1850-1859---The Compromise of 1850

SEPTEMBER 20, 1850:      

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the Slave States of the South and the Free States of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). 

The Compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas, avoided secession or civil war and reduced sectional conflict for four years. The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions. The specifics of the Compromise were that:

♦        Texas surrendered its claim to New Mexico, which it had threatened war over, as well as its claims north of the Missouri Compromise Line, transferred its crushing public debt to the federal government, and retained the control over El Paso that it had established earlier in 1850, with the Texas Panhandle (which earlier compromise proposals had detached from Texas) thrown in at the last moment.

♦        California's application for admission as a Free State with its current boundaries was approved and a Southern proposal to split California at parallel 35° north to provide a Southern territory was not approved.

 ♦       The South avoided adoption of the Wilmot Proviso (which would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War) allowing the New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory to decide to become Slave States (popular sovereignty), even though Utah and a northern fringe of New Mexico were north of the Missouri Compromise Line.

  ♦      A stronger Fugitive Slave Act was enacted. 

  ♦    Slavery (but not the slave trade) was permitted in Washington D.C.