American Eloquence, Volume II | Page 5

enormously increased by the discovery of gold
within her limits, for admission as a free State. If New Mexico should
do the same, as was probable, the Wilmot proviso would be practically
in force throughout the best portion of the Mexican acquisition. The
two sections were now so strong and so determined that compromise of
any kind was far more difficult than in 1820; and it was not easy to
reconcile or compromise the southern demand that slavery should be
permitted, and the northern demand that slavery should be forbidden, to
enter the new territories.

In the meantime, the Presidential election of 1848 had come and gone.
It had been marked by the appearance of a new party, the Free Soilers,
an event which was at first extremely embarrassing to the managers of
both the Democratic and Whig parties. On the one hand, the northern
and southern sections of the Whig party had always been very loosely
joined together, and the slender tie was endangered by the least
admission of the slavery issue. On the other hand, while the
Democratic national organization had always been more perfect, its
northern section had always been much more inclined to active
anti-slavery work than the northern Whigs. Its organ, the Democratic
Review, habitually spoke of the slaves as "our black brethren"; and a
long catalogue could be made of leaders like Chase, Hale, Wilmot,
Bryant, and Leggett, whose democracy was broad enough to include
the negro. To both parties, therefore, the situation was extremely
hazardous. The Whigs had less to fear, but were able to resist less
pressure. The Democrats were more united, but were called upon to
meet a greater danger. In the end, the Whigs did nothing; their two
sections drew further apart; and the Presidential election of 1852 only
made it evident that the national Whig party was no longer in existence.
The Democratic managers evolved, as a solution of their problem, the
new doctrine of "popular sovereignty," which Calhoun re-baptized
"squatter sovereignty." They asserted as the true Democratic doctrine,
that the question of slavery or freedom was to be left for decision of the
people of the territory itself. To the mass of northern Democrats, this
doctrine was taking enough to cover over the essential nature of the
struggle; the more democratic leaders of the northern Democracy were
driven off into the Free-Soil party; and Douglas, the champion of
"popular sovereignty," became the leading Democrat of the North.
Clay had re-entered the Senate in 1849, for the purpose of
compromising the sectional difficulties as he had compromised those of
1820 and of 1833. His speech, as given, will show something of his
motives; his success resulted in the "compromise of 1850." By its terms,
California was admitted as a free State; the slave trade, but not slavery,
was prohibited in the District of Columbia; a more stringent fugitive
slave law was enacted; Texas was paid $10,000,000 for certain claims
to the Territory of New Mexico; and the Territories of Utah and New
Mexico, covering the Mexican acquisition outside of California, were

organized without mentioning slavery. The last-named feature was
carefully designed to please all important factions. It could be
represented to the Webster Whigs that slavery was excluded from the
Territories named by the operation of natural laws; to the Clay Whigs
that slavery had already been excluded by Mexican law which survived
the cession; to the northern Democrats, that the compromise was a
formal endorsement of the great principle of popular sovereignty; and
to the southern Democrats that it was a repudiation of the Wilmot
proviso. In the end, the essence of the success went to the last-named
party, for the legislatures of the two territories established slavery, and
no bill to veto their action could pass both Houses of Congress until
after 1861.
The Supreme Court had already decided that Congress had exclusive
power to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, though
the fugitive slave law of 1793 had given a concurrent authority of
execution to State officers. The law of 1850, carrying the Supreme
Court's decision further, gave the execution of the law to United States
officers, and refused the accused a hearing. Its execution at the North
was therefore the occasion of a profound excitement and horror. Cases
of inhuman cruelty, and of false accusation to which no defence was
permitted, were multiplied until a practical nullification of the law, in
the form of "personal liberty laws," securing a hearing for the accused
before State magistrates, was forced by public opinion upon the
legislature of the exposed northern States. Before the excitement had
come to a head, the Whig convention of 1852 met and endorsed the
compromise of 1850 "in all its parts." Overwhelmed in the election
which followed, the Whig party was popularly said