The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 was an organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. Douglas introduced the bill with the goal of opening up new lands to development and facilitating construction of a transcontinental railroad, but the Kansas–Nebraska Act is most notable for effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise, stoking national tensions over slavery, and contributing to a series of armed conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas".
The United States had acquired vast amounts of sparsely-settled land in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, and since the 1840s Douglas had sought to establish a territorial government in a portion of the Louisiana Purchase that was still unorganized. Douglas's efforts were stymied by Senator David Rice Atchison and other Southern leaders who refused to allow the creation of territories that banned slavery; slavery would have been banned because the Missouri Compromise outlawed slavery in territory north of latitude 36°30' north. To win the support of Southerners like Atchison, Pierce and Douglas agreed to back the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, with the status of slavery instead decided on the basis of "popular sovereignty." Under popular sovereignty, the citizens of each territory, rather than Congress, would determine whether or not slavery would be allowed.
Answer: Senator Stephen Douglas proposed the bill that became the Kansas-Nebraska Act as a way of getting southern support for Nebraska statehood. Douglas was seeking to bring Nebraska into the Union in order to bring those lands under government authority and lay the groundwork for building a Midwestern route of transcontinental railroad that would run to Chicago and benefit his state (Illinois). The compromise to gain support from the South was to create two states, Nebraska and Kansas, and allow voters in those areas to choose whether they'd be slave or free. The thought was that Kansas might end up as a slave state and Nebraska as a free state, thus maintaining the balance between free and slave states.
Further detail:
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted by Congress in 1854. It granted popular sovereignty to the people in the Kansas and Nebraska territories, letting them decide whether they'd allow slavery. In essence, this made the Kansas-Nebraska act a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had said there would be no slavery north of latitude 36°30´ except for Missouri.
After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers rushed into Kansas to try to sway the outcome of the issue, and violence between the two sides occurred. The term "bleeding Kansas" was used because of the bloodshed. Kansas and Nebraska ended up as free states, but the Kansas-Nebraska Act had allowed the possibility that slavery could become slave states.
Answer:
Ronald McNair was nationally recognized for his work in laser physics and was one of the thirty-five applicants selected by NASA from a pool of ten thousand. In 1984, McNair became the second African-American to make a flight into space. He was a mission specialist on the space shuttle Challenger.
Explanation:
<span>Each level of government is divided into three branches: the legislative branch (which makes the laws), the executive branch (which carries out the laws), and the judicial branch (which applies the laws to specific court cases, determines whether someone has broken the law, and evaluates laws to make certain </span>
