What Was the Compromise of 1850? by Mike Streich

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 William Henry Seward’s speech referred to a “higher law” that superseded the Constitution in terms of slavery.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”

 

 

What do Representative George Santos and Prince Harry have in Common? They both lie. Why use the term "fabrication?" Today's German Bild (13.January 2023) has an excellent article on the contradictions and "fibs" in Spare.

WHAT WAS THE "CORRUPT BARGAIN" ASSOCIATED WITH HENRY CLAY IN 1824?

PERHAPS KEVIN MCCARTHY CAN ANSWER THAT QUESTION IF HE STUDIED AMERICAN HISTORY IN HIGH SCHOOL.

 Henry Clay attempted the Presidency three times yet each time he miscalculated the mood of the American people. In 1824 he came in last in a four-way race; building his campaign on Andrew Jackson’s Bank Veto in 1832, Clay failed to realize that voters saw the veto as an extension of Jackson’s heroic nature and champion of the common man. Finally, in 1844, Clay’s “waffling” on the issue of Texas annexation caused enough voters in the North to switch their support to James Birney and the new Liberty Party, costing him crucial swing states.

 

The 1824 Election

 

When the results of the 1824 election were tabulated, Henry Clay was in fourth place with 37 electoral votes. Although no candidate received enough electoral votes to win the presidency, John Quincy Adams would be selected by a vote in the House of Representatives. As Speaker of the House, Henry Clay played a pivotal role in denying Andrew Jackson the presidency. Jackson, with 99 electoral votes and almost three times the popular votes of Clay and William Crawford, would never forget Clay’s role in the so-called “corrupt bargain.”

 

1832 and the Bank of the United States

 

President Andrew Jackson rejected a premature rechartering of the SBUS(Second Bank of the US) in 1832 after Henry Clay convinced bank President Nicholas Biddle to seek a new charter. It was the issue Clay hoped would bring him into the White House. Portraying Jackson as a despotic tyrant and recalling the images of George III, Clay and his followers believed that the voters would agree and retire Jackson.

 

Jackson, however, was seen as a man of the people, a hero who championed the cause of simple, hard working Americans. Jackson, who hated all banks, saw the national bank as the “great whore of Babylon.” Everywhere he went, everyday people cheered him as their advocate. The bank issue backfired. According to Paul Boller, “For the first time in American history a President took a strong stand on an important social issue and then asked for the approval of the voters at the polls.” [1]

 

The Annexation of Texas and the 1844 Election

 

The annexation of Texas was the chief issue in the 1844 election. Democrat James K Polk favored annexation. Significantly, Polk’s stance was based on his sincere views favoring immediate expansionism. Polk wanted to unite the nation between both oceans, assert American claims in the Oregon Territory, and bring Texas into the Union.

 

Henry Clay, however, viewed the issue in terms of his own presidential ambitions. At first, Clay opposed Texas annexation, gambling on the Northern vote. Northern voters, for the most part, rejected the idea of bringing in another slave state. Sensing that his chance of victory might be better if he switched positions, Clay came out for annexation. This cost him crucial Northern votes.

 

Page Smith [2] gives an interesting analysis of the 1844 vote. Polk won the election with less than 1 percent of the popular vote, yet in pivotal states like Ohio, James Birney, the antislavery candidate, polled over 8,000 votes. In Pennsylvania Polk won “by a bare 6,000 votes out of more than 328,000 cast.” Birney’s total in the election was 62,300. Had Clay not switched his position on Texas, many of the Birney votes might have gone to him.

 

Although Henry Clay never became President, his long political career left an indelible mark on American History. Returned to the National Senate in 1850, Clay would endeavor to craft a final compromise designed to avert Civil War. For this he was vilified by many Southerners.

 

Sources:

 

[1] Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981) p. 207.

[2] Paul F. Boller, Jr. Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 53.

It Would seem that the Republican Party has Traded one Liar, Madison Cawthorn, for another, George Santos. Trivia: who was the "Continental Liar from Maine"? It was James G. Blaine who puts both above men to shame and almost became President in the late 19th Century.

Happy Birthday - also - to Ludwig van Beethoven, (1770) who shared this day with my mother, Ingrid  Streich.

Happy Birthday Mom from All of Us Alive and in Heaven! December 17, 2022. Miss you terribly!

(Born December 17, 1930 in Hamburg, Germany)
 

Bombs We Now Call "Weapons of Mass Destruction" are bigger than ever and well past the midnight hour of usage. michael streich

The following was penned in 2009 for Suite101 and talks about a time all of these global fears first emerged. We spoke of containment, an "Iron Curtain", First Strike weapons, and taught the children how to duck and cover. I was one of those children. Born in 1953, in Germany, my mom and grandma (Oma) survived Operation Gomorrah, 1943, the near absolute destruction of Hamburg. Yet here in the United States, safety was an illusion.

