12/1


Kansas- Nebraska Act
By 1853, settlers had started going up the Missouri River to Platte.
- Entrepreneurs, such as Stephen Douglas, were talking about building a transcontinental railroad to San Francisco.
- anything West of the Mississippi has to be organized before it can be surveyed and settled.
-1853, House of Representatives passed a Bill creating Nebraska Territory, the bill had problems in the Senate. Missouri Compromise had declared that there would be no slavery in that area.
-Atchison had power and had the Southern votes on any bill on Nebraska.
- Douglas proposed a bill and wanted popular sovereignty
-Atchison and Douglas then compromised on a bill:
-had a Kansas and Nebraska Territory
-repealed the Missouri Compromise
-left question of slavery to popular sovereignty
-Bill created a storm
-many people wanted slavery to be a national question, not popular sovereignty
- Lincoln spoke out against the spread of slavery but let it remain in areas where it already was
-The Bill passed
-the passage completed the destruction of the whig party
- Soutnern Whigs joined the Democrats
- Northern Whigs and anti- Nebraska peoples formed a republican party


Nativism
- Nativism, hostility to immigrants, grew dramatically in the 1840's
-Germans and Irish came in big numbers
-many of them joined the unskilled or semi-skilled population, railroads
-Irish were Roman Catholic
1850's, Americans looked at immigrants with distaste because of catholicism, foreign lang., and the tendency to drink wen the U.S. had just cut back on drinking
- most of them joined the Democrats
-favored slavery so that they woulnd't be the lowest class
-Temperence
-12 states pass prohibition laws by 1855
-public schools
-catholics opened parochial schools and asked for money from the states
-New Party forms
-American party/Know Nothings party
- wanted anti- immigration
-no tax support for catholic schools
-up to 21 years for an immigrant to be nationalized
-public office for native born citizens only
-Know nothings don't lst long
-events in Kansas convince amaericans that slavery was more important than catholicism or immigrants
-Know Nothings moved south
-they split into anti or pro slavery members just like the whigs and fell apart


Bleeding Kansas
-pro and anti slavery persons moved to dominate Kansas because of pop. sovereignty
-1st pro slavery settlers poured in from Missouri
-then came anti from the North
- Missourians called Border Ruffians rode into Kansas and prepared to vote early and often
-1854, illegal votes sent a pro slavery delegate to Congress
-Spring of 1855, time for Kansas to elect territorial legislature
-Atchison led force of Ruffians into Kansas to vote
-over 5000 illegal votes
-Governor pleaded for new vote because of all of the illegal votes
-free state residents of Kansas had a convention and voted for a free state constitution and elected their won legislature
-Democratic Senate and president Pierce recognized pro slavery
-House of Representatives were anti and met in Lawrence

Violence Breaks Out
-heated speeches led to Preston Brooks caning Sumner
-army of pro slaveryMissourians shelled and sacked Lawrence
-led abolitionist John Brown to lead four out of five of his sons and 3 other men to a pro slavery convention and killed 5 people
-Raids break out into Bleeding Kansas almost became a civil War
-Lincolns view on Slavery was still against the spread but alright with it in the states where it is present

Election of 1856
-3 Parties
-Democrats against Know Nothings
- aginst the Republicans in the North
-South saw Republicans as favoring racial equality
-Democrat James Buchanon chosen for president
-Dred Scott Case
-case raised issue of slavery
-Dred Scott is a slave take dto free soil then taken back to slave state
-Scott sued that he was free and that he had had a prolonged stay in Wisconson
-Supreme Court mostly Southern
-5th Amendment to Constitution
- protected property and Congress lacked the power to keep slavery out of a territory
-Missouri Compromise therefore thought as unconstitutional
-blacks thought not to be citizens
-couldn't bring a case to court anymore
-Republicans and Northernors declined the ruling and the Northern states passsed laws stating that they do not have to obey the law
-Southerners wondered how the union would survive