[128] Kennedy, 43. [129] _Fortnightly Review_, vi., 538. [130] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 400, 401; C. H. Shinn, _Mining Camps_ (1885), 132, 133. [131] _In re_, 33-40. [132] _In re_, 25 n. [133] Johnston, 102. [134] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._ [135] _Comp. Prose_, 502. [136] _In re_, 342; Camden, iii., 276, 277, 287; Bucke's _Cosmic Consciousness_, 33-35; _L. of G._, 32, 33. _Cf._:-- ... "Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the Earth. And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the Spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke weed."--L. of G., ed. '92. [137] _Fox's Journal_ (ed. 1901), p. 28. [138] _Comp. Prose_, 322; Camden, v., 280, 281. [139] _Cf._ however, _infra_, 167. [140] _Cf. In re_, 368; Camden, ix., 166 (on Hegel). CHAPTER VI THE CARPENTER In the fifties a change came over America, a change preluding the great struggle which ensued. The population grew rapidly with its former mathematical regularity; but the settlement and development of the country went forward even more rapidly. During the decade, the area of improved land increased by one-half, and the value of farm property was doubled. The west bank of the Mississippi being already settled, the future of the lands still further west between the Missouri and the Rockies, became of paramount interest to the nation. It was this problem of the West which strained until it broke that policy of compromise which for a generation had bound American politics. The year 1850 itself is memorable for Clay's opportunist resolutions in Congress, which were intended to settle nothing; and for the fierce debates upon them and upon the Fugitive Slave Bill, in which Webster and Seward, Calhoun and Jefferson Davis participated.[141] Clay and Webster died soon after, and their party being utterly routed at the polls in 1852, finally went to pieces. The vote of the liberty party had declined, and compromise still held up its foolish head. But the victorious Democrats brought all hope of its continuance to an end by reviving the principle of "squatter sovereignty," and proceeding to apply it in the newly settled lands. It was their policy to snatch the question of slavery out of the hands of Congress; for which, as the organ of the Federal power, they nursed an increasing enmity. The bloody scenes which drew all eyes to Kansas made it plain that compromise was done; the South had thrown it over, and was now half-consciously driving the country into war.