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Chapter 21 in The Rise of American Democracy focuses primarily on the political consequences of the Mexican-American War. The issue had primarily to do with the admittance of new states, specifically California, into the union in such a fashion that would preserve the precarious senatorial balance between slave and free states. This had been a polarizing subject even since before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, as Henry Clay’s 1847 address to Congress (my primary source) shows, which highlights how controversial and difficult compromise would be. Yet, thanks to the political wisdom of Clay and the energy of Stephen A. Douglass, a palatable agreement was achieved under which: California was admitted as a free state, New Mexico and Utah were to be admitted without reference to slavery, a new Fugitive Slave Law was enacted, the slave trade was abolished in Washington DC, and Texas received $15 million for relinquishing its land claims to New Mexico. As Clay notes, the Compromise of 1850 was brilliant in its scope; however, it did little but paper over entrenched divisions within American society.
Wilentz foreshadows this failure through anecdotes concerning the Fugitive Slave Law and through an explanation of the rifts that drastically altered the identity of the Democratic and Whig Party. The discussion of the Fugitive Slave Law begins with a story about William and Ellen Craft, who were fugitive slaves living in Boston. When two-slave catchers from Georgia came to apprehend the Crafts, they found an organized group of abolitionists who opposed them at every turn, eventually forcing them to return home empty handed. The abolitionists’ actions actually broke the law because a clause in the Fugitive Slave Law stated that all citizens must aid in the arrest of a runaway slave. This illustrated Northern contempt for the law, solidifying its abolitionist position while further incensing Southern “fire-eaters.” Thus, the relationship grew ever more strained.
Wilentz also points to the divisions among political parties that occurred following the Compromise of 1850 as evidence that the agreement did little to heal deep divides over slavery. As he says, “all efforts to shore up the political center eventually wound up worsening the clash between North and South” (356). The almost-collapse of the Whig Party serves as evidence to this. Alex’s post titled The Rise of American Democracy: Chapter 17 traces divisions within the Whigs to the election of President Tyler and his subsequent falling out with Henry Clay over the national bank. Yet, a decade later, the issue of the bank had fallen into obscurity in the shadow of slavery, a much bigger, more divisive demon that created factions such as the “pro-Fillmore Silver Grays, Cotton Whig Websterites, [or] the antislavery Conscience Whigs” and ensured that the Whigs lost on all fronts to the Democrats. Even they, however, were not without their troubles. As the election of 1852 showed, the southern bloc of Democrats was growing ever more powerful, undermining the stabilizing influence of Northern Democrats.