Polk, James Knox (1795-1849), 11th president of the United States (1845-1849). He was one of the nation's most successful presidents. During his one term in office the United States expanded westward to the Pacific Ocean, California and the New Mexico Territory were won in the Mexican War (1846-1848), and the Oregon country was acquired through negotiations with Great Britain. A Jacksonian Democrat, Polk succeeded in putting the economic principles of the Democratic Party into law. However, he failed to prevent a split in his party over the slavery issue.
Despite his notable achievements, Polk has been consigned to relative obscurity among U.S. presidents. Although an able and extremely hard-working leader, he was not an imaginative statesman. However, as president he reflected the then-prevalent American belief in manifest destiny, the idea that the United States had a natural right to control all the territory between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He was also a firm believer in the strictest interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, which barred interference in the western hemisphere by European powers. Because he secured territorial growth, Polk is considered one of the most important of the American presidents.
Tyler, John (1790-1862), tenth president of the United States (1841-1845), and the first vice president to become president upon the death of the chief executive. Since the Constitution of the United States was vague on the subject, Tyler made the decision to have himself sworn in as president instead of considering himself acting president and calling for new elections. This action was bitterly denounced in Tyler's own day, but it set a precedent that has been followed ever since. Although he is considered one of the minor U.S. presidents, Tyler deserves to be remembered for this precedent, as well as for the annexation of Texas, the one great achievement of his administration.
Taylor, Zachary (1784-1850), 12th president of the United States (1849-1850). He was a career army officer who was elected on the strength of the victories he won in the Mexican War (1846-1848). As a soldier he was a courageous and inspired leader who could always be found where the fighting was thickest. He never lost a battle. His men admired him and called him Old Rough and Ready. He was disdainful of military pomp and formal dress and was known for his plainness of manner and appearance.
Taylor was president for little more than a year. Although he lacked political experience, he resolutely faced up to the principal issue of the day, the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Although he was a Southern slaveholder, he was first and foremost a supporter of the Union, upholding the national interest over sectional interests. Like President Andrew Jackson, Taylor refused to compromise his principles to appease the South. His death paved the way for a succession of issue-straddling presidents whose attempts to mollify both sides at best delayed, and did not prevent, sectional conflict.
Frémont, John Charles (1813-90), American explorer, army officer, and politician, noted for his explorations of the Far West.
Frémont was born on January 31, 1813, in Savannah, Georgia, and was educated at the College of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1838 he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army. During the following year Frémont was a member of the expedition of the French explorer Joseph Nicolas Nicollet that surveyed and mapped the region between the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Between 1842 and 1845 Frémont led three expeditions into Oregon Territory. During the first, in 1842, he mapped most of the Oregon Trail and ascended, in present-day Wyoming, the second highest peak in the Wind River Mountains, afterward called Fremont Peak (4185 m/13,730 ft). In 1843 he completed the survey of the Oregon Trail to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast. The party, guided by the famous scout Kit Carson, turned south and then east, making a midwinter crossing of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Frémont made his third expedition in 1845, further exploring both the area known as the Great Basin and the Pacific coast.
During the Mexican War (1846-48), Frémont attained the rank of major and assisted greatly in the annexation of California. He was appointed civil governor of California by the U.S. Navy commodore Robert Field Stockton, but in a conflict of authority between Stockton and the U.S. Army brigadier general Stephen Watts Kearny, Frémont refused to obey Kearny's orders. He was arrested for mutiny and insubordination and was subsequently court-martialed. He resigned his commission after President James Polk remitted his sentence of dismissal from the service. In the winter of 1848 and 1849 Frémont led an expedition to locate passes for a proposed railway line from the upper Río Grande to California. In 1850 he was elected one of the first two senators from California, serving until 1851. In 1856 he was the presidential candidate of the newly formed Republican Party, but was defeated by James Buchanan. During the American Civil War Frémont was appointed a major general in the Union Army and held several important but brief commands; he resigned his commission in 1862 rather than serve under General John Pope. In 1864 Frémont was again a presidential nominee; he withdrew, however, in favor of President Abraham Lincoln. He served as governor of the territory of Arizona from 1878 to 1883. In 1890 he was restored to the rank of major general and retired with full pay. He died in New York City on July 13, 1890.
