Road to Civil War - Term Paper Example

The weighty constitutional compromises were the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri compromise of 1820 was as a result of an application for statehood made by Missouri in 1817. It was the first territory to apply for statehood within the area of Louisiana Purchase. This provoked the anger among northern states politicians because the main agenda of Southern leaders were to have a state with no restriction on slavery.

Missouri application resulted to a fiery debate between the north and south over the issue of slavery in the new territories admitted as states to the union. Slavery was the most divisive issue between northern and southern States in early 1800s,and it threatened to break the union because of their differences regarding the slaves. Northern states were against slavery, and they wanted to have it outlawed. The Missouri application also led to controversy in congress over the slave states with Congressman James Talmadge of New York seeking for additional provision in the Missouri statehood bill specifically restricting further buying of slaves into Missouri.

His amendment also sought to have children of slave’s already in Missouri be set free at age of 25. Although the house of representative had approved the amendment, the senate rejected them and voted in favor of southern thus allowing slavery in Missouri. Southern senators were also blocking the statehood of Maine though a compromise was worked out for it during the congress meeting of late 1819. The compromise resolved that Maine would enter the union as Free State, while the Missouri would enter as a slave state (Alexander and Rucker 340).

Alabama joined the union as a slave a state, making the number of slave states and Free states equal. The Missouri Compromise agreement helped is regulating the spread of slavery into the other parts Louisiana Purchase. This was achieved because the agreement had stated clearly that no any new territory was to be admitted in the union from Missouri’s southern border. The congressional compromise over slavery also helped in setting a precedent that congress could control slavery in new territories and states (Schultz 480).

The Missouri Compromise was exceedingly fruitful as it managed to contain the issue of slavery for three decades thus preventing eruption of war between northern and southern states. The Compromise of 1850 was second, and it was as a result of the end, of the Mexican –American war in 1848. It consisted of a series of bills which were passed by congress in their attempt to determine whether the western territories surrendered by America after the end of the war will enter the union as free or slave states.

The legislation was highly controversial, and it passed after a lot of struggles as it was destined to be unpopular. The legislation consisted of five laws, which managed to balance the interest of Free states and slave states. The compromise resulted to admission of California to the union as a free state; Texas was paid $10 million as financial compensation for abandoning claims to lands west of the Rio Grande, organisation of new territory of Mexico without prohibition of slavery, elimination of slavery in Washington, D.C., and passing of the fugitive Slave