EOTO #1-The Missouri Compromise:

At the time the Missouri Compromise was passed, the country was in a contentious position. The Louisiana Purchase had created a frenzy to move West and the subsequent creation of new states had many people, civilians and government officials alike, up in arms about whether those new states would be slave states or free states. 

This story begins in 1817 when Missouri first applied for statehood. Congress was attempting to approve Missouri's state constitution when the Tallmadge Amendment was introduced. The Tallmadge Amendment proposed prohibiting slavery in Missouri and emancipating the ones who were already there when they reached age 25. The House of Representatives passed the amendment, but it failed in the Senate, which had a more even split between the Northerners and Southerners. 

The issue was unresolved until the next summer (1819) when Congress readjourned. The North had gained considerable support for the Tallmadge Amendment, even though the Southerners were staunchly against it, and Maine had put in a request for statehood. 

The balance of the nation was on a dangerous precipice, with half of the 22 states free states and half slave states. Congress did not want to upset that balance, because that would mean them taking an inadvertent stance for or against slavery. Not only was that unacceptable at the time, it was virtually impossible given the split of Northerners and Southerners in Congress. 

Henry Clay, who was the Speaker of the House at the time, facilitated a compromise that would admit Maine as a free state, and Missouri as a slave state while also prohibiting slavery North of 36°, 30'; this way the rest of the Louisiana Territory would have guidelines when applying for statehood. 

The future brought on more issues with the Missouri constitutional convention trying to subvert the original compromise by excluding African Americans from state legislature. Henry Clay once again had to step in, threatening their statehood with an ultimatum.  Eventually in August of 1821, Missouri became the 24th state. 

Although this compromise was intended to be a fair way to resolve the slavery issue, it essentially just kicked the can down the road, while simultaneously showcasing how dangerously divisive the slavery issue would be in new territories. Neither the North or South would stop pushing for more and with each addition of new states or territories, the issue would be brought up again and again. 

Essentially, the act that started the territorial debate over slavery was declared null and void when Kansas-Nebraska allowed for territories to choose whether they would be pro or anti slave states, in a provision known as 'popular sovereignty'.  This, along with the Dred Scott decision that claimed that Congress never had the right to prohibit slavery in those territories, produced the violent uprising known as Bleeding Kansas that cemented the irreversible divide among abolitionists and pro-slavery individuals. 

The eventual repealing of this compromise in 1854 by the Kansas Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott V. Sandford case of 1857 that declared the act unconstitutional, is what further pushed the country towards the brink of a civil war. 

So, while this act may have seemed a winning bipartisan compromise, it was truly only the lynchpin for a very contentious and bloody battle that would lead our country to near devastation.