Was Compromise Possible?

Prior to the Civil War, a series of compromises were negotiated by considerate leaders of the United States
to avoid Northern and Southern conflict. Daniel Webster exclaimed in his Seventh of March speech: “Secession!
Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle.” Of course, peaceful secession
would have been nearly impossible. But could secession have been avoided by a nation built on compromises? Not
likely, considering the vehement opposition between the Northern manufacturers and the Southern cotton
aristocracy. However, three compromises, the Missouri Compromise (1820), Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-
Nebraska Act, were able to delay the conflict until 1860.
The Missouri Compromise, backed by the Great Compromiser, Henry Clay, came closest to calming the
sectional struggle. It successfully admitted Maine and Missouri as a free and slave state, respectively. In addition, it
generated a line on the southern border of Missouri and prohibited slavery north of the border. This was brilliant on
the part of Clay, because it settled the dispute of sectional balance while creating a rule for future territories. By
forming a rule beforehand, future conflicts can be avoided. If every state in the country abided by this compromise,
peace would have followed, but the Mexican War and annexation of more than half of Mexico secured more land
for the U.S. and extended the possibility of slavery in more territories. Neither side would have been willing to lose
their balance in the Senate, so conflict emerged again.
As southerners announced in October 1849 their intention to withdraw from the Union, Congress had to
act. Clay, Webster, and Douglas advocated for a series of terms for the North and South that became the
Compromise of 1850. It admitted California as a Free State and left Utah and New Mexico to popular sovereignty.
This permanently tilted the Senate balance against the south. The one reward the south reaped was a stricter Fugitive
Slave Law, which northerners often met with apathy or resentment. Although this covered up the conflict, it really
met with opposition in both the north and the south. The Compromise of 1850 failed because of the effect the
Fugitive Slave Law had on the north and the northern response to it. When the railroad promoters called for an
organized Nebraska Territory, conflict became unavoidable.
During the railroad disputes, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois proposed to have the Nebraska Territory
divided into Kansas and Nebraska. Although the government of both territories were left to popular sovereignty,
most of Congress assumed that Kansas would allow slavery and Nebraska would prohibit it. The compromise could
have satisfied the south’s hunger for slave territory, but the north would be devastated. Leaving Kansas to popular
sovereignty would contradict the Missouri Compromise, which stated that slavery could not exist north of
Missouri’s southern border (except Missouri, of course). When the compromise passed Congress in 1854, Douglas
could never hope to assuage northern fury. He even claimed with exaggeration that he could have traveled from
Boston to Chicago at night by the light from his burning effigies. Because the north clearly disapproved of the act,
they began to colonize Kansas with help from the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which resulted in Bleeding
Kansas and Brooks attack on Sumner in Congress in 1856. One of its most destructive effects of the Bleeding
Kansas conflict was the split of the Democratic Party, the only remaining national party, over the Lecompton
Constitution.
The compromises prior to the Civil War always displeased at least the north or the south, and even worth,
sometimes both sections. As northerners came to dominate the Senate, the south predicted that the slight changes
would likely lead to northern dominance over the south and its economy. If it were to become northern puppets, why
not secede like the U.S. seceded from Britain during the American Revolution? In the end, compromise failed once
again when the Crittenden Amendments (proposed by John Jordan Crittenden) were vetoed by Lincoln right after
several southern states seceded. Compromise would not have alleviated the anger of either north or south when
Lincoln was elected in 1860, so Civil War was inevitable.