ine, many alternatives were drawn up against doing so. Lewis Cass, a Democratic Senator, proposed a Compromise solution that soon won considerable support from both moderate northerners and moderate southerners. Instead of Congress determining whether to allow slavery in a new western territory or state, Cass suggested that the matter be determined by a vote of the people who settled the territory. Cass' approach to the problem was known as popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty being one of the alternatives, 'relieved Congress of the responsibility of addressing the slavery issue by passing it on to territorial governments, popular sovereignty won support from many northern Democrats who otherwise might have converted to free soil.' Popular sovereignty didn't really specify at what point the people of a territory could legalize or prohibit slavery. It also did not say how much authority territorial governments could exercise in regulating slavery. Popular sovereignty held the greatest possibility for maintaining the unity of the Democratic Party and national unity on the slavery issue. With the Democrats firmly in control of national policy both in control of national policy both in the White House and in Congress, a new law was passed that would have disastrous consequences. A bill was proposed that the Nebraska Territory to be divided into the Kansas territory and Nebraska territory and the settlers there to be free to decide whether or not to allow slavery. These territories however were located north of the 36* 30' line and gave southern slave owners an opportunity that had previously been closed to them by the Missouri Compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed and the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The overriding purpose was to express opposition to the spread of slavery in territories. 'In 1856 the case of Dred Scott, a slave suing for is freedom, reached the Supreme Court.' Scott, had lived for a period of time in the free ...
