Poetry’s Place in the Crisis and Compromise of 1850

On June 14, 1850, at the height of the nation’s political crisis, the New York Daily Tribune printed a poem by Walt Whitman. “House of Friends” condemned northern Democrats in Congress for conceding to the South by supporting the Compromise of 1850 and its accompanying Fugitive Slave Act. Freedom was at risk of being “balk’d,” Whitman warned, not by its enemies but by its supposed defenders. Alluding to the prophet Zechariah, he seethed: “From the house of friends comes the death stab.”¹ To Whitman, the Compromise threatened to undo America’s supposedly inseparable ideals of liberty and Union by foisting proslavery policies on free soil in the North and West. As the principle of preservation encroached on the preservation of principle, he looked to poetry for redress.

Whitman was not alone among northerners in his dismay at the Compromise, nor was he the only poet to articulate his concerns in verse. At once reflecting and shaping political realities, poetry captured the drama of public life at the turn of the 1850s and featured prominently in the civic discourse of those years.² This essay examines the production and reception of verse between 1849 and 1851 to demonstrate how politics rapidly transformed attitudes toward unionism in quarters of the North.³ Whitman and fellow poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and George Lunt used poetry to come to terms with the trauma wrought by the Crisis of 1850.⁴ Disseminated in key periodicals or by major publishing houses, their poems represent some of the most conspicuous and reflective meditations on the nation’s ordeal. The severity of the Crisis placed unique demands on the poets, who adopted special postures, identities, or styles in order to address the Union’s plight.

Taken together, their verse illustrates the disquieting effect of midcentury politics on northern consciences, challenging depictions of the Crisis as simply a prologue to the Civil War and disputing characterizations of the Compromise as an effective stopgap.⁵ The events of 1850 did more than foreshadow or forestall those of 1861. Conciliation came at a cost, for even an averted crisis has its consequences. The controversial provisions of the Compromise prompted Free-Soilers and Conscience Whigs in the North to reconsider the very terms of Union. Once a moral mainstay, the national compact became a moral dilemma for these groups almost overnight. Poets articulated newfound concerns about the Union’s worth and wellbeing in their verse.

Beginning in the 1830s, a revolution in printing technology made poetry more available than ever. Thanks to the inventions of stereotype and the steam press, newspapers became abundant and affordable, and readership grew in kind. The Mexican-American War, in particular, boosted public demand for the penny press. These periodicals routinely featured poetry alongside articles and advertisements. Poetic anthologies also appeared; collections like Rufus Griswold’s The Poets and Poetry of America went through a dozen editions in as many years. Gift books began including poetry. Blank books, in which recipients could transcribe or compose poems, became popular presents. Literary magazines proliferated, and most reserved space for poetry. Readers formed literary societies for discussing published works. Poetry recitation became a hallmark of the American schoolroom, and poetry readings were likewise a common feature of community events.⁶

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s dictum that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” resonated in antebellum American culture.⁷ Poets were public figures in this period. Popular demand made poetry a viable career, albeit for a select few. Poets succeeded by fulfilling a perceived social function. According to Romantic thought, poets’ intuition afforded them access to sacred truths. Through their publications, they shared this knowledge with society in the hope of improving public character. Prose orators acknowledged the virtue of verse when, to lend sincerity and gravitas to various causes, they routinely interspersed lines of poetry in their speeches.⁸

From the start, poetry played a role in the discourse and print culture of abolition; the movement included numerous poets among its ranks. Abolitionists believed poetry endowed their messages with urgency and clarity. “By presenting it...