1. Attempts to maintain the Union 1845-1854

2. Mark off in your planner

3. Key Words: Great learning: Even better: Good learning:
Describe the chronology of the 1850 Compromise
Great learning:
Explain the key features of the 1850 Compromise
Even better:
Decide whether the 1850 Compromise was a compromise, or an armistice
Key Words:

4. 1850 Compromise Lead up to the Compromise Details of the
Chronology of the
Compromise
Debate surrounding the
Compromise

5. Debates of the 1850 Compromise

6. Flipped Learning Create key profiles for the following people: Include
Henry Clay
Daniel Webster
Stephen Douglas
Millard Fillmore
William Seward
Zachary Taylor
John Calhoun
Jefferson Davis
Include
Party and State (N/S)
Their career at the time of the compromise (beginning/end?)
View on the Compromise
Specific actions/speeches
Key quotes
Wider political career

7. Compromise of 1850

9. Did your person represent a Northern state?
Southern

10. Did your person belong to the Democrat party?
Whig

11. Did your person work in the Senate at the time of the 1850 Compromise?
Democrat
Whig

12. Was your person in favor of the Compromise?
Democrat
Whig

13. BONUS ROUND
Tell me one fact about your person’s wider political career
What was your person’s specific involvement with the 1850 Compromise?

14. Henry Clay Whig from Kentucky
United States Senator for Kentucky. End of his career. Last major involvement in national affairs. Dies 2 years after the compromise.
In favour of the Compromise
Clay introduced an omnibus bill (8 resolutions to the senate), first 6 grouped together as concessions.
I believe it is the dove of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of the Capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this distracted land. I believe that it will be attended with all these beneficent effects.
‘Great Compromiser’ – 1820 Missouri Compromise and creator of the third tariff in the Nullification Crisis 1933

15. John Calhoun Democrat from South Carolina
Senator for South Carolina > dies in the same year as the Compromise
Against the Compromise
Speech to Congress, but James Mason of Virginia made it. Calhoun was too weak to speak for himself, and so was sat wrapped in flannels.
“The great and primary cause of danger is that the equilibrium between the two sections has been destroyed”
Defender of states rights (specifically Southern values from perceived Northern threats). Leading politician in the Nullification Crisis. Had raised the issue of secession on several occasions through out his career. Served as Secretary of State and Vice President.

16. Daniel Webster Whig from Massachusetts
Senator for Massachusetts > Rejected Vice-Presidency > Secretary of State > his name had been mentioned in connection with possible Presidential candidacy (1852 election)
In favour of the Compromise
Seventh of March Speech (3.5 hours, little preparation – on drugs). Followed final speech of John Calhoun.
Mr. President: I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American and a member of the Senate of the United States.
Federal action to stimulate the economy. Denounced nullification when South Carolina adopted it. Long an opponent of slavery extension, he spoke against annexing Texas and against going to war with Mexico.

17. William Seward Whig from New York
Senator for New York (beginning of career- had been involved in local political before as Governor of New York). He was an Abolitionist.
Against the Compromise
Higher Law speech made on the Senate floor. Condemned by Clay, Taylor and Southerners.
Slavery was an immoral practice and argued that there existed “a higher law than the Constitution.”
Goes on to be Secretary of State during the American Civil War

18. Jefferson Davis Democrat from Mississippi
Senator for Mississippi > early on in his career, has been in the HoR (rising star – Southern Nationalism)
Against the Compromise, particularly California as a free state
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (after the Civil War)
“I somewhat impatiently declared my unwillingness to transfer to future generations a problem which they would be relatively less able to meet than we were”
Leaves Senate and becomes Governor of Mississippi. Staunch states’ rights Democrat and champion of the unrestricted expansion of slavery into the territories Will go on to be President of the Confederacy (southern states that secede from the Union), and will lead to the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Confederacy will ultimately lose…

19. Stephen Douglas Democrat from Illinois
Had been in the House of Representatives and involved with state politics (Secretary of State of Illinois)
In favour of the Compromise (one of the strongest advocates)
Took over control of the Compromise bill, he split it down into single bills.
He becomes one of the Democrats national leaders, fails to win Presidential nominations (pierce). Stays in the Senate – causes political upheaval with the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

20. Zachary Taylor Whig from New York
President (died mid-way through Compromise – July 1850)
Against the Compromise
As Congress negotiated and secession talks grew, Taylor threatened to send troops into New Mexico to protect its border from Texas, with himself leading the army.
anyone "taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang ... with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico."
N/A – dead.

21. Millard Fillmore Whig from New York
Vice Presidents > President (after death of Taylor)
In favour of the Compromise
When he takes over as Presidents, he dismissed the cabinet and changed the administration's policy. The new president exerted pressure to gain the passage of the Compromise, which was enacted by September.
He sought election to a full term in 1852, but was passed over by the Whigs in favour of Winfield Scott.

22. America source questions

23. Adapted from the Seventh of March Speech to the US Senate (1850) by Daniel Webster, a leading Northern Senator. He gave this speech to the US Senate in favour of the Compromise.
Mr. President: I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American and a member of the Senate of the United States. It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States; a body not yet moved from its respectability, not lost to a just sense of its own dignity and its own high responsibilities and a body to which the country looks, with confidence, for wise, moderate, patriotic and healing counsels. It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agitations and are surrounded by very considerable dangers to our institutions and government. The imprisoned winds are let loose. The East, the North and the stormy South combine to throw the whole ocean into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies and disclose its profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard myself, as holding, or as fit to hold, the helm in this combat with the political elements.
One together – then give half the class one source and other half of the class another source.

24. Adapted from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Volume One (of Two), by Jefferson Davis, 1881
While the compromise measures of 1850 were pending and the excitement concerning them was at its highest, I one day overtook Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, and Mr. Berrien, of Georgia, in the Capitol grounds. They were in earnest conversation. It was the 7th of March, the day on which Mr. Webster had delivered his great speech. Mr. Clay, addressing me in the friendly manner which he had always employed since I was a schoolboy, asked me what I thought of the speech. I liked it better than he did. He then suggested that I should “join the compromise men,” saying that it was a measure which he thought would probably give peace to the country for thirty years. Then, turning to Mr. Berrien, he said, “You and I will be under ground before that time, but our young friend here may face trouble in the future.” I somewhat impatiently declared my unwillingness to transfer to future generations a problem which they would be relatively less able to meet than we were

25. Adapted from The New York Herald, September 8, 1850
Adapted from The New York Herald, September 8, The New York Herald was a Northern, popular and controversial newspaper.
Within the short space of two days, the House of Representatives has passed four of the most important measures connected with the slavery agitation, which grew out of the acquisition of new territory through the Mexican War. Leaving only the Fugitive Slave Bill and the bill for the abolition of slave traffic in the District of Columbia to be disposed of, the former having been passed by the Senate and the latter being now under consideration in that body. The whole of this disagreeable subject will, therefore, be shortly wound up and a check put to the ultras and fanatics of different sections of the Union, who have exerted themselves to keep alive the slavery agitation and maintain an estrangement of feeling between the Northern and the Southern States. The subject, therefore, which has caused so much uneasiness to the friends of the Union everywhere, as well as to the admirers of our political institutions at home and abroad, is set at rest in a manner satisfactory to all.