The annexation of Texas to the United States and the gain of new territory be the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidlago at the close of the Mexican War (1848) aggravated the hostility between North and South concerning the question of the extension of slavery into the territories. The anit-slavery forces favored the proposal made in the Wilmot Privsio to exclude slavery from all the lands aquired from Mexico. This, naturally, met with violent Southern opposition. When California sought admittance to the Union as a free state, a grave crisis threatened.

Also causing friction was teh conflict over the boundary claims of Texas, which extended far westward into territory claimed bt the United States. In addition, the questions of the slave trade and the fugitive slave laws had long been vexing. There was some fear that, in teh event of strong anit-slavery legislation, the Southern states might withdraw from the Union altogether.

The possibility of the disintegration of the Union was deprecated by many but was alarming to some, among them Henry Clay, who emerged from retirement to enter the Senate again. President Taylor was among those who felt that the Union was not threatened; he favored admission of Califronia as a free state and encouragement of New Mexico to enter as a free state as well. These sentiments were voiced in Congress by William H. Seward. John C. Clahoun, and other Southerners, particularyl Jefferson Davis, maintained that the South should be given guarantees of equal position in the territories, of the execution of fugitive slave laws, and of protection against the abolitionists.

Clay proposed that a series of measures be passed as an omnibus compromise bill. Support for this plan was largely organized bt Stephen A. Douglas. The measures were the admission of California as a free state; the organization of New Mexico and Utah territories without mention of slavery, the staus of that institution to be determined by the territories themselves when they were ready to be admitted as states (this formula became known as popular sovereignty); the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; a more stringent fugitive slave law; adn the settlement of Texas boundary claims by federal payment of $10 million on the debt contracted by the Republic of Texas.

These proposals faced great opposition, but Daniel Webster greatly enhanced the chances for their acceptance by his famous speech on March 7, 1950. Taylor's death and the accesion of conservative Millard Fillmore to the presidency made the compromise more feasible. After long debates and failure to pass the omnibus bill, Congress passed the measures as seperate bills in September 1850. Many people, NOrht and South, hailed the compromise as a final solution to the question of slavery in the territories.