History of the Medical College of Georgia

5. The Coming of the Civil War

Chapter Five The Coming of the Civil War T he fabric that held the nation together, long under stress, began slowly to unravel during the winter of 1849-50. The Mexican War, which looked very successful when gauged by the amount of territory annexed to the United States, carried with it the seed for destruction of the Union. When California, the first fruit of the victoryover Mexico, applied for admission into the Union late in 1849 as a free state, the nation was plunged into a crisis that led, ultimately,to secession. At issue in 1849-50 was the relationship of slaveryto the nation's territories and the South's equal voice in the Senate. To permit California into the Union as a free state would upset the delicate sectional political balance maintained, more and more consciously each year, between the proslave and antislave states. As soon as Congress convened, the crisis surfaced. Both houses seemed paralyzed by the situation. Southern extremists, including the volatile Robert Toombs from Georgia, threatened immediate secession should the North meddle further with the institution of slavery in the territories. And the antislave forces had precisely that in mind. Ever since David Wilmot of Pennsylvania had introduced his proviso outlawingslavery in the land taken from Mexico—a proviso that passed the House and was frustrated only as a result of the South's strength in the Senate— northern antislave elements had looked for a chance to reopen the issue. On its part, the South, feeling its back to the wall, advanced the stand that slavery was an institution hallowed by the Constitution and recognized by Congress. With the old and sick John C. Calhoun dominating the developing southern clique, many of the South's more radical politi61 62 The Medical College of Georgia cians began to take the position that slavery in the territories must be positively protected by the federal government. Positions polarized. Throughout the early months of 1850 the country held its breath. A middle position opened, championed by the veteran compromiser Henry Clay and backed by the old siege gun Daniel Webster. Stephen A. Douglas came to the fore and assumed the role of chief of the compromise camp. But Calhoun, sitting slumped in his seat in the Senate, wrapped in his great cloak, counseled opposition to compromise. Now was the time, he said, for the South to leave the union it had once held so dear. The trauma of Congress affected Georgia and Augusta profoundly. The debates in Washington, and especially in the Senate, were followed with rapt attention. Suddenly the whole relationship of the state to the federal government, always a bit unclear and strewn with broken promises , wasbrought into serious question. No minor lover's quarrel this; old ties and basic loyalties were at stake. Augusta was a conservative city where the Whigs and pro-Union sentiment were both strong. The town, which had slumped briefly in the 1840s, had made a dramatic revival. The Augusta Canal brought industry; cotton was coming to town in unprecedented amounts, and the price it was bringing inJanuary 1850 was going up.1 But secession talk dominated the thinking of the people and of the newspapers, even in Augusta. The forces of compromise in Congress, aided and abetted by the Georgian Howell Cobb, recently elected Speaker of the House, gradually won the upper hand. Even earlier, on March 31, Calhoun had died, and the southern opposition to the compromise lost its great leader. In fact, the nation paused. Here was the first of the mighty triumvirate of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster—a triumvirate that had dominated Congress for almost forty years—to die. Calhoun was feared, worshiped, excoriated as the Antichrist, or adulated; but friend or enemy, all knew that with his death a mighty force had passed from the scene. An Augusta diarist, probably a Whig by persuasion and certainly no friend to Calhoun, summarized the local feelings nicely. "He was not indeed perfect ," the diarist wrote; "in fact [he] had great faults, but he was honest, and whatever he spoke, was from the heart. John C. Calhoun is dead. Carolina weep, for truly you have lost your right arm."2 So the forces of moderation seemed to have won the battle in Washington , and many of the Georgia politicians had played prominent roles in making this possible. In the fall of 1850 the procompromise element in 63 The Coming...