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Anusha Sinha
5/13/2010
Pd. 4

Calhoun on the Clay Compromise

1. What does Calhoun see as the choice before Americans?
a. Calhoun says that the only way to preserve the Union is if the North gives
in to the South‟s demands, so that the Couth could remain in the Union
with her honor and dignity. This means that the North would have to
promise to never try to restrain, end, or contain slavery. Essentially,
slavery should be free to spread as it would naturally.
2. On what basis does he make his demands?
a. Calhoun says slavery is necessary for the South because it protects their
“social organization.” Without slavery the South would be thrown into
chaos. This chaos could be in the form of poverty, since the two main
things Southerners invested in were slaves and land. If slavery were to be
abolished, the southerners would lose money because their investments
would go from being worth thousands of dollars to nothing at all.
Additionally, many rich, white plantation owners would be left with acres of
land, which they would not be able to work themselves. They would now
have to PAY their former slaves to work the land for them. Although this
individually would not reduce them to poverty, to would definitely make
them poorer because they would have to pay wages to their farm-hands.
These factors would also reduce the Southerners to, in Calhoun‟s words,
“wretchedness” and “desolation.”
3. Is Calhoun optimistic or pessimistic about the Union‟s prospects?
a. Calhoun is most definitely pessimistic about the prospects of the Union.
Calhoun does not even let the reader become slowly accustomed to the
idea of disunion as a result of the “agitation” of slavery – he jumps right
into it in the first sentence itself. His main argument is also extremely
pessimistic because he is constantly saying that the Union is just hanging
together by threads and that the South will cut those threads if the North
does not give in to her demands in a timely fashion. In the last paragraph,
he almost sounds like a doctor with a patient on his death-bed. Doctors
are always saying that they will do everything in their power to save their
patients, and doctors are also always warning people about dangers and
telling them what they should to take care of or cure themselves. If, for
example, and obese patient refuses to reduce his food intake, there is little
a doctor can do to prevent the patient from becoming sicker. Therefore,
when the patient dies, his blood will be on his own hands, not the doctor‟s.

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This is exactly what Calhoun is saying because he is warning the people

of all the horrible things that will happen if the “agitation” does not stop and
claims he is doing everything in his hands to save the Union. He,
therefore, does not want to be held accountable if the North refuses to
heed his “wise” advice and continues to oppress the South. Another
example of Calhoun‟s pessimism is the way that he is always saying
everything is in the North‟s hands. This in itself is not pessimistic but after
making this statement repeatedly, Calhoun goes on to talk about what will
happen if (more like when) the North refuses to give the South what she
wants and do what was right (from the South‟s POV). He only included the
sentences on how the North‟s silence would be interpreted because he
thought the North would respond to his speech with silence and
indifference. If he truly thought that the North would give in and the Union
would be saved, he would never have added these sentences.

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Anusha Sinha
5/19/2010
Pd. 4

“House Divided” Speech – Outline:

Lincoln begins this speech by saying that before we make any decisions to
improve or change our current position, we must identify this position. According to
Lincoln our current position is not a very good one. He writes that five years ago,
congress came up with an act that would end all this fighting over slavery; however, this
act has been very ineffectual, since the debates and verbal (and in Kansas physical)
fights have only increased in number. Lincoln believes that there is no way for the
country to carry on in this way – that is, half slave-power and half free-soil. He thinks
that the country can only exist as either a slave nation or a free-soil nation (i.e. the
country does not need another “compromise”). He also seems to understand that this
nation is not going to become all slave or all free without some sort of disaster (probably
a war). Either slavery will be completely eradicated from every state and territory, or it
will be prevalent in all of them.
* * *
Lincoln now notes that in the “new year of 1854,” slavery was banned from more
than half the states and a great majority of the national territories by Congress;
however, four days later, there was a great debate in Congress and from this talk came
a piece of legislature which opened all the territories to slavery.
* * *
Lincoln now attacks the idea of popular sovereignty, saying that this is probably
the worst instance to apply “the sacred right of self-government” to. Slavery is such a
horrible evil that Congress should be able to object to the spread of it at any time.
Lincoln also briefly describes the deferring of the Dred Scott decision. He sets up some
uneasy feelings in many a free-soil reader by describing that, according to the Kansas-
Nebraska Act; it is not clear whether it is even possible for the people of a Territory to
ban slavery. Apparently, this question was for the Supreme Court, which was currently
comprised of mostly slave-owning men and whose Chief Justice was a die-hard pro-
slavery supporter. This makes the reader think of some sort of foul play.
* * *
The next main idea the reader is introduce to is Senator Douglas‟s “„care not‟
policy.” Apparently, the senator does care whether or not slavery is established in the
territory. Lincoln implies that Senator Douglas, if reelected, will not care about the public
mind either.
* * *

