• Location: Harrison Hot Springs
• Mood: sleepy
• Music: Gene Autry-"Deep in the Heart of Texas"

The Missouri Compromise and something else I was supposed to remember...

On March 6, 1820, 191 years ago today, President James Monroe (a frequent flier in this blog in recent days) signed the Missouri Compromise into law. The Missouri Compromise was an agreement reached in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30' north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri.



A bill to enable the people of the Missouri Territory to draft a constitution and form a government preliminary to admission into the Union came before the House of Representatives on February 13, 1819. An amendment offered by James Tallmadge of New York (which was named the Tallmadge Amendment), provided that the further introduction of slaves into Missouri should be forbidden, and that all children of slave parents born in the state after its admission should be free at the age of 25. That amendment was adopted by the committee and incorporated in the bill as finally passed on February 17, 1819 by the house. But the United States Senate refused to concur in the amendment, and the whole measure was lost.

During the following session (1819-1820), the House passed a similar bill with an amendment, introduced on January 26, 1820 by John W. Taylor of New York, allowing Missouri into the union as a slave state. The question had been complicated by the admission in December of Alabama, a slave state, making the number of slave and free states equal. In addition, there was a bill in passage through the House (January 3, 1820) to admit Maine as a free state.



The Senate decided to connect the two measures. It passed a bill for the admission of Maine with an amendment enabling the people of Missouri to form a state constitution. Before the bill was returned to the House, a second amendment was adopted excluding slavery from the Missouri Territory north of the parallel 36°30' north (the southern boundary of Missouri), except within the limits of the proposed state of Missouri.

Following Maine 1820 and Missouri's 1821 admissions to the Union, no other states were admitted until 1836. Arkansas was admitted as a slave state, followed by Michigan in 1837 as a free state.

March 6th is another important anniversary. On March 6, 1836 (175 years ago today) the siege of the Alamo ended, when the Mexican army attacked. By the end of the Battle of the Alamo all (or almost all--some historians believe one man escaped, but later died from his wounds) of the defenders were killed.