h sections to get a majority in Kansas. Societies were
formed in Boston and other Northern cities to finance emigrants who
proposed to settle there. The South was equally active, and, to set off
against the disadvantage of a less fluid population, had the advantage
of the immediate proximity of the Slave State of Missouri. Such a
contest, even if peaceably conducted, was not calculated to promote
either the reconciliation of the sections or the solidarity and
stability of the new community. But in a frontier community without a
settled government, and with a population necessarily armed for
self-defence, it was not likely to be peaceably conducted. Nor was it.
For years Kansas was the scene of what can only be described as
spasmodic civil war. The Free Soil settlement of Lawrence was, after
some bloodshed, seized and burnt by "border ruffians," as they were
called, from Missouri. The North cried out loudly against "Southern
outrages," but it is fair to say that the outrages were not all on one
side. In fact, the most amazing crime in the record of Kansas was
committed by a Northerner, the notorious John Brown. This man presents
rather a pathological than a historical problem. He had considerable
military talents, and a curious power of persuading men. But he was
certainly mad. A New England Puritan by extraction, he was inflamed on
the subject of Slavery by a fanaticism somewhat similar to that of
Garrison. But while Garrison blended his Abolitionism with the Quaker
dogma of Non-Resistance, Brown blended his with the ethics of a
seventeenth-century Covenanter who thought himself divinely commanded to
hew the Amalakites in pieces before the Lord. In obedience to his
peculiar code of morals he not only murdered Southern immigrants without
provocation, but savagely mutilated their bodies. If his act did not
prove him insane his apology would. In defence of his conduct he
explained that "disguised as a surveyor" he had interviewed his victims
and discovered that every one of them had "committed murder in his
heart."

The other effect of the Kansas-Nebraska policy was the rise of a new
party formed for the single purpose of opposing it. Anti-Slavery parties
had already come into being from time to time in the North, and had at
different times exerted a certain influence on elections, but they made
little headway because they were composed mainly of extremists, and
their aim appeared to moderate men inconsistent with the Cons