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Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: The Birth of Bleeding Kansas

Learn about the Kansas-Nebraska Act's impact on the tense divide over slavery, leading to the violent clashes of "Bleeding Kansas" and the struggle for control in new territories.

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Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: The Birth of Bleeding Kansas

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  1. Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854

  2. Setting the Stage • After the admission of California, the United States wanted to build a transcontinental railroad linking the west with the east. • It, therefore, became necessary to organize previously unorganized territory west of Missouri and Iowa.

  3. United States prior to 1854

  4. Both northern and southern interests competed to secure the location in their sections • The powerful Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, Chairman of the Committee on Territories, sought federal approval of Chicago (or some other northwestern city) as the eastern terminus • Douglas reasoned that the settlement of the Nebraska region would stimulate population growth, thus, justifying a northern route across the Great Plains

  5. Stephen Arnold Douglas

  6. Little Giant

  7. ISSUES • North would favor a northern transcontinental route, but would be concerned about how the western territory would be organized • South would require a greater reason to warrant forgoing power of the transcontinental railroad, other than for population growth

  8. The Douglas Solution:Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 • Declared the Missouri Compromise null and void • Created two territories 1. Kansas 2. Nebraska • Slavery in new territories would be decided by popular sovereignty

  9. Lewis CassMichigan SenatorFather of Popular Sovereignty Asserted that slavery in the territories was not a matter for Federal Congress to resolve. Rather, he argued, the people in each territory, like the people in each American state, were the sovereigns, and thus they should determine the status of slavery for themselves.

  10. 1854 Map

  11. Result: Bleeding Kansas • Immediately, proslavery and antislavery forces recruited and even armed settlers and less permanent representatives in an effort to gain control of the Kansas territory The vote for a legislature took place in 1855 • Over 6000 votes were cast (no more than 1500 were actually eligible)

  12. “Pro-slavery forces are determined to repel this Northern invasion, and make Kansas a Slave State; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of our victims, and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we will not be deterred from our purpose.” Border Ruffian Benjamin Stringfellow • Missouri sent over proslavery “Border Ruffians” to vote illegally • As a result, the proslavery group was able to elect a majority of the territorial legislature and establish a government based on the legalization of slavery

  13. The Day of Our Enslavement!! — To-day, September 15, 1855, is the day on which the iniquitous enactment of the illegitimate, illegal and fraudulent Legislature has declared commences the prostration of the right of speech and the curtailment of the liberty of the press. To-day commences an era in Kansas which, unless the sturdy voice of the people, backed, if necessary, by 'strong arms and the sure eye,' shall teach the tyrants…the lesson which our fathers taught the kingly tyrants of old…and make us the slave of an oligarchy worse than the…despotism on earth. …And this is the first time in the history of America that a body claiming legislative powers has dared to attempt to wrest them from the people… Will any citizen — any free American — brook the insult of…the work of a legislature enacted by bullying ruffians who invaded Kansas with arms, and whose…insults to our peaceable, unoffending and comparatively unarmed citizens were a disgrace to manhood, and…popular Republican government? If they do, they are slaves already, and with them freedom is but a mockery.

  14. “There is more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas are concerned, than in a hundred Bibles.” • In response, free-soil advocates held a convention and framed a constitution barring slavery • Although President Pierce supported the elected proslavery group, the situation led to the establishment of two governments within Kansas and a civil war within that territory

  15. "Constitution with Slavery" v. "Constitution with no Slavery" Lecompton Constitution Topeka Constitution

  16. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune first mentioned "bleeding Kansas" in a poem by Charles S. Weyman, published on September 13, 1856: Far in the West rolls the thunder—The tumult of battle is ragingWhere bleeding Kansas is wagingWar against Slavery!

  17. Proslavery attack on Lawrence Preston Brooks canes Charles Sumner Pottawatomie Massacre

  18. Ruins of Free State Hotel after Sacking of Lawrence

  19. Charles Sumner Preston Brooks Andrew Butler

  20. The cane used to attack Charles Sumner on exhibit at the Old State House in Boston

  21. 1856 illustration by Winslow Homer“Arguments of the Chivalry”

  22. Political cartoon of Preston Brooks caning Charles Sumnerby John Magee

  23. John Brown in a daguerreotype by Augustus Washington

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