Umaima Nasir

HIST 1301
Carole Lester
This essay will basically discuss all the links I came across for researching about my topic
which is 1850s Kansas and Nebraska Act and the Railroads. The numbers before the paragraph
basically indicates the link discussed in the bibliography and matches up to that.
1. My first choice for finding the best resources was UTD library. I figured I could I go on
the website and search databases about my topic. So I went to the library catalog and searched
Kansas Nebraska Act and specified it to EBSCO Resources. The EBSCO resources helps you
find online articles so that would be incredibly helpful. The very first article that reached out to
me was the Black Abolitionist Response to the Kansas Crisis by Zachary Lechner. I opened up
the link and once I was on the link website I clicked the little tab that said view online. That
basically showed me a mini description of the article but there was no actual link to the website.
After much scrolling, I finally found a little link labeled pdf online. I clicked on it and it took me
to an 18 page article which basically discussed how the Blacks tried I change the policies and
bring about a change. It also discusses in full detail about their plans and how none of them were
successful but they never left determination.
2. I then went back to the list of EBSCO resources and found a link that discusses the
Dred Scott case. I thought it would be extremely relevant to the topic and so I clicked the link.
The topic basically discussed about the Dred Scott Case, and argued before the U.S. Supreme
Court in 185657. It involved the then bitterly contested issue of the status of slavery in the
federal territories. In 1834, Dred Scott, a black slave, personal servant to Dr. John Emerson, a

U.S. army surgeon, was taken by his master from Missouri, a slave state, to Illinois, a free state,
and thence to Fort Snelling (now in Minnesota) in Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was
prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. There he married before returning with Dr. Emerson to
Missouri in 1838. After Emerson's death, Scott sued (1846) Emerson's widow for freedom for
himself and his family (he had two children) on the ground that residence in a free state and then
in a free territory had ended his bondage. He won his suit before a lower court in St. Louis, but
the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the decision (thus reversing its own precedents). Scott's
lawyers then maneuvered the case into the federal courts. The court decided in conference to
avoid completely the question of the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise and to rule
against Scott on the ground that under Missouri law as now interpreted by the supreme court of
that state he remained a slave despite his previous residence in free territory. However, when it
became known that two antislavery justices, John McLean and Benjamin R. Curtis, planned to
write dissenting opinions vigorously upholding the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise
(which had, in fact, been voided by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854), the court's Southern
members, constituting the majority, decided to consider the whole question of federal power over
slavery in the territories. They decided in the case of Scott v. Sandford (the name was misspelled
in the formal reports) that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories, and Chief
Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the court's opinion that the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional. Three of the justices also held that a black whose ancestors were sold as slaves
was not entitled to the rights of a federal citizen and therefore had no standing in court. The
court's verdict further inflamed the sectional controversy between North and South and was
roundly denounced by the growing antislavery group in the North. I figured this information will

definitely come useful because it goes hand in hand with the other topic too because they talk
about the revolutionary changes that too place from the Blacks side.
3. I then came across a link labeled as transcontinental railroad. I knew I had found the best
article yet just because it extensively talk about the Nebraska act and the railroad which is
basically my entire topic. The description stated that it discussed the transcontinental railroad, in
U.S. history, rail connection with the Pacific coast. In 1845, Asa Whitney presented to Congress
a plan for the federal government to subsidize the building of a railroad from the Mississippi
River to the Pacific. The settlement of the Oregon boundary in 1846, the acquisition of western
territories from Mexico in 1848, and the discovery of gold in California (1849) increased support
for the project; in 1853, Congress appropriated funds to survey various proposed routes. Rivalry
over the route was intense, however, and when Senator Stephen Douglas introduced (1854) his
Kansas-Nebraska Act, intended to win approval for a line from Chicago, the ensuing sectional
controversy between North and South forced a delay in the plans. During the Civil War, a
Republican-controlled Congress enacted legislation (July 1, 1862) providing for construction of a
transcontinental line. The law provided that the railroad be built by two companies; each
received federal land grants of 10 alternate sections per mile on both sides of the line (the
amount was doubled in 1864) and a 30-year government loan for each mile of track constructed.
In 1863 the Union Pacific RR began construction from Omaha, Nebr., while the Central Pacific
broke ground at Sacramento, Calif. The two lines met at Promontory Summit, Utah, and on May
10, 1869, a golden spike joined the two railways, thus completing the first transcontinental
railroad. Others followed. Three additional lines were finished in 1883: the Northern Pacific RR
stretched from Lake Superior to Portland, Oregon: the Santa Fe extended from Atchison, Kans.,
to Los Angeles; and the Southern Pacific connected Los Angeles with New Orleans. A fifth line,

the Great Northern, was completed in 1893. Each of those companies received extensive grants
of land, although none obtained government loans. The promise of land often resulted in shoddy
construction that only later was repaired, and scandals were not infrequent. The transcontinental
railroads immeasurably aided the settling of the west and hastened the closing of the frontier.
They also brought rapid economic growth as mining, farming, and cattle-raising developed along
the main lines and their branches. So it does go in depth about the topic and it has an HTML link
which leads you to the actual source. So that is extremely extensive and will help me a lot for my
research.
4. I then went to back to the result page and chose The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854. I
figured the label was quite clear and would be full of information that I definitely need for my
presentation. Turns out it, in the description part it talks about how this article basically reviews
the book "The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854," edited by John R. Wunder and Joann M. Ross,
part of the Law in the American West series. So it wasnt as expanded as the others, so I clicked
the pdf full text. It basically gave me a 3 page document and the first page was the book reviews
and talks about different books and the second was basically a journal of southern history. Not as
much information as I expected but I guess it gets the point across.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Lechner, Zachary. "Black Abolitionist Response to the Kansas Crisis." EBSCOhost.
2008. Accessed November 25, 2015. http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?
sid=e0d5ddef-4704-4750-ba5ec7e2f61840bf@sessionmgr4003&vid=0&hid=4214&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2Z
Q==#AN=31727311&db=a9h.
2. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition. Q2 2015, p1-1. 1p.
3. J. Grodinsky, Transcontinental Railway Strategy, 18691893 (1962); R. W. Howard, The
Great Iron Trail (1962); L. M. Beebe, The Central Pacific and Southern Pacific
Railroads (1963); G. Hogg, Union Pacific: The Building of the First Transcontinental
Railroad (1967, repr. 1970); C. E. Ames, Pioneering the Union Pacific (1969); J. J.
Stewart, The Iron Trail to the Golden Spike (1969); D. H. Bain, Empire Express (1999);
S. E. Ambrose, Nothing zLike It in the World (2000).
4. Forbes, Robert. "The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854." EBSCOhost. August 1, 2010.

Accessed November 23, 2015. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?

sid=7f8d072d-5080-47d0-ae42537f28d25d92@sessionmgr120&vid=0&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ
==#db=a9h&AN=5272164