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18

Renewing theSectional Struggle

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1848–1854

Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle.

DANIEL WEBSTER,SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH, 1850

The year 1848, highlighted by a rash of revolu-tions in Europe, was filled with unrest in Amer-

ica. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo had officiallyended the war with Mexico, but it had initiated a new and perilous round of political warfare in the United States. The vanquished Mexicans hadbeen forced to relinquish an enormous tract of real estate, including Texas, California, and all thearea between. The acquisition of this huge domainraised anew the burning issue of extending slaveryinto the territories.

Northern antislaveryites had rallied behind theWilmot Proviso, which flatly prohibited slavery inany territory acquired in the Mexican War. Southernsenators had blocked the passage of the proviso, butthe issue would not die. Ominously, debate overslavery in the area of the Mexican Cession threat-ened to disrupt the ranks of both Whigs and Demo-crats and split national politics along North-Southsectional lines.

The Popular Sovereignty Panacea

Each of the two great political parties was a vitalbond of national unity, for each enjoyed powerfulsupport in both North and South. If they should bereplaced by two purely sectional groupings, theUnion would be in peril. To politicians, the wiseststrategy seemed to be to sit on the lid of the slaveryissue and ignore the boiling beneath. Even so, thecover bobbed up and down ominously in responseto the agitation of zealous northern abolitionistsand impassioned southern “fire-eaters.’’

Anxious Democrats were forced to seek a newstandard-bearer in 1848. President Polk, broken inhealth by overwork and chronic diarrhea, hadpledged himself to a single term. The DemocraticNational Convention at Baltimore turned to anaging leader, General Lewis Cass, a veteran of theWar of 1812. Although a senator and diplomat of

wide experience and considerable ability, he wassour-visaged and somewhat pompous. His enemiesdubbed him General “Gass’’ and quickly noted thatCass rhymed with jackass. The Democratic plat-form, in line with the lid-sitting strategy, was silenton the burning issue of slavery in the territories.

But Cass himself had not been silent. His viewson the extension of slavery were well knownbecause he was the reputed father of “popular sov-ereignty.’’ This was the doctrine that stated that thesovereign people of a territory, under the generalprinciples of the Constitution, should themselvesdetermine the status of slavery.

Popular sovereignty had a persuasive appeal.The public liked it because it accorded with thedemocratic tradition of self-determination. Politi-cians liked it because it seemed a comfortable com-promise between the abolitionist bid for a ban onslavery in the territories and southern demands thatCongress protect slavery in the territories. Popularsovereignty tossed the slavery problem into the lapsof the people in the various territories. Advocates ofthe principle thus hoped to dissolve the most stub-born national issue of the day into a series of localissues. Yet popular sovereignty had one fatal defect:it might serve to spread the blight of slavery.

Political Triumphs for General Taylor

The Whigs, meeting in Philadelphia, cashed in onthe “Taylor fever.’’ They nominated frank and honestZachary Taylor, the “Hero of Buena Vista,’’ who hadnever held civil office or even voted for president.Henry Clay, the living embodiment of Whiggism,should logically have been nominated. But Clay hadmade too many speeches—and too many enemies.

As usual, the Whigs pussyfooted in their plat-form. Eager to win at any cost, they dodged all trou-blesome issues and merely extolled the homespunvirtues of their candidate. The self-reliant old fron-tier fighter had not committed himself on the issueof slavery extension. But as a wealthy resident ofLouisiana, living on a sugar plantation, he ownedscores of slaves.

Ardent antislavery men in the North, distrustingboth Cass and Taylor, organized the Free Soil party.Aroused by the conspiracy of silence in the Demo-cratic and Whig platforms, the Free-Soilers made no bones about their own stand. They came out

foursquare for the Wilmot Proviso and against slav-ery in the territories. Going beyond other antislav-ery groups, they broadened their appeal byadvocating federal aid for internal improvementsand by urging free government homesteads for settlers.

The new party assembled a strange assortmentof new fellows in the same political bed. It attractedindustrialists miffed at Polk’s reduction of protectivetariffs. It appealed to Democrats resentful of Polk’ssettling for part of Oregon while insisting on all of Texas—a disparity that suggested a menacingsouthern dominance in the Democratic party. It harbored many northerners whose hatred wasdirected not so much at slavery as at blacks and

The Popular Sovereignty Doctrine 391

who gagged at the prospect of sharing the newly acquired western territories with African-Americans. It also contained a large element of“conscience Whigs,’’ heavily influenced by the aboli-tionist crusade, who condemned slavery on moralgrounds. The Free-Soilers trotted out wizened for-mer president Van Buren and marched into the fray,shouting, “Free soil, free speech, free labor, and freemen.” These freedoms provided the bedrock onwhich the Free-Soilers built their party. Free-Soilerscondemned slavery not so much for enslavingblacks but for destroying the chances of free whiteworkers to rise up from wage-earning dependenceto the esteemed status of self-employment. Free-Soilers argued that only with free soil in the Westcould a traditional American commitment toupward mobility continue to flourish. If forced tocompete with slave labor, more costly wage laborwould inevitably wither away, and with it thechance for the American worker to own property. Asthe first widely inclusive party organized around theissue of slavery and confined to a single section, the Free Soil party foreshadowed the emergence ofthe Republican party six years later.

With the slavery issue officially shoved underthe rug by the two major parties, the politicians onboth sides opened fire on personalities. The ama-teurish Taylor had to be carefully watched, lest hisindiscreet pen puncture the reputation won by hissword. His admirers puffed him up as a gallantknight and a Napoleon, and sloganized his remark,allegedly uttered during the Battle of Buena Vista,“General Taylor never surrenders.’’ Taylor’s wartimepopularity pulled him through. He harvested1,360,967 popular and 163 electoral votes, as com-pared with Cass’s 1,222,342 popular and 127 elec-toral votes. Free-Soiler Van Buren, although winningno state, polled 291,263 ballots and apparentlydiverted enough Democratic strength from Cass inthe crucial state of New York to throw the election toTaylor.

