Essay about Missouri Compromise of 1820

The Missouri Compromise was created by Henry Clay and it was passed in 1820.The Missouri compromise was made between Northern anti-slavery states and Southern pro-slavery states, because they wanted both states to be equal. During the Compromise, the north and south arugued with each other whether the new states should be slave state or free state. There were many effects that caused by the Missouri Compromise. For example, Maine entered the United Staes as a free state and Missouri entered the United Sates as a slave state. But the south lost the chance to admit more slave holding states besides what they owned in the small territory, and in the north Maine was separated from Massachusetts. During that age, slavery was banned in parts of the

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 helped to mend the relationship between the north and south. All the states in the Union were in an argument over what the new states should be - free or slave states. With the conflict steadily rising a congressman came up with a solution to alleviate the tension. This compromise set the tone for the rest of the civil rights time period. It ended after holding peace for a few decades. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 relieved the intensity of the problems between free and slave states’ political power.

The 1820 Missouri Compromise played a large role in the campaign against slavery. In 1819 Missouri became a statehood and congress considered framing a state constitution, with this a representative attempted to add a anti-slavery legislation with it. This is what started the process of the campaign against slavery. Henry Clay made a large contribution toward this compromise in 1820, with his new ideas on how to settle the conflict between the North and the South, which lasted until 1954.All the compromise’s made from 1820's to the Kansas Nebraska compromise

However, because of the efforts of these anti slavery societies and states, compromises began to sprout. The Missouri Compromise is one of these that was an effort by Congress to diffuse sectional rivalries that came with the debate over slavery, which let Missouri enter the Union as a slave state but Maine as a free state. This helped ease some tension, adding more free states to the Union but also keeping some people happy by letting them continue with slavery where needed. More on the abolition movement that became increasingly prominent in the 1830s, churches and politics began to be apart of the opposition and supported emancipation. With more

At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between proslavery and antislavery factions within the U.S. Congress and across the country. They reached a boiling point after Missouri’s 1819 request for admission to the Union as a slave state, which threatened to upset the delicate balance between slave states and free states. To keep the peace, Congress came up with a two-part compromise, granting Missouri’s request but also admitting Maine as a free state. It also passed an amendment that drew an imaginary line across the former Louisiana Territory, establishing a boundary between free and slave regions that remained the law of the land until it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

In 1819, two more states wishing to join the union, were Missouri and Maine. Missouri wanted to join the union in the in the north, but as a slave state. this would make the balance of power in congress unequal. Many northerners opposed this idea. Northerners proposed that Missouri be a slave state and that no more slaves were to be brought in, and all slave children would be free at age 25. Eventually Missouri would be a free state. Southerners were opposed to this idea. Congress debated for months. This brought about the Missouri Compromise of 1820, when Henry Clay proposed that Maine enter the union as a free state. He also proposed prohibiting slavery above the 36’30’ latitude, which is the southern boundary of Missouri. Since plantations would not be able to survive further north of this line, the South agreed.

Some southerners saw a possibility to use the act to get slavery legalized in some territories, like Kansas. The Kansas territory that bordered on Missouri was a slave state. As a territory, law enforcement was inconsistent in Kansas. Missourians interested in spreading slavery traveled just across the border, set up their own territorial government with a constitution that permitted slavery, and then demanded that Washington instantly recognize it. President Bucnanan, a Pennsylvanian, wanted to admit Kansas as a slave state. Congress refused, and most observers agree that the Kansas election results were the result of Missourians who voted early and often. As usual, most northerners were against any slave act. The Missouri Compromise of 1820

This collection contains congressional publications from 1774 to 1875, including debates, bills, laws, and journals.

