Missouri Compromise, 1820 | North & South sectionalism | Free states & slave states, Maine

The Missouri Compromise was the product of a growing sectional conflict between northern free states and southern slave states. In 1819, there were eleven free states and 11 southern states, making a senatorial deadlock between the two.

Missouri was important to both sides, as it was strategic. The Ohio River, Mississippi River, and Missouri River all junction in Missouri. Missouri also has the soil and landscape to be a southern cash crop economy or a northern corn and wheat economy.

St. Louis was also a major hub, the new gateway to the west. Representative James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment to end slavery in the Missouri territory. However, the Senate could block the entrance of Maine, the free state, if Missouri so entered also as a free state.

Jesse Thomas of Illinois proposed that Missouri enter as a slave state. However, the state's southern border, the latitude of 36 degrees 30 minutes, would then serve as the new limit of slavery within the Louisiana Purchase.

Henry Clay was the Speaker of the House. The compromise passed. Maine entered as a free state, Missouri entered as a slave state, and Missouri's southern boundary was the new limit of slavery.

A film by Jeffrey Meyer, historian and librarian, Iowa