1.
Kansas Territory
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The territory extended from the Missouri border west to the summit of the Rocky Mountains and from the 37th parallel north to the 40th parallel north. Much of the region of what is now the State of Colorado was part of Kansas Territory. The Territory of Colorado was created to govern this western region of the former Kansas Territory on February 28,1861, Kansas Territory was established by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The Kansas–Nebraska Act became a law on May 30,1854, establishing the Nebraska Territory, the provisions relating to Kansas Territory were embodied in the last eighteen sections. Section 28 Declares the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to be in force in the Territory. Section 31 Locates the seat of government of the Territory, temporarily at Fort Leavenworth, and authorizes the use for public purposes of the government buildings. As early as June 10,1854, the Missourians held a meeting at Salt Creek Valley and they said they were in favor of making Kansas a slave state if it should require half the citizens of Missouri, musket in hand, to emigrate there. The desire to facilitate the colonization of the Territory took practical shape while the bill was still under debate in the United States Congress, the largest organization created for this purpose was the New England Emigrant Aid Company, organized by Eli Thayer. Emigration from the states, including New England, Iowa, Ohio. These emigrants were known as Free-Staters, because Missourians had claimed much of the land closest to the border, the Free-Staters were forced to establish settlements further into Kansas Territory. Among these were Lawrence, Topeka, and Manhattan, to protect themselves against the encroachments of non-residents, the Actual Settlers Association of Kansas Territory was formed. The first territorial appointments, looking to the inauguration of a government, under the provisions of the organic law, were made in June. The officers appointed by President Pierce, whose appointments were confirmed by the United States Senate, the first governor was Andrew Horatio Reeder was appointed June 29,1854 and removed July 28,1858. On March 30,1855 Border Ruffians from Missouri entered Kansas during the territorys first legislative election, antislavery candidates prevailed in one election district, the future Riley County. The first session of the legislature was held in Pawnee, Kansas at the request of Governor Reeder, the two-story stone building still stands and is open to the public as the First Territorial Capitol of Kansas. The building remained as the seat of the legislature for five days from July 2–6,1855, the last legislative act of the Territorial Legislature was the approval of the charter for the College of the Sisters of Bethany. This was February 2, 1861—four days after James Buchanan signed the act of Congress that officially brought Kansas into the Union, James H. Lane joined the Free-State movement in 1855 and became president the Topeka Constitutional Convention from October 23 to November 11,1855. He was later a leader of Jayhawkers and it was claimed that some Missourians had used violence toward the persons and property of the inhabitants of the Kansas Territory
2.
Bleeding Kansas
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The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for popular sovereignty—that is, the decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers. It would be decided by votes—or more exactly which side had more votes counted by officials, at the heart of the conflict was the question of whether Kansas would allow or outlaw slavery, and thus enter the Union as a slave state or a free state. Pro-slavery forces said every settler had the right to bring his own property, including slaves, anti-slavery free soil forces said the rich slaveholders would buy up all the good farmland and work it with black slaves, leaving little or no opportunity for non-slaveholders. As such, Bleeding Kansas was a conflict between forces in the North and pro-slavery forces from the South over the issue of slavery in the United States. The term Bleeding Kansas was coined by Republican Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, its indicated that compromise was unlikely. Through the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Congress kept a balance of political power between North and South. Immigrants supporting both sides of the arrived in Kansas to establish residency and gain the right to vote. They captured territorial elections, sometimes by fraud and intimidation, in response, Northern abolitionist elements flooded Kansas with free-soilers. Anti-slavery Kansas residents wrote the first Kansas Constitution and elected the Free State legislature in Topeka, the two Territorial governments increased as well as symbolized the strife of Bleeding Kansas. Among the first immigrants to Kansas Territory were citizens of states, notably neighboring Missouri. Pro-slavery forces settled towns including Leavenworth and Atchison, at the same time, citizens of the North, many aided by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, moved to Kansas to make it a free state and settled towns including Lawrence, Topeka and Manhattan. It was rumored in the South that thousands of Northerners were arriving in Kansas, the following year a Congressional committee investigating the election reported that 1729 fraudulent votes were cast compared to 1114 legal votes. In one location only 20 of the 604 voters were residents of the Kansas Territory, in another 35 were residents and 226 non-residents. On March 30,1855, Kansas Territory held the election for its first Territorial Legislature, crucially, this legislature would decide whether Kansas Territory would allow slavery. Due to questions about electoral fraud, Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder invalidated the results in five voting districts, eight of the eleven delegates elected in the special election were Free-State, but this still left the proslavery camp with an overwhelming 29–10 advantage. To help countermand the voting fraud, by the summer of 1855 around 1,200 New England Yankees had emigrated to Kansas Territory. The abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher armed many of them with Sharps rifles, in response to the disputed votes and rising tension, Congress sent a special committee to Kansas Territory in 1856. The committee report concluded that if the election on March 30,1855, had limited to actual settlers it would have elected a Free-State legislature
3.
