Chapter XX: The Struggle for Kansas (1)

Eli Thayer and His Emigrant Aid Scheme--Reports in Regard to its Character and Purposes--The Missouri "Border Ruffian" of 1854--Nebraska for the North and Kansas for the South--General Atchison--Dr. Charles Robinson--The First Party of Emigrants--The "Platte County Self-defensive Association"--The Founding of Lawrence--First Invasion of the Missourians--Governor A. H. Reeder--The Second Invasion of the Missourians and the Election of the Delegate to Congress--The Indignation of the North--The Republican Party--The Third Invasion of the Missourians--Governor Reeder and the Territorial Elections--The Organization of the First Legislature of Kansas Territory--The Topeka Constitution--The Removal of Governor Reeder; and His Election as Congressional Delegate--Establishment of the "Free-state" Government--The First Violence--The "Free-state" Government and the Administration--The New Governor, Shannon, and the "Law and Order" Party--John Brown--The President's Proclamation--The Congressional Committee to the Territory--Application for Admission--The "Treason Indictments"--The Sacking of Lawrence--The Attack on Senator Sumner--The Pottawattomie Massacres--The Battle at Black Jack--The Governor's Proclamation, Enforced by United States Soldiers--The Passage of the Bill for the Admission of Kansas by the House--Dispersal of the "Free-state" Legislature by Colonel Sumner--The "Free-state" Directory--The Treaty of August 17th--The New Invasion from Missouri--General Smith's Attitude Toward Invaders--The failure of "Popular Sovereignty" in the Territories--The New Governor Establishes Peace by Means of the Army of the United States--The Judicial Contribution to Kansas History.

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purchase of nearly fifty thousand square miles of territory {408} from Mexico on the Southern boundary of New Mexico, and the issue of a manifesto from Ostend by the Ministers of the United States to Great Britain, France, and Spain, Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Soule, advising the acquisition of Cuba by the United States, together with the preparation of filibustering expeditions in the South for the execution of this and similar designs, all coming within the same year, 1854, seemed to be sufficient evidence of a fixed plan among the slaveholders for the extension of slavery and the increase of the number of slaveholding Commonwealths in the Union, and roused the people of the North to an appreciation of the impending danger and to extraordinary exertions for meeting the same and warding it off.

[Sidenote: Eli Thayer and his emigrant aid scheme.]

During the debate upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill in Congress, it does not seem to have been generally appreciated that it might, after all, turn out to be a Free-soil measure, and that the question whether it would be such or not in a specific case resolved itself into the problem of immigration. There lived, however, in the town of Worcester, Mass., a shrewd, far seeing business man, with whose shrewdness, however, ideality and patriotism were mingled in an uncommon degree, who immediately comprehended the situation from this point of view. This man was the now well known and universally honored Eli Thayer. Before the Kansas-Nebraska bill had become law, the idea in his mind had ripened into a wide-reaching plan. This plan was the organization of an emigrant aid society, with an immense capital, the purpose of which should be to foster emigration from the Northern Commonwealths and the European states into the Territories and the slaveholding Commonwealths of the Union, to the end that a Free-soil population should gain control of them, and prohibit or abolish slavery in them by their {409} own local acts. Mr. Thayer reasoned with himself that masters would be very timid about immigrating into a Territory with their slaves until the question should be determined whether slavery should have a legal existence in the Territory, while men without such impediments would go boldly forward and occupy the country, and vote the free status for the Territory; and again, that with only about one-fourth of the white population of the slaveholding Commonwealths pecuniarily interested in slavery, the immigration of a few thousand active anti-slavery men into these would finally turn the balance at the polls against the further existence of the institution in the slaveholding Commonwealths themselves. The plan was so comprehensive that most of Mr. Thayer's friends thought it visionary, and he modified it, after having obtained his charter from the legislature of Massachusetts, limiting it to the settlement of the Territories, and especially to that of Kansas Territory, by anti-slavery men. The organization, as thus finally effected, counted among its directors some of the purest, most patriotic, and most capable men of the country--Mr. A. A. Lawrence, Dr. Samuel Cabot, Mr. John Lowell, Mr. Moses H. Grinnell, Rev. Edward E. Hale, Rev. Horace Bushnell, Professor Benjamin Silliman, and others of the like fame and fortune. The way in which they proposed to accomplish their purpose was by lessening the hardships of the journey to the distant country, and the hardships of life in the new country. They proposed to organize the emigrants into companies, procure transportation for them at the most favorable rates, build hotels, boarding-houses, mills, school-houses, churches--in a word to send capital in advance of population, in order to attract a good, law-abiding population by planting for them the advantages and conveniences of civilization in the new country. It was a {410} noble scheme, and none the less so because of the idea of making it pay ultimately as a business venture.

[Sidenote: Not an entirely new thing in American history.]

[Sidenote: Denunciations of it as an odious innovation.]

It cannot be said that it was a movement entirely new in American history, although this was charged by many of the politicians, both of the North and of the South. A number of the American colonies were originally planted under the auspices of corporations in the motherland, and others were formed by companies of immigrants for the purpose of securing more freedom than the Old World afforded. It is difficult to see how any objection could have been found to such an association, animated with such motives and purposes, and operating through such means, and yet it was charged, even by Northern men, with the responsibility for all the outrages perpetrated in Kansas during the stormy period of 1855-56. Even the President of the United States denounced it with great severity.

The view held by the President and his friends, both of the North and of the South, was that no aid should be allowed to be given, and no incentive offered, by any person or organization to any other person, to go to, and settle in, the common Territories of the Union, but that every emigrant should go entirely upon his own impulse, and be sustained entirely by his own means. This they regarded as the only natural and fair method for carrying into effect the principle of popular sovereignty in the Territories. Such a view was a perfect travesty of popular liberty, and manifests the tyranny which slavery was imposing upon the minds of freemen.

[Sidenote: The organization of Mr. Thayer's company.]

Mr. Thayer's company was never organized under its original charter, but under a charter obtained in 1855. During the period when the counter movements, to be described, were set on foot against it in Missouri, it had no corporate existence at all, but was a movement {411} conducted by three private gentlemen, Mr. Thayer, Mr. Lawrence, and Mr. J. M. S. Williams. Moreover, the establishments which they founded in Kansas were open to use by immigrants from any and every part of the Union, or of the world, without distinction. Such was the organization which was made the justification, or better the subterfuge, for excesses, which had never before been committed in the history of the building of the Commonwealths of the Union.

[Sidenote: Reports in regard to its character and purposes.]

During the early summer of 1854, exaggerated and false reports in regard to the character, purposes, and means of the proposed Emigrant Aid Company were circulated through Missouri and the entire South. It was said that an organization, chartered by the legislature of Massachusetts, possessing an immense capital, was preparing to abolitionize Kansas by means of military colonies, recruited from the slums of the Eastern cities, and planted in Kansas with all the munitions of war, to be used not only when necessary for their own defence, but for keeping out immigrants from the South. The notorious B. F. Stringfellow, co-editor with one Kelly of the _Squatter Sovereign_, a paper published at Atchison, which professed to be the organ of the Washington Government in western Missouri, rang the changes upon these misrepresentations in his newspaper, and advised that the emigrants sent out by the Aid Society be met with the weapons of their choice, which he charged were those of violence.

[Sidenote: The Missouri "border ruffian" of 1854.]

[Sidenote: Nebraska for the North and Kansas for the South.]

The population of western Missouri was then such as to receive ready impression from such representations, and respond heartily to such counsel. This region was then the frontier between civilization and savagery, and into it had gathered a horde of desperate characters, {412} vulgar, fearless, brutal, without respect for civilization or reverence for God, usually inflamed with whiskey and stained with tobacco, gambling by day and jayhawking by night, always ready for any adventure which promised fun, blood, or booty. It is true that they had no special interest in slavery. They were simply the ready material out of which the slaveholders of Missouri might recruit their mercenaries for any villainous work which might be found necessary. Such was the Missouri "border ruffian" of 1854. It must not be understood that western Missouri contained no other sort of people. There were many generous-hearted, fair-minded, upright men there, among both the slaveholders and the non-slaveholders, who would no sooner have done wrong than suffered wrong. Most of them felt, however, that Kansas for the South and slavery, and Nebraska for the North, was the fair thing, the only fair thing, the thing understood and intended in the organization of the two Territories by one Act, and that any attempt on the part of the North to make Kansas a non-slaveholding Territory was a breach of faith, which ought to be resisted by the South, and especially by Missouri.

[Sidenote: General Atchison.]

General D. R. Atchison was such a man, and such was his view of the case. He was, at the time, the leading man of western Missouri, had represented Missouri in the Senate of the United States, and had been president _pro tem._ of the Senate. His opinion and his advice naturally determined the course which the people of western Missouri would pursue toward Kansas. In justice to his memory, however, it must be said that, while he was resolved to make Kansas a slaveholding Territory, and then a slaveholding Commonwealth, his presence and counsel exerted a moderating influence upon his fierce and reckless followers. He {413} left Washington soon after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and repaired to the scene of the coming conflict, for the purpose of organizing and conducting his forces.

[Sidenote: Dr. Charles Robinson.]

In June of 1854, Mr. Thayer, Mr. Lawrence, and Mr. Williams invited Dr. Charles Robinson, of Fitchburg, Mass., to meet them in council, in regard to the projects of the Emigrant Aid Company. Dr. Robinson was a prominent "forty-niner," and the leader of the California squatters in the war against the Sutter land claims. He was shrewd, calm, courageous, and full of expedients. These qualities, together with his large experience in organizing the forces of an embryonic Commonwealth, fitted him exactly for the work which Mr. Thayer and his colleagues were seeking to accomplish. Dr. Robinson was not an Abolitionist, and neither was Thayer, Lawrence, nor Williams. They were simply working to prevent the extension of slavery. They were all Whigs or Free-soil Democrats. They were thus by their moderation in principles and their conservatism in character admirably fitted to undertake the great work of making Kansas a free Commonwealth.

[Sidenote: Mr. C. H. Branscomb.]

The conference resulted in the sending of Dr. Robinson to the front to inspect the Territory of Kansas and make arrangements for settlements. Accompanied by Mr. C. H. Branscomb, a young lawyer, of Holyoke, Mass., he started for Kansas in the last days of June, 1854. They went by way of St. Louis and Kansas City. When they arrived in Missouri they found the excitement in reference to the reported doings of the Emigrant Aid Company already at a high pitch. They heard threats that no anti-slavery man would be allowed to settle in Kansas, and they heard of rewards offered for the head of Eli Thayer. They found also that a goodly number of pro-slavery Missourians had already {414} immigrated into the Territory, had held a popular convention or assembly at Salt Creek Valley, at which they had declared slavery to be an existing institution in the Territory, and called upon its friends to aid in its firmer establishment and its wider extension.

