Kansas-Nebraska Act

Audience

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was written for a national audience. Douglas, aware of the harmful effect that the slavery debate could have upon both his beloved Democratic Party and the nation at large, played an active role in trying to suppress the controversy. He guided the Compromise of 1850, including its provisions establishing the doctrine of popular sovereignty in the newly formed far-western territories, through Congress and into law. Douglas believed that this doctrine, with its democratic foundation, along with the geography of the West, would ensure that slavery did not spread beyond its current geographic boundaries.

Firm in his dedication to the theoretical principle of self-rule (though recognizing a growing northern majority) and believing that the Kansas-Nebraska area was not climatically hospitable to slavery, Douglas did not hesitate to revise his bill by substituting the principle of popular sovereignty for the Missouri Compromise's explicit omission of slavery. Even though he claimed not to care one way or the other, Douglas believed that the net result would most likely be the same—new western territories and states that were free of slavery. Thus, through his Kansas-Nebraska bill, Douglas hoped to show the American people (whom he also intended to court in a quest for the presidency) that the controversy over slavery spreading to the West was a nonissue and that sectionalism could be peacefully and permanently muzzled.