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Party and Section: The Senate and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill Gerald W. Wolff The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was one of the most important bills ever passed by an American Congress. The legislative struggle surrounding it and succeeding events profoundly affected, not only the American party system, but also ultimately the very structure of the nation itself. The Whig Party was destroyed, the Democracy was seriously weakened, and intense animosities were created between northerners and southerners as a result of this piece of legislation. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was not only controversial and far reaching , but was also confusing and enigmatic. Roll-call material as it bears upon this legislative proposal in the Senate helps to unravel some of that mystery. By applying to these roll-calls a variation of a technique developed by sociologist Louis Guttman, it is possible to derive what amounts to rather sophisticated attitude patterns. These patterns, in turn, can be compared quite precisely with certain other factors, in this case, their relationship to party and sectional affiliation.1 Put in another way, this paper will be mainly concerned with discovering the attitudes of Senators toward the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the role played by party and sectional affiliation in shaping those attitudes. The voting pattern or scalogram used in this analysis was derived by a method of trial and error. We first began with the final vote taken on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and then attempted to scale with it every roll-call whose contents were directly related to the Nebraska struggle. This involved those votes concerned with parliamentary procedure, as well as the various attempts to amend the measure. In the end, the scale consisted of ten roll-calls and provided seven clear-cut scale types or attitudes on this issue. To facilitate discussion and comparison, however , the seven types were collapsed into three main attitude blocs in a way that would not distort the findings. These blocs could have been assigned several different labels, but it was decided that the following would be most useful: anti-Kansas-Nebraska Bill, moderates, and proKansas -Nebraska Bill. The "moderate" category was the most useful and important of the three, and its meaning must be defined precisely. The term "moderate," as used here, has meaning and relevance only 1 Of the many important works dealing with roll-call analysis, perhaps the best starting place for those interested in the subject is Lee F. Anderson, et. al. Legislative Roll-Call Analysis (Evanston, 1966). 293 294civil war history within the context and perimeters of this particular scale, and is relative to the two more extreme classifications. For example, besides those who were very much for or very much against almost every aspect of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the scalogram indicates those who were less polarized in their attitudes toward it. These men were not extremists on the Kansas-Nebraska issue as defined by this scale, and hence can be labeled moderates or non-extremists on that issue. The types of moderate vary from scale to scale and within the scales and must be analyzed. From the standpoint of attitudinal analysis of rollcall material, however, the moderate classification provides a more meaningful and sophisticated approach than the dichotomous breakdown provided by roll-calls taken individually. In fact, it would seem that the major utility of the scalogram over individual roll-calls is that by using scales it is possible to obtain more than a simple yea-nay opinion from Congressmen on a given issue by using roll-call material. Sectionalism was the first variable tested against these attitude blocs. All historians dealing with the Kansas-Nebraska question have recognized that it involved, to some degree, North-South sectionalism because of the slavery issue it enveloped. However, in interpreting that sectionalism, most scholars have concentrated largely upon the words and actions of the Senate leaders. The scale data, on the other hand, provide one type of opportunity to gauge systematically the magnitude and intensity of sectionalism, as it involved a large portion of the Senators . The voting patterns clearly revealed a North-South split, but the division was milder than was anticipated. While nearly 60 per cent of the southerners...

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