Which 1850s policy intensified the national debate over slavery by addressing the status of slavery in new territories?

Which 1850s policy intensified the national debate over slavery by addressing the status of slavery in new territories?

• A. Missouri Compromise
• B. Kansas-Nebraska Act
• C. Dred Scott decision
• D. Fugitive Slave Act

Answer: (B)

The policy in question is the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It intensified the national debate over slavery by allowing residents of the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide for themselves, through popular sovereignty, whether slavery would be legal there. This effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise’s boundary that had prohibited slavery north of the 36°30′ line, reopening the question of slavery in new territories and fueling fierce clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in what became known as Bleeding Kansas. The other options don’t fit as well: the Missouri Compromise was an earlier, pre-1850s attempt to regulate slavery in new territories; the Dred Scott decision was a Supreme Court ruling rather than a policy addressing territorial slavery; and the Fugitive Slave Act dealt with capturing runaway enslaved people, not the status of slavery in new territories.

The policy in question is the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It intensified the national debate over slavery by allowing residents of the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide for themselves, through popular sovereignty, whether slavery would be legal there. This effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise’s boundary that had prohibited slavery north of the 36°30′ line, reopening the question of slavery in new territories and fueling fierce clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in what became known as Bleeding Kansas. The other options don’t fit as well: the Missouri Compromise was an earlier, pre-1850s attempt to regulate slavery in new territories; the Dred Scott decision was a Supreme Court ruling rather than a policy addressing territorial slavery; and the Fugitive Slave Act dealt with capturing runaway enslaved people, not the status of slavery in new territories.