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67-425: The Topeka Constitution marked the first effort to form a Kansas governmental structure and define its basis in law. Free-State delegates passed the constitution on December 15, 1855. The Territorial election for officers and approval of the constitution on January 15, 1856, was boycotted by most pro-slavery men. Among those elected was Charles L. Robinson as governor. The constitution was forwarded to Washington with

134-722: A referendum by a vote of 10,421 to 5,530 on October 4, 1859. With Southern states still in control of the Senate, confirmation of the Wyandotte Constitution was indefinitely postponed. When senators from the seceding states left in January 1861, Kansas was immediately admitted—the same day—as a free state. On November 21, 1855, the so-called Wakarusa War began in Douglas County when a proslavery settler, Franklin Coleman, shot and killed

201-551: A "beacon of liberty within the region," was brought up by various commentators. Bleeding Kansas Antislavery settler victory Antislavery settlers ( Free-Staters ) Pro-slavery settlers ( Border ruffians ) Bleeding Kansas , Bloody Kansas , or the Border War , was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory , and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from

268-473: A Free-Stater, Charles W. Dow , with whom Coleman had long been engaged in a feud that was unrelated to local or national politics. Dow was the first American settler to be murdered in the Kansas Territory. The decision by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones to arrest another Free-Stater rather than Coleman and the prisoner's subsequent rescue by a Free-State posse erupted into a conflict that pitted, for

335-434: A barbarous community and a civilized community can constitute one state. I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom." In the coming weeks, many proslavery Democrats wore necklaces made from broken pieces of the cane as a symbol of solidarity with Preston Brooks. The violence continued to increase. John Brown led his sons and other followers to plan the murder of settlers who spoke in favor of slavery. At

402-514: A conference in Wyandotte in 1859) was adopted. The Confederate States of America seceded in the next month and Jefferson Davis was sworn in as their president February 18, 1861. During this campaign both for and against the 2022 Kansas abortion referendum , a failed ballot initiative which would have removed abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution , Kansas's history as a "free state", or

469-662: A congressional committee arrived there to investigate voting fraud. The committee found that non-Kansas residents had illegally voted in the election, resulting in the proslavery government. President Pierce refused recognition of its findings and continued to authorize the proslavery legislature, which the Free State people called the "Bogus Legislature". On July 4, 1856, proclamations of President Pierce led to nearly 500 U.S. Army troops arriving in Topeka from Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley . With their cannons pointed at Constitution Hall and

536-461: A peace agreement between Robinson and Lane and David Rice Atchison . The conflict had one other fatality, when Free-Stater Thomas Barber was shot and killed near Lawrence on December 6. On May 21, 1856, proslavery Democrats and Missourians invaded Lawrence, Kansas, and burned the Free State Hotel, destroyed two antislavery newspaper offices, and ransacked homes and stores in what became known as

603-543: A plea to the U.S. Congress for admitting Kansas as a free state, under this constitution. President Pierce, anxious to placate Southerners and keep them in the Union, condemned the document. It was presented in the Senate by Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan and in the House by Representative Daniel of Indiana. It passed the House by two votes on July 2, but was held in committee by the Senate. On July 8, Senator Stephen A. Douglas took up

670-537: A political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas . The conflict was characterized by years of electoral fraud , raids, assaults, and murders carried out in the Kansas Territory and neighboring Missouri by proslavery " border ruffians " and retaliatory raids carried out by antislavery " free-staters ". According to Kansapedia of the Kansas Historical Society , 56 political killings were documented during

737-510: A position to seriously threaten the newly recognized free state government in Kansas. Nevertheless, following the commencement of the American Civil War in 1861, additional guerrilla violence erupted on the border between Kansas and Missouri and sporadically continued until the end of the war. In 2006, federal legislation defined a new Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area (FFNHA) and

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804-470: A preface to the American Civil War. The episode is commemorated with numerous memorials and historic sites. As abolitionism became increasingly popular in the United States and tensions between its supporters and detractors grew, the U.S. Congress maintained a tenuous balance of political power between Northern and Southern representatives. At the same time, the increasing emigration of Americans to

