Preview

Compromise Of 1850 Research Paper

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1367 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Compromise Of 1850 Research Paper
The Compromise of 1850
Chris Owens
13404

The Compromise of 1850 is one of the most important compromises in this history of the United States, maybe even the world. The Compromise of 1850 is made up of five bills passed in the United States of America in September 1850, and it terminated a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the south and the free states of the north concerning the position of territories gained during the time of the Mexican-American war which was in 1846-1848. The most important political ramification in the Compromise has to be the Fugitive Slave Act for numerous reasons. Many historians have argued that the Fugitive Slave Act was very obliging to the abolitionist cause, even though
…show more content…
The Constitution has an article that says that fugitives from industry must be sent back to the South if they were caught in the North. Also, this gave slavery what people like to call more territory. That meant that it made slavery a global organization. Although the northern states did have the ability to abolish slavery, they could not pass up their own Constitutional priority to enforce the slave laws that were in the southern states. Some fugitives even carried with them the officially authorized status of slavery, even in a territory that didn’t have any slavery at all. In reality, most of the states did not do much about this. That is the reason the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted, which made the federal government responsible for tracking down and apprehending fugitive slaves in the North, and sending them back to the South. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, one might say, was the most powerful exercise of federal authority within the United States in the whole era before the Civil …show more content…
Rather, they focused on differences on the issue of slavery. The act also brought up some very important problems about what it means to trace the direction of law and go after fairness beneath a Constitution that both advertised freedom and permitted slavery. The acts exasperated Northern sensibilities that had turned aligned with slavery. Both, Northern social and legal reaction next to the acts were intimidating and abusive to Southerners. Southerners felt that a few abolitionists in the North, yet some Northern legislatures heartening slaves to rebel, an option that a great amount of Southerners really feared. The Fugitive Slave Act arranged commissioners to go after slaves who had to flee into Free States to capture them and return them to their masters. Because a great amount of Free States disliked being obligated to assist with a scheme they wanted to border and ultimately abolish, they enacted laws intended to limit the efficiency of the commissioners and a great amount of officials declined to assist even though mandated by law to do so. It brought up the stage of public opinion in the North that felt it could not coexist, both half slave and half

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Fugitive Slave Laws prohibited the harboring of run away slaves. It was first passed in 1793 but was amended later to reduce tensions, though it had the opposite affect. Some say it nationalized the crisis…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compromise Of 1850 Dbq

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages

    t the time when the United States was a new nation, there were a number of issues that needed to be addressed in order for the Union of states to become a working country. In a short period, the North had become more progressive and industrialized. There were larger urban populations and the issues that faced northern areas were different from those that faced the South. When new territories were added to the nation, it was politically relevant that they were added in such a way that the balance of power was maintained. The Compromise of 1850 addressed this balance. The Compromise was a group of five laws that addressed slavery and overturned the Missouri Compromise. The climate of the time quickly becomes one of the northern states against…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Fugitive Slave Law was passed by Congress in 1850. This was part of The Compromise of 1850 between slave states and free states. At the time, there were many slaves that were escaping utilizing the help of the Underground Railroad and finding refuge in free states, although it’s possible the number was exaggerated by Southerners since there was no way to verify a true amount. The law required that if slaves were captured they would be returned to their masters. The law only required an affidavit from the master to a federal official. The result was many free blacks being falsely accused…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The political compromise during the period of 1820 to 1860 was unable to reduce sectional tension during this time period. According to Tom Meltzer and Jean H. Bennett, in their book CRACKING THE AP U.S. HISTORY EXAM, “The new period of expansion resulted in a national debate over slavery, as would every period of expansion to follow until the Civil War resolved the slavery question.” The Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and… were just a quick fix for the inevitable to come, the civil war. The political compromises of this time period were not able to meet their final goal, primarily because of misunderstandings…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Decade of Crisis 1850

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages

    2. The Compromise of 1850 was a response to the issues with slavery and the proposed succession of many southern states. Henry Clay was the head of this compromise and believed it had to resolve all the issues or the compromise would not survive. So in an effort to do this, he combined all the proposals into one proposal and sent it to the legislature. It covered, California’s admission as a free state, territorial governments in lands from Mexico with no slavery restrictions, and slave trade was obliterated, but not slavery in the District of Columbia. There were…

    • 1643 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wilmot Proviso Tension

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages

    This benefitted the southerners because many of them depended on slaves economically, so the Fugitive Slave Act was like insurance, that way they could get their slaves back if and when they ran away.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The newly passed Fugitive Slave Act made it a crime to help runaway slaves and allowed offi cials to arrest those slaves in free areas. Slaveholders were permitted to take suspected fugitives to U.S. commissioners, who decided their fate. The Fugitive Slave Act upset northerners, who were uncomfortable with the commissioners’ power. Northerners disliked the idea of a trial without a jury. They also disapproved of commissioners’ higher fees for returning slaves. Most were horrifi ed that some free African Americans had been captured and sent to the South. Most northerners opposed to the Act peacefully resisted, but violence did erupt. In 1854 Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave from Virginia, was arrested in Boston. Abolitionists used force while…

    • 160 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    1850s DBQ

    • 1291 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The tensions caused by the differing beliefs were slowly built up since the American Revolution. Slavery, being an established practice since America’s independence and a cause of the Civil War, was not an issue at the time, but was also left unresolved by the Founding Fathers. As time passed on, and as morals evolved, the views towards slavery changed as well. The original belief of slaves as nonhuman/property slowly progressed into slaves being lesser-humans. As beliefs changed, and the acceptance of slaves grew positively in the North, the basis of government became more and more unstable. With differing bases of thought, America’s ability to stay unified couldn’t happen with government trying to please both opposing sides, like found in the Compromise of 1850 (Doc 1). The Compromise attempted to alleviate the slavery situation that arose when California fulfilled the requirements to become an official state. The admittance of California threw off the Great Compromise and the Missouri Compromise. To counter that change, the Compromise made the New Mexico and Utah Territories free to become slave states via allowing them popular sovereignty. To add to the South-positive compromises, the Fugitive Slave Laws (Doc 3) were also employed, thus “balancing” the additions to both territories. The decision was technically correct for the event, as it settled the tension from the California, but in doing so, left the issue of slavery un-addressed and even strengthened slavery. The Compromise of 1850 only brought “compromise” in the regard of the free-slave states ratio, but greatly supported…

    • 1291 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed as a part of the Compromise of 1850. This act forced any federal official who did not arrest a runaway slave liable to pay a fine. This enraged abolitionist and caused their efforts against slavery to increase since it was one of the most controversial parts of the Compromise of 1850. This act increased the activity as fleeing slaves made their way to Canada.…

    • 537 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dbq 1987

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Constitution can be interpreted in many different ways, which leads to sectional discord and tension. For many reasons, the South did not like what the constitution said. There were many conflictions with the compromise of 1850, map shown in (Document A) and the fugitive slave act. Certain Northerners were against slavery and the fugitive slave act that they even posted warnings for the slaves. (Document C). This fugitive slave act also helped drive the tension deeper into the United States.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    To do so, the act recognized the roles of “agents” in recovering these fugitives, authorized judges and magistrates to oversee transfers of slaves, and imposed a fine on any person helping runaway slaves. This was the start of the real slavery issue in the United States.…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dbq Civil War

    • 1673 Words
    • 7 Pages

    This portion of the act was proposed to appeal to the liking of the south. Although it may have appealed to the south it also stirred feelings in the north. The laws were not practical as they violated the slaves 6th amendment right to a trial by jury, also the slaves could not testify of their own behalf. Angered by this many states passes personal liberty laws which prohibit the imprisonment of the runaway slaves and permitted them a trial by jury. The push for the rights for African Americans and slaves as a whole led to an abolitionist movement to be sparked throughout the united states that opened up many northerners and southerners eyes to the harsh realities of slaver and how morally wrong it was. As these abolitionist feelings intensified so did the dispute over whether or not slavery should be allowed in the disputed territories of present day Kansa and Nebraska that were supposed to be settled in the compromise of…

    • 1673 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Zinn Chapter 9

    • 1538 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The U.S. government supported slavery by refusing to enforce the law that prohibited the shipping of new slaves into the nation, passing new laws that burdened slaves, and repeatedly making decisions in Supreme Court cases that did not bode well for the fettered men and women, among other actions. One such law that further bound the slaves was The Fugitive Slave Act: “The Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850 was a concession to the southern states in return for the admission of the Mexican war territories (California, especially) into the Union as non-slave states. The Act made it easy for slaveowners to recapture ex-slaves or simply to pick up blacks they claimed had run away” (Zinn, A People's History of the United States). This clearly portrays the government’s concern with national unity and power over slave emancipation. These actions also support Zinn’s assertion that "Such a government would never accept an end to slavery by rebellion" as the government needed to appease the South in order to keep the Union intact and since slavery formed the economic foundation of the South, they would not allow the slaves freedom as a result of rebellion. Only one slave rebellion ever brought an end to slavery in the Americas, and that was the Haitian Revolution. Slave rebellion in North America typically did little to end slavery, as can be seen with the revolt led by Nat Turner. Furthermore, the white elite wanted to determine when and how slavery would end in order to control the outcome in such a way that it was profitable or served to their self-interest.…

    • 1538 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Secession Dbq

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the 1800s, slavery was a very important talked about subject matter in politics, economics, and culture. It was such an important aspect of the time period that it was on everyone’s mind, and everyone had an opinion on it. This tore the country in half, and forced the South into secession. Many people wonder if this was legal, but due to the fact that the North had also broken laws and that the lawbook was in their favor, the South was entitled to secession.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Compromise of 1850 played a major role in contributing to the start of the Civil War. With the Northern Republicans fighting to end slavery and unite the country and the Southern Democrats, the tension between the two was at an all time high. Although that the settlement that was agreed upon was supposed to help by pleasing both sides, it rather acted as a temporary buffer to keep the North and South happy for the time being. With tensions at an all time high, it seems as though the thought of war was turning into more of a reality. The passing of the Compromise of 1850 was a major factor in leading to the Civil War because it extended the use of slavery in the South while the North gained free states and prohibited slave trade in specific places.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays