Slavery Vs Sectionalism

3.     The Compromise of 1850- The compromise of 1850 consisted of 5 laws passed in September of 1850 that had to do with the issue of slavery.  When California wanted to come into the union as a free state it threw off the balance between free and slave states.  The compromise was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was taken out. Furthermore, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah. Also, an act was passed settling a boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico that also established a territorial government in New Mexico.

The Compromise of 1850, as it was called, was a bundle of legislation that everyone could agree on. First, congressmen agreed that California would be admitted to the Union as a free state (Utah was not admitted because the Mormons refused to give up the practice of polygamy). The fate of slavery in the other territories, though, would be determined by popular sovereignty. Next, the slave trade (though not slavery itself) was banned in Washington, D.C. Additionally, Texas had to give up some of its land to form the New Mexican territory in exchange for a cancellation of debts owed to the federal government. Finally, Congress agreed to pass a newer and tougher Fugitive Slave Act to enforce the return of escaped slaves to the South.

The Compromise of 1850 had five laws regarding slavery and conflict between the north and south passed in September, 1850. The five laws that were passed include California being admitted as a free state, upholding the popular sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah, banning slave trade in Washington D.C. (because it doesn’t look good in the nation’s capital), fugitive slave act and, settling the Texas and New Mexico border dispute. This compromise allowed issues to get sorted out in a fair way. The north benefited by receiving California as a free state and no more slave trade in

At the beginning, the Compromise of 1850 settled the dispute of the land from the Mexican Cession. The Compromise of 1850 pleased both the North and South. California was admitted as a free state and slave was ban in Washington D.C. as it favors the North. For the South, popular sovereignty decided if slavery was used in the western territories, along with the fugitive slave law passed. The Fugitive Slave Act 1850 allowed special government officials to arrest any person accused of being a runaway slave, as shown in Document B, a poster of capturing fugitive slaves. Additionally, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (Stephen Douglas) was passed. It undid the Missouri Compromise, having popular sovereignty in the western territories, therefore “to cease the agitation of the

All of this new land was a major benefactor to the Market Revolution and widespread commerce, but it left a lot of problems regarding slavery. Thus, The Compromise of 1850 was passed. This act admitted California as a free state and abolished slave trade in the nation’s capital to please northerners. It also Installed the Fugitive Slave Act and formed a territorial government in the west with no slavery restrictions for southerners. This compromise was also referred to as the “Armistice of 1850” because it resolved issues for at least a little bit.

Crisis events of the 1850s that helped lead toward the civil war were the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the South leaving the Union. The Compromise of 1850 was five separate bills and three separate compromises. It admitted California as a free state, and the rest of the Mexican possession were left to be decided by popular sovereignty, which is a vote of the territory inhabitants. The result of this was 15 free states and 16 slave states. This lead to a stronger slave law, but no consistent majority of votes over the compromise (Faragher, 363). The Fugitive Slave Law helped lead toward the civil war because the law stated increased the power of slave owners to capture the escaped slaves. Through this the federal government fully

Questions over slavery soon arose and once again were temporarily quieted by a new compromise, the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 consisted of 5 laws. It was decided that California would be admitted to the Union as a free state. The Compromise also introduced popular sovereignty, Utah and New Mexico would decide amongst itself the question of slavery. It also settled Texas’s boundary disputes. Texas claimed it owned land until the Santa Fe; however the compromises determined new Texas boundaries, and granted Texas $10 million dollars to pay off its debt. It was also decided that in Washington D.C. the slave trade would be banned, but slavery would still be continued. Congress also updated the barely enforced Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. Slaves fled through escapes such as the Underground Railroad, so to minimize the amount of escaped slaves the Fugitive Slave Law was revised. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850required that all citizens must aid in the help of capturing fugitives and anyone who didn’t would be punished. The new law also stated that runaway slaves would no longer have the privilege of trial by jury. Overall the compromise settled disputes over the new obtained land by allowing California be admitted as a free state, while Utah and New Mexico had no restrictions on slavery, Washington could no longer participate in slave trade, but slavery was still allowed, and Texas didn’t obtain all land to the Santa Fe, but did receive $10 million dollars to pay off its

The Compromise of 1850 was the first of many major acts and events that lead to the increasing of sectionalism and to the Civil War. The compromise made California a free state, allowed New Mexico and Utah popular sovereignty, gave Mexico $10 million to settle debts, abolished slave trade in D.C., and

There were many things that struck me about sectionalism outside of slavery. For instance, just learning that sectionalism means “not one.” It was interesting to me how the point was raised that America developed on different paths. I was familiar with the idea, but I was never challenged to apply this to areas outside of Slavery; although, this was always subconsciously my knowledge. For instance, I always knew about the North being more industrialized while the south remained more rural, but I never analyzed it in a way that the outcome would lead to different developmental paths. Also, it could be argued that slavery did not have as much significance as it has made out to be. Chapter 12 points out that three thirds of southerners did not

The Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1877, was mainly caused by the diverging society between the North and the South. The North and the South had different goals. There were many factors that led to the war and the chief ones were political and economic differences between the North and the South. The North’s aggression to control the South had led to the point where it was intolerable. The issue on slavery was one of the causes of the Civil War. Slavery and slave trades had become a big part of the South’s economy. The slaves were needed to work on plantations which helped the South prospered. During the 19th Century, the North worked hard on abolishing slavery, which they thought was a disgrace to the Union.

The Compromise of 1850 was a desperate attempt to keep the southern states from seceding from the United States of America. While the goal was to keep the south from seceding, the new laws actually created more tension than it solved. Since the division in America over slave ownership had been holding a delicate balance with the states on both sides, the North and the South. When California petitioned to join the Union in 1849 as a free state, that delicate balance tipped and the conflict once again erupted. The Compromise consisted of 5 laws, admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each is determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington D.C. and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves (History).

The compromises merely worked, and with the passing of time, tensions rose more between the sections, thus making these compromises less and less effective. The Compromise of 1850 enraged both the North and the South. When California was annexed, it was assigned to become a free state and the South did not appeal to that because the land boundaries that was made by the Missouri Compromise was large. Another part of this compromise that angered Southerners was that slave trade was banned in Washington D.C. The Fugitive Slave Law, which was a part of the Compromise of 1850 angered the North, because it allowed bounty hunters to hunt down slaves and the people who helped them to hide. Also, Northerners rejected this because they rejected Popular Sovereignty, which created possibilities of having slavery in any Northern states.

In the later half of nineteenth century America, the new nation’s original ability to resolve conflict through means of peaceful compromise had vanished. Various spans of conflict such as Westward Expansion, the Market Revolution, Sectionalism, Mexican American War, the succession of the southern states and ultimately the failure of the Compromise of 1850 that made compromise between the North and the South unattainable. It was the uncompromising differences amongst the free and slave states over the power of the national government that created a divide that would result in divisional violence. From the industrialized North, the agricultural South, Jackson’s Presidency to Lincoln’s and the rise in America 's involvement in politics that followed, slavery was merely one pawn on the board during America’s transforming years that would later reveal itself to have been the vehicle for the Civil War.

Slavery was the most important cause of the Civil War, because this single issue divided the North and South to begin with. The ideological differences between the North and South led to economic differences, conflicts over newly acquired territories, disputes over the constitution, and political extremism. The Election of 1860 was the culmination of these disputes and caused the South to secede in 1861 and guided the way towards the Civil War.

By the year of 1860, the North and the South was developed into extremely different sections. There was opposing social, economic, and political points of view, starting back into colonial periods, and it slowly drove the two regions farther in separate directions. The two sections tried to force its point of view on the nation as a whole. Even though negotiations had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the condition was unstable. The presidential election of Abraham Lincoln was observed by the South as a risk to slavery and many believe it initiated the war.