As a key to understanding the meaning of slavery in America, the Missouri controversy of 181921 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 Americ...

Understanding slave states and free states is important in understanding the period of time surrounding the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise also played a key role in this time period. Readers of this informative book will gain invaluable knowledge on these topics. Accounts of specific moments and events help readers understand how these things helped lead to the Civil War. Important lessons from key social studies curriculum are reinforced through detailed text and closely related photographs.

"This book, planned as the first of two volumes, aims to explore the Missouri Crisis and the many reverberations and ramifications thereof. The volumes are offered as part of the University of Missouri and the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy's contribution to the state's 2021 bicentennial commemoration"--

“In this engaging work, Van Atta . . . provides an in-depth analysis of the 1820 Missouri Compromise, a seminal event on the road to the Civil War.” —Choice In Wolf by the Ears, John R. Van Atta discusses how the question of slavery surfaced in the divisive fight over Missouri statehood. As Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time, a nation dealing with the politically implacable issue of slavery essentially held the “wolf” by the ears—and could neither let go nor hang on forever. The first organized Louisiana Purchase territory to lie completely west of the Mississippi River and northwest of the Ohio, Missouri carried special significance for both pro- and anti-slavery advocates. Northern congressmen leaped out of their seats to object to the proposed expansion of the slave “empire,” while slave-state politicians voiced outrage at the northerners’ blatant sectional attack. Although the Missouri confrontation ultimately appeared to end amicably with a famous compromise that the wily Kentuckian Henry Clay helped to cobble together, the passions it unleashed proved vicious, widespread, and long lasting. Van Atta deftly explains how the Missouri crisis revealed the power that slavery had already gained over American nation building. He explores the external social, cultural, and economic forces that gave the confrontation such urgency around the country, as well as the beliefs, assumptions, and fears that characterized both sides of the slavery argument. Wolf by the Ears provides students in American history with an ideal introduction to the Missouri crisis while at the same time offering fresh insights for scholars of the early republic. “Van Atta has written the clearest narrative of the Missouri crisis to date.” —Louisiana History

Discusses the Missouri Compromise and its impact on history.

Explores the Missouri Compromise and its relationship to slavery in the United States. Authoritative text, colorful illustrations, illuminating sidebars, and a "Voices from the Past" feature make this book an exciting and informative read.

The Washington University Libraries presents an online exhibit of documents regarding the Dred Scott case. American slave Dred Scott (1795?-1858) and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the Saint Louis Circuit Court in 1846. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1857 that the Scotts must remain slaves.

Our Documents is a collection of 100 documents that the staff of the National Archives has judged most important to the development of the United States. The entry for each document includes a short introduction, a facsimile, and a transcript of the document. Backmatter includes further reading, credits, and index. The book is part of the much larger Our Documents initiative sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National History Day, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the USA Freedom Corps.

Jacksonian democracy; sectionalism; secession; history of Congress; American history

In this important new contribution to the historical literature, Amy Fluker offers a history of Civil War commemoration in Missouri, shifting focus away from the guerrilla war and devoting equal attention to Union, African American, and Confederate commemoration. She provides the most complete look yet at the construction of Civil War memory in Missouri, illuminating the particular challenges that shaped Civil War commemoration. As a slaveholding Union state on the Western frontier, Missouri found itself at odds with the popular narratives of Civil War memory developing in the North and the South. At the same time, the state’s deeply divided population clashed with one another as they tried to find meaning in their complicated and divisive history. As Missouri’s Civil War generation constructed and competed to control Civil War memory, they undertook a series of collaborative efforts that paved the way for reconciliation to a degree unmatched by other states. Acts of Civil War commemoration have long been controversial and were never undertaken for objective purposes, but instead served to transmit particular values to future generations. Understanding this process lends informative context to contemporary debates about Civil War memory.