View source for Bleeding Kansas

{{Short description|Violent slavery-related confrontations in Kansas territory in latter half of 1850s}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2023}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Bleeding Kansas
| partof            = [[Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War|the prelude to the American Civil War]]
| image             = Reynolds's Political Map of the United States 1856.jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = 1856 map showing slave states (gray), free states (pink), and territories (green) in the United States, with the Kansas Territory in center (white)
| date              = {{start date|1854}}–{{end date and age|1861}}
| place             = [[Kansas Territory]]
| result            = Antislavery settler victory
* Kansas admitted to the Union as a free state
* Fighting continues into the [[American Civil War]]
| combatant1        = [[Antislavery]] settlers<br />([[Jayhawker]]s/[[Free-Stater (Kansas)|Free-Staters]])
{{clist|bullets=yes|expand=yes|title=Supported by:
|{{flagicon|United States|1861}} [[United States]] (after 1860)<ref name="BK history">{{cite web|<!--author=History.com Editors-->title=Bleeding Kansas|url=https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/bleeding-kansas|website=[[History.com]]|date=April 7, 2021 }}</ref>
|}}
| combatant2        = [[Pro-slavery]] settlers ([[Border ruffian]]s)
{{clist|bullets=yes|expand=yes|title=Supported by:
|{{flagicon|United States|1861}} [[United States]] (1854–1860)<ref name="BK history"/>
|}}
| casualties1       = Disputed – 100+<ref name="Watts">{{Cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1995summer_watts.pdf | last=Watts | first=Dale | title=How Bloody Was Bleeding Kansas? Political Killings in Kansas territory, 1854–1861 | work=Kansas History |date=1995 | pages=116–129 |access-date=January 9, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120627045451/http://kshs.org/publicat/history/1995summer_watts.pdf |archive-date=June 27, 2012 |url-status=live }}</ref>
| casualties2       = 80 or fewer; 20–30 killed<ref name="Watts"/>
| campaignbox       = {{Campaignbox Bleeding Kansas}}
| commander1        = [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]]
| commander2        = No centralized leadership
}}
{{Events leading to US Civil War}}

'''Bleeding Kansas''', '''Bloody Kansas''', or the '''Border War''', was a series of violent civil confrontations in the [[Kansas Territory]], and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of [[slavery in the United States|slavery]] in the proposed state of [[Kansas]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-08-12 |title=Bleeding Kansas {{!}} History, Effects, & John Brown {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Bleeding-Kansas-United-States-history |access-date=2025-08-16 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Bleeding Kansas: A Stain on Kansas History (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/bleedingks.htm |access-date=2025-08-16 |website=www.nps.gov |language=en}}</ref>

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 [[Abolitionism in the United States|antislavery]] "[[Free-Stater (Kansas)|free-staters]]". According to ''Kansapedia'' of the [[Kansas Historical Society]], 56 political killings were documented during the period,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia
|contribution=Bleeding Kansas
|title=Kansapedia
|date=2016
|publisher=[[Kansas Historical Society]]
|contribution-url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/bleeding-kansas/15145
|access-date=January 17, 2021
|archive-date=January 16, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116180705/https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/bleeding-kansas/15145
|url-status=live
}}</ref> and the total may be as high as 200.<ref>{{cite magazine
|title=A Look Back at John Brown
|date=Spring 2011
|volume=43
|number=1
|magazine=[[Prologue Magazine]]
|authorlink=Paul Finkelman
|first=Paul
|last=Finkelman
|url=https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html
|access-date=September 11, 2021
|archive-date=June 23, 2016
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623023130/http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/spring/brown.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> It has been called a "[[Tragic Prelude|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 [[slave states and free states|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 the U.S. Senate, which was bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. The [[Kansas–Nebraska Act]] of 1854 called for [[Popular sovereignty in the United States|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.<ref>{{Cite web |date=February 14, 2019 |title=Bleeding Kansas |url=https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/bleeding-kansas |access-date=December 5, 2022 |website=American Battlefield Trust |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Bleeding Kansas |url=https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/sectional-tension-1850s/a/bleeding-kansas |access-date=December 5, 2022 |website=Khan Academy |language=en}}</ref>

