In the 1800s, why did the us government want to keep the number of free states and slave states equal? a) to prevent one region from becoming more economically unstable than another and to keep the us economy on an even keel b) to maintain a balance in congress between the number of representatives who supported slavery compared to those who opposed it c) to make it less likely that enslaved workers would attempt to escape a slave state to seek freedom in a free state d) to provide settlers in the territories the opportunity and the right to determine the issue of slavery for themselves

B) to maintain a balance in Congress between the number of representatives who supported slavery compared to those who opposed it

Explanation:

In the history of the United States of America, a slave state was a state of the United States in which the practice of slavery was legal at a particular moment in time, and a "free state" was one in which the practice of slavery was prohibited. slavery or was legally abolished at a certain moment of time. Slavery was a divisive issue and was one of the main causes of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States, and the distinction ended.

In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to the northern assemblies demanding freedom. In the Constitutional Convention many issues on slavery were discussed and for a time slavery was a major impediment to the approval of the new constitution. The institution was recognized as a compromise solution, although it was never mentioned directly in the constitution, as in the case of the Fugitive Slave Clause. In 1789, five of the northern states had adopted policies to abolish slavery, at least, little by little: Pennsylvania (1780), New Hampshire and Massachusetts (1783), Connecticut, and Rhode Island (1784). Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, when it was still independent, and when it joined the United States as the 14th state in 1791 it was the first state to unite without slavery. Therefore, these state jurisdictions enacted the first abolition laws throughout the "New World." In 1804 (including, New York (1799), New Jersey (1804)), slavery had been abolished in all northern states. or had taken steps to reduce it gradually. In the south, Kentucky was created as a slave state from Virginia (1792), and Tennessee had been created as a slave state of North Carolina (1796). In 1804, before the creation of new states of federal western territories, the number of slave states and free states was eight each. In popular usage, the geographical division between the slave and free states is called the Mason-Dixon line.