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Why Was The Kansas Nebraska Act Important To American History

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”There are only two sides to this question. Every man must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots and traitors” once said by Stephen Douglas of Illinois. He was a man known for creating an act that could be the most significant thing leading up to the civil war. He wrote The Kansas-Nebraska Act which let the people of the territory vote for or against slavery. There was only two things you could have your mind set on the one or the other.The Kansas-Nebraska Act was important to American History and it led to the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was significant to American history, it was the breakup the lead to the Democratic and Republican Parties and it led to the civil war because …show more content…

During 1850, a Democratic Senator from Illinois named Stephen Douglas had idea for an Act that is known to follow popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty is where people vote to decide on laws and other things that need to be decided on. He was trying to spread the country westward. First you need to know that Kansas and Nebraska were originally one territory but the Act broke them in two. It is best Understood as the breakup of the Democratic Party. Anti slavery democrats were merging into the Republican Party which started up the breakup of the country. This Act stated that the people would have the right to vote whether it was going to be a slave state or not. This Act repealed the Missouri Compromise which said that slavery was outlawed above the 36* 30’ latitude line. Once the Act passed on May 30th, 1854 the Kansas and and Nebraska territory took a vote to decide the future of the state.When the Kansans voted and resulted in having slavery to the territory some of them decided to act out and that lead to the civil war .Some of the citizens were upset and they were arguing about why they had slavery. This relates to the Civil War because it was a battle to end or to keep slavery and in this some of the Kansans were mad and didn’t want slavery while others wanted …show more content…

Since the Kansas-Nebraska act let the Kansas and Nebraska territories vote for whether the were going to become a slave state or not, it really started the breakup of the Democratic Party. There were already some democrats who liked slavery and there were also some that would rather not have it. These people with different thoughts were starting to break apart already but the Kansas-Nebraska really drew the line. When the Act was passed the anti-slavery democrats were furious and split into the Republican Party. They were mad because it repealed the Missouri Compromise which was outlawing slavery above the 36*30’ line. What upset them even more was when the Kansans took their vote and they ended up as a slave territory. This is why we have two parties but they aren’t split over slavery anymore. That’s not all since the act stated that the citizens of the territories would vote on what they would have in the future that is Popular Sovereignty. Popular Sovereignty is where the people vote for this to be put in place. This is significant because now America runs in Popular Sovereignty. We even vote for the

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The Missouri Compromise Unravels was a debate between slavery which congress had no power over to control. They eventually settle on an antislavery pension called the GAG rule to keep any slavery topics off the table. It 's important because Northerners wanted to keep slavery out of the growing nation and Southerners wanted to keep their property and get more money from their slaves. They fought for the new land and what to do with it and causing congress to deadlock California and there appeal for statehood. The South was not happy about California becoming a free state and eventually think about withdrawing from the

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a bill that essentially disregarded and relinquished the Missouri Compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska Act stated that any westward expansion of the United States was to have the decision on slavery made via popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty, in regards to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was the idea that the decision on slavery in a region should be decided by the people who live there. This seemed fair, but the issue with instating popular sovereignty was that the parameters of the Missouri Compromise stated that slavery could not exist anywhere above the 36°30° line (History.com). Therefore, popular sovereignty would entirely disregard important factors of the Missouri Compromise, which was regarded by many as a strong force in holding the Union

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In the years prior to the Civil War, northerners and southerners experienced violence and madness in their everyday lives. The Civil War resulted from social, political, moral, and religious differences between the north and the south. As the country continued to expand West, Congress consistently revisited the question of slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 proposed by Senator Douglas set the stage for violent territorial disputes over slavery. In 1856, Preston Brooks’, a member of the House of Representative, viciously attacked Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Senator, for his speech “The Crime Against Kansas,” in which he directly attacked Southern beliefs and actions as savage and inferior to Northern behavior.

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This affected the way that northerners viewed slavery. It helped move along the cause of abolition and even Abraham Lincoln recognized that this book was one of the events that prompted the outbreak of the Civil War. Bleeding Kansas stunned Northerner Kansas-Nebraska Act was made in 1854 permitting the Kansas and Nebraska regions to choose for themselves using popular sovereignty if they wanted to be a free

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The Manifest Destiny contributed to the Civil War because the expansion of new territories and states added into the United States. If the new territories were to vote in Congress for slavery and no slavery, it could be a threat for slavery in the South. ‘’many Southerners and some Northerners wanted slavery to exist everywhere in the United States, including in the new territories added to the country. Many other Americans did not want slavery to expand at all, and some people wanted slavery to be prohibited across the entire nation. Eventually these tensions would lead to the American Civil War’’ (Manifest Destiny, N/d).

