Renewing the

Sectional Struggle
~

1848-1854
SECESSION! PEACEABLE SECESSION!
SIR, YOUR EYES AND MINE ARE NEVER
DESTINED TO SEE THAT MIRACLE.

DANIEL WEBSTER ,

SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH , 1 850

he year 1848, highlighted by a rash of revolutions in

T Europe, was filled with unrest in America. The Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo had officially ended the war with
The Popular Sovereignty Panacea
Mexico, but it had initiated a new and perilous round of Each of the two great political parties was a vital bond
political warfare in the United States. The vanquished of national unity, for each enjoyed powerful support in
Mexicans had been forced to relinquish an enormous both North and South. If they should be replaced by two
tract of real estate, including Texas, California, and all the purely sectional groupings, the Union would be in peril.
area between. The acquisition of this huge domain raised To politicians, the wisest strategy seemed to be to sit on
anew the burning issue of extending slavery into the the lid of the slavery issue and ignore the boiling beneath.
territories. Northern antislaveryites had rallied behind Even so, the cover bobbed up and down ominously in
the Wilmot Proviso, which flatly prohibited slavery in any response to the agitation of zealous northern abolitionists
territory acquired in the Mexican War. Southern senators and impassioned southern "fire-eaters."
had blocked the passage of the proviso, but the issue Anxious Democrats were forced to seek a new
would not die. Ominously, debate over slavery in the area standard-bearer in 1848. President Polk, broken in
of the Mexican Cession threatened to disrupt the ranks health by overwork and chronic diarrhea, had pledged
of both Whigs and Democrats and split national politics himself to a single term. The Democratic National
along North-South sectional lines. Convention at Baltimore turned to an aging leader,

390
 The Election of 1848 391

General Lewis Cass, a veteran of the War of 1812.

Although a senator and diplomat of wide experience
and considerable ability, he was sour-visaged and
somewhat pompous. His enemies dubbed him General
"Gass" and quickly noted that Cass rhymed with jackass.
The Democratic platform, in line with the lid-sitting
strategy, was silent on the burning issue of slavery in
the territories.
But Cass himself had not been silent. His views on
the extension of slavery were well known because he
was the reputed father of "popular sovereignty." This
was the doctrine that stated that the sovereign people of
a territory, under the general principles of the Constitu-
tion, should themselves determine the status of slavery.
Popular sovereignty had a persuasive appeal. The
public liked it because it accorded with the democratic
tradition of self-determination. Politicians liked it
because it seemed a comfortable compromise between
the free-sailers' bid for a ban on slavery in the territories
and southern demands that Congress protect slavery in
the territories. Popular sovereignty tossed the slavery
problem into the laps of the people in the various terri-
tories. 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 General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)

This Democratic campaign cartoon of 1848 charges
The Whigs, meeting in Philadelphia, cashed in on the
that Taylor's reputation rested on Mexican skulls.
"Taylor fever." They nominated frank and honest
Zachary Taylor, the "Hero of Buena Vista," who had
never held civil office or even voted for president. Henry
Clay, the living embodiment of Whiggism, should the Wilmot Proviso and against slavery in the territories.
logically have been nominated. But Clay had made too Going beyond other antislavery groups, they broadened
many speeches-and too many enemies. their appeal by advocating federal aid for internal
As usual, the Whigs pussyfooted in their platform. improvements and by urging free government home-
Eager to win at any cost, they dodged all troublesome steads for settlers.
issues and merely extolled the homespun virtues of The new party assembled a strange assortment of
their candidate. The self-reliant old frontier fighter had new fellows in the same political bed. It attracted indus-
not committed himself on the issue of slavery exten- trialists miffed at Polk's reduction of protective tariffs. It
sian. But as a wealthy resident of Louisiana, living on a appealed to Democrats resentful of Polk's settling for
sugar plantation, he owned scores of slaves. part of Oregon while insisting on all of Texas-a dispar-
Ardent antislavery men in the North, distrusting ity that suggested a menacing southern dominance in
both Cass and Taylor, organized the Free Soil party. the Democratic party. It harbored many northerners
Aroused by the conspiracy of silence in the Democratic whose hatred was directed not so much at slavery as
and Whig platforms, the Free-Sailers made no bones at blacks and who gagged at the prospect of sharing
about their own stand. They came out foursquare for the newly acquired western territories with African
392 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

Americans. It also contained a large element of "con-

science Whigs," heavily influenced by the abolitionist
crusade, who condemned slavery on moral grounds. The
Free-Sailers trotted out wizened former president Van
Buren and marched into the fray, shouting, "Free soil,
free speech, free labor, and free men." These freedoms
provided the bedrock on which the Free-Sailers built
their party. Free-Sailers condemned slavery not so much
for enslaving blacks but for destroying the chances of
free white workers to rise up from wage-earning depend-
ence to the esteemed status of self-employment. Free-
Sailers argued that only with free soil in the West could a
traditional American commitment to upward mobility
continue to flourish. If forced to compete with slave
labor, more costly wage labor would inevitably wither
away, and with it the chance for the American worker to
own property. As the first widely inclusive party organ-
ized around the issue of slavery and confined to a single
section, the Free Soil party foreshadowed the emergence
of the Republican party six years later.
With the slavery issue officially shoved under the
rug by the two major parties, the politicians on both
sides opened fire on personalities. The amateurish
Taylor had to be carefully watched, lest his indiscreet
pen puncture the reputation won by his sword. His
admirers puffed him up as a gallant knight and a D Extent of gold m)ning
Napoleon, and sloganized his remark, allegedly uttered region 1849
during the Battle of Buena Vista, "General Taylor never
surrenders." Taylor's wartime popularity pulled him California Gold Rush Country Miners from all over
the world swarmed over the rivers that drained the
through. He harvested 1,360,967 popular and 163 electoral
western slope of California's Sierra Nevada. Their
votes, as compared with Cass's 1,222,342 popular and nationalities and religions, their languages and their
127 electoral votes. Free-Sailer Van Buren, although ways of life, are recorded in the colorful place names
winning no state, polled 291,263 ballots and apparently they left behind.
diverted enough Democratic strength from Cass in the
crucial state of New York to throw the election to Taylor.
luckless many, who netted blisters instead of nuggets,
probably would have been money well ahead if they had
stayed at home unaffected by "gold fever," which was
..Californy Gold.. often followed by more deadly fevers. The most reliable
profits were made by those who mined the miners,
Tobacco-chewing President Taylor-with his stumpy legs,
rough features, heavy jaw, black hair, ruddy complexion,
notably by charging outrageous rates for laundry and
other personal services. Some soiled clothing was even
1
and squinty gray eyes-was a military square peg in a
sent as far away as the Hawaiian Islands for washing.
political round hole. He would have been spared much
The overnight inpouring of tens of thousands of
turmoil if he could have continued to sit on the slavery
people into the future Golden State completely over-
lid. But the discovery of gold on the American River near
whelmed the one-horse government of California. A
Sutter's Mill, California, early in 1848, blew the cover off.
distressingly high proportion of the newcomers were
A horde of adventurers poured into the valleys of
lawless men, accompanied or followed by virtueless
California. Singing "0 Susannah!" and shouting "Gold!
women. A contemporary song ran,
Gold! Gold!" they began tearing frantically at the yellow-
graveled streams and hills. A fortunate few of the Oh what was your name in the States?
bearded miners "struck it rich" at the "diggings." But the Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?
 The California Gold Rush 393

