But the leaders of the slave power had no intention of allowing men from the free States to settle peacefully in Kansas. They had repealed the Missouri Compromise with the express purpose of gaining a new slave State, and this was to be accomplished by whatever means were necessary. It was an easy matter to send men from Missouri into the adjacent Territory of Kansas--to vote there and then to return to their homes across the Mississippi. The New York _Herald_ of April 20, 1855, published the following letter from a correspondent in Brunswick, Missouri: From five to seven thousand men started from Missouri to attend the election, some to remove, but the most to return to their families, with an intention, if they liked the Territory, to make it their permanent abode at the earliest moment practicable. But they intended to vote.... Indeed, every county furnished its quota; and when they set out it looked like an army.... They were armed.... Fifteen hundred wore on their hats bunches of hemp. They were resolved if a tyrant attempted to trample upon the rights of the sovereign people to hang him. It will be noted that “the rights of the sovereign people” were to go to the ballot-box not in their own, but in another State. These “border ruffians” took possession of the polls and carried the first election with pistol and bowie-knife. The pro-slavery leaders strove to drive out the colonists from the free States and to prevent additional emigrants from entering the Territory. A campaign of frightfulness was inaugurated--with the usual result. Governor Geary of Kansas, although a pro-slavery official himself, wrote (Dec. 22, 1856) that he heartily despised the abolitionists, but that “_The persecutions of the Free State men here were not exceeded by those of the early Christians._” My father was deeply interested in the colonization of Kansas and in the struggle for freedom within its borders. He helped in 1854 to organize the “New England Emigrant Aid Company” which assisted parties of settlers to go to the Territory. In 1856 matters began to look very dark for the colonists from the free States. “Dr. Howe was stirred to his highest activity by the news from Kansas and by the brutal assault on Charles Sumner” (F. B. Sanborn). With others he called and organized the Faneuil Hall meeting. He was made chairman of its committee, and at once sent two thousand dollars to St. Louis for use in Kansas. This prompt action had an important effect on the discouraged settlers. Soon afterward he started for Kansas to give further aid to the colonists.