Bleeding Kansas
On this day, May 30, in 1854 some 156 years ago, the Kansas-Nebraska Act came into force. It was intended to head off the Civil War, but like many unintended consequences that flow from political decisions, that didn't happen. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed settlers in those territories to determine if they would allow slavery within their boundaries. The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who ran as the Democratic nominee for the Presidency in 1860, losing to Abraham Lincoln.
The act established that settlers could vote to decide whether to allow slavery, in the name of popular sovereignty or rule of the people. Douglas hoped that would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. Instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the slave power of the South. The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the North.
Franklin Pierce was President at the time. Pierce was a northerner (from New Hampshire) with southern sympathies. Pierce had barely mentioned Nebraska in his State of the Union message the previous month. On Saturday, January 22, Pierce and his full cabinet met and decided to ask Douglas to come up with a plan that would get around the Missouri Compromise (a law passed in 1820 that decreed that states north of parallel 36-30 would be free states and those south would be slave states except for Missouri). Pierce wanted a judicial ruling on the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and he believed that the Supreme Court would find it unconstitutional.
Douglas was not able to sell the idea to his committee and he later asked Pierce to support the repeal of the Compromise, even though most of his cabinet didn't support this.Pierce later informed his cabinet, which concurred in the change of direction.
The new law didn't work so well and only resulted in massive violence. Pro-slavery settlers came to Kansas to influence in territorial elections. Some neighbouring Missourians who crossed into Kansas solely for the purpose of voting in such ballots. They formed groups like the Blue Lodges and were dubbed border ruffians, a term coined by opponent and abolitionist Horace Greeley. Abolitionist settlers, known as "Jayhawkers" moved from the East with express purpose of making Kansas a free state. A clash between the opposing sides was inevitable.
Successive territorial governors, usually sympathetic to slavery, attempted unsuccessfully to maintain the peace. The territorial capital of Lecompton, Kansas, the target of much agitation, became such a hostile environment for Free-Staters that they set up their own unofficial legislature at Topeka.
John Brown and his sons gained notoriety in the fight against slavery by brutally murdering five pro-slavery farmers in the Pottawatomie Massacre with a broadsword. Brown also helped defend a few dozen Free-State supporters from several hundred angry pro-slavery supporters at the town of Osawatomie.
Hostilities between the factions reached a state of low-intensity civil war, which was damaging to Pierce. The nascent Republican Party sought to capitalize on the scandal of "Bleeding Kansas". Routine ballot-rigging and intimidation practiced by both pro- and anti-slavery settlers failed to deter the immigration of anti-slavery settlers, who won a demographic victory in the race to populate the state.
Eventually, a new anti-slavery state constitution was drawn up. On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state. Nebraska was not admitted to the Union as a [free] state until after the Civil War in 1867. Today if you visit the Kansas State Legislature in Topeka (and I have), you'll see a big mural of a maniacal looking John Brown. This historical event also gave the University of Kansas in Lawrence a name for all of its sports teams: the Jayhawks.
The act established that settlers could vote to decide whether to allow slavery, in the name of popular sovereignty or rule of the people. Douglas hoped that would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. Instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the slave power of the South. The new Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the act, aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged as the dominant force throughout the North.
Franklin Pierce was President at the time. Pierce was a northerner (from New Hampshire) with southern sympathies. Pierce had barely mentioned Nebraska in his State of the Union message the previous month. On Saturday, January 22, Pierce and his full cabinet met and decided to ask Douglas to come up with a plan that would get around the Missouri Compromise (a law passed in 1820 that decreed that states north of parallel 36-30 would be free states and those south would be slave states except for Missouri). Pierce wanted a judicial ruling on the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and he believed that the Supreme Court would find it unconstitutional.
Douglas was not able to sell the idea to his committee and he later asked Pierce to support the repeal of the Compromise, even though most of his cabinet didn't support this.Pierce later informed his cabinet, which concurred in the change of direction.
The new law didn't work so well and only resulted in massive violence. Pro-slavery settlers came to Kansas to influence in territorial elections. Some neighbouring Missourians who crossed into Kansas solely for the purpose of voting in such ballots. They formed groups like the Blue Lodges and were dubbed border ruffians, a term coined by opponent and abolitionist Horace Greeley. Abolitionist settlers, known as "Jayhawkers" moved from the East with express purpose of making Kansas a free state. A clash between the opposing sides was inevitable.
Successive territorial governors, usually sympathetic to slavery, attempted unsuccessfully to maintain the peace. The territorial capital of Lecompton, Kansas, the target of much agitation, became such a hostile environment for Free-Staters that they set up their own unofficial legislature at Topeka.
John Brown and his sons gained notoriety in the fight against slavery by brutally murdering five pro-slavery farmers in the Pottawatomie Massacre with a broadsword. Brown also helped defend a few dozen Free-State supporters from several hundred angry pro-slavery supporters at the town of Osawatomie.
Hostilities between the factions reached a state of low-intensity civil war, which was damaging to Pierce. The nascent Republican Party sought to capitalize on the scandal of "Bleeding Kansas". Routine ballot-rigging and intimidation practiced by both pro- and anti-slavery settlers failed to deter the immigration of anti-slavery settlers, who won a demographic victory in the race to populate the state.
Eventually, a new anti-slavery state constitution was drawn up. On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state. Nebraska was not admitted to the Union as a [free] state until after the Civil War in 1867. Today if you visit the Kansas State Legislature in Topeka (and I have), you'll see a big mural of a maniacal looking John Brown. This historical event also gave the University of Kansas in Lawrence a name for all of its sports teams: the Jayhawks.