Slavery in the United States
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Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was legal in all Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By the time of the American Revolution, the status of slave had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry, when the United States Constitution was ratified, a relatively small number of free people of color were among the voting citizens. During and immediately following the Revolutionary War, abolitionist laws were passed in most Northern states, most of these states had a higher proportion of free labor than in the South and economies based on different industries. They abolished slavery by the end of the 18th century, some with gradual systems that kept adults as slaves for two decades. But the rapid expansion of the industry in the Deep South after the invention of the cotton gin greatly increased demand for slave labor. Congress during the Jefferson administration prohibited the importation of slaves, effective in 1808, domestic slave trading, however, continued at a rapid pace, driven by labor demands from the development of cotton plantations in the Deep South. More than one million slaves were sold from the Upper South, which had a surplus of labor, New communities of African-American culture were developed in the Deep South, and the total slave population in the South eventually reached 4 million before liberation. As the West was developed for settlement, the Southern state governments wanted to keep a balance between the number of slave and free states to maintain a balance of power in Congress. The new territories acquired from Britain, France, and Mexico were the subject of major political compromises, by 1850, the newly rich cotton-growing South was threatening to secede from the Union, and tensions continued to rise. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery, the first six states to secede held the greatest number of slaves in the South. Shortly after, the Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked the US Armys Fort Sumter, four additional slave states then seceded. In the early years of the Chesapeake Bay settlements, colonial officials found it difficult to attract and retain laborers under the frontier conditions. Most laborers came from Britain as indentured servants, having signed contracts of indenture to pay with work for their passage, their upkeep and training and these indentured servants were young people who intended to become permanent residents. In some cases, convicted criminals were transported to the colonies as indentured servants, the indentured servants were not slaves, but were required to work for four to seven years in Virginia to pay the cost of their passage and maintenance. Historians estimate that more than half of all immigrants to the English colonies of North America during the 17th and 18th centuries came as indentured servants. The number of indentured servants among immigrants was particularly high in the South, many Germans, Scots-Irish, and Irish came to the colonies in the 18th century, settling in the backcountry of Pennsylvania and further south. The planters in the South found that the problem with indentured servants was that many left after several years, just when they had become skilled. In addition, an economy in England in the late 17th
4.
