Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis & Compromise of 1850

This account of the failed Compromise of 1850 a decade before the Civil War "has all the suspense of a novel . . . incisive and provocative" (The Journal of American History).

In 1850, America was expanding rapidly westward as countless citizens went in search of land, opportunity—and, thanks to the gold rush in California, fortune. With settlements growing into towns and towns growing into cities, there was an urgent need for state and local government.

But the simmering tension over slav...