The Missouri Compromise was the first of the major 19th-century attempts by Congress intended to ease regional tensions over the issue of enslavement. While the deal hammered out on Capitol Hill accomplished its immediate goal, it only served to postpone the eventual crisis that would ultimately divide the nation and lead to the Civil War.
A Nation Sundered by Enslavement
In the early 1800s, the most divisive issue in the United States was enslavement. Following the American Revolution, most states north of Maryland began programs of gradually outlawing the practice, and by the early decades of the 1800s, pro-slavery states were primarily in the South. In the North, attitudes against enslavement were growing increasingly strong, and as time passed the passions over the issue threatened repeatedly to shatter the Union.
