Civil War Causes - Bleeding Kansas

John Brown depicted as a godlike figure, fighting for slavery to be abolished in Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois proposed a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, a vast area of land that would become Kansas, Nebraska, Montana and the Dakotas. Known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the controversial bill raised the possibility that slavery could be extended into territories where it had once been banned. Its passage intensified the bitter debate over slavery in the United States.

Despite fierce opposition from abolitionists and Free Soilers, as those who opposed extending slavery into new territories were known, the Senate passed the Nebraska bill. President Franklin Pierce signed it into law on May 30, 1854.

In the months before the bill’s passage, most of the Native American groups living on the land in question signed treaties ceding their land to the U.S. government, and all were eventually forced to move south to reservations in what is now Oklahoma.

In the North, where abolitionist feeling was growing, many condemned Douglas for striking down the Missouri Compromise and paving the way for slavery’s extension into the territories, rather than its ultimate extinction.

There was no question that Nebraska would be a free state, but the fate of its southern neighbor, Kansas, became a matter of fierce debate. Pro- and antislavery activists flooded into the new Kansas territory, each side seeking to turn popular sovereignty to their own advantage. As the two sides traded outbursts of violence and intimidation, “Bleeding Kansas” would generate national headlines, further inflaming sectional tensions over slavery’s future.

Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act also had a profound political impact. Debate over the bill split the Whig Party, which ultimately dissolved, and split Douglas’ Democratic Party along sectional lines. In one of the most heated moments in the debate, pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, resorted to beating antislavery Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with his cane on the Senate floor in 1856.

Opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act inspired the formation of the Republican Party, which became the nation’s leading antislavery political party. It also drew Abraham Lincoln, a former one-term congressman from Illinois, back into the political arena. By 1858, Lincoln’s eloquent argument against slavery’s extension would go on display in a now-famous series of debates with Douglas, as Lincoln unsuccessfully challenged the “Little Giant” for his Senate seat. In Kansas, particularly, violent clashes between proponents of the two ideologies occurred. One abolitionist in particular became famous—or infamous, depending on the point of view—for battles that caused the deaths of pro-slavery settlers in Kansas. His name was John Brown. Ultimately, he left Kansas to carry his fight closer to the bosom of slavery.

Brown’s first militant actions as part of the abolitionist movement didn’t occur until 1855. By then, two of his sons had started families of their own, in the western territory that eventually became the state of Kansas. His sons were involved in the abolitionist movement in the territory, and they summoned their father, fearing attack from pro-slavery settlers. Confident he and his family could bring Kansas into the Union as a “free" state for Black people, Brown went west to join his sons.

After pro-slavery activists attacked at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1856, Brown and other abolitionists mounted a counterattack. They targeted a group of pro-slavery settlers called the Pottawatomie Rifles.

What became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre occurred on May 25, 1856, and resulted in the deaths of five pro-slavery settlers.

These and other events surrounding Kansas' difficult transition to statehood, made even more complicated by the issue of slavery, became known as Bleeding Kansas. But John Brown’s legend as a militant abolitionist was just beginning.

Over the next several years, Brown’s efforts in Kansas continued, and two of his sons were captured — and a third was killed — by pro-slavery settlers.

The abolitionist was undaunted, however, and Brown still advocated for the movement, traveling all over the country to raise money and obtain weapons for the cause. In the meantime, Kansas held elections and voted to be a free state in 1858.

These events in Kansas were a rehearsal for the upcoming civil war which will start 5 years later.

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