Born in Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln went with his parents to Indiana and then to Illinois. As a boy he was very poor and had to work hard. But he lost no opportunity to read and to study. At the plow or in the long evenings at home by the firelight he was ever thinking and studying. Growing to manhood he became a lawyer and served one term in Congress. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act aroused his indignation as nothing had ever aroused it before. He denied that any man had the right to govern another man, be he white or be he black, without that man's consent. He thought that blood would surely be shed before the slavery question would be settled in Kansas, and the first shedding of blood would be the beginning of the end of the Union.

In the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska bill Senator Seward of New York said to the Southerners: "Come on, then… We will engage in competition for the soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side that is strong in numbers as it is in right." Seward spoke truly. The victory came to those opposed to the extension of slavery. But it was a long time in coming. As soon as the act was passed, armed "Sons of the South" crossed the frontier of Missouri and founded the town of Atchison. Then came large bands of armed settlers from the North and the East. They founded the towns of Lawrence and Topeka.