Three-fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a white man's country and the heaviest vote against the admission of negroes was polled in Lawrence and Topeka, where the Radicals had from the first made the most noise.
The Northern men who had come to Kansas merely to oppose the extension of Slavery were in a hopeless minority in their own party. The American voters still had too much common sense to be led into a position to provoke civil war.
John Brown spent long hours in prayer after the final vote on the negro issue had been counted. He denounced the leaders in politics in Kansas as trimmers, time servers, sycophants and liars. He walked beneath the star-sown skies through the night. He wrestled with his God for a vision.
There must be a way to Action.
He rose from prayer at dawn after a sleepless night and called for his sons, Owen, Oliver, Frederick and Salmon, to get ready for a journey. He had received a first hint of the will of God. He believed it might lead to the way.
He organized a surveyor's party and disguised himself as a United States Surveyor. He had brought to Kansas a complete outfit for surveying land. He instructed Owen and Frederick to act as chain carriers, Salmon as axeman and Oliver as marker. He reached the little Southern settlement on the Pottawattomie Creek the fifteenth of May.
He planted his compass on the bank of the creek near the Doyles' house and proceeded to run a base line.
The father and three boys were in the fields at work beyond the hill.
He raised his compass and followed the chainman to the Doyles' door. The mother and little girl trudged behind, delighted with the diversion of the party, so rare on the lonely prairies. Little could they dream the grim deed that was shaping in the soul of the Surveyor.
When they reached the house she turned to the old man with Southern courtesy: