Potttawatomie Massacre Of 1856 Analysis
Today when people complain about the state of American politics, they often mention the dominance of the Democratic and Republican Parties or the sharp split between red and blue states. But while it may seem like both of these things have been around forever, the situation looked quite different in 1850, with the Republican Party not yet existing, and support for the dominant Democrats and Whigs cutting across geographic divides. The collapse of this second party system was at the center of the increasing regional tensions that would lead to the birth of the Republican Party, the rise of Abraham Lincoln as its leader, and a civil war that would claim over half a million lives. And if this collapse could be blamed on a single event it would
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Advertisements for Eli Thayer’s New England Emigrant Aid Company appeared across the north imploring people to immigrate to Kansas to stem the advance of slavery. The south answered with border ruffians, pro-slavery Missourians who crossed state lines to vote in fraudulent elections and raid anti-slavery settlements. One northern abolitionist, John Brown, became notorious following the Pottawatomie Massacre of 1856. When he and his sons hacked to death five pro-slavery farmers with broadswords. In the end, more than fifty people died in Bleeding …show more content…
Abraham Lincoln finally took up the Republican Party banner in 1856, and never looked back. That year, John C. Fremont, the first Republican presidential candidate, lost to James Buchanan. Despite the loss, he managed to have garnered 18% of the seats, all from northern states. Two years later, Lincoln threw down the gauntlet by challenging Douglass for his Illinois Senate seat and although he lost that contest, it elevated his status among Republicans. Lincoln would finally be vindicated in 1860, when he was elected president of the United States. Defeating in his own home state of Illinois, a certain northern Democrat who was finally undone by the disastrous after math of the law he had master minded.
Americans today continued to debate whether the civil war was inevitable, but there is no doubt that the Kansas-Nebraska Act made the ghastly conflict much more likely. And for that reason, it should be remembered as one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in American
Advertisements for Eli Thayer’s New England Emigrant Aid Company appeared across the north imploring people to immigrate to Kansas to stem the advance of slavery. The south answered with border ruffians, pro-slavery Missourians who crossed state lines to vote in fraudulent elections and raid anti-slavery settlements. One northern abolitionist, John Brown, became notorious following the Pottawatomie Massacre of 1856. When he and his sons hacked to death five pro-slavery farmers with broadswords. In the end, more than fifty people died in Bleeding …show more content…
Abraham Lincoln finally took up the Republican Party banner in 1856, and never looked back. That year, John C. Fremont, the first Republican presidential candidate, lost to James Buchanan. Despite the loss, he managed to have garnered 18% of the seats, all from northern states. Two years later, Lincoln threw down the gauntlet by challenging Douglass for his Illinois Senate seat and although he lost that contest, it elevated his status among Republicans. Lincoln would finally be vindicated in 1860, when he was elected president of the United States. Defeating in his own home state of Illinois, a certain northern Democrat who was finally undone by the disastrous after math of the law he had master minded.
Americans today continued to debate whether the civil war was inevitable, but there is no doubt that the Kansas-Nebraska Act made the ghastly conflict much more likely. And for that reason, it should be remembered as one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in American