Missouri Compromise Concepts

The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last

by Jimmy Wales · 28 Oct 2025 · 216pp · 60,419 words

edits Wikipedia? Did you fret about whether the information is trustworthy? I’m pretty sure you did not. You just had a question—about the Missouri Compromise, or the electromagnetic spectrum, or the economy of Iceland, or Taylor Swift’s family—so you found the relevant page and read it. You probably

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

by Edward E. Baptist · 24 Oct 2016

like President James Monroe still believed that Texas would inevitably fall to the United States. And many, both North and South, now thought that the Missouri Compromise—as it came to be known—had established a precedent of dividing the West between free and slave territory. They would come to refer to

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its own. And Granville Sharp’s generation had not been replaced. No substantive opposition to the expansion of slavery existed among white Americans. After the Missouri Compromise, active white opposition to slavery dwindled toward the vanishing point. Most of those who conceded that slavery was morally wrong in the abstract refused to

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) to a specific vector of national expansion. This vector, by the realities of geography, would inevitably privilege territorial growth on the southern side of the Missouri Compromise line. Now the administration was in the hands of James K. Polk. As a product of the Jackson–Van Buren machine, Polk remembered Calhoun as

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, to Missouri. His enslavers sold him to an army doctor named Emerson, who then moved to present-day Minnesota—free territory by virtue of the Missouri Compromise slavery-exclusion line. There Dred met Harriet Robinson. They married, she changed her name to Scott, and Emerson bought her. The doctor then took the

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court. She was attempting to impose a constitution that universalized slavery on her own household.45 During March 1853, in Congress, Senator Atchison called the Missouri Compromise and the Northwest Ordinance the two greatest “errors committed in the political history of this country.” Together these outlawed slavery on three sides of his

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home state and made the Scotts’ freedom suit possible. It was radical enough to call 1819’s compromise an error, for the Missouri Compromise was the central congressional bargain between North and South in the history of slavery. But by the end of the year, Atchison and his congressional

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perceived that they could use Douglas’s desire to build a railroad as the fulcrum on which to bend a lever that would overturn the Missouri Compromise. Atchison’s Washington allies included his three “messmates,” senators with whom he shared a rented house on F Street: James Mason and Robert M. T

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do what he was compelled to do and no more, but the southerners shook their heads again. The bill still did not explicitly repeal the Missouri Compromise. The next chance to speak on the territorial bill was on January 16, and Archibald Dixon, a Whig Senator from Kentucky, got the floor. He

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out his pen and personally crafted the language that would doom him, his party, and the delicate political balances of the antebellum United States. The Missouri Compromise, he wrote, “had been superceded by the principles of the legislation of 1850”—in other words, the rest of the West would be something like

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floor almost every day, denouncing ministers who preached sermons against him, cursing the anti-slave-expansion New York Tribune, and recalling minute details of the Missouri Compromise debate in order to make his points. Eventually, on March 3, he forced a Senate vote and won it, 37 to 14. Most of the

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, with 44 northern Democrats voting for and 42 against. After three bruising months, Douglas—his arms bound by his F Street captors—had repealed the Missouri Compromise. The act destroyed the two-party system that had existed for the previous two decades. The Whig Party split along North-South lines and collapsed

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became obvious that the Republican coalition had the potential to win a commanding majority of northern voters. The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed not only the Missouri Compromise but also many of the other structures that had encouraged compromise on the question of the expansion of slavery. But the rise of the Republicans

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them there by virtue of the Constitution,” no matter what the voters decided. Southern House members, in particular, agreed. They insisted that repeal of the Missouri Compromise meant the federal government’s acknowledgment of their substantive-due-process doctrine. They planned to get final confirmation of the right of enslavers to take

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issues were as timely as it was possible for a case to be. Did Congress have the power to pass the slavery restrictions of the Missouri Compromise? Could the federal government extinguish or limit enslavers’ property claims?63 Over the past thirty years, a series of presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson, had

