In the wake of the Mexican-American War (1846-48), the 1850 Compromise consisted of five bills which attempted to settle conflicts over slavery in new territories added to the United States. It admitted California as a free state, left Utah and New Mexico to determine for itself whether to be a slave state or a free state, established a new frontier between Texas and New Mexico, and made it easier for slave owners to recover runways under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
