The controversy over whether Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, resulted in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which specified that the purchase of the Louisiana Territory north of the 36 ° 30 'parallel, describing most of the border South of Missouri, would be organized as free states and territories south of that line would be reserved for the organization as slave states. As part of the compromise, the admission of Maine (1820) as a free state was an insurance to balance the admission of Missouri as a slave state (1820).
