Part Twenty: Coming Together and Growing Apart
And now another update.
Part Twenty: Coming Together and Growing Apart
A Continental Idea:
With increasing amounts of people traveling west, many entrepreneurs and politicians saw a need for an eventual link between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts in the United States. During the Douglas administration, many proposals were brought to Congress for rail lines connecting the two coasts. Some suggested routes started from Saint Louis or Chicago, which had already been connected back to the major east coast cities, while others proposed paths going up to Minneapolis and then west.
The western end of the proposed transcontinental railway was often more varied. Some proposals desired to keep the railroad in the United States and ended the railway at one of the small but fast-growing costal towns in Oregon Territory. Others saw a more southerly route that passed through the California Republic to end in Monterrey, Yerba Buena, or San Diego. Despite the great interest taken by the government in completing a rail line between the two coasts, sectionalism between north and south stopped any major progress until the 1870s when private companies expanded west.
Popular Sovereignty:
With many Americans moving west into the Great Plains, Stephen Douglas passed a bill in 1854 with support from former Vice President Lewis Cass that would open up Kearny Territory to further settlement. With the bill he advocated the position of popular sovereignty and letting the people of a territory decide whether it would allow slavery when it was admitted to the Union. This led to increasing problems as ardent abolitionists and Southern slaveholders moved into the territory to promote their respective positions.
In the months after the bill was passed, both slaveholders and freesoilers poured into the territory. Slaveholders from Missouri and Arkansaw soon clashed with freesoilers from Chicago and New England. These settlers came at odds with each other as the frontier towns swelled with people, and in spring of 1855 violence broke out that would soon engulf the entire territory. The violence began with what is now known as the Haarlem Riots. The town of Haarlem lies on the Sparne River[1] near where it joins the Arakansaw, and grew during the opening of Kearny Territory because of its proximity to Arkansaw and Missouri. In the decade after the city's founding, it had grown to over two thousand people. With such growth, slavery became a great issue in the town. In April of 1855, the murder of a freesoiler by one of the slaveholders in the town spiraled out of control into general violence. The riot lasted almost the entire day before law was restored in the town and in all, seven people were killed.
This sparked more riots in the rest of the territory as a proslavery legislature came into power. In July, noted abolitionist John Brown attempted to bar the legislature from entering the territorial capital at Council Grove. While John Brown was killed in the resulting skirmish, he was remembered and soon became a martyr for the freesoilers in Kearny Territory. After further threats against the legislators, the territorial capital of Kearny was relocated southward to Fort Gibson. In response, the freesoilers set up their own territorial legislature in Council Grove. While the violence gradually decreased in 1856, the competing legislatures lasted long after Douglas's administration and the events of 1855 and 1856 greatly hurt Douglas in the eyes of the American people.
[1] The Canadian River
Part Twenty: Coming Together and Growing Apart
A Continental Idea:
With increasing amounts of people traveling west, many entrepreneurs and politicians saw a need for an eventual link between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts in the United States. During the Douglas administration, many proposals were brought to Congress for rail lines connecting the two coasts. Some suggested routes started from Saint Louis or Chicago, which had already been connected back to the major east coast cities, while others proposed paths going up to Minneapolis and then west.
The western end of the proposed transcontinental railway was often more varied. Some proposals desired to keep the railroad in the United States and ended the railway at one of the small but fast-growing costal towns in Oregon Territory. Others saw a more southerly route that passed through the California Republic to end in Monterrey, Yerba Buena, or San Diego. Despite the great interest taken by the government in completing a rail line between the two coasts, sectionalism between north and south stopped any major progress until the 1870s when private companies expanded west.
Popular Sovereignty:
With many Americans moving west into the Great Plains, Stephen Douglas passed a bill in 1854 with support from former Vice President Lewis Cass that would open up Kearny Territory to further settlement. With the bill he advocated the position of popular sovereignty and letting the people of a territory decide whether it would allow slavery when it was admitted to the Union. This led to increasing problems as ardent abolitionists and Southern slaveholders moved into the territory to promote their respective positions.
In the months after the bill was passed, both slaveholders and freesoilers poured into the territory. Slaveholders from Missouri and Arkansaw soon clashed with freesoilers from Chicago and New England. These settlers came at odds with each other as the frontier towns swelled with people, and in spring of 1855 violence broke out that would soon engulf the entire territory. The violence began with what is now known as the Haarlem Riots. The town of Haarlem lies on the Sparne River[1] near where it joins the Arakansaw, and grew during the opening of Kearny Territory because of its proximity to Arkansaw and Missouri. In the decade after the city's founding, it had grown to over two thousand people. With such growth, slavery became a great issue in the town. In April of 1855, the murder of a freesoiler by one of the slaveholders in the town spiraled out of control into general violence. The riot lasted almost the entire day before law was restored in the town and in all, seven people were killed.
This sparked more riots in the rest of the territory as a proslavery legislature came into power. In July, noted abolitionist John Brown attempted to bar the legislature from entering the territorial capital at Council Grove. While John Brown was killed in the resulting skirmish, he was remembered and soon became a martyr for the freesoilers in Kearny Territory. After further threats against the legislators, the territorial capital of Kearny was relocated southward to Fort Gibson. In response, the freesoilers set up their own territorial legislature in Council Grove. While the violence gradually decreased in 1856, the competing legislatures lasted long after Douglas's administration and the events of 1855 and 1856 greatly hurt Douglas in the eyes of the American people.
[1] The Canadian River
