Thomas Jefferson, in response to the Missouri Compromise, expressed, “ I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence… and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper” (Meacham 475). Jefferson explained how the Missouri Compromise led to the sectionalism between the North and South, which caused the Civil War. Western expansion and the Louisiana Purchase both led to the formation of the Missouri Compromise as more states started applying for statehood, which disrupted the balance between the slave and free states. Additionally, the division between the North and South increased rapidly because of the Missouri Compromise. It created a line that …show more content…
This huge debate showed just how slavery divided the nation (Forbes VI). Differences between the views of the North and South led to a deeper divide, which in turn led to the Civil War. Most people knew the consequences of banning slavery, so they kept the Missouri Compromise in place. Overwhelmed with this issue, politicians dealt with the troubling issue carefully because it potentially could separate the Union, and everyone knew the South would not agree to the ban on slavery (Forbes IX). During this time, states entered the Union in pairs-one slave and one free. An equal number of slave and free states allowed the nation to stay together, but no one addressed the problems that eventually would arise due to more territory and an unequal number of slave and free states. Northerners defended the compromise and regarded it as a sacred document (Forbes VIII). Southerners later realized that they made a mistake by signing the compromise because more free states can be created than slave states. Congressmen from the South argued for the repeal of the compromise because they wanted slavery to extend across the country. Luckily, for the South, the Union gained more territory from the Mexican War. Mexico surrendered in 1848 and ceded multiple territories to the United States. Territories that Mexico ceded include California, New Mexico, …show more content…
Western expansion and the Louisiana Purchase both led to the formation of the Missouri Compromise because more states started applying for statehood, and this distorted the balance between the slave and free states. Division between the North and South increased as a result of the Missouri Compromise. It created a line that separated the Union and set it to the path of Civil War. At first, the North and South saw the compromise as a successful document that maintained the balance between the number of slave and free states; however, when the Union gained more territory through Mexican War, Congress decided to modify the existing compromise. Finally, the repeal of the compromise made the final push that led to the explosion of animosity between the North and South, which led to the Civil War. Slavery in the new territories remained the main issue that caused the necessity of forming the Missouri Compromise. Jefferson accurately stated that the Missouri Compromise stood only as a temporary solution that eventually led to the full-fledged sectional war between
Tempers raged and arguments started because of the Missouri Compromise. The simple act caused many fatal events because of what was changed within the United States. It may not seem like a big thing now, but before slavery had been abolished, the topic of slavery was an idea that could set off fights. The Missouri Compromise all started in late in 1819 when the Missouri Territory applied to the Union to become a slave state. The problem Congress had with accepting Missouri as a slave state was the new uneven count of free states and slave states. With proslavery states and antislavery states already getting into arguments, having a dominant number of either slave or free states would just ignite the flame even more. Many representatives from the north, such as James Tallmadge of New York, had already tried to pass another amendment that would abolish slavery everywhere. Along with other tries to eliminate slavery, his effort was soon shot down. The fact that people couldn’t agree on whether or not slavery should be legalized made trying to compose and pass a law nearly impossible.
The United States began to dissatisfy some of its citizens and so the concerns of sectionalism, or the split of the country began to arise. There was a continuous riff between the south and the north over a few issues, a major one being slavery. The south argued that the slaves were necessary to support the southern economy. According to document A, the south were angry that the north was creating taxes that hurt the southern economy, thus increasing the need for slavery since they had to make up for the expense of the taxes. The south felt that the north was able...
First, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 established the slavery line that allowed slavery below it and forbid slavery above it. It also gave the South another slave state in Missouri and the north a free state in Maine. Although each region gained a state in the Senate, the south benefited most from the acquisition because Missouri was in such a pivotal position in the country, right on the border. Later on with the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Missouri had a big role in getting Kansas to vote south because many proslavery Missourians crossed the border into Kansas to vote slavery. The Missouri Compromise also helped slavery because the line that was formed to limit slavery had more land below the line than above it. Therefore, slavery was given more land to be slave and therefore more power in the Senate, when the territories became state. In effect, the north got the short end of the stick and the south was given the first hint of being able to push around the north. The interesting thing is, the north agreed to all these provisions that would clearly benefit the south.
Ever since the formation of the colonies, differences stood in the way of a fundamental relationship between the north and the south. Despite these differences they were not the cause of the problems. In the 1820’s, the growth between territories and regions were increasing. This expansion went too far causing it to become a worldwide crisis. More chaos arouse since the north and the south did not agree on anything. The north strongly disagreed with the expansion of slavery, while south agreed to expand slavery throughout new territories and regions. The north's decision was based on factors such as political and economical threat instead of a moral threat, as it was depicted in the Missouri Compromise. However, the Compromise of 1850 , showed a more argument towards the morality threat, making it more united than ever.
Throughout the period of Antebellum there were many compromises made regarding slavery: The ⅗ compromise in 1787, the Missouri Compromise in 1820, the Tariff of 1833, and finally the compromise. With so many agreements made between the North and the South, why was america not able to make a compromise in 1861 when the secession crisis was happening? What happened between 1787 to 1861 causing the United States to change from a country of compromising opponents to a country of fighting enemies? The answer answer is not so simple.There are a myriad of factors which resulted in the ultimate failure of compromise, but the most important ones are as follows: The imbalance of power between the North and South made it incapable for the two sides to make a compromise that would be in the southerners own self interest, disillusionment with the nature of compromisation made neither the North nor the South want to work it out, and finally the growing divide between the two regions, along with clashing political beliefs caused an animosity between them that could not be reconciled by mere compromise.
This deal was one of the reasons why the Civil War happened. The Missouri Compromise was a deal between the north and south to allow Missouri into the Union as a slave state, while Maine came in as a free state. This deal made sure of a foreboding civil war between the North and the South. This deal was a big mistake, as the north and south grew closer to a civil war. The Missouri Compromise was one of the biggest mistakes in American history.
The Missouri Compromise acted as a balancing act among the anti-slave states and the slave states. Since states generally entered the union in pairs, it stat...
Since the beginning of their new nation, the United States had many differences between the Northern and Southern states. During the Constitutional Convention they disagreed on how to determine their representation in the house based on population; the Southerners wanted to count their slaves and the Northerners did not, which lead to the three-fifths compromise. Later in the Convention there were concessions given to the South, which left the Northerners feeling uneasy, such as: a guarantee that the slave trade would not be interfered with by Congress until 1808 and slave owners were given the right to recover refugee slaves from anywhere in the United States. While many Northern delegates were disappointed with the rights given to the South, they felt it was necessary for the good of the Nation. This was necessary to form a strong central government and union between the states.
In 1819, Missouri wanted to join the Union, although in the North, as a slave state. In would make the balance of power in the Congress unequal.
In the years paving the way to the Civil War, both north and south were disagreeable with one another, creating the three “triggering” reasons for the war: the fanaticism on the slavery issue, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the separation of the Democratic Party. North being against the bondage of individuals and the South being for it, there was no real way to evade the clash. For the south slavery was a form of obtaining a living, without subjugation the economy might drop majorly if not disappear. In the North there were significant ethical issues with the issue of subjugation. Amazing measures to keep and dispose of subjugation were taken and there was never a genuine adjusted center for bargain. Despite the fact that there were a lot of seemingly insignificant issues, the fundamental thing that divided these two states was bondage and the flexibilities for it or against. With these significant extremes, for example, John Brown and Uncle Tom's Cabin, the south felt disdain towards the danger the Northerners were holding against their alleged flexibilities. The more hatred the South advanced, the more combative they were to anything the Northerners did. Northerners were irritated and it parted Democrats over the issue of bondage and made another Republican gathering, which included: Whigs, Free Soilers, Know Nothings and previous Democrats and brought about a split of segments and abbreviated the street to common war. Southerners loathed the insubordination of the north and started to address how they could stay with the Union.
Additionally, the majority of states had conflicts between slavery in their territory, one of them dealt with missouri. Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a slave state; this became a problem because missouri ruined the balance for free slaves and slave states. The northern states wanted to ban slavery from occurring in missouri because the unbalanced situation it put towards the other states. In response, the southern states declared how congress doesn’t have the power to ban slavery in missouri. However, Henry Clay offers a solution, the missouri compromise of 1820. Missouri admitted as slave state and Maine becomes a free slave state. Slavery is banned in Louisiana creating a 36 30 line in missouri’s southern border; this maintained the balance in the U.S senate.
In the beginning, the Missouri Compromise was actually weakening any difficult situations between the sections. The Compromise of 1820 stopped the crisis between the North and the South., when they had to decide whether the Missouri should be a free state or slave state....
After Thomas Jefferson, who served as president from 1801 to 1809, made the Louisiana Purchase on April 30, 1803, the U.S. gained 828 thousand square miles of territory from France. In 1817, the Missouri territory assembly applied for statehood. Missouri was slated to be the first state, other than Louisiana, to be created from the purchase. Considering there was slaves already in Missouri territory, it was clear that Missouri was going to enter the Union as a slave state and have implications on the rest of the new territory from the Louisiana Purchase unless congress opposed it (America Past and Present). Fear began to rise due to the unbalance of free and slave states. Fortunately, the Maine territory was separating from Massachusetts and requested for statehood. Correspondly, the senate passed the Missouri Compromise on February 1820, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine enter as a free state, making the free and slave states balanced once again. Another amendment was passed to prohibit slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern border of Missouri. This event envisioned a possible threat on the relationship between the North and South.
In 1849 once again the Union was facing the same crises it had faced in 1820. California now wanted to be admitted as a free state. Once again Henry Clay came up with a compromise to resolve this conflict. California would indeed be admitted as free while the rest of the Southwest territories would decide the slavery issue by popular sovereignty. It would also abolish slavery altogether in Washington DC and initiate a stronger fugitive slave law to appease the South. This last concession angered people in the North however. Free blacks were concerned as now a Southerner could accuse any black person as being a runaway slave.
It was the growing war that led to Compromise of 1850 to establish peace just like the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise consisted of five bills providing different guides. One of the bills declared that California was an anti-slavery state and made it the 16th state to be Free from slavery. The second bill created two states namely New Mexico territory and Utah territory. The third bill abolished slave trade in Colombia where businessmen enriched themselves from slave trade but retained slavery in general. A fourth bill provided that Texas disown entitlement to New Mexico as well as North of Missouri. However, Texas would lose boundary claims but the congress agreed to take over its debt. A fifth bill provided that slaves should return to their owners hence favoring the South recover slaves that had escaped. Also, the North were required to return slaves who had escape back to their owners. Following various failed drafts by Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John Calhoun, the bill was finally drafted by Senator Douglas which saw all the bills passed. The compromise established peace for a long time until the American Civil War aimed at abolishing