The 1852 Election Ends the Whig Party

 

Although Charles Dickens’ Bleak House was published in England in 1852, the title could have easily referred to the “house divided” across the Atlantic. 1852 was an election year, coming on the heels of the contentious and prolonged debate regarding Mr. Clay’s 1850 Compromise. Clay, worn out from many years of often bitter struggle, died while the Whig Party was meeting to select a new presidential candidate. The lack of decisive political leadership in 1852 may have greatly contributed to the churning national mood that would shortly erupt in violence.

 

Many Candidates but Few Leaders in 1852

 

There were several contenders for the Whig Party nomination, among them the sitting president Millard Fillmore, and Daniel Webster. Although Clay was ailing, he also sought one final chance to live in the White House, having lost three prior elections. Webster’s chances for the nomination were severely limited, having supported the 1850 Compromise against the wishes of Northeast conservatives. Leading the New York Whig delegation in 1952, William Henry Seward denied the New York delegate votes to Webster as retribution for Webster’s stand on the legislation.

 

The Whigs followed a formula that had led to two prior successes in presidential elections: they selected a military hero. In 1840, not long after the Whig Party was founded to oppose the policies of Andrew Jackson, the party successfully elected William Henry Harrison, a war hero from the War of 1812 and associated with the battle of Tippecanoe. In 1848, the Whigs again triumphed with the election of General Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. Both Harrison and Taylor died while in office.

 

Hoping to repeat these successes, the Whigs nominated “old fuss n’ feathers,” General Winfield Scott, described by a writer at the time as “the smallest and feeblest of created men.” But Scott’s career dated back to the War of 1812 and he commanded all American forces during the Mexican War, landing at Vera Cruz and marching to victory against Santa Anna. Unfortunately, General Scott had no charisma and broke the unwritten rules of presidential campaigning by traveling the country and giving speeches under the guise of visiting federal military establishments.

 

The Democrats in 1852

 

The Democrats fared no better than the Whigs in 1852. In the North, marginal party leaders like Lewis Cass of Michigan, James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, and William Marcy of New York sought the nomination. Even Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who received 24 delegate votes on the 9^th ballot, had ambitions to become chief executive. It took 46 delegate ballots to nominate a compromise candidate, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. The Democrats were still operating under the two-thirds rule: a 2/3rds majority was required to secure the nomination.

 

Pierce’s nomination gave the Democrats a military connection to counter that of Winfield Scott: Franklin Pierce had served briefly as a general during the Mexican War and had fought at Vera Cruz. Although addicted to alcohol, Pierce would go on to win the election with 254 electoral votes to 42 for Scott. His Vice President was William Rufus King of Alabama and his Cabinet reflected Southern interests; Jefferson Davis was his Secretary of War.

 

The Bitter Pill of Victory in 1852

 

Only 215,664 popular votes separated Pierce from Scott. The third party candidate, Senator John Parker Hale, also of New Hampshire, received 155,825 as the standard bearer of the Free Soil Party. 1852 demonstrated a nation divided. It was also the year Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first serialized, further dividing the national house.

 

Pierce would sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act, utterly dividing the nation as well as political parties. Out of the embers of the 1852 election and the Kansas Act, a new party would be born. The Republicans, making a debut in the 1856 election, would ultimately see Abraham Lincoln elected in 1860.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr. Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Richard Hofstadter, Great Issues in American History From the Revolution to the Civil War, 1765-1865 (Vintage Books/Random House, 1958).

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Vol. 4, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981).

First published March 23, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Our 13th President: Millard Fillmore

 

America’s thirteenth president and second “accidental” president, Millard Fillmore, is often subjected to scorn and criticism. Serving only three years and unable to secure nomination in his own right, some have argued that he was a weak chief executive with few credits to his name. President Fillmore, however, holds a legacy of achievements affecting Americans positively. Further, he was one of the first self-made men to reach the highest office, coming out of dire poverty as a child.

 

Fillmore’s Early Years

 

Born in a log cabin in Cayuga County, New York, Millard Fillmore was one of nine children. In the absence of formal education, he taught himself to read and eventually apprenticed himself as a cloth maker. With the help of a local judge who saw promise in the young man, he paid off his indenture and studied law.

 

Rising in New York politics and government, Fillmore represented New York in the Congress for four terms. During the Tyler administration, he was instrumental in breaking a tariff impasse by shepherding a new tariff through the House Ways and Means Committee, which he chaired.

 

By the time the Whig Party nominated him as Vice President in 1848 to run with General Zachary Taylor, Fillmore’s resume included the New York State Assembly, a failed run for the governorship, and his years in the National Congress.

 

Millard Fillmore as President

 

Fillmore became President upon the untimely death of Zachary Taylor on July 9, 1850. At the time, he set a precedent by refusing to deliver an inaugural address. The most pressing issue before the Congress was the Compromise of 1850 or “Mr. Clay’s Compromise,” which Fillmore supported but Zachary Taylor opposed. A friend and admirer of Clay, Fillmore would sign the five separate bills passed by the Congress that summer through the efforts of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas.

 

The 1850 Compromise, according to Fillmore, represented the “final settlement” regarding territorial disputes regarding the expansion of slavery. Everyone involved fervently hoped that the legislation would avert a civil war. Fillmore himself opposed and hated slavery, but believed that the Constitution protected it.

 

1850 was also the year that President Fillmore negotiated the release of Hungarian freedom fighter Louis Kossuth, who had taken refuge in Turkey. Fillmore sent the USS Mississippi to bring Kossuth, his family, and numerous other veterans of the 1848 European revolutions to the United States.

