A brief history of the Civil War (Or: How the midwest could've been a liberal bastion)

[crimsonblue]

In the summer of 1856, Lawrence Kansas was sacked by pro-slavery southerners. Then, on August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led a raid on Lawrence. Together, the raidings killed more than 200 Kansans, and burnt down nearly half of the entire city. Prior to these events, Lawrence was a leading abolitionist town in the entirety of the midwest. Denver, Colorado, was founded by Lawrencians with the intent of spreading abolitionist ideas. The ransacking of the town had dramatic consequences: prior to its burning, Lawrence was a large, influential town in the midwest and was considered the likely place for the State Capitol. After the town was burnt to the ground, abolitionists scattered across the midwest, and the concentration and influence of abolition in the midwest was diminished.

I posit that had Lawrence not burnt to the ground, it would have become a thriving cultural and manufacturing hub in the Midwest. The Sante Fe, California, and Oregon trails originate in nearby Jackson county, Mo, and I envision that the KC-Lawrence metro area would have grown to be as large, if not larger, than Detroit in its prime. Kansas was a perfect location for the manufacture and distribution of goods because of its central geographical orientation in the country, and because of the convergence of many different rail lines and trails.

This is all speculative, but I think Kansas would be a vastly different state had Lawrence survived the Civil War unscathed. Kansas was an experiment by the rest of the country (with regards to popular sovereignty), and Kansas remained a very progressive state up until the 1930s (it was the first state to institute a Security and Exchange Commission, environmentalism was very popular early on). Had Lawrence remained intact. I like to think of politics as a diffusion of ideas from a central hub, and having a large, liberal town would have served to infuse progressive ideals with much more of the midwest.

Those bastard Missourians. They had to go and ruin everything.

[CanonRay]

1. Religion is ruining the state

That's what is really the matter with Kansas...too many religious nut cases.

[villager]

2. Limbaugh, of course, is from Missouri...

just sayin'...

[Raskolnik]

5. As was Mark Twain...

just sayin'...

[villager]

8. Well, hell, so was my late grandma!

Not saying all Missourians are detrimental to America's history... !

But we certainly could've done without Quantrill...

[NoPasaran]

9. Don't beat yourself up too bad

Quantrill was from Ohio.

[villager]

10. well, I feel better, but the OP referred to Missouri...

...and I guess that serves me right for not doublechecking!

[lapfog_1]

3. Do you know why Lawrence is the home of the Univ of Kansas?

It "lost" the competition for a federal penitentiary... Leavenworth "won". The University was the consolation prize.

Also, look up the original name for the town, it wasn't Lawrence but Wakarusa (named for a small tributary river nearby).

That is, until the town founders discovered what "Wakarusa" was in the native language (literally "ass deep"). They then
changed the name to one of the people who financed the building of the town (for purely political reasons, as an abolitionist
town). One Amos Lawrence financed the expedition to build the new town overlooking the Kaw river, he never visited the
town named after him.

[Raskolnik]

4. Lawrence is by no means unique in being partially destroyed, and 200 people is not that many, really

I know Lawrence likes to consider itself the Paris of the lower plains (and it really is a lovely city), but there are plenty of other reasons it didn't become a major city besides suffering some damage during the civil war

[Terran]

6. As a Missourian I gotta disagree with your basic premise...

Well, it's my adopted state...and I apologize to Kansans for my state forebearers being such assholes, although we did kick the Confederate-sympathizing Governor out of Jeff City. Anyway, I just don't think that big liberal cities have all that much effect on small rural towns. That's the Big Picture in Missouri anyway. We have St. Louis and Kansas City and Columbia, but the rest of the state is mostly conservative because the rest of the state (except Joplin and Springfield) is rural. Rural people are just conservative by nature, for the most part. They lead quiet lives and they perceive a need to keep the 'new' out, in order to keep their lives quiet.

Both Kansas and Missouri used to be more inclined to vote for Democrats, but that doesn't mean either of them were ever liberal states. Like other states, they got swept along when post-Civil Rights Act conservative Democrats started switching parties.

But MO is weird, too. We keep electing liberal Democrats to statewide office while keeping a repub majority Legislature.

[crimsonblue]

7. We get that too..

In Kansas, the consensus seems to be that the GOP is too inept to run the governorship, but letting them run the legislature is peachy kean!

[Thothmes]

11. This happened because of the Dred Scott decision

by the Supreme Court. As part of the Scott ruling, the court declared the Missouri compromise unconstutional. this resulted in "Bleeding Kansas" as free soilers and pro-slavery advocates fought to determine if Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a free or slave state. Had the court not wiped out the Missouri Compormise, Kansas would have automatically be admitted to the Union as a free state.

[NoPasaran]

12. Dred Scott was handed down in 1857, after the Sack of Lawrence

The Missouri Compromise Line itself had been abandoned as part of the Compromise of 1850. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which provided for "popular sovereignty" decide the slave/free state question, opened the door for Bleeding Congress.