The Kansas-Nebraska Act, of 1854, created and destroyed American political parties and lead to the sectional differences in our nation that resulted in violence. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a plan introduced by Stephen Douglas that would divide the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase, of 1803, into two separate territories- Kansas and Nebraska. In each territory popular sovereignty would allow voters to determine whether the state was to be a slave state or a free state. If Stephen's Act was passed, a railroad could be built from Chicago to the pacific, an idea that outraged northerners. …
