Source E The question before this body is not merely whether Missouri shall enter as a slave state or a free state. It is whether the cancer of human bondag...

This is a "how far do you agree" question worth 10 marks, requiring a balanced argument about whether the Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily resolved the slavery issue but made future conflict inevitable.

What does the source show?

The source is a speech by a Northern congressman during the Missouri debate in February 1820. It reveals the depth of Northern opposition to slavery's expansion:

• The speaker describes slavery as a "cancer" that must not be allowed to spread across the continent.
• He frames the debate in terms of the Declaration of Independence, arguing that permitting slavery's expansion would make its ideals "hollow words."
• He raises both moral objections ("can one human being ever truly be the property of another?") and political concerns (each new slave state shifts the balance of Congressional power toward the South).
• The passionate language suggests this was not merely a procedural dispute but a fundamental conflict over American values.

Arguments that the Compromise temporarily resolved the issue:

• The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, maintaining the balance in the Senate (12 slave states, 12 free states).
• It drew a line at 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude across the remaining Louisiana Territory: slavery would be prohibited north of this line (except in Missouri itself).
• This arrangement held for thirty years, from 1820 to 1850, during which the slavery question was largely contained as a political issue (though never eliminated).
• Thomas Jefferson called the Missouri crisis "a fire bell in the night" but recognized that the compromise provided temporary relief.

Arguments that future conflict was made inevitable:

• The source demonstrates that the moral and political arguments against slavery were already powerful in 1820. These arguments did not disappear with the compromise - they intensified as the abolitionist movement grew.
• The compromise did not address the fundamental contradiction between slavery and the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It only determined where slavery could exist geographically, not whether it should exist at all.
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) effectively repealed the 36 degrees 30 minutes line by introducing "popular sovereignty" - allowing settlers in new territories to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery. This led to violent conflict in "Bleeding Kansas" (1854-1858).
• The Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision (1857) ruled that Congress had no power to restrict slavery in any territory, effectively declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.
• The economic divergence between the industrializing North and the cotton-dependent South deepened over time, making the interests of the two sections increasingly incompatible.

A counter-argument to consider:

Some historians argue that the compromise was not inevitably doomed. Further compromises remained possible through the 1840s and 1850s, and different political leadership might have found other ways to manage the conflict. The path to civil war required specific decisions (the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott ruling) that were not predetermined in 1820.

Reaching a balanced conclusion:

The Missouri Compromise was a genuine but limited achievement. It resolved the immediate crisis over Missouri's admission and established a workable geographic boundary for thirty years. However, it could not resolve the underlying moral, economic, and political conflict over slavery, which the source's passionate language already demonstrates in 1820. Whether future conflict was truly "inevitable" depends on how much weight you give to structural forces (the growing North-South divide) versus individual political decisions. The compromise delayed the crisis but could not eliminate its causes.

Exam technique: For "how far do you agree" questions, engage directly with the claim in the question. Here, the claim has two parts: (1) the Compromise was temporary, and (2) it made conflict inevitable. A strong answer addresses both parts and considers whether "inevitable" is the right word or whether conflict resulted from later choices.