2. Chapter Objectives
Section 1: Slavery and the West
• Describe how the debate over slavery was related
to the admission of new states. 
• Understand what the Compromise of 1850
accomplished.
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3. Why It Matters
Slavery was a major cause of the worsening
division between the North and South in the
period before the Civil War. The struggle
between the North and South turned more
hostile, and talk grew of separation and civil
war.

4. The Impact Today
“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,”
Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter to A.G.
Hodges in 1864. By studying this era of our
history, we can better understand the state of
racial relations today and develop ways for
improving them.

5. The Missouri Compromise
• When Missouri applied for statehood in 1817,
it was a territory whose citizens owned about
10,000 enslaved African Americans. 
• At the time the Senate was balanced, with 11
free states and 11 slave states. 
• Missouri’s admission to the Union as
a slave state would have upset that balance of
power.
(pages 436–437)
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6. The Missouri Compromise (cont.)
• The North and the South, with very different
economic systems, were also competing for
new lands in the West. 
• People in the North wanted to stop the spread
of slavery into new states and territories. 
• People in the South resented the North’s
attempts to interfere with slavery, which they
considered their own affair.
(pages 436–437)
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7. The Missouri Compromise (cont.)
• Representative Henry Clay, Speaker of the
House, proposed a solution to the Missouri
problem. 
• Maine, which had been a part of
Massachusetts, had also applied for admission
to the Union as a new state. 
• Clay suggested admitting Missouri as a slave
state and admitting Maine as a free state at the
same time.
(pages 436–437)
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8. The Missouri Compromise (cont.)
• Clay also made a second proposal to settle
several arguments about slavery
in the territories. 
• He proposed prohibiting slavery in all
territories and states carved from the Louisiana
Purchase north of the latitude line of 36°30’N.

• The one exception would be Missouri.
(pages 436–437)
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9. The Missouri Compromise (cont.)
• Clay’s two proposals, which became known as
the Missouri Compromise, were passed by
Congress in 1820. 
• The Missouri Compromise preserved the
balance between free and slave states in the
Senate, and ended the debate in Congress over
slavery in new states and territories–at least
for a while.
(pages 436–437)
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10. New Western Lands
• The issue of slavery in new Western lands
stayed in the background between 1820 (the
year of the Missouri Compromise) and the
1840s. 
• The proposal to add a new set of states and
territories (Texas, New Mexico, and
California) brought the issue to a head again.
(pages 437–438)
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11. New Western Lands (cont.)
• After winning independence from Mexico,
Texas asked for admission to the Union. 
• Because slavery existed in Texas, it would
have entered the Union as a slave state. 
• This again brought out the question of whether
free or slave states would control the Senate. 
• As a result Texas’s statehood became an issue
in the 1844 election.
(pages 437–438)
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12. New Western Lands (cont.)
• Democratic candidate James K. Polk won the
election and pressed to add Texas. 
• Texas became a state in 1845. 
• At the same time, support in the South for
taking over New Mexico and California,
which were both part of Mexico, also grew. 
• Disputes between the United States and
Mexico over boundaries in Texas and the
desire of the United States for New Mexico
and California led to war with Mexico.
(pages 437–438)
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13. New Western Lands (cont.)
• A bitter debate over slavery in new Western
lands began over proposals
by Representative David Wilmot of
Pennsylvania and Senator John C. Calhoun of
South Carolina. 
• Wilmot’s proposal, called the Wilmot Proviso,
said that slavery should be prohibited in any
lands that might be acquired from Mexico at
the end of the war.
(pages 437–438)
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14. New Western Lands (cont.)
• Calhoun’s counterproposal stated that neither
Congress nor any other governmental
authority had the power to prohibit or
regulate slavery in any way in a territory. 
• Neither proposal passed Congress, but these
proposals intensified arguments
for and against slavery.
(pages 437–438)
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15. New Western Lands (cont.)
• The debate over slavery and the refusal
of either the Democratic or Whig candidate for
president in 1848 to take a stand on slavery in
the territories led to the formation of the Free
Soil Party, which supported the Wilmot
Proviso. 
• Whig candidate Zachary Taylor won the
election by successfully appealing to both
slave and free states. 
• But the Free Soil Party won several seats in
Congress.
(pages 437–438)
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16. New Western Lands (cont.)
• Once in office, President Taylor encouraged
the territories of New Mexico and California,
which had been obtained from Mexico at the
end of the war with Mexico, to apply for
statehood. 
• After California did so in 1849, the problem of
the balance of power in the Senate came up
again.
(pages 437–438)
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17. New Western Lands (cont.)
• California would enter the Union as a free
state, which would upset the balance of 15 free
states and 15 slave states in the Senate. 
• It was likely that some of the other territories
that might soon become states would enter as
free states as well. 
• Southerners worried they would lose power
and talked of leaving the Union.
(pages 437–438)
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18. A New Compromise
• In January 1850 Senator Henry Clay
presented a new multi-part plan to settle a
number of issues dividing Congress,
including the possible spread of slavery into
Western lands.
(pages 438–439)

19. A New Compromise (cont.)
• According to Clay’s plan, the following things
would happen: 
- California would be admitted as a free state. 
- The New Mexico Territory would have no slavery
restrictions. 
- A New Mexico-Texas border dispute would be
decided in favor of New Mexico. 
- The slave trade–though not slavery–would be
abolished in Washington, D.C. 
- There would be a stronger fugitive slave law.
(pages 438–439)
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20. A New Compromise (cont.)
• A bitter debate in Congress over the provisions
of Clay’s proposal raged for seven months.
(pages 438–439)

21. A New Compromise (cont.)
• Clay’s plan could not pass as a package, and
President Taylor opposed it. 
• Then in July 1820, Taylor suddenly died. 
• The new president, Millard Fillmore, proposed a
compromise. 
• Senator Stephen Douglas split Clay’s proposal
into five different bills to allow members of
Congress to vote on them separately. 
• That way, members could vote for measures
they agreed with and vote against parts they did
not support without rejecting the whole plan.
(pages 438–439)
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22. A New Compromise (cont.)
• Congress passed the series of five separate bills
in August and September 1850. 
• Together they became known as the
Compromise of 1850. 
• Many Americans, including President
Fillmore, thought this compromise would
settle the question of slavery once and for all.
But this was not the case.
(pages 438–439)
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