The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Historical Context

Slavery
The issue of slavery threatened to divide the nation as early as the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and throughout the years a series of concessions were made on both sides in an effort to keep the union together. One of the most significant of these was the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The furor had begun when Missouri requested to enter the union as a slave state. In order to maintain a balance between free and slave states in the union, Missouri was admitted as a slave state while Maine entered as a free one. And although Congress would not accept...

[The entire page is 1102 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...