A US attempt to resolve conflict over the expansion of slavery by legislation. Its major terms were the admission of California as a free state, and the passage of a strong Fugitive Slave Law to placate the South.
The Compromise of 1850 was a series of laws to regulate the spread of slavery in the territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–48). In five laws balancing the interests of the slaveholding states of the American South and the free states, California was admitted as a free state, Texas received financial compensation for relinquishing claim to lands east of the Rio Grande in what is now New Mexico, the territory of New Mexico (including present-day Arizona and Utah) was organized without any specific prohibition of slavery, the slave trade (but not slavery itself) was abolished in Washington, D.C., and the stringent Fugitive Slave Law was passed, requiring all U.S. citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves.
The measures, designed by Whig Senator Henry Clay (who failed to get them through) were shepherded to passage by Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas. The Compromise dropped the Wilmot Proviso, which never became law but would have banned slavery in territory acquired from Mexico. Instead the Compromise further endorsed the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" for the New Mexico Territory.
Issues
Texas
One issue was the dispute over the western boundary of Texas. The Republic of Texas, which had seceded from Mexico, had been admitted to the United States and claimed territory that now comprises New Mexico. The compromise solution was for the U.S. to pay the debts, while Texas allowed New Mexico to become a territory.
California
Another main issue was California's statehood. Settlers who had flocked to California after the discovery of gold in 1848 adopted an antislavery state constitution on October 13, 1849 and applied for admission into the Union as a free state. The admission of California would disturb the longtime balance between free and slave states in the Senate. The question was whether to accept California's admission as a free state or divide California into two states with a free state in the north and a slave state in the south. (Later on, dividing the state was ruled out because Southern California's environment is unsuitable to grow crops that were grown by the plantation owners in the Southeast.)
Mexican War territories
No territorial government had been formed for the remainder of the territory acquired from Mexico, including that of present-day Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Slave Trade and Fugitive Slave Law
The two questions not growing out of the Mexican War were in regard to the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and to the passage of a new fugitive slave law.
Clay and Douglas draft compromise
Congress convened on December 3, 1849. On January 29, 1850, 72-year old Whig Senator Henry Clay gave a speech which called for compromise on the issues dividing the Union. However, Clay's specific proposals for achieving a compromise, including his idea for Texas's boundary, were not adopted, although Clay later claimed credit for drafting the entire compromise. The Compromise came to coalesce around a plan dividing Texas at its present-day boundaries, creating territorial governments with "popular sovereignty" (i.e. without the Wilmot Proviso) for New Mexico and Utah, admitting California as a free state, abolishing the slave auctions in the District of Columbia, and enacting a harsh new Fugitive Slave Law.
View of Davis and Southern Democrats
Most Southerner Democrats, led by Jefferson Davis, opposed Douglas's and especially Clay's compromise because they would have admitted California as a free state, thus disturbing the balance of power between North and South in the Senate, and because they would have negated some of Texas's land claims.
View of Seward and Northern Whigs
Most Northern Whigs, led by William Henry Seward, who delivered his famous "Higher Law" speech during the controversy, opposed the Compromise as well because it would not have applied the Wilmot Proviso to the western territories and because of the Draconian new fugitive slave law, which would have pressed ordinary citizens into duty on slave-hunting patrols; Mason to coerce border-state Whigs, who faced the greatest danger of losing slaves as fugitives, but who were lukewarm on general sectional issues related to the South into supporting Texas's land claims.
Whig President Zachary Taylor attempted to sidestep the entire controversy by pushing to admit California and New Mexico as free states immediately, avoiding the entire territorial process and thus the Wilmot Proviso question.
Northern Democrats and Southern Whigs largely supported the Compromise. Southern Whigs, many of whom were from the border states, supported the stronger fugitive slave law. The heated exchange became so emotionally charged that Senator Benton was nearly shot by Compromise floor leader Henry Foote of Mississippi.
In early June, nine slaveholding Southern states sent delegates to the Nashville Convention to determine their course of action should the compromise take hold. While some delegates preached secession, eventually the moderates ruled, and they proposed a series of compromises, including extending the geographic dividing line designated by the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to the Pacific Coast. The slave trade was abolished (ie the sale of slaves, not the institution of slavery) in the District of Columbia. The Fugitive Slave Act was passed, requiring all U.S. citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves.
Implications
The Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850 made any federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000. Law-enforcement officials everywhere in the United States now had a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway slave on no more evidence than a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership.
The Compromise in general proved widely popular politically, as both parties committed themselves in their platforms to the finality of the Compromise on sectional issues. This peace was broken only by the divisive Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 introduced by Stephen Douglas, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and led directly to the formation of the Republican Party, whose capture of the national government in 1860 led directly to the secession crisis of 1860-1861.
Many historians argue that the Compromise helped to postpone the Civil War for a decade, during which time the Northwest was growing more wealthy and more populous, and was being brought into closer relations with the Northeast.
The delay of hostilities for ten years allowed the free economy of the northern states to industrialize. The southern states, to a large degree based on slave labor and cash crop production, lacked the incentive and ideological desire to heavily industrialize .
The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law aroused feelings of bitterness in the North. Foster, "Webster's Seventh of March Speech," American Historical Review, 27 (1922), 245-270 online in JSTOR Holman Hamilton, Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 (1964), the standard historical study Holman Hamilton. "Democratic Senate Leadership and the Compromise of 1850," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional Crisis, Kent State University Press, 1996. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991) James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, vol.
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