Individual liberty
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Civil liberties or personal freedoms are personal guarantees and freedoms that the government cannot abridge, either by law or by judicial interpretation, without due process. Other civil liberties include the right to own property, the right to defend oneself, within the distinctions between civil liberties and other types of liberty, distinctions exist between positive liberty/positive rights and negative liberty/negative rights. Many contemporary states have a constitution, a bill of rights, or similar constitutional documents that enumerate, the existence of some claimed civil liberties is a matter of dispute, as are the extent of most civil rights. Controversial examples include property rights, reproductive rights, and civil marriage, whether the existence of victimless crimes infringes upon civil liberties is a matter of dispute. Another matter of debate is the suspension or alteration of certain civil liberties in times of war or state of emergency, including whether and to what extent this should occur. The formal concept of civil liberties is often dated back to Magna Carta, the Constitution of Peoples Republic of China, especially its Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens, claims to protect many civil liberties. Taiwan, which is separated from China, has its own Constitution, the Fundamental Rights—embodied in Part III of the constitution—guarantee liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace as citizens of India. The six fundamental rights are right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights and right to constitutional remedies. These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, incorporated in the law of the land and are enforceable in a court of law. Violations of these result in punishments as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code. These rights are neither absolute nor immune from constitutional amendments and they have been aimed at overturning the inequalities of pre-independence social practices. Specifically, they resulted in abolishment of un-touchability and prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex and they forbid human trafficking and unfree labour. They protect cultural and educational rights of ethnic and religious minorities by allowing them to preserve their languages, all people, irrespective of race, religion, caste or sex, have the right to approach the High Courts or the Supreme Court for the enforcement of their fundamental rights. It is not necessary that the party has to be the one to do so. In public interest, anyone can initiate litigation in the court on their behalf and this is known as Public interest litigation. High Court and Supreme Court judges can also act on their own on the basis of media reports, the Fundamental Rights emphasize equality by guaranteeing to all citizens the access and use of public institutions and protections, irrespective of their background. The rights to life and personal liberty apply for persons of any nationality, while others, such as the freedom of speech, the right to equality in matters of public employment cannot be conferred to overseas citizens of India. Fundamental Rights primarily protect individuals from any arbitrary State actions, for instance, the constitution abolishes untouchability and prohibits begar
5.
Slave states and free states
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Historically, slavery had been practiced in all the British colonies. The division between slave and free states began during the American Revolution, slavery was a divisive issue and was the primary cause of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, slavery was legal and practiced in each of the Thirteen Colonies that became the US. During British colonization, the population expanded, primarily drawn from the Atlantic slave trade. Organized political and social movements to end slavery began in the mid-18th century, the sentiments of the American Revolution and the equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence stood in contrast to the status of most black Americans. Despite this, thousands of black Americans fought against the British in hopes of a new order, thousands also joined the British army, encouraged by British offers of freedom in exchange for military service. In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom, five of the Northern self-declared states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, while it was independent. These state jurisdictions enacted the first abolition laws in the Americas. By 1804, all of the states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it. In the south, Kentucky was created a state from Virginia. By 1804, before the creation of new states from the western territories. In popular usage, the divide between the slave and free states was called the Mason–Dixon line. The 1787, United States Constitutional Convention debated slavery and for a time slavery was an impediment to passage of the new constitution. As a compromise the institution was acknowledged though never mentioned directly in the constitution, in 1808, the United States outlawed the international slave import trade but the domestic trade in half the states continued. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the U. S, Constitution was ratified, prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory. The southern boundary of the territory was the Ohio River, which was regarded as a extension of the Mason–Dixon line. The territory was settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there
6.
U.S. state
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A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance
7.
