Southerners sought to preserve the political status quo. By the 1850s the Senate became the only legislative body on which the South could rely to maintain a balance of power. Because every state had two senators, regardless of population (so says Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution), Southern senators could block anti-slavery legislation coming from the Northern majority in the House of Representatives. Increasingly, bills were introduced into the House proposing all sorts of measures to end slavery or limit its expansion any further. So, for the ten years between 1850 and 1860, the North and the South waged a political struggle to gain an advantage or maintain the current balance of power by bringing in new states allied with one region or the other.
Amassing states: The political stakes involved
The political stakes were high for both sides (something like the end of a Monopoly game): Whoever had the most states at the end of the contest would have a majority of representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Whichever side could do this could dictate the agenda for the country and determine the nation’s future. For the South, political power meant ironclad protection for slavery and the agrarian way of life. For the North, gaining control of the country meant securing progress and prosperity through an urban-industrial-agricultural alliance based on free labor. As the differences between the sections sharpened, neither side believed it could afford to give up power or control.
As long as the number of states in the Union remained the same, there would always be a relative balance between slave and non-slave (free) states. As the population of the United States moved westward and unsettled territories filled with people, however, new states were being created and admitted into the Union. The existence of these new states raised the political stakes. The focus of sectional conflict soon rested on determining which new states would be admitted as either a slave or a free state, while also maintaining the equal balance between slave and free states. It was a daunting political problem.
Entering the Union: The politics of compromise, 1850
As new settlers poured into California seeking gold in 1849, the debate began in Congress over how the new state should enter the Union. At this time, Congress was equally balanced in representation between slave and non-slave states. Thirty years earlier, Congress had avoided a crisis by admitting two states, one allowing slavery (Missouri) and one without slavery (Maine). However, in this instance, California’s admission as a new state would tip the balance of power in favor of one region or another, most likely for the North, adding more members in the House and further building the Northern majority there, while also adding two senators, which would likely give the North control of the Senate.
California: The Compromise of 1850
The original outline of the compromise surrounding California’s admission was the product of three political giants of their time — Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.
Under the compromise, California entered the Union as a free state (no slavery allowed). This pleased Northerners, but they were shocked to find that California’s elected representatives supported the South. The compromise also allowed the territories of Utah and New Mexico to be organized as states in the future with or without slavery, depending on what the state constitution said. The South, initially pleased, soon discovered that very few people, let alone slaves, were entering into these territories, certainly not enough to organize either one as a state for some time. Eventually, both territories did allow slavery to exist, but did so on the brink of war in 1860.
The Fugitive Slave Law
For Southerners to accept California as a free state with its potential shift of power to the North, the Congress took action to involve more Americans in sustaining the institution of slavery. The Fugitive Slave Law mandated that states return fugitive slaves to their owners. The law gave federal officers the power to capture suspected fugitive slaves and provided severe penalties for those who harbored or protected a fugitive slave. At the time, the Fugitive Slave Law was seen as a throwaway concession to the South, but it was extremely unpopular in the North because many citizens viewed the arbitrary seizure of an individual by federal law enforcement as a violation of basic individual rights and a threatening symbol of the slave power’s evil influence on freedom in America. Federal officers attempting to arrest or transfer suspected fugitive slaves (this meant virtually any Black person — there was no way to determine who was legally free and who was not) were often met with violent resistance from citizens. The law simply could not be enforced, leading Southerners to decry the lawlessness of mob rule in the North.
D.C. is free
The last part of the compromise was largely symbolic, a throwaway concession to Northerners who were offended that slavery existed within the District of Columbia, an area under federal control. A new law mandated that slaves could not be brought into the District of Columbia to be bought or sold. On the surface, this appeared to be a clear moral victory for antislavery activists. The fine print, however, revealed that slaves already within the District of Columbia could continue to be bought and sold.
What did the compromise do?
The compromise gave each section what appeared to be a temporary advantage, and provided the nation with a politically acceptable, if temporary, solution to the dangerously divisive issue of slavery in the new territories of the West. In the long run, however, the Compromise of 1850 really accomplished very little, except to frustrate everyone and whet appetites for another confrontation — with the intention to settle old political scores and win a decisive victory to settle the question of the future of the United States once and for all.
Chapter 2
The Five Steps to War: 1850–1860
IN THIS CHAPTER
Throughout the 1850s, the North and South continued to diverge along economic, political, and social lines. They knew less and less about each other, and each came to believe the worst about the other side. In fact, by this time, many Northerners and Southerners viewed each other as a separate people. National consensus and compromise became impossible to achieve.
The differences between the North and South became more pronounced in this decade because neither the Congress, nor the Supreme Court, nor the president could deal effectively with the divisive issue of slavery. Events pulled both the sections, the North and South, closer to the belief that only drastic action would resolve the nation’s problems.
Setting the Stage: Five Events Leading to War
When you examine the nature of the political struggle between 1850 and 1860, you can identify five separate events, each having a distinct effect on the nation. When viewed separately, they don’t seem to amount to much, but in the climate of the times, each event had a cumulative effect on the other, building a sense of nearly unbearable crisis and tension within