hi everyone today we'll be looking at the political crisis over slavery that ultimately made further compromise between the sections north and south untenable and that led to the civil war the 1850s was one of the most tumultuous decades in american history as one crisis seemed to just lead to the next one after another it all began with the fallout from the mexican war and david wilmot's proviso which sought to exclude slavery from all the territory taken as part of the mexican session it was easily the most impactful piece of failed legislation ever debated by congress when zachary taylor who we have here the general who began the war won election to the presidency in 1848 as the whig party candidate the most immediate and pressing issue he faced was the sectional tension that had arisen over what to do about slavery in the new territories president taylor presented his territorial plan for the lands of the mexican session in a special message to congress in january 1850 calling for california's admission to the union as a free state as one at once in new mexico's admission as soon as it was ready having once blamed yankee abolitionists and free soilers as the instigators of sectional divisions as president taylor became persuaded that the greatest fault lay with what he called intolerant and revolutionary southerners led by jefferson davis of mississippi who we see here taylor's anger fueled the southerner's own and some northern congressmen began to fear that southern talk of secession was taking on an uncomfortable earnestness it was at precisely this moment that henry clay stepped into the debate in one last effort to placate the south as always clay captured in this image during his later years had complicated motives his desire to save the union was sincere equally sincere was his desire to save the whig party by shoving aside the stubborn president and establishing his own dominance on january 29th he presented his alternative to taylor's plan in the form of eight resolutions six of them paired as compromises between the north and south in the first pair clay called for the admission of california as a free state and the organization of the remainder of the mexican session including brigham young's desiree soon to be called utah without any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery the second set of resolutions resolved an existing boundary dispute between texas and new mexico in favor of the latter a pro-northern position that would reduce the chance of a new slave state being carved out of texas while also assuming outstanding debts contracted by the republic of texas clay's third pair of resolutions tried to offset the resumed anti-slavery campaigns in the nation's capital the district of columbia by appealing for abolition of the slave trade but not slavery itself inside the district the seventh and eighth resolutions were pro-southern denying congressional authority over the interstate slave trade and calling for a stiffened federal law for the recovery of fugitive slaves clay's two greatest surviving colleagues john c calhoun of south carolina who we have again here and daniel webster of massachusetts presented lengthy replies in the senate on march 4th the dying calhoun sat at his desk wrapped in flannels his eyes blazing from behind pale and hollowed cheeks as his friend senator james mason of virginia read aloud his prepared remarks here we have an image of mason calhoun's address was hard line pro slavery incarnate grim and unyielding the primary reason for the current discord he asserted was congress's long-standing and systematic promotion of national legislation favorable to the north the northwest ordinance of 1787 and then the missouri compromise of 1820 had prevented the south from occupying vast new tracts of land tariffs and internal improvements had enriched northern business at the direct expense of the south the oppression would end only if the north ceased its aggression the south must have equal access to western territories all criticism of slavery must cease a new law had to be enacted providing for the swift return of runaway slaves to their owners and the nation had to ratify a constitutional amendment that according to calhoun's vague description would restore to the south in substance the power she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the two sections was destroyed one would never guess from calhoun's address lamenting the south suppression that he had supported not only the missouri compromise but also early on and emphatically the kinds of tariff and improvement legislation he now denounced as evil one would never guess that anybody lived in the south except for slaves and slave and that the majority of white southerners who did not own slaves were not barred from taking one bit of their property into the western territories one would never guess that if any portion of the union enjoyed an artificial subsidy of federal power it was the slave states whose representation in the house of representatives the electoral college and the party's national nominating conventions was greatly inflated due to the three-fifths clause an arrangement which in turn it helped ensure that eight of the first 12 presidents of the united states including the current one were slave holders none of these evasions was new but calhoun's urgency and secessionist hints gave his remarks a foreboding power the choice was simple calhoun said were california admitted as a free state either under