Prologue to Conflict

The crisis facing the United States in 1850 was a dramatic prologue to the conflict that came a decade later. The rapid opening of western lands demanded the speedy establishment of local civil administration for these vast regions. Outraged partisans however cried of coercion: Southerners saw a threat to the precarious sectional balance and Northerners feared an extension of slavery. In this definitive study Holman Hamilton analyzes the complex events of the anxious months from December 1849 when the Senate debates began until September 1850 when Congress passed the measures.