The document discusses several compromises around the issue of slavery in the early United States. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 allowed Missouri to enter the union as a slave state while Maine entered as free, dividing states between free and slave above and below the 36°30' parallel. The Compromise of 1850 included admitting California as a free state, organizing New Mexico and Utah under popular sovereignty, and passing a strict Fugitive Slave Law. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, opening Kansas and Nebraska to popular sovereignty on slavery.