After the Kansas-Nebraska Act became a law, the fight for Kansas had begun. The south wanted the territory to become a slave state and the north wanted it to become a production state. This had uncovered the problem of "popular sovereignty", it did not say when a state would be determined of it's slave status, so whichever gained control first (north or south) would determine the future of slavery in Kansas. So the northerners gathered together guns and mobs of people to win over Kansas. Somehow Kansas avoiding becoming a state total anarchy and civil war; however, it still had bands of armed men killing each other over slavery.