1850-1851

Updated: May 17, 2025

Alabama and Virginia adopted resolutions accepting the compromise in 1850-1851; and the Virginia legislature tactfully urged South Carolina to abandon secession. The 1851 elections in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi showed the South ready to accept the Compromise, the crucial test being in Mississippi, where the voters followed Webster's supporter, Foote.

Herbert Darling Foster - Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850

For only a short year or two did prosperity show itself from behind the clouds to cause a mushroom growth of trade unions, once in 1850-1851 and again in 1853-1854, following the gold discoveries in California.

Selig Perlman - A History of Trade Unionism in the United States