The compromise of 1850 consisted numbers of legislation that led to settling of disputes between the Northern and Southern state of United State. The compromise dealt how regions acquired from Mexico by Texas during the wars of Mexican-American war should be divided. The compromise is believed to have delayed the civil war that began in 1860 when the southern states wanted to secede from the federal government. The compromise of 1850 was drafted by Henry Clay and presented to congress for passage (Waugh 110).
The compromise of 1850 had a bill that required Texas to give its claim on some of the New Mexico regions. The release on the claim made Texas pass its debts to the federal government as a reward. The debts were paid inform of stocks that would accumulate a 5% interest after every six months. Texas took the deal and released New Mexico as required. New region known as Utah was created from Texas. Weakness in the bills passed existed on how slaves would be treated in the new regions created from Texas. The conflict arose because the southerners saw Texas as a slave state and any region developed from it should be allowed to practice slavery. The Mexican concession required New Mexico to transfer some regions to United State. The regions carved out of New Mexico were Utah, Colorado, and Arizona (Waugh 201).
The Northerners were in fear of spread of slavery from the Southern states that continued practicing the vice. The compromise of 1850 provided that the District of Columbia would be free of slave and slave markets closed. California was allowed to join the federal government as Free State as it had requested. The request to divide California to a southern and northern territory was rejected. The southern states believed California should remain as one region. The fear of the southern state on division of California was that slavery would be abolished in the region.
The southerners’ interest was maintenance of the slaves who provided labor in the cotton farms. The slave act allowed southern state to maintain slave, which was against the opinion of the Northerner states. The Northern states feared an influx of slaves into the north by slaves who would be escaping from their bosses in the South.
William Sewarn a Northerner was against the compromise of 1850 because it had not adopted the Wilmot Proviso. The bills would make the northerner states return slaves running from south to the owners which was seen as a demeaning act. The act of returning slave to owners was supposed to guard against southern states from loss of slaves (Hamilton 91).
The compromise act led to the northern states to try to mechanize while the southern states continued to use slaves. The major growth in the Northern state was building of roads and railway lines that would be widely used during the civil wars to defeat the confederation soldiers during the civil war. The northern state took mechanization developing steel industry to produce machines for use in farms and industries. The wealth acquired by the northern states was used to create a strong army and naval forces. The rise of the republic party into government saw bills passed that ended slavery in the whole of America leading to aggression that had been avoided by the compromise acts of 1850 rise again.
Works Cited
Hamilton, Holman. Prologue to conflict : the crisis and compromise of 1850. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005. Print.
Waugh, John C. On the brink of Civil War : the Compromise of 1850 and how it changed the course of American history. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2003. Print.
