Download Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas

Missouri
Compromise,
Compromise of 1850,
and the KansasNebraska Act
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
Not the way it happened…
James Monroe-the U.S.
president at the time
of the Missouri
Compromise
THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE
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
What
Happened???
• Henry Clay, who became
known as the Great
Compromiser, came up with
a plan
• Clay’s 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’ (Missouri’s
southern border)
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.”
COMPROMISE OF 1850
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
What Happened???
• California couldn’t 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
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
THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
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 territoriesNebraska 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
“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
“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