“Californy Gold’’

Tobacco-chewing President Taylor—with hisstumpy legs, rough features, heavy jaw, black hair,ruddy complexion, and squinty gray eyes—was amilitary square peg in a political round hole. Hewould have been spared much turmoil if he couldhave continued to sit on the slavery lid. But the dis-

covery of gold in California, early in 1848, blew thecover off.

A horde of adventurers poured into the valleysof California. Singing “O Susannah!’’ and shouting“Gold! Gold! Gold!’’ they began tearing frantically atthe yellow-graveled streams and hills. A fortunatefew of the bearded miners “struck it rich’’ at the “dig-gings.’’ But the luckless many, who netted blistersinstead of nuggets, probably would have beenmoney well ahead if they had stayed at home unaf-fected by the “gold fever,’’ which was often followedby more deadly fevers. The most reliable profitswere made by those who mined the miners, notablyby charging outrageous rates for laundry and otherpersonal services. Some soiled clothing was evensent as far away as the Hawaiian Islands for washing.

392 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

California Gold Rush Country Miners from all over theworld swarmed over the rivers that drained the western slopeof California’s Sierra Nevada. Their nationalities and religions,their languages and their ways of life, are recorded in thecolorful place names they left behind.

The overnight inpouring of tens of thousands ofpeople into the future Golden State completelyoverwhelmed the one-horse government of Califor-nia. A distressingly high proportion of the newcom-ers were lawless men, accompanied or followed byvirtueless women. A contemporary song ran,

Oh what was your name in the States?Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?Did you murder your wife,And fly for your life?Say, what was your name in the States?

An outburst of crime inevitably resulted fromthe presence of so many miscreants and outcasts.Robbery, claim jumping, and murder were com-monplace, and such violence was only partly discouraged by rough vigilante justice. In San Fran-cisco, from 1848 to 1856, there were scores of law-less killings but only three semilegal hangings.

A majority of Californians, as decent and law-abiding citizens needing protection, grappledearnestly with the problem of erecting an adequatestate government. Privately encouraged by Presi-dent Taylor, they drafted a constitution in 1849 thatexcluded slavery and then boldly applied to Con-gress for admission. California would thus bypassthe usual territorial stage, thwarting southern con-gressmen seeking to block free soil. Southern politi-cians, alarmed by the Californians’ “impertinent’’stroke for freedom, arose in violent opposition.Would California prove to be the golden straw thatbroke the back of the Union?

The California Gold Rush 393

The idea that many ne’er-do-wells went westis found in the Journals (January 1849) ofRalph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882):

“If a man is going to California, he announcesit with some hesitation; because it is aconfession that he has failed at home.”

A married woman wrote from the Californiagoldfields to her sister in New England in1853,

“i tell you the woman are in great demand inthis country no matter whether they aremarried or not you need not think strangeif you see me coming home with some goodlooking man some of these times with apocket full of rocks. . . . it is all the go herefor Ladys to leave there Husbands two outof three do it there is a first rate Chancefor a single woman she can have her choiceof thousands i wish mother was here shecould marry a rich man and not have to lifther hand to do her work. . . .”

394 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

Sectional Balanceand the Underground Railroad

The South of 1850 was relatively well-off. It thenenjoyed, as it had from the beginning, more than itsshare of the nation’s leadership. It had seated in theWhite House the war hero Zachary Taylor, a Virginia-born, slaveowning planter from Louisiana.It boasted a majority in the cabinet and on theSupreme Court. If outnumbered in the House, theSouth had equality in the Senate, where it could atleast neutralize northern maneuvers. Its cottonfields were expanding, and cotton prices were prof-itably high. Few sane people, North or South,believed that slavery was seriously threatenedwhere it already existed below the Mason-Dixonline. The fifteen slave states could easily veto anyproposed constitutional amendment.

Yet the South was deeply worried, as it had beenfor several decades, by the ever-tipping political bal-ance. There were then fifteen slave states and fifteenfree states. The admission of California woulddestroy the delicate equilibrium in the Senate, per-haps forever. Potential slave territory under theAmerican flag was running short, if it had not in fact

disappeared. Agitation had already developed in theterritories of New Mexico and Utah for admission asnonslave states. The fate of California might wellestablish a precedent for the rest of the MexicanCession territory—an area purchased largely withsouthern blood.

Texas nursed an additional grievance of its own.It claimed a huge area east of the Rio Grande andnorth to the forty-second parallel, embracing in partabout half the territory of present-day New Mexico.The federal government was proposing to detachthis prize, while hot-blooded Texans were threaten-ing to descend upon Santa Fe and seize what theyregarded as rightfully theirs. The explosive quarrelforeshadowed shooting.

Many southerners were also angered by thenagging agitation in the North for the abolition ofslavery in the District of Columbia. They lookedwith alarm on the prospect of a ten-mile-squareoasis of free soil thrust between slaveholding Mary-land and slaveholding Virginia.

Even more disagreeable to the South was theloss of runaway slaves, many of whom were assistednorth by the Underground Railroad. This virtualfreedom train consisted of an informal chain of “stations’’ (antislavery homes), through which

scores of “passengers’’ (runaway slaves) were spir-ited by “conductors’’ (usually white and black abo-litionists) from the slave states to the free-soilsanctuary of Canada.

The most amazing of these “conductors’’ was anilliterate runaway slave from Maryland, fearlessHarriet Tubman. During nineteen forays into theSouth, she rescued more than three hundred slaves,including her aged parents, and deservedly earnedthe title “Moses.’’ Lively imaginations later exagger-ated the role of the Underground Railroad and its“stationmasters,’’ but its existence was a fact.

By 1850 southerners were demanding a newand more stringent fugitive-slave law. The old one,passed by Congress in 1793, had proved inadequateto cope with runaways, especially since unfriendlystate authorities failed to provide needed coopera-tion. Unlike cattle thieves, the abolitionists who ranthe Underground Railroad did not gain personallyfrom their lawlessness. But to the slaveowners, theloss was infuriating, whatever the motives. Themoral judgments of the abolitionists seemed, insome ways, more galling than outright theft. They

reflected not only a holier-than-thou attitude but a refusal to obey the laws solemnly passed by Congress.

Estimates indicate that the South in 1850 waslosing perhaps 1,000 runaways a year out of its totalof some 4 million slaves. In fact, more blacks proba-bly gained their freedom by self-purchase or volun-tary emancipation than ever escaped. But theprinciple weighed heavily with the slavemasters.They rested their argument on the Constitution,which protected slavery, and on the laws of Con-gress, which provided for slave-catching. “Althoughthe loss of property is felt,’’ said a southern senator,“the loss of honor is felt still more.’’

Southern Anxieties 395

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Twilight of the Senatorial Giants

Southern fears were such that Congress was con-fronted with catastrophe in 1850. Free-soil Califor-nia was banging on the door for admission, and“fire-eaters’’ in the South were voicing ominousthreats of secession. The crisis brought into the con-gressional forum the most distinguished assem-blage of statesmen since the ConstitutionalConvention of 1787—the Old Guard of the dyinggeneration and the young gladiators of the new.That “immortal trio’’—Clay, Calhoun, and Web-ster—appeared together for the last time on thepublic stage.

Henry Clay, now seventy-three years of age,played a crucial role. The “Great Pacificator’’ hadcome to the Senate from Kentucky to engineer histhird great compromise. The once-glamorousstatesman—though disillusioned, enfeebled, andracked by a cruel cough—was still eloquent, concil-iatory, and captivating. He proposed and skillfullydefended a series of compromises. He was ably sec-onded by thirty-seven-year-old Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the “Little Giant’’ (five feet four inches), whose role was less spectacular buteven more important. Clay urged with all his per-suasiveness that the North and South both makeconcessions and that the North partially yield byenacting a more feasible fugitive-slave law.

Senator John C. Calhoun, the “Great Nullifier,”then sixty-eight and dying of tuberculosis, champi-oned the South in his last formal speech. Too weak

to deliver it himself, he sat bundled up in the Senatechamber, his eyes glowing within a stern face, whilea younger colleague read his fateful words. Althoughapproving the purpose of Clay’s proposed conces-sions, Calhoun rejected them as not providing ade-quate safeguards. His impassioned plea was to leaveslavery alone, return runaway slaves, give the Southits rights as a minority, and restore the political bal-ance. He had in view, as was later revealed, anutterly unworkable scheme of electing two presi-dents, one from the North and one from the South,each wielding a veto.

Calhoun died in 1850, before the debate wasover, murmuring the sad words, “The South! TheSouth! God knows what will become of her!’’ Appre-ciative fellow citizens in Charleston erected to hismemory an imposing monument, which bore theinscription “Truth, Justice, and the Constitution.’’Calhoun had labored to preserve the Union and hadtaken his stand on the Constitution, but his propos-als in their behalf almost undid both.

Daniel Webster next took the Senate spotlight touphold Clay’s compromise measures in his lastgreat speech, a three-hour effort. Now sixty-eightyears old and suffering from a liver complaintaggravated by high living, he had lost some of thefire in his magnificent voice. Speaking deliberatelyand before overflowing galleries, he urged all rea-sonable concessions to the South, including a newfugitive-slave law with teeth.

As for slavery in the territories, asked Webster,why legislate on the subject? To do so was an act ofsacrilege, for Almighty God had already passed theWilmot Proviso. The good Lord had decreed—through climate, topography, and geography—thata plantation economy, and hence a slave economy,could not profitably exist in the Mexican Cessionterritory.* Webster sanely concluded that compro-mise, concession, and sweet reasonableness wouldprovide the only solutions. “Let us not be pygmies,’’he pleaded, “in a case that calls for men.’’

If measured by its immediate effects, Webster’sfamed Seventh of March speech, 1850, was hisfinest. It helped turn the tide in the North towardcompromise. The clamor for printed copies becameso great that Webster mailed out more than 100,000,remarking that 200,000 would not satisfy thedemand. His tremendous effort visibly strength-

396 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

*Webster was wrong here; within one hundred years, Californiahad become one of the great cotton-producing states of theUnion.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher andmoderate abolitionist, was outraged byWebster’s support of concessions to the Southin the Fugitive Slave Act. In February 1851 hewrote in his Journal,

“I opened a paper to-day in which he [Web-ster] pounds on the old strings [of liberty] ina letter to the Washington Birthday feastersat New York. ‘Liberty! liberty!’ Pho! Let Mr.Webster, for decency’s sake, shut his lips onceand forever on this word. The word liberty inthe mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like theword love in the mouth of a courtesan.”

ened Union sentiment. It was especially pleasing tothe banking and commercial centers of the North,which stood to lose millions of dollars by secession.One prominent Washington banker canceled twonotes of Webster’s, totaling $5,000, and sent him a personal check for $1,000 and a message of congratulations.

But the abolitionists, who had assumed Websterwas one of them, upbraided him as a traitor, worthyof bracketing with Benedict Arnold. The poet Whit-tier lamented,

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawnWhich once he wore!

The glory from his gray hairs goneFor evermore!

These reproaches were most unfair. Webster, whohad long regarded slavery as evil but disunion asworse, had, in fact, always despised the abolitionistsand never joined their ranks.

Deadlock and Danger on Capitol Hill

The stormy congressional debate of 1850 was notfinished, for the Young Guard from the North wereyet to have their say. This was the group of newerleaders who, unlike the aging Old Guard, had notgrown up with the Union. They were more inter-ested in purging and purifying it than in patchingand preserving it.

William H. Seward, the wiry and husky-throatedfreshman senator from New York, was the ablespokesman for many of the younger northern radi-cals. A strong antislaveryite, he came out unequivo-cally against concession. He seemed not to realizethat compromise had brought the Union together

and that when the sections could no longer com-promise, they would have to part company.

