Resource Center OLLibrary
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cruel side. People who took up the book could not lay it down
until they had finished it. They laughed and cried, and laughed
again, over "Topsy," "Eva," and "Uncle Tom"; but they ended with
tears in their eyes. No arguments, no denials, could shake the
influence of the story. In a single year two hundred thousand
copies were sold in this country, and in a short time the total
sales here had reached half a million copies.
From this time onward a silent revolution was
going on. The forces for slavery and those against it were girding
themselves up for the terrible struggle. The great leaders of the
nation on both sides -- Clay, Webster, Calhoun -- had recently
died. New men were taking their places in Congress, -- Charles
Sumner representing the North, Jefferson Davis, the South. In the
battles which these two men fought in words we have the beginning
of that contest which was soon to end in civil war. Both felt that
the time was very soon coming when the republic must stand wholly
free or wholly on the side of slavery.
302. Summary. The four chief events of
the Taylor and Fillmore administrations were: (I) the debate on
the extension of slavery in the new territory gained by the
Mexican War; (2) the Compromise Measures of 1850, including the
Fugitive-Slave Law; (3) the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin";
and (4) the beginning of the great final struggle in Congress
between the North and the South.
303. Pierce's
Administration (Fourteenth President, One Term, 1853-1857); the
"World's Fair" at New York City; American Labor-Saving
Machines. The inauguration of President Pierce1
occurred at a time when a majority of the people were tired of
hearing about slavery. It was a period of great business
prosperity;
1 Franklin Pierce was
born in New Hampshire in 1804; died, 1869. He was in Congress from
1837-1842, and was a brigadier general in the Mexican War. He was
elected President (William R. King of Alabama, Vice President) by
the Democrats, over General Scott, the Whig candidate. The Whig
party had practically ceased to exist before the next presidential
election, in 1856. The Free Soilers humorously declared that it
died "of an attempt to swallow the Fugitive-Slave Law" (which the
Whig National Convention had accepted in 1832). In 1852 a new
political party called the American Party, or "Know Nothings,"
came
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almost everybody seemed to be making money, and some newspapers
called it the "golden age." In the summer (1853) the first
American "World's Fair" was opened in New York City in the
"Crystal Palace."
The exhibition proved that no country in the
world could equal our own in labor-saving machines. Four of the
most remarkable
A
TWENTIETH-CENTURY
ELECTRIC NEWSPAPER
PRINTING PRESS
(With cut of Franklin's press for comparison)
of these were the newly invented sewing machines which were then beginning to come into general use; next, the horse reapers and mowers, and finally an improved steam printing press, which could send out a continuous stream of four-page newspapers at tile rate of over 200 a minute. That was thought extraordinary speed
into existence. They had a secret organization,
and their object was to exclude all but native American citizens
from office, to check the power of Catholicism, and to oppose the
admission of foreigners to citizenship except after very long
residence here. Their motto was, "Americans must rule America."
The "Know Nothings became a national party, exerted considerable
influence for a few years, and then died out.
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then, but now we have presses, driven by electricity,
which can print 1600 sixteen-page sheets a minute, or
nearly 100,000 an hour. This makes a roll of paper
seventy miles long. |
Academy
of Sciences declared that the American inventor of the
horse reaper had "done more for the cause of agriculture
than any man living." The effect on the settlement of the
West was wonderful, for by using these machines the
farmer could do as much work in a few hours as he had
been able to do before in a whole week.1 But
these machines have since been superseded, on some of the
immense farms at the West, by "harvesters," which cut the
grain, thrash it, clean it, and put it up in bags in the
field. These "harvesters" sometimes require more than
thirty horses to draw them or they are propelled by steam
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with a train of cars, and a line of telegraph, -- the first
ever seen in that country, which has since adopted, through our
influence, both steam and electricity. Later (1901), the Japanese
erected a monument commemorating Commodore Perry's work. It stands
in Perry Park, Kurihama, Japan, at which port the American officer
first landed.
305. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854; Rise of
the Modern Republican Party, 1856. It will be remembered that
the Missouri Compromise of 1820 shut out slavery from the
territory west and north of Missouri (§ 243). At the time the
Compromise was made it was solemnly declared that it would stand
"forever." But the end of that "forever" was now reached. In 1853
a
town,
and burned some of its chief buildings. This roused the
spirit of vengeance in the heart of "Old John Brown" of
Osawatomie.1 He was a descendant of one of the
Pilgrims who came over in the Mayflower (§ 73), and
he had made a solemn vow to "kill American slavery." In
return for the attack on Lawrence, Brown got together a
small band, surprised a little settlement of Slave-state
men on Pottawatomie Creek, dragged five of them from
their beds, and deliberately murdered them. Later, Brown
crossed into Missouri, destroyed considerable property,
freed eleven slaves, and shot one of the slave owners. In
the end, the "Free-state men" won the victory, and
Kansas, following the example of
