Document 7a
The expiring months of the [James K.] Polk Administration in 1848–49 gave a dark augury [sign]
of the storms to come. Congress no sooner met in December than the agitation of the slavery
question recommenced [began again]; and even when the surface of the political sea for a few
days grew calm, beneath it all was commotion and intrigue. Polk in his last annual message dwelt
upon the importance of promptly supplying Territorial governments for California and New
Mexico. Three modes of settlement, he suggested, were open. One, which he preferred, was to
carry the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific; another, to let the people of the Territories
decide the slavery question when they applied for admission; and the third, to lay the issue
before the Supreme Court. But Northern free-soilers and Southern extremists could agree on
none of the three.…
Source: Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 1, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947
Based on this document, what were two ways President Polk proposed to address the issue of slavery in the
territories? [2]