How The Missouri Compromise And The Fugitive Slave Act Of 1850

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Laws passed by Congress are fashioned to address social and economical issues at hand based on historical circumstances. These legislations passed by Congress have had remarkable impacts on the United States and the American Society. Examples of this include the Missouri Compromise and Fugitive Slave Act.The Missouri Compromise had been established to address a request made for the state of Missouri to be a slave state in the world where slavery was emerging as a national issue. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had been established because of widespread resistance to slavery and the increased escape of slaves. Both the Missouri Compromise and the Fugitive Slave Act deal with laws passed by Congress in order to address historical circumstances. …show more content…

The growing tension between proslavery and antislavery with the United States had the nation divided by sectional differences regarding slavery. At the time there were twenty two states in the U.S. which were evenly divided between free and slaves states. So when the State of Missouri requested to be admitted as a slave state conflict arose. This meant that the balance of free and slave states would be disrupted and the clash of whether Missouri should be a free or slave would be put before the North and South. As expected, The North and the South turned to a bitter debate. The North, which were anti-slavery, argued that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in the new state. Meanwhile, the South,which were pro-slavery, believed that states, rather than the government, should have the right to decide whether they wanted slavery or not therefore they argued that the State of Missouri had the right to decide whether they wanted to be a slave state or not and that it should not be up to the Congress to decide. In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise which allowed Missouri to be a slave state and allowed Maine into the Union as a free state to resolve crisis, which a member of Congress, Henry Clay, offered. The history surrounding the nineteenth century led to the establishment of the Missouri