[Sidenote: Dr. Robinson and Mr. Branscomb in Kansas.]

From Kansas City Mr. Branscomb proceeded alone up the Kansas River to Fort Riley, while Dr. Robinson went up the Missouri to Fort Leavenworth. The Doctor found surveyors laying off a town near Fort Leavenworth, despite the fact that the Government at Washington had not yet opened the country for purchase. He immediately returned to Kansas City, where he received a letter from Boston informing him that the first party of emigrants was on the eve of starting for Kansas, and instructing him to join them at St. Louis. Upon meeting them at St. Louis, a letter was handed him asking for his immediate presence in Boston. He wrote to Mr. Branscomb to join the party at Kansas City and lead them to a settlement, while he himself hurried to Boston.

[Sidenote: The first party of emigrants.]

Mr. Branscomb and a Colonel Blood, of Wisconsin, who had also been sent out by Mr. Lawrence, met the emigrants at Kansas City, and, after a good deal of deliberation, led them to the spot on the Kansas River, above the confluence of the Wakarusa with the Kansas, on which the town of Lawrence was afterward built.

[Sidenote: The "Platte County self-defensive association."]

A few days before this first party of emigrants had arrived from the East, a meeting of residents of Platte County in Missouri took place at Weston, and, under the lead of B. F. Stringfellow, an organization was formed, which called itself the "Platte County Self-defensive Association," with the declared purpose of aiding in the removal of all persons from the soil of Kansas who might go there through {415} the aid or protection or guidance of emigrant aid societies in the North. Other such associations were formed in other localities of western Missouri, and before the autumn of 1854 had hardly opened, from five to ten thousand persons, mostly desperate and reckless characters, were organized in the border counties of western Missouri, and ready to invade Kansas for the purpose of protecting the settlers in the Territory from Missouri and the South generally in the exclusive possession of the Territory.

[Sidenote: The founding of Lawrence.]

In September, the little party of about thirty men, who had pitched their tents upon the site of the present city of Lawrence, were joined by Dr. Robinson and S. C. Pomeroy, with the second party from the East, numbering some two hundred men. Upon the arrival of these the work of laying out and building the town was begun, and the place was named, in honor of the strong financial supporter of the Emigrant Aid enterprise, Lawrence.

[Sidenote: First invasion of the Missourians.]

When the first party arrived at the site they found it occupied by a single settler, named Stearns. Mr. Branscomb immediately purchased Stearns' claim and improvements for the company. The Missourians had, however, rushed into the Territory, at the earliest moment after the passage of the organic Act, and marked all the best lands as taken, leaving very little for bona fide settlers. As the result of this procedure, another claimant to the site of Lawrence soon appeared, one John Baldwin, and ordered the Yankees to decamp. Robinson proposed that each settler be left in possession until some authorized tribunal could pass upon the claims, and declared that his party would hold possession until removed by a legal act. Baldwin and his party rejected the proposition, and summoned their Missouri friends to assist them. Some came, {416} but not enough to overcome the Yankees. The Yankees stood firm and the Missourians retired, declaring that they would come again, and breathing out threats of war and bloodshed upon their return. This was October 6th, 1854, and such was the first invasion of the Missourians.

[Sidenote: Governor A. H. Reeder.]

On the next day, the Governor of the Territory, the President's representative, the Hon. A. H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, arrived at Fort Leavenworth, and began his regime in the Territory. From this time forward the history of the Territory is the resultant of four elemental forces in contact with each other--the general Government, the pro-slavery inhabitants, the anti-slavery inhabitants, and the Missourians.

Governor Reeder was a genial, intelligent, upright man, a good lawyer and a fine orator. He was a Union-loving Democrat, and a firm believer in the doctrine of home rule in the Territories. He declared that he would maintain peace and order in the Territory, and immediately set out on a tour of inspection through the Territory. After having finished this, he caused the Territory to be districted, and ordered the election of a delegate to Congress.

[Sidenote: The second invasion of the Missourians and the election of the delegate to Congress.]

There is little question that at the moment a majority of the bona fide settlers in the Territory were pro-slavery, and would have elected the delegate to Congress without any outside aid, but the pro-slavery men in Kansas and Missouri had become excited by the rumors of the vast schemes in the East for planting anti-slavery military colonies in the Territories, and also in the slaveholding Commonwealths, and were in no state of mind to think quietly and act calmly. They felt that they must make sure of all of the elements of government in {417} Kansas at the outset. The Missourians consequently committed the fatal and unnecessary blunder of going over into Kansas, to the number of some seventeen hundred or more, and voting for the pro-slavery candidate for Congress, J. W. Whitfield, who was thus elected by a large majority. Without the vote of the Missourians, Whitfield had still a substantial majority, but this travesty of the principle of home rule in the Territories, this pollution of republican principles at the very fountain-head, roused the North to the highest pitch of indignation.

[Sidenote: The indignation of the North.]

This election took place on November 29th, 1854. Had it occurred before the Congressional elections of that year, it would most probably have caused a much more rapid development of the Republican party than happened, and the election of the Republican candidate for the presidency two years later. As it was, the struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and its final passage, had started the amalgamation of the Northern Whigs, the Free-soilers, and the Northern Democrats who opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, into the Republican party, and had, in the Congressional elections of 1854, been the chief cause in changing a Democratic majority of more than eighty in the House of Representatives into a minority by more than seventy.

[Sidenote: The Republican party.]