People brave many obstacles to come here, to be those huddled masses yearning to be free. But there is also a price. Perennial war or wars, each time getting worse. Now we have to fear Russia's threats over Ukraine as they slip nuclear missiles into silos near southern Moscow, ostensibly one for London and one for Washington DC according to today's British newspapers.(16.12.2022)

And in Asia we are faced with an intransigent Taiwan, an ever belligerent Peking, and, of course. Donald Trump's lunatic "Rocket man" in Pyongyang.There are few remaining survivors of Pearl Harbor but their lives are a testament to the blood that must be shed to save Democracy and freedom in the world. 

All of these dilemmas face us as we begin 2023, a year of decision and a year of sobriety. Read the essay below, and make up your mind to stop the mad scramble to are the world with true weapons of mass destruction.

 

In the early years of the Eisenhower presidency, the atomic bomb dominated foreign affairs considerations. Ever since the Manhattan Project produced the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bomb was viewed as the ultimate weapon to be used in achieving U.S. goals containing Communism. Realists like J. Robert Oppenheimer realized the terrible potential and counseled against the development of more power nuclear weapons. Even Winston Churchill, in his prescient “Iron Curtain” speech, called for international control of the bomb.

 

From Containment to Liberation and the Use of the Bomb

 

In 1949 the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, well ahead of U.S. intelligence analysis suggesting it would take the Communists years to develop. This, however, did not change assumptions regarding the use of the bomb. Rather, a policy of “massive retaliation” was developed by the Eisenhower administration. Even if the Soviets had the bomb, the U.S. would massively retaliate “by means and at places of our own choosing.”

 

There were many “places” that qualified between 1952 and 1955. The United States threatened to use the bomb during the Korean conflict, notably when disagreements erupted over prisoner exchanges. In 1954, the use of smaller, “tactical” bombs was discussed as a means to relieve the besieged French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. The fortress fell before final decisions could be made.

 

When the Chinese threatened to invade Quemoy and Matsu in an attempt to ultimately defeat Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, President Eisenhower again threatened to use the bomb against China. The bomb was perceived, in all of these cases, as a convenient solution, particularly since the U.S. defense budget had been significantly cut in efforts to balance the federal budget.

 

Yet each of these cases represented the potential of using such weapons of mass destruction against Asian people. The situation in Europe was quite different. The Iron Curtain separated NATO troops from the Warsaw Pact. The stalemate was beyond Containment and liberation was out of the question. This became painfully obvious in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising. Eisenhower was not prepared to risk a world war with both opposing sides using nuclear weapons.

 

Asia, however, was another matter, particularly since the chief protagonist of Communist insurgency was China, which possessed no similar weapons (although the Soviet Union was also very busy assisting the many wars of liberation and training its leaders in Russia). It was the fact of using the bomb against another Asian country that aroused serious concerns among the British.

 

Brinkmanship and the Erosion of Global Security

 

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles enunciated the policy of brinkmanship, the notion of going to the very brink of war in order to achieve specific outcomes. Threatening to use the bomb was one example of brinkmanship. As in the case of China and Taiwan, Russia urged Chinese restraint. Dulles knew that the Russians were as hesitant to use the bomb as the U.S. was, but wanted to confront the crisis with a show of strength.

 

As more bombs were constructed with the capacity to completely obliterate an enemy population, global security became a dream of the past. More nations eventually joined the “nuclear club” and ways were found to deliver warheads faster and more efficiently, such as from submarine platforms. In short, any direct confrontation could lead to annihilation. This was best seen with the practice of brinkmanship during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In that crisis, Secretary of State Dean Rusk stated, “we were eyeball to eyeball and the other guy just blinked.”

 

Although the bomb may have ended the Pacific War and Harry Truman’s decision to use the weapon was sound, it turned into a sterile weapon that left a global legacy of fear and insecurity.

 

Sources:

 

Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima & Potsdam, The Use of the Atomic Bomb & the American Confrontation with Soviet Power (Penguin Books, 1985)

Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin Books, 1997)

George F. Kennan, The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983)

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a danger to our Democracy, stirring up crowds in support of Donald Trump's Stolen Election claims and most recently, claiming that if she had led the January 6th insurrection, she would have used weapons. Her comments were Satire, so she says. 

Own up to your convictions, no matter how convoluted and unAmerican they are!  This same Congressional Representative said, two years ago, that she believed in "Jewish Space Lasers," among her many lunatic ideas. 