Placer Miners in California

Cheap but effective, placer mining
consisted of literally "washing" the
gold out of surface deposits. No deep
excavation was required. This crew
of male and female miners in
California in 1852 was using a
"long tom" sluice that washed
relatively large quantities of ore.

Did you murder your wife, A majority of Californians, as decent and law-abiding
And fly for your life? citizens needing protection, grappled earnestly with the
Say, what was your name in the States? problem of erecting an adequate state government. Pri-
vately encouraged by President Taylor, they drafted a
An outburst of crime inevitably resulted from the
constitution in 1849 that excluded slavery and then boldly
presence of so many miscreants and outcasts. Robbery,
applied to Congress for admission. California would thus
claim jumping, and murder were commonplace, and
bypass the usual territorial stage, thwarting southern con-
such violence was only partly discouraged by rough
gressmen seeking to block free soil. Southern politicians,
vigilante justice. In San Francisco, from 1848 to 1856,
alarmed by the Californians' "impertinent" stroke for free-
there were scores of lawless killings but only three
dom, arose in violent opposition. Would California prove
semilegal hangings.
to be the golden straw that broke the back of the Union?

A married woman wrote from the Sectional Balance

California goldfields to her sister in and the Underground Railroad
New England in 1853,
The South of 1850 was relatively well-off. It then
"i tell you the woman are in great
enjoyed, as it had from the beginning, more than its
demand in this country no matter
share of the nation's leadership. It had seated in the
whether they are married or not you
White House the war hero Zachary Taylor, a Virginia-
need not think strange if you see me
coming home with some good looking
man some of these times with a pocket
full of rocks .... it is all the go here for
Ladys to leave there Husbands two The idea that many ne'er-do-wells went
out of three do it there is a first rate west is found in the Journals (January 1849)
Chance for a single woman she can of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803- 1882):
have her choice of thousands i wish "If a man is going to California, he
mother was here she could marry a announces it with some hesitation;
rich man and not have to lift her because it is a confession that he
hand to do her work. " has failed at home."
394 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

born, slaveowning planter from Louisiana. It boasted a A Stop on the Underground Railroad Sliding shelves
majority in the cabinet and on the Supreme Court. If in the wall of the Reverend Alexander Dobbin's home
outnumbered in the House, the South had equality in in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, concealed a crawl space
the Senate, where it could at least neutralize northern large enough to hide several escaping slaves.
maneuvers. Its cotton fields were expanding, and cotton
prices were profitably high. Few sane people, North or
South, believed that slavery was seriously threatened
where it already existed below the Mason-Dixon line.
The fifteen slave states could easily veto any proposed
constitutional amendment.
Yet the South was deeply worried, as it had been for
several decades, by the ever-tipping political balance.
There were then fifteen slave states and fifteen free
states. The admission of California would destroy the
delicate equilibrium in the Senate, perhaps forever.
Potential slave territory under the American flag was
running short, if it had not in fact disappeared. Agitation
had already developed in the territories of New Mexico
and Utah for admission as nonslave states. The fate of
California might well establish a precedent for the rest of
the Mexican Cession territory-an area purchased
largely with southern blood.

Texas and the Disputed Area Before the

Compromise of 1850

WYOMING
42°

D Disputed area
Present-day state boundaries
 The Underground Railroad 395

Texas nursed an additional grievance of its own. It

claimed a huge area east of the Rio Grande and north to
the forty-second parallel, embracing in part about half
the territory of present-day New Mexico. The federal
government was proposing to detach this prize, while
hot-blooded Texans were threatening to descend upon
Santa Fe and seize what they regarded as rightfully
theirs. The explosive quarrel foreshadowed shooting.
Many southerners were also angered by the nagging
agitation in the North for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. They looked with alarm on the
prospect of a ten-mile-square oasis of free soil thrust
between slaveholding Maryland and slaveholding Virginia.
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), through which scores ofupassengers" (runaway
slaves) were spirited by ((conductors" (usually white and
black abolitionists) from the slave states to the free-soil
sanctuary of Canada.
The most amazing of these ((conductors" was an
illiterate runaway slave from Maryland, fearless Harriet
Tubman. During nineteen forays into the South, she
rescued more than three hundred slaves, including her
aged parents, and deservedly earned the title ((Moses."
Lively imaginations later exaggerated the reach of the
Underground Railroad and its ((stationmasters," but its
importance was undisputed.
By 1850 southerners were demanding a new and Harriet Tubman, Premier Assistant of Runaway Slaves
more stringent fugitive-slave law. The old one, passed by John Brown called her "General Tubman" for her
effective work in helping slaves escape to Canada
Congress in 1793, had proved inadequate to cope with
on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War,
runaways, especially since unfriendly state authorities
she served as a Union spy behind Confederate lines.
failed to provide needed cooperation. Unlike cattle Herself illiterate, she worked after the war to bring
thieves, the abolitionists who ran the Underground Rail- education to the freed slaves in North Carolina.
road did not gain personally from their lawlessness. But
to the slaveowners, the loss was infuriating, whatever the
motives. The moral judgments of the abolitionists
seemed, in some ways, more galling than outright theft.
They reflected not only a holier-than-thou attitude but a
Twilight of the Senatorial Giants
refusal to obey the laws solemnly passed by Congress.
Estimates indicate that the South in 1850 was losing Southern fears were such that Congress was confronted
perhaps 1,000 runaways a year out of its total of some with catastrophe in 1850. Free-soil California was banging
4 million slaves. In fact, more blacks probably gained on the door for admission. ((Fire-eaters" in the South
their freedom by self-purchase or voluntary emancipa- were voicing ominous threats of secession. In October
tion than ever escaped. But the principle weighed heavily 1849 southerners had announced their intention to
with the slavemasters. They rested their argument on convene the following year in Nashville, Tennessee, to
the Constitution, which protected slavery, and on the consider withdrawing from the Union. The failure of
laws of Congress, which provided for slave-catching. Congress to act could easily mean the failure of the
((Although the loss of property is felt," said a southern United States as a country. The crisis brought into the
senator, uthe loss of honor is felt still more." congressional forum the most distinguished assemblage
396 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

