<P> Manypenny's 1856 "Report on Indian Affairs" explained the devastating effect of diseases White settlers brought to Kansas on Indian populations . Without providing statistics, Indian Affairs Superintendent to the area Colonel Alfred Cumming reported at least more deaths than births in most tribes in the area . While noting intemperance, or alcoholism, as a leading cause of death, Cumming specifically cited cholera, smallpox, and measles, none of which the Native Americans were able to treat . The disastrous epidemics exemplified the Osage people, who lost an estimated 1300 lives to scurvy, measles, smallpox, and scrofula between 1852 and 1856, contributing, in part, to the massive decline in population, from 8000 in 1850 to just 3500 in 1860 . The Osage had already encountered epidemics associated with relocation and white settlement . The initial removal acts in the 1830s brought both White American settlers and foreign Native American tribes to the Great Plains and into contact with the Osage people . Between 1829 and 1843, influenza, cholera, and smallpox killed an estimated 1242 Osage Indians, resulting in a population recession of roughly 20 percent between 1830 and 1850 . </P> <P> Though their role has been largely minimized or excluded in many historical accounts, Native Americans were also subjected to a great deal of violence during Bleeding Kansas . It has been argued that the widespread absence of Indian involvement in Bleeding Kansas and the settlement of Kansas as a whole from historical texts are caused by racism, an insistence that Native Americans are "half - civilized" and have "done nothing for the world," Furthermore, it has also been argued that the dismissal of Native Americans, as civilized societies, removed White settlers from responsibility for their transgressions against Indian tribes in Kansas throughout Bleeding Kansas . </P> <P> The Kansas--Nebraska Act divided the nation and pointed it toward civil war . The Act itself virtually nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820 . The turmoil over the act split both the Democratic and Whig parties and gave rise to the Republican Party, which split the United States into two major political camps, the Republican North and the Democratic South . </P> <P> Senator Stephen A. Douglas and former Illinois Representative Abraham Lincoln aired their disagreement over the Kansas--Nebraska Act in seven public speeches during September and October 1854 . Lincoln gave his most comprehensive argument against slavery and the provisions of the act in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, the Peoria Speech . He and Douglas both spoke to the large audience, Douglas first and Lincoln in response, two hours later . Lincoln's three - hour speech presented thorough moral, legal, and economic arguments against slavery and raised Lincoln's political profile for the first time . The speeches set the stage for the Lincoln - Douglas debates four years later, when Lincoln was running for Douglas's Senate seat . </P>

The passage of the kansas-nebraska act led directly to the establishment of which political party