Of course the disintegration of the two old parties would, under ordinary conditions, proceed slowly. The members of neither were willing to enter the organization, or bear the name, of the other. As the Northern Whigs had unanimously opposed the repeal of the restriction of 1820 upon slavery in the Territories, it was not unnatural that they should at first feel that they were already the anti-slavery-extension party, and that all persons holding to that principle should be {418} willing to march under their banner. Some of the more liberal minds among them in the Northwest, especially in Wisconsin and Michigan, had, already in the summer of 1854, joined with the Free-soilers, and the Democrats who opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to form a new party, under a new name, the Republican party, which, indeed, had no other principle than that already represented by the Northern Whigs, but which did not repel the Democrats by requiring them to desert to their old enemy. The great majority of both Whigs and Democrats were, however, rather waiting to see how home rule in the Territories would work, and were in the meantime busying themselves, in large degree, with other questions, chief among which was the question whether the country ought not to be preserved against foreign Roman Catholic immigration, the question which gave rise to the short-lived Know-nothing party, with its principle of America for Americans, the only real service of which movement was the aid which it lent to the dissolution of the Whig party, and to the preparation of the way for the union of the Northern Whigs with the anti-slavery-extension elements of the other parties into the Republican party.

The interference of the Missourians in the first election in Kansas, demonstrating the impracticability of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories, was the very thing necessary to hasten the development of the Republican party, but it came too late to influence the elections of 1854, and the shock which it caused lost some of the sharpness of its effect before the autumn of 1856.

The Congress to which Whitfield presented his credentials was the one whose House of Representatives had been chosen in 1852. His claim to his seat was at first not resisted, and the first step in the programme for making Kansas a slaveholding Territory was thus successful.

{419} [Sidenote: The Territorial legislature.]

Of far more importance, however, than the election of the delegate to Congress was the election of the members of the first Territorial legislature, since, according to the principle of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories, it would have the power probably of determining primarily the legality or illegality of slavery in Kansas.

In February of 1855, the Territorial authorities took a census of the inhabitants of the Territory, and it was estimated that there were between eight and nine thousand bona fide settlers in the Territory, about three thousand of whom were voters. It was also found that about four-sevenths of the legal voters had emigrated from the South. It is not probable, however, that all of these were pro-slavery men.

[Sidenote: The third invasion of the Missourians.]

March 13th following was the day appointed for the election. All through the month the Missourians of the border counties were assembling in their "Blue Lodges," arming, organizing and drilling. On the day of the election some four or five thousand of them marched, fully armed, to the voting places in the more eastern districts of the Territory, and compelled the acceptance of their ballots by the regular judges of the elections, or by judges appointed by themselves. About six thousand three hundred votes were cast at this election, and it was estimated that three-fourths of them were cast by the Missouri invaders. Some of them pretended to be residents of the Territory, but most of those who thought it necessary to justify the procedure at all claimed that the Emigrant Aid Company had sent out men for the sole purpose of voting, and that their own action was retaliatory. The invasion was a notoriously public deed. The Missourians came in companies, with music and banners, and made no attempt at concealment. The {420} Governor of the Territory resided, at the time, near the Missouri border, and probably had ocular proof of the outrage. The anti-slavery men thought that he would set the entire election aside. He did call for protests, and appointed April 5th as the time for hearing the same and canvassing the returns.

When the day arrived protests had been received from only six or seven of the eighteen election districts, and affected the elections of not more than three of the thirteen persons returned as elected to the upper house, and of not more than nine of the twenty-six persons returned as elected to the lower house, of the Territorial legislature.

[Sidenote: Governor Reeder and the Territorial elections.]

Dr. Robinson and the anti-slavery men who had gathered about the Governor as a sort of body-guard wanted the Governor to declare the entire election null and void, but the Governor was a good lawyer, and he quickly determined that he could not pronounce an election null and void in a district from which no charges of fraud were presented, on account of fraud charged in some other district, and that he could not refuse his certificate to any one elected on the face of the returns, if nobody disputed the regularity of his election. Upon examining the disputed cases he decided to refuse his certificate to eight of the twelve persons chosen on the face of the disputed returns. Thirty-one members were thus duly qualified to take their seats, and new elections for eight seats were ordered. Of these thirty-one, twenty-eight were counted as pro-slavery men, a large majority in both houses.

Dr. Robinson and the anti-slavery men found great fault with the Governor, and charged him with being frightened out of his original purpose to set the entire election aside, but it is difficult to see how he could have done this without protests against the return of each {421} and every person. It would certainly have been an arbitrary procedure to have done so. If the anti-slavery men were not brave enough to protest, it certainly did not become them to taunt the Governor with backing down, when they gave him nothing upon which to base the refusal to issue his certificates.

[Sidenote: The new elections to the legislative seats unfilled at the first elections.]

The 22nd day of the following month (May) was appointed for holding the elections for the seats declared unfilled by the Governor. The anti-slavery candidates were elected to all of them. The pro-slavery men ignored the election. This meant that those holding the Governor's certificate by virtue of this election would be rejected by the legislature itself, and those returned as elected at the first election would be seated, under the power of the legislature to determine finally upon the legitimacy of its members. This happened as soon as the legislature assembled and organized itself in the first days of July.

[Sidenote: The organization of the first legislature of Kansas Territory.]

The legislature as thus organized contained only a single anti-slavery man, a Mr. Houston, and he voluntarily vacated his seat a few weeks later in great disgust. From a technical point of view this legislature was a legitimate body, but from a moral and a political point of view it did not represent the people of the Territory. It represented simply the pro-slavery party, and used its powers in utter disregard of justice and right reason.

