US History › Section F · Westward expansion and the cotton South › Topic F.5
Free soil or slave soil in the West
The land taken from Mexico forced Americans to answer a question they had avoided since 1820: could slavery go wherever the flag went? The fight over that question split the old parties, gave birth to new ones and ended, for a time, in the Compromise of 1850.
In this topic
- A victory that divided the nation
- The Wilmot Proviso
- Abolition and antislavery
- The limits of free soil
- Four answers to one question
- Worked example: comparing the four positions
- The Free-Soil Party
- Worked example: the election of 1848
- The Compromise of 1850
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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