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]] Bleeding Kansas, sometimes referred to in the History Of Kansas as '''Bloody Kansas''' or the '''Border War''', was a sequence of violent events involving Abolitionist s (anti-slavery) and pro- Slavery elements that took place in Kansas–Nebraska Territory and the western Frontier towns of the U.S. State of Missouri between roughly 1854 and 1856. The term Bleeding Kansas was coined by Horace Greeley of the '' New York Tribune ''. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territory and provided the cause of the ensuing Guerrilla Warfare . Enshrined in the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which nullified the Missouri Compromise , is the principle now known as "popular sovereignty", an idea heavily supported by U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas , chairman of the Senate Committee On Territories and greatly contested by abolitionists. Popular sovereignty was an attempt to offer concessions to the southern states through making possible the expansion of slavery into both western and northern territories. The act established that the question of the expansion of slavery in the new states of Kansas and Nebraska would be decided by the inhabitants of the states. It had been assumed that slave-owning Southerners would occupy Kansas and make it a slave state, while free state advocates would settle Nebraska. Things worked out as anticipated in Nebraska, but not in Kansas. Several Abolitionist organizations, the most notable being the New England Emigrant Aid Company , in the North organized and funded several thousand settlers to move to Kansas and presumably vote later to make it a free state. These organizations helped to establish anti-slavery settlements in Topeka , Manhattan , and Lawrence . The abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher collected funds to arm like-minded settlers with Sharps carbines, leading the precision rifles to become known as "Beecher's Bibles". By the summer of 1855, approximately 1,200 New England ers had made the journey to the new territory, armed and ready to fight. There was also organized Immigration to Kansas from southern states, most notably Missouri , to secure the expansion of slavery. Pro-slavery settlements were established at Leavenworth and Atchison . Rumors had spread through the South that 20,000 Northerners were descending on Kansas, and in November 1854, thousands of armed Southerners known as " Border Ruffians ", mostly from Missouri, poured over the line to vote for a proslavery congressional delegate. Only half the ballots were cast by registered voters, and at one location, only 20 of over 600 voters were legal residents. The pro-slavery forces won the election. Few of the Border Ruffians actually owned slaves; they were too poor. What motivated them was hatred of the Yankee s and abolitionists and the prospect of free blacks living in neighboring areas. Southerners were driven by the rhetoric of leaders such as David Rice Atchison , a Missouri senator, who proclaimed the Northerners to be "negro thieves" and "abolitionist tyrants." He encouraged Missourians to defend their institution "with the bayonet and with blood" and, if necessary, "to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the district." In 1856 the pro-slavery territorial capital was moved to Lecompton , a town only 12 miles from Lawrence, a Free State stronghold. In April of that year a three-man congressional investigating committee arrived in Lecompton to look into the Kansas troubles. The majority report of the committee found the elections to be fraudulent, and said that the free state government represented the will of the majority. President Franklin Pierce failed to follow its recommendations, however, and continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature as the legitimate government of Kansas. On May 21 , 1856 , a group of pro-slavery border ruffians entered Lawrence, where they burned the Free State Hotel, destroyed two Printing Press es, and ransacked homes and stores. This act inspired John Brown to lead a group of men on an attack at a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek . The group, which included four of Brown's sons, dragged five pro-slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death with swords. These two actions are often regarded as the first shots of the Civil War . The so-called "Border War" lasted for another four months until a new governor, John W. Geary , managed to prevail upon the Missourians to return home in late 1856. This was followed by a fragile peace broken by intermittent violent outbreaks for several more years. The last major outbreak of violence was the Marais Des Cygnes Massacre , in which Border Ruffians killed five Free State men. In all, approximately 55 people died in "Bleeding Kansas." In 1857, a Kansas constitutional convention was convened, which drafted what has become known as the " Lecompton Constitution ", a pro-slavery document. The abolitionist forces Boycott ed the ratification vote because it failed to offer them a means to vote against slavery. The Lecompton constitution was accepted by President James Buchanan , who urged acceptance and statehood. Congress disagreed and ordered another election. In the second election the pro-slavery forces boycotted the process, allowing the anti-slavery forces to claim victory by defeating the document. In mid-1859, a new constitution was drafted; this document represented the by-then prevailing abolitionist view. It was approved by the electorate by a 2-to-1 margin and Kansas entered the Union as a free state in January 1861. 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