Threats of secession were heard in both the North and the South.

A spirit of compromise finally prevailed and deferred the crisis for a decade, but the agitation and unrest continued to increase.

The Abolitionists were still a handful of radicals, repudiated alike by the Free Soil Whigs and Free Soil Democrats.

Slavery, as an institution, had not yet become a political issue, but only its extension into the territories.
Such, in brief, was the situation at the beginning of 1850.

It was a period of grave apprehension on the part of older men and women, of intense aggressiveness with the younger, who were eager for action.