From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

In the short second session of the Thirtieth Congress in late 1848 and
early 1849, Senator Stephen A. Douglas had a simple solution to the
question of the status of slavery in the newly acquired Mexican Cession.
(A solution to the problem was urgent for Douglas, for local political
reasons as well as for the sake of the Union; normally heavily Democratic Illinois had almost gone for Taylor because of pro-Wilmot Proviso
Democrats defecting to Van Buren's Free Soil candidacy. Taylor's
percentage of the vote in Illinois--42.4 percent--was virtually the same
as Clay's 42.1 percent in 1844. But Cass got only 44.9 percent of the
vote, a marked decline from Polk's 53.9 percent. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1844.txt http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1848.txt Evidently
Abraham Lincoln and other local Whig leaders had persuaded most Illinois
Whigs that Taylor would sign the Wilmot Proviso. Besides, antislavery
Whigs in Illinois as elsewhere had a deep suspicion of Van Buren.)
Douglas' solution was to admit the entire Mexican Cession as one single
state of California, thereby bypassing the territorial stage to which the Proviso would apply.

Since Whigs controlled the House of Representatives, the success of
Douglas' proposal depended on getting at least some Whig support. Most northern Whigs regarded it as a "pusillanimous dodge" (to use Michael F. Holt's phrase in The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, p. 385 https://books.google.com/books?id=hMkYklGTY1MC&pg=PA385) and demanded
passage of the Wilmot Proviso to undercut the Free Soilers. (As noted, the Free Soilers in Illinois got most of their support from Democrats, but in
some other northern states, notably Ohio, they hurt the Whigs more.) Fortunately for Douglas, he did get support from southern Whigs:

"The solution to which southern Whigs resorted was Douglas's California proposal, which had been bottled up in the Senate since early December.
Some of them, like Clayton and his frequent correspondent, Kentucky
Governor Crittenden, had favored that plan from the time Douglas
introduced it, but only after the majority of southern Democrats signed
the [Calhoun militantly pro-slavery] Southern Address http://history.furman.edu/~benson/docs/calhoun.htm did most southern Whigs turn to it. Skipping the territorial phase and admitting the Mexican
Cession at once as a single state struck Whigs as a suitable solution for
a variety of reasons, even though everyone expected that California would
be a free state. First, given northern Whigs' insistence on enacting the Proviso, they knew they needed Democratic support to pass the measure.
Such support seemed probable, not only from northern Democrats like
Douglas, who wanted to resolve the territorial issue permanently in order
to undermine the Free Soil party, but also from the many southern
Democrats who rejected the Southern Address as bad politics and a threat
to the Union. Furthermore, the prospect of blocking slavery extension and gaining a new free state might even win over support from northern Whigs
like Nathan Hall, who feared the disruptive impact of the territorial
impact as much as southern Whigs.

"Second, virtually all southern Whigs, convinced 'that no sensible man
would carry his slaves there if he could,' had always regarded the
question of slavery extension into the Mexican Cession as symbolic rather
than substantive. As Toombs told Crittenden, when he described the bill southern Whigs planned to introduce, 'It cannot be a slave country; we
have only the point of honor to save; this will save it, and rescue the country from all danger of agitation.'

"Third, if they passed their proposal, they might be able to claim
concrete as well as symbolic gains for the South--not just an end to
northern aggressions but the actual expansion of the area in which slavery
was legal. That paradox is explained by the ambiguity of what men meant by
the 'territory' of the Mexican Cession that was to be included in the
state of California. Texas, a slave state, claimed all the land east of
the Rio Grande as its own, an area that encompassed about a fourth of the former Mexican province of New Mexico, and half of the present state of
New Mexico, including Santa Fe....The bill southern Whigs introduced blandly--and imprecisely--spoke of erecting a new state 'out of and
including all that territory ceded to the United States by the recent
treaty of peace.' Toombs, a major proponent and engineer of the southern
Whig plan, explicitly denied that 'that territory' included the areas
claimed by Texas...

