The Missouri Compromise Of 1850: A Comparative Analysis

Ever since the settlement of Jamestown in 1602, slavery had been an ongoing controversy in the United States of America. Northerners believed slavery was a violation of basic human rights and should be abolished, whereas Southerners saw slavery as a way of life necessary for supporting the national economy. The contrasting opinions regarding slavery and servitude affected the unity of the nation significantly. In America during the early nineteenth century, conflicting views on the issue of slavery expansion into the west, which resulted in the Missouri Compromise, the Wilmot Proviso and the Compromise of 1850, contributed greatly to the increasing sectional tensions between the North and the South. Due to the threat of unequal representation in the Senate, Missouri’s entrance to the Union as a possible slave state caused a separation between the North and South. Prior to the concern of slavery in Missouri, the Union had maintained an equal balance of free and slave states in the Senate. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was the agreement, which allowed Maine to enter the Union as a free state in addition to Missouri’s entrance as a slave state to recreate the

Northern politicians rushed to support David Wilmot’s proposition. However, southern slaveholders claimed the proposal to be unconstitutional since they considered slaves to be their property. The Wilmot Proviso passed in the House of Representative but not in the Senate, therefore it never became a law. The proposed amendment neither solved nor complicated the question of slavery; it only left the issue as a persisting and unavoidable subject of debate. The unending argument of slavery and involuntary servitude only fueled the sectional divide of northern and southern