11 sett 1850 anni - Compromise of 1850
Descrizione:
A bundle of legislations authored by Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas and passed by Congress in order to appease the conflicts between North and South over the issue of slavery. It consisted of the following:
1) California would be admitted to the Union as a free state with no slave counterpart. In 1848, Mexico ceded a large section of their northern territory for losing the war with the US. California had a sizable population, enough to warrant becoming a state. Because California was not suitable for crops that relied on slave labor to be profitable, there was little enthusiasm for slavery in the territory, making it logical to admit it as a free state. Normally, a slave state counterpart would be admitted to keep the balance of power in the Senate, but no other US territory had enough people to warrant statifying it. Instead, the US considered splitting California in two along the Missouri Compromise line, naming the northern part California and the southern part Colorado. The Californians didn't want to be divided, though, so their final solution was to promise to send one proslavery senator and one antislavery senator to Washington DC at all times in order to preserve the balance. This was difficult for California to uphold, however, because of the aforementioned lack of enthusiasm for slavery there.
2) The slave trade (not slavery) was abolished in Washington DC. It was seen as a bad reflection on American character when the slave trade was legal in the federal capital of the land of the free. However, because it was still in the South, the practice of slavery itself was allowed to persist. Southerners still viewed it as a concession to the North and strongly opposed it, but were unable to block the legislation from passing.
3) Texas would drop some of its land claims (setting its present-day borders) in exchange for $10 million to pay off the debt it had accumulated during its war with Mexico. Texas' land claims were quickly becoming an issue for the US. Some of the state's claims were above the Missouri Compromise line, which should be free of slavery, yet Texas was a slave state and therefore all of its land should be open to the practice. Furthermore, Texas was asserting its dominance over New Mexico Territory to the west, which was attempting to apply as a free state. Texas gave up land claims both above the 36°30' and in New Mexico to pay off its war debts.
4) The Utah and Mexico Territories (larger than the modern-day states) would be allowed to determine the legality of slavery within their borders through popular sovereignty. There was debate over whether or not to allow slavery in these territories. On the one hand, they were geographically southern and were below the Missouri Compromise line, which indicated future slave states. However, like California the area was not good for anything that slavery was profitable for (like growing cotton), and anyway the Missouri Compromise line did not actually extend that far west. Stephen Douglas, a Democratic senator from Illinois, was a strong proponent of popular sovereignty, or the ability for the people to govern themselves. He proposed that the residents of the territory vote on the legality of slavery once there were enough of them. However, the territories remained sparsely populated for several decades, and only Nevada would be admitted to the Union as a (free) state before the abolition of slavery at the federal level.
5) The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, an upgraded form of the one from 1793. The most controversial part of the Compromise of 1850, it required citizens and officials of Northern states to return escaped slaves to their masters in the South. The original act had been weakened by the Prigg v. Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision, which ruled that Northerners did not have to comply with the act. The 1850 law strengthened the original by imposing a fine on those harboring fugitive slaves and requiring officials to return slaves to any Southerner who claims ownership over them. The North instantly refused to comply with the law once it was passed. Wisconsin attempted to nullify the law, but was overruled by the Supreme Court, convincing Northerners that the judicial branch had been taken control of by "slave powers." Vermont passed a law requiring officials to help fugitive slaves, causing uproar among pro-slavery Americans. Virginia governor John B. Floyd warned that the law may convince the South to secede, and President Fillmore threatened to send the military into Vermont to force compliance with the Fugitive Slave Act. It inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write the famous abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and galvanized many Northerners previously indifferent towards slavery to take action by smuggling slaves into Canada.
Together, these five acts formed the Compromise of 1850, and were all signed within the course of a few days. Initially, it seemed a victory for the two sides, ensuring stability for a few more years. It is estimated that the compromise delayed the Civil War by about 10 years, during which time the North industrialized to unprecendented levels, ensuring their victory over the South in the 1860s.
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