It was a dark time in the history of the United States. A crisis was darkening the country and had pitted the North and South against each other. Tensions were rising and civil war seemed imminent. One courageous man took on the challenge of resolving the conflict: Congressman Henry Clay of Kentucky. Despite his old age and illness, he managed to develop a series of compromise measures and convince both sides to accept them. This compromise, the Compromise of 1850, may have kept the Civil War at bay for a decade, giving the North plenty of time to prepare (Remini). But that wasn't the only compromise Clay had a hand in. Clay is known for developing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise Tariff of 1833, as well as the aforementioned Compromise of 1850. These compromises earned Clay the name the "Great Compromise" (Van Deusen), and saved the Union from the fall into discord. Henry Clay's first major compromise was the Missouri Compromise of 1820, created after a huge debate over slavery that threatened to tear the Union apart. The dispute began in 1817, when Missouri applied to become a state. Congress decided to enact a law to allow Missouri to draft a state constitution in 1819, and Representative James Tallmadge of New York wanted to add an antislavery amendment to the law to stop further introduction of slaves into the state and to free slaves already present at that moment. age of twenty-five. This caused a huge furor over the national government's right to limit slavery, resulting in Tallmadge's bill passing the House but failing in the Senate. When Congress received a request for statehood from Maine in December 1819, the Senate took the opportunity to compromise. Passed a bill to admit Maine as a s...... middle of paper ......8c5409a3ee5e59>.Rush, Thomas. "Henry Clay (1777-1852)." American history from the Revolution to Reconstruction. GMW and Web. March 9, 2014. “The Tariff of Abominations.” History, Art & Archives, United States House of Representatives. Np, nd Web. March 11, 2014. “Tariff of 1832 and Clay's Compromise.” Hippocampus. Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, 2006. Web. March 11, 2014. Van Deusen, Glyndon G. "Henry Clay." British School. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2014. Web. 9 March. 2014. .