Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an agreement made in 1820 between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress regarding the admission of new states to the Union. At the time, there was a balance of power between the number of slave states and free states in the country, and the admission of new states threatened to disrupt this balance.
The Compromise was proposed by Henry Clay and involved admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, maintaining the balance of power in the Senate. Additionally, it established a line at the 36°30' parallel north latitude, with slavery being allowed in new states below this line and prohibited in new states above it. This line extended from the western border of Missouri to the western border of the United States.
The Missouri Compromise was seen as a temporary solution to the issue of slavery and was intended to preserve unity in the country. However, it ultimately failed to address the larger issue of slavery and tensions continued to rise between the North and the South in the following decades, eventually leading to the American Civil War. The Compromise was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which further exacerbated sectional tensions and accelerated the path to war.