The Missouri Compromise is enacted, allowing Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free State. so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation.
It also outlawed slavery above the 36º 30' latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in its Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America.
