40 Fun Facts About Missouri Compromise

Which state's panhandle exists because Texas gave up its land north of the Missouri Compromise line?

Oklahoma gained its panhandle from a strip nobody governed. Texas, a slave state, ceded its claims above the line, and the leftover land sat for decades as No Man's Land.

Which free state joined the Union alongside slaveholding Missouri under the Missouri Compromise?

Maine had been a district of Massachusetts until then. Southern lawmakers tied its statehood bill to Missouri's, so the free states could not gain a state without giving one.

The Missouri Compromise banned slavery in western territories above which line of latitude?

36°30′ north also marked Missouri's own southern border, so the new slave state sat above the line as its single exception.

Which House Speaker became the Great Compromiser after steering the Missouri bills through Congress?

Henry Clay broke the deadlock by dividing the combined package into separate bills, so that each half could pass the House with a different majority.

Which former president wrote that the Missouri crisis woke him like a fire bell in the night?

Thomas Jefferson, long retired, called the new dividing line the knell of the Union. He feared a border drawn on a moral principle would only cut deeper with time.

Which 1854 law repealed the Missouri Compromise by opening land above its line to slavery?

The Kansas–Nebraska Act set off years of armed clashes between proslavery and antislavery settlers racing to control the newly opened land.

Which 1857 Supreme Court ruling declared the already repealed Missouri Compromise unconstitutional?

Dred Scott v. Sandford held that Congress never had the power to bar slavery from the territories. The plaintiff had claimed freedom after living on free soil north of the line.

Which crop, rather than cotton, did planters expect enslaved workers to grow in early Missouri?

Hemp suited the lower Missouri River valley, which had no prospects for cotton. Its promise drew slaveholders west, and the enslaved population more than tripled in a decade.

Which Illinois lawyer re-entered politics in 1854 to attack the repeal of the Missouri Compromise?

Abraham Lincoln spoke for three hours on the courthouse lawn, laying out moral, legal and economic arguments against slavery that set the stage for his later career.

Which president, the last of the Virginia dynasty, signed the Missouri Compromise into law in 1820?

James Monroe had endorsed the Southern tactic of holding a free state's admission hostage until Missouri could enter with slavery intact.

The Missouri Compromise line divided only the unorganized remainder of which vast land acquisition?

The Louisiana Purchase was the only land the line covered, which is why the slavery question reopened when the United States won new territory from Mexico.

Missouri became the first state located entirely west of which waterway when it joined the Union in 1821?

The Mississippi River was where the old free-slave boundary, the Ohio River, ran out, so Missouri forced Congress to decide what rule applied beyond it.

Anger at the 1854 repeal of the Missouri Compromise led antislavery activists to found which political organization?

The Republican Party rapidly gained support across the North, drawing in former Whigs and Free Soilers. Six years after the repeal it won the presidency.

Which Illinois Democrat, nicknamed the Little Giant, wrote the law that repealed the Missouri Compromise?

Stephen A. Douglas only reluctantly agreed to the formal repeal, to win Southern support. Years earlier he had favoured stretching the old line across every US territory.

The 1854 law that replaced the Missouri Compromise let settlers decide on slavery under which principle?

Popular sovereignty sounded neutral, but it turned a new territory into a contest. Thousands of armed men crossed over from Missouri to swing the vote for its first legislature.

Which slave state's admission in December 1819 left the Union evenly split as the Missouri debate resumed?

Alabama made it eleven free states and eleven slave states. With the two sides level, one more slave state would have tipped the balance of power in Washington.

Which New York congressman set off the Missouri crisis in 1819 with an amendment to restrict slavery there?

James Tallmadge had already helped speed the end of slavery in his home state. He fell ill after proposing the amendment, and a colleague had to carry on the fight.

Admitting Missouri without a free partner would have handed slave states a majority in which body?

The Senate gave every state two seats whatever its population, so it was the one place the South could match the faster-growing North. Paired admissions had kept it level since 1815.

Northern critics in the Missouri debates attacked which constitutional rule that inflated Southern House seats?

The Three-Fifths Clause counted most of the enslaved population toward a state's seats and electoral votes. Northerners had no plan to repeal it, only to stop it spreading west.

Antislavery lawmakers in the Missouri debates cited which earlier law barring slavery north of the Ohio River?

The Northwest Ordinance had kept Indiana and Illinois free, which antislavery members offered as proof that Congress could set terms for new states. Southerners replied that it predated the Constitution.

Which insult did John Randolph coin for Northerners who voted with the South in the Missouri debates?

Doughfaces may be a mishearing. The Virginian was a keen hunter who sometimes brought his dog to Congress, and he may have been comparing the men to the timid face of a doe.

Which nickname is given to the corner of Missouri that dips south of the Missouri Compromise line?

The Bootheel would have been cut off by the straight border first proposed. A local planter is said to have lobbied to keep his land in Missouri, and the boundary there was moved south.

Which colonial surveyors' boundary became shorthand for the slave–free divide during the Missouri debates?

The Mason–Dixon line was surveyed in the 1760s to end a border feud between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Decades later, Congress turned its name into a symbol of North against South.

Which Chief Justice wrote the 1857 opinion that declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional?

Roger B. Taney had freed the slaves he inherited from his father, yet he sought to use this ruling to end the national debate over slavery for good.

Which president signed the 1854 repeal of the Missouri Compromise and was then denied renomination by his party?

Franklin Pierce was a New Hampshire Democrat, so his support for opening the West to slavery cost him the North while many white Southerners still backed him.

In an 1820 letter on the Missouri crisis, a retired president likened slavery to holding which animal by the ear?

Wolf was his image for a danger the country could neither keep hold of nor safely let go. He may have borrowed the phrase from the Roman biographer Suetonius.

The free state paired with Missouri in 1820 sought statehood after being left undefended in which conflict?

The War of 1812 left the district exposed to British invasion with little protection from its parent state. Resentment fed the drive to break away.

The 1857 ruling against the Missouri Compromise said its slavery ban breached which part of the Bill of Rights?

The Fifth Amendment bars taking property without due process of law. The Court counted enslaved people as property, so a ban on holding them in the territories became an unlawful seizure.

Which Illinois senator proposed the dividing line that became the heart of the Missouri Compromise?

Jesse B. Thomas offered the North a ban on slavery across the remaining territory in exchange for Missouri. He had earlier presided over the convention that wrote his own state's first constitution.

Which New York senator, the last Federalist nominee for president, led the push to restrict slavery in Missouri?

Rufus King gave what is considered the greatest speech of his career against admitting Missouri with slavery. Southerners suspected him of plotting to build a new Northern party.

As the Missouri crisis began, which new territory kept slavery after a House ban failed by just two votes?

Arkansas was carved from the southern part of the Missouri Territory that year. A New York congressman's bid to keep slavery out of it lost 89 to 87.

Which state entered the Union free in 1850 though part of it lies south of the Missouri Compromise line?

California's admission convinced proslavery Southerners that the old line was already dead. Its own convention had voted unanimously to outlaw slavery across the whole state.

In the 1840s, several failed proposals would have stretched the Missouri Compromise line west as far as what?

The Pacific Ocean was the goal of plans backed by President James K. Polk, among others. Each failed, since many Northerners wanted slavery kept out of all the newly won land.

Which Kentucky senator proposed in 1860 to restore the Missouri Compromise line by constitutional amendment?

John J. Crittenden hoped six constitutional amendments would head off civil war by reviving the old line and running it west. Congress would not approve them.

Which Missouri politician, one of the new state's first two senators, went on to hold the seat for thirty years?

Thomas Hart Benton became the first senator ever to serve five terms. Though a slaveholder, he came to oppose slavery, and Missouri's legislature refused him a sixth.

Missouri's 1820 constitution nearly blocked statehood by requiring lawmakers to bar which group from the state?

Free Black people were the target of a clause that set off a second crisis. Missouri was admitted only after agreeing it would never be read to strip any US citizen of rights.

Fort Snelling, where an enslaved man's stay led to the 1857 ruling on the Missouri Compromise, lies in which state?

Minnesota was then part of the Wisconsin Territory, free soil under the Compromise. An army surgeon took the man there and hired out his labour, which became the basis of his claim to freedom.

The Missouri crisis shook which period of American politics, named by a Boston newspaper in 1817?

The Era of Good Feelings got its name after a presidential goodwill tour reached Boston. The slavery fight that followed made the conflict between slave and free soil open and explicit.

Which failed 1846 measure sought to bar slavery from all land won from Mexico, ignoring the Missouri line?

The Wilmot Proviso passed the House twice and died in the upper chamber both times, where the South had more weight. It began as a rider on a bill to fund peace talks.

Which Ohio senator's Appeal of the Independent Democrats denounced the plan to repeal the Missouri Compromise?

Salmon P. Chase called the bill a gross violation of a sacred pledge. A decade later he became Chief Justice, taking the seat of the man whose Court had struck the Compromise down.