In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska Act served to further divide the nation, and served as a crucial step along the path to the Civil War. Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election marked a decisive defeat not just for Douglas-who ran as the northern representative of the divided Democrats-but for his belief that popular sovereignty could prevent national politics from dissolving into a regional conflict over slavery. By 1858, Lincoln’s eloquent argument against slavery’s extension would go on display in a now-famous series of debates with Douglas, as Lincoln unsuccessfully challenged the “Little Giant” for his Senate seat. It also drew Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term congressman from Illinois, back into the political arena. Opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act inspired the formation of the Republican Party, which became the nation’s leading antislavery political party. In one of the most heated moments in the debate, proslavery Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, resorted to beating antislavery Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with his cane on the Senate floor in 1856. Debate over the bill split the Whig Party, which ultimately dissolved, and split Douglas’ Democratic Party along sectional lines. Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act also had a profound political impact. By its terms, California entered the Union as a free state, while the territories of Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona (all acquired in the Mexican-American War) were left to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery within their borders. By the end of 1850, Senator Henry Clay (with Douglas’ help) had persuaded Congress to accept the Compromise of 1850. As California had banned slavery, its admission to the Union would upset the fragile balance between slave and free states. The discovery of gold in California in 1849, and California’s subsequent request to become a state, sparked a fierce battle in Congress. Its passage intensified the bitter debate over slavery in the United States, which would later explode into the Civil War. Known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the controversial bill raised the possibility that slavery could be extended into territories where it had once been banned. In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois proposed a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, a vast area of land that would become Kansas, Nebraska, Montana and the Dakotas.

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