871-461: A proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek on the night of May 24, the group seized five proslavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords . Brown and his men escaped and began plotting a full-scale slave insurrection to take place at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with financial support from Boston abolitionists. The proslavery territorial government, serving under President Pierce, had been relocated to Lecompton. In April 1856,

938-483: A report on the North American National Convention. There, a Colonel Perry of Kansas reported that "Kansas, bleeding at every pore, would cast more votes indirectly for [the presidential candidate the convention settled upon] ... than any other State in the Union." The Tribune ' s first mention of "bleeding Kansas" is in a poem by Charles S. Weyman, published on September 13, 1856: Far in

1005-598: The Boston -based New England Emigrant Aid Company , founded shortly before passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act with the specific goal of assisting anti-slavery immigrants to reach Kansas Territory. In a colorful story that may be legend, the abolitionist minister Henry Ward Beecher , Harriet Beecher Stowe 's brother, shipped them Sharps rifles in crates labelled "Bibles"; they became known as Beecher's Bibles . Despite boasts that 20,000 New England Yankees would be sent to

1072-585: The Fourth of July to ask the Congress for admittance of the state. The legislature was dispersed on July 4, 1856, by three squadrons of federal troops under the command of Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner . Sumner later called this the most painful duty of his career. Never before had a body of U.S. citizens, meeting to exercise their right to vote, been broken up by federal forces. Free-Stater (Kansas) Free-Staters

1139-625: The Mexican–American War . The Compromise of 1850 had at least temporarily solved the problem by permitting residents of the Utah and New Mexico Territories to decide their own laws with respect to slavery by popular vote , an act which set a new precedent in the ongoing debate over slavery. In May 1854, the Kansas–Nebraska Act created from Indian lands the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska for settlement by U.S. citizens. The act

1206-709: The Sacking of Lawrence . A cannon used during the Mexican–American War, called the Old Kickapoo or Kickapoo Cannon, was stolen and used on that day by a proslavery group including the Kickapoo Rangers of the Kansas Territorial Militia . It was later recovered by an anti-slavery faction and returned to the city of Leavenworth . In May 1856, Republican Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts took to

1273-583: The Topeka Constitution . Charles L. Robinson , a Massachusetts native and agent of the New England Emigrant Aid Company , was elected territorial governor. Reeder had not been elected but appointed by President Pierce, at whose pleasure he served. Pierce fired him on August 16, 1855, replacing him with the very pro-Southern Wilson Shannon . Reeder left the territory and found it prudent to do so in disguise. Pierce refused to recognize

1340-634: The Civil War, to allow it to pass (effective January 29, 1861). Partisan violence continued along the Kansas–Missouri border for most of the war, although Union control of Kansas was never seriously threatened. Bleeding Kansas demonstrated that armed conflict over slavery was unavoidable. Its severity made national headlines, which suggested to the American people that the sectional disputes were unlikely to be resolved without bloodshed, and it, therefore, acted as

1407-674: The Free-State Leavenworth Constitution of 1858. Finally the Wyandotte Constitution (1859) led to Kansas being admitted into the Union as a free state in 1861, five years after it first applied, the Southern legislators blocking it having departed en masse . The Civil War began four months later. The conflict between the Free State legislature and the Territorial legislature, each seeking control of Kansas's destiny,

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1474-568: The Free-State legislature. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1856, Pierce declared the Topeka government "insurrectionist". The presence of dual governments was symptomatic of the strife brewing in the territory and further provoked supporters of both sides of the conflict. In response to the disputed votes and rising tension, Congress sent a three-man special committee to the Kansas Territory in 1856. The committee reported, in July 1856, that if

1541-458: The Kansas Territory and swayed the vote in the election for a nonvoting delegate to Congress in favor of proslavery Democratic candidate John Wilkins Whitfield . The following year, a congressional committee investigating the election reported that 1,729 fraudulent votes were cast compared to 1,114 legal votes. In one location, only 20 of the 604 voters were residents of the Kansas Territory; in another, 35 were residents and 226 nonresidents. At

