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An Age of Compromise and Crises, 1820-60

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Contemporary newspaper clippings related to Daniel Webster's Seventh of March Speech in support of the Compromise of 1850.

With his famous Seventh of March speech in Congress, Webster took up the task of conciliating citizens of the free states with the idea that the slave states should be allowed to maintain slavery. He further asked the free states to accommodate one of the most detested provisions of the compromise, the Fugitive Slave Act, which radicalized countless Northerners and deepened abolitionist sentiment. Anti-slavery activists roundly condemned Webster. Indeed, The Liberator insisted on "No Union with Slaveholders" and referred to Webster as "The Satanic Statesman."

*AC8.W3924.B876p v.3 – No source, no date.