USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Missouri Compromise of 1820 established the latitude 36°30′ as the northern limit for slavery to be legal in the territories of the west. As part of this compromise, Maine (formerly a part of Massachusetts) was admitted as a free state.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Missouri Compromise also proposed that slavery be prohibited above the 36º 30’ latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. This provision held for 34 years, until it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

Detailed explanation-3: -Seeking a way to settle the dispute and prevent disunion, Speaker Clay promoted a compromise to allow slavery in Missouri while simultaneously admitting Maine as a free state.

Detailed explanation-4: -The compromise divided the lands of the Louisiana Purchase into two parts. Slavery would be allowed south of latitude 36 degrees 30’. But north of that line, slavery would be forbidden, except in the new state of Missouri.

Detailed explanation-5: -It was during the Congressional debates leading up to the compromise that the term “Mason-Dixon line” was first used to designate the entire boundary between free states and slave states. On November 14, 1963, during the bicentennial of the Mason-Dixon Line, U.S. President John F.