1608-418: The Kansas Territory held the election for its first territorial legislature. Crucially, this legislature would decide whether the territory would allow slavery. Just as had happened in the election of November 1854, "Border Ruffians" from Missouri again streamed into the territory to vote, and proslavery delegates were elected to 37 of the 39 seats— Martin F. Conway and Samuel D. Houston from Riley County were

1675-458: The Kansas Territory, and a new territorial governor, John W. Geary , took office and managed to prevail upon both sides for peace. This was followed by a fragile peace broken by intermittent violent outbreaks for two more years. The last major outbreak of violence was touched off by the Marais des Cygnes massacre in 1858, in which Border Ruffians killed five Free State men. In the so-called Battle of

1742-519: The Kansas Territory, only about 1,200 settlers had emigrated there by the end of 1855. Nevertheless, aid movements like these, heavily publicized by the Eastern press, played a significant role in creating the nationwide hysteria over the fate of Kansas, and were directly responsible for the establishment of towns which later became strongholds of Republican and abolitionist sentiment, including Lawrence, Topeka, and Manhattan, Kansas . On March 30, 1855,

1809-481: The Kansas decision by entering Kansas and claiming to be residents. The conflict was fought politically, and between civilians, where it eventually degenerated into brutal gang violence and paramilitary guerrilla warfare . Kansas had a state-level civil war that would soon be replicated on a national basis. It had two different capitals (proslavery Lecompton and antislavery Lawrence , then Topeka), two different constitutions (the proslavery Lecompton Constitution and

1876-454: The Senate floor with a heavy cane. The action electrified the nation, brought violence to the floor of the Senate, and deepened the North–South split. After nearly killing Sumner, Brooks was praised by Southern Democrats for the attack. Many pro-slavery newspapers concluded that abolitionists in Kansas and beyond "must be lashed into submission," and hundreds of Southern Democrat lawmakers after

1943-494: The South or supported slavery. The congressional legislative deadlock was broken in early 1861, when following the election of Abraham Lincoln as President , seven Southern states seceded from the Union. Kansas's entry as a free state had already been approved by the House of Representatives, but had been blocked by Southern senators. When, early in 1861, the senators of the seceding states withdrew from Congress or were expelled, Kansas

2010-665: The Spurs , in January 1859, John Brown led escaped slaves through a proslavery ambush en route to freedom via Nebraska and Iowa; not a shot was fired. About 56 people, though, died in Bleeding Kansas by the time the violence ended in 1859. There were still ongoing acts of violence even after Kansas adopted a free state constitution in 1859. In 1860, the Indian agent Col. Cowan and sixty United States dragoons burned down many free state supporting settlers' homes, while sparing settlers who came from

2077-585: The Topeka Constitution in a bill counter to Senator Cass, which threw the issue back upon the people of Kansas in accordance with the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Following the model of Oregon , citizens of the 2nd Territorial District petitioned the 1855 Free State convention to incorporate a "black exclusion" clause in the Topeka Constitution. This would have prevented not only the enslaved, but also free African Americans from residing in

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2144-562: The Topeka government was extralegal, Congress rejected ratification of the Topeka Constitution. Pierce was succeeded in 1857 by James Buchanan . Like his predecessor, Buchanan was a Northerner sympathetic to the South and proslavery interests. That year, a second constitutional convention met in Lecompton, and by early November had drafted the Lecompton Constitution , a proslavery document endorsed by President Buchanan. The constitution

2211-622: The Topeka meeting was upheld, in a large majority, by the free state voters. "Three-fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a free white State," says Villard, "and the heaviest voting against the free Negro was" in Lawrence and Topeka. With renewed determination, the Free State legislature reconvened in Constitution Hall on January 5, 1858. Governor Robinson urged keeping the State government intact, and laws were passed. The Topeka Constitution