"Because Douglas' bill was irretrievably mired in the Senate and because southern Whigs wanted the credit for solving the issue for themselves,
they moved in the House, which Whigs controlled. On February 7, three days after the publication of the Southern Address, Representative William
Ballard Preston of Virginia...soon to be secretary of the Navy in Taylor's administration, introduced the Whigs' measure and defended it as the 'only door' through which the rival sections could reach a mutually acceptable solution on the divisive territorial issue. Despite Preston's passionate entreaties to Northerners to give up the unnecessary Proviso, despite
southern Whigs' optimism about the effect of Preston's speech, and despite backing of some sort of statehood bill from President Polk, important Democratic newspapers, and many Democrats in Congress, Preston's bill
failed because of northern Whigs' implacable opposition. Whether they recognized its implications for enlarging Texas or feared that any conciliatory step might leave them vulnerable to the Free Soilers, they insisted that the Proviso be applied to the Cession." Holt, *The Rise and
Fall of the American Whig Party*, pp. 388-90 https://books.google.com/books?id=5aGyVFn3VnMC&pg=PA389

However, the vote to attach the Proviso--which torpedoed the Preston
bill--was very close: 91-87, according to Michael A Morrison, *Slavery and
the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the
Civil War*, p. 102.
https://books.google.com/books?id=qgjICQAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 If just a few more northern Whigs had been convinced that the Proviso was unnecessary--and remember that many of them would later back Taylor's plan for the
immediate admission of both California and New Mexico, which likewise
bypassed the Proviso--Preston's bill could have passed the House. Yes,
there was the problem of determining the California-Texas border, but it
did not seem as urgent in early 1849 as the Texas-New Mexico border
situation would be in 1850 when Texans were talking of marching on Santa
Fe. Once California was admitted as a state, the dispute would be between
two states, and the US Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction to settle it. (Article III, section 2 of the Constitution provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to "controversies between two
or more states" and gives the Supreme Court original jurisidiction in all cases "in which a state shall be a party.")

That of course leaves the Democratic-controlled Senate. Douglas' bill had fared poorly there. One problem was that while Polk was not opposed to
some sort of statehood bill, he had doubts about Douglas's plan. "The President and his cabinet were taken by surprise. Frequent consultations
were held. Douglas was repeatedly closeted with the President. All the
members of the cabinet agreed that the plan of leaving the slavery
question to the people of the new State was ingenious; but many objections were raised to a single State. In repeated interviews, Polk urged Douglas
to draft a separate bill for New Mexico; but Douglas was obdurate." Allen Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15508/15508-h/15508-h.htm So the bill, to Douglas' chagrin, was referred not to his own Committee on Territories but
to the Committee on the Judiciary. "Perhaps this course was in accord with precedent, but it was noted that four out of the five members of this committee were Southerners, and that the vote to refer was a sectional one.[268] An adverse report was therefore to be expected." Ibid. Perhaps
if Polk had agreed with Douglas' plan, he could have exerted enough
pressure to get the Senate to refer it to Douglas' own committee and then
to pass it--admittedly the power of a lame-duck president is limited, but still Polk's support would make it more difficult for southern Democrats
to label Douglas' bill a sell-out to free soilers. (Not that they did so openly anyway; their chief argument was that a state should not be
admitted to the Union without first having some sort of political organization. But there is no doubt that the slavery issue was on their minds.) In any event, if the Preston bill passed the House, and if it got Polk's support, the pressure to pass it in the Senate might be
irresistible, despite the Judiciary Committee's prior rejection of the
Douglas bill. After all, as Douglas argued, some form of government was
needed for California to save it "from all the horrors of anarchy and violence" and there was no chance of a territorial government bill being passed before the second session of the Thirtieth Congress was to end in March. And after all, at least the Preston-Douglas plan provided for the admission of only one free state, whereas Taylor's later plan would
provide for two such states, so the Preston-Douglas plan should have been
at least marginally more acceptable to Southerners.

So what happens if the Preston-Douglas plan is passed? (Polk will sign it;
it might not be his first choice among plans, but any bill that resolves
the territorial issue without enacting the Wilmot Proviso will be
satisfactory to him.) A few thoughts:

(1) The territorial issue would be settled before the elections of 1849.
In those days, many members of Congress were elected during odd-numbered years, and in OTL it happened that a majority of the congressional
elections of 1849 were in the South. Democrats, supporting Calhoun's
"Southern Address" and warning that Taylor would sell out the South,
scored impressive victories against Whigs in Virginia and Georgia. This
led many southern Whigs to take a hard line against Taylor's plan for the admission of California and New Mexico as free states, even though they thought slavery had little or no chance of taking root there. Whigs also
did poorly in northern elections, due in part to the strength of Democratic-Free Soil coalitions in some states--which made northern Whigs
more determined than ever to pass the Wilmot Proviso. Thus, by the time
the new Thirty-First Congress met in December 1849 sectional lines had hardened. Whigs were no longer guaranteed control of the House, and Robert Winthrop, a pro-Taylor Whig from Massachusetts, was narrowly defeated in
the contest for Speaker by Democrat Howell Cobb of Georgia, in what was as much a sectional as a party contest, with some key southern Whigs
deserting Winthrop. Had the territorial issue been settled, I have little doubt that Winthrop would have been elected.

