President Zachary Taylor felt southern leaders were holding California hostage in talks of the Compromise of 1850. Had it not be
en for Taylor's successor, Franklin Pierce, throwing support behind Henry Clay's suggestions, it is likely to debate would have continued. True or False?
The Compromise of 1850 was the result of the debate over the equal representation of pro-slavery States in Congress. With the Mexican Cession, the balance seemed to favor the abolitionist States. Therefore a crisis began, with the most important matter being the incorporation of California. President Taylor felt that the matter was used by the South as a bargain chip, and finally declared California a State. Clay then brokered the Compromise, and its results were administered by Franklin Pierce who supported the general lines of the Compromise, but failed in the end to address at full the growing abyss between slaver's States and the anti-slavery States. The result was the crisis of 1860 and the break of the Civil War.
The only Union deaths came during the evacuation: One soldier was killed and another mortally wounded in an accidental explosion during a planned 100-gun salute.
