When the first session of the 31st Congress opened on December 3, , 30 states were represented: 15 had slaves and 15 prohibited slavery. In the House of Representatives, members from free states outnumbered those from the South to The basis of representation in this Congress was the census of The enormous flow of European immigrants into the United States in the mid to late s, especially into the North, meant that the next census, in , would widen the already lopsided ratio of free- to slave-state representatives.
This growing imbalance in the House heightened the importance to the South of parity in the Senate. That parity was immediately put at risk when President Zachary Taylor called for Congress to act favorably on the imminent application of California for statehood, and his notice that New Mexico would soon follow with its application.
Both territories were certain to seek admission as free states. The South feared for its future with slavery if representation in the Senate became imbalanced. In , sectional division between the South and North was somewhat muted by the presence in each section of two national parties, the Democrats and the Whigs. Each party, however, had representatives and senators from both sections, providing a framework in which a compromise could be forged.
But it was not to be easy. All gave famous speeches at what proved to be the end of their senatorial careers Calhoun died a few weeks after his speech was read for him; Clay and Webster died in The debates of also became a springboard for the national careers of two other Senate giants, William H. Douglas, Democratic Senator of Illinois. Considering the issues of — from the perspectives of these five men reveals the complexity of the decision-making the national government faced.
In , the controversial Wilmot Proviso would have prohibited slavery in all this territory. The Proviso passed the House but was defeated in the Senate, where the South had a one-delegate advantage from to and parity from to If only free states were carved out of the Mexican Cession, southern interests would be overwhelmed in both houses, and their champions, most influentially Calhoun, warned the South would withdraw from a Union that did not protect its interests.
If free states had growing majorities in both the House and Senate, they might move to abolish slavery in the South. On the other hand, the North viewed parity as an evil precisely because it provided protection to slavery and gave southern states with smaller populations a significant measure of political equality with vastly larger northern ones. This map shows the states and territories of the United States as they were from to March The act was part of the Compromise of , which was designed to ease sectional conflict between the North and South, but the inclusion of the Fugitive Slave Law made that nearly impossible.
Southerners and their allies in Congress designed the Fugitive Slave Law to end Northern interference in the capture and return of fugitive slaves. The law decreed that runaway slaves apprehended anywhere in the United States had to be returned to their masters if new federally appointed commissioners decided that they were in fact fugitive slaves. It denied any due process to such slaves and allowed authorities to arrest African American suspects and return them to slave territory—whether the arrested person was an actual slave or not.
Finally, it empowered federal marshals to enforce the law. The Fugitive Slave Law also cited severe penalties for noncompliance. The Fugitive Slave Act ignited a firestorm of protest across the North from both activists and the general public. Many Northerners who had previously paid little attention to slavery became stanch opponents after the passage of the law.
Most importantly, the act greatly increased sectional animosities and renewed interest in antislavery politics in the North in the s. Fillmore personally opposed slavery but signed the Fugitive Slave Law for two reasons. First, he believed the South would secede if its demands, including a fugitive slave law, were not met. Second, Fillmore believed he could use the Compromise to unite the Whig Party behind a single national platform. He worked to prevent Northern Whigs who opposed the Fugitive Slave Law from winning elections and used his patronage powers to appoint pro-Fugitive Slave Law political allies to federal office.
While Fillmore's support for the Compromise of helped stall the Southern secessionist movement, his efforts to unite the Whigs behind the Compromise failed, in large part because of the Fugitive Slave Law. Antislavery Whigs, who thought the law unjust, refused to support Fillmore for President in the The Fugitive Slave Law, moreover, only deepened existing, and eventually fatal, divides within the Whig Party over slavery.
Congress passes the Compromise of , written by Kentucky senator Henry Clay. The deal settles the issue of slavery in the newly acquired territories, dividing the country along the thirty-seventh parallel, with slavery in the South and free states in the North.
From to , Young leads thousands of disciples from Illinois to the central Utah valley, where he establishes Salt Lake City, the site for the Church's new temple. With hundreds of new arrivals each year, Young founds scores of colonies to provide the inhabitants with homes and land; at his death in , nearly Mormon colonies exist. Headed by feminists and abolitionists, a national women's rights convention is held in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is attended by delegates from nine states.
Chosen for its accessibility by rail, the Worcester convention attracts hundreds of people. Among the main topics, participants discuss employment opportunities, political and legal rights, property rights after marriage, and educational opportunities for women, especially in medicine. Acting on long-held interest in gaining influence in Central America, the United States ratifies its first commercial treaty with El Salvador.
The coinage of three-cent pieces, the smallest coin in weight and thickness ever issued, begins to facilitate postal payments. Coupled with Northern anger over the Fugitive Slave Bill, this book generates more support for abolitionist causes. Southerners denounce the work while Northerners embrace it as a true depiction of slavery.
Gold is found in Oregon along the Rogue River, a prospective new territory for the California gold rushers of The discovery leads to the arrival of thousands of individuals in search of the metal. The work does not become widely accepted for another seventy years. The Compromise of was made up of five bills that attempted to resolve disputes over slavery in new territories added to the United States in the wake of the Mexican-American War It admitted California as a free state, left Utah and New Mexico to decide for themselves whether to be a slave state or a free state, defined a new Texas-New Mexico boundary, and made it easier for slaveowners to recover runways under the Fugitive Slave Act of Lingering resentment over its provisions contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.
The Mexican-American War was a result of U. President James K. Following the U. Victory, Mexico lost about one-third of its territory including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. A national dispute arose as to whether or not slavery would be permitted in the new Western territories.
Fearful of the growing divide between North and South over the issue of slavery , he hoped to avoid civil war by enacting a compromise. Famed orator and Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster , while opposed to the extension of slavery, also saw the compromise of as a way of averting national discord, and disappointed his abolitionist supporters by siding with Clay.
When Clay, facing health problems, grew too ill to argue his case before the senate, his cause was taken up by Democratic senator Stephen A. John C. When the full compromise failed to pass, Douglas split the omnibus bill into individual bills, which permitted congressmen to either vote or abstain on each topic. The untimely death of President Zachary Taylor and ascendancy of pro-compromise Vice President Millard Fillmore to the White House helped contribute to the passage of each bill.
The second set of resolutions settled a dispute between Texas and the New Mexico Territory over the location of the boundary between the two areas. New Mexico acquired significant territory as a result of this resolution. The second part of this resolution instructed the federal government to assume Texas' debts and place the young state on solid financial footing. The third pair of resolutions outlawed the slave trade in the nation's capital but still permitted people to own slaves in Washington, DC.
The final two resolutions called for a stronger fugitive slave law and prohibited Congress from interfering in the interstate slave trade. While many people welcomed some of Clay's proposals, they found some of the other resolutions infuriating. Seven months of debate took place before Northerners and Southerners in the United States Senate finally agreed to a compromise. After some initial debate, the Senate formed a special committee with Henry Clay as chairman.
The committee submitted a series of measures to the Senate based on Clay's original proposals. California would become a free state; the people residing in the New Mexico and Utah Territories would decide for themselves whether or not to permit slavery; and New Mexico would receive significant land from Texas.
The State of Texas would receive ten million dollars from the federal government in compensation. A group of Northern Democratic and Southern Whig Senators supported the committee's recommendations, but these men only comprised one-third of the Senate.
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