alternatehistory.com

Kansas-Nebraska repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed popular sovereignty to decide slavery's fate in Kansas which as we know led to Bleeding Kansas. It all but killed the Democratic Party in the North in the midterm elections. Let's say for whatever reason, the act fails to pass or never proposed. Arguably, the backlash over Kansas-Nebraska killed whatever chance there was for the Ostend Manifesto coming into fruition, so maybe Pierce will try to make a grab at it? Will the Republicans still form without the Kansas-Nebraska Act backlash? Or maybe with a less charged slavery debate, could the Know-Nothings not decline?
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