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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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What is a self-made man? The term was first coined in 1832 by Henry Clay, attorney and lawyer. He represented Kentucky in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives for over 10 years. He used the phrase “self-made man” to describe individuals of whose success lay within the person themselves, not with outside conditions. One of the most prominent men in history who represented this concept was Benjamin Franklin. He went from a poor, candle maker’s son to a successful businessman and one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers. So, where does Lincoln come in?

Abraham Lincoln was also a self-made man who acknowledged Clay as his “political hero.” He read an abundance of Clay’s political speeches and was greatly influenced by them. Lincoln started reading at a young age and read so much that his parents saw him as “lazy” (Lincoln grew up in a time where working class sons were expected to be working, not leisurely reading. He did go to a local school for brief periods at a time, but he mostly had to stay home and support his family).

Through reading and writing, Lincoln taught himself law and became a lawyer in 1836. His reputation as a lawyer grew and, when he was running for office, his “Honest Abe” persona grew.

A watercolor illustration of what Abe might have looked like at a young age living in Indiana.

Over the course of his lifetime, Abraham Lincoln read over 268 literary works including Shakespeare’s plays, Arabian Nights, Poems by Robert Burns, Journal and Debates of the Federal Constitution by Jonathan Elliot. Many of his own speeches and debates show comments and quotes from other prestigious writers. You can see a full list of what Lincoln read throughout his life as well as more information about the type of literature he enjoyed published through the University of Michigan Library.

Lincoln was known for being an avid reader and most artists liked to represent him as such. One such example of this is in the print by Warren Sallman, Kriebel & Bates. 

Did you know? While Lincoln was in office from the years 1861-1865, 350 literary works were published in America within that time span including books, poems, plays, and essays. 

Pictures of Abraham Lincoln almost always include him holding a book or an important document that he had been working on or reading. The picture below shows the capital building in the background as Lincoln is holding an important document.

 Abraham Lincoln advocated himself as a self-made man, and literature aided him on his journey to becoming a lawyer as well as one of our greatest presidents in American history. 

Henry Clay: The Great Compromiser

Henry Clay (1777-1852) was an American lawyer and statesman, one of the defining political figures of his age. Over the course of his several decades on the stage of national politics, Clay helped lead the United States into the War of 1812 (1812-1815), diffused several sectional crises over slavery, introduced an economic plan known as the 'American System', and founded the Whig Party in opposition to his rival Andrew Jackson (1767-1845). Clay served as the Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, and made three unsuccessful bids for the presidency. Known as the 'Great Compromiser' for his roles in the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, Clay is recognized as part of the 'Great Triumvirate' of US Congressmen alongside John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) and Daniel Webster (1782-1852).

Early Life

Reflecting on his childhood, Clay would later say that he was "born a democrat – rocked in the cradle of the revolution" (quoted in Peterson, 8). He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on 12 April 1777, less than a year after the United States had declared its independence from Great Britain. The seventh of nine children born to Reverend John Clay and his wife Elizabeth Hudson Clay, Henry's earliest years were suffused with tragedy – most of his older siblings died in childhood, and his father, a popular Baptist minister, died in 1781, when Henry was only four. That same year, the American Revolution came to Virginia. Clay would recall how his family homestead was raided by the British Legion under Banastre Tarleton and how the British dragoons stuck their swords into the grave of his father in the hopes of unearthing hidden treasure. The raid left the family in a dire financial situation, which was assuaged when Clay's mother remarried Captain Henry Watkins, a successful planter. Elizabeth would go on to have six more children with Watkins, who proved to be a kind stepfather and had a good relationship with Clay.

In 1791, Watkins moved the family to Kentucky, driven by rumors of good, fertile lands to be had out West. Clay declined to follow – already insatiably ambitious at 14 years old, he had obtained a position as deputy clerk for the Virginia Chancery Court in the capital of Richmond and was determined to see it through. As biographer Bernard Mayo put it, "Virginia's high courts and legislative halls were to be his preparatory school"; Clay, who had only received three years of formal education, developed his logical and oratorical skills by observing the lawyers and statesmen in the capital. Clay not only learned how to think like a Virginian lawyer but also how to party like one – much of his free time was spent attending lavish balls or risking his money at gambling taverns. Before long, he was reading law under the guidance of George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Clay was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1797 and, that same year, decided to follow his family to Kentucky to seek his fortune as a frontier lawyer.

