Running Head: BLUNDERING GENERATION 1 The “Blundering Generation” in the Civil War Camila Alvarez AP U.S. History Period 2 BLUNDERING GENERATION Abstract This paper explores the term coined by James G. Randall on 1940 “Blundering Generation”, which encompasses the “real” reasons that lead to the Civil War and blames the political leaders of the Era, the mistakes they made, their inability to compromise, and the way the Civil War was actually, and probably still is, romanticized (The Blundering Generation Revisited). Throughout the essay, I will analyze some of the events that justify Randall’s term, showing some key moments when politicians from the 19th century could have compromised and perhaps prevented the …show more content…
So once again, the wanted peace didn’t last much longer as the Compromise was never endorsed by proslavery appointees. According to Henretta 2011 and U.S History, the Kansas-Nebraska act was a great political disaster for the political system of America, and was a strong, if not the leading, cause of the Civil War. Senator Stephen A. Douglas was behind said compromise. He wanted the territory known as Nebraska to decide whether or not it wanted to be a slave state, but, like mentioned before, the Missouri Act would be violated by such decision. Knowing this, Senator Douglas revised his bill and added that the Missouri Compromised should be repealed, and that popular sovereignty should decide the fate of the new territory, which would be formed as Nebraska and Kansas. When the Act was finally enacted, the disaster began. Northern Whigs and “anti-Nebraska” Democrats were enraged and opposed with passion to the act, denouncing it BLUNDERING GENERATION 5 many times. As a result, it destroyed the Whig Party, and was on the verge of finishing off the Democrats. Some of these abolitionists joined a new Republican Party (Henretta 2011). Of course this event places Senator Douglas as part of the Blundering Generation, because of his pursuing of his own partisan purposes which were to “perpetuate his party and his own political career” (The Fate of Their Country, Michael F. Holt,
In the early 1800s, it appeared that these political battles could be decided with congressional compromises. Document A, also known as the Missouri Compromise, was created in 1820 to address the new state of Missouri. Whether or not Missouri was a slave state or free would be a watershed event, as from the onset it appeared one side would have more power in Congress. However, Henry Clay, one of the most famous congressmen of the time, was able to split up Massachusetts in order to create a new free state, Maine. With Maine being free, Missouri could join as a slave state, and both sides were appeased. However, no side was ever truly appeased, with Kansas-Nebraska act eventually repealing the Missouri compromise in 1854, only 34 years later. It is true that many more states were added into the union in those 34 years, such as Texas, California, and New Mexico. However, the Missouri compromise itself was not thought out for the long term, as it designated a single latitude line to divide the slave and free
In 1854 another problem arose which resulted in Congress passing the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri Compromise, this act was introduced by Stephen A. Douglas a chairman of Committee on Territories, this act allowed the people of Kansas and Nebraska to choose rather they wanted slavery in their boundary or not through the power of popular sovereignty, the Pro-slavery settlers won the election but were charged with accusations that they cheated, in order to make sure that the vote was right they ordered a re-election but the Pro-slavery refused and the refusal resulted into a battle. John Brown an Anti-slavery leader who believed that he was sent here by god to kill anyone who was pro-slavery. He led the anti-slavery force which gained the nickname “Bleeding Kansas”. The fight was soon stopped, and a final election was held, this time the anti-slavery settlers won the vote and was announced that Kansas would become a free state in 1861. In conclusion the Compromises and Acts may have had their flaws but it they some how manage to solve the slavery issues.
territory. As northern settlers poured into Kansas, however, in 1861 it qualified for admission to the union as a state where slavery was illegal. So many Northerners were distraught over the Kansas-Nebraska Act that they founded a new, purely northern, purely anti-slavery political party. the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries. The initial purpose of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to create opportunities for a Transcontinental Railroad. It was not problematic until popular jurisdiction was written into the proposal. The act was designed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The act established that settlers could vote to decide whether to allow slavery, in the name of "popular sovereignty" or rule of the people. Douglas hoped it would ease relations in both North and South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in their states. He was wrong; opponents denounced the law as a privilege to the slave power of the South. The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery, and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the
As time passed the rapidly changing society in the nineteenth century, in 1820 the north and south began to have serious conflicting problems that were proved unfixable by compromise. During this time, the north underwent major social, economic, and industrial changes known as the Antebellum Period. While the south generally clung to king cotton and slavery and thus remained essentially the same. This arose a manifold of controversies with how issues such as tariffs, slavery, and land should be handled. Both the Union and the Confederacy tried to create compromises to resolve these problems, yet both sides were never completely satisfied no matter how hard they tried. This made it very close to impossible for them to completely put their
A leading example of the struggles of slavery in the western states was the struggle over slavery in Kansas. Document F depicts a political cartoon basically stating that Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan all attempted intentionally or unintentionally to spread slavery to the West. Stephen Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in which the Midwest Nebraska territory would be divided into two states Kansas and Nebraska and the issue of slavery would be determined by in state vote known as "popular sovereignty". Franklin Pierce aided with the signing of the bill. The results upon this bill was harsh fighting between pro-slavery supporters and non-slavery supporters in Kansas over this issue. It also led to the non-reelection of Pierce and the end to the Whig party, along with the introduction of the sectional Republican party, who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. An attempt at forcing slavery into
In Garranty's The American Nation shows evidence that Douglas had a great political interest in the passing of this bill because he also served as the director of Illinois central line.
