Ethos

There are a lot of documents out there that are written to persuade. And though it might not look like it on the surface, the Kansas-Nebraska Act is one of them.

Think about it: the Kansas-Nebraska Act, though all congressional and official-sounding and stuffy, is really just a piece of paper (okay, several pieces of paper) telling a bunch of people what to do with their land and lives. People that are far, far away from Washington, D.C.

So how does Congress know for sure that anyone is going to do what they say?

Well, for one, the people of Kansas and Nebraska had been trying to formally organize for a long time, and it's probably fair to say they weren't likely to say, "Eh, we changed our minds" once they got their way.

And second, they were going to do it because Congress said so, and Congress is the authority on these types of things.

And that authority is what we call ethos.

The mere fact that this act was written and approved by Congress, and then approved by the President of the United States, gives it all the credibility it needs to be taken seriously by the people of Kansas and Nebraska. This isn't a pathos-filled Senate speech or a logos-loving persuasive essay; the time for those things passed before this act was approved. This is all ethos: we are the United States Government and we say do this.

Now all Nebraska and Kansas had to do was follow Congress' instructions. No problem, right?