ee
territory north of the line of the Missouri Compromise. The Act made
the political atmosphere electric. The conditions for obtaining a
calm, dispassionate judgment on the domestic concern of chief
interest, were altogether lacking.

It was everywhere conceded that Nebraska would be a free Territory.
The eyes of the nation were focused upon Kansas, which was from the
first debatable ground. A rush of settlers from the Northwest joined
by pioneers from Kentucky and Missouri followed the opening up of the
new lands. As Douglas had foretold, the tide of immigration held back
by Indian treaties now poured in. The characteristic features of
American colonization seemed about to repeat themselves. So far the
movement of population was for the most part spontaneous. Land-hunger,
not the political destiny of the West, drove men to locate their
claims on the Kansas and the Missouri. By midsummer colonists of a
somewhat different stripe appeared. Sent out under the auspices of the
Emigrant Aid Company, they were to win Kansas for freedom at the same
time that they subdued the wilderness. It was a species of assisted
emigration which was new in the history of American colonization,
outside the annals of missionary effort. The chief promoter of this
enterprise was a thrifty, Massachusetts Yankee, who saw no reason why
crusading and business should not go hand in hand. Kansas might be
wrested from the slave-power at the same time that returns on invested
funds were secured.

The effect of these developments upon the aggressive pro-slavery
people of Missouri is not easy to describe. Hitherto they had assumed
that Kansas would become a slave Territory in the natural order of
events. This was the prevailing Southern opinion. At once the people
of western Missouri were put upon the defensive. Blue lodges were
formed for the purpose of carrying slavery into Kansas. Appeals were
circulated in the slave-holding States for colonists and funds.
Passions were inflamed by rumors which grew as they stalked abroad.
The peaceful occupation of Kansas was at an end. Popular sovereignty
was to be tested under abnormal conditions.

When the election of territorial delegates to Congress occurred, in
the late fall, a fatal defect in the organic law was disclosed, to
which many of the untoward incidents of succeeding months may be
ascribed. The territorial act conferred the right of voting at the
first elections upon all free, white, male inhabita