Preserving the Union - 1

From Exhibition: A More Perfect Union: October 2009 - March 2010 October 2009 - March 2010
Category:
Unity

To achieve unity among the states, the nation’s founders did not confront the issue of slavery in the Constitution, but left it for future generations to resolve. In the 19th century, applications for statehood from western territorial legislatures threatened the balance of free and slave states in the Senate. Congress shifted the basis for determining the status of slavery in each territory from the territory’s geographical location to a vote by its inhabitants under the principle of ‘popular sovereignty.’ Slavery remained a burning issue that threatened the Union and eventually led to the Civil War.

Conference Committee Report on the Missouri Compromise, March 1, 1820

Conference Committee Report on the Missouri Compromise, March 1, 1820

When Missouri, which allowed slavery, applied for statehood in 1819 Congress struggled for a way to maintain the Union despite strongly opposing pro- and anti-slavery constituencies. After heated debate, Congress adopted the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Maine as a free state to balance Missouri and prohibited slavery north of the 36º 30´ latitude in the Louisiana Territory.

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…in all that Territory…under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of thirty six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude…Slavery and involuntary Servitude…shall be and is hereby forever prohibited.

Records of Joint Committees of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820

In this foreboding letter, former president Thomas Jefferson warned Representative John Holmes that the alarming issue of slavery could not be staved off forever. In words foreshadowing the Civil War, Jefferson predicted the issue once loosed would ignite the nation in violence and destruction.

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…this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
Stephen Douglas's amendment to S. 22, Senate version of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, February 15, 1854

Stephen Douglas's amendment to S. 22, Senate version of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, February 15, 1854

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a major step leading to the Civil War. It overthrew the Missouri Compromise and gave the residents of new territories the power to decide whether to allow slavery. It more firmly wed slavery with states’ rights and created uncertainty about the extent of slavery in the western territories.

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…it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it there from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way…

Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.