Kansas–Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 was an organic act passed by the 33rd U. S. Congress that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and President Franklin Pierce; the initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to open up thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. In addition to creating the U. S. territories of Kansas and Nebraska, the Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed each territory to decide, "under the concept of popular sovereignty, whether they wanted slavery or not." The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in all U. S. territories west of the Mississippi River and north of 36°30' latitude. The popular sovereignty clause of the law led pro- and anti-slavery elements to flood into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, resulting in a series of armed conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas". Controversy surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act was a cause of the Civil War.
The availability of tens of millions of acres of fertile farmland in the area made it necessary to create a territorial infrastructure to allow settlement. Railroad interests were eager to start operations since they needed farmers as customers. Four previous attempts to pass legislation had failed; the solution was a bill proposed in January 1854 by Douglas — the Democratic Party leader in the US Senate, the chairman of the Committee on Territories, an avid promoter of railroads, an aspirant to the presidency, a fervent believer in popular sovereignty — the policy of letting the voters exclusively white males, of a territory decide whether or not slavery should exist in it. Since the 1840s, the topic of a transcontinental railroad had been discussed. While there were debates over the specifics the route to be taken, there was a public consensus that such a railroad should be built by private interests, financed by public land grants. In 1845, serving in his first term in the US House of Representatives, had submitted an unsuccessful plan to organize the Nebraska Territory formally, as the first step in building a railroad with its eastern terminus in Chicago.
Railroad proposals were debated in all subsequent sessions of Congress with cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Quincy and New Orleans competing to be the jumping-off point for the construction. Several proposals in late 1852 and early 1853 had strong support, but they failed because of disputes over whether the railroad would follow a northern or a southern route. In early 1853, the House of Representatives passed a bill 107 to 49 to organize the Nebraska Territory in the land west of Iowa and Missouri. In March, the bill moved to the Senate Committee on Territories, headed by Douglas. Missouri Senator David Atchison announced that he would support the Nebraska proposal only if slavery was allowed. While the bill was silent on this issue, slavery would have been prohibited under the Missouri Compromise in territory north of 36°30' latitude and west of the Mississippi River. Other Southern senators were as inflexible as Atchison. By a vote of 23 to 17, the Senate voted to table the motion, with every senator from the states south of Missouri voting to table.
During the Senate adjournment, the issues of the railroad and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise became entangled in Missouri politics, as Atchison campaigned for re-election against the forces of Thomas Hart Benton. Atchison was maneuvered into choosing between antagonizing the state's railroad interests or its slaveholders. Atchison took the position that he would rather see Nebraska "sink in hell" before he would allow it to be overrun by free soilers. Representatives generally found lodging in boarding houses when they were in the nation's capital to perform their legislative duties. Atchison shared lodgings in an F Street house, shared by the leading Southerners in Congress. Atchison himself was the Senate's president pro tempore, his housemates included James Mason and Andrew P. Butler; when Congress reconvened on December 5, 1853, the group, termed the F Street Mess, along with Virginian William O. Goode, formed the nucleus that would insist on slaveholder equality in Nebraska. Douglas knew that he needed to address its concerns.
Iowa Senator Augustus C. Dodge reintroduced the same legislation to organize Nebraska that had stalled in the previous session. Douglas, hoping to achieve the support of the Southerners, publicly announced that the same principle, established in the Compromise of 1850 should apply in Nebraska. In the Compromise of 1850, Utah and New Mexico Territories had been organized without any restrictions on slavery, many supporters of Douglas argued that the compromise had superseded the Missouri Compromise; the two territories, unlike Nebraska, had not been part of the Louisiana Purchase and had never been subject to the Missouri Compromise. The bill was reported to the main body of the Senate on January 4, 1854, it had been modified by Douglas, who had authored the New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory Acts, to mirror the language from the Compromise of 1850. In the bill, a vast new Nebraska Territory was created to extend from Kansas north all the way to the 49th parallel, the US–Canada border. A large portion of Nebraska Territory would soon be split off into Dakota Territory, smaller portions transferred to Colorado Territory and Idaho Territory before the ba
Boscawen, New Hampshire
Boscawen is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,965 at the 2010 census; the native Pennacook tribe called the area Contoocook, meaning "place of the river near pines." In March, 1697, Hannah Duston and her nurse, Mary Neff, were captured by Abenaki Indians and taken to a temporary village on an island at the confluence of the Contoocook and Merrimack rivers, at the site of what is now Boscawen. In late April and two other captives killed ten of the Abenaki family members holding them hostage, including six children, escaped by canoe to Haverhill, Massachusetts. On June 6, 1733, Governor Jonathan Belcher granted it to John Coffin and 90 others, most from Newbury, Massachusetts. Settled in 1734, it soon had a meetinghouse, sawmill and ferry across the Merrimack River. A garrison offered protection, but raiding parties during the French and Indian Wars left some dead or carried into captivity. On April 22, 1760, Contoocook Plantation was incorporated as a town by Governor Benning Wentworth, who named it for Edward Boscawen, the British admiral who distinguished himself at the 1758 Siege of Louisbourg.
