NOTES
Abbreviations
| AFP | Alpheus Felch Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan |
| AHA | American Historical Association |
| ASPM | Alexander Stephens Papers, Manhattanville College |
| BFP | Baldwin Family Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Library, Yale University |
| CFP | Colcock Family Papers, Tulane University |
| CG | Congressional Globe, 31st Congress, 1st Session |
| DOP | David Outlaw Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| HCFP | Howell Cobb Family Papers, Hargrett Library for Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Georgia |
| HMP | Horace Mann Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society |
| HU | Houghton Library, Harvard University |
| ISL | Indiana State Library |
| JBP | James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania |
| JHP | John P. Hale Papers, New Hampshire Historical Society |
| LC | Library of Congress |
| MDAH | Mississippi Department of Archives and History |
| NYHS | New-York Historical Society |
| OHS | Ohio Historical Society |
| PDW | Charles Wiltse et al., eds., The Papers of Daniel Webster, vol. 7 |
| RWP | Robert Winthrop Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society |
| UFP | Joseph Rogers Underwood Family Papers, Western Kentucky University |
| UNC | Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| WHSP | William Henry Seward Papers, University of Rochester |
Introduction
1. Winthrop, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 190.
2. Three of the most important studies of the Compromise of 1850 are Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict; Holt, Whig Party; and Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850. Also especially useful are Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 487–510; Potter, Impending Crisis, 90–120; Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas, 262–303; Morrison, Slavery and the American West, 96–125; Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics, 2:13–45; and Peterson, Great Triumvirate, 449–76. Knupfer, Union as It Is, 196–200, argues that the Compromise of 1850 was a true compromise. See Holt, “Politics, Patronage, and Public Policy,” for a focus on voting patterns and the significance of patronage battles during the legislative debate. “Armistice” is used by both Potter and Freehling.
3. Hollinger, In the American Province, 149; Venable, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1144.
4. Robertson, Language of Democracy, 15, 11, 74; Shelden, Washington Brotherhood, 3. See also “Action of Congress on the California and Territorial Question,” 229. For discourse in nineteenth-century America, see Howe, Political Culture of the American Whigs; Burstein, Sentimental Democracy; Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence; Varon, Disunion! Ericson, Debate over Slavery; and Wickberg, “What Is the History of Sensibilities?” Harriet Beecher Stowe followed the debates in 1850 and was angered by Daniel Webster’s support for the new Fugitive Slave Law. She drew inspiration for Uncle Tom’s Cabin from William Seward’s famous response to Webster in which he appealed to a “higher law.” It is tempting to conclude that one of her lead characters, Augustine St. Clair, was patterned after one of the several southern representatives and senators in the debates who were troubled by the existence of human bondage in the South but quick to attack northern racism and condemn the ills of northern society. See Reynolds, Mightier Than the Sword, 117–19.
5. Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, April 19, 1850, ASPM; Robertson, Language of Democracy, 83.
6. Robertson, Language of Democracy.
7. See Shelden, Washington Brotherhood, 28–31, for the extent to which congressmen were engaged in each other’s speeches as well as the accuracy of their remarks.
8. Downs, May 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 637. Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, and Holt, Whig Party, are the two outstanding, leading examples of detailed political analyses of the Compromise.
9. Morrison, Slavery and the American West, and Varon, Disunion! offer vitally important exceptions. They both use the discourse of the day to bring to life the ideas and emotions of those on both sides of the sectional divide as few historians have even attempted.
10. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850. For southern disinterest in the Fugitive Slave Law, see Jefferson Davis, August 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 1588. In response to Charles Sumner’s complaint that Free Soilers were not raising the fugitive issue during the debate, Joshua Giddings admitted that “thus far” the issue had only been “incidentally touched upon.” Joshua Giddings to Charles Sumner, April 4, 1850, Sumner Papers, HU.
11. See Woods, “What Twenty-First-Century Historians Have Said about the Causes of Disunion,” 426–30, for sectionalism, nationalism, and the coming of the Civil War.
12. For the current historiographic divide between “fundamentalist” and recent “revisionist” interpretations, see Varon, Disunion! 2–4, and Ayers, What Caused the Civil War? 131–44. Ayers presents an influential discussion of contingency and Civil War causation.
13. For the classic historiographic statements of the revisionist thesis, see Randall, “Blundering Generation,” and Ramsdell, “Natural Limits of Slavery Expansion.” See Oakes, Freedom National, xv–xvii, for a sound rejection of the revisionist school and its more recent incarnations.
14. Holt, Whig Party, offers a careful and exhaustive focus on political division and the urge for party differentiation, while Potter, Impending Crisis, 28, makes the point that partisans within each section competed with each other to demonstrate their superior devotion to commonly held beliefs.
15. Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, highlights geographical divisions, in particular within each section.
16. Sellers, “Travail of Slavery”; Stampp, “Southern Road to Appomattox”; and Oakes, Ruling Race, offer the classic arguments for the existence of southern guilt over slavery. Genovese, World the Slaveholders Made, and Roark, Masters without Slaves, present the strongest critiques of this school of interpretation.
17. McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds, focuses on the martial aspects of masculinity in the antebellum South. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood, argues that at midcentury, martial and “restrained,” or gentlemanly, meanings of manhood were prevalent in both sections.
18. Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict, gives Stephen Douglas a prominent role in the concluding effort to pass the compromise measures. Other studies have emphasized Clay’s role in formulating the measures that resulted in the Compromise.
19. Varon, Disunion! 16.
Prologue
1. The policy of non-intervention is commonly referred to in the historical literature as “popular sovereignty,” but that phrase was not used in the 1850 debates. The only use of “popular sovereignty” was once as a general principle of state formation (Kentucky Whig representative Charles Morehead, April 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 499). For the definitive study of popular sovereignty, see Childers, Failure of Popular Sovereignty. Morrison, Slavery and the American West, 122, offers a powerful defense of the authenticity of the non-intervention concept for those Democrats who believed in it.
2. For an excellent account of the speakership contest, see Brooks, Liberty Power, 155–60.
3. Howell Cobb to Mary Cobb, December 22, 1849, HCFP; Giddings, December 22, 1849, CG, 64. Ironically, the same phrase, “the long agony is over,” was used by others when the Compromise passed. See epilogue for discussion of the phrase, its use, and its origins. See Holt, Whig Party, 469–70, for the role of faction in Toombs’s and Stephens’s break from the party.
4. Clay, January 29, 1850, CG, 244.
5. Berrien, February 11, 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 202–11.
6. Stevens, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 141–43.
7. Cass, February 20, 1850, CG, 398.
8. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 451–55.
9. Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 269–76; Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict, 28.
10. Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 260–69.
11. Douglas, March 13, 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 364–75.
12. Chase, March 26, 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 468–80.
13. Clay, May 8, 1850, CG, 945.
14. Clay, May 8, 1850, CG, 949; Hale, May 8, 1850, CG, 954.
15. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 836–43.
16. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 701–7.
17. For the panic over cholera, see Joshua Giddings to Laura Giddings, July 14, 31, August 10, 1850, George Julian Letters, ISL; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, July 11, 1850, DOP; William Colcock to mother, August 5, 1850, CFP; Howell Cobb to Mary Cobb, August 10, 15, 1850, HCFP; William McWillie to Catherine McWillie, August 18, 1850, McWillie-Compton Papers, MDAH; and Maizlish, “The Cholera Panic in Washington and the Compromise of 1850.” See Jennings, Nashville Convention, for the best available study of the convention.
18. See Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 507–9, for internal divisions within the South and for an emphasis on support for the compromise measures among northern Democrats along the border with the South.
19. See Potter, Impending Crisis, 107–14, for a detailed analysis of the defeat of the omnibus and the strategy employed to ultimately pass the compromise measures. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850, offers an excellent analysis of the critical importance of the boundary issue to the success of the Compromise.
20. Julian, September 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 1302.
1. The Slavery Expansion Issue
1. Alpheus Felch to Lucretia Felch, February 5, 1850, AFP; Horace Mann to Mary Mann, July 23, 1850, HMP; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, April 17, 1850, ASPM; Emily Baldwin to Elisabeth Baldwin, January 8, 1850, BFP.
2. Clay, April 5, 1850, CG, 652; April 8, 1850, CG, 661. See Knupfer, Union as It Is, 120–23; Howe, Political Culture of the American Whigs, especially 124–26; and Brown, Politics and Statesmanship, 119, 150–51, for Clay’s commitments, style, and relationship to compromise.
3. Peterson, Great Triumvirate, 381; Clay, February 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 124; January 29, 1850, CG, 246. Peterson focuses on Clay the “Actor” and the “Gamester” to explain his success in forming compromises. See Heidler and Heidler, Henry Clay, 51–52, for Clay’s ability to bring together opposing sides in a dispute.
