384 
Indiana University 
Everywhere in both sections, people were urged to go to 
Kansas for patriotic and moral reasons. No argument that 
could be used to prove to possible colonists from either sec- 
tion that the Territory was a beautiful country with abundant 
resources, fine climate, and productive soil was omitted. Anti- 
slavery correspondents who went to Kansas proved that the 
natural conditions were unfavorable to slavery, but also that, 
thru the apathy of northerners and the zeal of southerners, 
there was great danger that slavery would be established. 
Proslavery correspondents, on the other hand, demonstrated 
the great possibilities of growing hemp and other crops with 
slave labor, but urged southern colonists to come before the 
land should fall a prey to Abolitionists, who were said to be 
so determined to outdo the South that they were emptying 
the New England jails and poorhouses in order to people the 
Territory rapidly and so defeat the slow-moving South.® 
Kansas was undoubtedly well advertised. Probably no new 
country was ever so widely heard of before the days of modern 
advertising and the “booster’’. Not all of the reports emanat- 
ing from the Territory were favorable. Many correspondents 
told freely of the hardships to be endured and of the handicaps 
in the way of scant rainfall, lack of timber, and high prices.® 
Furthermore, the widely published news items concerning the 
startling events that occurred in Kansas, tho they made good 
copy and served well the purposes of the party organs, did 
not necessarily exert an influence in favor of Kansas. While 
some in both sections were fired with the crusading spirit and 
Iowa 141,834 483,765 341,931 
Missouri 317,018 591,835 274,817 
Arkansas 99,591 200,292 100,701 
Texas 105,271 268,606 163,335 
Total increase in the seven states, 1,861,565. 
Total population of Kansas in 1860, 107,204. 
^ Born in New England, but living in Kansas in 1860, 4,208 ; born in New York, 
but living in Kansas, 6,331 ; born in Pennsylvania, 6,463 ; born in Ohio, 11,617 ; born in 
Tennessee, 2,569 ; born in Kentucky, 6,556 ; born in foreign countries, 12,691. 
® Descriptions of Kansas appeared in the newspapers everywhere. Great numbers 
of these may be found in Thomas H. Webb’s Kansas Scrapbook. Doctor Webb was the 
secretary of the New England Emigrant Aid Society. His Kansas Seraphook is a rich 
and extensive collection of newspaper clippings, which is now in the library of the 
Kansas State Historical Society at Topeka. The clippings cover a wide range of news- 
papers, southern as well as northern. Sixteen large volumes are filled with clippings of 
the period from May, 1854, to September, 1856. A seventeenth volume contains clippings 
relating to John Brown’s raid, trial, and execution, 
^ Daily Tribune (New Albany, Ind.), October 23, 1854 ; Herald of Freedom (Lawi'ence, 
Kan.), May 5, 1855; Nciv York Daily Times, January 18, 1855 (letter signed “Kansas”, 
written at Westport, Mo„ December 29, 1854) ; ibid.. May 23, 1857 (letter by Kansas 
correspondent of Chicago Daily Tribune) . 
