Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act

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Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and the
Kansas-Nebraska Act
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Compromise

• What is a compromise?
• An agreement reached between two sides by both
  giving up something
• Sectionalism existed among Northern and Southern
  states
• Northern states did not allow slavery
• Southern states allowed slavery
• A balance of 11 slave states and 11 free states
  existed in the United States prior to 1817

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Not the way it happened
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James Monroe-the U.S. president at the time of
the Missouri Compromise
THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE
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Causes of the Missouri Compromise

• Missouri applied for statehood in 1817
• The people of Missouri wanted to allow slavery in
  their state
• Letting Missouri in as a slave state would upset
  the balance
• No one could agree on the best way to allow
  Missouri in

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What Happened???

• Henry Clay, who became known as the Great
  Compromiser, came up with a plan
• Clays plan, known as the Missouri Compromise was
  passed in 1820
• Missouri was admitted as a slave state
• Maine was admitted as a free state
• Slavery was banned from the Louisiana Territory
  north of the parallel 36?30 (Missouris southern
  border)

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Effects of the Missouri Compromise

• The Missouri Compromise kept the Union together
• The compromise, however, did not settle the
  future of slavery in the United States as a whole
• John Quincy Adams wrote, If the Union must be
  dissolved, slavery is precisely the question on
  which it ought to break. For the present,
  however, the contest is laid asleep.

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COMPROMISE OF 1850
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Causes of the Compromise of 1850

• After the Mexican War, American leaders debated
  on how to deal with slavery in the Mexican
  Cession
• The California Gold Rush brought thousands of
  people into that territory
• Northerners wanted to admit California as a free
  state
• Southerners wanted to split California into two
  parts-half slave and half free

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What Happened???

• California couldnt gain statehood without
  approval of Congress, which was divided over the
  issue
• Henry Clay stepped in with a plan, again
• To please the North
• California was admitted as a free state
• The slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C.
• To please the South
• New Mexico and Utah would be open to slavery
• Congress would pass a stronger fugitive slave law

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The Fugitive Slave Act

• The 1850 law helped slaveholders recapture
  runaway slaves
• Southerners considered slaves as property, so
  they thought the act was justified
• Northerners resented the law became it forced
  them to become involved in slavery
• Many refused to help
• Some aided runaway slaves

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THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• In 1854, Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas
  drafted a bill to organize governments in the
  Nebraska Territory
• He wanted to divide it into two
  territories-Nebraska and Kansas
• To get support for the bill, he proposed that the
  decision to allow slavery would be left up to
  popular sovereignty
• The act overturned the Missouri Compromise

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Bleeding Kansas
The act turned Kansas into a battleground over
slavery Proslavery and antislavery settlers
rushed into the Kansas Territory to vote There
ended up being more proslavery voters Antislavery
voters boycotted the resulting government and
formed their own
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Bleeding Kansas

• Settlers on both sides armed themselves
• In May 1855, a proslavery group attacked the town
  of Lawrence, Kansas
• In return, John Brown (an extreme abolitionist)
  and seven other men murdered five proslavery
  people in their cabins
• Civil war in Kansas broke out and continued for
  three years

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