The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska became the center of interest, for whether they would be slave States or free States must depend upon the vote of their inhabitants, and that was a simple question of emigration. Bands of colonists were sent to Kansas by both the slavery and anti-slavery forces. The work of colonizing the State was organized on a large scale by both sides. The pro-slavery men from Missouri crossed into Kansas in 1854 and elected a pro-slavery delegate to Congress. In 1855 about five thousand Missourians, armed with pistols and bowie knives, invaded Kansas and carried the elections for the Territorial Legislature. This Legislature enacted the Missouri slavery laws and, in addition, provided the death penalty for inciting slaves to leave their masters or revolt. The Free Soil Kansans thereupon elected a Constitutional Convention, and organized a State government, with a constitution prohibiting slavery. Thus there were two governments in Kansas, one pro-slavery, the other anti-slavery. Blood began to flow as the hostile governments collided. In 1856 Preston Brooks, a nephew of Senator Butler, of South Carolina, stole up behind Senator Sumner, who had brilliantly defended the Free Soilers of Kansas, and beat him on the head with a heavy cane till he fell unconscious. The pro-slavery Kansans sacked the town of Lawrence. John Brown and his abolitionist fanatics went from cabin to cabin in Kansas, killing and mutilating pro-slavery men. Riots and murders terrorized the State. It was war to the knife between slavery and anti-slavery. And Douglas, in Washington, was pressing his bill declaring that, as soon as Kansas had ninety-three thousand voters, the pro-slavery Territorial Legislature should call a convention and organize the State. VIII It was in 1856 that the conscience and courage of the North found a voice in Abraham Lincoln. In his great soul the civilization of America suddenly flowered. In Congress Lincoln had vainly opposed the war with Mexico as “unnecessary and unconstitutional,” and he had gone back to Springfield to practice law with his new partner, William H. Herndon. [Illustration: Abraham Lincoln. This photograph was made by Hesler, in Chicago, about 1860] The mighty sweep of events in the country had forced the Whigs and Northern Democrats to form the Free Soil party, not to extinguish slavery, but to prevent its spread from the slave States into the free Territories, and Lincoln’s tongue had pleaded powerfully for freedom. But Fremont, the Free Soil candidate for President, was defeated, and the contending slaveowners and abolitionists continued to press the cup of horror and hatred to the trembling lips of the nation. The South threatened to withdraw from the Union.