LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY ROSARIO CURLETTI Lincoln From a photograph from Life by Brady iUrnetj's Historp of n)e Woxltj or etontp Centuries of ti)e 3life of iftanftino A SURVEY OF HISTORY FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN RECORDS THROUGH ALL STAGES OF CD7ILIZATION, IN ALL IMPORTANT COUNTRIES, DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES, AND WITH CHARACTER SKETCHES OF THE CHIEF PERSONAGES OF EACH HISTORIC EPOCH By J. N. LARNED EDITOR OF THE FAMOUS "HISTORY FOR READY REFERENCE," AND AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS," "A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR SCHOOLS," ETC. Illustrated by over one hundred and fifty reproductions of famous historical paintings and portraits in black and white, and colors. 3Tn Jibe Eolttmta Volume V Pages 1171 to End WORLD SYNDICATE COMPANY, Inc., 110-112 West Fortieth Street, New York City 1915 COPYRIGHT IQOJ AND I0O7 BY J. N. LARNE4) COPYRIGHT 1914 BY S. /. I.ARNED ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Revised, Enlarged and Up-to-date Edition specially prepared by C. A. NTCHOLS COMPANY, Springfield.' Mass. of (Publishers Larned's "History for Ready Reference" and subscription editions of this work) For distribution through newspapers by WORLD SYNDICATE COMFANY, Inc., New York who are the Sole Licensees for such distribution CHAPTER XXI FROM THE ADVENT OF GEORGE STEPH- ENSON AND THE STEAM RAILWAY TO THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (1830 to 1860) Era of the railway and the telegraph. Great Britain: First reform »f parlia- ment.—Opening of the reign of Queen Victoria.—The Chartist movement.— Repeal of corn laws.—Free trade legislation.—Peel.—Gladstone.—Disraeli.— Ireland and O'Connell's agitation. European Revphitiona of 18A3 and after: Italy.—France.—-Germany.—Hungary.—Coup d'etat of Louia Napoleon.— The Crimean War.—Liberation and unification of Italy. The United States: Andrew Jackson president.—Jackson and nullification.—Jackson and the United States Bank.—The financial collapse of 1837.—President Van Buren. —Formation of the Whig party.—Rise of the Abolitionists.—Agitation of the slavery question.—Annexation of Texas.—War with Mexico.—Acquisition of New etc.— of in the new — California, Mexico, Question "slavery territory. Compromise of 1850.—Fugitive slave law.— Uncle Tom's Cabin."—Stephen A. Douglas. —Doctrine of "popular sovereignty."—Kansas-Nebraska bilL —Rise of Republican party.—-Struggle for Kansas. —Dred Scott decision.— Lecompton constitution for Kansas.—Douglas Democratio revolt.—Douglas and Lincoln debates.—John Brown's invasion of Virginia.—Election of Abraham Lincoln. British America: Rebellion in the Canadas.—Reunion of the two provinces. Australia and New Zealand: Founding of the colonies of Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia, New Zealand, and Queensland. — Discoveries of gold. India and Afghanistan: Tragedy of the .Afghan war. —The sepoy revolt. China: The "Opium War."—The Tai-ping rebellion.— Second war with England. Japan: The Perry expedition.—Opening of ports to foreigners. South Africa: Founding of the Boer republics. The three decades of the period we are now to survey were a time of rapid ripening for many movements and many influences in the world which came to their full fruition in the next suc- ceeding years. Conditions in Italy and Germany Atimerf were ripening for the unification of both. Condi- tions in France were preparing for the eradication of Napoleonism and for the germination of a true republic. Democratic influences in Great Britain 1171 nji From Stephenson to Lincoln were ending class-legislation, and making ready for the great liberalizing achievements of Glad- stone and the party that he formed. Events in the United States were ripening a sentiment of nationality that would bear the test of the most terrible of civil wars. And every ripening influ- Locomo- ence of the time took most of its quickening from tive and the new spirit imparted to all activities in the world by the railway locomotive and the tele- graphic wire. Opening of the era of the railway and the telegraph The introduction of the railway, with steam locomotion, is the event which outranks every other in the period, by the magnitude and the universality of its effects. We may date it as an occurrence of the 15th of September, 1830, when the first considerable line of rails was opened, between and and trains of George Liverpool Manchester, Stephen- cars we re drawn locomo- son and the by George Stephenson's , . first steam tives, capable of a speed of thirty-five miles an i83o hour. In Great Britain, the development of the new system— of travel and transportation was rapid, too rapid, in fact, becoming a "railway mania," with the result of an overwhelming collapse in 1844-5. I n no other