As a key to understanding the meaning of slavery in America, the Missouri controversy of 1819-21 is probably our most valuable text. The heat of sectional rhetoric during the Missouri debates reached a level never exceeded, and rarely matched, until the secession crisis of 1860. Moreover, nearly all the arguments for and against slavery in America were advanced at this time (with revealing exceptions, as we shall see). The Missouri Compromise is said to have settled the slavery question for a generation; its repeal, in 1854, triggered the final stage of the sectional crisis, prompted the establishment of the Republican Party, and impelled the return to politics of Abraham Lincoln. It merits a heading in every American history textbook. ----Introduction.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

At the end of this book, you should be able to explain in your own words what the Missouri Compromise was all about.This book will also tackle the issue of slavery because that’s one of the main issues that pushed for the creation of the compromise. The Missouri Compromise touches an ethical topic much more than it does political. Learn more about it by reading this book today.

Discusses the Missouri Compromise and its impact on history.