An element of all the northern states to contend against. emigrant aid society was organized in New England, and an expedition of free-state men started on the road to Kansas. Similar companies set out from many other free states east of the Mississippi River, and even Iowa contributed her quota of free-state men. Massachusetts sent Charles Robinson; Indiana, General James H. Lane; and New York, the sons of John Brown. Leavenworth, Atchison, Lawrence, Lecompton, and Topeka were founded. President Pierce appointed Andrew H. An Reeder of Pennsylvania as first territorial governor. election was held, and a proslavery delegate declared elected to congress. Reeder called an election in the spring of 1855 for the purpose of electing members to a territorial legislature. At this election, 5,427 proslavery votes were cast, and 791 free-state votes. The census of the territory taken but a few weeks before the election showed but 2,905 voters. The Missourians had invaded the territory and stolen the election. When the legislature convened at Pawnee a few months later, it adopted the state laws of 'Missouri and passed laws denying free speech and the liberty of the press on all questions referring to slavery. This bogus legislature with its bogus laws outraged not only the free-state settlers in Kansas but also the sense of justice in the whole north. The whole affair ended in a clash between the free-state men and the invaders from Missouri. Murders, mobs, lynchings, and destruction of property followed-even the life of Governor Reeder was threatened, and he left the state in disguise, to be succeeded by Governor Wilson Shannon. Meanwhile the Free-soilers called a constitutional convention to meet at Topeka in October, 1855, by which a constitution was adopted, slavery prohibited in the territory, and an attempt made to set up a state government. Under this constitution a state election was held and the governorship fell to the lot of Charles Robinson. At this juncture, President Pierce showed his hand. In a message to congress he denounced the Topeka constitution, and through his approval the United States troops were called in, to disperse the state legislature in session at Topeka. Strictly speaking, Pierce was within his powers, since no territory could become a state without the consent of congress. This consent the Free-soilers had not obtained. In the meantime a congressional election had been held throughout the states, and the old congress which had passed the Kansas-Nebraska bill had been repudiated in the north. A new house of representatives appeared in Washington, though the old senate remained. When the Topeka constitution was submitted to congress, the house approved it; the senate, still under the leadership of Douglas, rejected it. This rejection but prolonged the struggle. The freestate north now renewed her efforts to save Kansas. It being unsafe to attempt to reach Kansas through the state of Missouri, a route was now established through Iowa and Nebraska, over which immigrants poured into the territory by the thousands, piloted by Lane and John Brown. To offset this movement, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina sent whole companies west to join Missouri in her invasion of Kansas. This precipitated a border warfare, which was marked by all the horrors incident to frontier life. Congress and the whole country stood aghast. The iniquity of the Kansas-Nebraska bill was now fully realized. But the die was cast "squatter sovereignty" had invited the issue, and neither side shrank from the contest. Sharpe's rifles were sent from the north to arm the free-state settlers against the invaders. President Pierce came to the rescue of the proslavery party by encouraging the arrest and imprisonment of free-state men for treason. Governor Robinson was imprisoned without a trial, and was refused bail for four months. President Pierce declared Kansas to be in a state of insurrection. The Missourians sacked Lawrence and burned part of the town. The Georgians, aided by other proslavery men, burned Osawatomie. The freestate men, under such leaders as John Brown and James Montgomery, retaliated. Finally a new governor, John W. Geary, arrived on the scene, and order was restored for a time. But a presidential contest had placed a new man at the helm in Washington, and Geary, out of favor with the incoming administration, resigned. Pierce soon retired from office, leaving the Kansas troubles to be settled by his successor. 464. The Assault upon Sumner by Brooks.-When President Pierce sent his message to congress condemning the Topeka constitution, it drew from Charles Sumner, on the 20th of May, 1856, his celebrated speech, "The Crime against Kansas." Sumner was a scholar of distinguished ability, an eloquent orator, and a master of invective. When he pointed his shaft of scorn, it went straight to the mark and stung his victim. During the course of his speech he took occasion to comment severely upon the conduct of Senator Andrew P. Butler of South Carolina, who, at the time, happened to be absent from the senate chamber. Two days a cane. later the senate had adjourned earlier than usual, and Sumner remained writing at his desk, when Representative Preston S. Brooks, a relative of Butler's, entered the rear of the senate chamber, accompanied by Representative Lawrence M. Keitt, each armed with "You have libelled the state of South Carolina and my aged relative," shouted Brooks, as he rushed upon Sumner, violently striking him over the head with his cane. He struck blow after blow with his gutta percha weapon, while Keitt stood by to see that no one interfered. Sumner, although a powerful man, was so stunned by the first blow that he was unable to rise and turn upon his assailant. He soon fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor, and was carried from the chamber by friends who hastened to his assistance. His injuries were so serious that he was unable to resume his seat for three years, but during all that time the state of Massachusetts kept his seat vacant, as a silent protest against this cowardly attack upon the freedom of debate. The house of representatives made an attempt to expel Brooks, but failing in this, strong resolutions were passed condemning him for his cowardly assault, and a vote of censure was passed upon Keitt and Brooks. Whereupon they both resigned, and returned to South Carolina, where they received an enthusiastic welcome and were at once re-elected to the positions which they had just made vacantsuch was the false idea of chivalry held in those days. This personal assault upon Sumner aroused both houses of congress, and created a wild storm of excitement throughout the country. 465. New Political Parties: Republican and KnowNothing. In this administration two new political parties appeared for the first time,-one, the Republican party, destined in a short time to gain and hold control of the government through one of the most dangerous and trying periods in the history of the republic; the other, the Know Nothing party, to live but a single campaign, and then to disappear from the stage of action. The Whig party went to pieces upon the rock of the Compromise of 1850, and particularly the Fugitive Slave Law. The Kansas-Nebraska bill called into existence its successor, the Republican party. This party had its rise in the states of the north west. Its principles were first given form at a national convention held in Pittsburg in February, 1856. The party was composed of Free-soilers, antislavery Whigs, some Democrats, and eventually the Abolitionists and a majority of the Know-Nothing party. On account of its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the party was first called the Anti-Nebraska party. The name "Republican" was suggested in a set of resolutions passed by a Michigan convention in 1854 protesting against the passage of Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska act, and Republican was soon thereafter substituted for Anti-Nebraska. The Pittsburg convention declared for free Kansas and free territory, and denounced the Kansas-Nebraska act as an outrage upon a free people and a crime committed in the name of the constitution. When it adjourned, it was resolved to place a candidate in nomination for the presidency when Pierce's term of office should expire. In the congressional elections of 1855, the party won a plurality of the members in the lower house of congress, and aided in electing Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts as speaker of the house after one of the most exciting speakership contests in the history of the country. It was this Republican majority that approved the Topeka constitution. The Know-Nothing party was first organized as a secret political party, and advocated the control of the government by native citizens only. During the period from 1846 to 1856, thousands of foreigners had emigrated to America, and these the Know-Nothing party declared were a menace to the government. Owing to the fact that the members in the lower degrees of the society "knew nothing" of the |