Missouri Compromise: Definition of Missouri Compromise of 1820 Definition: The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was a settlement reached between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Congress and their opposing views on the extension of slavery into new territories. The legislation, which became known as the Missouri Compromise, admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, retaining the balance between slave and free states What were the Terms of the Missouri Compromise? The terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 were:
Maine and Missouri were both admitted to the union
Drafted and influenced by Henry Clay
Missouri was admitted as a slave state
Maine was admitted as a non-slave state
The Missouri Compromise specified that all of the Louisiana purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri, with the single exception of the state of Missouri, should be free soil forever
Congress also passed an amendment that drew an imaginary line across the former Louisiana Territory, establishing a boundary between free and slave regions that remained the law of the land until it was negated by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act
Compromise of 1850: Definition of the Compromise of 1850: The Compromise of 1850 was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War. It was a set of five bills proposed by Republican Senator Henry Clay and supported by his counterparts Daniel Webster and John Calhoun. With the help of Stephen Douglass, Democrat Senator from Illinois, the bills were approved by Congress. As its name suggests, it was a compromise between northern free states and southern slave states over the spread of slavery. Its objective was to keep the country together and avoid confrontation. What were the terms of the Compromise of 1850?
North gets California admitted as a free state
Abolished slave trade in the District of Columbia (D.C.)
Combination of different bills
Drafted and influenced by Henry Clay
South gets no slavery restrictions in Utah and New Mexico territories, popular sovereignty or their choice to become free or slave territory
South gets the Fugitive Slave Law:
allowed Legal, organized, Slave Patrols were established in the south
The law was seldom enforced in the north, because its enforcement had been left to the states
Public opinion in the North gradually strengthened against slavery
Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854 Definition of Kansas-Nebraska Act: The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a law written by Stephen A. Douglas and passed by Congress on May 30, 1854 that divided the territory west of the states of Missouri and Iowa and the territory of Minnesota into two new territories that were named Kansas and Nebraska. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was another compromise, based on the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, that contravened the 1820 Missouri compromise and allowed settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery.
What were the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
The Kansas-Nebraska Act contradicted the terms of the Missouri Compromise, which designated 36°30′ as a line of latitude to be the separation between free and slave states (Kansas should have been a free state as it was north of the line)
The Kansas-Nebraska Act opened up an immense region to slavery
The anti-slavery leaders in the North were furious and attacked the bill with great ferocity
The Kansas-Nebraska Act provided a focal point for Abolitionists who established a media campaign against the law and applied political pressure to abolish slavery
Northerners established a free-soil campaign
Southern settlers flooded the Kansas territory to acquire lands and voted for the expansion of slavery
Violence erupted in Kansas between Anti-slavery and Pro-slavery militant activists reaching a state of low intensity civil war and this destructive event became known as 'Bleeding Kansas'
This event was one of the causes of the American Civil War.
Fact Sheet: Gradualism vs. Immediate Emancipation
Excerpt from Reading Assignment Number 2: "The First Age of Reform" by Ronald G. Walters
"The second of this trio of best-known antebellum reforms was a new, more radical anti-slavery movement that emerged by the early 1830s. Its program for ending slavery stood in stark contrast to the “colonizationist”[or gradualist] position earlier advocated by some prominent Americans and embodied in the American Colonization Society (1816–1964). [Gradualists] maintained that the right way to end slavery was gradually, either voluntarily by masters or with some compensation, and by sending freed African Americans to the ACS’s colony in Africa, Liberia. Some [gradualists] (including the few African American ones) genuinely disliked slavery and believed black people had no future in the United States; others were more concerned about eliminating a growing free black population in the South and North. Although relatively small in numbers, post-1830 abolitionists included African Americans and whites, and women and men, and were generally less distinguished than the leaders of the ACS. They rejected every aspect of [gradualism]. For them slavery had to be ended immediately, not gradually, without compensation to masters and with freed slaves remaining in the United States. Where [gradualists] placated slaveholders (and included them in their ranks), [immediate emancipation] abolitionists condemned them as sinners. This position had little appeal outside the free states, and even there abolitionists faced enormous hostility, especially in the 1830s, but their passionate rhetoric and deeds helped shape political debates as the nation headed toward secession and civil war."