Question

Describe the cause and effect of the Missouri Compromise.

Answer 1

Cause: the northern states wanted to limit slavery, the southern states wanted to admit more slave states.
Result: the south got another slave state at the cost of agreeing to limit future slave states to being southern. With California coming in free, and the southwest environmentally unsuited for the type of economy slavery depended upon, in fact this compromise meant slavery was being hemmed into a smaller portion of the USA. But the free states felt that had lost more in the compromise and were embittered. This plus the subsequent Dred Scott case left the anti-slavery north so angry that the Civil War was almost inevitable.