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Reasons For The Downfall Of The Missouri Compromise Of 1850

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Through the Louisiana Purchase, Missouri Compromise, Manifest Destiny, Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the United States developed a unique policy regarding new territories that would greatly affect history and slavery. Although expanding territory would be beneficial to a country if done correctly, the United States suffered fracturing division and eventual civil war indirectly as a result. With lingering questions over the definitions of slave and free states, the country would always face questions regarding slavery whenever a new state wished to enter the Union. Ultimately, the bond of the country would crumble and require reconstruction for many years to come. With endless controversy, unpopular decisions, and poor agreements, …show more content…

Under this agreement, Missouri would enter the Union as a slave state while Maine entered as a free state. However, a seemingly permanent boundary would be drawn between free and slave states to deny the other side from disrupting the delicate balance. Unfortunately for free states, pro-slavery supporters concentrated their supplies and slaves to southern states; by shifting the demographics of slavery, they strengthened in power and resources compared to the North. Although the Missouri Compromise kept stability for several decades, its eventual downfall was …show more content…

Under this belief, God had chosen America to expand completely to the Pacific Ocean. Other than making physical territorial deals to expand, the belief also revealed contradicting points of view amongst American citizens. While northerners supported expansion to increase free territory, southerners wanted to build more societies based on slave ownership. After the Mexican American War, the territory of California wished to enter the Union as a free state. However, this upset many southerners who saw this expansion as disrupting the balance of free and slave states. As further compromises were needed to stabilize fragile relations, the expansion of territories revealed the gaping differences in American beliefs. To settle the complaints from southerners, Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850 to deal with both slavery and the expanding territories. Under this deal, California entered the United States as a free state and Washington D.C. abolished its slave trade. Also, other territories to the west could independently decide whether to ban or allow slavery. However, the law also caused controversy by allowing slave owners to capture fugitive slaves in the North. While neither side felt completely satisfied after the deal, the compromise appeared to prevent differences between the two sides from spiraling out of

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Pros And Cons Of The Missouri Compromise

198 Words | 1 Pages

Class, The Missouri Compromise did not effectively deal with the sectional conflict over slavery. This is because the compromise did not result in a definite solution that left both sides pleased but instead left neither side content (Kennedy 235). If the sectional conflict was resolved, this could have helped to prevent the secession of the southern states in the American Civil War, or this could have caused the American Civil War to start sooner rather than later. I believe that the North got the better side of the deal. At this time, the North and the South were worried about political and economic balances, and it seems like this compromise gave the North an advantage (Kennedy 234).

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Missouri Compromise Before The 1920's

347 Words | 2 Pages

Before the South‘s secession the Missouri compromise helped a lot in keeping balance. After Missouri requested to be a slave state to the Union, Congress knew that it would cause an uproar between states that were and weren‘t slave oriented. Due to this, the Congress created the Missouri compromise to keep balance between everybody. On May 3, 1920 the compromise was put in place which meant that it set Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state still creating perfect balance. As the Missouri compromise was in place it was condemned by plenty of Southerners but even with that it lasted and kept peace with everyone as well as help keep the Union together for more than thirty years.

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Manifest Destiny, Kansas-American War, And The Compromise Of 1850

641 Words | 3 Pages

As the 1800s began, the belief of Manifest Destiny rose throughout the United States. Previously, because of Thomas Jefferson, the United States gained land from the Louisiana Purchase. This doubled the size of the United States, allowing America to grow westward. This westward land provided food for America, whereas the North provided manufactured goods and the South provided cash crops, such as cotton. The West and North soon became very interconnected through similar economies and views.

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Research Paper On Missouri Compromise Of 1850

903 Words | 4 Pages

The founding fathers of the nation Compromised on writing the constitution, producing a union of thirteen sovereign and independent states, the structure of the legislature, the election procedure of Congressmen, the powers of each branch of government and the existence of slavery. Years down the line, however, the strength of the union almost came apart when Missouri applied for admission into the union as a slave state. The Northerners were for slavery while the Southerners were for its abolition and this was exposed quite plainly by the debates carried out on the floor of Congress. This came on the backdrop of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which saved the country from Civil war and secession but did nothing to address the issue of slavery in their midst. Between 1820 and 1850, a number of slaves revolted seeking to gain their freedom.

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How Did The Compromise Of The Nashville Convention-1850

941 Words | 4 Pages

Compromise of 1850 - 1850 The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state, declared the remaining territory from the Mexican cession to be voted slave or free through popular sovereignty, abolished slave trade in the District of Columbia, and created the Fugitive Slave Act. The south felt cheated by the compromise as the

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Civil War DBQ Essay

1569 Words | 7 Pages

So, in 1820, Henry Clay instigated the Missouri Compromise, the third critical event that led to the coming of the American Civil War. Missouri would be added as a slave state, but with that, a piece of Massachusetts, Maine, would be broken off and enter the union as a free state to ensure the balance. With this, a line was also drawn along the southern border of Missouri at the 36°30′ parallel and went across the remainder of the United States to the Pacific Ocean. This line divided the north and south literally as to where slavery was allowed and where it was not. This created greater diversity from the two sides and wedged the gap that was beginning to grow far wider.

