Causation Civil War Debate

Causation Civil War Debate

Side: Union

Topic: C: Compromises and Government Cooperative Acts: Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act and Popular Sovereignty

Missouri Compromise

The act helped hold the Union together for more than thirty years.

It was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which established popular sovereignty (local choice) regarding slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, though both were north of the compromise line.

Three years later, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, on the ground that Congress was prohibited by the Fifth Amendment from depriving individuals of private property without due process of law.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was an effort by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to maintain a balance of power between the slaveholding states and free states. The slaveholding states feared that if they became outnumbered in Congressional representation that they would lack the power to protect their interests in property and trade.

Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine (formerly part of Massachusetts) as free

The Senate passed a bill allowing Maine to enter the Union as a free state and Missouri to be admitted without restrictions on slavery.

Sen. Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois then added an amendment that allowed Missouri to become a slave state but banned slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36°30′.

Missouri goes above the 36°30′ which is where slavery is prohibited.

Compromise of 1850

Henry Clay says, “The acquisition of Western Territory widened the schisms between the North and the South” (350). (Living History of America*BOOK*)

“Fearing they would lose their political power to resist the increasing calls for the abolition of slavery, the slave holding states wanted to make sure that the new states admitted to the union permitted slaves” (350).

On January 29, 1950, Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions laying the framework to keep the Union intact.

Henry’s plan called for California as a free state which would then make the Fugitive Slave act stricter.

California was admitted to the Union as the 16th free state. In exchange, the south was guaranteed that no federal restrictions on slavery would be placed on Utah or New Mexico. Texas lost its boundary claims in New Mexico, but the Congress compensated Texas with $10 million. Slavery was maintained in the nation's capital, but the slave trade was prohibited. Finally, and most controversially, a FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW was passed, requiring northerners to return runaway slaves to their owners under penalty of law.

COMP OF 1850

North Gets

South Gets

California admitted as a free state

No slavery restrictions in Utah or New Mexico territories

Slave trade prohibited in Washington D.C.

Slaveholding permitted in Washington D.C.

Texas loses boundary dispute with New Mexico

Texas gets $10 million

Fugitive Slave Law

Although each side received benefits, the north seemed to gain the most. The balance of the Senate was now with the free states, although California often voted with the south on many issues in the 1850s. The major victory for the south was the Fugitive Slave Law.

Kansas- Nebraska Act & Popular Sovereignty

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act infuriated many in the North who considered the Missouri Compromise to be a long-standing binding agreement. In the pro-slavery South it was strongly supported.

The anti-slavery settlers held another election, however pro-slavery settlers refused to vote. This resulted in the establishment of two opposing legislatures within the Kansas territory.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. Proposed by Stephen A. Douglas–Abraham Lincoln’s opponent in the influential Lincoln-Douglas