(2) How would the Supreme Court ultimately resolve the California-Texas boundary issue? Given its generally pro-southern views at this time, I
would say the odds are that it would take Texas' side.

(3) Even Douglas admitted that his new California was in the long run too large a state, so he put in a provision that it could later be divided
into new states by Congress. When the Judiciary Committee argued that this
was contrary to state sovereignty, Douglas agreed to modify this by saying that California could be divided by Congress "with the state's consent."
So in that sense, the territorial struggle would not be over but would be transferred to California itself--we have already discussed in this group
the attempts to detach southern California from the rest of the state in
the 1850's.

(4) A related point--what happens to the Mormons in this Greater
California? Both the Californians and the Mormons may want to separate
Utah from California, but it's hard to see Congress agreeing to it as long
as polygamy remains a Mormon doctrine. Meanwhile the Mormons do not have
even the limited self-government Utah had in OTL as a territory.

(5) Can a Fugitive Slave Law pass the northern-dominated House without the territorial issue? It is true that the Clay "Omnibus" failed, and that the compromise measures of 1850, including the fugitive slave bill, were ultimately enacted as separate measures--but that doesn't mean that
members weren't conscious that each measure was part of an overall
compromise that would collapse if any of its separate components failed.
Many northerners abstained on the fugitive bill who might have faced
strong pressure to vote against it if it weren't part of a compromise that seemed essential to preserve the Union.

(6) Without the territorial issue, presumably the Whigs are less bitterly divided than they were in OTL in 1852 and have a better chance of
retaining the White House. It's even possible we delay Taylor's death
(after all, the sectional conflict took a toll on his health) and that he
is re-elected in 1852...

(7) The lack of a compromise of 1850--with its provisions for territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah unencumbered by the Wilmot Proviso-- destroys the precedent Douglas constantly cited in 1854 for the Kansas- Nebraska bill. True, there is still Cass's campaign of 1848 to cite as evidence that territorial sovereignty was the doctrine of the Democratic
Party [1]--but there would have been no case where it had actually been implemented. Whether that would make any real difference is doubtful--one
can argue that the "precedent" of 1850 (which in any event was a specific measure for the Mexican Cession, and not intended to apply elsewhere, let alone to repeal the Missouri Compromise) was just an excuse. Still, the
vote in the House was close, and perhaps that "precedent" influenced a few members. (And of course it is possible we have butterflied away Pierce's candidacy, and might have another president--whether a Whig or a
Democrat--who does not exert the pressure Pierce did in OTL to pass the
bill. And if the Whigs do better in *1852 than in OTL there may be a few
more Whigs in the House, and this in itself may kill the bill, since not a single northern Whig voted for it, and not all southern Whigs did so.)

[1] Though actually in 1848 Cass was ambiguous about the stage at which "popular sovereignty" applied--throughout the territorial stage or only
when the territory had enough people to be admitted as a state?
--
David Tenner
dtenner@ameritech.net
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From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On 1/17/23 23:08, David Tenner wrote:

In the short second session of the Thirtieth Congress in late 1848 and
early 1849, Senator Stephen A. Douglas had a simple solution to the
question of the status of slavery in the newly acquired Mexican Cession.
(A solution to the problem was urgent for Douglas, for local political reasons as well as for the sake of the Union; normally heavily Democratic Illinois had almost gone for Taylor because of pro-Wilmot Proviso
Democrats defecting to Van Buren's Free Soil candidacy. Taylor's
percentage of the vote in Illinois--42.4 percent--was virtually the same
as Clay's 42.1 percent in 1844. But Cass got only 44.9 percent of the
vote, a marked decline from Polk's 53.9 percent. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1844.txt http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1848.txt Evidently
Abraham Lincoln and other local Whig leaders had persuaded most Illinois Whigs that Taylor would sign the Wilmot Proviso. Besides, antislavery
Whigs in Illinois as elsewhere had a deep suspicion of Van Buren.)
Douglas' solution was to admit the entire Mexican Cession as one single state of California, thereby bypassing the territorial stage to which the Proviso would apply.

Since Whigs controlled the House of Representatives, the success of
Douglas' proposal depended on getting at least some Whig support. Most northern Whigs regarded it as a "pusillanimous dodge" (to use Michael F. Holt's phrase in The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, p. 385 https://books.google.com/books?id=hMkYklGTY1MC&pg=PA385) and demanded passage of the Wilmot Proviso to undercut the Free Soilers. (As

noted, the

Free Soilers in Illinois got most of their support from Democrats, but in some other northern states, notably Ohio, they hurt the Whigs more.) Fortunately for Douglas, he did get support from southern Whigs:

"The solution to which southern Whigs resorted was Douglas's California proposal, which had been bottled up in the Senate since early December.
Some of them, like Clayton and his frequent correspondent, Kentucky
Governor Crittenden, had favored that plan from the time Douglas
introduced it, but only after the majority of southern Democrats signed
the [Calhoun militantly pro-slavery] Southern Address http://history.furman.edu/~benson/docs/calhoun.htm did most southern

Whigs

turn to it. Skipping the territorial phase and admitting the Mexican
Cession at once as a single state struck Whigs as a suitable solution for
a variety of reasons, even though everyone expected that California would
be a free state. First, given northern Whigs' insistence on enacting the Proviso, they knew they needed Democratic support to pass the measure.
Such support seemed probable, not only from northern Democrats like
Douglas, who wanted to resolve the territorial issue permanently in order
to undermine the Free Soil party, but also from the many southern
Democrats who rejected the Southern Address as bad politics and a threat
to the Union. Furthermore, the prospect of blocking slavery extension and gaining a new free state might even win over support from northern Whigs like Nathan Hall, who feared the disruptive impact of the territorial
impact as much as southern Whigs.

"Second, virtually all southern Whigs, convinced 'that no sensible man
would carry his slaves there if he could,' had always regarded the
question of slavery extension into the Mexican Cession as symbolic rather than substantive. As Toombs told Crittenden, when he described the bill southern Whigs planned to introduce, 'It cannot be a slave country; we
have only the point of honor to save; this will save it, and rescue the country from all danger of agitation.'

"Third, if they passed their proposal, they might be able to claim
concrete as well as symbolic gains for the South--not just an end to northern aggressions but the actual expansion of the area in which

slavery

was legal. That paradox is explained by the ambiguity of what men

meant by

the 'territory' of the Mexican Cession that was to be included in the
state of California. Texas, a slave state, claimed all the land east of
the Rio Grande as its own, an area that encompassed about a fourth of the former Mexican province of New Mexico, and half of the present state of
New Mexico, including Santa Fe....The bill southern Whigs introduced blandly--and imprecisely--spoke of erecting a new state 'out of and including all that territory ceded to the United States by the recent
treaty of peace.' Toombs, a major proponent and engineer of the southern Whig plan, explicitly denied that 'that territory' included the areas claimed by Texas...

"Because Douglas' bill was irretrievably mired in the Senate and because southern Whigs wanted the credit for solving the issue for themselves,
they moved in the House, which Whigs controlled. On February 7, three

days

after the publication of the Southern Address, Representative William Ballard Preston of Virginia...soon to be secretary of the Navy in

Taylor's

administration, introduced the Whigs' measure and defended it as the

'only

door' through which the rival sections could reach a mutually acceptable solution on the divisive territorial issue. Despite Preston's passionate entreaties to Northerners to give up the unnecessary Proviso, despite southern Whigs' optimism about the effect of Preston's speech, and

despite

backing of some sort of statehood bill from President Polk, important Democratic newspapers, and many Democrats in Congress, Preston's bill
failed because of northern Whigs' implacable opposition. Whether they recognized its implications for enlarging Texas or feared that any conciliatory step might leave them vulnerable to the Free Soilers, they insisted that the Proviso be applied to the Cession." Holt, *The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party*, pp. 388-90 https://books.google.com/books?id=5aGyVFn3VnMC&pg=PA389

However, the vote to attach the Proviso--which torpedoed the Preston bill--was very close: 91-87, according to Michael A Morrison,

*Slavery and

the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War*, p. 102.
https://books.google.com/books?id=qgjICQAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 If just a few

more

northern Whigs had been convinced that the Proviso was unnecessary--and remember that many of them would later back Taylor's plan for the
immediate admission of both California and New Mexico, which likewise bypassed the Proviso--Preston's bill could have passed the House. Yes,
there was the problem of determining the California-Texas border, but it
did not seem as urgent in early 1849 as the Texas-New Mexico border situation would be in 1850 when Texans were talking of marching on Santa
Fe. Once California was admitted as a state, the dispute would be between two states, and the US Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction to settle it. (Article III, section 2 of the Constitution provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to "controversies between two
or more states" and gives the Supreme Court original jurisidiction in all cases "in which a state shall be a party.")

