Go West, Young Man
[Spacing]
"I pretend to see but little of the future, and that little affords
no gratification. All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation."
- US Senator Daniel Webster, of the Compromise of 1851
Jones, David.
A History of the North American Continent. Chicago: Syndicated Press, 1938.
... In the early part of 1848, on 2 February, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was negotiated by the United States Commissioner in Mexico, Nicholas Trist, by which New Mexico and Upper California were ceded to the United States, while the lower Rio Grande, from its mouth to El Paso, was taken as the boundary of the former Texan Republic. In consideration of these acquisitions the United States paid Mexico some fifteen million dollars, an amount which was remarked upon by the American press for being the same paid to obtain the Louisiana territory - without a war. Notably for the actions of the immediate future, Mexican law did not permit slavery, and as such the institution was outlawed in the ceded territories; as such the Mexican government argued for the inclusion of a clause in the peace treaty which would have outlawed slavery in those territories under American administration. Trist rejected this call, stating that he could not even entertain the proposition, nor think of communicating it to President Polk (
1). The "Anglo-Saxon race" would not listen to the prayer of "superstitious Catholicism, goaded on by a miserable priesthood." As such the issue immediately become
the debate of Washington D.C. for much of the coming three years. Indeed the Mexican territories slavery issue permeating into every other field of public contention. During debates over the admission of the Oregon Territory, a territory which the reader will remember had preceded that of the spoils of the Mexican-American War, the renowned speaker John C. Calhoun of South Carolina arguing before the Senate that; "As soon as the treaty between the two countries is ratified the sovereignty and authority of Mexico in the territory acquired from it becomes extinct, and that of the United States is substituted, carrying with it the Constitution." Furthermore, the Constitution by implication recognized slavery, and therefore it would be permitted for slave-owners to take their 'property' into the new territories. As a necessary deduction Calhoun also asserted that neither Congress, nor the inhabitants of the territories, nor the territorial legislature had the right to exclude slavery from the territories. This doctrine was thoroughly refuted by the Senator from Massachusetts, Daniel Webster, at the next sessions of Congress, who ended with the passing allusion; "I am not going into metaphysics, for therein I should encounter the honorable Senator from Carolina, and we should find 'no end, in wandering mazes lost.'" The debate went in in the Senate for weeks, and as the prospect of a satisfactory conclusion seemed remote, the whole matter was referred to a special committee, who then reported a bill which provided territorial governments for Oregon, New Mexico, and California, prohibiting slavery in the former but referring the question for the latter two to the territorial courts. Thomas Corwin, the Senator from Ohio, decried the entire measure as not enacting a law; "it only enacts a lawsuit." The bill narrowly passed the Senate, but was immediately tabled in the House, who had meanwhile been at work on their own plan for Oregon. On 1 August 1848 a bill providing a territorial government for Oregon, with the prohibition of slavery, passed; in the Senate however an amendment was tacked to it extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, a situation which would de-facto divide California while rendering New Mexico slave territory. Webster was once again amount the first decrying the attempted extension of the institution, decrying that "the Senate wishes to now have a public declaration, not respecting Oregon, but respecting the newly acquired territories. It wishes to make a line of slavery." The amended bill passed the Senate, where it immediately died in the House; on the last day of the session the Senate recoiled from its amendment and enacted the measure establishing the Oregon Territory, with the express prohibition of slavery, on 14 August 1848...
... On the assembling of Congress in December of 1848 out-going President Polk strongly urged the necessity of providing territorial governments for New Mexico and California. He further favored, as a 'fair settlement,' the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific (
2) More than one attempt was made by the out-going Congress to dispose of the matter, however the only measure which passed the Senate was an amendment to the general appropriation bill providing for the extension of the Constitution, and implicitly slavery, to the territories. However once again the more populist House would not agree with the Senate, and in the closing days of the session several brawls were reported in the Senate as tempers flared, and in the House at least two fist-fights were drew blood took place. Horance Mann, a member of the House representing Massachusetts, reported later that if 'the North had been as ferocious as the South, it is probable there would have been a general mêlée.' Finally however the Senate withdrew the amendment and passed the appropriation bill; the session came to an end, but nothing had been done towards the organization of governments for the territories. This and the question of slavery were left up to the new Congress, while the necessary executive measures were placed in the lap of the new President, Zachary Taylor, a man who had come to the highest office of the state unversed in civil affairs and untried in their orderly administration...
