Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/306

by revived and declared to be of full force and binding for the future organization of territories of the United States in the same sense and with the same understanding with which it was originally adopted." (Cong. Globe.) This proposition to revive the Missouri Compromise so as to make it effective in settling the disputes on slavery by extending the line from ocean to ocean, was resisted in the Senate by 21 Northern senators and defeated in the House by 114 members, every vote except one against the pacific measure being from the Northern States. The record shows the abandonment of the Missouri Compromise on August 12, 1848. "On that day it fell and was buried in the Senate, where it had originated twenty-eight years before, but had never quieted the Abolitionists a day. It fell, too, not by Southern, but by Northern votes. The very State to which it owed its paternity struck the last decisive blow." (A. H. Stephens Hist, I, 173.) The treaty with Mexico was finally made, through which the territory acquired passed to the United States with no specific by the United States Senate. The brilliant war was concluded with great advantages to the country, fortunately with a temporary check upon the sectional aggressions which had threatened the domestic peace. The presidential canvass of 1848 was conducted upon lines which were drawn to avoid complication with the slavery question. Zachary Taylor became a candidate almost solely on the renown acquired in the recent war and was successful over Cass, who was handicapped by the unfriendliness of Van Buren. For local political reasons solely, the faction of the New York Democracy known as Barnburners, openly revolted and led in an anti-slavery agitation, which soon involved prominent politicians of all parties. The Barnburners, the anti-slavery Whigs and the old Abolitionists co-operated with apparent harmony under the general name of the Free Soil