by Mary Claire Kendall

Created on: December 07, 2011   Last Updated: December 28, 2011

The Missouri Compromise was an agreement between North and South passed by the U.S. Congress on March 3, 1820, whereby Missouri was granted admittance into the Union as a slave state in 1821.

This compromise is an example of what America does when two opposing factions cannot find common ground on an issue at the core of our founding principles and fundamental to our very existence.  As

Shelby Foote reflected in "The Civil War," this “enormous catastrophe” erupted “because we failed to do the thing we really have a genius for, which is compromise.”

The North (i.e., above the Mason-Dixon Line at the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania) thought slavery a “peculiar institution;” whereas the South, in which slavery was woven it into the very fabric of their lives and economy, viewed it as a necessity, and were blinded to its reality, either willfully or because of custom.  

When new territories were formed or wanted to be admitted into the Union, the question of whether or not to allow slavery rankled, with the South insisting the North recognize its Constitutional right to hold slaves - the whole "states rights" issue. 

Since the founding of the Republic, nine states had been added to the original 13.  Of the 22 states, 11 were free, 11 slave, giving each faction equal representation and power in the Senate and, with it, the ability to block legislation they opposed.  More populous free states, however, controlled the House of Representatives, 105 to 81 votes. 

In January 1818, Missouri formally requested admittance into the Union.  

When the question came before the U.S. Congress, Northern members attempted to force Missouri to free its 2000 slaves.  In February 1819, New York Representative James Tallmadge offered an amendment banning slavery in Missouri, which was just the spark needed to set off a volatile debate. 

“How long will the desire for wealth render us blind to the sin of holding both the bodies and souls of our fellow men in chains?,” Representative Livermore of New Hampshire asked during the year-long debate. 

White Southerners responded by threatening secession.  But, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, known as "The Great Compromiser," fashioned a wise solution, aided by Maine’s petition for statehood, which maintained the balance of power between Northern and Southern States.  Specifically, territories north of the parallel of latitude of 36 degrees 30 minutes, comprising the former Louisiana Purchase Territory, excepting Missouri, would be admitted as free states. 

The Missouri Compromise lasted nearly 30 years until a second Missouri Compromise was devised in 1850.  That compromise, too, ultimately proved unworkable. It was repealed by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which the Supreme Court subsequently declared unconstitutional in its1857 Dred Scott decision.  Four years later, The Civil War broke out, with the  Confederate attack, 150 years ago this year, on Fort Sumter - on April 12, 1861.

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