The Battle Renewed—Repeal of the Missouri Compromise Proposed—The Struggle in Congress—Mr. Beecher’s Appeals—The Battle lost in Congress is Transferred to the Territories—Forces Engaged—Kansas War—Dred Scott Decision—Mr. Beecher’s Defence of Kansas—“Beecher’s Bibles”—Charles Sumner Attacked in the Senate—The Fremont Campaign—The Dog Noble.

“Henry, the battle is coming on. When it will end I know not. I only hope that every one feels as alert as I do” (extract from a letter of Mrs. Stowe to Henry Ward Beecher). It was dated November 1, 1852, but expresses the feeling of some of the more sagacious ones during the whole of this era of apparent peace. They were not deceived by the surface calm. They felt that, beneath all party platforms, and the compromises of party politics, and the make-shifts of a commercial spirit, the great conscience of the North was being stirred. Deep was calling unto deep, and the moanings of the sea that presaged the coming tempest had reached their ears. The storm, not a new one but the violent rising of the same old elements, began in Congress in the early part of 1854, upon the question of the organization of the territory of “The Platte,” afterwards divided into two Territories called “Kansas and Nebraska.” The star of empire was moving Westward, but of what kind should this empire be, of liberty or slavery? If matters continued as they then were it must be the former. California, stretching along the Pacific coast for two hundred and fifty miles below Mason and Dixon’s line, had declared for freedom through all her borders. The Territories of New Mexico and Utah were not favorable to any great growth of slavery nor capable of rendering it much assistance. Texas, although intensely pro-slavery, yet, by reason of State pride, would not divide her imperial domain into quarters for the benefit of that institution. Only in one direction was expansion and growth possible, and that was in this broad domain which was now asking to be organized into Territories and would soon demand admission as States. Why should not this magnificent country be opened to the slave-owner and his property as well as to the settler from the North? Was not this his right? Other factors than property interests have entered into the question. Conscience has been enlisted upon the one side as on the other. The South has come to look upon slavery as having equal rights, under the Constitution, with liberty, and she feels aggrieved that she is not given all the privileges of her fellow-citizens of the North. The only thing that apparently prevented this natural and, as it seemed to her, just expansion, was the Missouri Compromise, which had solemnly guaranteed this whole territory to freedom. Why not repeal this obnoxious measure? The proposition to do this sprang from Kentucky. The same State which, through its senator. Henry Clay, had been foremost in originally securing the act, now through its senator, Mr. Dixon, his successor, was the first to ask for its repeal. Unlike as the movement seems, and disowned as it undoubtedly would have been by Mr. Clay, the great projector of the Missouri Compromise, yet in reality the substance of each is the same. In both there is but one design—to placate the slave-power and save the country by attempting to compromise, not diverse interests, but antagonistic principles. They were but separate steps in one path, and that a road towards national perversion, disgrace, and ruin. The guiding star which once shone in the heavens had been lost, and our statesmen were taking up with a will-o’-the-wisp, born of swamp and miasma, in its place.

Although the project was conceived by the South, it could not have been brought to the birth, much less nourished into baneful strength, had it not been adopted by the North in the person of Stephen A. Douglas, one of the ablest leaders of the Democratic party, a member of the United States Senate, and chairman of the Committee upon Territories. Into the bill for organizing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which he reported to the Senate in January of 1854, he introduced the proposition to repeal the old Missouri Compromise. The mere proposal was regarded as little less than sacrilege. For thirty years that compromise had been looked upon as a sacred pledge, to be held in the same reverence as the Constitution itself. Scarcely four years before, the mover of the proposition for its repeal had described it as “canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb.” An attempt to set it aside roused the most intense excitement throughout the whole land, the South in favor, the North opposed. The readiness with which the flame sprang up proved that through these past years of apparent quiet the fire had been covered but not put out. Now that fresh fuel was added and the draught opened, it blazed up more fiercely than ever. It was not confined to any class or condition.

All of anti-slavery tendencies saw in it an evidence of the settled purpose of the South to nationalize the institution of slavery, and a testimony that it would not scruple to use any means to attain its end.

Moralists saw in it a disregard of most sacred promises, and felt the ground of constitutional fidelity shaking under their feet. More than three thousand clergymen in New England signed a protest against the action proposed.

“We protest against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as a great moral wrong; as a breach of faith, eminently unjust to the moral principles of the community and subversive of all confidence in national engagements; as a measure full of danger to the peace and even the existence of our beloved Union, and exposing us to the righteous judgments of the Almighty.”

Even the mere politician was angry that an issue so repugnant to a majority of the people had been so unwisely precipitated. Nor were his anger and apprehension unwarranted. The storm of popular indignation swept down like a tempest upon the forests, scattering dead leaves, breaking off dead branches, and throwing down trees that had become rotten in trunk or root. Before the end of the year the Democratic party had lost its magnificent majority in Congress, and the Whig party had practically ceased to exist, dishevelled, torn up by the roots, buried by the storm.

