Missouri Compromise
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress
between slave and free states, the Missouri
Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a
slave state and Maine as a free state. Furthermore, with
the exception of Missouri, this law prohibited slavery in
the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude
line. In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. Three years later the Missouri Compromise
was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the
Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress did not have
the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.
Library of
Congress Web Site | External Web
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Bibliography
A
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
The
Senate debated the admission of Maine and Missouri from
February 8 through February 17, 1820. On February 16,
the Senate
agreed to unite
the Maine and Missouri bills into
one bill. The following day the Senate agreed to an
amendment that prohibited
slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the
36° 30´ latitude line, except for Missouri,
and then agreed to the final version of the bill by
a vote of 24 to 20. After rejecting the Senate's version
of the bill, the House
of Representatives passed a bill on March 1, that
admitted Missouri without slavery. On March 2, after
a House-Senate conference agreed to the Senate's version,
the House
voted 90 to 87 to allow slavery in Missouri and
then voted 134
to 42 to prohibit slavery in the Louisiana Territory north
of the 36° 30´ latitude line.
Missouri’s
application for admission into the union can be found
in the American
State Papers.
Search in
the 16th Congress, 1st Session, for additional Congressional
information related to the Missouri Compromise.
The
Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
Thomas
Jefferson expressed his opinion on the Missouri
Compromise in a letter to John Holms dated April 22,
1820. Jefferson writes that the Missouri question, "like
a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with
terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the
Union."
In
a letter to William Short from April 13, 1820,
Jefferson wrote that the "Missouri question aroused
and filled me with alarm...I have been among the most
sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long
duration. I now doubt it much." Search Jefferson's
Papers to find additional letters discussing the Missouri
Compromise.
Jump
Back in Time: Missouri Became the 24th State, August
10, 1821.
Thomas
Jefferson
This exhibition focuses on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson--founding
father, farmer, architect, inventor, slaveholder, book
collector, scholar, diplomat, and the third president
of the United States. A section on the
West contains another copy
of the letter in which Jefferson writes that the
Missouri question, "like a fire bell in the night,
awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at
once as the knell of the Union."
March
15, 1820
Maine became the twenty-third state on March 15, 1820.
August
10, 1821
Missouri entered the Union as the twenty-fourth state
on August 10, 1821.
Our
Documents, Missouri Compromise, National Archives
and Records Administration
Fehrenbacher, Don E. The South and
Three Sectional Crises.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980. [Catalog
Record]
Moore, Glover. The Missouri Controversy,
1819-1821. Gloucester,
Mass.: P. Smith, 1967. [Catalog
Record]
Shoemaker, Floyd Calvin. Missouri's
Struggle for Statehood, 1804-1821. New York: Russell & Russell, 1969. [Catalog
Record]
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