2278-553: The U.S. Senate, which was bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for popular sovereignty : the decision about slavery would be made by popular vote of the territory's settlers rather than by legislators in Washington, D.C. Existing sectional tensions surrounding slavery quickly found focus in Kansas. Missouri, a slave state since 1821, was populated by many settlers with Southern sympathies and pro-slavery views, some of whom tried to influence

2345-513: The West rolls the thunder – The tumult of battle is raging Where bleeding Kansas is waging War against Slavery! Immediately, immigrants supporting both sides of the slavery question arrived in the Kansas Territory to establish residency and gain the right to vote. Among the first settlers of Kansas were citizens of slave states, especially nearby Missouri, many of whom strongly supported Southern ideologies and emigrated to Kansas specifically to assist

2412-563: The antislavery Topeka Constitution ), and two different legislatures (the so-called "bogus legislature" in Lecompton and the antislavery body in Lawrence). Both sides sought and received help from outside, the proslavery side from the federal government: Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan openly helped the proslavery partisans. Both claimed to reflect the will of the people of Kansas. The proslavers used violence and threats of violence, and

2479-421: The attack sent Brooks new canes as an endorsement of the attack, with one of the canes being inscribed with the phrase "hit him again." Towns and counties renamed themselves to honor Brooks ( Brooksville, Florida , Brooks County, Georgia , and others). Two weeks after the attack, American philosopher and Harvard graduate Ralph Waldo Emerson condemned Brooks and the pro-slavery lawmakers, stating: "I do not see how

2546-425: The border with Missouri, where it reconvened, adopted a slave code for Kansas modeled largely on that of Missouri, and began passing laws favorable to slaveholders. Free-Staters quickly elected delegates to a separate legislature based in Topeka, which proclaimed itself the legitimate government and called the proslavery government operating in Lecompton "bogus". This body created the first territorial constitution,

2613-403: The country's western frontier and the desire to build a transcontinental railroad that would connect the eastern states with California urged incorporation of the western territories into the Union. The inevitable question was how these territories would treat the issue of slavery when eventually promoted to statehood. This question had already plagued Congress during political debates following

2680-531: The document by 11,812 to 1,926. While the Lecompton Constitution was pending before Congress, a third document, the Leavenworth Constitution , was written and passed by Free State delegates. It was more radical than other Free-State proposals in that it would have extended suffrage to "every male citizen," regardless of race . Participation in this ballot on May 18, 1858, was a fraction of

2747-718: The early confrontation of the Bleeding Kansas era centered formally on the creation of a constitution for the future state of Kansas. The first of four such documents was the Topeka Constitution , written by antislavery forces unified under the Free-Soil Party in December 1855. This constitution was the basis for the Free-State territorial government that resisted the federally authorized government, elected by Missourians who, congressional investigation soon revealed, committed fraud by voting in Kansas as residents and then returning to Missouri. On June 30, 1856, after Pierce's declaration that

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2814-456: The election of March 30, 1855, had been limited to "actual settlers", it would have elected a Free-State legislature. The report also stated that the legislature actually seated in Lecompton "was an illegally constituted body, and had no power to pass valid laws". In other words, the Free-Staters' allegations of fraud were well founded, and the Lecompton legislature was indeed bogus. Much of

2881-663: The expansion of slavery. Proslavery immigrants settled towns, including Leavenworth and Atchison . The administration of President Franklin Pierce appointed territorial officials in Kansas aligned with its own proslavery views, and heeding rumors that the frontier was being overwhelmed by Northerners, thousands of nonresident slavery proponents soon entered Kansas with the goal of influencing local politics. Proslavery factions thereby captured many early territorial elections, often by fraud and intimidation. In November 1854, thousands of armed proslavery men known as " Border Ruffians " or "Southern Yankees", mostly from Missouri, poured into

2948-516: The first time, armed pro-slavery settlers against antislavery settlers. Governor Wilson Shannon called for the Kansas militia, but the assembled army was composed almost entirely of proslavery Missourians, who camped outside the town of Lawrence with stolen weapons and a cannon. In response, Lawrence raised its own militia, led by Charles L. Robinson , the man elected governor by the Topeka legislature, and James H. Lane . The parties besieging Lawrence reluctantly dispersed only after Shannon negotiated