... Nine days before the peace treaty between the United States and Mexico was signed gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierras. At the time only a handful of people in all of California knew of the find, and none in the US or Mexico. The 'accursed thirst of gold' was to work out the destiny of this territory, but it was not until May 1848 that news of the find spread like wild fire. Blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, farmers, bakers, boarding-house keepers, soldiers and even domestic servants all left their occupations and headed in search of the gold; privates from the army and sailors from the naval ships deserted and almost always were soon found digging for gold. A private could make more money in the mines in a day than he received in the service in a month. At the time it required about forty days for official news to reach between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts; the fabulous stories were at first doubted, but soon accepted with fervid belief. From all parts of the world outcasts and vagrants swelled the crowd that undertook the hardships of the dangerous journey for the sake of bettering their condition. In truth, the journey was one that only the hardy could endure. If the emigrant chose to go by sailing vessel from New York, or even one of the ancient European ports, around Cape Horn he had to brave the perils of the most dangerous of ocean voyages. He could, indeed, go by Central America, but the railroad was not then built (
3) the crossing of the isthmus was attended with great hazard. This left the overland route, a wagon journey of more than two thousand miles through some of the most extreme diversity in climate and geography on the planet. Nevertheless, in spite of all these obstacles, there arrived in California some 100,000 prospectors had arrived by the end of 1849 - by 1855 the number had swollen to over 350,000... (
4)
... Before his inauguration General Taylor had been anxious that Congress should settle on some plan of government for the new territories, stating the new desired to substitute 'the rule of law and order there for the bowie-knife and revolvers.' A month after his inauguration he sent T. Butler King, a Whig Representative from Georgia, to California as a confidential agent of the administration to assist the growing movement towards a state government, and to work in conjunction with the military government. What then was the government of this community, flowing with riches and people? There was the military governor, Richard Barnes Mason, who, even when working in accord with King, had no authority save such as he might choose to assume, which he was not inclined to do, the US military in the region being distinctly unsettled by the task of governing such a vast territory - a task they had no ambition, precedent, or training to do. As well there were the
alcaldes - a survival of the Mexican officials who largely continued to administer their localities (
5). However on the whole the territory was boarding on a state of anarchy; there were no land laws, and mining titles were frequently disputed and fought over, often resulting in death. Criminals banded together in gangs to rob the conveys from the mines; murders were common, as were lynchings, yet murder was deemed a lesser crime than theft. The cry that went out of the majority of Californians, especially native Californians, was for a territorial government - and if Congress would not help them than they determined to help themselves. A convention to frame a government was called to meet on 6 May 1849 which was assisted by both Masons and King. Forty-eight members were elected from across the territory for the convention; twenty-two Northerners, fifteen Southerns, seven native Californians and four foreigners. The meeting of the convention was postponed after it appeared that Congress might indeed act on the issue, but when that fell through once again the Californian Congress at least meet in Monterrey on 3 September 1849 with the explicit object of forming a state to join the union. The idea of forming an original constitution appears not to have entered into the discussion; indeed the Californian Constitution was largely modeled on that of New York's, and to the astonishment of the spectators and the Northern deputies no object what-so-ever was made to a clause in the bill of right which explicitly prohibited slavery in the state forever...
... By 13 October the Californian Congress, which had worked day-and-night, had finished their deliberations; one month later it was adopted by a vote of the people, and, with the assent of the new military governor, Bennett C. Riley, in December of that year the new legislature swiftly elected John C. Frémont and William M. Gwin US Senators... (
6)
Texas State Historical Association. "Adjustment of the Texas Boundary."
The Southwestern Historical Quarterly Vol. VII (1905).
