Kansas-Nebraska Act, 30 May 1854, National Archives.
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The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery above the 36° 30’ parallel, no longer satisfied the pro-slave desire to grow west. This led to the development of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, and implemented popular sovereignty.
...to make two Territories instead of one, dividing them by the fortieth parallel of north latitude—the Kansas and Nebraska Territories.” |
I could not doubt that the Nebraska Bill... will triumph and impart peace to the country and stability to the Union." |
Stephen A. Douglas was essential to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas wanted to calm the debate over slavery in order to ascend in the Democratic Party and to profit from transcontinental investments.
Description of Stephen A. Douglas, 2016, History - Youtube.
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act, signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on May 30,1854, opened Kansas Territory to settlement…”
Bryce D. Benedict, " Jayhawkers: The Civil War Brigade of James Henry Lane", 2009
Pop-U-lar sov-er-eign-ty | Noun
a pre-Civil War doctrine asserting the right of the people living in a newly organized territory to decide by vote of their territorial legislature whether or not slavery would be permitted there"
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Popular Sovereignty was the most controversial part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It was a triumph for southerners who supported the people’s right to self govern, but a tragedy to those who believed slavery was immoral. Though affected, both women and African Americans were left out of the territorial vote.
The great principle of self government is at stake and surely the people of this country are never going to decide that the principle upon which our whole republican system rests is vicious and wrong." When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government—that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that “all men are created equal;” and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another..." |
Southern Perspective
The issue presented by the bill is one which in the main has arrayed the free-soilers in solid ranks against the South. The moral effect of the victory on our side will have a permanent effect upon the public mind, whether any positive advantages accrue by way of the actual extension of slavery or not. The effect of such a victory at this time is important.” For Southerners, Kansas-Nebraska was a ‘symbolic victory’ in which Northerners conceded slavery’s equal right to go into the territories." ...glorious news of the result of the Nebraska bill and the triumph of the compromise of 1850. The contest in the House was close and hot but we whipped the opposition out and carried the measure by 13 majority. The excitement has nearly all passed away. Nobody says anything now against it but abolitionists. Let them howl on—‘’Tis their vocation.’” |
backlash
Many northerners were outspoken about their frustrations with the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the sake of the Union, it ought to be restored... I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a few people—a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity we forget right—that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed, and rejected it."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SPEECH ON THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT, 1854
Free soilers often depicted slavery as a symbolic economic enslavement of white small farmers and wage-laborers. They argued that when wage laborers were forced to compete with slaves, wages were kept artificially low and laborers were scarcely more than slaves themselves." |
Many Northerners found it difficult to accept Douglas’s substitution of popular sovereignty for slavery prohibition not only because they have more to lose but also because of moral objections to slavery.” |
Rather than resulting in a peaceful compromise, the Kansas-nebraska act of 1854 created a perfect storm that soon led to the escalation of violence in the new territory."
The Kansas question exhibit, carnegie building, Lawrence, Kansas