 The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by Horace Greeley of the "New York Tribune"; the events it encompasses directly presaged the Civil War.Setting in motion the events later known as "Bleeding Kansas" was the Kansas-Nebraska Act.The Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands that would help settlement in them, repealed the Missouri Compromise, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether to allow slavery within their boundaries.