Missouri Compromise Documents

Springfield-Greene County History

Local History Website of the SMSU Department of History

Second Missouri Compromise Act, 1821
Drafted by Henry Clay

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Missouri shall be admitted Into this Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, upon the fundamental condition, that the fourth clause of the twenty-sixth section of the third article of the constitution submitted on the part of said State to Congress, shall never be construed to authorize the passage of any law, and that no law shall be passed in conformity thereto, by which any citizen of either of the States in this Union shall be excluded from the enjoyment of any of the privileges and immunities to which such citizen is entitled under the Constitution of the United States: Provided, That the Legislature of the said State, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of the said State to the said fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the United States, on or before the fourth Monday In November next, an authentic copy of the said act; upon the receipt whereof the President, by proclamation, shall announce the fact: whereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Congress, the admission of the said state into this Union, shall be considered as complete.

(Act of Congress, signed by President James Monroe March 2, 1821)

Source: Statutes at Large, 2nd Session, 16th Congress, 3:645