In the years leading up to the Civil War, there were four main events regarding the extension of slavery in the United States. The Missouri Compromise, The Kansas-Nebraska Act, The Dred Scott Decision, and The Lincoln-Douglas Debate were all major events that may have provided a temporary solution to the problem regarding slavery, however also failed to stop the momentum towards conflict. First and foremost, the Missouri Compromise of 1819 was the first spark in the events leading to the Civil War. This major event split up the country immediately, as the compromise led to an imbalance of power between slave and free states. Prior to the Missouri Compromise, there was an equal balance of slave states and free states. There were 11 free states, and 11 slave states in the nation, and when Missouri petitioned to join the union as a slave state, this brought on great rebuttal. The …show more content…
How did the union deal with this? The solution was the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise allowed Missouri to join the union as a slave state, but would be balanced by Maine, where a part of Massachusetts would be split off, making Maine a free state. Furthermore, slavery was to be excluded from all new states in the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri. People on both the north and south saw the compromise as flawed, for multiple reasons. First off, when Henry Clay wrote the Missouri Compromise he did not take into account that because they made Missouri a slave state, it made it seem as if the entire west of the nation were to be slave states as well. The African-Americans when hearing this were absolutely outraged on both