The movement of the Emigrant Aid Societies of the North was met by
counteracting movements in Missouri and other Southern States. Thus
opposing tides of emigration met on the plains of Kansas. The land was
a scene of confusion and violence. Fortunately the murders which for a
time filled the newspapers, existed nowhere else; and the men who were
reported slain, usually turned up after a short period to enjoy the
eulogies which their martyrdom had elicited. But arson, theft and
disgraceful scenes of disorder did really exist, and bands of armed
men indicated the approach of actual hostilities. What was the
Government to do? Perhaps you will say, call out the militia. But that
would have been to feed and arm one of the parties for the destruction
of the other. To call out the militia of neighboring States would have
been but little better. The sectional excitement then ran so high,
that they would probably have met upon the fields of Kansas as
combatants, the government in the meantime furnishing the supplies for
both armies. It was necessary to have a force--one which would be free
from sectional excitement or partisan zeal and under executive
control. The army fulfiled these conditions. It was therefore
employed. It dispersed marauding parties, disarmed organized invaders,
arrested disturbers of the peace, gave comparative quiet and repose to
the territory, without taking a single life, aye, or shedding one drop
of blood. The end justified the means, and the result equaled all that
could have been anticipated.

The anomalous condition of a territory possessing full legislative
power, but not invested with the sovereignty of a State, justified the
anxiety exhibited by Congress to be relieved from the embarrassment
which the case of Kansas presented. The Senate passed a bill to
authorize a convention for the preparation of a constitution for the
admission of Kansas as a State. It however failed in the House of