Renewing the Sectional Struggle

Renewing the Sectional Struggle

Introduction The year 1848, highlighted by a rash of revolution in

Europe, was filled with unrest in America. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had officially ended the war with Mexico. The acquisition of this huge domain raised a new and the burning issue of extending slavery into the territories.

Northern antislavery had rallied behind the Wilmot Proviso, which prohibited slavery in the land acquired in the Mexican War. Southern Senators had blocked the passage of the proviso, but the issue would not die. The debate over slavery in the area of the Mexican Cession threatened to disrupt the ranks of both Whigs and Democrats and split national politics along North/South sectional lines.

The Popular Sovereignty Panacea Each political party was a vital

bond of national unity, for each enjoyed powerful support in both the North and the South. To politicians, the wisest strategy seemed to be to sit on the lid of slavery issue and ignore the boiling beneath.

President Polk, now in 1848, was broken in health by overwork and chronic diarrhea, had only pledged to a single term. The democrats chose Lewis Cass, who was a veteran of the war of 1812. Cass himself had not been silent; his views on the extension of slavery were well known because he was the father of popular sovereignty.

Under popular sovereignty under each territory they should determine for themselves the status of slavery.

Popular sovereignty had a great appeal. The problem of slavery was tossed into the laps of the people in the territories. Advocates of the principle thus hoped to dissolve the most stubborn national issue of the day into a series of local issues. Yet popular sovereignty had one fatal defect: it might serve to spread the blight of slavery.

Political Triumphs for General Taylor The Whigs cashed in on the

popularity of Zachery Taylor. Taylor had never held civil office or even voted for president. Clay should have been nominated, but he made to many enemies. 

Antislavery men in the North, distrusting both Cass and Taylor, organized the Free Soil Party. They came out for the Wilmot Proviso and against slavery in the territories. They broadened their appeal by advocating federal aid for internal improvements and by urging free government homesteads for settlers.

With the slavery issue officially shoved under the rug by the two major parties, the politicians on both sides opened fire on personalities. Taylor’s wartime popularity pulled him through. He harvested 1360342 popular and 163 electoral votes, and compared to Cass’s 1222342 popular and 127 electoral votes.

Free-Soilers Van Buren, although winning no state, polled 291,263 ballots and diverted enough Democratic strength from Cass in the crucial state of New York to thrown the election to Taylor.

California Gold President Taylor- He had stumpy

legs, rough features, heavy jaw, black hair, ruddy complexion, and squinty gray eyes. He was a military square peg in a political round hole. He would have been okay if he continued to sit on the slavery lid. The discovery of gold on the American River near Sutter’s Mill, California, early in 1848, blew the cover off.

A horde of people poured into these valleys of California. A fortunate few of the bearded miner struck it rich at the diggings, probably would have been money will ahead if they had stayed at home unaffected by the gold fever.

The California gold rush attracted tens of thousands of people to the future Golden State almost overnight, completely overwhelming the one-horse territorial government. A distressingly high proportion of the newcomers were lawless men, accompanied or followed by virtue-less women.

An outburst of crime and this resulted from the presence of so many outcasts. Robbery, claim jumping, and murder were commonplace, and such violence was only partly discouraged.

A majority of Californians wanted a decent and law abiding citizens needing protection, and dealing with the problem of having a providing an adequate state government. Privately encouraged by President Taylor, they drafted a constitution in 1849 that excluded slavery, and then boldly applied to Congress for admission.

Sectional Balance and the Underground Railroad

The South of 1850 was relatively well off. It then enjoyed more than its share of the Nations leadership.

Zachery Taylor was the President. It boasted a majority in the cabinet and

on the Supreme Court. If outnumbered in the House, the South had equality in the Senate, where it could at least neutralized northern

maneuvers. The cotton fields were expanding,

and the prices were high. Few sane people, North of South, believed that

slavery was threatened. There were fifteen slave state and

fifteen Free states. The admission of California would destroy the balance

in the Senate. Even more disagreeable to the South

was the loss of runaway slaves, many of whom were assisted north

by the Underground Railroad.

This virtual freedom train consisted of an informal chain of stations (antislavery

homes), in which these passengers were led by these conductors. The most

amazing of these conductors was from Maryland, who was Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman rescued more than 3 thousand slaves, including her aged

parents, and deservedly earned the title of Moses.