That of course leaves the Democratic-controlled Senate. Douglas' bill had fared poorly there. One problem was that while Polk was not opposed to
some sort of statehood bill, he had doubts about Douglas's plan. "The President and his cabinet were taken by surprise. Frequent consultations were held. Douglas was repeatedly closeted with the President. All the members of the cabinet agreed that the plan of leaving the slavery
question to the people of the new State was ingenious; but many

objections

were raised to a single State. In repeated interviews, Polk urged Douglas
to draft a separate bill for New Mexico; but Douglas was obdurate." Allen Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15508/15508-h/15508-h.htm So the bill, to Douglas' chagrin, was referred not to his own Committee on

Territories but

to the Committee on the Judiciary. "Perhaps this course was in accord

with

precedent, but it was noted that four out of the five members of this committee were Southerners, and that the vote to refer was a sectional one.[268] An adverse report was therefore to be expected." Ibid. Perhaps
if Polk had agreed with Douglas' plan, he could have exerted enough
pressure to get the Senate to refer it to Douglas' own committee and then
to pass it--admittedly the power of a lame-duck president is limited, but still Polk's support would make it more difficult for southern Democrats
to label Douglas' bill a sell-out to free soilers. (Not that they did so openly anyway; their chief argument was that a state should not be
admitted to the Union without first having some sort of political organization. But there is no doubt that the slavery issue was on their minds.) In any event, if the Preston bill passed the House, and if it got Polk's support, the pressure to pass it in the Senate might be
irresistible, despite the Judiciary Committee's prior rejection of the Douglas bill. After all, as Douglas argued, some form of government was needed for California to save it "from all the horrors of anarchy and violence" and there was no chance of a territorial government bill being passed before the second session of the Thirtieth Congress was to end in March. And after all, at least the Preston-Douglas plan provided for the admission of only one free state, whereas Taylor's later plan would
provide for two such states, so the Preston-Douglas plan should have been
at least marginally more acceptable to Southerners.

So what happens if the Preston-Douglas plan is passed? (Polk will

sign it;

it might not be his first choice among plans, but any bill that resolves
the territorial issue without enacting the Wilmot Proviso will be satisfactory to him.) A few thoughts:

(1) The territorial issue would be settled before the elections of 1849.
In those days, many members of Congress were elected during odd-numbered years, and in OTL it happened that a majority of the congressional
elections of 1849 were in the South. Democrats, supporting Calhoun's "Southern Address" and warning that Taylor would sell out the South,
scored impressive victories against Whigs in Virginia and Georgia. This
led many southern Whigs to take a hard line against Taylor's plan for the admission of California and New Mexico as free states, even though they thought slavery had little or no chance of taking root there. Whigs also
did poorly in northern elections, due in part to the strength of Democratic-Free Soil coalitions in some states--which made northern Whigs more determined than ever to pass the Wilmot Proviso. Thus, by the time
the new Thirty-First Congress met in December 1849 sectional lines had hardened. Whigs were no longer guaranteed control of the House, and

Robert

Winthrop, a pro-Taylor Whig from Massachusetts, was narrowly defeated in
the contest for Speaker by Democrat Howell Cobb of Georgia, in what

was as

much a sectional as a party contest, with some key southern Whigs
deserting Winthrop. Had the territorial issue been settled, I have little doubt that Winthrop would have been elected.

(2) How would the Supreme Court ultimately resolve the California-Texas boundary issue? Given its generally pro-southern views at this time, I
would say the odds are that it would take Texas' side.

(3) Even Douglas admitted that his new California was in the long run too large a state, so he put in a provision that it could later be divided
into new states by Congress. When the Judiciary Committee argued that

this

was contrary to state sovereignty, Douglas agreed to modify this by

saying

that California could be divided by Congress "with the state's consent."
So in that sense, the territorial struggle would not be over but would be transferred to California itself--we have already discussed in this group the attempts to detach southern California from the rest of the state in
the 1850's.

(4) A related point--what happens to the Mormons in this Greater
California? Both the Californians and the Mormons may want to separate
Utah from California, but it's hard to see Congress agreeing to it as

long

as polygamy remains a Mormon doctrine. Meanwhile the Mormons do not have even the limited self-government Utah had in OTL as a territory.

(5) Can a Fugitive Slave Law pass the northern-dominated House

without the

territorial issue? It is true that the Clay "Omnibus" failed, and

that the

compromise measures of 1850, including the fugitive slave bill, were ultimately enacted as separate measures--but that doesn't mean that
members weren't conscious that each measure was part of an overall compromise that would collapse if any of its separate components failed. Many northerners abstained on the fugitive bill who might have faced
strong pressure to vote against it if it weren't part of a compromise

that

seemed essential to preserve the Union.