3015-426: The floor to denounce the threat of slavery in Kansas and humiliate its supporters. Sumner accused Democrats in support of slavery of lying in bed with "the harlot of slavery" on the House floor during his "Crimes Against Kansas" speech. He had devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the slave power , that is the efforts of slave owners to control the federal government and ensure both

3082-408: The free-soilers responded in kind. After much commotion, including a congressional investigation, it became clear that a majority of Kansans wanted Kansas to be a free state, but this required congressional approval, which Southerners in Congress blocked. Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state the same day that enough Southern senators had departed, during the secession crisis that led to

3149-445: The incorporation of Nebraska would upset the balance between slave and free states and thereby give abolitionist Northerners an advantage in Congress. Douglas's proposal attempted to allay these fears with the organization of two territories instead of one, and with the inclusion of a "popular sovereignty" clause that would, like the condition previously prescribed for Utah and New Mexico, permit settlers of Kansas and Nebraska to vote on

3216-532: The legality of slavery in their own territories—a notion which directly contradicted and effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, as both Kansas and Nebraska were located entirely north of parallel 36°30' north and west of the Mississippi. Like many others in Congress, Douglas assumed that settlers of Nebraska would ultimately vote to prohibit slavery and that settlers of Kansas, further south and closer to

3283-554: The long fuses lit, Colonel E.V. Sumner , cousin to the senator of the same name who was beaten on the Senate floor, ordered the dispersal of the Free State Legislature. In August 1856, thousands of proslavery men formed into armies and marched into Kansas. That month, Brown and several of his followers engaged 400 proslavery soldiers in the Battle of Osawatomie . The hostilities raged for another two months until Brown departed

3350-440: The only Free-Staters elected. Free-Staters loudly denounced the elections as fraudulent. Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder pleased neither side when he invalidated, as tainted by fraud, the results in only 11 of the 40 legislative races. A special election was held on May 22 to elect replacements, and the results were dramatically different; eight of the 11 delegates elected in the special election were Free-Staters. This still left

3417-481: The passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act as an emboldening victory; Northerners considered it an outrageous defeat. Each side of the slavery question saw a chance to assert itself in Kansas, and it quickly became the nation's prevailing ideological battleground, and the most violent place in the country. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was popularized by Horace Greeley 's New-York Tribune . The Tribune ' s first reference to "Kansas, bleeding", came on June 16, 1856, in

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3484-476: The period, and the total may be as high as 200. It has been called a Tragic Prelude , or an overture, to the American Civil War , which immediately followed it. The conflict centered on the question of whether Kansas, upon gaining statehood, would join the Union as a slave state or a free state . The question was of national importance because Kansas's two new senators would affect the balance of power in

3551-400: The previous and there was even some opposition by Free-State Democrats. The proposed constitution was forwarded to the U.S. Senate on January 6, 1859, where it was met with a tepid reception and left to die in committee. The fourth and final Free State proposal was the Wyandotte Constitution , drafted in 1859, which represented the anti-slavery view of the future of Kansas. It was approved in

3618-611: The proslavery camp with an overwhelming 29–10 advantage. The proslavery legislature convened in the newly created territorial capital of Pawnee on July 2, 1855. The legislature immediately invalidated the results from the special election in May and seated the proslavery delegates elected in March. After only one week in Pawnee, the legislature moved the territorial capital to the Shawnee Mission , on

3685-450: The question of whether Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a slave state. (The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 had left the question open to the settlers in the territory.) Bastions for the free-state movement in Kansas included major towns and cities like Lawrence , Eudora , Baldwin City , Osawatomie , Ozawkie , Burlingame , Mound City and Topeka , among others. As time passed and

3752-412: The same time, Northern abolitionists encouraged their own supporters to move to Kansas in the effort to make the territory a free state, hoping to flood Kansas with so-called " Free-Soilers " or " Free-Staters ". By far the most famous of these, and their leader, was John Brown of Leavenworth , who moved from Ohio. Many citizens of Northern states arrived with assistance from benevolent societies such as

