In response to criticism of the committee’s omnibus bill of compromise measures, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky challenged his fellow senators to offer better proposals to reconcile the conflicting interests of the North and South. Failing to win enough support to overcome Southern opposition, the controversial omnibus bill did not pass.
"[I]t is the duty of all who assail this compromise, to give us their own and a better project; to tell us how they would reconcile the interests of this country, and harmonize its distracted parts."
General Collections, Library of Congress
Senator Henry Clay’s Speech to the Senate on the Compromise Report, May 21, 1850
The Compromise of 1850
After the Mexican War, the question of whether to allow or prohibit slavery in the new western territories threatened to rupture the Union. Slavery’s extension to new states could give the slaveholding South a majority in the Senate; its prohibition would favor the North. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky attempted to diffuse the controversy by offering resolutions on slavery and western land. The Senate debated Clay’s proposals for seven months. When Clay’s proposal failed, Congress repackaged the proposal into a series of bills known as the Compromise of 1850. In the Compromise of 1850, Congress admitted California as a free state; settled boundaries of Texas and New Mexico; created a territorial government for Utah; upheld the rights of slaveholders over escaped slaves; and banned slave trading in the nation’s capital.
In response to criticism of the committee’s omnibus bill of compromise measures, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky challenged his fellow senators to offer better proposals to reconcile the conflicting interests of the North and South. Failing to win enough support to overcome Southern opposition, the controversial omnibus bill did not pass.
"[I]t is the duty of all who assail this compromise, to give us their own and a better project; to tell us how they would reconcile the interests of this country, and harmonize its distracted parts."
General Collections, Library of Congress