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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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Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was an effort by the US Congress to resolve a sectional dispute between the 'free states' of the North and the 'slave states' of the South. Hoping to hinder the westward expansion of slavery – and thereby limit the undue political influence of the slave-holding South – Northern representatives had sought to deny Missouri admittance into the Union unless it limited slavery within its borders. This was hotly opposed by Southern representatives, leading to the compromise: Missouri would enter the Union as a 'slave state' in exchange for the admittance of Maine as a 'free state', as well as the prohibition of slavery in all western lands north of the 36°30′ parallel, excluding Missouri itself. While this provided a temporary solution, the question of slavery would only become more contested, eventually leading to the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Background: An Empire of Slavery

By 1815, 1.4 million men, women, and children languished in a state of perpetual and hereditary bondage in the United States, the legal property of their masters. The institution of slavery was an undoubtedly hideous blight on what President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) had once called the 'empire of liberty'; indeed, in the years that followed the American Revolution (1765-1789) many White Americans recognized that slavery was incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals upon which their country was founded, summed up by the famous phrase 'all men are created equal'. Some slaveholders, like Jefferson himself, agreed that slavery was a moral evil but were worried that a general emancipation would have grave consequences – not only would the immediate release of all slaves threaten the White supremacy from which the slave-holding class derived its power, but it could also provoke insurrection, as some of the former slaves might seek retaliatory vengeance on their erstwhile masters. Poorer White Americans were also unwilling to be taxed so that the slaveholders could be compensated for freeing their slaves.

And so, the Founders reluctantly sanctioned slavery, but with the implicit understanding that it would be gradually eradicated over time. Their commitment to this goal was manifest in several pieces of legislation – in 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which prohibited the expansion of slavery into the vast Northwest Territory, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807. The regulation of slavery in areas where it already existed was left to the states, but even here, there were great strides toward emancipation. Pennsylvania and the states of New England had already abolished slavery during the Revolution, while New York and New Jersey each began processes of gradual emancipation around the turn of the century. Diversified methods of farming in the Upper South left that region less dependent on slavery, causing an increased rate of individual slaveholders freeing their slaves in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. By the end of the 18th century, the institution of slavery was on decline everywhere in the United States except South Carolina and Georgia. Racism, of course, was still prevalent, and free Blacks were rarely regarded as equal. But there was still reason to hope that within only a few generations, slavery would have died a natural death, a bleak chapter in the otherwise glowing history of Jefferson's 'empire of liberty'.

But it was not long before this wave of emancipation came to an abrupt and screeching halt. The destruction wrought by the Napoleonic Wars (1804-1815) in Europe had disrupted international commerce for nearly a generation and had prevented the mass marketing of products like cotton. In the American South, where the climate was ideal for cotton growth, planters seized the opportunity to pick up the slack. By 1820, the United States had replaced India as the largest cotton producer in the world and would provide 68% of the world's cotton by 1850. But cotton cultivation was a labor-intensive process, even after the invention of the cotton gin; consequently, the interstate slave trade roared to life again, as planters rushed to buy slaves to toil on their cotton plantations. To justify this reversal, slaveholders no longer claimed that slavery was a moral evil. Instead, they claimed that they were paternalistic caretakers who treated their slaves better than Northern industrialists treated their wage workers.

More and more White settlers travelled west with their slaves, headed for the cotton-friendly regions of the southwestern Louisiana Purchase. In 1812, the state of Louisiana joined the Union as a 'slave state,' and just like that, the westward spread of slavery increased its momentum. Though there was not yet a clear distinction between the 'free states' of the North and the 'slave states' of the South – many Northern states were still in the process of weaning off slavery – the cultural differences between the two regions were already beginning to take shape. The industrializing North and the agrarian South had been feuding over the soul of the nation since the days of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson's arguments in President George Washington's cabinet meetings. But now, the institution of slavery festered beneath the nation's surface like a tumor, poised to spread throughout the body of the nation – the only question was whether the nation would ignore it until it was too late.

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John C. Calhoun: Le champion du Vieux Sud

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) était un avocat et homme d'État américain, l'une des figures politiques clés de l'époque dite du "Vieux Sud" (Antebellum South). D'abord nationaliste, Calhoun passa le début de sa carrière à essayer de renforcer et de moderniser le gouvernement fédéral, mais dans les années 1830, il devint un fervent défenseur des droits des États et de l'esclavage, entraînant la Caroline du Sud dans la crise de nullification (1832-1833). Calhoun occupa le poste de vice-président sous deux présidents différents et passa plusieurs décennies au Congrès, où il fut reconnu comme l'un des membres du "grand triumvirat" des membres influents du Congrès américain, aux côtés de Henry Clay (1777-1852) et Daniel Webster (1782-1852). Il joua un rôle majeur dans l'union du Sud américain derrière l'institution de l'esclavage – qu'il qualifiait d'"institution particulière" – dans les décennies qui précédèrent la guerre de Sécession (1861-1865).