The Rolling Stones were right: You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.

Historians unanimously agree that the famous Stones track was a cryptic reference to the Compromise of 1850, where nobody got what they wanted but the nation got what it needed.

Kind of.

One thing's for sure: there just can't be any compromises when it comes to slavery. It's immoral, brutal, and—since 1865— illegal in the U.S.

But rewind back to mid-19th-century America, and Congress was scrambling to do just that: put together a compromise that would satisfy both the free states of the North and the slave states of the South. The threat of secession over the issue of slavery was always on everyone's mind, and it was up to Congress to find a way to hold the Union together.

Every time the U.S. acquired new territory, even way back in 1803 with the ginormous Louisiana Purchase, the same question came up: would any new states carved out of that territory be slave states or free states? Since the founding of the nation, the government had seen to it that, for every slave state admitted to the Union, a free state would be admitted to keep things balanced.

Then in 1850, oops, it happened again, when California, having been ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848, petitioned to be admitted as a free state, potentially upsetting the delicate balance because there were no new slave states on the horizon.

We can't over-emphasize just how big of an issue this was in the antebellum (pre-Civil War) period. Every time the question came up, it was like the Montagues and Capulets. Or Pawnee and Eagleton. So when it became clear that the U.S. was going to get another big chunk of land as a result of the Mexican War, the slave vs. free showdown began. It lasted about four years.

There were numerous attempts to solve the problem in one way or another, chopping up the territories this way and that, but they were all defeated.

Finally, veteran senator Henry Clay came up with a complicated compromise bill. It was debated in Congress from early February to August of 1850, when it was defeated in the Senate. Clay tried to include something for everyone, and he ended up with nothing.

Wait, it was defeated? Then what are we doing here? Does this mean we can go back to hate-watching Gossip Girls?

Not yet.

Stephen Douglas, the young senator from Illinois, took the reins after the bill's defeat. He split Clay's omnibus (all-in-one) bill up into its different parts, and got them passed individually instead of in one giant gulp. The five bills, all part of Clay's original biggie, were passed in this order:

• Texas boundaries were set, with Texas agreeing to give up claims to some territory in New Mexico in exchange for $10 million bucks and lifetime HBO for all its residents.
• California was admitted as a free state.
• A territorial government was created in Utah.
• The Fugitive Slave Act 2.0 was passed, including a provision that even northerners had to agree to chase down runaway slaves or pay a fine.
• Buying and selling slaves was outlawed in Washington, D.C.

Turns out politicians are fine helping a compromise pass so long as they aren't seen voting for things they don't believe in.

The Compromise of 1850 kept the peace (relatively) for a decade, but at the same time, it fanned the flames of sectionalism. The new Fugitive Slave Act was especially shocking to the North. The Compromise encompassed all the hot-button issues of the antebellum period that would eventually lead to the Civil War, all in one rather complicated package.

American politics is full of complex (and questionable) compromises. From the writing of the Constitution to the Affordable Care Act to deciding whether barbecued chicken or hot dogs should be the official Fourth of July fare (hot dogs, obviously), politicians have had to figure out what they're willing to sacrifice in order to get a "yes" vote from the other side of the aisle.

Sometimes it's a lot.

But, hey, that's compromise.

It may be hard to believe in today's insanely polarized political climate, but there was a time when Democrats and Republicans, or Whigs and Federalists or whoever, actually got together and hammered out their differences instead of just hurling personal insults and questioning their opponents' mental health. (Although, seriously, you do have to be crazy not to recognize that hot dogs are the only appropriate way to celebrate our nation's independence from Great Britain. Anything else is completely un-American.)

It's not that politicians of the past didn't fight and talk trash about each other. They did. If anything, the pols of the 19th century could get even more creative with their insults than today's. John Quincy Adams once called Thomas Jefferson "a slur upon the moral government of the world," and Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner called Stephen Douglas a "noisome, squat and name-less animal" (source).

But that's not all they did. After everyone sounded off, they could usually sit down together and get stuff done.

Like the Compromise of 1850.

Think about it. That debate was about the most contentious and emotional political and moral issue you could imagine: ownership and enslavement of other human beings. Sure, there was so much drama, angry words, and simmering tension, it's a shame they didn't have television back in then. Keeping Up with the Clays would have been a hit. (Or America's Next Top Model, because that show is timeless.)

But they still came up with a compromise, albeit a temporary one. Today it seems like compromise is a dirty word in Congress. Bills are voted on along party lines, and departing from your party line can get you in big political trouble.

Maybe the guys in 1850 knew they had to come up with a compromise because the literal existence of the young nation was at stake. Secession was a real possibility if something couldn't be done to placate the North and South.

Today, our Union is all grown up and a little more robust. Maybe we figure things will be okay even if our hyper-partisan representatives sometimes can't act like grownups. Even when lawmakers do compromise, they hate to admit it. Ideological purity seems to have turned the idea of compromise into a political liability.

They could sure learn a thing or two from Henry Clay. Or Ben Franklin.

Be Like Ben

Benjamin Franklin—as wise and experienced as any politician in his day— had some serious doubts about the Constitution that was up for approval in 1787. But the old man knew he'd have to compromise:

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others (source).
Respect the judgment of others? Admit you don't know everything? Opinions change based on new info? Shocking ideas in our modern political climate.

Sure, Congress can get things done by pushing through bills on a party-line vote if one party has a majority in the House and Senate. But if that's all that happens, the nation feels more and more divided. Maybe not "we're outta here" divided (well...), but fractured anyway.

So props to Clay, Webster, and Douglas for powering through the partisan minefield. And as for Shmoop? Well, we guess we can at least learn to appreciate the case for barbecued chicken.