This collection contains congressional publications, including debates, bills, laws, and journals.

The Senate agreed to combine the Maine and Missouri bills into one bill by a vote of 23 to 21.

The Senate agreed to an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Thomas that prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line, except for Missouri, and then agreed to the final version of the bill by a vote of 24 to 20.

The House of Representatives rejected the Senate's version of the bill.

The House of Representatives passed its own bill, which admitted Missouri without slavery, by a vote of 91 to 82.

A House-Senate conference agreed to the Senate's version of the bill.

The House voted 90 to 87 to allow slavery in Missouri.

The House voted 134 to 42 to prohibit slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line.

President James Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise.

Excerpt: "The President says he has recvd your letter. He said he wanted to have with me some conversation in relation to it, but it being a levee evening and much crowded no oppertunity was then had. He desired me to say to you, that he had been so taken up with the deep agitations here the (missouri bill), that he did not [have] time but that he would shortly write to you. The agitation was indeed great I assure you—dissolution of the Union had become quite a fimiliar subject. By the compromise however restricting slavery north of 36½ degrees we ended this unpleasant question. Of this the Southern people are complaining, but they ought not, for it has preserved peace dissipated angry feelings, and dispelled appearances which seemed dark and horrible and threat[en]ing to the interest and harmony of the nation. The constitution has not been surrendered by this peace offering, for it only applies while a territory when it is admitted congress have the power and right to legislate, and not when they shall become States"

Excerpt: "I perceive you have strong foreboding as to our future policy. The discussion on the Missouri question has undoubtedly contributed to weaken in some degree the attachment of our southern and western people to the Union; but the agitators of that question have, in my opinion, not only completely failed; but have destroyed to a great extent their capacity for future mischief. Should Missouri be admitted at the next session, as I think she will without difficulty, the evil effects of the discussion must gradually subside."

Excerpt: "On the whole, the Missouri question, as a constitutional one, amounts to the question whether the condition proposed to be annexed to the admission of Missouri would or would not be void in itself, or become void the moment the territory should enter as a State within the pale of the Constitution. And as a question of expediency & humanity, it depends essentially on the probable influence of such restrictions on the quantity & duration of slavery, and on the general condition of slaves in the U. S."

Excerpt: "It appears to me as it does to you, that a coupling of Missouri with Maine, in order to force the entrance of the former thro' the door voluntarily opened to the latter is, to say the least, a very doubtful policy..."

Excerpt: "The pinch of the difficulty in the case stated seems to be in the words "forever," coupled with the interdict relating to the Territory N. of L 36° 30'. If the necessary import of these words be that they are to operate as a condition on future States admitted into the Union, and as a restriction on them after admission, they seem to encounter indirectly the argts. which prevailed in the Senate for an unconditional admission of Missouri."

Excerpt: "The idea was that if the whole arrangement, to this effect, could be secured, that it would be better to adopt it, than break the union. Neither did Mr. Barbour, nor any other person alluded to, favor this, but to save the union, believing it to be in imminent danger."

Excerpt: "I am indebted to you for your two letters of Feb. 7. & 19. this Missouri question by a geograpical line of division is the most portentous one I have ever contemplated. King is ready to risk the union for any chance of restoring his party to power and wriggling himself to the head of it. nor is Clinton without his hopes nor scrupulous as to the means of fulfilling them. I hope I shall be spared the pain of witnessing it either by the good sense of the people, or by the more certain reliance; the hand of death. on this or that side of the Styx I am ever and devotedly yours."

"...the Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm...I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much..."

Excerpt: "I thank you, Dear Sir, for the copy you have been so kind as to send me of the letter to your constituents on the Missouri question. it is a perfect justification to them. I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. but this mementous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence."

Maine became the twenty-third state on March 15, 1820.

Missouri entered the Union as the twenty-fourth state on August 10, 1821.