Dividing the Union: Jesse Burgess Thomas and the Making of the Missouri Compromise

The first indepth examination of the architect of the Missouri Compromise

In 1820 the Missouri controversy erupted over the issue of slavery in the newly acquired lands of the Louisiana Purchase. It fell to Jesse Burgess Thomas (1777-1853), a junior U.S. senator from the new state of Illinois, to handle the delicate negotiations that led to the Missouri Compromise. Thomas’s maturity, good judgment, and restraint helped pull the country back from the brink of disunion and created a compromise that held for thirtyfour years. In Dividing the Union, Matthew W. Hall examines the legal issues underlying the controversy and the legislative history of the Missouri Compromise while focusing on Thomas’s life and influence. As Hall demonstrates, Thomas was perfectly situated geographically, politically, and ideologically to deal with the Missouri controversy. The first speaker of the Indiana Territorial General Assembly and one of the first territorial judges in Illinois Territory, Thomas served in 1818 as the president of the Illinois State Constitutional Convention. That he was never required to clearly articulate his own views on slavery allowed Thomas to maintain a degree of neutrality, and, as Hall shows, his varied political career gave him the experience necessary to craft a compromise. Thomas’s final version of the Compromise included shrewdly worded ambiguities that supported opposing interests in the matter of slavery. By weaving Thomas’s life story into the history of the Missouri Compromise, Hall offers new insight into both a pivotal piece of legislation and an overlooked but important figure in nineteenthcentury American politics.