1. Compromise of 1850
With the Mexican Cession, there was a question of how to bring the new territory in as states.
The Legislature was in the balance.

2. Details... California was admitted as a free state.
The question of slavery in the Utah and New Mexico territories would be left to popular sovereignty.
Ended the slave trade in Washington, D.C. (our national capital).
Made it easier for Southerners to recover runaway slaves (The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850)

3. A belief in the philosophy of Manifest Destiny, which stated that …..
What encouraged (or pushed) so many Americans to go West (or did they get pulled West)?
A belief in the philosophy of Manifest Destiny, which stated that …..

4. …. God, …, clearly wanted hard–working American(s) to occupy North America. It was inevitable and good that the United States occupy the continent “from sea to shining sea.”

5. John L. O’Sullivan (editor) gave these ideas a name: Manifest Destiny
“It is,” he wrote, “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”