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Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills passed by the US Congress in September 1850 to diffuse a sectional crisis brewing between the 'free states' of the North and the 'slave states' of the South. The crisis was sparked by a disagreement over whether slavery should be allowed to expand into the so-called 'Mexican Cession', the 529,000 square miles of territory seized from Mexico after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Under the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted into the Union as a free state, while slavery in the rest of the territory – such as in New Mexico and Utah – would be decided through 'popular sovereignty,' meaning that settlers would decide on whether to prohibit slavery or not. This compromise did not resolve the dispute but only postponed the conflict over slavery that would culminate in the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Background: Mr. Polk's War

In 1844, James K. Polk (1795-1849) won election to the US presidency on a platform of expansionism; promising to lead the United States toward its 'Manifest Destiny', Polk declared his intention to wrest the Oregon Territory from the British, seize all Mexican territory north of 31°, and annex the newly independent Republic of Texas. Initially, this ambitious policy fell quite short of its goals. Polk was forced to settle for a treaty that established the Oregon boundary at the 49th parallel – less than was hoped for – while Mexico declined to sell any territory at all. But when Texas joined the Union in December 1845 as the 28th state, Polk saw a new opportunity for conquest; Mexico had not recognized Texas' independence and viewed its annexation by the US as a hostile act. Polk and his partisans continued to provoke Mexico, ultimately leading to the Mexican-American War. At the end of that conflict, Mexico was forced to give up vast amounts of territory, including Utah, New Mexico, and California. Polk had achieved his goal – by the end of his single term, the United States had expanded by two-thirds, growing more than it had under any other president.

Mr. Polk's War, as the conflict had been derisively called, was quite polarizing – while Polk's own Democratic Party supported the expansion of the United States by any means necessary, members of the Whig Party viewed the conflict as an unjust war and believed that its main objective had been to expand the institution of slavery and increase the political power of the slave-holding South. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had fixed the boundary between 'slave states' and 'free states' by prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30' north latitude parallel. But since most of the land conquered from Mexico was beneath that boundary, several new 'slave states' could potentially be carved out from the territory. In 1846, anti-slavery representatives tried to prevent this with the Wilmot Proviso, which declared that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part" of the territory acquired from Mexico – the proviso passed in the House, but it was defeated in the Senate, where the South exerted greater power. Though the Wilmot Proviso failed, it rejuvenated the national debate over the question of slavery, an issue that had been festering beneath the country's surface for decades.

Opponents of slavery – often called Free Soilers – believed that the institution was not only a moral evil but also stood in the way of progress. As historian James M. McPherson writes, Free Soilers argued that "free labor was more efficient than slave labor because it was motivated by the inducement of wages and the ambition for upward mobility rather than by the coercion of the lash" (55). Slavery must therefore be kept out of the new territories to encourage free labor and progress there. But the slave-holding South interpreted these statements as an attack against its social system. As the global demand for cotton grew, Southern planters became more reliant on slave labor to cultivate the crop. Additionally, it was believed that slave labor was necessary to allow the slave-holding gentry time to cultivate the arts, literature, and to pursue public office. An attack on slavery was therefore viewed as an attack on the Southern way of life; to preserve this, Southerners sought to expand slavery wherever they could, to maintain a strong pro-slavery voting bloc in Congress.

The question of whether slavery would be allowed in the newly acquired territories threatened to dominate the US presidential election of 1848. Polk had declined to seek re-election; worn out by his time in office, he would be dead before the end of the decade. Instead, the Democrats nominated Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, who championed the idea of 'popular sovereignty' – this meant that the settlers of the territories should decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery or not. The Whigs, needing to carry states where annexation had been popular, decided to avoid the question of slavery for the time being and nominated General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), hero of the Mexican War. Taylor was an odd choice – he had been mostly unpolitical prior to his run for office, leaving many Americans unsure as to what his political positions were. However, he was a slaveholder who owned over a hundred slaves himself, leaving many pro-slavery voters feeling comfortable that he would support their position. Taylor won the election, carrying 8 of the 15 slave states, and was inaugurated on 4 March 1849. But little did anyone realize that Taylor's election heralded a political storm that was just about to break.

