US History

U.S. History Study Guide

©2018 of 194 12.9 Gadsden Purchase 1854 The Gadsden Purchase was an agreement between the United States and Mexico in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico ten million dollars for a twenty-nine thousand, six-hundred and seventy square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico, it created the southern border of the present day United States. Gadsden’s Purchase provided the land necessary for a southern transcontinental railroad and attempted to resolve conflicts that lingered after the Mexican-American War. 12.10 The Kansas-Nebraska Act In January 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois proposed a bill to organize Nebraska as a territory, in order to assist the building of a transcontinental railroad along a Northern route from Chicago to the West. Because the Nebraska Territory lay above the 36º30' line, set by the Missouri Compromise to disallow slavery, Nebraska would automatically become a candidate for admission as a free state. Southerners therefore planned to oppose the bill unless Douglas made some concessions. To ensure passage of the bill, Douglas yielded to Southerners who desired to void the Missouri Compromise’s 36º30' line. He inserted in his Nebraska bill an explicit repeal of the Missouri Compromise so that no territory would be automatically designated non-slaveholding. As an alternative, the bill declared that the slavery issue in the Nebraska region would be decided by popular sovereignty, thus extending the Compromise of 1850’s concept of popular sovereignty to territories outside New Mexico and Utah. Douglas further divided the Nebraska Territory into two parts: Nebraska to the west of Iowa, and Kansas to the west of Missouri. Many assumed that this meant Kansas would be reserved for slavery and Nebraska for free soil. With these concessions attached, the bill passed through Congress and became law in May 1854. Final Outcome Kansas-Nebraska Act The Kansas-Nebraska Act effectively nullified the Missouri Compromise and opened up the Nebraska and Kansas territories to vote to be free or slave holding 12.11 Bleeding Kansas and John Brown 1855-1858 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, however, did not stave off sectional conflict. Because Nebraska was likely to prohibit slavery, as a territory above the 36º30' line, Kansas became a battleground for sectional interests. Both Northern Abolitionist groups and Southern interests rushed into the territory to try to control the local elections. In March 1855, during the first election of the territorial legislature, thousands of pro-slavery inhabitants of Western Missouri crossed into Kansas to tilt the vote in favor of slaveholding interests. Because of the election fraud perpetrated by these “border ruffians,” a pro- slavery government swept into power. This new government immediately ousted antislavery legislators and set up a pro-slavery constitution known as the Lecompton Constitution. Achieve Page 156

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