By 1851, when Julian ran for re-election, the state's political conditions had changed significantly. Under the influence of Indiana's U.S. Senator Jesse D. Bright and others, the state's Democratic Party had become more rigidly opposed to any congressional restriction on slavery in the Mexican cession and supported the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Law. In addition, a new state constitution had just been drafted that included a clause (Article XIII, Section 1) that prohibited blacks from migrating into the state. (The clause was removed from the state's constitution by amendment in 1881.) In this antislavery climate the Free Soil and Democratic coalition to elect Julian ran into serious difficulties. Julian found some Democratic support, but not the backing that he had enjoyed in the 1849 election, and he lost to Samuel W. Parker, a conservative Whig who had been his opponent in the 1849 election as well.