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This 1856 map shows slave states (grey), free states (red), and US territories (green) with Kansas in center (white).

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and allowed the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery within those territories. The initial purpose of the Kansas-Nebraska Act was to create opportunities for a Mideastern Transcontinental Railroad. It was not problematic until popular sovereignty was written into the proposal. The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The act established that settlers could decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, in the name of "popular sovereignty" or rule of the people. Douglas hoped it would ease relations in both North and South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in their states. He was wrong. 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.

Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler
An 1854 cartoon depicts a giant free soiler being held down by James Buchanan and Lewis Cass standing on the Democratic platform marked "Kansas", "Cuba" and "Central America". Franklin Pierce also holds down the giant's beard as Stephen A. Douglas shoves a black man down his throat.

The bill was designed by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois to shift the debate over slavery in the territories from Congress to the territories themselves (a policy called "popular sovereignty," which would allow the territories to decide the fate of slavery in their area). Essentially, popular sovereignty would allow the spread of slavery throughout the western territories, and was thus championed by Southerners and pro-slavery Northerners ("doughfaces"). Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska bill was introduced into Congress by pro-Southern Iowa Senator Augustus Caesar Dodge on Dec. 14, 1853. It passed the Senate on Mar. 4, 1854, and proceeded to the House under the guidance of pro-Southern Illinois Representative William A. Richardson, Douglas's "man" in the House. The controversial bill (H.R. 236) was immediately sent to committee, but was brought onto the House floor four days later. The House passed an altered version of the bill on May 22, which the Senate promptly approved at 1:10am on May 26. Pro-Southern President Franklin Pierce (NH) signed the bill into law on May 30. The act caused a tremendous firestorm both North and South, as most Northerners were appalled by the impending spread of slavery, and Southerners rallied to defend slavery and their right to take their "property" where ever they pleased. Instead of quieting the slavery debate, Douglas's bill inflamed it and set the nation on the road to civil war.

The act divided the states into the Kansas Territory, south of the 41st parallel, and the Nebraska Territory, north of the 41st parallel. The most controversial provision was the stipulation that each territory would separately decide whether to allow slavery within its borders. This new act abrogated the claims agreed upon in the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in any new states to be created north of latitude 36°30'. Since Kansas and Nebraska would be north of that line, the citizens of both territories would be permitted to vote on whether or not to allow slavery.

Act orchestrator Stephen A. Douglas and private citizen Abraham Lincoln aired their disagreement over the Kansas-Nebraska Act in three public speeches during September and October 1854.[1] The most comprehensive argument against the Act, the "Peoria Speech", was given by Lincoln in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16. [2] He and Douglas both spoke to the large audience, Douglas first and Lincoln in response two hours later. Lincoln's three hour speech [3], transcribed after the fact by Lincoln himself, presented thorough moral, legal and economic arguments against slavery, and set the stage for Lincoln’s political future.[4]

Pro-slavery settlers came to Kansas mainly from neighboring Missouri. Their influence in territorial elections was often bolstered by resident Missourians who crossed into Kansas solely for the purpose of voting in such ballots. They were dubbed border ruffians by their opponents, a term coined by Horace Greeley, and formed groups like the Blue Lodges. Abolitionist settlers 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 extremely embarrassing to Pierce, especially as the nascent Republican Party sought to capitalize on the scandal of Bleeding Kansas. Routine ballot-rigging and intimidation practiced by pro-slavery settlers failed to deter the immigration of anti-slavery settlers, who won a demographic victory in the race to populate the state.

The pro-slavery territorial legislature ultimately proposed a state constitution for approval by referendum. The constitution was offered in two alternative forms, neither of which made slavery illegal. Free Soil settlers boycotted the legislature's referendum and organized their own, which approved a free state constitution. The results of the competing referendums were sent to Washington by the territorial governor.

President James Buchanan sent the Lecompton Constitution (which allowed slavery, but disallowed import of new slaves) to Congress for approval. The Senate approved the admission of Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution, despite the opposition of Senator Douglas, who believed that the Kansas referendum on the Constitution, by failing to offer the alternative of prohibiting slavery, was unfair. The measure was subsequently blocked in the United States House of Representatives, where northern congressmen refused to admit Kansas as a slave state. Senator James Hammond of South Carolina (famous for his "King Cotton" speech) characterized this resolution as the expulsion of the state, asking, "If Kansas is driven out of the Union for being a slave state, can any Southern state remain within it with honor?"

The Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the nation and pointed it toward civil war. The act itself virtually nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. The turmoil over the act split both the Democratic and Know Nothing parties and gave rise to the Republican Party, which split the United States into two major political parties- North (Republican) and South (Democratic).

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 admitted to the Union as a state after the Civil War in 1867.

• Morrison, Michael. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (1997) online edition
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union. vol 2 (1947)
• Johannsen. Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas (ISBN 0-19-501620-3)
• Nichols, Roy F. “The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43 (September 1956): 187-212. Online at JSTOR at most academic libraries.
• Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 (1976), Pulitzer prize winning scholarly history.
• SenGupta, Gunja. “Bleeding Kansas: A Review Essay.” Kansas History 24 (Winter 2001/2002): 318-341.
• Holt, Michael. "The Political Crisis of the 1850s." (1978)

• An annotated bibliography
• Kansas-Nebraska Act and related resources at the Library of Congress
• Printer-friendly transcript of the act

v • d • e Kansas in the American Civil War Pre-War Kansas-Nebraska Act · Bleeding Kansas · Sacking of Lawrence · Pottawatomie Massacre · Battle of Black Jack · Battle of Osawatomie · Marais des Cygnes massacre September 1861 Battle of Dry Wood Creek · Sacking of Osceola August 1863 Lawrence Massacre · General Order № 11 (1863) October 1863 Battle of Baxter Springs October 1864 Battle of Marais des Cygnes · Battle of Mine Creek