Documenting United States History

258 ChApTEr 11 | the Union Undone? | period Five 1844 –1877

Document 11.4 Map of Kansas-nebraska act

1854

The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) allowed the Kansas and Nebraska Territories to be avail-

able for a transcontinental railroad but gained Southern support only because it also

allowed popular sovereignty (that is, a vote by residents) to decide whether slavery would

be allowed in any states that might be created in the territories. By opening territories to

slavery north of Missouri’s southern border, the Kansas-Nebraska Act negated the Mis-

souri Compromise (1820) and led to attacks and counterattacks by pro- and antislavery

forces in Kansas between 1854 and 1861.

p rACTICINg historical Thinking

Identify: Examine the borders of the territory that were affected by the Kansas-

Nebraska Act. How would voters’ decisions in the open territories affect the bal-

ance of slave and free states and territories?

Analyze: How could both the North and the South stand to gain economically

from the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Evaluate: To what extent could popular sovereignty have contributed to the Civil War?

TopIC I | the Breakdown of Compromise 259

CALIF.

TEXAS

INDIAN

TERR.

MINNESOTA

OREGON TERRITORY

TERRITORY

WASHINGTON

TERRITORY

NEW MEXICO

TERRITORY

UTAH

TERRITORY

ARK.

LA.

MISS.ALA.

TENN.

KY.

FLA.

GA.

S.C.

N.C.

VA.

PA.

N.Y.

VT.

N.H.

ME.

MASS.

CONN.

R.I.

N.J.

DEL.

MD.

MO.

IOWA

WIS.

ILL.IND.

OHIO

MICH.

NEBRASKA

TERRITORY

KANSAS

TERRITORY

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY ESTABLISHED

Compromise of 1850/Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

Free states

Free territory

Popular sovereignty

(decision on slavery left to the

people of the territory)

Slave states

Slave territory

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