"The legislative package known as the Compromise of 1850 postponed the Civil War by a decade. However, like the 1820 Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 failed to resolve the question of slavery in a meaningful way. Over the course of the 1850s, the inadequacies of both measures were made painfully clear. 'Popular sovereignty' undermined the Missouri compromise by suggesting the earlier division of the country along the thirty-sixth parallel into free states and slave states no longer applied. Indeed, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 permitted slavery. The resulting bloodshed in Kansas, like later incidents at Harper's Ferry, presaged the violent conflict of the Civil War."

Question

—Library of Congress



Use the passage to answer the question.
What does the author mean in saying that popular sovereignty "undermined the Missouri compromise”?

(1 point)
Responses

It forced slaves who had escaped to be returned to a slave state.
It forced slaves who had escaped to be returned to a slave state.

It expanded slavery to the Northern free states.
It expanded slavery to the Northern free states.

It reopened debate over the border between free and slave states.
It reopened debate over the border between free and slave states.

Answer 1

The author means that popular sovereignty "undermined the Missouri Compromise" by suggesting that the earlier established division of the country along the thirty-sixth parallel was no longer applicable, thereby reopening debate over the border between free and slave states.

So the correct response is: It reopened debate over the border between free and slave states.