It tips the balance of voting power between slave-free states(the northern states, which the whigs controlled) and the slave states(the southern states where the democrats dominated) to the favor of the southern states, thus destabilizing the subtle balance the Missouri compromise established, escalating the the tension between the two groups. The compromise of 1850 and the Kansas Nebraska act were further attempts to stabilize the situation, and they failed, resulting in a full-on civil war. The northern states and southern seemed 2 distinct conflicting entities within one nation and they employed compromises to delay the inevitable resolution of their conflict.