Seward argued earnestly that Christian legisla-tors must obey God’s moral law as well as man’smundane law. He therefore appealed, with refer-ence to excluding slavery in the territories, to aneven “higher law’’ than the Constitution. Thisalarming phrase, wrenched from its context, mayhave cost him the presidential nomination and thepresidency in 1860.

The Compromise of 1850 397

Compromise of 1850

Concessions to the North Concessions to the South

California admitted as a free state The remainder of the Mexican Cession area to beformed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah,without restriction on slavery, hence open to popularsovereignty

Territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico to be Texas to receive $10 million from the federal

surrendered to New Mexico government as compensation

Abolition of the slave trade (but not slavery) in the A more stringent fugitive-slave law, going beyond that

District of Columbia of 1793

As the great debate in Congress ran its heatedcourse, deadlock seemed certain. Blunt old Presi-dent Taylor, who had allegedly fallen under theinfluence of men like “Higher Law’’ Seward, seemedbent on vetoing any compromise passed by Con-gress. His military ire was aroused by the threats ofTexas to seize Santa Fe. He appeared to be doggedlydetermined to “Jacksonize’’ the dissenters, if needbe, by leading an army against the Texans in personand hanging all “damned traitors.’’ If troops hadbegun to march, the South probably would have ral-lied to the defense of Texas, and the Civil War mighthave erupted in 1850.

Breaking the Congressional Logjam

At the height of the controversy in 1850, PresidentTaylor unknowingly helped the cause of concessionby dying suddenly, probably of an acute intestinaldisorder. Portly, round-faced Vice President MillardFillmore, a colorless and conciliatory New Yorklawyer-politician, took over the reins. As presidingofficer of the Senate, he had been impressed withthe arguments for conciliation, and he gladly signedthe series of compromise measures that passedCongress after seven long months of stormy debate.The balancing of interests in the Compromise of1850 was delicate in the extreme.

The struggle to get these measures accepted bythe country was hardly less heated than in Congress.In the northern states, “Union savers’’ like SenatorsClay, Webster, and Douglas orated on behalf of thecompromise. The ailing Clay himself delivered morethan seventy speeches, as a powerful sentiment foracceptance gradually crystallized in the North. Itwas strengthened by a growing spirit of goodwill,which sprang partly from a feeling of relief andpartly from an upsurge of prosperity enriched byCalifornia gold.

But the “fire-eaters’’ of the South were still vio-lently opposed to concessions. One extreme SouthCarolina newspaper avowed that it loathed theUnion and hated the North as much as it did Hellitself. A movement in the South to boycott northerngoods gained some headway, but in the end thesouthern Unionists, assisted by the warm glow ofprosperity, prevailed.

In mid-1850 an assemblage of southern extrem-ists had met in Nashville, Tennessee, ironically near

the burial place of Andrew Jackson. The delegatesnot only took a strong position in favor of slaverybut condemned the compromise measures thenbeing hammered out in Congress. Meeting againlater in the year after the bills had passed, the con-vention proved to be a dud. By that time southernopinion had reluctantly accepted the verdict ofCongress.

Like the calm after a storm, a second Era ofGood Feelings dawned. Disquieting talk of seces-sion subsided. Peace-loving people, both North andSouth, were determined that the compromisesshould be a “finality’’ and that the explosive issue ofslavery should be buried. But this placid period ofreason proved all too brief.

Balancing the Compromise Scales

Who got the better deal in the Compromise of 1850?The answer is clearly the North. California, as a freestate, tipped the Senate balance permanentlyagainst the South. The territories of New Mexicoand Utah were open to slavery on the basis of popu-lar sovereignty. But the iron law of nature—the“highest law’’ of all—had loaded the dice in favor offree soil. The southerners urgently needed moreslave territory to restore the “sacred balance.’’ If theycould not carve new states out of the recent con-quests from Mexico, where else might they getthem? In the Caribbean was one answer.

Even the apparent gains of the South rang hol-low. Disgruntled Texas was to be paid $10 milliontoward discharging its indebtedness, but in the longrun this was a modest sum. The immense area indispute had been torn from the side of slaveholdingTexas and was almost certain to be free. The Southhad halted the drive toward abolition in the Districtof Columbia, at least temporarily, by permitting theoutlawing of the slave trade in the federal district.But even this move was an entering wedge towardcomplete emancipation in the nation’s capital.

Most alarming of all, the drastic new FugitiveSlave Law of 1850—“the Bloodhound Bill’’—stirredup a storm of opposition in the North. The fleeingslaves could not testify in their own behalf, and theywere denied a jury trial. These harsh practices, somecitizens feared, threatened to create dangerousprecedents for white Americans. The federal com-missioner who handled the case of a fugitive would

398 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

receive five dollars if the runaway were freed andten dollars if not—an arrangement that stronglyresembled a bribe. Freedom-loving northernerswho aided the slave to escape were liable to heavyfines and jail sentences. They might even be orderedto join the slave-catchers, and this possibilityrubbed salt into old sores.

So savage was this “Man-Stealing Law’’ that ittouched off an explosive chain reaction in the North.Many shocked moderates, hitherto passive, weredriven into the swelling ranks of the antislaveryites.When a runaway slave from Virginia was captured inBoston in 1854, he had to be removed from the cityunder heavy federal guard through streets lined with

The Fugitive Slave Law 399

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Slavery After the Compromise of 1850 Regarding the FugitiveSlave Act provisions of the Com-promise of 1850, Ralph WaldoEmerson declared (May 1851) atConcord, Massachusetts, “The actof Congress . . . is a law whichevery one of you will break on theearliest occasion—a law which noman can obey, or abet the obey-ing, without loss of self-respectand forfeiture of the name ofgentleman.” Privately he wrote inhis Journal, “This filthy enact-ment was made in the nineteenthcentury, by people who could read and write. I will not obey it,by God.”

sullen Yankees and shadowed by black-drapedbuildings festooned with flags flying upside down.One prominent Bostonian who witnessed this grimspectacle wrote that “we went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigsand waked up stark mad Abolitionists.’’

