Although slavery’s disruption of the political system was an immediate cause of the Republican Party’s creation, the party also reflected basic economic and social changes in American society, namely, the market revolution’s completion and the beginning of mass immigration from Europe. The American economy grew rapidly in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The expansion of a national railroad network did much to hasten economic growth. By 1860, railroads, and no longer water, carried most of the crops and goods in the nation. Rail helped integrate the Old Northwest and the Northeast, laying the basis for political unity in the form of the Republican Party.
By 1860, the North was a complex, integrated economy, with eastern industrialists marketing …show more content…
This was through the American Know-Nothing Party, a name deriving from its origins as a secret organization whose members, when asked about its existence, were supposed to reply, “I know nothing.” The Know-Nothings wanted to restrict political office to the native born and resist the Catholic Church’s influence in politics. In 1854, they gained many seats in Massachusetts state elections, electing the governor, all the state’s congressmen and most members of the state legislature. They also won mayoral races in Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. In many places, nativist candidates were a major part of the “anti-Nebraska” coalition of voters opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the North, the Know-Nothings combined anti-Catholicism, antislavery, and a strong dose of temperance sentiment. Despite the strength of nativism in this period, relatively little was changed in public policy. All European immigrants benefited from their whiteness, compared to free blacks in the North, who faced worsening discrimination and job opportunities. White immigrants could in a few years become naturalized and voting citizens, while most American-born blacks could …show more content…
Although proslavery Missourians cast fraudulent ballots in Kansas elections in 1854 and 1855, President Pierce recognized the legitimacy of the resulting proslavery legislature and replaced the territorial governor, a northerner. Settlers from free states soon established their own rival government, and civil war erupted. Eventually, 200 people died in “Bleeding Kansas.” The conflict seemed to discredit Douglas’s policy of popular sovereignty on the slavery question. In 1856, South Carolina representative Preston Brooks beat antislavery Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts unconscious with a cane after Sumner denounced “The Crime against
By 1860, the North was a complex, integrated economy, with eastern industrialists marketing …show more content…
This was through the American Know-Nothing Party, a name deriving from its origins as a secret organization whose members, when asked about its existence, were supposed to reply, “I know nothing.” The Know-Nothings wanted to restrict political office to the native born and resist the Catholic Church’s influence in politics. In 1854, they gained many seats in Massachusetts state elections, electing the governor, all the state’s congressmen and most members of the state legislature. They also won mayoral races in Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. In many places, nativist candidates were a major part of the “anti-Nebraska” coalition of voters opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the North, the Know-Nothings combined anti-Catholicism, antislavery, and a strong dose of temperance sentiment. Despite the strength of nativism in this period, relatively little was changed in public policy. All European immigrants benefited from their whiteness, compared to free blacks in the North, who faced worsening discrimination and job opportunities. White immigrants could in a few years become naturalized and voting citizens, while most American-born blacks could …show more content…
Although proslavery Missourians cast fraudulent ballots in Kansas elections in 1854 and 1855, President Pierce recognized the legitimacy of the resulting proslavery legislature and replaced the territorial governor, a northerner. Settlers from free states soon established their own rival government, and civil war erupted. Eventually, 200 people died in “Bleeding Kansas.” The conflict seemed to discredit Douglas’s policy of popular sovereignty on the slavery question. In 1856, South Carolina representative Preston Brooks beat antislavery Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts unconscious with a cane after Sumner denounced “The Crime against