... The first sessions of the Thirty-First Congress faced these issues and addressed itself to the difficult task of restoring quiet to the disturbed country by means of pacific measures. The most serious of these was the status of the new acquisitions, especially that of the boundary between the Texan Republic and New Mexico. As the Democrats had a majority of only eight in the Senate, while thirteen Free Soliers (
7) the balance of power in the House between 112 Democrats and 105 Whigs, it was obvious and a fierce and protracted struggle would ensure. In the opening session of the new congress the Democratic Senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton, proposed a bill to retire the western limit of Texas to the parallel of 102 degrees of west longitude, and the northern boundary "from the frozen region of 42 to the genial clime of 34;" two-and-a-half degrees south of the Missouri Compromise line, ceding to the US federal government all of the territory exterior to these limits. Benton argued that the territory which Texas claimed was too large;
"
She covers sixteen degrees of latitude, and fourteen degrees of longitude. She extends from 26 to 42 degrees of north latitude, and from 96 to 110 west longitude; that is to say from four degrees south of New Orleans to new four degrees north of St. Louis, and from the longitude of Western Missouri to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. The southeast corner is in the mouth of the Rio Grande - region of perpetual flowers; her northwest corner is near the South Pass - region of eternal snow..."
... However on the same day, Henry S. Foote, the Democratic Senator from Mississippi, who entertained a bitter resentment against Benton, introduced an omnibus bill providing territorial governments for all of the newly acquired possessions, and enabling the citizens of Texas east of the Brazos river to be organized into a state by the consent of the Texas legislature, to be designated the State of Jacinto, after the decisive final battle of the Texan Revolution. The bill also made the Rio Grande the boundary between New Mexico and Texas. In explaining his bill Foote scathingly denounced Benton for unsettling the slavery question in attempting to free soilism conceded slave territory, applying to him the language used by Cicero in delineating the character of the degenerate Roman senator (
8). As well, the 53rd section of the bill embraced that the Constitution and the laws of the United States were to be extended over the territories and to be in full force, intending that the Constitution should follow the flag and prevent the recognition of the
lex loci...
... The great pacificator, Henry Clay, the Whig Senator from Kentucky, introduced a series of resolutions on 29 January 1850, which would admit California as a free state, outlaw slavery within the territories acquired from Mexico, direct the payment of the
bona fide public debt of the Texan Republic contracted prior to her annexation - on the condition the relinquish claims to any part of New Mexico. Further Clay's omnibus fixed the western boundary of Texas along the Rio Grande northward to the southern line of New Mexico, conceded to be at or near El Pase, thence eastward to the line as established between the United States and Spain - excluding all the territory of New Mexico east of the river from the jurisdiction of the State. While Clay denied the Texan claim to any portion of New Mexico, he added that certain facts made her claim plausible, and for the sake of harmony he was willing to tender a reasonable sum for its relinquishment. In reply, Senator Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a Democrat from Texas a war-hero and general in his own right, protested against any attempted to dismember Texas, maintaining that the Texan claim to all of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande was incontrovertible. He warned that Texas would not be apart of any attempt to "make a peace offering to a spirit of encroachment on the constitutional rights of one-half of this Union."
... Another compromise was embraced in the resolutions offered on 28 February by Senator John Bell of Tennessee which proposed to restrict the limits of Texas within the territory lying east of the Trinity and south of the Red River, to provide for a new state on the west, and extending north to the 34th degree of north latitude, and to accept a cession from the State of all the unappropriated domain west of the Colorado, and extending north to the 42nd parallel. Provision was also made for the prospective admission of another state to be carved out of the unappropriated domain west of the Colorado and south of the 34th parallel, which would embrace a part of the present limits in New Mexico, while the territory north of the line, containing all of the so-called 'Texas Pandle,' was to be incorporated with the territory of New Mexico. While the bill surrendered more than two and one-half degrees of slave territory, against the earlier statements of Rusk and others Bell had received assent from the Texas legislature before introducing his legislation before the Senate, a position which lent a heavy weight to his arguments that slaver compensation was made by including an equivalent of free territory in the limits of the prospective state west of the Colorado. Bell's bill was regarded largely as a modified form of the executive policy (
9), and seen to recognize by its terms the creation of four new states; two free and two slave - one to offset the admission of California, and the other of New Mexico.
Resolutions of a similar nature were introduced in the House, but no particular measure seemed to warrant exclusive consideration as in the Senate. However, President Taylor choose to appear before the former body in late February, in which he touched briefly on the important question of slavery, but with carefully chosen words. Taylor's latest correspondence from California gave him reason to believed that she had framed a constitution, established a state government, and would soon apply for admission into the Union. This application was recommended to the favorable consideration of Congress, as it was believed that New Mexico would in the near feature likewise apply for statehood. President Taylor consoled the House to await their action, for that would avert all causes of uneasiness, and that 'we should abstain from the introduction of those exciting topics of sectional character which have hitherto produced painful apprehensions in the public mind.' With this in mind it became evident that the discussion of abstract resolutions was delaying a speedy, deliberate, and final settlement of the distracting questions, and to avoid further debate on 19 April the Senate sent the question to a committee to decide upon a compromise scheme.
