Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854

The Louisiana Purchase was by far the largest territorial gain in United States history, stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. After Louisiana became a state the Purchase was renamed the Missouri Territory by Congress in June 1812. This sparked a debate in Washington as to whether the Missouri Territory would be free or slave. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother, Henry Ward described it as, “The whole nation lies spread out like a gambler’s table”.

During the 1840s there was a push to organize the Kansas and Nebraska territories as part of a plan to build a transcontinental railroad. The question of whether the rail line should pass through northern free territory or southern slave territory was hotly debated. It became clear that no progress on the railroad could be made unless the limits on slavery articulated in the Missouri Compromise could be removed. Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas proposed a bill that offered residents of the Kansas and Nebraska territories a choice as to whether they would permit or reject slavery on their soil. The fine details of the bill led Northerners and Southerners to find self interested reasons to deny its passage.

Moved by the immorality of slavery and angered by the Compromise of 1850, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. When it was published as a two-volume work in 1852 it proved to be extremely popular in England. In May, 1853, during a visit to England, Stowe was presented with a petition signed by over a half million British women. This petition was titled, "An Affectionate and Christian Address of Many Thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland to Their Sisters the Women of the United States of America.” The women of Britain hoped the petition would rouse women in the United States to the anti-slavery cause. In response, Stowe promised to establish a committee of women in America to generate support for abolition. The effort proved unsuccessful as Stowe had no strong connections to either established women's organizations or anti-slavery groups. However in March, 1854, Stowe published “An Appeal to the Women of the Free States of America on the Present Crisis in Our Country.” She urged women to petition, organize, and pray to prevent slavery in the nascent states of the Missouri Territory. (see reference below for this publication)

After much debate, The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress on May 30, 1854, and signed by President Franklin Pierce. It divided the region along the 40th  parallel, with Kansas to the South and Nebraska to the North. It did allow people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. President Pierce and Senator Douglas hoped that, “Popular Sovereignty” would help bring an end to the national debate over slavery, but the Kansas–Nebraska Act outraged many Northerners, giving rise to the anti-slavery Republican Party. After passage of the act, pro- and anti-slavery elements flooded into Kansas with the goal of establishing a population that would vote for or against slavery. The result was a series of armed conflicts known as "Bleeding Kansas".
 
Sources:
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A life by Joan Hedrick published 1994 by Oxford University press
https://www.accessible-archives.com/2012/03/an-appeal-to-the-women-of-the-free-states-of-america/
 
https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/kansas.html
 
 About the author:
Dr. Nicholas Andreadis is a volunteer at the Harriet Beecher Stowe House. He was a professor and dean at Western Michigan University prior to moving to Cincinnati.