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The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was a bill that gave the settlers of the territory, Kansas and Nebraska, to decide whether slavery would be allowed or not. The bill proposed by Stephen A. Douglas, overruled the Missouri Compromise (a compromise that Missouri entered the Union as a slave state but slavery would be forbidden anywhere else in the Louisiana Purchase North of 36* 30’), a boundary between the free and the slave states. This bill split two major political parties at that time; which were: the Whig Party and the Democratic Party, but also helped on the unification of the Republican Party. The Democratic Party was split into two; the Northern and the Southern side.

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Another reason for the debates was the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed slavery north of the 36° 30’ latitude that was previously restricted in the Missouri Compromise. The question concerning slavery in territories arose and the differing opinions of the states caused contention. Lincoln stated several times

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This would go on to flood the states with settlers who wanted to sway the vote in their favor towards slavery or anti-slavery. Eventually this would lead to bleeding Kansas. This act was important due to the fact it added new territories and it led to bleeding Kansas, an event which would be an important cause of the Civil War. American, or Know-Nothing, Party : A nativist political party in the United States which pushed strong anti-catholic and anti-immigrant ideas. This party showed the ideas of the time against immigrants and catholics, as well as foreign influence as a whole, this was important and showed the strong feeling of individuality in the Nation.

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There were many important Compromises between the years of 1820 and 1860, some that worked completely and some that didn’t. In the early nineteenth century, people were good at compromising and making things work for everyone. How long did perfect compromising actually last? Slavery began to split the nation apart, causing compromising to become hard to do.

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Stephan A. Douglas was for the Democratic Party and was also the designer of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He urged the point that people should be able to choose if a territory is a slave state or a free state, as well as pointing out much evidence in the Constitution that suggested that the Founding Fathers were not against the concept of slavery as many of them owned slaves. However, Lincoln took the moral route and stated that this was a war between right and wrong and Douglas was advocating for the wrong side. Because of this, the public was divided on who to vote

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While this influenced the establishment of the Republican Party and created more tensions between the North and the South, this also heavily influence the newly established Western states that would come in the future. By settling in western territories, Douglas hoped to facilitate construction of a transcontinental railroad throughout the west rather than go south. This Act influenced both anti-slavery and pro-slavery settlers to expand westward with the goal to gain more slave states or free

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Perhaps one of the greatest elections in American history was the election of 1860. It was a unique election, because it sets the stage for the American Civil War. Throughout the 1850s, the United States was divided around the issues of states’ rights and slavery in the country’s territories (The Presidential Election of 1860, 2010). The Republicans opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the 1820 Missouri Compromise of prohibiting slavery north of the latitude thirty-six degrees and thirty. Many saw this as a pro-slavery expansionist movement.

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Buchanan supported the view of popular sovereignty, where states could choose to vote on legalizing slavery in their respective state constitutions. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in 1856, any territory preparing to enter the union as a state had to include whenever slavery was supported or disavowed. Buchanan promoted the law in his inaugural address, “Congress is neither ‘to legislate slavery into any Territory or State nor exclude it therefrom, but leave it to the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States’’’ (Buchanan “Inaugural Address”). Buchanan was ready to let comprise determine how slavery would continue to exist in the United States.

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These compromises prohibited the expansion of slavery in the U.S. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was the reason for the overturning of these compromises. The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide whether or not they wanted to permit slavery. Resistance to this new policy shocked antislavery groups and motivated them to create the Republican party. Republicans often favored internal improvements, homesteading, construction of railroads, protective tariffs and the containment of

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They became both pivotal moments in history, in law, and in the direction of American society, with which Lincoln, as a lawyer, was already immersed and passionate about. This is what gave him the motivation and incentive(in some measure) to get back into the game of politics with which he had contended for so long. McGovern says that “Along with many others, Lincoln was thundersruck and astounded when the new law [i.e. the Nebraska Act] was enacted... he feared there was a real danger that slavery would spread, perhaps rapidly, and he could no longer stnad by (37).” After all, if Kansas-Nebraska were to be separated in two, leaving it completely up to the newly formed states whether or not they would allow for slavery on their premises (36).

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