maybe it's the name but millard fillmore is a traditional whig. he's busy fighting free soil forces within his own party and consequently fillmore's eager to support the compromise and signs it into law. all right, so he's keen about getting the compromise through, in fact, as we'll see fillmore locks on to the compromise as a kind of test as a litmus test for party loyalty in the whig party. we'll see there's some dangerous consequences and bad consequences that come from that. all right. but let's step back for a minute here, analyze who supported the party and why. excuse me, who supported the compromise and why. it's difficult to determine since the various measures were all voted upon separately and different voting alliances supported each measure. thus, not unlike clay's earlier missouri compromise, the compromise of 1850, as we call it, is really more of an intersectional truce than it is a genuine compromise, you know, where everyone is sort of giving a little bit. it's really more of a time-out or a truce. basically, though, one can gene

president, including one named franklin pierce, two millard fillmores. four men surnamed honesty and one named industry. these men were ready to it give their all for the republic, but the republic was not ready for them. thank you. [ applause ] okay. questions? >> folks, we've got microphones in the aisle. c-span is here so we need your questions on microphone. >> no questions. oh? >> could you talk a little bit about -- is that loud enough? could you talk a little bit about the salary disparages between the white troops and the black troops and when it changed and why it changed. and was it legislation that did it or was it at the military level? thank you. >> yeah. the black troops at first did not receive the same -- i mean, starting pay for a private was $13 a month. blacks were paid $10. this was purely the fault of congress and, you know, conflicting laws that they passed over time. it -- they finally straightened out the matter along about the latter part of 1864, i think, and brought the of black soldiers -- achieve ed parity wh the white soldie

we'll see how millard fillmore later runs for the american party. there's certainly some support for nativism among whigs given their traditional position toward immigrants and that's not too surprising. all right. let me move on here. now, all of that is background to what then happens in 1854 with another congressional compromise. and this time we're also talking about the issue that keeps coming up, the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories. here, however, we're talking about the introduction of legislation to organize a portion of that vast swath of territory that had been purchased from france by president jefferson, the louisiana purchase. a large portion of that territory had never really been organized, and congress turns to address that issue in 1854. historians have long scratched their heads about, well, why did they turn to it then? couldn't they see -- couldn't, you know, northern politicians in particular see how dangerous an issue this slavery extension issue was and that maybe it would be good to have a little bit of