4. Clay, January 29, 1859, CG, 246. Holt, Whig Party, 478–80, argues that Clay’s measures were actually more favorable to the North than he claimed when he presented them to Congress. Southerners certainly did see them as antisouthern, but northerners argued, with some justification, that the Fugitive Slave Law and the abandonment of the Wilmot Proviso were not minor concessions to the South, and they did not view California’s admission as a southern concession since they believed that by 1850 it was already a near fait accompli.
5. Clay, May 8, 1850, CG, 945; June 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 929; February 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 119; July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1410. In a variant, a correspondent of Senator Felch called the Proviso a “miserable abstraction.” De Witt Chapin to Alpheus Felch, January 31, 1850, AFP.
6. Clay, February 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 116; July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1410; May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 573; July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1410; February 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 116.
7. Webster, June 3, 1850, CG, 1119; June 17, 1850, CG, 1239; March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 274; July 17, 1859, CG, Appendix 1268, 1267; Webster, Letter from Citizens of Newburyport, 16. For the role of financial interests in Webster’s thinking during the 1850 crisis, see Current, Daniel Webster, 159–61, and Baxter, One and Inseparable, 419. Baxter offers an excellent, comprehensive treatment of Webster’s part in the Compromise debates. He discounts the importance of presidential ambition in Webster’s actions.
8. Douglas, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 372; Disney, March 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 303; Shields, April 5, 1850, CG, 648.
9. Cooper, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 1005; Bradbury, April 11, 1850, CG, 710; Richardson, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 424; Smith, July 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1184; Thomas Harris, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 411.
10. Howell Cobb to William Hope Hull, June 17, 1850, in AHA, “The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb,” 2:201; Morehead, April 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 500; Badger, March 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 389. See also Conrad, February 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 215, and John J. Crittenden to John Clayton, April 6, 1850, Clayton Papers, LC.
11. Daniel Webster to Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, February 12, 1850, PDW, 9; Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 271; Daniel Webster to Thomas Buckminister, March 21, 1850, PDW, 38; Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 275.
12. Clay, April 10, 1850, CG, 684; July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1412.
13. Dickinson, August 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 1630; Breck, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 361. For an account of the life of Daniel Dickinson, see Hinman, Daniel Dickinson.
14. Bowie, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 707.
15. Webster, July 17, 1850, CG, Appendix 1267. For southern condemnations of the Nashville Convention, see David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, January 29, February 4, 1850, DOP; Cave Johnson to James Buchanan, January 22, 1850, JBP; Cave Johnson to Howell Cobb, April 6, 1850, HCFP; Stanly, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 344; William Hull to Howell Cobb, March 16, 1850, HCFP; Badger, March 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 390; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, March 19, 1850, ASPM; and Haymond, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 599.
16. Douglas, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 373; George Jones to Gustavus Henry, July 6, 1850, Henry Papers, UNC; John Taylor to Alexander St. Clair Boys, January 12, 1850, Boys Papers VFM, OHS; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, May 20, 1850, DOP. See also Schenck, December 27, 1849, CG, Appendix 42, and Edward Stanly to David Caldwell, March 1, 1850, Caldwell Papers, UNC.
17. Foote, August 1, 1850, CG, Appendix 1493; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, August 1, 1850, DOP; Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 838. See also Dickinson, August 1, 1850, CG, Appendix 1497.
18. Hale, July 17, 1850, CG, Appendix 1271. For Hale and the Compromise debates, see Sewell, John P. Hale, 123–43.
19. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 838; Caldwell, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 745; William Marcy to A. Camp Caleb, August 2, 1850, Marcy Papers, LC; Stanly, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 336. For an example of blame placed on Whigs by northern Democrats, see James Campbell to Stephen Douglas, January 7, 1850, Douglas Papers, University of Chicago.
20. Dawson, September 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 1643; Gorman, March 12, CG, Appendix 320. See also Haymond, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 599.
21. Underwood, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 534.
22. Robert Winthrop to Samuel Eliot, January 13, 1850, RWP; McClernand, August 29, 1850, CG, 1700.
23. Clay, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 616; February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 122; July 3, 1850, CG, 1332; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, May 9, 1850, DOP; Webster, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 987; Daniel Webster to Thomas Perkins, April 9, 1850, PDW, 58, 59. For the theme of “peace and quiet,” see also Linus Child to Daniel Webster, April 1, 1850, PDW, 50; Daniel Webster to Isaac Hill, April 20, 1850, Webster Letters, Rauner Library, Dartmouth College; Hamilton Fish to Daniel Ullmann, February 16, 1850, Ullmann Papers, NYHS; James Buchanan to William Gwin, May 15, 1850, Gwin Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California; and Cooper, August 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1567.
24. Wilmot, May, 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 511, 512; July 24, 1850, CG, Appendix 941.
25. Horace Mann to Lewis Campbell, July 7, 1850, Campbell Papers, OHS; Horace Mann to S. Downes Jr., March 21, 1850, HMP.
26. Horace Mann to Mary Mann, March 8, 1850, HMP; Horace Mann to S. Downes Jr., March 21, 1850, HMP. See Mann, Life of Horace Mann.
27. Mann, Horace Mann’s Letters, 26, 28; Horace Mann to Mary Mann, March 10, 1850, HMP; Mann, Horace Mann’s Letters, 6, 5. See also Horace Mann to E. W. Clap, March 11, 1850, HMP.
28. Hale, Speech of Mr. Hale, 12; Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 266; Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 478.
29. Seward, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1023; Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 478. See also Charles Sumner to Horace Mann, June 19, 1859, HMP. For a discussion of Chase’s strong religious commitments, see Maizlish, “Salmon P. Chase and the Origins of Reform.”
30. Clarke, August 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1273.
31. Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 974; Peck, April 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 517; Upham, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1020; Moses Corwin, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 434; Hannibal Hamlin to unknown, April 9, 1850, Hamlin Letters, NYHS; Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 595; Gerry, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 609; Duncan, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 770. See also Hunt, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, and for the critical role of judgment in the definition of masculinity, see chapter 6.
32. Bingham, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 730–31; Clarke, August 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1274. See also Thomas Brewer to William Schouler, March 8, 1850, Schouler Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.
33. Dayton, March 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 436; Clarke, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 565; Wilmot, May 3, 1950, CG, Appendix 515; Edward Seymour to William Seward, April 17, 1850, WHSP.
34. Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 266. Holt, Whig Party, 453–54, argues that Seward sought to recover Whig losses in the New York legislature from a Democratic Party that had tried to skirt the territorial issue by confronting Democrats with a strong Whig anti-extension stand.
35. Sackett, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1131; Crowell, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 691.
36. Durkee, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 742; Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 478.
37. Seddon, January 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 78; James Mason, April 5, 1850, CG, 651.
38. Jefferson Davis, June 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 997. For the role of Davis in the Compromise debates, see Cooper, Jefferson Davis, 199–218. Waite, “Jefferson Davis and Proslavery Visions of Empire in the Far West,” focuses on Davis’s dedication to westward expansion.
39. Soulé, June 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 1002; Hunter, July 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 1388; Clingman, August 29, 1850, CG, 1698; Colcock, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 686; Bayly, July 17, 1850, CG, Appendix 1133; James Mason, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 652; Seddon, January 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 78. See also Jackson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 668.
40. Jefferson Davis, January, 29, 1850, CG, 249; June 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 999; February 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 154; Clingman, August 29, 1850, CG, 1698.
41. Haralson, August 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 1066; Sampson Harris, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 444; Green, April 4, 1850, Appendix 426. See also Andrew Butler, April 5, 1850, CG, 652.
42. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 702.
43. Yulee, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1167; Stone, Jews of Capitol Hill, 3–5.
44. Baldwin, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 418; Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 257; Hale, June 3, 1850, CG, 1119; Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 974; Bingham, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 731; Cleveland, April 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 510; Wilmot, May 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 515; Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 478.
45. Salmon Chase to E. S. Hamlin, February 2, 1850, in AHA “Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase,” 2:200.
2. Consensus and Conflict
1. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 452.
2. Dayton, March 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 441; William Marcy to James Buchanan, March 10, 1850, JBP. See Smith, Stormy Present for a discussion of the northern antislavery extension consensus in the late 1850s.
3. Brown, December 12, 1849, CG, 22; Robinson, December 12, 1849, CG, 23. “Non-interference” referred to the policy more generally known as non-intervention.
4. Holt, Whig Party, 460, argues convincingly that it is wrong to see the Whigs as split into “bipolar” Taylor-Clay camps on the territorial issue.
5. Baldwin, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 417.
6. Hamilton Fish to William Seward, February 9, 1850, WHSP; Spaulding, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 404; Chandler, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 360.
7. Miller, February 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 317, 318; Duncan, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 769, 770. Potter, Impending Crisis, 46, presents an incisive discussion of the ability of some to hold two seemingly inconsistent stands on the slavery issue simultaneously, arguing that they simply compartmentalized their conflicting positions.
