Before the Kansas-Nebraska act started, the idea of popular sovereignty gained interest in the territory. Several groups with political interests promoted the idea of settlement by whites. One group who liked free-state settlement was the New England Emigrant Aid Company. The first group of New England settlers created the city of Lawrence, Kansas. That city quickly became a place of abolitionist activity. The same year, the city of Topeka, Kansas was created by Cyrus K. Holliday and other anti-slavery advocates. Missourians felt there was a plot by abolitionists to surround the state of Missouri with free states. Residents of Missouri with an interest in Kansas becoming pro-slavery flooded into the territory. The towns of Atchison and Leavenworth were both founded by pro-slavery Missourians.
Slavery was one of the main issues that led to the Civil War. The Southern United States was dependent on agriculture. They were also dependent on the 4 million slaves and their descendants who did all the work on southern plantations. Much of the southern economy depended on the free labor of slavery. Slaves could be traded, rented, bought or sold. A man's social status, prestige and wealth were demonstrated by the number of slaves he owned.
In the Northern United States, by the time of the Civil War, slavery had been abolished. The north was mainly industrial. Immigration, especially from Ireland and Germany, provided a source of low cost labor. This meant that the North did not need slaves.
Ever since the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened up the territory to settlement in 1854, the pro-slavery party in Missouri had been interfering in Kansas affairs. Missouri was admitted as a pro-slavery state under the Missouri Compromise. Slaveholders in Missouri were nervous about having a free-state on its western border. This is because runaway slaves could escape to there. Plantation owners in Missouri wanted to make sure Kansas became a slave state.
Most of the people who came to the Kansas territory came for land and opportunity. Most were from eastern states such as Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and New York. They were almost all white. Though they did not have slaves, most were prejudiced against black people. They believed the popular idea they were inferior. Most of the settlers seemed to want free soil for white people only.
On March 30, 1855, the Kansas Territory had the election for its first territorial legislature. This legislature would decide whether the territory would allow slavery, so it was an important election. Just like in the election of November 1854, "Border Ruffians" from Missouri again went into the territory to vote. Pro-slavery people were elected to 37 of the 39 seats. Martin F. Conway and Samuel D. Houston from Riley County were the only Free-Staters elected. Due to concerns about electoral fraud, Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder nullified the results in five voting districts. A special election was held on May 22 to elect replacements. Eight of the eleven delegates elected in the special election were Free-Staters, but this still left the pro-slavery people with a 29–10 advantage.
Congress sent a three-man special committee to the Kansas Territory in 1856. The committee report said that if the only people who were allowed to vote in the election of March 30, 1855 were "actual settlers", it would have elected a Free-State legislature. The report also said that the legislature actually seated "was [filled with illegally-elected people], and [it] had no power to pass valid laws".
In October 1855, John Brown came to Kansas Territory to fight slavery. On November 21, 1855 a skirmish called "Wakarusa War" started when a Free-Stater named Charles Dow was shot by a pro-slavery settler. The war had one death, a free stater named Thomas Barber was shot and killed. On May 21, 1856, Missourians invaded Lawrence and burned the Free State Hotel. They destroyed two newspaper offices, and ransacked homes and stores.
In May 1856, Republican Senator Charles Sumner took to the floor to denounce the threat of slavery in Kansas. He wanted to destroy what Republicans called the "Slave Power". In the speech called "The Crime against Kansas", Sumner ridiculed the honor of elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler. He compared Butler's pro-slavery agenda towards Kansas with the raping of a virgin and characterizing his affection for it in sexually explicit and disgusting terms. The next day, Butler's cousin, the South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor with a heavy cane. The action shocked the nation, brought violence to the floor of the Senate, and deepened the North-South split.
The violence continued. Ohio abolitionist John Brown led his sons and other followers to plan the murder of settlers who spoke in favor of slavery. At a pro-slavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek on the night of May 24, the group seized five pro-slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Brown and his men escaped. They started making a plan for a full-scale slave insurrection to take place at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. They would have financial support from Boston abolitionists. The pro-slavery Territorial government had been relocated to Lecompton.
In August 1856, thousands of pro-slavery men formed into armies. They marched into Kansas. That same month, Brown and several of his followers engaged 400 pro-slavery militia in the "Battle of Osawatomie". The hostilities continued for another two months until Brown left the Kansas Territory. The new territorial governor, John W. Geary, took office and asked both sides for peace.
Once Geary became governor, there was peace. However, this peace was broken by violent outbreaks for two more years. The last major outbreak of violence was the Marais des Cygnes massacre in 1858. This was when border ruffians killed five Free State men. In all, about 56 people died during the Bleeding Kansas era.
The political process that led to statehood for Kansas was long and difficult. To become a state, Kansas had to give an acceptable constitution to the U.S. Congress. Kansas tried to become a state four times. They had four different constitutions given. This was more than any other state territory. Missourians, because they were so close, went across the border to vote on the first state constitution. The fact they were not Kansas residents did not stop them from stuffing the ballot boxes. With their help, pro-slavery candidates were elected to the constitutional convention. What came to be called the "Bogus Legislature" met on July 2, 1855. Among the laws passed by the Bogus Legislature were the death penalty for anyone setting slaves free or for saying or writing anything that might cause a slave rebellion. Citizens of Kansas who had talked about any anti-slavery ideas were not allowed to be jurors. The convention did everything it could to make anyone with anti-slavery sentiments leave Kansas. Anti-slavery abolitionists met on June 24, 1855. They rejected the Bogus Legislature's laws and constitution.