Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s

It was a remarkable period, unlike any other in American history. It was the long decade of the 1850s. It began in 1848 with the end of the Mexi- can War and the presidential election. It ended in 1860 with the election ofLincoln and the secession of South Carolina. It began in crisis and ended in catastrophe. The crisis was rooted in the dramatic success of Americanforces in the Mexican War (1846–48). The war added massive amounts ofnew land to the nation—all or most of the present-day states of Arizona,California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah—and parts of Colorado, Okla-homa, Texas, and Wyoming. This enlargement of the nation created adeeply divisive debate over the status of slavery in the new territory. Com-pounding this were extravagant claims of Texas for much of New Mexico, southern demands for a new fugitive slave law, and growing northern dis-satisfaction over the presence of slavery in the national capital. The goldrush of 1849 exacerbated the crisis, as tens of thousands of settlers andprospectors poured into northern California, making it eligible for state-hood almost overnight.