8. Casey, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 310, 307; Smith, July 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1180–83.
9. David Davis to Julius Rockwell, July 7, 1850, David Davis Papers, Chicago Historical Society.
10. Cass, February 20, 1850, CG, 398; January 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 67, 72–73. See also Cass, June 3, 1850, CG, 1120.
11. Sweetser, July 29, 1850, CG, 1470; July 20, 1850, CG, 1420.
12. Stephen Douglas to Charles H. Lamphier, January 7, 1850, in Johannsen, ed., Letters of Stephen Douglas, 182; Olds, August 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 1146, 1150; Alpheus Felch to Lucretia Felch, June 28, 1850, AFP. See Johannsen, Stephen A. Douglas, 281, for Douglas’s commitment to local self-government.
13. Ross, April 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 462, 461. For Ross’s support among southerners, see Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 544, and Unknown to Thaddeus Stevens, June 13, 1850, Stevens Papers, LC.
14. Gorman, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 320; Willis Gorman to unknown, January 17, 1850, William H. English Papers, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis. For Gorman’s support among southerners, see Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 544. For more examples of the use of the Mexican laws to buttress non-intervention, see Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 838; Richardson, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 424; and Disney, March 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 303. Landis, Northern Men with Southern Loyalties, argues that doughface representatives and senators ignored their constituents’ sectional concerns. Here, Ross and Gorman, and others elsewhere, show great sensitivity to those concerns.
15. Hale, Speech of Mr. Hale, 7; John Hale to Theodore Parker, March 6, 1850, JHP.
16. Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 477.
17. Clemens, January 17, 1850, CG, 182; Foote, January 17, 1850, CG, 182; Jefferson Davis, January 17, 1850, CG, 182. Foote would famously show his own failure to act deliberately three months later when he drew a gun on his Senate colleague Thomas Hart Benton. Alexander Stephens claimed Foote was generally regarded as the “Kings jester.” Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, February 10, 1850, ASPM.
18. Jefferson Davis, January 17, 1850, CG, 182, 184; Clemens, January 17, 1850, CG, 184; February 20, 1850, CG, 401.
19. Solomon Downs, January 17, 1850, CG, 184.
20. Albert Brown, February 12, 1850, CG, 337; Seddon, July 29, 1850, CG, 1469; Clingman, August 29, 1850, CG, 1698; Henry Benning to Howell Cobb, March 29, 1850, HCFP. See Olds, August 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 1150, and Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 544, for more southern reaction to Cass’s clarification.
21. Holmes, December 27, 1850, CG, 82; Venable, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 161, 163.
22. Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 239. On December 1, 1849, Cabell joined with other southern Whigs (Stephens, Toombs, and Morton among them) and left the congressional Whig caucus when it refused to repudiate the Wilmot Proviso. See Holt, Whig Party, 467.
23. Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1102.
24. Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1102. See Varon, Disunion! 186–87, for the relationship of effeminacy with literature and “sickly” sentimentality.
25. Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1102.
26. Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 544.
27. Averett, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 392; Turney, August 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1618. See also Albert Brown, August 29, 1850, CG, 1703.
28. Turney, August 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1618.
29. McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 736; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG Appendix 705; Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 544; Robert Johnson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 716.
30. Berrien, February 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 202; Venable, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 160. See Brooks, Liberty Power, for the rising strength of antislavery in the House.
31. Wallace, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 430; Clemens, January 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 52.
32. Clay, February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 125.
33. Clay, February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 126. For the claim that Clay was an “abolitionist at heart,” see William Colcock to mother, February 14, 1850, CFP.
34. Henry Benning to Howell Cobb, March 29, 1850, HCFP; Wallace, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 432; Averett, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 392. See also Wellborn, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 110, and June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 727–28.
35. Hiram Warner to Howell Cobb, March 17, 1850, HCFP.
36. Stanton, June 11, 1850, CG, 1176; J. W. Burney to Hugh Haralson, July 25, 1850, Haralson Papers, Atlanta History Center.
37. Root, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 107.
38. Seddon, June 11, 1850, CG, 1176.
39. McWillie, July 29, 1850, CG, 1470; Thompson, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 661. See also Fehrenbacher, “The Wilmot Proviso and the Mid-Century Crisis,” 37.
40. Badger, March 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 389; Berrien, May 8, 1850, CG, 950; June 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 919; January 29, 1850, CG, 252; July 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 1417; July 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1469; August 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 1523, 1530. Holt, Whig Party, 470, claims factional disputes with Georgia representative Alexander Stephens motivated many of Berrien’s actions and lay behind many of the positions he took. See also Holt, “Politics, Patronage, and Public Policy,” 24.
41. Foote, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 993.
42. Howell Cobb to William Hope Hull, June 17, 1850, in AHA, “The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb,” 2:201, 203.
43. Howell Cobb to William Hope Hull, June 17, 1850, in AHA, “The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb,” 2:201.
44. Howell Cobb to John Lamar, June 26, 1850, HCFP.
45. For discussions of the political transformation, see Holt, Whig Party; Gienapp, Origins of the Republican Party; Silbey, especially Shrine of Party and Transformation of American Politics; and Maizlish, Triumph of Sectionalism. Focusing as it does on the underlying themes of the debate rather than party or factional voting patterns, this study is less interested in finding the precise moment of political transformation and more concerned with identifying the growing ideological rift between the sections.
46. Hale, June 3, 1850, CG, 1119; Durkee, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 741. See also Allen, December 13, 1849, CG, Appendix 35; Joshua Giddings to Charles Sumner, June 21, 1850, Sumner Papers, HU.
47. Mangum, February 6, 1850, CG, 300; Thomas Harris, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 413; Morton, February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 111; Venable, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 164.
48. Robert Johnson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 716–17.
49. The committee report was mainly written by Clay. Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict, 94. John Berrien successfully had the language stating that no law “in respect to African slavery” could be passed by a territorial legislature adjusted later to read more specifically that no law “establishing or prohibiting slavery” could be passed so as to allow territories to write laws granting the local police the authority to control the slave population without allowing the territorial legislatures the power to bar slavery or establish it until statehood. The “establishing or prohibiting” language was itself removed in the final version of the bill, leaving the ambiguous meaning of the Compromise intact. See Potter, Impending Crisis, 116–17n45, and Berrien, June 5, 1850, CG, 1134.
50. Baldwin, June 6, 1850, CG, 1146–47. Eventually, the Mexican laws were excluded from the territories by inference, though never explicitly, and the ambiguities of non-intervention remained. See Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 500, and Holt, Whig Party, 540–41.
51. Baldwin, June 6, 1850, CG, 1146–47. See also Upham, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1021.
52. Clay, June 6, 1850, CG, 1147. Clay had made clear his belief that the Mexican laws governing the territories were still in force earlier in the session. Clay, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 613.
53. Jefferson Davis, June 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 915, 916.
54. Pratt, June 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 916.
55. Foote, June 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 916.
56. Jefferson Davis, June 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 917; June 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 1000; Barnwell, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 992.
57. Jefferson Davis, February 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 151–52; Morse, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 329; McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 737; Soulé, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 635. See also Holt, Whig Party, 481.
58. Upham, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1021; Soulé, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 635.
59. Clay, May 24, 1850, CG, Appendix 789; Soulé, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 635.
60. James Buchanan to Isaac Toucey, July 12, 1850, JBP. See also James Buchanan to Cave Johnson, June 11, 1850, JBP.
61. Albert Brown, January 30, 1850, CG, 257; Phelps, July 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1464.
62. Downs, May 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 637.
3. State Equality, the Transactional Union, and the Constitution
1. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 452; Henry Benning to Howell Cobb, March 29, 1850, HCFP.
2. John Davis, CG, June 29, 1850, Appendix 885. Fehrenbacher, “The Wilmot Proviso and the Mid-Century Crisis,” focuses on the significance in the 1850 debates of southern fears of a loss of equality.
3. Thomas Hart Benton, quoted in Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 645; Judge Huntington to John McLean, June 15, 1850, McLean Papers, OHS.
4. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 451, 452, 454. See also Calhoun, “Southern Address,” for an earlier iteration of Calhoun’s views on state equilibrium.
5. Berrien, August 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 1524; February 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 204. Berrien’s claim that the United States was composed of the people of the individual states is consistent with James Madison’s concept of sovereignty stated in Federalist no. 39. Madison wrote that constitutional authority derives from the people “as composing the distinct and individual states to which they individually belong.” Quoted in Huebner, Liberty and Union, 11. Huebner argues that Madison’s position is part of the founders’ idea of “Dual Sovereignty” embodied most prominently in the Tenth Amendment.
6. Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 378; July 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 1384; James Mason, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 650; Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 936. For an excellent discussion of questions of state sovereignty and the concept of trusteeship, see Bestor, “State Sovereignty and Slavery,” especially 159–66.
