The "missouri compromise"
- averted a sectional crises for a time but the federal government began to assume the role of promoter of economic growth
- when Missouri applied for admission to the Union as a state in 1819, slavery was already well established there
- James Tallmadge Jr. of New York proposed an amendment to the Missouri statehood bill hat would prohibit the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and provide for gradual emancipation of those already there. This amendment is what provokes a controversy that was to rage for the next two years
- The admission of Missouri would upset the balance of slave and free states
- Speaker of the House, Henry Clay informed northern members that if they blocked Missouri form entering the union as a slave state, southerners would block the admission of Maine
- Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois proposed an amendment prohibition slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri, (the 36 degree 30 degree parallel)
- The Senate adopted the Thomas Amendment