A Brief Compromise.

The political truce following the Compromise of 1850 lasted only four years, until the battle over slavery in the territories erupted again. This time the conflict centered on the Louisiana Purchase, where the slavery question had supposedly been settled in 1821 with the Missouri Compromise, which drew a northern boundary for slavery at 36º30'. Slavery reemerged as a pivotal political issue in the West in 1853, when settlers in the Kansas, Platte, and Missouri River valleys petitioned for territorial status. Unlike during the previous crises over slavery in the territories, politicians failed to strike a compromise to diffuse the conflict.

Nebraska.

With thousands of land-hungry settlers retracing Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's path up the Missouri River and entrepreneurs calling for a railroad connecting San Francisco to the East, many Americans favored organizing a territory north...