While Congress argued, violence raged in what people called "Bleeding Kansas." Northerners and southerners alike rushed weapons into the territory. An armed proslavery group burned part of the town of Lawrence, a center of the antislavery settlers. In revenge, a fanatical white abolitionist, John Brown, gathered an armed group, including his own sons, and murdered five unarmed proslavery men. The fighting over slavery and over disputed land claims took the lives of more than 200 men and women before federal troops moved in to restore order.

Clay's proposed compromise included several parts: (1) The admission of California as a free state. (2) The organization of land acquired from Mexico (except California) into territories on the basis of "popular sovereignty." Thus the settlers might decide for themselves whether or not they wanted slavery in their territory. (3) A payment of $10 million to Texas by the United States, if Texas abandoned all claims to New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. (4) The abolition of the slave trade -- that is, of buying and selling of slaves, but not of slavery itself in the District of Columbia. (5) A more effective fugitive slave law, one that would compel state and local law enforcement officials to aid federal officials in the capture and return of runaway slaves.

The time soon came for the settlers in Kansas to draw up a constitution and organize a territorial government. This brought them face to face with the crucial question: Was slavery to be allowed in Kansas or not? The proslavery forces rushed voters into the territory and elected a proslavery legislature, which promptly passed laws favoring slaveowners. The antislavery forces then drafted a constitution forbidding slavery and elected an antislavery legislature. By the end of 1855, the territory of Kansas had two different constitutions and two different governments - one proslavery, one antislavery. Back in Washington, members of Congress watched the struggle with dismay - and no one with greater dismay than the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Stephen A. Douglas. When Douglas had argued for popular sovereignty, he had hoped to remove the bitter issue of slavery from the heated politics of Congress and to allow the settlers in the territories themselves to decide the issue. Obviously, Douglas's intentions had backfired. Congress was now forced to take sides and, hopelessly divided, it was not at all able to reach a decision.

To oppose Douglas, the Illinois Republicans put up Abraham Lincoln. Born in a log cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln was a self-made man. Gifted with a down-to earth sense of humor and with much political shrewdness, Lincoln was a match for Douglas in wit, in logical argument, and in general ability.

Throngs of people came to seven Illinoise towns to hear Lincoln and Dougals vigorously debate the issues of the day. Newspapers in every section of the land reported the debates. Lincoln greatly impressed those who heard him and many who read what he said.

Douglas was a skillfull politician. His answer to Lincoln became known as the Freeport Doctrine, after the Illinois town where the debate took place. Douglas cleverly replied that the legislature of a territory could refuse to pass a law supporting slavery and in effect could exclude slavery from the territory. Douglas' statement met with enough approval in Illinois to elect him Senator. Nevertheless, the Freeport Doctrine weakened Douglas in the South. By doing so, it also cost him the nomination for the Presidency in 1860 by a united Democratic party. Southerners began to realize that Douglas' popular sovereignty did not mean that he favored the expansion of slavery.

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which was part of the Compromise of 1850, also helped to keep the issue of slavery before the people.  The writer Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed the feelings of most militant abolitionists about the Fugitive Slave Law when he wrote 'this filthy enactment was made in the nineteenth century by people who could read and write.  I will not obey it.'  Several northern states responded to the pressure of abolitionists.  These states openly defied the Fugitive Slave Law by passing 'personal liberty laws.' Such Laws forbade local officials to help in the capture and return of fugitive slaves.  Many northerners defied the Fugitive Slave Law.  Meanwhile, some southerners talked of increasing their power in Congress by acquiring new slave territory.  The Spanish colony of Cuba seemed especially attractive.  In fact, many advocates of manifest destiny, or expansionism, had long hoped to gain control over that island.

In Boston, the day after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, armed forces were needed to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.  A battalion of United States artillery, four platoons of marines, and a sheriff's posse were called out to escort a runaway slave from the courthouse to the ship that was waiting to carry him back to the South  Everywhere throughout the North, people once again talked about slavery.  The Fugitive Slave Law became increasingly difficult to enforce.  'Anti-Nebraska' meetings were held, at which Douglas was denounced for reopening the slavery dispute.