1. OBJECTIVE
You will be able to describe the Compromise of 1850 and explain its causes.

2. Money is a Motivator! Would you return the dog if…
1) You were offered no reward and the owner lived far away___________
2) You were offered a $5 reward ________
3) You were offered a $500 Reward ________

3. Fugitive Slave Reward!
Until 1850, slaves who escaped to freedom were oftentimes helped by sympathetic northerners and abolitionists.
These fugitive slaves were rarely ever captured and returned to their slave masters. The new compromise made by Congress in 1850 drastically changed fate of these fugitive slaves. How? By using money as a motivator!

4. Notes Page: Causes for the Compromise of 1850
The Missouri Compromise did create a temporary solution to the conflict over slavery, but it did not bring an end to the tensions between North and South.
The bolded headings in the notes represent the major causes that led to another compromise—The Compromise of 1850.
As we pause to check your understanding, create a summary of each cause in the box!

5. CAUSE #1: Slavery in the Nation’s Capital—Washington, D.C.
In the North, the abolitionist movement was growing. During the 1830’s, the abolitionists held protests in Washington, D.C. demanding that Congress end slavery in the nation’s capital. Rather than deal with that issue, Congress voted in 1836 to table (or set aside) the issue of slavery in the capital.
The angry abolitionists called this action the “gag rule” because it gagged or silenced all debate over slavery in the capital.

6. Check your Understanding
Create a summary of this FIRST cause for the Compromise of Be sure to include what each side (North and South) wanted!

7. CAUSE #2: Fugitive Slaves
White southerners deeply resented (hated) the abolitionists.
Many southern states made it illegal for people to write or speak about the abolition of slavery because they worried that it would encourage slaves to fight for their freedom or run away to the North.

8. CAUSE #2: Fugitive Slaves
It didn’t help that many northern abolitionists actively helped the fugitive (runaway) slaves escape to the north.
To the slaveholders, these northerners were just as bad as thieves—a slave was a piece of property and every time a slave successfully escaped, it was as if their property had been stolen from them.
Many slaveholders started to demand that Congress pass a fugitive slave law that helped them to recapture their property.

9. Check your Understanding
Create a summary of this SECOND cause for the Compromise of Be sure to include what each side (North and South) wanted!

10. CAUSE #3: Slavery in the Mexican Cession
When President Polk started the Mexican-American War, a northern Congressman David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso—this was a bill which suggested that any new territory taken from Mexico should not allow slavery.
Southern Congressmen were outraged by this proviso, arguing that Congress had no right to decide where slaveholders can take their property.
The Wilmot Proviso passed in the House, but it was rejected by the Senate.

11. Check your Understanding
Create a summary of this THIRD cause for the Compromise of Be sure to include what each side (North and South) wanted!

12. CAUSE #4: California Statehood
For the next 3 years, Congress argued over what to do about slavery in the California and New Mexico territories (the territories gained in the Mexican American War).
Southerners wanted slavery to be allowed anywhere in the Mexican Cession region. Northerners wanted all of that land to be closed off to slavery.

13. CAUSE #4: California Statehood
In 1849, the California territory applied to become a free state—northerners supported this, while southerners rejected it.
They knew that if California was admitted as a free state, it would cause an imbalance in the number of slave and free states—and it would give the free states the majority power in the House and Senate.

14. Check your Understanding
Create a summary of this FOURTH cause for the Compromise of Be sure to include what each side (North and South) wanted!

15. FOUR Compromises of 1850: Slavery in the Capital: Fugitive Slaves:
Slavery in the Mexican Cession:
California Statehood:

16. The Compromise of 1850 Map