PLEASE GIVE BRAINLESTS!
Backround:
The Kansas-Nebraska Act organized two new territories in the land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase, Kansas and Nebraska. The act established that in these territories, the principle of popular sovereignty would apply, meaning that the white residents of each territory would vote on whether to permit slavery when applying for statehood.
The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which drew the horizontal line of slavery across the West along the 36° 30' parallel, as both Kansas and Nebraska were north of this line. This reopened the question of slavery’s western expansion.
Furthermore, many in the South were growing resentful of the Missouri Compromise, which established the 36° 30' parallel as the geographical boundary of slavery. Slaveholders entrenched themselves in defense of their “way of life,” which depended on the ownership of slaves, while also claiming that prohibiting slavery’s expansion ran counter to basic American property rights. They now contended that the question should be decided by popular sovereignty, or allowing the white residents of a territory to decide whether it should permit slavery when it applied for statehood.
Meanwhile, some antislavery northerners wanted the West reserved for poor whites to seek opportunity. Abolitionists, too, were becoming more vocal in their support for the complete end of slavery.
Democratic leaders sought to bind these disparate ideologies together. Illinois Democratic senator Stephen Douglas believed he had found a solution—the Kansas-Nebraska bill—that would promote party unity and also appease Southerners who detested the Missouri Compromise line. The act created two territories: Kansas, directly west of Missouri; and Nebraska, west of Iowa. The act applied the principle of popular sovereignty. Since both territories fell above the 36° 30' line, the proposed bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
