The Road to Civil War: The Compromise of 1850 – Dick Morris TV: History Video!

The Road to Civil War: The Compromise of 1850 – Dick Morris TV: History Video!

There's history as it is, and alternative history as a sort of  "what if" exercise.

Morris describes the compromise in terms of how it led to Civil War.  But what if the pitfall had been avoided and no civil war took place?  We'd see a completely different kind of world today.

How might the difference occurred?  The South was aware of its increasingly poor political situation vis-a-vis the North.  Now, if that could have been averted, then the most objectionable part of the compromise might have also been averted--The Fugitive Slave Act.

If the territories had been combined into a very large state, and then admitted, then the political disadvantage of the South could have been mitigated.  Maybe you could have combined them into two megastates---Texas and California.  Each of these two states could have held land gained from Mexico.  California would enter as a free state, Texas as a slave state.

Actually, it appears that President Zachary Taylor favored a similar approach, but he died in office before such a proposal could be implemented.  It might have worked, as Texas may have been subdivided into two slave states in order to balance the addition of two free states of New Mexico and California.

The Utah and New Mexico territories were also set up as a result of the compromise.  One could speculate that if a separate state of Deseret had been established, which would have encompassed all the territories of New Mexico and Utah, and might have averted at least some of the insecurity felt by Southerners.  This may have made the Fugitive Slave Law unnecessary, or a less harsh measure possible.  With a little foresight such as this, a the future war might have been averted.

However, nothing came of Deseret.  The Fugitive Slave Law went into effect.  Popular sovereignty, which was the basis for organizing the new territories, became a bone of contention itself.

The loss of Taylor and Clay was a critical factor.  The war happened and the rest is history.