Even before the bill was passed, the corporation was in full working order.

Thayer himself traveled extensively throughout the Northern States stimulating interest in western emigration, with the conviction that the disturbing question could be peacefully settled in this way.

California had thus been saved to freedom; why not all other Territories?
The new company had as adviser and co-laborer Dr.Charles Robinson, who had crossed the Kansas Territory on his way to California and had acquired valuable experience in the art of state-building under peculiar conditions.
The first party sent out by the Emigrant Aid Company arrived in Kansas early in August, 1854, and selected the site for the town of Lawrence.
During the later months of the year, four other parties were sent out, in all numbering nearly seven hundred.

Through extensive advertisement by the company, through the general interest in the subject and the natural flow of emigration to the West, Kansas was receiving large accessions of free-state settlers.
Meanwhile the men of Missouri, some of whom had striven for a decade to secure the privilege of extending slavery into the new Territory, were not idle.

Instantly upon the removal of legal barriers, they occupied adjacent lands, founded towns, staked out claims, formed plans for preempting the entire region and for forestalling or driving out all intruders.