The Missouri Compromise

“This momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.”- Thomas Jefferson 1820

The Missouri Compromise was the quintessential sausage making experiment by the United States Congress. Not capable of being described in a single sentence. In essence the decision divided the remaining unincorporated territories up based on a geographic line above which would be free and below which would be slave. This was seen by Jefferson as a sure sign that the Union was in mortal danger from the institution that he had tried to elininate in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Wikipedia
The Act of Congress

"How long will the desire for wealth render us blind to the sin of holding both the bodies and souls of our fellow men in chains?" Asked Representative Arthur Livermore from New Hampshire.

From Wikipedia: Arthur Livermore (July 29, 1766 – July 1, 1853) was a United States Representative from New Hampshire. He was the son of Samuel Livermore a signer of the Declaration and a representative to the Continental Congress. Both he and his brother Edward St. Loe Livermore, served in the United States Congress. He was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire.