01:512:104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: New England Emigrant Aid Company, Border Ruffian, Convulsion
16 May 2018
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Chapter 19 - Drifting Toward Disunion 1854-1861
The North-South Contest for Kansas
• Newcomers to Kansas were mostly westward-moving pioneers in
search of richer lands beyond the sunset.
• A small part of the inflow was financed by groups of northern
abolitionists or free-soilers.
• The most famous of these antislavery organizations was the New
England Emigrant Aid Company, which sent about 2000 people to the
troubled area to forestall the South, and to make a profit. Southern
spokesmen raised cries of betrayal.
• They had supported the Kansas-Nebraska act, with the unspoken
understanding that Kansas would become slave and Nebraska free.
• The northeners were now out to "abolitionize" bothKansas and
Nebraska.
• In 1855, proslavery border ruffians flooded Kansas to vote for a
proslavery government, which won.
• Antislaveryites set up their own government in Topeka.
Kansas in Convulsion
• John Brown came to Kansas, dedicated to the abolitionist cause.
• In retaliation for the attack on Lawrence, he led a band of followers to Pottawatomie Creek in May
1856, and hacked five men who were suspected to be proslaveryites to pieces.
• Civil war in Kansas continued intermittently until it merged with the large-scale Civil War of 1861-
1865.
• The Kansas conflict destroyed millions of dollars worth of property, paralyzed agriculture in
certain areas, and cost scores of lives.
"Bully" Brooks and His Bludgeon
• "Bleeding Kansas" also spattered blood on floor of Senate in 1856. Senator Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts was a leading abolitionist and one of the most disliked men in the Senate. Made a
speech,"The Crime Against Kansas" after miscarriage of popular sovereignty. He condemned the
proslavery men and referred insultingly to South Carolina and its Senator Andrew Butler.
• Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina resented the insults to his state and its senator. On
May 22, 1856, he approached Sumner and pounded him with an eleven-ounce cane until it broke.
Sumner fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor.
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