d fight for its integrity, come
what might. But he, too, did not live to see the triumph of freedom
and of his country. He died June 3, 1861.

It is believed by many that if slavery had been forced upon California
and into the New Mexico and Nebraska Territories four more slave
States would soon have been admitted from Texas (as the act of
annexation provided), and that thus the slave power having secured
such domination in the Union as was desired and expected by its
leaders, there would have been no secession,--no rebellion, but,
instead, slavery would have become _national_.

But with California free and Kansas free, all hope of further
extending slavery in the United States was forever gone.

Had Kansas even become slave, what then?

The final contest in Kansas was augmented and intensified by a
national event partly passed over.

During the Kansas struggle the excitement of debate in Congress
rose to its zenith, surpassing any other period.

The North had been bullied into a frenzy over the demands of those
desiring the extension of slavery. The anti-slavery members of
Congress met this in many instances by sober, candid discussion,
but in others by sharp invective, dealt out by superior learning
and consummate skill in the use of the English language.

Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was a profound student and scholar,
and an inveterate hater of slavery and all that was incident to it.

On May 19 and 20, 1856, he pronounced his famous philippic against
slavery and its supporters. Regarding the opening of the Kansas-
Nebraska Territory to the influx of slavery, and the evident purpose
of the Administration to dedicate it to slavery, he poured out
warning invectives against all who in any way favored the new policy
of opening this Territory to the chance of coming into the Union
as slave States. Mr. Sumner's remarks were personal in the extreme,
only justified by the general dictatorial and bullying attitude of
some Southern Senators. A mere extract here would do him and the
occasion injustice. Senators Cass and Douglas, on the floor of
the Senate, resented this speech of Sumner.

On the 22nd of May, two days after the speech, at the close of a
session of the Senate, while Sumner was seated at his desk in the
Senate chamber writing, he was approached by Preston Brooks, a
member of the House from South Carolina, who accosted him: "I have
read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on Sout