Crazymachines
Banned
The Kansas-Nebraska act was a bomb that blew up in everyone's face, especially President Franklin Pierce's. It had none of the effects it's architects intended, and it's unintended consequences were disastrous. Indeed, this law, which President Pierce signed on may 30th, 1854, was possibly one of the worst pieces of national legislation in America in the 19th century. It didn’t cause the civil war, but it certainly hastened it.
The Kansas-Nebraska act was supposedly a master stroke of nine dimensional chess being played by Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who hoped to save the badly fractured Democratic Party, by using the act to unite ferocious Whig Party resistance against it and the Pierce administration.
The key to Douglas's nine dimensional chess game were the Southern Whigs. They were the one's who were most happy with the idea of the compromise of 1850 having settled the issue of slavery for all time, and Douglas thought that these people would oppose anything that tended to disturb that fragile equilibrium. Northern Whigs were going to oppose the act no matter what because they thought it advanced slaveholding interests. But if southern Whigs opposed it because they were pissed that the compromise had been disturbed, this would unite whig opposition, which would cause Democrats to unite behind President Pierce’s policy of supporting the bill.
That’s, uh, not what happened.
The perception that the Kansas Nebraska act was a frontal assault on anti-slavery northerners, while simultaneously a box of luscious treats for southerners who wanted to expand slavery, inflamed those Northern Whigs who opposed slavery. In the late winter and spring of 1854, even before the act passed, newspaper editorials were full of denunciations of the act, on the grounds that it would advance slavery and slaveholding power.
The southern whigs did in fact wind up pissed, but they were pissed at what they saw as unfair propaganda by radical abolitionists, talking crap about the Kansas-Nebraska act. Therefore, because they hated abolitionists, and wanted to stick it to them, Southern Whigs thought it would be better to support the Kansas-Nebraska act, on the theory that it would give the finger to those people they didn’t like.
And I bet you thought negative partisanship was a modern phenomenon.
So what this meant was that Southern Whigs joined pro slavery democrats in supporting the Kansas-Nebraska act. It also meant that Northern anti-slavery Democrats broke ranks with their own party and their own president to oppose the act, joining with the Northern Whigs.
Douglas had put up the act to provoke a partisan fight that would unite both parties, but especially his. What it actually did was splinter both parties, which now began to reorganize around not just a political basis but a regional one as well. Good job, Stephen.
So what if Kansas-Nebraska was never introduced to congress?
The Kansas-Nebraska act was supposedly a master stroke of nine dimensional chess being played by Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who hoped to save the badly fractured Democratic Party, by using the act to unite ferocious Whig Party resistance against it and the Pierce administration.
The key to Douglas's nine dimensional chess game were the Southern Whigs. They were the one's who were most happy with the idea of the compromise of 1850 having settled the issue of slavery for all time, and Douglas thought that these people would oppose anything that tended to disturb that fragile equilibrium. Northern Whigs were going to oppose the act no matter what because they thought it advanced slaveholding interests. But if southern Whigs opposed it because they were pissed that the compromise had been disturbed, this would unite whig opposition, which would cause Democrats to unite behind President Pierce’s policy of supporting the bill.
That’s, uh, not what happened.
The perception that the Kansas Nebraska act was a frontal assault on anti-slavery northerners, while simultaneously a box of luscious treats for southerners who wanted to expand slavery, inflamed those Northern Whigs who opposed slavery. In the late winter and spring of 1854, even before the act passed, newspaper editorials were full of denunciations of the act, on the grounds that it would advance slavery and slaveholding power.
The southern whigs did in fact wind up pissed, but they were pissed at what they saw as unfair propaganda by radical abolitionists, talking crap about the Kansas-Nebraska act. Therefore, because they hated abolitionists, and wanted to stick it to them, Southern Whigs thought it would be better to support the Kansas-Nebraska act, on the theory that it would give the finger to those people they didn’t like.
And I bet you thought negative partisanship was a modern phenomenon.
So what this meant was that Southern Whigs joined pro slavery democrats in supporting the Kansas-Nebraska act. It also meant that Northern anti-slavery Democrats broke ranks with their own party and their own president to oppose the act, joining with the Northern Whigs.
Douglas had put up the act to provoke a partisan fight that would unite both parties, but especially his. What it actually did was splinter both parties, which now began to reorganize around not just a political basis but a regional one as well. Good job, Stephen.
So what if Kansas-Nebraska was never introduced to congress?
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