Answer:
The correct answer is D. The desire to build a transcontinental railroad led to the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a law drafted by Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois Democratic senator and president of the Senate Committee for the Territories, and approved by the United States Congress in 1854. It represented a crucial point among the events that led to the Civil War.
In that year, Congress wanted to design a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific. Stephen A. Douglas, as an Illinois senator, wanted it to pass through Chicago, but the Southerners protested, insisting that it should pass from California through Texas to New Orleans. Douglas then decided to compromise and presented the Kansas-Nebraska Act: in exchange for the passage of the railroad to Chicago, he proposed the organization of those territories in two new states: Kansas and Nebraska.