Question

Read "The Act to Organize Nebraska and Kansas Territories" and Abraham Lincoln’s speech on the Kansas/Nebraska Act. Why did the West become a threat to the continued existence of the United States? Explain.

Answer 1

In the 19th century , the United States militantly spread westward across the continent, embedded in the notion of manifest destiny. Americans saw the mission of their country as that of introducing schooling, new technologies, and culture to the West and pushing out the "uncivilised" American Indians. The search for domination of the West led to the conquest of Texas and Mexico in the mid-19th century.

Efforts to conquer Western lands from indigenous peoples and extend the republic by fighting with Mexico went beyond expectations; few nations had ever grown so rapidly. This expansion led to discussions over the fate of Western slavery, raising tensions between the North and South, eventually contributing to the breakdown of American independence and a bloody civil war

As early as the Missouri Compromise of 1820, lawmakers were forced to contend with the issue of slavery and its westward extension. With an equal number of delegates from both the Slave and Free States, the States have historically held a precarious balance in the Senate. This tentative balance threatened to become undone as Missouri planned to join the Union as a Slave State. The dilemma was briefly fixed by Henry Clay of Kentucky by crafting the Missouri Compromise, taking Missouri into the Union as a Slave State and joining Maine as a Free State as a balance. In all parts of the Louisiana Purchase North, with the exception of Missouri, the Compromise also made future slavery illegal; all future states below that line would become Slave States. In order to placate both northern and southern leaders, this Agreement addressed the immediate dilemma of slavery in the Louisiana Purchase by brushing the actual issue of slavery under the rug. In the coming years