7. Turney, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 292; Yulee, August 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1163.
8. Stephens, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1083; Jefferson Davis, June 7, 1850, CG, 1162; February 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 157. See also Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 407.
9. Jefferson Davis, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1533; Barnwell, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 991; Andrew Butler, February 21, 1850, CG, 419; Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 382. See also James Johnson, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 457; Millson, February 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 189.
10. Isham Harris, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 444; Toombs, February 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 199. See also Elliot, Isham G. Harris.
11. McLean, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 714; Featherston, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 258; Colcock, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 686; McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 737. See also Thompson, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 659; McMullen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 712; Venable, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1143; and Robert Johnson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 718.
12. Stevens, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 142; Mann, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 224. See Oakes, Scorpion’s Sting, for a discussion of the full implications of this threat of encirclement.
13. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, February 20, 1850, DOP; Bowie, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 709; James Johnson, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 457; Wallace, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 430; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 701.
14. For more examples of the impact of Steven’s speech on southern congressmen, see Millson, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 186; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 445; Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 241; Hilliard, March 7, 1850, CG, 485; Williams, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 292; Averett, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 394; Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 407, 409; Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 467; Williamson Cobb, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 647; Featherston, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 258; and Isham Harris, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 445.
15. Wellborn, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 110; Conrad, February 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 217; Stanly, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 340; Averett, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 394; Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG Appendix 241. See also Savage, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1032, 1034, and Badger, March 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 390.
16. For southern fears of degradation, see Quigley, Shifting Grounds, 56–63, 90–91.
17. William Colcock to mother, February 20, 1850, CFP; James Johnson, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 458; Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 936. See also Soulé, June 24, 1850, CG, Appendix 961, and Clemens, December 20, 1849, CG, 52.
18. Barnwell, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 991; Yulee, May 15, 1850, CG, 1006. See also Foote, June 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 912, and Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 936.
19. Jefferson Davis, September 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 1656; Morse, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 327; Haralson, August 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 1066.
20. Andrew Ewing, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 451; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, February 10, 1850, ASPM; Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 381; Savage, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 557.
21. William Colcock to mother, February 20, 1850, CFP; Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1280. Colcock was writing on the same day Thaddeus Stevens predicted abolition. It is no wonder that Colcock thought on that day of antislavery invitations to insurrection. For additional examples of southern fears of antislavery inspired insurrection, see Mangum, February 6, 1850, CG, 300, and Albert Brown, January 30, 1850, CG, 257.
22. Meade, June 6, 850, CG, Appendix 702; J. A. Jefferson to Howell Cobb, September 2, 1850, HCFP. See Freehling, “Reviving State Rights,” for the white South’s fear of enslavement, and Morrison, Slavery and the American West, 117–18, for southern fears of a loss of equality and dread of being enslaved, including citations to Meade.
23. Soulé, August 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 1520; Turney, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 293; Clemens, May 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 589.
24. Hubbard, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 949; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 445; Clingman, January 22, 1850, CG, 203.
25. Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 937; Venable, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1143.
26. Barnwell, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 991.
27. Haralson, August 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 1066; Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 468; Colcock, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 687; John Lamar to Howell Cobb, February 7, 1850, HCFP; Wellborn, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 728, emphasis added. See Fehrenbacher, “The Wilmot Proviso and the Mid-Century Crisis,” for the significance in the debates of the southern fear of degradation.
28. Thompson, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 658; Toombs, December 12, 1849, CG, 28; Jefferson Davis, July 31, 1850, CG, Appendix 1471.
29. Robert Winthrop, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 524; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 706. For the classic, seminal study of southern honor, see Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor. See also Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South, and Greenberg, Honor and Slavery. See Stewart, “Joshua Giddings, Anti-Slavery Violence, and Congressional Politics of Honor,” 182–85, for a discussion of northern abolitionist “conscience” and southern “honor.” Huston, The British Gentry, the Southern Planter, and the Northern Family Farmer, argues that southerners were masters of others and northerners were masters of themselves. This construct offers a useful perspective that explains southern concern for their honor as seen by others and northern concern for honor as felt by themselves.
30. Barnwell, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1538; Andrew Butler, July 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1251.
31. Savage, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1034; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, December 2, 1849, ASPM; Robert Johnson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 716.
32. McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 736.
33. Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 242; Haralson, August 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 1068; Robert Johnson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 716; emphasis added. See Fehrenbacher, “The Wilmot Proviso and the Mid-Century Crisis,” for discussion of the South’s “conditional union.” Abraham Lincoln discovered a similar phenomenon during the secession crisis. He complained then that southern unionists were always unionists with an “if.”
34. Clemens, January 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 53.
35. Wallace, April 8, CG, Appendix 430; Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 410. See Stampp, “The Concept of a Perpetual Union.”
36. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 703.
37. Thomas, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 627; Venable, June 12, 1850, CG, 1187; Andrew Butler, July 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1247; February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 373. Butler spoke just over two weeks after Senator John Davis of Massachusetts told the Senate that “equilibrium … means … keep what you have, and get what you can.” Davis, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 885. Butler may have been responding by making a similar charge against the North. See chapter 4, note 31, for Davis’s statement.
38. Butler, July 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1252; Jefferson Davis, June 7, 1850, CG, 1162; July 31, 1850, CG, Appendix 1471; Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 452; Seddon, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1114.
39. Albert Brown, January 30, 1850, CG, 257. John Calhoun had made a similar argument years before, claiming that the “very idea of an American people, as constituting a single community is a chimera.” Crallé, Works of John C. Calhoun, 107.
40. Wallace, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 430; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, March 22, 1850, ASPM.
41. Green, April 4. 1850, CG, Appendix 426; Jefferson Davis, January 10, 1850, CG, 137. See also Millson, February 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 189. For the southern view of the relationship between the Union and Constitution, see Nagel, One Nation Indivisible, 41, 53, and Parish, North and the Nation in the Era of the Civil War, 76. Onuf, “Antebellum Southerners and the National Idea,” 27, 40–41, argues that southerners saw a denial of equality “as an assault on their national identity” since “equality was the predicate of nationality, the modern merging of persons with peoples.”
42. John Bell, July 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 1101.
43. Venable, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 162; Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 545. See also Andrew Butler, July 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1247; July 15, CG, Appendix 1252; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 447; and Haralson, August 16, 1850, CG, Appendix 1065–66.
44. Toombs, December 13, 1849, CG, 28; Morton, February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 112; Badger, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 387; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 703.
45. Foote, June 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 872.
46. Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 265; William Seward to Thurlow Weed, March 31, 1850, Weed Papers, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y. Dean, An Agrarian Republic, 12–14, claims Seward’s concern was for the agricultural promise of the national domain that risked being sacrificed to slavery.
47. Oakes, Freedom National, 29–32, argues persuasively that Seward’s positions were consistent with those of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties. Southerners clearly agreed.
48. Underwood, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 533. John Calhoun died on March 31, 1850.
49. Volney Howard, June 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 772.
50. Colcock, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 686.
51. Colcock, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 686; Williams, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 292. See also Turney, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 293, 295, and Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 936.
52. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 455; John Calhoun to James Hammond, February 11, 1850, in Wilson and Cook, eds., Papers of John C. Calhoun, 27:175.
53. Thomas, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 628.
54. Jefferson Davis, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1535; August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1552.
55. Venable, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1145. See Clingman, January 22, 1850, CG, 205, for another statement of contempt for celebrations of the Union at a time of northern injustice.
56. Jefferson Davis, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1533.
57. Toombs, February 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 201.
58. Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 406; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, January 23, 1850, DOP.
59. Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, January 21, 1850; February 10, 1850, ASPM.
60. Stephens, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1083.
61. Stephens, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1083.
62. Stephens, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1083. Notably, eighteen years after giving this speech in which he set clear primacy on the slavery issue, Stephens published his history of the era in which he argued that states’ rights and not slavery had been the key issue of the conflict. See Stephens, Constitutional View of the Late War between the States, 1:12.
4. State Equality, the Perpetual Union, and the People
1. John Davis, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 885.
2. Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 474.
3. Cass, March 14, 1850, CG, 529; Thomas Harris, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 411; Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 265; D. B. Stuckholm to William Seward, March 23, 1850, WHSP.
4. George M. Dallas to R. L. M. McWhorter et al., November 19, 1850, Dallas Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Miller, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 312.
5. Gerry, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 608; Moses Corwin, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 433.
6. Thomas Butler, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 304; Upham, July 2, 1950, CG, Appendix 1017.
7. Seward, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1024.
8. Baldwin, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 418; Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 840; Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 974; Clay, June 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1411.
9. Cartter, June 12, 1850, CG, 1186. See also Chester Butler, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 763.
10. Walker, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 281; March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 282–83; Upham, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1019.
11. Chase, March 27, 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 475, 474. See Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, 76–77, for the classic constitutional argument that slavery was local.
12. Bingham, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 729; Winthrop, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 191; Casey, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 309. See also Dayton, March 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 435.
13. Stevens, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 766; Mann, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 220; Wilmot, CG, July 24, 1850, Appendix 941.
14. Crowell, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 692.
15. Casey, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 309; Spaulding, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 405.
16. Chester Butler, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 763; Thomas Harris, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 410; Campbell, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 179.
17. McDowell, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1680; Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict, 40.
18. Edward Everett to Daniel Webster, March 12, 1850, PDW, 28–29.
19. Duncan, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 770; Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 840–41.
20. Smith, July 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1177.
21. Clarke, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 565.
22. Sackett, March 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 231, 232.
23. Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 264; Chandler, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 359. See also Thomas Baldwin to William Seward, March 10, 1850, WHSP; G. M. Perkins to William Seward, May 14, 1850, WHSP; and Roger Baldwin to Emily Baldwin, March 10, 1850, BFP.
24. Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 596; Bennett, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 643; Winthrop, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 524. See also Hebard, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 356, and Duer, April 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 455.
25. Clay, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 616.
26. Upham, July 1, 1850, CG, Appendix 1016; July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1017–18. See also John Davis, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 885.
27. Julian, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 577; Van Dyke, March 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 322–23. See also William Peckham to John Hale, February 25, 1850, JHP.
28. Wilmot, May 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 512; Bissell, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 228, 227.
29. Douglas, March 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 371; Campbell, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 177; Moses Corwin, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 435.
30. Crowell, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 696; Silvester, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 759; Thomas Harris, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 410. For the impact of the three-fifths clause, see Chase, March 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 472; Stevens, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 768; and William Jackson to Horace Mann, March 22, 1850, HMP.
31. John Davis, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 885; Dayton, March 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 435; Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 594.
32. G. F. Lewis to Alpheus Felch, May 6, 1850, AFP; Meacham, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 606; Roswell Colt to William Seward, July 12, 1850, WHSP; George Hillard to Robert Winthrop, May 14, 1850, RWP.
33. Winthrop, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 524; Richardson, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 425.
34. Van Dyke, March 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 325.
35. Thomas Butler, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 304; Silvester, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 757. See also John Davis, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 885.
36. See Freehling, “Reviving State Rights,” 112–14, for feelings of white enslavement.
37. J. D. Johnson to John Hale, February 1, 1850, JHP; Julian, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 578. See also Allen, Speech by Charles Allen, 7; Benjamin Smith to Simeon Smith, March 10, 1850, Preston King–Simeon Smith Papers, St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y.; and Booth, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 657.
38. Wilmot, May 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 512. See Varon, Disunion! 188, for a discussion of Wilmot’s focus on the enslavement theme in the debates over the Proviso when first introduced.
39. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 843.
40. Lewis Pierce to James Wilson, February 8, 1850, Wilson Papers, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord; Crowell, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 696.
41. See chapter 4, note 29, above, and Corwin, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 435.
42. Stevens, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 768; Cass, March 14, 1850, CG, 530.
43. Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 974; Wilmot, May 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 512. See also Chase, March 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 468.
44. Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 264, 263.
45. Hebard, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 356; John Davis, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 886.
46. Daniel Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 269; June 17, 1850, CG, 1239.
47. Baldwin, March 12, 1850, CG, 509; March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 414; Spaulding, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 401. See also Putnam, July 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1029.
48. Winthrop, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 523.
49. Smith, July 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1177–78.
50. Walker, March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 284; Douglas, March 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 369.
51. Clay, February 14, 1850, CG, 368; August 1, 1850, CG, Appendix 1490–91. See Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 506, for the significance of Clay’s declaration of primary loyalty to the Union.
52. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 837.
53. Cass, February 11, 1850, CG, 331.
54. Walker, March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 284.
55. Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 276.
56. Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 276.
57. Samuel Foot to William Seward, February 27, 1850, WHSP; Sackett, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1131; William Keunik to Horace Mann, February 29, 1850, HMP; Roger Baldwin to Emily Baldwin, March 3, 1850, BFP.
58. Miller, February 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 318. See Varon, Disunion! throughout, but especially 4–5, for the best and most definitive discussion of the meaning of Union in the antebellum period.
59. Edward Baker, December 13, 1849, CG, 28–29.
60. Alexander Stephens, December 13, 1849, CG, 29.
5. Conflicted Commitments
1. Bell, July 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 1101.
2. Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 936; Williams, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 290; Badger, February 15, 1850, CG, 373. See also Green, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 425.
3. Faust, Ideology of Slavery, offers an excellent documentary account of the proslavery argument.
4. Colcock, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 686; Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 241. See Barney, Road to Secession, 49–52, for one of the many treatments of the relationship between slavery and political freedom.
5. Butler, January 10, 1850, CG, 136.
6. Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 465. For the myth of the biblical origins of slavery, see Sanders, “Hamitic Hypothesis,” and Haynes, Noah’s Curse.
7. Jefferson Davis, March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 287–88; Inge, February 12, 1850, CG, 339; Badger, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 383. See also Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 465.
8. Foote, January 28, 1850, CG, 237; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 704; Downs, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 175; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 704.
9. Hubbard, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 947; Featherston, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 260; Dawson, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 282; Morton, February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 113; Berrien, February 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 202.
10. Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 466; Clay, July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1409. These were expressions of the “paternalism” southerners sought to portray as at the heart of their institution. See Stampp, Peculiar Institution; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll; and, more recently, Ford, Deliver Us from Evil, 146–49, for key, defining treatments of the question of southern paternalism.
11. John Mason, August 2, 1850, CG, 1508; Jefferson Davis, February 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 153.
12. Rusk, February 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 238; Downs, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 175; Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 380–81.
13. Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 466; Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1105; Thomas, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 629; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 447.
14. See Badger, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 383, for a further consideration of whether slavery was an evil or a sin.
15. McLane, February 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 213.
16. Bell, September 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 1668; Morton, February 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 115; Green, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 426.
17. Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 465.
18. McDowell, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1678; Breck, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 361.
19. Savage, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 559–60.
20. Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1106; Turney, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 295.
21. Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 544; Andrew Johnson, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 673.
22. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 704; Toombs, February 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 199; Stanly, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 341. See also Rusk, April 10, 1850, CG, 685.
23. Andrew Butler, January 10, 1850, CG, 136.
24. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 702. See also Clingman, January 22, 1850, CG, 202; Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 241; and Andrew Butler, September 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 1654. Litwack, North of Slavery, is the classic treatment of racial discrimination in the antebellum North.
25. Averett, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 306.
26. Albert Brown, January 30, 1850, CG, 258; James Bouldin to Thomas Bocock, January 28, 1850, Papers of the Bocock et al. Families, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Emmeline Colcock to mother, February 9, 1850, CFP; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, May 24, 1850, ASPM.
27. Barney, Road to Secession, 49–84, gives the best treatment of the diffusion theme, which he concludes represented an “oddly skewed humanism,” combining economic development with the possibility of a “natural termination” of slavery. See Ford, Deliver Us from Evil, 73–75, 107, 109, 402, for southern support for diffusion in the early national period. See also Rothman, Slave Country, 24–35, 211, 213.
28. Green, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 425; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 447. See also Jefferson Davis, February 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 153, and Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1105, for further support for the argument that expansion would not create more slaves. Freehling, Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 418–25, especially 421–24, offers the best analysis of Walker’s argument for diffusion and presents a valuable discussion of the implications of the diffusionist plan for southern attitudes toward slavery.
29. Jefferson Davis, March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 287; February 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 153.
30. Andrew Butler, July 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1249.
31. Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 241; Underwood, May 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 972; August 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 1193. Underwood was a supporter of colonization, but here he was urging a plan that he believed would free Kentucky of slavery faster than any plan of removal to Africa.
32. Hunter, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1631, 1632.
33. Clay, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1633; Hunter, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1632.
34. Millson, February 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 189; McDowell, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1678; Rusk, February 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 238.
35. Averett, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 394; Isham Harris, April 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 445; Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 937. See also Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 702.
36. Thomas, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 629; Underwood, May 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 971; Clingman, January 22, 1850, CG, 202; Yulee, August 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1163. See also Green, April 4, 1850, CG, 426; Turney, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 296; and Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 407.
37. Barnwell, June 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 991; Thomas Butler, Franklin Bowdon, and George Jones, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 305; Downs, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 174; Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 241.
38. Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 407; Jefferson Davis, February 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 153.
39. Soulé, June 24, 1850, CG, Appendix 961; Benton, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 681; Badger, August 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1502. Green and Kirkwood, “Reframing the Antebellum Democratic Mainstream,” 216, concludes Soulé’s position on slavery was “inconsistent.”
40. Underwood, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 531, 529; Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1106, 1105.
