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In his discussion of John Brown and 19th century violence, Paul Gordon badly mangled the history of the slavery struggle in Kansas ("The times, values have changed," Oct. 22).

The Kansas-Nebraska Act — not the Nebraska-Kansas Compromise — was no compromise. Forced through by Southerners and their Northern allies in Congress, it repealed the Missouri Compromise, which barred slavery from Kansas.

Not just abolitionists, but many Southerners and pro-slavery Missourians moved into Kansas to make it a slave state, and they were responsible for the worst of the violence.

Mr. Gordon erroneously identifies the border ruffians as abolitionists. Actually, they were pro-slavery Missourians who crossed into Kansas to vote illegally in elections, attack free-state settlers, and sack the free-state town of Lawrence even before John Brown's Pottawatomie massacre.

Massive vote fraud by the border ruffians produced a pro-slavery territorial legislature that passed laws making it a felony to criticize slavery, imposing the death penalty for aiding runaway slaves, and prohibiting anti-slavery men from holding office or serving on juries.

The constitutional convention of 1857 was also packed with pro-slavery forces who produced a constitution that ensured that slavery would be permanent in Kansas. The Lecompton Constitution was so outrageous that even Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and territorial governor Robert J. Walker, a Mississippi slaveowner, rejected it.

The next time Mr. Gordon expounds on American history, he should consult a basic textbook first to get his facts straight.

Alan Bromberg, Mount Airy