[CHAPTER VIII]
The Kansas War—The Dred Scott Decision—John Brown's Exploit at Harper's Ferry
With the aid of a considerable Northern vote in Congress the South succeeded in passing the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri Compromise, and under the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty" throwing all the territories open to slavery at least as a possibility.
The North at once took alarm and the Free-soil party, newly named the Republican party, grew in numbers and enthusiasm as no other party had ever done before.
Events mightily aided this growth, driving into the Free-soil or Republican party many thousands of men who had before held aloof from a movement which they thought to be dangerous to the perpetuity of the Union and to peace within its borders.
First of these events was the outbreak of civil war in Kansas. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise opened that territory at once to settlement by men from both sections and at the same time opened the question whether it should become a free or a slave state. Incidentally a contest of factions began which raged hotly to the end.
Whether Kansas should be a slave state or a free state depended upon the will of the settlers alone. The land was in many respects a tempting one to emigrants in spite of the aridity of its western part, so that even without any incentive of politics its speedy settlement was quite a matter of course. But politics North and South enormously aided in that behalf. There was a rush from both sections to fill up and occupy the land in order to control it. From the Missouri border and from farther south slaveholders and the representatives of slavery poured into the territory in great numbers with the purpose of voting it into the Union as a slave state. In the slang of the period these were called "border ruffians." On the other hand there was an "assisted emigration" from the North, the emigration of men whose way was paid in consideration of their votes and their rifle practice against slavery in Kansas. These called themselves "Free State Men" but they were called by their adversaries "Jayhawkers."
In order to promote the emigration of these men to Kansas societies were formed in Massachusetts and other states which not only paid their way but furnished them with rifles of an improved pattern and ammunition in plenty, with the distinct understanding that it was their duty to ply both the bullet and the ballot in aid of the cause they represented.
These two groups of men quickly fell by the ears, as it was intended that they should, and civil war in the strictest sense of that term ensued.