Compromise of 1850
The debate was further complicated by Texas's claim to all former Mexican territory north and east of the Rio Grande, including areas it had never effectively controlled.
Clay's proposal was opposed by President Zachary Taylor, anti-slavery Whigs like William Seward, and pro-slavery Democrats like John C. Calhoun, and congressional debate over the territories continued.
The issue of slavery in the territories would be re-opened by the Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854), but the Compromise of 1850 played a major role in postponing the American Civil War.
[4] Polk, an expansionist and slave owner, sought further expansion through the acquisition of the Mexican province of Alta California, which represented new lands to settle as well as a potential gateway to trade in Asia.
[7] Relations between the two countries were further complicated by Texas's claim to all land north of the Rio Grande; Mexico argued that the more northern Nueces River was the proper Texan border.
[10] In August 1846, Polk asked Congress for an appropriation that he hoped to use as a down payment for the purchase of California in a treaty with Mexico, igniting a debate over the status of future territories.
[19] Prophetically, Ralph Waldo Emerson quipped that "Mexico will poison us", referring to the ensuing divisions around whether the newly conquered lands would be slave or free.
Midterm elections worsened matters, as the Free Soil Party had gained 12 seats, which gave them a king-maker position in the closely divided House: 105 Whigs to 112 Democrats.
The independent Republic of Texas won the decisive Battle of San Jacinto (April 21, 1836) against Mexico and captured Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war, defined the new Mexico–United States border, which followed the Rio Grande in part, but made no specific reference the claims of the Republic of Texas.
They had no interest in extending the Missouri Compromise Line through California and splitting the state; the lightly populated southern half never had slavery and was heavily Hispanic.
Disputes around fugitive slaves had grown since 1830 in part due to improving means of transportation, as the enslaved used roads, railroads, and ships to escape.
[35] In Taylor's view, the best way forward was to admit California as a state rather than a federal territory, as it would leave the slavery question out of Congress's hands.
[37] In his December 1849 State of the Union report, Taylor endorsed California's and New Mexico's applications for statehood, and recommended that Congress approve them as written and "should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics of a sectional character".
In March, shortly before his death, his final speech was delivered by his friend the Virginia Senator James M. Mason, as the blanket-wrapped Calhoun sat nearby, too weak to do it himself.
[41] Clay hoped that this combination of measures would convince House members from both North and South to support the overall package of laws even if they objected to specific provisions.
[42] Clay's proposal attracted the support of some Northern Democrats and Southern Whigs, but it lacked the backing necessary to win passage, and debate over the bill continued.
[43] 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 apply the Wilmot Proviso to the western territories and because of the pressing of ordinary citizens into duty on slave-hunting patrols.
That provision was inserted by Democratic Virginia Senator James M. Mason to entice border-state Whigs, who faced the greatest danger of losing slaves as fugitives but were lukewarm on general sectional issues related to the South on Texas's land claims.
With their support, a Senate bill providing for a final settlement of Texas's borders won passage days after Fillmore delivered his message.
[49] The Senate quickly moved on to the other major issues, passing bills that provided for the admission of California, the organization of New Mexico Territory, and the establishment of a new fugitive slave law.
[51] The Senate's proposed settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary faced intense opposition from many Southerners, as well as from some Northerners who believed that Texas did not deserve monetary compensation.
[citation needed] Though some in Texas still favored sending a military expedition into New Mexico, in November 1850 the state legislature voted to accept the compromise.
Thus, if free Blacks were claimed to be escaped slaves, they could not resist their return to slavery (or enslavement for the first time) by truthfully telling their actual history.
In terms of public opinion in the North, the critical provision was that ordinary citizens were required to aid slave catchers and that it was a crime to assist a fugitive.
[65] The admission of new states, or the organization of territories in the remaining unorganized portion of the Louisiana Purchase, could also potentially reopen the polarizing debate over slavery.
In hindsight, the Compromise merely postponed the American Civil War for a decade, contrary to the expectations of many at the time, who felt the issue of slavery had finally been settled.
They view the Fugitive Slave Law as helping to polarize the US, as shown in the enormous reaction to Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
but the deaths of influential senators who worked on the compromise, primarily Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, contributed to the feeling of increasing disparity between the North and South.
[73][page needed] According to historian Mark Stegmaier, "The Fugitive Slave Act, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, the admission of California as a free state, and even the application of the formula of popular sovereignty to the territories were all less important than the least remembered component of the Compromise of 1850—the statute by which Texas relinquished its claims to much of New Mexico in return for federal assumption of the debts.
Henry Clay takes the floor of the Old Senate Chamber ; Vice President Millard Fillmore presides as John C. Calhoun (to the right of Fillmore's chair) and Daniel Webster (seated to the left of Clay) look on.
