John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[137] place between the factions. Further collisions seemed to be inevitable, and the action of President Pierce,. unexpected as it was from a Democratic president, was received with hopeful approval. Excitement was increasing under the Tribune's trumpet calls. It had pointed out earlier in the year that Kansas was “the great question of our politics” ; that the South meant to make Kansas a slave State “at the point of the bowie-knife and the muzzle of the revolver” ; that a collision between the sections was inevitable; that “it was high time for the free States to define their position” and “do something against the atrocious strides of the slave powers to continental dominion” ; that the most efficacious measure would be to secure control of the House of Representatives; that free-State men who were willing to help should migrate to Kansas; that “Northern men of all parties and all sects should choose their colors” and get ready for “the coming struggle.” It declared that “the times to try men's souls had now come in Kansas” ; that the United States troops should take watch and ward over “the bullies of slavery, who desired to convert its prairies into bloody battlefields” ; that if the Federal government could not preserve the peace and protect the settlers in their rights, the Northern people should “prepare for ignominious surrender, or stand ready to meet outrage face to face on the soil of Kansas.” In its support of freedom, as the controversy grew, it predicted:

... War will be declared upon slavery first in the spot where it shall have encroached, and next upon whatever point it is vulnerable. When the contest comes we shall begin to see the natural consequences of those aggressions of the slave power which its champions are now so madly urging forward. ... Within its own limits let it exist if it can; but when it comes beyond them to make war on freedom,