The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904 Page: 185
xvi, 340 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Adjustment of the Texas Boundary in 1850. 185
February 28, by Senator Bell, proposing, with the assent of Texas,
to restrict her limits within the territory lying east of the Trinity
and south of Red River, to provide for a new state on the west,
and extending north to the 34th degree of north latitude, and to
accept a cession from the State of all the unappropriated domain
west of the Colorado, and extending north to the 42d parallel.
Provision was made for the prospective admission of another state
to be carved out of the unappropriated domain west of the Colo-
rado and south of the 34th parallel, which would embrace a part
of the present limits of New Mexico, while the territory north of
the line, containing all of the Panhandle, was to be incorporated
with the territory of New Mexico.' The bill surrendered more
than two and one-half degrees of slave territory for which the
author claimed compensation was made by including an equivalent
of free territory in the limits of the prospective state west of the
Colorado. The senator, whose bill was regarded as a modified form
of the executive policy,2 sought to recognize by its terms the con-
ditions and guarantees of the joint resolutions of annexation by
the creation of two new states, one to offset the admission of Cali-
fornia into the Union and the other of New Mexico.
Resolutions of a similar nature to the foregoing were introduced
in the house of representatives, but no particular measure seemed
to warrant exclusive consideration. It became evident that the
discussion of abstract resolutions was delaying a speedy, deliberate,
and final settlement of the distracting questions, and to avert fur-
ther agitation, the senate, April 19, raised by ballot a committee
of thirteen to mature a scheme of compromise for the adjustment
of the pending questions growing out of the subject of slavery.
The crisis certainly had become intense and exigent to justify an
expedient so unusual in so conservative a body. The chairman
of the committee, Mr. Clay, on May 18, presented its report and
the bill which it had framed, known as the Compromise bill. This
was a composite measure, providing for the admission of Cali-
fornia without slavery, the establishment of territorial govern-
ments in Utah and New Mexico, without the Wilmot proviso; and
the settlement of the disputed boundary between New Mexico and
1 Cong. Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., 436, et seq.
-Stephens, Constitutional View of the War Between the States, II 205.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904, periodical, 1904; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101030/m1/189/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.