The 1850 Compromise

Fugitive Slave Law + Underground Railway

 The fugitive slave act appalled Northern Abolitionists and was distasteful to moderates. It
denied even the right of trial.
 The fugitive slave Act dealt with hundreds of flesh-and-blood people who had risked their
lives to gain their liberty, and who might now be tracked down by slave-catchers.
 Any measure which required the sending of men from freedom into slavery would have
caused a strong revulsion at best, but the Fugitive Slave Law, as enacted, contained a
number of gratuitously obnoxious provisions.
o First it denied the alleged fugitive any right to jury trial
o It also empowered the federal marshals to summon all citizens to aid in
enforcement of the Act. In the eyes of many Northerners this meant that the federal
government had not only one into the business of man-hunting itself but also
required every freeborn American to become a man-hunter on occasion.
 Efforts to catch and return fugitive slaves inflamed feelings in both the North and the South.
o 1854 Boston mob, Burns Affairs
o During 1850s, 9 Northern states passed new personal liberty laws to make it harder
to enforce federal laws.
 Southerners kept a watchful eye on proceedings, regarding the fugitive slave act as a test of
Northern goodwill.
o However, overt resistance was exaggerated. In most Northern states, there was little
trouble and little evidence that people were prepared to violate laws.
o 200 blacks arrested in 6 years, only 15 rescued and only 3 by force.
o 332 fugitives never returned (simply reflects the small number anyway as well as the
large sums of money required to return slaves. Normally it was simply cheaper to
buy a new slave).

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin

 Novel represented a fierce attack on slavery.

o Sold over 300,000 copies in the US in 1852 and 2 million by 1862. 3 million in the US
in total and 3.5 million elsewhere. Thus probably outselling any other single
American work.
 It undoubtedly aroused widespread Northern sympathy for slaves, presenting a vivid story of
the plight of the slave as a human being held in bondage.
 David Potter wrote that the attitude of Northerners was “never quite the same after Uncle
Tom’s Cabin”

Immigration and Temperance

 Northern Whigs were being buffeted by a raft of devise issues generated by the latest wave
of European immigration.
 With many of the new immigrants entitled to vote for the first time in 1852, the Whig party
was confronted with the choice of competing with the Democrats for their support or
fanning the flames of nativism to win over American Protestants.
 Although social drinking was generally popular amongst the Irish and Germans, many
evangelicals regarded drink as a threat to family welfare as well as to the development of
self-discipline and individual responsibility in the sight of God.
  Whig strategists therefore faced many unpalatable options. They could yield to the demand
of temperance advocates and surrender the immigrant vote to the Democrats; oppose
prohibition and witness the proliferation of independent prohibition candidates at the local;
or sit on the fence and risk alienating everyone. By 1852, the absence of a clear party line on
prohibition – or indeed any other issue- had begun to erode an already weakened party.

The 1852 Election

 The disintegration of the Free Soil party brought new hazards to the two old parties by
confronting them both with the same dilemma.
 Northern Democrats and northern Whigs need part of the former Free Soil vote to win in
state elections, and they also needed the support of southern party allies to win in national
elections: but they could not cultivate the one without antagonizing the other. Insofar as
they strengthened their state organisations, they weakened their national organisation and
vice versa.
 This allowed Free Soilers to gain political power through the national parties such as in Ohio
where Chase, a Democrat and Wade, a Whig, were elected.
 With both party organisations torn between the need for Free Soil support in the North and
for proslavery support in the South, the era of truly bisectional parties had already passed by
1852.
 The Democrats approached this contest with a confidence born out of the fact that they had
gained 140 congressional seats out of a total of 233 in the off-year elections of 1850.
 Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglass and James Buchanan were the major contenders, however
Douglass and Cass were handicapped in the South by their support of popular sovereignty.
The Northerners were desperate to avoid Buchanan profiting from his role as the South’s
insurance against all other candidates.
 Democrats chose “dark horse” candidate Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire.
o He was acceptable to all factions of the Party and ran on a platform supporting the
1850 compromise, and ignoring sectional tensions.
o “abide by and adhere toa faithful execution of the acts known as the Compromise
measures….the act for reclaiming fugitives included and to forestall any renewal of
the slavery agitation.”
 To this platform, Democrats of all shades rallied with surprising unity. Not only did Southern
extremists show support for Pierce, but also most of the Free Soilers of 1848, followed
Martin Van Buren back into the ranks of the Democracy.
 The Whigs nominated Scott (largely supported by the Northern Whigs). However, there was
a huge conflict amongst Whigs about who would be chosen. There were a large number of
ballots cast and it was only on 53rd ballot. The nomination of Scott produced wholesale
defections in the deep South. “General Scott, inept and pompous, proved unable to save a
party that had begun to disintegrate.”
 The result was a massive victory for Pierce with 51% of the vote and 27 states. By contrast,
Scott only won 44% of the vote and only carried 4 states.
 Whilst outward appearances all indicated that the national yearning for harmony would
banish the slavery issue out of the surface, there were many indications that the sectional
rapprochement of 1852 did not rest on broad or deep foundations.
 Between the nominations and the elections, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster had followed
John Calhoun to the grave. The antislavery bloc in Congress, strengthened by militant
recruits like Summer and Wade, was no longer a little handful of isolated men. In 1852, for
 every four votes that Franklin Pierce received in the free states, one copy of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin was sold.
 The cause of the Union to be sure, had won a victory and survived a crisis. But the strains of
the crisis had weakened the basis of the Union. The South, whilst deciding against secession,
had accepted that the doctrine was a valid constitutional remedy, applicable in appropriate
circumstances. Meanwhile the North had refused to make a national issue of slavery, as the
abolitionists desired, but it had accepted their doctrine that slavery was morally intolerable.
Without embracing secession, the South had committed to a principle of secession and
without embracing abolition, the North had committed itself to the principle of abolitionism.

Manifest Destiny

 President Pierce intended to maintain the unity of his party by championing expansionist
policies. Although a Northerner, he was sympathetic and influenced by the Southern wing of
his party.
 For Southerners this would allow slavery to expand.
 In 1853,
 The negative Northern reaction to the Gadsden Purchase indicated the mounting suspicion
of Southern expansionist aims.
 President Pierce also wanted to purchase Cuba and supported American sponsored
filibustering.
 Many Northerners viewed filibustering as another manifestation of a slave power conspiracy
to grab more territory for slavery. Faced by Northern outrage at the threat of aggression
against Spain, Pierce quickly repudiated the manifest and resigned.
 The expansionist efforts simply created enough commotion to worry Northerners that the
South aspired to establish a Latin America Slave Empire.

Central America, Cuba and the Ostend Manifesto

 The

The development of a transcontinental railway

229-236:

The disintegration of the Free Soil party brought new hazards to the two new parties. Northern
democrats and northern Whigs needed part of the former Free Soil vote to win in state elections,
and they also needed the support of southern party allies to win in national elections, but they could
not cultivate the one without antagonizing the other. Insofar as they strengthened their state
organisations, they weakened their national organization and vice versa.