 

During Fillmore’s presidency, a movement to invade Cuba revolved around Narciso Lopez, an ambitious Spaniard who capitalized on Spain’s inept governance of the island. The movement was viewed favorably by Southern leaders like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, who was approached about leading the invasion force made up mostly of Southern volunteers. Cuba had always been an inviting acquisition for the Southern slavery advocates.

 

Fillmore, however, rejected these efforts and sent federal officials to Southern ports to turn back would be invaders. Fillmore’s decision was prudent and in keeping with his moderate Whig views. Japan, however, was another matter.

 

Although the Treaty of Kanagawa “opening Japan” is associated with President Franklin Pierce, it was Fillmore who sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan, arriving just weeks ahead of an Imperial Russian delegation. President Fillmore’s message to the Japanese rulers was polite but firm: “We wish that our People may be permitted to trade with your People, but we shall not authorize them to break any law of your Empire.”

 

Fillmore’s Attempt to Win a Second Term

 

When the Whig Party met in 1852 it took them 53 ballots to finally nominate a presidential candidate, General Winfield Scott, “old fuss n’ feathers.” Fillmore, Daniel Webster, and Scott had been the front runners and at one point Fillmore almost clinched the nomination during negotiations with Webster supporters.

 

The protracted fight to nominate Fillmore is a testament to his strength and leadership. Millard Fillmore should be historically rehabilitated as a President whose achievements were noteworthy.

 

Sources:

 

William A DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents From George Washington to George W. Bush (Gramercy Books, 2001).

Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, and Peter W. Kunhardt, The American President (New York: Riverhead Books, Penguin-Putnam, Inc., 1999).

Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (HarperCollins, 1997).

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Vol. 4, (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981).

First Published March 3, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

A Brief Biography of Jefferson Davis

 

The road to Montgomery, Alabama and the February 4, 1861 convention that produced the Confederate States of America was a long one for Jefferson Davis, the Mississippian elected to be President of the newly formed provisional government. Davis had been a leader in the Southern cause, seeing himself as John C. Calhoun’s inheritor when it came to the voice of disunion. On February 9, 1861, Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote that, “We have to choose born leaders of men, who could attract love and secure trust.” Was Jefferson Davis such a man?

 

The Roots of Jefferson Davis Formed his Leadership Qualifications

 

Many men in American history had civic and political resumes that assumed qualification yet when confronted by crisis were unable to act effectively. Jefferson Davis agreed to lead the Confederacy politically, but he had preferred to be the commanding general. A West Point graduate, Davis was one of over 300 graduates to serve the South, most of them as field commanders.

 

Davis was a product of the Southern planter class. Over seventy slaves worked in the fields at Brierfield, his plantation on the Mississippi River barely thirty miles south of Vicksburg. His first wife Sarah was the daughter of Kentucky planter Zachary Taylor, the twelfth President and the hero of the Battle of Buena Vista. After Sarah died of malaria, Davis remarried at the age of thirty-five. Varina was only eighteen.

 

Jefferson Davis the Soldier-Politician

 

The Mexican American war broke out soon after Davis’ remarriage. Elected as their “colonel,” Davis led the “Mississippi Rifles” and fought with distinction at Buena Vista where he was wounded. His military background propelled him into the Executive branch, serving as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. In this capacity, he did what he could to strengthen federal arsenals in the South.

 

Davis was one of the new Senate personalities during the tumultuous debates over Henry Clay’s 1850 compromise resolutions. Davis realized that there could be no compromise over slavery. Slavery was protected by the Constitution and was biblically sanctioned. Although cautious about Southern secession, even after learning that Mississippi had voted to leave the Union on January 9, 1861, Davis never stepped back from his position on Southern slavery.

 

Fracturing of the Democratic Party at the 1860 Charleston Convention

 

The national convention of the Democrats in Charleston in 1860 demonstrated the severe rifts within the party. Although Davis reviled Stephen Douglas of Illinois, the men of the South were not in total agreement. Some favored immediate secession if the Democrats lost in November while others counseled caution.

 

Davis was as much responsible for the breakup of the convention as any fire-eater, ridiculing Douglas’ Freeport Doctrine and his perennial solution of popular or “squatter” sovereignty. In early 1861, former South Carolina Senator James Hammond called Davis the “most irascible man I ever knew…as vain as a peacock as ambitious as the Devil.”

 

Disunion Achieved with the Fall of Fort Sumter

 

Jefferson Davis blamed President James Buchanan for the shots fired at Ft Sumter. In early January 1861, Davis had counseled Buchanan to evacuate the Charleston forts. But Buchanan followed the advice of General Winfield Scott and actually attempted to resupply Ft Sumter.

 

It should also be noted that it was Davis, as President of the Confederacy, who authorized P.T. Beauregard to bombard Ft Sumter, against the strong advice of his own Secretary of War Robert Toombs, former U.S. Senator from Georgia. Toombs correctly assessed that this action would unify the North against the South and result in what every reasonable secessionist wanted to avoid: a war with the Union.

 

The Two Sides of Jefferson Davis in the Pre-War South

 

Davis portrayed himself as a humane and kindly slave master, building a small hospital for his slaves and a nursery for infants whose mothers toiled in the fields. He was opposed to whipping slaves and, like many planters, led his slaves in Sunday worship. But Davis still saw slaves as property, protected by the Constitution.

 

Davis also rationalized that slaves were products of the “curse of Ham,” and could not care for themselves if freed. He supported a federal slave code for the new territories and the acquisition of Cuba. Davis joined other Southern political leaders in wanting to reopen the African slave trade. Like his ideological mentor Calhoun, Davis believed that the cotton South must never be surrounded by free soil states and territories.

 

Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Confederacy in part because of his long and distinguished background as a Southern military and political leader. The pressures of creating a new nation as well as preparing that nation for war, however, showed his leadership weaknesses.

 

Historian Gerard A. Patterson writes that, “Even Jefferson Davis, a West Pointer who should have realized what was entailed in putting together an army, did not exhibit any appreciation of the magnitude of the problem…” This assessment would carry over into the first year of the war during which Davis acted arbitrarily and not without personal subjectivism in the promotion of officers.

 

President Davis and the Coming of Civil War

 

Mary Chesnut referred to the need for born leaders. Davis was a leader, but not a born leader in the manner Chesnut described. Unlike his counterpart Abraham Lincoln, Davis lacked humility and empathy. Additionally, as the leader of a confederation, his decision making powers were not always absolute, nor could they be.

 

Sources:

 

Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary From Dixie, Edited by Ben Ames Williams (Harvard University Press, 1980)

Drew Gilpin Faust, James Henry Hammond and the Old South (Louisiana State University Press, 1982)

Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of The 1850s (W. W. Norton & Company, 1978)

Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices Of The South, 1820-1861 (Harper Collins, 1997)

Gerard A. Patterson, Rebels From West Point (Stackpole Books, 2002)

First published December 23, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

The Free Soil Party

 

The Free Soil Party was formed in 1848 when the Democrats nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan, denying Martin Van Buren another chance at the presidency. Van Buren’s “barnburners” attracted members of the Liberty Party, which had fielded a candidate in 1844, and which rejected any constitutional interpretation permitting the extension of slavery into new territories. Democrats rejecting Cass’ solution of “squatter” or “popular sovereignty” also supported the Free Soilers. The party achieved success in several Northeastern states, most notably in New York, Van Buren’s home state. This cost Cass the New York electoral vote and the election.

 

Free Labor and Free Men

 

The 1848 Free Soil Party Platform, crafted by Salmon Chase, represented, “a union of freemen…in a common resolve to maintain the rights of free labor against the aggressions of the Slave Power…” According to historian Eric Foner, Free Soilers believed that free labor “was economically superior to slave labor.” Taking their cue from Pennsylvania Democrat David Wilmot, author of the Wilmot Proviso, some Free Soilers saw the new territories as a “white man’s mecca,” free of any blacks, whether slave or free.

 

National versus Local Perspectives on Slavery

 

The party platform used American history to conclude that, “it was the settled policy of the Nation not to extend, nationalize or encourage, but to limit, localize and discourage slavery…” Thus, Free Soilers called upon Congress to abandon efforts to interfere “with Slavery within the limits of the State.” The conclusion was “no more Compromises” with the Slave Powers and the prohibition of slavery in the new territories. The “national” perspective maintained that “freedom” defined American virtue and local politics had no business supplanting those inherent values.

 

Results of the Election of 1848

 

Martin Van Buren received 291,263 popular votes but the decisive votes occurred in New York. But presidents win by electoral votes. In 1848, the winning candidate needed to receive at least 146 electoral votes. Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate, emerged with 163 elector votes; Lewis Cass received 127. Van Buren’s popular vote in New York hurt Cass, who lost the state’s 36 electoral votes as a consequence. Had Cass won, he – rather than Zachary Taylor, would have ended with 163 elector votes, thus becoming the next president.

 

Taylor, however, was nonpolitical, owing his nomination to his exploits during the recently concluded Mexican War. A Southern planter who owned many slaves, he was perceived as being favorable to the expansion of slavery. Once in office, however, Taylor proved otherwise, recommending that California be swiftly admitted as a free state and, in 1850, threatening to veto the Compromise of 1850.

 

The Free Soil Party After 1848

 

Although the party ran a candidate in 1852, most Free Soilers gravitated to the American Party or “Know-Nothings,” supporting Millard Fillmore in the 1856 election. By 1860, however, the Republican Party successfully incorporated many supporters of the various fringe parties that had formed during the 1850s, including the Free Soilers.

 

References:

 

Text of the 1848 Free Soil Party Platform

 

Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (Oxford Unidersity Press, 1995)

William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Volume 4 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

First published April 25, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Henry Clay's Final Effort to Stop a War Between the North and the South: the Compromise of 1850

 

The 31^st Congress was called to order December 3, 1849. After weeks of sorting through petitions, Henry Clay of Kentucky presented eight resolutions designed to “settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy…arising out of the institution of slavery.” The Senate began debating his resolution the following Tuesday, February 5, 1850. By the adjournment of the Senate that summer, the “Compromise of 1850” was law, sectional tension was higher, and one of the great Senate thinkers, John C Calhoun, had died.

 

The Resolutions of Henry Clay

 

California would be admitted as a free-soil state based on its state constitution

Congress should not introduce or “exclude” slavery in any of the new territories

The western boundary of Texas should conform to the Rio del Norte

The U.S. government will pay Texas pre-annexation monetary claims

Texas will “relinquish…any claim which is has to any part of New Mexico

Slavery will continue to exist as an institution in the District of Columbia as long as it exists in Maryland

The sale or slave trade within the District will be abolished

A stronger “fugitive slave” provision be enacted

Congress has “no power to prohibit or obstruct the trade in slaves between slaveholding States…

 

Debating the Resolutions

 

Although Senator Clay envisioned a compromise designed to give the North and the South some measure of satisfaction, it stirred up a hornet’s nest of often angry debate. Many senators proposed amendments favorable to their constituencies. Senator Pratt of Maryland argued for federal compensation to slaveholders that lost income resulting from fugitive slaves. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi favored extending the 1820 Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific.

