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Name: Professor: Course: Date: The Political Platforms Of 1856 Addressing the Tensions of the Era The two documents recognized and upheld the development of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that led to the creation of two more states in Kansas and Nebraska. According to wwnorton.com, the Democratic Party approved and recognized the development of the two states together with their organic laws pending the safe resolution of the slave issues within the states through the will of the residents. The Republican Party took the same position through its platform. However, the Republican party through their platform called for the abolishment of the slave, making everybody free, against the wish of the Democratic party platform that called for the extension of the slave ownership and slave expansion further west and north. Both parties through their platforms agreed on the use of popular sovereignty in determining whether the two new states would be free states, discarding the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that used latitude to determine if the state would be free of slaves. According to the Missouri Compromise, all states above latitude 36˚ 30' line would be free states. Both parties aimed to give the residents of the two states the ability to decide if they would accept slaves, thus creating one major point of tension. If a compromise would have been reached at this level, maybe the civil war would have been avoided. Reflections on the Tensions over Slavery The slavery issue remained a major dividing item as outlined in both the party platforms. According to ushistory.org, the Republican Party platforms hinted at the need to abolish slave ownership, against the position
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