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announced that there was no need for Americans to feel agitated about Kansas, or about whether it had been just for Congress to revoke the Missouri Compromise. For soon the Supreme Court would settle all key questions about slavery and expansion. Two days later, Taney’s Court issued a decision. Six of

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out the case against the Scotts’ freedom in its most extreme form, including a claim that the Court’s majority agreed with him that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. While Justice Peter Daniel (a Virginian) restated the “common-property” doctrine to explain why Congress could not exclude slavery from territories, Taney’s

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the tradition of Henry Clay, Crittenden offered an “omnibus” of six constitutional amendments and four resolutions. Most significant was the amendment that would restore the Missouri Compromise line and commit the federal government to enforcing slavery south of 36°30’ North forever. Another would have forbidden any future change to these amendments

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(2001): 7–29. 19. R. Douglas Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri’s Little Dixie (Columbia, MO, 1992). 20. William R. Johnson, “Prelude to the Missouri Compromise,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1965): 47–66. 21. Moore, Missouri Controversy; “Mr. King’s Speeches,” NR, December 4, 1819; JQA, February 20, 1820

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Maine and Missouri Crisis: Competing Priorities and Northern Slavery Politics in the Early Republic,” JER 33, no. 4 (2013): 675–700. 26. Matthew Crocker, “The Missouri Compromise, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Southern Strategy,” Journal of the West 43 (2004): 45–52. The crisis was not over. Missouri passed a state constitution

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, eds., Contesting Slavery: The Politics of Bondage and Freedom in the New American Nation (Charlottesville, VA, 2011). 23. JQA, 9:35; Robert Pierce Forbes, The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007); Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the

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, Stephen A. Douglas (New York, 1973); CG, 28:1, 33rd Cong. 1st sess., 115, January 4, 1854; Susan Bullit Dixon, The True History of the Missouri Compromise and Its Repeal (Cincinnati, 1899), 442–445; Potter, Impending Crisis, 160. 48. Michael F. Holt, Franklin Pierce (New York, 2010), 77–80, 53; Dixon, True

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; International slave trade Miller, George, 27–28 Miltenberger, Christian, 55 Minor, John, 91 Minor, Stephen, 88 Mississippi, 18–19 Mississippi Territory, 29, 30, 33–34 Missouri Compromise, 158, 186, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372–373, 377, 392 Missouri crisis, 147, 155–158, 185, 203 Mitchell, Hettie, 189 Money, paper, 229–233, 269

On Grand Strategy

by John Lewis Gaddis · 3 Apr 2018 · 461pp · 109,656 words

be no such interest, however, had Madison not shown, in The Federalist, how first to restrain American jealousies. That was the purpose of the uneasy Missouri Compromise of 1820, which equally apportioned new territories as future free or slave states. Adams went along, convinced that the Constitution’s “bargain between freedom and

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a civil war. Probably he saw that slavery would start it and hoped to postpone, with distractions, the evil day: knowing the fragility of the Missouri Compromise, Adams like most of his contemporaries hardly dared speak slavery’s name.9 Whatever the explanation, he left office in 1829 much as Napoleon had

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claim was “very silly.” Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT . . . and PART with him when he goes wrong. Stand WITH the abolitionist in restoring the Missouri Compromise; and stand AGAINST him when he attempts to repeal the fugitive slave law. . . . What of that? You are still right. . . . In both cases you oppose

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in the World from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Knopf, 2006), pp. 265–300. For Adams on the Missouri Compromise, see chapter six. 10. The Congressional Globe for February 21, 1848, records two votes on the resolution, with Adams and Lincoln both against in each

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. Lincoln Speeches and Writings I, p. 426. 39. Douglas had included the most inflammatory provision of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the explicit repeal of the Missouri Compromise, only at the last minute because southern congressmen made it the price of their support. See Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, p. 672. 40

