41: Kansas! (Bleeding Kansas, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, & Caning of Charles Sumner)

“We can send five thousand--enough to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the Territory.”

This is the story of the Civil War’s warm up. The States are increasingly dividing along northern and southern (anti-slavery and pro-slavery) lines, and this tension is coming out in spades in Kansas. Northerners want to see it become a free state; Southerners want it to be a slave state. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act is meant to produce a meaningful compromise, but it seems to only make things worse! Terrible violence is breaking out: Missourian “Border Ruffians” are illegally voting in Kansas and ruffing up Free state supporters; southern Congressman Preston Brooks beats northern US Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death in the Senate chambers, and abolitionist John Brown is hacking men to death with a broadsword! 

Meanwhile, Dred Scott’s suing for his freedom. It isn’t going to go well, and this is only more fuel for America’s raging fire. Peace--or what’s left of it--can’t last.

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