2.6.13
Compromise of Missouri, 1850, and GA Platform...    
  The next few events leading up to the Civil War all go together. When writing the Constitution, the founding fathers compromised when creating our legislature. They decided on a bicameral, or two-housed, legislature. In one, the Senate, each state had two representatives. In the other, the House of Representatives, the number of representatives each state had depended on its population. There was another balance that needed keeping in the young U.S. Congress: free and slave states. When a territory was ready to join the U.S. as a state, there needed to be another new state as well. One would need to be free, the other slave in order to maintain the balance. To make this process easier, Congress came up with the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Essentially, they drew a line just above Arkansas to determine whether states would be free or not. The states entering the U.S. that were south of the line were deemed slave states, those north, free. This operated sufficiently until California decided it was ready to join the States. Evidently, the line would have split California in half. The people of California, however, did not want to be divided. Additionally, those who lived in California wanted to be an entire free state. The southern states would not be at all content if the balance was disrupted in the legislature. This resulted in the compromise of 1850. Quite a few things resulted from this compromise. Firstly, The U.S. took over the land claimed from Mexico by Texas. In return, the U.S. assumed the debt owed to Mexico by Texas. From this extra land, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada were formed. These new states were allowed to decide for themselves to be free or slave. Additionally, California became a free state and slavery was abolished in Washington D.C. Then, to appease the states of the south, the extremely controversial fugitive slave act was passed. Citizens had to help recover runaway slaves and return them to their proper owner. Also, the government employed additional people to be slave catchers. Fugitives were denied jury trials and the slave claiming process was much easier for the slave owners. The GA platform was Georgia's acceptance of the Compromise of 1850. Although Georgia did not reject the compromise, it also decreed that the state would tolerate no more actions against the rights of the south. These compromises represented the young United States trying to work things out before it led to civil war. As we all know now, their efforts were in vain.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Platform