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The Crisis of the American Republic c.1840-1877

The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law

  • 3 things to know
  • AS Unit 2 and A2 Unit 4

Overview

Recall questions on what California's admission threatened, the terms of the settlement, the recapture provisions and their enforcement in the North, and the reaction they provoked.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

State the five main terms of the Compromise of 1850.

Key term

Give three provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Numbers

Who first put the Compromise of 1850 before the Senate?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What made the admission of California an emergency in 1849?

    Model answer

    The gold rush brought in a huge population at once and California applied to enter as a free state, which would have ended the equal balance of free and slave states in the Senate.

  2. 2

    Who first put the Compromise of 1850 before the Senate?

    Model answer

    Henry Clay of Kentucky, whose reputation as the Great Compromiser rested on his earlier settlements of 1820 and 1833.

  3. 3

    Why did Clay's original plan fail?

    Model answer

    He bundled the measures into a single omnibus bill, so every senator who objected to one part voted against the whole.

  4. 4

    How was the Compromise eventually carried?

    Model answer

    Stephen Douglas broke it into separate bills and assembled a different majority for each, so that no member had to vote for the parts he disliked.

  5. 5

    State the five main terms of the Compromise of 1850.

    Model answer

    California entered as a free state; New Mexico and Utah were organised as territories on popular sovereignty; the Texas boundary was settled with a federal payment of its debt; the slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia; and a much stronger fugitive slave law was passed.

  6. 6

    What did Calhoun argue in his last great speech on the crisis?

    Model answer

    That the Union was already broken by the growth of northern power, and that only an equilibrium of the sections, guaranteed against anti-slavery agitation, could preserve it. He was too ill to deliver it himself.

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AUniversal male suffrage was kept.
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