University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 2005 Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 Holman Hamilton University of Kentucky Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Hamilton, Holman, "Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850" (2005). United States History. 115. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/115 Prologue to Conflict Prologue to Conflict The Crisis and Compromise ofl850 BY HOLMAN HAMILTON With a New Introduction by Michael F. Holt Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 1964, 2005 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hamilton, Holman. Prologue to conflict: the crisis and compromise of 1850 / by Holman Hamilton ; with a new introduction by Michael F. Holt, p. cm. Originally published: Lexington : University of Kentucky Press, 1964. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-9136-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Compromise of 1850. 2. United States—Politics and government— 1849-1861.3. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Causes. I. Title. E423.H2 2005 973.7' 113—dc22 2004027050 This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Member of the Association of American University Presses To the Memory of OTTO A. ROTHERT and to Five of Uncle Otto's Devoted "Nephews" THOMAS D. CLARK J. WINSTON COLEMAN JR. R. GERALD MCMURTRY HAMBLETON TAPP WILLIAM H. TOWNSEND with the Warm Regard of a Sixth CONTENTS PREFACE ix INTRODUCTION xi CHAPTER I. Forty-Nine and Forty-Niners 1 CHAPTER II. The Rising and the Setting Suns 25 CHAPTER HI. The Appeal of a Venerable Kentuckian 43 CHAPTER IV. Equilibrium or Union—Calhoun or Webster? 63 CHAPTER V. A Pattern Defined 84 CHAPTER VI. The Wreck of the Omnibus 102 CHAPTER VII. The Texas Bond Lobby 118 CHAPTER VIII. Douglas, the Maker of Combinations 133 CHAPTER IX. Allegro Whistles and Cannon Salutes 151 CHAPTER x. The Compromise in Operation 166 191 APPENDIXES 209 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 217 INDEX MAPS 19 The State of Deseret, 1849-51 Four Proposals for Dividing Texas Soil 57 PREFACE Crisis and conflict have held abundant and often tragic meaning for Americans. More frequently than not, and certainly during the Civil War Centennial, the country's concern with the past has been concen- trated mainly on wars and combatants rather than on forces, situa- tions, and men that have made wars possible or inevitable. Generals and colonels are the preferred protagonists; battles and campaigns, the settings of the action. It is part of the purpose of this study to show that a national peacetime crisis and a compromise stemming from it possessed dramatic qualities of their own, equal to—though different from—those of war itself. Most people who know something about the give and take of 1850 correctly identify the year with the names of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. That is fine so far as it goes. But it would be well for more students and general readers to place proper emphasis on the roles of others, notably Stephen A. Douglas, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, and William Wilson Corcoran, who were part of an impressive com- pany of leading men who made positive or negative contributions along the path to compromise. This book contains a reevaluation of cel- ebrated and half-forgotten figures, provides a perspective for what they did and said, and reassesses the strategy and tactics of Northerners and Southerners, Easterners and Westerners, Democrats and Whigs in that great debate of 1850. To do this, neglected manuscripts have been consulted. Special note has been taken of the effectiveness of lobbying activities. The House of Representatives has been accorded its proper place; minimized in nearly all accounts, the House—not the Senate—saw the decisive moves in late August and early September. An effort has been made, on the one hand, to treat the events of 1850 as they were seen by people of the time by stressing contemporary views, labels familiar in 1850, and the actual words and phrases of men who know Jefferson Davis as a United States senator and Abraham Lincoln (if at all) as an erstwhile, single-term member of the House. Finally, on the other hand, the Compromise of 1850 is viewed within the context of present day historical scholarship by bringing to bear upon it materials unknown x Preface or unperceived at the time and by seeing it as the result of the inter- play of various forces—-sectional, national, and economic. Prologue to Conflict is the beneficiary of aid contributed by so many individuals and institutions that to list them all would be to make unreasonable demands upon the publisher. The author, however, takes this opportunity to express his heartfelt gratitude to historians, librar- ians, archivists, personal friends, kinsmen, and many other generous associates for facts, interpretations, and encouragement through the years. He acknowledges with deep devotion the inspiration of his be- loved wife, Suzanne Bowerfind Hamilton. The kindnesses of colleagues at the University of Kentucky, particularly Professor Thomas D. Clark, are likewise abidingly appreciated. Thanks, too, are extended to the University of Kentucky Research Fund Committee, which financed a part of the essential travel and research. H.H. Lexington, Kentucky November 20, 1963 INTRODUCTION The decision by the University Press of Kentucky to reissue Holman Hamilton's Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 forty years after its original publication is welcome indeed. For years, many of us regularly assigned the text in our undergraduate and gradu- ate courses, and we have rued its recent unavailability. We assigned Hamilton's book in part because of the critical role that the Compromise of 1850 played in defusing, however tempo- rarily, a Union-threatening sectional controversy over the extension of slavery into western territories. That controversy was ignited by the outbreak of war with Mexico in May 1846 and the subsequent intro- duction of the Wilmot Proviso into the House of Representatives in August of that year. Wilmot's measure barred slavery from any terri- tory acquired from Mexico as a result of the war, and it immediately polarized Northerners against Southerners in both Congress and the nation at large. The Proviso repeatedly passed in the House, where Northerners held a majority of seats, only to be buried in the Senate, where slave and free states were equally represented and some north- ern Democrats regularly voted with the South to defeat it. By the end of 1849, fourteen of fifteen northern state legislatures had charged their delegates to Congress to impose the Proviso on any territories formally organized by Congress in the vast Mexican cession that the United States obtained in the Treaty of Guadelupe Hildago, which the Senate ratified in March 1848. By the end of 1849, however, many Southerners threat- ened to secede if Congress enacted the Proviso, and some added the admission of California as a free state and Congress's failure to pass a new fugitive slave law during 1850 as other grounds for secession. This dangerous impasse constitutes the crisis alluded to in the books subtitle, and in the book Hamilton skillfully and clearly narrates the rival proposals advanced by President Zachary Taylor and various con- gressmen to resolve it. The first session of the Thirty-first Congress, lasting from early December 1849 until September 30, 1850, was the longest session of Congress since the adoption of the Constitution. Moreover, it was consumed almost exclusively by heated debates and endless roll-call voting on the measures that ultimately constituted the xii Michael F. Holt Compromise of 1850. California was admitted as a free state with its modern boundaries. Territorial governments without the Wilmot Pro- viso were organized for Utah and New Mexico with the important prosouthern proviso that future Congresses must admit any future states formed out of those territories as slave states should their resi- dents so desire. In addition, the modern boundary separating New Mexico and Texas was drawn, and as compensation for surrendering its claim to all land east of the Rio Grande River, including Santa Fe, Texas was paid $5 million by the United States, with an additional $5 million reserved in Washington to pay off the holders of bonds Texas had issued when it was an independent republic. The final two laws that made up the Compromise of 1850 did not directly involve sla- very extension. Congress abolished public slave auctions in the Dis- trict of Columbia, and it passed the much stricter, federally enforced Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that almost instantly provoked deep resent- ment and anger in the North. The lengthy maneuvering by which these laws were framed and sufficient votes were mobilized to pass them is an exceedingly com- plex story, yet Hamilton tells it with admirable clarity and succinct- ness.