The Compromise of 1832 signified the peaceful olive branch, and this compromise sought to appease the enraged state of South Carolina by reducing the rates of tariffs. The Force Bill signified the powerful sword, and this bill certified Jackson with the special ability to use military force for the purpose of extracting the overdue tariffs from South Carolina. This compromise allowed the Union to strike a fine balance between gracious and forceful given the explosive political climate, since “Without the passage of the Force Bill, they believed that the passage of a compromise tariff would appear to authenticate the nullifiers’ extreme federal or states-rights position; and they could not accept the intellectual defeat that would have entailed” (Ericson, pg. 253). The “olive brand and the sword” compromise was engineered by Kentucky senator Henry Clay, who used his legendary negotiating skills to placate the people of South Carolina and save the immediate future of the
The creator of the act was Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who wanted to see citizens be able to settle in these territories. Underlying it all, Douglas’s real desire was to build a transcontinental railroad to go through Chicago. Although opposition was intense, The Kansas-Nebraska Act was finally passed by congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed settlers in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether slavery would be legal or not within their borders based on popular sovereignty. Territory north of the 36°30' parallel was now open to popular sovereignty as Northern leaders’ moods grew darker than the midnight sky. This sudden change in affairs largely contributed to the humongous political change that was about to happen next.
In 1954, the Kansas- Nebraska Act was passed. Northern Democrat Steven Douglass in an attempt to build a transcontinental railroad petitioned the Kansas-Nebraska act on the bases that the Compromise of 1850 validated popular sovereignty. In Douglass’s opinion the Compromise of 1850 made the Missouri Compromise of 1820 void. There was opposition from Northern politicians who believed that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was a sacred pact made by previous lawmakers during the union’s long history of compromises. For Southern politicians the Kansas- Nebraska Act would help the extension of slavery which most of the Northerners were against. Ignoring the wishes of the Northerners and pushing the Democratic agenda which wanted not only the
Through out the history of America, there were many compromises made as a desperate attempt to make both groups of people of either side happy as much as they could. In this case, the United States tried to avoid war with a series of political compromises in an attempt to reduce sectional tensions between the North and South, which proved to be ineffective.
The civil war was inevitable, only however, after one key event; the cotton gin made the civil war inevitable. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 was the key element which enabled the south to have sufficient vested interest in their traditional lifestyle in order to feel the need to defend it at all costs even from their Northern countrymen. The core argument of this essay centres around the evidence which clearly defines their being in existence two nations' with in America constantly in opposition to each other. Therefore the growth of sectionalism and the events which led up to the conflict made war an inevitable outcome of the hostilities which had arisen from the to ideologically
The event that started the chain reaction of the American Civil War was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This bill was created and implemented by Stephen Douglas, a Democratic Senator out of Illinois, shortly after he steps in after Henry Clay. With the intention of becoming president, Stephen Douglass wanted to organize territory from the Louisiana Purchase, with also building a railroad that would stretch across the Midwest, however, an important question
In the later half of nineteenth century America, the new nation’s original ability to resolve conflict through means of peaceful compromise had vanished. Various spans of conflict such as Westward Expansion, the Market Revolution, Sectionalism, Mexican American War, the succession of the southern states and ultimately the failure of the Compromise of 1850 that made compromise between the North and the South unattainable. It was the uncompromising differences amongst the free and slave states over the power of the national government that created a divide that would result in divisional violence. From the industrialized North, the agricultural South, Jackson’s Presidency to Lincoln’s and the rise in America 's involvement in politics that followed, slavery was merely one pawn on the board during America’s transforming years that would later reveal itself to have been the vehicle for the Civil War.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was created and proposed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who greatly supported the railroad system. Douglas was excited to have a railroad system that reached from his home city, Chicago, all the way to California. However, the
On June 16, 1858 made the statement “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” in a speech about slavery, deeply contrasting with Douglas’s views and speaking about the conspiracy of the democratic plot to get slavery legalized in every state. This conspiracy, of course, was being partly conspired by Stephen Douglas. Three weeks later, Stephen Douglas refuted these claims while also calling Abraham Lincoln a dangerous abolitionist (Looking for Lincoln). Being an abolitionist at the time held a very negative connotation because abolitionists were often irrational extremists (Morel 4). The following evening, in the exact same place as Douglas had spoken, Lincoln spoke once more.