The Failure of the Compromise of 1850 Essay

The Compromise of 1850 was a series of measures adopted by the US Congress to resolve the regional differences that existed over the state of American slavery. The conflict concerned the admission of new states and territories to the United States, particularly whether they would be accepted as “free” or “slave-owning” states. Before 1845, there was an impression that slavery would exist only in those areas where it already lived. In the 1850s, the conflict over slavery brought the United States to the brink of destruction (Maizlish, 153). During this decade, the debate about slavery raged in the country’s political institutions and public places. Congress adopted a new policy on slavery, and the courts dealt with cases related to slavery. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 placed restrictions on him, and he had no way to step over them. The new territories made possible the resumption of the spread of slavery. Two main reasons for the long-term failure of the Compromise: were the idea that irreconcilable sectoral differences arose between the North and the South, because of which it was impossible to compromise, and the spread of dualistic moral abstractions that prevented reasonable discussion of political issues. The Compromise of 1850 consisted of the following provisions (Maizlish, 201):

1. The Union recognized California as a free state.
2. The Mexican Republic was divided into two territories, New Mexico and Utah, which could decide for themselves whether they were slave-owning states or not.
3. Texas’ claim to parts of New Mexico was resolved, and the new border was determined by a payment of $10 million to Texas.
4. A new law on fugitive enslaved people was passed, which implied the detention and return of enslaved people to their masters. Of all the bills passed, this fugitive Slave Law was the most controversial.
5. Slavery was not abolished in the District of Columbia, but the purchase and sale of enslaved people were canceled.

A week later, Henry Clay followed his resolutions with a two-day speech in which he explained and defended his package as a comprehensive settlement of outstanding issues, which should be voted on as a single bill, consolidated. The country breathed a sigh of relief as compromise seemed to settle almost all differences over the next three years. However, the new Fugitive Slave Law has become an immediate source of tension. This deeply offended many northerners who refused to take part in the capture of enslaved people.

The Compromise of 1850 failed to resolve the tensions that continued to divide the nation over the next decade and did not establish a principle that could be applied unconditionally to territories beyond the Mexican cession (Maizlish, 212). The extremists in both sections were unhappy with the Compromise. The Compromise failed because it would have required the Republican Party to abandon its guiding principle, namely, not to extend slavery to Western Territories (Maizlish, 212). President-elect Lincoln explicitly stated this in a message to a Republican in Congress: “No compromise proposals regarding the expansion of slavery. Sooner or later, it will have to be redone. The tug should come, and it is better now than later” (Maizlish, 214). In the long run, this troubling “compromise” has done little more than sow the seeds of future American divisions. The goals of the Compromise were to unite the nation, to restore the South. Despite initial success, the Compromise failed as governments passed racist laws. The gap between northerners and southerners, as well as residents of “free” or “slave—owning” states, increased – and soon, this led to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Work Cited

Maizlish, Stephen E. A Strife of Tongues: The Compromise of 1850 and the Ideological Foundations of the American Civil War. University of Virginia Press, 2018.