General D. R. Atchison was such a man, and such was his view of the case. He was, at the time, the leading man of western Missouri, had represented Missouri in the Senate of the United States, and had been president _pro tem._ of the Senate. His opinion and his advice naturally determined the course which the people of western Missouri would pursue toward Kansas. In justice to his memory, however, it must be said that, while he was resolved to make Kansas a slaveholding Territory, and then a slaveholding Commonwealth, his presence and counsel exerted a moderating influence upon his fierce and reckless followers. He {413} left Washington soon after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and repaired to the scene of the coming conflict, for the purpose of organizing and conducting his forces. [Sidenote: Dr. Charles Robinson.] In June of 1854, Mr. Thayer, Mr. Lawrence, and Mr. Williams invited Dr. Charles Robinson, of Fitchburg, Mass., to meet them in council, in regard to the projects of the Emigrant Aid Company. Dr. Robinson was a prominent "forty-niner," and the leader of the California squatters in the war against the Sutter land claims. He was shrewd, calm, courageous, and full of expedients. These qualities, together with his large experience in organizing the forces of an embryonic Commonwealth, fitted him exactly for the work which Mr. Thayer and his colleagues were seeking to accomplish. Dr. Robinson was not an Abolitionist, and neither was Thayer, Lawrence, nor Williams. They were simply working to prevent the extension of slavery. They were all Whigs or Free-soil Democrats. They were thus by their moderation in principles and their conservatism in character admirably fitted to undertake the great work of making Kansas a free Commonwealth. [Sidenote: Mr. C. H. Branscomb.] The conference resulted in the sending of Dr. Robinson to the front to inspect the Territory of Kansas and make arrangements for settlements. Accompanied by Mr. C. H. Branscomb, a young lawyer, of Holyoke, Mass., he started for Kansas in the last days of June, 1854. They went by way of St. Louis and Kansas City. When they arrived in Missouri they found the excitement in reference to the reported doings of the Emigrant Aid Company already at a high pitch. They heard threats that no anti-slavery man would be allowed to settle in Kansas, and they heard of rewards offered for the head of Eli Thayer. They found also that a goodly number of pro-slavery Missourians had already {414} immigrated into the Territory, had held a popular convention or assembly at Salt Creek Valley, at which they had declared slavery to be an existing institution in the Territory, and called upon its friends to aid in its firmer establishment and its wider extension. [Sidenote: Dr. Robinson and Mr. Branscomb in Kansas.]