ABSTRACT
Texas, an annexed slave state, claimed land that lay north of the compromise line. Texas would give up its claim to territory north of the compromise line in return for the federal government’s assuming the state’s debt. The issue was reopened after the Mexican War when the US acquired extensive territory from which several new states would presumably emerge. In addition, “Popular sovereignty” was prescribed for those territories, which meant that slavery would be allowed in new states both north and south of the Missouri Compromise line, unless it was rejected by a vote of the residents. The popular sovereignty provision guaranteed that conflicts over new states and territories would intensify. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 then expanded the area of conflict by prescribing popular sovereignty even to territories from which slavery had been banned by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
