THREE LINKS of a CHAIN: A NOVEL by Dennis Maley
Published on July 7, 2015 by Jubilo In many ways, the fight over whether Kansas would be a slave state or a free state was the first fighting of the Civil War. In a shortsighted move, the Congress of the United States decided to let the Kansas Territory decide for itself if it wanted to be a slave or a free state. It was shortsighted because it put off a festering political problem and let it be decided in a far away territory with little thought to what would happen in that territory. Immediately, this became a real-life struggle, the physical embodiment of the arguments taking place across the country about slavery and its future. Slave states rightly determined that they needed to bring Kansas in as a slave state and they immediately sent financial backing to support pro-slavery settlers and pro-slavery men from neighboring Missouri who would cross the border and illegally vote in the election. Abolitionists sent settlers, financial aid and weapons to counter. Soon enough,