Civil War Compromises

In the years leading up to the Civil War there were three major compromises that were passed and one compromise that was drafted but never voted on. The compromises covered are The Missouri Compromise, The Compromise of 1850, and Crittenden’s Compromise; which was never acted upon by congress. These three compromises tried, and failed to, deal with the increasing sectionalism between the north and the south over the issue of slavery from 1820 to 1861. At the time the compromises were written there were overlying reasons in which the compromises were necessary. The expansion of the country and introduction of new territories and states resulted in congressional conflicts between North and South that would attempt the balancing of pro and free-states
This compromise allowed California to be added to the country as a free state, and let the newly obtained territories of New Mexico and Utah decide, by popular sovereignty, whether or not they would be free or slave territories. The compromise also solved the problem of the slave trade flowing within the nation's capitol by abolishing it. The final clause in The Compromise of 1850 dealt with the Fugitive Slave Law. At the time before The Compromise of 1850, there was no law requiring northern settlers to give escaped slaves back to their southern owners, but after this compromise was passed there WAS a law that requiring northern settlers to give escaped slaves back to their southern owners. This compromise was needed because of the enormous amount of land that the United States bought from Mexico, which was immediately disputed over by the abolitionists and anti-slavery southerners. Most of the territory was based in the south, where under the 36º 30´ latitude line would have been southern slave territory, however the latitude line didn’t extend that far. The 36º 30´ latitude line extended from the eastern coast line to the end of the Arkansas Territory. Now the president at the time was in favor of just extending the 36º 30´ latitude line, however the Southern members of Senate wanted all of the land gained from Mexico. The Compromise of 1850 did lasting damage between the border states along the 36º 30´ latitude
As time when on the causes for these compromises stayed the same, but the effect that they had on the country became divided. The compromises constantly forced senators into conventions to ‘solve the problem’ of a divided country over slavery, but that act in itself was impossible. These conventions proved that the two sections of the country were just too different, causing mounting amounts of sectionalism and tension between the North and South, and that there was just no middle ground between slavery and no slavery. There was no compromise that the delegates could have come up with that would have solved the country’s