-
The Compromise of 1850
James Polk helped settle the Missouri Compromise of 1819-1820 and the nullification crisis of 1832-1833 now was stepping forward with another plan of compromise. Henry Clay of Kentucky addressed each issue of sectional disagreement. -
The Expansion Of Slavery- Missouri Compromise
There was a victory in the Mexican War in 1847, it added more than 500,000 square miles to the Union. Missouri was added to the Union as a slave state. It divided Louisiana Purchase into a free slave territory. In 1840 president James K. Polk and others recommended expanding the 36 degrees and 30 inch line to the pacific coast. It divided the Mexican Cession into two regions, one banning slavery, and one allowing it. -
The Wilmot Proviso
The Union people wanted to prohibit slavery in all parts of the Mexican Cession. During the war Representative David Wilmot said he had a plan, named the Wilmot Proviso. He claims that neither “slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of the territory”. The house had more of the northerners approve of the Wilmot Proviso, but it went away in the Senate’s house where the south had more power. The Wilmot Proviso never passed as a law. -
Popular Sovereignty
Senate Lewis Cass of Michigan, wanted to end controversy over slavery in new territories by using a popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty allows voters in a territory to decide to either ban or permit slavery. The decision would be made by electing antislavery or pro-slavery representatives to their territory legislatures. Based on majority the legislatures would pass laws to prohibit or promote slavery. -
Free Soild Party
-
The Claifornia Question
James Polk announced that there was a gold rush discovered in California and it increased its population. It raised the question whether California would be a free or a slave state to the Union. Most people did not want slavery, under the Mexican rule, slavery had been illegal in California. They did not want to come and compete for jobs against slave labor. -
Clay's Compromise
Clay’s compromise plan have 5 big parts. He urged congress to admit California to the Union as a free state. He called for the rest of the Mexican Cession already called New Mexico to be organized as a federal land, in which popular sovereignty could determine slavery. Clay called a border dispute between Texas and New Mexico. Bowing a common northern request, Clay was calling for an end to the slave trade. Meeting the demands of southern slaveholders would claim to be losing many slaves a year -
Catching Slaves
Under the laws, slaveholders and their agents could take suspected fugitive slaves before the Union commissioners and try to prove ownership through documents or testimony of white witnesses. The fugitives that are accused cannot testify in their defense. A slaveholder’s claim will release a suspected fugitive received 5 dollars for their services. People who returned a suspected fugitive to his or her owner in the south received 10 dollars. Anyone who hid or otherwise assisted a runaway faced 6