During this preliminary contest Mr. Beecher is neither indifferent nor silent. In lectures, in special sermons, and in numerous Star Papers he makes his influence felt. In one of the latter upon “The Crisis” his appeals and reproaches go out to all classes:

“The virtue, the morals, the prosperity of a domain large enough to be an empire has no safeguard about it. Those future States, silent and unpopulous, are like so many lambs huddled in a thicket by crowds of wolves, that only wait for some single taste of blood to plunge in and tear the whole! Unless there is a storm from the people that shall roll like thunder in the mountains; unless the recreant and graceless herd in Congress shall hear the coming down of many waters, like roaring freshets from mountains on whose tops clouds have burst, there will soon be no more ground to fight for. If anything is to be done it must be done by the North. It must be quickly, loudly, and impetuously done! There must be an outcry coming up from the bosom of the people, like that which rent the midnight of Egypt when all its first-born were stricken. Let no man wait for his fellow. Let children and women lead and teach sluggish manhood with what energy and soul a voice should be heard for liberty, upon half a continent, like the voice of God when He speaks in storms!

“Let every single man write, ‘I solemnly protest against the perfidy and the outrage of abolishing the Missouri Compromise’; and as he bears it to the post-office, if he find a fellow to sign it, let him sign; but if not, let it go as his single protest.

“Let families send solemn protests—the father and mother, the children and hired laborers. Let there be ten thousand petitions from single families within a week at Washington.

“Let churches and congregations unite and send instant petitions.

“In this solemn hour of peril, when all men’s hearts sink within them, we have an appeal to those citizens who rebuked us for our fears in 1850.

“Did you not declare that that should be a finality? Did you not say that, by a concession of conscience, we should thereafter have peace?

“Is this the peace? Is this the fulfilment of your promise? Is not this the very sequence which we told you would come? That compromise was a ball of frozen rattlesnakes. You turned them in your hands then with impunity. We warned and besought. We protested and adjured. You persisted in bringing them into the dwelling. You laid them down before the fire. Now where are they? They are crawling all around. Their fangs are striking death into every precious interest of liberty! It is your work!

“In this emergency where are those ministers of the Gospel who have always refused to infuse into the public mind a sound and instructed moral sentiment upon the subject of slavery? Hitherto you have been silent, because it did not concern the North. We earnestly protested that so deep and dreadful a disease could not prey upon any limb of this nation and not strike its taint and danger through and through the whole body politic. We implored men not to let the first principles of human rights die out of the popular mind; not to let a gigantic engine of despotism, through its selfish remunerations of commerce, deaden every quick sensibility to justice and bribe to sleep the vigilance of humanity, though every palm should have thrice as many pieces of silver as did he of old.

“The North is both bound and asleep. It is bound with bonds of unlawful compromise! You, ministers of Christ, held her limbs, while the gaunt and worthy minions of oppression moved about, twisting inextricable cords about her hands and feet; or, like Saul, stood by, holding the garments of those that slew the martyr! The poor Northern conscience has been like a fly upon a spider’s web. Her statesmen, and not a few of her ministers, have rolled up the struggling insect, singing fainter and fainter, with webs of sophistry, till it now lies a miserable, helpless victim, and Slavery is crawling up to suck its vital blood!

“What, then, do you owe to God, to heaven, and to your country, in an effort to regain conscience, liberty, and duty? God, who searches the heart, knows that it is not in our heart to say these things for the sake of aspersion. We would lie down before you, and let your steps tread our very neck, if you were only marching toward the high ends of our country’s good. But we cannot endure to see noble and venerable ministers of the Gospel first duped and deceived, and made to serve the ends of oppression, and then, when the mighty juggle is detected, stand silent and aghast, as unwilling now to repair as before to prevent the utter misery and evil.

“But let us not be deceived. Let every man be prepared for a future! If this bill shall be defeated the North will be like a man just dragged out of the rapids above Niagara! If this bill pass, the North will be like a man whirled in the very wildest rage of the infuriate rapids and making headlong haste toward the awful plunge.

