states and the agreements

In 1850 the United States encountered its most serious crisis over slavery since the 1820 Missouri Compromise. As a result of the annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican War (1848), the country had gained enormous areas of land in the West without agreement about whether slavery should be allowed there. The free-soilers (antislavery forces) favored the proposal made by David Wilmot (Wilmot Proviso) to prohibit slavery from all the lands acquired from Mexico. This, unsurprisingly, was met with vicious Southern opposition. In 1849, when California pursued admittance to the Union as a free state, a serious dilemma materialized. Also causing apprehension was the quarrel over the boundary claims of Texas, which reached far westward into territory claimed by the United States. Moreover, the issues of the slave trade and the fugitive slave laws had long been troublesome. With an unstable balance of 15 ...