1819

Florida ceded by Spain

EARLY in the year Andrew Jackson was called to Washington. He was the hero of the day. When he visited New York he was received with public honors. On February 22, a treaty with Spain was adopted by which she surrendered all claims to Florida and ceded West Florida. The cost of the war to the United States had been forty million dollars. The year was marked by the enforced Southern Indians dispossessed retirement of large bodies of the Cherokees from Georgia to the Mississippi. The Cherokees as well as the Creeks, the Choctaws and the Chickasaws were greatly perturbed at the prospect of their final removal from the land which the United States had guaranteed to them. Partly as a result of these changes, the Territory of Alabama was admitted to the Union as the twenty-second State.Alabama a state

There were now eleven free and eleven slave States; and serious opposition arose to the admission of Missouri. In February, the first bill was introduced in the House for the admission of that Territory. James Tallmadge, Jr., of New York, proposed that there should be no personal servitude in the State except by those already held as slaves, and that these should be manumitted within a certain period. This proposition he modified by moving The Missouri problem an amendment providing that the introduction of slavery should be prohibited, but that those already slaves in Missouri should remain so, and that the children of such slaves should be liberated upon reaching the age of twenty-five. The proposition to hold in slavery a generation yet unborn was fiercely resented. The two Houses did not agree, and the question went over to another year. The South presented an unbroken and unyielding front. Caleb of Georgia said that this attempt to interfere with slavery was "destructive of the peace and harmony of the union"; that those who proposed it "were kindling a fire which all the waters of the ocean could not extinguish. It could be extinguished only in blood."

The Missouri question having been left for the next session, the cognate issue concerning a government for the Arkansas country south of parallel 33° 30' was taken up. In both Houses an amendment to prohibit slavery was lost. As a compromise a representative from Delaware suggested a division Antagonism to slavery of the Western Territory between the free and slave States. The contest was renewed at the December session. Resolutions of Northern Legislatures condemning the placing of slavery under the national government were presented, and were treated with contempt by the Southern statesmen. Senator Mason of North Carolina said: "They may philosophize at town meetings about it as much as they please, but they know nothing about the question." In the House the matter was brought up in the same form as in the previous session. James W. Taylor of New York presented an amendment prohibiting slavery, but holding in bondage those who were already slaves. He kept this point clearly in view through the debate that followed. Finally the bill was passed by a vote of 91 to 82, the prohibitory amendment being adopted by a majority of eight. The bill for the admission Maine vs. Missouri of Missouri was attached to that for the admission of Maine. The suggestion of this stratagem was made on the 20th of December by Henry Clay, who declared that he did "not mean to give his consent to the admission of Maine, so long as the doctrine was upheld of annexing conditions to the admission of States beyond the mountains." The analogy was scarcely just. Under the Constitution the right was absolute; Maine was a part of the original thirteen States of the Republic. The problem respecting Missouri was radically different, and resolved itself into the question whether Congress, under the American Constitution, had the right to create a new State out of the purchased territory, and to admit it to the Union without a republican form of government. Clay's threat was improved upon. The judiciary committee reported the House bill for the admission of Maine, adding an amendment for the admission of Missouri. Roberts of Pennsylvania moved to amend the amendment by prohibiting slavery in Missouri, but his motion was rejected by a majority of eleven (including six Senators from free States). A motion to make the admission of Maine a separate question was also defeated. The two Houses now stood directly opposed to each other. The Representatives would not retreat from their decision to prohibit slavery in Missouri; the Senate was equally determined that Missouri should be admitted as a slave State. Had the House maintained its ground, the United States for the next half century might have had another history.

The Missouri compromise

Senator Thomas of Illinois, who had voted thus far with the South, now came forward with a compromise. He proposed to prohibit slavery in that portion of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30' excepting Missouri. This was accepted in the Senate by thirty-four votes against ten. But when the bill came up two days later for its final passage it received only a majority of four. After much delay the compromise measure was finally passed through the House by a majority of 134 to 42 votes. The measure was a Northern victory, having been carried by Northern votes. For the moment peace was gained; but the fire was only smothered. On the one side there was a gain of one slave State; on the other side, a mere promise to prohibit slavery in future States.

Notwithstanding the political agitation, general progress in America was pronounced and rapid during this period. Steam navigation was no longer a Modern progress novelty. The Erie Canal was well under way. New towns were springing up along its course. Blanchard invented his lathe for turning irregular forms. The famous Danish physicist, Hans Christian Oersted, made his classical electrical experiments with the magnetic needle and laid the foundation of our modern theory of electromagnetism. The literary event of the year in America was the appearance of Washington Irving's "Sketch Book." The work Irving's "Sketch Book" found favor in England, where Sir Walter Scott befriended Irving.