The Missouri Compromise was in 1820 then the South seceded forty years later in 1860. Many Americans agreed that the issue of slavery could and would lead to a civil war, even Adams who said “If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which is ought to break.”(Doc 4) and Pinckney said “The may be the division

Since Missouri’s population was composed of 16 percent slaves, it would be admitted as a slave state therefore upsetting the balance in favor of the south. Northerners didn’t like this because Missouri was at the same latitude as the free states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and because of this they feared that it would set a precedent for slave states coming more north. The north and south continued to argue and argue over the issue of slavery. The north accused the south of trying to extend the institution of slavery and the south said that the north was conspiring to destroy the Union and end slavery. To resolve this crisis, congress passed a series of agreements that became known as the Missouri Compromise, which smoothed over the crisis. In 1820, Congress admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state in order to balance the number of free and slave states and to keep order between the north and south. Also, it prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri. This compromise soon fell apart after it was passed. Missouri drafted its own Constitution saying that free blacks were prohibited from entering their territory. Because of this provision, which was against the federal Constitution stating that citizens of one state were entitled to the same rights as citizens of other states, antislavery northerners

In 1820 Missouri wanted to join the Union as a slave state. Since it would ruin the balance between Slave states and Free states in the Senate, Henry Clay came up with the Missouri compromise. What it did was make Missouri a Slave state and Maine a free state. “This law prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line.”(Bibliography source #2) It also allowed the owners to recapture runaway slaves that fled to the North, like wanted posters describing them and how much for the reward. “Runaway from the subscriber, on the night of Thursday, the 30th of September” (Bibliography#3) They limited themselves by only applying the Compromise to the states gained in the Louisiana Purchase, this than led to the fighting after the Mexican war when America gained new territories in the West. This ruined the Missouri Compromise. Historians believe that if the Compromise had been applied to all

In February of 1819, Missouri applied for statehood in the United States. Because of the North’s consistent increase in population, it took the upper hand in national politics in the House of Representatives. Before the North began increasing its population in substantial numbers, the southern states had had the upper hand in Congress, in part because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which gave them more representation in the House of Representatives, due to their slave population. At the time, the Senate was divided in national politics, because eleven states were free states, and eleven states were slave states ("The Civil War in Missouri").

The Missouri compromise was a very important event that marked the beginning of the long battle against slavery. In the years leading up to the Missouri compromise tensions were rising between the North and the South. The states were all being divided into slave states and free states. Free states were states that were anti-slavery and were made up of mainly Northern states while slave states were states that supported slavery and were all mostly Southern states. Before the Missouri compromise the amounts of slave and free states were kept balanced. When Missouri met all the requirements to become a state and wanted to be admitted as a slave state, it threatened to tip the balance. The Missouri compromise allowed the admission of Missouri as a slave state while at the same time allowing Maine to be admitted as a free state, maintaining the balance. It also prohibited slavery in the states North of the southern boundary of Missouri. This conflict inspired other people and was the first major battle against slavery. It also kept the number of free and slave states even preventing the balance from being tipped in favor of slavery. One of the arguments that I intend to make to prove that the Missouri compromise was the beginning of this battle is that the Missouri Compromise prevented pro slavery states from gaining majority in the senate. A second point that I will make is that the Missouri compromise opened up serious debates and conversations that otherwise may not have

In 1819, the Union existed in a precarious balance of eleven free states and eleven slave states, with western expansion threatening to upset it. Although the Northwest Ordinance did not define an explicit line of demarcation between future slave and free states, the generally lateral nature of westward expansion mitigated the need for one. However, when the territory of Missouri applied for admission to the Union as a slave state, crisis ensued. Representative James Tallmadge, Jr. incited chaos when he proposed an amendment to the bill for Missouri’s admission that would prohibit the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and mandate the gradual end of slavery. After the amendment was struck down in the senate, several northern reform groups began protesting. Former Federalists jumped on the opportunity to return to politics. Southerners were equally aggravated because, as they viewed it, slavery was a property issue, and therefore a state issue, not a federal one. Only through ‘The Great Compromiser’, Henry Clay’s uncanny ability to settle disputes, was the Missouri Compromise reached by deciding that Maine’s application for statehood would retain balance. To prevent further confusion the southern border of Missouri, the 36º30' parallel, was established as the demarcating line. The Compromise only temporarily cooled tensions between the

At first the Missouri Compromise worked out well, but white slave owners were unpleased that Congress had given itself the right to control slave laws. Northerners weren’t happy either. They were upset about Congress letting slavery spread through the states.