The Underground Railroad stepped up itstimetable, and infuriated northern mobs rescuedslaves from their pursuers. Massachusetts, in amove toward nullification suggestive of South Car-olina in 1832, made it a penal offense for any stateofficial to enforce the new federal statute. Otherstates passed “personal liberty laws,’’ which deniedlocal jails to federal officials and otherwise ham-pered enforcement. The abolitionists rent the heav-ens with their protests against the man-stealingstatute. A meeting presided over by William LloydGarrison in 1851 declared, “We execrate it, we spitupon it, we trample it under our feet.’’

Beyond question, the Fugitive Slave Law was anappalling blunder on the part of the South. No sin-gle irritant of the 1850s was more persistently

galling to both sides, and none did more to awakenin the North a spirit of antagonism against theSouth. The southerners in turn were embitteredbecause the northerners would not in good faithexecute the law—the one real and immediatesouthern “gain’’ from the Great Compromise. Slave-catchers, with some success, redoubled their efforts.

Should the shooting showdown have come in1850? From the standpoint of the secessionists, yes;from the standpoint of the Unionists, no. Time wasfighting for the North. With every passing decade,this huge section was forging further ahead in pop-ulation and wealth—in crops, factories, foundries,ships, and railroads.

Delay also added immensely to the moralstrength of the North—to its will to fight for theUnion. In 1850 countless thousands of northernmoderates were unwilling to pin the South to therest of the nation with bayonets. But the inflamma-tory events of the 1850s did much to bolster the Yan-kee will to resist secession, whatever the cost. Thisone feverish decade gave the North time to accumu-

400 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

The Legal Status of Slavery, from the Revolution to the Civil War

late the material and moral strength that providedthe margin of victory. Thus the Compromise of1850, from one point of view, won the Civil War forthe Union.

Defeat and Doom for the Whigs

Meeting in Baltimore, the Democratic nominatingconvention of 1852 startled the nation. Hopelesslydeadlocked, it finally stampeded to the second “dark-horse’’ candidate in American history, anunrenowned lawyer-politician, Franklin Pierce,from the hills of New Hampshire. The Whigs tried tojeer him back into obscurity with the cry, “Who isFrank Pierce?’’ Democrats replied, “The Young Hick-ory of the Granite Hills.’’

Pierce was a weak and indecisive figure.Youngish, handsome, militarily erect, smiling, andconvivial, he had served without real distinction inthe Mexican War. As a result of a painful groin injurythat caused him to fall off a horse, he was known asthe “Fainting General,’’ though scandalmongerspointed to a fondness for alcohol. But he was ene-myless because he had been inconspicuous, and asa prosouthern northerner, he was acceptable to theslavery wing of the Democratic party. His platformcame out emphatically for the finality of the Com-promise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law and all.

The Whigs, also convening in Baltimore, misseda splendid opportunity to capitalize on their recordin statecraft. Able to boast of a praiseworthyachievement in the Compromise of 1850, theymight logically have nominated President Fillmoreor Senator Webster, both of whom were associatedwith it. But having won in the past only with militaryheroes, they turned to another, “Old Fuss and Feath-ers’’ Winfield Scott, perhaps the ablest Americangeneral of his generation. Although he was a hugeand impressive figure, his manner bordered onhaughtiness. His personality not only repelled themasses but eclipsed his genuinely statesmanlikeachievements. The Whig platform praised the Com-promise of 1850 as a lasting arrangement, thoughless enthusiastically than the Democrats.

With slavery and sectionalism to some extentsoft-pedaled, the campaign again degenerated intoa dull and childish attack on personalities. Demo-crats ridiculed Scott’s pomposity; Whigs chargedthat Pierce was the hero of “many a well-fought

bottle.’’ Democrats cried exultantly, “We Polked ’emin ’44; we’ll Pierce ’em in ’52.’’

Luckily for the Democrats, the Whig party washopelessly split. Antislavery Whigs of the Northswallowed Scott as their nominee but deplored hisplatform, which endorsed the hated Fugitive SlaveLaw. The current phrase ran, “We accept the candi-date but spit on the platform.’’ Southern Whigs, whodoubted Scott’s loyalty to the Compromise of 1850and especially the Fugitive Slave Law, accepted theplatform but spat on the candidate. More than fivethousand Georgia Whigs—“finality men’’—voted invain for Webster, although he had died nearly twoweeks before the election.

General Scott, victorious on the battlefield, metdefeat at the ballot box. His friends remarked whim-sically that he was not used to “running.’’ Actually,he was stabbed in the back by his fellow Whigs,notably in the South. The pliant Pierce won in alandslide, 254 electoral votes to 42, although thepopular count was closer, 1,601,117 to 1,385,453.

The election of 1852 was fraught with frighten-ing significance, though it may have seemed tame atthe time. It marked the effective end of the disor-ganized Whig party and, within a few years, its com-plete death. The Whigs’ demise augured the eclipseof national parties and the worrisome rise of purelysectional political alignments. The Whigs were gov-erned at times by the crassest opportunism, andthey won only two presidential elections (1840,1848) in their colorful career, both with war heroes.They finally choked to death trying to swallow thedistasteful Fugitive Slave Law. But their great con-tribution—and a noteworthy one indeed—was to help uphold the ideal of the Union through theirelectoral strength in the South and through the eloquence of leaders like Henry Clay and DanielWebster. Both of these statesmen, by unhappy coin-cidence, died during the 1852 campaign. But thegood they had done lived after them and con-tributed powerfully to the eventual preservation of aunited United States.

