John Greenleaf Whittier was one of the most influential writers of the abolitionist movement. In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which stated that settlers living in each territory would decide the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty. Proslavery and antislavery forces sent settlers to Kansas to fight for control of the territory. In this poem, Whittier urged settlers from the free states to go to Kansas to make sure that it would be free.
We cross the prairie as of old
The Pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free.
We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's southern line,
And plant beside the cotton tree
The rugged Northern pine!
We're flowing from our native hills
As our free rivers flow:
The blessing of our Motherland
Is on us as we go.
We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.
Upbearing, like the Ark of old,
The Bible in our van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.
No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!
We'll tread the prairie as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea,
And make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free!