US History

U.S. History Study Guide

©2018 of 194 9.9 Mason-Dixon Line The Mason-Dixon Line originally was the boundary between the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, but it came to represent more than that. In 1765, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the land and settled the dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland over the extent of their boundary lines. Although Delaware was a slave holding state in the line of Free states it became to be known as a line of distinction between the sectionalizing North and South. The termMason-Dixon Line was first used in congressional debates leading to the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which determined where slavery would be allowed as the United States expanded 9.10 The Missouri Compromise (1820) Ironically the bitter controversy between the North and South over slave states and Free states took place in "the Era of Good Feelings". Westward expansion spawned sectional conflict, as the North and South feuded about whether Western territories should be slave-holding or free. In 1819 the Union consisted of eleven Free states and eleven slave states. But the application for statehood by the territory of Missouri threatened to upset this balance. Missouri wanted to enter the Union as a slave state. That would have given the slave states more power in the Senate than the Free states had. Congress fell into a heated debate, until James Tallmadge, Jr., of New York, proposed a resolution. 9.11 Tallmadge Amendment Tallmadge proposed an amendment to the bill for Missouri’s admission that would prohibit the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and mandate the emancipation at age twenty-five of slaves’ offspring born after the state was admitted to the Union. The House approved the bill with the Tallmadge Amendment, but the Senate struck the amendment from the bill. Maine Becomes a State The application of Maine for statehood allowed the Senate to escape its deadlock and agree on the terms of the Missouri Compromise. Maine was to be admitted as a Free State and Missouri as a slave state, but in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory, slavery would be prohibited north of 36º30' latitude (the southern border of Missouri). However, the compromise rapidly disintegrated when Missouri submitted a draft constitution that prohibited free blacks from entering the state, Northern opposition blocked Missouri from statehood until 1821. Achieve Page 113