The history of the legislation of 1850 is too well known to need detail here. It resulted in another compromise, by which six important measures all involving the slavery question were adopted. These were
1. The admission of California as a free State.
2. The settlement of the Texas boundary, limiting its northern line to 36 deg. 30 min.
3. The formation of territorial government for Utah, and
5. The abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and
6. The Fugitive slave law.
California, Utah, New Mexico and Texas all embraced territory on both sides of the Missouri Compromise line. California was the first State south of that line that had ever asked for admission to the Union with a Constitution excluding slavery.
The cardinal feature of the Compromise of 1850 was the abandonment of a geographical line to separate free and slave territory, and the distinct recognition of the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery. The compromise in terms recognized the right of the people of the territories to be admitted to the Union with or without slavery as they might desire—that was its very essence as distinguished from the Compromise of 1820.
The principle of non-intervention in the territories had been logically involved, in the national platforms of the democratic party since 1840, but it had never until 1850 received the direct sanction of the Congress.