Some corrections to the We the People podcast on the Lincoln-Douglas debates

I am a big fan of the National Constitution Center's "We the People Podcast" series hosted by Jeffrey Rosen, President of the center. They are informative, thoughtful, and engaging. The guests are noted experts in the field. I am not quibbling with anyone's expertise, but guest Sidney Blumenthal made two big misstatements early in a recent episode that covered the topic of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and I am assuming that this slip of the tongue can be attributed more to nervousness than to lack of knowledge. This jumped out at me precisely  because I spent a lot of time over the last twenty years teaching and stressing the nuances of the Missouri Compromise, the 1850 Compromise, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. You can listen to the podcast and/or view the transcript here.

So, what was it that caught my ear? Blumenthal, a biographer of Abraham Lincoln, stated:

"Blumenthal: [00:02:57] The Missouri Compromise was the original compromise of 1821 which established a certain line of (landitude) across the country. Above which, in the North, slavery was prohibited. Below which, in the south, slavery was allowed, and that permitted two states to be admitted to the Union balancing each other. Maine, a free state, and Missouri as a slave state, and that held the peace, as it were, in politics until the Mexican war."

The Missouri Compromise did not draw a line across the country; the 36-30 line was applied specifically only to the territory gained in the Louisiana Purchase. The importance of the Missouri Compromise was that Congress determined the status of slavery in the territories before they could become eligible for statehood. Other than Missouri, only Arkansas became a slave state. Iowa and Minnesota were admitted as free states before the Civil War, but there was plenty of territory north of the compromise line to become future non-slave states. This is why Southern advocates of slavery, like John C. Calhoun, felt they had gotten a bum deal. They would be more careful next time.

Despite the Missouri Compromise, peace did not reign in the political realm. Nullification, the gag rule, abolition, liberty laws, Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, and the intense debate over the admission of Texas are some examples of political battles over slavery between 1820 and 1850.

Blumenthal had this to say about the 1850 Compromise:

"In the Mexican War, a great amount of land was taken from the Mexican's and the question was 'What would happen to it?' Would it be divided into states? Would they be free or slave? It led to an enormous conflict which led to the Compromise of 1850, and that basically kept the Missouri Compromise and added a few things to it."

This is incorrect. The 1850 Compromise had nothing to do with the Missouri Compromise because they covered two different things. As the Missouri Compromise covered the Louisiana Purchase territory, the 1850 Compromise addressed what to do with land taken in the Mexican War. President James K. Polk suggested that the Missouri-Compromise line be extended across this new territory, but that was non-starter. The fact that California was admitted as a non-slave state in 1850 demonstrates that the 36-30 line, which was the key component of the Missouri Compromise, played no part in the 1850 compromise.

These are not minor points. They are important milestones in the conflict over slavery as it evolved and grew over the nineteenth century. One cannot understand why the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was such an explosive issue without knowing the details of the Missouri and 1850 compromises. As Blumenthal noted, it was the Kansas-Nebraska Act that brought Abraham Lincoln out of political retirement and put him on the path to famous debates with his rival Stephen Douglas in 1858.