Disunion Feed

America has argued itself to the edge before. The words come from 1854–1861; the arguments are the ones we are still having.

New-Haven Daily Register @NewHavenRegisterMay 24, 1854 · New Haven, Conn. · original ↗

One hundred guns at sunrise from the Public Square, in honor of the bill's passage. We are not particularly partial to demonstrations of this noisy kind — but after such abuse and calumny, no one can question the propriety of the gladness felt by the friends of the bill.

Next post: Hartford Daily Courant, May 27, 1854 →

The post above is condensed. From the original, word for word
"At sunrise this morning, one hundred guns were fired from the Public Square, by order of the Democratic Town Committee, in honor of the passage of the bill giving Territorial Governments to the people of Nebraska and Kansas, and the triumph of the principle of Constitutional freedom involved therein. [...] We are not particularly partial to demonstrations of this noisy kind, on party triumphs -- but there has been such an amount of misrepresentation, both of the bill and its friends -- such a bold-faced system of abuse, and calumny, from the press, pulpit, and stump -- that no one can question the propriety of the manifestation of gladness which is felt by the friends of the bill, on its final passage."

Between the posts · the narrator, not the paper

March 4, the Senate passes the bill 37 to 14. The House takes ten more weeks and passes it 113 to 100 on May 22. Pierce signs it on May 30.

The same paper that welcomed Douglas's report in January is here celebrating the bill's passage with artillery — and adding, in the next breath, that it is not partial to this sort of thing, before arguing that after so much abuse of the bill no one can question the gladness. The gun count is itemized in the original: thirty-one for the States, one each for Kansas and Nebraska, thirteen for the original States.

Next post: Hartford Daily Courant, May 27, 1854 →

Next in order

Hartford Daily Courant @HartfordCourant · Hartford, Conn.

There is but one subject that should now engage Northern freemen — all other political objects are trivial beside it — and that is the strides of the slave power toward supremacy. To oppose the extension of slavery is a principle that ought to bind free men into one great party.

Original passage & context
"There is but one subject that should now engage the attention of Northern freemen, -- all other issues and political objects are trivial in comparison to its importance -- and that is, the strides of the slave power towards supremacy. [...] To oppose the extent of the area of slavery is a principle that can bind and ought to bind American freemen together in one great party."

Five days after the House passed the bill, a Whig paper calls for a single Northern party organized on one question. This is the argument that produced the Republican party within the year, and it is the reason the 1854 event sits first in this feed: the coalition that fights every later crisis here is being proposed on this page.

Where this sits

Post 9 of 11 from the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Jan 6, 1854 – May 29, 1854 — each post linked to its primary source.

Part of 134 verified passages across 5 flashpoints, Jan 6, 1854 – Apr 13, 1861 — read the feed from the start.

How this was made