taylor's plan or clays the southern states could no longer remain honorably and safely in the union as he put it four days later daniel webster who we have again here in this image delivered the nationalist address many expected of him in a low even voice webster announced that he wished to speak as he put it not as a massachusetts man not as a northern man but as an american having once opposed the mexican war and supported the wilmot proviso he now altered his position calling the proviso a gratuitous measure designed merely to taunt or reproach the south for the union to endure webster now argued such northern attacks must end and some law was required to guarantee the return of fugitive slaves to their masters just as the constitution's framers had intended likewise southerners had to appreciate the north's alarm at the gradual rise of pro-slave reviews and cease their blustery talk of disunion by the time webster finished it wasn't entirely clear whether he favored president taylor's territorial plan or clay's compromise proposals which may very well have been webster's intention but with that ambiguity coming so soon after calhoun's effort to draw a line in the sand webster's speech bolstered the view that some sort of compromise was required to keep the nation from falling apart four days after webster spoke the freshman senator from new york william henry seward captured in this photograph presented anti-slavery northerners counterpoint to calhoun speech condemning out of hand clay's compromise and any such sectional deal seward attacks slavery as an oppressive and undemocratic institution that should be hastened to its demise and not encouraged with craven bargaining in seward's view congress unquestionably had the constitutional power to exclude slavery from the territories even then he elaborated senators had to recognize that as he put it there's a higher law than the constitution the law of god who had created all persons equal seward's claims were reprises of and variations on a theme anti-slavery northerners had advanced as early as the missouri crisis in 1819 and 1820 that the egalitarian declaration of independence with its invocation of the creator was the legal and moral basis of the constitution the bulk of seward's speech concerned itself not with transcendent good and evil but with a dense legalistic explanation of why slavery was incompatible with the letter as well as the spirit of the constitution another familiar line of anti-slavery argument yet to some seward's reformulations of old contentions seem to be asserting a new and unnerving radical claim that the godly forces of anti-slavery were above the law reinforcing that impression was seward's insistence that slavery was doomed and that the only thing left to determine was the manner in which it would be destroyed either peaceably gradually and with financial compensation under an intact union or violently immediately and utterly if the union were dissolved as debate over clay's bill continued into the summer its chances for passage dwindled clay's prickly demeanor and his obvious distaste for the taylor white house did not help his cause but the major problems were in the math with all his prestige clay could muster only about one-third of the members of each house to support the measure taylor and most northern whigs stuck to the president's original plan of admitting california only with no agreement to have new mexico or the rest of the mexican session open to slavery whigs and democrats from the deep south would not agree to any bill that admitted california as a free state fate intervened on a blazing july 4th president taylor spent much of the afternoon at the side of the unfinished washington monument listening to patriotic speeches through the rest of the day and evening he gorged himself on raw vegetables and cherries washed down with pitchers of iced milk the next day he fell severely ill and on july 9th he died of acute gastroenteritis the ex-general who'd become a southern wig with northern feelings was suddenly replaced by a northern wig with southern feelings the conservative new yorker millard fillmore who we see here fillmore's accession to the presidency was the turning point in the crisis immediately the new president defused the texas new mexico conflict by laying aside new mexico's application for statehood and throwing his support behind clay's bill instead of obstruction from the white house clay could now count on its complete support yet fillmore could not save clay's proposals after a month of negotiations the anti-compromise blocks in the senate north and south sent the bill down to defeat at the very end of july clay depressed and feeling every one of his 73 years withdrew to newport rhode island to recover other younger men stuck it out in sweltering washington determined to maneuver some sort of agreement through congress they were led by the 37 year old senator from illinois stephen a douglas who we have in this photograph born in vermont douglas had moved to illinois where he prospered as a self-made lawyer and politician and married the daughter of a wealthy north carolina planter with ties to and sympathies for every section of the union douglas believed that all sides were blowing the slavery issue out of proportion a lifelong democrat he despised southern disunionist heresy and he thought the wilmot proviso was an attack on the democratic rights of territorial settlers to determine their own form of government having rapidly