Road to Civil War Slavery and the West p

The Missouri Compromise The request by slaveholding Missouri to join the Union caused an angry debate. In 1819, 11 states permitted slavery and 11 did not. The Senate – with two members from each state – was evenly balanced between slave and free states. The admission of a new state would upset that balance. The North and South were competing for new land in the West.

Clay’s Proposal The Senate suggested a way to resolve the crisis by allowing Missouri’s admittance as a slave state while simultaneously admitting Maine as a free state. The Senate also south to settle the issue of slavery in the territories for good by prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36-30N latitude. Speaker of the House Henry Clay proposed the Missouri Compromise. This would preserve the balance between slave and free states

The Tariff Debate Americans from different parts of the country disagreed strongly on the issue of tariffs, a fee paid by merchants who imported goods. In 1828 Congress passed a very high tariff on manufactured goods from Europe. Northerners welcomed the tariff because it meant that Americans would more likely buy American- made goods. Southerners hated it because they argued that, while tariffs forced consumers to buy American goods, it also meant higher prices. They called it the Tariff of Abominations.

The Nullification Crisis In 1832 Congress passed a new, lower tariff, hoping that the protest in the South would die down. It did not. South Carolina’s legislature passed the Nullification Act, declaring that it would not pay the “illegal” tariffs of 1828 and South Carolina legislatures threatened to secede from the Union if they federal government tried to interfere with their actions. To ease the crisis, Jackson supported a compromise bill proposed by Henry Clay that would greatly lower the tariff.

The Nullification Crisis Early in 1833 Jackson persuaded Congress to pass the Force Bill, which allowed the president to use the United States military to enforce acts of Congress. South Carolina accepted the new tariff (Clay’s compromise), but voted to nullify the Force Act. For the time being, the crises between a state and the federal government was over. The South would remember the lesson of the nullification crisis – that the federal government would not allow a state to go its own way without a fight.