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The bill was proposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854, after fierce debate. It was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce, a northern proponent of slavery.
The act divided the region into the Kansas Territory (south of the 40th parallel) and the Nebraska Territory (north of the 40th parallel). The most controversial provision was the stipulation that each territory would separately decide whether to allow slavery within its borders. This provision repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30', though the compromise itself was later held to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decisionDred Scott Dred Scott v. Sandford 1, 60 U. 393 ( 1856), known as the Dred Scott Case , was a lawsuit decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857. It is considered by many to have been a key cause of the American Civil War, and of the later r of 1856.
At the time of passage of the act, slavery supporters were somewhat more numerous than their opponents among the settlers in Kansas. There was no significant support for the institution of slavery in Nebraska. After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, both pro- and anti-slavery supporters attempted to muster settlers of their own persuasion to settle in Kansas. The anti-slavery New England Emigrant Aid Company , headed by Amos LawrenceMerchant, born in Groton, Massachusetts, 22 April, 1786; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 31 December, 1852. He was the son of Samuel Lawrence, a Revolutionary War officer, and founder of Groton Academy, (now Lawrence Academy at Groton. Amos Lawrence was ed, was highly successful in this project, and a nucleus of anti-slavery sentiment was established about the town of Lawrence, KansasLawrence is a city located in Douglas County, Kansas. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 80,098. Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, and is the home of the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University. Lawre.
Pro-slavery settlers migrated to Kansas mainly from MissouriMissouri named after the Missouri Siouan Indian tribe meaning "canoe", is a Midwestern state of the United States with Jefferson City as its capital. The state's nickname is the State the U. Post Office abbreviation for Missouri is MO and the state public. Their influence in territorial elections was often bolstered by resident Missourians who crossed the border into Kansas purely for the purpose of voting in such ballots. These interlopers were called border ruffians by their opponents, a term coined by Horace GreeleyHorace Greeley ( February 3, 1811- November 29, 1872) was an American newspaper editor and politician. He was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, where he worked as a printer, then left for New York City, where he started the New York Tribune in 1841. He was. The territorial capital of Lecompton, KansasLecompton is a city located in Douglas County, Kansas, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 608. Lecompton played a major historical role as the seat of the pro-slavery Kansas faction during Bleeding Kansas in the 1850s. Historic was the target of this agitation, and it consequently became such a hostile environment for Free-SoilersThe Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States organized in 1848 that petered out by about 1852. Their main purpose was opposing the extension of slavery into the territories, as well as the abolition of slavery itself. Genesis that they set up their own unofficial legislature at TopekaFor other uses, see Topeka (disambiguation). Topeka is the capital city of the U. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. As of the 2000 census, the population is 122,377. Several ships of the US Navy have been named USS Topeka in honor of.
The hostilities between the factions reached a state of low-intensity civil war which was extremely embarrassing to the U.S. federal government, especially as the nascent Republican Party sought to capitalise on the scandal of Bleeding Kansas. Successive territorial governors attempted to maintain the peace. They were usually sympathetic to slavery, but found themselves unable to countenance the routine ballot-rigging and intimidation that was practiced far more intensively by pro-slavery settlers as they lost the race to populate the territory.
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 unambiguously 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 D.C. by the territorial governor.
President James Buchanan sent the Lecompton constitution 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 Kansan referendum on the Constitution, by failing to offer the alternative of prohibiting slavery, was unfair. The measure was subsequently blocked in the 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?"
Eventually a new anti-slavery 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.
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