Impacts and Limitations of the Missouri Compromise on Western Expansion

Impact: Impasse

• Removed a barrier to Westward Expansion - resolved the impasse over whether to allow slavery to spread into the territories.

• Florida and Iowa entered in following years according to the rules of the Missouri compromise, without trouble.

Impact: Sectional

• South of the Missouri Compromise Line, slave owners proceeded to spread the Cotton Kingdom westwards unhindered.

• Northerners saw the land North of the line as theirs by right and migrated there unhindered by worries about meeting with slavery which many found undesirable for a variety of reasons.

Impact: attitudes of both sides

• Made the sectional division over slavery more concrete and tangible by drawing a physical line

• Led to a hardening of attitudes on both sides

• encouraging westward migration because the race was on to create more and more slave / free states

Limitation: Constitutionality

• t’s constitutionality was dubious

• The Constitution was not clear on the subject of the exact powers Congress had over the territories.

• This meant that the Supreme Court could (and eventually did) overturn it.

Limitation: Postponed issue

• Instead of resolving spread of slavery issue, Jefferson and JQA said this.

• Eclipsed the issue of westward expansion by putting the very future of the Union at risk, due to tensions

• Tore the Union apart in the Civil War (1861-5)

Limitations: Attitudes on both sides

• Made the sectional division over slavery more concrete and tangible by drawing a physical line

• Led to a hardening of attitudes on both sides

• increased tensions between the North and South and made future disputes more likely