“Does any man believe that there can be peace if this iniquity goes forward? Will the South, with such advantage gained, easily relinquish her grip? Will the North, betrayed, wounded, and religiously aroused from the very bottom, let slave States come to the door of the Union, from the very territory of which she has been cheated, and bid them enter? Such struggles are before us as we have never seen. The next time the masses, the religious-minded men of the then undivided North, are aroused, standing on no flimsy base of compromise but on the solid foundations of humanity, of natural feeling, of a Northern national feeling springing from a love of liberty, they will not be put to sleep again by any mere pretences of peace. The finality which the South gave was a hollow truce but to give them time to forge their arms and grind their swords. They bribed the North with a lie. The next time the North reaches forth her hand it will scarcely be for gold or silver. There is more danger now of wild collisions than of lying finalities. It will come to that if the foolish counsels of timid men prevail. If civil wars are to be prevented, now is the time; courage to-day or carnage to-morrow. Firmness will give peace; trembling will bring war.*”

Another one follows upon “The Christian’s Duty to Liberty”:

“Mar. 23, 1854.—At length God seems to have caught the wicked in their own craft. It was not in the power of all the men of the North to develop so earnest a feeling against slavery and for liberty as is now finding tongue and giving itself forth all over the North. All that for which we have been counted uncharitable by men anxious to be honorable toward the South has come to pass.

“Let the conscience of the North settle this question, not her fears. God calls us to a religious duty. Long has our talent lain in a napkin. Our testimony for liberty has been waived; our assertion of freedom has been timid and without enthusiasm. We have refused to accept at God’s hands the true mission of the North, to preach liberty to the captives and elevation to the whole human family. At length let the banner flow out to the wind, let the battle begin. There will never be another day of grace if this goes past. Retreat now and the North will never retreat again. We beseech Christian men and ministers to put this question where it belongs, upon a religious basis. Let them feel their duty in their own land as they feel their duty of preaching the truth of Christ, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear.

“Oh! that God, by breathing a spirit of prayer upon His people and of unflinching fidelity, would give us token that He has appeared at length for our salvation!”

In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was effected in September of 1854, and the battle which had been fought in Congress and lost by the free States was at once transferred to the newly-admitted Territory, and was there waged with a fierceness and persistence that cannot be understood or appreciated, unless it be remembered that Kansas had become the strategic point of the whole great conflict. Given Kansas, slavery would have not only additional territory, but, what was even more important to its purposes, a majority in the United States Senate that should for ever, as it hoped, prevent the admission of more free than slave States, or the following of any course which should be prejudicial to its interests. In this new field the North at first labored under great disadvantage. The peculiar institution had already been planted and had taken root. The eastern border of Kansas was upon Missouri, a slave State which was fully aware of the advantage that broader fields would furnish the labor of her increasing slave population, and containing enough of a rough and wild frontier element to carry through any plan that desperation or villany might devise. The President of the United States Senate and acting Vice-President of the United States, David R. Atchison, was on the ground, and for months had been organizing Blue Lodges and other secret bodies, with the intent to take possession of the Territory, or at least of its polling-places, and secure it for slavery. The officers appointed by the President—a governor, three judges, a secretary, a marshal, and an attorney—were, of course, all favorable to the policy of the Administration, a policy which was all that the most radical pro-slavery advocate could desire.

The party thus happily situated did not hesitate to avail itself of its advantages. Its members swarmed across the borders at the election of a delegate to Congress, took possession of the ballot-boxes, appointed judges of election from their own number, elected their man by an overwhelming majority, and then for the most part returned to their homes in Missouri.

This was in October, 1854. In the following spring a Legislature was elected by the same illegal process, and proceeded at once to form a constitution most rabidly pro-slavery. It prescribed the death-penalty for any who should entice or decoy away a slave or assist him to escape, and ten years’ imprisonment for harboring or concealing a fugitive slave. To deny the right of holding slaves in the Territory, either by speaking, writing, printing or circulating books or papers, was declared to be felony, punishable with two years’ imprisonment. Having formed an elaborate constitution of the above character, and made ample provision for enforcing its requirements, they selected a site for the new State capital, called it Lecompton—after the attorney of the State, whose legal acquirements had assisted them greatly in their villany—and adjourned.

Looking upon affairs as they then appeared, and seeing that the Legislature, however elected, had been officially recognized, and that its enactments were in form legal, that the whole machinery of courts, marshals, and militia were in its hands and could be used to enforce its statutes, that it was favored by the Administration and the dominant faction at Washington, which could employ the United States army for its support, it would seem as if the battle had already been lost to the Free-State men, and that Kansas could be counted upon to give that majority in the United States Senate which the slave-power so greatly coveted. But other forces were at work. In the first place, the very enormity of these slave-laws compelled all the decent residents of Kansas, whether Free-Soil, Whig, or Democrat, to combine for their own defence against the possible outrages to which they were exposed by these enactments. In the second place, the party which had brought about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had, by this very act, lost the control of the Lower House in Congress, and could not be relied upon to admit the Territory with its present infamous code. Besides these near and more immediate advantages, there were forces enlisted on this side that were working slowly but with great certainty toward the result aimed at by the Free-State men. The old migratory instinct which had throbbed in the veins of this race from the first, which had brought them from the steppes of Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, pushed the stronger and abler ones across the seas, moved them from the sea-coast to the foot of the Alleghanies, then drove them across this barrier to take possession of the great valley of the Ohio and the Mississippi, was still as active as ever and readily responded to the enticements of the new and fertile lands just opened in Kansas for settlement. No sooner was it known that the broad plains of this Territory could be occupied than the tide began to flow in this direction. Principle also came in to strengthen and ennoble this instinct.

