What is the significance of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 is perhaps one of the most divisive pieces of legislation in the history of the United States. Part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 dictated that aside from Missouri, no new expansion of slavery would take place north of the 36°30′ parallel. It was hoped that this would maintain the fragile balance of slave states and free states. In the 1850s, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas began criticizing the Missouri Compromise as a congressional overstep. Douglas was both an expansionist, who wanted the western territories of Kansas and Nebraska to be formally organized, and a supporter of popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty was the idea that it should be up the people within a territory to decide if slavery could be permitted, rather than leaving it up to Congress.
With this in mind, Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This would establish two new western territories and leave...
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the question of slavery to the popular will of the local residents. This effectively nullified the Missouri Compromise. This bill had a lot of support from Southern Democrats. However, it was fervently rejected by Northern Whigs, who saw it as a move to extend slavery throughout the nation.
When the act passed, tensions within the country grew. Almost all the opposition came from Northern representatives. Failure to prevent the act's passage spelled the end of the Whig Party. Former Northern Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats united to form the Republican Party. Previously, the Democrats and Whigs had a presence in both the North and South. After this, political lines in the country became sharply divided by geography.
Meanwhile, abolitionists from the North and proslavery supporters from the South rushed into the new territories hoping they had enough numbers to either establish or prohibit slavery there. This led to several violent confrontations known as "Bleeding Kansas." All this heightened the tensions in the country that would inevitably erupt in the Civil War.
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Why is the Kansas-Nebraska Act considered a crucial step toward the Civil War?
There are two main reasons why the Kansas-Nebraska Act can be seen in this way.
First, it did away with the Missouri Compromise. While the South had generally been somewhat unhappy with the Missouri Compromise, it had kept the issue of slavery in the territories off the front burner. It had allowed the North and the South to get along. Now, Douglas came along and essentially threw the compromise out the window, reopening the issue of slavery in the territories and greatly antagonizing the North.
Second, it brought about the violence of “Bleeding Kansas.” Once the Kansas-Nebraska Act established popular sovereignty for Kansas, violence erupted. People from both the North and South started moving into Kansas to try to ensure that their side would have more votes when it came time for the territory to vote on slavery. Each side committed atrocities against the other to try to drive the other side out of the territory. The violence inflamed opinion in both the North and the South.
For these two reasons, some might say that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was the single most important step towards the Civil War.