Compromise Of 1850 Dbq

The compromise of 1850 was a document constructed by Henry Clay to ease tensions between North and South. The compromise consisted of the following five points—(1) writing a new fugitive slave law, since beforehand white citizens could give runaway slaves room and board and not be penalized, therefore appeasing the South, (2) annexing California as a free state to the Union, an advantage to the North, (3) prohibiting the slave trade, but not slavery itself, in the District of Columbia, (4) reorganizing the Mexican Cession into the New Mexico and Utah territories with the slavery issue being decided by popular sovereignty, and (5) declaring a border between Texas and New Mexico, with $10 million in reparations for the territory Texas surrendered
to New Mexico. This compromise did, in fact, postpone the Civil War for another decade as well as gave the North more time to industrialize itself and increase in population, leading to the Northern victory to come in the Civil War.