“Then arose a majesty of self-sacrifice that had no parallel before. Instead of merely protesting, young men and maidens, laboring men, farmers, mechanics, sped with a sacred desire to rescue free territory from the toils of slavery, and emigrated in thousands, not to better their own condition, but in order that when this Territory should vote it should vote for freedom.”

Lest both instinct and principle should move too slowly or with insufficient equipment, emigrant societies were formed at the North to assist those who would offer themselves for the redemption of Kansas. One of the earliest of these to be on the ground was the “Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company,” headed by the Hon. Eli Thayer. This organization sent out a body of some thirty persons, who, in July of this year, had founded the town of Lawrence. With this company, organized, mutually acquainted, and trained in the orderly methods of New England, for a centre, there rapidly gathered a strong body, and one that well represented the bona-fide settlers of Kansas. They proceeded at once to call a mass convention and elect delegates. In due time a Constitutional Convention was called at Topeka, October 23, 1855, which formed a constitution, submitted it to the people, from whom it met with a hearty endorsement. It was then transmitted to Congress for approval.

These, Lecompton and Topeka, were the storm-centres around which surged the principal events of those turbulent times in Kansas which have been designated as “The Kansas War.” It was a wild, irregular, barbarous, and bloody strife, made up of night-attacks, house-burnings, secret murders, skirmishes between armed bodies sometimes rising to the proportions of a battle, Lawrence twice burned, Leavenworth sacked, and acts of that description, filling up four years or more of most eventful history.

Kansas at that time was the skirmish-line of two great hosts that were already settling down to a life-and-death struggle. On the one side a Legislature, as we have seen, elected largely by the votes of marauders from an adjoining State; a reckless population just over the line, whose historic name, Border Ruffians, seems to have been fully deserved, organized into secret bands ready to march at a moment’s warning, equipped either to vote or fight as should be required; a regiment of United States troops placed at their disposal; the whole South awake to the work they have undertaken, and forwarding supplies of men and money for the support of those already on the field; and the Administration at Washington, through portions of two presidential terms, alternately scheming and commanding for its success.

On the other hand was a Legislature, illegally convened, but elected by a large majority of the resident population of the Territory, with a constituency, some of them doubtless adventurers, some fanatics, and others possibly villains, but for the most part honest homesteaders, living, it may be, in sod huts or dug-outs, but living upon land which they had pre-empted and could call their own; the great North behind them, slowly but surely moving down to their rescue; the throb of the world’s progress beating towards them; the consciousness that they are fulfilling the purposes of God in saving this land to liberty animating them; and the great natural elements of soil, air, and sunshine, that are always on the side of liberty, working for them. These were the forces on the other side.

Each section came to the support of its skirmish-line in characteristic fashion: the South by military companies and the incursions of armed bands of raiders aiming to conquer the country, if necessary, by force of arms and overawe it into accepting its bogus State constitution. The North came in emigrant-wagons, with family, stock, house-furniture, and farm utensils, prepared to remain and occupy the land.

The general trend of the government at an early period in the strife, as seen in various acts at home and abroad, must also be taken into the account. The Ostend Manifesto, issued under the inspiration of President Pierce by our three ministers, Buchanan, Mason, and SoulÉ, at the courts respectively of London, Paris, and Madrid, recommended the purchase of Cuba, if possible; if not that we obtain it by force. “If Spain,” they said, “should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from her, if we possess the power.” Slavery at this period had a foreign as well as a home policy. It was that of the old buccaneer, a policy of unscrupulous aggression, that would not hesitate to embroil the nation in war, if necessary for the carrying out of its designs. Filibustering expeditions, which were continually being planned and attempted at this time against Cuba and Central America, were rightly looked upon not only as additional proof of the purpose but as the initial steps in the proposed plan of foreign conquest.

As if the forces arrayed against liberty were not enough, as the conflict advanced the Supreme Court of the United States added its influence to the side of the antagonist. In the historic Dred Scott decision, given in the spring of 1857, the ground is taken that the negro slave is so completely and exclusively property, under the Constitution, that the owner can take him, as any other property, into any and all territory belonging to the United States government. In effect “the negro has no rights which the white man is bound to respect.”

