书城外语美国历史(英文版)
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第100章 CONFLICT AND INDEPENDENCE(75)

In time,the industrial North and the planting South evolved different ideas of political policy.The former looked with favor on protective tariffs,ship subsidies,a sound national banking system,and internal improvements.The farmers of the West demanded that the public domain be divided up into free homesteads for farmers.The South steadily swung around to the opposite view.Its spokesmen came to regard most of these policies as injurious to the planting interests.

The economic questions were all involved in a moral issue.The Northern states,in which slavery was of slight consequence,had early abolished the institution.In the course of a few years there appeared uncompromising advocates of universal emancipation.Far and wide the agitation spread.The South was thoroughly frightened.It demanded protection against the agitators,the enforcement of its rights in the case of runaway slaves,and equal privileges for slavery in the new territories.

With the passing years the conflict between the two sections increased in bitterness.It flamed up in 1820and was allayed by the Missouri compromise.It took on the form of a tariff controversy and nullification in 1832.It appeared again after the Mexican war when the question of slavery in the new territories was raised.Again compromise-the great settlement of 1850-seemed to restore peace,only to prove an illusion.A series of startling events swept the country into war:the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854,the rise of the Republican party pledged to the prohibition of slavery in the territories,the Dred Scott decision of 1857,the Lincoln-Douglas debates,John Brown's raid,the election of Lincoln,and secession.

The Civil War,lasting for four years,tested the strength of both North and South,in leadership,in finance,in diplomatic skill,in material resources,in industry,and in armed forces.By the blockade of Southern ports,by an overwhelming weight of men and materials,and by relentless hammering on the field of battle,the North was victorious.

The results of the war were revolutionary in character.Slavery was abolished and the freedmen given the ballot.The Southern planters who had been the leaders of their section were ruined financially and almost to a man excluded from taking part in political affairs.The union was declared to be perpetual and the right of a state to secede settled by the judgment of battle.Federal control over the affairs of states,counties,and cities was established by the fourteenth amendment.The power and prestige of the federal government were enhancedbeyond imagination.The North was now free to pursue its economic policies:a protective tariff,a national banking system,land grants for railways,free lands for farmers.Planting had dominated the country for nearly a generation.Business enterprise was to take its place.

QUESTIONS

1.Contrast the reception of secession in 1860with that given to nullification in 1832.

2.Compare the Northern and Southern views of the union.

3.What were the peculiar features of the Confederate constitution?

4.How was the Confederacy financed?

5.Compare the resources of the two sections.

6.On what foundations did Southern hopes rest?

7.Describe the attempts at a peaceful settlement.

8.Compare the raising of armies for the Civil War with the methods employed in the World War.(See below,chapter xxv.)9.Compare the financial methods of the government in the two wars.

10.Explain why the blockade was such a deadly weapon.

11.Give the leading diplomatic events of the war.

12.Trace the growth of anti-slavery sentiment.

13.What measures were taken to restrain criticism of the government?

14.What part did Lincoln play in all phases of the war?

15.State the principal results of the war.

16.Compare Lincoln's plan of reconstruction with that adopted by Congress.

17.What rights did Congress attempt to confer upon the former slaves?

The Personality and Early Career of Roosevelt.-On September 14,1901,when Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office,the presidency passed to a new generation and a leader of a new type recalling,if comparisons must be made,Andrew Jackson rather than any Republican predecessor.Roosevelt was brusque,hearty,restless,and fond of action-"a young fellow of infinite dash and originality,"as John Hay remarked of him;combining the spirit of his old college,Harvard,with the breezy ******* of the plains;interested in every-thing-a new species of game,a new book,a diplomatic riddle,or a novel theoryof history or biology.Though only forty-three years old he was well versed in the art of practical politics.Coming upon the politi-cal scene in the early eighties,he had associated himself with the reformers in the Republican party;but he was no Mugwump.From the first he vehemently preached the doctrine of party loyalty;if beaten in the convention,he voted the straight ticket in the election.For twenty years he adhered to this rule and during a consider-able portion of that period he held office as a spokesman of his party.He served in the New York legisla-ture,as head of the metropolitan police force,as federal civil service commissioner under President Harrison,as assistant secretary of the navy under President McKin-Theodore Roosevelt Speaking at Bellows Falls,Vermontley,and as governor of the Empirestate.Political managers of the old school spoke of him as "brilliant but erratic";they soon found him equal to the shrewdest in negotiation and action.