WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.620 Imagine turning on the news right now and you 00:00:03.620 --> 00:00:05.459 find out that members of Congress are settling 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:08.580 their policy debates with actual fistfights. 00:00:08.759 --> 00:00:10.960 Right. Just brawling in the aisles. Exactly. 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:13.539 And not just that. They are challenging each 00:00:13.539 --> 00:00:16.519 other to duels and they are literally drawing 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.519 loaded revolvers pointing them at one another 00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:21.359 right there on the House floor. It sounds like 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:24.079 a scene from some dystopian political thriller 00:00:24.079 --> 00:00:26.730 or something. It really does. But that wasn't 00:00:26.730 --> 00:00:30.109 fiction. That was the absolute verified reality 00:00:30.109 --> 00:00:32.789 of the United States government in 1850. Yeah, 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:34.549 the government was just completely paralyzed 00:00:34.549 --> 00:00:36.950 by internal divisions. I mean, the hostility 00:00:36.950 --> 00:00:40.170 had escalated far past rhetoric, bleeding directly 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:42.229 into physical violence in the chambers where 00:00:42.229 --> 00:00:44.479 laws were actually supposed to be made. So today 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:47.200 we're doing a deep dive into an extensive Wikipedia 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:50.880 article on the Compromise of 1850 to try and 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:53.659 understand how a completely gridlocked, violent 00:00:53.659 --> 00:00:56.340 government tried to tape a fracturing country 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:59.460 together. And it's a massive topic. It is. And 00:00:59.460 --> 00:01:01.340 I want to set some ground rules for you, the 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:03.820 listener, right off the bat. Because this source 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:06.319 deals with the deeply charged history of slavery, 00:01:06.579 --> 00:01:09.620 abolition and territorial expansion, we are acting 00:01:09.620 --> 00:01:12.000 strictly as historical guides for you today. 00:01:12.260 --> 00:01:14.739 Yeah. Absolutely. We aren't here to take sides 00:01:14.739 --> 00:01:17.840 or endorse any 19th century viewpoints. Right. 00:01:17.920 --> 00:01:20.180 Our mission is simply to unpack the facts and 00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:22.980 trace the intense, often ruthless legislative 00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:25.900 chess match that delayed the American Civil War. 00:01:26.099 --> 00:01:28.579 So to understand why lawmakers were pulling weapons 00:01:28.579 --> 00:01:31.780 on each other in Washington in 1850, we actually 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:34.230 have to look back. two years prior. OK, to what 00:01:34.230 --> 00:01:36.730 exactly? To an enormous real estate acquisition 00:01:36.730 --> 00:01:39.909 and, well, a shiny discovery in the dirt. We 00:01:39.909 --> 00:01:41.950 don't just arrive at a crisis in a vacuum. Right. 00:01:42.129 --> 00:01:43.969 The accelerant here was the Mexican -American 00:01:43.969 --> 00:01:47.569 War, which ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe 00:01:47.569 --> 00:01:50.099 Hidalgo. Suddenly, the United States has handed 00:01:50.099 --> 00:01:53.239 a staggering amount of new territory, known as 00:01:53.239 --> 00:01:55.280 the Mexican Session. And we are talking about 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:57.920 a huge chunk of land, right? Massive. It's the 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.359 land that makes up present -day California, Nevada, 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:02.939 Utah, and huge parts of Arizona, New Mexico, 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:05.280 and Colorado. I like to think of it as a classic 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:09.139 problem of expansion. Imagine you and your absolute 00:02:09.139 --> 00:02:13.699 worst enemy jointly inherit a gigantic beautiful 00:02:13.699 --> 00:02:15.860 mansion. Oh that's a good way to put it. Right. 