Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/71

 established what was known as "Squatter Sovereignty"; that is, it empowered the settlers to determine by majority vote whether the Territory should be slave or free. So the opposing forces in the great controversy, practically the North against the South, set themselves to determine the future of Kansas by settling the Territory with their own people and followers. Northerners and Southerners as they came in—"Free State" the ones, "Pro-slavery" the others—confronted each other with hostility.

It was really war from the start. In this war the Brown brothers soon found themselves involved; and John, Jr., wrote back to his father to procure and send to them arms fit to fight with. They also soon asked him to come and help them. He answered that he might like to go; but his agricultural affairs were in such a state that he could not do so unless he could sell some cattle and get pay for some others