President Pierce the Expansionist

At the outset the Pierce administration displayedvigor. The new president, standing confidentlybefore some fifteen thousand people on inaugura-tion day, delivered from memory a clear-voiced

The Election of 1852 401

inaugural address. His cabinet contained aggressivesoutherners, including as secretary of war one Jef-ferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy.The people of Dixie were determined to acquiremore slave territory, and the compliant Pierce wasprepared to be their willing tool.

The intoxicating victories of the Mexican Warstimulated the spirit of Manifest Destiny. The con-quest of a Pacific frontage, and the discovery of goldon it, aroused lively interest in the transisthmianland routes of Central America, chiefly in Panamaand Nicaragua. Many Americans were looking evenfurther ahead to potential canal routes and to theislands flanking them, notably Spain’s Cuba.

These visions especially fired the ambitions ofthe “slavocrats.’’ They lusted for new territory afterthe Compromise of 1850 seemingly closed most of the lands of the Mexican Cession to the “peculiarinstitution.’’ In 1856 a Texan proposed a toast thatwas drunk with gusto: “To the Southern republicbounded on the north by the Mason and Dixon lineand on the South by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec[southern Mexico], including Cuba and all otherlands on our Southern shore.’’

Southerners took a special interest in Nicaragua.A brazen American adventurer, William Walker, triedrepeatedly to grab control of this Central Americancountry in the 1850s. (He had earlier attempted and

failed to seize Baja California from Mexico and turnit into a slave state.) Backed by an armed forcerecruited largely in the South, he installed himself aspresident in July 1856 and promptly legalized slav-ery. One southern newspaper proclaimed to theplanter aristocracy that Walker—the “gray-eyed manof destiny’’—“now offers Nicaragua to you and yourslaves, at a time when you have not a friend on theface of the earth.’’ But a coalition of Central Ameri-can nations formed an alliance to overthrow him.President Pierce withdrew diplomatic recognition,and the gray-eyed man’s destiny was to crumplebefore a Honduran firing squad in 1860.

Nicaragua was also of vital concern to GreatBritain, the world’s leading maritime and commer-cial power. Fearing that the grasping Yankees wouldmonopolize the trade arteries there, the Britishmade haste to secure a solid foothold at Greytown,the eastern end of the proposed Nicaraguan canalroute. This challenge to the Monroe Doctrine forth-with raised the ugly possibility of an armed clash.The crisis was surmounted in 1850 by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which stipulated that neither Amer-ica nor Britain would fortify or secure exclusivecontrol over any future isthmian waterway. Thisagreement, at the time, seemed necessary to haltthe British, but to American canal promoters in lateryears, it proved to be a ball and chain.

402 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

Caribbean Sea

Gulf ofMexico

PACIFIC OCEAN

Isthmus of�Tehuantepec

NICARAGUA

HONDURAS

BELIZE�(BRITISH�HONDURAS)

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CUBA�(Spanish)

JAMAICA�(British)

Proposed canal route,then a land-and-water route

FuturePanama Canal

British agents and tradersinfluence natives

Greytown

Central America, c. 1850, ShowingBritish Possessions and ProposedCanal Routes Until PresidentTheodore Roosevelt swung into actionwith his big stick in 1903, a Nicaraguancanal, closer to the United States, wasgenerally judged more desirable than a canal across Panama.

America had become a Pacific power with theacquisition of California and Oregon, both of whichfaced Asia. The prospects of a rich trade with the FarEast now seemed rosier. Americans had alreadyestablished contacts with China, and shippers wereurging Washington to push for commercial inter-course with Japan. The mikado’s empire, after somedisagreeable experiences with the European world,had withdrawn into a cocoon of isolationism andhad remained there for over two hundred years. TheJapanese were so protective of their insularity thatthey prohibited shipwrecked foreign sailors fromleaving and refused to readmit to Japan their ownsailors who had been washed up on the West Coastof North America. But by 1853, as events proved,Japan was ready to emerge from reclusion, partlybecause of the Russian menace.

The Washington government was now eager topry open the bamboo gates of Japan. It dispatched afleet of awesome, smoke-belching warships, com-manded by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, brotherof the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. By a

judicious display of force and tact, he persuaded theJapanese in 1854 to sign a memorable treaty. It pro-vided for only a commercial foot in the door, but itwas the beginning of an epochal relationshipbetween the Land of the Rising Sun and the Westernworld. Ironically, this achievement attracted littlenotice at the time, partly because Perry devised nomemorable slogan.

Coveted Cuba:Pearl of the Antilles

Sugar-rich Cuba, lying off the nation’s southerndoorstep, was the prime objective of Manifest Des-tiny in the 1850s. Supporting a large population ofenslaved blacks, it was coveted by the South as themost desirable slave territory available. Carved intoseveral states, it would once more restore the politi-cal balance in the Senate.

Cuba was a kind of heirloom—the most impor-tant remnant of Spain’s once-mighty New Worldempire. Polk, the expansionist, had taken steps tooffer $100 million for it, but the sensitive Spaniardshad replied that they would see it sunk into theocean before they would sell it to the Americans atany price. With purchase completely out of thequestion, seizure was apparently the only way topluck the ripening fruit.

Private adventurers from the South now under-took to shake the tree of Manifest Destiny. During1850–1851 two “filibustering” expeditions (from theSpanish filibustero, meaning “freebooter” or “pirate”),each numbering several hundred armed men,descended upon Cuba. Both feeble efforts wererepelled, and the last one ended in tragedy when theleader and fifty followers—some of them from the“best families’’ of the South—were summarily shot or strangled. So outraged were the southerners thatan angry mob sacked Spain’s consulate in NewOrleans.

Spanish officials in Cuba rashly forced a show-down in 1854, when they seized an Americansteamer, Black Warrior, on a technicality. Now wasthe time for President Pierce, dominated as he wasby the South, to provoke a war with Spain and seizeCuba. The major powers of Europe—England,France, and Russia—were about to become boggeddown in the Crimean War and hence were unable toaid Spain.

