geeky
It seemed that a majority of Kansans did not wish for slavery of their heritage. But outside interference from adjacent states such as Missouri made this a very contentious issue, with violent consequences. Kansas was blessed with tens of millions of acres of excellent farmland that was attractive to new settlers. This created a path to statehood which create a need for a territorial infrastructure to support that settlement. Railroad interests were especially eager to see Kansas become a vibrant and active region.
In January of 1854, Senator Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the Democratic party leader in the United States Senate and also the chairman of the Committee on Territories, wanted to push for statehood for Kansas. He was an avid promoter of railroads, and had presidential aspirations. He believed in popular sovereignty: the policy of letting the voting residents of a territory (mostly white males in those days) decide whether or not they would permit slavery to exist. Since early in the 1840s the possibility of a transcontinental railroad had been discussed. The specifics had not been worked out, but there was a consensus that such a railroad should be built by private interests financed by public land grants. In 1845, Douglas, serving in his first term in the United States House of Representatives, had submitted an unsuccessful plan to formally organize the Nebraska Territory as the first step in building a railroad with its eastern terminus in Chicago. Railroad proposals were debated in all subsequent sessions of Congress with cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Quincy, Memphis and New Orleans competing to be the starting point for the construction.
A number of proposals for a Kansas statehood bill failed in late 1852 and early 1853 because of disputes over whether the railroad would follow a northern or a southern route. In early 1853 the House of Representatives passed a bill by a 107-to-49 vote that organized the Nebraska Territory in land west of Iowa and Missouri. In March the bill moved to the Senate Committee on Territories, which was then headed by Sen. Douglas. Missouri Senator David Atchison announced that he would only support the Nebraska proposal if slaveholders were not banned from the new territory. Unless the bill specified otherwise, slavery would have been prohibited under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. By a vote of 23 to 17, the Senate voted to table the bill, with every senator from the states south of Missouri voting to table it.
When Congress reconvened on December 5, 1853, Atchison had gained support for his position on slaveholding in the new territory. Douglas wanted the House bill passed in order that the railway could be built, but he knew the strength of opposition he faced. When the same legislation that had stalled in the previous session was reintroduced in the new session, it was referred to Douglas's committee on December 14. Douglas, hoping to get the support of the Southerners, announced that he proposed that any decisions on slavery in the new lands were to be made "when admitted as a state or states, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission."
Kentucky Whig Senator Archibald Dixon expressed the view that unless the Missouri Compromise was explicitly repealed, slaveholders would be reluctant to move to the new territory until slavery was actually approved by the settlers. Many of those who had settled in the territory came from free states and were unlikely to agree to this. On January 16 Dixon introduced an amendment that would repeal the section of the Missouri Compromise prohibiting slavery above the 36°30' parallel. A similar amendment was offered in the House by Philip Phillips of Alabama. Douglas met with Phillips and other key southern senators and congressmen to keep the momentum for passing the bill alive. The group arranged to meet with President Franklin Pierce to ensure that the issue would had his support.
On Saturday, January 22, 1854, Pierce met with his cabinet to discuss repeal of the compromise of 1850. Only Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and Secretary of Navy James C. Dobbin supported repeal. Instead the president and cabinet submitted to Douglas an alternative plan that would have sought out a judicial ruling on the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise. Both Pierce and his Attorney General Caleb Cushing believed that the Supreme Court would find it unconstitutional. Douglas was agreeable to the proposal, but the Atchison group was not. Douglas met with President Pierce that Sunday even though Pierce generally refused to conduct any business on a Sunday. Douglas was accompanied at the meeting by Atchison and other southern leaders.
Douglas and Atchison first met alone with Pierce before the whole group convened. Pierce was persuaded to support repeal, and, at Douglas' insistence, Pierce provided a written draft asserting that the Missouri Compromise had been made inoperative by the principles of the Compromise of 1850. Pierce later informed his cabinet and they supported Pierce's change of position.
On January 23 a revised bill was introduced in the Senate that repealed the Missouri Compromise and divided the territory into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. The division was the result of concerns expressed by settlers already in Nebraska as well as the senators from Iowa who were concerned with the location of the territory's seat of government if such a large territory was created.
In Congress, those who opposed the bill were at a distinct disadvantage. The Democrats held large majorities in each House, and Stephen Douglas led a tightly disciplined party. Two Ohio politicians, Rep. Joshua Giddings and Senator Salmon P. Chase, published a document entitled, "Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States." Their appeal was critical of Douglas and the southernors and urged northern Democrats to vote their conscience rather than support their party.