 

John C. Calhoun, whose speech was read by Virginia’s Senator Mason, called for a constitution amendment establishing two sectional Presidents. Calhoun, already frail, died in March. William Henry Seward’s speech referred to a “higher law” that superseded the Constitution in terms of slavery. Both Seward and Salmon Chase of Ohio urged the adoption of the Wilmot Proviso. Stephen Douglas of Illinois supported the resolutions in an attempt to assuage sectional discord. Although representing a Northern state, Douglas owned slaves himself through his second marriage.

 

Although President Zachary Taylor urged the speedy admittance of California into the Union, he opposed the expansion of slavery into the other territories. According to Historian Frederick Merk, “Taylor would have met any southern move toward secession at the head of the United States army.” Taylor, however, died in July and the new President, Millard Fillmore, supported the resolutions.

 

Results of the Compromise

 

Passage of the separate bills was due in large part to the efforts of Stephen Douglas, who maneuvered the legislation through Congress after Clay returned to Kentucky. Southerners, for the most part, viewed the Compromise with disdain and in four southern states, conventions met to consider secession.

 

Northerners also opposed parts of the Compromise, most notably the new Fugitive Slave Act. Both New York and Wisconsin attempted to nullify this act, without success. The issue of extending slavery beyond those states in which the institution already existed would dominate political and sectional thought for the next decade and act as a catalyst in the eventual outbreak of war.

 

Sources:

 

William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990).

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1978).

Journal of the United States Senate, 31^st Congress, The Library of Congress, “American Memory”

First published April 5, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

The First Thanksgiving: Dispelling an American Myth

 

The first Thanksgiving, celebrated by Pilgrim colonists and Wampanoag Indians in 1621, was very different from the traditional Thanksgiving observed every November in contemporary America. Having barely survived their first New England winter, the Pilgrims, upon late year harvesting, set aside a day of giving thanks. They could not have accomplished this without assistance from the native peoples. Contemporary Americans interested in duplicating this first Thanksgiving meal will be in for a surprise. Among the several missing ingredients was the dominant part of each Thanksgiving feast, the turkey.

 

The First Thanksgiving Feast in 1621

 

Writers and food historians differ as to what specific foods were served at that first Thanksgiving. Anthropology professor Anthony Aveni, for example, writes that Pilgrim men were sent out to kill wild turkeys and other fowl for the feast. British historian Godfrey Hodgson, however, denies that wild turkey was part of the feast, citing the archeological absence of any turkey bones found at the early settlement as well as the inability to shoot turkeys with the type of weaponry used by the Pilgrims.

 

Fowl killed for the meal included duck and geese. Original source records from that early period all state that when the Wampanoag Indians arrived, they brought five slain deer. Thus, the first Thanksgiving featured venison, although it was cooked as a stew that included beans, corn, and squash. Robert Ellis Cahill, commenting on this first feast in his analysis of the first American cookbook from New England, states that Indians also brought oysters.

 

Contemporary Thanksgiving Foods not Found at Plymouth in 1621

 

The Pilgrims served no pumpkin pies, although pumpkins were grown by the native peoples. In later years, pumpkin slices were fried and then baked as a pie. But in 1621, the Pilgrims had no ovens. Additionally, sweet potatoes did not exist in New England. This also was missing at the first Thanksgiving.

 

Cranberries grew in abundance and the native peoples cooked them as a sauce for fish and meats. Europeans, however, would not learn about this until the 1670s. Further, in 1621, the Pilgrims had no sugar, necessary in the preparation of a Thanksgiving cranberry sauce.

 

Corn bread, however, was most likely present at the first Thanksgiving. According to Cahill, corn bread as well as corn on the cob was introduced by the Wampanoags at this first festival. Indian bread was made from roasted corn ears, something that could even be taken on long journeys. Beans were also prominently featured. Beans contained protein and came in a number of varieties. In future generations, New England would become famous for baked beans, usually made with the kidney bean.

 

The First Thanksgiving was a Celebration of the Harvest

 

The Pilgrims learned much from their Indian neighbors. Native peoples showed the Europeans how to use fish such as lobster to fertilize crops. Unlike Europeans used to the crop-rotation methods dating back to the Middle Ages, Indians in New England grew most of their crops together so that one type of plant would enhance the growth of others. Pumpkins, for example, grew on the outer rim, thus protecting corn, squash, and peas from weeds.

 

Aveni writes that, “Every agrarian culture sets its own time of the year aside for the purpose of giving thanks, usually at the beginning of the end of the harvest season…” European traditions, well known by Pilgrims, celebrated the harvest period in a variety of ways, many tied to either old pagan festivals or Christian adaptations. Anthropologists cite such harvest practices as nearly universal and trace them back to ancient times.

 

Celebrating an Authentic Pilgrim Thanksgiving

 

Americans desiring to replicate the first Thanksgiving must be prepared to give up apple and pecan pies, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and the centerpiece roast – the turkey. Substituting venison, which is sold at grocers like Whole Foods or can be ordered on line, cooked as a stew with the appropriate vegetables and served in a common bowl would be a courageous start.