ascended the political ladder by a dent of his oratorical and backroom skills and his commanding presence packed into a stumpy foot four inch frame the so-called little giant was chiefly interested in encouraging railroad construction and other internal improvements his cheap vice though in politics it could be a fraternal virtue was a fondness for whiskey that along with his addiction to hard work would kill him before he reached the age of 50. an implacable partisan infighter but with a cool political intelligence douglas had never admired clay's strategy of pairing measures together in fact he remembered how 30 years earlier clay himself had manufactured the missouri compromise the day after clay's large bill failed douglas began breaking it down into its parts and engineering their separate passage the strategy was simple start with the foundation of pro-compromise votes that did exist and then add on sectional minorities large enough to pass each measure one by one this map illustration shows the results of what became the compromise of 1850 northern democrats and whigs joined with border state wigs to approve the admission of california as a free state the abolition of the slave trade and the district of columbia the nation's capital and the adjustment of the texas new mexico dispute along the lines clay had originally proposed conservative and moderate northern democrats joined with southern democrats and whigs to pass a new stronger fugitive slave law and to organize new mexico and utah without reference to slavery by the end of september all the measures had passed both congressional houses and president fillmore proudly declared that the country had achieved a final settlement of sectional discord washington erupted in jubilation crowds chanted the union is saved the major government buildings were illuminated according to one account word spread that it was the duty of every patriot to get drunk happiest of all were the main protagonists above all stephen douglas who'd made a name for himself during the two months he had brokered the truce henry clay absent for most of the final heavy lifting arrived back in washington from his vacation in time to help pull the district of columbia bill through the senate and then bask in the adulation that came his way as the initiator of the bargain daniel webster was elated and relieved i can now sleep nights he wrote an associate we've gone through the most important crisis which has occurred since the foundation of the government and whatever party may prevail hereafter the union stands firm behind the intoxicated glow there was reason enough for satisfaction among political moderates the crisis of 1850 was real southern secessionist fervor had overtaken even mainstream politicians william seward's higher law anti-slavery enjoyed substantial popular support in the north by late summer the congressional impasse had defeated henry clay's best efforts and its resolution required industry and finesse that resolution would serve as a patriotic bulwark of anti-sectional politics for years to come emboldening moderates in the north and in the south shoring up the political center much as the missouri compromise had 30 years earlier but 1850 was not 1820 when the politics of anti-slavery had seemed to arrive out of nowhere the free soil party member salman p chase of ohio seen in this image came closer to the truth than the revelers when he said that the question of slavery in the territories has been avoided it has not been settled part of the price of getting the utah and new mexico bills passed congress had consciously omitted including any stipulations about whether slavery would be permitted in these territories before they applied for statehood nor had the apparent triumph of pro-union centrism in congress halted the gradual erosion of the political system the factionalism that plagued both parties now tended more than ever to run along alarming sectional lines slavery and its extension were as ever the core issues throughout the proceedings the gaunt john c calhoun and then his ghost haunted everyone after showing up at the senate one last time to hear webster's nationalist oration calhoun died on march 31st but his spirit lived on in an even more radical disunionist form picked up by a new generation of unswervingly pro-slavery deep south democrats for the moment moderates and unionists had the upper hand in southern politics both in washington and at the state level but within two months of the settlement of 1850 the clash of southern and northern ideas of democracy would break out anew over that portion of the agreement known as the fugitive slave act on october 25th 1850 two slave catchers named hughes and knight arrived in boston to apprehend the fugitive slave cabinet maker william kraft and his wife ellen and bring them back into bondage in georgia under the terms of the new fugitive slave law the crafts were anti-slavery celebrities two years earlier using money that william had saved up from odd jobs as a hired out slave they had escaped from macon georgia to the north by train and steamboat with ellen her hair cut short and her skin fair enough to pass for white posing as a sickly planter accompanied by a manservant her dark-skinned husband this sketch shows the couple and her ingenious disguise they settled in boston amid other fugitive slaves where the story of their audacious flight became in the columns of william lloyd garrison's liberator the most famous runaway saga since that of frederick douglass the commotion surrounding the crafts quickly caught the attention of their owner who as soon as the fugitive slave act became law in 1850 sent his agents off to recapture them the two slave catchers hughes and knight emboldened by the new requirements that compelled federal authorities to and private citizens to assist them swore that they would complete their mission even if they had to bring reinforcements from the south boston's abolitionists swung into action an emergency meeting at the african meeting house in the black neighborhood on the back side of beacon hill had already formed a group called the league of freedom pledged to protest the new fugitive slave law in 10 days later the group merged with boston's black lead vigilance committee here we have a sketch of the african meeting house as it looked then today it's still standing as we can see here the site of an african-american history museum today as soon as hughes and knight showed up ellen and william craft went into hiding with the help of the vigilance committee ellen at the home of the transcendentalist minister theodore parker who we see in this photograph the crafts had joined parker's church shortly after they'd arrived in boston william craft took refuge with the black abolitionist lewis hayden pictured here who'd converted his home into a veritable fortress and promised to blow it sky high rather than relinquish a single fugitive the vigilance committee posted hand-built descriptions of the slave catchers hughes and knight all over the city and harassed and vilified them everywhere that they went after five days hughes and knight gave up and returned to georgia empty-handed although they departed the local federal marshal still held a warrant for the craft's arrest which he was now legally bound to execute president fillmore enraged by the bostonian's lawlessness assured the craft's owner that he would have the pair apprehended if need be by sending in federal troops all the while the veteran abolitionist samuel may seen here in contact with english abolitionist friends plotted out an escape route that took the crafts to portland maine then to halifax nova scotia and finally to britain where they connected with another well-known fugitive slave william wells brown and continued their anti-slavery work here we have an image of brown back in boston theodore parker sent a derisive note to president fillmore writing you cannot think that i'm to stand by and see my own church carried off to slavery and do nothing to hinder such a wrong the craft affair was one of the first in a burst of spectacular episodes in the late 1850 and 1851 involving resistance to the fugitive slave law the following february also in boston agents seized a runaway slave turned waiter frederick minkins who'd taken the name shadrach and rushed him to the federal courthouse where he was held under the guard of some deputy federal marshals an angry crowd gathered and a group of black protesters overcame the marshals snatched shadrach and spirited him to canada conservative bostonians called the incident an outrage and at president fillmore's insistence local officials indicted and tried four blacks and four whites but juries refused to convict any of them shortly thereafter in april 1851 a show of force involving hundreds of u.s troops as well as armed police deputized as federal marshals was sufficient to secure the reclamation of yet another fugitive in boston 17 year old thomas sims the struggle reached a bloody crescendo on september 11 1851 in the town of christiana pennsylvania near the maryland border cristiano was a quaker settlement that welcomed fugitive slaves headed north and reportedly two long gone escapees were holed up there hiding in the house of a free black a posse consisting of a maryland slaveholder edward gorsuch several of his relatives including his son and three deputy marshals arrived in search of the pair and found them surrounded by two dozen black men armed with clubs corn cutters and a few old muskets who were determined to send their slave catchers packing a pistol shot rang out and the melee the slaveholder gorsuch was killed and his son was severely wounded the black resistors melted away into the countryside and there are three leaders later turned up in canada the event was captured in this sketch president fillmore directed a large federal force of marines and marshals to christiana they hauled in nearly 40 prisoners more than 30 of them black the administration determined to end the northern resistance once and for all and in blood then had the arrested men indicted for treason a capital offense which led to the largest treason trial in all of american history but by the time the government mounted its case its high-handed strategy had backfired guilty as the accused might have been of riot or even murder few could take seriously the idea that a band of a few dozen poorly armed men including several christiana quakers meaning they were pacifists it seriously intended to wage war on the united states of america as one of the defense attorneys mocked blessed be god that our union has survived the shock after the first defendant was cleared the government dropped its charges against the others various myths still cling to the fugitive slave disturbances of 1850 and 51. the greatest of them originally propagated by irate southerners and since given currency by americans in search of abolitionist heroes is the romantic image of what