Unit 5.4 - The Compromise of 1850

key terms/events and significance

Ostend Manifesto (1852) (PCE)

• Many slaveowners wanted to expand slavery territory for cultivation using enslaved labor → set eyes to Cuba 

• President Polk offered to purchase Cuba from Spain for $100 million → refused to sell the last major remnant of its once glorious empire in the Americas

• Elected 1852, Franklin Pierce adopted pro-Southern policies & sent diplomats to Ostend, Belgium to secretly negotiate to buy Cuba → leaked to the US press & antislavery members of the Congress forced him to drop the scheme

Walker Expedition (WOR)

• Expansionist continued to seek new empires with or without the federal gov’s support

• Southern adventurer William Walker tried to seize Baja California from Mexico (1853) / led a force of mostly southerners & seized power in Nicaragua (1855) / temporary recognition from the US (1856)

• His scheme to develop a proslavery Central America empire stopped when a coalition of Central American’s countries invaded his country & defeated him → executed by Honduran authorities in 1860

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850) (WOR)

• An American ambition to build a canal through Central America / provide a shortcut to allow ships traveling from Northern Atlantic to Northern Pacific to avoid sailing around South America

• Britain wanted the same → US & Britain agreed to the treaty to prevent each other from seizing opportunity

• Provided that neither nation would attempt to take exclusive control of any future Central America’s canal routes

• Continued until the end of the century → 1901 / new treat gave US freedom to build a canal without Britain

Gadsden Purchase (WOR)

• President Pierce succeeded in purchasing a small strip of land from Mexico (1853) for $10 million

• The land is semi-desert / lay on the best route for railroad through the region

• Forms Southern section of present-day New Mexico & Arizona

Free-Soil Movement (MIG/ PCE)

• Northern Democrats & Whigs supported Wilmot Proviso / did not oppose to slavery in the South / sought to keep the West Al land of opportunity for Whites only

• Northerners who opposed to allowing slavery on the territories organized Free-Soil Party (“free soil, free labor, and free men”)

• Chief objective is to prevent the extension of slavery, free homesteads (public lands grants to small farmers), & internal improvements

Popular Sovereignty (PCE)

• A Democratic senator from Michigan, Lewis Cass, proposed a compromise → won considerable support from moderates across the country

• Instead of Congress determining whether to allow slavery in new territory, Cass suggested the matter be determined by a vote of people who settled a territory / also known as squatter sovereignty

Election of 1848 (PCE)

• Expansion of slavery became a vital issue in the presidential race of 1848 / 3 parties represented different positions

• Democrats: Senator Cass / adopted a platform pledged to popular sovereignty

• Whigs: Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor / he had never been involved in politics / took no position on slavery in the territories

• Free-Soil: Martin Van Buren / opposed to slavery / consisted of Conscience Whigs (opposed slavery) & antislavery Democrats / the latter group was ridiculed as '“barnburners” - their defection threatened to destroy the Democratic Party

The Compromise of 1850 (PCE)

• In 1849, California drafted a constitution for their new state / banned slavery → president Zachary Taylor (slaveholder) supported the immediate admission of both California & New Mexico

• Taylor’s plan sparked secession talk among the “fire-eaters” (radicals) in the South / some extremists even met in Nashville (1850) to discuss secession → Henry Clay proposed another compromise to solve the crisis

• Admit California to the Union as a free state / divide the remainder of the Mexican Cession into 2 territories (Utah & New Mexico) & allow settlers in these territories to decide the slavery issue by popular sovereignty / give the land in dispute between Texas & New Mexico territory to the new territories → federal gov assumed Texas’s public debt of $10 million / banned slave trade in the District of Columbia but permitted Whites to own enslaved people there as before / adopted a new Fugitive Slave Law & enforced it → bought time for the Union & increased North’s power (California is a free state)