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The Kansas-Nebraska Act
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.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Popular Sovereignty
By the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, voters in the US territories would decide whether the "soon to be state" would enter as a free state or a slave state. This Act was the result of Senator Stephan Douglas's ideas to solve the slave-free state crisis.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
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.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed settlers in those territories to decide whether or not to permit slavery through popular sovereignty, overturning the Missouri Compromise's restriction on slavery in certain territories. This led to violent conflicts between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in Kansas, known as "Bleeding Kansas."
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 Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed voters in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether to allow slavery through popular sovereignty. This overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery in territories north of a certain latitude.
Settlers of some new territories were able to decide about slavery for themselves.
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.
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.
Popular sovereignty is the term that refers to the idea that settlers had the right to decide whether slavery would be legal in a territory.
Study Island: Settlers of some new territories were able to decide about slavery for themselves.
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.
Kansas-Nebraska Act