The middle of the last century was marked by many incidents which have
left a permanent impress upon politics in general and upon the slavery
question in particular. Europe was again in the throes of popular
uprisings. New constitutions were adopted in France, Switzerland,
Prussia, and Austria. Reactions in favor of autocracy in Austria and
Germany sent multitudes of lovers of liberty to America. Kossuth, the
Hungarian revolutionist, electrified American audiences by his appeals
on behalf of the downtrodden in Europe. Already the world was growing
smaller. America did not stop at the Pacific but crossed the ocean to
establish permanent political and commercial relations with Japan and
China.
The industries of the country were being reorganized to meet new
conditions created by recent inventions. The electric telegraph was
just coming into use, giving rise to a new era in communication. The
discovery of gold in California in 1848 was followed by competing
projects to construct railroads to the Pacific with Chicago and St.
Louis as the rival eastern terminals. The telegraph, the railway,
and the resulting industrial development proved great nationalizing
influences. They served also to give increased emphasis to the contrast
between the industries of the free and those of the slave States. The
Census of 1850 became an effective anti-slavery argument.
The telegraph also gave new life to the public press. The presidential
campaign of 1848 was the last one in which it was possible to carry on
contradictory arguments in support of the same candidate. If slavery
could not endure the test of untrammeled discussion when there were no
means of rapid intercommunication such as the telegraph supplied, how
could it contend against the revelations of the daily press with the new
type of reporter and interviewer which was now developed?
It is a remarkable coincidence that in the midst of the passing of the
old and the coming in of the new order there should be a change in the
political leadership of the country. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, John Quincy
Adams, not to mention others, all died near the middle of the century,
and their political power passed to younger men. Adams gave his blessing
to a young friend and co-laborer, William H. Seward of New York,
intimating that he expected him to do much to curb the threatening power
of the slaveholding oligarchy; while Andrew Jackson, who died earlier,
had already conferred a like distinction upon young Stephen A. Douglas.
There was no lack of aspirants for the fallen mantles.
John C. Calhoun continued almost to the day of his death to modify his
interpretation of the Constitution in the interest of his section. As
a young man he avowed protectionist principles. Becoming convinced that
slave labor was not suited to manufacture, he urged South Carolina to
declare the protective tariff laws null and void within her limits.
When his section seemed endangered by the distribution of anti-slavery
literature through the mail, he extemporized a theory that each State
had a right to pass statutes to protect itself in such an emergency, in
which case it became the duty of the general Government and of all other
States to respect such laws. When it finally appeared that the territory
acquired from Mexico was likely to remain free, the same statesman made
further discoveries. He found that Congress had no right to exclude
slavery from any Territory belonging to the United States; that the
owners of slaves had equal rights with the owners of other property;
that neither Congress nor a territorial authority had any power
to exclude slaves from a Territory. This doctrine was accepted by
extremists in the South and was finally embodied in the Dred Scott
decision of 1857.
Abolitionists had meantime evolved a precisely contradictory theory.
They asserted that the Constitution gave no warrant for property in man,
except as held under state laws; that with this exception freedom was
guaranteed to all; that Congress had no more right to make a slave than
it had to make a king; and that it was the duty of Congress to maintain
freedom in all the Territories. Extremists expressed the view that all
past acts whereby slavery had been extended were unconstitutional
and therefore void. Between these extreme conflicting views was every
imaginable grade of opinion. The prevailing view of opponents of
slavery, however, was in harmony with their past conduct and maintained
that Congress had complete control over slavery in the Territories.
When the Mexican territory was acquired, Stephen A. Douglas, as the
experienced chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Senate, was
already developing a theory respecting slavery in the Territories
which was destined to play a leading part in the later crusade against
slavery. Douglas was the most thoroughgoing of expansionists and would
acknowledge no northern boundary on this side of the North Pole, no
southern boundary nearer than Panama. He regarded the United States,
with its great principle of local autonomy, as fitted to become
eventually the United States of the whole world, while he held it to be
an immediate duty to make it the United States of North America. As the
son-in-law of a Southern planter in North Carolina, and as the father
of sons who inherited slave property, Douglas, although born in Vermont,
knew the South as did no other Northern statesman. He knew also the
institution of slavery at first hand. As a pronounced expansionist
and as the congressional leader in all matters pertaining to the
Territories, he acquired detailed information as to the qualities of
these new possessions, and he spoke, therefore, with a good degree of
authority when he said, "If there was one inch of territory in the whole
of our acquisitions from Mexico where slavery could exist, it was in the
valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin." But this region was at
once preempted for freedom upon the discovery of gold.
