These women of Dover were among the many citizens who petitioned Congress to abolish slavery and slave trading in the District of Columbia—a federal area under congressional control—and to prohibit interstate commerce in slaves, over which Congress had constitutional authority. The Compromise of 1850 ended the slave trade—but not slavery––in Washington, D.C.
Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives and Records Administration
Petition from Dover, New Hampshire, asking for the abolition of slavery and slave traffic in the District of Columbia, February 14, 1850
The Compromise of 1850
After the Mexican War, the question of whether to allow or prohibit slavery in the new western territories threatened to rupture the Union. Slavery’s extension to new states could give the slaveholding South a majority in the Senate; its prohibition would favor the North. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky attempted to diffuse the controversy by offering resolutions on slavery and western land. The Senate debated Clay’s proposals for seven months. When Clay’s proposal failed, Congress repackaged the proposal into a series of bills known as the Compromise of 1850. In the Compromise of 1850, Congress admitted California as a free state; settled boundaries of Texas and New Mexico; created a territorial government for Utah; upheld the rights of slaveholders over escaped slaves; and banned slave trading in the nation’s capital.
These women of Dover were among the many citizens who petitioned Congress to abolish slavery and slave trading in the District of Columbia—a federal area under congressional control—and to prohibit interstate commerce in slaves, over which Congress had constitutional authority. The Compromise of 1850 ended the slave trade—but not slavery––in Washington, D.C.
Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives and Records Administration
