The Compromise of 1850 occurred in September 1850 when American Whig Party senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and US Democratic Party senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois passed a package of new laws aimed at reducing conflict over slavery between the North and South of the United States. California was admitted to the union as a free state, the territories of Utah and New Mexico were allowed to choose if they were free or slave states, the slave trade was blocked in Washington DC, the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, and Texas gave up some claimed lands to New Mexico.