 

Not all foods, however, need to be so different. In 1621, the Indians heated their corn, creating pop corn. According to Cahill, the Pilgrims had butter, saved from their voyage. Although rancid, the Indians doused the buttery liquid over their pop corn, perhaps the first time in America that anyone snacked on hot buttered pop corn.

 

Sources:

 

Anthony Aveni, The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays (Oxford University Press, 2003)

Evelyn L. Beilenson, editor, Early American Cooking: Recipes from America’s Historic Sites (Peter Pauper Press, Inc.,1985)

Robert Ellis Cahill, Sugar and Spice and Everything: A History of Food and America’s First Cookbook (Old Saltbox, 1991)

Godfrey Hodgson, A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving (Perseus Books, 2006)

Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World (Fawcett Books, 1988)

First Published in Suite101 August 31, 2010 by M.Streich. Copyright

The Fugitive Slave Act: Most Hated Part of the 1850 Compromise

 

The Fugitive Slave Act passed by the U.S. Congress in the decade before the Civil War was part of Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850. Although fugitive slave laws had been in force since the founding of the Republic, the 1850 Act, amended by Senator Mason of Virginia, represented a major shift in federal policy. The 1850 measure enlisted Northern citizens in the process of returning fugitive slaves, imposing severe penalties on those that refused as well as Northerners assisting runaways. Although only 332 fugitive slaves were returned to the South in the ten year period following passage of this Act, the Northern public “would need the raw meat of personal and emotional scenes…” to oppose the measure, according to University of Virginia historian William Lee Miller.

 

Formulating the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Since the institution was founded, there had always been run-away slaves and fugitive slave laws. By the 1850s, however, the South was losing approximately 1,000 slaves each year, most from the Border States. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was designed to strengthen previous measures at the expense of the legal system. According to historian William W. Freehling, “James Mason would deploy federal power deep inside Yankee neighborhoods, with white Northerners legally compelled to perform undemocratic process.”

 

Stipulations of the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Under the Act, any designated agent of the Southern owner could identify fugitive slaves and bring them before court appointed commissioners. Bystanders could be legally compelled to assist in the capture of fugitives or face penalties. Those assisting fugitive slaves could be fined and imprisoned. There was no right under habeas corpus: no jury, witnesses, and the fugitive could not speak in his own defense.

 

Finally, the Fugitive Slave Act was ex post facto, meaning that it affected all existing fugitives living in the North. Historian Page Smith quotes George Templeton Strong who questioned the sanity of sending thousands of Northern blacks – many of whom were citizens, back to the South. If successful, their renewed presence in the South would galvanize insurrection and resistance.

 

Effects of the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Only 332 fugitive slaves were returned to the South between 1850 and 1860 in what Page Smith called, “the most misconceived piece of legislation ever promoted by Southern members of Congress.” During that same period, Harriet Tubman alone led 300 slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Even Deep South Senators questioned the intended effects of the law. Florida Senator David Yulee noted that the Act would be “unenforceable in the North.”

 

At issue was a significant loss of assets, notably in the Border States, since slaves were viewed as property. Maryland Senator Pratt attempted to include a compensation amendment to the Act whereby slave owners would be compensated for unreturned slaves out of the federal treasury. The Pratt Amendment, however, was defeated and with help from Deep South Senators who viewed the amendment as the first step toward gradual emancipation.

 

Northern Response to the Fugitive Slave Act

 

Efforts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act resulted in a tremendous public relations blunder for the South. It would be one thing to read about the evils of slavery in publications like Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But the real life images of men and women being dragged away were quite a different matter and provided sympathy for a growing abolitionist movement in the North. In Boston alone, the manpower required to return one slave in the face of massive public resistance cost the federal government $100,000 (according to Page Smith).

 

The Fugitive Slave Act further deepened tensions between the North and the South. Northern resistance to the Act, verging on nullification, brought renewed threats of secession from the South. This measure was one more example of how Southern slavery contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War in early 1861.

 

References:

 

Eric Foner, Free Soil, FreeLabor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1995)

William W. Freehling, Rge Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 (Oxford University Press, 1990)

Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (W.W. Norton & Company, 1978)

William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

Published April 10, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Was the Wilmot Proviso the White Man's Answer to Popular Sovereignty? 

 

 

In August 1846, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot began a four year debate on the question of extending slavery into the territories obtained from Mexico with an amendment to an appropriations bill called the Wilmot Proviso. This short, one paragraph amendment would prohibit slavery in the Mexican Cession, territories like New Mexico and California. None of the territories about to be acquired and annexed by the United States were covered under the terms of the 1820 Missouri Compromise line. The Wilmot Proviso would provoke outrage in the South and set the stage for the 1850 Compromise that temporarily kept sectional peace.

 

Start of the Debate

 

David Wilmot was not an abolitionist. His Proviso was not motivated by moral concerns. Quoted by historian William Freehling, “Wilmot sought a white man’s mecca, where ‘my own race and own color can live without the disgrace’…of…’association with negro slavery.’” Southerners, whose sons represented more war casualties than northern boys, were indignant. Georgia’s Robert Toombs declared, “We have the right to call on you to give your blood to maintain the slaves of the South in bondage. Deceive not yourselves; you cannot deceive others. This is a proslavery government. Slavery is stamped on its heart!” President Polk, in his diary of August 10, 1846, called the Proviso a “mischievous and foolish amendment.”