of statesmen since the Constitutional Convention of them as not providing adequate safeguards for southern
1787-the Old Guard of the dying generation and the rights. His impassioned plea was to leave slavery alone,
young gladiators of the new. That "immortal trio" -Clay, return runaway slaves, give the South its rights as a
Calhoun, and Webster-appeared together for the last minority, and restore the political balance. He had in
time on the public stage. view, as was later revealed, an utterly unworkable
Henry Clay, now seventy-three years of age, played a scheme of electing two presidents, one from the North
crucial role. The "Great Compromiser" had come to the and one from the South, each wielding a veto.
Senate from Kentucky to reprise the role he had played Calhoun died in 1850, before the debate was over,
twice before, in the Missouri and nullification crises. murmuring the sad words, "The South! The South! God
The once-glamorous statesman-though disillusioned, knows what will become of her!" Appreciative fellow
enfeebled, and racked by a cruel cough-was still citizens in Charleston erected to his memory an imposing
eloquent, conciliatory, and captivating. He proposed monument, which bore the inscription "Truth, Justice,
and skillfully defended a series of compromises. He was and the Constitution." Calhoun had labored to preserve
ably seconded by thirty-seven-year-old Senator Stephen the Union and had taken his stand on the Constitution,
A. Douglas of Illinois, the "Little Giant" (five feet four but his proposals in their behalf almost undid both.
inches), whose role was less spectacular but even more Daniel Webster next took the Senate spotlight to
important. Clay urged with all his persuasiveness that uphold Clay's compromise measures in his last great
the North and South both make concessions and that speech, a three-hour effort. Now sixty-eight years old
the North partially yield by enacting a more feasible and suffering from a liver complaint aggravated by high
fugitive-slave law. living, he had lost some of the fire in his magnificent
Senator John C. Calhoun, the "Great Nullifier," then voice. Speaking deliberately and before overflowing
sixty-eight and dying of tuberculosis, championed the galleries, he urged all reasonable concessions to the
South in his last formal speech. Too weak to deliver it South, including a new fugitive-slave law with teeth.
himself, he sat bundled up in the Senate chamber, his As for slavery in the territories, asked Webster, why
eyes glowing within a stern face, while a younger col- legislate on the subject? To do so was an act of sacrilege,
league read his fateful words. "I have, Senators, believed for Almighty God had already passed the Wilmot
from the first that the agitation on the subject of slavery Proviso. The good Lord had decreed-through climate,
would, if not prevented by some timely and effective topography, and geography-that a plantation economy,
measure, end in disunion." Although approving the pur- and hence a slave economy, could not profitably exist
pose of Clay's proposed concessions, Calhoun rejected in the Mexican Cession territory.* Webster sanely
concluded that compromise, concession, and sweet
reasonableness would provide the only solutions. "Let us
not be pygmies," he pleaded, "in a case that calls for men."
If measured by its immediate effects, Webster's
famed Seventh of March speech, 1850, was his finest. It
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher helped turn the tide in the North toward compromise.
and moderate abolitionist, was outraged The clamor for printed copies became so great that
by Webster$ support of concessions to the Webster mailed out more than 100,000, remarking that
South in the Fugitive Slave Act. In February 200,000 would not satisfy the demand. His tremendous
1851 he wrote in his Journal, effort visibly strengthened Union sentiment. It was
"I opened a paper to-day in which he especially pleasing to the banking and commercial
[Webster] pounds on the old strings centers of the North, which stood to lose millions of
[of liberty] in a letter to the Washington dollars by secession. One prominent Washington banker
Birthday feasters at New York. 'Liberty! canceled two notes of Webster's, totaling $5,000, and
liberty!' Pho! Let Mr. Webster, for decen- sent him a personal check for $1,000 and a message of
cy's sake, shut his lips once and forever congratulations.
on this word. The word liberty in the
mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the
word love in the mouth of a courtesan."
*Webster was wrong here; within one hundred years, California had
become one ofthe great cotton-producing states of the Union.
 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 be
formed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah,
without restriction on slavery, hence open to popular
sovereignty
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 of1793

But the Free-Sailers and abolitionists, who had its context, may have cost him the presidential nomina-
assumed Webster was one of them, upbraided him as a tion and the presidency in 1860.
traitor, worthy of bracketing with Benedict Arnold. The As the great debate in Congress ran its heated
poet Whittier lamented, course, deadlock seemed certain. Blunt old President
Taylor, who had allegedly fallen under the influence of
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
men like "Higher Law" Seward, seemed bent on vetoing
Which once he wore!
any compromise passed by Congress. His military ire
The glory from his gray hairs gone
was aroused by the threats of Texas to seize Santa Fe. He
For evermore!
appeared to be doggedly determined to "Jacksonize" the
These reproaches were most unfair. Webster had dissenters, if need be, by leading an army against the
long regarded slavery as evil but disunion as worse. Texans in person and hanging all "damned traitors." If
troops had begun to march, the South probably would
have rallied to the defense of Texas, and the Civil War
might have erupted in 1850.
Deadlock and Danger on
Capitol Hill
The stormy congressional debate of 1850 was not fin-
ished, for the Young Guard from the North were yet to
Breaking the Congressional Logjam
have their say. This was the group of newer leaders who, At the height of the controversy in 1850, President Taylor
unlike the aging Old Guard, had not grown up with the unknowingly helped the cause of concession by dying
Union. They were more interested in purging and suddenly, probably of an acute intestinal disorder.
purifying it than in patching and preserving it. Portly, round-faced Vice President Millard Fillmore, a
William H. Seward, the wiry and husky-throated colorless and conciliatory New York lawyer-politician,
freshman senator from New York, was the able took over the reins. As presiding officer of the Senate,
spokesman for many of the younger northern radicals. he had been impressed with the arguments for concilia-
A strong antislaveryite, he came out unequivocally tion, and he gladly signed the series of compromise
against concession. He seemed not to realize that com- measures that passed Congress after seven long months
promise had brought the Union together and that when of stormy debate. The balancing of interests in the
the sections could no longer compromise, they would Compromise of 1850 was delicate in the extreme.
have to part company. The struggle to get these measures accepted by the
Seward argued earnestly that Christian legislators country was hardly less heated than in Congress. In
must obey God's moral law as well as man's mundane the northern states, "Union savers" like Senators Clay,
law. He therefore appealed, with reference to excluding Webster, and Douglas orated on behalf of the com-
slavery in the territories, to an even "higher law" than promise. The ailing Clay himself delivered more than
the Constitution. This alarming phrase, wrenched from seventy speeches, as a powerful sentiment for acceptance
398 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

