e and even beyond. They slave States in
pursuing this policy were directed by men who had other designs
than those which lay on the surface. Since the struggle of 1850
the dissolution of the Union had been in the minds of many Southern
leaders, and, as the older class of statesmen passed away, this
design grew and strengthened until it became a fixed policy. They
felt that when the time came to strike, it was of the first importance
that they should have support and popular strength beyond the
Mississippi. California, they were confident, could be carried in
their interest, if they could but plant supporting colonies between
the Missouri and the Sierras. The Democratic party was dominant
in the State, and the Democracy was of the type personated by
William M. Gwin. Both her senators voted for the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, and stood by the extremists of the South as
steadily as if California bordered on the Gulf of Mexico. Dissolution
of the Union on the scale thus projected would, as the authors of
the scheme persuaded themselves, be certain of success. From the
Mississippi to the Missouri they would carry the new confederacy
to the southern line of Iowa. From the Missouri to the line of
Utah they would have the 40th degree of latitude; from Utah westward
they would have the 42d parallel, leaving the line of Oregon as
the southern boundary of the United States on the Pacific.

THE SOUTHERN STRUGGLE FOR KANSAS.

This policy was not absolute but alternative. If the slave-holders
could maintain their supremacy in the Union, they would prefer to
remain. If they were to be outvoted and, as they thought, outraged
by free-State majorities, then they would break up the government
and form a confederacy of their own. To make such a confederacy
effective, they must not take from the Union a relatively small
section, but must divide it from ocean to ocean. They could not
acquire a majority of the total population, but they aimed to secure
by far the larger share of the vast domain comprised in the United
States. The design was audacious, but from the stand-point of the
men who were committed to it, it was not illogical. Their entire
industrial system was founded upon an institution which was bitterly
opposed in the free States. They could see no way, and they no
longer desired to see a way, by which they might rid themselves of
the servile labor which was at once