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The Missouri Compromise And Events Leading Up Of The Civil War Essay

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The Missouri Compromise and events leading up to the Civil War were based mainly on slavery and the two conflicting viewpoints of the American people. The compromises involving slavery were only short-term solutions for a very long-term problem. The Civil War changed the foundation of America forever. The war was inevitable, and thus, the contrasting views between the North and the South were bound to break out into warfare at some point. In February of 1819, Missouri applied for statehood in the United States. Because of the North’s consistent increase in population, it took the upper hand in national politics in the House of Representatives. Before the North began increasing its population in substantial numbers, the southern states had had the upper hand in Congress, in part because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which gave them more representation in the House of Representatives, due to their slave population. At the time, the Senate was divided in national politics, because eleven states were free states, and eleven states were slave states ("The Civil War in Missouri"). The Massachusetts’ District of Maine had also applied for statehood around the same time that Missouri did. The North realized that if Maine became a free state in the North, the political power in the House of Senate and overall Congress would be tipped towards favoring the North and their anti-slavery ideals. Because of this, the southern states had to block Maine’s admission into the United States

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