Lesson 7.4 Kansas Nebraska Act / Bleeding Kansas
Crime Scene Investigation: Evidence.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. YOUR Prediction:
Based on our crime scene and what we have learned so far, we know that there is a conflict between the North
and the South regarding slavery. As we read about the Kansas-Nebraska Act, underline information that
provides evidence as to how each region reacted.
In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill in Congress that stirred anger. Douglas
wanted to get a railroad built to California, and he thought the project was more likely to happen if Congress
organized the Great Plains into Nebraska Territory and opened the region to settlers. Because this territory lay
north of the Missouri Compromise, Douglas’s bill said nothing about slavery. But southerners in Congress
agreed to support the bill only if Douglas made a few changes—and those changes had far-reaching
consequences.
Douglas’s final bill created two new territories—Kansas and Nebraska. It also reversed the Missouri
Compromise by leaving it up to the settlers to vote on whether to permit slavery in the two territories. Douglas
called this policy “popular sovereignty.”
Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act hit the North like a thunderbolt. The northerners were fearful that this
law would lead to the spread of slavery across the plains.
1 .What did the Kansas-Nebraska Act do?
2. How did it affect the previous compromises?
3. Northerners were pleased/unhappy (circle one) about the act because…
4. Southerners were pleased/unhappy (circle one) about the act because…
5. Mark the maps below to visually represent the significance of this act’s impact.
BEFORE
AFTER
Lesson 7.4 Kansas Nebraska Act / Bleeding Kansas
Guiding Question: What was the impact of the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
Exhibit A: “Peace Convention,”
Kansas State Historical Society
1. The two groups represent…
2. Because I see _______________, I
can infer…
3. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
caused… Exhibit B: “John Brown and Bleeding Kansas” video clip
As you watch the video clip, fill in the blanks of the following statements.
1. New territories are becoming _____________________________.
2. The North and South are __________________________--neither side will back down.
3. John Brown is considered a _____________________ and a _______________________.
Exhibit C: Blood Flows in Kansas
Circle terms and phrases provide evidence to answer the guiding question.
Brown’s men killed five pro-slavery men that night and left their sliced-up bodies in the dirt. When the
bodies were found the next morning, it was the South’s turn to be furious. “WAR! WAR!” declared a Missouri
newspaper. A pro-slavery paper in Kansas called the killings an “abolitionist outrage” and demanded immediate
revenge. More than two hundred men were killed in Kansas in 1856. And the issue of slavery was still far from
settled.