The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America

The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America

Robert Pierce Forbes goes behind the scenes of the crucial Missouri Compromise, the most important sectional crisis before the Civil War, to reveal the high-level deal-making, diplomacy, and deception that defused the crisis, including the central, unexpected role of President James Monroe. Although Missouri was allowed to join the union with slavery, the compromise in fact closed off nearly all remaining federal territories to slavery. When Congressman James Tallmadge of New York proposed barring slavery from the new state of Missouri, he sparked the most candid discussion of slavery ever held in Congress. The southern response quenched the surge of nationalism and confidence following the War of 1812 and inaugurated a new politics of racism and reaction. The South’s rigidity on slavery made it an alluring electoral target for master political strategist Martin Van Buren, who emerged as the key architect of a new Democratic Party explicitly designed to mobilize southern unity and neutralize antislavery sentiment. Forbes’s analysis reveals a surprising national consensus against slavery a generation before the Civil War, which was fractured by the controversy over Missouri. “An important book offering the first systematic reinterpretation of the Missouri Compromise and its aftermath in more than a generation. . . . A brilliant and an essential reconsideration of an important episode in American history. It is a work of thorough scholarship and penetrating insights.” — American Historical Review “Forbes’s account of the sectional conflict from the time of the Missouri crisis is well written and thoroughly researched and will repay a reader’s careful and thoughtful consideration.” — Journal of American History “A compelling case study of the centrality of slavery to early national America.” — Journal of Southern History “This is an important book that only begins to untangle the shifting political alliances, issues, and ideologies that sustained debates over slavery during the 1820s.” — Journal of the Early Republic “[An] exemplary study. . . . A resolutely intelligent book, provocative in its thesis, broad in its reach, patient in its execution, and sober in its judgments.” — Political Science Quarterly “Certain to become essential reading on the era of good feelings and the origins of the second-party system. . . . Extremely rich and complex. . . . Important and intriguing.” — Journal of Interdisciplinary History “Lively and engaging . . . [Forbes] succeeds in rendering the debates the narrates vivid and dramatic.” — Register of the Kentucky Historical Review “Forbes’s analysis of the Missouri Compromise . . . is the best history of that landmark political decision for several decades.” — International History Review “Part of a welcome rise in scholarly attention . . . that historians of the early Republic have until now been more inclined to acknowledge than to study. . . . Forbes has helped to call our attention squarely onto the Missouri crisis, and has offered a bracing interpretation of its course and significance.” — H-Net “[An] impressively researched book. . . . Sure to inform future discussions of the politics of slavery, and its timely message speaks to Americans today.” — Missouri Historical Review As no other historian has, Forbes demonstrates the full significance of the Missouri Controversy and Compromise by placing it at the center of a dramatic shift in regime and consciousness, away from the founders' vision of slavery as a moral evil and towards a Jacksonian perspective that predicated the survival of America on a refusal to discuss or confront the anomaly of slavery in a free society. The book represents a major contribution to the history of antebellum American political culture, with thought-provoking implications for political life today.--Iver Bernstein, Washington University in St. Louis Illuminating the realities of sectional power Robert Pierce Forbes goes behind the scenes of the crucial Missouri Compromise, the most important sectional crisis before the Civil War, to reveal the high-level deal-making, diplomacy, and deception that defused the crisis, including the central, unexpected role of President James Monroe. Although Missouri was allowed to join the union with slavery, Forbes observes, the compromise in fact closed off nearly all remaining federal territory to slavery. Forbes's analysis reveals a surprising national consensus against slavery a generation before the Civil War, which was fractured by the controversy over Missouri. Robert Pierce Forbes goes behind the scenes of the crucial Missouri Compromise, the most important sectional crisis before the Civil War, to reveal the high-level deal-making, diplomacy, and deception that defused the crisis, including the central, unexpected role of President James Monroe. Although Missouri was allowed to join the union with slavery, Forbes observes, the compromise in fact closed off nearly al