[Sidenote: The problem for the anti-slavery men. Dr. Robinson's plan.]

The great problem for the anti-slavery men now was to repudiate the jurisdiction of this legislature without rebelling against the general Government and its agent in the Territory, the Governor. Dr. Robinson had had the experience in California of aiding to make a Commonwealth in the Union, without the transitional period of {422} Territorial organization. He now applied this experience to the solution of the Kansas question.

The idea of Dr. Robinson and his colleagues was, to hold a convention of the people of the Territory for the purpose of framing an organic statute for Commonwealth government, which, after adoption by the people, should be sent to Congress, with a petition for the admission of Kansas into the Union as a Commonwealth. They proposed in the meantime to get on without any Territorial government as best they could.

Their idea was, in the second place, to ignore the Territorial government altogether as bogus, but to yield obedience to the officials of the general Government in the Territory. This distinction might be made, so far as the Territorial legislature was concerned, upon the "popular sovereignty" principle. The difficulty was in applying it to the Governor and the Territorial judges appointed by the President. To distinguish between their functions in such a way as to deny their authority when administering the acts of the Territorial legislature, and yield to it when administering the acts of Congress in the Territory, was certainly a very delicate procedure, if possible at all. Such distinctions would have to be very clearly understood, and very correctly applied in each case, in order to avoid the charge of rebellion and treason.

[Sidenote: Conflict between the Governor and the Territorial legislature.]

Had the Governor remained true to the legislature it is possible that this plan of rebellion against the Territorial government might have been suppressed at the outset, but such was not to be the course of history. He called the legislature to assemble at Pawnee on July 2nd. It remained in session there only four days. It did little more than unseat the persons holding the Governor's certificate by virtue of the second election, and seat {423} those to whom he had denied his certificate on account of fraud at the first election. It then adjourned itself to Shawnee Mission, a place nearer the Missouri border. The Governor denied the power of the legislature to do this, since by the Act organizing the Territory, the legislature must first meet at the time and place appointed by the Governor, and was vested by the Act with power, thereafter, only over the time of commencing its regular sessions. The Governor vetoed the proposition of the legislature to change its place of meeting. The legislature passed the project over his veto, and removed to Shawnee Mission; after which the Governor broke off all official connection with it. There is little doubt that the pro-slavery legislature wanted to be where it could be easily supported by the Missourians, and that the Governor considered this a menace to his own independence, and an outrage upon the people of Kansas, and upon the principle of "popular sovereignty" in the Territories.

[Sidenote: Sharpe's riles.]

The attitude now assumed by the Governor toward the legislature at Shawnee Mission was a great encouragement to the anti-slavery men. Dr. Robinson had already sent to Mr. Thayer for Sharpe's rifles, and, at the time of the Governor's quarrel with the legislature, a sufficient number of these had arrived to furnish almost every anti-slavery man with a good outfit.

[Sidenote: Factional movements among the anti-slavery men suppressed.]

Dr. Robinson had, at the same time, overcome the attempts of James S. Lane to separate the anti-slavery men into parties, by the organization of a Democratic party in Kansas. In a powerful speech at Lawrence, on July 4th, 1855, the Doctor convinced his hearers of the necessity for all anti-slavery men standing together until Kansas should be admitted into the Union as a {424} non-slaveholding Commonwealth. It was in this address that the Doctor repudiated the existing legislature as a Missouri institution, advising resistance to the execution of its acts, and made his noted declaration, that, if slavery in Missouri was impossible with freedom in Kansas, then slavery in Missouri must die in order that freedom in Kansas might live.

[Sidenote: Excitement in Missouri and throughout the country over the "Free-state" movement.]

These bold utterances startled the North and the South, the people of Kansas and, especially, the people of Missouri. This speech, together with the letter of M. F. Conway to Governor Reeder, resigning his seat in the legislature and repudiating that body "as derogatory to the respectability of popular government and insulting to the virtue and intelligence of the age," set the "Free-state" scheme in motion.

[Sidenote: The enactments of the Territorial legislature.]

The enactments of the Territorial legislature greatly aided the movement by demonstrating to the people what they had to expect from the dominance of that body. They made the decoying, or aiding therein, of a slave away from his master in the Territory grand larceny, punishable by death. They made the decoying into Kansas of any slave away from his master in any other place, for the purpose of effecting his freedom, grand larceny, punishable by death. And they made the denial of the right to hold slaves in Kansas, either by word of mouth or in writing or printing, a felony, punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than two years.

[Sidenote: The North aroused by this legislation.]

When the knowledge of this infamous legislation spread throughout the North, it roused that section of the country to new efforts for peopling Kansas with anti-slavery men, who would rescue the Territory from the reign of such laws and such law-makers. The necessary reinforcements {425} were being assembled in the North when the creation of the "Free-state" government was begun.

[Sidenote: The Topeka constitution.]

A series of conventions, beginning with the convention at Lawrence on August 14th, and culminating with that assembled at Topeka on the 23rd day of October, 1855, consolidated the anti-slavery men in the Territory into the "Free-state" party, constructed a temporary election machinery, and produced, finally, a proposed Commonwealth constitution, which, in addition to the provisions for the structure of a Commonwealth government for Kansas, contained a clause prohibiting slavery in Kansas after July 4th, 1857, and excluding negroes from residence in Kansas after that date.

[Sidenote: The removal of Governor Reeder; and his election as Congressional delegate.]

