Thomas Jefferson and the Missouri Compromise

            The Missouri Compromise is a declaration of agreement between the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery in 1820. It concerns the state of the western territories whether they will be a free state or a slave state. To balance the people both in the senate and the congress, Missouri was admitted in the Union as a slave state while Alabama was also accepted as a slave state. Maine was also admitted as a free state and a provision or an amendment rather was raised to divide Missouri both as a free state and a slave state.

Thomas Jefferson, former President of the United States mentioned in his letter to John Holmes that the division of the country will somehow destroy the Union. He could have meant that the country will be divided and that two forces will reign because of the division caused by the Missouri Compromise.

Jefferson said that the Missouri Compromise is like a “fire bell in the night” which means that it had shocked him as he found out the agreement and according to him, it would only make the irritation of every people of America, Anti-slavery or Pro- Slavery deeper and would only lead to conflict.

His message regarding this matter is far more like stating the future of United States of America as a Union and as a country wherein they were being divided by beliefs and principle may it be moral or political. Thus, the meaning of fire bell in the night is literally like the feeling of hearing the bell when there is a fire, alarming and full of terror.

In the later part of the U.S History, this agreement also caused the division of the areas and the people who had their own beliefs, the fight over slavery in the United States of America.

Works Cited

“Missouri Compromise” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. (2007).             http://encarta.msn.com

Dubrulle, Hugh., “The American Civil War”. Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Drive,    Manchester, New Hampshire 03102. (2008).     http://www.anselm.edu/academic/history/hdubrulle/CivWar/text/documents/doc3a.htm