December 14, 1853 – In Washington D.C., Iowa Senator Augustus C. Dodge, who was sympathetic toward the South’s view on slavery, introduces a bill to organize the new territory of Nebraska, and under the leadership of Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, that bill eventually becomes the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, which both of Iowa’s Senators – Dodge and George W. Jones, as old-school politicians – forcefully supported.
This bill, which was not popular in Free States like Iowa, sparked a thunderous political explosion, with antislavery Whigs and Democrats alike flocking into, what was called, the “Wide Awake” movement – joining with many abolitionists to establish The Free-Soil Party, which by the late 1850’s had evolved into The Republican Party – electing its first presidential candidate – Abraham Lincoln – in 1860.
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