488 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



ence. It does not appear, however, that any practical results were obtained through 

 this organization. A new field now opened for the development of his cherished 

 ambition. Fierce political agitation and opposition had inflamed and exasperated the 

 slave owners, and they were earnestly pushing the institution into heretofore free 

 territory with the desperate determination to make it a national institution. Through 

 the domination of sectional interests, the extension and protection of slavery became 

 the Government policy, and its highest court was made to announce as law the most 

 damnable proposition ever promulgated by a bench of cix'ilized judges, viz., that by 

 virtue of and under our Constitution, "a colored man has no rights which a white 

 man is bound to respect " — a decision which defeated itself and did more to give 

 the slave his liberty than any sentence ever spoken or written except the emancipation 

 of Abraham Lincoln, of which it was the very antithesis. 



The Missouri Compromise, which had heretofore kept slavery within certain limits, 

 was repealed in May, 1855, and Kansas and Nebraska at once became the field of a 

 hot strife for occupation and control between the pro-slavery and free-soil men. The 

 so-called "free-soil" included all opposed to the further extension of slavery, most of 

 whom, however, strongly opposed any interference with it where it already existed. 

 Brown saw and improved this opportunity to secure allies and assistance for his own 

 purpose which was nothing short of total abolition. In the spring of 1855, he 

 followed his four stalwart sons, John, Owen, Jason and Frederick, who had already 

 migrated and settled a few miles from Osawatomie, Kansas. He did not go as a 

 settler, but as a volunteer soldier to fight the slave power which had decided to hold 

 the newly opened territory at any cost and at all hazards. 



The struggle in Kansas was well under way before John Brown went there in the 

 Fall of 1855, and money and arms were being freely contributed for the aid of the free- 

 soil men. The Browns were poor and very destitute, but were occasionally given 

 financial aid through friends and acquaintances, who favored the free-soil doctrine, 

 while they abhorred abolitionists. Anti-slavery meetings held at Syracuse and Utica 

 by the old-fashioned abolitionists, also raised and sent them a little money. Brown 

 saw that the free-soil party and abolitionists were now working to the same end and 

 gladly accepted aid from both. 



His operations in Kansas were of a character to force the fight between freedom 

 and slavery, a policy severely criticised by many good free-soil men of the time. He 

 soon became the prominent figure of the Kansas raids and disturbances. 



The border ruffians from Missouri and other states gave him plenty of cause and 

 excuse for the bold unrelenting guerilla warfare he carried on. United States mar- 

 shals and territorial officials were over-zealous to stamp out of these territories every 

 free-soil man or terrorize him into abject submission and silence. Fire and pillage. 