Caribbean Diplomacy 403

An incredible cloak-and-dagger episode fol-lowed. The secretary of state instructed the Ameri-can ministers in Spain, England, and France toprepare confidential recommendations for theacquisition of Cuba. Meeting initially at Ostend, Belgium, the three envoys drew up a top-secret dis-patch, soon known as the Ostend Manifesto. Thisstartling document urged that the administrationoffer $120 million for Cuba. If Spain refused, and ifits continued ownership endangered Americaninterests, the United States would “be justified inwresting’’ the island from the Spanish.

The secret Ostend Manifesto quickly leaked out.Northern free-soilers, already angered by the Fugi-tive Slave Law and other gains for slavery, rose in anoutburst of wrath against the “manifesto of brig-ands.’’ Confronted with disruption at home, the red-faced Pierce administration was forced to drop itsbrazen schemes for Cuba.

Clearly the slavery issue, like a two-headedsnake with the heads at each other’s throat, dead-locked territorial expansion in the 1850s. The North,flushed with Manifest Destiny, was developing arenewed appetite for Canada. The South covetedCuba. Neither section would permit the other to getthe apple of its eye, so neither got either. The shack-led black hands of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UncleTom, whose plight had already stung the conscienceof the North, now held the South back from Cuba.The internal distresses of the United States weresuch that, for once, it could not take advantage ofEurope’s distresses—in this case the Crimean War.

Pacific Railroad Promoters and the Gadsden Purchase

Acute transportation problems were another legacy of the Mexican War. The newly acquiredprizes of California and Oregon might just as wellhave been islands some eight thousand miles westof the nation’s capital. The sea routes to and fromthe Isthmus of Panama, to say nothing of thosearound South America, were too long. Covered-wagon travel past bleaching animal bones was possible, but slow and dangerous. A popular songrecalled,

They swam the wide rivers and crossed thetall peaks,

And camped on the prairie for weeks uponweeks.

Starvation and cholera and hard work andslaughter,

They reached California spite of hell and highwater.

Feasible land transportation was imperative—or the newly won possessions on the Pacific Coastmight break away. Camels were even proposed asthe answer. Several score of these temperamentalbeasts—“ships of the desert’’—were imported fromthe Near East, but mule-driving Americans did notadjust to them. A transcontinental railroad wasclearly the only real solution to the problem.

Railroad promoters, both North and South, hadprojected many drawing-board routes to the PacificCoast. But the estimated cost in all cases was sogreat that for many years there could obviously beonly one line. Should its terminus be in the North orin the South? The favored section would reap richrewards in wealth, population, and influence. TheSouth, losing the economic race with the North, waseager to extend a railroad through adjacent south-western territory all the way to California.

Another chunk of Mexico now seemed desir-able, because the campaigns of the recent war hadshown that the best railway route ran slightly southof the Mexican border. Secretary of War JeffersonDavis, a Mississippian, arranged to have JamesGadsden, a prominent South Carolina railroad man,appointed minister to Mexico. Finding Santa Anna

404 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

The first platform of the newly born(antislavery) Republican party in 1856lashed out at the Ostend Manifesto, with itstransparent suggestion that Cuba be seized.The plank read,

“Resolved, That the highwayman’s plea, that‘might makes right,’ embodied in the OstendCircular, was in every respect unworthy ofAmerican diplomacy, and would bring shameand dishonor upon any Government orpeople that gave it their sanction.”

in power for the sixth and last time, and as usual inneed of money, Gadsden made gratifying headway.He negotiated a treaty in 1853, which ceded to theUnited States the Gadsden Purchase area for $10million. The transaction aroused much criticismamong northerners, who objected to paying a hugesum for a cactus-strewn desert nearly the size ofGadsden’s South Carolina. Undeterred, the Senateapproved the pact, in the process shortsightedlyeliminating a window on the Sea of Cortez.

No doubt the Gadsden Purchase enabled theSouth to claim the coveted railroad with evengreater insistence. A southern track would be easierto build because the mountains were less high andbecause the route, unlike the proposed northernlines, would not pass through unorganized territory.Texas was already a state at this point, and NewMexico (with the Gadsden Purchase added) was aformally organized territory, with federal troopsavailable to provide protection against maraudingtribes of Indians. Any northern or central railroadline would have to be thrust through the unorgan-ized territory of Nebraska, where the buffalo andIndians roamed.

Northern railroad boosters quickly replied thatif organized territory were the test, then Nebraskashould be organized. Such a move was not prema-ture, because thousands of land-hungry pioneerswere already poised on the Nebraska border. But allschemes proposed in Congress for organizing theterritory were greeted with apathy or hostility bymany southerners. Why should the South help cre-

ate new free-soil states and thus cut its own throatby facilitating a northern railroad?

Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme

At this point in 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas ofIllinois delivered a counterstroke to offset the Gads-den thrust for southern expansion westward. Asquat, bull-necked, and heavy-chested figure, the“Little Giant’’ radiated the energy and breezy opti-mism of the self-made man. An ardent booster forthe West, he longed to break the North-South dead-lock over westward expansion and stretch a line ofsettlements across the continent. He had alsoinvested heavily in Chicago real estate and in rail-way stock and was eager to have the Windy Citybecome the eastern terminus of the proposedPacific railroad. He would thus endear himself tothe voters of Illinois, benefit his section, and enrichhis own purse.

A veritable “steam engine in breeches,’’ Douglasthrew himself behind a legislative scheme thatwould enlist the support of a reluctant South. Theproposed Territory of Nebraska would be sliced intotwo territories, Kansas and Nebraska. Their statusregarding slavery would be settled by popular sover-eignty—a democratic concept to which Douglasand his western constituents were deeply attached.Kansas, which lay due west of slaveholding Mis-souri, would presumably choose to become a slave

The Gadsden Purchase 405

The Gadsden Purchase, 1853

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state. But Nebraska, lying west of free-soil Iowa,would presumably become a free state.

Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska scheme ran head-long into a formidable political obstacle. The Mis-souri Compromise of 1820 had forbidden slavery inthe proposed Nebraska Territory, which lay north ofthe sacred 36° 30' line, and the only way to open theregion to popular sovereignty was to repeal theancient compact outright. This bold step Douglaswas prepared to take, even at the risk of shatteringthe uneasy truce patched together by the Compro-mise of 1850.

Many southerners, who had not conceived ofKansas as slave soil, rose to the bait. Here was achance to gain one more slave state. The pliablePresident Pierce, under the thumb of southernadvisers, threw his full weight behind the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

But the Missouri Compromise, now thirty-fouryears old, could not be brushed aside lightly. What-ever Congress passes it can repeal, but by this timethe North had come to regard the sectional pact asalmost as sacred as the Constitution itself. Free-soilmembers of Congress struck back with a vengeance.They met their match in the violently gesticulatingDouglas, who was the ablest rough-and-tumbledebater of his generation. Employing twisted logicand oratorical fireworks, he rammed the billthrough Congress, with strong support from manysoutherners. So heated were political passions thatbloodshed was barely averted. Some members car-ried a concealed revolver or a bowie knife—or both.

Douglas’s motives in prodding anew the snarlingdog of slavery have long puzzled historians. His per-

406 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

sonal interests have already been mentioned. Inaddition, his foes accused him of angling for thepresidency in 1856. Yet his admirers have arguedplausibly in his defense that if he had not champi-oned the ill-omened bill, someone else would have.

The truth seems to be that Douglas acted some-what impulsively and recklessly. His heart did notbleed over the issue of slavery, and he declaredrepeatedly that he did not care whether it was votedup or down in the territories. What he failed to per-ceive was that hundreds of thousands of his fellowcitizens in the North did feel deeply on this moralissue. They regarded the repeal of the Missouri Com-promise as an intolerable breach of faith, and theywould henceforth resist to the last trench all futuresouthern demands for slave territory. As AbrahamLincoln said, the North wanted to give to pioneers inthe West “a clean bed, with no snakes in it.’’

Genuine leaders, like skillful chess players, mustforesee the possible effects of their moves. Douglaspredicted a “hell of a storm,’’ but he grossly under-estimated its proportions. His critics in the North,branding him a “Judas’’ and a “traitor,’’ greeted hisname with frenzied boos, hisses, and “three groansfor Doug.’’ But he still enjoyed a high degree of pop-ularity among his following in the Democratic party,especially in Illinois, a stronghold of popular sovereignty.

Congress Legislates a Civil War

The Kansas-Nebraska Act—a curtain raiser to a terrible drama—was one of the most momentousmeasures ever to pass Congress. By one way of reck-oning, it greased the slippery slope to Civil War.

Antislavery northerners were angered by whatthey condemned as an act of bad faith by the “Nebrascals’’ and their “Nebrascality.’’ All future

The Kansas-Nebraska Act 407

Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner(1811–1874) described the Kansas-NebraskaBill as “at once the worst and the best Bill onwhich Congress ever acted.” It was the worstbecause it represented a victory for the slavepower in the short run. But it was the best, hesaid prophetically, because it

“annuls all past compromises with slavery,and makes all future compromisesimpossible. Thus it puts freedom and slaveryface to face, and bids them grapple. Who candoubt the result?”

Kansas and Nebraska, 1854The future Union Pacific Railroad(completed in 1869) is shown. Notethe Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30' (1820).

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compromise with the South would be immeasur-ably more difficult, and without compromise therewas bound to be conflict.

Henceforth the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, pre-viously enforced in the North only halfheartedly, wasa dead letter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act wrecked twocompromises: that of 1820, which it repealed specifi-cally, and that of 1850, which northern opinionrepealed indirectly. Emerson wrote, “The Fugitive[Slave] Law did much to unglue the eyes of men, andnow the Nebraska Bill leaves us staring.’’ Northernabolitionists and southern “fire-eaters’’ alike saw lessand less they could live with. The growing legion ofantislaveryites gained numerous recruits, whoresented the grasping move by the “slavocracy’’ forKansas. The southerners, in turn, became inflamedwhen the free-soilers tried to control Kansas, con-trary to the presumed “deal.’’

The proud Democrats—a party now over half a century old—were shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They did elect a president in 1856, buthe was the last one they were to boost into the WhiteHouse for twenty-eight long years.

Undoubtedly the most durable offspring of theKansas-Nebraska blunder was the new Republicanparty. It sprang up spontaneously in the Middle West,notably in Wisconsin and Michigan, as a mightymoral protest against the gains of slavery. Gatheringtogether dissatisfied elements, it soon included dis-gruntled Whigs (among them Abraham Lincoln),Democrats, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, and otherfoes of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The hodgepodgeparty spread eastward with the swiftness of a prairiefire and with the zeal of a religious crusade. Unheard-of and unheralded at the beginning of 1854, it electeda Republican Speaker of the House of Representa-tives within two years. Never really a third-partymovement, it erupted with such force as to becomealmost overnight the second major political party—and a purely sectional one at that.

At long last the dreaded sectional rift hadappeared. The new Republican party would not beallowed south of the Mason-Dixon line. Countlesssoutherners subscribed wholeheartedly to the sen-timent that it was “a nigger stealing, stinking, putrid,abolition party.’’ The Union was in dire peril.

408 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848–1854

Chronology

1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War

Taylor defeats Cass and Van Buren forpresidency

1849 California gold rush

1850 Fillmore assumes presidency after Taylor’sdeath

Compromise of 1850, including FugitiveSlave Law

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Britain

1852 Pierce defeats Scott for presidency

1853 Gadsden Purchase from Mexico

1854 Commodore Perry opens JapanOstend Manifesto proposes seizure of

CubaKansas-Nebraska ActRepublican party organized

1856 William Walker becomes president ofNicaragua and legalizes slavery

For further reading, see page A13 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.