In England, too, it was a period of new industrial and colonial expansion. Following the unsuccessful polar expeditions of the previous year, Lieutenant Franklin undertook his second search for the northwest passage, Polar expedition and a similar expedition, under Perry and Liddon, set out for Arctic waters. In India, where the Sikhs under Runjeet Singh were engaged in their great conquest of Cashmere, a British settlement was established in Singapore. British supremacy at sea received its tribute in an invitation from the Chileans to Sir Thomas Cochrane to command their new navy. After their victory on the Maypo, the patriot leaders of Chile had set to work to create a navy for their country. The British ship "Cumberland" was purchased in London, and renamed the "San Martin." Within a few months she captured the "Maria Isabella" from the Spanish. The prize was taken to Cochrane in Chilean service Valparaiso, remounted, and renamed the "O'Higgins." To these ships were added the "Galvarino," "Araucano," "Interpodo," and the "Independencia." With the "O'Higgins" for a flagship, Cochrane took this squadron up and down the coast of South America, harrying the Spanish sea-ports everywhere.

In England, meanwhile, there was renewed agitation for Parliamentary reforms. Henry Grattan in Parliament moved for a Committee of the Whole House to consider the laws excluding Catholics from public offices. His motion was defeated by a narrow vote of 243 against 241. Instead of this reform the British Government, falling in line with the reactionary The "Six Acts" measures of the Continental governments, passed through Parliament the so-called "Six Acts" for the prevention and punishment of sedition in England. To latter-day Englishmen this year is principally noted for the birth of Queen Victoria. The little princess, the daughter of Edward, Duke Birth of Victoria of Kent, son of George the Third and Maria Louisa Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, a sister of Leopold I. of Belgium, was born at Kensington Palace, and was named Alexandrina Victoria.

Schopenhauer

Germans of the present day remember this year for the appearance of Schopenhauer's great philosophic work "The World, as Will and Idea"—"Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung." Schopenhauer, in this book, laid down the doctrine that the universe, and therefore human life as such, is governed by the conflicting principles of the ungoverned will and of the unattainable ideal. The true solution of life, he held, was to be found in subjecting brute will to the intellectual force of the ideal.

Schopenhauer's book at that time passed almost unnoticed. The educated classes of Germany were in too much of a ferment over the recent police restrictions inflicted upon the universities and public press. By this time it had become well known what part Czar Alexander had played at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. A vehement outcry arose at the universities against the interference of foreigners in German affairs. The wrath of the Liberals turned against August von Kotzebue, the prolific playwright, who held the office of Russian agent in central Germany. Kotzebue conducted a weekly newspaper at Mannheim in which he inveighed against the German national movement of the day, and ridiculed the patriotic eccentricities of the students. Having himself studied at Jena, Kotzebue was denounced by the students there as a traitor. He was believed to be responsible for the Czar's conversion from liberal ideas to reactionary principles. This belief cost Kotzebue his life. One Sand, a theological student at Jena, noted for piety and patriotic ardor, formed a fanatical resolution to do away with this enemy of the country. An extract from Sand's diary, written on the eve of his last New Year's day, reveals the character of the man: "I meet the last day of this year in an earnest festal spirit, knowing well that the Christmas which I have celebrated will be my last. If our strivings are to result in anything, if the cause of mankind is to succeed in our fatherland, if all is not to be forgotten, all our enthusiasm spent in vain, the evil doer, the traitor, the corrupter of youth must die. Until I have executed this, I have no peace; and what can comfort me until I know Assassination of Kotzebue that I have with upright will set my life at stake? O God, I pray only for the right clearness and courage of soul, that in that last supreme hour I may not be false to myself." On March 23, Sand sought out Baron Kotzebue in the midst of his family and stabbed him to the heart. Then he turned the dagger against himself. Unfortunately Sand recovered from his wounds, and thus lived to die on the scaffold.

