Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
When you look at a map such as the one below that includes
dates of statehood and state boundaries. Keep in mind that in
1850 what would become the state of Oklahoma and much of
Kansas and the eastern half of Nebraska were designated as
Indian Territory. Many eastern and southeastern Indian peoples
had already been forced to relocate there. In 1854 the KansasNebraska Act reduced Indian Territory and in so doing reopened
the slavery question in the territories.
From U.S. Bureau of the Census. Image provided by Perry-Castañeda
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Library Map Collection, University of Texas Libraries
(http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/).
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
Senator Stephen Douglas, Democrat from Illinois, championed
this piece of legislation. Recognizing the increasingly important
role of railroads in the nation's development and Chicago's status
as a railroad hub, Douglas sought to help his home state (and
increase the value of land he held an interest in) by proposing that
a transcontinental rail line terminate in Chicago and pass through
Indian Territory and the still unorganized portions of the Louisiana
Purchase on its way to San Francisco. In supporting this route,
Douglas advocated the organization of the territories of Nebraska
and Kansas and thus reopened the slavery question. Southern
Democrats supported Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska bill only when
he agreed that popular sovereignty would decide the slavery
question in the new territories. Because popular sovereignty could
open the area north of 36°30' for slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska
Act in effect repealed the Missouri Compromise.
Douglas assumed privately that neither Kansas nor Nebraska
territories was suitable for slave agriculture and that both would
enter the Union as free states, but the fact that his bill opened the
possibility of slavery there caused over 300 anti-Nebraska rallies
in the North, energized Free Soilers in the newly formed
Republican Party, and caused the dissolution of the Whig Party
because its southern members voted for the bill and northern
members against it. Many northern Whigs joined the Republican
Party and the Whig Party disappeared after it was unable to field
a presidential candidate in 1856.
The tension mounted as the slavery issue inserted itself
throughout the country from the furor over return of runaway
slaves in northern states under the Fugitive Slave Law (part of the
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Compromise of 1850) to the opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska
Act, but it was in Kansas that the furor became bloody.
You may enjoy this interactive map provided by
TeachingAmericanHistory.org because it tracks the admission of
free and slave states from before the 1820 Missouri Compromise
to the 1850s popular sovereignty era. Click on the "Start" button
to begin. You may also click on each state/territory to see 1850
population numbers.
http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/neh/interactives/sectionali
sm/lesson3/
©Susan Vetter 2011
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