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Lead-in to the War The origins of the Civil War
are often viewed as present at the founding of the nation. The American
Constitution did not mention slavery specifically, except to protect
the slave trade for 20 years (1808). It counted slaves ("all other
persons") as "three-fifths" of a person for purposes of Congressional
representation. The institution of slavery itself was left to the
discretion of the states. As slavery disappeared from Northern states,
but remained viable in the South, two very different ways of life arose
in these sections. Compromises regarding slavery, especially its
extension to the new Western territories, became more difficult to
achieve. Social, political and economic power was at stake for both the
North and the South.
Several historical events can be seen as efforts to
resolve an issue which was ultimately resolved only by secession and
war. These include the Missouri Compromise (1820), the Compromise of
1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act, and finally, the Kansas-Nebraska
Act of 1854. This last piece of legislation allowed for "popular
sovereignty," that is, a decision by settlers in Kansas and Nebraska
whether their new states would be slave or free. The struggle to
determine the future of Kansas (known as "Bleeding Kansas")
precipitated a level of violence that would not abate. This web page
(appearing in 2005) begins with commemorative activities in the midst
of that crisis.
1854
May 30, 1854
Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law, Washington, D.C. This law gives the
people of the two territories the authority to decide on the legal
status of slavery. This effectively repeals the Missouri Compromise
line of demarcation, which prohibited slavery in the states of the
Louisiana Purchase above the southern boundary of Missouri 1.
August 1, 1854
The first settlers from the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company,
supporting a Free State, arrive in Lawrence, Kansas.
November 28, 1854
Thousands of armed Southerners, mostly from Missouri, come into Kansas
to vote for a Proslavery Congressional delegate. Proslavery forces win
the election of 1854.
1855
March 13, 1855
More New Englanders (New England Emigrant Aid Company), favoring a Free
State, journey to Kansas to participate in the election of the
territorial legislature.
March 30, 1855
Voters elect members of the territorial legislature. Proslavery forces
win the election. President Franklin Pierce recognizes this
legislature, which incorporates the Missouri slave code.
Summer 1855
1200 New Englanders (New England Emigrant Aid Company) journey to
Kansas. Henry Ward Beecher furnishes them with Sharp's rifles, which
come to be known as "Beecher's Bibles."
October 23 - November 11, 1855
Free State advocates meet in Topeka, Kansas and adopt a state
Constitution, which outlaws slavery, but also prohibits all free
African-Americans from entering the state.
November 21, 1855
Wakarusa War. Charles W. Dow, a Free State advocate, is murdered by
F.M. Coleman, a Proslavery advocate, over a land dispute. After Sheriff
Samuel J. Jones of Douglas County arrests not only Coleman, but a Free
State witness, Jacob Branson, political tensions mount on both sides.
When armed Free State men rescue Branson, each side begins to increase
its forces. Proslavery reinforcements come from Missouri and Free State
advocates from around Kansas. They converge on Lawrence, Kansas.
December 6, 1855
Governor Wilson Shannon negotiates a settlement of the Wakarusa dispute
and the combatants disperse. However, Thomas W. Barber, a Free State
advocate, is killed by George W. Clarke, a Proslavery advocate, as he
leaves Lawrence to return home.
December 7, 1855
John Brown and his sons arrive in Lawrence to join the
Free State effort as it concludes . He is made a captain of a company
in the Kansas Volunteers. He and his family stay at the Free State
Hotel. Brown joined his sons at their settlement near Osawatomie,
Kansas in October.
1856
1856
New
England abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher donates 25
rifles and his parishioners donate 25 Bibles to the Free State
community of
Wamego, KS. Today, the title of the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church
refers to
this event.
May
25-25, 1856
Pottawatomie
Massacre. John Brown, four of his sons and two
other abolitionist Free Staters hack to death five proslavery men,
supposedly
in retaliation for the sacking of Lawrence and the caning of Senator
Charles
Sumner.
