s hopes were raised to their highest at the Free State Convention
which met at Lawrence on Monday, the twenty-fifth of June, 1855. This
Convention spoke in tones that stirred Brown's admiration.

It meant Action.

They elected him a vice president of the body. He had expected to be
made president. However, his leadership was recognized. All he needed
was the opportunity to take the Action on which his mind had long been
fixed. The moment blood began to flow, there would be but one leader. Of
that, he felt sure. He could bide his time.

The Convention urged the people to unite on the one issue of making
Kansas a Free Soil State. They called on every member of the Shawnee
Legislature who held Free Soil views to resign from that body, although
it had been recognized by the National Government as the duly authorized
law-making assembly of the Territory. They denounced this Legislature as
the creature of settlers from Missouri who had crowded over the border
before the Northerners could reach their destination. They urged all
people to refuse to obey every law passed by the body.

The final resolution was one inspired by Brown himself. It was a bold
declaration that if their opponents wished to fight, the Northerners
were READY! The challenge was unmistakable. Brown felt that Action was
imminent. Only a set of poltroons would fail to accept the gauge of
battle thus flung in their faces.

To his amazement the challenge was not received by the rank and file of
the Free Soil Party with enthusiasm. Most of these Northerners had moved
to Kansas as bona fide settlers. They came to build homes for the women
they had left behind. They came to rush their shacks into shape to
receive their loved ones. They had been furnished arms and ammunition by
enthusiastic friends and politicians in the older States. And they had
eagerly accepted the gifts. There were droves of Indians still roaming
the plains. There were dangers to be faced.

The Southern ruffians of whom they had heard so much had not
materialized. Although the Radical wing of the Northern Party had made
Lawrence its Capital and through their paper, the _Herald of Freedom_,
issued challenge after challenge to their enemies.

The Northern settlers began to divide into groups whose purposes were
irreconcilable. Six different conventions met in Lawrence on or before
the fifteenth of August. Each one of these conventions was divided in
councils. In each the cleavage between t