COMPROMISE MEASURES, or 03rsmus BILL, the popular name of a series of measures submitted to the U. S. senate in Jan., 1850, by Henry Clay, having for their object "an amicable arrangement of all questions in controversy between the free and the slave states growing out of the subject of slavery." These questions, which had perplexed the national government from the beginning, and which, since 1S30, had caused a wide agitation among the people, were complicated by the war with Mexico, which led to the acquisition of much new territory, the status of which in respect to slavery remained to be determined. At the north it was insisted that the territory in question was ipso facto exempt from slavery, and that it was the right and duty of con gress to protect it from the blight of an institution whose ziature was at war with republican government The Amite states, on the other hand, were ambitious to estab lish slavery on at least a part of this territory, and insisted that the national government bad no power under the constitution to set up any legislative barriers against the system. The controversy was thought by many to menace the safety of the union, and Henry Clay, on whom had been bestowed the soubriquet of "the compromiser" for his previous efforts to stop the agitation of the slavery question, proposed in the senate a series of measures for the purpose of making "a final settlement" of all the questions arising from this subject and bringing the people of the two sections of the country into perfect harmony. • When congress met in Dec., 1849, the country was profoundly agitated. President Taylor at an early clay transmitted a special message, recommending in sub stance that California, a part of the newly acquired territory, should be promptly admitted with the anti-slavery constitution which her people had framed and the boundaries which they had designated, and that the other territories should be left under the military government which had been established upon their conquest until such time as they should be entitled to and desirous of admission into the union as states, when they should be received with whatever republican institutions they might present. This plan made no provision for the settlement of the boundary of Texas, which state claimed to include within its rightful jurisdiction most of the people of New Mexico with their entire territory c. of the Rio Grande. To this assumption the people of New
Mexico manifested the most determined and active hostility. Mr. Clay at an early day made a speech in the senate concurring in gen. Taylor's preference that each subject should be considered and decided by itself, but insisting that the territory should be promptly organized under regular territorial government, and the Texas boundary settled. In the progress of the discussion Mr. Clay waived his own preference of separate action upon the several questions, and assented to the combination of the admission of California, the organization of the territories, and the adjustment of the Texas boundary, all in one bill, which thence obtained the nickname of the "omni bus bill." A grand committee of 13 was raised, with Mr. Clay at its head, from which committee the "omnibus" was fully reported. It was contested by a good share of the strength and much of the weakness of the senate. When the struggle was at the fiercest, gen. Taylor died, and it was supposed that his decease and the succession of vice-. president Fillmore, who was esteemed moderately favorable to the omnibus bill, would secure its passage; but that expectation was not realized. On the contrary, after various amendments had been proposed, and most of them rejected, though some of consider able importance were adopted, a motion to strike out all that part relating to the boundary of Texas was carried, and the bill thus crippled was dismembered limb by. limb, until nothing remained but the section organizing Utah as a separate territory. The famous omnibus bill, reduced to this one item, was passed and sent to the house. However, the California admission, the New territorial and Texas boundary section, and a new statute for the rendition of fugitive slaves, all passed as separate measures. Their effect, however, was not to suppress but rather to intensify the anti slavery agitation, which waxed hotter and hotter, until it was finally suppressed only by the destruction of slavery itself.