The Gag Rule, instituted by the U.S. House of Representatives during the 24th Congress (1835-1837), was one of the many stimulants that led to the Compromise of 1850. This rule, supported by proslavery congressmen, called for all petitions, memorials, or resolutions regarding slavery to be tabled and for no further action to be taken upon them. However, former president John Quincy Adams and Joshua R. Giddings, who fervently fought against the Gag Rule, eventually mustered enough votes from the House to repeal it on December 3, 1844. Essentially, the Gag Rule exacerbated the anti-slavery feeling in the North. Northerners started to request that there should be limits on the extension of slavery. Southerners persisted on resisting all attempts …show more content…
In regards to California’s statehood, Mexico and the United States signed a treaty in February 1850 that not only ended the Mexican War, but yielded a vast portion of the Southwest to the United States; present day California was a part of this vast portion of land. Several days earlier, in January 25, 1848, gold had been discovered on the American River. As a result of the Gold Rush, California experienced an influx of settlers; the more the population of California increased, the more it became evident that a civil government was needed. Therefore, in 1849, Californians sought statehood, requesting admission into the Union as a free state. California’s admission into the Union fueled the tension in the national government. Conflict had already accumulated because the Anti-slavery faction of the North that promoted the Wilmot Proviso wanted to prohibit slavery in the lands acquired from Mexico; the Pro-slavery faction in the South vehemently argued against the prohibition of slavery in the new territories; advocates of Popular Sovereignty contended that the New Mexico and Utah territories had the right to decide whether or not slavery should be allowed; anti-slavery groups wanted the slave trade outlawed in the District of Columbia; and the Southern states complained that the Northern states were not enforcing the Fugitive Act of 1793. In hopes to appease this tension, Henry Clay presented a compromise in January 29, 1850, which, after eight months of heated debate in the U.S. Congress, became the Compromise of 1850 in September
...g.” When John C. Fremont, a U.S. Army captain, heard about the possibility of there being war with Mexico, he decided to join the American settlers in their rebellion against the Californios. As there had already been war between the United States and Mexico, people believed that what Fremont had done was helpful to the American cause. John C. Fremont’s goal had been to help California gain independence. During the revolt, Californos such as Mariano Vallejo were taken prisoner without any formal charges against them. Although the American settlers tried to prevent California from becoming part of the nation, the Bear Flag Revolt fell quickly. U.S. forces came hoisted the stars and stripes, and towns fell rapidly. Soon, California was claimed for the United States by U.S. Navy Commodore Robert Stockton. Californios still tried to resist, but then surrendered in 1847.
McConnell, Eleanor H. "Compromise of 1850." In Rohrbough, Malcolm J., and Gary B. Nash, eds. Encyclopedia of American History: Expansion and Reform, 1813 to 1855, Revised Edition (Volume IV). New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2010. American History Online. Facts On File, (December 14, 2013).
The The bill clearly stated that no state above the proposed line shall have slavery. with exception to those already in existence. This meant that all new states being brought into the country from the west had a choice to have slavery if and only if they lay below the line. Obviously, the south did not really like the sand. idea, as it allowed the northern non-slave states to outnumber the southern.
Also, prohibiting slavery north of the 36030’, the southern boundary of Missouri. The South agreed since Plantations would not be able to thrive further North of that line. Many concerned Americans thought that the slavery issue was resolved.
Additionally, the majority of states had conflicts between slavery in their territory, one of them dealt with missouri. Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a slave state; this became a problem because missouri ruined the balance for free slaves and slave states. The northern states wanted to ban slavery from occurring in missouri because the unbalanced situation it put towards the other states. In response, the southern states declared how congress doesn’t have the power to ban slavery in missouri. However, Henry Clay offers a solution, the missouri compromise of 1820. Missouri admitted as slave state and Maine becomes a free slave state. Slavery is banned in Louisiana creating a 36 30 line in missouri’s southern border; this maintained the balance in the U.S senate.
The Three Fifths compromise states that a slave be counted as three-fifths of a person. Therefore, the population of the southern states equaled the population of the northern states. Now that the populations were balanced, the south and the north sent the same amount of representatives to the House of Representatives. Pro-slavery southerners felt as if the north still had an advantage, but it was actually the south that had the advantage in the Senate and the House of Representatives.... ...
One item in the Compromise of 1850 was the provision for a stronger Fugitive Slave Law. This new law made it a federal crime to not return a runaway slave to the south. The law also established that any suspected runaway slave was to be tried by a single judge, not by a jury. Also, these judges were compensated by a system that provided them with more money for deciding that the slave was guilty than innocent. This law obviously encouraged people not to harbor runaway slaves, and when they were caught, it provided the judge an incentive to have them returned to the south.
The new territories and the discussion of whether they would be admitted to the Union free or slave-holding stirred up animosity. The Compromise of 1850 which offered stricter fugitive slave laws, admitted California as a free state, allowed slavery in Washington D.C., and allowed new territories to choose whether they wanted to be slave-holding or free was supposed to help ease tension between the North and South. Yet Southern states wanted more new territories to be slave-holders so the institution of it would continue to grow. They believed slavery was a way of life and as Larrabee said in his senate speech, “You cannot break apart this organization and this system that has intertwined itself into every social and political fiber of that great people who inhabit one-half of the Union.” (“There is a Conflict of Races”).
After winning the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States gained the western territories, which included modern-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. However, controversial topics, that helped cause the Civil War, arouse with the addition of these new territories. Primarily, the people of the United States wanted to know whether the new territories would be admitted as free states or slave states. In order to avoid fighting between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North, Henry Clay (Whig) and Stephen Douglas (Democrat) drafted the Compromise of 1850. Although the compromise was created to stop conflict ...
The city of San Francisco was created by the rush.” “In San Francisco, for example, the population grew from, 1,000 in 1848 to over 20,000 by 1850”. To accommodate the needs of the arrival of so many gold mining towns showed up all over the region. “At the start of 1848 it was a small village of a few hundred people on the edge of San Francisco Bay; by the end of 1849 it had a population of tens of thousands and was the largest city in the western USA”. San Francisco developed in to an active economy becoming the central city of the frontier. In late 1849, California applied to enter the Union with a constitution preventing slavery. According to the Compromised of 1850, “It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover
Before the Gold rush, the United States was at war with Mexico over territory. If it had not been for the Treaty of Guadalupe in 1848 the United States might have turned out differently than it currently is today. The Treaty of Guadalupe was signed on February 2, 1848 and ended the Mexican-American war. Mexico transferred nearly half of their land to the U.S. (Rohrbough 12). Some Americans felt it was part of Manifest Destiny, especially by believer President James Polk (Smith, Orsi, and Rawls 26). The Treaty of Guadalupe guaranteed that any Mexican citizen in California who did not want to continue their allegiance to Mexico would within a year be granted the automatic “title and rights of citizens...
believed Mexico could not govern their territory properly, Mexico still owned and had authority over California. The U.S. was not justified in going to war with Mexico because they ignored Mexican authority by settling in California, Mexico’s territory, and established slavery in disputed territory when it was against Mexican law. According to John L. O’Sullivan’s “Annexation”, “The Angelo-Saxon foot is already on [California’s] borders...armed with the plough and the rifle…” (Doc A). The U.S. believed that Mexico “never can exert any real governmental authority over such a country” (Doc A), so they set up towns along the borders of California with armed soldiers in line. These actions were used to pressure Mexico into an attack, so the U.S. could annex California. Charles Sumner states in “Objections to the Mexican-American War”, “Slaveholders crossed the Sabine [river between Louisiana and Texas] with their slaves, in defiance of the Mexican Ordinance of freedom.” (Doc D). Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, and one of their founding laws was the ban of slavery. In spite of this, the U.S. broke Mexican law and established slavery in disputed territory.The U.S. used tactics such as angering and pressuring the Mexicans, which helped provoke a war that was
In addition, during Polk’s term he expanded the United States’ border to the west coast. His desire to enlarge the country stemmed from his belief in “manifest destiny” which was the idea that the United States was destined to stretch to the Pacific Ocean. His presidency; his decisions for the country were influenced by manifest destiny. In the article titled “Mexican-American War,” James K. Polk wanted to acquire California and the southwestern land of the United States. Polk’s movement of troops into the conflicted zone between the Rio Grande and Nueces River initiated a conflict with Mexico. The conflict developed into a war, with hefty Mexican losses, but finally ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with the U.S. as the victor. In the treaty, Mexico decided to sell all the land north of the Rio G...
The 13th amendment was adopted speedily in the aftermath of the Civil War, with the simple direct purpose of forbidding slavery anywhere in the United States. The 13th Amendment took authority away from the states, so that no state could institute slavery, and it attempted to constitutional grant the natural right of liberty. Think that this amendment would suffice, Congressional Republicans pushed the amendment through. To counter the amendment, a series of laws called the Black Codes were enacted by the former Confederate states, which
S. in 1845. It had fought for its independence from Mexico ten years earlier and was its own country. Leaders decided to become an U. S. state and Mexico had a problem with that. Or so the propaganda reports. American soldiers were defending the border from Mexicans and to make the excuse for war, Polk insisted the boarder was the Rio Grande and decided to go to war over the boundary dispute. At the same time, Polk was testing his might with Mexico, he was negotiating the Oregon Territory with the British. Little did he know what would occur in California three years in the future (Pletcher n. p.).