” 18—A private expedition from the south under command of Lopez invades Cuba. They are driven off with a loss of 30 killed and executed as pirates, on the 19th. The remainder returned to Key West on the 22d of the same month.
July 9—Death of President Taylor. Fillmore becomes acting President.
Sept. 9-20—A committee of thirteen, of which Henry Clay was chairman, had been appointed Apr. 19th, and they had prepared four measures forming a compromise between the North and South as to slavery, which were debated and passed into laws, receiving the concurrence of the President: First, the South conceded to the North the admission of California as a free State, and the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; Second, the North conceded to the South a stringent Fugitive Slave Law, and the organization of Territorial Governments in New Mexico and Utah without mention of slavery, but in the understanding that they were finally to form slave States. The real gain was to the North, as anti-slavery was advanced two steps, while the Fugitive Law could not be generally enforced in the North from the invincible aversion of the people to it, and the Southern people were not sufficiently migratory in their habits to introduce slavery into distant regions not naturally adapted to that institution. Still the question was laid aside for the present.
Nov. 19—Richard M. Johnson, a former Vice-President of the U. S., died.
Dec. 16—A treaty of Amity and Commerce ratified with Switzerland.
1851.
Mar. 3—A cheap postage law passed by Congress.
John C. Calhoun, the most eminent of Southern Statesmen, died.
1852.
June 28—Henry Clay, orator and Statesman, died.