The mad deed was followed by the worst possible results for Germany. Minister Hardenberg, when he heard of the murder of Kotzebue, declared that Retaliatory measures a Prussian Constitution had now been rendered impossible. Metternich, who was then in Rome, instantly drew up a scheme for further repressive measures and summoned the ministers of the various German States for a meeting at Carlsbad. "By the help of God," wrote Metternich, "I hope to defeat the German revolution, just as I vanquished the conqueror of the world. The revolutionists thought me far away, because I was five hundred leagues off. They deceived themselves; I have been in the midst of them, and now I am striking my blows." A number of innocent persons were arrested in various parts of Germany under utterly unwarrantable circumstances. The houses of professors were searched and private papers were seized. Jahn, the founder of the popular Gymnastic schools, was arrested in Berlin. De Wette, a professor of theology at the University of Berlin, had to flee to German liberals persecuted Switzerland on account of a letter of sympathy addressed by him to Sand's mother. With him Oken, the great naturalist, and Corres, the pamphleteer, became exiles in Switzerland. Professor Fries lost his chair at Jena; the poet Arndt was suspended at Bonn, and his private papers, in garbled form, were published by the government. Many of the younger professors, accompanied by their favorite students, emigrated to America.

Convention of Carlsbad

During August the German ministers met at Carlsbad. Their conferences, in the memory of the German people, are justly associated with the suppression of intellectual freedom for a whole generation. It was ordered that in every State within the German federation a strict censorship should be established over all publications. Within fifteen days an inquisitorial commission was called together at Mainz to investigate the students' societies at the universities. The commission was empowered to arrest any Police censors appointed subject in any German State. Special police commissioners were appointed at the universities, whose duty it was to keep a strict eye on the drift of the professor's teachings. Any professor or student expelled from a university was not to be employed by any other German government. The Binzer's poem students' societies were suppressed, at least to all outward appearance. The poet Binzer wrote a defiant song ending with the lines:

The Spirit liveth in us all, For God is still our stronghold.

So far was repression carried in Prussia that out of 203 students arrested for wearing black-red-yellow ribbons, no less than 94 were condemned to death. Wilhelm von Humboldt, the best and most liberal of Prussian Resignation of Wilhelm Humboldt Ministers during the first half of the nineteenth century, resigned his portfolio in disgust. The zeal with which the Prussian Government accepted these measures made it useless for the minor German States to offer much opposition. Yet they formed the only remaining bulwark against Metternich's restrictive policy. In spite of his strenuous opposition, the rulers of Bavaria and Baden granted to their subjects constitutional forms South German liberalism of government. Representative assemblies with lower and upper houses, after the manner of the English Parliament, were established. In Wurtemberg, serfdom was abolished, and a constitution was published a few days before the enrolment of the decrees of Carlsbad.

Laënnec's stethoscope

In France, Dr. Laënnec published his epoch-making work "Traité d'Auscultation Médiate," the result of his recent experiments in listening to human heart-beats and lung respirations through a hollow cylinder. Various names were given to the instrument until Laënnec decided to call it "stethoscope," the name it has ever since retained. Laënnec's contributions to the study of diseases of the lungs, of the heart and of the abdominal organs may be said to have laid the foundation of modern clinical medicine.

Parliamentary government in France worked none too smoothly. In the Chambers the rise of the independent party and anti-Bourbon faction caused the Duc de Richelieu to resign. When the news of Kotzebue's assassination reached Paris, the Comte d'Artois remarked exultingly to the king: "Well, Decazes Prime Minister brother, you see what they are driving us to." Louis XVIII. intrusted to his favorite, Decazes, the formation of a new Cabinet. Decazes found it difficult to select competent men for the various portfolios. His Cabinet, when finally brought together, lacked internal unity and outward support. Its career was early imperilled by the untoward election of Bishop Gregoire The Gregoire episode of Grenoble, one of the regicides, to the Chamber of Deputies. This popular manifestation, though sufficiently explained by the sterling public qualities of the bishop himself, created the utmost apprehension among the Royalists. Decazes had to bend to the storm, and the election of Gregoire was declared null and void by the Ministerial majority in the Chambers. The French Royalists next professed to find cause for apprehension in Spain. Danger of war with the United States, before the cession of Florida, had Troubles in Spain caused King Ferdinand of Spain to assemble an army at Cadiz to embark for America. It was now proposed to send these troops to South America to quell the revolutionary movements there. The return of a number of soldiers stricken with yellow fever in the colonies filled the troops at Cadiz with consternation. The common soldiers, lying in squalor and inaction at their barracks, came to regard their expected order of embarkation as a sentence of death. Their officers plotted with the secret societies in Cadiz and neighboring towns. Abisbas, the commandant at Cadiz, to safeguard his own interests pretended to encourage these plots. Then, convinced of their ultimate failure, he arrested the principal leaders by a stratagem and hurried to Madrid to reveal all and claim credit for saving the crown. The ringleaders were imprisoned and the troops were distributed into cantonments. As it turned out this only served to foment the growing spirit of dissatisfaction throughout Spain.