Protest of certain Senators against the bill for the admission of California into the Union, August 14, 1850

In 1849 California adopted a constitution banning slavery and applied for admission to the United States. Ten Southern senators protested, insisting that California’s statehood would violate the rights of slaveholding states to “equal enjoyment of the territory of the Union.” The senators predicted the Union’s dissolution.

Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives and Records Administration