The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930 Page: 102
344 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
either, for it was not grown in the adjacent part of Missouri.
Hemp, and possibly tobacco, might have been grown in a limited
portion of eastern Kansas along the Missouri and the lower
Kansas rivers; and if no obstacle had been present, undoubtedly
a few negroes would have been taken into eastern Kansas. But
the infiltration of slaves would have been a slow process.
Apparently, there was no expectation, even on the part of the
pro-slavery men, that slavery would go into Nebraska. Only a
small fraction of the territory was suited to any crops that could
be grown with profit by slave labor, and by far the greater por-
tion of Kansas-even of the eastern half that was available for
immediate settlement-would have been occupied in a short
time, as it was in fact, by a predominantly non-slaveholding
and free-soil population. To say that the individual slaveowner
would disregard his own economic interest and carry valuable
property where it would entail loss merely for the sake of a
doubtful political advantage seems a palpable absurdity. In-
deed, competent students who have examined this subject have
shown that the chief interest of the pro-slavery Missourians in
seeking to control the organization of the territorial government
was not so much in taking slaves into Kansas as in making sure
that no free-soil territory should be organized on their border
to endanger their property in western Missouri.8 They lost in
the end, as they were bound to lose. The census of 1860 showed
two slaves in Kansas and fifteen in Nebraska. In short, there
is good reason to believe that had Douglas' bill passed Congress
without protest, and had it been sustained by the people of the
free states, slavery could not have taken permanent root in Kan-
sas if the decision were left to the people of the territory itself.
The fierce contest which accompanied and followed the pas-
sage of Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill is one of the said ironies
of history. Northern and southern politicians and agitators,
backed by excited constituents, threw fuel to the flames of sec-
tional antagonism until the country blazed into a civil war that
was the greatest tragedy of the nation. There is no need here
to analyze the arguments, constitutional or otherwise, that were
8See James C. Malin, "The Proslavery Background of the Kansas Strug-
gle," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, X, 285-305; also H. A. Trex-
ler, Slavery in Missouri, 1801-1865 (Baltimore, 1914), 185-86.102
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 33, July 1929 - April, 1930, periodical, 1930; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101090/m1/116/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.