After the lapse of many years, upon a calm review of that decision it is difficult to say whether the historical errors, the feeble reasoning, or the immoral sentiments most awaken our surprise and contempt. It is sufficient for our purpose at this time to know that this decision threw a vast influence against the Free-State men. If it were final, then their struggle was all in vain. Strive as much as they would, and suffer as much as they might, they could never make Kansas a free State. And yet, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, the hostility of the Administration, and all other adverse forces and circumstances, they held on. To this result had our country come through the compromises and surrenders of three-quarters of a century: slavery in possession of the machinery of government, nationalized by the highest tribunal in the land, declared to have equal rights with freedom in all the public domain, and, in logical sequence, not to be shut out from even the free States. Every institution of thirty millions of freemen was to be judged and graded, encouraged or restrained, with supreme reference to the interests of this institution. Dominant at home, it was already taking steps preparatory to foreign conquest, and the only effective obstacle in the way of the consummation of its plans was the life-and-death tenacity with which the free settlers of Kansas held to their determination that theirs should be a free State.

The contest continued for four years before any substantial advantage was gained for the Free State party. Four governors, three appointed by President Pierce and one by President Buchanan, had successively been sent, and then deposed and disgraced because they could not, or would not, carry out the unjust measures proposed by the Administration. The victory in Congress in 1858 was simply a resubmission of the Lecompton constitution to the people of the State to be voted upon, whether they would accept it or frame one for themselves. They of course buried it amid universal execrations. Slight and unmistakably just as was this concession of Congress, it was nevertheless secured but by a small majority. The change of five votes would have passed the notorious Lecompton Bill, admitted the State with slavery into the Union, added two senators to the slave-power, restored the supremacy of that power in the Senate of the United States, to be followed by the carrying out the Dred Scott decision to its logical consequences, slavery supremacy at home, slavery aggression, annexation, and expansion over Cuba and Central America, abroad. A vast slave-empire stretching from the lakes to the southern shores of the Caribbean Sea seemed not an improbable dream, if there had not been wisdom enough or will enough to fight the battle out in Kansas. All honor to those brave men and women who in those days saved this Territory to the North! All honor to those who stood by them and helped them to win! A more important battle was never fought in our history, and a more heroic spirit was never shown. What the chÂteau of Hougoumont, held by the British right centre, was to the battle of Waterloo; what the “Bloody Angle” held by Hancock was to the battle of Spottsylvania Court-House, such was the Kansas war in the early and determining era of the great American conflict.

Call this four years of struggle one battle, and it will take rank with the “fifteen great battles” of the world’s history, second in importance to none.

We have thus given an outline of this great preliminary struggle of the war, that Mr. Beecher’s position and labors, which were much criticised at the time, may be seen in their true light. As is well known, he threw himself into this work with all the enthusiasm which such an emergency might be supposed to awaken. He felt the importance of the struggle and the need of instant action. Since, under the doctrine of “squatter sovereignty,” which had taken the place of the former restriction, the question of freedom or slavery in Kansas must be decided by the vote of the actual settlers, these must be aided to emigrate to that Territory from the North, and at once. Since they were to be the foundation elements of a Christian State, they should be supplied with Bibles; and since they would doubtless be called upon to defend themselves against attack, they must be supplied with firearms. He lectured and took up collections in Plymouth Church and from the lecture platform for Sharp’s rifles, an arm then but just come into notice. He preached, lectured, and bought rifles with the same object in view—to redeem men to liberty; and with the same spirit—love to God and man. Some of the rifles, it is said, were sent in boxes marked Bibles, but without his knowledge, and so passed in safety through Missouri and the enemy’s lines. Hence the term Beecher’s Bibles came to be applied to these effective weapons.

At this time he published his famous “Defence of Kansas,” that showed not more clearly the warmth of his spirit than his clear understanding of the issues at stake and the dangers that were impending:

“A battle is to be fought. If we are wise it will be bloodless. If we listen to the pusillanimous counsels of men who have never shown one throb of sympathy for liberty, we shall have blood to the horses’ bridles. If we are firm and prompt to obvious duty, if we stand by the men of Kansas and give them all the help they need, the flames of war will be quenched before it bursts forth, and both they of the West and we of the East shall, after some angry mutterings, rest down in peace. But if our ears are poisoned by the advice of men who never rebuke violence on the side of power, and never fail to inveigh against the self-defence of wronged liberty, we shall invite aggression and civil war. And let us know assuredly that civil war will not burst forth in Kansas without spreading. Now, if bold wisdom prevails, the conflict will be settled afar off in Kansas, and without blows or blood. But timidity and indifference will bring down blows there, which will not only echo in our houses hitherward, but will by and by lay the foundation for an armed struggle between the whole North and the South. Shall we let the spark kindle, or shall we quench it now? But, that intelligent citizens may the better judge, let the facts of this case be reviewed....

