Hilton R. Helper wrote The Impending Crisis in The South in 1857. Helper tried to use logic to argue that non-slave owning whites were the ones suffering from slavery. Dumb, right? Slave owners and blacks both hated it.
The North-South Contest for Kansas
The New Emigrant Aid Company financed groups of abolitionists to move to Kansas in hopes of seeing it as a free state.
In 1855 pro-slavery supporters from Missouri came to Kansas to elect officials. They succeeded in electing pro-slavery officials and set up the government at Shawnee Mission. In retaliation, the free soilers set up their own government in Topeka.
In 1856 a group of pro-slavery people (man my vocabulary is bad at 10pm) burned down the free town of Lawrence, starting the civil war in Kansas.
-Rudy M: pp. 441-446 (“Kansas in Convulsion”-”Dred Scott Bombshell”)
Kansas in Convulsion
John Brown- extreme abolitionist
May 1856-Led a group of followers to Pottawatomie Creek to hack up 5 people thought to be pro-slavery
Went against the free-soil cause
Escalated into Kansas joining the civil war
Kansas had enough to become a state with popular sovereignty
Lecompton Constitution- people could vote for the constitution “with slavery” or “without slavery”
Could not vote for/against the constitution as a whole
Would always result in slavery in Kansas
President Buchanan approved the Lecompton Constitution
Douglas was against the Lecompton Constitution
Compromise: Popular vote for Lecompton Constitution
Free soilers flooded polls
Kansas remained a territory until