While, the Ohio legislature asked its national representatives to vote against slavery's expansion, some Ohioans came from the South and favored the growth of slaveholding states.
Other people moved to the area from New England and tended to oppose slavery for both moral and economic reasons. There also was a growing abolitionist movement in Ohio, led primarily by the Society of Friends. Just as the nation was divided over slavery's expansion, so too were Ohioans. The Missouri Compromise did not prevent future arguments from arising over slavery. Toggle navigation. The amendment shifted the terms of debate by presenting slavery as an evil to be stopped. Southerners in Congress rejected the amendment as an attempt to gradually abolish slavery—not just in Missouri but throughout the Union—by violating the property rights of slaveholders and their freedom to take their property wherever they wished.
They asserted that it generated wealth and left white men free to exercise their true talents instead of toiling in the soil, as the descendants of Africans were better suited to do. Slaves were cared for, supporters argued, and were better off exposed to the teachings of Christianity as slaves than living as free heathens in uncivilized Africa.
Above all, the United States had a destiny, they argued, to create an empire of slavery throughout the Americas. These proslavery arguments were to be made repeatedly and forcefully as expansion to the West proceeded. Most disturbing for the unity of the young nation, however, was that debaters divided along sectional lines, not party lines. With only a few exceptions, northerners supported the Tallmadge Amendment regardless of party affiliation, and southerners opposed it despite having party differences on other matters.
It did not pass, and the crisis over Missouri led to strident calls of disunion and threats of civil war. Congress finally came to an agreement, called the Missouri Compromise , in Missouri and Maine which had been part of Massachusetts would enter the Union at the same time, Maine as a free state, Missouri as a slave state.
James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment to the statehood bill that would have eventually ended slavery in Missouri and set the existing enslaved workers there free. The amended bill passed narrowly in the House of Representatives, where Northerners held a slight edge.
After this stalemate, Missouri renewed its application for statehood in late This time, Speaker of the House Henry Clay proposed that Congress admit Missouri to the Union as a slave state, but at the same time admit Maine which at the time was part of Massachusetts as a free state.
On March 3, , the House passed the Senate version of the bill, and President James Monroe signed it into law four days later. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed indeed for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. Southerners who opposed the Missouri Compromise did so because it set a precedent for Congress to make laws concerning slavery, while Northerners disliked the law because it meant slavery was expanded into new territory.
The Compromise of , which admitted California to the Union as a free state, required California to send one pro-slavery senator to maintain the balance of power in the Senate.
In , during the organization of Kansas and Nebraska Territories, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois spearheaded the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which mandated that the settlers of each territory should decide the issue of slavery for themselves, a principle known as popular sovereignty.
Bitter controversy also surrounded the U. The North felt that slavery was evil and should be restricted to the current slave states. In , Maine put in its application for statehood. Then a compromise developed. By , this compromise had been realized as two bills were passed.
The first made Maine the 23rd state. This compromise was successful. Although some people continued to argue over slavery, most people began to view the compromise as sacred. At the time, debates were occurring over where the transcontinental railroad would run. Illinois senator Stephen Douglas desired it to run through Chicago, and he needed Southern support.
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