Kansas-nebraska Controversy
- Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill in January 1854 to organize a huge new territory known as Nebraska, west of Iowa and Missouri
- In an effort to make the measure acceptable to Southerners, Douglas inserted a provision that the status of slavery in the territory would be determined by the territorial legislature, "popular sovereignty"
- When southern Democrats demanded more, Douglas agreed to an additional clause explicitly repealing the Missouri compromise and to divide the area into two territories, Nebraska and Kansas, instead of one.
- President Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska bill
- The law divided and destroyed the Whig Party
- It divided the northern Democrats
- It also spurred the creation of the Republic Party