 

Although passed in the House by a vote of 83 to 64, the bill containing the Amendment was killed in the Senate when Senator John Davis took the floor and filibustered the bill until the end of the Congressional session. The Proviso would be revived in futures Congresses but was never approved by the Senate. Historian Frederick Merk suggests that the Proviso ultimately split political parties on the question of Congressional interference with slavery in the new territories.

 

Outrage and the Realities of Slavery

 

As Polk reflected in his diary, the expansion of slavery into the new territories would be addressed through the natural course of expansion and not by Congressional fiat: most of the lands were not suited to slavery. The core issue for Southerners was expressed by Mississippi Governor Joseph Matthews during his January 1848 inaugural address: “whether citizens of the slave states are to be considered as equals.” Stephen Douglas of Illinois, whose solution to the slavery debate in the new territories was popular sovereignty, vigorously opposed the Proviso from the very beginning, defending his opposition in an 1852 letter to the editor of the Washington Union. The slavery issue had to be decided by citizens in the territories, not by a Congressional measure. If Congress lacked the power to regulate slavery in the new territories, resolutions like the Proviso were unconstitutional. As Merk observes, “The Wilmot Proviso…opened conflicts of law and theory…”

 

Aftermath

 

The Wilmot Proviso may have been the match that ignited the debate regarding slavery’s extension into territories won from Mexico in 1848. Painfully aware that California might soon enter the Union as another free state, Southern leaders like John C Calhoun envisioned the prospect of the slave South ultimately surrounded by free states, dooming the institution’s future. The issue became one of survival as well as Constitutional legality. The ensuing Compromise of 1850 would clearly demonstrate the extent of sectional hostilities and party disunity.

 

For Further Reading:

 

William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion:Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)

 

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978)

 

William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)

Published November 20, 2008 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

 The 1848 Election would thrust the American Nation into on-going debates regarding the Extension of slavery. The Civil War rumblings could be Heard in the Hall of Congress

By 1848, Manifest Destiny had run full cycle. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War, was ratified in March by the U.S. Senate, vastly enlarging the nation. President Polk’s vision had been fulfilled. But the new territories rapidly divided a nation already acutely aware of the emerging issue of extending slavery into the newly acquired lands, a point illustrated by the furor over the earlier Wilmot Proviso. As the political parties maneuvered in the face of an important presidential campaign, the central issue would become the extension of slavery.

 

Choosing the Candidates in 1848

 

Foreshadowing the dramatic political realignments of the mid to late 1850s, dissention within the Democrats would create a third party. These “barnburners” rejected the selection of Michigan’s Lewis Cass and formed the Free Soil Party. Nominating former President Martin Van Buren, they took as their slogan, “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men.” There were fifteen slave states at the time and the Free Soilers were determined not to add to that number.

 

Lewis Cass promoted his idea of “popular” or “squatter” sovereignty, which would allow territorial settlers to decide on the issue themselves. Popular sovereignty would become the cornerstone of Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas even after the Supreme Court deemed the proposition unconstitutional in 1857 with the Dred Scott Decision.

 

Although the leadership of the Whig Party had fallen on Daniel Webster, delegates were looking for a winning formula to capture the White House. The Mexican War had produced two national heroes, generals of dubious Whig credentials: Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor. Taylor, a Kentucky planter with over 300 slaves, had been the hero of the Battle of Buena Vista. Never having voted before and having had no interest in politics, he was the perfect apolitical general. Additionally, Taylor had opposed the Mexican War.

 

Having chosen Zach Taylor – “old rough n’ ready,” the Whigs looked forward to winning the election. This was a replay of the Whig victory in 1840 when they nominated another general, William Henry Harrison of Indiana.

 

A New President and a New Congress

 

Taylor defeated Cass by 861,375 popular votes out of a total 2,874,572 cast in 1848. Of those, 291,263 voted for Martin Van Buren. The Free Soil Party received no electoral votes. Taylor was expected to favor the South, being a slaveholder himself and the father-in-law of Jefferson Davis (his first wife who died shortly after they were married). The closeness in votes, although more than the 1844 election, highlighted the impact of the three-fifths compromise that counted slaves toward representation (more electoral votes).

 

The newly elected Congress, which would meet for the first time in December 1849, included the old Senate stalwarts, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Thomas Hart Benton. At the same time new Senators were making a first appearance in the distinguished chamber: Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, and William Henry Steward, all men with extreme convictions regarding the extension of slavery into the new territories.

 

The Constitutional issue regarding the territories was whether the Congress had the power under Article IV, Section 3 to regulate slavery in the territories. What exactly was meant by the “Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory…?” The ambiguity of this phrase opened wide the door to often rancorous debate. Southerners like Calhoun interpreted the phrase as “administrative” power while men like Webster favored the notion of an “absolute” power.

 

Southerners believed that the Constitution protected the right of slavery to exist anywhere and were outraged when President Taylor favored admitting California as a free state and opposing the extension of slavery. The Election of 1848 paved the way toward the Compromise of 1850 and a decade of growing violence centered on the slavery issue.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr. Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004) see p 84ff.

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development 5^th ed. (W. W. Norton & Company, 1976).

William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years Vol. 4 (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981).

Published April 2, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright.

How Effective is Political Assassination?

 

Political assassination has always been a means to replace leaders seen as weak, to eliminate political competition, create social insecurity, and instill terror. Frequently, assassinations are tied to radical groups furthering political agendas. This was true of late 19^th Century Russian revolutionaries, the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914, and – in modern history, the attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman November 1, 1950. Some notable assassinations may have been carried out as acts of revenge, as the stabbing of Marat by Charlotte Corday July 13, 1793 or the murder of French King Henry IV in May 1610 by a crazed Catholic cleric.

