38 Nebraskaland • May 2025
This 1860 cartoon was published the year Douglas lost a four-way presidential election to Abraham Lincoln. "You have been
a bad boy Steve, ever since you had anything to do with that Nebraska bill …." The "Maine law" probably refers to a state law
defying the federal Fugitive Slave Act. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Stephen Douglas, senator from
Illinois and namesake of Douglas
County, Nebraska, circa 1860.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
labeled "Nebraska," along with the names of rivers and of the Native tribes that still
controlled the region.
Talk of a transcontinental railroad was getting serious, but it would be expensive.
Most people assumed that only a single line would be built to the West Coast. The route
mattered — in part because the cities at either end stood to profi t. While Southern
politicians wanted a southerly route, Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois wanted to lay
track west from Chicago.
The Platte River Valley was the best route for Chicago, but it faced two obstacles. The
fi rst was that it was still "Indian Country." Starting in the 1840s, Douglas introduced
legislation to open Nebraska to white settlement, but this was blocked by the second
obstacle: the politics of slavery.
Back in 1820, Congress admitted Missouri as a slave state while prohibiting slavery
in the vast area later known as Nebraska. In 1820, it seemed like a place where farmers
would never settle. Now Southerners feared it would become several new free states
and upset the national balance. So, they made a deal with Douglas. His new bill split
Nebraska into two territories and — crucially — reopened the question of slavery,
which would be left to territorial voters and legislatures in the name of "Popular
Sovereignty." The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854. Just like that,
