How did the Kansas Nebraska Act help to cause the Civil War?

Answer 1

In a few "simple" steps:

a) This legislation caused the Whig Party to split across sectional lines (the Southern wing SUPPORTING the act, which did away with the Missouri Compromise and increased the South's chances of gaining new "slave states" from the territories).

b) Result -- the Northern wing of the Whig Party formed the nucleus of the new Republican Party, not only dedicated to a "Free Soil" platform to prevent the spread of slavery (and so to help it die out), but a completely "sectional" party, without ANY Southern wing to "keep it in check"

c) Such a sectional, anti-slavery party scared the South... which assumed it would eventually outlaw THEIR holding slaves. By 1856 some were threatening that, should the Republicans win the Presidency, slavery in their states would be so jeopardized that they would secede (a threat they kept when a Republican WAS elected four years later)
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Note: I agree with Rich that slavery was THE cause of secession (and so of the Civil War), AND that there was an important group of "fire-eaters" (particularly strong in South Carolina) who determined very early on that they must lead the South to secede. But I do NOT believe the evidence supports the elaborate conspiracy he claims. In particular, though Jefferson Davis was a stronger sectionalist than many now recognize (it was not just "states rights" but SECTIONAL interest that motivated), I do NOT believe he was part of an 1850s plot to secede.

More than that, the suggestion that President Buchanan actually CONSPIRED with such a group to provide them with resources for their eventual secession is utterly baseless. Buchanan's position during the secession crisis is rather clear -- though he did tend to blame the North (esp Republicans) for having PROMPTED that step by "agitating" about slavery, he OPPOSED secession and believed the Southern states did NOT have a right to secede. The problem is that he thought, at the same time, that he had no Constitutional power to in any way take action AGAINST it. So he was weak... powerless, and too willing to cave to the slave-holders' wishes. But he was NOT a traitor.

Answer 2

4. The ok-N act wide-unfold that settlers might desire to vote to settle on whether to allow slavery, interior the call of "common sovereignty" or rule of the individuals. It replaced into was hoping it would ease relatives in the two North and South, with the aid of fact the South might desire to improve slavery to new territories however the North nonetheless had the splendid to abolish slavery of their states. It did no longer. fighters denounced the regulation as a concession to the slave ability of the South. the hot Republican social gathering, which replaced into created in opposition to the act, aimed to provide up the improve of slavery, and quickly emerged with the aid of fact the dominant tension in the process the North. the end result replaced into the election of Lincoln.

Answer 3

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Acts so enraged and worried the North that adversaries gathered together to form a new political party, the Republican Party, in 1854. They considered the repeal as a betrayal of trust and a surrender to the slave powers (see the notice at the end) To those who say that slavery wasn't the main issue, keep in mind that the platform of the Republican Party (formed by Whigs, free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, Free Democrats, and other parties that dissolved their past affiliations in order to form the Republican Party) was primarily to stop the spread of slavery immediately and to eliminate it from the coutry as quickly as possible - it's why the Party was formed, and the evidence that slavery was the issue in the North as well as the South is plain in the fact that the Republican Party won the Presidency and majority control of government just 6 years after it was formed!

This signaled a ticking clock to the secessionists, because they saw the anti-slavery senitment gaining strenth and the Republican Party gaining power throughout the 1850's. They new that in 1860 their hold on power would be gone, and they had to act. They knew as far back as 1857 that they would be taking these steps a few years later. On March 4, 1857 Jefferson Davis took the oath of the Senate, vowing to uphold the Union and the Constitution with his very life, meanwhile he and other secessionist leader continues their plans of rebellion.

During the late 1850's President Buchanan and the other secessionist leaders and slavery sympathizers worked their plan. Arms were sold to secessionists, forts in the South were emptied of arms and troops, the Army and Navy were spread thin and wide so they could not respond in an emergency. The propoganda campain to keep the southern people in fear of the North and unsettled continued.

