Kansas–Nebraska Act

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/kansasnebraska-act

1. What is the legislative session?
2. What is the president at signing?
3. Why did Senator Stephen A. Douglas want to create new territories in Kansas and Nebraska?
4. How did the Kansas–Nebraska Act change the rules about slavery?

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the legislative session?Passed by the 33rd United States Congress
2. What is the president at signing?Franklin Pierce
3. Why did Senator Stephen A. Douglas want to create new territories in Kansas and Nebraska?Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted the new territories so he could build a railroad across the country. He also hoped to keep the South happy by letting them decide about slavery.
4. How did the Kansas–Nebraska Act change the rules about slavery?The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had said slavery was not allowed north of 36°30′. By doing this, it opened those northern lands to the possibility of slavery.

Louisiana Purchase: A vast territory acquired by the United States from France in 1803, doubling the size of the nation.
Popular Sovereignty: A doctrine asserting that the people of a territory have the right to decide whether to permit or prohibit slavery within their borders.
Bleeding Kansas: A series of violent civil confrontations in the Kansas Territory between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers from 1854 to 1861.
Transcontinental Railroad: A proposed railway line intended to connect the eastern United States with the Pacific coast, a major infrastructure goal of the era.