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The "Appeal of the
Independent Democrats" was written on January 19, 1854. The entire document was written by: S. P. Chase, Charles Sumner, J. R. Giddings, Edward Wade, Gerritt Smith, and Alexander De Witt. The document was a response to the passing of a bill that wanted to organize the Territory of
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wrote that Chase's language was often "grossly exaggerated" and used as an example the claim that the bill would "permanently subjugate the whole country to the yoke of a slaveholding despotism." Nevins argued that the Appeal did much to arouse
Southern resentment against the anti-slavery opponents
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We arraign this bill as a gross violation of a sacred pledge; as a criminal betrayal of precious rights; as part and parcel of an atrocious plot to exclude from a vast unoccupied region immigrants from the Old World and free laborers from our own States, and convert it into a dreary region of
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Nebraska. The men all banded together to write it, because they were strong believers that this bill should not have been passed. They provided what they thought were sufficient reasons as to why history showed that slavery was awful, and how the passing of the bill would only help slavery.
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By portraying the bill as pro-slavery aggression by
Southerners against the North, it preempted Senator Stephen Douglas's planned justification of the measure as an embodiment of popular sovereignty and forced most Southern Whigs in Congress to support the measure.
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and widely reprinted by other newspapers throughout the country. Historian Eric Foner wrote, "Historians have tended to agree that the 'Appeal' was one of the most effective pieces of political propaganda in our history." Chase's description of an aggressive
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would remain as free territory. Realizing that the
Missouri Compromise was "canonized in the hearts of the American people", he called for both religious and political action in order to defeat the bill.
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Chase reviewed the history of the
Missouri Compromise and argued that it had been accepted by the North only with the expectation that most of the remaining territory from the
233:"Appeal of the Independent Democrats." Teaching American History, teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/appeal-of-the-independent-democrats/. Accessed 23 May 2017.
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Neely, Jr., Mark E. “The Kansas-Nebraska Act in
American Political Culture: The Road to Bladensburg and the Appeal of the Independent Democrats,” in
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20:(the full title was "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States") was a
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issued in
January 1854, in response to the introduction into the United States Senate of the
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Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The
Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War.
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ed by. John R. Wunder and Joann M. Ross (U of
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The Appeal was originally published in the
Cincinnati
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139:"Appeal of the Independent Democrats"
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245:Appeal of the Independent Democrats
18:Appeal of the Independent Democrats
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265:Republican Party (United States)
214:The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854,
237:Full text of the "Declaration"
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260:Works about American slavery
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270:1854 in the United States
143:Teaching American History
110:"anti-Nebraska" movement
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26:Kansas–Nebraska Bill
164:Nevins pp. 111-112.
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54:Missouri Compromise
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50:Alexander De Witt
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87:Slave Power
42:Edward Wade
254:Categories
193:References
116:Background
92:Historian
239:pp 144–52
66:despotism
22:manifesto
202:(1970)
82:Gazette
223:(1947)
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106:Appeal
125:Notes
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