With a level surface, the town provided good farmland, became noted for its apple and cherry orchards. Bounded by the Merrimack and Contoocook rivers, it had abundant sources of water power for mills. Industries soon included a cotton mill, a woolen factory, nine sawmills, a gristmill, a saw manufacturer and machine shop, a chair and match factory. A mill town village developed at Fisherville. In 1846, the Northern Railroad was built through Boscawen. Sometime around 1846, the town's postmaster became one of about a dozen in the country to issue provisional postage stamps before the official issue came out in 1847; the stamps were an adaptation of a postmark reading PAID / 5 / CENTS, typeset in blue on a yellowish paper. These are rare; the 1915 Boscawen Public Library was designed by noted Boston architect Guy Lowell. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 25.4 square miles, of which 24.7 square miles are land and 0.69 square miles are water, comprising 2.71% of the town.
The highest point in Boscawen is an unnamed summit at Raleigh Farm near the town's northern border, where the elevation reaches 930 feet above sea level. Boscawen lies within the Merrimack River watershed, it is drained by the Merrimack Contoocook River. The town is served by U. S. Route 3 and U. S. Route 4; as of the census of 2000, there were 3,672 people, 1,260 households, 913 families residing in the town. The population density was 148.5 people per square mile. There were 1,295 housing units at an average density of 52.4 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 97.74% White, 0.57% African American, 0.30% Native American, 0.46% Asian, 0.16% from other races, 0.76% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.82% of the population. There were 1,260 households out of which 35.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.0% were married couples living together, 12.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.5% were non-families. 21.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.9% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older.
The average household size was 2.57 and the average family size was 2.97. In the town, the population was spread out with 22.9% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 29.2% from 25 to 44, 21.7% from 45 to 64, 18.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.4 males. The median income for a household in the town was $42,524, the median income for a family was $45,850. Males had a median income of $31,350 versus $23,375 for females; the per capita income for the town was $18,732. About 5.4% of families and 7.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.8% of those under age 18 and 10.7% of those age 65 or over. Elektrisola Incorporated is the largest source of employment for Boscawen-area residents. Hannah Duston Memorial State Historic Site NH State Veterans Cemetery Moody Currier, 40th governor of New Hampshire John Adams Dix, New York City Postmaster, 24th governor of New York, Major General in the US Civil War Marion Dix Sullivan and composer Moses G. Farmer, electrical engineer and inventor William P. Fessenden, US senator and Secretary of the Treasury Charles Gordon Greene, journalist Nathaniel Greene, journalist Lucia Ames Mead, feminist author and educator Lyndon A. Smith and Minnesota attorney general Bradford N. Stevens, US congressman Daniel Webster, US congressman and Secretary of State.
James W. Bradbury
James Ware Bradbury was a United States Senator from Maine. Born in Parsonsfield, Maine, he attended Gorham Academy. After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, he became principal of Hallowell Academy and founder of the first normal school in New Hampshire, at Effingham, New Hampshire, in 1829, he studied law, was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Augusta, Maine, in 1830. There he was for a time editor of the Maine Patriot, was prosecuting attorney for the county from 1834 until 1838, he was a member of the Baltimore convention of 1844, which nominated James K. Polk for the presidency, he was elected in 1846 as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1847, until March 3, 1853, when he declined to be a candidate for reelection. While in the Senate he chaired the U. S. Senate Committee on Printing and the U. S. Senate Committee on Retrenchment, he was chairman of a select committee on French spoilations. He served as a trustee of Bowdoin College in 1861 and was corresponding secretary of the Maine Historical Society and president of that body from 1867 to 1887.