Missouri, a slave state since 1821, was populated by many settlers with Southern sympathies and pro-slavery views, some of whom tried to influence 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, Kansas|Lawrence]], then Topeka), two different constitutions (the proslavery [[Lecompton Constitution]] and 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, with the proslavery side receiving aid from the federal government, as Presidents [[Presidency of Franklin Pierce|Franklin Pierce]] and [[Presidency of James Buchanan|James Buchanan]] openly supported the proslavery partisans.<ref name="BK history"/> Both claimed to reflect the will of the people of Kansas. The proslavers used violence and threats of violence, and the free-staters 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 [[Admission to the Union|admitted to the Union]] as a free state the same day that enough Southern senators had departed, during the [[Secession in the United States|secession crisis]] that led to 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 [[Kansas in the American Civil War|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 a preface to the American Civil War.<ref name="Etcheson_1">{{cite web|last1=Etcheson|first1=Nicole|title=Bleeding Kansas: From the Kansas–Nebraska Act to Harpers Ferry|url=http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/essay/bleeding-kansas-kansas-nebraska-act-harpers-ferry|website=Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri–Kansas Conflict, 1854–1865|publisher=The Kansas City Public Library|access-date=July 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180722125613/http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/essay/bleeding-kansas-kansas-nebraska-act-harpers-ferry|archive-date=July 22, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> The episode is commemorated with numerous memorials and historic sites.

==Origins==
{{History of Kansas sidebar}}
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 United States|Northern]] and [[Southern United States|Southern]] representatives. At the same time, the increasing emigration of Americans to 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 the [[Mexican–American War]]. The [[Compromise of 1850]] had at least temporarily solved the problem by permitting residents of the [[Utah Territory|Utah]] and [[New Mexico Territory|New Mexico]] Territories to decide their own laws with respect to slavery by [[popular sovereignty|popular vote]], an act which set a new precedent in the ongoing debate over slavery.<ref name="Etcheson_1"/>

In May 1854, the [[Kansas–Nebraska Act]] created from Indian lands the new territories of [[Kansas Territory|Kansas]] and [[Nebraska Territory|Nebraska]] for settlement by U.S. citizens. The act 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 [[parallel 36°30' north|36°30' latitude]] and west of the [[Mississippi River]], except in the state of Missouri. Southerners feared 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 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 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 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,<ref name=Rawley>{{cite book |last1=Rawley |first1=James A. |title=Race & Politics: "Bleeding Kansas" and the Coming of the Civil War |url=https://archive.org/details/racepoliticsblee00rawl |url-access=registration |date=1969 |publisher=J. B. Lippincott Company}}</ref> and the most violent place in the country.

The term "Bleeding Kansas" was popularized by [[Horace Greeley]]'s ''[[New-York Tribune]]''.<ref name="20180212NHECDenial">{{cite web|last1=Denial|first1=Catherine|title=Bleeding Kansas|url=http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/25650|website=teachinghistory.org|publisher=National History Education Clearinghouse|access-date=February 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171109062336/http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/25650|archive-date=November 9, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> The ''Tribune''{{'}}s first reference to "Kansas, bleeding", came on June 16, 1856, in 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]&nbsp;... than any other State in the Union."<ref>{{cite news | title=Public Meetings. North American National Convention. Third Day. | newspaper=New York Daily Tribune | date=June 16, 1856}}</ref><ref name="20180212NHECDenial" /> The ''Tribune''{{'}}s first mention of "bleeding Kansas" is in a poem by Charles S. Weyman, published on September 13, 1856:

{{poemquote|Far in the West rolls the thunder –
The tumult of battle is raging
Where bleeding Kansas is waging
War against Slavery!|"Fremont and Victory: The Prize Song By Charles S. Weyman". ''New York Daily Tribune''. September 13, 1856.<ref name="20180212NHECDenial" />}}