Abolitionism in the United States
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Abolitionism in the United States was the movement before and during the American Civil War to end slavery in the United States. In the Americas and western Europe, abolitionism was a movement to end the Atlantic slave trade, in the 17th century, English Quakers and Evangelicals condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved, in the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. Abolition was part of the message of the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s in the Thirteen Colonies, in the same period, rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized slavery for violating human rights. A member of the British Parliament, James Edward Oglethorpe, was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, founder of the Province of Georgia, Oglethorpe banned slavery on humanistic grounds. He argued against it in Parliament and eventually encouraged his friends Granville Sharp, soon after his death in 1785, Sharp and More joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. Although anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, colonies and emerging nations, notably in the southern United States, continued to use and uphold traditions of slavery. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal, freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state, in other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans. During the ensuing decades, the abolitionist movement grew in Northern states, britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807 and abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1833. The United States criminalized the international trade in 1808 and made slavery unconstitutional in 1865 as a result of the American Civil War. Historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States. He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln, U. S. President during the Civil War, or the Republican Party, the first Americans who made a public protest against slavery were the Mennonites of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Soon after, in April 1688, Quakers in the town wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church. The Quaker establishment never took action, the Quaker Quarterly Meeting of Chester, Pennsylvania, made its first protest in 1711. Within a few decades the entire slave trade was under attack, being opposed by leaders as William Burling, Benjamin Lay, Ralph Sandiford, William Southby. Slavery was banned in the Province of Georgia soon after its founding in 1733, the colonys founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, fended off repeated attempts by South Carolina merchants and land speculators to introduce slavery to the colony. In 1739, he wrote to the Georgia Trustees urging them to hold firm, If we allow slaves we act against the principles by which we associated together. Whereas, now we should occasion the misery of thousands in Africa, by setting men upon using arts to buy, the struggle between Georgia and South Carolina led to the first debates in Parliament over the issue of slavery, occurring between 1740 and 1742
8.
New England
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New England is a geographical region comprising six states of the northeast United States, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and south, the Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the south. Its largest metropolitan area is Greater Boston, which also includes Worcester, Manchester, ten years later, more Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the British and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquin allies in North America. In 1692, the town of Salem, Massachusetts and surrounding areas experienced one of the most infamous cases of hysteria in the history of the Western Hemisphere. The Boston Tea Party was a protest to which Britain responded with a series of punitive laws stripping Massachusetts of self-government, the confrontation led to the first battles of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, and the expulsion of the British authorities from the region in spring 1776. Each state is subdivided into small incorporated municipalities known as towns. The only unincorporated areas in the region exist in the populated northern regions of Vermont, New Hampshire. The region is one of the U. S. Census Bureaus nine regional divisions, the earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages. Prominent tribes included the Abenaki, Mikmaq, Penobscot, Pequot, Mohegans, Narragansett Indians, Pocumtuck, prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Western Abenakis inhabited New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, as well as parts of Quebec and western Maine. Their principal town was Norridgewock in present-day Maine, the Penobscot lived along the Penobscot River in Maine. The Narragansett and smaller tribes under Narragansett sovereignty lived in most of modern-day Rhode Island, west of Narragansett Bay, the Wampanoag occupied southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the islands of Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket. The Pocumtucks lived in Western Massachusetts, and the Mohegan and Pequot tribes in the Connecticut region, the Connecticut River Valley includes parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and linked different indigenous communities culturally, linguistically, and politically. As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders began exploring the New World, trading metal, glass, on April 10,1606, King James I of England issued a charter for each of the Virginia Companies, London and Plymouth. These were privately funded ventures, intended to land for England, conduct trade. In 1620, Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts was settled by Pilgrims from the Mayflower, in 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region New England. As the first colonists arrived in Plymouth, they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, the Massachusetts Bay Colony came to dominate the area and was established by royal charter in 1629 with its major town and port of Boston established in 1630. Massachusetts Puritans began to settle in Connecticut as early as 1633, roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts for heresy, led a group south, and founded Providence Plantation in the area that became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636
9.
