refuge and gain assistance to be transported to nebraska and into iowa and turned over to abdomen listitions in iowa where they would be helped to go to canada where they will ultimately find themselves free. so the underground railroad becomes a less violent manifestation of bleeding kansas, though the same people are involved. these are examples of the same people that were involved in trying to weaken the fabric of slavery in missouri by helping runaways succeed. we have an active underground railroad operation from 1957, 58 '59, and so on that this house plays a role in that. you have people like the ritchies who come to kansas because they see kansas as an opportunity to create a new society from the ground up. in that sense, it will be opportunity for themselves and opportunity for them to shape the institutions in a way that will conform to what they believe to be their value system. one of the things that richie will do is he will be very committed to not only position and temperance and women's rights and african-american rights, but he will also be interested in education. and he w

boston, connecticut, rhode island, maine, ohio, new york, they poured in, anti-slavery abdomen listitions, men and women, poured into kansas to stop kansas from becoming a slave state. missouri saw these yankees pouring into kansas territory. they knew they were going to have a fight on their hands, and the mixture of abolitionists and proslavery mingling together in kansas territory -- the territory exploded in violence, warfare, terrorism. it attracted men like john brown and his sons. and starting in 1854, a low-grade, pre-civil war began in kansas. it was nicknamed bleeding kansas. from 1854 until kansas became a free state, 1861, warfare was going on in kansas territory over who would control this new territory. this was ground zero for the slave issue in this country. once you are designated as a territory by the united states government, the next step is to create a legislature create loss for the territory. then write the constitution that is approved by the voters of the territory, and then it will be sent to washington for ratification by congress. and finally, signed by the pre