Let’s dive right back into politics.  Dive back in.  Stephen Douglas, now Senator Douglas, was the chairman of the Senate territories committee.  Remember that back in the 1850’s, the United States wasn’t set up like it is today.  There weren’t fifty states.  A lot of the West was just territories.  A big question about the territories was… slavery of course.  Would the new territories have slavery?  Without expanded slavery, the South felt they would lose political power.  Some even spoke of secession at that point.  Douglas wanted to expand west, but knew he needed compromise between the pro slavery states and the anti slavery states to do it.  His solution was called the Kansas–Nebraska Act, signed into law on May 30, 1854.  This Act stirred up the anger over slavery even further.  Plus, it grabbed Abraham Lincoln and led him back into politics.  Back into politics.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that “popular sovereignty” ruled.  Simply, the people living in the territory would have the say as to whether slavery was legal or not.  This created a firestorm.  A giant firestorm.  The Act nullified the Missouri Compromise, not allowing slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes, except in Missouri.  Settlers from both the pro slavery side and the anti slavery side poured into Kansas.  Violence erupted in Kansas, renamed Bleeding Kansas.  Bleeding Kansas.  This Act also played on other citizens of the United States.  For years people were led to believe that slavery would not extend north of a certain point in the Louisiana Purchase territory.  Now it was happening.  The conflict of Civil War loomed large.