Historical Summary

The first suggestion of a territorial organization for the region between the western boundary of Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, which had been left without organization upon the admission of Missouri in 1821, seems to have been made in 1844, when Wilkins, Secretary of War, proposed the formation of Nebraska Territory as preliminary to the extension of military posts in that direction. A bill to establish the Territory of Nebraska was introduced in the House Dec. 17, 1844, by Douglas of Illinois, but no action was taken. A bill with the same object, brought in March 15, 1848, by Douglas, now a member of the Senate, likewise came to nothing. A bill to attach Nebraska to the surveying district of Arkansas, introduced in the Senate July 28, 1848, stopped with the Committee on Public Lands. A third bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, also introduced by Douglas, was considered by the Senate Dec. 20, 1848, and recommitted.

December 13, 1852, Hall of Missouri introduced in the House a bill to organize the Territory of Platte. The bill went to the Committee on Territories, and as such was not reported. February 2, 1853, however, Richardson of Illinois reported from the committee a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, which passed the House Feb. 10, by a vote of 98 to 43. The Senate Committee on Territories reported the bill on the 17th, without amendments; March 4, by a vote of 23 to 17, consideration was refused. This bill did not propose to legislate slavery into the new territory. "The opposition to it came from Southern members who were preparing, but were not yet ready to announce, their next advanced claim, that the compromise of 1850 had superseded and voided that of 1820, abolished the prohibition of slavery in the territory north of the Missouri compromise line, and opened it to the operation of squatter sovereignty" (Johnston).

The thirty-third Congress met Dec. 5, 1853. December 14 Senator Dodge of Iowa introduced a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska. The bill, which appears to have been identical with Richardson’s bill of the previous session, provided for the organization of the whole region between the parallels of 36° 30′ and 43° 30′ on the south and north, Missouri and Iowa on the east, and the Rocky Mountains on the west. A substitute for this bill, with the same provision as to slavery as that which had been inserted in the Utah and New Mexico bills, was reported by Douglas, from the Committee on Territories, Jan. 4, 1854. The declaration regarding slavery was satisfactory to neither party, and on the 16th Dixon of Kentucky gave notice of an amendment explicitly exempting the proposed territory from the operation of the Missouri compromise, to which Sumner of Massachusetts responded with an amendment extending the Missouri compromise to the new territory. On the 23d Douglas reported that the committee had prepared several new amendments to the bill, changing the southern boundary from 36° 30′ to 37°, providing for two territories instead of one, and declaring the Missouri compromise inoperative in the new territories, on the ground that it had been superseded by the compromise measures of 1850. The bill as thus amended Douglas proposed to substitute for the bill previously reported. Debate in Committee of the Whole began Jan. 30. February 6 Douglas offered an amendment by which the Missouri compromise was to be declared "inconsistent" with the legislation of 1850, following this the next day with another amendment in the words of sec. 14 of the act as finally passed. This last amendment was agreed to on the 15th, by a vote of 35 to 10. March 4 the bill passed the Senate, after an all-night session, by a vote of 37 to 14.

In the meantime Representative Miller of Missouri had introduced in the House, Dec. 22, a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska. The bill went to the Committee on Territories, from which Richardson reported, Jan. 31, a bill to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. A minority report, advocating the application of squatter sovereignty to the two territories, was submitted by English of Indiana. The House bill did not regularly come up for consideration until May 8, but from Feb. 14 to April 28 either the House or Senate bill, and the general subject of territorial governments for Kansas and Nebraska, were discussed almost daily, regardless of the business nominally before the House. March 21 the Senate bill was disposed of by referring it to the Committee of the Whole, and was not again considered. May 8 Richardson called up the Kansas-Nebraska bill, thirty bills and resolutions being successively laid aside until the bill was reached. The debate continued with increasing violence until the 22d, when, by a vote of 113 to 100, the House passed the bill with amendments. Douglas championed the bill in the Senate, where the debate was attended with intense excitement and frequent disorder. The bill passed the Senate May 26, without a division, and on the 30th the act was approved.

The form of government provided by the act did not differ essentially from that contained in other territorial acts. The extracts from the act following are limited to the sections defining the boundaries of the two territories, and the status of slavery.

REFERENCES. — The text is indicated in connection with each extract, following. The House and Senate Journals, 33d Cong., 1st Sess., give the record of proceedings; both proceedings and debates are reported at length in the Cong. Globe, and appendix.