The Missouri Compromise was not so much as a cause of the Civil War as it was

another in a series of deals between the North and the South that formed the shaky
foundation of our national government. The first great compromises - and a sort of
"poison pill" in our national unity - were acceptance of slavery and counting of a
slave as "three-fifths of a person." The other great compromise was the formation
of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The former would be based on
population, the latter would give each state two senators, regardless of
population.

It was the composition of the Senate that set the stage for the national debate
that would result in the historic Missouri Compromise. At the time of Missouri's
application for statehood (1818), slave and free states were equally represented
in the U.S. Senate (22 senators each). The House of Representatives, however, was
stacked in favor of the more heavily populated North (108 to 81). Missouri's
proposed constitution would allow slavery in the state (there were over 2,000
slaves within its borders). Allowing another slave state into the Union, then,
would upset the balance in favor of the lesser populated South and upset the
balance of power in the Senate.

Thus, Missouri became the center of a national controversy that threatened to

undermine the country's already precarious national unity. It was Henry Clay of
Kentucky who came up with the Missouri Compromise that delayed the Civil War for
another 40 years. To keep the slave-versus-free state numbers even, a way to admit
a new free state had to be found. The solution was the former northeastern portion
of Massachusetts, whose inhabitants wanted to break free of the rule of Boston
interests. As an idea whose time had come, Maine statehood became the solution to
the current crisis. Maine was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1820 and
followed the next year by Missouri, a slave state. The balance was maintained.

Another important part of the compromise was to set new north and south boundaries
for admission of slave and free states. That provision set the southern border of
Missouri as the northern boundary for the admission of any new slave state
(excepting Missouri). That provision would hold solid until 1850.

The Missouri Compromise, then, was not a cause of the Civil War. It did highlight
deep sectional divisions and disagreements developing in a divided country. The
controversy over the spread of slavery would be a serious handicap to our
country's westward expansion as factions within our government worked at cross
purposes for the next two generations. Establishing Missouri as a slave state
eventually proved to be the cause of what would become known as "bleeding Kansas,"
as Missouri pro- and anti-slavery thugs took the fight to the Kansas territory in
the 1850's. The prelude to the US Civil War was fought to Missouri's west, and the
Kansas controversy would not be settled until 1861, after much of the South had
seceded.

During the Civil War, Missouri remained in the Union, though not totally loyal.
Over 30,000 Missouri men fought for the South, but over three times that number
fought for the Union, as over 30 minor and one major Civil War battles were fought
within the state. Missouri actually had a "Confederate government in exile" for a
time, but the breakaway members, who fled to Texas, never actually controlled any
territory.

The compromises that began with allowing the egregious institution of slavery to
be rooted in the power of our Constitution would eventually almost result in its
destruction. In the vain hope that slave owners could be bargained with and
pacified, and in the name of nationalistic unity, great men like Henry Clay and
Stephen Douglas sold their souls and reputations. As sectional differences and the
economic and cultural predominance of the North exposed slavery for the evil it
was, there was, in the end, nothing left to compromise. Slavery was swept away on
the rivers of blood that flowed from Shiloh to Vicksburg and from Gettysburg to
Appomattox. The Missouri Compromise only put the day of reckoning a bit further
down the road.