parties upheld by the pecuniary means and moral support of their respective States, engaged in it with the most intense and inflamed spirit of partisans. Plans, deep, dark and far-reaching, were laid by the great minds of the nation, and found their execution in Kansas. Worse than civil war reigned, worse than its concomitant evils prevailed.
To fully understand the character of the Kansas conflict requires a proper acquaintance with the aggressions of Slavery in the United States upon Freedom, of which the Kansas trouble was but the outgrowth or culmination. I have, therefore, inserted a short sketch of that Institution.
The history of Kansas is a difficult one to write. Though there is an incalculable amount of material which can be gathered together, still facts were so perverted and differently represented by contemporary writers, that the searcher for truth is often lost and puzzled in his investigations. Much, too, of the history of Kansas has never been written. The designs and motives of each party, and many of their plans, can not be found on paper, all of which so essential to a complete history of Territorial struggle, must be gathered from men who are still living, and to whom they are familiar.
There is no complete and consecutive history of Kansas Territory. The books which have been written upon Kansas matters cover but a short space of time, and contain but a partial and disjointed sketches of those times. They were written in great haste for campaign documents, and hence were in many instances highly colored and inaccurate.
Most of the important documents bearing upon Kansas history are scarce and difficult to find. There is no public library or historical society in the State which has made the collection. The writer has been at the trouble and pains to make this collection himself, which he has found more difficult than the labor
