Bleeding Kansas - Meeting of North and South

Meeting of North and South

The first organized immigration to Kansas Territory was by citizens of slave states, most notably neighboring Missouri, who came to the territory to secure the expansion of slavery. Pro-slavery settlements were established by these immigrants at Leavenworth and Atchison.

At the same time, several anti-slavery organizations in the North, most notably the New England Emigrant Aid Company, were organizing to fund several thousand settlers to move to Kansas and vote to make it a free state. These organizations helped to establish Free-State settlements further into the territory, in Topeka, Manhattan, and Lawrence. Abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher collected funds to arm like-minded settlers with Sharps rifles, leading to the precision rifles becoming known as "Beecher's Bibles." By the summer of 1855, approximately 1,200 New England Yankees had made the journey to the new territory, armed and ready to fight. Rumors spread through the South that 30,000 Northerners were descending on Kansas, and in November 1854, thousands of armed pro-slavery men known as "Border Ruffians," mostly from Missouri, poured over the line in an attempt to counteract this influence and sway the election to Congress of a single territorial delegate. Less than half the ballots were cast by registered voters, and at one location, only 20 of every 600 voters were legal residents. The proslavery forces won the election. While Kansas had approximately 1,500 registered voters at the time, not all of whom actually voted, over 6,000 votes were cast. More significantly, the Border Ruffians repeated their actions on March 30, 1855 when the first territorial legislature was elected, swaying the vote again in favor of slavery.

The proslavery territorial legislature convened in Pawnee on July 2, 1855, but after one week it adjourned to the Shawnee Mission on the Missouri border, where it began passing laws to institutionalize slavery in Kansas Territory. In August 1855, a group of Free-Soilers met and resolved to reject the proslavery laws passed by the territorial legislature. This meeting led to the drafting of the Topeka Constitution and the formation of a shadow government. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1856, President Franklin Pierce declared the Free-State Topeka government to be a "revolution" against the rightful leaders.

Later, in April 1856, a three-man congressional committee investigated the vote. The majority report of the committee found the elections to be improperly influenced.