Missouri Compromise

By the early nineteenth century, the United States was increasingly divided by the issue of slavery . Increasing numbers of Northerners wanted the government to limit slavery to the states in which it already existed, while most Southerners viewed slave labor as essential to their economic prosperity and resented governmental interference. In 1819, the nation held a delicate balance. There were eleven free (nonslave) states and eleven slave states, giving both sides equal representation in the U.S. Senate. (The free states had larger populations and therefore dominated the U.S. House of Representatives.) When the territory of Missouri applied for admission to the Union as a slave state early in 1819, it threatened to tip the scale. This set off a full-fledged congressional debate. It was the first time in the nation's history that the institution of slavery had advanced to the center of the political stage.

Tallmadge Amendment

In February 1819, U.S. representative James Tallmadge Jr. (1778–1853) of New York proposed an amendment to the congressional bill admitting Missouri to the Union. Taking into account that slavery was already commonly practiced in the Missouri Territory, his amendment prohibited the further introduction of slavery into the territory and provided for the gradual emancipation of slaves already there.

The South was just beginning to expand westward with its slave-labor plantation system. For those engaged in the production of cotton and other Southern staples, the economic future had looked bright. By limiting slavery, the Tallmadge Amendment threatened that future. It also challenged the doctrine of states’ rights, the belief that state governments should have more authority over local affairs than the federal government,

which had become accepted doctrine throughout much of the South. Southerners believed that Tallmadge and his supporters were launching a moral attack on the Southern way of life. Many Southern congressmen who had earlier expressed uneasiness about slavery became decisively proslavery in response to the amendment.

Ending the standoff

The Tallmadge Amendment did not make it through the Senate. At a loss, from December 1819 through March 1820 Congress debated how to admit Missouri to the Union without infuriating either the North or the South. The significance of the debate lay mainly in the stance taken by Southerners in defending slavery. All the arguments that Southerners would use during the next thirty years to justify the institution of slavery were first aired during the Missouri debates.

Finally, Congress passed a bill that provided for Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but for Maine to be admitted as a free state, thus keeping the prior balance between slave and free states. It also declared that territories north of latitude 36°30’ north of the Louisiana Purchase (the present-day southern border of Missouri), with the exception of the state of Missouri, were to be admitted only as free states.

When Missouri submitted its state constitution to Congress, the debate was renewed. In the proposed constitution, the Missouri Assembly was ordered to pass laws prohibiting free blacks or mulattoes (people of mixed racial backgrounds) from entering the state. This prohibition violated the federal Constitution 's guarantee that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.” The status of free blacks in the North was at stake. Free blacks were considered citizens in the state of Massachusetts . Could Missouri then deny them their rights?

Under the leadership of Speaker of the House Henry Clay (1777–1852) of Kentucky , nicknamed “the Great Compromiser,” Congress passed a resolution admitting Missouri on the condition that the legislature of that state abstain from passing any laws that abrogated (voided) the privileges and immunities clause of the U.S. Constitution. Nonetheless, in 1825 and 1847 Missouri passed laws designed to prohibit the immigration of free Negroes and mulattoes into the state.

The start of a long conflict

The congressional struggle that finally produced the Missouri Compromise transformed the South into a self-conscious political section of the nation. In the decades that followed, sectional controversy and North-South conflict became the norm.

The balance attained by the Missouri Compromise would not hold up under the conflict. In 1854, Kansas Territory applied to be admitted to the Union. In another compromise, the territory was carved up to form two states, Kansas and Nebraska , and the slavery status of each was to be decided by popular sovereignty (the voters in each state). Thus, the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the antislavery clause of the Missouri Compromise, which had pronounced that the Northern territories of the Louisiana Purchase were to be free. Leaving the decisions about slavery up to the new states did not help. Violence ensued in Kansas between antislavery and proslavery adherents. In 1857, Dred Scott (c. 1795–1858), a slave from Missouri, sued for his freedom on the basis of having traveled and lived with his owner in the free territory. The U.S. Supreme Court decided against Scott; in the course of the Dred Scott case trial, the Court declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.