In February 1849 the Virginia legislature declared almost unanimously that the Wilmot Proviso, if passed, would meet with "resistance at all hazards and to the last extremity' in that State. South Carolina followed with a recom mendation for a convention of the Southern States; 3 Oct. 1849, Mississippi held a South ern rights convention which embodied the prin ciples of the Virginia resolutions in an address to the people. As a result of this agitation Southern rights associations and committees of correspondence were organized in every section of the South. Throughout the North public opinion was crystallizing against the South on the subject of slavery; leading men were opposed to what was termed a "further sur render to Southern demands.' When Congress met, all the subjects in dis pute were summed up in the proposed °com promise of 1850" (q.v.). The South was thor oughly aroused. The Mississippi delegates in Congress unanimously asked their State legis lature for instructions how to vote on the compromise measures. The reply was a con demnation of the proposed compromise and the election of delegates to the Nashville Con vention to be held on the first Monday in July 1850. South Carolina followed suit. The other Southern States in irregular manner chose delegates to the Nashville Convention. But when the representatives came together they proved to be conservative. Formal protests against the principal items of the compromise bill still pending were voted; but no threats were offered and the body adjourned to meet on the call of the president, who was a Whig and supposedly not unfavorable to Henry Clay's last great scheme. The convention never met again. This meeting had been intended on the part of South. Carolina and, perhaps, Mis sissippi, as the first great step toward concerted action on the question of secession. It failed. The secessionists were still in a minority in all the Southern States except South Carolina and possibly Mississippi and Texas. Congress after much angry debate passed the "compromises? The abolitionists of the North declared that the cause of humanity and good morals had been betrayed. Their speakers were applauded when disunion was threatened or when it was as serted that the Fugitive Slave Law, one of the items of the compromise, could not be enforced. Nearly all senators from the Southern States signed a formal protest against the compromise and had it published in the record.
Co-operation among Southern States having failed, separate State action was now recom mended, and South Carolina led off with a State convention in 1851, but failing to get a two-thirds majority in that body the secession party failed again. The agi tation was continued. In Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, States Rights conventions were held and resolutions still looking to secession were adopted. In the elections which ensued in all the Cotton States the extremists were so badly beaten by a combination of Whigs and conservative Democrats that the movement was given up and the compromises were acquiesced in. Even Robert Barnwell Rhett (q.v.), the arch-secessionist of South Carolina, gave up the fight, resigned his seat in the United States Senate and retired to his plantation.
Notwithstanding the opposition in the North to the Fugitive Slave Law, and the persistent discontent and agitation of such men as Yancey in the South against the so-called unequal op portunity of slaveholders in the Territories, the sober element of the country accepted the com promises of 1850. The election of 1852 con
firmed this view. The Democrats, who had come to be the conservative party of the na tion and who emphasized the importance of quieting both the abolitionist and pro-slavery agitation, elected their candidates almost with out opposition. The President. Franklin Pierce, chose his Cabinet from both North and South; he without any doubt meant to "let sleeping dogs lie.' However, the country was at heart divided, and when the administration paid $10,000,000 to quiet the claims of Mexico to lands on our southwestern frontier it was taken by serious anfl conservative people as a sign that the South was really in the saddle and that the slave-expansionists meant to make use of their position; but later when the bill for the erection of the portion of the Louisiana Pur chase territory now known as Kansas and Ne braska into a Territory came up it was impos sible to prevent the representatives of our two civilizations from renewing the struggle for su premacy. Senator Douglas thought to solve the whole problem by enacting a law giving both sections of the country equal chances to win possession of new States, that is, the new comers, whether pro- or anti-slavery in senti ment and practice, were to be protected by national law until the population of the new Territory had grown large enough to be ad mitted as a State into the Union. In the formation of a State constitution the question of slavery was to be settled according to the interests and wishes of the majority. This was local or "squatter sovereignty" (q.v.), as it was called. The advocates of this scheme thought it would please the North because that section would feel certain that her teeming population of free emigrants would secure to her the con trol of the new States. The South wouldwhave all cause of complaint removed because she would at least have the opportunity to plant her standards in all the common territory without official interference and under the guarantee of national protection.
But this meant the repeal of the Missouri Compromise (q.v.), by this time a sort of fetich in the eyes of the majority of people in the Northern States. It also meant the undoing of the now accepted legislation of 1850. But a strong party arose declaring that the Missouri Compromise was itself unconstitutional—the idea advanced by John Randolph and a few of his friends in 1820. The press of the South al most without exception joined in the demand for the open and formal repeal of the compromise legislation and for the adoption of the popular sovereignty plan. The Cabinet approved the new and radical departure and during the spring of 1854 Congress debated and passed the Doug las bill by large majorities and the President made it a law on 30 May 1854.
Immediately Kansas and Nebraska (q.v.) became the battle-ground of the two par ties and in every State the war of words was waged hotter than ever. During the summer of 1854 "anti-Nebraska men," as they were called, met together in their vari ous States and formed local organizations. They were able to secure the election of 103 members of the national House of Representa tives and 15 senators. The new party, made up of remnants of all the older parties and embracing not a few abolitionists, took the name of Republican and declared unceasing warfare on the further spread of slavery. The next year it polled 114 electoral votes as against 174 for the Democratic candidate.