KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL, a bill passed by Congress in 1854; the last of three compromises between the aggressive slavery expansionists of the South and their anti-slav ery opponents in the North. It is famous be cause, by its repeal of the first, the Missouri Compromise (q.v.), it precipitated the organ ization and rapid growth of the Republican party and especially incited the radical aboli tion sentiment of the North to aggressive ac tion, thus causing or hastening the secession of the Southern States and the resulting Civil War. Its passage was mainly due to the leader ship of Stephen A. Douglas (q.v.), of Illinois. The second compromise occurred when New Mexico and Utah came to be organized as Ter ritories in 1850. The compromise consisted of the provision, which was also one of the two principal features of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, that when these Territories came to be ad mitted as States they should come in with or without slavery as their constitutions, which would be framed by the people, might pre scribe. The strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Law was the other feature of this com promise. This settlement of 1850 was the first step toward the final compromise, the Kansas Nebraska Bill.
As early as 1844 Stephen A. Douglas intro duced in the House of Representatives a bill to establish the territory of Nebraska?' and Douglas afterward asserted that he took this method of serving notice on the Secretary of War to discontinue using that Territory as the dumping-ground for Indians. In 1$48 Douglas, now chairman of the Committee on Territories in the Senate, introduced in that body a bill for the same purpose. In December 1851 Willard P. Hall of Missouri gave notice in the House of a bill for the organization of Nebraska; but none of these bills got beyond the committee stage. On 2 Feb. 1853 William A. Richardson of Illinois, the leading lieutenant of Douglas in the House, introduced still another bill °to organize the Territory of Nebraska?' This bill, which, like all of its predecessors in ques tion, made no reference to slavery, passed the House, 10 Feb. 1853; but in spite of the strenu ous endeavors of Douglas in its behalf, it failed of consideration in the Senate. The long debate over this bill in the House disclosed clearly that the primary object of members from the Northwest, who were its champions, was to protect and encourage travel over the great' upper line to the Pacific Coast and make way for the ultimate construction of the already much talked of Pacific Railroad; while members from the South, and especially from the South west, were bent on keeping this northern region open for the colonization of their undesirable Indian tribes, with the purpose of securing travel and the railroad to the Pacific Coast through their own country.
Early in the session of the next Congress 14 Dec. 1853 — Senator Dodge of Iowa, a co adjutor of Douglas in this enterprise, intro duced "a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska?' This bill also originally contained no reference to slavery; but by amendment it became the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which finally became a law 30 May 1854. On 4 Jan. 1854 the Senate Committee on Terri tories, through Douglas, reported a substitute for the Dodge bill which contained the com promise provision of the Utah and New Mexico acts; namely, that "the Territory of Nebraska, or any portion of the same, when admitted as a State or States, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their consti tutions may prescribe at the time of their ad mission." In his famous report, accompanying this bill, Douglas points out that °eminent statesmen hold that Congress is invested with no rightful authority to legislate upon the sub ject of slavery in the Territories, and that therefore the 8th section of the Missouri Com promise is null and void; while the prevailing sentiment in large sections of the Union sus tains the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States secures to every citizen the in alienable right to move into any of the Terri tories with his property of whatever kind or description, and to hold and enjoy the same under the sanction of law?' The report pointed out also that under this section it was a dis puted point whether slavery was prohibited in the new country by valid enactment, and advised against the undertaking by Congress to decide these disputed questions. The bill was further amended so as to provide that all questions per taining to slavery in the Territories and the new States to be formed therefrom be left to the decision of the people residing therein; that cases involving title to slaves be left to the courts; and that the provision of the Con stitution in respect to fugitive slaves should be carried out in the Territories the same as in the States. On 16 January Senator Dixon of Kentucky offered an amendment, which was accepted by Douglas, expressly repealing the slavery restriction clause of the Missouri Com promise; and the bill passed with these amend ments.