Blue Lodges were secret
proslavery societies formed in western Missouri
during
1854 to thwart Northern antislavery plans to
make Kansas
a free state under the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They not
only promoted the migration of proslavery settlers to Kansas but
occasionally crossed the border to participate in the election of
proslavery members to the territorial government.
Source: Dictionary of American History by
James Truslow Adams, New York: