Essay On The Compromise Of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was successful in the sense that it solved some crises and delayed the outbreak of war. On the surface, the admission of California was the incident that sparked the conflict. Admitting California as a free state would destroy the delicate sectional balance that was crucial to the South. The compromise solved this problem by allowing California to come into the Union as a free state, but the people of New Mexico and Utah would have the right to decide by popular sovereignty whether they would be free or in slavery. Since this idea seemed to go along with democratic idealism, people were able to accept it. The compromise also solved some other problems. “The Untied States paid Texas $10 million in compensation for the

At first glance, the compromise seemed have settled everything concerning the expansion of slavery, but it actually settled nothing. It merely put off the problem to a later time. Whether slavery should be allowed in the area gained in the Mexican War was still unanswered. The South and the North would continue fighting over unorganized territories. In fact, since the government decided not to intervene in the slavery issue, the people had to decided whether they want slavery or not. When they couldn’t decide for themselves, they turned to violence. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was “an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders” (Foner). This was a logical extension of the Compromise of 1850 because it echoed the “popular sovereignty”. The act had the people living in the territory decide if they wanted slavery. Because of this the North and the South got into a fight over Kansas. This caused sectional

As can be seen in Horace Mann’s letter, many northerners thought that the compromise was wrong in allowing slavery to continue to exist in District of Columbia. The act that caused the most stir of the compromise of 1850 was its proposal of passing a stronger Fugitive slave law. Southerners demanded a stricter fugitive slave law, which forced the North to aid in the return of runaways slaves. For example, “judges are paid ten dollars for every man they decide to be a slave; and only five dollars when they fail to do so” (Finkelman ,22). Many northerners became sympathetic toward the runaway slaves. Writers such as the famous American poet Walt Whitman, portrayed the inhumanity of southern slavery in his works. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in direct response to the Fugitive Slave Act. These literary works added fuel to the conflict. The North was angered by slavery, and the South’s way of