(6) Without the territorial issue, presumably the Whigs are less bitterly divided than they were in OTL in 1852 and have a better chance of
retaining the White House. It's even possible we delay Taylor's death
(after all, the sectional conflict took a toll on his health) and that he
is re-elected in 1852...

(7) The lack of a compromise of 1850--with its provisions for territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah unencumbered by the Wilmot Proviso-- destroys the precedent Douglas constantly cited in 1854 for the Kansas- Nebraska bill. True, there is still Cass's campaign of 1848 to cite as evidence that territorial sovereignty was the doctrine of the Democratic Party [1]--but there would have been no case where it had actually been implemented. Whether that would make any real difference is doubtful--one can argue that the "precedent" of 1850 (which in any event was a specific measure for the Mexican Cession, and not intended to apply elsewhere, let alone to repeal the Missouri Compromise) was just an excuse. Still, the
vote in the House was close, and perhaps that "precedent" influenced

a few

members. (And of course it is possible we have butterflied away Pierce's candidacy, and might have another president--whether a Whig or a Democrat--who does not exert the pressure Pierce did in OTL to pass the bill. And if the Whigs do better in *1852 than in OTL there may be a few more Whigs in the House, and this in itself may kill the bill, since

not a

single northern Whig voted for it, and not all southern Whigs did so.)

[1] Though actually in 1848 Cass was ambiguous about the stage at which "popular sovereignty" applied--throughout the territorial stage or only
when the territory had enough people to be admitted as a state?

I am thinking that at this time in this time line:

1. All of the original Oregon Territory is not U.S.
States (and is either U.S. territorial land or agreed
to be part of British/Canadian claims).

2. A lot of the original Louisiana Purchase is not
U.S. States.

Because of that, I tend to get the idea that the
debate - where does California start and Texas end
- might tend to shift toward some of the land being
territories.

Texas in our time line is still the U.S. State with
the second largest land area besides Alaska, and
California is the third.


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From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On Wed, 18 Jan 2023 07:08:05 -0000 (UTC), David Tenner
<dtenner@ameritech.net> wrote:

In the short second session of the Thirtieth Congress in late 1848 and
early 1849, Senator Stephen A. Douglas had a simple solution to the
question of the status of slavery in the newly acquired Mexican Cession.

Stuff like this is why I consider David a WI Saint and it's
astonishing how few people know of him given the depth of his 19th
century Congressional knowledge.

David's been here for the better part of 2 decades as well so there is
both achievement and long-term achievement.

Not being an American I don't understand the full depth of all this
but I do know enough to understand the 30000' view of America
1815-1860 (though he's equally strong on the Reconstruction era) and
Sir I stand in awe.
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From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On 1/18/23 1:08 AM, David Tenner wrote:

Douglas' solution was to admit the entire Mexican Cession as one single
state of California, thereby bypassing the territorial stage to which the Proviso would apply.

Twice the area of Texas... Could the proposal founder on mere
practicality? With no telegraph and no railroad, administering the
Denver area from Sacramento seems impossible.

Texas, a slave state, claimed all the land east of
the Rio Grande as its own, an area that encompassed about a fourth of the former Mexican province of New Mexico, and half of the present state of
New Mexico, including Santa Fe... The bill southern Whigs introduced blandly--and imprecisely--spoke of erecting a new state 'out of and
including all that territory ceded to the United States by the recent
treaty of peace.' Toombs, a major proponent and engineer of the southern
Whig plan, explicitly denied that 'that territory' included the areas
claimed by Texas... Yes, > there was the problem of determining the California-Texas border, but it
did not seem as urgent in early 1849 as the Texas-New Mexico border
situation would be in 1850 when Texans were talking of marching on Santa
Fe. Once California was admitted as a state, the dispute would be between
two states, and the US Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction to settle it. (Article III, section 2 of the Constitution provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to "controversies between two
or more states" and gives the Supreme Court original jurisidiction in all cases "in which a state shall be a party.")

What happens if Texas claims the east bank of the Rio Grande and the
people there resist? Would Taylor enforce the Texas claim? If the
dispute goes to the Supreme Court... both Texas and California are a
long way away. Wou[d Texans attempt to plant slavery in the Rio Grande country, and how would the hispanic New Mexicans react? (OTL there were
almost no slaves in the Territory, but ITTL the area is in a slave
state, which gives slaveholders a fairly strong incentive to try it.)

If the "Nuevo Mexicanos" resist slavery, could they win the sympathy of anti-slavery Northerners, in spite of their being Catholics?

(2) How would the Supreme Court ultimately resolve the California-Texas boundary issue? Given its generally pro-southern views at this time, I
would say the odds are that it would take Texas' side.

