Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from

Radiotopia my name is Jody Avergan.

This day January 28th, 1850, Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions aimed at trying to build compromise in the Senate and avert a crisis between the North and South.

Later that year in 1850 in September, the series of bills would pass and this would come to be known as the

compromise of 1850.

One of those terms that maybe you remember from middle school and then don't really know what it was about, but very fascinating.

We'll get into some of the specifics.

The bills combined a number of different but very interconnected issues namely territorial expansion and

slavery there was a fierce debate about how territories like Texas and Oregon and

California would be brought into the Union whether they would be admitted as slave states or free states, what would happen to runaways from slavery?

The compromise of 1850 sets some parameters on a number of those issues and maybe averted war for a decade or so we will definitely

discuss that and the legacy of all that and with us as always is Nicole Hammer of Columbia.

Hello Nicky.

Hello Jody. And Kelly Carter Jackson of Well Columbia. Hello, Nicki. Hello, Jody.

And Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.

Hello, Kelly.

Hey, how you doing?

So Kelly, a couple episodes ago, you said something that you say you tell your students,

which is that the Civil War was not inevitable and this

feels like a really good example of how to get back into that notion so you know how

does this fit into that story of the run-up to the Civil War and its inevitability or not inevitability.

Yeah, well there are a number of times I think where the country could have broken out into Civil War and

...