There was a great deal of tension over the issue of slavery in the Western territories during the presidency of James Buchanan (1857-61). People were taking sides in the issue as never before. When open war broke out in the Kansas Territory (called Bleeding Kansas), Southern slaveholders, Northern abolitionists and Free-soilers flooded into Kansas. Each was trying to influence the vote whether Kansas would join the Union as a slave state or a free state. President Buchanan sent part of the Regular Army to stop the violence but they were too few and too scattered to stop the fighting. 