Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Legal Rights & Gov't | PBS

Dramatic re-enactment of a slave in uniform

Reynold's Political Map of the U.S.
c. 1856
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Maps Division

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Photo of Reynold's Political Map of the U.S.
c. 1856

This map of the United States from the year 1856 displays free and slave states and indicates the effects of the of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, establishing the notion of "squatter sovereignty" by which free or slave state status was determined by the inhabitants of a new state.