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:18.199 The second you get the deed you immediately have 00:02:18.199 --> 00:02:20.479 to decide who gets to control which wings of 00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:23.639 the house. And both of you know full well that 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.479 whoever controls the most square footage is eventually 00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:28.620 going to change the locks and throw the other 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:30.699 person out on the street. That is exactly what 00:02:30.699 --> 00:02:32.939 was happening. The northern and southern factions 00:02:32.939 --> 00:02:35.500 were already deeply fractured over the expansion 00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:38.099 of slavery. So what did they do with all this 00:02:38.099 --> 00:02:41.250 new land? Well, President James K. Polk, who 00:02:41.250 --> 00:02:43.229 pushed for the expansion to begin with, tried 00:02:43.229 --> 00:02:46.050 a simple geographic fix. He just wanted to extend 00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:48.849 the old Missouri compromise line straight across 00:02:48.849 --> 00:02:50.870 this new territory all the way to the Pacific 00:02:50.870 --> 00:02:54.449 Ocean. But the divisive issue of slavery completely 00:02:54.449 --> 00:02:57.330 blocked that, I assume. Exactly. Neither side 00:02:57.330 --> 00:03:00.250 was willing to concede that much land. So into 00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:03.150 this massive gridlock steps a new president in 00:03:03.150 --> 00:03:06.699 1849, Zachary Taylor. And Taylor is a really 00:03:06.699 --> 00:03:08.979 fascinating walking contradiction in this source 00:03:08.979 --> 00:03:11.740 text. I mean, he belongs to the Whig Party, which 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:14.219 was primarily focused on economic modernization 00:03:14.219 --> 00:03:16.680 and infrastructure, but was already fracturing 00:03:16.680 --> 00:03:19.580 over slavery. And Taylor himself is a Southern 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:23.259 slaveholder. Right. Yet surprisingly, he strongly 00:03:23.259 --> 00:03:25.900 opposed expanding slavery into these new Western 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:28.639 territories. He looked at the arid landscapes 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:31.500 of the Southwest and basically concluded, you 00:03:31.500 --> 00:03:33.960 know, a plantation economy isn't economically 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:36.400 feasible there anyway. So fighting over it was 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:38.479 just a needless source of national controversy 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:41.460 in his eyes. Exactly. But Taylor might have been 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:44.139 able to keep those territories unorganized for 00:03:44.139 --> 00:03:46.280 years, just kicking the can down the road if 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.800 it weren't for the California Gold Rush in 1848. 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:51.340 Yeah, that shiny disco - and the dirt at Sutter's 00:03:51.340 --> 00:03:53.539 Mill completely ruined the political map. It 00:03:53.539 --> 00:03:56.759 exploded overnight. It did. California transforms 00:03:56.759 --> 00:03:59.659 from a sparsely populated region into a booming 00:03:59.659 --> 00:04:02.520 hub. Hundreds of thousands of people flood in, 00:04:02.659 --> 00:04:04.360 and they desperately need a functioning government. 00:04:04.599 --> 00:04:07.740 So what happened? Well, in 1849, California holds 00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:10.960 a constitutional convention, unanimously drafts 00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:13.819 a constitution that bans slavery, and applies 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:16.060 to join the Union as a free state. OK, let's 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:18.399 unpack this because the contradiction here is 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:21.279 striking. You have California unanimously asking 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:24.040 to be a free state. Right. And you have President 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:26.980 Zachary Taylor, a southern slaveholder, fully 00:04:26.980 --> 00:04:30.180 supporting their admission just to bypass the 00:04:30.180 --> 00:04:33.360 territorial drama. If everyone at the top and 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:35.939 everyone on the ground agrees, why does this 00:04:35.939 --> 00:04:38.540 trigger a national emergency? You have to look 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:40.759 at the underlying math of political power in 00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:44.449 the Senate at that exact moment. In 1849, the 00:04:44.449 --> 00:04:48.209 Senate was perfectly precariously balanced. 