===Early elections===
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 the expansion of slavery. Proslavery immigrants settled towns, including [[Leavenworth, Kansas|Leavenworth]] and [[Atchison, Kansas|Atchison]]. The administration of [[President of the United States|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 [[electoral fraud|fraud]] and intimidation. In November 1854, thousands of armed proslavery men known as "[[Border Ruffians]]" or "Southern Yankees", mostly from Missouri, poured into the Kansas Territory and swayed the vote in the election for a nonvoting delegate to Congress in favor of proslavery [[History of the United States Democratic Party|Democratic]] candidate [[John Wilkins Whitfield]].<ref name=Politics>{{cite web |title=Territorial Politics and Government |url=http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=pol_govt&option=more |publisher=Territorial Kansas Online |access-date=June 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714143420/http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=pol_govt&option=more |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref>Cutler, William G. ''History of the State of Kansas'', A.T. Andreas, (1883), "Territorial History, Part 8".</ref>
[[File:Frémont_Club_banner.png|thumb|Digital remake of the Fremont Club banner hung in [[Lancaster, New Hampshire]] to show support for Kansas.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Frémont Club banner - Kansas Memory |url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/209858 |access-date=2024-11-21 |website=www.kansasmemory.org}}</ref>]]
At 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 Soil Party|Free-Soilers]]" or "[[Free-Stater (Kansas)|Free-Staters]]". By far the most famous of these, and their leader, was [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown of Leavenworth]], who moved from Ohio.<ref name=LOC>{{cite web | title=Kansas Affairs | page=685 | url=https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/kansasaffairsspe00wald/kansasaffairsspe00wald_djvu.txt }}</ref> Many citizens of Northern states arrived with assistance from [[benevolent society|benevolent societies]] such as the [[Boston, Massachusetts|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 rifle]]s in crates labelled "Bibles"; they became known as [[Beecher's Bibles]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/beecher-bibles/11977 |title=Beecher Bibles - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society |access-date=February 21, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190210152637/https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/beecher-bibles/11977 |archive-date=February 10, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite boasts that 20,000 New England [[Yankee]]s would be sent to the Kansas Territory, only about 1,200 settlers had emigrated there by the end of 1855.<ref>William Frank Zornow, "Kansas: a history of the Jayhawk State" (1957), p. 72</ref><ref name="Rawley" /> 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 [[History of the United States Republican Party|Republican]] and abolitionist sentiment, including Lawrence, Topeka, and [[Manhattan, Kansas]].<ref name="Rawley" /><ref name=Frontier>{{cite book | last = Olson | first = Kevin | title = Frontier Manhattan | publisher = University Press of Kansas | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-0-7006-1832-3}}</ref>

===First Territorial Legislature===
{{Main|1855 Kansas Territory elections}}
[[File:Bleeding Kansas Poster.jpg|thumb|1855 [[Free-Stater (Kansas)|Free-State]] poster]]
On March 30, 1855, the Kansas Territory held the election for its first territorial legislature.<ref name=Politics/> 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, Kansas|Riley County]] were 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 the proslavery camp with an overwhelming 29–10 advantage.<ref name=Frontier/>

The proslavery legislature convened in the newly created territorial capital of [[Pawnee, Kansas|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 Methodist Mission|Shawnee Mission]], on 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, 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 the Free-State legislature. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1856, Pierce declared the Topeka government "insurrectionist".<ref>{{cite web|first=James D.|last=Richardson|author-link=James D. Richardson|title=A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents|publisher=Project Gutenberg|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11125/11125-8.txt|access-date=March 18, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930024455/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11125/11125-8.txt|archive-date=September 30, 2007|url-status=live}}</ref> The presence of dual governments was symptomatic of the strife brewing in the territory and further provoked supporters of both sides of the conflict.<ref>Thomas Goodrich, ''War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861''. (2004). Ch. 1 iii.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2023}}<ref>Elizabeth R. Varon, ''Disunion! The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789–1859''. (2007). Ch. 8.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=December 2023}}

On March 12, the Democrat-controlled Senate's Committee on Territories submitted a report authored by Stephen A. Douglas, which claimed Governor Reeder had established procedures for challenging fraudulent election results in the territory, and that these procedures had been followed for the March 30, 1855 election. It held that the Pawnee legisature (and its Lecompton successor) were "legally and duly constituted" under the Kansas-Nebraska Act. On this logic, it therefore followed that the creation of the Topeka government was an act "in subversion of the Territorial government established under the authority of Congress."<ref>{{Cite report
| author = Douglas, Stephen A.
| institution = United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Territories
| title = Report [of] the Committee On Territories, to Whom Was Referred So Much of the Annual Message of the President of the United States As Related to Territorial Affairs: Together With His Special Message of the 24th Day of January, 1856, In Regard to Kansas Territory, And His Message of the 18th of February, In Compliance With the Resolution of the Senate of the 4th of February, 1856, Requesting Transcripts of Certain Papers Relative to the Affairs of the Territory of Kansas ...
| series = 34th Congress, 1st Session
| date = March 12, 1856
| location = Washington, D.C.
| url = https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t84j0tv3b&seq=14
| access-date = May 14, 2025
| pages = 12, 19 }}</ref> 

On March 19, the House of Representatives, controlled by an [[Opposition Party (Northern U.S.)|Opposition coalition]], appointed a three-man [[Select or special committee (United States Congress)|special committee]] to investigate.<ref name=Frontier/>  The committee's majority report, issued in July, found that if the election of March 1855 had been limited to "actual settlers", it would have elected a Free-State legislature.<ref name=Frontier/><ref name=Report>{{Citation | title = Report of the special committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas | publisher = Cornelius Wendell | year = 1856 | url = http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=moa;cc=moa;sid=1f5114455ee8820b080a95813f091487;rgn=title;q1=troubles%20in%20kansas;firstpubl1=1800;firstpubl2=1925;view=toc;subview=detail;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=AFK4445.0001.001 | access-date = June 18, 2014 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110811023716/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=moa;cc=moa;sid=1f5114455ee8820b080a95813f091487;rgn=title;q1=troubles%20in%20kansas;firstpubl1=1800;firstpubl2=1925;view=toc;subview=detail;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=AFK4445.0001.001 | archive-date = August 11, 2011 | url-status = live }}</ref> It also stated that the legislature actually seated in Lecompton "was an illegally constituted body, and had no power to pass valid laws".<ref name=Frontier/><ref name=Report/>

