John Quincy Adams Wins Election of 1824 Amid Charges of Corruption - The Making of a Nation No.42
August 22, 2013
Making of a Nation
From VOA Learning English, welcome to the Making of a Nation, our weekly program of American history for people learning English. I’m Steve Ember.
Last week we talked about slavery in new American states and whether Congress could set the conditions for statehood. The Missouri Compromise in 1820 settled the issue for a short time.
The compromise said that Missouri could enter the Union as a slave state, and Maine could enter as a free state. By approving these two states at the same time, Congress kept a balance of power in the Senate between slave and free states.
But the compromise also said no more states in the northern Louisiana Territory could be admitted as slave states. As a result, slavery could not enter the new areas of the United States.
Some people did not like the compromise. They said it limited the ability of slave owners to settle in the country’s western territory. Others said the Constitution did not permit Congress to say that new states had to be slave or free. Even President Monroe did not believe the government had the power to make such decisions.
Yet he approved the compromise. He was trying, he said, to avoid a civil war.
Monroe's decision to approve the compromise did not hurt his election chances in 1820. There was at this time really only one party—the Republican Party—and he was its leader. The opposition Federalist Party was dead. It was no longer an election threat.
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