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Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 consisted of five laws passed in September of 1850
that dealt with the issue of slavery. In 1849, California requested permission to enter the Union as a free state, potentially
upsetting the balance between the free and slave states in the U.S. Senate. Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions
on January 29, 1850, in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. As part of the Compromise
of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, commonly referred to as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, was amended
and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. Furthermore, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial
government was created in Utah. Also, an act was passed settling a boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico that also
established a territorial government in New Mexico.
The Compromise of 1850 was comprised of the following five bills:
Recommended
Reading: Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. From Library Journal: Award-winning historian Remini has written the definitive biography
on controversial 19th-century politician Henry Clay of Kentucky.
Remini's work, which uses a rich array of primary sources, especially letters uncovered by the Henry Clay Papers publication
project, surpasses earlier studies of Clay by Glyndon Van Deusen (The Life of Henry Clay, Greenwood, 1979) and Clement Eaton
(Henry Clay & the Art of American Politics, 1962). All facets of Clay's life are examined, especially much new information
about his private life and how it influenced his public political career. Remini analyzes why an accomplished political leader
such as Clay could never be elected president, though he ran for the office five times. Continued below….
Clay's political
success came from his extraordinary talents as the engineer who directed three major compromises between 1820 and 1850 through
Congress, thus averting civil strife and keeping the Union together. This is an
excellently written, superbly crafted, and long-needed biography that is suitable for academic and large public libraries.
Recommended
Reading: The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861
(Paperback), by David M. Potter. Review: Professor Potter treats an incredibly complicated and misinterpreted
time period with unparalleled objectivity and insight. Potter masterfully explains the climatic events that led to Southern
secession – a greatly divided nation – and the Civil War: the social, political and ideological conflicts;
culture; American expansionism, sectionalism and popular sovereignty; economic and tariff systems; and slavery. In other words, Potter places under the microscope the root causes and origins of the Civil War.
He conveys the subjects in easy to understand language to edify the reader's understanding (it's
not like reading some dry old history book). Delving beyond
surface meanings and interpretations, this book analyzes not only the history, but the historiography of the time period as
well. Continued below…
Professor Potter
rejects the historian's tendency to review the period with all the benefits of hindsight. He simply traces the events, allowing
the reader a step-by-step walk through time, the various views, and contemplates the interpretations of contemporaries and
other historians. Potter then moves forward with his analysis. The Impending Crisis is the absolute gold-standard of historical
writing… This simply is the book by which, not only other antebellum era books, but all history books should be judged.
Recommended
Reading: What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) (Hardcover: 928 pages). Review: The
newest volume in the renowned Oxford History of the United States-- A brilliant portrait of an era that saw dramatic transformations
in American life The Oxford History of the United States
is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes two Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York
Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in What Hath God Wrought, historian Daniel Walker
Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American
War, an era when the United States expanded
to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. Continued below…
Howe's panoramic
narrative portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American
empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred the spread of information.
These innovations prompted the emergence of mass political parties and stimulated America's economic development from
an overwhelmingly rural country to a diversified economy in which commerce and industry took their place alongside agriculture.
In his story, the author weaves together political and military events with social, economic, and cultural history. He examines
the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party, but contends that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs--advocates of public
education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African-Americans--were the true prophets
of America's future. He reveals the power
of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women's rights and
other reform movements, politics, education, and literature. Howe's story of American expansion -- Manifest Destiny -- culminates
in the bitterly controversial but brilliantly executed war waged against Mexico
to gain California and Texas for the United States. By 1848, America
had been transformed. What Hath God Wrought provides a monumental narrative of this formative period in United States history.
Recommended
Reading: Abraham Lincoln:
Redeemer President (Library of Religious
Biography). Description: Since its original publication in 1999, "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer
President" has garnered numerous accolades, including the prestigious 2000 Lincoln Prize. Allen Guelzo's peerless biography
of America's most celebrated president
is now available for the first time in a fine paperback edition. The first "intellectual biography" of Lincoln,
this work explores the role of ideas in Lincoln's life, treating
him as a serious thinker deeply involved in the nineteenth-century debates over politics, religion, and culture. Written with
passion and dramatic impact, Guelzo's masterful study offers a revealing new perspective on a man whose life was in many ways
a paradox. As journalist Richard N. Ostling notes, "Much has been written about Lincoln's
belief and disbelief," but Guelzo's extraordinary account "goes deeper."
Recommended
Reading: Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America (Simon & Schuster) (February 5, 2008) (Hardcover). Description: In 1858, Abraham Lincoln was known as a successful Illinois
lawyer who had achieved some prominence in state politics as a leader in the new Republican Party. Two years later, he was
elected president and was on his way to becoming the greatest chief executive in American history. What carried this one-term
congressman from obscurity to fame was the campaign he mounted for the United States Senate against the country's most formidable
politician, Stephen A. Douglas, in the summer and fall of 1858. Lincoln challenged Douglas
directly in one of his greatest speeches -- "A house divided against itself cannot stand" -- and confronted Douglas on the
questions of slavery and the inviolability of the Union in seven fierce debates. As this
brilliant narrative by the prize-winning Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo dramatizes, Lincoln would emerge a predominant national figure, the leader of his
party, the man who would bear the burden of the national confrontation. Continued below...
Of course,
the great issue between Lincoln and Douglas was slavery. Douglas was the champion of "popular sovereignty," of letting states and territories decide
for themselves whether to legalize slavery. Lincoln drew a
moral line, arguing that slavery was a violation both of natural law and of the principles expressed in the Declaration of
Independence. No majority could ever make slavery right, he argued. Lincoln lost that Senate
race to Douglas, though he came close to toppling the "Little Giant," whom almost everyone
thought was unbeatable. Guelzo's Lincoln and Douglas brings alive their debates and this whole year of campaigns and underscores
their centrality in the greatest conflict in American history. The encounters between Lincoln and Douglas engage a key question
in American political life: What is democracy's purpose? Is it to satisfy the desires of the majority? Or is it to achieve
a just and moral public order? These were the real questions in 1858 that led to the Civil War. They remain questions for
Americans today.
Recommended
Reading: American Slavery,
American Freedom. Description: "If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom,
a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America.
Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution
and the largest slaveholding state in the country. With a new introduction. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize and the Albert
J. Beveridge Award. Continued below...
About the Author:
Edmund S. Morgan is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University
and the author of Benjamin Franklin. Morgan was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2000.
Recommended
Reading: Arguing about Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States
Congress. Description: In the 1830s, slavery was so deeply entrenched that it could not even be discussed in Congress, which had enacted
a "gag rule" to ensure that anti-slavery petitions would be summarily rejected. This stirring book chronicles the parliamentary
battle to bring "the peculiar institution" into the national debate, a battle that some historians have called "the Pearl Harbor of the slavery controversy." The campaign to make slavery officially and respectably debatable
was waged by John Quincy Adams who spent nine years defying gags, accusations of treason, and assassination threats. In the
end he made his case through a combination of cunning and sheer endurance. Telling this story with a brilliant command of
detail, Arguing About Slavery endows history with majestic sweep, heroism, and moral weight.
Sources: U.S. Department of State; Stanley W. Campbell, The Slave Catchers:
Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860, 1970; Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic : An Account of the
United States Government's Relations to Slavery, 2002; John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on
the Plantation, 1999 Yale Law School: The Avalon Project.
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