in a concentration of feeling upon a single question of intense interest. The day is spent without adjournment. Senators, foregoing their natural relaxation and refreshment, remain in their seats until midnight approaches." He analyzed the bill, characterized it as an innovation, a new thing unknown in the laws of the country, by which the citizen "shall have only a single safeguard instead of that double panoply which has hitherto shielded him," and for which " there is no necessity or shadow of necessity; . . . . saving the Union at a fearful cost." Declaring that all this trouble arose from the Fugitive Slave Act, he said: "I look with sorrow but with no anxiety on this state of things. I abide the time and wait for the event." He closed his eloquent and impressive speech with this vigorously expressed admonition and counsel: "If you wish to secure respect to the Federal authority, to cultivate harmony between the States, to secure universal peace, and to create new bonds of perpetual union, there is only one way before you. Instead of adding new penalties, employing new agencies, and inspiring new terrors, you must go back to the point where your mistaken policy began, and conform your federal laws to MAGNA CHARTA, to the CONSTITUTION, and to the RIGHTS of MAN."

Mr. Sumner closed the debate. "On a former occasion," he said, "as slavery was about to clutch one of its triumphs I arose to make my final opposition at midnight. It is now the same hour. It is hardly an accidental conjunction which thus constantly brings slavery and midnight together." He proceeded to show the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act, the sad inconsistency of Congress in allowing South Carolina to imprison colored seamen, notwithstanding the clause giving the citizens of one State the same privileges and immunities in all others, and yet enacting this barbarous act because the Constitution required that persons held to service in one State, escaping into another, "should be given up." Such discrimination for slavery and against freedom was unworthy, he said, of the nation. He eloquently and with fitting words rebuked the impudent demand of the South "to be let alone," by tracing the series of slaveholding ag

gressions, beginning almost with the first inauguration of the government and culminating with the bill under discussion. Pointing out the insincerity of the demand, on the part of the South, he interposed for the North a similar request. "Yes, sir," he said, "let us alone. Do not involve us in the support of slavery. Hug the viper to your bosoms, if you perversely will, within your own States, until it stings you to a generous remorse, but do not compel us to hug it too; for this, I assure you, we will not do." He then moved an amendment repealing the Fugitive Slave Act; but it received but nine votes, when the main bill was passed by a vote of thirty to nine, though a vote was not taken upon it in the House.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE KANSAS STRUGGLE.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act not an abstraction. Its real object. — Purpose and plan to make Kansas a slave State. - Co-operation. - Southern associations. - Eli Thayer. New England Emigrant Aid Society. - Town of Lawrence.

-Raid from Missouri. - Andrew H. Reeder. - Election ordered. - Frauds. - Border-ruffian policy. Open and shameless avowals. Atchison and Stringfellow. -Resistance of free State men. - Topeka convention. - Constitution. XXXIVth Congress. - President's message. - Governor Reeder's memorial. Long debate. — Investigating committee. — Wilson Shannon. His indorsement of the proslavery policy. — Murder of Dow. — Rescue of Branson. Call on the governor for troops. Slight response from Kansas. - Large numbers from Missouri. Characterized. Outrages. — Agreement between the governor and the people of Lawrence. Proslavery disappointment. Letter of Atchison. - Appeals to the South. - Senate. - Resolutions of Hale, Wilson, and Jones. - President's message. -Speeches of Wilson, Hale, Douglas, and Collamer.- Meeting of free State legislature. — Douglas's report. — Collamer's minority report. -Douglas's bill.- Friends of freedom determined.

THE Kansas-Nebraska Act was no mere abstraction. Though its most prominent and persistent advocates, in their noisy clamor and claim in its behalf, pleaded chiefly its vindication of the principle of local self-government, it soon became apparent that its ultimate purpose occupied a far higher place in their regard. Slavery, and not popular sovereignty, was the object aimed at. A practical result, and not the simple enunciation of a theory, however true or important, had been the animating motive of a crusade that rested not with the triumphs already achieved. Calculating that this action of Congress and the close contiguity of slaveholding Missouri, with such co-operation as the known sympathy of the other slaveholding States would afford, could easily throw into Kansas a sufficient population to give to slavery the necessary preponderance, the slave propagandists regarded their victory in the halls of legislation as tantamount to the final

success of their deep-laid schemes. For these schemes had been long and deeply laid. For years had the slaveholders of western Missouri, the real seat of the Slave Power of that State, and their ready servitors at Washington, regarded with special interest the future possibilities of the territory that lay upon its borders. Fearing that it was lost to slavery, they determined that freedom should not profit by it. They therefore encouraged the plan of devoting it to reservations for Indians, and several treaties to that effect were secured. The agents of the government were in both sympathy and complicity with this general scheme and purpose. Even professed ministers of the gospel entered into the movement; and the mortifying fact is on record that the first slaves which were introduced into Kansas were taken by a Methodist missionary. When, therefore, Congress had been dragooned into the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, with its newly invented and much vaunted doctrine of popular sovereignty, it was supposed that the long-cherished plans of the slaveholders were to be realized, and that it was only a question of time when Kansas should become a slave State. For it did not seem to enter their minds that the plighted faith of the nation to these Indians constituted an obstacle to the realization of their schemes, or that it could long stand against exigencies that had coerced the Federal government, and made it prove false to its solemnly recorded promises. But they miscalculated. They did not fully comprehend the forces which freedom had at command, nor the purposes of Providence concerning the nation.

The adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the debates preceding, and the widespread discussions attending it, produced a profound impression throughout the land. The North was not only aggrieved and indignant at its gross breach of faith, but it was alarmed. The Slave Power had shown itself ready to oppress not only the blacks but the whites, to crush not the hitherto prostrate race alone, but the nation as well. Patriotism no less than philanthropy, self-preservation no less than humanity, demanded action. The government had proved faithless; it behooved the friends of freedom to cast about for other help. Nor was it a forced conclusion that, if the gov

ernment could not be trusted, and the compromises, hitherto deemed sacred, had become a thing of naught, such resources as were within reach should be made available, and that the dogma of popular sovereignty, though designed to strengthen slavery, should, if possible, be made to inure to the cause of freedom. As this was the only alternative left the North, in fealty to its own interests as to those of others, it accepted, in the language of Mr. Seward, a trusted leader, the gage of battle: "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave States! Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it on the behalf of freedom. We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers, as it is in right."

The purpose to make Kansas a free State and the systematized efforts to carry that purpose into effect mark an important era in the progress of the slavery struggle. It was a deliberate and successful stand made by the friends of freedom against the aggressions of the Slave Power. This and the election of Mr. Banks Speaker of the House of Representatives during the next year indicated somewhat its loosening grasp, under the vigorous blows of its fresh antagonists. But it was a purpose that foretokened a fearful contest, fierce encounters, and bloody strifes. No summer clouds ever met in mid heaven more heavily surcharged with elements of storm and danger. Neither party fully comprehended the magnitude and violence of the struggle on which they were entering. Each was ignorant of the strength the other would exhibit; and each was unaware of the power of assault or resistance itself could and did develop. Had either fully apprehended the severity of the conflict on which it was entering, there might have been hesitation. Once committed, however, there seemed to be no other alternative but to advance till the superior force or tact of the one compelled the other to desist. Both resorted to the policy of combination, though the means relied on were as unlike as the ends in view. The "Blue Lodges" and "Sons of the South," which were formed in Missouri and other slaveholding States, had for their object the making of Kansas a slave State. The " Emigrant Aid" socie