The nomination of General Taylor, cordially supported by me, was not acceptable to all the Whigs of Ohio. The hostility to slavery had grown chiefly out of the acquisition of Texas as a slave state. An anti-slavery party headed in Ohio by Salmon P. Chase cast 35,354 votes for Van Buren. General Taylor was defeated in Ohio mainly by this defection, receiving 138,360 votes. General Cass received 154,755 votes. General Cass received the vote of Ohio, but General Taylor was elected President, having received a majority of the electoral vote.
General Taylor proved a very conscientious and acceptable President.
His death, on the ninth day of July, 1850, preceded the passage of
the compromise measures of Henry Clay, commonly known by his name.
They became laws with the approval of Millard Fillmore.
It was my habit during this period to attend the annual state conventions of the Whig party, not so much to influence nominations as to keep up an acquaintance with the principal members of the party. I had not the slightest desire for public office and never became a candidate until 1854. In the state convention of 1850 I heartily supported the nomination of General Scott for President, at the approaching election of 1852. In this convention an effort was made to nominate me for Attorney-General in opposition to Henry Stanbery. I promptly declined to be a candidate, but received a number of votes from personal friends, who, as they said, wanted to introduce some young blood into the Whig party.
I then began seriously to study the political topics of the day. I was classed as a conservative Whig, and heartily supported the compromise measures of 1850, not upon their merits, but as the best solution of dangerous sectional divisions. Prior to this time I do not remember to have given any study, except through the newspapers of the day, to the great national questions that divided the political parties.
In the spring of 1852 I was designated by the state convention as a delegate at large in association with Honorable Samuel F. Vinton to the national Whig convention of that year. I was an earnest advocate of General Scott, and rejoiced in his nomination. Here, again, the slavery question was obtruded into national politics. The clear and specific indorsement of the compromise measures, though supported by a great majority, divided the Whig party and led to the election of Franklin Pierce. In this canvass I took for the first time an active part. I was designated as an elector on the Scott ticket. I made speeches in several counties and cities, but was recalled to Wooster by a telegram stating that my mother was dangerously ill. Before I could reach home she died. This event was wholly unexpected, as she seemed, when I left home, to be in the best of health. She had accompanied her daughter, Mrs. Bartley, to Cleveland to attend the state fair, and there, no doubt, she was attacked with the disease of which she died. I took no further part in the canvass.
I wish here to call special attention to the attitude of the two great parties in respect to the compromise measures.
The Democratic national convention at Baltimore was held in the first of June, 1852. The resolutions of that convention in reference to slavery were as follows:
"12. Resolved, That Congress has no power under the constitution to interfere with, or control, the domestic institutions of the several states, and that such states are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the constitution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friends of our political institutions.
"13. Resolved, That the foregoing proposition covers, and is intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress, and, therefore, the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by, and adhere to, a faithful execution of the acts known as the compromise measures settled by the last Congress, 'the act for reclaiming fugitives from service labor' included; which act, being designed to carry out an express provision of the constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency.
"14. Resolved, That the Democratic party will resist all attempts at renewing in Congress, or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made."