By 18 May, the chairman of the committee, Senator Clay, presented its report and the bill which it had framed. This was a composite measure, provided for the admission of California without slavery, the establishment of territorial governments in Utah and New Mexico, without the Wilmot Proviso (
10), and the settlement of the disputed boundary between New Mexico and Texas. Clay was quite proud of the bill, which was largely his work, calling it 'this garment of compromise, thus quilted of various with artistic skill' which had been pieced out with two other, unrelated bills, concerning slavery in the District of Columbia and the recovery of fugitive slaves. However it was the question of the extension or restriction of slavery in the new states and territories which provoked the bitterest discussion, and delayed the vote on the proposed measure. While many Congressmen who opposed the extension of slave territory declined to apply the principle of the Wilmot Proviso to the compromise bill, equally they believed that the soil, climate, and physical conditions of the southwest had already consecrated the new domain to free soilism, and, in the words of Senator Webster, it was not necessary to 'reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reenact the will of God.'
A speedy and satisfactory adjustment of the boundary dispute was urged to avoid a threatened conflict between the troops of Texas and of the United States. The governor of Texas, Peter Hansborough Bell, had dispatched a commissioner, Robert S. Neighbors, with full powers to extend civil jurisdiction over four unorganized countries within the disputed district between the Texan and New Mexican territories. However, the US military governor of New Mexico, a Colonel Monroe, interposed adversely by an an effort to establish a separate government for the territory which would extend over the party claimed by bell. Such was the opposition to which Neighbors was received, much the same as the earlier Texan Commissioner, Spruce M. Baird, who had been sent in 1837, that Neighbors did not even attempt to carry out his instructions regarding Texan claims. Governor Bell promptly addressed a letter to President Taylor, inquiring, ever-so innocently, if the military governor had transcended his instructions, and if not if his proclamation for the assembling of a convention to bring about New Mexican statehood had the president's approval. Vice-President Millard Fillmore made the letter the subject of a special message to Congress, in which he adverted to the convoking of the legislature of Texas by Governor Bell for the purpose of establishing by force the laws and the jurisdiction of the State over the unorganized countries. According to Fillmore the Constitution, as well as the Insurrection Act of 1807, would compel the President to interpose the strength of the United States to resist any force Texas might send to establish her authority over the territory. As such he urged Congress to establish a boundary; friends of the administration considered the message mild, while pro-slavery and pro-Texan supporters declared the 'Fillmore Doctrine' a menace and a dangerous assumption of executive power. Alexander H. Stephens, Democratic Representative from Georgia, warned that the 'first Federal run that shall be fired against the people of Texas will be a signal for the freemen from Delware to the Rio Grande to rally to the rescue.' However the menacing doctrine of the Vice-President's message, and further the reputation of the Texans for vigorous and determined action, warned the more conservative element in Congress that it would be better to 'purchase a peace' than risk the result of further agitation and controversy...
... The opposition to the proposed adjustment finally defeated the entire compromise bill, and by an unexpected source. James W. Bradbury. the Democratic Senator from Maine, offered an amendment to strike out all of the text relating to the plan of settlement with Texas, and insert in lieu a provision for the appointment of three commissioners to act with a like number to be appointed by Texas to define the 'true and legitimacy boundary' of the State. To guard the interest of Texas, Senator Dawson, a Georgia Whig, presented an amendment to this amendment which was adopted by the Senate to the effect that no territorial government or state established in New Mexico should become effect east of the Rio Grande until the boundary line had been agreed upon by Texas and the United States. At this point to exclude the implication of title and the jurisdiction of Texas Senator Pearce, a Democrat from New Hampshire, offered a further amendment, which was adopted by the Senate, to strike from the compromise bill all that related to New Mexico's and Texas' boarders; this final move effectively killed Bradbury's amendment...
