Download THE COMPROMISE OF 1850 *Some Northerners were offended

THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
*Some Northerners were offended that, although Southerners had gotten as much of
Mexico as they could hold in the Mexican War, the Northern Democrats’ slogan of
‘54o 40” or Fight!’ had been compromised down to the 49th parallel. Southerners,
on the other hand, had been insulted by the proposed Wilmot Proviso, banning
slavery in the new territories, and even by some Northerners’ attempts to prevent
the War entirely.
*The issue at the heart of much Northern opposition to expansion was slavery.
However, the two major parties did not want to divide themselves (or the nation)
along sectional lines, and so made every effort to ignore the issue of slavery.
*In 1848, Polk, worn out from his term of office, stood by his pledge not to run
for re-election. The Democrat selected was General Lewis Cass, a veteran of the
War of 1812. He believed in the concept of ‘popular sovereignty,’ which would
allow the inhabitants of any given territory to determine for themselves if they
wished to be a slave state or a free state. Many people liked it because it made
the decision democratic. Many politicians liked it because it relieved them of
the burdensome choice. Abolitionists opposed it, however, because ending the
curse of slavery was more important than respecting the will of the people, if
the people chose wrongly.
*The Whigs chose a war hero, ‘Old Rough and Ready’ Zachary Taylor, and avoided
the slavery issue publicly. Taylor, a man with few stated political views (but a
slave-owning Louisiana sugar planter), was promoted as a common man and war hero.
The the Whigs avoided the issue of slavery by presenting no political platform in
the 1848 election.
*To oppose both the supposedly pro-slavery Democrats and the carefully silent
Whigs, anti-slavery Northerners created the Free-Soil Party. Their principal
goal was no slavery in the territories, but they also supported public works,
protective tariffs, and free homesteads for western settlers. They believed in
the dignity of both the free factory worker and the small farmer who were
suffered from competition for money and respect with enslaved blacks, and their
slogan was ‘Free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.’
*Although many ‘conscience Whigs’ opposed to slavery supported the Free Soil
Party, so did a larger number of Democrats who stood by the Free Soil candidate,
Martin van Buren, with the result that Taylor won the election by a narrow
margin.
*In 1848, gold was discovered at John Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento, California.
Soon more and more gold was found throughout Northern California. James K Polk
said "The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such
extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not
corroborated by authentic reports of officers in the public service." A few men
made fortunes mining, and many more made fortunes exploiting the miners—among
them Levi Strauss, who sold his first blue jeans there. Although the total
number of migrants during the gold rush years is uncertain, the non-Indian
population in California increased from 14,000 in 1848 to 223,856 by 1852. This
was more than enough to form a state, and in 1849, a group of Californians,
wanting order in their settlement, drafted at President Taylor’s suggestion a
state constitution that excluded slavery, and applied for admission to the
Union. The South was outraged, and, if it was accepted, the Senate would be
unbalanced.
*In 1850, the South was powerful and prosperous. Cotton production was expanding
while remaining profitable. Southerners dominated the Supreme Court, the
Presidency, and the Cabinet, and the Senate (though not the House) was balanced.
However, there did not seem to be much room on the continent for new slave
states. In fact, the New Mexico and Utah territories had already indicated a
desire to be free states, as had California, even though parts of California and
most of New Mexico lay below the Missouri Compromise line.
*An additional insult was the attempt by abolitionists to end slavery in the
District of Columbia, where it was regarded (by them at least) as a bad
representation of the nation to foreign diplomats, as well as a moral crime. A
free district between slave-holding Virginia and Maryland would also increase the
problem of fugitive slaves.
*Fugitive slaves were another sore point for Southerners. Many slaves,
especially in the upper South, were guided and protected on their way north by
what was called the Underground Railroad. These and other runaways, although
required by a 1793 law to be returned to their masters, rarely were, in part
because Northern officials often would not enforce the law. To some Southerners,
the moral judgments constantly made by the Northerners in their assistance to
runaway slaves was more galling than the theft of valuable property. Although by
1850 the number of slaves who escaped to the North and freedom was probably about
1,000 a year—less than the number who became free legally—the principle of the
thing was too important to ignore—one Southern senator said ‘although the loss of
property is felt, the loss of honor is felt more.’
