What is the significance of missouri compromise

In , amid growing sectional tensions over the issue of slavery, the U. The Missouri Compromise, as it was known, would remain in force for just over 30 years before it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of When the Missouri Territory first applied for statehood in , it was clear that many in the territory wanted to allow slavery in the new state. Part of the more than , square miles bought from France in the Louisiana Purchase in , it was known as the Louisiana Territory until , when it was renamed to avoid confusion with the newly admitted state of Louisiana.

In the North, where abolitionist sentiment was growing, many people opposed the extension of the institution of slavery into new territory, and worried that adding Missouri as a slave state would upset the balance that currently existed between slave and free states in the Union.

Pro-slavery Southerners, meanwhile, argued that new states, like the original 13, should be given the freedom to choose whether to permit slavery or not. During the debate, Rep. James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment to the statehood bill that would have eventually ended slavery in Missouri and set the existing enslaved workers there free. The amended bill passed narrowly in the House of Representatives, where Northerners held a slight edge.

After this stalemate, Missouri renewed its application for statehood in late This time, Speaker of the House Henry Clay proposed that Congress admit Missouri to the Union as a slave state, but at the same time admit Maine which at the time was part of Massachusetts as a free state. On March 3, , the House passed the Senate version of the bill, and President James Monroe signed it into law four days later.

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. Southerners who opposed the Missouri Compromise did so because it set a precedent for Congress to make laws concerning slavery, while Northerners disliked the law because it meant slavery was expanded into new territory. They viewed it as an important compromise between north and south and as sacred as the Constitution itself.

Many people view the compromise as postponing the inevitable Civil War, which would probably have occurred sooner than it did without the relative peace the Compromise brought. Others felt that it made the north seem more aggressive in its anti-slavery views and contributed to southern resentment, which may have led to the Civil War occurring sooner.

The Missouri Compromise was meant to create balance between slave and non-slave states. With it, the country was equally divided between slave and free states. Admitting Missouri as a slave state gave the south one more state than the north. Adding Maine as a free state balanced things out again.

Thomas Jefferson predicted dividing the country this way would eventually lead the country into Civil War. Others felt it was the perfect solution to the slave and anti-slave problem the country was facing at the time. Whether the Missouri Compromise directly lead to the Civil War or postponed it depended on which side of the country you lived in at the time, and how you looked at it politically. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service.

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Slavery was a deeply rooted institution in North America that remained legal in the United States until It took the abolition movement, a civil war, and the ratification of the 13th amendment to end slavery.