In the meantime Governor Reeder had been removed by the President from the governorship of the Territory, and the Secretary of the Territory, one Daniel Woodson, a pro-slavery man, had become acting Governor for the time being. Ex-Governor Reeder now went over to the anti-slavery men, and was chosen by them on October 9th, at the same election at which the delegates to the Topeka convention were chosen, as delegate to Congress. Over twenty-seven hundred votes were cast at this election.

[Sidenote: The ratification of the Topeka constitution; and the establishment of the "Free-state" government.]

On December 15th, the Topeka constitution was submitted to the suffrages of the people. Seventeen hundred and thirty-one votes were cast in favor of its adoption, and forty-six votes against it. The pro-slavery men took no part in the voting. It is probable, however, that a majority of the legal voters in Kansas ratified this constitution. On January 5th, 1856, the elections for the legislative members and officials of the government provided by this constitution were held, and Dr. Robinson was chosen Governor.

{426} [Sidenote: The first violence.]

It was at this election that the conflict of arms between the "Free-state" government and the Territorial government began. A Territorial military company, called the Kickapoo Rangers, threatened to interfere with the elections at the town of Easton. A captain, R. P. Brown, organized a company of "Free-state" men at Leavenworth, and went to Easton to protect the ballot box. As the evening drew on a fight ensued, in which a Territorial man was killed. The next day the Leavenworth company was attacked, on their return, by the Kickapoo company, and Captain Brown was taken prisoner. Some movements were in progress for trying him, when one of the ruffians put an end to the matter by striking him on the head with a hatchet.

[Sidenote: The "Free-state" government and the Administration.]

Two local governments of Kansas were now in existence. One, the Territorial, had been recognized as legitimate by the Washington Government. What, then, was the other? Was it a body of insurrectionists? If so, must the general Government suppress it? And, if the general Government must suppress it, must it do so at once, or should it wait until the insurrectionists should undertake to exercise some governmental power? These were knotty problems for the Administration at Washington, but they were problems which had to be solved. From the inaction of the Washington authorities we must conclude that the prevailing view with them was that the new government in Kansas must do something before it could be dealt with.

[Sidenote: The acts of the "Free-state" legislature.]

The "Free-state" legislature met March 4th, 1856. It prepared a memorial to Congress, praying for the entrance of Kansas as a Commonwealth into the Union, under the Topeka constitution. It elected Reeder and Lane United States Senators. It appointed a committee to put the {427} legislative business into shape for the next session. And it passed a few laws.

None of these acts were treasonable. Treason, by the Constitution, is levying war against the United States or any of the "States," or adhering to those who are doing so, giving them aid and comfort; and levying war has been defined by the Supreme Court to be the actual assembly of armed men for the treasonable purpose. Not even the voluntary submission to the laws passed by the "Free-state" legislature was treason or rebellion. The danger point would be reached when the "Free-state" government should undertake to enforce its laws, or should interpose armed resistance to the enforcement of the laws of the United States, or of the acts of the Territorial government, which government had been recognized as legitimate by the general Government, which was, in fact, but the local agent of the general Government.

[Sidenote: Governor Robinson's message.]

Governor Robinson understood the situation. In his message to the legislature he recommended "no course to be taken in opposition to the general Government, or to the Territorial government, while it shall remain with the sanction of Congress."

[Sidenote: The new Governor, Shannon, and the "law and order" party.]

In the midst of these movements by the "Free-state" men, the pro-slavery men organized themselves more closely for aggressive action. The new Governor appointed by the President, Wilson Shannon, ex-Governor of Ohio, a man of intelligence and high character, arrived at Shawnee Mission on September 3rd, 1855. The pro-slavery men did not like his appointment. They wanted the acting Governor, Woodson, to be made Governor. However, they received the new Governor with much pomp and ceremony, and succeeded in imposing upon him, at the outset, their view of the situation. On {428} November 14th, they held a pro-slavery convention at Leavenworth. They called it an assembly of "the lovers of law and order." The Governor presided over it, and made a rather violent speech, in which he declared that the Territorial government had the support of the Administration at Washington. The practical work of this convention was the organization of the "law and order" party; that is, the party for enforcing the acts and authority of the Territorial government.

[Sidenote: The attempt to enforce the Territorial laws upon the "Free-state" men.]

Naturally a dispute about a land claim furnished the occasion for trying the powers of the Territorial government. In the course of this quarrel, which took place in the latter part of November, 1855, a pro-slavery man, named Coleman, killed a "Free-state" man, named Dow. The friends of Dow gathered about the spot where his dead body was found, and indulged in threats of vengeance. Among them was one Jacob Branson, who uttered threats against one Buckley, as the instigator of the murder of his friend. Buckley secured a peace warrant against Branson, and put it in the hands of one S. J. Jones, the sheriff, under the Territorial government, of Douglas County. The arrest of Branson under this warrant inaugurated the contest for imposing the authority of the Territorial government upon the "Free-state" men.

[Sidenote: The Branson rescue.]

Sheriff Jones arrested Branson, and started for Lecompton with him, by way of Lawrence. His purpose in going through the head-quarters of the "Free-state" men was undoubtedly to tempt them to the rescue of Branson. But Branson was rescued several miles away from Lawrence by a company of "Free-state" men, under the lead of a Captain Abbott. This party, however, immediately repaired to Lawrence, while the sheriff went to Franklin, and from {429} this place summoned his Missouri friends to his aid, and then reported his trouble to the Governor, and asked for his support.

