The
Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law, replacing the
Missouri Compromise (of 1820), which had already been declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court of the United States. Thus act creating the
Kansas Territory and the
Nebraska Territory, west of the
State of Missouri and the
State of Iowa. The
Kansas-Nebraska Act also lick that these two new Territories would decide either to allow or disallow
slavery depending on ballots by the residents of these two territories. These areas would have been strictly free territory by the
Missouri Compromise, which allowed
slavery in the
State of Missouri but disallowed it everywhere north of the latitude 36 degrees, 30 minutes, which forms most of the southern boundary of Missouri. This prohibiition of
slavery extended all the way from the western boundary of Missouri to the
Pacific Ocean. This provision of the
Missouri Compromise had already been declared null-and-void by the Supreme Court.
