Political Disputes Before 1860

How the Missouri Compromise made political conditions worse: The Missouri Compromise… The purpose of the Missouri Compromise was to remove sectional and political rivalries between the North and the South. The North was provoked by the authorization of Missouri becoming a slave state by the South in 1819.

Before the South‘s secession the Missouri compromise helped a lot in keeping balance. After Missouri requested to be a slave state to the Union, Congress knew that it would cause an uproar between states that were and weren‘t slave oriented. Due to this, the Congress created the Missouri compromise to keep balance between everybody. On May 3, 1920 the compromise was put in place which meant that it set Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state still creating perfect balance. As the Missouri compromise was in place it was condemned by plenty of Southerners but even with that it lasted and kept peace with everyone as well as help keep the Union together for more than thirty years.

Leslie Chihuahua United States History to 1877 11/13/2015 11:00-11:50 AM Missouri Compromise was an agreement from the House of Representatives to reach a median to keep slavery out of Missouri after all the tribulations it had caused before it became a state. Henry Clay, Speaker of the House made important decisions in order for Missouri to be admitted as a state that could impact American history. In 1819, slavery was a resourceful profit to slave owners and this sparked a sectional controversy in the country over the efforts to expand slavery into the new western territories. The country had 22 states, eleven free eleven slave, and the line between them were distinguished by the northern and western boundaries of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River. (Txt.

Missouri Compromise The Missouri Compromise was the effort of Congress to end the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. The Missouri Compromise happened in 1820. It is important because Congress passed a bill granting Missouri statehood as a slave state under the condition that it was to be forever prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase. Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and James Tallmadge were involved in the Missouri Compromise.

Prior to the events of Bleeding Kansas that begun in 1854, the United States followed a strict policy of compromise in regards to it’s political decisions. Being a relatively newly founded country a great deal of care was given towards pleasing the citizens of the United States, through compromise, in order to maintain a stable society. This is specifically evident in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the Compromise of 1850. These events helped to maintain the stability of American society for a time. However, as the nation developed further there became apparent divides on many matters, but mainly over slavery.

The presidential election of 1860 culminated more than a decade of increasing sectional conflict between the North and South, and, simultaneously, precipitated a new crisis that ultimately severed the Union. The election of the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, on November 6, 1860, began a chain of events that included the secession of seven deep South states the establishment of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama, and the assumption of authority over federal property, such as custom houses and forts. The Confederacy's attempt to extend its sovereignty over forts that remained in Union hands, notably Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor and Fort Pickens at Pensacola, Florida, placed the rival governments on a

So, this essay will explain one from the other. The Missouri Compromise has many differences from the Compromise of 1850. One difference would be that in breaking up the different parts of the Louisiana Territory, it created peace between Northerners and Southerners. The Northerners were happy that more territory was safe for freed slaves, although they weren't quite happy that there was still slavery in the USA. However, the southerners stayed happy until the Southerners realized that this gave congress a say in which states could have slavery.

In Kansas there was conflicts between the states in the north and in the south because of Stephen Douglas Many people died, cities where raided because of what this man did. Douglas proposed a bill on popular sovereignty or the Kansas Nebraska act which would repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which said that slavery could not extend above the 36' 30" line. He assumed settlers would never choose slavery He proposed this because he wanted a railroad between these states which would run through Illinois, his home state. To build that railroad he needed to make Kansas a state.

(a) The Compromise of 1850 - The compromise increased tensions between the North and the South because it introduced popular sovereignty which allowed the new territories to decide whether or not to allow slavery. It also included the Fugitive Slave Law and popular sovereignty which for northerners were unacceptable and they ignored it and this just caused anger and fear in the South. (b) The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 - Stirred up a storm of opposition in the North. Northerners who aided the slave to escape were liable to heavy fines and jail sentences.

In the years on up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups across the country. The horrible compromise that sacrificed the rights of African Americans in favor of a more stronger union in the states exploded once more in 1819 when Missouri requested to join the United States as a slave state. In 1819, the nation had eleven free and eleven slave states creating a balance in the U.S. senate. Missouri's entrance threatened to throw this parity in favor of slave’s strong feelings toward it. The debate in Congress over the admission of Missouri was unusally and extraordinary bitter after Congressman James Tallmadge from New York put forward an idea that slavery be banned in the new state.

These compromises were very unpopular, especially in the south where pro-slavery politicians felt that their states were on the loosing end of these compromises. The first of these compromises was the Missouri Compromise which allowed Missouri to be admitted as a slave state while Maine was admitted as a free state. This compromise set a precedent that continued to be followed in which the number of new free states and new slave states was balanced. This compromise ensured that power in the senate would be balanced between free and slave states and would prevent either side from gaining the upper hand in the legislature. While this was a good idea in practice it created political gridlock and the compromise was effectively repealed in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska act which was the catalyst for the armed conflict fought over slavery known as Bleeding Kansas.

Due to the fact that the South had more of an agricultural economy, the Southerners thought that the states should have the right to decide whether residents could own slaves, rather than the federal government. In 1846 a congressman from Pennsylvania named David Wilmot introduced a bill to the House of Representatives called the Wilmot Proviso. This said slavery would not be allowed in any western territory acquired from Mexico. Of course most of the politicians from the North loved the idea, while the politicians from the South did not. The Missouri Compromise on March 3, 1820 (also called the Compromise of 1820) was the first major legislative compromise that was passed to draw a line between slave and free territory.

Even tho Illinois was a free state, the main issue they discussed was slavery in the United States, particularly stopping the expansion of slavery in the territories. In the First debate, in Ottawa, as many as twelve thousand people showed up. Douglas mainly stated, “You, sir, are a radical abolitionist who wants to turn Illinois into a colony for free blacks!” Lincoln’s main argument was, “No, I'm not! You want to expand slavery across the entire nation!”

Douglas, was an important election that would, and did, go down in history. Lincoln had opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, created by Stephen Douglas, which lead him into becoming a Republican. Here, nobody was able to Compromise. He ran against Stephen Douglas, and won the election with getting one hundred eighty electoral votes, and Douglas getting twelve (Southern Democrat Breckinridge seventy-two, and Constitutional Union Bell getting thirty-nine) (Doc H).

One of whom was John Brown, an abolitionist who led several men to kill proslavery settlers in Laurence, Kansas in 1856. The brutality and severe deaths of this massacre became known as “Bleeding Kansas” (Lapansky-Werner336). Three years later, Brown attempted to lead a slave revolt in Harper’s Ferry. Although he suspected that this would inspire many slaves, his revolt was a failure due to the lack of abolitionists willing to fight beside him. Despite the fact that Brown’s life ended in execution, he did influence others that agreed with the fact that slavery would not come to an end “without very much bloodshed” (Lapansky-Werner344-345).