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The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Settlers of some new territories were able to decide about slavery for themselves.
According to popular sovereignty, the people living in a particular territory or state would decide on the issue of slavery through a vote or election. This principle was used in the mid-19th century in the United States to determine whether new states entering the Union would allow or prohibit slavery.
Yes, that was the purpose of the act. The result was the flooding of pro and anti forces into each territories to influence the vote. It was a mess.
Study Island: Settlers of some new territories were able to decide about slavery for themselves.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty. The people who lived in these territories would be able to vote on whether slavery would be allowed there. What effect did this have on Kansas?
The doctrine you are referring to is popular sovereignty. This idea, championed by Senator Stephen Douglas in the mid-19th century, proposed that residents of a territory should be able to determine whether slavery would be permitted in that territory through a vote or legislative action. This doctrine played a significant role in the lead-up to the American Civil War.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a law passed by Congress in 1854, which divided the states of Missouri and Iowa, and the territory of Minnesota into two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska. It resulted to violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers.
it divided the remainder of the Louisiana purchase into two territories and allowed people in each territory to decide on the question of slavery
Popular Sovereignty. -ssm466
The Compromise of 1850 did not allow any choice in the matter. It reflected the increasing difficulty of creating new slave-states. It was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 that allowed the people of those two territories to vote on the slavery question. The only time it was tried (in Kansas), it led to terrible bloodshed, and was not tried again. The result was that Kansas rejected slavery.
It changed the balance of power which had previously existed by allowing those territories popular sovereignty to decide whether to allow slavery or not for themselves.