“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....