Henry Clay Proposing the

Compromise of 1850
This engraving captures
one of the most dramatic
moments in the history of
the United States Senate.
Vice President Millard
Fillmore presides, while on
the floor sit several of the
"Senatorial Giants" of the
era, including Daniel Webster,
Stephen A. Douglas, and
John C. Calhoun.

gradually crystallized in the North. It was strengthened

by a growing spirit of goodwill, which sprang partly from
Balancing the Compromise Scales
a feeling of relief and partly from an upsurge of prosperity
enriched by California gold. Who got the better deal in the Compromise of 1850? The
But the ~~fire-eaters" of the South were still violently answer is clearly the North. California, as a free state,
opposed to concessions. One extreme South Carolina tipped the Senate balance permanently against the
newspaper avowed that it loathed the Union and hated South. The territories of New Mexico and Utah were
the North as much as it did Hell itself. A movement in open to slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. But
the South to boycott northern goods gained some head- the iron law of nature-the ~~ highest law" of all-had
way, but in the end the southern Unionists, assisted by loaded the dice in favor of free soil. Southerners urgently
the warm glow of prosperity, prevailed. needed more slave territory to restore the ~~sacred
In June 1850 the assemblage of southern extremists balance." If they could not carve new states out of the
met in Nashville, ironically near the burial place of recent conquests from Mexico, where else might they
Andrew Jackson. The delegates not only took a strong get them? The Caribbean was one answer.
position in favor of slavery but condemned the compro- Even the apparent gains of the South rang hollow.
mise measures then being hammered out in Congress. Disgruntled Texas was to be paid $10 million toward
Meeting again in November after the bills had passed, the discharging its indebtedness, but in the long run this
convention proved to be a dud. By that time southern was a modest sum. The immense area in dispute had
opinion had reluctantly accepted the verdict of Congress. been torn from the side of slaveholding Texas and was
Like the calm after a storm, a second Era of Good almost certain to be free. The South had halted the
Feelings dawned. Disquieting talk of secession sub- drive toward abolition in the District of Columbia, at
sided. Peace-loving people, both North and South, were least temporarily, by permitting the outlawing of the
determined that the compromises should be a ~~finality" slave trade in the federal district. But even this move
and that the explosive issue of slavery should be buried. was an entering wedge toward complete emancipation
But this placid period proved all too brief. in the nation's capital.
 The Fugitive Slave Law 399

Slavery After the Compromise of

1850 Regarding the Fugitive
Slave Act provisions of the
Compromise of 1850, Ralph
Waldo Emerson declared (May
1851) at Concord, Massachusetts,
"The act of Congress ... is a law
which every one of you will
break on the earliest occasion-
a law which no man can obey, or
abet the obeying, without loss of
NEW MEXICO self-respect and forfeiture of the
TERR.
name of gentleman." Privately
he wrote in his Journal, "This
filthy enactment was made in
D Free the nineteenth century, by peo-
D Slave ple who could read and write. I
D Decision left to territory will not obey it, by God."

Most alarming of all, the drastic new Fugitive Slave away were freed and ten dollars if not-an arrangement
Law of 1850-"the Bloodhound Bill"-stirred up a storm that strongly resembled a bribe. Freedom-loving north-
of opposition in the North. The fleeing slaves could not erners who aided the slave to escape were liable to
testify in their own behalf, and they were denied a jury heavy fines and jail sentences. They might even be
trial. These harsh practices, some citizens feared, ordered to join the slave-catchers, and this possibility
threatened to create dangerous precedents for white rubbed salt into old sores.
Americans. The federal commissioner who handled the So abhorrent was this "Man-Stealing Law" that it
case of a fugitive would receive five dollars if the run- touched off an explosive chain reaction in the North.

A Ride for Liberty, by Eastman

Johnson In this famous painting,
Johnson, a New England artist,
brilliantly evokes the anxiety of
fleeing slaves.
400 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

CONN.
(1784-
1848)

ATLANTIC
OCEAN
PACIFIC
OCEAN
D Free state by admission to Union P"~
D Free state by gradual abolition
) Date of abolition by
State Constitution
MEXICO
D Free territory by Act of Congress
0\)
'~ ""
1 Date of abolition by D Slave state by admission to Union
Territorial Constitution D Territory open to slavery by Act of Congre~
~

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

Many shocked moderates, hitherto passive, were driven 1851 declared, "We execrate it, we spit upon it, we
into the swelling ranks of the antislaveryites. When a run- trample it under our feet."
away slave from Virginia was captured in Boston in 1854, Beyond question, the Fugitive Slave Law was an
he had to be removed from the city under heavy federal appalling blunder on the part of the South. No single
guard through streets lined with sullen Yankees and shad- irritant of the 1850s was more persistently galling to both
owed by black-draped buildings festooned with flags sides, and none did more to awaken in the North a spirit
flying upside down. One prominent Bostonian who of antagonism against the South. The southerners in turn
witnessed this grim spectacle wrote that "we went to were embittered because the northerners would not in
bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise good faith execute the law-the one real and immediate
Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists." southern "gain" from the Great Compromise. Slave-
The Underground Railroad stepped up its timetable, catchers, with some success, redoubled their efforts.
and infuriated northern mobs rescued slaves from their Should the shooting showdown have come in 1850?
pursuers. Massachusetts, in a move toward nullification From the standpoint of the secessionists, yes; from the
suggestive of South Carolina in 1832, made it a penal standpoint of the Unionists, no. Time was fighting for
offense for any state official to enforce the new federal the North. With every passing decade, this huge section
statute. Other states passed "personal liberty laws," was forging further ahead in population and wealth-in
which denied local jails to federal officials and otherwise crops, factories, foundries, ships, and railroads.
hampered enforcement. The abolitionists rent the heav- Delay also added immensely to the moral strength
ens with their protests against the man-stealing statute. of the North-to its will to fight for the Union. In 1850
A meeting presided over by William Lloyd Garrison in countless thousands of northern moderates were
 The Election of 1852 401

