Civil War Lecture Notes

01/06/2011

The Road to War

  1. Sectional Armistice of 1850
President Taylor adopted a form of popular sovereignty when dealing with the issue of slavery.   He essentially made California a free state.  
      a. Proposal (clay)
        i. Henry Clay was very weary of this crisis.   He created a new compromise that challenged Taylor’s leadership of the Whig party.  
        ii. In January of 1850, Clay got Daniel Webster to support him in creating a new comprehensive settlement to all the political issues regarding slavery. It was 8 resolutions long.
        iii. One of them was let California come to the Union on its own terms regarding slavery
        iv. Set up territorial governments outside of California without any rules regarding slavery.
        v. Set the boundary of Texas at its present limits.  
        vi. Thought the Federal government should take over the public tax debt of Texas.
        vii. Abolish the “slave trade” in the district of Columbia
        viii. Let slavery continue as an institution in DC as long as it continued in Maryland
        ix. The Interstate slave trade is immune from congressional interference
        x. Write a fugitive slave law
      b. Debate
        xi. Calhoun discussed social and cultural facts that all Americans are connected
        xii. Argued for a unification of north and south
        xiii. Daniel Webster delivered a peace offering and an appeal for conciliation
        xiv. Would pass no legislation that would wound the pride of southern gentlemen
        xv. William Seward
        xvi. Clay offers up an omnibus bill that had the tactical advantage of letting all parties know what they were getting when they voted
      c. Regrouping (Douglas)
        xvii. Douglas relied on manipulating separate blocks: the sectional blocks and the compromise blocks.   If the two could get together, then the bill could be passed
        xviii. In September of 1850, all the bills that... [continues]

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