“ The society became divided in 1840 on the question of organizing a political party on anti-slavery lines. From that time each branch worked in its own way, and by the time Kansas was organized as a territory the abolitionists—the radical wing of the original society—had become strong enough to attract attention from one end of the country to the other. Among the pro-slavery men there was no distinction between those who were in favor of the gradual, peaceable emancipation of the slave and those who were in favor of immediate emancipation at whatever cost. ”

“ If a man was opposed to slavery, though willing to let it alone where it already existed, he was just as much of an “abolitionist” as the extremist who would be satisfied with nothing less than immediate emancipation of all slaves, without regard to constitutional guarantees or the simplest principles of equity.
The radical anti-slavery people claimed that the Civil war was an anti-slavery conflict, and maintained that this view was justified by the emancipation proclamation of President Lincoln, notwithstanding Mr. ”

“ In Feb., 1855, Lawrence was denounced because it was “the home of about 400 abolitionists,” and at a Law and Order meeting at Leavenworth on the 15th of the following November, John Calhoun said: “You yield and you will have the most infernal government that ever cursed a land. ”