COMPROMISE OF 1850 Definition & Meaning

Compromise of 1850

A set of laws, passed in the midst of fierce wrangling between groups favoring slavery and groups opposing it, that attempted to give something to both sides. The compromise admitted California to the United States as a “free” (no slavery) state but allowed some newly acquired territories to decide on slavery for themselves. Part of the Compromise included the Fugitive Slave Act , which proved highly unpopular in the North. Senator Henry Clay was a force behind the passage of the compromise.

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Notes

The Compromise of 1850 shows how difficult it was to accommodate the two sides of the slavery question. It failed to prevent the Civil War , which broke out just over ten years later.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

These events prompted a slavery debate in Congress—and may have influenced one piece of the Compromise of 1850, which ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

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For example, when Congress debated the vexed legislation that would become known as the Compromise of 1850, Rep. Thomas Clingman and Sen. Henry Foote, both of Mississippi, announced that they and their allies would bring guns into Congress and open fire if they didn’t get their way.

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California banned slavery in its 1849 Constitution and entered the Union as a “free state” under the Compromise of 1850.

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During debates on the Compromise of 1850 concerning the expansion of slavery, Sen. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri charged Sen. Henry S. Foote of Mississippi on the Senate floor.

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Of the Compromise of 1850, which brought California into the union but strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act — arguably the most detested federal law in American history — he stated that it illustrated how “slavery has shot its leprous distillment through the life blood of the nation.”

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