The Missouri Compromised

By 1818, the Missouri Territory had gained a large enough population to warrant its admission into the Union as a state. Its settlers came largely from the South, and it was expected that Missouri would be a slave state because of this. Brought before the House of Representatives, James Tallmadge proposed an amendment that would forbid importation of slaves and would bring about the ultimate emancipation of all slaves born in Missouri. This amendment passed the House but failed to pass in the Senate. The bitterness of the debates sharply emphasized the sectional division of the United States.

The Missouri Compromise attempted to satisfy the northern and southern states by keeping the balance of power between the slave and free states in the Senate. Ever since Vermont entered the Union as a free state and Kentucky as a slave state, politicians in Congress worked to maintain a balance between the North and the South. For every slave state admitted there had to be a free one. At this time the North had a majority of votes in the House of Representative because of a larger population growth, but the South was able to block legislation that threatened their interests in the Senate because there was an even balance of eleven to eleven.

When Missouri wanted to enter the Union, this alarmed the North because they feared it would enter as a slave state, which would upset the balance of free and slave states in the Senate in favor of the South. In order to preserve the balance between slave and free sates, Henry Clay proposed the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise had Missouri admitted to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state to keep the balance in the Senate. The Missouri Compromise stated "That in all that territory ceded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not included within the limits of the state, contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, shall be, and hereby, forever prohibited."# However, this only settled the conflict for the time being.

The Missouri Compromised preserved sectional balance within the Union for over thirty years. The Compromise did not solve the issue of sectional differences, but merely provided a temporary solution to the problem to make both sides happy, just like a compromise is supposed to do. The North was more pleased than the South because the Compromise outlawed slavery in some parts of the Louisiana Territory, so it did slightly favor the North. The Compromise still maintained the balance of power in the Senate, which helped to calm the South, who felt threatened by the North.

The proposed Tallmadge amendment frightened the South. It stated "That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited,