Compromise of 1850
1850 CE
The Compromise of 1850 is a package of five bills, passed in the United States in September 1850, which defuses a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848).
The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas, avoids secession or civil war and reduces sectional conflict for four years.The Compromise is greeted with relief, although each side dislikes specific provisions.
Texas surrendersits claim to New Mexico, which it had threatened war over, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line, transfers its crushing public debt to the federal government, and retains the control over El Paso that it had established earlier in 1850, with the Texas Panhandle (which earlier compromise proposals had detached from Texas) thrown in at the last moment.
California's application for admission as a free state with its current boundaries is approved and a Southern proposal to split California at parallel 35° north to provide a Southern territory is not approved.
The South avoids adoption of the symbolically significant Wilmot Proviso and the new New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory can in principle decide in the future to become slave states (popular sovereignty), even though Utah and a northern fringe of New Mexico are north of the Missouri Compromise Line where slavery had previously been banned in territories.
In practice, these lands are generally unsuited to plantation agriculture and their existing settlers are non-Southerners uninterested in slavery.
The unsettled southern parts of New Mexico Territory, where Southern hopes for expansion had been centered, remain a part of New Mexico instead of becoming a separate territory.
The most concrete Southern gains are a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, the enforcement of which outrages Northern public opinion, and preservation of slavery in the national capital.
The slave trade is banned in Washington D.C.The Compromise becomes possible after the sudden death of President Zachary Taylor, who, although a slaveowner, had favored excluding slavery from the Southwest.
Whig leader Henry Clay designs a compromise, which fails to pass in early 1850, due to the opposition of both pro-slavery southern Democrats, led by John C. Calhoun, and antislavery northern Whigs.
Upon Clay's instruction, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas (Illinois) then divides Clay's bill into several smaller pieces and narrowly wins their passage over the opposition of those with stronger views on both sides.
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Antiabolitionist, proslavery convictions stiffen in the South in reaction to the slave insurrections of the previous era, and will persist in the region until the American Civil War.
During the years from 1838 to 1849, the U.S. concludes the second Seminole War (1835-1842) and wars with Mexico (1846-1847) and with the Cayuse tribe of eastern Washington and Oregon (1848-1855).
John L. O'Sullivan coins the phrase “Manifest Destiny” in his United States Magazine and Democratic Review (July-August 1845).
Expansionist congressmen quickly adopt the term in their debates over the three territorial questions confronting the United States in 1845 and 1846: the annexation of Texas, the joint occupation of the Oregon Territory with Britain, and the prosecution of war with Mexico.
South Carolina urges all slave-holding states to form a united front against interference by the North, while the newly conquered territory of California requests admission as a free state.
Internal politics turn violent with the Anti-Renter movement (1839-1846), and Dorr's Rebellion (1842), while the mutiny on the Creole (1841), like that on of the Amistad (1839) exacerbates the national debate over slavery.
So too does the landmark suit brought to the Missouri state courts by the enslaved Dred Scott on the grounds that his residence in a free state and a free territory has made him a free man.
Nine Southern states, defending slavery and the right of all Americans to migrate to the Western territories, seek to extend the Missouri Compromise line west to the Pacific.
The Compromise of 1850 postpones the secession of the South while sowing the seeds of future discord.
Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress on January 29, 1850.
California's request for admission to the Union as an anti-slavery state has provoked a crisis in the Federal government.
The looming threat of dissolution of the Union is exacerbated by the unresolved question of slavery's extension into other areas ceded by Mexico the preceding year.
Senator Clay of Kentucky, the “great compromiser”, offers a series of measures to maintain an even balance between free and slave states.
In an attempt to give satisfaction to both proslavery and antislavery forces, the important sections of the omnibus bill call for the admission of California as a free state, the organization of the territories of New Mexico and Utah with the slavery question left open, settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute, a more rigorous provision for the return of runaway slaves, and the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.
In a speech that will become known as the "Seventh of March speech," Webster attacks Northerners and Southerners alike for stirring up tensions over slavery.
He admonishes Northerners for obstructing the return of fugitive slaves, but attacks Southern leaders for openly contemplating secession.
After the speech, Webster is bitterly attacked by New England abolitionists.
The debate over Clay's compromise proposal will continue into July 1850, when President Taylor suddenly and unexpectedly dies of an illness.
Delegates from nine Southern states meet in Nashville on June 3, 1850.
Robert Barnwell Rhett, a leader of the extremists, seeks support for secession, but moderates from both the Whig and the Democratic parties are in control.
On June 10, the convention adopts twenty-eight resolutions defending slavery and the right of all Americans to migrate to the Western territories.
The delegates are prepared to settle the question of slavery in the territories, however, by extending the Missouri Compromise line west to the Pacific.
July 4, 1850, was a very hot day in Washington, and President Taylor, who attended Fourth of July ceremonies, refreshed himself, likely with cold milk and cherries.
What he consumed probably gave him gastroenteritis, and he died on July 9.
Taylor, nicknamed "Old Rough and Ready", had gained a reputation for toughness through his military campaigning in the heat, and his sudden death comes as a shock to the nation.
President Fillmore is sworn in on July 10.
The U.S. Congress enacts the five compromise measures in September with the influential support of Senator Daniel Webster and the concerted unifying efforts of Senator Stephen A. Douglas.
Known as the Compromise of 1850, these measures are accepted by moderates in all sections of the country. (Although the Compromise of 1850 succeeds as a temporary expedient that postpones the secession of the South for a decade, the Douglas-inspired precedent of popular sovereignty sows the seeds of future discord.)
The Compromise of 1850, a package of five separate bills introduced by Whig Senator Henry Clay (who failed to get them through himself; they had been shepherded to passage in Congress by Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas and Whig Senator Daniel Webster), attempts to resolve the territorial and slavery controversies arising from the Mexican-American War.
Opposed by Senator John C. Calhoun, the Compromise was possible after the death of President Zachary Taylor, who was in opposition also.
Succeeding President Taylor is his Vice President, Millard Fillmore, who is a strong supporter of the compromise.
The five laws balance the interests of the slave states of the South and the free states.
California is admitted as a free state on September 9; Texas receives financial compensation for relinquishing claim to lands west of the Rio Grande in what is now New Mexico; the territory of New Mexico (including present-day Arizona and Utah) is organized without any specific prohibition of slavery; the slave trade (but not slavery itself) is abolished in Washington, D.C.; and the stringent Fugitive Slave Law is passed on September 18, requiring all U.S. citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves.
Although the Compromise temporarily defuses sectional tensions in the United States, postponing the secession crisis and the American Civil War, California’s admission to the Union upsets the balance between slave and free states.
The Compromise drops the Wilmot Proviso, which never became law but would have banned slavery in territory acquired from Mexico.
Instead the Compromise further endorses the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" for the New Mexico Territory.
California, its population having swollen from fourteen thousand to one hundred thousand in two years, is admitted to the Union on September 9 as the thirty-first state, with John C. Frémont as one of its two senators, under the Compromise of 1850.
The state’s constitution prohibits slavery.
Political parties remain divided, however, according to whether they believe that California should be a free or a slave state, and one movement, led by the backers of California senator William M. Gwin, seeks to divide California into two states, one slave and one free.
The Mormon pioneers had originally planned to petition for territorial status after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had made the entire Southwest United states soil in 1848, but learning that California and New Mexico were applying for statehood, the settlers of the area had in 1849 applied for statehood with an ambitious plan for a new state called Deseret.
The United States Congress rebuffs the settlers in 1850 and on September 9 establishes the Utah Territory, which is much smaller than the proposed state of Deseret, but still contains all of the present states of Nevada and Utah as well as pieces of modern Wyoming and Colorado.
It is created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore, named after President Millard Fillmore, is designated the capital.
The territory is given the name Utah after the Ute tribe of Native Americans.
California’s admission has tipped the balance in favor of free states, and an outraged South Carolina legislature discusses secession from the Union, as much of California lies south of 36°30’N, the slave-slate border enshrined in the 1821 Missouri Compromise.