Douglas did not admit that even the whole of Texas would remain
dedicated to slavery. Some of the States to be formed from it would be
free, by the same laws of climate and resources which determined that
the entire West would remain free. Before the Mexican War the Senator
had become convinced that the extension of slavery had reached its
limit; that the Missouri Compromise was a dead letter except as a
psychological palliative; that Nature had already ordained that slave
labor should be forever excluded from all Western territory both north
and south of that line. His reply to Calhoun's contention that a balance
must be maintained between slave and free States was that he had plans
for forming seventeen new States out of the vast Western domains, every
one of which would be free. And besides, said he, "we all look forward
with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky,
and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee will adopt a
gradual system of emancipation." Douglas was one of the first to favor
the admission of California as a free State. According to the Missouri
Compromise law and the laws of Mexico, all Western territory was
free, and he was opposed to interference with existing conditions. The
Missouri Compromise was still held sacred. Finally, however, it was with
Douglas's assistance that the Compromise measures of 1850 were passed,
one of which provided for territorial Governments for Utah and New
Mexico with the proviso that, when admitted as States, slavery should be
permitted or prohibited as the citizens of those States should determine
at the time. Congress refrained from any declaration as to slavery in
the Territories. It was this policy of "non-intervention" which four
years later furnished plausible excuse for the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise.
It was not strange that there was general ignorance in all parts of the
country as to the resources of the newly acquired territory. The rush
to the goldfields precipitated action in respect to California. Before
General Taylor, the newly elected President, was inaugurated, there
was imminent need of an efficient government. An early act of the
Administration was to send an agent to assist in the formation of a
state Government, and a convention was immediately called to frame a
constitution. By unanimous vote of the convention, slavery was excluded.
The constitution was approved by popular vote and was presented to
Congress for final acceptance in December, 1849.
In the meantime a great commotion had arisen among the people. Southern
state legislatures passed resolutions demanding that the rights of their
peculiar institution should be recognized in the new Territory. Northern
legislatures responded with resolutions favoring the admission of
California as a State and the application of the Wilmot Proviso to the
remaining territory. Northern Democrats had very generally denied that
the affair with Mexico had as a chief purpose the extension of slavery.
Democrats therefore united with Whigs in maintaining the principle of
free soil. In the South there was a corresponding fusion of the two
parties in support of the sectional issue.
General concern prevailed as to the attitude of the Administration.
Taylor's election had been effected by both a Southern and a Northern
split in the Democratic party. Northern Democrats had voted for the
Free-soil candidate because of the alleged pro-slavery tendencies of
their own party. Southern Democrats voted for Taylor because of their
distrust of Lewis Cass, their own candidate. Some of these met in
convention and formally nominated Taylor, and Taylor accepted their
nomination with thanks. Northern anti-slavery Whigs had a difficult task
to keep their members in line. There is evidence that Taylor held the
traditional Southern view that the anti-slavery North was disposed
to encroach upon the rights of the South. Meeting fewer Northern
Whig supporters, he became convinced that the more active spirit of
encroachment was in the pro-slavery South. California needed a state
Government, and the President took the most direct method to supply
that need. As the inhabitants were unanimous in their desire to exclude
slavery, their wish should be respected. New Mexico was in a similar
situation. As slavery was already excluded from the territory under
Mexican law, and as there was no wish on the part of the inhabitants to
introduce slavery, the President recognized existing facts and made
no change. When Southern leaders projected a scheme to enlarge the
boundaries of Texas so as to extend slavery over a large part of New
Mexico, President Taylor set a guard of United States troops to maintain
the integrity of the Territory. When a deputation of Southern Whigs
endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose, threatening a dissolution
of the Union and intimating that army officers would refuse to act
against citizens of Texas, the soldier President replied that in such an
event he would take command in person and would hang any one caught in
acts of treason. When Henry Clay introduced an elaborate project for a
compromise between the North and the South, the President insisted
that each question should be settled on its own merits and directed the
forces of the Administration against any sort of compromise. The debate
over Clay's Omnibus Bill was long and acrimonious. On July 4, 1850,
the President seemed triumphant. But upon that day, notwithstanding his
apparent robust health, he was stricken down with an acute disease and
died five days later. With his passing, the opposing Whig faction came
into power. The so-called compromise measures were at length one by one
passed by Congress and approved by President Fillmore.
