Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/301

CHAPTER II.

AGITATION AND SETTLEMENT.

FIRST ORGANIZED ATTACK—GARRISON THE ORIGINAL AND ABLE REPRESENTATIVE—POLITICIANS EMBRACE SECTIONALISM—NATIONAL REBUKE AND LOCAL INDORSEMENTS OF THE AGITATORS—THE FIGHT AGAINST THE GREATNESS OF THE UNION BY THE SECTIONALISTS-SECESSION THREATENED—MEXICAN WAR AND ITS RESULTS—SUDDEN AND FIERCE ATTACKS ON SOUTHERN POLICY IN 1849-50—THE SOUTH’S PACIFIC SENTIMENT-UNION IMPERILED BY MEN OF SECTIONAL VIEWS—CLAY AND WEBSTER, DOUGLAS AND DAVIS WORK TO GETHER FOR A NATIONAL SETTLEMENT—THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.

THE first agitation of the slavery question as a ground of controversy, distinctly separated from all other questions, appears immediately after the settlement of the tariff issue between the State of South Carolina and the administration of President Andrew Jackson. It must be observed that this original agitation was professedly and doubtless really based on the moral and humane, not the political aspects of the question. At least this political aspect affected very limited localities. The first organized movement was by the formation of an anti-slavery society in Boston in the year 1832, in which the leader was Mr. William Lloyd Garrison, and of which his newspaper, the Liberator, was the organ. Mr. Garrison must ever be regarded as a sincere extremist whose principal thought regarding slavery was correct, but who was not qualified for leadership in a movement involving such great consequences as the emancipation of millions of slaves. It is sometimes said