Northeast Boundary Dispute, long-standing dispute between the United States and Great Britain concerning the northeastern boundary line with eastern Canada. It arose, like the Northwest Boundary Dispute, from the vagueness of the line laid down in Article II of the Treaty of Paris (1783). This article established that the line run from the northwestern corner of Nova Scotia, northward from the source of the Saint Croix River to the dividing range of the Québec Highlands and then to the northwestern head of the Connecticut River down the Connecticut River to the 45th parallel and west along that parallel to the Saint Lawrence River. It was difficult to state exactly where the dividing line of the highlands lay, although it was clear that Great Britain wished that those highlands should form a buttress to the fortifications of Québec. This part of the boundary caused the most trouble. The location of the northwestern head of the Connecticut led to much dispute. Jay's Treaty settled what was meant by the St. Croix line, but neither the boundary terms in the Treaty of Ghent (1814) nor the decision (1831) of William I, king of the Netherlands, made the lines clear. The king had been chosen to arbitrate the dispute but recommended a solution unacceptable to the U.S. The quarrel over the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay was easily settled (1817), and the United States obtained Mosse, Frederick, and Dudley islands. The Aroostook War (1838-39), a bloodless controversy between New Brunswick and Maine, made both the U.S. and British governments wish for a definite boundary (see Aroostook). Accordingly, Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton, was sent by Great Britain to Washington as a special minister, and after informal talks with Secretary of State Daniel Webster, he arrived at a satisfactory solution, known as the Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842). Great Britain secured the highlands and a circuitous route between Québec and Halifax; the U.S. secured seven-twelfths of the disputed territory and the right to carry timber down the St. John River. In lieu of territory lost by Maine and Massachusetts, the U.S. gained Rouses Point on Lake Champlain.
Manifest Destiny, jingoistic tenet holding that territorial expansion of the United States is not only inevitable but divinely ordained. The phrase was first used by the American journalist and diplomat John Louis O'Sullivan, in an editorial supporting annexation of Texas, in the July-August 1845 edition of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, a magazine that featured literature and nationalist opinion. The phrase was later used by expansionists in all political parties to justify the acquisition of California, the Oregon Territory, and Alaska. By the end of the 19th century the doctrine was being applied to the proposed annexation of various islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
Spot Resolutions
In December 1847 Lincoln challenged the truth of this contention. He introduced a resolution questioning whether the spot on which the firing took place was actually in U.S. territory. In another resolution he claimed that the American troops were on that spot in violation of the orders of their commanding officer, General Zachary Taylor. The next month, Lincoln supported a Whig resolution declaring that the Mexican War had been “unnecessarily and unconstitutionally . . . begun by the President.”
Lincoln's “spot resolutions” made little impression either on Congress or on the president, but they caused an uproar in Illinois, where the war was approved of by most voters. Lincoln was denounced as a traitor, and opposition newspapers gleefully called him Spotty Lincoln. However, despite his opinion of the war, once war was declared, Lincoln voted for all appropriations in support of it.
Conscience Whigs Anti-Slavery Whigs
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, agreement, signed on February 2, 1848, between the United States and Mexico that marked the end of the Mexican War (1846-1848). The treaty established the boundary between Mexico and Texas at the Río Grande and ceded to the United States over 1,295,000 sq km (500,000 sq mi) of land, more than half of Mexico’s national territory. This land became the states of California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. In return, the United States paid an indemnity of $15,000,000 and assumed the financial claims of its citizens for damages against Mexico, which amounted to about $3,250,000.
The treaty contained a number of additional provisions. One, which guaranteed that Mexican property rights would be respected, was stricken from the final document by the Congress of the United States. In other provisions of the treaty, the U.S. government promised religious freedom for Mexicans in the conquered territory and agreed to restrain Native Americans from crossing the border to raid settlements in Mexico. The treaty also provided that future disputes between the two countries would be arbitrated.
