Thought this might be useful to the thread, from the Kansas Historical Society:
Kansas Territory - Timeline
1854 - 1861
May 26, 1854
Kansas-Nebraska Act passes Congress effective with president’s signature, May 30.
July 6, 1854
Republican Party born, Jackson, Michigan.
July 28, 1854
First organized band of New Englanders arrives in Kansas and soon founds the city of Lawrence.
October 7, 1854
First territorial governor, Andrew Reeder, arrives at Fort Leavenworth.
November 29, 1854
Governor Reeder calls the first election in Kansas Territory; vote to elect delegate to Congress—John W. Whitfield, proslavery.
March 30, 1855
Election for members of territorial legislature.
July 1, 1855
So-called “Bogus Legislature” meets at Pawnee.
August 14, 1855
First convention of free-staters gather in Lawrence and call for election of delegates to free-state constitutional convention.
August 16, 1855
Territorial Governor Reeder replaced by Wilson Shannon.
September 5, 1855
Free-staters meeting in Big Springs to form Free-State Party.
October 23, 1855
Free-state delegates assemble in Topeka to draft “Topeka Constitution” prohibiting slavery in Kansas Territory; Charles Robinson “elected” governor.
November 21, 1855
Free-stater Charles Dow killed by proslavery supporter Franklin Coleman; “Wakarusa War.”
May 10, 1856
Free-state “Governor” Robinson arrested in Lexington, Missouri.
May 21, 1856
Sack of Lawrence by Sheriff Sam Jones and proslavery forces.
May 22, 1856
Senator Chas. Sumner (R. Mass.) beaten on U.S. Senate floor after “Crime Against Kansas” speech.
May 24, 1856
John Brown’s Pottawatomie massacre in Franklin County.
June 2, 1856
Battle of Black Jack, near Baldwin, Douglas County; June 4 - 5, Battle of Franklin, near Lawrence.
August 16, 1856
Battle of Fort Titus, near Lecompton, Douglas County; August 30, Battle at Osawatomie, Miami County.
September 13, 1856
Battle of Hickory Point, north of Oskaloosa, Jefferson County.
November 4, 1856
Presidential election, James Buchannan (D. Pa.) defeated John C. Fremont (R. Calif.).
January 12, 1857
Legislature meets in Lecompton; Democratic Party formed in Kansas.
March 6, 1857
Dred Scott decision handed down by U.S. Supreme Court.
August 24, 1857
Panic of 1857 precipitated by failure of New York financial institutions.
September 7, 1857
Lecompton Constitutional Convention opens.
October 5 - 6, 1857
Free-state victory in the election for territorial legislature.
December 7, 1857
Special session of legislature calls for popular vote on Lecompton Constitution; On December 21, with free-staters refusing to participate in election, Constitution is approved.
January 4, 1858
Lecompton Constitution rejected in second vote in which free-staters participate.
May 18, 1858
Leavenworth Constitution approved by Kansas voters; rejected by U.S. Congress.
May 19, 1858
Marais des Cygnes Massacre, Linn County.
August 2, 1858
Final vote on Lecompton Constitution: 1,926 for to 11,812 against.
August 21, 1858
Lincoln-Douglas debates begin, Ottawa, Illinois; series of seven debates, end October 15.
October 4, 1859
Wyandotte Constitution ratified by Kansas voters.
December 1, 1859
Abraham Lincoln visits Kansas.
December 2, 1859
John Brown hanged for treason at Charlestown, Virginia.
February 12, 1860
Kansas admission bill introduced in U.S. House of Representatives.
November 6, 1860
Lincoln wins plurality in four-way presidential contest.
January 29, 1861
President James Buchanan signed Kansas admission bill.
https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/kansas-territory-timeline-more/14726
That list sort of looks like our table of contents for the next few years.
Republican Party born, Jackson, Michigan
We need to know the history and get back to the original ideas. we are all slaves of the govt now. Scripted attacks by rats?
http://www.ushistory.org/gop/origins.htm
we think some simple name like ‘Republican’ would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.”
On the floor of the Senate Democratic representatives Preston Brooks and Lawrence Keitt (South Carolina) brutally attacked Charles Sumner with a cane after Sumner gave a passionate anti-slavery speech which Brooks took offense (he was related to the main antagonist of Sumner’s speech, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler). Both representatives resigned from Congress with severe indignation over their ouster, but were returned to Congress by South Carolina voters in the next year. Sumner was not able to return to the Congressional halls for four years after the attack. Brooks was heard boasting “Next time I will have to kill him,” as he left the Senate floor after the attack.
On the same day as the attack came the news of the armed attack in Lawrence, Kansas. As a direct outgrowth of the “settler sovereignty” of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, an armed band of men from Missouri and Nebraska sacked the town of Lawrence and arrested the leaders of the free state. The anti-abolitionists had made it clear that “settler sovereignty” meant pro-slavery. Labeled only as “ruffians” by Southern politicians, Horace Greeley was quick to decry both events as plots of the pro-slavery South. “Failing to silence the North by threats. . .the South now resorts to actual violence.” The first rumblings of the Civil War had begun. The stage was set for the 1856 election, one which held the future of the Union in its grasp.
Free-stater Charles Dow killed by proslavery supporter Franklin Coleman; “Wakarusa War.â€
Fortunately global cooled slowed down the civil war.........
http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/content/wakarusa-war
Fortunately, Shannon’s negotiations and the bitter temperatures cooled both sides. A peace treaty signed on December 8 provided a temporary halt in what would grow into a 10-year ordeal. Future Kansas senator James Lane and future Kansas governor Charles Robinson signed the agreement for the Free-State supporters, while Atchison and other proslavery leaders acknowledged the agreement for the proslavery element.
With a minimal level of actual violence, the Wakarusa War was not a war by traditional definitions. The necessary ingredients for war were certainly present, but Shannon’s timely negotiations, the weather, and perhaps a rational fear of what might happen if a battle occurred led to a non-violent, albeit temporary, resolution of the conflict between Free-Staters and proslavery supporters.