Compromise of 1850

Clay's proposed compromise included several parts: (1) The admission of California as a free state. (2) The organization of land acquired from Mexico (except California) into territories on the basis of popular sovereignty." Thus the settlers might decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery in their territory. (3) A payment of $10 million to Texas by the United States, if Texas abandoned all claims to New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. (4) The abolition of the slave trade -- that is, of buying and selling of slaves, but not of slavery itself in the District of Columbia. (5) A more effective fugitive slave law, one that would compel state and local law enforcement officials to aid federal officials in the capture and return of runaway slaves.

Whatever the ambiguities and ironies of the Compromise, it did avert a grave crisis in 1850 – or at least postponed it. Most Americans – even those who disliked the Compromise – breathed a sigh of relief. Moderates in both parties and in both sections took their cue from President Fillmore, who announced that the Compromise was “a final and irrevocable settlement” of sectional differences. Acceptance of the compromise was more hearty in the South than in the North. Most Southerners, especially Whigs, regarded it as a Southern victory. “We of the South had a new lease for slave property,” wrote a North Carolina Whig. “It was more secure than it had been for the last quarter of a century.”

These sentiments blunted the fire-eaters’ drive to keep disunionism alive. In four lower-South-states – South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi – Unionist coalitions of Whigs and moderate Democrats defeated efforts by Southern Rights Democrats to win control of the state governments and to call secession conventions. The Georgia Unionists in December 1850 adopted resolutions that furnished a platform for the South during the next decade. It was a platform of conditional Unionist. Although Georgia did “not wholly approve” of the Compromise, she would “abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this sectional controversy.”

In 1793, a federal law gave muscle to the provision by authorizing slave owners to enter other states to recapture their slave property. Proclaiming the 173 law a license to kidnap free blacks, northern states in the 1830s began passing "personal liberty laws" that provided fugitives with some protection.

Clay's compromise plan, proposed in February 1850, took several months to get through Congress. One obstacle was President Taylor's firm resistance to the proposal; another was the difficulty of getting congressmen to vote for it in the form of a single package or "omnibus bill." Few politicians from either section were willing to go on record as supporting the key concessions to the other section. The logjam was broken in July by two crucial developments: President Taylor died and was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, who favored the compromise; and a decision was made to abandon the omnibus strategy in favor of a series of measures that could be voted on separately.

Finally, Senator Stephen Douglas proposed a plan to unify the North and South. His idea was to divide Clay's plan into a series of bills. Members of Congress could vote for the bills they approved and not vote for the bills they opposed. The new laws, known as the Compromise of 1850, were passed by Congress. Many people thought that the compromise would settle the issue of slavery. It did prevent a war-- but only for ten years.

John C. Calhoun warned that agitation over slavery and the North's actoion would snap "the cords which bind these states together…nothing will be left to hold the states together except force." He would rather see the South secede from the Union, and prayed that the separation would be peaceful.

The Compromise of 1850, however, only delayed more serious sectional conflict. It added two new ingredients to American politics. The first hinted at the realignment of parties along sectional lines. Political leaders as different as Calhoun, Webster, Van Buren and New York senator William Seward all flirted with or committed themselves to new parties. Second, although repudiated by most ordiinary citizen, ideas like secessionism, disunion, and a "higher law" than the Contistution entered more and more political discussion. Some people wondered whether the question of slavery in the territories could be compromised awat the next time it arose.

Clay's proposed compromise included several parts: (1) The admission of California as a free state. (2) The organization of land acquired from Mexico (except California) into territories on the basis of "popular sovereignty." Thus the settlers might decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery in their territory. (3) A payment of $10 million to Texas by the United States, if Texas abandoned all claims to New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. (4) The abolition of the slave trade -- that is, of buying and selling of slaves, but not of slavery itself in the District of Columbia. (5) A more effective fugitive slave law, one that would compel state and local law enforcement officials to aid federal officials in the capture and return of runaway slaves.