Mexican War, conflict between the United States and Mexico, lasting from 1846 to 1848. The war resulted in a decisive U.S. victory and forced Mexico to relinquish all claims to approximately half its national territory. Mexico had already lost control of much of its northeastern territory as a result of the Texas Revolution (1835-1836). This land, combined with the territory Mexico ceded at the end of the war, would form the future U.S. states of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, as well as portions of the states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
Wilmot Proviso, amendment attached to an appropriations bill adopted in 1846 by the U.S. House of Representatives, proposed by David Wilmot, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania. At the conclusion of the Mexican War, President James Knox Polk requested from Congress the sum of $2 million in order to indemnify the Mexican government for territory annexed by the U.S. The Wilmot Proviso moved to exclude slavery from the acquired territory and was approved by the House on August 8, 1846. The U.S. Senate adjourned without considering the measure and, following a second approval by the House on February 1, 1847, the bill was rewritten by the Senate to exclude the amendment. Because it brought into sharp focus the differences then existing on the slavery question, the proviso was the subject of widespread controversy that resulted in increased hostility between the northern and southern states. The principle of the amendment became the basic policy of both the Free-Soil Party and the Republican Party.
Fillmore, Millard (1800-1874), 13th president of the United States (1850-1853) and the second vice president to finish the term of a deceased president. He succeeded Zachary Taylor at a critical moment in United States history. The Mexican War (1846-1848) had renewed the conflict between the Northern and Southern states over slavery, since it had added new territories to the United States. The debate over whether these territories should be admitted as free or slave states precipitated a crisis that threatened civil war. Much to the relief of Northern and Southern politicians, Fillmore pursued a moderate and conciliatory policy. He signed into law the Compromise of 1850, which admitted one territory as a free state and allowed slave owners to settle in the others. This compromise did not solve the basic problem of slavery but did preserve peace for nearly eleven years. During that time the North gained the industrial power that enabled it to defeat the South when civil war eventually came.
Tubman, Harriet, née Araminta Ross (circa 1820-1913), American abolitionist leader, born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland. In her youth she served as a field hand and house servant on a Maryland plantation, and in 1844 she married John Tubman, a free black. About 1849 she escaped to the North, and before the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 she made 19 journeys back to lead other slaves—including her own parents—to freedom along the clandestine route known as the Underground Railroad, personally guiding an estimated 300 of them to Canada. An associate of Frederick Douglass, John Brown, William H. Seward, and other prominent abolitionists, she became known as the Moses of her people. Her home in Auburn, New York, was an important station on the escape route. During the Civil War she served the Union army as cook, nurse, spy, and scout, working particularly in the coastal regions of South Carolina.
In later years Tubman maintained a home for aged blacks in Auburn, where she died.
Gold Rush of 1849, the massive movement of people to California following the discovery of gold there in 1848.
Seward, William Henry (1801-72), American statesman, born in Florida, New York, and educated at Union College, Schenectady, New York. He served as governor of New York State from 1839 to 1843, supporting educational reform and public works. From 1843 to 1849, he was engaged in the practice of law, specializing in criminal and patent cases. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1849 to 1861 (first as a Whig, then as a Republican), during which time he established an uncompromising antislavery policy. He was active in organizing the Republican Party, formed as a result of the Whig Party split over the slavery issue. From 1861 to 1869, he served as secretary of state in the Republican administrations of President Abraham Lincoln and President Andrew Johnson. His perceptiveness and diplomacy in this office were to a large degree responsible for preventing European intervention during the American Civil War. While secretary of state, Seward also advocated a policy of American expansion. Although he was unable to secure congressional approval for the purchase of several islands in the Caribbean Sea or for the annexation of Hawaii, he did secure consent for the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7,200,000. Alaska, considered by many to be an unwise purchase, was disparagingly called Seward's Icebox or Seward's Folly.