==Constitutional fight==
{{see also|Constitutions of Kansas}}
{{unclear citations|section|date=August 2025}}
Much of 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.<ref>Cutler, William G. ''History of the State of Kansas'', A. T. Andreas (1883), "Territorial History".</ref><!--Unclear whether this is one source or two (if two, presumably the latter title is part of the former, which is confusingly the reverse of CS1), what kind of source it is, or how one would [[WP:V|verify]] it--> On June 30, 1856, after Pierce's declaration that 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 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 the document by 11,812 to 1,926.<ref>Cutler, William G. "Territorial History", Part 55.</ref><!--Presumably the same source as before but this title was attributed to Andreas, not Cutler!-->

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 and ethnicity in the United States|race]]. Participation in this ballot on May 18, 1858, was a fraction of 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.<ref>Cutler, William G. "Territorial History", Part 53.</ref><!--Ditto-->

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 a [[referendum]] by a vote of 10,421 to 5,530 on October 4, 1859.<ref name="Adoption">{{Cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-constitutions/16532 |title=''Wyandotte Constitution'' Approved |access-date=November 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141105164826/http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-constitutions/16532 |archive-date=November 5, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.{{cn|date=December 2023}}

==Open violence==
On November 21, 1855, the so-called [[Wakarusa War]] began in [[Douglas County, Kansas|Douglas County]] when a proslavery settler, Franklin Coleman, shot and killed 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 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 (politician)|James H. Lane]]. The parties besieging Lawrence reluctantly dispersed only after Shannon negotiated 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.

===Summer of 1856===
{{main|Sacking of Lawrence|Caning of Charles Sumner|Pottawatomie massacre|Battle of Osawatomie}}
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 the [[Sacking of Lawrence]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/first-sack-lawrence |title=First Sack of Lawrence |website=Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri–Kansas Conflict, 1854–1865 |access-date=February 14, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190215155859/http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/first-sack-lawrence |archive-date=February 15, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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]].<ref name="kshs.org">{{cite web|url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/old-kickapoo-cannon/10234|title=Old Kickapoo Cannon|website=Kansapedia |publisher=Kansas Historical Society|date=February 2017|access-date=June 1, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180515044129/https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/old-kickapoo-cannon/10234|archive-date=May 15, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> It was later recovered by an [[Free-Stater (Kansas)|anti-slavery faction]] and returned to the city of [[Leavenworth, Kansas|Leavenworth]].<ref name="kshs.org"/><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WhWolLQAdbAC&pg=PA13|title=Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and the 8th U.S. Cavalry|first=Robert W.|last=Lull|year=2013|publisher=University of North Texas Press|isbn=978-1574415025|via=Google Books|access-date=June 2, 2018|archive-date=January 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102163127/https://books.google.com/books?id=WhWolLQAdbAC&pg=PA13|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kspatriot.org/index.php/articles/18-kansas-military-history/638-kickapoo-cannon.html|title=Kickapoo Cannon|work=Blackmar's Cyclopedia of Kansas History|volume=II|page=69|year=1912|via=Kansas State History|access-date=June 1, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180515112335/http://www.kspatriot.org/index.php/articles/18-kansas-military-history/638-kickapoo-cannon.html|archive-date=May 15, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Southern Chivalry.jpg|thumb|[[Preston Brooks]] attacking [[Charles Sumner]] in the U.S. Senate in 1856]]
In May 1856, Republican Senator [[Charles Sumner]] of Massachusetts took to 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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm
|title=The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner (May 22, 1856)
|publisher= United States Senate |access-date=February 7, 2019
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207002155/https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm
|archive-date=February 7, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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 the survival and the expansion of slavery. In the speech, 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.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Pfau | first = Michael William | title = Time, Tropes, and Textuality: Reading Republicanism in Charles Sumner's 'Crime Against Kansas' | journal = Rhetoric & Public Affairs | volume = 6 | issue = 3 | pages = 393 | date = 2003 | url =http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/rhetoric_and_public_affairs/v006/6.3pfau.html | doi = 10.1353/rap.2003.0070 | s2cid = 144786197 | archive-date = August 14, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190814092935/http://muse.jhu.edu/article/48700 | url-status = live | url-access = subscription}}</ref> Two days later, Butler's cousin, the South Carolina Congressman [[Preston Brooks]], attacked Sumner, [[Caning of Charles Sumner|nearly beating him to death]] on 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.<ref>Williamjames Hull Hoffer (2010) ''The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War''</ref>{{fcn|date=August 2025}} 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 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 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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/58077515/ |title=[no headline] |date=3 June 1856 |page=2 |newspaper=The Charlotte Democrat |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=February 7, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190209123820/http://www.newspapers.com/image/58077515/ |archive-date=February 9, 2019 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription}}</ref>{{verify inline|reason=See if there is in fact a headline. The preview didn't look like it had one|date=August 2025}}

[[File:Palmetto-Guards-Southern-Rights-flag-1856.png|thumb|Digital remake of the flag carried by the Palmetto Guards while they attacked Lawrence. It was later captured near [[Oskaloosa, Kansas|Oskaloosa]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Southern Rights flag |website=Kansas Memory |url=https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/209880 |access-date=2024-11-21 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-09-11 |title=Our Captured Flag, Slough Creek |url=https://jeffersonjayhawkers.com/2017/09/11/our-captured-flag-slough-creek-part-i/ |access-date=2024-11-21 |website=Jefferson County Jayhawkers and Forgotten Freestaters |language=en-US}}</ref>]]
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 a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek on the night of May 24, the group seized five proslavery men from their homes and [[Pottawatomie massacre|hacked them to death]] with [[broadsword]]s. 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=John Brown: "We Came to Free the Slaves"|last=Schraff|first=Anne E.|year=2010|page=56|publisher=Enslow|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g9vccT4QhlIC&pg=PA56|isbn=978-0-7660-3355-9|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160511193705/https://books.google.com/books?id=g9vccT4QhlIC&lpg=PA56|archive-date=May 11, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

The proslavery territorial government, serving under President Pierce, had been relocated to Lecompton. In April 1856, 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".

[[File:THUMBNAIL001L.jpg|thumb|''[[Tragic Prelude]]'', in the [[Kansas State Capitol]]]]
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 the long fuses lit, Colonel [[Edwin Vose Sumner|E.V. Sumner]], cousin to [[Charles Sumner|the senator of the same name]] who was [[Caning of Charles Sumner|beaten]] on the Senate floor, ordered the dispersal of the Free State Legislature.<ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas K. |last=Tate|title=General Edwin Vose Sumner, USA: A Civil War Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hf8CAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA53|year=2013|publisher=McFarland|page=53|isbn=978-0786472581|access-date=December 11, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503113527/https://books.google.com/books?id=hf8CAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA53|archive-date=May 3, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

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 the Kansas Territory, and a new territorial governor, [[John W. Geary]], took office and managed to prevail upon both sides for peace.

===1857–1861===
[[File:Bleeding-Kansas-flag.png|thumb|Digital remake of US flag flown during the conflict. The K stands for Kansas.<ref>{{Cite web |title=31 Stars Plus A 'K' For Bleeding Kansas, An Extraordinarily Unusual Form Of Political Symbolism On An Early Stars & Stripes, Pre-Civil War, California Statehood, 1850–1858 |url=https://jeffbridgman.com/inventory/civil-war-31-stars-plus-k-bleeding-kansas-california-1850-o2299.html |access-date=2024-11-20 |publisher=Jeff R. Bridgman}}</ref>]]
The violent outbreaks affected even building designs: in 1857, farmer Johan H. Eggert built a two-story limestone farmhouse in [[Douglas County, Kansas|Douglas County]] outfitted so it could be defended against attackers, having been previously the victim of pro-southern raids. Gun-loops were built into the first floor walls to enable the occupants to defend themselves against attack.<ref>{{cite thesis |first=William C. Jr. |last=Pollard |title=Forts and Military Posts in Kansas: 1854–1865 |degree=Ph.D. |publisher=Faith Baptist College and Seminary |year=1997 |page=31}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Henry W. |last=Eggert |title=On Early Times in Kansas |type=unpublished manuscript<!--Normally unpublished writings are not acceptable as sources because they are [[WP:V|unverifiable]], but one held in a specified library is OK--> |location=Lawrence, Kansas |date=April 18, 1918 |pages=1–3 |publisher=held at the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas}}</ref><ref>"Map of Historic Douglas County, Kansas". Geo-Graphics Inc. 1985. p. 2.</ref>

