equation without a single known quantity.

Moreover, slavery was no longer a matter of local concern. Doubtless
it was once so regarded; but the time had passed when the conscience
of the North would acquiesce in a _laissez faire_ policy. By force of
circumstances slavery had become a national issue. Ardent haters of
the institution were not willing that its extension or restriction
should be left to a fraction of the nation, artificially organized as
a Territory. The Kansas-Nebraska Act prejudiced the minds of many
against the doctrine, however sound in theory it may have seemed, by
unsettling what the North regarded as its vested right in the free
territory north of the line of the Missouri Compromise. The Act made
the political atmosphere electric. The conditions for obtaining a
calm, dispassionate judgment on the domestic concern of chief
interest, were altogether lacking.

It was everywhere conceded that Nebraska would be a free Territory.
The eyes of the nation were focused upon Kansas, which was from the
first debatable ground. A rush of settlers from the Northwest joined
by pioneers from Kentucky and Missouri followed the opening up of the
new lands. As Douglas had foretold, the tide of immigration held back
by Indian treaties now poured in. The characteristic features of
American colonization seemed about to repeat themselves. So far the
movement of population was for the most part spontaneous. Land-hunger,
not the political destiny of the West, drove men to locate their
claims on the Kansas and the Missouri. By midsummer colonists of a
somewhat different stripe appeared. Sent out under the auspices of the
Emigrant Aid Company, they were to win Kansas for freedom at the same
time that they subdued the wilderness. It was a species of assisted
emigration which was new in the history of American colonization,