Any representative that supports her should be ashamed.  This is the on-going history of a great Republic that has committed many wrongs in the past, but ultimately championed liberty and gave the world an ideal that rejected the Hitlers, Stalins, and now the Putins of the world. Ms Greene does more harm by opening her uninformed mouth.

Herschel Walker: " I don't even know what the heck is a pronoun." 

That is the sad state of affairs in American politics. A former president wants to terminate the Constitution. A senate candidate speaks of vampires and werewolves. And these guys are supported by the party of Lincoln. I'm sure Senator Cruz (who really is a Canadian) knows about pronouns or he would never have graduated from top Texas schools, then Princeton and Yale.  Mr. Lincoln would disown all of them.

How about them Pronouns, Herschel?  

 How Thanksgiving Made It's Debut michael streich

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)

 Revolutionary Hamburg: The Nazi Socialists Win

michael Streich

During the 1920s and until February 1933, Albert Walter was one of the most prominent leaders of the German Communist Party and the head of an international maritime union that sought to achieve Comintern (Communist International) goals throughout the world. Working out of Hamburg, Walter developed a highly organized system of control and intelligence. His shift in alliance to the Nazis and subsequent work for German intelligence prior to the outbreak of war shocked the Communist Party.

 

The Early Years in Hamburg

 

According to Communist defector Richard J.H. Krebs (alias Jan Valtin), Albert Walter was made a political commissar of the Baltic fleet by Lenin himself during a visit to Moscow shortly after the end of World War One. Walter had been a seaman, held in the United States after German merchant ships were seized. Returning to Hamburg after the war, he rapidly rose in the ranks of the party.

 

German Communists had been very active in the maritime trade. Their success among sailors of the Imperial fleet led to the naval mutiny of 1918 that turned Bremen into a war zone. Recognizing the value of converting sailors, the Comintern established the International Propaganda and Action Committee of Transport Works in 1922 with Albert Walter at the head.

 

This committee inaugurated the “Hamburg Method” designed to document every ship, the Communist cells aboard that ship, and all ship destinations. Through this efficient system, propaganda was sent throughout the world and local “clubs” established to further party goals. The Committee was headquartered in Hamburg because of the city’s great marine industry.

 

Throughout the early twenties, Soviet Russian officers were smuggled into Hamburg to “train” activists, turning these young men into “Red Marines.” Additionally, the international propaganda efforts paid off: at its height, the Committee supported 72 newspapers and over 4,000 worldwide Communist cells. Albert Walter facilitated the funding for the massive operation.

 

The Immediate Years before Hitler

 

In 1930 Albert Walter traveled to Moscow to attend a conference, part of which was to organize a new Seamen International. Goals included the formulation of plans to effectively tie up capitalist shipping in the event of war. This resulted in the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers (ISH for short), headed by Albert Walter. Revolutionary action included espionage as well as organizing cells. ISH had operating cells in 22 countries and 19 colonies while supporting 47 international clubs, including both coasts of the United States.

 

Arrest and Capitulation

 

Albert Walter was arrested during the night of February 27^th, 1933 – the night of the Reichstag fire, along with other Communist leaders, and eventually imprisoned at Fuhlsbuettel Concentration Camp. Repeatedly tortured, he refused to break.

 

Richard Krebs, in his autobiography, states that Albert Walter had an “Achilles Heel,” which was his mother. Walter was utterly devoted to her. The Gestapo took him to a cell and allowed him to peer inside. Walter saw his mother and was told that if he did not work for the Gestapo, she would be tortured and executed.

 

This story conflicts with that told by members of his family who maintained that it was his friendship with the regional Gauleiter that got him out of the camp and convinced him to work for the Nazis.

 

After the War

 

Albert Walter was no stranger to politics and he was a survivor. In 1949 he became a member of the new German parliament, representing Hamburg on behalf of the conservative “Deutschen” Party (German Party) until 1957. He spent his retirement years in Hamburg, bequeathing his estate to the Seamen’s Union upon his death in 1980. This included a hand-carved chess set given to him by V. Molotov in the years before the war.

 

Sources:

 

Jan Valtin, Out of the Night (New York: Alliance Book Corporation, 1941)

Family archives

YES KARI LAKE, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS...

and he's skipping your house! 

Anniversaries are part of on-going History. For example, November 9th was the day after the United States mid-term elections. But it was also the day of the Munich Beer Hall putsch that sought to bring Nazis to power in Bavaria but ended with Adolph Hitler going to jail where he wrote Mein Kamph. It was also, sadly, the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass (Crystallnacht) during which Nazis killed many Jews and destroyed their businesses, homes, property, and places of worship. (For a very good treatment of the subject in film, watch Europa Europa. (Sub-Titles)

The Red Tide was not even the "Thin Red Line" (referring here to the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimea 1854.