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 the Spurs (Kansas)|Battle of 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.<ref name="Watts"/>

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 the South or supported slavery.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1860/11/07/archives/kansas-a-new-page-in-the-history-of-the-territory-the-trouble-on.html |title=A New Page in the History of the Territory The Trouble on the Cherokee Neutral Lands The Settlers Driven of by U.S. Dragoons Seventy-four Houses Burnt Discrimination in Favor of Pro-Slavery Men |date=7 November 1860 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230203214359/https://www.nytimes.com/1860/11/07/archives/kansas-a-new-page-in-the-history-of-the-territory-the-trouble-on.html |archive-date=February 3, 2023 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>

==Kansas admitted as a free state==
{{see also|Kansas in the American Civil War}}
The congressional legislative deadlock was broken in early 1861, when following [[1860 United States presidential election|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 was immediately, within days, admitted to the Union as a free state, under the [[Wyandotte Constitution]]. While pro-Confederates in Missouri attempted to effect [[Missouri secession|that state's secession]] from the Union, and succeeded in having [[Confederate government of Missouri|a pro-Confederate government]] recognized by and admitted to the Confederacy, by the end of 1861, even that state was firmly under the control of its Unionist government. [[Missouri in the American Civil War|Without control of Missouri]], regular Confederate forces were never in a position to seriously threaten the newly recognized free state government in Kansas.

Nevertheless, following the commencement of the American Civil War in 1861, [[Bushwhacker|additional guerrilla violence]] erupted on the border between Kansas and Missouri and sporadically continued until the end of the war.

==Legacy==
===Heritage area===
In 2006, federal legislation defined a new [[Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area]] (FFNHA) and was approved by Congress. A task of the heritage area is to interpret Bleeding Kansas stories, which are also called stories of the Kansas–Missouri border war. A theme of the heritage area is the enduring struggle for freedom. FFNHA includes 41 counties, 29 of which are in eastern Kansas and 12 in western Missouri.<ref>[http://www.freedomsfrontier.org/uploads/resources/appendix%20a.pdf Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area Management Plan Appendices] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129072938/http://www.freedomsfrontier.org/uploads/resources/appendix%20a.pdf |date=November 29, 2014 }}, Freedomsfrontier.org/</ref>

===In popular culture===
The "Bleeding Kansas" period has been dramatically rendered in many works of American popular culture, including literature, theater, film, and television.
* ''[[Santa Fe Trail (film)|Santa Fe Trail]]'' (1940) is an American Western film set before the Civil War, which depicts John Brown's campaign during Bleeding Kansas, starring [[Ronald Reagan]], [[Errol Flynn]], and [[Raymond Massey]].
* In ''[[Seven Angry Men]]'' (1955), Raymond Massey again plays John Brown.
* ''[[The Jayhawkers!]]'' (1959)
* ''[[The Outlaw Josey Wales]]'' (1976), an American western film set during and after the Civil War which depicts violence in the aftermath of Bleeding Kansas.  The character of Granny, who is from Kansas, had a son who she said "was killed by Missouri ruffians in the Border War".
* ''[[The Kents]]'' (1997), a 12-issue miniseries of comics written by [[John Ostrander]], explores the history of [[Superman]]'s adoptive family set against the conflicts of the Bleeding Kansas era.
* ''Wildwood Boys'' (William Morrow, New York; 2000) is a [[biographical novel]] of [[William T. Anderson|"Bloody Bill" Anderson]] by [[James Carlos Blake]].
* ''Bad Blood, the Border War that Triggered the Civil War'' (2007), a documentary film<ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.kansascitypbs.org/local-shows/bad-blood/ |title=Bad Blood, the Border War that Triggered the Civil War |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-9777261-4-1 |publisher=Kansas City Public Television and Wide Awake Films |access-date=May 22, 2022 |archive-date=May 23, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220523163824/https://www.kansascitypbs.org/local-shows/bad-blood/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''Bleeding Kansas'' (2008) by [[Sara Paretsky]] is a novel depicting social and political conflicts in present-day Kansas with many references to the 19th-century events.
* ''[[The Good Lord Bird]]'' (2013) is a novel by James McBride adapted into [[The Good Lord Bird (miniseries)|a 2020 miniseries]] starring [[Ethan Hawke]] as John Brown.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.darkhorizons.com/diggs-russell-join-hawkes-good-lord-bird/|website=darkhorizons.com|title=Diggs, Russell Join Hawke's "Good Lord Bird"|author=Garth Franklin|date=August 3, 2019|access-date=August 5, 2019|archive-date=August 4, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804141356/http://www.darkhorizons.com/diggs-russell-join-hawkes-good-lord-bird/|url-status=live}}</ref>
* The November 8, 2014, episode of ''[[Hell on Wheels (season 4)|Hell on Wheels]]'', titled "Bleeding Kansas", depicts a white family being slain for having slaves, who were then freed, in the name of religion<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.tvfanatic.com/2014/11/hell-on-wheels-season-4-episode-11-review-bleeding-kansas/ |title=Hell on Wheels Season 4 Episode 11 Review: Bleeding Kansas |date=November 8, 2014 |access-date=November 9, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141109064550/http://www.tvfanatic.com/2014/11/hell-on-wheels-season-4-episode-11-review-bleeding-kansas/ |archive-date=November 9, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''When Kings Reigned'' (2017), a docudrama directed by Ian Ballinger and Alison Dover is about fishermen living along the [[Kansas River]] during and after the Bleeding Kansas era and the persecution they faced from local governments.