Lincoln's election in 1860 was used by the secessionists to rally support of the people, and called "the last straw." The funny thing is that Lincoln, of all the possible Republicans, was the last person they had to fear, because Lincoln had already said many times over that he would not mess with slavery where it existed. But who the candidate was didn't matter - it was time for the secessionists to act before it was too late, so they portrayed Lincoln as a radical abolitionist and an enemy of the South. Truth is, it could have been anybody. The Confederacy was planned a loong time before anyone ever heard of Abraham Lincoln in the South.

When the North refused to accept secession, and the North wouldn't make the first agressive move, the Confederacy fired - on a fort manned mostly by musicians with few weapons.

So, was it possible to end slavery without War? I'm not saying there weren't ways, but first you have to know that there were people plotting treason and betraying their oaths for years prior to 1860, and that they were not going to stop short of their goals.

The only thing that would have prevented war would be the acceptance of slavery by the United States and/or the surrender of the United States of all the states and territories it held that called itself the Confederacy. Since that would not have ended slavery, then the answer is that there was no alternative but to have some kind of conflict, some kind of war.

Slavery was the issue, and the Kansas-Nebraska Acts were the catalyst.

It was part of a calculated plan by those who chose to protect slavery by betraying their countrymen and turning traitor - to protect slavery, and not some mythical idea of "state's rights" because the only right they cared about was the right to enslave another race.


Below is one of the annoucements of a meeting (1854) called to form this new party in direct response to the Kansas-Nebraska Acts. This was from Michigan, and was one of many such announcement and meetings. It's a fascinating story:

"TO THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN

A great wrong has been perpetrated. The slave power of this country has triumphed. Liberty is trampled underfoot. The Missouri compromise, a solemn compact, entered into by our fathers, has been violated, and a vast territory dedicated to freedom has been opened to slavery.
This act, so unjust to the North, has been perpetrated under circumstances which deepen its perfidy [treachery]. An administration placed in power by Northern votes has brought to bear all the resources of executive corruption in its support.
Northern Senators and representatives, in the face of overwhelming public sentiment of the North, expressed in the proceedings of public meeting and solemn remonstrances [protest], without a single petition in its favor on their table, and not daring to submit this great question to the people, have yielded to the seductions of executive patronage, and, Judas-like, betrayed the cause of liberty; while the South, inspired by a dominant and grasping ambition, has, without distinction of party, and with a unanimity almost entire, deliberately trampled under foot the solemn compact entered into in the midst of a crisis threatening the peace of the Union, sanctioned by the greatest names of our history, and the binding forces of which has, for a period of more than thirty years, been recognized and declared by numerous acts of legislation. Such an outrage upon liberty, such a violation of plighted faith, cannot be submitted to. The great wrong must be righted, or there is no longer a North in the councils of the nation. The extension of slavery, under the folds of the American flag, is a stigma upon liberty. The indefinite increase of slave representation in Congress is destructive to that equality between freemen which is essential to the permanency of the Union.
The safety of the Union -- the rights of the North -- the interests of free labor -- the destiny of a vast territory and its untold millions for all coming time -- and finally, the high aspirations of humanity for universal freedom, all are involved in the issue forced upon the country by the slave power and its plastic Northern tools.
In view, therefore, of the recent action of Congress upon this subject, and the evident designs of the slave power to attempt still further aggressions upon freedom -- we invite all our fellow citizens, without reference to former political associations, who think that the time has arrived for a union at the North to protect liberty from being overthrown and downtrodden, to assemble in mass convention on Thursday, the 6th of July, next, at 4 o’clock, P.M., at Jackson, there to take such measures as shall be thought best to concentrate the popular sentiment of this State against the aggression of the slave power."

This meeting was attended by people from all parties, and they formed an election ticket of Free Democrats, Free Soilers, Whigs, and more - now all calling themselves Republican.

Zachariah Chandler, a devout Whig, said:

"Misfortunes make strange bedfellows. I see before me Whigs, Democrats and Free-Soilers, all mingling together to rebuke a great national wrong. I was born a Whig; I have always lived a Whig and hope to die fighting for some of the Whig doctrines. But I do not stand here as a Whig. I have laid aside party to rebuke treachery."

The Republican Party was founded on, and throughout the 1850's primarily existed to, stop slavery. Without slavery, there was no conflict important enough to form new parties, to bring traitors to the forefront, to cause a country to fire upon itself.