NORTH

Northern states had
either abolished slavery
or put it on the road to
extinction
SOUTH

Southern states had built
the largest slave society
in the world
 The
colonial surveyor’s line that came to
represent the divide between slave and
free
 The
South was not merely a society
with slaves. It had become a slave
society. Slavery shaped the region’s
economy, culture, social structure,
and politics.
 Should
slavery be extended to the
territories?
• The Wilmot Proviso says no
• A compromise of “popular sovereignty” is
proposed—let those who live in the territory
decide
 The
House of Representatives passed
the Wilmot Proviso (it is dominated
by northern states)
 The Senate rejected the proviso (it is
dominated by slave states)
 It becomes an issue in the election of
1848
 All
political parties were split between
those advocating slavery and those
against it
 Democrats: Lewis
Cass (‘popular
sovereignty’)
 Whigs: Zachary Taylor (Mexican War
hero)
 Free Soil Party: Martin Van Buren
 Anti-slavery
Whigs and anti-slavery
Democrats founded the Free Soil
Party, making slavery the central
issue of the campaign
 Neither the Whigs nor Democrats
took an official stand on slavery in
the election of 1848
Taylor supported the
Free Soil approach to
the territories—
surprising given that
he was a Southerner
and slaveholder
 He encouraged
California and New
Mexico to draw up
constitutions to
apply for statehood
promptly

• One of the most contentious and significant
sessions in its history
• Senator Henry Clay proposed a series of
resolutions that sought to balance the
interests of the slave and free states: The
Omnibus Bill
• both the anti-slavery people and the “fireeaters” or radical secessionist Southerners
hated Clay’s plan and it failed
Sanctioned
compromise, stating
that the new
territories did not
have the climate
appropriate for
slavery, making it a
mute point
 Northerners thought
he abandoned their
cause

 broke
Clay’s
compromise into its
various parts and
skillfully ushered each
part through Congress
 Combined, the various
bills are known as the
Compromise of 1850
 California
to enter the Union as a free
state
 New Mexico and Utah would be
decided by popular sovereignty
 Texas accepted its boundary with
New Mexico
 Slave trade in Washington DC would
be abolished
 Fugitive slave laws would be more
stringent
 It
is more a testament to Douglas’s
political skills than to real
compromise
 It preserved the Union, but only
temporarily
President
Zachary Taylor died
President Millard Fillmore
succeeds him
California is admitted to the
Union
Fugitive Slave Act is passed




The most explosive
measure of the
Compromise of 1850
Southerners thought
the North betrayed the
Compromise
In the North there
were some “personal
liberty laws” that
provided some
fugitives with
protection
Brutal enforcement of
the Fugitive Slave Act
radicalized the North
 First
candidate of
the Republican
Party to run for
president