<P> When free - soil Maine offered its petition for statehood , the Senate quickly linked the Maine and Missouri bills , making Maine admission a condition for Missouri entering the Union with slavery unrestricted . Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois added a compromise proviso , excluding slavery from all remaining lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 ° 30 ' parallel . The combined measures passed the Senate , only to be voted down in the House by those Northern representatives who held out for a free Missouri . Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky , in a desperate bid to break the deadlock , divided the Senate bills . Clay and his pro-compromise allies succeeded in pressuring half the anti-restrictionist House Southerners to submit to the passage of the Thomas proviso , while maneuvering a number of restrictionist House northerners to acquiesce in supporting Missouri as a slave state . The Missouri question in the 15th Congress ended in stalemate on March 4 , 1819 , the House sustaining its northern antislavery position , and the Senate blocking a slavery restricted statehood . </P>
<P> When free - soil Maine offered its petition for statehood , the Senate quickly linked the Maine and Missouri bills , making Maine admission a condition for Missouri entering the Union with slavery unrestricted . Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois added a compromise proviso , excluding slavery from all remaining lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36 ° 30 ' parallel . The combined measures passed the Senate , only to be voted down in the House by those Northern representatives who held out for a free Missouri . Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky , in a desperate bid to break the deadlock , divided the Senate bills . Clay and his pro-compromise allies succeeded in pressuring half the anti-restrictionist House Southerners to submit to the passage of the Thomas proviso , while maneuvering a number of restrictionist House northerners to acquiesce in supporting Missouri as a slave state . The Missouri question in the 15th Congress ended in stalemate on March 4 , 1819 , the House sustaining its northern antislavery position , and the Senate blocking a slavery restricted statehood . </P>
who drew up the missouri compromise in 1820
who drew up the missouri compromise in 1820
Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky
Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky