Bleeding Kansas Catherine is a mother in the 1850’s living on the border of Kansas as a free-stater. Everyday she devotes her time to making sure the house is ship-shape. She works on sewing clothes for her fast growing children, and then spends hours making food so she can keep her family’s bellies full and their faces smiling. Today as she finished her long list of daily chores and began to make dinner, she remembered that her husband said he will be coming home a little late. So she decided to sit down with her three rambunctious, hungry children (all under the age of ten) and eat without him. Just as she got the children to settle down and started to say the blessing on the food-Bam! Bam! Bam! What happened? Without hesitation she grabbed …show more content…
Mullis states,
One of the most basic expectations regarding the army as a whole was the subordination of the military power to civilian authority. American fears of military usurpation of civil liberties or the use of the army for political repression were aroused once again during Bleeding Kansas. (23)
People were left to their own devices, and began taking law and order into their own hands. They began to sue for their rights that were not given to them even after the constitutional promises were made. People began to be more familiar with bloody deeds and horrific acts that eventually led into the Civil War, but was currently known as Bleeding Kansas. Sarah Bell, a Ph. D. student at the University of Kansas
…show more content…
On May 24-25 1856 John Brown, five of his sons, and three other anti-slavery activists went along with him to the bank of the Pottawatomie Creek. They want to different cabins and murdered five proslavery men, This horrible act was encouraged by a sacking that had been an attack on an anti-slavery town names Lawrence. Also previously, a representative of South Carolina, Preston Brooks, performed a vicious attack on Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate. Charles was beaten by Brookes because of his passion for anti-slavery. Even with the violent acts that John Brown committed, the Southern Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas lost huge amounts of popularity. He was not helping his people in stopping these horrific acts and the people lost faith in
To put it simply (as I recall and it's been years since I've had to read about this subject)a new territory was opened to settle in. It was decided that the settlers of these states would decide whether or not slavery would be permitted. This gave birth to the new Republican Party which opposed slavery. The Act was designed by Stephen A Douglas a Democratic senator from Illinois (the same who would later defeat a young Abraham Lincoln for the senate in 1858) and repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Thousands of settlers both pro and anti slavery rushed into Kansas particularly and bloody, murderous fights broke out among the groups hence the nickname "Bleeding Kansas". It was actually one territory but this Act divided it into two states.
Stewart R. W. (2005). American Military History (Vol. 1). The United States Army and the
Weigley, Russel F. History of the United States Army. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1st Edition, 1984.
The US Army’s official birthday is June 14, 1775, however its origins are much earlier than that. During British colonialism, citizens often had to take up arms to defend themselves, primarily against the Indians, since the British did not have a significant military presence in America. “Two concepts that still shape the American military can be traced to this period. The first is the idea of the citizen soldier, who picks up his gun in wartime and returns to civilian pursuits in peace. The second is the concept of universal obligation…” (Brown, page xiii).
From the start of the American Civil War, 1860, until the end of the Reconstruction, 1877, the United States of America endured what can be considered a revolution. Prior to the year 1860, there was a lack of union because of central government power flourishing rather than state power. Therefore, there was a split of opposite sides, North and South, fighting for authority. One major issue that came into mind was of slavery. At first, there were enactments that were issued to limit or rather prevent conflict to erupt, such as the numerous compromises, Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. They did not fulfill the needs of the states, South states in particular; therefore, in the year 1860, the Civil War had commenced. There was the issue of inequality of Blacks in suffrage, politics, and the use of public facilities. However, much constitutional and social advancement in the period culminated in the revolution. To a radical extent, constitutional development between 1860 and 1877 amount to a revolution because of events like the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil Rights Act, the amendments that tried to change African Americans lives in American Society and contributed to get the union together. There is the social developments as well that to a lesser extent had amounted to the revolution because of organizations like the Klu Klux Klan, Freedmen’s Bureau lacking, and discrimination against African Americans that caused progression of violence and white supremacy.
After the Civil War came the Reconstruction. The Reconstruction gave some power back to the states and eventually brought the states back together. It gave the state’s power by allowing them to govern themselves under military commanders from the Union. Although this brought the 14th amendment which gave former
In 1856 the same group attacked the Kansas territory where Brown and his family resided, which much like anyone would he saw as a threat and attacked in revenge killing 5 pro-slavery activists. Not much later the activists retaliated killing Browns son (Utter 1883). Brown and a group of men planned to go to Harpers Ferry, Virginia and seize the U.S arsenal. His plan was funded by various wealthy northern abolitionists and on October 16, 1859 his plan started to come into action. After the two-day battle back and forth between Browns men and the U.S Marines, seventeen people had died and Brown was arrested and put to trial, which led to the jury decision on November 2, 1859 for him to be hanged for murder and treason. Brown was from there on known as the first white man to die for an Africans freedom. He was called an abolitionist martyr for the sake of freedom. Browns deep roots of religion are one of the most obvious reasons for his actions. Slavery was an unjust system taking away basic God given rights of life, liberty, and happiness. Being a follower of Christ means that you devote yourself to teaching and living by Gods design, so when he was taught that this action was against the God he so loved how could he stand for it? When he was brought up under religion and firm discipline of course he would see it as unjust when he was exposed to the white
Near the end of the Antebellum Era, tensions and sectionalism increased as the states argued over what was constitutional. The South had later seceded from the United States and had become the Confederacy of America while the North had remained as the Union. The South had fully supported states’ rights while the north had strongly disapproved it. However, westward expansion, southern anger with the abolitionists, and the secession of the South that had destroyed the feeling of unity in the country because of the disagreement over slavery had been the main factors to the cause of the Civil War. Therefore, since slavery was the primary reason for the discontent in the country, it had been the primary cause of the Civil War.
Later on, after President Lincoln abolished slavery(the thirteen amendment in the constitution) the southern states decided to nullify his decision but the went against the constitution. Nullification is illegal. This action cause the bloodiest civil war in America. President Lincoln notice that the US government was not following what they were preaching. After the win in the civil war, the federal government had established themselves with a lot of power.
From 1860 to 1877, the American people faced several constitutional and social issues. For example, the after-effects of the Civil War, power struggle between the state and federal government, issues with civil liberties and suffrage, the rights of free black men, and resentment of white men, have all become critical issues. These critical issues needed immediate resolutions. Therefore, resolutions were created to solve these problems and those resolutions called for new constitutional and social developments that have amount to a revolution.
Preston Brooks, a cowardly scoundrel, committed one of the most evil crimes that had ever occurred in the Senate since before that time period. Brooks beat Sumner with his cane on the floor of the Senate, unjustifiably, in response to parts of Sumner's speech that he found disturbing. One of the topics Sumner discussed was slavery. He told the audience of the torture slaves went through, such as “compel(ling) fellowmen to unpaid toll, separate(ing) husband and wife, and sell(ing) little children at the auctions...” This accurate description of slavery life showed how great of an evil slavery really was, and why it should have been abolished. The cowardly scoundrel, known as Brooks by name, had no real reason to cane Sumner. In fact, he could
The institution of slavery was legal and eventually constitutional in the United States for 245 years. In that time, many compromises were made in the American government regarding slavery. This is particularly evident in the time period prior to 1854 in which the US government made a great deal of compromises in order to maintain the stability of American society. As 1854 began, tensions continued to rise surrounding the topic of slavery. Ultimately, these tensions lead to horrific violence within the nation, beginning with the events of Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas catalysed a violent reaction that eventually manifested itself as the American Civil War, beginning in 1861. This progression from compromise to violence in response to a changing
102. Popular sovereignty of the people is the principle that the structure of the government is created and upheld by the writ of the people through their elected representatives. Basically, it's the rule of the people and what they insist.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1964. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- - -, ed. "The Anti-War Movement in the United States." English.Illnois.edu. Ed. Oxford Companion to American Military History. 1st ed. Vers. 1. Rev. 1. Oxford Companion to American Military History, 1999. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. .