Setting the Stage for War
Missouri’s Role in Pre-Civil War History

Pick up any history textbook and it will indicate that the American Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina in 1861. However, the war’s real beginnings can be traced to a series of events happening in the 1850s and earlier a half a continent away in Missouri.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Congress passed a bill that many say set the stage for war. The Kansas-Nebraska Act created two new territories out of the Great Plains area west of Missouri and Iowa. The Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which banned slavery in the Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, except for in Missouri. Instead the decision of slavery would be left up to the territorial voters. Tensions heightened between the pro- and anti-slavery factions nationally, as both sides tried to swing the decisions in their favor.

In Missouri, the drums of war began to beat. By 1856, a group of pro-slavery Missourians had staged a raid on Lawrence, Kans., a free-soil community. The raiders looted and burned the settlement. A few days later, the legendary John Brown retaliated against a pro-slavery settlement on Pottawatomie Creek. Brown ordered five men killed with a scythe. These series of events, known as the Border Wars, set the stage for some of the fiercest fighting of the war before and during the war.

To learn more about the Border Wars take a trip to the Bushwhacker Museum and Jail in Nevada. Confederate guerillas were referred to as Bushwhackers; during the Civil War, Nevada came to be known as “the Bushwhacker Capital." Bushwhacker activity prompted Federal troops to burn Nevada to the ground in 1863.

Civil War buffs traveling south of Kansas City on U.S. Highway 71 can also find a number of other small-town museums and historical markers related to the Border Wars zigzagging across the Missouri-Kansas border between routes 71 and 69.

Another factor that many historians feel contributed to the start of the war was the Dred Scot case. In St. Louis, Dred Scott, an enslaved black man, sued for his freedom. Scott had lived with his master, Army surgeon Dr. John Emerson, in the free state of Illinois and in Wisconsin Territory where the terms of the Missouri Compromise prohibited slavery. After Emerson’s death, his wife hired Scott out to an army captain. Scott attempted to buy his freedom and that of his wife, Harriet, but was turned down. He then sought his freedom through the courts.

Today’s visitors to St. Louis can visit the Old Courthouse, the site of the trials, see a re-creation of the original courtroom, and participate in re-enactments of the case. Scott lost the first trial on a technicality, but then won his freedom during a retrial in 1850. However, in 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed that decision. Scott, and his supporters, then took the case to the United States Circuit Court, which upheld the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision. Finally, the case reached the United States Supreme Court, a majority of which had been appointed by Southern pro-slavery presidents. In 1857, the majority opinion of the court held that as a black man, Dred Scott had no right to bring suit, as he was not a citizen. The decision further held that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had restricted slavery in those new territories north of 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude was unconstitutional. This decision further fanned the flames of unrest in the country. The Washington University Library contains 85 documents as a part of its Dred Scott collection.

With these factors, war loomed on the horizon. Explore Missouri and learn more about the state’s pivotal role in early events that led to the Civil War.