country except the United States had equal progress been made. The first in Railway railway America to use steam locomo- progressin tion was a short line from Charleston, South America Carolina, on which an engine was run in January, 183 1. Later in the same year, the Baltimore and Ohio road, begun in 1830 as a tramway for horse Railway and Telegraph 1173 cars, adopted steam. From these beginnings, the extension of railways went rapidly on. By 1833, the westward line from Charleston had been stretched to a length of a hundred and thirty- seven miles. This outran railway building at the north, where even New York and Philadelphia were not connected till 1839. The year 1842 saw Albany and Buffalo linked together, by eleven distinct railroads, consolidated afterward in one; but eight more years passed before Albany was connected by rail with New York. By that time, the line from Charleston westward had passed the mountains, reaching and Chattanooga; i8so another from Georgia had done the same. There were then about 9,000 miles of iron rail in the United States, mostly east of the Allegheny In the next decade a of range. great leap progress ^ westward was made, increasing the total length to^^o to 30,000 miles. In 1852 two lines from Chicago to Lake Erie were opened, and the rail connection of Chicago with New York was completed in the next year. The chain of rails reached the Missis- sippi in 1854, and the Missouri in 1859. on the Meantime, European continent, the be^nnfags on the railways were spreading at a much slower rate. A line of eleven miles, opened from Paris to St. continent Germain in 1837, was the first in France. Prussia was a year later in beginning, and had less than 3,800 miles in 1863. Belgium gave a readier welcome to the new system, beginning the con- struction of railways in 1833. The electric telegraph had many inventors; 1 174 From Stephenson to Lincoln B «if,:; but its use as a instrument of communica- of tl public eiectpc tion between two places widely apart was begun 1*44 in May, 1844., when the line built by Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, between Baltimore and Washington, was opened, and the doings of the Democratic convention at Baltimore, which nominated Mr. Polk for president, were reported to astonished congressmen at the capitol. Events in Great Britain The epidemic of revolution which swept over continental Europe in 1830 reached England in no violent form, but touched the country, never- theless, with the deepest and most lasting of all its effects. It cannot be said to have produced, but it the of that The quickened coming, peaceful approach revolution, by parliamentary reform, which took of a peace- the of the from an aristo- ful revolu- government kingdom tion cratic class and began the transferring of it to the democratic mass. In a slow but sure way, the great industrial and social changes of the time had been working toward this consummation for many years. They had been raising the English middle class to the power and importance which money gives, and were gathering the increased energies of the Inq^asing importance kingdom into its hands. But, while the tendency middle of social changes had been to increase the impor- dafc* tance of this powerful middle class, the political conditions had diminished its actual weight in public affairs. In parliament, it had no adequate representation. The old boroughs, which sent Parliamentary Reform in England 1175 members to the house of commons as they had sent them for generations before, no longer con- tained a respectable fraction of the "commons of England," supposed to be represented in parlia- ment, and those who voted in the boroughs were not at all the better class of the new England of the nineteenth century. Great numbers of the boroughs were mere private estates, and the few votes polled in them were cast by tenants who elected their landlords' nominees. On the other bor^j^" hand, the large cities and the numerous towns of recent growth had either no representation in parliament, or they had equal representation with the "rotten boroughs" which cast two or three or half-a-dozen votes. That the commons of England, with all the gain of substantial strength they had been making in the last half of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth, endured this travesty of popular representation so long, is proof of the obstinacy of the conservatism which the French Revolution induced. The subject of parliamentary reform had been discussed now and then since Chatham's time; but Toryism had always been able to thrust it aside and bring the discussion to naught. At last there came the day when the question would no longer be put down. The agitations of 1830, combined with a very serious depression of indus- try and trade, produced a state of feeling which could not be defied.