Free or Slave State?

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the question of whether or not to admit new states as slave-holding or free states had a direct bearing on political representation of states in Congress. The author points out that the southern slaveholding states, fearing political disenfranchisement, wanted new states to be admitted as slaveholding ones thus having more sympathizers in Congress; however, the abolitionist movement was growing stronger and more vocal, especially in the North. The paper examines the Northwest Ordinance, the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Dred Scott case, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and, later, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which ended the practice of slavery in the United States; however, sectionalism divided North and South for many decades after the end of the Civil War.

From the Paper:

"The first territory from the Louisiana Purchase lands to be admitted to the Union was Missouri, in 1818, immediately brining to light the deepening rift between southern and northern sentiments. Missouri was being settled largely by slaveholding southerners, residents who hoped that the state would be admitted without any provisions restricting slavery within its borders. To their consternation and that of other Southern states, Northern Congressmen in the House of Representatives helped passed a bill that would admit Missouri as a free state. The bill failed to pass in the Senate. The crux of the free state/slave state issue was congressional representation: before Missouri was admitted to the Union, the number of slave states and free states was equal. To preserve the balance of power between slaveholding and free states, Congress needed to compromise."

More papers on Free or Slave State?:

• Analytical Essay # 4406 : "Pluralist vs. Assimilationist Cultural Policy in the United States"
• Essay # 26908 : "The Underground Railroad to Canada"
• Essay # 68572 : "The Civil War"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: