The slavery issue had divided the north and south for more than a decade before the Civil War started in 1861. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had established that no state more northern than Missouri would be permitted to have slavery, and although the Union had continued to expand since then, the balance between slave-holding and free states had been preserved. Slaveowning Texas joined in 1845 and free Oregon followed a year later. Following the acquisition of huge parts of Mexico as the spoils of the Mexican-American War (1846-48), California joined as a free state while Utah and New Mexico entered as slave states, in what was called the Compromise of 1850, but all it did was postpone the showdown between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates. Particularly infuriating for abolitionists was a new law that appeared the same year that made it a crime to help fugitive slaves. The fallout was almost immediate. When Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin about the plight of slaves appeared in 1852, it became an immediate bestseller, sparking a war of words between the two sides.

While the number of confrontations between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates continued to rise, filibusters were scheming to annex parts of Mexico and Cuba to both enlarge American territory and increase the number of slave states.

The Kansas-Missouri Troubles began when both Nebraska and Kansas were opened to settlement in 1854. Given the growing struggle between free and slave states, it was feared that the two new territories would tip the balance one way or the other when they became states. Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois wanted to make Nebraska a territory but it was north of Missouri and southern senators had little interest in increasing the number of free states. He only won their support by proposing that both Nebraska and Kansas become territories, and that the residents of each territory would decide whether the state permitted slavery or not. This was viewed as both a victory for local sovereignty and the southerners, but northerners were infuriated that the legislation appeared to end the Missouri Compromise. The Democratic Party split along regional lines and Free-Soil northern Democrats founded the Republican Party in May 1854. As a result, the formerly dominant Democratic Party was routed in the fall 1854 elections, and the newly formed American and Republican parties both picked up sizeable numbers of seats.

Nebraska was clearly defined as a free state because it did not border any slave states, but Kansas bordered Missouri, a slave state, so southerners believed that there was an implicit guarantee that Kansas would become a slave state. However, abolitionists felt that since the compromise had been torn up, they would try to claim both states. The situation made Kansas the rallying point for the most zealous people on either side. In May 1854, there were only 800 white settlers living in Kansas but there would be 8,000 a year later, and roughly half had come from nearby Missouri. Both sides clearly expected a fight since congregations all over America raised funds to equip settlers with bibles and rifles. When Reverend Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, New York, sent a box of Sharps rifles that were labeled “Bibles,” Sharps became known in Kansas as “Beecher’s Bibles.” Despite the widespread support in the south for filling Kansas with pro-slavery settlers, the southern states simply lacked the population to compete with the overcrowded north. Furthermore, there were other existing slave states that were overflowing with empty land and were closer, namely Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas. However, the northern emigrants’ numerical advantage was counterbalanced by the habit of Missouri residents of simply crossing the border to vote in elections, which earned them the name Border Ruffians, and this name was adopted with pride by many Missourians.

When the first elections for the territorial legislature were held in March 1855, Missouri Senator David Atchison led a drunken mob of 800 Missouri men through the pro-free soil election districts where they stuffed ballot boxes and prevented anyone suspected of free-soil sympathies from voting. This situation reflected the different voting habits in the north and the south. The majority of the free soil supporters came from the northern states where voting was conducted in an orderly manner, but most of the pro-slavery voters were accustomed to a more rough and tumble style of voting where importing non-residents to vote was common. There were only 2,905 Kansas residents eligible to vote at the time so the Missouri men were an irresistible force.

Since more than twice as many ballots were counted as there were eligible voters, the free soilers refused to recognize the pro-slavery legislature and formed the Free State party, as well as established their own legislature in opposition to the existing one, in September. They also boycotted the convention in October to select a territorial delegate to Congress and held their own convention but their candidate was not recognized by the government. Despite the increasing number of weapons among the settlers, actual violence was still rare in 1855 because the free soilers did not want to attract too much attention from the federal government given the dubious legality of their convention.

When a pro-slavery settler was accused of killing an abolitionist settler in late November, the threat of violence became real. Doubting that he would receive a fair trial the pro-slavery settler fled to Missouri and his fears were justified when a group of free soilers began intimidating witnesses. When the leader of the group was arrested by pro-slavery Sheriff Samuel Jones, his friends forced the sheriff to release him and then sought refuge in Lawrence, the center of the abolitionist settlers. Free soil companies formed to defend the town and the situation quickly escalated. Aware that the territorial militia was not strong enough to handle the problem, the governor asked for volunteers, but got more than he expected when 1,500 Missouri men besieged Lawrence for a week in early December. Concerned that the situation would degenerate into a bloodbath, he led Atchison to negotiate with free soil leaders Charles Robinson and Jim Lane. Eventually both sides agreed to back down, and Atchison persuaded the huge mob of volunteers to return to Missouri, fearing that a lack of legal justification would cause too much trouble.

