Missouri Compromise of 1820

Missouri Compromise - Page 2

The Annexation of Texas

The annexation of Texas brought the embers of Northern discontent, which had smoldered since the days of the Missouri contest, again to a white heat. The circumstances attending and preceding it were to the Northern mind exasperating in the extreme. Its boundaries were still in dispute with the Mexican Republic, Texas claiming a country over which she had never established jurisdiction, for exceeding in area her unquestioned domain. It was well understood that to annex Texas, with her boundaries thus in dispute, was to adopt, on the part of the United States, her territorial claims, and that to establish them, war with Mexico was inevitable. No secret was made of the fact that the whole project was in the interest of slavery.

The Annexation of Texas to the Union, painting by Donald M. Yena.

Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 1986

Nevertheless, the annexation was completed on March 2, 1845. The only redeeming feature for the Northerners was in the recognition of the compromise line of 36° 30', north of which slavery was prohibited. Otherwise, they were embittered, as it also provided for the formation of more slave States, and for the first time embodied in law the doctrine of squatter sovereignty. It was as follows:

New States of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to the said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of the provisions of the Federal Constitution, and such States as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each state asking admission may desire; and in such state or states as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri Compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude (except for crime) shall be prohibited.

In the war which followed, the North was subjected to the deeper humiliation of fighting to win free territory from Mexico to increase the domain of slaveholding Texas. War with Mexico was declared on May 12, 1845 and uninterrupted and continued victories followed the American armies. Soon, it became evident that, however unjust the American cause, the United States would speedily force Mexico into terms of submission.

The proposed accession of territory forced the slavery question into notice in a new form. Before this time, slavery laws had not been subject to question. In the case of all territory previously acquired, except in the Virginia cession, it had been plausibly and successfully contended that, slavery being established and legalized already, it must be upheld until those immediately interested should see fit to abolish it.

However, Mexico had utterly abolished slavery some twenty years before, and every acre that she should cede to the United States, beyond the Rio Grande River would come to as free soil. However, under this consideration in the case of Texas, all concessions were refused by the South, since, on the basis of this doctrine, slavery was already in full possession, and should not be changed.

To solve this debate, the Wilmot Proviso was introduced on August 8, 1846, in the United States House of Representatives as a rider on a $2 million appropriations bill intended for the final negotiations to resolve the Mexican-American War.

The intent was to prevent the introduction of slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico. However, the proviso did not pass in the current session or in any other session when it was re-introduced over the course of the next several years. The territory acquired came to the United States with no positive slavery restriction, and brought with it a renewed discussion of the whole question, which was characterized by an intensity of feeling far exceeding that which preceded the admission of Maine and Missouri. This conflict was but one of many that eventually culminate in secession and Civil War.

The Compromise Of 1850

Tension remained during a series of bills aimed at resolving the territorial and slavery controversies arisen from the Mexican-American War, including the drafting of several laws which balanced the interests of the slave states of the South and the free states of the north. Subsequently, California was admitted as a free state; Texas received financial compensation for relinquishing claim to lands west of the Rio Grande River in what would become New Mexico Territory, which was organized without any specific prohibition of slavery.

Fugitive slave by Henry Prentiss, 1845

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

The slave trade (but not slavery itself) was ended in the District of Columbia; and the strict Fugitive Slave Law was passed, requiring all U.S. citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves regardless of the legality of slavery in the specific states. The Compromise dropped the Wilmot Proviso, which never became law but would have banned slavery in territory acquired from Mexico. Instead the Compromise further endorsed the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" for New Mexico Territory.

These various compromises would lessen the tension for the next four years, until it would once again become full-blown with the Introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

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