“There was never so strong an appeal to public sympathy as that which is presented in the case of Kansas free settlers. Their emigration was a mission of mercy, full of the ripest fruits of Christianity. Their conduct has been noble. They have borne hardships without faltering, they have borne outrage and persecution with patience, returning good for evil. They have suffered wrongs manifold and infinitely provoking, without retaliation. When aggression on one occasion was pushed so sorely that their patience failed, some of the men said: ‘We cannot bear such wrongs.’ The reply made by Pomeroy will become a maxim of Christian men: ‘Be patient! your wrongs are your very strength.’

“When the armed day came, and their adversaries came out to consume them, then, and only then, they took up arms and surrounded their homes with living men, determined not to attack, but never to surrender.... Once when England only asserted the right to tax the colonies without representation, the colonies rebelled and went to war. But now a foreign Legislature has been imposed upon Kansas. That Legislature has legalized slavery against the known wishes of nine-tenths of the actual settlers. It has decreed that no man shall enter the Territory who will not take an oath of allegiance to this spurious Legislature. It has made it death to give liberty to the man escaping from oppression. It has muzzled the press. It has forbidden discussion. It has made free speech a penitentiary offence. The rights for which the old colonists fought were superficial compared with these. These are the rights which lie at the very heart of personal liberty.

“Indeed, there can be no personal freedom where free speech, a free press, a free canvass and discussion are penitentiary offences! These are the laws which the President is determined to enforce! Congress is to be asked for money to sustain this government in Kansas, or to pay for an army to cut the throats of every free citizen who will not yield to this infamy!...

“Peace in Kansas means peace everywhere; war there will be war all over the land. Now it can be stopped. But fear will not do it. A truculent peace will not do it. Indolence and presumptuous prayer will but hasten the mischief. When tyrants are in arms they who cry peace become their confederates. Manliness, action, courage, and ample preparation for defence will stop the danger. The Providence that will help us is the Providence that we help. God works for those who work for Him. When He answers prayer for harvests He inspires men to work, and petitions for crops and harvests are answered through ploughs and spades. And God will answer prayers for peace by inspiring men with justice, with abhorrence of oppression; by making good men bold and active, and bad men feeble and cowardly; by stopping the ears of the community to the counsel of cowards and hypocrites. Let every man in this awful crisis not fail to pray, and, that they may pray without hypocrisy, let them watch and work! How shall we dare ask God to save us from bloodshed when we will not use the means He has put into our hands? Faith without works and prayer without works are dead—stone-dead. Let the emigrants go hither and thither by hundreds, and pray as they go! Let them that have money now pour it out, and pray as they give! Let them that have sons in Kansas send them arms, and pray that they may have no occasion to use them; but that, if they must be used, that the son may so wield them that the mother be not ashamed of the son whom she bore! Let them that have influence speak out! Let ministers and Christian free men now, if ever, speak against barbarism and uphold the whole retinue of Christian institutions! Let those whose tongue has been hitherto palsied by evil advisers now loose their tongue and speak! Of whom will the land take counsel? There have been two sorts of counsellors hitherto. One has pointed out for twenty years the nature of slavery, its tendencies, the dangers which it threatened; and all the prophecies have come true. The other kind of counsellors have predicted peace, dissuaded from action, urged compromise, and at each reluctant step have promised the country peace. In not a single instance have they been right. Events have overthrown every one of their promises. They have led us down deeper into trouble at every step. We have been betrayed by kisses. Excitements have deepened, lessons have multiplied, compromises have bred cockatrices. We are spun over with webs. We are tangled with sophistries. We have everything but manliness, straightforwardness, courage, and decisive wisdom....

“But what is done must be done quickly. Funds must be freely given; arms must be had, even if bought at the price mentioned by our Saviour: ‘He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.’ Young men who would do aught for liberty should take no counsel of fear. Now is the time when a man may do for his country in an hour more than in a whole life besides. Time flies. Events hasten. Fear and treacherous peace, that betray duty with ignorant words of religion, will ruin all; but energy, courage, action will save all. Woe to us if war comes from our fault! If it comes, on the skirts of false peace will its blood be found!”

Of the result of this sending armed colonists into Kansas he speaks a few weeks later:

“Of all the revolutions on record, we remember none so remarkable as that which has been wrought by Sharp’s rifles. We do not know that a single man has ever been injured by them. They are guiltless of blood. But the principle which they involve has brought the whole South to a protest against violence, even in the extremest necessity of self-defence! These aforetime heroes of the knife and revolver are now deep in the Scriptures. They are quoting all the peaceable texts; they hang with irrepressible delight over all those passages which teach forbearance.”

Being attacked in a religious paper for his aggressive attitude, he answers: “We have acted consistently with our settled belief. We have NOTHING to retract.”

An event that took place at this time added still more fuel to the hot indignation that was glowing through the North—the attack by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, upon Charles Sumner, May 22, 1856, in the Senate Chamber. It was an act so cowardly and atrocious that it cannot be recalled after these many years without a tingling of the blood. If a blow had been given at the moment of the debate, if the man seeking redress had approached his adversary face to face and given him opportunity to defend himself, if it had been but a single blow, possibly some extenuation could be offered; but to strike a man a stunning blow without warning, when he is sitting at his desk and so hampered that he is unable to rise until he has torn the desk up from its fastenings; to follow with more than a score of blows until the instrument of attack, a heavy cane, is broken to pieces and his victim is left senseless—is an act that, search where it may, can find nothing to add to its infamy. Among the meetings called all over the North to give voice to the anger of the people at this dastardly act, one was in New York City. The advertised speakers were William M. Evarts, John Van Buren, Daniel Lord, Jr., and others of eminence. The speeches were able but tame and conservative. They did not meet the demand of the popular heart over that tremendous outrage. Just as the meeting was being adjourned Mr. Beecher was discovered in the back part of the room, having come in to listen to men whose reputation was so great but whom he had never heard. At once the cry from the unsatisfied audience was “Beecher, Beecher!”

So unexpected was the call, and so annoyed was he at being called out, that it required almost physical force to get him to take the platform; but when once there his soul kindled with the occasion. A simple recital of facts led the audience step by step over the ground which had been traversed for the last ten years. The grand principles of our polity were uncovered to their view. Scene after scene was depicted by his marvellous dramatic power, culminating in that outrage in the Senate Chamber on account of which they had gathered; and the audience, alternately moved by his pathos, fired by his passion, or swept by his humor, became one with the speaker. They saw as he saw, they felt as he felt; and he stamped them that night with the impress of his hatred of slavery and his burning enthusiasm for liberty. The next day the press carried this impression to the multitude of its readers, and, dismissing the other speeches of the evening with a formal notice, gave his as nearly as possible verbatim. It was his meeting for the first time upon the platform with the leading men of the country, and from that hour he took his place with them and held it to the end.

Many leading men in Massachusetts having been invited to a similar meeting held in Boston, and sending regrets, he analyzes their excuses in a Star Paper upon “Hearts and no Hearts”:

“Admirable! The man is sacrificed to the position. No tear, no indignation, no heart-felt throb, no voice or gesture which befits an open and free heart. All instincts and spontaneity must be judged by supposed interests of a professorship. In such cases as this the man is a mere Jonah in the whale’s belly. His professorship has swallowed his manhood! Alas for the whale!”

Of this attack on Sumner he said in the Star article of June 12, “Silence must be Nationalized”:

“This deed stands absolutely alone in our history. It has not a single fellow! There have been brutal things, and cruel things, and mean things, and cowardly things, and wicked and inhuman wrongs, but nothing before that epitomized them all. With the exception of one or two papers, the whole South has accepted the act and made it representative! It is no longer Brooks that struck Sumner! He was the arm, but the whole South was the body! And with one consent it is declared that for the crime of free speech it was done and deserved!”

In the meantime a new party, born of this conflict, was rapidly coming into power. Made up of elements apparently most diverse, it was brought together by a common purpose and fused into one by a grand enthusiasm. There was, for a nucleus, the larger part of the old Free-Soil party, that had been in existence since 1842; then came Abolitionists, of which there had been for years a sprinkling in all the Northern States; seceders from the Whig party, called in New York State “Silver Grays,” and from the Democratic party, called “Barnburners;” and a multitude of others, a daily increasing host, vital in every member with the spirit of the hour. Combining some of the best elements of all the parties, it had a breadth of power that no one party could have given it alone. While it had enough men of experience in affairs to secure wisdom of action, its recruits were for the most part young men, who brought the inspiration of their youth, their numbers, their hope, and their indignation. After a preliminary mass convention in Pittsburgh on Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1856, they met in Philadelphia and adopted a platform of principles and nominated candidates for President and Vice-President.

In this platform they gave their attention mostly to the great issue of supreme importance—that between liberty and slavery. Their action here was positive and unequivocal: no more slave territory; no more coddling of slave institutions. Upon this platform it nominated John C. Fremont for its standard-bearer, and organized its hosts for the great presidential contest of that year.

The party thus brought before the country had some great advantages over all rivals. The Whig party was already dead, although not yet fully conscious of the fact, and awaiting burial; the Democratic party was inextricably associated, for weal or for woe, with the slave-power; while the Know-Nothing party was but a mushroom, and a poisonous variety at that. On the other hand, this new organization was intensely alive. It had a definite object in view and was not afraid to avow it. It had the strength of intense moral conviction. Its cause gave opportunity for inspiration and awakened the grandest enthusiasm. It was in harmony with the fundamental principles of our nation and the early struggles of our people. It was in sympathy with the great movement of the age in all lands. Its lengthening lines and the rising hosts of the Old World were parts of the same army. Its standard-bearer, by reason of his youth, adventurous career, and brilliant service, was well adapted to awaken a loyal and spirited following. It had nothing to conceal; it had nothing to fear; it carried with it the hopes of the nation and the world. Adopting the “Marseillaise,” the greatest liberty song that was ever written, it adapted its own chorus to the music and sang at its meetings with boundless enthusiasm:

