Later Political Career
When the Whigs won the 1848 election and returned to power in 1849, Everett resigned from Harvard and resumed political activity in Washington. He assisted Webster, now Secretary of State, and when Webster died in November 1852, President Fillmore appointed him to serve the remaining four months of Webster's term, to March 1853.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts elected Everett to the Senate, for a term starting March 4, 1853. As a Senator he angered Massachusetts anti-slavery men by not voting on the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Everett was nominally anti-slavery, but seemed overly concerned with placating pro-slavery Southerners to avoid civil war. This did not satisfy the increasingly vehement anti-slavery Massachusetts public. In April 1854, he presented a petition from the people of Dedham against the Missouri Compromise and one from the people of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in favor of securing religious freedom for Americans abroad. On June 1, 1854, after only a little more than one year of a six year term, Everett resigned.
Read more about this topic: Edward Everett
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