Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/190

170 partly on anti-slavery and partly on personal grounds. An agreement was soon made between these seceding whigs and democrats and the liberty party to unite their forces in opposition to the extension of slavery; and a convention was held at Buffalo, Aug. 9, 1848, which was attended by delegates from all the free states and from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. A free-soil or free democratic party was formed, and Martin Van Buren was nominated for president and Charles Francis Adams for vice president. A platform was adopted, declaring that the new party was formed “to maintain the rights of free labor against the aggressions of the slave power, and to secure free soil to a free people; that slavery, in the several states of this Union which recognize its existence, depends upon the state laws alone, which cannot be repealed or modified by the general government, and for which laws that government is not responsible; we therefore propose no interference by congress with slavery within the limits of any state; that the only safe means of preventing an extension of slavery into territory now free is to prohibit its extension in all such territory by an act of congress; that we accept the issue which the slave power has forced upon us, and to their demand for more slave states and more slave territory, our calm but final answer is, no more slave states and no more slave territory.” Van Buren and Adams received at the presidential election, in November, 1848, a popular vote of 291,263, but secured no electoral vote. The democratic candidates, Cass and Butler, received 127 electoral votes; and the whig candidates, Taylor and Fillmore, received 163 electoral votes, and were elected. The popular vote for Taylor was 1,360,099 and for Cass 1,220,544.—President Taylor was inaugurated on Monday, March 5, 1849, and appointed as his cabinet John M. Clayton, secretary of state; William M. Meredith, of the treasury; George W. Crawford, of war; William B. Preston, of the navy; Thomas Ewing, of the interior (an office created by congress two days before, March 3, 1849); Jacob Collamer, postmaster general; and Reverdy Johnson, attorney general. One of the earliest and most difficult of the questions which pressed on the new administration arose out of the acquisition of California, the people of which in 1849 framed a constitution prohibiting slavery. This being presented to congress early in 1850 with a petition for the admission of that region as a state, great excitement in congress and throughout the country arose. The extreme slavery party, led by Mr. Calhoun, demanded not only the rejection of California, but, among other concessions, an amendment of the constitution that should equalize the political power of the free and slave states. The question was still further complicated by the application of New Mexico for admission, and by a claim brought forward by Texas to a western line of boundary which would include

a large portion of New Mexico. Finally a compromise was proposed by Henry Clay in the senate as a final settlement of the whole question of slavery, and after a long discussion the result aimed at by Mr. Clay was attained by separate acts, which provided for: 1, the admission of California as a free state; 2, territorial governments for New Mexico and Utah without excluding slavery, but leaving its exclusion or admission to the local population; 3, the settlement of the Texas boundary question; 4, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; 5, the enactment of a stringent law for the arrest and return of fugitive slaves. Ten of the southern senators, including Mason and Hunter of Virginia, Soule of Louisiana, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, published a final protest against the admission of California after the vote was taken; and the free-soil party at the north denounced the concessions to Texas and the refusal to prohibit slavery in New Mexico and Utah as unjust and unwise, and proclaimed the fugitive slave law unconstitutional, immoral, and cruel. While the compromise bills were yet before congress, President Taylor died, July 9, 1850, and was succeeded by the vice president, Millard Fillmore, who soon after reconstructed the cabinet as follows: Daniel Webster, secretary of state; Thomas Corwin, of the treasury; Charles M. Conrad, of war; Alexander H. H. Stuart, of the interior; William A. Graham, of the navy; Nathan K. Hall, postmaster general; and John J. Crittenden, attorney general. The acts relating to California, New Mexico, Utah, and Texas were signed by Mr. Fillmore on Sept. 9, the fugitive slave act on the 18th, and the District of Columbia act on the 20th; and the whole weight of his administration was given to the support of these measures. During the remainder of his term the events of most importance were the invasion of Cuba, in August, 1851, by a band of “filibusters” from New Orleans, led by Gen. Lopez, who was speedily captured and executed with many of his followers; the visit of Louis Kossuth to the United States in December, 1851; a dispute with England on the subject of the fisheries in 1852, which was settled by mutual concessions; and lastly the negotiation of a treaty with Japan by Commodore Perry, in command of an American fleet, by which the commerce of that empire was thrown open to the world.—On the approach of the presidential election of 1852 it became evident that, notwithstanding the apparent acquiescence of the great mass of the people in the compromise measures of 1850, the question of slavery was still a source of political agitation. The democrats of the south were divided into “Union men” and “southern rights men,” the latter maintaining the right of a state to secede from the Union whenever its rights were violated by the general government. On the other hand, the whigs of the south were mostly Union men and satisfied with the compromise