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One of the most powerful and controversial political figures in the nineteenth century, Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas strongly advocated for western expansion. His goal of unimpeded settler colonialism westward was hampered by debates over slavery. Introducing the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, he cried from the Senate floor, “You cannot fix bounds to the onward march of this great and growing country. You cannot fetter the limbs of the young giant.”

Hoping to quell controversy, Douglas developed the theory of “popular sovereignty,” which permitted settlers to decide for themselves, by vote, the status of slavery in new western territories. Under pressure from Southern democrats, Douglas included a provision to repeal the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which outlawed slavery from the region. Kansas exploded into proslavery and anti-slavery factional fighting and violence, precipitating the Civil War. Douglas lost the 1860 presidential election to Abraham Lincoln.

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