One of the first and chiefest obstacles to be overcome in order to ensure the co-operation of all the opponents of slavery extension in the movement looking to the organization of a new party, was to induce the Free Soilers to consent to the withdrawal of their ticket from the field, thus placing themselves on the same footing as the Whigs (who as yet had made no nominations), free from all entangling alliances and in a position to act in a way likely to prove most effectual. But formidable as this obstacle seemed to be in the beginning, it was promptly removed through the wisely directed and patriotic efforts of the prominent leaders of the party. Such men as Hovey K. Clarke, Silas M. Holmes, Kinsley S. Bingham, Seymour Treadwell, all on the Free Soil ticket, F. C. Beaman, S. P. Mead, I. P. Christiancy, W. W. Murphy, Whitney Jones, U. Tracy Howe, Jacob S. Farrand, Rev. S. A. Baker, proprietor, and Rev. Jabez Fox, editor of the Detroit _Free Democrat_, were especially active and influential in preparing the way for this necessary preliminary step. This readiness of the Free Soil leaders to make the sacrifices required on their part bore prompt fruit. The Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed by the House on the 22d of May, and three days after a stirring call was issued for a mass convention of the Free Democrats of Michigan at Kalamazoo on June 21st. The village of Kalamazoo had long been a center of anti-slavery sentiment, and the agitation against the pending bill had been especially vigorous there and in the surrounding counties. The call was full of fiery denunciation of the slavery propagandists, and its vigor and _vim_ showed how thoroughly the people were aroused. The convention itself, owing to bad weather and other inauspicious circumstances, was not a large one, but its character and action were significant and important. Among those in attendance were four of the candidates on the "Free Democrat" ticket, including Kinsley S. Bingham. M. A. McNaughton was made president, and Hovey K. Clarke, from the committee for that purpose, reported a series of resolutions reviewing the disgraceful proceedings of the session of Congress, denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska bill as the crowning act of a series of aggressions by which slavery had become the great national interest of the country, and appealing to the virtue of the people "to declare in an unmistakable tone their will that slavery aggression upon their rights shall go no further, that there shall be no compromise with slavery, that there shall be no more slave States, that there shall be no slave territory, that the Fugitive Slave law shall be repealed, that the abominations of slavery shall no longer be perpetrated under the sanctions of the federal constitution, and that they will make their will effective by driving from every place of official power the public servants who have so shamelessly betrayed their trust, and by