Crittenden Compromise
![](/Images/godic/202501/07/Greater_coat_of_arms_of_the_United_States.svg0736.png")
![Matthew Brady's 1855 portrait of Sen. Crittenden](/Images/godic/202501/07/John_Jordan_Crittenden_-_Brady_18550736.jpg")
![Slave and free states & territories in 1858. The 1820 Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30′ N. separated Missouri from the Arkansas Territory, but barred slavery from any new states and territories north of this line and west of Missouri, as did the Crittenden Compromise proposed forty years later. (However, this part of the Compromise of 1820 had been largely negated by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision in 1857.)](/Images/godic/202501/07/US_SlaveFree18580736.gif")
The Crittenden Compromise was an unsuccessful proposal introduced by United States Senator John J. Crittenden (Whig of Kentucky) on December 18, 1860. It aimed to resolve the secession crisis of 1860–1861 by addressing the fears and grievances about slavery that led many slave-holding states to contemplate secession from the United States.