Describe how the federal government tried to resolve the issue of slavery in the western territories during the 1850s. In the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, Senator Stephen A. Douglas sought to support the construction of a transcontinental railroad and to open the West to settlement by Whites. What were the proposed terms of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
1) His proposal sought to include the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska in the Missouri Compromise.
2) His proposal abandoned the Missouri Compromise boundary line and allowed the voters of each territory to decide the status of slavery.
3) His proposal sought to create a large and sophisticated governing structure for all of the Kansas and Nebraska territory, in order to implement a free-state constitution.
4) His proposal sought to abandon the Missouri Compromise altogether and immediately incorporate Kansas and Nebraska as separate, but free, states.