Frank Lupariello

Mr. Mauritz

American History

December 15, 2008

Making Connections 1 & 2 pg. 509

1. Between 1846 and 1861, there was no chance at compromise. The South

was pro-slavery, and the North was anti-slavery. Every time someone

attempted to compromise about slavery and/or the states’ status as a free

state or a slave state, the attempt was put down quickly and things just got

worse. The way things looked at the time, there was absolutely no

chance at compromise, nor at a peaceful solution.

The main reason that compromising failed was that the whole idea of sectionalism

was building up in the South. The South developed this dependence on slavery. It brought

in money, it was pretty much free, and it was easy to control for the most part. The South

now had a mindset that this was normal, and that they had an advantage through all this.

The North was anti-slavery, so they were actually helping slaves and trying to stop the

South from being cruel and self-centered.

One political conflict at the time was the Wilmot Proviso issue. This was started

by David Wilmot and its goal was to isolate slavery by now allowing it into the western

territories. Wilmot said, “God forbid that we should be the means of planting this

institution upon it,” in which he was referring to slavery in the west. Previous to all this,

Mexicans had abolished slavery in their own country, and the western territories were

pretty much either open land or Mexican territory. Starting slavery there would just
increase the slave state count, and would probably affect the turnout of the Civil War to

come.

Another political issue at this time was the Whig party and their involvement in

the nation. What the party was trying to do was establish connections in both the North

and the South for an easy campaign for presidency. By achieving this, they would gain

power. Yet, they failed… miserably. They indeed got links with both regions, but

confusion, controversy, and contradiction came into play and the party disintegrated. The

reason this actually affected the compromisation issue and the slavery deal was that it

was a distraction for both regions, which at separate times took them away from their

own defenses and offenses for and against slavery.

In conclusion, there was no way compromise would’ve taken place. The country

was in terrible shape, and all attempts to fix it failed miserably. The nation was spiraling

downwards, and truly there was nothing at all that we could do about it.

2. In the 1850s, the question of whether or not slavery should be allowed in

the western territories was proving to be quite controversial. The ones who

were fighting to repel slavery from the west held their ground pretty well,

yet the Southerners continued to push and argue. One idea that came up as

means of resolving the argument was popular sovereignty. Through this

system of popular sovereignty, whether or not slavery was permitted in an

area was now up to the majority of the people within it. Though the

system was quite popular, it proved to be quite inadequate.

Popular sovereignty was basically a majority-rule system in which slavery was

voted on whether to be allowed or not allowed within a particular territory. Its most
attractive feature was its ambiguity about the precise moment when settlers could

determine slavery’s fate. The Northerners fought for free soil, and believed that as soon

as a legislature rose up in the western territories, the argument about slavery there would

disappear and slavery would be provoked in that territory. The North also had a greater

population, so the Southerners would be shut out quickly. On the other hand, popular

sovereignty guaranteed for the South that slavery “would be unrestricted throughout the

entire territorial period.” The only way this could be resolved was when settlers applied

for statehood and decided on slavery there by themselves. Until then, it was anybody’s

game.

The reason that popular sovereignty failed was because of the fact that there

needed to be a state legislature within the territory for slavery to be decided on. When the

states rose up, they couldn’t even raise a legislative system, so the issue was left

unsettled. Later, the Omnibus Bill was passed by Clay. He figured that Congress for the

most part wanted compromise, but he was wrong. The bill failed, but it was taken up by a

man named Steven Douglas and split into parts which he sent through Congress as a

compromise. In the end, through his plan, the states were divided between free and slave

states, and the west turned out to be just like the eastern territories… even.