Until 1845, it had seemed likely that slavery would
be confined to the areas where it already existed. It had been given
limits by the Missouri Compromise in 1820 and had no opportunity to
overstep them. The new territories made renewed expansion of slavery
a real likelihood.
Many Northerners believed that if not allowed to spread,
slavery would ultimately decline and die. To justify their opposition
to adding new slave states, they pointed to the statements of Washington
and Jefferson, and to the Ordinance of 1787, which forbade the extension
of slavery into the Northwest. Texas, which already permitted slavery,
naturally entered the Union as a slave state. But California, New Mexico
and Utah did not have slavery, and when the United States prepared to
take over these areas in 1846, there were conflicting suggestions on
what to do with them.
Extremists in the South urged that all the lands acquired
from Mexico be thrown open to slave holders. Antislavery Northerners,
on the other hand, demanded that all the new regions be closed to slavery.
One group of moderates suggested that the Missouri Compromise line be
extended to the Pacific with free states north of it and slave states
to the south. Another group proposed that the question be left to "popular
sovereignty," that is, the government should permit settlers to enter
the new territory with or without slaves as they pleased and, when the
time came to organize the region into states, the people themselves
should determine the question.
Southern opinion held that all the territories had the
right to sanction slavery. The North asserted that no territories had
the right. In 1848 nearly 300,000 men voted for the candidates of a
Free Soil Party, who declared that the best policy was "to limit, localize
and discourage slavery." The Midwestern and border state regions --
Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri -- were even more divided, however, with
many favoring popular sovereignty as a compromise.
In January 1848 the discovery of gold in California
precipitated a headlong rush of more than 80,000 settlers for the single
year 1849. California became a crucial question, for clearly Congress
had to determine the status of this new region before an organized government
could be established. The hopes of the nation rested with Senator Henry
Clay, who twice before in times of crisis had come forward with compromise
arrangements. Now once again he halted a dangerous sectional quarrel
with a complicated and carefully balanced plan.
His compromise (as subsequently modified in Congress)
contained a number of key provisions: that California be admitted as
a state with a free-soil (slavery-prohibited) constitution; that the
remainder of the new annexation be divided into the two territories
of New Mexico and Utah and organized without mention of slavery; that
the claims of Texas to a portion of New Mexico be satisfied by a payment
of $10 million; that more effective machinery be established for catching
runaway slaves and returning them to their masters; and that the buying
and selling of slaves (but not slavery) be abolished in the District
of Columbia. These measures -- known in American history as the Compromise
of 1850 -- were passed, and the country breathed a sigh of relief.
For three years, the compromise seemed to settle nearly
all differences. Beneath the surface, however, tension grew. The new
Fugitive Slave Law deeply offended many Northerners, who refused to
have any part in catching slaves. Moreover, many Northerners continued
to help fugitives escape, and made the Underground Railroad more efficient
and more daring than it had been before.