America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union

x, 480 pp. The Mexican War introduced vast new territories into the United States, including California and the present-day Southwest. When California settlers petitioned for admission to the Union, Congress was presented with a seemingly intractable dilemma: with the Senate precariously balanced at fifteen free states and fifteen slave states, would California be free or slave' So began an unprecedented crisis in American government and the longest debate in Senate history.