Experience,learning,statecraft-all these things they now marshaled in a mighty effort to solve the slavery problem.On January 29,1850,Clay offered to the Senate a compromise granting concessions to both sides;and a few days later,in a powerful oration,he made a passionate appeal for a union of hearts through mutual sacrifices.Calhoun relentlessly demanded the full measure of justice for the South:equal rights in the territories bought by common blood;the return of runaway slaves as required by the Constitution;the suppression of the abolitionists;and the restoration of the balance of power between the North and the South.Webster,in his notable "Seventh of March speech,"condemned the Wilmot Proviso,advocated a strict enforcement of the fugitive slave law,denounced the abolitionists,and made a final plea for the Constitution,union,and liberty.This was the address which called forth from Whittier the poem,"Ichabod,"deploring the fall of the mighty one whom he thought lost to all sense of faith and honor.
The Terms of the Compromise of 1850.-When the debates were closed,the results were totaled in a series of compromise measures,all of which were signed in September,1850,by the new President,Millard Fillmore,who had taken office two months before on the death of Zachary Taylor.By these acts the boundaries of Texas were adjusted and the territory of New Mexico created,subject to the provision that all or any part of it might be admitted to the union "with or without slavery as their constitution may provide at the time of their admission."The Territory of Utah was similarly organized with the same con-ditions as to slavery,thus repudiating the Wilmot Proviso without guarantee-ing slavery to the planters.California was admitted as a free state under a consti-tution in which the people of the territory had them-selves prohibited slavery.
at the capital of the nation.This concession to anti-slavery sentiment was more than offset by a fugitive slave law,drastic in spirit and in letter.It placed the enforcement of its terms in the hands of federal officers appointed from Washington and so removed it from the control of authorities locally elected.It provided that masters or their agents,on filing claims in due form,might summarily remove their escaped slaves without affording their "alleged fugitives"the right of trial by jury,the right to witness,the right to offer any testimony in evidence.Finally,to "put teeth"into the act,heavy penalties were prescribed for all who obstructed or assisted in obstructing the enforcement of the law.Such was the Great Compromise of 1850.
The Pro-slavery Triumph in the Election of 1852.-The results of the elec-tion of 1852seemed to show conclusively that the nation was weary of slavery agitation and wanted peace.Both parties,Whigs and Democrats,endorsed the fugitive slave law and approved the Great Compromise.The Democrats,with Franklin Pierce as their leader,swept the country against the war hero,Gen-eral Winfield Scott,on whom the Whigs had staked their hopes.Even Webster,broken with grief at his failure to receive the nomination,advised his friends to vote for Pierce and turned away from politics to meditate upon approaching death.The verdict of the voters would seem to indicate that for the time every-body,save a handful of disgruntled agitators,looked upon Clay's settlement as the last word."The people,especially the business men of the country,"says Elson,"were utterly weary of the agitation and they gave their suffrages to the party that promised them rest."The Free Soil party,condemning slavery as "a sin against God and a crime against man,"and advocating ******* for the ter-ritories,failed to carry a single state.In fact it polled fewer votes than it had four years earlier-156,000as against nearly 3,000,000,the combined vote ofthe Whigs and Democrats.It is not surprising,therefore,that President Pierce,surrounded in his cabinet by strong Southern sympathizers,could promise to put an end to slavery agitation and to crush the abolition movement in the bud.
Anti-slavery Agitation Continued.-The promise was more difficult to ful-fill than to utter.In fact,the vigorous execution of one measure included in the Compromise-the fugitive slave law-only made matters worse.Designed as se-curity for the planters,it proved a powerful instrument in their undoing.Slavery five hundred miles away on a Louisiana plantation was so remote from the North that only the strongest imagination could maintain a constant rage against it."Slave catching,""man hunting"by federal officers on the streets of Philadelphia,New York,Boston,Chicago,or Milwaukee and in the hamlets and villages of the wide-stretching farm lands of the North was another matter.It brought the most odious aspects of slavery home to thousands of men and women who would oth-erwise have been indifferent to the system.Law-abiding business men,mechan-ics,farmers,and women,when they saw peaceful negroes,who had resided in their neighborhoods perhaps for years,torn away by federal officers and carried back to bondage,were transformed into enemies of the law.They helped slaves to escape;they snatched them away from officers who had captured them;they broke open jails and carried fugitives off to Canada.