The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 threatened to extend slavery into northern territories. This danger thrust Lincoln back into the political spotlight where he would lead a new anti-slavery movement all the way to the White House.
In September 1854, Lincoln delivered two “anti-Nebraska” speeches in Bloomington, both denouncing slavery’s expansion.
In his September 26, 1854 speech, Lincoln attacked slavery’s expansion as incompatible with the promise of America, calling slavery a “moral, social and political evil.” He also acknowledged his strong belief that Blacks were deserving of basic human rights. His Democratic opponents did not.
“There is a vast difference between tolerating slavery in the original slave states...and extending slavery over a territory already free and uncontaminated with the institution.”— Lincoln, September 12, 1854 In Bloomington
Abraham Lincoln portrait taken February 27, 1860 by Matthew Brady.
The following year Lincoln wrote to his good friend and Kentucky slaveholder Joshua Speed on his views regarding the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, settlers of each territory were to decide for themselves whether to become a slave or free state.
Violence erupted in what became known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as pro- and anti-slavery forces battled for the future of the territory.
“I look upon that enactment not as a law, but as violence from the beginning. It was conceived in violence, passed in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence.”— Lincoln To Speed, August 24, 1855
Cover page of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
This 1856 political cartoon accused the pro-slavery administration of Democratic President Franklin Pierce
of inciting violence in Kansas. “Border ruffians” were pro-slave invaders from Missouri and other slave states.
Pierce (standing, center) is depicted as a border ruffian.