Missouri Compromise Timeline

(1820 - 1854)

The Missouri Compromise was a pivotal agreement passed by the U.S. Congress in 1820 that regulated slavery in the western territories. It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state while prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel, temporarily preserving the balance of power between free and slave states. More Less

Go to: Timeline | Event List | Key Facts | Directory

Background and Context

Declaration of Independence asserts liberty and equality

1776

The Declaration of Independence was grounded on the claim that liberty and equality were linked together as universal human rights, setting an ideological standard that would later clash with the institution of slavery during the Missouri crisis.

Image source: United States Declaration of Independence

Constitutional Convention forms a government of limited powers

1787

The Revolutionary generation formed a government of limited powers in 1787 to embody the principles of the Declaration but 'burdened with the one legacy that defied the principles of 1776': human bondage. The constitutional compromise provided for two senators per state regardless of population.

Image source: Constitutional Convention (United States)

Northwest Ordinance authorizes congressional exclusion of slavery

1787

Slaveholders co-operated in authorizing the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. From a constitutional standpoint, it later served as an important example for the Missouri Compromise of congressional exclusion of slavery from US territory.

Image source: Northwest Ordinance

Northwest Ordinance authorizes congressional exclusion of slavery

Cotton boom spreads slavery westward to the Mississippi River

1790 - 1815

With the introduction of the cotton gin in the 1790s through 1815, with the vast increase in international demand for cotton, slave-based agriculture underwent an immense revival that spread the institution westward to the Mississippi River.

Image source: Cotton gin

Louisiana Purchase doubles the size of the United States

1803

President Thomas Jefferson wielded federal executive power to double the size of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase, deviating from Jeffersonian strictures on limited central government. The treaty's Article 3 extended the rights of US citizens to all inhabitants of the new territory, including protection of property in slaves.

Image source: Louisiana Purchase

Congress limits introduction of enslaved people to Louisiana Territory

1804

In 1804, Congress limited the further introduction of enslaved men and women to those introduced by actual settlers, heightening concerns that it intended to extend some sort of prohibition on slavery's growth across the river.

Image source: Missouri Compromise

Congress withdraws restrictions; 1805 territorial ordinance omits slavery

1805

White Missourians objected to restrictions on slavery, and in 1805 Congress withdrew them. The final version of the 1805 territorial ordinance omitted all references to slavery, so slavery existed legally in Missouri by force of local law and territorial statute rather than by ordinance.

Louisiana enters the Union as a slave state

1812

In 1812, Louisiana, a major cotton producer and the first state carved from the Louisiana Purchase, entered the Union as a slave state.

Image source: Louisiana

Era of Good Feelings dissolves national political identities

1817 - 1825

The Era of Good Feelings, closely associated with President James Monroe's administration, was characterized by the dissolution of national political identities. With Federalists discredited by the Hartford Convention, Democratic-Republicans adopted key Federalist economic programs like the Tariff of 1816 and the Second Bank of the United States.

Image source: Era of Good Feelings

Era of Good Feelings dissolves national political identities

Missouri Crisis

Rapid settlement of Missouri Territory led by slaveholding planters

1815 - 1819

After the War of 1812, Missouri Territory experienced rapid settlement led by slaveholding planters. Southern planters immigrated with their chattel, and the slave population rose from 3,101 in 1810 to 10,000 in 1820. By 1819, the population approached the threshold for statehood.

Image source: Missouri Territory

Tallmadge submits antislavery amendments to Missouri statehood request

Feb 1819

Representative James Tallmadge Jr., a Democratic-Republican from New York, submitted two amendments to Missouri's request for statehood that included restrictions on slavery, igniting the Missouri crisis.

Image source: James Tallmadge Jr.

House links Tallmadge provisions to Missouri statehood bill

Feb 16, 1819 - Feb 17, 1819

On February 16, 1819, the House Committee of the Whole voted to link Tallmadge's provisions with the Missouri statehood legislation by 79–67, and the committee adopted measure passed the House on February 17, 1819. The debates lasted only three days.

15th Congress ends in stalemate over Missouri question

Mar 4, 1819

While the Missouri question in the 15th Congress ended in stalemate on March 4, 1819, with the House sustaining its northern anti-slavery position and the Senate blocking a state that restricted slavery, it succeeded in the 16th Congress. House restrictionists refused to concur with Senate anti-restrictionists, and Missouri statehood devolved upon the 16th Congress in December 1819.

Image source: 15th United States Congress

Compromise and Passage

Missouri constitution excludes free negroes and mulattoes

1820

The struggle was revived over a clause in Missouri's new constitution, written in 1820, which required the exclusion of 'free negroes and mulattoes' from the state. The question of final admission came up during the session of 1820–1821.

Maine seeks admission as a free state

Jan 3, 1820

A bill to admit Maine as a free state came before the House on January 3, 1820. Because it no longer wanted to be part of non-contiguous Massachusetts after the War of 1812, the District of Maine sought and ultimately gained admission into the United States as a free state.

Image source: Maine

John W. Taylor introduces amendment pairing Maine and Missouri

Jan 26, 1820

During the session of 1819–1820, the House passed a similar bill with an amendment introduced on January 26, 1820, by John W. Taylor, who had antislavery credentials from proposing a similar slave restriction for Arkansas Territory in February 1819, which was defeated 89–87.

Image source: John W. Taylor (politician)

Senate passes amendment and Maine bill

Feb 17, 1820 - Feb 18, 1820

The amendment and the bill passed in the Senate on February 17 and February 18, 1820. Rufus King, re-elected to the Senate in January 1820 with bipartisan support, expanded his old critique of the federal ratio to include moral considerations of slavery during the debates.

16th Congress passes the Missouri Compromise legislation

Mar 3, 1820

The 16th United States Congress passed the Missouri Compromise legislation on March 3, 1820, balancing northern desires to prevent the expansion of slavery with southern desires to expand it. Some Federalists voted against the compromise and against Maine's independence.

Image source: 16th United States Congress

President James Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise

Mar 6, 1820

President James Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise into law on March 6, 1820, after both houses agreed and the measures were passed on March 5, 1820.

Image source: James Monroe

Missouri admitted to the Union as a slave state

1821

Maine was admitted in 1820, and Missouri in 1821. The trend of admitting a new free or slave state to balance the status of previous ones would continue up until the Compromise of 1850.

Image source: Missouri

Legacy and Repeal

Jefferson predicts the line will tear the Union apart

Apr 1820

In April 1820, Thomas Jefferson predicted that the line as drawn would someday tear the Union apart. The compromise both delayed the Civil War and sowed its seeds.

Image source: Thomas Jefferson

Arkansas and Michigan admitted to balance sectional parity

1836 - 1837

The next states to be admitted were Arkansas (slave state) in 1836, quickly followed by Michigan (free state) in 1837, continuing the pattern of paired admissions begun with the Missouri Compromise.

Image source: Arkansas

Texas and Florida admission countered by Iowa and Wisconsin

1845 - 1848

In 1845, two slave states (Texas and Florida) were admitted, which was countered by the free states of Iowa and Wisconsin in 1846 and 1848. Extension of slavery westward was discussed during the Texas Annexation, but the line never reached the Pacific.

Image source: Texas annexation

Compromise of 1850 briefly defuses tensions

1850

Tensions resumed in the 1840s and the Compromise of 1850 only briefly defused the situation over the extension of slavery westward.

Image source: Compromise of 1850

Kansas–Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise

1854

Stephen Douglas's Kansas–Nebraska Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise in 1854, causing outrage in the North and sparking the return to politics of Abraham Lincoln, who criticized slavery and excoriated Douglas's act in his Peoria Speech on October 16, 1854.

Image source: Kansas–Nebraska Act

Dred Scott decision declares the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional

1857

In the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress did not have authority to prohibit slavery in territories, declaring those provisions of the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Both the repeal and the ruling increased tensions over slavery and contributed to the American Civil War.

Image source: Dred Scott v. Sandford

Civil War breaks out; compromise hailed for postponing conflict

1861

Although the Civil War eventually broke out in 1861, historians often say that the Compromise helped postpone the war. For decades afterward, most Americans hailed the 1820 agreement as an essential compromise, almost on the sacred level of the Constitution itself.

Image source: American Civil War

Civil War breaks out; compromise hailed for postponing conflict

Key Facts

The Missouri Compromise was signed into law by President James Monroe on March 6, 1820.
It admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to maintain an equal balance of 12 free and 12 slave states in the Senate.
It established the 36°30′ parallel as the dividing line, banning slavery in future states north of that line within the Louisiana Purchase territory (except Missouri).
The compromise was proposed largely through the efforts of Speaker of the House Henry Clay, who became known as 'The Great Compromiser.'
The Missouri Compromise was effectively repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed popular sovereignty to decide slavery's expansion, intensifying sectional conflict leading to the Civil War.

Source

This Missouri Compromise timeline was generated with the help of AI, using information found on the internet.

We work hard to keep these timelines accurate, but mistakes do get through. If you spot one, email us at [email protected] and we'll fix it for future visitors.

Want a timeline like this one?

Generate yours with AI or build it from scratch, for free.

Try It for Free