This, however, involved directly the prospect of emancipation in other border States and ultimate complete emancipation in all the States.

The issue is well stated in a Fourth of July address which Charles Robinson delivered at Lawrence, Kansas, in 1855, after the invasion of Missourians to influence the March election of that year, but before the beginning of bloody conflict: "What reason is given for the cowardly invasion of our rights by our neighbors?
They say that if Kansas is allowed to be free the institution of slavery in their own State will be in danger....

If the people of Missouri make it necessary, by their unlawful course, for us to establish freedom in that State in order to enjoy the liberty of governing ourselves in Kansas, then let that be the issue.

If Kansas and the whole North must be enslaved, or Missouri become free, then let her be made free.

Aye! and if to be free ourselves, slavery must be abolished in the whole country, then let us accept that due.