unwilling to pin the South to the rest of the nation with With slavery and sectionalism to some extent soft-
bayonets. But the inflammatory events of the 1850s did pedaled, the campaign again degenerated into a dull
much to bolster the Yankee will to resist secession, and childish attack on personalities. Democrats
whatever the cost. This one feverish decade gave the ridiculed Scott's pomposity; Whigs charged that Pierce
North time to accumulate the material and moral was the hero ofllmany a well-fought bottle." Democrats
strength that provided the margin of victory. Thus the cried exultantly, uwe Polked 'em in '44; we'll Pierce
Compromise of 1850, from one point of view, won 'em in '52."
the Civil War for the Union. Luckily for the Democrats, the Whig party was
hopelessly split. Antislavery Whigs of the North
swallowed Scott as their nominee but deplored his
platform, which endorsed the hated Fugitive Slave Law.
The current phrase ran, uwe accept the candidate but
Defeat and Doom lor the Whigs
spit on the platform." Southern Whigs, who doubted
Meeting in Baltimore, the Democratic nominating Scott's loyalty to the Compromise of 1850 and especially
convention of 1852 startled the nation. Hopelessly the Fugitive Slave Law, accepted the platform but spat
deadlocked, it finally stampeded to the second ((dark- on the candidate. More than five thousand Georgia
horse" candidate in American history, an unrenowned Whigs-llfinality men" -voted in vain for Webster,
lawyer-politician, Franklin Pierce, from the hills of New although he had died nearly two weeks before the
Hampshire. The Whigs tried to jeer him back into election.
obscurity with the cry, liWho is Frank Pierce?" Democrats General Scott, victorious on the battlefield, met
replied, liThe Young Hickory of the Granite Hills." defeat at the ballot box. His friends remarked whimsi-
Pierce was a weak and indecisive figure. Youngish, cally that he was not used to ((running." Actually, he was
handsome, militarily erect, smiling, and convivial, he stabbed in the back by his fellow Whigs, notably in the
had served without real distinction in the Mexican War. South. In addition, Free Soil party candidate John P.
As a result of a painful groin injury that caused him to Hale, senator from New Hampshire, siphoned off north-
fall off a horse, he was known as the ((Fainting General," ern Whig votes that might have gone to Scott. Hale
though scandalmongers pointed to a fondness for walked away with a respectable 5 percent of the popular
alcohol. But he was enemyless because he had been vote. The pliant Pierce won in a landslide, 254 electoral
inconspicuous, and as a prosouthern northerner, he votes to 42, although the popular count was closer,
was acceptable to the slavery wing of the Democratic 1,601,117 to 1,385,453.
party. His platform revived the Democrats' commit- The election of 1852 was fraught with frightening
ment to territorial expansion as pursued by President significance, though it may have seemed tame at the
Polk and emphatically endorsed the Compromise of time. It marked the effective end of the disorganized
1850, Fugitive Slave Law and all. Whig party and, within a few years, its complete death.
The Whigs, also convening in Baltimore, missed The Whigs' demise augured the eclipse of national
a splendid opportunity to capitalize on their record parties and the worrisome rise of purely sectional
in statecraft. Able to boast of a praiseworthy achieve- political alignments. The Whigs were governed at
ment in the Compromise of 1850, they might logically times by the crassest opportunism, and they won only
have nominated President Fillmore or Senator Web- two presidential elections (1840, 1848) in their colorful
ster, both of whom were associated with it. But having career, both with war heroes. They finally choked to
won in the past only with military heroes, they turned death trying to swallow the distasteful Fugitive Slave
to another, liOld Fuss and Feathers" Winfield Scott, Law. But their great contribution-and a noteworthy
perhaps the ablest American general of his genera- one indeed-was to help uphold the ideal of the Union
tion. Although he was a huge and impressive figure, through their electoral strength in the South and
his manner bordered on haughtiness. His personality through the eloquence of leaders like Henry Clay and
not only repelled the masses but eclipsed his gen- Daniel Webster. Both of these statesmen, by unhappy
uinely statesmanlike achievements. The Whig plat- coincidence, died during the 1852 campaign. But the
form praised the Compromise of 1850 as a lasting good they had done lived after them and contributed
arrangement, though less enthusiastically than the powerfully to the eventual preservation of a united
Democrats. United States.
402 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

pestilence and accident, it ran forty-eight miles from

coast to coast through the green hell of the Panamanian
Expansionist Stirrings South jungle. A full-blown confrontation with Britain was
avoided by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1850, which
of the Border stipulated that neither America nor Britain would fortify
The intoxicating victory in the Mexican War, coupled or seek exclusive control over any future isthmian
with the discovery of gold in California just nine days waterway (later rescinded by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
before the war's end, reinvigorated the spirit of Manifest of 1901; seep. 648).
Destiny. The rush to the Sierra Nevada goldfields Southern "slavocrats" cast especially covetous eyes
aroused particular concerns about the fate of Central southward in the 1850s. They lusted for new slave terri-
America. Since the days of Balboa, this narrow neck of tory after the Compromise of 1850 seemingly closed
land had stimulated dreams of a continuous Atlantic-to- most of the Mexican Cession to the "peculiar institu-
Pacific transportation route that would effectively sever tion." In 1856 a Texan proposed a toast that was drunk
the two American continents. Whoever controlled that with gusto: "To the Southern republic bounded on the
route would hold imperial sway over all maritime north by the Mason and Dixon line and on the South
nations, especially the United States. by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec [southern Mexico],
Increasing British encroachment into the area- including Cuba and all other lands on our Southern
including the British seizure of the port of San Juan shore." Nicaragua beckoned beguilingly. A brazen Amer-
(renamed Greytown) on Nicaragua's "Mosquito Coast"- ican adventurer, William Walker, tried repeatedly to grab
drove the governments of both the United States and control of this Central American country. (He had earlier
New Granada (later Colombia) to conclude an impor- tried and failed to seize Baja California from Mexico and
tant treaty in 1848. It guaranteed the American right of turn it into a slave state.) Backed by an armed force
transit across the isthmus in return for Washington's recruited largely in the South, he installed himself as
pledge to maintain the "perfect neutrality" of the route president in July 1856 and promptly legalized slavery.
so that the "free transit of traffic might not be inter- One southern newspaper proclaimed to the planter
rupted." The agreement later provided a fig leaf of legal aristocracy that Walker-the "gray-eyed man of destiny"-
cover for Theodore Roosevelt's assertion of American "now offers Nicaragua to you and your slaves, at a time
control of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903. It also led to when you have not a friend on the face of the earth." But
the construction of the first "transcontinental" railroad. a coalition of Central American nations formed an
Completed in 1855 at a cost of thousands of lives lost to alliance to overthrow him. President Pierce withdrew

