Chapter 14: From Compromise to Secession

For this section, I chose the Kansas-Nebraska Act. We talked about it briefly during class in our groups but it basically was the people wanting to govern themselves. Having their own sovereignty and wanting to govern the territory. Their main plan was to expand railroads into the Midwest to the Pacific, and open boundless opportunities for growth. It helped expand the idea of manifest destiny and how it would be more of a different substantial area to the Missouri Compromise. Missouri used to be a slave state. Douglas helped the bill be passed so they were able to govern themselves and have their own rules and ideas and not be abides by the union. "Two sources of potential conflict loomed. First, some southerners advocated a southern-based Pacific route rather than a midwestern one." (321, Concise 7th Edition, Boyer)
They also wanted to expand further down the road of the Louisiana Purchase. In my opinion they should have taken a hold of Nebraska so that they could be part of the union. If they wanted sovereignty, are they enough to make commitment and laws on their own? I didn't understand why they would want to divide Nebraska in half. It made more sense for them to keep them together and have them decide rules as a whole.