August
2, 1856
Burning
of Tauy Jones House. Proslavery forces burn the
original home of Free Stater Tauy Jones, from which Jones
escapes. He
builds a second house, still standing, in the 1860s.
September
4, 1856
Repulse
of James H. Lane. The people of Lecompton, KS, with
the Camp Sackett Cavalry, prevent James Lane and his forces from
sacking the
town to liberate Free State prisoners held there. The prisoners
are later
moved to Lawrence.
1857
1857-1858
Joel
Grover, an abolitionist, builds a barn on his property
in Lawrence, KS and uses it as a stop along the Underground Railroad.
John
Brown is said to have stopped there in January 1859 as he fled across
Kansas
with slaves taken from Missouri.
January
12-February 21, 1857
The
Kansas Territorial Legislative Assembly, controlled by
pro-slavery advocates, meets and calls for a Constitutional Convention.
March
6, 1857
Dred
Scott Decision. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney delivers the decision that the slave Dred Scott's suit
for freedom
should be dismissed. Taney goes on in his opinion to declare that
“A
free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were
brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a ‘citizen’ within
the
meaning of the Constitution of the United States.” Furthermore,
he
declares that slave owners cannot be prohibited from maintaining slaves
in the
territories.
October
19, 1857
The
Kansas Constitutional Convention meets and adopts a proslavery
constitution, the Lecompton Constitution, which it submits directly to
Congress
for approval. The constitution approves slavery in the territory and
prohibits
free African Americans from living in Kansas. The constitution becomes
a
national issue, splits the Democratic Party and is a topic of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858.
1858
January
4, 1858
1858
Territorial Legislature (Free State) at Lawrence, KS.
The newly elected territorial legislature, with an
antislavery
majority, meets in session in Lecompte, organizes and then adjourns to
the
friendlier environment of Lawrence for its session.
May
19, 1858
Marais
des Cygnes Massacre. Proslavery forces under Charles
Hamilton capture 11 Free State men near Trading Post, KS and shoot them
in a
ravine near the site, killing five of them. The event, often
referred to
as a massacre, was reported nationwide.
June
7-15, 1858
Repulse
of James Montgomery. Captain James Montgomery, a
Free Stater, and some followers, enter Fort Scott on June 7 and try to
burn
down the Western Hotel, a pro-slavery headquarters. Governor James
Denver
negotiates an agreement to remove federal troops.
June
16, 1858
Lincoln
delivers the "House Divided" speech.
Accepting the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from the state
of
Illinois, Abraham Lincoln delivers a now famous speech before the
Republican
State Convention in the Old State Capitol in Springfield, IL. In
it he
predicts that the country will not be able to endure half slave and
half free.
August
15-September 15, 1858
John
Brown illness. John Brown stays in the cabin of his
half-sister, Florella Adair, where he recovers from an illness.
August
21, 1858
1st
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The first
debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during the
Illinois U.S.
Senatorial Campaign is held in Ottawa, IL. They both address the Kansas
and
Nebraska Act of 1854 and the Dred Scott decision in their debate over
the
expansion of slavery.
August
27, 1858
2nd
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The second debate
between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas is held in Freeport, IL.
The
candidates discuss the fugitive slave law, admission of slave states,
slavery
in the territories and District of Columbia, and interstate slave trade.
September
15, 1858
3rd
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The third debate between Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas is held in Jonesboro,
IL. They
fight over the meaning of popular sovereignty under the Kansas-Nebraska
Act as
contradicted by the Dred Scott decision.
September
18, 1858
4th
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The fourth debate
between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas is held in Charleston,
IL.
Candidates identify their respective positions on racial
equality, but
they spend most of this debate in argument over a speech by Judge Lyman
Trumbull, then Republican Senator from Illinois.
October
7, 1858
5th
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The fifth
debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas is held in
Galesburg, IL.
They debate over the Kansas-Nebraska bill, as a demonstration of
states'
rights, and the meaning of slavery in the context of the Constitution
and the
Declaration of Independence, particularly in light of the Dred Scott
decision.
