Significance in american history
formation/
establishment of Kansas and nebraska
In order for land to be claimed, territories had to be established. So, in order to carry out his plan, Douglas first had to get approved for the establishment of Kansas and Nebraska by the government. The territories known as Kansas and Nebraska back then are actually bigger than the current states. Nebraskan territory included parts of present day North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. Kansas Territory included parts of Colorado and Kansas.
Violence from Bleeding Kansas further encouraged violence between North and South regarding slavery. It only went downhill from there. Conditions further worsened and worsened. Abraham Lincoln winning the presidential election in 1860 angered the southern states and caused them to form the Confederate States of America. The Civil War ended in 1865, with the Confederates surrendering and slavery being abolished.
Prelude for the civil war
Popular
sovereignty
Although modern day popular sovereignty is part of many democracies, in pre Civil War times, it became a political tool related to slavery in new territories. Modern popular sovereignty is, by definition, a doctrine in political theory that government is created by and subject to the will of the people. The concept of popular sovereignty in pre Civil War times was, in some ways, corrupted. Many people flooded into the states of Kansas and Nebraska to vote, purely for the purpose of voting, but were not local citizens.
Transcontinental railroad
The first transcontinental railroad in America was built in the 1860s, with Omaha, Nebraska as a central point. The building of the railroad was possible because of government grants under the Pacific Railroad Acts of the 1860s. Its construction began just before the start of the Civil War. Without the Kansas Nebraska Act, it's unclear whether the transcontinental railroad would have been possible at that time.
Due to the terms of the Kansas Nebraska Act, slavery in those areas would be determined by popular sovereignty. Therefore, many pro-slavery and anti-slavery activists flooded to Kansas and Nebraska. They hoped that their votes would count in determining the status of these states. However, this caused a lot of violence within the region. Citizens of the North and South living in the same region only further worsened the tension between them. In the elections, the pro-slavery settlers were winning by a landslide, but the anti-slavery settlers accused them of fraud and the results weren't acknowledged. This led to a period of lots of violence known as "Bleeding Kansas."