... Pearce thought that the disputed boundary of Texas was the final difficulty for the compromise bill; to this end he presented a new bill, unconnected with any other subject, for the establishment of the northern border at where the median of 100° west is intersected by the parallel of 36° 30' north latitude, and run thence west to the 103rd meridian; thence south to the 32nd degree of north latitude; then on that parallel to the Rio Bravo. Further, in relinquishment of all further claims Texas was to receive the flat amount of $10 million to put towards her public debt. This final bill passed the Senate on 9 August by a vote of 30 to 20, before further passing the House on 6 September with an amendment creating a territorial government for New Mexico, by 108 ayes to 97 noes. A reconciliatory bill was drafted by a conference committee which largely merged Pearce's proposal with that of Clay, creating an omnibus package of five bills which would have admitted California as a free state, abolished the slave trade while protecting the institution in the District of Columbia, created a new fugitive slave Act, Pearce's proposal for the Texas borders, and organized the territories of New Mexico and of Utah under the rule of 'popular sovereignty' - a proposal developed late in the session by Democrats Lewis Cass and Stephen Douglass which would have allowed each territory to decide on its own initiative whether to enter as a free or slave state. However at this point the entire venture was stopped cold by President Taylor, who vetoed four of the five measures on 8 September 1850, only approving of California's admission to the union as a free state (
11)...
The four main proposals for the boundaries of Texas
Compromise of 1851
... In the following weeks the Californian Senators, Frémont and Gwin, arrived in Washington D.C. to present their state constitution and apply for admission to the United States only to discover that they're immediate goals had already been accomplished ahead of them. With the opening of the second session of the 31st Congress on 2 December 1850 the two quickly took their places in the Senate, with Frémont becoming the third Free Soil senator, while Gwin was a Jacksonian Democrat. As such though the latter was in favor of the
institution of slavery, both were opposed to the expansion of the enterprise into the territories of the Mexican Concession. With this the political balance of the Senate was, for the first time, radically shifted against the southern slave-holders. With the still recent Presidential veto of the Clay-Pearce Amendment (also known as the Southern Bargin), it was no surprise when the related issues of the Texas-New Mexico border, slavery, and the admission of the Texan and New Mexican territories into the union were raised once again in both the House and the Senate. As early as 5 December Senator Bell resubmitted his proposal for the admittance of two states created out of the territory of the Texan Republic; however Bell also largely absorbed many of the ideas of the Clary-Pearce Amendment; the retention of slavery, but not the slave trade, in the capitol district; the creation of a new Fugitive Slave Act. New Mexico, much like California was to be admitted to the union immediately - the admission of two new free states was balanced out by Bell's creation of two new slave states out of the former Texan Republic, Texas, and Senator Foote's Jacinto State. The Missouri Compromise line was also retained for the territories of the Louisiana Purchase, so that as such all of the unorganized territory and Texan ceded territory south of the line was organized into the North Texas territory. Bell's new proposals swiftly passed the Senate as word began to filter eastward of skirmishes along the Texan-New Mexican border, ambiguous as it was, between Texan and New Mexican state and volunteer troops, as well as rumors of a limited engagement between Texan and federal troops outside of Santa Fe. Though there was some opposition in the Texan territories to accept the proffered settlement, voters at a special election approved it by a margin of more than two to one... (
12)
From left to right, the flags of California, New Mexico, Jacinto, and Texas
The middle two show the varying influence of California and Texas, respectively, upon their formation
... The Compromise of 1851 was a package of five bills, passed in January 1851, which defused a five-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North and West regarding the territories acquired during the Mexican-American War. The compromise, drafted by Whigs John Bell and Henry Clay, and Democrats Stephen Douglass and Franklin Pierce, avoided secession or civil war and reduced sectional conflict in the United States until 1854 when...
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1) Polk had served as Speaker of the House and Governor of Tennessee before being selected as a dark horse candidate for the Democratic party in the 1844 presidential election, defeating Henry Clay of the Whig Party largely due to Polk's promise to annex the Texan Republic. Indeed Polk's presidency is largely renowned IOTL for his successful foreign policy; threatening war with Britain over the issue of the Oregon before agreeing to split the difference, the sweeping victory of the Mexican-American War, and the secured passage of the Walker Tariff of 1846 which reduced rates on exports by by 10% for his native south. A slave-holder himself, Polk personally believed that slavery and plantation economics could not survive in the dry southwest territories, however he was in favor of extending the institution as far and wide as possible - even authorizing his Ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba for up to $100 million in the summer of 1848.