Popular Sovereignty, also called squatter sovereignty, in the 19th-century United States, right of territorial inhabitants applying for statehood to determine whether their state would or would not sanction slavery. This principle of self-determination became part of the Compromise Measures of 1850 and of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854; it had as one of its staunchest proponents the American statesman Stephen Douglas.
Free-Soil Party, American political party organized in 1848 on a platform opposing the extension of slavery. The growing conflict between proslavery and antislavery forces in the United States was intensified by the acquisition of new territories from Mexico and the ensuing argument over whether or not slavery would be permitted in those territories. The defeat of the Wilmot Proviso, which was intended to prevent the extension of slavery, and the struggle over it in Congress brought the conflict to a head; the refusal of both the Whig and Democratic parties to endorse the principles of the proviso convinced opposition groups of the need for a new party. The major groups involved in the organization of the Free-Soil Party at a convention in Buffalo, New York, in 1848 were the abolitionist Liberty Party, the antislavery Whigs, and a radical faction of the New York Democrats, the Barnburners, who had broken with the state party when it came under control of the conservative Hunkers.
The Free-Soil convention nominated Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams as candidates for president and vice president, respectively, and adopted a platform opposed to the extension of slavery and calling also for a homestead law and a tariff for revenue only. The slogan of the party was “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.” The party polled 291,263 votes in the election of 1848; it carried no states, but turned the election in New York to the Whigs, and thus played a decisive role in the election of President Zachary Taylor. The party also elected 2 U.S. senators and 14 representatives. The Compromise Measures of 1850 on the extension of slavery caused the return of the Barnburners to the Democratic Party and the loss of other allies, but the Free-Soil Party continued to function; in 1852, even though it polled fewer votes than four years previously, it increased its representation in Congress. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 caused the final breaking of the old party lines and resulted in the formation of the Republican Party, into which the Free-Soil Party was absorbed.
Fugitive Slave Laws, acts passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850, intended to facilitate the recapture and extradition of runaway slaves and to commit the federal government to the legitimacy of holding property in slaves. Both laws ultimately provoked dissatisfaction and rancor throughout the country. Northerners questioned the laws' infringements on civil liberty and deplored the national character they lent to the South's institution. Southerners complained that the laws were circumvented both because of legal deficiencies (especially the law of 1793) and growing popular hostility to enforcement. The controversy grew with the Republic itself.
Compromise Measures of 1850 or Compromise of 1850, series of five legislative enactments, passed by the U.S. Congress during August and September 1850. These measures, essentially the work of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, were designed to reconcile the political differences then dividing the antislavery and proslavery factions of Congress and the nation. The measures, sometimes referred to collectively as the Omnibus Bill, dealt chiefly with the question of whether slavery was to be sanctioned or prohibited in the regions acquired from Mexico as a result of the Mexican War. Two of the five measures represented concessions by the South to the North, authorizing abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia and admission of California as a free state. The third bill, a substantial concession to the South, was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which provided for the return of runaway slaves to their masters; the subsequent enforcement of this law was bitterly opposed by the abolitionists, who obtained broad popular support on this issue in the North. By the terms of the fourth measure, the territory east of California ceded to the United States by Mexico was divided into the territories of New Mexico (now New Mexico and Arizona) and Utah, and they were opened to settlement by both slaveholders and antislavery settlers. This measure superseded the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The fifth measure provided that Texas, already in the Union as a slave state, be awarded $10 million in settlement of claims to adjoining territory, further strengthening the South. The compromise measures resulted in a gradual intensification of the hostility between the slave and free states. See Also Clay, Henry; Fugitive Slave Laws; Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), U.S. law authorizing the creation of Kansas and Nebraska, west of the states of Missouri and Iowa and divided by the 40th parallel. It repealed a provision of the Missouri Compromise (1820) that had prohibited slavery in the territories north of 36° 30', and stipulated that the inhabitants of the territories should decide for themselves the legality of slaveholding. The passage of the act caused a realignment of the major U.S. political parties and greatly increased tension between North and South in the years before the American Civil War.
