The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was just one part in the larger discussion of slavery in the United States and the events leading up to the American Civil War. Its main purpose was to identify which new states could institute slavery and which could not. Through a variety of activities, students will explore the compromise with storyboards.
Major Effects of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 - In this activity, students will use a spider graph to branch out other acts, compromises and court cases that ultimately resulted from the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This will allow students to centralize the compromise, and what long and short term effects it had on the nation and question of slavery. Students will be able to connect and explain how the compromise influenced future legislation and debate over slavery. Topics that are useful include the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, The Compromise of 1850, the Dred Scott decision, and the eventual Civil War. Other ideas include the Wilmot Proviso and Lincoln-Douglas debates. Teachers, however, can pre-select any topics (including thematic ideas like the history of slavery, its extension, popular sovereignty, causes of civil war, etc.) to branch off of the Missouri Compromise.
Storyboard Text
WILMOT PROVISO
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT OF 1854
DRED SCOTT CASE
Scott is considered PROPERTY...not a CITIZEN!
The Wilmot Proviso proposed that slavery should not exist within territory won in the Mexican-American War. Many argued this violated the Missouri Compromise that slavery could not exist above the 36º 30' line. The Wilmot Proviso lead to the Compromise of 1850.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 further attempted to solve the question of slavery in new states. The act itself repealed the Missouri Compromise. It gave way to popular sovereignty, ending the agreed principle that slavery could not exist above the 36º 30' line.
The Dred Scott case was a major effect of the Missouri Compromise. Scott, a slave who was brought to free territory, sued for his freedom. He was denied, although many argued his enslavement in free territory violated the principles of the Compromise.
POSTPONING THE SLAVE QUESTION
What will become of us?!
THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE OF 1820: MAJOR EFFECTS
THE CIVIL WAR
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850
The Missouri Compromise postponed the debate over slavery's expansion into new territories. It was a constitutional and democratic postponing of the eventual Civil War, and helped quell major debates over slavery as an institution.
The Missouri Compromise helped postpone the Civil War. The question of the extension and preservation of slavery would inevitably be answered forty years later. The compromise is one of the first steps to answering the debate over slavery and its extension.
Politicians based their compromise in 1850 off of what the Missouri Compromise established. Namely, it was an extension of trying to preserve the balance of free and slave states, as well as the balance of slave and free powers in Congress.