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What Led Up To The Compromise Of 1850

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During the mid-1830’s the slavery industry was rising. Between the years of 1820 and 1848 there were four new slaveholding states and and four new free states that were being admitted to the Union.

The Missouri Compromise didn’t give a huge area to be gained from Mexico in 1848. People who wanted to end slavery and stop it from from spreading to other states present more issues to stop slavery, this would give the South more power. David Wilmot believed that the United States should end slavery for the better. Senator Lewis from Michigan suggested a solution that he thought the people would like to adopt. He announced that his solution is based on letting people decide whether they want their state to be a slave state or an free state. When the slave states found out California was being admitted as a free state, they got scared that slavery might be coming to an end because there was one more free state than slave state. They were even more afraid that when the free states attacked they would have an advantage because they had more states. Now, free states felt more in power, so they wanted slave trade to be vanished in Washington D.C. As a return southerners now wanted northerners to help them catch runaway slaves that were caught escaping. …show more content…

The northerners were able to make California a free state and also end slave trade in the capital. The southerners were able to pass the Fugitive Slave Act and they also outlawed the slave trade in Washington D.C. The north was not pleased with the new Fugitive Slave Act. Both the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law were a debatable

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