California Statehood Act

California Statehood Act
09/09/1850 AD joined

An Act for the Admission of the State of California into the Union is the federal legislation that admitted California to the United States of America as the thirty-first state. California is one of only a few states which became a state without first being an organized territory.

The issue of the expansion or restriction of slavery was a fundamental dispute in the admission of new states to the Union since before the passage of the Missouri Compromise in 1820. The size of the California territory, its natural resources, access to the Pacific as well as the speed at which the territory's population was expanding added a special urgency to organizing and admitting California into the Union. Some feared that if the United States did not act swiftly an independence movement could erupt that might sever California from the United States. A fierce debate raged over the status of California and the other territories ceded to the U.S. by Mexico for most of the 31st Congress.

General Zachary Taylor, a hero of, but also a staunch opponent of the Mexican War, had become President in 1848. Although Taylor was a southern slaveowner, he believed that slavery was economically unfeasible in the acquired territories and therefore opposed the expansion of slavery as pointless and controversial, which became a serious obstacle impeding agreement in Congress on a solution to the territorial issue. In Taylor's 1849 State of the Union message to Congress, he commented extensively on the issue of California.

With the signing of the Compromise of 1850, California was formally admitted to the Union as the 31st state in the Union on September 9, 1850. The United States House of Representatives approved the bill on September 7, 1850 by a vote of 150 to 56.

The United States Senate under the careful leadership of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster had previously voted on January 17, 1850 to admit California into the Union by a vote of 48 to 3 and they concurred with the House vote on September 7, 1850.

Sacramento, CA

Lattitude: 38.5816° N
Longitude: 121.4944° W
Region: North America

Modern Day United States

Events in 1850 MORE