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As posts over in Piefed are saying, it was about the state’s rights to have slavery. Very specifically, it was about the right for new states to have slavery. Till that point, the political divide was along slave states VS not slave states, a divide which partially exists to this day. As such, to maintain the balance of political power, each new territory added as a state would alternate between being a slave state and free state. However, with expansion into the west, a representation of progress and freedom, the federal government proposed a ban, not on slavery, but the enacting of new slave states. All existing Southern states would still have slavery.
Fun fact! Utah entered the union as a slave state but did not secede (because they thought seceding would invite federal attention and they had enough of that in the Mormon War). I’m not sure what makes the fact fun, but it’s on the list
Instead they tried to contribute nothing to the union cause.
Another unfun fact, Oregon wasn’t a slave state, because their black exclusion laws defined that slavery and involuntary servitude shall be forever prohibited in Oregon and than any “negro or mulatto” residing in the state for more than six months would receive 39 lashes.
It was amended a few months later due to the lashes being seen as “excessive” so that instead the punishment was to “publicly hire out” the individual for the “shortest term of service” after which they would need to be removed within 6 months.
It really set the template for the sort of “just slavery with extra steps” that became the 13th amendment and post-emancipation US.
Another unfun fact, that’s why Oklahoma has a panhandle. Texas wanted to enter the Union as a slave state, but it wasn’t allowed below a certain line of latitude. So Texas gave up some of its territory to ensure it could enter as a slave state, and a portion of that territory became the panhandle.