Economy or Morality??

Does economy trump over morality? Or does morality trump economy? This was the question of the day that stumped all of us in seminar and made us realize how problematic the entrance of Missouri as a slave state, and the controversy of the expansion of slavery that it brought, was.

To better understand the whole conflict, we first discussed about why the Missouri Compromise was so significant at that time. Before in the Senate, there were an equal amount of representatives from the South and from the North, but if the Missouri Compromise was put into action this would mean that Southern representatives would outnumber the Northern representatives and break the checks-and-balances within the Congress. This would lead the Southern states to have a greater amount of power and influence in their grasp when creating laws and policies. Therefore, in order to protect the power of the free states, the House of Representatives passed a special amendment which stated that Missouri would be accepted as a slave state, but it would be illegal to import enslaved Africans to Missouri and also mentioned that the children of Missouri slaves would be set free. Putting an end to the import of slaves in the South would lead to an end in the increase of population there, which would work as a disadvantage towards the South because the number of representatives in the House of Representatives was decided according to the population of a state. However, this amendment was rejected by the Senate. Later, Henry Clayton convinced Congress to agree to the Missouri Compromise, which stated that Missouri would enter the Union as a slave state and Maine would join as a free state, and that slavery would be prohibited in new territories formed in Missouri’s southern border.

The topic of the Missouri Compromise brought us to our main question: “Although the Missouri Compromise was a success, it brought an expansion to slavery, which is something morally wrong, however it would be impossible to put an end to it. Slaves are a necessity for the production of agricultural goods in the Southern states, hence its economy, so which one is of more value? Economy or morality?" All of us voted and 15 of us said that the economy was more significant than morality, but after discussing how the Missouri Compromise, which was supporting slavery, was going against the idea that all men are created equal, stated in the Constitution, some of us changed our minds and agreed that morality was more valuable. Then, a very interesting idea was presented to the class by Eric Kim. With great confidence he explained to us that if slavery was still going on today, great rappers like Snoop Dog or 50 cent would not exist and that they would be living their lives just as miserable slaves.

Due to a lack of time, we couldn't continue on our intriguing discussion, however, by the end of the class, I think most of us fully grasped how this sticky situation between the North and the South caused a major tension and problem between the two, eventually becoming one of the factors that lead to the Civil War.

- Hee Jae C. 8B