The first compromise was that California was admitted as a Free State with no slave stateto balance it out. So, what would the South get in return well the rest of the territory taken fromMexico was divided into Utah Territory in the northern part and New Mexico Territory in theSouthern part, both of these territories were opened to slavery via popular sovereignty.Incidentally, both Utah and New Mexico territories had slaves in the 1850s, slavery was legal inboth. The third part of the compromise settled disputes over the borders of Texas, Texas was notcarved up into multiple slave states, as some had thought it might be. That was fine becauseTexas didn't want to be carved up anyway. The fourth part involved the nation's capital,Washington DC, Southern congressmen brought slaves with them during congressional sessions.Some even had slaves served them on the floors of both houses. Washington DC had thrivingslave markets and it was one of the hubs of the Interstate slave trade.Northerners were growing increasingly outraged about slavery in Washington DC, so thecompromise of 1850 split the difference. Slavery remained legal in the city, but the slave tradeitself was abolished, which accomplished absolutely nothing because DC was sandwichedbetween the slave states of Maryland and Virginia, and the slave markets just relocated a fewmiles outside the city. The most important component of the compromise of 1850 was the lastone, a new Fugitive Slave Act that was harsher than the original Fugitive Slave Act, passed in1793 and signed by President George Washington. You see, the 1793 law had created legalchannels to reclaim slaves, but the slaveholders themselves had to take initiative and they had togo through the Free State court system. The free states in response, passed a series of personalliberty laws to make it harder for slaveholders to reclaim fugitive slaves. You could opt under thepersonal liberty laws not to cooperate with law enforcement.Northern states were putting so many obstacles in the way of recovering fugitive slavesthat the South insisted they would not agree to any compromise unless the Fugitive Slave Actwas updated and strengthened. The new Fugitive Slave Act overrode the northern state’sPersonal liberty laws, not only did federal agents have to help capture runaways, but local lawenforcement also had to help capture fugitive slaves. Harboring runaways was made a federalcrime, punishable by fine or imprisonment. Black defendants who were accused of beingfugitives were denied the right to testify on their own behalf that, by the way, was a southern law.In the north, free blacks had legal rights; in the South, blacks could not testify and so basicallywith the Fugitive Slave Act, the South is writing its laws and its court procedures on the top ofnorthern court procedures in fugitive slave cases. Remember all of this time, Southerners hadbeen calling for states’ rights on slavery. Yet as the Fugitive Slave Act demonstrated, they wereperfectly fine if the federal government overrode the northern state’s rights on the issues of
