“At the moment I did not give much heed to his words, but they came back to me, not much later, with the force of prophecy. For Mr. Sumner did make this speech, and though at the moment nothing was done against him, the would-be assassin only waited for a more convenient season to spring upon his victim and to maim him for life. Choosing a moment when Mr. Sumner’s immediate friends were not in the Senate Chamber, Brooks of South Carolina, armed with a cane of india-rubber, attacked him in the rear, knocking him from his seat with one blow, and beating him about the head until he lay bleeding and senseless upon the floor. Although the partisans of the South openly applauded this deed, its cowardly brutality was really repudiated by all who had any sense of honor, without geographical distinction. The blow, fatal to Sumner’s health, was still more fatal to the cause it was meant to serve, and even to the man who dealt it. Within one year his murderous hand was paralyzed in death, and Sumner, after hanging long between life and death, stood once more erect, with the aureole of martyrdom on his brow, and with the dear-bought glory of his scars a more potent witness for the truth than ever. His place in the Senate remained for a time eloquently empty.”[8] Hon. Miles Taylor, of Louisiana, defended in the Senate the attack on Sumner. A part of his speech makes curious reading: “If this new dogma” (the evil of slavery) “should be received by the American people with favor, it can only be when all respect for revelation ... has been utterly swept away by such a flood of irreligion and foul philosophy as never before set in.” II THE CRIME AGAINST KANSAS Border ruffians from Missouri carry Kansas elections with pistol and bowie-knife. They prevent peaceable Free State emigrants from entering the national territory--Dr. Howe carries out aid from New England--Clergymen and Sharp’s rifles--Mrs. Howe’s indignant verses--She opens the door for John Brown, the hero of the war in Kansas--Gov. Andrew, Theodore Parker, Charles Sumner--The attack on Fort Sumter--“The death-blow of slavery.” These assaults by the serpent of slavery on the free institutions of the North and East were dangerous enough, yet, like other evils, they brought their own remedies with them. Such an open attack on free speech as that on Sumner was sure to be resented, while the forcible carrying-off of fugitive slaves under the shadow of old Faneuil Hall aroused a degree of wrath that even the pro-slavery leaders saw was ominous. “The crime against Kansas” was still more alarming because it threatened to turn a free Territory into a slave State. In 1854 the Kansas and Nebraska bill had been passed, repealing the Missouri Compromise and exposing a vast area of virgin soil to the encroachments of the “peculiar institution.” The Free-soil men were speedily on the alert. During that same year of 1854 two Massachusetts colonies were sent out to Kansas, others going later.