As the activities of Brown increased so likewise the activities of the pro-slavery forces increased under the leadership of Senator Atchison, of Missouri, and Dr. Stringfellow, editor of the _Squatter Sovereign_. The _Squatter Sovereign_, about which more will appear in a subsequent chapter, was published in Atchison and was largely supported by government advertising patronage. It was the leading pro-slavery newspaper organ of the territory. Senator Atchison’s activities were of the most pronounced sort. He not only urged his Missouri constituents to invade the territory in all their might and capture the Yankees, but he went himself. At Platte City, Mo., February 4, 1856, Senator Atchison made a speech which gives some idea of the language he employed in urging the people of western Missouri to join in the invading of Kansas. He said: “I was a prominent agent in repealing the Missouri Compromise and opening the territory for settlement. The abolition traitors drummed up their forces and whistled them onto the cars, and whistled them off again at Kansas City: some of them had ‘Kansas and Liberty’ on their hats. I saw this with my own eyes. These men came with the avowed purpose of driving or expelling you from the territory. What did I advise you to do? Why, to beat them at their own game. When the first election came off I told you to go over and vote. You did so and beat them. Well, what next? Why, an election of members of the legislature to organize the territory must be held. What did I advise you to do then? Why, meet them on their own ground and at their own game again: and, cold and inclement as the weather was, I went over with a company of men. The abolitionists of the North said, and published it abroad, that Atchison was there with bowie-knives, and by God, it was true. I never did go into that territory—I never intend to go into that territory— without being prepared for all such kinds of cattle. “They held an election on the fifteenth of last month and they intend to put the machinery of the State in motion on the fourth of March. Now you are entitled to my advice, and you shall have it. I say, _prepare yourselves. Go over there._ Send your young men, and if they attempt to drive you out, then, damn them, drive _them_ out. Fifty of you with your shotguns are worth 250 of them with their Sharpe’s rifles. Get ready—arm yourselves; for, if they abolitionize Kansas you lose one million dollars of your property. I am satisfied that I can justify every act of you before God and a jury.”