What was the Missouri Compromise?

Answer 1

The Missouri Compromise, also called the Compromise of 1820, was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery for all new states north of the 36°30' line, or the border of the Arkansas territory (excluding Missouri). Prior to the agreement, the House of Representatives had refused to accept this boundary and a conference committee was appointed. The United States Senate refused to concur in the amendment, and the whole measure was lost. During the following session (1819-1820), the House passed a similar bill with an amendment introduced on January 26, 1820 by John W. Taylor of New York allowing Missouri into the union as a slave state. In the meantime, the question had been complicated by the admission in December of Alabama, a slave state (the number of slave and free states now becoming equal), and by the passage through the House (January 3, 1820) of a bill to admit Maine as a free state.

The Senate decided to connect the two measures, and passed a bill for the admission of Maine with an amendment enabling the people of Missouri to form a state constitution. Before the bill was returned to the House, a second amendment was adopted on the motion of Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois, excluding slavery from the Missouri Territory north of 36°30' (the southern boundary of Missouri), except within the limits of the proposed state of Missouri. The House of Representatives refused to accept this and a conference committee was appointed.

Answer 2

The Missouri Compromise was a compromise between the North and South, specifically concerning the spread of Slavery, but also concerning the rights of the states.

From the outset, the North had a significantly larger population than the South, giving it a larger portion of the seats in the House. However, there were an equal number of slave states as free states, so that any anti-slavery legislation that the House would enact would be toughly debated in the Senate.

The South felt that the moment that they lost parity with the North in the Senate, then slavery would be quickly limited (and perhaps abolished), and there would also be limits on the rights of the states compared to the Federal Government. In essence, the Compromise would enable states to join only when there was another state ready to join that would balance it out (Missouri and Maine in 1820, and Arkansas and Michigan in 1836/37).