15 00:04:48.209 --> 00:04:51.610 free states and 15 slave states. Ah, so a literal 00:04:51.610 --> 00:04:54.370 tie. Exactly. If you admit California is a free 00:04:54.370 --> 00:04:57.329 state, that tie is drove in forever. Plus, the 00:04:57.329 --> 00:04:59.089 South would permanently give up its ultimate 00:04:59.089 --> 00:05:01.509 dream, which was establishing a coast -to -coast 00:05:01.509 --> 00:05:03.910 belt of slave states. So it wasn't just a disagreement 00:05:03.910 --> 00:05:07.050 over local laws. No, not at all. To Southern 00:05:07.050 --> 00:05:09.230 leaders, losing that veto power in the Senate 00:05:09.230 --> 00:05:11.689 was an existential threat to their national influence. 00:05:11.879 --> 00:05:14.339 This existential threat is what turned a statehood 00:05:14.339 --> 00:05:16.819 application into a full -blown national emergency. 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:20.079 Wow. And because California's admission raised 00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:23.720 the state's so impossibly high, federal government 00:05:23.720 --> 00:05:27.319 simply broke down. This forced a legendary showdown 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:29.699 among America's oldest political titans in the 00:05:29.699 --> 00:05:32.680 31st Congress. Yeah, the midterm elections leading 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:35.560 up to this Congress made things incredibly complicated. 00:05:35.699 --> 00:05:37.680 The Free Soil Party, right? Exactly. The Free 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:40.220 Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery 00:05:40.220 --> 00:05:43.060 to protect the economic interests of white laborers, 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:45.240 gained 12 seats in the House of Representatives. 00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:48.759 Creating a total kingmaker scenario. Yes. The 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:51.040 House was so closely divided between Whigs and 00:05:51.040 --> 00:05:54.100 Democrats that neither side could form a majority 00:05:54.100 --> 00:05:57.319 without appeasing those free soilers. Just trying 00:05:57.319 --> 00:05:59.540 to elect a Speaker of the House turned into an 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:02.069 exhausting marathon. The source mentions it took 00:06:02.069 --> 00:06:04.509 62 agonizing ballots just to choose somebody 00:06:04.509 --> 00:06:07.269 to hold the gavel. Three weeks of voting and 00:06:07.269 --> 00:06:09.050 tensions were boiling over. This is where we 00:06:09.050 --> 00:06:11.410 get the literal drawn weapons we talked about. 00:06:11.629 --> 00:06:13.529 Right, the pistol on the Senate floor. Yeah, 00:06:13.629 --> 00:06:16.269 Mississippi Senator Henry S. Foote drew a pistol 00:06:16.269 --> 00:06:18.910 and aimed it at Missouri Senator Thomas Hart 00:06:18.910 --> 00:06:22.769 Benton during debate. Benton just ripped open 00:06:22.769 --> 00:06:25.629 his coat and dared foot to shoot him, which is 00:06:25.629 --> 00:06:28.129 insane. Totally insane. You had fist fights in 00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:31.009 the aisles, a future president of the Confederacy, 00:06:31.250 --> 00:06:33.769 Senator Jefferson Davis, challenging an Illinois 00:06:33.769 --> 00:06:36.660 representative to a duel. It was a powder keg. 