For a time, in 1859, and 1853, Benton was apparently triumphant, and Atchison was himself willing to consent to the organization of the new territory with slavery excluded.The national leaders, however, were not of the same mind.The real issue was the continuance of slavery in the State; the one thing which must not be permitted was the transfer of anti-slavery agitation to the separate States.Henry Clay's proposal of 1849 to provide for gradual emancipation in Kentucky was bitterly resented.It had long been an axiom with the slavocracy that the institution would perish unless it had the opportunity to expand.Out of this conviction arose Calhoun's famous theory that slaveowners had under the Constitution an equal right with the owners of all other forms of property in all the Territories.The theory itself assumed that the act prohibiting slavery in the territory north of the southern boundary of Missouri was unconstitutional and void.But this theory had not yet received judicial sanction, and the time was at hand when the question of freedom or slavery in the western territory was to be determined.Between March and December, 1853, the discovery was made that the Act of 1850organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah had superseded the Compromise of 1820; that a principle had been recognized applicable to all the Territories; that all were open to settlement on equal terms to slaveholders and non-slaveholders;that the subject of slavery should be removed from Congress to the people of the Territories; and that they should decide, either when a territorial legislature was organized or at the time of the adoption of a constitution preparatory to statehood, whether or not slavery should be authorized.These ideas found expression in various newspapers during the month of December, 1853.Though the authorship of the new theory is still a matter of dispute, it is well known that Stephen A.Douglas became its chief sponsor and champion.The real motives and intentions of Douglas himself and of many of his supporters will always remain obscure and uncertain.But no uncertainty attaches to the motives of Senator Atchison and the leaders of the Calhoun section of the Democratic party.For ten years at least they had been laboring to get rid of the Missouri Compromise.Their motive was to defend slavery and especially to forestall a successful movement for emancipation in the State of Missouri.
From early in January, 1854, until late in May, Douglas's Nebraska bill held the attention of Congress and of the entire country.At first the measure simply assumed that the Missouri Compromise had been superseded by the Act of 1850.Later the bill was amended in such a way as to repeal distinctly that time-honored act.At first the plan was to organize Nebraska as a single Territory extending from Texas to Canada.Later it was proposed to organize separate Territories, one west of Missouri under the name of Kansas, the other west of Iowa under the name of Nebraska.Opposition came from Free-soilers, from Northern Whigs and a few Whigs from the South, and from a large proportion of Northern Democrats.The repeal of the Missouri Compromise came like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky to the people of the North.
For a time Douglas was the most unpopular of political leaders and was apparently repudiated by his party.The first name designating the opponents of the Douglas bill was "Anti Nebraska men," for which the name Republican was gradually substituted and in 1858 became the accepted title of the party.
The provision for two territorial governments instead of one carried with it the idea of a continued balance between slave and free States; Kansas, being on a geographical parallel with the slave States, would probably permit slavery, while Nebraska would be occupied by free-state immigrants.Though this was a commonly accepted view, Eli Thayer of Worcester, Massachusetts, and a few others took a different view.They proposed to make an end of the discussion of the extension of slavery by sending free men who were opposed to slavery to occupy the territory open for settlement.To attain this object they organized an Emigrant Aid Company incorporated under the laws of the State.Even before the bill was passed, the corporation was in full working order.
Thayer himself traveled extensively throughout the Northern States stimulating interest in western emigration, with the conviction that the disturbing question could be peacefully settled in this way.California had thus been saved to freedom;why not all other Territories? The new company had as adviser and co-laborer Dr.Charles Robinson, who had crossed the Kansas Territory on his way to California and had acquired valuable experience in the art of state-building under peculiar conditions.
The first party sent out by the Emigrant Aid Company arrived in Kansas early in August, 1854, and selected the site for the town of Lawrence.During the later months of the year, four other parties were sent out, in all numbering nearly seven hundred.
Through extensive advertisement by the company, through the general interest in the subject and the natural flow of emigration to the West, Kansas was receiving large accessions of free-state settlers.
Meanwhile the men of Missouri, some of whom had striven for a decade to secure the privilege of extending slavery into the new Territory, were not idle.Instantly upon the removal of legal barriers, they occupied adjacent lands, founded towns, staked out claims, formed plans for preempting the entire region and for forestalling or driving out all intruders.They had at first the advantage of position, for they did not find it difficult to maintain two homes, one in Kansas for purposes of voting and fighting and another in Missouri for actual residence.Andrew H.
