A History of the United States

by Charles Kendall Adams; William P. Trent

396. Presidential Policy changed by Death of Taylor.—Before the final passage of the Compromise measures, President Taylor died, July 9, 1850, and was succeeded by the Vice President, Millard Fillmore. Taylor, although a Southerner, had been very largely influenced by William H. Seward,[^[177]] a senator from New York, who had led with great ability the opposition to the Compromise. Taylor did not have a strong Cabinet, and was untrained as a statesman, but he showed, in his short administration, great common sense and firmness, and, had he lived, might have prevailed on Congress to adopt a policy toward California less tortuous than that involved in Clay’s Compromise. Fillmore,[^[178]] who succeeded to the Presidency, although a good man, was not a strong one, and had not been on friendly terms with his fellow New Yorker, Seward. In making up his Cabinet, he made Webster Secretary of State in place of Clayton, of Delaware, and leaned upon the former for advice. The policy of the administration was thus so completely changed that the weight of its influence was at once thrown in favor of the adoption and rigid enforcement of the Compromise legislation.

Millard Fillmore.

397. The Compromise of 1850.—The resolutions introduced by Clay were much amended in the course of their consideration, but in final form, as adopted in September, 1850, they covered the following provisions:—

1. California was to be admitted as a free state.

2. New Mexico and Utah were to be organized as territories without any restriction or condition in regard to slavery.

3. The slave trade was to be abolished within the District of Columbia.

4. A Fugitive Slave Law, stringent enough to satisfy the South, was to be passed.

5. Texas was to receive the price she demanded for the land ceded to New Mexico (§ [394, note]).

398. New Fugitive Slave Law.—That part of the Compromise which provided for a Fugitive Slave Law was so stringent in its provisions that it defeated its own end, by arousing so vigorous an opposition in the North that it could not be enforced. It had been made retroactive, in order that slaves who had taken refuge in the North before the passage of the act might be seized by United States marshals, and, without trial by jury, forcibly taken to their old masters. This feature of the law had an instantaneous effect on public opinion. It soon came to be seen that the people would not permit men and women who, as they said, had become free by living in a free state, to be taken back into slavery. The law was frustrated in many ways, the framers having overlooked one special weakness in it. Though fugitives were not to be entitled to trial by jury, the right of such a trial was not taken from the rescuers. Many a fugitive was seized from the United States marshals, and the rescuers, when tried, were acquitted by jury.[^[179]] New laws, known as Personal Safety Acts, designed to protect fugitives and frustrate the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law, were passed by the New England states and by New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. These were specially referred to as a cause of complaint in the South Carolina Act of Secession. For these various reasons, the number of slaves actually returned was very small, and both sections were dissatisfied with the result.