5.5 Failure of Compromise

The 1850s revealed that the system of political compromise that had long held the nation together was collapsing. The immediate cause was the Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854). The act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise line, opening new western lands to the possibility of slavery. When settlers with opposing beliefs rushed into Kansas to influence the vote, violence erupted in a period known as Bleeding Kansas. These events shocked the nation and proved that moral differences could no longer be contained by political means. The act also destroyed the Whig Party and led to the rise of the Republican Party.