What was the Compromise of 1850?

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate laws passed by Congress in September 1850 to manage the political crisis over slavery in territories acquired from Mexico, briefly easing sectional tensions while sowing seeds of further conflict. The crisis had roots in the Mexican Cession of 1848, which added vast western lands whose status as slave or free was undecided. California's application for admission as a free state, the unsettled status of New Mexico and Utah, the disputed Texas-New Mexico boundary, the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and growing northern resistance to fugitive slave laws all contributed.

President Zachary Taylor wanted a single bill admitting California and organizing the rest of the territories without addressing slavery, but his death on July 9, 1850 brought Vice President Millard Fillmore into office. Fillmore favored compromise. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, then 73 years old and called the Great Compromiser, originally proposed an Omnibus Bill but it failed in the Senate on July 31, 1850. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois then split the package into separate bills and shepherded each through Congress in September 1850.

The five components were: First, California was admitted as the 31st state and a free state on September 9, 1850, ending the equal balance of slave and free states in the Senate. Second, the Territory of New Mexico was organized on September 9, 1850 with popular sovereignty (settlers would decide whether to allow slavery) and an adjusted border with Texas. Third, Texas received 10 million dollars in exchange for relinquishing its claims to parts of present-day New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Fourth, the Utah Territory was organized with popular sovereignty on September 9, 1850. Fifth, the Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened on September 18, 1850 requiring federal officials to assist in capturing escaped slaves and imposing fines and imprisonment on those who aided escapes. Sixth, the slave trade (but not slavery itself) was abolished in the District of Columbia on September 20, 1850.

The compromise produced political winners and losers. Northern Whigs and Free-Soilers were horrified by the Fugitive Slave Act, which expanded slavery's reach into free states. Southerners objected to California's admission and to the loss of Texas territory. Daniel Webster delivered his famous Seventh of March speech in 1850 backing the compromise, an act that ruined his reputation in Massachusetts. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851 to 1852 in direct response to the Fugitive Slave Act. The compromise held for four years before the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 reopened the territorial slavery question.