Missouri Compromise of 1820 Much transpired in the 33 years following the signing of our country’s constitution. By 1820 we had another war (War of 1812) with England. Our Capitol had been attacked with the Whitehouse and Capitol building both being burned to the ground. Before the attack Dolly Madison had escaped with the famous painting of George Washington. Francis Scott Key had written the Star Spangled Banner while Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor was under attack by the Royal British Navy that had just defeated Napoleon Bonaparte. The British failure at fort McHenry had ended the war in a stalemate with the treaty of Ghent being signed by both sides in December of 1814. British diplomat Augustus Foster acknowledged, “The Americans have brought us to speak of them with respect.” These events ushered in the “Era of Good Feelings” with prosperous and friendly feelings toward Britain and all of Europe. No longer linked to our colonial past a new sense of confidence inspired growth and Manifest Destiny, a widely held belief that American settlers were destined by God to expand throughout the continent and become a world leader among nations. Since the War of 1812 the world had never experienced such rapid growth of any country as the United States of America. Freedom seemed contagious, and the whole world was watching to see if the population actually controlled the power over its leaders. Growing numbers chose to leave their father countries to see this phenomenon for themselves. Nothing succeeds like Success, and success certainly seemed to be in our future as more and more foreigners flooded into The United States from countries all over the world. Our country had admitted nine new states into the Union before 1820 and with Maine and Missouri applying to be admitted. The hold-up was an argument between the Democrats (pro-slavery) and the Whigs (anti-slavery) with the debate over the regulation of slavery in the western territories. Before the 1820 Compromise the Democrats were worried that Maine was coming into the Union as an anti-slavery State and upsetting the balance between the 11 slave states and the 11 Free states. This would give an edge to the anti-slavery vote in Congress. They opposed Maine being allowed to become a state until a compromise was reached on the Louisiana Territory. The final compromise prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36 Degrees, 30 Minutes except the area within the borders of the proposed state of Missouri, which would be allowed in as a slave state. With Missouri and Maine both being allowed statehood the balance would remain unaltered. Because the bill passed in 1820 was the result of Missouri being allowed in as a slave state, the bill was henceforth referred to as the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Union was preserved but at the cost of slavery being upheld and the states still divided on the issue of whether the slaves should be considered property akin to livestock Thomas Jefferson expressed his opinion on the Missouri Compromise in a letter to John Holms, a Scottish businessman and Liberal politician, dated April 22, 1820. Jefferson writes that the Missouri question, "Like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union." Time would prove Jefferson’s prediction correct but not before one more compromise was reached. My next post will be on the Compromise of 1850 dealing again with the slave issues in America.
Posted on: Sat, 28 Sep 2013 16:14:19 +0000