 

Assassination Used to Incite Social Terror and National Insecurity

 

In 1878 in St. Petersburg, Russia, Vera Zasulich walked into the office of General D. F. Trepov and shot him. Zasulich was part of the Nihilists whose program of political reform condoned violence. Like the Anarchists and numerous other groups at the time, political assassination was part of that program. In The Catechism of the Revolutionary, authors Sergei Nechaev and Mikhail Bakunin provide a list of “categories” – those that must be eliminated. “…the first to be destroyed are people who are especially harmful to the revolutionary organization and those whose sudden and violent death will create the greatest fear in the government…” (Paragraph 16)

 

Although the June 1914 assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were directly related to the political goals of the Black Hand, a secret Serbian nationalist cell, it also was successful in exploiting terror and insecurity. Already viewed as a “powder keg” waiting to be ignited, the Balkans pitted the territorial goals of Austria-Hungary against Russia. In this case, what might be called the “assassination of the century,” launched World War One.

 

Assassination to Replace Potential Political Threats

 

The history of Rome is full of assassinations, often engineered to end the careers of leaders that had become liabilities, as in the case of Nero. In 44 BCE, however, members of the Roman Senate perpetrated the assassination of Julius Caesar, an event destined to become the subject of innumerable books, plays, and mock trials. It also ended the Roman Republic. William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar focuses on both the fears that Caesar was about to make himself a king (thus inspiring Brutus’ motive) as well as the jealousies and ambitions of key senators like Cassius (with the “lean and hungry look…”)

 

In December 1934, the popular Bolshevik Party boss of St. Petersburg, Serge Kirov was assassinated, ostensibly by members of a group opposed to Stalin but supportive of Leon Trotskii. Through the newly formed NKVD, formerly the secret police or GPU, Stalin was able to implicate fellow Bolsheviks like Zinoviev and Kamenev. Show trials and subsequent purges rid Stalin of any potential political threats. The murder of Kirov accomplished several goals, all of which enhanced the power and control of Stalin.

 

Military Assassinations

 

The Roman Praetorian Guard was not the last military group to make and unmake leaders. On July 20, 1944, Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg entered a conference room at OKW HQ in Rastenburg carrying a bomb. Operation “Valkyrie” was planned to kill Adolph Hitler and involved many top generals that felt Hitler had to be replaced in order to swiftly end the war. The plot, however, failed. It was also unsuccessful in creating an anti-Hitler vanguard within the army ranks. As one former officer wrote, “We all took an oath. These generals supported Hitler when Germany was winning and they were receiving medals. Now they wanted to save themselves.” [1]

 

Political Assassinations are never a Solution

 

The use of violence and murder in history in terms of political assassinations has never demonstrated a positive result. When the Roman Senate assassinated Tiberius Gracchus his place was taken by his brother Gaius, who was also murdered. Their assassinations only further exacerbated the conflict between Roman farmers and the Senate. Political assassination is a crime against all notions of law and order in society as demonstrated by the historical record.

 

See also The Assassination of Tsar Alexander II

 

[1] Unpublished memoirs of Gunter Streich

 

References:

 

Virginia Cowles, The Russian Dagger: Cold War in the Days of the Czars (NY: Harper & Row, 1969)

Basil Dmytryshyn, editor, Imperial Russia: A Source Book, 1700-1917  (NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1967)

Constantine FitzGibbon, 20 July (Berkley Publishing Co., 1956)

David MacKenzie, Violent Solutions: Revolutions, Nationalism, and Secret Societies in Europe to 1918 (NY: University Press of America, Inc., 1996)

Jack Pearl, The Dangerous Assassins (Monarch Books, Inc., 1964)

Published May, 15, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. Copyright

President Polk and Santa Anna: Subterfuge and Possible Treason?

James K. Polk entered the White House in 1845 as an ardent expansionist, wedded to the ideal of Manifest Destiny as an American directive characterized by historian Frederick Merk as, “…immediate, realistic, aggressive.” In efforts to disassemble Mexico’s territories north of the Rio Grande, Polk engaged every option. This included Polk’s cunning scheme to assist the exiled Mexican leader Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna by returning him to power and paying him a stipend for championing American annexation goals.

 

Santa Anna Returns to Mexico

 

Polk was in contact with Santa Anna through secret envoys as early as February 1845. Exiled to Cuba, Santa Anna was remembered as the butcher of the Alamo defenders, a man hated in the new Texas republic which had been formally joined to the United States in the waning hours of John Tyler’s presidency. The disgraced general, eager to return to Mexico and reassume power, promised Polk recognition of the Rio Grande boundary and the sale of Mexico’s continental territories for thirty million dollars.

 

The Rio Grande border between Mexico and Texas was a relatively new development and had seldom been used before 1845 as an official boundary. Santa Anna recognized the river as the border at the end of Texas’ war for independence, but the treaty had been signed under duress and was repudiated by the Mexican government.

 

Santa Anna had no intention of fulfilling his agreements. Polk, unaware of the general’s plans, allowed him to slip back into Mexico through the U.S. naval blockade. In August 1846, before Santa Anna resumed power in Mexico, Polk attempted to obtain a $2 million appropriation, ostensibly as a down payment for the Mexican territories. A handful of Senators politically aligned to Polk knew that the appropriation included a stipend for Santa Anna.

