The Missouri Compromise of 1820

Firstly, please note that although I eventually hope to cover everything on the course, I will not necessarily be posting everything in chronological order...

In this post I shall be covering the first event between 1820-77 regarding the issue of westward expansion: The 1820 Missouri Compromise.

Introduction to Westward Expansion: "Manifest Destiny"

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to New Orleans, doubling the size of the USA. To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms. This was a traditionally Republican viewpoint that dominated US politics in the early years of US government prior to Jackson's presidency. 

In order to provide enough land to sustain this ideal population of virtuous yeomen, the United States would have to continue to expand.The westward expansion of the United States is one of the defining themes of 19th-century American history, but it is not just the story of Jefferson’s expanding “empire of liberty.” On the contrary, as one historian writes, in the six decades after the Louisiana Purchase, westward expansion “nearly destroyed the republic.”

By 1840, nearly 40 percent of the nation’s population lived in the trans-Appalachian West. Most of these people had left their homes in the East in search of economic opportunity. Like Jefferson, many of these pioneers associated westward migration, land ownership and farming with freedom. In Europe, large numbers of factory workers formed a dependent and seemingly permanent working class; by contrast, in the United States, the western frontier offered the possibility of independence and upward mobility for all (all white males, that is)

In 1845, a journalist named John O’Sullivan put a name to the idea that helped pull many pioneers toward the western frontier. Westward migration was an essential part of the republican project, he argued, and it was Americans’ “manifest destiny,” to carry the “great experiment of liberty” to the edge of the continent: to “overspread and to possess the whole of the land which Providence has given us,” O’Sullivan wrote. According to many politicians, the survival of American freedom depended on it.

The Missouri Compromise

In the years leading up to the Missouri Compromise, tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions within the US. By 1819, the original 13 states had grown to 22, with 11 of them, all located in the south, being slave states, and the other 11, all located in the north, being free. In 1819 Missouri requested to join the Union as a slave state, thus potentially upsetting this delicate balance: given that this would tilt the balance of free/slave states against them, the northern states opposed Missouri's admittance. This issue sparked a series of debates in Congress, with southern and northern congressmen lining up against each other. The extraordinarily bitter debate over Missouri’s application for admission ran from December 1819 to March 1820. Northerners, led by Senator Rufus King of New York, argued that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in a new state. Southerners like Senator William Pinkney of Maryland held that new states had the same freedom of action as the original thirteen and were thus free to choose slavery if they wished. However, in March 1820 Congress figured out a compromise in order to keep the peace:

• Missouri's request to join the Union as a slave state was accepted, but in order to keep the balance of free/slave states equal, a new free state - Maine - was also created in New England. 

• It was decided that henceforward, there would be no slave states in the Louisiana purchase territory, meaning all areas north of latitude 36º30' (known as the 36º30' line) except for Missouri itself, which was north of the line. South of this line, slavery could exist. 

The Missouri Compromise was criticized by many southerners because it established the principle that Congress could make laws regarding slavery. On the other hand, northerners condemned it for allowing the expansion of slavery (though only south of the compromise line). 

Nevertheless, the act kept the peace between the two sides, and helped hold the Union together for more than thirty years. However, it also created a physical division between the north and the south; arguably leading to further separation and distinction between the two sides. 

In 1854, the act was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which established popular sovereignty (local choice) regarding slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, two areas that were both north of the compromise line, arguably acting as a catalyst for secession in 1861. Three years later, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, on the ground that Congress was prohibited by the Fifth Amendment from depriving individuals of private property without due process of law. 

But between 1820 and 1854, the compromise acted as a successful settlement between the northern and southern states of the USA.