The Missouri Compromise
By 1819, a heated controversy over whether or not Missouri was to be admitted to the Union as a slave state or as a free state was underway. Before Missouri's admission to the Union, there was an equal balance of free state and slave state senators in the United Sates Senate. If Missouri was to be admitted as a slave state without the admission of another free state, it would have upset the balance in the Senate. Not too long after the conflict over Missouri had begun, Maine had applied for statehood as well. Eventually, the United States Congress managed to come up with a solution to the slavery conflicts, called the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri compromise basically allowed for Maine to be admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, but it also said that all new states formed in the Union north of the southern border of Missouri in the area of the Louisiana Purchase were to be free. Although some may have thought that the conflict over slavery was over in the United States, the Missouri Compromise merely postponed America's problems. The admission of Missouri to the Union caused one of America's most famous and heated political conflicts. "Never before or since did such a
The North proclaimed, as Garrison did, that it would not stand for moderation. Calhoun once said: It would be well for those interested to reflect whether there now exists, or ever has existed, a wealthy and civilized community in which one portion did not live on the labor of another; and whether the form in which slavery exists in the South is not but one modification of this universal condition. The slaves worked with plantation owners to create profitable plantations, and the plantation owners could not possibly grasp the concept of a successful plantation without the assistance of slave labor. Congress created the Missouri Compromise. The free states of the United States of America, however, felt very differently about the whole situation. The Missouri Compromise stated that "Missouri was to be admitted as a slave state, but it was stipulated that no new states that were formed above the southern border of Missouri would be allowed in as slave states" (Missouri 1). It is easy to see what a sizable conflict must have risen when Missouri had requested admittance to the Union. They also knew that if Missouri was to become a free state, there would be more senators representing free states in the United States Senate, which would cause a negative effect on the South because it would then be overpowered in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Also, the fact that new states north of the southern border of Missouri, excluding Missouri, were to be free only applied to the remaining lands of the Louisiana Purchase. After all off the Congress sessions that had met, and all of the debates that had occurred, the North and South had finally reached a decision to resolve the entire Missouri conflict.
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