Oh, Did We Mention That Whole Slavery Thing?
- Snuck in at the end of all this endless minutiae and detail is one teeny, tiny little last little thing: just the division of the entirety of the U.S. based on partisan racial politics.
- Basically, you only get to the juicy historical deets if you manage not to nod off during the sections (and sections and sections) about salt water and acreage.
- This last section provides for a border running across the middle of the U.S. like a belt. It roughly parallels the northern border of Texas. Any new state north of this border was forbidden from adopting slavery, and any state south of it could (and, who are we kidding? most likely would) adopt slavery.
- One last little bit was the stipulation that any slave who was lawfully owned but escaped north of this border was still a slave…and could be legally reclaimed by their owner.
- Yeah. They really buried the lede when it came to the Missouri Compromise.
- This would eventually serve as the death knell of the Missouri Compromise, which was deemed unconstitutional over this issue during the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in 1857. This was a moot point due to the Kansas-Nebraska act that had struck down the Missouri Compromise seven years earlier, but Dred Scott cemented this downfall in law.
- While this provision was part and parcel of the Compromise passing, to those in the know it was widely regarded as an immensely dangerous solution. The Compromise couldn't have passed without it, but even so it was the first major step on the course to Civil War.
- Good job, guys.
- But the legislators of the time weren't worrying about that. The status quo was saved by the skillful maneuvering of Congress, who promptly patted themselves on the back and went back to business as usual.