1854 жылғы «Тәуелсіз Демократтардың үндеуі» және Небраска заң жобасына қарсылық

The Appeal of the Independent Democrats (the full title was "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States") was a manifesto issued in January 1854, in response to the introduction into the United States Senate of the Kansas–Nebraska Bill. The Appeal was signed by then prominent American politicians Salmon Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua Giddings, Edward Wade, Gerrit Smith and Alexander De Witt. Chase and Giddings were concerned that the bill repealed the Missouri Compromise, opening the proposed new territories of Kansas and Nebraska to slavery. The Appeal stated:

Chase reviewed the history of the Missouri Compromise and argued that it had been accepted by the North only with the expectation that most of the remaining territory from the Louisiana Purchase would remain as free territory. Realizing that the Missouri Compromise was "canonized in the hearts of the American people", he called for both religious and political action in order to defeat the bill. The Appeal was originally published in the Cincinnati Gazette and widely reprinted by other newspapers throughout the country. Historian Eric Foner wrote, "Historians have tended to agree that the 'Appeal' was one of the most effective pieces of political propaganda in our history." Chase's description of an aggressive Slave Power came to be accepted in much of the North. By portraying the bill as pro slavery aggression by Southerners against the North, it preempted Senator Stephen Douglas's planned justification of the measure as an embodiment of popular sovereignty and forced most Southern Whigs in Congress to support the measure. The Appeal launched the "anti Nebraska" movement, later organized into the Republican Party.

The "Appeal of the Independent Democrats" was written on January 19, 1854. The entire document was written by: S. P. Chase, Charles Sumner, J. R. Giddings, Edward Wade, Gerritt Smith, and Alexander De Witt. The document was a response to the passing of a bill that wanted to organize the Territory of Nebraska. The men all banded together to write it, because they were strong believers that this bill should not have been passed. They provided what they thought were sufficient reasons as to why history showed that slavery was awful, and how the passing of the bill would only help slavery.