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With it, the country was equally divided between slave and free states. Admitting Missouri as a slave state gave the south one more state than the north. Adding Maine as a free state balanced things out again. Thomas Jefferson predicted dividing the country this way would eventually lead the country into Civil War.

Annotation: The most divisive element in the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slave Law, which permitted any African American to be sent South solely on the affidavit of anyone claiming to be his or her owner. As a result, free African Americans were in danger of being placed in slavery.

Confronting the Issue of Slavery The issue of granting Missouri statehood threatened to upset the balance of free and slave states. Northerners were concerned that if Missouri entered the Union as a slave state, other territories would also be admitted as slave states.

As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. Furthermore, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah.

The bills provided for slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, settled a Texas boundary dispute, and established a stricter fugitive slave act.

In 1819, the nation contained eleven free and eleven slave states creating a balance in the U.S. senate. Missouri's entrance threatened to throw this parity in favor of slave interests.

The acts called for the admission of California as a "free state," provided for a territorial government for Utah and New Mexico, established a boundary between Texas and the United States, called for the abolition of slave trade in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act.

In sum, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin widened the chasm between the North and the South, greatly strengthened Northern abolitionism, and weakened British sympathy for the Southern cause. The most influential novel ever written by an American, it was one of the contributing causes of the Civil War.

The Compromise of 1850 was a series of measures passed by the U.S. Congress in an effort to settle regional disagreements over the state of American slavery. The conflict involved the admission of new states and territories to the U.S.—and, more specifically, whether they would be admitted as “free” or “slave” states.