of it. Douglas saw that he must secure the influence of the administration to preserve the life of the measure. But Marcy, the secretary of state, who of all the Cabinet had most influence with the House, was indifferent to his ambitions. The personal attitude of Pierce upon the measure was undetermined and vacillating. The morning after the reference of the bill to the Committee of the Whole the Washington Union, which was the administration's organ, declared that if the bill were defeated in the House it would be tantamount to a defeat of the administration. Only Marcy and McClellan of the members of the Cabinet failed to display interest in the passage of the measure. Douglas frankly avowed his purpose to have all other bills laid aside to make way for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and active filibustering ensued. All kinds of dilatory motions were made by those who best understood the rules of the House in order to obstruct the calling up of this particular measure in advance of its position on the calendar. The debate and contest for points continued throughout Thursday, May 11th, all Thursday night, and all day Friday. One party sought to wear the other out, but Douglas was ever on the floor, alert and purposeful, directing his followers. At eleven o'clock on Friday night a motion to adjourn was made. The members were in a highly wrought state, so that it was feared that something might occur to precipitate an unfortunate scene. The friends of the measure were willing to have the House adjourn until the morrow, but its opponents desired a recess until the following Monday. A disorderly tumult ensued, during which Edmondson, of Virginia, drew his revolver. He was not the only member whose excitement carried him to the point of violence. The Speaker put the motion to adjourn until Saturday, which was carried and served to relax the dangerous tension.

On the next day, Saturday, the 13th, nothing was done, but that date witnessed a mass meeting of five thousand persons in New York City to protest against the bill pending in Congress. On Monday, the 15th, Richardson proposed

that the whole week should be devoted to debate.

This proposition was acted upon and by a two-thirds vote the close of the debate was fixed for the following Saturday. During the intervening days the debate was not marked by noteworthy occurrence. On Saturday, the 20th, the House met at nine o'clock and closed at twelve. On Monday, May 22, 1854, the House met, and immediately great excitement ensued, and only by the skilful management of Richardson and the resourcefulness of Douglas a vote was reached by midnight. The bill was passed by one hundred and thirteen yeas to one hundred nays. The analysis of the vote is as follows: Forty-four Northern and fifty-seven Southern Democrats and twelve Southern Whigs voted for the bill; while forty-two Northern and two Southern Democrats, four Abolitionists, and forty-five Northern and seven Southern Whigs voted against it.

The House had left out one of the Senate amendments, so that the bill had to be referred back to the Senate, where it was ordered to a third reading by a vote of thirty-five to thirteen and passed the Senate on May 25, 1854. Five days later it received the approval of the president and became a law. The immediate effect of the passage of the bill, which never could have secured the requisite vote without the aid of Southern Whigs, was to divide that party. The Northern Whigs caught up the sentiment: "Repudiate such fraternity; throw old party considerations to the winds, and appeal to the honest people of the free States, without distinction of politics." The Kansas-Nebraska Bill became the touchstone of sectionalism and rapidly were formed those affinities which were to result not only in a new alignment of political parties, but in the drawing hard and fast, as a sectional boundary, the Mason and Dixon line. Whether or not the Civil War would have occurred had the Missouri Compromise remained a firm compact between the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States, no man may certainly know; but that its abrogation precipitated, or at least made inevitable, that conflict, history amply testifies.

So intense was the animosity against Douglas as the author of the obnoxious measure, that he himself avers that he could travel" from Boston to Chicago by the light of his own effigies." Horace Bushnell, the noted Congregationalist minister of Hartford, applied to Douglas the bitter prophecy of the Hebrew prophet: "Tidings out of the East and out of the North shall trouble him; therefore, he shall go forth with fury to destroy and utterly to make away many, yet shall he come to his end, and none shall help him." But, if the North execrated Douglas, the South canonized him. Never was there a measure passed by the National Assembly that awakened such widespread exultation, such general acclaim. There were some exceptions to this rejoicing, notably in Louisiana and Texas. General Houston declared that "The people of the South care nothing for it. It is the worst thing for the South that has ever transpired since the Union was first formed."

CHAPTER XI

THE FUGITIVE slave LAW UNDER FIRE

WHILE Congress was at war over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act, the country was experiencing further effects of the workings of the Fugitive Slave Law. As summer approached, New York, Syracuse and other Northern cities witnessed the arrest of fugitive slaves, but the case which created the greatest ferment of excitement occurred in Boston. Immediately after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, Charles F. Suttle, a Virginia slaveholder, applied to Edward G. Loring, of Boston, for a warrant under the Fugitive Slave Act for the seizure of Anthony Burns. The negro had escaped from Virginia and had betrayed his whereabouts by means of a letter. Suttle tried to persuade Burns to go back to his master, but as the negro refused, the slave hunter applied for permission to force him. The situation was made acute by reason of the fact that it was Boston anniversary week and the population of the city was augmented by numbers of the clergy and laity who had come to attend the meetings. But interest in the Burns case made them lose sight of all other concerns. It was sufficient for these Northern men that a negro was to be remanded to slavery by the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. The issue was sharp and decisive. The law of the United States clashed with the highly wrought consciences of the men who had been aroused by the fiery appeals of the abolitionists. In Faneuil