Gulf of
Mexico

JAMAICA
(British)

British agents and traders

influence natives

Caribbean Sea
Central America, c. 1850. Showing British
Proposed canal route, Possessions and Proposed Canal Routes
then a land-and-water route
Until President Theodore Roosevelt
swung into action with his big stick in
1903, a Nicaraguan canal, closer to the
PACIFIC OCEAN United States, was generally judged
more desirable than a canal across
Panama.
 Caribbean Diplomacy 403

diplomatic recognition, and the gray-eyed man's

destiny was to crumple before a Honduran firing squad The first platform of the newly born
in 1860. (antislavery) Republican party in 1856
Sugar-rich Cuba, lying just off the nation's southern lashed out at the Ostend Manifesto, with
doorstep, was also an enticing prospect for annexation. its transparent suggestion that Cuba be
This remnant of Spain's once-mighty New World empire seized. The plank read,
already held a large population of enslaved blacks,
and it might be carved into several states, restoring "Resolved, That the highwayman's plea,
the political balance in the Senate. President Polk had that 'might makes right,' embodied in
considered offering Spain $100 million for Cuba, but the the Ostend Circular, was in every
proud Spaniards replied that they would sooner see the respect unworthy of American
island sunk into the sea than in the hands of the hated diplomacy, and would bring shame
Yankees. and dishonor upon any Government
Rebuffed as buyers, some southern adventurers now or people that gave it their sanction."
undertook to shake the tree of Manifest Destiny. During
1850-1851 two "filibustering" expeditions (from the
Spanish filibustero, meaning "freebooter" or "pirate"),
each numbering several hundred armed men, de-
scended upon Cuba. Both feeble efforts were repelled,
and the last one ended in tragedy when the leader and
fifty followers-some of them from the "best families"
of the South-were summarily shot or strangled. So
The Allure of Asia
outraged were the southerners that an angry mob The acquisition of California and Oregon had made the
sacked Spain's consulate in New Orleans. United States a Pacific power-or would-be power. How
Spanish officials in Cuba rashly forced a showdown could Americans now tap more deeply the supposedly
in 1854, when they seized an American steamer, Black rich markets of Asia? Rivalry with the British lion once
Warrior, on a technicality. Now was the time for Presi- again played a role. Britain had recently humbled China
dent Pierce, dominated as he was by the South, to pro- in the Opium War, fought to secure the right of British
voke a war with Spain and seize Cuba. The major traders to peddle opium in the Celestial Kingdom. At
powers of Europe-England, France, and Russia-were the war's conclusion in 1842, Britain gained free access
about to become bogged down in the Crimean War and to five so-called treaty ports, as well as outright control
hence were unable to aid Spain. of the island of Hong Kong (where it remained for
An incredible cloak-and-dagger episode followed. another century and a half). Prodded by Boston mer-
The secretary of state instructed the American ministers chants fearful of seeing Britain horn in on their lucrative
in Spain, England, and France to prepare confidential trade with China, President Tyler thereupon dispatched
recommendations for the acquisition of Cuba. Meeting Caleb Cushing, a dashing Massachusetts lawyer-
initially at Ostend, Belgium, the three envoys drew up scholar, to secure comparable concessions for the
a top-secret dispatch, soon known as the Ostend Mani- United States. Cushing's four warships arrived at Macao,
festo. This startling document urged that the adminis- in southern China, in early 1844, bearing gifts that
tration offer $120 million for Cuba. If Spain refused, included a weathervane and a pair of six-shooters.
and if its continued ownership endangered American Impressed by Cushing's charm and largesse-and
interests, the United States would "be justified in also eager for a counterweight to the meddlesome
wresting" the island from the Spanish. British-silk-gowned Chinese diplomats signed the
The secret Ostend Manifesto quickly leaked out. Treaty of Wanghia, the first formal diplomatic agree-
Northern free-sailers, already angered by the Fugitive ment between the United States and China, on July 3,
Slave Law and other gains for slavery, rose up in wrath 1844. Cushing was interested in commerce, not
against the "manifesto of brigands." The shackled black colonies, and he secured some vital rights and privileges
hands of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom, whose plight from the Chinese. "Most favored nation" status afforded
had already stung the conscience of the North, now held the United States any and all trading terms accorded to
the South back. The red-faced Pierce administration hur- other powers. "Extraterritoriality" provided for trying
riedly dropped its reckless schemes for Cuba. The slavery Americans accused of crimes in China before American
issue thus checked territorial expansion in the 1850s. officials, not in Chinese courts. (Cushing was prompted
404 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

