 | Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 Subjects: Compromise of 1850; United States -- Politics and government -- 1849-1861; United States -- History -- Civil War 1861-1865 -- Causes; The crisis facing the United States in 1850 was a dramatic prologue to the conflict that came a decade later. The rapid opening of western lands demanded the speedy establishment of local civil administration for these vast regions. Outraged partisans, however, cried of coercion: Southerners saw a threat to the precarious sectional balance, and Northerners feared an extension of slavery. In this definitive study, Holman Hamilton analyzes the complex events of the anxious months from December, 1849, when the Senate debates began, until September, 1850, when Congress passed the measures. Holman Hamilton is the author of a two-volume work about Zachary Taylor. A former Guggenheim fellow, he also wrote The Three Kentucky Presidents . |
