| The failure of the resolutions to pass the Senate, but their success in the House. |
The debate upon this proposition, which began December 8th, and lasted, off and on, until February 28th, was, in the main, a discussion between four Southern members—Mr. Foote, Mr. Butler, Mr. Rhett, and Mr. Clemens—during which the history of the movements of the Southern leaders in 1850 and 1851 were brought to light, beginning with the Southern Address, issued from Washington before the passage of the Compromise Measures, for the purpose of producing a united action on the part of the South in behalf of Southern rights, and the call of the Nashville convention by the Mississippi legislature, and ending with the demand of the convention for the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes to the Pacific Ocean, and the declaration by the convention and by conventions in Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina, of the abstract right of secession as a principle of the political system of the Union. It was evident that these movements had approached dangerously near to an attempt at something like practical secession, and that the Southern leaders were now anxious to underrate their significance. The Northern Senators allowed these Southern brethren to proceed with criminations and recriminations against each other, until they themselves were convinced that they would lose more by the continuance of the debate than they could gain by the passage of the resolution. After a fiery speech by Mr. Clemens, on February 28th, 1852, the attempt to pass the resolution was abandoned in the Senate.
The House of Representatives, on the other hand, incited by memorials sent into it by the legislatures of New Jersey and Iowa, actually passed resolutions, on April 5th, 1852, by a large majority, declaring the finality of the Measures.
Petitions began again to pour into the Senate for the repeal of the law. Mr. Seward, Mr. Hale, and Mr. Sumner presented such petitions and tried to get a hearing upon them, but the Senate voted to lay them all on the table.
| The National conventions of 1852 and the finality of the compromise measures. |
Such was the situation when the two great parties assembled in their National conventions for the nomination of their respective candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. It was indicated from the first day of the Congressional session of 1851-52, that the finality of the Compromise Acts would be a plank in the platforms of both parties, although it was soon revealed that the Whig party leaders were divided upon the subject.
The Democratic convention met June 1st, at Baltimore, and, on account of the three-cornered fight between Buchanan, Cass, and Douglas, was obliged to produce a "dark horse." This proved to be General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, a good lawyer, a brave soldier, a fine orator, and a courtly gentleman. He was known to be a true friend to the Compromise Acts, and was entirely acceptable to the South. The platform contained the finality plank.
The Whig convention met fifteen days later, at the same place. The Northern Whigs, under the lead of Seward, were determined to defeat both Fillmore and Webster, chiefly on account of their fidelity in the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. The Southerners were for Fillmore first, and then Webster, for the same reason. A sufficient number of the Northern delegates voted with the Southerners to put the finality plank into the platform, and then offered the Southerners one of their own fellow-citizens, General Scott, the military hero of the country. The Southerners finally accepted the offer.
If Seward desired the defeat and destruction of the Whig party, he could not have acted more adroitly. It was to be foreseen that the Northern Whigs would not be wholly faithful to their own choice upon that platform, and that many of the Southern Whigs would arrive at the conclusion that the Democratic platform and the Democratic candidate furnished stronger guarantees for the finality of the Compromise Measures than the Whig platform and candidate did.