 

The bill was defeated in the U.S. Senate shortly before Congress adjourned, chiefly due to an anti-slavery amendment known as the Wilmot Proviso. The debate over slavery’s expansion into the territories joined to the U.S. as a result of the war was about to grow heated and divisive.

 

Santa Anna Continues the War

 

Santa Anna resumed his leadership of Mexico and the war continued through 1847. At the February 1847 battle of Buena Vista, Santa Anna vastly outnumbered American forces under the command of Zachary Taylor. Taylor was acting against orders but managed a spectacular victory due in large part to his West Point-trained artillery units.

 

By October 1847, General Winfield Scott occupied Mexico City and Santa Anna relinquished control, joining the Mexican guerrilla campaign being waged against U.S. troops. Polk, despite his machinations with Congress from the first weeks of his presidency, fulfilled his campaign promises. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ceded vast territories to the United States and ended Mexican claims against Texas. Aggressive expansionism prevailed.

 

References:

 

Robert W. Johannsen, To The Halls of the Montezumas (Oxford University Press, 1985)

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1978)

Federick Merk, Manifest Destiny in American History (Vintage/Random House, 1966)

Published March 14, 2012 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright

Expansionism, Imperialism, and Manifest Destiny

 Expansionism and Imperialism are closely related. Expansionism is a more benign term and usually refers to expanding a nation’s sphere of influence. Throughout the 19^th Century, Americans expanded their influence across the continent through the Westward Movement. Although sovereign Native American nations were suppressed and even eliminated in the process, America was not acting as an imperial power. Imperialism, although defined in several different ways, is always premised on a powerful nation that uses such powers to conquer other peoples. This was the case in the late 1890s when the U.S. annexed the Philippines.

 

Was America Imperialist?

 

In March 1961, Economist Mark Blaug [1] debated whether “Economic imperialism” as a foreign policy conformed to V.I. Lenin’s conclusions that imperialism reflected the “highest stage of capitalism.” [2] By the 1890s, the U.S. was producing more than it could consume. Political leaders like Senators Al Beveridge and Henry Cabot Lodge were urging that American interests globally should parallel those of France and Britain. Most of the world had, by then, been carved up by the great powers of Europe.

 

The Spanish-American War afforded an opportunity to plant the American flag. The “March of the Flag” greatly expanded American commercial interests but forced the virtuous Republic to don the image of an imperial power. American imperialism was already evident in the Caribbean, Central, and South America. James Blaine, Secretary of State under Presidents Garfield, Arthur, and Harrison, for example, earned the nickname “Jingo Jim” for his diplomatic efforts.

 

Although reasons given for the American annexation of the Philippines included the promises of positive benefit to the Filipino people, the act of annexation, strongly tied to economic factors, cannot be called anything but imperialist. Similarly, Secretary of State John Hay’s China policy (Open Door Notes) had the purpose of ensuring American participation in the lucrative China trade.

 

Opposition to Imperialism and the Antithesis of Global Interest

 

Several prominent Americans, like Mark Twain, felt so strongly about America’s departure from the ideals of a virtuous Republic that they formed the Anti-Imperialist League. Professor Albert Weinberg, in his analysis of Manifest Destiny, refers to the concept of “paramount interest” while detailing U.S. actions in Panama under Theodore Roosevelt. [3] “Two principal grounds supported the claim,” Weinberg writes: “supremacy of commercial interest and superiority of strategic interest.”

 

Weinberg, in his final chapter, points out an important factor that set the U.S. apart from the European powers. In terms of classic imperialism, the forging of and the maintaining of empires, World War I changed American policy. This may be the result of Wilson’s moralisms, retrenchment into isolationism, and what Weiberg calls “a willingness for contraction…”

 

Is There a Difference between Imperialism and Expansionism?

 

In the Ancient world, Greeks expanded their influence throughout the Mediterranean region through colonies and trade, but they never became an imperial power, unlike Rome after the transformation of the Republic. Historians of the ancient world, such as Peter Brown, have pointed out that even Hellenization, inspired by Alexander’s conquests, was limited.

 

The difference between the terms is important – important enough to prompt the recent amendment change to delete the term “imperialism” from history texts by the Texas Board of Education. Expansionism, as a concept, implies an inherent, inevitable occupation, something 19^th Century thinkers and politicians attributed to a providential mission. Imperialism, however, implies conquest and supremacy, regardless of motive. American history was both.

 

History professor Emily S. Rosenberg (“Bursting America’s Imperial Bubble,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 3, 2006, Volume 53, Issue 11) states that, “Throughout the past, Americans have both embraced and rejected the word ‘empire,’” But empires are defined many ways and Rosenberg’s article reviews several scholarly books dealing with the thorny nomenclature.

 

Today’s Americans may prefer to see themselves as a “unipolar civilization” rather than an imperial power. Despite efforts in Texas to revise history based on terminology, the rest of the world still views the U.S. with great suspicion despite American egalitarianism, and this is one of the reasons why they hate the U.S.

 

Notes and References:

 

[1] Mark Blaug, “Lenin and Economic Imperialism Reconsidered,” Yale Review, L (March 1961), reprinted in British Imperialism: Gold, God, Glory, edited by Robin W. Winks, (Hinsdale, ILL: Dryden Press, 1963)

[2] V.I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (NY: International Publishers Co., 1934)

[3] Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (The Johns Hopkins Press, 1935)

 

Also:

 

Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (NY: Random House, 1987)

First published May 22, 2010 in Suite101 by M.Streich. copyright