" (447) The Gag Rule of the House of Representatives could not keep word from getting around that there was serious trouble brewing everywhere. "In 1836, when abolitionists began to flood Washington with petitions calling for emancipation in the nation's capitol, the House of Representatives adopted their notorious "gag rule," which prohibited their consideration." (475) The Gag Rule was repealed in 1844, but it seem clear that by the 1840s, the United States was a "house divided," as said by Lincoln when he accepted the Republican Party nomination for president in 1858. "A House divided against itself," he announced, "cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." (521) .
The big political issues had to do with westward expansion. The compromises had to do with westward expansion, when states were added to the Union. The slavery issues of the 1930s were the same in the 1840s and 1850s, but conflict became more intense as time went on. Back in 1820, the Missouri Compromise had tried to keep approximately the Mason-Dixon Line boundary between Slave and Free states, with the number of Free states keeping the same as the number of Slave states by Maine being admitted to the Union along with Missouri. In 1850, there came to be enacted the Compromise of 1850 that modified the Missouri Compromise. This all came about because California needed to be admitted to the Union as a Free state, as result of the war with Mexico. "California would enter the Union as a free state. The slave trade, but not slavery itself, would be abolished in the nation's capitol. A stringent new law would allow southerners to reclaim runaway slaves. And the status of slavery in the remaining territories acquired from Mexico would be left to the decision of the local white inhabitants. The United States would also agree to pay off the massive debt Texas had accumulated while independent.
