Having grown up in Kansas it's amusing to see opinions expressed that the land is suitable for a slave economy. None of the principle plantation crops that were grown in Missouri have been produced in Kansas in any quantity. Forest cover was only native to uplands in far Eastern Kansas. Maybe those Missourians were smoking their own hemp.
I find it disquieting to see the cause of slavery championed in terms of freedom and liberty.
I’ve been studying the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1851 as part of the observance of Indiana’s Bicentennial next year. One provision that was included in the 1851 Constitution was Article 13, which read:
Section 1. No negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.
Section 2. All contracts made with any Negro or Mulatto coming into the State, contrary to the provisions of the foregoing section, shall be void; and any person who shall employ such Negro or Mulatto, or otherwise encourage him to remain in the State, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.
Section 3. All fines which may be collected for a violation of the provisions of this article, or of any law which ay hereafter be passed for the purpose of carrying the same into execution, shall be set apart and appropriated for the colonization of such Negroes and Mulattoes, and their descendants, as may be in the State at the adoption of this Constitution, and may be willing to emigrate.
Section 4. The General Assembly shall pass laws to carry out the provisions of this article.
This was how Indiana chose to deal with the issue of slavery, even though we were a free state. At the time, it was estimated that about 1% of the population was free blacks. The proposed Constitution was put to a popular vote as an up and down measure on the ballot, with the exception of Article 13. It was the only article that received it’s own independent referendum. Article 13 passed by a greater margin than the rest of the Constitution. Some of the counties on the Ohio River bordering Kentucky, a slave state, passed Article 13 unanimously.
"Copperhead" was a Civil War term for Northerners who supported the Confederacy.
"Dough-faced" was a pre-Civil War term for Northerners who supported the Southern slave power.
In 1836, Pierce "was attacked by the New Hampshire anti-slavery Herald of Freedom as a 'doughface', which had the dual meaning of 'craven-spirited man' and 'northerner with southern sympathies' "
During the Civil War, Democrat Pierce was highly critical of Republican President Lincoln, and was (mostly) spuriously attacked as a "copperhead".
Whether Pierce was an actual "copperhead" during the war is, seems to me, a matter of debate.
Bottom line: Northern Democrat Dough-faced President Pierce believed then, like all Democrats, that slavery was a pre-condition for Union, and without it, there could be no United States.
He opposed Lincoln's plans to reunite the nation by force.