CRISIS & COMPROMISE:
COMPROMISE OF 1850
&BLEEDING KANSAS
APUSH - Spiconardi
A DOSE OF ARSENIC
It will be as the
man who swallows
arsenic…Mexico
will poison us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH
 In January 1848, gold was
discovered in the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains
 By 1849, 80,000 people had arrived
in California
 Hence the term 49ers
 Competition
 Americans, Indians, Mexicans,
Chinese, and South Americans all
competed for land and resources
 “Committees of vigilance” expelled
“foreigners” from areas with gold
 Indian population drops from 150,000
(1848) to 30,000 (1861)
KNOW-NOTHING/AMERICAN
PARTY
 Political party that formed to oppose
immigration and immigrant rights
 Platform
 Reserve political offices for native-born
Americans
 Resist the aggressions of the Catholic
Church
 Anti-slavery (Northern members)
 Institute literacy tests for voting
 Ended two-party system
COMPROMISE OF 1850
 In 1850, California applied for statehood as free state
 Southern states feared this would upset sectional
balance in Congress
 John C. Calhoun
 “Slavery follows the flag”
 Claimed Constitution cannot regulate slavery in the
territories
 Slaves are property and Constitution cannot limit property
rights
 Proposed dual presidency
 Divide executive power between North and South
 Squatter Sovereignty?
 Extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific
Ocean?
COMPROMISE OF 1850
 The Compromise of 1850
 Proposed by Henry Clay with support
from fellow Whig Daniel Webster and
Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas
 The compromise contained five
separate laws
 California admitted into the Union as a
free state
 A border dispute between New Mexico
and Texas was resolved
 Territories of New Mexico granted
popular sovereignty on the issue of
slavery
 Slave trade abolished in Washington,
D.C.
COMPROMISE OF 1850
 Fugitive Slave Act
 Federal government would
enforce slave holders rights
 Individual citizens had to assist
in the capturing of runaway
slaves
 Federal commissions, not the
courts, would decide cases
involving fugitive slaves
Despite this compromise, “fire-eaters,”
(militant proslavery activists) in SC, GA, MS,
& AL gathered money and arms “to meet
the emergency.”
ERIC FONER ON THE FUGITIVE
SLAVE ACT
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
 In 1854, to further his presidential
ambitions, Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (D –
IL) introduces the Kansas-Nebraska Act
 Created the new territories of Kansas and
Nebraska
 The issue of slavery would be determined
by popular sovereignty (white males)
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
 But what about the
Missouri Compromise?
 The Kansas-Nebraska Act
repealed the Missouri
Compromise
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
Appeal of the Independent
Democrats
Sen. Salmon Chase
(OH)
We arraign this bill as a gross violation
of a sacred pledge; as a criminal
betrayal of precious rights; as part
and parcel of an atrocious plot to
exclude from a vast unoccupied
region immigrants from the Old
World and free laborers from our own
States, and convert it into a dreary
region of despotism, inhabited by
masters and slaves.
Sen. Charles Sumner
(MA)
BLEEDING KANSAS
 Kansas held elections in 1854 and
1855
William Quantrill
(proslavery)
 Hundreds of proslavery Missourians
crossed into Kansas to cast fraudulent
ballots
 President Franklin Pierce recognized
the vote
 Settlers from free states started their
own government
 In 1855 proslavery and abolitionist
contingents waged violence against
one another
 Over 200 killed
John Brown
(abolitionist)
BLEEDING KANSAS
Sen. Charles Sumner is
beaten within an inch
of his life for criticizing
a proslavery Sen.
Andrew Butler (SC)