The Missouri Compromise
People
Vocabulary & Concepts
Compromise of 1850
Facts
100

The number of free states and number of slave states in 1819 that created a balance in the Senate.

Eleven

100

President who won the 1848 election as a Whig candidate.  He was a war hero with ZERO political experience. Died in office.

Zachary Taylor

100

Southern viewpoint that each state should decide if it would be free or slave.

popular sovereignty

100

Admission of this state to the Union in 1850 would upset the balance of power between slave and free states.

California

100

This is the name for the rivalry and tension between the North and South before the Civil War.

sectionalism

200

State which asked to join the Union as a slave state in 1819.

Missouri

200

South Carolina U.S. Senator who was a strong supporter of slavery.  He died during the Compromise of 1850 debates.

John Calhoun

200

Political party in the mid-1800's that wanted to keep slavery out of the new U.S. land in the West.

Free-Soil Party

200

Senators Clay and Webster said this would happen if the nation didn't compromise regarding slavery in 1850

The nation would fall apart.

200

Failed 1846 law that would have banned slavery in the land the U.S. got from Mexico after the Mexican-American War.

Wilmot Proviso

300

State which asked to join the Union in 1820 as a free state that would keep the balance between slave and free states.

Maine

300

Massachusetts U.S. Senator who helped bring about the Compromise of 1850.  He wanted compromise because he wanted to run for President and didn't want to lose the Southern votes.

Daniel Webster

300
The term used when a state leaves the Union.

secede

300

Illinois U.S. Senator who helped get the Compromise of 1850 passed when Senator Clay was too sick to continue.

Stephen Douglas

300

Former U.S. President who ran as President for the Free-Soil Party in 1848.

Martin Van Buren

400

Latitude 36 degrees 30'

Imaginary line drawn on the map of the U.S.  After 1820, new states south of it would be slave.  States north of it would be free.

400

Became President when Taylor died in office.  Signed the Fugitive Slave Act into law.  Hated Jews, Catholics, and African-Americans.

Millard Fillmore

400

A war between people of the same country

civil war

400

The Compromise abolished the slave trade in what major U.S. city?

Washington, D.C.

400

This 1852 book helped people realize the evils of slavery. It is called the most important book in U.S. history.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

500

Senator from Kentucky who suggested the Missouri Compromise.

Henry Clay

500

Writer of Uncle Tom's Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe

500

An African-American who fled North from slavery in the South.

fugitive

500

This controversial part of the Compromise required Northern states to return escaped slaves to their owners in the South.

Fugitive Slave Act

500

Likely cause of President Taylor's death in 1850.  Don't eat the potato salad!

Food poisoning