the form of the contract upon which society rests. In Revolutionary times it was a common opinion that the parties to the agreement were the king, or government, and the people. The later thinkers distinctly repudiated any contract between governor and governed, and held that the agreement was one between individuals. The governors, it was held, were not parties to a contract, but the mere agents or servants of the people. Cf. Madison, Works, IV, 63; John Taylor, Inquiry, 424; James Wilson, Works, I, 272.

CHAPTER VI

THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE SLAVERY

CONTROVERSY

ONE of the most interesting developments of political theory in the United States is that which arose out of the controversy over slavery in the years between 1830 and 1860. During the period of the Revolution and the early days of the Republic the general sentiment was unfriendly to slavery.1 The existence of the custom was lamented by such men as Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, and Adams. There was general regret that the institution had ever been planted in America, and it was hoped that it would in time be abandoned. In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 the antislavery principle was recognized, and later in the abolition of the slave trade. Slavery was gradually abolished in the Northern states, and the Colonization Society represented the desire to put an end to it in the South. No effort was made to defend the institution or to present it as an ideal basis for

1 William Poole, Anti-Slavery Opinions before 1800; S. B. Weeks, "Anti-Slavery Sentiment in the South,” in Publications of the Southern History Association (1898).

the political and economic structure of a society. At best, slavery was regarded as a necessary evil.

Certain influences were at work, however, that tended to bring the question of slavery into greater and greater prominence. On the economic side, there was the invention of the cotton gin and other contrivances which made possible the rapid expansion of the cotton industry, and thus offered new fields for the employment of slave labor. On the political side, the territorial expansion of the United States precipitated a bitter struggle as to the status of the new acquisitions, and gave rise to problems of the gravest character. And, finally, like oil on the flames, came the agitation of the Abolitionists. The beginning of the period of controversy may be placed at 1830. In that year occurred the July Revolution in France; in 1831 the Southampton massacre in Virginia ; and in the same year the foundation of the Boston Liberator. During the thirty years following this time, while the conflict between slavery and antislavery was at its height, the doctrines of both sides were fully stated, and the philosophy of slavery discussed in all its aspects.

In the course of this discussion many different sides of the question were considered. From the economic point of view inquiry was made as to whether slavery was or was not a profitable institution, and how it compared with the system of