The Compromise of 1850 should not be adopted The Compromise of 1850 is a controversial legislative act that will only increase sectoral tensions between the distinct regions of the north and south. of the Union. Its provisions include: the admission of all of California as a free state, the Utah Territory, and the New Mexico Territory to determine their slavery status based on popular sovereignty, the cession by Texas of land to be given to New Mexico, the slave trade to be abolished in Washington DC and the strengthening of fugitive slave laws. If the preservation of the Union is the main objective of this compromise, its attempts will be in vain and unpopular. Rather, it is a matter of further discourse and inevitable secession of the Southern states, because the compromise ultimately does not answer the questions that concern both the Northern and Southern states. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essay Northerners strongly opposed the Fugitive Slave Act, and the success of the compromise depends on the ability of Northerners to apply such legislation. This excerpt from the book America's Great Debate by Fergus M. Bordewich states that "the South obtained the harsh new fugitive slave law it had long sought, as well as the North's tacit abandonment of the hated Wilmot condition, which would have ended slavery in the new territories. » (Bordwich). This act was one of the key elements of the compromise that would have allowed adoption of the other provisions of the Compromise of 1850. However, the Northern states, having developed a tendency toward greater sentiment for abolition, would dash their hopes of achieving this program. The enactment of a stricter fugitive slave law has two main flaws, the first being the public discourse of members from the Northern states and the second being the difficulty of enforcing such laws, although it is 'a law mandated by the federal government. The first problem concerns beliefs in slavery in these Northern states. People did not agree with these given provisions and having to follow the guidelines set forth in the Fugitive Slave Law forces them to go against their own ethics in order to uphold the law. This brings us to the second problem: because Northerners have such an anti-slavery agenda that enforcement of such an act will most likely be unnecessary. As a result, Southerners would lose more relative to the other elements of the Compromise of 1850, since they would be promised a very uncertain and unlikely enforcement of the return of escaped slaves. Admitting California as a free state threatens the balance between slave and free states and will only give Northern states more power in Congress. One of the resolutions of the Nashville Convention stated: "...slavery exists in the United States independently of the Constitution." That it is recognized by the Constitution in three respects: first as property, secondly as a domestic relationship of service or labor under the law of a State; and finally, as the basis of political power. And, seen in any or all of these lights, Congress has no power under the Constitution to create or destroy it anywhere, nor can such power be derived ...from any source other than an amendment to the Constitution itself” (Nashville Congressional Resolutions). Another point mentioned in the convention was "...the meaning of this convention is that the territories must be treated.