Bleeding Kansas The Compromise of 1850 brought relative calm to the nation. Although most blacks and abolitionists strongly opposed the Compromise, the majority of Americans embraced it, believing that it offered a final and workable solution to the issue of slavery. Above all, it saved the Union from the terrible split that many had feared. People were all too ready to put the slavery controversy behind them and move on. But the feeling of relief that spread across the country turned out to be the calm before the storm. On December 14, 1853, Augustus C. Dodge of Iowa introduced a bill in the Senate. The bill proposed to organize the Nebraska Territory, which also included an area that would become the state of Kansas. His bill was referred to the Committee on Territories, chaired by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. Douglas had entered politics early and made rapid progress; by 21 he was an Illinois state attorney and by 35 he was a U.S. senator. He strongly supported the idea of ​​popular sovereignty, which allowed settlers of a territory to decide for themselves whether or not to have slavery. Douglas was also an ardent believer in Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States had a God-given right and obligation to seize as much land as possible and spread its "civilizing" influence. And he wasn't alone. A Philadelphia newspaper explained manifest destiny when it proclaimed that the United States was a nation rightly bound "eastward by sunrise, westward by sunset, northward by Arctic shipping, and southward as far as we please." , especially following the discovery of gold in California, America planned to build a transcontinental railroad from east to west. The big question was where to place the eastern terminal: to the north, in Chicago, or to the south, in St. Louis. Douglas was firmly committed to ensuring that the terminal was in Chicago, but he knew that this could not happen unless the Nebraska Territory was organized. The organization of Nebraska would have required the elimination of Native Americans from the territory, as Douglas considered the Indians to be savages, and they saw their reservations as "barriers to barbarism." From his perspective, Manifest Destiny called for the removal of those who stood in the way of American progress, Christian progress, and the presence of Native Americans…at the heart of the charter…itself. Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner delivered a fiery speech titled "The Crime Against Kansas," in which he accused pro-slavery senators, particularly Atchison and Andrew Butler of South Carolina, of "prosecution, slavery." In retaliation, Butler's nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner at his desk in the Senate and beat him unconscious with a stick. In September 1856, a new territorial governor, John W. Geary, arrived in Kansas and began to restore order. The last major outbreak of violence was the Marais des Cynges massacre, in which Border Ruffians killed five Free State men. In all, about 55 people died in "Bleeding Kansas." Several attempts were made to draft a constitution that Kansas could use to apply for statehood. Some versions were pro-slavery, others pro-free state. Finally, a fourth convention met in Wyandotte in July 1859 and adopted a free state constitution. Kansas applied for admission to the Union. However, pro-slavery forces in the Senate strongly opposed its free state status and blocked its admission. Only in 1861, after the secession of the Confederate states, the constitution.