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2) IOTL this was the standard argument of those in favor of the expansion of slavery. Of course this contention ignored the fact that the Missouri Compromise line had been approved of in the context of, and legally only applied to, the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent territories and states.
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3) The author is referring to the over-land route via Nicaragua, a stage- and eventually rail-route which generated massive profits for the short time it was open IOTL before being closed during one of that country's many civil wars before being briefly re-opened under the administration of filibuster William Walker.
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4) Roughly 10-50 thousand more ITTL in each case, as Europeans, particularly Germans, join the flood of prospectors. This will have a substantial affect on Californian demographics later.
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5) An alcalde is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions; acting as both the presiding officer of the
cabildo (the municipal council) and as the town judge. Alcaldes were elected annually, without the right to reelection, by the council members of the local government.
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6) Although previously passive on the subject, Californians from southern, slave, states began to aggregate for their own 'proper' representation in the autumn of 1849, leading to the power-sharing scheme of Frémont and Gwin; Frémont was anti-slavery, and Gwin in favor. Frémont had been the third military governor of California, from mid-January to 1 March 1847, while Gwin had previously served in the Army under Andrew Jackson, becoming a Representative of Mississippi before moving to California in 1849.
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7) The Free Soil Party had emerged in 1848 as a third-party based primarily in the North, especially in New York, which drew members from both Whigs and northern Democrats who held anti-slavery views. The party also largely absorbed the abolitionist Liberty Party in the late 1840s. As the name of the party suggests, its main and by implication only platform was opposing the expansion of slavery into the new Western territories; however instead of arguing on moral grounds the Free Soiler's contention was that free men on free soil compromised an economically superior system to slavery; ITTL this was seen to be evident following the events of the same year in Europe where serfs rose up against their masters and established new, progressive, states. The Free Soilers had played an important role in the 1848 elections by largely splitting the Democratic vote along free/North-slave/South lines, allowing the Whigs to capture the Presidency. This even in light of the Free Soiler's nomination of former Democratic President Marin Van Buren, who had expanded the institution of slavery under his institution with the admission of Missouri as a slave state. IOTL the party largely dissolved when the Democrats closed ranks for the 1852 election, with most of its remaining members drifting into the newly-established Republican Party.
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8) "
When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the nightly guards placed on the Palatine Hill—do not the watches posted throughout the city—does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men—does not the precaution taken of assembling the senate in this most defensible place—do not the looks and countenances of this venerable body here present, have any effect upon you? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before— where is it that you were—who was there that you summoned to meet you—what design was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?"
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9) Although both a southerner and a slave-owner himself, President Taylor was staunchly against the extension of slavery. In 1849, before his inauguration, he advised the residents of the California, New Mexico, and even Utah territories to create state constitutions and apply for statehood immediately when Congress met; correctly perceiving that such 'popular' constitutions would outlaw slavery in those territories. In early January 1850 Taylor expressly told Congress that if such states applied for admission to the Union before Congress had reached a compromise he would allow them to be states as soon as their constitutions arrived in Washington D.C.
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10) First introduced in the House on 8 August 1846 by its name-sake, the Democrat David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, as a rider on the appropriations bill for the Mexican-American War which would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the war. The proviso was the point of contention in the Congress throughout the war, passing the House but being defeated numerous times in the Senate several times in 1846 and 47. It was even attempted to attach the proviso to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but this was once again defeated by the heavily-southern Senate.
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11) As was alluded to earlier (See; Book #1,
Chapter #23) President Taylor does
not contract cholera on 4 July 1850 due to butterflies. Even OTL Taylor might have recovered from this; however the medical technology and science of the time led the Presidential doctors to drug him with ipecac, calomel, opium, and quinine (at 40 grams each!) before bleeding and blistering him. The President died within five days. ITTL though with him alive any plans for the expansion of slavery, particularly through such a doctrine like popular sovereignty, would be handily defeated.
This also means that, as the Congress is busy dealing with the repercussions of this, the Donation Land claim Act is not passed ITTL, which IOTL promoted homestead settlement in the Oregon Territory - largely laying the foundation for the cultural-mythos of the Oregon Trail.
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12) IOTL the margin was closer to four to one. Obviously the Texans are upset about having their state dissected, however admittedly it garnishes them more power in the US Congress, and residents of both Texas and Jacinto will continue to refer to and think of themselves as 'Texans' for the immediate future.
