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Bloodshed in Kansas. Chapter 15, Section 3. Kansas-Nebraska Act. 1854 Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill to set up a government for the Nebraska Territory Stretched from Texas, north to Canada and Missouri west to the Rocky Mountains. Kansas-Nebraska Act. Kansas Nebraska Act
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Bloodshed in Kansas Chapter 15, Section 3
Kansas-Nebraska Act • 1854 Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill to set up a government for the Nebraska Territory • Stretched from Texas, north to Canada and Missouri west to the Rocky Mountains.
Kansas-Nebraska Act • Kansas Nebraska Act • Proposed by Stephen Douglas • He proposed dividing the Nebraska territory into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska • Popular sovereignty would decided the issue of slavery
Undoing the Missouri Compromise • Kansas-Nebraska Act would undo the Missouri Compromise • Missouri Compromise had banned slavery in Kansas in Nebraska
Undoing the Missouri Compromise • Southern leaders supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act • Thought slave owners from Missouri would move into Kansas • So Kansas would become a slave state • With the help of President Franklin Pierce, Stephen Douglas pushed the bill through Congress
Northern Outrage • Northern reaction was angry • Slavery could now spread to areas that had been free for more than 30 years • Northerners protests • Challenged the Fugitive Slave Law
Northern Outrage • Citizens of Boston poured in to the streets to stop a caught fugitive slave from being sent to the South • Showed the antislavery feeling was rising in the North
Kansas Explodes • Proslavery and Antislavery forces sent forces to Kansas to fight for control on election day when popular sovereignty would decide the slave issue
Rushing to Kansas • Most new arrivals were farmers from neighboring states • Moved for cheap land • Few owned slaves • Abolitionist brought in more than 1,000 settlers from New England • Border ruffians: Proslavery settlers rode across the border from Missouri
Divided Kansas • 1855 Kansas held elections to choose lawmakers • Hundred of border Ruffians crossed the border and voted illegally • Helped elect a proslavery legislature
Divided Kansas • New legislation quickly passed laws to protect slavery • People could be put to death for helping slaves • Speaking out against slavery was a crime punishable with two years of hard labor
Divided Kansas • Antislavery settlers refused to accept these laws • Elected their own government
The first shots • 1856 a band of proslavery men raided Lawrence, and smashed the press of a Free Soil newspaper
The first shots • John Brown, an abolitionist, who claimed God sent him t punish supporters of slavery, took his four sons to Pottawatomie Creek • Drug five proslavery settlers from bed and murdered them • These murders sparked more violence • By 1856 more than 200 people had been killed • That territory is known as Bleeding Kansas
Bloodshed in the Senate • Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was a leading abolitionist senator • Denounced the proslavery legislation in Kansas • Attacked southern foes, singling out Andrew Butler senator from South Carolina • Butler was not in the senate on the day of Sumner’s speech
Bloodshed in the Senate • Days later Butler’s nephew Congressman Preston Brook marched into the senate and beat Sumner with a cane • Southern defended brook’s actions • Northerners saw it as evidence that slavery leads to violence
The Dred Scott Decision • Dred Scott was a slave that lived in Missouri for many years • Later he moved with his owner to Illinois and then to Wisconsin territory was slavery was not allowed • They returned to Missouri and Scott’s owner died • Antislavery lawyers filed a lawsuit saying Dred Scott was a free man because he has lived in a free territory
A sweeping decision • The case reached the Supreme Court • Dred Scott Decision • Dred Scott could not file a lawsuit because as a black he was not a citizen • Justices agreed slaves were property
A sweeping decision • Congress did not have the power to outlaw slaver in any territory • the Missouri compromise was unconstitutional • slavery was legal in all territories
The nation reacts • In the North many people held public meetings • Northerners feared that slavery could spread throughout the West