The Missouri Compromise was an agreement in the US Congress that resolved a bitter dispute over the extension of slavery into new territories. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, so as to keep the balance in the Senate between slave and free states, and it prohibited slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the latitude line of 36 degrees 30 minutes. The compromise, steered by Henry Clay, delayed a sectional crisis for a generation, but it did not resolve the underlying conflict. It was effectively repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision of 1857, increasing the tensions that led to the Civil War.
Before and after
- from 3 November 1819 to 22 December 1819Persian Gulf campaign of 1819
- 19 November 1819Construction of Museo del Prado
- 22 November 1819Birth of George Eliot
- 1820Founding of Indiana University Bloomington
- 1820Missouri Compromise
- 1820Oersted discovers electromagnetism
- 14 March 1820Birth of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
- 27 April 1820Birth of Herbert Spencer
- 12 May 1820Birth of Florence Nightingale
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 18 June 1812 to 18 February 1815War of 1812
- from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871Franco-Prussian War
- from 18 March 1871 to 28 May 1871Paris Commune
- from 1885 to 1914Scramble for Africa
- from 25 April 1898 to 11 August 1898Spanish–American War
- from 8 February 1904 to 5 September 1905Russo-Japanese War
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.