United States Congress. "James W. Bradbury". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.. "article name needed". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. Bio of James S. Bradbury: As found in Representative Men of Maine
Temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement against the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement criticize alcohol intoxication or promote complete abstinence, with leaders emphasizing alcohol's negative effects on health and family life; the movement promotes alcohol education as well as demands new laws against the selling of alcohols, or those regulating the availability of alcohol, or those prohibiting it. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries English-speaking and Scandinavian ones, it led to Prohibition in the United States from 1920 to 1933. In the late-seventeenth century, alcohol was a vital part of colonial life as a beverage and commodity for men and children. Drinking was accepted and integrated into society. Despite that, drunkenness was common and not seen as a social problem; the attitudes towards alcohol began to change in the late eighteenth century. One of the reasons for the shifting attitudes was the necessity for sober laborers to operate heavy machinery, developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution.
Anthony Benezet suggested abstinence from alcohol in 1775. As early as the 1790s, physician Benjamin Rush researched the danger that drinking alcohol could lead to disease that leads to a lack of self-control and he cited abstinence as the only treatment option. Rush condemned the use of distilled spirits; as well as addiction, Rush noticed the correlation that drunkenness had with disease, death and crime. According to, “Pompili, Maurizio et al,” there is increasing evidence that, aside from the volume of alcohol consumed, the pattern of the drinking is relevant for health outcomes. Overall, there is a causal relationship between alcohol consumption and more than 60 types of diseases and injuries. Alcohol is estimated to cause about 20–30% of cases of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicide and motor vehicle accidents. After the American Revolution, Rush called upon ministers of various churches to act in preaching the messages of temperance. However, abstinence messages were ignored by Americans until the 1820s.
In the eighteenth century, there was a "Gin Craze" in the Kingdom of Great Britain. The bourgeoisie became critical of the widespread drunkenness among the lower classes. Motivated by the bourgeoisie's desire for order, amplified by the population growth in the cities, the drinking of gin became the subject of critical national debate. In the early nineteenth-century United States, alcohol was still regarded as a necessary part of the American diet for both practical and social reasons. On one hand, water supplies were polluted, milk was not always available, coffee and tea was expensive. On the other hand, social construct of the time made. Drunkenness was not a problem, because people would only drink small amounts of alcohol throughout the day, but at the turn of the nineteenth-century and subsequent intoxication became an issue that led to the disintegration of the family. Early temperance societies associated with churches were located in upstate New York and New England, but only lasted a few years.
These early temperance societies called for moderate drinking, but had little influence outside of their geographical areas. In 1743, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Churches, proclaimed "that buying and drinking of liquor, unless necessary, were evils to be avoided". In 1810, Calvinist ministers met with a seminary in Massachusetts to write articles about abstinence from alcohol to use in preaching to their congregations; the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance was formed in 1813. The organization only accepted men of high social standing and encouraged moderation in alcohol consumption, its peak of influence was in 1818, but the MSSI ended in 1820 and made no significant mark on the future of the temperance movement. Other small temperance societies appear in the 1810s, but had little impact outside their immediate regions and they disbanded soon after, their methods had little effect in implementing temperance, drinking increased until after 1830. The temperance movement began at a national level in the 1820s, having been popularized by evangelical temperance reformers and among the middle classes.
