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Article: Compromise of 1850
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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COMPROMISE OF 1850
COMPROMISE OF 1850,
a designation commonly given to five statutes enacted in September 1850, following a bitter controversy between the representatives of the North and South. The controversy reached a fever pitch during the weeks following the assembling of Congress in December 1849, when the election of a speaker under the customary majority rule was prevented by the unwillingness of the Free Soil members, who held the balance of power, to be drawn into an arrangement with either of the two major parties. In the course of the prolonged balloting, criminations and recriminations passed between the hotheaded spokesmen of the two sections. Pointing to indications that ...