•the Missouri Compromise
Missouri applied to become a slave state. This would have upset the delicate balance of free and slave states in the United States, but Maine also applied to become a free state about the same time. In the Missouri Compromise, Missouri was accepted as a slave state, and Maine was accepted as a free state. In addition, an invisible line was drawn across the territories. Slavery would only be allowed south of this line. Any new state formed south of this line could have slavery.
•the Compromise of 1850
California wanted to become a free state. This would disrupt the balance of free and slave states in the United States. Congress continued to debate what to do for the next nine months. What they would eventually decide would become known as the Compromise of 1850.
The Compromise of 1850 had three main parts:
California became a free state.
Popular Sovereignty, or a vote of the people, would decide if land in Utah and New Mexico Territories would be slave-holding or free.
The Fugitive Slave Law required citizens in the North to return any runaway slaves to their slaveowners in the South. If they did not, they could be fined or jailed.
•Kansas-Nebraska Act
e Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 made the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, allowing the states to vote on whether slavery was legal or not. This law canceled the Missouri Compromise, which declared that slavery was not legal in those areas.
however in 1865, the 13 amendment was passed, thereby abolishing slavery, but slavery was still active through mass incarceration of black people.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."