DISUNION IN AMERICA

Yet each and all of these events, important as they were, grew little in men’s minds as the year 1860 drew to its close and revealed in America the coming of a mightier quarrel.  The slavery question, once supposed to have been settled by the Missouri Compromise, had proved itself incapable of such settlement.  The forward march of democracy had in fact made slavery an anachronism, outgrown and impossible.  Even the Emperor of Russia saw that, and in 1861 liberated all the serfs within his territories. [Footnote:  See Emancipation of Russian Serfs.] In the United States alone among the great Powers of the world, did slavery persist.

In 1854 a new political party, calling itself the Republican, was formed, having for its main principle opposition to the extension of slavery into the Territories. [Footnote:  See The Rise of the Republican Party.] Other issues might and did complicate the central question, but it was the slavery issue that inflamed men’s minds, made Kansas a “battle-ground” between settlers from North and South, and sent John Brown upon his reckless raid.  Watching the increasing success of the Republicans, Southern leaders began to reassert the doctrine of the right of secession.  They said openly that if a Republican president were elected they would leave the Union.

And in 1860 a Republican president was elected.  Was the long-predicted, and to most of Europe eagerly desired, disruption of the United States at hand?  Was the break to be accomplished peacefully or in flame and wrath?  The fading year of 1860 left the advancing world of democracy in panic over the danger to what had been its most successful stronghold.

[For the next section of this general survey, see volume XVIII.]

(1844) INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH, Alonzo B. Cornell

After the experiments of Franklin that did so much to advance the study of electrical phenomena, and to suggest practical applications of electricity, physicists in all countries occupied themselves with investigations along lines marked out by the American philosopher.  In 1749 Franklin devised the lightning-rod.  But notwithstanding the labors of many investigators, it was more than fifty years before any other practical discovery or invention in electricity was brought into general use.  The first great achievement of the kind was Morse’s improvement of the electric telegraph.  That Morse’s fellow-countryman, Joseph Henry, chiefly prepared the way for that triumph, the following account, with just emphasis, demonstrates.