In 1854, an uproar regarding the question of slavery in the territories challenged the relative calm after the Compromise of 1850. Northern farmers wanted the federal government to survey the land west of Iowa and Missouri and put it up for sale. Many in the South were growing resentful of the Missouri Compromises, which established the 36° 30' parallel as the geographical boundary of slavery. Democratic leaders sought to bind these disparate ideologies together. The Kansas-Nebraska bill created two territories: Kansas, directly west of Missouri; and Nebraska, West of Iowa. The act applied the principle of popular sovereignty, which would allow slavery to be allowed in both territories
