Bleeding Kansas

Kansas' awkward adolescent phase during its transition from Territory to State. Instead of braces and acne, though, Kansas' middle school years were plagued by election fraud and violence.

Bogus Legislature

Kansas Territory's first elected legislature, action-packed with all kinds of voter fraud, impassioned slavery speeches, and frontier-style camping and teambuilding activities.

Border Ruffians

A quaint term used to describe the pro-slavery Missourians who flooded into Kansas, committed widespread election fraud, and perpetrated a bunch of violence in an attempt to ensure that the new territory would allow slavery.

Compromise of 1850

A legislative bundle of joy that allowed California to become a state without slavery, gave Texas a bunch of money in exchange for land it wanted, established the territories of New Mexico and Utah, upgraded the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 to a snazzy new 1850 version, and made slavery illegal in Washington, D.C.

Free Stater

An anti-slavery guy or gal who relocated to Kansas in the 1850s with the express purpose of voting down slavery in the new territory. (Well, the women couldn't vote. But they went anyway.)

Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

A fun piece of legislation that basically gave slaveholders the right to retrieve any of their slaves who might dare to try and escape.

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

This Act gave its 1793 little bro some teeth by saying that free states were obligated to help slaveholders retrieve their escaped slaves, even though the free states themselves wanted no part of the nasty business.

Indian Territory

Also known as the "Unorganized Territory," this ginormous piece of land in the middle of the United States was renovated and renamed as the Kansas and Nebraska Territories in 1854. Today, the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma all call parts of the former Indian Territory their own.

Leavenworth Constitution

Also known as Failure #3, the Leavenworth Constitution was Kansas' third attempt to lock down that dream called statehood. This Constitution didn't give women any rights, but it did prohibit slavery and extend suffrage to African Americans, which was a super big deal. The U.S. Senate said "2edgy4me" and voted it down in May of 1858.

Lecompton Constitution

Kansas' second failed attempt at designing a state Constitution, this super-harsh version allowed slavery, prohibited free black people from even living in the state, and limited voting rights to free white male U.S. citizens. Presidents Pierce and Buchanan both supported the Lecompton gang, but Kansas voters didn't, and this doc was put to bed before it even reached the United States Congress.

Missouri Compromise of 1820

A big-deal deal that allowed Missouri to join the United States as a slave state and allowed Maine to split off from Massachusetts and become its very own free state, thus increasing the number of states to twenty-four (twelve free states, twelve slave states).

Popular Sovereignty

Today in school, we call this concept "direct democracy." Basically, if the people vote for it, so shall it be. In the 1850s, this term was strongly associated with the ability of territorial residents to vote for or against allowing slavery within their borders.

Topeka Constitution

Kansas' first failed attempt to create a Constitution that would bring it glorious statehood, this document was drafted by Free Staters in 1855 and was subsequently voted down by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Wyandotte Constitution

Winner, winner, chicken dinner: in 1859, after three failed attempts, the wannabe state of Kansas finally drafts a Constitution that the U.S. House, Senate, and President can get behind. It banned slavery, gave some impressive (at the time) rights to women, and changed the boundaries of Kansas to what we have today.

Even cooler, it still serves as the Kansas Constitution (with a few tweaks) today.