When the United States won the US-Mexican war, The U.S was in possession of present day Utah, California, and New Mexico. This expanded the United States all the way to the Pacific Coast.With that in mind, Missouri requested to enter the Union as a slave state, It was going to upset the balance of slave and free states. Congress in desperation to keep the state 's unified, passed an amendment allowing Missouri entrance as a slave states. Congress, to keep the balance, allowed Maine to enter as a free state. Congress as well extended the line that separated the North and South through the country to the Pacific coast. Although, this did not fully diffuse the problems between the North and South, it kept the state 's balanced for awhile.
California eventually requested to enter the Union as a free state, this upset the balance of the free and enslaved states. This disturbed the
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The way to handle the situations was from one extreme to another. Anti-Slavery was one of the major views in the North on slavery. These people believed that the institution of slavery was wrong and to get rid of it, popular sovereignty was the answer. Popular sovereignty was the idea that the future state government should decide if they are for or against slavery. The antislavery activists also thought that slavery could be contained, and eventually the act would die out. The more opinionated activists, abolitionists, wanted slavery abolished because it was immoral way to treat human beings. The abolitionists were more aggressive in the fight against slavery. These people were not willing to compromise and firmly believed slavery should be abolished. Unwilling to compromise as well were the extreme pro-slavery activists. They believed that slavery should be allowed anywhere and the alternative would be to leave the union. With this extreme ways of thinking, the North and South were moments away from