Existing comment:
North versus South
During the 1840s, the sectional conflict over slavery became increasingly prominent and strident in American political life. In 1850, Senators Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun supported a complicated piece of legislation known as the Compromise of 1850. Their goal was to maintain a balance of power in the US Senate between southern and northern delegations. In this way they hoped to postpone indefinitely any fundamental change in the status of slavery within the United States and to stabilize the turbulent political climate.
[Note: Wikipedia disagrees about who created the Compromise of 1850, saying it was Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas. In fact, they say Calhoun bitterly opposed it.
Rejects Compromise of 1850:
The Compromise of 1850, devised by Clay and Democratic leader Stephen Douglas, was designed to solve the controversy over the status of slavery in the vast new territories acquired from Mexico. Calhoun, back in the Senate but too feeble to speak, wrote a blistering attack on the compromise. A friend read his speech, calling upon the Constitution, which upheld the South's right to hold slaves; warning that the day "the balance between the two sections" was destroyed would be a day not far removed from disunion, anarchy, and civil war. Could the Union be preserved? Yes, easily; the North had only to will it to accomplish it; to agree to a restoration of the lost equilibrium of equal North–South representation in the Senate; and to cease "agitating" the slavery question. Calhoun had precedent and law on his side of the debate. But the North had time and rapid population growth due to industrialization, and the Compromise was passed.
Calhoun died in 1850 right after the Compromise was passed. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay both died in 1852. Stephen Douglas lived until June, 1861 and was the only one to live long enough to see the Civil War.]
By 1854, when the Kansas Territory was being organized, questions about the spread of slavery reemerged. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the people of territory to determine their own destiny on the issue of slavery. A group of moderate northerners formed the Republican Party to oppose the spread of slavery into any of the territories. Although not overtly abolitionist, the new party was distinctly sectional in nature. It made no effort to appeal to southern voters and declined any interest in maintaining a balance of power between North and South.
In the 1856 election, the Republicans nominated John C. Fremont for President. Fremont carried 12 northern states but lost to Democrat James Buchanan. The sectional approach to politics was firmly established.
This map of the United States with its various charts was created by the Fremont campaign to distinguish and compare North and South. |