Was the Missouri compromise a good solution to the debate between free-states and slave states?

Answer 1

It depends on how you look at it. The Missouri compromise was a bad solution, because it did not solve the slave problem but it was a good compromise because it lasted for several years and temporarily solved the conflict for a period of time.

Answer 2

Yes it was. The first Compromise kept the peace for thirty years, until the acquisition of vast new territories from Mexico. If California had been admitted to the Union as two separate states, one slave and one free, the Civil War might have been avoided.

Answer 3

The two Missouri Compromises, the one in 1820 and the one in 1850, turned out to be bad decisions by the US congress, but there seemed at each time, there was no better a solution. The problems of slave states being balanced with free states became worse as the US expanded. Southern slave holders saw their power on the wain if westward expansion resulted in marginalizing Southern political power. It was easier for Great Britain, as example to abolish slavery and compensate their slave owners in that the slave plantations were thousands of miles away from the shores of Great Britain. The mistakes they made about slavery in the 13 colonies and the new nation's mistakes about the same issue would not have a good ending. It's clear, that anyone who could foresee the future, would see that slavery as an economic system would have to fade away. But few had that foresight.

Answer 4

There were two Missouri Compromises. The one in 1820 was a straight forward move to admit Missouri as a slave state and create the free state of Maine from territory ceded by Massachusetts.The Missouri Compromise of 1850 was much more complex. More so in that the US had obtained new territories from Mexico as a result of the Mexican War.

To make this latter compromise "work", the North made huge concessions to the slave states.

As an aside, this compromise is why abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe placed the slavery question quite fairly on the backs of the entire nation, not just blaming the South for slavery. In fact, in 1850 and until 1862, slavery was legal in Washington DC.

Answer 5

No. It was a patch-job, and it included the Fugitive Slave Act, which caused so much anger that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' as a protest against it.

Answer 6

yes