The New International Encyclopædia/Compromise Measures of 1850
COMPROMISE MEASURES OF 1850, or
. A name popularly given to a
series of measures passed by the United States
Congress in 1850, directed to a general settlement
of certain questions arising out of the
struggle over slavery. The affirmance of American
rights in the Oregon territory, by the Treaty
of 1846 with England, and the acquisition of still
larger territories from Mexico by the
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (q.v), made urgent the problem
of providing suitable governments for this
territory, and at the same time made acute the
controversy between North and South over the
securing of acceptable provisions concerning

slavery in the statutes organizing such governments.
One phase of this controversy ended
with President Polk's approval, August 14, 1848,
of a bill providing for the erection of territorial
government in Oregon with a prohibition against
slavery. With reference to the territory
acquired from Mexico, the problem was complicated
by the fact that Mexico had abolished
slavery in her dominions, by the question
whether the line of the ../Missouri Compromise/
(q.v.) extended to the Pacific, and also by the
question whether Congress might admit into the
Union a State which had not passed through the
Territorial stage of organization. The necessity
of an early decision was emphasized by the sudden
peopling of much of this territory, incident
to the discovery of gold. Under such circumstances
Henry Clay offered in the Senate, on
January 29, 1850, a general scheme of adjustment,
which provided: that California should be
admitted as a State with no restriction as to
slavery; that Territorial governments should be
created in the other portions of the Mexican
cession without reference to slavery; that trading
within the District of Columbia in slaves
brought there for purpose of sale should be
forbidden; that there should be a more stringent
fugitive-slave law; and that Texas should
release all claims on New Mexico in return for
the assumption by the National Government of
the old Texan debt. These proposals were
attacked both by the Southern friends of slavery
and by the more extreme anti-slavery element at
the North. After several weeks of heated debate,
including the last speech of Mr. Calhoun (q.v.)
and the famous Seventh of March speech of Mr.
Webster (q.v.), the whole matter was referred
to a committee of thirteen, from which committee,
on May 8, Mr. Clay reported three bills. The
first provided, in addition to details as to the
debt and boundary of Texas, for the admission
of California with its anti-slavery Constitution,
and for the Territorial organization of Utah and
New Mexico in such form that slavery should be
allowed in those Territories. The second bill
provided for a modified fugitive-slave law. The
third bill provided for the abolition of the slave-trade
in the District of Columbia. Three months
even then were occupied with animated and
protracted discussions, with the result that the
whole scheme of compromise seemed to have
proved a failure. Mr. Fillmore, however, having
succeeded to the Presidency upon the death
in July of President Taylor, adopted a policy
more favorable than had his predecessor to the
measures proposed, with the result that
practically the whole of Clay's plan eventually
became law, although divided into several statutes.
The Senate passed the bill for the organization
of Utah on August 1, that concerning Texas on
August 9, that for the admission of California
on August 13, that concerning New Mexico on
August 15, the new fugitive-slave law on August
26, and, finally, the law prohibiting the slave-trade
in the District of Columbia on September
16. Before the end of September, all these bills
had passed the House and had been signed by
the President. The arrangement thus effected
was accepted by both parties in the campaign of
1852, in the ‘finality’ planks of their platforms,
and the slavery question was generally regarded
as settled. The quiet was broken abruptly,
however, and the whole controversy renewed with 

 bitterness when Stephen A. Douglas
(q.v.) introduced his bill for the organization,
in 1854, of Kansas and Nebraska, and thus
precipitated the battle anew both on the fields of
Kansas and in the halls of Congress.

In the first volume of Rhodes, History of the
United States from the Compromise of 1850
(new ed. New York, 1901), a careful review is
given of all the circumstances connected with
this famous compromise, including sketches of
the chief participants in the debates. A shorter
review of the situation is given in the fifth volume
of Schouler, History of the United States
Under the Constitution (Washington, 1889).
The lives of statesmen of the period should also
be consulted. See .