The Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Question

THIS IS OF THE WHOLE QUESTION : The Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were both the result of legislative compromises by a Congress divided over the continuation and extension of slavery in the United States. How did the compromises help hold a divided nation together.

Answer 1

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had several provisions: 1) Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state 2) Maine was admitted as a free state, and 3) in the future there would be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude permitted in the Louisiana territory north of the southern border of Missouri. This seemed to be a great victory for pro-slavery groups, as no one seriously believed that those regions would ever be populous enough to be organized as territories.

After the annexation of Texas and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the sectional debates were revived. The United States had come into possession of millions of acres of land. And the brutal question remained. Would these new regions be slave states or free states. The debate threatened to tear apart the Union. It became obvious that only one man could devise a compromise that would settle the myriad issues involved. Henry Clay first offerred up his omnibus bill, which seemed destined for defeat until it was broken into its constituent parts and steered through the Congress. Ultimately, all parts of the bill passed and the entire legislative initiative is now known as the Compromise of 1850. One provision was the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA). Another allowed that the new territories of Utah and New Mexico be allowed to decide the issue of slavery for themselves, an idea known as "popular sovreignty"

Some people believe that the FSA was designed to be inflammatory. It was certainly biased. According to the act, northerners were required to help with the return of fugitive slaves. Here is a link to some excerpts: http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1826-1850/slavery/act.htm
As the enforcement of this law took hold in the North, many were outraged by it. There was no mechanism by which an accused runaway could provide for his/her defense. The commissioners appointed to decide cases were paid more to find someone guilty of being a runaway than to find them not guilty. Outrage over the FSA led harriet Beecher Stowe to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

In 1854 the debate over the future of slavery in the territories was revived. Kansas and Nebraska had experienced a great deal of settlement and wanted to organize for future admission to the Union. Kansas laid just west of Missouri where dominant slave holding elements wanted to ensure that they would not become surrounded by free-soil territories.

Leading Missouri politicians and businessmen found a perfect ally in Staphen A. Douglas. Although he was from Illinois (a free state) he was also a Democrat with his eye on the White House in 1856. In order to receive the party nomination, he needed to have the solid support of slave state Democrats too.

After the Compromise of 1850, and the acrimony that resulted from the FSA, most Southern lawmakers were skeptical at best about the intentions of their Northern counterparts. Douglas knew that hew would have to prove that he wasn't staunchly anti-slavery if he was going to ge the backing of the Southern members of his party.

To that end he sponsored the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 (KN). KN proposed that the territories of Kansas and Nebraska be organized without regard to slavery. The passage of KN effectively violated the provisions of the Missouri Compromise which, Douglas argued, had been superceded by the recognition of popular sovereignty in the Compromise of 1850.

Ultimately the passage of KN destryed the Whig party, divided the Democratic party, and created the Republican party. But didn't really help to hold the nation together as it actually caused increasing divisiveness.

Answer 2

The Kansas-Nebraska act did not hold the nation together --- it was one of the biggest reasons that we ended up in Civil War! Before the K-N Act there was a hard-and-fast line above which slavery was not allowed to spread. K-N repealed that law, and suddenly the North and South were essentially fighting for new states. The South needed new slave states to increase and solidify their power in congress. The North wanted deperately to stop the spread of slavery, both on moral grounds and to prevent the South from increaing their strength. The K-N Act put these two into direct conflict, most notably in "bloody Kansas," where pro- and anti-slavery groups committed fraud and murder to prevent the other group from gaining a majority. The K-N Act was not a compromise - it was the repeal of a previous compromise and one of the main causes that the salvery question led to war.

If this is a question you are expected to answer in school, and the idea is that the Kansas-Nebraska Act delayed conflict, it is terribly wrong. It accelerated conflict and made it almost inevitable.

Answer 3

The Fugitive Slave Act was sort of a pro-slave South deal. The Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the two places into for and against so it appeased the North more. This way everyone got something and it kept most of them happy.