On May 30, 1854, it became an American territory through the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Until then, it was part of the so-called Indian Territory, along with Nebraska and Oklahoma. To diminish the conflicts between defenders of abolitionism and slave labor, the United States Congress allowed to choose between allowing or prohibiting the use of slave labor. Most of Kansas wanted to ban slave labor. This generated immense conflicts with neighboring Missouri, where the use of slave labor was allowed. During the rest of the decade of 1850, it received great number of defenders of the abolicionismo and the slave work, that settled down to increase the political force of their respective group. The territorial elections of 1855 were won by an abolitionist political party, the Free State Party. On January 29, 1861, after the secession of 11 southern US states from the Union (which formed the Confederate States of America), it became the 34th US state.
Democrats favored expansion in order to increase their power in Congress and expand slavery; Whigs opposed expansion because they feared losing power in Congress.