New England Emigrant Aid Company
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This in turn further galvanized Free-Staters and enemies of The Slave Power. Thayers intention was to capitalize on antislavery sentiment in the Northern United States and send settlers to Kansas to purchase land and build houses, shops and they could then sell the land at a significant profit and send the proceeds back to Thayer and his investors. While the Company achieved neither a profit nor a significant impact on the population of Kansas, the Company was formed in the midst of the sectional crisis that preceded the American Civil War. His primary partners in the venture were Alexander H. Bullock and Edward Everett Hale, Thayer announced the Company at a rally against the impending passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in Worcester on March 11. Shortly thereafter, the Companys charter was approved by the Massachusetts Legislature for up to $5,000,000 in capital, officially, the Company was a profit-making venture, and how the settlers voted was of no consequence to the company. Although Thayer personally disagreed with such hesitations, in 1855, the Company reorganized as a benevolent society, the success of the endeavor prompted other aid assistance companies to form back East, in New York or Ohio, with new companies such as the Worchester Country Emigrant Aid Society. The company was responsible for creating the Kansas towns of Lawrence and Manhattan. Lawrence was named after the Company secretary, Amos Lawrence, multiple politicians were found in the emigrants who left for Kansas, such as Daniel Read Anthony, Charles L. Robinson, Samuel C. Pomeroy, and Martin F. Conway, who would later be Kansass first U. S. Representative, the exact number of people who left for Kansas is unknown. James Rawley puts the numbers somewhere around 2000, of whom about a third returned home, Kansas entered the United States as a free state in 1861. Prelude to Civil War, Kansas-Missouri, 1854-61, New York, W. W. Norton & Company. Bleeding Kansas, Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era, War to the Knife, Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861. Olson, Kevin G. W. Frontier Manhattan, Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, race & Politics, Bleeding Kansas and the Coming of the Civil War. History of the Kansas Crusade, Its Friends and its Foes, Kansas State Historical Society article on the New English Emigrant Aid Company
10.
Ohio
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Ohio /oʊˈhaɪ. oʊ/ is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Ohio is the 34th largest by area, the 7th most populous, the states capital and largest city is Columbus. The state takes its name from the Ohio River, the name originated from the Iroquois word ohi-yo’, meaning great river or large creek. Partitioned from the Northwest Territory, the state was admitted to the Union as the 17th state on March 1,1803, Ohio is historically known as the Buckeye State after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as Buckeyes. Ohio occupies 16 seats in the United States House of Representatives, Ohio is known for its status as both a swing state and a bellwether in national elections. Six Presidents of the United States have been elected who had Ohio as their home state, Ohios geographic location has proven to be an asset for economic growth and expansion. Because Ohio links the Northeast to the Midwest, much cargo, Ohio has the nations 10th largest highway network, and is within a one-day drive of 50% of North Americas population and 70% of North Americas manufacturing capacity. To the north, Lake Erie gives Ohio 312 miles of coastline, Ohios southern border is defined by the Ohio River, and much of the northern border is defined by Lake Erie. Ohios neighbors are Pennsylvania to the east, Michigan to the northwest, Ontario Canada, to the north, Indiana to the west, Kentucky on the south, Ohio is bounded by the Ohio River, but nearly all of the river itself belongs to Kentucky and West Virginia. Ohio has only that portion of the river between the rivers 1792 low-water mark and the present high-water mark, the border with Michigan has also changed, as a result of the Toledo War, to angle slightly northeast to the north shore of the mouth of the Maumee River. Much of Ohio features glaciated plains, with a flat area in the northwest being known as the Great Black Swamp. Most of Ohio is of low relief, but the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau features rugged hills, in 1965 the United States Congress passed the Appalachian Regional Development Act, at attempt to address the persistent poverty and growing economic despair of the Appalachian Region. This act defines 29 Ohio counties as part of Appalachia, the worst weather disaster in Ohio history occurred along the Great Miami River in 1913. Known as the Great Dayton Flood, the entire Miami River watershed flooded, as a result, the Miami Conservancy District was created as the first major flood plain engineering project in Ohio and the United States. Grand Lake St. Marys in the west central part of the state was constructed as a supply of water for canals in the era of 1820–1850. For many years this body of water, over 20 square miles, was the largest artificial lake in the world and it should be noted that Ohios canal-building projects were not the economic fiasco that similar efforts were in other states. Some cities, such as Dayton, owe their emergence to location on canals. Summers are typically hot and humid throughout the state, while winters generally range from cool to cold, precipitation in Ohio is moderate year-round
