A Constitution of Freedom | Lapham's Quarterly
Wednesday, January 20, 2021 Wallpaper printed in support of the Constitutional Union Party’s presidential candidate, John Bell, in 1860. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of Mrs. Frederick F. Thompson. In July 1848, frustrated by Congress’ inability to agree on what to do about slavery in the territories, Delaware senator John Clayton proposed a compromise. Congress, he thought, should stay out of the issue entirely and allow the status of slavery in the territories “to be settled by the silent operation of the Constitution itself.” If an issue over slavery arose within t...