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compasses, 17, 24, 77, 211, 224, 230, 249, 277, 309, 310 complexity, simplicity as coexisting with, 65–66 compromise, 160–61, 164 Compromise of 1820 (Missouri Compromise), 179, 220, 225, 226 Compromise of 1850, 225, 226 Confederate States of America, 235, 236, 245, 248, 255 Confederation Congress, 166 Confessions (Augustine), 96–97

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–53, 104 Metternich, Klemens von, 115 Mexican-American War (1846–48), 221, 311 Mexico, 152, 246–47, 269, 270 Mission to Moscow (Davies), 286–87 Missouri Compromise (1820), 179, 220, 225, 226 monotheism, 94–95 Monroe, James, 178, 218, 222 Monroe Doctrine, 152, 178–79, 180, 219, 246, 257, 266 morality, politics

The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace

by H. W. Brands · 1 Oct 2012 · 939pp · 274,289 words

slavery. Douglas hoped to apply the same principle to Kansas and Nebraska, the territories just west of the Missouri River. The problem was that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 promised that these territories would be free. The opponents of slavery insisted that the promise be kept, but the advocates threatened to veto

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the Kansas issue, vowed to see the region “sink in hell” before he’d vote to ban slavery there. Douglas understood that tampering with the Missouri Compromise was asking for trouble. “It will raise a hell of a storm,” he predicted. But he thrust ahead, presenting the Senate at the beginning of

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formula for secession and civil war. “I adjure you to regard the contract once made to harmonize and preserve this Union,” Houston pleaded. “Maintain the Missouri Compromise! Stir not up agitation! Give us peace!” The opponents of slavery screamed betrayal. A group calling itself the Independent Democrats castigated the Kansas-Nebraska bill

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stagnated after he left Congress, challenged Douglas by attacking the Kansas-Nebraska Act. “He began by telling how in the minds of the people the Missouri Compromise was held as something sacred, more particularly by the citizens of Illinois, as the bill had been introduced in the Senate by a senator from

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, declared that Congress had no power over slavery. The Constitution gave Congress no authority to restrict the property rights of slave owners, and hence the Missouri Compromise, the basis for making Wisconsin a free territory, had been unconstitutional from the start. On this ground as well, Scott remained a slave. Six other

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a gradual death as morality and perhaps the economy evolved. This hope had been dealt a blow by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise but left in place the principle that Congress could restrict slavery in the territories if it once again chose to. The Dred Scott case smashed

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in Dixie looked on Cuba and its West Indian neighbors as suitable for the spread of slavery, to offset the continental curbs imposed by the Missouri Compromise and growing Northern antipathy. Precisely that Northern antipathy, though, prevented the Southern dreams from becoming real. The Civil War and emancipation changed the moral and

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new constitution of secession of Mississippi Central Railroad Mississippi Department, U.S. Missouri, 2.1, 9.1, 14.1, 17.1, 21.1, 65.1 Missouri Compromise of 1820, 9.1, 9.2, 11.1, 60.1 Molina del Rey, Battle of Monroe Doctrine, 51.1, 60.1 Cuban insurgency and Montana

First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents

by Gary Ginsberg · 14 Sep 2021 · 418pp · 134,401 words

to the banks of the Potomac River, right outside Virginia. In the words of historian Joseph Ellis, this Dinner Table Bargain should “rank alongside the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 as one of the landmark accommodations in American politics.” Months of backroom maneuvering had yielded no progress; it was only

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from Illinois. The controversial legislation reopened the issue of slavery that had seemingly been settled with the Compromise of 1850, and it effectively nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30’. Pierce applied the coup de grace by adding language to the act that expressly declared

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the Missouri Compromise “inoperative and void.” Instead, the act endorsed the notion of popular sovereignty, allowing those in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide for themselves whether

