Missouri Compromise

(noun)

An agreement passed in 1820 between proslavery and antislavery factions in Congress, primarily involving the regulation of slavery in the western territories.

Related Terms

  • secession

Examples of Missouri Compromise in the following topics:

  • The Missouri Compromise

    • The Missouri Compromise of 1820 concerned the regulation of slavery in the western territories.
    • The Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and antislavery factions in the U.S.
    • Congress finally came to an agreement called the "Missouri Compromise" in 1820.
    • The provisions of the Missouri Compromise forbidding slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north were effectively repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
    • This map of the United States, circa 1820, shows the line between free and slave states that was established by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
  • The Kansas-Nebraska Act

    • The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had prohibited slavery in all new territories north of the 36° 30' latitude line, effectively banning slavery in the Kansas territory.
    • Douglas (IL), repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and mandated that popular sovereignty would determine any new territory's slave or free status.
    • Proslavery settlers came to Kansas mainly from neighboring Missouri, and some residents of Missouri crossed into Kansas solely for the purpose of voting in territorial elections.
    • Southern Democrats were pleased that the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, while Northerners (including Northern Democrats) decried the opening of territory to slave owners where slavery had previously been prohibited for more than 30 years.
    • Already a fractured party, the Whigs collapsed and made way for the Northern-dominated Republican Party: a coalition of Free-Soilers, Northern Democrats, and antislavery forces that bitterly resented the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
  • The Dred Scott Decision

    • The Dred Scott decision was particularly significant because the Court concluded that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories (nullifying the Missouri Compromise) and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court.
    • In 1820, he followed his owner, Peter Blow, to Missouri.
    • In 1836, Scott was again moved to the Wisconsin territory, an area where slavery was "forever prohibited" under the Missouri Compromise.
    • With proslavery and antislavery supporters pushing for a resolution to sectional conflict over the issue, the Court used its authority in the Dred Scott case more to render a final ruling on the Missouri Compromise rather than to decide the fate of a single man.
    • This marked only the second time the Supreme Court had found an act of Congress, in this case the Missouri Compromise, to be unconstitutional.
  • Final Efforts at Compromise

    • In the House, the Committee of Thirty-Three (composed of one member from each state) was formed to reach a compromise to preserve the Union.
    • The Crittenden Compromise proposed by Senator Crittenden was a final attempt by Democrats to prevent disunion through another compromise.
    • In effect, Crittenden proposed a mere extension of the Missouri Compromise line dividing slave from free states, bringing his efforts directly in conflict with the Republican party and president-elect Lincoln.
    • Furthermore, Southern leaders in the middle and border states refused to agree to the compromise without full endorsement from the Republicans.
    • Crittenden's Compromise was a final attempt to prevent disunion by proposing an extension of the Missouri Compromise boundary between free and slave territories to the Pacific
  • The Election of 1816 and the Monroe Presidency

    • The Panic of 1819 caused a painful economic depression, and an amended bill for gradually eliminating slavery in Missouri precipitated two years of bitter debate in Congress.
    • The Missouri Compromise bill resolved the struggle, pairing Missouri as a slave state with Maine as a free state and barring slavery north of latitude 36°30′ north.
    • The Missouri Compromise lasted until 1857 when it was declared unconstitutional by the U.S.
  • Bleeding Kansas

    • These conflicts took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of Missouri between 1854 and 1861.
    • The events later known as Bleeding Kansas were set into motion by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which nullified the Missouri Compromise and instead implemented the concept of popular sovereignty.
    • The resulting Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, drafted by Democrat Stephen Douglas (IL), repealed the Compromise of 1820 (which had previously closed Kansas to slaveowners) and put the Compromise of 1850 to the test.
    • The Compromise of 1850, however, had mandated that popular sovereignty would determine any new territory's slave or free status.
    • In a matter of months, armed guerrillas were fighting each other on the Missouri-Kansas border, and the territory was faced with a near-anarchic situation.
  • The Compromise of 1850

    • The Compromise of 1850 left the question of slave versus free states to popular sovereignty.
    • Southern politicians, alarmed that they would lose their majority, pushed for Congress to pass legislation that would allow California to be admitted as a slave state, or to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, effectively splitting the state in half into one free state and one slave state.
    • In the Compromise of 1850, popular sovereignty was not defined as a guiding principle on the slave issue going forward.
    • During the debate over the Compromise, John C.
    • Evaluate the impact of the Compromise of 1850 on the slavery debate
  • Whigs and Democrats

    • Realizing that this sectional divide could split the country, Whigs and Democrats came to a compromise that they hoped would prevent secession.
    • The ensuing Compromise of 1850 allowed California to be admitted as a free state, but strengthened the Fugitive Slave Law and made no provisions for how other territories could address the slavery issue.
    • There was no compromise that could keep the Whigs united, which contributed to the party's demise in the 1850s.
    • The deaths of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster that year severely weakened the party, and the Compromise of 1850 fractured the Whigs along proslavery and antislavery lines.
    • Most remaining Northern Whigs, including Abraham Lincoln, began to form factions that attacked the Act, appealing to widespread Northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
  • Secession of the South

    • The Crittenden Compromise of December 1860 proposed that the old Missouri Compromise latitude boundary line be extended west to the Pacific.
    • Unfortunately, this proposal was in direct conflict with the stated policies of the Republican Party and president-elect Lincoln, and Southern leaders refused to agree to the compromise without a full endorsement from Republicans.
    • This resulted in a stalemate between both sides, and the Crittenden Compromise was ultimately voted down in the Senate.
  • The Politics of Slavery

    • That was a compromise, as Thomas Jefferson's original proposal in 1784 to end slavery in all the territories lost in Congress by one vote.
    • As a result, the territories south of the Ohio River (and Missouri) continued to have full slavery.
    • Louis, Missouri after the death of their master on the grounds that they had lived in a territory where slavery was forbidden.
    • The electorate split four ways: Southern Democrats endorsed slavery, while the Republicans denounced it; Northern Democrats said democracy required the people to decide on slavery locally, while the Constitutional Union Party said the survival of the Union was at stake and everything else should be compromised.
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