Page 249 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Explore the Missouri
9.1

Compromise on
9.2
MyHistoryLab

9.3
Why DiD conGRESS
aDoPt thE MiSSoURi
coMPRoMiSE?

In 1787, disagreements between
northern and southern delegates over
the role of slavery in the new American
Republic had almost derailed the
framing of a new Constitution. As U.S.
coMPRoMiSE With the passage of the Missouri compromise, the slave economy
settlement expanded westward at the expanded west to the new state of Missouri. Thomas Jefferson, who was 76 when the
turn of the nineteenth century and Missouri compromise was adopted, wrote of the measure that, “like a fire bell in the night, [it]
new states began to join the Union, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.”
this regional divide over slavery
only deepened. Many Northerners admitting the slave state of Missouri to the Union alongside
hoped to see the institution gradually the free state of Maine. The Compromise also attempted to
eliminated in the U.S. Meanwhile, prevent future conflict by drawing a line at 36°30’ N latitude;
Southerners worried that eliminating prohibiting slavery north of line prohibiting slavery north of
slavery would destroy their economy. the line but permitting the admission of new slave states to the
Because the North’s larger population line’s south.
gave it an advantage in the House
of Representatives, southern slave BALANCe of fRee ANd SLAve STATeS PRIoR
states depended on their equal To THe MISSoURI CoMPRoMISe of 1820
representation in the Senate to block
any attempts at abolition. Under such free States Slave States
political conditions, anything that Number of States in U.S. 11 11
tipped the balance of power in the
Senate threatened to tear the nation U.S. Representatives 105 81
apart. The Missouri Compromise U.S. Senators 22 22
of 1820 maintained this balance by SOURcE: United States census bureau

K e Y Q U e S T i O n S Use Myhistorylab Explorer to answer these questions:

cause What political consequence analysis Why would
factors triggered the Missouri Why was the Missouri slavery continue to be a
Compromise? Compromise viewed as only a divisive political issue in the
Map the regional spread and temporary solution? United States?
decline of slavery in the Map the spread of non-Indian Map the economic and social
United States from 1790 to 1830. settlement in the United States differences that separated the
from 1790 to 1830. North from South in 1820.

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