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Under a series of laws known collectively as the Compromise of 1850, on this day in 1850, Congress recognized New Mexico and Utah as newly incorporated U.S. territories. On the same day, California — with its current boundaries — was admitted to the Union as a free state.
At that point, the boundaries of the New Mexico Territory embraced most of present-day New Mexico, more than half of present-day Arizona and portions of thestates of Colorado and Nevada. Its borders remained in flux until Jan. 6, 1912, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of New Mexico.
The final extent of the Utah Territory was fixed on Jan. 4, 1896, when it too was admitted into the Union as the state of Utah. The controversy stirred by Mormon dominance of the region delayed its admission as a state for 46 years.
By contrast, the Nevada Territory, although more sparsely populated, was admitted to the Union in 1864, three years after its formation, largely because during the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln and Congress sought to consolidate the Union’s hold on its silver mines. Colorado was admitted as a state in 1876.
A key provision of the laws that organized both the Utah and New Mexico territories called for slavery to be either permitted or barred as a local option. In adopting so-called popular sovereignty as a guiding principle, Congress, in a vain effort to avert a then looming civil war, repudiated the idea of banning slavery in any territory that had been acquired from Mexico.
With the exception of a small area around the headwaters of the Colorado River in present-day Colorado, the United States had acquired the land contained in these territories from Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
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