Political Realignment of the 1850s
History 103
Nov. 23, 1998
"Young America"
- Quest for Cuba
- Ostend Manifesto (1854) and controversy
- Gadsden Purchase (1853-54)
Kansas-Nebraska Act
- Douglas’s desire to organize Nebraska territory
- Concessions to southerners
- Repeal of Missouri Compromise
- Division of territory into Kansas and Nebraska
- Status of slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty
- Controversy over Kansas-Nebraska bill
- Passage (1854)
Collapse of Second Party System
- Competing explanations of Whig Party’s demise
- Rise of the Republican Party
- Rise of the American Party (Know-Nothings)
- State election results, 1854-55
"Bleeding Kansas"
- Test of popular sovereignty
- Competing territorial legislatures established (1855)
- Lecompton (proslavery)
- Topeka (antislavery)
- Federal government leans toward Lecompton government
- Charles Sumner’s speech on "The Crime Against Kansas" (1856)
- "Bleeding Sumner"
- John Brown and the Pottawatomie Massacre (1856)
- Guerrilla warfare
Election of 1856
- American Party divides
- Southern wing nominates Millard Fillmore
- Northern wing moves toward Republican Party
- Democratic Party nominates James Buchanan and defends Kansas-Nebraska Act
- Republican Party nominates John C. Frémont
- Buchanan wins
- Changing role of party politics