Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s
History. We’ve been going through Unit 5 of the AP U.S. History curriculum and in this
video we need to continue talking about the growing tension caused by slavery from 1844
till the Civil War, and the various proposals attempted to solve the problem, including
the most well-known of these proposals: the Compromise of 1850. So if you’re ready to
get them brain cows milked, let’s get to it. So in the last video we talked about the Mexican
American War and how all the lands won by the United States in that war caused a lot of tension
with respect to the expansion of slavery. In fact, that fight began before the war was even won
when the Wilmot Proviso was narrowly defeated in Congress which would have prohibited
slavery in any territory won in the war. And so with that proposal struck down, we need to
have a look at the major positions held by those in power with respect to the expansion of slavery
into the territories. First was the Southern Position. Not surprisingly, this group of people
argued that slavery was a constitutional right. Additionally they argued that the question
about where slavery could and could not exist had already been decided in the Missouri
Compromise, otherwise known as the Compromise of 1820. Since the line had already established where
slavery could and could not exist, the Southerners just said, why don’t we draw that line right on
to the Pacific Ocean. And let’s just pause here for a second, because when we’re talking about
compromises and legislation it can sound kind of dull. But I can’t emphasize enough just how
important the Missouri Compromise was to the slave-holding South. For them it was a guarantee
that slavery, not to mention their entire economy and way of life, would continue to exist
unharrassed below this line. And for them, they held on to the dictates of this compromise with
nigh unto Scriptural tenacity. Because, at the end of the day, for southerners and attempt to curtail
slavery was a move toward its entire destruction. The second position regarding the expansion of
slavery was the Free Soil Movement. This movement was composed of Northern Democrats and Whigs
and when they said “free soil” what they meant was that they wanted any new territories acquired
to be the dominion of free laborers, not enslaved ones. But within the Free Soil Movement, there
were certainly conflicting views. It was true that Northern Democrats and Whigs wanted slavery banned
in the new territories, but it wasn’t necessarily because they thought slavery was a moral evil.
In fact, they didn’t even want black people, enslaved OR free, to be granted access to settle
in these new territories. They envisioned these new territories to be a land of white opportunity
without the need to compete with enslaved labor. But also within this faction were abolitionists
who very much had different ideas about slavery. Abolitionists wanted to ban slavery everywhere,
not only in newly acquired territories but also in the states where it had existed time immemorial.
Now some of these folks eventually went on to found a new political party, namely, the Free
Soil Party, on which, more in another video. The third position with respect to
the expansion of slavery was popular sovereignty. And to understand what these folks
proposed, you just have to look at the two words: popular means “people” and sovereignty means
“power”. So those who held the popular sovereignty position argued that the people living in each
territory should decide the slavery question for themselves. And hey, doesn’t this sound like
a good, middle-ground position? Shouldn’t this be the position all of the rival factions took?
Well, no, and it’s not hard to understand why. Popular sovereignty would have been great for
those in the Southern Position IF the territory in question chose to allow slavery. But what if
they didn’t? Remember: to them any curtailment of slavery was an attack on the whole system. Oh,
and by the way, Compromise of 1820: we already decided this question. Popular sovereignty
would have been great for the free soilers too IF the territories decided against slavery, but
who’s to say they would? So on paper, maybe this was a plan that could settle some tension,
but in reality, it only increased it. Now, it’s probably not hard to imagine that it
was an exceedingly bitter fight between folks who held to these three positions. All of them
were fundamentally incompatible with one another and compromise between them proved impossible.
And THEN when the Mexican American War came to a close and all this new territory came into
the Union, the fight grew even more intense, particularly because California and New
Mexico entered as free states. And that one fact caused southerners to rise up
and threaten secession from the Union. Wait, why are they so salty about two more free
states coming into the Union? Well, I’ve mentioned it all along the way if you’ve been with me in all
these videos. One of the key establishments that kept the Northern and Southern states together
in the Union was a perfect balance in the Senate. Remember, the House of Representatives represents
the states by population, but each state in the Senate is equal. And we can see the importance
of this balance in something like the Wilmot Proviso which, again, proposed to ban slavery
in the territories. It was passed by the House because northern states were more populous and
thus had more influence in the House. But it was struck down in the Senate precisely because of
this balance between slave and free states. In order for a bill to pass into law, it requires
a simple majority vote. But if the seats in the Senate are exactly equal, and both halves vote
exactly in line with their sectional beliefs, then the vote will always be 50/50 and thus
no laws banning slavery could ever be passed. That’s why the admission of California
and New Mexico as free states was such a contentious issue: it decisively tipped the
balance in the Senate towards the free states. Now, no matter what those who
held the Southern position did, they could not get laws passed that favored
them, and in fact, because free soilers were concentrated in the North, this could
mean the end of slavery altogether. Okay, so I hope you can feel that tension and
why it gave rise to calls for secession. So something needed to be done to mollify the
Southern states and prevent the breakup of the Union, and for that, here comes Henry Clay riding
in to save the day on his horse named Compromise. He didn’t really have a horse named compromise,
it was just a metaphor to illustrate how Henry Clay was… nevermind, you get it. Anyway, in
order to solve this most vexing of problems, Henry Clay proposed the Compromise
of 1850 and here’s what it did. First, the compromise said that the Mexican
Cession would be further divided into the Utah and New Mexico territories and that each would decide
the slavery question by popular sovereignty. Second, California would be admitted as a free
state. Third, the slave trade would be banned in Washington D.C. And fourth, a stricter Fugitive
Slave Law would be passed and enforced with vigor. Now what this compromise did was to calm the
tensions down a little. The gaping neck wound that was the slavery question had a band-aid
forcefully applied to it. However, it was that Fugitive Slave Law that would end up breaking
apart any calm that this compromise accomplished. We’ll talk more about this in the next video,
but for now, it’s enough to know what’s obvious. If the North was in general against slavery,
and more specifically here was the growing population of abolitionists, then enforcing
a law that required them to arrest enslaved people who had escaped their plantations and
return them to the institution they loathed, well that was going to be, to
put it mildly, uh difficult. Okay, that’s what you need to know about UNit 5
topic 4 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. There are more videos for unit 5 right here. If you
need help getting an A in your class and a five want me to keep making them, then let me know
by subscribing and I shall oblige, Heimler out.