to seek this particular immunity by the memory of a

seaman on a U.S. vessel who was strangled to death
by Chinese authorities for what was apparently the
accidental drowning of a Chinese woman.) American
trade with China flourished thanks to Cushing's treaty,
though it never reached the proportions his backers had
dreamed of. More immediately important was the
opportunity it opened for American missionaries, thou-
sands of whom soon flooded prayerfully through the
treaty ports to convert the "heathen Chinese." Fatefully,
America had now aligned itself with the Western powers
that chronically menaced China's cultural integrity.
All of them would one day reap a bitter harvest of
resentment.
Success in China soon inspired a still more conse-
quential mission to pry open the bamboo gates of Japan.
After some disagreeable experiences with the European
world, Japan, at about the same time Jamestown was
settled, withdrew into an almost airtight cocoon of
isolationism and remained there for more than two
centuries. The long-ruling warrior dynasty known as
the Tokugawa Shogunate was so protective of Japan's
insularity that it prohibited shipwrecked foreign sailors
from leaving and refused to readmit Japanese sailors Commodore Perry and Flag Bearer, by an Anonymous
who had been washed up on foreign shores. Meanwhile, Japanese Artist, c. 1853 (detail) Painted at the time of
industrial and democratic revolutions were convulsing the opening of Japan, this scene shows Perry and his
the Western world, while Japan remained placidly steward from the point of view of a Japanese artist.
secluded. By 1853 Japan was ready to emerge from its
self-imposed quarantine.
In 1852 President Millard Fillmore dispatched to
Japan a fleet of warships commanded by Commodore nese with gifts, including a miniature steam locomotive
Matthew C. Perry. The brother of the hero of the Battle of and 350 feet of track. With this display of pomp and
Lake Erie in 1813, Perry had prepared diligently for his bravado, he persuaded the Japanese to sign the land-
mission, voraciously reading about Japan, querying mark Treaty of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854. It provided
whalers about Pacific Ocean currents, and collecting for proper treatment of shipwrecked sailors, American
specimens of American technology with which to coaling rights in Japan, and the establishment of
impress the Japanese. His four awesome, smoke-belching consular relations. Perry had inserted only a commercial
"black ships" steamed into Edo (later Tokyo) Bay on toe in the door, but he had cracked Japan's two-century
July 8, 1853, inciting near-panic among the shocked shell of isolation wide open. Within little more than a
Japanese. After tense negotiations, during which Perry decade, the "Meiji Restoration" would end the era of the
threatened to blast his way ashore if necessary, Perry Shogunate and propel the Land of the Rising Sun head-
stepped onto the beach, preceded by two conspicuously long into the modern world-and an eventual epochal
tall African American flag bearers. From elaborately military clash with the United States.
carved gold-trimmed boxes, Perry produced silk-bound
letters requesting free trade and friendly relations. He
handed them to the wary Japanese delegation and then
tactfully withdrew, promising to return the following Pacific Railroad Promoters
year to receive the Japanese reply.
and the Gadsden Purchase
True to his word, Perry returned in February 1854
with an even larger force of seven men-of-war. Once Acute transportation problems were another legacy
again he combined bluster and grace, plying the Japa- of the Mexican War. The newly acquired prizes of Califor-
 The Gadsden Purchase 405

nia and Oregon might just as well have been islands some Another chunk of Mexico now seemed desirable,
eight thousand miles west of the nation's capital. The sea because the campaigns of the recent war had shown
routes to and from the Isthmus of Panama, to say nothing that the best railway route ran slightly south of the Mex-
of those around South America, were too long. Covered- ican border. Secretary ofWar Jefferson Davis, a Missis-
wagon travel past bleaching animal bones was possible, sippian, arranged to have James Gadsden, a prominent
but slow and dangerous. A popular song recalled, South Carolina railroad man, appointed minister to
Mexico. Finding Santa Anna in power for the sixth and
They swam the wide rivers and crossed the
last time, and as usual in need of money, Gadsden made
tall peaks,
gratifying headway. He negotiated a treaty in 1853,
And camped on the prairie for weeks upon
which ceded to the United States the Gadsden Purchase
weeks.
area for $10 million. The transaction aroused much
Starvation and cholera and hard work and
criticism among northerners, who objected to paying
slaughter,
a huge sum for a cactus-strewn desert nearly the
They reached California spite of hell and high
size of Gadsden's South Carolina. Undeterred, the
water.
Senate approved the pact, in the process shortsightedly
Feasible land transportation was imperative-or eliminating a window on the Sea of Cortez.
the newly won possessions on the Pacific Coast might No doubt the Gadsden Purchase enabled the South
break away. Camels were even proposed as the answer. to claim the coveted railroad with even greater insis-
Several score of these temperamental beasts-"ships of tence. A southern track would be easier to build because
the desert" -were imported from the Near East, but the mountains were less high and because the route,
mule-driving Americans did not adjust to them. A unlike the proposed northern lines, would not pass
transcontinental railroad was clearly the only real through unorganized territory. Texas was already a state
solution to the problem. at this point, and New Mexico (with the Gadsden
Railroad promoters, both North and South, had Purchase added) was a formally organized territory,
projected many drawing-board routes to the Pacific with federal troops available to provide protection
Coast. But the estimated cost in all cases was so great against marauding tribes of Indians. Any northern or
that for many years there could obviously be only one central railroad line would have to be thrust through the
line. Should its terminus be in the North or in the South? unorganized territory of Nebraska, where the buffalo
The favored section would reap rich rewards in wealth, and Indians roamed.
population, and influence. The South, losing the eco- Northern railroad boosters quickly replied that if
nomic race with the North, was eager to extend a organized territory were the test, then Nebraska should
railroad through adjacent southwestern territory all be organized. Such a move was not premature, because
the way to California. thousands of land-hungry pioneers were already poised

The Gadsden Purchase. 1853

406 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

on the Nebraska border. But all schemes proposed in

Congress for organizing the territory were greeted with
apathy or hostility by many southerners. Why should the
South help create new free-soil states and thus cut its
own throat by facilitating a northern railroad?

Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Scheme

At this point in 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of
Illinois delivered a counterstroke to offset the Gadsden
thrust for southern expansion westward. A squat, bull-
necked, and heavy-chested figure, the "Little Giant" radi-
ated the energy and breezy optimism of the self-made
man. An ardent booster for the West, he longed to break
the North-South deadlock over westward expansion and
stretch a line of settlements across the continent. He had
also invested heavily in Chicago real estate and in railway
stock and was eager to have the Windy City become the
eastern terminus of the proposed Pacific railroad. He
would thus endear himself to the voters of Illinois, benefit Douglas Hatches a Slavery Problem Note the already
his section, and enrich his own purse. hatched Missouri Compromise, Squatter Sovereignty,
A veritable "steam engine in breeches," Douglas threw and Filibuster (in Cuba), and the about-to-hatch Free
himself behind a legislative scheme that would enlist the Kansas and Dred Scott decision. So bitter was the
support of a reluctant South. The proposed Territory of outcry against Douglas at the time of the Kansas-
Nebraska would be sliced into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska controversy that he claimed with
Nebraska. Their status regarding slavery would be settled exaggeration that he could have traveled from
by popular sovereignty-a democratic concept to which Boston to Chicago at night by the light from his
Douglas and his western constituents were deeply burning effigies.
attached. Kansas, which lay due west of slaveholding
Missouri, would presumably choose to become a slave sacred as the Constitution itself. Free-soil members of
state. But Nebraska, lying west of free-soil Iowa, would Congress struck back with a vengeance. They met their
presumably become a free state. match in the violently gesticulating Douglas, who was
Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska scheme flatly contra- the ablest rough-and-tumble debater of his generation.
dicted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had Employing twisted logic and oratorical fireworks, he
forbidden slavery in the proposed Nebraska Territory rammed the bill through Congress, with strong support
north of the sacred 36° 30' line. The only way to open the from many southerners. So heated were political passions
region to popular sovereignty was to repeal the ancient that bloodshed was barely averted. Some members
compact outright. This bold step Douglas was now carried a concealed revolver or a bowie knife-or both.
prepared to take, even at the risk of shattering the uneasy Douglas's motives in prodding anew the snarling dog
truce patched together by the Compromise of 1850. of slavery have long puzzled historians. His personal
Many southerners, who had not conceived of interests have already been mentioned. In addition, his
Kansas as slave soil, rose to the bait. Here was a chance foes accused him of angling for the presidency in 1856.
to gain one more slave state. The pliable President Yet his admirers have argued plausibly in his defense that
Pierce, under the thumb of southern advisers, threw his if he had not championed the ill-omened bill, someone
full weight behind the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. else would have.
But the Missouri Compromise, then thirty-four The truth seems to be that Douglas acted somewhat
years old, could not be brushed aside lightly. Whatever impulsively and recklessly. His heart did not bleed over
Congress passes it can repeal, but by this time the North the issue of slavery, and he declared repeatedly that
had come to regard the sectional pact as almost as he did not care whether it was voted up or down in the
 The Kansas-Nebraska Act 407

predicted a "hell of a storm," but he grossly underesti-

mated its proportions. His critics in the North, branding
Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner
him a "Judas" and a "traitor," greeted his name with
(1811 - 1874) described the Kansas-Nebraska
frenzied boos, hisses, and "three groans for Doug." But
Bill as "at once the worst and the best Bill on
he still enjoyed a high degree of popularity among his
which Congress ever acted." It was the worst
following in the Democratic party, especially in Illinois,
because it represented a victory for the slave
a stronghold of popular sovereignty.
power in the short run. But it was the best,
he said prophetically, because it
"annuls all past compromises with slav-
ery, and makes all future compromises
impossible. Thus it puts freedom and Congress Legislates a Civil War
slavery face to face, and bids them The Kansas-Nebraska Act-a curtain-raiser to a terrible
grapple. Who can doubt the result?" drama-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 by the "Nebrascals"
territories. What he failed to perceive was that hundreds and their "Nebrascality." All future compromise with the
of thousands of his fellow citizens in the North did feel South would be immeasurably more difficult, and with-
deeply on this moral issue. They regarded the repeal of out compromise there was bound to be conflict.
the Missouri Compromise as an intolerable breach of Henceforth the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, previously
faith, and they would henceforth resist to the last trench enforced in the North only halfheartedly, was a dead let-
all future southern demands for slave territory. As Abra- ter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act wrecked two compro-
ham Lincoln said, the North wanted to give to pioneers mises: that of 1820, which it repealed specifically,
in the West "a clean bed, with no snakes in it." and that of 1850, which northern opinion repealed
Genuine leaders, like skillful chess players, must indirectly. Emerson wrote, "The Fugitive [Slave] Law did
foresee the possible effects of their moves. Douglas much to unglue the eyes of men, and now the Nebraska

CANADA

NEBRASKA
TERRITORY

Kansas and Nebraska, 1854

The future Union Pacific Railroad
NEW MEXICO (completed in 1869) is shown.
TERRITORY Note the Missouri Compromise
line of 36° 30' (1820).
408 CHAPTER 18 Renewing the Sectional Struggle, 1848-1854

Bill leaves us staring." Northern abolitionists and south- Whigs (among them Abraham Lincoln), Democrats,
ern "fire-eaters" alike saw less and less they could live Free-Sailers, Know-Nothings, and other foes of the
with. The growing legion of antislaveryites gained Kansas-Nebraska Act. The hodgepodge party spread
numerous recruits, who resented the grasping move by eastward with the swiftness of a prairie fire and with the
the "slavocracy" for Kansas. The southerners, in turn, zeal of a religious crusade. Unheard-of and unheralded
became inflamed when the free-sailers tried to control at the beginning of 1854, when the nativist Know-
Kansas, contrary to the presumed "deal." Nothings instead seemed to be the rising party of the
The proud Democrats-a party now over half a North, it elected a Republican Speaker of the House
century old-were shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska of Representatives within two years. Never really a
Act. They did elect a president in 1856, but he was the third-party movement, its wide wingspan gave it flight
last one they were to boost into the White House for overnight as the second major political party-and a
twenty-eight long years. purely sectional one at that.
Undoubtedly the most durable offspring of the At long last the dreaded sectional rift had appeared.
Kansas-Nebraska blunder was the new Republican The new Republican party would not be allowed south
party. It sprang up spontaneously in the Middle West, of the Mason-Dixon line. Countless southerners
notably in Wisconsin and Michigan, as a mighty moral subscribed wholeheartedly to the sentiment that it was
protest against the gains of slavery. Gathering together "a nigger stealing, stinking, putrid, abolition party." The
dissatisfied elements, it soon included disgruntled Union was in dire peril.

Chronology

1844 Caleb Cushing signs Treaty ofWanghia with China 1852 Pierce defeats Scott for presidency
L--------·~.-~... ~-~-

Treaty of"""'Guadalupe
"""' Hidalgo ends Mexican War 1853 Gadsden Purchase from Mexico
Taylor defeats Cass and Van Buren for presidency
1854 Commodore Perry opens Japan
California gold rush Ostend Manifesto proposes seizure of
Cuba
1850 Fillmore assumes presidency after Taylor's Kansas-Nebraska Act
death Republican party organized
Compromise of 1850, including Fugitive
Slave Law 1856 William Walker becomes president of
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Britain Nicaragua and legalizes slavery

For further reading, see the Appendix. For web resources, go to [Link]/highered.