Somebody had a great fall on November 9th and all the kings horses and all the king's men are still trying to put it together. GO FIGURE

 First Republican National Convention Nominates John C Fremont

 michael streich

In June 1856 the newly formed Republican Party nominated John C. Fremont on the second ballot to become the party’s first presidential candidate. Held in Philadelphia, a bastion of Democratic ideology, the near unanimous vote brought together a number of delegates formerly associated with other political parties to stand behind a party platform deploring “bleeding Kansas,” the extension of slavery into the territories recently acquired through the Mexican War, and the polygamous practices of the Mormons in Utah. John C. Fremont, a hero of the frontier and instigator of California’s Bear Flag Republic, was the standard bearer.

 

Philadelphia Hosts the First Republican National Convention

 

The choice of Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention helped to identify the party with the nation’s birth and with a sense of patriotism that highlighted Thomas Jefferson’s phrase in the Declaration of Independence, “…all men are created equal…” Philadelphia was the site of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the first major city George Washington travel through to take the presidential oath in New York. In those early days of the Republic, Philadelphia citizens created a victor’s arch to greet the first president as citizens lined the streets to celebrate the birth of a nation.

 

In 1856, no such arches or celebrations took place. There were no parades with floats such as was seen in 1787 upon the completion of the Constitution. The Liberty Bell remained silent, reminding everyone in the city of brotherly love that the chief result of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was bloody warfare in the Kansas territory between pro-slavery interlopers and those following the principle of “free labor” and free men.

 

The First Republican Political Leaders in 1856

 

The men that formed this new party were former Whigs, free-soil Democrats, followers of Webster and Clay, Van Buren and Adams. Led by New York Senator William Henry Seward, who took his name out of contention, they rebuffed overtures from the American or Know-Nothing Party, fearful of losing support among immigrant groups, notably Germans. This would become the “party of Lincoln” four years later and become forever identified as the party that ended the evils of slavery. Old alliances were broken in 1856 as some of the nation’s most influential and well-spoken political leaders met in Philadelphia.

 

Pennsylvania was the home of former Democrat David Wilmot, now a judge and one-time author of the proviso that deeply fractured Congress, as well as Thaddeus Stevens, abolitionist congressman who would emerge through the Civil War as a leader of the Radical Republicans. Both men attended the convention. But Pennsylvania was also home to James Buchanan, the Democratic nominee for the presidency.

 

James Buchanan Leads the Democratic Party

 

Buchanan was untainted by “bleeding Kansas,” having served the United States as diplomatic envoy to Imperial Russia. His political past reflected a stellar resume. But Buchanan was closed wedded to the South and identified with foreign adventurism not popular with Northern political leaders, such as the proposed annexation of slave-owning Cuba. Buchanan had also floated the idea of U.S. intervention in the Crimean War, begun in 1853. Pennsylvania’s electoral votes would go to the Democrats, in part because Buchanan led the ticket.

 

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln attempted to assure the South that his nomination represented no attack upon slavery in the South. Slavery, where it already existed, was legally protected. The emotional rhetoric in 1856, however, could well have been a harbinger of the future for the South and the peculiar institution. Although the platform did not call for emancipation, Southerners would be hard pressed not to come to that conclusion after reading speeches by ardent abolitionists like Illinois’ Owen Lovejoy. Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson referred to the Democratic platform in terms of the “slave interest of the country…”

 

John C. Fremont and the Ideals of the American Frontier

 

Fremont represented the frontier. He had led numerous expeditions west, raised the bear flag of California, became one of that state’s first senators, and emerged as a national hero. He was also the son-in-law of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, with enough political connections to capture the 1856 nomination. Unfortunately, he was also illegitimate, born out of wedlock, a fact that played upon the morals and Christian sensibilities of voters.

 

The Lessons of the First Republican National Convention

 

The first Republican National Convention was a prelude to 1860. Seward kept his name out of voting in 1856 in order to secure the 1860 nomination. Stephen A. Douglas may have done much the same thing in the Democratic Party. Both men would be disappointed, eclipsed by events largely the fault of the 1856 victor, James Buchanan. Buchanan defeated Fremont handily in 1856. Former President James Fillmore, candidate of the American Party, received less than 900,000 popular votes.

 

The Philadelphia Convention also enabled party leaders to chart a broader course. Having rejected a union with the Know-Nothings, many American party members would join the Republicans by the 1858 mid-term elections. Victory in 1860 may have been possible as a result of this earlier convention and the lessons learned: the rhetoric was milder and talk of abolition minimized.

 

Sources:

 

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

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1973)

R. Craig Sautter, Philadelphia Presidential Conventions (December Press, 2000)

Page Smith, The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic, Vol. Three (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980)

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