Crittenden Compromise, in U.S. history, unsuccessful last-minute effort to avert the Civil War. It was proposed in Congress as a constitutional amendment in Dec., 1860, by Sen. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky with support from the National Union party. Basically, it accepted the boundary between free and slave states that had been set by the Missouri Compromise Missouri Compromise, 1820–21, measures passed by the U.S. Congress to end the first of a series of crises concerning the extension of slavery.
..... Click the link for more information. (1820–21), extended the line to California, and assured the continuation of slavery where it already existed. In addition, it advocated slavery in the District of Columbia, upheld the fugitive slave law fugitive slave laws, in U.S. history, the federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar laws existing in both North and South in colonial days applied also to white indentured servants and to Native American
..... Click the link for more information. (1850) with minor modifications, and called for vigorous suppression of the African slave trade. At a peace conference called by the Virginia legislature in 1861, the compromise gained support from four border state delegations. Nevertheless, it failed in the House of Representatives in Jan., 1861, by a vote of 113 to 80 and in the Senate in March by a vote of 20 to 19. Its defeat made clear the inevitability of the Civil War.

Bibliography

See A. D. Kirwan, John J. Crittenden: The National Union Party Struggle for the Union (1962).

Crittenden Compromise

Series of compromises in 1860–61 intended to forestall the American Civil War. Sen. John J. Crittenden proposed constitutional amendments that would reenact provisions of the Missouri Compromise and extend them to the western territories, indemnify owners of fugitive slaves whose return was prevented by antislavery elements in the North, allow a form of popular sovereignty in the territories, and protect slavery in the District of Columbia. The plan was rejected by president-elect Abraham Lincoln and narrowly defeated in the Senate.