The Compromise of 1850 protected a clause from the earlier annexation of Texas, which allowed Texas to break itself up into smaller states if it wants to. Like it would ever want to. (Source)

Henry Clay owned 60 slaves, and one of them sued him in 1828. She didn't want to go back to Kentucky after living in Washington, D.C. She lost the case, but Clay eventually freed her, her husband, and her daughter by the early 1840s. (Source)

California created a government for itself before it was officially admitted to the Union. People were overwhelmingly against allowing slavery, but not always for the most noble reasons. They saw it as wrong and unnecessary, but they had less noble motivations, too. They didn't want white farmers and gold prospectors to have to compete with slaves for work. (Source)

Stephen Douglas came in second to Abraham Lincoln in the popular vote in the 1860 presidential election. He beat Lincoln in their 1858 senate race, but he lost the big one. (Source)

Back in the antebellum era, election campaigns didn't just give out bumper stickers and buttons. They gave full-on medals. The Smithsonian has an example from Stephen Douglas' 1860 election campaign. (Source)

Henry Clay's mad compromising skills made a huge impression on Abraham Lincoln, who called him "my beau ideal of a statesman." (Source)