41. Faust, Ideology of Slavery, 6, presents a useful and nuanced discussion of southern treatments of slavery and the problem of evil.
42. McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 447; McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 735; Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 546; Albert Brown, January 30, 1850, CG, 258; Bay, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 183.
43. William Colcock to mother, June 11, 1850, CFP. Two of Colcock’s slaves were recaptured in August hiding in a three-foot space between the floor and the earthen foundation of a wash-house at a Washington residence. A free African American who had assisted them was also arrested. See The Republic, Washington, D.C., August 13, 1850. See David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, July 29, 1850, DOP, for a discussion of the need to use free black servants in Washington in the wake of the assisted escape of slaves in the nation’s capital.
44. Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, July 31, March 28, 1850, ASPM. See Harrold, Subversives, especially 146–63, for the role of abolitionist William L. Chapin in this escape. See also Harrold, Border War, 131–33, and Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 2:81.
45. Roger Baldwin to Emily Baldwin, March 17, 1850, BFP; William Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 268.
46. Sackett, March 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 229, 230; Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 265.
47. Seward, September 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 1648; Durkee, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 741; Julian, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 574. See chapter 3, note 15, for Wellborn’s complete statement.
48. Winthrop, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 526; Dickey, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 752.
49. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 843; Gerry, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 607; Cleveland, April 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 510.
50. Campbell, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 179; Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 255; Stevens, June 10, 1850, CG, 767.
51. Mann, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 219; Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 257. See also Silas Curtis to John Hale, n.d., JHP, and Samuel Lewis to John Hale, January 21, 1850, JHP.
52. Cleveland, April 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 511; Mann, August 9, 1850, CG, Appendix 1084; Hebard, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 357; Duncan, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 770; Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 974. See also Bingham, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 732, and Thomas Butler, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 306, for claims that slavery’s westward expansion would increase the slave population.
53. Cleveland, April 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 511; Henry Clay, “Speech to the American Colonization Society,” January 15, 1850, in Hay, ed., Papers of Henry Clay, 10:648; Thomas Butler, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 306.
54. Sackett, March 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 231.
55. Chester Butler, June 8, 1850, Appendix 759, 760.
56. Shields, April 5, 1850, CG, 649; Richardson, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 423.
57. Cass, February 20, 1850, CG, 399.
58. Augustus Dodge, August 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 1623; Douglas, September 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 1664.
59. Giddings and Gorman, August 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1207; Fitch, February 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 139. Berwanger, Frontier against Slavery, is the classic work on northern racist opposition to slavery expansion.
60. Augustus Dodge, May 28, 1850, CG, 1087.
61. Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 254; Clarke, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 563. For Mason’s comments on Africans and inventions, see chapter 5, note 11, above.
62. Stevens, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 767.
63. Salmon Chase to Frederick Douglass, May 4, 1850, Chase Papers (University Publications of America Microfilm), LC.
64. Frederick Douglass to Salmon Chase, May 30, 1850, in Nevin et al., eds., Salmon Chase Papers, Correspondence, 2:296–297.
65. Giddings, February 4, 1850, CG, 277; Joshua Giddings to son, February 10, 1850, Giddings Papers, OHS. See also Stewart, Joshua R. Giddings, and especially Stewart, “Joshua Giddings, Anti-Slavery Violence, and Congressional Politics of Honor.” For Chase and Ohio’s Black Codes, see Maizlish, Triumph of Sectionalism.
66. Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, February 10, 1850, ASPM.
6. Images in Conflict
1. See Taylor, Cavalier and Yankee, for the classic presentation of the North, the Old South, and American character as depicted in contemporary literature. McCardell, Idea of a Southern Nation, 4, argues slavery “came to represent a whole ideological configuration … which made southerners believe that they constituted a separate nation.” McPherson, “Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism,” offers a review of the debate over the differences between the sections before the Civil War. See also Grant, North over South, and Quigley, Shifting Grounds.
2. McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 736; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 448; Morse, June 12, 1850, CG, 1183. See Bernath, Confederate Minds, 37–39, 42, for a discussion of southern images of the fanatical “-isms” of the North and for their fixation on “agrarianism.” See Conlin, “The Dangerous Isms and the Fanatical Ists,” for a study of the fear of “-isms” among conservatives in the North and South. Morrison, “American Reaction to European Revolutions,” 129, focuses on the fear of American contamination from European radical organizations. See also McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds, 233–34.
3. McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 736.
4. Downs, February 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 172; McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 734; Venable, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1146.
5. Clemens, January 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 52, with quotation from the “Report of the Chief of Police,” New York, commencing May 1 and ending October 31, 1849.
6. Hubbard, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 947, 948; Averett, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 394. See also Jefferson Davis, February 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 156.
7. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 704. Meade anticipated James Hammond’s famous “Mudsill” speech delivered in the Senate on March 4, 1858.
8. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 704, 701; Hubbard, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 948; Jefferson Davis, March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 287. See also Averett, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 394. See Morrison, Slavery and the American West, 115–17, for a discussion of white equality under slavery.
9. Caldwell, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 746; McQueen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 734; McMullen, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 712.
10. Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 465; Soulé, June 24, 1850, CG, Appendix 961; Jefferson Davis, February 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 157; Caldwell, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 746.
11. Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1106.
12. Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1106; Downs, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 173; Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 937.
13. Breck, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 362; Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1280.
14. Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1280; Hunter, July 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 1387.
15. Cabell, March 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 242; Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 381.
16. Berrien, June 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 958; Badger, August 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1502; McLean, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 713; Daniel Webster to Peter Harvey, May 29, 1850, PDW, 103.
17. Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1281.
18. Alston, April 18, 1840, CG, Appendix 467; Jefferson Davis, February 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 157; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 448.
19. Daniel, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1317; Berrien, February 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 210; James Buchanan to Cave Johnson, January 1, 1850, JBP; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, December 5, 1850, ASPM.
20. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 840; Dickey, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 754; Sackett, March 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 231. See also Morrison, Slavery and the American West, 110–11. Morrison provides an excellent presentation of the free-labor views of the North, citing Sackett’s remarks.
21. Campbell, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 181; Clarke, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 566, 564. See also Silvester, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 756.
22. Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 973; Edward Leaman to John King, May 15, 1850, John A. King Papers, NYHS; Stevens, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 142; Smith, July 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1180.
23. Unknown to John Hale, February 20, 1850, JHP; Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 257; Spaulding, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 404; Stevens, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 142.
24. Thomas Butler, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 305; Clarke, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 563; Dayton, March 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 442. See Booth, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 656, for an additional northern economic comparison of the sections. See Orr, May 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 546, and Averett, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 394, for southern critiques of these comparisons. Karp, This Vast Southern Empire, emphasizes the productivity of the antebellum southern institution of slavery and the economic prosperity created by it.
25. Gerry, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 608; Spaulding, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 404; Bennett, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 645.
26. Clarke. May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 566; Hale, January 10, 1850, CG, 134; Julian, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 573.
27. Stevens, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 142; Dickey, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 754.
28. Peck, April 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 518; Bingham, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 729.
29. Clarke, August 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1279.
30. Durkee, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 741; Duncan, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 771. See also Crowell, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 694, and Bennett, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 640.
31. Wilmot, May 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 514; July 24, 1850, CG, Appendix 941.
32. Averett and Stevens, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 768.
33. Morse, June 12, 1850, CG, 1183; Savage, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 559; Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 841; Stanly, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 338.
34. Alston, April 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 467. See also Quigley, Shifting Grounds, 56–57, for southern views of northern immorality. Pierson, Free Hearts and Free Homes, explores the development of alternative gender ideologies within northern antislavery groups.
35. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, July 27, August 7, 1850, DOP. See Bernath, Confederate Minds, 40, for a discussion of the southern claim that northern women acted outside their assigned sphere.
36. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, May 9, February 14, 1850, DOP.
37. See Howe, Political Culture of the American Whigs, 26, for a discussion of the phenomenon of crowds flocking to hear public speakers in early nineteenth-century America.
38. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, February 6, 1850, DOP; Alpheus Felch to Lucretia Felch, February 5, 1850, AFP; Horace Mann to Mary Mann, February 5, 1850, HMP.
39. Foote, February 8, 1850, CG, 323; February 11, 1850, CG, 333–34; Foote and Pearce, February 13, 1850, CG, 356. See also Magnum and Houston, February 6, 1850, CG, 301.
40. Foote, Clay, and Pearce, February 13, 1850, CG, 356.
41. Roger Baldwin to Emily Baldwin, March 8, 1850, BFP; Alexander Stephens to Linton Stephens, March 8, 1850, ASPM; Howell Cobb to “Howell,” March 8, 1850, HCFP.
42. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, February 27, 1850, DOP; Emily Baldwin to father-in-law, January 5, 1850, BFP; Emily Baldwin to Elizabeth Baldwin, January 8, 24, 1850, BFP; Emily Baldwin to “Rebecca,” January 10, 1850, BFP.
43. Ellen Ewing to Philemon Ewing, July 22, 1850, Philemon Beacher Ewing Papers, OHS. See Varon, We Mean to Be Counted, for a path-breaking study of women’s involvement in antebellum political culture, and Baker, “Domestication of Politics,” 625–35, for an overview of women and politics in the middle period. See Pierson, Free Hearts and Free Homes, for women and the social and political world of the North.
44. Emily Baldwin to Roger Baldwin, March 13, April 2, 1850, BFP; Elizabeth Underwood to Joseph Underwood, September 3, 1850, UFP.
45. Mary Mann to Horace Mann, March 13, 1850, HMP. Mary was not the only one to urge Horace to take a different approach to the South. Abolitionist Lewis Tappan cautioned Mann about his “belligerent words” toward the South. Lewis Tappan to Horace Mann, March 27, 1850, HMP.
46. Horace Mann to Mary Mann, March 15, 1850, HMP.
47. Mrs. E. F. Wallace et al. to William Seward, April 18, 1850, WHSP; William Seward to Mrs. E. F. Wallace et al., April 29, 1850, WHSP.
48. Brown, Speech of A. G. Brown, 6.
49. Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 257; Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 268. See also Augustus Dodge, May 28, 1850, CG, 1087. See: Hoganson, “Garrisonian Abolitionists and the Rhetoric of Gender,” for a discussion of abolition’s image of unmanliness, and Oertel, Bleeding Borders, 100–103, for a discussion of images of antislavery and manhood in Kansas.
50. Giddings, August 12, 1850, CG, 1562; Julian, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 576; Stevens, February 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 143.
51. Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 703, 705; Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 382. Olsen, Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi, 49–50, argues that both opponents and supporters of the Compromise in Mississippi regularly accused each other of a deficiency of manhood.
52. See appendix B for a quantitative presentation of the uses of terms of masculinity in the debates and in the correspondence that surrounded them. For an understanding of the relationship between martial and restrained masculinity, see Greenberg, Manifest Manhood, 11–13. Also useful is Rotundo, American Manhood, for the relationship between manhood and character. In his “Learning about Manhood,” 38–39, 45–46, Rotundo describes the importance of morality to the nineteenth-century ideal of the “Christian Gentleman.” See Carnes and Griffen, eds., Meanings for Manhood, and especially the essays in it by Yacavone, “‘Language of Fraternal Love,’” and Griffen, “Reconstructing Masculinity,” for the variety of meanings manhood had in the antebellum period. See also Tosh, “What Should Historians Do with Masculinity?” 182. For the meanings of manhood in the Civil War, see Foote, Gentlemen and the Roughs.
53. See appendix B. The border states were computed separately to test differences within the South but had too few instances to offer useful results as a separate category. Since they were computed separately, the border states are not included in the results for the South though they are included in the national totals.
54. Horace Mann to the Editors of the Boston Atlas, n.d., in Mann, Horace Mann’s Letters, 25; Berrien, February 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 202; Stanton, February 13, 1850, CG, 349; Seddon, June 15, 1850, CG, 1215. See also James Johnson, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 456.
55. R. K. Darrah to John Hale, February 16, 1850, JHP; Smith, July 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 1175; Houston, February 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 98; Stanly, March 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 336; Bell, July 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 1105. See also Orin Ginernsey to John Hale, February 16, 1850, JHP.
56. A. Hyde Cole to William Seward, April 30, 1850, WHSP; Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 596; Venable, February 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 164; Morse, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 327.
57. Clay, January 29, 1850, CG, 246; Sampson Harris, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 778; Breck, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 361; Hunter, March 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 381.
58. Dayton, March 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 442; Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 975; Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 595.
59. Chase, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 478; Iverson Harris to John Berrien, August 2, 1850, Yancey Papers, UNC; William King, June 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 868. See Varon, Disunion! 187, for the dichotomy between sentiment and reason and the association of sentimentality with femininity. Varon dates the intense challenges to the manhood of congressmen to the early debates over the Proviso (191). See Woods, Emotional and Sectional Conflict, 15, for the antebellum belief in balance between emotion and reason in political activity.
60. Clay, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1633; T. T. Beattie to Humphrey Marshall, Marshall Papers, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Ky. See Eustace, Passion Is the Gale, 3–15, for a discussion of the traditional dichotomy between reason and emotion.
61. Holmes, April 1, 1850, CG, 621; Venable, April 1, 1850, CG, 622; Webster, April 1, 1850, CG, 625; Andrew Butler, April 1, 1850, CG, 623.
62. Clay, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 569; Phelps, January 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 91; Baldwin, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 416; Andrew Butler, June 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 868; Clemens, May 20, 1850, CG, Appendix 589. See also Clay, July 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1092; Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 594; Baldwin, March 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 414; Cooper, June 29, 1850, CG, Appendix 1004; and Seward, July 2, 1850, CG, Appendix 1021.
63. Benton, April 8, 1850, CG, 660.
64. Seward, June 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 863; March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 262.
65. Bennett, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 645; John Davis, June 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 880. See also Putnam, July 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1032.
66. “A Republican” to William Seward, March 19, 1850, WHSP.
67. Clay, July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1409.
7. The Language of Conflict and the Battlefield of Memory
1. Emmeline Colcock to mother, December 25, 1849, CFP; William White to Howell Cobb, December 23, 1849, HCFP. See also John Calhoun to Duff Green, December 29, 1849, in Wilson and Cook, eds., Papers of John C. Calhoun, 27:141.
2. Barnwell, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1537; Winthrop, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 190.
3. Venable, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1144; Barnwell, July 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 1414.
4. Marshall, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 406, 407.
5. James Mason, January 8, 1850, CG, 121; Meade, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 704; Morse, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 327; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 444. See also David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, January 18, 1850, DOP.
6. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 451.
7. Hale, Speech of Mr. Hale, 15.
8. Bissell, February 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 225; Webster, March 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 275; Thurman, June 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 975. See also Casey, March 18, 1850, CG, Appendix 310; Silvester, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 755; Downs, May 22, 1850, CG, Appendix 639; and Underwood, April 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 534.
9. See Shelden, Washington Brotherhood, 3, and “Action of Congress on the California Territorial Question,” 229, for the relationship between constituents and congressional speeches.
10. Andrew Butler, August 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 1546. Roberts-Miller, Fanatical Schemes, 5–6, makes the important point that discourse cannot solve or cause every conflict. The issues themselves create the problems. “People argued about slavery,” she insists, “because they genuinely (and vehemently) disagreed about it.”
11. Dunham, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 840; Underwood, August 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 1193.
12. Calhoun, March 13, 1850, CG, 520. See Shelden, Washington Brotherhood, for the social ties between congressmen in antebellum Washington.
13. Foote, February 14, 1850, CG, 366.
14. Foote, March 26, 1850, CG, 603; Benton, March 26, 1850, CG, 604. See David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, January 18, 1850, DOP, for comments on the Benton-Foote feud and the possibility of a duel between them; Olsen, Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi, for a discussion of masculinity, dueling, and political culture in Mississippi; and Freeman, Affairs of Honor, for the code of honor in the early republic. See also Greenberg, Slavery and Honor.
15. Foote and Benton, April 17, 1850, CG, 762–64. On July 30, 1850, a Senate committee issued a report on the incident, which condemned the “practice of being armed in the senate.” July 30, 1850, CG, 1480–81. See also Smith, Magnificent Missourian, 271, and Meigs, Life of Thomas Hart Benton, 398–400. For Benton’s friendship with Henry Dodge, see Pelzer, Augustus Caesar Dodge, 34.
16. Onuf, “Antebellum Southerners and the National Idea,” 27–37, argues, as have many others, that southerners believed they were leaving the Union as patriots. In order to show loyalty to the principles of the founders, they created a nation much like the one they abandoned. See also Quigley, Shifting Grounds, 77–83, for southern claims to the heritage of the American Revolution. Connerton, How Societies Remember, presents an analysis of societal memory. For a comprehensive analysis of the conflict over the meaning of the American Revolution in the antebellum period, see Conlin, One Nation Divided by Slavery.
17. See Morrison, “American Reaction to European Revolutions,” 116, for fear of a loss of the revolutionary spirit.
18. McLean, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 715.
19. Horace Mann to Mary Mann, June 17, 1850, HMP; James Hammond, April 7, 1850, in Blesser, ed., Secret and Sacred, 199. See also Webster, July 17, 1850, CG, Appendix 1270.
