Hodder, F: Genesis of the Kansas Nebraska Act (Classic Repri

Excerpt from The Genesis of the Kansas Nebraska Act

While the Senate was debating the Pacific railroad bill, the House passed a bill for the organization of Nebraska. De cember 13, 1852, Hall of Missouri reported a bill for the organ ization of the Territory of the Platte, which was referred to the committee on territories. February 2, 1853, Richardson reported from this committee a substitute bill for the organiza tion of Nebraska, without mention of slavery, and the bill passed February 10 by a vote of 98 to 43. Nearly all the votes against the bill came from the South, and both Hall and Richardson 1° charged in the debate that they were based upon opposition to a northern route for the Pacific railway. Reply ing to Howard of Texas, Mr. Hall said: He wishes to treat with those Indians, to go through that slow process and in the meantime all the great objects of the bill will be lost and the emigration to the Pacific will be driven to another portion of the Union from the route that it now follows. Elsewhere in the speech he exclaimed: Everybody is talking about a rail road to the Pacific. In the name of God, how is a railroad to be made, if you will never let people live on the lands through which it passes?11 Douglas made repeated efforts to get the House bill before the Senate. On the last day of the session (march 3, 1853) it was laid on the table by a vote of 27 to 17. Of those voting, every Southern senator voted against the bill, except the two from Missouri,12 and every Northern senator for it, except five from the Northeast. Opposition in both houses was ostensibly based on the fact that the Indian title had not been extinguished, although the bill provided that it should not take effect until this had been done. The only progress that was made toward organization was the passage of an appropriation for the extinction of this title.

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