Lvnghstry

For most Americans, April 12, 1861 marks the beginning of the Civil War when secession forces fired on Ft Sumter located in Charleston harbor, South Carolina.  However, a good case can be made for May 30, 1854, the date that President Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act.  The Act ushered in seven years of turmoil that would become known as “Bleeding Kansas”.  It was during this time that the first armed confrontation took place between anti slavery and pro slavery forces at the Battle of Black Jack in Kansas Territory on June 2, 1856.  But let’s go back to the beginning.

The seed of discontent was sown into our Constitution on September 17, 1797 with a compromise in Section 9 wherein Congress was prohibited from restricting the importation of slaves before 1808.  In 1807, Congress passed a bill which was signed by President Thomas Jefferson on March 3^rd, which prohibited the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808.

By 1819 a political balance had formed between states which had done away with slavery, were in the process of eliminating slavery or never had slavery and the states with slavery; eleven of each.  1820; the Missouri Territory is ready for statehood and desires to enter the Union as a slave state.  The Missouri Compromise of 1820 is enacted allowing Missouri to enter as a slave state and Maine to enter as a Free State.  Further, the Compromise prohibits any new slave states west of Missouri and north of a line marked by 36^o 30^’ North latitude (the southern border of Missouri), and extending westward into the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase.

In the coming years, six more states enter the Union; three Free States (Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin) and three slave states (Texas, Arkansas and Florida) maintaining the balance.

By 1850, California Territory is ready to enter the Union.  It desires to enter as a Free State.  There is no pro slave state to enter with California.  To gain southern support for California entry, the Compromise of 1850 is enacted. The Compromise includes five laws, one of which is the Fugitive Slave Act.  The Act requires all US citizens to aid in the apprehension and return of runaway slaves to their owners.  To maintain the political balance, California sends one Free State supporting Senator (John C Fremont) and one pro slave Senator (William M Gwin) to Washington.

Looking to western expansion and settlement, Congress passes and President Pierce signs the Kansas Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854 creating two new territories. The stroke of President Pierce’s pen ignites a fire that would burn ever more intensely until the Nation was engulfed in Civil War.  The fuel for the fire was slavery.  The tinder was Popular Sovereignty.  Power vested in the people.  The settlers in the Territories would establish their own Territorial government and would vote to decide for themselves whether their new state would enter the Union as Free State or slave state.  The Missouri Compromise of 1820 is rescinded.  It is a foregone conclusion that Nebraska Territory would become a Free State, given its northern proximity.  Kansas Territory would become the battleground.  If Kansas Territory would enter the Union as a slave state, then possibly pro slave supporters could succeed in the territories of Utah, New Mexico and Oregon where the question would also be decided by Popular Sovereignty.  If the Free Staters succeed in securing Kansas, then the probability of any future states being pro slave were small.  The political balance would irrevocably shift.

From its formation on May 30, 1854 to statehood on January 29, 1861, Kansas Territory would see six Governors, four Acting Governors and have four Constitutions submitted to Congress for approval.  The Wyandotte Constitution, which was first presented to Congress on February 14, 1860, allowed Kansas to enter the Union as a Free State.  It had been blocked for nearly a year but as southern Senators left their seats because of secession, passage finally came.  During these seven years the Nation would see the Democrat Party become the party of the South while a new party, the Republican Party, would be born to become the party of Abraham Lincoln.  Violence and armed confrontation would erupt several times as each side sought to secure the fate of the Territory.  “Bleeding Kansas” would become the home, for a short time, of a Congregationalist minister and abolitionist named John Brown.  He and his sons would draw the attention of the Nation by murdering alleged pro slave supporters on Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas Territory, during the night of May 24, 1856.  Brown would later lead an ill fated attempt at inciting a slave revolt at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in October of 1859.   Washington would order Colonel Robert E Lee, commanding a unit of Marines, to capture Brown and his men.  Brown was tried, found guilty of treason and hung on December 2, 1859.  On that day he wrote “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.  I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.”  John Wilkes Booth watched as Brown was executed.  On that day, Abraham Lincoln was in Kansas Territory and would say “Old John Brown has just been executed for treason against the state.  We cannot object,” Lincoln reasoned, “even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong.  That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason.  It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right.”

Lincoln would go on to win the Presidency in the election of 1860.  Shortly after, the southern states, led by South Carolina, would begin the secession.  In April, 1861 Confederate forces in South Carolina under the command of General PGT Beauregard would fire on Ft Sumter which was under the command of Major Robert Anderson.  Anderson had been an instructor of Beauregard’s at West Point.  The final battle to end slavery had begun.  Slavery would end in earnest in the United States with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865.