A History of the United States

by Charles Kendall Adams; William P. Trent

Areas of Freedom and Slavery in 1854

KANSAS-NEBRASKA LEGISLATION.

411. Disappointment of the South: Kansas-Nebraska Bill.—The South was not only unable to secure Cuba and other slave territory, but could not help seeing that the advantage it had anticipated from the Fugitive Slave Law could never be realized. Some new measure was necessary, or all the benefits of the Compromise would go to the North. Such a measure presented itself in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, put forward by Senator Douglas of Illinois. This bill was framed on the untenable theory that the Missouri Compromise had been overthrown by the Compromise of 1850, and that the provision that slavery could not exist north of 36° 30′ was no longer binding. In accordance with this theory, the author of the bill proposed that the Missouri Compromise should be declared “inoperative and void as being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the states and territories.” It was also proposed that all the lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36° 30′ should be organized as territories and in due time should be admitted as states, either free or slave, as the voters of each territory might determine. The great question was thus to be settled, not by United States law, but by what came to be called “Popular Sovereignty.”

412. Indignation of the North.—The bill aroused the greatest political agitation the country had ever known, for the opponents of the measure took the ground that it turned over to possible slavery a vast tract that had forever been dedicated to freedom. They said it was an outrageous violation of contract to take away half of the Missouri Compromise, when the advocates of slavery had enjoyed the advantage of the other half, as they had in the admission of Missouri as a slave state above the line of 36° 30′. The bill was opposed with the utmost vigor by Seward, Sumner, and other anti-slavery leaders, but it was passed and became a law, May 30, 1854.

413. Occupation of Kansas.—Now began a race for the settlement of the new territory, as the only possible way in which freedom could be protected. As Kansas bordered on Missouri, it was evident that here was to be the battle ground. Slave owners from Missouri rushed in to take possession of the soil, but the people of the North were not slow to see the danger. An Emigrant Aid Society was quickly organized in Massachusetts, by Eli Thayer, to encourage and fit out emigrants to the new territory. Though the slaveholders were first in the field, people from the North soon followed in ever increasing numbers. Party spirit ran so high that collisions were inevitable. There was universal disorder and some bloodshed. Guerrilla bands of both parties wandered over the country and fought wherever they met. On the 21st of May, 1856, the town of Lawrence, the headquarters of the anti-slavery party, was attacked by marauders from Missouri, popularly known as “Border Ruffians,” and several of the most important buildings were sacked and burned. Three days later, a deliberately planned massacre of slave owners was perpetrated in retaliation, at Pottawatomie, by an anti-slavery band led by John Brown.

414. Advantages of the North in the Contest.—The anti-slavery cause was helped by the unusual severity of the winter of 1855–1856, which made it evident that slavery could not prosper in Kansas. The largest slaveholder in the territory was obliged, with his own hands, to cut and haul wood to keep his negroes warm, and even then one of them froze to death in his bed. Meanwhile, the Free State men increased rapidly in numbers.

Charles Sumner.

415. Assault upon Sumner.—While the Kansas question was raising to a white heat all sections of the country, an event occurred to intensify the excitement. In the course of the long debate in Congress on the Kansas troubles, Charles Sumner,[^[185]] on the 19th and 20th of May, 1856, delivered his celebrated speech, “The Crime against Kansas.” It was the most terrible philippic ever uttered in the Senate, and it exasperated the men of the South beyond measure. Particularly severe was Sumner’s attack on Senator Butler, of South Carolina. Two days after the delivery of this speech, Sumner was writing a letter at his desk, after the Senate had adjourned, when he was approached by Preston S. Brooks, from South Carolina, a nephew of Butler and a member of the House of Representatives. Brooks struck Sumner repeated blows on the head with a cane and felled him to the floor. The injuries Sumner received affected his spine and were so serious that it was more than three years before he could be restored to a fair amount of vigor. While, in the South, a few persons deprecated the assault, Brooks was welcomed by the masses as a hero. In the North the attack was universally condemned, and stirred the deepest indignation. An effort was made in the House of Representatives to expel Brooks, but only one Southerner voted for his expulsion, and the motion failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority. A severe vote of censure, however, was passed by a large majority; whereupon Brooks resigned his place, and appealed to his constituents for indorsement and reëlection. In the election that followed, only six votes were cast against him. The speech, the assault, and the indorsement of Brooks inflamed every part of the country.