The Compromise of 1850 was proposed by Henry Clay inresponse to the issues of slavery. When gold was discovered inCalifornia, Congress had the face the issue of new territoriesstatehood and whether or not they would allow slavery in them.Before the Compromise, president Zachary Taylor announceintentions of making California and New Mexico states rightaway and allowing them to decide whether or not they would beslave states. This sparked anger from the South since they felt itthreated the balance of power in Congress (Keene et al., 2013).The main provisions were that California be entered in as a freestate to and the New Mexico would be divided into two territoriesand popular sovereignty would then decide whether it wouldallow slavery or not. The Compromise also had the governmentassume Texas's debt and settled the boarder dispute betweenTexas and New Mexico. The slave trade was also abolished inWashington DC (Keene et al., 2013). Keene, J. D., Cornell, S., &O’Donnell, E. T. (2013). Visions of America: A History of theUnited States. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: PearsonEducation, Inc
