1857.] THE PRESIDENTIAL CABINET. 377 pointed him minister to Russia in 1831, and, as you will recall, he was President Polk's secretary of state. In 1853 he was our minister to England. President Buchanan selected his cabinet as follows: Lewis Cass, secretary of state; Howell Cobb, secretary of the treasury; John B. Floyd, secretary of war; Isaac Toucey, secretary of the navy; Jacob Thompson, secretary of the interior; Aaron Brown, postmaster-general, and Jeremiah S. Black, attorney-general. You must not forget that at the time President Buchanan assumed office some of the occurrences described in the previous chapter were taking place. The feeling between the North and South on the slavery question was growing in intensity, and the civil war in Kansas was so fierce as to stir the whole nation. Besides all this, the relations with Great Britain were somewhat strained. Sometime before, Mr. Crampton, the British minister to this country, had been dismissed because he engaged in enlisting. men on our soil to aid England in her war with Russia. No minister had been sent to تاو take his place, and there was a good deal of muttering and threats on the part of these two great nations. You will be surprised to learn by what means this irritation was removed, for a time at least. The British Arctic-discovery ship Resolute was abandoned in the ice by its crew in 1854. It was afterward picked up by an American whaler, when drifting a thousand miles from where it had been left in the ice. Our government presented it to Queen Victoria in the month of December, 1856. The words spoken on the occasion by the representatives of the two governments were in such excellent taste that they produced the best effect in both countries. A new British minister shortly arrived in Washington in the person of Lord Napier, and amicable relations were fully restored. There was a Mormon rebellion during the first year of Buchanan's administration. This abominable sect is a stain upon the civilization of our age. Under the leadership of their founder, Joseph Smith, who pretended to have found the plates upon which the Mormon Bible had been divinely engraved, their first important settlement was made in Jackson, Missouri. You know that, no matter how vile a doctrine is, it will have plenty of believers. So the Mormons rapidly increased until there were about fifteen hundred, and they began to talk and act as though the west was their inheritance. Their practices were so outrageous that the people of Missouri lost all patience and determined to drive them out of the state. As soon as a suitable pretext offered, the militia were called out and the Mormons were compelled to leave. In the spring of 1839, they crossed the Mississippi into Illinois and laid out a city called Nauvoo, meaning the beautiful. They built a fine temple, and converts flocked thither until there were fully ten thousand. They were defiant and passed laws contrary to those of the state. Great excitement followed, in the midst of which Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were arrested and lodged in the jail at Carthage. On the 27th of June, 1844, a mob gathered, broke into the jail and killed the Smith brothers. In the following summer the charter of Nauvoo was annulled by the legislature of Illinois. This discouraged the majority of the Mormons, and, in 1846, they gathered their goods together and started for the far west. Those who stayed in Nauvoo were cannonaded out in September, and they set out to join the others, who crossed the Rocky Mountains, and, reaching the basin of the Great Salt Lake, founded Utah Territory. These people were industrious and loyal to their authorities, and they founded a community which, in many respects, would have served as a model for the most enterprising pioneers. But their moral corruption was vile to the last degree, and the sect never should have been allowed to take root on American soil. During the first year of Buchanan's administration an attempt was made to extend our judicial system over the territory. Brigham Young, who succeeded Joseph Smith as the head of the sect, had been allowed to do as he pleased, and had served as governor of the territory. The federal judge sent thither was insulted, and he and the other officials were driven from the territory. The Mormons excused their violence on the ground that the personal character of the United States officials was vicious. This excuse, however, could not be accepted, and Alfred Cumming, superintendent of Indian 1857. THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 379 affairs on the Upper Missouri, succeeded Brigham Young as governor. Judge Delana Eckels, of Indiana, was made chief justice of the territory, and an army of twenty-five hundred men, under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, was sent to Utah to put down all resistance. Brigham Young and his followers became desperate and made every preparation to overwhelm the United States troops. On the 6th of October they attacked and destroyed most of the supply train of the army. Colonel Johnston was compelled to find winter quarters on Black's Ford, near Fort Bridges. Meanwhile, Thomas L. Kane, with conciliatory letters from the president, reached Utah, by way of California, in the spring of 1858, and before long brought about an understanding between Governor Cumming and the insurgents. Shortly after, Governor Powell, of Kentucky, and Major McCulloch, of Texas, arrived, bearing a proclamation of pardon from the president to all who would submit to the national authority. The Mormons accepted the offers, and order being fully restored, the United States troops, in May, 1860, were withdrawn from the territory. The baleful slave question would not keep down. Dred Scott had been held as a slave by Dr. Emerson, of Missouri, a surgeon in the United States army. The doctor removed to Rock Island, Illinois, and afterward, in 1836, to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. On each occasion he took Dred Scott vith him. At Fort Snelling the slave married a negro woman who had been bought by Dr. Emerson, and the couple had two children, after which the slaves were removed to St. Louis and sold. Thereupon, Scott brought suit for his freedom. The case was heard in the courts. of Missouri, and in May, 1854, was appealed to the supreme court of the Unit d States. It was not until March, 1857, that a decision was reached. This deci sion, which was read by Chief Justice Taney, was, in effect, that negroes, whether free or slave, were not citizens of the United States, and that they could not be come such by any constitutional process; that under the laws of the United States, a negro could neither sue nor be sued, and that, therefore, the court had no jurisdiction in Dred Scott's case. Furthermore, it was decided that a slave was simply a personal chattel that might be removed from place to place, like any other spe cies of property; and that the constitution gave to every slave-holder the right of removing to, and of passing through any state or territory with his slaves, and of returning whenever he chose to a state where slavery was recognized by law. The inevitable conclusion was that the Missouri Compromise and the compromise of 1850 were unconstitutional and void. But this startling decision was concurred in by six of the associate justices. of the supreme bench (Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Campbell and Catron), while two associates-McLean and Curtis-dissented. The decision naturally caused great satisfaction throughout the South and much anger in the North. The year 1857 was marked by a period of financial distress, similar to that of twenty years before. Hard times prevailed, and the suffering, especially in the large cities, was great. The treasury of the United States, which a short time before was overflowing, was emptied, so that the new government was unable to pay its officers. It was several years before the country recovered from its monetary distress. On the 5th of August, 1858, the first telegraphic cable was completed across the Atlantic Ocean. To Cyrus W. Field, a wealthy merchant of New York, was largely due the success of this great enterprise. In the previous March, 2,500 miles of wire were made and tested, and the laying of the immense line began at Valentia, Ireland. Two American and two British vessels were employed in the task, but the wire broke twice, and the vessels returned to Plymouth. Another start was made on the 20th of June, but a violent storm stopped operations. The third attempt succeeded. From Valentia to Newfoundland 2,500 miles of wire stretched |