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:39.300 And trying to defuse this powder keg was the 00:06:39.300 --> 00:06:41.519 great triumvirate. Right. Representing the founding 00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:44.259 father's last political generation, you had Henry 00:06:44.259 --> 00:06:47.300 Clay, the Whig senator from Kentucky, known as 00:06:47.300 --> 00:06:49.779 the great nationalist compromiser. Then Daniel 00:06:49.779 --> 00:06:52.319 Webster of Massachusetts, desperately seeking 00:06:52.319 --> 00:06:54.660 to preserve the union. And John C. Calhoun of 00:06:54.660 --> 00:06:57.899 South Carolina, the fierce, uncompromising Southern 00:06:57.899 --> 00:06:59.819 sectionalist. What really stands out to me in 00:06:59.819 --> 00:07:02.930 the source is that These three men were all born 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:05.250 during the American Revolution. This showdown 00:07:05.250 --> 00:07:08.750 in 1850 was their last desperate act in American 00:07:08.750 --> 00:07:12.290 politics. The physical toll it took on them perfectly 00:07:12.290 --> 00:07:15.009 mirrors the state of the country. I mean, Calhoun 00:07:15.009 --> 00:07:17.569 was actively dying of tuberculosis during these 00:07:17.569 --> 00:07:19.790 debates. There's a chilling moment from the text 00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:23.089 about that. In March of 1850, Calhoun was wrapped 00:07:23.089 --> 00:07:25.189 in heavy blankets in the Senate chamber too weak 00:07:25.189 --> 00:07:28.019 to even speak. Yeah, his friend, Virginia Senator 00:07:28.019 --> 00:07:31.079 James M. Mason, had to read Calhoun's final speech 00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:33.899 aloud for him. And in that speech, Calhoun gave 00:07:33.899 --> 00:07:36.560 a really prescient warning that the political 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:39.000 balance was fundamentally broken and unless the 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.279 North made massive concessions, war was imminent. 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:45.519 It's heavy. It is. I want you to consider the 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:47.899 sheer weight of this transition period for a 00:07:47.899 --> 00:07:50.680 second. You're watching the old guard literally 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:53.699 dying on the Senate floor while future Civil 00:07:53.699 --> 00:07:56.180 War figures are waiting in the wings. Right. 00:07:56.180 --> 00:07:58.620 Men like William Seward, Jefferson Davis and 00:07:58.620 --> 00:08:00.759 Stephen A. Douglas are just sitting there watching 00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:03.089 the old system grow. So with physical violence 00:08:03.089 --> 00:08:05.670 proving that a single grand bargain was impossible, 00:08:06.170 --> 00:08:08.350 the legislative strategy had to be completely 00:08:08.350 --> 00:08:10.769 reinvented to save the union. Yeah, Henry Clay 00:08:10.769 --> 00:08:13.050 initially stepped up with this eight bill omnibus 00:08:13.050 --> 00:08:16.110 package. He basically tried to tie every controversial 00:08:16.110 --> 00:08:19.170 issue, California, Texas borders, fugitive slaves, 00:08:19.529 --> 00:08:22.509 into one massive piece of legislation. Hoping 00:08:22.509 --> 00:08:24.129 that politicians would swallow the provisions 00:08:24.129 --> 00:08:25.790 they hated just to get the ones they wanted. 00:08:26.069 --> 00:08:28.889 Exactly. Yeah. But it failed miserably in July 00:08:28.889 --> 00:08:31.810 1850. The Senate stripped it down until almost 00:08:31.810 --> 00:08:33.850 nothing was left. Here's where it gets really 00:08:33.850 --> 00:08:36.750 interesting, though. Two major things happen 00:08:36.750 --> 00:08:39.730 almost simultaneously right after that failure. 00:08:39.870 --> 00:08:42.950 The historical shifts. Yes. First, President 00:08:42.950 --> 00:08:45.509 Taylor, who stubbornly opposed an overarching 00:08:45.509 --> 00:08:48.350 compromise, attends a Fourth of July celebration, 00:08:48.909 --> 00:08:51.330 eats a bunch of raw cherries and iced milk, and 00:08:51.330 --> 00:08:54.049 suddenly dies of a stomach illness. Which is 00:08:54.049 --> 00:08:57.169 just wild timing. Right. His vice president, 00:08:57.370 --> 00:08:59.889 Millard Fillmore, takes over, and Fillmore actually 00:08:59.889 --> 00:09:01.929 throws the administration's weight behind making 00:09:01.929 --> 00:09:04.529 a deal. And the second shift is in the Senate 00:09:04.529 --> 00:09:08.490 itself. An exhausted, dying Henry Clay leaves 00:09:08.490 --> 00:09:10.840 the Senate to recover. leaving a young Stephen 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:13.399 A. Douglas in charge. And Douglas brings this 00:09:13.399 --> 00:09:16.399 brilliant cynical pragmatism to the table. Instead 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:18.539 of forcing everyone to eat the whole legislative 