A School History of the United States Part 39

3. The third provided for the capture and delivery of fugitive-slaves.

During three months these bills were hotly debated, and threats of disunion and violence were made openly.

%381. Death of Taylor; Fillmore becomes President.%--In the midst of the debate, July 9, 1850, Taylor died, and Fillmore was sworn into office. Calhoun had died in March. Webster was made Secretary of State by Fillmore. In some respects these changes helped on the measures, all of which were carried through. Two of them were of great importance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Millard Fillmore]

%382. Popular Sovereignty.%--The first provided that the two new territories, New Mexico and Utah, when fit to be admitted as states, should come in with or without slavery as their const.i.tutions might determine; meantime, the question whether slavery could or could not exist there, if it arose, was to be settled by the Supreme Court.

%383. The Fugitive-Slave Law.%--The other important measure of the compromise was the fugitive-slave law. The old fugitive-slave law enacted in 1793 had depended for its execution on state judges. This new law of 1850

1. Gave United States commissioners power to turn over a colored man or woman to anybody who claimed the negro as an escaped slave.

2. Provided that the negro could not give testimony.

3. "Commanded" all good citizens, when summoned, to aid in the capture of the slave, or, if necessary, in his delivery to his owners.

4. Prescribed fine and imprisonment for anybody who harbored a fugitive slave or prevented his recapture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: %Results of the COMPROMISE of 1850%]

No sooner was this law enacted than the slave owners began to use it, and during the autumn of 1850 a host of "slave catchers" and "man hunters," as they were called, invaded the North, and negroes who had escaped twenty or thirty years before were hunted up and dragged back to slavery by the marshals of the United States. This so excited the free negroes and the people of the North, that several times during 1851 they rose and rescued a slave from his captors. In New York a slave named Hamet, in Boston one named Shadrach, in Syracuse one named Jerry, and at Ottawa, Illinois, one named Jim, regained their liberty in this way. So strong was public feeling that Vermont in 1850 pa.s.sed a "Personal Liberty Law," for the protection of negroes claimed as slaves.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the Compromise of 1850 read Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 104-189; Schurz's _Life of Clay_, Vol. II., Chap. 26. Do not fail to read the speeches of Calhoun, Clay, Webster, Seward; also Lodge's _Life of Webster_, pp. 264-332. For the rescue cases read Wilson's _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America_, Chap. 26.]

The North was now becoming strongly antislavery. It had long been opposed to the extension of slavery, but was now becoming opposed to its very existence. How deep this feeling was, became apparent in the summer of 1852, when Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe published her story of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. It was not so much a picture of what slavery was, as of what it might be, and was so powerfully written that it stirred and aroused thousands of people in the North who, till then, had been quite indifferent. In a few months everybody was laughing and crying over "Topsy" and "Eva" and "Uncle Tom"; and of those who read it great numbers became abolitionists.

SUMMARY

1. The Mexican state of Texas revolts and in 1837 becomes independent.

2. President Tyler secretly negotiates a treaty for the annexation of Texas to the United States, but this is defeated (1844).

3. The labors of Elijah White and others lead to the rapid settlement of the Oregon country.

4. The annexation of Texas and the occupation of the whole of Oregon become questions in the campaign of 1844. The Democrats carry the election, Texas is annexed, and the Oregon country is divided between Great Britain and the United States.

5. The question of the boundary of Texas brings on the Mexican War, and in 1848 another vast stretch of country is acquired.

6. The acquisition of this new territory, which was free soil, causes a struggle for the introduction of slavery into it.

7. The refusal of the Whigs and Democrats to take issue on slavery in the territories leads to the formation of the Free-soil party.

8. The discovery of gold in California, the rush of people thither, and the formation of a free state seeking admission into the Union force the question of slavery on Congress.

9. In 1850 an attempt is made to settle it by the "Compromise of 1850."

THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM OF 1844 CALLED FOR

The reannexation of Texas.

Texas annexed, August, 1845.

Rio Grande a.s.serted as boundary.

Disputed territory, Nueces to Rio Grande.

1845-46. Taylor sent to occupy the disputed territory.

1846. Attacked by Mexicans.

1846. War declared by the United States.

The reoccupation of Oregon to 54 40'.

Our claims to Oregon.

Colonization of Oregon.

"Fifty-four forty or fight."

Notice served on Great Britain.

The parallel of 49 extended to the Pacific.

Oregon a territory (1848).

The Mexican War.

_Taylor_.

1846. Wins battles of Palo Alto.

Resaca de la Palma.

Matamoras.

Monterey.

1847. Buena Vista.

_Scott_.

1847. Vera Cruz.

Cerro Gordo.

Jalapa.

Perote.

Contreras.

Churubusco.

Molino del Rey.

Chapultepec.

Mexico.

_Kearny_.

Santa Fe.

Conquest of New Mexico.