20. Joseph Underwood to Elizabeth Underwood, March 3, 1850, UFP.
21. Clay, January 24, 1850, CG, 226; Peterson, Great Triumvirate, 456.
22. Clay, January 24, 1850, CG, 226.
23. Webster, January 24, 1850, CG, 227.
24. Stephens, February 6, 1850, CG, 297, 298.
25. Clay, January 29, 1850, CG, 246.
26. Houston, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1537; Badger, March 19, 1850, CG, Appendix 391; Walker, March 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 285; Shields, April 5, 1850, CG, 647.
27. See Rubin, “Seventy-Six and Sixty-One,” for an excellent discussion of the Confederates’ use of the “language of ancestry” to tie themselves to the revolutionary past and the North to the Tories and the British. See Franklin, “The North, the South, and the American Revolution,” for discussion of the early nineteenth-century historiographic debate over the roles of the North and South in the Revolution.
28. William Winder to Daniel Webster, March 12, 1850, PDW, 33; Daniel Webster to Isaac Hill, April 20, 1850, Webster Letters, Rauner Library, Dartmouth College. See also Nagel, One Nation Indivisible, 229.
29. Jackson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 668; Hale, May 28, 1850, CG, 1086. See also Chase, Speech of Senator Chase, 6.
30. Calhoun, March 4, 1850, CG, 454; March 13, 1850, CG, 519; Cass, March 13, 1850, CG, 517. See also Quigley, Shifting Grounds, 82.
31. Silvester, June 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 756; Robert Johnson, June 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 716; Clemens, February 20, 1850, CG, 398; Turney, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 296. For the sectional dispute over the address, see Conlin, One Nation Divided by Slavery, 88–92.
32. Ross, April 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 462; Miller, March 25, 1850, CG, 590; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, February 22, 1850, DOP.
33. Hubbard, June 6, 1850, CG, Appendix 949; Albert Brown, January 30, 1850, CG, 258; McWillie, March 4, 1850, CG, 445.
34. Kaufman, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 937; Savage, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 556.
35. Mann, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 218; Hale, Speech of Mr. Hale, 3; Hale, March 14, 1850, CG, 525.
36. Giddings, December 27, 1849, CG, 84; Julian, September 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 1301.
37. Bennett, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 643; Fowler, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 254; Mann, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 223.
38. Cass, August 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 1531; January 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 59; August 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 1528.
39. Cass, February 20, 1850, CG, 398. See also Gorman, March 12, 1850, CG, Appendix 320.
40. Savage, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 560; Inge, February 12, 1850, CG, 340.
41. Chase, March 26, 1850, CG, Appendix 471; Julian, September 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 1300.
42. Hale, Speech of Mr. Hale, 5; Allen, Speech by Charles Allen, 3; Wilmot, July 24, CG, Appendix 943.
43. Phelps, January 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 93; Seward, March 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 265. See also Hebard, March 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 355.
44. Clarke, August 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1274; John Davis, June 28, 1850, CG, Appendix 881.
45. Richardson, April 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 424; Bingham, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 733.
46. Andrew Butler, August 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 1621; James Thomas, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 628; Toombs, February 27, 1850, Appendix 200. See also Wellborn, February 15, 1850, CG, Appendix 109.
47. Howard, June 11, 1850, CG, Appendix 772.
48. Chase, August 23, 1850, CG, Appendix 1620; Julian, May 14, 1850, CG, Appendix 578; Booth, June 4, 1850, CG, Appendix 657.
49. Upham, July 1, 1850, CG, Appendix 1014; Campbell, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 458; Hoagland, June 5, 1850, CG, Appendix 662; Bennett, May 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 643; Clarke, May 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 564; Phelps, January 23, 1850, CG, Appendix. 91. See also Putnam, July 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1031, and Daniel King, May 21, 1850, CG, Appendix 595.
50. Houston, February 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 97; Wallace, April 8, 1850, CG, Appendix 430–31; Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1281–82.
51. Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1279.
52. Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1279, 1280.
53. Holmes, September 3, 1850, CG, Appendix 1282.
54. Howell Cobb to Mary Cobb, August 28, 1850, HCFP; Dickinson, March 14, 1850, CG, 525; April 11, 1850, CG, 707; Seward, June 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 863. For frustration with congressional gridlock, see “Action of Congress on the California Territorial Question,” 224.
55. Ashmun, March 27, 1850, CG, Appendix 396–97; William Bissell to William Martien, February 5, 1850, Bissell Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Ill.; David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, February 8, 1850, DOP. See also David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, February 14, 1850, DOP, and Putnam, July 30, 1850, CG, Appendix 1031.
56. Giddings, August 2, 1850, CG, 1509. Giddings also wished to see the session end because of his growing fear of cholera in Washington. See Joshua Giddings to Laura Giddings, July 14, 1850, George Julian Letters, ISL.
57. Houston, August 13, 1850, CG, Appendix 1536; Boyd, August 29, 1850, CG, 1697; McClernand, August 29, 1850, CG, 1700.
58. Joseph Underwood to Elizabeth Underwood, July 18, August 22, September 3, 1850, UFP. See Zagarri, “The Family Factor,” for a discussion of family separation as the reason for high turnover in congressional service. Riley, “The Lonely Congressmen,” also deals with congressional family separations.
59. Alpheus Felch to Lucretia Felch, June 28, 1850, AFP; William McWillie to Catherine McWillie, August 4, 1850, McWillie-Compton Papers, MDAH; Howell Cobb to Mary Cobb, August 15, 1850, HCFP.
60. Doty, February 18, 1850, CG, 375; Congressional Globe Chronicler, February 18, 1850, CG, 379.
61. David Outlaw to Emily Outlaw, July 18, 1850, DOP.
62. Underwood, August 7, 1850, CG, Appendix 1193.
Epilogue
1. Brown, Speech of A. G. Brown, 8.
2. Millard Fillmore to Hamilton Fish, September 4, 1850, Fillmore Papers, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, Buffalo; Morris, Oration, Delivered on Wednesday June 29, 1814; Alfred Gilmore to James Buchanan, September 9, 1850, JBP; Robert Winthrop to “Mrs. Gardiner,” September 8, 1850, RWP. See also Daniel Webster to Peter Harvey, September 10, 1850, PDW, 143. Howell Cobb used the same popular phrase, “the long agony is over,” when describing his victory in the lengthy speakership battle at the beginning of the session. See prologue, note 3, above.
3. Clay, September 16, 1850, CG, 1829; Henry Clay to James Brown Clay, September 20, 1850, in Hay et al., eds., Papers of Henry Clay, 10:816–17.
4. Henry Clay, Speech to the Kentucky House of Representatives, November 14, 1850, Clay Family Papers, LC.
5. Daniel Webster to Peter Harvey, September 10, October 2, 1850, PDW, 143, 155.
6. Jefferson Davis, September 16, 1850, CG, 1830; Douglas, September 16, 1850, CG, 1830; Douglas, Speech of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas.
7. Thomas Corwin to Oren Follett, August 26, 1850, Follett Papers, Cincinnati Historical Society; William King to brother, November 11, 1850, King Papers, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery.
8. Brown, Speech of A. G. Brown, 6–8, 11.
9. Brown, Speech of A. G. Brown, 11.
10. Alexander Stephens to John J. Crittenden, October 24, November 1850, Stephens Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C. See also Brown, Speech of A. G. Brown, 10–11. Stephens’s position was consistent with that taken by the “Georgia Platform” adopted at a Georgia state convention held in December to debate the Compromise. See Kruman, Parties and Politics in North Carolina, 128–29.
11. Julian, September 25, 1850, CG, Appendix 1302, 1301.
12. Simeon Draper to Thurlow Weed, October 2, 1850, Weed Papers, University of Rochester; Daniel Henshaw to William Seward, October 7, 1850, WHSP; Robert Winthrop to George Morey, September 17, 1850, RWP; Robert Winthrop to John Pendelton Kennedy, October 18, 1850, Kennedy Papers, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore; Alexander Buel to Howell Cobb, October 12, 1850, in AHA, “The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb,” 2:183–84.
13. Benton, June 10, 1850, CG, Appendix 683; James Hammond, March 17, 1850, in Blesser, ed., Secret and Sacred, 198.
14. Salmon Chase to Charles Sumner, September 8, 1850, and Joshua Giddings to Charles Sumner, September 8, 1850, both Sumner Papers, HU.
15. William Seward to Gerrit Smith, October 11, 1850, WHSP; John Calhoun to James Hammond, February 10, 1850, James Hammond Papers, LC.
16. Thurlow Weed to William Morris Meredith, March 10, 1850, Meredith Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Appendix B. Quantitative Analysis of the Use of Gendered Language
1. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood, 12.
2. See Oertel, “‘Nigger-Worshiping Fanatics’ and ‘Villain[s] of the Blackest Dye,’” for the role of section in definitions of masculinity.
3. See Greenberg, “The Politics of Martial Manhood,” for the importance of martial manhood to Democrats.
4. Howe, Political Culture of the American Whigs, 18–21.