KANSAS ORGANIZED AS A TERRITORY
=The Year 1854 an Important Date.= The year 1854 is an important one
in the history of Kansas, for it brings to a close the period during
which this region was used as a hunting ground by the Indians and
marks the beginning of its use as a home for white people. The white
settlers did not come in peace and quiet; the first dozen years
following 1854 were filled with hatred, struggle, and bloodshed. This
was brought about by conditions outside of Kansas. As we have seen,
twenty-five years earlier Kansas was made an Indian territory because
people in the states wanted the lands of the eastern Indians. In 1854
a terrible conflict began here because there was a division between
the North and the South on the question of slavery.
[Illustration: TERRITORIAL KANSAS.]
=Attitude of the North and the South Toward Slavery.= Slavery had
existed in the United States since very early colonial days. It had
not been profitable in the northern states, but in the cotton fields
of the southern plantations slave labor was in demand, and its use
after the invention of the cotton gin had increased steadily with the
passing years. The Northerners had long been opposed to slavery and
made every effort to keep it from spreading into northern and western
territory, while the Southerners were just as determined that it
should flourish and that it should be extended into new territory.
This difference between the North and the South developed great
bitterness. Neither side lost any opportunity to take advantage of the
other, and each was anxious to secure a majority in the Senate in
order to obtain favorable legislation. This matter was so carefully
watched that it had long been the custom to keep the “balance of
power” between the states; that is, to admit free and slave states
alternately so as to keep the number of proslavery and free-state
senators balanced. The North, because of its more rapid growth in
population, had long had a majority in the House.
=The Missouri Compromise, 1820.= Missouri was along the dividing line
between the North and the South, and when it asked to be admitted to
the Union there followed a long debate in Congress as to whether it
should come in slave or free. The question was finally settled by the
Missouri Compromise, which provided that Missouri might come in as a
slave state but that all the rest of the territory included in the
Louisiana Purchase and lying north of 36° 30′, the line forming the
southern boundary of Missouri, should be forever free. In other words,
slavery was to be forever excluded from Kansas and the territory lying
north of it.
=Slavery Trouble Brings on the Civil War.= This was in 1820, about the
time of the beginning of the Santa Fe trade. During the years when
Kansas was an Indian country and was traversed by countless caravans
the country remained bound by the terms of this compromise. But all
this time the feeling of animosity between the North and the South was
growing more intense; northern churches and newspapers denounced the
evils of slavery, free-state and abolition parties developed,
thousands of slaves were assisted in making their escape through the
North to Canada in spite of the strict fugitive slave law, and there
was bitter strife in Congress between the free-state and the
slave-state members. The relations between the North and the South
were becoming more and more strained. The time was rapidly approaching
when the differences between the two sections were to be settled by a
great war.
=The Conflict Brought into Kansas in 1854.= The Civil War began in
1861, the same year in which Kansas became a state; but seven years
earlier, in 1854, Congress had passed a measure that brought the
slavery trouble into Kansas and made this state the battle ground in
the great national struggle over the slavery question.
=The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 1854.= The measure passed by Congress that
played such an important part in the history of Kansas and of the
Nation was known as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and was the work of
Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois. It provided that the two
territories, Kansas and Nebraska, should be organized, and that the
question of slavery should be left for the people of each territory to
decide for themselves. This method of settling the question was known
as “popular sovereignty.” Because the settlers were often called
squatters it was frequently called “squatter sovereignty.”
=Reception of the Bill.= Kansas and Nebraska were part of the
territory which, according to the terms of the Missouri Compromise,
was to be forever free, but under the Douglas bill they were to become
either slave or free as the people who settled the territories might
decide. When this bill was introduced into Congress it raised a storm
of indignation among those opposed to slavery, and the debate which
ensued lasted for months. The whole North was aroused and poured forth
objection and protest, but to no avail. The bill was passed May 30,
1854.
=Result of the Bill.= The Kansas-Nebraska Bill meant that the Missouri
Compromise had been repealed and that there was no longer any boundary
line against slavery. It meant that Kansas and Nebraska were offered
as prizes to be contended for by the free and the slave states. The
South said, “You may have Nebraska; Kansas is ours.” The North refused
to recognize such a division of spoils, and insisted that both
territories had been carved from free soil and should both come into
the Union free. Both North and South desired to secure Kansas, and
each side urged that as many as possible of its own people should
emigrate to the new Territory. It could scarcely be expected that,
under such circumstances, Kansas would be left for gradual and
peaceful settlement. The result was that the scene of strife was
transferred from Congress to these western prairies, and from that
time until the admission of the Territory as a state the conflict
between the forces of freedom and slavery was waged here.
=Indians Removed from Kansas Lands.= It must be remembered that at
this time Kansas was an Indian country; that many of the eastern
tribes had given up their lands in exchange for lands here which had
been promised to them forever. Nevertheless, the Indians were removed
from Kansas, many of them at once and others more leisurely. They were
taken to what has since become Oklahoma, where many of them still
live. In this way room was made for the white settlers to enter
Kansas.
SUMMARY
For many years there had been bitter feeling between the
North and the South on the slavery question. In 1820 the
Missouri Compromise was passed. This measure provided that
all the Louisiana Purchase lying north of the southern
boundary of Missouri, except Missouri itself, should be
forever free. This agreement was observed until the passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854. This bill provided that
the settlers of each of these territories should decide
whether it was to be made slave or free. Each side was
determined to win Kansas, and as a result the slavery
struggle was brought here. In order to make room for
settlers the Indians were moved to Indian Territory, now
known as Oklahoma.
REFERENCES
Prentis, History of Kansas, pp. 63-73.
Spring, Kansas, pp. 2-16.
Andreas, History of Kansas, pp. 81-82.
Holloway, History of Kansas, chap. VI.
Tuttle, History of Kansas.
Larned, History for Ready Reference.
Gihon, Geary and Kansas, chap. III.
Historical Collections, vol. IX, p. 115; vol. VIII, p. 86.
Foster, A History of the United States, pp. 325-329.
Muzzey, American History, 379-412.
Hodder, Genesis of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, in Proceedings
of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1912, pp. 69-86.
QUESTIONS
1. Why is 1854 an important date in Kansas history?
2. What great national question affected Kansas at that time?
Explain.
3. Explain the attitude of the North and the South toward
slavery.
4. What was meant by the “balance of power”?
5. Give the provisions and the date of the Missouri Compromise.
How did this Compromise affect Kansas?
6. What did the Kansas-Nebraska Bill provide? Give the attitude
of the North and the South toward it.
7. How did this Bill affect the Missouri Compromise? What was the
result in Kansas?
8. What was done with the Indians in Kansas?
THE SONG OF THE KANSAS EMIGRANT
We cross the prairies as of old
The Pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West as they the East
The homestead of the free.
CHORUS:
The homestead of the free, my boys,
The homestead of the free,
To make the West as they the East
The homestead of the free.
We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom’s southern line
And plant beside the cotton tree
The rugged northern pine.
We’re flowing from our native hills,
As our free rivers flow;
The blessings of our mother-land
Is on us as we go.
We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.
Upbearing like the ark of old,
The Bible in her van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.
No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where our pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun.
We’ll tread the prairies as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea;
And make the West as they the East
The homestead of the free.
――JOHN G. WHITTIER.