Why Did The Missouri Compromise?

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The Missouri Compromise is an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slaves and Free states. First, the basic terms of the Missouri Compromise was too admitted Maine as a Free State and Admitted Missouri as a slave state, and Prohibited slavery above the 36-30 Latitude (except in Missouri). However it did not state that for every Free State there would be a slave state Also, the Civil War was not a decade later - it was 40 years later. The Missouri Compromise was considered by those in the North to be the final answer to slavery. …show more content…
When it was repealed in the early 1850's, that's when we started on the true road to war. Had the Missouri Compromise been left alone - if the southern slave states hadn't used their congressional power to repeal it and again attempted the spread of slavery, there would have been no Civil War - but the slave powers didn't care about that. Although "State's rights" in the South were only important insofar as it involved the right to own slaves. Revisionist historians like to use "state's rights" as a way to defend the actions of secessionists, but outside of slavery secessionists cared very little about state's