Note 3 — Group III. GOLD IN CALIFORNIA, AND WHAT IT LED TO.

Acquiring Strength. Since its publication in 1852, people everywhere had been reading Mrs. H. B. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a book which perhaps did more to consolidate public opinion against slavery, by directing attention to its worst evils, than all the political discussions of the time put together. In this view it deserves a place in the train of events following upon the compromises of 1850. Another episode of like tendency was the assault made on Senator Sumner by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, in the Senate Chamber, arising out of the Kansas troubles (1856). Still another was the decision of Justice Taney in the case of Dred Scott, a slave, declaring that slavery had a right to exist everywhere in the public domain until forbidden by State laws.