On this day in 1850, Henry Clay, a Whig from Kentucky, rose in the Old Senate Chamber to advance what became known as the Compromise of 1850 — a proposal that, when later adopted, put off the Civil ...

A byzantine legislative package arising out of the squabble between North and South over the spoils of the Mexican War, the Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state, referred the ...

The Civil War remains the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history and the defining crisis of the nation. But it might easily have started 12 years earlier. In 1850, California's application to join the ...

Illustrated by reproductions of works from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. siris_sil_296312 ...