The 1850 Compromise Of 1850

from Mexico which included California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. With the discovery of gold, people rushed to California in large numbers. So large, in fact, that the state was eligible to become a state. Because the state was mostly under the 38th Parallel, it was supposed to be admitted as a slave state, but the people voted that California become known as a free state. It eventually led to the creation of the 1850 Compromise. The Compromise of 1850 was suggested by Henry Clay and it was made to help relieve tensions and come to an agreement between the free states and the slave states. The 1850 Compromise allowed California to be admitted into the country as a free state and abolished slavery in Washington D.C. Unfortunately, …show more content…
Douglas suggested the Kansas-Nebraska Act because he wanted to remove any obstacles to the transcontinental railroad. The act allowed both Kansas and Nebraska to be admitted into the union as either a slave or free state depending on what the citizens voted and is also known as popular sovereignty. It also overturned the Missouri Compromise since the citizens could vote. The act contained thirty-seven sections and was approved on May 30, 1854. This led to problems, however, because people from both slave and free states rushed to vote to decide on the fate of the states. It evolved into conflicts with one another because the two do not get along with one another especially in Kansas. As a result, they fought in an event known as Bleeding Kansas, where both sides started to fight the other in a mini Civil War. After the fighting, Kansas was admitted into the union as a free state. Because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the fights that erupted because of it, tensions between slavery …show more content…
It started when John Emerson, a Missouri slave owner, brought Dred Scott, his slave, into Fort Snelling in Wisconsin Territory, where slavery is considered illegal. In Minnesota, he married another slave that Emerson owned. After Emerson died, Dred Scott sued Emerson’s widow and won in the lower courts but did not win in the Missouri Court and was assigned to John F. A. Sanford. Scott then sued Sanford because Scott believed that since he lived in free states, he should be freed as a slave. In 1856, the trial carried up to the Supreme Court where a decision was made. The Supreme Court said that Dred Scott could not sue for his freedom because he was a slave under Missouri law and slaves are considered property, thus not being able to sue. The decision was that there was nothing in their power that they could do to make people slaves or free. This angered many Northerners where they believed that slavery should be illegal compared to the Southerners, who were pleased because they believed that slavery should be legal. Tensions got worse until the South could not handle it in the most important election in American history.
A famous abolitionist by the name of John Brown made himself known in John Brown’s Raid. John Brown was one of the people who started Bleeding Kansas when he helped initiate a small civil war by murdering five settlers who were thought to be proslavery. In