FRONTIER IN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT in the east. American democracy was born on the frontier and received its initial strength from the frontier states. At the edge of practically "free land” the field of opportunity was open. The full meaning of this in American life became more apparent as the frontier and free lands drew to their close. Significance in Eighteenth Century.-In the early part of the seventeenth century the frontier lay along the settled portions of the Atlantic coast. It was, in a sense, the frontier of Europe, where old world institutions were undergoing adjustment to the colonial wilderness. By the second half of the eighteenth century the frontier had reached the Berkshire hills of western New England, extended up the Mohawk Valley, in New York, and along the Great Valley of Pennsylvania, and its extension in Virginia lay as far west as the Piedmont, or upland, region of the South beyond the falls of the rivers. This frontier was modified by the presence of non-English stocks, especially Germans and Scotch-Irish, and by an increased independence not only from Europe, but also from tidewater settlements. In the course of the French and Indian War and the Revolution, the frontier crossed the Alleghanies. This frontier was that of the backwoods Indian fighters, devoted to local selfgovernment and democracy. In the period when the new Constitution was framed it aided in shaping liberal territorial relations and equality of statehood for the western com munities. urged. The public lands along the frontier zone became the subject of rival legislative proposals of leading American statesmen, who now realized more fully their far-reaching influence upon problems of sectional rivalry, as well as upon the labor supply, wages and land values in the East. These economic influences of the frontier affected the whole structure of American industrial society. Thus a series of congressional legislative acts, increasing the power of the Federal Government, was undertaken; the frontier revealed its nationalizing influence in the field of domestic policy, as in earlier periods it had been a nationalizing force in calling out common action in the field of diplomacy and defence. Sectional Effects.-On the other hand, as the settlements extended up the Missouri and into the forests of the Northwest and the cotton fields of the Southwest, the frontier advance gave new emphasis to the sectional differences in the matter of slavery. The Missouri Compromise illustrates the problem presented by slavery as a factor in frontier extension, demanding national decision of rival interests in the expanding sections. The frontier as a debtor area had been in fluential upon currency questions from colonial days. The rural democracy of the frontier zone objected to the national bank and demanded an expansion of credit. Jacksonian democracy represented the growing demand for popular participation in government on the part of the frontier and the regions whose ideas were Early Nineteenth Century. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the frontier extended along the tributaries of the Ohio, bounding a peninsula of settlement thrust forward beyond the Alleghanies much as the fron- Effect on Diplomacy. By 1840 the frontier tier had bounded the Mohawk Valley in the had reached the meridian of the great bend of second half of the eighteenth century. Lying the Missouri and settlement was banking up beyond the Alleghanies, it was increasingly self- against the great plains as before it had against assertive, and its economic interests led it to the Alleghanies. In the course of the next resist the control which Spain exercised over decade the frontier was lodged on the Pacific the navigation of the Mississippi, the only exit coast, whither fur traders and missionaries had for its crops, and also to resist the preponder- preceded it. The diplomatic relations of this ance exerted by England, from her posts on period with reference to Texas, Oregon and the Great Lakes, over the Indians of the North- California were called out by the advancing West. The frontier became a powerful influence frontier, and the annexations were made posin foreign relations. The purchase of Louis-sible by the energy of frontier advance. ana and the War of 1812 with England defi- previously, the relation of slavery to this movnitely insured to the frontier new fields for ad- ing frontier was a factor of primary importvance north and south as well as to the west. passed from the backwoods stage of self-conIn National Politics. Having, by 1820, tained economic life, these trans-Alleghany set shaped by recent frontier experiences. Jackson embodied the nationalism, the democracy, the opposition to the control of capital, the directness and the vigor of the frontier. As ance, and it gave tone to the political contests from that time to the Civil War. Effect on Adventurous Characters.-The min ing society in California exhibited typical chartlements now pressed for an outlet to the east acteristics of the frontier remote from conghanies. At the same time the advancing fron- gold discovery. The opportunity sudden advantage of the internal trade of the rising individual competition introduced an element air revealed to eastern cities the commercial riches acquired under the frontier freedom of empire of the West as a substitute for the into American life which was persistent and waning foreign commerce. The home market influential. arguments for a protective tariff, as well as internal improvement projects were vigorously fields of the Rocky Mountains in the period This factor received new empha sis with the opening of the gold and silver FUGITIVE SLAVES Conservation.-The reclamation of the arid frontier and the conservation of natural re of the Civil War where new mining rushes repeated the frontier experiences. Thus the frontier exhibited an eastward as well as a west-sources also became significant as the frontier ward movement. In this period also the Indian frontier acquired new importance, and the regular Army succeeded the frontier militia as the defenders of the settlers. This illustrated the growing national energy applied to the frontier, and the same energy was exhibited in the demand for railroad construction across the great plains as earlier across the Alleghanies. era terminated. Labor no longer found its safety in the existence of the free lands of the frontier, and sought increasingly to advance its interests by national organization. In the same period the old expansive tendency of American life which had been exhibited in the advance of the frontier was continued in the extension of settlement and investment of American capital across the borders into CanEffect on Political Organizations. Between ada and Mexico, and was given new expression 1870 and 1890 this intervening wilderness was by the expansion of the nation over-seas in the broken down by the formation of various new Spanish-American War, when it became a frontiers. The farmer's frontier advanced rap-world power with distant dependencies. American character has been deeply affected by frontier experiences. Individualism, an original humor, indifference to old world lessons, optimistic faith and a bold and forceful reck ties, characterized the nation. Creative idealism and largeness of design went side by side with emphasis upon material development. These traits found expression in literature and politics as well as in economic and social life. With the passing of the frontier and its free opportunities, the United States seems to exhibit less assurance in respect to the excellence of its institutions, a more critical and discontented spirit, a greater attention to statistics, to the collective problems of society and to the experience of other nations. idly across the trans-Mississippi prairies until it met the check of the arid lands. As the Indians were conquered and forced into reservations on either side of the newly opened continental railroad, the ranching frontier extend-lessness in the presence of its vast opportunied along the great plains. By 1884 the frontier barrier of the great plains and the Rockies had been pierced by the Southern Pacific Railroad. An era of exceptionally low prices for crops and cattle followed. The farmers' movement in the Granger agitation (see GRANGER CASES), the Greenback (see) contest, and the free silver Populist uprising of the nineties (see SILVER COINAGE Controversy), were indicative of the recurrence of the influence of the frontier as a debtor region, as well as the over-confidence and over-production which the rapid frontier advance induced. By about 1890, when the frontier line was proclaimed at an end, a group of new frontier states in proximity to northern railroads (North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming) had been admitted to the Union, and thereby new frontier political influence was created, as had been the case when the earlier frontier states had been admitted between 1816 and 1821. The revolutionizing of the Democratic party under Mr. Bryan in the election of 1896 was partly due to this influence and is comparable to the wave of Jack-nomics (1907), "Problem of the West” in sonian democracy which rose in the thirties. See BOUNDARIES, INTERIOR; INDIAN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES; IRRIGATION AND IRRIGATED LANDS; POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES; PUBLIC LANDS AND PUBLIC LAND POLICY; PHYSICS AND POLITICS; PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA; TERRITORIES, ACQUIRED, STATUS OF; TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES, ORGANIZED; WEST AS A FACTOR IN AMERICAN POLITICS. References: F. J. Turner, "Significance of the Frontier" in Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1893, 199, reprinted in Bullock, Readings in Eco Atlantic Monthly, LXXVIII, 289, "ContriEconomic Combinations. In the more recent butions of the West to American Democracy" period the national development has been in ibid, XCI, 83; F. L. Paxson, Last American deeply influenced by the efforts to adjust the Frontier (1910), ch. i; E. C. Semple, Innation to the conditions imposed by the gradual fluences of Geographic Environment (1911), extinction of the frontier. The historic com-ch. vii, and index “Boundaries”; E. L. Godkin, petitive individualism of the frontier was sub- | Problems of Modern Democracy (1896), ch. i; ordinated to control by combinations of capital, on the one hand, and to increasing reliance by the former frontier areas upon national legislation and popular political organization, on the other, to preserve the old democratic ideals of equality of opportunity. The political "insurgency" of the West and the strength of the Progressive movement in the same regions, with its programme of direct popular government and political control of economic life, bear witness to the changing spirit which appeared as the frontier era closed. J. E. Cutler, Lynch Law (1905); H. Croly, Promise of American Life (1910), ch. i; A. B. Hart, National Ideals Historically Traced (1907), chs. i, iii; K. Coman, Econ. Beginnings of the Far West (1913). FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER. FUGITIVE SLAVES. The problem of recapturing fugitive slaves who had escaped into another jurisdiction was a permanent accompaniment of the institution of slavery. Articles providing for the rendition of fugitives. FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE-FUNDAMENTAL LAW of 1787; and the Federal Constitution explicitly provides that "no person held to service or labor in one state" shall, if he escapes into another, be there set free by the law in that other community (Art. IV, Sec. ii, ¶ 3). The phrase "fugitive from labor" in its early use included indentured servants, and apprentices, but in practice was applied chiefly to fugitive slaves. So long as slavery continued in several northern communities the provision made little trouble; but after the growth of organized abolition (see) agitation, public sentiment in many of the northern states was hostile to the recovery of fugitive slaves. Some what constituted escaping into a free state. The fugitive slave law (see) was supplemented by some state acts but fell into disuse during the Civil War. See ABOLITIONISTS; COMPROMISE OF 1850; SLAVERY AS AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM; SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. were included in the New England Confedera- | return of fugitives, as did also the Ordinance tion of 1643, the Articles of Confederation of 1781, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The Federal Constitution (Art. IV, Sec. ii) guaranteed the return of fugitives from labor, and Congress, in 1793, passed an act prescribing the procedure to be used in reclaiming them. After 1800 slavery became practically extinct in the northern states and a sentiment sprang up adverse to returning such fugitives from service. With the rise of the anti-slavery movement (see ABOLITIONISTS; SLAVERY CONTROVERSY), there developed a systematic custom of assisting runaway slaves by sending them by night from one sympathizer to another. This was known as "the underground rail-acute difficulties occurred over the question of road" and was responsible for the loss of thousands of dollars worth of slaves annually to the northern slave states. As anti-slavery sentiment gained control of northern legislatures, many states passed "personal liberty laws" (see) intended to prevent kidnapping of free negroes and also to hinder the recapture of genuine fugitives. In 1850, in response to bitter complaints from the slave states, Congress passed a more stringent fugitive slave law which placed the authority for rendition wholly in the hands of federal commissioners and left the proceedings purely ex parte (see COMPROMISE OF 1850). In spite of this, the northern sympathy for fugitives was so strong that in the years before 1860 the new law was hardly enforceable in many localities. This northern refusal to carry out one of the express provisions of the Constitution was one of the leading causes assigned in 1861 for secession. The law was repealed in 1864. See SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. References: M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves (1891); W. H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad (1898); J. C. Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage (1858-1862); T. C. Smith, Parties and Slavery (1906), index. T. C. S. FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE. A fugitive from justice within the meaning of the Federal Constitution (Art. V, Sec. ii, ¶ 2), providing for interstate extradition of criminals, is any one who "having within a State committed that which by its laws constitutes a crime, when he is sought to be subjected to its criminal process to answer for his offence, has left its jurisdiction and is found within the territory of another." Roberts vs. Reilly, 116 U. S. 80. See EXTRADITION, INTERSTATE. W. W. W. FUGITIVES FROM SERVICE. The continuance of slavery always depended upon some legal and effective machinery for recovering runaway slaves. The English colonies had internal laws upon this point, and also intercolonial agreements (see COLONIAL INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS). The first federal treaty with the Cherokees in 1778 provided for the References: M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves (1891); W. H. Siebert, Underground Railroad (1898); A. B. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (1906), ch. xix; William Still, Underground Railroad (rev. ed., 1883); Levi Coffin, Reminiscences (1876); S. G. Howe, Refugees from Slavery in Canada West (1860). ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. FULLER, MELVILLE WESTON. Melville W. Fuller (1833-1910), Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was born at Augusta, Maine, February 11, 1833. In 1855 he was admitted to the bar, and for a time was associate editor of The Age, a Democratic paper published at Augusta. He was also president of the common council and city solicitor. In 1856 he removed to Chicago, and practiced law there until 1888. He was a member of the Illinois constitutional convention of 1862, and from 1863 to 1865 served in the lower house of the legislature. In 1864, 1872, 1876, and 1880 he was a delegate to the Democratic national convention. His appointment as Chief Justice was dated April 30, 1888, but the appointment was not confirmed until July 20, and he did not take the oath of office until October 8. In 1899 he was chosen as one of the arbitrators of the boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana; and he was also a member of the premanent court of arbitration at the Hague. His influence upon the court, in a period of fundamental economic and political change, was conservative and even reactionary. He died at Sorrento, Maine, July 4, 1910. See CHIEF JUSTICES. Reference: C. D. Walcott, "Melville W. Fuller" in Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report (1910). W. MACD. FUNDAMENTAL LAW. See LAW, FUNDA, MENTAL. FUR SEAL CONTROVERSY-FUTURES, DEALING IN ticket being also in the field. In Virginia, the same year, Democrats and Readjusters both voted for the regular Democratic electors. Again, in 1896 Populists and Democrats combined and put out fusion tickets in twenty-six states, hoping to defeat McKinley. In some states Democrats fused with Populists, in others with "Silver" Republicans. FUR SEAL CONTROVERSY. A difficulty for in Maine in 1880, a "straight" Greenback arising out of the claim of the United States to the exclusive right to take fur bearing animals in the eastern half of Bering Sea. The controversy practically begins with a memorandum claiming the Alaskan waters, written by acting Secretary French, March 12, 1881. In 1886 the matter was brought to a point by the capture of several Canadian sealers engaged in taking seals in these waters, a capture confirmed by a decision of Judge Dawson. From 1888 to 1893 there were negotiations between the two countries, culminating in the arbitration of 1893, which found against the contention of the United States but recognized the desirability of protecting the seals by international agreement. See ALASKA BOUNDARY CONTROVERSY; BOUNDARIES, EXTERIOR; BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH; FISHERIES, INTERNATIONAL, RELATION See PARTY, PLACE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF. References: E. Stanwood, Hist. of the Presidency (1898), 397, 515, 564; T. H. McKee, National Conventions and Platforms (1901), 198, 326; W. A. Peffer, "The Passing of the People's Party" in North Am. Review, CLXVI (1898), 12-23; E. P. Clark, "Populism in the Saddle" in Nation, LXX (1900), 372. JESSE MACY. FUTURES, DEALING IN. A mechanism of an exchange (see). To sell (or buy) a future is to contract to deliver (or accept) at a stipulated time subsequent to the making of the contract, a stipulated quantity of a commodity (or stock or bond) at a stipulated price. The seller need not have the commod come to be associated with such speculative transactions. The seller contracts, believing that prices will fall and that he can buy for delivery at a profit; the buyer contracts, believing that prices will rise and that he can sell at a profit. Such organized speculation performs two important economic functions: (1) it serves society in general by its directive influence on prices through equalization in time; (2) it serves trade as such by its FUSION. Fusion is the combination of twoity in his possession; in fact the term has or more parties or factions to defeat a stronger one. Such coalition is more or less a temporary agreement for a specific purpose and is usually confined to a particular election. The chief parties often take warning from the manifestations of disaffection within their ranks, as when a faction withdraws to vote with an opposing partry or to aid in forming a new party, or when individuals vote independently against their party; and tend to reconsider the party principles, to restate the party doc-risk-bearing functions; e. g., it enables a mantrines, and to reshape the issues of the day in a manner to win back the disaffected or to prevent secession. Many instances of fusion occur in American political history. In the presidential election of 1860 the two wings of the Democratic party had each a ticket in the field. Both wings were desirous of defeating Lincoln, and to that end it was arranged in certain states to present a fusion electoral ticket with names chosen partly from one faction and partly from the other. A fusion ticket made up of three Democrats and four Greenbackers was voted ufacturer who takes orders for manufacture GADSDEN PURCHASE-GALLATIN, ALBERT G GADSDEN PURCHASE. When the commis- | Many felt that anti-slavery agitation would sioners of Mexico and the United States attempted to mark the boundary line determined by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848, they found it vaguely described. and the map given them as an official guide to be geographically incorrect. This caused a dispute over the ownership of the Mesilla Valley, south of the Gila River, which was keenly desired by the United States since it had been discovered to be the only practicable southern route for a railroad to the Pacific. Another cause of friction was the eleventh article of the treaty of 1848, which bound the United States to prevent its Indian tribes from making depreda- J. F. Morse, John Quincy Adams (1887), 306tions into Mexico. This provision had been | 308. almost impossible to carry out; as a consequence much damage had been inflicted upon Mexicans for which their Government demanded compensation. cause the dissolution of the Union. May 26, 1836, the House adopted a rule to the effect that all petitions relating to slavery, without being read, should be laid on the table. Session after session for several years the gag laws were reënacted. The opposition insisted that the right to petition given by the First Amendment, includes the right to have the petition heard. These rules were finally voted down in 1844. See SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. References: A. B. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (1907), 259-271; J. B. McMaster, Hist. of the People of the U. S., VI (1906), passim; T. N. H. GAG RESOLUTIONS. The term is applied to efforts by rules to put a stop to discussion in deliberative bodies. The best known illustration is the struggle in the federal House of Representatives from 1835 to 1844, to shut out petitions regarding slavery. John Quincy Adams vigorously opposed these resolutions. The same object has been obtained in legislative bodies by the autocratic power of a presiding officer or a committee on rules. See PETITION, RIGHT OF; RULES; SLAVERY CONTROVERSY. References: A. B. Hart, Actual Government (1908), 112, 116, Slavery and Abolition (1908), ch. xviii; John Quincy Adams, Memoirs (1877). T. N. H. To settle both disputes, James Gadsden, the American minister to Mexico, was commissioned to negotiate with that country. He signed a treaty Dec. 30, 1853, which, after being amended in important respects by the Senate of the United States, provided for the payment, by the United States, of $10,000,000; the cession by Mexico of 45,535 square miles, which now form the southern part of New Mexico and Arizona; the abrogation of the eleventh article of the treaty of 1848; and the release of the United States from all claims for its non-fulfillment. As originally drawn the treaty included the cession of a much larger GALLATIN, ALBERT. Albert Gallatin territory and the payment by the United | (1761-1849) was born at Geneva, SwitzerStates of $20,000,000. Unfortunately some land, January 29, 1761. He came to the Unitsuspicion of bribery and jobbery attaches to ed States in 1780, was an instructor at Harthe negotiations and the payment of the pur- vard College, and in 1784 settled in Fayette chase money. Mexico accepted the Senate County, Pa., then claimed by Virginia, where amendments; Congress made the necessary he had taken up land. In the discussions over appropriations; and ratifications were ex- the ratification of the Federal Constitution he changed, June 30, 1854. allied himself with the Anti-Federalists, was a member of the Pennsylvania constitutional convention of 1789-90, and from 1790 to 1792 sat in the state house of representatives. In 1793 he was elected United States Senator, but was unseated after a brief service on the ground of ineligibility. He was involved in the preliminaries of the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794, though opposed to violence, and incurred the enmity of the Federalists on that account. He returned to Congress in 1795, and until 1801 was the recognized leader of the Republicans in the House. In 1801 he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury, in which office he took a rank only second to that of See BOUNDARIES OF THE UNITED STATES, HISTORY OF; CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO, ANNEXATION OF; GUADALUPE HIDALGO, TREATY OF; MEXICO, DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH; PACIFIC RAILROADS. References: E. J. Carpenter, Am. Advance (1903), ch. vii; J. B. Moore, Digest of Int. Law, I (1906), 460–462; W. M. Malloy, Treaties and Conventions, 1776-1909 (1910), 11211125. GEORGE H. BLAKESLEE. GAG LAWS. The gag laws, or gag resolutions, were attempts to prevent the discussion of the slavery question in Congress. |