price magnanimously relinquished her
unfounded claim upon New Mexico. Second: California was admitted as a
free State. Third: New Mexico was organized as a Territory, with the
proviso that when she should form a state constitution the slavery
question should be determined by the people, and that during her
territorial existence the question of property in a slave should be left
undisturbed by congressional action, to be determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States. Fourth: A more efficient Fugitive Slave Law
was passed. Fifth: Slave trading in the District of Columbia was
abolished. Such were the terms of an arrangement in which every man saw
so much which he himself disliked that he felt sure that others must be
satisfied. Each plumed himself on his liberality in his concessions
nobly made in behalf of public harmony. "The broad basis," says von
Holst, "on which the compromise of 1850 rested, was the conviction of
the great majority of the people, both North and South, that it was
fair, reasonable, and patriotic to come to a friendly understanding."

Thus in the midsummer of 1850 did the nation, with intense relief, see
the imminent disaster of civil discord averted,--or was it only
postponed? It was ominous that no men who were deeply in earnest in
public affairs were sincerely satisfied. The South saw no gain which
offset the destruction of the balance of power by the admission of
California. Thinking men at the North were alarmed at the recognition of
the principle of non-intervention by Congress concerning slavery in the
Territories, a principle which soon, under the seductive title of
"popular sovereignty" in the Territories, threatened even that partial
restriction heretofore given by the Missouri Compromise. Neither party
felt sufficiently secure of the strength of its legal position to be
altogether pleased at seeing the doctrine of treating the slave in the
Territories as "property" cast into the lottery of the Supreme Court.
Lincoln recognized the futility of this whole arrangement, and said
truly that the slavery question could "never be successfully
compromised." Yet he accepted the situation, with the purpose of making
of it the best that was possible. The mass of the people, less
far-sighted, were highly gratified at the passing of the great danger;
refused to recognize that a more temporary compromise was never patched
up to serve a turn; and applauded it so zealously that in preparing for
the pr