With slavery legal when it was first a French and later a Spanish colony, Louisiana entered the Union as a slave state in 1812 without controversy. But Missouri’s petition in 1819 for statehood with slavery sparked a debate over the “peculiar institution” in the Louisiana Purchase area. Under the Compromise of 1820, Missouri entered as a slave state, balanced by Maine’s entry as a free state. A line at 36 degrees, 30 minutes latitude (Missouri’s southern boundary) divided the territory, with slavery allowed south of it, and prohibited north of it outside Missouri. But in 1854 the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act. Promoted by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas as part of his scheme for a trans-continental railroad, the Compromise created two new territories, open to the possibility of slavery under the concept of “popular sovereignty.” Allowing residents to vote either for or against slavery sparked a rush to settle Kansas.
Settlers from the New England states, sponsored by abolitionist organizations, desired to see Kansas join the Union as a free state, as did many settlers from the Midwestern states, but for more economic reasons. Missouri slaveholders feared the creation of a possible refuge for runaway slaves and resented interference in what they considered to be the natural flow of slavery westward from existing areas... Continue reading »