00:09:18.539 --> 00:09:21.899 pie, Douglas slices it up. He unbundles the omnibus 00:09:21.899 --> 00:09:24.740 into five separate bills. By doing this, he pieces 00:09:24.740 --> 00:09:26.799 together different bipartisan majorities for 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:29.649 each specific issue. A northern rep could vote 00:09:29.649 --> 00:09:31.909 for the anti -slavery bills and against the pro 00:09:31.909 --> 00:09:34.549 -slavery bills, and a southern rep could do the 00:09:34.549 --> 00:09:36.730 opposite. Exactly. He just needed a small group 00:09:36.730 --> 00:09:38.549 of moderates to swing the vote whichever way 00:09:38.549 --> 00:09:41.029 was needed for each bill. Because Douglas broke 00:09:41.029 --> 00:09:43.750 the bill apart, the resulting five laws were 00:09:43.750 --> 00:09:46.610 not a unified vision of peace, but a patchwork 00:09:46.610 --> 00:09:49.049 of harsh concessions. Concessions that deeply 00:09:49.049 --> 00:09:52.049 altered daily life in America. So let's rapidly 00:09:52.049 --> 00:09:55.409 unpack these five pillars. First, California 00:09:55.409 --> 00:09:59.320 is admitted as a free state. Second, Texas gets 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:03.120 a massive $10 million debt bailout to surrender 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:06.120 its bloated territorial claims over New Mexico. 00:10:06.500 --> 00:10:09.000 Third, the Utah and New Mexico territories are 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.460 organized under popular sovereignty. Fourth, 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:14.379 the slave trade is banned in Washington, D .C., 00:10:14.379 --> 00:10:16.379 though slavery itself remains perfectly legal 00:10:16.379 --> 00:10:19.740 there. And fifth, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. 00:10:20.100 --> 00:10:22.059 Right. And what's fascinating here is how this 00:10:22.059 --> 00:10:24.679 specific provision, meant to appease the South 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:27.259 for the loss of California, outraged the North. 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:30.360 It gave the old runaway slave laws terrifying 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:33.000 legal teeth. The specifics from the source are 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:35.799 staggering. Federal marshals faced a $1 ,000 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:38.659 fine for not arresting suspected runaways. Yeah, 00:10:38.779 --> 00:10:40.940 financially coercing them into enforcing a system 00:10:40.940 --> 00:10:42.799 they might have morally opposed. And it required 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.360 ordinary citizens nationwide to act as slave 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:47.940 catchers. Aiding a runaway way was now a federal 00:10:47.940 --> 00:10:51.220 crime. Everyday people in free states were legally 00:10:51.220 --> 00:10:54.320 deputized against their will. And for the accused 00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:56.580 individuals, they couldn't even have a jury trial 00:10:56.580 --> 00:10:59.279 or testify on their own behalf. Plus the chilling 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:01.899 financial incentive. Right. The commissioners 00:11:01.899 --> 00:11:04.139 overseeing the hearings were paid $10 if they 00:11:04.139 --> 00:11:07.019 declared someone a slave, but only $5 if they 00:11:07.019 --> 00:11:09.639 declared them free. It literally paid double 00:11:09.639 --> 00:11:12.200 to rule in favor of slavery. It was basically 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:15.500 a federally sanctioned kidnapping ring. Utterly 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:17.629 inflamed the North. I do want to push back on 00:11:17.629 --> 00:11:21.269 one thing, though. The popular sovereignty concept 00:11:21.269 --> 00:11:24.149 in Utah and New Mexico, is that just the federal 00:11:24.149 --> 00:11:26.289 government washing its hands and passing the 00:11:26.289 --> 00:11:28.529 buck to the locals? Oh, that is precisely what 00:11:28.529 --> 00:11:31.269 it was, an abdication of federal responsibility. 