Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/278

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
*
232
*

SLAVERY. 232 SLAVIC LANGUAGES. constitutionally subject to Federal legislation. Na- tional expansion necessarily brought it into poli- ties. Support of members from the slave States in Congress .secured the ordinances of 1784 and 1787, prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Ter- ritory and preparing the way for new free States. In 1793 Congress passed almost unani- mously a fugitive slave law to secure owners in their property. (See Fugitive Slave Law.) The bill abolishing the slave trade renewed sectional debate and showed predominant anti- slavery sentiment in the North. Between 1803 and 1817 four States, two free (Ohio and Indi- ana ) and two slave (Louisiana and Mississippi), were admitted into the Union, and the theory of balance of power between slave and free States was established. But the further organization of the Louisiana territory in 1818-20 drew the issue sharply on slavery extension. Only tem- porary political adjustment of slavery followed the Missouri Compromise (q.v. ) prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30' N. latitude, except in Missouri. From 1820 to 1830 tariff and public land policy were, together with slavery, the is- sues conditioning the life and expansion of the Southern and Northern economic systems. Non- extension was interpreted as eventual extinction of slavery. Discussion of tariff bills in 1824 and 1828, dogmas of nullification. State rights, and abolition, and the Hayne- Webster debate of 1830, greatly increased the importance of slavery in sectional politics and made it the leading ques- tion after the tariff compromise of 1833. Anti-slavery men who believed in attaining their ends through constitutional methods and aboli- tionists organized the Liberty Party (q.v.), and twice in 1840 and 1844. nominated J. G. Bimey (q.v.) for President. The annexation of Texas in 1845, and the Mexican War in 1846-48, were pro-slavery victories, the latter adding territory from which the unsuccessful Wilmot Proviso (q.v.) failed to exclude slavery. There now arose over the question of slavery a controversy destined to split both Whigs and Democrats, to bring about new part}- alignments, and eventually to hasten, if not cause, a great civil conflict be- tween the North and the South. By 1848 Oregon (q.v.) was organized without slavery, and the Free Soilers, who strove for the exclusion of slavery from the Territories (see Fkee Soil Party; Territories), had taken the place of the Liberty Party. The anti-slavery cause won in the Compromise of 1850 in free California, and slave trade prohibition in the Dis- trict of Columbia, but lost in a fugitive slave law federally executed. (See Compromise Measure of 1850.) Douglas's mistake in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and his sub- stitution for the arrangement then effected of '.squatter sovereignty' by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (q.v.) in 1854, precipitated a sectional struggle for possession of Territories by coloni- zation and border warfare. (See Kansas.) The free-State settlers practically won in 1857, and the Republican Party, absorbing Anti-Nebras- kans. Free Soilers, Abolitionists, and Anti-slav- ery Whigs and Democrats, completed the victory, though the Dred Scott decision opened the Ter- ritories to slavery. Cuban annexation, which had been a pro-slavery policy since 1841, was defeated in 1859, and Lincoln's election fol- lowing the John Br0A^■n raid of 1859 was the signal for the secession, 1860-61, of a South jealous of her State rights, and resentful of interference in slavery. Congressional acts in 1862 and Lincoln's emancipation proclamation in 1863 (a war measure), and the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, legally destroyed the institu- tion of slavery, while the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments gave freedmen full civil rights. Con- sult: Goodell, Slavery and Anti-filavcry (New York, 1853) ; Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bond- a(ie in the United States (Boston, 1858-1862); Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power (ib., 1872-79) ; Wallon, Hisioire de I'esclavage (1879); Richter, Die Sklaverei im griechischen Altertume (1886); Ingram, History of Slavery (London. 1895) ; Du Bois, Suppression of the African Slare Trade to the United States (New York, 1896) ; Documents relatifs a la repression de la traits des esclaves (Bruxelles, 1901) ; Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, llth, 13th, 14th, 17th series, and extra volumes (Baltimore, 1889- 1902) ; Tillinghast. The yeqro in America and Africa (New York. 1902) ; Ballagh, A History of Slavery in Virginia (Baltimore, 1902) ; Von Hoist, Constitutional and Political History of the United States (8 vols., new ed., Chicago, 1889), which gives an excellent account of the history of the slavery question in American politics; W. H. Smitli." 1 Political History of Slavery (2 vols.. New York, 1903) ; Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom (2 vols.. New York. 1861); and id.. Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (New York, 1856), which give an interesting account of slav- ery in the Southern States. SLAVIC LANGUAGES. A branch of the Indo-Gcrmanic languages (q.v.). Among these languages Slavic is most closely connected with the Baltic group, which includes Old Prussian, Lettic, and Lithuanian. The most universally accepted theory places the original home of the Slavs within the borders of present Russia in the region lying between the upjaer course of the Don on the one hand and the Baltic Sea with the upper course of the Vistula on the other. The heart of tliis country belongs mainly to the basin of the Dnieper. The principal characteristics of the Slavic languages are as follows: (1) The dis- appearance of consonants and syllables at the end of words, as OChurch Slavic dumu. 'house': Russian, Serb, Bulgarian, Slovenian, dom ; Po- lish, Czechic, dum : Sanskrit, danuis: Greek. Sijtot, Latin, donius. (2) The monophthongization of primitive diphthongs, as OChurch Slav., zima, 'winter'* Russ.. Serb, Bulg., Sloven, Pol., and Czech., ^ima : Lithuanian, iema : Gk., x^'f^^t Xd-i^'iv ; Skt., homen: Albanian, dimen. (3) Change of short i' and u into indistinct sounds, ■r, H, in Old Sl.av. and their complete disap- pearance in Modern Slavic languages, as OChurch Slav., vulova, 'widow;' Russ., Czech., rdova; Serb, vdova ; Bulg., rdovica ; Skt.. vidhava : Gk., -^fUos, Lat., vidua; Goth., triduwo. (4) Development of nasal vowels, as OChurch Slav., p^tl, 'five': Pol., piec; Skt., pdnca ; Gk. Tre^re , Lat.. quinquc: Lith.. penki : Ger., fiinf. (5) Development of the peculiar sound y from tho primitive «, as OChurch Slav., dymii, 'smoke;' Russ,, Pol., Czech., dym : Skt., dhumds ; Gk., evfiSs ; Lat., fumus: OHGer., toum ; Lith., dumai. (6) Change of primitive intervocalic .s into ch (kh) as OChurch Slav., iicho, 'ear'; Russ.>