This article had an excellent premise, but it was not clearly written or developed. I’d like to think more about the comparison the author is making to the slavery legislation, but this article just didn’t present enough information in a clear way.
Fyi
I’m reading “A Patriots History of America” right now. Great book endorsed by Glen Beck. I am at the part about the Kansas-Nebraska Act right now. What a coincidence.
I believe Douglas’ primary goal was to get Kansas organized as a territory so that a transcontinental railroad route could go through it (to benefit his home state of Illinois). The part about replacing the ban on slavery in that portion of the Louisiana Purchase with “popular sovereignty” (a carryover from the Compromise of 1850 applying to the land newly acquired from Mexico) was simply done to attract Southern support for the bill, since Southerners would have preferred a more southerly route (in fact the Gadsden Purchase had been arranged in the interests of a southern railroad route).