The free soilers elected Robinson governor on January 15, 1856 although President Franklin Pierce quickly condemned the opposition government as revolutionary. The pro-slavery settlers feared that the abolitionists would grow in number, so anybody perceived as being pro-abolitionist would be harassed. When Sheriff Jones went to Lawrence on April 19 to arrest a free soiler for his involvement in the rescue the previous November, a mob forced him to leave and again when he returned with a posse. Only when he was accompanied by federal troops was he able to achieve his goal. However, he was wounded during a nighttime attack on his camp. A congressional investigating committee was in Lawrence at the same time, and they concluded that although there had been considerable fraud during the initial election, the opposition government was illegal, therefore the leaders of the opposition government would be arrested. Robinson declined to test his chances in a court of law and fled in mid May but was caught. A few days later, a posse of five to seven hundred men from Missouri arrived under Sheriff Jones but with the law clearly against them, the free soilers decided to submit, so the largest hotel was torched, houses were looted and the printing presses of two newspapers were destroyed. However, the decision to obey the law and the following sack of the town won the free soilers a huge amount of support from the northern states.

Throughout 1856, the pace of emigration to Kansas increased rapidly as zealots on both sides urged their followers to win the race to settle Kansas, which had become the frontline in the war between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates. At the same time, a large number of settlers came from mid-western states, and were attracted by the promise of free land, not a crusading spirit.

However, fanatical abolitionist John Brown did not agree with the policy of non-violence or preparing for self-defence. His son, John, Jr., had led a free-state militia company but Brown Sr. was not impressed by the leadership of the free soilers. Brown was driven to such fury by the sack of Lawrence that he killed five pro-slavery men (from three homes) in Kansas on the night of May 24. Robinson was in jail and other leaders had fled rather than go to jail, so there was no one left to balance people like Jim Lane and Brown, who soon attracted like-minded followers for a guerrilla campaign. Two days earlier, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks had set off national controversy by beating Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in revenge for a speech that described South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, Brooks’ uncle, as a man whose mistress was the harlot, slavery, and attacked South Carolina’s imbecilic love of slavery. Although these two events raised tension all over the United States, the killings in Kansas quickly escalated into a small-scale war where every stranger was a potential enemy, and people on both sides died every week. Theoretically, the free soilers could be arrested for openly forming companies and bearing arms but the federal forces in the territory were too weak to disarm them or protect the innocent settlers on both sides.

When the opposition legislature tried to meet on July 4, a powerful force of federal troops dissolved the legislature. Once again, the free-soilers’ refusal to resist an unpopular governmental order won them sympathy in the north. The military based in Missouri quickly closed off the Missouri border to groups of abolitionist emigrants on the grounds that they were too heavily armed for self-defence, which confirmed northerner suspicions about the lack of impartiality, and drove them to travel through Nebraska instead.

By the time of the October 1857 elections for the territorial legislature, the majority of the free soiler leadership had accepted that their opposition government would never be recognized and that direct confrontation with the federal government would do their cause more harm than good, so they decided to participate in the elections. This proved to be good timing, since members of the federal government were pushing for a forceful suppression of the opposition government. Unlike the previous election, this one was orderly and supervised by the military. Turnout was so large that an additional day of polling was required, and obvious cases of fraud were rejected by the governor. Although the first constitutional convention had been controlled by the pro-slavery faction, when free soilers took over the territorial government, the pro-slavery dominated convention was overwhelmingly rejected by a territorial convened convention on January 4, 1858 with 138 votes for slavery and 10,226 against. President James Buchanan originally recognized the pro-slavery convention but after a series of lengthy and passionate debates, Democrat control of the Senate and Congress enabled the passage of a compromise bill that allowed Kansans to have a new convention where they could enter as a slave state immediately or apply again in 1861. On August 2, Kansans voted 11,300 to 1,788 against entering as a slave state.

Despite the violence on both sides, it had become clear that abolitionists had won the race to settle Kansas so it would enter the Union as a free state, although Jayhawkers (free soil guerrillas) under Brown and James Montgomery still tried to drive more pro-slavery settlers out of the state in the fall of 1858. Montgomery had hundreds of supporters, so the territorial governor was reluctant to force a direct confrontation, even though he had become bold enough to attack and loot pro-slavery towns. However, now that the free-staters controlled the legislature, most of the leadership publicly disowned Montgomery. Seeing his support slipping away and fearing a federal crackdown, Montgomery turned himself in during mid-May. Wanting an end to the violence, the territorial legislature passed an amnesty for all political acts of violence in southern Kansas.

While Montgomery had accepted the new environment and given up violence, if only temporarily, Brown decided to take the war to the slave owners and led a couple of dozen men on a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, even though most abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, felt it was doomed to failure. He had hoped to spark an insurrection but local slaves were all too aware that such a small number of men would be unable to stand up to the powerful forces available to the plantation owners. As a result, he received no recruits and he was captured when federal troops stormed the arsenal on October 18. After being tried and convicted of treason, Brown was hung on December 2, and he became a national martyr for abolitionists, while further feeding the flames of secession in the south.

While the numerical advantage was a key factor in the end of the violence, a severe drought that lasted from 1859 to 1860 meant that people on both sides were more interested in trying to survive than killing each other. In mid 1859, voters chose to enter the Union as a free state by a ratio of two to one and Kansas became a state on January 29, 1861.

Further Reading:

Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era-Nicole Etcheson, Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2004.

It explains the period well, although the political aspect receives more emphasis than the military aspect. Unfortunately, Etcheson is maddeningly vague about dates.

The Shattering of the Union: America in the 1850s-Eric H. Walther, Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Books, 2004.

It is a very well-written and well-researched book that examines the events during the decade 1850-1859 that led to the American Civil War. However, Walther does not limit himself to the debate over slavery but also presents all of the major events during that period, even seemingly unrelated events such as Commodore Perry’s opening of Japan.

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