What was nebraska during the civil war

Known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the controversial bill raised the possibility that slavery could The land that today makes up North Dakota became U. The regionwas originally part of the Minnesota and Nebraska territories, until, along with South Dakota, it was organized into the Dakota Territory in The state was very Wisconsin became aU. It was admitted to the union as the 30th state in In the years leading up to the Civil War,Wisconsin was an Minnesota became the 32nd state of the union on May 11, A small extension of the northern boundary makes it the most northerly of the 48 conterminous U.

This peculiar protrusion is the result of a boundary agreement with Great Britain before the area had been The territory that would become South Dakota was added to the United States in as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The first permanent American settlement was established at Fort Pierre by the Lewis and Clark expedition in Nebraska civilians were touched by the war as well, including politicians who met in party conventions or held public office; editors who debated wartime issues in their newspapers; and merchants and farmers who ran the stores and raised the crops.

As in all wars, those at home waited, often in vain, for the safe return of loved ones from the battlefronts. Telegraph lines that had reached Nebraska in meant that local editors received war news that was only a few days old. Furnas of the Brownville, Nebraska Advertiser , editorialized on the war's outbreak in the April 18 issue.

Furnas, a Republican who had supported Abraham Lincoln for president, was outraged by the attack and gave a ringing call for patriots to support the U. The immortal sentiment of Stephen Decatur is the motto of the people-May my country ever be right; but right or wrong, my country always.

The damning blot must be wiped out-treason must be crushed with the strong arm of government, and the majesty of the law vindicated at the point of the bayonet if need be. By its terms, California entered the Union as a free state, while the territories of Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona all acquired in the Mexican-American War were left to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery within their borders. But the Compromise of especially the strict new Fugitive Slave Act it contained galvanized the abolitionist movement and fueled mounting debate over whether the institution of slavery should be allowed to expand along with the nation.

He was also a big booster of the planned transcontinental railroad, which would provide faster, more reliable transportation across the country. Douglas wanted the railroad to be built along a northern route that would go through Chicago as well as a vast area of land known as the Nebraska Territory, which had been included in the Louisiana Purchase. To get them, he added an amendment that repealed the Missouri Compromise and created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska.

Settlers in each territory would vote on the issue of whether to permit slavery or not, according to the principle of popular sovereignty. Despite fierce opposition from abolitionists and Free Soilers, as those who opposed extending slavery into new territories were known, the Senate passed the Nebraska bill.

President Franklin Pierce signed it into law on May 30, There was no question that Nebraska would be a free state, but the fate of its southern neighbor, Kansas, became a matter of fierce debate. Pro- and antislavery activists flooded into the new Kansas territory, each side seeking to turn popular sovereignty to their own advantage.

Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act also had a profound political impact. In one of the most heated moments in the debate, proslavery Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, resorted to beating antislavery Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with his cane on the Senate floor in It also drew Abraham Lincoln , a former one-term congressman from Illinois, back into the political arena. In fact, the Kansas-Nebraska Act served to further divide the nation, and served as a crucial step along the path to the Civil War.

Norton, Kansas-Nebraska Act - May 30,