(3) Even Douglas admitted that his new California was in the long run too large a state, so he put in a provision that it could later be divided
into new states by Congress. When the Judiciary Committee argued that this was contrary to state sovereignty, Douglas agreed to modify this by saying that California could be divided by Congress "with the state's consent."

That was always true of any state, and was put into practice with Maine breaking off from Massachusetts.

So in that sense, the territorial struggle would not be over but would be transferred to California itself--we have already discussed in this group
the attempts to detach southern California from the rest of the state in
the 1850's.

ITTL, there would be thoughts of detaching the eastern parts from
California. One major issue: the area between the Louisiana Purchase
border and the OTL California border was and remained thinly populated,
and unfit for statehood for at least 25 years (Nevada's statehood was premature and due to the ACW and Republicans wanting two more Senators.)

This makes it awkward to relieve California of those areas. It's one
thing to turn part of a state into another state, but maybe not even constitutional to turn it into a territory. Suppose there is a US Representative from that area? What happens to him?

(4) A related point--what happens to the Mormons in this Greater
California? Both the Californians and the Mormons may want to separate
Utah from California, but it's hard to see Congress agreeing to it as long
as polygamy remains a Mormon doctrine.

_If_ separation requires statehood.

(6) Without the territorial issue, presumably the Whigs are less bitterly divided than they were in OTL in 1852 and have a better chance of
retaining the White House. It's even possible we delay Taylor's death
(after all, the sectional conflict took a toll on his health) and that he
is re-elected in 1852...

Wasn't he, as a Whig, pledged to a single term?

(7) The lack of a compromise of 1850--with its provisions for territorial governments in New Mexico and Utah unencumbered by the Wilmot Proviso-- destroys the precedent Douglas constantly cited in 1854 for the Kansas- Nebraska bill.

Thus changing the dynamics of the 1850s beyond recognition.

A possible knock-on: with the precedent of California, would the Oregon Country be admitted as a single state.

Another knock-on: ITTL, what becomes of the Gadsden Purchase? Would it
be immediately added to California? Or become a separate territory?
--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerd|-s.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.

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From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 17:57:10 -0600, Rich Rostrom
<rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote:

Another knock-on: ITTL, what becomes of the Gadsden Purchase? Would it
be immediately added to California? Or become a separate territory?

The whole reason for the Gadsden purchase was the desire to build a
railroad through it. Tucson came later :)
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From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On 1/23/23 8:44 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 17:57:10 -0600, Rich Rostrom
<rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote:

Another knock-on: ITTL, what becomes of the Gadsden Purchase? Would it
be immediately added to California? Or become a separate territory?

The whole reason for the Gadsden purchase was the desire to build a
railroad through it. Tucson came later :)

The reason still applies; my question is how it is implemented.

None of the other territorial acquisitions of the US were added
to an existing state.
--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerd|-s.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On 1/23/23 18:44, The Horny Goat wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 17:57:10 -0600, Rich Rostrom
<rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote:

Another knock-on: ITTL, what becomes of the Gadsden Purchase? Would it
be immediately added to California? Or become a separate territory?

The whole reason for the Gadsden purchase was the desire to build a
railroad through it. Tucson came later :)

I myself do not think that was really the whole reason.

To me, it really looks like at the end of the Mexican-American
war, they simply rounded up a bunch of people in Mexico City
to sign a treaty debated in the US Congress. Probably not all
of them were drunk when they signed it.

They agreed that Texas was not part of Mexico and to some US
territorial acquisitions west of there. The US did not
consider the heavily populated belt from Veracruz to Mexico
City to westward part of the United States. Then U.S. forces
left Mexico City.

The Gadsden purchase however was negotiated with Santa Anna
himself. The persons negotiating the treaty offered an array
of prices for varying amounts of land. Santa Anna chose the
smallest amount of money for the smallest amount of land.
It is difficult to say how much of the money if any he
kept for himself but he also likely used some of it to
finance the Mexican military. Either way, as a side effect
he may have partially agreed to the earlier acquisition.
This was a somewhat older but generally the same Santa
Anna as the one of 'Remember the Alamo'.

Was Santa Anna signing the Gadsden purchase of his own
free will? Does anyone have free will?


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From Newsgroup: alt.history.what-if

On Fri, 27 Jan 2023 01:21:41 -0800, Trolidan7 <x@x.org> wrote:

The Gadsden purchase however was negotiated with Santa Anna
himself. The persons negotiating the treaty offered an array
of prices for varying amounts of land. Santa Anna chose the
smallest amount of money for the smallest amount of land.
It is difficult to say how much of the money if any he
kept for himself but he also likely used some of it to
finance the Mexican military. Either way, as a side effect
he may have partially agreed to the earlier acquisition.
This was a somewhat older but generally the same Santa
Anna as the one of 'Remember the Alamo'.

