finality. They nominated a popular but colorless young New Englander,
Franklin Pierce, a colonel under Scott in the war with Mexico, and
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the campaign biography. Pierce said little
during the months of electioneering. His role and that of his party was
now one of conciliation. If elected he would enforce the laws and
maintain the Union. Every State but four, Massachusetts, Vermont,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, gave him their electoral votes. The support of
the Free-Soil Democrats, 156,000 votes and all in the abolitionist
sections, showed that the country was tired of agitation. The prolonged
quarrel of the sections seemed definitely closed, and the future
promised peace and prosperity.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

A. B. Hart's _Slavery and Abolition_ (1906), in _American Nation_
series; F. J. and W. P. Garrison's _William Lloyd Garrison: the Story of
his Life Told by his Children_ (1885-89), and both McMaster and Schouler
in their histories, already mentioned, give all the essential facts
about the abolitionists and the Wilmot Proviso struggle. James Ford
Rhodes's _History of the United States_ (from 1850 to 1877) is a work of
the greatest importance, and it gives, in vol. _I_, the best account of
the compromise measures of 1850. The following biographies are valuable
for the period: T. W. Barnes, _Memoir of Thurlow Weed_ (1884); William
Birney, _James G. Birney and his Times_ (1890); G. L. Austin, _Life and
Times of Wendell Phillips_ (1887); Henry Cleveland, _Alexander Stephens
in Public and Private_ (1866); W. H. Haynes, _Charles Sumner_ (1909),
in _American Crises_ series; A. C. McLaughlin, _Lewis Cass_ (1891), in
_American Statesmen_ series. Special for the lower South: Miss Cleo
Hearon, _Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850_ (1914); W. G. Brown,
_The Lower South in American History_ (1902); J. W. DuBose, _The Life of
William L. Yancey_; and A. C. Cole, _The Whig Party in the South_
(1913), named in a previous note. J. D. Richardson's _Messages and
Papers of the Presidents_ (1900), vol. v; H. V. Ames's _State Documents
on Federal Relations_ (1907); and the _Congressional Globe_ for the 29th
and 30th Congresses give the most important speeches and documents
bearing on the crisis of 1850.

CHAPTER X

PROSPERITY

Partisan opposition to Franklin Pierce had almost disappeared before the
day of his inauguration in 1853. Cha