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Kansas-Nebraska Act: Missouri Compromise
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Arguments for the Kansas-Nebraska Act: The Kansas-Nebraska Act is not about slavery; it is simply about allowing the people of the territory to exercise their inherent right of popular sovereignty in determining the future of their territory. The terms of the Missouri Compromise are no longer applicable; they were effectively overridden with the Compromise of 1850, which opened the territories of Utah and New Mexico to settlement by slaveowners as well as those who did not own slaves.
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The Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the nation and pointed it toward civil war. It is commonly acknowledged as the beginning of the Antebellum period of American history. The act itself virtually nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. The turmoil over the act split both the Democratic and Know Nothing parties and gave rise to the Republican Party, which split the United States into two major political parties- North (Republican) and South (Democratic).
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Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress in 1854. It provided that two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, were to be made from the Indian land that lay west of the bend of the Missouri River and north of 37 degrees north latitude. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced the bill into Congress.
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The strife and struggles of Kansas in 1855 began in 1854 with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, stating that both Kansas and Nebraska were to be settled under popular sovereignty. Of course there were two different sides to this Kansas question. Missourians greatly desired Kansas’ admission into the Union as a slave state, so “border Ruffians” induced physical violence and intimidation in Kansas in order to vote proslavery in the legislative elections. [1] Yet there was certainly opposition to this argument as well. A man by the name of Eli Thayer formed an organization called the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company (later called New England Emigrant Aid Company) which encouraged immigrants to move out to western territory in order to settle Kansas as a free state. Along with the immigrants, Sharp’s rifles were ... sent to Kansas under the disguise of “books” in order to effectively arm free state supporters.
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The slavery debate culminated with the proposal of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in late May of 1854, although slavery was not necessarily the only issue at hand. Proposed by Stephen Douglas, the Kansas-Nebraska Act centered on a notion proposed by Douglas, that of "Popular Sovereignty." The Kansas-Nebraska Act concerned the land which had previously been decided upon by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The act succeeded in dividing the region (displayed as tan in the map below) into two territories, the Kansas Territory (south of the 40th parallel) and the Nebraska Territory (North of the 40th parallel). Slavery was to be decided on by the people of the Kansas Territory, hence the notion of popular sovereignty. Slavery was to be prohibited in the Nebraska Territory.
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This collection consists of one letter and transcription dated April 16, 1854 discussing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Addressed to "Sir," it was written by an unidentified senator who was opposed to the legislation. The writer states that he had helped to defeat the bill in the preceding session because "there was no necessity for the organization of a territory west of Missouri -- there being no white settlers -- and it would be a gross of the faith of the government pledged to the emigrant Indian Tribes." Indeed, he feels that the Kansas-Nebraska Act was originally introduced because various senators (and especially Douglas) wished to strengthen existing alliances with Southern Democrats and to test the "Softs" of New York, who the writer felt had received the bulk of the Pierce Administration's patronage. The writer ... provides a brief history of the political events leading up to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
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Missouri Compromise