The Missouri Compromise

743 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: American civil war causes and consecuencies

The Missouri Compromise

A compromise is when two or more parties in disagreement reach an agreement that does not give all sides exactly what they want, but enough of what they want so that they can be happy. Compromise is the best possible solution to a conflict however it does not always work. One needs only to look at situations such as the Bosnia-Herzegovina to see that. During the events prior to the American Civil War, many different compromises were made in an attempt to impede the growing disagreements. However this merely prolonged the inevitable. The differences between North and South were far to great and compromise did not stand a chance at preventing the impending conflict. This was most clearly shown in the ways in which the three main compromises, the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, failed.

In 1820 Missouri wanted to join the Union as a slave state. As this would ruin the balance between Slave states and Free states in the Senate, Henry Clay proposed the Missouri compromise. This arranged it that while Missouri was admitted as a Slave state, Maine was also admitted as a free state. It also created an imaginary line along the 36o latitude, where slavery was allowed below it but prevented above it. However they limited themselves by only applying the Compromise to lands gained in the Louisiana purchase. This led to conflict after the Mexican war in which America gained new territories in the West. This doomed the Missouri Compromise, which was probably the most promising of the three. Had the Compromise been applied to all American lands then perhaps it could have succeeded. Instead the Missouri Compromise failed and only led to further conflict between north and south in the future.

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.

Show More
Related

  • Summary And Slavery: The Causes Of The Missouri Compromise

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Having slavery be a significant part of many American lives, the Missouri Compromise was another sign that slavery was still a want in new states. The change of slavery states and free states still wasn’t where it needed to be in order to be accepted by today’s standards, but there were already people rallying to get it removed. Many people were involved in the Missouri Compromise as well as affected by it, but, thankfully, none of it is still in place today.

    Read More

  • Sectional Compromises In The 19th Century

    1433 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Sectionalism of the 19th Century

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • What Were the Key Issues Leading To the Civil War?

    2033 Words  | 5 Pages

    As the country began to grow and expand we continued to see disagreements between the North and South; the Missouri Territory applied for statehood; the South wanted them admitted as a slave state and the North as a free state. Henry Clay eventually came up with the Missouri Compromise, making Missouri a slave state and making Maine it’s own state, entering the union as a free state. After this compromise, any state admitted to the union south of the 36° 30’ latitude would be a slave state and a state north of it would be free. The country was very much sectionalized during this time. Thomas Jefferson felt this was a threat to the Union.

    Read More

  • The Civil War Was Inevitable

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Correspondly, the senate passed the Missouri Compromise in February 1820, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine to 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 to the relationship between the North and South. Moreover, the United States began to believe in a manifest destiny, a god-given right to expand its territory until it had absorbed all of North America, including Canada and Mexico.... ...

    Read More

  • Events Leading To The Civil War

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    The South did not want to lose slavery and wanted future territories to have slavery. Compromise is impossible to achieve. Going back to the quote, "The 1850's was a time of attempted compromise when compromise was no longer possible. " During the 1850's compromise was attempted by both the North and South and failed. It failed because both sides wanted different things, and this made compromise impossible.

    Read More

  • Causes of The American Civil War

    2128 Words  | 5 Pages

    After winning the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States gained the western territories, which included modern-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. However, controversial topics, that helped cause the Civil War, arouse with the addition of these new territories. Primarily, the people of the United States wanted to know whether the new territories would be admitted as free states or slave states. In order to avoid fighting between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North, Henry Clay (Whig) and Stephen Douglas (Democrat) drafted the Compromise of 1850. Although the compromise was created to stop conflict ...

    Read More

  • Animals In Our Society

    1576 Words  | 4 Pages

    For years, animals have been at the center of our world; “the lives of animals and humans have been inextricably intertwined” (Corbett, 178). Thus, based on the close relationship between animals and humans throughout history, in my opinion animals have been used in all cultures to reflect the nature of humanity, symbolizing societal and individual characteristics. The traits of animals are very simple to observe and recognize, whereas human behavior is more intricate and difficult to describe. Animals are familiar creatures to us, which mutely encourage projection of people’s emotions and attitudes onto them. Animals can be used and as we have learned most recently, they are used to convey deep dimensions of human feelings and ideas. When I think of animals, their representation and their symbolism in our society, I immediately think of ani...

    Read More

  • Understanding Special Education

    1233 Words  | 3 Pages

    Foregoing in view, the importance of detailed and accurate assessment at the beginning of the special education process cannot be underestimated. The success of the whole system depends upon this document.

    Read More

  • Elements Of Journalism

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    An argument can be made that Journalism is one of the very few professions in the world of media that is handled with some sort of dignity and pride. After reading “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, I realized how important journalism is to each and every one of us. Whether you’re a writer or a reader, the back and forth exchange between provider and consumer is extremely important in pushing society forward. Journalism after all is designed to challenge society, promote new ideas and spark conversation between one another. Despite the positives of journalism, there are issues that exist within the profession that cannot be excused and cannot be ignored.

    Read More

  • Relationship between Project Management and Business Strategy

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    Project management is the activity and process of motivating, planning, controlling and organizing resources in order to achieve a set of goals. A project is a provisional endeavor intended to produce an exceptional product, result or service (Anderson and Merna 387). A project is undertaken in order to meet a set of objectives and bring beneficial transformation or value addition. The main difficulty of project management is the ability to achieve all the goals for any project that has been assigned. The challenge is intensified when one is trying to achieve the goals while adhering to the constraints that had been preconceived (Anderson and Merna 389). The challenges range from time, scope, budget and quality to the secondary constraint of optimizing the allocation of required inputs, and their integration to the objectives that have been pre-defined.

    Read More

  • Principles And Benefits Of Project Management

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    Initially an introduction to project management is outlined with its benefit to the organizations. Then, an understanding on how organization objectives are achieved through programmes and projects is described. Some of the methodologies

    Read More

  • Journalism and Social Media

    1332 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Journalism Ethics Online Journalism Ethics Gatekeeping." Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .

    Read More

  • What Is The Importance Of Time In Project Management

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    A project is defined as a set of tasks and activities that are planned to achieve a defined goal that needs to be accomplished within a certain period of time (Dykstra, 2011:32). The overall project requires a specific individual with skills who managers the entire project for the specified outcomes to be achieved. Therefore, the person becomes the project manager. The management activities vary according to the complexity as well as the duration of the project. However, all project managers are responsible for ensuring that there is progress on the work and all work is done satisfactorily. The term project management is defined as the art of directing and coordinating human and material resources throughout the life of a project by using

    Read More

More about The Missouri Compromise

Open Document