There were,in the second place,economic reasons why slavery was inevitably drawn into the national sphere.It was the basis of the planting system which had direct commercial relations with the North and European countries;it was affected by federal laws respecting tariffs,bounties,ship subsidies,banking,and kindred matters.The planters of the South,almostwithout exception,looked upon the protective tariff as a tribute laid upon them for the benefit of Northern industries.As heavy borrowers of money in the North,they were generally in favor of "easy money,"if not paper currency,as an aid in the repayment of their debts.This threw most of them into opposition to the Whig program for a United States Bank.All financial aids to American shipping they stoutly resisted,preferring to rely upon the cheaper service rendered by English shippers.Internal improvements,those substantial ties that were binding the West to the East and turning the traffic from New Orleans to Philadelphia and New York,they viewed with alarm.Free homesteads from the public lands,which tended to overbalance the South by building free states,became to them a measure dangerous to their interests.Thus national economic policies,which could not by any twist or turn be confined to state control,drew the slave system and its defenders into the political conflict that centered at Washington.
Slavery and the Territories-the Missouri Compromise （1820）.-Though men continually talked about "taking slavery out of politics,"it could not be done.By 1818slavery had become so entrenched and the anti-slavery sentiment so strong,that Missouri's quest for admission brought both houses of Congress into a deadlock that was broken only by compromise.The South,having half the Senators,could prevent the admission of Missouri stripped of slavery;andMap of Missouri Compromisethe North,powerful in the House of Representatives,could keep Missouri with slavery out of the union indefinitely.An adjustment of pretensions was the last resort.Maine,separated from the parent state of Massachusetts,was brought into the union with freedom and Missouri with bondage.At the same time it was agreed that the remainder of the vast Louisiana territory north of the par-allel of 36°30'should be,like the old Northwest,forever free;while the south-ern portion was left to slavery.In reality this was an immense gain for liberty.The area dedicated to free farmers was many times greater than that left to the planters.The principle was once more asserted that Congress had full power to prevent slavery in the territories.
The Territorial Question Reopened by the Wilmot Proviso.-To the Southern leaders,the annexation of Texas and the conquest of Mexico meant renewed security to the planting interest against the increasing wealth and population of the North.Texas,it was said,could be divided into four slave states.The new territories secured by the treaty of peace with Mexico contained the promise of at least three more.Thus,as each new free soil state knocked for admission into the union,the South could demand as the price of its consent a new slave state.No wonder Southern statesmen saw,in the annexation of Texas and the conquest of Mexico,slavery and King Cotton triumphant-secure for all time against adverse legislation.Northern leaders were equally convinced that the Southern prophecy was true.Abolitionists and moderate opponents of slav-ery alike were in despair.Texas,they lamented,would fasten slavery upon the country forevermore."No living man,"cried one,"will see the end of slavery in the United States!"
It so happened,however,that the events which,it was thought,would secure slavery let loose a storm against it.A sign appeared first on August 6,1846,only a few months after war was declared on Mexico.On that day,David Wilmot,a Democrat from Pennsylvania,introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution to the effect that,as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the republic of Mexico,slavery should be forever excluded from every part of it."The Wilmot Proviso,"as the resolution was popularly called,though defeated on that occasion,was a challenge to the South.
The South answered the challenge.Speaking in the House of Representatives,Robert Toombs of Georgia boldly declared:"In the presence of the living God,if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of California and New Mexico ...I am for disunion."South Carolina announced that the day for talk had passed and the time had come to join her sister states "in resisting the application of the Wilmot Proviso at any and all hazards."A conference,assembled at Jackson,Mississippi,in the autumn of 1849,called a general convention of Southern states to meet at Nashville the following summer.The avowed purpose was to arrest "the course of aggression"and,if that was not possible,to provide "in the last resort for their separate welfare by the formation of a compact and union that will afford protection to their liberties and rights."States that had spurned South Carolina's plea for nullification in 1832responded to this new appeal with alacrity-an augury of the secession to come.
The Great Debate of 1850.-The temper of the country was white hot when Congress convened in December,1849.It was a memorable session,memorable for the great men who took part in the debates and memorable for the grand Compromise of 1850which it produced.In the Senate sat for the last time three heroic figures:Webster from the North,Calhoun from the South,and Clay from a border state.For nearly forty years these three had been leaders of men.All had grown old and gray in service.Calhoun was already broken in health and in a few months was to be borne from the political arena forever.Clay and Web-ster had but two more years in their allotted span.