October
13, 1858
6th
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The sixth
debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas is held in
Quincy, IL.
The candidates continue with topics from the Galesburg debates,
including
further comments on the Dred Scott decision and the expansion of
slavery
into the territories.
October
15, 1858
7th
Lincoln-Douglas debate. The seventh and
last debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas is held in
Alton,
IL. Both candidates revisit their remarks at the previous debates
at
Galesburg and Quincy. Then, both candidates defend former statements
related to
the overall slavery debate. Douglas discusses his opposition to the
proslavery
Lecompton constitution. Lincoln defends his “House Divided”
speech, in
which he had criticized the Dred Scott decision as potentially making
slavery
national, but insists that he had not objected to its ruling against
African
Americans citizens.
December
16, 1858
Captain
James Montgomery enters Fort Scott and frees
Benjamin Rice, a Free State prisoner. J.H. Little, who fires on
the
party, is killed and his store raided.
December
20, 1858
John
Brown slave raid. John Brown, with a company of
Free Staters, raids two plantations in Missouri and frees 11 slaves,
whom he
brings back across the border into Kansas. One white slave owner
is
killed in the raid.
December
28, 1858
There
is some evidence that on this date the eleven slaves
freed by John Brown on December 20, 1858, and pursued across Kansas,
were hiding under the Valentin
Gerth
cabin. Brown has to find a series of hiding
places as
he moves across Kansas and then North.
1859
January
13, 1859
Battle
of the Spurs. John Ritchie helps John Brown
escape with fugitive slaves during the Battle of the Spurs. Brown and
his men
flee from Deputy U.S. Marshal John P. Wood and a posse by fording the
swollen
waters of Straight Creek.
On
the same day the Lawrence Republican publishes
John Brown’s famous Parallels essay. While hiding in
Moneka, KS in
early January with these fugitive slaves, John Brown writes an essay
explaining
that the slave raid is a parallel action for the Marais des Cygnes
massacre by
proslavery forces in May 1858.
February
1859
John
Brown and the fugitive slaves arrive in Tabor, Iowa.
March
10, 1859
John
Brown’s fugitive slaves arrive in Detroit, MI.
March
13, 1859
John
Brown ferries the fugitive slaves across the Detroit
River into Windsor, Canada.
October
16-18, 1859
John
Brown raid at
Harpers Ferry, VA (now WV). John Brown sets out for Harpers Ferry
with 21
men -- 5
African Americans, including Dangerfield Newby, who hopes to rescue his
slave
wife, and 16 white men, two of whom
are Brown's
sons. Brown and his men take the federal armory and arsenal, as
well as
local hostages. However, no slaves join them as they had hoped.
The local
militia pins Brown and his men down. Marines and soldiers are
dispatched, under
the leadership of then Colonel Robert E. Lee. In the end, ten of
Brown's men
are killed (including two African Americans and both of Brown’s sons),
seven
are captured (including Brown), and five escape.
October
25-November 2, 1859
In
Jefferson County Courthouse in Charleston, VA (now WV), John Brown is
tried for
his raid and insurrection of the Harper's Ferry
arsenal. The trial leads to the examination and execution of
Brown and
his conspirators. Brown’s trial receives nationwide coverage and
more
sharply divides the country on the issue of slavery.
*
Connelley , William
E., A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, 1918, transcribed by
Carolyn
Ward, 1998, Cutler, William G., History of the State of Kansas,
Chicago, IL:
A.T. Andreas, 1883, electronic version on the web by the Kansas
Collection, and
Territorial Kansas Online by the Kansas State Historical Society and
the
University of Kansas.
** Kansas:
a cyclopedia of state
history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities,
towns,
prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted
to
selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago :
1912. 3
v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W.
Blackmar.
Transcribed July 2002 by Carolyn Ward.
Available online through Blue Skyways, Kansas State Library [http://skyways.lib.ks.us/]
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