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In chapters 21 and 22, Wilentz discusses the inevitable fight over slavery between the pro-slavery southern Whigs, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, and the adamant abolitionists, led by John Taylor, during the compromise of 1850. After the victory over Mexico in the recent war and the gain of the California, New Mexico, and Texas territories, the debate of whether these new states would host slavery or not dominated the American political system. Newly inaugurated President Taylor wanted to be his own man, and attempted to create his own party of Taylor Republicans with strong feelings over slavery and territorial expansion. While the figureheads of the pro-slavery movement Clay and John C. Calhoun were fed up with the apparent northern aggression. Summarizing Wilentz on page 343, President Taylor wasn’t scared by the threat of southern secession, and it seems Calhoun wasn’t afraid to act on his promise. This unfaltering resolve on both sides of the fight, further fueled by the failed compromise of 1850, propelled the country into the Civil War.
Even though many thought that Whig-candidate Zachary Taylor would be an indecisive president, they never thought he would turn on his party entirely. Himself a slave owner, Taylor thought that “the southern insistence on slaveholders’ rights was a divisive conceit that might destroy; the Union in the name of legalistic abstractions.” (Wilentz 342) While he may have participated in slavery, Taylor believed that the issue over slavery was exaggerated by the wealthy plantation owners in the south and believed their puerile fighting would destroy the fundamental unity of the country. In his steadfast determination to show the “ultra-Whigs” (338) they were going to tear apart the Union, Taylor also showed that he wouldn’t back down from a fight. Although commendable, his aggressive stance only elevated the situation and forced the Whigs to act on their promise to secede.
Although I have repeatedly talked about how much I enjoy Wilentz’s depiction of Calhoun in my previous blog posts, I think the way he discusses Calhoun on page 345 is by far the most entertaining. He portrays, “The dying John C. Calhoun sat at his desk, wrapped in flannels, his eyes blazing from behind pale and hollowed cheeks.” Almost depicted as the archetype of the devil, Calhoun is shown as the symbol of unyielding pro-slavery. As Wilentz writes, “Calhoun blamed “sectional discord on Congress’s long-standing and systematic promotion of national legislation favorable to the North.” (345) Calhoun concluded that the oppression would end only if the North ceased its aggression and as Sherwood mentioned, perhaps the “slavocrats” felt backed into a corner and felt obligated to stand strong. Calhoun gave an ultimatum to Taylor and the abolitionists, “were California admitted as a free state, either under Taylor’s plan or Clay’s, the southern states could no longer ‘remain honorably and safely in the Union.’”
In nearing the start of the Civil War however, the 1850 compromise or other concessions like the Fugitive Slave Law couldn’t stop the inevitable conflict. The death of Calhoun on March 31, as Wilentz says, didn’t solve anything either. Rather, “the spirit of Calhounism lived on, in an even more radical disunionist form, picked up by a new generation of unswervingly pro-slavery Deep South Democrats.” (349) In his blog, Sherwood questioned whether the stubborn, inflexible positions either side was the best way to resolve the problem of slavery and defuse the situation. I would answer that the country was headed towards this conflict regardless. Even attempts of diplomacy, such as the attempted compromise measures or the Fugitive Slave Law concession, all failed and only delayed the unavoidable conflict.