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Why The Compromise Of 1850 Failed

175 Words | 1 Pages

The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt by the U.S Congress to settle divisive issues between the North and South, including slavery expansion, apprehension in the North of fugitive slaves, and slavery in the District of Columbia. The Compromise of 1850 failed because Senator John C. Calhoun from the South and Senator William Seward from the North could not agree on what Henry Clay was putting down. Part of the compromise was to make California a slavery free state which benefits the North, and enforcing a stricter fugitive slave law which benefits the South. Both the North and South opposed what the other was benefiting from. What sparked the failure of the Compromise was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

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How Did The Constitution Contribute To The Compromise Of 1850

692 Words | 3 Pages

The compromise consisted of various laws such as ones admitting California as a free state, and creating the Utah and New Mexico territories where slavery would be decided by the people living in those areas. Also, in Washington D.C. slaveholding was still permitted, but the slave trade was prohibited. This compromise also settled a border dispute between New Mexico and Texas. With the admittance of California as a free-state the balance of the Senate was in favor of the free

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Advantages Of Missouri Compromise

690 Words | 3 Pages

This proposed plan was called the Missouri Compromise. The compromise stated that slavery states could not be admitted higher than the 36 degree 30’ north parallel-with the exception of Missouri. However, to balance the addition of one pro slavery state, a district of Massachusetts, named Maine, was also admitted to the union as a anti slavery state. This allowed both factions the addition of a state, without losing or gaining any power over the other. This was why the Missouri Compromise truly was a compromise and benefited both the pro slavery states and the anti slavery

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How Did James Buchanan Compromise

979 Words | 4 Pages

These attempts at compromise and keeping the Union together, while working for a time being, were not properly enforced, and they always seemed to anger one side. The Missouri Compromise was one of the first controversial compromises that encountered the issue of expanding slavery. While Henry Clay created the majority of the two-part resolution, which stated that Missouri would enter the U.S. as a slave state while Maine would enter as a free state and that “slavery was to be excluded from all new states in the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri” (U.S. History, 2008-2014), many people viewed the comprise as being extremely flawed. While the Compromise

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Missouri Compromise Of 1820 To 1860

1458 Words | 6 Pages

In the years on up to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups across the country. The horrible compromise that sacrificed the rights of African Americans in favor of a more stronger union in the states exploded once more in 1819 when Missouri requested to join the United States as a slave state. In 1819, the nation had eleven free and eleven slave states creating a balance in the U.S. senate. Missouri's entrance threatened to throw this parity in favor of slave’s strong feelings toward it. The debate in Congress over the admission of Missouri was unusally and extraordinary bitter after Congressman James Tallmadge from New York put forward an idea that slavery be banned in the new state.

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Was Jackson's Presidency Good Or Bad Overall?

819 Words | 4 Pages

Question #1 The compromises and decisions on slavery by congress and the Supreme Court on slavery between 1850 and 1860. Slavey was a controversial topic in America… Many different political parties were formed with different ideas on slavery. These parties include the Whig, Free soil, and Democratic parties. America gained land from the Louisiana Purchase, Mexican American war, and other means.

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Essay On Missouri Compromise

597 Words | 3 Pages

Before the Missouri Compromise there was a lot of tension between the people who were pro-slavery and antislavery. It became more heated after the Missouri’s 1819 request for admission to the Union as a slave state, which threatened to balance between slave and free states. Congress created a two-part compromise, to create peace between the states. They did this by granting Missouri’s request which was admitted as a free state but also passed an amendment that drew an imaginary line across the former Louisiana Territory. This established a boundary between free and slave regions which remained the law of the land until it was nullified by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

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What Was The Missouri Compromise

261 Words | 2 Pages

As westward expansion continued, the number of free states would be twice that of the already existing, and only, slave states. The Missouri compromise showed the different opinions that the regions, mainly the north and south, had about slavery. In the north they

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Comparison Of Political Compromises Between 1820 To 1861

939 Words | 4 Pages

The North and South were divided on whether or not slavery was permitted to exist. When the Missouri Compromise was made, it maintained balance by “allowing Missouri to enter as a slave state and Maine as a free state”[4]. Such balance was vital, because in the perspective of the North, the better the containment of slavery in the south, the less of a chance that it could spread. Furthermore, in terms of sectional tensions, the Missouri Compromise proved adequate short term. It’s advocation of the rights of citizens gave the people of Missouri the option to create a state government that could “write a state constitution that would permit slavery”[2].

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