Questions
- In what historical context did the Republican Party emerge?
- Why do you think southern Democrats were threatened by the Republican platform proposing the containment of slavery within existing slave states?
- What did Benjamin Hedrick argue about slavery in the United States? What other opinions existed in the 1850s?
- Why did Hedrick invoke the words of the Founding Fathers to support his position?
- How did North Carolina Democrats silence Hedrick? What message might this have sent to other North Carolinians?