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. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... THE NEW ENGLAND EMIGRANT AID COMPANY, AND ITS INFLUENCE, THROUGH THE KANSAS CONTEST, UPON NATIONAL HISTORY. History gives abundant proof, that a brief period of time has often determined the character and destiny of a nation. Such a period is properly called its controlling or dominating epoch. In the history of our own country, the year 1854 holds this commanding position, and governs all our subsequent years. It was in this year that the Slave Power attained its highest eminence, and demolished the last barrier that stood in the way of its complete supremacy and its perpetual dominion. The executive, the legislative and the judicial departments of the Government, were entirely within its power. Not content, however, with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which opened all our vast territorial possessions to Slavery; not content with its well assured and absolute power, within our national boundaries, it aspired to annex other countries, and under its direful rule, to build up a vast empire "on the corner-stone of Slavery." In the same year, 1854, a power, before unknown in the world's history, was created and brought into use, to save to Freedom all our territories, then open by law to the possession and dominion of Slavery. This new power was an OrganIzed, Self-sacrificing Emigration. Its mission was to dispute with Slavery every square foot of land exposed to its control. A hand-to-hand conflict was to decide between the system of free labor and the system of slave labor. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in May, 1854, proved that the legislative restriction of Slavery was simply a delusion, and that the contest between Freedom and Slavery, if such a contest were yet possible, must be carried on outside of legislative halls....