The Missouri Compromise opened most of the Louisiana Purchase territory to slavery.?
2 answers:
Answer: FALSE
If you look at a map of the Louisiana Purchase, a line across the southern border of Missouri was set, with no slavery allowed north of that line, except for the state of Missouri itself. So the amount of Louisiana Purchase territory established for free states was greater in land mass than the amount of that territory set to allow slavery.
The Louisiana Purchase territories were acquired from France in 1803. Debates over the future of new states in that region continued for the next decades. Missouri was a part of what was acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. In 1820, when Missouri was ready to apply for statehood, a compromise was reached in Congress that established a plan for slave vs. free regions within the overall Louisiana Purchase regions. The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state with Maine being added as a free state at the same time, to keep the balance of slave and free states equal. It also prohibited any future slave states north of the latitude line 36 1/2 degrees north of the equator in territories of the Louisiana Purchase, with the exception of Missouri (north of that line) being admitted as a slave state.
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