*In 1850, great issues including California, slavery in the territories, fugitive
slaves, and more threatened the nation with catastrophe. Once more into the
breach strode the three giants of Antebellum politics.
*Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser, diplomat at Ghent, architect of the Missouri
Compromise and the Compromise Tariff of 1832, now seventy-three and suffering
from a terrible cough stood up and with the assistance of the ‘Little Giant,’
Stephen Douglas of Illinois, proposed that both North and South compromise one
more time, each giving up something so that both could co-exist peacefully.
*John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was sixty-eight and dying of tuberculosis.
Calhoun also wanted to hold the Union together, and approved of the purpose of
Clay’s plan, but not its methods. He wanted more safeguards for the South and
for slavery, and for a preservation of the political balance. It later turned
out that he even had a scheme whereby the US would have two presidents—one from
the North and one from the South. However, Calhoun never got to present that
plan, as he died shortly after, even before the debate ended. His last words
were ‘The South! The South! God knows what will become of her.’
*Daniel Webster, sixty-eight and suffering from liver problems, gave his last
great address to the Senate. In order to preserve the Union, he pleaded for as
many concessions as possible to the South, including a new fugitive slave law.
As for slavery, it would fail to expand on its own—the Great American Desert and
the lands beyond the Rocky Mountains were too infertile to support plantations.
Compromise was the only answer. ‘Let us not be pygmies,’ he said, ‘in a case
that calls for men.’ Webster convinced the North and won the day, although
abolitionists, who had long thought him their friend, now considered him a
traitor. In truth, though, he had never trusted the abolitionist movement,
fearing it would split the Union.
*Among these abolitionist opponents was a freshman senator from New York named
William H. Seward, who opposed any concession as a betrayal of Christian
principles on the evil issue of slavery. He appealed to a higher law than the
Constitution, as, to many people’s surprise, did President Taylor.
*Zachary Taylor was a Free Soil man.
was too compromising.
He threatened to veto the compromise if it
*Pro-slavery Southerners, especially the strident younger generation called
‘fire-eaters’ who had come to see slavery as not just a necessary evil, but as a
positive good, preferable to the wage slavery in the Northern factories,
suggested that they might secede from the Union if any concession were made to
the North. Taylor’s opposition to slavery simply made them angrier.
*President Taylor died on 4 July, 1850
*Vice-President Millard Fillmore was a conciliatory man. Although a New Yorker
and no slaveholder, he supported concessions to the South for the sake of the
Union. Shortly afterwards, the Compromise of 1850 was created.
*California entered the Union as a free state, making it 32 to 30 in the Senate.
In return, both the New Mexico and Utah territories, such as they were, were
opened the popular sovereignty—their inhabitants could decide if they were to be
slave or free states when the time came.
*Texas gave up its large area of disputed land, almost a third of the total area
it claimed, and in return got a $10 million credit towards its debts to the
Union.
*Slavery remained legal in the District of Columbia, but the slave trade was
outlawed, an apparently reasonable concession that cleaned up the city, as even
Southerners considered actual slave auctions a bit uncouth, but it was another
step towards the ending of slavery.
*The great concession to the South, which got the short end of the stick on most
of the Compromise, was the Fugitive Slave Act, although that too hurt the South
in the end. The Act not only jailed suspected runaways and tried them without a
jury, it paid the judge more to find against the slave than for him, and could
force local law enforcement officials in the North to help Southern slave
catchers.
*Northerners were offended and disgusted. Many moderates turned against the
South and towards abolitionism. Northerners, even officers of the law, often
refused to assist, and even obstructed Southern slave catchers when they could,
and support for the Underground Railroad grew. Massachusetts even made it
illegal to help the slave catchers or the Federal government in the enforcement
of this Act.
*The Fugitive Slave Act embittered both North and South against one another.
Northerners hated it, and Southerners hated the North for failing to co-operate
in good faith. The Compromise only delayed the Civil War for ten years—long
enough for the North to grow strong enough to win it.