The bitter debate would continue for four months. Many "Anti-Nebraska" political rallies were held across the north. Douglas remained the main advocate for the bill while Chase, William Seward of New York and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts led the opposition. Sam Houston from Texas was one of the few southern opponents of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. The debate in the Senate concluded on March 4, 1854, when Stephen Douglas made a five-and-a-half-hour speech. The final vote in favor of passage was 37 to 14. Free state senators voted 14 to 12 in favor while slave state senators overwhelmingly supported the bill 23 to 2.
On March 21, 1854, the legislation was referred by a vote of 110 to 95 to the Committee of the Whole, where it was the last item on the legislative calendar. President Pierce made it clear to all Democrats that passage of the bill was essential to the party and would dictate how federal patronage would be handled. Jefferson Davis and Attorney General Caleb Cushing from Massachusetts, along with Douglas, worked to get sufficient votes for passage from their fellow Democrats. By the end of April Douglas believed that there were enough votes to pass the bill.
Thomas Hart Benton was among those speaking forcefully against the measure. On April 25 in a long and passionate House speech, Benton attacked the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It was not until May 8 that the debate began in the House. The debate was even more intense than in the Senate. While it seemed to be a foregone conclusion that the bill would pass, the opponents strenuously fought its passage. A filibuster led by Lewis D. Campbell, an Ohio free-soiler, provoked the House into violence. Weapons were brandished on the floor of the House. Henry A. Edmundson, a Virginia Democrat, had to be restrained from assaulting Campbell. After the sergeant at arms arrested him, debate was cut off, and the House adjourned.
The final vote in favor of the bill was 113 to 100. Northern Democrats split in favor of the bill by a narrow 44 to 42 vote, while all 45 northern Whigs opposed it. In the South, Democrats voted in favor by 57 to 2 and Whigs by a closer 12 to 7. President Pierce signed the bill into law on May 30.
Douglas believed that the bill would address the issue of slavery by leaving decisions about it directly in the hands of the people. But many northerners were mobilized into calls for public action against the south.
Pro-slavery settlers came into Kansas mainly from neighboring Missouri, many of whom came solely for the purpose of voting in support of pro-slavery constitutions. They were called "border ruffians", a term coined by newspaper editor Horace Greeley. Abolitionist settlers, known as "Jayhawkers", moved from the East with express purpose of making Kansas a free state. Territorial governors attempted to maintain the peace. The territorial capital of Lecompton soon became overrun with the pro-slavery faction and became such a hostile environment for Free-Staters that they set up their own unofficial legislature at Topeka.
Hostilities between the factions soon turned bloody. John Brown and his sons gained notoriety in the fight against slavery by murdering five pro-slavery farmers in the Pottawatomie massacre. Brown also helped defend a few dozen Free-State supporters from several hundred angry pro-slavery supporters at the town of Osawatomie. The newly-formed Republican Party sought to capitalize on the issue, which they called "Bleeding Kansas". Ballot-rigging and intimidation was practiced by both pro- and anti-slavery settlers, but it failed to deter the immigration of anti-slavery settlers, who were greater in number.
Free-Staters set up a shadow government, and drafted the Topeka Constitution, Pierce called their work an act of rebellion. The president continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature, which was dominated by Democrats. When a Congressional investigative committee found that the election of the Lecompton governmentr was illegitimate, Pierce ignored the findings and supported the pro-slavery faction. He sent federal troops to break up a meeting of the Topeka government.
The midterm congressional elections of 1854 and 1855 were devastating to the Democrats (as well as to the Whig Party, which was on its deathbed). Democrats lost almost every state outside the South. In Pierce's New Hampshire, voters turned their backs on the Democratic Party and elected a candidate from the Know-Nothing Party as governor, as well as all three representatives. Anti-immigrant fervor brought the Know-Nothing Party their highest numbers to that point, and some northerners were elected under the banner of the new Republican Party.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act divided the nation and increased the tensions that would soon lead to civil war. It would not be until many years later,
A new anti-slavery state constitution, known as the Wyandotte Constitution, was eventually drawn up and passed in October of 1859. On January 29, 1861, five weeks before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state. On March 1, 1867, Nebraska was admitted to the Union.