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John C. Calhoun: Champion of the Antebellum South

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was an American lawyer and statesman, one of the key political figures of the Antebellum Era. Initially a nationalist, Calhoun spent his early career trying to strengthen and modernize the federal government, but by the 1830s, he had become a strong advocate for states' rights and slavery, leading South Carolina into the Nullification Crisis (1832-33). Calhoun served as vice president under two different presidents and spent decades in Congress, where he became recognized as part of the 'Great Triumvirate' of influential US congressmen alongside Henry Clay (1777-1852) and Daniel Webster (1782-1852). He played a major role in uniting the American South behind the institution of slavery – which he referred to as the 'peculiar institution' – in the decades prior to the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Early Life

John Caldwell Calhoun was born in the Abbeville District of South Carolina on 18 March 1782. He was the fourth of five children born to Patrick Calhoun, a Scotch-Irish immigrant, and his second wife, Martha Caldwell. He was named after his maternal uncle, Major John Caldwell, who had been murdered by Tories (Americans loyal to Britain) a few months earlier. There were no schools in the South Carolina backcountry where Calhoun grew up, leaving him isolated and practically illiterate for most of his childhood. Then, in 1795, the 13-year-old Calhoun was sent to an academy in Georgia run by his brother-in-law, Moses Waddel; though the academy was discontinued shortly thereafter, Calhoun gained access to Waddel's vast library and spent much of his time reading. After his father's death, Calhoun returned home to help manage the family farm. He often plowed the fields himself, working alongside the family's slaves, and spent his free time reading, hunting, and fishing. In the autumn of 1802, Calhoun went to New Haven, Connecticut, to study at Yale College, financed by his older brothers. He was a diligent student who made friends easily, and, in September 1804, he graduated with distinction.

The following year, he began reading law in Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807. He returned to his home district of Abbeville, where he opened a lucrative law practice and rode the circuit of county courts. Unlike other frontier lawyers like his future colleague Henry Clay, Calhoun took no joy in riding the court circuit; solemn and disciplined, Calhoun "rarely, if ever, swore, smoked, drank, or jested" (Peterson, 24). He was respected in his community and was elected to the state legislature in 1808. During his brief stint, he began courting his first cousin, Floride Bonneau Colhoun (1792-1866), from afar. Having first met Floride during his time in New England, Calhoun began periodically sending her letters and communicating through her mother, who was anxious to make the best match for her daughter. They were married outside Charleston in January 1811 and would ultimately have ten children. That same year, he was elected to the US House of Representatives and left South Carolina for the national capital of Washington, D.C., to take his seat in the fateful Twelfth Congress.

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Webster-Hayne Debate

The Webster-Hayne debate was a series of back-and-forth speeches between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina in January 1830. What started as a debate over the sale of western lands blossomed into an argument over the nature of the American Union itself, anticipating the Nullification Crisis and, indeed, the American Civil War.

Background: Sectional Rivalries

By the close of the 1820s, the United States had become increasingly divided along sectional lines. The American South, a largely agrarian society driven by slave labor, often found itself at odds with the industrializing North; gone were the days of political calmness and stability that had marked the 'Era of Good Feelings' (c. 1815-1825), with debates like the one surrounding the Missouri Compromise drawing the line between the 'free' states of the North and the 'slave' states of the South. In late 1828, the main point of contention was the implementation of the Tarriff of 1828 – better known as the 'Tarriff of Abominations' – that had been signed by John Quincy Adams in the waning months of his presidency. This was a protective tariff designed to help bolster Northern industries by placing fresh duties on European competitors. These European nations placed retaliatory tariffs on several American goods, including cotton, the staple crop of the South. Many Southerners, therefore, saw this tariff as helping Northern industrialists while suffocating their own economy. Because of the tariff, Adams quickly became the most hated man in the South, contributing to his 1828 election loss to Andrew Jackson.

One of the leading opponents of the tariff was John C. Calhoun, who had served as Adams' vice president and was now set to hold that same office under Jackson. Although he had been a staunch nationalist earlier in his career, Calhoun had since made a sharp heel turn to become a fierce advocate for states' rights. One of these rights, he argued, was that of nullification, which referred to the ability of a state to 'nullify' a federal law it believed to be unjust, until such a time as that law became enshrined in the Constitution. In his 35,000-word, anonymously written pamphlet on the topic of the 'Tarriff of Abominations', Calhoun stated that the tariff was "unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive; calculated to corrupt the public morals and to destroy the liberty of the country" (quoted in nps.org). His answer, of course, was nullification; states, like his native South Carolina, should be able to hold conventions, in which they could vote to nullify federal acts such as this tariff. The idea was foreboding to many Unionists (like Jackson himself) who feared nullification to be the first step toward secession and, ultimately, the collapse of the Union. In December 1829, as Congress convened for the first time since Jackson's inauguration, the question laid heavy on their minds and would soon lead to one of the most dramatic and eloquent series of debates the Senate had yet witnessed.

Débat Webster-Hayne

Le débat Webster-Hayne fut une série de discours croisés entre le sénateur Daniel Webster du Massachusetts et le sénateur Robert Y. Hayne de Caroline du Sud en janvier 1830. Ce qui commença comme un débat sur la vente des terres occidentales se transforma en une dispute sur la nature même de l'Union américaine, anticipant la crise de nullification et, en fait, la guerre de Sécession (ou guerre civile américaine).