Explanation:
As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. Furthermore, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah.
The Missouri Compromise was struck down as unconstitutional, and slavery and anti-slavery proponents rushed into the territory to vote in favor or against the practice. The rush, effectively led to massacre known as Bleeding Kansas and propelled itself into the very real beginnings of the American Civil War.
Overview
The Compromise of 1850 acted as a temporary truce on the issue of slavery, primarily addressing the status of newly acquired territory after the Mexican-American War.
Under the Compromise, California was admitted to the Union as a free state; the slave trade was outlawed in Washington, D.C., a strict new Fugitive Slave Act compelled citizens of free states to assist in capturing enslaved people; and the new territories of Utah and New Mexico would permit white residents to decide whether to allow slavery.
Ultimately, the Compromise did not resolve the issue of slavery’s expansion; instead, the fiery rhetoric surrounding the Compromise further polarized the North and the South.
The Mexican Cession begs the slavery question
At the end of the Mexican-American War, the United States gained a large piece of western land known as the Mexican Cession.
Map depicting the area of the Mexican Cession, including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, and portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
Map depicting the area of the Mexican Cession, including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, and portions of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
The Mexican Cession.
The issue of whether to permit slavery in the territories organized in this new land consumed Congress at the end of the 1840s. During the war, Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso, a proposal to ban slavery in any new territory acquired from Mexico. The measure passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate.
Congress was also seeking resolutions for several other controversial matters. Antislavery advocates wanted to end the slave trade in the District of Columbia, while proslavery advocates aimed to strengthen fugitive slave laws. But the most pressing problem was California: the many emigrants who had flocked to the territory upon the discovery of gold in the late 1840s had forced the question of its statehood and status as a slave or free state.
The presidential election of 1848 determined which of these issues would be tackled first. Southern Mexican-American war military hero Zachary Taylor was elected president in 1848, much to the satisfaction of southern slaveholders. Although Taylor himself owned more than one hundred slaves, he prioritized national unity over sectional interests. He called on Congress to admit California as a free state.
A ban on slave trading in Washington, DC: Antislavery advocates welcomed Congress’s ban on the slave trade in Washington, DC, although slavery itself continued to be legal in the capital.
Most Americans breathed a sigh of relief over the deal brokered in 1850, choosing to believe it had saved the Union. However, the compromise stood as a temporary truce in an otherwise white-hot sectional conflict. Popular sovereignty paved the way for unprecedented violence in the West over the question of slavery.
(hope this helps can i plz have brainlist :D hehe)