3819-453: The slave state of Missouri, would vote to allow it, and thereby the balance of slave and free states would not change. Regarding Nebraska, this assumption was correct; the idea of slavery had little appeal for Nebraska's residents and its fate as a free state was already solidly in place. In Kansas, however, the assumption of legal slavery underestimated abolitionist resistance to the repeal of the long-standing Missouri Compromise. Southerners saw

3886-552: The state. It was rejected by convention president James H. Lane and others, who allowed the issue to be voted on separately in the January 1856 referendum; the results favored exclusion. Yet the constitutional convention called by the radical free state element, meeting at Topeka in September, 1855, was in favor of excluding free Negroes from the new state. ...The free state party was anxious to clear itself of "the stale and ridiculous charge of Abolitionism." The Negro exclusion policy of

3953-483: The survival and the expansion of slavery. In the speech (called "The Crime against Kansas") Sumner criticized South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler , portraying Butler's pro-slavery agenda towards Kansas with the raping of a virgin, and characterizing his affection for it in sexual terms. Two days later, Butler's cousin, the South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks , nearly killed Sumner on

4020-467: The violence in Bleeding Kansas escalated, the Free-State movement became more popular. In 1858, the Free-Staters proposed a second constitution, the Leavenworth Constitution , which banned slavery and also would have given the right to vote to black men, though this constitution also failed because the US Senate did not ratify it. Kansas became a state January 29, 1861 after a free state constitution (from

4087-440: Was again sent to the Congress, but no action was taken. The South controlled Congress, and it was not going to admit Kansas as a free state if it could help it. It was not so much that slavery was benign, as most of them believed, it was that a new free state would change the balance of power in the polarized Senate. The Topeka Constitution was followed by the equally unsuccessful, pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution of 1857 and

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4154-510: Was an organized emigration of settlers to Kansas Territory arranged by the New England Emigrant Aid Company beginning in 1854. Other Free-Staters were abolitionists who came to Kansas Territory from Ohio , Iowa , and other midwestern states . Holton, Kansas was named for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin free-stater Edward Dwight Holton . What united the Free-Staters was a desire to defeat the southern , pro-slavery settlers in Kansas Territory on

4221-485: Was carried out with guns and the ballot box. These conditions and surrounding national implications inspired the term Bleeding Kansas . Following the Free State elections, in a lengthy address on January 24, 1856, President Franklin Pierce proclaimed the Topeka government to be illegitimate and ordered the arrest of its leaders: Despite this proclamation, the Topeka Legislature convened on March 4, 1856, and again on

4288-565: Was immediately, within days, admitted to the Union as a free state, under the Wyandotte Constitution . While pro-Confederates in Missouri attempted to effect that state's secession from the Union, and succeeded in having a pro-Confederate government recognized by and admitted to the Confederacy, by the end of 1861, even that state was firmly in control of its Unionist government. Without control of Missouri , regular Confederate forces were never in

4355-615: Was proposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois as a way to appease Southern representatives in Congress, who had resisted earlier proposals to admit states from the Nebraska Territory because of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had explicitly forbidden the practice of slavery in all U.S. territory north of 36°30' latitude and west of the Mississippi River , except in the state of Missouri. Southerners feared

4422-493: Was submitted to Kansans for a vote on a special slavery article, but Free-Staters refused to participate, since they knew that the constitution would allow Kansas slaveholders to keep existing slaves even if the article in question was voted against. The Lecompton Constitution, including the slavery article, was approved by a vote of 6,226 to 569 on December 21. Congress instead ordered another election because of voting irregularities uncovered. On August 2, 1858, Kansas voters rejected

4489-481: Was the name given to settlers in Kansas Territory during the " Bleeding Kansas " period in the 1850s who opposed the expansion of slavery . The name derives from the term " free state ", that is, a U.S. state without slavery. Many of the "free-staters" joined the Jayhawkers in their fight against slavery and to make Kansas a free state. Many Free-Staters were abolitionists from New England , in part because there

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