[Footnote 409: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 443-444.]

[Footnote 410: Sheahan, Douglas, pp. 444-445.]

[Footnote 411: Major McConnell in the Transactions of the Illinois
Historical Society, IV, p. 48; Linder, Early Bench and Bar of
Illinois, pp. 80-82.]

[Footnote 412: Sheahan, Douglas, p. 444.]

[Footnote 413: Conversation with Judge R.M. Douglas.]

[Footnote 414: Washington _Union_, and Illinois _State Register_, May
26 and November 6, 1853.]




CHAPTER XI

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT


With the occupation of Oregon and of the gold fields of California,
American colonization lost temporarily its conservative character.
That heel-and-toe process, which had hitherto marked the occupation of
the Mississippi Valley, seemed too slow and tame; the pace had
lengthened and quickened. Consequently there was a great
waste--No-man's-land--between the western boundary of Iowa, Missouri
and Arkansas, and the scattered communities on the Pacific slope. It