Notes for December 1st

Kansas Nebraska Act

• 1853 settlers went up Missouri River to Platte
• entreprenuers such as Stephen Douglas talked about a transcontinental railroad to San Francisco
• Country west of the Mississippi River has to be organized as a territory to be settled
• 1853 House of Repsentatives passed a bill creating the Nebraska Territory; the senate was against this; Missouri compromis declared slavery excluded from Kansas
• Senator Atchison called the shots for southern votes for any bill in Nebraska
• Stephen Douglas sponsored the bill for popular soverignty
• Douglas hoped to see a railroad linking west coast with Chicago
• compromised on bill with Atchison
• orgnize both Kansas and Nebraska territory
• repeal the Missouri compromise
• the slavery question is left up to popular soverignty
• Bill was controversial
• expansion of slavery was something the entire country should have a say on
• Abraham Lincoln spoke out against the spread of slavery
• VIEW: wherever slavery existed it could stay but it could not spread
• Bill was passed; destroys the whig party
• Southern whigs join democrats and northern whigs and anti nebraska people form the New Republican Party

Nativism

• 1840s hostility towards immigrants
• germans and irish arrive in large numbers
• Many (especially Irish) joined the unskilled and semiskilled labor in eastern cities or took jobs with railroads
• Irish mostly Roman Catholic
• 1850s established Americans looked with distaste at immigrants because of Roman Catholicism, foreign language, and drinking in a country trying to cut back on drinking
• Most immigrants became democratic-pro-slavery
• looked down on by est. Americans, so they supported slavery so that a segmant of the population was under them

Two important Issues:

Temperance:

• 12 states enact prohibition laws (1855)

Public Schools

• Cathoics open parochial schools and ask for tax support to pay for them

Out of this came the American Party (Know-Nothings); stood for:

• anti immigration, temperance
• no tax support for parochial schools
• 21 yrs for immigrants to naturalize
• public office only for native born citizens

Know-nothings did not last long-events in Kansas show the spread of slavery is more important than Catholicism/immigrants, move south; split into nothern anti-slavery and southern pro-slavery; could not function as a national party and were gone by 1856

Bleeding Kansas

• Kansas and Nebraska organized into territories, use popular soverignty
• -pro-slavery move in from Missouri to Kansas
• -antislavery from north also move in
• Missourians (border ruffians) vote early and often throughout Kansas
• 1854 illegal votes sent pro-slavery delgate into Congress
• 1855 elect territorial legislature
• Atchisonled force of border ruffians into Kansas to vote
• 5,000 illegals vote
• pro-slavery legislature elected
• territorial governor plead with President Pierce to nullify vote, Piere upholds results
• pro-slavery legislature legalize slavery
• free state residents fo Kansas had no intention of following laws passed by illegal pro-slavery legislature
• called Convention; adopted free state consitution; elect own legislature and govenor
• January 1856 there are two territorial governments in Kansas
• democratic senate/President Pierce recognizes the pro-slave territorial legislation in Lecompton
• House of Representatives hold an anti-slavery convention in Lawrence

Violence breaks out

• heated speeches in congress led to Preston Brooks canning Charles Sumner
• army of pro-slavery missourians shelled and sacked Lawrence
• led abolitionists John Brown to lead four of his sons and three other men to a pro-slavery meeting killing five people
• Bushwackings/raids broke out into "Bleeding Kansas" almost like a civil war
• President Pierce sends new govenor and 1300 federal troops to put down violence

Election of 1856

• 3 parties
• democrats against know-nothings in south democrats went against republicans in north; southeners threaten to secede if republicans won; republicans see to favor racial equality; Democrat James Buchanon becomes president

Dred Scott Case

• raised cases in territory Dred Scott was slave in who had been taken to free soil in Illinois, Wisconsin, back to Missouri
• sued for freedom; prolonged stay in Wisconsin where Missouri Compromise outlawed slavery
• Southern Justice majority in Supreme court ruled that:
• 5th amendment to Constitution protected property and that therefore Congress lacked power to keep slavery out
• Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional
• Blacks were not citizens and was not able to bring this to court

Southeners wonder how long citizens would be able to survive.