Many controversial issues arose in the mid 1800's in the young United States of America. In 1848 Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which settled the war between The US and Mexico and contributed to the growing area of the United States .In 1852 Harriet Stowe published the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. This novel showed the horrors of slavery to over half a million Americans contributing to anti-slavery feelings in the north. Only three years later violence broke out in Kansas. This outbreak was referred to as "Bleeding Kansas".
First off, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by Mexico in 1848 causing controversy over the new territory acquired from our southern border. Northerners did not want the new territory to become slave states. Many debates took place tiring to find a solution that would please both the southern slave states and the northern free states. Two years later The Compromise of 1850 was put into place to help solve several problems regarding the new territory.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Exchange Copy, cover....
Harriet Beecher-Stowe, American abolitionist and a...
Portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe Deutsch: Die Sch...In the end the compromise decided on several conditions: 1. the southern border of Texas was the Rio Grande 2. New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah voted on whether they wanted to enter as free states or slave states 3. California was admitted as a free state. Several other decisions arose from the compromise but they did not affect the new territory gained from Mexico.
Also, the novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published two years after the compromise. The novel became the best seller of the nineteenth-century selling about 500,000 copies in its first five years. The novel centered on the theme of slavery. It was written by American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote several other anti-slavery novels. The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was actually written as an angry response to the fugitive...