By 1850 southerners were demanding a new and more stringent fugitive slave law. The old one, passed by Congress in

1793, had proved too inadequate. Estimates indicated that the South in

1850 was losing perhaps 1,000 runaways a year out its total of some 4

million slaves. In fact, more blacks probably gained their freedom by self-

purchase or voluntary emancipation than ever escaped.

Twilight of the Senatorial Giants

Southerners fears were such that Congress was confronted with catastrophe in 1850. Congress was failing to act when it came to admitting states and even some states was wanting to withdraw from the Union. The immortal trio Clay, Calhoun, and Webster appeared together for the last time on the public stage.

Henry Clay, who is now 73 years old now is urging with all of his persuasion that the North and South both make concessions and that the North partially yield by enacting a more feasible fugitive slave law.

Calhoun died in 1850, before the debate was over. Calhoun had labored to preserve the Union and had taken his stand on the Constitution, but his proposals in their behalf almost undid both.

Webster took the Senate spotlight in a last ditch effort which lasted 3 and a half hours. Speaking he urged all reasonable concessions to the South, including a new fugitive slave law with teeth.

Breaking the Congressional Log Jam

At the height of the controversy in 1850, President Taylor helped the cause of concession by dying suddenly, probably of an acute intestinal disorder. Millard Fillmore now took over the reins. As presiding officer in the Senate he had been impressed with the arguments and he gladly signed the series of compromise measures that passed Congress after 7 months of debate.

Breaking the Congressional Log Jam

Concessions to the North California admitted as a free state

Territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico to be surrendered to New Mexico.

Abolition of the slave trade, (but not slavery), in the District of Columbia.  

Concession to the South The remainder of the Mexican Cession area was to be formed into the

territories of New Mexico and Utah, without restriction on slavery, hence open to popular sovereignty.

Texas to receive 10 million from the federal government as compensation A more stringent fugitive slave law going beyond that of 1793.

Peace loving people both North and South, were determined that the compromises should be final and that the explosive issue of slavery should be buried. This period of peace was and is to be short lived.

Balancing the Compromise Scales

The North got the better end of the deal. With the balance of the Senate is now in the North because of the admission of California as a free state.

Something that did change was the drastic new Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This stirred up a storm of opposition in the North. The fleeing slaves could not testify on their own behalf, and they were denied a trial by jury. Freedom loving northerners who aided the slave to escape were liable to heavy fines and jail sentences. They might even be ordered to join the slave catchers.

Defeat and Doom for the Whigs

The Democrats picked Franklin Pierce. The Whigs tried to jeer him back into being nothing.

Pierce was weak and an indecisive figure. He was youngish, handsome, militarily, smiling, and he had served without real distinction in the Mexican War.

The Whigs turned to Winfield Scott, perhaps the ablest American general of his generation. Scott’s personality repelled the masses.

General Scott met defeat at the ballot box. His friends stabbed him in the back. Pierce won in a landslide, 254 electoral votes to 42, although the popular count was closer, 1,601,117 to 1,385,453.

The election of 1852, the Whig party will eventually die. Their slave law act was the death of this party.

Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme

Douglas threw himself behind a legislative scheme that would enlist the support of the reluctant South. The purposed Nebraska territory would be sliced into two territories. Their status would be decided on popular sovereignty.

Douglas’s scheme flatly contradicted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had forbidden slavery in the Nebraska Territory. The only way was to repeal this law. The President, under the thumb of southern advisers, threw his full weight behind the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. But the Missouri Compromise, then 34 years old could not be brushed aside lightly.

Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Scheme The truth seems to be that Douglas acted

somewhat impulsively and recklessly. His heart did not bleed over the issue of slavery, and he declared repeatedly the he did not care whether it was voted up or down in the territories.

What he failed to perceive was that hundreds and thousands of his fellow citizens in the North did feel deeply on this moral issue. They did not want to repeal the Missouri Compromise.

Congress Legislates a Civil War

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was one of the most momentous measures ever to pass Congress. By one way

of reckoning, it greased the slippery slope to Civil War. Antislavery Northerners were angered by what they

condemned as an act of bad faith, and all future compromise with the South would be immeasurably more difficult, and without compromise there was bound to be

conflict. At long last the dreaded sectional rift had appeared.

The new Republic party would not be allowed south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Countless southerners subscribed wholeheartedly to the sentiment that it was a Negro

stealing, stinking, putrid, abolition party. The Union was in peril.