this fight was ascribed to his overweening ambition to
reach the presidency. The clergymen of New England and of Chicago
flooded the Senate with petitions crying against this "intrigue." On May
26, 1854, at one o'clock in the morning, the bill passed the Senate by a
vote of 31 to 13. The "nays" were Messrs. Allen, Bell, Chase, Clayton,
Fish, Foote, Gillet, Hamlin, James, Seward, Sumner, Wade, and Walker.

The enactment of this measure into a law did not settle the question. It
resulted in a strife in the Territories themselves. For two years Kansas
was in a state of civil war. The Emigrant Aid Societies of New England
raised large sums of money to send to the Territories Free-Soil settlers
and other agitators. A counter-stream of agitators set in from Missouri,
in sympathy with the slavery men, and the result was a long series of
bloody disorders. In February, 1856, Mr. Toombs made a speech upon the
message of the President in regard to the lawless condition of Kansas.
The Governor informed President Pierce that the laws were obstructed
and openly resisted by bodies of armed men; that prisoners were rescued
from the sheriffs, peaceable inhabitants murdered, and houses burned.
Another authority informed the President that an overwhelming force was
crossing the border for the avowed purpose of invading Kansas and
butchering the unoffending Free-State citizens. One side claimed
protection from insurrection within, the other from invasion without.

As to the Emigrant Aid Societies, Mr. Toombs said, "Whatever be their
policy, whatever their tendency to produce strife, if they simply aid
emigrants from Massachusetts to go to Kansas to become citizens of that
Territory, I am prepared to say that they violate no law; they have a
right to do it, and every attempt to prevent their doing so violates the
law and ought not to be sustained. But if they send persons there
furnished with arms, with the intent to offer forcible resistance to the
constituted authorities, they are guilty of the highest crime known to
civil society, and are amenable to its penalties. I shall not undertake
to decide upon their conduct. The facts are not before me, and I
therefore pass it by."

Mr. Toombs thought it would be difficult to imagine a case calling more
loudly for the intervention of Federal power. Mr. Toombs favored the
supremacy of the law in the Territories at any cost. "If traitors seek
to disturb the peace of the country, I desire that it