The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was sponsored by the Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. By opening up what had been Native American country to white settlement, Douglas and other northern leaders hoped to facilitate construction of a transcontinental railroad through their states rather than through the southern part of the country. The removal of the restriction on the expansion of slavery ensured southern support for the bill, which was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, 1854.
The act's passage and stormy implementation split the Democratic Party and destroyed the already badly divided Whigs. Whig opposition to the measure practically ended support for that party in the South. The northern Whigs joined antislavery Democrats and Know-Nothings to form the Republican Party in July 1854.
A conflict soon developed in Kansas between proslavery settlers from Missouri and antislavery newcomers who began to move into the territory from the northeastern states (see Border War). Fighting between the two groups continued for several years, aggravating the sectional controversy that led to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
Border War, also known as Bleeding Kansas, conflict in Kansas Territory between antislavery free staters and proslavery groups such as the Border Ruffians. Precipitated by the passage by the U.S. Congress in 1854 of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which left the question of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska to the vote of the settlers, the war continued intermittently for almost four years. The Border Ruffians, chiefly southerners who had moved to Missouri, conducted systematic raids into Kansas during the war, terrorizing and murdering antislavery settlers. Among the many bloody reprisals inflicted by free state settlers on the Border Ruffians and their supporters in Kansas was the attack in May 1856 by the abolitionist John Brown on settlers at Pottawatomie Creek. The antislavery forces finally triumphed in the Border War, but the bitterness of the struggle deepened the cleavage between North and South and accelerated the drift toward civil war.
Lecompton Constitution
Under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas could be organized as a slave or free territory, depending on the choice of its settlers. When the act passed in 1854, settlers on both sides of the issue moved to Kansas to influence the vote. The antislavery forces formed a legislature in Topeka, Kansas, while those favoring slavery made their capital at Lecompton. Both Buchanan and his predecessor, President Pierce, recognized the proslavery territorial legislature in Lecompton as the legitimate government. When the proslavery body drafted its so-called Lecompton Constitution and submitted it to Congress for statehood in 1857, Buchanan pressed for its acceptance, even after the constitution failed a popular vote in Kansas. Douglas protested bitterly that the president was trying to override the will of the people. In an effort to compromise, Congress decided to admit Kansas if another popular vote was taken and the constitution ratified. The vote was taken, the constitution was rejected again, and Kansas remained a territory for the time being.
Sumner, Charles (1811-74), American statesman, known for his stand against slavery. He was born in Boston and educated at Harvard University. In 1851, through a coalition of Free-Soilers and Democrats, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. A member of the Senate until his death, he waged an uncompromising battle against slavery.
In a speech entitled “The Crime Against Kansas” delivered before his colleagues on May 20, 1856, Sumner severely criticized the senator from South Carolina, Andrew Pickens Butler. Two days later he was caned in the Senate chamber by Butler's nephew, Preston Smith Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives, also from South Carolina. Severely injured, Sumner was subsequently absent from the Senate floor for several years. In 1860 he delivered a speech entitled “The Barbarism of Slavery.” He was chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1861 to 1871. He was also a prominent advocate of impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson because the president opposed such Radical Republican policies as requiring the former Confederate states to establish public schools open to all children. Sumner differed with the foreign policies of President Ulysses S. Grant and opposed him in his campaign for reelection in 1872. He died in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 1874.
Buchanan, James (1791-1868), 15th president of the United States (1857-1861). He was a prominent figure in American political life for nearly half a century, holding some of the nation's highest offices. As president he played a role in the split that developed in his own Democratic Party. The split allowed the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860.
Buchanan tried to conciliate the Southern states to keep them from seceding from the federal Union over the issue of slavery. He failed, and his term in office was followed by the Civil War between the North and the South. He has been criticized ever since for not taking a more active stand against secession. However, although Buchanan was not a heroic figure, his policy of compromise was not unreasonable. Most presidents before him had taken the same approach, and even his decisive successor, Lincoln, tried conciliation as long as he could. Buchanan hoped that his policy would at least prevent the border states—the northern tier of slave states—from seceding. It is perhaps to his credit that, indeed, the states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri and the western part of Virginia (which split off as the state of West Virginia) did not join the Southern cause.