==See also==
{{Commons category}}
* [[Constitutions of Kansas]]
* [[Origins of the American Civil War]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
===Web===
* {{citation
|title=Territorial Kansas Online 1854–1861. A virtual repository for Territorial Kansas History
|publisher=[[University of Kansas]] and [[Kansas State Historical Society]]
|url=https://territorialkansasonline.ku.edu/index.php
|year=2018}}

===Primary sources===
* {{cite magazine
|title=John Brown and Sons in Kansas Territory
|first=Salmon
|last=Brown
|magazine=[[Indiana Magazine of History]]
|volume=31
|number=2
|date=June 1935
|pages=142–150
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27786731
|jstor=27786731}}
* {{cite journal
|title=The Early History of Kansas, 1854–1861
|first=F. B.
|last=Sanborn
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|journal=[[Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society]]
|date=February 1908
|series=3rd
|volume=1 [Vol. 41 of continuous numbering]
|pages=331–359
|jstor=25079946
|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25079946}}
* {{cite magazine
|title=The Story of John Brown's Sacrifice
|first=F. B.
|last=Sanborn
|author-link=Franklin Benjamin Sanborn
|magazine=Alexander's Magazine
|pages=29–36
|date=August 15, 1905
|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_alexanders-magazine_1905-08-15_1_4/page/28/mode/2up}}
* {{cite book
|title=John Brown the Hero. Personal Reminiscences
|first=J. W., M.D.
|last=Winkley
|year=1905
|via=[[Project Gutenburg]]
|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55707/55707-h/55707-h.htm
|location=Boston
|publisher=James H. West Company}}
* At least 24 pamphlets were published in 1858 dealing with Kansas issues. A listing is in the papers of John Brown biographer [[Oswald Garrison Villard]], [https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4079506/dsc/5 here].
* {{Citation
| title = Report of the Special Committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas; with the views of the minority of said Committee
|author=U. S. House of Representatives, 34th Congress, 1st Session
|author-link=34th United States Congress
| location=Washington, D.C.
| year = 1856
 | url = http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=moa;cc=moa;sid=1f5114455ee8820b080a95813f091487;rgn=title;q1=troubles%20in%20kansas;firstpubl1=1800;firstpubl2=1925;view=toc;subview=detail;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=AFK4445.0001.001
 | access-date = June 18, 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110811023716/http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=moa;cc=moa;sid=1f5114455ee8820b080a95813f091487;rgn=title;q1=troubles%20in%20kansas;firstpubl1=1800;firstpubl2=1925;view=toc;subview=detail;sort=occur;start=1;size=25;idno=AFK4445.0001.001
 | archive-date = August 11, 2011
| url-status = live }}
* {{cite book
|first=Charles
|last=Sumner
|author-link=Charles Sumner
|title=The crime against Kansas. The apologies for the crime. The true remedy. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, in the Senate of the United States, 19th and 20th May, 1856
|location=Boston
|publisher=John J. Jewitt
|date=1856
|url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ABT5841.0001.001/5?rgn=full+text;view=image;q1=Crime+against+kansas}}
* {{cite book
|chapter=Address to the people of the United States [on slavery in Kansas]
|title=Address to the people of the United States, together with the proceedings and resolutions of the Pro-slavery Convention of Missouri, held at Lexington, July, 1855
|year=1855
|location=[[St. Louis, Missouri]]
|first1=Wm. B.
|last1=Napton
|author-link1=William Barclay Napton
|first2=Sterling
|last2=Price
|author-link2=Sterling Price
|first3=M.
|last3=Oliver
|first4=S. H.
|last4=Woodson
|author-link4=Samuel H. Woodson (Missouri politician)
|pages=3–15
|url=https://archive.org/details/addresstopeopleo00pros/page/n2/mode/1up/search/Kansas}}

