today we're looking at the compromise of 1850 hello welcome to the de Laval ring please don't
forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions down in the description also I'd
love to see your answer to question number 5 in the comments below so today we're looking
at the compromise of 1850 and the compromise of 1850 really focuses on California and remember
California was part of that big area that we had gained during the mexican-american war but as soon
as we gained that territory we have the California Gold Rush that takes place and literally almost
overnight California has enough residents to apply for statehood in fact California
completely skipped the territorial phase and immediately went to applying for statehood but
of course here's the big issue we got to go back a few years back to 1822 the the Missouri Compromise
remember the Missouri Compromise Missouri entered as a slave state main as a free state to maintain
that balance between free and slave states but it also drew that 36:30 line as being the boundary
of slavery where you know slavery was allowed below that line but not a lot above the line
but if you look at the map California crosses or bigger the 36:30 crosses are directly through the
center of California so how do we allow this give this yeah a lot of California come in as
a free state because that's gonna throw off the balance we allow it to come in as a slave state
that's gonna throw off the balance but the line goes right through the middle so how do we solve
this whole big mess so Congress has to try to address this and of course the guy who steps in
here is the great compromiser Henry Clay he's already been involved in you know the Missouri
Compromise he was holding the nullification crisis and now at 873 battling tuberculosis he's really
in his last stand in government now he steps in to try to work out this compromise but he's so weak
at this point physically that a new senator jumps in this guy from Illinois named Stephen Douglas
he comes in and really takes the lead in getting this push through Congress so this is a very hotly
debated issue of course there's some congressmen that would go one allow California to enter and
just simply you know try to stave off civil war there's other congressmen like John C Calhoun
remember that guy who's been fighting for slavery all through this first half of the eighteen
hundred's he in fact is you know just about to die shortly after this he'll be dying he's too
weak to even make comments during the debate he has someone else read for him but he's extremely
against allowing california to enter as a free state and in fact if you look at this picture
you can see here's clay arguing to pass this this series of compromises and there you can see john c
calvin giving him the stink eye because he does not want any of these things to be passed but
what happens in the end here to get California and this compromise of 1850 there's several different
parts first California is allowed to enter the Union as a free state but in order to appease
the South they get something in return they get this terrible law known as the Fugitive Slave
Act which I'll come back and talk about here in a moment but then also the slave trade is outlawed
in Washington DC not slavery but the slave trade is outlawed also with them to compromise there's
always little things that congressmen throw in there they define new boundaries between Texas
and Mexico there after the mexican-american war and then lastly we have this issue of popular
sovereignty basically this was the idea that in these new territories of Utah New Mexico that
the people there would get to decide whether they were going to be free or slave territories alright
so but the idea of popular sovereignty the people having the vote now getting back to the Fugitive
Slave Act again one of the most awful pieces of legislation ever to be passed what this act
basically said was that escaped slaves if they got into the North their slave owners could come into
the north and capture them and take them back into the south and it also required northerners
to be involved that basically they had to aid in the capture of escaped slaves so now northerners
you know they were not nested on morally opposed to slavery but they saw this as them being forced
to enable slavery and allow slavery to continue and then one of the worst things about this was
if you were a free african-american living in the north someone could just come along and claim hey
they were a slave we're going to take them back to the south and you could be kidnapped
back into slavery and that actually happened on several occasions and so all this actually
did was basically create more animosity between the north and the south and again it really you
know aided in this this terrible human rights violation that have been going on for a long
time in American history so again is one of the most terrible laws ever passed by Congress but
lastly here with the compromise of 1850 there were other problems as well of course with the
whole issue of popular sovereignty because they didn't really clearly define things it didn't
necessarily say you know who was going to get to vote it didn't say when were these votes going to
take place it didn't say who was going to organize these votes and how are these were votes going to
be run and so this creates just a bunch of big questions and actually when we get to Bleeding
Kansas we'll see how some of these questions play out but for southerners they said you know you
can't take any of these votes until the state has enough people to apply for statehood and so then
slavery should just be able to be there until that vote is taken northerners they argued that the
territorial legislature is what government was set up in these territories could go ahead and
vote and they could basically eliminate slavery immediately there so again there's this big fight
over you know how should these territories handle this issue of slavery so in the end
the compromise of 1850 s California came in as a free state but really all it did was it pushed
us closer towards civil war it stirred up issues between the earth and the south and led us closer
and closer to a conflict okay so hopefully you learned something there and thanks for watching
you