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Interesting US History
A Website Devoted to Interesting Events in U.S. History

 

 
 

 

ON THIS DAY IN UNITED STATES HISTORY

March 6, 1820

The Missouri Compromise is Signed Into Law
by United States President James Monroe

On this day in 1820, the Missouri Compromise was signed into law allowing Missouri to join the Union as a slave state while prohibiting slavery in the northern part of the Louisiana Territory.

In a letter on April 21, Thomas Jefferson predicted that the fallout from the Missouri Compromise would lead to the eventual breakup of the Union. Sadly, some forty years later it would require the sacrifice of more than 600,000 lives in the American Civil War to prevent that from happening.