Apart from the original 13 colonies, no official war took place before gaining territory. This cession also caused debates about slavery, which then lead to the great compromise of 1850. This brought out past arguments, and a new solution was needed. California entered as a free state with promises to the South of receiving slave territory in Utah and New Mexico. The fugitive slave law was also passed with the compromise which horrified abolitionists and northerners. The law forced any citizen, northern or southern, to have to help in catching any suspected fugitive slave. This law pretty much allowed any white man to take any free black civilian as a slave. All this ends up leading in something very major. The civil war.
