The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and opened new lands for settlement. Because there was millions of acres of arable farmland, it was necessary to create a territorial infrastructure that would allow settlement. The people living in the Kansas-Nebraska area also wanted a railroad system for transportation. The railroad workers wanted to expand their railroad there as well, because they needed farmers for customers. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was created and proposed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who greatly supported the railroad system. Douglas was excited to have a railroad system that reached from his home city, Chicago, all the way to California. However, the Southerners felt differently about the railroad. The Southerners wanted a transcontinental railroad that began in New Orleans and extended to Southern California. Their different views about the railroads brought conflict between Douglas and the Southern Senators, so Douglas decided to make a compromise with them. Instead of having the railroad run throu...
Expansion of a nation was nothing new in terms of history. The fighting, buying and selling of land in North America was a common event during the 1800s. The United States had started expanding in 1803 with President Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory whose borders where not clearly defined. After the War of 1812 with the British, the northern border of this territory was defined at the 49th parallel. Then in 1819, Spain sold its claim to Florida to the United States. The United States wanted to continue to expand itself westward to the Pacific Ocean, a territory then owned by Mexico. The acquirement of this territory occurred after the Mexican War. How the territory was acquired by the United States is the topic in question.
The Democratic Party was sectionally shattered by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but it also gave birth to the Republicans. Ultimately, the Kansas-Nebraska Act would lead to a sectional rift in the country that would prove too deep to patch up without war. During the year of 1855, Governor Andrew Reeder called for an election for a legislature for the state o Kansas. He carefully planned out the election to make it fair by appointed two Free Soilers and one proslavery judges and several supervisors.
The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 is one of the most pivotal points in American History. The massive event entailed: American settlers performing their best bull impression. They made Oklahoma seem as if it were painted in the color red. A jaw-dropping amount of land settled in a day. Finally, to a victimized community that was on the verge of drowning in a sea of unwanted roommates. Oklahoma’s great land rush gave America the space to stretch out their territory, even though it nearly wiped out the Native Americans' land.
It also gave the South another slave state in Missouri and the north a free state in Maine. Although each region gained a state in the Senate, the south benefited most from the acquisition because Missouri was in such a pivotal position in the country, right on the border. Later on with the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Missouri had a big role in getting Kansas to vote south because many proslavery Missourians crossed the border into Kansas to vote slavery. The Missouri Compromise also helped slavery because the line that was formed to limit slavery had more land below the line than above it. Therefore, slavery was given more land to be slave and therefore more power in the Senate, when the territories became state.
The availability of inexpensive land in the American West provided opportunity for many Americans to fulfill the American dream of individualism, economic opportunity and personal freedom. Immigrants, former slaves and other settlers moved across the country to become western farmers and ranchers to make a new life. One of the reasons why the west was a land of opportunity for the farmers and ranchers was the large quantity of cheap available land. This allowed for many Americans, both rich and poor, to buy land for farming and raising cattle. The Homestead Act of 1862 aided the process. The Homestead Act gave title to 160 acres of federal land to farmers who staked a claim and lived on the land for five years. Alternatively, a farmer could buy the land after six months for $1.25 an acre. Many blacks and immigrants joined the westward expansion, looking for a better life. Immigrants saw the land as opportunity because many could not own land in the countries where they were born. For example, in Nebraska, a fourth of the population was foreign born. These immigrants transformed...
It encouraged Westward colonization and territorial acquisition. The Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. To America, Manifest Destiny was the idea that America was destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic, to the Pacific Ocean. Throughout this time, Native Americans were seen as obstacles because they occupied land that the United States needed to conquer to continue with their Manifest Destiny Ideal. Many wars were fought between the American’s and the Indians.... ...
White settlers started moving westward to settle the land gained by the victory over the Native Americans. A major factor that caused this major movement, other than by the victory of the war, was the homestead act. This act provided and granted 160 acres of free land to any citizen who was the head of a house or family. While moving, the settlers were challanged by the new enviornment of the plains and they had to start adapting to the new enviornment. While moving west, all farmers were supported by the government on technical aspects and on agricultural education.
The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, and the outcome of the Presidential Election of 1860 all helped contribute to southern secession and the start of the Civil War. They each caused conditions that either strengthened the abolitionist cause, strengthened the pro-slavery cause, or strengthened both causes respectively; although the conditions made many Southerners want to leave the United After winning the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States gained the western territories, which included modern-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. However, controversial topics, that helped cause the Civil War, arose with the addition of these new territories. Primarily, the people of the United States wanted to know whether the new territories would be admitted as free states or slave states. In order to avoid fighting between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North, Henry Clay (Whig) and Stephen Douglas (Democrat) drafted the Compromise of 1850.... ...
At first glance, the compromise seemed have settled everything concerning the expansion of slavery, but it actually settled nothing. It merely put off the problem to a later time. Whether slavery should be allowed in the area gained in the Mexican War was still unanswered. The South and the North would continue fighting over unorganized territories. In fact, since the government decided not to intervene in the slavery issue, the people had to decided whether they want slavery or not. When they couldn’t decide for themselves, they turned to violence. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was “an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders” (Foner). This was a logical extension of the Compromise of 1850 because it echoed the “popular sovereignty”. The act had the people living in the territory decide if they wanted slavery. Because of this the North and the South got into a fight over Kansas. This caused sectional
During the 19th century, westward expansion was becoming a possibility for the North and South regions of the United States. The North and South’s economy relied on two completely different industries: manufacturing and agriculture. Their work force was made up of two different people groups: immigrants and slaves. Both regions wanted to expand westward for different reasons. The South wanted to expand their economic power west. Northerners feared the expansion of southern agriculture west would bring more slave states. However, neither side knew whether or not slavery would be allowed in the western territories. As events like the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, and “Bleeding Kansas” and John Brown’s raid took place,
In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, and tasked them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies would race toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side and Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10,
Slavery was one of the factors that played a key role in the causes of the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise was a debate began as to whether Maine and Missouri would enter the Union as free or slave states. To be fair to the rule of the Mason-Dixon Line, Maine was admitted as a free state, and Missouri, even though it was also in the north, would enter as a slave state. The Compromise of 1850 dealt with whether California, Utah, and New Mexico would be slave or free. California was admitted as a free state, but since it made the ratio of slave to free states unequal, " it also stated that the territories of New Mexico and Utah would determine for themselves whether to become slave or free states."(Wise) The Kansas-Nebraska Act decided that any territory that became a state would have the right to vote on whether it would be slave or free, which made Northerners angry because it changed the terms of the Missouri Compromise. The constant flux of the issue of slavery grew during the years leading up to the war, as the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1859, and the Kansas-Nebraska act con...
... farmers. They was losing land for the production of railroads. To solve this solution the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was put in place. The Supreme Court would rules that individual states could not regulate interstate commerce and discriminate against out of state business. Also, President Cleveland was forces to give out land to the public.
It was not very easy for the United States to expand like they had in mind. The division of land had been a rising problem since the Revolutionary war. Two of the main issues during the time of the Articles of Confederation were the pricing and land measurement (Potter and Schamel 1). Throughout the course of over fifty years, the government had tried many different attempts to get people to want to expand to the west. They just didn’t really know the right way of how to go about it. Trying to sell the acres did not go over well, considering the price seemed outrageous for what they were getting. Untouched soil was very hard to start on and be successful from the beginning, which caused some problems with people not wanting to buy the land (Weiser 1). So again, a different political group tried a different approach.
...be maintained between free and slave states. Than Kansas- Nebraska act added more tension as new territories were to be added and whether the new states would be free or slave. But violence occurred resulting in Bleeding Kansas that became causes for the Civil war.