There was a concentration on advice against hard spirits rather than on abstinence from all alcohol and on moral reform rather than legal measures against alcohol. An early temperance movement began during the American Revolution in Connecticut and New York state, with farmers forming associations to ban whiskey distilling; the movement spread to eight states, advocating temperance rather than abstinence and taking positions on religious issues such as observance of the Sabbath. After the American Revolution there was a new emphasis on good citizenship for the new republic. With the Evangelical Protestant religious revival of the 1820s and'30s, called the Second Great Awakening, social movements began aiming for a perfect society; this included temperance. The Awakening brought with it an optimism about moral reform, achieved through volunteer organizations. Although the temperance movement was nonsectarian in principle, the movement consisted of church-goers; the temperance movement promoted temperance and emphasized th
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four presidents belonged to the party while in office, it emerged in the 1830s as the leading opponent of Jacksonian democracy, pulling together former members of the National Republican and the Anti-Masonic Party. It had some links to the upscale traditions of the long-defunct Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s, it formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. It became a formal party within his second term, receded influence after 1854. In particular terms, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing, it appealed to entrepreneurs, planters and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal.
Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. The political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not related to the British Whig party. Historian Frank Towers has specified a deep ideological divide: The Whig Party nominated several presidential candidates in 1836. General William Henry Harrison of Ohio was nominated in 1840, former Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1844, General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana in 1848, General Winfield Scott of New Jersey in 1852 and the last nominee, former President Millard Fillmore from New York in 1856. In its two decades of existence, the Whig Party had two of its candidates and Taylor, elected president and both died in office. John Tyler succeeded to the presidency after Harrison's death in 1841, but was expelled from the party that year. Millard Fillmore, who became President after Taylor's death in 1850, was the last Whig President; the party fell apart because of internal tension over the expansion of slavery to the territories.
With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the nomination for a full term of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election—instead, the party nominated General Scott. Most Whig Party leaders quit politics or changed parties; the Northern voter base gravitated to the new Republican Party. In the South, most joined the Know Nothing Party, which unsuccessfully ran Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election, by which time the Whig Party had become defunct having endorsed Millard Fillmore's candidacy; some former Whigs became Democrats. The Constitutional Union Party experienced significant success from conservative former Whigs in the Upper South during the 1860 presidential election. Whig ideology as a policy orientation persisted for decades, played a major role in shaping the modernizing policies of the state governments during Reconstruction; the name "Whig" repeated the term that Patriots used to refer to themselves during the American Revolution.
It indicated hostility to the king. Despite the identical name it did not directly derive from the British Whig Party; the American Whigs were modernizers who saw President Andrew Jackson as "a dangerous man on horseback"—like a king—with a "reactionary opposition" to the forces of social and moral modernization. The Democratic-Republicans who formed the Whig Party, led by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, drew on a Jeffersonian tradition of compromise, balance in government and territorial expansion combined with national unity and support for a Federal transportation network and domestic manufacturing. Casting their enemy as "King Andrew", they sought to identify themselves as modern-day opponents of governmental overreaching. Despite the apparent unity of Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans from 1800 to 1824, the American people preferred partisan opposition to popular political agreement; as Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements and killed the Second Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back.
In 1831, Henry Clay started planning a new party. He defended national rather than sectional interests. Clay's plan for distributing the proceeds from the sale of lands in the public domain among the states was intended to serve the nation by providing the states with funds for building roads and canals, which would stimulate growth and knit the sections together. However, his Jacksonian opponents distrusted the federal government and opposed all federal aid for internal improvements and they again frustrated Clay's plan. Jacksonians promoted opposition to the National Bank and internal improvements and support of egalitarian democracy, state power and hard money; the Tariff of Abominations of 1828 had outraged Southern feelings—the South's leaders held that the high duties on foreign imports gave an advantage to the North. Clay's own high tariff schedule of 1832 further disturbed them as did his stubborn defense of high duties as necessary to his American System. However, Clay moved to pass the Compromise of 1833, which met Southern complaints by a gradual reduction of the rates on imports to a maximum of twenty percent.
Controlling the Senate for a while, Whigs passed a censure motion denouncing Jackson's arrogant assumption of executive power in the face of the true will of the people as represented by Congress. The Whig Party began to take shape in 1833. Clay had run as a National Republican against J
Lot M. Morrill
Lot Myrick Morrill was an American statesman who served as the 28th Governor of Maine, in the United States Senate and as Secretary of the Treasury appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant. Morrill was an accomplished politician serving several elected and appointed offices throughout his lifetime. Morrill, as Secretary of Treasury, was devoted to hard currency rather than paper money and dedicated himself to serve the public good rather than party interests. Morrill was popularly received as Treasury Secretary in the American press and Wall Street, known for his financial and political integrity. Morrill was President Grant's fourth and last U. S. Secretary of the Treasury. A native of Maine, Morrill was educated in public school and after attending Waterville College served as principal of a private school in New York, he studied law and passed the bar in 1839, afterwards setting up law practices in Readfield and Augusta, Maine. Morrill, known for his eloquent speaking, soon become popular among Democrat friends advocating temperance.