Panic of 1857
During Buchanan's administration the country suffered a short but severe economic depression. The South escaped the worst effects of the so-called Panic of 1857, and this convinced many Southerners of the superiority of their slave-supported economic system. Senator James Hammond of South Carolina claimed triumphantly, “Cotton is King.” The panic heightened the conflict between the North and South.
Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865), 16th president of the United States (1861-1865) and one of the great men of history. A humane, far-sighted statesman in his lifetime, he became a legend and a folk hero after his death.
Lincoln rose from humble backwoods origins to become one of the great presidents of the United States. In his effort to preserve the Union during the Civil War, he assumed more power than any preceding president. If necessity made him almost a dictator, by fervent conviction he was always a democrat. A superb politician, he persuaded the people with reasoned word and thoughtful deed to look to him for leadership. He had a lasting influence on American political institutions, most importantly in setting the precedent of vigorous executive action in time of national emergency.
Brown, John (1800-1859), called Old Brown of Osawatomie, American abolitionist, whose attempt to end slavery by force greatly increased tension between North and South in the period before the American Civil War.
Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut. His family moved to Ohio when he was five years old. Early in life he acquired the hatred of slavery that marked his subsequent career, his father having been actively hostile to the institution. While living in Pennsylvania in 1834, Brown initiated a project among sympathetic abolitionists to educate young blacks. The next 20 years of his life were largely dedicated to this and similar abolitionist ventures, entailing many sacrifices for himself and his large family. In 1855 he followed five of his sons to Kansas Territory, then a center of struggle between the antislavery and proslavery forces. Under Brown's leadership, his sons became active participants in the fight against proslavery terrorists from Missouri, whose activities led to the murder of a number of abolitionists at Lawrence, Kansas. Brown and his sons avenged this crime, on May 24, 1856, at Pottawatomie Creek by killing five proslavery adherents. This act, as well as his success in withstanding a large party of attacking Missourians at Osawatomie in August, made him nationally famous as an irreconcilable foe of slavery.
Aided by increased financial support from abolitionists in the northeastern states, Brown began in 1857 to formulate a plan, which he had long entertained, to free the slaves by armed force. He secretly recruited a small band of supporters for this project, which included the establishment of a refuge for fugitive slaves in the mountains of Virginia. After several setbacks, he finally launched the venture on October 16, 1859, with a force of 18 men (including several of his sons), seizing the United States arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), and winning control of the town. After his initial success, he made no attempt at offensive action, but instead occupied defensive positions within the area. His force was surrounded by the local militia, which was reinforced on October 17 by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Ten of Brown's men, including two of his sons, were killed in the ensuing battle, and he was wounded and forced to capitulate. He was arrested and charged with various crimes, including treason and murder. He distinguished himself during his trial, which took place before a Virginia court, by his eloquent defense of his efforts in behalf of the slaves. Convicted, he was hanged in Charlestown, Virginia (now West Virginia) in December 1859. For many years after his death, Brown was generally regarded among abolitionists as a martyr to the cause of human freedom. He became the subject of a famous song, known generally by the first line as “John Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave.”
Crittenden Compromise, measure proposed in December 1860 by U.S. Senator John Jordan Crittenden of Kentucky, a prominent southern supporter of the Union, on the eve of the American Civil War to avert the impending secession of the southern states. The proposal was preceded by the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency and by a declaration by President James Buchanan that the federal government had no right to coerce a seceding state into submission. Crittenden was among those who hoped that a further concession might appease the South. His proposals were designed chiefly to provide that slavery should be prohibited in those territories north of 36°30’, the line established by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, but that south of the line slavery should be protected. Slavery, in any state where it existed, might not be abolished without the consent of that state, and the federal government should compensate the owners of fugitive slaves whenever it was established that the slaves had escaped with outside assistance. Lincoln's disapproval strengthened opposition to the Crittenden Compromise, which was rejected by the House of Representatives in January and by the Senate in March 1861.
