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Major turning points in world history
Essays on debates of slavery
Essays on debates of slavery
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Stephen A. Douglas, an American Politician, wanting to appeal to his supporters, decided to create a northern transcontinental railroad route cutting through the territory of Illinois. However, there was one issue with this plan: the railroad with which it needed to cross through needed to be organized as a state. In attempt to gain the support of the South, Douglas combined the Kansas and Nebraska states where popular sovereignty would be practiced. This meant that instead of the state allowing or disallowing slavery, the people would decide whether slavery should be practiced. This act, known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, directly violated the Compromise of 1820, which stated that new states created above latitude 36°30’ would have to be free.
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. Results of the Kansas-Nebraska Act were numerous and for the most part fatal to the country. The Act caused the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 to be virtually nullified, and caused compromising between the North and the South to be nearly impossible in the future.
The Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers played a major role in US History. They dealt with many problems in politics. The papers were made after the Revolutionary war. People started to worry that the government would not last under the Articles of Confederation. Without having a backup plan just yet, some delegates met up and created the Constitution. The constitution had to be ratified before it became the rule of all the land. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers discuss whether the constitution should be approved or not. Some things Anti-Federalist and Federalists argued was a strong national government, a standing army, and whether or not the constitution should be ratified and why.
The Disquisition of Government by John Calhoun was written as a document to primarily defend the ideologies of the South. It was a work of that elaborated on John Calhoun’s Political Theory, which mentions the idea of a “concurrent majority”, which is that a concurrent majority on an issue is one composed of an agreement of the most important minority interests in a society. He believed that a constitution having a majority behind it would protect people against the numerical majority. Calhoun tries to show in the Disquisition of Government, that a majority rule by equal and competent individuals counterbalances a minority rule for a society that has a balance of liberty, rights and power.
During a time of great brutality due to the controversial idea of Kansas being either a free or slave state, otherwise known as “Bleeding Kansas”, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois composed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which would repeal the Missouri Compromise and set the foundation for Kansas to solely decide its stance on slavery, an idea otherwise known as popular sovereignty (United States Senate). Charles Sumner spoke out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in his “Crime Against Kansas” speech in which he maintained that the intention of the “Slave Power” was to “rape a virgin” and give birth to a slave state and spoke in favor of prompt affirmation of Kansas as a free state (Meade)...
As history reveals itself there is seen that America went through many obstacles to become what it is today. Along the way there were many compromises, Acts, laws etc. that were passed or revoked in order to make the U.S better for everyone. Some of these didn’t work out so well because they either were not necessary or they needed some adjustments. While some caused “explosions” in the nation others actually helped. So how did the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act impact us? Why were they implemented to begin with?
The clashes between north and south states all began with the bill known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois who was a devoted advocated in Manifest Destiny was determined on building the transcontinental railroad. In order to achieve this goal however he needed to be able to remove one of the major barriers which were the Indians reservation in Nebraska. By submitting this bill into Congress Douglas would then receive the southern states votes when the decision of whether or not to clear out the Indians reservations came. This Act would allow the slavery question to be decided by popular sovereignty of the state. However by the passing of this bill it would then repeal the
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a compromise passed in 1854. It said that the new states of Kansas and Nebraska would
In the first place, Henry Clay composed the Missouri Compromise as a method for dealing with a disparity in the nation; the document was a seemingly easy solution to a quickly growing problem, and although it kept peace between the North and South for a good thirty-four years, it was unable to prevent the inevitable Civil War like it was meant to. Before the Missouri Compromise was even a notion, the ratio of free states to slave states in the nation remained secure and balanced; two states, one free and one slave, entered the country at a time, keeping the peace between the two sides of both the nation and the Senate. Twenty-two states had already received a place in the Union before Missouri, an area soon to become a slave state, applied
This Compromise helped ease tensions for a while but the issue kept building on. Slave owners were frustrated because the Underground Railroad was successful which lead to slaves being able to escape and head north. Southern states agreed to admit California as a free state as an alternative but only if Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which required northern states to give, escaped slaves back to their owners. Congress overturned the Missouri Compromise and allowed each state to decide whether they wanted to be a slave or free state. It was necessary to compromise this issue because slavery was
Throughout the majority of nineteenth century was a time of great economic growth. The South was the largest cotton supplier in the world, relying heavily on slave labor. Similar to the South’s boost in economy, the North was also flourishing. The North continued to make great advances due to the modernization of becoming completely industrialized. Although America had major economic advances as a whole, a race for power ensued. It became a battle of Slave states vs Free states. In order to have progress within the government of an equal amount of both slave and free states, compromise was inviable. The Compromise of 1860 and the Missouri Compromise are examples of this. As the country began to move west, Missouri wanted to become apart of America, they applied for state ship. However, the then territory identified as a slave state. Instead of denying persimmon to enter the country, the Union requested that Maine would be instated as a free state. This became known as the Missouri Compromise. A temporary solution, one that allowed both parties to remain
Congress was put in a tough position when Missouri applied for statehood, for they couldn’t have an uneven number of states. If they didn’t have an even number, they would have to come up with another idea to make slave states and free states equal, such as adding a state or neutralizing an existing slave state. Instead of making one of the existing twenty-two states neutral to slavery they accepted Maine as free state. The acceptance of Maine as it’s own state did not occur until 1820, but the addition of it did even the amount of slave states and free states to twelve and twelve. The Missouri Compromise did not only ban slavery from Maine and allow s...
As the country began to grow and expand we continued to see disagreements between the North and South; the Missouri Territory applied for statehood; the South wanted them admitted as a slave state and the North as a free state. Henry Clay eventually came up with the Missouri Compromise, making Missouri a slave state and making Maine it’s own state, entering the union as a free state. After this compromise, any state admitted to the union south of the 36° 30’ latitude would be a slave state and a state north of it would be free. The country was very much sectionalized during this time. Thomas Jefferson felt this was a threat to the Union.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was one of the first events that demonstrated Lincoln’s disapproval yet tolerance for slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, proposed by Stephen A. Douglas and signed by Franklin Pierce, divided the region into two territories. The territory north of the 40th parallel was the Kansas Territory and the south of the 40th parallel was the Nebraska Territory, the controv...
Both states entering as free states would throw the balance the Union already had going on, one free state for one slave state. So to keep the Southern states satisfied congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska acts. This act repealed the Missouri Compromise that said people living in the 2 states would get to vote on whether they would be slave states or not. When people from Missouri snuck their votes in to make the states slave states, the tensions between Southern and Northern states got even worse. A violent war broke out in Kansas between abolitionists and people who supported slavery. This of course added to the heated tensions that were already
Stephan A. Douglas was the person behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He made it to win southern support and to have Nebraska be made into a territory. Also, Douglas wanted to build a transcontinental railroad going through Chicago. This senator of Illinois strongly endorsed the idea o...