question archive 1) Why did attempts to make a government in Kansas lead to violence? 2
1) Why did attempts to make a government in Kansas lead to violence? 2
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1) Why did attempts to make a government in Kansas lead to violence?
2. Why did Brooks attack Sumner on the floor of Congress and how were reactions to the attack in the North and South different?
BONUS:
Describe the court's decision in the Dred Scott case. How was the decision received differently in the North and South?
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- Trouble in territorial Kansas began with the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act by President Franklin Pierce in 1854. The act stipulated that settlers in the newly created territories of Nebraska and Kansas would decide by popular vote whether their territory would be free or slave. A few months after pro-slavery forces defrauded Kansas' first election, the Kansas Free State forces were formed, armed by supporters in the North and featuring the leadership of militant abolitionist John Brown. In May 1856, Border Ruffians sacked the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and in retaliation a small Free State force under John Brown massacred five pro-slavery Kansans along the Pottawatomie Creek.
- Senator Preston Brooks was a Democrat, and a strong advocate of slavery and states' rights. He is most remembered for his May 22, 1856, attack upon abolitionist and Republican Senator Charles Sumner, whom he beat nearly to death. Brooks beat Sumner with a cane on the floor of the US Senate in retaliation for an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner verbally attacked Brooks' first cousin, former S. Carolina Senator, Andrew Butler, once removed from Senate. In both the house, Brooks was widely cheered across the South, where his attack on Sumner was seen as a legitimate and socially justifiable act, upholding the honor of his family (and the South as a whole) in the face of intolerable insults from a social inferior (and the North as a whole). In contrast, Northerners, even moderates previously opposed to Sumner's extreme abolitionist invective, were universally shocked by Brooks' violence. Anti-slavery men cited it as evidence that the South had lost interest in national debate, and now relied on "the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife" to display their feelings, to silence their opponents.
- Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois, a free state, and in Louisiana, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed suit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. After losing, Scott brought a new suit in federal court. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court dismissed the case on the grounds that, a negro, whose ancestors were imported into the US, and sold as slaves, whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore did not have standing to sue in federal court. In addition, the court held that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and foreclose Congress from freeing slaves within Federal territories. The opinion showed deference to the Missouri courts, which held that moving to a free state did not render Scott emancipated. Finally, the court ruled that slaves were property under the Fifth Amendment, and that any law that would deprive a slave owner of that property was unconstitutional. The decision was criticized by the northerners and Republicans, while being praised by the southerners and Democrats. This intense reaction not only had effects on the politics of 1850s, but also served as a precipitate for the ultimate breakdown of American politics, the Southern secession and the American Civil war.
