In 1820, the Missouri compromise took effect, allowing Missouri to be admitted to the Union as a slave state, but also prohibiting slavery north of a line 36 degrees, 30 minutes. The compromise in Congress; pitted 11 non-slave states against 11 slave states, with agreement coming only when it was determined that Maine would enter the Union (March 15, 1820) as a non-slave state and Missouri (August 10, 1821) as a slave state, thus maintaining a like number of non-slave and slave states. It would be repealed later by the Stephen A. Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854, which reopened the issue of slavery in the territories, just prior to the advent of the Civil War. The bill aroused great resentment in the North. It caused Abraham Lincoln to return to politics, and, in 1856, the birth of the Republican Party to oppose the extension of slavery. Lincoln was the party’s most outspoken leader in Illinois.

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