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Territorial Governor Alvin Saunders. Pre-Civil War era Nebraska Territory was largely rural and unsettled, at the edge of the American frontier.The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 had established the 40th parallel north as the dividing line between the territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Kansas was the newest U.S. state, admitted just months earlier in January. The state had formally rejected slavery by popular vote and vowed to fight on the side of the Union, though ideological divisions with neighboring Missouri, a slave state, had led to violent conflict in previous years and persisted for the duration of the war.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act divided the nation and pointed it toward civil war. [81] Congressional Democrats suffered huge losses in the mid-term elections of 1854, as voters provided support to a wide array of new parties that opposed the Democrats and the Kansas–Nebraska Act.
After years of small-scale civil war, Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free state under the "Wyandotte Constitution" on January 29, 1861. Most people gave strong support for the Union cause. However, guerrilla warfare and raids from pro-slavery forces, many spilling over from Missouri, occurred during the Civil War. [23]
Opponents of slavery and the Kansas–Nebraska Act meet in Ripon, Wisconsin in February, and subsequently meet in other Northern states, to form the Republican Party. [178] The party includes many former members of the Whig and Free Soil parties and some northern Democrats.
Slavery was a divisive issue in the United States. It was a major issue during the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the subject of political crises in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 and was the primary cause of the American Civil War in 1861. Just before the Civil War, there were 19 free states and 15 slave ...
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The history of border ruffians is woven into the historical context of Bleeding Kansas, or the border war, a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas in 1854–1859. [25] Kansas Territory was created by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. The Act repealed the previous Federal prohibition on slavery in that area.