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Lincoln then says that the Senator‟s indifferent policy and the Dred Scott
Decision come together very interestingly. The main points of these two combined are
as follows:
 African people and their descendants living in the United States can never
become citizens of any State and can therefore never enjoy the rights and
privileges given to citizens of the States.
 Neither Congress nor the people of a Territory can ban slaver from any
national territory. This allowed people to bring large numbers of slaves into
the territories without fearing that they would lose their great investments
should the government decide against slavery.
 Congress will not decide if a slave who is taken into a Free State is free or not
– this pleasure is left to the courts of any state the master forces his slave
into. This basically means that slave owners can now get away with taking
large numbers of slaves into Free States while keeping them in bondage. This
essentially ruins the point of have a “Free-Soil” State.
* * *
Lincoln now dives into the heart of the matter – the conspiracy. The first thing
that Lincoln points out is that the people of the territories were left “perfectly free,”
subjected “only to the Constitution.” Many, at the time of the Act‟s signing could not see
the pertinence of the Constitution to this matter, since the people of the territories hardly
had the same rights as the citizens of the States under the Constitution did. The citizens
were obliged to follow the Constitution, while the people of the territories were not – that
is until now. It seemed quite odd to refer to both the people of the territories and the
states in the same way; however, this was only added to the Act so that the Dred Scott
decision could be fit into place perfectly. In this way, the people‟s “freedom” was
essentially reduced to no freedom at all. And who but the author of the bill, Stephen
Douglas, can be blamed? His artfully equivocal words seemed to hold only positive
interpretations. Buried under all of the elegant prose was the one perfect interpretation
which could be widely applied to effectually spread slavery to every state in the Union.
Why do you think the Dred Scott decision was deferred and so strongly supported by
the President even before it was announced? How was it that these two occurrences
happened directly after each other? Does it not seem strange that so many pieces of
legislature and decisions fit together so perfectly to build the strongest support for
slavery yet? It seems that the only plausible story is one that ties the great leaders of
today together in a great web of conspiracy, “drawn up before the first blow was struck.”
The South‟s Peculiar Institution, existing in a moral society like ours today, cannot
survive without “peculiar” laws to support it. As of late, these laws have been harder to
push through Congress, seeing as many are turning away from this great evil. This
caused the evil‟s supporters to find some other way to secure their way of life. This
immoral institution can no longer exist in our country without foul play on the part of its

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proponents. This is, in itself, perhaps the best argument for the abolition of slavery. The
good people of Illinois must not fool themselves into believing that the slave power will
eventually be overpowered and outnumbered– as if they would let that happen. We
must constantly be on guard, for the enemy will sneak up like a thief in the dark, his only
weapons now are his dirty tricks. We cannot simply resort to the old and the
comfortable, for if the old and familiar is reelected, he will only continue on his path of
corruption. The country is in for some big change; be sure to support the man who will
passionately protect the rights of Illinois through this era, instead of being passively
indifferent and “caring not” whether our posterity will one day be surrounded by slaves.
* * *