Identifier: politicalhistory00boyd (find matches)
Title: The political history of the United States : or, popular sovereignty and citizenship; birth and growth of the colonies; march to independence; constitutional government; presidents and administrations; congresses and political measures; party platforms and principles; rise and fall of parties. Questions of the hour-civil service reform, polygamy, prohibition, surplus revenue, tariff and free trade, arguments for and against, review of tariff acts
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Boyd, James Penny, 1836-1910
Subjects:
Publisher: Philadelphia Chicago : P. W. Ziegler & co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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HIRTY-FOURTH CONGRESS—¥\x?>t Session.—Met Dec.3, 1855. In the Senate the Democrats had a majority of nine.In the House the magnificent Democratic majority of the pre-vious Congress had been wiped out and turned into one of anti-Nebraska men, of whom there were 117, as against 79 straightDemocrats and 37 pro-slavery Whigs. Owing to the fact thatmany of the majority were Know-Nothings, a protracted contestarose over the speakership. A choice was not made till Febru-ary, 1856, when a resort was had to the method adopted by theThirty-first Congress, that of a choice by the highest number ofvotes. N. P. Banks, Mass., was then chosen on the 131st bal-lot. He was a pronounced anti-Nebraska man, and therefore themajority were represented in the Speaker. This was the stormybeginning of one of the stormiest sessions ever held. KANSAS TROUBLE.—The Kansas question came up im-mediately and occupied the entire session. As we have seenthe passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), ^^th the
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NATHANIEL P. BANKS. 414 THE UNITED STATES. 415 Squatter Sovereignty Amendment, threw open these Territoriesto competitive settlement by North and South, or by anti-slaveryand pro-slavery men. The South had the advantage of prox-imity—Missouri being next to Kansas. The Missouriansswarmed over the border and elected a congressional delegate,Nov. 29, 1854, who was accepted by the Congress. Theydid the same in 1855, and elected a Legislature, which met atPawnee in July of that year, and enacted a State Constitution,strongly pro-slavery in its terms. The anti-slavery settlers were all this time pouring in throughIowa and Nebraska—they had been prohibited from passingthrough the State of Missouri—against the armed protest of thepro-slavery occupants—Border Ruffians as they were called—and the condition of the Territory was one of war, with but littledoubt as to the result, for the anti-slavery settlers came to makeinvestment and to stay, while the pro-slavery occupants clungless t

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