Morrill was elected to Maine's House of Representatives in 1854 as a Democrat and served as Chairman of the Maine Democratic Party. However, as the nation divided over slavery during the 1850s, Morrill's politics changed and he went over to the Republican Party for the sole reason that the Republicans were opposed to the expansion of slavery, he was elected Maine's state senator in 1856 as a Republican, elected Governor of Maine in 1858, serving until 1861 during the outbreak of the American Civil War. Morrill was elected Maine's U. S. Senator in 1861 when a vacancy was opened in the U. S. Senate, after Sen. Hannibal Hamlin assumed the office of Vice President under President Abraham Lincoln. Morrill's extended tenure for 15 years as U. S. Senator took place during Reconstruction. Morrill sponsored legislation that outlawed slavery in Washington D. C. and advocated suffrage for African American freedman. In 1876, Sen. Morrill was appointed U. S. Secretary of the Treasury by President Grant to fill in a vancancy after Sec. Benjamin Bristow resigned from office.
His political rival James G. Blaine was appointed Maine's Senator after Morrill had resigned from the Senate and accepted the position of Secretary of Treasury. Morrill's tenure was less than a year. Upon his retirement from the Treasury Department, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Morrill to the Collector of Customs in Portland, where he held this position until his death in 1883. Lot M. Morrill was born on May 3, 1813 in Belgrade to Nancy Morrill, he was of English ancestry, his earliest immigrant ancestor was Abraham Morrill, who came to America from England in 1632 as part of the Great Puritan migration. The Morrill family was large, his older brother Anson P. Morrill was a prominent U. S. statesman. After attending common school, Morrill taught at a local academy to earn money to go to college. At the age of 18, Morrill attended Waterville College. After attending Waterville, Morrill served as principal of a private western New York college for a year. Morrill studied law under Justice Fuller in Readfield.
Morrill passed the bar in 1839, built up a successful law practice. At this time Morrill began to associate with the Democratic Party and was popular speaker among his Democratic friends. Morrill entered politics as a speaker for early temperance movement in Maine and other political movements. In 1841, having become locally famous, Morrill moved to Augusta, Maine where he spoke in front of Maine's capital legislative committees; as a speaker, Morrill gained much experience in state politics. Morrill started a law practice in Augusta. In 1849, Morrill became Chairman of Maine's Democratic Party and served in this position until 1856; as a Democrat, Morrill was elected to Maine's House of Repusentatives in 1854. Morrill began to break from his party's platform starting in 1855 changing over to the Republican Party. During the Presidential election of 1856, Morrill believed James Buchanan was a good candidate, however he stated the Democratic Party's platform was "a flagrant outrage upon the country and an insult to the North."
Morrill's change of political views were shared by his brother, Anson P. Morrill, his friend and future Vice President Hannibal Hamlin. Morrill severed ties with the Democratic Party and formally became a Republican in 1856; as a member of the Republican Party, Morrill was elected a Maine state senator in 1856, serving as Senate President. He was the first Republican to hold the position which would be held by Republicans until 1964, with one brief exception, he was elected Governor of Maine in 1858. Morrill served as Maine's governor until January 1861 when he was elected to the U. S. Senate to replace Hannibal Hamlin, who had left his seat to become Abraham Lincoln's running mate. Morrill came into the U. S. Senate at a pivotal moment in history before the American Civil War. In 1861, Sen. Morrill argued against compromise on the principles of slavery in order to restore the peace. In February 1861, Morrill attended the Peace Conference of 1861 and opposed John J. Crittenden's compromise arguments, similar to those made in the Crittenden Compromise.
In March 1862, Morrill supported legislation that permitted the freedom of confiscated Confederate slaves captured during the War. Morrill believed. In
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Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