I don't at all doubt what Santa Anna would have done to US troops had
he the power to do so.

Obviously he was under a certain amount of duress but equally
obviously he knew the US was not going to take ALL of Mexico so
future relations were important as both sides knew.
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On Monday, January 23, 2023 at 11:57:13 PM UTC, Rich Rostrom wrote:

On 1/18/23 1:08 AM, David Tenner wrote:

Douglas' solution was to admit the entire Mexican Cession as one single state of California, thereby bypassing the territorial stage to which the Proviso would apply.

Twice the area of Texas... Could the proposal founder on mere
practicality? With no telegraph and no railroad, administering the
Denver area from Sacramento seems impossible.

Texas, a slave state, claimed all the land east of
the Rio Grande as its own, an area that encompassed about a fourth of the former Mexican province of New Mexico, and half of the present state of
New Mexico, including Santa Fe... The bill southern Whigs introduced blandly--and imprecisely--spoke of erecting a new state 'out of and including all that territory ceded to the United States by the recent treaty of peace.' Toombs, a major proponent and engineer of the southern Whig plan, explicitly denied that 'that territory' included the areas claimed by Texas... Yes, > there was the problem of determining the California-Texas border, but it
did not seem as urgent in early 1849 as the Texas-New Mexico border situation would be in 1850 when Texans were talking of marching on Santa Fe. Once California was admitted as a state, the dispute would be between two states, and the US Supreme Court would have original jurisdiction to settle it. (Article III, section 2 of the Constitution provides that the judicial power of the United States extends to "controversies between two or more states" and gives the Supreme Court original jurisidiction in all cases "in which a state shall be a party.")

What happens if Texas claims the east bank of the Rio Grande and the
people there resist? Would Taylor enforce the Texas claim? If the
dispute goes to the Supreme Court... both Texas and California are a
long way away. Wou[d Texans attempt to plant slavery in the Rio Grande country, and how would the hispanic New Mexicans react? (OTL there were almost no slaves in the Territory, but ITTL the area is in a slave
state, which gives slaveholders a fairly strong incentive to try it.)

If the "Nuevo Mexicanos" resist slavery, could they win the sympathy of anti-slavery Northerners, in spite of their being Catholics?

(2) How would the Supreme Court ultimately resolve the California-Texas boundary issue? Given its generally pro-southern views at this time, I would say the odds are that it would take Texas' side.

(3) Even Douglas admitted that his new California was in the long run too large a state, so he put in a provision that it could later be divided into new states by Congress. When the Judiciary Committee argued that this was contrary to state sovereignty, Douglas agreed to modify this by saying that California could be divided by Congress "with the state's consent."

That was always true of any state, and was put into practice with Maine breaking off from Massachusetts.

So in that sense, the territorial struggle would not be over but would be transferred to California itself--we have already discussed in this group the attempts to detach southern California from the rest of the state in the 1850's.

ITTL, there would be thoughts of detaching the eastern parts from California. One major issue: the area between the Louisiana Purchase
border and the OTL California border was and remained thinly populated,
and unfit for statehood for at least 25 years (Nevada's statehood was premature and due to the ACW and Republicans wanting two more Senators.)

This makes it awkward to relieve California of those areas. It's one
thing to turn part of a state into another state, but maybe not even constitutional to turn it into a territory. Suppose there is a US Representative from that area? What happens to him?

There was some precedent in the case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Triangle where four states surrendered their claims to it to the Federal government. And there would soon be the Compromise of 1850, where some areas, which Texas had considered part of itself, became federal territories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_2nd_congressional_district#List_of_members_representing_the_district says that from 1845-51, that district included Bexar County. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bexar_County,_Texas#History says that "Bexar County was created on December 20, 1836, and encompassed almost the entire western portion of the Republic of Texas. This included the disputed areas of eastern New Mexico northward to Wyoming. " I'm not sure how many votes were actually cast in congressional elections in the 1840's in areas that did not end up in the present-day State of Texas.
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On 1/28/23 12:35 PM, Graham Truesdale wrote:

I'm not sure how many votes were actually cast in congressional elections
in the 1840's in areas that did not end up in the present-day State of Texas.

Probably none. Texas claimed sovereignty over the east bank of the Rio
Grande in New Mexico, but never exercised any authority there.
--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerd|-s.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2