Editing Kansas–Nebraska Act (section)

===Later developments===
{{further|Presidency of James Buchanan}}

The Kansas–Nebraska Act divided the nation and pointed it toward civil war.<ref name="test">[http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2009/1/2009_1_20.shtml Tom Huntington] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102181639/http://americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2009/1/2009_1_20.shtml |date=2010-01-02}} "Civil War Chronicles: Abolitionist John Doy", ''American Heritage'', Spring 2009.</ref> Congressional Democrats suffered huge losses in the mid-term elections of 1854, as voters provided support to a wide array of new parties that opposed the Democrats and the Kansas–Nebraska Act.<ref>McPherson (1988), pp. 129–130.</ref><ref name="Alexander2023" /> Pierce deplored the new Republican Party, because of its perceived anti-Southern, anti-slavery stance. To Northerners, the President's perceived Southern bias did anything but de-escalate public mood and helped inflame abolitionist anger.<ref name="Holt9194etc">Holt (2010), pp. 91–94, 99, 106–109</ref> 

Partly due to the unpopularity of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Pierce lost his bid for re-nomination at the [[1856 Democratic National Convention]] to [[James Buchanan]]. Pierce was the first elected president who actively sought reelection but was denied his party's nomination for a second term.<ref name="krudin">{{cite news |last1=Rudin |first1=Ken |title=When Has A President Been Denied His Party's Nomination? |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2009/07/a_president_denied_renominatio.html |access-date=February 15, 2017 |publisher=[[NPR]] |date=July 22, 2009 |archive-date=December 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211205001230/https://www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2009/07/a_president_denied_renominatio.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Republicans nominated [[John C. Frémont]] in the [[1856 United States presidential election|1856 presidential election]] and campaigned on "Bleeding Kansas" and the unpopularity of the Kansas–Nebraska Act.<ref>Holt (2010), loc. 1610.</ref> Buchanan won the election, but Frémont carried a majority of the free states.<ref>Holt (2010), pp. 109–110</ref> Two days after Buchanan's inauguration, Chief Justice [[Roger Taney]] delivered the [[Dred Scott v. Sandford|''Dred Scott'' decision]], which asserted that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories.{{sfn|Klein|1995|p=316}} Douglas continued to support the doctrine of popular sovereignty, but Buchanan insisted that Democrats respect the ''Dred Scott'' decision and its repudiation of federal interference with slavery in the territories.{{sfn|Baker|2004|pp=120–121}}

Guerrilla warfare in Kansas continued throughout Buchanan's presidency and extended into the 1860s,{{sfn|McPherson|1988|p=784}} continuing until the American Civil War ended in 1865, with many unjust killings and lootings performed by partisans on either side of the border.<ref>{{cite web |first=Jeremy |last=Neely |url=https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/essay/%e2%80%9c-most-cruel-and-unjust-war%e2%80%9d-guerrilla-struggle-along-missouri-kansas-border |title="A Most Cruel and Unjust War:" The Guerrilla Struggle along the Missouri-Kansas Border &#124; Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict, 1854–1865 |work=Civil War on the Western Border |date= |access-date=October 24, 2023 }}</ref> Buchanan attempted to admit Kansas as a state under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution,{{sfn|Smith|1975|pp=40–43}} but Kansas voters rejected that constitution in an August 1858 referendum.{{Sfn|Baker|2004|pp=100–105}} Anti-slavery delegates won a majority of the elections to the 1859 Kansas constitutional convention, and Kansas won admission as a free state under the anti-slavery [[Wyandotte Constitution]] in the final months of Buchanan's presidency.{{Sfn|McPherson|1988|p=169}}