[Sidenote: The advance of the Missourians on Lawrence.]

The Governor immediately ordered the officers of the Territorial militia to collect the forces, and march to Lawrence. Although the sheriff asked for three thousand men, not one hundred residents of the Territory answered the call of the militia officers; but a great horde came from Missouri. By December 5th, 1855, more than a thousand Missourians had arrived, and had encamped upon the Wakarusa, a few miles to the east of Lawrence. General Atchison was with them.

Naturally the people of Lawrence were much excited, and set about preparing for defence. They constructed several small forts, and organized a military force of some six or seven hundred men, pretty well armed and equipped. They stood a very good chance to win in the trial of battle, but they resolved, most wisely, to rely upon the justice of their cause more than upon the power of their arms.

[Sidenote: Lawrence's demand of protection from Governor Shannon.]

The committee of safety, which was directing matters in Lawrence, sent commissioners to Governor Shannon to enlighten him, from the point of view of the "Free-state" men, in regard to the situation. They made their way to Shawnee Mission, where they were coldly received by the Governor, who charged the "Free-state" men with rebellion against his government. The commissioners disputed his charge, told him that nobody in Lawrence had had anything to do with the rescue of Branson, that his rescuers had been warned out of the town as soon as they came into it, and had obeyed the warning, and gave him the committee's message demanding his protection against the invaders.

{430} [Sidenote: Shannon at Lawrence, and his agreement with the "Free-state" men.]

The Governor was somewhat staggered by these statements, and decided to go to Lawrence himself, and examine affairs on the spot. This was just what the "Free-state" men wanted. He arrived in Lawrence on December 7th. Dr. Robinson and Colonel Lane immediately stated the situation and the views of the "Free-state" men to him. The Governor saw, at once, that they were in the right, and could not be attacked. He recognized, at once, that his task was to send the Missourians out of the Territory. He entered into a sort of written agreement with the citizens of Lawrence, in which the people of Lawrence pledged themselves not to resist the legal service of any criminal process, but to aid in the execution of the laws, when called on by proper authority, and the Governor declared that he had no authority to call upon non-residents of Kansas to aid him in the execution of the laws, had not done so, and would not do so. The last clause provided that nothing in the agreement should be taken as a recognition of the validity of the acts of the Territorial legislature by the "Free-state" men.

[Sidenote: The retreat of the Missourians.]

The Governor felt that he would have difficulty in reconciling the Missourians to his agreement, and insisted that Dr. Robinson and Colonel Lane should accompany him to Franklin, and aid him in his task. The calm statements of the Governor and of Dr. Robinson prevailed, and the Missourians saw the error into which they had been betrayed by the inconsiderate pro-slavery zeal of Sheriff Jones. General Atchison told his followers plainly that Dr. Robinson's position was impregnable, and that if they should persist in an attack upon Lawrence, contrary to the Governor's orders, they were only a mob. He added, that such a movement was not only without show of legality, but would ruin the Democratic {431} party, and cause the election of an Abolitionist President the next year. By these efforts and representations on the part of the Governor, Dr. Robinson, and General Atchison, the Missourians were induced to break camp and turn their faces homeward.

[Sidenote: John Brown.]

At the moment of this victory of the "Free-state" men, won by moral forces and diplomatic address, appeared the Loki of Kansas "Free-state" history, John Brown. He mounted a box in one of the streets of Lawrence, railed and ranted against the settlement which had been reached, and breathed out words of slaughter and pillage, until some man of common sense pulled him down, and stopped his murderous canting babble.

[Sidenote: Shannon's report to the President.]

The Governor reported the affair to the President, expressed to him his forebodings as to the future, and suggested that he be allowed to call upon the United States troops stationed at Fort Leavenworth at his discretion, as a call for the militia would only end in a party struggle. This communication seems to have opened the eyes of the President, for the first time, to the true situation.

[Sidenote: The appeal of the "Free-state" men to the President.]

The "Free-state" men now addressed the President and demanded his protection against another invasion from Missouri, which they claimed was in preparation. On January 23rd, 1856, the leaders at Lawrence telegraphed the President that the outrage was on the point of consummation, and besought the President to issue his proclamation, at once, forbidding the invasion. At the same time, they informed certain members of Congress and the Governors of certain Northern Commonwealths of the impending danger; and they sent commissioners into the Northern Commonwealths to inform the people of the {432} North in regard to the situation in Kansas, and to appeal to them to emigrate thither in sufficient numbers to save the Territory against the pro-slavery movement.

[Sidenote: The President's proclamation.]

The agitation became now so general throughout the country, that the President felt constrained to interfere. On February 11th, he issued his proclamation, in which he warned all persons concerned that "an attempted insurrection" in the Territory of Kansas or "an aggressive intrusion into the same" would be resisted by the employment of the United States troops in Kansas, as well as the local militia; and called upon all good citizens outside of Kansas to abstain from intermeddling with the local affairs of the Territory, and upon all good citizens in Kansas to render obedience to the laws.

[Sidenote: The situation made more embarrassing for the "Free-state" men.]

The "Free-state" men did not regard the proclamation as particularly friendly to them. While it forbade invasion, it commanded obedience to the existing Territorial government within. They were afraid that they would not be allowed to organize their "Free-state" government, created by the Topeka constitution. But, as we have seen, the day came and went for this, without any interference on the part of the President or the Governor against the movement, although the President had authorized the Governor to call upon the United States troops at Fort Leavenworth at his discretion. Under these circumstances it was certainly the part of wisdom for the "Free-state" men to do nothing superfluous or sensational in the organization of the new government, and to delay operations under it for the time being. The question of the recognition of the "Free-state" movement was before Congress, under the issue of the contest between Whitfield and Reeder for the seat in the House of Representatives. The policy, therefore, {433} of representing the organization of the new government as tentative, and as conditioned upon the presumption of Congressional recognition, and as holding its powers in abeyance until that recognition should be secured, was wise and necessary.

[Sidenote: The Congressional committee to the Territory.]

The discussion of Kansas affairs in the House of Representatives revolved about the question of the admission of Whitfield or Reeder from the middle of February to March 19th, 1856, when it was voted to send a special committee of investigation to the Territory. The gentlemen selected were Mr. Howard, of Michigan, Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, and Mr. Oliver, of Missouri. They proceeded to the Territory and opened their investigations about the middle of April.

[Sidenote: Application for admission.]

A week before this, the memorial from the "Free-state" legislature praying for the admission of Kansas, as a Commonwealth, under the Topeka constitution, was presented in both Houses of Congress, and placed upon the calendar in each. The slavery question was herewith again before Congress in both principle and detail. The measure which was intended to put its discussion out of the halls of Congress had thus, in less than two years, proved itself an utter fiasco.

[Sidenote: Sheriff Jones again at Lawrence; and the attempts to assassinate him.]

[Sidenote: The outrage repudiated by the "Free-state" men.]

In the Territory the pro-slavery men pursued their policy of bringing the "Free-state" men into conflict with the general Government. The "Free-state" men sought just as diligently to avoid it. Both sides recognized this as the crucial test. By the middle of April, some of the men who participated in the rescue of Branson had made their way back to Lawrence, and Sheriff Jones laid his plans for arresting them. On April 19th, he rode into Lawrence and served a writ upon S. N. Wood, but the crowd jostled them apart, and Wood escaped. The {434} Sheriff returned on the next day with more writs, and undertook to arrest S. F. Tappan. Tappan resisted and struck the Sheriff. Jones went at once to the Governor, and the Governor gave him a detachment of United States soldiers. With these he returned to Lawrence, but they could find no one for whom the Sheriff had a writ. The party pitched tent at Lawrence to spend the night. After darkness came on, some wretch, then unknown to the "Free-state" leaders, approached the tent and shot the Sheriff, wounding him dangerously. This was an almost irreparable blow to the "Free-state" cause. The very thing which the "Free-state" leaders had sought most earnestly to avoid had been thrust upon them by the criminal deed of some meddlesome crank. The "Free-state" men recognized at once the seriousness of the situation, and, on the morning following the event, held a meeting, at which the outrage was repudiated and denounced, and a reward of five hundred dollars offered for the apprehension of the criminal. Colonel Sumner, the commander of the United States troops in Kansas, wrote to Dr. Robinson, urging him to use every effort to move the citizens of Lawrence to bring the assassin to justice, as his act would be charged by the pro-slavery men upon the whole community. The Doctor replied at once that the community repudiated the foul deed, and would certainly bring the guilty party to justice if he could be found. There was no municipal government in Lawrence at the time, and Dr. Robinson acted, in his reply to Colonel Sumner, as a sort of self-constituted representative of the citizens. He certainly represented the views of the large majority of them, but there were some who, at the time, knew who the guilty person was, and gave no sign which would aid in his discovery.

{435} [Sidenote: Judge Lecompte's charge to the Grand Jury.]

The Sheriff's wound was not fatal, but it was reported that he was dead, and the Missourians began to organize for another invasion. Before they were ready, the Territorial judiciary came to their assistance. Chief Justice Lecompte charged the Grand Jury of Douglas County, in the early part of May, that resistance to the Territorial laws was high treason against the United States, and that entering into combinations for the purpose of making such resistance was constructive treason, and instructed the body to find true bills against all persons guilty of such offences. This was a most astounding piece of jurisprudence. It looked like nothing but a trick to deprive the "Free-state" men of their leaders, since one arrested for treason was considered as not having the privilege of bail.

[Sidenote: The "treason indictments."]

The Grand Jury found indictments against nine or ten persons, among them Robinson, Reeder, and Lane, and also against two newspapers published in Lawrence, and the Emigrant Aid Company's hotel there. The indictments were put in the hands of the United States Marshal for the Territory, J. B. Donaldson. On May 11th, Donaldson issued a proclamation, declaring that the service of these writs by his deputy had been resisted in Lawrence, and calling "the law-abiding citizens of the Territory to appear at Lecompton, as soon as possible, and in numbers sufficient for the proper execution of the law." As a matter of fact, only Reeder had resisted service, and had succeeded in escaping. All the others, except Lane and Wood, were taken into custody without difficulty. Reeder's justification was that he was at the moment in attendance, as a witness, upon the Congressional committee sent to the Territory, and was, therefore, legally exempt from arrest at the time.

{436} [Sidenote: The Marshal's proclamation in Lawrence.]

The Marshal did not publish his proclamation in Lawrence, but a copy of it fell into the hands of a Lawrence citizen, who hastened to make known to the people the peril which was impending. The citizens already knew of forces being organized, both in the Territory and in Missouri, against Lawrence, and had demanded the Governor's protection against them. The Governor had replied that he knew of no force near or approaching Lawrence, except the posse under the orders of the United States Marshal and the Sheriff of Douglas County, who had writs to serve in Lawrence, and that he should not interfere.

[Sidenote: The action of the citizens of Lawrence.]