We Must Settle This Question

This chapter discusses the continued political consequences of the Kansas-Nebraska Act as the disintegration of the F Street Mess becomes a metaphor for the disintegration of the country. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president and the Democrats lose control of the senate, the last bastion of the slave power. Secession quickly follows and on July 7, 1861 Hunter and Mason, the two remaining members of the F Street Mess, are expelled from the senate for conspiracy against the Union.

Senatorial Junta

This chapter examines the institutional power of the F Street Mess during the 33rd Congress including their influence over President Franklin Pierce and Stephen Douglas, the author of the proposed Kansas-Nebraska bill. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the F Street Mess forced a rewrite of the bill’s language which repealed the original 1820 restriction against slavery above the 36 30 and replaced it with the principle of congressional non-intervention, better known as popular sovereignty.

Heirs of Calhoun

This chapter begins with biographical sketches of David Rice Atchison of Missouri and Andrew Pickens Butler of South Carolina. The chapter also discusses the elections of Atchison, Butler, Hunter and Mason to the United States Senate, their political allegiance to Calhoun and advocacy of slavery’s expansion westward. It concludes with Calhoun’s opposition to the Compromise package of 1850 and his death one month before its passage.

Rivalries and Alliances

This chapter discusses the ideological evolution and political ascendancy of John C Calhoun as the author of nullification and leader of southern sectionalism in the United States Congress between 1821 and 1844. It also discusses Calhoun’s influence on the early Congressional careers of Robert M.T. Hunter and James Murray Mason of Virginia.

Epilogue

The epilogue looks are the roles played by Atchison, Hunter, and Mason during the Civil War and their post war lives. Only Hunter endeavoured to return to public life after the war but was unsuccessful.

Kansas

This chapter discusses the internecine warfare that erupts in Kansas after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act known as Bleeding Kansas. It focuses David Rice Atchison’s leadership of proslavery forces on the ground in Kansas while the remaining members of the Mess lead the senate fight for passage of Kansas’ proslavery constitution. The chapter concludes with the caning of Charles Sumner and the northern democracy’s devastating loses in the 1856 elections.

The Power to Repeal

This chapter examines how the F Street Mess managed the floor debate and passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in the United States Senate. The chapter pays particular attention to Douglas and the Mess’ institutional control and procedural knowledge versus the opposition’s lack thereof.

Nebraska

This chapter discusses the discovery of the South Pass through the Rocky Mountains and its impact on western expansion. It also looks at the growing sectional divisions over slavery’s expansion, the congressional debate over the route for the first transcontinental railroad, and Stephen Douglas’ efforts to organize the Nebraska territory. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the political feud between Missouri’s two senators, David Rice Atchison and Thomas Hart Benton, and its impact on the future organization of Nebraska.

Conspiracy

The chapter begins with a discussion of the arrest of Robert M.T. Hunter and other key members of the Confederacy in conjunction with the investigation into Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The chapter also discusses Lincoln and the Republican Party’s rhetorical use of the slave power conspiracy thesis. It concludes with a historiographical overview of the thesis and the role played by the F Street Mess in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.