[5.6-5.7] Failure of Compromise, Election of 1860, & Secession

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Douglas’s Plan

  • proposed the Nebraska Territory for the transcontinental railroad

  • Needed southern support for the route through Illinois

The Act’s Impact

  • Repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820

  • Created the Kansas and Nebraska territories

  • Voters in each territory would decide on slave or free status

Kansas and Nebraska Act

  • Build a transcontinental railroad connecting California to the East Coast either in the South or the North

  • Stephen Douglas wanted the railroad built in the North but had to convince the South otherwise.

  • Proposed a plan that the Kansas and Nebraska territories be opened up to slavery in return for building the railroad in the North.

  • Popular Sovereignty

Consequences of Kansas-Nebraska

Northern Outrage

  • viewed as a rising power of “Slave Power”

  • Southern advantage over northern compromise

American Indian Impact

  • Shattered treaty protections for Plains tribes

  • Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ponca, Pawnee, Sioux lost half their land

Military Violence

  • 85 residents killed in Nebraska Territory

  • 600 troops attacked Sioux village at Blue Water

Bleeding Kansas

  • Kansas/Nebraska Act led to several acts of violence between pro-slavery settlers and anti-slavery settlers.

  • First violent outbreaks between north/south.

  • First battles of the Civil War begin in Kansas in 1856.

  • Over 200 killed

  • Fighting continued intermittently and later merged with the Civil War in 1861

    • Destroyed millions worth of property

    • Paralyzed agriculture in certain areas

    • Cost scores of life

  • 1857 -  Kansas qualified for statehood application

    • Pro-slavery forces controlled much of the territory; devised the Lecompton Constitution

  1. Stolen Election (1855) - “Border Ruffians” from Missouri voted illegaly, installing a pro-slavery government at Shawnee Mission. Abolitionists established a shadow government in Lawrence.

  2. Lawrence Raid - Proslavery settlers invaded Lawrence, killing one resident, destroying newspaper offices, plundering shops, and homes

  3. Pottawatomie Massacre - John Brown and his sons kidnapped and killed five proslavery advocates in retaliation

  4. Bloodshed - More than 50 settlers killed in first six months of 1856 in “Bleeding Kansas”

Political Realignment of 1854

1- Democrats weakened Lost badly in North, viewed as supporting enslavers' priorities

2- Whigs Collapsed Failed to stop Slave Power, party proved too weak

3-Know-Nothings Rise American Party attracted native-born workers with anti-immigrant message

4- Republicans Founded Led by antislavery Whigs and Free-Soilers, including Abraham Lincoln

  • Republican Party

-Opposed slavery extension into new territories

-Willing to accept slavery where it already existed

-Mainly in the North, not accepted in the South like the Whigs

“The Crime Against Kansas”

Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist, the most disliked man in Congress, gave a speech called “Crime Against Kansas.”

hateful speech against the South, and South Carolina, he points out that the senior senator, Andrew Butler, called Senator Butler a pimp

Representative Preston Brooks, hearing this speech, SC, was very offended, and he took vengeance

He wants to fight/duel, he approaches Sumner, goes behind him and with a cane with a metal head starts beating Sumner into a pulp. Because Sumner was so disliked, nobody stopped the beating

start notes on slides 15-34