California was admitted as a free State; but as a palliative to the
South, Congress passed bills for the organization of territorial
Governments for New Mexico and Utah without positive declarations
regarding the powers of the territorial Legislatures over slavery. All
questions relating to title to slaves were to be left to the courts.
Meantime it was left in doubt whether Mexican law excluding slavery was
still in force. Southern malcontents maintained that this act was a
mere hoax, using words which suggested concession when no concession was
intended. Northern anti-slavery men criticized the act as the entering
wedge for another great surrender to the enemy. Because of the
uncertainty regarding the meaning of the law and the false hopes likely
to be created, they maintained that it was fitted to foment discord and
prolong the period of distrust between the two sections. At all events
such was its actual effect.
A third act in this unhappy series gave to Texas ten millions of dollars
for the alleged surrender of claims to a part of New Mexico. This had
little bearing on the general subject of compromise; yet anti-slavery
men criticized it on the ground that the issue raised was insincere;
that the appropriation was in fact a bribe to secure votes necessary to
pass the other measures; that the bill was passed through Congress
by shameless bribery, and that even the boundaries conceded to Texas
involved the surrender of free territory.
The abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia was
supported by both sections of the country. The removal of the slave
pens within sight of the Capitol to a neighboring city deprived the
abolitionists of one of their weapons for effective agitation, but it
did not otherwise affect the position of slavery.
Of the five acts included in the compromise measures, the one which
provided for the return of fugitive slaves was most effective in the
promotion of hostility between the two sections. During the six months
of debate on the Omnibus Bill, numerous bills were presented to take the
place of the law of 1793. Webster brought forward a bill which provided
for the use of a jury to establish the validity of a claim to an escaped
slave. But that which was finally adopted by a worn-out Congress is
characterized as one of the most barbarous pieces of legislation ever
enacted by a civilized country. A single incident may indicate the
nature of the act. James Hamlet, for three years a resident of New York
City, a husband and a father and a member of the Methodist Church, was
seized eight days after the law went into effect by order of the agent
of Mary Brown of Baltimore, cut off from all communication with his
friends, hurried before a commissioner, and on ex parte testimony was
delivered into the hands of the agent, by whom he was handcuffed and
secretly conveyed to Baltimore. Mr. Rhodes accounts for the enactment
in the following words: "If we look below the surface we shall find a
strong impelling motive of the Southern clamor for this harsh enactment
other than the natural desire to recover lost property. Early in the
session it took air that a part of the game of the disunionists was to
press a stringent fugitive slave law, for which no Northern man could
vote; and when it was defeated, the North would be charged with refusal
to carry out a stipulation of the Constitution.... The admission of
California was a bitter pill for the Southern ultras, but they were
forced to take it. The Fugitive Slave Law was a taunt and a reproach to
that part of the North where the anti-slavery sentiment ruled supremely,
and was deemed a partial compensation." Clay expressed surprise that
States from which few slaves escaped demanded a more stringent law than
Kentucky, from which many escaped.
Whatever may have been the motives leading to the enactment, its
immediate effect was the elimination of one of the great national
parties, thus paving the way for the formation of parties along
sectional lines. Two years after the passage of the compromise acts the
Democratic national convention assembled to nominate a candidate for
the Presidency. The platform adopted by the party promised a faithful
execution of the acts known as the compromise measures and added "the
act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor included; which act,
being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution,
cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed nor so changed as to destroy
or impair its efficiency." When this was read, the convention broke out
in uproarious applause. Then there was a demand that it should be read
again. Again there was loud applause.
Why was there this demand that a law which every one knew had proved a
complete failure should be made a permanent part of the Constitution?
And why the ungovernable hilarity over the demand that its "efficiency"
should never be impaired? Surely the motive was something other than a
desire to recover lost property. Upon the Whig party had been fastened
the odium for the enactment of the law, and the act unrepealed meant the
death of the party. The Democrats saw good reason for laughter.