The 1850 Compromise: Last Best Hope or Death Knell for the Union?
Following the Mexican-American war of 1846-48 the United States gained a large portion of what is now the American Southwest. Texas had already joined the Union but now the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah Nevada, California and part of Colorado were added. An inevitable result of this acquisition was the need to readdress the issue of the expansion of slavery into those territories.
Background
The Northwest Ordinance. In 1787 the Confederation Congress passed a law to regulate the territory northwest of the Ohio, which eventually became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. Under that statute slavery was excluded from the territory. Thus a precedent was set whereby Congress, although powerless to do anything about slavery where it existed, could restrict its advance into the territories.
The Missouri Compromise. In 1820 the issue of slavery as a national concern was again focused on the territories which were ready to join the Union. Since the Constitution recognized slavery, to abolish it in the states where it already existed would require a constitutional amendment, which eventually happened at the end of the Civil War. In 1820, however, getting three quarters of the states to ratify such an amendment when the states were evenly divided between slave and free was an unrealistic hope. Legislation dealing with the effects of slavery, such as fugitive slave statutes, were still the province of Congress, however, and the balance between slave and free was important. That balance was especially vital to slavery interests, because, as a result of immigration patterns, the population of the Northern states had increased dramatically, and thus the Northern states outnumbered the Southern states significantly in the House of Representatives. The balance in the Senate was crucial. So when Missouri wanted to enter the Union the question was, how would that territory be dealt with regarding the issue of slavery?
The issue was eventually resolved by the admission of Missouri and a slave state, Maine as a free state, and a line was drawn at the 36°30' line (the Southern boundary of Missouri), north of which slavery would be excluded. There the matter stood until 1850.
The Mexican Cession. In 1850, as a result of the gold rush of 1849, California suddenly had a large enough population to become a state. Thus the territories acquired by the Mexican-American War, which would eventually comprise the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nevada (along with California), had to be organized. Since those territories had not been part of the Union at the time of the Missouri Compromise, they were not affected by its restrictions, so a new agreement had to be reached regarding the disposition of slavery in that area. It was understood that California would be admitted as a free state, since there were few slaves there, but what was to be done about the remaining territories? The two areas large enough in population to be organized were New Mexico and Utah.
The Issues. In addition to the issue of slavery in New Mexico and Utah, other matters regarding slavery had to be addressed. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was felt by slavery interests to be too weak to protect what they saw as their rights. The slave trade in the District of Columibia was also an issue for anti-slavery interests. Thus there were five separate matters to be resolved, and only the admission of California as a free state was beyone serious questioning.
The Debate. The debate lasted seven months in the Congress and was led by those three old stalwarts of American politics: Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. All three were, however, near the end of their careers and, except for Webste,r were well past their prime. Henry Clay, the “great compromiser,” attempted to address all the issues that eventually became part of the 1850 compromise in one single bill, which made the entire bill unpalatable to one group or another. Sections of the bill calculated to please soem parts of the country were guaranteed to antagonize others, making passage of the bill extremely difficult. As the debate wore on, frustrations arose and the task seemed hopeless.
Finally a new political voice entered the fray, that of Stephen Arnold Douglas of Illinois. Douglas broke the bill into five components and had each one addressed separately, which meant that those who objected to portions could voice their objections without killing the entire measure. The bills eventually passed separately and are known collectively as the 1850 Compromise. Its provisions were as follows:
This project and asks you to examine the details and issues of the 1850 compromise by reviewing the speeches of these Senators:
Read their arguments, search historical works dealing with the 1850 Compromise, and try to determine the answer to this question:
Was the 1850 compromise the last best hope of saving the Union, or was it the first step toward secession and war?
The 1850 compromise also laid the background for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which is seen as the act that more than any other precipitated the Civil War. Another project is devoted to that act, but here you are asked to judge the 1850 compromise in its own right, and perhaps to suggest that had it been structured differently, the Kansas-Nebraska Act might have been less volatile.