The Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 

The U.S. right before the Compromise of 1850

 Manifest Destiny & President James K. Polk (1845 - 1849)

Thomas Cole paintings - The Course of Empire

Polk threatens Great Britain with war and Britain signs a treaty ceding the Oregon Territory to the U.S. in August, 1848.

The Mexican-American War

      The Texas Revolution (1835-6) and Texas annexation (1845).  Texas (Rio Grande river) and Mexico (Nueces river) disagree over the boundary line.

       Democratic and expansionist President James K. Polk covets Mexican territory.  In 1844, he
made a proposition to the Mexican government to purchase the disputed lands between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. When that offer was rejected, troops from the United States commanded by Major General Zachary Taylor were moved into the disputed territory of Coahuila. These troops were then attacked by Mexican troops, killing 12 US troops and taking 52 prisoners. These same Mexican troops later laid siege to a US fort along the Rio Grande. This would lead to the conflict that resulted in the loss of much of Mexico's northern territory.

US forces quickly occupied Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California Territory, and then invaded parts of Central Mexico (modern-day Northeastern Mexico and Northwest Mexico); meanwhile, the Pacific Squadron conducted a blockade, and took control of several garrisons on the Pacific coast farther south in Baja California Territory. Another US army, under the command of Major General Winfield Scott, captured the capital Mexico City, marching from the port of Veracruz.


The Wilmot Proviso  (1846) 

"Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."


Wilmot's views (free labor ideology):

"I plead the cause and the rights of white freemen [and] I would preserve to free white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil, of my own race and own color, can live without the disgrace which association with negro slavery brings upon free labor."

"Keep it within given limits …and in time it will wear itself out. Its existence can only be perpetuated by constant expansion. … Slavery has within itself the seeds of its own destruction."

"I desire to keep slavery and black people in the South in order to reserve the territories solely for white people."

Black people are inferior to Caucasians. Blacks constitute a totally distinct group; they overshadow the country with the germ... of evil.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_wilmot.html

The unproductive tillage of human cattle takes that which of right belongs to free labor, and which is necessary for the support and happiness of our own race.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/davidwilmo215581.html

The unproductive tillage of human cattle takes that which of right belongs to free labor, and which is necessary for the support and happiness of our own race.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_wilmot.html

The unproductive tillage of human cattle takes that which of right belongs to free labor, and which is necessary for the support and happiness of our own race.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_wilmot.html

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1846):

       $15 million + 3.25 million debts to U.S. citizens

      The U.S. increases from 1,753,588 to 2,944,337 square miles.  (a 2/3 increase).




There are 15 free states and 15 slave states prior to the Compromise of 1850

The California Gold Rush (1848 - 1855)    San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852.



1848 - Alabama Congressman William Yancy authors the "Alabama Platform" (full text) in response to the Wilmot Proviso for the 1848 Democratic Convention.  Its main points:

1.  The Federal government could not restrict slavery in the territories. 

2.  Territories could not prohibit slavery until the point where they were meeting in convention to draft a state constitution in order to petition Congress for statehood.

 3.  Alabama delegates to the Democratic convention were to oppose any candidate supporting either the Proviso or Popular Sovereignty (which allowed territories to exclude slavery).

4.  The federal government must specifically overrule Mexican anti-slavery laws in the Mexican Cession and actively protect slavery.


The 1848 Presidential Election:  The Whigs and Democrats both courted apolitical Zachary Taylor, popular hero of the Mexican War.  Taylor chose to run as a Whig.  Many antislavery Democrats (Barnburners) had left the Democratic Party during its 1848 convention when pro-slavery Lewis Cass was nominated.  They formed the Free Soil Party and selected ex-president Martin van Buren as their candidate.  Taylor won, but died 18 months into office.  His vice president, Millard Fillmore, took office and backed the Fugitive Slave Law in the Compromise debates, alienating anti-slavery Whigs.

1849 - Henry David Thoreau pens his famous Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience) in reaction to slavery and the Mexican-American War. 


Henry Clay's compromise (late 1849):

1.  California enters as a free state 

2.  The rest of the Mexican territory is to be settled by popular sovereignty.

3.  New Mexico territory gets a piece of Texas and the U.S. government absorbs $10 million of Texas' debt.

4.  Guarantee slavery, but end the slave trade, in the District of Columbia 

5.  Stronger Fugitive Slave Act and denies Congress power over the internal slave trade.


Clay's compromise failed to pass in Congress in early 1850 due to opposition by both pro-slavery southern Democrats, led by John C. Calhoun, and anti-slavery northern Whigs like William Seward.

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The Southern extremist position:  The North is being the aggressor in disunion...

