Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. THE WAGEK OF BATTLE. The Kansas conflict is one of the most remarkable facts of American history, from the Revolutionary War to the present time. The great parties of the nation had failed to agree concerning political sovereignty and the great domestic institution -- slavery. The nation was rapidly dividing into two great parties, each occupying separate sections of national territory and having different industrial interests. Opinions regarding legislation and justice were widely divergent in the two sections, and men were wedded to sectional interests rather than to national honor. Even from the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1789 there had hung a great cloud over the American Republic as a menace to free institutions. Men who boasted of freedom and liberty and waxed eloquent over the blessings of free institutions, held a large number of human beings in servitude. The difficulty of regulating domestic institutions by general laws was soon evident, involving as it did the relation of Federal to State government. In the early period of national life men were too busy with the affairs pertaining to the development of the nation to pay much attention to the question of slavery. But there came a time when agitation, slight and almost unnoticed at first, finally stirred widespread enthusiasm for the cause of the enslaved. A little cloud no larger than a man's hand appeared above the horizon, and gradually spread over the sky the black and threatening appearances of war. Step by step the slave-power was encroaching upon the national life and threatening to rule or ruin the whole country. The national legislators met the determination to spread the domestic institution of slavery over the entire nation with compromise...
