ch. 15 1 pp

Chapter Objectives

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• Describe how the debate over slavery was related to the admission of new states.

• Understand what the Compromise of 1850 accomplished.

Section 1: Slavery and the West

Why It MattersSlavery was a major cause of the worsening division between the North and South in the period before the Civil War. The struggle between the North and South turned more hostile, and talk grew of separation and civil war.

The Impact Today“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter to A.G. Hodges in 1864. By studying this era of our history, we can better understand the state of racial relations today and develop ways for improving them.


The Missouri Compromise • When Missouri applied for statehood in 1817,

it was a territory whose citizens owned about 10,000 enslaved African Americans.

(pages 436–437)(pages 436–437)

• At the time the Senate was balanced, with 11 free states and 11 slave states.

• Missouri’s admission to the Union asa slave state would have upset that balance of power.


The Missouri Compromise (cont.) • The North and the South, with very different

economic systems, were also competing for new lands in the West.

• People in the North wanted to stop the spread of slavery into new states and territories.

• People in the South resented the North’s attempts to interfere with slavery, which they considered their own affair.

(pages 436–437)(pages 436–437)


The Missouri Compromise (cont.) • Representative Henry Clay, Speaker of the

House, proposed a solution to the Missouri problem.

• Maine, which had been a part of Massachusetts, had also applied for admission to the Union as a new state.

• Clay suggested admitting Missouri as a slave state and admitting Maine as a free state at the same time.

(pages 436–437)(pages 436–437)


The Missouri Compromise (cont.) • Clay also made a second proposal to settle

several arguments about slaveryin the territories.

• He proposed prohibiting slavery in all territories and states carved from the Louisiana Purchase north of the latitude line of 36°30’N.

• The one exception would be Missouri.

(pages 436–437)(pages 436–437)


The Missouri Compromise (cont.) • Clay’s two proposals, which became known as

the Missouri Compromise, were passed by Congress in 1820.

• The Missouri Compromise preserved the balance between free and slave states in the Senate, and ended the debate in Congress over slavery in new states and territories–at least for a while.

(pages 436–437)(pages 436–437)


New Western Lands• The issue of slavery in new Western lands

stayed in the background between 1820 (the year of the Missouri Compromise) and the 1840s.

(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)

• The proposal to add a new set of states and territories (Texas, New Mexico, and California) brought the issue to a head again.


• After winning independence from Mexico, Texas asked for admission to the Union.

• Because slavery existed in Texas, it would have entered the Union as a slave state.

• This again brought out the question of whether free or slave states would control the Senate.

• As a result Texas’s statehood became an issue in the 1844 election.

New Western Lands (cont.)

(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)


• Democratic candidate James K. Polk won the election and pressed to add Texas.

• Texas became a state in 1845.

• At the same time, support in the South for taking over New Mexico and California, which were both part of Mexico, also grew.

• Disputes between the United States and Mexico over boundaries in Texas and the desire of the United States for New Mexico and California led to war with Mexico.


(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)


• A bitter debate over slavery in new Western lands began over proposalsby Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania and Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.

• Wilmot’s proposal, called the Wilmot Proviso, said that slavery should be prohibited in any lands that might be acquired from Mexico at the end of the war.


(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)


• Calhoun’s counterproposal stated that neither Congress nor any other governmental authority had the power to prohibit or regulate slavery in any way in a territory.

• Neither proposal passed Congress, but these proposals intensified argumentsfor and against slavery.


(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)


• The debate over slavery and the refusalof either the Democratic or Whig candidate for president in 1848 to take a stand on slavery in the territories led to the formation of the Free Soil Party, which supported the Wilmot Proviso.

• Whig candidate Zachary Taylor won the election by successfully appealing to both slave and free states.

• But the Free Soil Party won several seats in Congress.


(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)


• Once in office, President Taylor encouraged the territories of New Mexico and California, which had been obtained from Mexico at the end of the war with Mexico, to apply for statehood.

• After California did so in 1849, the problem of the balance of power in the Senate came up again.


(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)


• California would enter the Union as a free state, which would upset the balance of 15 free states and 15 slave states in the Senate.

• It was likely that some of the other territories that might soon become states would enter as free states as well.

• Southerners worried they would lose power and talked of leaving the Union.


(pages 437–438)(pages 437–438)

A New Compromise• In January 1850 Senator Henry Clay

presented a new multi-part plan to settle a number of issues dividing Congress, including the possible spread of slavery into Western lands.

(pages 438–439)(pages 438–439)


• According to Clay’s plan, the following things would happen:

A New Compromise (cont.)

(pages 438–439)(pages 438–439)

- California would be admitted as a free state.

- The New Mexico Territory would have no slavery restrictions.

- A New Mexico-Texas border dispute would be decided in favor of New Mexico.

- The slave trade–though not slavery–would be abolished in Washington, D.C.

- There would be a stronger fugitive slave law.

• A bitter debate in Congress over the provisions of Clay’s proposal raged for seven months.


(pages 438–439)(pages 438–439)


• Clay’s plan could not pass as a package, and President Taylor opposed it.

• Then in July 1820, Taylor suddenly died. • The new president, Millard Fillmore, proposed a

compromise. • Senator Stephen Douglas split Clay’s proposal

into five different bills to allow members of Congress to vote on them separately.

• That way, members could vote for measures they agreed with and vote against parts they did not support without rejecting the whole plan.


(pages 438–439)(pages 438–439)


• Congress passed the series of five separate bills in August and September 1850.

• Together they became known as the Compromise of 1850.

• Many Americans, including President Fillmore, thought this compromise would settle the question of slavery once and for all. But this was not the case.


(pages 438–439)(pages 438–439)

ch. 15 1 pp

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