Clay continued to travel the country with her son, Charles, as his manservant. It was said that Clay used Charles as an example of his kindness toward slaves, and he eventually freed Charles in He loved his country partly because it was his own country, but mostly because it was a free country; and he burned with a zeal for its advancement, prosperity and glory, because he saw in such, the advancement, prosperity and glory, of human liberty, human right and human nature.
He desired the prosperity of his countrymen partly because they were his countrymen, but chiefly to show to the world that freemen could be prosperous. Books: David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Famed orator and Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster , while opposed to the extension of slavery, also saw the compromise of as a way of averting national discord, and disappointed his abolitionist supporters by siding with Clay.
When Clay, facing health problems, grew too ill to argue his case before the senate, his cause was taken up by Democratic senator Stephen A. John C. When the full compromise failed to pass, Douglas split the omnibus bill into individual bills, which permitted congressmen to either vote or abstain on each topic. The untimely death of President Zachary Taylor and ascendancy of pro-compromise Vice President Millard Fillmore to the White House helped contribute to the passage of each bill.
Calhoun died in and Clay and Webster two years later, making their roles in the Compromise of one of their last acts as statesmen. The first Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress in and authorized local governments to seize and return people who had escaped slavery to their owners while imposing penalties on anyone who had attempted to help them gain their freedom.
The Act encountered fierce resistance from abolitionists, many of whom who felt it was tantamount to kidnapping. The Fugitive Slave Act of compelled all citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves and denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial. It also placed control of individual cases in the hands of federal commissioners, who were paid more for returning a suspected slave than for freeing them, leading many to argue the law was biased in favor of Southern slaveholders.
Outrage over the new law only increased traffic along the Underground Railroad during the s. Northern states avoided enforcing the law and by , the number of runaways successfully returned to slaveholders hovered around just Both Acts were repealed by Congress on June 28, , following the outbreak of the Civil War , the event proponents of the Compromise of had hoped to avoid.
It is equal; it is fair; it is a compromise. If passed, the North would gain California as a free state and an end to the slave trade in Washington, D. Southerners protested any restriction on slavery, and Northerners fumed at the idea of returning fugitive slaves. Northerners supported the admission of California to the Union as a free state and the end of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
Southerners favored the stricter Fugitive Slave Law, the resolution of the Texas-New Mexico boundary issue, and the possibility of slavery extending into the territories. Different coalitions of senators and representatives supported the key provisions that Congress passed as separate bills.
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