ABSTRACT
Much like Thoreau, Emerson enthusiastically responded to John Brown during his visit to Concord in March, 1857. Having been particularly attentive to the affairs in Kansas the previous year, Emerson had often heard of the exploits of the Free State champion.2 Frequent conversations with George Luther Stearns and Franklin Sanborn, both men who were intimately involved with the statewide effort to provide support for emigrants in the new territory, allowed Emerson to stay well-informed about the tumultuous affairs in Kansas and learn of the more notable fi gures who opposed the lawlessness embraced by the Pro-Slavery coalition.3 In the aftermath of Charles Sumner’s brutal caning on the Senate fl oor, an event that mirrored the outrages committed upon Free Soil settlers in Kansas, Emerson was even inspired to join other indignant Concord men and women to raise money for the defense of Kansas.4 After urging his fellow citizens to provide the citizens of Massachusetts with the means to defend themselves against marauding bands of Border Ruffi ans, Emerson personally contributed $50 of the $962 raised in Concord, fi rmly establishing his commitment to liberty in Kansas.5 In the months that followed, he did not limit his efforts to his home town; in September, 1856, Emerson traveled to Cambridge in order to raise additional funds for the oppressed Free Soil settlers. Indignant that “citizens of Massachusetts, legal voters here, have emigrated to national territory under the sanction of every law, and are set on by highwaymen, driven from their new homes, pillaged, and numbers killed and scalped . . . in loud defi ance of all laws and liberties,” Emerson urged individual citizens to aid emigrants and called upon the representatives of Massachusetts to confront
the federal government regarding the creation of an atmosphere of injustice in Kansas.6 John Brown, having committed to the defense of Free States settlers in October, 1855, was one of the most notable fi gures in the ongoing confrontation between the federally supported Pro-Slavery ruffi ans and the Free Soil emigrants struggling for control of the Kansas Territory in 1856.
