Why Kansas Hates Missouri | State Rivalries

Here is why Kansans and Missourians have a long history of hating each other. This is the first episode of a new series planned with The Cynical Historian examining different state rivalries. This episode's companion piece, why New Mexico hates Texas, can found on his channel here:    • Why New Mexico Hates Texas | State Ri...  
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Sources:
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/bleed...
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansa...
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/new-e...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_...)
http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder...
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/battl...
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6...
http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder...
http://www.casscountyorderno11.com/th...

Earle, Johnathan. Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border. University Press of Kansas, 2013.
Etcheson, Nicole. Bleeding Kansas - Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era. University Press of Kansas, 2004
Goodrich, Thomas (1992). Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. pp. 4–6.
Pringle, Heather (April 2010). "DIGGING THE SCORCHED EARTH". Archaeology. 63 (2): 21.
Reece, Richard. Bleeding Kansas. ABDO Publishing, 2012.

So why does Kansas hate Missouri?

It all started with one of the worst laws in American history- The Kansas-Nebraska Act. By the 1850s, many Americans were illegally moving to what would become Kansas. Most of them came for that sweet, cheap, farmland, ignoring the earlier promises to give much of the area to Native Americans who had previously been pushed out of their homes back east. After talks picked up about building a transcontinental railroad through the area, Congress went to work trying to come up with a law to make Kansas a territory and give it the infrastructure it needed to allow settlement. It wasn’t easy. You see, there was the slavery issue. Americans were divided-go figure- about the expansion of slavery out west. According to the Missouri Compromise, passed back in 1820, any new territory created north of the 36°30’ parallel and west of Missouri couldn’t have slavery. So Missouri would be the last slave state north of 36-30. However, pro-slavery folks felt if Kansas was a territory it should also have slavery since they weren’t getting slavery in the desert southwest.

Pro-slavery and anti-slavery members of Congress passionately debated the issue. Finally, in 1854, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas came up with another compromise, that crappy law I brought up earlier- The Kansas-Nebraska Act. Congress barely passed it, and President Franklin Pierce signed it into law on May 30, 1854. It created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It got rid of that 36-30 line of the Missouri Compromise, and it established popular sovereignty in both territories to solve the slavery issue. In other words, it allowed the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery in both territories. I know, what could go wrong, right?

Well a lot went wrong in Kansas. Remember, Missouri was a slave state. Within days of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, hundreds of pro-slavery Missourians crossed the border into Kansas territory claiming land. They organized and plotted ways to politically influence the region. 11 days after the Act passed, Missourians put together a meeting at Salt Creek Valley, just west of Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, creating the Squatter’s Claim Association, and calling for people to sacrifice their lives by settling in Kansas to ensure it became a slave state.

Not to be outdone, the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company organized in uh, yeah, Massachusetts, an abolitionist hotbed, to help settlers move to Kansas to make sure it became a free state. It sent its first 29 settlers on July 29th, 1854.