MDP - The Missouri Compromise (Lesson)
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise
After Thomas Jefferson’s acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France, many Americans and immigrants flocked to the territory to settle the newly acquired lands. As the population grew in the fledgling territories, they became eligible to apply for statehood. The Missouri Territory met the requirements for statehood; however its admission to the Union would upset the power balance between free and slave states in the United States Congress and in the electoral college. The admission of Missouri would upset the balance of power in the House of Representatives and the Senate; as a result, either pro- or antislavery legislators would dictate the policies and laws of the United States in relation to the hotly-debated issue of slavery.
Moreover, the number of electoral votes for each state correspond to the number of representatives each state has in the House of Representatives. Those electoral votes determine the outcome of presidential elections every four years. For example, a state that has 16 representatives in the House also has 16 electoral votes for president. Those electoral votes are very important to states’ influence and power in Washington. As a result, Americans were concerned about how new states were admitted to the Union—whether or not the new state would be a free or a slave state.
Missouri, already accustomed to slavery, would also be the first territory from the Louisiana Purchase to become a state. Northern legislators who were worried about the public acceptance of slavery in Missouri feared admission to the United States would set a precedent for future territories becoming states. Likewise, Southern legislators feared the Northern legislators would block all efforts for the expansion of slavery and thus reduce or eliminate the “peculiar institution” over time.
Henry Clay, a congressman from Kentucky, authored a compromise that maintained the balance of power in Congress and the electoral college in order to settle the issue of the balance of power resulting from Missouri statehood peacefully. Clay’s Missouri Compromise was based on the addition of Missouri as a slave state and the addition of Maine (previously a part of Massachusetts) as a free state. Furthermore, the Missouri Compromise provided that Missouri’s southern boundary would serve as a line of demarcation between free and slave states into the future. Thus, those states (with the obvious exception of Missouri) north of the 36-30 line of latitude would have a free status, while those south of the line of latitude would be slave states.
The Missouri Compromise settled the balance of power issue in Congress, if only temporarily. The compromise increased the number of states but also increased the tension over the future of slavery in the United States. The Missouri Compromise figuratively and literally created separation on the issue of slavery. Sectionalist attitudes infiltrated the political sphere and the mindset caused Americans to place their local interests over those of the nation as a whole. While the Missouri Compromise provided a solution in 1820, a stop gap of sorts, it also contributed to the issues that led to civil war four decades later.
Map of the Missouri Compromise, By Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Consider this...
The Missouri Compromise kept the balance of power in the United States Congress and in the electoral college. Why didn’t it solved the problem of slavery in the long-term? What issues temporarily settled by the Missouri Compromise created more serious problems by the mid-19th century ?
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