[Sidenote:  Abraham Lincoln, Hero Tales, 325-335.]

[Sidenote:  Aroused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act.]

352.  Abraham Lincoln.—­Born in Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln went with his parents to Indiana and then to Illinois.  As a boy he was very poor and had to work hard.  But he lost no opportunity to read and to study.  At the plow or in the long evenings at home by the firelight he was ever thinking and studying.  Growing to manhood he became a lawyer and served one term in Congress.  The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act aroused his indignation as nothing had ever aroused it before.  He denied that any man had the right to govern another man, be he white or be he black, without that man’s consent.  He thought that blood would surely be shed before the slavery question would be settled in Kansas, and the first shedding of blood would be the beginning of the end of the Union.

[Sidenote:  Seward’s challenge to the Southerners. McMaster, 347-351.]

[Sidenote:  The Sons of the South.]

[Sidenote:  Fraudulent election. Source-Book, 287-289.]

353.  Settlement of Kansas.—­In the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill Senator Seward of New York said to the Southerners:  “Come on, then....  We will engage in competition for the soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side that is strong in numbers as it is in right.”  Seward spoke truly.  The victory came to those opposed to the extension of slavery.  But it was a long time in coming.  As soon as the act was passed, armed “Sons of the South” crossed the frontier of Missouri and founded the town of Atchison.  Then came large bands of armed settlers from the North and the East.  They founded the towns of Lawrence and Topeka.  An election was held.  Hundreds of men poured over the boundary of Missouri, outvoted the free-soil settlers in Kansas, and then went home.  The territorial legislature, chosen in this way, adopted the laws of Missouri, slave code and all, as the laws of Kansas.  It seemed as if Kansas were lost to freedom.

[Sidenote:  Free-state constitution.]

[Sidenote:  The Senate refuses to admit Kansas.]

354.  The Topeka Convention.—­The free-state voters now held a convention at Topeka.  They drew up a constitution and applied to Congress for admission to the Union as the free state of Kansas.  The free-state men and the slave-state men each elected a Delegate to Congress.  The House of Representatives now took the matter up and appointed a committee of investigation.  The committee reported in favor of the free-state men, and the House voted to admit Kansas as a free state.  But the Senate would not consent to anything of the kind.  The contest in Kansas went on and became more bitter every month.

[Sidenote:  Origin of the Republican party. McMaster, 352-355.]

[Sidenote:  Anti-Nebraska men.]

355.  The Republican Party.—­The most important result of the Kansas-Nebraska fight was the formation of the Republican party.  It was made up of men from all the other parties who agreed in opposing Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska policy.  Slowly they began to think of themselves as a party and to adopt the name of the old party of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—­Republican.