The Voices of Compromise, 1850

(Abolition)

Proceedings of the Constitutional meeting at Faneuil Hall, November 26th, 1850

46, [2] pp. 8vo, Boston: Beals & Greene, 1850. First edition. Printed yellow wrappers. Very good.

After the Compromise of 1850 was passed in the Fall of that year, threatening the freedom and rights of escaped slaves, violent protests broke in several Northern states, and many abolitionist were urging defiance of the law. Alarm spread among 'moderates', and on 26 November, 1850 a meeting was held at the Hall in which speaker after speaker of the "Friends of the Union" urged restraint, compromise, and, above all, the preservation of the Union. Particularly eloquent on the occasion was Rufus Choate's oration (pp. 29-42), in which he warned that however repugnant slavery might be, the result of extremist efforts to abolish it might make the Union "melt as frostwork in the sun."

Item #214277       Price: $200.00