John C. Calhoun's response to Clay's measures - March 4, 1850:  If slavery is not respected by the Senate, the South would leave the Union:

"It is time, senators, that there should be an open and manly avowal on all sides as to what is intended to be done. If the question is not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can hereafter be; and we, as the representatives of the States of this Union regarded as governments, should come to a distinct understanding as to our respective views, in order to ascertain whether the great questions at issue can be settled or not. If you who represent the stronger portion, can not agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace.

If you are unwilling we should part in peace, tell us so; and we shall know what to do when you reduce the question to submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that case California will become the test question. If you admit her under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired Territories, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We should be blind not to perceive in that case that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated, not to act accordingly."


Most Northern Whigs, led by New York governor William H. Seward opposed the Compromise as well because it would not have applied the Wilmot Proviso to the western territories and because of the newly strengthened fugitive slave act, which would have pressed ordinary citizens into duty on slave-hunting patrols. This provision was inserted by Democratic Virginia Senator James M. Mason to entice border-state Whigs, who faced the greatest danger of losing slaves as fugitives but who were lukewarm on general sectional issues related to the South into supporting Texas's land claims.

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The Compromise Position:  Daniel Webster's 7th of March Speech  (see talk on Unionism)

Webster viewed slavery as a matter of historical reality rather than moral principle.  He argued that the issue of its existence in the territories had been settled long ago when Congress prohibited slavery in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and divided regions into slave and free in the 1820 Missouri Compromise.  He believed that slavery where it existed could not be eradicated but also that it could not take root in the newly acquired agriculturally barren lands of the southwest.  Attacking radical abolitionists to boost his credibility with moderate southerners, Webster urged northerners to respect slavery in the South and to assist in the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.  He joined Clay in warning that the Union could never be dismembered peacefully. 


Moderates across the North praised Webster's speech, but the Massachusetts abolitionists voted him out of office.  President Millard Fillmore, also a backer of thee Fugitive Slave Act, made Seward his Secretary of State until his death two years later.

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The Antislavery Position: 


William Seward's "Freedom in the Territories" or "Higher Law" speech extracts - March 11, 1850:  The Constitution is an antislavery document...



"But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man. I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but, on the contrary, altogether excludes it."


"But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator if the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness. How momentous that trust is, we may learn from the instructions of the founder of modern philosophy..."


Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery. I speak on due consideration because Britain, France, and Mexico, have abolished slavery, and all other European states are preparing to abolish it as speedily as they can. We cannot establish slavery, because there are certain elements of the security, welfare, and greatness of nations, which we all admit, or ought to admit, and recognize as essential; and these are the security of natural rights, the diffusion of knowledge, and the freedom of industry.  Slavery is incompatible with all of these; and, just in proportion to the extent that it prevails and controls in any republican state, just to that extent it subverts the principle of democracy, and converts the state into an aristocracy or a despotism.... 

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 July 9.  Zachary Taylor dies, Millard Fillmore becomes president; he leans more South than Taylor.  He supports the enhanced Fugitive Slave Act - that angered antislavery Whigs.  The party becomes factious and begins to shatter.


 Stephen Douglas takes over Clay's role as compromiser.  Upon Clay's instruction, Douglas then divided Clay's bill into several smaller pieces and narrowly won their passage over the opposition of those with stronger views on both sides.

Northern Whigs and Democrats and Upper South Whigs vote for:

California admitted as a free state. It passed the House 150–56. It passed the Senate 34–18.

The slave trade abolished (the sale of slaves, not the institution of slavery) in the District of Columbia. 

Texas gives up much of the western land which it claimed and received compensation of $10,000,000 to pay off its national debt. 
  

Southern Democrats and Whigs and Northern Democrats vote for:

The Territory of Utah organized under the rule of popular sovereignty. It passed the House 97–85.

The Territory of New Mexico organized under the rule of popular sovereignty. It passed the House 108–97. It passed the Senate 30–20.

A harsher Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the Senate 27–12, and by the House 109–76. 

These are passed and Fillmore signs them into law between Sept 9 and 30, 1850.


Results:

Overall, the outcome was acceptable to most but southern Unionists organized the Georgia Platform in December to calm some upset southerners.

Almost immediately, the stricter Fugitive Slave Law would be challenged by northern abolitionists.  This would be the most trouble until the even more troublesome Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise in 1854.

At best, the Compromise of 1850 postponed the Civil War for a decade, but in that time the north outpaced the south in industrialization, population growth and financial power, giving it a big advantage in fighting the war once it came.

Calhoun would die three weeks after his speech.  Webster and Clay would die in 1852. The Great Triumvirate is gone.

The U.S. after the Compromise of 1850