be lost. We repeat it, the Crisis has arrived. The time has come for action — bold, determined action. Words will no longer do any good ; we must have men in Kansas, and that by tens of thousands. A few will not answer. If we should need ten thousand men and lack one of that number, all will count nothing. Let all then who can come do so at once. Those who cannot come must give their money to help others to come. . . . We tell you now, and tell you frankly, that unless you come quickly, and come by thousands, we are gone. The elections once lost are lost forever."[1]
With Kansas a free state, Missouri and the states west of the Mississippi would soon be abolitionized, then Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, until finally slavery would be shut up in a few states on the Gulf and South Atlantic.[2]
In all sections of the country, during the fall and winter of 1855, there was excitement and agitation over the Kansas question. The South was now thoroughly canvassed by agents of the pro-slavery Emigrant Aid Societies. Bands of men were made ready to start for the territory in the early spring. Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia took the lead among the slave states in the work of sending men to Kansas to settle and vote for the interests of the South.
In Alabama the first body of pioneers for Kansas was enrolled by Thomas J. Orme, who on November 18, 1855, made this proposition: " If the people of Alabama will raise $100,000.00, I will land in Kansas 500 settlers. I have over one hundred volunteers now."[3] Nothing resulted from Orme's proposition, but on November 26, 1855, Major Jefferson Buford, a lawyer of Eufaula, who had served with distinction in the Indian War of 1S36, published the following call:
Aid to Kansas. Col. Buford's Propositions. "To Kansas Emigrants —
Who will go to Kansas ? I wish to raise three hundred industrious, sober, discreet, reliable men capable of bearing arms, not prone to use them wickedly or unnecessarily, but willing to protect their sections in every real emergency. I desire to start with them for Kansas by the 20th of February next. To such I will guaranty the donation of a homestead of forty acres of first rate land, a free passage to Kansas and the means of support for one year. To ministers of the gospel, mechanics, and those with good military or agricultural outfits, I will offer greater inducements. Besides devoting twenty thousand dollars of my own means to this enterprise I expect all those who know and have confidence in me and who feel an interest in the cause, to contribute as much as they are able. I will give to each contributor my obligation that for every fifty dollars contributed I will within six months thereafter place in Kansas one bona fide settler, able and willing to vote and fight
