The National Anti-Slavery Society met in
Philadelphia and pronounced slavery a national sin, which could be
atoned for only by immediate emancipation. Such men as Garrison and
Lundy began a work of agitation that was soon to set the whole nation
in a ferment. From this time on slavery became the central problem of
American history, and the line of cleavage in American politics. The
invasion of Florida when it was yet the territory of a nation at peace
with the United States, and its subsequent purchase from Spain, the
annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, were the direct results
of the policy of the pro-slavery party to increase its influence and
its territory. In 1849 the State of California knocked at the door of
the Union for admission as a free State. This was bitterly opposed by
the slaveholders of the South, who saw in it a menace to the slave-
power from the fact that no slave State was seeking admission at the
same time. Both North and South the feeling ran so high as to threaten
the dismemberment of the Union, and the scenes of violence and
bloodshed which were to come eleven years afterwards. It was to
preserve the Union and avert the danger of the hour that Henry Clay
brought forward his celebrated compromise measures in the winter of
1850. To conciliate the North, California was to be admitted as a free
State. To pacify the slaveholders of the South, more stringent laws
were to be enacted "concerning persons bound to service in one State
and escaping into another.
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