Pros And Cons Of The Compromise Of 1850

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Register to read the introduction… Again, Henry Clay suggests an idea to keep from the occurrence of another uprising like the one after the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise of 1850 had something to offer for the North and the South. The Compromise would allow California to become a free state, as a benefit for the North. It would also ban the selling of slaves in Washington D.C., another benefit to the North. To make the south happy, it strengthened fugitive slave laws and settled the organizational details of the territories gained in the war with Mexico. New Mexico and Utah would be decided by popular sovereignty. The Fugitive Slave law became an issue in the North because they did not want to support any form of slavery no matter what. The nation did not want to settle. Each side thought that the advantages for the opposing side in the Compromise of 1850 were better than their own advantages. They were not willing to compromise. Northerners felt that this Compromise should strictly be about the territories, not about slave laws, and that is what led to the failure of the Compromise of 1850. Neither side was willing to settle for what the compromise had to offer. It sparked more sectional tensions across the nation than ever …show more content…
When Kansas and Nebraska asked to join as states, the decision was to allow the two states to decide for themselves whether they wanted to allow slavery or not, although these territories were above the 36º30′ line. By the early 1850s, settlers wanted to move into the free area which is now known as Nebraska. The southern states' representatives in Congress were in no hurry to permit a Nebraska territory because the land lay north of the 36°30' parallel, which is where slavery had been outlawed by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Kansas- Nebraska Act was possibly the most important event leading up to the civil war and was proposed by Stephan Douglas. He proposed that Nebraska should be made into a territory and to win support from the south he proposed the issue of another southern state, which would be Kansas. He would be able to build a transcontinental railroad that would be able to go through Chicago. The Kansas- Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty. Kansas with slavery would go against the Missouri Compromise, which had sewed the Union together for more than 30 years. The Missouri compromise was eventually repealed by the Kansas- Nebraska Act and even though the opposition was of the majority, the bill passed in May of 1854. Territory north of the

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