issouri came in as a slave state, it would tip the political balance in the South's favor. Missouri was the first part of the Louisiana Purchase to apply for statehood. When the request came to enter the Union, there was an effort to keep an even balance among free and slave holding states; 11 free and 11 slave. This meant that there was an even vote in the Senate. It also meant that there was no state to "match" Missouri to make the balance even. In 1820, Congress sat down and devised a plan, the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was added as a slave state, while Maine became a free state. At the same time the law drew a line through all the rest of the lands of the Louisiana Purchase excluding slavery "forever" from north parallel of 36*30' The Missouri Compromise was nothing more than a truce that announced the opening of a fight to the finish. The Missouri Compromise preserved sectional balance for over 30 thirty years and provided time for the nation to mature. Nevertheless, if an era of good feelings existed, it was badly damaged by the storm of sectional controversy over Missouri. Americans were torn between feelings of nationalism on the one hand and feelings of sectionalism (loyalty to one's own region) on the other. Therefore the Missouri Compromise helped to unify our country though it was a slave state. The gold rush and the influx of about 10,000 settlers into California created the need for law and order in the West. In 1849, Californians a constitution for their new state- a constitution that banned slavery. Even though President Taylor was a slaveholder himself, he supported the immediate admission of both California and New Mexico, as free states. Some southerner extremists met in Nashville in 1850 to discuss secession. Henry Clay had a proposal for solving this political crisis. 1. Admit California to the Union as a free state. 2. Adopt a Fugitive Slave Law and enforce it rigorously 3. Ban the slave trade in the District o...
