Political Dilemma Of The Kansas Nekota Act

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

They also saw the law as something that enacted the crime of kidnapping and also as something that wasn’t covered in the Constitution. The whole compromise led to the rapid settlement of Kansas and Nebraska because the Compromise of 1850 led to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This rapid settlement was because in both Kansas and the Nebraska the issue over slavery would be determined by popular sovereignty. This rapid settlement led to Bleeding Kansas where a series of violent events occurred. Both sides of Slavery fought for control over the state of the Kansas Territory. The Democrats tried to force slavery upon free soilers who came to not allow slavery in Kansa because it was a new territory (Document F). This action showed great division in the union because of the differing views of Slavery and the constitutionality of many decisions.

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

The Kansas and Nebraska Act was also a major cause of political conflicts. It pressured popular sovereignty over those new territories. Kansas, according to the Northerners, was being pressured into becoming a slave state by having acts of violence be done against them. As well, people from Missouri were going into Kansas and using their power to vote for it as a slave state, and the North

The North pushed for the abolition of slavery due to the immorality of it. Yet, some reports say otherwise. In the article To Forget and Forgive: Reconstructing the Nation in The Post-Civil War Classrooms, Ginsburg states, “Confederate authors explained Northern anti-slavery sentiment in economic terms once Northern businessmen found slavery unprofitable, they abolished it and turned to slavery 'Fanaticism”. These Southern authors believed that the North 's anti-slavery movement was a ploy for economic prosperity. As a result, this tension led to the fallout of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, when both northern slave territories were either free states or remained slave states by the people. This was an opportunity for the government to leave the legislative branch of slavery with poor sovereignty. The states decided on slavery in hopes that it would have ended slavery controversy and avoid racism.

During the 19th century the South and the North began to debate within each other as slavery was starting to become a national issue. The South was unified following the institution of slavery as it was vital to their economic success and the North was anti-slavery. The Civil War was inevitable becoming the climax to a growing tension between both the South and North in the act of failed Compromises and differences. The Missouri Compromise, The Act of 1850, and The Kansas-Nebraska Act hold large responsibility as causes for the Civil War considering none completely stopped the war and were merely postponed it.

That is until the troubles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act occurred. Stephen Douglas was a Chicago native, and he believed that a transcontinental railroad that travelled through Chicago would be extremely to the Market Revolution in the city. This was a great idea, but it presented problems about whether the new territory established by the railroad would be a

This nullified the Missouri Compromise, which pleased the South since there was a possibility that slavery could expand. This intensified conflict between the North and the South and angered Democrats, Whigs, and Free-Soilers (Davidson pp 393). (http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/kansas-nebraska_act.htm) With the election of anti-slavery President Abraham Lincoln, the South became paranoid that the North planned to change their way of life, which led many of the Southern states to secede from the Union. (http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/statesrights.html) Lincoln wouldn’t tolerate secession and offered to “pardon” to the majority of Southerners with their return to the Union and conformity to the Emancipation Proclamation. Southern blacks were given educational and voting rights and opportunities for educational and economical advancement; the Southern elites then enforced the use of “paramilitary tactics”. Racism was also a factor in the North, which led Northerners to espouse some Southern viewpoint in regards to egalitarianism. This was the end of the Reconstruction Era and allowed the South to “turn the tables” on the North. Democrats were able to regain control of the Legislative and Judicial branches of government. (http://history.ncsu.edu/projects/cwnc/exhibits/show/second-redemption/redemption-1877)

The Missouri Compromise caused some of the biggest conflicts in United States history. One of the biggest conflicts caused by the Missouri Compromise was the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise was passed forty-one years before the Civil War happened. It caused the disagreement between the north, the anti-slavery, and the south, the pro-slavery in the United States on the issue of slavery. The north did not like slavery and the south did. The Missouri Compromise was written by Henry Clay and both people who promote slavery and people who are against slavery agreed to it in Congress. The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 agreeing to Missouri to be a slave state and Maine as a free state. It also banned slavery in the Louisiana Territory north from the latitude line which was thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. The compromise stayed a law until it was canceled by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The

During the period of 1820-1861 the north and south debated on issues that dealt with slavery and unbalance power, in order to reduce sectional tension between these two states, the Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were proposed.

closer to the Civil War. Passed in 1854 as a compromise bill, the KansasNebraska Act established popular sovereignty in the two territories of Kansas and Nebraska, sparking a fight over

Douglas pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, By opening up what had been Native American country to white settlement, Douglas hoped that the construction of a

The Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1877, was mainly caused by the diverging society between the North and the South. The North and the South had different goals. There were many factors that led to the war and the chief ones were political and economic differences between the North and the South. The North’s aggression to control the South had led to the point where it was intolerable. The issue on slavery was one of the causes of the Civil War. Slavery and slave trades had become a big part of the South’s economy. The slaves were needed to work on plantations which helped the South prospered. During the 19th Century, the North worked hard on abolishing slavery, which they thought was a disgrace to the Union.

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.

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