Mr. Beecher gave himself unreservedly to this contest:

“Well, of course we felt all aflame. My church voted me all the time that I thought to be required to go out into the community and speak and canvass the State of New York. I went into that canvass, spoke twice and often three times a week, having the whole day to myself—that is, making all the speeches that were made. I was sent principally to what we called the Silver-Gray districts or counties—the old-time Whigs that were attempting to run a candidate between Fremont and Buchanan. I generally made a three hours’ speech a day in the open air to audiences of from eight to ten thousand people. I felt at that time that it was very likely that I should sacrifice my life, or my voice at any rate, but I was willing to lay down either or both of them for that cause.”

Of Mr. Beecher’s contributions to the literature of the campaign we can, for lack of space, give but few quotations, and these only as they afford an idea of the humorous and enthusiastic manner in which he stood up for his candidate. In the close scrutiny of private life, which is so marked a feature of presidential campaigns, it had been learned that John C. Fremont and Jessie Benton had fallen in love with each other, and, her father not approving of his daughter’s selection, the two lovers had made a runaway match of it, and in their haste had been married by a Roman Catholic priest. This escapade was being used against the candidate by the opposite party, not because he ran away with the fair Jessie—the ballot of the average American voter would as likely be won as lost by such an exhibition of youthful enterprise—but because it helped to prove, what was persistently claimed, that he was a Roman Catholic. In answer Mr. Beecher wrote a vigorous article disproving the charge, and justifying the groom in securing the services of any one competent to perform the marriage ceremony, closing with these words: “Like a true lover and gallant man, Fremont said that he did not care who married him, so that it was done quick and strong. If we had been in Colonel Fremont’s place we would have been married if it had required us to walk through a row of priests and bishops as long as from Washington to Rome, ending up with the Pope himself!”

He ridicules the persistency with which certain newspapers returned to the attack upon Fremont on the assumed ground of his being a Roman Catholic, with the story of “The Dog Noble and the Empty Hole,” that probably did as good campaign service as any story that was ever written:

“The first summer which we spent in Lenox we had along a very intelligent dog named Noble. He was learned in many things, and by his dog-lore excited the undying admiration of all the children. But there were some things which Noble could never learn. Having on one occasion seen a red squirrel run into a hole in a stone wall, he could not be persuaded that he was not there for evermore!...

“The intense enthusiasm of the dog at that hole can hardly be described. He filled it full of barking. He pawed and scratched as if undermining a bastion. Standing off at a little distance, he would pierce the hole with a gaze as intense and fixed as if he were trying magnetism on it. Then, with tail extended and every hair thereon electrified, he would rush at the empty hole with a prodigious onslaught.

“This imaginary squirrel haunted Noble night and day. The very squirrel himself would run up before his face into the tree, and, crouched in a crotch, would sit silently watching the whole process of bombarding the empty hole with great sobriety and relish. But Noble would allow of no doubts. His conviction that that hole had a squirrel in it continued unshaken for six weeks. When all other occupations failed this hole remained to him. When there were no more chickens to harry, no pigs to bite, no cattle to chase, no children to romp with, no expeditions to make with the grown folks, and when he had slept all that his dog-skin would hold, he would walk out of the yard, yawn and stretch himself, and then look wistfully at the hole, as if thinking to himself: ‘Well, as there is nothing else to do, I may as well try that hole again!’

“We had almost forgotten this little trait until the conduct of the New York Express in respect to Colonel Fremont’s religion brought it ludicrously to mind again. Colonel Fremont is, and always has been, as sound a Protestant as John Knox ever was. He was bred in the Protestant faith and has never changed....

“But the Express, like Noble, has opened on this hole in the wall, and can never be done barking at it. Day after day it resorts to this empty hole. When everything else fails this resource remains. There they are indefatigably—the Express and Noble—a church without a Fremont, and a hole without a squirrel in it!...

“We never read the Express nowadays without thinking involuntarily, ‘Goodness! the dog is letting off at that hole again.’”

The election of 1856 resulted, as is well known, in the choice of James Buchanan for President. Since his policy was dictated by the same power behind the throne as that of Mr. Pierce, it was, of course, not unlike that of his predecessor; and this era in the great conflict which opened with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise closes with the Administration at Washington more than ever submissive to the demands of the South. But it also closes with the right wing of the great army of liberty, whose lines reached from the Atlantic to the roots of the Rocky Mountains, securely entrenched and holding its position, and with continually increasing numbers, barring farther aggressions of slavery for ever.