Sincere question
The Lincoln-Douglas debates were about the status of the new state of Kansas, whether it should be free or slave. Douglas wanted a referendum. Since he won the election, a referendum there was, only Missourians crossed over and staked claims in Kansas so that they could vote for it to be a slave state, then went back home, abandoning their “claim”. The actual residents of Kansas objected strenuously to the “Missouri Claim Jumpers’,” manipulations, and the jumpers came back and wiped out the town of Lawrence. Frank and Jesse and their cousins the Younger brothers were among those who took part in the Massacre. The Missouri raiders were known as Bushwackers. There was an early Gunsmoke episode about the whole incident, I think in either Season 2 or 3. Anyway, that’s how Kansas became known as Bloody Kansas, and that’s where John Brown started out on his bloody rampage, to avenge the dead of Kansas and make slavery an unsafe venture for slave owners. Like-minded killers were known as Jayhawkers. It’s just ironic that now Missourians are among those beginning to break the mold again.
The Kansas Nebraska Act was all about having Kansas and Nebraska actually vote as to whether they would be slave state or free. The history of the US was that southern states entering the union were slave and the northern were free. Kansas, next door to Missouri and in the same line of progression as Kentucky was assumed to be a slave state until the 1854 Kansas Nebraska Act instigated by Senator Douglas of Chicago who rammed the act through congress.
His motivation was his deep investment in railroad stocks. The westward expansion of the railroad into new territory would line his pockets. If Kansas and Nebraska were turned into states for legal settlement the railroad would expand. The rest is history. Kansas and Missouri fought the civil war starting in 1854. The western part of Missouri is known as "the burnt district" after general order 11 in August 1863 was precipitated by Quantrill's raid on Lawrence. General Order 11 removed every human being from the western counties bordering bleeding Kansas. Every house, barn and building was burned to the ground. The crops were destroyed, farm animals killed or removed. It was a wasteland till after the war. Never before and never since in US history has this scorched earth policy been used on US citizens. But it can and will happen again unless the citizens are armed. Thus the intense interest of Missourians in personal rights and freedoms. You have to present a birth certificate to get a drivers license in MO. :-)