Key Legislation on the Issue of Slavery

-How the Union repeatedly tried not to get a divorce

Missouri Compromise (1820)

• Maine admitted as free state• Missouri admitted as a slave

– Preserves sectional balance in the senate b/w slave states and free states

• Louisiana Territory divided in ½ @ the 36”30’– North of the line is free– South of the line is slave

Wilmont Proviso (1846)

• After war w/ Mexico & Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo– California, Utah, New Mexico are closed

to slavery forever

• Argument b/w free-soilers and slave owners– Free-soilers do not own slaves, farm,

and are against the institution of slavery

Compromise of 1850

• California admitted to the Union as a free state

• Utah and New Mexico territories decide about slavery

• Sale of slaves banned in D.C.• Fugitive Slave Act required people in

free states to help capture and return escaped slaves

• Establishes Popular Sovereignty

Popular Sovereignty

• The right of residents of a territory to vote for or against slavery when becoming a state.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

• Divides territory in ½– Nebraska to the North– Kansas to the South

• Repeals the Missouri Compromise• Tests the policy of popular

sovereignty– Violence erupts– People are murdered– Nicknamed “Bleeding Kansas