Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850, in the history of the United States, was a series of Congressional legislative measures addressing slavery and the boundaries of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War

Related Topics:
History of the United States - Congressional - Slavery - Mexican-American War

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(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 West of the Rio Grande river, the United States 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.

Related Topics:
1846 - 48 - American South - California - Texas - Rio Grande - United States territory - New Mexico - Arizona - Utah - Washington, D.C. - Fugitive Slave Law

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The measures, brokered by United States Senate luminaries Henry Clay, known to American history as "The Great Compromiser," Daniel Webster, one of the United States' most famous orators, and the South's John C. Calhoun, with the influence of the Taylor and Fillmore Administrations, temporarily defused sectional tensions in the United States, postponing the secession crisis and the American Civil War. However, its rejection of the Wilmot Proviso, which had banned slavery in Federal territories, in favor of the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" for New Mexico and Utah, was a departure from the method of addressing slavery in the territories that had been created in the Missouri Compromise in 1820. The political peace achieved by the Compromise of 1850 lasted only until 1854, when it was shattered by the divisive Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and led directly to the formation of the Republican Party, the secession of South Carolina and the American South, and the American Civil War.

Related Topics:
United States Senate - Henry Clay - Daniel Webster - Orator - John C. Calhoun - Taylor - Fillmore - Secession - American Civil War - Wilmot Proviso - Federal territories - Popular Sovereignty - Missouri Compromise - 1820 - 1854 - Kansas-Nebraska Act - Republican Party - South Carolina - American South

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