# Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History/Abolitionists

​Abolitionists.—In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison began the publication of the “Liberator,” the first newspaper in the United States to take a radical stand for the abolition of slavery. (See Slavery.) Two years later the National Anti-Slavery Society was organized at Philadelphia, Pa., and in a short time the members of the organization became divided to some extent as to the methods to be pursued in the efforts to secure the emancipation of the slaves. Some clung to the theory of gradual manumission, with compensation to the slaveholders as a last resort, while others advocated the immediate and unconditional liberation of every slave, by force if necessary, and without compensating their owners. These extremists in 1835 were nicknamed “abolitionists” by those who favored slavery, and also by the conservative element in the society. Although this name was first applied in a spirit of derision, the extremists accepted it as an honor. In a short time a number of abolitionist orators—speakers of more than ordinary ability—were developed. Among these may be mentioned Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith and Charles Sumner, who never lost an opportunity of presenting their views, and the public was kept on the alert, wondering what they would do next.
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. All were “abolitionists.” The following utterances of pro-slavery orators and extracts from the pro-slavery press will show how the advocates of slavery regarded the free-state men as “abolitionists” indiscriminately:
At a squatter meeting near Leavenworth on June 10, 1854, a resolution was adopted declaring that “We will afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler in Kansas.” A pro-slavery meeting in Lafayette county, Mo., Dec. 15, 1854, denounced the steamboats plying on the Missouri river for carrying abolitionists to Kansas. As a result of this agitation, the Star of the West in the spring of 1856 was allowed to carry about 100 persons from Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina to Kansas unmolested, but on her next trip, with a number of free-state passengers, she was held up at Lexington, where the passengers were disarmed, and upon arriving at Weston was not permitted to land. Other steamers encountered similar opposition.
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. I would rather be a painted slave over in Missouri, or a serf to the Czar of Russia, than have the abolitionists in power.”
​On Oct. 5, 1857, occurred the election for members of the legislature, and on the 23d the Doniphan Constitutionalist, a pro-slavery paper, accounted for the free-state victory by saying that the “sneaking abolitionists were guilty of cutting loose the ferry boats at Doniphan and other places on the day of the election, by order of Jim Lane.” To this the Lawrence Republican retorted: “Bad man, that Jim Lane, to order the boats cut loose; great inconvenience to the Missourians and the Democratic party.”
At the beginning of the border troubles the Platte Argus said editorially: “The abolitionists will probably not be interfered with if they settle north of the 40th parallel of north latitude, but south of that line they need not set foot.”
A pro-slavery convention at Lecompton on Dec. 9, 1857, adopted resolutions denunciatory of Govs. Reeder, Geary and Walker for their efforts “to reduce and prostitute the Democracy to the unholy ends of the abolitionists.” These instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been said to show that the pro-slaverites made no distinction whatever between the radical and conservative wings of the free-state party. 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. Lincoln's previous utterance that he was not striving to abolish slavery, but to preserve the Union.