On this date 150 years ago, Kansas, with a constitution that prohibits slavery, received the necessary congressional approval to become the Union's 34th state. This action was the outcome of several years of bitter fighting between pro- and anti-slavery factions in that former territory.

The Southern States knew that Kansas was going to be admitted to the Union as a "Free State". Was this not the "tipping point" for the South that provided the impetus to seceed and form the Confederacy?