"I think the settlement of the last session and the firm course of the Administration in the execution of the fugitive slave law have given a new lease to slavery,” wrote a North Carolina Whig at the beginning of 1851. “Property of that kind has not been so secure for the last twenty-five years.”65 He was wrong—and precisely because of the administration’s “firm course” in enforcing the fugitive slave law. Although one of the least-debated parts of the Compromise, this measure turned out to be the most divisive legacy of the “final settlement.”
