Compromise of 1850 Several laws that together sought to settle several outstanding issues involving slavery. They banned the slave trade, but not slavery in Washington, DC; admitted California as a free state; applied popular sovereignty to the remaining Mexican Cession territory; settled the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute; and passed a more stringent Fugitive Slave Act, 315 Free Soil party A party that emerged in the 1840s in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories. Formally organized in 1848, it nominated Martin Van Buren for president. In 1856, Free Soil party members joined with former Whigs and other disaffected voters to form the Republican party, 311
Fugitive Slave Act Initially, a 1793 law to encourage the return of runaway slaves; this law was amended, as part of the Compromise of 1850, so as to authorize federal commissioners to compel citizens to assist in the return of runaway (fugitive) slaves. The law offended Northerners and its nonenforcement offended Southerners, 315 gold rush Term for the gold-mining boom in the U. S. western territories in the late 1840s and 1850s, 309
Manifest destiny Originating in the 1840s, a term that referred to support of the expansion of the United States through the acquisition of Texas,
Oregon, and parts of Mexico. The term was also used in the 1890s in reference to the conquest of foreign lands not meant to be incorporated into the United States, 300
Mexican War Fought between the United States and Mexico from May 1846 to February 1848, the Mexican War greatly added to the national domain of the United States; see also Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 305
Popular sovereignty The principle of allowing people to make political decisions by majority vote. As applied to American history, the term generally refers to the 1848 proposal of Michigan Senator Lewis Cass to allow settlers to determine the status of slavery in the territories, 310
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Signed in 1848, this treaty ended the Mexican War, forcing that nation to relinquish all of the land north of the Rio Grande and Gila Rivers, including what would eventually become California, in return for monetary compensations, 309
Wilmot Proviso A proposed amendment to an 1846 appropriations bill that banned slavery from any territory the United States might acquire from Spain. It never passed Congress, but generated a great debate on the authority of the federal government to ban slavery from the territories, 310
World History
