By: History.com Editors

1820

President Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise

History.com Editors

Published: November 16, 2009

Last Updated: January 31, 2025

On March 6, 1820, President James Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise, also known as the Compromise Bill of 1820, into law. The bill attempted to equalize the number of slave-holding states and free states in the country, allowing Missouri into the Union as a slave state while Maine joined as a free state. Additionally, portions of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36-degrees-30-minutes latitude line were prohibited from engaging in slavery by the bill.

Missouri Compromise

Learn more about the Missouri Compromise of 1820, a temporary solution to the brewing controversy over slavery in the United States.

Monroe, who was born into the Virginia slave-holding planter class, favored strong states’ rights, but stood back and let Congress argue over the issue of slavery in the new territories. Monroe then closely scrutinized any proposed legislation for its constitutionality. He realized that slavery conflicted with the values written into the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence but, like his fellow Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, feared abolition would split apart the nation they had fought so hard to establish.

Passage of the Missouri Compromise contributed to the Era of Good Feelings over which Monroe presided and facilitated his election to a second term. In his second inaugural address, Monroe optimistically pointed out that although the nation had struggled in its infancy, no serious conflict has arisen that was not solved peacefully between the federal and state governments. By steadily pursuing this course, he predicted, there is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable.

In the end, the Missouri Compromise failed to permanently ease the underlying tensions caused by the slavery issue. The conflict that flared up during the bill’s drafting presaged how the nation would eventually divide along territorial, economic and ideological lines 40 years later during the Civil War.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on March 6th

1475

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1776

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1836

The Battle of the Alamo comes to an end

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1857

Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott case

The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision on Sanford v. Dred Scott, a case that intensified national divisions over the issue of slavery. In 1834, Dred Scott, an enslaved man, had been taken to Illinois, a free state, and then Wisconsin territory, where the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery. Scott lived in Wisconsin […]

1899

Bayer patents aspirin

The German company Bayer patents aspirin—now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets—on March 6, 1899.

Bayer aspirin tablets dissolve in a glass in Bonn, Germany,

1902

Real Madrid founded

On March 6, 1902, the Madrid Foot Ball Club is founded by a group of fans in Madrid, Spain. Later known as Real Madrid, the club would become the most successful European football (soccer) franchise of the 20th century. With its trademark blue-and-white uniforms (originally inspired by those of an English team), Madrid began to […]

1945

Dutch Resistance ambushes SS officer

Members of the Dutch Resistance who were attempting to hijack a truck in Apeldoorn, Holland, ambush Lt. Gen. Hanns Rauter, an SS officer. During the following week, the German SS executed 263 Dutch in retaliation. The Dutch Resistance was one of the fiercest of all the underground movements in Nazi-occupied Europe. “The Dutch never accepted […]

1951

The espionage trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins

The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in New York Southern District federal court. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians (treason could not be charged because the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union). The Rosenbergs, and […]

1953

Georgy Malenkov succeeds Stalin

Just one day after the death of long-time Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov is named premier and first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Malenkov’s tenure was extremely brief, and within a matter of weeks he was pushed aside by Nikita Khrushchev. Malenkov was one of the few old-time Bolsheviks who […]

1974

Helen Thomas named UPI’s White House bureau chief, the first woman to hold that title for a wire agency

Journalist Helen Thomas is named United Press International’s White House Bureau Chief on March 6, 1974. At a press conference that day, President Nixon personally congratulates her on becoming the first woman to serve in the distinguished role. The moment marks the beginning of a boundary-breaking career, in which Thomas becomes a fixture in the […]

1981

Walter Cronkite signs off as anchorman of “CBS Evening News”

On March 6, 1981, CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite signs off with his trademark valediction, “And that’s the way it is,” for the final time. Over the previous 19 years, Cronkite had established himself not only as the nation’s leading newsman but as “the most trusted man in America,” a steady presence during two […]

1982

Controversial writer-philosopher Ayn Rand dies

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1983

Helmut Kohl elected West German chancellor

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1986

Georgia O’Keeffe dies

Georgia O’Keeffe, the artist who gained worldwide fame for her austere minimalist paintings of the American southwest, dies in Santa Fe at the age of 98. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in 1887, O’Keeffe grew up in Virginia and first studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. Initially, she embraced a highly abstracted, urban […]

1987

Ferry sinks in Belgium, 188 people drown

A British ferry leaving Zeebrugge, Belgium, capsizes, drowning 188 people, on March 6, 1987. Shockingly poor safety procedures led directly to this deadly disaster. Lord Justice Barry Sheen, an investigator of the accident, later said of it, from top to bottom, the body corporate was affected with the disease of sloppiness. The Herald of Free […]

2001

The death spiral of Napster begins

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Citation Information

Article title
President Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 24, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 31, 2025
Original Published Date
November 16, 2009

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