What state was trying popular sovereignty and found bloody trouble?

Answer 1

Kansas is bleeding, pale to her sovereignty she is Kansas, Bleeding Kansas. This story begins, some would say, with the Missouri Compromise, but if that were true 'twould be false as the Missouri Compromise is borne of the Connecticut Compromise which led to the "three-fifths compromise" which declared "other persons" to be less than human, and only three-fifths so. This compromise, the "three-fifths compromise" was negotiated for fear of losing several Southern States who threatened not to ratify the newly adopted Constitution. The Connecticut Compromise or the "Great Compromise" was the agreement to form a bicameral legislative body comprised of a House of Representatives in the lower house and a Senate in the upper house. The lower house Representatives would be elected from within the State they reside and according to a census of enumeration. The Southern States were not as densely populated as the Northern States and feared a marginalization of autonomy and authority would follow if some sort of agreement was not reached. Thus, the Connecticut Compromise which created an even number of legislators for that house, and the "three-fifths compromise" which allowed slave owners to count their slaves as "three-fifths" of a person for any census of enumeration and/or apportionment considerations.

This bitter and very sour compromise undermined the intent and most of the language of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. The political lines were drawn during the Constitutional Convention and by 1820 there were clear and recognizable factions of pro slavery and anti slavery in the United States Congress. The political focus at that time revolved around regulation of slavery in the Western territories. As all battles for power share common motives, the power over new land was indeed the primary focus of the Southern and Northern states during these disputes. In 1820 Congress passed the Missouri Compromise that banned slavery in certain territories and the division grew deeper. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Holmes on April 22 of 1820 addressing his concern over this division created by the compromise and predicted it would lead to the destruction of the Union.

After the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which effectively repealed the Missouri compromise, settlers of these territories could decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery or not. The principle idea behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act was the notion of "Popular sovereignty" "Squatters sovereignty". In November of 1854 thousand of armed southerners known as "border ruffians" who had settled in Kansas, most of them from Missouri, in an attempt to steal the election to Congress of just one single territorial delegate, poured over the line to meet the rumored "30,000 Northern anti slavers who had intended to settle in Kansas and declare it a non slave state. The pro slave state faction won the election and this triggered a series of violent events that would lead to the moniker "Bleeding Kansas" or "Bloody Kansas".