York later nominated Senator John A. Dix for Governor, and the split in the Democratic Party in that State was complete, and lost the election for the National ticket. Many Whigs hesitated between Taylor and Van Buren, but Horace Greeley, in the New York Tribune, advocated the election of Taylor. The vote in New York, which was again the pivotal State, was: Taylor, 218,603; Cass, 114,318; Van Buren, 120,510. The total Free-Soil vote was 291,263. It was a strange and fateful effect that made the Liberty Party in 1844 divide the Whigs and give the victory to the Democrats; and in 1848 the Free-Soil Party, a successor of the Liberty Party, divided the Democrats and gave the Whigs the victory.

The Campaign of '48 assumes another important aspect, in that Mr. Lincoln took an active part in it; it fixed his ideas on slavery, and impressed him with the utter hopelessness of reconciling the North and South on this question. Mr. Lincoln had made his debut in the House in December, 1847, with the famous "Spot Resolutions." In the Spring of '48 he urged his Illinois friends to give up Clay and support Gen. Taylor. He attended the Whig Convention at Philadelphia and was well satisfied with the nominations and the prospects of victory. Late in July he made a strong speech for Taylor on the floor of the House, attracting the attention of the campaign managers to such an extent that he was sent to New England where he delivered a number of speeches, pleading with the New Eng. landers not to join the Free-Soil movement, but to vote with the Whig Party. Here he saw the strength of the anti

slavery movement, and what he heard made him think deeper on the great question of the hour. After listening to one of Governor Seward's speeches at Boston, in September, he said, "Governor Seward, I have been thinking about what you said in your speech; I reckon you are right. We have got to deal with this slavery question, and got to give more attention to it than we have been doing." Later in the campaign Mr. Lincoln stumped Illinois for Taylor.

When the Thirty-first Congress convened for its first session, on December 3, 1849, all was confusion and uncertainty in regard to the situation. A great many felt that the crisis had been reached at last, and that nothing but a civil war could result. The South feared that its long cherished plan of more slave territory was to be frustrated, and the anxiety in the North that the territory acquired from Mexico might be made slave was equally great. An event now occurred that brought matters directly to an acute crisis and necessitated a settlement or a war. Gold had been discovered in California early in 1848, and instantly there was a tremendous influx of population, with the result that late in 1849 California was ready for admission into the Union, not as a slave State, as the South fondly hoped, but as free soil. With the convening of Congress came the President's message, and it was a severe blow to the South, for it advocated the admission of California as a free State. The South now indeed saw its plan rapidly weakening. Violent opposition was at once made to the admission of California as disturbing the equal balance between the two sections, and in addition the South com

plained bitterly of the difficulty of capturing slaves who escaped into the free States. She also complained of the constant agitation of the slave question, and now demanded that the territories should be open to slavery, and asserted that any attempt to enforce the Wilmot Proviso or to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia would lead to an immediate dissolution of the Union.

Such was the acute situation in December, 1849, and the men, scenes and debates which attended the solution of this grave crisis present a remarkable and dramatic picture. All eyes now turned to Mr. Clay, the great Compromisor, then in his seventy-third year. In January, 1850, he began his efforts to bring about what proved to be the last compromise between the North and the South. Four great speeches were delivered on the resolutions introduced by him. Mr. Clay, so feeble that he had to be assisted up the Capitol steps, spoke early in February. On March 4th Mr. Calhoun, too weak to speak himself, had his speech, full of antagonism and foreboding, read by a colleague. Three days after Calhoun's speech, Webster delivered his famous "Seventh of March" speech, in which he sacrificed the support of thousands of friends, and demoralized the entire North by condemning the Abolitionists and advocating the passage of the Compromise measures. On March 11th Mr. Seward delivered his "Higher Law" speech, denouncing the Compromise. The great triumvirate, Clay, Calhoun and Webster, appeared in this debate for the last time before the American public. Calhoun died on the last day of March. Late in '51 Clay resigned his seat in the

Senate and died at Washington, June 29, 1852. Webster took the office of Secretary of State, received a few votes. in the Whig Convention and refused to support General Scott in the election of 1852, and died broken-hearted October 24, 1852.

The Compromise of 1850, as finally agreed on, provided that Utah and New Mexico should be organized into territories without reference to slavery; California to be admitted as a free State; $10,000,000.00 to be paid Texas for her claim to New Mexico; a new Fugitive Slave Law; and the slave trade to be abolished in the District of Columbia. The compromise was viewed with great indignation by the North, and was in many respects extremely unsatisfactory to the South, who was now certain that her plan of extension of slave area was lost. The political leaders of both parties now argued and pretended that the slavery question was absolutely settled, inasmuch as there was no further territory to be partitioned, and that Clay's Compromise had included all possible phases of the subject. But it was apparent to those who looked beneath the surface that the situation was not settled at all; nobody in the North, however, looked for such a startling and rash course as was adopted by the South in 1854, and which resulted, in that year, in the formation of the Republican Party.

CHAPTER VIII.

BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

"Resolved, That of all outrages hitherto perpetrated or attempted upon the North and freedom by the slave leaders, and their natural allies, not one compares in bold and impudent audacity, treachery and meanness with this, the Nebraska Bill, as to the sum of all its villainies it adds the repudiation of a solemn compact, held as sacred as the Constitution itself for a period of thirty-four years."

Adopted at First Meeting, Ripon, Wis., February 28, 1854.

The new Fugitive Slave Law (passed as a part of the Compromise) was unreasonable and extremely harsh in its terms, and did more than anything else to continue the bitterness between the North and the South. Opposition to it appeared in the North almost immediately after its passage, and it was clear that, because of its terms, it would prove to be more of a dead letter than the original law of 1793. The fact of the matter was that the South forced its passage in the harshest terms conceivable, with the sinister plan of compelling the North to violate it so that bad faith could be charged; and the North did not hesitate to violate a law so repugnant to constitutional and natural rights and human sympathy. Personal Liberty Laws were passed in many Northern States, practically nullifying the Act; and as a result of it, the Underground Railroad, which had been organized about 1839 by the Quakers, did its most effective