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envisioned himself as following in the footsteps of influential Kentucky statesman and Whig leader Henry Clay, who had played a pivotal role in passing the Missouri Compromise of 1820. That legislation had averted the sectional crisis by barring slavery north of the 36°30’ parallel except for Missouri. Echoing Clay, Lincoln in

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. This legislation not only reopened the issue of slavery that had seemingly been laid to rest with the Compromise of 1850; it also canceled the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery in all Louisiana Purchase states north of the 36°30’ parallel. The Kansas-Nebraska Act reversed this principle, determining

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, in which he detailed his objections to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He blasted the entire notion of popular sovereignty, particularly its repeal of Clay’s Missouri Compromise. Most significantly, he attacked the morality of slavery itself, calling it a “monstrous injustice” and contending that slaves—as humans—possessed natural rights as surely

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list of replacement candidates—a natural choice given his growing acclaim. Still, many New Dealers joked that Truman as vice president would be the “second Missouri Compromise.” They viewed the country bumpkin with disdain, describing him as “a small-bore politician of country courthouse caliber only.” Amidst this storm of speculation, praise

The First Tycoon

by T.J. Stiles · 14 Aug 2009

leading opponents of slavery. At the moment, Hale and Sumner were embroiled in a struggle against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which threatened to overturn the Missouri Compromise's ban on slavery in the lands north and west of Missouri. It was a titanic battle, yet Hale found time to intervene for the

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Atlantic mail subsidy. It would be forgotten in later years, overshadowed by more ominous events. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had passed, repealing the Missouri Compromise and throwing open the question of slavery to the settlers of those newly opened territories. An organized land rush was under way, as free-soil

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America

by Sarah Kendzior · 6 Apr 2020

knockout fallout shelters. * * * Missouri was born in sin, the centerpiece of America’s bad bargain with itself. Its entry into statehood in 1821—the notorious “Missouri Compromise”—was predicated on a national agreement to keep black Missourians enslaved so that Maine could call itself free. At the time, black Americans in slaveholding

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2008 Greitens, Eric (former governor) gun issues and laws history of voting for presidential winners influence of GOP donors Kansas City Lovejoy, Elijah, murder of Missouri Compromise New Madrid earthquake of 1811 A New Missouri “Show Me State” “stand your ground” gun law state park system and Tea Party movement as “the

Andrew Carnegie

by David Nasaw · 15 Nov 2007 · 1,230pp · 357,848 words

.” He had always been “a strong anti-slavery partisan.” When his cousin Dod in Dunfermline criticized the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 for repealing the Missouri Compromise and laying the way open for the organization of Kansas as a slave state, Carnegie responded that no one could “hate the measure more than

America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

by Robert B. Zoellick · 3 Aug 2020

a period since the Establishment of our Revolution when… there was a greater necessity for patriotism and union.” The country had only recently crafted the “Missouri Compromise” of 1820, maintaining a balance between free and slave states as the nation expanded. Monroe was emphasizing that internal strife posed the greatest threat to

Alistair Cooke's America

by Alistair Cooke · 1 Oct 2008 · 369pp · 121,161 words

state. In the same act, it prohibited, from then on, all slavery north of the line of latitude 36° 30’. It is known as the Missouri Compromise line. It was destined to be also a battle line. This geographical balance lasted, precariously, for about thirty years. But it was thunderingly upset by

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the United States’ war with Mexico, in 1848, out of which the Union acquired vast new lands, most of them south of the Missouri Compromise line: Texas, Territory of New Mexico, California, and Utah well to the north. They had their own strong traditions. Texas had slavery, California had not

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also New Spain Middle Colonies 69–70, 87 militias 253 mining towns 176, 177 Mississippi River 7, 42, 42–3, 127–8, 151–2, 157 Missouri Compromise 154–6 Mitchell, S. Weir 160 monopolies 223, 224–5 Monroe, James 129, 289–90 Monticello, Va. 118, 120, 146 Morgan, John Pierpont 196, 221