DUVAL, Isaac Harding, a Representative from West Virginia; born in Wellsburg, Brooke County, Va.

In the 1860 presidential election, Soulé's supporters rallied behind Douglas, who finished a poor third in the state. He led the cooperationists during the secession crisis not to support the Union but to oppose Slidell, who led the immediate secessionists. Soulé announced frequently and firmly that secession was inevitable and that he did not intend to be in the rear of that action. He admonished audiences, demanding that they recall his advocacy of secession in 1850 and that they remember repudiating his advice. Louisiana seceded, but the Confederacy had little to offer Soulé.

The secession crisis created a difficult situation for Maynard. When he met Stephen A. Douglas in the summer of 1860, Maynard suggested that a special House committee with one representative from each state be established to deal with the crisis, a course that was taken in December 1860.

In October 1849, recalled from office by the new Whig administration, Rush entered his final retirement. He became deeply concerned over the rising threat to the Union, placing the blame primarily on antislavery agitators, and in 1856 voted for James Buchanan…

Like many Americans, Douglas hailed the triumphant end of the Mexican War as the beginning of a new era. Events quickly dashed his expectation. The most important consequence of the war was the re-entry of the slavery issue into national politics, raising again the question of slavery's relation to territorial expansion. The introduction of the Wilmot Proviso in the summer of 1846, stipulating that slavery would be barred forever from all lands acquired from Mexico, initiated a bitter sectional debate that increased in intensity until 1850, when the Union itself appeared to be in danger.