The victory of the United States over Mexico resulted in the addition of large new territories conquered from Mexico. Controversy over whether the territories would be slave or free raised the risk of a war between slave and free states, and Northern support for the
Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in the conquered territories, increased sectional tensions. The controversy was temporarily resolved by the
Compromise of 1850, which allowed the territories of
Utah and
New Mexico to decide for or against slavery, but also allowed the admission of
California as a free state, reduced the size of the slave state of
Texas by adjusting the boundary, and ended the slave trade but not slavery itself in the
District of Columbia. In return, the South got a stronger
fugitive slave law than the version mentioned in the
US Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Law would reignite controversy over slavery.