came to be known as the underground railroad to hear some southerners at the time one would imagine that the fugitive slaves presented a clear and present danger to the survival of the institution abetted by a large and highly sophisticated conspiracy of northern whites who smuggled slaves to freedom in truth the numbers of runaway slaves who were not returned to their masters within 12 months appear to have numbered several hundred annually perhaps as many as a thousand by the early 1850s an embarrassment to southerners no doubt who claimed the slaves were perfectly content but hardly enough to threaten a system of more than 3 million enslaved persons a related myth is that the fugitive slave law created an effective machinery for recapturing escaped slaves the law did have harsh even draconian aspects it brought a major expansion of federal authority to track down runaways an ironic consequence and so far as it showed more than ever that even the most doctrinaire states rights slaveholders were perfectly willing to invoke robust federal power to protect slavery various provisions in the law including the denial of jury trials to the apprehended and a clause giving federal commissioners a 10 payment if the captive was remanded to his or her owner but only five if the captive was set free were plainly weighted toward the slave catchers runaways who were seized were almost certain to be returned to the south but relatively few were caught under the law just over 300 between 1850 and 1861 roughly five percent of all runaways during the period for most slaveholders the sheer cost of undertaking capture and prosecution to secure the return of an uncooperative slave hardly seemed worth it either financially or psychologically some southern observers freely conceded that the real point of the law had never been to recapture slaves but to test the north's sincerity over the compromise of 1850 the idea of the underground railroad certainly mattered then and now as a beacon of promise and possibility to slaves and free blacks and of shame to slave holders but the fact of the matter was that most successful runaways escaped in a haphazard manner relying more on their own wits and planning than on other people's organizing in acts of extraordinary courage some of the escapees the most famous being the ex-maryland slave harriet tubman seen here repeatedly and successfully dipped back down across the mason-dixon line to help bring others to freedom neither underground nor secret the black abolitionist vigilance committees in the 1850s motivated by the reality that they were now all even the freeborn more vulnerable than ever to being kidnapped into slavery worked tirelessly to protect their communities blacks in new york passed resolutions condemning the fugitive slave law and appointed a secret committee to assist runaways boston's vigilance committee which played an important role in keeping ellen and william craft free claimed a membership of over 200. far from boston some white abolitionists strategically well placed near the border slave states most famously the quaker levi coffin first in newport indiana and later in nearby cincinnati rendered valuable assistance in hiding and dispatching northward large numbers of refugees here we have a photograph of coffin no vast well-oiled conspiracy the underground railroad did nevertheless exist as a loose network of determined resistors with free blacks doing most of the work and taking most of the risks just one more point to make for today's lecture henry clay the great compromiser from kentucky had never really recovered from the strain of his efforts in 1850 by the late spring of 1852 he was spitting up blood and suffering heavy chills old friends and adversaries stopped in for one last visit to his washington hotel room he died of tuberculosis at the end of june daniel webster of massachusetts too was silently wasting away on october 24th 1852 at his home in marshfield webster died a lifetime of hard drinking and addiction that had worsened in his later years had rotted away his liver with clay dead earlier in the year the last of the old wig giants were gone between them clay and webster pictured here together more than any other figures had defined the combination of conservatism nationalism and capitalist developmentalism so central to the whig party both had wanted desperately to be president but they were undone by a combination of poor judgment bad luck and above all the erosion of sectional harmony yet even when they were past their prime both had stood up for a kind of unionism that they deemed as essential for the nation's well-being as it was for their personal political fortunes those efforts especially in 1850 calmed the country as much as was humanly possible with them the south carolina leader james henry hammond wrote in his diary died what he called the last links of the chain of the union a new generation of political leaders less beholden to and less tolerant of compromise now controlled the country's future okay next time we'll continue with the chaotic 1850s and the ongoing crises over slavery that led to the civil war by taking a look at what became known as bleeding kansas and one of the most infamous decisions in the history of the us supreme court in the case of dred scott we'll finish off the decade by talking about the nationally followed lincoln douglas debates of 1858 in illinois and finally it john brown's notorious raid on harpers ferry virginia the following year