===Scholarship===
* Childers, Christopher. "Interpreting Popular Sovereignty: A Historiographical Essay", ''Civil War History'' Volume 57, Number 1, March 2011 pp.&nbsp;48–70 [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/civil_war_history/v057/57.1.childers.html in Project MUSE]
* Earle, Jonathan and Burke, Diane Mutti. ''Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border''. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2013.
* [https://bookshop.org/books/slavery-on-the-periphery-the-kansas-missouri-border-in-the-antebellum-and-civil-war-eras/9780820354781 Epps, Kristen. ''Slavery on the Periphery: The Kansas-Missouri Border in the Antebellum and Civil War Eras''. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2016.]
* Etcheson, Nicole. "The Great Principle of Self-Government: Popular Sovereignty and Bleeding Kansas", ''Kansas History'' 27 (Spring-Summer 2004):14–29, links it to [[Jacksonian Democracy]]
* Etcheson, Nicole. ''Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era'' (2006)
* Goodrich, Thomas. ''War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861'' (2004)
* Johannsen, Robert W. "Popular Sovereignty and the Territories", ''Historian'' 22#4 pp.&nbsp;378–395, {{doi|10.1111/j.1540-6563.1960.tb01665.x}}
* Malin, James C. ''John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-six''. (1942)
* Miner, Craig (2002). ''Kansas: The History of the Sunflower State, 1854–2000''.
* [[Allan Nevins|Nevins, Allan]]. ''Ordeal of the Union: vol. 2 A House Dividing, 1852–1857'' (1947), Kansas in national context
* [[Roy Franklin Nichols|Nichols, Roy F.]] "The Kansas–Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography", ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'' (1956) 43#2 pp.&nbsp;187–212 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1902683 in JSTOR]
* [[David M. Potter|Potter, David M.]] ''The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861'' (1976), Pulitzer Prize; ch. 9, 12
* [[David S. Reynolds|Reynolds, David S.]] ''John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights'' (2005)
* {{cite journal
|title='A Model New England State': Northeastern Antislavery in Territorial Kansas, 1854–1860
|first=Gunja
|last=SenGupta
|journal=Civil War History
|volume=39
|number=1
|date=March 1993
|pages=31–46
|doi=10.1353/cwh.1993.0057
|s2cid=144183135
|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/420905/pdf|url-access=subscription
}}

==External links==
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469633/ Documentary On Bleeding Kansas]
* [http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/territorial/territorial1.htm Kansas State Historical Society: A Look Back at Kansas Territory, 1854–1861]
* [http://www.kansasmemory.org/ Access documents, photographs, and other primary sources on Kansas Memory, the Kansas State Historical Society's digital portal]
* [https://archive.org/details/historynewengla00compgoog <!-- quote=new england emigrant aid company. --> NEEAC. ''History of the New-England Emigrant Aid Company.'' Boston: John Wilson & Son, 1862.]
* [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2952.html PBS article on Bleeding Kansas.]
* [http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php Territorial Kansas Online: A Virtual Repository for Kansas Territorial History.]
* [http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h84.html U-S-History.com.]
* [http://www.kshs.org/p/online-exhibits-willing-to-die-for-freedom-introduction/15398 Online Exhibit – Willing to Die for Freedom, Kansas Historical Society]
* [http://omniatlas.com/maps/northamerica/18551206/ Map of North America during Bleeding Kansas at omniatlas.com]

{{American conflicts}}
{{Riots in the United States (1607–1865)}}
{{John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry}}
{{Kansas in the Civil War}}
{{Missouri in the Civil War}}
{{American Civil War|expanded=Origins}}
{{Franklin Pierce}}
{{James Buchanan}}
{{US history}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Bleeding Kansas| ]]
[[Category:Political history of the United States]]
[[Category:Popular sovereignty|United States]]
[[Category:1850s in the United States]]
[[Category:1854 in the United States]]
[[Category:1855 in the United States]]
[[Category:1856 in the United States]]
[[Category:1857 in the United States]]
[[Category:1858 in the United States]]
[[Category:American Civil War by location]]
[[Category:Civil wars in the United States]]
[[Category:Crimes in Kansas]]
[[Category:Crimes in Missouri]]
[[Category:Abolitionism in the United States]]
[[Category:Political violence in the United States]]
[[Category:Missouri in the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Kansas in the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Politically motivated migrations]]
[[Category:Origins of the American Civil War]]
[[Category:Riots and civil disorder in Kansas]]
[[Category:History of slavery in Kansas]]
[[Category:James Buchanan administration controversies]]
[[Category:Franklin Pierce administration controversies]]