Stephen Douglas, a politician from Illinois, and a man who strongly believed in Manifest Destiny, was committed to building the eastern terminal of the transcontinental railroad in his home state up North. Douglas wanted the railroad industry to be in the North, but in order to do this Douglas needed to please the southerners so he created a bill that would organize the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, leaving the decision of slavery to the settlers of the state. The North was outraged; this would allow slavery to breach the North. In 1862 the transcontinental railroad was built to expand westward after the recent California gold rush. This caused confusion, leading to Bleeding Kansas and potentially the civil war.
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