[henkster]

How to escalate a local dispute into a Constitutional crisis.

Despite my criticism of Gov. Shannon, I will also offer an apologia. Sheriff Jones represented the lawful authority in his county, and was being openly defied by a large and growing number of armed men. Sounds like an insurrection to me, and it was the governor’s duty to suppress same. The toxic mixture of slave and free-state politics was hijacking a local problem, and was merely an example of the toxic mix that was consuming the country at large.

I’m not sure under the circumstances what Gov. Shannon was supposed to do differently. To ignore the Sheriff’s plea was to permit an insurrection against lawful authority and would have been a dereliction of his duty as Territorial Governor.

I have come to the conclusion from studying the flawed compromises that put our original Constitution together that once Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and gave new life to the institution of slavery, the Civil War was inevitable. I throw up my hands like Hillary Clinton and ask “What difference does it make?”

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I have come to the conclusion from studying the flawed compromises that put our original Constitution together that once Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and gave new life to the institution of slavery, the Civil War was inevitable.

Based on my meager studies I agree and would add that allowing establishment of the peculiar institution in the new nation based on the precepts outlined in the Declaration of Independence was a basic factor in the ensuing trouble. The hopes of Lincoln and other supporters of the rule of law who hoped to see slavery die out on its own were defeated by Whitney's invention. I have come to understand that the battle between pro- and anti-slavery parties for control of the destiny of Kansas was fought so desperately because that is where the question would be answered. It would either be the beginning of the end of slavery or slavery would become ineradicable.

[BroJoeK]

henkster: "Sheriff Jones represented the lawful authority in his county, and was being openly defied by a large and growing number of armed men.
Sounds like an insurrection to me, and it was the governor’s duty to suppress same.
The toxic mixture of slave and free-state politics was hijacking a local problem, and was merely an example of the toxic mix that was consuming the country at large."

Local Kansas politics reflected the national Big Picture in 1855.
The Big Picture: In 1855 slavery in the Deep South was growing and prospering like never before, thanks to the insatiable world-wide demand for the King of Crops: cotton.
Slave prices were doubling and slave numbers were growing at least as fast as the overall population.
The biggest problem was: there weren't enough slaves, and importing slaves from Africa was outlawed.
So huge numbers of slaves were being "exported" from Southern Border states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri) where, absent cotton, slavery was weaker, even dying out.

So, ironically, the very prosperity which made slavery so strong in the Deep South, made it weaker and unattractive in Southern Border States.

At the same time, floods of anti-slavery European immigrants were landing in Northern states and spreading across the country, including those Southern Border states, where slavery was already weakening.
So anti-slavery Northerners were a growing majority in officially slave Missouri, and would eventually prevent Missouri from joining the Confederacy.

These are the men who are flooding across the border into the Kansas territory, and disrupting politics there.

Nationally, in 1855, the Southern Slave-Power (which is to say, the Democrat Party) had dominated all of Washington from it's beginning, with no serious interruptions, and was nearing the election of another Dough-Faced Northern Democrat President, James Buchanan, in 1856.
Opposition to Democrats then (as, sadly, now) was weak and ineffective.
John Adams' old Federalists had evaporated in a scandal over threats of secession during the War of 1812, and even Adams' own son, John Quincy, had joined Jefferson's party.
The new Whigs did manage to elect two presidents (Harrison & Taylor), but they were both slave-holders, and soon died in office.
So, in 1855, there had never been an anti-slavery political party, or an anti-slavery government in Washington.

Many people today say, "slavery was America's original sin", but no, that misunderstands the basic situation.
From the US beginnings, slavery was a precondition for Union -- without slavery there would be, could be no union.
And the constitutionally protected Slave-Power dominated Washington politics.

So Kansas in 1855 was a northern territory, ruled over by Slave-Power appointees, but being flooded by anti-slavery northerners.

That's the Big Picture, playing out in Homer's news articles of the day.