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| 1849, March 4–1853, March 4 |
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| ZACHARY TAYLOR and MILLARD FILLMORE (1800–74), 12th and 13th presidents. Taylor died on July 9, 1850. | 1 |
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| 1850 |
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| THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. On Jan. 29, 1850, Clay introduced his compromise resolutions providing that California should be admitted as a free state; that territorial governments should be established in the remainder of the Mexican cession without any action by Congress with respect to slavery; that Texas should yield its claims in the boundary dispute with New Mexico, in return for which the United States would assume the Texan debt; that the slave trade should be abolished in the District of Columbia; and that Congress should enact a more drastic fugitive slave law. Great debate in which Calhoun spoke (March 4) against the compromise; Webster (March 7) for the compromise; Douglas for, and Jefferson Davis, Seward, and Chase against. On April 18, the resolutions were referred to a Senate committee of 13, with Clay as chairman. Between Sept. 9 and 20, the separate measures, known collectively as the Compromise of 1850, were passed: California was to be admitted as a free state; the remainder of the Mexican cession was to be divided at the 37th parallel into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, to be admitted to the Union ultimately as states, with or without slavery as their constitutions might provide at the time of admission; the claims of Texas to a portion of New Mexico were to be satisfied by payment of $10 million; the slave trade in the District of Columbia was to be abolished; and a more effective fugitive slave law was to be enacted. | 2 |
| Land grants to railways were permitted by Congress. A grant was made to the state of Illinois to help the Illinois Central Railroad and another to Mississippi and Alabama in support of the Mobile and Ohio line. | 3 |
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| 1851 |
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| The Maine prohibition law was sponsored by Neal Dow. It became the model for all similar legislation of the period restricting the sale of alcoholic liquors. | 4 |
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| June 2 |
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| The Erie Railroad reached Dunkirk on Lake Erie, being the first railway to make connection with the Lakes. | 5 |
| The ex-slave Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–1883) delivered her famous “And Ar'n't I a Woman” speech at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio. | 6 |
| The Golden Hill's News, believed to be the first Asian-American newspaper, was first published. | 7 |
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