The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

heavy drinking and other forms of self-indulgence had
taken their toll. The brilliant volubility and the thun-
der were gone, and when he spoke his face was bathed
in sweat and there were strange pauses in his delivery.
But his argument was lucid. Clay’s proposals should
be adopted. Since the future of all the territories had
already been fixed by geographic and economic fac-
tors, the Wilmot Proviso was unnecessary. The
North’s constitutional obligation to yield fugitive
slaves, he said, braving the wrath of New England
abolitionists, was “binding in honor and conscience.”
(A cynic might say that once again Webster was plac-
ing property rights above human rights.) The Union,
he continued, could not be sundered without blood-
shed. At the thought of that dread possibility, the old
fire flared: “Peaceable secession!” Webster exclaimed,
“Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to
remain? Where is the eagle still to tower?” The debate
did not end with the aging giants. Every possible
viewpoint was presented, argued, rebutted, rehashed.
Senator William H. Seward of New York, a new Whig
leader, close to Taylor’s ear, caused a stir while argu-
ing against concessions to the slave interests by saying
that despite the constitutional obligation to return
fugitive slaves, a “higher law” than the Constitution,
the law of God, forbade anything that countenanced
the evil of slavery.
The majority clearly favored some compromise,
but nothing could have been accomplished without

the death of President Taylor on July 9, 1850.

Obstinate, probably resentful because few people

paid him half the heed they paid Clay and other

prominent members of Congress, the president had

insisted on his own plan to bring both California

and New Mexico directly into the Union. When

Vice President Millard Fillmore, who was a politi-

cian, not an ideologue, succeeded Taylor, the dead-

lock between the White House and Capitol Hill

was broken.

The final congressional maneuvering was man-

aged by another relative newcomer, Senator

Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who took over when

Washington’s summer heat prostrated the

exhausted Clay. Partisanship and economic interests

complicated Douglas’s problem. According to

rumor, Clay had persuaded an important Virginia

newspaper editor to back the compromise by

promising him a $100,000 government printing

contract. This inflamed many Southerners. New

York merchants, fearful of the disruption of their

southern business, submitted a petition bearing

25,000 names in favor of compromise, a document

that had a favorable effect in the South. The

prospect of the federal government’s paying the

debt of Texas made ardent compromisers of a horde

of speculators. Between February and September,

Texas bonds rose erratically from twenty-nine to

over sixty, while men like W. W. Corcoran, whose

314 Chapter 11 Westward Expansion

Free states

Free territories

Slave states

Slave territories

Missouri Compromise line

MissouriCompromiseLine^36 ̊^30 '

MEXICO

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA

(CANADA)

LOUISIANA

MISSOURI 1821

NORTHWESTFREE BY

ORDINANCE 1787

ILLINOISIND.OHIO

MISS.

ALABAMA

MISSOURIFREE BY

COMPROMISE 1820

ARKANSAS

TERRITORY GEORGIA

CAROLINASOUTH

CAROLINANORTH

VIRGINIA

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

NEW YORK

PENN. N.J.CONN.

MASS.

VERMONT

N.H.

MAINE

R.I.

MARYLAND

DELAWARE

Gulf of

Mexico

ATLANTIC

OCEAN TEXAS

1845

MEXICO

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA

(CANADA)

LOUISIANA

ARKANSAS 1836

MISSOURI 1821

IOWA 1846

WISCONSIN 1848 MICHIGAN

1837

ILLINOISIND.OHIO

MISS.

ALABAMA

FLORIDA 1845

MINNESOTATERRITORY

1849

MISSOURIFREE BY

COMPROMISE 1820

TERRITORYOREGON

1848

UTAH

CALIFORNIA TERRITORY

1850

NEW MEXICOTERRITORY UNORGANIZED

TERRITORY

GEORGIA

CAROLINASOUTH

CAROLINANORTH

VIRGINIA

KENTUCKY

TENNESSEE

NEW YORK

PENN. N.J.CONN.

MASS.

VERMONT

N.H.

MAINE

R.I.

MARYLAND

DELAWARE

Gulf of

Mexico

ATLANTIC

Free states OCEAN

Free territories

Slave states

Territories subject to popular sovereignity

Slavery exists but not subject to

standard territorial governance

Missouri Compromise 1820

Missouri admitted as slave state, Maine as free state

Slavery prohibited in balance of Louisiana Purchase territory

north of 36°30'.

Compromise of 1850

California admitted as free state

Texas (slave state) has its borders finalized

Status of remainder of territory acquired from Mexico left

undetermined

Congress to enact Fugitive Slave Law to capture escaped slaves