A small group of good men and women left their comfortable homes in the east to travel to the American frontier. There they suffered unspeakable hardships; freezing weather, starvation, sleeping on the frozen ground all while fighting off Border Ruffians hired by the slave-holders to kill the abolitionists. They would not yield even when faced with charges of Treason for their actions. The President of the United States demanded that Kansas be a slave state. These few men and women drew a line in the sand and said, "No! Slavery ends here and now." And they were ready to die for that commitment. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke