The Wilmot proviso was never a law, but it politicized slavery once and for all. David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, favored expansion, and he said that the new territories acquired should be free. Calhoun devised a thesis to counter the proviso. The Calhoun resolutions, which never came to a vote, argued that since the territories were the common possessions of the states, Congress had no right to prevent any citizen from taking slaves into them. Calhoun took that basic guarantee of liberty, the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fifth Amendment, and turned it into a basic guarantee of slavery. President Polk didn’t run again in 1848, and General Zachary Taylor ran for presidency, once again the party adopted no platform at all.

The antislavery impulse was not easily squelched. Free soil, rather than abolition became the rallying pint, and also the name of a new party. Three major groups entered the free soil coalition: rebellious Democrats, antislavery Whigs, and members of the Liberty party, which dated from 1840. The democrats were divided into the “Barnburnersâ€

Some topics in this essay:
Gold Rush, Fugitive Slave, Douglas Senate, America Buchanan, Carolina Butler, Democrat Pennsylvania, Ferry Virginia, California January, Waldo Emerson, Zachary Taylor, republican party, slave act, fugitive slave act, fugitive slave, liberty party, supreme court, south carolina, free soil, slave trade, whigs liberty party, statehood california, ralph waldo emerson, president pierce, martin van buren,