00:11:31.500 --> 00:11:34.179 White male residents would vote on the slavery 00:11:34.179 --> 00:11:36.559 issue themselves. Which just encourages armed 00:11:36.559 --> 00:11:39.159 extremists to flood the territories to rig the 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:42.179 elections, right? Exactly. And this exact mechanism 00:11:42.179 --> 00:11:45.120 directly sparked the violent guerrilla war known 00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:48.379 as Bleeding Kansas just four years later. So 00:11:48.379 --> 00:11:52.039 these five bills pass in September 1850 and they're 00:11:52.039 --> 00:11:54.460 celebrated in Washington as a final settlement. 00:11:54.730 --> 00:11:58.350 Crowds shouting, the union is saved. But I have 00:11:58.350 --> 00:12:01.529 to ask you, the listener, what does this all 00:12:01.529 --> 00:12:03.789 mean for the big picture? Did this actually fix 00:12:03.789 --> 00:12:06.470 anything? The source highlights historian David 00:12:06.470 --> 00:12:09.769 M. Potter's argument here. This wasn't a compromise. 00:12:10.350 --> 00:12:12.590 A compromise implies mutual consent. This was 00:12:12.590 --> 00:12:16.230 an armistice. A truce born of exhaustion. Exactly. 00:12:16.529 --> 00:12:18.750 They didn't agree. They were just outmaneuvered 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:21.809 by Douglass's piecemeal voting strategy. It essentially 00:12:21.809 --> 00:12:24.759 guaranteed future conflict. But there is a silver 00:12:24.759 --> 00:12:26.919 lining for the North, right? That 10 year delay 00:12:26.919 --> 00:12:29.399 before the Civil War. Arguably the most important 00:12:29.399 --> 00:12:31.860 decade in American history. It allowed the northern 00:12:31.860 --> 00:12:34.500 states to heavily industrialize. They built factories, 00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:37.399 railroads, telegraph lines. While the South remained 00:12:37.399 --> 00:12:40.080 completely tied to cash crops and slave labor. 00:12:40.179 --> 00:12:42.860 Right. And that industrial gap ultimately determined 00:12:42.860 --> 00:12:45.460 the victor when the Civil War broke out in 1861. 00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:48.139 The cultural fallout was just as massive. The 00:12:48.139 --> 00:12:50.879 Fugitive Slave Act polarized the country so deeply 00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:53.480 that it directly inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe 00:12:53.480 --> 00:12:56.460 to write Uncle Tom's Cabin, which further inflamed 00:12:56.460 --> 00:12:59.340 both sides. And the old Whig Party collapsed, 00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:02.120 paving the way for a strictly regional split, 00:13:02.580 --> 00:13:04.539 northern Republicans and southern Democrats. 00:13:04.779 --> 00:13:07.299 The 1850 armistice made the sectional divisions 00:13:07.299 --> 00:13:10.340 painfully obvious and laid the final groundwork 00:13:10.340 --> 00:13:13.740 for a national conflict. So to wrap up. A discovery 00:13:13.740 --> 00:13:16.720 of gold, a massive land grab, and a paralyzed 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:19.399 Congress resulted in a legislative sleight of 00:13:19.399 --> 00:13:22.340 hand that merely bought the United States 10 00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:26.330 years of uneasy. polarizing peace. A stalling 00:13:26.330 --> 00:13:28.490 tactic that gave the North time to build the 00:13:28.490 --> 00:13:31.370 tools to win the war. Exactly. But I want to 00:13:31.370 --> 00:13:34.429 leave you with a final provocative what if inspired 00:13:34.429 --> 00:13:36.769 by the source material. This is a good one. What 00:13:36.769 --> 00:13:39.309 if President Zachary Taylor hadn't died in July 00:13:39.309 --> 00:13:42.509 1850. He wanted to skip the territorial phases 00:13:42.509 --> 00:13:45.049 entirely. Right. The source notes he wanted to 00:13:45.049 --> 00:13:47.509 create two giant free states out of the West 00:13:47.509 --> 00:13:49.570 and he was ready to veto the compromise. He was 00:13:49.570 --> 00:13:51.509 even willing to risk an armed clash with Texas 00:13:51.509 --> 00:13:54.960 over it. If he had lived and would the Civil 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:58.179 War have started in 1850 instead of 1861? And 00:13:58.179 --> 00:14:01.519 if it had, without that decade of Northern industrialization, 00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:03.720 how different would the map of North America 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:05.879 look today? It completely changes everything. 00:14:06.139 --> 00:14:08.179 It really does. Something for you to chew on 00:14:08.179 --> 00:14:09.419 until our next deep dive.