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]