Hi and welcome to lecture number 46. This is topic 5.4, The Compromise of 1850. The theme for today is American and National Identity. The learning objective is explain the similarities and differences in how regional attitudes affected federal policy in the period after the Mexican-American War. The first key concept covers the biggest issue after the Mexican-American War, what to do about the Mexican Cession. It says, the Mexican Cession led to heated controversies over whether to allow slavery in the newly acquired territories.
The sectional debates over slavery can be simplified to Southerners wanting to expand slavery into the new lands, while Northerners wanting to stop it because it was a competition against free labor that drives down the wages of free labor. This is the basis for what the Free Soil Movement and later the Free Soil Party are founded on. They supported the Wilmot Proviso in that they wanted slavery to be kept out of the newly acquired Mexican Cession.
They would tolerate slavery to continue in the south, but they did not want it to expand. Southerners actually wanted more Mexican land at the end of the Mexican-American War, concluded by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, because they were bound by the Missouri Compromise Line. The more land that they got below the 3630 parallel, the more land that they could potentially cultivate and bring slavery into.
One of the first attempts at answering the slavery question was proposed by Louis Cass in the form of popular sovereignty. Cass was a senator from the state of Michigan and a presidential candidate in 1848. He said that the people of a certain territory should be able to decide whether or not they want slavery to be legal in that territory or future state, essentially to let the territory decide for itself. This was a politically savvy strategy from a northern democrat that allowed him to not make a public or moral stance for or against slavery. The solution appears in the Compromise of 1850. It temporarily eases sectional tensions and then again in the 1854... Kansas-Nebraska Act.
That 1848 election, in which Louis Cass was running as a Democrat, also included two other candidates. Former President Martin Van Buren was the third party candidate for the Free Soil Party, and General Zachary Taylor was the Whig Party's nominee. The Whig Party was pretty broken up over the slavery issue, as seen in the political cartoon on the screen.
It depicts David Wilmot putting his Wilmot Proviso in front of the wheel of the Whig carriage that's being pulled in opposite directions by Zachary Taylor, a new candidate for the Whigs. and Henry Clay, one of the original founders of the party. The Compromise of 1850 comes after several failed attempts to find middle ground, and it is led by the old guard of senators.
The key concept says, the courts and national leaders made a variety of attempts to resolve the issue of slavery in the territories, including the Compromise of 1850. The older senators were more willing to concede and make compromises as they had in the past. Henry Clay from Kentucky and Daniel Webster from Massachusetts were older Whigs whose time in politics dates back as far as the War of 1812. John C. Calhoun was the old guard Democratic senator who had had his moments in which he showed his unapologetic support for the institution of slavery, but even he came in with a conciliatory tone. As a side note, Calhoun had his own past of being inflammatory in his role during the nullification crisis during the Jackson administration. The new Guard of Senators was led by William Seward, a Whig at the time of the Compromise, but later becomes a prominent Republican who thought would get the nomination for the party in the 1860 election. Newer and younger Senators were more idealistic, they were unwilling to compromise, and Seward convinced President Taylor that no compromise should be allowed and that the status quo should be maintained.
However, President Taylor died in the middle of his term. His Vice President, Millard Fillmore, had been present in the Senate chamber, fulfilling his Vice Presidential duties as President of the Senate. So here are all the parts of the debate in the speeches that Clay, Calhoun, and Webster made. Despite all of them having different views on slavery, what they all had in common was that they wanted to pass legislation that would ease tensions by giving the South some concessions on slavery, and to the North that it would be limited in other areas. After Taylor's death, Fillmore is inaugurated and signals to Congress that he would sign off on a compromise.
Congress passes five separate bills that make up the Compromise of 1850. Here are the elements of the Compromise and the concessions each side received. The anti-slavery, or free-soilers, got another state added to the Union as a free state in the form of California. It had gained enough population to reach the threshold to apply for statehood as a result of the 1848 gold rush. The domestic slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C. This might have been more of a symbolic measure, but it's significant to point out that D.C.
was completely surrounded by southern slave-holding states, Virginia and Maryland. Lastly, Texas ceded some of its territory that they had brought into the New Mexico Territory. therefore limiting the reaches of slavery, which was already legal in Texas.
Concessions made for the pro-slavery side include the Utah and New Mexico territories, open to the possibility of slavery through popular sovereignty, the same concept that Louis Cass had proposed in 1848. Anyone that moved into the New Mexico and Utah territory, once it was settled and had a constitution written to apply for statehood, could vote on whether or not the state would allow slavery. This is a concession to the South because the Utah Territory and parts of the New Mexico Territory lay north of the 3630 parallel line from the Missouri Compromise. Under the Missouri Compromise, no slavery would have been allowed there.
Proponents of slavery are granted a new stricter fugitive slave law that guaranteed the return of runaway enslaved people. This fugitive slave law made it unlawful for northerners to aid the escape of enslaved people from the South. It granted marshals seeking the return of a fugitive slave the power to deputize northerners to help the search and capture of runaways. It made it so that black people who were free in the north could be accused of being a runaway slave and taken back into slavery. Due to its harshness, it actually pushed the northern states to siding more with the abolitionists.
Northerners didn't want to be compelled to catch enslaved people who would run away. Finally, Texas received $10 million for land ceded to the New Mexico Territory. Alright, here's the recap for today.
The territory won from the war, Mexican Cession, created more discord within the country over slavery's expansion. Also, the Compromise of 1850 was difficult to accomplish. However, it was not a permanent solution to the question of slavery.
Only four years will pass when new legislation fans the flame of sectionalism again in the form of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Thank you for watching. If you would like to watch the next lecture you can click on the video link on the screen and if you're looking for more practice to help you on the AP exam you can visit APushLights.com I wish you the very best in all of your studying and look forward to seeing you back on the next lecture.