Why did Stephen A. Douglas support the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
A. Douglas wanted to extend slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska Territories.
B. Douglas wanted to appease northern states that were still angered over the Fugitive Slave Act.
C. Douglas supported the idea of building a railroad from Illinois to California, but before that could be done, the Kansas and Nebraska Territories had to be organized.
D. Douglas wanted to appease southern states that were still angered that California was admitted to the Union as a free state.
Douglas supported the idea of building a railroad from Illinois to California, but before that could be done, the Kansas and Nebraska Territories had to be organized.
Explanation:
The man who invented the Kansas-Nebraska Act in early 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, had a pretty practical goal in mind: widening the railroad.
Douglas, who moved to Illinois, had a grand vision of railroads crossing the continent, with its hub in Chicago, in his adopted home state.
The immediate problem was that the vast wilderness west of Iowa and Missouri would have to be organized and brought to the Union before the railroad was built in California.
All it held was a perennial slavery debate. Douglas himself opposed slavery but did not have much condemnation for the issue, perhaps because he had never lived in a state where slavery was legal.
