Bleeding Kansas

Popular Sovereignty in Kansas

• Popular sovereignty would be used to decide whether kansas would be a free or slave state.
• Missourians attempted to make Kansas a slave state by travelling into Kansas to vote. 
• The New England Emigrant Aid Company was set up, and sponsored people in free states to vote against slavery in Kansas.
• Settlers from free states had a majority but Missourians flooded into Kansas. The eventual elected legislature was 36 pro-slavers and 3 free soilers, and met at Lecompton.

The Topeka Government

• Free-soilers replied by holding their own elections, and met at Topeka.
• By 1855, Kansas had two governments. The Lecompton government…