of Northern states arrived with assistance from benevolent societies, such as the Boston-based New England Emigrant Aid Company, founded shortly before passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act with the specific intention of transporting immigrants to the frontier. The abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher allegedly armed many of them with Sharps rifles, which became known as "Beecher's Bibles" because they were shipped in wooden crates so labeled. Despite boasts that 20,000 New England Yankees would be sent to the Kansas Territory, only about 1,200 settlers had emigrated there by the end of 1855. Nevertheless, aid movements like these, heavily publicized by the eastern press, played a significant role in propagating the nationwide hysteria over the fate of Kansas, and were directly responsible for the establishment of towns which later became strongholds of Republican and abolitionist sentiment, including Lawrence, Topeka, and Manhattan. First Territorial Legislature On March 30, 1855, the Kansas Territory held the election for its first territorial legislature. Crucially, this legislature would decide whether the territory would allow slavery. Just as had happened in the election of November 1854, "border ruffians" from Missouri again streamed into the territory to vote, and pro-slavery delegates were elected to 37 of the 39 seats – Martin F. Conway and Samuel D. Houston from Riley County were the only Free-Staters elected. Due to questions about electoral fraud, Territorial Governor Andrew Reeder invalidated the results in five voting districts, and a special election was held on May 22 to elect replacements. Eight of the eleven delegates elected in the special election were Free-Staters, but this still left the pro-slavery camp with an overwhelming 29–10 advantage. In response to the disputed votes and rising tension, Congress sent a three-man special committee to the Kansas Territory in 1856. The committee report concluded that if the election of March 30, 1855, had been limited to "actual settlers" it would have elected a Free-State legislature. The report also stated that the legislature actually seated "was an illegally constituted body, and had no power to pass valid laws". Nevertheless, the pro-slavery legislature convened in the newly created territorial capital in Pawnee on July 2, 1855. The legislature immediately invalidated the results from the special election in May and seated the pro-slavery delegates elected in March. After only one week in Pawnee, the legislature moved the territorial capital to the Shawnee Mission on the Missouri border, where it reconvened, adopted a slave code for Kansas modeled largely on Missouri's own, and began passing laws favorable to slaveholders. In August, anti-slavery residents met to formally reject the pro-slavery laws passed by what they called the "Bogus Legislature". They quickly elected their own Free-State delegates to a separate legislature based in Topeka, which stood in opposition to the pro-slavery government operating in Lecompton, and drafted the first territorial constitution, the Topeka Constitution. Charles L. Robinson, a Massachusetts native and agent of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, was elected territorial governor. Though the movement had a substantial backing from Northerners, and despite the findings of the Congressional committee that the pro-slavery legislature was illegally constituted, the federal government under the administration of President Franklin Pierce refused to recognize the Free-State legislature. In a message to Congress on January 24, 1856, Pierce declared the Topeka government insurrectionist in its stand against pro-slavery territorial officials. The presence of dual governments was symptomatic of the strife brewing in the territory and further provoked supporters of both sides of the conflict. Constitutional fight Much of the early confrontation of the Bleeding Kansas era centered on the adoption of a constitution that would govern the state of Kansas. The first