res of the territories could
make laws hostile to slavery. This idea, of course, was opposed to the
Dred Scott decision. Douglas won the election and was returned to the
Senate. But Lincoln had made a national reputation.

[Illustration: HARPER'S FERRY.]

[Sidenote: Civil war in Kansas. _McMaster_, 357.]

[Sidenote: John Brown.]

[Sidenote: The slave constitution.]

[Sidenote: Douglas opposes Buchanan.]

359. "Bleeding Kansas."--Meantime civil war had broken out in
Kansas, Slavery men attacked Lawrence, killed a few free-state settlers,
and burned several buildings. Led by John Brown, an immigrant from New
York, free-state men attacked a party of slave-state men and killed five
of them. By 1857 the free-state voters had become so numerous that it
was no longer possible to outvote them by bringing men from Missouri,
and they chose a free-state legislature. But the fraudulent slave-state
legislature had already provided for holding a constitutional convention
at Lecompton. This convention was controlled by the slave-state men and
adopted a constitution providing for slavery. President Buchanan sent
this constitution to Congress and asked to have Kansas admitted as a
slave state. But Douglas could not bear to see the wishes of the
settlers of Kansas outraged. He opposed the proposition vigorously and
it was defeated. It was not until 1861 that Kansas was admitted to the
Union as a free state.

[Sidenote: John Brown's Raid, 1859. _Higginson_, 286-289;
_Source-Book_, 294-296.]

[Sidenote: He seizes Harper's Ferry.]

[Sidenote: His execution, 1859.]

360. John Brown's Raid, 1859.--While in Kansas John Brown had
conceived a bold plan. It was to seize a strong place in the mountains
of the South, and there protect any slaves who should run away from
their masters. In this way he expected to break slavery in pieces within
two years. With only nineteen men he seized Harper's Ferry, in Virginia,
and secured the United States arsenal at that place. But he and most of
his men were immediately captured. He was executed by the Virginian
authorities as a traitor and murderer. The Republican leaders denounced
his act as "the gravest of crimes." But the Southern leaders were
convinced that now the time had come to secede from the Union and to
establish a Southern Confederacy.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

CHAPTER 31

Sec. 323.--_a_. Why were the people of South Carolina so opposed to any
limitation of slavery? How did they